Revelation 19:11-16

Here we are, finally!  The return of Jesus Christ to Earth!  The last time our Lord Jesus was here, He was, according to John the Baptist, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the World.”  This is no longer the image that will be seen.  He was a carpenter and has now become the One True King, who will rule all the nations in righteousness with His rod of iron.

A song written by Michael Card on his Album The Final Word [released by Sparrow in 1987] reads like this in the chorus:    And the Lamb is a Lion who’s roaring with rage // At the empty religion that’s filling their days // They’ll flee from the harm // Of the Carpenter’s strong arm // And come to know the scourging anger of the Lord.   This is what is about to happen, and we will cover this next time.  In this evening’s study, our Lord Jesus Christ is being fully introduced, and that happens in the text, so we will look at this as we go through the text.

 I broke the text down like this:

KV16:  The Arriving King

16:  And on His robe and on His thigh He has a name written, “KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.”

11-12:  The Saviour Himself

13-14:  His Entourage

15-16:  His Equipment

For many years, I have heard my Lord described as the soft and weak man who allowed Himself to be crucified because He wasn’t enough of a man.  I admit it was disheartening.  However, the counter to that kind of statement is that He did it for YOU because you could not and would not.  To such skeptics, I must warn, there is another side to my Lord than you may have considered.  This will be the consideration of our study this evening.  That said, we will look at the text.

KV16:  The Arriving King

16:  And on His robe and on His thigh He has a name written, “KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.”

Something that agnostics and atheists of all flavours conveniently forget is that our Lord Jesus will return from Heaven in the manner He ascended to Heaven.  It says, as the disciples stood looking up to Heaven after the Lord Jesus had ascended to Heaven, “And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, ¹¹ and said, ‘Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.'”  It will be in the same fashion.  But it will not be in an identical fashion.  He departed as the suffering servant of Isaiah 53.  He will return as the Conquering King here in Revelation 19.  As we will see in the text, there is quite a difference.  Let’s look at the text.

11-12:  The Saviour Himself

It seems fitting, and I think it is on purpose, it is deliberate on the part of John as he records this, that it starts with Jesus Himself.  This can only be done, in my thinking, by someone familiar with the people.  If the recorder is not familiar with the subject being described, they will typically begin with peripheral details and describe their subject from the outside, moving in.  This is the exact opposite; John was intimately familiar with the subject, and John begins with what he sees as most relevant:  I saw Him leave, and now I’m seeing Him return.  What has changed?  Let’s look at what John saw.

11:  And I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse, and He who sat on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and wages war.

• The first thing John tells us is that at the return of Christ, Heaven will be opened!  Be careful, it is not so humanity can access it, but rather so Heaven can rain down on Earth.  This will not be good for those involved in this last, immense, and decisive battle of a war that has gone on for longer than humanity’s existence.  The first thing seen?  A horse.  His horse.  Not a donkey’s colt, like He rode into Jerusalem to present Himself as the One True King the first time He was here.  This is a big, white horse.  Some have called it a warhorse, but the Greek simply says ἵππος λευκὸς, white horse.

• Then John sees the rider of the horse, and from the description that follows, John recognizes the rider right away.  It makes my heart swell with joy and excitement!  He who sat on it [the horse] is called Faithful and True!  There is only One who is faithful!  Oh, we can do what we’re told sometimes, but this Son of the Heavenly Father has ever done everything He was told to do, and done it perfectly and with a good will, without grumbling.  He is here!  There is only One who is True!  That is real, ideal, genuine!  Who is this One?  It does not tell us yet, but instead says that it is in righteousness that He judges.  The word for “judges” is a form of the word κρίνω, to separate, select, or choose, and that would include the passing of sentences.  He also wages war.  I don’t think I need to define or explain that; we have all at least seen pictures.  The only kind of war that this rider would be in is a just war.  Not as we define one, but as He defines one.
• This is an important thought.  He uses His own definition of justice because other definitions are flawed.  His definition is, well, faithful and true!  Also, it is His own definition that has been under attack all this time.  I don’t think He chose the war.  When I was much younger, my dad told me that it wasn’t going to be okay if I started trouble, but if trouble happened, I had better finish it.  I think that’s what is happening here.  He didn’t start it, but He WILL finish it, and that imminently. 
• Compare this rider, the faithful and true Son of God, with the last major plot character, the whore of Babylon.  She was nothing but fake and false, and she put herself out there to woo all of the kings of the Earth with her false power and glory.  Here comes the true power and glory, ready or not.  John isn’t finished.

