Introduction
Throughout Scripture, trumpets are consistently associated with decisive acts of God rather than with human speech or authority. They mark moments when God reveals His presence, issues warnings, executes judgment, or brings His redemptive plan to a critical turning point. Nowhere are trumpets presented as the identity of a messenger or as a symbol for a human leader proclaiming hidden revelation. Instead, they function as divine signals that announce what God Himself is about to do.
This article examines the biblical role of trumpets, with particular attention to their use in Revelation, to demonstrate that they operate as commands and announcements from heaven, not as human proclamations on earth. By tracing their function across the Old Testament and into the New Testament, and by observing how Revelation depicts angels sounding trumpets in direct response to God’s will, this section will show that trumpets belong to the realm of divine action. Interpreting them as human announcements not only ignores their consistent biblical usage, but also shifts authority away from God and onto man, fundamentally altering the meaning and purpose of the text.
The Trumpets
Shincheonji believes that the trumpets are a declaration of the judgement of events that have already happened. The seals were already broken, and the Tabernacle Temple was already being destroyed by the destroyers, and that they were raising awareness about the reality of the Tabernacle Temple.
The Physical Fulfillment of Revelation – page 20
Thus, the term “revelation” is used because Jesus opens the sealed words, fulfills them, and shows their physical fulfillment. Revelation is called “the revelation of Jesus Christ” because Jesus is the one who opens and fulfills the content of God’s sealed book.
Then for the fulfillment of the Trumpets
The Physical Fulfillment of Revelation – page 173
The first six of the seven trumpets announce the plagues (Rv 8-9) suffered by the chosen people as they are driven out among the gentiles as a result of God’s wrath.
We can see that the trumpets declare and make awareness of the reality of the fulfillment.
Doctrinal Issues
The Shincheonji (SCJ) claim that the trumpets in Revelation declare an already existing judgment (specifically, the fall and betrayal of the Tabernacle Temple in the 1970s) creates several serious doctrinal issues because it requires the reader to overturn the explicit cause-and-effect relationship demonstrated throughout the Book of Revelation.
The fundamental conflict is that the Biblical Trumpet = Command/Catalyst for Future Judgment, while the SCJ Trumpet = Report of Past History.
The Doctrinal Issue of Cause and Effect
The primary flaw in the SCJ interpretation is reversing the order of the event and the announcement.
Revelation’s Order (The Logical Sequence)
In Revelation 8, the sequence is unequivocally that the signal precedes the event:
- Preparation (Rev 8:6): Seven angels prepare to blow their trumpets.
- Signal (Rev 8:7a): The angel blew his trumpet.
- Execution (Rev 8:7b): “…and there came hail and fire mixed with blood…”
- Result (Rev 8:7c): “…and a third of the earth was burned up…”
The trumpet is the command that sets God’s judgment in motion, acting as the catalyst for the supernatural plague. If the trumpet were merely declaring an event that already happened (like a past betrayal), the text would need to say, “The first angel blew his trumpet, proclaiming the hail and fire that had already burned a third of the earth.” The text does not say this; it uses language of immediate emergence (“there came,” “was thrown,” “a star fell”).
SCJ’s Error: Substituting Fulfillment for Command
SCJ forces the trumpet to be a declaration of a secret fulfillment that occurred decades ago in Korea, making the Bible a history book about a single church organization rather than a prophecy about the end of the world. This is a fatal theological error because it eliminates the function of the trumpet as a divine warning that precedes a punishment intended to drive the unrepentant world toward God (Rev 9:20-21).
The Self-Evident Message: Why Trumpets Need No Human Messenger
The Shincheonji (SCJ) claim that the trumpets are “messengers proclaiming revelation” is doctrinally flawed because the judgments described in Revelation 8 and 9 are designed by God to be public, cosmic, and unmistakable demonstrations of power that require no human intermediary to declare their fulfillment. The event is the declaration.
In Revelation, the trumpet functions as a divine command that immediately initiates action, not as a report or explanation of something that has already occurred. The grammar of the text consistently presents a clear cause-and-effect sequence. In Revelation 8, the pattern is unmistakable: an angel blows the trumpet, and judgment follows at once. “The first angel blew his trumpet, and there came hail and fire mixed with blood” (Revelation 8:7). The event does not wait for interpretation, explanation, or testimony. The trumpet itself is the trigger. This structure leaves no room for a human messenger whose role is to announce fulfillment after the fact, because the fulfillment happens as a direct result of the trumpet being sounded.
