Revelation 10:1: “I saw still another mighty messenger coming down from heaven, clothed with a cloud. And a rainbow was on his head, his face was like the sun, and his feet like pillars of fire.”
This mighty messenger comes down from heaven. Being “clothed with a cloud,” “and his feet like pillars of fire,” connects him to the Lord as described in Exodus 13:21. Our Lord led His people by a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. In Psalm 18:11, God makes “the clouds of the sky His booth (Hebrew – sukkah – סֻכָּה) around Him.” In Psalm 97:2, clouds surround God. In Exodus 24:18, “the sight of the glory of the Lord was like a consuming fire.” In Revelation 1:16, the feet of Jesus appear “like polished bronze refined in a furnace of fire.”
“A rainbow was on His head” connects him to the One who sits on the throne in Revelation 4:3 with “a rainbow around the throne.” In Ezekiel 1:26–28, the Lord gave to Ezekiel a vision of heaven in which he sees on a throne the likeness of a man whose appearance is as fire with a rainbow about it. The heavenly one’s “appearance was the likeness of the glory of God.”
The mighty messenger’s face shines like the sun. In Matthew 17:2, when Jesus was transformed in appearance before James, John and Peter, His face shone like the sun. In Revelation 1:16, the countenance of Jesus “was like the sun shining in its strength.”
This mighty messenger (or angel in Greek) is either Christ or the angelic messenger named Michael. Michael (מִיכָאֵל) means “who is like God.” Hebrews 1:3 speaks of Jesus being the brightness of God’s glory and the express image of God’s person. In John 1:14, Jesus is the Word who became flesh and dwelt among us with the glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. Jesus embodied God in human flesh.
In Jude 1:9, Michael is called a ruling messenger or archangel. When he contended with the devil, he did not bring a reviling accusation against the devil, but said, “The Lord rebuke you.”
In Daniel 10:5-6, God gives Daniel a vision of One whose facial appearance is as lightning. He is clothed with gold about His waist. His eyes are like torches of fire. His arms and feet are like burnished bronze. This description matches that of Jesus in Revelation 1:13-16.
In Daniel 10:13-14, the heavenly messenger who speaks to Daniel said that he received help from a chief prince named Michael. He tells Daniel, “I have come to make you understand what will happen to your people in the latter days.”
In John 1:18, Jesus is called the “exegete” (Greek text), that is, the One who declares or explains God.
In Revelation 1:1, the entire book is called, “The Revelation of Jesus Christ.” Jesus Christ is the One who reveals the things that are to come to God’s servants.
In Daniel 12:1, it is written that Michael will stand up for God’s people during the earth’s last days of tribulation.
In Revelation 12:7-9, “Michael and his angels” fight against Satan, and cast him down from heaven to earth.
In the Gospels, Jesus casts demons out, but also gives this authority to His disciples.
The distinction between Jesus and Michael is so thin, it is difficult to know for certain at times if they are one and the same, or if Michael, the ruling messenger, is just that much like Jesus.
What we have here is a mystery. In Revelation 10:7, the Lord says, “In the days of the sounding of the seventh angel, when he is about to sound, the mystery of God would be finished, as He declared to His servants the prophets.” The reason some sayings in the Scripture are mysterious to us is because the truth about them has not yet been fully revealed to us.
In Mark 4:11, Jesus said to His disciples, “To you it has been given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God; but to those who are outside, all things come in parables.” Until Jesus revealed truth of various Scriptures to the disciples, they could not clearly understand them. Human reason and intellect is insufficient to understand the mysteries of God.
In 1 Corinthians 1:9, “It is written: ‘Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.”
In Daniel 10:11, the heavenly messenger said to Daniel, “O Daniel, man greatly beloved, understand the words that I speak to you...”
In John 21:20, the Scripture refers to the Apostle John as “the disciple whom Jesus loved.”
Scripture indicates that God reveals His mysteries to those He loves. God’s loved ones also love Him. The first and great commandment is to love God with all one’s being.
In 1 Corinthians 2:11-12, God reveals His mysteries to us by His Spirit. “No one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.”
In Romans 16:25, Paul indicates that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is a revelation of a mystery that was kept secret since the world began.
In Ephesians 1:8-10, Paul gives glory to God for making wisdom and prudence abound to those who are in Christ. He helps us to “know the mystery of His will which He purposed in Himself.” “That in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth.”
In Ephesians 3:5-6, Paul gives glory to God for revealing to him the mystery of Gentiles and Jews becoming fellow heirs, of the same body. This was something new to the Jews.
In Ephesians 3:7, Paul marvels that though he is the least of all the saints, God gave to him the gift of grace to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ.
In Ephesians 3:9-10, He wrote, “To make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God... now... made known by the Church.”
In Ephesians 3:14-19, Paul speaks of bowing His knee to the Father, and praying that He would grant to his listeners ability to comprehend the depths of God’s love which surpasses knowledge, that they might be filled with the fullness of God.
This is the desire of all, who like the apostles Paul and John, serve Jesus Christ. We want Jesus to clearly reveal to us the mysteries of God so that we might understand them and explain them clearly and rightly to our listeners.
In Revelation 10:1, John saw a mighty messenger. In my next article, my plan is to study the Scripture and ask the Lord to reveal to me the meaning of the mysteries he brings to light in Revelation 10:2-11.
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