Revelation 11:15-18 Explanatory Notes

Continued from the last one.
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11:15 And the seventh angel blew the trumpet, and loud voices came about in the sky, saying, "The kingdom of the world has become [the kingdom of] our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign forever and ever." 

We arrive at the seventh trumpet and the end of the first vision that began in chapter 4. Keener notes that trumpets were often blown when a king ascended to the throne. [1] Perhaps this is why the vision of trumpets was used in this sequence in the first place -- to lead to the reign of Christ. Note that this is also perhaps the first vision's equivalent to something like Christ's millennial reign. 

Each of the visions culminates in the final judgment and final victory of God and his Christ. This is a reminder that the visions for the most part are not sequential but reiterations of the same basic truths. Accordingly, this may be the first time we reach the final arrival of the kingdom in Revelation, but it will not be the last.

You may recognize the words of this verse as the culminating words of the Hallelujah Chorus in Handel's Messiah: "The kingdom of this world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ." The Lord in this verse refers not to Christ but to God the Father. In John's mind, therefore, it likely is a reference to Yahweh, which is translated kyrios or Lord in the Greek Old Testament.

The reference to "his Christ" is a reference to God's Messiah, God's anointed one, God's promised king. The phrase comes from Psalm 2, which pictures the nations raging “against the Lord and against his Christ” (Ps. 2:2). The wording matches the Greek translation of Revelation exactly. In the psalm, the nations conspire against the anointed king, and God answers by installing him on Zion and giving him the nations as his inheritance (Ps. 2:6-9).

John has been drawing on Psalm 2 throughout Revelation (see 2:26-27; 12:5; 19:15). Here, at the seventh trumpet, the psalm reaches its goal. The kings of the earth set themselves against the Lord and his Christ, and now the kingdom of the world belongs to them. The “angry” nations of verse 18 echo the psalm’s opening scene, so the section ends where Psalm 2 begins, with the nations in rebellion and God’s response.

It is a little ambiguous as to who will reign forever and ever. Since the Lord is the focus of the verse, a reference to God the Father reigning immediately comes to mind. For example, we note that the next verse focuses on the worship of God the Father.

However, the core function of a Messiah is to reign, so it would not be wrong to think of Christ reigning as well. In the end, they both will reign (22:1-2). Some have argued that the singular refers to both God the Father and Christ. 

The idea that this kingdom will last forever goes back to Daniel. Daniel 2:44 describes a kingdom God will set up that “shall never be destroyed.” Daniel 7:14 and 7:27 describe that rule as everlasting and shared with the saints. 

16. And the twenty-four elders who sit before God on their thrones fell on their faces and worshiped God, 17. saying, "We give thanks to you, LORD God Almighty, the One who is and who was because you have taken your great power and have begun to reign. 

The first vision began with the twenty-four elders around the throne worshipping God the Father. It is thus fitting that the vision should end back on this scene. This literary structure is called an "inclusio," the bracketing of a section by similar elements at the beginning and the end. 

This supports our claim that we have correctly identified where the first vision begins and ends. Similarly, the elders fall down in 4:10, and they praise God for his power in 4:11.

Additionally, we saw the description that God "is and was" in 4:8 at the beginning of this vision. Note that the expression "and is to come" is missing here. Why? Because the kingdom of God has now arrived, a reminder that each vision ends with the final reign of God -- they're not sequential visions.

The expression, "you have taken" is in the perfect tense. It suggests that God took that power and still has it. Similarly, although the word "begun" is not in the Greek, the verb for "reign" is aorist and, in this case, should probably be interpreted as what is called an "inceptive" aorist. This is where the word "begun" comes from.

18. "And the nations were enraged, and your wrath came, and the time for the dead to be judged and to give reward to your servants the prophets and the saints and those who fear your name, the small and the great, and for those who have destroyed the earth to be destroyed."

Coming at the end of the first vision, this verse reads as a summary of the judgment that has taken place. The nations opposed and oppressed God's true people. In response, God finally came in judgment. Now begins the time of vindication when God's servants and saints who have been persecuted will rise from the dead. 

John specifically seems to have those, like the symbolic "two witnesses" earlier in this chapter, who proclaim God's indictment to the world and who suffer as a result. John surely has in mind individuals like Peter, the two Jameses, and Paul who paid the ultimate penalty for their witness. 

Many have since followed. "Small and great" indicates that it is not just the well-known witnesses who will be vindicated. This is the final answer to the question "How long?" in 6:10. The "little longer" in 6:11 has run out.

