THE DAILY STUDY BIBLE SERIES
REVISED EDITION
THE REVELATION OF JOHN
Volume IÂ
(Chapters 1 to 5)
REVISED EDITION
Translated with an Introduction and Interpretation
by WILLIAM BARCLAY
THE WESTMINSTER PRESS
PHILADELPHIA
Revised Edition
Copyright (c) 1976 William Barclay
First published by The Saint Andrew Press
Edinburgh, Scotland
First Edition, May, 1959
Second Edition, June, 1960
Published by The Westminster Press (R)
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Bible. N.T. Revelation. English. Barclay. 1976.
The Revelation of John.
(The Daily study Bible series. — Rev. ed.)
1. Bible. N.T. Revelation-Commentaries.
I. Barclay, William, lecturer in the University of
Glasgow. II. Title. Ill. Series.
BS2823.B37 1976 228′.077 75-37600
ISBN 0-664-21315-4 (v. 1)
ISBN 0-664-24115-8 (v. 1) pbk.
GENERAL INTRODUCTION
The Daily Study Bible series has always had one aim–to convey the results of scholarship to the ordinary reader. A. S. Peake delighted in the saying that he was a “theological middleman”, and I would be happy if the same could be said of me in regard to these volumes. And yet the primary aim of the series has never been academic. It could be summed up in the famous words of Richard of Chichester’s prayer–to enable men and women “to know Jesus Christ more clearly, to love him more dearly, and to follow him more nearly”.
It is all of twenty years since the first volume of The Daily Study Bible was published. The series was the brain-child of the late Rev. Andrew McCosh, M.A., S.T.M., the then Secretary and Manager of the Committee on Publications of the Church of Scotland, and of the late Rev. R. G. Macdonald, O.B.E., M.A., D.D., its Convener.
It is a great joy to me to know that all through the years The Daily Study Bible has been used at home and abroad, by minister, by missionary, by student and by layman, and that it has been translated into many different languages. Now, after so many printings, it has become necessary to renew the printer’s type and the opportunity has been taken to restyle the books, to correct some errors in the text and to remove some references which have become outdated. At the same time, the Biblical quotations within the text have been changed to use the Revised Standard Version, but my own original translation of the New Testament passages has been retained at the beginning of each daily section.
There is one debt which I would be sadly lacking in courtesy if I did not acknowledge. The work of revision and correction has been done entirely by the Rev. James Martin, M.A., B.D., minister of High Carntyne Church, Glasgow. Had it not been for him this task would never have been undertaken, and it is impossible for me to thank him enough for the selfless toil he has put into the revision of these books.
It is my prayer that God may continue to use The Daily Study Bible to enable men better to understand His word.
Glasgow WILLIAM BARCLAY
CONTENTS
General Introduction
Introduction to the Revelation of John
God’s Revelation to Men (Rev. 1:1-3)
The Means of God’s Revelation (Rev. 1:1-3)
Servants of God (Rev. 1:1-3)
The Blessed’s of God (Rev. 1:1-3)
The Message and its Destination (Rev. 1:4-6)
The Blessing and its Source (Rev. 1:4-6)
The Sevenfold Spirit (Rev. 1:4-6)
The Titles of Jesus (Rev. 1:4-6)
What Jesus Did for Men (Rev. 1:4-6)
The Coming Glory (Rev. 1:7)
The God in Whom we Trust (Rev. 1:8)
Through Tribulation to the Kingdom (Rev. 1:9)
The Island of Banishment (Rev. 1:9)
In the Spirit on the Lord’s Day (Rev. 1:10-11)
The Divine Messenger (Rev. 1:12-13)
The Picture of the Risen Christ (Rev. 1:14-18)
The Titles of the Risen Lord (1) (Rev. 1:14-18)
The Titles of the Risen Lord (2) (Rev. 1:14-18)
The Churches and their Angels (Rev. 1:20)
The Letter to Ephesus (Rev. 2:1-7)
Ephesus, First and Greatest (Rev. 2:1-7)
Ephesus, Christ and His Church (Rev. 2:1-7)
Ephesus, When Orthodoxy Costs too Much (Rev. 2:1-7)
Ephesus, The Steps on the Return Journey (Rev. 2:1-7)
Ephesus, A Ruinous Heresy (Rev. 2:1-7)
Ephesus, The Great Reward (Rev. 2:1-7)
The Letter to Smyrna (Rev. 2:8-11)
Smyrna, The Crown of Asia (Rev. 2:8-11)
Smyrna, Under Trial (Rev. 2:8-11)
Smyrna, The Cause of the Trouble (Rev. 2:8-11)
Smyrna, Christ’s Claim and Christ’s Demand (Rev. 2:8-11)
Smyrna, The Promised Reward (Rev. 2:8-11)
The Letter to Pergamum (Rev. 2:12-17)
Pergamum, The Seat of Satan (Rev. 2:12-17)
Pergamum, An Engagement very Difficult (Rev. 2:12-17)
Pergdmum, The Doom of Error (Rev. 2:12-17)
Pergannim, The Bread of Heaven (Rev. 2:12-17)
Pergamum, The White Stone and the New Name (Rev. 2:12-17)
Pergamum, Re-named by God (Rev. 2:12-17)
The Letter to Thyatira (Rev. 2:18-29)
Thyatira, The Peril of Compromise (Rev. 2:18-29)
Thyatira, The State of the Church in Thyatira (Rev. 2:18-29)
Thyatira, The Source of the Error (Rev. 2:18-29)
Thyatira, The Teaching of Jezebel (1) (Rev. 2:18-29)
Thyatira, The Teaching of Jezebel (2) (Rev. 2:18-29)
Thyatira, Promises and Threats (Rev. 2:18-29)
The Letter to Sardis (Rev. 3:1-6)
Sardis, Past Splendour and Present Decay (Rev. 3:1-6)
Sardis, Death in Life (Rev. 3:1-6)
Sardis, A Lifeless Church (Rev. 3:1-6)
Sardis, Watch! (Rev. 3:1-6)
Sardis, The Imperatives of the Risen Lord (Rev. 3:1-6)
Sardis, The Faithful Few (Rev. 3:1-6)
Sardis, The Threefold Promise (Rev. 3:1-6)
The Letter to Philadelphia (Rev. 3:7-13)
Philadelphia, City of Praise (Rev. 3:7-13)
Philadelphia, Titles and Claims (Rev. 3:7-13)
Philadelphia, The Open Door (Rev. 3:7-13)
Philadelphia, Inheritors of the Promise (Rev. 3:7-13)
Philadelphia, Those who Keep are Kept (Rev. 3:7-13)
Philadelphia, Promise and Warning (Rev. 3:7-13)
Philadelphia, Many Promises (Rev. 3:7-13)
The Letter to Laodicea (Rev. 3:14-22)
Laodicea, The Church Condemned (Rev. 3:14-22)
Laodicea, The Claims of Christ (Rev. 3:14-22)
Laodicea, Neither One Thing Nor Another (Rev. 3:14-22)
Laodicea, The Wealth that is Poverty (Rev. 3:14-22)
Laodicea, Love’s Chastisement (Rev. 3:14-22)
Laodicea, The Christ Who Knocks (Rev. 3:14-22)
This Means You (Rev. 3:14-22)
The Opening Heavens and the Opening Door (Rev. 4:1)
The Throne of God (Rev. 4:2-3)
The Twenty-Four Elders (Rev. 4:4)
Around the Throne (Rev. 4:5-6a)
The Four Living Creatures (1) (Rev. 4:6b-8)
The Four Living Creatures (2) (Rev. 4:6b-8)
The Symbolism of the Living Creatures (Rev. 4:6b-8)
The Song of Praise (Rev. 4:6b-8)
God, The Lord and Creator (Rev. 4:9-11)
The Roll in the Hand of God (Rev. 5:1)
God’s Book of Destiny (Rev. 5:2-4)
The Lion of Judah and the Root of David (Rev. 5:5)
The Lamb (Rev. 5:6)
Music in Heaven (Rev. 5:7-14)
The Prayers of the Saints (Rev. 5:8)
The New Song (Rev. 5:9)
The Song of the Living Creatures and of the Elders (Rev. 5:9-10)
The Song of the Angels (Rev. 5:11-12)
The Song of all Creation (Rev. 5:13-14)
Further Reading
INTRODUCTION TO THE
REVELATION OF JOHN
THE STRANGE BOOK
When a student of the New Testament embarks upon the study of the Revelation he feels himself projected into a different world. Here is something quite unlike the rest of the New Testament. Not only is the Revelation different; it is also notoriously difficult for a modern mind to understand. The result is that it has sometimes been abandoned as quite unintelligible and it has sometimes become the playground of religious eccentrics, who use it to map out celestial time-tables of what is to come or find in it evidence for their own eccentricities. One despairing commentator said that there are as many riddles in the Revelation as there are words, and another that the study of the Revelation either finds or leaves a man mad.
Luther would have denied the Revelation a place in the New Testament. Along with James, Jude, Second Peter and Hebrews he relegated it to a separate list at the end of his New Testament. He declared that in it there are only images and visions such as are found nowhere else in the Bible. He complained that, notwithstanding the obscurity of his writing, the writer had the boldness to add threats and promises for those who kept or disobeyed his words, unintelligible though they were. In it, said Luther, Christ is neither taught nor acknowledged; and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit is not perceptible in it. Zwingli is equally hostile to the Revelation. “With the Apocalypse,” he writes, “we have no concern, for it is not a biblical book…. The Apocalypse has no savour of the mouth or the mind of John. I can, if I so will, reject its testimonies.” Most voices have stressed the unintelligibility of the Revelation and not a few have questioned its right to a place in the New Testament.
On the other hand there are those in every generation who have loved this book. T. S. Kepler quotes the verdict of Philip Carrington and makes it his own: “In the case of the Revelation we are dealing with an artist greater than Stevenson or Coleridge or Bach. St. John has a better sense of the right word than Stevenson; he has a greater command of unearthly supernatural loveliness than Coleridge; he has a richer sense of melody and rhythm and composition than Bach…. It is the only masterpiece of pure art in the New Testament…. Its fulness and richness and harmonic variety place it far above Greek tragedy.”
We shall no doubt find this book difficult and bewildering; but doubtless, too, we shall find it infinitely worthwhile to wrestle with it until it gives us its blessing and opens its riches to us.
APOCALYPTIC LITERATURE
In any study of the Revelation we must begin by remembering the basic fact that although unique in the New Testament, it is nonetheless representative of a kind of literature which was the commonest of all between the Old and the New Testaments. The Revelation is commonly called the Apocalypse, being in Greek Apokalupsis. Between the Old and the New Testaments there grew up a great mass of what is called Apocalyptic literature, the product of an indestructible Jewish hope.
The Jews could not forget that they were the chosen people of God. To them that involved the certainty that some day they would arrive at world supremacy. In their early history they looked forward to the coming of a king of David’s line who would unite the nation and lead them to greatness. There was to come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse (Isa.11:1,10). God would raise up a righteous branch for David (Jer.23:5). Some day the people would serve David their king (Jer.30:9). David would be their shepherd and their king (Eze.34:23; Eze.37:24). The booth of David would be repaired (Am.9:11); out of Bethlehem there would come a ruler who would be great to the ends of the earth (Mic.5:2-4).
But the whole history of Israel gave the lie to these hopes. After the death of Solomon, the kingdom, small enough to begin with, split into two under Rehoboam and Jeroboam and so lost its unity. The northern kingdom, with its capital at Samaria, vanished in the last quarter of the eighth century B.C. before the assault of the Assyrians, never again reappeared in history and is now the lost ten tribes. The southern kingdom, with its capital at Jerusalem, was reduced to slavery and exile by the Babylonians in the early part of the sixth century B.C. It was later the subject state of the Persians, the Greeks and the Romans. History for the Jews was a catalogue of disasters from which it became clear that no human deliverer could rescue them.
THE TWO AGES
Jewish thought stubbornly held to the conviction of the chosenness of the Jews but had to adjust itself to the facts of history. It did so by working out a scheme of history. The Jews divided all time into two ages. There was this present age, which is wholly bad and beyond redemption. For it there can be nothing but total destruction. The Jews, therefore, waited for the end of things as they are. There was the age which is to come which was to be wholly good, the golden age of God in which would be peace, prosperity and righteousness and God’s chosen people would at last be vindicated and receive the place that was theirs by right.
How was this present age to become the age which is to come? The Jews believed that the change could never be brought about by human agency and, therefore, looked for the direct intervention of God. He would come striding on to the stage of history to blast this present world out of existence and bring in his golden time. The day of the coming of God was called The Day of the Lord and was to be a terrible time of terror and destruction and judgment which would be the birthpangs of the new age.
All apocalyptic literature deals with these events, the sin of the present age, the terrors of the time between, and the blessings of the time to come. It is entirely composed of dreams and visions of the end. That means that all apocalyptic literature is necessarily cryptic. It is continually attempting to describe the indescribable, to say the unsayable, to paint the unpaintable.
This is further complicated by another fact. It was only natural that these apocalyptic visions should flame the more brightly in the minds of men living under tyranny and oppression. The more some alien power held them down, the more they dreamed of the destruction of that power and of their own vindication. But it would only have worsened the situation, if the oppressing power could have understood these dreams. Such writings would have seemed the works of rebellious revolutionaries. Such books, therefore, were frequently written in code, deliberately couched in language which was unintelligible to the outsider; and there are many cases in which they must remain unintelligible because the key to the code no longer exists. But the more we know about the historical background of such books, the better we can interpret them.
THE REVELATION
All this is the precise picture of our Revelation. There are any number of Jewish Apocalypses–Enoch, The Sibylline Oracles, The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, The Ascension of Isaiah, The Assumption of Moses, The Apocalypse of Baruch, Fourth Ezra. Our Revelation is a Christian Apocalypse. It is the only one in the New Testament, although there were many others which did not gain admission. It is written exactly on the Jewish pattern and follows the basic conception of the two ages. The only difference is that for the day of the Lord it substitutes the coming in power of Jesus Christ. Not only the pattern but the details are the same. The Jewish apocalypses had a standard apparatus of events which were to happen at the last time; these events all have their place in Revelation.
Before we go on to outline that pattern of events, another question arises. Both apocalyptic and prophecy deal with the events which are to come. What, then, is the difference between them?
APOCALYPTIC AND PROPHECY
The difference between the prophets and the apocalyptists was very real. There were two main differences, one of message and one of method.
(i) The prophet thought in terms of this present world. His message was often a cry for social, economic and political justice; and was always a summons to obey and serve God within this present world. To the prophet it was this world which was to be reformed and in which God’s kingdom would come. This has been expressed by saying that the prophet believed in history. He believed that in the events of history God’s purpose was being worked out. In one sense the prophet was an optimist, for, however sternly he condemned things as they were, he nonetheless believed that they could be mended, if men would accept the will of God. To the apocalyptist the world was beyond mending. He believed, not in the reformation, but in the dissolution of this present world. He looked forward to the creation of a new world, when this one had been shattered by the avenging wrath of God. In one sense, therefore, the apocalyptist was a pessimist, for he did not believe that things as they were could ever be cured. True, he was quite certain that the golden age would come, but only after this world had been destroyed.
(ii) The prophet’s message was spoken; the message of the apocalyptist was always written. Apocalyptic is a literary production. Had it been delivered by word of mouth, men would never have understood it. It is difficult, involved, often unintelligible; it has to be pored over before it can be understood. Further, the prophet always spoke under his own name; all apocalyptic writings–except our New Testament one–are pseudonymous. They are put into the mouths of great ones of the past, like Noah, Enoch, Isaiah, Moses, The Twelve Patriarchs, Ezra and Baruch. There is something pathetic about this. The men who wrote the apocalyptic literature had the feeling that greatness was gone from the earth; they were too self-distrusting to put their names to their works and attributed them to the great figures of the past, thereby seeking to give them an authority greater than their own names could have given. As Julicher put it: “Apocalyptic is prophecy turned senile.”
THE APPARATUS OF APOCALYPTIC
Apocalyptic literature has a pattern; it seeks to describe the things which will happen at the last times and the blessedness which will follow; and the same pictures occur over and over again. It always, so to speak, worked with the same materials; and these materials find their place in our Book of the Revelation.
(i) In apocalyptic literature the Messiah was a divine, preexistent, otherworldly figure of power and glory, waiting to descend into the world to begin his all-conquering career. He existed in heaven before the creation of the world, before the sun and the stars were made, and he is preserved in the presence of the Almighty (Enoch 48: 3, 6; 62: 7; 4 Ezra 13: 25-26). He will come to put down the mighty from their seats, to dethrone the kings of the earth, and to break the teeth of sinners (Enoch 42: 2-6; 48: 2-9; 62: 5-9; 69: 26-29). In apocalyptic there was nothing human or gentle about the Messiah; he was a divine figure of avenging power and glory before whom the earth trembled in terror.
(ii) The coming of the Messiah was to be preceded by the return of Elijah who would prepare the way for him (Mal.4:5-6). Elijah was to stand upon the hills of Israel, so the Rabbis said, and announce the coming of the Messiah with a voice so great that it would sound from one end of the earth to the other.
(iii) The last terrible times were known as “the travail of the Messiah.” The coming of the Messianic age would be like the agony of birth. In the Gospels Jesus is depicted as foretelling the signs of the end and is reported as saying: “All these things are the beginnings of sorrows” (Matt.24:8; Mk.13:8). The word for sorrows is odinai (GSN5604), and it literally means birthpangs.
(iv) The last days will be a time of terror. Even the mighty men will cry bitterly (Zeph.1:14); the inhabitants of the land shall tremble (Jl.2:1); men will be affrighted with fear and will seek some place to hide and will find none (Enoch 102: 1,3).
(v) The last days will be a time when the world will be shattered, a time of cosmic upheaval when the universe, as men know it, will be disintegrated. The stars will be extinguished; the sun will be turned into darkness and the moon into blood (Isa.13:10; Jl.2:30-31; Jl.3:15). The firmament will crash in ruins; there will be a cataract of raging fire, and creation will become a molten mass (Sibylline Oracles 3: 83-89). The seasons will lose their order, and there will be neither night nor dawn (Sibylline Oracles 3: 796-806).
(vi) The last days will be a time when human relationships will be destroyed. Hatred and enmity will reign upon the earth. Every man’s hand will be against his neighbour (Zech.14:13). Brothers will kill each other; parents will murder their own children; from dawn to sunset they shall slay one another (Enoch 100: 1-2). Honour will be turned into shame, and strength into humiliation, and beauty into ugliness. The man of humility will become the man of envy; and passion will hold sway over the man who once was peaceful (2 Baruch 48: 31-37).
(vii) The last days will be a time of judgment. God will come like a refiner’s fire, and who can endure the day of his coming? (Mal.3:1-3). It is by the fire and the sword that God will plead with men (Isa.66:15-16). The Son of Man will destroy sinners from the earth (Enoch 69: 27), and the smell of brimstone will pervade all things (Sibylline Oracles 3: 58-61). The sinners will be burned up as Sodom was long ago (Jubilees 36: 10-11).
(viii) In all these visions the Gentiles have their place, but it is not always the same place.
(a) Sometimes the vision is that the Gentiles will be totally destroyed. Babylon will become such a desolation that there will be no place for the wandering Arab to plant his tent among the ruins, no place for the shepherd to graze his sheep; it will be nothing more than a desert inhabited by the beasts (Isa.13:19-22). God will tread down the Gentiles in his anger (Isa.63:6). The Gentiles will come over in chains to Israel (Isa.45:14).
(b) Sometimes there is depicted one last gathering of the Gentiles against Jerusalem, and one last battle in which they are destroyed (Eze.38:14-23; Eze.39:1-16; Zech.14:1-11). The kings of the nations will throw themselves against Jerusalem; they will seek to ravage the shrine of the Holy One; they will place their thrones in a ring round the city, with their infidel people with them; but it will be only for their final destruction (Sibylline Oracles 3: 663-672).
(c) Sometimes there is the picture of the conversion of the Gentiles through Israel. God has given Israel for a light to the Gentiles, that she may be God’s salvation to the ends of the earth (Isa.49:6). The isles wait upon God (Isa.51:5); the ends of the earth are invited to look to God and be saved (Isa.45:20-22). The Son of Man will be a light to the Gentiles (Enoch 48: 4-5). Nations shall come from the ends of the earth to Jerusalem to see the glory of God (Wis.17:34).
Of all the pictures in connection with the Gentiles the commonest is that of the destruction of the Gentiles and the exaltation of Israel.
(ix) In the last days the Jews who have been scattered throughout the earth will be ingathered to the Holy City again. They will come back from Assyria and from Egypt and will worship the Lord in his holy mountain (Isa.27:12-13). The hills will be removed and the valleys will be filled in, and even the trees will gather to give them shade, as they come back (Bar.5:5-9). Even those who died as exiles in far countries will be brought back.
(x) In the last days the New Jerusalem, which is already prepared in heaven with God (4 Ezra 10: 44-59; 2 Baruch 4: 2-6), will come down among men. It will be beautiful beyond compare with foundations of sapphires, and pinnacles of agate, and gates of carbuncles, on borders of pleasant stones (Isa.54:12-13; Tob.13:16-17). The glory of the latter house will be greater than the glory of the former (Hag.2:7-9).
(xi) An essential part of the apocalyptic picture of the last days was the resurrection of the dead. “Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt” (Dn.12:2-3). Sheol and the grave will give back that which has been entrusted to them (Enoch 51: 1). The scope of the resurrection of the dead varied. Sometimes it was to apply only to the righteous in Israel; sometimes to all Israel; and sometimes to all men everywhere. Whichever form it took, it is true to say that now for the first time we see emerging a strong hope of a life beyond the grave.
(xii) There were differences as to how long the Messianic kingdom was to last. The most natural–and the most usual–view was to think of it as lasting for ever. The kingdom of the saints is an everlasting kingdom (Dn.7:27). Some believed that the reign of the Messiah would last for 400 years. They arrived at this figure from a comparison of Gen.15:13 and Ps.90:15. In Genesis Abraham is told that the period of affliction of the children of Israel will be 400 years; the psalmist’s prayer is that God will make the nation glad according to the days wherein he has afflicted them and the years wherein they have seen evil. In the Revelation the view is that there is to be a reign of the saints for a thousand years; then the final battle with the assembled powers of evil; then the golden age of God.
Such were the events which the apocalyptic writers pictured in the last days; and practically all of them find their place in the pictures of the Revelation. To complete the picture we may briefly summarize the blessings of the coming age.
THE BLESSINGS OF THE AGE TO COME
(i) The divided kingdom will be united again. The house of Judah will walk again with the house of Israel (Jer.3:18; Isa.11:13; Hos.1:11). The old divisions will be healed and the people of God will be one.
(ii) There will be in the world an amazing fertility. The wilderness will become a field (Isa.32:15), it will become like the garden of Eden (Isa.51:3); the desert will rejoice and blossom like the crocus (Isa.35:1). The earth will yield its fruit ten thousandfold; on each vine will be a thousand branches, on each branch a thousand clusters, in each cluster a thousand grapes, and each grape will give a cor (120 gallons) of wine (2 Baruch 29: 5-8). There will be a plenty such as the world has never known and the hungry will rejoice.
(iii) A consistent part of the dream of the new age was that in it all wars would cease. The swords will be beaten into ploughshares and the spears into pruning-hooks (Isa.2:4). There will be no sword or battle-din. There will be a common law for all men and a great peace throughout the earth, and king will be friendly with king (Sibylline Oracles 3: 751-760).
(iv) One of the loveliest ideas concerning the new age was that in it there would be no more enmity between the beasts or between man and the beasts. The leopard and the kid, the cow and the bear, the lion and the falling will play and lie down together (Isa.11:6-9; Isa.65:25). There will be a new covenant between man and the beasts of the field (Hos.2:18). Even a child will be able to play where the poisonous reptiles have their holes and their dens (Isa.11:6-9; 2 Baruch 73: 6). In all nature there will be a universal reign of friendship in which none will wish to do another any harm.
(v) The coming age will bring the end of weariness, of sorrow and of pain. The people will not sorrow any more (Jer.31:12); everlasting joy will be upon their heads (Isa.35:10). There will be no such thing as an untimely death (Isa.65:20-22); no man will say: “I am sick” (Isa.33:24); death will be swallowed up in victory and God will wipe tears from all faces (Isa.25:8). Disease will withdraw; anxiety, anguish and lamentation will pass away; childbirth will have no pain; the reaper will not grow weary and the builder will not be toilworn (2 Baruch 73: 2-74: 4). The age to come will be one when what Virgil called “the tears of things” will be no more.
(vi) The age to come will be an age of righteousness. There will be perfect holiness among men. Mankind will be a good generation, living in the fear of the Lord in the days of mercy (Wis.17:28-49; Wis.18:9-10).
The Revelation is the New Testament representative of all these apocalyptic works which tell of the terrors before the end of time and of the blessings of the age to come; and it uses all the familiar imagery. It may often be difficult and even unintelligible to us, but for the most part it was using pictures and ideas which those who read it would know and understand.
THE AUTHOR OF THE REVELATION
(i) The Revelation was written by a man called John. He begins by saying that God sent the visions he is going to relate to his servant John (Rev. 1:1). He begins the body of his book by saying that it is from John to the Seven Churches in Asia (Rev. 1:4). He speaks of himself as John the brother and companion in tribulation of those to whom he writes (Rev. 1:9). “I John,” he says, “am he who heard and saw these things” (Rev. 22:8).
(ii) This John was a Christian who lived in Asia in the same sphere as the Christians of the Seven Churches. He calls himself the brother of those to whom he writes; and he says he too shares in the tribulations through which they are passing (Rev. 1:9).
(iii) He was most probably a Jew of Palestine who had come to Asia Minor late in life. We can deduce that from the kind of Greek he writes. It is vivid, powerful, and pictorial; but from the point of view of grammar it is easily the worst Greek in the New Testament. He makes mistakes which no schoolboy who knew Greek could make. Greek is certainly not his native language; and it is often clear that he is writing in Greek and thinking in Hebrew. He is steeped in the Old Testament. He quotes it or alludes to it 245 times. These quotations come from about twenty Old Testament books; his favourites are Isaiah, Daniel, Ezekiel, Psalms, Exodus, Jeremiah, Zechariah. Not only does he know the Old Testament intimately; he is also familiar with the apocalyptic books written between the Testaments.
(iv) His claim for himself is that he is a prophet, and it is on that fact that he rests his right to speak. The command of the Risen Christ to him is that he must prophesy (Rev. 10:11). It is through the spirit of prophecy that Jesus gives his witness to the Church (Rev. 19:10). God is the God of the holy prophets and sends his angel to show his servants what is going to happen in the world (Rev. 22:6). The angel speaks to him of his brothers the prophets (Rev. 22:9). His book is characteristically prophecy or the words of prophecy (Rev. 22:7,10; Rev. 22:18-19).
It is here that John’s authority lies. He does not call himself an apostle, as Paul does when he wishes to underline his right to speak. He has no “official” or administrative position in the Church; he is a prophet. He writes what he sees; and since what he sees comes from God, his word is faithful and true (Rev. 1:11,19).
When John was writing, the prophets had a very special place in the Church. He was writing, as we shall see, about A.D. 90. By that time the Church had two kinds of ministry. There was the local ministry; those engaged in it were settled permanently in one congregation, the elders, the deacons and the teachers. And there was the itinerant ministry of those whose sphere of labour was not confined to any one congregation. In it were the apostles, whose writ ran throughout the whole Church; and there were the prophets, who were wandering preachers. The prophets were greatly respected; to question the words of a true prophet was to sin against the Holy Spirit, the Didache says (Rev. 11:7). The accepted order of service for the celebration of the Eucharist is laid down in the Didache, but at the end comes the sentence: “But allow the prophets to hold the Eucharist as they will” (Rev. 10:7). The prophets were regarded as uniquely the men of God, and John was a prophet.
(v) It is not likely that he was an apostle. Otherwise he would hardly have so stressed the fact that he was a prophet. Further, he speaks of the apostles as if he was looking back on them as the great foundations of the Church. He speaks of the twelve foundations of the wall of the Holy City and then says, “and on them were the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb” (Rev. 21:14). He would scarcely have spoken of the apostles like that if he himself was one of them.
This conclusion is rendered even more likely by the title of the book. In the King James and English Revised Versions it is called The Revelation of St. John the Divine. In the Revised Standard Version and in Moffatt’s and in J. B. Phillips’ translations the Divine is omitted, because it is absent from the majority of the oldest Greek manuscripts; but it does go very far back. The Greek is theologos (GSN2312′) and the word is here used in the sense in which we speak of “the Puritan divines” and means, not John the saintly but John the theologian; and the very addition of that title seems to distinguish this John from the John who was the apostle.
As long ago as A.D. 250 Dionysius, the great scholar who was head of the Christian school at Alexandria, saw that it was well nigh impossible that the same man could have written the Revelation and the Fourth Gospel, if for no other reason than that the Greek is so different. The Greek of the Fourth Gospel is simple but correct; the Greek of the Revelation is rugged and vivid, but notoriously incorrect. Further, the writer of the Fourth Gospel studiously avoids any mention of his own name; the John of the Revelation repeatedly mentions it. Still further, the ideas of the two books are different. The great ideas of the Fourth Gospel, light, life, truth and grace, do not dominate the Revelation. At the same time there are enough resemblances in thought and language to make it clear that both books come from the same centre and from the same world of thought.
THE DATE Of THE REVELATION
We have two sources which enable us to fix the date.
(i) There is the account which tradition gives to us. The consistent tradition is that John was banished to Patmos in the time of Domitian; that he saw his visions there; at the death of Domitian was liberated and came back to Ephesus; and there set down the visions he had seen. Victorinus, who wrote towards the end of the third century A.D., says in his commentary on the Revelation: “John, when he saw these things, was in the island of Patmos, condemned to the mines by Domitian the Emperor. There, therefore, he saw the revelation… When he was afterwards set free from the mines, he handed down this revelation which he had received from God.” Jerome is even more detailed: “In the fourteenth year after the persecution of Nero, John was banished to the island of Patmos, and there wrote the Revelation… Upon the death of Domitian, and upon the repeal of his acts by the senate, because of their excessive cruelty, he returned to Ephesus, when Nerva was emperor.” Eusebius says: “The apostle and evangelist John related these things to the Churches, when he had returned from exile in the island after the death of Domitian.” Tradition makes it certain that John saw his visions in exile in Patmos; the only thing that is doubtful–and it is not important–is whether he wrote them down during the time of his banishment or when he returned to Ephesus. On this evidence we will not be wrong if we date the Revelation about A.D. 95.
(ii) The second line of evidence is the material in the book. There is a completely new attitude to Rome and to the Roman Empire.
In Acts the tribunal of the Roman magistrate was often the safest refuge of the Christian missionaries against the hatred of the Jews and the fury of the mob. Paul was proud that he was a Roman citizen and again and again claimed the rights to which every Roman citizen was entitled. In Philippi he brought the local magistrates to heel by revealing his citizenship (Ac.16:36-40). In Corinth Gallio dismissed the complaints against him with impartial Roman justice (Ac.18:1-17). In Ephesus the Roman authorities were careful for his safety against the rioting mob (Ac.19:13-41). In Jerusalem the Roman tribune rescued him from what might have become a lynching (Ac.21:30-40). When the Roman tribune in Jerusalem heard that there was to be an attempt on Paul’s lift on the way to Caesarea, he took every possible step to ensure his safety (Ac.23:12-31). When Paul despaired of justice in Palestine, he exercised his right as a citizen and appealed direct to Caesar (Ac.25:10-11). When he wrote to the Romans, he urged upon them obedience to the powers that be, because they were ordained by God and were a terror only to the evil, and not to the good (Rom.13:1-7). Peter’s advice is exactly the same. Governors and kings are to be obeyed, for their task is given them by God. It is a Christian’s duty to fear God and honour the emperor (1Pet.2:12-17). In writing to the Thessalonians it is likely that Paul points to the power of Rome as the one thing which is controlling the threatening chaos of the world (2Th.2:7).
In the Revelation there is nothing but blazing hatred for Rome. Rome is a Babylon, the mother of harlots, drunk with the blood of the saints and the martyrs (Rev. 17:5-6). John hopes for nothing but her total destruction.
The explanation of this change in attitude lies in the wide development of Caesar worship which, with its accompanying persecution, is the background of the Revelation.
By the time of the Revelation Caesar worship was the one religion which covered the whole Roman Empire; and it was because of their refusal to conform to its demands that Christians were persecuted and killed. Its essence was that the reigning Roman Emperor, as embodying the spirit of Rome, was divine. Once a year everyone in the Empire had to appear before the magistrates to burn a pinch of incense to the god-head of Caesar and to say: “Caesar is Lord.” After he had done that, a man might go away and worship any god or goddess he liked, so long as that worship did not infringe decency and good order; but he must go through this ceremony in which he acknowledged the Emperor’s divinity.
The reason was very simple. Rome had a vast heterogeneous empire, stretching from one end of the known world to another. It had in it many tongues, races and traditions. The problem was how to weld this varied mass into a self-conscious unity. There is no unifying force like that of a common religion but none of the national religions could conceivably have become universal. Caesar worship could. It was the one common act and belief which turned the Empire into a unity. To refuse to burn the pinch of incense and to say: “Caesar is Lord,” was not an act of irreligion; it was an act of political disloyalty. That is why the Romans dealt with the utmost severity with the man who would not say: “Caesar is Lord.” And no Christian could give the title Lord to any other than Jesus Christ. This was the centre of his creed.
We must see how this Caesar worship developed and how it was at its peak when the Revelation was written
One basic fact must be noted. Caesar worship was not imposed on the people from above. It arose from the people; it might even be said that it arose in spite of efforts by the early emperors to stop it, or at least to curb it. And it is to be noted that of all the people in the Empire only the Jews were exempt from it.
Caesar worship began as a spontaneous outburst of gratitude to Rome. The people of the provinces well knew what they owed to Rome. Impartial Roman justice had taken the place of capricious and tyrannical oppression. Security had taken the place of insecurity. The great Roman roads spanned the world; and the roads were safe from brigands and the seas were clear of pirates. The pax Romana, the Roman peace, was the greatest thing which ever happened to the ancient world. As Virgil had it, Rome felt her destiny to be “to spare the fallen and to cast down the proud.” Life had a new order about it. E. J. Goodspeed writes: “This was the pax Romana. The provincial under Roman sway found himself in a position to conduct his business, provide for his family, send his letters, and make his journeys in security, thanks to the strong hand of Rome.”
Caesar worship did not begin with the deification of the Emperor. It began with the deification of Rome. The spirit of the Empire was deified under the name of the goddess Roma. Roma stood for all the strong and benevolent power of the Empire. The first temple to Roma was erected in Smyrna as far back as 195 B.C. It was no great step to think of the spirit of Rome being incarnated in one man, the Emperor. The worship of the Emperor began with the worship of Julius Caesar after his death. In 29 B.C. the Emperor Augustus granted to the provinces of Asia and Bithynia permission to erect temples in Ephesus and Nicaea for the joint worship of the goddess Roma and the deified Julius Caesar. At these shrines Roman citizens were encouraged and even exhorted to worship. Then another step was taken. To provincials who were not Roman citizens Augustus gave permission to erect temples in Pergamum in Asia and in Nicomedia in Bithynia, for the worship of Roma and himself. At first the worship of the reigning Emperor was considered to be something permissible for provincial non-citizens, but not for those who had the dignity of the citizenship.
There was an inevitable development. It is human to worship a god who can be seen rather than a spirit. Gradually men began more and more to worship the Emperor himself instead of the goddess Roma. It still required special permission from the senate to erect a temple to the living Emperor, but by the middle of the first century that permission was more and more freely given. Caesar worship was becoming the universal religion of the Roman Empire. A priesthood developed and the worship was organized into presbyteries, whose officials were held in the highest honour.
This worship was never intended to wipe out other religions. Rome was essentially tolerant. A man might worship Caesar and his own god. But more and more Caesar worship became a test of political loyalty; it became, as has been said, the recognition of the dominion of Caesar over a man’s life and soul. Let us, then trace the development of this worship up to, and immediately beyond, the writing of the Revelation.
(i) Augustus, who died in A.D. 14, allowed the worship of Julius Caesar, his great predecessor. He allowed non-citizens in the provinces to worship himself but he did not permit citizens to do so; and he made no attempt to enforce this worship.
(ii) Tiberius (A.D. 14-37) could not halt Caesar worship. He forbade temples to be built and priests to be appointed for his own worship; and in a letter to Gython, a Laconian city, he definitely refused divine honours for himself. So far from enforcing Caesar worship, he actively discouraged it.
(iii) Caligula (A.D. 37-41), the next Emperor, was an epileptic, a madman and a megalomaniac. He insisted on divine honours. He attempted to enforce Caesar worship even on the Jews, who had always been and who always were to remain exempt from it. He planned to place his own image in the Holy of Holies in the Temple in Jerusalem, a step which would certainly have provoked unyielding rebellion. Mercifully he died before he could carry out his plans. But in his reign we have an episode when Caesar worship became an imperial demand.
(iv) Caligula was succeeded by Claudius (A.D. 41-54) who completely reversed his insane policy. He wrote to the governor of Egypt–there were a million Jews in Alexandria–fully approving the Jewish refusal to call the Emperor a god and granting them full liberty to enjoy their own worship. On his accession to the throne, he wrote to Alexandria saying: “I deprecate the appointment of a High Priest to me and the erection of temples, for I do not wish to be offensive to my contemporaries, and I hold that sacred fanes and the like have been by all ages attributed to the immortal gods as peculiar honours.”
(v) Nero (A.D. 54-68) did not take his own divinity seriously and did nothing to insist on Caesar worship. It is true that he persecuted the Christians; but this was not because they would not worship him, but because he had to find scapegoats for the great fire of Rome.
(vi) On the death of Nero there were three Emperors in eighteen months–Galba, Otto and Vitellius, and in such a time of chaos the question of Caesar worship did not arise.
(vii) The next two Emperors, Vespasian (A.D. 69-79) and Titus (A.D. 79-81), were wise rulers, who made no insistence on Caesar worship.
(viii) The coming of Domitian (A.D. 81-96) brought a complete change. He was a devil. He was the worst of all things–a cold-blooded persecutor. With the exception of Caligula, he in as the first Emperor to take his divinity seriously and to demand Caesar worship. The difference was that Caligula was an insane devil; Domitian was a sane devil, which is much more terrifying. He erected a monument to “the deified Titus son of the deified Vespasian.” He began a campaign of bitter persecution against all who would not worship the ancient gods–“the atheists” as he called them. In particular he launched his hatred against the Jews and the Christians. When he arrived in the theatre with his empress, the crowd were urged to rise and shout: “All hail to our Lord and his Lady!” He enacted that he himself was a god. He informed all provincial governors that government announcements and proclamations must begin: “Our Lord and God Domitian commands…” Everyone who addressed him in speech or in writing must begin: “Lord and God.”
Here is the background of the Revelation. All over the Empire men and women must call Domitian god–or die. Caesar worship was the deliberate policy; all must say: “Caesar is Lord.” There was no escape.
What were the Christians to do? What hope had they? They had not many wise and not many mighty. They had no influence or prestige. Against them had risen the might of Rome which no nation had ever resisted. They were confronted with the choice–Caesar or Christ. It was to encourage men in such times that the Revelation was written. John did not shut his eyes to the terrors; he saw dreadful things and he saw still more dreadful things on the way; but beyond them he saw glory for those who defied Caesar for the love of Christ. The Revelation comes from one of the most heroic ages in all the history of the Christian Church. It is true that Domitian’s successor Nerva (A.D. 96-98) repealed the savage laws; but the damage was done, the Christians were outlaws, and the Revelation is a clarion call to be faithful unto death in order to win the crown of life.
THE BOOK WORTH STUDYING
No one can shut his eyes to the difficulty of the Revelation. It is the most difficult book in the Bible; but it is infinitely worth studying, for it contains the blazing faith of the Christian Church in the days when life was an agony and men expected the end of the heavens and the earth as they knew them but still believed that beyond the terror was the glory and above the raging of men was the power of God.
REVELATION
GOD’S REVELATION TO MEN
Rev. 1:1-3
This is the revelation revealed by Jesus Christ, the revelation which God gave to him to show to his servants, the revelation which tells of the things which must soon happen. This revelation Jesus Christ sent and explained through his angel to his servant John, who testified to the word sent to him by God and attested by the witness borne by Jesus Christ everything which he saw.
This book is called sometimes the Revelation and sometimes the Apocalypse. It begins with the words “The revelation of Jesus Christ,” which mean not the revelation about Jesus Christ but the revelation given by Jesus Christ. The Greek word for revelation is apokalupsis (GSN0602) which is a word with a history.
(i) Apokalupsis (GSN0602) is composed of two parts. Apo (GSN0575) means “away from” and kalupsis (compare GSN2572) “a veiling.” Apokalupsis (GSN0602), therefore, means an unveiling, a revealing. It was not originally a specially religious word; it meant simply the disclosure of any fact. There is an interesting use of it in Plutarch (How to tell a Flatterer from a Friend, 32). Plutarch tells how once Pythagoras severely rebuked a devoted disciple of his in public and the young man went out and hanged himself. “From that time on Pythagoras never admonished anyone when anyone else was present. For error should be treated as a foul disease, and all admonition and disclosure (apokalupsis, GSN0602) should be in secret.” But apokalupsis (GSN0602) became specially a Christian word.
(ii) It is used for the revealing of God’s will to us for our actions. Paul says that he went up to Jerusalem by apokalupsis (GSN0602). He went because God told him he wanted him to go (Gal.2:2).
(iii) It is used of the revelation of God’s truth to men. Paul received his gospel, not from men, but by apokalupsis (GSN0602) from Jesus Christ (Gal.1:12). In the Christian assembly the message of the preacher is an apokalupsis (GSN0602) (1Cor.14:6).
(iv) It is used of God’s revealing to men of his own mysteries, especially in the incarnation of Jesus Christ (Rom.16:25; Eph.3:3).
(v) It is specially used of the revelation of the power and the holiness of God which is to come at the last days. That will be an unveiling of judgment (Rom.2:5); but for the Christian it will be an unveiling of praise and glory (1Pet.1:7); of grace (1Pet.1:13); of joy (1Pet.4:13).
Before we remind ourselves of the more technical use of apokalupsis (GSN0602), we may note two things.
(i) This revelation is connected specially with the work of the Holy Spirit (Eph.1:17).
(ii) We are bound to see that here we have a picture of the whole of the Christian life. There is no part of it which is not lit by the revelation of God. God reveals to us what we must do and say; in Jesus Christ he reveals himself to us, for he who has seen Jesus has seen the Father (Jn.14:9); and life moves on to the great and final revelation in which there is judgment for those who have not submitted to God but grace and glory and joy for those who are in Jesus Christ. Revelation is no technical theological idea; it is what God is offering to all who will listen.
Now we look at the technical meaning of apokalupsis (GSN0602), for that meaning is specially connected with this book.
The Jews had long since ceased to hope that they would be vindicated as the chosen people by human means. They hoped now for nothing less than the direct intervention of God. To that end they divided all time into two ages–this present age, wholly given over to evil; and the age to come, the age of God. Between the two there was to be a time of terrible trial. Between the Old and the New Testaments the Jews wrote many books which were visions of the dreadful time before the end and of the blessedness to come. These books were called Apokalypses; and that is what the Revelation is. Although there is nothing like it in the New Testament, it belongs to a class of literature which was common between the Testaments. All these books are wild and unintelligible, for they are trying to describe the indescribable. The very subject with which the Revelation deals is the reason why it is so difficult to understand.
THE MEANS OF GOD’S REVELATION
Rev. 1:1-3 (continued)
This short section gives us a concise account of how revelation comes to men.
(i) Revelation begins with God, the fountain of all truth. Every truth which men discover is two things–a discovery of the human mind and a gift of God. But it must always be remembered that men never create the truth; they receive it from God. We must also remember that that reception comes in two ways. It comes from earnest seeking. God gave men minds and it is often through our minds that he speaks to us. Certainly he does not grant his truth to the man who is too lazy to think. It comes from reverent waiting. God sends his truth to the man who not only thinks strenuously, but waits quietly in prayer and in devotion. But it must be remembered that prayer and devotion are not simply passive things. They are the dedicated listening for the voice of God.
(ii) God gives this revelation to Jesus Christ. The Bible never, as it were, makes a second God of Jesus; rather it stresses his utter dependence on God. “My teaching,” said Jesus, “is not mine, but his who sent me” (Jn.7:16). “I do nothing on my own authority but speak thus as the Father taught me” (Jn.8:28). “I have not spoken on my own authority; the Father who sent me has himself given me commandment what to say and what to speak” (Jn.12:49). It is God’s truth that Jesus brings to men; and that is precisely why his teaching is unique and final.
(iii) Jesus sends that truth to John through his angel (Rev. 1:1). Here the writer of the Revelation was a child of his day. At this time in history men were specially conscious of the transcendence of God. That is to say, they were impressed above all things with the difference between God and man. So much so that they felt direct communication between God and man was impossible and that there must always be some intermediary. In the Old Testament story Moses received the Law directly from the hands of God (Exo.19-20); but twice in the New Testament it is said that the Law was given by angels (Ac.7:53; Gal.3:19).
(iv) Finally, the revelation is given to John. It is most uplifting to remember the part men play in the coming of God’s revelation. God must find a man to whom he can entrust his truth and whom he can use as his mouthpiece.
(v) Let us note the content of the revelation which comes to John. It is the revelation of “the things which must quickly happen” (Rev. 1:1). There are two important words here. There is must. History is not haphazard; it has purpose. There is quickly. Here is the proof that it is quite wrong to use the Revelation as a kind of mysterious timetable of what is going to happen thousands of years from now. As John sees it, the things it deals with are working themselves out immediately. The Revelation must be interpreted against the background of its own time.
SERVANTS OF GOD
Rev. 1:1-3 (continued)
Twice the word servant appears in this passage. God’s revelation was sent to his servants and it was sent through his servant John. In Greek the word is doulos (GSN1401) and in Hebrew `ebed (HSN5650). Both are difficult fully to translate. The normal translation of doulos (GSN1401) is slave. The real servant of God is, in fact, his slave. A servant can leave his service when he likes; he has stated hours of work and stated hours of freedom; he works for a wage; he has a mind of his own and can bargain as to when and for what he will give his labour. A slave can do none of these things; he is the absolute possession of his owner, with neither time nor will of his own. Doulos (GSN1401) and `ebed (HSN5650) bring out how absolutely we must surrender life to God.
It is of the greatest interest to note to whom these words are applied in Scripture.
Abraham is the servant of God (Gen.26:24; Ps.105:26; Dn.9:11). Jacob is the servant of God (Isa.44:1-2; Isa.45:4; Eze.37:25). Caleb and Joshua are the servants of God (Num.14:24; Josh.24:29; Judg.6:49; 2Chr.24:6; Neh.1:7; Neh.10:29; Ps.105:26; Dn.9:11). Jacob is the servant of God (Isa.44:1-2; Isa.45:4; Eze.37:25). Caleb and Joshua are the servants of God (Num.14:24; Josh.24:29; Judg.2:8). David is second only to Moses as characteristically the servant of God (Ps.132:10; Ps.144:10; 1Kgs.8:66; 1Kgs.11:36; 2Kgs.19:34; 2Kgs.20:6; 1Chr.17:4; in the titles of Ps.18 and Ps.36; Ps.89:3; Eze.34:24). Elijah is the servant of God (2Kgs.9:36; 2Kgs.10:10). Isaiah is the servant of God (Isa.20:3). Job is the servant of God (Jb.1:8; Jb.42:7). The prophets are the servants of God (2Kgs.21:10; Am.3:7). The apostles are the servants of God (Php.1:1; Tit.1:1; Jas.1:1; Jd.1; Rom.1:1; 2Cor.4:5). A man like Epaphras is the servant of God (Col.4:12). All Christians are the servants of God (Eph.6:6).
Two things emerge from this.
(i) The greatest men regarded as their greatest honour the fact that they were servants of God.
(ii) We must note the width of this service. Moses, the law-giver; Abraham, the adventurous pilgrim; David, shepherd boy, sweet singer of Israel, king of the nation; Caleb and Joshua, soldiers and men of action; Elijah and Isaiah, prophets and men of God; Job, faithful in misfortune; the apostles, who bore to men the story of Jesus; every Christian–all are servants of God. There is none whom God cannot use, if he will submit to his service.
THE BLESSED’S OF GOD
Rev. 1:1-3 (continued)
This passage ends with a threefold blessing.
(i) The man who reads these words is blessed. The reader here mentioned is not the private reader, but the man who publicly reads the word in the presence of the congregation. The reading of Scripture was the centre of any Jewish service (Lk.4:16; Ac.13:15). In the Jewish synagogue scripture was read to the congregation by seven ordinary members of the congregation, although if a priest or levite was present he took precedence. The Christian Church took much of its service from the synagogue order and the reading of scripture remained a central part of the service. Justin Martyr gives the earliest account of what a Christian service was like; and it includes the reading of “the memoirs of the apostles (i.e. the Gospels), and the writings of the prophets” (Justin Martyr 1: 67). Reader became in time an official office in the Church. One of Tertullian’s complaints about the heretical sects was the way in which a man could too speedily arrive at office without any training for it. He writes: “And so it comes to pass that today one man is their bishop, and tomorrow another; today he is a deacon who tomorrow is a reader” (Tertullian, On Prescription against Heretics, 41).
(ii) The man who hears these words is blessed. We do well to remember how great a privilege it is to hear the word of God in our own tongue, a privilege which was dearly bought. Men died to give it to us; and the professional clergy sought for long to keep it to themselves. To this day the task of giving men the Scriptures in their own language goes on.
(iii) The man who keeps these words is blessed. To hear God’s word is a privilege; to obey it is a duty. There is no real Christianity in the man who hears and forgets or deliberately disregards.
That is all the more true because the time is short. The time is near (Rev. 1:3). The early church lived in vivid expectation of the coming of Jesus Christ and that expectation was “the ground of hope in distress and constant heed to warning.” Apart altogether from that, no man knows when the call will come to take him from this earth, and in order to meet God with confidence he must add the obedience of his life to the listening of his ear.
We may note that there are seven blesseds in the Revelation.
(i) There is the blessed we have just studied. We may call it the blessedness of reading, hearing and obeying the Word of God.
(ii) Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord henceforth (Rev. 14:13). We may call it the blessedness in heaven of Christ’s friends on earth.
(iii) Blessed is he who is awake, keeping his garments (Rev. 16:15). We may call it the blessedness of the watchful pilgrim.
(iv) Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb (Rev. 19:9). We may, call it the blessedness of the invited guests of God.
(v) Blessed is he who shares in the first resurrection (Rev. 20:6). We may call it the blessedness of the man whom death cannot touch.
(vi) Blessed is he who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book (Rev. 22:7). We may call it the blessedness of the wise reader of God’s Word.
(vii) Blessed are those who do his commandments (Rev. 22:14). We may call it the blessedness of those who hear and obey.
Such blessedness is open to every Christian.
THE MESSAGE AND ITS DESTINATION
Rev. 1:4-6
This is John writing to the seven Churches which are in Asia. Grace be to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits which are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, the witness on whom you can rely, the first-born of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To him who loves us and who set us free from our sins at the cost of his own blood, and who made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion for ever. Amen.
The Revelation is a letter, written to the seven Churches which are in Asia. In the New Testament Asia is never the continent but always the Roman province. Once the kingdom of Attalus the Third, he had willed it to the Romans at his death. It included the western sea-coast of Asia Minor, on the shores of the Mediterranean, with Phrygia, Mysia, Caria and Lycia in the hinterland; and its capital was the city of Pergamum.
The seven Churches are named in Rev. 1:11–Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea. These were by no means the only Churches in Asia. There were Churches at Colossae (Col.1:2); Hierapolis (Col.4:13); Troas (2Cor.2:12; Ac.20:5); Miletus (Ac.20:17); Magnesia and Tralles, as the letters of Ignatius, the Bishop of Antioch, show. Why did John single out only these seven? There can be more than one reason for his selection.
(i) These Churches might be regarded as the centres of seven postal districts, being all on a kind of ring road which circled the interior of the province. Troas was off the beaten track. But Hierapolis and Colossae were within walking distance of Laodicea; and Tralles, Magnesia and Miletus were close to Ephesus. Letters delivered to these seven cities would easily circulate in the surrounding areas; and since every letter had to be hand-written, each letter would need to be sent where it would reach most easily the greatest number of people.
(ii) Any reading of the Revelation will show John’s preference for the number seven. It occurs fifty-four times. There are seven candle-sticks (Rev. 1:12), seven stars (Rev. 1:16), seven lamps (Rev. 4:5), seven seals (Rev. 5:1), seven horns and seven eyes (Rev. 5:6), seven thunders (Rev. 10:3), seven angels, plagues and bowls (Rev. 15:6-8). The ancient peoples regarded seven as the perfect number, and it runs all through the Revelation.
From this certain of the early commentators drew an interesting conclusion. Seven is the perfect number because it stands for completeness. It is, therefore, suggested that, when John wrote to seven Churches, he was, in fact, writing to the whole Church. The first list of New Testament books, called the Muratorian Canon, says of the Revelation: “For John also, though he wrote in the Revelation to seven Churches, nevertheless speaks to them all.” This is all the more likely when we remember how often John says: “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the Churches” (Rev. 2:7; Rev. 2:11, Rev. 2:17; Rev. 2:29; Rev. 3:6; Rev. 3:13; Rev. 3:22).
(iii) Although the reasons we have adduced for the choice of these seven Churches may be valid, it may be still more valid that he chose them because in them he had a special authority. They were in a special sense his Churches, and by speaking to them he sent a message first to those who knew and loved him best, and then through them to every Church in every generation.
THE BLESSING AND ITS SOURCE
Rev. 1:4-6 (continued)
He begins by sending them the blessing of God.
He sends them grace, and this means all the undeserved gifts of the wondrous love of God. He sends them peace, which R. C. Charles finely describes as “the harmony restored between God and man through Christ.” But there are two extra-ordinary things in this greeting.
(i) John sends blessings from him who is and who was and who is to come. That is in itself a common title for God. In Exo.3:14 the word of God to Moses is “I am who I am.” The Jewish Rabbis explained that by saying that God meant: “I was; I still am; and in the future I will be.” The Greeks spoke of “Zeus who was, Zeus who is, and Zeus who will be.” The Orphic worshippers said: “Zeus is the first and Zeus is the last; Zeus is the head and Zeus is the middle; and from Zeus all things come.” This is what in Hebrews so beautifully became: “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and for ever” (Heb.13:8).
But to get the full meaning of this we must look at it in the Greek, for John bursts the bonds of grammar to show his reverence for God. We translate the first phrase from him who is; but that is not what the Greek says. A Greek noun is in the nominative case when it is the subject of a sentence, but, when it is governed by a preposition it changes its case and its form. It is so in English. He is the subject of a sentence; him is the object. When John says that the blessing comes from him who is he should have put him who is in the genitive case after the preposition; but quite ungrammatically he leaves it in the nominative. It is as if we said in English from he who is, refusing to change he into him. John has such an immense reverence for God that he refuses to alter the form of his name even when the rules of grammar demand it.
John is not finished with his amazing use of language. The second phrase is from him who was. Literally, John says from the he was. The point is that who was would be in Greek a participle. The odd thing is that the verb eimi (GSN1510) (to be) has no past participle. Instead there is used the participle genomenos from the verb gignomai, which means not only to be but also to become. Becoming implies change and John utterly refuses to apply any word to God that will imply any change; and so he uses a Greek phrase that is grammatically impossible and that no one ever used before.
In the terrible days in which he was writing John stayed his heart on the changelessness of God and used defiance of grammar to underline his faith.
THE SEVENFOLD SPIRIT
Rev. 1:4-6 (continued)
Anyone who reads this passage must be astonished at the form of the Trinity which we meet here. We speak of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Here we have God the Father and Jesus Christ the Son but instead of the Holy Spirit we have the seven Spirits who are before his throne. These seven Spirits are mentioned more than once in the Revelation (Rev. 3:1; Rev. 4:5; Rev. 5:6). Three main explanations have been offered of them.
(i) The Jews talked of the seven angels of the presence, whom they beautifully called “the seven first white ones” (I Enoch 90: 21). They were what we call the archangels, and “they stand and enter before the glory of the Lord” (Tob.12:15). Their names are not always the same but they are often called Uriel, Rafael, Raguel, Michael, Gabriel, Saiquael and Jeremiel. They had the care of the elements of the world–fire, air and water–and were the guardian angels of the nations. They were the most illustrious and the most intimate servants of God. Some think that they are the seven Spirits mentioned here. But that cannot be; great as the angels were, they were still created beings.
(ii) The second explanation connects them with the famous passage in Isa.11:2; as the Septuagint, the Greek version of the Old Testament, has it: “The spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and piety; by this spirit he shall be filled with the fear of God.” This passage is the basis of the great conception of the sevenfold gifts of the Spirit.
Come, Holy Ghost, our souls inspire And lighten with celestial fire; Thou the anointing Spirit art, Who dost thy sevenfold gifts impart.
The Spirit, as Beatus said, is one in name but sevenfold in virtues. If we think of the sevenfold gift of the Spirit, it is not difficult to think of the Spirit as seven Spirits, each giving great gifts to men. So it is suggested that the conception of the sevenfold gifts of the Spirit gave rise to the idea of the seven Spirits before the throne of God.
(iii) The third explanation connects the idea of the seven Spirits with the fact of the seven Churches. In Heb.2:4 we read of God giving “gifts of the Holy Spirit.” The word translated gifts is merismos (GSN3311), and it really means shares, as if the idea was that God gives a share of his Spirit to every man. So the idea here would be that the seven Spirits stand for the share of the Spirit which God gave to each of the seven Churches. It would mean that no Christian fellowship is left without the presence and the power and the illumination of the Spirit.
THE TITLES OF JESUS
Rev. 1:4-6 (continued)
In this passage three great titles are ascribed to Jesus Christ.
(i) He is the witness on whom we can rely. It is a favourite idea of the Fourth Gospel that Jesus is a witness of the truth of God. Jesus said to Nicodemus: “Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know, and bear witness to what we have seen” (Jn.3:11). Jesus said to Pilate: “For this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth” (Jn.18:37). A witness is essentially a person who speaks from first-hand knowledge. That is why Jesus is God’s witness. He is uniquely the person with first-hand knowledge about God.
(ii) He is the first-born of the dead. The word for first-born is prototokos (GSN4416). It can have two meanings. (a) It can mean literally first-born. If it is used in this sense, the reference must be to the Resurrection. Through his Resurrection Jesus gained a victory over death, which all who believe in him may share. (b) Since the first-born was the son who inherited his father’s honour and power, prototokos (GSN4416) comes to mean one with power and honour, one who occupies the first place, a prince among men. When Paul speaks of Jesus as the first-born of all creation (Col.1:15), he means that to him the first place of honour and glory belongs. If we take the word in this sense–and probably we should–it means that Jesus is Lord of the dead as he is Lord of the living. There is no part of the universe, in this world or in the world to come, and nothing in life or in death of which Jesus Christ is not Lord.
(iii) He is the ruler of kings on earth. There are two things to note here. (a) This is a reminiscence of Ps.89:27: “I will make him the first-born, the highest of the kings of the earth.” That was always taken by Jewish scholars to be a description of the coming Messiah; and, therefore, to say that Jesus is the ruler of kings on earth is to claim that he is the Messiah. (b) Swete very beautifully points out the connection between this title of Jesus and the temptation story. In that story the devil took Jesus up into a high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the earth and their glory and said: “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me” (Matt.4:8-9; Lk.4:6-7). It was the devil’s claim that the kingdoms of the earth were delivered into his power (Lk.4:6); and it was his suggestion that, if Jesus would strike a bargain with him, he would give him a share in them. The amazing thing is that what the devil promised Jesus–and could never have given him–Jesus won for himself by the suffering of the Cross and the power of the Resurrection. Not compromise with evil, but the unswerving loyalty and the unfailing love which accepted the Cross brought Jesus his universal lordship.
WHAT JESUS DID FOR MEN
Rev. 1:4-6 (continued)
Few passages set down with such splendour what Jesus did for men.
(i) He loves us and he set us free from our sins at the cost of his own blood. The King James Version is in error here. It reads: “Unto him that loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood.” The words “to wash” and “to set free” are in Greek very alike. “To wash” is louein (GSN3068); “to set free” is luein (GSN3089); and they are pronounced exactly in the same way. But there is no doubt that the oldest and best Greek manuscripts read luein (GSN3089). Again “in his own blood” is a mistranslation. The word translated “in” is en (GSN1722) which, indeed, can mean “in”; but here it is a translation of the Hebrew word “be-” (the e is pronounced very short as in “the”), which means “at the price of.”
What Jesus did, as John sees it, is that he freed us from our sins at the cost of his own blood. This is exactly what he says later on when he speaks of those who were ransomed for God by the blood of the Lamb (Rev. 5:9). It is exactly what Paul meant when he spoke of us being redeemed from the curse of the Law (Gal.3:13); and when he spoke of redeeming those who were under the Law (Gal.4:5). In both cases the word used is exagorazein (GSN1805), which means to buy out from, to pay the price of buying a person or a thing out of the possession of him who holds that person or thing in his power.
This is a very interesting and important correction of the King James Version. It is made in all the newer translations and it means that the well-worn phrases which speak of being “washed in the blood of the Lamb” have little scriptural authority. These phrases convey a staggering picture; and it must come to many with a certain relief to know that what John said was that we are set free from our sins at the cost of the blood, that is, at the cost of the life of Jesus Christ.
There is another very significant thing here. We must carefully note the tenses of the verbs. John says that Jesus loves us and set us free. Loves is the present tense and it means that the love of God in Christ Jesus is something which is continuous. Set us free is the past tense, the Greek aorist, which tells of one act completed in the past and it means that in the one act of the Cross our liberation from sin was achieved. That is to say, what happened on the Cross was one availing act in time which was an expression of the continuous love of God.
(ii) Jesus made us a kingdom, priests to God. That is a quotation of Exo.19:6: “You shall be to me a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation.” Jesus has done two things for US.
(a) He has given us royalty. Through him we may become the true sons of God; and, if we are sons of the King of kings, we are of lineage than which there can be none more royal.
(b) He made us priests. The point is this. Under the old way, only the priest had the right of access to God. When a Jew entered the Temple, he could pass through the Court of the Gentiles, the Court of the Women, the Court of the Israelites–but there he must stop; into the Court of the Priests he could not go; no nearer the Holy of Holies could he come. In the vision of the great days to come Isaiah said: “You shall be called the priests of the Lord” (Isa.61:6). In that day every one of the people would be a priest and have access to God. That is what John means; because of what Jesus Christ did access to the presence of God is now open to every man. There is a priesthood of all believers. We can come boldly to the throne of grace (Heb.4:16), because for us there is a new and living way into the presence of God (Heb.10:19-22).
THE COMING GLORY
Rev. 1:7
Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye shall see him, and the people who pierced him will see him; and all the tribes of the earth shall lament over him. Yea! Amen!
From now on in almost every passage, we shall have to note John’s continuous use of the Old Testament. He was so soaked in the Old Testament that it was almost impossible for him to write a paragraph without quoting it. This is interesting and significant. John was living in a time when to be a Christian was an agonizing thing. He himself knew banishment and imprisonment and hard labour; and there were many who knew death in its most cruel forms. The best way to maintain courage and hope in such a situation was to remember that God had never failed in the past; and that his power was not grown less now.
In this passage John sets down the motto and the text of his whole book, his confidence in the triumphant return of Christ, which would rescue Christians in distress from the cruelty of their enemies.
(i) To Christians the return of Christ is a promise on which to feed the soul. John takes as his picture of that return Daniel’s vision of the four bestial powers who have held the world in their grip (Dn.7:1-14). There was Babylon, the power that was like a lion with eagle’s wings (Dn.7:4). There was Persia, the power that was like a savage bear (Dn.7:5). There was Greece, the power that was like a winged leopard (Dn.7:6). There was Rome, a beast with iron teeth, beyond description (Dn.7:7). But the day of these bestial empires was over, and the dominion was to be given to a gentle power like a son of man. “I saw in the night visions, and, behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days, and was presented before him, and to him was given dominion, and glory, and kingdom, that all peoples, nations and languages should serve him” (Dn.7:13-14). It is from that passage in Daniel there emerges the ever-recurring picture of the Son of Man coming on the clouds (Mk.13:26; Mk.14:62; Matt.24:30; Matt.26:64). When we strip away the purely temporary imagery–we, for instance, no longer think of heaven as a localized place above the sky–we are left with the unchanging truth that the day will come when Jesus Christ will be Lord of all. In that hope have ever been the strength and the comfort of Christians for whom life was difficult and for whom faith meant death.
(ii) To the enemies of Christ, the return of Christ is a threat. To make this point John again quotes the Old Testament, from Zech.12:10 which contains the words: “When they look on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a first-born.” The story behind the Zechariah saying is this. God gave his people a good shepherd; but the people in.their disobedient folly killed him and took to themselves evil and self-seeking shepherds. But the day will come when in the grace of God they will bitterly repent, and in that day they will look on the good shepherd whom they pierced and will sorrowfully lament for him and for what they have done. John takes that picture and applies it to Jesus. Men crucified him but the day will come when they will look on him again; and this time, he will not be a broken figure on a cross but a regal figure to whom universal dominion has been given.
The first reference of these words is to the Jews and the Romans who actually crucified Jesus. But in every age all who sin crucify him again. The day will come when those who disregarded and those who opposed Jesus Christ will find him the Lord of the universe and the judge of their souls.
The passage closes with the two exclamations–“Even so. Amen!” In the Greek the words are nai (GSN3483) and amen (GSN0281). Nai (GSN3483) is the Greek and amen (GSN0281) is the Hebrew (comapre HSN0539) for a solemn affirmation–“Yes, indeed! So let it be!” By using the expression both in Greek and Hebrew John underlines its awful solemnity.
THE GOD IN WHOM WE TRUST
Rev. 1:8
I am alpha and omega, says the Lord God, he who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.
Here is a tremendous description of the God in whom we trust and whom we adore.
(i) He is alpha and omega. Alpha (GSN0001) is the first letter and omega (GSN5598) the last of the Greek alphabet; and the phrase alpha (GSN0001) to omega (GSN5598) indicates completeness. The first letter of the Hebrew alphabet is aleph and the last is tau; and the Jews used the same kind of expression. The Rabbis said that Adam transgressed the Law and Abraham kept it from aleph to tau. They said that God had blessed Israel from aleph to tau. This expression indicates that God is absolutely complete: he has in himself what H. B. Swete called “the boundless life which embraces all and transcends all.”
(ii) God is he who is and who was and who is to come. That is to say, he is the Eternal. He was before time began; he is now; and he will be when time ends. He has been the God of all who have trusted in him; he is the God in whom at this present moment we can put our trust; and there can be no event and no time in the future which can separate us from him.
Nor death nor life, nor earth nor hell, nor time’s destroying sway, Can e’er efface us from his heart, or make his love decay.
Each future period that will bless, as it has bless’d the past; He lov’d us from the first of time, He loves us to the last.
(iii) God is the Almighty. The word for Almighty is pantokrator (GSN3841) which describes the one who has dominion over all things.
The suggestive fact is that this word occurs in the New Testament seven times. Once it occurs in 2Cor.6:18, in a quotation from the Old Testament, and all the six other instances are in the Revelation. This word is distinctive of John. Think of the circumstances in which he was writing. The embattled might of Rome had risen up to crush the Christian Church. No empire had ever been able to withstand Rome; what possible chance against Rome had “the panting, huddled flock whose crime was Christ”? Humanly speaking the Christian Church had none; but if men thought that, they had left the most important factor of all out of the reckoning–God the pantokrator (GSN3841), in the grip of whose hand were all things.
It is this word which in the Greek Old Testament describes the Lord of Sabaoth, the Lord of hosts (Am.9:5; Hos.12:5). It is this word which John uses in the tremendous text: “The Lord our God the Almighty reigns” (Rev. 19:6). If men are in the hands of a God like that, nothing can pluck them away. If behind the Christian Church there is a God like that, so long as she the Church is true to her Lord, nothing can destroy her.
My times are in thy hand: I’ll always trust in thee; And, after death, at thy right hand I shall for ever be.
THROUGH TRIBULATION TO THE KINGDOM
Rev. 1:9
I, John, your brother and partner in tribulation, in the kingdom, and in that steadfast endurance which life in Christ alone can give, was in the island which is called Patmos, for the sake of the word given by God and confirmed by Jesus Christ.
John introduces himself, not by any official title but as your brother and partner in tribulation. His right to speak was that he had come through all that those to whom he was writing were going through. Ezekiel writes in his book: “Then I came to the exiles at Telabib, who dwelt by the river Chebar, and I sat there overwhelmed among them” (Eze.3:15). Men will never listen to one who preaches endurance from the comfort of an easy chair, nor to one who preaches heroic courage to others while he himself has sought a prudent safety. It is the man who has gone through it who can help others who are going through it. As the Indians have it: “No man can criticize another man until he has walked for a day in his moccasins.” John and Ezekiel could speak because they had sat where their people were sitting.
John puts three words together–tribulation, kingdom, steadfast endurance. Tribulation is thlipsis (GSN2347). Originally thlipsis meant simply pressure and could, for instance, describe the pressure of a great stone on a man’s body. At first it was used quite literally, but in the New Testament it has come to describe that pressure of events which is persecution. Steadfast endurance is hupomone (GSN5281). Hupomone (GSN5281) does not describe the patience which simply passively submits to the tide of events; it describes the spirit of courage and conquest which leads to gallantry and transmutes even suffering into glory. The situation of the Christians was this. They were in thlipsis (GSN2347) and, as John saw it, in the midst of the terrible events which preceded the end of the world. They were looking towards basileia (GSN0932), the kingdom, into which they desired to enter and on which they had set their hearts. There was only one way from thlipsis (GSN2347) to basileia (GSN0932), from affliction to glory, and that was through hupomone (GSN5281), conquering endurance. Jesus said: “He who endures to the end will be saved” (Matt.24:13). Paul told his people: “Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God” (Ac.14:22). In Second Timothy we read: “If we endure, we shall also reign with him” (2Tim.2:12).
The way to the kingdom is the way of endurance. But before we leave this passage we must note one thing. That endurance is to be found in Christ. He himself endured to the end and he is able to enable those who walk with him to achieve the same endurance and to reach the same goal.
THE ISLAND OF BANISHMENT
Rev. 1:9 (continued)
John tells us that, when the visions of the Revelation came to him, he was in Patmos. It was the unanimous tradition of the early church that he was banished to Patmos in the reign of Domitian. Jerome says that John was banished in the fourteenth year after Nero and liberated on the death of Domitian (Concerning Illustrious Men, 9). This would mean that he was banished to Patmos about A.D. 94 and liberated about A.D. 96.
Patmos, a barren rocky little island belonging to a group of islands called the Sporades, is ten miles long by five miles wide. It is crescent-shaped, with the horns Of the crescent pointing to the east. Its shape makes it a good natural harbour. It lies forty miles off the coast of Asia Minor and it was important because it was the last haven on the voyage from Rome to Ephesus and the first in the reverse direction.
Banishment to a remote island was a common form of Roman punishment. It was usually meted out to political prisoners and, as far as they were concerned, there were worse punishments. Such banishment involved the loss of civil rights and all property except enough for a bare existence. People so banished were not personally ill-treated and were not confined in prison on their island but free to move within its narrow limits. Such would be banishment for a political prisoner; but it would be very different for John. He was a leader of the Christians and Christians were criminals. The wonder is that he was not executed straight away. Banishment for him would involve hard labour in the quarries. Sir William Ramsay says his banishment would be “preceded by scourging, marked by perpetual fetters, scanty clothing, insufficient food, sleep on the bare ground, a dark prison, work under the lash of the military overseer.”
Patmos left its mark on John’s writing. To this day they show visitors a cave in a cliff overlooking the sea, where, they say, the Revelation was written. There are magnificent views of the sea from Patmos, and, as Strahan says, the Revelation is full of “the sights and the sounds of the infinite sea.” The word thalassa (GSN2281), sea, occurs in the Revelation no fewer than twenty-five times. Strahan writes: “Nowhere is `the voice of many waters’ more musical than in Patmos; nowhere does the rising and setting sun make a more splendid `sea of glass mingled with fire’; yet nowhere is the longing more natural that the separating sea should be no more.”
It was to all the hardships and pain and weariness of banishment and hard labour on Patmos that John went for the sake of the word given by God So far as the Greek goes, that phrase is capable of three interpretations. It could mean that John went to Patmos to preach the word of God. It could mean that he withdrew to the loneliness of Patmos to receive the word of God and the visions of the Revelation. But it is quite certain that it means that it was John’s unshakeable loyalty to the word of God, and his insistence on preaching the message of Jesus Christ which brought him to banishment in Patmos.
