---
title: Revelation 14:15
url: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/revelation-14-15/
markdown: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/revelation-14-15.md
type: verse
perspective: Protestant (historic Nicene) response to Jehovah's Witness teaching
reference: Revelation 14:15
testament: NT
section: Prophecy
index: https://jw-apologetics.app/llms.txt
---

# Revelation 14:15

## Text (Berean Standard Bible)

> Then another angel came out of the temple, crying out in a loud voice to the One seated on the cloud, “Swing Your sickle and reap, because the time has come to harvest; for the crop of the earth is ripe.”

## NWT Wording of the Key Phrase

- NWT (2013 revision): "Another angel emerged from the temple sanctuary, calling with a loud voice"

## JW Usage

Watchtower commentary takes the "temple sanctuary" of Revelation 14:15 as a heavenly reality from which the angel emerges to announce the harvest at Armageddon. The temple imagery is understood as God's heavenly seat of authority; the harvest is the gathering of the wicked for destruction. The verse fits within the Watchtower's overall Armageddon eschatology.

## Protestant Usage

Note where this temple sanctuary is. The Greek word is naos — and in Revelation, naos is consistently the heavenly inner sanctuary. Revelation 14:17 has another angel emerging from "the temple sanctuary that is in heaven"; Revelation 15:5 describes "the sanctuary of the tent of the witness" being opened "in heaven." The relevance to JW theology: Revelation 7:15 says the great crowd "renders sacred service day and night in his temple [naos]." If naos is the heavenly inner sanctuary in every other Revelation occurrence, the great crowd of 7:15 is also in heaven — not on a paradise earth looking up. The two-class system breaks against the consistent use of naos throughout the book.

## Arguments Using This Verse

- [I Heard / I Saw — Revelation's Literary Key](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/heard-saw-pattern.md) — Revelation 5:5–6 / Revelation 7:4–9 [Eschatology]