Who or what it is that the Lamb has conquered is not expressed (cf. 3:21) (though it is probable that we should see the defeat of Satan by Michael, depicted in 12:7–9, as a symbol of the Lamb’s victory). The object of conquest is left undefined in chapter 5 so that the victory should be boundless in its scope. All that is opposed to God’s rule, we are to understand, has been defeated by the Lamb. Consequently, the acclamation of the victorious Lamb expands, in anticipation of the eschatological fruits of his victory, to include the whole creation in the worship of the One who sits on the throne together with the Lamb (5:13). The continuing and ultimate victory of God over evil which the rest of Revelation describes is no more than the working-out of the decisive victory of the Lamb on the cross.
However, it is with the Lamb’s victory as the basis for this working-out that John is primarily concerned. He takes largely for granted that Christ’s sacrificial death has liberated Christians from sin (1:5) and made them the eschatological people of God (1:5; 5:9–10). What is important, in the context of Revelation, about the church – as already constituted ‘a kingdom and priests serving our God’ (5:10) – is the role it has to play in the universal coming of the kingdom. The realization of God’s rule on earth already in the church cannot, in the universal perspective of Revelation, be the ultimate goal of Christ’s victory. While evil powers opposed to God dominate the earth, that victory has still to reach its goal. But those who, as a result of it, already acknowledge God’s rule have, as we shall see, an indispensable role to play in the full working-out of the Lamb’s victory.
In chapter 5 the work of Christ already achieved is depicted in the combination of the two motifs of messianic war and new exodus. The third major motif, representing Christ as the faithful witness, is not explicitly related to these, so far as the depiction of the past work of Christ is concerned. But we can see the relation of all three motifs in what is said about the way Christians share in Christ’s victory over Satan:
They have conquered him [Satan] 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.
(12:11)
The whole verse requires that the reference to ‘the blood of the Lamb’ is not purely to Christ’s death but to the deaths of the Christian martyrs, who, following Christ’s example, bear witness even at the cost of their lives.4 But this witness even as far as death does not have an independent value of its own. Its value depends on its being a continuation of his witness. So it is by the Lamb’s blood that they conquer. Their deaths defeat Satan only by participating in the victory the Lamb won over Satan by his death. This explanation of 12:11 has taken us already to the second stage of Christ’s work – in which it is continued by his followers – but it shows that the element of faithful witness is essential to understanding how Christ’s victory can take effect through the faithful discipleship of Christians in the world.
THE ARMY OF MARTYRS
When Christ’s conquest is depicted and explained in 5:5–9, Revelation’s readers and hearers already know that Christians are expected to conquer as Christ did. Each of the messages to the seven churches in chapters 2–3 had included a promise of eschatological reward to ‘the one who conquers’ (2:7, 11, 17, 26–8; 3:5, 12, 21), and the last of these, strategically placed in order to anticipate 5:5–6, reads: ‘To the one who conquers, I will give a place with me on my throne, just as I myself conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne’ (3:21). We first meet these victorious followers of Christ in chapter 7, which continues the theme of messianic war by depicting them as the army of the Davidic Messiah.5
Chapter 7:4–14 uses the same device as was used in 5:5–6: that of contrasting what John hears (7:4) and what he sees (7:9). The 144,000 from the twelve tribes of Israel (7:4–8) contrast with the innumerable multitude from all nations (7:9), but the two images depict the same reality. They are parallel to the two contrasting images of Christ in 5:5–6: the 144,000 Israelites are the followers of the Davidic Messiah, the Lion of Judah (note that the tribe of Judah is listed first), while the innumerable multitude are the people of the slaughtered Lamb, ransomed from all the nations (5:9). Just as the expectation of the Davidic Messiah was reinterpreted by means of the scriptural image of the Passover lamb, so the purely nationalistic image of his followers is reinterpreted by an image drawn from the scriptural promises to the patriarchs. According to these, the descendants of the patriarchs would be innumerable (Gen. 13:16; 15:5; 32:12). Thus, not because Christians in the late first century were actually innumerable, but because of John’s faith in the fulfilment of all the promises of God through Christ, the church is depicted as an innumerable company drawn from all nations.
