The Redemption Angel

The seven angels pouring out the seven bowls of wine each have their day. Their purpose is to fulfill the prophetic meaning of the drink offerings on one of the seven days of Tabernacles. Nowhere else in Scripture are the drink offerings explained prophetically, yet John reveals them with specific details. According to my own revelation, the seven angels are named as follows:

1. Redemption Angel

2. Cleansing Angel

3. Appearing of Sons Angel (or “the Angel of the Waters”)

4. All Consuming Breath Angel

5. Overcoming Flesh Angel

6. Angel of Pure Influence

7. Angel of the Approaching Fulness of God

Revelation 16:1 identifies the seven bowls as containing “the wrath of God.” In the previous verse, Revelation 15:8 identifies these judgments as “the seven plagues,” which links the event to the divine judgment upon Egypt when God redeemed Israel from the house of bondage. The main difference is that there were ten plagues upon Egypt, but only seven on Babylon.

Today, the word “plague” means sickness or disease. But the meaning is broader in Scripture, for when the plagues hit Egypt, most of them did not involve sickness. The plague of hail, for instance, had nothing to do with disease, nor did the plague of darkness for three days. These plagues were designed to change Pharaoh’s will, so that he would set Israel free. That, too, is the purpose for the seven plagues upon Babylon.

Redemption Laws

Revelation 16:2 says,

² And the first angel went and poured out his bowl into the earth; and it became a loathsome and malignant sore upon the men who had the mark of the beast and who worshiped his image.

This “loathsome and malignant sore” is not literal. It is a spiritual disease that afflicts all who worship money—all who pursue wealth as a priority above the Kingdom of God. Such people are in bondage to the earth and to their own carnality. In the beginning, when Adam and Eve sinned, God sold them to the earth because they were unable to pay their debt to the law. We know this, because a redeemer not only obtains a slave, but also is made responsible for the debt (“curse of the law”) incurred by that slave.

God made the earth responsible for Adam’s curse in Genesis 3:17, saying, “Cursed is the ground because of you.” Then He shows in Genesis 3:19 that the earth essentially owned Adam and would ultimately claim his body when he died. Nonetheless, God also provided redemption laws by which man could be redeemed by a near kinsman (Leviticus 25:48, 49), thereby changing masters and allowing the slave to work for a master who loves him (Leviticus 25:53).

In the case of the Babylonian captivity, God sold His people to Babylon on account of their sin, and by extension their captivity lasted “seven times.” The release at the time of redemption is accomplished by the Redemption Angel at the end of the age.

The Angel of Redemption is obviously called to redeem the people of God from Babylon, according to the pattern established in the time of Moses. Deuteronomy 7:7, 8 says,

⁷ The Lord did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in numbers than any of the peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples, ⁸ but because the Lord loved you and kept the oath which He swore to your forefathers, the Lord brought you out by a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.

To redeem is to purchase property that has fallen into the hands of another, usually as a restitution payment on a debt. When Jesus died on the cross to redeem us from the house of bondage (to sin), He paid a costly redemption price. He did not steal those people that He was redeeming. It was done in a lawful manner according to the laws of redemption.

So also, when God redeems His people from Babylon, He does not intend to steal them from the Babylonians, but to redeem them lawfully. Deuteronomy 7:8 also tells us that God redeemed Israel in order to fulfill His oath, and this shows us that this was done by the New Covenant.

The redemption from Babylon was foretold in Isaiah 48:20,

²⁰ Go forth from Babylon! Flee from the Chaldeans! Declare with the sound of joyful shouting, proclaim this, send it out to the end of the earth; say, “The Lord has redeemed His servant Jacob.”

Essentially, Isaiah was prophesying of the events in Revelation 16, beginning with the first angel, the Redemption Angel.

