Following the Lamb Wherever He Goes (6): The Slaughtered Yet Standing Lamb (chs.4-11)

Part 2: The Slaughtered Yet Standing Lamb (chs.4-11)

John Goes to Heavenly Worship (4:1-11)

The seven messages of Christ to his churches concluded, we turn to Part 2 of John’s Revelation. This part begins with a scene of heavenly worship in the heavenly temple around God’s throne. This means John is ushered into the innermost sanctum of the temple, the Holy of Holies, where none but the high priest was allowed to enter but once a year on the Day of Atonement.

John sees a door standing open in heaven – a door to the very presence of God (see 3:8). That trumpet-like voice that announced his vision of the regal Christ calls him to come up to heaven. Again he is “in the Spirit” (v.2). He sees a throne whose occupant he can only describe as precious stones with a emerald rainbow surrounding the throne (v.3). Twenty-four thrones surround God’s throne seating twenty-four white-robed, gold-crowned “elders” (possibly either angels in the heavenly council, the 24 orders of priests serving in the heavenly temple, or the 12 tribes of Israel/12 Apostles = people of God) Lightning and thunder attend this scene and the “seven Spirits of God” (the Holy Spirit) are in front of the throne along with a crystal-like sea of glass. Four living creatures are on each side of the throne – one like a lion, one like an ox, one like a human, and one like an eagle (representing all of creation focused on [raising God).. Full of eyes “all around and inside” (v.8). They continually sing forth praise of God’s holiness (v.9). The elders respond to the living creatures’ praise by kneeling, removing their crowns, and offering them to God, and adding their voices in song praising God as Creator (vv.10-11).

This scene in the divine throne room, the heavenly Holy of Holies is a first anticipation of the final vision where the new creation itself is coextensive with the New Jerusalem. This city, cubic in shape, corresponds to the only other structure similarly shaped in the Bible – the Holy of Holies in Solomon’s temple (1 Kgs.6:20) - and is its fulfillment in the new creation. John, prefiguring the church and humanity itself, enjoys the intimacy and fellowship with God is his dwelling that has always been the divine purpose. No outer court or Holy Place any longer, the entire new creation will be a Holy of Holies and host a divine-human intimacy unknown here on earth.

As always in Revelation there is an implicit comparison with the emperor and his throne room. Bauckham observes, “The polemical significance of worship is clear in Revelation, which sees the root of the evil of the Roman Empire to lie in the idolatrous worship of merely human power, and therefore draws the lines of conflict between the worshippers of the beast and the worshippers of the one true God” (Theology of Revelation, 59). The question of who is God is ever-present in John’s mind and doubtless his hearers would catch the comparison too. Elizabeth Schüssler Fiorenza provides the details (Revelation: 900-908):

“Just as the Roman emperor surrounded by the court was depicted as holding a libellus, a petition or letter in the form of an open scroll, so God is seen as holding a biblion, a scroll with seven seals . . . The presentation of golden crowns before the emperor (proskynesis) is part of the court ceremony taken over from Hellenistic-Oriental kingship rituals . . . Moreover, the acclamation ‘worthy are you’ greeted the triumphal entrance of the emperor.”

Likewise, the opulent surroundings of the heavenly throne room matched and surpassed that of the emperor’s throne room.

This scene and the next are determinative for the rest of the visions. John points his people first and foremost to God and to creation properly arranged in praise around God. This vision of heavenly worship is the decisive moment in the church’s faithfulness to God and resistance to the Empire:

-Most importantly, it presents a picture of the “way things truly are” to orient the church properly and combat the Empire’s (or anyone else’s) version of the same.

-It decenters (fallen) humanity from it arrogant presumption of being at the center and the point of everything. With our hearts “curved in on themselves” this is our default position from which we must be dislodged.

-The Empire is decentered from its place of preeminence its own presumption and that it fostered in its peoples.

The interplay of the hymns sung by the living creatures and the twenty-four elders reinforce the radical dependence of creation on its Creator. The creatures reiterate the description of God as “the one who, and is, and is to come” from ch.1 while the elders correlatively affirm “by confessing that God created all things, that it was by God's will that they came into being, and that it was by God's power that they were created (4:11)” (Koester, 2001, 936-937).

To the faithful, John’s vision would confirm and assure. To those “mixed bag” churches it would likely disturb and challenge. To those so deeply mired in accommodation and assimilation to the Empire as to be nearly insensible to the things of God, this vision would confront and anger, as well it should.

