THE SECOND VISION CONTINUED.
The Seventh Seal is Opened.
The First Six Trumpets (Revelation 8:1 - Revelation 9:21).
‘And when he opened the seventh seal there followed a silence in Heaven about the space of half an hour.'
The seventh seal is chronologically parallel to the occurrences in the first six seals (as we have noted the sixth seal ends with the second coming and the final judgment. The seventh seal could not follow that). Its content thus occurs at the same time as the events in the first six seals, at the same time as the four horsemen are riding, (and they have ridden throughout history as ‘the beginning of travail' - Matthew 24:7-8). It helps to explain the meaning of the apocalyptic language in seal 6. We have no reason to doubt, and every reason to believe, that it occurs while the seven churches are on earth.
Here in Revelation we are seeing present history from heaven's point of view. Dreadful things have happened throughout history and we now discover their source. While they are the result of man's sinfulness, they are also the result of heavenly activity (compare 2 Kings 6:17).
Each seal represents different aspects of the activities of men and of the judgments of God. They are opened one after another simply because there is no other way of opening them in a deliberate way, but what is in the seven-sealed book is an overall record of future history from the time of John onwards, seen as a whole, but leading up to the end. Thus most of what is presented occurs in parallel. The events are to a certain extent overlapping each other.
The silence in Heaven must probably be seen as one of trust and awe in the light of what comes from it. As Jeremiah says in Lamentations, ‘it is good that one should hope and wait in silence for the Lord's deliverance' (Lamentations 3:26, compare also Habakkuk 2:20; Zephaniah 1:7; Zechariah 2:13). God's judgments are about to be revealed in fuller measure, and the prayers of God's people are reaching their climax and are about to be answered. Thus Heaven waits in expectant and awestruck silence. The opening of the seventh seal results in the sounding of the seven trumpets. So the seven trumpets are contemporary with the seven seals.
The first five seals referred to man's activity throughout history at the command of God, the latter fact reminding us that God is always in control. In the same way the first five trumpets represent the more specific direct judgments of God during the same period. History is full of God's judgments, intended to bring men to repentance. The sixth seal and the sixth and seventh trumpets describe the consummation of the age.