John's Use of the Old Testament in Revelation

Trinity Journal, Spring 2000 by Juncker, Gunther H

Beale's argument would have been stronger had he included reference to the seven seals that thematically and structurally, if not temporally, parallel the trumpets and bowls. He admittedly makes selective use of a crucial Qumran parallel by using 1QM to demonstrate that the trumpets function to indicate judgment while minimizing the fact that at Qumran the trumpet judgments immediately precede the climax of history; and he minimizes the use of trumpets elsewhere in the NT (Matt 24:30-31; 1 Cor 15:52; 1 Thess 4:16) and in the Ap. John, where the trumpets herald the events at the very end of the age. He also fails to interact adequately with the cogent arguments of Bauckham vis-A-vis the structure of the book of Revelation and the recurrent theme of the "conversion of the nations" (to borrow a chapter title from Bauckham, a chapter from which Beale quotes approvingly on several other occasions). Specifically, Beale does not deal with the increased severity of the bowl judgments as compared to the trumpet judgments or with the importance and purpose of the "intercalations" (7:1-17; 10:1-11:14) that delay the seventh seal and the seventh trumpet but not the seventh bowl.

It seems likely, with Beale, that the sixth and seventh seals (6:16-17; 8:1) and the seventh trumpet (11:15-19) occur at the very end of the age. The seals as a whole, however, do not describe judgment but the tribulation prophesied in Dan 12:1. Saints martyred early in the tribulation cry out at the breaking of the fifth seal and ask how much longer God will refrain from judging-a possible implication being that judgment has not yet begun. The clear parallel between 6:10 and 10:6 could also suggest that the first six trumpets do not recount judgment but warnings-the delayed judgment only coming after 10:6 with the seventh trumpet. In any case, the trumpets significantly describe only partial judgment, one goal of which is arguably the repentance of those being judged (9:20-21; cf., 11:13). The seven bowls follow 12:1-14:20, a vision that covers the entire interadvent age and that culminates in the final wrath of God (14:19-20). Unlike the trumpets, the bowls do not describe partial judgment; they flow directly out of the wine press of the wrath of God (14:19-20) and culminate in the destruction of Babylon (16:19). Babylon, in turn, becomes the detailed subject of the next significant section (17:1-19:10). And the beast and "the kings of the earth" (19:11-21) who had supported Babylon are destroyed at the Parousia. (Satan, who was ultimately behind it all, is dealt with by a mere angel in 20:1-3 almost as an afterthought.)

In the second half of the book we may, with ever-increasing magnification, be dealing with smaller and smaller graphic segments of the very end of the age rather than with historical recapitulation broadly conceived; and the historical sequence that encompasses the bowls, if such a sequence exists, should be read forward from Rev 12:1 not 6:1. God's wrath is mentioned three times in chaps. 1-11, but only in reference to the sixth seal and the seventh trumpet (which Beale does see as occurring at the very end of the age). But God's wrath is mentioned eleven times in chaps. 12-22, always in reference to the Parousia and the events at the very end of the age.