The garden (22:1–6)
Introduction: ‘The Revelation of Jesus Christ’
In Parts II and III we took a look at church history, and considered both how the church has presented Christ and how Christ has inspired the church. We now return to the New Testament, in particular to the book of Revelation, which I deliberately omitted from my original survey.
It may seem strange that, after the three broad surveys of Parts I to III, I should now narrow down my focus to just one New Testament document, and devote the whole of Part IV to the book of Revelation. Why?
The first reason is that the book of Revelation, being an apocalypse, in fact the Christian apocalypse, belongs to a particular literary genre, and on that account requires special treatment.
Secondly, it contains within itself a gallery of pictures of Jesus Christ. In every other New Testment book it has seemed possible to isolate its distinctive emphasis. Each gospel and each epistle has its particular theme. But this is not so with the book of Revelation, which contains a variety of portraits of Christ. It presents him as the first and the last, the lamb and the lion, the thief in the night, the King of kings, the divine judge and the heavenly bridegroom. These and other metaphors come tumbling out of John’s fertile mind. We must do justice to this portrait gallery.
Thirdly, the book of Revelation is the climax of the New Testament. Irrespective of the dates when the New Testament documents were composed, the church has been wise to order the canon in such a way that it begins with the story of Jesus (the four gospels) and the story of the early church (the Acts); it continues with twenty-two letters of apostolic instruction about the Christian faith, life and hope; and it concludes with the book of Revelation, which brings eternity near.
For these reasons the book of Revelation deserves special, individual attention.
Readers’ reactions to the book of Revelation are remarkably varied.
Some Christians are obsessed with it. They suppose that, together with the apocalyptic chapters of the book of Daniel in the Old Testament, it contains a secret history of the world, especially of contemporary events and people, and that they have the key to decipher it. So they predict, often with great self-confidence, the developing world-scene and treat us to lurid descriptions of the final Battle of Armageddon.
For example, Edward Irving, who helped to found the Catholic Apostolic Church in 1832, wrote a learned commentary on the Hebrew text of Daniel, in which he found references to Napoleon Bonaparte, to Louis XVI as the ‘raiser of taxes’, and to Britain as God’s ‘faithful witness’. He also predicted that by 1867 the millennium would have dawned.
Then in our generation, in his immensely popular book The Late Great Planet Earth (1970), Hal Lindsey made the mistake of identifying the ten horns of the beast in Daniel and Revelation as the ten member-states of the European Union. When he wrote, there were six. But in 1981, with the addition of Greece, they became ten. Now, however, they number fifteen! Hal Lindsey was naturally discomfited when this happened. His explanation, given in a one-sentence parenthesis, was that ‘more than ten nations could at one point be admitted’ but that ‘in the final stages it will number ten’.1 Hal Lindsey was also proved mistaken in predicting that the year 1980 could well be the climax of history.2
Such self-styled prophets have so often been proved wrong in their predictions that one would expect their successors to develop a greater measure of humility.
Other Christians, far from becoming obsessed with Revelation, go to the opposite extreme of neglect. They know that the book contains much bizarre imagery. As we read it, we encounter a lamb, a lion and a huge red dragon, together with two fearsome monsters, one emerging out of the sea and the other appearing from inland. The seals of a scroll are broken, trumpets are blown, bowls are poured out, and there are frequent earthquakes, hail storms, flashes of lightning and peals of thunder. Readers are understandably mystified and even intimidated by these unfamiliar phenomena. So they fight shy of the book or, if they begin, they quickly give up in despair, and the book becomes the Cinderella of the New Testament.
A third and positive reaction is exemplified by Professor Richard Bauckham, who is a scholarly specialist in the book of Revelation. He begins his studies entitled The Climax of Prophecy with these words: ‘The Apocalypse of John is a work of immense learning, astonishingly meticulous literary artistry, remarkable creative imagination, radical political critique, and profound theology.’3 This expert evaluation should encourage us to persevere. So should the special blessing which is promised in the third verse both to the lector who reads the book in the public assembly and to those who hear the reading and take to heart what they hear (1:3; cf. 22:18f.).
Four principles of interpretation
Consider now these four principles of interpretation.
First, the Revelation is full of symbolism. Indeed, many people ask impatiently why John resorted to so much strange symbolism, because it makes his book hard to understand. There are probably two explanations. To begin with, John is handling transcendent truths which could not be expressed in straightforward prose. Secondly, it would be not only impossible but imprudent of him to do so. John is writing about the refusal of Christians to worship the Emperor and about the overthrow of the Empire, which would have been regarded by the authorities as seditious. Further, the symbols in the Revelation are to be understood, not visualized. If we were to attempt to visualize them, the result would often be grotesque. For example, God’s redeemed people are said to be wearing robes which have been ‘made...white in the blood of the Lamb’ (7:14). Now I confess that I have never tried to launder dirty linen in lamb’s blood, but the concept is rather revolting, and the consequence would not be to make it white. The interpretation is beautiful, however, namely that the only righteousness which qualifies us to stand in God’s presence is due to the atoning death of Jesus Christ, in whom we have put our trust.
Secondly, the Revelation addresses the past, the present and the future. Indeed these are the three classical theories of interpretation. The ‘praeterist’ view regards almost all the book as alluding to the past, in fact to the events of the early centuries AD, especially the overthrow of the Roman Empire. Then the ‘historicist’ view reads the book as telling the story of the church stage by stage during the whole period between the first and second comings of Christ, including our own generation. But this presupposes a Western horizon, and there is much disagreement about the details. The third or ‘futurist’ view expects most of the book to be fulfilled immediately before the parousia. But in this case it has been irrelevant for the last 1,900 years or more. It is surely unnecessary to be forced to choose between these three, for God’s Word is intended to speak to the church in every age. It seems better, therefore, to adopt a ‘parallelist’ view, which sees every section of the book as recapitulating the whole ‘inter-adventual’ period between the two comings of Christ, each concluding with a scene of judgment and salvation. John sees the visions consecutively, but the realities they symbolize do not happen consecutively.
Thirdly, the Revelation celebrates the victory of God. It depicts conflict between God and Satan, the lamb and the dragon, the church and the world, the holy city Jerusalem and the great city Babylon, the bride and the harlot, those marked on their foreheads with the name of Christ (7:2ff.; 14:1; 22:4), and those marked with the name of the beast (13:17; 14:9, 11; 16:2; 19:20). Revelation depicts more than conflict; it celebrates conquest. The book’s perspective is that already Christ ‘has conquered’ (5:5; cf. 12:9–10), and that his people are meant to share in his victory. ‘To him who overcomes, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I overcame and sat down with my Father on his throne’ (3:21). Thus, as Professor Swete wrote at the beginning of the twentieth century, ‘the whole book is a Sursum corda’, a summons to Christian believers to ‘lift up their hearts’, and to see their tribulations in relation to a victorious, reigning and returning Christ.4
Fourthly, the Revelation focuses on Jesus Christ. The first three words of the book’s Greek text are apokalupsis Iesou Christou, that is, an apocalypse or revelation of Jesus Christ. True, many commentators think that this is a subjective genitive, so that it is Jesus Christ who reveals the contents of the book. But it seems to me much more likely that the genitive is objective, so that the book is above all else an unveiling of the greatness and glory of Jesus Christ. For this is what a beleaguered and persecuted church needs more than anything else, not a series of prophecies about the past or the future, nor even a coded panorama of church history, but a disclosure of the incomparable Christ, once crucified, now resurrected and reigning, and one day returning in power and great glory.
We need now to consider the context of the book. John has been banished to the island of Patmos in the Aegean Sea, on account of his faithful preaching of the Word of God and his testimony to Jesus (1:2, 9). He describes himself as the ‘companion’ of his Asian readers, since he shares with them ‘the suffering and kingdom and patient endurance’ which are theirs ‘in Jesus’ (1:9). And now he is instructed to share with them everything he has seen (1:10), in particular his vision of Christ. What has he to say?
Every commentator supplies his own structural analysis of the book of Revelation, so that the many different proposals form what Professor G. K. Beale has called ‘a maze of interpretative confusion’.5 My plan is not to increase the confusion with yet one more analysis, but rather to concentrate on the ten most striking Christological visions in the book. Each contributes something fresh to its composite ‘revelation of Jesus Christ’ in the fullness of his person and work.
1. Christ claiming to be the First and the Last, and the Living One (Rev. 1)
A vision of the resurrected and eternal Christ
First, then, in chapter 1 (vv. 17–18) we see Christ claiming to be the First and the Last, and the Living One. Indeed, before we read these words, already the earlier verses have given us a rich Christology. Even in the opening salutation (vv. 4–5a), which in most letters is merely a conventional formula, John manages to include a greeting from the Trinity. He wishes his readers grace and peace ‘from him who is, and who was, and who is to come’ (the Eternal Father); and ‘from the seven spirits before his throne’ (presumably the one Holy Spirit, as in verse 10, but said to be seven to indicate his ministry in and through the seven churches); and ‘from Jesus Christ’, who is then given an exalted threefold designation ‘the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth’ (vv. 4 and 5), the latter being particularly audacious, since it is exactly what the Roman Emperor claimed to be.
After this greeting comes a personal doxology to Christ (vv. 5b–6), celebrating what he has done for us, namely that he loves us, that he has set us free from our sins by his sacrificial death, and that he has made us ‘a kingdom and priests’ to serve his God and Father (vv. 5, 6). Then this doxology is immediately followed by an acclamation (v. 7), declaring that Christ is coming back. His coming will be a historical event which somehow will be simultaneously glorious (the clouds symbolizing the glory of God’s presence), visible (our eyes will see him) and universal (for ‘every eye will see him’, of both the penitent and the impenitent).
And the introduction ends with a divine statement in which God repeats that he is the One ‘who is, and who was, and who is to come’ (v. 8), and adds that he is both ‘the Alpha and the Omega’, and ‘the Almighty’.
What is remarkable about these opening eight verses (the greeting, the doxology, the acclamation and the statement) is that in them John, unselfconsciously and unsystematically, alludes to every event in the saving career of Jesus, and so to the essence of the apostolic gospel. He refers to the Lord’s earthly ministry (‘the faithful witness’), his sacrificial death (‘he has freed us from our sins by his blood’), his decisive resurrection (‘the firstborn from the dead’), his supreme exaltation (‘the ruler of the kings of the earth’), his saving achievement (he ‘has made us to be a kingdom and priests’) and his visible return (‘he is coming with the clouds’). And all this in the epistolary introduction before the serious business of the letter has even begun!
In verses 9–11 John sets the scene for his first and defining vision of the glorified Christ. It was a Sunday. He was in exile on the island of Patmos. And he was ‘in the Spirit’, as the revealing and inspiring Spirit took hold of him. Then, before he saw the vision he heard a voice. Loud and peremptory, like the blast of a trumpet, and evidently the voice of Christ himself, it commanded John to write down on a scroll what he was about to see, and to send it to the seven churches of the Roman province of Asia, beginning with Ephesus, the capital and the nearest to Patmos, and continuing north and then south-east on the circular road which linked them all together.
Turning round to see whose voice it was, John’s attention was first caught by seven golden lampstands. They were only the framework, however. Much more important was the person standing among them, in their midst. He is called ‘someone like a son of man’, that is, resembling a human figure, an expression borrowed from the book of Daniel whose chapters 7 and 10 supply much of the following description.
John was struck by the figure’s clothing. He was dressed in a long robe that reached down to his feet and was secured by a golden sash round his chest. It seems to have been the garment of a king, a priest or a judge.
Next, John described various parts of his body. Both his head and his hair were as white as wool or snow, which was Daniel’s description of ‘the Ancient of Days’, that is, of God himself (Dan. 7:9). Now transferred to Christ, it shows that the human figure was also a divine figure. His eyes blazed like fire, piercing hearts; his feet were strong and stable as brass, and his voice was as loud as the breakers crashing on the cliffs of Patmos.
In his right hand the son of man was holding seven stars, to be identified later; out of his mouth there jutted a sharp, double-edged sword, symbolizing his powerful word; and his face shone like the sun in all its brilliance – the face from which on the day of judgment the impenitent will cry out to be hidden (6:16).
It is not surprising that, in reaction to such a glorious vision, like Ezekiel (1:28) and Daniel (8:17; 10:9) before him, John should fall prostrate at his feet as if he were dead. Though not surprising, it is nevertheless anomalous, for he lay dead at the feet of the Living One!
But the same Christ who inspired awe brought comfort. He placed his right hand on John and said to him ‘Do not be afraid.’ Yet how could he not be afraid? It was not only the vision that caused him fear, but the whole situation in which he found himself. He was in exile. What did the future hold for him and for the Christian communities in Asia for which he was responsible? Emperor Domitian was demanding to be addressed as Dominus et Deus Noster (‘our lord and god’), which loyal Christians who had confessed Jesus as Lord could never do. Already a man called Antipas in Pergamum had paid for his faithful witness with his blood (2:13). Who would be next in the annals of Christian martyrdom?
That these things were in John’s mind is evident from the fact that, in his coming letter to Smyrna, Christ will announce himself in the very words of this vision, as ‘the First and the Last, who died and came to life again’ (2:8). He will go on to warn Smyrna of affliction, slander, suffering (adding again ‘Do not be afraid’, v. 10), prison and persecution, and will urge all church members ‘Be faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you the crown of life’ (2:10).
To such a church, enduring persecution and facing the possibility of martyrdom, Christ’s message is more than the command ‘Do not be afraid’ (1:17 and 2:10). It is also the basis of Christian fearlessness, which is twofold. First, Christ shares the eternity of God. For the title he claims ‘I am the First and the Last’ (1:17) is virtually identical with God’s claim ‘I am the Alpha and the Omega’ (1:8). Secondly, he calls himself ‘the Living One’, not in the sense that he survived death, or that he was resuscitated and brought back to this life, only to die again, but that his dead body was resurrected and simultaneously transformed. Consequently he is now ‘alive for ever and ever’, victorious over death, never to die again. Further, because of his resurrection victory he ‘holds the keys of death and hades’,6 that is to say, he has authority over them.