12:  His eyes are a flame of fire, and on His head are many diadems; and He has a name written on Him which no one knows except Himself.

• His eyes are a flame of fire.  We have seen this before.  In Rev. 1:14, John records this:  “His head and His hair were white like white wool, like snow; and His eyes were like a flame of fire.”  In 2:18, he says, “And to the angel of the church in Thyatira write:  The Son of God, who has eyes like a flame of fire, and His feet are like burnished bronze, says this:”  As you will recall, we talked about how this indicated that His gaze pierces the deception.  In the first reference, Jesus is walking among the candlesticks, judging His churches.  In the second, He is addressing the church at Thyatira, which had nothing good said about them.  I’m sure they thought they were doing just fine in their religiosity.  They were likely fooling even themselves.  Jesus’ fiery gaze not only saw through the deception, but they also stared down any who would dare cross His almighty will.
• On His head are many diadems.  The Greek word is διαδήματα, the plural form, signified by the word πολλά for “many” in this case.  There is a decided difference from the crowns worn by the overcomers or the 24 elders, which were στεφάνους, a plural form of stephanos.  Christ’s are his by divine right as the One True King.  He also earned them by His work on the cross.  The victors’ crowns that the overcomers and 24 elders wear are symbols of the work Christ did, and nothing else.  The one that the first rider in Rev. 6 wore is nothing but what God gave him, and it had to do more with position than identification, unlike the ones the overcomers and elders wear.  Here, one commentator makes a comparison with the papal tiara compared to the very real diademata of Christ.  The papal crown is nothing but a man-made, cheap knockoff, and it doesn’t really stand for anything Christian at all, in reality.
• He has a name that no one knows but Himself.  I thought it useful to put the main manuscripts in a historical order from earliest to most recent.

Name	Approximate Date
Origen	c. 184–253 CE
Cyprian	c. 200–258 CE
Syriac	Late 2nd–4th c. CE
Codex B	c. 325–350 CE
Codex A	c. 330–360 CE
Vulgate	382–405 CE

• Here, our manuscripts themselves make a split.  The manuscripts called A, Vulgate, ORIGEN, and CYPRIAN all read as our English text does.  However, B and Syriac insert “He had names written, and a name…&c.”  The thought here, if this is not textual corruption by addition, is that these were all of His titles of dominion as well as His personal name, almost like an attribution page, and only He knows them all.  I thought that was interesting, and also that both could be the case.

There is probably a great deal more that we could say here, but that is all John said about this writer.  Oh, He knows who He is, and will prove it later by what he records, but this should be whetting our appetites for what else it will tell us about this rider on a white horse, who seems at this reading very different from the one in Revelation 6.

13-14:  His Entourage

After seeing the rider, who is likely at the front of the visible column of people, he begins to tell us about those who follow in His train, as it were (Ps. 68:18 is the reference, “led captivity captive”).  He rode into the netherworld, he opened the doors of those redeemed spirits waiting in Paradise and led them home in joy as they all followed Him to their temporary home in Heaven.  We’ll see why it is temporary in chapter 21, where it seems our permanent home is revealed to John.  There are others who are also following Him, as it were.  Let’s see the text.

13:  He is clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God.

