Making Sense of the Book of Revelation 1573127949, 9781573127943

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Regent’s Study Guides General Editor: Paul S. Fiddes

Making Sense of the Book of Revelation

© 2009 Published by Regent’s Park College, Oxford OX1 2LB, UK in association with Smyth & Helwys Publishing, 6316 Peake Road, Macon, GA 31210, USA All rights reserved. Making Sense of the Book of Revelation Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Laurie Guy general editor, Paul S. Fiddes. p. cm. — (Regent’s study guides) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-57312-794-3 1. Bible. N.T. Revelation—Commentaries. I. Fiddes, Paul S. II. Title. BS2825.53.G89 2009 228’.07—dc22 2009032892 Cover image: Alpha and Omega, ©Anneke Kaai (2003). From In a Word: See What You Believe, p. 16 (Piquant Editions, www.piquanteditions.com). Reproduced by kind permission.

Regent’s Study Guides

Making Sense of the Book of Revelation Laurie Guy

Regent’s Park College, Oxford with Smyth & Helwys Publishing, Inc. Macon, Georgia

Dedication Dedicated to my very special wife and daughters: Shona, Sharon, Heather, Melody, and Julie The angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb. . . . On either side of the river is the tree of life . . . and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. . . . There will be no more night; they need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever. (Revelation 22:1-5)

Contents 1. Introduction: Approaching the Book. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 2. The Social Context of Revelation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 3. The Type of Literature of the Book of Revelation . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 4. Setting the Scene: Revelation 1. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 5. Overview of the Letters to the Seven Churches: Revelation 2–3. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 6. The Message to Each of the Seven Churches: Revelation 2–3. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 7. From Earth to Heaven: Revelation 4–5. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 8. Wrath from Above. The Opening of the Seven Seals: Revelation 6:1–8:5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 9. Ruin Repeated. The Blowing of the Trumpets: Revelation 8:6–11:19. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97 10. The Defeat of the Dragon and the Emergence of the Two Beasts: Revelation 12–13. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 11. Life from the Lamb or Wrath from the Bowls: Revelation 14–16. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127 12. The Overthrow of ‘Babylon’: Revelation 17:1–19:10 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137 13. The End of Evil: Revelation 19:11–20:15 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151 14. A New Heaven, a New Earth, and the New Jerusalem: Revelation 21–22 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169 15. Epilogue: The Enduring Value of the Book of Revelation . . . . . . 179

1 Introduction: Approaching the Book How powerfully the Book of Revelation stirs the emotions—fascinating, repelling, mystifying, inspiring. It fascinates with its intriguing use of animals, colours, and numbers. It repels with its destructiveness: hailstones crushing people, people so tortured that they long for death, rivers of blood many feet deep. It mystifies. How are ten horns arranged on seven heads? How can all the stars be in the sky in 8:12, when they have apparently already fallen to the earth in 6:13? Who or what is ‘666’? And Revelation inspires: in the end evil is finally overthrown, nations are healed, and God lives among his people. The complexity of Revelation makes it a minefield for the unwary. Competing hucksters cry out for us to buy their interpretation. Some claim it is a road map for future events; others that it is a cry for justice for the oppressed; yet others that it is to empower Christians going through tough times. What are we to make of it all? Bizarre interpretations are amongst the competing voices. For example, a twisted reading of the Book of Revelation helped fuel the crazed belief system of the Branch Davidians prior to their mass suicide in a fiery inferno at Waco, Texas, in 1993. The prevalence of misguided interpretations led to G. K. Chesterton’s comment: ‘Though St John the Evangelist saw many strange monsters in his vision, he saw no creature so wild as one of his own commentators.’1 However, although Revelation has been abused by wild interpretation, this same book has been a profound inspiration for composers and artists—consider Handel’s Messiah, Holman Hunt’s Christ the Light of the World knocking at the heart-door of humanity, and Dürer’s woodcarving, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. 1. A book to inspire and to refresh The book’s fascination for artists is a clue to interpretation. We tend to assume that Scripture is always written to inform, to express rational, propositional, left-brain logic. Perhaps that is not the case here. Perhaps

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Revelation is right-brain—the work of an artist—written more to inspire than to inform. I live close to a magnificent estuary and nature reserve. Again and again I spend time in that place. I do not go there to learn anything ‘new.’ I go rather to be refreshed. This parallels my usage of Revelation. I go again and again to its pages—to be refreshed.2 As I was about to begin the first draft of this chapter, I was taken again to the biblical book—through a song of my friend, Maurice Watene. He once played in a nation-famous rock band, the Herbs. Later he spiralled down to alcohol addiction and unemployment. For the last few years, however, he has been on the road up, raised through the transformative presence of Christ. I heard him at church singing one of his original compositions in ‘black soul’ style: river of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and the Lamb, and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations (Revelation 22:1-2). I learnt nothing new from that simple song, but it left me with a taste of heaven that was still with me as I began to write. This inspirational dimension is particularly marked because Christ is at the centre of this book. However, if you ask the average evangelical Christian what the Book of Revelation is all about, they may well say, ‘the end times.’ And they will be hooked on a line of interpretation which may claim to be more up-to-date even than tomorrow’s newspaper.3 When I wrote the first draft of this book, I checked out this populist interpretation on the Internet. It was at the time of both the 2003 war in Iraq and the influenza virus SARS, which was threatening to kill people in the thousands. I made a Google search for ‘“The Book of Revelation” + Iraq.’ 13,400 web addresses showed up on the topic. The first one showed how the Iraqi war was prophesied in the Bible and how George (Bush) was going to slay the dragon. Somehow all the past and potential threats to America—Islamic nations, Russia, and China—were embedded in code in the Book of Revelation. Thus Libya (where apparently the original George slew the original dragon) was called Put in the Bible (which sounded like the current Russian leader Putin). The dragon was also China, out of whose mouth (Revelation 16:13-14) the demonic SARS virus was currently spewing. If it was comedy, it would be funny. But there is so much of this material today that is deadly serious. This sort of interpretation is so bizarre, so misguided, yet so prevalent. And whether people realize it or not, these sorts of interpretations are often racist, fuelling fear, hatred, and war. By the time this book is read, few will remember SARS, and the 2003 war in Iraq will be a distant memory.

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Readers will puzzle about how past interpreters could have put that interpretation on the biblical material. It will be particularly puzzling for many who have now moved on to a later fad of interpretation, relating to some further scary international development. When will people learn? Do we have to be gullible forever? These sorts of interpretations have been popping up again and again for hundreds of years. In one century, the Antichrist/beast was the Islamic armies in medieval Jerusalem, in another it was the threatening Turkish armies punching up towards Vienna, and for Luther it was the Roman papacy. 2. Erroneous interpretations in the past century The twentieth century saw many interpretations of the type thrown up by my Google search. As a boy in the 1950s, I read a booklet titled The Coming Great Northern Confederation. It was hot off the press in August 1939, immediately after the world was stunned to find that traditional enemies Germany and Russia had signed a non-aggression pact. Stitching together verses from various parts of the Bible, the booklet ‘proved’ that the current developments were all prophesied in the Bible. Somehow one nation was the biblical Gog, another Magog, yet another Tubal, and so on. The author went on to assert that after the signing of the pact, Russia and Germany would invade Palestine and the final battle of Armageddon would occur. It was all plausible to a ten-year-old boy in the 1950s— except that he already had the historical knowledge to know that it had not turned out like that at all. It was a salutary lesson to be cautious with this type of interpretation. Most have not learnt. When six European nations came together to form what is now the European Community, many were sure that this was the precursor to an expanded ten-nation reconstruction of the Roman Empire, which was the beast (Revelation 17:7, 9, 12). Now that the European Union has expanded to more than twenty members, this interpretation has somehow quietly been forgotten. So have the interpretations that made communism the beast and even Henry Kissinger the Antichrist. Nevertheless, people’s deep fears make them dupes for the most up-todate versions of this spurious and failed method. One of the most popular interpretations of all was Hal Lindsey’s Late Great Planet Earth. Published in 1972, this book, along with subsequent books on similar themes, had combined worldwide sales of more than 35 million copies by 1994.4 This is big business! Embodying many of the

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above interpretations, Lindsey also significantly focused on Jesus’ reference to the fig tree putting forth its leaves (Mark 13:28-30). Originally the text simply meant that just as summer will certainly follow spring (the time of putting forth leaves), so the ‘coming of the Son of Man’ would be near when certain phenomena occurred. In Lindsey’s hands, however, the fig tree became a code reference to Israel. The putting forth of leaves became code language for the birth of Israel as a modern state in 1948. This interpretation asserted that there would then be only one generation of about thirty years prior to the end of this world, with the final big bang occurring around 1978 (just a handful of years away when the book first hit the market). 1978 has come and gone and Lindsey has now been sufficiently nimble-footed to claim subsequently that ‘one generation’ can be up to one hundred years. As Lindsey will not be around in 2048, he will not have to be nimble-footed a second time if he is wrong again. When, however, will we learn that the approach itself is misguided? This is not to discount the idea that the Book of Revelation does embody material about ‘end times.’ There is a lot in Revelation about heaven, the return of Christ, the last judgment, and the final overthrow of evil, indicating that the book is indeed concerned with ‘end times.’ But at issue is the understanding of those ‘end times.’ There are two ways in which the Lindsey-type interpretation goes wrong. First, it assumes that the Book of Revelation is a code to be cracked. Linked with this is the idea that each symbol in Revelation has a one-to-one correspondence with some event or person today. So the beast may be Kissinger, Gog may be Germany, and so on. However, Revelation 11:8 itself discredits any thorough-going interpretation based on one-toone correspondence. In Revelation 11:8, the bodies of the two witnesses lie in ‘the street of the great city that is prophetically called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified.’ One would expect a corpse to be in one particular location. Here, however, four locations are mentioned for the two bodies: Rome (the great and evil city of the Roman Empire), Sodom (a byword for evil), Egypt (the old oppressor), and Jerusalem (where Jesus was murdered). Rather than trying to identify in which place the killing of the two witnesses occurred, it makes much more sense to recognize that John has gathered together images from the past that resonate with his audience to show the terrible evil nature of the two witnesses’ murder. John’s language is largely the language of poetry and symbol, not the language of literalism and code.

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The second error of the Lindsey-type approach is to assume that material such as that in the Book of Revelation provides a detailed description of the future. A century and a half ago, Patrick Fairbairn wrote a detailed study of biblical prophecy to show that it was not intended as a blueprint for the future. Rather, it revealed just enough of the future to be a spur to godly behaviour in the present.5 First Corinthians 15 is a classic example of this. It provides a magnificent image of the return of Christ and the resurrection of the body. But for what purpose? ‘Therefore my beloved, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, because you know that in the Lord your labour is not in vain’ (1 Cor 15:58). In relation to the Book of Revelation, this would suggest that this magnificent work of art is not a sharp, detailed depiction of the future. It is rather the broad-brush vision of a divinely inspired artist seeking to move the heart, mind, and behaviour of his audience. In a broad sense, the Book of Revelation is an ‘end times’ book. But that is not its sole, and maybe not even its main, focus. More than anything, the Book of Revelation is a book about Christ and about fidelity to him. Such an assertion is, however, a contested point. Prior to coming to finality on these sorts of issues, it is helpful to consider several major approaches to the reading of Revelation. 3. Three major approaches to reading Revelation Scholars and popularizers have approached Revelation from many angles over the centuries. A key issue has been whether the book offers detailed, future-focused prophecy or whether its portrayal is more broad-brush in nature. Linked with this is the question of whether the book primarily provides a message for the ‘last days,’ or whether its message applies much more to all ages. Historically there have been three main stances on this issue. There is a ‘futurist’ stance which views Revelation largely in terms of specific future-focused prophecy. Secondly, there is a ‘preterist’ stance which views Revelation essentially as a message for its original audience. Thirdly, there is a ‘symbolic’ stance which views Revelation more as a timeless message, applicable to all ages. While the three positions are not always exclusive and may be able to be combined to some extent, it is helpful to explore them in their distinctiveness.

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(a) Futurist approaches The futurist option does not deny that Revelation has a connection with its first-century context. Basically, however, this stance understands Revelation as being a prophetic unfolding of the future. It is history written beforehand. While futurist proponents acknowledge that the material of chapters 1–3 may relate to the time of the writer, the material of chapters 4–22 is viewed as a beforehand description of the ‘end times.’ Futurist understandings of Revelation are rooted in early Christianity. For example, Justin Martyr claimed in the second century that John had prophesied that ‘those who believed in our Christ would dwell a thousand years in Jerusalem; and that thereafter the general and . . . eternal resurrection and eternal judgment of all men would likewise take place.’6 In most recent times, this classical futurist understanding has been common within fundamentalism. However, within fundamentalism, a ‘dispensational’ variant of futurism has also emerged. Because of the huge influence of the dispensational version of futurism, I want to take some space to explain it more fully. Dispensationalism is a way of reading Scripture that has been around for less than two hundred years. It was particularly expounded by the early English Brethren leader, J. N. Darby. Subsequently, it was popularized in America by C. I. Scofield through his Scofield Bible. Scofield’s interpretive notes have so strongly shaped the thinking of millions of Christians that they often assume without question that his viewpoint is the only possible way to read the Bible. Two key features of this dispensational approach are a literal reading of Scripture and a sharp distinction between Israel and the Christian church, each of which belongs to a different ‘dispensation’ or arrangement in God’s plan for history. This approach argues that a literal reading of the Scripture requires Old Testament promises to Israel to be literally fulfilled. Much has not yet been fulfilled, but all will be fulfilled. This means that the establishment of the church consequent on Christ’s coming cannot be understood as a ‘spiritual’ fulfilment of the Old Testament promises to Israel. What is promised to Israel must be fulfilled by literal Israel. A key promise in the Old Testament is the promise of a never-ending kingdom. According to dispensationalists, Jesus offered this kingdom afresh to the Jews, but they rejected it. As a consequence, Jesus inaugurated the church. This is not, however, a fulfilment of the Old Testament promises. For one thing, it is argued, the church’s future is in heaven

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whereas Israel’s future is on a renewed earth. While God’s present dispensation centres on the church, this will end when the church is caught up to God in a ‘rapture’ from earth (this understanding of a rapture as distinct from the second coming of Christ is another strand of this dispensational approach which had no articulation in the Christian church prior to about 1830). Once Christians are removed in a rapture, there will be a new dispensation—that of Israel. Along with this will come a seven-year period of great trouble and suffering (the ‘tribulation’). Christ will then return to usher in a one-thousand-year golden age on earth (the millennium) before the ultimate end with its final judgments and rewards. This dispensational premillennialism, which lies at the theological base of relatively recent futurist popularizers such as Hal Lindsey and Tim LaHaye, is very open to biblical and theological challenge. Several general factors call for reflection: In the first place, pre-tribulation rapture teaching did not originate through careful study of Scripture but rather through a claimed visionary revelation from a woman linked with the sect led by Edward Irving. Then again, Scofield himself had no formal theological training. Finally, no biblical scholar of stature espouses this approach. Two interpretive issues also require reflection. The first matter is that New Testament teaching in relation to the end focuses much more on the return of Christ than on a ‘rapture.’ While the latter concept is also present, it is simply one strand of the end of the age. This rapture is one aspect of the return of Christ, not a separate stage prior to that return. The second concern is that the main passages that speak of a transporting of believers to heaven (a ‘rapture’) speak of it in the context of already occurring suffering, contradicting the notion of a pre-tribulation rapture (e.g., Mark 13:21-27; Matt 24:29-44; 2 Thess 2:1-12). It is not the task of this book to provide a full critique of premillennial dispensationalism. However, it is important to note its major beliefs and assumptions because of how they shape the way huge numbers of Christians read Revelation today. A major criticism of futurism, whether in its dispensational or classical expressions, is that it causes most of Revelation to have little significance until centuries after the book was written. Most futurists tend to see Revelation 4–22 as coming into major significance (through fulfilment) only in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. In contrast, however, John’s authorial perspective was that he was dealing with events of his own lifetime, and not events of some long-distant future. He was

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describing events that were coming ‘soon’ (1:1; 22:20), writing for a time that was ‘near’ (1:3; 22:10). John’s original audience would likely have been astonished to be told that most of the material that they received related not to their own time but to some future time, many centuries away—and I think that John would have felt that same astonishment. The issue of timing is a complex matter in Revelation as it involves the motif of delay as well as imminence.7 Delay is particularly marked in 6:9-11 where the cry, ‘how long,’ is met with the response that further delay will occur. Some of the scenes of judgment also involve repeated delay. At points when the narrative seems to indicate that now is the time for it all to end, further delay occurs, often to give sinners time to repent. Thus there is to be ‘no more delay’ in 10:6, but there is to be further delay for a symbolic period of forty-two months in 11:3. The themes of imminence and delay therefore stand in tension in Revelation. They serve to warn against a cut-and-dried interpretation of Revelation’s complex material. Time complexity is evident also in the way the content of chapters 4–22 is not all future-oriented. Consideration of three brief examples will suffice. • The opening of the seals, which is the trigger for the unfolding of future events, is linked with the cross, with the slaughtered lamb (5:5). This event took place in AD 30/33. The beginning of the end is thus associated with the cross, not with some remote event centuries later. • The toppling of the dragon in chapter 12 is likewise linked to the cross (12:11). The overthrow of Satan either occurred then or at least began then. • The beast, a kind of Antichrist (though John does not use that specific term), ‘was and is not and is to come’ (17:8). Use of the past tense, along with the present and the future, indicates that in the mind of the writer, this beast had already appeared in human history in the first century. There are broader considerations which also challenge futurist assumptions. As we have already seen, futurism essentially leaves Revelation barely applying to its own time. It is unlikely that the church of the early centuries shared that perspective, or they would not have preserved a document that had little relevance to them. Further, the common futurist method of drawing verses from any part of the Bible to stitch

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together an interlocking system (often without considering context) is questionable. It is not the case that the various books of the Bible are unintelligible bits of a jigsaw puzzle that only make sense when small pieces of each one are interspersed with small pieces of other ones. Each book of biblical writing originally circulated on its own and must be regarded as substantially comprehensible on its own. While other writings may provide certain secondary help in interpretation, primary interpretation should not be established by dumping diverse writings from diverse authors from diverse contexts and diverse periods into a common soup cauldron and extracting meaning after a good stir-around of the whole. That sort of interpretation is extremely subjective and suspect. Another general consideration is that futurists typically assume that the symbols of Revelation are codes for specific later events or persons, so that there is a one-to-one correspondence between the two. However, as we proceed through the text of Revelation, we shall see that Revelation’s veiled language frequently has multiple meanings or applications. There have been numerous futurist interpretations over a two-thousand-year period explaining various parts of Revelation as being fulfilled in a final way in the events of the interpreter’s time. All to date have failed. How confident then could we be that the current batch of interpretations will be on target? In the light of all these problems with the futurist approach, we are bound to ask why it remains so popular. I suggest two answers. One is that at a popular level, such a viewpoint is all many Christians know. The other answer is that this sort of approach meshes with deep anxieties in society. Anxiety makes people ready to embrace schemes that appear to provide answers to their curiosity and fears, and gullibility is not the domain of horoscope readers alone. (b) Preterist approaches This technical term stems from the Latin praeteritus, ‘that which has gone by.’ The preterist approach sharply contrasts with futurist approaches. It argues either that Revelation does not contain futurist prophecy or that any predictive prophecy was fulfilled either in the first century or relatively soon thereafter. Preterists stress that Revelation is a book of the first century, with a message for a specific context in the first century.

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Preterist focus on the particular context of Revelation is to be applauded. A weakness of the approach, however, is that first-century recipients of John’s Revelation would likely not have felt that events like the great white throne judgment (20:11-15) and the vision of the New Jerusalem (Revelation 21–22) had been fulfilled at that time. This indicates a futurist dimension to Revelation which cannot altogether be filtered out of the book. Thus the preterist approach is not a totally adequate one although it is extremely important. I will highlight its significance further in the next chapter when I stress the importance of reading Revelation in its first-century context. (c) Symbolic approaches These focus on the picture nature of the language of Revelation. There is largely an avoidance of precise identification—past, present, or future. Revelation has a message for all times, for they all experience struggle between good and evil, Christ and the devil. A symbolic interpretation will commonly stress one paramount theme in Revelation: Jesus is the victor who will ultimately destroy evil in its entirety. In the tough times of the present, Christians can take heart, for in Christ they will win. Symbolic approaches mesh well with preterism. Preterist insistence that we take seriously the context of the original document applies to all biblical literature. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, for example, is best understood through weighing what it originally meant. However, the original setting and meaning does not exhaust the value of 1 Corinthians. The original setting and meaning can provide a springboard for interpreting the letter in different contexts in later times. So also with Revelation. We need to seek the document’s meaning for its first recipients and then recognize that its message has profound application for all generations. The text of Revelation confirms the stance that it commonly has broad and multiple applications. First, as we shall see, Revelation commonly draws its themes and images from the Old Testament, even though it commonly modifies or creatively reworks them in doing so. Often those Old Testament materials had a specific application at the time of writing. Yet Revelation is comfortable in reusing those materials for a much later situation. This suggests that Revelation saw the meaning of the earlier material as not exhausted by one fulfilment; the material is open-ended and capable of subsequent or multiple application. For example, consider

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John’s description of the overthrow of ‘Babylon’ in Revelation 18. John utilizes imagery from Isaiah (especially Isaiah 13 and Isaiah 23) and Ezekiel (especially Ezekiel 26 and Ezekiel 27) in describing this overthrow. While much of this Old Testament imagery clearly relates to the overthrow of Tyre, John unabashedly utilizes it in relation to the overthrow of ‘Babylon,’ which here is clearly a code word for Rome (as in 17:9, 18). This suggests that the language of these Old Testament oracles and of Revelation has application whenever oppressive evil is overthrown. A symbolic approach also helps show the significance of the markedly recapitulatory nature of the various visions. Against futurist assumptions, much of the material in Revelation 4–22 is clearly repetitive rather than chronologically linear and successive. To quite an extent, its plot is a repeating circle rather than a straight time line. Comparing the outpoured trumpet judgments in Revelation 8 and 9 on the one hand and the outpoured bowls of judgment in Revelation 16 on the other indicates much overlap of material and theme. That the various scenes are not successive but rather are repetitive is borne out by noting that in the first series of judgments—the opening of the seals—the stars fall to the earth (6:13), but in the second series of judgments—the blowing of the trumpets—the stars are again located in the heavens (8:12). The technical term for this repetitive and cyclical narrative is ‘recapitulation.’ Such a style is common where the writing occurs in a largely oral setting (as is the case with the recipients of Revelation). Oral cultures typically have a repetitive communication style to help hearers to remember. Literalistic futurism copes poorly with the aspect of recapitulation in Revelation, but the flexible spaciousness of a symbolic interpretation handles it well. One apparent weakness of a symbolic reading of Revelation is that it may not sufficiently recognize the futurity of Revelation with regard to the end of the present world order. However, a symbolic approach need not eliminate this dimension. Futurity clearly is present. The difference between futurists and symbolists on this matter is that symbolists regard descriptions of the future as large ‘broad brush-stroke’ guidelines (that Christ will reign, that evil will ultimately be overthrown) rather than a highly detailed painting of the future, each detail linked with cracking a ‘code’ in relation to each item. A symbolic approach covers all bases. The message of Revelation is that Christ has won, that Christ is winning, and that Christ will win.

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4. Other modern approaches A great deal of modern scholarship has moved away from reading Revelation through the lens of futurist, preterist, and/or symbolic approaches. Two newer developments in particular should be emphasized. (a) Liberation theology approaches Liberation theology, which began in the 1960s, stresses the theme of liberation from oppression (a significant theme in Scripture) and reads Revelation through the lens of this theme. This approach emphasizes the here-and-now dimension of salvation and of God’s preference for the poor, the marginalized, and the oppressed of society. Clearly much of Revelation will resonate with this sort of emphasis. Denunciation of the oppressor and the wealthy is particularly marked in Revelation 17:1–19:6, and liberation theology alerts readers to this sort of dimension. There are two areas, however, in which a purely liberationist reading of Revelation may not be helpful. The first is that there is a markedly otherworldly dimension to Revelation as well as this-worldly concerns. In fact, much of the hope of Revelation is significantly otherworldly in focus. The second point is that while Revelation does display marked concern for the oppressed, all will face the judgment and/or mercy of God, both rich and poor (6:15; 19:18). The issue is not whether one is rich or poor but whether one is faithfully following the Lamb wherever he goes (14:4). (b) Literary approaches These tend to focus on the subjective effect of Revelation on the reader/hearer (particularly through the book’s imaginative quality). Instead of asking what Revelation says, such approaches are more likely to ask what Revelation does, how Revelation affects the reader. Literary approaches are particularly aware of what the author is seeking to achieve and of his writing strategies for accomplishing this. There is a strong sense that Revelation is intended to be transformative, not simply to inform but much more to change the way people see and experience reality. John does this through imaginative participation, by drawing his audience imaginatively into a ‘virtual world,’ just as one today might be

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drawn into a virtual world at the movies. The evocative power of that experience is transformative. One danger, however, of a purely literary approach is that it can leave Revelation as ‘just a story,’ ‘just a literary work of art,’ ‘just a literary strategy for transformation.’ In contrast to that response, we need to take seriously the understanding of the author, John, that his message is sourced in revelation from God. Paul Minear, noting how writings like Revelation were grounded in a perception of the presence and power of God, has argued that ‘only a twin gift from that same Spirit can complete the chain of communication.’8 Literary approaches must not be done ‘at a distance,’ based merely on analyzing literary techniques and strategies. Along with that, we must read Revelation with empathy, tuning in to its claim to be revelation ‘from above.’ We must read Revelation ‘in the Spirit.’ Conclusion The various approaches should be seen as tools to aid one’s understanding of John’s revelation. Each may provide insights that supplement other approaches. It is helpful, therefore, to be aware of all approaches, especially those brought out by the preterist, symbolic, and literary approaches. These approaches should be read as complementing, not competing, alternatives. At a popular level, however, it is the almost exclusively futurist-type interpretations that tend to predominate, despite their lack of solid underpinning and academic support. Two great weaknesses are evident in many futurist interpretations. One weakness is a failure to consider the social situation of Revelation. The meaning of all the New Testament documents is sharpened through considering the context of both writer and recipients. This fosters awareness not only of background but also of purpose of writing. The Book of Revelation is no exception. The second weakness is a futurist failure to consider the sort of writing (genre) that Revelation is. Understanding of the genre is a huge aid to interpretation. These two issues of context and genre will be addressed in the next two chapters.

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Reflection 1. David Barr suggests that when the Book of Revelation is being read in a Christian gathering, it can make Jesus present to the congregation.9 Consider the extent and nature of material relating to Jesus in Revelation. Consider how that material affects the way you think and feel. Is Barr’s point on target? 2. What validity and value (if any) do you find in each of the futurist, preterist, and symbolic approaches to Revelation? Notes 1. G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (2nd ed.; London: John Lane: 1909) 27. 2. I was drawn to this parallel through the similar experience of Eugene Peterson, author of The Message. See his Reversed Thunder: The Revelation of John & the Praying Imagination (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1988) ix–xii. 3. See Hal Lindsey, There’s a New World Coming (Santa Ana CA: Vision House, 1973), introduction, and Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Collins, Left Behind (Wheaton IL: Tyndale, 1995) 175, for this sort of comment. 4. Information on the back cover of Lindsey’s Planet Earth—2000 A.D. (Palos Verdes CA: Western Front, 1994). 5. P. Fairburn, The Interpretation of Prophecy (2nd ed.; London: Banner of Truth Trust, 1964 [1865]). 6. Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 81. 7. Richard Bauckham, The Theology of the Book of Revelation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993) 157–59. 8. Paul S. Minear, New Testament Apocalyptic (Nashville: Abingdon, 1981) 24. 9. D. L. Barr, ‘The Apocalypse of John as Oral Enactment,’ Interpretation 40 (1986): 243–56 at p. 256.

2 The Social Context of Revelation It is a great pity that there is commonly a huge gulf between the insights of academic scholars and the views of much populist writing in relation to the Book of Revelation. For this gulf, academic scholars are significantly to blame. Commonly they write primarily for fellow academics. The result is that their arguments are often too dense, too complex, too rarefied for the non-expert. A main purpose of this book is to attempt to bridge that gap. However, the gap exists from the other side also, because many of the popular commentators have failed to do their homework before they write. They often fail to recognize and to critique the presuppositions on which they base their arguments. They commonly fail to recognize that there are other approaches to reading Revelation apart from their own, and they omit to weigh their approach over against others. Commonly too, they ignore basic principles of biblical interpretation. In some cases this may be simple, blind ignorance. In other cases there may be conscious or subconscious avoidance of these principles of sound interpretation, for such would often destroy the case they are seeking to build. There are two keys to biblical interpretation generally, which are crucial to achieving a sane and sound interpretation of Revelation: • Understanding the context of Revelation. • Understanding the nature of apocalyptic writing. This chapter will highlight the first of these two keys. 1. The importance of understanding Revelation in social context Have you ever eavesdropped on someone else’s telephone conversation? All you hear is one end, one half, of the conversation. As you strive for meaning, significant energy goes into trying to work out who is on the other end and what they are saying. Our biblical texts have parallels to that situation. Studying them without reference to their context (to what is happening on the other end of the ‘line’) is rather like listening only to one end of a two-way conversation. The New Testament letters were not

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normally written as systematic theology, as general principles divorced from any particular situation. Rather they were documents written to a particular people and designed for their particular situation. They were contextual in purpose. Therefore understanding their context enormously aids interpretation. This is especially important because of the tremendous gulf between the first-century Mediterranean world in which Revelation was written and our world in the twenty-first century. If you were going to spend time in, say, Mongolia, it would be enormously helpful first to study something of that very different society in order to make more sense of your experience there. In the same way, seeking to understand the context of Revelation will enormously contribute to a better reading of its contents. This is particularly important because Revelation is written in a ‘high-context’ society. By this is meant that the writing is pitched into a broadly shared communal context, such that John expects that his readers will themselves know the social context and his often-veiled references and allusions. Contrast that with documents written in a ‘low-context’ society. These will assume ‘low’ knowledge of the communication context. Such documents will therefore be highly specific and detailed, providing all necessary background to enable understanding of anything that is not shared by all.1 Because John’s assumption is ‘high,’ much is not explained for outsiders like us who live in a world markedly different from his. This makes it all the more important to understand as much of the social background as possible in order to grasp John’s message better. A simple, ‘naïve’ reading of the text without any consideration of the social context has a much higher risk of misunderstanding and distorting what John is saying. A primary rule of biblical interpretation is to establish the sitz im leben (a handy German term for the ‘situation in life’ or life setting) of the document. Matters to consider include authorship, the date of composition, and the recipients and their circumstances. These matters will be explored in turn. 2. Authorship Revelation itself says little about its author. We know that he views his material as stemming from a visionary experience (or experiences). He regards the message he has received as prophecy (1:3). He is located on Patmos, a small island off the coast of Turkey southwest of Ephesus. It

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has traditionally been understood that the author has been placed there by the Roman authorities. He is unlikely to be imprisoned there, but he may well be required to stay on the island in internal exile within the Roman empire—a not uncommon form of punishment. Nevertheless, the text is not sufficiently specific for us to be definite on the matter. However, there does seem to be hardship in being on Patmos, as he connects his presence there with persecution (thlipsis) and patience (hupomon∑ ) in 1:9. This may well be connected with his ministry, as he states that he is on Patmos ‘because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus.’ Connection with thlipsis suggests that he is not simply on a preaching tour but is being punished in some way for his preaching. The writer calls himself ‘John,’ but does not otherwise identify himself more specifically. We may presume that ‘John’ is his genuine name and not a fictitious one. Who, however, was this John? We can note that themes such as Jesus as word, lamb, and life-giving water are common to the Fourth Gospel and Revelation. Tradition that started with Justin Martyr (in his Dialogue with Trypho 81.4, written about AD 155) linked Revelation’s John with the Apostle John (who was seen as the author of the Fourth Gospel). However, Dionysius of Alexandria, c. AD 265, basing his views on differences of style, language, and ideas, rejected the notion that the Fourth Gospel and Revelation had the same author.2 There certainly are differences: • The Fourth Gospel is written in good though simple Greek. The Greek of Revelation is full of apparent solecisms (mistakes of grammar or idiom). These show Aramaic or Hebrew influence. The commentator R. H. Charles thus asserted that John, the writer of Revelation, thought in Hebrew (Aramaic) but translated its idioms literally into Greek. The result, according to Charles, is that John’s Greek ‘is unlike any Greek that was penned by mortal man.’3 • Revelation portrays much more of a warrior Jesus than does the Gospel. • The Fourth Gospel’s word for ‘lamb’ is amnos (twice), but for Revelation it is arnion (twenty-nine times). For ‘Jerusalem’ the Fourth Gospel uses only Hierosoluma (twelve times), whereas Revelation uses only Hierousal∑m (three times). • In matters concerning the end (the technical term is ‘eschatology’), the Fourth Gospel largely focuses on eternal life now. Thus those who believe in the Son have eternal life now (John 3:18; 5:24). Revelation’s eschatology is much more futurist in relation to eternal life. The distinc-

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tions, however, are relative only, both pieces of literature containing some material that speaks of eternal things now (‘realized eschatology’) and other material that speaks of eternal things in the future (futurist eschatology). Commonalities between the two books mean that John the Apostle cannot be entirely ruled out as the possible author of Revelation (assuming that he is indeed involved in the authorship of the Gospel of John). It is more likely, however, that the book was written by an otherwise unknown John. Still, the point is not a crucial one. Neither understanding of authorship will fundamentally alter one’s interpretation of Revelation. About John, the author of Revelation, we can fairly clearly say two things: • He is probably a Palestinian Jew. He is familiar with the Old Testament in both its Hebrew and Greek versions. He is familiar with the Jewish temple and its worship practices. • He has some connection with the situation from which the Gospel and Epistles of John sprang. Many scholars, while regarding evidence for one author of all the Johannine writings as being too uncertain, explain the interrelationships of all this material by talking of a Johannine ‘School’ (writings emerging from separate but interacting writers within a particular community), rather than talking of one common author. 3. Date of composition While identifying the author may not be of major importance in understanding the book, settling on the date of composition is of vital significance. The two favoured times are around or just after the time of the emperor Nero, say AD 66–70, or towards the end of Domitian’s reign, say AD 94–96. There are two main arguments for the earlier date. One is that Revelation does appear to refer to Nero, who died in AD 68, in Revelation 13:3, 18 (see later discussion on Revelation 13 for more on this). The other is that the temple, which was destroyed in AD 70, is apparently still standing (11:1-2). Neither argument requires an early date, though they do support it. Arguments for a date in the 90s are more powerful, and this later date is supported by most scholars for the following reasons.

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(i) Irenaeus, writing about AD 180, is the first Christian writer to date Revelation, and his date is the later part of Domitian’s reign. (ii) Rome is referred to as ‘Babylon’ (e.g., 14:8; 16:19; 17:5). This is most fitting if the dating is after AD 70, the year when Rome destroyed Jerusalem, so paralleling what Babylon did to Jerusalem in 587 BC. (iii) Revelation displays deep hostility to the Jewish synagogues (2:9; 3:9). This may well reflect a situation of Christians in the province of Asia having recently been squeezed out of the synagogues, with consequent heightened animosity between Christians and Jews. To a significant extent, Christianity had remained associated with Judaism during much of the New Testament era, and could even be described as a ‘sect’ of Judaism (Acts 24:14). However, after the fall of Jerusalem, Judaism progressively defined its identity more sharply and narrowly, such that Christianity could no longer find refuge in the synagogue as a sect of Judaism. Around the 80s, Jewish synagogues seem to have started adding a ‘curse on the minim’ (a curse on ‘all Nazarenes [Christians] and heretics’) into their communal prayers (‘The Eighteen Benedictions’). It would be abhorrent for Christians to invoke curses on themselves, and they therefore could no longer worship in the synagogues in such a situation. (iv) Revelation reflects a situation of emperor worship and of persecution of Christians. Emperor worship was a gradually emerging phenomenon in the first century AD. It intensified during the reign of Domitian (AD 81–96) with Domitian insisting on being called ‘our Lord and God.’ Eastern Roman provinces would have welcomed the opportunity to honour the emperor in this manner as it was an accepted aspect of their society prior to their absorption into the Roman empire. Christian resistance to emperor worship could well have triggered off persecution in parts of the empire. Such persecution was often the result of mob vigilantism rather than official law enforcement. Some persecution probably occurred in Rome. A letter from Pliny, governor of the province of Bithynia (next door to ‘Asia’ within which Revelation was situated), to the emperor about AD 112 seems to indicate that Christians were persecuted in his province up to twenty years previously. If such persecution occurred in the region and not in the province of Bithynia only, this would tie in with a date of the 90s for Revelation. (v) Revelation reflects popular rumour of a re-living Nero (Nero redivivus) who had committed suicide in AD 68. Such popular rumour persisted for several decades after Nero’s death.

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Making Sense of the Book of Revelation

(vi) Revelation looks back on the time of the apostles as being in the distant past (21:14). (vii) Revelation indicates that the church at Smyrna had been facing trials for a long time, but Polycarp, who was bishop at Smyrna from early in the second century, indicates that the church was not founded there until after the time of Paul, i.e., not until the 60s at the earliest.4 This book thus assumes that Revelation was written in a context of emperor-worship and persecution (actual and threatening) just before the end of the first century. 4. The context into which John is writing John’s audience, churches in ‘Asia’ (western Turkey) in the 90s AD, faced a marked ‘in-your-face’ religious challenge of a life-and-death nature. John’s congregations were confronted with a close interweaving of religion and society. Pagan temples, idolatrous practices, and images of deities abounded in their cities. The close interweaving of religion and society made it hard for Christians to maintain their determination not to participate in the prevailing, polytheistic, religious environment. The developing cult of emperor worship was creating further difficulty. The background to this newer development is that while ancient Rome had always been polytheistic, worshiping a number of gods such as Jupiter, Venus, and Mars, there had been additions and modifications to this broad pattern of worship from the second century BC as the Roman empire pushed eastward. One addition was worship of ‘Roma,’ a divine personification of the city of Rome. A feature of the eastern half of the empire was its tradition of attributing divine qualities to its rulers. That sort of attitude probably lies behind the story in Daniel 3, where King Nebuchadnezzar required his subjects to prostrate themselves in worship before his statue. Such a relationship between ruler and subjects was advantageous to imperial aims, adding to the awe of the emperor’s presence and fostering unity within the empire around his person. Promoting an imperial cult was also advantageous to cities and to important citizens: those who did this would likely gain favour with the emperor. The imperial cult could also be advantageous to the rank-and-file of society. In their powerlessness they were repeatedly in need of divine intervention; so they would welcome the emperor as a

The Social Context of Revelation

Multi-breasted statue of the goddess Artemis (2nd century). Ephesus Museum. Photo: Todd Bolen/BiblePlaces.com. Used by permission.

21

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‘present god,’ as a present manifestation of divine power. It looked like a win-win situation on all sides. Imperial, regional, and popular pressures all strongly fostered participation in rites honouring or worshiping the emperor and/or the cult of Rome. Christians were subject to this intense pressure at the time when Revelation was written (13:4-8, 15; 14:9-11; 16:2; 19:20; 20:4). Not to worship in this way was an act of disloyalty both to society and to imperial rule. Monotheistic Jews and Christians were thus threatened by the increasing practice of emperor worship. The Jews, however, had acquired certain privileges as a ‘peculiar’ people in the past and were exempt from any official requirement to participate in imperial cultic practices. Not so the Christians. Judaism’s relatively recent demarcation of its boundaries, with its subsequent further driving of Christians out of the synagogue, had more sharply identified Christians as non-Jews (identity issues having been much more blurred earlier in the first century). The result was that Christians no longer had exemption as being a kind of Jewish sect and now faced extreme pressure in relation to emperor worship. Refusal to comply could lead even to death. Blood was in the air. Antipas had been martyred (2:13). Others may well have suffered a like fate (6:9; 12:11; 17:6; 20:4). Cooperation or non-cooperation with emperor worship and related matters involved life-and-death issues. Some scholars dispute whether the context was one of widespread martyrdom, arguing either that it was more a context of anticipated martyrdom or that it was not really a major factor at all. However, the amount of allusion to the blood of martyrs in Revelation points to martyrdom, real and/or anticipated, being a major backdrop to issues in Revelation. Even if the scholars downplaying martyrdom were correct, there had still, at the least, been one martyrdom (2:13). And one martyrdom alone would have been enough to create deep fear in the hearts of the entire Christian community. Even on minimalist understandings in relation to persecution, the threat of death was real for all the Christians to whom John was writing. Interwoven with religious issues were economic and social ones. If Christians made themselves pariahs through abstaining from veneration of the emperor or of ‘Roma,’ how could they continue to function in society? Could they continue to buy and sell (13:17)? Functioning as a tradesman, for example, commonly required one to be in a trade guild. But the trade guild would have a deity as its patron. And it would have guild meals in that deity’s temple. Should one stay in the guild and com-

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mit religious suicide, or should one break off from the guild and commit economic suicide? In that context came a beguiling message from prophet-type figures: surely it would be easier and wiser to participate in pagan worship. After all, one could participate outwardly, while inwardly remaining committed to Jesus. John, however, will have no truck with this proposed compromise with idolatrous worship. Those who bring such a message are false prophets. Religious and economic pressures made John markedly anti-Rome. John’s triumphant message of Christ’s reign—a kingdom in which Christians would share—was implicitly a politically subversive message. More explicitly, John denounced Rome not only for its idolatry and cruel oppression of Christians but also for its economic exploitation of its empire. Its heartlessness in treating even human beings as commercial commodities (18:13) made its rule devilish and doomed to destruction. Because religious and economic issues were intertwined, John’s warnings focused on economic as well as religious behaviour: • Do not become comfortable and complacent economically (3:17). • Do not become corrupted by commercial endeavour. Have an attitude of detachment—come out from the corruptions of the economic system (18:4). Conclusion We have seen that John’s hearers were in an extremely difficult situation. They faced pressure to compromise and to assimilate. Failure to do so might well mean death. It could be argued that Christians should be close to society in order to witness to it (as in 1 Corinthians 9:19-23). Moreover, some matters were of a minor nature. Could they not put a pinch of incense on the sacrificial flame honouring the emperor, and say, ‘Caesar is Lord’? John would agree that Christians must be witnesses— that is a significant, if secondary, theme of his book. That witness would be strengthened by establishing connections with society. Nevertheless, accommodation by Christians to their situation could go only so far. They certainly could not compromise on that first commandment to have no other gods; nor could they honour another as Lord in a manner akin to their honouring Jesus as Lord. On this issue there was a line in the sand. A choice must be made: Christ or ‘the beast.’ Choose.

