A second vision follows:--
And after these things I saw, and the temple of the tabernacle of
the testimony in heaven was opened; and there came out from the
temple the seven angels that had the seven plagues, clothed with a
precious stone pure and lustrous, and girt about their breasts
with golden girdles. And one of the four living creatures gave
unto the seven angels seven golden bowls full of the wrath of God,
who liveth for ever and ever. And the temple was filled with smoke
from the glory of God, and from His power: and none was able to
enter into the temple, till the seven plagues of the seven angels
should be finished (xv. 5-8).
The _temple_ spoken of is, as upon every occasion when the word is used,
the shrine or innermost sanctuary, the Holy of holies, the peculiar
dwelling-place of the Most High; so that the seven angels with the seven
last plagues come from God's immediate presence. But this sanctuary is
now beheld in a different light from that in which it was seen in chap.
xi. 19. There it contained the ark of God's covenant, the symbol of His
grace. Here the eye is directed to the _testimony_, to the two tables of
the law which were kept in the ark, and were God's witness both to the
holiness of His character and the justice of His government. The giving
of the law then was in the Seer's mind, and that fact will explain the
allusions to the Old Testament found in his words. The description of
the seven angels, as _clothed with a precious stone pure and lustrous_
(not with "fine linen" as in the Authorised Version) may be explained,
when we attend to the second characteristic of their appearance, _girt
about their breasts with golden girdles_. These words take us back to
the vision of the Son of man in chap. i., where the same expression
occurs, and where we have already seen that it points to the priests of
Israel, when engaged in the active service of the sanctuary. The angels
now spoken of are thus priestly after the fashion of the Lord Himself,
who is not merely the Priest but also the High Priest of His people. The
high priest, however, wore a jewelled breastplate; and in correspondence
with the nobler functions of the New Testament priesthood, these jewels
are now extended to the whole clothing of the angels spoken of. A
similar figure for the clothing of the glorified Church meets us in the
prophecies of Isaiah: "I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall
be joyful in my God; for He hath clothed me with the garments of
salvation, He hath covered me with the robe of righteousness; as a
bridegroom decketh himself (the margin of the Revised Version calling
attention to the fact that the meaning of the original is "decketh
himself as a priest") with a garland, and as a bride adorneth herself
with her jewels;"[419] while the same figure, though applied to Tyre, is
employed by Ezekiel: "Every precious stone was thy covering."[420] The