• The first phrase we read is that He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood.  There are many ways of thinking this, and it might be an answer based in multiplicity; I do have my own thoughts about it, but I’ll share those after I talk about this, and I will try to explain why I think that.  Some suggest this is Christ’s own blood that it is dipped in, because it is ultimately the blood of the Lamb that makes this day of victory possible.  Some suggest this is the blood of the martyrs, a very clear and present symbolism in our current world, and easy to understand; He would be doing it, at least in part, because of their faithful adherence to His word, which cost them their lives.  Others think this may be the blood of Christ’s enemies, and there is some biblical support for this idea in Isaiah 63:1-6, which reads:

• This seems to be speaking of this very day and this very battle.  You will recognize terms, no doubt, like the winepress, the wrath, particularly the lifeblood sprinkled in His garments, and all of His raiment being stained.  According to Isaiah, this is Jehovah Himself speaking.
• I think it may be a mixture of sorts.  I do think that it is certainly His own blood because He was the Lamb that was slain from before the foundation of the world.  Ultimately, it is the wounds He received in the course of His redeeming of humanity that brought about this end.  He commanded His servants to follow Him regardless of consequence, and we have, up to and including our own deaths at the hands of unbelievers.  This would be motivational; He became human to redeem humans, who died following His orders.  He has something to repay in terms of vengeance for that.  As He treads that winepress of His wrath, He will do so alone, according to the passage of Isaiah we just read.  There will be blood for blood.  They shed His blood and the blood of His bride.  He will have His vengeance, and He is about to ride out and obtain it.  Hopefully, you can see what I am trying to say.
• This seems to be the part where too many “scholars” become squeamish and reject the angry God-Man.  I will once again quote the Michael Card song, “The Lamb is the Lion.”  And the Lamb is a Lion who’s roaring with rage // At the empty religion that’s filling their days // They’ll flee from the harm // Of the Carpenter’s strong arm // And come to know the scourging anger of the Lord. 
• There is a long-standing heresy called “Marcionism” that was first put forth by a fellow named Marcion, which rejected the Old Testament God of wrath.  He actually made up his own canon (called “Marcion’s canon”) of Scripture that said anything about the coming wrathful Anointed One in vengeance for sin.  A modern version of this heresy is put forth by Andy Stanley (yes, son of Charles), who attempts to, as he puts it, “unhitch the Old and New Testaments from each other.”  Beloved, to do this leaves out the reason the Gospel is the Good News.  We are being saved from the wrath of God.  Yes, God is saving us from our sins, but it is because of His wrath against them.  He is saving us from Himself by substituting Jesus’ life and death for our life and death.  He lived a perfect life, and we could not.  He paid the penalty for our sins because we could not.  As our substitute, He took OUR penalty on HIMSELF and set us free from our sins, both their penalty and power, and someday the very presence of our sins.  That’s a debt we can never repay, and it should be all the motivation we need to do whatever He requires of us in this life, as scary as that may be.  I will move on, because I think you get the picture.  I think this is important, because who would be afraid of a lamb?  We should be.  Now you know why.
• Also, here is the first time John gives Him a name, and it reveals who He is.  He says, “His name is called the Word of God.”  We have seen that before, of course, in John 1:1, which reads, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”  Is this to equate the two?  I think so, but that is because I think John the Revelator is the Apostle John and he wrote both books (Revelation and the Gospel of John) and is the Elder behind the epistles as well.  Ask John who the Word is.  He will tell you it is none other than Jesus, the Christ of God.  And this position, unique in the ways we have been looking at, and more than I could possibly count, is uniquely His.  It gains Him some followers.  Next verse.

14:  And the armies which are in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, were following Him on white horses.