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However, along with John’s warning against compromise came a much-needed message of encouragement and hope. John brought such hope, especially in portraying the majesty of the triumphant Jesus, who will overthrow evil and bring his faithful flock into the presence of God himself—eternally. Reflection 1. To what extent can a person understand Revelation simply by reading Revelation? What problems are likely to occur with this type of approach? What other resources or help may be needed? 2. Identify key features of the context into which Revelation is written. How does knowledge of these features affect one’s reading of Revelation? Notes 1. B. H. Malina & J. J. Pilch, Social-Science Commentary on the Book of Revelation (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2000) 19–20. 2. See Eusebius, Church History VII.25.11. 3. R. H. Charles, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Revelation of St. John, vol. I (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1920) xliv. 4. Polycarp, Epistle to the Philippians 11.3.

3 The Type of Literature of the Book of Revelation In the previous chapter I stressed understanding the context as a key to a sane grasp of Revelation’s message. The second key to sound interpretation is to consider the nature of the literature that Revelation is—its genre. Understanding a document is greatly facilitated by identifying its literary type. For example, cookbooks, science manuals, poems, romantic novels, and dictionaries are hugely different in style and purpose, and call for very different reading strategies. Imagine trying to read a cookbook as if it were a romantic novel or vice versa! Are we then to read Revelation in the same way as we read Paul’s letter to the Romans? Or does it call for a different reading approach? 1. Identifying the genre We do not come ‘cold’ or ‘empty’ to a piece of literature—we come with expectations. Knowing the genre of a book affects the way we read it. If we do not at first glance recognize the book’s type, we typically work hard at identifying that type as we read the first few pages. We can appreciate and understand the work so much more once we have been able to categorize the literature and put it into a genre ‘box.’ Identifying and understanding the style (‘genre’) of any written material will have a major effect on one’s interpretive assumptions. Failure to recognize and understand the genre will likely lead to major errors of interpretation. If, for example, I fail to recognize that a story (written or oral) is actually a joke or a satire, then I will totally miss the point of that communication. I will be serious when I should be laughing. Imagine an English-speaking Martian landing on earth. He/she would have huge difficulty in interpreting cartoons, partly through lack of background knowledge of the event(s) being commented on in the cartoon, but also through not being familiar with the genre of cartoon. Grasping this point is crucial, because the closest literary parallel to Revelation today may well be the political cartoon.1 Each uses pictures, stereotyped symbols, and exaggerated expression to communicate a high-impact contemporary

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message. Failure to identify and understand the genre of Revelation (or of the cartoon) will result in major misinterpretation. Revelation begins by describing itself as an apokalypsis (revelation). It shares a style of writing and a set of themes with other ‘apocalypses’ written in roughly the same historical period. Such writings display fairly standard conventions in their usage of images, themes, styles, and literary forms.2 The term ‘apocalypse’ applies to writings of this type. Revelation belongs to the genre of apocalypse, and it is written in this style. We can quickly note affinities of apocalyptic literature with Revelation in the following examples: Daniel 7:2-4: ‘I, Daniel, saw in my vision by night the four winds of heaven stirring up the sea, and four great beasts came up out of the sea different from one another. The first was like a lion and had eagles’ wings. Then as I watched, its wings were plucked off, and it was lifted up from the ground and made to stand on two feet like a human being, and a human mind was given to it.’ 1 Enoch 85:3-4: ‘I was seeing a vision on my bed, and behold a cow emerged from the earth, and that animal was snow-white; and after it, there came forth one female calf together with two other calves, one of which was dark and the other red.’ 4 Ezra 11:1-3: ‘On the second night I had a dream, and behold, there came up from the sea an eagle that had twelve feathered wings and three heads. And I looked, and behold, he spread his wings over all the earth, and all the winds of heaven blew upon him, and the clouds were gathered about him. And I looked, and out of his wings there grew opposing wings; but they became little, puny wings.’ The material outside the Bible that is perhaps closest in language and style to Revelation is 4 Ezra, a Jewish writing, probably written close in time to that of Revelation but not directly borrowing from it. Comparing these writings shows how much they have in common in their shared apocalyptic genre:

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4 Ezra

Parallel in Revelation

‘A voice was speaking and its sound was like the sound of many waters’ (6:17)

1:15

‘I lay there like a corpse and I was deprived of my understanding. Then he [the angel] grasped my right hand and strengthened me and set me on my feet’ (10:30)

1:17

‘The tree of life shall give them fragrant perfume’ (2:12)

2:7; 22:2

‘As for the lion you saw . . . this is the Messiah’ (12:3132)

5:5

‘Did not the souls of the righteous in their chambers ask about these matters, saying, “How long are we to remain here? And when will come the harvest of our reward?” And Jeremiel the archangel answered them and said, “When the number of those like yourselves is completed”’ (4:35-36)

6:9-11

‘See at the feast of the Lord the number of those who have been sealed’ (2:38)

7:4

‘I Ezra, saw on Mount Zion a great multitude, which I could not number, and they all were praising God with songs’ (2:42)

7:9; 14:1

‘Palms in their hands’ (2:46)

7:9

‘Conclude the list of your people who are robed in white’ (2:40)

7:9

‘I asked an angel, “Who are these, my lord?” He answered and said to me, “These are they who have put off mortal clothing and put on the immortal”’ (2:44-45)

7:13

‘The pit of torment shall appear’ (7:36)

9:1-5; 20:10

‘There shall be blood from the sword as high as a horse’s belly’(15:35)

14:20

‘And you, O Asia, who share in the glamour of Babylon and the glory of her person—woe to you, miserable wretch! For you have made yourself like her; you have decked out your daughters in harlotry to please and glory in your lovers’ (15:46-47)

17:5; 18:1-3

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The comparison highlights the way ancient Jewish-Christian apocalyptic literature (including Revelation) had a number of stock phrases, conventions, and images. Writers who treat Revelation’s language and message as totally unique and ignore its typical features are at risk of being irresponsible and erroneous interpreters of its message. 2. Features of Jewish-Christian apocalyptic writings Seldom does any piece of literature fall precisely into an exact type. However, certain common or typical features—of form (how the material is written), of content (what it contains), and of purpose (what it seeks to achieve)—repeatedly occur in Jewish-Christian apocalypses. These include the following: • Revelation comes through an angel-type figure. • The revelation comes in story form rather than through propositional language. • The revelation focuses on two ages: the present age and the age to come. The technical language for this is ‘temporal dualism.’ • There is also ‘spatial dualism’: this world and a higher world. The higher world is the main world. What happens there is determinative of what happens on earth (e.g., Dan. 10:12-14; Rev. 12:9). • The language is mysterious, cryptic, and esoteric. Colours, animals, and numbers commonly have symbolic but standardized meanings. JewishChristian apocalyptic material frequently refers in subtle and allusive ways to earlier biblical material. Popular stories and myths may also be utilized to convey truth (e.g., reference to a ‘dragon’). Because Revelation has such features and layers within its pages, it is a book aptly described as ‘thick with meaning.’3 The text cannot be ‘decoded’ in a straightforward way, such that passage X means ‘exactly this or that’ and no more. Rather the language often has multiple meaning (‘polyvalence’). It is designed less for clear-cut meaning and more ‘to set the echoes of memory and association ringing.’4 It is written more for the emotions and the imagination than for the mind. • Apocalypses tend to be dark and pessimistic in relation to the present. They commonly emerge in times of crisis, wrestling with questions such as, ‘Where is God? Why does he not step in? What is he doing?’ In answer to these questions, apocalypses tend to be deterministic: history is predetermined by God and nothing one does can affect this. One must

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simply hang in during the time of crisis as the predetermined future gradually unfolds. However, all is not doom and gloom. God is on the throne and ultimately in control. He will bring final and decisive intervention in the end. In the meantime one must be patient and endure (cf. Rev. 14:12). 3. A comparison of apocalyptic and prophetic writings The features identified above point to differences between the typical perspective of a biblical apocalypse and that of a biblical prophetic book. Prophetic writings tend to look to a ‘this-world’ transformation. Their typical call is for the people of God to repent and live a godly life; the result will be a good and restored world. The focus in apocalypses, however, tends to be otherworldly, focusing on such aspects as resurrection, heavenly realms, and judgment of the dead. Their otherworldly nature contributes a great deal to the strangeness of the apocalyptic writings. Much of the difference between prophetic and apocalyptic writings results from different situations and perspectives. The prophetic tradition commonly identifies widespread sin as the cause of present troubles and calls the people to repentance. The situation will change as a result of repentance. The focus of the apocalyptic writer, on the other hand, is less on sin as the cause of the current troubles and more on the mysterious predeterminations of God who will bring deliverance at his appointed time. These distinctions are not, however, absolute. Because the styles of prophetic writings and apocalypses both evolved over hundreds of years, there is no one pure form. Moreover, apocalypses emerged within the prophetic tradition, as a sub-category of prophecy. They can thus be viewed as a special type of prophecy. John himself draws heavily from the Old Testament prophetic material—400 out of Revelation’s approximately 580 allusions to the Old Testament come from the prophets. And it is clear that John sees himself in the prophetic tradition (1:3). While Revelation is an apocalyptic writing, it also, though to a lesser extent, includes aspects of prophetic writing. Thus the distinction between apocalypse and prophecy needs to be treated with caution, especially in Revelation. And yet differences are sufficiently marked to be useful in comprehending the Revelation material.

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4. Other literary features of Revelation Revelation has much in common with other apocalyptic literature. In addition, it has other marked literary features, not all of which are shared with other apocalyptic writings. In the first place, we find the writer going over material more than once. The technical term for this is ‘recapitulation.’ Augustine drew attention to this feature of Revelation as far back as the fifth century AD, referring to ‘the repetition of the same things in forms so different that the things referred to seem to be different, although in fact they are only differently stated.’5 I will later draw out in more detail how the three cycles of visions (seals, trumpets, and bowls) markedly repeat each other in many ways. Similarly I will show how much Revelation 20 echoes Revelation 12 and how this is a key to the interpretation of the later chapter. A modern parallel to recapitulation is the action replays one sees on sports television. Through the use of different camera angles and slow motion, one sees the magnificently scored goal several times (though in different ways). First-timers, who have never seen action replays on television before, could possibly be fooled into thinking that several goals had been scored. They would be wrong. Recapitulation should not surprise us. Those of us who have been trained to rely extensively on print tend to assume that documents operate on the basis of linear logic—we may assume that they say something and then move on to the next event/argument, and then the next, each being a successive link in a straight-line chain. However, people raised in a less literary and more oral context do not have the same approach and perception. In a more oral approach there is much more repetition, much more returning to the same point, much more use of superfluous words. All this is needed because with oral communication one cannot return later to the text for memory refreshment—the text is gone forever. Oral-culture people will use oral techniques in their writing to foster retention of the message. John and other New Testament writers were strongly shaped by oral approaches to communication. Unsurprisingly then, one of these memory aids—recapitulation—is a feature of Revelation. Daniel, which is a major influence on Revelation, also has this pattern. A close reading of four sections of Daniel—chapter 7, chapter 8, chapter 9, and chapters 10 to 12—will reveal that all sections follow the same basic story-line of a rampantly evil kingdom brought to final judgment (the addendum at the end of this chapter shows this in more detail). Both Daniel and Revelation

The Type of Literature of the Book of Revelation

31

repeat their message several times to embed it in recipients’ consciousness. Another memory aid is the repeated use of certain key words throughout the narrative. In Revelation these key words include the ‘Lamb’ (Greek arnion, 29 times), ‘witness’ (Greek martys, 18 times), ‘conquer’ (Greek nikaø, 16 times). Particularly significant is the word ‘throne’ (Greek thronos, 46 times) which is symbolic of rule. A fundamental question in Revelation is, ‘Who rules?’ At the end is a glorious picture of the throne ‘of God and of the Lamb’ (22:3). They rule. A further distinctive literary feature is that recurring images are used to stitch together the narrative of Revelation and embed its message in our being. Such images often appear in juxtaposed contrast. Thus the heavenly woman (Revelation 12) stands over against the great whore (Revelation 17). She in turn contrasts with the bride of Christ (Rev. 19:7; 21:2, 9). Another pair of contrasts is that of the two cities: Babylon and Jerusalem. These images highlight a choice: evil or good, the devil or God, that which is ultimately doomed or that which is glorious and eternal. Yet another literary feature is the juxtaposition of scenes of destruction and hope. Thus chaos on earth in Revelation 6 is balanced by the bliss of heaven in Revelation 7. This pattern of sandwiching or ‘intercalation’ engenders inspiration and hope. 5. The purposes of Revelation A natural question to ask is, ‘What message is John trying to communicate?’ An even better question, however, is, ‘What is John trying to do?’ I have already indicated that not all writing is seeking to communicate new ideas; a love letter, for example, may have no new information in its contents, and yet its words may be powerfully communicative and transformative. John’s letter operates along these lines. It is not a simple love letter, but rather a love-hate letter—love of Christ and goodness, hatred of the beast and evil. The effect of its communication is transformative. It changes the heart, the orientation, the hope of its readers. Eugene Peterson makes this bold claim: I do not read the Revelation to get additional information about the life of faith in Christ. I have read it all before in law and prophet, in gospel and epistle. Everything in the Revelation can be found in the previous

32

Making Sense of the Book of Revelation sixty-five books of the Bible. The Revelation adds nothing of substance to what we already know. . . . There is nothing new to say on the subject. But there is a new way to say it. I read the Revelation not to get more information but to revive my imagination.6

Essentially, then, Revelation is a book of refreshment. Its recipients are under terrible stress. This is made worse because theology seems out of kilter with reality. Christ and his followers should be triumphant. But that does not seem to be the case. There is, in sociological language, ‘cognitive dissonance,’ an intolerable tension between expectations and reality.7 What follows from this for the reader or hearer? Revelation is not an apologetic, logical, left-brain, explaining book. Rather it is a right-brain book, a book of creativity to appeal to the imagination of John’s audience. When Martin Luther’s German translation of the Bible was printed in 1534, it came out in an illustrated version. There was roughly one picture per book of the Bible. However, for the Book of Revelation alone, there were twenty-six woodcuts!8 What difference did the compositor see between this book and all the others? Does this not suggest that we read Revelation differently from the way we read literature that is much more propositional in nature? John’s art gallery of images, his poetry, his symphonic music, calls for a different reading strategy from that used with propositional logic. Its message of hope is not to be dissected and analyzed into atomized bits. It is to be read from the heart, to be read with a ‘baptized’ imagination. The marvellous, magical, bagpipe language of John stirs the blood, readies believers for the continuing struggle, and leads them to fall in afresh behind the conquering Christ. Through a wonderful juxtaposition of images, John affirms both the reality of evil and the omnipotence of his faithful, covenant-keeping God. John’s terrifying images underscore the stark reality the believers face.9 Yet somehow that reality does not matter in the same way as it did before. ‘The things of earth grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace.’10 More than anything else, Revelation is a book for believers that is to be read with hope. What is the hope? The hope is Christ. The suffering of those first-century believers is not hopeless. In fact, says John, it is in and through suffering that victory comes. That was so with Christ. It is the slaughtered Lamb who is the conquering lion (5:5-6). Victory comes through defeat; resurrection through death. John’s Revelation is a remarkably cathartic book. John stirs up our emotions:

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33

• He evokes fear by portraying the killing of Christians (2:13; 6:9f; 11:7ff; 17:6). • He creates a loathing of evil—evil is a beast (chapter 13) and a great whore (17:1ff). • He articulates a yearning for justice that will be met with the overthrow of evil (6:9ff; 20:10). • He voices a longing for victory that is satisfied in scenes of triumph (7:9ff; 11:15ff; 19:1ff). Revelation stirs deep emotions in the reader. The narrative is cathartic, a vehicle for emotional release. We are at first wretched with our terrible earthly situation—until the sense of heavenly triumph leaves it in the dust. Despair seems to dominate—then praise outweighs it. Hope abounds—the narrative ends with a new heaven and a new earth. John’s language does not simply communicate truths. It does something. It is performative language. John takes us to a sublime concert. His words bring us into a hitherto-hidden world—and we who are caught up in John’s inspired words will feel it in our inner selves. Heaven is touched. And when we leave the performance—the performative reading of Revelation—earth will never look so bleak and grey again. 6. The value of Revelation Revelation is a book of great richness. Again and again, artists and ordinary people have reverted to its pages for inspiration. Much of its inspirational quality comes from the fact that it is apocalyptic in nature, that it is mysterious, that its appeal is more to the imagination than to the mind. Three inspiring features stand out in particular. First, Revelation is a book of hope. Sadly, many have missed this feature. They have focused on images of evil and destruction, and for them Revelation is a book of fear. But that is not where Revelation ends. Rather it ends with a new heaven and a new earth. It ends with God and with the gracious invitation: ‘Come.’ It surely is a book to uplift one’s spirits. Certainly there is evil and despair. That was already the experience of John’s readers. But with that is the other—hope. John articulates a dream: one day all evil will end (19:3; 20:10). One day all will be new (21:5). One day those who serve God will reign forever and ever (22:5). The response of Revelation to all this good news is the festal shout, ‘Hallellujah!’ (19:1, 3, 4, 6).

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Second, Revelation is a book of worship. As Psalms is the worship book of the Old Testament, so is Revelation the worship book of the New. Again and again its pages are filled with the majesty and glory of God. Continually, heaven and earth lift hearts and voices to praise the Almighty. Third, Revelation is a book about Christ. John’s word pictures make him present to us. Christ is present at the opening of the book and he is there at its close. His image in 1:11ff matches that of God himself. It is Christ who sends a message to the seven churches in Revelation 2 and 3. His worship matches that of God himself (Rev. 4 and 5)—even though it is God alone who is to be worshiped (19:10; 22:8-9). Christ alone is worthy to open the seals (5:5) which are the key to so much that unfolds subsequently. It is Christ’s death that is the key to the overthrow of Satan (12:11). As the Word of God and the rider of the heavenly white horse, Christ leads forth the triumphant armies of God (19:11-16). He has the book of life (21:27). God’s throne is Christ’s throne (22:3). Christ is coming soon (22:20). And his grace is with his people (22:21). Revelation is indeed a Jesus book. And probably more than any other book in the New Testament, Revelation points us towards the truth that Jesus is one with God. Its theology of Christ (its Christology) is of the highest order. If it is an ‘end times’ book, then we must also say, ‘In the end, Christ.’ Conclusion Revelation is not a book of systematic theology. Nor is it a detailed prophecy of future events. It nestles within the family of religious writings classified as ‘apocalypses.’ The apocalyptic genre shapes much of its material. One feature, however, is unique. That is the extent to which it is a Jesus-centred book. Revelation is to be reflected on with the head. Even more, however, is this inspired literature to be read with the heart. It is full of images. It needs to be read imaginatively. In this book I have stressed two keys to understanding Revelation: studying both its context and its genre. Having done these two things, we are now ready to go through the successive chapters of the Book of Revelation.

The Type of Literature of the Book of Revelation

35

Reflection 1. Eugene Peterson makes the following claim: ‘If the Revelation is not read as a poem, it is simply incomprehensible. The inability (or refusal) to deal with St. John, the poet, is responsible for most of the misreading, misinterpretation and misuse of the book.’11 Do you agree or disagree with Peterson? Why? 2. What sort of impact will Revelation make if we follow the advice of Adela Collins: ‘Since the Book of Revelation is a book of visions and poetry, we should approach it first of all with our imaginations’?12 Addendum: repetition in Daniel 7–12 The following table highlights recurring features in Daniel. The recurrences do not mean that all the content of the four chapters is repeated. Each unit has its distinctive features as well as its repetitive features. Noting the repetitive patterns is helpful, however, because of all the Old Testament writings, it is probably Daniel that has most shaped Revelation. Dan 7

Dan 8

Dan 9

Dan 10–12

A powerful anti-God figure arises

7:8

8:9

9:26

11:24

This figure is called a ‘little horn’

7:8

8:9

7:11, 25

8:11

This figure speaks/acts arrogantly/blasphemously He desecrates/ destroys the temple This desecration is described in language like ‘an abomination that desolates’

11:36

8:11-12

9:27

12:11

8:13

9:27

11:31; 12:11

He oppresses/persecutes God’s people

7:21

8:24

The length of this oppression is stated in various ways but seems to involve about 3 1/2 periods of time/years

7:25

8:14

9:27

12:7, 11

The anti-God figure is destroyed

7:11

8:25

9:27

11:45

God’s people will then reign or experience resurrection glory

7:14, 27

11:32-35

12:1-3

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Making Sense of the Book of Revelation

If Daniel has this repetitive feature, then we should not be taken aback if Revelation also has this feature. Daniel’s story line has much in common with the story line of Revelation. The former has clearly influenced the latter. With the former utilizing recapitulation, it is unsurprising that Revelation does this also. Notes 1. For further discussion on parallels between Revelation and political cartoons, see G. R. Beasley-Murray, The Book of Revelation (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974) 16. 2. L. L. Thompson, The Book of Revelation: Apocalypse and Empire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990) 18. 3. Eugene Peterson, Reversed Thunder: The Revelation of John & the Praying Imagination (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1988) 9. 4. G. B. Caird, The Revelation of St John the Divine (2nd ed.; London: A & C Black, 1984) 25. 5. Augustine, The City of God 20.17 (trans. H. Bettenson; London: Penguin, 1972). 6. Peterson, Reversed Thunder, preface xi. 7. A. Y. Collins, Crisis and Catharsis: The Power of the Apocalypse (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1984) 141. 8. Gilles Quispel, The Secret Book of Revelation: The Last Book of the Bible (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1979) 138. The woodcuts come from the workshop of Lucas Cranach, and are influenced by Hans Holbein the Younger, Albrecht Dürer, and Cranach himself. 9. M. E. Boring, ‘The Theology of Revelation: “The Lord our God the Almighty Reigns,”’ Interpretation 40 (1986): 257–69 at p. 260. 10. Song, ‘Turn your eyes upon Jesus,’ by Helen H. Lemmell. 11. Peterson, Reversed Thunder, 5. 12. Collins, Crisis and Catharsis, 172.

4 Setting the Scene: Revelation 1 Introductions introduce. They set the scene for what is to follow, and Revelation 1 does just this task. A major function of this chapter is to serve as an overture, introducing major themes of the book as a whole. The extent to which Jesus Christ is central is a striking feature of Revelation 1. Jesus is the revelation of the book (1:1). He, with God and the ‘seven spirits,’ is the bearer of grace and truth (1:4). He is the focus of doxological praise (1:5-6). He is coming (1:7). And he is the focus of an extended vision (1:9-20). Certainly we cannot reduce Revelation entirely to one message alone. The book contains a number of themes. There is the theme of the end as well as the theme of Jesus. However, some Christians become so focused on an ‘end times’ theme that they risk losing sight of the fact that the book has a marked focus on Jesus. He lies at the centre of Revelation 1 and of the book as a whole. 1. The focus of Revelation on Jesus Christ (1:1-8) The opening words of Revelation 1 describe the book as ‘the revelation of Jesus Christ’ (1:1). There is ambiguity in the meaning of the Greek here. The language could be stating that the book reveals Jesus (an ‘objective genitive’); or it could be stating that Jesus is the one who reveals the message (a ‘subjective genitive’). The latter is certainly true: Jesus does the revealing. Yet the book also focuses markedly on Jesus as object. He is the focus of the book. This helps explain John’s assertion that his testimony is to happen en tachei, ‘speedily’ or ‘soon,’ in 1:1. In that verse John’s language is influenced by the language of Daniel 2:28. Yet where Daniel asserted that his vision was for ‘the end of the days,’ John has substituted ‘speedily’ in place of that remote future.1 One reason he has done this is because the ultimate future (the end of the days) has already begun in Jesus Christ. With Jesus being the primary focus of Revelation and being a present reigning reality, John’s talk of Jesus in terms of the present or the imminent future (‘speedily’) is natural language to employ. It is only when (wrongly) one thinks of Revelation as a specific, ‘end-times’ message,

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Making Sense of the Book of Revelation

essentially focusing on events unfolding twenty centuries after the writing of Revelation, that the ‘speedily’ language becomes a problem. Imagine saying to John with his language of soon-ness, ‘John, do you realize that you are not writing primarily for your first-century people but are rather writing primarily for the twenty-first century?’ What would John’s response be? I cannot hear any answer other than a contemptuous snort. The tenor of the book again and again indicates that John felt that he was primarily writing for his time, just as Paul and Peter and James felt that they were writing primarily for their times. It is because Revelation’s message was initially for the present and/or the imminent future that John can appropriately introduce an ethical appeal to hear and keep the message in 1:3 (and also at the end of the book in 22:7). Since John’s revelation was a revelation of Jesus, and since that revelation was primarily for John’s time, ethical response was required also at that time. The book describes itself as ‘the testimony of Jesus Christ’ (1:2). ‘Testimony’ in the original Greek is martyria. This is not yet a technical term for a martyr, but in the Christian communities the meaning of the Greek word is moving in that direction. Jesus’ ‘testimony,’ his message, is strongly interlinked with his death (1:5). Christ’s saving death lies at the centre of the gospel message. In Revelation 1 Jesus is portrayed in close association with the transcendent God. All things are under the control of God the ‘Almighty’, the Pantokratør, the ruler of all things (1:8). His control of everything is shown in his eternal being (he is the one ‘who is and who was and who is to come’—1:4), so that he may be called the ‘A’ to ‘Z,’ the Alpha and the Omega (1:8). In the interweaving of material about God and about Jesus, divine glory is specifically attributed to Jesus (1:6). Elsewhere, Jesus is associated with the transcendent glory of God in two marked ways. First, he is associated with God in an early anticipation of the trinitarian formulation in 1:4. Jesus and the Spirit are associated with God as the authors of grace and peace. The Spirit, however, is described here under the odd expression, ‘the seven spirits.’ What does this mean? The term ‘the seven spirits’ has the sense of God active in the world and is likely influenced by the imagery of seven lamps in Zechariah 4:2 and seven eyes in Zechariah 4:10. Does John’s language of ‘the seven spirits’ indicate that he lacks an understanding of God as Spirit and rather sees spirit in terms of some sort of plural, divine angelology? This is where understanding of the conventions of apocalyptic literature can aid

Setting the Scene: Revelation 1

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interpretation. Seven has a sense of perfection and completeness. Thus ‘seven’ here refers not to quantity but to quality—the Spirit as perfect. We can note also that while John uses the expression ‘the seven spirits’ elsewhere (3:1; 4:5; 5:6), he more commonly simply refers to ‘the Spirit’ (singular). All this underscores the picture nature, rather than literal nature, of much of John’s language. Commonly he uses language for its literary or evocative significance or because it resonates with Old Testament passages which serve John as a major language-and-image reservoir. Here the reference to ‘the seven spirits,’ located between God and Christ, appears in a quasi-trinitarian context, even though there is no explicit developed trinitarianism in any of the New Testament writings. In Revelation 1:4, Jesus and the Spirit (expressed as ‘the seven spirits’ in the language of poetic licence) are both intimately associated with God. The second association of Jesus with the transcendent glory of God appears when, shortly after the description of God as ‘Alpha and Omega’ (1:8), Jesus is described in functionally equivalent language as ‘the first and last’ (1:17). Later the point is made even more explicit in 22:13 where Jesus himself is explicitly stated to be the ‘Alpha and Omega.’ John’s initial description of Jesus in 1:5 focuses on three key aspects of his person: • Jesus is the ‘faithful witness.’ Jesus as ‘faithful witness’ serves as a model or prototype. What he is, his followers are also called to be. Thus Revelation later stresses that Christians are called to be faithful (2:10, 13; 13:10; 17:14), and witnesses (11:3; 12:11; 17:6). • Jesus is ‘first-born from the dead’ (cf. Exod. 11:5): Here is the first of many echoes of the Book of Exodus in Revelation. This frequent recalling of the exodus serves to inspire hope of fresh deliverance in a situation where God’s people face suffering and even death. • Jesus is ‘ruler over the kings of the earth.’ One of the big questions in Revelation is, ‘Who rules?’ Despite the apparent unlimited power of rulers over people in general and Christians in particular, Revelation’s defiant answer is that in reality it is the Christ who rules. All these three terms for Jesus also appear in some form in the Greek version of Psalm 89:27-28. This deliberate resonance subtly sends the message: Jesus is the ideal Davidic king, reigning forever. In his doxology—unusually addressed to Christ rather than to God— John then makes three statements about the activity of Christ (1:5b-6).

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Making Sense of the Book of Revelation

First, ‘He loves us.’ These words, expressing Jesus’ motive of love for humanity, bring tremendous comfort to a hard-pressed people. Second, ‘He freed us from our sins by his blood.’ This is the first of many references to blood in Revelation (cf. 5:6; 6:9-11; 7:14; 12:11; 17:6). Placing reference to Jesus’ blood ahead of others provides strength to a suffering church that is facing possible martyrdom. Jesus’ death proved to be victorious in the end; so too will theirs. And his death has brought tremendous benefit to his people—freedom from sin. This language reminds John’s audience of their spiritual liberation in their environment of physical oppression. The third statement about the actions of Christ in these verses is that ‘He made us to be a kingdom, priests serving his God.’ The language ‘a kingdom, priests’ (basileian hiereis) is awkward, having an abstract singular with a concrete plural noun. Something of this same awkwardness is found in both the Greek and the Hebrew versions of Exodus 19:6 where similar language is used. It may well be that John has copied this awkwardness of the Old Testament language to further strengthen the resonance of his message with the exodus story. Overall, the sense is clear. Christians are the delivered people of God, having both royal and priestly status. Christians are ‘kings and priests’ or ‘royal priests.’ Roman rule, Roman imperium (supreme civil authority), brooked no rivals. John, however, throws down the gauntlet. It is not the Roman empire that rules, but rather an oppressed little group within it—they are kings! There is something odd here. The ruled are the rulers—because of the majesty of the one who made his followers to be a kingdom. John further focuses on Jesus with a vision of Jesus’ return (1:7), utilizing language from Daniel 7:13 and Zechariah 12:10 in doing so. One day there will be a full apocalypse, a full revealing. Not only will all see, but all will understand Christ’s true nature and mourn. In Revelation John displays an intense longing for this coming of Jesus (22:20). At the same time, this is not his total perspective. One is not bereft of Christ until an ultimate end. The Christ who will come one day in the sight of all comes already to those who have the heart attitude to perceive him (3:20). 2. The vision of the Son of Man (1:9-20) John’s vision takes place on the island of Patmos on ‘the Lord’s Day’ (1:10), probably Sunday, the day when Christians had commonly begun

Setting the Scene: Revelation 1

41

to hold their worship services (1 Cor. 16:2; Acts 20:7). John, perhaps already in worship, has an experience ‘in the Spirit’ (cf. 1 Cor. 14:2). What does this mean? In the three other usages of this term in Revelation (4:2; 17:3; 21:10) the expression is linked with visionary experiences. So in 1:10 John’s being ‘in the Spirit’ indicates a state of ecstasy, a state of vision-trance experience.2 My earlier noting of the high levels of literary crafting in Revelation may raise the question: was there really a vision or was this simply a literary device? Here it must be stated that vision and crafting are not mutually exclusive categories. A number of Old Testament prophets set down ‘sculptured visions.’ Books like Jeremiah, for example, show a great deal of reflection on and reshaping of earlier revelatory material. The Book of Revelation is similar. What we have here is a sculptured, crafted vision. At its roots lies visionary experience, but John has also had an active hand in shaping its final written form. John’s vision is of a person, of one ‘like the Son of Man’ (1:13). This expression can be a term for that which is human, as in Ezekiel 2:1 and Psalm 8:4. However, in Daniel 7:13 the term has a transcendent sense, of one intimately associated with ‘the Ancient of Days.’ It is used in this manner, for example, in 1 Enoch 48:2, 1 Enoch being an apocalyptic-type writing which predates the Book of Revelation by a century or two. The imagery associated with the ‘Son of Man’ in Revelation 1 is a further pointer towards understanding ‘Son of Man’ here in terms of a heavenly being. This, however, is more than just an angelic figure. This is evident in the daring way John utilizes a medley of Old Testament references in describing the Son of Man: Revelation reference

Matter referred to

Applying in the Old Testament to

Old Testament reference

1:13

A robe and a sash

The high priest

Exod 28:4; 39:29

1:14

White hair (like wool)

The ‘Ancient One/Ancient of Days’

Dan 7:9

1:14

Flaming eyes

An angelic figure

Dan 10:6

1:15

Feet like burnished bronze

An angelic figure and the cherubim

Dan 10:6 & Ezek 1:7

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Making Sense of the Book of Revelation

1:15

The sound of many waters

‘Four living creatures’ or God’s glory

Ezek 1:24; 43:2

1:16

Seven stars in his hand

- (Possibly an antiastrology message)

–

1:16

Two-edged sword

The mouth of the servant

Isa 49:2

1:16

Face shining like the sun

Possibly Moses

Exod 34:29

1:17

The first and the last

Self-description of God

Isa 41:4; 44:6; 48:12

1:18

Having the keys of death and Hades

God

Ps 9:13-14; 107:18-20; Isa 38:9-20

A word of caution should come at this point. In identifying the various sources which are linked with John’s image of the Son of Man, we should at the same time heed the exhortation of the British scholar, George Caird, to read the vision as a whole rather than in atomized bits: ‘To compile . . . a catalogue [of allusions to the OT] is to unweave the rainbow. John uses his allusions not as a code in which each symbol requires separate and exact translation, but rather for their evocative and emotive power. This is not photographic art. His aim is to set the echoes of memory and association ringing.’3 Caird’s point about not unweaving the rainbow is apt. To use another illustration: in attending a symphony one must first attend to the whole and feel its impact. Only then should one analyze the elements and details of its composition and study the techniques employed by its composer.4 Analysis is not wrong. But in the end Revelation should be heard as a whole, as it was when John’s messenger delivered the newly written material to the assembled congregations. It is high-impact material and it needs to be absorbed imaginatively. In the vision, its original viewer fell at the feet of the Son of Man as one dead (1:17). Its evocative language can elicit awe and worship even in our present day. It is with that note of caution that we return to John’s utilizing a number of Old Testament sources in creating his description of the Son of Man. In doing so we need to tread warily in considering the term ‘son of man,’ which clearly has some connection with the figure who appears in Daniel 7:13-14. In its Old Testament usage, even elsewhere in the Book

Setting the Scene: Revelation 1

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of Daniel, the term ‘son of man’ primarily refers to a human being (e.g., Dan. 8:17). However, in Daniel 7:13-14 the term ‘son of man’ seems to point beyond the ordinarily human in that here the ‘son of man’ has association with the clouds of heaven and receives universal and unending kingship. At the same time this mysterious ‘son of man’ figure remains distinct from God. What is striking in Revelation is that, despite that distinction in Daniel, John takes up Old Testament language which does pertain to God, and then is willing to ascribe this to Jesus in his role as the Son of Man. Given deep-seated Jewish monotheism and its concern to preserve God’s unique otherness, John’s language is either daring or extremely careless or recklessly blasphemous. Noting that John elsewhere associates Jesus in the closest way with God in worship (5:13) and with a shared throne (22:3), the best option is that John has been daring—daring in taking language of God and applying it to Jesus. Functionally this portrays equivalence between Jesus and God. It provides a basis for subsequent doctrinal assertion that Jesus ‘is’ God, that Jesus is on the divine side of the line separating humanity and divinity. In line with this indirect but significant assertion of Jesus’ divinity, the Son of Man picture is one of overwhelming majesty. Features of John’s description that particularly highlight this include the Son of Man having a face as bright as the sun, eyes of flaming fire, and a voice like a thundering waterfall. John is so staggered by the awesomeness of his vision that he collapses in a cataleptic state. The grandeur is too much for a human being to cope with. John receives comfort: ‘do not be afraid.’ These words touch on John’s immediate fear which has been triggered by the overwhelming vision. But there is also a pervading fear of death, of martyrdom, in the Christian community. Jesus’ words address that fear also. The Son of Man is present in the entirety of human existence: he is ‘the first and the last’ (1:17). Death, the fear of death, must be faced. Even the Son of Man experienced death. But that was only a small interruption, a small hiatus, a small hiccup in his existence. Essentially he is ‘the living one,’ ‘alive forever and ever’ (1:18). Death need not be feared: Jesus controls the gates even of Death and of Hades. At this point John may be setting Jesus over against the goddess Hecate. In the Hellenistic world, she was the primary mythological figure who was believed to hold the keys to the gates of Hades. During the Greco-Roman period, Hecate was popular in Asia Minor and was celebrated as universal sovereign of the cosmos.5 John, in referring to Jesus having the keys of Hades (1:18), may well be saying,

44

Making Sense of the Book of Revelation

‘Not Hecate, but Christ.’ The Son of Man image in Revelation 1 is thus both an assertion of the divinity of Jesus and an assertion of his majesty over against pagan gods. It is an expression too of hope. The message of Revelation 1 to a fear-ridden community is: come what may, do not be afraid. All is in control. Keep looking to the Son of Man. He lives, and he rules. 3. Revelation 1 as one of a pair of ‘book-ends’ The dominant theme in Revelation 1 is that of Jesus. That too is the dominant theme of the closing chapter of the book. The great reality of Jesus thus becomes an ‘envelope’ for Revelation as a whole. Revelation’s intermixed images of evil and glory, of terrible destruction and a new creation, all are a ‘letter’ encompassed by the ‘envelope’ of Christ. John’s message is the message also of Paul: ‘nothing in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord’ (Rom. 8:38-39). This literary feature of the theme of Jesus dominating at both the start and the end of the book is matched by other common motifs in the opening and closing sections of Revelation. The result is that Revelation 1 and Revelation 21–22 operate more generally as a pair of ‘book-ends’ to the work, providing a frame for the book as a whole. Revelation 1 touches on a number of themes which find further echo and closure in Revelation 21–22. The following chart indicates this. A focus on Jesus

1:1, 2, 5-7, 9-20

22:3, 12, 16, 20-21

A focus on soon-ness

1:1, 3

22:12, 20

A focus on the return of Christ

1:7

22:12, 20

God as Pantokratør (the Almighty)

1:8

21:22

God/Jesus as ‘Alpha and Omega’

1:8

22:13

The throne

1:4

22:1, 3

The book either blesses or curses

1:3

22:7, 18-19

Setting the Scene: Revelation 1

45

The themes of Revelation 1 recur strongly at the end of the book. Many crop up in the middle of the book as well. This highlights the overture quality of Revelation 1. And at the centre of this overture is the figure of Jesus. 4. Literary types in Revelation The purpose of Jesus’ appearing is to convey messages to the churches (1:11, 19). The consequence is a marked shift in genre at this point to a letter style in chapters 2 and 3. Earlier I indicated that the dominant form of Revelation is that of an apocalypse. While this is true, the language of Revelation 1 points in addition to two other literary types which also shape the book: prophecy and letter. We will end our survey of Revelation 1 by exploring John’s pointers to all three literary types in this chapter. (a) Revelation as an apocalypse Revelation begins in 1:1 by indicating that it is an apokalypsis (‘revelation’). This revelation has been ‘made known’ to John. The Greek verb es∑manen John employs for ‘made known’ derives from the noun s∑meion which means a sign. This alerts us to the fact that much of John’s meaning will be expressed through images and symbols (through ‘sign language’). In prophetic contexts s∑meion is used where the meaning of what the sign points to is not altogether clear. The language of God revealing what must take place and making it known to John appears to involve direct borrowing from Daniel 2:28-30, 45. The Greek translation of Daniel 2:45 uses the same word es∑manen to unfold the meaning of the statue made of mixed materials and to signify what would occur. The revelation in Daniel 2 came in the form of mysterious picture-language, not a straightforward description of the future in a series of propositions. The creative, picturesque nature of both Daniel 2 and Revelation 1 signals the veiledness of the revelation that is given and that it is a less-than-direct revealing of the future. This veiled-ness in communication was an accepted feature of divine revelation through human medium in ancient society. For example, the shrine at Delphi served as a major source of pagan prophetic revelation. However, the Greek philosopher Heraclitus said of this Delphic Oracle: ‘It neither states nor hides, but merely indicates.’6 In other words, it provides hints rather than a map of the future. John’s choice of es∑manen

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rather than the alternative Greek word egnørisen (which would indicate a more direct revealing) points to the symbolic and picture language that John has employed.7 It is not the language of precise meaning; nor is it is photograph language. It is ‘sign language’ to describe that which may otherwise be indescribable. (b) Revelation as a prophecy Revelation describes itself in 1:3 as a prophecy. In the biblical context, the essence of prophecy is that the message comes through direct revelation. It is a communication directly inspired by God. The message may relate to the future (though this is not its essence); equally it may relate to God’s view of the present. What is essential to prophecy is its source. It is utterance from God. The Book of Revelation largely uses the apocalyptic genre. However, this does not mean that its form and content are exclusively apocalyptic and that it is not prophetic in nature. Rather we should see the apocalyptic and the prophetic as overlapping circles. In a number of ways Revelation shares in the prophetic tradition. It describes itself as a prophecy (1:3; 22:7, 10, 18f) and it has a number of the features of a prophecy: • It has an opening like that of the first words of prophetic books. ‘The revelation of Jesus Christ’ (1:1) parallels ‘The word of the Lord came to . . .’ in the Old Testament prophecies. • Later, in Revelation 10, John experiences a prophetic call akin to that in Ezekiel 2–3. • John sees himself as a prophet (e.g., 22:9). His prophetic task is to uplift Jesus (1:1; 19:10) and to struggle against the teaching and influence of false prophets (2:6, 15, 20). • John’s prophetic perception may help explain his sense of imminence: ‘the time is near.’ Imminence is a major stress in Revelation: 1:1, 3; 2:16, 25; 3:11, 20; 6:11; 10:6; 11:2-3; 12:6, 12; 17:10; 22:6, 7, 12, 20. The fact that the world continues twenty centuries later could easily lead to the assertion that John was wrong. John’s sense of imminence, however, ties in with the nature of prophecy. The prophet typically senses ultimate things outside of a temporal time frame. Any future predictions can rarely, if ever, be plotted on a time line of the future. The prophetic experience is, however, so overwhelming that, when set in a time frame, the vision experienced must always refer to what is ‘soon.’ A feature of

Setting the Scene: Revelation 1

47

the prophetic concern was usually the here-and-now; this would lead to the natural prophetic assumption that their visionary experience also related to the here-and-now. John’s viewing himself as a prophet has implications for interpretation. I have already indicated that the prophetic message was not necessarily related to the future, that predictiveness was not of its essence. Rather, the prophet was one to whom the word of God came with immediacy and sharpness. The prophet was the bearer of revelation, whether that related to past, present, or future. Primarily the prophetic concern focused on the then-current state of society. The prophets spoke to their context: warning, calling for repentance, bringing hope, conveying encouragement. These qualities are prominent in Revelation. (c) Revelation as a letter Revelation is identified in this manner in 1:4. Then in chapters 2 and 3, Revelation adopts a markedly letter-type form. The crafting of the seven letters and their stylized use suggests that John’s intended audience was wider than these churches, and that the churches in some way signify the church at large. At the same time there are clear references to specific situations in the seven churches. This provides an ‘earthing’ for Revelation. It is rooted in time, addressing a particular situation at a particular time. Thus in some sense Revelation is an epistle, as well as an apocalypse and a prophecy. It is possible that the letter structure has been adopted because the Pauline epistle had by that stage so shaped Christian literary conventions that the epistle was felt at the end of the first century to be the most appropriate way to communicate Christian truth. John’s identification of Revelation as a letter highlights its contextual nature—its being rooted in a specific first-century context. Revelation then conveys its message in a mixed form: apocalypse, prophecy, and letter. All three dimensions have a bearing on issues of interpretation. Conclusion The most significant of John’s three forms is his apocalyptic style which expresses itself in typical and veiled fashion. What is not concealed, however, is the glory of Jesus. He appears not only as one who suffered but as

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the one who is sublime. In John’s re-imagining of the Son of Man, he displays attributes of God. Jesus is the primary motif of the Book of Revelation. He is at its centre. Death may threaten, but Christ lives and reigns. He is in control. In the end all will be well. Reflection 1. What does the introductory material of Revelation 1 suggest as to the main themes of the book as a whole? 2. How is Christ portrayed in Revelation 1? Can you encapsulate this in one word or one phrase? Notes 1. G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation: A Commentary on the Greek Text (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999) 153–54. 2. D. E. Aune, Revelation 1–5 (Dallas: Word, 1997) 70. 3. G. B. Caird, The Revelation of St John the Divine (2nd ed.; London: A & C Black, 1984) 25. 4. On this see E. S. Fiorenza, Revelation: Vision of a Just World (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991) 32. 5. Fiorenza, Revelation, 30. 6. G. R. Beasley-Murray, The Book of Revelation (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974) 51. 7. On this see Beale, The Book of Revelation, 50–51.

