Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Revelation.  Tonight is study #22 of Revelation chapter 21 and we are going to read Revelation 21:9-11:

And there came unto me one of the seven angels which had the seven vials full of the seven last plagues, and talked with me, saying, Come hither, I will shew thee the bride, the Lamb's wife. And he carried me away in the spirit to a great and high mountain, and shewed me that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, Having the glory of God: and her light was like unto a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal;

I will stop reading there.  Once again, God is showing us the completion of His entire salvation program.  Actually, He is showing us the purpose for this whole world that He had created.  He has saved a people for Himself that He calls the bride of the Lamb, the Lord Jesus Christ.  Christ is the bridegroom and the husband of all the elect.  God has joined together the Lord Jesus Christ with everyone He saved throughout the history of the world in spiritual union to form a spiritual marriage. 

God does speak in the Bible of “spiritual marriage.”  He spoke of being married to Israel of old, but He divorced them because there was an allowance in the Law of God in the Book of Deuteronomy that a wife could be put away.  Christ explained that Moses allowed divorce (through the moving of God) due to the hardness of their hearts, but from the beginning God had made them male and female: “What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.”

So once Christ made that statement in the New Testament, that Law of Moses was rescinded. It had already accomplished the purpose that God wanted.  God always operates by His own Law.  He is under His own Law.  He lawfully divorced national Israel and they were no longer His holy people.  The veil of the temple was rent in twain and it was an indicator of that divorce, but then Christ said, “What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder,” indicating the binding relationship of marriage, which had always been intended, was reinforced and there was never again to be divorce for any reason.  This is the confidence and assurance that the bride of Christ (those God has saved) may have in the marriage relationship between God and the elect.  The sinners that were saved by predestination into that spiritual marriage can know there can never be divorce or putting away and that is why God says that the elect have eternal life; we can know He will never leave us nor forsake us.  That is why God said, “They will be my people and I will be their God.”  It is a very personal and intimate relationship that God has with every person He has saved.

Again, it says in Revelation 21:9:

And there came unto me one of the seven angels which had the seven vials full of the seven last plagues…

Here, God identifies the “seven angels” as the ones we read about back in Revelation, chapters 15 and 16.  We have also seen that “one of the seven angels” had previously been used by God to bring revelation to the Apostle John in Revelation 17:1:

And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me…

We also saw a little while ago that God was speaking of the seven angels.  We spent a good deal of time on this, but we will review it because the Lord mentions them again.  (God gives us direction and when He brings something up once more, we want to look at it, even if we have looked at it ten times.)  It says in Revelation 15:1:

And I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvellous, seven angels having the seven last plagues; for in them is filled up the wrath of God.

This is also what our verse says in Revelation 21:9:

And there came unto me one of the seven angels which had the seven vials full of the seven last plagues…

So there is no doubt that this speaks of the same “seven angels” and it goes on to say in Revelation 15:5-8:

And after that I looked, and, behold, the temple of the tabernacle of the testimony in heaven was opened: And the seven angels came out of the temple, having the seven plagues, clothed in pure and white linen, and having their breasts girded with golden girdles. And one of the four beasts gave unto the seven angels seven golden vials full of the wrath of God, who liveth for ever and ever. And the temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God, and from his power; and no man was able to enter into the temple, till the seven plagues of the seven angels were fulfilled.

Again, we have already spent some time on this.  The “seven angels” or seven messengers are the true believers because it says in verse 6 that they were clothed in “pure and white linen” and their breasts were girded with “golden girdles.”  It is priestly attire and they are the children of God which are spiritual “priests, prophets and kings” and they perform priestly functions.  This happens to be something God considers a priestly function and that is to pour out the seven last vials of His wrath in the Day of Judgment upon the unsaved people of the earth because God is offering up the unsaved as a sacrifice during the marriage supper of the Lamb.  The unsaved are the sacrifice that we read of in Revelation, chapter 19 and in other places. 

The believers are performing their priestly functions and notice that they came out of the temple and the temple was filled with smoke.  That is language that relates to the completion of Solomon’s temple in the Old Testament, which was the “house of God.”  Once that temple was completed, there is very similar language and we find the temple filled with smoke and the glory of God.  In those historical accounts, the priests were clothed in white linen.  They came out of the temple once it was filled (and they could not minister) because the glory of God had entered in and this is all a historical parable that indicates that once God completes the spiritual house of the body of believers, He then enters into the fullness of His elect and no man can then enter in because there is no more salvation.  God had accomplished His salvation program and everyone whose name was entered in the Lamb’s Book of Life had been found.  