So because Christ is both the Eternal One and the Resurrected One, death has lost its terrors and we have every reason to rejoice, and not be afraid.
In the last two verses of chapter 1 John is instructed to write down his vision, which will include both ‘what is now’ and ‘what will take place later’. He is also informed that the seven stars in Christ’s right hand are ‘the angels of the seven churches’, symbolic probably of the local church leaders (or perhaps of their heavenly counterparts), and that the seven lampstands are the churches themselves, shining like lamps in a dark world (Matt. 5:14).
So the first ‘revelation of Jesus Christ’ is of the risen and eternal Christ. His resurrection is foundational. He is presented throughout, in spite of the onslaughts of the devil, as victorious, having won a decisive victory over evil by his death and resurrection.
2. Christ supervising his churches on earth (Rev. 2 – 3)
Seven marks of an ideal church
The scene changes. Our vision is now focused not so much on the glorious human-divine figure of Christ, as on the churches among which, we are told, he walks (2:1), and to which he instructs John to write.
It is immediately noteworthy that all seven letters to the seven churches have an identical outline.
First comes an announcement of both the recipient and the author of the letter. The recipient is the ‘angel’ of each church. The author is of course Christ, but he describes himself differently in each letter, taking up one or two appropriate phrases from the opening vision. For example, he writes to Smyrna (2:8): ‘These are the words of him who is the First and the Last, who died and came to life again...’
Secondly comes an assertion, which begins in each case with the two words I know. Christ knows his churches intimately, for he is the one ‘whose eyes are like blazing fire’ (2:18), ‘who searches hearts and minds’ (2:23), and ‘who walks among the seven golden lampstands’ (2:1). As he patrols and supervises his churches, he knows everything about them, different in each case. ‘I know your deeds’, he says, five times, but then he makes such assertions as these: ‘I know your hard work and perseverance’; ‘I know your affliction and your poverty’; ‘I know where you live’; ‘I know your love, faith and service’; ‘I know your reputation’; ‘I know your opportunities’; ‘I know your lukewarm complacency.’
Thirdly, Christ sends each church a message adapted to their situation, for each is either praiseworthy or blameworthy, and receives either commendation or criticism accordingly. Most receive a call to repent, and with it a warning and an exhortation.
The fourth part of each letter is an appeal, and in this case it is the same: ‘he who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches’. It is an exceedingly significant sentence. First, although each letter was penned by John, yet through it the Spirit was speaking. Secondly, although John’s letters may have been written months previously, yet through them the Spirit was still speaking (present tense). Thirdly, although each letter is addressed to a particular church, the Spirit was speaking to ‘the churches’ (plural).
Finally, each letter concludes with a promise to Christian overcomers. Generally speaking, it is a promise of eternal life, but this gift is described differently in phrases borrowed from the climax of Revelation 21 and 22.
Since seven was the perfect or complete number (at least in the circles of the author and his readers), it seems legitimate to regard the seven individual churches of the province of Asia as together representing the universal church. And since one particular feature is emphasized in each church, we may perhaps regard these seven features as the marks of an ideal church.
Love. This is the first mark of an ideal church. The church in Ephesus had much to commend it. Christ knew its hard work and perseverance, its intolerant attitude to evil, and its theological discernment. A few years later, at the beginning of the second century, Bishop Ignatius of Antioch, on his way to Rome to be executed as a Christian, wrote to the Ephesians in very laudatory terms: ‘You all live according to truth, and no heresy has a home among you; indeed you do not so much as listen to anyone if they speak of anything except concerning Jesus Christ and his truth.’7
Yet Jesus had something against the Ephesian church: ‘You have forsaken your first love’ (2:4). All the Ephesians’ virtues did not compensate for this lack. It was no doubt at the time of their conversion that their love for him had been ardent and fresh, but now the fires had died down. One remembers Yahweh’s complaint to Jeremiah about Jerusalem: ‘I remember the devotion of your youth, how as a bride you loved me...’ (Jer. 2:2). As with Jerusalem so with Ephesus, the heavenly bridegroom sought to woo his bride back to the first ecstasy of her love. ‘Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first’ (2:5). Without love, everything is nothing.
Suffering. If the first mark of a living church is love, the second is suffering. A willingness to suffer for Christ proves the genuineness of our love for him.
Christ knew the afflictions, the poverty and the slander which the church in Smyrna was having to endure. Perhaps these sufferings were associated with the local emperor cult, for Smyrna boasted of her temple in honour of the Emperor Tiberius. From time to time citizens were required to sprinkle incense on the fire burning before the Emperor’s bust and to confess that Caesar was lord. But how could Christians deny the lordship of Jesus Christ? In AD 156, the venerable Polycarp was Bishop of Smyrna. He faced this same dilemma. In the crowded amphitheatre the proconsul urged him to swear by the genius of Caesar and revile Christ, but Polycarp refused, saying ‘For eighty-six years I have served him, and he has done me no wrong; how then can I blaspheme my king who saved me?’ He was burned at the stake rather than deny Christ.8
More than half a century before this, Christ had already warned the Smyrnaean church that severer trials were coming, including prison and perhaps death. ‘Be faithful, even to the point of death’, Jesus said to them, ‘and I will give you the crown of life’ (2:10).
Truth. The church in Pergamum was dedicated to truth. So Jesus introduces himself as the one who has a sharp two-edged sword issuing from his mouth, symbolizing his word. He describes the Pergamum church as living ‘where Satan has his throne’, for Pergamum was a centre of pagan worship. But ‘we must conclude’, wrote Colin Hemer, ‘that the expression “throne of Satan” refers primarily to the emperor cult as enforced from Pergamum at a time of critical confrontation for the church’.9 Yet, in spite of opposition, and even the martyrdom of Antipas, the church had remained true to Christ’s name and had not renounced its faith in him, even though some church members had succumbed to false teaching which condoned idolatry.
Holiness. Jesus writes next to the church in Thyatira and emphasizes that holiness is another mark of a living church. He begins in terms of warmest commendation, for he knows their love and faith, service and perseverance. These are four fine virtues and include the triad of faith, hope and love.
But unfortunately this was not the complete picture. For, alongside the church’s sterling Christian qualities, it was guilty of moral compromise. The church tolerated an evil self-styled prophetess, symbolically named Jezebel after Ahab’s wicked wife, who was leading Christ’s servants astray into sexual immorality as well as idolatry. Christ had given her time to repent, but she had been unwilling, so that judgment would come upon her.
The holiness of self-control and Christ-likeness is another essential characteristic of a living church. Tolerance is not a virtue if it is evil that is being tolerated. God still says to his people: ‘Be holy, because I am holy.’
Sincerity. Christ’s letter to Sardis is the only one which contains no commendation of any kind. Instead he complains: ‘you have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead.’ This church does not seem to have tolerated error or evil, or to be deficient in love or faith or holiness. It showed every sign of life and vigour. Yet its reputation was false.
Scripture has much to say about the difference between reputation and reality, between what human beings see and what God sees. ‘The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart’ (1 Sam. 16:7). To be obsessed with appearance and reputation leads naturally to hypocrisy (which Jesus hated) and tells us that sincerity characterizes a true and living church.
Mission. In writing to Philadelphia, Jesus describes himself as holding the key of David with which he was able to open closed doors and close open ones. In consequence he was able to say to the church in Philadelphia: ‘See, I have placed before you an open door that no-one can shut’ (3:8). The most likely meaning is that this is the door of opportunity, as when Paul wrote that in Ephesus ‘a great door for effective work has opened to me’ (1 Cor. 16:9). This means that mission is another mark of a true church. To quote G. K. Beale, all the letters to the churches ‘deal generally with the issue of witnessing for Christ in the midst of a pagan culture’.10
Perhaps it is emphasized in the letter to Philadelphia because of its strategic location. Philadelphia was situated in a broad and fertile valley which commanded the trade routes in all directions. Sir William Ramsay wrote that the intention of the city’s founder had been to make it a centre for the spread of Greek language and civilization. ‘It was a missionary city from the beginning.’11 So it may be that Christ was intending that what Philadelphia had been for Greek culture, it was now to be for the spread of the gospel. The door was wide open. Even though the church was comparatively weak, it must go boldly through the open door with the good news.
Wholeheartedness. There can be no doubt about Christ’s message to the church in Laodicea: he wants his church to be characterized by wholeheartedness. He is very outspoken. He prefers his disciples to be either hot in their devotion to him or icy cold in their hostility rather than tepid in their indifference. He finds tepidity nauseating.
Directly opposite Laodicea, across the River Lycus, stood Hierapolis, whose hot springs sent lukewarm waters over the cliffs of Laodicea, leaving limestone deposits which can still be seen today. So the adjective ‘Laodicean’ has entered our vocabulary to denote people who are lukewarm in religion, politics or anything else. Laodicea seems to represent a church that is outwardly respectable but inwardly superficial, one of the purely nominal churches with which we are familiar.
When the metaphor changes to naked, blind beggars, one begins to wonder whether the Laodicean church members were genuine Christians at all. Then it changes again to that of an empty house. Christ stands on the threshold, knocks, speaks and waits. If we open the door, he enters, not only to eat with us, but to take possession. This is the essence of the wholeheartedness to which Christ calls us.
Thus the risen Lord reveals himself as the chief pastor of his flock. Patrolling, inspecting and supervising his churches, he has an intimate knowledge of them, and is able to pinpoint the seven marks that he would like every church to display: love for him and the willingness to suffer for him, truth of doctrine and holiness of life, and commitment to mission, together with both sincerity and wholeheartedness in everything.
We have also watched the church hard-pressed by sin, error and lethargy within, and by tribulation and persecution without, especially by the temptation to forsake Christ for Caesar and by the real risks of martyrdom.
So with Revelation 4 we turn abruptly from the church on earth to the church in heaven, from Christ among the flickering lampstands to Christ in the very centre of the unchangeable throne of God. It is the same Christ, but from an entirely different perspective.
3. Christ sharing God’s throne in heaven (Rev. 4 – 5)
The throne, the scroll and the Lamb
‘After this I looked, and there before me was a door standing open in heaven. And the voice I had first heard speaking to me like a trumpet said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this”’ (4:1). It was the open door of revelation, and as John looked through the door what he saw developed in three stages: first, a throne, from which God rules over the universe; secondly, a scroll, the book of history, closed, sealed, and held in God’s right hand; and finally, a lamb, as slain, who alone is worthy to open the scroll, to interpret and control history.
John’s vision of a throne (4:1–11)
It is immensely significant that, when John peeped through the open door, the very first thing he saw was a throne, symbol of the sovereignty, majesty and kingly rule of God. His vision has a strong Old Testament background in Ezekiel 1 and Daniel 7.12 The throne is mentioned seventeen times in Revelation 4 and 5.
The churches of Asia were small and struggling; the might of Rome seemed invincible. What could a few defenceless Christians do if an imperial edict were to banish them from the face of the earth? Already the powers of darkness seemed to be closing in upon them. Yet they need have no fear, for at the centre of the universe stands a throne. From it the wheeling planets receive their orders. To it gigantic galaxies give their allegiance. In it the tiniest living organism finds its life.
Everything John saw in his vision was related to the throne. He uses seven prepositions to indicate the centrality of the throne of God.
On the throne somebody was sitting (v. 3). The occupant of the throne is not described, because God is indescribable. All John saw was brilliant colours like flashing jewels, ‘jasper and carnelian’, meaning perhaps diamonds and rubies.
Encircling the throne there was an emerald rainbow (v. 3), symbolizing God’s covenant mercy and reminding us that God’s exalted throne is at the same time a throne of grace (cf. Gen. 9:8–17).
Surrounding the throne were twenty-four other thrones (v. 4), on which were seated twenty-four elders, presumably representing the twelve tribal heads of Old Testament Israel and the twelve apostles of Jesus Christ. Their white clothing and golden crowns indicated their righteousness and their authority.
From the throne issued flashes of lightning, rumblings and peals of thunder (v. 5a), reminiscent of the revelation of God on Mount Sinai, tokens of the presence and power of the Holy One.
Before the throne seven lamps were blazing (v. 5b), which are the seven spirits of God, namely the Holy Spirit in all his many ministries, not least in relation to the seven churches. For church and Spirit go together.
In front of the throne there stretched an infinite expanse like a sea of glass (v. 6a), speaking to us of God’s transcendence and unapproachability.
In the centre, around the throne, as a kind of inner circle, were four living creatures (v. 6b). They were ‘covered with eyes in front and behind’ (expressing their ceaseless vigilance), and resembling a lion, an ox, a man and an eagle, representing ‘whatever is noblest, strongest, wisest and swiftest in animate nature’.13 Day and night all nature never stops singing the praise of the Lord God Almighty, and as they do so, the twenty-four elders join in. Thus nature and church, the old creation and the new, unite in proclaiming God as worthy of worship because by his will all things were created and continue to have their being.
We pause and reflect whether this is our vision of ultimate reality. Our vision of the future tends to be too negative. We seize on the assurances of the book of Revelation that one day there will be no more hunger or thirst, no more pain or tears, no more sin, death or curse, for all these things will have passed away.
It would be better and more biblical, however, to focus not so much on these absences, as on the cause of their absence, namely the central dominating presence of God’s throne. For when God takes his power and reigns without rival, and the kingdom will have come in its fullness, then everything incompatible with his reign will be destroyed and God will be ‘everything to everyone’ (1 Cor. 15:28, RSV). Meanwhile, we are called to anticipate on earth the God-centred life of heaven, to live our lives now in conscious relationship to the throne, so that every thought, word and deed comes under God’s rule.
John’s vision of a scroll (5:1–6)
Looking now more closely at the throne and its occupant, John notices in his right hand a scroll. It has writing on both sides and is sealed with seven seals. John does not tell us what it is, but from what follows when the seals are broken, it is the book of history, the sealed record of the unknown future, ‘what must take place after this’ (4:1).14
In John’s vision (5:2) a mighty angel appears and asks in a loud voice exactly what all of us would like to ask, namely: ‘Who is worthy to break the seals and open the scroll?’, that is, to disclose the future, let alone control it? For the future is in the hand of God. Who else is worthy to know it? There was no answer to the angel’s challenging question. So John says (v. 4) ‘I wept and wept.’ He was overcome with emotion, with deep disappointment that nobody was fit to open the scroll or even look inside it.
Let’s try to imagine the situation. The Christian church was a tiny community in the midst of the mighty Roman Empire. Not only were Christians an insignificant minority, but they were a persecuted minority as well. Everybody seemed to be against them. Christians could cling to the throne; but what secrets would the scroll contain? Did their sufferings have any meaning? Did God have a plan? Did history have a plot? Who could give them a clue to the mystery of history?
Then (v. 5) one of the elders came forward and spoke up. He told John not to weep, and added ‘See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David’ (that is, the Messiah), ‘has triumphed. He is able to open the scroll and its seven seals’, and so to reveal the contents and the meaning of history.
It was a dramatic moment. John looked to see this triumphant lion, and to his astonishment he saw instead a Lamb, looking as if it had been slaughtered, and yet standing in the very centre of the throne, sharing it with God (see 3:21). In this central position he was surrounded by both the four living creatures (nature) and the elders (the church). He is also described as having seven horns and seven eyes, which are identified as ‘the seven Spirits of God sent out into all the earth’ (v. 6).
Thus our attention is redirected from the throne to the scroll, and now from the scroll to the Lamb.
John’s vision of the Lamb (5:7–14)
The Lamb now took action. He came to the throne-occupant and took the scroll from his right hand. This was the signal for the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders to fall prostrate before the Lamb and sing a new song, declaring his worthiness to take the scroll and open its seals not now because of the creation, but because of the redemption:
‘because you were slain,
and with your blood you purchased men for God
from every tribe and language and people and nation.
You have made them to be a kingdom and
priests to serve our God,
and they will reign on the earth’ (5:9–10).
Next, millions of angels joined in, proclaiming the worthiness of the Lamb, because he had been slain, to receive seven blessings, since all power and wisdom must be ascribed to him.
And finally (v. 13) John heard every creature throughout the whole universe ascribing praise and honour ‘to him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb’. The four living creatures endorsed it with their amen, and the twenty-four elders fell down and worshipped.
It is a most magnificent vision of the whole creation on their faces before God and his Christ, and truly amazing that the Lamb is bracketed with the occupant of the throne as sharing it with him and receiving equal praise.
However, the drama also provokes questions. Why is Jesus Christ the only person who is worthy to open and explain the scroll? What is it about the Lamb of God which uniquely qualifies him to interpret it? Clearly it is because he was slain, and because of what he achieved by his death. But what is it about the cross that makes it the key to history?
First, the cross illumines history because it speaks of victory. The reason why the Lamb was able to open the scroll is because he has triumphed (5:5). The same verb has been used at the conclusion of each of the seven letters to the churches. A promise is given to him who overcomes. For example, ‘To him who overcomes, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I overcame and sat down with my Father on his throne’ (3:21). Thus the cross is represented in the New Testament as victory not defeat, as triumph not tragedy. For, as Paul wrote, on the cross Christ dethroned and disarmed the principalities and powers of evil, triumphing over them in the cross (Col. 2:15). True, they are still alive and active, for they have not yet conceded defeat. Nevertheless, they have been conquered and are under Christ’s feet (e.g. Eph. 1:22). This is the great truth of Christus Victor, which the church has sometimes forgotten. The first reason why the Lamb alone can inter-pret history with all its evil is that he triumphed over evil at the cross.15
Secondly, the cross illumines history because it speaks of redemption. The repeated use of the title ‘the Lamb’ will immediately have reminded Jewish readers of the Passover. For just as the Passover lamb was sacrificed, its blood sprinkled and the people spared, so Christ our Passover has been sacrificed for us, so that we might be redeemed and might celebrate the festival of redemption. Thus history has a twofold plot-line. There is world history (the rise and fall of empires) and there is salvation history (the story of the redeemed people of God). Moreover, we dare to say that the former is explicable only in the light of the latter; that what God is doing against the backdrop of world history is to call out from every nation a people for himself; and that only the cross makes this possible.
Thirdly, the cross illumines history because it speaks of suffering. For the sufferings of the Christ, although unique in their redemptive significance, were nevertheless the prototype of the sufferings of the people of God. Because he suffered, his people are called to suffer. Because he went to the cross, he calls us to take up our cross and follow him. So John moves on from the Lamb slain (in ch. 5) to the souls of the martyrs, slain because of their faithful testimony (in ch. 6). Thus those who are called to suffer for Christ, whose sufferings are so hard to understand and to bear, learn to see them in the light of the sufferings of Christ.
Fourthly, the cross illumines history because it speaks of weakness, and specifically of power through weakness. This paradox is seen in its most dramatic form in Christ and the cross, and in John’s vision in Revelation 4 and 5. For at the centre of God’s throne (symbol of power) stands a slain Lamb (symbol of weakness). In other words, power through weakness, dramatized in God on the cross and the Lamb on the throne, lies at the heart of ultimate reality, even of the mystery of almighty God himself.
4. Christ controlling the course of history (Rev. 6 – 7)
The seven seals and the two communities
Having celebrated the Lamb’s unique right to open the scroll, and having seen him take it from the throne-occupant (5:7), John now watches as the Lamb breaks the seven seals one by one. After each of the first four is broken, one of the living creatures shouts in a voice like thunder ‘Come!’ and behold a horse and its rider appears. These are the famous ‘four horsemen of the Apocalypse’, well known to Christian artists.
The first horse was white; and its rider held a bow, was given a crown, and ‘rode out as a conqueror bent on conquest’. Because he belongs to the series of apocalyptic horsemen, many commentators conclude that he too symbolizes disaster, in his case military conquest. But throughout Revelation white stands for righteousness; crowns and conquest belong to Christ; and in 19:11–15 the rider on a white horse is named ‘Faithful and True’, ‘the Word of God’ and even ‘King of kings and Lord of lords’. So we are assured that, before the other horsemen spread the horrors of war, famine and death, Christ rides first at the head of the cavalcade, resolved to win the nations by the gospel. And he succeeds! For in the next chapter we see a countless multitude standing before God’s throne, drawn from all the nations, the fruit of his international mission.
The second horse is fiery red, symbolizing bloodshed, whether through war, civil strife or persecution (see Matt. 10:34). The third horse is black, symbolizing famine conditions, as rocketing inflation makes staple foodstuffs too expensive to buy, and luxury goods available only to the wealthy. The fourth horse is pale green (like a corpse), symbolizing death and hades, that is, both the event and its domain. They were given authority over a quarter of the population to kill by sword, famine, plague and wild animals.
Instead of the appearance of another horse, the breaking of the fifth seal revealed the souls of Christian martyrs ‘under the altar’ (the place of sacrifice), who were appealing for justice. As George Eldon Ladd has commented, ‘it is the blood of the martyrs crying for vindication, not the martyrs themselves crying for personal vengeance’.16 In response they were told to wait a little longer until the tally of the martyrs was complete.
After the breaking of the sixth seal, there was a great earthquake, followed by the most appalling cosmic convulsions. The sun turned black and the moon red; the stars fell and the sky disintegrated; and all mountains and islands were dislodged. These are not to be interpreted as literal events, however, but as social and political upheavals described in familiar apocalyptic imagery. They will lead up to the day of judgment, when human beings along the whole social spectrum from kings to slaves will run for cover, hoping to escape. They will scream to the mountains to fall on them and hide them from the face of God and the wrath of the Lamb (cf. Is. 2:19).
This opening drama of the first six seals gives us a general overview of history between the first and second comings of Christ. It will be a time of violent disturbance and suffering, but the eye of faith looks beyond these things to Christ who is both the crowned and conquering rider on the white horse and the Lamb who breaks the seals, controlling the course of history.
We now have to wait until 8:1 for the seventh seal to be broken. Instead, John treats us to an interlude which stresses the security of the people of God. Revelation 7 describes two human communities. The first (vv. 1–8) numbers 144,000 and is drawn from the twelve tribes of Israel; the second (vv. 9–17) is a huge unnumbered multitude drawn from all nations, languages and tribes. At first sight they seem to be two distinct groups (numbered and unnumbered, Israel and the Gentiles), and several ingenious attempts have been made to distinguish between them. But on closer inspection it becomes clear that both are pictures of the same redeemed community of God, although viewed from different perspectives. In the first the people are assembled like soldiers in battle array – the church militant on earth; in the second they are assembled before God, their conflicts past – the church triumphant in heaven.
Take the first community. They are called ‘the servants of our God’ (v. 3), and are sealed or stamped on the forehead to indicate that they belong to him. The number 144,000 is an obvious symbol for the complete church (12 x 12 x 1,000); they are later identified (14:3) as those ‘who had been redeemed from the earth’. And the only reason why they are represented as the twelve tribes of Israel is that throughout the New Testament the church is seen as ‘the Israel of God’, ‘the true circumcision’, and ‘a chosen people,...a holy nation, a people belonging to God’ (Gal. 6:16; Phil. 3:3; 1 Pet. 2:9), in whom God’s covenant promises are being fulfilled.
What then are we told about the second crowd? It is ‘a great multitude that no-one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language’ (v. 9). In it God’s promise to Abraham is fulfilled, to give him a posterity as numerous as the sand and the stars, and through it to bless all the families of the earth (Gen. 12:1ff.).
Next, the unnumbered crowd are standing before the throne of God and of the Lamb, enjoying the blessings of their kingly rule. They are wearing white robes of righteousness and waving palm branches of victory. They are also singing loud songs of worship, ascribing their salvation to God and the Lamb. The angels, elders and living creatures also join in, falling on their faces and worshipping God. For the life of heaven is a continuous joyful celebration, and earthly choirs and orchestras are rehearsing for the eschatological concert.
How then can we make sure that we belong to this redeemed, international throng? One of the elders expressed this very anxiety by asking a question: ‘These in white robes – who are they, and where did they come from?’ (7:13). He then proceeded to answer his own question. On the one hand, ‘they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb’. We cannot possibly stand before God’s dazzling throne in the soiled and tattered rags of our own morality, but only if we have sought cleansing from the Lamb who died for us. On the other hand, they ‘have come out of the great tribulation’. Since all the redeemed are being described, this cannot refer to the specific period between the appearance of Antichrist and the parousia of Christ. It must be a description of the whole Christian life, which the New Testament repeatedly designates a time of tribulation (thlipsis. See e.g. John 16:33; Acts 14:22; Rev. 1:9). Therefore, ‘they are before the throne of God’ (7:15). For only those who suffer with Christ will be glorified with him (cf. Rom. 8:17).
The chapter ends with glorious assurances (vv. 15–17) that God will shelter his people; that they will never again suffer from hunger, thirst or scorching heat; that – in the boldest reversal of roles – the Lamb will be their shepherd; and that God will wipe away all their tears.
5. Christ calling the world to repentance (Rev. 8 – 11)
The seven trumpets, the little scroll and the two witnesses
It is generally agreed that chapters 8 to 11 of Revelation are difficult to interpret. They begin with the breaking of the seventh seal, which was followed by ‘silence in heaven for about half an hour’. There was neither vision nor voice, perhaps to indicate that the seventh section of the scroll had no content of its own but consisted rather of the seven trumpets that came next.
John also tells us, in his introduction to these chapters (vv. 3–5), that an angel’s incense and the prayers of God’s people were ascending to the throne of God. He implies that the divine reply of thunder and lightning, symbols of his judgment, was in direct response to the church’s prayers (cf. 6:9–17).
Now seven angels were given seven trumpets. It is important to remember, as the drama develops, that the breaking of the seven seals and the blowing of the seven trumpets are not consecutive, but symbolize the same period, stretching between the two comings of Christ, although from different perspectives.
What, then, is the distinctive perspective of the trumpets? What is its vision of Christ?
I suggest that we should see the word warning flashing in red lights all over these chapters, for their overriding purpose is to jolt the unbelieving world out of its complacency and self-centredness, to summon it to repentance and to warn the impenitent of the righteous judgment of God. This is the dominant message of these chapters: a call to repentance and a warning of judgment.
Some may respond that this is not the immediately obvious meaning of these chapters. So how can I justify it? Consider these six arguments:
First, although the trumpet was used in the Old Testament for several purposes, for example to assemble the people in an emergency and to ‘summon people’s attention to God’s communication’,17 one of its main functions was in warning. Thus Ezekiel wrote that if a watchman ‘sees the sword coming against the land and blows the trumpet to warn the people’, then the people will be held responsible for their reaction (Ezek. 33:1–6. Cf. Joel 2:1).
Secondly, John deliberately draws an analogy between the judgments he describes and the plagues of Egypt. He alludes, for example, to water becoming blood, a heavy hailstorm, a swarm of locusts, and thick darkness.18 And the purpose of those plagues in Egypt was to bring Pharaoh and his court to repentance.
Thirdly, the first five of the seven trumpets herald calamities on earth, sea, fresh waters, sky and human beings, in each of which one third suffers. This deliberate limitation sends a warning signal to the other two-thirds. The judgments were partial, not final.
Fourthly, people’s negative response to the trumpets shows that repentance had been hoped for: ‘The rest of mankind that were not killed by these plagues still did not repent of the work of their hands’ (that is, idolatry); ‘Nor did they repent of their murders...’ and other sins (9:20–21). In spite of continuous divine warnings, they remained defiantly impenitent.
Fifthly, the natural disasters symbolized by the trumpets were God’s indirect warnings; they were accompanied by the direct warnings of his Word. The little scroll represented the proclamation of the gospel, and God’s two witnesses represented the missionary church. As they preached, they were ‘clothed in sackcloth’ (11:3), dramatizing the repentance they sought (Luke 10:13).
Sixthly, even if the ministry of the two witnesses was not effective, it was hoped that their persecution and martyrdom might succeed in arousing the world’s repentance.
These six arguments constitute a strong case. We can then understand the seals, the trumpets and the bowls as relating to the same period between Christ’s comings, but from a different point of view. The seven seals describe what Christ allows in his world (since things happen only when he breaks the seals). The seven bowls (still to come) describe how Christ judges his world. But the seven trumpets (which come between the seals and the bowls) describe how Christ warns the world and summons them to repentance.
