Following the Lamb Wherever He Goes (4)
Ch.2 Jumping into Revelation
“Few writings in all of literature have been so
obsessively read with such generally disastrous results as the Book of
Revelation (= the Apocalypse). Its history of interpretation is largely a story
of tragic misinterpretation, resulting from a fundamental misapprehension of
the work’s literary form and purpose. Insofar as its arcane symbols have fed
the treasury of prayer and poetry, its influence has been benign. More often,
these same symbols have nurtured delusionary systems, both private and public,
to the destruction of their fashioners and to the discredit of the writing.” Luke
Timothy Johnson, The Writings of the New
Testament, 507)
We’re jumping
into the deep end of the pool with Revelation. I get that. But the reason it is
deep is not its profundity. That it shares in equal measure with the rest of
the New Testament. It is its form, our cultural distance from that form, and the
assumptions about prophecy and “end times” we modern readers bring to it that that
produces those “generally disastrous results” Johnson speaks of above.
The task before
us was well put by St. Augustine more than a century and a half ago in these
words: “Now in this book called the Apocalypse there are, to be sure, many
obscure statements, designed to exercise the mind of the reader; and there are
a few statements there whose clarity enables us to track down the meaning of
the rest, at the price of some effort” (City
of God, 20.17). “At some effort” – that is certainly true. Mental,
theological, and spiritual exertion are required to overcome the cultural
difference and assumptions about prophecy that keep us from meaning of
Revelation. In addition, we lack the necessary historical information to make
sense of some of what we find in Revelation that John could assume his readers
knew. Yet, though it be the case, as Larry Hurtado asserts, that “(Revelation’s)
been the playground of nutty people over the centuries, who’ve treated it as
some kind of coded history-in-advance, and who’ve concocted various
calculations of ‘the end.’” It remains the case that “Revelation is actually a
much more serious and substantial text that deserves better” (Hurtado,
https://larryhurtado.wordpress.com/2016/05/03/the-book-of-revelation-a-different-kind-of-apocalyptic-text/).
We’ll try to treat it that way.
Two of those
issues we don’t know enough about to come to firm conclusions about are who
wrote it and when it was written. So we jump in there.
Authorship
We begin with
the unknowable. Seems appropriate for Revelation doesn’t it? I mean the matters
of authorship and date. We do not known who wrote the gospel of John and that
complicates things exponentially. The tradition that the apostle John was the
gospel’s author is simply a tradition and there are factors that complicate
that identification. And from Revelation’s side, from the 3rd century on its
differences with the gospel have been noticed.
We know that
John the Seer of Revelation is a prophet. He is known to the churches he writes
to in Asia Minor. Since the authorship of the gospel is uncertain and there are
undoubted differences within the commonalities the two documents share, we
can’t know if there is an common authorship at play. However, there are
indications that the two documents may be linked in a manner similar to Luke
and Acts as a gospel and its companion piece, the story of its spread out into
the world. Peter Leithart surveys some of the key linkages[i]:
-John and Revelation both identify
Jesus as the “Word of God” (Jn. 1:1; Rev. 19:13) as well as the “Lamb.”
-Only John and Revelation speak of
how God “tabernacles” among His people (Jn. 1:14; Rev. 21:3). The phrase “Son
of Man” is associated in both John and Revelation with Jesus’ exaltation.
-Suffering is the path to victory in
both stories. In John, Jesus is exalted on the cross, and in Revelation the
martyrs occupy the thrones.
-Together, the two books form a
continuous narrative. John the Baptist calls Jesus a bridegroom, and his first
sign is to abundant and the best wine at a wedding feast. In John, Jesus meets
women who are bride-figures (the Samaritan woman at the well, the woman caught
in adultery, Mary Magdalene in the garden) but the bridegroom-bride theme is
never consummated in John. Only in Revelation do we find a marriage supper when
the new Jerusalem comes down from heaven
dressed as a bride, ready to meet her husband. Without Revelation, the fourth
gospel is an unfinished romance, the story of a (jilted?) bridegroom left
waiting at the altar for his bride.