Israel’s God, the holy and unique Creator of all that is, receives the proper worship of all he made in this heavenly throne room scene, something he wills for the worship he receives from his earthly creation on the “as in heaven, so also on earth” principle (Mt.6:10). This is the reality towards which creation leans and in which creatures find their identity, telos, and vocation. This is the world’s true Emperor and Empire.

Hymns punctuate John’s visions in Revelation. These hymns not only carry God’s praise but also serve as the dominant way testimony to God is made by creatures to God’s sovereign character and work in the book. As such, we do well to recognize that these hymns, like the worship that generates them, are sustained by the following theological convictions (Mueller, “Reflections on Worship in Revelation 4 and 5,” 6).

-theocentric.

-Trinitarian.

-maintain the tension between God’s immanence and his transcendence.

-extol the character and nature of God.

-praise the works of God.

-is objective, not only subjective.

-is universal and all-encompassing.

-provides a new perspective to life on earth.

This brilliant scene indelibly stamps the rest of Revelation with its image. One cannot escape its light even in the grimmest of scenes to follow. The reader cannot be in doubt about the reality which will prevail in this struggle in a way that brings all creation to its fulfillment and intended flourishing.

The Slaughtered Yet Standing Lamb (5:1-14)

As these hymns resound John notices an sealed scroll in the hands of the One on the throne. Writing covered both sides of this scroll and it was fastened with seven waxen seals, like an official document. Each seal must be removed before the scroll can be unrolled and read (v.1). Unfortunately no one in the whole of creation is found worthy to unseal this scroll.

It is perhaps worthwhile to life our eyes from the text for a moment and reflect on God’s big picture plans for a moment. N. T. Wright sums it up in these words:

“God has made the world in such a way that his plans for the world must be executed by a human being. Since human sin now means that those plans require a rescue operation, God has called one human family to be the means through which this rescue will be put into effect. God has, in other words, determined to run the world through humans, and to rescue the world through Israel. Both have let him down” (Revelation for Everyone:1010).

What will God do now? The revelation of his will for his people and his world, remains sealed and unknown. Much to John’s chagrin and bitter disappointment.  He weeps. But one of the elders tells him to stop weeping because one has appeared who is worthy to unseal the scroll – the Lion of the tribe of Judah, a Davidic scion, a Messiah, a mighty deliverer and ruler.

A moment earlier there was one in heaven, on earth, or below the earth (v.4) worthy to open the scroll. Now there is one. Where did he come from? Leithart suggests this is the moment of Jesus’ ascension “Lamb Ascendent”).  The truly human one, the faithful Israelite, who has gone to death and through to resurrection and now to ascension. He arrives in the heavenly temple at just the right moment to fulfill humanity’s role in God’s purposes and take the scroll from God’s hand and unseal its contents to be known. This moment is high drama in the work of God toward achieving his eternal purpose. As Leithart puts it: “Even a slain and standing Lamb isn’t enough. Unless the slain and standing Lamb ascends, the book remains sealed, the Pentecostal fire never falls, and the thunderstorm of God’s kingdom stays in heaven. The news is good only because there is a worthy one in heaven, a Lamb slain, standing, and ascendant.” That’s why the heavenly hosts break out in a “new” song (v.9).

Here’s the decisive imaginal twist that determines the way one reads Revelation, indeed, the whole Bible.. “Perhaps the most mind-wrenching ‘rebirth of images’ in literature,” says one writer (Boring, 1989, 108). Once again John turns to see what he has heard. And once again he is surprised and astonished. The lion-like deliverer, the one who has conquered, is a “Lamb standing as if it had been slaughtered” among the elders. Obviously no ordinary lamb, this one bears the marks of its slaughter along with seven horns (full power) and seven eyes (the Holy Spirit). This is the basic disjunctive theological claim of Revelation. This redefinition of power and might as suffering, serving, and dying for others effects a fundamental insight into the biblical understanding of God. John combines the images of the Passover Lamb (Ex.12) and Isaiah’s Suffering Servant (Isa.53:7; Jer.11:19) to astonishing and permanent effect.

When John describes God as the One “who was, who is, and who is to come,” that last phrase leaves the door open to presenting that “coming” as Jesus’ incarnation and ministry and making it clear that, as Bauckham puts it, “What Christ does, God does” (Theology of Revelation, 63). The Jesus-likeness of God is a striking and counter-intuitive claim John marks by combining the slaughter of the Lamb with his possession of full power and the fullness of the Spirit. And we cannot (or at least should not) think of God in any other way again.

