“And there came one of the seven angels having the seven vials, and talked with me”.
John was in Patmos nearly eighteen hundred years ago. Why are we informed that he was visited by one of the angels of the vial? Why was he not visited by one of the angels of the trumpets? Because the subject of this chapter is “the judgment of the Great Harlot;” and this judgment belongs to the vials. And which of the seven angels was he visited by? By the Seventh; because, “the judgment of the Great Harlot” is the grand catastrophe of the seventh vial (ch. 16:19) and therefore the seventh only of all the seven could show the judgment to John. If it had been decreed to be executed under the outpouring of the fourth angel’s vial, the fourth angel would have visited the apostle; but being the specialty of the seventh, the seventh angel must be the interlocutor and actor in the scene.
Being, then, in company with John, he said to him “Come along!” The English Version translates deuro, come hither! This would be very well if John had not already informed us that the angel had come to him. Had the angel remained stationary at a distance, and called out deuro! come hither, would have been correct. But, it was John who was stationary, so the angel came to him, and invited him to accompany him, and he would show him the judgment of the Great Harlot.
John was stationary. The seals, and trumpet, and vial, periods, as so many succeeding and passing scenes, had all to revolve until the sixth vial-period of the seventh seal and last trumpet, came before him. He would then be visited by the Sixth Angel, and feel his power in being “caused to exist incorruptible,” for the dead are immortalized in the sixth vial-period. The judgment of the Great Harlot could not be shown to him by the sixth angel. He will have to wait until visited by the seventh angel. Then, being a living apostle, and one of those to whom it is given to execute the judgment written against the Great Harlot in the seventh vial-period, when that period arrives, he will go along with the Lamb, that is, with the Omnipotent and Omniscient Spirit, and not only see the judgment, but take part in it, and rejoice over her catastrophe and fall (ch. 18:6,20). This is the import of the words, “/ will show thee the judgment of the Great Harlot”.
What John saw in Patmos, he saw “in Spirit”. In his day, the Great Harlot to be judged under the seventh vial, had not been developed. Hence, he saw her “sitting upon the many waters” only in prophetic vision. In this sense, he was “in spirit”, as he will be, in the highest sense, when he is incorruptible and immortal; and as a constituent of the seventh angel, rejoices over the Harlot-Mother and all her adulterous progeny, whom he contributes to destroy.