If it be the
case that John and Revelation are companion pieces analogous to Luke-Acts we
have a strong hermeneutical guideline for John’s visions. They are a form of
pastoral guidance for the early church seeking to be faithful to follow Jesus
wherever he goes (Rev.14:4).
We’re no closer
to determining who John the Seer was. And pending new evidence we’re not likely
to get any closer. But we have perhaps gotten a fix on the purpose of his work
that helps us determine why he wrote which helps bring focus to a range of
other issues.
Date
We cannot
determine the date John wrote with precision either. Two main possibilities are
debated. One is the 60’s shortly before the outbreak of the disastrous Jewish
war against Rome in which Jerusalem was destroyed and the temple razed. Nero
was emperor and unleashed a vicious attack against the church after blaming
them for a great fire in Rome. The other is during the reign of the emperor
Domitian near the end of the 1st century. He was thought to have been a
persecutor of the church who demanded to be addressed and treated as a god.
Plausible
arguments can be made for either view but decisive evidence one way or the
other remains wanting. It’s even possible that John’s writeup of his visions
took place in stages over time with periodic revision and editing such that
evidence for both the earlier and later dates are present in the final product.
The later view
predominates today among scholars though it is recognized now that there is no
evidence for large-scale empire-wide, empire-sponsored persecution of the
church at this time. Comforting such persecuted churches cannot, then, be the
purpose of Revelation (as is often claimed by those who promote the widespread
imperial persecution idea).
Without a
specific historical tie-in (such as the falsely posited persecutions), our inability
to determine a specific date for the writing of Revelation does not matter much
to our interpretation. Anytime in the later third of the 1st century
is reasonable.
Seven Cities and Churches
Our more-or-less unknown author (to
us) writes a strange letter at God’s behest to seven churches in Roman Asia
Minor sometime in the later third of the 1st century. Who were these
churches and do they tell us anything more specific about the letter?
Fortunately we can begin to fill in dome more
details from considering these cities. The list below helps get us oriented to
them (Howard-Brook, Unveiling Empire: 2729-2741).
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THE
CITIES OF ROMAN ASIA TO WHICH JOHN IS DIRECTED TO WRITE IN REVELATION 2-3
|
|
Ephesus The
greatest city of the Roman province Asia; the seat of the proconsul and
competed with Pergamum for the recognition of its primacy.
Smyrna A
prosperous port city, rivaling Ephesus, and maintains a special loyalty to
Rome. Temple to Roma built in 195 B.C.E., and to Tiberius in 26 C.E.
Pergamum
Capital of Asia, the center of imperial worship for the whole
region; standing over the city is a great acropolis and an altar to Zeus;
also, a temple to Augustus and to Roma, built in 29 B.C.E.
Thyatira
City of
traders and artisans without Roman significance.
Sardis
Regional
capital of Sydia in Asia Minor. Founded by Seleucids. Lydian wealth was
legendary. Sardis was center of Sydian imperial cult in Roman times.
Philadelphia Like
Sardis, a city of Lydia, founded by Attalus II, king of Pergamum in the
second century B.C.E. A communication link between Sardis/Pergamum to the
west and Laodicea and Hierapolis to the east.
Laodicea
Richest
city in Phrygia, known for its banks, its linen and cotton industry, and its
medical school and pharmacies.
|
All in
all, cities thriving under imperial oversight, eager and willing to live and
progress under that oversight. The “Roman gospel” which articulated the
exceptionalism, ethos, and ethics of life lived under the vaunted Pax Romana (“Peace of Rome”) was
well-received in this region as the “way things are.” Rome promoted, protected,
and expected this way to persevere through the ages.
These
seven cities were all located on an important west-to-east trade route. Most of
them were important centers for the imperial cult which celebrated the emperor
and honored the empire and was the chief way to promote and pass on the Roman
Gospel (mentioned above). Other ways in which Rome “evangelized” the regions
were inscriptions, coins, festivals, education, holidays, statues and the like.
These pervasive media kept the region thoroughly saturated with Roman
propaganda and perspectives.
In these
Roman-evangelized cities also existed churches evangelized by the gospel of the
kingdom of God and the king of that kingdom, Jesus Christ. And it is this clash
of kingdoms and their respective “heads” that Revelation is all about. This is
what John’s vision are about and what will occupy us throughout the rest of
this study. But first, a bit more about the Roman Empire and its “gospel.”