5 Overview of the Letters to the Seven Churches: Revelation 2–3 Readers are so conscious of monsters, earthquakes, and dragons in Revelation that these letters towards the start of the book seem rather tame. Yet they are crucial in establishing the setting and purpose of the book as a whole. They show that John’s visions relate to issues facing first-century congregations. The later visions need to be read in that context: What were they saying to those first-century congregations? How would they have been hearing them?1 John’s letters address a specific context, but they also address a wider context as well. Often a communicator in addressing a particular audience will also be addressing a much wider audience. An incumbent politician, for example, may visit a successful factory and address its employees to praise their enterprise and effort. In so doing, however, the politician is also conveying a broader message to the nation (if the media broadcasts it) about how the politician’s leadership has fostered this sort of success. Both local factory and nation are in view when the speech is crafted and delivered. John’s seven letters similarly face in two directions. We will shortly note the marked literary crafting of the letters. This feature points to their message being of wider application, not restricted to the particular first-century locality to which it was written. On the other hand, significant local allusions (some strong, some faint, some certain, some possible) suggest that they are written to actual rather than fictional audiences. These letters are thus bi-focal, looking to both a general and a particular audience. The particular dimension of the letters makes them resonate with John’s original audience. The members of that original audience—the churches of western Turkey—are in places of extreme pressure. Some need correction; all need comfort. Above everything else, they all need a sense of the divine presence, a knowledge that they are not alone. To each particular congregation comes the word of the majestic Jesus, ‘I know you, and I know this and that about you.’ They are not forgotten. We today also hear their message. We note parallels between our situation and theirs. And so quite appropriately, their message is a message also for us. The focus of the seven letters to a more general first-century audience as well as to a specific first-century audience provides even

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more justification for having them speak to the church of all eras— including us today. 1. Literary features of the letters Revelation’s literary form strikingly changes in 2:1, shifting from an apocalyptic vision to a letter style, with letters addressed to seven churches. Strictly speaking, the letters are to the ‘angels’ of the churches, but as John was earlier instructed to write to the churches (1:11), this would indicate that the messages are actually to the churches, with the ‘angels’ being surrogates for the churches.2 At the same time the language of each church having an angel would provide comfort to the suffering saints—they have heavenly help. An earlier hint of the literary shift from apocalyptic vision to letter style is evident in 1:20 with the reference to ‘seven stars’ and ‘seven lampstands,’ which both relate to the seven churches. Further connection to the vision of Revelation 1 is evident in Christ’s self-description at the beginning of each letter. Diagrammatically this can be represented as follows: Quality of Christ

Reference in Revelation 1

Reference in Revelation 2 & 3

Holds the seven stars in his right hand

1:16, 20

2:1; 3:1

Walks among the seven golden lampstands

1:12-13

2:1

The first and the last

1:17

2:8

The one who was dead and who came to life

1:18

2:8

The one who has the sharp two-edged sword

1:16

2:12

Has eyes like a flame of fire

1:14

2:18

Has feet like burnished bronze

1:15

2:18

The one who has the seven spirits of God

1:4

3:1

The one who has keys of David/Death and Hades

1:18

3:7

The Amen

1:7

3:14

The faithful and true witness

1:5

3:14

Overview of the Letters to the Seven Churches: Revelation 2–3

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This artistry in linking the seven letters with the preceding chapter is matched by artistry in connecting the seven letters with the latter part of the book in a promise-fulfilment pattern: what is promised in Revelation 2 & 3 is fulfilled in the final scenes of the book. The following diagram highlights this: Promise

Revelation 2&3

Fulfilment

Conquerors will eat from the tree of life

2:7

22:2, 14, 19

Conquerors will not be harmed by the second death

2:11

21:4, 8

Conquerors will be given a new name

2:17

22:4

Conquerors will be given the morning star

2:28

22:16

Conquerors will be clothed in white robes

3:5

7:13-14

Conquerors’ names will remain in the book of life

3:5

20:15; 21:27

Conquerors will be pillars in the temple of God

3:12

21:22-25

Conquerors will receive the name of the new Jerusalem from heaven

3:12

21:2, 10

Conquerors will have a place with Jesus on his throne with the Father

3:21

22:3

We can note that the pattern of the promise-fulfilment material is not an exact one. Thus, while almost all of the echoes are located in the end of the book, one or two echoes occur much earlier. Thus the promise of an open door to the Philadelphians (3:8) does not appear in the concluding section of its letter according to the normal pattern. However, there seems clear fulfilment almost immediately with an open door set in heaven in 4:1. In a similar way, we can note that the relation of the letter material to the opening vision also does not always conform to an exact pattern. Occasionally, the reference is not to that actual vision, but rather to prior introductory material. Moreover, at times the allusion involves slight modification. Thus Jesus as ‘origin’ (Greek arch∑ ) in 3:14 evokes the earlier depiction of Jesus as ‘ruler’ (Greek archøn ) in 1:5.

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All this shows remarkable echoes and patterns within Revelation, which stitch together the book, but in a way which defies precise analysis and exact explication. Nevertheless, the overall pattern linking Revelation 2 and 3 both to Revelation 1 and to the end of the book anchors the messages to the churches to the all-powerful Christ and underscores their certainty of fulfilment. This backwards-and-forwards pattern can be shown as follows:

Refers back to Rev. 1 and the majesty of Christ

Ô

Revelation 2-3



Is fulfilled in Rev. 21–22 in the New Jerusalem

Having noted the literary crafting of the letters in relation to what precedes and what follows, we can also note literary crafting within the letters themselves. Each is written to quite an extent according to a stylized rhetorical pattern that can be identified as follows: • A command to an angel: ‘To the angel of the church in . . .’ • Designation of a city: ‘Ephesus’ etc. • Use of a prophetic-messenger formula: ‘Write these things’ (Tade legei) • Characterization of Christ as speaker: ‘These are the words of him . . .’ • Divine knowledge: ‘I know. . .’ • Assigning praise or blame, followed by promise or threat • Call to attention: to ‘wake up’ or obey or repent • Eschatological promise to ‘conquerors’: ‘To everyone who conquers . . .’ • Call for alertness to hear what the Spirit is saying The highly stylized literary patterns indicate that these are no ordinary letters. Each is moulded by the literary template that John is using. Revelation is both a prophetic book (of divine inspiration) and a crafted book (reflected on and shaped by its author). The fact that there are seven churches (no doubt real and being addressed) links them with other sevens in the book. Outside Revelation 2–3 the whole church is at centre stage, with no further mention of individual congregations. This indicates that writing to ‘seven churches’ significantly operates not only to provide a tailored message to each congregation but also as a literary device to address the whole church.

Overview of the Letters to the Seven Churches: Revelation 2–3

Location of the seven churches in western Turkey. Map produced by BibleMapper 3 from biblemapper.pbwiki.com, adapted by my colleague, Tim Bulkeley.

53

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Making Sense of the Book of Revelation

The presence of the letters near the start of the book serves to ground Revelation in the down-to-earth experience of Christian communities. While Revelation subsequently becomes far more otherworldly in its setting and symbolism, at the end there is a re-earthing in chapters 21–22 through allusions back to chapters 2–3. However, the grounding is no longer to situations of discouragement but rather to a transformed universe. The hopes and promises of chapters 2–3 have been fulfilled. 2. Local features of the letters John is writing to an audience who will basically hear rather than read his message. How will they remember? One way is for the message to resonate with what his audience already knows, through utilizing features of the cities they inhabit. Sir William Ramsay’s writings in the late nineteenth century suggested that each of the seven letters contained specific geographical and/or historical allusions that particularly connected with each city. While aspects of Ramsay’s argument seem overdrawn, it seems equally clear that some specific local allusions are embedded in the letters.3 It is a judgment call after researching the evidence how much allusion one identifies.4 The following table highlights possible and probable local allusions in Revelation 2–3: City

Reference

Possible allusion

Ephesus

Jesus’ warning that if they do not repent he ‘will remove’ their ‘lampstand’

The Ephesus coastline had recurring silting problems. Harbour silting led to the city being moved several times before and after the time of Revelation.

Promise to eat from ‘the tree of life’ in the paradise of God

This tree contrasts with a tree-shrine in the temple of Artemis where criminals could gain immunity from arrest.

‘Who was dead and came to life’

Smyrna was destroyed in 600 BC, but ‘came to life’ through a rebuilding program 300 years later.

‘Be faithful’

Smyrna had a reputation for being very loyal to her allies, most recently to Rome.5

‘Unto death’

The word ‘Smyrna’ was the same etymologically as the word ‘myrrh,’ which was associated with death and mourning.

Smyrna

Overview of the Letters to the Seven Churches: Revelation 2–3

55

‘For ten days you will have affliction’

Smyrna’s name led to several mourning myths being associated with the city. One was that of Niobe, whose fourteen children were killed because of jealousy among the gods. Niobe’s grief led to her perpetual weeping and to being changed into a stone cliff with a waterfall. The period of mourning in the cult of Niobe was ten days.

Promise of a ‘crown of life’

Pagus, the acropolis of Smyrna, was likened by ancient orators to a crown.

‘Two-edged sword’

The proconsul of Asia used Pergamum as capital or headquarters. He had the authority to execute (the ius gladii or ‘right of the sword’), some other governors not having this authority.

‘Satan’s throne’

Pergamum was steeped in pagan practices. These included • being the earliest and greatest centre of emperor worship in the East. • having a very important altar to Zeus Søt∑r (Zeus, the leading god of the Roman pantheon, Saviour). • Being the worship centre of Asklepios, god of healing, known as ‘the Pergamum god,’ symbolized by a serpent.

‘Burnished bronze’ (chalkolibanos)

Thyatira had an important metal industry. Chalkolibanos, an otherwise unknown trade term, would have been known in Thyatira.

Sardis

‘Wake up’

Sardis, with its near-impregnable acropolis 450 metres above a plain, had twice been captured through defenders’ negligence.

Philadelphia

‘I will make you a pillar in the temple of my God; you will never go out of it’

The city was in an unstable area bedevilled by earthquakes. Earthquake devastation in AD 17 led many to live outside the city for some time.

‘I will write on you . . . my own new name’

In gratitude for imperial aid, the city took the imperial name Neocaesarea to honour Tiberias, and later the name Flavia Philadelphia to honour the Flavian dynasty (which included Domitian).

Pergamum

Thyatira

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Making Sense of the Book of Revelation

Laodicia

‘You are neither hot nor cold’

Two cities with renowned springs— Colossae and Hierapolis—lay close to Laodicea. Colossae’s springs produced cold, pure water. Hierapolis’s hot springs produced calcium carbonate deposits resulting in spectacular, gleaming white hillsides, strikingly visible at Laodicea 6 miles away.

‘You say, “I am rich . . . and I need nothing”’

Laodicea had prosperity to the extent that it rejected imperial rebuilding aid after a major earthquake in AD 60. Individuals funded the reconstruction of public buildings.6

‘I counsel you to buy from me . . . salve to anoint your eyes’

The local medical school produced influential specialists in ophthalmology. A famous eye ointment, ‘Phrygian powder,’ may have been made at Laodicea (located in Phrygia) or at least used in the school.

3. The letters as a miniature message of Revelation as a whole The particular allusions in the table above, and the specificity of each message, indicate that each letter had application to a particular local context. At the same time the letters also conveyed a more universal message. One aspect of this is the way the letters collectively serve to introduce major themes of the book as a whole: Theme

Example in Revelation 2 & 3

Example elsewhere in Revelation

Judgment

2:5

6:12-17

Salvation

2:10

7:9-17

Repentance

2:5

9:20-21

Allegiance and worship

2:13

13:12

Eucharist/feasting

3:20

19:9

Oppression by the devil/evil

2:10

17:6

Martyrdom

2:13

6:9

The coming of Jesus

2:25

19:11ff

The new Jerusalem

3:12

21:2

Overview of the Letters to the Seven Churches: Revelation 2–3

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Revelation’s introductory material thus stretches across Revelation 2 and 3 as well as Revelation 1. This gives the letters an overture quality, alluding in a prosaic and compressed manner to much of the message of Revelation as a whole. 4. The background situation of the seven churches as a whole While each church had unique features, they all faced the challenge of being faithful to Jesus in a pagan environment. The religious challenge was becoming worse because of increasing pressure to worship Caesar from the expanding imperial cult. Pergamum, especially, as the centre of emperor-worship in Asia, was the place of ‘Satan’s throne’ (2:13). However, the issue was not one for Pergamum alone. The following table indicates how the imperial cult was present in all seven of the cities of Revelation:7 City

Imperial altar

Imperial temple

Imperial priest

Ephesus

√

√

√

Smyrna

√

√

√

Pergamum

√

√

√

Thyatira

√

-

√

Sardis

√

√

√

Philadelphia

-

√

-

Laodicea

-

√

-

The Christians of western Turkey were located in an increasingly hostile environment. They could not hide their religion in a corner. Their practice of regular collective worship in cities where housing was cramped together meant that neighbours must know of their Christian faith. If society wanted to hunt out Christians, locating them would not be hard. The Christians of Revelation faced the issue of how to relate to the world. Pagan and imperial worship confronted Christians in an in-yourface manner. Modern excavations show how temples, idols, and shrines jostled for space with shops, housing, and civic buildings in ancient Ephesus. Those in a trade often faced particular problems in relation to

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pagan practices. In some trades at least, trade guilds may have had a nearmonopoly on work. Non-members would not get work. However, being a member of a trade guild often involved social duties. These might include guild meals that would likely be held in a pagan temple (the restaurants of antiquity). There, one would be honouring the pagan god and dining with him or her. Could Christians do that? If they could not, then their economic livelihood was in jeopardy. Even more threateningly, pressures relating to emperor-worship were starting to put life itself at stake. Was some adjustment to the situation possible? The lives of those Christians were fraught with peril. This intensified the issue of assimilation—how far can you adapt yourself to your situation? What is of the essence of the faith, and what is of little consequence? There appears to have been a clash between John and rival teacher-prophets on this issue. Three churches seem particularly to have been affected: • Ephesus, which had rejected those falsely claiming to be apostles (2:2) and hated the works of the Nicolaitans (2:6). • Pergamum, which had the teaching of Balaam (2:14) and the teaching of the Nicolaitans (2:15). • Thyatira, which had a false prophet named ‘Jezebel’ (2:20). There seems to have been one common difficulty within these three churches. The teachings of Balaam and of the Nicolaitans seem to be the same. The teaching of Balaam in the Old Testament, who sought to lead Israel astray through compromise, is the sort of teaching that the Nicolaitans are now giving. This is shown by the word ‘thus’ (houtøs ) connecting 2:14 and 2:15. This teaching is described as ‘fornication’ and inducement to idolatry (2:14). The prophet ‘Jezebel’ is also giving this teaching (2:20). While John employs the language of sexual sin, this is probably a metaphor for idolatry. This is based on the fact that • John uses sexual language elsewhere in Revelation in ways that appear to contrast whole-hearted following of Christ with idolatrous compromise (14:4; 17:1-2; 18:9; 19:2; 21:8; 22:15). • Sexual immorality was a common image for apostasy in the Old Testament.

Overview of the Letters to the Seven Churches: Revelation 2–3

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• John’s listing the good qualities of Pergamum and Thyatira (especially 2:19) makes it more likely that the ‘fornication’ is spiritual rather than literal. For John, the root problem was one of subversion of true faith through compromise in worship. Over against this stance, false prophets were likely teaching that idols are nothing (as Paul did in 1 Cor. 8:4) and that therefore no compromise was involved in giving token support to emperor worship or to cultic meals in heathen temples (a conclusion Paul rejected in 1 Cor. 10:21). The antinomian-tending teaching of the false prophets in effect made behaviour irrelevant to belief. One could compromise with idol worship while still believing in Jesus. This appeared an attractive solution to Christians in a cornered situation. For John, however, the proposed solution is demonically dangerous. Exclusive loyalty to Jesus is of the essence of Christian faith. John therefore re-echoes the content of the Acts 15:20 decree as authoritative and final: there can be no compromise with idolatry. In these pressurized and divided churches, issues of truth and authority are at stake. John in Revelation is engaged in a struggle with other prophetic claims—but his way is the way of God. Conclusion It is extremely hard to know how to live in a society where the vast majority is hostile to Christianity. In such an environment, no simple solution can answer every situation. If Christians live in a way that is sealed off from society, then they cannot communicate the gospel to that society. If Christians live so close to society that they imbibe the values of that society, then their essential gospel life is lost. Christian response to society requires both a ‘Yes’ and a ‘No.’ Paul in 1 Corinthians 9:19-23 affirms a ‘Yes’ to society for the sake of witnessing to society. John in Revelation provides a ‘No’ to society for the sake of really following Jesus and honouring him as Lord. Both answers are needed. Reflection 1. How do the seven letters contribute to the message of Revelation as a whole?

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2. What would it be like to be a Christian in one of those seven cities at that time? What aspect of Revelation would you find most helpful to strengthen your faith and commitment in that situation? Notes 1. On this see Craig R. Koester, Revelation and the End of All Things (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001) 42. 2. D. E. Aune, Revelation 1–5 (Dallas: Word, 1997) 112. 3. More recent argument along the Ramsay line is found in C. Hemer, The Letters to the Seven Churches of Asia in their Local Setting (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1986). 4. For a view largely rejecting claims of local allusions, see C. R. Koester, ‘The Message to Laodicea and the Problems of Its Local Context: A Study of the Imagery in Rev 3.14-22,’ New Testament Studies 49 (2003): 407–24. 5. See, for example, Cicero, Phil 11:25; Livy 35.42.2. Cicero called Smyrna ‘one of our most faithful and ancient allies.’ 6. Tacitus, Annals 14.27.1. 7. This material is drawn from S. R. F. Price, Rituals and Power: The Roman Cult in Asia Minor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984) xxii–xxv.

6 The Message to Each of the Seven Churches: Revelation 2–3 1. Love is essential: the letter to Ephesus (2:1-7) John’s letters start with Ephesus. This is not surprising because the cities are listed in order on a circuit, and Ephesus, the city closest to Patmos, would be the natural starting point for the bearer of a circular letter from that island. In addition, however, mentioning Ephesus first matched its leading position in Asia. It was the official capital of the Roman province of Asia. It claimed the proud title, ‘the first and the greatest metropolis of Asia’ and one Roman writer called it ‘the light of Asia’ (Lumen Asiae). Legislation required that when a Roman proconsul came to take up office as governor of Asia, he must show honour to Ephesus by entering the province there. When John wrote the Book of Revelation, Ephesus was a major imperial religious centre, having temples to the divinities of past emperors Claudius and Nero and of the current emperor Domitian. The root problem within the church is expressed in 2:4. Faith (in the sense of right doctrine) and faithfulness (in the sense of standing against evil) remain, but a fundamental component of Christianity—love—is gone. To utilize the story of Pilgrim’s Progress, Mr. Valiant-for-Truth also needs to be Mr. Greatheart.1 John does not specify the object of the love that has faded. Other Johannine-related material links love for God closely with love for humanity (Jn. 15:12; 1 Jn. 3:17; 4:20-21). The decline of the Ephesian Christians is a dulling of that love for God and for others that fired them when they first embraced Christ. So fundamental is this loss that without repentance and change this church is finished. Its lampstand will be removed. Protestant focus on faith has sometimes led to a neglect of love. If John preached a sermon on the topic, ‘Is faith enough?’ his answer would be ‘No. It is nothing without its twin, love.’ John’s pneumatology (theology of the Spirit) begins in a puzzling fashion in Revelation 1 with its reference to ‘the seven spirits.’ This raises the question: what does John understand by the Spirit? However, the picture gradually clarifies when the various references to the Spirit in

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Revelation are considered as a whole. The seven letters provide a helpful guide. This first letter opens with the voice of Jesus (2:1). It closes with the voice of the Spirit (2:7). For John there is a functional equivalence between the voice of the Spirit and the voice of Jesus. They do the same things. The letters all end with a promise for those who ‘conquer.’ For the Ephesians the promise is a regaining of Eden: eating from the tree of life that is in the paradise of God (2:7). First, however, they must ‘conquer.’ What conquering means is later clarified in 5:5-6 and 12:11. Christ, who is the model for Christians, conquered by dying. The Christian conquerors are those with a martyr spirit, ready if necessary to die for their faith. They win by losing, gaining life by dying. The call to conquer is particularly poignant because a significant image that appeared several times on friezes on the walls of ancient Ephesus was a representation of the goddess Nik∑ (‘Victory’). Behind these images lay the belief that honouring Nik∑ in this way would move her to provide ongoing victory for the city. John’s call to conquer utilizes the related word nikaø. So John is making a counter-cultural statement: victory not through Nik∑ but through Jesus. 2. Faithful suffering is honoured: the letter to Smyrna (2:8-11) In the first century, Smyrna (now the very large city of Izmir) was the third most important city in the Roman province of Asia. At the time John writes to it, the church is going through a particularly hard time. It faces bitter opposition both from the Jewish community and also from the city authorities. In response to Jewish slander, John redefines the true Jew in spiritual rather than ethnic terms (cf. Rom. 2:28-29). A parallel message to the Philadelphian Christians (3:9) points to those who are faithful to God and who follow Jesus as being true ‘Jews,’ the true people of God. It is these who are particularly loved by God. John warns of testing for ‘ten days.’ I have already noted connections between this term and the cult of Niobe. The phrase recalls in addition the ten days of testing of the young Israelites in the court of Nebuchadnezzar (Dan. 1:12, 14). This connection fosters similar heroism of God’s people in the face of enveloping paganism. John’s reference to prison (2:10) hints at impending martyrdoms, especially with the call to be ‘faithful unto death.’ We need to note that prison was not strictly a punishment in itself in the Roman empire in the first century. At that time, prison had three functions: it was a short, sharp,

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coercive measure to pull the recalcitrant into line, or detention pending trial, or detention awaiting execution. In the context of impending martyrdoms, John gives the promise of exemption from the second death (2:11), that is, from annihilation at the Last Judgment (20:6; 21:8). The church at Smyrna is one of only two out of the seven for whom there is only encouragement, with no word of censure. The primary call on the church is simply to be ‘faithful’ (2:10). The reward will be ‘the crown of life’ (2:10). In addition to any local allusions, this evokes the image of an athlete’s mark of victory or an earthly honour. There is a near-universal human need to be a somebody. One way to achieve this is through the crown of athletic or political glory. To the nobodies of Smyrna who face affliction, poverty, and slander, John brings the message of Jesus: they are somebodies who will receive unfading glory: the crown of life. 3. Christian oil and pagan water do not mix: the letter to Pergamum (2:12-17) Pergamum (modern Bergama) rivalled Ephesus as the key city of the Roman province of Asia. It had a huge granite citadel atop a small mountain rising one thousand feet above the plain below. Pergamum’s large-scale healing shrine of Asklepios, utilizing sacred water and psychological and spiritual therapies under the blessing of the god Asklepios, served as a magnet for desperate people, a kind of pagan Lourdes of Asia Minor.2 Pergamum’s links with imperial rule (through the presence of the governor there) and its prominence in relation to traditional and imperial pagan rites made Pergamum a dangerous place for Christians—the place ‘where Satan’s throne is’ (2:12). At the same time, while Roman governors had the power of the sword (ius gladii), here it is Christ who has that sword (2:12). Despite Roman power and despite idolatrous evil, it is ultimately Christ who rules. The church is commended for its tenacious faith, exemplified in the witness of its member, Antipas, who was faithful even to the point of martyrdom (2:13). Nevertheless, warning is given. No syncretistic honouring of both God and pagan deities is possible. In relation to ‘meat offered to idols,’ we should note that general eating of meat by the ordinary people of society was not a regular practice. More commonly it was consumed at civic or religious festivals, or at pagan temples. The eating of meat thus

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typically had a markedly religious context. When, for example, people were invited to a social meal, this might well be expressed in terms of coming to the ‘couch (klin∑ ) of Serapis’ (Serapis being the Egyptian god of the underworld, later associated with the sun, healing, fertility, etc.). This indicates that there was a sense that when one ate in a temple, its god was also present at the meal.3 Consuming meat in a pagan temple therefore detracted from sole loyalty to God alone. Those who persist in this practice are enemies of Christ (2:16); but those completely loyal to Christ are promised two great rewards: ‘hidden manna’ and ‘a white stone’ (2:17). The roots of the image of ‘hidden manna’ lie in Exodus 16:32ff, which requires the preserving of one jar of the miraculous food for future generations. Second Maccabees 2:4ff develops the tradition that this golden pot of manna and other temple treasures had been hidden by Jeremiah when the temple was destroyed and would be restored in the messianic age. Second Baruch 29:8 (written about the same time as Revelation) indicates that manna is the food of angels and will descend from heaven in the messianic age as the food of the saints. John utilizes such popular thinking to point to Christian participation in the messianic feast, to Christian participation in the miraculous life-giving provision of God. The second promised reward is ‘a white stone.’ While the exact meaning of this term is not fully clear, it likely touches on a number of allusions and is therefore rich in meaning: • It may be a sign of acquittal by Christ. At court trials, jurors expressed their verdict by casting stones into an urn, black for guilt and white for acquittal. • It may be a sign of admission to the Messianic feast. A white stone could serve as a kind of ticket of admission to public festivals and royal assemblies. • It may be a sign of spiritual protection and power. People commonly carried a precious stone or even a pebble as an amulet or charm. On the pebble there was a sacred name which could be summoned in time of difficulty and would provide protection from demons. We are not required to plump for one only of these options. This rich, multi-faceted allusion bears hope of life and celebration and protection.

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4. Limits to socializing: the letter to Thyatira (2:18-29) Thyatira was a commercial centre with an unusually large number of trade guilds. Because almost all trades had a guild, most people engaging in economic activity would belong to one. The prominence of the guilds led to Thyatira being one of several cities which seem to have replaced the more usual civic tribal structure with that of the trade guilds.4 The trade guilds lay at the heart of city life. To be cut off from such institutions was therefore a serious matter. For Christians, a major problem was that guilds had patron deities, the local god Apollo Tyrimnaeus being patron of the guilds of Thyatira. To belong to the guild meant giving homage to this pagan god and feasting in his temple (trade-guild feasts being essentially religious occasions which took place in a temple). With the heightened influence of the trade guilds, church members would be under extreme temptation and pressure to go along with the message of ‘Jezebel’ (2:20) and participate in such feasts in order to preserve their livelihood. The Thyatiran church seems to have been bedevilled with idolatrous compromise. Allusion to this occurs not only in 2:20, but also in 2:24, in the reference to ‘the deep things of Satan.’ Here John is probably saying sarcastically that their claim to know ‘the deep things of God’ is actually sourced in satanic inspiration. No compromise with idolatry is possible. John gives warning that the idolatrous bed of ‘fornication’ that they occupy will be a bed of pain and ‘distress’ (2:22). For those who remain faithful, there is the gift of both spiritual authority (2:26-27) and also ‘the morning star.’ Explanation of this latter term is problematic. This may allude to • Christ (as in 22:16). • Balaam’s prophecy of a star coming out of Jacob in Numbers 24:17. • A contrast with world powers through allusion to Venus, the morning star. • A symbol of immortality, through allusion to Daniel 12:3. Multiple allusions are common in references in Revelation, and none of these suggestions need be discarded. In the promise of ‘the morning star’ there is the promise of future glory.

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5. A wake-up call to a sleepy church: the letter to Sardis (3:1-6) Unlike most of the letters, this one does not begin with commendation. It rather issues a harsh ‘wake-up’ call. I have already mentioned the way this call would resonate with the history of Sardis. The first instance of Sardis being overrun through going to sleep is particularly striking. Sardis was built on a spur 450 metres above a plain, commanding the whole district. Its acropolis was surrounded by precipices, except at one point where it was joined to the mass of the Tmolus ridge by a narrow saddle, and even this approach was steep and difficult. The tiny citadel was both the royal stronghold and the wartime refuge of citizens who ordinarily lived below. In the seventh century BC, its Lydian king Gyges (who was probably the historical prototype for Ezekiel’s ‘Gog’) was famed for his fabulous wealth. His descendant Croessus later fought Cyrus of Persia on the strength of the Delphic prophecy that if he crossed his frontier river, the Halys, he would destroy a great empire; actually, the empire turned out to be his own. As a last stand, Croessus faced a siege at Sardis. One of his soldiers clambered down a slope to retrieve his fallen helmet, and this showed the enemy a way up. On the fourteenth day Sardis fell. The soldiers climbed at an unguarded point, ‘where no guard was stationed, for there was no fear that it would ever be captured at that place for the acropolis is sheer and impregnable there.’5 The call to ‘wake up’ was a particularly poignant one in such a context. The overall problem at Sardis related more to behaviour than to belief. This is shown by references to works not being perfect, the need to obey and repent, and the fact that some (but only some) had not ‘soiled their clothes.’ For the majority, it was a wake-up call, a call to change their behaviour. For those who do not wake up, Jesus will ‘come’ in judgment (3:3). This judgment will happen if repentance does not take place. Such conditional prediction contrasts with the commonly deterministic approach of apocalyptic literature (in apocalyptic literature the future is commonly fixed irrespective of human response). Here, response (or lack of it) will determine this church’s future. Many Christians read of Christ’s coming only in terms of a final return. This is not John’s theology, which was clearly not limited to one decisive final coming. The text of Revelation points to many limited comings prior to a decisive final day.

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For the ‘conquerors’ John articulates hope. This is expressed in two ways: • They will receive ‘white robes.’ Roman citizens wore a pure white toga at holidays and religious ceremonies, but especially at the celebration of a military triumph. Elsewhere in Revelation white garments are consistently located in scenes of heaven. The hope is one of heavenly victory and glory. • Their names will be in the ‘book of life.’ There is probably allusion both to Exodus 32:32 and to citizen registers of Greek towns. Citizenship meant standing and advantage. The citizen was a ‘somebody.’ Here the promise to the ‘conquerors’ is enrolment in the register of God—having affirmation even before God and his angels. 6. Little power, big promises: the letter to Philadelphia (3:7-13) The letter to this church is the second of two that contain promise without warning. There seems to be little that is outstanding about this church. Apart from a generalized affirmation of their works (3:8), the only good features mentioned are their keeping the word of Jesus (3:8) and their displaying patient endurance (3:10). Yet they receive profound encouragement merely for this. John brings a message of simply living faithfully as a Christian in tough times, of ‘hanging in’ under extreme adversity. John’s indication of an ‘open door’ for the Philadelphians (3:8) may relate to a door of missionary opportunity (as in 1 Cor. 16:9; 2 Cor. 2:12; Col. 4:3). A better interpretation, however, is to see it as referring to having a door of entry into the Messianic kingdom. This would tie in with the reference to the ‘key of David’ (3:7), which has Messianic reference. It also provides a contrast to the opposition from the synagogue (3:9). While the synagogue can shut them out from earthly Israel, it cannot shut them out of the Messianic kingdom. There the door is open. For these faithful Christians, salvation is certain. The reward of the Philadelphians is not ephemeral. They will be pillars (bearers of strength and stability) in the temple of God. I have already noted Philadelphia’s changing its name twice to honour its emperors. On the second occasion Philadelphia took the name ‘Flavia,’ honoring the Flavian dynasty, which ruled AD 69–96. However, a few years before Revelation was written, Domitian, the last of the Flavians, let

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the city down badly. In AD 92, at a time when there was a famine in Asia Minor, Domitian decreed that half the vineyards in the provinces had to be destroyed in order to protect the agriculture of Italy. This would have hugely impacted Philadelphia, which heavily depended on wine-growing. Local outcry meant that the decree was not fully implemented. Nevertheless, the decree itself would have shaken the trust of the Philadelphians in their Flavian ‘protector,’ Domitian. In contrast to the family name of unreliable emperors that the city had assumed, the ‘conquerors’ are to have ‘the name of my God’ (3:12). There will be intimate connection between the faithful and their God. Philadelphia had known marked instability. The promise to the Philadelphian Christians is eternal stability. They will be a pillar in the temple of God and ‘they will never go out of it.’ Eternal glory is assured. 7. Comfortable complacency condemns: the letter to Laodicea (3:14-22) When Christ speaks to the Laodiceans he takes the title, ‘the faithful and true witness’ (3:14, as in 1:5 and 19:11). This quality points the way forward for this Christian community—to be faithful and true in the face of hardship. The problem is that the Laodicean Christians did not feel any hardship. They experienced a measure of economic comfort through living in a relatively prosperous city. The Laodicean Christians had taken on the comfortable flavour of their city and the result was a bland Christianity. That blandness is summed up in one word: ‘lukewarm.’ Some scholars have associated that word with Laodicea’s piping its drinking water from hot springs such that the water was still lukewarm when it arrived at Laodicea.6 This may be the case as the terminal part of an ancient aqueduct choked with mineral matter points to the south and there are hot springs five miles to the south. However, the ancient writer Strabo described Laodicea’s water, unlike that at Hierapolis, as drinkable, even though it was hard (‘easily congealing and turning into stone’).7 Thus the allusion is probably a more generalized one, linked to the quite distinctive waters of Laodicea’s near neighbours—Colossae, ten miles away, which had refreshingly fresh and pure water from local springs, and Hierapolis, six miles away, which had hot springs. If one were to drink the hot-spring water of Hierapolis, one would find it nauseous. John’s language of hot-

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ness, coldness, lukewarmness, and being spat out (3:15) would deeply resonate in that overall context. One aspect of Laodicea’s prosperity was its textile industry, linked with soft raven-black wool from local sheep. John’s urging the church to receive ‘white robes’ (3:18) may simply be a call to have a more spiritual or heavenly focus. However, hearers of John’s message might well note the contrast with the colour that had helped their city’s prosperity. Christ’s call is to assess their state spiritually, not materially. The intent is to shock the Laodiceans into realization of their true state and into hunger for transcendent realities: The reality

The need

Poverty

‘Gold refined by fire’

Nakedness

‘White robes to clothe you’

Blindness

‘Salve to anoint your eyes’

Of greatest concern is that Christ, who is otherwise described as present in the churches (elsewhere standing in the midst of the lampstands/the churches in 1:12, 20), is outside of this church, knocking on its door. The text of Revelation 3:20 has been a major evangelistic text—urging individuals to open their hearts to the sway of Christ. We should note, however, that the context of the letter is significantly a communal one— the letter is to the church. Furthermore, the central importance of the eucharist in worship in the late-first-century church suggests that John’s reference to eating and drinking has a collective eucharistic echo. If the church reopens itself to Christ, it will again have true communion with him. In addition to the communal dimension of the text, however, Revelation 3:20 does also have an individual focus and a call to the individual. While the letter as a whole is to the church, the call here is to the individual—the appeal is to ‘anyone’ who hears and opens (Greek tis), and not to ‘you (plural)’ (Greek humeis). Despite its hard-hitting nature, the letter also conveys warmth and hope. It is written to a church that Christ loves (3:19). And it is written with the offer of a shared meal, which in that context means the offer of a shared life. Christ offers himself afresh to this errant Christian group. The hope held out to this community is not focused on a final coming of Christ. It is rather an immediate coming, in response to a fresh welcoming of him into heart and life. Ultimately this will lead to actually

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Christ the Light of the World by Holman Hunt. Used with kind permission of the Warden and Fellows of Keble College, Oxford.

