Revelation Chapter 8
The First Trumpet
VERSE 7 (NAU) “The first sounded, and there came hail and fire, mixed with blood, and they were thrown to the earth; and a third of the earth was burned up, and a third of the trees were burned up, and all the green grass was burned up.”
The one symbol that we have not considered yet was that all of the green grass was burned up. This is also mentioned in the above scriptures from Joel, where it says that the fire devoured the pastures. Grass in the scriptures means people. (See Isa 40:7)
Since this symbol represents people we had at one time thought that the GREEN grass represented those of the church during the time, they had life in the early church. The problem with that view is that it says that all of this green grass was destroyed completely, and not just the one third that it would have to be in order to fit that interpretation. While most of the true church were corrupted or killed, as far as we know there were always some that were faithful.
So we have since reconsidered this and we now think that the one thing that was totally destroyed at the time of the early church that originally had green, VITALITY was the nation of Israel. We don’t know the exact mechanism by which the early church may have been involved in bringing the Jews to the attention of the Empire, but we do know that ones like Paul and the Apostles were at the center of much controversy. Those kinds of things caused conflict in the Empire which Rome did not like. The Jews on their own rebelled and tried to throw off the Roman yoke and that is what caused their final destruction as a nation.
Before their literal destruction the Jews were actually removed from being God’s nation and thus in that sense all of the green grass of that nation was in symbol destroyed by fire or judgment. That would seem to represent a legitimate use of the symbol fire, in which the Jews because of their unbelief were judged and removed from being God’s people. That interpretation shows us that the fire, hail and blood were initially being used properly by the early church. It was only as time went on that they began to be misused and thus began the removal of the one third from each element of God’s system and the resulting 666 that represented the false church and state system. In other words they changed God’s true church into man’s false church.
Final Conclusion
So, what we see happening in the first trumpet is that the truth is eventually being misused by some individuals and that became the beginning of the apostasy. While the grab for power had small beginnings it eventually led to those who fully supported civil power in the church as well as the power of the clergy over the people. The symbol "one third" destroyed is indicating that God’s system of true religion is starting to be turned piece by piece into the false 666 system. That the mixture of hail, fire and blood was cast into the earth shows that it eventually affected all of society as represented in the symbol “earth”.
The hail or hard truths plus the doctrine of the blood of the atonement should not have been mixed with fire or judgment. That fire was mixed with it seems to show that these doctrines were being used in a threatening and judgmental manner by some in the early church, who were using them incorrectly so as to get converts that they would be able to lord it over. While this had small beginnings, this problem grew until in the middle ages anyone who was not part of the false church system was in fear of their lives. They were eventually being told that if they didn’t belong to this false church system they would be condemned to hell and eternal torment.
So while it was not immediately obvious, we see that in the first trumpet wrong attitudes eventually led to the oppressive and judgmental false church. They eventually illegally joined themselves to civil power, and they used that power to oppress and even kill others who did not agree with them. That is why the church and state is being directly punished in the first bowl, where we see the beast and the image receiving the wrath of God. The earth or society is involved in this punishment because they supported the false church as it grew in power.
Excepts for this second interpretive view were taken from the Revelation Notes Southern Wisconsin
In our next posts we will be jumping to the Sixth and Seventh Church’s, seals and trumpets as these pertain more specifically to our day. Although we are presently in the Seventh and final stage of the Church we need to examine the sixth because many of the things begun in the sixth have their fulfillment in the seventh.