Religion and Politics in Revelation
Even though in
America a (supposed) wall exists between church and state, religion and public
life such a thing was unthinkable for ancient peoples. For them one could not
slide a razor blade between the two. Religion implicated politics and vice
versa. So it is with John and his churches in Revelation. And so, it is
becoming increasingly clear, for our world as well (Waldron, “Sacred and
Secular Belief: Can We Have Peace?”)
Political creeds entail
premises and promises about the meaning of life, the nature and
responsibilities of being human, the marks of a good life, right and wrong ways
to live, and the like. Religious faith also directly addresses these concerns.
We are learning that we cannot live without transcendence (God, something
bigger and better than us, or causes deemed as such) though we have tried
mightily to do that in the West since the advent of modernity (Seligman, 2009).
Faith has come out of closet of the private in
which it voluntarily enclosed itself at the beginning of the modern world and
into the streets again. All kinds of faith in a substantially diverse society.
Little is clear in all of this at present. But we do live in a time when faith
has consequences again in public life. John already knows this and addresses
this situation for his churches. We may well have much to learn from him on
this score.
What is Empire?
We have seen
that John uses apocalyptic language and imagery to characterize the Roman
empire according to its fundamental drives and pretentions to be the savior of
the world. Such is true of all empires. Don’t be spooked by the word empire. I
use it to denote a conglomeration of power (usually a symbiosis of political,
economic, and military powers) sufficient to enforce its will and maximize its
interests over others (see Rev.18). Empire is not an ideological construct or
position though it is defended by various ideologies. It is a reality of
combined forces imposing its will on weaker peoples.
Interestingly,
John nowhere uses the name Rome to identify this beastly power though his
descriptions of it clearly intend Rome. But this entity being nameless and
described according to it fundamental drives make it possible for us to
identify subsequent empires as belonging to the same species. In the same way
that Rome can be described as Babylon so empires after Rome can be likened to
Rome and deemed under the same strictures and judgments as it. This is one way
Revelation reaches beyond the 1st century into our world and
stimulates theological reflection on our own situation.
This means
facing up to the reality that our own country meets the profile of being an
empire. Painful as this may be for us, it is a necessary learning for the
church in our place and time. And further, this means that our politics implies
a faith (as described above). Revelation enacts and encourages us to enact a
critique of both empire and its faith. Michael Gorman lists the following seven
marks of empire (Reading Revelation
Responsibly: 3487-3504).
-Empire
is a system of domination seducing the powerful with more power and common
people with promises of security and abundance that comes from a growing empire
(17:2).
-Empire
grows by territorial acquisition and spread of influence, and promoting its
(so-called) greatness, making claims about itself that should properly be made
only about God (17:3–5).
-Empire
self-presents a veneer of beauty and benefactions to its subjects, both great
and small, which but cover its many “abominations,” which mark the fundamental
essence of the imperial character (17:4). Treating human beings as commodities
with its attendant oppression and injustice, sex trafficking, sweat shops,
abortion as birth control, and many others.
-Despite
its blasphemous assertions to the contrary, that is, to be on God’s side,
empire is always opposed to the true God and those who follow him by following
the crucified and risen Jesus. Empire will do whatever it takes to silence the
true God and the witness of his people (17:5, 14).
-Empires
grow, in part, because those they conquer assimilate and acquiesce to their
masters (17:13).
-Empires
usually die of self-inflicted wounds. Such revolts may be seen as a part of the
real judgment of God (17:16–17).
-Empires
(plural), particular empires, are short-term symptoms of a drive for power and
permanence we may call Empire (a principality and power in biblical language).
On this index of
the traits of an empire it seems clear the US qualifies as one. Note the
“imperial earmarks” evident in our practices: “slave labor; demonization,
genocide, and displacement of indigenous people; colonization of distant lands
. . . ; cultural arrogance; and global military power” (Howard-Brook and
Gwyther, Unveiling Revelation,
especially 236). What John says about empire, then, takes on even greater
import for the church struggling to be faithful here.