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sharing a throne with Christ, who in turn shares a throne with God (3:21). John follows this promise with throne-room images of near-indescribable transcendence and glory in Revelation 4 and 5, to unfold what the sharing of the throne could mean. Conclusion John’s letters to Smyrna and Philadelphia show that Christ is not calling for spectacular life and ministry, but simply for ongoing loyalty and faithfulness to himself. Two matters particularly may corrode such commitment. One (evident in the letters to Pergamum and Thyatira) is spiritual compromise, mixing loyalty to Christ with a socio-religious conformity to society that is actually idolatry. Corrosion may also come, however, from spiritual coolness, apathy, and complacency (seen in the letters to Ephesus, Sardis, and Laodicea). Every church, every believer, must be alert to these dangers: ‘Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches.’ Reflection 1. The seven letters have been felt to be set out in a balanced pattern with the first and last letters being particularly threatening and the second and fifth being particularly encouraging. What invokes the severest judgment and what invokes great praise? 2. In the light of the seven letters, what might John say to the Christian church in your context today? Notes 1. M. Wilcock, The Message of Revelation (Leicester: IVP, 1975) 44. 2. E. Lohmeyer in J. Roloff, Revelation, trans. J. E. Alsup (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993) 51. 3. D. E. Aune, Revelation 1–5 (Dallas: Word, 1997) 192. 4. C. Hemer, The Letters to the Seven Churches of Asia in their Local Setting (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1986) 107–108. 5. Herodotus, History 1.84. 6. M. J. S. Rudwick & E. M. B. Green, ‘The Laodicean Lukewarmness,’ Expository Times 69 (1957–1958): 176–78. 7. Strabo, Geography 13.4.14.

7 From Earth to Heaven: Revelation 4–5 For John, the transcendent, the heavenly, the eternal really matters. Although the first three chapters of Revelation essentially have an earthly location, John’s vision is not earth-bound. The promises to the ‘conquerors’ in the seven churches are essentially otherworldly promises—the hope above all is a hope of paradise. In 4:1 onwards, John begins to show the glory of this otherworldly hope. The location now strikingly shifts from earth to heaven. A voice from heaven says, ‘Come up here.’ However, despite this apparently sudden and surprising shift in location, markers in the text show that John’s narrative is a continuation of what has been touched on in Revelation 1–3. Thus the voice in heaven ‘like a trumpet’ (4:1) is described in language that reminds us of the inaugural vision where there is also a voice ‘like a trumpet’ in 1:10. That voice—the voice of the awesome Son of Man—concluded its promises to the seventh church by promising faithful believers a place with Christ on his throne— a throne that is identical with or closely associated with the throne of God himself (3:21). In showing the reality of that throne in Revelation 4, John confirms the earlier call to repentance and the hope of future salvation. While the new setting is otherworldly, earth is not forgotten. There is a close connection between heaven and earth. What is seen in heaven will have consequences on earth. When the seals are opened in heaven (6:1ff), there is immediate outworking on earth. John’s vision in Revelation 4 shows a deeper reality in relation to the earthly situation. The present situation on earth is not the totality of reality. Notwithstanding the emperor Domitian’s claims, it is not Domitian who is ‘Lord’ and ‘God’ and ‘Almighty’—it is God himself (4:8). 1. The centrality of the throne and the one seated on it The throne is the dominating image in Revelation 4. The word ‘throne’ (Greek thronos) appears fourteen times in the chapter. Throne imagery is mentioned forty-seven times altogether in Revelation. This imagery is imagery of rule. A fundamental question for the beleaguered Christians is, ‘Who really is Lord? Who controls the world?’ The heavenly vision is a

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declaration that God is in charge. It is not the Roman emperor who ‘calls all the shots.’ No, it is God who ultimately is in control. The throne—the first thing mentioned in the vision of heaven (4:2)— is central to the whole vision. The centrality of the throne is heightened by the depiction of circles of attendants that surround it. The reference is first to twenty-four elders (4:4), also on thrones, but clearly subordinate to the one seated on the throne. There follows a description of ‘four living creatures’ (4:6). Why such a mysterious image? The simple answer is that they are part of John’s received tradition: his sources use this language. John’s ‘four living creatures’ is a collage from Ezekiel 1:5-11 and Isaiah 6:1-3, with John reworking and reconfiguring the material as he does so.1 The essence of the ‘four living creatures’ is that they collectively embody the leading species of various types of creation. An ancient Jewish commentary made this sort of observation: ‘Man is exalted among creatures, the eagle among birds, the ox among domestic animals, the lion among beasts.’2 Symbolically, representatives of all leading forms of creation are in worship before God. Then as the picture of glory unfolds, the stage fills with more and more beings, all caught up in the glory of God–hosts of angels (5:11) and every creature (5:13). Diagrammatically we may portray this heavenly scene as follows:

God on the throne

1 2 3 4

1 = the four living creatures 2 = the 24 elders 3 = myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands of angels 4 = every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea3

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The centrality of God is enhanced by the splendour of his description. He is associated with precious stones: jasper, carnelian, and emerald (4:3). These stones were among the costly jewels that bedecked the breastplate of the high priest (Exod. 28:17) and that exhibited the splendour of the king of Tyre (Ezek. 28:13). While the exact identification of these stones is uncertain, they represent that which is costly and precious. God’s majesty is also expressed in his association with a rainbow (4:3). Evoking the story of Noah (Gen. 9:12-17), this allusion is a reminder that God is able to establish peace in the midst of chaos, life in the midst of death. An image with a similar message is the ‘sea of glass’ that surrounds the throne (4:6). The Israelites/Jews were not markedly a seafaring people. For them the sea was a scary place. Biblical images of the sea are usually images of danger (e.g., Ps. 107:23-29). Here, however, the sea has the smoothness of glass. That which commonly evokes dread is under the control of God. This theophany or manifestation of God is also described in terms of the giving of the law in the exodus story, the heavenly scene being punctuated with ‘flashes of lightning and rumblings and peals of thunder’ (4:5; cf. Exod. 19:16; 20:18). The scene as a whole is a reminder that times of greatest peril are also times of God’s activity. God is in control. 2. Parallels between the heavenly scene and Roman imperial court ceremonial David Aune has highlighted the way that John has utilized aspects of Roman imperial court ceremonial in his description in Revelation 4 and 5.4 We can note a number of connections. (i) The primary role of the emperor was to dispense justice. In dispensing justice the Roman emperor was surrounded by friends (amici) and advisors (consilium) and other officials. He was often depicted as surrounded by a council and holding a libellus (letter or petition). So here God is surrounded by the elders and others. He is holding a scroll (5:1), and throughout Revelation he dispenses justice. (ii) The presentation of golden crowns to a sovereign (4:10) was a ceremony inherited by the Romans from the traditions of Hellenistic kingship. Alexander the Great, for example, was crowned with golden crowns by envoys from Greece. Likewise, Mark Antony was presented with a golden crown by a Jewish embassy at Ephesus.5 A common sign of vassalage in antiquity was for a conquered ruler to remove his crown and

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place it at the feet of his conqueror.6 In Revelation 4 the casting down of the crowns demonstrates that ultimate power and rule belong to God. (iii) Higher Roman officials were entitled to be escorted by a number of lictors bearing fasces (a bundle of rods with an axe in the middle) as a demonstration of state authority. The purpose of the lictors was to announce the approach of the officials they accompanied, as well as to act as their bodyguards. The number of escorting lictors corresponded to the degree of authority attached to the official’s office. Consuls were permitted to have twelve lictors. Although Augustus had twelve, this number was doubled by Domitian to twenty-four. The twenty-four elders in Revelation function to provide honour in a manner similar to that of lictors.7 They are an assertion of God’s majesty over against Caesar’s. (iv) Prostration of subjects before their sovereign was widespread in the east. From there it entered into Greek and Roman practice. Dio Cassius (62.2) records the self-prostration of the Parthian prince Tiridates before Nero in AD 66: ‘I have come to you, my god, to worship you as I do Mithras. The destiny you make for me shall be mine; for you are my fortune and my fate.’ Dio Cassius also records the Roman senators assembling for no other business than to honour the emperor Gaius Caligula, ‘wasting the whole day’ in prostrating themselves as a body with hymns and acclamations before his empty throne.8 For John, however, it is God and the Lamb who are worthy to receive this sort of prostration (4:10; 5:8; 5:14). (v) Extravagant flattery and praise was given to Roman emperors. Nero was supposed to have had a group of 5,000 followers called Augustiani who followed him everywhere and provided hymns and acclamations which emphasized his divinity. According to Tacitus they kept up a non-stop thunder of applause day and night.9 Extravagant flattery attaching to Roman emperors is evidenced in a late document, the Gesta Senatus Urbis Romae, which sets out a series of acclamations and the number of times each is to be repeated. Thus the gathered assembly is to shout slogans like ‘Augustuses of Augustuses, the greatest of Augustuses!’ (eight times), ‘God gave you to us! God gave you to us!’ (twenty-seven times), ‘Our hope is in you, you are our salvation!’ (twenty-six times), and so on. Acclamation of this sort was also applied to provincial governors. They were acclaimed whenever they entered and left a city, when they appeared at the theatres, and when they drove through the streets. Adulation of Herod Agrippa I in Acts 12:22 is an

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example of this sort of acclamation. In Revelation 4–5, extravagant praise is given to God and the Lamb from ‘every creature in heaven and on earth and under the sea and in the sea, and all that is in them’ (5:13). The heartfelt spontaneity and universality of this praise makes it outshine the praise given to the seemingly all-powerful emperor himself. It is to God that people must look. 3. Parallels with Daniel 7 Revelation 4–5 connects strongly not only with imperial court ceremonial but also with the Book of Daniel. The material resonates both with contemporary culture and with Scripture. Both sources contribute to our understanding of John’s heavenly vision. Both help John to describe the indescribable. The following table shows John’s use of Daniel 7 here: Daniel

Revelation

‘As I watched’ (7:9)

‘I looked’ (4:1)

‘Thrones were set in place’ (7:9)

‘There in heaven stood a throne’ (4:2)

‘An Ancient One [the Ancient of Days] took his throne’ (7:9)

‘One seated on the throne’ (4:2)

‘His throne was fiery flames’ (7:9)

‘In front of the throne burn seven flaming torches’ (4:5)

‘A thousand thousands served him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood attending him’ (7:10)

‘They [the angels] . . . numbered myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands’ (5:11)

‘The books were opened’ (7:10)

‘I saw . . . a scroll [which was to be opened]’ (5:1)

‘I saw one like a human being [like a Son of Man]. . . .He came to the Ancient One’ (7:13)

‘I saw . . . a Lamb. . . . He went and took the scroll from the right hand of the one who was seated on the throne’ (5:6-7)

‘To him was given dominion and glory and kingship’ (7:14)

‘Worthy is the Lamb . . . to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honour and glory and blessing’ (5:12)

‘All peoples, nations and languages should serve him’ (7:14)

Saints from every tribe and language and people and nation . . . serving our God’ (5:10)

‘The holy ones of the Most High shall receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom—forever and ever’ (7:18)

‘You have made them [the saints: 5:9] to be a kingdom’ (5:10)

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A striking contrast in relation to this parallel material is the matter of timing. Daniel looked to an everlasting kingdom which would be the final act in human history (7:14, 26-27). For John that is not an event in the remote future. Rather, that kingdom is already here. Christ has already purchased Christians for God and has already made them a kingdom (5:9-10). It is the cross that is crucial, not some future crisis. The process of inaugurating God’s kingdom has begun, a process that will occupy the whole of the gospel age from the inauguration of the kingdom to its final triumph.10 4. Parallels between Revelation 4 and Revelation 5 A marked feature of Revelation 5 is the extent to which it echoes Revelation 4. Each chapter opens with similar language. Chapter 4 opens with ‘I looked,’ chapter 5 with ‘I saw.’ In chapter 4 there is a ‘voice’ (4:1); in chapter 5 there is ‘a loud voice’ (5:2). At the same time, the two chapters seem to have a strikingly contrasting focus: chapter 4 focusing on God, chapter 5 on Jesus, the Lion-Lamb: 4:1-5

Focuses on the throne and the One seated on it

4:6-8

The living creatures praising God day and night

4:9-11

The elders in prostration and adoration before God

5:1-6

The Lion-Lamb is identified as worthy to open the scroll

5:7

The Lamb takes the scroll

5:8-10

The living creatures and the elders worship the Lamb

5:11-12

Myriads of angels worship the Lamb

Despite this apparent contrast of focus, there is in fact a strong commonality in relation to worship of God and the Lamb. Each is emphasized as being ‘worthy’ (4:11; cf. 5:2, 4, 9, 12). Each receives worship. This is striking because elsewhere John is forcibly reminded that only God is to be worshiped (19:10; 22:8-9). Even more noteworthy is the fact that there seems to be greater stress on the worship of Jesus in these two chapters even than on the worship of God. Thus while God is worshiped by the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders, Jesus is, in addition, worshiped by ‘myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands’ of angels (5:11). And while to God is attributed ‘glory and honour and power’

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(4:11), to Jesus is attributed in addition, ‘wealth and wisdom and might and blessing’ (5:12). These close parallels functionally merge the positions of God and of Christ. Utilizing later theological language, this locates Jesus in the ‘Godhead.’ Such a location is underscored in the final act of worship of Revelation 5, when the two are joined together in one final glorious flood of praise from ‘every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them’ (5:13). A striking fact in relation to this elevation of Jesus is that there is yet one God, not two. John preserves monotheism, the oneness of God (19:10; 22:9); and yet Christ is included in that monotheism. John does this in 11:15 through following his description of the exaltation of ‘our Lord and his Messiah’ with the singular pronoun: ‘he will reign.’ Similarly later, though there is reference to God and the Lamb (22:3), his servants will worship ‘him.’ Bauckham comments, He [John] is evidently reluctant to speak of God and of Christ together as a plurality. He never makes them the subjects of a plural verb or uses a plural pronoun to refer to them both. The reason is surely clear: he places Christ on the divine side of the distinction between God and creation, but he wishes to avoid ways of speaking which sound polytheistic. The consistency of his usage shows that he has reflected carefully on the relation of Christology to monotheism.11

5. Other features elevating Christ A feature of Revelation 5 is the literary build-up in the description of the scroll. It is sealed (5:1); unable to be opened (5:2); unable to be opened (5:3); unable to be opened (5:4); able to be opened (5:5); taken (5:7); taken (5:8); taken (5:9). There is a tantalizing drawing out of the image. This shows its extreme importance. It provokes the question, ‘Well, what is in it?’ That question then prepares our minds for the disclosures of Revelation 6. Aspects of John’s scroll connect with ancient contract deeds which were sealed with a description of the contents on the outside. This matches the description of this document ‘written on the inside and on the back’ (5:1; cf. Ezek. 2:9-10). Other aspects of John’s scroll connect with Roman wills, which were witnessed by seven witnesses who then affixed their seals (cf. 5:1).

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The essence of John’s scroll imagery is one of a heavenly book indicating the purposes of God which will finally prevail. Despite chaos and evil, things are not out of control. God’s purposes will be done. This does not, however, indicate a totally predetermined world. There is a place for human response, for human partnership. After all, in the destructiveness that is to come, there remains the yearning of God that his wayward children will repent (9:20-21; 16:11). And were such repentance to come, the implication is that events might then well be different. So the message is not one of total predetermination but rather of God’s plans which, despite seemingly unstoppable power and evil, will have their way in the end. This is a message of vast importance, underscored through the importance of having a ‘worthy’ person to open the scroll. That person is Christ. Christ is first introduced as ‘the Lion,’ one whose power is to be feared. However, on close appearance this Lion is actually a slaughtered lamb—the point being reiterated three times (5:6, 9, 12). Here is a clear allusion to the sacrificial death of Christ. The slaughtered Lamb, the powerless victim, is in fact the conqueror. This redefines what it means to ‘win.’ Rome was proud of establishing peace (pax Romana) throughout the Mediterranean world. The empire gloried in the myth of victory (Latin victoria, Greek nik∑ ), achieved through military conquest. In contrast, the conquering Lamb is defined by suffering and death—he has conquered through the cross. To win is now defined in terms of Christ’s suffering and death. It is his death that makes Christ ‘worthy’ to open the seals. What this means is that the future which unfolds with the opening of the seals is not suddenly launched in AD 95 AD (the time of writing of Revelation). It is the conquering Lamb, the Lamb who was slain, who opens the seals. The future is rooted in the crucial Calvary event of AD 30/33. While Christ is the slaughtered Lamb, the image yet retains dimensions of power. Christ is not simply ‘gentle Jesus, meek and mild.’ The lamb image has ‘seven horns.’ In the biblical world, horns were symbols of power (cf. Deut. 33:17). Certain near-contemporary Jewish writings depict a conquering, messianic, horned lamb or sheep.12 This slaughtered lamb is no pushover. His horns express power, the seven horns expressing fullness of power. Victim is also victor. Spatially, Christ stands in the closest proximity to the throne—he is literally in its midst (en mesø: 5:6). Because the term en mesø relates to two points—the throne and the four living creatures—the term is translated according to Semitic usage as ‘between.’ Later, when a similar term

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relates to the throne alone, it is translated ‘at the centre of the throne.’ In Revelation the throne is portrayed as God’s single-seater throne. Finally, however, this single-seater throne is presented also as a ‘two-seater’—it is the throne ‘of God and the Lamb’ (22:3). The divine majesty of the throne is the majesty of God and Christ together. This discussion has moved some distance from the text of Revelation 5. But Revelation 5 is where it starts, with the Lamb’s close proximity to the throne and the four living creatures—en mesø. Conclusion Words that best capture the atmosphere of Revelation 4 and 5 include ‘mysterious,’ ‘all-powerful,’ and ‘overwhelming.’ These chapters must have been tremendously strengthening to their original and hard-pressed audience. Their outlook has seemed grim—but now their ‘up-look’ is glorious. The heavenly perspective vindicates their Christian faith. They may follow Jesus to slaughter; but they will also follow him to glory. Ultimate rule—the ‘throne’—is God’s, and Jesus is right there, ‘in the midst of the throne.’ Their leader is indeed ‘worthy’—worthy of worship, even as God is; and worthy to open the seals of earth’s destiny. The space and care that John has devoted to the heavenly scene in Revelation 4 and 5 strengthen the view that this section is the key to the book as a whole. While Revelation may give the impression that it is a book of battles, the decisive battle is described in these early chapters— the slaughtered Lamb has conquered (5:5-6). His death-and-resurrection is the hinge of history. Because of that decisive already-won victory, the succeeding judgments—the focus of so much of the rest of Revelation— begin to unfold with the opening of the seals. Chapters 4–5 are pivotal to the whole narrative. Reflection 1. In what way and to what extent does Revelation 4–5 identify Jesus with God himself? 2. How does John portray Jesus as the hinge of history? Or, in other words, how is Revelation 5 the fulcrum on which the book as a whole turns?

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Notes 1. M. Eugene Boring, Revelation, Interpretation Series (Louisville: John Knox , 1989) 107. 2. Midrash Shemoth R. 23, cit. J. Sweet, Revelation (London: SCM, 1979) 120. 3. This diagram has similarities to one in W. Hendriksen, More than Conquerors: An Interpretation of the Book of Revelation (London: IVP, 1940) 83. 4. D. Aune, ‘The Influence of Roman Imperial Court Ceremonial on the Apocalypse of John,’ Biblical Research 28 (1983): 5–26. 5. Josephus, Antiquities 14.304-23. 6. G. M Stevenson, ‘Conceptual Background to Golden Crown Imagery in the Apocalypse of John (4.4, 10; 14.4),’ Journal of Biblical Literature 114/2 (1995): 257–72 at 268–69. 7. At the same time there may be a possible connection with the twenty-four divisions of the priesthood in 1 Chron. 24:7-18. 8. Dio Cassius, Roman History 59.24.3-5. 9. Tacitus, Annals 14.15. 10. M. Wilcock, The Message of Revelation (Leicester: IVP, 1975) 33. 11. Richard Bauckham, The Theology of the Book of Revelation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993) 60–61. 12. E.g., 1 Enoch 90; Testament of Joseph 19.

8 Wrath from Above. The Opening of the Seven Seals: Revelation 6:1–8:5 1. God and catastrophe The images of Revelation 6 are full of woe and disaster—horrifying material to most modern readers. Many first-time Revelation readers will be intrigued, even if puzzled, by the opening chapters of Revelation. The images of catastrophe in chapter 6, however, are too much: one quarter of the population of the world killed, the earth shattered, and people so desperate that they long for death. Here some readers may start to feel an interpretive block-wall which eventually makes the text of Revelation as a whole impenetrable. Revelation then becomes frighteningly meaningless or shudderingly repulsive. Given this sort of reaction, why is this material in Revelation 6? To answer our dilemma, we need to look at the links of Revelation 6 with preceding material. We also need to reflect on the overall thrust of Revelation and to consider its original setting. For its original audience (embattled Christians in first-century western Turkey), the overall message of Revelation is one of tremendous encouragement. This tiny, crushed minority of society is thrown a lifeline of salvation and victory: ‘the Lamb who was slain has conquered.’ Currently they face tremendous injustice—how long can this go on (6:10)? One answer to their injustice, to their despair, to the evil behind their injustice, is that evil itself will be overthrown. It is important to read Revelation 6 in the context of its preceding chapters. Revelation 6 is structurally linked with Revelation 4–5. The Lamb in Revelation 5 received the scroll because he is worthy to open its seals. In Revelation 6 he does just that—opens the seals. The three chapters are all chapters of the reign of God, of the victory of Christ. Revelation does not pretend that everything will magically be all right for Christians because God reigns and Christ is victorious. Rather, Revelation 6 paints a picture of dreadful disasters. Yet the disasters arise from the

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Lamb’s opening of the seals. The strong message is that God’s purposes are being worked out, even in the midst of these disasters. Are these disasters directly caused by God? A feature of the text is that the passive tense is often used as the disasters unfold: 6:2

A crown was given to the rider

6:4

The rider was permitted to take peace from the earth

6:4

The rider was given a great sword

6:8

Death and Hades were given authority over a fourth of the earth

Given or permitted by whom? The agent of the various actions is left unstated, but in context seems to be God or the Lamb. What we have then is a ‘divine passive.’ However, the lack of a stated agent suggests that God’s role is perhaps less than direct. It is more a divine permission, a divine allowing of events to happen, rather than direct divine causation. What we see in Revelation 6 is not a God hell-bent on destroying humanity, but rather anti-God destructive forces embedded in human society and wreaking self-destroying havoc in that society, while somehow ultimately being under divine control.1 2. Understanding the call for vengeance Associated with the general issue of violence in Revelation 6 is the problem of the call for vengeance in 6:10. Is this Christian? Several points can be made in response: • Revelation arises out of a situation of suffering where people are being pushed to the edges of their ability to endure. This situation can be compared to that which gave rise to the imprecatory psalms in the Old Testament that call for retribution on enemies and oppressors (Psalms 35, 55, 69, 109 and 137). In such a situation it is natural to articulate feelings of anguish, resentment, and even revenge. Natural they may be, but ultimately these feelings must be assessed by the way, the teaching, the example of Christ. • The cry is not simply for personal vengeance but for justice to be upheld. It is a cry to uphold God’s honour, a plea for the vindication of God from those who have placed their trust in God.

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• The cry for justice in 6:10, as with all the material in Revelation 6, stems from the earlier narrative of the Lamb that was slain, who opens the seals. It is in the context of the cross, in the context of a love which sacrifices itself even for its enemies.2 • We must remember to whom the book is written—to Christian communities, not to their cruel oppressors. It is not a curse to be spat out on a pagan world but rather a pastoral letter to strengthen fellow Christians in a very dark hour.3 Revelation 6 provides a response to the riddle of delay. Revelation 4 and 5 aroused an expectation of victory. Revelation 6, however, portrays both disaster and delay in the vindicating of God’s servants (6:9-11). Despite the depiction of a world of danger, turmoil, and death in Revelation 6, the chapter serves to encourage hope and patience. In 6:9, for example, John portrays the souls of the slain as ‘under the altar’—the place of sacrifice. That place is the place of God. Around the time when the Book of Revelation was written, Rabbi Akiba said, ‘the person who is buried in the land of Israel is as if he were buried beneath the altar; for he who is buried beneath the altar is as if he were buried beneath the throne of glory.’ Christians left behind will be shocked and shattered when others are martyred. John, however, shows the martyred Christians as ‘under the altar’—in the presence of him who sits on the throne. It is not a promise of ‘no more martyrdom.’ Others too will be martyred until their number is complete (6:11). And yet it is a word of comfort—amidst the suffering is God. And one day he will end all evil and right all wrong. 3. The typical eschatological language of Revelation 6 One important question is the extent to which the material of Revelation 6 is intended to be specifically predictive. Readers of the extremely popular Left Behind novels of Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins will note that those novels are based on a literal reading of the images of Revelation. Are they right? A point to note is that much of the imagery is not unique to Revelation but rather is typical language about the end of the age. The following chart indicates this:

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Synoptic Gospels

Revelation 6

Matt 24:6; Mk 13:7; Lk 21:9: Wars, rumours of wars; insurrections

6:1-2: Rider on a white horse bringing war

Matt 24:7; Mk 13:8; Lk 21:10: Nation against nation

6:3-4: Rider on a red horse bringing international war

Matt 24:7; Mk 13:8; Lk 21:11: Famines

6:5-6: Rider on a red horse with scales— trading at a time of famine conditions

As above

6:7-8: Rider (Death) on a pale green horse, accompanied by Hades—killing by sword, famine, pestilence (or death: Greek thanatos) and wild animals

Matt 24:9; Mk 13:9-13; Lk 21:12-16: Put to death; hated by all

6:9-11: The souls beneath the altar (persecution, martyrdom)

Matt 24:7; Mk 13:8; Lk 21:11: Earthquakes Matt 24:29: The sun will be darkened Matt 24:29: The moon will not give its light Matt 24:29: The stars will fall from heaven - (no references) Lk 23:30: They will say to the mountains, ‘Fall on us’

6:12: Earthquake 6:12: The sun as black as sackcloth 6:12: The moon like blood 6:13: Stars falling to the earth 6:14: Every mountain and island removed 6:16: Calling to the mountains, ‘Fall on us’

We can note too how much of the imagery is an echoing, a reworking, of Old Testament material, some of which in its original usage did not relate to an ultimate end. For instance, the imagery of four horsemen is drawn from Zechariah 1:8; 6:1-8: in the Zechariah passage we find red, black, white and dappled grey horses, where in Revelation 6 we read of red, black, white, and pale green horses. Again, images of sword, famine, plague, and death evoke a variety of Old Testament passages, e.g., Jeremiah 14:12; 15:2; 21:7; 24:10; 29:17-18; 42:17; 43:11. Most particularly, there is a distinct echoing in Revelation 6:8 of Ezekiel 14:21 with its reference to ‘four deadly acts of judgment, sword, famine, wild animals, and pestilence.’ The fact that much of the Revelation 6 imagery is typical raises questions as to whether it is predictive in a detailed manner. John’s utilization of typical language may well point to his painting images of suffering, cosmic upheaval, and disruption without expectation of precise, one-time fulfilment. The marked extent to which Revelation 6 uses typical images

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The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse by Albrecht Dürer: Wetmore Print Collection, Connecticut College.

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highlights the lack of wisdom involved in viewing the material in an exactly predictive fashion. Avoiding an excessively predictive approach to the material is also underscored in the way a number of the images are drawn from John’s contemporary situation. These include the following: (i) The mounted archer in 6:1 probably alludes to the Parthian cavalry. The Parthians were the only mounted archers of the first-century, Mediterranean world. Defeating Roman armies in 53 BC, 35 BC, and AD 62, they were a much-feared enemy. For the inhabitants of the Roman empire, allusion to Parthian warriors would evoke feelings of deep fear, much as images of Russian armies, Chinese hordes, and Islamic fundamentalist bombers have successively done in the collective American psyche over the last half century. The mounted archer, evoking dread of the Parthian threat, is an agent of woes, as are the three other horsemen that follow him. Despite his appearance on a white horse, the archer is not Christ (cf. 19:11) but rather Antichrist (cf. Gog who carries a bow in Ezek. 39:3). Sacred white horses were a feature of the dreaded Parthian cavalry.4 His appearance in something like the form of Christ is a warning against the seductive and deceiving power of the Antichrist. (ii) The strife of 6:3-4 suggests some measure of civil war. This mirrors the chaos of AD 68–69 AD when Rome was engulfed in civil war under three short-lived emperors. (iii) Food prices soar in 6:6. The price of staples (wheat and barley) increases eight to sixteen times, putting extreme pressure on the poor. A quart of wheat is food for one person per day. Thus, to feed his family, a man must buy inferior barley. One explanation for this is rampant inflation, a long-term problem at work in the Roman empire. More likely, however, the price hikes come on the back of frequently occurring famine. This would tie in with olives and grapevines continuing to bear (not being harmed), as their deeper rooting system would make them less affected in drought (6:6). Crop failure in an area always meant dire crisis, because bringing in food from elsewhere was difficult and expensive. According to calculations of A. H. M. Jones, overland transportation of food 300 miles or so would double its cost.5 (iv) Although the food of poor people soars, cash crops of the wealthy (oil and wine) remain unchanged. I have already alluded to the fact of famine in Asia Minor in AD 92 and the way this coincided with Domitian’s decree that half the vineyards in the provinces had to be destroyed in order to protect the agriculture of Italy. The command of 6:6

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not to harm the olive oil and wine may therefore not only be a cry of anguish from the poor but also a subtle dig at the exploitive policies of Rome that contribute to the sufferings of its provinces. These contextual allusions warn against an excessively predictive, futuristic interpretation of the material. A further feature providing similar warning is the stylized literary structuring of the chapter. This structuring becomes patent when we observe similar structuring in the descriptions of forthcoming destruction and judgment in the trumpets and bowls series. The following diagram demonstrates this structure: Seven seals

Seven trumpets

Seven bowls

6:1 A conquering rider

8:7 Hail, fire and blood

16:2 Painful sores

6:3-4 A rider on a red horse removes peace

8:8-9 Fiery mountain into the sea: 1/3 becomes blood

16:3 Sea turns to blood

6:5-6 A rider on a black horse with scales

8:10-11 1/3 of rivers are poisoned

16:4-7 Rivers turn to blood

6:7-8 A rider on a pale horse kills 1/4 of the people

8:12 1/3 of sun, moon and stars are struck

16:8-9 The sun scorches the earth

6:9-11 Martyrs under the altar seek justice

9:1-11 Demonic locusts torture people

16:10-11 Darkness and agony

6:12-17 Cosmic chaos (earthquake, sun, moon stars etc)

9:13-19 Two hundred million cavalry from the Euphrates kill 1/3 of humanity

16:12-16 Armies from the east cross the Euphrates and mass at Harmagedon

7:1-17 Interlude: sealing of 144,000. Multitudes before the Lamb

10:1- 11:14 Interlude: eating of the scroll and the testimony of the two witnesses

8:1 Silence in heaven

11:15-19 Kingdoms of this world have become God’s kingdom. Lightning, rumblings, earthquake, hail

—

16:17-21 The apparent end: ‘It is done’. Lightning, rumblings, earthquake, hail

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One significant feature in all three cycles is a pattern of four plus three, with the tenor of the narrative changing after the more briefly described, first four items. Then after typically longer items five and six, the first two series have other material sandwiched in before item seven appears. The fact that there is this pattern with the seals and trumpets, and to some extent also with the bowls, shows the careful literary crafting of John and serves to point away from an interpretation based on detailed prediction. 4. The interlude in Revelation 7 We have already noted with both the seals and the trumpets an interlude between the sixth and seventh episodes (see the boxes above). The interlude is sandwiched between two sections of the main narrative, or interrupts it. What does this device (which is technically known as ‘intercalation’) achieve? The technique is a common one in literature of that time. It provides unity to the book, creating links between material inside and outside the inserted unit. This may mystify us, as we like to analyse material by dividing it into separate clear segments. Intercalation frustrates this process, because although we sense a structure in the work, the complexity of this structure defies exact analysis. So the sandwiched material in chapter 7 creates forward links, anticipating later material, as the following table indicates: Material within Revelation 7

Later reference

7:3-4 Placing a seal (sphragis) on the forehead of the servants of God

13:16 Placing a mark (charagma) on the right hand or forehead of the followers of the beast

7:4 The 144,000

14:1 The 144,000

7:9 A ‘great multitude’ worshiping God

19:6 A ‘great multitude’ worshiping God

7:9, 13 Clothed in white

19:8 Clothed in fine linen, bright and pure

7:17 God will wipe away every tear from their eyes

21:4 God will wipe away every tear from their eyes

Further, the sandwiched material in chapter 7 also links back to earlier material, as the following table indicates:

‘Write what you have seen, what is, and what is to take place after this.’ Revelation 1:19 (see page 43). John Write the Vision by Robert Roberg© Robert Roberg. Used by permission.

‘Then I heard every creature ... singing “To the one seated upon the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honour and glory and might...”’ Revelation 5:13 (see page 79). The Adoration of the Lamb by Hubert and Jan van Eyck. Sint Baafskathedraal Gent. © Lukas – Art in Flanders VZW. Used by permission.

‘Michael and his angels fought against the dragon.’ Revelation 12:7 (see page 117). St Michael Subduing the Devil by Jacob Epstein, sculpture at Coventry Cathedral. Photograph Rob Reichenfeld © Dorling Kindersley (DK Images). Used by permission.

‘God is the source of the water of life’ (see page 172). The River of the Water of Life. Flemish Apocalypse c.1400: Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris. Used by permission.

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Material within Revelation 7

Earlier reference

7:3-4 Placing a seal (sphragis) on the forehead of the servants of God

Rev 6 Six scenes, each involving the opening of a seal (sphragis)

7:9, 13 Clothed in white (leukos)

6:11 Given a white (leukos) robe

7:11 Angels, elders, and the four living creatures falling on their faces and worshiping God

4:9-10; 5:8; 5:11-14 Angels, elders, and the four living creatures falling on their faces and worshiping God and the Lamb

7:12 Singing that to God be blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honour and power and might

4:11 Singing that God is worthy to receive glory and honour and power (also 5:12; 5:13)

A major focus of the additional inserted material is worship, providing another strand of unity to the book. This intercalated worship enhances the motif of worship which appears in many places throughout Revelation, e.g., 5:11-14; 7:9-12; 11:15-19; 12:10-12; 14:1-3; 15:3-4; 19:1-8. This transcendent material provides images of hope and glory as a counterbalancing parallel to the images of judgment. Overall, the intercalated material in chapter 7 not only provides unity to the book but also serves to confirm past promises and future hope. The opened seals in Revelation 6 unleashed horrific destruction. This provokes the question: ‘What about the Christians in this terrible time?’ Prior to the opening of the seventh seal, John thus inserts an interlude filled with anticipatory and retrospective visions of God’s eschatological victory in Christ.6 There is hope after all. This material in chapter 7 does not take place chronologically after the terrible destruction of chapter 6. In chapter 7 (v. 3) the earth is not yet damaged; in chapter 6 (vv. 12ff) it is already wrecked. Chapter 7 should thus be read as another camera angle on reality. The situation on earth (chapter 6) looks hopeless; the situation for Christians (chapter 7) looks hopeful. 5. The puzzle of the sealing of the 144,000 (7:1-8) Some statements in Revelation may be open to an interpretation of universal salvation—salvation for everyone. But this is not the case here. Implicitly, with some being sealed in 7:3 (those who are ‘the servants of our God’), others are not sealed. There is thus a demarcation between those sealed and those not sealed, those saved and those not saved.

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What is the ‘sealing’? The overall tenor of Revelation suggests that this is not a sealing of protection against physical wretchedness, that it is not a guarantee that suffering will not occur. Christians still face death, as the continuing threat of martyrdom indicates (cf. 6:11; 11:5, 8; 12:11; 20:4). The ‘sealing’ therefore seems to be a sealing against the eschatological wrath of God (6:17) and against demonic powers (9:4). It is divine protection, even though there may still be suffering and death. Its sentiments are in line with those expressed by Jesus, that though ‘some of you will be put to death’ (Lk. 21:16), ‘not a hair of your head will perish’ (Lk. 21:18). Paul has a similar viewpoint: ‘we are being killed all day long’ but ‘we are more than conquerors through him who loved us,’ and nothing ‘will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord’ (Rom. 8:36-39). Sealing is eschatological salvation. For Christians, it is the ultimate future that is secure. Not only is the ‘sealing’ initially puzzling. So also is the reference to the sealed as being 144,000 ‘from every tribe of the people of Israel.’ Until this point Revelation has focused on the Christian communities. The only earlier explicit references to Jews portrayed them in a negative light (2:9; 3:9). In contrast, the 7:1-8 passage looks affirmative of the Jews, listing the sealed apparently as being from twelve tribes of Israel. Why the apparent focus on Jews? One option is to take the reference in a literal way—as literally referring to 144,000 Jews, an approach that the Left Behind series takes. This option then sees two distinct groups in Revelation 7: the 144,000 Jews (or Christian Jews) and the ‘great multitude that no one could count’ (7:9). A second option, the view of a virtually total consensus of major scholars, is to understand the ‘sealed’ group (vv. 1-8) as descriptive of a vast number of Christians, and thus not a different group from the ‘great multitude’ in 7:9-17. There are a number of reasons to adopt this second option. In the first place, prior to referring to 144,000 ‘from every tribe of the people of Israel,’ the same people being sealed are identified as being (all) ‘the servants of our God’ (7:3). Earlier in Revelation God’s ‘servants’ are the followers of Jesus (1:1; 2:20). It would be odd if most of the followers of Jesus are now not to be sealed as God’s servants, just because they are not Jewish. A second reason against a literalistic understanding of the 144,000 is that the term is used in one other place in Revelation (14:1) with no indication that its usage is limited to Jews (or Jewish Christians). In chapter 14 the 144,000 are simply those who have the name of Jesus and of God

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on their foreheads (14:1), those who totally follow Jesus (14:4). Rather than chapter 7 shaping the interpretation of chapter 14, it makes much more sense for chapter 14 to shape the interpretation of chapter 7—particularly because this is in line with other aspects of Revelation and of Christian theology more generally. Such an approach will support the conclusion that the enormous group is full of Christians, whether of Jewish or Gentile background. A third reason to reject a literalistic account of the 144,000 and the literal Jewishness of the group is to note the stylized number (144,000) that is used. This stylization of numbers appears again and again in Revelation and is a feature of apocalyptic writing more generally. 144,000 is a very large number composed of the square of 12 (the number of Israel, the people of God) and the cube of 10 (a number of perfection). It simply indicates a vast or perfect number of Christians. A final reason for rejecting Revelation 7:4-8 as referring literally to Jews is to note that it refers not simply to Jews but more specifically to twelve tribes. This is problematic because the twelve tribes largely lost their separate identities much earlier in the history of Israel (leaving the door open for all sorts of cranks to speculate on the whereabouts and identity of the ‘lost’ ten tribes). Moreover, we can note that the listing of the twelve tribes is conventional in its expression. While it is evident that Revelation’s list and its order differs from every other order in the Bible, this is not remarkable, because in the Old Testament there are twenty lists of eighteen differing arrangements, each with ten to thirteen tribes. A few features stand out, however, about the list in Revelation 7: • Judah, Jacob’s fourth son, appears first in this list. This is probably because the Messiah emerged from the tribe of Judah. In Revelation this Messiah is identified as ‘the lion of the tribe of Judah’ (5:5). • Dan is omitted, probably because of the tribe’s associations with idolatry (Judges 18:30-31; 1 Kings 12:28-30). In the non-canonical ‘Testament of Dan,’ probably written in the second century BC, Satan is said to be the prince of the tribe (5:6). Irenaeus, a second-century church father, explained the omission in Revelation 7 in similar vein by asserting that the Antichrist was expected from the tribe of Dan.7 • Ephraim, also associated with idolatry, is not on the list. Ephraim became increasingly prominent in Israel’s history until it stood for the whole Northern Kingdom in the eighth century BC. In Hosea the disloyal covenant partner of God is ‘Ephraim’ (Hos. 11:3, 8). Rather than being

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explicitly mentioned in Revelation 7, Ephraim is subsumed under the tribe of ‘Joseph.’ This itself is odd, because although one of Joseph’s sons (Ephraim) is omitted, the other, Manasseh, already included in the term ‘Joseph,’ is further counted as a separate tribe in its own right. Presumably the name ‘Manasseh’ is added to make up the list to the number of twelve (the omission of Dan otherwise reducing the list to eleven). However, the fact that one of the twelve tribes (Manasseh) has already been counted through the reference to the tribe of Joseph makes nonsense of a rigidly literal reading of the list. What seems important both to John and the various Old Testament writers is that there are twelve tribes listed. How one gets to that number is not as important as that there be that number. It is a stylized description. The number is symbolic, expressing the totality, the completeness, of the people of God. All who are faithful to Christ, Jewish and Gentile Christians alike, will know the sealing of God. 6. The great multitude from every nation before the throne of God (7:9-17) Is this uncountable multitude different from the 144,000? We have already seen that 144,000 is an enormous, perfect number. The uncountable multitude is simply another way of expressing this. It is another ‘camera angle’ on the situation. It answers the question as to what ‘sealing’ means. John shows that it does not mean absence of suffering. This multitude have been in ‘the great ordeal’ (7:14)—but they have now come out of it. Their glorious state is the consequence of death. Explicitly this is linked with the death of Christ: their robes have been made white ‘in the blood of the Lamb.’ However, one should note that it is white that they are wearing. These are festive heavenly garments; but they are also the colour of the robes handed to those under the altar who had been slaughtered for the word of God and for their testimony. That group had been told that other martyrs were to follow (6:11). Implicitly then, in this description of the heavenly scene is allusion both to the sacrifice of Christ and to the martyrdom of believers. The two are connected, as also in 12:11. The focus, however, is not on the martyrdom of Christians, but on the fact that they are now beyond suffering—members of a huge crowd in bliss, worshiping God and the Lamb. They hold palm branches, a symbol

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of rejoicing and triumph, as on ‘Palm Sunday’ in John 12:13. Now they celebrate the salvation given through God and the Lamb. Suffering is over—starvation, thirst, oppressive sun, and burning heat are all ended (7:16). Tears are a thing of the past (7:17). In their glorified state, • they will know the shelter of God. John uses the Greek word sk∑nøsei, which is linked with the word for tent (sk∑n∑ ). This recalls the shekinah, the glory or protective presence of Yahweh dwelling with his people in the Tent/Tabernacle and later in the Temple (Exod. 25:8; 2 Chron. 6:2). Note also John 1:14 and Isaiah 4:5-6 for this sort of usage. • the ‘Lamb,’ in a reversal of roles, will shepherd them (cf. Isa. 40:11; Ezek. 34; Ps. 23). • they will be guided to springs of living water (cf. 22:1). John here evokes the promise to the Babylonian exiles in Isaiah 49:10. What we have in this scene are images providing hope and comfort to insignificant, socially and religiously marginalized groups of people with their backs to the wall. It is an incredibly sustaining and rejuvenating vision. 7. The opening of the seventh seal (8:1-5) This scene may take us by surprise. We have seen so much turmoil and destruction in the unleashing of the earlier seals. Now for the final blow, the final wrap-up. But all we get is silence. Why silence? The best suggestion is that the silence is so that the prayers of the saints can be heard by God. This ties 8:1-2 in with 8:3-4. It also links with Jewish tradition reflected in the much later Talmud (Hagigah 12b) that the angels sing all night but are silent by day to allow the prayers of Israel to be heard in heaven.8 The Revelation text is thus saying that prayers are heard; they have an effect. In fact the censer which is associated with prayer (8:3) is linked with thunder, rumblings, lightning, and an earthquake on earth. Prayer is powerful. The small oppressed groups on earth are not helpless, passive pawns. They are not forgotten. Their prayers do make a difference. They are part of the process by which God’s rule on earth comes. The final seal is a seal of encouragement to the Christian communities.

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Conclusion We today may be horrified by the various pictures of destruction in Revelation. For the original Christian hearers of Revelation, however, it simply confirmed to them what they already experienced or sensed was coming. John’s descriptions of destruction resonated with their felt or anticipated experience. In that suffering, John’s narrative was extremely heartening. It showed that oppression would be overthrown, that evil would have its end. It was asserting that even in these experiences of life God was there, guiding, protecting, and over-ruling. And it gave a glimpse of the ultimate future beyond the rivers of suffering: a vision of heavenly glory in the presence of God. Reflection 1. What would you say to someone who pointed you to Revelation 6 and said that the Book of Revelation is full of blood and doom and that this is a less-than-Christian message? 2. What is John’s message in Revelation 7, and why does he introduce it at this point? Notes 1. Ian Boxall, ‘Violence in the Apocalypse,’ Scripture Bulletin 35/2 (2005): 73–84 at p. 77. 2. M. Eugene Boring, Revelation, Interpretation Series (Louisville: John Knox , 1989) 118. 3. G. B. Caird, The Revelation of St John the Divine (2nd ed.; London: A & C Black, 1984) 115. 4. W. M. Ramsay, The Letters to the Seven Churches of Asia (London: Hodder & Stoughton, n.d.) 58. 5. A. H. Jones, The Later Roman Empire, 284–602: A Social, Economic and Administrative Survey, vol. II (Oxford: Blackwell, 1964) 841. 6. Boring, Revelation, 119. 7. Irenaeus, Against Heresies 5.30.2. 8. G. R. Beasley-Murray, The Book of Revelation (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974) 150.

9 Ruin Repeated. The Blowing of the Trumpets: Revelation 8:6–11:19 1. A trumpet call to respond When the trumpets blow, it is as if all hell breaks loose again. I have already indicated that features of this description show that the trumpets cycle does not describe events successive to those in the opening of the seals but rather expresses them in alternative imagery. It is an ‘actionreplay’ description. Despite the narrative’s reworking features of what has already been described, it hits the reader in freshly terrifying fashion: blood hurled to the earth, something like a huge meteorite crashing into it, demonic locust-like creatures, an army two hundred million strong. What are we to make of it all? Two passages may particularly illuminate the bewilderment we feel in interpretation. The first passage is 9:20-21, which expresses sadness that humanity on the whole does not repent in the face of catastrophe. This may well serve as a pointer to the crucial message less being the horrific judgments and more the call to respond in repentance. Essentially John is saying that hard times, major catastrophe, ought to force re-examination of our lives and cause us afresh to centre them on God. Is this happening? The second passage is 11:15, declaring that this world order will collapse in the chaos that precedes the complete establishment of God’s world order. It is the kingdom of God and of Christ which is eternal. Christians can take heart in tough times, for what they have staked their lives on will triumph ultimately and eternally. It is infinitely worthwhile to keep going as a Christian. 2. The blowing of the trumpets While it was the Lamb who opened the seven seals, it is seven angels standing before God (8:2) who blow the trumpets. There is much angel speculation in apocalyptic literature. From various materials, the names of seven angels emerge as Michael (from Daniel, Revelation, and Jude),

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Gabriel (from Daniel and Luke), Raphael (from Tobit), Uriel, Raguel, Sariel, and Remiel (from 1 Enoch 20). No major theological point hangs on the shift from Christ as agent to seven angels as agent, since Revelation commonly and freely attributes the same event to Christ or an angel (cf. Revelation 12:7-9, 11; 14:14-16, 17-20). Here the angels are instruments of divine judgment—evidenced in the blowing of the trumpets. While trumpets featured in a variety of contexts in the Old Testament—ceremonial procession, royal accession, feasts, daily sacrifices, and warning—it is warning and proclamation of judgment that is to the fore here (8:13). Judgment falls on the entirety of the cosmos. Society in John’s time viewed the physical world as having four main aspects: earth, sea, fresh water, and heavenly bodies. With the blast of the first four trumpets, each of these four dimensions successively suffers major damage. The cosmic nature of the judgments reflects the inter-relationship of humanity and nature. Sinful humanity contaminates the cosmos and brings it to destruction (cf. Rom 8:18-25).1 This raises the question whether the judgments of Revelation are in fact directly the result of divine activity or are simply the ‘natural’ consequences of the sin of humanity. Certainly a number of texts point in the direction of divine judging activity, e.g., Revelation 6:10-11; 11:6, 11-13; 14:10; 15:1; 16:5; 19:1-2. This view also meshes with the notion that a good God will react against evil—that goodness calls for such a reaction. A reaction seems patently required, for example, in the face of horrendous evil in events such as the Holocaust, in systems such as apartheid, and in rulers such as Stalin and Saddam Hussein. On the other hand, we need to view these perspectives in the context of God’s character. His redemptive love goes to utmost extremes of pain and sacrifice to win back wayward humanity. Furthermore, there is significant language in scripture which seems cautious in attributing judgments to the direct initiative of God. Thus, judgments may stem from a ‘turning away of the face of God’ (Deut. 31:17; 32:20; Isa. 59:2), a giving of people over to the consequences of their actions (Rom. 1:24, 26, 28), a reaping of the natural consequences of what people sow (Gal. 6:7), an allowing of evil to have its way (the ‘divine passives’ of Rev. 6:2, 4). C. S. Lewis well articulates such a perspective: ‘There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, “Thy will be done,” and those to whom God says, in the end, “Thy will be done.” All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it.’2 Lewis’s view is

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that God lets people choose their destiny, even if, from a heavenly perspective, that is ‘hell.’ Do we have to choose between these two interpretations of God’s judgments in Revelation being active or permissive? I am not convinced that we do. Scripture in general and Revelation in particular points towards God-linked reaction to sin (i.e., judgment). But whether that reaction is the direct activity of God or simply God’s stepping out of the way to permit the outworking of the evil inherent in evil (as we see evil turning on itself in self-destructive power in Rev. 17:16) may remain an open question. Either way, the key issue is not how judgment occurs but rather that judgment occurs. The judgments of Revelation may be less to describe and more to warn. The emphasis of Revelation focuses on repentance, warning of the terrible consequences of persistent failure to repent. Reverting to the text of Revelation 8, we can note that John draws heavily on the Exodus tradition in setting down the consequences of the blowing of the trumpets and the later pouring out of the bowls, as the following table demonstrates: The plagues in Exodus

Echoes in Revelation

Water turns to blood (7:14-18)

8:7; 8:9; 16:4

Frogs (8:1-15)

16:13

Gnats (8:16-19) Flies (8:20-32) Cattle plague (9:1-7) Boils (9:8-12)

16:2 (painful sores)

Thunder and hail and fire (9:13-35)

11:19; 16:17-21

Locusts (10:1-20)

9:3ff

Darkness (10:21-29)

8:12 (limited darkness); 16:10

Death of first-born (11:1 ff)

The echoing of Exodus material is not done in mechanical fashion. Some plagues feature; others do not. Moreover, there is often a creative reworking in the echoing. This is evident in the third trumpet judgment. In Exodus 15:22-25, water which is bitter is made sweet. In Revelation, John interweaves the Exodus material with prophetic warnings in Jeremiah

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(9:15 and 23:15) of the use of wormwood to poison the people’s water supplies. The outcome in Revelation is a reversal of the Exodus material: punishment occurs—water is made bitter. Further echoing of Exodus occurs with the release of the armies at the Euphrates. This is touched on in Revelation 9:13-19 and expanded on in Revelation 16:12-16. In Exodus, the Sea of Reeds (the ‘Red Sea’) is dried up to provide deliverance to the Israelites. Much later this miracle becomes a symbol of hope for the Jews in exile in Assyria and/or Babylon: a further exodus will occur with the drying up of the Euphrates in order to facilitate a return to the Promised Land (Isa. 11:15-16; 10:26; 51:10). In Revelation, however, the image is reversed: instead of the drying up of the river leading to redemption, its drying up (see 16:12 for this detail) leads to final destruction.3 Destroying armies can surge across the now dry ground. Repeated echoing of Exodus themes and language serves, however, to remind John’s audience that their situation is not hopeless: God acted in the exodus in a hopeless situation; and he will act again. The images of Revelation 8 and 9 are images of doom. The sense of doom is intensified with the screeching of an eagle in 8:13 announcing the first of three ‘woes.’ The woes are alternative ways of marking the final three trumpets and highlighting their calamitous nature. They also serve as markers of the final woes in the four-plus-three pattern (already observed with the seals). The Greek term for the ‘eagle’ screeching the woes is aetos. This Greek word is not as species-specific as our equivalent term and could also refer to a vulture (as in Lk. 17:37). ‘Vulture’ would be a good translation here—the bird is waiting to eat corpses and it will not go hungry (9:18; cf. 19:17-18). 3. The locust plague in Revelation 9 The blowing of the fifth trumpet unleashes an intensity of supernatural evil which is demonic in its tenor. Two images underline this force of evil. • It is a ‘star’ that opens the abyss and releases the locusts. This ‘star’ may be identified as a ‘star-angel’ which has fallen from fellowship with God. The stars were personified as deities in ancient paganism. They were sometimes identified with angels in the biblical tradition, e.g., Job 38:7; Revelation 1:20. The fallen ‘star-angel’ is a common motif in Jewish thinking, e.g., Genesis 6:2; Isaiah 14:12; Luke 10:18. One could

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therefore freely translate the words in 9:1 as, ‘a demonic angel was given the key. . . .’ • Reference to the ‘bottomless pit’ (abyssos) also alludes to evil. The sea in the Old Testament was a place of danger. Especially was this the case with ‘the great deep’ (tehom), a place where sea monsters lived (Ps. 148:7). The Greek translation of the Old Testament (the Septuagint or LXX) commonly translates the Hebrew tehom as abyssos (Gen. 7:11). Caird has noted that in the biblical worldview, ‘within God’s ordered universe there were elements still recalcitrant to his will, and in their world view the heavenly sea above and the abyss beneath symbolized all that had so far escaped the control of the divine sovereignty, a reservoir of evil from which human wickedness received constant reinforcing supplies.’4 Thus the abyssos is the underworld, the seat of spiritual evil. It is satanic evil that comes out of the bottomless pit. The terms Abaddøn and Apolluøn (9:11) also evoke images of evil. Abaddøn is a personification in Hebrew of ‘destruction’ (Job 28:22) or ‘the place of destruction’ (Job 26:6). Apolluøn echoes apollumi (the Greek word for ‘I destroy’). It is likely a play on the name of the pagan god, Apollo, one of whose symbols was a locust. Emperors Caligula, Nero, and Domitian portrayed themselves in various ways as incarnations of Apollo.5 What we have here is an extremely subversive though subtle hint from John that the presently constituted Roman empire is devilish in its nature. Because of the prominence given to Apollo in the region in which Revelation is located, John’s statements connecting Rome via Apollo to the demonic abyss are extremely dangerous, both politically and socially. Despite this, he names evil for what it is. The demonic overtones to evil in this section suggest that its grotesque pictures should be understood in generalized fashion, as images of evil. Pressing the literal details and seeing their fulfilment in modern devices such as helicopter gunships, as Hal Lindsey did in the Vietnam War era,6 is an absurdity. We need to look at the essence of the images, not their details. It is much better then to see the bizarre locust images simply as ‘an exaggerated repulsive depiction of unnatural demonic power.’7 Revelation draws particularly from Joel in relation to the locust image. Revelation’s trumpets echo Joel’s trumpets of warning (Joel 2:1), which are followed by an army of locusts (Joel 2:2b, 25) which have the appearance of horses (Joel 2:4). Revelation is thus using typical language

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in unfolding a picture of destruction. However, while Joel’s image is simply that of a locust plague, some aspects of the locusts in Revelation are more demonic in character. Contrary to the behaviour of normal locusts, these ones ignore vegetation and attack people (9:4). While reference to ‘five months’ (9:5) fits with their lifespan, locusts normally move on from place to place after a few days, but here they appear to stay put. In addition, they cause pain—the excruciating pain of a scorpion. It is likely that John draws his comparison of locusts and horses not only from Joel but also from commonplace popular reflection. Thus an eighteenth-century traveller in Iraq heard an Arab’s description of a locust: ‘He compared the head of a locust with the head of a horse, its breast with the breast of a lion, its feet with the feet of a camel, its body with the body of a snake, its antennae with the hair of a maiden.’8 John’s imagery also conjures up echoes of Rome’s much-feared enemy, the Parthian cavalry. One echo is in 9:14, which describes the cavalry army as being located beyond the Euphrates—the border between the Roman empire and Parthia. Reference to ‘breast-plates’ (9:17) also provides links with the Parthian cavalry, whose riders and horses both wore plate-armour. The potency of the horses’ tails (9:19) may allude also to the Parthian cavalry. On attack, the Parthians fired a volley of arrows as they advanced, with a second volley being fired over the tails of their horses as they retreated out of bowshot. John is evoking ‘a nightmare version of a familiar first-century fear to instil a sense of some more ultimate and quintessential evil.’9 The primary desire in Revelation with regard to evil people is not to portray their destruction, but rather to bring about their repentance. Notwithstanding the terrible judgments, the tragedy in Revelation is that humankind does not repent of its evil ways (9:20-21). 4. Interlude: the angel with the scroll (chapter 10) John unfolds his drama with the skill of a modern movie or television director—a clip from one angle, then an overlapping clip from another angle. John repeatedly portrays images of destruction and horror. At the same time, however, he often interrupts the narrative flow with another sub-plot, as he does here. The portrayal in Revelation 8 and 9 depicts judgments on an unrepentant world, introduced by the blowing of six trumpets. Then there is a break, an interlude, before the blowing of the seventh trumpet, from 10:1 to 11:14.

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Without the interlude, Christian response might be one of despair and passivity. Instead there is inspiration to activity (witness) and to hopefulness. The inner court of the temple is ‘measured’ (protected: 11:1). And even more amazingly, within the very time of the blowing of the trumpets the kingdom of the world transmogrifies, at the seventh trumpet, into the ‘kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah’ (11:15). What then should Christians be doing in such a time? This section provides the short answer that they should testify, speaking out the word of God in witness to the nations (10:11; 11:3; 12:11). This interlude section (10:1–11:14), and the seventh trumpet which follows, provide a balance to the doom and gloom of the six trumpet judgments. Witness looms large in the interlude. It readies the hearer/reader for the subsequent surprise of 12:11. In chapter 12, the focus is on cosmic struggle and the overthrow of Satan. While the overthrow is primarily attributed to supernatural forces—to Michael and to the sacrificial death of Christ—surprisingly it is also attributed to Christian witness, to ‘the word of their testimony.’ Witness matters—it stands alongside the death of Christ as causative of the overthrow of Satan. Futurist scenarios place most or all of the material in Revelation 10–13 in a future which may be close to the present time but which is hugely remote from the time of its original audience. Much better, however, is to begin by noting the initial first-century application of this material. Revelation 10–13 has a present focus for its own time—it speaks to the church of the first century about its situation and responsibilities. The following points provide support for the fact that this material primarily related to its present time and not to some remote future. (i) The focus of Revelation changes in chapter 10. John has previously been a spectator but he is now being called upon to become personally involved with the message. He himself is to prophesy (10:11). What follows, however, is the prophesying of the two witnesses (11:3). In the light of the preceding charge being given to John himself, this seems to indicate that the description of the witnesses is linked with, or is a fulfilling of, the instruction to John to witness. This makes the two witnesses typical rather than literal. Essentially the two witnesses serve as a paradigm for the church of John’s day which has this same commission to witness. (ii) Revelation 10 responds to the question of 6:10: How much longer? The clear answer is, ‘No more delay’ (10:6). Six trumpets have already been blown, and the text immediately goes on to refer to the

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forthcoming blowing of the seventh trumpet (10:7), the trumpet which signals the end to the age and the final and total establishment of the kingdom of God (11:15). John does not envisage primary fulfilment of Revelation 10–13 twenty centuries later. The scroll of Revelation 10 stands in contrast to the previous one in Revelation 5–6. The earlier one was ‘sealed,’ i.e., subject to concealment or restraint or delay. This one is ‘open’ (10:8) because its message is to be proclaimed at once. The message of ‘no more delay’ is confirmed by solemn oath, marked by the raising of the hand (10:5-6; cf. Deut. 32:40). John saw the message of these chapters as primarily applying to his time. (iii) In the cosmic struggle in Revelation 12, the woman (who, we shall see, is an image of the church) is portrayed as presently in the wilderness after the death and ascension of Christ (12:6, 14), under God’s protection (12:16). This material also fosters the view that the material of Revelation 10–13 is also primarily a message to John’s church. (iv) In the cosmic struggle in Revelation 12, victory comes through a past heavenly war which in turn relates to the death of Christ (a past event—12:9-11) and to the martyrdom of Christians (a present and ongoing event—12:11). This aspect likewise does not lend itself to a completely futurist scenario. (v) The two beasts are portrayed in ways (as we shall see) that relate them to the recently deceased, evil emperor, Nero (13:3; 13:18). This again points to first-century-related material. In Revelation’s earlier chapters the church was in some sense protected: it was ‘sealed’ (7:3; 9:4). Now it will be ‘measured’ (11:1-2). An ongoing question relating to the unfolding of events from Revelation 6 onwards is whether the church has any role in the unfolding events or whether it simply stays on the sidelines. Revelation’s answer, beginning in chapter 10, is that the church is not on the sidelines. The church, personified in John himself, is called to prophesy, to speak out God’s word (10:11). This can be depicted diagrammatically:

Ô Ô

John is called to prophesy The response is that two witnesses begin to speak out God’s word These two witnesses (as we shall see) are representative of the Christian church

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John’s call to prophesy echoes the experience of Ezekiel’s commission and eating of the scroll (Ezek 3:1-3). As with Ezekiel, this speaking out of God’s word will be a bittersweet experience. 5. The interlude continues: the temple and the two witnesses (11:1-14) John is called to speak to the rebellious nations (10:11). Instead of repenting, however, the nations trample on the wider temple area, sullying sacred space (11:2). Not so, though, with the most holy areas of the temple. These are ‘measured’—placed under God’s protection. A major shaping influence for the material in the earlier part of this chapter is Zechariah 4: Zechariah 4

Revelation 11

v. 2 Lampstand

v. 4 Two lampstands

v. 3 Two olive trees

v. 4 Two olive trees

v. 10 Plumbline for assessing the temple

v. 1 Measuring rod to measure the temple

v. 14 Two anointed ones who ‘stand by the Lord of the whole earth’

vv. 3-4 Two witnesses who ‘stand before the Lord of the earth’

John’s description of the measuring of the temple (11:1-2) echoes the angelic measuring of the ideal temple in Ezekiel 40–48, which took place at a time when the previous temple had been razed to the ground and no temple was standing. The measuring in Ezekiel confirmed the certain establishment of the temple and its subsequent protection. In Zechariah 2:1-5, measuring is similarly a mark of divine protection. Revelation 11:1-2 conveys a similar message. While there is destruction in the outer court (the court of the Gentiles, the court of those who are not the people of God), there is protection for God’s people, who worship in the ‘temple’ during that time (11:1). As the Jerusalem temple had again been destroyed twenty or so years before John wrote Revelation, John is conveying to his audience a message not about the literal Jewish temple but rather about the people of God, expressed through the image of the community worshiping in the ‘temple.’ For those in God’s presence in the ‘temple,’ those in relationship with him, that relationship can never be destroyed. The image is one of security. However, it is not a picture of complete invulner-

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ability, as the later career of the two witnesses indicates (11:5; contrast 11:7). For those outside the security of God, outside the temple, there is a period of intense destruction. This is for 1,260 days (11:3), which is the same duration of time as 42 months (11:2), which is the same duration as a time, and times and half a time (3 1/2 years—12:14). This 3 1/2 is half of 7, half of perfection. It is a proverbial expression indicating a time of evil and suffering: • This length of time appears in Daniel 7:25; 12:7 as the duration of a time of evil. • This length matches the period which saw the height of the persecution of the Jews by the Syrian ruler, Antiochus Epiphanies, from June 168 BC to December 165 BC (3 1/2 years) and probably alludes to that time. • The siege of Jerusalem by the Romans began in April AD 67 and ended with the city’s total destruction in September AD 70 (approximately 3 1/2 years). • When the drought connected with Ahab and Elijah was about to end, it was identified in the original narrative as being in its third year (1 Kings 18:1) and therefore less than three years long. However, probably because 3 1/2 had become the proverbial length of times of hardship by the time of the New Testament, the drought’s length was identified as 3 1 /2 years in Luke 4:25 and James 5:17. All this confirms that the references in Revelation to three and a half in various forms (11:2, 3, 9) are typical rather than exact language. Such symbolic and typical use of language is employed again and again in Revelation. Throughout the time of troubles (forty-two months), there is a call to the church to witness. This is embedded in the 1,260 days’ ministry of ‘the two witnesses.’ Who are these ‘two witnesses’? To some extent John’s language is an echo of the Old Testament. There is probable connection with ‘two anointed ones’ in Zechariah 4:14, who, in that context, are probably Zerubbabel the leader of the returning Jewish exiles and Joshua the high priest. Another common belief in later Judaism was that a few key Old Testament saints would reappear: Elijah (Mal. 4:5f), Enoch (4 Ezra 6:26), and a second Moses (Deut. 18:15; Jn. 1:21). The two prophets are described here in terms of Elijah and Moses (11:5-6). This leads some to look for two key figures in the future, a second Elijah and a

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second Moses, who echo their original counterparts. That view, however, is to be rejected in favour of a corporate view, which sees the two witnesses as representative of the church, for the following reasons: • In Revelation 11:4 the two witnesses are also identified with the two olive trees and two lampstands (imagery drawn from Zech. 4). Lampstands are already, however, identified with churches in 1:20. This suggests the witnesses are expressive of the Christian church. • Connections between the commission of the two witnesses (11:3) and John’s own commission (10:11) suggest that the two witnesses are not to be understood in a straightforward literalistic manner. • In the following chapter (Revelation 12) an individual woman, under persecution for 3 1/2 years, represents (as we shall see) the community of faith. We should therefore not be surprised if in Revelation 11 two figures represent the community of faith in prophetic witness for exactly that same period of time. • A final pointer to the two witnesses not being two particular individuals comes from the fact that in Revelation 11 the powers of Moses and Elijah are not divided—the powers of Moses to one figure and the powers of Elijah to the other. Rather the powers of Moses and Elijah are both distributed to both figures so that they are ‘identical prophetic twins.’10 The better conclusion, then, is that the witnesses are not two future prophetic figures, but rather representative of the church in its witnessing ministry. The answer to the question, ‘What role is the church to have at this time?’ is that the church is to have the role of witness. For the appointed time of their ministry the witnesses have enormous power. Then, as with their Lord, comes their death at the hands of evil. The place of death of the two witnesses is ambiguous in the extreme. ‘The great city’ (11:8) would normally be Rome (as in 17:18). However, it is also described as ‘Sodom’ and ‘Egypt,’ places which were bywords for evil and oppression. Then a fourth location is introduced—Jerusalem, ‘where also their Lord was crucified.’ All this indicates that the place of death is symbolic—simply a place of great evil—and that the witnesses are ideal rather than actual figures. A major theme of Revelation is to follow Jesus (14:4). The ministry of the witnesses echoes that of Jesus, ‘the faithful witness’ (1:5). Paralleling his ministry, the two witnesses also engage in preaching and

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miracles. An even more direct parallel is their death, resurrection, and ascension (11:7-12). The earthquake at their resurrection, for example, echoes strands of the death and resurrection stories of Jesus (Matt. 27:51; 28:2). The death of the two witnesses is one of great shame: they lie unburied. This is an act of extreme indignity to the dead (Ps. 79:2; 1 Kings 13:22). The picture is one of realism. God does not intervene to save the witnesses from their awful death. Their faithfulness does not deliver from death. Rather it causes it. But God raises them up. The narrative prepares the church to be a witness in tough times and to be ready even for martyrdom. The response of the earthquake survivors is to ‘give glory to God’ (11:13). This term was an oath formula used before the taking of testimony or the making of a confession of guilt (Josh. 7:19; Jn. 9:24). At its best, this might include the notion of repentance (cf. Revelation 16:9). This, however, does not seem to be the case here. The primary message of Revelation is that despite miracles and judgments, the ungodly do not repent (9:20-21; 16:9-11; 16:21). 6. The seventh trumpet (11:15-19) Right through Revelation we have echoes of ‘the end, yet not the end.’ With the kingdom of the world having now become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah (11:15) and with the time of judgment and rewards having arrived (11:18), here, now, finally, appears to be the end (although the narrative is only halfway through, with another eleven chapters to go). So powerful is the sense of the ultimate rule of God and Christ that it is portrayed in its totality even though further descriptions of evil will still emerge. Even when evil persists, God reigns! In itself, however, the seventh trumpet portrays the coming of the total rule of our Lord and his Messiah (11:15). Split sovereignty and split rule are ended. All evil (evil people, evil nations) is ended, and all who fear the Lord, small and great, are rewarded (11:18). Here and subsequently, John utilizes Psalm 2 as a palette to provide colours for his pictures:

Ruin Repeated. The Blowing of the Trumpets: Revelation 8:6–11:19

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Psalm 2

Description

Utilization in Revelation

2:1

The nations conspire/rage

11:18

2:9

Breaking/ruling the nations with a rod of iron

12:5; 19:15

2:6

I have set my king on Zion

14:1

2:2

The kings of the earth set themselves against the anointed one

19:19

John also has a second palette at hand: the Book of Exodus. Revelation 11 ends with a montage of images drawn from Exodus: Exodus

Description

Revelation 11

25:10ff

The ark of the covenant

11:19

19:16-18

Lightning, rumblings, thunder, earthquake

11:19

9:22-26

Heavy hail

11:19

Traditions from outside the Bible also shape John’s use of the ark-of-thecovenant image. Jewish communities were nourished not only with biblical stories but also with popular oral additions to those stories. According to Jewish tradition, when the Babylonians captured Jerusalem in 587 BC, the ark of the covenant was hidden away. Legend claimed that it would reappear at the time of the restoration of the temple at the end of the age (see the second century BC 2 Maccabees 2:4-8 and the first century AD Lives of the Prophets: ‘Jeremiah’ 11–15). The image of the ark of the covenant in the heavenly temple is a sign of hope. Its appearance there is assurance that all will be restored and set right again. Once again, through subtle allusion, John is a bearer of hope. Conclusion In these chapters John has depicted horrific evil and horrific judgment. He has also provided strong reassurance in relation to the ultimate future (though there may be many tribulations along the way). He has concluded with a vision of evil ended forever: ‘the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah, and he will reign forever and ever.’ How then should the church live? The Christian com-

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munity should live as a sign, witnessing to the good news, bearing testimony to Jesus. If Christians will follow John’s message, it will be said of their time of suffering and tribulation, ‘This was their finest hour.’ Reflection 1. Depending on your point of view, why do you think Hal Lindsey’s connecting of Revelation 8:19 with helicopter gunships is either bizarre or ‘spot-on’? 2. To what extent is the call to be a witness to Jesus a significant theme in Revelation? Notes 1. A. Y. Collins, The Apocalypse (Collegeville: Michael Glazier, 1979) 58. 2. C. S. Lewis, The Great Divorce (Glasgow: Geoffrey Bles, 1946) 66–67. 3. J. Casey, ‘The Exodus Theme in the Book of Revelation against the Background of the New Testament,’ Concilium 189 (1987): 34–43 at pp. 36–37. 4. G. B. Caird, The Revelation of St John the Divine (2nd ed.; London: A & C Black, 1984) 119. 5. G. R. Beasley-Murray, The Book of Revelation (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974) 162–63. 6. Hal Lindsey, There’s a New World Coming (Santa Ana CA: Vision House, 1973) 16, 138–39. 7. E. S. Fiorenza, Revelation: Vision of a Just World (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991) 71. 8. Originally in Lohmeyer, recounted again in Beasley-Murray, The Book of Revelation, 162. 9. Caird, The Revelation, 122. 10. G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation: A Commentary on the Greek Text (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999) 574–75.

10 The Defeat of the Dragon and the Emergence of the Two Beasts: Revelation 12–13 Revelation 12 is as puzzling as any chapter in Revelation. A number of its descriptions seem quite surreal and bizarre: a mythological dragon, a flying woman, the earth having personality and swallowing a river in order to rescue the woman. The story line itself seems full of inconsistencies and puzzles: • There is a child who clearly has links to Jesus and yet who is snatched up to heaven as a child. • A battle occurs where the dragon-devil is fought by Michael the archangel rather than by Jesus—yet the victory is later attributed to Jesus. • The dragon is defeated, yet seems to continue as a powerful force on earth. Clearly this is not straightforward narrative. What are the keys to its interpretation? Most crucial is to recognize the chapter’s borrowings from two quite different sources. One source is earlier biblical narrative, both from the Exodus event and from the birth of Jesus. The other source is from popular near-eastern folklore. In complex ways, these strands have been woven together to powerfully communicate a message of the crushing victory of Jesus over Satan. 1. The exodus event The chapter starts with a woman about to give birth. This new twist in the story line is surprising, given that the previous chapter apparently ended with the final end. How can this be? Action-replay, a return to much earlier times, appears to be the explanation. The woman of Revelation 12 is associated with the sun, moon, and twelve stars (v. 1). This evokes the story of Joseph’s dream that he told to his brothers (Gen. 37:9). That resulted in Joseph being sold by his brothers into Egypt. Eventually this

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led to all Israel ending up in Egypt, later to be enslaved, but finally to obtain a triumphant deliverance. A message of deliverance will also strongly emerge in Revelation 12. Other aspects of the Exodus story appear subtly in Revelation 12. The threat to the still unborn child (v. 4) evokes memories of the birth of Moses. Because of Pharaoh’s decree (Exod. 1:15-22), Moses was in peril of death in his first minutes of life. In 12:5 John describes the newly born baby as a ‘male son’ (huion arsen). This is unusual, tautologous language, a saying of the same thing twice. Surely all sons are necessarily male, and the adjective ‘male’ is not needed. Why this odd expression? By the time of the New Testament, the Hebrew Bible had been translated into Greek (the Septuagint translation), and this was commonly the translation used by various New Testament writers. The Septuagint translation uses exactly this unusual phrase, huion arsen, in Exodus 1:16, with reference to Hebrew children born in Egypt. Usage of this language in Revelation 12:5 is thus another echo of the Exodus story. Both the flight of the woman into the wilderness (1:6) and her pursuit by the dragon (12:13) provide further echoes, recalling the flight of the people of Israel and the pursuit of Pharaoh’s army. The subsequent swallowing of the river that threatened to sweep away the woman (12:15-16) invites reflection on the crossing of the Red Sea (the Sea of Reeds). The connection appears stronger still when we note later Old Testament reflection on the exodus event which saw cosmic forces at work there— the crushing of a sea monster or dragon, bearing names such as ‘Rahab’ and ‘Leviathan’ (Isa. 51:9-10; 27:1; Ps. 74:13-15; Ezek. 29:3). The overall connection of the Revelation 12 material with the Exodus story reminds the readers that if God can bring deliverance once in an apparently impossible situation, he can do it again. In fact he has done it—through the tragic-triumphant death of Jesus (12:11). 2. The birth of Jesus In echoing earlier material, Revelation 12 clearly does not utilize the exodus event alone. Multiple allusions are involved. One allusion is to the Fall of humankind in Genesis: in Genesis 3:15 Eve’s future seed will smite the head of the serpent (cf. the struggle between the serpent/dragon and the child in Revelation 12). Another allusion is to the birth of Jesus. The birth account of Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel indicates the threat of his being massacred by Herod at birth. Thus in Revelation, current or recent

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political leaders may be a kind of ‘dragon’ seeking to destroy Christ or his people. Allusion to Christ in Revelation 12 is strengthened by the reference to his ruling the nations with a rod of iron (12:5; cf. 2:27). Revelation 12 has a markedly christocentric (Christ-centred) focus. 3. Connection with various near-eastern stories John does not confine himself to biblical imagery, but also utilizes other material circulating at a popular level in wider society. In this he is not ‘selling out’ to paganism but rather utilizing culturally connecting material that will resonate in the hearts of his hearers because of its familiarity. John takes this material and reworks it to provide a powerful Christian message. In this he is modelling what missionaries have commonly done throughout the centuries—finding cultural connecting points to serve as vehicles for their Christian message. Combat myths involving supernatural forces engaging in supernatural struggle were pervasive throughout the ancient near-eastern world. Though such myths frequently had differing story lines, they often also had shared commonalities. The following table shows versions that markedly exhibit parallels to Revelation 12:1 Revelation 12 A 7-headed dragon knocks down 1/3 of the stars. The dragon is red in colour and is the ancient serpent.

A woman is clothed with the sun, with the moon underfoot, and is crowned with 12 stars.

Greek

Dragon (Python)

Babylonian

Persian

Egyptian

7-headed Tiamat (monster of the deep) threw down 1/3 of the stars.

The evil dragon Azhi Dahaka threw down 1/3 of the stars. He is representative of Angra Mainyu who created the 7 planets.

Dragon (Typhon) red in colour is also represented as a crocodile or serpent.

Marduk’s mother Damkina is represented in a manner similar to the woman of Revelation 12.

Ahura (Angra Mainyu’s enemy) created the 12 constellations.

Hathor is portrayed with the sun on her head.

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The dragon seeks to kill woman’s about-to-beborn son.

Making Sense of the Book of Revelation Typhon slays Osiris. He then pursues Osiris’s wife Hathor (= Isis) who is about to give birth to Horus the sun god.

Python pursues Leto because he learns her yetunborn son will kill him.

The child is snatched away to God.

The woman flees to the wilderness.

A cosmic war erupts. Michael and his angels throw down the dragon.

The North Wind carries Leto off to Poseidon who places her on the island Ortygia which he submerges for a time beneath the sea.

Apollo (an infant four days old) kills the dragon.

Hathor bears Horus and escapes on a papyrus boat to the island Chemnis.

A cosmic war erupts between Tiamat and the gods. Marduk, the young god of light, kills Tiamat.

Fire, son of Ahura, fights Azhi Dahaka.

Horus overcomes the dragon, who is imprisoned and subsequently destroyed by fire.

What the foregoing discussion and table show is that John is utilizing a number of strands—biblical material from various parts of the Old Testament (especially Exodus), myths from popular culture, and facets of the life of Jesus—to create a complex narrative that is thick with meaning and allusion. Because John’s narrative is multi-layered, it does not depict the life of Jesus in altogether conventional, historical fashion. For instance, its thick, ambiguous, and multi-layered approach makes less surprising John’s portraying a rapture of Jesus to heaven as an infant (12:5) rather than a post-resurrection rapture or ascension as in the Gospels. The goal of John’s ‘thick’ style is less about straightforward narrative and more about evocative meaning. It may be that John portrays an infancy rapture to dovetail better with the story of a subsequent battle in the heavens, or to provide a solution to the overall story line that some-

The Defeat of the Dragon and the Emergence of the Two Beasts: Revelation 12–13 115

thing must happen to the infant or he will be destroyed, or to mesh in some way with the Matthew’s story of an escape—although that is to Egypt. A full explanation is not required. The recipients are called to focus on the overriding truth that Jesus escapes the threat of Satan and that he defeats Satan through his death. What John has set down is a truth to be felt—not a narrative to be analyzed. While John draws on pagan materials, his message is not pagan. He utilizes popular mythology to broadcast the triumphant message: Christ has conquered Satan. Significantly, while John’s imagery of Michael fighting the dragon parallels pagan warfare imagery, John’s subsequent interpretation of the fight is markedly different (12:11). In the end, it is not victory through violence (as in the pagan myths) but victory through suffering and sacrifice (‘the blood of the Lamb’). God triumphs because God suffers. 4. The power of Satan Satan is represented in Revelation 12 first as a dragon and then as a serpent. He is described also as the Devil, the one who accuses, slanders, deceives (12:9). Significantly, identical terms are utilized in Revelation 20:2, suggesting that the message of chapters 12 and 20 may in many ways be similar (something that will be explored when we come to Revelation 20). The various names for the dragon in 12:9 evoke Old Testament passages. As serpent he is beguiler of Eve (Gen. 3:1ff). As the Devil and Satan he is the attempted underminer of Job (Job 1:6) and Joshua the high priest (Zech. 3:1). In addition to its biblical connection, the serpent image also connects with the cults of Asclepios, Dionysius, and Zeus. Terming Satan as ‘the serpent’ thus indirectly serves to denounce these pagan cults as diabolical. Through skilfully evocative language, John has invested the great red dragon with qualities of supernatural evil. It is unsurprising then that the dragon is described in terms of power, with seven crowned heads and ten horns (12:3). Horns are a common symbol of power. How the ten horns are distributed on seven heads is a puzzle. Surely this invites us not to look to the detail and come up with a neat and tidy explanation, but rather to note the concept underlying the fantastic picture, that the dragon is a figure of cosmic power. His supernatural qualities are such that he can even knock one-third of the stars out of their place (12:4). Never mind

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that positionally in Revelation, the stars have already been knocked to the ground (6:13), or at least one-third of them have been darkened (8:12). What is being portrayed here is something which is conceptual rather than chronological. The concept underlying this graphic image is the powerful evil of Satan. The good news in this terrifyingly evocative story is that Satan has been thrown down (12:10). Hallelujah! 5. Why Michael? Who, however, has done the throwing down: Michael or Christ? A consistent New Testament message is that Jesus has conquered Satan (e.g., Lk. 10:18; Jn. 12:31; Col. 2:15). So why does John’s narrative give Michael the role of bouncing Satan out of the heavenly realms? We must recognize that the literature we are studying is ‘apocalyptic’ in type. John will thus sometimes describe realities in certain ways because this accords with the conventions of the apocalyptic genre in which he largely expresses himself. We similarly use various conventional descriptions or forms, depending on whether we are telling jokes, creating cartoons, crafting movie scripts, or writing business or love letters. Here we encounter Michael and angels. An elaborately worked out angelology appeared in Judaism largely in the period after the exile in Babylon. It is significant that Michael, identified as an archangel elsewhere in Jewish literature, appears in the Old Testament only in Daniel (10:13, 21; 12:1), a book which, in its second half, is also apocalyptic in genre. There Michael is the heavenly champion and sponsor of the people of God. Why Michael in Revelation 12? The Daniel connection is a pointer to Michael being the heavenly representative of God’s people and victor over the forces of darkness in apocalyptic tradition. The apocalyptic War Scroll from Qumran (one of the Dead Sea Scrolls written a century or so before or after Christ) ascribes this sort of role to Michael: This is the day appointed for the defeat and overthrow of the kingdom of wickedness, and he will send eternal succour in the company of his redeemed by the might of the princely angel of the kingdom of Michael. With everlasting light he will enlighten with joy (the children) of Israel; peace and blessing shall be with the company of God. He will raise up the kingdom of Michael in the midst of the gods, and the realm of Israel in the midst of all flesh. (1 QM 17:5ff)

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In attributing victory over Satan to Michael in Revelation 12, John is simply following a convention of apocalyptic writing. 6. The victory of the Lamb While it is Michael who, for conventional reasons, has been portrayed as victor in the cosmic struggle, an explicitly Christ-focused interpretation of this immediately follows. ‘Now’—at the time of the overthrow of Satan—has come the salvation of Christ (12:10). Conventionally, the conquest has been by Michael. From another greater and deeper angle, the conquest has been ‘by the blood of the Lamb’ (12:11), through the death of Jesus. How is the death of Jesus significant? Theologians have offered three main answers to this question: • Christ as atoning sacrifice: In a Mediterranean world which widely viewed reconciliation with the divine as requiring sacrifice, and with the Hebrew scriptures very much reflecting such an understanding, the New Testament writers portray Christ as that sacrifice. His death wipes out (‘expiates’) sin and brings people into a restored relationship with God. • Christ as moral example: This understanding focuses on the subjective impact of Calvary on the believer. Christ’s death is an incredible example of the love of God—God loves even to the extent of the death of his Son. This in turn inspires believers to love God and others. • Christ as Christus victor: This perspective focuses on the destroying of the power of Satan, the forces of darkness, and the grip of evil through Christ’s death on the cross. The cross involves cosmic struggle in which Satan’s power is broken. Clearly all three perspectives can be found within the pages of the New Testament. Revelation 12, however, exemplifies a particularly Christus victor perspective, that Christ’s death meant the conquering of Satan. John indicates, nonetheless, that while Christ is the conqueror, somehow believers also have a part in that conquest. Victory comes not only through the blood of the Lamb, but also through believers speaking out their faith (‘the word of their testimony’) even at peril of death (12:11). Christ was the ‘faithful witness’ (1:6) and this led to his death. Christians are called to model themselves on Christ (14:4), to witness and to face death. In this way they will conquer (2:7; 2:11; 2:17; 2:26; 3:5; 3:12;

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3:21) just as their Lord also conquered (5:5-6). John’s beleaguered congregations can take heart. Apparently senseless, the martyrdom that threatens them has meaning: in such suffering there is victory over Satan. Tertullian articulated positive consequences of martyrdom a century later: ‘The oftener we are mown down by you the more in number we grow; the blood of martyrs is seed.’2 Or in the later message of Martin Luther King, ‘Unearned suffering is redemptive.’ 7. The ambiguity of the victory over Satan Satan is defeated, thrown down out of heaven, but he is alive and well on earth. And he is threatening (12:13ff). This is a paradox of Christianity. It indicates that we ought not to minimize the continuing power of evil and of Satan; but neither ought we to magnify it. Something has happened; spiritual realities have changed; the radiotherapy of the cross has zapped the pervasive grip of malignant, cancerous evil. At the same time, cancerous cells still lurk in the corners of life; Satan still directs his subversive hostility against Christians. More ‘treatment’ is needed—and then Satan’s evil will be eradicated, totally and forever. Feel-good teaching that Christians will avoid major trials and tribulations will always find eager hearers. Such teaching can have tragic consequences when its devotees do in fact undergo suffering later on. That feel-good teaching is not the message of John. At the same time that Jesus ascends into heaven (12:5), the woman (now symbolizing the church) flees into the wilderness (12:6), there to be pursued by Satan (12:13). John thus indicates that suffering is a dimension of Christianity throughout its history. Against a feel-good interpretation of life, the English poet William Blake aptly wrote at the end of the eighteenth century: Man was made for joy and woe; And when this we rightly know Through the world we safely go. Joy and woe are woven fine, A clothing for the soul divine.

