A Reading of Revelation

World events that unsettle, and unerve us, often find Christians resorting to various readings of the Revelation of St John (or more precisely, the Revelation of Jesus Christ). The vast, terrifying, apocalyptic landscape of Revelation is read as a prophetic calendar of future events -  which in some ways, consistent with multiple fulfilments of this literary and prophetic genre, is valid. There is something about the grand spiritual themes and battles in Revelation that will last the entire age, in that every era has the possibilities of seeing dragons, false prophets, and persecution of the saints. If you’d lived in Europe around the World Wars the end of the age was all but upon you, and many thought so. They were right in a limited sense but wrong in a final sense. Many prognosticators utilise Revelation for prophetic pronouncements of Christ’s return, within a limited time frame of their imagination.  Few apologise, and even fewer give refunds.

But was this how the churches that received John’s heavenly vision read the letters to them? Did they think the book was a coded timetable of the end of days? Did they think they were going to get a reprieve from the worst of persecution? To the second two of these questions - highly unlikely.

Then, what was it to them? Firstly, it was a letter, an epistle, albeit different than most of Paul’s. Each of the seven churches received a call to perseverance, encouragement in the face of opposition, and a rebuke for specific failures that unless rectified could lead to a removal of their status as God’s church. No church was promised an easy road or swift deliverance; they were promised an inheritance with the saints for patience, obedience, and conquering those forces that wished to conquer them.

It would have been all too obvious that John was referring to Rome – beast, false prophet, dragon, domination, and disaster. The language was not written to be taken literally, rather it gave insight into what was happening behind the scenes. The numbers, beasts, etc., were symbolic of real things but not things they would see and experience literally. Remember John was in exile because his preaching was subversive to Rome’s brutal power, so it is unlikely he would write his devastating critique of Rome in plain language. God showed him everything he needed to see and to convey in spiritually charged language – in parabolic form. To him who had an ear understood.

The churches were involved in the heavenly drama that saw power, violence, domination as a dragon, and the way of Jesus’ disciples as representatives of the lamb that was slain. It was empire verse kingdom and at times empire wins over kingdom, but not forever as the power of the lamb is God’s way to victory. The cross and perceived weakness is God’s way of true victory – it is counter-intuitive and for that reason is rejected by some believers who prefer to resort to political and military power – the way of the dragon, in other words. Sacrificial love and serving are the way of the lamb – in his case to the death. Power doesn’t come out of the barrel of a gun – only violence and an increase of violence.

The recipients of the Revelation heard that Jesus knew what they faced, they heard the way of the cross is the only way to victory (the church and political power have never been comfortable allies – yet we still try), they heard God’s rule is assured – he is sovereign and is working all things in Christ to the end of his purposes, they heard all tears will be wiped away (which suggests many were still being shed) and their present state is not permanent -  God’s enemies will fade.

Their reading is unlike ours – but they were the ones who eventually turned the Roman world upside down with the gospel, a gospel preached and embodied as followers of the crucified one. The lamb has the last word.