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The scene now shifts back to earth.
"The entire passage in every clause utilizes well known prophetic anticipations of the day of the Lord, and by his use of these images John identifies the day for his readers. One may check this by consulting the chief scriptures John employs, notably Joel 2:10, 30f., Isaiah 13:9ff., 2:10ff., 34:4, Ezekiel 32:7f., Hosea 10:8. These passages depict the concomitants of the day of the Lord and supply John with all his pictures."262
6:12-13 Next God will send a tremendous earthquake that will rock the whole world (cf. Luke 21:11). The darkening of the sun (cf. Isa. 13:10; Ezek. 32:7-8; Joel 2:10, 31; Amos 8:9; Matt. 24:29; Mark 13:24-25; Luke 21:25), the reddening of the moon (cf. Joel 2:31; Acts 2:20), and the falling of the stars to earth (a meteor-like shower?) appear from the context to be consequences of this judgment.263A less likely possibility is that they will be unrelated phenomena.
Many commentators have taken this description as picturing a metaphorical convulsion among the nations, not a literal shaking of the earth and the heavens. We should probably take them literally for at least two reasons. First, Jesus used the same language in the Olivet Discourse and gave no indication that it was symbolic (cf. Matt. 24:7; Mark 13:8; Luke 21:11). Second, a shaking of the nations follows in verses 15-17.
6:14 Evidently the sky will appear to split and roll back in two opposite directions (cf. Isa. 34:4).264The universe will seem to be coming apart. Apparently the opening of the sky will give earth-dwellers a glimpse into the throneroom of heaven (v. 16). Probably the earthquake (v. 12) will cause mountains and islands to rise and fall (cf. Nah. 1:6).
6:15-16 The reaction of every category of humanity all over the world is amazing. It indicates that people's perception of God and the Lamb in heaven will be far more terrifying to them than the physical consequences of this judgment. Whereas the martyrs cry, "Avenge us"(v. 10), these unbelievers cry, "Hide us."
"What sinners dread most is not death, but having to stand before a holy and righteous God."265
Literal interpretation does not rule out the use of hyperbole, which appears at this point. If all the mountains moved out of their places, there would be no places for people to seek to hide.
6:17 This "great day of their wrath"is the Tribulation, Daniel's seventieth week (cf. Jer. 30:7; Dan. 12:1; Joel 2:2; Matt. 24:21). These people will not turn to God in repentance but from Him in terror (cf. Isa. 2:19, 21; Hos. 10:8; Luke 23:30). By the end of the sixth seal judgment, they will know that what they are experiencing is the outpouring of His wrath. This is the first part of the judgment phase of the day of the Lord (cf. Joel 2:11, 30-31; Isa. 2:10-11, 19-21; 13:8-13; 26:17-19; 34:4, 8; 66:7-9; Jer. 30:6-8; Ezek. 32:7-8; Hos. 10:8; Mic. 4:9-10; Matt. 24:8; 1 Thess. 5:3).266
Note that the Tribulation will be a distinct judgment of God unique from other times of distress that the earth has ever experienced (Jer. 30:7). It will be worldwide and severe. Furthermore everyone will not only know that it is a divine judgment, but they will act like it by seeking death to hide from God, not just from these calamities. The judgments of the sixth seal appear to be a foreshadowing of the similar but even greater judgments that will come at the end of the Tribulation, just before Jesus Christ returns to the earth (cf. 16:17-21; Matt. 24:21).
"The cosmic disturbances immediately before the beginning of the Joel 3 Day of the Lord and the Second Coming of Christ immediately after the Great Tribulation are not the same as those of the sixth seal. The cosmic disturbances immediately before the beginning of the Joel 3 Day of the Lord and the Second Coming of Christ will occur at the end of the 70th week, but those of the sixth seal will occur and end considerably before then."267
Postmillennialists268and amillennialists269interpret the revelation of tribulation in chapters 6-18 as a symbolic description of various troubles that have come and will come on believers before Jesus Christ's second coming. They do not believe the Tribulation will be a specific seven-year period of the unique outpouring of God's wrath yet future.
Posttribulationists believe the church will be on earth during the Tribulation. Gundry, a posttribulationist, held that sufferings Christians experience during the Tribulation will not come as a result of God's penal judgments but will be persecutions that arise "from other quarters."270He viewed the martyrs of this period as Christians rather than as tribulation saints.
Marvin Rosenthal argued, correctly I believe, that the first four seals describe what Jesus called "the beginning of sorrows"(Matt. 24:8).271He equated this period with the first half of Daniel's seventieth week (i.e., three and one-half years, or 42 months). However, he wrote, incorrectly I believe, that the fifth and sixth seals picture "the Great Tribulation"(Matt. 24:21), which he limited to the following 21 months, not the whole second half of Daniel's seventieth week. He further argued, also incorrectly, that the seventh seal begins "the day of the Lord"(Joel 2:1-2), which will only be the final quarter of Daniel's seventieth week, namely, the remaining 21 months. He placed the Rapture at the beginning of the day of the Lord, which he believed would be the only period of wrath poured out. Thus since the Rapture will occur before it, according to his scheme, we can expect a "Pre-wrath Rapture."272