Even in wrath and judgment (which there is plenty of in Revelation) we must learn to this suffering, serving, saving “Lamb power” (Barbara Rossing) at work. In the restorative justice of this Lamb power retribution is real but only a prelude to restoration which is God’s ultimate and final (gracious) aim.

The song the living creatures and twenty-four elders break into upon the Lamb’s taking the scroll suggests this:

“You are worthy to take the scroll
    and to open its seals,
for you were slaughtered and by your blood you ransomed for God
    saints from every tribe and language and people and nation;
you have made them to be a kingdom and priests serving our God,
    and they will reign on earth” (5:9-10)

The Lamb’s worthiness is because he loved both God and humanity to the uttermost. This love gave his dying its power to “ransom” a new people of “kingdom priests” (remember the “royal priests” God created us to be in creation?) from all people’s of the earth. This people will “reign” forever, again as they were always meant to do (v.14).

Angels now join the heavenly throng in song praising the Lamb

Put to rest any pint-sized Jesuses/7 letter

bowing down before the Lamb (5:8). The harps that were traditionally used to praise God (Ps. 150:3) now sound praises to the Lamb, and the bowls of incense that signified nified prayer to God (Ps. 141:2) are now placed before the Lamb (Rev. 5:8). If a "new song" was a fitting way to celebrate God's rule over the earth (Ps. 96:1), a "new song" is now sung to the Lamb; and the heavenly chorus that acclaimed God "worthy" (Rev. 4:11) now acclaims Christ "worthy" (5:9). Yet despite the shift in focus, the Lamb does not usurp

benchmark moment for people of God (Bauckham(

Craig R. Koester. Revelation and the End of All Things (Kindle Locations 999-1002). Kindle Edition.

Koester on conquering

The Seven Seals (6:1-17)

The seals securing the scroll are opened by the Lamb. As each of the first four are opened its content is summoned forth by a living creature around the throne crying “Come!” Each present a rider on a horse symbolizing a calamity besetting the earth – the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse! Military dominance (the white horse), spread of violence (the red horse), economic inequality (the black horse), and death (the pale green horse) are loosed to stalk the globe.

Keeping Christ’s messages to the seven churches in mind as our primary guide for interpreting the letter (it was written to them, after all), it is hard not to agree with Craig Koester that “The principal purpose of the visions in Revelation 6 is to awaken a sense of uneasiness in readers by vividly identifying threats to their well-being. The four horsemen are designed to shatter the illusion that people can find true security in the borders of a nation or empire, in a flourishing economy, or in their own health (Revelation and the End of All Things: 1038-1040).

These are not predictions as much as “revelations” of the true meaning of these four fearsome realities which have beset humanity from the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden on.

Though Rome boasted of its greatness and invulnerability it had a foe on the east, the Parthians, that continually rebuffed its attempts at eastward expansion. “The very image of an archer on a white horse would strike terror into the heart of a pro-Roman reader. The only mounted archers of antiquity were the Parthians, whose tactics and skills had made them Rome’s most feared enemies; old Persian armies, whose heirs the Parthians were, always included sacred white horses” (Keener, IVP Background Commentary: New Testament on Rev.6:2). John’s readers who might be tempted to feel secure within the empire are here put on notice that such “conquerors come and go in history and always stand under the specter of defeat There is no final security in the bosom of any empire. That this rider (and all the others) await a heavenly summons and are either given, permitted, or limited in their scope of activity reaffirms that all of this happens under the sovereign permission and watch care of God.

The second rider (vv.3-4), escalating violence comes not only from without (the white horse) but from within as well. Even the much-ballyhooed “peace of Rome” (Pax Romana) was based on the military dominance of the empire’s armed forces. Such “peace” persisted only until the next revolt of various put-upon masses whose resources and labor provided a comfortable living for the upper crust of the empire. “Peace” could vanish in a “bloody” instant and often did.

Economic inequality (vv.5-6), haves and have-nots, the powerful organizing society for their own benefit, has been happening since the beginning as well. Some among John’s churches benefitted from such arrangements (the church in Laodicea); some not so much (Smyrna). Oppression of the poor and workers seems always to form the trodden-upon foundation of such inequality. Wheat and barley enough to feed a small family is all their labor yields while the masters and owners enjoy easy availability to luxury goods.  Crop failures and famines, though, recurrent features in the empire, always make such systems tenuous supports to base one’s security on.