Consider then the meaning of the trumpets.
The calamities which are now listed (damage to earth, sea, fresh water and the solar system) are not to be regarded as particular, let alone recognizable, events. The huge blazing mountain of the second trumpet, for example, is not a reference to the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79, although this eruption may have supplied some of the imagery. Instead they are natural disasters, which may occur to anybody at any time in any place. If they are meant to be taken literally, then they contribute to the hazards of life on earth. And they are warnings in the sense that the collapse of the tower of Siloam was, which Jesus interpreted as a call to repentance (Luke 13:4). But they are much more likely to be figurative and to allude to such happenings as environmental disaster (the green things of the first trumpet), economic chaos (the destroyed ships of the second), human tragedy (the bitterness of the third) and barbarian behaviour (the darkness of the fourth).
But the future will be even worse. John sees an eagle flying in mid-air and calling loudly to all the inhabitants of the earth. ‘Woe! Woe! Woe!’ it cries, in order to indicate that the fifth, sixth and seventh trumpets will bring even more intense suffering and will therefore be renamed the first, second and third woes.
If the first four trumpets describe damage to nature, the fifth (9:1–11) and sixth (9:12–21) describe damage to human beings. John sees a swarm of locusts (at least that is what he calls them) which came out of the smoke that billowed from the opened abyss and darkened sun and sky. The one thing locusts are known for (consuming all vegetation) these creatures are expressly forbidden to do. Instead, they attack the unbelieving world (which had not received God’s seal) and inflict on them a sting as painful as a scorpion’s. But they have no authority to kill, and though their human victims will long to die, they will not be able to kill themselves.
John’s description of them is extremely vivid. He tells us what they looked like in his vision, or what they reminded him of. Eight times he repeats the word ‘like’. In general they were like war horses, and their head-dress like a golden crown. Their faces were like human faces, their hair like a woman’s, and their teeth like lions’. Then, reverting to their warlike nature, their armour was like an iron breastplate, and their whirring wings like the thunder of horses and chariots charging into battle. Their king is called ‘Destroyer’, since they are bent on destruction. But what impressed John most was their power to inflict severe pain. Three times in chapter 9 he tells us that they sting like a scorpion (vv. 3, 5, 10), and three times he refers to their ability to torture, cause agony (v. 5) or torment (v. 10), causing pain so acute that they long to die (v. 6).
These venomous creatures are of course not literal. Nor does John give us any hint that they are demonic hordes. Is it possible then, remembering Jesus’ teaching that all kinds of evil lie buried in the human heart (Mark 7:21–23), that this is what John is graphically illustrating? Professor Thomas Torrance identifies the star with the key as the Word of God. For nothing ‘opens the bottomless pit of human nature’ like the gospel.19 The gospel reveals to us and others the deep depravity of our fallen nature. Often it is hidden, but at times it breaks the surface, to our acute embarrassment. It convicts us painfully of sin, for there is no pain more painful than that of a tormented conscience. It leads some to repentance and faith, but others to harden their hearts and so perish.
John is aware that the sixth trumpet (9:12–21) would bring even more acute suffering than any of the five previous ones. So he emphasizes that permission for it had come direct from God in answer to his people’s prayers (v. 13; cf. 8:3–5), and that it would sound only at the exact moment that had been decreed by God (v. 15). These permissions were necessary because of the escalation of suffering; the sixth trumpet will bring a license actually to kill one third of the human race (vv. 15, 18). Further, whereas after the fifth trumpet the agents of divine judgment were locusts, now they are horsemen. The cavalry numbered 200 million and were assembled symbolically at the River Euphrates, from which Israel’s Assyrian and Babylonian enemies had come, and where Rome felt threatened by the Parthian hordes. The mounted troops John saw were formidable indeed – their breastplates were red, blue and yellow, their horses’ heads were like lions’ heads, and out of their mouths came the three plagues of fire, smoke and sulphur. But their power to inflict injury and death was in their snake-like tails as well.
Once again this is not a description of literal events, but nor is it to be explained away as meaningless. The sixth trumpet seems to symbolize violent death, whether by war or terrorism or persecution, and has a special relevance to us who have lived through much of the twentieth century, perhaps the most violent of all centuries. One would also have hoped that the horrors of war would bring unbelievers to repentance. But John records in his vision that those who survived death did not repent either of their idolatry (the worst breach of the first table of the law) or of their other sins (mostly those in breach of the second table). See Revelation 9:20–21.
The little scroll and the two witnesses
As between the sixth and seventh seals, so between the sixth and seventh trumpets, there is an interlude. It features a little scroll (10:1–11) and two witnesses (11:1–13). The little scroll is brought down from heaven by a ‘mighty’ angel (who seems to be none other than Jesus Christ himself), and John is commissioned to preach it. The two witnesses, on the other hand, seem to represent the missionary church. These two gospel ministries need to be understood in relation to the warning trumpets. Now that the world has largely rejected the negative message of warning, much as Pharaoh had hardened his heart and refused to repent, the positive proclamation of the gospel is all the more essential. For Christ is still calling the world to himself; his patience is not exhausted; and the end has not yet arrived.
As John describes his vision of ‘another mighty angel coming down from heaven’, it is evident that he is no mere angel. True, he is throughout called an ‘angel’, but why should he not be ‘the angel of the Lord’, who appeared in those Old Testament theophanies which seem to have been pre-incarnate appearances of the Son of God?
At all events, John seems to have deliberately assembled a number of divine features in his description. The ‘angel’ was robed in a cloud (symbol of the presence of God), and had a rainbow over his head (symbol of the covenant mercy of God). His face shone like the sun, and his legs were like fiery pillars, as in John’s original vision of Christ in chapter 1. He was holding a little scroll which lay open in his hand, perhaps (some commentators think) the very same scroll that he had taken from the Father’s hand in chapter 4. It was closed then; it is open now. Having planted one foot on the sea and the other on the land, this colossus stood astride the whole planet, with all things under his feet. He then roared like a lion, reminding us that the sovereign Lord has spoken (Amos 3:8) and that he is himself the Lion of the tribe of Judah (Rev. 5:5). And when seven thunders spoke, only he understood them, though he was forbidden to divulge their meaning. The evidence seems overwhelming that this is Jesus Christ.
At this point the ‘angel’ swore by the eternal Creator that there would be ‘no more delay’, for when the seventh trumpet is blown ‘the mystery of God’ (his revealed salvation and judgment) will be accomplished.
What then about the little scroll? A voice told John to take it (which he did) and eat it, digesting its contents (which he also did). Its taste in his mouth was sweet as honey, but it turned his stomach sour. Jeremiah and Ezekiel before him had both had a similar experience (Jer. 15:16; Ezek. 3:1ff.). Thus John was recommissioned to take the gospel to all nations (Mark 13:10), but was at the same time warned that the sweetness of the message of salvation would be followed by the bitterness of judgment for those who rejected God’s word.
Before the second half of the interlude takes place (involving the ‘two witnesses’), John is told to measure the sanctuary of God, the altar and the worshippers. With Ezekiel 40 – 48 in our minds (the rebuilding of the temple), we may say that ‘measuring’ like ‘sealing’ symbolizes the protection of God’s true people. The outer court (perhaps the nominal church), however, is not to receive the same security, because it has been handed over to the unbelieving nations, who will trample the holy city (that is, persecute the church) for forty-two months, which is the same as three and a half years, the traditional apocalyptic period of tribulation (cf. Dan. 9:27; 12:7).
Suddenly, in 11:3, Christ’s ‘two witnesses’ are introduced with neither warning nor explanation, and their dramatic biography is told. It seems clear that they represent the witnessing and suffering church. They are given power to prophesy (that is, to preach the gospel) for 1,260 days, which is the same church-age period as the forty-two months or the three and a half years. In other words, the witness, the persecution and the divine protection of the church will last for the same period of time (11:2–3; 12:5–6, 14).
But why is the witnessing church symbolized by ‘two witnesses’? It seems to be due to several factors. First, there was the Old Testament requirement of a minimum of two witnesses to validate testimony in a law court (e.g. Deut. 19:15; John 8:17). Secondly, Jesus had sent out the seventy two by two. Thirdly, the witnesses are identified with the two olive trees and two lampstands of Zechariah 4:1–6. These were two Israelite leaders, namely the priest Joshua and the governor Zerubbabel. Fourthly, they are further identified (vv. 5–6) with Moses (turning water into blood, Exod. 7:20) and Elijah (stopping the rain, 1 Kings 17:1), representing the law and the prophets.
Throughout this period of their prophetic ministry the two witnesses will be persecuted and protected simultaneously. But when their testimony is finished, an unidentified ‘beast that comes up from the Abyss’ (v. 7), perhaps Antichrist, will attack, overpower and kill them. Their bodies will be left lying in the street of the city which is given four symbolic names: Babylon (‘the great city’), Sodom (symbol of immorality), Egypt (symbol of oppression) and Jerusalem (‘where also their Lord was crucified’). For a short time representatives of all unbelieving peoples will refuse them burial (the acme of disrespect), gloat over them and celebrate their murder, that is, rejoice that their witness has been silenced. And the reason for their glee? It is that the church’s faithful witness has caused them great torment of mind and conscience (v. 10).
After a short period, however, the martyred and silenced church will be resurrected by God (its testimony revived), causing terror in the watching world, and finally will be exalted to heaven, to the consternation of its enemies. This will be accompanied by a severe earthquake, causing devastating damage and huge casualties, and spread terror among the survivors. They will give glory to God, some by conversion, others by submission on the day of judgment.
The title I have given these four chapters (8–11) is ‘Christ calling the world to repentance’. Under this rubric the trumpets are his warning judgments, while the scroll and the two witnesses are the church’s faithful preaching of the gospel. Both caused ‘torment’ in unbelievers (9:5, 10; 11:10), but these divine warnings did not lead them to repentance (9:20f.). So now it is too late. The seventh trumpet (or third woe) is about to sound, and with it the end will have come.
After the sounding of the seventh trumpet, John records a threefold sequel, the most significant feature of which is the sequence of time references, which are all in the aorist or perfect tense, indicating what has now taken place irrevocably: ‘the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord...’ (v. 15); ‘...you have taken your great power and have begun to reign’ (v. 17); ‘your wrath has come. The time has come for judging...’ (v. 18); ‘Then God’s temple was opened...’ (v. 19). All these statements indicate the finality of what has happened, either concluding the past or inaugurating the future.
First, loud voices in heaven proclaimed the kingdom. Of course the kingdom of God came with Jesus, but now the rule over the world has passed into the hands of our Lord and of his Christ, of whom together it is then said in the singular, ‘he will reign for ever and ever’ (v. 15).
Secondly, the twenty-four elders representing the completed church prostrated themselves before the eternal and almighty God, worshipping him that he has taken his power and begun to reign and that the time has come to judge the dead, to reward the people of God both small and great, and to destroy the destroyers of the earth.
Thirdly, John saw God’s sanctuary open (declaring free access into his presence), and in it the ark of his covenant (speaking of his mercy). At the same time (symbolizing his final judgment), there came thunder and lightning, an earthquake and a great hailstorm.
Thus John has again brought us full circle from the beginning to the conclusion of the gospel era, and with 12:1 the whole cycle will begin again.
6. Christ overcoming the devil and his allies (Rev. 12 – 13)
The woman, the dragon, the male child and the two beasts
Each time that John recapitulates his story, as it stretches from Christ’s first coming to his second, there is persecution, conflict, victory and celebration. This is very clear in chapters 12 – 14.
Consider the dramatis personae in the opening vision of chapter 12. There are three chief actors: a pregnant woman entering labour, the male child she bears and an enormous red dragon with seven crowned heads and ten horns symbolizing his powerful empire.
There is no doubt of the identity of the dragon, since John refers to him in verse 9 as ‘that ancient serpent called the devil and Satan’. Nor is there any question about the male child the woman bears, for his destiny is to ‘rule all the nations with an iron sceptre’. He is the Messiah, the King of kings (v. 5; cf. Ps. 2:9). But who is the mother who gives birth to her son? A popular Roman Catholic interpretation is that she is the Virgin Mary. But Mary was not persecuted as this woman is. She appears, in fact, to be not an individual at all but a corporate figure representing the church of both Old and New Testaments in continuity. The strongest hint occurs in verse 1 where she is clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. This reminds us of Joseph’s dream in which sun, moon and stars (representing his father, mother and brothers) bowed down before him (Gen. 37:9).
In other words, this glorious lady, who gave birth to the Messiah, is a symbol of the people of Israel, from whose twelve patriarchs the human ancestry of the Christ is traced (Rom. 9:5). The twelve stars in her crown seem to indicate this.
Three visions (12:1–17)
Having identified the three main actors, we are ready to look at the three visions of Revelation 12, which all tell the same story of the defeat of the devil, the victory of Christ and the protection of the church.
First comes the vision of the woman, the child and the dragon (vv. 1–6). As the woman went into labour, the dragon stood over her, determined (we think of King Herod’s malice) to devour her child the very moment he was born. But when she was delivered, her son was snatched up to God and his throne. And then the woman fled to the desert to a place prepared for her by God, where she will be taken care of for 1,260 days (which is forty-two months or three and a half years), the whole period of the church’s ministry and persecution (cf. 11:2–3). Thus the first vision (of the woman, the child and the dragon) is a marvellous condensation of the gospel story from the Messiah’s birth in fulfilment of the Old Testament to his resurrection and ascension, and on to the time of the persecution and protection of the church. It is also an expression of the age-long ‘enmity’ between the serpent and the woman (Gen. 3:15).
Secondly, there is the vision of two armies locked in battle (vv. 7–12). This second vision does not depict events subsequent to those of the first, but is superimposed on it as its heavenly counterpart. Michael, a leading archangel first mentioned in Daniel, together with his army of good angels, engages the dragon and his demonic forces in war. But (v. 8) the dragon and his forces were not strong enough. They were soundly defeated and lost their place in heaven. So the great dragon (who leads the whole world astray) was hurled down to earth. That is, his power to deceive was broken, as is evidenced by the mission of the church and the millions who have been converted to Christ. We also know from the rest of the New Testament that it was at the cross that Christ decisively vanquished the devil, and by the resurrection that his victory was vindicated.
Indeed, Christ’s great conquest is now celebrated in song (vv. 10–12). For what have now ‘come’, and so become available to us, are ‘salvation’ (for which Christ died), ‘power’ (the gospel being God’s power for salvation), ‘the kingdom of our God’ (which broke into history through Christ) and ‘the authority of his Christ’ (who said that universal authority now belonged to him). These blessings are now ours because Satan the accuser has been overthrown. For Satan is both the deceiver of the nations, who leads the world astray (v. 9), and the accuser of the church (v. 10), who slanders God’s people day and night. But now that Christ has died for our sins, there is no condemnation for those who are in him (Rom. 8:1, 33). Meanwhile there is both joy in heaven and woe to the earth because the devil has come down, filled with fury.
Thirdly, there is the vision of the dragon’s continuing hostility to the woman (vv. 13–17). Hurled down to earth, the devil relentlessly pursued the woman who had given birth to the Messiah. We note, therefore, that the woman who gave birth to the child symbolized the Old Testament people of God, whereas the woman who was pursued by the devil symbolized the New Testament people of God. There is an essential continuity between them. She fled into the desert (enjoying a new exodus), where she was cared for by God. So the devil became enraged and went off to make war against the rest of her offspring, that is, the church of later generations, whose members obey God’s commandments and faithfully bear witness to Jesus. Obedience and testimony are two essential marks of the messianic community.
The dominant theme of this chapter has been the decisive overthrow of the devil. He was foiled in his resolve to devour the Christ-child, who instead was snatched up to God. He was foiled in his engagement in spiritual warfare, and instead was hurled down to the earth. He was foiled in his attempts to destroy the woman, who instead was rescued by God. Although Christ’s victory was achieved once for all on the cross, God’s people have been given a way to enter into it themselves. ‘They overcame him’, John wrote (v. 11), ‘by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony’, and by their readiness for martyrdom, for they did not shrink even from death.
The beast out of the sea
The three visions of Revelation 12 have left the dragon standing by himself on the seashore (13:1). But he did not remain alone for long. Three allies joined him and are introduced to us one by one. They are called ‘the beast out of the sea’, ‘the beast out of the earth’ and ‘Babylon’, a gaudy prostitute. They seem to masquerade as a diabolical parody of the Trinity. They all also represent the city and empire of Rome, although from three different perspectives.
First, the beast out of the sea represents Rome as a persecuting power (13:1–10). Secondly, the beast out of the earth represents Rome as an idolatrous system (13:11–18), with special reference to the cult of Caesar. This beast is also later called ‘the false prophet’ (16:13; 19:20; 20:10). Thirdly, Babylon the harlot represents Rome as a corrupting influence (14:8). These are a portrayal, writes Richard Bauckham, of ‘the oppressive power of Rome, the imperial cult and the corrupt civilization of Rome’.20
The Jews were always afraid of the sea. It seemed to them a continuation of the primeval chaos, and even a symbol of hostility to God. The raging of the nations was like the raging of the sea (Is. 17:12). So a monster emerging out of the sea would be a particular horror. This one had twelve crowned horns, symbolizing extraordinary imperial power, and seven heads, standing perhaps for the seven hills on which Rome was built (17:9). He also had fierce features resembling a leopard, a bear and a lion. Whereas in Daniel 7:3ff. these represented three successive world powers, here in Revelation they are combined into one, to indicate the beast’s extreme ferocity. But specially important was the fact that the dragon delegated to the beast ‘his power, his throne and great authority’ (v. 2).
A strange detail is that one of the beast’s seven heads had a fatal wound, which nevertheless had been healed. The best explanation is probably that it represented Nero, who committed suicide in AD 68, but was believed – according to legend – to have survived or come alive again, which he certainly did figuratively when his successor Domitian resumed his policies. Moreover these events were a parody of the death, resurrection and parousia of Christ.
The rest of the passage about the beast out of the sea concentrates on his use and abuse of power. Men worshipped the dragon because he had given his authority to the beast. But they also worshipped the beast. For forty-two months (throughout the church age) the beast exercised his blasphemous and slanderous ministry. He was also given power to persecute the church. In fact, all the earth’s inhabitants, if their names had not been registered in the book of life which belongs to the Lamb slain before the creation of the world, will worship the beast. This scenario is a challenge to God’s people to endure, to be faithful and to refuse to compromise.
The beast out of the earth
The beast who emerged out of the earth looked very different from the first beast. Instead of having ten crowned horns and seven heads (an impressive show of power), he was modest enough to have only one head, and his two horns were lamb-like, masquerading as a counterpart to Christ the Lamb. At the same time, his voice was as loud and menacing as a dragon’s, or perhaps as the dragon’s, whose representative he was.
More important than his appearance was his ministry. He had no independent role. Instead, having received his authorization from the first beast, the second beast’s ministry related wholely to the first beast, to whom he seems to have been entirely subservient. The second beast (1) made the earth’s inhabitants worship the first beast; (2) performed magic on behalf of the first beast, deceiving the inhabitants of the earth (cf. Matt. 24:24); (3) ordered the people to set up an image or statue in honour of the first beast; (4) was given power to make the first beast’s image live and speak, and to cause those who refused to worship the image to be killed; and (5) forced everybody, small and great, to receive the mark of the first beast, so that nobody could buy or sell without it.
As for the name of the beast, or the number of his name, this certainly ‘calls for wisdom’ and has in fact generated much ingenuity! If the beast symbolizes a literal, historical figure, there is something approaching a consensus among scholars about his identity, namely that he represents Nero, since the Hebrew letters for ‘Nero Caesar’, when converted into numbers, total 666. But numbers in Revelation are almost always symbolical. It has been pointed out, therefore, that, since seven is the perfect number, six falls short of it and represents imperfection. More-over, as G. K. Beale has written, ‘the triple repetition of sixes connotes the intensification of incompleteness and failure...’ Or, more simply, 666 ‘indicates the completeness of sinful incom-pleteness’.21
If this is the identity of the first beast, however, who is the second, who serves the first with sickly obsequiousness? The best guess is that he is provincial Asia’s high priest, who was responsible for the imperial cult and presided over its ceremonial. Thus the dragon gave his authority to the first beast (13:4), the first gave his to the second (13:12), and the second required everybody to worship the first.
Certainly the imperial cult, together with official pressure to conform to it, lies behind many passages in the book of Revelation. Although verses 14 and 15 must include all idolatry or worship of God-substitutes, their most direct allusion is to the imperial cult, with its mention of setting up an image in honour of the beast and of the death penalty for those who refused to worship it.
It was about the year 29 BC that the Emperor Augustus (who reigned until AD 14) permitted the establishment of the cult in Asia Minor by the building of a temple in his honour in Pergamum. By the end of his reign the cult was flourishing in thirty-four cities, and Tiberius, his successor, continued the tradition.22 But it was the Emperor Domitian (AD 81–96) who took the cult to extremes. He had a huge statue created in his honour in Ephesus. ‘He even insisted upon being regarded as a god, and took vast pride in being called “master” and “god”.’23 ‘With no less arrogance’, he dictated a circular letter which began ‘“Our Master and our God bids...” and so the custom arose of henceforth addressing him in no other way even in writing and in conversation ...’ 24
The main celebrations of the cult took place on New Year’s Day, which was the Emperor’s birthday, and in connection with a personal visit by him. On such occasions there was pressure on everybody to participate. Pliny the Younger, about AD 112, in one of his letters to the Emperor Trajan, explained how he discharged Christians who ‘did reverence, with incense and wine, to your image which I had ordered to be brought forward, and especially because they cursed Christ...’25 Other Christians, however, who refused to conform, paid the price of their courage, like Antipas in Pergamum (2:13) and Bishop Polycarp in Smyrna, who have been mentioned already.
Babylon the harlot
If the dragon’s first two allies were the beasts from the sea and from the earth, the third was Babylon, ‘the great city’, portrayed as a lewd prostitute. She is only just mentioned here (14:8), where her fall is anticipated on account of ‘the maddening wine of her adulteries’. She is much more fully described in chapters 17 and 18. The dragon’s three allies, then, when John was writing, were Rome the persecutor (the first beast), Rome the idolater (the second beast or false prophet) and Rome the seductress (Babylon the harlot).
Thus ‘our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms’ (Eph. 6:12). And the Revelation allows us to peep behind the scenes and see the subtle strategy of Satan. We can see him in the early chapters of the Acts wielding the same three weapons. First, he tried to crush the church by force. Secondly, he tried to corrupt the church by the hypocrisy of Ananias and Sapphira. Thirdly, he tried to mislead the church by false teaching, distracting the apostles from their ministry of the Word and so exposing the church to heresy. All over the world today the same threefold assault on the church is mounted by the devil – physical (persecution), moral (compromise) and intellectual (false teaching).
7. Christ standing on Mt Zion with his redeemed people (Rev. 14:1 – 15:4)
The radical alternative: salvation and judgment
The Lamb and the 144,000 (14:1–13)
John now gives us another of his welcome interludes. It would be hard to conceive a sharper contrast than the one he depicts between chapter 13 and chapter 14. It is an immense relief to turn from the dragon and his first beast, whose habitat is the unruly sea, to the Lamb who stands on firm and holy ground; from persecution and the threat of martyrdom to security in Mount Zion; from the incompleteness of 666 to the completeness of 144,000; and from those who have received the mark of the beast on their forehead (13:16) to those who have the name of the Lamb and of his Father written on their forehead.
John now hears some marvellous music, which he likens to a waterfall, a clap of thunder and an orchestra of harpists. In addition to the orchestra there was a choir, who sang a new song before the heavenly audience. No-one knew the words of the song except the 144,000, but presumably it celebrated the victory of the Lamb.
As for the 144,000, John gives them a fivefold description: (1) they ‘had been redeemed from the earth’ by the blood of the Lamb (5:9); (2) they are pure and undefiled, meaning not that celibacy is morally superior to marriage, but that they had been faithful to Christ as his virgin bride; (3) they ‘follow the Lamb wherever he goes’, even to suffering and death (Mark 8:34); (4) they were ‘purchased from among men and offered as firstfruits to God and the Lamb’. So they were only the beginnings; the full harvest would follow (vv. 14–16); and (5) they were people of integrity, uncontaminated by any falsehood or hypocrisy.
Thus assured of the security of God’s redeemed people, we are ready to hear the messages brought by three angels one after the other. Basic to their ministry is the conviction that ‘the hour of his [sc. God’s] judgment has come’ (v. 7), that is, the time for separating or sifting (the fundamental meaning of keisis) the true from the false.
The first angel proclaimed the gospel, which John describes as both ‘eternal’ in its validity and universal in its scope (‘every nation, tribe, language and people’). His proclamation included a summons to his hearers to respond, to fear and glorify God, and to worship the Creator.
The second angel made an advance announcement of the fall of Babylon, expressing the certainty of this future event by means of a so-called ‘prophetic past tense’. Babylon deserved this fate because it had intoxicated and seduced the nations.
The third angel issued a loud warning to anyone who worships the beast and its image (instead of the Creator), and who receives its mark. He will drink the wine of God’s wrath. He will be tormented in the presence of the Lamb and the angels. The smoke of their torment rises for ever and ever. There is no rest for them day or night. I do not myself think that the anxious question whether the nature of hell is an eternal conscious torment or an ultimate eternal annihilation can be settled by a simple appeal to these sentences. For one thing, we need to keep reminding ourselves that the content of Revelation is symbolic vision not literal reality. Further, the essence of hell is separation from God, whereas these sentences speak of torment ‘in the presence of the...Lamb’. What is clear is that hell is an eternal destruction, whatever the precise nature of this destruction may be, and that there will be no respite from it.
These warnings about the fate of the impenitent, John adds, constitute a call ‘for patient endurance on the part of the saints who obey God’s commandments and remain faithful to Jesus’ (v. 12). They are assured of final vindication. If they ‘die in the Lord’, whether in martyrdom or by natural causes, they are truly ‘blessed’ (v. 13). For they will rest from their labour (in contrast to the wicked for whom there will be ‘no rest’). Moreover, their deeds will follow them and give evidence of their loyalty.
The harvest and the vintage (14:14–20)
Jesus himself used the harvest metaphor to illustrate spiritual truths. Evangelism is reaping a harvest (Matt. 9:37; John 4:35–38.). The work of the Messiah would be to gather his wheat into the barn and to burn up the chaff (Matt. 3:12). And judgment on the last day will involve separating the weeds from the wheat (Matt. 13:37–39).
The paragraph which is now before us divides the final judgment into two parts. Two figures appear, each with a sharp sickle (vv. 14, 17), and each receives a loud command to take his sickle and reap (vv. 15, 18). The second is explicitly a vintage, and concludes with the grapes being thrown into ‘the great winepress of God’s wrath’ (v. 19). We can only assume, therefore, that the former is a grain harvest and represents the in-gathering of the believing righteous. In one case ‘the harvest of the earth is ripe’ (v. 15), and in the other ‘its grapes are ripe’ (v. 18). The two are combined in Joel 3:13.
The first reaper is ‘like a son of man’, wears a crown of gold and sits on a cloud. He is surely the Lord Christ at his second coming. We need not be offended that he was given a rather peremptory command to take his sickle and reap, for the order was issued by an angel coming out of the temple, that is, with a message from God, who has appointed Jesus to be the Judge (John 5:22; Acts 17:31; Rom. 2:16). He wielded his sickle, ‘and the earth was harvested’ (v. 16).
