Lightning is what philosophy terms electricity in luminous excitation. Scripturally, it is the “free Spirit of the Deity.” Thunder is the- sound produced by the electrical condensation of the constituents of the aerial. The free oxygen and hydrogen floating in the air are electrically combined, and thereby caused to occupy less space than before, and so giving out lightning, and forming a vacuum, into which the surrounding air rushes, causing a loud report, or thunder. Hence, it is an appropriate symbol for that operation by which the temporary constituents of the political aerial (and the things which are seen there are temporary) are condensed into one dominion under the glorious luminary of the New Heavens. Jesus named the sons of Zebedee “the Sons of Thunder." These were James, and his brotner John, to whom this vision of thunder was revealed. The agents in this throne-scene are all sons of thunder. They are the Spirit-incarnations condensing all things into one kingdom with the thundering tumult of war in ch. 10:3, symbolized by “the Seven Thunders," whose utterances are “sealed up" till the storm-period which precedes “the day of rain" when the bow appears.
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