IN THE SPIRIT ON THE LORD’S DAY
Rev. 1:10-11
I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day, and I heard behind me a great voice, like the sound of a trumpet, saying: “Write what you see in a book, and send it to the seven Churches, to Ephesus and to Smyrna, and to Pergamos and to Thyatira and to Sardis and to Philadelphia and to Laodicea.”
Historically this is an extremely interesting passage for it is the first reference in literature to the Lord’s Day.
We have often spoken of the Day of the Lord, that day of wrath and judgment when this present age with all its evil was to be shatteringly changed into the age to come. Some think that John is saying that he was transported in a vision to that Day of the Lord and saw in advance all the astonishing things which were to happen then. Those who hold that view are very few and it is not a natural meaning for the words.
It is quite certain that when John uses the expression the Lord’s Day he is using it as we use it–its very first mention in literature.
How did the Christian Church cease to observe the Sabbath, Saturday, and come to observe the Lord’s Day, Sunday? The Sabbath commemorated the rest of God after the creation of the world; the Lord’s Day commemorates the rising of Jesus from the dead.
The three earliest references to the Lord’s Day may well be the following. The Didache, The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, the first manual of Christian worship and instruction, says of the Christian Church: “On the Lord’s Day we meet and break bread” (Didache 14: 1). Ignatius of Antioch, writing to the Magnesians, describes the Christians as “no longer living for the Sabbath, but for the Lord’s Day” (Ignatius, To the Magnesians, 9: 1). Melito of Sardis wrote a treatise Concerning the Lord’s Day. By early in the second century the Sabbath had been abandoned and the Lord’s Day was the accepted Christian day.
One thing seems certain. All these early references come from Asia Minor and it was there that the observance of the Lord’s Day first came in. But what was it that suggested to the Christians a weekly observance of the first day of the week? In the east there was a day of the month and a day of the week called Sebaste (GSN4575), which means The Emperor’s Day; it was no doubt this which made the Christians decide that the first day of the week must be dedicated to their Lord.
John was in the Spirit. This phrase means that he was in an ecstasy in which he was lifted beyond the things of space and time into the world of eternity. “The Spirit lifted me up,” said Ezekiel (Eze.3:12), “and I heard behind me the sound of a great earthquake.” For John the voice was like the sound of a trumpet. The sound of the trumpet is woven into the language of the New Testament (Matt.24:31; 1Cor.15:52; 1Th.4:16). There is no doubt that in the mind of John there is here another Old Testament picture. In the account of the giving of the Law it is said: “There were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mountain, and a very loud trumpet blast” (Exo.19:16). The voice of God sounds with the commanding, unmistakable clarity of a trumpet call.
John is told to write the vision which he sees. It is his duty to share the message which God gives to him. A man must first hear and then transmit, even if the price of the transmission is costly indeed. It may be that a man must withdraw to see his vision, but he must also go forth to tell it.
Two phrases go together. John was in Patmos; and John was in the Spirit. We have seen what Patmos was like, and we have seen the pain and the hardship that John was undergoing. No matter where a man is, no matter how hard his life, no matter what he is passing through, he may still be in the Spirit. And, if he is in the Spirit, even on Patmos, the glory and the message of God will come to him.
THE DIVINE MESSENGER
Rev. 1:12-13
And I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me; and, when I had turned, I saw seven golden lampstands, and, in the midst of the lampstands, one like a son of man, clothed in a robe that reached to his feet, and girt about the breasts with a golden girdle.
We now begin on the first of John’s visions; and we shall see that his mind is so saturated with Scripture that element after element in the picture has an Old Testament background and counterpart.
He says that he turned to see the voice. We would say: “I turned to see whose was the voice which was speaking to me.”
When he turned, he saw seven golden lampstands. John does not only allude to the Old Testament; he takes items from many places in it and out of them he forms a composite picture. The picture of the seven golden lampstands has three sources.
(a) It comes from the picture of the candlestick of pure gold in the Tabernacle. It was to have six branches, three on one side and three on the other, and seven lamps to give light (Exo.25:31-37).
(b) It comes from the picture of Solomon’s Temple. In it there were to be five candlesticks of pure gold on the right hand and five on the left (1Kgs.7:49).
(c) It comes from the vision of Zechariah. Zechariah saw “a candlestick all of gold, with a bowl on the top of it, and seven lamps on it” (Zech.4:2).
When John sees a vision, he sees it in terms of scenes from the Old Testament places and occasions when God had already revealed himself to his people. Surely there is a lesson here. The best way to prepare oneself for new revelation of truth is to study the revelation which God has already given.
In the midst of the lampstands he saw one like a son of man. Here we are back to the picture of Dn.7:13, in which the kingdom and the power and the dominion are given by the Ancient of Days to one like a son of man. As we well know from Jesus’ use of it, Son of Man became nothing less than the title of the Messiah; and by using it here John makes it plain that the revelation which he is to receive is coming from Jesus Christ himself
This figure was clothed with a robe which reached down to his feet, and he was girt about the breasts with a golden girdle. Here again we have three pictures.
(a) The word which describes the robe is poderes (GSN4158), reaching down to the feet. This is the word which the Greek Old Testament uses to describe the robe of the High Priest (Exo.28:4; Exo.29:5; Lev.16:4). Josephus also describes carefully the garments which the priests and the High Priest wore when they were serving in the Temple. They wore “a long robe reaching to the feet,” and around the breast, “higher than the elbows,” they wore a girdle which was loosely wound round and round the body. The girdle was embroidered with colours and flowers, with a mixture of gold interwoven (Josephus: The Antiquities of the Jews, 3.7: 2, 4). All this means that the description of the robe and the girdle of the glorified Christ is almost exactly that of the dress of the priests and of the High Priest. Here, then, is the symbol of the high priestly character of the work of the Risen Lord. A priest, as the Jews saw it, was a man who himself has access to God and who opens the way for others to come to him; even in the heavenly places Jesus, the great High Priest, is still carrying on his priestly work, opening the way for all men to the presence of God.
(b) But other people besides priests wore the long robe reaching to the feet and the high girdle. It was the dress of great ones, of princes and of kings. Poderes (GSN4158) is the description of the robe of Jonathan (1Sam.18:4); of Saul (1Sam.24:5,11); of the princes of the sea (Eze.26:16). The robe the Risen Christ was wearing was the robe of royalty. No longer was he a criminal on a cross; he was dressed like a king.
Christ is Priest and Christ is King.
(c) There is still another part of this picture. In the vision of Daniel, the divine figure who came to tell him the truth of God was clothed in fine linen (the Greek Old Testament calls his garment poderes, GSN4158) and girt with fine gold (Dn.10:5). This, then, is the dress of the messenger of God. So this presents Jesus Christ as the supreme messenger of God.
Here is a tremendous picture. When we trace the origins of the thought of John, we see that by the very dress of the Risen Lord he is showing him to us in his threefold eternal office of Prophet, Priest and King, the one who brings the truth of God, the one who enables others to enter into the presence of God and the one to whom God has given the power and dominion for ever.
THE PICTURE OF THE RISEN CHRIST
Rev. 1:14-18
His head and his hair were white, as white as wool, like snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire; and his feet were like beaten brass, as if it had been refined in a furnace; and his voice was as the voice of many waters; he had seven stars in his right hand; and out of his mouth there was coming a sharp two-edged sword; and his face was as the sun shining in its strength. And when I saw him, I fell at his feet like a dead man. And he put his right hand on me and said: “Stop being afraid. I am the first and the last; I am the living one although I was dead, and, behold, I am alive for ever and ever; and I have the keys of death and of Hades.”
Before we begin to look at this passage in detail, there are two general facts we must note.
(i) It is easy to miss seeing how carefully wrought the Revelation is. It is not a book which was flung together in a hurry; it is a closely integrated and artistic literary whole. In this passage we have a whole series of descriptions of the Risen Christ; and the interesting thing is that each of the letters to the seven Churches, which follow in the next two chapters, with the exception of the letter to Laodicea, opens with a description of the Risen Christ taken from this chapter. It is as if this chapter sounded a series of themes which were later to become the texts for the letters to the Churches. Let us set down the beginning of each of the first six letters and see how it corresponds to the description of the Risen Christ here.
To the angel of the Church in Ephesus, write: The words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand (Rev. 2:1).
To the angel of the Church in Smyrna, write: The words of the first and the last, who died and came to life (Rev. 2:8).
To the angel of the Church in Pergamum, write: The words of him who has the sharp two-edged sword (Rev. 2:12).
To the angel of the Church in Thyatira, write: The words of the Son of God, who has eyes like a flame of fire, and whose feel are like burnished bronze (Rev. 2:18).
To the angel of the Church in Sardis, write: The words of him who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars (Rev. 3:1).
To the angel of the Church in Philadelphia, write: The words of the holy one, the true one, who has the key of David, who opens and no one shall shut, who shuts and no one opens (Rev. 3:7).
This is literary craftsmanship of a very high standard.
(ii) The second thing to note is that in this passage John takes titles which in the Old Testament are descriptions of God and applies them to the Risen Christ.
His head and his hair were white, as white wool, like snow.
In Dn.7:9 that is a description of the Ancient of Days.
His voice was as the sound of many waters.
In Eze.43:2 that is a description of God’s own voice.
He had the seven stars in his hand.
In the Old Testament it is God himself who controls the stars. It is God’s question to Job: “Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades, or loose the cords of Orion?” (Jb.38:31).
I am the first and the last.
Isaiah hears the voice of God saying: “I am the first and I am the last; besides me there is no God” (Isa.44:6; compare Isa.48:12).
I am the living one.
In the Old Testament God is characteristically “the living God” (Josh.3:10; Ps.42:2; Hos.1:10).
I have the keys of death and of Hades.
The Rabbis had a saying that there were three keys which belonged to God and which he would share with no other–of birth, rain and raising the dead.
Nothing could better show the reverence in which John holds Jesus Christ. He holds him so high that he can give him nothing less than the titles which in the Old Testament belong to God.
The highest place that heaven affords Is his, is his by right, The King of kings, and Lord of lords, And heaven’s eternal Light.
THE TITLES OF THE RISEN LORD (1)
Rev. 1:14-18 (continued)
Let us look very briefly at each of the titles by which the Risen Lord is here called.
His head and his hair were white, as white wool, like snow.
This, taken from the description of the Ancient of Days in Dn.7:9, is symbolic of two things. (a) It stands for great age; and it speaks to us of the eternal existence of Jesus Christ. (b) It speaks to us of divine purity. The snow and the white wool are the emblems of stainless purity. “Though your sins are like scarlet,” said Isaiah, “they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool” (Isa.1:18). Here we have the symbols of the preexistence and the sinlessness of Christ.
His eyes were as a flame of fire.
Daniel is always in John’s mind, and this is part of the description of the divine figure who brought the vision to Daniel. “His eyes like flaming torches” (Dn.10:6). When we read the gospel story, we get the impression that he who had once seen the eyes of Jesus could never forget them. Again and again we have the vivid picture of his eyes sweeping round a circle of people (Mk.3:34; Mk.10:23; Mk.11:11); sometimes his eyes flashed in anger (Mk.3:5); sometimes they fastened on someone in love (Mk.10:21); and sometimes they had in them all the sorrow of one whose friends had wounded him to the quick (Lk.22:61).
His feet were like beaten brass, as if it had been refined by fire in a furnace.
The word translated beaten brass is chalkolibanos (GSN5474). No one really knows what the metal is. Perhaps it was that fabulous compound called electrum, which the ancients believed to be an alloy of gold and silver and more precious than either. Here again it is the Old Testament which gives John his vision. In Daniel it is said of the divine messenger that “his feet were like the gleam of burnished bronze” (Dn.10:6); in Ezekiel it is said of the angelic beings that “their feet sparkled like burnished bronze” (Eze.1:7). It may be that we are to see two things in the picture. The brass stands for strength, for the steadfastness of God; and the shining rays stand for speed, for the swiftness of the feet of God to help his own or to punish sin.
His voice was as the sound of many waters.
This is the description of the voice of God in Eze.43:2. But it may be that we can catch an echo of the little island of Patmos. As H. B. Swete has it: “The roar of the Aegean was in the ears of the seer.” H. B. Swete goes on to say that the voice of God is not confined to one note. Here. it is like the thunder of the sea, but it can also be like a still small voice (1Kgs.19:12), or, as the Greek version of the Old Testament has it, like a gentle breeze. It can thunder a rebuke; and it can croon with the soothing comfort of a mother over her hurt child.
He had seven stars in his right hand
Here again, we have something which was the prerogative of God alone. But there is also something lovely. When the seer fell in awed terror before the vision of the Risen Christ, the Christ stretched out his right hand and placed it on him and bade him not to be afraid. The hand of Christ is strong enough to uphold the heavens and gentle enough to wipe away our tears.
THE TITLES OF THE RISEN LORD (2)
Rev. 1:14-18 (continued)
There was coming forth from his mouth a sharp, two-edged sword
The sword referred to was not long and narrow like a fencer’s blade; it was a short, tongue-shaped sword for close righting. Again the seer has gone here and there in the Old Testament for his picture. Isaiah says of God: “He shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth” (Isa.11:4); and of himself: “He made my mouth like a sharp sword” (Isa.49:2). The symbolism tells us of the penetrating quality of the word of God. If we listen to it, no shield of self-deception can withstand it; it strips away our self-deludings, lays bare our sin and leads to pardon. “The word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword” (Heb.4:12). “The Lord will slay the wicked with the breath of his mouth” (2Th.2:8).
His face was as the sun shining in its strength.
In Judges there is a great picture which may well have been in John’s mind, The enemies of God shall perish, “but thy friends be like the sun as he rises in his might” (Judg.5:31). If that is true of them that love God, how much truer it must be of God’s beloved Son. Swete sees something even lovelier here, nothing less than a memory of the Transfiguration. On that occasion Jesus was transfigured before Peter, James and John, “and his face shone like the sun” (Matt.17:2). No one who had seen that sight could ever forget the glow and if the writer of this book is that same John perhaps he saw again on the face of the Risen Christ the glory he had glimpsed on the Mount of Transfiguration.
When I saw him, I fell at his feet like a dead man.
This was the experience of Ezekiel when God spoke to him (Eze.1:28; Eze.3:23; Eze.43:3). But surely we can find again a memory of the Gospel story. On that day in Galilee when there was the great catch of fish and Peter glimpsed who Jesus was, he fell down at his knees, conscious only that he was a sinful man (Lk.5:1-11). To the end of the day there can be nothing but reverence in the presence of the holiness and the glory of the Risen Christ.
Stop being afraid.
Surely here, too, we have reminiscence of the Gospel story, for these were words which the disciples had heard more than once from the lips of Jesus. It was thus he spoke to them when he came to them across the water (Matt.14:27; Mk.6:50); and it was thus above all that he spoke to them on the Mount of Transfiguration, when they were terrified at the sound of the divine voice (Matt.17:7). Even in heaven, when we come near the unapproachable glory, Jesus is saying: “I am here; do not be afraid.”
I am the first and the last.
In the Old Testament this is nothing other than the self-description of God (Isa.44:6; Isa.48:12). It is the promise of Jesus that he is there at the beginning and the end. He is there in the moment of birth and at the time of death. He is there when we set out upon the Christian way and when we finish our course. As F. W. H. Myers makes Paul say:
Yea thro’ life, death, thro’ sorrow and thro’ sinning He shall suffice me, for he hath sufficed: Christ is the end, for Christ was the beginning, Christ the beginning, for the end is Christ.
I am the living one, although I was dead and I am alive for ever and for ever.
Here is at once the claim and the promise of Christ, the claim of one who conquered death and the promise of one who is alive for evermore to be with his people.
I have the keys of death and Hades.
Death has its gates (Psa.9:13; Ps.107:18; Isa.38:10); and Christ has the keys of these gates. There were those who took this claim–and some still do–as a reference to the descent into hell (1Pet.3:18-20). There was a conception in the ancient Church that when Jesus descended into Hades, he unlocked the doors and brought out Abraham and all God’s faithful people who had lived and died in the generations before. But we may take it in an even wider sense; for we who are Christians believe that Jesus Christ has abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel (2Tim.1:10), that because he lives we shall live also (Jn.14:19), and that, therefore, for us and for those whom we love the bitterness of death is for ever past.
THE CHURCHES AND THEIR ANGELS
Rev. 1:20
Here is the secret meaning of the seven stars which you saw in my right hand and the seven golden lampstands. The seven stars are the angels of the seven Churches and the seven lampstands are the seven Churches.
This passage begins with a word which throughout the New Testament is used in a very special case. The King James Version speaks of the mystery of the seven stars and of the seven golden candlesticks. The Greek, musterion (GSN3466), does not mean a mystery in our sense of the term. It means something which is meaningless to the outsider but meaningful to the initiate who possesses the key. So here the Risen Christ goes on to give the inner meaning of the seven stars and the seven lampstands.
The seven lampstands stand for the seven Churches. One of the great titles of the Christian is that he is the light of the world (Matt.5:14; Php.2:15). But one of the old Greek commentators has a penetrating comment on this. He says that the Churches are called, not the light itself, but the lampstand on which the light is set. It is not the Churches themselves which produce the light; the giver of light is Jesus Christ; and the Churches are only the vessels within which the light shines. The Christian’s light is always a borrowed light.
One of the great problems of the Revelation is to decide what John means by the angels of the Churches. More than one explanation has been offered.
(i) The word aggelos (GSN0032)–gg in Greek is pronounced ng–has two meanings. It means an angel; but far oftener it means a messenger. It is suggested that messengers of all the Churches have assembled to receive a message from John and take it back to their congregations. If that is so, each letter will begin: “To the messenger of the Church of….” As far as the Greek goes this is perfectly possible; and it gives good sense; but the difficulty is that aggelos (GSN0032) is used in the Revelation about fifty times apart from its use here and in the letters to the seven Churches, and without exception it means angel.
(ii) It is suggested that aggelos (GSN0032) means a bishop of the Churches. It is suggested, either that the bishops of the Churches have gathered to meet John or that he is directing these letters to them. In favour of this theory there is quoted the words of Malachi: “The lips of a priest should guard knowledge, and men should seek instruction from his mouth, for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts” (Mal.2:7). In the Greek Old Testament messenger is aggelos (GSN0032); and it is suggested that the title could very easily be transferred to the bishops of the Churches. They are the messengers of the Lord to their Churches and to them John speaks. Again this explanation gives good sense; but it suffers from the same objection as the first. It attaches aggelos (GSN0032) to a human person and that John never elsewhere does.
(iii) It is suggested that this has to do with the idea of guardian angels. In Hebrew thought every nation had its presiding angel (compare Dn.10:13; Dn.10:20-21). Michael, for instance, was held to be the guardian angel of Israel (Dn.12:1). People, too, had their guardian angels. When Rhoda came with the news that Peter had escaped from prison, they would not believe her and said it was his angel (Ac.12:15). Jesus himself spoke of the angels who guard a little child (Matt.18:10). If we take it in this sense, the difficulty is that then the guardian angels of the Churches are being rebuked for the sins of the Churches. In fact Origen believed that this was the case. He said that the guardian angel of a Church was like the tutor of a child. If a child went wrong, the tutor was blamed; and if a Church went wrong, God in his mercy blamed its angel. The difficulty is that, though the angel of the Church is mentioned in the address of each letter, undoubtedly it is the members of the Church who are being addressed.
(iv) Both Greeks and Jews believed that every earthly thing had a heavenly counterpart; and it is suggested that the angel is the ideal of the Church; and that the Churches are being addressed as their ideal selves to bring them back to the right way.
None of the explanations is fully satisfactory; but maybe the last is the best, for there is no doubt that in the letters the angel and the Church are one and the same.
We now go on to study the letters to the Seven Churches. In each case we shall give an outline of the history and the contemporary background of the city in which the Church was; and once we have studied the general background we will go on to study each letter in detail.
THE LETTER TO EPHESUS
Rev. 2:1-7
These things says he who holds the seven stars in his right hand and who walks in the midst of the seven golden lampstands. I know your works–I mean your toil and your steadfast endurance, and I know that you cannot bear evil men, and that you have put to the test those who call themselves apostles, and who are not, and have proved them liars. I know that you possess steadfast endurance. I know all that you have borne for my name’s sake and I know that you have not been worn out by your efforts. All the same I have this against you–that you have left your first love. Remember, then, whence you have fallen, and repent, and make your conduct such as it was at first. If you do not, I am coming to you, and I will remove your lampstand from its place, if you do not repent.
But you do possess this virtue–you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I too hate.
Let him who has an ear hear what the Spirit is saying to the Churches. I will give to him who overcomes to eat of the tree of life, which is in the Paradise of God. :elines
To the angel of the Church in Ephesus, write:
EPHESUS, FIRST AND GREATEST
When we know something of the history of Ephesus and learn something of its conditions at this time, it is easy to see why it comes first in the list of the seven Churches.
Pergamum was the official capital of the province of Asia but Ephesus was by far its greatest city. It claimed as its proud title “The first and the greatest metropolis of Asia.” A Roman writer called it Lumen Asiae, The Light of Asia. Let us see, then, the factors which gave it its preeminent greatness.
(i) In the time of John, Ephesus was the greatest harbour in Asia. All the roads of the Cayster Valley–the Cayster was the river on which it stood–converged upon it. But the roads came from further afield than that. It was at Ephesus that the road from the far-off Euphrates and Mesopotamia reached the Mediterranean, having come by way of Colossae and Laodicea. It was at Ephesus that the road from Galatia reached the sea, having come by way of Sardis. And from the south came up the road from the rich Maeander Valley. Strabo, the ancient geographer, called Ephesus “The Market of Asia,” and it may well be that in Rev. 18:12-13 John was setting down a description of the varied riches of the marketplace at Ephesus.
Ephesus was the Gateway of Asia. One of its distinctions, laid down by statute, was that when the Roman proconsul came to take up office as governor of Asia, he must disembark at Ephesus and enter his province there. For all the travellers and the trade, from the Cayster and the Maeander Valleys, from Galatia, from the Euphrates and from Mesopotamia, Ephesus was the highway to Rome. In later times, when the Christians were brought from Asia to be flung to the lions in the arena in Rome, Ignatius called Ephesus the Highway of the Martyrs.
Its position made Ephesus the wealthiest and the greatest city in all Asia and it has been aptly called the Vanity Fair of the ancient world.
(ii) Ephesus had certain important political distinctions. It was a free city. In the Roman Empire certain cities were free cities; they had had that honour conferred upon them because of their services to the Empire. A free city was within its own limits self-governing; and it was exempted from ever having Roman troops garrisoned there. It was an assize town. The Roman governors made periodical tours of their provinces; and at certain specially chosen cities and towns courts were held where the governor tried the most important cases. Further, Ephesus held yearly the most famous games in Asia which attracted people from all over the province.
(iii) Ephesus was the centre of the worship of Artemis or, as the King James Version calls her, Diana of the Ephesians. The Temple of Artemis was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. It was four hundred and twenty-five feet long by two hundred and twenty feet wide; it had one hundred and twenty columns, each sixty feet high and the gift of a king, and thirty-six of them were richly gilded and inlaid. Ancient temples consisted mostly of colonnades with only the centre portion roofed over. The centre portion of the Temple of Artemis was roofed over with cypress wood. The image of Artemis was one of the most sacred images in the ancient world. It was by no means beautiful but a squat, black, many-breasted figure; so ancient that none knew its origin. We have only to read Ac.19 to see how precious Artemis and her temple were to Ephesus. Ephesus had also famous temples to the godhead of the Roman Emperors, Claudius and Nero, and in after days was to add temples to Hadrian and Severus. In Ephesus pagan religion was at its strongest.
(iv) Ephesus was a notorious centre of pagan superstition. It was famous for the Ephesian Letters, amulets and charms which were supposed to be infallible remedies for sickness, to bring children to those who were childless and to ensure success in any undertaking; and people came from all over the world to buy them.
(v) The population of Ephesus was very mixed. Its citizens were divided into six tribes. One consisted of those who were descendants of the original natives of the country; one consisted of those who were direct descendants of the original colonists from Athens; three consisted of other Greeks; and one, it is probable, consisted of Jews. Besides being a centre of religion the Temple of Artemis was also a centre of crime and immorality. The Temple area possessed the right of asylum; any criminal was safe if he could reach it. The temple possessed hundreds of priestesses who were sacred prostitutes. All this combined to make Ephesus a notoriously evil place. Heraclitus, one of the most famous of ancient philosophers, was known as “the weeping philosopher.” His explanation of his tears was that no one could live in Ephesus without weeping at its immorality.
Such was Ephesus; a more unpromising soil for the sowing of the seed of Christianity can scarcely be imagined; and yet it was there that Christianity had some of its greatest triumphs. R. C. Trench writes: “Nowhere did the word of God find a kindlier soil, strike root more deeply or bear fairer fruits of faith and love.”
Paul stayed longer in Ephesus than in any other city (Ac.20:31). It was with Ephesus that Timothy was connected so that he is called its first bishop (1Tim.1:3). It is in Ephesus that we find Aquila, Priscilla and Apollos (Ac.18:19,24,26). Surely to no one was Paul ever more close than to the Ephesian elders, as his farewell address so beautifully shows (Ac.20:17-38). In later days John was the leading figure of Ephesus. Legend has it that he brought Mary the mother of Jesus to Ephesus and that she was buried there. When Ignatius of Antioch wrote to Ephesus, on his way to being martyred in Rome, he could write: “You were ever of one mind with the apostles in the power of Jesus Christ.”
There can be few places which better prove the conquering power of the Christian faith.
We may note one more thing. We have spoken of Ephesus as the greatest harbour of Asia. Today there is little left of Ephesus but ruins and it is no less than six miles from the sea. The coast is now “a harbourless line of sandy beach, unapproachable by a ship.” What was once the Gulf of Ephesus and the harbour is “a marsh dense with reeds.” It was ever a fight to keep the harbour of Ephesus open because of the silt which the Cayster brings down. The fight was lost and Ephesus vanished from the scene.
EPHESUS CHRIST AND HIS CHURCH
Rev. 2:1-7 (continued)
John begins the letter to Ephesus with two descriptions of the Risen Christ.
(i) He holds the seven stars in his right hand. That is to say, Christ holds the Churches in his hand. The word for to hold is kratein (GSN2902), and it is a strong word. It means that Christ has complete control over the Church. If the Church submits to that control, it will never go wrong; and more than that–our security lies in the fact that we are in the hand of Christ. “They shall never perish, and no one shall snatch them out of my hand” (Jn.10:28).
There is another point here which emerges only in the Greek. Kratein (GSN2902) normally takes a genitive case after it (the case which in English we express by the word of). Because, when we take hold of a thing, we seldom take hold of the whole of it but of part of it. When kratein (GSN2902) takes an accusative after it, it means that the whole object is gripped within the hand. Here, kratein (GSN2902) takes the accusative and that means that Christ clasps the whole of the seven stars in his hand. That means he holds the whole Church in his hand.
We do well to remember that. It is not only our Church which is in the hand of Christ; the whole Church is in his hand. When men put up barriers between Church and Church, they do what Christ never does.
(ii) He walks in the midst of the seven golden lampstands. The lampstands are the Churches. This expression tells us of Christ’s unwearied activity in the midst of his Churches. He is not confined to any one of them; wherever men are met to worship in his name, Christ is there.
John goes on to say certain things about the people of the Church of Ephesus.
(i) The Risen Christ praises their toil. The word is kopos (GSN2884) and it is a favourite New Testament word. Tryphena, Tryphosa and Persis all work hard int he Lord (Rom.16:12). The one thing that Paul claims is that he has worked harder than all (1Cor.15:10). He fears lest the Galatians slip back, and his labour is in vain (Gal.4:11). In each case–and there are many others–the word is either kopos (GSN2884) or the verb kopian (GSN2872). The special characteristic of these words is that they describe the kind of toil which takes everything of mind and sinew that a man can put into it. The Christian way is not for the man who fears to break sweat. The Christian is to be a toiler for Christ, and, even if physical toil is impossible, he can still toil in prayer.
(ii) The Risen Christ praises their steadfast endurance. Here is the word hupomone (GSN5281) which we have come upon again and again. It is not the grim patience which resignedly accepts things. It is the courageous gallantry which accepts suffering and hardship and turns them into grace and glory. It is often said that suffering colours life; but when we meet life with the hupomone (GSN5281) which Christ can give, the colour of life is never grey or black; it is always tinged with glory.
EPHESUS WHEN ORTHODOXY COSTS TOO MUCH
Rev. 2:1-7 (continued)
The Risen Christ goes on to praise the Christians of Ephesus because they have tested evil men and proved them liars.
Many an evil man came into the little congregations of the early church. Jesus had warned of the false prophets who are wolves in sheep’s clothing (Matt.7:15). In his farewell speech to the elders of this very Church at Ephesus, Paul had warned them that grievous wolves would invade the flock (Ac.20:29). These evil men were of many kinds. There were emissaries of the Jews who sought to entangle Christians again in the Law and followed Paul everywhere, trying to undo his work. There were those who tried to turn liberty into licence. There were professional beggars who preyed on the charity of the Christian congregations. The Church at Ephesus us was even more open to these itinerant menaces than any other Church. It was on the highway to Rome and to the east, and what R. C. Trench called “the whole rabble of evil-doers” was liable to descend upon it.
More than once the New Testament insists on the necessity of testing. John in his First Letter insists that the spirits who claim to come from God should be tested by their willingness to accept the Incarnation in all its fullness (1Jn.4:1-3). Paul insists that the Thessalonians should test all things and then hold on to that which is good (1Th.5:21). He insists that, when the prophets preach, they are subject to the testing of the other prophets (1Cor.14:29). A man cannot proclaim his private views in the assembly of God’s people; he must abide in the tradition of the Church. Jesus demanded the hardest test of all: “By their fruits you will know them” (Matt.7:15-20).
The Church at Ephesus had faithfully applied its tests and had weeded out all evil and misguided men; but the trouble was that something had got lost in the process. “I have this against you,” says the Risen Christ, “that you have lost your first love.” That phrase may have two meanings.
(a) It can mean that the first enthusiasm is gone. Jeremiah speaks of the devotion of Israel to God in the early days. God says to the nation that he remembers, “the devotion of your youth, your love as a bride” (Jer.2:2). There had been a honeymoon period, but the first flush of enthusiasm is past. It may be that the Risen Christ is saying that all the enthusiasm has gone out of the religion of the Church of Ephesus.
(b) Much more likely this means that the first fine rapture of love for the brotherhood is gone. In the first days the members of the Church at Ephesus had really loved each other; dissension had never reared its head; the heart was ready to kindle and the hand was ready to help. But something had gone wrong. It may well be that heresy-hunting had killed love, and orthodoxy had been achieved at the price of fellowship. When that happens, orthodoxy has cost too much. All the orthodoxy in the world will never take the place of love.
EPHESUS THE STEPS ON THE RETURN JOURNEY
Rev. 2:1-7 (continued)
In Ephesus something had gone wrong. The earnest toil was there; the gallant endurance was there; the unimpeachable orthodoxy was there; but the love was gone. So the Risen Christ makes his appeal and it is for the three steps of the return journey.
(i) First, he says “Remember”. He is not here speaking to someone who has never been inside the Church; he is speaking to those who are inside but have somehow lost the way. Memory can often be the first step on the way back. In the far country the prodigal son suddenly remembered his home (Lk.15:17).
O. Henry has a short story. There was a lad who had been brought up in a village; and in the village school he had sat beside a village girl, innocent and sweet. The lad found his way to the city; fell into bad company; became an expert pickpocket. He was on the street one day; he had just picked a pocket–a neat job, well done–and he was pleased with himself. Suddenly he saw the girl he used to sit beside at school. She was still the same–innocent and sweet. She did not see him; he took care of that. But suddenly he remembered what he had been, and realized what he was. He leaned his burning head against the cool iron of a lamp post. “God,” he said, “how I hate myself.” Memory was offering him the way back.
William Cowper wrote:
Where is the blessedness I knew When first I saw the Lord? Where is the soul-refreshing view Of Jesus and his word?
A verse like that may sound like nothing but tragedy and sorrow, but in fact it can be the first step of the way back; for the first step to amendment is to realize that something has gone wrong.
(ii) Second, he says “Repent”. When we discover that something has gone wrong, there is more than one possible reaction. We may feel that nothing can sustain its first lustre, and so accept what we consider inevitable. We may be filled with a feeling of resentment and blame life instead of facing ourselves. We may decide that the old thrill is to be found along forbidden pathways and try to find spice for life in sin. But the Risen Christ says, “Repent!” Repentance is the admission that the fault is ours and the feeling of sorrow for it. The prodigal’s reaction is: “I will arise and go to my father and say I have sinned.” (Lk.15:18). It is Saul’s cry of the heart when he realizes his folly: “I have played the fool and I have erred exceedingly” (1Sam.26:21). The hardest thing about repentance is the acceptance of personal responsibility for our failure, for once the responsibility is accepted the godly sorrow will surely follow.
(iii) Third, he says “Do”. The sorrow of repentance is meant to drive a man to two things. First, it is meant to drive him to fling himself on the grace of God, saying only: “God, be merciful to me a sinner.” Second, it is meant to drive him to action in order to bring forth fruits meet for repentance. No man has truly repented when he does the same things again. Fosdick said that the great truth of Christianity is that “no man need stay the way he is.” The proof of repentance is a changed life, a life changed by our effort in cooperation with the grace of God.
EPHESUS A RUINOUS HERESY
Rev. 2:1-7 (continued)
We meet here a heresy which the Risen Christ says that he hates and which he praises Ephesus for also hating. It may seem strange to attribute hatred to the Risen Christ; but two things are to be remembered. First, if we love anyone with passionate intensity, we will necessarily hate anything which threatens to ruin that person. Second, it is necessary to hate the sin but love the sinner.
The heretics we meet here are the Nicolaitans. They are only named, not defined. But we meet them again in Pergamum (Rev. 2:15). There they are very closely connected with those “who hold the teaching of Balaam,” and that in turn is connected with eating things offered to idols and with immorality (Rev. 2:14). We meet precisely the same problem at Thyatira where the wicked Jezebel is said to cause Christians to practise immorality and to eat things offered to idols.
We may first note that this danger is coming not from outside the Church but from inside. The claim of these heretics was that they were not destroying Christianity but presenting an improved version.
We may, second, note that the Nicolaitans and those who hold the teaching of Balaam were, in fact, one and the same. There is a play on words here. The name Nicolaos (GSN3532), the founder of the Nicolaitans, could be derived from two Greek words, nikan (GSN3528), to conquer, and laos (GSN2992), the people. Balaam (HSN1109) can be derived from two Hebrew words, bela, to conquer, and ha’am (HSN5971), the people. The two names, then, are the same and both can describe an evil teacher, who has won victory over the people and subjugated them to poisonous heresy.
In Num.25:1-5 we find a strange story in which the Israelites were seduced into illegal and sacrilegious unions with Moabite women and into the worship of Baal-peor, a seduction which, if it had not been sternly checked, might have ruined the religion of Israel and destroyed her as a nation. When we go on to Num.31:16 we find that seduction definitely attributed to the evil influence of Balaam. Balaam, then, in Hebrew history stood for an evil man who seduced the people into sin.
Let us now see what the early church historians have to tell us about these Nicolaitans. The majority identify them with the followers of Nicolaus, the proselyte of Antioch, who was one of the seven commonly called deacons (Ac.6:5). The idea is that Nicolaus went wrong and became a heretic. Irenaeus says of the Nicolaitans that “they lived lives of unrestrained indulgence” (Against Heresies, 1.26.3). Hippolytus says that he was one of the seven and that “he departed from correct doctrine, and was in the habit of inculcating indifference of food and life” (Refutation of Heresies, 7: 24). The Apostolic Constitutions (6: 8) describe the Nicolaitans as “shameless in uncleanness.” Clement of Alexandria says they “abandon themselves to pleasure like goats…leading a life of self-indulgence.” But he acquits Nicolaus of all blame and says that they perverted his saying “that the flesh must be abused.” Nicolaus meant that the body must be kept under; the heretics perverted it into meaning that the flesh can be used as shamelessly as a man wishes (The Miscellanies 2: 20). The Nicolaitans obviously taught loose living.
Let us see if we can identify their point of view and their teaching a little more definitely. The letter to Pergamum tells us that they seduced people into eating meat offered to idols and into immorality. When we turn to the decree of the Council of Jerusalem, we find that two of the conditions on which the Gentiles were to be admitted to the Church were that they were to abstain from things offered to idols and from immorality (Ac.15:28-29). These are the very conditions that the Nicolaitans broke.
They were almost certainly people who argued on these lines. (a) The Law is ended; therefore, there are no laws and we are entitled to do what we like. They confused Christian liberty with unchristian licence. They were the very kind of people whom Paul urged not to use their liberty as an opportunity for the flesh (Gal.5:13). (b) They probably argued that the body is evil anyway and that a man could do what he liked with it because it did not matter. (c) They probably argued that the Christian was so defended by grace that he could do anything and take no harm.
What lay behind this Nicolaitan perversion of the truth? The trouble was the necessary difference between the Christian and the pagan society in which he moved. The heathen had no hesitation in eating meat offered to idols and it was set before him at every social occasion. Could a Christian attend such a feast? The heathen had no idea of chastity and sexual relations outside marriage were accepted as completely normal and brought no shame. Must a Christian be so very different? The Nicolaitans were suggesting that there was no reason why a Christian should not come to terms with the world. Sir William Ramsay describes their teaching thus: “It was an attempt to effect a reasonable compromise with the established usages of the Graeco-Roman society and to retain as many as possible of those usages in the Christian system of life.” This teaching naturally affected most the upper classes because they had most to lose if they went all the way with the Christian demand. To John the Nicolaitans were worse than pagans, for they were the enemy within the gates.
The Nicolaitans were not prepared to be different; they were the most dangerous of all heretics from a practical point of view, for, if their teaching had been successful, the world would have changed Christianity and not Christianity the world.
EPHESUS THE GREAT REWARD
Rev. 2:1-7 (continued)
Finally, the Risen Christ makes his great promise to those who overcome. In this picture there are two very beautiful conceptions.
(i) There is the conception of the tree of life. This is part of the story of the Garden of Eden; in the midst of the garden there was the tree of life (Gen.2:9); it was the tree of which Adam was forbidden to eat (Gen.2:16-17); the tree whose fruit would make a man like God, and for eating which Adam and Eve were driven from Eden (Gen.3:22-24).
In later Jewish thought the tree came to stand for that which gave man life indeed. Wisdom is a tree of life to them that lay hold of her (Prov.3:18); the fruit of the righteous is a tree of life (Prov.11:30); hope fulfilled is a tree of life (Prov.13:12); a tongue is a tree of life (Prov.15:4).
To this is to be added another picture. Adam was first forbidden to eat of the tree of life and then he was barred from the garden so that the tree of life was lost for ever. But it was a regular Jewish conception that, when the Messiah came and the new age dawned, the tree of life would be in the midst of men and those who had been faithful would eat of it. The wise man said: “They that do the things that please thee shall receive the fruit of the tree of immortality” (Ecc.19:19). The rabbis had a picture of the tree of life in paradise. Its boughs overshadowed the whole of paradise; it had five hundred thousand fragrant perfumes and its fruit as many pleasant tastes, every one of them different. The idea was that what Adam had lost the Messiah would restore. To eat of the tree of life means to have all the joys that the faithful conquerors will have when Christ reigns supreme.
(ii) There is the conception of paradise, and the very sound of the word is lovely. It may be that we do not attach any very definite meaning to it but when we study history, we come upon some of the most adventurous thinking the world has ever known.
(a) Originally paradise was a Persian word. Xenophon wrote much about the Persians, and it was he who introduced the word into the Greek language. Originally it meant a pleasure garden. When Xenophon is describing the state in which the Persian king lived, he says that he takes care that, wherever he resides, there are paradises, full of all the good and beautiful things the soil can produce (Xenophon: Oeconomicus, 4: 13). Paradise is a lovely word to describe a thing of serene beauty.
(b) In the Septuagint paradise has two uses. First, it is regularly used for the Garden of Eden (Gen.2:8; Gen.3:1). Second, it is regularly used of any stately garden. When Isaiah speaks of a garden that has no water, it is the word paradise that is used (Isa.1:30). It is the word used when Jeremiah says: “Plant gardens and eat their produce” (Jer.29:5). It is the word used when the preacher says: “I made myself gardens and parks, and planted in them all kinds of fruit trees” (Ecc.2:5).
(iii) In early Christian thought the word has a special meaning. In Jewish thought after death the souls of all alike went to Hades, a grey and shadowy place. Early Christian thought conceived of an intermediate state between earth and heaven to which all men went and in which they remained until the final judgment. This place was conceived of by Tertullian as a vast cavern beneath the earth. But there was a special part in which the patriarchs and the prophets lived, and that was paradise. Philo describes it as a place “vexed by neither rain, nor snow, nor waves, but which the gentle Zephyr refreshes, breathing ever on it from the ocean.” As Tertullian saw it, only one kind of person went straight to this paradise, and that was the martyr. “The sole key,” he said, “to unlock paradise is your own life’s blood” (Tertullian: Concerning the Soul, 55).
Origen was one of the most adventurous thinkers the Church ever produced. He writes like this: “I think that all the saints (saints means Christians) who depart from this life will remain in some place situated on the earth, which holy Scripture calls paradise, as in some place of instruction and, so to speak, class-room or school of souls…. If anyone indeed be pure in heart and holy in mind, and more practised in perception, he will by making more rapid progress, quickly ascend to a place in the air, and reach the kingdom of heaven, through these mansions (stages) which the Greeks called spheres and which holy Scripture calls heavens…. He will in the end follow him who has passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, who said: `I will that where I am, these may be also.’ It is of this diversity of places he speaks, when he said: `In my Father’s house are many mansions'” (Origen: De Principilis, 2: 6).
The great early thinkers did not identify paradise and heaven; paradise was the intermediate stage, where the souls of the righteous were fitted to enter the presence of God. There is something very lovely here. Who has not felt that the leap from earth to heaven is too great for one step and that there is need of a gradual entering into the presence of God? May it have been of this that Charles Wesley was thinking when he sang:
Changed from glory into glory, Till in heaven we take our place, Till we cast our crowns before thee, Lost in wonder, love, and praise.
(iv) In the end in Christian thought paradise did not retain this idea of an intermediate state. It came to be equivalent to heaven. Our minds must turn to the words of Jesus to the dying and penitent thief: “Today you will be with me in paradise” (Lk.23:43). We are in the presence of mysteries about which it would be irreverent to dogmatize; but is there any better definition of paradise than to say that it is life for ever in the presence of our Lord?
When death these mortal eyes shall seal, And still this throbbing heart, The rending veil shall thee reveal All glorious as thou art–
and that is paradise.
THE LETTER TO SMYRNA
Rev. 2:8-11
And to the angel of the Church in Smyrna, write:
These things says the first and the last, who passed through death, and who came to life again.
I know the affliction and the poverty you endure–you are rich in spite of it–and I know the slanders which proceed from those who call themselves Jews and are not, but who are a synagogue of Satan. Have no fear of what you will have to go through Behold! the devil is going to throw some of you into prison in order to test you, and you will have a time of affliction which will last for ten days. Show yourselves loyal to death and I will give you the crown of life.
Let him who has an ear hear what the Spirit is saying to the Churches. He who overcomes will not be hurt by the second death.
SMYRNA THE CROWN OF ASIA
If it was inevitable that Ephesus should come first in the list of the seven Churches, it was but natural that Smyrna its great rival should come second. Of all the cities of Asia, Smyrna was the loveliest. Men called it the ornament of Asia, the crown of Asia and the flower of Asia. Lucian said that it was “the fairest of the cities of Ionia.” Aristides, who sang the praise of Smyrna with such splendour, spoke of “the grace which extends over every part like a rainbow…the brightness which pervades every part, and reaches up to the heavens, like the glitter of the bronze of armour in Homer.” It added to the charm of Smyrna that the west wind, the gentle zephyr ever blew through its streets. “The wind,” said Aristides, “blows through every part of the city, and makes it as fresh as a grove of trees.” The constant west wind had only one disadvantage. The sewage of the city drained into the gulf on which the city stood, and the west wind tended to blow it back upon the city rather than out to sea.
Smyrna was magnificently situated. It stood at the end of the road which crossed Lydia and Phrygia and travelled out to the far east, and it commanded the trade of the rich Hermus valley. Inevitably it was a great trading city. The city itself stood at the end of a long arm of the sea, which ended in a small land-locked harbour in the city’s heart. It was the safest of all harbours and the most convenient; and it had the added advantage that in time of war it could be easily closed by a chain across its mouth. It was fitting that on the coins of Smyrna there should be an inscription of a merchant ship ready for sea.
The setting of the city was equally beautiful. It began at the harbour; it traversed the narrow foothills; and then behind the city there rose the Pagos, a hill covered with temples and noble buildings which were spoken of as “The Crown of Smyrna.” A modern traveller describes it as “a queenly city crowned with towers.” Aristides likened Smyrna to a great statue with the feet in the sea; the middle parts in the plain and the foothills; and the head, crowned with great buildings, on the Pagos behind. He called it “a flower of beauty such as earth and sun had never showed to mankind.”
Its history had not a little to do with the beauty of Smyrna, for it was one of the very few planned cities in the world. It had been founded as a Greek colony as far back as 1000 B.c. Round about 600 B.C. disaster had befallen it, for then the Lydians had broken in from the east and destroyed it. For four hundred years Smyrna had been no city, but a collection of little villages; then Lysimachus had rebuilt it as a planned whole. It was built with great, straight, broad streets. Strabo speaks of the handsomeness of the streets, the excellence of the paving and the great rectangular blocks in which it was built. Most famous of all the streets was the Street of Gold, which began with the Temple of Zeus and ended with the Temple of Cybele. It ran cross-wise across the foothills of the Pagos; and, if the buildings which encircled the Pagos were the crown of Smyrna, the Street of Gold was the necklace round the hill.
Here we have an interesting and a significant thing which shows the care and knowledge with which John set down his letters from the Risen Christ. The Risen Christ is called, “He who died and came to life.” That was an echo of the experience of Smyrna itself.
Smyrna had other claims to greatness besides its city. It was a free city and it knew what loyalty was. Long before Rome was undisputed mistress of the world, Smyrna had cast in its lot with her, never to waver in its fidelity. Cicero called Smyrna “one of our most faithful and our most ancient allies.” In the campaign against Mithradates in the far east things had gone badly with Rome. And when the soldiers of Rome were suffering from hunger and cold, the people of Smyrna stripped off their own clothes to send to them.
Such was the reverence of Smyrna for Rome that as far back as 195 B.c. it was the first city in the world to erect a temple to the goddess Roma. And in A.D. 26, when the cities of Asia Minor were competing for the privilege of erecting a temple to the godhead of Tiberius, Smyrna was picked out for that honour, overcoming even Ephesus.
Not only was Smyrna great in trade, in beauty, in political and in religious eminence; it was also a city where culture flourished. Apollonius of Tyana had urged upon Smyrna the truth that only men can make a city great. He said: “Though Smyrna is the most beautiful of all cities under the sun, and makes the sea its own, and holds the fountains of the zephyr, yet it is a greater charm to wear a crown of men than a crown of porticoes and pictures and gold beyond the standard of mankind: for buildings are seen only in their own place, but men are seen everywhere and spoken about everywhere and make their city as vast as the range of countries which they can visit.” So Smyrna had a stadium in which famous games were yearly held; a magnificent public library; an Odeion which was the home of music; a theatre which was one of the largest in Asia Minor. In particular, Smyrna was one of the cities which laid claim to being the birthplace of Homer; it had a memorial building called the Homereion and put Homer’s head on its coinage. This was a disputed claim. Thomas Heywood, the seventeenth century poet, wrote the famous epigram:
Seven cities warr’d for Homer, being dead, Who, living, had no roof to shroud his head.
In such a city we would expect magnificent architecture, and in Smyrna there was a host of temples, to Cybele, to Zeus, to Apollo, to the Nemeseis, to Aphrodite, and to Asclepios.
Smyrna had rather more than its share of a characteristic which was common to all Greek cities. Mommsen said that Asia Minor was “a paradise of municipal vanity”, and Smyrna of all cities was noted for “its municipal rivalry and its local pride.” Everyone in it wished to exalt Smyrna and wished himself to climb to the top of the municipal tree. It is not without point that in the address of the letter the Risen Christ is called “the first and the last.” In comparison with his glory all earthly distinctions are worthless.
There remains one feature of Smyrna which stands out in the letter and which had serious consequences for the Christians there. The Jews were specially numerous and influential (Rev. 2:9). We find them, for instance, contributing 10,000 denarii for the beautification of the city. It is clear that in Smyrna they were specially hostile to the Christian Church, no doubt because it was from them and from those interested in Judaism that Christianity drew many of its converts. So, then, we may well end this study of Smyrna with the story of the most famous Christian martyrdom which happened there.
Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna, was martyred on Saturday, 23rd February, A.D. 155. It was the time of the public-games; the city was crowded; and the crowds were excited. Suddenly the shout went up: “Away with the atheists; let Polycarp be searched for.” No doubt Polycarp could have escaped; but already he had had a dream vision in which he saw the pillow under his head burning with fire and he had awakened to tell his disciples: “I must be burnt alive.”
His whereabouts was betrayed by a slave who collapsed under torture. They came to arrest him. He ordered that they should be given a meal and provided with all they wished, while he asked for himself the privilege of one last hour in prayer. Not even the police captain wished to see Polycarp die. On the brief journey to the city, he pled with the old man: “What harm is it to say, `Caesar is Lord’ and to offer sacrifice and be saved?” But Polycarp was adamant that for him only Jesus Christ was Lord.
When he entered the arena there came a voice from heaven saying: “Be strong, Polycarp, and play the man.” The proconsul gave him the choice of cursing the name of Christ and making sacrifice to Caesar or death. “Eighty and six years have I served him,” said Polycarp, “and he has done me no wrong. How can I blaspheme my King who saved me?” The proconsul threatened him with burning, and Polycarp replied: “You threaten me with the fire that burns for a time, and is quickly quenched, for you do not know the fire which awaits the wicked in the judgment to come and in everlasting punishment. Why are you waiting? Come, do what you will.”
So the crowds came flocking with faggots from the workshops and from the baths, and the Jews, even although they were breaking the Sabbath law by carrying such burdens, were foremost in bringing wood for the fire. They were going to bind him to the stake. “Leave me as I am,” he said, “for he who gives me power to endure the fire, will grant me to remain in the flames unmoved even without the security you will give by the nails.” So they left him loosely bound in the flames, and Polycarp prayed his great prayer:
O Lord God Almighty, Father of thy beloved and blessed Child, Jesus Christ, through whom we have received full knowledge of thee, God of angels and powers, and of all creation, and of the whole family of the righteous, who live before thee, I bless thee that thou hast granted unto me this day and hour, that I may share, among the number of the martyrs, in the cup of thy Christ, for the resurrection to eternal life, both of soul and body in the immortality of the Holy Spirit. And may I today be received among them before thee, as a rich and acceptable sacrifice, as thou, the God without falsehood and of truth, hast prepared beforehand and shown forth and fulfilled. For this reason I also praise thee for all things. I bless thee, I glorify thee through the eternal and heavenly High Priest, Jesus Christ, thy beloved Child, through whom be glory to thee with him and the Holy Spirit, both now and for the ages that are to come. Amen.
So much is plain fact, but then the story drifts into legend, for it goes on to tell that the flames made a kind of tent around Polycarp and left him untouched. At length the executioner stabbed him to death to achieve what the flames could not do. “And when he did this there came out a dove, and much blood, so that the fire was quenched, and all the crowd marvelled that there was such a difference between the unbelievers and the elect.”
What is sure is that Polycarp died, a martyr for the faith.
It can have been no easy engagement to be a Christian at Smyrna, and yet the letter to Smyrna is one of the two in which there is undiluted praise.
SMYRNA UNDER TRIAL
Rev. 2:8-11 (continued)
The Church of Smyrna was in trouble and further trial was imminent.
There are three things that the letter says about this trial.
(i) It is thlipsis (GSN2347), affliction. Thlipsis originally meant crushing beneath a weight. The pressure of events is on the Church at Smyrna.
(ii) It is ptocheia (GSN4432), poverty. In the New Testament poverty and Christianity are closely connected. “Blessed are you poor,” said Jesus (Lk.6:20). Paul described the Christians at Corinth as being poor yet making many rich (2Cor.6:10). James speaks of God choosing the poor in this world to be rich in faith (Jas.2:5).
In Greek there are two words for poverty. Penia (compare GSN3993) describes the state of the man who is not wealthy and who, as the Greeks defined it, must satisfy his needs with his own hands. Ptocheia (GSN4432) describes complete destitution. It has been put this way–penia describes the state of the man who has nothing superfluous; ptocheia (GSN4432) describes the state of the man who has nothing at all.
The poverty of the Christians was due to two things. It was due to the fact that most of them belonged to the lower classes of society. The gulf between the top and the bottom of the social scale was very wide. We know, for instance, that in Rome the poorer classes literally starved because contrary winds delayed the corn ships from Alexandria and the corn dole could not be distributed.
There was another reason for the poverty of the Christians. Sometimes they suffered from the spoiling of their goods (Heb.10:4). There were times when the heathen mob would suddenly attack the Christians and wreck their homes Life was not easy for a Christian in Smyrna or anywhere else in the ancient world.
(iii) There is imprisonment. John forecasts an imprisonment of ten days. That is not to be taken literally. Ten days was an expression for a short time which was soon to come to an end. So this prophecy is at once a warning and a promise. Imprisonment is coming, but the time of trouble, although sharp, will be short. Two things are to be noted.
First, this is exactly the way in which persecution came. To be a Christian was against the law, but persecution was not continuous. The Christians might be left in peace for a long time, but at any moment a governor might acquire a fit of administrative energy or the mob might set up a shout to find the Christians–and then the storm burst. The terror of being a Christian was the uncertainty.
Second, imprisonment does not sound so bad to us. We might say: “Imprisonment? Well, that is not so bad as death anyway.” But in the ancient world imprisonment was merely the prelude to death. A man was only a prisoner until he was led out to die.
SMYRNA THE CAUSE OF THE TROUBLE
Rev. 2:8-11 (continued)
The instigators of persecution were the Jews. Again and again in Acts we see how the Jews stirred up the authorities against the Christian preachers. It happened at Antioch (Ac.13:50); at Iconium (Ac.14:2,5); at Lystra (Ac.14:19); at Thessalonica (Ac.17:5).
The story of what happened at Antioch shows us how the Jews often succeeded in moving the authorities to take action against the Christians (Ac.13:50). Round the Jewish synagogues gathered many “god-fearers.” These were Gentiles who were not prepared to go the whole way and to become proselytes but they were attracted by the preaching of one God instead of many gods, and were attracted specially by the purity of the Jewish ethic as compared with the heathen life. In particular women were attracted to Judaism for these reasons. Often these women were of high station, the wives of magistrates and governors, and it was through them that the Jews got at the authorities and moved them to persecute.
John calls the Jews the synagogue of Satan. He is taking a favourite expression of the Jews and reversing it. When the people of Israel met together they loved to call themselves “the assembly of the Lord” (Num.16:3; Num.20:4; Num.31:16). Synagogue is in Greek sunagoge (GSN4864), which literally means a coming together, an assembly, a congregation. It is as if John said: “You call yourselves the assembly of God when, in fact, you are the assembly of the devil.” Once John Wesley said of certain men who were presenting a crude Picture of God: “Your God is my devil.” It is a terrible thing when religion becomes the means of evil things. It has happened. In the days of the French Revolution, Madame Roland uttered her famous cry: “Liberty, what crimes are committed in your name!” There have been tragic times when the same could be said about religion.
Six slanders were regularly levelled against the Christians.
(i) On the basis of the words of the Sacrament–this is my body, and this is my blood–the story went about that the Christians were cannibals.
(ii) Because the Christians called their common meal the Agape (GSN0026), the Love Feast, it was said that their gatherings were orgies of lust.
(iii) Because Christianity did, in fact, often split families, when some members became Christians and some did not, the Christians were accused of “tampering with family relationships.”
(iv) The heathen accused the Christians of atheism because they could not understand a worship which had no images of the gods such as they themselves had.
(v) The Christians were accused of being politically disloyal because they would not say: “Caesar is Lord.”
(vi) The Christians were accused of being incendiaries because they foretold the end of the world in flames.
It was not difficult for maliciously-minded people to disseminate dangerous slanders about the Christian Church.
SMYRNA CHRIST’S CLAIM AND CHRIST’S DEMAND
Rev. 2:8-11 (continued)
We have seen that the Church at Smyrna was battling with difficulties and threatened with worse to come. In view of that the letter to Smyrna opens with two resounding titles of Christ which tell what he can offer to a man confronted with such a situation as faced the Christians at Smyrna.
(i) Christ is the first and the last. In the old Testament that is a title belonging to God. “I am the first,” Isaiah heard God say, “and I am the last” (Isa.44:6; Isa.48:12). This title has two aspects. To the Christian it is a tremendous promise. Come what will, from the first day of life to the last the Risen Christ is with us. Of whom then shall we be afraid?
But to the pagans of Smyrna it was a warning. They loved their city calling it the first in Asia, and they themselves were all striving every man to be one better than his neighbours. The Risen Christ said: “I am the first and the last.” Here is the death of human pride. Beside the glory of Christ all human titles are of no importance and all human claims become ridiculous. When Julian, the Roman Emperor, had failed in his attempt to banish Christianity and bring back the old gods, and when he had come to death in the attempt, he said: “To shoulder Christ from out the topmost niche was not for me.”
(ii) Christ is he who was dead and is alive again. The tenses of the verb are of the first importance. The Greek for “was” is genomenos (compare GSN1510), which means became. It describes what we might call a passing phase. Christ became dead; it was episode through which he passed. In the Greek the verb which the King James Version translates “is alive” is not a present tense but an aorist, which describes one action completed in the past. The right translation is “came to life again” (as in the Revised Standard Version), and the reference is to the event of the Resurrection. The Risen Christ is he who experienced death came to life again in the triumphant event of the Resurrection, and is alive for evermore. Here again there are two aspects.
(a) The Risen Christ is one who has experienced the worst that life could do to him. He had died in the agony of the Cross. No matter what happened to the Christians of Smyrna, Jesus Christ had been through it. Jesus Christ can help because he knows what life is like at its worst and has experienced even the bitterness of death.
(b) The Risen Christ has conquered the worst that life can do. He triumphed over pain and over death; and he offers us through himself the way to victorious living.
In this passage there is also a demand, and the demand is for loyalty, loyal even when death is the price to be paid. Loyalty was a quality of which the people of Smyrna knew something, for their city had flung in its lot with Rome, when Rome’s greatness was only a far off possibility, and had never wavered from in its allegiance, in fair weather and in foul. If all the other noble qualities of life were placed in the balance against it, loyalty would outweigh them all. It was R. L. Stevenson’s prayer that “in all the chances of fortune, and down to the gates of death” we should be “loyal and loving to one another.”
SMYRNA THE PROMISED REWARD
Rev. 2:8-11 (continued)
Jesus Christ will be in no man’s debt and loyalty to him brings its own reward. In this passage two rewards are mentioned.
(i) There is the crown of life. Again and again the crown of the Christian is mentioned in the New Testament. Here and in, Jas.1:12 it is the crown of life. Paul speaks of the crown of righteousness (2Tim.4:8), and of the crown of boasting (1Th.2:19). Peter speaks of the crown of glory (1Pet.5:4). Paul contrasts the immortal crown of the Christian with the fading crown of laurel which was the prize of the victor in the games (1Cor.9:25), and Peter speaks of the unfading crown of glory (1Pet.5:4).
“Of” in each of these phrases means “which consists of”. To win the crown of righteousness or glory or life is to be crowned with righteousness or glory or with life. But we must understand the idea behind this word crown (stephanos, GSN4735). In Greek there are two words for crown, diadema (GSN0000), which means the royal crown, and stephanos (GSN4735), which has usually something to do with joy and victory. It is not the royal crown which is being offered to the Christian; it is the crown of joy and victory. Stephanos (GSN4735) has many associations, and all of them contribute something to the riches of thought behind it.
(a) First to the mind comes the victor’s crown in the games. Smyrna had games which were famous all over Asia. As in the Olympic Games, the reward of the victorious athlete was the laurel crown. The Christian can win the crown of victory in the contest of life.
(b) When a man had faithfully performed the work of a magistrate, at the end of his term of office he was granted a crown. He who throughout life faithfully serves Christ and his fellow-men will receive his crown.
(c) The heathen world was in the habit of wearing crowns, chaplets of flowers, at banquets. At the end of the day, if the Christian is loyal, he will have the joy of sitting as a guest at the banquet of God.
(d) The heathen worshippers were in the habit of wearing crowns when they approached the temples of their gods. At the end of the day, if he has been faithful, the Christian will have the joy of entering into the nearer presence of God.
(e) Some scholars have seen in this crown a reference to the halo or the nimbus which is round the head of divine beings in pictures. If that is so, it means that the Christian, if he is faithful, will be crowned with the life which belongs to God himself. As John said: “We shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is” (1Jn.3:2).
In this life it may be that the Christian’s loyalty will bring him a crown of thorns, but in the life to come it will surely bring him the crown of glory.
(ii) Cyprian uses two great phrases to describe those who are faithful unto death. He describes them as “illustrious with the heraldry of a good name,” and he calls them “the white-robed cohort of the soldiers of Christ.” To the faithful another promise is made: they will not be hurt by the second death. The second death is a mysterious phrase which occurs nowhere in the New Testament outside the Revelation (Rev. 20:6,14; Rev. 21:8). The Rabbis talked of “the second death whereof the wicked die in the next world.” The phrase may have two origins.
(a) The Sadducees believed that after death there was absolutely nothing; the Epicureans held the same doctrine. This belief finds its place even in the Old Testament for that pessimistic book Ecclesiastes is the work of a Sadducee. “A living dog is better than a dead lion; for the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing” (Ecc.9:4-5). For the Sadducees and the Epicureans death was extinction. To the orthodox Jew this was too easy, for it meant that for the wise and for the fool the end was the same (Ecc.2:15, Ecc.16; Ecc.19:2). They, therefore, came to believe that there were, so to speak, two deaths–physical death which every man must undergo and after that a death which was the judgment of God.
(b) This is very closely connected with the ideas which we touched on when studying the word paradise (Rev. 2:7). We saw that many of the Jews and the early Christian thinkers believed that there was an intermediate state into which all men passed until the time of judgment. If that were so, then indeed there would be two deaths, the physical death which no man can escape and the spiritual death into which the wicked would enter after the final judgment.
Of such things it is not given to any man to speak with confidence but, when John spoke of the faithful being unharmed by the second death, he meant precisely the same as Paul when he said that nothing in life or in death, in time or in etemity can separate those who love him from Jesus Christ. Such a man is safe from all that life or death can do to him (Rom.8:38-39).
THE LETTER TO PERGAMUM
Rev. 2:12-17
And to the angel of the Church in Pergamum, write:
These things says he who has the sharp two-edged sword. I know where your home is. I know that it is where the throne of Satan is; and yet you hold fast to my name, and have not denied your loyalty to me, even in the days of Antipas, my faithful martyr, who was killed among you, where Satan has his home. But I have a few things against you. You have among you some people who hold the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling-block before the children of Israel, to eat meat offered to idols and to commit fornication. So you, too, have those who in the same way hold the teaching of the Nicolaitans. So, then, repent. If you do not, I am coming to you quickly, and I will go to war with them with the sword of my mouth.
Let him who has an ear hear what the Spirit is saying to the Churches. To him who overcomes I will give a share of the hidden manna; and I will give him a white stone, and written on the stone a new name, which no one but him who receives it knows.
PERGAMUM, THE SEAT OF SATAN
There is a difference in the name of this city in the different translations of the New Testament. The King James Version calls it Pergamos, while the English Revised Version, the Revised Standard Version and Moffatt call it Pergamum. Pergamos (GSN4010) is the feminine form of the name and Pergamum the neuter. In the ancient world it was known by both forms but Pergamum was much the commoner and the newer translations are right to prefer it.
Pergamum had a place all its own in Asia. It was not on any of the great roads, as Ephesus and Smyrna were, but historically it was the greatest city in Asia. Strabo called it an illustrious (epiphanes, GSN2016) city and Pliny called it “by far the most famous city in Asia” (longe clarissimum Asiae). The reason was that, by the time John was writing, Pergamum had been a capital city for almost four hundred years. Back in 282 B.C. it was made the capital of the Seleucid kingdom, one of the sections into which the empire of Alexander the Great was broken up. It remained the capital until 133 B.C. In that year Attalus the Third died and before he died he willed his dominions into the possession of Rome. Out of the dominions of Attalus, Rome formed the province of Asia and Pergamum still remained its capital.
Its geographical position made Pergamum even more impressive. It was built on a tall conical hill, which dominated the valley of the River Caicus, from the top of which the Mediterranean could be seen, fifteen miles away. Sir William Ramsay describes it: “Beyond all other cities in Asia Minor, it gives the traveller the impression of a royal city, the home of authority; the rocky hill on which it stands is so huge, and dominates the broad plain of the Caicus so proudly and so boldly.” History and honour gathered around Pergamum. Let us then set down its outstanding characteristics.
(i) Pergamum could never achieve the commercial greatness of Ephesus or of Smyrna but it was a centre of culture which surpassed both. It was famous for its library, which contained no fewer than 200,000 parchment rolls. It was second only to the unique library of Alexandria.
It is interesting to note that the word parchment is derived from Pergamum (GSN4010). In the ancient world parchment was he pergamene charta, the Pergamene sheet; and to this name attaches a story. For many centuries ancient rolls were written on papyrus, a substance made of the pith of a very large bulrush which grows beside the Nile. The pith was extracted, cut into strips, pressed into sheets and smoothed. There emerged a substance not unlike brown paper, and this was universally used for writing. In the third century B.C. a Pergamene king called Eumenes was very anxious to make the library of the city supreme. In order to do so he persuaded Aristophanes of Byzantium, the librarian at Alexandria, to agree to leave Alexandria and come to Pergamum. Ptolemy of Egypt, enraged at this seduction of his outstanding scholar, promptly imprisoned Aristophanes and by way of retaliation put an embargo on the export of papyrus to Pergamum. Faced with this situation, the scholars of Pergamum invented parchment or vellum, which is made of the skins of beasts, smoothed and polished. In fact parchment is a much superior vehicle for writing and, although it did not do so for many centuries, it in the end ousted papyrus altogether as writing material.
(ii) Pergamum was one of the great religious centres. In particular it had two famous shrines. In the letter of the Risen Christ Pergamum is said to be the place where “Satan’s seat” is. Obviously this must refer to something which the Christian Church regarded as particularly evil. Some have found the reference explained in Pergamum’s religious splendour.
(a) Pergamum regarded itself as the custodian of the Greek way of life and of the Greek worship. About 240 B.C. it had won a great victory against the savage invading Galatae or Gauls. In memory of that victory a great altar to Zeus was built in front of the Temple of Athene which stood eight hundred feet up on Pergamum’s conical hill. Forty feet high, it stood on a projecting ledge of rock and looked exactly like a great throne on the hillside. All day it smoked with the smoke of sacrifices offered to Zeus. Around its base was carved one of the greatest achievements in the world of sculpture, the frieze which showed the Battle of the Giants, in which the gods of Greece were victorious over the giants of the barbarians. It has been suggested that this great altar was Satan’s seat. But it is unlikely that a Christian writer would call that altar Satan’s seat, for even by this time the old Greek gods were anachronisms and it would have been a waste of the powder and shot of Christian invective to attack them.
(b) Pergamum was particularly connected with the worship of Asclepios, so much so that Asclepios was known as “the Pergamene god.” When Galen was mentioning favourite oaths, he said that people commonly swore by Artemis of Ephesus, or Apollo of Delphi, or Asclepios of Pergamum. Asclepios was the god of healing and his temples were the nearest approach to hospitals in the ancient world. From all over the world people flocked to Pergamum for relief for their sicknesses. R. H. Charles has called Pergamum “the Lourdes of the ancient world.” The task of healing was partly the work of the priests; partly the work of doctors–Galen, second only to Hippocrates in the medical history of the ancient world, was born in Pergamum; and partly the work of Asclepios himself. Was there anything in that worship to move the Christians to call the Temple of Asclepios Satan’s seat? There may have been two things.
First, the commonest and most famous title for Asclepios was Asclepios Soter (GSN4990), Asclepios the Saviour. It might well be that the Christians felt a shudder of horror that the name Saviour should be given to anyone other than Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the world.
Second, the emblem of Asclepios was the serpent, which still appears on the cap badge of the Royal Army Medical Corps. Many of the coins of Pergamum have Asclepios’ serpent as part of their design. It might well be that Jew or Christian might regard a religion which took the serpent as its emblem as a Satanic cult. Again this explanation seems unlikely. As has been pointed out, the Christians would regard the place where men went to be healed–and often were–with pity rather than with indignation. The worship of Asclepios surely would not give adequate ground for calling Pergamum Satan’s seat.
It seems then that we must look elsewhere for the explanation of this phrase.
(iii) Pergamum was the administrative centre of Asia. That meant that it was the centre of Caesar worship for the province. We have already described Caesar worship and the dire dilemma in which it placed the Christian.
It was organized with a provincial centre and an administration like that of a presbytery or diocese. The point here is that Pergamum was the centre of that worship for the province of Asia. Undoubtedly that is why Pergamum was Satan’s seat; it was the place where men were required on pain of death to take the name of Lord and give it to Caesar instead of to Christ; and to a Christian there could be nothing more Satanic than that.
And here is the explanation of the beginning of the letter to Pergamum. The Risen Christ is called he who has the sharp two-edged sword. Roman governors were divided into two classes–those who had the ius gladii, the right of the sword, and those who had not. Those who had the right of the sword had the power of life and death; on their word a man could be executed on the spot. Humanly speaking the proconsul, who had his headquarters at Pergamum, had the ius gladii, the right of the sword, and at any moment he might use it against any Christian; but the letter bids the Christian not to forget that the last word is still with the Risen Christ, who has the sharp two-edged sword. The power of Rome might be satanically powerful; the power of the Risen Lord is greater yet.
PERGAMUM, AN ENGAGEMENT VERY DIFFICULT
Rev. 2:12-17 (continued)
To be a Christian in Pergamum was to face what Cromwell would have called “an engagement very difficult.”
We have already seen what a concentration of pagan religion had its centre in Pergamum. There was the worship of Athene and Zeus, with its magnificent altar dominating the city; there was the worship of Asclepios, bringing sick people from far and near; and above all there were the demands of Caesar worship, hanging for ever like a poised sword above the heads of the Christians.
So the Risen Christ says to the Christians of Pergamum: “I know where you stay.” The word for to stay is here katoikein (GSN2730); and it means to have one’s permanent residence in a place. It is a very unusual word to use of Christians in the world. Usually the word used of them is paroikein (GSN3939), which means to be a sojourner. Peter writes his letter to the sojourners throughout the provinces of Asia Minor. But here the matter is being regarded from another point of view. The Christians of Pergamum have their permanent residence, so far as this world is concerned, in Pergamum; and Pergamum is the place where Satan’s rule is strongest.
Here is something very important. The principle of the Christian life is not escape, but conquest. We may feel it would be very much easier to be a Christian in some other place and in some other circumstances but the duty of the Christian is to witness for Christ where life has set him. We once heard of a girl who was converted in an evangelistic campaign. A reporter on a secular newspaper, her first step after her conversion was to get a new job on a small Christian newspaper where she was constantly in the society of professing Christians. It was strange that the first thing that her conversion did was to make her run away. The more difficult it is to be a Christian in any set of circumstances. the greater the obligation to remain within these circumstances. If in the early days Christians had run away every time they were confronted with a difficult engagement, there would have been no chance of a world for Christ.
The Christians at Pergamum proved that it was perfectly possible to be a Christian under such circumstances. Even when martyrdom was in the air they did not flinch. Of Antipas we know nothing; there is a late legend in Tertullian that he met his death by being slowly roasted to death within a brazen bull. But there is a point in the Greek impossible to reproduce in English which is intensely suggestive. The Risen Christ calls Antipas my faithful martus (GSN3144). We have translated that “martyr”; but martus (GSN3144) is the normal Greek word for witness. In the early church to be a martyr and to be a witness were one and the same thing. Witness meant so often martyrdom. Here is a rebuke to us. So many are prepared to demonstrate their Christianity in Christian circles but are equally prepared to play it down in circles where Christianity is met with opposition.
We must note another thing. The Risen Christ calls Antipas my faithful martus (GSN3144) and so gives him nothing less than his own title. In Rev. 1:5 and Rev. 3:14 Christ himself is called the faithful martus (GSN3144); to those who are true to him he gives nothing less than his own name.