However, there is a further contrast between the 144,000 Israelites and the innumerable multitude which makes the parallel with 5:5–6 exact. The 144,000 are an army. This is implicit in the fact that 7:4–8 is a census of the tribes of Israel. In the Old Testament a census was always a reckoning of the military strength of the nation, in which only males of military age were counted. The twelve equal contingents from the twelve tribes are the army of all Israel, reunited in the last days according to the traditional eschatological hope, mustered under the leadership of the Lion of Judah to defeat the Gentile oppressors of Israel. But the multitude who celebrate their victory in heaven, ascribing it to God and the Lamb (7:9–10), ‘have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb’ (7:14). This means that they are martyrs, who have triumphed by participating, through their own deaths, in the sacrificial death of the Lamb. Admittedly, most commentators have understood 7:14 to refer to the Lamb’s redemption of Christians from sin, but we have already seen that the reference to the blood of the Lamb in 12:11 must refer to martyrdom. Since 7:14 refers to an action of which the followers of the Lamb are subjects, it is parallel to 12:11, whereas in references to the redemption of Christians by Christ’s blood, they are the objects of his action (1:5; 5:9).
Thus, just as 5:5–6 depicts Jesus Christ as the Messiah who has won a victory, but has done so by sacrificial death, not by military might, so 7:4–14 depicts his followers as the people of the Messiah who share in his victory, but do so similarly, by sacrificial death rather than by military violence. This interpretation is confirmed by 14:1–5, in which the 144,000 reappear. Chapters 12–14 portray the combatants in the messianic war. In chapters 12–13 the dragon, the beast and the second beast have been depicted successfully prosecuting war against the people of God (12:17; 13:7). But in 14:1 the Lamb and his army stand to oppose them on Mount Zion, the place of the messianic king’s triumph over the hostile nations (Ps. 2:6). The much misunderstood reference to the virginity of the 144,000 (14:4a) belongs to the image of an army. The followers of Christ are symbolized as an army of adult males who, following the ancient requirement of ritual purity for those who fight in holy war (Deut. 23:9–14; 1 Sam. 21:5; 2 Sam. 11:9–13; 1QM 7:3–6), must avoid the cultic defilement incurred through sexual intercourse. This ritual purity belongs to the image of an army: its literal equivalent in John’s ideal of the church is not sexual asceticism, but moral purity. But, just like the combination of the militaristic and sacrificial imagery for Christ in 5:5–6, so the image of an army changes to that of sacrifice in 14:4b–5, and with it the image of the ritual purity of the Lord’s army changes to that of the perfection required in a sacrificial offering. The word which the NRSV translates ‘blameless’ (amōmoi) is cultic terminology for the physical perfection required in an animal acceptable for sacrifice (Exod. 29:38; Lev. 1:3; 3:1).
The cultic image is then translated into its literal equivalent: ‘in their mouth no lie was found’ (14:5). This relates to the theme of truth and falsehood, which is so important in Revelation, and evokes the third of the motifs which dominate Revelation’s account of the work of Christ: that of faithful witness to the truth. But in using the words, ‘in their mouth no lie was found’, John is also echoing significant
Old Testament texts: Zephaniah 3:13, which says of the eschatological people of God that ‘a deceitful tongue shall not be found in their mouths’, and Isaiah 53:9, which says of the Suffering Servant, who was ‘led like a lamb to the slaughter’ (53:7), that ‘no lie was found in his mouth’. John exploits (in the manner of Jewish exegesis) the coincidence between these texts. The followers of the Lamb resemble the one they ‘follow wherever he goes’ (14:4). This following means imitating both his truthfulness, as ‘the faithful witness’, and the sacrificial death to which this led. Thus the victory of the Lamb’s army is the victory of truthful witness maintained as far as sacrificial death. As in 12:11, the three images of messianic warfare, paschal sacrifice and faithful witness come together and mutually interpret one another.
To return to chapter 7, where the victory of the Lamb’s followers through martyrdom is first depicted, it is important to notice its place in the structure of the visions. It intervenes between the sixth and seventh judgments of the first series of seven judgments: the seal-openings. The opening of the sixth seal seems to anticipate the immediate arrival of the final judgment (6:12–17), but this is delayed while the servants of God are sealed (7:1–3), an image which turns out to refer to their being marked out for martyrdom. We can now see how chapter 7 relates to the judgments of the seal-openings. When the fifth seal is opened, the Christian martyrs of the past cry out for their blood to be avenged, but they are told they must wait until the rest of the full complement of Christian martyrs is complete. In other words, the final judgment on the wicked, which will avenge the martyrs, is delayed until the rest of the Lamb’s followers also suffer martyrdom. This is why their victory is depicted in an interlude between the sixth and seventh seal-openings. We may expect to find a further exposition of the same subject in the corresponding interlude in the next series of judgments: between the sixth and seventh trumpets.
What is the significance of martyrdom? In what sense is it a continuation of Christ’s work by his followers, a working-out of the victory he achieved by his death? Reading only as far as chapter 7, it would seem that martyrdom is merely for the sake of the martyrs themselves. Taking the image of the new exodus in its most obvious sense, it seems that God’s people, redeemed from all nations to be his own people (5:9), are delivered through martyrdom from the evil world. They triumph in heaven while their enemies on earth are doomed to final judgment. The judgment has been delayed only so that they can escape it through martyrdom. This is all that John’s account up to and including chapter 7 can tell us. But thus far the real secret of God’s purpose for the role of the church in the establishment of God’s kingdom on earth has not been revealed to him. That occurs only in the interlude between the sixth and seventh judgments of the trumpet series (10:1–11:13).
THE UNSEALED SCROLL
We need to return to the scroll which the Lamb, because of his victory, is declared worthy to open (5:1–9).6 The scroll is to reveal the way in which, according to the hitherto secret purpose of God, the Lamb’s victory is to become effective in establishing God’s rule over the world. Only the Lamb can open the scroll and reveal its contents, because it is his victory which makes possible the implementation of the purpose of God contained in the scroll. More specifically, as we shall see, the scroll will reveal how the followers of Christ are to participate in the coming of God’s kingdom by following him in witness, sacrifice and victory. Because the Lamb has conquered, he is the one who can reveal how his followers are also to conquer.
The scroll is sealed with seven seals (5:1) and the Lamb opens the seals, one by one, from 6:1 to 8:1. But the events that occur at the opening of the seals are not, as interpreters of Revelation have too often supposed, the contents of the scroll. It would be a very odd scroll whose contents could be progressively revealed by the opening of a series of seals. The events of the seven seal-openings merely accompany the opening of the seals. The opening of the seals one by one is a literary device enabling John to narrate a series of visions which prepare for the revelation of the contents of the scroll. Neither the series of seven judgments which accompany the seal-openings, nor the series of seven trumpet-blasts which are closely attached to the opening of the seventh, final seal (cf. 8:1–6), is the content of the scroll.
The scroll itself, now opened, reappears in 10:2, 8–10. Most interpreters have been misled by the word used in 10:2, 9–10 (biblaridion is diminutive in form, but like many diminutive forms in the Greek of this period, need not differ in meaning from biblion, which is used in 5:1–9; 10:8) and have supposed the scroll of chapter 10 to be a different scroll from that of chapter 5. But John carefully indicates their identity.7 The angel who brings the scroll down from heaven (10:1–2) is called ‘another mighty angel’ (10:1) in order to make a literary connection with 5:1–9, where the first ‘mighty angel’ is mentioned (5:2). More significantly, throughout chapters 4, 5 and 10, John is closely following the inaugural vision of the book of Ezekiel (Ezek. 1:1–3:11). Like Ezekiel, he sees a vision of the divine throne (Rev. 4; cf. Ezek. 1), which prepares for the communication of a prophetic message to the prophet. John’s description of the scroll in the hand of God (5:1) is modelled on Ezekiel’s similar description (Ezek. 2:9–10). In Ezekiel’s case, God himself opens the scroll (2:10) and gives it to the prophet with the command to eat it (3:1–2). The eating of the scroll symbolizes the prophet’s absorption of the divine message that he is to communicate. When Ezekiel eats it, it is sweet as honey in his mouth (Ezek. 3:3). In Revelation, the allusions to this Old Testament passage begin, as we have just indicated, in 5:1, and then continue in 10:2, 8–10, where an angel gives the open scroll to John and he eats it, finding it sweet as honey in his mouth, but bitter in his stomach. The difference between Ezekiel and Revelation lies in the opening of the scroll. In Revelation, the scroll must be opened by the Lamb before it can be given to John to eat. So the scroll is taken from the hand of God by the Lamb (5:7), who opens it (6:1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 12; 8:1). It is then taken from heaven to earth by an angel (10:1–2), who gives it to John to eat (10:8–10).