And death, the fourth rider (vv.7-8) haunts us all and reduces the works of our hands to “vanity” as the Preacher in Ecclesiastes sees it. None can escape the grim reaper nor can we bank on what those who follow us will do with and to our legacy. To base one’s need for significance and security here is a bad investment indeed!

As Christ warns all his churches “conquering” a lá the Lamb is the only sure bet and certain foundation on which to build one’s life for both here and now as well as then and there.

But that raises questions to for those who live out “Lamb power.” Many such paid with their lives for such practice and yet history moves on and their blood, their lives lived in this fashion, remains unjustified or vindicated. Thus the fifth seal (vv.9-11) reveals martyrs under the heavenly altar (where the blood of the sacrifices in the temple collected); crying out for their vindication (v.10). A white robe of victory and purity are given to them along with a cryptic word about needing to wait until the full number of those to be martyred is filled up (v.11). We will have to wait on fuller explanation of the rationale for this later the visions.

The sixth seal (vv.12-17) begins using stock images of judgment and upheaval to remind his readers that God will not allow such “rape, pillage, and plunder,” such injustices and oppressions to go on forever. We may dream of “Thousand-year Reichs” but all will come to face divine judgment (vv.12-15). And when thus confronted, whether in the course of history or at the final assize everyone from the rich sand powerful on down to the bottom of the social/economic/political heap will flee and seek to hide from this accounting. “Who is able to stand?” is the question on all their lips at such times.

Human history knows only systems and institutions that oppress and unjustly hinder all of humanity from participating in the production and sharing of the abundance of creation and the “good life” such abundance affords. Military tyrants, internal insurrection and revolts, rigged economic systems, and pour drives to defeat or at least blunt death’s cold hand lead, and have always lead, to such malfunctions and misshaping of large swaths of humanity. No foothold for any genuine claims to significance and security are to be found here. And with the opening of the seventh seal looming, and every expectation that it will reveal the crushing reality of divine judgment, John brings the rhetorical force of his presentation to a painful and anxious climax. What will this final seal reveal? Is there any hope to be had?

The first six seals leave us with two questions:

-How long until the avenging and vindication of the blood of the martyrs?

-Who can stand before the judgment of God?

The answer to both emerges in the interlude in ch.7.

Another Seal - Not the Seventh - Revealed (7:1-17)

A funny thing happens on the way to opening the seventh seal, however. Another seal is introduced and John’s account of the opening of that seal is postponed till 8:1. He sees “four angels” (probably those given power over the earth, remembering the significance of the number four) at each corner of earth restraining the “four winds of the earth” from blowing on and damaging it. Winds personified as powers, both positive and negative, is a common image in the ancient world. God has delegated control of these particular powers to these four angels. Another angel arise bearing a “seal” of God commanding the angels in charge to the damaging winds to desist releasing them until God’s people have been “sealed” on their foreheads.

It is worth noting here that the order of these seals is rhetorical and not logical or in consequence of the preceding seal. If that were so this account of the sealing of God’s people should have preceded the sixth seal where judgment’s effects on the earth have already begun. The placing of this interlude is designed to respond to the full display of the first six seals and provide a counterpoint to the direction of their movement.

To the last question posed by the first six seals, “Who can stand in the judgment?” John’s answer is those who bear the seal of God on their forehead, the 144,000/innumerable multitude from every nation. These two identical groups, displayed under two aspects which mutually interpret each other (as we saw in the introduction      ) are those sealed into the protection and service of God as his SCRM who prosecute their battle by participating in the blood of the Lamb (v.14). Such participation in the blood of the Lamb is the nonviolent way of suffering, serving love of others even to death. These folks are those who have come through the “great ordeal” (v.14).

What is “the great ordeal or tribulation”? A period of intense suffering right before the end of history (as is commonly thought)? No. The definite article “the” suggests a definite event or occurrence. The present participle indicates it is something already happening in John’s time, “those who are coming out of the great ordeal.” This event is calling Jesus’ people are to endure as those who live by his blood (loving sacrifice even to death for the sake of Jesus and others). In other words, the whole course of discipleship the church endures in its service to Jesus. Those who give their lives for his sake constitute the 144,000/innumerable multiethnic throng.

These folk, having aligned themselves with Jesus through faith, find themselves sheltered, provided for, shepherded by the Lamb (nice irony), led to living water, and comforted (vv.15-17). They, and they alone, can stand before the judgment.