PERGAMUM, THE DOOM OF ERROR
Rev. 2:12-17 (continued)
In spite of the fidelity of the Church at Pergamum there is error. There are those who hold the teaching of Balaam and the doctrine of the Nicolaitans. We have already discussed these people in connection with Ephesus and we meet them again when we come to study the letter of Thyatira. They sought to persuade Christians that there was nothing wrong with a prudent conformity to the world’s standards.
The man who is not prepared to be different need not start on the Christian way at all. The commonest word for the Christian in the New Testament is hagios (GSN0040) whose basic meaning is different or separate. The Temple is hagios (GSN0039) because it is different from other buildings; the Sabbath day is hagios (GSN0040) because it is different from other days; God is supremely hagios (GSN0040) because he is totally different from men; and the Christian is hagios (GSN0040) because he is different from other men.
We must be clear what this difference means, for there is a paradox in it. It is Paul’s summons to the Corinthians that they should be different from the world. “Come out from among them” (2Cor.6:17). This difference from the world does not involve separation from it nor hatred for it. Paul says in writing to the very same Church: “I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some” (1Cor.9:22). It was Paul’s claim that he could get alongside all men; but–and here is the point–his getting alongside them was that he might save some. It was not a question of bringing Christianity down to their level; it was a question of bringing them up. The fault of the Nicolaitans was that they were following a policy of compromise solely to save themselves from trouble.
It is the word of the Risen Christ that he will make war with them. We must note that he did not say: “I will go to war with you”; he said: “I will go to war with them.” His wrath was not directed against the whole Church but against those who were seducing her; for those who were led astray, he had nothing but pity.
It is the threat of the Risen Christ that he will make war against them with the sword of his mouth. The Christ of the sword is a startling idea. Thinking of past conquerors and comparing them with Jesus Christ, the poet wrote:
Then all these vanished from the scene, Like flickering shadows on a glass; And conquering down the centuries came The swordless Christ upon an ass.
What then is the sword of Christ? The writer to the Hebrews speaks of the word of God which is sharper than any two-edged sword (Heb.4:12). Paul speaks of “the sword of the Spirit which is the word of God” (Eph.6:17). The sword of Christ is the word of Christ.
In the word of Christ there is conviction of sin; in it a man is confronted with the truth and thereby with his own failure to obey it. In the word of Christ there is invitation to God; it convicts a man of sin and then invites him back to the love of God. In the word of Christ there is assurance of salvation; it convicts a man of sin, it leads him to the Cross, and it assures him that there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved (Ac.4:12). The conquest of Christ is his power to win men to the love of God.
PERGAMUM, THE BREAD OF HEAVEN
Rev. 2:12-17 (continued)
In this letter the Risen Christ promises two things to the man who overcomes; the first is a share of the hidden manna to eat. Here is a Jewish conception which has two aspects.
(i) When the children of Israel had no food in the desert God gave them manna to eat (Exo.16:11-15). When the need of the manna passed, the memory did not A pot of the manna was put into the ark and laid up before God in the Holy of Holies in the tabernacle and in the Temple (Exo.16:33-34; Heb.9:4). Early in the sixth century B.c. the Temple which Solomon had built was destroyed; and the rabbis had a legend that, when that happened, Jeremiah hid away the pot of manna in a cleft in Mount Sinai and that, when the Messiah came, he would return and the pot of manna would be discovered again. To a Jew “to eat of the hidden manna” meant to enjoy the blessings of the Messianic age. TO a Christian it meant to enter into the blessedness of the new world which would emerge when the Kingdom came.
(ii) There may be a wider and more general meaning. Of the manna it is said: “This is the bread which the Lord has given you to eat” (Exo.16:15). The manna is called “grain of heaven” (Ps.78:24); and it is said to be the “bread of the angels,” (Ps.78:25). Here the manna may mean heavenly food. In that case John would be saying: “In this world you cannot share with the heathen in their feasts because you cannot sit down to meat which is part of a sacrifice that has been offered to an idol. You may think that you are being called upon to give up much but the day will come when you will feast in heaven upon heavenly food.” If that is so, the Risen Christ is saying that a man must abstain from the seductions of earth if he wishes to enjoy the blessings of heaven.
(iii) There is one possible further interpretation of this. Some have suggested that the hidden manna is the bread of God given to the Christian at the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. John tells us that when the Jews said to him that their fathers had eaten manna in the wilderness, so receiving bread, and Jesus said “I am the bread of life” (Jn.6:31-35). If the hidden manna and the bread of life are the same, the hidden manna is not only the bread of the sacrament but stands for nothing less than Christ, the bread of life; and this is a promise that to him who is faithful he will give himself.
PERGAMUM THE WHITE STONE AND THE NEW NAME
Rev. 2:12-17 (continued)
The final promise of Christ to the faithful in Pergamum is that he will give them the white stone with the new name on it. This is a passage of which there are almost endless interpretations. In the ancient world a white stone might stand for many things.
(i) There was a Rabbinic legend that precious stones fell from heaven along with the manna. The white stone would then simply stand for the precious gifts of God to his people.
(ii) In the ancient world coloured stones were used as counters for working out calculations. This would mean that the Christian is counted among the number of the faithful.
(iii) In the ancient law courts white and black stones were used for registering the verdict of juries, black for condemnation, white for acquittal. This would mean that the Christian is acquitted in the sight of God because of the work of Jesus Christ.
(iv) In the ancient world objects called tesserae were much used. A tessera was a little tablet made of wood or metal or stone; it had writing on it; and, generally speaking, the possession of a tessera conferred some kind of privilege upon a man. Three of these tesserae add something to the picture.
(a) In Rome the great houses had their clients, dependents who every morning received from their patron food and money for the day. They were often given a tessera by which they identified themselves as having the right to the free gifts. This would mean that the Christian has the right to the free gifts for life which Christ can give.
(b) To win a victory at the games was one of the greatest honours the ancient world could give. Outstanding victors were given, by the master of the games, a tessera which in the days to come conferred upon them the right of free entry to all public spectacles. This would mean that the Christian is the victorious athlete of Christ who is a sharer in the glory of his Lord.
(c) In Rome a great gladiator was the admired hero of all. Often a gladiator had to fight on until he was killed in combat. But if he had had a specially illustrious career, when he grew old, he was allowed to retire in honour. Such men were given a tessera with the letters “SP” on it. “SP” stands for the Latin word spectatus, which means a man whose valour has been proved beyond a doubt. This would mean that the Christian is the gladiator of Christ and that, when he has proved his valour in the battle of life, he is allowed to enter into the rest which Christ gives with honour.
(v) In the ancient world a specially happy day was called a white day. Plutarch tells that when Pericles was besieging Samos he knew that the siege would be long; he did not wish his army to grow weary; so he divided it into eight parts; every day the eight companies drew lots; one was a white bean; and the company which drew the white bean was exempt from duty for the day and could enjoy itself as it wished. So it was that a happy day came to be called a white day (Plutarch: Life of Pericles 64). Pliny in one of his letters tells a friend that that day he had had the joy of hearing in the law courts two magnificent young pleaders in whose hands the future of Roman oratory was safe; and, he says, that experience made that day one marked candidissimo calculo, with the whitest of stones (Pliny: Letters 6: 11). It was said that the Thracians and the Scythians kept in their homes an urn into which for every happy day they threw a white stone and for every unhappy day a black stone; at the end of their lives the stones were counted, and as the white or the black preponderated, a man was said to have had a wretched or a happy life. This would mean that through Jesus Christ the Christian can have the joy that no man takes from him (Jn.16:22).
(vi) Along this line there is another and most likely interpretation. One of the commonest of all customs in the ancient world was to carry an amulet or charm. It might be made of a precious metal or a precious stone but often it was nothing more than a pebble. On the pebble there was a sacred name; to know a god’s name was to have a certain power over him, to be able to summon him to one’s aid in time of difficulty and to have mastery over the demons. Such an amulet was thought to be doubly effective, if no one other than the owner knew the name that was inscribed upon it. Most likely what John is saying is: “Your heathen friends–and you did the same in your heathen days–carry amulets with superstitious inscriptions on them and they think they will keep them safe. You need nothing like that; you are safe in life and in death because you know the name of the only true God.”
PERGAMUM, RENAMED BY GOD
Rev. 2:12-17 (continued)
It is just possible that we ought to look for the meaning of the new name and the white stone in another direction altogether.
The words white and new are characteristic of the Revelation. R. H. Charles has said that in the Revelation “white is the colour and livery of heaven.” The word used does not describe a dull, flat whiteness but one which glistens like snow in the winter sun. So in the Revelation we find white garments (Rev. 3:5); white robes (Rev. 7:9); white linen (Rev. 19:8,14); and the great white throne of God himself (Rev. 20:11). White, then, is heaven’s colour.
In Greek there are two words for “new.” There is neos (GSN3501), which means new in point of time. A thing can be neos (GSN3501), and yet exactly like any number of things. On the other hand there is kainos (GSN2537), which is new not only in point of time but also in point of quality; nothing like it has ever been made before. So in the Revelation there is the new Jerusalem (Rev. 3:12); the new song (Rev. 5:9); the new heavens and the new earth (Rev. 21:1); and God makes all things new (Rev. 21:5). With this in mind two lines of thought have been suggested.
It has been suggested that the white stone is the man himself; that the Risen Christ is promising his faithful ones a new self, cleansed of all earthly stains and glistening with the purity of heaven.
As to the new name, one of the features of the Old Testament is the giving to a man of a new name to mark a new status. So Abram becomes Abraham when the great promise is made that he will be the father of many nations and when he, as it were, acquires a new status in the plan of God for men (Gen.17:5). So after the wrestling at Peniel, Jacob becomes Israel, which means the prince of God, because he had prevailed with God (Gen.32:28). Isaiah hears the promise of God to the nation of Israel: “The nations shall see your vindication, and all the kings your glory; and you shall be called by a new name which the mouth of the Lord will give” (Isa.62:2).
This custom of giving a new name to mark a new status was known in the heathen world as well. The name of the first of the Roman Emperors was Octavius; but when he became Emperor he was given the name Augustus to mark his new status.
A curious superstitious parallel to this comes from peasant life in Palestine. When a person was very ill and in danger of death, he was often given the name of someone who had lived a long and saintly life, as if this turned him into a new person over whom the illness might lose its power.
On this basis of interpretation, Christ promises a new status to those who are faithful to him.
This is attractive. It suggests that the white stone means that Jesus Christ gives to the man who is true to him a new self and that the new name means the new status of glory into which the man who has been true to Christ will enter when this life ends and when the next begins. It remains to say that, attractive as that interpretation is, the view which traces back the white stone and the new name to the use of amulets is more likely to be correct.
THE LETTER TO THYATIRA
Rev. 2:18-29
And to the angel of the Church in Thyatira write:
These things says the Son of God, who has eyes like a flame of fire and whose feet are like beaten brass.
I know your works–I mean your love and your loyalty and your service and your steadfast endurance; and I know that your last works are more than your first.
But I hold it against you that you make no effort to deal with the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and whose misleading teaching causes my servants to commit fornication and to eat meat offered to idols. I have given her a time within which to repent and she refuses to repent from her fornication. Behold, I am going to cast her into a bed and I am going to cast her paramours into great affliction, unless they repent from her deeds; and I will slay her children with death; and all the Churches will know that I am he who searches the inmost desires and thoughts of a man’s being; and I will give to each one of you what your works deserve.
To the rest of you in Thyatira, to all those who do not hold this teaching, to such as have not known the depths of Satan, as they call them, I say this–I am not going to put any other burden on you. All I say is, hold on to what you have until I come. I will give to him who overcomes, and who keeps my works to the end, authority over the Gentiles; and he will smite them with a rod of iron; like vessels of pottery they will be smashed; for this is the authority that I have received from my Father; and I will give him the morning star.
Let him who has an ear hear what the Spirit is saying to the Churches.
THYATIRA, THE PERIL OF COMPROMISE
The longest of the seven letters is written to the least important of the seven cities. None the less, the problem which faced Thyatira and the danger which threatened it were those which were universally involved in the position of the Christians in Asia.
Thyatira lies in the long valley connecting the valleys of the Hermus and the Caicus rivers through which the railway runs today; and it was its geographical position which gave it its importance.
(i) Thyatira lay on the road which connected Pergamum with Sardis and went on to Philadelphia and to Laodicea, linking up with both Smyrna and Byzantium. That was the road by which the imperial post travelled; and it was crowded with the commerce of Asia and the east. Therefore, first and foremost Thyatira was a great commercial town.
(ii) Strategically the importance of Thyatira was that it was the gateway to Pergamum, the capital of the province. The first we hear of Thyatira is that it is an armed garrison, manned by a company of Macedonian troops, placed there as an outpost to protect Pergamum. The difficulty was that Thyatira was not capable of any prolonged defence. It lay in an open valley. There was no height that could be fortified; and all that Thyatira could ever hope to do was to fight a delaying action until Pergamum could prepare to meet the invaders.
(iii) Thyatira had no special religious significance. It was not a centre of either Caesar or of Greek worship. Its local hero-god was called Tyrimnus and he appears on its coins on horseback armed with battle-axe and club. The only notable thing about Thyatira from the religious point of view was that it possessed a fortune-telling shrine, presided over by a female oracle called the Sambathe. Certainly no threat of persecution hung over the Thyatiran Church.
(iv) What, then, was the problem in Thyatira? We know less about Thyatira than about any other of the seven cities and are, therefore, seriously handicapped in trying to reconstruct the situation. The one thing we do know is that it was a great commercial centre, specially of the dyeing industry and of the trade in woollen goods. It was from Thyatira that Lydia, the seller of purple, came (Ac.16:14). From inscriptions discovered we learn that it had an extraordinary number of trade guilds. These were associations for mutual profit and pleasure of people employed in certain trades. There were guilds of workers in wool, leather, linen and bronze, makers of outer garments, dyers, potters, bakers and slave-dealers.
Here, we think, was the problem of the Church in Thyatira. To refuse to join one of these guilds would be much the same as to refuse to join a trade union today. It would mean to give up all prospect of commercial existence. Why should a Christian not join one of these guilds? They held common meals. These would very often be held in a temple and even if not, they would begin and end with a formal sacrifice to the gods, and the meat eaten would be meat which had already been offered to idols. Further, it often happened that these communal meals were occasions of drunken revelry and slack morality. Was it possible for a Christian to be part of such occasions?
Here was the problem at Thyatira; the threat came from inside the Church. There was a strong movement, led by the woman addressed as Jezebel, which pled for compromise with the world’s standards in the interests of business and commercial prosperity, maintaining, no doubt, that the Holy Spirit could preserve them from any harm. The answer of the Risen Christ is unequivocal. With such things the Christian must have nothing to do.
THYATIRA, THE STATE OF THE CHURCH IN THYATIRA
Rev. 2:18-29 (continued)
R. H. Charles points out that by far the longest of the seven letters is written to the most unimportant of the seven cities; but its problem was far from being unimportant.
Of all the seven letters this is the most enigmatic. Our trouble is that we have so little definite information about Thyatira and we are presented with a series of four questions–What was the situation of the Church in Thyatira? Who was Jezebel? What did she teach? What do the promises made to the Church at Thyatira mean?
(i) The letter opens with a description of the Risen Christ which has a threat in it. His eyes are like a flame of fire and his feet like burnished bronze. The description is taken from that of the angelic messenger in Dn.10:6: “His face was like the appearance of lightning, and his eyes like flaming torches, his arms and legs like the gleam of burnished bronze.” The flaming eyes must stand for two things, blazing anger against sin and the awful penetration of that gaze which strips the disguises away and sees into a man’s inmost heart. The brazen feet must stand for the immovable power of the Risen Christ. A message which begins like that will certainly be no soothing tranquillizer.
The letter goes on to terms of the highest praise. The love and loyalty and service and endurance of the Church at Thyatira are matters for congratulation. We must note how these great qualities go in pairs. Service is the outcome of love and patient endurance the product of loyalty.
Then comes the condemnation of the woman Jezebel and all her ways and teaching; and one can hardly avoid the conclusion that she had very considerable influence in the Church at Thyatira.
The necessary conclusion seems to be this. On the surface the Church at Thyatira was strong and flourishing. If a stranger went into it, he would be impressed with its abounding energy and its generous liberality and its apparent steadfastness. For all that, there was something essential missing.
Here is a warning. A church which is crowded with people and which is a hive of energy is not necessarily a real Church. It is possible for a Church to be crowded because its people come to be entertained instead of instructed, and to be soothed instead of confronted with the fact of sin and the offer of salvation; it maybe a highly successful Christian club rather than a real Christian congregation.
THYATIRA, THE SOURCE OF THE ERROR
Rev. 2:18-29 (continued)
(2) The source of the trouble in Thyatira centred round a woman whom the letter calls Jezebel. A variety of answers have been given to the question of her identity.
(i) We begin with an answer which is very interesting, although it is doubtful if it is possible. The King James Version calls her: “that woman Jezebel.” Moffatt translates “that Jezebel of a woman.” The Greek is: ten (GSN3588) gunaika (GSN1135) Iezabel (GSN2403). A few manuscripts have after gunaika (GSN1135) the word sou (GSN4675), which means “your.” The noun gune (GSN1135)–the nominative of the word of which gunaika (GSN1135) is the accusative form–not only means “woman” but also “wife”; and if with these manuscripts we read ten (GSN3588) gunaika GSN1135) sou (GSN4675) Iezabel (GSN2403), the phrase will mean: “your wife Jezebel.”
Early on we saw that the angel of the Church may be the bishop of the Church. If, then, the letter is addressed to the bishop of the Church and there is a reference to your wife Jezebel, it means that the cause of all the trouble is the bishop’s wife! That would be an interesting sidelight on the early Christian congregations and it would not be the last time that the wives of church officials were the sources of trouble in a congregation. But this interpretation must be rejected because the evidence for inserting sou (GSN4675) is not good enough.
(ii) One of the few claims to distinction which Thyatira possessed was an oracle called the Sambathe, a woman fortune-teller. The Greeks made great use of oracles. The oracle at Delphi was world famous and the expression a Delphic utterance has become proverbial. It may be that this oracle was a Jewess, for the Jews in the ancient world went in largely for this business of fortune telling. There are those who see in the Sambathe the evil influence which was threatening the Church at Thyatira; but this, too, must be rejected, for it is quite clear that Jezebel was a member of the Church and her influence was being exerted from within.
(iii) Some, on no grounds whatever, have identified Jezebel with Lydia, the seller of purple from Thyatira, whom Paul met and converted at Philippi. It is suggested that she came back to Thyatira and became an evil influence in the Church because of her wealth and her business interests. That theory is merely a slander on Lydia.
(iv) The only reasonable conclusion is that we have no idea who Jezebel was, although we can with certainty trace the kind of person that she was.
That she claimed to be a prophetess is not so very surprising. It is true that Paul would have nothing to do with women speaking in the Church (1Cor.14:34). But it is also true that in both the Old and the New Testaments there are prophetesses. In the Old Testament there are Miriam (Exo.15:20), Deborah (Judg.4:4) and Huldah (2Kgs.22:14); and in the New Testament there are Anna (Lk.2:36), and the four virgin daughters of Philip (Ac.21:9).
This woman is called Jezebel and, therefore, her character must be discovered in the original Jezebel than whom few women have acquired such a reputation for wickedness. She was the daughter of Ethbaal, king of Sidon, and the wife of Ahab (1Kgs.16:31). When she came from Sidon, she brought her own gods and caused Ahab and his people to worship Baal. It was not that she would have wished to banish the worship of Jehovah, if the prophets of Jehovah would have accepted Baal in addition to Jehovah. She slew the prophets of the Lord and at her own table supported four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal (1Kgs.18:13,19). She was Ahab’s evil genius; in particular, she was responsible for the murder of Naboth in order that Ahab might enter into the possession of the ground where his vineyard stood (1Kgs.21). And she left behind her a name for “harlotries and sorceries” (2Kgs.9:22).
All this must mean that Jezebel of Thyatira was an evil influence on the life and worship of the Christian Church. It must be clearly understood that she had no wish to destroy the Church; but she wished to bring into it new ways which were, in fact, destructive of the faith.
THYATIRA, THE TEACHING OF JEZEBEL (1)
Rev. 2:18-29 (continued)
(3) This Jezebel of a woman is accused of teaching two things–eating meat offered to idols and committing fornication.
(a) One of the great problems of the Christian Church was that of meat offered to idols and it was one which met the Christian every day. When a man made a sacrifice in a Greek temple, very little of the meat was burned on the altar. Sometimes all that was actually burned was a few hairs cut from the forehead of the animal. The priests received a share of the meat of the animal as their perquisite; and the worshipper received the rest. With it he did one of two things. He might hold a feast of his friends within the temple precincts. A common form of invitation to a festal meal ran: “I invite you to dine with me at the table of our Lord Serapis.” Or he might take the meat home and hold a feast in his own house. Here was the Christian problem. Could a Christian, in a temple or anywhere else, eat meat which had been consecrated to idols? Paul discusses this very problem in 1Cor.8-10.
The problem was complicated by the fact that even the meat in butchers’ shops might well have been offered to idols previously. The priests in the temples could not possibly consume all the meat which fell to them and therefore, sold much of their share to the butchers’ shops. Such meat was the best meat. What was a Christian going to do about that?
The Church had no doubt as to where a Christian’s duty lay. Abstention from things offered to idols was one of the conditions on which the Gentiles received the right of entry into the Christian Church (Ac.15:29).
The prohibition of meat offered to idols had one far-reaching consequence. It came near to cutting off a Christian from all social fellowship with non-Christians; there were few social occasions, and almost no banquets, which he could share with the heathen world.
This had another consequence which, as we have already said, we think was at the back of the situation in Thyatira. It meant that the Christian could not join any trade guild for all the guilds had a common meal as a central part of their practice which might well be held in a heathen temple and would largely consist of meat offered to idols. His abstention from guild membership was equivalent to commercial suicide.
Here is where Jezebel came in. She urged upon the Christians that there was no need to cut themselves off from society or abstain from the guilds. When she did so, she was not proceeding on grounds of principle but was simply trying to protect her business interests. Jezebel is to be counted amongst those to whom the claims of commercial success speak more loudly than the claims of Christ.
THYATIRA, THE TEACHING OF JEZEBEL (2)
Rev. 2:18-29 (continued)
(b) The other part of Jezebel’s teaching is not so clear. She is said to teach the people to commit fornication (Rev. 2:20); she is urged to repent from her fornication (Rev. 2:21); and her paramours and her children are threatened along with her (Rev. 2:22-23). Is this reference to be taken literally or in the metaphorical sense which is so common in Scripture to sexual immorality or to spiritual infidelity?
(i) There is no doubt that in Scripture infidelity to God is expressed in terms of fornication and adultery. Israel is the Bride of God (Isa.54:5; Jer.3:20); and in the New Testament the Church is the Bride of Christ (2Cor.11:1-2; Eph.5:24-28). Again and again in the Old Testament the Israelites are, therefore, said to “play the harlot after strange gods” (Exo.34:15-16; Deut.31:16; Hos.9:1). In the New Testament the age which is unfaithful to Jesus Christ is an “evil and adulterous generation” (Matt.12:39; Matt.16:4; Mk.8:38). Is the fornication which Jezebel’s teaching inculcated a spiritual infidelity to Jesus Christ? If that is the meaning, her paramours (Rev. 2:22) will be those who are flirting with this kind of teaching and her children (Rev. 2:23) those who have accepted it.
It may well be that the teaching of Jezebel was that the Christians did not need to be so exclusive in their worship of Jesus Christ and, above all, that there was no need for them to refuse to say, “Caesar is Lord,” and to burn their pinch of incense. If the Christian Church as a whole had accepted that form of teaching, the inevitable consequence would have been that Christianity would have become nothing more than still another of those religions of which the Roman Empire was so full. The claim of Christianity is not that Jesus Christ is one of the Saviours nor even the chief of Saviours; but that he is the only Saviour.
(ii) One thing in the letter militates against that view. We read that the followers of Jezebel claimed to know the depths of Satan (Rev. 2:24). Some scholars think that this is the Risen Christ’s contemptuous description of the false teaching. The real Christian knows what Paul called the deep things of God (1Cor.2:10); what Jezebel and her company know is the deep things of Satan. But that will not do, for the letter unmistakably speaks of “the deep things of Satan, as they call them.” This is quite certainly a reference to a kind of belief that was not uncommon among the heretics. Some of them held that it was a plain duty to experience every kind of sin. The real achievement was to allow the body to wallow in sin and to keep the soul unaffected. Those who knew the deep things of Satan were those who had deliberately plumbed evil to its depths. Jezebel may well have been teaching that it was a duty to sin.
It seems to us that in this case all the threads tie up and there is no necessity to make a choice between views. All the probability is that Jezebel was teaching that a Christian ought to accommodate himself to the world; in other words she was urging on the Church a spiritual infidelity which was bound to issue in physical fornication. It is in the mercy of God that the teaching of Jezebel and her like did not become the view of the Church. If that had happened, the Church would have become a kind of pleasant paganism. On this Paul said: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind” (Rom.12:2). And Jesus said the last word on the matter: “No one can serve two masters…. You cannot serve God and mammon” (Matt.6:24). The old choice is still the new choice: “Choose you this day whom you will serve” (Deut.30:19; Josh.24:15).
THYATIRA, PROMISES AND THREATS
Rev. 2:18-29 (continued)
(4) The letter to Thyatira finishes with a series of great threats and great promises. Jezebel has been given all the latitude the divine mercy can give her. If she does not repent, she will be cast into a bed of sickness and her paramours and followers will share her fate. This will prove to all men that indeed the Risen Christ, as the King James Version has it, “searches the reins and hearts.” The phrase is a translation of Jer.11:20. In Jeremiah the prerogative of searching the inmost thoughts of men belongs to God; but in the Revelation, as so often, the prerogatives of God have become the prerogatives of the Risen Christ.
The reins are the kidneys; strange as it may seem to us, Hebrew psychology believed that the seat of emotion was in the lower viscera, the kidneys and the bowels; and the seat of thought was in the heart. When the Risen Christ says that he will search the reins and the heart, it means that every emotion and every thought will be open to his gaze.
There is real point here. When we began to study the letter to Thyatira we saw that anyone coming into that Church for the first time would have believed it to be surging with life and fruitful in every good work. No doubt those who prospered in business because of their compromise with the world were lavish in their liberality. No doubt those who attended the trade guilds gave generously to charitable funds. They looked like real Christians. No doubt Jezebel seemed to many a fine character. She must have had a command of language and a fine presence to be regarded as a prophetess. The point here is that the Risen Christ can see beyond the outward disguise; he will know whether or not her repentance is real.
To those who are faithful the promise is made and it is twofold.
(i) The first part comes from Ps.2:8-9; “Ask of me and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron, and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.” In Jewish belief that was a Messianic Psalm, thinking of a conquering Messiah who would smash the heathen and extend the rule of Israel to the ends of the earth. But it has also been one of the great missionary inspirations of the Christian Church. Many a missionary claimed that promise: “Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage.”
(ii) The second part is the promise of the morning star. Four main interpretations have been given.
(a) It is taken as a promise of the first resurrection. As the morning star rises after the night, so the Christian will rise after the night of death.
(b) It is taken as the conquest of Lucifer. Lucifer is the devil, the angel who was so proud that he rebelled against God and was cast over the battlements of heaven (Isa.14:12). Lucifer means light-bringer and it is the name of the morning star. If that be so, this is a promise of complete power over Satan and over sin.
(iii) This has been referred to Dn.12:3. There the promise is: “and those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the firmament; and those who turn many to righteousness like the stars for ever and ever.” If that be so, the morning star is the glory which will come to those who are righteous and have helped others to walk in the paths of righteousness.
(iv) All these are very lovely and may all be involved in this promise; but we are quite certain that the correct interpretation is this. The Revelation itself calls Jesus “the bright morning star” (Rev. 22:16). The promise of the morning star is the promise of Christ himself. If the Christian is true, when life comes to an end he will possess Christ, never to lose him any more.
THE LETTER TO SARDIS
Rev. 3:1-6
And to the angel of the Church in Sardis, write:
These things says he who has the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars.
I know your works; I know that you have a reputation for life, but that you are dead. Show yourself watchful, and strengthen what remains and what is going to die. I have not found your works completed before my God. Remember, then, how you received and heard the gospel, and keep it, and repent. If, then, you are not on the watch, I will come as a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come to you.
But you have a few people in Sardis who have not defiled their garments and they will walk with me in white raiment, because they are worthy. He who overcomes will be thus clothed in white raiment and I will not wipe his name out of the Book of Life, but I will acknowledge his name before my Father and before his angels.
Let him who has an ear hear what the Spirit is saying to the Churches.
SARDIS, PAST SPLENDOUR AND PRESENT DECAY
Sir W. M. Ramsay said of Sardis that nowhere was there a greater example of the melancholy contrast between past splendour and present decay. Sardis was a city of degeneration.
Seven hundred years before this letter was written Sardis had been one of the greatest cities in the world. There the king of Lydia ruled over his empire in oriental splendour. At that time Sardis was a city of the east and was hostile to the Greek world, Aeschylus wrote of it: “They that dwelt by Tmolous pledged themselves to cast the yoke on Hellas.”
Sardis stood in the midst of the plain of the valley of the River Hermus. To the north of that plain rose the long ridge of Mount Tmolus; from that ridge a series of hills went out like spurs, each forming a narrow plateau. On one of these spurs, fifteen hundred feet up, stood the original Sardis. Clearly such a position made it almost impregnable. The sides of the ridge were smoothly precipitous; and only where the spur met the ridge of Mount Tmolus was there any possible approach into Sardis and even that was hard and steep. It has been said that Sardis stood like some gigantic watch-tower, guarding the Hermus valley. The time came when the narrow space on the top of the plateau was too small for the expanding city; and Sardis grew round the foot of the spur on which the citadel stood. The name Sardis (Sardeis, GSN4454, in Greek) is really a plural noun, for there were two towns, one on the plateau and one in the valley beneath.
The wealth of Sardis was legendary. Through the lower town flowed the River Pactolus, which was said in the old days to have had gold-bearing waters from which much of the wealth of Sardis came. Greatest of the Sardian kings was Croesus, whose name is still commemorated in the proverb, “As rich as Croesus.” It was with him that Sardis reached its zenith and it was with him that it plunged to disaster.
It was not that Croesus was not warned where Sardis was heading. Solon, the wisest of the Greeks, came on a visit and was shown the magnificence and the luxury. He saw the blind confidence of Croesus and his people that nothing could end this splendour; but he also saw that the seeds of softness and of degeneration were being sown. And it was then that he uttered his famous saying to Croesus: “Call no man happy until he is dead.” Solon knew only too well the chances and changes of life which Croesus had forgotten.
Croesus embarked upon a war with Cyrus of Persia which was the end of the greatness of Sardis. Again Croesus was warned, but he failed to see the warning. To get at the armies of Cyrus he had to cross the River Halys. He took counsel of the famous oracle at Delphi and was told: “If you cross the River Halys, you will destroy a great empire. Croesus took it as a promise that he would annihilate the Persians; it never crossed his mind that it was a prophecy that the campaign on which he had embarked would be the end of his own power.
He crossed the Halys, engaged in battle and was routed. He was not in the least worried, for he thought that all he had to do was to retire to the impregnable citadel of Sardis, recuperate and fight again. Cyrus initiated the siege of Sardis, waited for fourteen days, then offered a special reward to anyone who would find an entry into the city.
The rock on which Sardis was built was friable, more like close packed dried mud than rock. The nature of the rock meant that it developed cracks. A certain Mardian soldier called Hyeroeades had seen a Sardian soldier accidentally drop his helmet over the battlements, and then make his way down the precipice to retrieve it. Hyeroeades knew that there must be a crack in the rock there by means of which an agile man could climb up. That night he led a party of Persian troops up by the fault in the rock. When they reached the top they found the battlements completely unguarded.
The Sardians had thought themselves too safe to need a guard; and so Sardis fell. A city with a history like that knew what the Risen Christ was talking about when he said: “Watch!”
There were a few futile attempts at rebellion; but Cyrus followed a deliberate policy. He forbade any Sardian to possess a weapon of war. He ordered them to wear tunics and buskins, that is, actor’s boots, instead of sandals. He ordered them to teach their sons lyre-playing, the song and the dance, and retail trading. Sardis had been flabby already but the last vestige of spirit was banished from its people and it became a city of degeneration.
It vanished from history under Persian rule for two centuries. In due time it surrendered to Alexander the Great and through him it became a city of Greek culture. Then history repeated itself. After the death of Alexander there were many claimants for the power. Antiochus, who became the ruler of the area in which Sardis stood, was at war with a rival called Achaeus who sought refuge in Sardis. For a year Antiochus besieged him; then a soldier called Lagoras repeated the exploit of Hyeroeades. At night with a band of brave men he climbed the steep cliffs. The Sardians had forgotten their lesson. There was no guard and once again Sardis fell because it was not upon the watch.
In due time the Romans came. Sardis was still a wealthy city. It was a centre of the woollen trade; and it was claimed that the art of dyeing wool was actually discovered there. It became a Roman assize town. In A.D. 17 it was destroyed by an earthquake which devasted the area. Tiberius, the Roman Emperor, in his kindness remitted all tribute for five years and gave a donation of 10,000,000 sesterces, that is, L400,000. towards rebuilding and Sardis recovered itself by the easy way.
When John wrote his letter to Sardis, it was wealthy but degenerate. Even the once great citadel was now only an ancient monument on the hill top. There was no life or spirit there. The once great Sardians were soft, and twice they had lost their city because they were too lazy to watch. In that enervating atmosphere the Christian Church too had lost its vitality and was a corpse instead of a living Church.
SARDIS, DEATH IN LIFE
Rev. 3: 1-6 (continued)
In the introduction to this letter the Risen Christ is described in two phrases.
(i) He is he who has the seven Spirits of God. We have already come upon this strange phrase in Rev. 1:4. It has two aspects of meaning. (a) It denotes the Holy Spirit with his sevenfold gifts, an idea founded on the description of the Spirit in Isa.11:2. (b) It denotes the Spirit in his sevenfold operation. There are seven Churches, yet in each of them the Spirit operates with all his presence and power. The seven spirits signifies the completeness of the gifts of the Spirit and the universality of his presence.
(ii) He is he who has the seven stars. The stars stand for the Churches and their angels. The Church is the possession of Jesus Christ. Many a time men act as if the Church belonged to them, but it belongs to Jesus Christ and all in it are his servants. In any decision regarding the Church, the decisive factor must be not what any man wishes the Church to do but what Jesus Christ wishes to be done.
The terrible accusation against the Church at Sardis is that, although it has a reputation for life, it is, in fact, spiritually dead. The New Testament frequently likens sin to death. In the Pastoral Epistles we read: “She who is self-indulgent is dead even while she lives” (1Tim.5:6), The Prodigal Son is he who was dead and is alive again (Lk.15:24). The Roman Christians are men who have been brought from death to life (Rom.6:13). Paul says that his converts in their pre-Christian days were dead through trespasses and sins (Eph.2:1,5).
(i) Sin is the death of the will. If a man accepts the invitations of sin for long enough, the time comes when he cannot accept anything else. Habits grow upon him until he can no longer break them. A man comes, as Seneca had it, to hate his sins and to love them at the same rime. There can be few of us who have not experienced the power of some habit into which we have fallen.
(ii) Sin is the death of the feelings. The process of becoming the slave of sin does not happen overnight. The first time a man sins he does so with many a qualm. But the day comes, if he goes on taking what is forbidden, when he does without a qualm that which once he would have been horrified to do. Sin, as Burns had it, “petrifies the feeling.”
(iii) Sin is the death of all loveliness. The terrible thing about sin is that it can take the loveliest things and turn them into ugliness. Through sin the yearning for the highest can become the craving for power; the wish to serve can become the intoxication of ambition; the desire of love can become the passion of lust. Sin is the killer of life’s loveliness.
It is only by the grace of God that we can escape the death of sin.
SARDIS, A LIFELESS CHURCH
Rev. 3:1-6 (continued)
The lifelessness of the Church at Sardis had a strange effect.
(i) The Church at Sardis was untroubled by any heresy. Heresy is always the product of the searching mind; it is, in fact, the sign of a Church that is alive. There is nothing worse than a state in which a man is orthodox because he is too lazy to think for himself He is actually better with a heresy which he holds intensely than with an orthodoxy about which in his heart of hearts he does not care.
(ii) The Church at Sardis was untroubled by any attack from the outside, neither by the heathen or by the Jews. The truth was that it was so lifeless that it was not worth attacking. The Pastoral Epistles describe those who had drifted away from the true faith by saying that they had a form of godliness but denied its power (2Tim.3:5). Moffatt translates it: “Though they keep up a form of religion, they will have nothing to do with it as a force.” Phillips puts it: “They will maintain a facade of `religion,’ but their conduct will deny its validity.”
A truly vital Church will always be under attack. “Woe to you,” said Jesus, “when all men speak well of you!” (Lk.6:26). A Church with a positive message is bound to be one to which there will be opposition.
A Church which is so lethargic as to fail to produce a heresy is mentally dead; and a Church which is so negative as to fail to produce opposition is dead in its witness to Christ.
SARDIS, WATCH!
Rev. 3:1-6 (continued)
If anything is to be rescued from the impending ruin of the Church in Sardis the Christians there must wake from their deadly lethargy and watch. No commandment appears more frequently in the New Testament than that to watch.
(i) Watchfulness should be the constant attitude of the Christian life. “It is full time,” says Paul, “to wake from sleep” (Rom.13:11). “Be watchful, stand firm in your faith,” he urges (1Cor.16:13). It has been said that “eternal vigilance is the price of liberty” and eternal watchfulness is the price of salvation.
(ii) The Christian must be on the watch against the wiles of the devil (1Pet.5:8). The history of Sardis had its vivid examples of what happens to the garrison whose watch is slack. The Christian is under continual attack by the powers which seek to seduce him from his loyalty to Christ. Often these attacks are subtle. He must, therefore, be ever on the watch.
SARDIS, THE IMPERATIVES OF THE RISEN LORD
Rev. 3:1-6 (continued)
In Rev. 3:3 we have a series of imperatives.
(i) The Risen Christ says: “Remember how you received and heard the gospel.” It is the present imperative and means: “Keep on remembering; never allow yourself to forget.” The Risen Christ is telling the lethargic Sardians to remember the thrill with which they first heard the good news. It is a fact of life that certain things sharpen memory which has grown dull. When, for instance, we return to a graveside, the sorrow from which the years have taken the edge grows piercingly poignant again. Ever and again the Christian must stand before the Cross and remember again what God has done for him.
(ii) The Risen Christ says: “Repent!” This is an aorist imperative and describes one definite action. In the Christian life there must be a decisive moment, when a man decides to be done with the old way and to begin on the new.
(iii) The Risen Christ says: “Keep the commands of the gospel.” Here again we have a present imperative indicating continuous action. It means: “Never stop keeping the commands of the gospel.” Here is a warning against what we might call “spasmodic Christianity.” Too many of us are Christian one moment and unchristian the next.
(iv) There is the command to watch. There is an old Latin saying that “the gods walk on feet that are wrapped in wool.” Their approach is silent and unobserved, until a man finds himself without warning facing eternity. But that cannot happen if every day a man lives in the presence of Christ; he who walks hand-in-hand with Christ cannot be taken unawares by his coming.
(iii) The Christian must be on the watch against temptation “Watch and pray,” said Jesus, “that you may not enter into temptation” (Matt.26:41). Temptation waits for our unguarded moments and then attacks. In the Christian life there must be unceasing vigilance against it.
(iv) Repeatedly the New Testament urges the Christian to be on the watch for the coming of his Lord. “Watch, therefore,” said Jesus, “for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.” “What I say to you, I say to all: watch” (Matt.24:42-43; Mk.13:37). “Let us not sleep, as others do,” writes Paul to the Thessalonians. “Let us keep awake and be sober” (1Th.5:6). No man knows the day and the hour when for him eternity will invade time. “The last day is a secret,” says Augustine, “that every day may be watched.” A man should live every day as if it were his last.
(v) The Christian must be on the watch against false teaching. In Paul’s last address to the elders of Ephesus he warns them that grievous wolves will invade the flock from outside and from inside men will arise to speak perverse things. “Therefore,” he says, “watch!” (Ac.20:29-31).
(vi) Nor must the Christian forget that, even as he must watch for Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ is watching him. “I have not found your works perfect,” says the Risen Christ, “in the sight of my God.” Here two great truths meet us. (a) Christ is looking for something from us. We so often regard him as the one to whom we look for things; for his strength, his help, his support, his comfort. But we must never forget that he is looking for our love, our loyalty and our service. (b) The things a man must do lie to his hand. The old saying is true: “Fate is what we must do; destiny is what we are meant to do.” The Christian does not believe in an inescapable fate; but he does believe in a destiny which he can accept or refuse.
From everyone of us Jesus Christ is looking for something; and for everyone of us there is something to do.
SARDIS, THE FAITHFUL FEW
Rev. 3:1-6 (continued)
In Rev. 3:4 there shines through the darkness a ray of hope. Even in Sardis there are the faithful few. When Abraham is pleading with God for Sodom, he appeals to God: “To slay the righteous with the wicked, far be that from thee” (Gen.18:25). In the old story of the kings, Abijah alone of all the sons of Jeroboam was spared because in him was found some good thing toward the Lord God of Israel (1Kgs.14:13). God never abandons his search for the faithful few and they are never lost to his sight in the mass of the wicked.
It is said of the faithful that they “have not soiled their garments.” James spoke with respect and admiration of the man who kept himself “unstained from the world” (Jas.1:27). There are two possible pictures here.
(i) In the heathen world no worshipper was allowed to approach a temple of the gods with soiled clothes. For the heathen this was an external thing; but this may describe the man who has kept his soul clean so that he can enter into the presence of God and not be ashamed.
(ii) Swete thinks that the white garments stand for the profession a man made at baptism; and that the phrase described the man who had not broken his baptismal vows. At this stage in the Church’s history baptism was adult baptism, and at baptism a man took his personal pledge to Jesus Christ. This is all the more likely because it was common at baptism to clothe a man, after he had emerged from the water, in clean white robes, symbolic of the cleansing of his life. The man who is faithful to his pledge will, beyond a doubt, some day hear God say: “Well done!”
To those who have been true the promise is that they will walk with God. Again there is a double background.
(a) There may be a heathen background. At the Persian court the king’s most trusted favourites were given the privilege of walking in the royal gardens with the king and were called “The Companions of the Garden.” Those who have been true to God will some day walk with him in Paradise.
(b) There may be a reference to the old story of Enoch. “And Enoch walked with God, and he was not; for God took him” (Gen.5:24). Enoch walked with God on earth and continued to walk with him in the heavenly places. The man whose walk with God is close on earth will enter into a nearer companionship with him when the end of life comes.
SARDIS, THE THREEFOLD PROMISE
Rev. 3:1-6 (continued)
To those who have been faithful comes the threefold promise.
(i) They will be clothed with white raiment. It is said of the righteous that “they will shine forth like the sun in the Kingdom of their Father” (Matt.13:43); and it is said of God that he covers himself with light as with a garment (Ps.104:2). What do the white robes signify?
(a) In the ancient world white robes stood for festivity. “Let your garments be always white,” said the preacher, “and let not oil be lacking on your head” (Ecc.9:8). The white robes may stand for the fact that the faithful will be guests at the banquet of God.
(b) In the ancient world white robes stood for victory. On the day when a Roman triumph was celebrated, all the citizens clad themselves in white; the city itself was called urbs candida, the city in white. The white robes may stand for the reward of those who have won the victory.
(c) In any land and time white is the colour of purity, and the white robes may stand for the purity whose reward is to see God. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matt.5:8).
(d) It has been suggested that the white robes stand for the resurrection bodies which the faithful will some day wear. They who are faithful will share in that whiteness of light which is the garment of God himself.
We need not make a choice between these various meanings; we may well believe that they are all included in the greatness of the promise.
(ii) Their names will not be wiped out of the Book of Life. The Book of Life is a conception which occurs often in the Bible. Moses is willing to be wiped out of the book which God has written, if by his sacrifice he can save his people from the consequence of their sin (Exo.32:32-33). It is the hope of the Psalmist that the wicked will be blotted out of the book of the living (Ps.69:28). In the time of judgment those who are written in the book will be delivered (Dn.12:1). The names of Paul’s fellow-labourers for God are written in the book of life (Php.4:3). He who is not written in the book of life is cast into the lake of fire (Rev. 20:15); only they who are written in the Lamb’s book of life shall enter into blessedness (Rev. 21:27).
In the ancient world a king kept a register of his citizens. When a man committed a crime against the state, or when he died, his name was erased from that register. To have one’s name written in the book of life is to be numbered amongst the faithful citizens of the Kingdom of God.
(iii) Jesus Christ will confess their names before his Father and the angels. It was Jesus’ promise that, if a man confessed him before men, he would confess him before his Father; and if a man denied him before men, he would deny him before his Father (Matt.10:32-33; Lk.12:8-9). Jesus Christ is for ever true to the man who is true to him.
THE LETTER TO PHILADELPHIA
Rev. 3:7-13
And to the angel of the Church in Philadelphia, write:
These things says he who is holy, he who is true, he who has the key of David, he who opens and no man will shut, and shuts and no man opens. I know your works. Behold, I have set before you a door which stands open and which no man shuts, because you have a little strength and because you have kept my word, and have not denied my name. Behold, I will give you those who belong to the synagogue of Satan, who call themselves Jews and who are not, but who lie. Behold, I will make them come and kneel before your feet, and they will know that I have loved you. Because you have kept my command to endure, I, too, will keep you safe from the hour of testing, which is to come upon the whole inhabited world, to test those who dwell upon the earth. I am coming quickly. Hold on to what you have, that no one may take your crown.
I will make him who overcomes a pillar in the temple of my God and he will go out no more; and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, of the new Jerusalem, which is coming down from heaven from my God, and my new name.
Let him who has an ear hear what the Spirit is saying to the Churches.
PHILADELPHIA, CITY OF PRAISE
Philadelphia was the youngest of all the seven cities. It was founded by colonists from Pergamum under the reign of Attalus the Second, who ruled in Pergamum from 159 to 138 B.C. Philadelphos (GSN5361) is the Greek for one who loves his brother. Such was the love of Attalus for his brother Eumenes that he was called Philadelphos, and it was after him that Philadelphia was named.
It was founded for a special purpose. It was situated where the borders of Mysia, Lydia and Phrygia met. But it was not as a garrison town that Philadelphia was founded, for there was little danger there. It was founded with the deliberate intention that it might be a missionary of Greek culture and language to Lydia and Phrygia; and so well did it do its work that by A.D. 19 the Lydians had forgotten their own language and were all but Greeks. Ramsay says of Philadelphia that it was “the centre for the diffusion of Greek language and Greek letters in a peaceful land and by peaceful means.” That is what the Risen Christ means when he speaks of the open door that is set before Philadelphia. Three centuries before, Philadelphia had been given an open door to spread Greek ideas in the lands beyond; and now there has come to it another great missionary opportunity, to carry to men who never knew it the message of the love of Jesus Christ.
Philadelphia had a great characteristic which has left its mark upon this letter. It was on the edge of a great plain called the Katakekaumene (GSN2618), which means the Burned Land. The Katakekaumene was a great volcanic plain bearing the marks of the lava and the ashes of volcanoes then extinct. Such land is fertile; and Philadelphia was the centre of a great grape-growing area and a famous producer of wines. But that situation had its perils, and these perils had left their mark more deeply on Philadelphia than on any other city. In A.D. 17 there came a great earthquake which destroyed Sardis and ten other cities. In Philadelphia the tremors went on for years; Strabo describes it as a “city full of earthquakes.”
It often happens that, when a great earthquake comes, people meet it with courage and self-possession, but ever. recurring minor shocks drive them to sheer panic. That is what happened in Philadelphia. Strabo describes the scene. Shocks were an everyday occurrence. Gaping cracks appeared in the walls of the houses. Now one part of the city was in ruins, now another. Most of the population lived outside the city in huts and feared even to go on the city streets lest they should be killed by failing masonry. Those who still dared to live in the city were reckoned mad; they spent their time shoring up the shaking buildings and every now and then fleeing to the open spaces for safety. These terrible days in Philadelphia were never wholly forgotten, and people in it ever waited subconsciously for the ominous tremors of the ground, ready to flee for their lives to the open spaces. People in Philadelphia well knew what security lay in a promise that “they would go out no more.”
But there is more of Philadelphia’s history than that in this letter. When this earthquake devastated it, Tiberius was as generous to Philadelphia as he had been to Sardis. In gratitude it changed its name to Neocaesarea–the New City of Caesar. In the time of Vespasian Philadelphia was in gratitude to change its name again to Flavia, for Flavius was the Emperor’s family name. It is true that neither of these new names lasted and “Philadelphia” was restored. But the people of Philadelphia well knew what it was to receive “a new name.”
Of all the cities Philadelphia receives the greatest praise and it was to show that it deserved it.
In later days it became a very great city. When the Turks and Mohammedanism flooded across Asia Minor and every other town had fallen, Philadelphia stood erect. For centuries it was a free Greek Christian city amidst a pagan people. It was the last bastion of Asian Christianity. It was not till midway through the fourteenth century that it fell; and to this day there is a Christian bishop and a thousand Christians in it. With the exception of Smyrna the other Churches are in ruins but Philadelphia still holds aloft the banner of the Christian faith.
PHILADELPHIA, TITLES AND CLAIMS
Rev. 3:7-13 (continued)
In the introduction to this letter the Risen Christ is called by three great titles, each of which implies a tremendous claim.
(i) He is he who is holy. Holy is the description of God himself “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts,” was the song of the seraphs which Isaiah heard (Isa.6:3). “To whom then will you compare me, that I should be like him? says the Holy One” (Isa.40:25). “I am the Lord, your Holy One, the creator of Israel, your King” (Isa.43:15). All through the Old Testament God is the Holy One; and now that title is given to the Risen Christ. We must remember that holy (hagios, GSN0040) means different, separate from. God is holy because he is different from men; he has that quality of being which belongs to him alone. To say that Jesus Christ is holy is to say that he shares the being of God.
(ii) He is he who is true. In Greek there are two words for true. There is alethes (GSN0227), which means “true” in the sense that a true statement is different from a false statement. There is alethinos (GSN0228), which means “real” as opposed to that which is “unreal.” It is the second of these words which is used here. In Jesus is reality. When we are confronted with him, we are confronted with no shadowy outline of the truth but with the truth itself.
(iii) He is he who has the key of David, who opens and no man will shut, who shuts and no man opens. We may first note that the key is the symbol of authority. Here is the picture of Jesus Christ as the one who has the final authority which no one can question.
Behind this there is an Old Testament picture. Hezekiah had a faithful steward called Eliakim, who was over all his house and who alone could admit to the presence of the king. Isaiah heard God say of this faithful Eliakim: “and I will place on his shoulder the key of the house of David; he shall open, and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open” (Isa.22:22). It is this picture which is in John’s mind. Jesus alone has authority to admit to the new Jerusalem, the new city of David. As the Te Deum has it: “Thou didst open the kingdom of Heaven to all believers.” He is the new and living way into the presence of God.
PHILADELPHIA, THE OPEN DOOR
Rev. 3:7-13 (continued)
In Rev. 3:8-9 there is a problem of punctuation. In the early Greek manuscripts there was no punctuation at all. The problem is that the words “because you have a little strength, and because you have kept my word, and have not denied my name,” can go equally well with what precedes them or with what follows. They may express either the reason why the door stands open before the Christians of Philadelphia or the reason why they will be given those who belong to the synagogue of Satan. We have taken them with the words which precede them.
It is the great promise of the Risen Christ that he has set before the Christians of Philadelphia an open door which no man can ever shut. What is the meaning of this open door?
(i) It may be the door of missionary opportunity. Writing to the Corinthians of the work which lies ahead of him, Paul says: “For a wide door for effective work has opened to me” (1Cor.16:9). When he came to Troas, a door was opened to him by the Lord (2Cor.2:12). He asks the Colossians to pray that a door of utterance may be opened for him (Col.4:3). When he came back to Antioch he told how God had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles (Ac.14:27).
This meaning is particularly appropriate for Philadelphia. We have seen how it was a border town, standing where the boundaries of Lydia, Mysia and Phrygia met, and founded to be a missionary of Greek language and culture to the barbarous peoples beyond. It was on the road of the imperial postal service, which left the coast at Troas, came to Philadelphia via Pergamum, Thyatira and Sardis, and joined the great road out to Phrygia. The armies of Caesar travelled that road; the caravans of the merchant-men travelled it; and now it was beckoning the missionaries of Christ.
Two things emerge here. (a) There is a door of missionary opportunity before every man and he need not go overseas to find it. Within the home, within the circle in which we move, within the parish in which we reside, there are those to be won for Christ. To use that door of opportunity is at once our privilege and our responsibility. (b) In the way of Christ the reward of work well done is more work to do. Philadelphia had proved faithful and the reward for her fidelity was still more work to do for Christ.
(ii) It has been suggested that the door which is set before the Philadelphians is none other than Jesus himself. “I am the door,” said Jesus (Jn.10:7,9).
(iii) It has been suggested that the door is the door to the Messianic community. With Jesus Christ the new kingdom of David was inaugurated; and, just as in the ancient kingdom Eliakim had the keys to admit to the royal presence, so Jesus is the door to admit to the kingdom of God.
(iv) Apart from all these things, for any man the door of prayer is always open. That is a door which no man can ever shut and it is one which Jesus opened when he assured men of the seeking love of God the Father.
PHILADELPHIA, INHERITORS OF THE PROMISE
Rev. 3:7-13 (continued)
In Rev. 3:9 the promise of the Risen Christ is that some day the Jews who slander the Christians will kneel before them. This is an echo of an expectation of the Jews which finds frequent expression in the Old Testament.
This was that in the new age, all nations would do humble homage to the Jews. This promise recurs again and again in Isaiah. “The sons of those who oppressed you shall come bending low to you; and all who despised you shall bow down at your feet” (Isa.60:14). “The wealth of Egypt and the merchandise of Ethiopia and the Sabeans, men of stature, shall come over to you and be yours, they shall follow yon; they shall come over in chains and bow down to you” (Isa.45:14). “Kings shall be your foster fathers, and their queens your nursing mothers; with their faces to the ground they shall bow down to you, and lick the dust of your feet” (Isa.49:23). Zechariah has a vision of the day when all men of all nations and languages shall turn to Jerusalem, “they shall take hold of the robe of a Jew, saying, `Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you”‘ (Zech.8:22-23).
It was the Christian belief that the Jewish nation had lost its place in the plan of God and that that place had passed to the Church. A Jew in God’s sense of the term was not one who could claim racial descent from Abraham but one of any nation who had made the same venture of faith as he had (Rom.9:6-9). The Church was the Israel of God (Gal.6:16). It was, therefore, now true that all the promises which had been made to Israel had been inherited by the Church. It was to her that one day all men would humbly make their submission. This promise is a reversal of all that the Jews had expected; they had expected that all nations would kneel before them; but the day was to come when they with all nations would kneel before Christ.
That is what the Philadelphian Church would see, at least in its beginnings, if its members were faithful. Up until now they had been faithful. In the sentence, “You have kept my word, and have not denied my name,” both the verbs are in the aorist tense, which describes one definite act in past time; and the implication is that there had been some time of trial out of which the Philadelphian Church had emerged triumphantly true. They may have only a little strength; their resources may be small; but, if they are faithful, they will see the dawn of the triumph of Christ.
Though few and small and weak your bands, Strong in your Captain’s strength, Go to the conquest of all lands; All must be his at length.
That which must keep a Christian faithful is the vision of a world for Christ, for the coming of such a world depends on the fidelity of the individual Christian.
PHILADELPHIA, THOSE WHO KEEP ARE KEPT
Rev. 3:7-13 (continued)
It is the promise of the Risen Christ that he who keeps will be kept. “You have kept my commandment,” he says, “therefore, I will keep you.” Loyalty has its sure reward. In Rev. 3:10 in the Greek the phrase my command to endure is highly concentrated. Literally, it is the word of my endurance. The real meaning is that the promise is to those who have practised the same kind of endurance as Jesus displayed in his earthly life.
When we are called upon to show endurance, the endurance of Jesus Christ supplies us with three things. First, it supplies us with an example. Second, it supplies us with an inspiration. We must walk looking to him, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross despising the shame (Heb.12:1-2). Third the endurance of Jesus Christ is the guarantee of his sympathy with us when we are called upon to endure. “Because he himself has suffered and been tempted he is able to help those who are tempted” (Heb.2:18).
In Rev. 3:10 we are back again amidst beliefs which are characteristically Jewish. As we have so often seen, the Jews divided time into two ages, the present age which is wholly bad, and the age to come, which is wholly good with in between the terrible time of destruction when judgment will fall upon the world. It is to that terrible time that John refers. Even when time comes to an end, and the world as we know it ceases to exist, he who is faithful to Christ will still be said in his keeping.
PHILADELPHIA, PROMISE AND WARNING
Rev. 3:7-13 (continued)
In Rev. 3:11 there is promise and warning combined.
The Risen Christ tells them that he is coming quickly. It has been said that in the New Testament the Coming of Christ is continually used for two purposes.
(i) It is used as a warning to the heedless. Jesus himself tells of the wicked servant, who took advantage of his master’s absence to conduct himself evilly and to whom the master made a sudden return that brought judgment. (Matt.24:48-51). Paul warns the Thessalonians of the terrible fate which awaits the disobedient and the unbelieving when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven and shall take swift and final vengeance on his enemies (2Th.1:7-9). Peter warns his people that they will give account for their deeds to him who comes to judge the living and the dead (1Pet.4:5).
(ii) It is used as a comfort to the oppressed. James urges patient endurance on his people because the coming of the Lord is drawing near (Jas.5:8); soon their distresses will be at an end. The writer to the Hebrews urges patience, for soon he that shall come will come (Heb.10:37).
In the New Testament men used the idea of the Coming of Christ as a warning to the heedless and as a comfort to the oppressed. It is quite true that, in the literal sense, Jesus Christ did not come back to those who were so warned and exhorted. But no man knows when etemity will invade his life and God will bid him rise and come; and that must warn the careless to prepare to meet his God and cheer the oppressed with the thought of the coming glory of the faithful soul.
There is another warning here. The Risen Christ bids the Philadelphians hold to what they have, that no one may take their crown (Rev. 3:11). It is not a question of someone stealing their crown but of God taking it from them and giving it to someone else, because they were not worthy to wear it. Trench makes a list of people in the Bible who lost their place to someone else because they had shown that they were not fit to hold it. Esau lost his place to Jacob (Gen.25:34; Gen.27:36). Reuben, unstable as water, lost his place to Judah (Gen.49:4,8). Saul lost his place to David (1Sam.16:1, 1Sam.16:13). Shebna lost his place to Eliakim (Isa.22:15-25). Joab and Abiathar lost their places to Benaiah and Zadok (1Kgs.2:25). Judas lost his place to Matthias (Ac.1:25-26). The Jews lost their place to the Gentiles (Rom.11:11).
There is tragedy here. It sometimes happens that a man is given a task to do and goes towards it with the highest hopes; but it begins to be seen that he is too small for the task and he is removed from the task and it is given to someone else. That can happen with the tasks of God. God has a task for every man; but it may be that the man proves himself unfit for the task and it is given to another.
It is blessedly true that even out of failure a man can redeem himself–but only if he casts himself upon the grace of Jesus Christ.
PHILADELPHIA, MANY PROMISES
Rev. 3:7-13 (continued)
In Rev. 3:12 we come to the promises of the Risen Christ to those who are faithful. They are many and most would paint pictures which would be vivid and real to the people of Philadelphia.
(i) The faithful Christian will be a pillar in the Temple of God. A pillar of the Church is a great and honoured support. Peter and James and John were the pillars of the early church in Jerusalem (Gal.2:9). Abraham, said the Jewish Rabbis, was the pillar of the world.
(ii) The faithful Christian will go out no more. There may be something of two meanings here.
(a) This may be a promise of security. We have seen how for years Philadelphia was terrorized by recurring earthquakes of the earth and how, when such times came, its citizens fled into the open country to escape and, when the tremors ended, came uncertainly back. Life was lived in an atmosphere of insecurity. There is for the faithful Christian the promise of a settled serenity in the peace which Jesus Christ can give.
(b) Some scholars think that what is here promised is fixity of moral character. In this life even the best of us is sometimes bad. But he who is faithful will in the end come to a time when he is like a pillar fixed in the Temple of God and goodness has become the constant atmosphere of his life. If this is the meaning, this phrase describes the life of untroubled goodness which is lived when, after the battles of earth, we reach the presence of God.
(iii) Jesus Christ will write upon the faithful Christian the name of his God. There may be three pictures here.
(a) In the cities of Asia Minor, and in Philadelphia, when a priest died after a lifetime of faithfulness, men honoured him, by erecting a new pillar in the temple in which he had served and by inscribing his name and the name of his father upon it. This then would describe the lasting honour which Christ pays to his faithful ones.
(b) It is just possible that there is a reference to the custom of branding a slave with the initials of his owner to show that he belongs to him. Just so God will put his mark upon his faithful ones. Whichever picture is behind this, the sense is that the faithful ones will wear the unmistakable badge of God.
(c) It is just possible that we have an Old Testament picture. When God told to Moses the blessing which Aaron and the priests must pronounce over the people, he said: “They shall put my name upon the people of Israel” (Num.6:22-27). It is the same idea again; it is as if the mark of God was upon Israel so that all men may know that they are his people.
(iv) On the faithful Christian the name of the new Jerusalem is to be written. That stands for the gift of citizenship in the city of God to the faithful Christian. According to Ezekiel the name of the re-created city of God was to be The Lord is there (Eze.48:35). The faithful ones will be citizens of the city where there is always the presence of God.
(v) On the faithful Christian Christ will write his own new name. The people of Philadelphia knew all about taking a new name. When in A.D. 17 a terrible earthquake devastated their city and Tiberius, the Emperor, dealt kindly with them, remitting taxation and making a generous gift to rebuild it, they in their gratitude, called the city Neocaesarea, the New City of Caesar, and later when Vespasian was kind to them, they called it Flavia, for that was the family name of Vespasian. Jesus Christ will mark his faithful ones with his new name: what that name was we need not even speculate, for no man knows it (Rev. 19:12), but in the time to come, when Christ has conquered all, his faithful ones will bear the badge which shows that they are his and share his triumph.
THE LETTER TO LAODICEA
Rev. 3:14-22
And to the angel of the Church in Laodicea, write:
These things says the Amen, the witness on whom you can rely and who is true, the moving cause of the creation of God. I know your works; I know that you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were cold or hot! So, because you are tepid and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of my mouth. Because you say, I am rich and I have acquired riches, and I need nothing, and are quite unaware that it is you who are the wretched and the pitiable one, the poor and the blind and the naked one, I advise you to buy from me gold that has been refined by fire that you may be rich, white raiment that you may be clothed and that the shame of your nakedness may not be openly displayed, and eye-salve to anoint your eyes, that you may see.
I rebuke and discipline all those whom I love. Be eager, therefore, and repent.
Behold, I am standing at the decor and knocking. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and will have my meal with him, and he with me.
I will give to him who overcomes to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame and took my seat with my Father in his throne.
Let him who has an ear hear what the Spirit is saying to the Churches.
LAODICEA, THE CHURCH CONDEMNED
Laodicea has the grim distinction of being the only Church of which the Risen Christ has nothing good to say.
In the ancient world there were at least six cities called Laodicea and this one was called Laodicea on the Lycus to distinguish it from the others. It was founded about 250 B.C. by Antiochus of Syria and was named after his wife Laodice.
Its importance was due entirely to its position. The road from Ephesus to the east and to Syria was the most important in Asia. It began at the coast at Ephesus and it had to find a way to climb up to the central plateau 8,500 feet up. It set out along the valley of the River Maeander until it reached what were known as the Gates of Phrygia. Beyond this point lay a broad valley where Lydia, Phrygia and Caria met. The Maeander entered that valley by a narrow, precipitous gorge through which no road could pass. The road, therefore, detoured through the Lycus valley. In that valley Laodicea stood.
It was literally astride the great road to the east which went straight through Laodicea, entering by the Ephesian Gate and leaving by the Syrian Gate. That in itself would have been enough to make Laodicea one of the great commercial and strategic centres of the ancient world. Originally Laodicea had been a fortress; but it had the serious handicap that all its water supply had to come by underground aqueduct from springs no less than six miles away, a perilous situation for a town besieged. Two other roads passed through the gates of Laodicea, that from Pergamum and the Hermus Valley to Pisidia and Pamphylia and the coast at Perga and that from eastern Caria to central and west Phrygia.
As Ramsay says: “It only needed peace to make Laodicea a great commercial and financial centre.” That peace came with the dominion of Rome. When the Roman peace gave it its opportunity it became, as Pliny called it, “a most distinguished city.”
Laodicea had certain characteristics which have left their mark on the letter written to it.
(i) It was a great banking and financial centre. When Cicero was travelling in Asia Minor it was at Laodicea that he cashed his letters of credit. It was one of the wealthiest cities in the world. In A.D. 61 it was devastated by an earthquake; but so rich and independent were its citizens that they refused any help from the Roman government and out of their own resources rebuilt their city. Tacitus writes: “One of the most famous cities of Asia, Laodicea, was in that same year overthrown by an earthquake and without any relief from us recovered itself by its own resources” (Tacitus: Annals 14: 27). No wonder that Laodicea could boast that it was rich and had amassed wealth and had need of nothing. It was so wealthy that it did not even need God.
(ii) It was a great centre of clothing manufacture. The sheep which grazed round Laodicea were famous for their soft, violet-black, glossy wool. It mass-produced cheap outer garments. It was specially connected with a tunic called the trimita, so much so, indeed, that it was sometimes called Trimitaria. Laodicea was so proud of the garments it produced that it never realized it was naked in the sight of God.
(iii) It was a very considerable medical centre. Thirteen miles to the west, between Laodicea and the Gate of Phrygia, stood the temple of the Carian god Men. At one time that temple was the social, administrative and commercial centre of the whole area. Until less than a hundred years ago great markets were regularly held on its site. In particular the temple was the centre of a medical school which was transferred to Laodicea itself. So famous were its doctors that the names of some appear on the coins of Laodicea. Two of them were called Zeuxis and Alexander Philalethes.
This medical school was famous for two things throughout the world, ointment for the ear and ointment for the eyes. The King James and Revised Standard Versions speak of eye-salve. The word for salve is kollourion (GSN2854) which literally means a little roll of bread. The reason for the word is that this famous tephra Phrygia, Phrygian powder, was exported all over the world in solidified tablet form in the shape of little rolls. Laodicea was so conscious of its medical skill in the care of the eyes that it never realized that it was spiritually blind.
The words of the Risen Christ arise directly from the prosperity and the skill in which Laodicea took so much pride and which had in the minds of its citizens, and even of its Church, eliminated the need for God.
(iv) We add a final fact about Laodicea. It was in an area where there was a very large Jewish population. So many Jews emigrated here that the Rabbis inveighed against the Jews who sought the wines and baths of Phrygia. In 62 B.C. Flaccus, the governor of the province, became alarmed at the amount of currency which the Jews were exporting in payment of the Temple tax which every male Jew paid and put an embargo on the export of currency. The result was that twenty pounds weight of gold was seized as contraband in Laodicea and one hundred pounds in Apameia in Phrygia. That amount of gold would be equal to 15,000 silver drachmae. The Jewish Temple tax amounted to half a shekel, which was equal to two drachmae. This means that in the district there were at least 7,500 male Jews. In Hierapolis, six miles away from Laodicea, there was a “Congregation of Jews” which had power to levy and to retain fines, and an archive office where Jewish legal documents were specially kept. There can have been few areas where the Jews were wealthier and more influential.
LAODICEA, THE CLAIMS OF CHRIST
Rev. 3:14-22 (continued)
Of all the seven Churches that of Laodicea is most unsparingly condemned. In it there is no redeeming feature. It is interesting to note that the third century work The Apostolic Constitutions (8: 46) says that Archippus was the first Bishop of the Church in Laodicea. When Paul was writing to the neighbouring Church of Colossae, he says sternly: “Say to Archippus, See that you fulfil the ministry which you have received in the Lord” (Col.4:17). It would seem that Archippus was somehow failing in his duty. That was thirty years before the Revelation was written; but it may be that as long ago as that the rot had set in in the Church in Laodicea and an unsatisfactory ministry had sown the seeds of degeneration.
Like all the letters it begins with a series of great titles of Jesus Christ.
(i) He is the Amen. This is a strange title and may go back to either of two origins.
(a) In Isa.65:16 God is called the God of truth; but in the Hebrew he is called the God of Amen. Amen is the word which is often put at the end of a solemn statement in order to guarantee its truth. If God is the God of Amen, he is utterly to be relied upon. This would mean that Jesus Christ is the One whose promises are true beyond all doubt.
(b) In John’s gospel Jesus’ statements often begin: “Truly, truly, I say to you” (e.g. Jn.1:51; Jn.3:3,5,11). The Greek for truly is Amen. It is possible that when Jesus Christ is called the Amen it is a reminiscence of his own way of speaking. The meaning would be the same, Jesus is one whose promises can be relied upon.
(ii) He is the witness on whom we can rely and who is true. Trench points out that a witness must satisfy three essential conditions. (a) He must have seen with his own eyes that of which he tells. (b) He must be absolutely honest, so that he repeats with accuracy that which he has heard and seen. (c) He must have the ability to tell what he has to say, so that his witness may make its true impression on those who hear. Jesus Christ perfectly satisfied these conditions. He can tell of God, because he came from him. We can rely on his words for he is the Amen. He is able to tell his message, for never did man speak as he did.
(iii) As the Revised Standard Version has it, he is the beginning of God’s creation. This phrase, as it stands in English, is ambiguous. It could mean, either, that Jesus was the first person to be created or that he began the process of creation, as Trench put it, “dynamically the beginning.” It is the second meaning which is intended here. The word for beginning is arche (GSN0746). In early Christian writings we read that Satan is the arche (GSN0746) of death, that is to say, death takes its origin in him; and that God is the arche (GSN0746) of all things, that is, all things find their beginning in him.
The connection of the Son with creation is frequently made in the New Testament. John begins his gospel by saying of the Word: “All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made” (Jn.1:3). “In him,” says Paul, “all things were created” (Col.1:15,18). The insistence on the Son’s part in creation was due to the heretics who explained sin and disease by saying that the world had been created by a false and inferior god. It is the Christian insistence that this world is God’s creation and that its sin and sorrow are not his fault, but are caused by the disobedience of men. As the Christian sees it, the God of creation and the God of redemption are one and the same.
LAODICEA, NEITHER ONE THING NOR ANOTHER
Rev. 3:14-22 (continued)
The condemnation of Laodicea begins with a picture of almost crude vividness; because the Laodiceans are neither cold nor hot, they have about them a kind of nauseating quality, which will make the Risen Christ vomit them out of his mouth.
The exact meaning of the words is to be noted. Cold is psuchros (GSN5593); and it can mean cold to the point of freezing. Ecclesiasticus (Sir.43:20) speaks of the cold north wind which makes the ice congeal upon the waters. Hot is zestos (GSN2200); and it means hot to boiling point. Tepid is chliaros (GSN5513). Things which are tepid often have a nauseating effect. Hot food and cold food can both be appetizing, but tepid food will often make the stomach turn. Directly opposite Laodicea, on the other bank of the Lycus, and in full view, stood Hierapolis, famous for its hot mineral springs. Often hot mineral springs are nauseating in their taste and make the person who drinks them want to be physically sick. That is the way in which the Church at Laodicea affected the Risen Christ. Here is something to make us think:
(i) The one attitude which the Risen Christ unsparingly condemns is indifference. It has been said that an author can write a good biography if he loves his subject or hates him but not if he is coldly indifferent. Of all things indifference is the hardest to combat. The problem of modern evangelism is not hostility to Christianity; it would be better if it were so. The problem is that to so many Christianity and the Church have ceased to have any relevance and men regard them with complete indifference. This indifference can be broken down only by the actual demonstration that Christianity is a power to make life strong and a grace to make life beautiful.
(ii) The one impossible attitude to Christianity is neutrality. Jesus Christ works through men; and the man who remains completely detached in his attitude to him has by that very fact refused to undertake the work which is the divine purpose for him. The man who will not submit to Christ has necessarily resisted him.
(iii) Hard as it may sound, the meaning of this terrible threat of the Risen Christ is that it is better not even to start on the Christian way than to start and then to drift into a conventional and meaningless Christianity. The fire must be kept burning. There is an unwritten saying of Jesus: “He who is near me is near the fire.” And the way to “maintain the spiritual glow” (Rom.12:11, Moffatt) is to live close to Christ.
LAODICEA, THE WEALTH THAT IS POVERTY
Rev. 3:14-22 (continued)
The tragedy of Laodicea was that it was convinced of its own wealth and blind to its own poverty. Humanly speaking, anyone would say that there was not a more prosperous town in Asia Minor. Spiritually speaking, the Risen Christ declares that there was not a more poverty-stricken community. Laodicea prided itself on three things; and each is taken in turn and shown at its true value.