• Do you see it?  Armies, plural.  More than one.  All of them are in Heaven.  Let’s see if we can reason out who these armies are.  First, there are all of His holy angels.  At the Garden of Gethsemane, the text said the Father would have given Him 12 legions of angels if He had but asked.  Although I think that may have been a little figurative metaphor, it is fun to do some math with that, so I did.  At the time of Jesus’ first visit to Earth, a Roman legion would have been 6000 men, though not all were combatants.  (I looked that up with AI, so do your own fact-checking.  I find Brave’s AI, Leo, pretty accurate with this kind of stuff, but it’s AI, and I inherently don’t trust it.  Comet’s AI confirms that’s the theoretical maximum, which we can use because it’s Heaven, so there will have been no combat losses.)  ONE angel’s capacity for killing humans is recorded for us in 2 Kings 19:35, at 185,000 men in one night.  We can assume eight hours, I guess, not that it will matter here, the days are all messed up, and the sun isn’t shining, and the moon isn’t giving its light, like that.  That would be 23,125 men per hour.  Assuming all 6000 are capable of this, one legion would be able to kill 138,750,000 in one hour.  All 12 legions would be able to kill 1,665,000,000 per hour.  In an eight-hour period, that means 12 legions of angels would kill 13,320,000,000 humans in an eight-hour period.  The current population of Earth is 8,250,998,104 people as of 15:44 on Wednesday, October 15, 2025.  If it were just angels and humans, it’s pretty easy to work out that humanity would be done for.  But there is also the dragon and all his angels (about a third of ALL angels), and uncounted numbers of demons to add to that.  I think demons are the disembodied spirits of the Nephilim who died in the flood of Noah, not fallen angels; we would more properly call those devils.
• With those kinds of numbers, it is a good thing we can add the unknown number of the redeemed and now-glorified believers to that number.  No matter your position on that harpazo event, that army will be returning with Christ at this time.  All of them are following Christ on white horses, and all of them are dressed in the clothing that is white and clean, which we said last time was like solid light as well as glimmery and shimmery.  At the point of this description, it looks like they are ready to ride, and John’s focus will shift back to the main rider.  Why?  We will see why next time, and I should tell you now that all that math I did won’t make a bit of difference, because of the One True King.  It says in 2 Thess. 2:8 that “Then that lawless one will be revealed whom the Lord will slay with the breath of His mouth and bring to an end by the appearance of His coming…”  This is not an indication of halitosis, either.  This is the raw power of our Lord Jesus, the God-Man.  I can see it in my mind’s eye; the man of sin is working up all of his rage to face the coming King.  He is ready just as the two come face to face.  A challenge is hurled across the short distance by the Antichrist, who begins to move to strike.  The King exhales on him, and it is over.  The Antichrist is down on the ground begging to be spared.  All of the hosts of the accuser see it and turn to flee, but cannot.  They find themselves unable to move and are immediately sent to the bottomless pit.  The Antichrist and his False Prophet are taken together and cast alive into the lake of fire.  It is over.  We’ll see that maybe next time.  But it is starting here.  The time has come at last.  And you know what?  The only weapon we see in all of this text about the King of the armies of heaven is the one that is metaphorically proceeding out of His mouth.  This is indicative to me that the enemy’s rebellion will be put down with words.  His words.  The words directly spoken by the King of kings and the Lord of Lords, our Lord Jesus Christ.

These armies follow Him.  Let me be absolutely clear:  He does not need them.  Our King could ride out alone and still win with a breath from His mouth.  We are there because He desires, for some reason, our participation in some way.  What are the reasons that are the case?  Your guess is as good as mine, but I bet it has something to do with His getting more glory from bringing His Bride along.  I should mention, too, that the only visible weapon here belongs to Him.  It describes it.

15-16:  His Equipment

Let’s just jump right into the text.

15:  From His mouth comes a sharp sword, so that with it He may strike down the nations, and He will rule them with a rod of iron; and He treads the wine press of the fierce wrath of God, the Almighty.

• Here is the description of the only weapon we see in the entire passage, which is clearly metaphorical.  “Out of His mouth comes a sharp sword.”  I did an internet search for images of this, and I only found one, although I am aware of others from medieval times.  Here is what I found.

