(5) And the angel which I saw stand upon the sea and upon the earth lifted up his hand to heaven, (6) And sware by him that liveth forever and ever, who created heaven, and the things that therein are, and the earth, and the things that therein are, and the sea, and the things which are therein, that there should be time no longer: (7) But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as he hath declared to his servants the prophets.
We cannot read what fellows, of the Lord Jesus lifting up his hand to heaven, in a way of solemnity, and swearing to the truth of what he was about to deliver, without being struck with the sublimity of the whole. Let the Reader figure to himself Christ as God-Man, with one foot upon the earth, and the other on the sea, to imply (as hath been before observed) his supreme authority, and then hear him swearing by him that liveth forever and ever, and created all things, that there should be time no longer. Who less than God could so determine? And who but God could accomplish such a purpose? We read in another scripture, that when God made promise to Abraham, because he could swear by no greater, he sware by himself. And that this was God our Savior who thus swore to Abraham is most evident, as may be seen by looking at the account. It was God, it is said, that called upon Abraham to offer up his son a burnt-offering. And it was the angel of the Lord that called unto Abraham out of heaven the second time, and said, by myself have I sworn, saith the Lord. See Gen_22:1-2; Gen_22:15-16. And the Holy Ghost confirms the whole in the scripture before quoted, Hebrews 6:13. Can anything be more plain than that in the whole transaction it was God our Savior who is all along spoken of? And who, indeed, should it be but Him? He is the only visible Jehovah through all the scripture. No man hath seen God at any time. In the invisibility of his essence, as God, it is impossible to see him. But one only begotten Son, who lay in the bosom of the Father, and from that bosom came forth in our nature, he hath declared him, John 1:18. See Hebrews 6:13. and Commentary. Hence, therefore, in this oath, that there should be time no longer, we behold Christ acting in his high character of Mediator, and in the name of the whole Godhead, confirming by oath, the counsel of his will.
The days of the voice of the seventh angel were to take place before the period Christ swore to should come on, when time should be no longer. The mystery of God was first to be finished, that is, the mystery of those wonderful events concerning the Church of God, in relation to those anti-Christian powers which opposed Christ, the Eastern and the Western heresy. But not the mysteries of God finished, or made known, in relation to that mystery of the Three sacred Persons in the Godhead, the mystery of God and man in one Person, and the mystery of Christ being one with his Church. These things are never to be finished, neither can be in their very nature so explained, as to be no longer mysterious. The meaning evidently is, that the period will come, under the seventh trumpet sounding, when the powers of darkness, whose opposition to Christ is now so mysterious, shall be finished, and the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever.