The Holy War Is Engaged (Revelation 12:1—14:13)
REVELATION 12:1—14:13
The Holy War Is Engaged
In turning to chapters 12–14 in the Revelation, one comes to the theological center of things. Indeed, here is the clear evidence that John’s interest lies not with chronology as such; rather he is offering a prophetic/ theological word of warning and encouragement to God’s people at the turn of the first century because of what is about to happen to them. Here the interest is not at all with the question of when, but with the what, who, and why of the coming events. The what, one is not surprised to learn, is the coming Holy War, but now placed in its ultimate theological perspective. The who also offers no surprises; they are the forces of evil, now expressed in the form of an unholy “trinity” of Satan and his two beasts, one from the sea, the other from the land. These evil forces are seen as arrayed against the people of God, the followers of the Lamb. The why follows closely behind; God’s people are the earthly representatives of Satan’s defeat by the Lamb—in his cross and resurrection—people who will neither worship Satan nor the beast(s) nor join in the great city’s sins. Thus they stand as constant reminders to the Empire that not all people in their broad domain are ready to bow to Caesar, as though he were a god.
What is described in these three pictures lies at the heart of everything for John. Here the reader receives explanations of moments that up to now have been mentioned only in passing. This passage returns the reader to the first six seals in chapter 6, where in turn John spelled out the enmity of the Empire against God’s people (seals 1–4), with the resultant martyrdoms (seal 5) and anticipation of the final judgment (seal 6). The story that is told here concentrates on the causes and results of the Holy War. Thus in chapter 12 John offers the ultimate theological basis/explanation for everything that is about to happen to these early believers. Satan’s defeat in the heavenly realm by the crucified but now risen Lamb eventuates in his waging relentless war against those on earth who belong to the Lamb, and are thus a constant reminder of his defeat. In the following chapter (13), John then anticipates how the dragon (Satan) will engage the Holy War on earth through the two beasts.1 Finally, in chapter 14 John pictures the final outcome of the Holy War, which includes the triumph of the Lamb and his people, accompanied by an invitation to the nations to join his people, and concludes with the eschatological harvest (of “the saints” most likely2) and the winepress of God’s judgment against the evil ones.
Before looking at the passage in some detail, it might help for one to read the next three chapters together and, by way of overview, to become aware of the primary theological motifs that one encounters in the text. The main theme throughout is the Holy War. The two primary words for this in Greek are the noun polemos (“war”), plus its cognates, and the verb nikao (“triumph”). Thus in 12:7 “war” between the archangel Michael and the dragon occurred in heaven, resulting in Satan’s being cast out of heaven. Again, in 13:4, but now on earth, the question is put as to “who can make war against [the beast]?” who in verse 7 is said to have been “given power to make war against God’s people and to conquer them.” In this latter passage the verb “to conquer” is the same as that translated “are victorious” in its appearance at the end of each of the letters to the seven churches. But here also (in 12:11) occurs the key theological sentence of the entire book: “And they triumphed over him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.”
This motif is now expressed explicitly in terms of John’s thoroughgoing “already but not yet” eschatological perspective, which has been noted in earlier chapters. Now in chapter 12 it is spelled out in verses 10–12 with as much clarity as one will ever get in apocalyptic literature. Salvation has already come, and the saints have thus already “triumphed over [Satan]” through “the blood of the Lamb” (v. 11), but “woe to the earth … because the devil has gone down to you” (v. 12). Thus John keeps alive the tension one has previously seen at work in chapter 5, where the “Lion of the tribe of Judah” who has triumphed turns out to be a Slain Lamb. So here, the Messiah is pictured in the language of the Davidic Messiah, who “will rule all the nations with an iron scepter” (12:5); yet in all but one of his other appearances in these chapters the Messiah is again the Slain Lamb whose blood has redeemed his people (12:11; 13:8; 14:1, 4). The single exception (in 14:14–16) is a return to the Danielic “son of man,” who reaps the harvest of his own people before the coming of God’s wrath.
Likewise, the church’s dual role of engaging in the Holy War through suffering and death while at the same time bearing witness to the nations is played out in a variety of ways. It begins in the key text noted above (12:11, “they triumphed over [Satan] by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony”) and recurs in 12:17; 13:8–10; and finally in 14:1–5, 6, and 14–16. Thus these three chapters serve as the theological epicenter of the entire book. They are introduced in remarkable fashion through the imagery of the “woman clothed with the sun,” who gives birth to the Messiah and whom the great snake, the dragon, tries to destroy but fails.
THE SUN-CLOTHED WOMAN AND THE DRAGON (12:1–6)
The basic theological perspective of John’s narrative comes to us in the two pictures in the present chapter (vv. 1–6 and 7–17). The two parts are held together, first, by their opening expressions, “a great sign appeared in heaven” (v. 1) and “there was war in heaven” (v. 7); and secondly, by the figures of the woman and the dragon, who are the major players in this initial vision and are brought together at the conclusion in verse 17. The second picture is itself in two parts (vv. 7–12 and 13–17), which are held together by the contrasts with which both parts begin: “there was war in heaven,” in which the dragon is defeated and cast down to earth; and “when the dragon saw that he had been hurled to the earth.” The story begins with the ultimate defeat of Satan.
1A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. 2She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth. 3Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on its heads. 4Its tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth. The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that it might devour her child the moment he was born. 5She gave birth to a son, a male child, who “will rule all the nations with an iron scepter.”a And her child was snatched up to God and to his throne. 6The woman fled into the wilderness to a place prepared for her by God, where she might be taken care of for 1,260 days.
aPsalm 2:9
This opening scene is narrative art at its finest, and one comments on it with a degree of trepidation lest the reader get involved too much in the explanation and thus lose the power of the narrative itself. The scene comes in three parts, based on the three main characters in the drama: the pregnant woman (vv. 1–2), the enormous red dragon (vv. 3–5), and the birth and rescue of the woman’s son (vv. 6–7). It is important for the modern reader to know that the whole scene is a common one in ancient mythology as well; thus the first readers of this book, mostly Gentile converts in the province of Asia, could hardly have missed here an echo of the well-known myth from their own history. In that myth about the birth of Apollo to Leto, wife of Zeus, the dragon Python hoped to slay the child (Apollo) but he was protected by Poseidon. When grown Apollo then slew the dragon. But whatever the coincidences that may exist between that myth and the essential Christian story, John’s imagery has effected its total transformation into the basic (historical) story of Christ, who through his cross and resurrection thus defeated the dragon. At the same time, the astute biblical reader will see something of a replay, but in a radically new way, of the scene in the garden of Eden in Genesis 3; but now the woman with-stands the snake, and her child is rescued by God, who also protects the woman in “the wilderness.”
The issue for the modern reader, of course, has to do with what John is here presenting to his readers at this crucial turn in the narrative. The best answer sees her as representing the faithful messianic community—the faithful remnant, as it were—from whom the Messiah came. We can be rather sure of this because of John’s twofold description of her. First, the scene opens with a great sign appearing in heaven, whose content contains echoes of Genesis 37:9, where in Joseph’s dream Abraham, Sarah, and the twelve patriarchs are presented as a woman clothed with the sun, who also has the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. In the present scene the woman now represents faithful Israel, while in verse 17 the “rest of her offspring” are God’s new covenant people, the church. Second, by pointing out her labor in pregnancy (she … cried out in pain as she was about to give birth3) John echoes several prophetic moments in the Old Testament, where Israel is pictured as a pregnant mother whose child is about to be delivered from captivity (thus the “New Exodus”). For example, in Isaiah 66:7–8 the remnant returning from exile are pictured as “a country … born in a day” (cf. Micah 5:3). Thus by means of this marvelous reformulation of a well-known Greco-Roman myth, and by way of the even better known Scriptural echoes that have New Exodus overtones written all over them, the reader with full knowledge of the Old Testament is thereby set up for what happens next.
The second character in the Genesis story (and the myth) now makes his appearance in heaven as an enormous red dragon, who is further described, using imagery from Daniel 7:7–8, as having seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on its heads. At this point those who read visually are left to wonder what this monster actually looked like. One can rather easily envision seven heads with seven crowns on them, but we are not told how the ten horns were placed on the seven heads.4 In any case, as John himself makes clear in verse 9, this is a portrayal of Satan as the seven-headed Leviathan, the sea monster who is also identified in terms of the fourth beast in Daniel 7. And although this is a picture of Satan himself, “seven heads” may very well also be an indirect reflection of Rome as the city set on seven hills.
Two further matters need to be pointed out regarding this identification. First, the biblically literate reader will also hear echoes of Isaiah 27:1: “In that day, the LORD will punish with his sword … Leviathan the gliding serpent, Leviathan the coiling serpent; he will slay the monster of the sea.” If we did not have John’s own interpretation in verse 9 that follows, one might assume the dragon to be identical with the beast in 13:1. But that is an identification John will not allow us to make, even though he deliberately draws the closest kind of association between them.