• Remember, I said this was metaphorical language, because it does exist, and must here.  Either that, or there is some really uncomfortable dining going on.  The metaphor here is that the words that come out of the King’s mouth will be sharp as he speaks to the unbelieving nations, and so harsh that each nation in turn will be struck down by what He will say, as seen in the next phrase.  Our Lord spoke the world into existence.  Destruction will be called for in the same way, I suspect, as in 2 Thess. 2:8, with the Antichrist being destroyed by the breath of His mouth.  He spoke the world into existence, and can speak it out of existence.  Isaiah 11:4 says, “But with righteousness He will judge the poor, And decide with fairness for the afflicted of the earth; And He will strike the earth with the rod of His mouth, And with the breath of His lips He will slay the wicked.”
• The word for “sword” here is the Greek word ῥομφαία.  This is not the short sword of the Roman soldier, but is the four- to five-foot long sword of the officer.  It is heavier and it does more damage.  This is the sword that would have been carried by the soldiers guarding the cross.  All of this is to say that Christ’s judgments will be sharp as a sword.    
• He will rule them with a rod of iron.  The rod is a shepherd’s implement for guiding the sheep.  There are some things of note about this, however.  The rod can be a guide to point the way to obedient sheep, but that is not who we are dealing with here; they are riding with Christ.  It can also nudge the reluctant sheep, and there may be some of those, so I won’t say it isn’t for that.  However, its common use is the disciplining of unwilling animals.  I have more experience with cows than sheep, but I can remember a stubborn cow that was leading some of the younger cows on a bit of a jailbreak from the pasture.  The others were following her lead, and I think she knew it.  My dad’s uncle Gord had a piece of pipe in his hand to use as such a guiding rod to herd them back to the pasture when the cow charged at him.  He deftly stepped to one side and swung with real force at the nose of the cow.  He bent that pipe right around her nose.  She shook her head and kept going, but that’s an example of the use of a rod from my experience.  That’s going to be the main use of this rod of iron, as opposed to aluminum like Uncle Gord had.
• The text says that He will “rule” them with this rod.  The phrase means “to tend as a shepherd, but in the punitive sense.”  He, who in the age of the church would have pastorally led the figurative sheep (people) with the pointing and nudging of the rod, will now dash them to pieces with the rod of iron as the unrepentant and treacherous rebels they have proved themselves to be by their actions over the last seven years.  And make no mistake, it is HE who will do it, and no other.  “HE will rule…”  This is in the emphatic form, and leaves NO room for alternative interpretations of who this is.  Hey Andy:  unhitch that.  This is not a sceptre, as some have poetically suggested, which would be some metaphor for His power.  It may be metaphorical, but  His power will be very real.  This is no mere sceptre.  This is an actual club to destroy the wicked.
• He treads the wine press of the fierce wrath of God.  If you will recall Isa. 63:3, which we saw earlier, it says, “I have trodden the wine trough alone, And from the peoples there was no man with Me.  I also trod them in My anger And trampled them in My wrath; And their lifeblood is sprinkled on My garments, And I stained all My raiment.”  Here, the wine press itself is a metaphor for the execution of the wrath of God put into action.  Origen translates that “fierce wrath” as “boiling indignation.”  If you have never seen one, a wine press is a large vat where the winemaker uses his own feet to crush the grapes in the making of his vintage wine.  Biblically, it is used to symbolize judgment.  Examples of this are Isaiah 63:3-6, which we have already read, or Lamentations 1:15, which reads,
• “The Lord has rejected all my strong men In my midst; He has called an appointed time against me To crush my young men; The Lord has trodden as in a wine press The virgin daughter of Judah.”  Jeremiah dictated these verses to his scribe Baruch on the occasion of the captivity of Judah into Babylon.  Another example is Joel 3:12-13, which reads “Let the nations be aroused And come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat, For there I will sit to judge All the surrounding nations.  Put in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe.  Come, tread, for the wine press is full; The vats overflow, for their wickedness is great.”  Interestingly, Joel may have been speaking of these very events we now study.
• God, the Almighty.  This indicates that Jesus, our Saviour, who has now become the avenging Son of God, is also God.  The fierceness of His wrath against His enemies will be performed with the resources of His omnipotence.  He has all power, He knows how to use it, and He WILL do so in His boiling indignation at the willful sin humanity has displayed across all history.  The only way of Escape is to turn to Christ ahead of His return here.  I stand with Ezekiel.  In chapter 18 of his prophetic book, in verses 31-32, he says, “Cast away from you all your transgressions which you have committed and make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! For why will you die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone who dies, declares the Lord GOD. Therefore, repent and live.”  This is not a fairy tale from a mythical book, friends.  This is a prophesied, therefore promised, set of coming events. 
• You, as a sinner, one who has, for your entire lifetime, violated God’s standards and laws, should be concerned about what all of this earns for you.  Paul gives us that answer in Romans 3:23, when he says, “…for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God…”  In the very next verses, Paul also gives us a solution to that problem we all have.  Verses 24-26 read, “…being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed; for the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.”  Who are you leaning on to deliver you from the coming wrath of Jesus Christ?  Clearly, “myself” is the wrong answer, as we can see by how Christ Himself will deal with sinners in our net study.  The answer needs to be “Christ.”  Put your faith, or your trust, or your reliance on Jesus, and no one or nothing else.  Confess your sinful nature and status to Him!  Make Him your Lord.  Do it out loud.  He will save you if you do.  That is my hope for anyone who hears this message.  Why?  Next verse.

