Philologos
Bible Prophecy Research
Title: First Voice
Submitted by: research-bpr@philologos.org
Date: November 28, 1997
URL: http://philologos.org/bpr/files/f004.htm
First Voice
"After this I looked, and, behold, a door was opened in heaven: and the first voice which I heard was as it were of a trumpet talking with me; which said, Come up thither, and I will show thee things which must be hereafter" -- Revelation 4:1
"...this voice is not called the first voice with respect to any other voices that were to follow; but it designs the former voice, the voice that John heard behind him, when he saw the first vision; and this, as that, was clear, loud, and sonorous as a trumpet, so that he thoroughly heard, and rightly understood what was said; it was the same Person that made the following representation of things as did then, even he who is the Alpha and the Omega, the Lord Jesus Christ, the author of the whole revelation; the 'first' is left out in the Arabic version: the allusion is to the blowing of trumpets at the opening of the door of the temple; every day there were one and twenty soundings of a trumpet in the temple, three, 'at the opening of the door,' and nine at the daily morning sacrifice, and nine at the daily evening sacrifice.
"And one of them was called the great door of the temple; and he that slew the daily sacrifice, did not slay till he heard the sound of that door when it was opened; so here at the opening of the door in heaven, in the church, of which the temple was a type, the voice of the Son of God is heard as the sound of a trumpet, talking loudly and familiarly to John..."
(The New John Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible)