Commentators on the Second Woe

William R. Newell (1868-1952), Commentary on Romans and Revelation

The two hundred million horsemen whose number John heard are not human beings at all. It is so belittling to Scripture to treat it as if its words were not definite. It blinds the mind to the whole force of the coming chapters of Revelation, to accept such foolish notions as those of the historicists (that is, those who apply these chapters to what has already taken place during Church history) bring forth here. John plainly declares, I saw the horses in the vision, and them that sat on them, having breastplates as of fire and of hyacinth and of brimstone: and the heads of the horses are as the heads of lions; and out of their mouths proceedeth fire and smoke and brimstone. By these three plagues was the third part of men killed, by the fire and the smoke and the brimstone, which proceedeth out of their mouths. Here God goes into descriptive detail. Believe, and you scarcely need any comment. Every one knows what fire and smoke and brimstone are. The only trouble is to believe that God would (of course He could) turn loose such horrific agents against men on earth. To doubt that this is fire and smoke and brimstone in chapter 9, is to proceed to doubt whether the lake of fire is literal fire burning with brimstone. Doubt as to this has already spread through Christendom. Yet it must be literal-there is no possible escape if we believe the Bible true at all!...

Now in Revelation 9:1-21 these hellish horsemen, which are literal and which are certainly coming, belch forth on this earth fire and smoke and brimstone; “which proceeded out of their mouths.” It is idle to talk about this being “a figure of false doctrine”! When God desires to tell of certain “spirits of demons going forth to deceive the earth” for Armageddon, He is able to describe them perfectly in Revelation 16:13-14. And when God speaks of fire and smoke and brimstone, He means what He says.

[The final, inescapable demonstration of this is in Matthew 13:1-58 in our Lord’s interpretation of the parable of the tares (verses 36-43). In this interpretation He gives the meaning of the figures of the parable, The good seed- sons of the kingdom; tares-sons of the evil one; the enemy-the Devil; the harvest-the end of the age; the reapers-angels. Now read Matthew 13:41: “The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that cause stumbling, and them that do iniquity, and shall, cast them into the furnace of fire; there shall be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth.” You can’t say the furnace of fire is a figure here, without falsifying our Lord’s words, for He is telling what the figures of the parable mean. And you must also traduce your own intellectual processes, for you imagine an imagination (because you are terrified at the truth) but you have no basis for your imagination. You cannot reach it by logic, for logic leads you to the truth-of eternal literal fire in Matthew 13:1-58, Therefore when you claim you do not believe in literal fire but in something “more awful,” you are giving heed to your deceitful heart, to those subtle lies fostered there by the Devil. Whoever really heard of or described anything more awful than God’s visiting men with fire and brimstone?]