Yet so many of the unrighteous succeed in their evildoing in this world. The vision ends with a reminder that the dead have not escaped justice. God will raise them for judgment (20:11-15). Those who destroyed the earth will be destroyed.

It is interesting that John does not say they will be punished forever but that they will be "destroyed." Nevertheless, the third vision seems to point to eternal punishment (14:11; 20:10), so this verse does not seem to refer to annihilation.

[1] Keener, Revelation, 352. 

Family History: 2. The Dutch Schencks

A Family History of the United States continues with chapter 2. Previously was Jamestown.
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1. In 1620, Roelof Martense Schenck was born in what would become the Dutch Republic in Europe. In 1650, the year that his father died, he left for America.

He was from a prominent family in the land we now call the Netherlands. We can trace his family’s story back back at least to the 1400s. It would be natural to think that the name "Schenck" is German. That is, if it were really pronounced “shank,” German would make sense.

However, its proper pronunciation is actually “skank.” The skank pronunciation reflects its Dutch origins. One day early in my marriage, we were watching Saturday Night Live, and in one skit, Mike Myers said, “Look at those two skanks.” We looked at each other with surprise. 

From that point on, we realized that a "skank" was a not so flattering a reference to a certain kind of woman.

2. There is evidence of a Wynant Schenck living in the Bleijenbeek Castle in the Netherlands in 1405. The castle was built about fifty years earlier and would generally be in Schenck possession for the next couple hundred years.

As far as direct lineage, we can go back to the mid-1400s:

Textbox: Dederick Schenck van Nydeck
Dederick II Schenck van Nydeck (1481-1525)
Dederick III Schenck van Nydeck (1514-1560)
Pieter VII Schenck van Nydeck (1547-1580)
Maarten Schenck van Nydeck (1584-1650)
Roelof Schenck van Nydeck (1620-1704)

The “van Nydeck” or “van Nydeggen” part indicates the origins of the family in Nideggen, which is currently in western Germany. This is where the family was located when they took on the last name (or surname) Schenck.

At some point in the Middle Ages, people began to take on surnames. Schenck has the sense of a cupbearer or, perhaps more likely for this area, a tavern keeper. So perhaps, the ancestors of the Schencks in 1000s Nydeggen ran a tavern, a place for food and fun.

We also must remember that the national boundaries that exist now did not exist in the late Middle Ages. The Netherlands was not a country then, nor was Germany. All this land was then part of the Holy Roman Empire, which was a vast collection of almost 2000 small states, each with a castle of its own. Although it seems a bit bizarre now, this area of the Netherlands was even under Spanish control in the 1500s. The part of Germany in which Nideggen is located only really became German in 1713 when Prussia took it over.

In those medieval days, this part of the Netherlands was mostly the Duchy of Guelders, and most of it is still in the province of Gelderland today. If you look at where the ancestors of the Schencks were born, they are in this area, although Goch was in the nearby Dutchy of Cleves. This is, by the way, where the family of Vincent “van Gogh” traced back to.

Textbox: Birthplaces
Dederick II (1481-1525) – Bleijenbeck Castle
Dederick III (1514-1560) – Bleijenbeck Castle
Pieter VII (1547-1580) – Goch
Maarten (1584-1650) – Doesberg

3. As I said, Roelof came to America in 1650, the year that his father Maarten died. There is a fun story from the late 1500s about Maarten's uncle, who was also called Maarten. 

This Maarten was born in Goch (1540-1589), like Roelof's grandfather Pieter. Both were military men. Pieter was a general. And Maarten too was a military commander in the fightings of that era. He fought with the Dutch William of Orange in the fight for independence from Spain. This fight began in 1568 and would continue off and on until the Peace of Westphalia was signed in 1648 (sometimes called the Eighty Years War). At the end of that war, the Dutch Republic was finally born as an independent state. And our ancestor Roelof left for America two years after independence!

Back to Uncle Maarten. He wanted Bleijenbeek Castle for himself, so he physically took possession of it from his cousin. But the court of William of Orange legally favored his cousin. He became unpopular with William’s court. The last straw was the crushing Dutch defeat by the Spanish at the Battle of Gembloux in 1578. You can hear the Schenck in him. “Incompetent leaders. Ungrateful idiots. I want to be on the winning side.” He switched sides and fought in the Army of Flanders (Spanish, Catholic side) for a few years before coming to his senses.