Second, and now picking up from verse 4a, the dragon is further identified in terms of Daniel 8:10, where the enemy of God’s people is described as a “horn” growing up “until it reached the host of the heavens, and it threw some of the starry host down to the earth and trampled on them.” In the present scene the dragon’s tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth. Although this may very well be, as some think, a reference to Satan’s attempt to destroy Israel, it nevertheless serves here primarily as an identity marker, thereby setting up for Satan’s being cast out of heaven.
As the final matter in this description, the dragon and the woman are brought face to face as it were. As the woman [Israel] … was about to give birth, the dragon stood in front of her so that it might devour her child the moment he was born. This is drama, pure and simple, in which the basic Christian story is being replayed at the outset of the second half of the book, with its essential matters being featured.5 Whether it is also a reflection on the Matthean birth narrative itself is moot. More likely it is a (significantly) condensed version of the gospel story; this seems to be made clear when this part of John’s narrative concludes by pointing to the birth and ascension of Jesus. Thus the essential story itself begins with the incarnation. The sun-clothed woman gave birth to a son, a male child, who is immediately described further in the language of Psalm 2:9: he will rule all the nations with an iron scepter. This significantly condensed account of the essential story then concludes with the ascension: And her child was snatched up to God and to his throne. By bookending the story in this way, John makes it clear that what was currently happening to the Messiah’s people on earth does not lie outside Christ’s own purview. The Divine Child whom Satan would devour is instead protected by God his Father, and he eventually defeats Satan through his death and resurrection.
But the story is not over with the ascension—indeed, for the followers of the Lamb it is only the beginning, as it were. Thus the present scene concludes with the flight of the woman … into the wilderness to a place prepared for her by God. The more puzzling feature of this part of the narrative lies with the conclusion, that in the wilderness she might be taken care of for 1,260 days (three and a half years), which is the same time frame as that of the trampling of the Holy City and the period in which the two witnesses will prophesy in 11:2–3. As before, this is probably a reference to the period for the newly formed people of God to bear witness to the Israel that gave birth to the Messiah.
THE DEFEAT OF THE DRAGON IN HEAVEN (12:7–12)
7War6 in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. 8But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. 9The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.
10Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say:
“Now have come the salvation and the power
and the kingdom of our God,
and the authority of his Messiah.For the accuser of our brothers and sisters,
who accuses them before our God day and night,
has been hurled down.11They triumphed over him
by the blood of the Lamb
and by the word of their testimony;they did not love their lives so much
as to shrink from death.12Therefore, rejoice, you heavens
and you who dwell in them!But woe to the earth and the sea,
because the devil has gone down to you!He is full of fury,
because he knows his time is short.”
On the basis of how this part of the narrative begins, one might be tempted to refer to this section under the heading “War in Heaven.” But that would be to mislead the reader by a large margin, since John’s interest lies not with the war as such, but with the defeat of the dragon and his eventually being “hurled to the earth.” The narrative thus comes in two clear parts: verses 7–9, which concentrate altogether on the defeat of the dragon; and verses 10–12, which by way of poetry announce the twofold effect of his defeat for the people of God on earth. In so doing it tells the essential Christian story in four parts, beginning with an announcement of the outcome (v. 10a) and its cause (v. 10b), followed by the believers’ own involvement (v. 11), with a concluding note of rejoicing in heaven and woe on earth (v. 12).
The narrative begins with the simple announcement, War broke out in heaven. In John’s narrative this responds directly to verse 5, where the Messiah has been exalted to heaven. Thus “her child was snatched up to God and to his throne … and war broke out in heaven.” Nonetheless, even though the narrative that follows in this case necessarily succeeds the imagery of Christ’s ascension, it is ultimately more cosmic in its overall scope. So John begins by using imagery that assumes time past (after all, the snake was present in the garden of Eden); but in the present narrative everything hinges on Christ’s death, resurrection, and ascension. The awkwardness is simply a natural result of our being time-bound, and necessarily seeing everything in temporal terms with one moment succeeding another. But from the divine perspective in which John is here seeing things, the ultimate defeat of Satan took place through the death and resurrection of the Slain Lamb—and that is the perspective from which the reader is expected to understand the present imagery.
Thus the “war in heaven” is here pictured in cosmic terms, as between Michael and his angels and the dragon … and his angels. This unusual moment wherein John actually names the archangel Michael belongs to a somewhat foggy history that developed in the intertestamental period, where the various angels were ranked and given names. In most of these cases Michael is understood to be the leading angel among the (usually) seven highest-ranking angels, called “archangels.”7 The name itself apparently derived from three passages in Daniel (10:13, 21; 12:1) where a mysterious figure so-named is the keeper of the heavenly books. It seems altogether likely that by the time John wrote his Revelation this name had become a fixture on the biblical landscape; and in John’s case Michael is clearly the leader of the “heavenly host” who engage in the Holy War on God’s behalf. Our present difficulty with the text has to do with timing. John’s own point, of course, is to use this piece of lore to picture the defeat of Satan not at some prehistoric point, but at the point of his ultimate defeat through the cross and resurrection, as is made clear in verses 10–11. What John appears to have done is let the prehistoric and historic moments merge in the telling of the story here.
What immediately follows, therefore, on the one hand seems to be prehistoric altogether. Thus the narrative continues by noting that in the war in heaven the dragon was not strong enough, resulting in his defeat, so that “the dragon and his angels” lost their place in heaven. On the other hand, since John goes on to describe this moment in terms of its effect on the earth, and even though Eden is not mentioned, the result appears to be an apocalyptic description of the events of Genesis 3, intended to encourage his readers in the midst of their own present (and soon-to-be-increased) difficulties. Therefore, in the prehistoric moment being described, the great dragon was hurled down, which in John’s very complex sentence eventually results in his being hurled to the earth, and his angels with him. But before John gets to this final result, he interrupts his narrative to make sure his readers understand clearly who the dragon is by reminding them of most of the names by which he had been known: that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan,8 who leads the whole earth astray.
This understanding of the devil picks up on the ancient Jewish tradition that viewed Satan as a fallen member of the heavenly court, which ultimately derives from Old Testament prophetic oracles against especially proud foreign kings. Thus Isaiah announces the fall of the king of Babylon (14:12–15):9
How you have fallen from heaven,
morning star, son of the dawn!
You have been cast down to the earth,
you who once laid low the nations!
You said in your heart,
“I will ascend to heaven;
I will raise my throne
above the stars of God;
….I will make myself like the Most High.
This view of things was further affirmed by Jesus when the seventy-two disciples returned with their glowing acclamation that “even the demons submit to us in your name,” to which he replied, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven” (Luke 10:17–18). What this means finally for John’s readers will be picked up in the final paragraph of the chapter (vv. 13–17). But before he goes there John interrupts the narrative with a song, sung by a loud voice in heaven, whose purpose is to reinforce the reality of his readers’ present existence as they live in the tension of the “already but not yet.” So while it is true that Satan will pursue the Lamb’s people because they constantly remind him of his ultimate defeat through the death and resurrection of the Messiah, he will not be able to conquer them even though he will slaughter many of them. Thus, in a song of three parts, John reminds his audience, first (v. 10), that Christ’s death and resurrection (even though not mentioned directly) have led to the expulsion of Satan from heaven; second (v. 11), that their own victory over Satan in the present is the combined result of Christ’s death and their own witness to it by word and eventually (for many) by martyrdom; and finally (v. 12), that while heaven rejoices over Satan’s defeat, God’s people on earth are about to experience the full fury of Satan’s wrath.
The song thus begins with an acclamation of triumph, echoing the heavenly song at the sounding of the seventh trumpet (11:15), and exclaiming the “already” of the kingdom in terms of both the Father and the Son: Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Messiah. Although the combination of “salvation,” “power,” and “kingdom” is unique to this passage, it is quite in keeping both with previous acclamations10 and especially with John’s present concerns. His readers thus need to be reminded at the outset that their eternal salvation is a reality, whatever may happen to them at the hands of Rome. At the same time, and especially in light of the coming holocaust, he reminds them that God’s power and kingdom have already (“now”) taken hold through the death and resurrection of Christ, a reality alluded to in the preceding picture of Satan’s attempt to destroy the seed of the woman (vv. 4–5).
The reason for the present confidence of these believers goes back to the introductory narrative in verses 7–9, where Satan was pictured as cast out of heaven. They are now to understand this reality in terms of the salvation affected by Christ through his death and resurrection—the arena in which Satan suffered his ultimate defeat. Thus, as a way of encouraging them, the heavenly voice goes on to affirm the ultimate defeat of Satan by here affirming his essential defeat through the cross and resurrection of Christ, even though that is not expressly stated in the current poetry. Rather, still aware of their present (and coming) plight, John goes on to explain the ultimate source of their hardships: the accuser of our brothers and sisters, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down. By putting it this way, John also leaves his readers with some locational ambiguity in terms of his imagery. On the one hand, even though Satan is here pictured as cast out of heaven and “hurled to the earth,” he is nonetheless continually accusing God’s people (“day and night”). The point, of course, has to do with the everyday reality of being a follower of the Lamb in their present circumstances; Satan is, and will be, the continuing source of their coming (and ongoing) difficulties. On the other hand, in their present “between the times” existence, Satan is at the same time seen as having lost his place in heaven and “hurled down” to earth, where he will incite the two beasts to wreak havoc on the people who constantly remind him of his ultimate defeat.