16:  And on His robe and on His thigh He has a name written, “KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.”

• This God is going to end our earthly history on a day of His choosing.  He doesn’t tell us what day or hour that is, and He doesn’t need to.  He has given us all the advanced notice required for any who will turn to Him in this life and follow Him may need.  We already know not all will turn, because not all have turned, but that doesn’t invalidate our responsibility to repent and believe Him.  Don’t wait, because He is willing that you turn to Him right up until that day, and we do not know when that may be; we may die at any time, or He may return to extract His faithful followers at any time.  Either way, we will stand before Him.  Personally, I think it is better to turn to Him for His forgiveness of my sins before I meet Him.  You can do as you choose.  I hope I will one day get to meet you on the other side of these events in eternity.
• In case you did not realize who is riding that great white horse yet, here He is in all of His power and glory.  He is Βασιλεὺς βασιλέων καὶ κύριος κυρίων.  He is King of all kinging and Lord of all lording.  He is our One True King.  All others are His vassals, both small and great.  He is the only One who can claim this title, though another has tried (we’ve read about him).  Someday, our gentle Saviour will show all of Himself to the universe, and every eye shall behold Him.  What a day that will be!  Some will be taken by the joy of it all.  Others will rightfully quake in their boots with a dread certainty that their time is up.  Some, who thought they were among the ranks of the first group, will find out that they were not, another cautionary tale.  Make Him your Lord, not just call yourself by His name.  Let Him adopt you, don’t be a petulant runaway that fools only himself or herself.  Our King and Lord is coming.  Maranatha.  Amen.

Beloved, I have sought to be as faithful as I know how to be in the interpretations I have given in this study, as in all of our previous studies.  I know not all will agree with me completely, and I haven’t asked for that.  What I have asked for is that you listen with an open mind and yield to the possibility that Jesus is coming again, and this is the manner in which He will return.  That’s what I saw in the text.

Next study, we will look at verses 17-21, the very last battle of the war that began before human history did.  We will see some resolution in that text to events that began in Revelation 6, and the rest we will see when we parse chapters 20-22.  I’m looking forward to studying those texts.

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