Empire’s Religion
Along with
empire, as I have indicated, comes an imperial theology. An imperial “gospel.” We
call it civil religion. Rome had one, and we have one too. The Roman “creed” consists
of
-Rome is the chosen
people of the gods.
-Rome embodies the
divine intention for the gods’ rule, will, salvation, and presence among human
beings.
-Rome manifests and
mediates the gods’ blessings—security, peace, justice, faithfulness, fertility—among
its clients” (Carter, Roman Empire,
83.
-The rule of the gods
through Rome was accomplished by and manifested in violence, domination, and
“pacification.” The famous pax Romana
depended on many forms of violence.
-The emperor himself
was worthy of praise, devotion, and allegiance. He was also worthy of having
divine and quasi-divine titles such as Lord, Lord of All, God, Son of God, and
Savior. Domitian, for example, was called, at least by some, “Lord of the
earth.”
-The imperial age is
the long-awaited golden age in which human hopes and dreams are finally
fulfilled and will continue forever.
The American version of civil
religion tracks along these same lines. Indeed, Talbert claims “our own times .
. . mirror the prophet’s circumstances almost exactly” (Apocalypse, 12). Thus, we believe America is a “Christian” nation,
a beacon of hope, freedom, and goodness for the rest of the world, a superior
people to all others, a strong military and willingness to use it to bolster
its status and interest, and the unique importance of the American president.
On this last point, it is worth noting that the US Capitol rotunda has a fresco
of our first president ascending to heaven, “The Apotheosis of George
Washington.”
Revelation and Imperial
Power and Religion
John in
Revelation presents, or better, opposes, Rome’s claims of imperial power and
the religion that supports it with a series of Counter claims from the gospel (see
Howard-Brook and Gwyther, Unveiling
Revelation, 223–35).
-Rome believes itself
the be the empire chosen by God/Revelation counters with God’s kingdom
-the Pax Romana, the peace of Rome, was its
great claim as a benefactor, Revelation exposes Rome as bloodthirsty and a
bloodsucker draining the life from other peoples.
-Rome’s victory, its Victoria, is countered by Revelation’s
portrayal of the victory of the Lamb and his people.
-The allegiance Rome
requires of its peoples, faith in and loyalty to Caesar, is countered by
Revelation’s insistence that faith is keeping and following the way of Jesus.
-Rome’s claim to be the
eternal kingdom is countered by the reign of the saints forever with God on the
new heavens and new earth.
Revelation
opposes the empire lock, stock, and barrel. The rot at its core makes
cooperation or assimilation to its policies and practices verboten. John is not
interested in finessing the question of eating meat sacrificed to idols as Paul
is in 1 Cor.8. His aim is different. He wants to reestablish the boundaries
between the church and the empire. Not for separation’s sake, mind you, but for
the shoring up of the identity and vocation of the church that makes it an
Abrahamic people, a vehicle to spread God’s blessing to everyone, God’s
Subversive Counter-Revolutionary Movement.
The unholy trinity of the dragon, the
sea-beast, and the land-beast stand opposed to God and God’s people. Their work
is to undo and destroy them. They stand behind the rise of empires and use them
as chief weapons in their struggle. This trinity employs multiple strategies through
empire to disable, demoralize, and destroy the church. The effects of these
infernal strategies on America are well-captured by William Stringfellow (An Ethic for Christians, 28).
• Moral poverty
threatens, for instance, the prosperous more than the economically deprived
because the affluent have more at risk, both materially and psychically, in any
social crisis.
• Moral incapacity,
similarly, afflicts the middle-aged more than the young because they have
existed longer in conformity and do not have enough time left to change—even if
they could discern how to change.
• Moral poverty is more
virulent among whites than among blacks or Indians or Chicanos because the
lives and livelihoods of most American whites have been subsidized by racial
privilege for more than three hundred and fifty years on this continent, and
white Americans are not about to allow that to be upset.
• Moral impoverishment
is a larger burden for those in nominal leadership—as well as those actually in
power —in the ruling institutions of society than it is to those who remain
unorganized, unrepresented, unheeded, powerless, or, seemingly, hapless victims
of the status quo, because the incumbents in power and the so-called leaders of
the nation are located where social renewal must be generated.
