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Eureka

AN EXPOSITION OF THE APOCALYPSE
Sixth Edition, 1915
By Dr. John Thomas (first edition written 1861)

 

 

Chapter 6

Section 6 Subsection 3

The Sun and Moon of the Heaven


 
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"The SUN became black as sackcloth of hair." As the sun is the great source of the electrical glory and power of the solar system, it is said in scripture, to "rule the day." The moon and the stars become visible to us by the reflection of his beams. Their light or glory is borrowed; and when he is darkened, they also are in eclipse. The sun is therefore a very appropriate symbol of the supreme or sovereign power of a political universe. In Joseph’s dream, predictive of his exaltation, and of the homage that would be paid to him by his kindred, his father is represented by the sun, as the ruling authority of the circle; his mother by the moon; and his brethren by eleven stars (Gen. 37). They all "made obeisance to me," said Joseph; and though highly figurative, Jacob readily perceived its signification, saying, "Shall I and thy mother and thy brethren indeed come to bow down ourselves to thee to the earth?"

This use of the sun, moon, and stars as representative of persons constituting a domestic circle, and differing from each other in social position, came afterwards to symbolize gradations of powers in the same circle, when it had become sufficiently enlarged to enclose a nation of twelve tribes. Hence, the Spirit in addressing the Zion of the Holy One of Israel now in the days of her mourning, saith in Isa. lx. 20, "Thy Sun shall no more go down; neither shall thy moon withdraw herself." Here the sun and moon represent the civil and ecclesiastical authority in Zion before they were abolished. And speaking of her destruction by the Chaldeans, the Spirit in Jer. xv. 9, says, "Her sun is gone down while it is yet day." Her royalty was suppressed; yet her moon and stars continued to shine under the Persian administration. But, a greater calamity was predicted in Joel ii. 10, when the earth should quake, and the heavens tremble; in other words, when "the sun and the moon should be dark, and the stars withdraw their shining." This would be a total eclipse of Israel’s Commonwealth by "the host given to the Little Horn of the Goat;" as foretold in Dan. viii. 9-12: "It waxed great to the host of heaven; and it cast down of the host and of the stars to the ground, and stamped upon them;" which in the interpretation given in verse 24, is explained to signify, "He shall destroy wonderfully, and shall prosper and practice, and shall destroy great ones (the stars) and the people of the Holy Ones" -- or the host. Powers on earth do not literally pluck the stars from their spheres and stamp upon them; but they sometimes make sad havoc among the sun, moon, and stars of a political organization. The Lord Jesus reproduced Daniel’s prophecy in his discourse on the destruction of the city that killed the prophets, in saying: "Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heaven (symbolized by these orbs) shall be shaken" (Matt. xxiv. 29). These were the lights in which there were to be "great signs and fearful sights," indicative of the parousia, or presence, though invisible, of the Son of Man when the Greco-Roman army should be sent by him to destroy the city of his murderers (Matt. xxii. 7). In the same style, Peter speaks of the rapidly approaching fulfilment of the prediction, when the heavens being on fire should be dissolved and should pass away with a great noise, and their elements melt with fervent heat (2 Peter 3).

But Israel’s was not the only political universe on earth. Their sun has been turned into darkness and their moon into blood; but "the great and notable day of the Lord" has not yet quite come. When it arrives, there will be a sun, moon, and stars shining in all their glory; and, concerning them, the Spirit says: "The Moon shall be confounded and the Sun ashamed, when Yahweh Tz’vaoth shall reign in Mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before his ancients gloriously" (Isa. xxiv. 23). These are the sun and moon of the Gentile Heavens; the same sun upon which the fourth angel poured out his vial (Apoc. xvi. 8) -- the sun which shines in the firmament, or aerial expanse, through which flash the lightnings and roll the thunders in that tempestuous time when men are plagued with a storm of hail "exceeding great," in the outpouring of the seventh (verses 17-21). These are the sun and the moon which shall stand still in their habitation, when Yahweh, the Commander like to Joshua, "shall march through the land in indignation, and thresh the nations in anger" (Hab. iii. 11,12). Then, also, in retribution for what the Gentiles have done to Israel in putting out the lights of their heaven, shall "the sun and the moon be darkened, and the stars shall withdraw their shining." Yahweh also, "as the Lion of the tribe of Judah," "shall roar out of Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem; and the heavens and the earth shall shake: but Yahweh will be the harbor of his people, and the strength of the children of Israel" (Joel iii. 15).

The sun, moon, and stars, to be extinguished in "the great and notable day of Yahweh," from before whose face the heaven in which they shine and the earth over which they shed their rays will flee away, are the luminaries of the Greco-Latin political universe. This political universe is that which is vulgarly styled "Christendom," or properly the domain of Antichrist, but apocalyptically, "Babylon the Great City." The sun by which this is enlightened is the Imperial Civil Power; the moon, the Imperial Ecclesiastical; and the stars, the subordinate powers created by the constitution and reflecting the Imperial Glory. They have not always shone with persistent and undimmed brilliancy; for, when the Star fell from the heaven and opened the abyss, the smoke that issued thence darkened the sun and the firmament, or heaven, in which he shone (Apoc. ix. 1,2); and also, previously to that, which came to pass in the seventh century, "the third part of the sun was smitten, and the third part of the moon, and the third part of the stars, so as the third part of them was darkened;" and as, according to the decorum of the symbols, this could not occur in nature without affecting the day and the night, it is added, by way of instructing us in the duration of this ternary eclipse, "and the day shone not for a third part of it, and the night likewise" (viii. 12).