The message of Blake and of John is a message of courageous realism. For each writer, the clothing of life utilizes the fabrics of both woe and joy (see Rev. 12:12 on this).

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In Revelation 12, the period of Satanic hostility is described as ‘three and a half times’ (12:14). This is the same as 1,260 days (12:6) and 42 months (11:2), both of which equal three and a half years. As we have already seen in Revelation 11, it is half of the perfection of seven and is the proverbial length of the time of trouble. The period of this time of trouble indicates that it is not forever. It is only until Satan’s influence is finished also on earth. However, this is not a brief time. The starting point of this time is when Christ ascends to heaven and the woman (the church) flees to the wilderness or starts to experience persecution (12:6, 13-14). The continuation of this situation into John’s time in Revelation (and into ours) certainly shows that it is not for a literal three and a half years. The time of trouble is from the time of Satan’s overthrow through the events of Calvary until the time when his earthly power is ended. But, as Revelation emphatically declares, ended it will be. In Revelation 12 the dragon pursues the woman. At this point her person has mutated. Earlier she was Israel or Mary (12:13). Now she is the church, and Satan is at war with her other offspring. Who are those children? John’s answer is: those who ‘keep the commandments of God and hold the testimony of Jesus’ (12:17). There is debate whether faith only is the mark of a Christian, or whether behaviour as well as belief is essential. John is here on the side of those who urge that Christians are to ‘trust and obey.’ Behaviour (keeping the commandments of God) is important as well as belief. 8. Summary of Revelation 12 The chapter of the Book of Revelation has shown Christians of John’s time that the perils they face are not simply temporal (the threat of social and imperial persecution) but are also spiritual in nature (the threat of Satan). However, these embattled communities are also reminded that their present struggle is on the level of an ongoing low-level guerrilla war. The decisive battle has already been won and final victory is sure. In that light, Christians are to live courageously and to speak out for Jesus. They are on the winning side. 9. The first beast (13:1-10) John did not have technology to create a modern split-screen movie presentation. However, his alternating pictures of good and evil, Christ and

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Satan, glory and chaos, have something of that effect. Even though Satan was still on the prowl in Revelation 12, the dominant image of that chapter was the victory of Christ. In Revelation 13, the dominant image is one of apparently all-controlling evil. In painting this contrasting picture, the primary palette John dips his brush into is Daniel 7:1-8: Daniel

Revelation

7:3 Four beasts arise from the sea

13:1 A beast arises from the sea

7:4-6 The first three beasts are like a lion, a bear, and a leopard, respectively

13:2 The beast has features of a leopard, a bear, and a lion

7:7 The fourth beast has ten horns

13:1 The beast has 10 horns

7:8 The new little horn on the fourth beast has ‘a mouth speaking arrogantly’

13:5 The beast has a mouth uttering haughty and blasphemous words

John’s beast emerges from the sea, the place of chaos. In many ways the beast is a duplicate of the dragon. It has seven heads and ten horns (13:1; cf. 12:3). People worship the dragon and the beast together (13:4). With the subsequent emergence of a second beast, we can almost see the materializing of a ‘trinity’ of evil, each member reflecting or mimicking in some way God, the Lamb, and the Spirit, later conceptualized as the Christian Trinity. An anti-trinitarian-type joining of the three evil powers occurs in 16:13 with reference to ‘the mouth of the dragon . . . and the beast . . . and the false prophet.’ The description of the beast in many ways parallels that of Christ. This remarkable mimicry of Christ is indicated in the following chart: The first beast

Christ

Has ten horns (13:1)

Has seven horns (5:6)

Wears ten diadems (13:1)

Has many diadems (19:12)

Has blasphemous names (13:1)

Has special names (19:12-13)

The dragon gives to the beast ‘his power and his throne and great authority’ (13:2)

The Lamb is worthy to receive power, etc. (from God) (5:12). It is implied that he receives God’s throne (12:5; 22:3)

A head of the beast seems to have a mortal wound which has been healed (13:3)

The Lamb has been slain (5:6) but has been resurrected

The whole earth follows the beast (13:3)

The 144,000 follow the Lamb (14:3)

The Defeat of the Dragon and the Emergence of the Two Beasts: Revelation 12–13 121 Everyone (except the faithful) worships the beast (13:4, 8)

The whole earth will worship Christ (5:13)

The beast makes war on the saints (13:7)

Christ makes war (19:11)

It is given authority over every tribe and people and language and nation (13:7)

Christ is worshiped by the faithful from every tribe and people and language and nation (5:9; 7:9)

The parallels highlight the dualistic3 portrayal of reality in Revelation: God versus Satan, Christ versus the beast, good versus evil. It underscores the crucial issue: who or what will you worship and follow? John’s concern is less to inform and more to evoke a right response. Notwithstanding the fantastic nature of much of its language and imagery, Revelation is often read as if it were a street-map of the future. That, however, is not John’s primary consideration. His concern rather has a pastoral focus: to impart life-giving words to small and beleaguered Christian communities. Every now and again, John directly shows that concern, interrupting his fantastic images to give a direct pastoral exhortation. This he does in 13:10. In the face of this beast of terrifying evil, how should Christians behave? ‘Here is a call for the endurance and faith of the saints.’ 10. The second beast (13.11-21) At this point John is depicting wave on wave of evil arrayed against the Christian community. In no way can he be accused of masking the odds Christians are up against: first a dragon on earth, then an evil beast, and now yet another beast. This second beast is clearly linked to the first. It also has horns, although in this case they are ‘two horns like a lamb’ (13:11), a parody of Christ. The second beast, like the first beast, is also linked to the dragon: it speaks ‘like a dragon’ (13:11). Its function is primarily to cause universal worship of the first beast (13:12). Some of the second beast’s functions mirror or contrast with those of the Holy Spirit:

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Description of the second beast in Revelation

New Testament references to the Holy Spirit

It performs great signs (13:13).

The outpouring of the Holy Spirit produces signs and wonders (Acts 2:17-21).

It causes people to worship the first beast (13:12).

The Spirit will glorify Christ (Jn. 16:14). The Holy Spirit as the ‘Spirit of truth’ (Jn. 14:17) is a figure of contrast.

It is a deceiver (13:14). 13:15 possibly alludes to the use of ventriloquism or a boy hidden in a statue to give the illusion that the statue is speaking.

Some combination of words including pneuma is the most common way of referring to the Holy Spirit in the New Testament writings.

It gives breath or spirit (Greek pneuma) to the image of the beast (13:15). It gives people a charagma or ‘mark’ (13:16).

Revelation 7:3 and 9:4 refer to the sealing’ (Greek verb sphragizø) of the faithful. Ephesians 1:13 refers to being ‘sealed’ by the Holy Spirit.

Later it is called ‘the false prophet’ (16:13; 19:20; 20:10).

Contrast the close link between the Spirit and prophecy (e.g., Rev. 19:10).

The parallels with the Holy Spirit intensify the sense of struggle the Christians are facing: the power of God or the power of Satan. Which one? Choose. It is a desperately hard decision as it will cause those who will not worship the beast or receive its mark to be shut out of society’s economy, unable to buy or sell, facing economic ruin and even starvation (13:17). Worse still, those who hold out against the beast face the peril of being killed (13:15). Here is an echo of Daniel 3:6. And here also is the subtle, implicit message: God came through for Daniel and his friends; he will come through for you. All will be well in the end. 11. The primary reference of Revelation 13 The material in this chapter contains a number of allusions to contemporary or near-contemporary matters. This strengthens the viewpoint that John’s primary focus is his first-century situation. (i) The head with a mortal wound that had been healed is a likely allusion to the Nero Redivivus (Nero-restored-to-life) legend. The emperor Nero, who by the time of his death had become a by-word for evil, committed suicide in AD 68, aged only thirty-one. Few witnessed the dead body. Subsequently, there developed widespread popular beliefs either that he was not dead or that he would reappear. This contributed to the

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rise of three impostors, each claiming to be Nero. One in AD 69 led a rebellion against Rome. A second in AD 80 was welcomed by Rome’s enemy, Parthia. A third in AD 88 nearly persuaded the Parthians to march against Rome. A number of first- and second-century writers provide evidence of this persisting Nero Redivivus belief.4 It may perhaps compare with numerous sightings of Elvis Presley in late-twentieth-century America.5 The beast, mortally wounded but revived, is a kind of Antichrist. It is associated in some way with imperial Rome through the dead (but possibly revived) Nero. (ii) The fact that the beast’s names are blasphemous (13:1) may be an allusion to the blasphemous claim of the current emperor Domitian to be ‘our Lord and God.’ (iii) The number 666 (13:18) appears to make an allusion to a situation in the first century. Having a religious tattoo or other religious representation on one’s person to indicate devotion to a deity was widespread in antiquity.6 The Jewish practice of wearing tephillin (phylacteries—small leather boxes—containing verses such as Deuteronomy 6:8) on the left hand and on the head can be seen in this light. The number 666 could be a symbolic number, a falling short of the divine perfection of 777. The fact that early Christians noted that Jesus’ name in Greek was 888 would also relate to this.7 However, numbers could also be used to allude to specific names. Thus graffiti in the ruins of Pompeii reads, ‘I love her whose name is 545.’ John appears to use 666 as a code for a specific name because he seems to expect his hearers to identify a person behind the number (13:18). Nero’s name was spelt sometimes as ‘Neron’ and sometimes without the final ‘n.’8 The Hebrew consonants for the transliteration of ‘Neron Caesar’ (Greek Nerøn Kaisar) are: N = 50 R = 200 W= 6 N = 50 Q = 100 S = 60 R = 200 666 The Western text ‘D’ (an early version of the Greek New Testament) has the variant reading ‘616.’ Significantly, a Hebraized transliteration of the

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Latin version of ‘Nero [without the final ‘n’] Caesar’ would produce this number. Interestingly, Suetonius records graffiti about Nero, including the following: Count the numerical values Of the letters in Nero’s name, And in ‘murdered his own mother’: You will find their sum is the same.9 Combining all the evidence, this creates a strong likelihood that the immediate reference in 13.18 is to Nero. However, it must remain only a probability rather than a certainty.10 One thing is more certain, however, that having the number 666 is not a denunciation of modern technology. In New Zealand in 2004, a man was dismissed from his employment because he refused to clock in and out of work through an electronic fingerprinting system. His refusal was based on the assertion that undergoing this fingerprinting was taking the mark of the beast and would lead to his damnation. A cynical journalist in response pointed out that he was inconsistent in being willing to undergo this very process to get a driver’s licence and that if he wished to be thoroughly literalistic he could use his left hand for the fingerprinting as John’s warning was directed only against the right hand.11 Against interpretations such as that of the dismissed employee which bring discredit to genuine Christianity, we need to recognize that John’s concern is not fingerprinting, bar codes, or computers but rather compromise with that which is intrinsically evil. (iv) There is varied interpretation of the way the description of the second beast refers to the contemporary first-century situation. The second beast’s function in promoting the worship of the first beast could be a reference to the provincial governors, a function of whom was to promote the imperial cult. Alternatively, it could refer to the local provincial councils who had promoted the imperial cult in the first place. Either way there seems to be some allusion to the imperial cult. John’s description is an unmasking and exposure of the true nature of the Roman empire and its religious practices—in a word it is demonic. Conclusion John’s narrative evokes a roller coaster of conflicting emotions. The apparently final victory of Christ at the end of Revelation 11 is succeeded

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by the perilous threat of the dragon in Revelation 12. Fear then gives way to joy with the overthrow of the dragon. Yet he still threatens. The threat is worse as the dragon’s gang swells with the emergence of two terrible, seemingly all-powerful beasts. That, of course, is not the last word. The power of God and of the Lamb will be further displayed in subsequent chapters of Revelation, though even then images of demonic power will also remain. Ultimately, however, the dualistic struggle really will come to an end. Christ and his people will reign forever and ever. But that is for the future. For now, reality seems terribly confusing. Much seems topsyturvy. John does not pretend life is simple and straightforward. He leaves his audience with a complex message of victory and of suffering, and of continuing conflict, and of the ghastly reality of evil. This meshes with the felt experience of his people. One thing that John does do in these two chapters is to unmask the demonic dimension of Rome’s rule. This is designed to steel the Christian communities to resist the evil that is in their midst, evil that is variously violent, seductive, and sapping. For John, resistance is to be expressed in endurance and faith (13:10). Suffering and death may well occur (13:10a). One should not, nevertheless, be overwhelmed and fall into a sense of passive resignation. Active human response is called for: ‘Here is a call for the endurance and faith of the saints.’ Reflection 1. What echoes of pagan mythology (if any) are present in Revelation 12? Why does John have such echoes (if any)? What major point does this chapter make? 2. Who is the agent of Satan’s defeat in Revelation 12 and what sort of defeat does Satan incur? Notes 1. This material is drawn from G. R. Beasley-Murray, The Book of Revelation (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974) 192–93. See also A. Y. Collins, The Combat Myth in the Book of Revelation (Missoula: Scholars Press, 1976) 59–67. 2. Tertullian, Apology 50. 3. By ‘dualism’ here and elsewhere I do not intend the classic meaning of dualism as two eternal principles of good and evil forever locked in struggle with each other. I mean a modified dualism in which only good (God) is eternal, but where good and evil are polarized forces in tension on the stage of history.

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4. Dio Chrysostom, Oration 21; Ascension of Isaiah 4.1-4; Sibylline Oracles 5.101-4; Tacitus, History 2.8.1; Suetonius, Nero 57.1. 5. D. E. Aune, Revelation, Word Bible Commentary (Dallas: Word, 1997) 2:685 6. Herodotus 2.113; 3 Macc. 2.29; Lucian, Syrian Goddess 59; and see C. H. Talbert, The Apocalypse: A Reading of the Revelation of John (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1994) 56. 7. See Sibylline Oracles 1.324ff. 8. A. Y. Collins, ‘The Book of Revelation,’ in J. J. Collins, ed., The Encyclopedia of Apocalypticism: Vol. I: The Origins of Apocalypticism in Judaism and Christianity (New York: Continuum, 1999) 384–414 at p. 398. 9. Suetonius, Lives of the Caesars VI.39. 10. Supporting this view, see P. Spilsbury, The Throne, the Lamb & the Dragon: A Reader’s Guide to the Book of Revelation (Downers Grove: IVP, 2002) 101–103. For a contrary view, see G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation: A Commentary on the Greek Text (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999) 718–28. 11. New Zealand Herald, 10 November 2004.

11 Life from the Lamb or Wrath from the Bowls: Revelation 14–16 1. The Lamb and the 144,000 (14:1-5) Is there any hope? Revelation 13 has been a chapter of horror with its images of terrifying beasts, the ‘mark of the beast,’ and execution for the non-compliant. But that is only half the story. In Revelation John strikingly juxtaposes images of earth and heaven, evil and good, Satan and God, the beast and Christ. John now shows the other side of the story to Revelation 13; he displays the overriding reality in Revelation 14—the glory of Christ and the wrath of God. In Revelation 13 the reality of ‘salvation’ seems to demand worship of the beast. Without compliance, starvation looms. Failure to worship the beast means exclusion from society (13:17). Spiritual accommodation seems essential for survival. Against that scene, John juxtaposes a scene of the eschatological reign of Christ. Whereas the beast is from the sea (the place of evil), the Lamb is located on Mount Zion, the place of prayer, the place of God, the place where God’s reign begins (Isa. 24:23; Micah 4:7; Zech. 9:9). The reign of Christ is the ultimate and final reality. This means both triumphant reign for those sealed with the mark of the Lamb (14:1-5) and doom for those who bear the mark of the beast (14:6-20). The picture is one of both hope and warning. John’s dualistic representation of reality1 drives his readers to a choice: on the forehead, either the mark of the Lamb or the mark of the beast; one or the other. Choose. John will not have any truck with Christianity lived at a low level. He calls for Christianity to be outlived in a totally dedicated fashion. The followers of Jesus are ‘blameless’ (14:5). John’s statement in 14:4 that the followers of the Lamb ‘have not defiled themselves with women for they are virgins’ could have literal application. If so, it would make the 144,000 an elite group and would presumably exclude women. It is better to explain the language of sexuality as an image of faithfulness towards God. Idolatry in both the Old Testament and the New Testament is often described in terms of sexual sin. Revelation 13 highlighted an intensity of pressure on Christians to compromise with idolatry. The ‘pure,’ however, have not done so. This context of idolatry explains the reference to not

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lying in 14:5. The pure have not spoken out those terrible and false words, ‘Caesar is Lord and God.’ Thus they have pure mouths. They are blameless. One can note that the Jewish writer Philo (a near-contemporary of St. Paul) uses the grammatically masculine term ‘virgins’ in a metaphorical sense for God’s people, male and female.2 Thus here the ‘virgins’ are those who have stood firm in purity against idolatry, entirely loyal to Jesus, following the Lamb wherever he goes (14:4). The 144,000 are not an elite group within Christianity but the entire church as it is meant to be. It comprises all those ‘who have been redeemed from the earth’ (14:3b). 2. Three angels announcing judgment (14:6-13) Here we have a foreshadowing of the next cycle of judgment: ‘Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great!’ (14:8). In terms of the total message of Revelation, this is a remarkably subversive and dangerous statement. In scripture Babylon is symbolic of evil power arrayed against God’s people. The Babylonian imagery begins in the Bible with the Tower of Babel story in Genesis. The fall of arrogant and oppressive Babylon is celebrated in Isaiah 14 and Jeremiah 50–51. Because Babylon destroyed Jerusalem in 587 BC and Rome did the same in AD 70, it was easy to make the connection, ‘Babylon = Rome.’ This connection seems first to have been made in the New Testament in 1 Peter 5:13. In Revelation 14:8, John hints at the Babylon-Rome connection in his terminology ‘Babylon the Great,’ for Rome is now the great city of that part of the world. Such connection is made more explicit in Revelation 17–18 where the ‘great whore’ is identified first as ‘Babylon’ (17:5), and then as ‘the great city that rules over the kings of the earth’ (17:18). So, in one short cryptic sentence in 14:8, Rome’s essential nature and ultimate fate is revealed. She is Babylon, and she will fall. What a subversive statement! Babylon’s fate is good news (19:3). This is not sadistic rejoicing. Rather it celebrates the overthrow of evil. As Caird noted, ‘There is no hope for the rehabilitation of the alcoholic until the source of his supply is cut off. . . . Only the fall of Babylon can liberate her fuddled dupes.’3 Fallen is Babylon: evil has come to an end. John’s dualism again drives home the choice: which city? Mount Zion or Babylon? The judgment of Babylon is a terrifying warning against following the beast. On the one hand, the ‘seal’ (sphragis) of the living God (7:2) is a seal of protection from the natural and demonic plagues of the time of the end (7:3; 9:4). On the other hand the ‘mark’

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(charagma) of the beast marks out its bearers for these plagues (16:2) and for eternal punishment (14:9-11). John’s use of the term charagma is significant. Charagma was the technical term for the imperial stamp which showed the emperor’s name and regnal year.4 The term could also relate to coinage. In 13:17 charagma is linked with buying and selling. Coins in the Roman province of Asia commonly had an image of the emperor or of the goddess Roma on them. Such images had led Jewish freedom fighters like the Zealots to reject the use of Roman coins as idolatry. While John may not be calling on the followers of Christ to take that specific step, his language is a reminder at least of the pervasive presence of idolatry and evil that is even touching every sale and purchase. His black-and-white language insists that idolatry and Christianity cannot mix. John warns that the fate of the followers of the beast is like that of Sodom and Gomorrah, a torment of ‘fire and sulphur’ (14:10). The fate of those two cities, however, was sealed at once; but this torment is forever (14:11). Is John seeking here to provide a literal description of the future? Revelation is not primarily a book of information about the future. It is a pastorally motivated book, seeking to warn Christians against collaboration with evil, compromise, and backsliding. The material does not primarily function to provide doctrine about the fate of outsiders. Rather it functions to warn and encourage insiders who ponder the question, ‘Is it such a terrible thing to participate in the worship of Rome?’ John’s pastoral purpose is the utterance for a second time of the message of 13:10b: ‘Here is a call for the endurance of the saints’ (14:12a). What are they to do? Simply to trust and obey: to ‘keep the commandments of God and hold fast to the faith of Jesus.’ Then follows the hope for the faithful: rest and reward (14:13). 3. The harvest of the earth (14:14-20) The dominant image of the preceding section was the fall of Babylon and the overthrow of evil. What follows are two images of harvest. To depict these harvests, John’s paintbrush dips into the imagery of grain and grape harvests in Joel 3:13. How are these two images related to what precedes, and how are they related to each other? Are the two images alternative depictions of one reality or are they depictions of two contrasting reali-

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ties? John’s two harvest images in Revelation 14 have been understood in three main ways: • One image expresses redemption and the other judgment. The wheat harvest is redemptive and depicts the in-gathering of those who have kept the faith. The trampling of the winepress expresses judgment on all others. • Both images express ultimate salvation. The winepress, trodden ‘outside the city’ (14:20), is evocative of the crucifixion of Jesus (Heb. 13:12). From this the suggestion is made that the blood is that of Jesus or of the martyrs. Christ experiences the judgment of God against sin, enabling sinful humanity to go free. • Both images express final judgment. The wheat and wine harvests share a close parallelism. Both are inaugurated by the same angelic command. Both crops are ‘ripe.’ In the Joel reference, both images refer to judgment. The winepress image generally portrays the place of God’s wrath (Isa. 63:1-6; 51:17, 21, 22). Here the product of the winepress is a massive river of blood. Its measurement at 1600 stadia (300 km) may refer to the approximate length of Palestine. Alternatively it may refer to the entire earth being 102 x 42 (4 being representative of the earth). A third suggestion is that the measurement is the square of 40, a traditional number for hardship or punishment (40 days rain, 40 years in the desert, 40 lashes for the criminal). Although the detail of the allusion is not clear, the exaggerated language is expressive of massive judgment. Similar language—‘the horse shall walk through the blood of sinners up to his chest’—exists in 1 Enoch 100:3. This indicates that the imagery is a proverbial picture of the woes of the last days, rather than an original and literal description. It is typical language that is naturally used when the focus is final battles and last judgments. I suggest that the intention of this passage is represented by the third option. The section paints parallel warnings of terrible judgments. The aspect of cutting with a sickle and the aspect of rivers of blood fit more naturally with judgment than with redemption. The message is that it is a terrible thing to have aligned oneself with the beast and to be found in that state on judgment day.

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4. The Song of Moses (chapter 15) For John, the Old Testament is a reservoir from which to draw text and image. The Exodus material, especially, is a major reservoir resource, with the overall story line of the exodus being very much echoed in Revelation: Exodus

Revelation

Persecution

Persecution

Plagues

Cycles of punishment

Deliverance through the ‘Red Sea’

Deliverance

Wilderness

Wilderness

Promised land

New Jerusalem

In Revelation 15, the exodus is the obvious palette from which John works: • Plagues (seven in number, contained in bowls) are visited on humanity. • Conquerors of the beast sing the ‘song of Moses’ (15:3-4) which is also the ‘song of the Lamb.’ It is sung by the ‘sea of glass,’ evoking both the earlier picture of heaven (4:6), and also the victory of the Israelites at the ‘Red Sea’ with the overthrow of Pharaoh (Exod. 15:20-21). The sea is ‘mixed with fire,’ a sign of God in the exodus (Exod. 13:21-22). The ‘song of Moses’ is a song of triumph, with the overthrow of evil (Exod. 15:1). It indicates that now is the time for the judging of the enemy and the triumph of the people of God. Revelation 15:5 uses the unusual expression, ‘the temple of the tent of witness,’ as the place from which judgments emerge. This juxtaposition of temple and ‘tent’ fuses together two closely related institutions. The tent was a major institution during Israel’s wilderness wanderings, serving as the ‘tent of meeting,’ the place of encounter between God and his people (Exod. 33:7-11). The tent was later to be replaced by the temple after Israel came into a more settled situation. Inclusion in Revelation 15 of the tent (located in the wilderness), as well as the temple, as the place from which the plagues emerge, has subtle but powerful significance. In Revelation 12 the harassed church takes refuge in the

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wilderness. It may feel hopeless in its ‘wilderness’ state. But that location is also the place where God is present in his tent of meeting. God is there with them. Furthermore, in yet another example within Revelation of divine reversal, this oppressed church is connected with the unfolding of the judgments of God. It is from the tent, from the location of the oppressed church, that the judgments are brought forth. The overall message of Revelation 15 is straightforward: what God once did in the exodus, he can and will do again. In a time of oppression and hopelessness, the Lord God the Almighty reigns. And he will deliver. 5. The bowls of wrath (chapter 16) There are striking parallels between the bowls and the earlier-narrated trumpets. The most obvious of these are shown in the following table: Trumpets

Bowls

1

Hail, fire, and blood fall on the earth (8:7).

The first bowl is poured on the earth (16:2).

2

A blazing mountain falls into the sea. A third of the sea becomes blood, and a third of living creatures in the sea die (8:9).

A bowl is poured into the sea. The sea becomes blood, and every living thing in the sea dies (16:3).

3

A blazing star falls on a third of the rivers and springs of water (8:10-11).

A bowl is poured into the rivers and springs of water (16:4).

4

A third of the sun, moon, and stars are struck (8:12).

A bowl is poured on the sun, which scorches people with fire (16:8).

5

Smoke from the pit causes the sun and air to be darkened. Locusts from the pit bring torture (9:2).

A bowl poured onto the throne of the beast causes his kingdom to be plunged into darkness and his people into bodily agony (16:10-11).

6

Angels at the Euphrates are released. A huge army goes on the move (9:13-16).

The Euphrates is dried up and an army then assembles at Harmagedon (16:12-16).

7

Loud voices in heaven say, ‘The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah.’ Lightning, thunder, earthquake, hail (11:15-19).

A loud voice saying, ‘It is done.’ Lightning, thunder, earthquake, hail (16:17-21).

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These close parallels underscore the point that the successive chapters of Revelation do not unfold a chronologically ordered story set down in linear progression. The plagues do not chronologically follow the seals and trumpets. The sixth seal brought us to the apparent end of the age with the outpouring of ‘the great day’ of the wrath of God and of the Lamb (6:17). The seventh trumpet ushered in the kingdom of God (11:15). Revelation 14 concluded with visions of the Last Judgment (14:14-20). The final plague in 16:17-21 had substantially been narrated already in 6:12-14. Significant too is the fact that ‘Babylon’ was destroyed by earthquake in 16:17-21, but there is a subsequent description of it being destroyed by fire in 17:16. There is something other than an unfolding chronological time line here.5 A literal and chronologically successive interpretation leads to major inconsistency. It is much better to view the complex of materials in Revelation as being ‘action-replays’ and different ‘camera angles’ of the end. Behind the surface message of Revelation 16—its montage of pictures—lie theological statements of final destruction (with images such as fire and earthquake) and the final appearing (theophany) of God in reigning glory. Judgment and justice is a major motif in chapter 16, especially in 16:5-7. Earlier there was a cry from under the altar for justice and vindication (6:9-10). That cry is answered in 16:7: ‘Yes, O Lord God, the Almighty, your judgments are true and just!’ Despite the images of a final judgment, there yet remains a continuing concern for repentance. In connection with the reaction of non-believers to the judgments, this has been a recurring theme in Revelation (6:16-17; 9:6, 20-21; 11:13). The concern for repentance remains in Revelation 16 (16:9, 11, 21). Nevertheless, God’s enemies do not repent—they blaspheme until they die. ‘Blasphemy’ is a characteristic of the beast (13:1, 5, 6; 17:3). Despite the judgments, people still adhere to evil. God’s judgments are to provide a last chance for repentance, but people do not take it. John’s purpose in this chapter is not simply to unfold a narrative of judgment; he also articulates a pastoral message for his flock. His message of God’s judgments provides both comfort and warning to the faithful. His writing is primarily for insiders, not outsiders. It is the insiders he wants to influence.6 This is especially marked in 16:15, a verse which patently interrupts his main story line. In 16:14 a demonically inspired army is assembling for battle ‘on the great day of God the Almighty.’ This language suggests that the evil army is going to battle

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God himself (or his armies). Then John breaks this stream of consciousness to jolt his readers into alertness in 16:15.7 A voice—either of God or Christ—suddenly cries, ‘See, I am coming like a thief!’ and warns hearers to stay awake and dressed (compare the message to the church at Sardis in chapter 3). The interrupted narrative continues after this with a demonically inspired army assembling at Harmagedon. The jolting interruption forces a reexamination and a choice: God’s army or the Devil’s? The interruption serves to ‘counter the insidious arguments being used by leaders within the church to reduce the rigour of Christ’s demands’ as evidenced in Revelation 2 and 3.8 There is no middle ground in relation to spiritual allegiance. John’s call is to be awake and clothed. John has already warned of the dangers of deception, that some people who think they are clothed are actually naked (3:17). Clothing symbolizes a righteous life (19:8). Failure to live in that manner is nakedness. Rather than providing a detailed roadmap of the future, John’s images are designed to bring a challenge from the living Christ to his followers ‘to orient their lives in the present toward the coming of the eschatological reality.’9 They need to be in a state that is ready for the coming of Christ. 6. ‘Armageddon’ (16:16) This term has evoked remarkable fascination at a popular level, in amateur theologians and general society alike. The term appears only once in the Bible, in Revelation 16:16. It appears as a Greek transliteration— Harmagedon—of a Hebrew word which appears to refer to Har-Megiddo, the mountain of Megiddo. Commonly this is felt to refer to Megiddo, a strategic fortress city of Solomon, standing at a key pass between the coastal plains of Palestine and the interior Esdraelon plain, guarding the great trade route of the Via Maris, the ‘Way of the Sea.’ Some two hundred battles were fought in ancient times at or near Megiddo. It was thus a proverbial place of battle. The armies of Asia and Egypt passed through Megiddo to do battle. Deborah routed the chariots of Sisera there. It was the place of the final defeat of good king Josiah. There emerged a belief, however, that one day God would reverse this defeat in a final victory over evil. The problem with linking ‘Armageddon’ with Megiddo is that there is no mountain at Megiddo. In John’s day Megiddo was a small tell, twenty or so metres high. The nearest mountain to Megiddo is Mount Carmel, 30

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km away. Furthermore, the physical enemy that John will shortly describe as being overthrown is Rome (Revelation 18). So why is the battle in Palestine? One way round the difficulty is to make a slight adjustment in spelling, producing Har-Mo’ed, the ‘Mountain of Assembly.’ This term appears in Isaiah 14:13. It appears to denote a mythical mountain of the gods which the king of Babylon in his pride sought in vain to ascend. This reference leads to the suggestion that this mountain became viewed as the demonic counterpart—the anti-mountain—to the heavenly Mount Zion on which the city of God stands (Heb. 12:22ff; Rev. 21:10). The ‘Mount of Assembly’ would then be a fitting symbol for the gathering of the rebellious hosts of earth against the God of heaven. We have already observed that many of John’s images have multiple allusions. John may be drawing from the Megiddo image, but, with the closeness of sound to ‘Assembly,’ he may have added in Har (Mountain) to evoke the Isaiah 14 image, thus creating a double reference. In the end, John’s description is symbolic, not literal. His focus is not on a physical place but on what that place means. Armageddon is the place of evil’s final rebellion against God, and the place of its final defeat. John’s overall message in Revelation 16 is clear: evil will finally end altogether. The evil army assembles at a ‘mountain,’ but every mountain is flattened (16:20); and so is the army. Evil is obliterated: ‘It is done!’ (16:17). God rules. Conclusion The section of Revelation that we have been studying strongly reinforces our awareness of the dual nature of reality: God rules; yet devilish evil not only persists but is powerful. Within the section, however, there is also the message that this dualism will not be forever. In the end there will be both the total overthrow of evil and the total reign of God. In this context Revelation strips away any rationalizing argument about compromise with evil. Each person is confronted with a choice: God or the Devil, rest or wrath. This book is essentially for Christians. We too must be continually making this choice, deciding in all circumstances to follow the Lamb wherever he goes.

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Reflection 1. What message is conveyed in (a) the image of the Lamb and the 144,000 on Mount Zion (14:1-5) and (b) the image of Armageddon and its outcome (16:12-21)? 2. What message(s) does John get across in his frequent utilization of language, images, and story line drawn from the Book of Exodus? Notes 1. On John’s modified dualism, see chapter 10 fn. 3. 2. Philo, De Cherubim 49–50. 3. G. B. Caird, The Revelation of St John the Divine (2nd ed.; London: A & C Black, 1984) 184. 4. A. Deissmann, Light from the Ancient East, trans. L. R. M. Strachan (4th ed.; London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1927) 341. 5. Gail O’Day, ‘Teaching and Preaching the book of Revelation,’ Word & World 25/3 (2005): 246–54 at p. 250. 6. P. S. Minear, I Saw a New Earth: An Introduction to the Visions of the Apocalypse (Washington: Corpus Books, 1968) 147. 7. Ibid.,148–50. 8. J. Sweet, Revelation (London: SCM, 1979) 247. 9. M. Eugene Boring, Revelation, Interpretation Series (Louisville: John Knox , 1989) 178.

12 The Overthrow of ‘Babylon’: Revelation 17:1–19:10 1. A tale of two cities John is deeply concerned that his Christian audience persists in the choice for good, for God, for Christ. Revelation fosters this choice by starkly exposing the evil of evil. In doing this, John simplifies life’s complexities to a straightforward, good-versus-evil dualism1 and urges his audience to choose between the two. John’s ongoing narrative expresses this dualism in its description of two contrasting cities: ‘Jerusalem’ and ‘Babylon.’ Already in Revelation 11 John has suggested a two-city contrast. There is the ‘holy city’ (11:2); and there is also ‘the great city’ (11:8). The latter is clearly a city of great evil as it is linked with Sodom, Egypt, the crucifixion of Jesus, and the death of the two witnesses. John now portrays in great detail the nature of the city of evil and its downfall. It is the very opposite of the heavenly city, the new Jerusalem, whose description follows in Revelation 21–22. The fact that Revelation 17:1–19:10 and 21:9–22:9 are to be read as contrasting pairs is evident in strikingly similar language being employed in the two sections: Revelation 17:1–19:10

Revelation 21:9–22:9

One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and said to me, ‘ Come, I will show you. . .’ (17:1)

One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls . . . came and said to me, Come, I will show you . . .’ (21:9)

He carried me away in the spirit (17:3)

In the spirit he carried me away (21:10)

He [the angel] said to me, ‘These are true words of God’ (19:9)

He [the angel] said to me, ‘These words are trustworthy and true’ (22:6)

I fell at his feet to worship him, but he said to me, ‘You must not do that! I am a fellow servant with you and your comrades. . . . Worship God!’ (19:10)

I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel . . . but he said to me, ‘You must not do that! I am a fellow servant with you and your comrades. . . . Worship God!’ (22:9)2

The two cities are also described in marked and intentional parallels and contrasts. This feature is evident from the outset, with very similar wording

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introducing each city by ‘one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls’ (17:1 and 21:9). Parallels and contrasts are shown in the following table: Babylon

Jerusalem

Come, I will show you the judgment of the great whore’ (17:1)

Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb’ (21:9)

A whore (17:1)

A bride (21:9)

Earthly—related to earth’s abominations (17:5)

Heavenly—comes down out of heaven (21:10)

Full of abominations’ (17:4)

No abomination there (21:27)

Viewed from the wilderness/desert (17:3)

Viewed from a great, high mountain (21:10)

Adorned with precious stones—‘gold and jewels and pearls’ (17:4)

Jewel-like in appearance—‘like a very rare jewel, like jasper’ (21:11)

The city is built on a scarlet beast (17:3)

The city is built on the twelve apostles of the Lamb (21:14)

The city is destroyed

The city lasts forever

The comparison forces a choice. Which city do you belong to? There is a stark dualism which Augustine well captured in his City of God (15:1): I classify the human race into two branches: the one consists of those who live by human standards, the other of those who live according to God’s will. I also call these two classes the two cities, speaking allegorically. By two cities I mean two societies of human beings, one of which is predestined to reign with God for all eternity, the other doomed to undergo eternal punishment with the Devil.3

Revelation and Augustine both raise the question: which city do you choose? 2. The terrible evil of ‘Babylon’ (17:1-8) The city is identified as a prostitute (17:1), ‘the mother of whores’ (17:5). The model for this image seems to be Jezebel. She was regarded as the arch-villain in Israel’s fall into idolatry (1 Kings 16:31f). She was the murderer of the prophets (1 Kings 18:4; cf. Rev. 11:7 and 17:6). She was explicitly linked with ‘whoredom and sorcery’ (2 Kings 9:22). The identi-

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fication of the false prophetess in Revelation 2:20 as ‘Jezebel’ indicates that by the first century ‘Jezebel’ had become a by-word for anti-God evil. In unmasking the evil of the whore-city, John indicates that it is a re-run of the evil of Jezebel. The city John sees is identified as ‘Babylon.’ Such is her name (17:5), a name that calls to mind an arrogant city (Isa. 14:12f), a city of idolatry (Isa. 40ff), a city which destroyed the city of the people of God (Jer. 51:24, 34-37). Linkage with ‘Babylon’ is also shown in the description of the whore as being ‘seated on many waters’ (17:1). While the great city is eventually identified as Rome, the reference to ‘many waters’ does not fit Rome in the way that it fits ancient Babylon. The latter city was surrounded by the River Euphrates and by many canals (cf. Jer. 51:13). The image of the city as a prostitute is a significant theme of the Old Testament and is applied to Nineveh (Nahum 3:4), to Tyre (Isa. 23:17), and to Jerusalem itself (Ezek. 16 and 23). John’s use of the term ‘Babylon’ is ‘symbolic geography,’4 to be probed for its underlying meaning rather than its surface description. ‘Babylon’ ‘taps the Jewish reservoir of grief.’5 All the disgust and dismay associated with this image is directed to the new ‘Babylon.’ viz. Rome. The city is the mother or source of earth’s bdelugmatøn (‘abominations’–17:5). The root meaning of bdelugma is ‘that which causes abhorrence.’ Such abhorrence is especially connected with paganism and idolatry (as in Mark 13:14, drawing on Dan. 9:27; 11:31; 12:11). The woman’s cup is full of ‘abominations,’ full of indescribable filth. Rome may be the political and economic hub of her empire; but she is also the source of its corruption and idolatry. The woman is the murderer of Christians (17:6). The terrible nature of her crime is highlighted. She is ‘drunk’ (methousan)—drunk with the blood of saints and witnesses. Eventually she is destroyed by her own former friends and allies (17:16). The language echoes Ezekiel’s prophecy of the destruction of faithless Jerusalem through the Babylonians and Assyrians (Ezek. 23:25ff). Her former lovers hate her (Ezek. 23:29) and strip her naked (Ezek. 23:26). The flames devour her children (Ezek. 23:25) and burn up their houses (Ezek. 23:47). Evil destroys evil. The material shows an inherent flaw in the human drive for power. Such will to rule does not unite. It creates division. Thus in the end, evil is self-destructive.