And “how long” must the martyrs wait for their vindication. Since for John the logic of following Jesus is martyrdom the vindication of the martyrs cannot happen till they are all accounted for, till the entire people of God is in place.

No wonder the angels, living creatures, and elders sing,

“Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom                                                                                                                                                     and thanksgiving and honor                                                                                                                                                        and power and might                                                                                                                                                                 be to our God forever and ever! Amen. (v.12)

The Seven Trumpets (8:1-11:19)

If the seals are about the justification of the Lamb Power practiced by the martyrs, the trumpets are about judgment on the earth and its oppressors with distinct Exodus overtones. These trumpets are the seventh seal. After they are finished the Lamb can unroll the scroll and make its message known. The seals/trumpets set the stage for the proclamation proper of the contents of the scroll. Jesus as regal divine-human figure and as the slaughtered-yet-standing Lamb are the given benchmarks with John works. It’s his portrayal of Jesus as Divine Warrior prosecuting his Holy War against the powers of evil that constitute the message of the scroll (12:1-22:7).

The seventh seal Christ opens yields a half-hour of silence (8:1). Why?

-to collect our breath from the other six seals?

-time for the prayers (vv.3-5) to be gathered?

-create suspense for the trumpets?

Pay your money, take your choice.

An angel with a golden censer receives the prayers of the saints on the golden altar, presumably the “How long?” prayers of the 5^th seal. They rise to God with the smoke of the censer. The angel fills the censer with sacrificial fire and throws it to earth. The same sound and light show from around God’s temple in heaven attends this fire thrown to earth (8:3-5). This is what Eugene Peterson calls “Reversed Thunder” (Reversed Thunder, 88).

Prayer has effects for John. In a book that strongly stresses divine sovereignty and control it is striking that room is left for effectual prayer. Peterson comments,

“The vision convinces the Christian of the potencies of prayer. Prayer is access to an environment in which God is the pivotal center of action. All other persons, events, or circumstances are third parties. Existence is illuminated in direct relationship to God himself. Neither bane nor blessing distracts from this center. Persons who pray are not misled by demons of size, influence, importance, or power. They turn their backs on the gaudy pantheons of Canaan and Assyria, Greece and Rome and give themselves to the personal intensities that become awe before God and in intimacy with God. And they change the world” (Reversed Thunder, 88).

And this prayer prepares the world for the blowing of the trumpets.

Again, the first four trumpets are brief and set off as a group by the eagle’s announcement of three woes in 8:14. The fifth and sixth trumpets are much longer. Again we have an interlude between the sixth and seventh trumpet. An interlude that changes everything up to that point.

The first trumpet sends hail and fire and blood hurtling to earth burning up a third of the earth and trees and all the grass. Don’t worry, this is symbol language. Not literal. By the fifth trumpet the grass is back and there protected from damage from the hideous locusts from the abyss. This language points to the reality of judgment not its actual effects. And reminds us that we are not dealing with a linear sequence of events. Rather, these are warnings intended to lead to repentance.

The Exodus resonances of three of the first four trumpets teaches us that we are dealing with judgments against oppressive, God-denying, idolatrous, blaspheming powers. Just those powers that tempt, cajole, intimidate, and even murder the church in order to bring it into compliance with their own agenda and interests. These are just and righteousness judgments of God not piques of arbitrary anger.

-the fire and hail (first trumpet) resonates with Ex.9:13-35

-the sea into blood (second trumpet) resonates with Ex.7:17

-the darkening of the sun moon and stars (fourth trumpet) resonates with Ex.10:21-29

-The third trumpet (Wormwood) does not have Exodus resonances but does resonate with Jer.23:15 which promises Wormwood and poisoned water to drink due to idolatry

Koester is right: “The mounting threats show that it is an illusion (for John’s churches) to think that one can find security apart from God and the Lamb. Revelation presses readers to identify with those who belong to the Lamb, rather than allying themselves with the world that stands apart from the Lamb. Neutrality is not an option” (Revelation and the End of All Things: 1236-1238).

These four trumpets are rounded off with the appearance of an eagle flying high above announcing three woes. “Woe” in the prophets introduces divine judgment and its threefold repetition indicates the magnitude of the threat (Thomas, Revelation: 4367). The “inhabitants of the earth” is one of John’s terms for those who oppose God. The trumpets, at least the fifth and sixth, are directed at God’s opponents. As in the Exodus plagues, the people of God are demarcated from the rest and exempted from these judgments.

