The Revelation of John (American Standard Version, 1901) · 14 of 22 · tr. American Standard Version (1901)
14:13-16:2
[14:13] And I heard a voice from heaven saying, Write, Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from henceforth: yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors; for their works follow with them.
[14:14] And I saw, and behold, a white cloud; and on the cloud I saw one sitting like unto a son of man, having on his head a golden crown, and in his hand a sharp sickle.
[14:15] And another angel came out from the temple, crying with a great voice to him that sat on the cloud, Send forth thy sickle, and reap: for the hour to reap is come; for the harvest of the earth is ripe.
[14:16] And he that sat on the cloud cast his sickle upon the earth; and the earth was reaped.
[14:17] And another angel came out from the temple which is in heaven, he also having a sharp sickle.
[14:18] And another angel came out from the altar, he that hath power over fire; and he called with a great voice to him that had the sharp sickle, saying, Send forth thy sharp sickle, and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth; for her grapes are fully ripe.
[14:19] And the angel cast his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vintage of the earth, and cast it into the winepress, the great winepress, of the wrath of God.
[14:20] And the winepress was trodden without the city, and there came out blood from the winepress, even unto the bridles of the horses, as far as a thousand and six hundred furlongs.
[15:1] And I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvellous, seven angels having seven plagues, which are the last, for in them is finished the wrath of God.
[15:2] And I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire; and them that come off victorious from the beast, and from his image, and from the number of his name, standing by the sea of glass, having harps of God.
[15:3] And they sing the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvellous are thy works, O Lord God, the Almighty; righteous and true are thy ways, thou King of the ages.
[15:4] Who shall not fear, O Lord, and glorify thy name? for thou only art holy; for all the nations shall come and worship before thee; for thy righteous acts have been made manifest.
[15:5] And after these things I saw, and the temple of the tabernacle of the testimony in heaven was opened:
[15:6] and there came out from the temple the seven angels that had the seven plagues, arrayed with precious stone, pure and bright, and girt about their breasts with golden girdles.
[15:7] And one of the four living creatures gave unto the seven angels seven golden bowls full of the wrath of God, who liveth for ever and ever.
[15:8] And the temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God, and from his power; and none was able to enter into the temple, till the seven plagues of the seven angels should be finished.
[16:1] And I heard a great voice out of the temple, saying to the seven angels, Go ye, and pour out the seven bowls of the wrath of God into the earth.
[16:2] And the first went, and poured out his bowl into the earth; and it became a noisome and grievous sore upon the men that had the mark of the beast, and that worshipped his image.
Attributing human characteristics, emotions, or form to the divine; embodied divine imagery.
The divine figure is described with explicitly human form — 'one sitting like unto a son of man, having on his head a golden crown, and in his hand a sharp sickle' — attributing embodied human characteristics to the divine.
The uncreated luminous quality of the divine, sometimes experienced directly in mystical states; illumination as revelation.
The angels are described as 'arrayed with precious stone, pure and bright,' and the temple is filled with smoke 'from the glory of God,' evoking a luminous divine quality, though this is more glory than direct mystical illumination.
Pronoia — the doctrine that the divine actively orders the unfolding of the cosmos and human affairs toward intelligible ends, against pure chance or blind necessity.
The divine actively orders the unfolding of events toward a definite end: 'the hour to reap is come,' the harvest is ripe, the grapes are fully ripe, and the bowls are poured out in sequence — the cosmos is being directed by divine will toward a consummation.
Final, collective cosmic judgment as an event in which the wicked are sentenced and the cosmos restored; distinct from psychopomp_journey (individual passage at death) and emphasising verdict where Zoroastrian frashokereti emphasises restoration.
The entire passage is structured around final cosmic judgment: the harvest of the earth, the vintage cast into the winepress of God's wrath, the seven plagues that finish divine wrath, and the sores inflicted on the marked — all depicting a collective, terminal verdict upon the world.
