Book of Revelation

• FIRST PUBLISHED:Apokalypsis, c. 95 C.E. (English translation, 1380)
• EDITION(S) USED:The Greek New Testament, edited by Barbara Aland et al. 4th ed. Stuttgart, Germany: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft/United Bible Societies, 1983; The New Oxford Annotated Bible: New Revised Standard Version with the Apocrypha, edited by Michael D. Coogan. 3d ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001

• GENRE(S): Holy writings
• SUBGENRE(S): Spiritual treatise; theology
• CORE ISSUE(S): Apocalypse; the Bible; constancy; good vs. evil; hope; martyrdom; persecution; works and deeds

Overview

Like former prophetic writings in the Hebrew Bible, the book of Revelation (also known as the Apocalypse of John and Revelation to John), the only book of prophecy in the New Testament, summons contemporaries of the prophet to be faithful to God in a time of crisis for the Christian faith. Addressed as a circular letter to the churches of western Asia Minor (now Turkey), probably near the end of the reign of the Roman emperor Domitian (81-96 C.E.), it finds Christians there adopting a variety of stances toward the pagan environment, from accommodation at one extreme to passive resistance at the other. It encourages the resisters to remain loyal to Christ in spite of harassment and warns compromisers to repent lest they fall under judgment together with the world of the godless.

The author gives his name as John. From the middle of the second century onward, in keeping with the testimony of the next generation after the apostles, he has been identified as Saint John, son of Zebedee, member of the twelve apostles of Jesus, author also of the Gospel of John and of the three Johannine epistles. Since the European Enlightenment, critical scholarship has cast doubt on this tradition, and on ancient traditions generally, citing in this case marked differences between the writings in grammar, style, genre, and temper.

During the closing decades of the first century, the Roman province of Asia was enjoying an economic boom, accompanied by spreading acceptance of the Roman peace and its cultural emblems. In particular, popular fervor attached itself to a Roman cult in which officers of the government were accorded rites of worship. The imperial cult was fostered in Asia through the proconsul based in the great port city of Ephesus, with a hierarchy of priests at temples and shrines throughout the interior. The largest concentration of Christians in the empire lived in the populous and prosperous urban centers of Asia, the region having been evangelized almost half a century earlier by Saint Paul and his associates, though even at the century’s end the Christians formed but a minority of the total populace. Out of the many cities and towns, John was instructed to write to churches in seven, selected as representative of all.

Although John uses an array of artful literary devices to shape his prophecy, there is little agreement among interpreters on the details of its structure. Most recognize a prologue (1:1-11) and an epilogue (22:6-21), which mirror each other and sandwich the whole. A reasonable analysis might divide the main body as follows. Introduced by a vision of the resurrected Christ (1:10-20) are seven oracles directed to the angels of the seven churches (chapters 2-3), calling on five of them to amend their worldly ways and promising the two who are holding up under pressure generous compensation for their sufferings. Then John is invited into the sky by a voice that echoes the first vision of Christ, and he finds himself in the throne room of heaven (chapters 4-5). There follow seven apocalyptic revelations of the end of the world: seven seals (6:1-8: 5), seven trumpets (8:6-11: 19), the beginning of a final combat between good and evil (12:1-15:4), seven bowls of divine wrath (15:5-16:21), the judgment of Lady Babylon (17:1-19:10), the conclusion of the final combat between good and evil (19:11-21:8), and the bliss of Lady Jerusalem (21:9-22:9). As before, the scheme of seven breaks down into two plus five: two of the vision sequences focus on persecuted believers, offering encouragements (those that make up the combat story), while the other five show the human race in general moving inexorably toward the judgment at the end of the age, which will assign people either to the doom of Babylon or to the everlasting joy of Jerusalem. Thus the visions of chapters 6-22 reinforce the admonitions of 2-3 by bringing readers face to face with the end-time outcomes of their choices, and together form an unified message.

Central to the gist of the book are the introductory theophanies. In chapter 1, Christ is seen as the living one who has emerged victorious from death and now rules over the kings of the earth. Therefore he is qualified to encourage and comfort or to criticize and threaten the churches, according to the need of each. In chapters 4-5, God is seen as the Almighty whose purpose governs all history from the creation of the world to its fulfilment in the age to come. A visionary scene—in which rank upon rank of angels prostrate themselves before God and the Lamb on the throne, setting in motion a wave of acclaim that eventually encompasses every living thing in heaven and earth and under the earth— reveals that power, wealth, and joy flow from God and not from the cultural icons of the Roman Empire, as many at the time supposed.