The second reaper received a similar command: ‘Take your sharp sickle and gather the clusters of grapes from the earth’s vine’ (v. 18). The grapes were then thrown ‘into the great winepress of God’s wrath’ and trampled underfoot. The vision of blood rising some four feet and extending 1,600 stadia (more than 180 miles) is horrific, and needs of course to be interpreted, not visualized. G. E. Ladd writes: ‘The thought is clear: a radical judgment that crushes every vestige of evil and hostility to the reign of God.’26 Dr Leon Morris favours a more symbolical understanding of 1,600 stadia:
Of the explanations suggested perhaps the best is that which sees it as the product of sixteen (the square of four, the number of the earth which is the abode of the wicked) and one hundred (the square of ten, the number of completeness). Blood stretching for 1,600 stadia thus stands for the complete judgment of the whole earth and the destruction of all the wicked.27
Once again we cannot fail to be impressed that the incomparable Christ is at the centre of each vision. At the beginning of chapter 14 we see him as the Lamb standing on Mount Zion, while at the end of the chapter we see him sitting on a cloud as the son of man with his sickle. In the former vision he guarantees the security of his redeemed people; in the latter he functions as judge on the last day, separating the wheat from the chaff.
The song of Moses and of the Lamb (15:1–4)
Before John describes the outpouring of the seven bowls of God’s wrath, which will be reminiscent of the plagues in Egypt, he draws a striking analogy between Israel’s exodus from Egypt and the redemption achieved by Christ. As the Israelites gathered by the Red Sea, victorious over Pharaoh, so John sees a multitude of people, standing by what looked like a sea of glass and fire, victorious over the beast and his image. That is, they had resisted the pressures from their persecutors and had refused to do obeisance to Caesar. As Miriam took her tambourine to celebrate God’s triumph, so the victorious people of God celebrate with harps. And as Moses and Miriam sang a song of praise to God (Exod. 15), so the song of Moses (the Old Testament victor) has become the song of the Lamb (the New Testament victor), praising God for the greatness of his deeds and the justice of his ways. Because he alone is holy (unique), it is right to give him glory. Indeed all nations will worship him for his righteous acts which have been revealed.
8. Christ coming like a thief in the night (Rev. 15:5 – 19:10)
The call to be ready
In the middle of chapter 16, suddenly and unexpectedly, detached alike from the verses which precede it and from those which follow it, Jesus interrupts the narrative with words of direct speech. Using the first person singular, and apparently addressing anybody and everybody willing to listen, he cries out: ‘Behold, I come like a thief! Blessed is he who stays awake and keeps his clothes with him, so that he may not go naked and be shamefully exposed’ (v. 15).
Of course, this is not the first time that the thief simile had been used. Indeed, Jesus had used it himself during his public ministry. He said: ‘But understand this: if the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch...So you also must be ready, because the Son of man will come at an hour when you do not expect him’(Matt. 24:43–44).28
If only the thief would oblige us by sending us an advance notice (better still, an e-mail), alerting us as to the day and time of his intended visit! Then we would be ready. But no, his coming will be sudden and unexpected, like a thief’s in the night.
This surprising intervention by Jesus, in the middle of John’s account of the outpouring of the bowls of God’s wrath, seems to me to be the intended background to these chapters. Some commentators suggest that Jesus’ words to Sardis, ‘I will come like a thief’ (3:3), were a warning that he was coming to deal with the church’s affairs. And this may be so. But in Revelation 16:15 he is surely referring to his second coming on the last day.
In chapter 16 John describes the bowls. In chapters 17 and 18 Babylon is first identified and then destroyed. At the beginning of chapter 19 a huge heavenly choir sings its ‘Hallalujah Chorus’ (vv. 1–10), and at the end Christ rides out in triumph on a white horse (vv. 11–18) in power and great glory, followed by the armies of heaven and destined to rule the nations. Then in 19:19–20 first the two beasts, then the dragon are destroyed (Babylon having already met its doom), and all humankind, living and dead, are judged. The dominant theme throughout these chapters is the final judgment by Christ the appointed judge. But when will it happen? The judgment is certain, but the day uncertain. We are kept in suspense, on tenterhooks, remembering Jesus’ words: ‘Behold, I come like a thief !’
The seven bowls (15:5 – 16:21)
A major clue to the understanding of chapters 15 and 16 is to be found in two expressions. First, according to the opening sentence of chapter 15, John saw ‘seven angels with the seven last plagues – last, because with them God’s wrath is completed’. Secondly, after the outpouring of the seventh bowl, a loud voice from God’s throne cried out ‘It is done!’ (16:17). Being a single Greek verb in the perfect tense, it indicates that God’s work of judgment had been accomplished once and for all. ‘Completed’ and ‘done’. These are the two significant and tell-tale verbs. The previous judgments (the seals and the trumpets) were partial; those of the bowls are final. It could be expressed thus: the eye of faith sees in the breaking of the seals the permissive will of God, in the blowing of the trumpets the reformative purpose of God, and in the pouring out of the bowls the retributive justice of God.
In John’s preparatory vision (15:5–8) he saw in heaven that the temple stood open. That is, it was by the direct sanction of God that the seven angels emerged as agents of judgment. Their seven bowls were filled with the wrath of God, and the temple was full of God’s glory, so that no-one could enter it until the judgment was over.
The first four bowls, like the first four trumpets (8:6–12), were targeted in the same sequence upon earth, sea, fresh water (rivers and springs) and sun. The main difference is that the trumpets damaged only one third of each aspect of creation, whereas the bowls damaged each completely. On the earth, people suffered from ‘ugly and painful sores’; sea and freshwater turned into blood, so that all living things in them died; and the intense heat of the sun caused serious scorching.
Talk about earth, sea, water and sun has a modern sound in our era of environmental sensitivity. We are concerned about the earth’s bio-diversity, the plankton of the oceans, the availability of clean water and the preservation of the ozone layer to protect us from radiation and its harmful effects. This priority given to life on planet Earth is also a necessary preparation for the coming renewal of all things. As Bishop Paul Barnett has written, ‘the destruction of the “old heavens and earth” is now completed, clearing the way for the new creation of God’.29
The pouring out of the fifth bowl plunged the kingdom of the beast into darkness and consequent anarchy, and caused great human suffering. Yet the people still ‘refused to repent’ (repeated in vv. 9 and 11). Like Pharaoh, who endured five of the plagues described here (boils, blood, darkness, frogs and hail), they had hardened their hearts, and it was now too late. Instead of glorifying God, they cursed him.
The contents of the sixth bowl were poured on the River Euphrates, which we have already understood to be a symbol of anti-God forces on the north-eastern frontier of the Roman Empire. By drying up the river, the way was open for the kings from the east to invade. At this point three evil frog-like spirits appear out of three mouths (of the dragon, the beast and the false prophet). They perhaps represent the lies of propaganda by which the kings of the whole world are persuaded to assemble for the final battle ‘on the great day of God Almighty’.
Lest the people of God should be unduly alarmed by the massing of godless armies, it is now that Jesus himself intervenes and cries out ‘Behold, I come like a thief !’ His people must keep awake, clothed and ready (v. 15).
John returns to the gathering of the kings, and to their rendez-vous at a place called in Hebrew ‘Armageddon’ (v. 16). This is another word which, in spite of its popular use to denote a catastrophic conflict, causes commentators much difficulty. It is uncertain how to spell, locate or interpret it. But many believe it to be derived from Megiddo, a strategic site in northern Palestine and the scene of many ancient battles. It is not literal, however. It symbolizes the final battle between the Lamb and the dragon, between Christ and antichrist. For Christ will come in power and glory to rout and destroy the forces of evil.
As the sequences of both the seals and the trumpets ended in the climactic parousia, so does the sequence of the bowls. A loud voice from the temple cried ‘It is done!’ And a tremendous physical upheaval (including thunder, lightning and a severe earthquake) signified the end. No earthquake like it has ever occurred. The great city Babylon and many other godless cities collapsed in total ruin. Islands and mountains disappeared, and huge hailstones, each weighing about a hundred pounds, fell, causing humans to curse God.
The identity of Babylon (17:1–18)
So far ‘Babylon’ has been mentioned twice. In 14:8 the fall of Babylon was suddenly announced, without warning. ‘Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great.’ In 16:19, as a result of the outpouring of the seventh bowl, we read that ‘God remembered Babylon’, that he gave her the cup of his wrath to drink, and that the great city split into three. Thus both verses refer to her overthrow under the judgment of God, but neither tells us what she symbolizes.
So now two whole chapters are devoted to the phenomenon of ‘Babylon’. Chapter 17 identifies her for us, while chapter 18 describes in the most graphic detail her devastation and destruction.
The identification of Babylon we owe to one of the seven angels who volunteered to instruct John. He said to him, ‘Come, I will show you the punishment of the great prostitute, who sits on many waters’ (v. 1). And later he said, ‘I will explain to you the mystery of the woman...’ (v. 7). The angel’s first promise was fulfilled in verses 1–6, where, as a result of what the angel showed John, he exclaimed three times ‘I saw...I saw...I saw...’ Then the angel’s second promise was fulfilled in verses 7–18, where he said to John five times ‘you saw...you saw...you saw...’, and went on to explain to him the meaning of what he had seen.
Presumably John accepted the angel’s offer, so that the angel carried him away ‘in the Spirit’ (in a state of inspiration) ‘into a desert’, no doubt the desert in which the persecuted church has taken refuge (12:14).
First, consider what the angel showed John (vv. 3–6). John says at once ‘I saw a woman’, very different from the woman persecuted by the dragon (for this woman was the persecutor, not the persecuted). The woman he saw was sitting on a scarlet beast (readily recognizable as the beast from the sea). He was sitting on her because Rome the persecutor and Rome the prostitute (violence and vice) were closely associated with one another. Indeed, ‘Roman civilization, as a corrupting influence, rides on the back of Roman military power.’30 The beast was ‘covered with blasphemous names’ (deeply compromised with the imperial cult), while its seven heads and ten horns confirmed its identity (13:1).
As for the woman herself, she was dressed in flamboyant royal purple and scarlet, adorned with glittering jewellery, and holding a golden cup filled with the filth of her immorality. A title on her forehead proclaimed her to be ‘Babylon the Great, the Mother of Prostitutes and of the Abominations of the Earth.’ Now twice more, in rapid succession, John says ‘I saw...I saw...’ He saw the woman drunk with the blood of martyrs, and what he saw astonished him. So again the angel came to his aid.
Consider, secondly, what the angel explained to John (vv. 7–8). The angel is speaking throughout this section and five times reminds him of what he has seen and interprets it.
‘The beast you saw’ (v. 8), in addition to being ridden by the woman and having seven heads and ten horns, ‘once was, now is not, and will come up out of the Abyss and go to his destruction’. These four stages in the biography of the beast may well be an allusion to Nero redivivus, which has already been mentioned (13:3). According to this myth, Nero once was, now is not (he committed suicide), will rise again (either literally at the head of an army or symbolically in the policies of Domitian), but will be destroyed. But this is also the course of evil – active from the beginning, seeming sometimes to die down, reasserting itself, but ultimately to be destroyed.
Next we are presented with a second puzzle, which also ‘calls for a mind with wisdom’ (v. 9). The beast’s seven heads are seven hills (obviously those on which Rome is built). They are also seven kings, five of whom have fallen, one still is, and the seventh has not yet arrived. Commentators are divided as to whether the five are the Roman emperors from Augustus to Nero or (because of the background in the prophecy of Daniel) five kingdoms or empires from Ancient Babylonia (or Egypt), through Assyria, Chaldea, Medo-Persia and Greece to Rome.
The interpreting angel now refers to ‘the ten horns you saw’ (v. 12). They are said to be ‘ten kings’. But, because their authority in each case will last for only one hour (that is, a very short time), the reference may rather be to leaders in general or perhaps Roman governors in particular. Unfortunately, their one and only purpose will be to kowtow to the beast and make war against the Lamb. But the Lamb will overcome them (because he is Lord of lords and King of kings), as will also his followers who are ‘called, chosen and faithful’ (v. 14).
‘The waters you saw’, continues the angel (v. 15), over which the prostitute presides, are the peoples of the world. But ‘the beast and the ten horns you saw’ (v. 16), who have served the woman faithfully, will now turn in revulsion against her, will hate her, strip her, eat her flesh and burn her up. For God has put it into their heart to be the agent of his judgment upon her.
Finally, ‘the woman you saw’ (v. 18) is the great city that rules over the kings of the earth; Babylon in symbol, Rome in reality, the very essence of hostility to Christ and his church.
The fall of Babylon (18:1–24)
Now that the identity of ‘Babylon’ has been established as Rome the prostitute, aided and abetted by Rome the persecutor, John goes on at once to describe her overthrow. It would not take place in its finality for more than another 320 years, when in AD 410 Alaric the Goth would sack the city. Yet John used the prophetic past-tense throughout chapter 18, expressing the certainty of God’s judgment as if it had already taken place. ‘Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great!’ (v. 2, as in 14:8).
It is truly amazing that John could predict the overthrow of Rome with such assurance. For people spoke of Rome as ‘the eternal city’, and the empire appeared to be invulnerable. Bishop Paul Barnett has written that at that time,
Rome was at the height of her powers. There was no serious threat to her frontiers, nor any sign of major uprising from her own subject peoples. Pirates had been cleared from the seas and brigands from the countryside. Elegant cities dotted the shores of the Mediterranean and were to be found in many inland regions as well. Soon the tyrant Domitian would fall, and the empire would enter [its] golden year...31
So how can John have been so sure? Partly no doubt because he believed in the just judgment of God upon evil, and partly because the Old Testament prophecies of the fall of Babylon in those days had all been fulfilled (e.g. Is. 13:19 and 21:9). So the angel sent to announce Babylon’s fall had great authority and splendour (v. 1). He even declared that already the city’s destruction had made it a haunt for evil spirits and unclean birds (v. 2; cf. Is. 13:20–22; Jer. 50:39).
And the reason for the devastation of Babylon was that all the nations, kings and merchants of the earth had become infected by her adulteries and luxuries (v. 3). These groupings recur in the second half of the chapter.
Meanwhile, another voice was heard calling God’s people to come out of Babylon, in order to avoid contamination. If they did not share her sins, they would not share her plagues either (cf. Jer. 50:8; 51:6, 45). For God remembered her sins (‘piled up to heaven’ v. 5) and would render to her what she deserved, and even more because of her total self-absorption and boastfulness. For ‘mighty is the Lord God who judges her’ (v. 8).