In the Sixth Seal symbolization, "the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, the moon became as blood, and the stars of the heaven fell into the earth," that is, "a third part of them" (xii. 4). This indicates great wrath upon the orders of the state entering into the composition of the symbols, and a great change in the manifestation of their heavens. The sun might recover its brightness, and the moon her silvery hue. Should this be the case, it would indicate that there was "silence in the heaven," and that war caused blood there no more to redden "the spirituals of the wickedness in the heavenlies" (viii. 1; xii. 8). And such we really find to be the situation. For when "the great day of the Lamb’s wrath" upon "the Dragon and his angels" had been assuaged in the casting them out of the heaven -- in other words, when the pagan power that hindered the revelation of the Man of Sin had been punished and removed out of the way -- the sun, moon, and stars again shone forth from a newly constituted firmament, aerial, or heaven, from the midst of which they diffused their rays over the Roman Habitable as before. But, in order to indicate the effect of the recent revolution and the new character of the heavens, a woman is placed in the sun. She is "clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a stephan, or coronal, of twelve stars" (xii. 1). Here were "the Fellowservants" -- the "Holy Catholic" element of the Lamb’s espoused (2 Cor. xi. 1-3) -- clothed with imperial Roman splendor, and so entering into the elemental constitution of, not the Sun of Righteousness, but of the supreme imperial power of the new Roman Christendom -- the sun of the Roman world. But the sunshine of the world’s heavens is no condition for the Spouse of Christ. The Bowman of the first seal had "conquered," and won the starry stephan; but, this accomplished, it was no place for "the Brethren" to disport themselves "in purple and fine linen, faring sumptuously every day." The time, therefore, having now come for the Spirit to spue the rich Laodicean fellowservants out of his mouth, and thereby to mark the broad line of separation that was henceforth to divide "the Brethren" from the Kingdom of the Clergy, and all its pride and circumstance of worldly pomp and glory, the Woman fled from the dazzling sunshine into the deep shadow of the Roman wilderness, where she was to be fed for a thousand two hundred and sixty symbolic days.

But the history of the Sixth Head of the Dragon illustrates the remarkable appropriateness of the sun and moon as the symbols of the imperiality of the Roman State. The reader will please return with me to the reign of Elagabalus, A.D. 218, parallel with the period of the third seal, of some of the transactions of which Gibbon furnishes in substance the following account:

Elagabalus caused his portrait to be placed in the Senate House, over the altar of Victory. He was painted in his sacerdotal robes of silk and gold, after the loose and flowing fashion of the Medes and Phoenicians. His head was covered with a lofty tiara, his numerous collars and bracelets were adorned with gems of inestimable value. His eyebrows were tinged with black, and his cheeks painted with an artificial red and white. Such was the ornamentation of the High Priest of the Sun.

The Sun was worshipped at Emesa under the name of Elagabalus, and under the form of a black conical stone, which was believed to have fallen from heaven at Emesa. To this protecting deity the emperor ascribed his elevation to the throne. The display of superstitious gratitude was the only serious business of his reign. The triumph of the Sun over all the religions of the earth was the great object of his zeal and vanity; and the appellation of Elagabalus (for, as pontiff and favorite, he assumed the name of his god) was dearer to him than all the titles of imperial greatness.

In a solemn procession through the streets of Rome, the way was strewed with gold dust; the black stone set in precious gems (a notable antithesis to the White Stone engraved with a New Name which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it (Apoc. ii. 17), was placed on a chariot drawn by six milk-white horses richly caparisoned. The imperial fanatic held the reins, and, supported by his ministers, moved slowly backwards, that he might perpetually enjoy the felicity of the divine presence of the Sun. In a magnificent temple raised on the Palatine Mount, the sacrifices of the Sun were celebrated with every circumstance of cost and solemnity. The richest wines, the most extraordinary victims, and the rarest aromatics, were profusely consumed on his altar. Around the altar a chorus of Syrian damsels performed their lascivious dances to the sound of barbarian music, whilst the gravest personages of the state and army, clothed in long Phoenician tunics officiated in the meanest functions, with affected zeal and secret indignation.

