W
hen turning to the book of Revelation from the rest of the New Testament, one feels as if he or she were entering a foreign country.Instead of narratives and letters containing plain statements of fact and imperatives, one comes to a book full of angels, trumpets, earthquakes, beasts, dragons, and bottomless pits.
The hermeneutical problems are intrinsic. The book is in the canon; thus for us it is God’s Word, inspired of me Holy Spirit. Yet when we come to it to hear that Word, most of us in the church today hardly know what to make of it. The author sometimes speaks forthrightly: “I, John, your brother and companion in the suffering and kingdom and patient endurance that are ours in Jesus,
was
on the island of Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus” (1:9). He writes to seven known churches in known cities with recognizable first-century conditions.At the same time, however, there is a rich, diverse symbolism, some of which is manageable (judgment in the form of an earthquake; 6: 12- 17), while some is obscure (the two witnesses;
11: l- 10). Most of the problems stem from the symbols, plus the fact that the book deals with future events, but at the same time is set in a recognizable first-century context.
We do not pretend to be able to resolve all the difficulties, nor do we imagine that all of our readers will be happy with everything we say. It seems necessary to say at the outset that no one should approach the Revelation without a proper degree of humility! There are already too many books on ‘The Revelation Made Easy.” But it
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232 THE REVELATION: LMAGES OF JUDGMENT AND HOPE is not easy. As with the difficult passages in the Epistles (see pp.
58-59), one should be less than dogmatic here, especially since there are at least five major schools of interpretation, not to mention significant variations within each of the schools.
But we are also bold enough to think we have more than an inkling as to what John was up to. So we will lead you into some hermeneutical suggestions that make sense to us. But exegesis comes first, and in this case exegesis is especially crucial. For this is a book on which a lot of popular books and pamphlets have been written. In almost every case, these popular books do no exegesis at all. They jump immediately to hermeneutics, which usually takes the form of fanciful speculations that John himself could never possibly have intended or understood.
The Nature of the Revelation
As with most of the other biblical genres, the first key to the exegesis of the Revelation is to examine the kincl of literature it is. In this case, however, we face a different kind of problem, for the Revelation is a unique, finely blended combination of three distinct literary types: apocalypse, prophecy, and letter. Furthermore, the basic type, apocalypse, is a literary form that does not exist in our own day. In previous cases, even if our own examples differ somewhat from the biblical ones, we nonetheless have a basic understanding of what an epistle or a narrative, a psalm or a proverb is. But we simply have nothing quite like this. Thus it is especially important in this case to have a clear picture of the literary type we are dealing with.
The Revelation As Apocdsse
The Revelation is primarily an apocalypse. It is only one- though a very special one, to be sure-of dozens of apocalypses that were well known to Jews and Christians from about 200 B.C. to
A.D. 200. These other apocalypses, which of course are not canonical, were of a variety of kinds, yet they all, including the Revelation, have some common characteristics. These common characteristics are as follows:
1. The taproot of apocalyptic is the Old Testament prophetic literature, especially as it is found in Ezekiel, Daniel, Zechariah, and parts of Isaiah. As was the case in some prophetic literature,
THE REVELATION: LMAGES OF JUDGMENT AND HOPE 233 apocalyptic was concerned about coming judgment and salvation.
But apocalyptic was born either in persecution or in a time of great oppression. Therefore, its great concern was no longer with Cod’s activity w&in history. The apocalyptists looked exclusively forward to the time when God would bring a violent, radical end to history, an end that would mean the triumph of right and the final judgment ofevil.
2. Unlike most of the prophetic books, apocalypses are literary works from the beginning. The prophets were basically spokesper- sons for Yahweh, whose spoken oracles were later committed to writing and collected in a book. But an apocalypse is a form of fitewwe. It has a particular written structure and form. John, for example, is told to “write what he has seen” (1:19), whereas the prophets were told to speak what they were told or had seen.
3. Most frequently the “stufP’ of apocalyptic is presented in the form of visions and dreams, and its language is cryptic (having hidden meanings) and symbolic. Therefore, most of the apocalypses contained literary devices that were intended to give the book a sense of hoary age. The most important of these devices was pseudonymity, that is, they were given the appearance of having been written by ancient worthies (Enoch, Baruch, et al.), who were told to “seal it up” for a later day, the “later day” of course being the age in which the book was now being written.