Now the house is complete and God indwells every one of His elect and, therefore, He indwells that house and the judgment is that no one else is allowed to enter into the temple.  Those still outside that house cannot become saved if their names are not written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.  If there are no more predestinated people, how can anyone become saved?   That is what does not make sense when some people try to say, “God would never do that.  He would not allow babies to be born if there was no more salvation.”  They come up with all kinds of reasons why God must still be saving people, except that God only obligated Himself to save those He chose from the foundation of the world.  Over certain periods of time throughout history, God could have allowed entire nations and islands of people to exist where the Gospel never reached. He did not have to bring the Gospel to them if there were no elect there.  Also, God allowed 2,300 evening mornings during the Great Tribulation when virtually no one was being saved and people died by the millions during six years and four months (2,300 days) period from May 1988 to September 1994.  Millions of people died and virtually no one was saved because the Gospel was not going forth in a mighty way at all.  God is not unjust, but if someone that was not saved died during that period, it simply meant they were not elect.  During the 23 years of the Great Tribulation there were children born to people that remained in the churches for the entire time.  There would have been children that were born in 1989, 1992, 1997 or 1999 and so on and if their family remained in the churches there was no salvation taking place, so many children were born into the churches and then died after living a short life.  They may have lived a year or five years or 10 years and they were taken to the churches during their entire life span and they would have been in a position where there was no salvation.  They did not live to 1994 when the Latter Rain began to be poured out, so they cannot have become saved.  It just goes to show that God only obligated Himself to save His elect and He completed His marvelous salvation program on May 21, 2011.  Yes, people continued to be born and now there are people out there in the world that are dying unsaved, but what we have to understand is that God was only obligated to save certain individuals.  The Gospel was developed, designed and set forth to accomplish God’s purpose of salvation exclusively for the elect people that were predestinated before the foundation of the world and whose sins were laid upon the Lord Jesus Christ.  Christ died only for those individuals, so God saved only those individuals.

God has completed His salvation and it was great salvation and a great victory.  It was salvation to the utmost and you cannot have any more salvation than salvation for 100% of God’s elect whose names were written in that figurative Book of the Lamb.  They were found by the Gospel and they had the Gospel applied to their souls to create their new spirits.  That is the fullness of God’s salvation program, except for equipping those elect with new resurrected bodies, which will come at the end of the world.  But as far as the “first resurrection,” there is only salvation for those people that God named from the foundation of the world.  There is no “failure” and there is no problem at all when we look at it from the eternal perspective of Almighty God.  He always had those in mind whom He had willed to save, according to His good pleasure.  He accomplished that and now it is only a matter of judgment as He pours out His wrath on the rest of mankind.

So, the “seven angels” are the true believers and we can know that because they are attired in “pure and white linen.”  It says in Revelation 19:8:

And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints.

The fine linen is the “righteousness of saints,” but we do not read anywhere in the Bible that the “fine linen” is the righteousness of angelic beings.  The angelic beings that remained in heaven and did not fall with Satan have no need of the “fine linen” of the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ: “By the righteousness of one, many are made righteous.”  But the “seven angels” are the saints, not angels.  Jesus did not die for angels, as there was no need for Him to die for the angels that did not sin and He also did not die for Satan and the fallen angels, as there was no salvation plan for them.  This means that we can say absolutely say that in Revelation 15 the “seven angels” that are clothed in “pure and white linen” are the elect and they are the ones that are coming out of the temple because God is using them to judge the world, as it says in 1Corinthians 6:3: “Know ye not that the saints shall judge the world?”   Then in Revelation, chapter 16 we found that the seven angels are being utilized to pour out the seven last vials of the wrath of God.  And today throughout this prolonged period of Judgment Day since May 21, 2011, God has been using His people to share the Word of God and the message from the Bible has become the source of wrath.  It is filled to the utmost at this time with the wrath of God.  It is the Bible that declares that the light of the Gospel is out and the door of heaven is shut.  It declares that the waters of the Gospel have been dried up all over the earth, as far as salvation is concerned.  It is the Bible and the proclamation of the declarations of the Bible that is pouring out the wrath of God and the believers are commanded to publish the fact that Babylon has fallen.  As we do so, we are performing the role of the seven messengers that God had prophesied about in Revelation when He spoke of the seven messengers that are clothed in fine linen and they are the “bride of Christ,” because it goes on to say in our verse in Revelation 21:9:

And there came unto me one of the seven angels which had the seven vials full of the seven last plagues, and talked with me, saying, Come hither, I will shew thee the bride, the Lamb's wife.

If we go back to Revelation 19, where we just read in verse 8 of the righteousness of the saints, we see in Revelation 19:7-9:

Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready. And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints. And he saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he saith unto me, These are the true sayings of God.

Here, we have the bride in view and then we read that she is clothed with the “fine linen, clean and white,” the “righteousness of saints.” 

We read in Revelation 21 of seven angels in the first part of verse 9 and when we went back to Revelation 15 we learned they are clothed in fine, white linen because they are the saints.  Then God says, “I will shew thee the bride, the Lamb's wife.”  So this is additional proof that the seven angels are the body of believers, the bride of Christ.  They are the entire company of the elect and they are the ones God is using to judge the world with Him.  The Bible is the source and means of the judgment.  It is the “vial” full of the wrath of God.  As the believers share the teachings of the Bible and tell people what we have learned from the Bible it is the pouring out of the seven last vials of the wrath of God.