This chain of revelation, from God to the prophet John, corresponds exactly to 1:1, which states that the revelation which is the content of the book was given to God by Jesus Christ so that he might show it to his servants by sending his angel to his servant John (cf. also 22:16). We now understand why the angel who is supposed to be a necessary link in this chain of revelation does not appear in the book until 10:1. It is not until chapter 10 that the main content of the prophetic revelation John communicates in his book is given to him. All that has preceded is preparatory – necessary to the understanding of this revelation, but not itself the revelation. Recognizing this is a vital, though neglected, key to understanding the book of Revelation.
The communication of the content of the scroll to John takes place as the first part of the extended interlude between the sixth and seventh trumpet blasts (10:1–11:13). It should be noted that the markers in 9:12 and 11:14 associate this interlude firmly with the sixth rather than the seventh trumpet. Why is the scroll given to John at this point, near the end of the second series of seven judgments? We noticed in chapter 2 above that all three series of judgments are closely related to the vision of God, as sovereign and holy, in Revelation 4. They bring God’s holy will to bear on the evil world. But the judgments up to and including that of the sixth trumpet are strictly limited (see 6:8; 8:7–12; 9:5, 15, 18). They are warning judgments, designed to bring humanity to repentance. In 9:20–1, immediately before the interlude, it is clearly stated that they do not in fact have this effect. Those who survive the judgments do not repent. Judgments alone, it is implied, do not lead to repentance and faith.
This is why, early in the interlude, a further series of judgments – the seven thunders (10:3–4) – is apparently proposed only to be revoked. Unlike the scroll, they are to remain sealed and John is not to write their contents in his prophecy (10:4). In other words, the process of increasingly severe warning judgments is not t
o be extended any further. It is not that God’s patience has run out, but that such judgments do not produce repentance. So the series of judgments affecting a quarter of the earth (6:8) and the series affecting a third of the earth (8:7–12; 9:15, 18) are not, as we might expect, followed by a series affecting half the earth. No doubt the seven thunders would have been such a series. But there is now to be only the final judgment, the seventh trumpet (10:7). When the content of the seventh trumpet is spelled out in detail as the seven bowls (15:1), they are total, not limited, judgments (16:2–21), accomplishing the final annihilation of the unrepentant.
If the seven thunders are not to occur and therefore remain sealed (10:4), what is revealed to John is the content of the scroll. This is God’s hitherto unrevealed purpose for achieving what judgments alone have failed to achieve: the repentance of the world. Having eaten the scroll, John is told to reveal its contents by prophesying: ‘You must prophesy again about many peoples and nations and languages and kings’ (10:11). The word ‘again’ contrasts this prophecy not merely with John’s activity as a prophet before now, but with all the previous prophetic revelation to which 10:7 refers. To prophets of both the Old and New Testament periods God had revealed his purpose of finally establishing his kingdom on earth, including all that John has hitherto described in his visions. What has not been revealed, except in hints which John now draws out, is the role of the followers of the Lamb in bringing the world to repentance and faith through their witness and death. It is a moot point whether the sentence just quoted from 10:11 should be translated, ‘You must prophesy again about many peoples … ‘, or, ‘You must prophesy again to many peoples … ’ Either would make sense. John’s prophecy is initially a revelation to the churches of the role they are to play as prophetic witnesses to the nations. But also, indirectly, it is the content of the prophetic witness of the churches to the nations.
The Theology of the Book of Revelation Page 10
