“For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?”
My Notes
What Does Revelation 6:17 Mean?
The sixth seal has been opened, and the response of earth's inhabitants — from kings to slaves — is universal terror. "The great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?" It's a rhetorical question, and the implied answer is: no one.
This question echoes Old Testament passages like Malachi 3:2 ("who shall stand when he appeareth?") and Joel 2:11 ("who can endure it?"). The Day of the Lord has arrived, and every human distinction — wealth, power, status — is irrelevant. Kings and bondmen hide together. The social hierarchy that defined their world collapses in an instant.
The question "who shall be able to stand?" sets up what follows in Revelation 7, where the answer is given: those who are sealed by God. The 144,000 and the great multitude in white robes can stand because they belong to the Lamb. The question is real; the answer is grace.
Reflection Questions
- 1.If you imagine standing before God with nothing but yourself, what do you feel — and what does that reveal?
- 2.How does the image of kings and slaves hiding together challenge the importance we place on status and achievement?
- 3.Does this verse frighten you or reassure you — and which response does it seem designed to produce?
- 4.How does knowing the answer (grace, Revelation 7) change how you receive the question?
Devotional
"Who shall be able to stand?" When everything is stripped away — every title, every achievement, every social position — who can face God's reality without collapsing?
Revelation's answer, delivered in the very next chapter, is: the ones who belong to the Lamb. Not the strong. Not the prepared. Not the deserving. The ones who are covered by His blood.
But before that answer comes, let the question sit for a moment. Because it's the most honest question a human being can ask. Before a holy God, on the day when all pretense is burned away, what do you have to stand on? Your accomplishments? They're not enough. Your goodness? It's not sufficient. Your religious performance? It doesn't hold.
The kings hid. The generals hid. The rich, the strong, the free — all of them hid. Because when God's unfiltered reality arrives, there's nothing in human achievement that can withstand it.
The question is terrifying. And the answer — grace, only grace, always grace — is the most beautiful word in any language. You can stand. Not because of who you are, but because of whose you are.
Commentary
Trusted original commentary from respected historical Bible scholars and theologians.
For the great day of his wrath is come,.... The Vulgate Latin and Syriac versions read, "of their wrath"; both of him…
And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal - See the notes at Rev 5:1; Rev 6:1. And, lo, there was a great…
For the great day of his wrath - The decisive and manifest time in which he will execute judgment on the oppressors of…
In the remaining part of this chapter we have the opening of the fifth and the sixth seals.
I. The fifth seal. Here is…
for the great day of his wrath is come So the world has thought in every great social convulsion, since they have learnt…
Cross References
Related passages throughout Scripture