But if John presents the reader with something of a hiccup as to Satan’s actual whereabouts, his present point is not Satan’s heavenly activity of accusation, but his current activity against God’s people on earth, where he “has been hurled down,” having lost his place in the heavenly realm. So even though the decisive battle won by Christ through his death and resurrection guarantees the outcome of the war, final salvation, though guaranteed, is in fact “not yet.” Thus the war itself is not over, even though victory has already been fully and finally decided. So in one of the key moments in the book—not to mention in the whole New Testament—the “already but not yet” of the believers’ present existence is spelled out in the two key clauses of this sentence. First, and returning to the language of warfare, John relates that they triumphed11 over him, noting that even in their present existence the final outcome is guaranteed. Such a guarantee, of course, first of all results from the saving work of Christ (by the blood of the Lamb), which, second, in this case is nonetheless a guarantee that also requires participation on the part of Christ’s people, thus and by the word of their testimony. This, of course, is the dimension that is a call to the churches themselves to continue to bear witness to Christ, even in the midst of the coming trial.
Then, as a way of summing up the two-sided dimension of their witness, a witness that has to do primarily with “the blood of the Lamb,” John notes that the basic stance of those who overcome Satan is that they did not love their own lives so much as to shrink from death. These words stand in offensive contradiction to some contemporary teaching that for one truly to love others well people must first of all love themselves well. Nonetheless the words are not in fact a call to martyrdom; rather they reflect what is to be the basic stance of true followers of the Lamb. And as noted before, they are written prophetically to a church standing on the brink of a holocaust that will periodically claim the lives of hundreds (probably thousands) over the next two centuries. And even though it is somewhat easy for those of us who live nearly two millennia on this side of their coming holocaust to read these words a bit casually, for them these were the words of a Christian prophet calling them to endurance and faithfulness.
What follows makes this understanding of John’s call all the more stark for those of us who read it from afar, and in light of its fulfillment over a two-century period. What one hardly expects is this call, echoing Psalm 96:11:12 Therefore, rejoice, you heavens and you who dwell in them! But this call and its following woe are John’s way of playing out the content of the preceding two sentences (vv. 10 and 11) in terms of the “already but not yet” nature of Christ’s victory over Satan. He begins with the response in heaven because of what was articulated in verse 10, that “salvation has come” and “the accuser” of God’s people “has been hurled down.” But that also leads, secondly, to a woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has gone down to you, thus picking up and repeating the content of verse 9. The reason for the woe is simple: Satan is full of fury over his defeat evidenced by the resurrection;13 and thus he knows his time is short, which means that there are many more who will have to “sail through bloody seas.”14
We should note finally that the phrase “his time is short” has caused no little concern to those of God’s people who live some nineteen centuries after these words were written. But this is a case where “short” is in the eye of the beholder, as it were, for here an adverb that ordinarily means “brief” is most likely intended to indicate “limited,” with emphasis not so much on its brevity as on the fact that Satan’s time has divinely set limits. In any case John’s immediate concern is that Satan is not omniscient, as God alone is. What Satan knows is that God has set boundaries to his time, and thus his “fury” is about to be poured out on the generations that succeed John’s. And that is what will be played out dramatically in the scene that follows.
THE DRAGON PURSUES GOD’S PEOPLE ON EARTH (12:13–17)
13When the dragon saw that he had been hurled to the earth, he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child. 14The woman was given the two wings of a great eagle, so that she might fly to the place prepared for her in the wilderness, where she would be taken care of for a time, times and half a time, out of the serpent’s reach. 15Then from his mouth the serpent spewed water like a river, to overtake the woman and sweep her away with the torrent. 16But the earth helped the woman by opening its mouth and swallowing the river that the dragon had spewed out of its mouth. 17Then the dragon was enraged at the woman and went off to make war against the rest of her offspring—those who keep God’s commands and hold fast their testimony about Jesus.
This final scene is the clear evidence that John is here picturing in apocalyptic imagery not the future for God’s people newly formed through “the blood of the Lamb,” but the twofold historical/theological reality that the absolutely decisive event in the Holy War lies in the “recent” past.15 At the same time, however, that decisive event, a constant reminder of the ultimate demise of “our ancient foe” predicated on the resurrection itself, is also the present cause of his rage against God’s people, who are a constant reminder of that defeat.16 In so doing John is basically resigned to apocalyptic imagery altogether, since what is being pictured is a historical reality overlayed with other realities that lie beyond merely “year and day.” John’s ultimate point lies with the final sentence (v. 17), which in turn serves as an introduction to the dramatic images that follow in chapter 13 and spill over into chapter 14. But to get there, he uses a number of images that are almost certainly intended to be just that—images—and thus are not necessarily to be understood as referring to specific historical or future events as such. What the first recipients are being told at this point is that their present suffering at the hands of the beast, as it will be pictured in the two scenes that follow immediately (13:1–10 and 11–18), should not be a cause for surprise. If in these coming two scenes their suffering is portrayed in terms of the Empire and emperor worship, here they are being told that what lies behind it all is the dragon himself, Satan, and this as a direct response to his being cast out of heaven, defeated through Christ’s death (at Satan’s own hands) and subsequent resurrection (through God’s power).
This material, therefore, hardly falls into the category of “cause for rejoicing.” Rather, here the seven churches are being offered the ultimate reasons for their suffering, which finds its present expression in the Empire’s unyielding attitude toward those who refuse to call the Emperor “lord” or to acknowledge that he is in any way divine. Thus the emperor will be pictured as the “beast coming out of the earth” (13:11), while the Empire itself is the “beast coming out of the sea” (13:1). The greater difficulty for the later reader is with the present imagery, whose conclusion in verse 17 is the point of everything, but whose details and intent in verses 14–16 are more of a mystery. One’s hope for understanding lies with the fact that the whole passage assumes Genesis 3:15 as its primary background, where Yahweh’s judgment on the serpent includes, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your offspring and hers; he [her offspring] will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.” In many ways the biblical story is the unfolding of this enmity, this initiating moment of the Holy War motif. In the larger biblical story the three primary embodiments of Satan’s seed are the Egyptians, the Canaanites, and the Babylonians. John is particularly interested in Egypt and Babylon, both of whom he sees as embodied in the Roman Empire.
The narrative itself begins simply enough. The dragon, whose role John now proceeds to narrate, having seen that he had been hurled to the earth, chooses to avenge himself by pursuing the woman who had given birth to the male child. This part seems easy enough; the more difficult interpretive issue has to do with verses 14–16, as to where they fit into the larger narrative of the present book. John’s point of reference is plain enough: Israel’s historical escape from Egypt as narrated in Exodus 12:31 through 15:21. At issue is whether this is a recounting of that history, so as to bring the story up to the birth of the Messiah, or whether it is in some way picturing a New Exodus of the followers of Christ. The most likely interpretation seems to be that verses 13–16 are an apocalyptic retelling of the story of Israel—as “the woman who had given birth to the male child”—but in such a way that the two stories (the Old and New) merge at the present point where Satan, through the Empire, is now pursuing Israel’s new, and therefore true, offspring, the followers of the Slain Lamb.
In this view, then, our verses 14–16 are a new, apocalyptic retelling of the essential story of the former covenant, where Israel’s flight from Egypt is pictured in terms of the woman being given the two wings of a great eagle, so that she might fly to the place prepared for her in the wilderness, where she would be taken care of for a time, times and half a time, out of the serpent’s reach. Although there is some debate as to what John intended by this imagery, it seems very likely that he is indirectly referring to the early Jewish Christian community that had fled to Pella, but whose further existence is shrouded in mystery.17 Even so, John’s interest has not to do with that bit of history as such, but with what this imagery now means for the “new diaspora” of followers of the Lamb, whose present story is being told by this retelling of the Israel’s exodus from Egypt with apocalyptic imagery. The temporal signal “time, times, and half a time” probably points to its limited duration. One should especially note, first, that the location is “the wilderness,” which was the location of the first exodus and is regularly repeated in Isaiah in anticipation of the second exodus; and second, that they are miraculously delivered from the river, in this case by the earth … opening its mouth and swallowing the river.18 Thus, whatever John ultimately intended by this imagery, it is now expressed with clear echoes from the Exodus narrative.
Of present interest, then, is John’s use of the imagery of Israel’s flight from Egypt in the first part of the paragraph (vv. 14–16), where Satan now pursues God’s people by means of water like a river … spewed … from the serpent’s mouth. These echoes from the first exodus of God’s people are now being replayed as Rome’s attempt to destroy God’s new covenant people, despite the fact that many of the details lie in the area of mystery. That is, even though John’s overall point seems easy enough to handle, one is less certain as to whether many—if any—of the details have specific referents, or whether they are simply part of a picture that is now being reframed so as to show the similarities between Rome’s present pursuit of the church in Asia Minor and Pharaoh’s earlier pursuit of Israel after they had left Egypt.
