4. The Harvest of the Elect, Ch. 14:14‐16
One like unto the Son of Man (or _a_ son of man), i. e. one sharing our humanity—a designation of the Messiah after the time of Daniel(488)—is seen sitting upon a white cloud, the traditional covering of the divine majesty and a symbol of the divine presence, having on his head a golden crown, the token of glory and of victory, and in his hand a sharp sickle, the instrument for reaping. And on the announcement of another angel(489) from out the temple that the hour was come, he cast his sickle upon the earth and gathered all the faithful into his kingdom as a harvest that was ripe, a symbol of the ingathering of all the redeemed preceding the punishment of the wicked (cf. Mat. 25:31‐46). The action set forth in this part of the vision is preparatory to and anticipates the judgment, yet the process of judgment is not described. The vision is occupied rather with pointing out how the path of history inevitably leads to the judgment bar. The incident serves to introduce the seventh and last of the mystic figures of this wonderful vision of conflict, the Son of Man on the Cloud, who represents Christ as the theanthropic Redeemer and Judge, a quite different aspect of his character from the Man‐Child where he is set forth subject to the conditions of his mysterious incarnation, and therefore requiring an entirely different symbol.
Still another angel came out from the shrine or sanctuary of the temple in heaven, at the summons of the angel who had power over fire, i. e. the fire of the altar, which is here the symbol of judgment, and gathered all the ungodly as vintage from the earth, and cast them into the winepress, the great winepress, of the wrath of God, a figure of the ingathering and fearful punishment of the wicked at the end of the world. According to this view the two gatherings described in verses fourteen to twenty, are regarded as depicting the opposite fate in store for the faithful and the wicked, instead of a twofold account of the same event repeated in different form for the purpose of emphasis. This interpretation agrees best with the general tenor of the chapter and the common method of contrast throughout the book; others, however, regard the passage as a double figure of the judgment.(490) The scene is laid outside the city, i. e. Jerusalem, most likely the New Jerusalem, the home of God’s people, without the gates of which are the wicked who perish (ch. 22:15). The figure may have been drawn from the scenes of terror and bloodshed which attended the fall of the earthly city under Titus, a view quite possible if the later date of authorship be accepted, though possibly there may have been no definite city in mind. Some connect this passage with the struggle in chapter twenty (v. 7‐10), where the nations compass the beloved city, and connect both with the advent, interpreting literally,—a view common with the futurists. And we are told that when the winepress was trodden “there came out blood, from the winepress, even unto the bridles of the horses,”(491) a symbol of the terrible destruction of life that ensued, a flowing stream that reached as far as a thousand and six hundred furlongs, i. e. almost two hundred Roman miles, or somewhat farther than the entire length of Palestine, a Jewish synonym for a great distance. Sixteen hundred is also the square of four, the earth number, multiplied by the square of ten, the number of completeness, which perhaps indicates that the punishment is complete throughout the whole created world. The passage in its essential thought is an echo from the rhapsody of Joel (ch. 3:13), combined with the vision of judgment in Isaiah’s Zion redeemed (ch. 63:3‐6), and recalls his Assyrian flood, reaching even to the neck (Isa. 8:7‐8).(492) The transition to the vision of vials is now made by a sudden change of theme, and a return to the world‐process of judgment that is age‐long and world‐wide in its scope and purpose.