Day 1: Psalm 105

On the first day of Tabernacles, at the time when the priest poured out the bowls of water and wine at the altar, they sang Psalm 105. This psalm rehearses the history of Israel’s redemption when God sent the various plagues upon the land of Egypt. Psalm 105:23 begins this section,

²³ Israel also came into Egypt; thus Jacob sojourned in the land of Ham… ²⁶ He sent Moses His servant, and Aaron whom He had chosen. ²⁷ They performed His wondrous acts among them, and miracles in the land of Ham. ²⁸ He sent darkness and … ²⁹ He turned their waters into blood… ³⁰ Their land swarmed with frogs… ³¹ He spoke, and there came a swarm of flies and gnats in all their territory. ³² He gave them hail for rain… ³⁶ He also struck down all the first-born in their land…

Psalm 105, then, speaks into the meaning and purpose of the first drink offering at Tabernacles. It is plain that the first purpose of the feast of Tabernacles is to bring plagues, first upon Egypt, and then upon Babylon, in order to redeem His people from the house of slavery. The reason the plagues were necessary was because “He turned their heart to hate His people” (Psalm 105:25), but in the end, after ten plagues, Psalm 105:38 says, “Egypt was glad when they departed.”

We also read in Psalm 105:37, “Then He brought them out with silver and gold,” a reference to Exodus 12:35. This was to fulfill the law in Deuteronomy 15:13, 14, 15, which speaks about freeing slaves:

¹³ And when you set him free, you shall not send him away empty-handed. ¹⁴ You shall furnish him liberally from your flock and from your threshing floor and from your wine vat; you shall give to him as the Lord your God has blessed you. ¹⁵ And you shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God redeemed you; therefore I command you this today.

Hence, in our redemption from Babylon, God will again fulfill His law by providing for the redeemed ones “liberally.” Babylon has indeed been blessed by the labor of God’s people, and for this reason Babylon is to give generously to its freed slaves “as the Lord your God has blessed you.”

Many have received this revelation of the transfer of wealth, but few understand it in terms of the laws of redemption. Even so, it does not require men’s understanding for God to fulfill His word as prophesied in His law. The fulfillment is based on the New Covenant promise, vow, or oath that God has made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and to all the prophets and apostles in later years who received similar revelation.

The earlier part of the same psalm speaks of this in Psalm 105:7-10,

⁷ He is the Lord our God. His judgments are in all the earth. ⁸ He has remembered His covenant forever, the word which He commanded to a thousand generations, ⁹ the covenant which He made with Abraham, and His oath to Isaac. ¹⁰ Then He confirmed it to Jacob for a statute, to Israel as an everlasting covenant.

The ultimate purpose of Israel’s redemption is seen in the conclusion. Psalm 105:43, 45 says,

⁴³ And He brought forth His people with joy, His chosen ones with a joyful shout… ⁴⁵ So that they might keep His statutes, and observe His laws. Praise the Lord!

According to the laws of redemption, a redeemed slave was not given the freedom to do as he willed, but became the slave of the one who redeemed him. Leviticus 25:53 says,

⁵³ Like a man hired year by year he shall be with him [his redeemer]; he shall not rule over him with severity in your sight [because the slave is a near kinsman].

For this reason, the Apostle Paul himself, who understood clearly that Christ had redeemed him from the slavery of the old Jerusalem, called himself “a bond-servant of Jesus Christ” (Romans 1:1). He refuted the idea that the grace which had saved him had also given him the freedom to sin (Romans 6:1, 2). He explained this further in Romans 6:19, saying, “For just as you presented your members [body parts] as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness [anomia], resulting in further lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification.”

What Christ has done for us on a personal level, redeeming us from bondage to lawlessness, sets the pattern for a release on a greater level—a world-wide release from the slavery of the Babylonian (“beast”) systems of man’s unrighteous government. Therefore, when Babylon is overthrown by the seven angels, and when God’s people are released from captivity on this large scale, the Kingdom of God will be established in the earth, in actual territory, and the laws of God will become the standard of righteousness and justice for all to obey. All must obey the laws of the King who has redeemed them, and they will no longer have the freedom to sin.

At the present time, many have thought that true freedom is the right to sin, but God will change their hearts. Then they will understand that when they had desired to sin, they were in bondage to lawlessness in the Babylonian system. But Christ came to redeem them from bondage to their own carnal desires and release them “as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification.”