Revelation 14:15: And another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to him that sat on the cloud, Thrust in thy sickle, and reap: for the time is come for thee to reap; for the harvest of the earth is ripe.

Some scholars say that the First Harvest Angel in Revelation 14:14 cannot be Jesus Christ because, in this next verse, another angel told Christ what to do.¹ This other Second Harvest Angel, which is the fifth of seven angels in this series,² represents God the Father.³ Therefore, the Father directs Christ with a loud voice,⁴ saying: Thrust in thy sickle, and reap.⁵ Only the Father can tell Christ when the time is come for thee to reap because only the Father knows the hour of Christ's Second Coming.⁶

Thus, the Father is the symbolic fifth angel that came out of the temple in heaven where he dwells⁷ and directs Christ to reap all exaltation-worthy saints.⁸ The Father will give Christ this directive when the harvest of the earth is ripe.⁹ The word ripe in this context literally means dried in the original Greek, which symbolically indicates that the harvest has ripened and dried to the point that the reaping is overdue.¹⁰

Revelation 14:16: And he that sat on the cloud thrust in his sickle on the earth; and the earth was reaped.

After the Father directs Christ to proceed with the harvest, Christ will symbolically thrust in his sickle on the earth¹¹ and reap the first fruits of exaltation-worthy saints.¹² He gathers the first fruits to himself¹³ because: (1) He owns them and they are his,¹⁴ (2) the power of Christ's atonement quickens and resurrects the saints from their state of mortal corruption to a state of exalted incorruption,¹⁵ and (3) Christ will personally stand on mount Zion with all these 144,000 Servants that have the seal of God in their forehead.¹⁶ This gathering of exalted saints (wheat) will occur before the wicked tares are reaped like grapes that are trodden in the winepress of Revelation 14:19-20.¹⁷