Resisting Trump with Revelation (14)
the seven seals 3 (6:-8:1)
What is going on in the world around us? It
doesn’t look as though God is in control, that he has won the victory over evil
and death in Jesus Christ. Conquerors bringing rapacious greed, violence, and
unrest kill and terrorize the earth. Have those who dies for Jesus’ sake died
in vain? Will anyone be held accountable for this mess?
These
are the questions that dog God’s people as they try to live faithfully in the
world. We all wonder about these things at times. We agonize over them.
Sometimes we doubt. But we are never free of their niggling at our minds and
hearts.
Jesus
opens the first six seals in response to these questions. None of these things
are taking place outside of God’s loving purpose for the world or the
sovereignty of his slaughtered Lamb. The logic of suffering love will prevail.
For those who have given their life for the Lamb and even those who have
opposed his will, his way, his people. Justice and love will embrace in the
strange alchemy of the work of this slaughtered Lamb.
The 144,000
Before
the seventh seal is opened, however, Jesus stops to remind his readers of who
they are and what God has done for them. Four angels stand at earth’s four
corners ready to unleash destructive winds. Another image of God’s judgment.
Before they can release their furies on the earth though, another angel stays
their hands. “Do
not damage the earth or the sea or the trees, until we have marked the servants
of our God with a seal on their foreheads” (v.3).
Who are
these people to be sealed? John hears their number – 144,000 (v.4). And that
they come from the twelve tribes of Israel.
Then he
turns to look, and like the lion he about who turned was a slaughtered lamb
when he turned to see it, this group of 144,000 Jews turns out to be an
innumerable multiethnic mass (v.9). Standing before throne and the lamb,
wearing white robes (6:11), they sing, “Salvation belongs to our God who is
seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!” To which the angels around the throne
respond with a robust blessing of God.
Asked by
one of the 24 elders whether he knows about these people, John confesses his
ignorance. The elder replies, “These are they who have come out of the great
ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the
Lamb.”
What is
this “great ordeal” (or “tribulation” as we tend to call it)? According to the
elder it is the time in which these folks have “washed their robes and made
them white in the blood of the Lamb.” The active verbs here depicting these
people as the ones who “wash” and “make” their robes white in the blood of the
Lamb suggests not atonement (passive verbs would have been used) but rather
sharing in his ongoing work of selfless, sacrificial servanthood. As Grimsrud
notes, “’Blood,’ throughout Revelation, works as a master metaphor that
signifies Jesus’ path of persevering love taken all the way, even in the face
of harsh opposition from the Powers. The robes are ‘made white’ by ethical
faithfulness.”[1]
The “great ordeal, then, following the risky path of faithfulness in cruciform
service and in some cases to the cross itself.
144,000
Jews picks up the notion of election, an innumerable multiethnic horde, God’s
creational dream, and those out of “the great ordeal (or tribulation, as we
tend to call it), those who follow the Lamb – three different descriptions of
the same people. The imagery is very fluid here.
The
elder continues:
15 “For
this reason they are before the throne of God,
and worship him day and night within
his temple,
and the one who is seated on the throne will shelter them. 16 They will hunger no more, and thirst no more;
the sun will not strike them,
nor any scorching heat; 17 for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd,
and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”
and the one who is seated on the throne will shelter them. 16 They will hunger no more, and thirst no more;
the sun will not strike them,
nor any scorching heat; 17 for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd,
and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”
These
folk, the 144,000 cum innumerable multiethnic multitude cum faithful followers
of Jesus, which includes the faithful of all times and place though the
emphasis here is on present witnesses, live “before the throne of God.” This is
their reality even as they struggle amid chaos and debris left by the Four
Horseman. The Lamb “at the center of the throne” will shepherd them to shelter
and provision, to the “water of life,” and God will redeem their lives.
The Seventh Seal (8:1)
After
this pause, the breaking of the seals concludes with the seventh and last seal.
“When the Lamb opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about
half an hour.”
What
an odd thing! The hymn-filled heavenly throne room goes silent for a time. What
might this mean? I suggest it is a dramatic device to clear the way for the
introduction of the seven trumpets. Some suggest the quiet allows the prayers
of God’s people to be heard but there is no indication in the text for that.
At
any rate, it is to the series of seven trumpet we turn next.
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