Revelation 14:12-16

12This calls for patient endurance on the part of the saints
who obey God's commandments and remain faithful to Jesus.
13Then I heard a voice from heaven say, "Write: Blessed are
the dead who die in the Lord from now on."
"Yes," says the Spirit, "they will rest from their labor, for
their deeds will follow them."
The Harvest of the Earth
14I looked, and there before me was a white cloud, and
seated on the cloud was one "like a son of man"with a crown
of gold on his head and a sharp sickle in his hand. 15Then
another angel came out of the temple and called in a loud
voice to him who was sitting on the cloud, "Take your sickle
and reap, because the time to reap has come, for the harvest of
the earth is ripe." 16So he who was seated on the cloud swung
his sickle over the earth, and the earth was harvested.



14:12-13 - The patient endurance, hope and confidence on the part of
the saints is in the justice and governance that God exercises over the
earth. His judgment is a certainty that can be counted on. The saints can
be confident that we do not need to fear or fret evildoers because they will
wither like grass and the righteous will eventually inherit the earth (Ps. 37).
James told the readers of his letter the same idea, that they should be
patient because the Lord is the judge and he was standing at the door ready
to judge (James 5:7-9). This hope and perseverance is tied together with
obeying God’s commandments and remaining faithful to Jesus. There is
no provision in the New Testament for a lawless Christian or a Christian
not devoted to the content of the "faith that was once for all entrusted to the
saints" (Jude 3). Christians will face opposition and persecution, but
faithful obedience is a requirement of the patient endurance of the saints.
As an encouragement, John writes the next words of the voice from
heaven, which says, blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now
on . Before Christ, God’s people resided in Paradise or Abraham’s Bosom
(Luke 16:22). With the work of Christ, though, heaven has been opened.
Abraham’s Bosom was unlocked and its inhabitants freed (1 Pet. 3:19;
4:6). Although Christ promised the thief next to Him on the Cross that he
would be with Him in Paradise on that very day (Luke 23:43), he is no
longer there and wasn’t there for very long. Christ has ascended on high
and led the captives in his train (Eph. 4:8). Even though those in Paradise
were God’s children, they could not be in God’s holy presence until their
sins had been paid for once-and-for-all by the death of Christ on the Cross.
The early Christians understood that death had been conquered by the
Resurrection of Christ. The early church father, Athanasius wrote: "All the
disciples of Christ despise death; . . Instead of fearing it [they] trample on
it as something dead. Before the divine sojourn of the Savior even the
holiest of men were afraid of death. . . But now that the Savior has raised
His body, death is no longer terrible, but all those who believe in Christ
tread it underfoot as nothing, and prefer to die rather than to deny their faith
in Christ, knowing full well that when they die they do not perish, but live
indeed, and become incorruptible through the resurrection."

14:14-16 - These verses serve as the centerpiece of the section from verses
6-20. Three angels have already been making proclamations to the land of Israel
(v. 6-13). Three more are about to come to perform symbolic actions over
the land (v. 15, 17-20), and in the middle is a white cloud, and seated on
the cloud was one like a son of man with a crown of gold on his head.
This is the now familiar glory cloud with which Christ was clothed in 10:1.
Now it is white and not dark as it was on Sinai (Ex. 19:16-18; Zeph.
1:14-15). In referring to the cloud and the son of man, John is clearly
connecting this passage to Daniel 7:13-14, his prophecy of the coming of
the Messiah which follows his vision of the Beasts with seven heads and
ten horns.

John’s point is that the Beasts can do their worst, but the son of
man has already ascended in the clouds and received his eternal dominion
over all peoples and nations. This is not a vision of some future event but
of Christ’s original ascension in the clouds. The son of man also had a
sharp sickle and began to reap, because the time to reap has come. The
fourth angel repeats what the first angel had said, namely that the time had
come. His emphasis, though, is on blessing, the gathering of the elect, not
on judgment. The son of man swung his sickle over the earth, and the
earth was harvested. This is connected with Jesus’ words that he would
send out His angels, His apostolic messengers, to gather in the elect (Matt.
24:30-31). As Christ had said, "the harvest is plentiful but the workers are
few" (Luke 10:2). The image of the sickle is connected with the Pentecost,
which was celebrated after the grain had been harvested (Deut. 16:9).