the most basic exegetical arguments in favor of recapitulationism will be highlighted here. The clearest statement of consummative judgment and salvation is 11:14–18, where the eternal kingdom of God and Christ, as well as the final judgment of the impious and salvation of the faithful, is said to have been completely accomplished (v 18). The burden of proof rests on those who argue otherwise. Especially mystifying is the assertion by some that the seventh trumpet has no content and that therefore chs. 12–16ff. form its content. The consummative language of this text has a unique parallel with the final judgment scene in 20:11–15; cf. “the time for the dead to be judged and to give their reward to … the small and the great” (11:18) with 20:12–13. A summary description of the final judgment appears quite sufficient to compose the content of the seventh trumpet. The reason for the brevity may merely lie in the observation that the same end period has just been narrated in 11:7–13. That the witnesses (= the church) “have finished their testimony” (11:7a) likely connotes the end of the church age, leading immediately to the final denouement. This is supported by the fact that directly after this “the beast that comes up out of the abyss will make war with them … and kill them” (11:7b), and when the same phrase is used in 17:8a, it refers to the time of the beast’s final destruction: “The beast … is about to come up out of the abyss and to go to destruction.” 11:13 then is likely a figurative expression of the “earthdwellers’ ” destiny and reaction to the resurrection of the saints and implicitly to the beast’s destruction. 11:18 would further clarify this as the beginning of the last judgment.
G. K. Beale, The book of Revelation: a commentary on the Greek text, New International Greek Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI; Carlisle, Cumbria: W.B. Eerdmans; Paternoster Press, 1999), 122–123.