Whichever side he was on, he was known for daring, charisma, and occasionally, winning by cleverness and daring. It is said he could eat, drink, and sleep while riding on his horse, “and his men followed him like dogs.” Again, in good Schenck fashion, after a few years, he didn’t feel like the Spanish were treating him right, and he returned to the Dutch side in 1585. He became Lieutenant Governor of Gelderland. In 1586 he was commissioned to build a fortress in a village that still exists today, Schenkenschanz.

My own father, Lee Schenck (1924-2012), interestingly went through this area of modern Germany when he was in World War II. He had no idea he was passing through the lands of his ancestors. He was always reminded of these “plains of Westphalia, Germany” when we would drive south of Gainesville, Florida, coming home from Indiana. The landscape there comes down from higher ground into lowlands, and it reminded him of his time in Germany.

It is interesting that he was that far north during the war. The Allies took the north Rhineland and Westphalia back from the Nazis from March to May 1945. I knew he was stationed in Nancy, France, and then later in Manheim, Germany. But he must have crossed into Germany at some point in the north. He was well behind the front line when he moved to these places, never really in harm’s way except perhaps from possible leftover snipers.

4. Maarten would seem to have been a tricky character. In a move not unlike the Trojan horse, he got into one city by disguising soldiers on a salt wagon. Maarten met an untimely death that, again, somehow seems quite appropriate for a Schenck. He was trying to take Nijmegen for the Dutch by entering the city through windows on the river Waal.

The river was flowing faster than expected because of rain, and they were not able to enter where they had planned. Half their barges overshot their goal. When they finally were able to get in some windows, they stumbled onto a wedding party that ended their hopes for a surprise attack. In a hasty retreat, he jumped into the river, where his armor and the swollenness of the river caused him to drown. When they found his body a few days later, they decapitated him, put his head on a pike, and quartered his body. He died August 10, 1589.

Our ancestor Roelof Schenck was Maarten’s great nephew, the grandson of Maarten’s less controversial brother Pieter. Pieter was also a general for the Dutch throughout those conflicts—the whole time. Roelof’s father married a woman in Amersfoort, Utrecht in 1619. The Dutchy of Utrecht was to the northwest of Guelders. And that is where Roelof was born in 1620.

5. My impression is that these Schencks were doers, not so much thinkers. Plenty of thinking was going on at the time in the Dutch region, but I’m not sure how much our ancestors paid attention. They seemed much more interested in fighting the war for independence from Spain. The parts of Dutch culture from this period that we prize today largely took place in the County of Holland to the west, where Amsterdam is located. This area was a distinct culture where the primary language spoken was Frisian.

The fight for independence put them on the Calvinist side, and the Schencks would be devoted to the Dutch Reformed Church after they arrived in America. We cannot know whether these Schencks even knew of Jacobus Arminius in Amsterdam and later Leiden (1560-1609). The Schencks of my generation firmly espouse Arminius’ perspectives against the Calvinists, ironically. Arminius argued that God empowered our human wills so that we became able either to choose or not choose God. The Calvinists believed that God predetermined who would be saved.

Arminius taught in Leiden until 1609, when he died. In the aftermath of his death, his view would be considered heresy at the Synod of Dort in 1619, where the Calvinist TULIP became the official position. Again, who knows whether our ancestors had strong opinions on such things. I wonder rather if they mocked those silly Frisians to the west and their arguments over unimportant things.

Textbox: The TULIP
Total depravity – Humans are thoroughly evil.
Unconditional Election – God chooses the saved.
Limited Atonement – Christ only died for the elect.
Irresistible Grace – You will be saved if God chooses.
Perseverance of the Saints – You will make it.

6. This was also the time when Rembrandt was painting, also in Leiden (1606-69). This was the age of Grotius (1583-1645), one of the greatest thinkers of the time. He was arrested and imprisoned in 1618 for being an Arminian. He escaped and finished out his life elsewhere.

Baruch Spinoza was about 18 when Roelof left for America. Spinoza was an unorthodox Jewish philosopher who believed in pantheism and is often mentioned in the trio of rationalists from this period: Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz. Descartes himself, sometimes called the father of modernism, lived in Holland from 1629-1649. It was here that he published his famous, “I think; therefore, I am” (1637).

Our ancestor thus left the Dutch Republic for New Amsterdam in the prime of the Dutch Golden Age. If the greatest thinkers of the day were in Holland, Roelof headed for a new conquest in the New World. Who knows what he thought of them? Crazy liberals? I’m out of here. His family would prove influential in New Amsterdam as well.