Introduction
The Book of Revelation is strikingly different from the
rest of the New Testament. It is populated by winged and wild creatures, locust
plagues, and seven-headed beasts. Revelation is filled with obscure
and fantastic symbolism, and it teems with mystical references.
However, it lacks any real internal structure. Unlike the other New
Testament books, which tend to mix narrative with sermon-style
preaching, Revelation is essentially a long, uninterrupted record of
a mystical vision, offering little interpretation for its intricate
symbols. Revelation has been read for thousands of years as a code
that, properly interpreted, can reveal the secrets of history and
the end of the world. The numbers and symbols in Revelation have
been read into any number of traumatic events in ancient and modern
history.
Revelation was a product of this time of early growth
and confusion, but also of a long Jewish tradition of apocalyptic
literature. The Old Testament books of Ezekiel and Zechariah contain
long apocalyptic segments. The most famous Old Testament apocalypse, the
Book of Daniel, was written circa 165 b.c. The apocalyptic genre became more popular after 70 a.d.,
when the apocryphal apocalypses, 2 Baruch
and 4 Ezra, were written in response to the destruction
of the Jewish temple in Jerusalem by Roman armies. There is enough
apocalyptic literature that it can be classified as a genre of its
own, with its own particular characteristics. Some of these common
features are revelations made to a human emissary through a supernatural
agency, heavy symbolism, numerology with obscure significance, extravagant
imagery, and concern about a cataclysmic day of judgment or the
end of the world. Apocalyptic literature tends to take a deterministic
view of history—that is, apocalypses are generally driven by the
belief that history inexorably follows a set path ordained by God.
All of these characteristics of the apocalyptic genre are present
in Revelation.
Summary
The introduction of Revelation names the author, John,
and explains the immediacy of the message: the end of days is at
hand. John extends a greeting to the Christian communities in seven
major Near East cities in the name of the God of history. On the
Sabbath, John falls into a prophetic ecstasy. He sees a vision of
a shining Jesus, surrounded by seven stars and seven lamp-stands:
these represent the seven churches of Asia. In 2:1–3:22,
John is given orders to deliver a message to each of the churches,
addressing specific strengths and failings of each church, providing
encouragement to some and driving others to repent before Judgment
Day. Jesus reminds them that his coming is imminent. The first half
of John’s revelatory experience begins with the opening of the heavenly
door: “Come up here,” a voice calls to him, “I will show you what
is to take place in the future” (4:1).
John sees God enthroned and surrounded by twenty-four elders.
Lightning flashes and thunder sounds. Old Testament angels with
six wings and many eyes sing praises to the Lord. God holds a scroll
sealed with seven seals, and nobody is worthy of breaking the seals
except Jesus, by virtue of his sacrifice. Jesus appears here as
“a Lamb standing as if it had been slaughtered,” but also as “the
Lion of the tribe of Judah” (5:5–6).
Breaking the first four seals, Jesus releases the Four
Horsemen of the Apocalypse: victory, war, famine, and pestilence.
When the fifth seal is broken, the souls of martyrs cry out for
justice, but they are urged to have patience until the appointed number
of people have been martyred. The breaking of the sixth seal unleashes
a massive cosmic upheaval that devastates the world.
Before the breaking of the seventh seal, an angel marks 144,000 people—12,000 from
each of the tribes of Israel—with the seal of God to protect them
from the coming devastation. Other righteous people, too, are to
be saved: a “great multitude . . . [of people] from all the tribes
and peoples and languages” have cleansed themselves and they, too,
will be protected (7:9).
Finally, it is time to open the seventh seal (8:1).
But the opening of the seal is anticlimactic; when it is opened,
it is revealed that there are seven trumpets that need to be blown.
Four of the trumpets blow, each bringing with it disaster and destruction,
with fire falling from the sky (8:6–12).
With the fifth trumpet, the chimney leading out of the Abyss is
unlocked, and bizarre locusts emerge in the smoke, stinging
anyone unmarked by God’s seal. The sixth trumpet unleashes a vast
troop of cavalry who kill “a third of humankind” (9:18).
However, the survivors nevertheless refuse to stop worshipping idols
and behaving immorally. An angel descends from heaven, announcing
the imminent fulfillment of “the mystery of God” with the blowing
of the seventh trumpet (10:7).
The prophet is ordered to consume a scroll, which will
taste sweet but be bitter in his stomach (8:10).
He is told that two prophets will arise to preach the word of God
in Jerusalem, but will be killed after 1,260 days
by “the beast that comes up from the bottomless pit” (11:7).
God will revive these prophets, and will strike Jerusalem with a
powerful earthquake. Finally, the seventh trumpet blows, and John
hears voices shouting, “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom
of our Lord and of his Messiah, and he will reign forever and ever”
(11:15). The moment
for justice, punishment, and triumph has arrived, with lighting,
thunder, earthquakes, and hail.