In any case, all of this reminiscing about Pharaoh’s pursuit of Israel in the past is intended to serve as a biblical analogy for what Rome is about to do to the churches of western Asia Minor, the point John makes at the end of the paragraph. This sentence (v. 17) clearly signals to John’s readers that the time of toleration is coming to an end. The dragon’s failure to do harm to the woman directly has caused him to be enraged at the woman19—and now John brings it all home—so that he went off to make war against the rest of her offspring (read “the seven churches,” as representing all of Asia), who are described as those who keep God’s commands and hold fast their testimony about Jesus. With this language John offers his own understanding regarding God’s new covenant people, portraying them as loyal to the “commands”—in John’s terms, always referring to “love God and neighbor”—and being faithful to Jesus, even though such faithfulness carries with it the possibility of martyrdom.
THE TWO BEASTS (13:1–18)
Without breaking stride, John’s narrative that concluded in chapter 12 with the activity of the dragon (Satan) against the newly formed people of God now picks up that activity as it will be carried out by the Empire through the second and third members of the “unholy trinity”: the emperor himself and the “chief priest” of the cult of the emperor. With this scene one also comes to the heart of things existentially for John and his original readers. Indeed, those of us who read these texts from the hindsight of history have understandable difficulty appreciating their situation. For despite much that was wrong with the Empire, and despite the less than exemplary character of some of its emperors, most of the people in the churches to whom John was writing would have been served well enough by the Empire, since by and large it functioned as a kind of benevolent dictatorship.
For the most part, therefore, these early Christians would have had few personal reasons to be uptight about the Empire on political grounds, any more than would be usual in such a setting. The Empire simply was; and it affected everyone’s life from a distance, since its policies were carried out at the local level by a variety of forms of authority. Furthermore, the Empire was simply too big and too powerful for anyone to imagine life without it. Survival depended basically on one’s adjusting to the reality of its pervasive presence.
But John saw its corrupting influence for what it was—in two ways. First, part of the adhesiveness of the Empire had been made possible by the cult of the emperor, which was the primary reason—thus political rather than religious—for it to exist in the first place. And nowhere did it thrive more than in the province of Asia. But as a Christian prophet, John saw this reality for the idolatrous evil that it really was. After all, one of the realities of humans as religious beings is that they tend to become like the deities they worship. Thus, worship the emperor as he embodies the values of the Empire, and one becomes like the Empire with regard to those same values. And this is where the second issue lay for John, namely, the corrupting influence of its economic policies, which had the maddening effect of a courtesan (a high-priced, well-placed prostitute), which is precisely the imagery John will eventually pick up in chapter 17 and then will spell out in prophetic detail in chapter 18.
But for now, and continuing the motif of the Holy War from the preceding chapter, John reminds his readers that the dragon, who in his fury has turned to wage war on the rest of the woman’s “seed” (them-selves), is going to vent that fury through his own “seed,” the beast that comes out of the sea (the Roman Empire). Thus what follows in the narrative is to be understood as the result of the dragon’s being so enraged with the woman that he went off to make war against the rest of her offspring (12:13–17)—those who keep God’s commandments and hold fast to their testimony about Jesus.
As with so much else in this book, the present narrative is masterfully composed—a stroke of genius in every way. Having begun the book by noting the special roles of the divine Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—John now sees the Empire as a kind of perverse “trinity”: the dragon, the beast who comes out of the sea (13:1–10), and the beast who comes out of the earth (13:11–18). Thus there is an intended clear relationship between the two beasts, as well as between them and the dragon. The dragon gives its power, throne, and authority to the beast (v. 2b); and by following the beast, people thus worship the dragon (vv. 3b–4a). Likewise, the second beast speaks “as a dragon” (v. 11), but its primary function is to do great wonders on behalf of the first beast, and thus to get people to worship the first beast—by setting up an “image” of the beast, and by taking the beast’s “mark” on their hand and forehead. For John, therefore, the three functioned as a kind of a demonic parody of the divine Trinity.
The Beast out of the Sea (13:1–10)
1The dragon stood on the shore of the sea. And I saw a beast coming out of the sea. It had ten horns and seven heads, with ten crowns on its horns, and on each head a blasphemous name. 2The beast I saw resembled a leopard, but had feet like those of a bear and a mouth like that of a lion. The dragon gave the beast his power and his throne and great authority. 3One of the heads of the beast seemed to have had a fatal wound, but the fatal wound had been healed. The whole world was filled with wonder and followed the beast. 4People worshiped the dragon because he had given authority to the beast, and they also worshiped the beast and asked, “Who is like the beast? Who can make war against it?”
5The beast was given a mouth to utter proud words and blasphemies and to exercise its authority for forty-two months. 6It opened its mouth to blaspheme God, and to slander his name and his dwelling place and those who live in heaven. 7It was given power to make war against God’s people and to conquer them. And it was given authority over every tribe, people, language and nation. 8All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast—all whose names have not been written in the Lamb’s book of life, the Lamb who was slain from the creation of the world.
9Whoever has ears, let them hear.
10“If anyone goes into captivity,
into captivity they will go.If anyone is killed with the sword,
with the sword they will be killed.”This calls for patient endurance and faithfulness on the part of God’s people.
After the considerable introduction with the two scenes in chapter 12, and now picking up some of its imagery, John notes that the dragon, introduced in 12:3 and identified as Satan in verse 9, stood on the shore of the sea. He is positioned there because what John will see next is a beast coming out of the sea, just as the second beast will “come out of the earth.” This is a moment for which John has already been prepared by the great angel in chapter 10, who stood with “his right foot on the sea and his left foot on the land,” indicating that despite all present appearances, both land and sea belong ultimately to God, not to Satan and the Empire. The description that follows is in two parts. In verses 1–4, John describes the beast itself and its relationship to the dragon, and concludes with people’s response. In the second part (vv. 5–8), he goes on to describe the beast’s activities, and again concludes with people’s response. But in this latter case John concludes the whole vision with a warning and exhortation to the people of God (vv. 9–10).
The actual description of the beast tends to defy one’s imagination, mostly because John is borrowing directly from Daniel 7, putting on it the stamp of his own historical situation. Thus even though one can imagine a beast with seven heads, that in fact is not what is first up. Rather, John begins with the fact that it had ten horns, and further notes that it had ten crowns on its horns, meaning of course that each of the ten horns had a crown on it. He then returns to the seven heads, on each of which was inscribed a blasphemous name. Whether John had specific names in mind by this designation or whether this is merely apocalyptic description cannot be known from our distance; but there can be little question that he is here describing the city of Rome, set on seven hills as it was. But the ten horns are a bit more problematic; in 17:12 they are specifically identified as “ten kings who have not yet received a kingdom, but who for one hour will receive authority as kings along with the beast.” However one is to understand this in terms either of specifics or of how it finally played out in history, John is most likely here referring to a large group of petty “kings,” such as the Herods in Palestine, whose “kingship” would be altogether dependent on their playing the Empire’s game—although the picture in chapter 17 refers to them as “ten kings who have not yet received a kingdom.”
The actual description of the beast occurs in verse 2, where John is drawing heavily from the several beasts in Daniel 7:5–7 but putting his own twist on things. As with Daniel’s third beast, this one resembled a leopard; like the second one, it had feet like those of a bear; and like the first one, it had a mouth like that of a lion. Even though there is some debate as to Daniel’s intent regarding his fourth beast, there can be little question here. Rome has assumed the power of all the preceding empires, and that because the dragon gave the beast his power and his throne and great authority. Thus from John’s perspective at the turn of the second century, Satan ultimately lay behind the Empire and all evils associated with it.
But what happens next (v. 3) is a totally new twist, an altogether Johannine reflection of a common legend about Nero. It is now expressed, however, in language that also functions as a deliberate parody of the death and resurrection of Christ, a parody that is a bit difficult to put into English and is therefore missing in the NIV. Thus where the present text reads regarding one of the heads of the beast that it seemed to have a fatal wound, the Greek is expressed in language reflecting the Gospel accounts (“a head that had been slain unto death”), which is further described not as “a fatal wound,” but as a plague of death from which it had been healed. It should also be noted that even though the present imagery is almost certainly a reflection on the Nero redivivus myth (Nero returned to life, as it were), the implication of the final clause is that the beast itself (thus Rome) had been healed, which in turn will lead all “the earth and its inhabitants” to worship this first beast (v. 12). Thus, reflecting his own take on recent history, John notes that the whole world was filled with wonder and followed the beast. Therefore, even though in John’s narrative the beast has done nothing yet except appear, the entire known world of that time have become followers of the beast. From John’s perspective this in turn meant that they also thereby worshiped the dragon. Thus John perceives the whole Empire as following a perverse sort of death and resurrection, all of which had been orchestrated by Satan himself. So, in parody of Exodus 15:11 (cf. Ps 89:8), they worshiped the beast by asking, Who is like the beast? Who can make war against it? Of course, from John’s perspective this is a purely rhetorical question, because God’s people are about to be slain not because they “make war against” Rome, but because in effect they refuse to “make war” in her behalf.