• And—as if it required
mention—moral poverty is most insidious and most notorious in exactly the
precincts where moral sensibility is most pathetically needed at this moment:
among those who exercise the authority of the State, prosecutors and policemen
as much as judges and cabinet attaches. Most of all, it is needed in the
Presidency, as compared, say, to defendants in political trials or those
vulnerable to preventive detention or those murdered under a guise of legality
or those driven into exile or those whose lives are squandered in vainglorious
war. It is so desperately needed precisely because the only moral authority of
the State is that which is disclosed as its last authority, which is death.
We can see these
effects all over America today at every level of society. We are empire; empire
is us. This reality is irreducible and irreconcilable with our call to be God’s
SCRM!
The First Commandment
It is imperative
in John’s view, or better, the view given to John by God, for the church, 1st
century or 21st, to be clear at this point. The empire may not be
actively hunting Christians down and killing them but it is always persecuting
them by stealth seduction. Christian identity and vocation must remain clear
and distinct. Dietrich Bonhoeffer advocated for Christians and the church to be
immersed in the struggles of daily life in their neighborhoods and workplaces
and claimed the church was only the church when it was the church for others.
Yet he also maintained the necessity of “the arcane discipline,” worship rooted
in the great mysteries of church that keeps us clear on whose we are, who we
are, and what we are to do in the world.
In the midst of
the cosmic battle going on between God and the dragon, with the church and Rome
as primary combatants, there can be no compromise with the enemy. It’s not even
Rome that’s the enemy. It’s the dragon and his beasts. This is just what Paul
teaches in Eph.6:12: “For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and
flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic
powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the
heavenly places.” That’s why there can be no compromise. It’s a “first
commandment” thing. When Paul deals with eating meat sacrificed to idols in 1
Cor.8 he is dealing with strategy, we might say, in a situation where he does
not deem the first commandment at stake, whereas when John deals with it it is
a matter of first commandment principle.
When
we hear John’s uncompromising martial language asking for resistance that costs
God’s people much, even their lives, we, must hear Moses in the background: “you
shall have no other gods before me” (Ex 20:3).
The Theme of Revelation
“Following the Lamb Wherever He Goes”
The theme of
Revelation is simply and winsomely given in Rev.14:4: to “follow the Lamb
wherever he goes.” That really is the “thing” about being a disciple of Jesus.
Dynamic, kinetic, bodily – we follow Jesus with all we are and all we have into
whatever situation he takes us. Far from simply mental assent or confessional
loyalty, this following is about people who are “all in” for Jesus. Dietrich
Bonhoeffer, in an outline for a book he never lived to write, asked “What do we
really believe? I mean, believe in such a way that our lives depend on it?” (DBW 8: 14344-14345).
That’s John’s
question for his churches too. What do you really believe such that your lives
depend on it? And “following the Lamb wherever he goes” was the answer he hoped
to see evident in their lives. John expands on this theme in more detail in
Rev.1:9 where he describes what her shares with his churches:
-“the
persecution,”
-“the
kingdom,” and
-“the
patent endurance/consistent resistance.”
“The Persecution”
Living out what
one’s life depends on in a world ordered by people’s and powers that live
differently and want everyone else to live the way they do entails conflict and
resistance. Or persecution as John puts. We’ve seen that two of his churches
have experienced some local persecution and may be in for more. Jesus tells the
church in Philadelphia that an “hour of trial is coming on the whole world”
(3:10) which may entail imperial persecution. We also noted that all of John’s
churches face the iron-fist-in-velvet-glove kind of persecution in which Rome
seeks to assimilate the Christians to its ethos and ethics under the pressure
of social ostracism, financial privation, and other kinds of harassment.
Holding out the carrot of and comfortable and trouble-free life the empire
tries to seduce believers into trimming the sails on their faith and practice,
usually privatizing it and keeping out of public life, so that it is no
impediment to participating and affirming the larger culture.
The martyr of
Pergamum, Antipas, is described by Jesus as “my witness, my faithful one”
(2:13). This is the same language used to describe Jesus in 1:5. Therefore, in
light of Jesus as “faithful witness” the word for “witness” (martus) shades off from testimony to
courting death from the very beginning of Revelation. (More on this below).