4. The images of apocalyptic are ofien forms of fantasy, rather than of reality. By way of contrast, the nonapocalyptic prophets and Jesus also regularly used symbolic language, but most often it involved real images, for example, salt (Matt. 5:13), vultures and carcasses (Luke 17:37), silly doves (HOC 7:11), half-baked cakes (Hos. 7:8), et al. But most of the images of apocalyptic belong to fantasy, for example, a beast with seven heads and ten horns (Rev.
13:1), a woman clothed with the sun (Rev. 12:1), locusts with scorpions’ tails and human heads (Rev. 9: lo), et al. The fantasy may not necessarily appear in the items themselves (we understand beasts, heads, and horns) but in their unearthly combination.
5. Because they were literary, most of the apocalypses were very formally stylized. There was a strong tendency to divide time and events into neat packages. There was also a great fondness for the symbolic use of numbers. As a consequence, the final product usually has the visions in carefully arranged, often numbered, sets.
Frequently these sets, when put together, express something (e.g.,
I
THE REVUTION: IMAGES OF J- AND HOPE judgment) without necessarily trying to suggest that each separate picture follows hard on the heel of ‘the former.
The Revelation of John fitsall these characteristics of apocalyp- tic but one. And that one di&rence is so important that
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someways it becomes a world of its own. B C tnat@&~.
John felt no need to follow the regulx formula here. He made himself known to his readers and, through the seven letters (chaps.
2-3), he spoke to known churches of Asia Minor, who were his contemporaries and “companions in suffering.‘! Moreover, he was told tlot to “seal up the words of the prophecy of this book, because the time is near” (22:lO).
T h e Revel&m A s Prophey
The major reason John’s apocalypse is not pseudonymous is probably related to his own sense of the end ,as already/not yet (see pp. 131-M). He is not, with his Jewish predecessors,. simply anticipating the end. He knows that it had already begun with the coming of Jesus. Crucial to this understanding is the advent of the Spirit, The other apocalyptists wrote in the name of the former prophetic figures because they lived in the age of the ‘“quenched Spirit,” awaiting the prophetic promise
of
the outpoured Spirit in the new aeon. #Thus they were in an age when prophecy had ceased.John, on the other hand, belongs to the new aeon. He was “in the Spirit” when he was told to write what he saw (1: lo- 11). He calls his book “this prophecy” (1:3; 22:18-19), and says that the
“testimony of Jesus,” for which he and the churches are suffering (1:9; 20:4), “is the spirit of prophecy’ (19:lO). This probably means that the message of Jesus, attested by him and to which John and the churches bear witness, is the clear evidence that the prophetic Spirit had come.
What makes John’s Apocalypse different, therefore, is first of all this combination of apocalyptic and prophetic elements. On the one hand, the book,is cast in the apocalyptic mold and has most of the literary characteristics of apocalyptic. It is born in persecution and intends to speak about the end with the triumph of Christ and his church, and it is a carefully constructed piece of literature, using cryptic language and rich symbolism of fantasy and numbers.
On the other hand, John clearly intends this apocalypse to be a prophetic word to the church. His book was not to be sealed for the future. It was a word from God for their present situation. You will
THE REVELAnON: IMAGES OF JUDGMENT AND HOPE 235 recall from chapter 10 that “to prophesy” does not primarily mean to foretell the future but rather to speak forth God’s Word in the present, a word that usually had as its content coming judgment or salvation. In the Revelation even the seven letters bear this prophetic imprint. Here, then, is God’s prophetic Word to some churches in the latter part of the first century who are undergoing persecution from without and some ‘decay from within.
The Revelatim As Epktle
Finally, it must be noted that this combination of apocalyptic and prophetic elements has been cast into the form of a letter. For example, read 1:4-7 and 22:21; you will note that all the characteristics of the letter form are present. Furthermore, John speaks to his readers in the first person/second person formula (I . . . you). Thus in its final form the Revelation is sent by John as a letter to the seven churches of Asia Minor.
The significance of this is that, as with all epistles, there is an m (see p. 48) aspect to the Revelation. It was occasioned at least in part by the needs of the specific churches to which it is addressed. Therefore, to interpret, we must try to understand its original historical context.
I The Necessity of Exegesis
It may seem strange that after twelve chapters in this book, we should still feel constrained to contend for the necessity of exegesis.
But it is precisely the lack of sound exegetical principles that has caused so much bad, speculative interpretation of the Revelation to take place. What we want to do here, then, is simply to repeat, with the Revelation in mind, some of the basic exegetical principles we have already delineated in this book, beginning, with chapter 3.
