First, there is the announcement of victory by “loud voices in heaven” (Revelation 11:15). The voices could come from angelic choirs or the saints who are already in heaven. The Bible doesn’t say specifically. What is important is the content of their announcement: “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ; and He will reign forever and ever” (v. 15). This is the moment we believers have been waiting for—the Rapture!
What leads me to view this moment as the true Rapture? I noticed that prior passages referred to Jesus as “Him who is and who was and who is to come” (1:4; 4:8). In Revelation 11:17, however, He is referred to as the One “who is and who was” (niv). The King James Version includes the phrase “and art to come,” but these words are not in the Greek. In fact, John no longer needs to include the words “and is to come” because, at this point, Jesus has returned!
We then hear the praise of the twenty-four elders as they give thanks for three specific, special blessings (11:16–18): (1) that Jesus reigns supremely(v. 17), (2) that He judges righteously (11:18), and (3) that He rewards His faithful followers (11:18). In short, He reigns. Previously, in Revelation 4:10–11, the elders worshipped and praised the Creator and the Redeemer. Now they worship Him as conqueror and King!
In 11:18, He judges: “The time came for the dead to be judged.” The Lamb is now the Lion. This is not the babe of Bethlehem. He is the ultimate Judge before whom everyone who ever lived will have to give an account of their lives.
In 11:18, He also rewards: “The time to reward Your servants, the prophets, the saints, and those who fear Your name, the small and the great, and to destroy those who destroy the earth.”
In verse 18 we also find a table of contents for the rest of the book. Notice, “The nations were enraged.” This foreshadows the coming hostile attack that will be finally and completely defeated. Why were the nations angry? The short answer is that they want their own way. So many people are obsessed with taking God out of the equation, attempting to exclude His Word from all public discourse, to marginalize His messengers, and to worship the creature rather than the Creator. After the final trumpet call, God is not going to allow any of this to happen any longer.
In verse 18, His wrath is loosed on the world: “Your wrath came.” New Testament Greek has two words for anger. One is thumos, which means “rage or passionate anger.” Most of our anger is of this sort. We’re angry because we’ve been hurt, insulted, or exploited. The second Greek word is orge, which means “indignation, a settled sense of wrath, not like an outburst of anger or a temper tantrum, but a well-controlled, deliberate expression of anger.” John uses orge in verse 18, which shows us that God’s wrath is not temperamental but rather an expression of His deep hatred of sin. God is angry at what sin has done to us and at what we have allowed sin to do to us. Finally, God’s astounding patience toward sinful people has reached its limits. While He rewards His faithful, He finally looses His wrath on those who have rejected Him for the final time.
In this moment, the time has come for the dead to be judged. This could be the final judgment of unrepentant sinners (20:11–15). Or this could be the final judgment of the saints, true believers (Romans 14:10–13; 1 Corinthians 3:9–15; 2 Corinthians 5:9–11). While I have plenty of questions about these judgments, I have no question about the fact that every person who ever lived will be judged.
