Note the incense altar is found in Revelation only in Revelation 8, and the censer or incense vessel, libanotos; this not in chapter 4 where power and judgment - government is presented to us. Nor have the elders any censers, libanoton, in Revelation 5. This belonged to Him who was at the altar of incense. They might be given thumiamata (incense) for their bowls or saucers, but they had no libanoton (censer) or altar of incense. They are priests and offer the prayers, but they offer no prayer, no incense of their own. They add nothing and give efficacy to nothing. The angel in Revelation 8 do (give) to the prayers of the saints. There the smoke of the incense went up with the prayers of the saints, tais p.t.a. (to the prayers of the saints).
The action of the angel in Revelation 8 is quite a different thing. Further it would seem as if the sea being of glass marked that there was no more cleansing with water. Would it not show that though essentially holiness must be the same, namely consecration and separation to God, yet that it had formally a different character? This is separation to God while Christ is hidden and while it is His being all Himself for His own sake. It is not forcing out by excess and growth of wickedness but in the power of the Spirit because good is good. Hence when the last plagues are coming out they stand on the sea of glass mingled with fire. They have part in the necessary witness of the place but it is through the application of tribulation to them.
Judgment has the place of the secret separation of the Spirit in making Christ all within, through the result He produced (original priestly washing was not in the laver; that was when they were priests). In chapter 4 the holiness of heaven was fixed and stable as a result. It was not there washing for (or) in the wilderness yet according to the sanctuary. In Revelation 4 the elders are settled in their place around the throne according to that. In Revelation 15 it is only made good (as men say) by the tribulation. They have come through the fire and are there. The 24 elders peacefully there, as their place through grace. They had taken death as their portion, pilgrims and strangers on the earth. The 144,000 of chapter 14 come in as an additional chapter. They have not millennial quietness as their life but having suffered like (not with) Christ on earth they are with Him in His earthly glory wherever He goes.
221 Note in Revelation 9 the first woe applies to the body of unrepentant Israel, not the servants of God. Compare Revelation 9:4 and Revelation 7:3. The second woe applies to the Roman earth as I suppose, that is, the third part of men. The first: Satan's direct power and false prophecy; the second: more external but the false prophecy also. They are killed, not tormented merely as in the first woe. Idolatry and wickedness characterize the second class - inhabiters of the earth, apply to both, the unrepentant Jew and the idolatrous wicked dweller upon a Christless earth - the earth where Rome had its influence.
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John Nelson Darby (1800 - 1882)
was an Anglo-Irish Bible teacher, one of the influential figures among the original Plymouth Brethren and the founder of the Exclusive Brethren. He is considered to be the father of modern Dispensationalism and Futurism ("the Rapture" in the English vernacular). Pre-tribulation rapture theology was popularized extensively in the 1830s by John Nelson Darby and the Plymouth Brethren, and further popularized in the United States in the early 20th century by the wide circulation of the Scofield Reference Bible.He produced a translation of the Bible based on the Hebrew and Greek texts called The Holy Scriptures: A New Translation from the Original Languages by J. N. Darby. Darby traveled widely in Europe and Britain in the 1830s and 1840s, and established many Brethren assemblies. He gave 11 significant lectures in Geneva in 1840 on the hope of the church (L'attente actuelle de l'église). These established his reputation as a leading interpreter of biblical prophecy.
John Nelson Darby was an Anglo-Irish evangelist, and an influential figure among the original Plymouth Brethren. He is considered to be the father of modern Dispensationalism. He produced a translation of the Bible based on the Hebrew and Greek texts called The Holy Scriptures: A New Translation from the Original Languages by J. N. Darby.
John Nelson Darby graduated Trinity College, Dublin, in 1819 and was called to the Irish bar about 1825; but soon gave up law practice, took orders, and served a curacy in Wicklow until, in 1827, doubts as to the Scriptural authority for church establishments led him to leave the institutional church altogether and meet with a company of like-minded persons in Dublin.
Darby traveled widely in Europe and Britain in the 1830s and 1840s, and established many Brethren assemblies. These established his reputation as a leading interpreter of biblical prophecy. He was also a Bible Commentator. He declined however to contribute to the compilation of the Revised Version of the King James Bible.