1. The first task of the exegesis of the Revelation is to seek the author’s, and therewith the Holy Spirit’s, original intent. As with the Epistles, the primary meanin. of the Revelation L what John ivatended it to wan, which in turn must also have been something hir rehkrs wadd have undemtood it to mean. Indeed, the great advantage they would have had over us is their familiarity with ‘their own historical context (that caused the book to be written in the first place) and their greater familiarity with apocalyptic forms and images.
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236 THE REVEhWION: IMAGES OF J- AND HOPE 2. Since the Revelation intends to be prophetic, one must be open to the possibility of a secondary meaning, inspired by the Holy Spirit, but not fully seen by the author or his readers.
However, such a second meaning lies &+ exegesis in the broader area of hermeneutics. Therefore, the task of exegesis here is to understand what John was intending his original readers to hear and understand.
3. One must’be especially careful of overusing the concept of the ‘%nalogy of Scripture” in the exegesis of the Revelation. The analogy of Scripture means that Scripture is to be interpreted in the \ light of other Scripture. We hold this to be self-evident, based on our stance that all of Scripture is God’s Word and has Cod as its ultimate source. However, to interpret Scripture by Scripture must not be tilted in such a way that one must make other Scriptures the hermeneutical keys to unlock the Revelation.
Thus, it is one thing to recognize John’s new use of images from Daniel or Ezekiel, or to see the analogies in apocalyptic images from other texts. But one may not assume, as some’ schools of interpretation do, that John’s readers had to have read Matthew or 1 and 2 Thessalonians, and that they already knew fkom their reading of these texts certain keys to understanding what John had written. Therefore, any keys to intqetina the Rmh must be intrinsic to the text of the Revelation itself or otbenvke avaiikble to tbe or@nal ~ec@ients j+n their awn b&&A umtcxt.
4. Because of the apocalyptic/prophetic nature of the book, there are some added difficulties at the exegetical level, especially having to do with the imagery. Here are some suggestions in this regard:
a. One must have a sensitivity to the rich background of ideas that have gone into the composition of the Revelation. The chief source of these ideas and images is the Old Testament, but John also has derived images from apocalyptic and even from ancient mythology. But these images, though deriving from a variety of sources, do not necessarily mean what they meant in their sources.
They have been broken and transformed under inspiration and thus blended together into this “new prophecy.”
b. Apocalyptic imagery is of several kinds. In some cases the images, like the donkey and elephant in American political cartoons, are constant. The beast out of the sea, for example, seems to be a standard image for a world empire, not for an individual ruler. On
THE REVELAl-TON: LMAGES OF JUDGMENT AND HOPE 237 the other hand, some images are fluid. The “Lion” of the tribe of Judah turns out in fact to be a “Lamb” (Rev. 5:5-6)-&e only lion there is in the Revelation. The woman in chapter 12 is clearly a positive image, yet the woman in chapter 17 is evil.
Likewise some of the images clearly refer to specific things. The seven lampstands in 1:12-20 are identified as the seven churches, and the dragon in chapter 12 is Satan. On the other hand, many of the images are probably general. For example, ,the four horseman of chapter 6 probably do not represent any specific expression of conquest, war, famine, and death, but rather represent this expression of human fallenness as the source of the church’s suffering (6:9-11) that in turn will be a cause of God’s judgment (6:12-17).
All of this is to say that the images are the most diflicult part of the exegetical task. Because of this, two further points are especially \ important:
c. Wben John himself inteets his images, these interpreted images must be belafirmlr and must serve as a startin. point fi amdktandin~
otbm. There are six such interpreted images: The one like a son of man (1: 17- 18) is Christ, who alone “was dead, and . . . alive for ever and ever !” The golden lampstands (1:20) are the seven churches. The seven stars (1:20) are the seven angels, or messen- gers, of the churches (unfortunately, this is still unclear because of the use of the term arqgel, which may in itself be yet another image).
The great dragon (12:9) is Satan. The seven heads (17:9) are the seven hills on which the woman sits (as well as seven kings, thus becoming a fluid image). The harlot (17: 18) is the great city, clearly indicating Rome.
d. One must see the vi&as as wboks and not alk?gmically press all the &a&. In this matter the visions are like the parables. The whole vision is trying to say something;, the details are either (1) for dramatic effect (6: 12-14) or (2) to add to the picture of the whole so that the readers will not mistake the points of reference (9:7- 11). Thus the details of the sun turning black like sackcloth and the stars falling like late figs probably do not “mean” anything. They simply make the whole vision of the earthquake more impressive.