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3. The identification of Babylon with Rome This linkage is never explicit. John’s language is symbolic, allusive, and evocative. He hints, implies, suggests. Nevertheless, it is pretty clear that John’s language indicates a Babylon-Rome linkage: • The description of ‘Babylon’ as ‘mother’ (17:5) may imply this. Magna Mater, the Mother Goddess, was a figure of widespread worship throughout the ancient world (for example, Asherah and Astarte/Ashtoreth, fertility goddesses in Canaanite religion). For many Romans, the Great Mother Goddess was identified with the goddess Roma, giver of all blessings. In Revelation 17:5, however, this Great Mother is not the giver of blessings, but is the mother of whores, mother of earth’s abominations. • The linkage between ‘Babylon’ and Rome is made more explicit in the description of the whore (‘Babylon’) as seated on seven mountains (17:9). This was a typical description of the geographical features of the city of Rome. • Even more explicit still is identification of the whore (‘Babylon’) as ‘the great city that rules over the kings of the earth’ (17:18). For a first-century inhabitant of the Roman empire, that could mean one city only—Rome. She is the whore who will be destroyed. 4. The conundrum of the seven kings (17:9-14) John links his narrative with a series of rulers. At first glance, that should make the particular setting he has in mind easier to identify. The dates of rule of Rome’s various rulers that might be relevant are: Julius Caesar Augustus (Octavian) Tiberius Gaius (Caligula) Claudius Nero Galba Otho

d. 44 BC 31 BC–14 AD 14–37 37–41 41–54 54–68 68–69 69

Vitellius Vespasian Titus Domitian Nerva Trajan Hadrian

69 69–79 79–81 81–96 96–98 98–117 117–138

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Despite this apparently clear list, there are insurmountable problems preventing an identification of John’s allusions: • Do we start with Julius Caesar or with Augustus? While Julius Caesar did not utilize the formal title Imperator (Emperor) to explain his role as dictator, he certainly functioned in that manner. If we choose to start with the first formally titled emperor, Augustus, then the fifth (who is fallen) is Nero, and Revelation must have been written in the civil war period (68–69) or in the subsequent Flavian period (starting with Vespasian). • Do we include the three short-lived emperors of the civil war period? Commonly they are left off modern lists of Roman emperors, regarded simply as would-be leaders who failed in their attempts to seize and consolidate their power as emperor. However, this was not altogether the way they were viewed in the first century. • Who is the starting point for this list? Apart from the issue of whether we start with the first emperor (Augustus or Julius), another option is that we start with the first particularly anti-God emperor (Gaius Caligula), or with the first open persecutor of the Christians (Nero). These questions highlight the fact that clear identification of John’s seven kings is simply not possible. Every emperor from Nero to Trajan has been identified by one commentator or another as the emperor under which the Apocalypse was written. It should be noted that John’s concern is with an ‘eighth,’ not with the five kings that have already fallen. This ‘eighth,’ either a kind of king or at least associated with the seven earlier kings, is identified with the beast that ‘was and is not and goes to destruction’ (17:11; 17:8). Despite the negative end of this eighth ‘king’ (he goes to destruction—17:11), John’s descriptive language of him otherwise evokes something of Christ, who lived, died, and was raised to glory. One can note too that the numerical equivalent for I∑sous (Jesus) is 888: I – E S O U S

= 10 = 8 = 200 = 70 = 400 = 200 888

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What this suggests is that the beast (this ‘eighth’—17:11) is an anti-figure of Jesus, a kind of antichrist. John’s description seems to tie in with the legend of Nero Redivivus. This makes it possible that Nero is the fifth king, the three short-lived emperors are ignored, and Domitian, a second persecuting ‘Nero,’ is the eighth. However, such an interpretation is a possibility only. One question is whether John expected the seven kings to be understood literally or whether he is simply using symbolic language, which cannot be unpacked in detail. It may be that John places himself at the time of the sixth king because the demonic forces, which displayed their greatest power at the time of the sixth bowl and sixth trumpet, will display this also at the time of the sixth emperor. John’s location of himself at this point of time lets readers know not only that they live at the height of the destruction perpetrated by imperial power, but also that God’s judgment of this power is imminent.6 This is particularly the case because the reign of the seventh is short-lived (17:10) and the reign of the eighth concludes with his destruction. Evil will end! As is so often the case in Revelation, we shall never be able to fully explain John’s picture language by a translation into plain language. Doing this will amputate something of his book’s allusiveness and richness of meaning. We should note that John has often used the number seven symbolically, not because there were seven actual things, but to fit in with his patterns of seven (to show completeness). As the seven churches represent the churches in Asia and the world, so the symbolic number here stands for the full line of Roman emperors. The message is that their evil system, their devilish opposition to the Lamb, will soon be conquered (17:14). Take heart, you Christians! You are on the winning side! 5. A lament for the destroyed city of ‘Babylon’ (18:1-24) The form of this poetic material is prophetic lament—lament over a people. There is tremendous pathos in its expression, especially with the refrain ‘no more’ repeated six times in 18:21-23: Babylon the great city . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . no more The sound of harpists and minstrels and of flutists and trumpeters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . no more An artisan of any trade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . no more

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The sound of the millstone. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . no more The light of a lamp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . no more The voice of bridegroom and bride . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . no more The message is clear. Pinning one’s hopes on this world system is to rely on the unreliable. Why be so short-sighted as to back that which will be overthrown and end? John’s material that portrays this so graphically draws extensively from laments in the Old Testament over the fall of great cities; for example: Old Testament reference

Its description

Echoes in Revelation

Isa. 13:20-22

Babylon will be a haunt of wild animals and birds and demons

18:2

Isa. 23:1ff

Ships crossing the sea lament the overthrow of Tyre

18:17, 19

Ezek. 26:13

The silencing of music. Lyres are heard no more

18:22

Ezek. 27:30

Wailing, throwing dust on the head, and wallowing in ashes

18:19

What John has done is to portray Rome as successor of Babylon and Tyre. He has gathered together the essence of his prophetic predecessors’ pronouncements against the two cities of Babylon and Tyre, and portrayed Rome as the culmination of all the evil empires of history.8 In the Old Testament there is more than one type of lament. In particular, prophetic lament (lament over a people) has different features from personal lament (lament over a person). John’s lament is prophetic. While, as with personal lament, it expresses grief and wailing, the purpose of prophetic lament is quite different: • The concern of prophetic lament is with future death, i.e., with events that have not yet taken place. This helps explain why the main event takes place ‘off-stage.’ The fact of the city’s overthrow, rather than the details of the overthrow, is the focus, for in fact the overthrow has not yet occurred. • The prophetic concern is with rebellion against God (not with external catastrophe). For this reason, there is no explanation as to who causes

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Detail of the Scene of the End of the World by Luca Signorelli. Orvieto Cathedral (c.1500): ©Photo SCALA, Florence. Used by permission.

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the destruction and in what manner. All we know is that the city has been overthrown and is on fire. • Prophetic lament aims to shock, not to comfort. This is evident in the dramatic opening in 18:2: ‘Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great!’ In Revelation 17 we have a picture of this wealthy, great, apparently invincible city. The next thing we know is that she has been overthrown. Shock is also conveyed in the highlighting of the suddenness of the overthrow. It is stressed three times that all this happened ‘in one hour’ (18:10, 17, 19). Shock comes thirdly in the dramatic role-play in 18:21, where a mighty angel throws a huge stone into the sea. This echoes Jeremiah 51:63-64. We know that Jeremiah’s role-play was fulfilled. We therefore expect that this one will be fulfilled also. • The aim of prophetic lament is to cause repentance, not sympathy. This behavioural concern explains the call in 18:4. The call to ‘come out’ is not so much a call for geographical re-location but rather for inner reorientation.9 The call is to become detached from the evil city and to desire that other city which is new and everlasting. 6. Exposure of the nature of ‘Babylon’s’ evil A great deal of the evil of ‘Babylon’ is associated with her wealth. Much of this is linked with trade. John identifies three groups who mourn over the overthrow of ‘Babylon’: kings (petty rulers who collaborated with Rome), merchants, and mariners. These are the very groups who most profited from Rome’s exploitation of her empire.10 John’s list in 18:12-13 highlights the cargo that Rome was importing from near and far. Gold, ivory, and costly wood came from North Africa, jewels and pearls from India, spices from Arabia, cinnamon from South China, myrrh from Media, wheat from Egypt, horses from Armenia, chariots from Gaul, and slaves from all areas of the world.11 Rome boasted of her blessings to the world through her pax Romana, her Roman peace, achieved through conquest and domination. John shows that these claimed blessings are actually exploitative—designed for Rome’s own economic benefit. Rome’s economic system is evil. Many of the items on John’s list were specifically discussed by ancient writers as prime examples of the decadence of the wealthy families of Rome in the early imperial period. To give a few examples:

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• Gold was supposed to be so plentiful that the first-century writer, Pliny the Elder, reckoned (with rhetorical flourish) that in his time even the ceilings of private houses were commonly covered in gold, that even slaves used gold for ornament, and that even plebeian women were now wearing shoe-buckles made of gold.12 • Silver, according to the same Pliny, was so prized that ‘women use silver to wash in and scorn sitting-baths not made of silver.’13 • Purple was used to dye garments. Its production required the crushing of vast numbers of tiny shellfish, making it an extremely expensive commodity. Pliny claimed that first-century Rome had developed a mad craze for purple clothing (pupurae insania).14 • Citrus wood (NRSV ‘costly wood’) was a North African wood which had varieties of colour and of veining patterns (resembling the eyes of a peacock’s tail, the spots of a panther, or the stripes of a tiger). So scarce was the commodity that the wealthiest nobles could pay the equivalent of millions of dollars for a citrus wood table (Cicero paying 500,000 sesterces for his).15 • Marble was an expensive and prestigious building material. The emperor Augustus boasted that he found Rome brick and left it marble. Pliny noted that individuals were coming to use marble veneer to line entire walls of their private houses, and he denounced this practice as an absurd and indefensible luxury.16 According to Pliny, the affluent of Rome were engaged in a mad rivalry of ‘keeping up with the Joneses’: ‘Anyone who so wishes may count the cost of the masses of marble, the paintings, the regal budgets, each of which rivalled one that had been the finest and the most highly valued in its time, houses that were themselves to be surpassed by countless others right up to the present day.’17 John’s denunciation of the decadent opulence of Rome meshes well with the descriptions of Pliny the Elder. At the same time, however, over half the items of trade echo the material in Ezekiel 27:12-24 that bewails Tyre. This suggests that while John’s material is an attack on Rome, it also has a supra-historical quality, condemning all nations and people who conduct themselves with such opulence and selfishness. A major aspect of John’s concern is the heartlessness of ‘Babylon’/Rome. Economic historians of the Roman empire have noted both increasing wealth for the rich and increasing pressure on the poor around the period of Revelation. Luxury-loving Rome had created an eco-

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nomic boom in which the merchants grew rich at the expense of the ordinary people of the empire.18 The heartlessness of Rome is hinted at in 18:3. The merchants’ wealth has come from the ‘power’ (Greek dynamis) of her luxury. This luxury is based on exploitation. The heartlessness of Rome is prominent in 18:13; in listing items of cargo, John refers here to trafficking in human beings. John uses two terms for this slave trade. One term, ‘bodies’ (sømata), is drawn from the common term for slaves in the slave markets. The other, ‘souls of men’ (psychai anthrøpøn), draws from the Greek version of Ezekiel 27:13 where it refers to the trading of slaves for merchandise and animals. John’s usage brings out the fact that Rome’s system leads to human lives being viewed just as beasts or commodities to be bought and sold.19 The merchants are indifferent to the miseries of the innocent or the sufferings of the city, but are concerned solely with their loss of trade. John, however, raises his voice to say, ‘No, they are souls, human beings, people with feelings, with an inner life, with something precious which continues after death (as in 6:9; 20:4). To treat them as merchandise is evil.’ With the wealth and power of ‘Babylon’ comes pride. She makes her proud boast of self-sufficiency (18:7b). John indicates that this arrogance is in some sense self-assertion against God himself, for immediately comes the word of judgment. It will come because ‘mighty (ischuros) is the Lord God who judges her’ (18:8). ‘Babylon’ is ‘the mighty (ischuros) city,’ but the one who overthrows her is mightier still. The evil of ‘Babylon’ is made worse because of her corrupting influence on others. She is not only evil, but also seductive, involving others in her evil (18:3; 19:2). Her ‘fornication’ (porneia) probably refers to her promotion of idolatry. Her trade, power, and idolatrous practices infect all with whom she associates. Money, wealth, and business all have a tendency to corrupt. The final evil of ‘Babylon’ is her murderous assault on the church of God (18:24; 19:2). She will be overthrown because of it. The text of 18:20 literally states, ‘God judged your judgment from her,’ i.e., God has treated her as she treated you. In fact, she receives ‘double’ for her sins. This is the standard punishment for sin (Isa. 40:2; Jer 16:18), not particular vindictiveness on the part of John. John’s description of the fall of ‘Babylon’ comes in graphically pictorial fashion. A number of factors point to the symbolic nature of this description:

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• John consistently uses the term ‘Babylon,’ even though the narrative otherwise clearly shows that the primary referent is Rome. • John readily utilizes a wide range of Old Testament sources relating to both Tyre and Babylon in his lament. • John provides alternative descriptions as to how ‘Babylon’ is to be destroyed: by earthquake in 16:18, and by fire in 18:18. Essentially what we have here is a searching critique of Rome in the guise of ‘Babylon,’ and an assertion of the certainty of her fall. John’s material is more theological than descriptive. It is an unmasking of evil and a warning of its ultimate downfall. 7. Rejoicing over the downfall of Babylon (19:1-10) John utilizes ‘split-screen’ technique to highlight two contrasting dimensions of reality. Along with the graphic portrayal of the unleashing of terrible judgments, there is also in Revelation a ‘second screen’ of worship and praise. As Babylon burns, heaven is at worship. The praise is ‘Hallel-Yah/ Hallelujah/Praise the Lord.’ There is a liturgy of four repeated hallelujahs in 19:1-8. Praise may seem to be misplaced at this time of destruction. But it is appalling evil that is overthrown and finished—‘forever.’ Roman coinage at this time carried the image of the Roman emperor, along with the word aeternitas (‘eternity’). That claim is mocked by John: it is the destruction of the evil empire that will be forever. Evil is overthrown and God’s justice, long promised in 6:9-11, is upheld (19:2). The whore is off the scene. Wedding preparations can begin. John draws from extensive Old Testament imagery which expresses the relationship of Yahweh and his people in terms of marriage (Isa. 54:5; Jer. 3:20; Ezek. 16:8-14, 32; Hos. 2:19). John’s bridal image has multiple rather than precise meaning. In Revelation 20 the bride is in some way representative of Christians, for it is the ‘righteous deeds of the saints’ that form her bridal dress (19:8). In 21:2, however, it is the new Jerusalem who is the bride. And the book’s final pleading call from ‘the Spirit and the bride’ (22:17) seems to come from the Christian church. It is a picture of the community of Christians united with their triumphant Lamb. The wedding breakfast (19:9) brings the earlier promise of 3:20 to fulfilment. The meal is celebrated (though again it is off-stage). Despite the feast being one of grace, attended by invitation only, and attended

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only by those with apparel which is supplied or granted to them, John’s stress is on preparation, being ready, living righteously (19:8). There is a double action: while grace and righteousness are granted to her, the bride also has her part to play—making herself ready with repentance and faith. After a long absence, the narrator, John, now directly intrudes into the story. So overwhelmed is he by the glory of the revelation that he falls down in worship at the feet of the angel-revealer. The resulting angelic rebuke does two things. One is that it urges the focus not to be on the messenger, but on the message, a message which is Jesus-centred: ‘For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy’ (19:10). Here John takes a favourite expression for the Spirit of God (‘the spirit of prophecy’) and shows that this has connection with the testimony of Jesus (cf. 1 Cor. 12:3; 1 Jn. 4:1-3). The term ‘the testimony of Jesus’ can mean the testimony that he gave (a ‘subjective genitive’ usage), or the testimony whose object is Jesus (objective genitive). Probably neither sense should be excluded. Jesus lies at the centre of spiritual revelation: its instigator and its object. The angelic rebuke also indirectly provides tremendous elevation to Jesus. Directly, the rebuke serves as a warning to readers: no one except God (and the Lamb) may receive the worship (expressed in flat-on-yourface prostration) demanded by the imperial cult. If an angel is not entitled to such worship, how much less so is an emperor. John’s vision of the future has present purpose: it urges, ‘don’t compromise; keep all your worship for God alone.’ However, we can note that John has already in Revelation provided a clear message that Jesus is to be worshiped. Thus the careful warning against angelolatry indirectly indicates a very elevated Christology, a placing of Jesus ‘on the divine side of the line which monotheism must draw between God and creatures.’20 ‘Babylon’ has come to its end and it is now the exalted Jesus who takes centre stage. Conclusion John has painted two extremely contrasting images: the horror of Babylon and the glory of heaven. Through the power of his images he has immersed us into their realities. He has caused us afresh to hate evil and recall how bankrupt its end is. And he has given us a glimpse of eternity. He has drawn us into his narrative world. The glory of the future inspires us in the toughness of the present to continue as followers of Jesus.

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Reflection 1. Is John’s rejoicing at the overthrow of ‘Babylon’ a ‘Christian’ behavior? 2. What does John’s denunciation of the economic exploitation of the empire by Rome suggest about the relationship of Christianity and societal issues? Notes 1. For the meaning of ‘dualism’ see chapter 10 fn 3. 2. D. E. Aune, introduction, Revelation 1–5 (Dallas: Word, 1997) xcv–xcvii. 3. Augustine, City of God 15:1, trans. H. Bettenson (London: Penguin, 1972) 595. 4. G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation: A Commentary on the Greek Text (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999) 851. 5. J. N. Kraybill, Imperial Cult and Commerce in John’s Apocalypse (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996) 148. 6. E. S. Fiorenza, Revelation: Vision of a Just World (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991) 97. 7. For more general Old Testament material on the overthrow of evil empires, see Jeremiah 50–51; Ezekiel 26–28; Isaiah 13:1–14:23; Isaiah 47; Jeremiah 25:12-38. 8. R. Bauckham, ‘The Economic Critique of Rome in Revelation 18,’ in L. Alexander, ed., Images of Empire (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1991) 47–90 at p. 54. 9. M. E. Boring, Revelation (Louisville: John Knox Press, 1989) 189. 10. Bauckham, ‘The Economic Critique,’ 79. 11. G. R. Beasley-Murray, The Book of Revelation (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974) 267. 12. Pliny, Natural History 33.57; 33.23; 33.152. More generally, see Bauckham, ‘The Economic Critique.’ 13. Pliny, Natural History 33.152. 14. Natural History 9.127; cf. 8.197; 9.137; Bauckham, ‘The Economic Critique,’ 63. 15. Bauckham, ‘The Economic Critique,’ 65. 16. Suetonius, Augustus 28.3; Pliny, Natural History 36.2-8, 48-51, 110, 125; Bauckham, ‘The Economic Critique,’ 68. 17. Pliny, Natural History 36.110: trans. H. Rackham (Loeb Classical Library, London: Heinemann, 1938–63). 18. S. P. Kealy, The Apocalypse of John (Wilmington: Michael Glazier, 1987) 205. 19. Bauckham, ‘The Economic Critique,’ 79. 20. R. Bauckham, ‘Worship of Jesus in Apocalyptic Christianity,’ New Testament Studies 27 (1981): 322–41 at p. 335.

13 The End of Evil: Revelation 19:11–20:15 1. A picture gallery of the end I recall a conversation with a pastor-friend who was nearing retirement when I was beginning in full-time pastoral ministry thirty-five years ago. The conversation focused on theologies relating to the end of this world, especially views on the millennium. My elderly friend summed up his position: ‘When we get to heaven, none of us will be able to turn to another and say, “See, I told you so.”’ It was a valuable warning against taking a fixed and detailed stance in relation to matters of the End. We are much more likely to be on track when we avoid the plotting of detailed end-time chronologies, and when we recognize that God-given glimpses of the end are that and only that: glimpses. We need to enjoy the mystery and artistry of Revelation, allowing its words and texts to move us by means of our imaginations into a realm which is so different from ordinary human experience that ultimately it is beyond description. This deeper and greater realm cannot be photographed; nor can its workings be set down in a form which is a blueprint or history-in-advance. But the artists of society, through poetry, through painting, through music, through the power of words, bring this realm afresh to our imaginations— so that we feel its reality. And this, par excellence, is what John has done in his book. Viewing Revelation in this way makes even more sense when we note the striking extent to which Revelation is full of picture language. Revelation is a book of pictures; and the final chapters are packed full of pictures. It is almost like viewing pictures in an art gallery, all sorts of scenes juxtaposed alongside each other. Each is significant in its own right and does not have any necessary relationship to its neighbour. The analogy is a warning against viewing these pictures in Revelation as necessarily being in chronological sequence. The likelihood that the pictures are not chronologically sequential is strengthened when we note that the scenes are not altogether logically coherent and consistent.

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In the first place, in Revelation 20:2 Satan is bound. Later, however, he is released (20:7). Theologically and reflectively, we find ourselves asking, ‘Who released him?’ and ‘Why did they release him?’ Given that Satan’s binding would mean his incapacitation, who could release Satan apart from God? But why would God release this being of known evil? Should not the binding of Satan be the end of his power forever? Another apparent inconsistency is that there is a city already present in 20:9. This is unlikely to be literal Jerusalem, for literal Jerusalem is ‘Sodom’ (11:8) whereas this city is ‘the beloved city.’ This may suggest that the city is a spiritual or new Jerusalem, but the new Jerusalem does not descend until 21:2. And despite its descending at that point, it is again described as descending in 21:10. Does it bounce upwards after its descent in 21:2 and then settle a second time in 21:10? Clearly something other than straightforward description is operating here. Yet another apparent contradiction appears when we are told that the rider on the white horse has a name inscribed which no one knows (19:12), whereas in 19:13 his name is called ‘the Word of God.’ And in 19:16 he has a different inscribed name: ‘King of kings and Lord of lords.’ But we realize that the first statement (19:12) articulates his mystery, where the latter two statements indicate his revealed, transcendent power at the end of time. The statements should be read for their theological intent rather than as a straightforward descriptive statement. Further, in a lack of logical sequence, there appears to be a final battle in 19:17-21, while there appears to be a final battle also in 20:7-10. We conclude from all this that what the pictures show is the character of the end rather than the chronology of the end.1 This calls for us to look below the surface description of the pictures and ask, what is the kernel, what is the essential point of each image? A feature of the earlier chapters of Revelation is their graphic portrayal of satanic evil. Prior to chapters 17 and 18, there is no more than a hint that Rome is somehow tied up in this description. Rising tension comes, however, to its climax in Revelation 17:1–19:6. The empire that has been so cruel and oppressive to the little Christian communities is finally unmasked. The whore, ‘Babylon,’ the mother of earth’s abominations (17:5), is Rome (17:18). In a remarkably direct way, John exposes the true nature of the current, dominant, economic, and political system, and asserts that Rome’s evil is of such magnitude that it is satanic in nature, in alliance with the scarlet and satanic beast (17:3). And it is doomed: ‘the smoke from her goes up forever and ever’ (19:3).

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The climax has finally come. ‘Babylon’ is burning. All that now remains is the final resolution of John’s story. No great new tension or crisis seems to emerge—even when Satan is released in 20:7 to mass together an army, it is only for that army’s total destruction. What happens from the point of 19:11 is a fuller description of the total overthrow of evil and the total establishment of the reign of God, the New Jerusalem. In literary terms, Revelation 19:11 onwards is the dénouement, the final wrapping up, the closing resolution of the narrative. 2. The return of Christ (19:11-16) Heaven itself is now open (19:11). There is no longer just a door into heaven where a specially chosen agent could come in and peep, as in 4:1. Now all is open; all is revealed. Heaven itself comes down to earth. The two become one. A person is revealed. The end comes not simply as a series of events but comes especially in the form of a Person. Not a something but a Someone. Christ himself is ‘the Last,’ ‘the Omega’ (1:17; 22:13). Christ comes as one who is ‘Faithful and True’ (19:11). This connects with his earlier description as the ‘faithful and true witness’ in 1:5 and 3:14. These references relate to the cross, to the one who spoke the truth even though it resulted in his death. Thus the rider here is not some supernatural figure from the fantasies of Jewish apocalyptic material, but the Jesus of history. His role is still to speak. He is the ‘Word of God’ (19:13). This may have connotations of a cosmic mediator or Logos (as in Col. 1:15ff; Rev. 3:14). However, here the emphasis is on speech. His weapon, his ‘sword,’ comes from his mouth (19:15). Thus fundamentally he conquers by the cross and by his message. This may suggest that he effects the future not by violence but by the power of his word. Christ comes in majesty. He has ‘many crowns’ (19:12) in contrast with the seven crowns of the dragon (12:3) and the ten crowns of the beast (13:1). He is ‘King of kings and Lord of lords’ (19:16, echoing Dan. 2:47 and Rev. 17:14). His majesty is such that the end is not in doubt. John’s language has overtones similar to Wisdom of Solomon 18:15: ‘Down from the heavens, from the royal throne, leapt your all-powerful Word, like a pitiless warrior into the heart of a land doomed to destruction.’ Christ comes as a warrior on a war-horse. His robe is dipped in blood (19:13). Whose blood is it? One option is to view the blood as being that

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of Christ’s followers stemming from a bloodbath of persecution.2 However, there is little in the immediate context of chapter 19 to support this interpretation. A second option is to view the blood as being that of Christ’s enemies, a view supported by the fact that John utilizes imagery from Isaiah 63:1-6 where the conqueror tramples his enemies as a farmer tramples his grapes in the winepress.3 Such an interpretation meshes also with 14:20 where the ‘wrath of God’ leads to a torrent of blood from those who worship the beast. There is, however, a third option, that the blood is that of Christ himself.4 We can note that the blood is on Christ’s robe before any battle takes place. And elsewhere in Revelation there is much focus on Christ’s own blood being linked with victory (1:5; 5:9; 7:14; 12:11). In addition, we have noted that Christ’s weapon, although it is a sword, comes from his mouth (19:15)—pointing to the option that Christ’s conquest is essentially through truth and not through violence.5 In weighing up the options, we need to recognize that the overall context of Revelation 19 is one of judgment of evil and those on the side of evil.6 This, however, needs to be held in tension with the strong message in Revelation of the victory of Christ through the sacrifice of his own blood and through his word of truth. An interpretation that leaves open the issue of judgment and sacrifice is helpful in considering the meaning of Christ’s ruling (poimainei) with a rod of iron (19:15). While this may simply be an image of power, we should note that the Greek word poimainei can mean both ‘rule’ and ‘shepherd.’ So the term may be pointing to the power of Christ, but also it may be pointing to the care of Christ. Overall, Revelation 19 leaves us with a sense of the judgment of the wicked—but by one whose own life has been given up for their redemption. Christ comes with the armies of heaven (19:14). This could equally be both the angelic hosts (as in Matt. 25:31; Mk. 13:27; 2 Thess. 1:7-8) and the Christian church which follows the Lamb wherever he goes (14:4; 17:14; 19:7-8). This army has, however, no major role. Its members simply accompany the Rider. The victory is his. 3. The last battle (19:17-21) This begins with the second great feast of the chapter (19:17). It serves as a horrifying counterpart to the marriage feast of the Lamb. There is a final choice to be faced: to eat or be eaten. Will I partake of the banquet in heaven or will my corpse be carrion for vultures?

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The judgment in this picture is universal (19:18). It includes even the ‘slave’ and the ‘small.’ These references make it impossible to view the conflict as simply between the haves and the have-nots, between first and third world (though it may have some of those overtones). Rather, the conflict is essentially between rebellious humanity and its Lord. It is noteworthy that no actual battle is described in this scene. One suggestion is that this is because the battle was fought and won long ago, at Calvary. All that happens now is that the victory becomes manifest.7 However, a number of other events associated more with the end of time, for example, the marriage feast, happen off-stage and are not described. So we should not be surprised if this too is off-stage. And there is too much violent imagery here for John to be simply evoking again the death of Christ. The suggested interpretation—that John is here simply describing Calvary again—is helpful in warning against a too-crude literalism of interpretation. At the same time this particular material in Revelation does have an underlying future-oriented message. Ongoing evil, so present and pervasive, will indeed be overthrown, thrown into the lake of fire. 4. Reflection on ‘the millennium’ (20:1-10) The meaning of Revelation 20:1-10 is one of the most disputed in the entire Bible. There are two issues in particular that stand out: • How to understand John’s one-thousand-year period (the millennium). • Whether Revelation 20 describes events in chronological sequence or not. Throughout history Christians have tended to hold one of three classic positions on the millennium: • Premillennialism: This view indicates that Christ will return before (pre) the millennium. His return leads to the setting up of his kingdom on earth. This view has been common throughout most periods of history. • Postmillennialism: This view holds that through the spread of the gospel and its influence in society the millennium will gradually emerge as Christ’s kingdom is established. Christ will return after (post) the millennial period. The theology of postmillennialism is well captured in a once popular hymn, written when that view was very influential:

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Making Sense of the Book of Revelation For the darkness shall turn to the dawning, And the dawning to noon-day bright, And Christ’s great kingdom shall come on earth The kingdom of love and light.8

This optimistic view was strong in the nineteenth century, at a time of imperial expansion and material progress, and was earlier advocated by American theologian and revivalist, Jonathan Edwards. However, the horrors of world wars eroded the popularity of this view in the twentieth century. • Amillennialism: This view sees the millennium beginning with Christ’s death and resurrection, and persisting throughout the history of the church. While the term ‘amillennialism’ literally suggests ‘not-millennium,’ there is no denial of a millennium but rather an affirmation that it is to be understood in a spiritual and symbolic way, and that, in particular, the period of one thousand years is not to be understood in literal fashion. This view was advocated by Augustine at the end of the fourth century and has been the viewpoint of much of the Catholic Church throughout its history. Essentially, amillennialism suggests that the millennium is less a vision for the future and more an insight into the present.9 A majority of biblical scholars would be amillennial in perspective today. How are we to decide between these perspectives? Beale wisely indicates that ‘the only hope of obtaining any clarity [in relation to the millennium in Revelation 20] . . . is to interpret it primarily in the light of its closest parallels in the Apocalypse and, secondarily, in the light of other parallels in the New Testament and Old Testament.’10 We should note, then, that the only reference in the entire Bible to the ‘millennium’ as such, is found here in Revelation 20. This is not to say that aspects of millennium-type teaching are not found elsewhere. For example, a ‘golden age’—a dimension of the millennium—is clearly evident in Isaiah, in chapters such as 11, 35, 60, and 65. However, the ‘millennium’ proper is discussed only in Revelation 20. This may signal that we need to be cautious in interpreting this motif because of its infrequency of use. It certainly signals that the millennium is not the central motif of Scripture and we need to beware making it too central a motif in the theology of Revelation.

The End of Evil: Revelation 19:11–20:15

The Angel with the Key to the Pit by Albrecht Dürer. Wetmore Print Collection, Connecticut College.

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5. The binding of Satan (20:1-3) We have earlier had images suggesting the overwhelming nature of evil. Not so here. The mighty devil appears to be actually a wimp, able to be subdued by a single angel with a single chain, with no apparent struggle.11 Two puzzles stand out in relation to this event: • When does this binding occur? • Who are the ‘rest of the dead’ who do not come to life until after the millennium (v. 5)? Are they Christians who are not martyrs? To turn to the first puzzle, the binding of Satan seems an odd concept. To help us understand it we can ask two questions: • Where elsewhere does this concept occur? • Is there any other Scripture whose language or thought forms closely parallels the material in Revelation 20:1-6? In relation to the first question, we can note Isaiah 24:21-22, where there is a shutting up of the apparently rebellious ‘host of heaven’ in a prison-pit. Later Jewish material outside the Bible develops this sort of idea, and some of this includes the idea that the binding of Satan is not absolute. Thus the Testament of Levi 18:12 refers to Beliar [Satan] being bound by God but ‘he shall grant to his children the authority to trample on evil spirits.’ More strikingly, Jubilees 48:15-16 states that Mastema [prince of the spirits, Satan] is bound and shut up so that he cannot accuse the children of Israel but is later released in order to help the Egyptians to pursue the children of Israel. Significant New Testament material points to the toppling of Satan. Thus in Luke 10:18-20 Jesus sees Satan fall from heaven when the seventy disciples cast out demons after they have been sent out two-by-two. John 12:31 contains another reference, with Jesus saying, ‘Now the ruler of this world will be driven out.’ What is striking about these two references is that both have strong linkage with the ministry of Jesus himself. Satan’s power is overthrown (or dramatically reduced) through the events of Jesus’ ministry, not at some vague time in the future. This is not, of course, the whole of the story, and focusing only on that can be misleading. Other material points to the continuing evil influence of Satan (e.g., Lk. 22:31, 53). What we have is a dual message: Satan’s power is over-

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thrown through Christ (especially through his death and resurrection), but Satan’s power also continues until the end of the age. Parallels to aspects of the Jewish-Christian material may be found in other near-eastern religious traditions. The Bundehesh of Zoroastrianism indicates that the wicked serpent Azi-Dahaka is overcome by Thraetaeona and chained in a mountain for 9,000 years. He is released by the evil spirit Ahriman to reign for 1,000 years, but is finally slain and the new world arrives.12 What we have in Revelation 20 is John dipping his artist’s brush into existing traditions, biblical and from outside the Bible, to portray his Christian message in a way that resonates with his first-century recipients. Usage of this wider material indicates the symbolic quality of the narrative. John is here employing picture-nature language to portray something of ultimate reality. Technically we can speak here of ‘myth,’ not speaking of something that is untrue but rather of story language that gives us a sense of ultimate truth which is otherwise beyond our minds and experience. In relation to the second question about the ‘binding’ of Satan—the finding of language or material that closely parallels Revelation 20—we can note that the message of Revelation 20 has already emerged strongly in Revelation 12. The dragon is conquered ‘by the blood of the Lamb’ (12:11); yet the dragon continues to make war on the Christian church (12:13-17). Revelation 12 is enormously helpful in interpreting the difficult material of Revelation 20. We have already noted a number of examples of ‘recapitulation’ where John’s message is repeated again and again in different language and/or in different images. Material in Revelation 20 is another example of this phenomenon. We can note the following: Similarities between Revelation 12 and Revelation 20

Revelation 12 references

Revelation 20 references

Very similar language is used in describing Satan

‘The great dragon . . . that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan’ (12:9)

‘The dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the Devil and Satan’ (20:2)

The dragon is overthrown

‘The great dragon was thrown down’ (12:9)

‘He seized the dragon and bound him’ (20:2)

An angel is involved in the overthrow

‘Michael and his angels’ (12:7)

‘An angel’ (20:1)

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The overthrow is somehow connected with the martyrdom of Christians

‘They have conquered him . . . by the word of their testimony, for they did not cling to life even in the face of death’ (12:11)

‘I also saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their testimony to Jesus and for the word of God. . . . They came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years (20:4)

The victory over Satan is an ambiguous one

Though Satan is thrown down, he then seeks to pursue and destroy the church (12:12-17)

Though Satan is bound, he is released after 1000 years and gathers an army against ‘the camp of the saints and the beloved city’ (20:7-10)

Having noted the parallels of plot and language between Revelation 12 and Revelation 20, we can note a further parallel in the way both have a similar chiastic (ABA1) structure. Each chapter has within it language (A1) echoing earlier language in the same chapter (A), with crucial material (B) as ‘meat’ within that language-sandwich. Let us begin by noting the language-echoes (A and A1) within two parts of Revelation 12: Revelation 12:5-6

Revelation 12:13-14

‘She [the woman] gave birth’

‘The woman who had given birth’

‘The woman fled into the wilderness’

‘The woman was given wings so that she could fly into the wilderness’

‘Where she has a place prepared by God’

‘To her place’

‘So that there she can be nourished for one thousand two hundred sixty days’

‘Where she is nourished for a time, and times and half a time’

Thus Revelation 12 has an inclusio (an envelope or frame or bookends). In ancient literary convention, this makes the material that is enclosed (‘B,’ the ‘meat’ in the sandwich) very significant. What is enclosed is Michael’s victory over Satan, which is then interpreted as Christ’s victory at the cross. Revelation 20 displays a similar literary pattern:

The End of Evil: Revelation 19:11–20:15

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Revelation 20:2-3

Revelation 20:7-8

Satan is bound. ‘After that he must be let out for a little time’

‘Satan will be released’

‘So that he would deceive the nations no more’

‘Satan . . . will come out to deceive the nations’

‘Until the thousand years are ended’

‘When the thousand years are ended’

Again we have an inclusio. This may well suggest that the primary focus of the first half of Revelation 20 is on the material that is framed—the reign of the saints with Christ that is described in 20:4-6. Close comparison of the message and language of Revelation 12 and Revelation 20 and of language within each chapter has indicated a great level of parallel and connection between the two chapters. This would suggest that the message of Revelation 20 is not some brand-new message within Revelation. It is rather the case that the message of Revelation 20 is a restating of the message of Revelation 12. At this point we can note one explicit message of Revelation 12, which is not made in explicit fashion in Revelation 20—victory through the cross, ‘conquest by the blood of the Lamb’ (12:11). I would argue that as the message of Revelation 12 is connected with the message of Revelation 20, the message of the cross is implicitly also the message of Revelation 20: What this means is that victory in Revelation 20 is not a not-yet-occurred event. John’s description of the binding of Satan has happened already through the cross. This victory is, however, an ambiguous one. In Revelation 12, while the dragon has been thrown down out of heaven, he is still a menace on earth. Likewise in Revelation 20, there is also ambiguity. Satan has been bound but he will be loosed. Essentially the message of Revelation 20 is that at the very least Satan is in some sense already shackled and that his final overthrow is certain. 6. The meaning of the millennium (20:4-6) The dream of a millennium is a dream of a perfect future age. This widespread aspiration dreams of a time when all wrong, injustice, suffering, and mixedness in life will be swept away, replaced by a golden age, an age of perfection. For the new to come, the old must be done away with.

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In Revelation 20 the millennium is linked with the binding of Satan, each being for 1,000 years. Only as evil is dealt with does the ideal come. This millennium is linked with the cross and resurrection. John’s conviction is that in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, the watershed of the ages took place. The post-resurrection, thousand-year reign of the martyrs is connected with the reign of Jesus (20:4). This resurrection of the Christian saints is not some crudely literal, once-only event at the end of history as many Jews believed—Jesus has already been raised and is reigning (cf. Dan. 12:2). Thus when John set down his visions, resurrection was already inaugurated—in Christ. Could that also be true of the ‘millennium’? Noting connections between the millennium and the resurrection may serve to warn us against taking an overly literal interpretation of the millennial material. John is perhaps assuring us that through the death and resurrection of Christ, those who follow him are already living a ‘millennial-type’ existence, despite their circumstances of oppression. This anticipates the future reign of peace and justice that Christ will bring in as part of the eternal new creation; as something new and beyond our comprehension, this cannot be described literally, but can only be portrayed in images and metaphors. What after all is the point embodied in the millennial material? Essentially it is to demonstrate the triumph of the martyrs. Though the beast may put them to death, they will truly flourish—living and reigning with Christ.13 Revelation 20 has little focus on the nature of this millennium. Its focus is rather on the persons who experience the millennium. Does this cover all Christians or the select group of martyrs only? In favour of the first view we can note that • 20:4a is not limited to the martyrs. It covers all who have been given authority to judge. The description of the martyrs is given in addition to that, John’s text indicating that John saw thrones with those seated on them and that John also saw the martyrs. • Similar pictures of triumphant reign in 7:1-17, 11:4-13, and 14:1-5 depict the whole church. • Elsewhere the church is portrayed as kings and priests (1:6) and as reigning on earth (5:10). This suggests that the reference to ‘martyrs’ is actually a reference to the entire church, martyrs being particularly mentioned because they epitomize the church as a whole. The martyr spirit so typifies the church that the church as a collective identity is a martyr church, even though most will not literally undergo martyrdom.

