Revelation 10
v.1
Then I saw another mighty angel coming down from heaven. He was robed in a cloud, with a rainbow above his head; his face was like the sun, and his legs were like fiery pillars.
Therefore, the angel is the divine Angel of the Lord, as in the OT, who is to be identified with Yahweh or with Christ Himself.
v.9
So I went to the angel and asked him to give me the little scroll. He said to me, “Take it and eat it. It will turn your stomach sour, but in your mouth it will be as sweet as honey.”
The eating of the scroll indicates the prophet’s complete identification with its message (cf. Ezek. 3:10). The effect of “eating” or identifying with the book is that it is sweet because it contains God’s own life-giving words (Deut. 8:3; Pss. 19:10; 119:103; Prov. 16:21-24; 24:13-14), in which the prophet will briefly delight. The bitterness comes from the scroll’s purpose, which is to announce judgement and its effect in terms of the rebellious response of the people.
v.10
I took the little scroll from the angel’s hand and ate it. It tasted as sweet as honey in my mouth, but when I had eaten it, my stomach turned sour.
The sweetness of the scroll likely includes reference to God’s redemptive grace in the gospel to those believing, and its bitterness to the fact that this grace must experienced in the crucible of suffering (cf. 2 Cor. 2:15-16)… The reality of the non-repentant response to his message by others in the church and the world is a “bitter” or mournful thing for John to contemplate, as it was for the OT prophets and for Jesus Himself (Luke 19:41).
v.11
Then I was told, “You must prophesy again about many peoples, nations, languages and kings.”
The verb “prophesy” does not refer just to predicting future events but also to providing God’s revealed perspective on what is happening in the present. Note how John exhorts his readers to “hear” and “keep” the words of prophecy in this book (1:3; 22:7, 9). The prophetic message of Revelation is designed not only for the future, but also for the present—for those who are currently hearing and reading its message and who are constantly being called to put it into practice in their lives now. 🔥 This understanding of prophecy is consistent with the OT idea, which emphasizes a revealed interpretation of the present together with the future (forth-telling as well as foretelling), demanding ethical response from those addressed, who are primarily God’s people. Therefore, John’s prophesying is of the church but also against compromisers within the visible new Israel, who are from all “peoples and nations and tongues and tribes,” and who ally themselves with the world from which they have purportedly been redeemed. Just as Ezekiel directed his message against old Israel, so John also directs his partly against unrepentant, compromising elements of the visible church, new Israel.