The second part of the narrative (vv. 5–8) goes on to detail the beast’s activities. In verses 5 and 6 John describes its blasphemies, and then in verse 7 describes its conquest of Christian believers; this latter is then further described with language from 5:9. In verse 8 in turn, the two groups portrayed to this point (God’s people, and the rest—those who worship the beast) are pictured in sharply contrasting terms.
Thus, again picking up the numerical figure forty-two months from Daniel 7, John begins by indicating the nature of the beast’s activities that were allowed him: to utter proud words and blasphemies. The language “allowed him,” of course, is not in the text itself; but the implication of the series of passive verbs suggests both that the power was not inherent to the beast but rather came to him from Satan, while at the same time it implies that the beast’s time has been set ultimately by God and not by merely human power or ingenuity. The beast’s power by way of abusive words is then partly repeated in the next sentence, where John notes specifically that the beast opened its mouth to blaspheme God. This in turn evolves into a threefold slander against God: against God’s name; against heaven, God’s dwelling place; and against those who live in heaven, referring in this latter case to the angelic host. It is this recognition of the clear relationship between the power of the Empire and Satan’s activities that makes John such a truly Christian prophet.
But the ultimate reason for all of this lies with the next sentence (v. 7), and the astute reader should once again observe the set of passives. On the one hand, it was given power to make war against God’s people and to conquer them, where the passive voice of the verb once more implies that its power was not inherent to its nature as a beast, but to the twofold reality that the power came from Satan (v. 2b) and was allowed by God. At the same time, and now reflecting on the actualities of history, it was given authority over every tribe, people, language and nation.20 And again, this is a truly biblical view of history, that the Empire became powerful through the work of Satan, and because God allowed it.
The climax of all this is that just as God the Father receives glory as his true children worship God the Son, so in this case the dragon receives his perverse glory as all the inhabitants of the earth … worship the beast. However, so as not to include God’s own people among “all the inhabitants of the earth,” John concludes by excluding them, but does so by describing the others negatively: all whose names have not been written in the Lamb’s book of life. And again, to accentuate the One who has the real power, power that appears as mere weakness to the world, John further concludes, the Lamb who was slain from the creation of the world. Although this latter phrase may seem quite normal to some readers, it is in fact the first of its only two occurrences in the book (here and in 17:8). And a most remarkable theological moment it is! Here is John the theologian giving his ultimate theological expression to things, such as one finds in the prologue to the Gospel that bears his name. For even though “the Lamb … was slain” at a given point in history during the reign of Tiberius Caesar, what the Roman emperor and his army did not know was that their execution of a supposed revolutionary was in fact God’s ultimate redemptive moment which had been orchestrated from all eternity—because at the heart of the Christian gospel is the awesome reality that God the Creator is also God the Redeemer. And according to John, that redemptive moment, which began historically with the creation of our planet, was ultimately fulfilled early in the first Christian century through the death and resurrection of the incarnate Lamb of God, the Lamb “who takes away the sin of the world.” And as one is wont to remind his readers, this is the only God there is! Moments like these are what should cause one to recognize our “author” (whoever actually penned the book) as the same man who wrote the Gospel that bears the name of John, even though his name does not appear in the Gospel in the way it does at the beginning of this book (1:4).
It is therefore no cause for wonder, even if for later readers it is the cause of some consternation, that John concludes this powerful moment with the same theme that he did with each of the seven letters in chapters 2 and 3, which in turn echo the language of Jesus himself as found in the Gospel records: Whoever has ears, let them hear. But it is also clear that John is herewith concluding by picking up what he had said a sentence earlier, that the beast “was given power to make war against God’s people and to conquer them.” John therefore follows this call for attention by what is most likely a cryptic forewarning of what is to come, couched in language borrowed from Jeremiah 15:2. But whereas Jeremiah mentions four groups, those destined for death, the sword, starvation, and captivity, John narrows these to two groups (captivity and sword), but elaborates on Jeremiah’s poetry, thus:
If anyone goes into captivity,
into captivity they will go.If anyone is killed by the sword,
with the sword they will be killed.
With these words at the end of his long description of Rome as the “beast coming out of the sea,” John’s reason for this litany is finally disclosed. What he has offered is not simply a prophetic word about the satanic nature of Rome and its emperors, but also a clear warning to God’s people regarding what is to come for them: captivity and/or execution. It is therefore not surprising that he should conclude with yet another call for patient endurance and faithfulness on the part of God’s people. And it is of further interest to point out that John’s word order puts up front what is most needed in the coming crisis: “patient endurance,” which in turn will be in evidence through their “faithfulness” to Christ and his people.
The Beast out of the Earth (13:11–18)
11Then I saw a second beast, coming out of the earth. It had two horns like a lamb, but it spoke like a dragon. 12It exercised all the authority of the first beast on its behalf, and made the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast, whose fatal wound had been healed. 13And it performed great signs, even causing fire to come down from heaven to earth in full view of everyone. 14Because of the signs it was given power to perform on behalf of the first beast, it deceived the inhabitants of the earth. It ordered them to set up an image in honor of the beast who was wounded by the sword and yet lived. 15The second beast was given power to give breath to the image of the first beast, so that the image could speak and cause all who refused to worship the image to be killed. 16It also forced all people, great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hands or on their foreheads, 17so that they could not buy or sell unless they had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of its name.
18This calls for wisdom. Let those who have insight calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man.a That number is 666.
With this paragraph John moves on from the Empire and its emperors to the cult of the emperor that was originally intended as less of a religious phenomenon than as a way of bringing cohesion to the disparate parts of the Empire. Worship the emperor as a kind of deity and one must allow him to do almost anything he wishes. It is in fact highly unlikely that the emperor who was (ultimately) responsible for John’s exile took himself seriously as a god; nonetheless he was quite willing to have temples built in his honor and thus for the cult of the emperor to flourish. After all, such “divinity” was to his great advantage. Thus John begins this section of his narrative with, then I saw a second beast, this one coming out of the earth. In this case, the opening description of the beast himself is quite short (v. 11 only), so that John might spend most of the narrative describing its activities (vv. 12–17). As with the former beast, John’s major focus is on the response of the earth and its inhabitants.
The brief description of the second beast is set forth as a parody of the Lamb; thus it had two horns like a lamb. But reality is that this “lamb” spoke like a dragon. Furthermore, its reason for being (as with the cult of the emperor) was to exercise all the authority of the first beast on its behalf, with the singular aim of making the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast. However, even though the second beast represents the cult of the emperor in some way, it seems less likely that it does so in terms of an organized priesthood as such. More likely what one is dealing with here are the local officials who elsewhere are called “the kings of the earth,” who have their authority from the Empire/emperor. These petty kings would enforce emperor worship not at all for religious reasons but as a form of their own allegiance to the emperor, not to mention for their own purposes—to establish a kind of solidarity that gives their local rule more lasting power. In any case, and picking up from what was said about the first beast, John goes on to remind his readers once more that the present “power” of the beast lies with the fact its fatal wound had been healed. That is, having survived the dreadful year of 69 CE (dreadful as far as the Empire itself was concerned), the Empire had recovered from this “fatal wound,” aided now especially by the priests of the cult of the emperor. So three decades or so later the Empire and its emperor had the sense of total invincibility.
What appears next in John’s narrative is one of the more puzzling moments in the book, as to whether John intended something in terms of specifics—and if so, what?—or whether this is simply analogical in some way. In any case, much of what John has had to say about the current beast (Rome) also had its analogous moments with Pharaoh’s Egypt, from which God had rescued Israel. This appears to be another such moment, although the specifics are not part of the Exodus story. What is analogous is that it performed great signs just as Pharaoh’s magicians were able to do—to a very limited degree. What these present “signs” may have consisted of cannot be known, but one of them was even to cause fire to come down from heaven to earth. This seems intended as some kind of parody of divine authority, especially echoing the narrative about Elijah in 1 Kings 18:18, even if we cannot know the specifics—although it is almost certainly a reflection on the reality that “magicians” can do what appears to be genuinely magical. And since they were done in full view of everyone, this beast thus deceived the inhabitants of the earth. This (probably very real) deception, whatever it might have been, allowed this second beast to order them to set up an image in honor of the first beast, who is once more described as the beast who was wounded by the sword and yet lived.
The end result of this parody is that this second beast was given [a passive verb that implies Satan as the author] power to give breath to the image of the first beast, so that the image could speak. Again, this is most likely Johannine imagery pure and simple, as his way of indicating that the real power of the Empire was Satan himself. Thus the priests of the cult of the emperor, having power to do satanic “miracles,” also had the power to cause all who refused to worship the image of the beast (= the emperor) to be killed. And with this, one now has insight into John’s own considerable prophetic insight as to what would soon happen to followers of the Slain Lamb, who would in fact “refuse to worship the image” of the beast.
What follows turns out to be another of the more infamous moments in the Revelation, since refusal on the part of followers of the Lamb “to worship the image of the beast” would lead to their being ostracized from most forms of everyday life in the Empire. The way the Empire would be able to isolate them would be to “mark” them, as those who refused to bear the mark of the beast himself. Thus regarding Roman culture in general, John describes people’s compliance with the emperor’s demands in terms of their being forced … to receive a mark on their right hands or on their foreheads. The reason for this particular placement of the mark is not certain, but it includes the most visible portion of the human head and the hand both of greeting and of closing business deals. This requirement itself was absolute and universal, so that it included all people, indicated as such by John’s noting that it embraced those on the extreme ends of society: great and small, rich and poor, free and slave. One can scarcely miss the implications. The “small,” of course, refers to the “poor” and the “slave”; but those to be numbered also include the “great,” and thus the “rich” and “free,” so that even they are included among the marked.