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Christians live and reign, and ‘the rest of the dead’—those outside of Christ—do not (20:5). This last point resolves the second puzzle mentioned at the start of the previous section. That is, who are the ‘rest of the dead’ who do not come to life until after the millennium (20:5)? The message is that all those who follow Christ experience an unbroken quality of life now and in the future—a ‘resurrection life,’ a ‘reigning-with-Christ’ life. Those who do not follow Christ (‘the rest of the dead’) do not have this unbroken quality of life. The millennium is an important motif in Revelation 20 but must be kept in proportion. Though the Old Testament prophets had a dream of an idyllic future world, this is the only reference in the Bible to the ‘millennium’ as such. And within Revelation, the only reference to the millennium is here, and that in three verses only. Boring’s comment is a good one: In John’s ‘chronology’ he uses 6.1–18.24 for 3 1/2 years, and three verses for a thousand years! It is an abuse of John’s own structure to make ‘the millennium’ the interpretive key to his whole revelation. Like the picture of the second coming, which also receives relatively little space, the picture of the millennium is only one of John’s ways of thinking about the End.14

7. Satan’s doom (20:7-10) This doom comes at the end of a great battle. The narrative of the battle suggests that the battle does not occur at a literal location, as recruits come from the ‘four corners of the earth,’ that is from wherever evil is found. The great battle has already been portrayed twice (Rev. 16:12-16; 19:11-21)—so this is the third description. Within these descriptions there is a sense of progression. Armies are destroyed; then the beast and the false prophet (emissaries of Satan) are thrown into the lake of fire; then finally Satan suffers the same fate. All evil is ended. Prior to the battle, the previously bound Satan is released. Several reflections can be made with regard to this surprising release of Satan. In the first place, the release underscores the resilience of evil. Notwithstanding Christ’s conquest of evil at the cross, evil is conquered

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and yet it persists. As long as this present world lasts, people are never invulnerable to attack from evil. Second, Revelation commonly uses picture language to portray ultimate reality. No one picture is enough for this task. Thus John commonly uses different ‘camera angles’ to better describe the indescribable. John has already used one picture—the binding of Satan—to describe the end of Satan. In Revelation 20:7-10 he provides a second picture to portray the removal of evil. He thus has a twofold visionary response to the question of the ultimate destruction of evil. In one picture, evil is overpowered and imprisoned (20:1-3); in the other, evil is finally destroyed and the threat is removed forever (20:10). A further reason for the release of Satan at this point in the narrative is that this parallels the Ezekiel narrative, which provides a narrative framework for John’s description here: Ezekiel

Content

Revelation parallel

36–37

‘Resurrection’ of God’s people; restoration to their land under the rule of the new David (a messianic kingdom)

20:4-6

38–39

The invasion of the archetypical enemy, Gog of Magog. Destruction of his armies.

20:7-10

40ff

Vision of the new temple

21:9ff

In John’s narrative, the battle ends supernaturally. It ends with ‘fire from heaven,’ as it does also in Ezekiel (38:22; 39:6). What follows for Satan, for evil, is being tossed into a lake of fire. Those whose names are not written in the ‘book of life’ (20:15) experience the same end. The picture seems not to be one of annihilation, for there is reference to torment ‘for ever and ever.’ Rather it points to those separated on earth from the life of God remaining in that state hereafter—lost. Other pictures of ‘hell’ exist in the New Testament. The pictures cannot be pressed literally: hell, for example, cannot literally be both darkness and fire (though it can be like darkness and fire). We need to read imaginatively and sensitively, something excellently demonstrated in the portrayal of hell as a self-chosen place of separateness and isolation in C. S. Lewis’s The Great Divorce. The image of a ‘lake of fire’ (19:20) is horrific. In the end, however, it is picture language. Could the text simply be saying that in the end God

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leaves people who turn away from him in their self-chosen isolation? That is a view that meshes far better with our understanding of a God revealed in Jesus, a God of love. Yet we must recognize that this is an interpretation brought to texts whose surface meaning may well be saying something more directly horrific. Clearly the text is a dire warning to keep on the ‘straight and narrow.’ At the same time, this horrifying picture has a message of hope: evil will have an end! 8. The last judgment (20:11-17) This really is the end. To this point, Revelation’s story line has been somewhat like the children’s game, ‘pass the parcel.’ In that game, while a present is inside the wrappers, each time a wrapper is removed to reveal the present, yet another wrapper covers the present. Now finally is the last wrapper, the final round of ‘pass the parcel.’ In the Revelation narrative, there are pictures of the ‘end’ prior to this; yet there is still no finality. But from this point in Revelation there is no longer a focus on evil and its overthrow and judgment. The focus moves rather to the newness God brings. The finality of the end is shown in the way even ‘Death’ and ‘Hades’ are thrown into the lake of fire. From now on, death is no longer a factor in human existence (cf. 21:4). Even death is destroyed. No longer is there any ambiguity about the afterlife. Hades too is destroyed. The focus of this passage is on judgment and justice. The one reality is the throne and the One who sits on it. In the end, the reality is God, author of judgment and reward. Even heaven vanishes as well as the earth (20:11). The one dominating reality now is the judgment throne of God. The one doing the judging is not defined. It could be God or it could be Christ. The ambiguity spares John the necessity of distinguishing between God and Christ. In Revelation these two figures increasingly coalesce so that finally in 22:1 the one throne is the throne of ‘God and the Lamb.’ Judgment is determined on a twofold basis: there are ‘books’ and also ‘the book of life’ (20:12). The ‘books’ are a record of deeds. Judgment is according to deeds (so too in 14:12; 14:13; 22:12). John’s picture ‘makes human freedom and human responsibility as serious as it can get. What we do matters, and matters ultimately.’15 In counter-balance to the ‘books’ is ‘the book of life,’ the book of grace. It is the Lamb’s book of life (13:8). It is written before the foundation of the world (17:8; cf. 13:8). This means that it cannot be written as a result of our actions, but purely on the basis of grace. As with Paul, John in Revelation articulates a dual-

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ity—salvation by grace through faith, and judgment by works. In being judged by works, lives are weighed against perfect love. All fall short. All are convicted. All tremble. All despair. But the book of life has the last word. Christians need not fear. The second death has no power over those who are faithful to Jesus (20:6). Judgment is universal. It is not just for the rich, the powerful, and the particularly wicked. It is for all the dead, ‘great and small’ (20:12). In ancient thought, the dead continue on in a shadowy existence in Sheol/Hades. Hades was the universal grave, entered by burial. Those who died at sea had no burial and therefore no access even to Hades. Their fate was therefore particularly pitiable and tragic. So John mentions such dead separately (20:13) to indicate the universal nature of the resurrection and judgment.16 Revelation is not universalistic. Its overall tenor and a number of its specific texts do not point in the direction of universal salvation. The book has a sharp demarcation between the saved and the lost (14:14-20; 20:11-15; 21:27). Although the commentator Eugene Boring has shown sympathy for the notion of universal salvation, he has also faced directly the issue of limited salvation with these words: ‘It is futile to attempt to escape the conclusion that John has some scenes of damnation for the unfaithful.’17 Certainly there are also possible hints in Revelation of a universal salvation (5:13; 15:4; 21:5; 21:24; 22:2). However, this cannot take away from the specificity of John’s language of judgment. John indicates that many finally will be with God but that some will not (22:14-15). John has a dual pastoral message tied up in his graphic images: evil will end; stay true to Christ. Conclusion Pictures of judgment are frightening; but they can also have a comforting dimension. So all-saving is the grace of Christ that for those of us who desire to be his followers, even death and judgment are bearers of life and not of death. Furthermore, the evil that has so often harassed us in life, that has so often dogged our steps, that has so often continued to begrime the inner selves that we have wanted to be Christ-controlled—this evil is ended. We face a fresh future—a new heaven and a new earth.

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Reflection 1. How close are the parallels between Revelation 12 and Revelation 20, and how may this affect the way we interpret Revelation 20? 2. What are the main messages embedded in the pictures of Revelation 20? Notes 1. M. E. Boring, Revelation (Louisville: John Knox Press, 1989) 195. 2. G. B. Caird, The Revelation of St John the Divine (2nd ed.; London: A & C Black, 1984) 242–4; Boring, Revelation, 196. 3. G. R. Beasley-Murray, The Book of Revelation (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974) 280. 4. Boring, Revelation, 196. 5. For an exploration of this approach, see Stephen Finamore, God, Order and Chaos: René Girard and the Apocalypse (Milton Keynes: Paternoster, 2009) 199–204. 6. G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation: A Commentary on the Greek Text (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999) 959. 7. Boring, Revelation, 199–200. 8. Hymn: ‘We’ve a story to tell to the nations,’ by Colin Sterne (1862–1926), copyright H.E. Nichol & Son. 9. Sophie Laws, In the Light of the Lamb: Imagery, Parod,y and Theology in the Apocalypse of John (Wilmington: Michael Glazier, 1988) 64. 10. Beale, The Book of Revelation, 972. 11. Donald Guthrie, The Relevance of John’s Apocalypse (Exeter: Paternoster, 1987) 118. 12. For further discussion of this point, see Beasley-Murray, The Book of Revelation, 286. 13. Richard Bauckham, The Theology of the Book of Revelation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993) 107. 14. Boring, Revelation, 202. 15. Ibid., 212. 16. Caird, The Revelation, 260. 17. Boring, Revelation, 212, 226–31.

14 A New Heaven, a New Earth, and the New Jerusalem: Revelation 21–22 1. Heaven and earth The best writing is not always the most consistent writing. Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote that ‘a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.’1 Sometimes we must utilize paradoxical, even contrary ideas and images in order to communicate better the full reality of what we want to say. In places this is what Revelation does. John’s picture language is full of paradox. One example of this is the tension between whether ultimate reality for the faithful is located in heaven or on earth. In a number of places, ultimate reality occurs on earth. The millennium, for example, seems to involve the martyred saints reigning on earth (20:4-7). Such a picture underscores the importance of this earth in the unfolding of the end. The dream of the future is not altogether fulfilled through individual ‘souls’ going to heaven. It is not simply an otherworldly hope. God’s salvific purposes are for the entirety of the cosmos, for this world as well as for heaven, for nature as well as for humanity. The vision is of a kingdom of Christ that takes place on earth. This world matters. On the other hand, God’s throne is in heaven (4:1). And that throne will be the centre of ultimate existence. However, in Revelation 21 the new Jerusalem ‘comes down’ out of heaven (21:2, 10). Where to? Presumably the earth. Certainly the old, sharp demarcation between heaven and earth, between God and humanity, disappears: ‘See, the home of God is among mortals’ (21:3). In the end, spatial location does not matter. What does matter is the presence of God with his people and the presence of God’s people with God. This central focus is articulated in 20:11, where both earth and heaven flee from the presence of God. What matters in the end is God.

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2. Out with the old, in with the new (21:1-8) Sin is gone; greyness is gone; ambiguity is gone. The cry is, ‘Behold I make all things new.’ Evil is totally finished. Even Death and Hades have been thrown into the lake of fire. That is why the sea (the place of danger and even death) is no more (21:1). In total, seven elements are no more: sea (21:1), death (21:4), mourning, crying, pain (21:4), anything accursed (22:3), night (22:5). All negativity and evil is obliterated. The bulldozer has done its work. The site is levelled. New building can commence. The new replaces the old. The picture of new heavens and a new earth is drawn from Isaiah 65:17-25. There are two words for ‘new’ in Greek. Neos denotes ‘what was not there before, new in time.’ Kainos denotes ‘new in nature, superior in value.’2 Here kainos is used. This is not just the replacement of the old with something else. Rather there is newness in kind, something fresh in quality, a new order. The newness is emphatic. John’s Greek word order says, ‘Behold, new am I making all things.’ The end is not simply an event; it has a Person at its heart: God is the Omega (21:6). He is the end. God is the source of the water of life (21:6). It is a gift from him. John’s image draws from several sources, especially Isaiah 55:1, where it is God who satisfies the thirsty. Similar theology lies behind Ezekiel 47, where the river flows directly from the temple (the house of God). Here it has a similar source, coming directly from the one ‘seated on the throne’ (21:5). The end culminates in a direct children-God relationship (21:7b). The image seems to echo 2 Samuel 7:14. All the messianic dreams now find total fulfilment. John warns, however, that this glorious prospect is not for all (21:8). John’s list of the excluded is not a timeless, general list. Rather it is focused on the particular situation of John’s time, on the particular temptations, pressures, and failures then faced by his hearer-readers. Most, if not all, terms on the list are ‘not general broadsides against human sinfulness but are sins that in John’s eyes were particularly associated with participation in the emperor cult and yielding to the pressures of pagan society.’3 This suggests that the list of sinners in 21:8-9 should be read contextually. It is a list designed particularly for the believers to whom John wrote, condemning the threats and temptations they faced and warning them against going along with these sorts of practices:

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• The ‘cowardly’ and the ‘faithless’ are those who crumple under the pressure of persecution. • The ‘polluted’ (ebdelugmenoi) are those polluted by the ‘abominations’ of the dominant ideology, the ‘abominations’ of the social, economic, and political system of ‘Babylon’ (17:4, 5). • The ‘murderers’ are agents of the beast in the killing of the martyrs (13:15). • The ‘fornicators, the sorcerers, and the idolaters’ are those involved in idolatrous worship: those who are syncretistic and mix Christian and pagan faith and practice (as in 2:20). • The ‘liars’ are those who promote the lie of the Antichrist and fail to assert the great truth that Jesus alone is Lord. 3. The new Jerusalem (21:9–22:7) The vision of the new Jerusalem stands in sharp contrast with earlier visions of cosmic catastrophe, particularly with Revelation 20, which includes the themes of persecution, war, and judgment. Now there is heavenly bliss. Revelation 20 and 21 need to be read together. If readers separate the two, then Revelation 20 can easily become the focus of millennial pessimists and Revelation 21 the focus of innocuous optimists.4 Focus on the new Jerusalem apart from the images of destruction and judgment may lead to a naïvely optimistic theology that Richard Niebuhr warned against: ‘a God without wrath brought men without sin into a Kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross.’5 Revelation 20 and 21 belong together. Revelation 21:9ff picks up themes already introduced in 21:1-8: A new heaven

21:1

22:1-5

A vision of the new Jerusalem

21:2

21:9-11

The presence of God

21:3

21:22ff;22:3

No more suffering/leaves for the healing of the nations

21:4

22:2

God/Christ is Alpha and Omega

21:6

22:13

Water for the thirsty/the water of life

21:6

22:1

Close relationship with God

21:7

22:4

A list of those excluded

21:8

21:27; 22:15

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We have here yet another example of a common pattern in Revelation: a brief earlier mention or hint in relation to some theme or point, with a second and usually fuller description later. This shows the folly of working through Revelation on a chronological basis. It also highlights the clever interlocking of Revelation, giving it a strong sense of structure and unity, even though the structure defies precise definition. The material in Revelation 21:9ff embodies images of fulfilment of biblical yearnings and dreams. The first image is that of Paradise regained. The Bible begins in a garden; it also ends in a garden. As in Genesis 2:10, there is a river to water the garden. And the tree of life is there in prominence (the one tree is on either side of the river: 22:2); and it is bearing fruit in abundance. In Genesis 3:22 humanity had been debarred from access to this tree, lest they eat and live forever. Now the fruit of the tree is totally available. Not only is the fruit there at all seasons of the year, but even its leaves are curative—‘for the healing of the nations’ (22:2). The curse of Genesis 3 is reversed. Paradise is regained. In a second image, the hopes of the twelve tribes of Israel are fulfilled. The jewels of the foundations of the city (21:19-21) are almost the same as those on the breastplate of the high priest (Exod. 28:15-20). The Greek terms used in Revelation 21 are virtually the same as nine out of the twelve Greek terms used in the Greek translation of the Old Testament (the LXX), though not in the same order. These twelve stones originally symbolized the twelve tribes of Israel. All the hopes centred on the high priest (mediation, atonement, access to God) are now found in the city. While the jewels link the city with the hopes of Israel (21:12b), these hopes now find their fulfilment in the church. While the gates in the walls of the city have the names of the twelve tribes of Israel, (21:13), their foundations—the foundations of the walls of the city—are built on ‘the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb’ (21:14). For anyone wavering between Christianity and Judaism, John’s answer is quite clear: the future lies with Christianity. It is Christianity which is foundational for the city. A third image is the fulfilment of the dream of Ezekiel. Ezekiel 40ff expresses the dream of an exile in Babylon for a new temple. Associated with that temple is a life-bearing river, flowing from it (Ezek. 47). That river was edged with fruit trees bearing fresh fruit each month (Ezek. 47:12). Here there is a fusion of that image with the tree of life image.

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A fourth image presents the fulfilment of the dreams of the Feast of Tabernacles and the call of Christ. Though not prescribed in the Pentateuch, by the time of Christ priests went to the pool of Siloam at the Feast of Tabernacles to get containers of water to pour over the altar until it flowed out under the doors. John 7 reflects on this, culminating in the great cry of Jesus in 7:37-39. Revelation 22:17 echoes that cry: to come for the water of life. That verse is the culmination of the whole book. There is a double cry. It is first a cry to Jesus to come—re-echoed in 22:20b. But it is also a cry to humanity: ‘Let everyone who is thirsty come.’ Three centuries later, Augustine captured so ably the same longing for the heavenly city expressed by John: Now let us hear, brothers, let us hear and sing; let us pine for the City where we are citizens . . . . By pining we are already there; we have already cast our hope like an anchor, on that coast. I sing of somewhere else, not of here: for I sing with my heart, not my flesh.’6 When therefore death shall be swallowed up in victory, these things shall not be there; and there shall be peace—peace full and eternal. We shall be in a kind of a city. Brethren, when I speak of that City, and especially when scandals grow great here, I just cannot bring myself to stop.7

4. The nature of the city The dominant image of this section of Revelation is the city. It is built ‘four-square,’ and ‘its length and width and height are equal’ (21:16). This links the city with the Holy of Holies in the temple, which according to 1 Kings 6:20 was also a perfect cube in shape. Implicitly Revelation is indicating that the city itself is a kind of temple. The city can therefore be described in 21:11 as having ‘the glory of God.’ Later in 21:22, Revelation explicitly states that there is ‘no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb.’ This holy city challenges and corrects other forms of spirituality. We have already noted the way its precious stones (21:19-21) echo the stones on the high priest’s breastplate (Exod. 28:17-20). However, in first-century Judaism, the Jewish writers Philo and Josephus both noted linkages between these stones and the twelve signs of the zodiac.8 R. H. Charles

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has indicated that evidence from Egyptian and Arabian monuments show that the various signs of the zodiac were connected with various precious stones. If we set these down in the east, north, south, west order indicated in 21:13 we come up with the following list: E

1. Jasper = The Fish

2. Sapphire = The Water carrier

3. Agate = The Goat

N

4. Emerald = The Archer

5. Onyx = The Scorpion

6. Carnelian = The Balance

S

7. Chrysolite = The Virgin

8. Beryl = The Lion

9. Topaz = The Crab

W

10. Chrysoprase = Twins

11. Jacinth = The Bull

12. Amethyst = The Ram

Charles then continues the argument: ‘[I]n the apparent movement of the sun, the sun is said when crossing the equator towards the north to be at the first point of the Ram, thirty days later it enters the Bull, and so on through the Twins, Crab, Lion etc., till it reaches the Fishes.’9 Noting that John’s listing is the exact reverse of this, other scholars have suggested that John has deliberately created this order (which does not match any order within the Old Testament or other ancient documents) to come up with an anti-astrological statement (just as a cultish saying of the Lord’s Prayer backwards would likely be understood as negativity towards what the Lord’s Prayer stood for).10 One other feature of the new Jerusalem is that it is a place of security. This is shown in two ways. The first is its thick walls. Taken in literalistic fashion, in terms of width as a proportion to height, the walls may seem alarmingly thin. But John is using images to create an impression rather than to explain something with literal exactness. His appeal here as elsewhere is more to the ear than to the eye. The description of thickness is something like seventy metres. So it is very strong, very thick, very good at keeping out ‘the dogs, and sorcerers, and fornicators, and murderers, and idolaters, and everyone who loves to practise falsehood’ (22:15). A further feature of the city’s security is that it is strongly associated with light. While our modern minds may tend to relate light to knowledge, ancient minds saw light as the antithesis of darkness. Darkness was to be feared. It was a time of danger and threat. Light meant security (21:23-25; 22:5). The gates of the new Jerusalem could remain open at all

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times, for the city is bathed with the light of God forever and ever. It is the fulfilment of the golden-age dream of Isaiah 60. Where, however, Isaiah dreamt of the light being the light of the glory of God (Isa. 60:19), Revelation adds to that dream a few crucial words: ‘and the lamp of it was the Lamb’ (21:23). 5. Focus on God and on Christ In much of the biblical witness, God is shrouded in mystery. Can one see God and live (Gen. 16:13)? God is a God who hides himself (Isa. 45:15). Even for the Christian, God dwells in unapproachable light (1 Tim. 6:16). In this present life, the best Christians can do is to see as through a mirror dimly (1 Cor. 13:12). Now in Revelation, the encounter with the divine is face to face (22:4-5). There is no longer a temple, which in significant ways separated ordinary people from God—they could not enter the most holy place where God was understood particularly to dwell. But now there is full revelation. The final revelation is of God and the Lamb together. To the extent that there is a temple, it is the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb which is the temple (21:22). A feature of Hebrew, especially its poetry, is to employ parallelism, to articulate much the same idea twice in parallel fashion. Thus the statement that ‘the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb’ (21:23) suggests close linkage between the Lamb and the glory of God. Close linkage is also expressed in the vision of only one throne in the city, the throne being ‘the throne of God and the Lamb’ (22:1). Similar closeness between God and Christ is articulated in the fact that the ‘Alpha and the Omega,’ who is the Lord God in 1:8, is Jesus, who is coming soon in 22:12-13 (cf. 1:17). The passage includes a renewed call to worship God only (22:9). Prior to this, however, there has been a reference to ‘the throne of God and of the Lamb’ (apparently two heavenly realities), with the immediately ensuing statement, ‘his servants will worship him’ (singular). It may be thought that the ambiguity is accidental and that the call really is to worship God only (apart from Christ). But immediately following is the statement, ‘his name shall be on their foreheads’ (22:4), and that name has already been identified as the name of the Lamb and his Father (14:1). Deliberate ambiguity! God only is to be worshiped. God and the Lamb are to be worshiped.

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6. John’s concluding remarks (22:8-21) This closing material can almost have the feel of a disorderly staccato jumble. A careful reading, however, shows the clever artistry of the end of John’s narrative. There is a re-echoing of much of Revelation 1 so that the two chapters are like the bookends of John’s heavenly vision. He began on earth, in the Christian community, in present reality. He ends the same way. There are several direct parallels between the opening and closing of Revelation: • Revelation opens with voices from Jesus, an angel, John, and God. It closes with the voices of Jesus (22:7, 12ff), John (22:8), and the angel (22:9, 10). Further voices chime in: the Spirit (22:17), the bride (22:17), John again (22:18), and then Jesus (22:20). The multitude of voices suggests that what they are saying is surely an important and urgent message. ‘Amen. Come Lord Jesus!’ • There is a repetition of some of the titles of Christ. He is ‘the first and the last’ (22:13; cf. 1:17) and ‘the root of David’ (22:16; cf. 5:5). • There is a stress on the imminent coming of Jesus (22:7, 12, 20; cf. 1:1; 3:11). • The material opens with a blessing (1:3) and closes with another (22:14). • Revelation has a Pauline-type opening: ‘Grace to you and peace . . .’ (1:4-8). That grace is echoed again in the Pauline-type benediction ending: ‘The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all the saints. Amen’. Conclusion We have come to the end of Revelation and of this book. Revelation has shown us the glories of the heavenly Jerusalem as well as the terrors of the lake of fire. John’s closing words include an urgent call to respond and participate: to come—to the living water, to Christ. Embedded in John’s magnificent portfolio of images is a vision of the splendour of Jesus and a heartfelt cry for his coming again: ‘Amen. Come Lord Jesus!’ In many ways that captures the central message of John. It is a message for strugglers, a message that puts Christ at the centre for the present and for eternity. Those who have gained a deeper appreciation, a deeper longing, a deeper love of Jesus, through reading Revelation have read it well.

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‘Amen. Come Lord Jesus!’ Then follow the final comforting words: ‘The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all the saints. Amen.’ Reflection 1. What feelings arise when you read Revelation 21–22? Does this tell you anything about the nature and purpose of the book as a whole? 2. Reflect on each usage of the word ‘come’ in Revelation 22 and consider what this word contributes to the way Revelation ends. Notes 1. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays: First Series: Self-Reliance, Bartleby.com, http://www.bartleby.com/100/420.47.html. 2. G. Kittel, ed., Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, vol. 3, trans. G. W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965) 47–50; vol. 4 (1967) 896–99. 3. M. E. Boring, Revelation (Louisville: John Knox Press, 1989) 217. 4. P. S. Minear, I Saw a New Earth: An Introduction to the Visions of the Apocalypse (Washington: Corpus Books, 1968) 167. 5. H. Richard Niebuhr, The Kingdom of God in America (New York: Harper, 1937) 193. 6. Augustine, Commentary on Ps 64, on v. 3, in Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo: A Biography (London: Faber, 1967) 315. 7. Augustine, Commentary on Ps 84, on v. 10, in Brown, Augustine, 312. 8. Philo, Life of Moses 2.124; Josephus, Antiquities 3.7.7. 9. R. H. Charles, The Revelation of St John, 2 vols. (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1920) vol. 2, 167–68. 10. E.g., G. B. Caird, The Revelation of St John the Divine (2nd ed.; London: A & C Black, 1984) 277; G. R. Beasley-Murray, The Book of Revelation (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974) 325.

15 Epilogue: The Enduring Value of the Book of Revelation Within her book, Tramp for the Lord, Corrie Ten Boom described her experience of speaking to a Christian audience in an oppressive African nation. The government, when Corrie arrived, had just started executing Christians and systematic murder loomed. Corrie’s audience was thus in a state of extreme fear. In that situation Corrie told of a conversation with her father when she was a little girl. She had told her father that she was concerned that she would never be strong enough to be a martyr for Jesus. Her father responded by drawing her attention to the fact that he never gave her money for train travel well in advance of the needed purchase date. Rather he gave the money at the time when it was needed. Corrie’s father ended with the words: ‘Our wise father in heaven knows when you are going to need things too. Today you do not need the strength to be a martyr; but as soon as you are called upon for the honour of facing death for Jesus, He will supply the strength you need—just in time.’ Corrie’s audience was deeply moved. They asked her for more stories. She told them of God’s strength for her in a situation of extreme danger in a German concentration camp and how the Christians could sing hymns of praise in that situation. She ended the concentration camp story with the words, ‘God gave me the grace and power I needed—the money for the train ticket arrived just the moment I was to step on the train.’ Her meeting with the African congregation was a deeply moving time for them and for her. The service ended in joy and praise, with the singing of the Christian hymn of ‘a land that is fairer than day,’ where ‘in the sweet by and by we shall meet on that beautiful shore.’ In the weeks that followed more than half of her audience were martyred.1 Corrie’s narrative highlights the life-giving power of words. Corrie and her audience touched heaven at that meeting. They encountered the transcendent. In the face of death they knew that ‘the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ, and he

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will reign forever and ever.’ They had a new lens for looking at life and death; and they were ready for death and for eternal life. John’s narrative has that quality. His original audience would have known deep fear—the fear of martyrdom. It may be that only a few in fact were martyred in that time. When Bishop Polycarp was martyred sixty or seventy years after the time of Revelation, he was only the twelfth martyr from Smyrna and Philadelphia over the previous century. Nevertheless, the martyrdom of Antipas and the many references in Revelation to blood and martyrdom point to fear of death overshadowing John’s churches in western Turkey. In that context, John’s words were transformative. They were designed less for the head and more for the heart. They took frail Christians into the world of which the words spoke, an unseen world and an often-forgotten world, but a world even more real than this one. After hearing John’s life-transforming words, those first-century gatherings will have dispersed with joy and hope and courage. There was no denial of the stark reality they faced—oppression, suffering, and death might well be their lot. But now there was a viewing frame for their situation—a frame of transcendence, of an ultimately transformed world and of an eternity in the presence of God and the Lamb. The backs-to-the-wall Christians of western Turkey were now ready to live and die—and live again. Subsequent to the time of Revelation, their beleaguered churches not only persisted, but grew to become part of the heartland, the area of greatest strength, of the Christian church in its three centuries under persecution prior to the time of Constantine. And one church, Ephesus, which Christ had been warned could be removed altogether if it did not repent, grew to become one of the most important urban centres of Christianity in its first centuries. By no means is Revelation a straightforward book. Its words and images certainly do raise major theological and interpretive issues. Often this has led to misguided and unwise interpretations. Many of these stem from an excessive literalness which is linked with a failure to appreciate the genre of Revelation and thus a failure to appreciate that this is not history written beforehand. Other misguided interpretations arise from failure to sufficiently enter the context of John’s audience, to appreciate the extreme situation which sometimes evoked apparent extremeness in Revelation, to recognize this is not ordinary but rather ‘jail-house’ literature.2 We need to enter deeply into John’s world, John’s heart and mind, and John’s literary forms if we are really to appreciate this book.

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As we surrender our imaginations to John’s dramatic story, we find it to be deeply life-giving. Most of all is this to be found in John’s profound portrayal of Jesus as Lamb and Lion, and Lord and God. His visions of Jesus re-strengthen Christians in their faith, that they have indeed chosen the right way and the right One. The book inspires Christians to a deeper desire to ‘follow the Lamb wherever he goes,’ even though they may not perfectly fulfil that resolve. That inspirational quality of Revelation climaxes in John’s final scene in the heavenly Jerusalem, where the Lamb is, sharing the throne of God. And his Christian followers ‘will reign forever and ever’ (22:5). It is Revelation’s life-giving qualities that caused the early church to preserve John’s inspired vision. And rightly, too, the Book of Revelation was eventually given its place in the church’s canon of sacred scripture. We need Revelation for its exalted portrayal of Christ, for its hope of the final triumph of good over evil, and for the way it breathes eternity. The Christian church would be poorer if we did not have this book. Jerry Cook tells of reading Revelation over six weeks to a packed church: We would read and read, laugh and weep and wonder. We did not learn who the Antichrist is. We did not date the Rapture. We did not get into the tribulation and millennium controversies. . . . We simply read Revelation. When we got through, we had a phenomenal concept of the power of Jesus, of the sovereignty of God, of the security that is ours on this planet, and of the utter, complete, unquestionable triumph of the church of Jesus Christ. On that last night the congregation stood together with uplifted hands and praised the Lord for nearly half an hour. I’ve never seen anything so powerful in all my life. I thought, that’s why the Lord takes new Christians to the Book of Revelation. What does a new Christian need to know more than those four things?3

Revelation’s inspirational qualities, of victory in adversity, have been most appreciated in times of suffering. It is the suffering church which again and again has turned to its pages. For the church of China under pressure and persecution during the rule of Mao Tse-Tung in the midtwentieth century, Revelation was a tremendous source of comfort and light. In greatest darkness, Revelation provides greatest light. But Revelation is not a book only for the persecuted. Western Christianity on the whole faces minimal persecution today. For those of us who are western, our problems are different. It is not oppression but

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seduction that is the challenge which may draw us from our faith. Living in affluent, individualistic, pleasure-seeking societies, we can be subtly and progressively lured to place ourselves at the centre of our lives and Jesus towards the edge—a losing of our first love for God and others. For us, John’s book exposes the corrupting influence of wealth, power, and self-indulgence and warns against succumbing to their seductive lure. Our affluence reshapes crucial life choices to shades of grey, and we start to drift from our Christian commitment. The worldview of John, however, is not grey but black and white. We can easily dismiss John’s view as an oversimplification of reality. Perhaps we may excuse this oversimplification either as relating to the extreme situation that he faced, or as part of the apocalyptic tradition in which he wrote. But do we need to water down John’s black-and-white message? Bob Dylan in one of his songs has laid down a similar challenge to John’s: ‘you’ve gotta serve somebody. It may be the Devil or it may be the Lord, but you’ve gotta serve somebody.’4 Western Christianity risks long and slow corrosion and erosion. It faces the danger of drift. John’s message is a wake-up call to the western church to stick to the centre line of following Jesus, not seduced by seductive siren songs of society and of secularization5 to veer left or right. How apt for our situation is John’s message: ‘the Lamb or the beast: choose.’ The Book of Revelation is disturbing, but it is also refreshing. It guides to springs of living water; to the tree of life; to Christ. We need to surrender our imaginations and wills to its images and message. It is uplifting and life-giving. Challenging, inspiring, refreshing—that is the Book of Revelation. Notes 1. Corrie Ten Boom, Tramp for the Lord, in Hodder Christian Paperback Omnibus, In My Fathers House, The Hiding Place, Tramp for the Lord (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1976) 504–509. 2. This term is used by E. S. Fiorenza, The Book of Revelation: Justice and Judgment (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1998) 198. 3. Jerry Cook, Love, Acceptance and Forgiveness (Ventura: Regal, 1982) 62–63 (emphasis original). 4. Bob Dylan, song, ‘You’ve gotta serve somebody,’ copyright © 1979, Special Rider Music. 5. I do not mean by ‘secularization’ that people are increasingly ceasing to believe in God or the transcendent. I rather refer to the process by which society’s values tend to become the values of the Christian church, so that the shape of the church may remain, but much of its heart has been ‘white-anted’ by a secular worldview.

Index -AAlexander the Great, 75 Alpha and Omega, 38, 39, 42, 153, 170, 175 Antiochus Epiphanies, 106 Antipas, 22, 63, 180 Antony, Mark, 75 Armageddon, see Harmagedon Artemis, 21, 54 Augustine, 138, 156, 173 Aune, David, 48, 60, 71, 75, 150 Authorship, 16-18 -B‘Babylon’, 11, 19, 128, 133, 137-40, 142-49, 171 Barr, David, 14 2 Baruch, 64 Bauckham, Richard, 14, 79, 150, 167 Beale, G.K., 48, 110, 126, 150, 156, 167 Beasley-Murray, G.R., 36, 48, 110, 125, 150, 167, 177 Beast, the, 119-24, 152 Blake, William, 118 Boring, M. Eugene, 36, 82, 96, 136, 150, 163, 167, 177 -CCaird, George, 36, 40, 96, 110, 128, 136, 167, 177 Cassius, Dio, 76 Charles, R.H., 17, 173-74 Chesterton, G.K., 1 1 Chronicles, 82 Cicero, 60 Collins, Adela Yarbro, 35, 110, 126 Colossae, 68 Combat myths, 113-15 Context, 13, 15-16, 20, 170 Cook, Jerry, 181

-DDaniel, 20, 26, 28, 30, 35-36, 37, 40, 41, 42-43, 45, 62, 65, 77-78, 97, 116, 120, 122, 139, 153, 162 Darby, J.N., 6 Dead Sea Scrolls, see War Scroll Deuteronomy, 98, 104, 106, 123 Dionysius of Alexandria, 17 Dispensationalism, 6-7 Divinity of Jesus, see Jesus, divinity of Domitian, 18-20, 61, 67-68, 73, 76, 88-89, 123, 140-42 Dragon, the, 111-20, 121, 125, 159, 161 Dürer, Albrecht, 1, 87, 157 Dylan, Bob, 182 -EEdwards, Jonathan, 158 Elijah, 106-107 Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 169 Emperor worship, 19, 20-22, 55, 57, 124, 148, 170 Enoch, 106 1 Enoch, 26, 41, 98, 130 Ephesus, 21, 54, 57, 58, 61-62, 71, 180 Exodus, 39, 40, 41, 42, 64, 67, 75, 95, 99-100, 109, 111, 112, 114, 131, 172, 173 Ezekiel, 11, 41-42, 46, 75, 86, 88, 95, 105, 112, 139, 143, 146, 147, 148, 150, 164, 170, 172 4 Ezra, 26-27, 106 -FFiorenza, Elisabeth Schüssler, 48, 150, 182 Futurist interpretations, 5, 6-9, 121, 151

-GGenesis, 75, 100, 101, 111, 112, 175 Genre, 13, 25-48, 116, 180 Gog, 66, 88, 164 -HHades, 43, 98-99, 164, 165, 166, 170 Harmagedon, 134-35 Hecate, 43-44 Hell, see Hades Hemer, Colin J., 60, 71 Hendriksen, W., 82 Heraclitus, 45 Hieropolis, 68 Holy Spirit, see Spirit, Holy Hosea, 93, 150 Hunt, Holman, 1, 70 -IImperial cult, see Emperor worship Irenaeus, 19, 93 Isaiah, 42, 95, 98, 100, 127, 128, 130, 135, 139, 143, 147, 148, 150, 154, 156, 158, 170, 175 -JJeremiah, 86, 99-100, 128, 139, 145, 147, 148, 150 Jerusalem (New), 131, 137-39, 148, 152, 153, 169-75 Jesus, divinity of, 43, 79, 149, 165, 175, 181 Jews, 19, 62, 92-93 ‘Jezebel’, 58, 65, 138-39 Job, 101 Joel, 101-102, 129-30 Jones, A.H.M., 88 Josephus, 173 Jubilees, 158 Judgment, 56, 83-91, 97-102, 108, 128-30, 132, 133, 142, 145-48, 154, 165-66

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Justice, 33, 83, 84, 133, 148 Justin Martyr, 6, 17 -KKing, Martin Luther, 118 1 Kings, 93, 108, 173 Koester, Craig, 60 -LLa Haye, Tim, & Jerry Collins, 7, 85 Lamb, victory of through death/blood/cross, 8, 32, 34, 80, 117, 159, 161 Laodicea, 56, 57, 68-71 Lewis, C.S., 98-99, 164 Liberation theology, 12 Lindsey, Hal, 3-5, 7, 101, 110 Literary approaches, 12-13 Luther, Martin, 3, 32 -M2 Maccabees, 64, 109 Micah, 127 Michael, 97, 103, 111, 116-17, 159-60 Millennium, 155-63, 169, 181 Minear, Paul, 13, 136, 177 Moses, 106-107, 112, 131 -NNahum, 139 Nero, 18, 19, 61, 76, 104, 122-24, 140-42 Niebuhr, Richard, 171 Number of the beast (666), 1, 123-24 Numbers, 65 -PParthia, 76, 88, 102, 123 Pergamum, 55, 57, 58, 63-64, 71 Peterson, Eugene, 14, 31-32, 35 Philadelphia, 55, 57, 62, 67-68, 71 Philo, 128, 173 Pliny the Elder, 146

Pliny the Younger, 19 Polycarp, 20, 180 Preterist interpretations, 5, 9-10 Price, S.R.F., 60 Psalms, 39, 41, 42, 75, 84, 95, 101, 108-109, 112 -RRamsay, William, 54, 96 Rapture, 7, 114, 181 Recapitulation, 11, 30-31, 159 Repentance, 52, 56, 61, 66, 97, 102, 133 Roma, 20, 22, 129, 140 Roman empire, 23, 40, 123, 135 Rome, see ‘Babylon’ -S2 Samuel, 170 Sardis, 55, 57, 66-67, 71, 134 Scofield, C.I., 6, 7 Smyrna, 20, 54-55, 57, 62, 71 Sodom, 4, 107, 152 Son of Man, 40-44 Spirit, Holy, 38-39, 41, 61-62, 121-22, 149, 176 Strabo, 68 Suetonius, 124, 150 Symbolic interpretations, 5, 10-11 -TTabernacle, see ‘Tent of witness’ Tacitus, 60 Talmud, 95 Ten Boom, Corrie, 179 ‘Tent of witness’, 131-32 Tertullian, 118 Testament of Levi, 158 The 144,000, 92-94, 120, 127-28 Thyatira, 55, 57, 58, 65, 71 Trade guilds, 22-23, 57-58, 65 Tribulation, 94, 118-19, 125 Tyre, 143, 148

-VVengeance, see Justice Violence, problem of, 83-85, 98-99, 128-29, 132-34, 163-65 -WWar Scroll, 116 Watene, Maurice, 2 Wilcock, Michael, 71, 82 Wisdom of Solomon, 153 Witness, call to, 39, 104, 103, 117 -ZZechariah, 36, 38, 40, 86, 105, 106, 107, 127 Zoroastrianism, 113-14, 159