Revelation 6:14Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

We suppose that here the apostle followed the ancient custom. Among the Hebrews, instead of our books, there were scrolls. When they were unrolled, they were not destroyed, but disclosed the meaning of what was written. In the same way, the manifestation of the heavenly being indicates the revelation of blessings to the saints.

Having considered this from four sides, let us turn, by God's good pleasure, in the same order to what follows. When the apostles asked the Lord about the destruction of the Jerusalem temple and the end of the world, He foretold the future to them as far as they could receive it. According to the testimony of Josephus Flavius, this has already been fulfilled upon the Jews, the murderers of Christ, during the devastation under Vespasian and Titus.

Yet all this, as has been said, will befall the world with special force at the coming of the Antichrist. Then those who preside over ecclesiastical order or secular authorities, represented here under the images of mountains, and the churches of the faithful, figuratively called islands, renewed toward God according to Isaiah, will flee from their places because of the false Christ. They will change one place for another. We ourselves have experienced and endured this by His love for mankind, because of our sins, before His coming.

The attempt to shield oneself with perishable matter from the two-edged spiritual sword can only be called madness. Yet the events described here are the direct consequence of mankind's ineradicable desire to place their souls in vanishing corruption.

The expression, “from the wrath of the Lamb,” is remarkable. Who fears the wrath of the meek Lamb? His seven horns strike no one. If it had said, “from the fury of the Lion of Judah,” that would understandably be terrifying. But it says, “from the wrath of the Lamb.” Thus meekness and truth become a dreadful punishment for the unrepentant. Their unrepented deeds go before them, burning as wood, hay, and straw (cf. 1 Cor 3:12) beneath the meek gaze of Christ. This wrath is terrible. The sinner fears and flees, though no one pursues him. Torments of soul are far more terrible than bodily torments. This is the worm that never sleeps.

Therefore, “seek the Lord... perhaps you may be hidden on the day of the Lord's wrath” (Zeph 2:3), before “the cruel day of the Lord” comes, “with wrath and burning anger,” when “the heavens will be shaken and the earth will be moved from its place at the fury of the Lord of Sabaoth, in the day of His burning wrath” (Isa 13:9-13).

It would indeed be inevitable if the incomprehensible providence of God and His equally incomprehensible mercy did not save His elect. “My soul has long sojourned” (Ps 119:6), finding no sure refuge either outside itself or within itself. “I am stuck fast in deep mire, and there is no standing,” that is, no right and firm disposition of soul, unshaken in virtue. “I have come into the depths of the sea, and the storm has overwhelmed me. I am weary with crying; my throat is grown hoarse; my eyes fail while I hope in my God” (Ps 68:3-4). “For the enemy has persecuted my soul; he has humbled my life to the ground; he has made me dwell in darkness” (Ps 142:3). “I am poured out like water, and all my bones are scattered; my strength is dried up like a potsherd” (Ps 21:15-16). “The pains of death surrounded me, and the torrents of lawlessness troubled me. The pains of Hades encompassed me; the snares of death came upon me” (Ps 17:5-6). “My spirit within me has grown faint; my heart within me is troubled” (Ps 142:4).

Death entered the world through sin (Rom 5:12), and quickly embraced, infected, and incurably damaged the world. The destruction of the world became a necessity. Its destruction is the natural consequence of its mortal sickness. The earth will burn on the last day of this old and aged world. The heavenly luminaries will fall from their places, like fruits from a fig tree shaken down by the wind. Heaven itself will be rolled up like a garment and vanish (2 Pet 3:10). The small features of the earth's original state, preserved for us by the book of Genesis, show what immense, sorrowful, and incomprehensible change came upon the earth after man's fall.