This part of the vision sets forth the final victory over all the powers of this world which is eventually to be attained by the supreme power of “The Word of God”, the ever conquering Christ, who is here described by this transcendental name for our Lord which is a distinctive title with the Apostle John.(535) Beginning with a view of the triumphant Word going forth to conquer as under the first seal (ch. 6:2), Christ appears in the opened heaven riding on a white horse; he is called “Faithful and True”, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war. His eyes are a flame of fire, the type of purity and judgment; upon his head are many diadems, the crowns of conquered nations; he hath a name written which no man knoweth but himself,—evidently the “new name” of chapter three (v. 12) which John cannot interpret; and he is arrayed in a garment sprinkled with blood, the token of his redemptive work. The armies of heaven, which apparently include the redeemed, such as have already entered there, follow him on white horses,(536) clothed in fine linen white and pure; out of his mouth proceedeth a sharp sword that with it he should smite the nations,(537) for he shall rule them then with a rod of iron; and he treadeth the winepress of the wine of the fierceness of the wrath of God, the Almighty, thereby bringing punishment upon the evil. His divine right is clearly seen, for he hath on his garment and on his thigh (i. e. both on the garment and on the thigh, or else on the garment covering the thigh), a name written, “KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS”. And the Beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, are gathered together to make war against him that sat upon the horse and against his army, i. e. against Christ and his kingdom to attempt to overcome them. Thus with sublime imagery the vision leads up and on to the close of the great battle with the world‐forces, which was briefly described before in chapter sixteen as occurring at Har‐Magedon; the war is the same, the battle between the sinful world and the hosts of God which is ever going on through the ages to final victory in the end. Now, by a further view, the Beast, and the False Prophet (or Second Beast) who misguides the people in spiritual things, are seen to be taken, and they twain are cast alive into the lake of fire, while all their followers are slain with the sword of him that sat upon the horse, even the sword which came forth out of his mouth (v. 15); and all the birds that fly in mid‐heaven are called by an angel standing in the sun to feed upon their flesh, as in Ezekiel’s prophecy of the Judgment of Gog (ch. 39:17‐22), a judgment exceedingly repulsive to the Hebrew mind. The lake of fire is only a more fully developed form of the Jewish conception of Gehenna as a furnace of fire (Mat. 13:42, and 50). The symbolism here used may have been suggested to John’s mind by the appearance of a sea or lake during the eruption of a volcano, a view not unfamiliar to those resident in Asia.(538) This lake in the Revelation is the place of final punishment of the wicked, and is clearly distinguished from the pit of the abyss, the abode of Satan during the present world‐ period. Thus is signified the triumphant overthrow of the World‐Power and of the World‐Religion as manifested in history. These together with the World‐City are now broken and destroyed, while only the World‐Lord, or Satan, remains to carry on the conflict, and the way is thereby prepared for the great millennial victory.