Whatever
persecution we face, however, is intrinsic to following Jesus. This is not the
“small print” of the gospel! It is writ large all over it. Sadly, most Christians
in America deny or ignore this aspect of the gospel and thereby run the risk of
becoming Laodicean churches. This is crucial to grasp if we hope to live into
the vision of “following the Lamb.”
“The Kingdom”
We have met this
already. It is God’s BHAG – Big, Hairy, Audacious, Goal.
Revelation pictures it in chs.21-22 as a new creation on which God will dwell
with humanity on this planet. We can scarcely grasp this, much less understand
it. It is bigger and better than we can think or imagine (Eph.3:20). But it
lures us on with its promise and beauty and grounds our commitment to “follow
the Lamb.”
God’s kingdom
invades our world in direct competition with its empires. It’s an unfair
struggle, actually. God has already won the war at the cross and resurrection
of Jesus. The powers that put Jesus to death didn’t understand that crucifying
him was exactly God’s plan for defeating them (1 Cor.2:6). Martyrs who die for
Jesus replicate that same wisdom and the powers that kill them still do not
grasp what God is doing. His kingdom is one of love and service, self-giving
compassion. Empires don’t operate that way, as we know, however. They enforce
their way through strength and power. Domination and intimidation are arts they
have perfected. Opposition is to be seduced into quiescence if possible, or
crushed violently if necessary. When empire clashes with God’s kingdom, then,
empire does its thing trying to seduce and threatening to crush it. It could
not seduce Jesus so it crushed him. He willingly endured their punishment and
in the process enabled the kingdom of God dawn right under the nose of the
empire. Same happens when a follower of Jesus is crushed by empire. Martyrdom
is the way of victory for those who follow Jesus. Empires still don’t
understand that.
“Patient Endurance/Consistent Resistance”
This third aspect
of following Jesus, hypomonē, often translated “patient endurance”
requires a different translation for us Westerners. We hear it as a call to a
passive endurance, possibly with a touch of Stoicism blended in. But that’s not
what John means by it in Revelation. “’Patient endurance’
is a verbal thread that occurs seven times (1:9; 2:2, 3, 19; 3:10; 13:10;
14:12) and is ‘the main Christian virtue’ of the book. It is not ‘dumb
passivity’ but active resistance to the battle lines drawn by the beast
and Babylon who require assimilation to their values, norms, and beliefs”
(James L. Resseguie, The
Revelation of John: A Narrative Commentary, [Baker, 2009], 105). Loren
Johns adds
“John
saw that the answer to idolatry is not complacent capitulation or assimilation,
nor is it violent resistance. Rather, it is active resistance motivated
and modeled by the nonviolent resistance of Jesus—a resistance that has
as its inspiration Jesus’ own yes to God and no to human violence—a resistance
that is symbolized in the Apocalypse by the figure of the Lamb and in
Christian iconography by the cross” (Johns, Lamb Christology, 204).
One scholar
translates it “consistent resistance” add I believe this captures the dynamic
sense of the word required for modern Western Christians.
“Following the
Lamb wherever he goes” means a way of life that embraces and endures conflict
for Jesus’ sake, is kingdom-driven, and animated by “consistent resistance.
Conquering the Dragon
One further
passage shows us how this conflicted/kingdom-driven/consistent resistance works
out in the real world of life in a hostile empire. “To conquer” is a key term
in Revelation. Promises are given to each of the seven churches by Christ if
they “conquer.” Messiah conquers (3:21; 5:5; 17:14)
as do his people (2:7,11,17,28;
3:5,12,21; 12:11; 15:2; 21:7). This reminds us that though John’s
revelation is of Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ is always with his people. We can’t
think of them separately. The notion of conquering is connected with that of
battle, reminding us of our calling as God’s SCRM (1:7; 12:7-8,17; 13:7; 16:14;
17:14; 19:11,19). We noticed earlier that the followers of the Lamb defeat the
dragon and his minions defeat them. In the time between Christ’s resurrection
and return the struggle is real and not all goes the way of the Lamb’s
followers.
Conquering is
thus connected with the symbol of the messianic war and this war John conceives
of as the way God establishes his kingdom (Bauckham, The Theology of the Book
of Revelation, 70). As he surely will.