Finally, to make sure that his readers cannot mistake who the beast represents at this point, John tells them that even though it is the number of the beast … it is also the number of a man. He then gives the number as 666, a number that seems designed to point to Nero Caesar, using Hebrew numbers. And if one cannot be sure about the latter, one can be absolutely sure of the final implication of this numbering for John’s readers: that they would be excluded from all ordinary human intercourse if they did not play the emperor’s game. Hence John’s final sentence reminds them that this calls for wisdom, since whatever else may be in store for them—especially in light of the special place the number seven plays in the biblical economy—the number that the rest of the world will have to own is the number of a man, a designation that in this case is intended to mark him off as merely human, not divine, whatever bold claims some of the emperors were inclined to make.
We should perhaps conclude this section by noting that whether intended by John or not—and it is more likely he did—the net result of this passage is a kind of “unholy trinity” that will be found again in the Final Battle in chapters 19–20, where the two beasts—there called the beast and the false prophet (from 16:13)—and Satan are cast into the lake of fire and sulfur. Thus the dragon, Satan, is a perverse reflection of God the Father (having all power, etc.); the first beast is clearly a parody of Christ; and the second beast, although not directly related to the Holy Spirit, is nonetheless referred to as a false prophet, who in turn parodies the Spirit-inspired prophets of the church. This seems too close to the heart of Johannine theology to be merely guesswork on the part of the later interpreter. Thus a book that begins with clear reference to the Father, Son, and Spirit now in the middle suggests that its demonic counterpart exists in Satan, the Empire, and emperor worship. All of this serves as warning to God’s people not to participate in the “religion” of the Empire, which is moving toward emperor worship as a means of giving it cohesion. What follows seems intended by John to pull several of the preceding pieces together in one place, even though, as will be noted, some of the connections may not be immediately obvious to a later reader, and especially so in a language other than the original Greek.
TWO INTERLUDE VISIONS (14:1–13)
What happens next in John’s narrative appears to be something like two interlude visions between the warnings of chapter 13 and the final set of seven woes in chapters 15–16, where he spells out God’s intended judgments on the Empire itself. This set of visions, therefore, which first of all respond to what has preceded, at the same time prepare the reader for the final (but original!) “tale of two cities”—the city of “man” and the city of God. Thus these interlude visions are not as disparate as they might appear at first reading. The first one in particular seems to function as something of a postlude to the preceding judgments on the Empire and emperor worship. Indeed, together with the preceding two chapters they offer the theological/prophetic center of things for John. Here at last are the theological explanations of God’s coming judgments, in which the martyrs are accorded their special place in the divine design. In effect John is now offering his own “tale of the martyrs.”
In this regard, and thus in keeping with the Old Testament prophetic tradition in general, John simply does not the let the pictures of grim darkness for God’s people (ch. 13) go very long without lightening the load with equally significant visions of divine blessedness. So just as Amos 9:11–16 follows the unrelenting judgments that had preceded it, and Isaiah 1:1–31 is followed by 2:1–5 (cf. Isa 4:2–6 following 2:6–4:1), so here the gruesome pictures of chapter 13 are followed by a picture of eschatological victory, as the contrasts between the two kinds of marks on the foreheads seem to make certain. The single great—and truly significant—difference between what his prophetic predecessors were doing and what John does is that in the former case the “bad guys” were most often the Israelites themselves, whereas in John’s case it is the satanically driven policies of the Empire.
At the center of everything is Christ and his defeat of Satan pictured in chapter 12. But those who follow Christ are themselves followers of the Slain Lamb, and therefore they may well expect that Satan, by the very nature of things, will pour out his wrath on the followers of the Lamb. And he will do this through his associates, the Empire and its emperors who have become both rulers and objects of worship. So what ensues is a series of snapshots, as it were, of coming realities. First up is a prophetic vision regarding the martyrs (vv. 1–5), who are described so as to stand in deliberate contrast to the preceding two scenes, and who are being assured of their special place in the divine plan. This in turn is followed by a series of three angelic words (vv. 6–9), which in turn (a) make a final pitch for the gospel, (b) announce the fall of “Babylon the Great,” and (c) offer a final warning to those who might be tempted to worship the beast, in case the restrictions imposed on believers (in ch. 13) might cause some to dissemble in this matter.
Thus, disparate as some of these items may seem, in the narrative as a whole this material functions in two ways. First, it offers an immediate response to the gruesome realities of chapter 13, reminding John’s readers that not only had God not forgotten his own, but that in fact God and Christ are the rulers yet! At the same time, second, the final two paragraphs anticipate much of the rest of the book, but in reverse order, where God’s judgments on evil (chs. 15–20) are followed by eternal glory for God’s people (chs. 21–22). Thus, as elsewhere, John readers on the one hand are being encouraged, while on the other hand they are being reminded that things will still get worse before they get better.
The Lamb and the 144,000 (14:1–5)
1Then I looked, and there before me was the Lamb, standing on Mount Zion, and with him 144,000 who had his name and his Father’s name written on their foreheads. 2And I heard a sound from heaven like the roar of rushing waters and like a loud peal of thunder. The sound I heard was like that of harpists playing their harps. 3And they sang a new song before the throne and before the four living creatures and the elders. No one could learn the song except the 144,000 who had been redeemed from the earth. 4These are those who did not defile themselves with women, for they remained virgins. They follow the Lamb wherever he goes. They were purchased from among the human race and offered as firstfruits to God and the Lamb. 5No lie was found in their mouths; they are blameless.
This paragraph has had as rocky a history of interpretation as any other in the book, and more than most. The reason for this is not difficult to find, since it picks up language—especially numbers—from earlier in the book, and then seems to deal with them in a considerably different way. Not only so, but one is confronted at the beginning by the continuing difficulty with John’s “geographical” language, since the scene appears to be earthly (“standing on Mount Zion”), but in fact all the rest of it is heavenly, and there has been no movement of John himself since his arrival in heaven at the beginning of chapter 4. At the same time one must also deal with the mixing of temporal and spatial images as well, since in verse 2 the “sound comes from heaven,” yet in verse 3 those singing are “before the throne.”
That John is still in heaven even in verse 1 is made certain by the fact that the reader is immediately confronted by the Lamb (from ch. 5) and “God and the Lamb” (v. 4, echoing chs. 4–5), and then by the 144,000 (echoing ch. 7),who are singing a new song before the heavenly entourage (again echoing ch. 5) and who are noted as “having been purchased from among the human race” (ch. 5). What is new, and what gives a new twist to the narrative, is that they are now “on Mount Zion,” and are identified as not having broken the seventh and ninth commandments (against adultery and false witness).
The new scene begins yet again with the phrase then I looked, which not only places John still in the heavenly scene, but also continues the narrative from chapter 12 without a break in “geography,” but rather only in the considerable variety of the various pictures themselves. In keeping with John’s overall concerns, the first thing noted is that there before me was the Lamb, who had had a central role at the beginning of the narrative with which this part of the story began (12:11), and who was also featured, although more indirectly, in the preceding narrative about the Empire (13:8). The surprising feature is that he is seen standing on Mount Zion, which in this case can be understood only in a figurative sense; at issue is what figurative sense, since this term recurs throughout the Old Testament and therefore is not easy to pin down, although most often is a symbolic way of speaking about Jerusalem. Most likely John is here, as with the author of Hebrews, using earthly imagery to depict the heavenly expression of “the Holy City, Jerusalem” (Hebrews 12:22), which later in the book he sees as coming down out of heaven from God (21:10).
Also standing with him (the Lamb) were 144,000 who had his name and his Father’s name written on their foreheads. This very intentional symbolism seems to strike several chords at once. First, the numerical reference takes one back to the narrative in 7:4–8, where this (probably same) group is first introduced as those who will experience great “tribulation” at the hands of God’s enemies (7:14). Although John does not here say “ the 144,000,” he probably intends the reader to understand this as the same group, thus using this symbolic number to refer to the martyrs. This seems further supported by their being already present in heaven. Second, and more importantly, they stand in obvious contrast to those who in the preceding chapter have the “mark of the beast” on their foreheads; and as before, this is the mark of ownership. Third, and again in deliberate contrast to what has preceded, what is written on their foreheads is not just a mark designating “belonging to …”; rather, they bear the actual names of both the Lamb and the Father on their foreheads. This is belonging of the ultimate kind.