(i) It prided itself on its financial wealth. It was rich and had acquired wealth and had need of nothing–so it thought. The Risen Christ advises Laodicea to buy gold refined in the fire. It may be that gold tried in the fire stands for faith for it is thus that Peter describes faith (1Pet.1:7). Wealth can do much but there are things that it can never do. It cannot buy happiness nor give a man health either of body or of mind; it cannot bring comfort in sorrow nor fellowship in loneliness. If all that a man has to meet life with is wealth, he is poor indeed. But if a man has a faith tried and refined in the crucible of experience, there is nothing which he cannot face; and he is rich indeed.
(ii) Laodicea prided itself on its clothing trade. The garments made there were famous over all the world, and the wool of the sheep of Laodicea was a luxury article which all men knew, But, says the Risen Christ, Laodicea is spiritually naked; if it wants really to be clothed it must come to him. The Risen Christ speaks of “the shame of the nakedness of Laodicea.”
This would mean even more in the ancient world than now. In the ancient world to be stripped naked was the worst humiliation. It was thus that Hanum treated the servants of David (2Sam.10:4). The threat to Egypt is that Assyria will lead her people naked and barefoot (Isa.20:4). It was Ezekiel’s threat to Israel that her enemies would strip her of her clothes (Eze.16:37-39; Eze.23:26-29; compare Hos.2:3,9; Mic.1:8,11). God’s threat passed on by Nahum to the disobedient people was: “I will let nations look on your nakedness, and on your kingdoms shame” (Nah.3:5). On the other hand, to be clothed in fine raiment was the greatest honour. Pharaoh honoured Joseph by clothing him in vestures of fine linen (Gen.41:42). Daniel is clothed in purple by Belshazzar (Dn.5:29). The royal apparel is for the man whom the king honours (Esth.6:6-11). When the prodigal son returns, it is the best robe that is put upon him (Lk.15:22).
Laodicea prides itself on the magnificent garments it produces but spiritually it is naked and nakedness is shame. The Risen Christ urges it to buy white raiment from him. This may well stand for the beauties of life and character which only the grace of Christ can give. There is little point in a man adorning his body, if he has nothing to adorn his soul. Not all the clothes in the world will beautify a person whose nature is twisted and whose character is ugly.
(iii) Laodicea prided itself on its famous eye-salve; but the facts of the case show that it was blind to its own poverty and nakedness. Trench says: “The beginning of all true amendment is to see ourselves as we are.” All eye-salves in the ancient world caused the eyes to smart at their first application, and Laodicea had no wish to see itself as it was.
LAODICEA, LOVE’S CHASTISEMENT
Rev. 3:14-22 (continued)
Rev. 3:19 is one whose teaching runs throughout Scripture. “I rebuke and discipline all those whom I love.” There is a very lovely thing about the way this is put. It is a quotation from Prov.3:12, but one word is altered. In the Greek of the Septuagint the word for love is agapan (GSN0025) which indicates the unconquerable attitude of goodwill which nothing can turn to hate; but it is a word which maybe has more of the head than the heart in it; and in the quotation the Risen Christ changes agapan (GSN0025) to philein (GSN5368) which is the most tender affection. We might well paraphrase it: “It is the people who are dearest to me on whom I exercise the sternest discipline.”
Let us first take the word rebuke. The Greek is elegchein (GSN1651) and it describes the kind of rebuke which compels a man to see the error of his ways. Elegchos (GSN1650) is the corresponding noun, and Aristotle defines it: “Elegchos (GSN1650) is the proof that a thing cannot be otherwise than we say.” The most vivid example of this kind of rebuke is the way in which Nathan opened David’s eyes to his sin (2Sam.12:1-14). The rebuke of God is not so much punishment as illumination.
Let us see how the idea of discipline runs through the Bible.
lt is very characteristic of the teaching of Proverbs. “He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him” (Prov.13:24). “Withhold not correction from the child; for, if you beat him with a rod he will not die. If you beat him with the rod you will save his life from Sheol” (Prov.23:13-14). “Faithful are the wounds of a friend” (Prov.27:6). “The rod and reproof give wisdom; but a child left to himself brings shame to his mother. . . . Discipline your son and he will give you rest; he will give delight to your heart” (Prov.29:15,17). “Blessed is the man whom thou dost chasten, O Lord, and whom thou dost teach out of thy law” (Ps.94:12). “Behold, happy is the man whom God reproves; therefore, despise not the chastening of the Almighty” (Jb.5:17). “We are chastened of the Lord that we may not be condemned along with the world” (1Cor.11:32). “For the Lord disciplines him whom he loves and chastises every son whom he receives. It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is testing you as sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons” (Heb.11:6,8). “He that loveth his son will continue to lay stripes upon him, that he may have joy of him in the end. He that chastiseth his son shall have profit of him and shall glory of him among his acquaintances” (Ecc.30:1).
It is, in fact, God’s final punishment to leave a man alone. “Ephraim is joined to idols; let him alone” (Hos.4:17). As Trench has it: “The great Master-builder squares and polishes with many strokes of the chisel and hammer the stones which shall find a place at last in the walls of the heavenly Jerusalem…. It is the crushed grape, and not the untouched, from which the costly liquor distils.” There is no surer way of allowing a child to end in ruin than to allow him to do as he likes. It is a fact of life that the best athlete and the finest scholar receive the most demanding training. The discipline of God is not something which we should resent, but something for which we should be devoutly thankful.
LAODICEA, THE CHRIST WHO KNOCKS
Rev. 3:14-22 (continued)
In Rev. 3:20 we have one of the most famous pictures of Jesus in the whole New Testament. “Behold,” says the Risen Christ, “I am standing at the door and knocking.” This picture has been derived from two different sources.
(i) It has been taken as a warning that the end is near, and that the Coming of Christ is at hand. The Christian must be ready to open whenever he hears his Lord knocking (Lk.12:36). When the signs come, the Christian will know that the last time is near, even at the doors (Mk.13:29; Matt.24:33). The Christian must live well and live in love because the judge is standing at the doors (Jas.5:9). It is true that the New Testament uses this picture to express the imminence of the coming of Christ. If that is the picture here, this phrase contains a warning and tells men to have a care, for Jesus Christ the Judge and King is at the door.
(ii) We cannot say that that meaning is impossible and yet it does not seem to fit the context, for the atmosphere of the passage is not so much warning as love. It is much better to take this saying of Christ as expressing the appeal of the lover of the souls of men. The origin of the passage is much more likely to be in Solomon’s Song when the lover stands at the door of his beloved and pleads with her to open. “Hark! my beloved is knocking. Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, perfect one” (SS.5:2-6). Here is Christ the lover knocking at the door of the hearts of men. And in this picture we see certain great truths of the Christian religion.
(a) We see the pleading of Christ. He stands at the door of the human heart and knocks. The unique new fact that Christianity brought into this world is that God is the seeker of men. No other religion has the vision of a seeking God.
In his book Out of Nazareth Donald Baillie cites three witnesses to the uniqueness of this conception. Montefiore, the great Jewish scholar, said that the one thing which no Jewish prophet or Rabbi ever conceived of is the “conception of God actually going out in quest of sinful men, who were not seeking him, but who were turned away from him.” The National Christian Council of Japan in a document found the distinctive difference of Christianity from all other religions in, “Man not seeking God, but God taking the initiative in seeking man.” St. Bernard away back in the twelfth century used often to say to his monks that, “However early they might wake and rise for prayer in their chapel on a cold mid-winter morning or even in the dead of night, they would always find God awake before them, waiting for them–nay, it was he who had awakened them to seek his face.”
Here is the picture of Christ searching for sinful men who did not want him. Surely love can go no further than that.
(b) We see the offer of Christ. As the King James Version has it, “I will come in and sup with him.” The word translated “sup” is deipnein (GSN1172) and its corresponding noun is deipnon (GSN1173). The Greeks had three meals in the day. There was akratisma, breakfast, which was no more than a piece of dried bread dipped in wine. There was ariston (GSN0712), the midday meal. A man did not go home for it; it was simply a picnic snack eaten by the side of the pavement, or in some colonnade, or in the city square. There was deipnon (GSN1173); this was the evening meal; the main meal of the day; people lingered over it, for the day’s work was done. It was the deipnon (GSN1173) that Christ would share with the man who answered his knock, no hurried meal, but that where people lingered in fellowship. If a man will open the door, Jesus Christ will come in and linger long with him.
(iii) We see human responsibility. Christ knocks and a man can answer or refuse to answer. Christ does not break in; he must be invited in. Even on the Emmaus road, “He appeared to be going further” (Lk.24:28). Holman Hunt was right when in his famous picture The Light of the World he painted the door of the human heart with no handle on the outside, for it can be opened only from within. As Trench has it: “Every man is lord of the house of his own heart; it is his fortress; he must open the gates of it,” and he has “the mournful prerogative and privilege of refusing to open.” The man who refuses to open is “blindly at strife with his own blessedness.” He is a “miserable conqueror.”
Christ pleads and offers; but it is all to no avail if a man will not open the door.
THIS MEANS YOU
Rev. 3:14-22 (continued)
The promise of the Risen Christ is that the victor will sit with him in his own victorious throne. We will get the picture right if we remember that the eastern throne was more like a couch than a single seat. The victor in life will share the throne of the victorious Christ.
Every letter finishes with the words: “Let him who has an ear hear what the Spirit is saying to the Churches.” This saying does two things.
(i) It individualizes the message of the letters. It says to every man: “This means you.” So often we listen to a message which comes through a preacher and apply it to everyone but ourselves. In our heart of hearts we believe that the stern words cannot possibly be meant for us and that the promises are too good to be true for us. This phrase says to every one of us: “All these things are meant for you.”
(ii) It generalizes the message of the letters. It means that their message was not confined to the people in the seven Churches nineteen hundred years ago, but that through them the Spirit is speaking to every man in every generation. We have set these letters carefully against the local situations to which they were addressed; but their message is not local and temporary. It is eternal and in them the Spirit still speaks to us.
THE OPENING HEAVENS AND THE OPENING DOOR
Rev. 4:1
After this I saw, and, behold, a door in heaven was standing open, and there came to me the voice that I had heard before, speaking to me like the sound of a trumpet, and the speaker said: “Come up here, and I will show you the events which must follow these things.”
In Rev. 2-3 we saw the Risen Christ walking amidst his churches upon earth. Now the scene changes to the court of heaven.
A door was opened in heaven for the seer. There are two possibilities here: (a) It may be that he is thought of as already being in heaven, and the door is opening into still more holy parts of heaven. (b) It is much more likely that the door is from earth to heaven. Primitive Jewish thought conceived of the sky as a vast solid dome, set like a roof upon a square flat earth; and the idea here is that beyond the dome of the sky there is heaven, and a door is opened in that dome to give the seer entry into heaven.
In the early chapters of the Revelation there are three of the most important doors in life.
(i) There is the door of opportunity. “Behold,” said the Risen Christ to the Church at Philadelphia, “I have set before you an open door” (Rev. 3:8). That was the door of the glorious opportunity by which the message of the gospel could be taken to the regions beyond. God sets before every man his own door of opportunity.
(ii) There is the door of the human heart. “Behold,” says the Risen Christ, “I stand at the door and knock (Rev. 3:20). At the door of every heart there comes the knock of the nail-pierced hand, and a man may open or refuse to open.
(iii) There is the door of revelation. “I saw a door in heaven standing open,” says the seer. God offers to every man the door which leads to the knowledge of God and of life eternal.
More than once the New Testament speaks of the heavens being opened; and it is of the greatest significance to see the object of that opening.
(i) There is the opening of the heavens for vision. “The heavens were opened and I saw visions of God” (Eze.1:1). God sends to those who seek him the vision of himself and of his truth.
(ii) There is the opening for the descent of the Spirit. When Jesus was baptized by John, he saw the heavens opened and the Spirit descending upon himself (Mk.1:10). When a man’s mind and soul seek upwards, the Spirit of God descends to meet them.
(iii) There is the opening for the revelation of the glory of Christ. It was the promise of Jesus to Nathanael that he would see the heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man (Jn.1:51). Some day the heavens will open to disclose the glory of Christ; and inevitably that day will bring joy to those who have loved him and amazement and fear to those who have despised him.
THE THRONE OF GOD
Rev. 4:2-3
Immediately, I fell under the influence of the Spirit; and, behold, a throne stood in heaven, and there was One seated on it. And he who was seated on the throne was like a jasper stone and a sardian to look at; and there was a rainbow circling round the throne, like an emerald to look at.
When the seer entered the door into heaven, he fell into an ecstasy.
In heaven he saw a throne and God on the throne. The throne of God is a common Old Testament picture. The prophet said: “I saw the Lord sitting on his throne, and all the host of heaven standing beside him” (1Kgs.22:19). The Psalmist has it: “God sits on his holy throne” (Ps.47:8). Isaiah saw the Lord “sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up” (Isa.6:1). In the Revelation the throne of God is mentioned in every chapter except Rev. 2, Rev. 8 and Rev. 9. The throne of God stands for the majesty of God. When Handel was asked how he had come to write the Messiah, his answer was: “I saw the heavens opened and God upon his great white throne.”
John saw One seated upon the throne. There is something very interesting here. John makes no attempt to describe God in any human shape. As Swete says, “He rigorously shuns anthropomorphic details.” He describes God in “the flashing of gem-like colours,” but he never mentions any kind of form. It is the Bible’s way to see God in terms of light. The Pastorals describe God as “dwelling in the light that no man can approach unto” (1Tim.6:16). And long before that the Psalmist had spoken of God who covers himself with light as a garment (Ps.104:2).
John sees his vision in terms of the lights which flash from precious stones. We do not know what exactly these stones were. The three names here are the jasper, the sardian and the emerald. One thing is certain; these were typical of the most precious stones. Plato mentions the three of them together as representative of precious stones (Plato, Phaedo 111 E). They were part of the rich array of the King of Tyre (Eze.28:13); they were among the precious stones on the breast-plate of the High Priest (Exo.28:17); and they were among the stones which were the foundation of the Holy City (Rev. 21:19).
The jasper is nowadays a dull opaque stone, but in the ancient world it seems to have been a translucent rock crystal, through which the light would come with an almost unbearable scintillation. Some think that here it means a diamond, and this is not impossible. The sardian, so called because it was said to be found mainly near Sardis, was blood-red; it was a gem which was frequently used to have engravings incised on it and may correspond to the modern carnelian. The emerald is most likely the green emerald which we know.
The picture of the presence of God which John saw was like the blinding flash of a diamond in the sun, with the dazzling blood-red of the sardian; and there flashed through both the more restful green of the emerald, for in that way alone could the eye bear to look upon the sight.
It may well be that the jasper stands for the unbearable brightness of the purity of God; that the blood-red sardian stands for his avenging wrath; and that the gentle green of the emerald stands for his mercy by which alone we can meet his purity and his justice.
THE TWENTY-FOUR ELDERS
Rev. 4:4
And in a circle round the throne I saw twenty-four thrones, and seated upon the thrones twenty-four elders, clothed in white garments, with golden crowns upon their heads.
We now approach one of the difficult passages for which the Revelation is notorious. In it we meet twenty-four elders and then four living creatures; and we have to try to identify them.
We find the twenty-four elders frequently appearing in the Revelation. Let us set down the facts about them. They sit around the throne, clothed in white robes and wearing crowns (Rev. 4:4; Rev. 14:3); they cast their crowns before the throne (Rev. 4:10); they continually worship and praise (Rev. 5:11,14; Rev. 7:11; Rev. 11:16; Rev. 14:3; Rev. 19:4); they bring to God the prayers of the saints (Rev. 5:8); one of them encourages the seer, when he is sad (Rev. 5:5); and one of them acts as interpreter of one of the visions (Rev. 7:13). We may note five lines of explanation.
(i) In the Old Testament there are indications of a kind of council surrounding God. The prophet sees God sitting on his throne and all the host of heaven standing by him on his right hand and on his left (1Kgs.22:19). In Job the sons of God come to meet with him (Jb.1:6; Jb.2:1). Isaiah speaks of God reigning in glory–among his elders (Isa.24:23). In the Genesis story of the garden, the accusation against Adam is that he has eaten of the fruit of the forbidden tree and become like one of us (Gen.3:22). It may be that the idea of the elders has something to do with the idea of God’s council surrounding him.
(ii) When the Jews were in Babylon, they could not avoid coming into contact with Babylonian ideas. And it might well be that sometimes they incorporated Babylonian ideas into their own thinking, especially if there was some initial resemblance. The Babylonians had twenty-four star gods, for the worship of the stars was a part of Babylonian religion; and it has been suggested that these became in Jewish thought twenty-four angels who surrounded the throne of God, and that the elders stand for these.
(iii) We move on to explanations which we think are much more likely. There were so many priests in Israel that they could not possibly serve in the Temple at the one time and so they were divided into twenty-four different courses (1Chr.24:7-18). Each of these courses had its president, known as an elder of the priests. Sometimes these elders were called princes, or governors, of the house of God (1Chr.24:5). It is suggested that the twenty-four elders stand symbolically for the twenty-four courses of the priests. They present the prayers of the faithful to God (Rev. 5:8), and that is priestly work. The Levites were similarly divided into twenty-four courses for the work of the Temple and they praised God with harps and psalteries and cymbals (1Chr.25:6-31), and the elders also have their harps (Rev. 5:8). So the twenty-four elders may stand for the heavenly ideal of the earthly worship of the priests and Levites in the Temple.
(iv) It has been suggested that the twenty-four elders stand for the twelve patriarchs and the twelve apostles combined. In the new Jerusalem the names of the twelve patriarchs are on the twelve gates and the names of the twelve apostles are on the foundation stones of the wall.
(v) We think that the likeliest explanation is that the twenty-four elders are the symbolic representatives of the faithful people of God. Their white robes are the robes promised to the faithful (Rev. 3:4), and their crowns (stephanoi, GSN4735) are those promised to those who are faithful unto death (Rev. 2:10). The thrones are those which Jesus promised to those who forsook all and followed him (Matt.19:27-29). The description of the twenty-four elders fits well with the promises made to the faithful.
The question will then be, “Why twenty-four?” The answer is because the Church is composed of Jews and Gentiles. There were originally twelve tribes, but now it is as if the tribes were doubled. Swete says that the twenty-four elders stand for the Church in its totality. We remember that this is a vision, not of what yet is, but of what shall be; and the twenty-four elders stand as representatives of the whole Church which one day in glory will worship in the presence of God himself.
AROUND THE THRONE
Rev. 4:5-6a
And flashes of lightning and voices and peals of thunder were coming forth from the throne. There were seven torches of fire burning before the throne, and these are the seven Spirits of God. And in front of the throne there was what I can only call a sea of glass like crystal.
John adds more details to his mysterious and awe-inspiring picture of heaven. The voices are the voices of the thunder; and thunder and lightning are often connected with the manifestation of God. In the vision of Ezekiel lightning comes out of the fiery haze around the throne (Eze.1:13). The Psalmist tells how the voice of the thunder of God was heard in the heavens, and the lightnings lightened the world (Ps.77:18). God sends his lightning to the ends of the earth (Jb.37:4). But what is primarily in the mind of John is the description of Mount Sinai as the people waited for the giving of the Law: “There were thunders and lightnings and a thick cloud upon the mountain, and a very loud trumpet blast” (Exo.19:16). John is using imagery which is regularly connected with the presence of God.
The seven torches are the seven Spirits of God. We have already met the seven Spirits before the throne (Rev. 1:4; Rev. 3:1). There are scholars who see Babylonian influence here also. For the Babylonians the seven planets were also divine and within the presence of God; it would be natural to liken the planets to torches and it has been suggested that this imagery is Babylonian in origin.
The “glassy sea” has exercised a strange fascination over the minds of many people, including hymn-writers. The Greek does not say that there was a sea of glass but “as it were a sea of glass.” There was something which was beyond all description, but which could be likened only to a great sea of glass. Where did the seer get this picture?
(i) He may have got it from a conception in the most primitive thought of the Old Testament. We have already seen that the firmament is conceived of as a great solid dome arching over the earth. Beneath it is the earth, and above it the heaven. The creation story speaks of the waters under the firmament and the waters above the firmament (Gen.1:7). The Psalmist calls upon the waters that are above the heavens to praise the Lord (Ps.148:4). The belief was that above the firmament, perhaps as the kind of floor of heaven, there was a great sea. Further, it was on that sea that God had set his throne. The Psalmist says of God that he set the beams of his chambers upon the waters (Ps.104:3).
(ii) It may be that John’s time in Patmos gave him the idea of this picture. Swete suggests that he saw a vast surface which flashed back the light, “like the Aegan Sea, when on summer days John looked upon it from the heights of Patmos.” John had often seen the sea like a sea of molten glass and maybe his picture was born from that.
(iii) There is a further possibility. According to the Koran (Sura 27) Solomon had in his palace a floor of glass so like a sea that, when the Queen of Sheba came to visit him, she picked up her skirts thinking she had to wade through water. It may be that John is thinking of the throne of God set in a glass-floored palace.
(iv) There is one other remote possibility. John says that the glassy sea was like crystal (krustallon, GSN2930); but krustallon could mean ice; and then the idea would be an expanse which shimmered like an ice-field. It is a magnificent picture, but it can hardly be the real picture because neither John nor his people would ever have seen such a scene, and it would have meant nothing to them.
There are three things that this sea like shining glass does symbolize.
(i) It symbolizes preciousness. In the ancient world glass was usually dull and semi-opaque, and glass as clear as crystal was as precious as gold. In Jb.28:17 gold and glass are mentioned together as examples of precious things.
(ii) It symbolizes dazzling purity. The blinding light reflected from the glassy sea would be too much for the eyes to look upon, like the purity of God.
(iii) It symbolizes immense distance. The throne of God was in the immense distance, as if at the other side of a great sea. Swete writes of “the vast distance which, even in the case of one who stood in the door of heaven, intervened between himself and the throne of God.”
One of the greatest characteristics of the writing of the seer is the reverence which, even in the heavenly places, never dares to be familiar with God, but paints its picture in terms of light and distance.
THE FOUR LIVING CREATURES (1)
Rev. 4:6b-8
And, between the throne and the elders, in a circle round the throne, were four living creatures, full of eyes in front and behind. The first living creature was like a lion; the second living creature was like an ox; the third living creature had what appeared to be a man’s face; the fourth living creature was like an eagle in flight. The four living creatures had each of them six wings; and around and within they were full of eyes. Night and day they never rested from saying:
Holy, holy, holy is the Lord, the Almighty, who was, and who is, and who is to come.
Here we come to another of the symbolic problems of the Revelation. The four living creatures appear frequently in the heavenly scene: so let us begin by collecting what the Revelation itself says about them. They are always found near the throne and the Lamb (Rev. 4:6; Rev. 5:6; Rev. 14:4). They have six wings and they are full of eyes (Rev. 4:6,8). They are constantly engaged in praising and in worshipping God (Rev. 4:8; Rev. 5:9; Rev. 5:14; Rev. 7:11; Rev. 19:4). They have certain functions to perform. They invite the dreadful manifestations of the wrath of God to appear upon the scene (Rev. 6:1; Rev. 6:7). One of them hands over the vials of the wrath of God (Rev. 15:7).
Although there are definite differences, there can be little doubt that we find the ancestors of these living creatures in the visions of Ezekiel. In Ezekiel’s vision the four living creatures each have four faces–the faces of a man, a lion, an ox and an eagle; and they uphold the firmament (Eze.1:6,10; Eze.1:22,26); the felloes of the wheels are full of eyes (Eze.1:18). In Ezekiel we have all the details of the picture in the Revelation, although the details are differently allocated and arranged. In spite of the differences the family resemblance is clear.
In Ezekiel the four living creatures are definitely identified with the cherubim. (It is to be noted that -im is the Hebrew plural ending; cherubim is simply cherubs and seraphim is simply seraphs.) The identification is made in Eze.10:20,22. The cherubim were part of the decoration of Solomon’s Temple, in the place of prayer and on the walls (1Kgs.6:23-30; 2Chr.3:7). They were represented on the hanging veil which shut off the Holy of Holies from the Holy Place (Exo.26:31). There were two cherubim on the lid of the ark, called the mercy-seat; and they were so placed that they faced each other and their wings swept over to form a kind of canopy over the mercy-seat (Exo.25:18-21). One of the commonest pictures of God is sitting between the cherubim, and it is thus that he is often addressed in prayer (2Kgs.19:15; Ps.80:1; Ps.99:1; Isa.37:16). God is represented as flying on the cherubim and on the wings of the wind (Ps.18:10). It is the cherubim who guard the way to the Garden when Adam and Eve have been banished from it (Gen.3:24). In the later books written between the Testaments, such as Enoch, the cherubim are the guardians of the throne of God (Enoch 71: 7).
From all this one thing emerges clearly–the cherubim are angelic beings who are close to God and the guardians of his throne.
THE FOUR LIVING CREATURES (2)
Rev. 4:6b-8 (continued)
What do these four living creatures symbolize?
(i) They are clearly part of the imagery of heaven; and they are not figures whom the writer of the Revelation did not create, but whom he inherited from previous pictures. They may originally have come from Babylonian sources, and they may have stood for the four principal signs of the Zodiac and for the four winds coming from the four quarters of heaven. But the John who wrote the Revelation was not aware of that, and he used them simply as part of the imagery of heaven in which he had been brought up.
(ii) How did John himself think of the symbolism of these living creatures? We think that Swete offers the right explanation. The four living creatures stand for everything that is noblest, strongest, wisest and swiftest in nature. Each has the preeminence in his own particular sphere. The lion is supreme among beasts; the ox is supreme among cattle; the eagle is supreme among birds; and man is supreme among all creatures. The beasts represent all the greatness and the strength and the beauty of nature; here we see nature praising God. In the verses to follow we see the twenty-four elders praising God; and when we put the two pictures together we get the picture of both nature and man engaged in constant adoration of God. “The ceaseless activity of nature under the hand of God is a ceaseless tribute of praise.”
The idea of nature praising God is one which occurs in the Old Testament more than once. “The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours forth speech and night to night declares knowledge” (Ps.19:1-2). “Bless the Lord all his works in all places of his dominion” (Ps.103:22). Ps.148 is a magnificent summons to the whole of nature to join in praising God.
There is a tremendous truth here. The basic idea behind this is that anything which is fulfilling the function for which it was created is praising God. One of the basic conceptions of Stoicism was that in everything there was a spark of God, scintilla. “God,” said Seneca, “is near you, with you, within you; a holy spirit sits within us.” As Gilbert Murray points out, the sceptics laughed at this and sought to make a fool of the whole idea. “What,” said the sceptic, “God in worms? God in dung beetles?” “Why not?” demanded the Stoic.
Cannot an earthworm serve God? Do you suppose that it is only a general who is a good soldier? Cannot the lowest private fight his best? Happy are you, if you are serving God and carrying out his purpose as faithfully as an earthworm. Whatever carries out the function for which it was created is thereby worshipping God.
This is a thought which opens out the most magnificent vistas. The humblest and the most unseen activity in the world can be the true worship of God. Work and worship literally become one. Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him for ever; and man carries out that function when he does what God sent him into the world to do. Work well done rises like a hymn of praise to God.
This means that the doctor on his rounds, the scientist in his laboratory, the teacher in his classroom, the musician at his music, the artist at his canvas, the shop assistant at his counter, the typist at her typewriter, the housewife in her kitchen–all who are doing the work of the world as it should be done are joining in a great act of worship.
THE SYMBOLISM OF THE LIVING CREATURES
Rev. 4:6b-8 (continued)
It was not long before the early church found certain symbolisms in the living creatures, in particular of the four Gospels–a representation which is often to be found in stained-glass windows in churches.
The earliest and the fullest identification was made by Irenaeus about A.D. 170. He held that the four living creatures represented four aspects of the work of Jesus Christ, which in turn are represented in the four Gospels.
The lion symbolizes the powerful and effective working of the Son of God, his leadership and his royal power. The ox signifies the priestly side of his work, for it is the animal of sacrifice. The man symbolizes his incarnation. The eagle represents the gift of the Holy Spirit, hovering with his wings over the Church. John represents “the original, effective and glorious generation of the Son from the Father,” and tells how all things were made by him; and is, therefore, symbolized by the lion. Luke begins with the picture of Zacharias the priest, and tells the story of the fatted calf killed for the finding of the younger son; and is, therefore, symbolized by the ox. Matthew begins by giving us the human descent of Jesus and “The character of a humble and meek man is kept up throughout the whole gospel,” and is, therefore, symbolized by the man. Mark begins with a reference to the Spirit of prophecy coming down from on high upon men which “points to the winged aspect of the Gospel”; and, therefore, is symbolized by the eagle.
Irenaeus goes on to say that the fourfold form of the beasts represents the four principal covenants which God made with the human race. The first was made with Adam, prior to the flood. The second was made with Noah, after the flood. The third consisted of the giving of the Law to Moses. The fourth is that which renovates man in Christ, “raising and bearing men upon its wings into the heavenly kingdom.”
But, as we have said, there was a variety of different identifications.
The scheme of Athanasius was: Matthew = the man Mark = the ox Luke = the lion John = the eagle,
The scheme of Victorinus was: Matthew = the man Mark = the lion Luke = the ox John = the eagle
The scheme of Augustine was: Matthew = the lion Mark = the man Luke = the ox John = the eagle.
It may be said that on the whole Augustine’s identifications became the most commonly accepted, because they fit the facts. Matthew is best represented by the lion, because in it Jesus is depicted as the Lion of Judah, the One in whom all the expectations of the prophets came true. Mark. is best represented by the man, because it is the nearest approach to a factual report of the human life of Jesus. Luke is best represented by the ox, because it depicts Jesus as the sacrifice for all classes and conditions of men and women everywhere. John is best represented by the eagle, because of all birds it flies highest and is said to be the only living creature which can look straight into the sun; and John of all the gospels reaches the highest heights of thought.
THE SONG OF PRAISE
Rev. 4:6b-8 (continued)
Night and day the living creatures never rested from their doxology of praise:
Holy, holy, holy is the Lord, the Almighty, Who was, and Who is, and Who is to come.
Here is set out the sleepless praise of nature. “Man rests on the Sabbath, and in sleep, and in the end in death, but the course of nature is unbroken and unbroken in praise.” There is never any time when the world God made is not praising him.
As o’er each continent and island The dawn leads on another day, The voice of prayer is never silent, Nor dies the strain of praise away.
The doxology seizes on three aspects of God.
(i) It praises him for his holiness (compare Isa.6:3). Again and again we have seen that the basic idea of holiness is difference. That is supremely true of God. He is different from men. Precisely there is the reason that we are moved to adoration of God. If he were simply a glorified human person, we could not praise. As the poet had it: “How could I praise, if such as I could understand” The very mystery of God moves us to awed admiration in his presence and to amazed love that that greatness should stoop so low for us men and for our salvation.
(ii) It praises his omnipotence. God is the Almighty. The people to whom the Revelation was written are under the threat of the Roman Empire, a power which no person or nation had ever successfully withstood. Think what it must have meant to be sure that behind them stood the Almighty. The very giving of that name to God affirms the certainty of the safety of the Christian; not a safety which meant release from trouble but which made a man secure in life and in death.
(iii) It praises his everlastingness. Empires might come and empires might go; God lasts for ever. Here is the triumphant affirmation that God endures unchanging amidst the enmity and the rebellion of men.
GOD, THE LORD AND CREATOR
Rev. 4:9-11
When the living creatures shall give glory and honour and thanksgiving to him who is seated on the throne and who lives for ever and ever, the twenty-four elders shall fall down before him who is seated on the throne, and worship him who lives for ever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, and say:
It is right, our Lord and God, that you should receive the glory and the honour and the power, for you have created all things, and through your will all things exist and have been created.
Here is the other section of the choir of thanksgiving. We have seen that the living creatures stand for nature in all its greatness and the twenty-four elders for the great united Church in Jesus Christ. So when the living creatures and the elders unite in praise, it symbolizes nature and the Church both praising God. There are commentators who have made difficulty here. In Rev. 4:8 the praise of the living creatures is unceasing by day and night; in this passage the picture is of separate bursts of praise at each of which the elders fall down and worship. But surely to say that there is an inconsistency is unimaginative criticism; we do not look for a strict logic in the poetry of adoration.
John uses a picture which the ancient world would know well. The elders cast their crowns before the throne of God. In the ancient world that was the sign of complete submission. When one king surrendered to another, he cast his crown at the victor’s feet. Sometimes the Romans carried with them an image of their emperor and, when they had reduced a monarch to submission, there was a ceremony in which the vanquished one had to cast his crown before the emperor’s image. The picture looks on God as the conqueror of the souls of men; and on the Church as the body of people who have surrendered to him. There can be no Christianity without submission.
The doxology of the elders praises God on two counts.
(i) He is Lord and God. Here is something which would be even more meaningful to John’s people than it is to us. The phrase for Lord and God is: kurios (GSN2962) kai (2532) theos (GSN2316); and that was the official title of Domitian, the Roman Emperor. It was, indeed, because the Christians would not acknowledge that claim that they were persecuted and killed. Simply to call God Lord and God was a triumphant confession of faith, an assertion that he holds first place in all the universe.
(ii) God is Creator. It is through his will and purpose that all things existed even before creation and were in the end brought into actual being. Man has acquired many powers, but he does not possess the power to create. He can alter and rearrange; he can make things out of already existing materials; but only God can create something out of nothing. That great truth means that in the realest sense everything in the world belongs to God, and there is nothing a man can handle which God has not given to him.
THE ROLL IN THE HAND OF GOD
Rev. 5:1
And in the right hand of him who was seated on the throne I saw a roll written on the front and on the back, and seated with seven seals.
We must try to visualize the picture which John is drawing. It is taken from the vision of Ezekiel: “And, when I looked, behold, a hand was stretched out to me; and lo, a written scroll was in it; and he spread it before me; and it had writing on the front and on the back; and there were written on it words of lamentation and mourning and woe” (Eze.2:9-10).
We must note that it was a roll and not a book which was in the hand of God. In the ancient world, down to the second century A.D., the form of literary work was the roll, not the book. The roll was made of papyrus, manufactured in single sheets about ten inches by eight. The sheets were joined together horizontally when a great deal of writing had to be done. The writing was in narrow columns about three inches long, with margins of about two and a half inches at the top and at the bottom, and with about three-quarters of an inch between the columns. The roll commonly had a wooden roller at each end. It was held in the left hand, unrolled with the right, and, as the reading went on, the part in the left hand was rolled up again. We may get some idea of the dimensions of a roll from the following statistics. Second and Third John, Jude and Philemon would occupy one sheet of papyrus; Romans would require a roll 11 1/2 feet long; Mark, 19 feet; John, 23 1/2 feet; Matthew, 30 feet; Luke and Acts, 32 feet. The Revelation itself would occupy a roll 15 feet long. It was such a roll that was in the hand of God. Two things are said about it.
(i) It was written on the front and on the back. Papyrus was a substance made from the pith of a bulrush which grew in the delta of the Nile. The bulrush was about fifteen feet high, with six feet of it below the water; and it was as thick as a man’s wrist. The pith was extracted and cut into thin strips with a very sharp knife. A row of strips was laid vertically; on the top of them another row of strips was laid horizontally; the whole was then moistened with Nile water and glue and pressed together. The resulting substance was beaten with a mallet and then smoothed with pumice stone; and there emerged a substance not unlike brown paper.
From this description it will be seen that on one side the grain of the papyrus would run horizontally; that side was known as the recto; and on that side the writing was done, as it was easier to write where the lines of the writing ran with the lines of the fibres. The side on which the fibres ran vertically was called the verso and was not so commonly used for writing.
But papyrus was an expensive substance. So, if a person had a great deal to write, he wrote both on the front and on the back. A sheet written on the back, the verso, was called an opisthograph, that is, a sheet written behind. Juvenal talks of a young tragedian walking about with the papyrus manuscript of a tragedy on Orestes written on both sides; it was a lengthy production! The roll in God’s hand was written on both sides; there was so much on it that recto and verso alike were taken up with the writing.
(ii) It was sealed with seven seals. That may indicate either of two things.
(a) When a roll was finished, it was fastened with threads and the threads were sealed at the knots. The one ordinary document sealed with seven seals was a will. Under Roman law the seven witnesses to a will sealed it with their seals, and it could only be opened when all seven, or their legal representatives, were present. The roll may be what we might describe as God’s will, his final settlement of the affairs of the universe.
(b) It is more likely that the seven seals stand simply for profound secrecy. The contents of the roll are so secret that it is sealed with seven seals. The tomb of Jesus was sealed to keep it safe (Matt.27:66); the apocryphal Gospel of Peter says that it was sealed with seven seals. It was so sealed to make quite certain that no unauthorized person could possibly open it.
GOD’S BOOK OF DESTINY
Rev. 5:2-4
And I saw a strong angel proclaiming in a great voice: “Who is good enough to open the roll, and to loosen its seals?” And there was no one in heaven, or on earth, or under the earth, who was able to open the roll or to look at it; and I was weeping sorely because there was no one who was found to be good enough to open the roll or to see it.
As John looked at God with the roll in his hand, there came a challenge from a strong angel. A strong angel appears again in Rev. 10:1 and Rev. 18:21. In this case the angel had to be strong so that the challenge of his voice might reach throughout the universe. His summons was that anyone worthy of the task should come forward and open the book.
There is no doubt that the book is the record of that which is to happen in the last times. That there was such a book is a common conception in Jewish thought. It is common in the Book of Enoch. Uriel the archangel says to Enoch in the heavenly places: “O Enoch, observe the writing of the heavenly tablets, and read what is written thereon, and mark every individual fact.” Enoch goes on: “And I observed everything on the heavenly tablets, and read everything which was written thereon, and understood everything, and read the book of all the deeds of men and of all the children of flesh that will be upon the earth to the remotest generations.” (I Enoch 81: 1-2). In the same book Enoch has a vision of the Head of Days on the throne of his glory, “and the books of the living were opened before him” (I Enoch 47: 3). Enoch declares that he knows the mystery of the holy ones, because “the Lord showed me and informed me, and I have read in the heavenly tables” (I Enoch 106: 19). On these tables he saw the history of the generations still to come (I Enoch 107: 1). The idea is that God has a book in which the history of time to come is already written.
When we are seeking to interpret this idea, it is well to remember that it is vision and poetry. It would be a great mistake to take it too literally. It does not mean that everything is settled long ago and that we are in the grip of an inescapable fate. What it does mean is that God has a plan for the universe; and that the purpose of God will be in the end worked out.
God is working his purpose out, as year succeeds to year: God is working his purpose out, and the time is drawing near– Nearer and nearer draws the time–the time that shall surely be, When the earth shall be filled with the glory of God, as the waters cover the sea.
In response to the challenge of the angel no one came forward; none was good enough to open the roll. And at this John in his vision fell to weeping sorely. There were two reasons for his tears.
(i) In Rev. 4:1 the voice had made the promise to him: “I will show you what must take place after this.” It now looked as if the promise had been frustrated.
(ii) There is a deeper reason for his sorrow. It seemed to him that there was no one in the whole universe to whom God could reveal his mysteries. Here, indeed, was a terrible thing. Long ago Amos had said: “Surely the Lord God does nothing, without revealing his secrets to his servants the prophets” (Am.3:7). But here was a world so far from God that there was none able to receive his message.
For John that problem was to be triumphantly solved in the emergence of the Lamb. But behind this problem lies a great and a challenging truth. God cannot deliver a message to men unless there be a man fit to receive it. Here is the very essence of the problem of communication. It is the problem of the teacher; he cannot teach truth which his scholars are unable to receive. It is the problem of the preacher; he cannot deliver a message to a congregation totally incapable of comprehending it. It is the eternal problem of love; love cannot tell its truths or give its gifts to those incapable of hearing and receiving. The need of the world is for men and women who will keep themselves sensitive to God. He has a message for the world in every generation; but that message cannot be delivered until there is found a man capable of receiving it. And day by day we either fit or unfit ourselves to receive the message of God.
THE LION OF JUDAH AND THE ROOT OF DAVID
Rev. 5:5
And one of the elders said to me: “Stop weeping. Behold the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has won such a victory that he is able to open the book and its seven seals.”
We are now approaching one of the most dramatic moments in the Revelation, the emergence of the Lamb in the centre of the scene. Certain things lead up to it.
John has been weeping because there is none to whom God may reveal his secrets. There comes to him one of the elders, acting as the messenger of Christ and saying to him: “Weep not.” These words were more than once on the lips of Jesus in the days of his flesh. That is what he said to the widow of Nain when she was mourning her dead son (Lk.7:13); and to Jairus and his family when they were lamenting for their little girl (Lk.8:52). The comforting voice of Christ is still speaking in the heavenly places.
Swete has an interesting comment on this. John was weeping and yet his tears were unnecessary. Human grief often springs from insufficient knowledge. If we had patience to wait and trust, we would see that God has his own solutions for the situations which bring us tears.
The elder tells John that Jesus Christ has won such a victory that he is able to open the book and to loosen the seals. That means three things. It means that because of his victory over death and all the powers of evil and because of his complete obedience to God he is able to know God’s secrets; he is able to reveal God’s secrets; and it is his privilege and duty to control the things which shall be. Because of what Jesus did, he is the Lord of truth and of history. He is called by two great titles.
(i) He is the Lion of Judah. This title goes back to Jacob’s final blessing of his sons before his death. In that blessing he calls Judah “a lion’s whelp” (Gen.49:9). If Judah himself is a lion’s whelp, it is fitting to call the greatest member of the tribe of Judah The Lion of Judah. In the books written between the Testaments this became a messianic title. 2 Esdras speaks of the figure of a lion and says: “This is the Anointed One, that is, the Messiah” (2Esdr.12:31). The strength of the lion and his undoubted place as king of beasts make him a fitting emblem of the all-powerful Messiah whom the Jews awaited.
(ii) He is the Root of David. This title goes back to Isaiah’s prophecy that there will come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse and a root of Jesse who shall be an ensign to the people (Isa.11:1,10). Jesse was the father of David, and this means that Jesus Christ was the Son of David, the promised Messiah.
So, here we have two great titles which are particularly Jewish. They have their origin in the pictures of the coming Messiah; and they lay it down that Jesus Christ triumphantly performed the work of the Messiah and is, therefore, able to know and to reveal the secrets of God, and to preside over the working out of his purposes in the events of history.
THE LAMB
Rev. 5:6
And I saw a Lamb standing in the midst of the throne and of the four living creatures, and in the midst of the elders. It still bore the marks of having been slain. It had seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God despatched to all the earth
Here is the supreme moment of this vision–the emergence of the Lamb in the scene of heaven. It is possible to think of this scene in two ways. Either we may think of the four living creatures forming a circle around the throne and the twenty-four elders forming a wider circle with a larger circumference, with the Lamb standing between the inner circle of the four living creatures and the outer circle of the twenty-four elders; or, much more likely, the Lamb is the centre of the whole scene.
The Lamb is one of the great characteristic ideas of the Revelation in which Jesus Christ is so called no fewer than twenty-nine times. The word he uses for Lamb is not used of Jesus Christ anywhere else in the New Testament. John the Baptist pointed to him as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (Jn.1:29,36). Peter speaks of the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot (1Pet.1:19). In Isa.53:7, in the chapter so dear to Jesus and to the early Church, we read of the lamb brought to the slaughter. But in all these cases the word is amnos (GSN0286), whereas the word that the Revelation uses is arnion (GSN0721). This is the word that Jeremiah uses, when he says: “I was like a gentle lamb that is led to the slaughter” (Jer.11:19). By using arnion (GSN0721) and using it so often, John wishes us to see that this is a new conception which he is bringing to men.
(i) The Lamb still bears the marks of having been slain. There we have the picture of the sacrifice of Christ, still visible in the heavenly places. Even in the heavenly places Jesus Christ is the one who loved us and gave himself for us.
(ii) There is another side to this. This same Lamb, with the marks of sacrifice still on it, is the Lamb with the seven horns and the seven eyes.
(a) The seven horns stand for omnipotence. In the Old Testament the horn stands for two things.
First, it stands for sheer power. In the blessing of Moses the horns of Joseph are like the horns of a wild ox and with them he will push the people together to the ends of the earth (Deut.33:17). Zedekiah, the prophet, made iron horns as a sign of promised triumph over the Syrians (1Kgs.22:11). The wicked is warned not to lift up his horn (Ps.75:4). Zechariah sees the vision of the four horns which stand for the nations who have scattered Israel (Zech.1:18).
Second, it stands for honour. It is the confidence of the Psalmist that in the favour of God our horn shall be exalted (Ps.89:17). The good man’s horn shall be exalted with honour (Ps.112:9). God exalts the horn of his people (Ps.148:14).
We must add still another strand to this picture. In the time between the Testaments the great heroes of Israel were the Maccabees; they were the great warriors who were the liberators of the nations; and they are represented as horned lambs (I Enoch 90: 9).
Here is the great paradox; the Lamb bears the sacrificial wounds upon it; but at the same time it is clothed with the very might of God which can now shatter its enemies. The Lamb has seven horns; the number seven stands for perfection; the power of the Lamb is perfect, beyond withstanding.
(b) The Lamb has seven eyes, and the eyes are the Spirits which are despatched into all the earth. The picture comes from Zechariah. There the prophet sees the seven lamps which are “the eyes of the Lord, which range through the whole earth” (Zech.4:10). It is an eerie picture; but quite clearly it stands for the omniscience of God. In an almost crude way it says that there is no place on earth which is not under the eye of God.
Here is a tremendous picture of Christ. He is the fulfilment of all the hopes and dreams of Israel, for he is the Lion of Judah and the Root of David. He is the one whose sacrifice availed for men, and who still bears the marks of it in the heavenly places. But the tragedy has turned to triumph and the shame to glory; and he is the one whose all-conquering might none can withstand and whose all-seeing eye none can escape.
Few passages of Scripture show at one and the same time what Swete called “the majesty and the meekness” of Jesus Christ and in the one picture combine the humiliation of his death and the glory of his risen life.
MUSIC IN HEAVEN
Rev. 5:7-14
And the Lamb came and received the roll from the right hand of him who was seated on the throne. When it had received the roll, the four living creatures fell before the Lamb and so did the twenty-four elders, each of whom had a harp and golden bowls laden with incenses, which are the prayers of God’s dedicated people. And they sang a new song and this is what they sang:
Worthy are you to receive the roll and to open its seals, because you were slain, and so at the price of your life blood you bought for God those of every tribe and tongue and people and race and made them a kingdom of priests to our God. and they will reign upon the earth.
And I saw, and I heard the voice of many angels, who were in a circle round the throne, and the living creatures, and the elders; and their number was ten thousands of ten thousands and thousands of thousands, and they were singing with a great voice:
The Lamb which has been slain is worthy to receive the power and the riches and the wisdom and the strength and the honour and the glory and the blessing.
And I heard every created creature which was in the heaven and upon the earth and beneath the earth and on the sea and all things in them saying:
Blessing and honour and glory and dominion for ever and ever to him who sits upon the throne and to the Lamb.
And the four living creatures said, Amen; and the elders fell down and worshipped.
It is necessary to look at this passage as a whole before we begin to deal with it in detail. R. H. Charles quotes Christina Rossetti on it; “Heaven is revealed to earth as the homeland of music.” Here is the greatest chorus of praise the universe can ever hear. It comes in three waves. First, there is the praise of the four living creatures and of the twenty-four elders. Here we see all nature and all the Church combining to praise the Lamb. Second, there is the praise of the myriads of angels. Here is the picture of all the inhabitants of heaven lifting up their voices in praise. Third, John sees every created creature, in every part of the universe, to its deepest depth and its farthest corner, singing in praise.
Here is the truth that heaven and earth and all that is within them is designed for the praise of Jesus Christ; and it is our privilege to lend our voices and our lives to this vast chorus of praise, for that chorus is necessarily incomplete so long as there is one voice missing from it.
THE PRAYERS OF THE SAINTS
Rev. 5:8
The first section in the chorus of praise is the song of the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders; and, as we have seen, they represent all that is in nature and in the universal Church.
The picture of the elders is interesting. They have harps. The harp was the traditional instrument to which the Psalms were sung. “Praise the Lord with harp,” says the Psalmist (Ps.33:2). “Sing praises to the Lord with the harp; the harp, and the sound of melody” (Ps.98:5). “Sing to the Lord with thanksgiving; make melody to our God upon the harp” (Ps.147:7). The harp stands for the music of praise as the Jews knew it.
The elders also have golden bowls full of incense; and the incense is the prayers of God’s dedicated people. The likening of prayers to incense comes also from the Psalms. “Let my prayer be before thee counted as incense; and the lifting up of my hands as an evening sacrifice” (Ps.141:2). But the significant thing is the idea of intermediaries in prayer. In later Jewish literature this idea of heavenly intermediaries bringing the prayers of the faithful to God is very common. In the Testament of Dan (6: 2) we read: “Draw near unto God and to the angel that intercedeth for you, for he is a mediator between God and man.” In this literature we find many such angels.
Chief of them all is Michael, the archangel, “the merciful and long-suffering” (I Enoch 40: 9). He is said daily to come down to the fifth heaven to receive men’s prayers and to bring them to God (3 Baruch 11). In Tobit it is the archangel Raphael who brings the prayers of men to God; “I am Raphael, one of the seven holy angels, who present the prayers of the saints, and who go in and out before the glory of the Holy One” (Tob.12:15). It is Gabriel who tells Enoch: “I swear unto you that in heaven the angels are mindful of you before the glory of the Great One” (I Enoch 104: 1). Sometimes it is the guardian angels who bring the prayers of men to God; and it is said that at certain times each day the doors are open so that the prayers may be received (Apocalypse of Paul 7: 10). Sometimes all the angels, or, as Enoch calls them, The Watchers, are engaged in this task. It is to “the Holy Ones of Heaven” that the souls of men complain with their cry for justice (I Enoch 9: 3). It is the duty of the Watchers of heaven to intercede for men (I Enoch 15: 2). As we have seen, the angels are mindful of men for good (I Enoch 104: 1). Sometimes, it would seem, the blessed dead share in this task. The angels and the holy ones in their resting-places intercede for the children of men (I Enoch 39: 6). There are certain things to be said about this belief in heavenly intermediaries.
(i) From one point of view it is an uplifting thought. We are, so to speak, not left to pray alone. No prayer can be altogether heavy-footed and leaden-winged which has all the citizenry of heaven behind it to help it rise to God.
(ii) From another point of view it is quite unnecessary. Before us is set an open door which no man can ever shut; no man’s prayers need any assistance, for God’s ear is open to catch the faintest whisper of appeal.
(iii) The whole conception of intermediaries arises from a line of thought which has met us before. As the centuries went on, the Jews became ever more impressed with the transcendence of God, his difference from men. They began to believe that there never could be any direct contact between God and man and that there must be angelic intermediaries to bridge the gulf. That is exactly the feeling that Jesus Christ came to take away; he came to tell us that God “is closer to us than breathing, nearer than hands or feet” and to be the living way by which for every man, however humble, the door to God is open.
THE NEW SONG
Rev. 5:9
The song that the four living creatures and the elders sang was a new song. The phrase a new song is very common in the Psalms; and there it is always a song for the new mercies of God. “Sing to him a new song,” says the Psalmist (Ps.33:3). God took the Psalmist out of the fearful pit and from the miry clay and set his foot on a rock and put a new song in his mouth to praise God (Ps.40:3). “O sing a new song to the Lord, for he has done marvellous things? (Ps.98:1; compare Ps.96:1). “I will sing a new song to thee, O God” (Ps.144:9). “Praise the Lord. Sing to the Lord a new song, his praise in the assembly of the faithful” (Ps.149:1). The nearest parallel in the Old Testament comes from Isaiah. There God declares new things and the prophet calls upon men to sing to the Lord a new song (Isa.42:9-10).
The new song is always a song for new mercies of God; and it will be noblest of all when it is a song for the mercies of God in Jesus Christ.
One of the characteristics of the Revelation is that it is the book of new things. There is the new name (Rev. 2:17; Rev. 3:12); there is the new Jerusalem (Rev. 3:12; Rev. 21:2); there is the new song (Rev. 5:9; Rev. 14:3); there are the new heavens and the new earth (Rev. 21:1); and there is the great promise that God makes all things new (Rev. 21:5).
One most significant thing is to be noted. Greek has two words for new, neos (GSN3501), which means new in point of time but not necessarily in point of quality, and kainos (GSN2537), which means new in point of quality. Kainos (GSN2537) describes a thing which has not only been recently produced but whose like has never existed before.
The significance of this is that Jesus Christ brings into life a quality which has never existed before, new joy, new thrill, new strength, new peace. That is why the supreme quality of the Christian life is a kind of sheen. It has been said that “the opposite of a Christian world is a world grown old and sad.”
THE SONG OF THE LIVING CREATURES AND OF THE ELDERS
Rev. 5:9-10
Let us begin by setting down this song:
Worthy are you to receive the roll, and to open its seals, because you were slain, and so at the price of your life blood you bought for God those of every tribe and tongue and people and race, and made them a kingdom of priests to our God, and they will reign upon the earth.
The praise rendered to the Lamb by the four living creatures and the elders is rendered because he died. In this song there is summed up the results of the death of Jesus Christ.
(i) It was a sacrificial death. That is to say, it was a death with purpose in it. It was not an accident of history; it was not even the tragic death of a good and heroic man in the cause of righteousness and of God; it was a sacrificial death. The object of sacrifice is to restore the lost relationship between God and man; and it was for that purpose, and with that result, that Jesus Christ died.
(ii) The death of Jesus Christ was an emancipating death. From beginning to end the New Testament is full of the idea of the liberation of mankind achieved by him. He gave his life a ransom (lutron, GSN3083) for many (Mk.10:45). He gave himself a ransom (antilutron, GSN0487) for all (1Tim.2:6). He redeemed us–literally bought us out from (exagorazein, GSN1805)–from the curse of the law (Gal.3:13). We are redeemed (lutrousthai, GSN3084) not by any human wealth but by the precious blood of Jesus Christ (1Pet.1:19). Jesus Christ is the Lord that bought us (agorazein, GSN0059) (2Pet.2:1). We are bought with a price (agorazein, GSN0059) (1Cor.6:20; 1Cor.7:23). The New Testament consistently declares that it cost the death of Jesus Christ to rescue man from the dilemma and the slavery into which sin had brought him. The New Testament has no “official” theory of how that effect was achieved; but of the effect itself it is in no doubt whatever.
(iii) The death of Jesus Christ was universal in its benefits. It was for men and women of every race. There was a day when the Jews could hold that God cared only for them and wished for nothing but the destruction of other peoples. But in Jesus Christ we meet a God who loves the world. The death of Christ was for all men and, therefore, it is the task of the Church to tell all men of it.
(iv) The death of Jesus Christ was an availing death. He did not die for nothing. In this song three aspects of the work of Christ are singled out.
(a) He made us kings. He opened to men the royalty of sonship of God. Men have always been sons of God by creation; but now there is a new sonship of grace open to every man.
(b) He made us priests. In the ancient world the priest alone had the right of approach to God. When an ordinary Jew entered the Temple, he could make his way through the Court of the Gentiles, through the Court of the Women, into the Court of the Israelites; but into the Court of the Priests he could not go. It was thus far and no farther. But Jesus Christ opened the way for all men to God. Every man becomes a priest in the sense that he has the right of access to God.
(c) He gave us triumph. His people shall reign upon the earth. This is not political triumph or material lordship. It is the secret of victorious living under any circumstances. “In the world you have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world” (Jn.16:33). In Christ there is victory over self, victory over circumstance and victory over sin.
When we think of what the death and life of Jesus Christ have done for men, it is no wonder that the living creatures and the elders burst into praise of him.
THE SONG OF THE ANGELS
Rev. 5:11-12
And I saw, and I heard the voice of many angels, who were in a circle round the throne and the living creatures and the elders; and their number was ten thousands of ten thousands and thousands of thousands; and they were saying with a great voice:
The Lamb, which has been slain, is worthy to receive the power and the riches and the wisdom and the strength and the honour and the glory and the blessing.
The chorus of praise is taken up by the unnumbered hosts of the angels of heaven. They stand in a great outer circle round the throne and the living creatures and the elders and they begin their song. We have repeatedly seen how John takes his language from the Old Testament; and here there is in his memory David’s great thanksgiving to God:
Blessed art thou, O Lord, the God of Israel, our Father, for ever and ever. Thine, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty; for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is thine; thine is the kingdom O Lord, and thou art exalted as head above all. Both riches and honour come from thee, and thou rulest over all. In thy hand are power and might; and in thy hand it is to make great, and to give strength to all (1Chr.29:10-12).
The song of the living creatures and of the elders told of the work of Christ in his death; now the angels sing of the possessions of Christ in his glory. Seven great possessions belong to the Risen Lord.
(i) To him belongs the power. Paul called Jesus, “Christ the power of God” (1Cor.1:24). He is not one who can plan but never achieve; to him belongs the power. We can say triumphantly of him: “He is able.”
(ii) To him belongs the riches. “Though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor” (2Cor.8:9). Paul speaks of “the unsearchable riches of Christ” (Eph.3:8). There is no promise that Jesus Christ has made that he does not possess the resources to carry out. There is no claim on him which he cannot satisfy.
(iii) To him belongs the wisdom. Paul calls Jesus Christ “the wisdom of God” (1Cor.1:24). He has the wisdom to know the secrets of God and the solution of the problems of life.
(iv) To him belongs the strength. Christ is the strong one who can disarm the powers of evil and overthrow Satan (Lk.11:22). There is no situation with which he cannot cope.
(v) To him belongs the honour. The day comes when to him every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that he is Lord (Php.2:11). A strange thing is that even those who are not Christian often honour Christ by admitting that in his teaching alone lies the hope of this distracted world.
(vi) To him belongs the glory. As John has it: “We beheld his glory, from glory as of the only Father, full of grace and truth” (Jn.1:14). Glory is that which by right belongs to God alone. To say that Jesus Christ possesses the glory is to say that he is divine.
(vii) To him belongs the blessing. Here is the inevitable climax of it all. All these things Jesus Christ possesses, and every one of them he uses in the service of the men for whom he lived and died; he does not clutch them to himself.
Therefore, there rises to him from all the redeemed thanksgiving for all that he has done. And that thanksgiving is the one gift that we who have nothing can give to him who possesses all.
THE SONG OF ALL CREATION
Rev. 5:13-14
And I heard every created creature which was in the heaven, and upon the earth, and beneath the earth and on the sea, and all things in them, saying:
Blessing and honour and glory and dominion for ever and ever to him who sits upon the throne and to the Lamb.
And the four living creatures said, Amen; and the elders fell down and worshipped.
Now the chorus of praise goes so far that it cannot go farther, for it reaches throughout the whole of the universe and the whole of creation. There is one vast song of praise to the Lamb. We may note one very significant thing. In this chorus of praise God and the Lamb are joined together. Nothing could better show the height of John’s conception of Jesus Christ. In the praise of creation he sets him by the side of God.
In the song itself there are two things to note.
The creatures which are in the heaven add their praise. Who are they? More than one answer has been given and each is lovely in its own way. It has been suggested that the reference is to the birds of the air; the very singing of the birds is a song of praise. It has been suggested that the reference is to the sun, the moon and the stars; the heavenly bodies in their shining are praising God. It has been suggested that the phrase gathers up every possible being in heaven–the living creatures, the elders, the myriads of angels and every other heavenly being.
The creatures which are beneath the earth add their praise. That can only mean the dead who are in Hades, and here is something totally new. In the Old Testament the idea is that the dead are separated altogether from God and man and live a shadowy existence. “In death there is no rememberence of thee; in Sheol who can give thee praise?” (Ps.6:5). “Shall the dust praise thee? Shall it declare thy truth? What profit is there in my death if I go down to the pit?” (Ps.30:9). “Dost thou work wonders for the dead? Do the shades rise up to praise thee? Is thy steadfast love declared in the grave, or thy faithfulness in Abaddon? Are thy wonders known in the darkness, or thy saving help in the land of forgetfulness?” (Ps.88:10-12). “For Sheol cannot thank thee, death cannot praise thee; those that go down to the pit cannot hope for thy faithfulness” (Isa.38:18).
Here is a vision which sweeps all this away. Not even the land of the dead is beyond the reign of the Risen Christ. Even from beyond death the chorus of praise rises to him.
The picture here is all-inclusive of all nature praising God. There are in Scripture many magnificent pictures of the praise of God by nature. In the Old Testament itself there is Ps.148. But the noblest song of praise comes from the Apocrypha. In the Greek Old Testament there is an addition to Daniel. It is called The Song of the Three Children and it is sung by Ananias, Azarias, and Misael, as Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego are there called, before they enter the fiery furnace. It is long, but it is one of the world’s great poems, and we must quote in full the part in which they call upon nature to praise God.
O ye sun and moon, bless ye the Lord:
Praise and exalt him above all for ever.
O ye stars of heaven, bless ye the Lord:
Praise and exalt him above all for ever.
O every shower and dew, bless ye the Lord:
Praise and exalt him above all for ever.
O all ye winds, bless ye the Lord:
Praise and exalt him above all for ever.
O ye fire and heat, bless ye the Lord:
Praise and exalt him above all for ever.
O ye winter and summer, bless the Lord:
Praise and exalt him above all for ever.
O ye dews and storms of snow, bless ye the Lord:
Praise and exalt him above all for ever.
O ye nights and days, bless the Lord:
Praise and exalt him above all for ever.
O ye light and darkness, bless the Lord:
Praise and exalt him above all for ever.
O ye cold and heat, bless the Lord:
Praise and exalt him above all for ever.
O ye ice and cold, bless ye the Lord:
Praise and exalt him above all for ever.
O ye frost and snow, bless ye the Lord:
Praise and exalt him above all for ever.
O ye lightnings and clouds, bless ye the Lord:
Praise and exalt him above all for ever.
O let the earth bless the Lord:
Praise and exalt him above all for ever.
O ye mountains and little hills, bless ye the Lord:
Praise and exalt him above all for ever.
O all ye herbs of the field, bless ye the Lord:
Praise and exalt him above all for ever.
O all things that grow on the earth, bless ye the Lord:
Praise and exalt him above all for ever.
O ye fountains, bless ye the Lord:
Praise and exalt him above all for ever.
O ye seas and rivers, bless ye the Lord:
Praise and exalt him above all for ever.
O ye whales and all that move in the waters, bless ye the Lord:
Praise and exalt him above all for ever.
O all ye fowls of the air, bless ye the Lord:
Praise and exalt him above all for ever.
O all ye beasts and cattle, bless ye the Lord:
Praise and exalt him above all for ever.
O all ye creeping things of the earth, bless ye the Lord:
Praise and exalt him above all for ever.
O ye children of men, bless ye the Lord:
Praise and exalt him above all for ever.
FURTHER READING
G. B. Caird, The Revelation of Saint John the Divine (ACB; E)
R. H. Charles, Revelation (ICC; G)
T. S. Kepler, The Book of Revelation
H. B. Swete, The Apocalypse of St John (MmC; G)
Abbreviations ACB : A. and C. Black New Testament Commentary
ICC : International Critical Commentary
MmC : Macmillan Commentary
E : English Text
G : Greek Text
Volume 2
(Chapters 6 to 22)
REVISED EDITION
Translated with an Introduction and Interpretation
by WILLIAM BARCLAY
THE WESTMINSTER PRESS
PHILADELPHIA
Revised Edition
Copyright (c) 1976 William Barclay
First published by The Saint Andrew Press
Edinburgh, Scotland
First Editions, November, 1959, and January, 1960
Second Edition, June, 1960
Published by The Westminster Press (R)
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Library of Congress Cataloging In Publication Data
Bible. N.T. Revelation. English. Barclay. 1976.
The Revelation of John.
(The Daily study Bible series. — Rev. ed.)
1. Bible. N.T. Revelation — Commentaries.
I. Barclay, William, lecturer in the University of
Glasgow. II. Title. III. Series.
BS2823.B37 1976 228′.077 75-37600
ISBN 0-664-21316-2 (v. 2)
ISBN 0-664-24116-6 (v. 2) pbk.
GENERAL INTRODUCTION
The Daily Study Bible series has always had one aim–to convey the results of scholarship to the ordinary reader. A. S. Peake delighted in the saying that he was a “theological middleman”, and I would be happy if the same could be said of me in regard to these volumes. And yet the primary aim of the series has never been academic. It could be summed up in the famous words of Richard of Chichester’s prayer–to enable men and women “to know Jesus Christ more clearly, to love him more dearly, and to follow him more nearly”.
It is all of twenty years since the first volume of The Daily Study Bible was published. The series was the brain-child of the late Rev. Andrew McCosh, M.A., S.T.M., the then Secretary and Manager of the Committee on Publications of the Church of Scotland, and of the late Rev. R. G. Macdonald, O.B.E., M.A., D.D., its Convener.
It is a great joy to me to know that all through the years The Daily Study Bible has been used at home and abroad, by minister, by missionary, by student and by layman, and that it has been translated into many different languages. Now, after so many printings, it has become necessary to renew the printer’s type and the opportunity has been taken to restyle the books, to correct some errors in the text and to remove some references which have become outdated. At the same time, the Biblical quotations within the text have been changed to use the Revised Standard Version, but my own original translation of the New Testament passages has been retained at the beginning of each daily section.
There is one debt which I would be sadly lacking in courtesy if I did not acknowledge. The work of revision and correction has been done entirely by the Rev. James Martin, M.A., B.D., minister of High Carntyne Church, Glasgow. Had it not been for him this task would never have been undertaken, and it is impossible for me to thank him enough for the selfless toil he has put into the revision of these books.
It is my prayer that God may continue to use The Daily Study Bible to enable men better to understand His word.
Glasgow WILLIAM BARCLAY
CONTENTS
General Introduction
The Opening of the Seals
The Four Horses and Their Riders (Rev.6:1-8)
The White Horse of Conquest (Rev.6:1-2)
The Blood-Red Horse of Strife (Rev.6:3-4)
The Black Horse of Famine (Rev.6:5-6)
The Pale Horse of Pestilence and Death (Rev.6:7-8)
The Souls of the Martyrs (Rev.6:9-11)
The Cry of the Martyrs (Rev.6:9-11)
The Shattered Universe (Rev.6:12,14)
The Time of Terror (Rev.6:15-17)
Rescue and Reward (Rev.7:1-3)
The Winds of God (Rev.7:1-3)
The Living God (Rev.7:1-3)
The Seal of God (Rev.7:4-8)
The Number of the Faithful (Rev.7:4-8)
The Glory of the Martyrs (Rev.7:9-10
The Praise of the Angels (Rev.7:11-12)
Washing from Sin (Rev.7:13-14)
The Blood of Jesus Christ (Rev.7:13-14)
The Saints who have Washed their Robes in the Blood of the Lamb (Rev.7:13-14)
Christ’s Sacrifice and Man’s Appropriation (Rev.7:13-14)
The Service in the Glory (Rev.7:15)
The Bliss of the Blessed (Rev.7:16-17)
The Divine Shepherd (Rev.7:16-17)
The Silence and the Thunder of Prayer (Rev.8:15)
The Seven Angels with the Trumpets (Rev.8:2,6)
The Unleashing of the Elements (Rev.8:7-12)
The Flying Eagle (Rev.8:13)
The Unlocking of the Abyss (Rev.9:1-2)
The Locusts from the Abyss (Rev.9:3-12)
The Demonic Locusts (Rev.9:3-12)
The Horsemen of Vengeance (Rev.9:13-21)
The Unutterable Revelation (Rev.10:1-4)
The Divine Announcement of the End (Rev.10:5-7)
The Joy and the Sorrow of the Messenger of God (Rev.10:8-11)
Antichrist
The Vision of Things to Come (Rev.11)
The Measuring of the Temple (Rev.11:1-2)
The Length of the Terror (Rev.11:1-2)
The Two Witnesses (Rev.11:3-6)
The Saving Death of the Two Witnesses (Rev.11:7-13)
The Forecast of Things to Come (Rev.11:14-19)
The Woman and the Beast (Rev.12)
The Woman with Child (Rev.12:1-2)
The Hatred of the Dragon (Rev.12:3-4)
The Snatching Away of the Child (Rev.12:5)
The Flight to the Desert (Rev.12:6)
Satan, the Enemy of God (Rev.12:7-9)
The Song of the Martyrs in Glory (Rev.12:10-12)
The Attack of the Dragon (Rev.12:13-17)
The Power of the Beast (Rev.13)
The Devil and the Beast (Rev.13:1-5)
Insult to God (Rev.13:6-9)
Earthly Danger and Divine Safety (Rev.13:6-9)
The Christian’s Only Weapons (Rev.13:10)
The Power of the Second Beast (Rev.13:11-17)
The Mark of the Beast (Rev.13:11-17)
The Number of the Beast (Rev.13:18)
The Father’s Own (Rev.14:1)
The Song which only God’s Own can Learn (Rev.14:2-3)
The Finest Flower (Rev.14:4a)
The Imitation of Christ (Rev.14:4b-5)
The Summons to the Worship of God (Rev.14:6-7)
The Fall of Babylon (Rev.14:8)
The Doom of the Man who Denies His Lord (Rev.14:9-12)
The Rest of the Faithful Soul (Rev.14:13)
The Harvest of Judgment (Rev.14:14-20)
The Victors of Christ (Rev.15:1-2)
The Song of the Victors of Christ (Rev.15:3-4)
The Avenging Angels (Rev.15:5-7)
The Unapproachable Glory (Rev.15:8)
The Seven Bowls of the Wrath of God (Rev.16)
The Terrors of God (Rev.16:1-11)
The Hordes from the East (Rev.16:12)
The Unclean Spirits like Frogs (Rev.16:13-16)
The False Prophet (Rev.16:13-16)
Armageddon (Rev.16:13-16)
Nature at War (Rev.16:17-21)
The Fall of Rome (Rev.17)
1. The Woman on the Beast
2. The Beast
The City which Became a Harlot (Rev.17:1-2)
The Vision in the Wilderness (Rev.17:3)
The Great Harlot (Rev.17:4-5)
Drunk with the Blood of the Saints and the Martyrs (Rev.17:6)
The Reincarnation of Evil (Rev.17:7-11)
The Purposes of Man and the Purposes of God (Rev.17:12-18)
The Doom of Rome (Rev.18:1-3)
Come Ye Out! (Rev.18:4-5)
The Doom of Pride (Rev.18:6-8)
The Lament of the Kings (Rev.18:9-10)
The Lament of the Merchants (1) (Rev.18:11-16)
The Lament of the Merchants (2) (Rev.18:11-16)
The Lament of the Shipmasters (Rev.18:17-19)
Joy amidst Lamenting (Rev.18:20)
The Final Desolation (Rev.18:21-24)
The Te Deum of the Angels (Rev.19:1-2)
The Te Deum of Nature and the Church (Rev.19:3-5)
The Te Deum of the Redeemed (Rev.19:6-8)
The Almighty and His Kingdom (Rev.19:6-8)
The Only Worship (Rev.19:9-10a)
The Spirit of Prophecy (Rev.19:1Ob)
The Conquering Christ (Rev.19:11)
The Unknowable Name (Rev.19:12)
God’s Word in Action (Rev.19:13)
The Avenging Wrath (Rev.19:14-16)
The Doom of the Enemies of Christ (Rev.19:17-21)
The Thousand Year Reign of Christ and the Saints (Rev.20)
The Chaining of Satan (Rev.20:1-3)
The Privilege of Judgment (Rev.20:4-5)
The Privileges of the Witnesses of Christ (Rev.20:6)
The Final Struggle (Rev.20:7-10)
The Final Judgment (1) (Rev.20:11-15)
The Final Judgment (2) (Rev.20:11-15)
The New Creation (Rev.21:1)
The New Jerusalem (1) (Rev.21:2)
The New Jerusalem (2) (Rev.21:2)
Fellowship with God (1) (Rev.21:3-4)
Fellowship with God (2) (Rev.21:3-4)
All Things New (Rev.21:5-6)
The Glory and the Shame (Rev.21:7-8)
The City of God (Rev.21:9-27)
The Bringer of the Vision (Rev.21:9-10)
The City’s Light (Rev.21:11)
The Wall and the Gates of the City (Rev.21:12)
The Gates of the City (Rev.21:13)
The Measuring of the City (Rev.21:15-17)
The Precious Stones of the City (Rev.21:18-21)
The Presence of God (Rev.21:22-23)
The Whole Earth for God (Rev.21:24-27)
Reception and Rejection (Rev.21:24-27)
The River of Life (Rev.22:1-2)
The Tree of Life (Rev.22:1-2)
The Beauty of Holiness (Rev.22:3-5)
Final Words (Rev.22:6-9)
The Time Is Near and the Time Is Past (Rev.22:10-11)
The Claims of Christ (Rev.22:12-13)
The Accepted and the Rejected (Rev.22:14-15)
The Guarantee of Truth (Rev.22:16)
The Great Invitation (Rev.22:17)
The Warning (Rev.22:18-19)
Last Words (Rev.22:20-21)
Further Reading
THE OPENING OF THE SEALS
As one by one the seals of the roll are opened, history unfolds itself before John’s eyes.