Rev.12:11
details what conquering the enemy entails: “But they have conquered him by the
blood of the Lamb and by the word of their
testimony, for they did not cling to life even in the face of death.” The
“blood of the Lamb” likely does not refer to Christ’s death for us here (though
that is presupposed). Rather it refers to Christ’s way of defeating evil, his
laying down his life for God and others. As such the blood of Christ enables us
to conquer evil as we participate in it bearing witness to Christ even to the
point of death. We conquer by participating in and testifying to Christ’s own
witness which conquered even as it cost him his life (Bauckham, The Theology of
the Book of Revelation, 75-76).
Martyrdom
Peter Leithart writes:
“Revelation is . . . a
call to martyrdom. When the Lamb breaks the fifth seal, John sees saints ‘underneath
the altar,’ pleading for vindication (6:9-11). A voice assures them that the
Lord will respond, but not until ‘the number of their fellow servants and their
brethren who are to be killed . . . should be completed also’ (v. 11). Before
God vindicates the martyrs, more martyrs must be made.
“The
book of Revelation is a liturgy. The book of Revelation is an exhortation to martyrdom.
These aren’t side-by-side in Revelation but fully integrated. To be a
participant in the liturgy is to be a witness. Liturgy prepares for
martyrdom, and martyrdom is an act of worship. Liturgy is a form of living
sacrifice; martyrdom fulfills the liturgy in a sacrifice to death”
(“Eucharistic Harvest,” https://theopolisinstitute.com/article/eucharistic-harvest/).
The Greek word
from which we get martyrdom means witness. Both the primary witness of Jesus
and human witness participating in that witness lead in both Jesus’ case and
his followers to death. Dietrich Bonhoeffer got it right. A literal translation
of one his most famous comments from Discipleship
is terse and pointed: “Every call of Christ leads into death” (DBW Vol 4:
91).
Martyrdom is not
a fate reserved for a select few. It is rather the expected end of all whom
Christ calls into his service. From him we know dying for love of God is the
way of victory over sin and evil. How we don’t quite know. The strange alchemy
of divine love eludes us. But we know via his resurrection that God validates
and vindicates the way of death for love of God and others as victory. If this
is so, why would we think God would expect anything else from us?
Now we’re not
talking about seeking martyrdom here. We’ve seen too many sad examples of that.
It’s not death that makes the difference. It’s the love willing to go to the
uttermost that’s crucial. It’s the “’metanoia’ (repentance), not thinking first
of one’s own needs, questions, sins, and fears but allowing oneself to be
pulled into walking the path that Jesus walks, into the messianic event, in which
Isa. 53 is now being fulfilled (the dying suffering servant)!” (DBWE 8:
13582-13586).
As I said above,
martyrdom is not the small print of the gospel that we easily overlook or
ignore. It is participating front and center in that very gospel. Whether it
comes to that for us or not, we must be prepared it might and in lieu of it,
willingly undergo all the “little” deaths following Jesus requires of us with
utter faithfulness. Bauckham concurs:
“The portrayal of the situation
such that no one can escape this choice in this stark form embodies John's
prophetic insight into the issue between the church and the empire: that there
can be no compromise between the truth of God and the idolatrous lie of the
beast. It is an insight characteristic of the biblical prophetic tradition (cf I Kings 18:21). It is not a literal prediction that every faithful
Christian will in fact be put to death. But it does require that every faithful
Christian must be prepared to die” (Theology
of the Book of Revelation, 93).
If it be that we
Americans stand in the shoes of the Laodiceans (more on this later), Jesus’
message to them details the nature and scope of these necessary “little
deaths.”
Revelation is
about Jesus Christ, the “faithful witness,” and his people, “faithful
witnesses,” raised up by him to be a martyr people. I say “raising up”
deliberately because becoming such a people is only possible from beginning to
end if resurrection is God’s operative reality. And it is. Jesus the “faithful
witness” is in the same breath also introduced the “firstborn of the dead”
(1:5). As so he is. Now and always. Resurrection and martyrdom are companion
terms. And the former makes martyrdom the way of victory it is for us.