The same voice continues to be heard as it addresses three groups of the godless community in mourning over Babylon’s downfall: the kings of the earth (vv. 9–10), the merchants of the earth (vv. 11–17a) and the seafarers of the world (vv. 17b–19). The whole passage is reminiscent of an Old Testament funeral dirge, especially Ezekiel’s lament over Tyre and Sidon (Ezek. 26 – 28), and each section is concluded with the words of lamentation ‘Woe! Woe, O great city’ because ‘in one hour’ she had been brought to ruin (vv. 10, 16, 19).
The kings of the earth, who were guilty of sharing in Babylon’s immorality and luxury, will weep and wail over the destruction of the ‘city of power’.
The merchants of the earth will also mourn because they will have no more markets and no-one to buy their cargoes of jewellery, fine clothing, articles of ivory, wood and other materials, spices and food, horses and chariots. They even trafficked in human beings as slaves. The special fruit their customers long for will no longer be available. Their financial capital will have disappeared overnight, never to be recovered. The merchants who have lost everything will stand far off and weep that ‘such great wealth’ could in one hour have been brought to ruin. It is a picture of economic collapse. So those who mourn the devastation of Babylon are those who have ‘benefited from Rome’s economic exploitation of her empire’.32
The seafarers of the world include not only sea captains and sailors (the ship owners’ crews of sea-going vessels), but also those who travel by ship and those who earn their living from the sea (merchants and fishermen). They too will stand at a distance from Babylon and watch her burning. Then they will extol her uniqueness: ‘was there ever a city like this great city?’ (v. 18). Overwhelmed with sorrow, they will weep that her wealth and their profits will vanish in a single hour.
Chapter 18 concludes with a combination of opposites: a celebration and a lament. Verse 20 calls upon heaven to rejoice, and saints, apostles and prophets to rejoice as well. Why? Because God has judged Babylon for the way she has treated them. It sounds at first hearing like an expression of personal revenge, but there is no reason to interpret it in this way. As throughout Revelation (not least in chapter 19), so here, we are called to celebrate the justice and the judgment of our all-righteous God.
Next, a mighty angel threw a huge boulder into the sea and said that with just such violence Babylon would be irrevocably destroyed. In consequence, even the good things of the city’s life would disappear with her – the sound of music, the skill of craftsmen, the familiar domestic routine of preparing food for the family, the light of lamps, and the joyful laughter of bride and bridegroom. Never again would these innocent sounds and sights of human culture gladden the life of the city. Why not? Answer: because of the pride of Babylon’s merchants, who boasted of their greatness; because of Babylon’s resort to sorcery in order to deceive the nations; and because Babylon had shed the blood of the martyrs. Because of these sins Babylon will be no more, and with her disappearance all that is good, beautiful and true will disappear as well.
In the first century AD Babylon was Rome. But Babylon has flourished throughout history and throughout the world. Babylon is Vanity Fair, wherever it exists. Its profile can be drawn with ease from these chapters. It seems to have six components: (1) idolatry (spiritual unfaithfulness, even promiscuity); (2) immorality (literal as well as symbolical); (3) extravagance and luxury (18:3, 7–8); (4) the use of sorcery and magic (18:23; cf. Is. 47:1–2); (5) tyranny and oppression, leading to the martyrdom of God’s people (17:6; 18:24; cf. Is. 14:4–6); and (6) arrogance, even self-deification (18:7; cf. Is. 14:13–15; 47:7ff.; Jer. 50:31–32; Ezek. 28:2). The urgent call still comes to God’s people to come out of her, in order to avoid contamination.
Five hallelujahs (19:1–10)
In contrast to the silence of burned-out Babylon, John now heard what sounded like ‘the roar of a great multitude in heaven’ shouting ‘Hallelujah!’, that is, ‘Praise the Lord!’ Five times the word is repeated, if the invitation to ‘praise our God’ in verse 5 is included. Moreover, as in the Psalms so here, ‘Hallelujah’ never stands alone. Always some reasons are added to explain why we should praise God. In general, it is because salvation, glory and power belong to him, and because his judgments are ‘true and just’.
In particular, however, our hallelujahs arise because God has ‘condemned the great prostitute’. She had corrupted the world both by her adulteries (her multiple unfaithfulness) and by her persecution of God’s people even to the point of death. Now God has avenged their blood. It was not their personal revenge which they were celebrating, but the vindication of God’s justice. Next, the twenty-four elders and four living creatures fell down and worshipped God, endorsing the acknowledgment of God’s justice with their ‘Amen, Hallelujah!’ (v. 4).
Now John repeats that he heard what sounded like ‘a great multitude’, although this time he added that the noise reminded him of rushing waters and loud thunder. ‘Hallelujah!’ was again their first word (v. 7). In general it was because the Lord God Almighty was reigning. But in particular, the summons to worship this time is because ‘the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready’. The judgment of the prostitute and the preparation of the Lamb’s bride are in dramatic antithesis to one another. We remember the gaudy clothing of the prostitute; by contrast, the bride had prepared herself with simple ‘fine linen, bright and clean’, which had been given her to wear. It stood for ‘the righteous acts’ of God’s people, John added. Without these she would not be fit for her bridegroom.
An angel then instructed John to write that those ‘invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb’ are truly blessed. Overcome either by the angel’s appearance or by his message or both, John inadvisedly fell at his feet to worship him, but the angel stopped him, reminding him that he was only a fellow servant of John himself and of all his brothers who bear witness to Jesus. He must worship God and remember that the essence of true prophecy is testimony to Jesus.
9. Christ riding in triumph on a white horse (Rev. 19:11 – 20:15)
The doom of the beast and of Satan
‘I saw heaven standing open’, John writes (v. 11). The phrase alerts us to the fact that he is about to be given a special revelation of Christ and is going to share it with us. At first our eye lights upon a white horse. Then our attention is drawn to the rider on the white horse. His names and his description (which follow) leave us in no doubt whatsoever that this is the Lord Jesus Christ in the fullness of his divine majesty. Indeed, this is the ninth and penultimate portrait of him in the Revelation. He is here made known to us as the judge who both judges with perfect justice and is preparing to lead the last battle against the forces of evil.
His description and his names
Consider his description. His eyes blaze like fire and pierce the secrets of human hearts. He is crowned with many crowns, symbolizing his universal authority. His robe is blood-stained, indicating surely that he carries with him the achievement of his sacrificial death. The heavenly armies follow him, and like him ride on white horses and are dressed in fine (though not blood-stained) linen. And then, using three Old Testament symbols of the just judgment of Almighty God, a sharp sword juts out of his mouth, he wields an iron sceptre and he treads the winepress of God’s righteous anger. It is almost impossible to visualize this mounted portrait of the Messiah – his eyes on fire, his head with many crowns, his mouth holding a sword, his hand brandishing a sceptre, while his feet are treading out the grapes. Symbolically, however, it is a spectacular picture of the Lord Jesus Christ in majesty, power, authority and justice, coming to destroy the powers of evil.
Now we must consider his four names. First, he is called ‘Faithful and True’ (v. 11), as in his letter to Laodicea he had announced himself as ‘the faithful and true witness’ (3:14). That is, he had never compromised his allegiance to God. Moreover, since in Scripture the faithfulness of God relates to his covenant and promises, to call Jesus ‘Faithful and True’ means that it is through Christ that God’s covenant has been established and his praises will be fulfilled. ‘For no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ’ (2 Cor. 1:20).
Secondly, the rider on the white horse ‘has a name written on him that no-one knows but he himself’ (v. 12). Since our name stands for our identity, a hidden name means a hidden identity. Jesus Christ has not revealed all of himself to us. However much we may claim to know him, there is still much we do not know. Only he knows himself in his fullness, and only on the last day will we know him as he knows us (1 Cor. 13:12; 1 John 3:2).
Thirdly, his name is ‘the Word of God’ (v. 13; John 1:1). Just as we reveal ourselves in our speech, so God has revealed himself in his Word, Jesus Christ, and in the full biblical witness to Christ. It is also important to note that he whose name is ‘the Word of God’ wears a blood-stained robe. For it is on the cross that he has revealed himself fully in both goodness and severity, in love and justice, demonstrating his justice in judgment and his love in salvation.
Fourthly, on his robe and on his thigh he has this name written: ‘King of kings and Lord of lords’ (v. 16. Cf. 17:14 and Deut. 10:17). This is the most sensational of all Christ’s names, and reminds us inevitably of the climax of Handel’s Messiah. Earthly kings and queens, emperors, presidents and other rulers easily become intoxicated with their power and fame, and tend to become autocratic. But Jesus Christ cuts them down to size. For he has been exalted to the highest place of honour, far above all human rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, with all things placed under his feet (Eph. 1:20–23; Phil. 2:9–11). He is King of kings and Lord of lords.
The two beasts are destroyed
Following this revelation of Christ as the rider on the white horse, one naturally expects him to ride forth to the last battle. In anticipation of it and its casualties, an angel issues a loud and grim invitation to predatory birds to ‘gather together for the great supper of God’ (v. 17). It is a ghastly alternative to that other supper, already mentioned, ‘the wedding supper of the Lamb’ (19:9). Guests invited to that supper will be blessed indeed. But the guests at God’s ‘great supper’ will be vultures and other scavenging birds, while the food served will be human flesh – the flesh of kings, generals and mighty men, and of all people small and great, who (it is assumed) have received the mark of the beast (v. 20).
Next, John sees the beast, the kings of the earth and their armies assembled to wage war against the rider on the white horse and his army (v. 19). So the dramatic moment has come. The two armies, divine and demonic, are facing one another. It is the threshold of Armageddon. What happens next? Nothing! ‘There is no battle’, only ‘a complete anticlimax’.33 For the truth is that the battle has already been fought and won by the cross and resurrection of Jesus.
Instead, the time of judgment has come, and the forces of evil are disposed of in the opposite order to their introduction. Babylon has already been overthrown. Now the two beasts will be destroyed, leaving the dragon’s fate until chapter 20. The beast from the sea was captured, and with him the beast from the earth, also known as ‘the false prophet’, the symbol of false religion, responsible for persuading people to worship the Emperor or his statue (v. 20). Both beasts were thrown alive into the lake of fire and so destroyed. At the same time we must remember that they are not sentient beings but symbols of anti-Christian persecution and ideology. The chapter concludes with two dramatic pictures. First, the rest of the beast’s army will be killed by the rider on the white horse, using the sword in his mouth, which means that he will overcome evil by his Word. Secondly, the unpleasant spectacle of vultures gorging themselves on human flesh means that in the end evil will be completely and irrevocably destroyed.
Satan’s doom (20:1–15)
Chapter 19 concluded with the vision of the victorious rider on the white horse, in other words, with the end of history. We must not imagine, therefore, that chapter 20 begins where chapter 19 left off. Having a ‘parallelist’ understanding of the book, I believe that yet again John is recapitulating his story from the beginning. Within the fifteen verses of chapter 20 he retells the outline of church history between the first and second comings of Christ. In doing so, now that Babylon and the two beasts have been destroyed, his emphasis is on the fate of the dragon, the arch enemy of God. The chapter divides naturally into three paragraphs: the thousand years (vv. 1–6); the final battle (vv. 7–10); and the last judgment (vv. 11–15).
Revelation 20 is well known for its reference to a millennium or one thousand year period. I am assuming that, like other enumerations in the book, we should not interpret this literally, but as a very long though unspecified period, in fact the whole gospel age. John tells us that he saw an angel descending from heaven equipped with both the key to the abyss and a great chain. He seized the dragon (identified once more as the devil), chained him, threw him into the abyss, and locked and sealed it over him. The purpose of this was not to punish him but ‘to keep him from deceiving the nations any more...’ Next, John saw some thrones on which two groups were seated – on the one hand, departed saints ‘who had been given authority to judge’ (v. 4), and on the other, martyrs ‘who had been beheaded because of their testimony for Jesus...’ The two groups were united in their refusal either to worship the beast or to be branded with his mark. They came to life (an experience later called ‘the first resurrection’, vv. 5–6) and reigned with Christ throughout the millennium. They were also pronounced especially blessed because they would never die ‘the second death’, but would serve as priests to God and Christ.
It is important to note that the expression ‘for a thousand years’ occurs in these six verses four times, on each occasion with a different reference. Together they tell us what happens during the millennium. First, Satan was bound ‘for a thousand years’ (v. 2). Secondly, the nations were no longer deceived ‘until the thousand years were ended’ (v. 3). Thirdly, the resurrected saints and martyrs reigned with Christ ‘a thousand years’ (v. 4). Fourthly, the same resurrected ones served God and Christ as priests ‘for a thousand years’ (v. 6).
Once aware of this fourfold repetition, and of the four activities described, I think we should boldly affirm that the millennium symbolizes the whole period between the first and second comings of Christ. First, it was at his first coming, specifically by his death and resurrection, that Jesus ‘bound the strong man’ (Mark 3:27 = Matt. 12:29). Secondly, it is during the same inter-adventual period that the nations have been ‘undeceived’, and that millions have been converted, as a result of the preaching of the gospel in the power of the Spirit (e.g. Ps. 2:8; Mark 13:10; Luke 10:18; Acts 1:8). Thirdly, during the same period God’s people are risen and reigning with Christ, seated with him on thrones in the heavenly places (Eph. 2:5–6, cf. Rev. 3:21). Fourthly, we are priests as well as kings (Rev. 1:6; 5:10; 1 Pet. 2:5, 9). There is no mention here of a millennium ‘on earth’; the millennium is a reign with Christ ‘in the heavenlies’.
If it be objected that the devil does not seem to be bound, nor do the nations seem to have been ‘undeceived’, we can perhaps reply in two ways. First, the binding of Satan is a problem relating to the whole New Testament, and not only to Revelation 20. Throughout the New Testament it is decisively asserted that on the cross Christ defeated and even ‘destroyed’ the devil, has dethroned and disarmed him, and that everything has been put under his feet (e.g. Col. 2:15; Eph. 1:22; Heb. 2:14). Secondly, Revelation 20 does not say that the devil is bound in regard to all his activities, but only in regard to his deception of the nations. Looking back over the centuries to the beginning of the gospel, there has certainly been an amazing ingathering of the nations to Christ (cf. Rev. 7:9).