As we study this section, we must remember one general fact which is basic to its understanding. In this series of visions John is seeing in advance the end of terror and judgment which could bring in the golden age of God.
Before we study the section in detail, we note one general point. In the first section of the visions, Rev. 6:1-8, the King James Version consistently follows a form of the Greek text which makes each of the four living creatures say: “Come and see!” (Rev. 6:1,3,5,7). In all the best Greek manuscripts it is simply, “Come!” as translated in the Revised Standard Version. This is not an invitation to John to come and see; it is a summons to the four horses and their riders one by one to come forward on the stage of history.
THE FOUR HORSES AND THEIR RIDERS
Rev. 6:1-8
And I saw when the Lamb opened the first of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures saying with a loud voice like the sound of thunder, “Come!” And I saw, and, behold, a white horse, and he who was seated on it had a bow, and a conqueror’s crown was given to him, and he went forth conquering and to conquer.
And, when he had opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, “Come!” And there came forth another horse blood-red in colour, and to him that sat upon it there was given to take peace from the earth, and to bring it about that men slay one another, and a great sword was given to him.
And, when he had opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, “Come!” And, behold, there came a black horse, and he who sat upon it had the beam of a balance in his hand. And I heard as it were a voice in the middle of the four living creatures saying: “A measure of wheat for a denarius, and three measures of barley for a denarius. But you must not injure the oil and the wine.”
And, when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature saying, “Come!” And I saw, and, behold, there came a pale horse, and the name of him who sat upon it was Death, and Hades followed with him; and they were given power over a fourth part of the earth, to kill with the sword, and with famine, and with pestilence, and by the wild beasts of the earth.
Before we embark on a detailed interpretation of this vision, we note two important points.
(i) We note that the origin of this vision is in Zech.6:1-8. Zechariah sees four horses which are let loose upon the earth to deal out vengeance on Babylon and Egypt and the nations which have oppressed God’s people. “These are going forth to the four winds of heaven, after presenting themselves before the Lord of all the earth” (Zech.6:5). The horses stand for the four mighty winds which God is about to let loose on the earth with a blast of destruction. John does not keep the details the same; but for him, too, the horses and their riders are the instruments of the avenging judgment of God.
(ii) We must explain the method of interpretation which we think must be used. The four horses and their riders stand for four great destructive forces which are in the times before the end to be despatched against the evil world by the holy wrath of God. But, John sees these forces in terms of actual events in the world which he knew where life seemed a chaos, the world seemed to be disintegrating, and the earth seemed to be full of terrors. The horses and their riders are forces of destruction and agents of wrath; they are not to be identified with any historical figures but in the events of his own time John saw symbols and types of the destruction to come
Our method of interpretation will, therefore, be to define the destructive force for which each of the horses stands, and then, where possible, to find circumstances in the history of John’s own time which illustrate the destruction to come. We will further see that in more than one case John is dealing in pictures and ideas which were part of the stock in trade of the writers of these visions of the days of the end.
THE WHITE HORSE OF CONQUEST
Rev. 6:1-2
And I saw, when the Lamb opened the first of the seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures saying with a loud voice like the sound of thunder: “Come!” And I saw, and, behold a white horse, and he who was seated on it had a bow, and a conqueror’s crown was given to him, and he went forth conquering and to conquer.
As each of the seven seals is broken and opened, a new terror falls upon the earth. The first terror is depicted under the form of a white horse and its rider. What do they represent? Two explanations have been suggested, one of which is certainly wrong.
(i) It has been suggested that the rider on the white horse is the victorious Christ himself. This conclusion is drawn because this picture is connected by some commentators with that in Rev. 19:11-12 which tells of a white horse and on it a rider, called Faithful and True and crowned with many crowns, who is the victorious Christ. It is to be noted that the crown in this passage is different from that in Rev. 19. Here the crown is stephanos (GSN4735), which is the victor’s crown; in Rev. 19 it is diadema (GSN1238), which is the royal crown. The passage we are here studying is telling of woe upon woe and disaster upon disaster; any picture of the victorious Christ is quite out of place in it. This picture tells of the coming not of the victor Christ but of the terrors of the wrath of God.
(ii) Quite certainly, the white horse and its rider stand for conquest in war. When a Roman general celebrated a triumph, that is, when he paraded through the streets of Rome with his armies and his captives and his spoils after some great victory, his chariot was drawn by white horses, the symbol of victory.
But, as we said in the introduction to this passage, John is clothing his predictions of the future in pictures of the present which his readers would recognize. The rider of the horse had in his hand a bow. In the Old Testament the bow is always the sign of military power. In the final defeat of Babylon her mighty men are taken and their bows–that is, their military power–destroyed (Jer.51:56). God will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel (Hos.1:5). God breaks the bow and shatters the spear in sunder and burns the chariots with fire; that is, against him no human military power can stand (Ps.46:9). The bow, then, would always stand for military power. But there is one particular picture which the Romans and all who dwelt in Asia would at once recognize. The one enemy whom. the Romans feared was the Parthian power. The Parthians dwelt on the far eastern frontiers of the Empire and were the scourge of Rome. In A.D. 62 an unprecedented event had occurred; a Roman army had actually surrendered to Vologeses, the king of the Parthians. The Parthians rode white horses and were the most famous bowmen in the world. A “Parthian shot” still means a final, devastating blow, to which there is no possible answer.
So, then, the white horse and its rider with the bow stand for militarism and conquest.
Here is something which it has taken men long to learn. Military conquest has been presented as a thing of glamour; but it is always tragedy. When Euripides wished to depict warfare upon the stage, he did not bring on an army with banners. He brought on a bent and bewildered old woman leading by the hand a weeping child who had lost his parents. During the Spanish civil war a journalist told how he suddenly realized what war was. He was in a Spanish city in which the opposing parties were waging guerrilla warfare. He saw walking along the pavement a little boy, obviously lost, and bewildered and terrified, dragging along a toy which had lost its wheels. Suddenly there was the crack of a rifle shot; and the little boy pitched on the ground, dead. That is war. First among the tragic terrors of the terrible times John sets the white horse and the man with the bow, the vision of the tragedy of militaristic conquest.
THE BLOOD-RED HORSE OF STRIFE
Rev. 6:3-4
When he had opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say: “Come!” And there came forth another horse, blood-red in colour, and to him that sat upon it there was given to take peace from the earth, and to bring it about that men should slay each other, and a great sword was given to him.
The function of the second horse and its rider is to take peace from the earth. They stand for that destructive strife which sets man against man and nation against nation in a chaos of tragic destruction. There are two backgrounds to this.
(i) John was writing in a time when internecine strife was tearing the world apart. In the thirty years before the reign of Herod the Great, 67 to 37 B.C., in Palestine alone no fewer than 100,000 men had perished in abortive revolutions. In A.D. 61 in Britain there had arisen the rebellion connected with the name of Queen Boadicea. The Romans crushed it, Boadicea committed suicide and 150,000 men perished.
(ii) In the Jewish pictures of the end time, an essential element is the complete disintegration of all human relationships. Brother will fight against brother, neighbour against neighbour, city will rise against city, and kingdom against kingdom (Isa.19:2). Every man’s hand shall be against the hand of his neighbour (Zech.14:13). From dawn to sunset they will slay each other (Enoch 100: 12). Friend shall war against friend; friends will attack one another suddenly (4 Ezra 5: 9; 6: 24). Some of them shall fall in battle, and some of them shall perish in anguish, and some of them shall be destroyed by their own (2 Baruch 70: 2-8). Many shall be stirred up in anger to injure many, and they shall rouse up all men in order to shed blood, and in the end they will all perish together (2 Baruch 48: 37).
The vision of the end was a vision of a time when all human relationships would be destroyed and the world a seething cauldron of embittered hate.
It is still true that the nation in which there is division between man and man and class and class and hatred based on competitive ambition and selfish desire is doomed; and the world in which nation is set against nation is hastening to its end.
THE BLACK HORSE OF FAMINE
Rev. 6:5-6
When he had opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say: “Come!” And, behold, there came a black horse, and he who sat upon it had the beam of a balance in his hand. And I heard, as it were, a voice in the midst of the four living creatures saying: “A measure of wheat for a denarius, and three measures of barley for a denarius. But you must not injure the oil and the wine.”
It will help us to understand the idea behind this passage if we remember that John is giving an account not of the end of things, but of the signs and events which precede the end. So here the black horse and its rider represent famine, a famine which is very severe and causes great hardship, but which is not desperate enough to kill. There is wheat–at a prohibitive price; and the wine and the oil are not affected.
The three main crops of Palestine were the corn, the wine and the oil; and it is these three which are always mentioned when the crops of the land are being described (Deut.7:13; Deut.11:14; Deut.28:51; Hos.2:8; Hos.2:22). The rider of the horse had the cross-beam of a balance in his hand. In the Old Testament the phrase to eat bread by weight indicates the greatest scarcity. In Leviticus it is the threat of God that, if the people are disobedient “they shall deliver your bread again by weight” (Lev.26:26). It is the threat of God to Ezekiel: “I will break the stall of bread in Jerusalem; they shall eat bread by weight and with fearfulness” (Eze.4:16).
It was not entirely abnormal that there should be wine and oil when there was no corn. The olive and the vine were much more deeply-rooted than the corn; and they could stand a drought which would wipe out the corn crop. When Jacob had to send down to Egypt for corn in the days of the famine in the time of Joseph, he was still able to send with his sons a gift of “the choice fruits of the land” (Gen.43:11). But it is true that a situation in which wine and oil were plentiful and corn prohibitively dear would be the equivalent of one in which luxuries were plentiful and necessities scarce.
We can see the extent of the scarcity from the statement of the voice from amidst the four living creatures. A measure of wheat or three measures of barley was to cost a denarius. The measure was a choinix (GSN5518), equivalent to two pints and consistently defined in the ancient world as a man’s ration for a day. A denarius was the equivalent of four pence and was a working man’s wage for a day. Normally one denarius bought anything from eight to sixteen measures of corn and three to four times as much barley. What John is foretelling is a situation in which a man’s whole working wage would be needed to buy enough corn for himself for a day, leaving absolutely nothing to buy any of the other necessities of life and absolutely nothing for his wife and family. If instead of corn he bought the much inferior barley, he might manage to give some to his wife and family but again he would have nothing to buy anything else.
We have seen that, although John was telling of the signs which were to precede the end, he was nevertheless painting them in terms of actual historical situations which men would recognize. There had been desperate famines in the time of Nero which left the luxury of the rich untouched. There was an occasion when a ship arrived in Italy from Alexandria. The starving populace thought it was a cornship, for all the cornships came from Alexandria; and they rioted when they discovered that the cargo was not corn but a special kind of sand from the Nile Delta to spread upon the ground of the arena for a gladiatorial show. This passage finds an amazing echo in certain events during the reign of Domitian, at the very time when John was writing. There was a very serious shortage of grain and also a superabundance of wine. Domitian took the drastic step of enacting that no fresh vineyards should be planted and that half the vineyards in the provinces should be cut down. At this edict the people of the province of Asia, in which John was writing, came very near to rebelling for their vineyards were one of their principal sources of revenue. In view of the violent reaction of the people of Asia, Domitian rescinded his edict and actually enacted that those who allowed their vineyards to go out of cultivation should be prosecuted. Here is the very picture of a situation in which corn was scarce and it was yet forbidden to interfere with the supply of wine and oil.
So, then, this is a picture of famine set alongside luxury. There is always something radically wrong with a situation in which some have too much and others too little. This is always a sign that the society in which it occurs is hastening to its ruin.
There is one other interesting point which, it has been suggested, is in this passage. It is from the midst of the four living creatures that there comes the voice telling of the famine prices of corn. We have already seen that the four living creatures may well symbolize all that is best in nature; and this may well be taken to be nature’s protest against famine amidst men. The tragedy has nearly always been that nature produces enough, and more than enough, but that there are many people to whom that abundance never comes. It is as if John was symbolically indicating that nature herself protests when the gifts she offers are used selfishly and irresponsibly for the luxury of the few at the expense of the many.
THE PALE HORSE OF PESTILENCE AND DEATH
Rev. 6:7-8
When he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature saying: “Come!” And I saw, and, behold, there came a pale horse, and the name of him who sat upon it was Death, and Hades followed with him; and they were given power over a fourth part of the earth, to kill with the sword, and with famine, and with pestilence and by the wild beasts of the earth.
As we approach this passage we must once again remember that it is telling not of the final end but of the signs which precede it. That is why it is a fourth part of the earth which is involved in death and disaster. This is a terrible time but it is not the time of total destruction.
The picture is a grim one. The horse is pale in colour. The word is chloros (GSN5515) which means pale in the sense of livid and is used of a face blenched with terror. The passage is complicated by the fact that the Greek word thanatos (GSN2288) is used in a double sense. In Rev. 6:8 it is used to mean both death and pestilence.
John was writing in a time when famine and pestilence did devastate the world; but in this case he is thinking in terms provided by the Old Testament which more than once speaks of “the four sore judgments.” Ezekiel hears God tell of the time when he will send his “four sore acts of judgment upon Jerusalem”–sword, famine, evil beasts, and pestilence (Eze.14:21). In Leviticus there is a passage which tells of the penalties which God will send upon his people because of their disobedience. Wild beasts will rob them of their children and destroy their cattle and make them few in number. The sword will avenge their breaches of the covenant. When they are gathered in their cities the pestilence will be among them. He will break the stall of bread and they will eat and not be satisfied (Lev.26:21-26).
Here John is using a traditional picture of what is to happen when God despatches his wrath upon his disobedient people. At the back of it all is the permanent truth that no man or nation can escape the consequences of their sin.
THE SOULS OF THE MARTYRS
Rev. 6:9-11
When he opened the fifth seal, I saw beneath the altar the souls of those who had been stain for the sake of the word of God and because of the witness which they bore. And they cried with a loud voice: “How long, Lord, Holy and True, will you refrain from judging and avenging our blood on those who dwell upon the earth?” And to each of them was given a white robe, and they were told to rest for still a little while, until there should be completed the number of their fellow-servants and of their brothers who must be killed.
At the breaking of the fifth seal comes the vision of the souls of those who had died for their faith.
Jesus left his followers in no doubt as to the suffering and the martyrdom they would be called upon to endure. “Then they will deliver you up to tribulation, and put you to death; and you will be hated of all nations for my name’s sake” (Matt.24:9; Mk.13:9-13; Lk.21:12,18). The day would come when those who killed Christians would think they were doing a service for God (Jn.16:2).
The idea of an altar in heaven is one that occurs more than once in the Revelation (Rev. 8:5; Rev. 14:18). It is not by any means a new idea. When the furnishings of the tabernacle were to be made, they were all to be constructed according to the pattern which God possessed and would show (Exo.25:9; Exo.25:40; Num.8:4; Heb.8:5; Heb.9:23). It is the consistent idea of those who wrote about the Tabernacle and the Temple that the pattern of all the holy things already existed in heaven.
The souls of those who had been slain were there beneath the altar. That picture is taken directly from the sacrificial ritual of the Temple. For a Jew the most sacred part of any sacrifice was the blood; the blood was regarded as being the life and the life belonged to God (Lev.17:11-14). Because of that, there were special regulations for the offering of the blood.
“The rest of the blood of the bull the priest shall pour out at the base of the altar of burnt offering” (Lev.4:7). That is to say, the blood is offered at the foot of the altar.
This gives us the meaning of our passage here. The souls of the martyrs are beneath the altar. That is to say, their life-blood has been poured out as an offering to God. The idea of the martyr’s life as a sacrifice to God is in the mind of Paul. He says that he will rejoice, if he is offered up on the sacrifice and the service of the faith of the Philippians (Php.2:17). “I am already,” he says, “on the point of being sacrificed” (2Tim.4:6). In the time of the Maccabees the Jews suffered terribly for their faith. There was a mother whose seven sons were threatened with death because of their loyalty to their Jewish beliefs. She encouraged them not to yield and reminded them how Abraham had not refused to offer Isaac. She told them that, when they reached their glory, they must tell Abraham that he had built one altar of sacrifice but their mother had built seven. In later Judaism it was said that Michael, the archangel, sacrificed on the heavenly altar the souls of the righteous and of those who had been faithful students of the law. When Ignatius of Antioch was on his way to Rome to be burned, his prayer was that he should be found a sacrifice belonging to God.
There is a great and uplifting truth here. When a good man dies for the sake of goodness, it may look like tragedy, like the waste of a fine life; like the work of evil men; and, indeed, it may be all these things. But every life laid down for right and truth and God is ultimately more than any of these things–it is an offering made to God.
THE CRY OF THE MARTYRS
Rev. 6:9-11 (continued)
There are three things in this section which we must note.
(i) We have the eternal cry of the suffering righteous–“How long?” This was the cry of the Psalmist. How long were the heathen to be allowed to afflict God’s righteous people? How long were they to be allowed to taunt his people by asking where God was and what he was doing? (Ps.79:5-10). The thing to remember is that when the saints of God uttered this cry, they were bewildered by God’s seeming inactivity but they never doubted his ultimate action, and the ultimate vindication of the righteous.
(ii) We have a picture which is easy to criticize. The saints actually wished to see the punishment of their persecutors. it is hard for us to understand the idea that part of the joy of heaven was to see the punishment of the sinners in Hell. In the Assumption of Moses the Jewish writer (10: 10) hears God promise:
And thou shalt look from on high and shalt see thy enemies in Gehenna. And thou shalt recognize them and rejoice, And thou shalt give thanks and confess thy Creator.
In later times Tertullian (Concerning Spectacles 30) was to taunt the heathen with their love of spectacles and to say that the spectacle to which the Christian most looked forward was to see his one-time persecutors writhing in Hell.
You are fond of spectacles; expect the greatest of all spectacles, the last and eternal judgment of the universe. How shall I admire, how laugh, how rejoice, how exult, when I behold so many proud monarchs, and fancied gods, groaning in the lowest abyss of darkness; so many magistrates who persecuted the name of the Lord, liquefying in fiercer flames than they ever kindled against the Christians; so many sage philosophers blushing in red hot flames with their deluded scholars; so many celebrated poets trembling before the tribunal, not of Minos, but of Christ; so many tragedians more tuneful in the expression of their own sufferings; so many dancers writhing in the flames.
It is easy to stand aghast at the spirit of vengeance which could write like that. But we must remember what these men went through, the agony of the flames, of the arena and the wild beasts, of the sadistic torture which they suffered. We have the right to criticize only when we have gone through the same agony.
(iii) The martyrs must rest in peace for a little longer until their number is made up. The Jews had the conviction that the drama of history had to be played out in full before the end could come. God would not stir until the measure appointed had been fulfilled (2Esdr.4:36). The number of the righteous first has to be offered (Enoch 47: 4). The Messiah would not come until all the souls which were to be born had been born. The same idea finds its echo in the burial prayer in the Anglican Prayer Book that “it may please thee shortly to accomplish the number of thine elect and to hasten thy kingdom.” It is a curious notion but at the back of it is the idea that all history is in the hand of God, and that in it and through it all he is working his purpose out to its certain end.
THE SHATTERED UNIVERSE
Rev. 6:12-14
I saw when he opened the sixth seal, and there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black like sackcloth made of hair, and the whole moon became like blood; and the stars of the heaven fell upon the earth, as a fig-tree casts its figs, when it is shaken by a high wind; and the heavens were split like a roll that is rolled up, and the hills and islands were moved from their places.
John is using pictures very familiar to his Jewish readers. The Jews always regarded the end as a time when the earth would be shattered and there would be cosmic upheaval and destruction. In the picture there are, as it were, five elements which can all be abundantly illustrated from the Old Testament and from the books written between the Testaments.
(i) There is the earthquake. At the coming of the Lord the earth will tremble (Am.8:8). There will be a great shaking in the land of Israel (Eze.38:19). The earth will quake and the heavens will tremble (Jl.2:10). God will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land (Hag.2:6). The earth will tremble and be shaken to its bounds; the hills will be shaken and fall (Assumption of Moses 10: 4). The earth shall open and fire burst forth (2Esdr.5:8). Whoever gets out of the war will die in the earthquake; and whoever gets out of the earthquake will die in the fire, and whoever gets out of the fire will perish in the famine (2 Baruch 70: 8). The Jewish prophets and seers saw a time when earth would be shattered and a tide of destruction would flow over the old world before the new world was bom.
(ii) There is the darkening of the sun and moon. The sun will set at midday, and earth will grow dark in the clear day light (Am.8:9). The stars will not shine; the sun will be darkened in his going forth and the moon will not cause her light to shine (Isa.13:10). God will clothe the heavens with blackness and will make sackcloth their covering (Isa.50:3). God will make the stars dark and cover the sun with a cloud (Eze.32:7). The sun will be turned into darkness and the moon into blood (Jl.2:31). The horns of the sun will be broken and he will be turned into darkness, the moon will not give her light, and will be turned into blood; and the circle of the stars will be disturbed (Assumption of Moses 10: 4-5). The sun will be darkened and the moon will not give her light (Matt.24:29; Mk.13:24; Lk.23:45).
(iii) There is the falling of the stars. To the Jew this idea was specially terrible, for the order of the heavens was the very guarantee of the unchanging fidelity of God. Take away the reliability of the heavens and there was nothing left but chaos. The angel tells Enoch to behold the heavens, to see how the heavenly bodies never change their orbits or transgress against their appointed order (Enoch 2: 1). Enoch saw the chambers of the sun and moon, how they go out and come in, how they never leave their orbit, and add nothing to it and take nothing from it (Enoch 41: 5). To the Jew the last word in chaos was a world of falling stars. But in the end time the host of heaven would be dissolved and fall down as the leaf falls from the vine and the fig from the fig-tree (Isa.34:4). The stars will fall from heaven and the powers of heaven shall be shaken (Matt.24:29). The firmament shall fall on the sea and a cataract of fire will reduce the heavens and the stars to a molten mass (Sibylline Oracles 3: 83). The stars will transgress their order and alter their orbits (Enoch 80: 5-6). The outgoings of the stars will change (2Esdr.5:4). The end will be a time when the most reliable things in the universe will become a disorderly and terrifying chaos.
(iv) There is the folding up of the heavens. The picture in this passage is of a roll stretched out and held open, and then suddenly split down the middle so that each half recoils and rolls up. God will shake the heavens (Isa.13:13). The heavens will be rolled together as a scroll (Isa.34:4). They will be changed like a garment and folded up (Ps.102:25-26). At the end the eternal heavens themselves will be rent in two.
(v) There is the moving of the hills and of the islands of the sea. The mountains will tremble and the hills will be moved (Jer.4:24). The mountains will quake and the hills will melt (Nah.1:5). John saw a time when the most unshakeable things would be shaken and when even rocky isles like Patmos would be lifted from their foundation.
Strange as John’s pictures may seem to us, there is not a single detail which is not in the pictures of the end time in the Old Testament and in the books written between the Testaments. We must not think that these pictures are to be taken literally. Their point is that John is taking every terrifying thing that can be imagined and piling them all together to give a picture of the terrors of the end time. Today, with our increased scientific knowledge, we might well paint the picture in different terms; but it is not the picture that matters. What matters is the terrors which John and the Jewish seers foresaw when God would invade the earth when time was coming to an end.
THE TIME OF TERROR
Rev. 6:15-17
And the kings of the earth and the great ones and the captains and the rich and the strong, and every slave and every free person hid themselves in the caves and the rocks of the hills, and said to the mountains and to the rocks: “Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, because the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?”
As John saw it in his vision, the end time was to be one of universal terror. Here again he is working with pictures familiar to all who knew the Old Testament and the later Jewish writings. When the Day of the Lord came, men would be afraid; pangs and sorrows would take hold of them; they would be in pain as a woman who travails; and they would be amazed at one another (Isa.13:6,8). At that time even the mighty man would cry bitterly (Zep.1:14). The inhabitants of the land would tremble (Jl.2:1). They would be frighted with fear; there would be no place to which to flee and no place in which to hide; the children of earth would tremble and quake (Enoch 102: 1, 3). God would come to be a witness against his sinning people (Mic.1:1-4). He would be like a refiner’s fire, and who might abide the day of his coming? (Mal.3:1-3). The Day of the Lord would be great and terrible, and who could endure it? (Jl.2:11). Men would say to the mountains, “Cover us,” and to the hills, “Fall on us” (Hos.10:8), words which Jesus quoted on the way to the Cross (Lk.23:30).
This passage has two significant things to say about this fear.
(i) It is universal. Rev. 6:15 speaks of the kings, the captains, the great ones, the rich, the strong, the slave and the free. It has been pointed out that these seven words include “the whole fabric of human society.” No one is exempt from the judgment of God. The great ones may well be the Roman governors who persecute the Church; the captains are the military authorities. However great a governor a man is and however much power he wields, he is still subject to the judgment of God. However rich a man may be, however strong, however free he may count himself, however much of a slave, however insignificant, he does not escape the judgment of God.
(ii) When the day of the Lord comes, John sees people seeking somewhere to hide. Here is the great truth that the first instinct of sin is to hide. In the Garden of Eden Adam and Eve sought to hide themselves (Gen.3:8). H. B. Swete says: “What sinners dread most is not death, but the revealed presence of God.” The terrible thing about sin is that it makes a man a fugitive from God; and the supreme thing about the work of Jesus Christ is that it puts a man into a relationship with God in which he no longer need seek to hide, knowing that he can cast himself on the love and the mercy of God.
(iii) We note one last thing. That from which men flee is the wrath of the Lamb. Here is paradox; we do not readily associate wrath with the Lamb but rather gentleness and kindness. But the wrath of God is the wrath of love, which is not out to destroy but even in anger is out to save the one it loves.
RESCUE AND REWARD
Rev. 7:1-3
After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, restraining the four winds of the earth so that the wind might not blow upon the earth, or upon the sea, or against any tree. And I saw another angel going up from where the sun rises, with a seal which belonged to the living God, and he shouted with a great voice to the four angels to whom was given power to harm the earth and the sea: “Do not harm the earth and the sea or the trees until we seal the servants of our God upon their foreheads.”
Before we deal with this chapter in detail, it is better to set out the general picture behind it.
John is seeing the vision of the last terrible days aid in particular the great tribulation which is to come, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time (Matt.24:21; Mk.13:19). In this coming tribulation there was to be a final assault by every evil power and a final devastation of the earth. It is to play their part in this devastation that the winds are waiting and from which for a little while they are being held in check.
Before this time of terror and devastation comes, the faithful are to be sealed with the seal of God in order that they may survive it. It is not that they are to be exempt from it but that they are to be brought safely through it.
This is a terrible picture; even if the faithful are to be brought through this terrible time, they none the less must pass through it, and this is a prospect to make even the bravest shudder.
In Rev. 7:9 the range of the seer’s vision extends still further and he sees the faithful after the tribulation has passed. They are in perfect peace and satisfaction in the very presence of God. The last time will bring them unspeakable horrors, but when they have passed through it they will enter into equally unspeakable joy.
There are really three elements in this picture. (i) There is a warning. The last unparalleled and inconceivable time of tribulation is coming soon. (ii) There is an assurance. In that time of destruction the faithful will suffer terribly, but they will come out on the other side because they are sealed with the seal of God. (iii) There is a promise. When they have passed through that time, they will come to the blessedness in which all pain and sorrow are gone and there is nothing but peace and joy.
THE WINDS OF GOD
Rev. 7:1-3 (continued)
This vision is expressed in conceptions of the world which were the conceptions of the days in which John wrote.
The earth is a square, flat earth; and at its four corners are four angels waiting to unleash the winds of destruction. Isaiah speaks of gathering the outcasts of Judah from the four corners of the earth (Isa.11:12). The end is come upon the four corners of the earth in Ezekiel (Eze.7:2).
It was the belief of the ancient peoples that the winds which came from due north, south, east and west were all favourable winds; but that those which blew diagonally across the earth were harmful. That is why the angels are at the corners of the earth. They are about to unleash the winds which blow diagonally. It was the common belief that all the forces of nature were under the charge of angels. So we read of the angel of the fire (Rev. 14:18) and the angel of the waters (Rev. 16:5). These angels were called “The Angels of Service.” They belonged to the very lowest order of angels, because they had to be continually on duty and, therefore, could not keep the Sabbath as a day of rest. Pious Israelites who faithfully observed the Law of the Sabbath were said to rank higher than these angels of service.
The angels are bidden to restrain the winds until the work of sealing the faithful should be completed. This idea has more than one echo in Jewish literature. In Enoch the angels of the waters are bidden by God to hold the waters in check until Noah had built the ark (Enoch 66: 1, 2). In 2 Baruch the angels with the flaming torches are bidden to restrain their fire, when Jerusalem was sacked by the Babylonians, until the sacred vessels of the Temple could be hidden away and saved from the looting of the invaders (2 Baruch 6: 4). More than once we see the angels restraining the forces of destruction until the safety of the faithful has been made secure.
One of the interesting and picturesque ideas of the Old Testament is that of the winds as the servants and the agents of God. This was specially so of the Sirocco, the dread wind from the south-east, with the blast like hot air from a furnace which withered and destroyed all vegetation. Zechariah has the picture of the chariots of the winds, which go forth from standing before the Lord of all the earth (Zech.6:1-5). Nahum speaks of the Lord who has his way in the whirlwind (the Sirocco) and the storm (Nah.1:3). The Lord goes with the whirlwinds of the south (Zech.9:14). The winds are God’s chariots (Jer.4:13). God comes with his chariots like a whirlwind (Isa.66:15). The wind is the breath of God (Jb.37:9-10). The wind rends the mountains (1Kgs.19:11) and withers the grass (Isa.40:7; Isa.40:24) and dries up the stream, the river and the sea (Nah.1:4; Ps.18:15).
So terrible was the effect of the Sirocco that it gained a place in the pictures of the last days. One of the terrors which was to precede the end was a terrible storm. God would destroy his enemies as stubble before the wind (Ps.83:13). God’s day would be the day of the whirlwind (Am.1:14). The whirlwind of the Lord goes forth in its fury and falls on the head of the wicked (Jer.23:19; Jer.30:23). The wind of the Lord, the Sirocco, will come from the wilderness and destroy the fertility of the land (Hos.13:15). God will send his four winds upon Elam and scatter the people (Jer.49:36).
This is difficult for many of us to understand; the dweller in the temperate countries does not know the terror of the wind. But there is something here more far-reaching than that and more characteristic of Jewish thought, the Jews knew nothing of secondary causes. We say that atmospheric conditions, variations in temperature, land and mountain configurations, cause certain things to happen. The Jew ascribed it all to the direct action of God. He simply said, God sent the rain; God made the wind to blow; God thundered; God sent his lightning.
Surely both points of view are correct, for we may still believe that God acts through the laws by which his universe is governed.
THE LIVING GOD
Rev. 7:1-3 (continued)
Before the great tribulation smites the earth the faithful ones are to be marked with the seal of God. There are two points to note.
(i) The angel with the seal comes from the rising of the sun, from the East. All John’s pictures mean something and there may be two meanings behind this: (a) It is in the East that the sun, the supreme earthly giver of light and life, rises; and the angel may stand for the life and the light that God gives his people even when death and destruction are abroad. (b) It is just possible that John is remembering something from the story of the birth of Jesus. The wise men come to Palestine searching for the king who is to be born, for “We have seen his star in the East” (Matt.2:2). It is natural that the delivering angel should rise in the same part of the sky as the star which told of the birth of the Saviour.
(ii) The angel has the seal which belongs to the living God. The living God is a phrase in which the writers of Scripture delight and when they use it, there are certain things in their minds.
(a) They are thinking of the living God in contra-distinction to the dead gods of the heathen. Isaiah has a tremendous passage of sublime mockery of the heathen and their dead gods whom their own hands have made (Isa.44:9-17). The smith takes a mass of metal and works at it with the hammer and the tongs and the coals, sweating and parched at his task of manufacturing a god. The carpenter goes out and cuts down a tree. He works at it with line and compass and plane. Part of it he uses to make a fire to warm himself; part of it he uses to make a fire to bake his bread and roast his meat; and part of it he uses to make a god. The heathen gods are dead and created by men; our God is alive and the creator of all things.
(b) The idea of the living God is used as an encouragement. In the midst of their struggles Joshua reminds the people that with them there is the living God and that he will show his strength in their conflicts with their enemies (Josh.3:10). When a man is up against it, the living God is with him.
(c) Only in the living God is there satisfaction. It is the living God for whom the soul of the psalmist longs and thirsts (Ps.42:2). Man can never find satisfaction in things but only in fellowship with a living person; and he finds his highest satisfaction in the fellowship of the living God.
(d) The biblical writers stress the privilege of knowing and belonging to the living God. Hosea reminds the people of Israel that once they were not a people, but in mercy they have become children of the living God (Hos.1:10). Our privilege is that there is open to us the friendship, the fellowship, the help, the power and the presence of the living God.
(e) In the idea of the living God there is at one and the same time a promise and a threat. Second Kings vividly tells the story of how the great king Sennacherib sent his envoy Rabshakeh to tell Hezekiah that he proposed to wipe out the nation of Israel. Humanly speaking, the little kingdom of Judah had no hope of survival, if the might of Assyria was launched against it. But with Israel there was the living God and he was a threat to the godlessness of Assyria and a promise to the faithful of Israel (2Kgs.18:17-37).
THE SEAL OF GOD
Rev. 7:4-8
And I heard the number of those who were sealed, one hundred and forty-four thousand were sealed from every tribe of the sons of Israel. Of the tribe of Judah twelve thousand were sealed; of the tribe of Reuben, twelve thousand; of the tribe of Gad, twelve thousand; of the tribe of Asher, twelve thousand; of the tribe of Naphtali, twelve thousand; of the tribe of Manasseh, twelve thousand; of the tribe of Simeon, twelve thousand; of the tribe of Levi, twelve thousand; of the tribe of Issachar, twelve thousand; of the tribe of Zebulun, twelve thousand; of the tribe of Joseph, twelve thousand; of the tribe of Benjamin, twelve thousand.
Those who are to be brought safely through the great tribulation are sealed upon their foreheads. The origin of this picture is very likely in Eze.9. In Ezekiel’s picture, before the final slaughter begins, the man with the inkhorn marks the forehead of those who are faithful and the avengers are told that none so marked must be touched (Eze.9:1-7).
The idea of the king’s seal would be very meaningful in the East. Eastern kings wore a signet ring whose seal was used to authenticate documents as really coming from the king’s hand and to mark that which was the king’s personal property. When Pharaoh appointed Joseph his prime minister and representative, he gave him his signet ring in token of the authority which had been delegated to him (Gen.41:42). So Ahasuerus gave his signet ring, first to Haman and then, when Haman’s wicked schemes were unmasked, to Mordecai (Esth.3:10; Esth.8:2). The stone which shut Daniel into the lion’s den was sealed (Dn.6:17), as was the stone with which the Jews sought to make the tomb of Jesus secure (Matt.27:66).
Very commonly a seal indicated source or possession. A merchant would seal a Package of goods to certify that it belonged to him; and the owner of a vineyard would seal jars of wine to show that they came from his vineyard and with his guarantee.
So here the seal was a sign that these people belonged to God and were under his power and authority.
In the early church this picture of sealing was specially connected with two things. (a) It was connected with baptism which was regularly described as sealing. It is as if, when a person was baptized, a mark was put upon him to show that he had become the property and the possession of God. (b) Paul regularly talks about the Christian being sealed with the gift of the Holy Spirit. The possession of the Holy Spirit is the sign that a man belongs to God. The real Christian is marked out by the seal of the Spirit which enables him to have the wisdom and the strength to cope with life in a way beyond the attainment of others.
THE NUMBER OF THE FAITHFUL
Rev. 7:4-8 (continued)
There are certain quite general things to be noted here which will greatly help towards the interpretation of this passage.
(1) Two things are to be said about the number 144,000. (a) It is quite certain that it does not stand for the number of the faithful in every day and generation. The 144,000 stands for those who in the time of John are sealed and preserved from the great tribulation which at that moment was coming upon them. In due time, as we see in Rev. 7:9, they are to be merged with the great crowd beyond all counting and drawn from every nation. (b) The number 144,000 stands, not for limitation but for completeness and perfection. It is made up of 12 multiplied by 12–the perfect square–and then rendered even more inclusive and complete by being multiplied by 1,000 This does not tell us that the number of the saved will be very small; it tells us that the number of the saved will be very great.
(ii) The enumeration in terms of the twelve tribes of Israel does not mean that this is to be read in purely Jewish terms. One of the basic thoughts of the New Testament is that the Church is the real Israel, and that the national Israel has lost all its privileges and promises to the Church. Paul writes: “He is not a real Jew who is one outwardly, nor is true circumcision something external and physical. He is a Jew who is one inwardly, and real circumcision is a matter of the heart, spiritual and not literal. His praise is not from men but from God” (Rom.2:28-29). “Not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel,” says Paul (Rom.9:6-7). If a man is Christ’s, then is he Abraham’s seed and an heir according to the promise (Gal.3:29). It is the Church which is the Israel of God (Gal.6:16). It is Christians who are the real circumcision, those who worship God in the spirit, who rejoice in Christ Jesus and who have no confidence in the flesh (Php.3:3). Even if this passage is stated in terms of the twelve tribes of Israel, the reference is still to the Church of God, the new Israel, the Israel of God.
(iii) It would be a mistake to place any stress on the order in which the twelve tribes are given, because the lists of the tribes are always varying in their order. But two things stand out. (a) Judah comes first, thus supplanting Reuben, who was the eldest son of Jacob. That is simply explained by the fact it was from the tribe of Judah that the Messiah came. (b) Much more interesting is the omission of Dan. But there is also an explanation of that. In the Old Testament Dan does not hold a high place and is often connected with idolatry. In Jacob’s dying speech to his sons, it is said: “Dan shall be a serpent in the way, a viper by the path, that bites the horse’s heels, so that his rider falls backward” (Gen.49:17). In Judges the children of Dan are said to have set up a graven image (Judg.18:30). The golden calves, which became a sin, were set up in Bethel and in Dan (1Kgs.12:29). There is more. There is a curious saying in Jer.8:16: “The snorting of their horses is heard from Dan; at the sound of the neighing of their stallions the whole land quakes. They come and devour the land and all that fills it.” That saying came to be taken as referring to Antichrist, the coming incarnation of evil; and it came to be believed among the Jewish Rabbis that Antichrist was to spring from Dan. Hippolytus (Concerning Antichrist 14) says: “As the Christ was born from the tribe of Judah, so will the Antichrist be born from the tribe of Dan.” That is why Dan is missed out from this list and the list completed by the including of Manasseh, who is normally included in Joseph.
THE GLORY OF THE MARTYRS
Rev. 7:9-10
After this I saw, and, behold, a great crowd, so great that none could count its number, drawn from every race and from all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes and palms in their hands. And they shouted with a great voice: “Salvation belongs to our God, who is seated upon the throne and to the Lamb.”
Here we have the beginning of the vision of the future blessedness of the martyrs.
(i) There is encouragement. There is coming upon the faithful a time of terror such as the world has never seen; and John is telling them that, if they endure to the end, the glory will be worth all the suffering. He is setting out how infinitely worthwhile it is in the long run to accept everything involved in the martyrdom which fidelity must undergo.
(ii) The number of the martyrs is beyond all counting. This may well be a memory of the promise that God made to Abraham that his descendants would one day be as the number of the stars in the heavens (Gen.15:5), and as the sand of the seashore (Gen.32:12); at the last the number of the true Israel will be beyond all reckoning.
(iii) John uses a phrase of which he is very fond. He says that God’s faithful ones will come from every race and tribe and people and tongue (compare Rev. 5:9; Rev. 11:9; Rev. 13:7; Rev. 14:6; Rev. 17:15). H. B. Swete speaks of “the polyglot cosmopolitan crowd who jostled one another in the agora or on the quays of the Asian sea-port towns.” In any Asian harbour or market-place there would be gathered people from many lands, speaking many different tongues. Any evangelist would feel his heart afire to bring the message of Christ to this assorted crowd of people. Here is the promise that the day will come when all this motley crowd of many nations and many tongues will become the one flock of the Lord Christ.
(iv) It is in victory that the faithful finally arrive in the presence of God and of the Lamb. They appear, not weary, battered and worn, but victorious. The white robe is the sign of victory; a Roman general celebrated his triumph clothed in white. The palm is also the sign of victory. When, under the might of the Maccabees, Jerusalem was freed from the pollutions of Antiochus Epiphanes, the people entered in with branches and fair boughs and palms and psalms (2Macc.10:7).
(v) The shout of the triumphant faithful ascribes salvation to God. It is God who has brought them through their trials and tribulations and distresses; and it is his glory which now they share. God is the great saviour, the great deliverer of his people. And the deliverance which he gives is not the deliverance of escape but the deliverance of conquest. It is not a deliverance which saves a man from trouble but one which brings him triumphantly through trouble. It does not make life easy, but it makes life great. It is not part of the Christian hope to look for a life in which a man is saved from all trouble and distress; the Christian hope is that a man in Christ can endure any kind of trouble and distress, and remain erect all through them, and come out to glory on the other side.
THE PRAISE OF THE ANGELS
Rev. 7:11-12
And all the angels stood in a circle round the throne and the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell upon their faces before the throne, and worshipped God, saying:
“So let it be. Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honour and power and strength belong to our God for ever and for ever. Amen.”
The picture is of a series of great concentric circles of the inhabitants of heaven. On the outer ring stand all the angels. Nearer the throne are the twenty-four elders; still nearer are the four living creatures; and before the throne are the white-robed martyrs. The martyrs have just sung their shout of praise to God and the angels take that song of praise and make it their own. “So let it be,” say the angels; they say “Amen” to the martyrs’ praises. Then they sing their own song of praise and every word in it is meaningful.
They ascribe blessing to God; and God’s creation must always be blessing him for his goodness in creation and in redemption and in providence to all that he has created. As a great saint put it: “Thou hast made us and we are thine; thou hast redeemed us and we are doubly thine.”
They ascribe glory to God. God is the King of kings and the Lord of lords; therefore, to him must be given glory. God is love but that love must never be cheaply sentimentalized; men must never forget the majesty of God.
They ascribe wisdom to God. God is the source of all truth, the giver of all knowledge. If men seek wisdom, they can find it by only two paths, by the seeking of their minds and by waiting upon God–and the one is as important as the other.
They offer thanksgiving to God. God is the giver of salvation and the constant provider of grace; he is the Creator of the world and the constant sustainer of all that is in it. It was the cry of the psalmist: “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits” (Ps.103:2). Shakespeare said that it was sharper than a serpent’s tooth to have a thankless child. We must see to it that we are never guilty of the ugliest and the most graceless of sins, that of ingratitude.
They ascribed honour to God. God is to be worshipped. It may be that sometimes we come to think of him as some one to be used; but we ought not to forget the claims of worship, so that we not only ask things from him but offer ourselves and all we have to him.
They ascribe power to God. God’s power never grows less and the wonder is that it is used in love for men. God works his purposes out throughout the ages and in the end his kingdom will come.
They ascribe strength to God. The problem of life is to find strength for its tasks, its responsibilities, its demands. The Christian can say: “I will go in the strength of the Lord.”
There is no greater exercise in the life of devotion than to meditate on the praise of the angels and, to appropriate to ourselves everything in it.
WASHING FROM SIN
Rev. 7:13-14
And one of the elders said to me: “Do you know who these are who are clothed in white robes and where they came from?” I said to him: “Sir, you know.” He said to me: “These are they who are coming out of the great tribulation, and who have washed their robes, and have made them white through the power of the blood of the Lamb.”
One thing is to be noted before we go on to deal with this passage in detail. The King James Version generalizes the meaning by translating: “These are they who came out of great tribulation.” But the Revised Standard Version correctly translates: “These are they who came out of the great tribulation.” The seer is convinced that he and his people are standing at the end time of history and that that end time is to be terrible beyond all imagining. The whole point of his vision is that beyond that terrible time glory will follow. It is not tribulation in general of which he is speaking but of that tribulation which Jesus foretold when he said, “In those days there will be such tribulation as has not been from the beginning of the creation which God created until now, and never will be” (Mk.13:19; Matt.24:21). Nowadays we read this passage as speaking about tribulation in general and in that sense find it very precious; and we are right to read it so because the promises of God are for ever. At the same time it is right to remember that originally it referred to the immediate circumstances of the people to whom John was writing.
This passage has two pictures which are very common in the Bible. We first look at these pictures separately and then we put them together in order to find the total meaning of the passage.
The great crowd of the blessed ones are in white robes. The Bible has much to say both about white robes and about soiled robes. In the ancient world this was a very natural picture, for it was forbidden to approach a god with robes which were unclean. The picture was still further intensified by the fact that often when a Christian was baptized he was dressed in new white robes. These robes were taken to symbolize his new life and to soil them was the symbolic way of expressing failure to be true to the baptismal vows.
Isaiah says: “We have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment” (Isa.64:6). Zechariah sees the high priest Joshua clothed in filthy garments and hears God say: “Remove the filthy garments from him… Behold, I have taken your iniquity away from you, and I will clothe you with rich apparel” (Zech.3:1-5). In preparation for the receiving of the commandments from God, Moses orders the people wash their garments (Exo.19:10,14). The Psalmist prays to God to wash him thoroughly from his iniquity, to purge him with hyssop, to wash him until he is whiter than snow (Ps.51:1-7). The prophet hears the promise that the sins which are as scarlet will be as white as snow and those that were red like crimson will be as wool (Isa.1:18). Paul reminds his people in Corinth that they have been washed and sanctified (1Cor.6:11).
Here is a picture which is present all through scripture, of the man who has stained his garments with sin and who has been cleansed by the grace of God. It is of the greatest importance to remember that this love of God does not only forgive a man his stained garments, it makes them clean.
THE BLOOD OF JESUS CHRIST
Rev. 7:13-14 (continued)
This passage speaks of the blood of the Lamb. The New Testament has much to say about the blood of Jesus Christ. We must be careful to give this phrase its full meaning. To us blood indicates death, and certainly the blood of Jesus Christ speaks of his death. But to the Hebrews the blood stood for the life. That was why the orthodox Jew never would–and still will not–eat anything which had blood in it (Gen.9:4). The blood is the life and the life belongs to God; and the blood must always be sacrificed to him. The identification of blood and life is not unnatural. When a man’s blood ebbs away, so does his life. When the New Testament speaks about the blood of Jesus Christ, it means not only his death but his life and death. The blood of Christ stands for all Christ did for us and means for us in his life and in his death. With that in our minds let us see what the New Testament says about that blood.
It is the blood of Jesus Christ which is cleansing us from all sin (1Jn.1:7). It is the blood of Jesus Christ which makes expiation for us (Rom.3:25), and it is through his blood that we are justified (Rom.5:9). It is through his blood that we have redemption (Eph.1:7), and we are redeemed with the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish and without spot (1Pet.1:19). It is through his blood that we have peace with God (Col.1:20). His blood purges our conscience from dead works to serve the living God (Heb.9:14).
There are four ideas here, the first being the main idea from which the others spring.
(i) The main idea is based on sacrifice. Sacrifice is essentially something designed to restore a lost relationship with God. God gives man his law; man breaks that law; that breach of the law interrupts the relationship between God and man; and sacrifice is designed to atone for the breach and to restore the lost relationship. The great work of Jesus Christ in his life and in his death is to restore the lost relationship between God and man.
(ii) This work of Christ has something to do with the past. It wins for man forgiveness for past sins and liberates him from his slavery to sin.
(iii) This work of Christ has something to do with the present. It gives a man here and now, upon earth, in spite of failure and of sin, a new and intimate relationship with God, in which fear is gone and in which love is the bond.
(iv) This work of Christ has something to do with the future. It frees a man from the power of evil and enables him to live a new life in the time to come.
THE SAINTS WHO HAVE WASHED THEIR ROBES IN THE BLOOD OF THE LAMB
Rev. 7:13-14 (continued)
Let us now unite the two ideas of which we have been thinking. The blessed ones have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Let us try to express as simply as possible what that means.
The white robes always stand for two things. They stand for purity, for the life cleansed from the taint of past sin, the infection of present sin and the attack of future sin. They stand for victory, for the life which has found the secret of victorious living. Put at its very simplest, this means that the blessed ones have found the secret of purity and the secret of victory in all that Jesus Christ did for them in his life and in his death.
Now let us try to see the meaning of in the blood of the Lamb. There are two possibilities.
(i) It may mean in the power of the blood of the Lamb or at the cost of the blood of the Lamb. This would then be a vivid way of saying that this purity and victory were won in the power and at the cost of all that Jesus did for men in his life and in his death.
(ii) But it may be even more probable that the picture is to be taken literally; and that John conceives of the blessed ones as having washed their robes in the blood which flows from the wounds of Jesus Christ. To us that is a strange and perhaps even repulsive picture; and it is paradoxical to think of robes becoming white when washed in the scarlet of blood. But it would not seem strange to the people of John’s day; to many of them it would be literally familiar. The greatest religious force of the time was the Mystery Religions. These were dramatic religions which by deeply moving ceremonies offered to men a rebirth and a promise of eternal life. Perhaps the most famous was Mithraism, at whose centre was the god Mithra. Mithraism had its devotees all over the world; it was the favourite religion of the Roman army and even in Britain there are relics of the chapels of Mithra where the Roman soldiers met for worship. The most sacred ceremony of Mithraism was the taurobolium, the bath of bull’s blood. It is described by the Christian poet Prudentius. “A trench was dug, over which was erected a platform of planks, which were perforated with holes. Upon this platform a sacrificial bull was slaughtered. Below the platform knelt the worshipper who was to be initiated. The blood of the slaughtered bull dripped through on to the worshipper below. He exposed his head and all his garments to be saturated with blood; and then he turned round and held up his neck that the blood might trickle upon his lips, ears, eyes and nostrils; he moistened his tongue with the blood which he then drank as a sacramental act. He came out from this certain that he was renatus in aeternum, reborn for all eternity.”
This may sound grim and terrible to us; but in the last analysis it is not the picture which matters but the truth behind the picture. And the great and unchanging truth is that through the life and death of Jesus Christ, there has come to the Christian that purity and victory which he could never achieve for himself.
CHRIST’S SACRIFICE AND MAN’S APPROPRIATION
Rev. 7:13-14 (continued)
One thing in this passage remains to be noted, and it is of the first importance. It is said of the blessed ones that “they washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”
Here is symbolically laid down man’s part in his own salvation; the blessed ones washed their own robes. That is to say, the act of man’s redemption is Christ’s, but the effect is not passive and man has to appropriate it. There might be available to a man all the apparatus to cleanse his garments, but it remains ineffective until he uses it for himself.
How does a man avail himself of the sacrifice of Christ?
He does so through penitence. He must begin with sorrow for his sin and the desire for amendment. He does so through faith. He must believe with all his heart that Christ lived and died for us men and for our salvation, and that his sacrifice is mighty to save. He does so through using the means of grace. The Scriptures will awaken his penitence and his faith and kindle his heart; prayer will keep him ever close to Christ and daily increase his intimacy with him; the Sacraments will be channels through which by faith renewing grace will flow to him. He does so through daily loyalty and vigilance and living with Christ.
THE SERVICE IN THE GLORY
Rev. 7:15
That is why they are before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits upon the throne will spread the covering of his glory over them.
Those who have been faithful will have the entry into the very presence of God. Jesus said: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matt.5:8).
There is a very significant fact hidden here. Serving God day and night was part of the task of the Levites and the priests (1Chr.9:33). Now those who are before the throne of God in this vision are, as we have already seen in Rev. 7:9, drawn from every race and tribe and people and tongue. Here is a revolution. In the earthly Temple in Jerusalem no Gentile could go beyond the Court of the Gentiles on pain of death. An Israelite could pass through the Court of the Women and enter into the Court of the Israelites, but no further. Beyond that was the Court of the Priests, which was for priests alone. But in the heavenly temple the way to the presence of God is open to people of every race. Here is a picture of heaven with the barriers down. Distinctions of race and of status exist no more; the way into the presence of God is open to every faithful soul.
There is one other half-hidden fact here. In Rev. 7:15 the King James Version has it that he who sits upon the throne shall dwell among them. That is a perfectly correct translation, but there is more in it than meets the eye. The Greek for to dwell is skenoun (GSN4637), from skene (GSN4633) which means a tent. It is the same word as is used when John says that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us (Jn.1:14). The Jews always connected this with a certain Hebrew word which was somewhat similar in sound although quite unrelated in meaning. This was the word shechinah (compare HSN7931), the visible presence of the glory of God. Usually that presence took the form of a luminous cloud. So when the Ten Commandments were given, “the glory of the Lord settled on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days…. And the appearance of the glory of the Lord was like a devouring fire on the top of the mountain” (Exo.24:16-18). It was the same with the Tabernacle. The cloud covered the tent of the congregation and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. Moses could not enter into the Tabernacle because of the glory of the Lord. This was the cloud which guided the Israelites by day and the fire that guided them by night (Exo.40:34-38). At the dedication of Solomon’s temple the glory of the Lord filled it so that the priests could not enter (2Chr.7:1-3).
Skenoun (GSN4637) always turned the thoughts of a Jew to shechinah (compare the Hebrew verb, shakan, HSN7931, to dwell): and to say that God dwelt in any place was to say that his glory was there.
This was always so for a Jew, but as time went on it became more and more so. The Jews came to think of God as increasingly remote from the world. They did not even think it right to speak of him as being in the world; that was to speak in terms which were too human; and so they took to substituting the shechinah (compare HSN7931), for the name of God. We read Jacob’s words at Bethel: “Surely the Lord is in this place” (Gen.28:16); the Rabbis changed that to: “The shechinah (compare HSN7931) is in this place.” In Habbakuk we read: “The Lord is in his holy temple” (Hab.2:20); but the later Jews said: “God was pleased to cause his shechinah (compare HSN7931) to dwell in the temple.” In Isaiah we read: “My eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts” (Isa.6:5); the later Jews altered it to: “Mine eyes have seen the shechinah (compare HSN7931), of the King of the world.”
No Jew would hear the word skenoun (GSN4637) without thinking of shechinah; and the real meaning of the passage is that God’s blessed ones would serve and live in the very sheen of his glory.
It can be so on earth. He who faithfully works and witnesses for God has always the glory of God upon his work.
THE BLISS OF THE BLESSED
Rev. 7:16-17
They will not hunger any more, nor will they thirst any more; the sun will not fall on them, nor any heat; because the Lamb who is in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and will lead them to springs of living water; and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.
It would be impossible to number the people who have found comfort in this passage in the house of mourning and in the hour of death.
There is spiritual promise here, the promise of the ultimate satisfying of the hunger and the thirst of the human soul. This is a promise which occurs again and again in the New Testament, and especially in the words of Jesus. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied” (Matt.5:6). Jesus said: “I am the bread of life; he who comes to me shall not hunger; and he who believes in me shall never thirst” (Jn.6:35). “Whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst; the water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life” (Jn.4:14). Jesus said: “If any one thirst, let him come to me and drink” (Jn.7:37). God has made us for himself, as Augustine said, and our hearts are restless till they rest in him. As the hymn has it:
O Christ, in thee my soul has found, And found in thee alone, The peace, the joy, I sought so long, The bliss till now unknown.
Now none but Christ can satisfy, None other name for me! There’s love, and life, and lasting joy, Lord Jesus, found in thee.
But it may well be that we should not entirely spiritualize this passage. In the early days many of the Church’s members were slaves. They knew what it was to be hungry all the time; they knew what thirst was; they knew what it was for the pitiless sun to blaze down upon their backs as they toiled, forbidden to rest. Truly for them heaven would be a place where hunger was satisfied and thirst was quenched and the heat of the sun no longer tortured them. The promise of this passage is that in Christ is the end of the world’s hunger, the world’s pain, and the world’s sorrow.
We do well to remember that John found the origin of this passage in the words of Isaiah: “They shall not hunger or thirst; neither scorching wind nor sun shall smite them; for he who has pity on them will lead them, and by springs of water will lead them” (Isa.49:10). This is a supreme example of an Old Testament dream finding its perfect fulfilment in Jesus Christ.
THE DIVINE SHEPHERD
Rev. 7:16-17 (continued)
Here is the promise of the loving care of the Divine Shepherd for his flock.
The picture of the shepherd is something in which both the Old and New Testament delight.
“The Lord is my shepherd,” begins the best loved of all the psalms (Ps.23:1). “O Shepherd of Israel,” begins another (Ps.80:1). Isaiah pictures God feeding his flock like a shepherd, holding the lambs in his arms and carrying them in his bosom (Isa.40:11). The greatest title that the prophet can give to the Messianic king is shepherd of his people (Eze.34:23; Eze.37:24).
This was the title that Jesus took for himself. “I am the good shepherd,” (Jn.10:11,14). Peter calls Jesus the Shepherd and Bishop of our souls (1Pet.2:25), and the writer to the Hebrews speaks of him as that great shepherd of the sheep (Heb.13:20).
This is a precious picture in any age; but it was more meaningful in Palestine than it can ever be to those who live in cities. Judaea was like a narrow plateau with dangerous country on either side. It was only a very few miles across, with on one side the grim cliffs and ravines leading down to the Dead Sea and on the other the drop to the wild country of the Shephelah. There were no fences or walls and the shepherd had to be ever on the watch for straying sheep. George Adam Smith describes the eastern shepherd. “With us sheep are often left to themselves; I do not remember to have seen in the East a flock without a shepherd. In such a landscape as Judaea, where a day’s pasture is thinly scattered over an unfenced track, covered with delusive paths, still frequented by wild beasts, and rolling into the desert, the man and his character are indispensable. On some high moor, across which at night hyenas howl, when you met him sleepless, far-sighted, weather-beaten, armed, leaning on his staff, and looking out over his scattered sheep, every one on his heart, you understand why the shepherd of Judaea sprang to the front in his people’s history; why they gave his name to their king, and made him the symbol of Providence; why Christ took him as the type of self-sacrifice.”
Here we have the two great functions of the Divine Shepherd. He leads to fountains of living waters. As the psalmist had it: “He leads me beside still waters” (Ps.23:2). “With thee is the fountain of life” (Ps.36:9). Without water the flock would perish; and in Palestine the wells were few and far between. That the Divine Shepherd leads to wells of water is the symbol that he gives us the things without which life cannot survive.
He wipes the tear from every eye. As he nourishes our bodies so he also comforts our hearts; without the presence and the comfort of God the sorrows of life would be unbearable, and without the strength of God there are times in life when we could never go on.
The Divine Shepherd gives us nourishment for our bodies and comfort for our hearts. With Jesus Christ as Shepherd nothing can happen to us which we cannot bear.
THE SILENCE AND THE THUNDER OF PRAYER
Rev. 8:1-5
When he opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. And I saw the seven angels who stand in the presence of God, and seven trumpets were given to them. Another angel came and stood at the altar with a golden censer; and he was given much incense that he might add it to the prayers of the saints on the golden altar before the throne. The smoke of the incense went up with the prayers of the saints from the hand of the angel before God. And the angel took the censer and filled it with fire from the altar, and threw it on the ground. And there were crashes of thunder and loud voices and flashes of lightning and an earthquake.
Before we begin to examine this passage in detail, we may note one point about its arrangement. Rev. 8:2, which tells of the seven angels with the seven trumpets, is clearly out of place. As it stands, it interrupts the sense of the passage and it should come immediately before Rev. 8:7–probably a copyist’s mistake.
The passage begins with an intensely dramatic silence in heaven for about half an hour. The sheer stillness is even more effective than the thunder and the lightning. This silence may have two meanings.
(i) It may be a kind of breathing-space in the narrative, a moment of preparation before another shattering revelation comes.
(ii) There may be something much more beautiful in it. The prayers of the saints are about to go up to God; and it may be that the idea is that everything in heaven halts so that the prayers of the saints may be heard. As R. H. Charles puts it: “The needs of the saints are more to God than all the psalmody of heaven.” Even the music of heaven and even the thunder of revelation are stilled so that God’s ear may catch the whispered prayer of the humblest of his trusting people.
The picture divides itself into two. In the first half an unnamed angel offers the prayers of the saints to God. In Jewish thought the archangel Michael made prayer for the people of Israel and there was a nameless angel called The Angel of Peace whose duty was to see that Israel “did not fall into the extremity of Israel” and who interceded for Israel and for all the righteous.
The angel is standing at the altar. The altar in the Revelation frequently appears in the picture of heaven (Rev. 6:9; Rev. 9:13; Rev. 14:18). It cannot be the altar of burnt-offering, for there can be no animal sacrifice in heaven; it must be the altar of incense. The altar of incense stood before the Holy Place in the Temple (Lev.16:12; Num.16:46). Made of gold, it was eighteen inches square and three feet high. At each corner it had horns; it was hollow and was covered over with a gold plate, and round it was a little railing, like a miniature balustrade, to keep the burning coals from falling off it. In the Temple incense was burned and offered before the first and after the last sacrifices of the day. It was as if the offerings of the people went up to God wrapped in an envelope of perfumed incense.
Here we have the idea that prayer is a sacrifice to God; the prayers of the saints are offered on the altar and, like all other sacrifices, they are surrounded with the perfume of the incense as they rise to God. A man may have no other sacrifice to offer to God; but at all times he can offer his prayers and there are always angelic hands waiting to bring them to God.
There is another half of this picture. The same angel takes the censer, fills it with coals from the altar and dashes it on the ground; and this is the prelude to the thunder and the earthquake which are the introduction to more terrors. The picture comes from the vision of Ezekiel, in which the man in the linen-cloth takes coals from between the cherubim and scatters them over the city (Eze.10:2); and it is kin to the vision of Isaiah in which his lips are touched with a live coal from the altar (Isa.6:6).
But this picture introduces something new. The coals from the censer introduce new woes. H. B. Swete puts it this way: “The prayers of the saints return to the earth in wrath.” The idea in John’s mind is that the prayers of the saints avail to bring vengeance upon those who had maltreated them.
We may feel that a prayer for vengeance is a strange prayer for a Christian, but we must remember the agony of persecution through which the Church was passing when the Revelation was written.
THE SEVEN ANGELS WITH THE TRUMPETS
Rev. 8:2,6
And I saw the seven angels who stand in the presence of God, and seven trumpets were given to them; and the seven angels with the seven trumpets prepared to sound the trumpets.
These seven angels, known as the angels of the presence, were the same as the archangels. Their names were Uriel, Raphael, Raguel, Michael, Sariel, Gabriel and Remiel (Tob.12:1,5).
That they were called the angels of the presence means two things. First, they enjoyed a special honour. In an oriental court it was only the most favoured courtiers who had the right at all times to the presence of the king; to be a courtier of the presence was a special honour. Second, although to be in the presence of the king meant special honour, even more it meant immediate readiness to be despatched on service. Both Elijah and Elisha repeatedly spoke of “the Lord God of Israel before whom I stand” (1Kgs.17:1; 1Kgs.18:15; 2Kgs.3:14; 2Kgs.5:16); and the phrase really means, “The Lord God of Israel whose servant I am.”
The seven angels had seven trumpets. In the visions of the Old and the New Testament the trumpet is always the symbol of the intervention of God in history. All these pictures, and there are many of them, go back to the scene at Mount Sinai, when the law was given to the people. There were on the mountain thunders and lightnings and thick cloud, and a very loud trumpet blast (Exo.19:16,19). This trumpet blast became an unchanging part of the apparatus of the Day of the Lord. In that day the great trumpet will be blown and it will summon back the exiles from every land (Isa.27:13). On the Day of the Lord the trumpet will be blown in Zion and the alarm sounded in the holy mountain (Jl.2:1). That day will be a day of trumpet and alarm (Zeph.1:16). The Lord will blow the trumpet and go out with the whirlwind (Zech.9:14).
This picture passed into the New Testament visions of the last day. Paul speaks of the day when the trumpet shall sound and the corruptible will put on incorruption (1Cor.15:52-53). He speaks of the trumpet of God, which is to sound when Christ comes again (1Th.4:16). Matthew speaks of the great sound of a trumpet when the elect are gathered in (Matt.24:31).
It would be wrong to expect God literally to blow the trumpet; but none the less the picture has symbolic truth in it. A trumpet blast can be three things:
(i) It can sound the alarm. It can waken from sleep or warn of danger; and God is always sounding his warnings in the ears of men.
(ii) It can be the fanfare which announces the arrival of royalty. It is a fitting symbol to express the invasion of time by the King of eternity.
(iii) It can be the summons to battle. God is always summoning men to take sides in the strife of truth with falsehood and to become soldiers of the King of kings.
THE UNLEASHING OF THE ELEMENTS
Rev. 8:7-12
The first angel sounded a blast on his trumpet, and there came hail and fire mixed with blood and launched themselves on the dry land; and a third part of the dry land was burned up, and a third part of the trees was burned up, and all green grass was burned up.
The second angel sounded a blast on his trumpet, and what I can only call a great mountain burning with fire was hurled into the sea; and a third part of the sea became blood, and a third part of the creatures in the sea who had life died, and a third part of the ships were destroyed in wreckage.
The third angel sounded a blast on his trumpet, and a great meteor blazing like a torch fell from heaven; and it fell on a third part of the rivers, and on the springs of water. And the name by which the meteor is called is Wormwood; and a third part of the waters became wormwood; and many of mankind died because of the embitterment of the waters.
The fourth angel sounded a blast on his trumpet, and a third part of the sun was smitten, and a third part of the moon, and a third part of the stars, so that a third part of their light was darkened, and so that a third part of the day did not shine, and so with the night.
Here we have a picture of the elemental forces of nature hurled in judgment against the world. At each blast on the trumpet a different part of the world is attacked; the destruction that follows is not total for this is only the prelude to the end. First, the blast of destruction falls on the earth (Rev. 8:7); then it falls upon the sea (Rev. 8:8-9); then it falls upon the fresh water rivers and springs (Rev. 8:10-11); then it falls on the heavenly bodies (Rev. 8:12). The tide of destruction is unleashed on every part of the created universe.
We have further to note where John found his imagery. For the most part the pictures find their origin in the descriptions in Exodus of the plagues which fell on Egypt when Pharaoh refused to allow the people to go.
In John’s picture hail and fire and blood fall upon the dry land. In Exo.9:24 we read how there came upon Egypt fire mixed with a hail of unparalleled destructiveness. John to increase the terror adds blood, remembering Joel’s picture of the day when the sun would be turned into darkness and the moon into blood (Jl.2:10). In John’s picture a third part of the sea becomes blood and the fishes in it die. In Exodus, when Moses lifted up his rod and smote the waters, the waters of the Nile turned to blood and the fishes in the river died (Exo.7:20-21). In Zephaniah’s picture of the Day of the Lord the threat of God is: “I will sweep away man and beast; I will sweep away the birds of the air and the fish of the sea” (Zeph.1:3). There is no parallel for the picture of the fall of the flaming star, but there are many to the ideas of waters turning to wormwood.
Wormwood is a general name for the class of plants known as artemisia whose characteristic is bitterness of taste. They are not really poisonous in the sense of being fatal, although they are noxious, but the Israelites dreaded their bitterness. Wormwood was the fruit of idolatry (Deut.29:17-18). It was the threat of God through Jeremiah that God would give his people wormwood to eat and the waters of gall to drink (Jer.9:14-15; Jer.23:15). Wormwood always stood for the bitterness of the judgment of God on the disobedient.
In John’s picture there came a darkening of a third part of the lights of heaven. In Exodus one of the plagues was a darkness that could be felt over the whole land (Exo.10:21-23).
As we have so often seen, John is so steeped in the Old Testament that its visions come to him as the natural background of all that he has to say.
In this case it is by no means impossible that John is taking at least a part of his picture from actual events which he had seen or of which he had heard. A rain which looks like a rain of blood has more than once been reported from the Mediterranean countries. There is, for instance, a record of such a rain in Italy and all over south-east Europe in 1901. The reason for it is that fine red sand from the Sahara Desert is caught up into the upper air; and then when the rain comes it seems to be raining blood, as the rain and the fine red particles of sand fall together upon the earth. It may well be that John had seen something like this or had heard of it.
Further, he speaks of a flaming mass falling into the sea. This sounds very like a volcanic eruption. There was an eruption of Mount Vesuvius in August Of A.D. 79 which decimated Naples and its bay. That would be within a very few years of the writing of the Revelation. The Aegean Sea has volcanic islands and volcanoes beneath the sea. Strabo, the Greek geographer, reports an eruption in the Aegean Sea, in which Patmos lay, in the year 196 B.c., which actually resulted in the formation of a new island called Pataia Kaumene. Such events also may have been in John’s mind.
In this picture of terror John has the vision of God using the elemental forces of nature to warn man of the final destruction to come.
THE FLYING EAGLE
Rev. 8:13
And I looked, and I heard an eagle flying in mid-heaven crying with a loud voice: “Woe! Woe! Woe! for those who dwell on the earth, because of what is going to happen when the rest of the trumpets speak, which the three angels are about to sound.”
Here we have one of the pauses in the story which the Revelation uses so effectively. Three fearful woes are to come upon the earth when the three angels sound the last blasts on the trumpets; but for the moment there is a pause.
In this pause the seer sees an eagle–not an angel as the King James Version has it. It is quite possible that the Greek could mean “one solitary eagle.” The expression “mid-heaven” means the zenith of the sky, that part where the sun is at midday. Here we have a dramatic and eerie picture of an empty sky and a solitary eagle winging its way across its zenith, forewarning of the doom to come.
Again John is using an idea which is not new. We have the same picture in Second Baruch. When the writer of that book has seen his vision and wishes to send it to the Jews exiled in Babylon by the waters of the Euphrates, he goes on: “And I called the eagle and spake these words unto it: `The Most High hath made thee that thou shouldest be higher than all birds. Now go, and tarry not in any place, nor enter a nest, nor settle on any tree, till thou hast passed over the breadth of the many waters of the river Euphrates, and hast gone to the people that dwell there, and cast down to them this epistle'” (2 Baruch 77: 21-22).
The picture is not to be taken literally but the symbolism behind it is that God uses nature to send his messages to men.
THE UNLOCKING OF THE ABYSS
Rev. 9:1-2
The fifth angel sounded a blast on his trumpet, and I saw a star failing from heaven on the earth, and to him there was given the key of the shaft of the bottomless abyss; and he opened the shaft of the abyss; and smoke went up from the shaft like the smoke of a great furnace, and the sun and the air were darkened by the smoke from the abyss.
The picture of terror mounts in its awful intensity. Now the terrors coming upon the earth are beyond nature; they are demonic; the abyss is being opened and superhuman terrors are being despatched upon the world.
The picture will become clearer if we remember that John thinks of the stars as living beings. This is common in Enoch where, for instance, we read of wandering and disobedient stars being bound hand and foot and cast into the abyss (Enoch 86: 1; 88: 1). To the Jewish mind the stars were divine beings, who by disobedience could become demonic and evil.
In the Revelation we read fairly often of the abyss or the bottomless pit. The abyss is the intermediate place of punishment of the fallen angels, the demons, the beast, the false prophet and of Satan (Rev. 9:1-2,11; Rev. 11:7; Rev. 20:1,3). Their final place of punishment is the lake of burning fire and brimstone (Rev. 20:10,14,15). To complete the picture of these terrors we may add that Gehenna–which is not mentioned in the Revelation–is the place of punishment for evil men.
This idea of the abyss underwent a development. In the beginning it was the place of the imprisoned waters. In the creation story the primaeval waters surround the earth and God separates them by creating the firmament (Gen.1:6-7). In its first idea the abyss was the place where the flood of the waters was confined by God beneath the earth, a kind of great subterranean sea, where the waters were imprisoned to make way for the dry land. The second step was that the abyss became the abode of the enemies of God, although even there they were not beyond his power and control (Am.9:3; Isa.51:9; Ps.74:13).
Next the abyss came to be thought of as a great chasm in the earth. We see this idea in Isa.24:21-22, where the disobedient hosts of heaven and the kings of the earth are gathered together as prisoners in the pit.
This is the kind of picture in which inevitably horror mounts upon horror. The most detailed descriptions of the abyss are in Enoch, which was so influential between the Testaments. There it is the prison abode of the angels who fell, the angels who came to earth and seduced mortal women, the angels who taught men to worship demons instead of the true God (Gen.6:1-4). There are grim descriptions of it. It has no firmament above and no firm earth beneath; it has no water; it has no birds; it is a waste and horrible place, the end of heaven and earth (Enoch 18: 12-16). It is chaotic. There is a fire which blazes and a cleft into the abyss whose magnitude passes all conjecture (Enoch 21: 1-10).
These things are not to be taken literally. The point is that in this terrible time of devastation which the seer sees coming upon the earth, the terrors are not natural but demonic; the powers of evil are being given their last chance to work their dreadful work.