The passage describes the final plagues that 'finish the wrath of God,' implying a terminal cosmic event after which the present order is resolved, loosely analogous to a final renovation, though the emphasis is on judgment rather than restoration.
The doctrine that the divine or a spiritual principle takes on a specific, bounded material or bodily form — descending from an unconditioned state into individual, corporeal existence — as a discrete act rather than a diffuse pervading presence. The Christian Word made flesh, the Hindu avatara, the Egyptian pharaoh as living Horus, the Vajrayana tulku. Distinct from divine_immanence (the general claim that the divine pervades all of creation diffusely, not a specific embodiment-event) and separation_from_source (the felt exile FROM origin, the opposite motion) in describing a specific, individuated descent INTO a particular body or form.
The figure 'like unto a son of man' on the cloud references the incarnate Christ in a post-resurrection, glorified state, implying a prior descent into bodily form, though the passage itself does not narrate the act of incarnation.
The strong and holy generation that no star, angel, or ruler can govern — the elect of Sethian soteriology whose souls survive death and ascend, the 'seed' promised the kingdom; in the Gospel of Judas the central soteriological claim, and the fate Judas is told he is excluded from ('you'll become the thirteenth, and will be cursed by the other generations'). Distinct from pneumatic_elect (a classification of persons by spiritual substance) in being a corporate, trans-historical people with a cosmic destiny.
The victors over the beast, his image, and his number stand as a corporate group no ruler can govern, directly paralleling the Sethian concept of the incorruptible generation whose souls survive and are beyond the power of cosmic rulers.
A non-physical dimension of reality, interpenetrating the physical world, populated by forces, beings, and forms ordinarily imperceptible to physical senses and instruments, that can affect embodied life without being seen — Dion Fortune's 'mind-side of nature,' the astral plane of Western esotericism broadly construed. Distinct from astral_light (a specific transmitting medium or fluid operating within this realm, not the realm itself), pleroma (the divine fullness at the summit of a cosmic hierarchy, not a parallel plane coextensive with ordinary life), and animism (particular indwelling spirits bound to specific natural objects, not the general unseen dimension itself).
The passage depicts a heavenly temple, the tabernacle of testimony in heaven, angels descending from it, and a sea of glass mingled with fire — a non-physical realm populated by beings that interpenetrates and acts upon the physical world.
The divine conceived as active, present, and dynamic—not an abstract principle but a personal responsive reality.
God is portrayed as dynamically active — his wrath is poured out, his glory fills the temple, his power prevents entry, and he commands the angels to execute judgment — a personal, responsive, and operative divine reality.
Numbers, proportions, and mathematical relationships as the underlying structure of divine reality.
The number seven pervades the passage as a structurally significant number (seven angels, seven plagues, seven golden bowls), and the specific measure of 'a thousand and six hundred furlongs' gives the blood-flow a numerically precise cosmic dimension.
A spiritual elite who possess the divine spark and are predestined for salvation, contrasted with psychic (faithful) and hylic (material) persons.
Those 'victorious from the beast, and from his image, and from the number of his name' form a distinct spiritual elite set apart from those who worship the beast, functioning as a saved class contrasted with the condemned.
The doctrine and practice that spoken or sung word carries causal-magical force — that uttering names, formulas, songs, or incantations alters reality directly rather than merely communicating about it. Vainamoinen's runo-songs that move mountains and command iron, Norse galdr, Vedic mantra, Shinto kotodama, the magician's barbarous names in the Greek Magical Papyri, Iamblichean arcane signatures and inexplicable symbols, biblical creation-by-word. Distinct from sacred_names (the ontological power of names themselves) and prayer (address to the divine); word_power_incantation is the magical-causal efficacy of the spoken word as such.
The angels' cries with a 'great voice' ('Send forth thy sickle, and reap') function as causally effective utterances that trigger the harvest, and the voice from heaven commands 'Go ye, and pour out,' giving spoken word direct causal force over cosmic events.