To this temple, as to the common centre of religious worship, Elagabalus removed the Ancilia, the Paladium, and all the insignia of the superstition of Numa. A crowd of inferior deities were set up in various stations to attend, as it were, upon the Majesty of the Sun; but his court was considered still imperfect, till a goddess of distinguished rank was admitted to his couch. Pallas had been first chosen for his consort, but as it was feared that her warlike terrors might affright the soft delicacy of an Eastern deity, THE MOON, adored by the Africans under the name of Astarte, the Queen of Heaven, was deemed a more suitable companion for the Sun. Her image, with the rich offerings of her temple as a marriage portion, was transported with solemn pomp from Carthage to Rome, and the day of these mystic nuptials was a general festival in the capital and throughout the empire.

Thus were the Sun and Moon inaugurated as the sovereign deities of the Roman world. After the death of Elagabalus, they still retained their high and sovereign position in the pagan heavens and the state. Gibbon informs us that Constantine had a particular veneration for Apollo, or the Sun, to which Julian, surnamed "the Apostate" by catholics, alludes in his orations. His words are as follow:- "The devotion of Constantine (while a pagan) was more peculiarly directed to the genius of the Sun, the Apollo of the Greek and Roman mythology, and he was pleased to be represented with the symbols of the god of light and poetry. The unerring shafts of that deity, the brightness of his eyes, his laurel wreath (stephan), immortal beauty, and elegant accomplishments, seem to point him out as the patron of a young hero. The altars of Apollo were crowned with the votive offerings of Constantine, and the credulous multitude were taught to believe that the emperor was permitted to behold with mortal eyes the visible majesty of that tutelar deity, and that, either waking or in a vision, he was blessed with the auspicious omens of a long and victorious reign. The sun was universally celebrated as the invincible guide and protector of Constantine, and the pagans might reasonably expect that the insulted god would pursue with unrelenting vengeance the impiety of his ungrateful favorite" when he became a catholic. Thus, it was a worshipper of the Sun, himself a constituent of the sun of the political heaven, who with adulterous embrace united the Catholic Jezebel to the Roman State. She was clothed with the sun, and standing upon the moon, became symbolically identified with that orb as the future Queen Consort of the Imperial Majesty of the heavens of the Laodicean Apostasy.

But, in the apocalypse, the sun is also used to symbolize the enlightening majesty of the millennial heavens, which are to succeed and supersede the heavens of the apostasy, in which at present shine over all the nominally "christian world," the spirituals of a mystery of iniquity. In ch. i. 16, the symbolic Son of Man’s countenance is "as the sun shining in his strength." Again, in ch. x the same multitudinous personage appears as a mighty messenger descending from heaven, his "face being as it were the sun:" and in ch. xvi. 12, certain "kings" are mentioned, and styled "risings of a Sun," in the phrase, he hodos ton basileon ton apo anatolon heliou. These kings that are "the risings," are aggregately the Sun-power of the Millennial Heavens, "from whose face the earth and heaven" of the Apostasy "flee away" (xx. 11). They are the Millennial Sun-Power, because they are emanations from "the Sun of Righteousness," whose beams have healed them in quickening them with incorruptibility and power (Mal. iv. 2). Having become elements of this power, they go forth, and tread down the wicked of the earth and sea with their "feet as pillars of fire" -- "feet like unto fine brass, as if they glowed in a furnace;" "for they shall be ashes under the soles of their feet, in the day that Yahweh Tz’vaoth (the Spirit who shall be Hosts) shall work." This Millennial Sun, then, symbolizes all the saints when "glorified together" with Jesus (Rom. viii. 17,29,32): and, when they "rest from their labors" of destroying Babylon who oppressed them; of giving the worshippers of the Beast to drink of the wine of divine wrath; of binding the Dragon, and shutting him up in the abyss; and of "enlightening the earth with their glory" they will "then shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father;" or, as the same idea is expressed in Dan. xii. 3, "they shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and as the stars for the Olahm and beyond" (Matt. xiii. 43).

The glorified and victorious saints, then, will be the Sun of the Millennial Kingdom. They will therefore have "no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it" (xxi. 23): and "the nations of them being saved shall walk in the light of it." These are the New Heavens and New Earth. How unlike those of the Apostasy by which they are preceded. These new heavens will "declare the glory of AIL; and their firmament, or aerial, His handiwork. Day unto day will utter speech; and night unto night shall show knowledge: and there will be no speech or language where their voice is not heard. THEIR rule will go out through all the earth, and THEIR words to the end of the world." Paul has quoted these words in Rom. x. 18, as predictive of the apostolic proclamation of the kingdom. There was great significancy in such an application; for they who made the proclamation will constitute the heavens that rule -- the personal Son of Man on the throne of his glory; and the apostles on the thrones of David’s house; with all the approved and glorified sharing in their administration, in the grand era of regeneration (Matt. xix. 28; Apoc. ii. 26; iii. 21). "Among them he sets a habitation for the sun, who is as a Bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race. His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit to the ends of it: and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof" (Psa. xix. 1-6). This bridegroom is the Sun, and his bride, the moon, and her distinguished companions, the stars of the brilliant firmament which will be displayed as the handiwork of the Spirit; when, co-operating with them, he looks forth as the morning, "fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners" (Cant. vi. 10; Apoc. xiv. 13; Zech. iv. 6).

 

 


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