In typical fashion, after “seeing” comes the phrase and I heard. The sound is then said to have come from heaven, which ordinarily would make one think that John was on earth; but the rest of the scene takes place only in heaven, thus indicating that this is where John continues to see what unfolds. When John goes on to describe what he heard, one has a sense of mixed signals, since the first element in the description is clamorous, picking up loud noises from nature, both earth and heaven. Thus the sound is likened to the roar of rushing waters and like a loud peal of thunder. The rest of the narrative indicates that these are simply preludes, attention-getting devices as it were, to what John further heard and saw. “Prelude” seems to be the right term here since what follows is the music of heaven, played on harps and sung by the martyrs themselves. Thus John first describes the sound I heard as like that of harpists playing on their harps—the swell of many musicians playing on their many-stringed instruments at once.
Even more significantly, the stringed musicians were accompanying the ultimate choir, the martyrs, now pictured as heavenly singers on whose foreheads were written the names of both the Father and the Lamb. Appropriate to their role and setting, John says they sang a new song in the presence of the entire primary heavenly personages, thus before the throne [in this case of both Father and Son, chs. 4–5] and before the four living creatures and the elders (also chs. 4–5). At this point the modern (especially Western) reader must give up the penchant for literalism, and (especially) chronological sequencing, and hear the text on its own terms, and thus for the glory that belongs to it. This is not about time; this is about who. Here is the divine response through the prophet John to assure his readers that even though martyrdoms will come—and there will be many—the martyrs themselves have a special place in the divine economy. Thus, no one could learn the song they were singing except the 144,000 themselves, who had been redeemed from the earth. This most unusual locution simply collapses into one clause the twofold reality that their heavenly existence was already assured (“redeemed from the earth”), and that it was so because of the work of Christ (they “had been redeemed”).
Even though what follows is a description that has tended to defy the best efforts of readers and interpreters, one can nonetheless make relatively good sense of it if one keeps it in the context of the Holy War. After all, celibacy as such is nowhere seen as a virtue in the New Testament. Rather, John is here using Holy War imagery pure and simple, while at the same time he is anticipating verse 8, where “fallen Rome” is pictured as being judged because she, Babylon the Great, “had made all the nations drink the maddening wine of her adulteries.” Crucial to this understanding are two combined phenomena from the Old Testament regarding Israel’s own “holy war”: that soldiers were forbidden sexual relations during times of war, and that idolatry is commonly denounced as a form of adultery (in the dated but exquisite language of the KJV, “going awhoring after other gods”). In such a context one can make perfectly good sense of the next clause, that these are those who did not defile themselves with women, for they remained virgins. This is not a celebration of celibacy as such, but imagery pointing toward the reality that the Holy War has already begun, and that God’s people must prepare themselves for it in the same way as did the soldier in ancient Israel.
That this is John’s own point seems to be made certain by the way the paragraph concludes. First, they are described as those who follow the Lamb wherever he goes, which John most likely intended to have a double focus. Contextually, and as the first thing up, John sees the martyrs in heaven, in the special company of the Lamb whose own “martyrdom” they had emulated. Thus in keeping with the story, they are envisioned as his closest followers in the heavenly entourage.
But that is not all. Their current presence in the heavenly scene is further pictured by way of Old Testament sacrificial language. First, the martyrs are described as purchased from among the human race; and even though not made explicit, for John the purchase price has been “the blood of the Lamb.” Thus they belong to God in this special way; as martyrs (in the first meaning of that Greek word, “witnesses”) who “follow the Lamb wherever he goes,” they “were purchased from among the human race” so as to be offered as firstfruits to God and the Lamb. Here John is most likely picking up the imagery of Jeremiah 2:2–3, which refers to the first Exodus:
I remember the devotion of your youth,
how as a bride you loved meand followed me through the desert,
through a land not sown.Israel was holy to the Lord,
the firstfruits of his harvest;all who devoured her were held guilty,
and disaster overtook them.
With this imagery, and in keeping with this motif throughout the book, John is warning his readers that these who are “firstfruits” also guarantee that a greater “harvest” (more martyrdoms) still awaits them. So once more he is warning the churches that it will get far worse before it gets better; that the early martyrs are the first of more to come. At the same time, those who would recognize the Jeremiah reference might also see the future God has in store for the Empire: “disaster” will eventually “overtake them” as well.
The final description of these first martyrs is one that when read in English as no lie was found in their mouths, can lead one to think of everyday prevarication. But in biblical terms this language has to do with what is ultimately true or false: good and evil in the larger sense, as having to do with confessing Christ as Lord or denying him under the threat of pain and death. Indeed, for John the incarnate Lord Jesus is “the Way and the Life” because he is above all the ultimate embodiment of “Truth” (John 14:6). Thus John concludes that they are blameless, most likely because under the threat of torture, and eventually of death, they have proved themselves worthy of the Lamb. These are they who earlier in the book are viewed as singing, “Worthy is the Lamb,” who had been slain for the sins of the world. Indeed, in John’s view to deny Christ is the ultimate lie, just as confession of Christ as Lord is the ultimate truth. Thus to reduce this final clause to merely petty fibbing (as though any such lie is either petty or a mere fib) is to miss John by several miles. They are “blameless,” and thus offered as “firstfruits,” because in the context of his book they have not told the “lie” about the Lamb, as to who he really is.
Thus this remarkable paragraph, occurring as it does (without numbers, please!) as a follow-up to the dreadful, painful scenes of chapter 13, serves to assure John’s readers yet again that even though it will get worse, far worse, before it gets better, they nonetheless are still “the apple of God’s eye.” In this way, and at this point in the narrative, the churches are being assured once again that even though the days ahead will be full of hardships of various kinds, including death itself, theirs is the glory yet—a glory that belongs neither to Rome nor its petty kings who are about to unleash a horror of persecution upon them. And in this view of things the martyrs themselves have a place of special honor.
The Messages of the Three Angels,
plus a Warning and a Beatitude (14:6–13)
6Then I saw another angel flying in midair, and he had the eternal gospel to proclaim to those who live on the earth—to every nation, tribe, language and people. 7He said in a loud voice, “Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment has come. Worship him who made the heavens, the earth, the sea and the springs of water.”
8A second angel followed and said, “‘Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great,a which made all the nations drink the maddening wine of her adulteries.”
9A third angel followed them and said in a loud voice: “If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives its mark on the forehead or on the hand, 10they, too, will drink the wine of God’s fury, which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath. They will be tormented with burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb. 11And the smoke of their torment will rise for ever and ever. There will be no rest day or night for those who worship the beast and its image, or for anyone who receives the mark of its name.” 12This calls for patient endurance on the part of the people of God who keep his commandments and remain faithful to Jesus.
13Then I heard a voice from heaven say, “Write this: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.”
“Yes,” says the Spirit, “they will rest from their labor, for their deeds will follow them.”
In the overall narrative of the book, the three angels who appear next (vv. 6–11) serve as the divine response(s) to the coming martyrdoms portrayed in the preceding paragraph. Thus, disparate though they may seem on first reading, they can be shown to be just as carefully thought through and presented as everything else in the book. That the three of them are to be read together is indicated by John’s introducing only the first one with the common motif then I saw. Moreover, in each case they respond directly to previous items in the larger narrative. Thus in sequence, the three angels (a) call for the churches to continue their ministry of evangelism (i.e., sharing the Good News about Jesus) at whatever cost, (b) announce the coming doom on Rome, and (c) once more warn believers of God’s judgment on those who would yield to the pressure of the Empire to engage in emperor worship as a means of survival.
What John saw next was another angel flying in midair. In light of all previous mentions of angels, this must mean “another angel, one who is flying in midair,” rather than “another angel who is also flying in midair,” which would have been irrelevant in any case. Then, in a striking departure from all that precedes, this angel, rather than a human being, had the eternal gospel to proclaim to those who live on the earth. At this point in the narrative this angel most likely functions as a “prop,” as it were, allowing John thus to begin this series not with a word of judgment, but with yet another call to faith. This is the only appearance of the term “eternal gospel” in the book, and with it John reminds his readers, as he does similarly in chapter 12, that the good news about Jesus has its beginnings in eternity, not just when Jesus had made his earthly appearance several decades earlier. And as always, John sees the gospel as good news for everyone, so “those who live on the earth” are now for the sixth time (of seven) spelled out in terms of every nation, tribe, language, and people.21
In light of this preamble, one is therefore taken a bit by surprise at the content of what the angel had to proclaim. To be sure, the first part is easy enough. Speaking with a loud voice, he called on them to fear God and give him glory. This is then followed not with any content of the gospel itself, but with the reason for people to do so, namely, because the hour of his judgment has come. This phrase offers the reader the essential clue as to the role of these three angels. Primarily, they serve to anticipate the rest of the book; at the same time they continue to remind John’s readers of the goal of everything: worship of the eternal God as Creator of all things. By repeating the descriptive language used in 10:5, John reminds them again that the God they serve is the one who made the heavens, the earth, and the sea, to which John here adds that God is the creator of fresh water as well, thus the springs of water. This first word in response to the coming martyrdoms serves as another reminder that the eternal God “is the ruler yet.”