-The first woe: the fifth trumpet (9:1-12).

-the second woe: includes the sixth trumpet, the recommissioning of John to prophesy, the measuring of the temple and the two witnesses (9:13-11:14)

-the third woe: not specifically indicated though the only other use of “woe” is in 12:12 describing the devil’s assault on God’s people on earth after his expulsion from heaven. In short, the third story of Jesus John tells, the Holy War with Jesus as divine warrior is the third woe.

The dislocation, defacement, and destruction of creation turns to its total deformation in trumpets five and six. Trumpet five is about locusts. Well, sort of. Locusts unlike any human beings have ever seen or even imagined. John sees this in his vision:

“In appearance the locusts were like horses equipped for battle. On their heads were what looked like crowns of gold; their faces were like human faces, their hair like women’s hair, and their teeth like lions’ teeth; they had scales like iron breastplates, and the noise of their wings was like the noise of many chariots with horses rushing into battle. They have tails like scorpions, with stingers, and in their tails is their power to harm people for five months. They have as king over them the angel of the bottomless pit; his name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek he is called Apollyon” (9:7-11)

These abominations echo the locust plague of the exodus. Only they attack humans rather than vegetation and have as their “Lord” the infernal “angel of the bottomless pit,” Abaddon or Apollyon (v.11).

The hideous cavalry released by the sixth trumpet are, if possible, even worse, and more destructive.

“ . . . the four angels were released, who had been held ready for the hour, the day, the month, and the year, to kill a third of humankind. The number of the troops of cavalry was two hundred million; I heard their number. And this was how I saw the horses in my vision: the riders wore breastplates the color of fire and of sapphire and of sulfur; the heads of the horses were like lions’ heads, and fire and smoke and sulfur came out of their mouths. By these three plagues a third of humankind was killed, by the fire and smoke and sulfur coming out of their mouths. For the power of the horses is in their mouths and in their tails; their tails are like serpents, having heads; and with them they inflict harm” (9:15-19)

Creation has gone completely of the rails here leaving every semblance of its created form and purpose behind and serving only destruction. These hideous de-creations picture (not predict) what creation might become if God allows it to devolve in the vortex of sin and idolatry. As Bauckham puts it, John has “taken some of his contemporaries’ worst experiences and worst fears of wars and natural disasters, blown them up to apocalyptic proportions, and cast them in biblically allusive terms. The point is not to predict a sequence of events. The point is to evoke and to explore the meaning of the divine judgment which is impending on the sinful world” (Theology of the Book of Revelation, 20).

Shüssler Fiorenza adds, on that meaning of impending divine judgment (vv.20-21),

“that John writes this grotesque and brutal vision not for cruelty's sake but rather for the sake of exhortation to repentance. Following the pattern of the Exodus plagues inflicted upon the Egyptians, the author's rhetorical vision stresses that those who were killed did not repent from their idolatry nor from the pagan practices associated with it. The examination of these last two plague visions makes it clear how disastrous it would be to misunderstand Revelation as an accurate description of what has already happened in the time of John or as an elaborate prediction of events which will actually happen in the eschatological future. Revelation functions neither as an accurate transcript of divine information nor as a factual prediction of future eschatological events. Instead, it must be read as a rhetorical work of vision written in the language of image and myth. As such, it could be likened to today's literature warning against ecological and atomic destruction” (Revelation: Vision of a Just World: 1115-1119).

John Prophesies Again (ch.10)

The next scene in this second woe shpws John renewed in his prophetic commission. An angel, a mighty angel, one described as we might expect Jesus to be described, appears from heaven to John, who is back on earth again. Wrapped in a cloud, a rainbow for a canopy, face shining like the sun, and mighty legs like pillars of fire (v.1), he grasps a “little scroll” lying open in his hand. This almost certainly the same scroll the Lamb takes from God ( ch.5) and is almost finished opening at this point ( it is fully open at 11:18). The angel, standing stride both land and sea, roars like a lion, setting off another series of seven, this time, seven thunders. These are presumably also judgments. But after the trumpets, can the earth (and the reader) stand any more judgment? Perhaps not, as John was told not to write up what the thunders said but to seal it up unread instead (v.4).   

At any rate, the sealing up of the message of the thunders brings us right to the fulfillment of the “mystery of God announced in the prophets with the seventh trumpet. There will be no more delay (v.6).

Instructed to take the scroll from the angel and eat it. It will be sweet in John’s mouth though it will turn his stomach sour (alluding to Ezk.3:1-4). John does as told and the scroll is sweet and sour just as the angel said. What does this mean?