THE LOCUSTS FROM THE ABYSS
Rev. 9:3-12
From the smoke locusts came forth upon the earth, and they were given power like the power of the scorpions of the earth. They were told not to harm the grass of the earth, nor any green thing, nor any tree, but only such men as had not the seal of God upon their forehead. They were not permitted to kill them, but to torture them for five months. Their torture was like the torture of a scorpion when it strikes a man; and in those days men will seek for death and not be able to find it; and they will long to die but death flees from them.
In likeness the locusts were like horses prepared for battle; on their heads were what looked like crowns of gold. Their faces were like human faces and they had hair like women’s hair, and their teeth were like the teeth of lions. They had scales like iron breastplates, and the sound of their wings was like the sound of many chariots with horses running to battle. They have tails like scorpions with stings, and in their tails is their power to hurt men for five months. As king over them they have the angel of the bottomless abyss, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon and in Greek Appolyon. The first woe has passed. Behold, there are still two woes to follow it.
From the smoke which emerged from the shaft of the abyss came a terrible invasion of locusts. The devastation locusts can inflict and the terror they can cause is well-nigh incredible. All through the Old Testament the locust is the symbol of destruction; and the most vivid and terrible description of them and of their destructiveness is in Jl.1-2 which are a description of an invasion of locusts; and it is from these two chapters that John takes much of his material. They laid the vine waste and stripped the bark from the trees; the field is wasted and the corn is destroyed; every tree of the field is wasted and withered; and the flocks and herds starve because there is no pasture (Jl.1:7-18). They are like a great strong people who darken the very sky; they are as destructive as a flame of fire and nothing escapes them; they are like horses and they run like chariots, with a noise like flame devouring the stubble; they march in their ranks like mighty men of war; they scale the mountains, climb into houses and enter in at the windows, until the very earth shudders at them (Jl.2:1-11). The two chapters of Joel should be read in full and set beside the description in the Revelation.
G. R. Driver in his commentary on Joel in the Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges has collected the facts about locusts in his notes and in a special appendix; and he has shown that the words of Joel and of the Revelation are no exaggeration.
The locusts breed in desert places and invade the cultivated lands for food. They may be about two inches in length, with a wing span of four to five inches. They belong to the same family as the household cricket and the grasshopper. They will travel in a column a hundred feet deep and as much as four miles long. When such a cloud of locusts appears, it is as if there had been an eclipse of the sun and even great buildings less than two hundred feet away cannot be seen.
The destruction they cause is beyond belief. When they have left an area, not a blade of grass is to be seen; the trees are stripped of their bark. Land where the locusts have settled looks as if it had been scorched with a bush fire; not one single living thing is left. Their destructiveness can best be appreciated from the fact that it is recorded that in 1866 a plague of locusts invaded Algiers and so total was the destruction which they caused that 200,000 people perished of famine in the days which followed.
The noise of the millions of their wings is variously described as like the dashing of waters in a mill-wheel or the sound of a great cataract. When the millions of them settle on the ground the sound of their eating has been described as like the crackling of a prairie fire. The sound of them on the march is like heavy rain falling on a distant forest.
It has always been noticed that the head of the locust is like the miniature head of a horse. For that reason the Italian word for locust is cavaletta and the German Heupferd.
When they move, they move inexorably on like an army with leaders. People have dug trenches, lit fires, and even fired cannon in an attempt to stop them but without success; they come on in a steady column which climbs hills, enters houses and leaves scorched earth behind.
There is no more destructive visitation in the world than a visitation of locusts, and this is the terrible devastation which John sees, although the demonic locusts from the pit are different from any earthly insect.
THE DEMONIC LOCUSTS
Rev. 9:3-12 (continued)
Hebrew has a number of different names for the locust which reveal its destructive power. It is called gazam (HSN1501), the lopper or the shearer, which describes how it shears all living vegetation from the earth; it is called ‘arbeh (HSN0697), the swarmer, which describes the immensity of its numbers; it is called hasil, the finisher, which describes the devastation it causes; it is called caal`am (HSN5556), the swallower or the annihilator; it is called hargol (compare HSN7270), the galloper, which describes its rapid progress over the land; it is called tslatsal (HSN6767), the creaker, which describes the sound it makes.
It is not the vegetation of the earth which they are to attack; in fact they are forbidden to do that (Rev. 9:4); their attack is to be launched against the men who have not the seal of God upon their foreheads.
The ordinary locust is devastating to vegetation but not harmful to human beings; but the demonic locust is to have the sting of a scorpion, one of the scourges of Palestine. In shape the scorpion is like a small lobster, with lobster-like claws to clutch its prey. It has a long tail, which curves up over its back and over its head; at the end of the tail there is a curved claw; with this claw the scorpion strikes and it secretes poison as the blow is delivered. The scorpion can be up to six inches in length; it swarms in crannies in walls and literally under almost every stone. Campers tell us that every stone must be lifted when a tent is pitched lest a scorpion be beneath it. Its sting is worse than the sting of a hornet; it is not necessarily fatal, but it can kill. The demonic locusts have the power of scorpions added to them.
Their attack is to last for five months. The explanation of the five months is almost probably that the life-span of a locust from birth, through the larva stage, to death is five months. It is as if we might say that one generation of locusts is being launched upon the earth.
Such will be the suffering caused by the locusts that men will long for death but will not be able to die. Job speaks of the supreme misery of those who long for death and it comes not (Jb.3:21); and Jeremiah speaks of the day when men will choose death rather than life (Jer.8:3). A Latin writer, Cornelius Gallus, says: “Worse than any wound is to wish to die and yet not be able to do so.”
The king of the locusts is called in Hebrew Abaddon (HSN0011; GSN0003) and in Greek Apollyon (GSN0623). Abaddon (HSN0011) is the Hebrew for destruction; it occurs oftenest in the phrases “death and destruction,” and “hell and destruction” (Jb.26:6; Jb.28:22; Jb.31:12; Ps.88:11; Prov.15:11; Prov.27:20). Apollyon (GSN0623) is the present participle of the Greek verb to destroy and itself means The Destroyer. It is fitting that the king of the demonic locusts should be called Destruction and The Destroyer.
THE HORSEMEN OF VENGEANCE
Rev. 9:13-21
The sixth angel sounded a blast on his trumpet and I heard a voice from the four horns of the altar saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet: “Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.” So there came the four angels who were prepared for that hour and day and month and year, to kill a third part of the human race. The number of the armed forces of cavalry was twenty thousand times ten thousand. I heard their number, and this was how I saw in appearance the horses and those who were seated on them. They had breastplates of fiery red, and smoky blue, and sulphurous yellow. The heads of the horses were like the heads of lions, and from their mouths there issued fire and smoke and brimstone. With these three plagues they killed a third part of the human race, with the fire and the smoke and the brimstone which were issuing from their mouths. For the power of the horses is in their mouths and in their tails, for their tails are like snakes with heads, and with them they inflict their hurt.
The rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, even in spite of this did not repent of the deeds of their hands, so as to cease to worship demons and idols of gold and silver and bronze and stone and wood, which can neither hear nor see nor move; nor did they repent of their murders or their sorceries or their immorality or their thefts.
The horror of the picture mounts. The demonic locusts were allowed to injure but not kill; but now come the squadrons of demonic cavalry to annihilate a third part of the human race.
This is a passage whose imagery is mysterious and whose details no one has ever been able fully to explain.
No one really knows who were the four angels bound at the river Euphrates. We can only set down what we know and what we can guess. The Euphrates was the ideal boundary of the territory of Israel. It was God’s promise to Abraham: “To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates” (Gen.15:18). The angels, therefore, came from the distant lands, from the alien and hostile places from which the Assyrians and the Babylonians had in time past descended with destruction upon Israel.
Further, in the Book of Enoch we frequently meet angels who are described as the Angels of Punishment. Their task was at the right time to unleash the avenging wrath of God upon the people. Undoubtedly these four angels were included among the Angels of Punishment.
We have to add another fact to all this. We have frequently seen how the pictures of John are coloured by actual historical circumstances. The most dreaded warriors in the world were the Parthian cavalry; and the Parthians dwelt beyond the Euphrates. It may well be that John was visualizing a terrible descent of the Parthian cavalry on mankind.
The seer adds horror to horror. The number of the hosts of this terrible cavalry is 200,000,000, which simply means that they were beyond all numbering, like the chariots of God (Ps.68:17). They seem to be armoured in flame, for their breastplates are fiery red like the glow of a blazing furnace, smoky blue like the smoke rising from a fire and sulphurous yellow like the brimstone from the pit of hell. The horses have heads like lions and tails like serpents; they breathe out destructive fire and smoke and brimstone, and their serpent-tails deal out hurt and harm. The consequence of all this is that one-third of the human race is destroyed.
It would have been only natural to think that the remainder of mankind would take warning from this dreadful fate; but they did not and continued to worship their idols and demons and in the evil of their ways. It is the conviction of the biblical writers that the worship of idols was nothing less than devil worship and that it was bound to issue in evil and immorality.
THE UNUTTERABLE REVELATION
Rev. 10:1-4
I saw another angel, a mighty one, coming down out of heaven, clad in a cloud, and with a rainbow on his head. His face was as the sun and his feet were like pillars of fire. He had in his hand a little roll which was opened. He put his right foot on the sea and his left foot on the land, and he cried with a loud voice as a lion roars, and, when he cried, the seven thunders uttered their voices. When the seven thunders spoke, I was about to write and I heard a voice from heaven saying: “Set a seal on what the seven thunders said, and do not write it.”
Rev. 10 and Rev. 11:1-14 is a kind of interlude between the sounding of the sixth and the seventh trumpets. The sixth trumpet has already sounded, but the seventh does not sound until Rev. 11:15, and in between there are terrible things.
The mighty angel in this passage is described in terms which show that he came straight from the presence of God and the Risen Christ. He is clad in a cloud and the clouds are the chariots of God, for “God maketh the clouds his chariot” (Ps.104:3). He has a rainbow on his head and the rainbow is part of the glory of the throne of God (Eze.1:28). The rainbow is caused by the light of the angel’s face shining through the cloud. His face is as the sun which is the description of the face of Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration (Matt.17:2). His voice was as the roar of a lion which is often used as a simile of the voice of God, “the Lord roars from Zion and utters his voice from Jerusalem” (Jl.3:16; Hos.11:10; Am.3:8). Clearly this angel has come from the very presence of God; some think that he is none other than the glorified Christ himself.
The angel has one foot on the sea and one on the land. This shows his size and power, for sea and land stand for the sum total of the universe. It also shows that the power of God stands as firm on the sea as it does on the land. In his hand the angel has a little roll, unrolled and opened. That is to say, he is giving John a limited revelation about a quite small period of time. When the angel speaks, the seven thunders sound. They are most likely a reference to the seven voices of God in Ps.29.
Naturally, when the seer sees the open roll and hears the angel’s voice, he prepares to make a record of it; but he is ordered not to do so. That is to say, he is being given a revelation which at the moment he is not to pass on. We get exactly the same idea when Paul tells us that he was caught up to the third heaven and “heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter” (2Cor.12:4). We need not even begin to speculate about what the secret revelation was. We simply know that John had experiences which he could not communicate to others. God sometimes tells a man more than that man can say or than his generation can understand.
THE DIVINE ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE END
Rev. 10:5-7
The angel whom I saw standing on the sea and on the land raised his right hand to heaven and swore by him who lives for ever and ever, who created the heaven and the things in it, and the earth and the things in it, and the sea and the things in it, that there was no time left; but that in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he would sound his trumpet, there would be completed the secret purpose of God, the good news of which he announced to his servants the prophets.
The angel now makes an announcement and affirms it with an oath. Sometimes the announcement has been taken to mean that “Time shall be no more”. That is to say, time as we know it is about to be ended and eternity to begin. It is more likely that the meaning is that there is no time left, that there is to be no further delay, that Antichrist is about to burst upon the scene in all his destructive terror. As the writer to the Hebrews had it: “Yet a little while and the coming one will come, and shall not tarry” (Heb.10:37). The hour has struck when the man of sin shall be revealed (2Th.2:3). Whichever be the meaning of the phrase, certainly the message is that Antichrist is about to invade the earth; the scene is being set for the final contest.
When this happens, as the Revised Standard Version has it, the mystery of God would be fulfilled. The meaning is that the whole purpose of God in human history will stand revealed. Much in life is difficult to understand; wickedness seems to hold sway. But, as John saw it, there is going to be a final show-down. God and Antichrist, good and evil, will face each other; final and total victory will be won, the questions will find their answers and the wrongs will be righted.
Beyond all the strangeness of the picture stands the truth that history is moving towards the inevitable triumph of God and that, though evil may flourish, it cannot in the end be triumphant.
THE JOY AND THE SORROW OF THE MESSENGER OF GOD
Rev. 10:8-11
And I heard the voice which I had heard from heaven speaking again to me and saying: “Go, take the little roll which lies open in the hand of the angel who is standing on the sea and on the land.” And I went away to the angel and asked him to give me the little roll. He said to me: “Take it and eat it. It will be bitter to your stomach but it will be as sweet as honey to your mouth.” And I took the little roll from the hand of the angel and ate it; and it was as sweet as honey to my mouth and, when I ate it, it was bitter to my stomach. And they said to me: “You must prophesy in regard to many peoples and nations and languages and kings.”
Before we deal with this passage in any detail, we note how twice the seer is told to take the roll. It is not handed to him; even when he asks the angel to give it to him, the answer is that he must take it. The meaning is that God’s revelation is never forced on any man; he must take it.
This picture comes from the experience of Ezekiel who was told to eat the roll and to fill his belly with it (Eze.3:1,3). In both pictures the idea is the same. The messenger of God has to take God’s message into his very life and being.
The sweetness of the roll is a recurring thought in Scripture. To the psalmist the judgments of God are sweeter than honey and the honey-comb (Ps.19:10). “How sweet are thy words to my taste! sweeter than honey to my mouth” (Ps.119:103). It may well be that behind these words lies a pleasant Jewish educational custom. When a Jewish boy was learning the alphabet, it was written on a slate in a mixture of flour and honey. He was told what the letters were and how they sounded. After the original instruction, the teacher would point at a letter and would ask: “What is that and how does it sound?” If the boy could answer correctly, he was allowed to lick the letter off the slate as a reward! When the prophet and the psalmist speak about God’s words and judgments being sweeter than honey, it may well be that they were thinking of this custom.
John adds another idea to this. To him the roll was sweet and bitter at one and the same time. What he means is this. A message of God may be to a servant of God at once a sweet and bitter thing. It is sweet because it is a great thing to be chosen as the messenger of God; but the message itself may be a foretelling of doom and, therefore, a bitter thing. So for John it was an infinite privilege to be admitted to the secrets of heaven but at the same time it was bitter to have to forecast the time of terror, even if triumph lay at its end.
ANTICHRIST
In the passages of the Revelation which we are now about to approach we will on many occasions meet the figure of Antichrist. This figure has exercised a strange fascination over the minds of men and many have been the speculations and theories about him. It will, therefore, be convenient to collect the material about Antichrist at this stage and to try to piece it into a connected whole.
We may lay it down as a general principle that Antichrist stands for the power in the universe which is against God. Just as the Christ is the Holy One and the Anointed King of God, so Antichrist is the Unholy One and the King of all evil. Just as the Christ is the incarnation of God and goodness, so Antichrist is the incarnation of the Devil and of evil.
The idea of a force opposed to God was not new. Antichrist had his predecessors long before the days of the New Testament; and it will help if we look first at some of the older pictures, for they left their mark on the New Testament picture.
(i) The Babylonians had a myth in regard to the creation of the world which they shared with all the Semitic peoples and with which the Jews must have come into contact. This myth painted the picture of creation in terms of a struggle between Marduk the creator and Tiamat the dragon, who stands for primaeval chaos. There was a further belief that this struggle between God and chaos would be repeated before the world came to an end.
This old belief in the struggle between the creating God and the dragon of chaos found its way into the Old Testament and is the explanation of certain obscure passages there. Isaiah tells of the day when God will slay the leviathan and the crooked serpent and the dragon that is in the sea (Isa.27:1). In Jewish thought this ancient dragon of chaos came to be known as Rahab. Isaiah says: “Was it not thou that didst cut Rahab in pieces, that didst pierce the dragon?” (Isa.51:9). When the Psalmist is recounting the triumphs of God, he says: “I will mention Rahab” (Ps.87:4). “Thou didst crush Rahab like a carcass,” he says (Ps.89:10). Here is one of the ancestors of the Antichrist idea and that is one of the reasons why the dragon idea reappears in the Revelation (Rev. 12:9).
(ii) There is the Belial–or, as it is sometimes called, Beliar–idea. The word Belial frequently occurs in the Old Testament as a synonym for evil. An evil man or woman is called a son or daughter of Belial. Eli’s wicked sons are sons of Belial (1Sam.2:12). When Hannah was silently praying for a child in the Temple, Eli thought that she was drunk but Hannah says that she is not a daughter of Belial (1Sam.1:16). The wicked Nabal is called a son of Belial (1Sam.25:17,25). One of Shimei’s insults was to call David a son of Belial (2Sam.16:7). The false witnesses produced by Jezebel against Naboth are sons of Belial (1Kgs.21:10,13), as are Jeroboam’s revolutionary followers (2Chr.13:7). The exact meaning of the word is in doubt. It has been taken to mean prince of the air, hopeless ruin, worthlessness. Between the Testaments Belial came to be regarded as the chief of the demons. In the New Testament the word occurs only once: “What accord has Christ with Belial?” (2Cor.6:15). There it is used as the antithesis of Christ. It may well be that this idea came in part at least from the Persian religion with which the Jews came into contact. Persian religion, Zoroastrianism, conceived of the whole universe as the battleground in which the struggle was fought out between Ormuzd, the god of light, and Ahriman, the god of darkness. Here again we have the conception of a force in the world opposed to God and fighting against him.
(iii) There is a sense in which the obvious Antichrist is Satan, the Devil. Sometimes Satan is identified with Lucifer, the son of the morning, the angel who in heaven rebelled against God and was cast down to hell. “How you are fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of Dawn!” (Isa.14:12). It is easy to find instances in which Satan–the very name means the Adversary–acted in such a way as to overturn the purpose of God, for it is his very nature to do so. Such an instance was when Satan persuaded David to number the people in direct contravention of the command of God (1Chr.21:1). But though Satan is the direct opponent of God, he remains an angel, whereas Antichrist is a visible figure upon earth in which the very essence of evil has become incarnate.
(iv) There is a sense in which the development of the idea of the Messiah made the development of the idea of Antichrist inevitable. The Messiah, God’s Anointed One, is bound to meet with opposition; and that opposition is entirely likely to crystallize into one supreme figure of evil. We must remember that Messiah and Christ mean the same thing, being the Hebrew and the Greek respectively for The Anointed One. Where there is the Christ, there will of necessity be the Antichrist, for so long as there is sin there will be opposition to God.
(v) In the Old Testament there is more than one picture of the divine battle with the assembled opposition to God. We find such a picture in the struggle with Gog and Magog (Eze.38), and in the destruction of the destroyers of Jerusalem (Zech.14).
But, so far as the later Jews were concerned, the peak of the manifestation of evil was connected with one terrible episode in their history. This is commemorated in Daniel’s picture of the little horn, which waxed great even against heaven, which stopped the daily sacrifice, which cast down the sanctuary (Dn.8:9-12). The little horn stands for Antiochus Epiphanes of Syria. He determined to introduce Greek ways, language and Greek worship into Palestine, for he regarded himself as the missionary of Greek culture. The Jews resisted. Antiochus Epiphanes invaded Palestine and captured Jerusalem. It was said that eighty thousand Jews were either slaughtered or sold into slavery. To circumcise a child or to possess a copy of the Law was a crime punishable by death. History has seldom, or never, seen so deliberate an attempt to wipe out the religion of a whole people. He desecrated the Temple. He erected an altar to Olympian Zeus in the Holy Place and on it sacrificed swine’s flesh; and he turned the rooms of the Temple into public brothels. In the end the gallantry of the Maccabees restored the Temple and conquered Antiochus; but to the Jews Antiochus was the incarnation of all evil.
It can be seen that the figure of Antichrist was taking shape already in the Old Testament; the incarnation of evil is an idea that is already there.
We now turn to the idea of Antichrist in the New Testament:
(i) There is very little mention of the Antichrist idea in the Synoptic Gospels. The only real occurrence is in the chapters which deal with the end and the signs of the end. There Jesus is represented as saying: “Then if any one says to you, `Lo, here is the Christ!’ or `There he is!’ do not believe it. For false Christs and false prophets will arise and show great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect” (Matt.24:23; Matt.24:44; Mk.13:6; Mk.13:22; Lk.21:8). In the Fourth Gospel Jesus is represented as saying: “I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not receive me; if another comes in his own name, him you will receive” (Jn.5:43). There the idea of Antichrist is rather that of false teaching, leading men away from true loyalty to Jesus Christ, a line of thought which, as we shall see, occurs again in the New Testament.
(ii) One of the main pictures of Antichrist is that of the Man of Sin in 2Th.2. Paul is reminding the Thessalonians of that which he had already taught them by word of mouth and of that which was an essential part of his teaching. He says: “Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you this?” (2Th.2:5). In this picture there is first to be a general falling away; then the man of sin will come who will exalt himself above God and claim the worship which belongs to God by right, and work lying signs and wonders which will deceive many. At the moment when Paul is writing there is something which restrains this final manifestation of evil (2Th.2:7). In all probability Paul means the Roman Empire, seen by him as keeping the world from disintegrating into the chaos of the last time. Here Antichrist is concentrated into one person who is the very essence of evil. This rather connects itself with the Beliar idea of the Old Testament and with the conflict of light and darkness in the Persian world view.
(iii) The idea of Antichrist occurs in the Letters of John. It is, in fact, only there that the actual word occurs. In the last time Antichrist is to come; in the times in which John writes many Antichrists have come; therefore, says John, they know that they are living in the last time (1Jn.2:18). He who denies the Father and the Son is Antichrist (1Jn.2:22). In particular he who denies that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is Antichrist (1Jn.4:3; 2Jn.7). The supreme characteristic of Antichrist is the denial of the reality of the Incarnation.
Here again the main connection of Antichrist is with heresy. Antichrist is the spirit of falsehood which seduces men from the truth and leads them into mistaken ideas which are the ruin of the Christian faith.
(iv) It is in the Revelation that the fullest picture of Antichrist is painted and it occurs in more than one form.
(a) In Rev. 11:7 there is the picture of the beast from the abyss, who is to slay the two witnesses in Jerusalem and who is to reign for forty-two months. This gives us the picture of Antichrist as coming, as it were, from hell, to have a terrible and destructive, but limited, time of power. In this picture there is at least some connection with the Daniel picture of Antiochus Epiphanes as the little horn. That is certainly where the period of forty-two months comes from, for that was the period during which the terror of Antiochus and the desecration of the Temple lasted.
(b) In Rev. 12 there is the picture of the great red dragon, who persecutes the woman clothed with the sun, the woman who begets the man child. This dragon is ultimately defeated and cast out of heaven. The dragon is definitely identified with the old serpent the devil (Rev. 12:9). This has clearly some kind of connection with the old myth of the dragon of chaos who was the enemy of God.
(c) In Rev. 13 there is the picture of the beast with the seven heads and the ten horns, which comes from the sea, and the other beast with the two horns, which comes from the land. There is no doubt that what is in John’s mind is the terror and the savagery of Caesar worship; and in this case Antichrist is the great begetter of persecution of the Christian Church. Here the idea is of cruel, persecuting power, bent on the utter destruction of Christ and his Church.
(d) In Rev. 17:3 we have the picture of the scarlet coloured beast, with the seven heads and the ten horns, on which the woman called Babylon is seated. We are told that the seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sits. In the Revelation Babylon symbolizes Rome and Rome was built on seven hills. Clearly this picture stands for Rome and Antichrist is Rome’s persecuting power unleashed upon the Church.
It is of great interest to note the change here. As we have seen, to Paul, when he wrote Second Thessalonians, Rome was the one power which restrained the coming of Antichrist. In Rom.13:1-7 Paul writes of the state as divinely appointed and urges all Christians to be loyal citizens. In 1Pet.2:13-17 the order to Christians is willingly to submit themselves to the government of the state, to fear God and to honour the king. In the Revelation there is a world of difference; times had changed; the full fury of persecution had broken out; and Rome had become to John the Antichrist.
(v) We note one last element in the picture of Antichrist. With the old Jewish idea of this anti-God power and with the Christian idea of a power who was the incarnation of evil, there combined an idea from the Graeco-Roman world. The worst of the Roman Emperors in the early days was Nero who was regarded as the supreme monster of iniquity, not only by the Christians, but also by the Romans themselves. Nero died by suicide in A.D. 68, and there went up a sigh of relief But almost immediately there arose the belief that he was not dead and that he was waiting in Parthia to descend on the world with the terrible hordes of the Parthians to let loose destruction and terror. This idea is called the Nero redivivus, the Nero resurrected, myth. In the ancient world it was widespread more than twenty years after Nero was dead. To the Christians, Nero was a figure of concentrated evil. It was he who had put the blame of the great fire of Rome on to the Christians; it was he who had initiated persecution; it was he who had found the most savage methods of torture. Many Christians believed in the Nero redivivus myth; and frequently–as in certain parts of the Revelation–Nero redivivus and Antichrist were identified and the Christians thought of the coming of Antichrist in terms of the return of Nero.
THE VISION OF THINGS TO COME
Rev. 11
A measuring rod like a stall was given to me, with the instructions: “Rise and measure the Temple of God, and the altar and those who worship there. But leave out of the reckoning the outer Court which is outside the Temple and do not measure it, for it has been given to the Gentiles, and they will trample on the Holy City for forty-two months.
And I will give the task of prophesying to my two witnesses and they will prophesy for twelve hundred and sixty days, clothed in sackcloth. These witnesses are the two olive trees and the two lampstands who stand before the Lord of all the earth. If anyone tries to harm them, fire comes out of their mouth and devours their enemies; and whoever tries to hurt them must be thus killed.
These have the authority to shut up the heaven so that rain may not fall during the period for which they prophesied a drought; and they have authority over the waters to turn them into blood and to smite the earth with every plague as often as they wish.
When they shall have completed their witness, the beast which comes up from the abyss will make war with them and will overcome them and will kill them. Their corpses shall lie in the street of the great city, whose spiritual name is Sodom and Egypt, and where their Lord also was crucified. There are those of the peoples and tribes and tongues and nations who are to see their bodies for three and a half days, and they will not allow their bodies to be placed in a tomb. Those who inhabit the land will rejoice over them and will make merry and will send gifts to each other, because these two prophets tortured those who inhabit the land.”
After the three and a half days a breath of life from God entered into them, and they stood on their feet, and great fear fell upon all who saw them. They beard a great voice from heaven saying to them: “Come up here.” And they went up to heaven in the cloud, and their enemies saw them. At that hour there was a great earthquake, and the tenth of the city collapsed and seven thousand persons were killed, and the rest of the people were in fear and gave glory to the God of heaven.
The second woe is gone and, behold, the third is coming quickly.
The seventh angel sounded a blast on his trumpet and there came great voices in heaven saying: “The kingdom of this world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Anointed One, and he will reign for ever and ever.”
The twenty-four ciders, who sat upon their thrones in the presence of God, fell down upon their faces, and worshipped God saying: “We give you thanks, O Lord God, the Almighty, who are and who were, that you have taken your supreme authority and that you have entered upon your reign. The nations have raged, and your wrath has come, and there has come the time to judge the dead, and to give their reward to your servants the prophets and to God’s dedicated people and to those who fear your name, both small and great, and to destroy those who are the destroyers of the earth.”
And the Temple of God was opened in heaven, and in the Temple there was seen the Ark of the Covenant, and there were lightnings and voices and thunders and an earthquake and a great storm of hail.
It is better to see this chapter as a whole, before we make any attempt to deal with it in detail. It has been said that it is at one and the same time the most difficult and the most important chapter in the Revelation. Its difficulty is obvious and it contains problems of interpretation about whose solution there can be no real certainty. Its importance lies in the fact that it contains a deliberate summary of the rest of the book. The seer has eaten the little roll and taken into his mind the message of God; and now he sets it down, not yet in detail but in the broad lines of its development. So certain is he of the course of events that from Rev. 11:11 he alters the tense of his narrative and speaks of things still in the future as if they were past. Let us then set out the scheme of this chapter which is also the scheme of the rest of the book.
(i) Rev. 11:1-2. Here is the picture of the measuring of the Temple. As we shall see, the measuring is closely parallel to the sealing and is for the purposes of protection when the demonic terrors descend upon the world.
(ii) Rev. 11:3-6. Here is the preaching of the two witnesses who are heralds of the end.
(iii) Rev. 11:7-10. Here is the first emergence of Antichrist in the form of the beast from the abyss, and the temporary triumph of Antichrist which results in the death of the two witnesses.
(iv) Rev. 11:11-13. Here follows the restoration to life of the witnesses and the consequent repentance and conversion of the Jews.
(v) Rev. 11:14-19. Finally, here is the first sketch of the final triumph of Christ, the thousand years of his initial reign, the rising of the nations, the defeat of the nations and the judgment of the dead, and the establishment of the Kingdom of God and of his Anointed One.
We now proceed to examine the chapter in detail.
THE MEASURING OF THE TEMPLE
Rev. 11:1-2
To the seer is given a measuring rod like a staff. The word for measuring rod is literally reed. There were certain grasses which grew with stalks like bamboo canes as much as six or eight feet high; these stalks were used as measuring rods. The word rod actually stands for a Jewish unit of measurement, equal to six cubits. The cubit was originally the space from the tip of the elbow to the tip of the middle finger and was reckoned as seventeen or eighteen inches; so the rod is equal to about nine feet.
The picture of measuring is common in the visions of the prophets. We find it in Ezekiel, Zechariah and Amos (Eze.40:3,6; Zech.2:1; Am.7:7-9); and no doubt these previous visions were in John’s mind.
We find the idea of measuring used in more than one way. It is used as a preparation for building or for restoration and also as a preparation for destruction. But here the meaning lies in preservation. The measuring is like the sealing which is described in Rev. 7:2-3; the scaling and the measuring are both for the protection of God’s faithful ones in the demonic terrors to descend upon the earth.
The seer has to measure the Temple, but he must omit from his measurement the outer court which has been given over to the Gentiles. The Temple in Jerusalem was divided into four courts, converging, as it were, upon the Holy of Holies. There was the Court of the Gentiles, into which Gentiles might come but beyond which they might not pass under penalty of death. Between it and the next court was a balustrade, into which were set tablets warning any Gentile that to come further was to be liable to instant death. Next came the Court of the Women beyond which women could not come; then the Court of the Israelites beyond which ordinary men could not come. Lastly, there was the Court of the Priests, which contained the Altar of the Burnt-Offering, made of brass, the Altar of Incense, made of gold, and the Holy Place; and into this court only the priests might come.
The seer is to measure the Temple. But the date of the Revelation, as we have seen, is somewhere about A.D. 90; and the Temple in Jerusalem had been destroyed in A.D. 70. How, then, could the Temple be measured?
The solution lies in this. Almost certainly John is taking over a picture which had already been used. Almost certainly this passage was originally spoken or written in A.D. 70, during the last siege of Jerusalem. During that siege the party of the Jews who would never admit defeat were the Zealots; they would rather die to a man, as indeed they ultimately did. When who would never admit defeat were the Zealots; they would rather die to a man, as indeed they ultimately did. When the walls of the city were breached, these Zealots retired into the Temple to make a last desperate resistance there. It is practically certain that some of their prophets said: “Never fear. The Gentile invaders may reach the outer Court of the Gentiles and defile it; but they will never penetrate into the inner Temple. God would never allow that.” That confidence was disappointed; the Zealots perished and the Temple was destroyed; but originally the measuring of the inner courts and the abandoning of the outer court stood for the Zealot hope in those last terrible days.
John takes this picture and completely spiritualizes it. When he speaks of the Temple, he is not thinking of the Temple building at all which had been blasted out of existence more than twenty years before. For him the Temple is the Christian Church, the people of God. This picture meets us repeatedly in the New Testament. The Christians are living stones, built into a spiritual house (1Pet.2:5). The Church is founded on the apostles and the prophets; Jesus is the corner stone; the whole Church is growing into a holy temple in the Lord (Eph.2:20-21). “Do you not know,” says Paul, “that you are God’s temple?” (1Cor.3:16; compare, 2Cor.6:16).
The measuring of the Temple is the sealing of the people of God; they are to be preserved in the terrible time of trial; but the rest are doomed to destruction.
THE LENGTH OF THE TERROR
Rev. 11:1-2 (continued)
The length of the terror is to be forty-two months; the time of the preaching of the witnesses is to be twelve hundred and sixty days; their corpses are to lie on the street for three and a half days. Here is something which occurs again and again (compare Rev. 13:5; Rev. 12:6); and occurs in still another form in Rev. 12:14 where the period is a time, times and half a time. This is the famous phrase which goes back to Daniel (Dn.7:25; Dn.12:7). We have to enquire, first, into the meaning of the phrase and, second, into its origin.
Its meaning is three and a half years. That is what forty-two months, and twelve hundred and sixty days–by Jewish reckoning–are. A time, times and half a time is equal to one year plus two years plus half a year.
The origin of the phrase comes from that most terrible time in Jewish history when Antiochus Epiphanes, King of Syria, tried to force Greek language, culture and worship upon the Jews and was met with the most violent and stubborn resistance. The roll of the martyrs was immense but the dreadful process was finally halted by the rising of Judas Maccabaeus.
Judas and his heroic followers waged guerrilla warfare and won the most amazing victories. Finally Antiochus and his forces were driven out and the Temple was restored and cleansed. The point is that this dreadful period lasted from June 168 B.C. to December 165 B.C. (To this day the Jews celebrate in December the Festival of Hanukah which commemorates the restoration and the cleansing of the Temple.) That is to say this dreadful time lasted almost exactly three and a half years. It was during that time that Daniel was written and the phrase was coined which ever afterwards was stamped on the Jewish mind as indicating a period of terror and suffering and martyrdom.
THE TWO WITNESSES
Rev. 11:3-6
It was always part of Jewish belief that God would send his special messenger to men before the final coming of the Day of the Lord. In Malachi we hear God say: “Behold, I send my messenger to prepare the way before me” (Mal.3:1). Malachi actually identifies the messenger as Elijah: “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and dreadful Day of the Lord comes” (Mal.4:5). So, then, in our passage we have the coming of the messengers of God before the final contest.
These messengers have the task of prophesying; they will prophesy for 1,260 days, that is for three and a half years, which, as we have seen, is the period always connected with terror and destruction to come. Their message will be sombre, for they are clothed in sackcloth. It will be a message of condemnation; to listen to it will be like a torture and the people will be glad when the two witnesses are killed (Rev. 11:10).
(i) Some scholars have entirely allegorized this passage. They see in the two witnesses the Law and the Prophets, or the Law and the Gospel, or the Old Testament and the New Testament. Or, they see in the two witnesses a picture of the Church. Jesus had told his followers that they must be witnesses to him in Jerusalem, in Judaea, in Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the earth (Ac.1:8). Those who explain the two witnesses by the witness of the Church explain the number two by referring to Deut.19:15, where it is said that if a charge is brought against anyone it must be confirmed by the evidence of two witnesses. But the picture of the two witnesses is so definite that it seems to refer to definite persons.
(ii) The two witnesses have been taken to be Enoch and Elijah. Neither Enoch nor Elijah was said to die. “Enoch walked with God; and he was not; for God took him” (Gen.5:24); Elijah was taken up in a whirlwind and in a chariot of fire to heaven (2Kgs.2:11); and Tertullian (Concerning the Soul, 50) refers to a belief that they were being kept by God in heaven to bring death to Antichrist.
(iii) Much more likely the witnesses are Elijah and Moses. Elijah was held to be the greatest of the prophets, just as Moses was the supreme law-giver; and it was fitting that the two outstanding figures in the religious history of Israel should be God’s messengers at the last time. It was these two who appeared to Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration (Mk.9:4). Further, the things said of them fit Moses and Elijah as they fit no one else. It is said (Rev. 11:6) that they have power to turn the water into blood and to smite the earth with all plagues, and that is what Moses did (compare specially Exo.7:14-18). It is said that fire proceeds out of their mouth and burns up their enemies, and that they can shut up the heavens so that the rain is withheld. That is what Elijah did with the company of soldiers sent to take him (2Kgs.1:9-10) and when he prophesied to Ahab that there would be no rain upon the earth (1Kgs.17:1). We have already seen that Elijah was expected to return to herald the end; and it would not be difficult to regard God’s promise that he would raise up a prophet like Moses (Deut.18:18) as a prophecy that Moses himself would return.
THE SAVING DEATH OF THE TWO WITNESSES
Rev. 11:7-13
The witnesses are to preach for their allotted time and then will come Antichrist in the form of the beast from the abyss; and the two witnesses will be cruelly slain.
This is to happen in Jerusalem; but Jerusalem is called by the terrible names of Sodom and Egypt. Long before this Isaiah had addressed the rulers of Jerusalem as the rulers of Sodom and the people of Jerusalem as the people of Gomorrah (Isa.1:9-10). Sodom and Gomorrah stand as the types of sin, the symbols of those who had not received strangers (compare the story in Gen.19:4-11) and who had turned their benefactors into slaves (Wis.19:14-15). The wickedness of Jerusalem had already crucified Jesus Christ and in the days to come it is to regard the death of his witnesses with joy.
So will the people of Jerusalem hate the two witnesses that they will leave their bodies unburied in the street. In Jewish thought it was a terrible thing that a body should not be buried. When the heathen attacked God’s people, to the Psalmist it was the greatest tragedy of all that there was none to bury them (Ps.79:3); the threat to the disobedient prophet, a threat which came true, was that his carcase would not come to the sepulchre of his fathers (1Kgs.13:22). Even worse, such will be the hatred of the people for the witnesses of God that they will regard their death as a reason for festival.
But that is not the end. After three and a half days–here we have the same period–the breath of life entered again into the two slain witnesses and they stood upon their feet. Still more startling things were to happen. In sight of all, the two witnesses were summoned up into heaven, re-enacting, as it were, Elijah’s first departure to heaven in the whirlwind and the chariot of fire (2Kgs.2:11).
To add to the terror came a destructive earthquake which wrecked a tenth of the city and brought death to seven thousand of its inhabitants. The result was that those who had seen these terrifying events and were spared, gave glory to God. That is to say, they repented, for that is the only real way to give glory to God.
The great interest of this passage lies in the fact that the unbelievers were won by the sacrificial death of the witnesses and by God’s vindication of them. Here is the story of the Cross and of the Resurrection all over again. Evil must be conquered and men won, not by force but by the acceptance of suffering for the name of Christ.
THE FORECAST OF THINGS TO COME
Rev. 11:14-19
What makes this passage difficult is that it seems to indicate that things have come to an end in final victory, while there is still half the book to go. The explanation, as we have seen, is that this passage is a summary of what is still to come. The events foreshadowed here are as follows.
(i) There is the victory in which the kingdoms of the world become the kingdoms of the Lord and of his Anointed One. This is really a quotation of Ps.2:2, and is another way of saying that the Messianic reign has begun. In view of this victory the twenty-four elders, that is, the whole Church, break out in thanksgiving.
(ii) This victory leads to the time when God takes his supreme authority (Rev. 11:17). That is to say, it leads to the thousand year reign of God, the Millenium, a thousand year period of peace and prosperity.
(iii) At the end of the Millenium there is to come the final attack of all the hostile powers (Rev. 11:18); they will be finally defeated and then will follow the last judgment.
In Rev. 11:19 we come back, as it were, to the present. There is a vision of the heavenly Temple opened and of the Ark of the Covenant. Two things are involved in this vision.
(i) The Ark of the Covenant was in the Holy of Holies, the inside of which no ordinary person had ever seen, and into which even the High Priest went only on the Day of Atonement. This must mean that now the glory of God is going to be fully displayed.
(ii) The reference to the Ark of the Covenant is as a reminder of God’s special covenant with his people. Originally that covenant had been with the people Israel; but the new covenant is with all of every nation who love and believe in Jesus. Whatever the terror to come, God will not be false to his promises.
This is a picture of the coming of the full glory of God, a terrifying threat to his enemies but an uplifting promise to the people of his covenant.
THE WOMAN AND THE BEAST
Rev. 12
It is necessary to read this chapter as a whole before we examine it in detail.
A great sign appeared in the sky–a woman clothed with the sun, and with the moon beneath her feet, and with a crown of twelve stars on her head; and she was with child, and she cried aloud in her labour and in her agony to bear the child.
And another sign appeared in heaven–lo! a great flame-coloured dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and with seven royal diadems upon its heads. Its tail swept a third part of the stars from the sky and cast them on to the earth. The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to bear the child so that it might devour the child as soon as she bore him.
She bore a man child who is destined to rule the nations with a rod of iron; and her child was snatched away to God, even to his throne.
The woman fled to the desert where she had a place prepared for her by God, that they might care for her there for one thousand two hundred and sixty days.
There was war in heaven, in which Michael and his angels fought with the dragon and the dragon and his angels fought with them. The dragon was powerless to prevail and there was no longer any place for him in heaven. The great dragon, the ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of all mankind, was thrown down to earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. And I heard a great voice in heaven saying:
“Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Anointed One, because there has been cast down the accuser of our brothers, who night and day accuses them before God. They have overcome him through the blood of the Lamb and through the word of their witness, and they did not love their soul to death. Rejoice, therefore, you heavens and you who dwell in them. Alas for the earth and the sea! because the Devil has come down to you with great wrath and well aware that he has only a little time left.”
When the Devil saw that he was cast down into the earth, he pursued the woman who bore the man-child. The two wings of the great eagle were given to the woman, that she might fly to the desert to her place, where she is cared for for a time and times and half a time away from the serpent. And after the woman the serpent hurled water from his mouth like a river, that he might cause her to be carried away by the river of water; but the earth helped the woman and opened its mouth and swallowed the river which the dragon hurled from his mouth.
The dragon was enraged because of the woman and went away to make war with the rest of her family, those who keep the commandments of God and who bear their witness to Jesus. And he stood on the sand of the sea.
THE WOMAN WITH CHILD
Rev. 12:1-2
John saw an amazing vision, like a tableau in the sky, whose details he draws from many sources. The woman is clothed with the sun; the moon is her footstool; and she has a crown of twelve stars. The Psalmist says of God that he covers himself with light as with a garment (Ps.104:2). In the Song of Solomon the poet describes his loved one as being fair as the moon and clear as the sun (SS.6:10). So John got part of his picture from the Old Testament. But he added something which the pagans of Asia Minor would well recognize as part of the old Babylonian picture of the divine. They frequently depicted their goddesses as crowned with the twelve signs of the zodiac and this also is in John’s mind. It is as if he took all the signs of divinity and beauty which he could find and added them together.
This woman is in labour to bear a child who is undoubtedly the Messiah, Christ, compare Rev. 12:5 where he is said to be destined to rule the nations with a rod of iron. That is a quotation from Ps.2:9 and was an accepted description of the Messiah. The woman, then, is the mother of the Messiah.
(i) If the woman is the “mother” of the Messiah, an obvious suggestion is that she should be identified with Mary; but she is so clearly a superhuman figure that she can hardly be identified with any single human being.
(ii) The persecution of the woman by the dragon suggests that she might be identified with the Christian Church. The objection is that the Christian Church could hardly be called the mother of the Messiah.
(iii) In the Old Testament the chosen people, the ideal Israel, the community of the people of God, is often called the Bride of God. “Your Maker is your husband” (Isa.54:5). It is Jeremiah’s sad complaint that Israel has played the harlot in disloyalty to God (Jer.3:6-10). Hosea hears God say: “I will betroth you to me for ever” (Hos.2:19-20). In the Revelation itself we hear of the marriage feast of the Lamb and the Bride of the Lamb (Rev. 19:7; Rev. 21:9). “I betrothed you to Christ,” writes Paul to the Corinthian Church, “to present you as a pure bride to her one husband” (2Cor.11:2).
This will give us a line of approach. It was from the chosen people that Jesus Christ sprang in his human lineage. It is for the ideal community of the chosen ones of God that the woman stands. Out of that community Christ came and it was that community which underwent such terrible suffering at the hands of the hostile world. We may indeed call this the Church, if we remember that the Church is the community of God’s people in every age.
From this picture we learn three great things about this community of God. First, it was out of it that Christ came; and out of it Christ has still to come for those who have never known him. Second, there are forces of evil, spiritual and human, which are set on the destruction of the community of God. Third, however strong the opposition against it and however sore its sufferings, the community of God is under the protection of God and, therefore, it can never be ultimately destroyed.
THE HATRED OF THE DRAGON
Rev. 12:3-4
Here we have the picture of the great, flame-coloured dragon. In our study of the antecedents of Antichrist we saw that the eastern peoples regarded creation in the light of the struggle between the dragon of chaos and the creating God of order. In the Temple of Marduk, the creating god, in Babylon there was a great image of a “red-gleaming serpent” who stood for the defeated dragon of chaos. There can be little doubt that that is where John got his picture. This dragon appears in many forms in the Old Testament.
It appears as Rahab. “Was it not thou that didst cut Rahab in pieces, that didst pierce the dragon?” (Isa.51:9). It appears as leviathan. “Thou didst break the heads of the dragons in the waters. Thou didst crush the heads of leviathan” (Ps.74:12-14). In the day of the Lord, God with his sore and great and strong sword will punish leviathan (Isa.27:1). It appears in the dramatic picture of behemoth (HSN0930) in Jb.40:15-24. The dragon which is the arch-enemy of God is a common and terrible figure in the thought of the east. It is the connection of the dragon and the sea which explains the rivers of water which the dragon emits to overcome the woman (Rev. 12:15).
The dragon has seven heads and ten horns. This signifies its mighty power. It has seven royal diadems. This signifies its complete power over the kingdoms of this world as opposed to the kingdom of God. The picture of the dragon sweeping the stars from the sky with its tail comes from the picture in Daniel of the little horn who cast the stars to the ground and trampled on them (Dn.8:10). The picture of the dragon waiting to devour the child comes from Jeremiah, in which it is said of Nebuchadnezzar that “he has swallowed me like a monster” (Jer.51:34).
H. B. Swete finds in this picture the symbolism of an eternal truth about the human situation. In the human situation, as Christian history sees it, there are two figures who occupy the centre of the scene. There is man, fallen, always under the attack of the powers of evil but always struggling towards the birth of a higher life. And there is the power of evil, ever watching for its opportunity to frustrate the upward reach of man. That struggle had its culmination on the Cross.
THE SNATCHING AWAY OF THE CHILD
Rev. 12:5
The child which the woman bore was destined to rule the nations with a rod of iron. As we have seen, this quotation from Ps.2:9 indicates that the child was the Messiah.
When the child was born, he was rescued from the dragon by being snatched up to heaven, even to the throne of God. The word used here for the child being snatched up is the same as is used in 1Th.4:17 to describe the Christian being caught up to meet the Lord in the air (compare 2Cor.12:2 where Paul uses it to tell of himself being caught up into the third heaven).
In a sense this is a puzzling passage. As we have seen, the reference is to Jesus Christ as Messiah, and, as John tells it, the story goes straight from his Birth to his Ascension; the snatching up must refer to the Ascension. As the Acts has it: “He was lifted up” (Ac.1:9). The strange thing is the total omission of the earthly life of Jesus. This is due to two things.
It is due to the fact that John is not at the moment interested in anything other than the fact that Jesus Christ was delivered by the direct action of God from the hostile powers which continually attacked him.
It is due also to the fact that all through the Revelation John’s interest is not in the human Jesus but in the exalted Christ, who is able to rescue his people in the time of their distresses.
THE FLIGHT TO THE DESERT
Rev. 12:6
Here we read of the woman escaping into the desert from the attack of the dragon. By the help of God she escaped into a place where she was nourished and which had been prepared for her.
There is no doubt that there are many pictures in John’s mind. There is the picture of the escape of Elijah to the brook Cherith, where he was nourished by the ravens (1Kgs.17:1-7); and of his flight into the desert, when he was nourished by the angelic messenger (1Kgs.19:1-8). There is the picture of the flight of Mary and Joseph with the baby Jesus into Egypt to escape the murderous intent of Herod (Matt.2:13). But two incidents are specially in John’s mind.
(i) In the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, when it was death to keep the law and to worship the true God, many “who sought after justice and judgment went down to the wilderness to dwell there” (1Macc.2:29).
(ii) Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans in A.D. 70. The years immediately before that were terrible years of bloodshed and of revolution in which anyone with eyes to see and a mind to understand could forecast what was about to happen. Eusebius, the Christian historian, tells us that, before the final disaster came, the Christians in Jerusalem had been warned by a revelation given to approved men to leave Jerusalem and to cross the Jordan into Perea and to dwell there in a town called Pella (Eusebius: The Ecclesiastical History 3: 5). This is actually referred to in the account of Jesus’ words to the disciples about the last times. When they saw the last terrors coming they were to flee to the mountains (Mk.13:14); this is exactly what they did.
H. B. Swete again sees something symbolic here. The Church had to flee into the wilderness and the wilderness is lonely. For the early Christians life was lonely; they were isolated in a pagan world. There are times when Christian witness is bound to be a lonely thing–but even in human loneliness there is divine companionship.
The one thousand two hundred and sixty days are once again the standard period of distress.
SATAN, THE ENEMY OF GOD
Rev. 12:7-9
Here we have the picture of war in heaven between the Dragon, the Ancient Serpent, the Devil, Satan–all these names describe the one evil being–and Michael and all his angels. The idea seems to be that, such was his hatred, the dragon pursued the Messiah even to heaven, where he was met by Michael with his heavenly legions and finally cast out. It will be convenient to gather together here what Scripture has to say about Satan; it presents a complicated picture.
(i) There is the echo of the ancient story of a primaeval war in heaven. Satan was an angel who conceived “the impossible thought” of placing his throne higher than that of God (2 Enoch 29: 4, 5) and was cast out of heaven. The Babylonians had a similar story of Ishtar, the god of the morning star. He, too, rebelled against God and was cast down from heaven. There is one definite reference to this old story in the Old Testament. In Isaiah we read: “How you are fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of Dawn!” (Isa.14:12). The sin which caused the fall from heaven was pride. There may be a reference to this in 1Tim.3:6, where it is urged that the Christian preacher must be kept from pride lest he fall into the same condemnation as the devil did. When Satan was cast out of heaven, his dwelling-place became the air in which he had to wander; that is why he is sometimes called The Prince of the Air (Eph.2:2).
(ii) There is a strong line of thought in the Old Testament in which Satan is still an angel under God’s command and with access to his presence. In Job we find Satan numbered amongst the sons of God and possessing access to his presence (Jb.1:6-9; Jb.2:1-6); and in Zechariah we also find Satan in the presence of God (Zech.3:1-2).
To understand this conception of Satan we must first understand what the word Satan means. Satan originally meant simply an adversary. Even the angel of the Lord who stood in the path of Balaam to stop him from his sinful intentions can be called a satan against him (Num.22:22). The Philistines feared that David would be their satan (1Sam.29:4). When Solomon entered upon his kingdom, he was so blessed by God that he had no satan left (1Kgs.5:4). But later the foreign kings, Hadad and Rezon, were both to become his satans (1Kgs.11:14,23).
In the Old Testament Satan was the angel who was the counsel for the prosecution against men in the presence of God, their Adversary. Thus he is the counsel for the prosecution against Job, cynically suggesting that Job serves God for what he can get out of it and that, if he is involved in disaster, his loyalty will soon cease (Jb.1:11-12), and he is given permission by God to use every weapon short of death to test Job (Jb.2:1-6). So in Zechariah Satan is the accuser of Joshua the High Priest (Zech.3:1-2). In Ps.109:6 the King James Version actually uses the word Satan in this sense: “Let Satan stand at the right hand of the wicked.” The Revised Standard Version rightly alters the translation to: “Let an accuser bring him to trial.”
So, in the Old Testament Satan was the angel who is the counsel for the prosecution when a man was on trial before God; while Michael was the counsel for the defence. Between the Testaments there seems to have been a belief that there was more than one Satan engaged in the task of bringing accusations against men and we read of the archangel whose duty it was to fend off the Satans (I Enoch 40: 6).
For the most part in the Old Testament Satan was very much under the jurisdiction of God.
(iii) In the Old Testament we never read of the Devil, although sometimes we come across devils; but in the New Testament Satan becomes the Devil. The Greek is Diabolos (GSN1228), literally a slanderer. There is not a very great dividing line between being a prosecuting counsel who brings charges against men and inventing such charges and tempting men into actions where such charges will be forthcoming. So, then, in the New Testament Satan becomes the seducer of men. We find that in the story of the temptations of Jesus the three names are indiscriminately used. This power of evil is Satan (Matt.4:10; Mk.1:13); the Devil (Matt.4:1,5,8,11; Lk.4:2-3,5,13); and the Tempter (Matt.4:3).
Since this is so, we find Satan engaged in certain nefarious purposes in the New Testament story. He seeks to seduce Jesus in his temptations. He puts the terrible scheme of betrayal into Judas’ mind (Jn.13:2; Jn.13:27; Lk.22:3). He is out to make Peter fall (Lk.22:31). He persuades Ananias to keep back part of the price of the possession he had sold (Ac.5:3). He uses every wile (Eph.6:11) and every device (2Cor.2:11) to achieve his seducing purposes. He is the cause of illness and pain (Lk.13:16; Ac.10:38; 2Cor.12:7). He hinders the work of the gospel by sowing the tares which choke the good seed (Matt.13:39), and by snatching away the seed of the word from the human heart before it can gain an entry (Mk.4:15; Lk.8:12).
Thus Satan becomes the enemy of God and man, the Evil One par excellence, for we should probably translate in the Lord’s Prayer: “Deliver us from the Evil One” (Matt.6:13).
He can be called the Ruler of this World (Jn.12:31; Jn.14:30; Jn.16:11), for, having been cast out of heaven, he has to exert his evil influence among men. He comes to be identified with the serpent because of the story of the Fall in Gen.3.
(iv) The strange thing is that the history of Satan is a tragedy, whatever version of the story we use. In one version, Satan is the angel of light, once the greatest of the angels, whose pride caused him to seek to be higher than God and who was cast out of heaven. In the other version, Satan was a real servant of God and perverted his service into an opportunity for sinning. Satan is the supreme example of that tragedy in which the best becomes the worst.
THE SONG OF THE MARTYRS IN GLORY
Rev. 12:10-12
In these verses we have the song of the glorified martyrs when Satan is cast out of heaven.
(i) Satan appears as the Accuser ar excellence; Satan, as H. B. Swete put it, is “the cynical libeller of all that God has made.” According to Renan he is “the malevolent critic of creation.” Satan stands for the sleepless vigilance of evil against good.
The historical background of the age in which the Revelation was written lends sharpness to this picture of Satan. This was the great age of the informer, the delator. People were constantly being arrested, tortured, killed because someone had informed against them. Tacitus, writing some years before, had said: “He who had no foe was betrayed by his friend.” That ancient world knew only too well what malevolent, cynical, venal accusers were like.
(ii) This picture, then, shows us what we might call the cleansing of heaven. Satan, the malevolent Accuser, is cast out for ever. It is for this reason that the martyrs in glory sing their song of triumph.
The martyrs are those who have overcome Satan.
(a) Martyrdom is itself a conquest of Satan. The martyr, has proved superior to every seduction and to every threat and even to the violence of Satan. Here is a dramatic truth for life every time we choose to suffer rather than to be disloyal is the defeat of Satan.
(b) The victory of the martyrs is won through the blood of the Lamb. There are two meanings here. First, on his Cross and through his Resurrection Jesus overcame forever the worst that evil could do to him; and those who have entrusted their lives to him share in that victory. Second, through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the Cross sin is forgiven; when a man accepts in faith what Christ has done for him, his sins are wiped out. And when he is forgiven, there is nothing for which he can possibly be accused. As Charles Wesley put it:
No condemnation now I dread; Jesus, and all in him is mine! Alive in him, my living Head, And clothed in righteousness divine, Bold I approach the eternal throne, And claim the crown, through Christ my own.
(c) The martyrs are victorious, because they lived the great principle of the gospel. They did not consider life more important than loyalty. “He who loves his life loses it; and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life” (Jn.12:25). This principle runs all through the gospel (Matt.10:39; Matt.16:25; Mk.8:35; Lk.9:24; Lk.17:33). For us this is not necessarily a matter of dying for the faith but of setting loyalty to Jesus Christ before the comfortable way.
(iii) This passage finishes with the idea that Satan is cast out of heaven and has come down to earth. His power in heaven is broken, but he has still power on earth; and he rages ferociously because he knows that all that he has left is a short time upon this earth before he is finally destroyed.
THE ATTACK OF THE DRAGON
Rev. 12:13-17
The dragon, that is the Devil, on being cast out of heaven and descending to earth, attacked the woman who was the mother of the man child. We have seen that the woman stands for the Church in its widest sense of God’s Chosen People from the midst of whom God’s Anointed One came.
Here, then, is a certain symbolism. The dragon can injure the child by injuring the mother; that is to say, to injure the Church is to injure Jesus Christ. The words of the Risen Christ to Paul on the Damascus road were: “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” (Ac.9:4). Paul’s persecution had been directed against the Church; but the Risen Christ makes it clear that persecution of his Church is persecution of himself. When we despoil the Church of the help we might have given it, we despoil Jesus of the help we might have given him; and when we serve the Church, we serve Jesus himself.
We have already seen (Rev. 12:6) that the escape of the woman to the desert place comes from the escape of the Church to Pella on the other side of Jordan before the final destruction of Jerusalem. But in the escape of the woman and in the attack of the dragon John uses two pictures very familiar to those who knew the Old Testament.
The woman escaped on the two wings of the great eagle. Again and again in the Old Testament the eagle’s wings are the symbol of the upbearing arms of God. “You have seen,” God said to Israel, “what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings, and brought you to myself” (Exo.19:4). “Like an eagle that stirs up its nest, that flutters over its young, spreading out its wings, catching them, bearing them on its pinions, the Lord alone did lead him (the people of Israel)” (Deut.32:11-12). As the Scots paraphrase has it of Isa.40:31:
On eagles’ wings they mount, they soar, their wings are faith and love, Till, past the cloudy regions here, they rise to heav’n above.
We may note that, when men came to allegorize Scripture, Hippolytus saw in the eagles’ wings the symbol of “the two holy arms of Christ outstretched upon the Cross.”
The second picture is of the floods of water cast out by the serpent. We have seen how the old dragon of chaos was a sea dragon and, therefore, to connect the floods with him is quite natural. But again here we have an Old Testament picture. Again and again in the Old Testament tribulation and persecution are likened to an overwhelming flood. “All thy waves and thy billows have gone over me” (Ps.42:7). It is God’s promise to the Psalmist that “the rush of great waters” shall not come near him (Ps.32:6). If the Lord had not helped him, the waters would have overwhelmed him and the streams would have gone over his soul (Ps.124:4). When he passes through the waters, God will be with him (Isa.43:2).
The chapter finishes with two further pictures.
When the dragon ejected the floods of waters, the earth swallowed them up and so the woman was saved. It is not difficult to see where John got this picture. It quite often happened in Asia Minor that rivers were swallowed up in the sand only to reappear after travelling a distance underground. There was, for instance, a case of this near Colossae, an area which John must have known well.
But it is not so easy to see what the picture means. The symbolism is very likely this. Nature itself is on the side of the man who is faithful to Jesus Christ. As Froude the historian pointed out, in the world there is a moral order and in the long run it is well with the good and ill with the wicked.
Finally John has the picture of the dragon going to war with the rest of the family of the woman, with the rest of the Church. This tells of the coming spread of persecution all over the Church.
As John saw it, Satan cast down to earth is in his last terrible convulsion and that convulsion is going to involve the whole family of the Church in the agony of persecution.
THE POWER OF THE BEAST
Rev. 13
I saw a beast coming up from the sea. It had ten horns and seven heads; and it had ten royal crowns on its horns; and on its heads I saw blasphemous names.
The beast which I saw was like a leopard; its feet were like a bear’s feet; its mouth was like a lion’s mouth; and to it the dragon delegated its power and its throne and its great authority.
I saw that one of its heads looked as if it had been wounded to death; and its deadly wound had been healed.
The whole earth was drawn in wonder after the beast; and they worshipped the dragon, because it had delegated its authority to the beast; and they worshipped the beast. “Who,” they said, “is like the beast? Who is able to make war with it?” To it there was given a mouth which made arrogant and blasphemous claims; and it was given authority to go on doing so for forty-two months. It opened its mouth to launch blasphemies against God, to insult his name and his dwelling-place and those who dwell in the heavens.
It was given power to make war with the dedicated people of God and to overcome them; and it was given authority over every tribe and people and tongue and race. All who dwell upon the earth will worship it, everyone whose name has not been written from the foundation of the world in the Book of Life of the Lamb who was slain.
Whoever has an ear, let him hear.
If anyone is to be taken into captivity, into captivity let him go. If anyone slays with the sword, he himself will be slain with the sword. Here is the summons to steadfastness and to loyalty from the dedicated people of God.
I saw another beast coming up from the land, and it had two horns like a lamb and it spoke like a dragon. It exercises before it all the power of the first beast. It causes the earth and those who dwell in it to worship the first beast, the beast whose deadly wound has been healed. It works such great miracles that it causes even fire to come down from heaven in the sight of men. It deceives those who dwell on the earth, because of the miracles which it has the power to do in the presence of the beast. It tells those who dwell upon the earth to make an image of the beast, who has the wound of the sword, and who lived again. It was given power to give the breath of life to the image of the beast, so that the image of the beast should even speak and so that it should bring it about that all who do not worship the beast should be killed. It causes all, small and great, rich and poor, free men and slaves, to take to themselves a mark on their right hand or on their forehead, It so arranges things that no one can buy or sell, unless he has the mark, which consists of the name of the beast or the number of his name.
Here there is need of wisdom. Let him who has understanding reckon the number of the beast, for the number is the number of a man; and his number is six hundred and sixty-six.
It will be much easier if we treat this chapter as a whole before we undertake any detailed study of it. That is all the more necessary because this chapter is the essence of the whole book.
The general meaning is this. Satan, cast out of heaven, knows that his time is short and is determined to do as much damage as he can. To cause that damage on earth he delegates his power to the two beasts who are the central figures in this chapter.
The beast from the sea stands for the Roman Empire, to John the incarnation of evil and is described in terms which come from Daniel. In Dn.7:3-7 there is a vision of four great beasts who come out of the sea; they are the symbols of the great empires which have held world power and of an empire which, when Daniel was written, was holding world sway. The beast like a lion with an eagle’s wings stands for Babylon; the one like a bear stands for Media; the one like a leopard with four wings stands for Persia; and the fourth stands for the empire of Alexander the Great. As the writer of Daniel saw these world powers, they were so savage and inhuman that they could be symbolized by nothing but bestial figures. It was only natural for a Jew to go back to this picture of the beastly empires when he wished to find a picture of another satanic empire threatening God’s people in his own day.
John’s picture in the Revelation puts together in the one beast the features of all four. It is like a leopard with bear’s feet and a lion’s mouth. That is to say, for John the Roman Empire was so satanic that it included all the terrors of the evil empires which had gone before.
This beast has seven heads and ten horns. These stand for the rulers and the emperors of Rome. Since Augustus, the first Roman Emperor, there had been seven emperors; Tiberius, A.D. 14-37; Caligula, A.D. 37-41; Claudius, A.D. 41-54; Nero, A.D. 55-68; Vespasian, A.D. 69-79; Titus, A.D. 79-81; Domitian, A.D. 81-96. These seven emperors are the seven heads of the beast. But in addition it is said that the beast had ten horns. The explanation of this second figure lies in this. After the death of Nero there was a short period of almost complete chaos. In eighteen months three different men briefly occupied the imperial power, Galba, Otho and Vitellius. They are not included in John’s list of the seven heads but are included in the list of the ten horns.
John says that on the heads of the beast there were blasphemous names. These are the titles which the emperors took to themselves. Every emperor was called divus or sebastos (GSN4575), which means divine. Frequently the very name God or Son of God was given to the emperors; and Nero on his coins called himself The Saviour of the World. For any man to call himself divine was a blasphemous insult to God. Further, the later emperors took as their title the Latin word dominus, or its Greek equivalent kurios (GSN2962), both of which mean lord, and in the Old Testament are the special title of God and in the New Testament the special title of Jesus Christ.
The second beast which figures in this chapter, the beast from the land, is the whole provincial organization of magistrates and priesthoods designed to enforce Caesar worship, which confronted the Christians with the choice either of saying, “Caesar is Lord,” or of dying.
So, then, our picture falls into place. These two savage beasts, the might of Rome and the organization of Caesar worship, launched their combined attack on the Christians–and no nation had ever withstood the might of Rome. What hope had the Christians–poor, defenceless, outlaws?
THE HEAD WOUNDED AND RESTORED
There is another recurring theme in this chapter. Among the seven heads there is one which has been mortally wounded and restored to life (Rev. 13:3); that head above all is to be worshipped (Rev. 13:12,14); it is the supreme evil, the supreme enemy of Christ.
We have seen that the seven heads stand for the seven Roman emperors. A head wounded and restored to life will, therefore, stand for an emperor who died and came to life again. Here is symbolized the Nero redivivus, or Nero resurrected, legend which the Christians fused with the idea of Antichrist. In the Sibylline Oracles we read of the expectation in the last terrible days of the coming of a king from Babylon whom all men hate, a king fearful and shameless and of abominable parentage (5: 143-148). A matricide shall come from the east and bring ruin on the world (5: 361-364). One who dared the pollution of a mother’s murder will come from the east (4: 119-122). An exile from Rome with a myriad of swords shall come from beyond the Euphrates (4: 137-139).
It is only when we realize what Nero was that we see how his return might well seem the coming of Antichrist.
No man ever started life with a worse heritage than Nero. His father was Cnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus, who was notorious for wickedness. He had killed a freedman for no other crime than refusing to drink more wine; he had deliberately run over a child in his chariot on the Appian Way; in a brawl in the Forum he had gouged out the eye of a Roman knight; and he finally died of dropsy brought on by his debauchery. His mother was Agrippina, one of the most terrible women in history. When Ahenobarbus knew that he and Agrippina were to have a child he cynically said that nothing but a monstrous abomination could come from himself and her. When Nero was three, Agrippina was banished by the Emperor Caligula. Nero was handed over to the care of his aunt Lepida who entrusted his education to two wretched slaves, one a barber and the other a dancer.
Under the Emperor Claudius, Agrippina was recalled from exile. She had now only one ambition–somehow to make her son emperor. She was warned by fortune-tellers that, if ever Nero became emperor, the result for her would be disaster. Her answer was: “Let him kill me, so long as he reigns.”
Agrippina set to work with all the passion and the intrigue of her stormy nature. Claudius already had two children, Octavia and Britannicus, but Agrippina badgered him into adopting Nero as his son, when Nero was eleven years of age, and persuaded him to marry her although he was her uncle. Agrippina then summoned the famous philosopher, Seneca, and the great soldier, Afranius Burrus, to be Nero’s tutors. Steadily Britannicus, the heir to the throne, was pushed into the background and Nero was given the limelight.
For five years the marriage lasted and then Agrippina arranged for Claudius’ poisoning by a dish of poisoned mushrooms. When Claudius lay in a coma, she hastened his end by brushing his throat with a poisoned feather. No sooner had Claudius died, than Nero was led forth as emperor, the army having been bribed to support him.
A curious situation ensued. For the next five years Rome was never better governed. Nero was busy playing at painting, sculpture, music, theatricals; he was the complete dilettante; and the wise Seneca and the upright Burrus governed the empire.
Then Nero stopped being the cultured dilettante and embarked on a career of vicious crime. At night with other gilded youths he would roam the streets attacking all whom he could find. Worse was to come. He murdered Britannicus as a possible rival.
No young man or woman was safe from his lust. He was a blatant homosexual. He publicly married a youth named Sporus in a state wedding; and he took Sporus with him on a bridal tour of Greece. He was “married” to a freedman called Doryphorus. He took Poppaea Sabina the wife of Otho, his closest friend, as his paramour, and kicked her to death when she was with child.
He had a passion for wild extravagance and extracted money from all and sundry. The imperial court was a welter of murder, immorality and crime.
One of Nero’s passions was building. In A.D. 64 came the great fire of Rome which burned for a week. There is not the slightest doubt that Nero began it or that he hindered every attempt to extinguish it, so that he might have the glory of rebuilding the city. The people well knew who was responsible for the fire but Nero diverted the blame on to the Christians and the most deliberately sadistic of all persecutions broke out. He had the Christians sown up in the skins of wild animals and set his savage hunting dogs upon them. He had them enclosed in sacks with stones and flung into the Tiber. He had them coated with pitch and set alight as living torches to light the gardens of his palace.
The insanity of evil grew wilder and wilder. Seneca was forced to commit suicide; Burrus was murdered by a poisoned draught which Nero sent him as a cure for a sore throat; anyone who incurred Nero’s slightest displeasure was killed.
Agrippina made some attempt to control him and finally he turned against her. He made repeated attempts to murder her–by poison, by causing the roof of her house to collapse, by sending her to sea in a boat designed to break up. Finally, he sent his freedman Anicetus to stab her to death. When Agrippina saw the dagger, she bared her body. “Strike my womb,” she said, “because it bore a Nero.”
It could not last. First Julius Vindex rebelled in Gaul, then Galba in Spain. Finally the senate took its courage in its hands and declared Nero a public enemy. In the end he died by suicide in the wretched villa of a freedman called Phaon.
This is the head of the beast, wounded and restored; the Antichrist whom John expected was the resurrected Nero.
We must now look at this chapter section by section in more detail. This may involve a certain amount of repetition, but in a chapter so central and so difficult the repetition will make for clarity.
THE DEVIL AND THE BEAST
Rev. 13:1-5
We begin by summarizing the facts already set out in the introductory material to this chapter. The beast is the Roman Empire; the seven heads are the seven emperors in whose time Caesar worship became a power in the empire–Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero, Vespasian, Titus and Domitian. The ten heads are these seven emperors together with the three other rulers whose total reigns lasted for only eighteen months in the time of chaos which followed the death of Nero–Galba, Otho and Vitellius. The head which was wounded and restored to life again symbolizes the Nero redivivus idea.
In this picture the Roman Empire is symbolized by a beast which was like a leopard, with a bear’s feet and a lion’s mouth.
This indicates a completely changed attitude to Rome. Paul had received nothing but help from the Roman government. Time and again the intervention of the Roman authorities and the fact that he was a Roman citizen had saved him from the fury of the Jews. It had been so in Philippi (Ac.16); in Corinth (Ac.18); in Ephesus (Ac.19); and in Jerusalem (Ac.21-22). It had been Paul’s view that the powers that be were ordained of God and that all Christians must render a conscientious obedience to them (Rom.13:1-6). In the Pastoral Epistles prayer is to be made for kings and for all who are in authority (1Tim.2:1). In First Peter the injunction is to be a good citizen; to be subject to governors; to fear God, and to honour the emperor (1Pet.2:13-17). In 2Th.2:6-7 the most probable explanation is that it is the Roman Empire which is the restraining force which keeps the world from disintegrating into chaos and the man of sin from beginning his reign.
In the Revelation things are changed. Caesar worship has emerged. The emperors call themselves by blasphemous names–divine, Son of God, Saviour, Lord. The might of Rome is arrayed to crush the Christian faith; and Rome has become the agent of the devil.
In the description of the beast, H. B. Swete sees a symbol of the power of Rome. The empire has the vigilance, craft and cruelty of the leopard, ever ready to spring upon its prey; it has the crushing strength of the bear; it is like the lion whose roar terrifies the flock.
“Who is like the beast?” is a grim parody of the great question: “Who is like thee, O Lord, among the gods?” (Exo.15:11). H. B. Swete points out that the beast’s claim to preeminence lies not in any moral greatness but in sheer brute force. Any empire founded on brute force and not on moral greatness is anti-God. The description of the beast as speaking haughty things (Rev. 13:5) comes from the description in Daniel of the little horn (Dn.7:8; Dn.7:20).
One great truth stands out in this section. In this world a man and a nation have the choice between being the instrument of Satan and the instrument of God.
INSULT TO GOD
Rev. 13:6-9
Rev. 13:6 is difficult. It says of the beast that it opened its mouth to launch blasphemies against God and his dwelling-place and those who dwell in the heavens.
(i) This may be taken quite generally. It may mean that the power of the empire and the institution of Caesar worship are a blasphemy against God, and heaven, and the angels. If we like to take this a little further, we can take more out of the word used for God’s dwelling-place; the Greek is skene (GSN4633), which means a tent or a tabernacle or a place to dwell. Although it has really no connection with it, skene (GSN4633) always reminded a Jew of the Hebrew word shechinah, the glory of God. (Compare the Hebrew verb, shakan, to dwell, HSN7931). So it may be that John is saying that the whole conduct of the Roman Empire, and particularly the institution of Caesar worship, is an insult to the glory of God.
