Revelation 14:15Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

The great voice of this angel signifies, in a figurative way, the prayer of all the heavenly powers. They desire to see the glorification of the righteous and the cutting off of the iniquities of sinners.

Through this, everything movable and swiftly passing is rejected, and what is firm and eternal will be revealed. "The grass of the earth is dried up" indicates that the final time has come.

Then the seed of piety, ripened like wheat that has borne fruit for the husbandman thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold, will be counted worthy of the heavenly granaries.

"The harvest is plentiful," it is written in the Gospels, "but the laborers are few" (Mt 9:37). In the Gospels, however, the harvest points to the gathering of the faithful.

Here it points to the end of all men. At that end, whatever in them was withered, unripe, and worthy of fire is handed over to the fire.

From the Lord's explanation it is clear to us that the angels are the future reapers, and that the end of the world is depicted by the appearance of a ripened harvest.

As we know, after harvest there remains straw from dry and brittle ears, while wheat is made from the grains. Accordingly, when he says that the sickle must be used to gather the ripened harvest, the lot merited by the righteous and the impious is plainly signified.

And to what can this correspond more than to the Church? During the last trial, after the completion of the spiritual battle with the beast, the Church, illumined by great light, will be able to know firmly whom she should count as her own and whom as a stranger.

Here sitting in the heavens signifies that she, having received judicial authority according to the will of God, separates the righteous from sinners: "You also will sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel" (Mt 19:28).

The harvest is the end of the world. The Savior Himself often portrayed the end of the world under the image of a harvest (cf. Mt 13:39). The harvest has ripened: the time of judgment upon men has come.

When the apostle looked toward heaven, he saw the Son of God sitting on a cloud, with a golden crown and a sickle in His hand. Then the angels announced to Him that the harvest was ready and the grape harvest had ripened.

Then the One sitting on the cloud cast His sickle on the earth, and the earth was reaped (14:16). According to the interpretation of St. Andrew, "the seed of piety, ripened like wheat that brought forth fruit for the farmer thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold, will be counted worthy of the heavenly granaries."

At the same time, the angel cast his sickle on the earth, gathered the clusters of the vine, and threw them into the great winepress of the wrath of God (14:19).