Clearly, it relates to his vocation as a prophet. He is to continue to preach the message, the revelation of God’s kingdom, given to him. This word about Jesus Messiah gladdens his heart and emboldens his resolve as his vision of the regal Christ he gives his churches does for them, and moves him to gratitude and wonder at the Lamb whose love traverses every hell to woo and win humanity back. And yet, the unavoidable reality that many will not hear, indeed, will reject the Lamb and reject him violently, thus placing themselves under the threat and judgment of the seals and trumpets, and woes, distresses the prophet mightily. Yet John must keep on bearing this mantle given to him, come what may, even though it means woe to the world no matter how precious it is to God. 

Measuring the Temple and the Two Witnesses

This last scene of the second woe is most mysterious and controverted. As so far in this study, I will not enter deeply into the controversies here, except to not the impact of our fundamental rule that any passage must mean something to the seven churches if our interpretation is correct. Many interpretations place this event far in the future, a linchpin for the unfolding of the last great events of human history. For folks interested in time tables of the “end times” and hoping to know if they are living in them, this kind of interpretation may be meaningful. But for the 1^st churches John cares for and about it would be meaningless and unhelpful. But what might this passage mean to them?

We already have a clear hint that for John the temple is no longer a physical structure (which had been destroyed in 70 a.d. by the Romans), if the later date for Revelation is accurate. In Christ’s promise to the church in Philadelphia he will make them “a pillar in the temple of my God” (3:12). The temple is a people, a community of faith, the church (as often in the New Testament, ! Cor.3:16; 6:19; 2 Cor.6:16; Eph.2:21; 1 Pet.2:5; .

This view of church as temple means John is being asked to measure the church for preservation (Zech.2:1-5; we saw in the trumpets that the judgments are not meant for the church). The outer courts of the temple are left unmeasured for they shall be “trampled” by the nations for 42 months (three-and-a-half-years, or half of seven, the complete of whole number, thus a broken time in which evil reigns). During this period (now styled as 1260 days, v.3) “two witnesses” shall prophesy.

Who are these two witnesses?

-they wear “sackcloth” (v.3) – a sign of preaching for repentance.

-“two olive trees and two lampstands” (v.4): see Zech.4:2,3,14), again there are many ideas about these witnesses. The one that makes most sense to me is that they are symbolic of the church (not individuals). In its ministry in the world, even being trampled by the nations (persecution), the church exercises a Moses- and Elijah-like ministry. In other words, these two witnesses, similar to Moses and Elijah in the Old Testament, are not individuals but symbolic of the church and its prophetic witness in the last days (the 1260 days of their service). It is worth noting the biblical requirement for two witnesses to offer adequate testimony (Dt. 17:16, 19:15; Jn. 8:17).

“Lampstands” we already know are churches in John’s symbolic universe (1:20). Even as Moses and Elijah experienced God’s power and guidance to enable his people to overcome all obstacles (at least at times), so too will he lead and empower the church to finally overcome and vindicate God’s purposes (Ex.4-11 is the background for vv.5-6).

This ecclesial overcoming is, characteristically in this upside-down book, not by defeating but being defeated. After bearing their witness the beast (see ch.13) from the bottomless pit will strike both witnesses down and leave them lying in the streets of “Jerusalem” for three-and-a-half days.

“John holds up an utterly realistic picture before the churches, who must decide how to respond to the Roman pressures: God will not intervene to deliver them; faithfulness does not deliver them from death but causes it. The beast and all casual observers will consider the death of the witnesses adequate proof that Rome, who has the power, has won. Yet “conquer” here is used in the parody-language of the beast, whose “conquering” can only be a weak imitation of the Lamb’s power” (Boring, Revelation: 3033).

Yet these witnesses do not remain laying there in disgrace and dishonor. As happened to the first human (Gen.2:7), and the dead Israel (Ez.37), “the breath of life from God entered them” (v.11). Renewed with life, these witnesses “arise.” And those who killed them and approved of their killing were “terrified.” And if their presence is not terrifying enough, imagine what they feel hearing the witnesses’ vindication, being called up to heaven to God (see 4:1) and ascending right before their eyes (v.12). With this the martyrs complete their participation in Jesus’ life and work and experience the blessing soon to be pronounced: “’Blessed are the dead who from now on die in the Lord.’ ‘Yes,’ says the Spirit, ‘they will rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them.’” Here is the answer to the martyr’s lament in the fifth seal: the martyrs will rise and ascend to God when the church’s ministry is complete.