(ii) But it is possible to take this passage in a more particular sense. The beast is the Roman Empire. It may be that John is thinking of all the ways–not just those in his own time–in which Rome had insulted God and his dwelling-place.
Most Roman Emperors were embarrassed by Caesar worship; but not Caligula, A.D. 37-41, who was an epileptic and more than a little mad. He took his divinity very seriously and insisted that he should be universally worshipped.
The Jews had always been exempt from Caesar worship because the Romans were well aware of their immovable allegiance to the worship of one God. This is closely parallel to the fact that of all peoples in the empire the Jews alone were exempt from military service, because of their strict observance of food laws and their absolute observance of the Sabbath. But Caligula insisted that an image of himself should be set up within the Holy of Holies in the Temple in Jerusalem. The Jews would have suffered extermination rather than submit to such desecration of the Holy Place but Caligula had actually collected an army to enforce his demand (Josephus: Antiquities of the Jews 18: 8) when by great good fortune he died.
If ever there was an insult to the dwelling-place of God, this action of Caligula was one. And it may well be that this notorious incident is in John’s mind when he speaks of the insults which the beast launched against the dwelling-place of God.
EARTHLY DANGER AND DIVINE SAFETY
Rev. 13:6-9 (continued)
It was given to the beast to overcome those whose names were not written in the Book of Life. The Book of Life is mentioned frequently in the Revelation (Rev. 3:5; Rev. 13:8; Rev. 17:8; Rev. 20:12; Rev. 20:15; Rev. 21:27). In the ancient world rulers kept registers of those who were citizens of their realms; only when a man died or lost his rights as a citizen, was his name removed. The Book of Life is the register of those who belong to God.
In Rev. 13:8 there is a question of translation. So far as the Greek goes, there are two equally possible translations, either: “Those whose names have been written before the foundation of the world in the Book of Life of the Lamb that was slain,” or, “Those whose names have been written in the Book of Life of the Lamb who was slain from the foundation of the world.”
(i) The first is undoubtedly the translation in the parallel passage in Rev. 17:8. A close parallel would be in Eph.1:4 where Paul says that God has chosen us in Jesus Christ before the foundation of the world. The meaning would then be that God has chosen his own from before the beginning of time, and nothing in life or in death, nothing in time or eternity, nothing that the Devil or the Roman Empire can ever do can pluck them from his hand. This is the rendering of the Revised Standard Version and the newer translations.
(ii) The second translation speaks of Jesus Christ as the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. A close parallel to this would be in 1Pet.1:19-20 where Peter speaks of Jesus and his sacrifice as being foreordained before the foundation of the world. The Jews held the belief that Michael, the archangel, was created before the foundation of the world to be the mediator between Israel and God; and that Moses was created before the foundation of the world to be the mediator of the covenant between God and Israel. There would, therefore, be nothing unfamiliar to Jewish thought in saying that Jesus was created before the beginning of the world to be the Redeemer of mankind.
We have in these two translations two equally precious truths. But, if we must choose, we must choose the first, because there is no doubt that is the way in which John uses the phrase when he repeats it in Rev. 17:8.
THE CHRISTIAN’S ONLY WEAPONS
Rev. 13:10
At first sight this is a difficult verse.
If anyone is to be taken into captivity, into captivity let him go. If anyone slays.with the sword, he himself will be slain with the sword. Here is the summons to steadfastness and to loyalty from the dedicated people of God.
The verse is made up of two quotations. It begins by quoting from Jer.15:2, where Jeremiah is told to tell the people that such as are for death will go forth to death; such as are for the sword will go forth to the sword; such as are for famine will go forth to famine; and such as are for captivity will go forth to captivity. The idea there is that there is no escaping the decree of God. The verse then goes to quote the saying of Jesus in Matt.26:52. In the Garden of Gethsemane, when the mob has come to arrest Jesus and Peter draws his sword to defend him, Jesus says: “Put your sword back into its place: for all who take the sword will perish by the sword.” There are three things here.
(i) If the Christian faith means imprisonment, the Christian must unmurmuringly accept it. Whatever is involved in following Christ, the Christian must accept.
(ii) Christianity can never be defended by force; the man who takes the sword perishes with the sword. When the Roman government began persecuting, the Christians could be numbered perhaps by the hundred thousand; and yet it never occurred to them to use force to resist. It is an intolerable paradox to defend the gospel of the love of God by using the violence of man.
(iii) There are weapons which the Christian can use and these are steadfastness and loyalty. The word for steadfastness is hupomone (GSN5281), which does not simply mean passively enduring but courageously accepting the worst that life can do and turning it into glory. The word for loyalty is pistis (GSN4102), which means that fidelity which will never waver in its devotion to its Master.
THE POWER OF THE SECOND BEAST
Rev. 13:11-17
This passage deals with the power of the second beast, the organization set up to enforce Caesar worship throughout the empire. Certain things are said about this power.
(i) It produces signs and wonders, such as fire from heaven; it brings it about that the image of the beast should speak. Everywhere there were statues of the emperor in the presence of which the official act of worship was carried out. In all ancient religions the priests knew how to produce signs and wonders; they knew well how to produce the effect of a speaking, image. Pharaoh had had his magicians in the time of Moses, and the imperial priesthood had its experts in conjuring tricks and ventriloquism and the like.
In Rev. 13:11 there is a curious phrase. This beast from the land is said to have two horns like a lamb; that is, it is a grim parody of the Lamb in the Christian sense of the term. But it is also said to speak like a dragon. It is just possible that that last phrase should be that it spoke like the serpent. The reference would then be to the serpent who seduced Eve in the Garden of Eden. The imperial priesthood could easily use seductive appeals: “Look what Rome has done for you; look at the peace and the prosperity you enjoy; have you ever known a greater benefactor than the emperor? Surely in simple gratitude you can give him this formal act of worship.” There are always excellent arguments why the Church should compromise with the world; but the fact remains that, when it does, Christ is betrayed again.
(ii) This beast brings it about that those who will not worship will be killed. That was, in fact, the law. If a Christian refused to make the act of worship to Caesar, he was liable to death. The death penalty was not always carried out; but, if a Christian had not the mark of the beast, he could not buy or sell. That is to say, if a man refused to worship the emperor, even if his life was spared, he would be economically ruined. It remains true that the world knows how to bring pressure to bear on those who will not accept its standards. Often still a man has to choose between material success and loyalty to Jesus Christ.
THE MARK OF THE BEAST
Rev. 13:11-17 (continued)
Those who had given the worship to Caesar which was demanded had on them the mark of the beast on their right hand and.on their forehead. This mark is another of the grim parodies which occur in this chapter; it is a parody of a sacred Jewish custom. When a Jew prayed, he wore phylacteries on his left arm and on his forehead. They were little leather boxes with little scrolls of parchment inside them on which the following passages were written–Exo.13:1-10; Exo.13:11-16; Deut.6:4-9; Deut.11:13-21.
The word for the mark of the beast is charagma (GSN5480), and it could come from more than one ancient custom.
(i) Sometimes domestic slaves were branded with the mark of their owner. But usually they were branded only if they had run away or had been guilty of some grave misdemeanour. Such a mark was called a stigma (GSN4742); we still use the word in English. If the mark is connected with this, it means that those who worship the beast are his property.
(ii) Sometimes soldiers branded themselves with the name of their general, if they were very devoted to him. This, to some extent, corresponds to the modern custom of tattooing upon one’s person the name of someone specially dear. If the mark is connected with this, it means that those who worship the beast are his devoted followers.
(iii) On every contract of buying or selling there was a charagma (GSN5480), a seal, and on the seal the name of the emperor and the date. If the mark is connected with this, it means that those who worship the beast accept his authority.
(iv) All coinage had the head and inscription of the emperor stamped upon it, to show that it was his property. If the mark is connected with this, it again means that those who bear it are the property of the beast.
(v) When a man had burned his pinch of incense to Caesar, he was given a certificate to say that he had done so. The mark of the beast may be the certificate of worship, which a Christian could obtain only at the cost of denying his faith.
THE NUMBER OF THE BEAST
Rev. 13:18
In this verse we are told that the number of the beast is six hundred and sixty-six; and it is almost certainly true that more ingenuity has been expended on this verse than on any other verse in Scripture. Who is this satanic beast so symbolized? It must be remembered that the ancient peoples had no figures and the letters of the alphabet did duty for numbers as well. This is as if in English we used A for 1, B for 2, C for 3, D for 4, and so on. Every word, therefore, and in particular every proper name, can also be a number. One charming and romantic way in which use was made of this fact is quoted by Deissmann. On the walls of Pompeii a lover wrote: “I love her whose number is 545,” and thereby he at one and the same time identified and concealed his loved one!
The suggestions as to the meaning of 666 are endless. Since it is the number of the beast, everyone has twisted it to fit his own arch-enemy; and so 666 has been taken to mean the Pope, John Knox, Martin Luther, Napoleon and many another. Dr. Kepler provides us with an example of what ingenuity produced during the Second World War. Let A = 100; B = 101; C = 102; D = 103 and so on. Then we can make this addition:
H = 107 I = 108 T = 119 L = 111 E = 104 R = 117
and the sum is 666!
Very early we saw that the Revelation is written in code; it is clear that nowhere will the code be more closely guarded than in regard to this number which stands for the arch-enemy of the Church. The strange thing is that the key must have been lost very early; for even so great a Christian scholar as Irenaeus in the second century did not know what the number stood for.
We set down four of the very early guesses.
Irenaeus suggested that it might stand for Euanthas. In Greek numbers E = 5; U = 400; A = 1; N = 50; TH (the Greek letter theta) = 9; A = 1; S = 200; and the sum is 666. But as to what Euanthas meant Irenaeus had no suggestion to make; so he had simply substituted one riddle for another.
Another suggestion was that the word in question was Lateinos. L = 30; A = 1; T = 300; E = 5; I = 10; N = 50; O = 70; S = 200; and the sum is 666. Lateinos could be taken to mean Latin and, therefore, could stand for the Roman Empire.
A third suggestion was Teitan. T = 300; E = 5; I = 10; T = 300; A = 1; N = 50; and the sum is 666. Teitan could be made to yield two meanings. First, in Greek mythology the Titans were the great rebels against God. Second, the family name of Vespasian and Titus and Domitian was Titus, and possibly they could be called the Titans.
A fourth suggestion was arnoume. A = 1; R = 100; N = 50; 0 = 70; U = 400; M = 40; E = 5; and the sum is 666. It is just possible that arnoume could be a form of the Greek word arnoumai (GSN0720), “I deny.” In this case the number would stand for the denial of the name of Christ.
None of these suggestions is convincing. The chapter itself gives us by far the best clue. There recurs again and again the mention of the head that was wounded to death and then restored. We have already seen that that head symbolizes the Nero redivivus legend. We might well, therefore, act on the assumption that the number has something to do with Nero. Many ancient manuscripts give the number as 616. If we take Nero in Latin and give it its numerical equivalent, we get:
N = 50
E = 6
R = 500
O = 60
N = 50
The total is 666; and the name can equally well be spelled without the final N which would give the number 616. In Hebrew the letters of Nero Caesar also add up to 666.
There is little doubt that the number of the beast stands for Nero; and that John is forecasting the coming of Antichrist in the form of Nero, the incarnation of all evil, returning to this world.
THE FATHER’S OWN
Rev. 14:1
I saw, and behold the Lamb stood on Mount Sion, and there were with him one hundred and forty-four thousand who had his name, and the name of his Father written on their foreheads.
John’s next vision opens with the Lamb standing in triumph on Mount Sion and with him the one hundred and forty-four thousand of whom we read in Rev. 7. They are marked with his name and with the name of his Father on their foreheads. We have already thought about the meaning of the marking but we must look at it again. In the ancient world a mark upon a person could stand for at least five different things.
(i) It could stand for ownership. Often the slave was branded with his owner’s mark, as sheep and cattle are branded. The company with the Lamb belong to God.
(ii) It could stand for loyalty. The soldier would sometimes brand his hand with the name of the general whom he loved and would follow into any battle. The company of the Lamb are the veterans who have proved their loyalty.
(iii) It could stand for security. There is a curious third or fourth century papyrus letter from a son to his father Apollo. Times are dangerous, and the son and the father are separated. The son sends his greetings and good wishes, and then goes on: “I have indeed told you before of my grief at your absence from among us, and my fear that something dreadful might happen to you, and that we may not find your body. Indeed, I often wished to tell you that, having regard to the insecurity, I wanted to stamp a mark upon you” (P. Oxy. 680). The son wished to put a mark upon his father’s body in order to keep it safe. The company of the Lamb are those marked for security in life and in death.
(iv) It could stand for dependence. Robertson Smith quotes a curious example of this. The great Arab chieftains had their humble clients who were absolutely dependent on them. Often the sheik would brand them with the same mark as he used to brand his camels to show that they were dependent on him. The company of the Lamb are those who are utterly dependent on his love and grace.
(v) It could stand for safety. It was common for those who were the devotees of a god to be stamped with his sign. Sometimes that worked very cruelly. Plutarch tells us that after the disastrous defeat of the Athenians under Nicias in Sicily, the Sicilians took the captives and branded them on the forehead with a galloping horse, the emblem of Sicily (Plutarch: Nicias 29). 3 Maccabees tells us that Ptolemy the Fourth of Egypt ordered that “all Jews should be degraded to the lowest rank and to the condition of slaves; and that those who spoke against it should be taken by force and put to death; and that these when they were registered should be marked with a brand on their bodies, with the ivy leaf, the emblem of Bacchus” (3 Maccabees 2: 28, 29).
These instances involve degradation and cruelty. But there were others. The Syrians were regularly tattooed on the wrist or the neck with the mark of their god. But there is a more relevant instance than any of these. Herodotus (2: 113) tells us that there was a temple of Heracles at the Canopic mouth of the Nile which possessed the right of asylum. Any criminal, slave or free man, was safe there from pursuing vengeance. When such a fugitive reached that temple, he was branded with certain sacred marks in token that he had delivered himself to the god and that none could touch him any more. They were the marks of absolute security. The company of the Lamb are those who have cast themselves on the mercy of God in Jesus Christ and are for ever safe.
THE SONG WHICH ONLY GOD’S OWN CAN LEARN
Rev. 14:2-3
And I heard a voice from heaven like the sound of many waters and like the voice of great thunder, and the voice I heard was like the sound of harpers playing on their harps. And they were singing a new song before the throne and before the four living creatures and before the elders, and no one was able to learn the song except the one hundred and forty-four thousand who had been purchased for God from the earth.
This passage begins with a wonderful description of the voice of God.
(i) It was like the sound of many waters. Here we are reminded of the power of the voice of God, for there is no power like the crash of the mountainous waves upon the beaches and the cliffs.
(ii) It was like the voice of great thunder. Here we are reminded of the unmistakableness of the voice of God. No one can fail to hear the thunder-clap.
(iii) It was like the sound of many harpers playing on their harps. Here we are reminded of the melody of the voice of God. There is in that voice the gentle graciousness of sweet music to calm the troubled heart.
The Lamb’s company were singing a song which only they could learn. Here there is a truth which runs through all life. To learn certain things a man must be a certain kind of person. The Lamb’s company were able to learn the new song because they had passed through certain experiences.
(a) They had suffered. There are certain things which only sorrow can teach. As someone made the poets say: “We learned in suffering what we teach in song.” Sorrow can produce resentment but it can also produce faith and peace and a new song.
(b) They had lived in loyalty. It is clear that, as the years pass on, the leader will draw closer to his loyal followers and they to him; then he will be able to teach them things the unfaithful or spasmodic follower can never learn.
(e) That is another way of saying that the company of the Lamb had made steady progress in spiritual growth. A teacher can teach deeper things to a mature student than to an immature beginner. And Jesus Christ can reveal more treasures of wisdom to those who day by day grow up into him. The tragedy of so many is static Christianity.
THE FINEST FLOWER
Rev. 14:4a
These are they who have not defiled themselves with women, for they are virgins.
We take this half verse by itself, for it is one of the most difficult sayings in the whole of the Revelation, and it is of the utmost importance to get its meaning clear. It describes the unsullied purity of those who are in the company of the Lamb, but in what does that purity consist?
(i) Does it describe those who in sexual relationships have been pure? That can hardly be the case, for the people in question are described, not simply as pure, but as virgins, that is, as those who have never known sexual relations at all.
(ii) Does it describe those who have kept themselves free from spiritual adultery, that is, from all disloyalty to Jesus Christ? Again and again in the Old Testament we find it said of the people of Israel that they went awhoring after strange gods (Exo.34:15; Deut.31:16; Judg.2:17; Judg.8:27,33; Hos.9:1). But this passage does not read as if it was metaphorical.
(iii) Does it describe those who have remained celibate? The days soon came when the Church glorified virginity and held that the highest Christian life was possible only for those who renounced marriage altogether. The Gnostics held that “marriage and generation are from Satan.” Tatian held that “marriage is corruption and fornication.” Marcion set up churches for those who were celibates and from which all others were barred. One of the greatest of the early fathers, Origen, voluntarily castrated himself to ensure perpetual virginity. In the Acts of Paul and Thecla (11) it is the charge of Demas against Paul that “he deprives young men of wives and maidens of husbands by saying that in no other way shall there be a resurrection for you save by remaining chaste and keeping the flesh chaste.” There is a record of a Roman trial (Ruinart: Acts of the Martyrs, 27th April, 304) in which the Christians are described as “the people who impose upon silly women and tell them that they must not marry and persuade them to adopt a fanciful chastity.” This is precisely the spirit which was to beget the monasteries and the convents, and the implication that everything to do with sex and the body is wrong.
This is far from the teaching of the New Testament. Jesus glorified marriage, saying that for this cause a man left his own family and was so closely united to his wife that they were one flesh, and warning that what God has joined no man may put asunder (Matt.19:4-6). In his highest teaching Paul glorified marriage, likening the relationship of Christ to his Church to the relationship between man and wife (Eph.5:22-33). The writer to the Hebrews lays it down: “Let marriage be held in honour among all” (Heb.13:4).
What, then, are we to say of our present passage? If we are to treat it honestly, we cannot avoid the conclusion that it praises celibacy and virginity and belittles marriage. There are two possible explanations.
(a) It is possible that the writer of the Revelation did mean to exalt celibacy and virginity; the likelihood is that he was writing about A.D. 90 when this tendency was already in the Church. If that is so we will have to lay this passage on one side, because, tested by the rest of the New Testament, it is not a correct statement of the Christian ethic.
(b) There is another possible interpretation. When scribes were copying New Testament books they often added notes and comments in the margin, to explain the text. It may well be that some scribe in later days, copying this passage wished to give his opinion as to who the one hundred and forty thousand were; and added in the margin: “This means those who never defiled themselves with women and who remained virgins.” This is all the more likely since many of the later scribes were monks. When the manuscript was recopied, the comment in the margin may well have been included in the text as very commonly happened. This would then mean that the first half of Rev. 14:4 is not the words of John at all but the comment of a scribe.
THE IMITATION OF CHRIST
Rev. 14:4b-5
These are they who follow the Lamb wherever he goes. They were bought from amongst men, a sacrifice to God and to the Lamb, and no falsehood was found in their mouth, for they are without blemish.
The company of the Lamb are those who follow the Lamb wherever he goes. The simplest definition of a Christian is simply one who follows Jesus Christ. “Follow me!” Jesus said to Philip (Jn.1:43), and to Matthew (Mk.2:14). “Follow me!” he said to the rich young ruler (Mk.10:21), and to the unnamed disciple (Lk.9:59). When Peter asked what was to happen to John, Jesus told him not to bother about what would happen to others but to concentrate on following him (Jn.21:19-22). He left us an example, said Peter, that we should follow in his steps (1Pet.2:21).
John calls the company of the Lamb three things:
(i) They are a sacrifice to God and to the Lamb. The word for sacrifice is aparche (GSN0536). This really means the sacrifice of the first-fruits. The first-fruits were the best of the crop; they were a symbol of the harvest to come; and they were a symbolic dedication of the whole harvest to God. So the Christian is the best that can be offered to God; each Christian is a foretaste of the time when all the world will be dedicated to God; and the Christian is the man who has consecrated his life to God.
(ii) No falsehood was found in their mouth. This is a favourite thought in Scripture. “Blessed is the man,” says the Psalmist, “in whose spirit there is no deceit” (Ps.32:2). Isaiah said of the servant of the Lord: “And there was no deceit in his mouth” (Isa.53:9). Zephaniah said of the chosen remnant of the people: “Nor shall there be found in their mouth a deceitful tongue” (Zeph.3:13). Peter took the words about the servant and applied them to Jesus: “No guile was found on his lips” (1Pet.2:22). There is something here which we can well understand. Just as we desire friends who are sincere, so does Jesus Christ.
(iii) They are without blemish. The word is amomos (GSN0299) and is characteristically a sacrificial word. It describes the animal which is without flaw and so fit for an offering to God. It is interesting to note how often this word is used of the Christian. God has chosen us that we should be holy and without blame before him (Eph.1:4; compare Col.1:22). The Church must be glorious, not having spot, or wrinkle or any such thing (Eph.5:27). Peter speaks of Jesus as a Lamb without blemish and without spot (1Pet.1:19). We received life to make of it a sacrifice to God; and that which is offered to God must be without blemish.
There follows the vision of the three angels, the angel with the summons to worship the true God (Rev. 14:6-7), the angel who foretells the doom of Rome (Rev. 14:8), and the angel who foretells the judgment and destruction of those who have denied their faith and worshipped the beast (Rev. 14:9-12).
THE SUMMONS TO THE WORSHIP OF GOD
Rev. 14:6-7
And I saw another angel flying in the midst of the sky with an everlasting gospel to preach to those who dwell upon the earth and to every race and tribe and tongue and people. And he was saying with a great voice: “Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment has come, and worship him who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and the springs of waters.”
One of the signs which were to precede the end was that the gospel would be preached in all the world for a witness to all nations (Matt.24:14). Here is the fulfilment of that prophecy. The angel comes with the message of the gospel to all races and tribes and tongues and peoples.
The angel comes with an everlasting gospel. Everlasting could mean that the gospel is eternally valid, that even in a world which is crashing to its doom its truth still stands. It could mean that the gospel has existed from all eternity. Paul in the great doxology in Romans speaks of Jesus Christ as the revelation of the mystery which was kept secret since the world began (Rom.16:25). It could mean that the gospel is the eternal purpose of God for man. It could mean that it deals with the eternal things.
It may seem strange that the angel with the gospel is followed immediately by the angels of doom. But the gospel has of necessity a double-edged quality. It is good news for those who receive it but it is judgment to those who reject it. And the condemnation of those who reject it is all the greater because they were given the chance to accept it.
The words of the angel are interesting. They are a summons to worship the God who is the Creator of all things. This message is not specifically Christian but the basis of all religion. It corresponds exactly to the message which Paul and Barnabas brought to the people of Lystra, when they told them that they must “turn from these vain things to a living God who made the heaven, and the earth, and the sea, and all that is in them” (Ac.14:15). H. B. Swete called this “an appeal to the conscience of untaught heathenism, incapable as yet of apprehending any other.”
THE FALL OF BABYLON
Rev. 14:8
And another angel, a second angel, followed him saying: “Fallen, fallen is the great Babylon, who made all the nations to drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.”
Here is prophesied the doom of Rome. Throughout the Revelation Rome is described as Babylon, a description which was common between the Testaments. The writer of 2 Baruch begins his pronouncement against Rome: “I, Baruch, say this against thee, Babylon” (2 Baruch 11: 1). When the Sibylline Oracles describe the imagined flight of Nero from Rome, they say: “Then shall flee from Babylon a king shameless and fearless, whom all mortals and the best men loathe” (Sibylline Oracles 5: 143). In the ancient days Babylon to the prophets had been the very incarnation of power and lust and luxury and sin; and to the early Jewish Christians Babylon seemed to have been reborn in the lust and luxury and immorality of Rome.
The fall of Babylon to Cyrus the Persian had been one of the shattering events of ancient history. The very words which the Revelation uses are echoes of those in which the ancient prophets had foretold that fall. “Fallen, fallen is Babylon,” said Isaiah, “and all the images of her gods he has shattered to the ground” (Isa.21:9). “Suddenly Babylon has fallen,” said Jeremiah, “and been broken” (Jer.51:8).
Babylon is said to have made all the nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication. In this phrase two Old Testament conceptions have been fused into one. In Jer.51:7 it is said of Babylon: “Babylon was a golden cup in the Lord’s hand, making all the earth drunken; the nations drank of her wine; therefore, the nations went mad.” The idea is that Babylon had been a corrupting force which had lured the nations into a kind of insane immorality. The background is the picture of a prostitute persuading a man into immorality by filling him full of wine, so that he could no longer resist her wiles. Rome has been like that, like some glittering prostitute seducing the world. The other picture is of the cup of the wrath of God. Job says of the wicked man: “Let him drink of the wrath of the Almighty” (Jb.21:20). The Psalmist speaks of the wicked having to drink the dregs of the red cup in the hand of God (Ps.75:8). Isaiah speaks of Jerusalem having drunk the cup of God’s fury (Isa.51:17). God instructs Jeremiah to take the wine cup of his fury and to give it to the nations to drink (Jer.25:15).
We might paraphrase by saying that Babylon made the nations drink of the wine which seduces men to fornication and which brings as its consequence the wrath of God.
Behind all this remains the eternal truth that the nation or the man whose influence is to evil will not escape the avenging wrath of God.
THE DOOM OF THE MAN WHO DENIES HIS LORD
Rev. 14:9-12
And another angel, a third angel, followed them saying with a great voice: “If anyone worships the beast and his image, and receives a mark upon his forehead or upon his hand, he too shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, mingled undiluted in the cup of his wrath, and he will be tortured with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb. The smoke of their torture ascends for ever and ever, and those who worship the beast and his image have no rest by day or night, nor has anyone who receives the mark of his name.
Here is the summons to steadfastness on the part of God’s dedicated ones, who keep the commandments of God and maintain their loyalty to him.
Warning has already been given of the power of the beast and of the mark that the beast will seek to set upon all men (Rev. 13). Now there is warning to those who fail in that time of trial.
It is significant that this is the fiercest warning of all. Of all dooms, as the Revelation sees it, the doom of the apostate is worst. The reason is that the Church was battling for its very existence. If it was to continue the individual Christian must be prepared to face suffering and trial, imprisonment and death. If the individual Christian yielded, the Church died. In our day the individual Christian is still of paramount importance, but his function now is not usually to protect the faith by being ready to die for it, but to commend it by being diligent to live for it.
The doom of the apostate is thought of in pictures of the most terrible judgment that ever fell on this earth–that of Sodom and Gomorrah. “Lo, the smoke of the land went up like the smoke of a furnace” (Gen.19:28). John echoes the words of Isaiah describing the day of the Lord’s vengeance: “And the streams of Edom shall be turned into pitch, and her soil into brimstone; her land shall become burning pitch. Night and day it shall not be quenched; its smoke shall go up for ever. From generation to generation it shall lie waste; none shall pass through it for ever and ever” (Isa.34:8-10).
The wicked will be destroyed in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb. As we have seen before, part of the blessedness of heaven was to see the suffering of the sinner in hell. As 2 Esdras has it: “There shall be shewn the furnace of hell, and opposite to it the paradise of delight” (2Esdr.7:36). We have the same idea in the Book of Enoch: “I will give them over (the wicked) into the hands of mine elect: as straw in the fire, so shall they burn before the face of the holy: as lead in the water shall they sink before the face of the righteous, and no trace of them shall be found any more” (Enoch 48: 9). A feature of the last days will be “the spectacle of righteous judgment in the presence of the righteous” (Enoch 27: 2, 3). When Chrysostom was encouraging Olympias to steadfastness, he encouraged her by promising that in due time she would see the divine torture of the persecutors, just as Lazarus saw Dives tormented in flames.
We may dislike this line of thought; we may condemn it as subchristian–and indeed it is. But we have no real right to speak until we have gone through the same sufferings as the early Christians did. Many a time the heathen had looked down from the crowded seats of the arena on the sufferings of the Christians; and the early Christians were sustained by the thought that some day the divine justice of heaven would adjust the balance of earth’s injustices.
THE REST OF THE FAITHFUL SOUL
Rev. 14:13
And I heard a voice from heaven saying: “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on. Yes, says the Spirit, they are blessed, because they rest from their labours, for their deeds follow with them.”
After the terrible prophecies of the terrors to come and the terrible warnings to those who are false, there comes the gracious promise.
Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord–the idea of dying in the Lord occurs more than once in the New Testament. Paul speaks of the dead in Christ (1Th.4:16) and of those who have fallen asleep in Christ (1Cor.15:18). The meaning of all these phrases is those who come to the end still one with Christ. Everything was trying to separate men from Christ; but the supreme happiness was for those who came to the end still inseparable from the Master whom they loved.
The promise is of rest. They will rest from their labours. Rest is never so sweet as after the most strenuous toil. As Spenser had it:
Sleep after toil, port after stormy seas, Ease after war, death after life does greatly please.
Their works follow with them–at first this sounds as if the Revelation is preaching salvation by works. But we have to be careful what John means by works. He speaks of the works of the Ephesians–their labour and their patience (Rev. 2:2); he speaks of the works of the Thyatirans–their charity and their service and their faith (Rev. 2:19). By works he means character. He is in effect saying: “When you leave this earth, all that you can take with you is yourself. If you come to the end of this life still one with Christ, you will take with you a character tried and tested like gold, which has something of his reflection in it; and, if you take with you to the world beyond a character like that, blessed are you.”
THE HARVEST OF JUDGMENT
Rev. 14:14-20
And I saw and behold a white cloud, and seated on the cloud one like a son of man. On his head he had a victor’s crown of gold, and in his hand he had a sharp sickle. And another angel came forth from the temple, saying with a great voice to him who was seated on the cloud: “Put in your sickle, and begin to reap, because the hour to reap has come, because the harvest of the earth is ripe and more than ripe.” And he who was seated on the cloud put in his sickle upon the earth, and the earth was reaped. And another angel came from the temple which is in heaven and he too had a sharp sickle, and there came forth from the altar another angel, the angel who controls the fire, and he called with a great voice to him who had the sharp sickle saying: “Put in your sharp sickle and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth, because the grapes are ripe.” So the angel put his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vintage of the earth, and cast it into the great winepress of the wrath of God. And the winepress was trodden outside the city, and blood came out of the winepress, as high as the horses’ bridles, for sixteen hundred stades.
The final vision of this chapter is of judgment depicted in pictures which were very familiar to Jewish thought.
It begins with the picture of the victorious figure of one like a son of man. This comes from Dn.7:13-14: “And I saw in the night visions, and, behold with the clouds of heaven, there came one like a son of man and he came to the ancient of days, and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion and glory and kingdom, that all peoples, nations and languages should serve him.”
This picture goes on to depict judgment in two metaphors familiar to Scripture.
It depicts judgment in terms of harvesting. When Joel wished to say that judgment was near, he said: “Put in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe” (Jl.3:13). “When the grain is ripe,” said Jesus, “at once he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come” (Mk.4:29); and in the parable of the wheat and the tares he uses the harvest as a picture of judgment (Matt.13:24-30; Matt.13:37-43).
lt depicts judgment in terms of the wine press, which consisted of an upper and a lower trough connected by a channel. The troughs might be hollowed out in the rock or they might be built of brick. The grapes were put into the upper trough which was on a slightly higher level. They were then trampled with the feet and the juice flowed down the connecting channel into the lower trough. Often in the Old Testament, God’s judgment is likened to the trampling of the grapes. “The Lord flouted all my mighty men in the midst of me…the Lord has trodden as in a winepress the virgin daughter of Judah” (Lam.1:15). “I have trodden the winepress alone; and from the peoples no one was with me; I trod them in my anger, and trampled them in my wrath; their life blood is sprinkled upon my garments” (Isa.63:3).
Here, then, we have judgment depicted in the two familiar figures of the harvest and of the winepress. To this is added another familiar picture. The wine press is to be trodden outside the city, that is, Jerusalem. Both in the Old Testament and in the books between the Testaments there was a line of thought which held that the Gentiles would be brought to Jerusalem and judged there. Joel has a picture of all the nations gathered into the valley of Jehoshaphat and judged there (Jl.3:2,12). Zechariah has a picture of a last attack of the Gentiles on Jerusalem and of their judgment there (Zech.14:1-4).
There are two difficult things in this passage. First, there is the fact that the one like a son of man reaps and also an angel reaps. We may regard the one like the son of man, the risen and victorious Lord, reaping the harvest of his own people, while the angel with the sharp sickle reaps the harvest of those destined for judgment.
Second, it is said that the blood came up to the horses’ bridles and spread for a distance of sixteen hundred stades or furlongs. No one has ever discovered a really satisfying explanation of this. The least unsatisfactory explanation is that sixteen hundred stades is almost exactly the length of Palestine from north to south; and this would mean that the tide of judgment would flow over and include the whole land. In that case the figure would symbolically describe the completeness of the judgment.
THE VICTORS OF CHRIST
Rev. 15:1-2
And I saw another sign in heaven, great and wonderful–it was seven angels, with seven plagues which are the final ones, because in them the wrath of God reaches its climax. And I saw what I can only call a sea of glass intermingled with fire; and I saw standing beside the sea of glass, with the harps of God, those who had emerged victorious from their struggle with the beast and with his image and with the number of his name.
It might have been thought that John could have conveniently stopped when he had told of the reaping of judgment; but he has still much to tell–the final horrors, of the thousand year reign of the saints, of the final battle and of the final blessedness.
He has told of the opening of the seven seals; he has told of the sounding of the seven trumpets; and now he must tell of the pouring out of the seven bowls of the wrath of God. His arrangement is typical of the way the apocalyptic writers tended to arrange their material in groups of seven and of three and would regard three groups of seven as standing for perfection.
The scene is in heaven. Before John tells of the seven angels with the seven bowls of wrath, he has a picture of those who came through martyrdom for Christ. They are standing beside the sea which looked as if it was of glass. We have already seen this sea in Rev. 4:6. This time the glass is intermingled with fire, a natural addition in the circumstances. This is a passage of judgment and fire in Scripture is often the symbol of judgment. There comes upon Egypt hail mingled with fire (Exo.9:24); the chaff is to be consumed in the fire (Matt.3:12); our God is a consuming fire (Heb.12:29). The whole scene is grimly illuminated with the lurid light of the fire of judgment which is to descend upon the earth.
We are shortly to hear of the song of Moses. This is the song which Moses sang when the children of Israel had come triumphantly through the dangers of the crossing of the Red Sea. Even so, as H. B. Swete puts it, the martyrs have come safely through the sea of martyrdom and have arrived at the shore of heaven.
It is said that the martyrs have emerged victorious from their contest with the forces of Antichrist. There is something very significant here. The martyrs died the most savage deaths and yet they are said to have emerged victorious. It was the very fact that they had died that made them victors; if they had remained alive by being false to their faith, they would have been the defeated. Again and again the records of the early church describe a day of martyrdom as a day of victory. In the record of the martyrdom of Saint Perpetua we read: “The day of their victory dawned, and they walked from prison to the amphitheatre as if they were walking to heaven, happy and serene in countenance.” Jesus said: “Whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matt.16:25). The real victory is not prudently to preserve life but to face the worst that evil can do and if need be to be faithful to death. “May God deny you peace,” said Unamuno the Spanish mystic, “and give you glory.”
THE SONG OF THE VICTORS OF CHRIST
Rev. 15:3-4
And they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb:
Great and wonderful are your works, O Lord, God the Almighty; Just and true are your ways, King of the nations. Who shall not fear and glorify your name, O Lord? Because you alone are holy; Because all the nations will come and worship before you; Because your righteous judgments have been made plain for all to see.
The victorious martyrs sing two songs. They sing the song of the Lamb which, as we have seen, is the song which they alone could learn (Rev. 14:3). They sing the song of Moses, the servant of God. This was the song which Moses sang in triumph to God after the safe crossing of the Red Sea. It is in Exo.15:1-19. “The Lord is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation…. Who is like thee, 0 Lord, among the gods, who is like thee, majestic in holiness, terrible in glorious deeds, doing wonders?… The Lord will reign for ever and ever.” This song was stamped upon the memory of the Jews. It was sung at every Sabbath evening service in the synagogue. At every Jewish service the recital of the Shema (compare the verb, HSN8085), the creed of Israel, was followed by two prayers–it still is–and one of these prayers refers to this song: “True it is that thou art Jehovah our God, and the God of our fathers, our King, and the King of our fathers, our Saviour, and the Saviour of our fathers, our Creator, the Rock of our Salvation, our Help and our Deliverer. Thy name is from everlasting, and there is no God beside thee. A new song did they that were delivered sing to thy name by the sea-shore; together did all praise and own thee King, and say, Jehovah shall reign, world without end! Blessed be the Lord who saveth Israel.” The song of Moses commemorated the greatest deliverance in the history of God’s people Israel, and the victorious martyrs, brought through the sea of persecution to the promised land of heaven, sing that song.
But the martyrs have their own song. Two things stand out about it.
(i) It is almost entirely composed of quotations from the Old Testament. We set down first the words in the song and below them the Old Testament passages of which they remind us.
Great and wonderful are your works.
O Lord, how great are thy works! (Ps.92:5); The works of the Lord are great (Ps.111:2); he has done marvellous (wonderful) things (Ps.98:1); Wonderful are thy works (Ps.139:14).
Just and true are your ways.
The Lord is just in all his ways, and kind in all his doings (Ps.145:17).
Who shall not fear and glorify your name, O Lord
All the nations thou hast made shall come and bow down before Thee, O Lord; and shall glorify thy name (Ps.86:9).
You alone are holy.
There is none holy like the Lord (1Sam.2:2); Let them praise thy great and terrible name! Holy is he! (Ps.99:3); Holy and terrible is his name (Ps.111:9).
All the nations will come and worship before you.
All the nations thou hast made shall come and bow down before thee, O Lord (Ps.86:9).
Your righteous judgments are made manifest.
The Lord has made known his victory, he has revealed his vindication in the sight of the nations (Ps.98:2).
A passage like this lets us see how steeped in the Old Testament John was.
(ii) There is another thing which must strike anyone about the song of the triumphant martyrs. There is not one single word in it about their own achievement; from beginning to end the song is a lyric outburst on the greatness of God.
Heaven is a place where men forget themselves and remember only God. As R. H. Charles finely puts it: “In the perfect vision of God self is wholly forgotten.” H. B. Swete puts it this way: “In the presence of God the martyrs forget themselves; their thoughts are absorbed by the new wonders that surround them; the glory of God and the mighty scheme of things in which their own sufferings form an infinitesimal part are opening before them; they begin to see the great issue of the world-drama, and we hear the doxology with which they greet their first unclouded vision of God and his works.”
THE AVENGING ANGELS
Rev. 15:5-7
And after this I saw, and the temple of the tent of witness in heaven was opened, and there came out of the temple the seven angels who have the seven plagues; and they were clothed in shining white linen, and they were girt about the breasts with golden girdles. And one of the four living creatures gave to the seven angels seven golden bowls filled with the wrath of God who lives for ever and ever.
The tent of witness, or the tent of testimony, is a common title in the Old Testament for the tabernacle in the wilderness (Num.9:15; Num.17:7; Num.18:2). It is, therefore, clear that John is seeing this picture, not in terms of the Jerusalem temple, but in terms of the ancient tabernacle.
It is from within the tabernacle that the seven avenging angels come forth. In the centre of the Holy Place within the tabernacle lay the Ark of the Covenant, the chest in which were contained the tables of the ten commandments, the essence of the Law. That is to say, these angels come out from the place where the Law of God rests and come to show that no man or nation can with impunity defy the Law of God.
They are clothed in a shining white robe and are girt about the breasts with a golden girdle. The robes of the angels are symbolic of three things. (a) Their dress is priestly dress. The robe of white fine linen and the gold embroidered girdle about the breast is the dress of the High Priest. The High Priest might well be called God’s representative among men; and these angels come forth as the avenging representatives of God. (b) Their dress is royal dress. The white linen and the high girdle are the garments of princes and of kings; and these angels come forth with the royalty of the King of kings upon them. (c) Their dress is heavenly dress. The young man at the empty tomb of Christ was clothed in a long white garment (Mk.16:5; Matt.28:3); and the angels are the inhabitants of heaven, come to execute God’s decrees upon earth.
It is one of the four living creatures who hands them the bowls of the wrath of God. When we were thinking about the four living creatures when they first emerged on the scene (Rev. 4:7) we saw that the first was like a lion, the second like an ox, the third like a man, and the fourth like an eagle; and that, they may well symbolize all that is strongest and bravest and wisest and swiftest in nature. if that be so, it is fitting that one of them should hand the bowls of wrath to the seven angels. The bowls of wrath are to bring disasters in nature to the world; and the symbolism may well be that nature is handing itself to God to serve his purposes.
THE UNAPPROACHABLE GLORY
Rev. 15:8
And the temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God and from his power, and no one could enter into the temple until the seven plagues of the seven angels had been completed.
The idea of the glory of God being symbolized as smoke is common in the Old Testament. In the vision of Isaiah the whole house was filled with smoke (Isa.6:4).
Further, the idea that no one could approach while the smoke was there is also common in the Old Testament. This was true both of the tabernacle and of the temple. Of the tabernacle it is said: “Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. And Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting, because the cloud abode upon it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle” (Exo.40:34-35). Of the dedication of Solomon’s temple it is said: “And when the priests came out of the holy place, a cloud filled the house of the Lord, so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled the house of the Lord” (1Kgs.8:10-11).
There is a double idea here. There is the idea that the purposes of God will often be clouded to men, for no man can see into the mind of God; and there is the idea that the holiness and the glory of God are such that man in his own right can never approach God.
But R. H. Charles sees more in this passage. No man could come into the temple until the seven plagues of the seven angels have been completed. Charles sees in that a symbolic statement that no approach of man to God can halt the coming judgment.
THE SEVEN BOWLS OF THE WRATH OF GOD
Rev. 16
It will be better to read through the whole chapter before we study it in detail,
1 And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying to the seven angels: Go, and pour out the seven bowls of the wrath of God 2 upon the earth. The first angel went away and poured out his bowl upon the earth, and there came an outbreak of evil and malignant ulcerous sores on the men who had the mark of the beast and who worshipped his image. 3 The second poured out his bowl upon the sea; and it became blood, like the blood of a dead man, and every living thing died of the things in the sea. 4 The third poured out his bowl upon the rivers and the 5 springs of waters, and they became blood. And I heard the angel of the waters saying: You are just, you who are and who were, O Holy One, because you have delivered this 6 judgment. Because they poured out the blood of God’s dedicated ones and of the prophets, you have given them blood to drink. They well deserved it. 7 And I heard the altar saying: Yes, O Lord, the Almighty, true and just are your judgments. 8 The fourth poured out his bowl upon the sun, and it was given 9 power to scorch men with fire; and men were scorched with a great scorching. And men flung their insults at the name of the God who had authority over the plagues, but they did not repent to give him glory. 10 The fifth poured out his bowl upon the throne of the beast, and his kingdom was wrapped in darkness, and men gnawed their tongues in anguish. 11 And men flung their insults at the God of heaven for their pains and their sores, but they did not repent from their deeds. 12 The sixth poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates, and its water was dried up, that the way for the kings from the east might be prepared. 13 I saw three unclean spirits, like frogs, come from the mouth of the dragon, and the mouth of the beast, and the mouth 14 of the false prophet, for they are demonic spirits who perform signs, which go out to the kings of the whole inhabited world, to bring them together for war on the great day of God, the Almighty. 15 (Behold, I come like a thief. Blessed is he who is awake, and who keeps his garments so that he may not walk naked and so that his shame may not be exposed to the gaze of men.) 16 And they gathered them to the place that is called in Hebrew Har Maggedon. 17 The seventh poured out his bowl upon the air and there came a great voice from the Temple.. from the throne, saying: It is done! 18 And there came flashes of lightning and voices and peals of thunder, and a great earthquake such as never happened since mankind was upon the earth, so great was the earthquake. 19 And the great city was split into three parts, and the cities of the nations collapsed. And the great Babylon was remembered before God, to give her the cup of the wine of the wrath of 20 his anger. Every island fled and the mountains were not to be 21 found. Great hailstones, weighing as much as a hundredweight, descended from heaven upon men. And men hurled their insults at God for the plague of the hail, because the plague was exceedingly great.
Here we have the last terrible plagues. They have a certain connection with two things, the ten plagues in Egypt and the terrors which followed the sounding of the seven trumpets in Rev. 8-11. It is worth while to set out the three lists in order to see the resemblances.
First, we set out the ten plagues when Moses confronted Pharaoh with the wrath of God.
(i) The water made into blood (Exo.7:20-25). (ii) The frogs (Exo.8:5-14). (iii) The lice (Exo.8:16-18). (iv) The flies (Exo.8:20-24). (v) The plague on the cattle (Exo.9:3-6). (vi) The boils and sores (Exo.9:8-11). (vii) The thunder and the hail (Exo.9:22-26). (viii) The locusts (Exo.10:12-19). (ix) The darkness (Exo.10:21-23). (x) The slaying of the first-born (Exo.12:29-30).
Second, we set out the terrors which followed the sounding of the seven trumpets.
(i) The coming of hail, fire and blood, through which a third part of the trees and all the green grass are withered (Rev. 8:7). (ii) The flaming mountain cast into the sea, whereby one third of the sea becomes blood (Rev. 8:8). (iii) The fall of the star Wormwood into the waters, whereby the waters become bitter and poisonous (Rev. 8:10-11). (iv) The smiting of one third of the sun and the moon and the stars, whereby all is darkened (Rev. 8:12). (v) The coming of the star who unlocks the pit of the abyss, from which comes the smoke out of which come the demonic locusts (Rev. 9:1-12). (vi) The loosing of the four angels bound in the Euphrates and the coming of the demonic cavalry from the east (Rev. 9:13-21). (vii) The announcement of the final victory of God and of the rebellious anger of the nations (Rev. 11:15).
Third, we set out the terrors of this chapter.
(i) The coming of the ulcerous sores upon men (Rev. 16:2). (ii) The sea becoming like the blood of a dead man (Rev. 16:3). (iii) The rivers and fountains becoming blood (Rev. 16:4). (iv) The sun becoming scorchingly hot (Rev. 16:8). (v) The darkness over the kingdom of the beast, and its agony (Rev. 6:10). (vi) The drying up of the Euphrates to open a way for the hordes of the kings of the east (Rev. 16:12). (vii) The pollution of the air and the accompanying terrors in nature, the thunder, the earthquake, the lightning and the hail (Rev. 16:17-21).
It is easy to see how many things these lists have in common–the hail, the darkness, the blood in the waters, the ulcerous sores, the coming of the terrible hordes from beyond the Euphrates. But in the Revelation there is this difference between the terrors which follow the trumpets and the terrors which follow the pouring out of the bowls. In the former the destruction is always limited, for instance, to one third of the earth; but in the latter the destruction is complete on the enemies of God.
In this final series of terrors John seems to have gathered together the horrors from all the stories of the avenging wrath of God and to have hurled them on the unbelieving world in one last terrible deluge of disaster.
THE TERRORS OF GOD
Rev. 16:1-11
The voice from the temple is the voice of God who is despatching his angelic messengers with their terrors upon men.
The first terror is a plague of malignant and ulcerous sores. The word is the same as is used to describe the boils and the sores in the plague in Egypt (Exo.9:8-11); the pains which will follow disobedience to God (Deut.28:35); the sores of the tortured Job (Jb.2:7).
The second terror is the turning of the waters of the sea into blood; this and the following terror, the turning of the rivers and the springs into blood, is reminiscent of the turning of the waters of the Nile into blood in the days of the plagues in Egypt (Exo.7:17-21). It may be that the thought of a sea of blood came to John in Patmos; often there he must have seen the sea like blood in the dying splendour of the sunset.
In Hebrew thought every natural force–the wind, the sun, the rain, the waters–had its directing angel. These angels were the ministering servants of God, placed in charge of various departments of nature. It might have been thought that the angel of the waters would have been angry to see the waters turned into blood; but even he admits the justice of God’s action. In Rev. 16:6 the reference is to actual persecution in the Roman Empire. God’s dedicated ones are the members of the Christian Church; the prophets are not the Old Testament prophets but the prophets of the Christian Church (1Cor.12:28; Ac.13:1; Eph.4:11), who, being the leaders of the Church, were always the first to suffer in any time of persecution. The grim punishment of those who have shed the blood of the leaders and of the rank and file of the Church is that the waters will be gone from the earth and there will be nothing but blood to drink.
In Rev. 16:7 the voice of the altar praises the justice of the judgments of God. This may be the voice of the angel of the altar, for the altar, too, had its angel; or the idea may be this. The altar in heaven is the place where both the prayers of his people and the lives of his martyrs are offered as a sacrifice to God; and the voice of the altar may be, so to speak, the voice of Christ’s praying and suffering Church praising the justice of God when his wrath falls upon their persecutors.
The fourth terror is the scorching of the world by the sun; the fifth is the coming of the thick darkness, reminiscent of the darkness which came upon Egypt (Exo.10:21-23).
In Rev. 16:9,11 and Rev. 16:21 we have a kind of refrain which runs through this chapter. The men on whom these terrors fell cursed God–but they did not repent, impervious alike to the goodness and to the severity of God (Rom.11:22). It is the picture of men who had no doubt of the existence of God and even saw his hand in events–and who still went their own way.
We are bound to ask ourselves whether we are so very different. We do not doubt the existence of God; we know that God is interested in us and in the world which he has made; we are well aware of God’s laws; we know his goodness and we know that sin has its punishment; and yet time and time again we go our own way.
THE HORDES FROM THE EAST
Rev. 16:12
This gives us a picture of the drying up of the Euphrates and the opening of a way for the hordes of the east to descend upon the world.
One of the curious features of the Old Testament is the number of times when the drying up of the waters is a sign of the power of God. It was so at the Red Sea. “The Lord drove the sea back…and made the sea dry land” (Exo.14:21). It was so at Jordan, when the people under Joshua passed through the river. “All the Israelites passed over on dry ground” (Josh.3:17). In Isaiah the act of the power of God is that he will enable men to pass through the Egyptian sea dry-shod (Isa.11:16). The threat of God’s vengeance in Jeremiah is: “I will dry up her sea, and make her fountain dry” (Jer.51:36). “All the depths of the Nile,” says Zechariah, “shall dry up” (Zech.10:11).
It may well be that here John is actually remembering a famous incident in history. Herodotus tells us (1: 191) that when Cyrus the Persian captured Babylon he did so by drying up the Euphrates. The river flows right through the centre of Babylon. When Cyrus came to Babylon her defences seemed so strong that her capture seemed impossible. Cyrus formed a brilliant plan. He left one section of his army at Babylon and another he took up the river. By a magnificent engineering feat he temporarily deflected the course of the river into a lake. The level of the river dropped and in the end the channel of the river through Babylon became a dry road; along that road there was a breach in the defences and by that road the Persians gained an entry into Babylon, and the city fell.
John is using a picture which was engraved in the minds of all in his generation. The greatest enemies of Rome, the one nation she could not subjugate, were the Parthians who lived beyond the Euphrates. Their cavalry was the most dreaded force of fighting men in the world. For the cavalry of the Parthians to come sweeping across the Euphrates was a thought to strike terror into the bravest heart. Further, as we have already seen, it was to Parthia that Nero was said to have gone; and it was from Parthia that Nero redivivus was expected to come back; in other words, it was from across the Euphrates that the invasion of Antichrist was expected.
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THE UNCLEAN SPIRITS LIKE FROGS
Rev. 16:13-16
These four verses are full of problems which must be solved if their meaning is to become reasonably clear.
Three unclean spirits, like frogs, came out of the mouth of the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet.
In the Greek there is a kind of play on words. The unclean spirits came out of the mouths of the evil forces. The mouth is the organ of speech and speech is one of the most influential forces in the world. Now the word for spirit is pneuma (GSN4151) which is also the word for breath. To say, therefore, that an evil spirit came out of a man’s mouth is the same as to say that an evil breath came out of his mouth. As H. B. Swete puts it, the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet “breathed forth evil influences.”
It is said that the unclean spirits were like frogs.
(i) Frogs are connected with plagues. One of the plagues in Egypt was a plague of frogs (Exo.8:5-11). “He sent frogs…which destroyed them,” says the Psalmist (Ps.78:45). “Their land swarmed with frogs even in the chambers of their kings” (Ps.105:30).
(ii) Frogs are unclean animals. Although not mentioned by name, they are included by definition in the list of unclean things in the water and the sea which begins in Lev.11:10. The frog stands for an unclean influence.
(iii) Frogs are famous for their empty and continuous croaking–brekekekex coax coax, as Aristophanes transliterated it. “The frog,” said Augustine, “is the most loquacious of vanities (Homily on Psalms 77: 27). The sound the frog makes is the symbol of meaningless speech.
(iv) In Zoroastrianism, the Persian religion, frogs are the bringer of plagues and the agent of Ahriman, the power of darkness, in his struggle against Ormuzd, the power of light. It is fairly certain that John would know this bit of Persian lore.
So, then, to say that frogs came out of the mouth of the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet is to say that their words were like plagues, were unclean, were empty futilities, and were the allies of the power of the dark.
THE FALSE PROPHET
Rev. 16:13-16 (continued)
Our next problem is to identify the false prophet. The dragon is identified as Satan (Rev. 12:3,9). The beast, the Roman Empire with its Caesar worship, has already appeared in Rev. 13:1. But this is the first time the false prophet has appeared upon the scene. Since he appears without any explanation, we must assume that John believes that the reader already has the key to his identity.
The false prophet was a figure whom God’s people were well warned to expect both in the Old and in the New Testament. In the Old Testament men are forbidden to listen to the false prophet, however impressive his signs may be, and it is laid down that the punishment for the false prophet is death (Deut.13:1-5). It was part of the regular duty of the Sanhedrin to deal with the false prophet and to condemn him to death. The Christian Church was warned that false Christs and false prophets would arise to seduce Christ’s people (Mk.13:22). H. B. Swete says of these false prophets that the name covers a whole class–“magic-vendors, religious impostors, fanatics, whether deceivers or deceived, regarded as persons who falsely interpret the mind of God. True religion has no worse enemies and Satan no better allies.”
The false prophet is mentioned here and in Rev. 19:20 and Rev. 20:10; if we place two passages together, we will find a clue to his identity. Rev. 19:20 tells us that in the end the false prophet was captured along with the beast and he is described as the person who worked miracles before the beast, and deceived those who had the mark of the beast and worshipped its image. In Rev. 13:13-14 we have a description of the second beast, the beast from the land; it is said that this second beast does great wonders…and that he deceives those who dwell on the earth by means of those miracles which he was allowed to do in the presence of the beast. That is to say, the works of the false prophet and the works of the second beast are identical; so, then, the false prophet and the beast from the land are to be identified. We have already seen that that beast is to be identified with the provincial organisation for the enforcement of emperor worship. The false prophet, then, stands for the organization which seeks to make men worship the emperor and abandon the worship of Jesus Christ.
A man who tries to introduce the worship of other gods, who tries to make men compromise with the state or with the world, who tries to seduce other men from the exclusive worship of God is always a false prophet.
ARMAGEDDON
Rev. 16:13-16 (continued)
We have still another problem to solve in this passage. The evil spirits went out and stirred up the kings of all the earth to bring them to battle. The idea of a final conflict between God and the forces of evil is an old one. We find it in Ps.2:2: “The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord, and his anointed.”
This battle was to take place at what the King James and Revised Standard Versions call Armageddon (GSN0717). Moffatt has Harmagedon. The English Revised Version has Har-Magedon. Even the name is uncertain.
Magedon or Maggedon may well be connected with the name Megiddo (HSN4023). Megiddo is in the Plain of Esdraelon, which was part of the great highway from Egypt to Damascus. From the most ancient times to the time of Napoleon it was one of the great battle-grounds of the world. This was the plain where Barak and Deborah overthrew Sisera and his chariots (Judg.5:19-21); where Ahaziah died by the arrows of Jehu (2Kgs.9:27); where the good Josiah perished in battle with Pharaoh Necho (2Kgs.23:29-30), a tragedy which burned itself into the Jewish mind and which the Jews never forgot (Zech.12:11). It was a battle-ground, as H. B. Swete says, “familiar to a student of Hebrew history.”
Armageddon (GSN0717) would mean the city of Megiddo; Harmagedon would mean the mountain (compare har, HSN2022) of Megiddo. It is most likely that the latter form is right, and yet the plain seems a much more likely battle-ground than the mountains. But there is another strand to add to this. When Ezekiel was describing the last struggle with Gog and Magog, he said that the final victory would be won in the mountains of Israel (Eze.38:8; Eze.38:21; Eze.39:2,4; Eze.39:17). It may well be that John spoke of the Mount of Megiddo to bring his story into line with the ancient prophecy.
By far the most likely view is that the word is Har-Magedon, and that it describes the region near Megiddo in the Plain of Esdraelon which was perhaps the most storied of all battle-grounds in Jewish history.
We must mention two other views of this strange word. Gunkel thought that it went back to the old Babylonian story of the struggle between Marduk, the creator, and Tiamat, the ancient power of chaos. But it is less than likely that John knew that story.
Another view connects it with Isa.14:13 where Lucifer is made to say: “Above the stars of God I will set my throne on high; I will sit on the mount of assembly.” The Babylonians believed that there was a mountain called Aralu in the north country, which, rather like Olympus in Greece, was the home of the gods. Lucifer is going to take his seat among the gods; it has been suggested that the Mount of Mageddon is this mountain, and that the picture is of a last battle against the assembled gods in their own dwelling-place.
NATURE AT WAR
Rev. 16:17-21
The seventh bowl was poured out upon the air. H. B. Swete speaks of “the air that all men breathe.” If the air was polluted, the very life of man was attacked at its source. Nature became at war with man. That was what happened. There came lightning and thunder and earthquake. The first century was notable for earthquakes, but John says that, whatever horror the world has known from the shaking earth, the earthquake to come will far surpass them all.
The great Babylon, that is Rome, is split into three. Rome had thought that she could do as she liked with impunity–but now her sin was remembered and her fate was on the way. The mills of God may grind slowly but in the end there is no escape for sin.
The earthquake sank the islands and levelled the mountains. The last of the terrible features was a deadly hail in which the hailstones weighed as much as a hundredweight. Here is another recurring feature of the manifestations of the wrath of God. A devastating hail was part of the plagues of Egypt (Exo.9:24). In the battle with the five Amorite kings at Beth-horon, under Joshua, there came a great hail upon the enemies of Israel so that more died by the hailstones than died by the sword (Josh.10:11). Isaiah speaks of the tempest of hail and the destroying storm which God in his judgment will send (Isa.28:2). Ezekiel speaks of God pleading with men with pestilence and blood, and sending an overflowing rain, and great hailstones, fire, and brimstone (Eze.38:22).
The emptying of the seven bowls of wrath upon the earth ends with the chorus which has run all through the chapter. The men to whom these things happened remained impervious to any appeal of God’s love or God’s anger. God has given men the terrible responsibility of being able to lock their hearts against him.
Rev. 17-18 tell of the fall of Babylon. Rev. 17 is one of the most difficult in the Revelation. The best way in which to study it is first to read it as a whole; then to make certain general identifications and so to see the general line of thought in it; and finally to study it in some detail. This will involve a certain amount of repetition, but in a section like this repetition is necessary.
THE FALL OF ROME
Rev. 17
1 One of the seven angels, who had the seven bowls, came and spoke with me. “Come here,” he said, “and I will show you the judgment of the great harlot, who sits upon many waters, 2 with whom the kings of the earth committed fornication and with the wine of whose adultery those who inhabit the earth have become drunken.” 3 He carried me away in the Spirit to a desert place, and I saw a woman, seated upon a scarlet beast, which was full of names which were insults to God, and which had seven heads and ten horns. 4 The woman was clothed in purple and scarlet and bedizened with gold and jewellery and pearls. She had in her hand a golden cup, full of abominations and the unclean things of her fornication. 5 And on her forehead there was written a name with a meaning which was secret except to those who knew its meaning: “Babylon, the great, the mother of the harlots and the abominations of the earth.” I saw the woman, drunk 6 with the blood of God’s dedicated people and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. When I saw her I was stricken 7 with a great wonder. The angel said to me: “Why are you moved to wonder? I will tell you the secret meaning of the woman and of the beast who bears her and has the seven 8 heads and the ten horns. The beast, which you saw, was and is not, and is about to come up from the abyss, and is on the way to destruction; and the inhabitants of the earth, whose names are not written in the Book of Life from the foundation of the world will be stricken with wonder, when they see the beast, because it was, and is not, and 9 will come. Here there is need for a mind with wisdom. The seven heads are seven hills on which the woman sits. They 10 are also seven kings. Five have fallen; one at present exists; another has not yet come, and, when he shall come, he 11 must remain for a short time. The beast, which was and is not, is itself the eighth. It proceeds from the series of the seven and it is on the way to destruction. 12 The ten heads you saw are ten kings, who have not yet received their royal authority, but they are to receive authority as kings 13 for one hour in the company of the beast. They have one mind in common and they hand over power and authority to the beast. 14 These shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb will conquer them, because he is the Lord of lords and the King of kings, and the called, the chosen and the loyal will share his victory.” 15 And he went on to say to me: “The waters which you saw, on which the harlot is seated, are peoples and crowds and nations and tongues. 16 The ten horns, which you saw, and the beast will hate the harlot, and will make her desolate and naked, and will devour her flesh, and will burn her in the fire; for it is God who 17 has put it into their minds to perform his purpose, and to be of one mind to give their royal power to the beast, until the words of God shall be fulfilled. 18 And the woman which you saw is the great city which has dominion over the kings of the earth.”
1. THE WOMAN ON THE BEAST
The woman is Babylon, that is to say, Rome. The woman is said (Rev. 17:1) to sit upon many waters. In this picture of Rome, John was using many of the things said by the prophets about ancient Babylon. In Jer.51:13 Babylon is addressed as: “O you who dwell by many waters.” The river Euphrates actually ran through the midst of Babylon; and she was also the centre of a system of irrigation canals, spreading out in every direction. When this description is applied to Rome, it does not make sense. Later in Rev. 17:15, John realizes this and gives the waters a symbolic interpretation as the many nations and peoples and tongues over whom Rome rules. For this way of speaking, also, we must look to the Old Testament. When Isaiah is forecasting the invasion of Palestine by Assyria, he writes: “Therefore, behold, the Lord is bringing up against them the waters of the River, mighty and many, the king of Assyria and all his glory; and it will rise over all its channels and go over all its banks; and it will sweep on into Judah, it will overflow and pass on, reaching even to the neck” (Isa.8:7-8). Again, when Jeremiah is prophesying the coming invasion, he uses the same picture: “Behold, waters are rising out of the north, and shall become an overflowing torrent; they shall overflow the land, and all that fills it” (Jer.7:2).
In Rev. 17:4 the woman is said to be clothed in purple and scarlet and decked with all kinds of ornaments. This is symbolic of the luxury of Rome and of the meretricious and lustful way in which it was used, the picture of a wealthy courtesan, decked out in all her finery to seduce men.
The woman is said to have in her hand a golden cup, full of abominations. Here we have another picture of Babylon taken direct from the prophetic condemnation of the Old Testament. Jeremiah said: “Babylon was a golden cup in the Lord’s hand, making all the earth drunken; the nations drank of her wine; therefore the nations went mad” (Jer.51:7). So Rome is said to hold the golden cup in which is that power of seduction which has spread immorality over all the earth.
The woman is said to have a name on her forehead (Rev. 17:5). In Rome the prostitutes in the public brothels wore upon their foreheads a frontlet giving their names. This is another vivid detail in the picture of Rome as the great corrupting prostitute among the nations.
In Rev. 17:6 the woman is said to be drunk with the blood of God’s dedicated people and with the blood of the martyrs. This is a reference to the persecution of the Christians in the Roman Empire. But it does more than simply stamp Rome as the great persecutor. She is glutted with slaughter; and she has revelled in that slaughter as a drunken man revels in wine.
In Rev. 17:16 she is to be destroyed by the invasion of the ten kings. This we shall discuss more fully when we come to discuss the symbolism of the beast. It is sufficient to say just now that it foretells the destruction of Rome by the rising against her of her subject nations. It is as if to say that the great prostitute will in the end be destroyed by her lovers turning against her.
2. THE BEAST
It is much harder to fix the meaning of the beast than of the woman, mainly because the meaning of the beast does not stay steady. The beast has a series of interconnected meanings, whose point of union is that they are all closely connected with Rome and with her empire.
(i) The woman sits on the beast and the beast is filled with blasphemous names which are all insults to God (Rev. 17:3). If the woman is Rome, clearly the beast is the Roman Empire. It is full of blasphemous names. This includes two things. First, it is a reference to the many gods of which the Roman Empire was full. All these names are insults to God, for they are all infringements of his supreme and unique authority. No one has the right to the name of god save only the true God. Second, it is a reference to many of the titles of the emperor. The emperor was Sebastos, or Augustus, which means to be reverenced; and reverence belongs to God alone. The emperor was divus or theios (GSN2304), which, the first in Latin and the second in Greek, mean divine; and to God alone belongs that adjective. Many of the emperors were called soter (GSN4990), saviour, which is uniquely the title of Jesus Christ. Most common of all, the emperor was in Latin dominus and in Greek kurios (GSN2962), lord, which is the very name of God.
(ii) The beast has seven heads and ten horns (Rev. 17:3). This is a repetition of what is said of the beast in Rev. 13:1, and we shall very soon return to its meaning here.
(iii) The beast was, and is not, and is about to come (Rev. 17:8). This goes back to Rev. 13:3,12,14 and is a clear reference to the Nero redivivus legend, which is never far from the mind of John. We have already seen that the ideas of Nero resurrected and of Antichrist had become inseparably connected. Therefore, in this passage the beast stands for Antichrist.
(iv) The beast has seven heads. These are doubly explained.
(a) In Rev. 17:9 the seven heads are seven hills. Here we have an easy identification. Rome was the city upon seven hills; this once again identifies the beast with Rome.
(b) The second identification is one of the riddles of the Revelation (Rev. 17:10-11).
They (the heads) are also seven kings. Five have fallen; one at present exists; another has not yet come, and, when he shall come, he must remain for a short time. The beast, which was and is not, is itself the eighth. ]t proceeds from the series of the seven, and it is on its way to destruction.
Five have fallen. The Roman Empire began with Augustus; and the first five emperors were Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and Nero. These, then, are the five who have fallen. We have already seen that after the death of Nero there were two years of chaos in which Galba, Otho and Vitellius followed each other in quick succession. They were not in any real sense emperors and cannot be included in any list.
One at present exists. This must be Vespasian, the first emperor to bring back stability to the empire, after the chaos following the death of Nero; he reigned from A.D. 69-79.
Another has not yet come, and, when he shall come, he must remain for a short time. Vespasian was succeeded by Titus, whose reign lasted for only two years from 79-81.
The beast which was, and is not, is itself the eighth. It proceeds from the series of the seven, and is on its way to destruction. This can only mean that the emperor who followed Titus is being identified with Nero redivivus and Antichrist; and the emperor who followed Titus was Domitian.
Can Domitian reasonably be identified with the evil force which Nero redivivus personified? We turn to the life of Domitian written by Suetonius the Roman biographer, remembering that Suetonius was not a Christian. Domitian, as Suetonius tells, was an object of terror and hatred to all. We get a grim picture of him at the beginning of his reign. “He used to spend hours in seclusion every day, doing nothing but catch flies and stab them with a keenly-sharpened stylus.” Any psychologist would find that a curiously revealing picture. He was insanely jealous and insanely suspicious. He formed a homosexual attachment for a famous actor called Paris. One of the pupils of Paris so much resembled his teacher that it was not unreasonable to suppose that he was his son; the lad was promptly murdered. Hermogenes, the historian, wrote things which Domitian did not like; he was executed, and the scribe who had copied the manuscript was crucified. Senators were slaughtered right and left. Sallustius Lucullus, governor of Britain, was executed because he allowed a new type of lance to be called Lucullan. Domitian revived the old punishment of having his victims stripped naked, fixed by the neck in a fork of wood and beaten to death with rods. He put down a civil war that broke out in the provinces. Suetonius goes on: “After his victory in the civil war he became even more cruel, and, to discover any conspirators who were in hiding, tortured many of the opposite party by a new form of inquisition, inserting fire in their privates; and he cut off the hands of some of them.”
Early in his reign he appeared wearing a golden crown with the figures of Jupiter, Juno and Minerva in it, while the priest of Jupiter sat by his side. When he received back his divorced wife, he announced that she had returned to the divine couch. When he entered the amphitheatre, he loved to be greeted with the cry: “Good fortune attend our lord and his lady.” He began his official edicts: “Our lord and god bids this to be done.” Soon that was the only way in which he might be addressed.
He was so suspicious that he never gave prisoners a hearing in private, and, even when he heard them with his guards present, they were chained. He so feared for his own life that he had the passages and colonnades through which he moved tiled with phlengite stone, which is like a mirror, so that he could see anyone who was moving behind him. Finally, on 18 September, A.D. 96, he was murdered in the bloodiest circumstances.
To all this we may add a final fact; it was Domitian who first made Caesar worship compulsory and who was, therefore, responsible for unloosing the flood-tides of persecution on the Christian Church.
It might well be that John saw in Domitian the reincarnation of Nero. Others did precisely the same. Juvenal spoke of Rome being “enslaved to a bald-headed Nero” (Domitian was bald) and was exiled and finally murdered for his temerity. Tertullian called Domitian “a man of Nero’s type of cruelty,” and “a sub-Nero,” a verdict which Eusebius repeated.
The one difficulty is that it makes it look as if John wrote in the reign of Vespasian; and we know that John in fact wrote under Domitian. Two possibilities may explain this. John may have written this particular vision years before in the time of Vespasian, lived to see it come terribly true and incorporated it in his final draft of the Revelation. Or he may have written it all in the reign of Domitian, and, projected himself back into the time of Vespasian to trace in retrospect the terrible lines that history had taken.
However we explain it, the picture is satisfied if we hold that John saw in Domitian the reincarnation of Nero, the supreme embodiment of Roman wickedness and defiance of God; we need not go on to say that he identified Domitian with Antichrist.
There remains one problem in identification and it is less susceptible of definite solution than the others. In Rev. 17:12-17 it is said that the ten horns are ten kings who have not yet received their power. They will receive it, and when they do, two things will happen. They will unanimously agree to hand over their own power to the beast; and with him they will rise against the harlot and make war with the Lamb and finally be defeated.
By far the likeliest interpretation of this is that the ten kings are the satraps of the Parthian hosts, who will make common cause with Nero redivivus and under him fight the last battle in which Rome will be destroyed and the Lamb will subdue every hostile force in the universe.
THE CITY WHICH BECAME A HARLOT
Rev. 17:1-2
In these two verses Rome is described as the great harlot. More than once in the Old Testament heathen and disobedient cities are described as harlots. It is thus that Nahum describes Nineveh, when he speaks of the multitude of the whoredoms of the well-favoured harlot (Nah.3:4). It is thus that Isaiah describes Tyre (Isa.23:16-17). Even Jerusalem can be so described. “How the faithful city has become a harlot!” mourns Isaiah (Isa.1:21). And the charge of Ezekiel is: “You trusted in your beauty and played the harlot” (Eze.16:15).
It is a way of speaking which is strange to modern ears; but there is great symbolism behind it.
(i) Behind it is the idea of God as the lover of the souls of his people. Primasius, the old Latin commentator, says that Rome is called a harlot, because “she left her Creator and prostituted herself with devils.” When we turn our backs upon God, it is not so much a sin against law as a sin against love.
(ii) There is another idea behind this. Beckwith suggests that Rome is called the great harlot, because she is “an allurement to godlessness and immorality.” The sin of the harlot is not only that she sins herself, but also that she deliberately persuades others into sin. God will never hold guiltless the man who seduces others into sin.
THE VISION IN THE WILDERNESS
Rev. 17:3
John says that he was carried away in the Spirit to a desert place.
The prophet is a man who lives in the Spirit. “The Spirit,” said Ezekiel, “lifted me up and took me away” (Eze.3:14). “The Spirit lifted me up between earth and heaven, and brought me in visions of God to Jerusalem” (Eze.8:3). “And the Spirit lifted me up, and brought me in the vision by the Spirit of God into Chaldea to the exiles” (Eze.11:24). It is not that the Spirit physically moves a man about from place to place; but, when a man lives in the Spirit, his horizons are widened; he may live in time, but he becomes a spectator of eternity. The prophets could see the trends of history ahead because they lived in the Spirit.