The reason for the content of the first angel’s proclamation becomes apparent with the second angel who followed, since the next word is one of judgment on Rome itself. Echoing Isaiah 21:9, the angel announces in the past tense (!), Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great. With these words, and for the first of three times, Rome is likened to Israel’s ancient nemesis, Babylon. At John’s moment in history this would have been a courageous word indeed, but of such courage are the prophets made. The reason for God’s judgments are then noted in brief, to be spelled out in greater detail in 18:1–20, which begins (v. 2) by repeating this doom oracle. Here for the first time the Empire is pictured as the ultimate harlot. The “harlot’s” ultimate sins are that she made all the nations drink the maddening wine of her adulteries, language which in keeping with the imagery seems to be echoing Jeremiah 51:7. This is almost certainly intended to be a word of encouragement to the churches as they continue to bear witness to Christ at the outset of what John recognizes is the coming holocaust. However the rest of the world may have seen Rome, which in its own arrogance saw itself as offering the world the Pax Romana (“Roman peace”), the prophet John saw their “peace” as in bold resistance to God and to God’s people. Thus he pictures her (Rome and its Empire) in the role of a harlot, seducing the whole known world by “the maddening wine of her adulteries.” Thus the second angel’s announcement anticipates the longer narrative of chapter 17.
The third angel is then given the longest of these brief speeches, to whose introduction is added, and said with a loud voice (= pay attention, reader). The content of the speech intentionally ties the present material directly back to what has preceded in chapter 13, thus serving to connect these two visions for the sake of the reader. At the same time John totally reverses the role of the martyrs and those who worship the beast in the preceding narrative. Thus the angel begins with the condition that if anyone worships the beast [13:4, 8] and its image [13:14] and receives its mark on the forehead or on the hand (13:16–17); but now, rather than their being able to buy and sell by so doing, instead they, too, will drink the wine of God’s fury, which is then further described with language from Isaiah 51:7 as having been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath. In so doing John thus picks up the promised judgment announced in the sixth seal in 6:16 (cf. 11:18).
This “full strength” of “God’s fury,” despite the difficulty many modern readers have with it, is then described in a way that is quite in keeping with both the overall perspective of this book as well as with the biblical lex talionis (law of just retribution, “an eye for an eye”). In common parlance, it means that one gets back what one gives out. Therefore, as is common to all human history, just as people become like the “god/s” they worship, so in the divine order of things those who worship the emperor and thus delight in his armies will receive in kind what they delight in. So John, again echoing language from the Old Testament and anticipating the judgment of Satan in 20:7–10, envisions that they will be tormented with burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and the Lamb. Indeed, the smoke of their torment will rise for ever and ever (cf. Isa 34:10), whose eternal nature is then further emphasized in that there will be no rest day or night for those who worship the beast and its image, or for anyone who receives the mark of its name. To take this imagery literally is simply to miss the point, especially if one is required to look upon the Divine “presence” as a place, which also has a pit for burning sulfur. What it does suggest is that their punishment is timeless; but where “time is no more,” those of us who are by the very nature of things time-bound cannot even imagine our way into such timelessness, and therefore into its eternal nature. As part of the human race, John was giving expression in the only kind of language available to him (and us) the horror of eternal separation from the God in whose image all have been created, and through Christ and the Spirit are being re-created. Such “eternal separation” lies beyond all attempts to imagine, whether it be John’s Revelation or Dante’s Inferno. One must simply hear this for the horror it represents: to be aware of the reality of “the holy angels and the Lamb,” but miss out on being there.
Indeed, John himself seems to recognize the inherent difficulty this presents for the reader, as he returns to speak more directly to believers themselves. Such a future for the followers of the beast in fact calls for patient endurance on the part of the people of God. This implies both that such a future is not theirs, and therefore they must be prepared to endure their present difficulties in light of the kind of future destined for those who choose to follow the beast rather than the Lamb. It is in this light that such people are expected both to keep his commandments and remain faithful to Jesus. And whatever else, one must retain this command within the Johannine understanding that all such “commandments” are encompassed within the two that Jesus himself “required”: (1) love for God, as demonstrated through one’s (2) love for others. John thus concludes what the third angel had said by echoing an earlier conclusion in 12:17, “those who keep God’s commands and hold fast their testimony about Jesus.” From the Johannine perspective, in this way alone does one “remain faithful to Jesus.”
At the same time John is also the ultimate realist, recognizing that such faithfulness will inevitably lead to further martyrdoms. Hence the present passage concludes with yet another voice from heaven, which John heard … say to him, Write this: Blessed are the dead who died in the Lord from now on. What remains clear at this point is that John expects present conditions to get far worse before they get better; and in so doing, he has shown himself once again to be a truly Christian prophet—in both senses of that word: as one who speaks for God, and often does so by announcing what the near future holds for God’s own people. What is difficult for believers in modern Western cultures to assimilate is that following Jesus in these early centuries was also often a prescription for martyrdom. John’s inspired word to his early Christian audience is that they belong among those who are “blessed” by the eternal God—hardly the stuff that most modern North American believers want to hear or believe.
But John is unwilling to let his readers not believe it, so he concludes the beatitude with a divine affirmation, spoken now by the Spirit: Yes … they will rest from their labors, a clause whose follow-up reason has been considerably tinkered with by later scribes. John himself wrote that their rest will be the direct result—for (= because)—of the reality that their deeds will follow them. It is not at all surprising that such a statement would call for some moderation by a few later copyists, one of which lay behind the King James Version, which reads, “and their works do follow them.” The “problem” with John’s text for later readers is twofold: first, John appears to have it backwards, as it were, since one’s works should precede one’s own “rest from their labor”; and second, John’s text is wide open to an understanding that one’s blessedness finally rests on one’s works. But here is a case where John almost certainly used the verb “follow” not in the sense of “come along behind,” but in its equally valid sense of “accompany.” Thus, John’s point is that “those who die in the Lord” will “rest from their labor,” because “their deeds will accompany them.” That is, this is simply picture language meant to assure John’s readers that both they and their deeds will be recognized together in the believers’ final “rest.”
1. One should note especially how 12:17 and 13:1 make it clear that the dragon stands behind everything.
2. On this issue, on which scholarship is quite divided, see the discussion of 14:14–16 below (pp. 201–2).
3. Although John is here reflecting a commonplace reality, nonetheless his language seems to echo that of Isa 26:17: “As a pregnant woman about to give birth writhes and cries out in her pain, so were we in your presence, Lord.”
4. I should perhaps note here that as the result of listening to my lectures on tape, two artists from quite different settings and in a quite different space both sent me copies of their imagery. The fact that neither could agree on how to image this one suggests that such attempts are less than satisfactory, since the imagery is addressed to the imagination of the reader, and no one person’s imagination can sufficiently serve so as to replace that of another. On the other hand, one can also appreciate the richness of the diversity in the human imagination.
5. This also accounts for the slight locational roughness that emerges in this telling of the story, since the whole scene takes place in heaven (vv. 1 and 3), but in v. 6 the woman appears on earth, and will do so for the rest of the narrative, when she reappears in vv. 13–17. The present scene takes place in heaven because John’s primary “geographical” concern throughout the present passage is the placement of the dragon in heaven, from whence he will be cast out in the next scene.
6. It is of some interest that the original NIV translators chose to include John’s “and” at t he beginning of this sentence, since in fact every sentence in the entire chapter (except for the song in vv. 10–11) begins with a kai (“and”). So why here only, one wonders, especially since the “and” is rendered “but” (properly so) at the beginning of v. 8.
7. Michael appears elsewhere in the NT in Jude 9; according to 1 En. 9:1 and 23:4–8, the others have the names Gabriel, Raphael, Uriel, Raguel, Zerachiel and Remiel.
8. For this as a common title for the devil, see n. 9 on p. 31, where the “name” first occurs. Later names such as Lucifer, of course, were not available to John.
9. Cf. the similar (although not poetic) oracle against the king of Tyre in Ezek 26:12–19.
10. See the discussion of 5:12–13 above (pp. 84–88).
11. On this key verb (nikao) see n. 5, p. 28 on 2:7 above.
12. That this is a genuine echo of the Psalm at this point seems to be made certain by the fact that John concludes, “and all that is in it,” which, though spoken about the sea in the psalm, is what makes sense of this otherwise unnecessary phrase in John’s narrative.
13. As an African-American pastor in New York City put it once in an Easter sermon, by way of a “telephone call” between Hell and the Grave, with the latter calling to the former, “He got away! He got away! And he’s got the keys! He’s got the keys!”
14. Language taken from Isaac Watts’s hymn, “Am I a Soldier of the Cross.”
15. One must be careful about using this kind of adjective in such moments, since the seven decades or so since the crucifixion/resurrection of Christ would be “recent” only from our perspective, not theirs!
16. A reality that in my generation was depicted brilliantly by C. S. Lewis in The Great Divorce.
17. On this bit of history see, e.g., Robert Houston Smith’s entry on Pella in the Anchor Bible Dictionary (New York: Doubleday, 1992) 5:220–21.
18. See, inter alia, Isa 40:3 (the best known of these); cf. 41:18; 43:19–20; 48:20–21.
19. Although it is probably more coincidental than otherwise, this clause echoes the sentiment of Gen 3:17, where Yahweh says to the serpent, “I will put enmity between you and the woman.”
20. On this recurring list see p. 85, n. 24.
21. See p. 85 n. 4.