Immediately an earthquake rocks the “city” (symbolically Sodom, Egypt, Babylon, Jerusalem, and Rome) and a tenth of it, 7000 people, lie dead. What’s going on with this? It’s “Symbolic Gospel Math.” And it reverses the dominant biblical pattern to this point (Johnson, Discipleship on the Edge, 208-209; see also Koester, Revelation and the End of All Things: 1141 and Bauckham, Theology of the Book of Revelation, 83).

-Isa.6:13: 9/10 falls. 1/10 saved. Here it is reversed: 1/10 falls.

-Am.5:3: 9/10 fall. 1/10 saved. Again, here we have a reversal: only 1/10 falls.

-1 Kngs.19:18: only 7000 faithful left. Here only 7000 die, 9/10 are saved!  

Get the math here? Life defeats death! Only 1/10 of the city and 7000 of its people are lost. Those aren’t real numbers, of course. The point is the reversal. Life trumps death through the prophetic-martyr witness of Jesus and his martyr-band of followers. It is significant that the reaction to Jesus’ resurrection in Matthew is also an earthquake that frees the formerly-dead-but-now-alive from their entombment. These scriptural associations enable John to make a powerful statement here about the scope and power of martyrdom in the economy and purposes of Israel’s God!

We cannot be surprised then to read at the end of v.13: “and the rest were terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven.” God’s will is for all peoples and nations to come to him (14:6-7). Here we see this enacted in John’s vision. And if you don’t think terror and giving glory to God can coexist you have not been reading this book with much imagination or empathy!

Thus ends the second woe. The third we will, perhaps, meet later. And the seventh trumpet sounds. And John’s second story of Jesus Christ comes to an end.

Immediately a loud chorus of voices sound announcing: “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah, and he will reign forever and ever (v.15)”! The twenty-four elders chime in and address God in a telling way: “who are and who were” (v.17). No “who is to come.” God has arrived! He is no longer to come “for you have taken your great power
    and begun to reign.” The nations have been subdued. The time for judgment is now; “and for destroying those who destroy the earth” (v.18).

The third woe announced by the eagle should be inaugurated by the seventh trumpet. Is John playing with us here? Is he delaying the third woe to keep us off balance, too safeguard the mystery and freedom of God from predictability and manipulation? Maybe. Or is he inviting us to see woe upside-down as morphed into the blessing of the arrival of the kingdom? Maybe. Either option is certainly thinkable with John. Earlier I suggested the only other occurrence of woe might help us. It comes soon in 12:12 which is within what we are calling John’s third story of Jesus – the Divine Warrior prosecuting Holy War on the dragon and his minions: “Rejoice then, you heavens  and those who dwell in them! But woe to the earth and the sea, for the devil has come down to you with great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!”  

The establishment of God’s kingdom through the work of the Lamb has defeated and ejected the dragon from heaven. Thus the rejoicing there at the sound of the seventh trumpet. At the same time, however, that victory means woe for the earth because the dragon rages against his fate there wreaking as much destruction as he can in his death throes (his time is short!, 12:12). Here we have the “Already/Not Yet” dynamic we looked at in the introduction. D-Day has happened. The outcome is decided. Pacification is taking place. V-Day will happen when Christ returns. Blessing and woe, two sides on the same coin.

So maybe the third woe happens at the sounding of the seventh trumpet after all, from one point of view. Already transformed into blessing in heaven, from another. That the interim situation we live in. As we will soon discover, though the devil rages, he can and is being defeated by the band of martyr-witnesses who follow Jesus in holy war against him. 

“The eschatological victory hymn 11:17-18 announces the judgment and reign of God and Christ. God will punish the destroyers of the earth and reward not only Christians but all those who have repented and acknowledged God. God's judgment and empire mean the liberation of the earth from all destructive powers, especially from those of Babylon/Rome (19:2); and at the same time, it brings about the renewal of the covenant with creation. The destructive powers of the nations have provoked the wrath of God, which is elaborately depicted in the eschatological plague visions. Nevertheless, the ultimate goal of the plague visions is not destruction but the liberation of all humanity and of the whole earth from oppressive and destructive powers. This is the hope that John's rhetorical vision places before Christians who are told simultaneously that they must suffer oppression and persecution through the hands of the nations” (Schüssler Fiorenza, Revelation: 1232-1238).