And sware by him that liveth for ever and ever
That is, by the living God, who is the true God: and is so
described to distinguish him from idol gods, who have no life nor
breath in them; and to assert the excellency and perfection of
his nature, who has life in himself originally, and
independently, is the fountain of life to all creatures living,
and who are supported in their life and being by him; and so he
always was, is, and ever will be; this is the same as swearing by
Ancuialus F16:
who created heaven, and the things that therein
are;
the airy, starry, and third heavens, and the inhabitants of them,
the fowls of the air, the sun, moon, and stars, and the angels of
heaven, as well as the souls of departed saints, and the bodies
of as many as are there:
and the earth, and the things that therein are;
men, beasts, and creeping things, trees, herbs, minerals
and the sea, and the things which are therein:
the several sorts of fishes in it: this is also said to
distinguish the great God from all false gods, who made not the
heavens and the earth, who alone is, and ought to be the object
of an oath, or by whom an oath is to be made, and not any
creature whatsoever; and since the Angel that here swears is the
Lord Jesus Christ, this may be understood of him either as man,
swearing by God the Father, in which respect the Father is
greater than he; or as a divine person, and so swears by himself,
( Hebrews
6:13 ) ; for to himself do these characters belong of living
for ever and ever, and of having made the heaven, earth, and sea,
and all in them: the thing he swears to is,
that there should be time no longer
which is not to be understood of the cessation of time, and the
swallowing of it up in eternity, at the end of all things, when
it will be no more measured out by the revolutions of the sun and
moon, which will then be no more; for this did not take place
upon the angel's oath, or at the time this vision refers to; for
after this, there is to be time for the seventh angel to sound
his trumpet in, though perhaps that is excepted in the next
verse; and after the sounding of that, there will be the space of
a thousand years, in which Christ will reign with his people on
earth; and after that there will be some space of time for the
Gog and Magog army to attack the beloved city; all which will be
before the end of all things, or before eternity, properly
speaking, takes place; and besides, such an illustrious appearing
of Christ as before described, and so solemn an oath as is here
made, do not seem necessary to ascertain a truth which nobody
doubts of; and everyone knows that after this world, and all
things in it are at an end, time will be no more. The true key to
this passage is ( Daniel 12:7 ) ; where
the man clothed in linen swears, that to the end of wonders
should be a time, times, and a half, and here the angel swears
that time should be no longer; that is, that these time, and
times, and half a time, should be no longer; that these dates
would be up, and the events affixed to them be accomplished, when
the seventh angel should begin to sound his trumpet: the same
divisions of time are made in ( Revelation
12:14 ) ; and are the same exactly with the 1260 days, or
years, and the forty two months of years, so often mentioned in
this book: for a time is a prophetic year, that is, 360 years;
and times are two prophetic years, or 70 years; and half a time
is half a prophetic year, or 180 years, in all 1260 years: now
add the several events to be accomplished in this period of time,
and it will give the full sense of this passage thus; the angel
swears that the thee of antichrist's reign, his tyranny over the
saints, his persecution of them, which was to last forty two
months, ( Revelation
13:5 ) , should be no longer; nor of the holy city being
trodden under foot by the Gentiles, the Papists, which bears the
same date, ( Revelation
11:2 ) , and is called the times of the Gentiles, ( Luke 21:24 ) ; nor of
the witnesses prophesying in sackcloth, which has just the same
measure of duration, ( Revelation
11:3 ) ; nor of the church's retirement, and being hid in the
wilderness, ( Revelation
12:14 ) ; in short, the time of the four monarchies, and of
the last of them, the Roman, and of the last branch of that, the
Papal, should be no more than till the sounding of the seventh
trumpet, when the kingdoms of this world shall become the
kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; ( Revelation
11:15 ) ; the words will bear to be rendered, as some have
observed, "that there should be delay no longer"; that is, of the
coming and kingdom of Christ; though the bridegroom has tarried,
he will come, and will not tarry beyond the time the angel swears
to; every seal of the sealed book is a delay of, and a stop upon,
the open appearance of Christ's kingdom; and the opening of every
seal is an advance to it; and when the sixth seal was opened, and
Paganism destroyed, and Christianity spread throughout the
empire, the kingdom of Christ might have been expected to have
appeared; but there was a seventh seal to be opened, which was a
stop upon it, and which when opened brought ruin and destruction
upon the Christian empire, both western and eastern, under the
first six trumpets; and till the seventh sounds there will be a
delay of Christ's kingdom, but when that sounds there will be no
more a delay.