Because the visions make lavish use of symbols, the book presents a special challenge. Many figures are explained by clues embedded in the text. Others have roots deep in the prophetic literature of the Hebrew Bible or in the Jewish apocalypses of the second temple period, from which the author draws as one who stands firmly in the prophetic tradition yet reserves the freedom to adapt and recast it for his own purposes. A ground rule for interpreting any symbol is that it must have made sense in the context of John’s urgent plea to the churches of his day. The key antagonists are the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet in the combat story (12-14, 19-20) and Lady Babylon (17). These are all linked to “the great city that rules over the kings of the earth” and has “seven mountains” (17:9, 18)—undoubtedly Rome, known during that period as the City of Seven Hills. Thus the dragon represents the satanic inspiration behind Rome’s blasphemous, humanistic ideology and propaganda; the beast, its political and military dominance; the false prophet, its religious officers enforcing the imperial cult; these three being parodies of God almighty, his agent the Messiah, and the church witnessing to the truth of the Gospel in the world. Babylon symbolizes the social and commercial engine of Rome as the focal point of an entire civilization embracing Rome’s values, in contrast to Lady Jerusalem, consisting of the abstinent people of God.

John’s prophetic genius lies in his effectiveness in casting an alternative view of reality that stands as a corrective against the pomp of Rome, which threatened to mislead the church together with society at large. John suggests that Rome’s impressive self-vaunting originates from Hell without any legitimacy in the eyes of the true God. Far from being heroes, the emperor and his cronies are caricatured as brute beasts and society’s enthusiasm to offer them worship as the most preposterous flattery. Roman culture with its glitter is a whore destined for destruction. God’s faithful people, alienated and marginalized, in a few cases imprisoned or even lynched and martyred, stand high in God’s estimate. They are the bride of the Lamb, and will shortly be his coregents.

Although John clearly addressed people of his own day, his pregnant symbols and the schema of final events in which he hyperbolically dressed his immediate situation were by no means exhausted in their first century setting, but tap into principles awaiting fulfilment on a grander scale. Therefore the church reads the Apocalypse not merely as a tract for its own times, but as a clarion call to faith and perseverance as the clock ticks on toward the end of the age.

Christian Themes

The book of Revelation reinforces the theistic worldview of the rest of Scripture. God almighty ordains all events, all choices, and all acts of created beings without exception, not only of those who actualize his moral will, but also of those whom he permits to contravene him, for a time and within limits set by him. All contribute objectively to the eventual achievement of God’s plan, some voluntarily and some in spite of their contrary aim, and will be rewarded or punished according to their inner intent. The universality of God’s sovereignty reassures rejected and persecuted Christians that nothing they suffer can thwart God’s promise to bless them in the end; indeed, their sufferings enhance their future glory.

John calls on Christians to go on bearing witness to the truth and practicing good deeds, even when their integrity brings them into direct conflict with widespread cant and they become objects of hatred and oppression. The Book of Revelation is often referred to when Christians are facing persecution or discrimination for their faith. Jesus is the model martyr who triumphed over death and was exalted to the high station of God’s plenipotentiary agent, soon to execute judgment on God’s foes. He holds out to his followers whose constancy brings on them the bitterness of martyrdom the promise of sharing his throne, as he overcame and now shares his Father’s throne.

No book of the Bible contains more graphic images of the coming end of the world. Ever more intense serial plagues torment humankind in the seals, trumpets, and bowls, leading up to an extended taunt over Babylon’s devastation, a gory description of birds feasting on the carcasses strewn at Armageddon, and visions of smoke rising to all eternity from the holocaust of the wicked in the lake of fire and brimstone. Behind such grim depictions is a divine love that spares no expenditure to persuade the impenitent before it is too late of the final consequences of their self-exclusion from the presence of the one God, the only source of happiness. As for those whose names were written in the Lamb’s book of life before the foundation of the world, the Apocalypse speaks of a new order, where God will wipe away every tear, and death, mourning, and pain will be no more, and God will dwell among his people, and they shall behold his face and reign for ever and ever.

Bibliography

Bauckham, Richard. The Theology of the Book of Revelation. New Testament Theology Series. Cambridge UP, 1993.

Duvall, J. Scott. “Does God Delight in Violence? A Fresh Look at the Love of God in the Book of Revelation.” Journal of Spiritual Formation & Soul Care, vol. 17, no. 1, May 2024, pp. 55–70. EBSCOhost, doi.org/10.1177/19397909241251588. Accessed 14 Oct. 2024.

Friesen, Steven J. Imperial Cults and the Apocalypse of John: Reading Revelation in the Ruins. Oxford UP, 2001.

Kovacs, K., and Christopher Rowland. Revelation. Blackwell Bible Commentaries. Blackwell, 2003.

Osborne, Grant R. Revelation. Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament. Baker, 2002.