When the inter-adventual or thousand-year period is over, John tells us that Satan will be released from his prison ‘for a short time’ (vv. 3, 7), and that he will deceive the nations again throughout the world. During this time the missionary outreach of the church will no doubt be opposed and curtailed, and the church will experience persecution and tribulation rather than expansion. Satan will also gather the hostile peoples together for a last assault against the church, including Gog and Magog, symbols in Ezekiel 38 and 39 of godless nations. A huge army will muster and march across the earth, spearheaded by Antichrist or the man of lawlessness (2 Thess. 2:1–12), and will surround the camp of God’s people, symbolically Jerusalem, the city he loves. The contours of the story are familiar. Already this army, marching to the battle of Armageddon, has been described three or four times, for John reaches the same climax repeatedly (e.g. 11:18; 16:12ff. and 19:19). Each time, as the two armies face each other, we expect a clash of arms, violence and blood. But each time there is no battle, for God himself intervenes and forestalls the conflict. Christ comes in person, the rider on the white horse, and overthrows the lawless one with the breath of his mouth (2 Thess. 1:7–10; 2:8). Or, as John puts it here, ‘fire came down from heaven and devoured them’ (v. 9). Then the dragon was thrown into the lake of fire, to meet the two beasts there in a fate which has neither intermission nor end.
Now that the dragon, the two beasts and the harlot have all been destroyed, and so all opposition to God’s people (whether physical persecution, false ideology or moral compromise) has disappeared with them, the time has come for the judgment of individuals. John sees a great white throne. It is occupied, but by whom he does not say. It may be God the Father, since he is normally the unnamed throne-occupant. But it is more likely to be Jesus Christ, since it is to him that God has delegated the work of judgment (see e.g. Matt. 25:31; John 5:22; Acts 17:31; Rev. 14:14). Earth and sky vanish, to indicate the end of the old creation. Then John saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne. ‘There are no absentees and there are no exemptions.’34 Then books were opened, both the many books recording the deeds of the dead, and the single ‘book of life’ registering those who belong to the Lamb (3:5; 13:8). When John says that ‘the dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books’ (v. 12), he is not saying that sinners are justified by their good works. No, we sinners are justified by God’s grace alone through faith in Christ alone. At the same time, we will be judged by our good works. The reason for this is that the Judgment Day will be a public occasion, and that good works will be the only public and visible evidence which can be produced to attest the authenticity of our faith. ‘Faith without works is dead.’ Both the sea and hades will give up their dead, as now the general resurrection will take place. And then death and hades will be thrown into the lake of fire, meaning that physical death will itself die. ‘There will be no more death’ (21: 4). But the lake of fire, which will abolish physical death, is itself a second and spiritual death, eternal separation from God. The awful destiny of anyone whose name is not in the book of life is the second death, the lake of fire.
10. Christ coming as the bridegroom to claim his bride (Rev. 21 – 22)
The new universe, the city and the garden
Chapter 20 ended with the fearful contrast between those who are registered in the book of life and those who experience the second death, and so between life and death as the alternative destinies awaiting humankind. Chapters 21 and 22 also mention the second death (21:8), but their whole focus is on life – the book of life (21:27), the water of life (21:6; 22:1–2; 22:17) and the tree of life (22:2, 14, 19).
Now ‘eternal life’ means the personal knowledge of God through Jesus Christ (John 17:3), just as the second death means separation from him. Moreover John illustrates this life (the ultimate and glorious destiny of the people of God) by the use of three distinct metaphors. The first is security in the city of God, the new Jerusalem. The second is access to the tree of life in the Garden of Eden restored. The third is the intimate relationship of bride and bridegroom in marriage. John has a remarkable facility for mixing his metaphors. He jumps abruptly from one to another (the city, the garden and the wedding) without any apparent sense of incongruity. Just as the lion of the tribe of Judah turned out to be a Lamb as if it had been slain (5:5), so the Holy City John sees descending out of heaven from God is ‘prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband’ (21:2). It is as difficult to visualize a city as a bride or a bride as a city, as it is to visualize a lion as a lamb or a lamb as a lion. Nevertheless, it is not difficult to interpret the symbols. All three metaphors (the city, the garden and the wedding) represent our close personal fellowship with God, which begins now, once we have been reconciled to him, and which will be consummated when Christ comes.
All things new (21:1–8)
The first eight verses of chapter 21 seem to celebrate the ‘newness’ of God’s eschatological work. They are variations on the theme of newness. For John saw a new heaven and a new earth (v. 1), to which the new Jerusalem descended (v. 2). As a result, ‘the old order of things had passed away’ (v. 4) and from his throne God could declare, ‘I am making everything new’ (v. 5).
The promise of a new heaven and a new earth was first made by God to Isaiah (65:17; 66:22). Jesus himself spoke of it as ‘the renewal of all things’ (Matt. 19:28, literally ‘the new birth’), and Paul wrote of it as the creation’s liberation from its bondage to decay (Rom. 8:21). It is important therefore to affirm that our Christian hope looks forward not to an ethereal heaven but to a renewed universe, related to the present world by both continuity and discontinuity. Just as the individual Christian is a ‘new creation’ in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17), the same person but transformed; and just as the resurrection body will be the same body with its identity intact (nb Jesus’ scars), yet invested with new powers; so the new heaven and the new earth will not be a replacement universe (as if created de novo), but a regenerated universe, purged of all present imperfection, with no more pain, sin or death (vv. 4, 8). John adds the detail that ‘there was no longer any sea’ (v. 1). Many who love the sea regret this, but we need to remember that to Israel the sea was a symbol of restlessness (Is. 57:20–21), of separation (Ps. 139:9–10) and of hostility to God, being the environment out of which the beast from the sea emerged (13:1).
Next John hears a loud voice emanating from God’s throne, addressing him in direct speech and explaining the meaning of the descent of the new Jerusalem: ‘Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God’ (v. 3). This marvellous declaration is all the more impressive because it incorporates the covenant formula, which occurs again and again throughout Scripture, namely ‘I will be your God and you shall be my people.’ The result of this living relationship between God and his people is that there will be no more tears, death, mourning, crying or pain. For these things belong to the old fallen world-order which has now passed away. Indeed, as the voice from the throne continued, ‘I am making everything new!’ And only he can do this, since he is the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End.
So far, in the early verses of chapter 21 two of the metaphors of eternal life in Christ have been mentioned, namely the city (the new Jerusalem) and the marriage (the bride beautifully dressed for her husband). Now the third is at least hinted at in reference to the thirsty who are invited to drink without cost, since it is in the garden that the spring of the water of life is to be found (v. 6). The overcomers (who have refused to compromise) are referred to alongside the thirsty, and, in contrast, eight categories of evil-doers are listed, who will be excluded from the city, the garden and the wedding, and instead will find their place in the lake of fire.
The rest of chapter 21 and most of chapter 22 are in the main devoted to an elaboration of the three metaphors.
The city (21:9–21)
An angel invites John ‘Come, and I will show you the bride’, as another angel had invited him earlier ‘Come, and I will show you the...great prostitute’ (17:1). The bride and the prostitute, Jerusalem and Babylon, are set in antithesis to one another throughout the book. As at the beginning of this chapter John saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down beautifully dressed like a bride (v. 2), now he is invited to see the bride but is shown the city (v. 10). It is obvious that the two metaphors illustrate the same truth.
John’s angel-guide carried him away, not literally but ‘in the Spirit’, his imagination controlled by the inspiring Spirit, to a high mountain. From this vantage-point John saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down from God. The first thing we are told about it is that ‘it shone with the glory of God’ (v. 11), since the temple of the old Jerusalem was the dwelling place of God’s glory (e.g. Ezek. 1 and 10). The city also flashed with the brilliance of a very precious stone, perhaps a diamond.
John now describes the city’s wall, together with the wall’s gates and foundations. The wall’s twelve gates, guarded by twelve angels, had on them the names of Israel’s twelve tribes, there being three gates on the east, three on the north and south and west. The wall’s twelve foundations had on them the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. So the city represented the completed church of both Old and New Testaments.
John goes on to tell us that his angel-guide had a golden measuring rod with which he measured the city, its gates and its walls. We are first told that the city was square, 12,000 stadia (about 1,500 miles) in length and width, and then given the further information that the height of the city was also the same. So the city was a cube, like the holy of holies in the temple (e.g. 1 Kgs. 6:20), indicating that the whole city resembled the most holy place, and that the presence of God permeated the whole city. The only other measurement we are given is that the city wall was 144 cubits thick (about 216 feet).
We will surely agree with Dr Bruce Metzger that the new Jerusalem is ‘architecturally preposterous’.35 One cannot even conceive an enormous cube stretching from London to Athens or Los Angeles to Dallas. One can understand the symbolism, however. The new Jerusalem is a massive impregnable fortress, symbolizing the security and peace of the people of God. The measuring of her confirmed her stability. ‘Walk about Zion...count her towers, consider well her ramparts...’ (Ps. 48:12–13). ‘May there be peace within your walls and security within your citadels!’ (Ps. 122:7). ‘Those who trust in the LORD are like Mount Zion, which cannot be shaken but endures for ever’ (Ps. 125:1).
The city John saw was not only huge and solid, but also beautiful – each of its twelve foundations being decorated with a different jewel, each of its twelve gates being made from a single pearl, and the great street of the city being pure gold.
Having grasped the vast dimensions and colourful magnificence of the new Jerusalem, which is filled with the presence of God, it is not surprising that John noticed certain consequent absences (21:22–27). We have already seen that there will be no more sin, pain, tears or death (21:4); now we are ready for four more.
First, ‘I did not see a temple in the city’ (v. 22). But of course not ! The Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. Their presence fills the city; there is no need for a special building in which to house them. Ezekiel’s prophecy will have come true: ‘The Lord is there’ (Ezek. 48:35).
Secondly, the city needs neither sun nor moon (v. 23), since the glory of God illumines it, and the Lamb is its light (cf. Is. 60:19). Indeed, its light will be adequate even for the nations, that is, the Gentile multitudes who will be numbered among the redeemed (Rev. 7:9ff.).
At this point we need to consider verses 24 and 26. ‘The kings of the earth will bring their splendour into it’ and ‘the glory and honour of the nations will be brought into it’. We should not hesitate to affirm that the cultural treasures of the world will enrich the new Jerusalem. Nature is what God gives us; culture is what human beings make of it. Since human beings are ambiguous, so is their culture. Some of it is evil and even demonic, but some of it is also beautiful, good and true. It is this that will adorn the Holy City.
Thirdly, there will be no night there. Consequently the city’s gates will never be shut. They will be permanently open, permitting continuous access to the city and so to the God who lives there (v. 25).
Fourthly, nothing impure will ever enter the city, nor will anybody enter who is guilty of shameful or deceitful deeds, but only those registered in the Lamb’s book (v. 27).
The garden (22:1–6)
In these early verses of chapter 22 we are still in the city, which is mentioned twice. Nevertheless, we have now left the walls, gates and foundations of the city, and the emphasis is on the river of life and the tree of life. These allusions are enough to alert us that John has the Garden of Eden in mind, with its many rivers and its tree of life. Perhaps we should think of the context as a garden-city or an urban park. John refers in turn to the river, the tree and the throne.
First, the angel showed John ‘the river of the water of life’ (cf. Ezek. 47). The water was crystal-clear, and the river flowed out of the throne of God and the Lamb (issuing from his sovereign grace) and down the middle of the city’s main street. Thus the water is available at all times to the thirsty.
Secondly, we are told that the tree of life was growing on each side of the river. Access to it had been forbidden after the fall (Gen. 3:23–24), but now the prohibition is lifted. Perhaps there is only one tree on each side, but I prefer the view of some commentators, already prophesied by Ezekiel (47:7), that many trees of life line both riverbanks along its full length, so that, like the water, their fruit will be readily available to all. Thus the hungry may eat and the thirsty may drink to their heart’s content. It needs to be mentioned that the Greek word for ‘tree’ here is the same one used by the apostles Peter and Paul in reference to the cross (xylos: Acts 5:30; 10:39; 13:29; Gal. 3:13; 1 Pet. 2:24). John lays such stress on the saving death of the Lamb that he may well see in the tree of life a symbolic allusion to the cross. At all events, every month fresh fruit from the tree was ripe, while the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations, indicating the widespread positive benefits that the gospel brings to the Gentile world.
John adds that there will no longer be any curse (v. 3). It is another clear reference to the Garden of Eden, in which the ground was cursed because of Adam, and produced thorns and thistles (Gen. 3:17). That curse is revoked in the new heaven and the new earth.
Thirdly, John moves on from the river and the tree to the throne of God in the garden-city. Its centrality will be restored as in chapters 4 and 5, and the whole of life will be subservient to the rule of God and of the Lamb. His servants will worship him, and they will see his face. God had told Moses plainly: ‘You cannot see my face, for no-one may see me and live’ (Exod. 33:20; John 1:18). So all that human beings have seen so far is the glory of God (Exod. 33:18, 22), which has been defined as ‘the outward shining of his inward being’. Thus they have seen God in the person and works of his incarnate Son (John 1:14, 18; 2:11; 14:9). Such ‘sight’ is, however, like the poor reflection of a mirror (1 Cor. 13:12). And so it will remain until the veil is lifted when Christ comes again and we will see him ‘as he is’ (1 John 3:2), even ‘face to face’ (1 Cor. 13:12). This beatific vision is an indispensable part of God’s ultimate purpose for his people.
In addition, God’s name will be branded upon our foreheads (v. 4), sealing us as belonging to him for ever. One more ‘absence’ is now repeated: ‘There will be no more night’ (v. 5, cf. 21:25), for the light which the Lord God sheds abroad will banish the darkness. All this is due to God’s sovereignty. He reigns, and his people also ‘reign for ever and ever’, not in any way rivalling his rule, but sharing it.