Martin Luther King epitomizes the “faithful witness” of a
martyr. The night before he was martyred, he declared,
“Well, I don't know
what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it really
doesn't matter with me now, because I've been to the mountaintop.
“And I don't mind.
“Like anybody, I would
like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about
that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the
mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get
there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get
to the promised land!” (https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkivebeentothemountaintop.htm.)
Yes, that’s the voice of a martyr, a witness who takes her or his witness
to the nth degree. And we will see in our comments on the two witnesses in
ch.11, such a witness plays a pivotal role in bringing the nations to faith in
Israel’s God! As the church father Tertullian wrote, "the blood of the martyrs is the seed
of the Church."[ii]
Conclusion
The theme of the
book of Revelation is God’s raising up a martyr people to follow and serve
“the” martyr, Jesus Christ, who is the subject of the book (see 1:1). I say
“raising up” deliberately because becoming such a people is only possible from
beginning to end if resurrection is God’s operative reality. And it is. Jesus
is introduced in Revelation as “firstborn of the dead” (1:5). As so he is. Now
and always. And that’s why martyrdom is the way of victory for us.
Martin Luther King epitomizes the faith of a martyr. The
night before he was martyred, he declared,
“Well, I don't know
what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn't
matter with me now, because I've been to the mountaintop.
“And I don't mind.
“Like anybody, I would
like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about
that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the
mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get
there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get
to the promised land!”[iii]
Yes, that’s the voice of a martyr, a witness who takes her or his witness
to the nth degree. And we will see in our comments on the two witnesses in
ch.11, such a witness plays a pivotal role in bringing the nations to faith in
Israel’s God! As the church father Tertullian wrote, "the blood of the martyrs is the seed
of the Church" (Apologeticus, ch. 50).
A Theological Postscript
Before we
venture on into the text it will be useful to offer a brief summary of the
theological scope of Revelation as one further point of orientation.
Obviously, eschatology, John’s understanding of
God’s big picture, is BHAG, is central to his book. It is, after all, about “what
must soon take place”- the coming of his kingdom (11:15ff.) However, it is not
an itinerary of the end times a lá Left
Behind but rather a look over the entire landscape of the biblical story
from the perspective of where the story is going. The light the end sheds over
the entire sweep of the story is, in fact, the message of Revelation and the
understanding of all else in the story has to be read in its light.
Hope is
the name we give to the light God’s big picture sheds over everything else
Christian. And hope is the theology John offers in Revelation. And as hope,
it’s not a “pie-in-the-sky” sort of quasi-wishful thinking. Rather this hope
energizes our discontent with the “way things seem to be” and creative risky,
innovative, and yes, even risky forms of following after the Lamb (Remember martyrdom!).
This the kind of hope that looks reality square in the face and at the same
time holds tenaciously to an extravagant expectation.
That
expectation has everything to do with Jesus, what theologians call Christology. And if Christology, then
also theology – our understanding of
God. John clearly and deliberately identifies the two. Compare 1:8 where God
self-identifies as the “Alpha and Omega” with 22:13 with where Jesus self-identifies
the same way. There are many other indications of this as well as we will see
later. The chief identifier of Jesus is the Lamb, which means we have a
Lamb-like God. And the power of this God, resurrection
power, is Lamb-power (to use Barbara Rossing’s terms) which qualifies what
we call discipleship.
John’s
interest in recruiting and energizing God’s people, his SCRM, takes us right
into ecclesiology, how we understand
the church. And that takes us right into the heart of Revelation. It is in the
church that all John’s theological chickens come home to roost.
-God’s big picture is to have a world
full of grateful and obedient creatures, prefigured now by the church.
-God gets this people through Jesus
the Lamb who gives his life in love for to death.
-God validates and vindicates this
loving-others-unto-death as his way by raising Jesus from the dead.
-the Lamb’s followers participate in
his divine way of life as his martyr-church.
-This martyr-church is the New
Jerusalem, the Bride of the Lamb, the new Holy of Holies in which God and the
Lamb will meet and live forever with his people on the new creation (God’s big
picture realized).
This is the story John’s visions tell
and he retells the story of Jesus in three different ways to capture the
fullness of his person and work. To that we now turn.
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