This immediacy preserves the theological integrity of divine judgment. God’s decisive acts are not hidden realities that require later clarification by a human authority. They are public demonstrations of power that authenticate themselves through execution. If the event had already taken place, the trumpet would serve no purpose. If the trumpet initiates the event, then the authority rests entirely with heaven and with the angel who carries out God’s command. In that case, introducing a human messenger to “explain” or “declare” the judgment is not only unnecessary, but theologically incoherent. The trumpet proves divine authority by action, not by interpretation, and its function renders any human intermediary redundant.
The Earth as the Target of Unreserved Wrath
Then, we can also see that the earth, which the judgements are being applied to, are never against God’s people, or people who “betrayed”. These people never belonged to God to begin with.
The Protection of God’s People Precedes Judgment
Before the trumpet judgments begin, God takes deliberate action to distinguish and protect His people from those who will experience the coming plagues.
In Revelation 7:2–4, an angel is commanded not to harm the earth, the sea, or the trees until the servants of God are sealed on their foreheads:
“Do not harm the earth or the sea or the trees, until we have sealed the servants of our God on their foreheads.”
The sealing of the 144,000 serves as a divine mark of protection that precedes judgment. It illustrates God’s foreknowledge and mercy, showing that His wrath is never indiscriminate. Instead, He makes a clear distinction between those who belong to Him and those who do not. The sealed are identified as God’s faithful servants, preserved through the tribulation, while the unsealed inhabitants of the earth face the plagues that follow. This act underscores God’s sovereignty and His intentional care for His people even amid impending judgment.
The Trumpets Target the Unsealed and Unrepentant
The judgments announced by the trumpets are explicitly targeted at those who lack the protective seal of God—the inhabitants of the earth who remain outside His covenant protection.
In Revelation 9:4, during the sounding of the fifth trumpet, the demonic locusts are given a specific restriction:
“They were told not to harm the grass of the earth or any plant or tree, but only those people who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads.”
This command makes the distinction unmistakable. The judgment is directed solely toward the unsealed population. It is both deliberate and precise—God’s wrath does not fall indiscriminately. If His own people, or those who had merely “betrayed,” were included among the victims, then the sealing of Revelation 7 would serve no purpose. The instruction given to the locusts confirms that those suffering the plagues are those who never belonged to God or who have been definitively rejected because they are unsealed.
Later, in Revelation 9:20–21, following the devastation of the sixth trumpet, John describes the survivors of these judgments:
“The rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands… nor did they repent of their murders or their sorceries or their sexual immorality or their thefts.”
This passage reinforces the same conclusion. The recipients of the trumpet judgments are characterized by their stubborn refusal to repent. Their ongoing idolatry, violence, and immorality mark them as part of the rebellious world that stands in opposition to God. Such descriptions cannot refer to God’s people—even those who have struggled or stumbled—because repentance and transformation are essential marks of those who belong to Him. The trumpet judgments, therefore, are aimed not at believers but at the unrepentant world, distinguishing clearly between the sealed and the unsealed.
The “earth” in Revelation consistently represents the realm opposed to God—the domain where rebellion and allegiance to the beast prevail. The inhabitants of the earth are not neutral figures but are defined by their loyalty to God’s enemy, demonstrating that they never truly belonged to Him.
In Revelation 13:8, this distinction is made explicit:
“All who dwell on the earth will worship him, everyone whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb that was slain.”
Here, “those who dwell on the earth” refers to the collective of humanity that gives allegiance to the beast. Their defining trait is that their names are not written in the Book of Life. This establishes a clear theological boundary between the redeemed and the condemned. The text presents belonging to God not as a temporary status that can be lost through betrayal, but as something rooted in the eternal decree of redemption—names written “before the foundation of the world.”
Thus, the “earth” symbolizes the unredeemed world under the beast’s dominion. Those who suffer under the trumpet and bowl judgments are not God’s sealed people but the inhabitants of this fallen domain. Their worship of the beast confirms their identity as those outside of God’s covenant, emphasizing that the divide in Revelation is ultimate and eternal, not circumstantial or temporary.