However, in 9: 7- 11 the locusts with crowns of gold, human faces, and women’s long hair help to fill out the picture in such a way that the original readers could hardly have mistaken what was in view- the barbarian hordes at the outer edges of the Roman Empire.
238 l’HE REVEL,ATIoN LMAGES OF JUDGMENT AAL9 HOPE 5. One final note: Apocalypses in general, and the Revelation in particular, seldom intend to give. a detailed, chronological account of the future. Their message tends to transcend that kind of concern. John’s larger concern is that, despite present appearances;
Cod is in control of history and the church. And even though the church will experience stiering and death, it :wiU be triumphant in Christ, who will judge his enemies and save his people. M:of the visions must be seen in terms of this greater conce,m.
The Historical Context
As with most of the other genres, the place to begin one%
exegesis of the Revelation is ‘with ,a provisional reconstruction, of the situation in which it was written. To do this well, you need to do here what we have suggested elsewhere-try to read it ali the way through in one sitting. Readxfor the big picture. Do not try to figure out everything. Let your reading itself be a happening, as it were.
That is, let the visions roll past you like waves on the shore, one after another, until you have a feel for the book and its message.
Again, as you read, be making some mental or brief Written notes about the author and his readers. Then go back a second time and specifically pick up all the references that indicate John’s readers are “companions in his sufFeri@’ (1:9). These are the crucial historical indicators.
For example, in the seven letters note 2:3,8-9, 13; 3:10, plus the repeated “‘to the one who overcomes.” The fifth seal (6:9-ll), which follows the devastation wrought by the four ,horsemen, reveals Christian martyrs, who have been slain because of the
“word” and the “testimony” (exactly why John is in exile in 1:9). In 7: 14 the great multitude, who will never again s&r (7: 16), has
%ome out of the great tribulation.” Suffering and death are again linked to bearing “the testimony of Jesus” in 12: 11 and 17. And in chapters 13-20 the suffering and death are specifically attributed to the “beast” (13:7; 14:9-13; 16:5-6; 18:20, 24; 19:2).
This motif is the key to understanding the historical context, and fully explains the occasion and purpose of the book. John himself was in exile for his faith. Others were also experiencing suffering-one had even died (2: 13) -for “the testimony of Jesus.”
While John was “in the Spirit,” he came to realize that their present suffering was only the beginning of woes for those who would
IiCiYE REVELATION: LMAGES OF JVDGMENTAhD HOPE 239 refuse “to worship the beast.” At the same time he was not altogether sure that ail the church was ready for what was ahead of them. So he wrote this “prophecy.”
The main themes are abundantly clear: the church and the state are on a collision course; and initial victory will appear to belong to the state. Thus he warns the church that suffering and death lie ahead; indeed, it will get Ear worse before it gets better (6:9-11).
He is greatly concerned that they do not capitulate in times of duress (14:11-12; 21:7-8). But this prophetic word is also one of encouragement; for Cod is in control of all things. Christ holds the keys to history, and he holds the churches in his hands (1: 17-20).
Thus the church triumphs even through death (12: 11). Cod will finally pour out his wrath upon those who caused that suffering and death and bring eternal rest to those who remain faithful. In that context, of course, Rome was the enemy that would be judged.
It should be noted here that one of the keys for interpreting the Revelation is the distinction John makes between two crucial words or ideas -W and wrath. To confuse these and make them refer to the same thing will cause one to become hopelessly muddled as to what is being said,
Tribulation (su@&-ing and death) is clearly a part of what the church was enduring and was yet to endure. God’s wrath, on the other hand, is his judgment that is to be poured upon those who have afhicted God’s people. It is clear from every kind of context in the Revelation that Cod’s people will not have to endure God’s awful wrath when it is poured out upon their enemies, but it is equally clear that they will indeed sufFer from the’hands of their enemies. This distinction, it should be noted, is precisely in keeping with the rest of the New Testament. See, for example, 2 Thessalo- nians 1: 3- 10, where Paul “boasts” of the Thessalonians’ “persecu- tions and trials” (the same Greek word as “tribulation”), but he also notes that Cod will eventually judge those “who trouble you” (the verb form of “tribulation”).
You should note also how the opening of seals 5 and 6 (6:9- 17) raises the two crucial questions in the book. In seal 5 the Christian martyrs cry out, “How long, Sovereign Lord, . . . until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?” The answer is twofold: (1) They must ‘tvait a little longer,” because there are to be many more martyrs; (2) judgment is nonetheless absolutely certain, as the sixth seal indicates.