One of the ever-recurring features of the Bible story is that it was in the desert that the great men of God saw their visions. It was in the wilderness that Moses met God (Exo.3:1). It was when he had gone a day’s journey into the wilderness that Elijah met God and regained his courage and his faith (1Kgs.19:4). It was in the wilderness that John the Baptist grew to manhood and it was there that he received his message from God (Lk.1:80). It was to the wilderness that Jesus went to settle the way he would take before he set out to preach and teach and die for men and for God (Matt.4:1).
It may well be that there is not enough quietness in our lives for us to receive the message which God is eager to give.
THE GREAT HARLOT
Rev. 17:4-5
These verses give us a vivid picture of the great harlot. She is clothed in purple and scarlet, the royal colours, the colours of luxury and splendour. She is bedecked with gold and precious stones and pearls. She has the golden cup with which she makes her lovers drunk. She has the harlot’s frontlet on her forehead with her name. The name is a mystery. In Greek a musterion (GSN3466) is not necessarily something abstruse; it is something quite unintelligible to the uninitiated but crystal clear to the initiated. The mystery in this case is that Babylon means Rome; the thing which the stranger does not know, but which the Christian reader does know, is that while the story is told under the name of Babylon everything relates to Rome.
(i) John may have got this picture from the temple prostitutes of Asia Minor. One of the strange features of ancient religion was that to many temples there were attached sacred prostitutes; there were, for instance, a thousand of them attached to the Temple of Aphrodite at Corinth. To have intercourse with them was an act of worship which paid homage to the life force.
(ii) John possibly had in mind the most notorious of all the Roman Empresses, Messalina. She was the wife of the weak and almost imbecile Claudius; and it is related of her that at nights she would go down to the public brothels and serve there like any common prostitute. Juvenal paints the picture in vivid terms (Satire 6: 114-132): “Hear what Claudius endured. As soon as his wife perceived that her husband was asleep, this august harlot was shameless enough to prefer a common mat to the imperial couch. Assuming a night-cowl, and attended by a single maid she issued forth; then, having concealed her raven locks under a light-coloured peruque, she took her place in a brothel reeking with long-used coverlets. Entering an empty cell reserved for herself, she there took her stand, under the feigned name of Lycisca, her nipples bare and gilded, and exposed to view the womb that bore thee, O nobly-born Britannicus. Here she graciously received all comers, asking from each his fee; and when at length the keeper dismissed the girls, she remained to the very last before closing her cell, and with passion still raging hot within her went sorrowfully away. Then, exhausted by men but unsatisfied, with soiled cheeks, and begrimed by the smoke of the lamps, she took back to the imperial pillow all the odours of the stews.”
When even an empress stooped to this, is there any wonder that John thought of Rome as a harlot?
The cup of the harlot Rome is full of unclean things. Lest it be thought that this is the verdict of some narrow-minded Christian, let it be remembered that Tacitus called Rome “the place into which from all over the world all atrocious and shameful things flow and where they are most popular,” and Seneca called her “a filthy sewer.” John’s picture of Rome is actually restrained in comparison with some of the pictures which the Romans themselves drew. This was the civilization into which Christianity came; and it was out of this that men were converted to chastity. We may well speak of the miracles of the Cross.
DRUNK WITH THE BLOOD OF THE SAINTS AND THE MARTYRS
Rev. 17:6
As we have already pointed out in the general introduction to this chapter, the way in which John describes Roman persecution is very significant. He says that Rome is drunk with the blood of the saints and the martyrs. The implication is that Rome did not simply persecute the Christians as a legal necessity but took fiendish delight in hounding Christians to death.
No doubt John is thinking of the persecution which took place under Nero. The Neronic persecution sprang from the great fire in A.D. 64 which burned for a week and devastated Rome. The people of Rome were convinced that the fire was no accident; they were also convinced that those who tried to extinguish it were hindered and that when it died down, it was deliberately rekindled; and they were also convinced that the instigator of the fire was Nero. Nero had a passion for building, and the people believed that he had deliberately burned down the city in order to rebuild it.
Nero had to find a scapegoat to divert suspicion from himself; and he fixed on the Christians. This was the first great persecution and in many ways the most savage of all. We quote Tacitus’ description in full because it is one of the few passages in pagan literature where the name of Christ occurs (Tacitus: Annals 15: 44):
All human efforts, all the lavish gifts of the emperor (Nero), and the propitiations of the gods, did not banish the sinister belief that the conflagration was the result of an order. Consequently to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius, at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred of mankind. Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs, and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burned, to serve as a nightly illumination when daylight had expired…. Hence, even for criminals who deserved extreme and exemplary punishment, there arose a feeling of compassion, for it was not, as it seemed for the public good, but to glut one man’s cruelty that they were being destroyed.
THE REINCARNATION OF EVIL
Rev. 17:7-11
In the introduction to this chapter we have already seen that the likeliest explanation is that John is projecting himself backwards into the reign of Vespasian. The five who have been are Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero; the one who is is Vespasian; the one who is to come and who is to last for only a very short time is Titus; the one who is to be the equivalent of the head wounded and restored, who is to be Nero all over again, is Domitian, the man of savage cruelty. Lying behind all this imagery are three permanent truths.
(i) Even when Nero died, his wickedness lived on and John sees it re-emerging in Domitian, the new Nero. Everyone leaves something behind in this world. It may be a memory which is a helper of all that is fine and good; it may be an evil influence which lays a trail of trouble for many generations to come. Every man’s life points somewhere; he must see that it points to goodness and to God.
(ii) In Rev. 17:8 we read that those whose names have not been written in the Book of Life will be dazzled at the coming of the evil one. There are always those who can be dazzled by evil. The one way to avoid its fascination is to keep our eyes on Jesus Christ. Then evil is seen for what it is.
(iii) In Rev. 17:11 we read that the beast is on his way to destruction. However great the success of evil may be, it has in it the seeds of self-destruction. He who allies himself with evil has chosen the losing side.
THE PURPOSES OF MAN AND THE PURPOSES OF GOD
Rev. 17:12-18
This passage speaks of the ten kings whom the ten horns represent. It is likely that the ten kings are the satraps of the East and of Parthia whom the resurrected Nero, the Antichrist, is to lead against Rome. Or they may simply stand for all the world powers which in the end will turn against Rome and destroy her. We note certain things in this passage.
(i) In Rev. 17:14 we read that these world powers war with the Lamb but the Lamb destroys them; and the called, the chosen and the loyal share in the victory of the Lamb. One of the great conceptions of Jewish thought was that the saints and the martyrs would share in God’s final triumph. “Sinners,” says Enoch, “shall be delivered into the hands of the righteous” (Enoch 91: 12). “Be hopeful, ye righteous,” says Enoch again, “for suddenly shall the sinners perish before you, and ye shall have lordship over them according to your desires” (Enoch 96: 1). In a grim passage the same book says: “Woe to you who love the deeds of unrighteousness…. Know that you shall be delivered into the hands of the righteous, and they shall cut off your necks and slay you, and have no mercy upon you” (Enoch 98: 12). In the Wisdom of Solomon there is the same promise to those who have lived and suffered and died for God. “Having borne a little chastening, they shall receive great good, because God made trial of them and found them worthy of himself. As gold in the furnace he proved them, and as a whole burnt-offering he accepted them. And in the time of their visitation they shall shine forth, and as sparks among the stubble they shall run to and fro. They shall judge nations and have dominion over peoples” (Wis.3:5-8). It is no doubt this belief that was in the minds of James and John when they came and asked Jesus for the places on his right and his left when he entered into his kingdom (Matt.20:21; Mk.10:37).
This Jewish thought has two aspects, one noble and one subchristian. The subchristian one is that there were times when this became nothing other than a thirst for vengeance; but who shall blame the persecuted for longing for the day when the world’s roles will be reversed in eternity? The noble idea is that the saints and martyrs will aid Christ to win his triumph and share in the glory. It is an affirmation that for us, too, after the Cross comes the crown.
(ii) Rev. 17:16 gives a picture of the ten horns rising violently against the harlot who had been their mistress. They will devour her flesh. In the Old Testament that is the action of a most savage and powerful enemy. It is the complaint of the Psalmist that the wicked ate up his flesh (Ps.27:2; King James Version). The wicked in Israel, with their grasping oppression, eat the flesh of the people of God (Mic.3:3). This is a picture of terrible vengeance. They will burn her in the fire. This is the punishment for the most heinous sin (Lev.20:14), and above all the punishment for the daughter of a priest who has been guilty of sexual immorality (Lev.21:9).
It is to be noted that the harlot’s previous lovers turned against her. Evil has in it a divisive power.
(iii) In Rev. 17:12-13 we read of the ten kings making common purpose with the beast; and in Rev. 17:17 we read that God put this into their hearts that his purposes might be carried out and his words fulfilled. Here is a strange thing. These evil powers thought they were working out their own purposes but they were, in fact, working out the purposes of God. R. H. Charles says: “Even the wrath of men is made to praise God.” The truth behind this is that God never loses control of human affairs. In the last analysis God is always working things together for good.
THE DOOM OF ROME
Rev. 18:1-3
After these things I saw another angel coming down from heaven. He had great authority and the earth was lit up by his glory. He cried with a loud voice saying: “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great. She has become a dwelling-place of demons, and a stronghold of every unclean spirit, and a stronghold of every unclean and hated bird, because the nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth have grown rich.with the wealth of her wantonness.”
In this chapter we have a form of prophetic literature common in the prophetic books of the Old Testament. This is what is called “A Doom Song,” the doom song of the city of Rome.
We quote certain Old Testament parallels. In Isa.13:19-22 we have the doom song of ancient Babylon:
And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the splendour and pride of the Chaldeans, will be like Sodom and Gomorrah when God overthrew them. It will never be inhabited or dwelt in for all generations; no Arab will pitch his tent there, no shepherds will make their flocks lie down there. But wild beasts will lie down there, and its houses will be full of howling creatures; there ostriches will dwell, and there satyrs will dance. Hyenas will cry in its towers, and jackals in the pleasant palaces; its time is close at hand and its days will not be prolonged.
In Isa.34:11-15 we have the doom song of Edom:
But the hawk and the porcupine shall possess it, the owl and the raven shall dwell in it. He shall stretch the line of confusion over it, and the plummet of chaos over its nobles…. Thorns shall grow over its strongholds, nettles and thistles in its fortresses. It shall be the haunt of jackals, an abode for ostriches. And wild beasts shall meet with hyenas, the satyr shall cry to his fellow; yea, there shall the night hag alight, and find for herself a resting place. There shall the owl nest and lay and hatch and gather her young in her shadow; yea, there shall the kites be gathered, each one with her mate.
Jer.50:39 and Jer.51:37 are part of doom songs of Babylon:
Therefore wild beasts shall dwell with hyenas in Babylon, and ostriches shall dwell in her; she shall be peopled no more for ever, nor inhabited for all generations. And Babylon shall become a heap of ruins, the haunt of jackals, a horror and a hissing without inhabitant.
In Zeph.2:13-15 we have the doom song of Nineveh:
And he will make Nineveh a desolation, a dry waste like the desert. Herds shall lie down in the midst of her, all the beasts of the field; the vulture and the hedgehog shall lodge in her capitals; the owl shall hoot in the window, the raven croak on the threshold; for her cedar work will be laid bare. This is the exultant city that dwelt secure, that said to herself, “I am and there is none else.” What a desolation she has become, a lair for wild beasts! Every one who passes by her hisses and shakes his fist.
In spite of their grim foretelling of ruin these passages are all great poetry of passion. It may be that here we are far from the Christian doctrine of forgiveness; but we are very close to the beating of the human heart.
In our passage the angel charged with the message of doom comes with the very light of God upon him. No doubt John was thinking of Eze.43:1-2: “He brought me to the gate, the gate facing east; and behold the glory of the God of Israel came from the east; and the sound of his coming was like the sound of many waters; and the earth shone with his glory.” H. B. Swete writes of this angel: “So recently he has come from the Presence that in passing he brings a broad belt of light across the dark earth.”
So certain is John of the doom of Rome, that he speaks of it as if it had already happened.
We note one other point. Surely the most dramatic part of the picture is the demons haunting the ruins. The pagan gods banished from their reign disconsolately haunt the ruins of the temples where once their power had been supreme.
COME YE OUT!
Rev. 18:4-5
I heard another voice from heaven saying: “Come out, my people, from her, lest you become partners in her sins, and lest you share in her plagues, because her sins are piled as high as heaven, and God has remembered her unrighteous deeds.”
The Christians are bidden come out of Rome before the day of destruction comes, lest, sharing in her sins, they also share in her doom. H. B. Swete says that this call to come out rings through Hebrew history. God is always calling upon his people to cut their connection with sin and to stand with him and for him.
It was the call which came to Abraham: “Now the Lord said to Abraham, Go from your country, and your kindred, and your father’s house, to the land that I will show you” (Gen.12:1). It was the call that came to Lot, before the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah: “Up, get out of this place, for the Lord is about to destroy the city” (Gen.19:12-14). It was the call that came to Moses in the days of the wickedness of Korah, Dathan and Abiram: “Get away from about the dwelling of Korah, Dathan and Abiram…. Depart, I pray you, from the tents of these wicked men” (Num.16:23-26). “Go forth from Babylon,” said Isaiah, “flee from Chaldea” (Isa.48:20). “Flee from the midst of Babylon,” said Jeremiah, “and go out of the land of the Chaldeans” (Jer.50:8). “Flee from the midst of Babylon, let every man save his life” (Jer.51:6). “Go out of the midst of her people. Let every man save his life from the fierce anger of the Lord” (Jer.51:45). It is a cry which finds its echo in the New Testament. Paul writes to the Corinthians: “Do not be mismated with unbelievers. For what partnership have righteousness and iniquity? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial?” (2Cor.6:14-15). “Do not participate in another man’s sins; keep yourself pure” (1Tim.5:22).
Swete well points out that this cry and challenge do not involve a coming out at a definite moment. They imply a certain “aloofness of spirit maintained in the very heart of the world’s traffic.” They describe the essential apartness of the Christian from the world. The commonest word for the Christian in the New Testament is the Greek hagios (GSN0040), whose basic meaning is different. The Christian is not conformed to the world but transformed from the world (Rom.12:2). It is not a question of retiring from the world; it is a question of living differently within the world.
Я
THE DOOM OF PRIDE
Rev. 18:6-8
Repay her in the coin with which she paid others; and repay her double for her deeds. Mix her a double draught in the cup in which she mixed her draughts. In proportion to her boasting and her wantonness give her torture and grief, for she says in her heart: “I sit a queen: I am not a widow; grief is something that I will never see.” Because of this her plagues will come upon her in one day–pestilence and grief and famine and she will be burned with fire, because the Lord God who judges her is strong.
This passage speaks in terms of punishment. But the instruction to exact vengeance on Rome is not an instruction to men; it is an instruction to the angel, the divine instrument of justice. Vengeance belongs to God, and to God alone. We have here two truths which we must remember.
(i) There is in life a law by which a man sows that which he reaps. Even in the Sermon on the Mount we find an expression of that law: “The measure you give will be the measure you get” (Matt.7:2). The double punishment and the double reward come from the fact that frequently in Jewish law anyone responsible for loss or damage had to repay it twice over (Exo.22:4,7,9). “O daughter of Babylon, you devastator!” says the Psalmist, “happy shall he be who requites you with what you have done to us” (Ps.137:8). “Requite her according to her deeds,” says Jeremiah of Babylon, “Do to her according to all that she has done; for she has proudly defied the Lord, the Holy One of Israel” (Jer.50:29). There is no getting away from the fact that punishment follows sin, especially if that sin has involved the cruel treatment of fellowmen.
(ii) We meet here the stern truth that all pride will one day be humiliated. Rome’s supreme sin has been pride. It is in Old Testament terms that John speaks. He reproduces the ancient judgment on Babylon:
You said, “I shall be mistress for ever,” so that you did not lay these things to heart or remember their end. Now therefore hear this, you lover of pleasures, who sit securely, who say in your heart, “I am, and there is no one besides me; I shall not sit as a widow or know the loss of children”: These two things shall come to you in a moment, in one day; the loss of children and widowhood shall come upon you in full measure, in spite of your many sorceries and the great power of your enchantments.
Nothing rouses such condemnation as pride, Isaiah speaks grimly: “Because the daughters of Zion are haughty, and walk with outstretched necks, glancing wantonly with their eyes, mincing along as they go, tinkling with their feet the Lord will smite with a scab the heads of the daughters of Zion” (Isa.3:16-17). Tyre is condemned because she has said: “I am perfect in beauty” (Eze.27:3).
There is a sin which the Greek called hubris (GSN5196), which is that arrogance, that comes to feel that it has no need of God. The punishment for that sin is ultimate humiliation.
THE LAMENT OF THE KINGS
Rev. 18:9-10
The kings of the earth, who committed fornication with her and who shared in her wantonness, will weep and lament over her, when they will see the smoke of her burning, while they stand afar off because of the fear of her torture, while they say: “Alas! Alas! for the city that seemed so strong, for Babylon the strong city! for in one hour your judgment is come.”
In the rest of this chapter we have the dirges for Rome; the dirge sung by the kings (Rev. 18:9-10), the dirge sung by the merchants (Rev. 18:11-16), the dirge sung by the shipmasters and the sailors (Rev. 18:17-19). Again and again we hear of the greatness, the wealth and the wanton luxury of Rome.
We may well ask whether John’s indictment is justified or whether he is merely a fanatic shouting doom without any real justification. If we wish to find an account of the luxury and the wantonness of Rome we will find it in such books as Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius, by Samuel Dill, Roman Life and Manners, by Ludwig Friedlander, and especially in the Satires of Juvenal, the Lives of the Caesars by Suetonius, and the works of Tacitus, themselves Romans and themselves appalled by the things about which they wrote. These books show that nothing John could say of Rome could be an exaggeration.
There is a saying in the Talmud that ten measures of wealth came down into the world and that Rome received nine and all the rest of the world only one. One famous scholar said that in modern times we are babes in the matter of enjoyment compared with the ancient world; and another remarked that our most extravagant luxury is poverty compared with the prodigal magnificence of ancient Rome.
In that ancient world there was a kind of desperate competition in ostentation. It was said of Caligula that “he strove, most of all to realize what men deemed impossible,” and it was said that “the desire of the incredible” was the great characteristic of Nero. Dill says: “The senator who paid too low a rent, or rode along the Appian or Flaminian Way with too scanty a train, became a marked man and immediately lost caste.”
In this first century the world was pouring its riches into the lap of Rome. As Dill has it: “The long peace, the safety of the seas, and the freedom of trade, had made Rome the entrepot for the peculiar products and delicacies of every land from the British Channel to the Ganges.” Pliny talks of a meal in which in one dish India was laid under contribution, in another Egypt, Cyrene, Crete and so forth. Juvenal speaks of the seas peopled with great keels and of greed luring ships on expeditions to every land. Aristides has a purple passage on the way in which things flowed into Rome. “Merchandise is brought from every land and sea, everything that every season begets, and every country produces, the products of rivers and lakes, the arts of the Greeks and the barbarians, so that, if anyone were to wish to see all these things, he would either have to visit the whole inhabited world to see them–or to visit Rome; so many great ships arrive from all over the world at every hour, at every season, that Rome is like some common factory of the world, for you may see such great cargoes from the Indies, or, if you wish, from the blessed Arabias, that you might well conjecture that the trees there have been stripped naked; clothing from Babylon, ornaments from the barbarian lands, everything flows to Rome; merchandise, cargoes, the products of the land, the emptying of the mines, the product of every art that is and has been, everything that is begotten and everything that grows. If there is anything you cannot see at Rome, then it is a thing which does not exist and which never existed.”
The money possessed and the money spent was colossal. One of Nero’s freedman could regard a man with a fortune of 652,000 British pounds as a pauper. Apicius squandered a fortune of 1,000,000 British pounds in refined debauchery, and committed suicide when he had only 1OO,000 British pounds left because he could not live on such a pittance. In one day Caligula squandered the revenues of three provinces amounting to 100,000 British pounds and in a single year scattered broadcast in prodigal profusion 20,000,000 British pounds. Nero declared that the only use of money was to squander it, and in a very few years he squandered 18,000,000 British pounds. At one banquet of his the Egyptian roses alone cost 35,000 British pounds.
Let the Roman historian Suetonius describe his emperors, and remember that this is not a Christian preacher but a pagan historian. Of Caligula he writes: “In reckless extravagance he outdid the prodigals of all times in ingenuity, inventing a new sort of baths and unnatural varieties of food and feasts; for he would bathe in hot or cold perfumed oils, drink pearls of great price dissolved in vinegar, and set before his guests loaves and meats of gold.” He even built galleys whose sterns were studded with pearls. Of Nero Suetonius tells us that he compelled people to set before him banquets costing 20,000 British pounds. “He never wore the same garment twice. He played at dice for 2,000 British pounds per point. He fished with a golden net drawn by cords woven of purple and scarlet threads. It is said that he never made a journey with less than a thousand carriages, with his mules shod with silver.”
Drinking pearls dissolved in vinegar was a common ostentation. Cleopatra is said to have dissolved and drunk a pearl worth 80,000 British pounds. Valerius Maximus at a feast set a pearl to drink before every guest, and he himself, Horace tells, swallowed the pearl from Metalla’s ear-ring dissolved in wine that he might be able to say that he had swallowed a million sesterces at a gulp.
It was an age of extraordinary gluttony. Dishes of peacocks’ brains and nightingales’ tongues were set before the guests at banquets. Vitellius, who was emperor for less than a year, succeeded in spending 7,000,000 British pounds mainly on food. Suetonius tells of his favourite dish: “In this he mingled the livers of pike, the brains of pheasants and peacocks, the tongues of flamingoes, and the milk of lampreys, brought by his captains and triremes from the whole empire from Parthia to the Spanish strait.” Petronius describes the scenes at Trimalchio’s banquet: “One course represented the twelve signs of the zodiac…. Another dish was a large boar, with baskets of sweetmeats hanging from its tusks. A huge bearded hunter pierced its side with a hunting knife, and forthwith from the wound there issued a flight of thrushes which were dexterously captured in nets as they flew about the room. Towards the end of the meal the guests were startled by strange sounds in the ceiling and a quaking of the whole apartment. As they raised their eyes the ceiling suddenly opened, and a great circular tray descended, with a figure of Priapus, bearing all sorts of fruit and bon-bons.”
In the time when John was writing a kind of insanity of wanton extravagance, to which it is very difficult to find any parallel in history, had invaded Rome.
THE LAMENT OF THE MERCHANTS (1)
Rev. 18:11-16
And the merchants of the earth will weep and lament over her, for no one buys their cargo any more, the cargo of gold and of silver and of precious stones and of pearls, of fine linen and of purple and of silk and of scarlet, all kinds of thyine wood, all kinds of articles of ivory, all kinds of articles of costly wood, and of bronze and of iron and of marble, and cinnamon and perfume and incense, and myrrh, and frankincense and wine and oil, and fine flour, and wheat and cattle and sheep, horses and chariots and slaves, the souls of men.
The ripe fruit your soul desired has gone from you, and all your delicacies and your splendours have perished, never again to be found. The merchants who dealt in these wares, who grew wealthy from their trade with her, shall stand afar off because of the fear of her torture, weeping and grieving. “Alas! Alas!” they shall say, “for the great city, for the city which was clothed in fine linen and purple and scarlet, the city which was decked with gold and with precious stones and with pearls, for in one hour so much wealth is desolated!”
The lament of the kings and the merchants should be read along with the lament over Tyre in Eze.26-27 for they have many features in common.
The lament of the merchants is purely selfish. All their sorrow is that the market from which they drew so much wealth is gone. It is significant that both the kings and the merchants stand afar off and watch. They stretch out no hand to help Rome in her last agony; they were never bound to her in love; their only bond was the luxury she desired and the trade it brought to them.
We will learn still more of the luxury of Rome, if we look in detail at some of the items in the cargoes which came to Rome.
At the time during which John was writing there was in Rome a passion for silver dishes. Silver came mainly from Carthagena in Spain, where 40,000 men toiled in the silver mines. Dishes, bowls, jugs, fruitbaskets, statuettes, whole dinner services, were made of solid silver. Lucius Crassus had wrought silver dishes which had cost 50 British pounds for each pound of silver in them. Even a fighting general like Pompeius Paullinus carried with him on his campaigns wrought silver dishes which weighed 12,000 pounds, the greater part of which fell into the hands of the Germans, spoils of war. Pliny tells us that women would bathe only in silver baths, soldiers had swords with silver hilts and scabbards with silver chains, even poor women had silver anklets and the very slaves had silver mirrors. At the Saturnalia, the festival which fell at the same time as the Christian Christmas, and at which gifts were given, often the gifts were little silver spoons and the like, and the wealthier the giver the more ostentatious was the gift. Rome was a city of silver.
It was an age which passionately loved precious stones and pearls. It was largely through the conquests of Alexander the Great that precious stones came to the west. Pliny said that the fascination of a gem was that the majestic might of nature presented itself in a limited space.
The order of preference in stones set diamonds first, emeralds–mainly from Scythia–second, beryls and opals, which were used for women’s ornaments, third, and the sardonyx, which was used for seal-rings, fourth.
One of the strangest of ancient beliefs was that precious stones had medicinal qualities. The amethyst was said to be a cure for drunkenness; it is wine-red in colour and the word amethyst was derived–so it was said–from a which means not and methuskein (GSN3182) which means to make drunk. The jasper, or bloodstone, was held to be a cure for haemorrhage. The green jasper was said to bring fertility. The diamond was held to neutralise poison and to cure delirium, and amber worn on the neck was a cure for fever and for other troubles.
Of all stones the Romans loved pearls more than any other. As we have seen, they were drunk dissolved in wine. A certain Struma Nonius had a ring with an opal in it as big as a filbert worth 21,250 British pounds, but that pales into insignificance compared with the pearl which Julius Caesar gave Servilia and which cost 65,250 pounds. Pliny tells of seeing Lollia Paulina, one of Caligula’s wives, at a betrothal feast, wearing an ornament of emeralds and pearls, covering head, hair, ears, neck and fingers, which was worth 425,000 British pounds.
THE LAMENT OF THE MERCHANTS (2)
Rev. 18:11-16 (continued)
Fine linen came mainly from Egypt. It was the clothing of priests and kings. It was very expensive; a priest’s robe, for instance, would cost between 40 and 50 British pounds.
Purple came mainly from Phoenicia. The very word Phoenicia is probably derived from phoinos, which means blood-red, and the Phoenicians may have been known as “the purple men,” because they dealt in purple. Ancient purple was much redder than modern purple. It was the royal colour and the garment of wealth. The purple dye came from a shellfish called murex. Only one drop came from each animal; and the shell had to be opened as soon as the shellfish died, for the purple came from a little vein which dried up almost immediately after death. A pound of double-dyed purple wool cost almost 50 British pounds, and a short purple coat more than 100 pounds. Pliny tells us that at this time there was in Rome “a frantic passion for purple.”
Silk may now be a commonplace, but in the Rome of the Revelation it was almost beyond price, for it had to be imported from far-off China. So costly was it that a pound of silk was sold for a pound weight of gold. Under Tiberius a law was passed against the use of solid gold vessels for the serving of meals and “against men disgracing themselves with silken garments” (Tacitus: Annals 2: 23).
Scarlet, like purple, was a much sought after dye. When we are thinking of these fabrics we may note that another of Rome’s ostentatious furnishings was Babylonian coverlets for banqueting couches. Such coverlets often cost as much as 7,000 British pounds, and Nero possessed coverlets for his couches which had cost more than 43,000 British pounds each.
The most interesting of the woods mentioned in this passage is thyine. In Latin it was called citrus wood; its botanical name is thuia articulate. Coming from North Africa, from the Atlas region, it was sweet-smelling and beautifully grained. It was used especially for table tops. But, since the citrus tree is seldom very large, trees large enough to provide table tops were very scarce. Tables made of thyine wood could cost anything from 4,000 to 15,000 British pounds. Seneca, Nero’s prime minister, was said to have three hundred of such thyine tables with marble legs.
Ivory was much used for decorative purposes, especially by those who wished to make an ostentatious display. It was used in sculpture, for statues, for swordhilts, for inlaying furniture, for ceremonial chairs, for doors, and even for household furniture. Juvenal talks of the wealthy man: “Nowadays a rich man takes no pleasure in his dinner–his turbot and his venison have no taste, his unguents and his roses seem to smell rotten–unless the broad slabs of his dinner table rest upon a ramping, gaping leopard of solid ivory.”
Statuettes of Corinthian brass or bronze were world famous and fabulously expensive. Iron came from the Black Sea and from Spain. For long marble had been used in Babylon for building, but not in Rome. Augustus, however, could boast he had found Rome of brick and left it of marble. In the end there was actually an office called the ratio marmorum whose task was to search the world for fine marbles with which to decorate the buildings of Rome.
Cinnamon was a luxury article coming from India and from near Zanzibar, and in Rome it commanded a price of about 65 British pounds per pound (of weight).
Spice is here misleading. The Greek is amomon (GSN0299); Wycliff translated simply “amome”. Amomon was a sweet-smelling balsam, particularly used as a dressing for the hair and as an oil for funeral rites.
In the Old Testament incense had altogether a religious use as an accompaniment of sacrifice in the Temple. According to Exo.30:34-38 the Temple incense was made of stacte, onycha, galbanum, and frankincense, which are all perfumed gums or balsams. According to the Talmud seven further ingredients were added–myrrh, cassia, spikenard, saffron, costus, mace and cinnamon. In Rome incense was used as a perfume with which to greet guests and to scent the room after meals.
In the ancient world wine was universally drunk, but drunkenness was regarded as a grave disgrace. Wine was usually highly diluted, in the proportion of two parts of wine to five parts of water. The grapes were pressed and the juice extracted. Some of it was used just as it was as an unfermented drink. Some of it was boiled to a jelly, and the jelly used to give body and flavour to poor wines. The rest was poured into great jars, which were left to ferment for nine days, then closed, and opened monthly to check the progress of the wine. Even slaves had abundant wine as part of their daily ration, since it was no more than 2 1/2 pence per gallon.
Myrrh was the gum resin of a shrub which grew mainly in Yemen and in North Africa. It was medically used as an astringent, a stimulant, and an antiseptic. It was also used as a perfume and as an anodyne by women in the time of their purification, and for the embalming of bodies.
Frankincense was a gum resin produced by a tree of the genus Boswellia. An incision was made in the tree and a strip of bark removed from below it. The resin then exuded from the tree like milk. In about ten or twelve weeks it coagulated into lumps in which it was sold. It was used for perfume for the body, for the sweetening and flavouring of wine, for oil for lamps and for sacrificial incense.
The chariots here mentioned–the word is rede–were not racing or military chariots. They were four-wheeled private chariots, and the aristocrats of Roman wealth often had them silver-plated.
The list closes with the mention of slaves and the souls of men. The word used for slave is soma (GSN4983), which literally means a body. The slave market was called the somatemporos, literally the place where bodies are sold. The idea is that the slave was sold body and soul into the possession of his master.
It is almost impossible for us to understand how much Roman civilization was based on slavery. There were some 60,000,000 slaves in the empire. It was no unusual thing for a man to have four hundred slaves. “Use your slaves like the limbs of your body,” says a Roman writer, “each for its own end.” There were, of course, slaves to do the menial work; and each particular service had its slave. We read of torch-bearers, lantern-bearers, sedan-chair carriers, street attendants, keepers of the outdoor garments. There were slaves who were secretaries, slaves to read aloud, and even slaves to do the necessary research for a man writing a book or a treatise. The slaves even did a man’s thinking for him. There were slaves called nomenclatores whose duty it was to remind a man of the names of his clients and dependants! “We remember by means of others,” says a Roman writer. There were even slaves to remind a man to eat and to go to bed! “Men were too weary even to know that they were hungry.” There were slaves to go in front of their master and to return the greetings of friends, which the master was too tired or too disdainful to return himself. A certain ignorant man, unable to learn or remember anything, got himself a set of slaves. One memorized Homer, one Hesiod, others the lyric poets. Their duty was to stand behind him as he dined and to prompt him with suitable quotations. He paid 1,000 British pounds for each of them. Some slaves were beautiful youths, “the flower of Asia,” who simply stood around the room at banquets to delight the eye. Some were cup-bearers. Some were Alexandrians, who were trained in pert and often obscene repartee. The guests often chose to wipe their soiled hands on the hair of the slaves. Such beautiful boy slaves cost at least 1,000 or 2,000 British pounds. Some slaves were freaks–dwarfs, giants, cretins, hermaphrodites. There was actually a market in freaks–“men without shanks, with short arms, with three eyes, with pointed heads.” Sometimes dwarfs were artificially produced for sale.
It is a grim picture of men being used body and soul for the service and entertainment of others.
This was the world for which the merchants were grieving, the lost markets and the lost money which they were bewailing. This was the Rome whose end John was threatening. And he was right–for a society built on luxury, on wantonness, on pride, on callousness to human life and personality is necessarily doomed, even from the human point of view.
THE LAMENT OF THE SHIPMASTERS
Rev. 18:17-19
And every shipmaster and everyone who sails the sea, and sailors who gain their living from the sea, stood afar off and cried, when they saw the smoke of her burning. “What city was like the great city!” they said, and they flung dust upon their heads, and cried weeping and lamenting: “Alas! Alas! for the great city, in which all who had ships on the sea grew rich from her wealth, because in one hour she has been desolated.”
First, the kings uttered their lament over Rome; then, the merchants; and now, the shipmasters. John was taking his picture from Ezekiel’s picture of the fall of Tyre, from which so much of this chapter comes. “At the sound of the cry of your pilots the countryside shakes, and down from their ships come all that handle the oar. The mariners and all the pilots of the sea stand on the shore and wail aloud over you, and cry bitterly. They cast dust on their heads and wallow in ashes.” (Eze.27:28-30).
Rome, of course, was not upon the sea coast, but its port was Ostia, and, as we have seen, the merchandise of the world flowed into the port of Rome.
It is little wonder that the shipmasters and the sailors will lament, for all the trade which brought so much wealth will be gone.
There is something almost pathetic in these laments. In every case the lament is not for Rome but for themselves. It is one of the laws of life that, if a man places all his happiness in material things, he misses the greatest things of all–love and friendship with his fellowmen.
JOY AMIDST LAMENTING
Rev. 18:20
Rejoice over her, O Heaven, and you dedicated ones of God, and you apostles, and you prophets, because God has given judgment for you against her.
Amidst all the lamenting comes the voice of joy, the voice of those who are glad to see the vengeance of God upon his enemies and their persecutors.
This is a note which we find more than once in Scripture. “Praise his people, O you nations; for he avenges the blood of his servants, and takes vengeance on his adversaries, and makes expiation for the land of his people” (Deut.32:43). Jeremiah says of the doom of ancient Babylon; “Then the heaven and the earth, and all that is in them, shall sing for joy over Babylon; for the destroyers shall come against them out of the north, says the Lord” (Jer.51:48).
We are here very far from praying for those who despitefully use us. But two things have to be remembered. However we may feel about this voice of vengeance, it is none the less the voice of faith. These men had utter confidence that no man on God’s side could ultimately be on the losing side.
Second, there is little personal bitterness here. The people to be destroyed are not so much personal enemies as the enemies of God.
At the same time this is not the more excellent way which Jesus taught. When Abraham Lincoln was told that he was too lenient with his opponents and that his duty was to destroy his enemies, he answered: “Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?” The real Christian attitude is to seek to destroy enmity, not by force, but by the power of that love which won the victory of the Cross.
THE FINAL DESOLATION
Rev. 18:21-24
And a strong angel lifted a stone like a great mill-stone, and cast it into the sea. “Thus,” he said, “with a rush Babylon the great city will be cast down, and will never again be found. The sound of harpers and minstrels and flute-players and trumpeters will never again be heard in you. No craftsman of any craft will ever again be found in you. No more will the sound of the mill be heard in you. No more will the light of the lamp shine in you. No more will the voice of the bridegroom and the bride be heard in you; for your merchants were the great ones of the earth, and because all nations were lead astray by your sorcery, and because in her was found the blood of the prophets and of God’s dedicated ones and of all who have been slain upon the earth.”
The picture is of the final desolation of Rome.
It begins with a symbolic action. A strong angel takes a great millstone and hurls it into the sea which closes over it as if it had never been. So will Rome be obliterated. John was taking his picture from the destruction of ancient Babylon. The word of God came to Jeremiah: “When you finish reading this book, bind a stone to it, and cast it into the midst of the Euphrates: and say, Thus shall Babylon sink, to rise no more, because of the evil that I am bringing upon her” (Jer.51:63-64). In later days Strabo, the Greek geographer, was to say that ancient Babylon was so completely obliterated that no one would ever have dared to say that the desert where she stood was once a great city.
Never again will there be any sound of rejoicing. The doom of Ezekiel against Tyre reads: “And I will stop the music of your songs, and the sound of your lyres shall be heard no more” (Eze.26:13). The harpers and the minstrels played and sang on joyous occasions; the flute was used at festivals and at funerals; the trumpet sounded at the games and at the concerts; but now all music was to be silenced.
Never again will there be the sound of a craftsman plying his trade.
Never again will the sound of domestic activity be heard. Grinding was done by the women at home with two great circular stones one on the top of the other. The corn was put into a hole in the uppermost stone; it was ground between the two stones and emerged through the lower stone. The creak of stone on stone, which could be heard any day at any house door, will never again be heard.
Never again will there be light on the streets or in the houses.
Never again will there be any sound of wedding rejoicing for even love will die. Jeremiah uses the same pictures: “I will banish from them the voice of mirth, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride, the grinding of the millstones, and the light of the lamp” (Jer.25:10; compare Jer.7:34; Jer.16:9).
Rome is to become a terrible silent desolation.
And this punishment will come for certain definite reasons.
It will come because she worshipped wealth and luxury and lived wantonly, and found no pleasure except in material things.
It will come because she led men astray with her sorceries. Nahum called Nineveh “graceful and of deadly charms” (Nah.3:14). Rome flirted with the evil powers to make an evil world.
It will come because she was blood guilty. “Woe to the bloody city!” said Ezekiel of Tyre (Eze.24:6). Within Rome the martyrs perished and persecution went out from her all over the earth.
Before we begin to study the last four chapters of the Revelation in detail, it will be well to set out their general programme of events.
They begin with a universal rejoicing at the destruction of Babylon, the power of Rome (Rev. 19:1-10). There follows a description of the emergence of a white horse and on it him who is Faithful and True (Rev. 19:11-18). Next comes the assembling of hostile powers against the conquering Christ (Rev. 19:19); then the defeat of the opposing forces, the casting of the beast and of the false prophet into the lake of fire, and the slaughter of the rest (Rev. 19:20-21).
Rev. 20 opens with the binding of the devil in the abyss for a period of a thousand years (Rev. 20:1-3). There follows the resurrection of the martyrs to reign with Christ for a thousand years, although the rest of the dead are not yet resurrected (Rev. 20:4-6). At the end of the thousand years Satan is again loosed for a brief space; there is final conflict with the enemies of Christ who are destroyed with fire from heaven while Satan is cast for ever into the lake of fire and brimstone (Rev. 20:7-10). Then comes the general resurrection and the general judgment (Rev. 20:11-14); and finally the description of the new heaven and the new earth to take the place of the things which have passed away (Rev. 21; Rev. 22:1-5).
THE TE DEUM OF THE ANGELS
Rev. 19:1-2
After these things I heard what sounded like a great voice of a vast multitude in heaven. “Hallelujah!” they were saying. “Salvation and glory and power belong to our God, because his judgments are true and just, for he judged the great harlot who corrupted the earth with her fornication, and has avenged upon her the blood of his servants.”
In the description of the total destruction of Babylon, come the words: “Rejoice over her, O heaven, O saints and apostles and prophets, for God has given judgment for you against her!” (Rev. 18:20). Here now is the rejoicing which was called for.
It begins with the shout of a vast multitude in heaven. We have already come upon two vast multitudes in heaven, the martyrs in Rev. 7:9 and the angels in Rev. 5:11. Here is most likely the multitude of the angels, first in the Te Deum of praise.
This shout of rejoicing begins with Hallelujah. Hallelujah is a very common word in religious vocabulary but the only time it actually appears in Scripture is on the four occasions in this chapter. Like Hosanna (HSN3467 + HSN4994 and GSN5614) it is one of the few Hebrew words which have established themselves in ordinary religious language. It probably came to be so well known to even the simplest member of the Church through its special use as a response of praise in the Easter worship.
Hallelujah literally means “Praise God”. It is derived from halal (HSN1984), which means to praise, and Jah (HSN3050), which is the name of God. Although Hallelujah appears only here in the Bible, it occurs in a translated form frequently. It is actually the first phrase in Ps.106; Ps.111-113; Ps.117; Ps.135; Ps.146-150. The series of Psalms from Ps.113-118 were called the Hallel (compare HSN1984), the Praise God, and were part of the essential education of every Jewish lad. Where Hallelujah occurs in the Old Testament it is translated by Praise God, but here in this chapter the original Hebrew form, transliterated into Greek, is retained.
God is praised because salvation, glory, and power belong to him. Each of these three great attributes of God should awaken its own response in the heart of man. The salvation of God should awaken the gratitude of man; the glory of God should awaken the reverence of man; the power of God is always exercised in the love of God and should, therefore, awaken the trust of man. Gratitude, reverence, trust–these are the constituent elements of real praise.
God is praised because he has exercised his just and true judgment on the great harlot. Judgment is the inescapable consequence of sin. T. S. Kepler comments: “The moral law can no more be broken than the law of gravity; it can only be illustrated.” It is said that the judgments of God are true and just. God alone is perfect in judgment for three reasons. First, he alone can see the inmost thoughts and desires of any man. Second, he alone has that purity which can judge without prejudice. Third, he alone has the wisdom to find the right judgment and the power to apply it.
The great harlot is judged because she corrupted the world. The worst of all sins is to teach others to sin.
All forbidden things we’ve sought, All the mischief we have wrought, All the sin to others taught, Forgive, O Lord, for Jesus’ sake.
There is one other reason for the rejoicing. The judgment on Rome is the guarantee that God never in the end abandons his own.
THE TE DEUM OF NATURE AND THE CHURCH
Rev. 19:3-5
And a second time they said: “Hallelujah! for the smoke from her rises for ever and ever.”
And the twenty-four elders, and the four living creatures fell down and worshipped the God who is seated upon the throne. “Amen,” they said, “Hallelujah!” And a voice came forth from the throne. “Praise our God,” it said, “all you his servants, you who fear him, small and great.”
The angelic host sings a second Hallelujah. Their praise is that the smoke of Babylon rises for ever and ever. That is to say, never again will she rise from her ruins. The actual picture comes from Isaiah: “The streams of Edom shall be turned into pitch, and her soil into brimstone; her land shall become burning pitch. Night and day it shall not be quenched; its smoke shall go up for ever and ever. From generation to generation it shall lie waste; none shall pass through it for ever and ever” (Isa.34:9-10).
There follows praise from the twenty-four elders and the four living creatures. The twenty-four elders were prominent in the early visions (Rev. 4:4,10; Rev. 5:6,11,14; Rev. 7:11; Rev. 11:16; Rev. 14:3) as were the four living creatures (Rev. 4:6-9; Rev. 5:6-14; Rev. 6:1-7; Rev. 7:11; Rev. 14:3; Rev. 15:7). We saw that the twenty-four elders represent the twelve patriarchs and the twelve apostles, and, therefore, stand for the totality of the Church. The four living creatures, respectively like a lion, an ox, a man and an eagle, stand for two things, for all that is bravest, strongest, wisest and swiftest in nature–and for the cherubim. Hence a song of praise from the twenty-four elders and the four living creatures is a Te Deum from the whole of the Church and the whole of nature.
The voice that comes from the throne is most likely to be understood as the voice of one of the cherubim. “Praise our God,” says the voice, “all you his servants, you who fear him.” Once again John finds his model in the words of the Old Testament, for that is a quotation from Ps.135:1; Ps.135:20.
Two sets of people are called on to praise God. First, there are his servants. In the Revelation two kinds of people are specially called the servants of God; the prophets (Rev. 10:7; Rev. 11:18; Rev. 22:6), and the martyrs (Rev. 7:3; Rev. 19:2). First, then, this is the praise of the prophets and the martyrs who have witnessed for God with their voices and with their lives. Second, there are the small and the great. H. B. Swete says that this comprehensive phrase embraces “Christians of all intellectual capacities and social grades, and of all stages of progress in the life of Christ.” It is a universal summons to praise God for his mighty acts.
THE TE DEUM OF THE REDEEMED
Rev. 19:6-8
And I heard a voice which sounded like the voice of a vast multitude, and like the sound of many waters, and like the sound of mighty crashes of thunder.
“Hallelujah!” they said, “because the Lord our God, the Almighty, has entered into his kingdom. Let us rejoice and let us exult, and let us give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has prepared herself, and it has been granted to her to clothe herself with fine linen, shining and pure.” For the fine linen is the righteous deeds of God’s dedicated people.
The final shout is the praise of the host of the redeemed. John goes out of his way to heap up similes to describe its sound. It was, as H. B. Swete puts it, like “the din of a vast concourse, the roar of a cataract, the roll of thunder.”
Once again John finds his inspiration in the words of Scripture. In his mind are two things. First, he is remembering Ps.97:1: “The Lord reigns; let the earth rejoice.” Second, he says: “Let us rejoice and exult.” There is only one other place in the New Testament where these two verbs (chairein, GSN5463, and agallian, GSN0021) come together–in Jesus Christ’s promise to the persecuted: “Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven” (Matt.5:12). It is as if the multitude of the redeemed sent up their shout of praise because the promise of Christ to his persecuted ones had come abundantly true.
Next comes the marriage of the Lamb to his bride. That picture stands for the final union between Jesus Christ and his Church. R. H. Charles finely says that the marriage symbolism “denotes the intimate and indissoluble communion of Christ with the community which he has purchased with his own blood” a communion which is “first reached in fulness by the host of the martyrs.”
The thought of the relationship between God and his people as a marriage goes far back into the Old Testament. Again and again the prophets thought of Israel as the chosen bride of God. “I will betroth you to me for ever,” Hosea hears God say, “I will betroth you to me in righteousness” (Hos.2:19-20). “Your Maker is your husband; the Lord of hosts is his name,” says Isaiah (Isa.54:5). Jeremiah hears God say and appeal: “Return, O faithless children, for I am your master” (Jer.3:14). Ezekiel works out the whole picture most fully in Eze.16.
The marriage symbolism runs all through the Gospels. We read of the marriage feast (Matt.22:2); of the bridechamber and the wedding garment (Matt.22:10-11); of the sons of the bridechamber (Mk.2:19); of the bridegroom (Mk.2:19; Matt.25:1); of the friends of the bridegroom (Jn.3:29). And Paul speaks of himself as betrothing the Church like a pure virgin to Christ (2Cor.11:2), and for him the relationship of Christ to his Church is the great model of the relationship of husband and wife (Eph.5:21-33).
This may seem to us a strange metaphor. But it conserves certain great truths. In any real marriage there must be four things which must also be in the relationship between the Christian and Christ.
(i) There is love. A loveless marriage is a contradiction in terms.
(ii) There is intimate communion, so intimate that man and wife become one flesh. The relationship of the Christian and Christ must be the closest in all life.
(iii) There is joy. There is nothing like the joy of loving and of being loved. If Christianity does not bring joy, it does not bring anything.
(iv) There is fidelity. No marriage can last without fidelity, and the Christian must be as faithful to Jesus Christ as Jesus Christ is to him.
THE ALMIGHTY AND HIS KINGDOM
Rev. 19:6-8 (continued)
This passage calls God by a certain name; and says that he has entered into his kingdom.
It calls God the Almighty. The word is pantokrator (GSN3841), literally the one who controls all things. The significant thing about this great word is that it occurs ten times in the New Testament. Once it is in an Old Testament quotation in 2Cor.6:18; the other nine times are all in the Revelation (Rev. 1:8; Rev. 4:8; Rev. 11:17; Rev. 15:3; Rev. 16:7,14; Rev. 19:6,15; Rev. 21:22). In other words, this is the characteristic title for God in the Revelation.
There was never a time in history in which such forces were drawn up against the Church as when the Revelation was written. There was never a time when the Christian was called upon to undergo such suffering and to accept so continually the prospect of a cruel death. And yet in such times John calls God pantokrator (GSN3841).
Here is faith and confidence; and the whole point of this passage is that that faith and confidence are vindicated.
The Church, the Bride of Christ, is clothed in fine linen, pure and shining. There is a contrast with the scarlet and gold of the great harlot. The white linen represents the good deeds of God’s dedicated people; that is to say, it is character which forms the robe which arrays the Bride of Christ.
THE ONLY WORSHIP
Rev. 19:9-10a
And he said to me: “Write! Blessed are those who are invited to the feast of the marriage of the Lamb!” And he said to me: “These are the true words of God.” And I fell down before his feet to worship him; and he said to me: “See that you do not do this. I am your fellow-servant and the fellow-servant of your brothers who possess the testimony which Jesus gave. Worship God!”
The Jews had the idea that, when the Messiah came, God’s people would, as it were, be entertained by God to a great Messianic Banquet. Isaiah speaks of God preparing for his people “a feast of fat things, a feast of wine on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wine on the lees well refined” (Isa.25:6). Jesus speaks of many coming from the east and the west and sitting down with the patriarchs in the kingdom of heaven (Matt.8:11). The word used for sitting down is the word for reclining at a meal. The picture is of all men sitting down at the Messianic Banquet of God. Jesus at the Last Supper said that he would not again drink of the cup until he drank it new in his Father’s kingdom (Matt.26:29). That was Jesus looking forward to the great Messianic Banquet.
It may well be from that old Jewish idea that there came the idea of the marriage feast of the Lamb, for that indeed would be the true Messianic Banquet. It is a simple picture, not to be taken with crude literalness, but simply saying very beautifully that in his kingdom all men will enjoy the bounty of God.
But this passage confronts us with something which became of very great importance in the worship of the Church. It was John’s instinct to worship the angelic messenger; but the angel forbids him to do that, because the angels are no more than men’s fellow-servants. Worship is for God alone. John was forbidding angel worship; and that was a very necessary prohibition, for in the early church there was a well-nigh inevitable tendency to worship angels, a tendency which has never wholly disappeared.
(i) In certain circles of Judaism the angels had a very large place. Raphael tells Tobit that he is the angel who brought his prayer before God (Tob.13:12-15). In the Testament of Dan (6: 2) the angel who intercedes for men is mentioned. In the Testament of Levi (5: 5) Michael is said to be the angel who intercedes for Israel. A fourth century A.D. Rabbi, Jehudah, actually gave the odd instruction that men ought not to pray in Aramaic because the angels did not understand Aramaic! The prevalence of all this in Judaism is underlined by the fact that certain Rabbis insisted that prayers must always be offered direct to God, and not to Michael or to Gabriel.
In Judaism there was increasingly stressed the transcendence of God, because of that it was increasingly felt that man needed some intermediary. Hence arose the prominence of angels.
When Jews came over into Christianity, sometimes they brought this special reverence for the angels with them, forgetting that with the coming of Jesus no other intermediary between God and man can be necessary.
(ii) A Greek came into the Church from a world of thought which made angel worship a real danger. First, he came from a world in which there were many gods–Zeus, Hera, Apollo, Aphrodite and the rest, What was easier than to keep the old gods in the form of angels? Second, he came from a world in which it was believed that God did not interest himself directly but made his contact through the demons (daimon, GSN1142), by means of whom he controlled the natural forces and acted upon men. What was easier than to turn the demons into angels and to worship them?
John insists that angels are no more than the servants of God; and that God alone must be worshipped. Any other intermediary than Jesus Christ between God and man must be utterly opposed.
THE SPIRIT OF PROPHECY
Rev. 19:10b
The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. We take this phrase by itself, because it is both ambiguous and important.
The ambiguity springs from the fact that the testimony of Jesus can bear either of two meanings.
(i) It can mean the witness which the Christian bears to Jesus Christ. That is the way in which H. B. Swete takes it. He says: “The possession of the prophetic spirit, which makes a true prophet, shows itself in a life of witness to Jesus, which perpetuates his witness to the Father and to himself” A prophet’s message lies in the personal witness of his life, even more than in the spoken witness of his words.
(ii) It can equally mean the witness which Jesus Christ gives to men. On that interpretation the phrase will mean that no man can speak to men until he has listened to Jesus Christ. It was said of a great preacher: “First he listened to God, then he spoke to men.”
This is the kind of double meaning of which the Greek language is capable. It may well be that John intended the double meaning; and that we are meant not to choose between the meanings, but to accept both of them. If so, we can define the true prophet as the man who has received from Christ the message he brings to men, and whose words and works are at one and the same time an act of witness to Christ.
THE CONQUERING CHRIST
Rev. 19:11
And I saw heaven opened, and, behold, a white horse, and he who is mounted on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war.
Here is one of the most dramatic moments in the Revelation, the emergence of the conquering Christ.
(i) John sees Christ as the conqueror. He is, as H. B. Swete puts it, “a royal commander followed by a dazzling retinue.” Here is a picture which is essentially Jewish. Jewish dreams were full of the warrior Messiah, who would lead God’s people to victory and smash his enemies. In the Psalms of Solomon we have that picture:
Behold, O Lord, and raise up unto them their king the Son of David, At the time in which thou seest, O God, that he may reign over Israel, Thy servant. And gird him with strength that he may shatter unrighteous rulers, And that he may purge Jerusalem from nations that trample her down to destruction. Wisely, righteously, he shall thrust out sinners from the inheritance, He shall destroy the pride of the sinner as a potter’s vessel, With a rod of iron he shall break in pieces all their substance, He shall destroy the godless nations with the word of his mouth; At his rebuke nations shall flee before him, And he shall reprove sinners for the thoughts of their hearts (Wis.17:23-27).
There is a Rabbinic picture of the Messiah: “How beauteous is the king Messiah, who is about to rise from the house of Judah. He hath bound his loins and gone forth to war against those who hate him; kings and princes shall be slain; he will make red the rivers with the blood of the slain…his garments will be dipped in blood.”
The white horse is the symbol of the conqueror, because it was on a white horse that a Roman general rode when he celebrated a triumph.
It is well to remember that the whole background of this picture lies in Jewish expectations of the future and has little to do with the Christ of the Gospels who was meek and lowly in heart.
(ii) His name is Faithful and True. Here, on the other hand, is something which is valid for all time. Christ is described by two words.
(a) He is faithful. The word is pistos (GSN4103); it means absolutely to be trusted.
(b) He is true. The word is alethinos (GSN0228) and has two meanings. It means true in the sense that Jesus Christ is the one who brings the truth and who never at any time has any falsehood in anything that he says. It also means genuine, as opposed to that which is unreal. In Jesus Christ we meet reality.
(iii) He judges and makes war in righteousness. Again John finds his picture in the prophetic words of the Old Testament, where it is said of the chosen king of God: “With righteousness he shall judge the poor” (Isa.11:4). John’s age knew all about the perversion of justice; no one could expect justice from a capricious heathen tyrant. In Asia Minor even the tribunal of the proconsul was subject to bribery and to maladministration. Wars were matters of ambition and tyranny and oppression rather than of justice. But when the conquering Christ comes, his power will be exercised in justice.
THE UNKNOWABLE NAME
Rev. 19:12
His eyes are a flame of fire, and on his head are many royal crowns, and he has a name written which no one knows except himself.
We begin the description of the conquering Christ.
His eyes are a flame of fire. We have already met this description in Rev. 1:14 and Rev. 2:18. It stands for the consuming power of the victorious Christ. On his head he has many crowns. The word used here for crown is diadema (GSN1238), which is the royal crown, as opposed to stephanos (GSN4735) which is the crown of victory. To be crowned with more than one crown may seem strange, but in the time of John it was quite natural. It was not uncommon for a monarch to wear more than one crown in order to show that he was the king of more than one country. For instance, when Ptolemy entered Antioch he wore two crowns or diadems–one to show that he was lord of Asia and one to show that he was lord of Egypt (1Macc.11:13). On the head of the victor Christ there are many crowns to show that he is lord of all the kingdoms of the earth.
He has a name known to no one but himself. This is a passage whose meaning is obscure. What is this name? Many suggestions have been made.
(i) It has been suggested that the name is kurios (GSN2962), Lord. In Php.2:9-11 we read of the name above every name which God has given to Jesus Christ because of his complete obedience; and there the name is almost certainly Lord.
(ii) It is suggested that the name is Y-H-W-H. That was the Jewish name for God. In Hebrew writing there were no vowels; the vowels had to be supplied by the reader. No one really knows what the vowels in Y-H-W-H were. The name was in fact so holy that it was never pronounced. We usually pronounce it JEHOVAH; but the vowels in Jehovah are really those of the Hebrew word ‘Adonay (HSN0136), which means Lord, the name by which the Jews called God in order to avoid pronouncing the sacred name. Many scholars think the name should be Y-A-H-W-E-H. The letters Y-H-W-H (Yahweh) are called the sacred tetragrammaton, the sacred four letters.
(iii) It may be that the name is one which can be revealed only at the final union of Christ and the Church. In the Ascension of Isaiah (9: 5) there is a saying: “Thou canst not bear his name until thou shalt have ascended out of the body.” There was a Jewish belief that no man could know the name of God until he had entered into the life of heaven.
(iv) It may be that here is a lingering relic of the old idea that to know the name of a divine being was to have a certain power over him. In two Old Testament stories, the wrestling of Jacob at Peniel (Gen.32:29), and the appearance of the angelic messenger to Gideon (Judg.13:18) the divine visitor refuses to tell his name.
(v) It may be that we shall never know the symbolism of the unknown name but H. B. Swete has the very fine idea that in the essence of the being of Christ there must always remain something beyond man’s understanding. “Notwithstanding the dogmatic helps which the Church offers, the mind fails to grasp the inmost significance of the Person of Christ, which eludes all efforts to bring it within the terms of human knowledge. Only the Son of God can understand the mystery of his own being.”
GOD’S WORD IN ACTION
Rev. 19:13
He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is the Word of God.
Here are two further pictures of the warrior Christ.
(i) He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, not his own but that of his enemies. As R. H. Charles puts it, it is essential to remember that the Heavenly Leader is this time, not the Slain One, but the Slayer. As usual John takes his picture from the Old Testament and is thinking of the terrible picture in Isa.63:1-3, where the prophet pictures God returning from the destruction of Edom; “I trod them in my anger, and trampled them in my wrath; their life blood is sprinkled upon my garments, and I have stained all my raiment.” This is the Messiah of Jewish apocalyptic expectation far more than the Messiah whom Jesus claimed to be.
(ii) His name is the Word of God. Although the words are the same as in the first chapter of the Fourth Gospel, the meaning is quite different and much simpler. Here we have the purely Jewish idea of the Word of God. To a Jew a word was not merely a sound; it did things. As Dr. John Paterson puts it in The Book that is Alive: “The spoken word in Hebrew was fearfully alive. It was not merely a vocable or sound dropped heedlessly from unthinking lips. It was a unit of energy charged with power. It is energised for weal or for woe.” We can see that, for instance, in the old story in which Jacob filched Esau’s blessing from Isaac (Gen.27). The blessing given could not be taken back.
If that is so of human words, how much truer it is of the divine word. It is by his word that God created the earth and the heavens and everything in them. And God said is the recurring phrase in the narrative of creation (Gen.1:3,6,9; Gen.1:14; Gen.1:26). The word of God, said Jeremiah, is like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces (Jer.23:29).
In Wisdom there is a description of the plagues in Egypt, and in particular of the slaying of the first-born sons of the Egyptians: “Thine Almighty Word leaped down from heaven out of thy royal throne, as a fierce man of war, into the midst of a land of destruction, and brought thine unfeigned commandment as a sharp sword, and standing up filled all things with death; and it touched the heaven, but it stood upon the earth” (Wis.18:15-16). It is the active word which carried out the commandment of God. Here is the idea in Heb.4:12: “The word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword.”
When John here called the warrior Christ “The Word of God”, he means that here in action is all the power of God’s word; everything that God has said, and threatened, and promised is embodied in Christ.
THE AVENGING WRATH
Rev. 19:14-16
The armies which are in heaven followed him, on white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and pure.
From his mouth there comes forth a sharp two-edged sword, so that with it he may smite the nations, and he will control them with an iron rod. He will tread the winepress of the anger of the wrath of God the Almighty.
And on his robe, and on his thigh, he has a name written–King of kings and Lord of lords.
The description of the warrior Christ is further filled in.
He has with him the armies of heaven. With this we may compare Jesus’ words at his arrest, when he said he could have had twelve legions of angels to fight for him (Matt.26:53). The armies of heaven are the hosts of the angels.
From his mouth goes forth a sharp two-edged sword (compare Rev. 1:16). This description of the warrior Christ comes from two Old Testament passages put side by side. Isaiah says of the heavenly king: “He shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked” (Isa.11:4). The Psalmist says of the Messianic king: “You shall break them with a rod of iron, and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel” (Ps.2:9). Once again we must remember that this picture is demonstrably painted in Jewish terms.
He will tread the winepress of the anger of the wrath of God. The picture is of the warrior Christ trampling the grapes so as to produce the wine of the wrath of God, which his enemies must drink to their doom.
Our most difficult task here is to discover the picture behind the statement that the warrior Christ has the name King of kings and Lord of lords written on his robe and on his thigh. Various suggestions have been made. It has been suggested that the name is either embroidered on his girdle or engraved on his sword hilt. It is suggested that it is on the skirt of his general’s cloak, for that is where it would be easiest to read on a horseman. It is suggested that it is actually written on his thigh, because it was sometimes the custom to engrave the titles of statues on the thigh. It seems clear that the name is visible to all, and, therefore, probably the likeliest solution is that it was written on the skirt of the warrior Christ’s robe, lying over his thigh, as he rode upon the white horse. In any event, the name singles him out as the greatest of all rulers, the only true divine One and the universal King.
THE DOOM OF THE ENEMIES OF CHRIST
Rev. 19:17-21
And I saw one angel standing in the sun, and he cried with a great voice to all the birds who fly in midheaven. “Come,” he said, “assemble for the great feast which God will give you, that you may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses and of those who ride them, and the flesh of all men, both free men and slaves, both small and great.”
And I saw the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies assembled to make war with him who rides the horse, and with his army. And the beast was seized, and with him the false prophet, who performed in his presence signs by which he deceived those who had received the mark of the beast, and who worship his image. The two of them were cast alive into the lake of fire which burns with brimstone; and the rest were slain with the sword of him who rides the horse, with the sword which comes out of his mouth; and all the birds were glutted with their flesh.
Here is a grim picture of birds of prey being invited to come from all over the sky to glut themselves on the corpses of the slain. Again this is a picture taken directly from the Old Testament, from Ezekiel’s picture of the slaughter of the forces of Gog and Magog. “Speak to the birds of every sort and to all beasts of the field…. You shall eat the flesh of the mighty, and drink the blood of the princes of the earth–of rams, of lambs, and of goats, of bulls…. And you shall eat fat till you are filled, and drink blood till you are drunk at the sacrificial feast which I am preparing for you” (Eze.39:17-19). This bloodthirsty picture is again far more in line with Old Testament apocalyptic expectations than with the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Here we have a repetition of the imagery of chapter 13. The beast is Nero redivivus; the false prophet is the provincial organization which administered Caesar worship; those who have the mark of the beast are they who have worshipped at the shrine of Caesar; the kings of the earth and their armies are the Parthian hosts, which Nero was to lead again against Rome and against the world.
So all the forces hostile to God assemble themselves; but the warrior Christ is to conquer. Antichrist and his henchmen are cast into the lake of fire; and all their supporters are slain, to await in Sheol the final judgment.
The cosmic drama is drawing to a close. Nothing has yet been said of the fate of Satan, but now we go on to see that fate.
THE THOUSAND YEAR REIGN OF CHRIST AND THE SAINTS
Rev. 20
Since the great importance of this chapter is that it is what might be called the foundation document of Millennarianism or Chiliasm, it will be better to read it as a whole before we deal with it in detail.
1 And I saw an angel coming down out of heaven with the key of the abyss, and with a great chain in his hand. 2 And he laid hold of the dragon, the ancient serpent, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a 3 thousand years, and cast him into the abyss, and locked him in, and set a seal over him, that he might no longer deceive the nations, until the thousand years were completed. After that he must be set free for a little time. 4 And I saw thrones, and those who had received the privilege of judgment sat upon them. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their witness to Jesus, and for the sake of the word of God, and such as had not worshipped the beast nor his image, and who had not received the mark upon their forehead, and upon their hand. And they came to life again, and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. 5 The rest of the dead did not come to life again until the thousand years were completed. This is the 6 first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he who has a share in the first resurrection. Over these the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him for a thousand years. 7 And whenever the thousand years shall have been completed, Satan will be loosed from his prison, and 8 he will come forth to deceive the nations in the four corners of the earth, that is, Gog and Magog, to assemble them for war; and their number will be as the sand of the sea. 9 And they came up over the broad plain of the earth, and they encircled the camp of God’s dedicated ones, and the beloved city; and fire came down from 10 heaven and devoured them; and the devil who deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where both the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tortured day and night for ever and ever. 11 And I saw a great white throne and him who sat upon it. Earth and the sky fled from his presence, 12 and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne; and books were opened. And another book was opened, the Book of Life; and the dead were judged by that which was written in these books, according to their deeds. 13 And the sea rendered up the dead in it, and Death 14 and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the 15 second death, the lake of fire; and everyone who was not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire.
Millennium means a period of one thousand years; and chiliasm is derived from the Greek chilias (GSN5505), a thousand. To put it briefly, the commonest form of Millennarianism teaches that for a thousand years before the end Christ will reign upon this earth in a kingdom of his saints; and after that will come the final struggle, the general resurrection, the last judgment and the final consummation.
We note two general facts: First, this was a very common belief in the early church and it still has its adherents. Second, this is the only passage in the New Testament in which it is clearly taught.
The picture is that first of all the Devil will be bound in the abyss for a thousand years. Then those who have been martyred for Christ, although the rest of mankind, even the Christians among them who did not suffer martyrdom, will not be resurrected. There will then be a period of a thousand years in which Christ and his saints will reign. After that for a brief time the Devil will be released. There will follow a final struggle and the general resurrection of all men. The devil will be finally defeated and cast into the lake of fire; his supporters will be burned up with fire from heaven; those whose names are in the Book of Life will enter into blessedness, but those whose names are not in the Book of Life will also be cast into the lake of fire.
This doctrine does not occur anywhere else in the New Testament but it was prevalent throughout the early church especially among those who had received their Christianity from Jewish sources. Here is our key. The origin of this doctrine is not specifically Christian but is to be found in certain Jewish beliefs about the Messianic age which were common in the time after 100 B.C.
Jewish Messianic beliefs were never an unvarying system. They varied from time to time and from thinker to thinker. The basis was that the Messiah would come and establish upon earth the new age, in which the Jewish nation would be supreme.
In the earlier times the general belief was that the kingdom so established would last for ever. God would set up a kingdom which would never be destroyed; it would break in pieces the other kingdoms, but it would stand for ever (Dn.2:44). It was to be an everlasting dominion (Dn.7:14, Dn.7:27).
From 100 B.C. onwards there came a change. It was felt that this world was so incurably evil that within it the Kingdom of God could never finally come; and so there emerged the conception that the Messiah would have a limited reign and that after his reign the final consummation would come. The Apocalypse of Baruch foresees the defeat of the forces of evil; then the principate of the Messiah will stand for ever, until this world of corruption is at an end (2 Baruch 40: 3). One section of Enoch sees history as a series of weeks. There are seven weeks of past history. The eighth is the week of the righteous, when a sword is given to the righteous and sinners are delivered into their hands, and the house of God is built. In the ninth week the evil are written down for destruction, and righteousness will flourish. In the tenth week comes judgment; and only then comes the eternal time of goodness and of God (Enoch 93: 3-10).
There was much rabbinic discussion of how long the Messianic age would last before the final consummation arrived. Some said 40, some 100, some 600, some 1,000, some 2,000, some 7,000 years.
We look particularly at two answers. 2 Esdras is very definite. God is represented as saying: “My Son the Messiah shall be revealed, together with those who are with him, and shall rejoice the survivors for four hundred years. And it shall be, after these years, that my Son the Messiah shall die, and all in whom there is human breath. Then shall the world be turned into the primaeval silence seven days, like as at the first beginnings, so that no man is left.” And then after that the new age comes (2Esdr.7:28-29). This passage is unique in foretelling, not only a limited reign of the Messiah, but the Messiah’s death. The period of four hundred years was arrived at by setting side by side two passages from the Old Testament. In Gen.15:13 God tells Abraham that the period of the affliction of Israel will last for four hundred years. In Ps.90:15 the prayer is: “Make us glad as many days as thou hast afflicted us, and as many years as we have seen evil.” It was, therefore, held that the period of bliss, like the period of affliction, would last for 400 years.
More commonly it was held that the age of the world would correspond to the time taken for its creation and that the time of creation was 6,000 years. “A thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday” (Ps.90:4). “One day with the Lord is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” (2Pet.3:8). Each day of creation was said to be 1,000 years. It was, therefore, held that the Messiah would come in the sixth thousand of the years; and the seventh thousand, the equivalent of the Sabbath rest in the creation story, would be the reign of the Messiah.
Although the reign of the Messiah was to be the reign of righteousness, it was often conceived of in terms of material blessings. “The earth also shall yield its fruit ten thousand-fold, and on each vine there shall be a thousand branches, and each branch shall produce a thousand clusters, and each cluster shall produce a thousand grapes, and each grape a cor (120 gallons) of wine” (2 Baruch 29: 5, 6). There will be no more disease, no more untimely death; the beasts will be friendly with men; and women will have no pain in childbirth (2 Baruch 73).
Here, then, we have the background of the idea of the Millennium. Already the Jews had come to think of a limited reign of the Messiah, which would be a time of the triumph of righteousness, and of the greatest spiritual and material blessings.
On the basis of this passage of the Revelation Millennarianism or Chiliasm was very widespread within the early Church, although it was never universal.
For Justin Martyr it was an essential part of orthodox belief, although he agreed that there were good Christians who did not accept it. “I and others, who are right-minded Christians at all points, are assured that there will be a resurrection of the dead, and a thousand years in Jerusalem, which will then be built adorned and enlarged as the prophets Ezekiel and Isaiah and others declare” (Dialogue with Trypho 80). Irenaeus also (Against Heresies 5: 32) firmly held to the belief in a Millennium upon earth. One of his reasons was the conviction that, since the saints and the martyrs had suffered upon earth, it was only just that upon earth they should reap the rewards of their fidelity. Tertullian also insisted upon the coming of the Millennium. Papias, the second century collector of so much material upon the Gospels, insisted that Jesus taught the doctrine of the Millennium, and he hands down as the words of Jesus a passage which foretells the wondrous fertility of the earth which is to come: “The days will come in which vines shall grow each having ten thousand shoots, and on each shoot ten thousand branches, and on each branch again ten thousand twigs, and on each twig ten thousand clusters, and on each cluster ten thousand grapes, and each grape when pressed shall yield five and twenty measures of wine. And when any of the saints shall have taken hold of one of their clusters, another shall cry, I am a better cluster; take me, bless the Lord through me. Likewise also a grain of wheat shall produce ten thousand heads, and every head shall have ten thousand grains, and every grain ten thousand pounds of fine flour, bright and clean, and the other fruits, seeds and the grass, shall produce in similar proportions, and all the animals, using these fruits which are products of the soil, shall become in their turn peaceable and harmonious, obedient to man in all subjection.” Papias gives this passage as an actual saying of Jesus, but it can be seen that it is very close to the passage of 2 Baruch which we have already quoted.
We have already said that, although many in the early church accepted the belief in the Millennium as a part of orthodoxy, many did not. Eusebius almost contemptuously dismisses Papias’ report. “I suppose he got those ideas,” he says, “through a misunderstanding of the apostolic records, not perceiving that the things said by them were said mystically in figures. For he seems to have been of very limited understanding” (Eusebius: The Ecclesiastical History 3: 38).
One of the things which brought discredit upon Millennarianism was the fact that it undoubtedly lent itself to a materialistic interpretation in which it offered physical as much as spiritual pleasures. Eusebius tells how the great scholar Dionysius had in Egypt to deal with a certain much-respected bishop called Nepos who taught “a millennium of bodily luxury upon this earth” (The Ecclesiastical History 7: 24). Cerinthus, a heretic, deliberately taught a millennium of “delights of the belly and sexual passion, eating and drinking and marrying” (Eusebius: The Ecclesiastical History 3: 28). Jerome spoke contemptuously of “these half-Jews who look for a Jerusalem of gold and precious stones from heaven, and a future kingdom of a thousand years, in which all nations shall serve Israel” (Commentary on Isaiah 60: 1).
Origen rebuked those who looked for bodily pleasure in the Millennium. The saints will eat, but it will be the bread of life; they will drink, but it will be the cup of wisdom (De Principiis 2. 11. 2-3). It was Augustine, however, who, we may almost say, dealt Millennarianism its death blow. At one time he himself had been a Millennarian, although it was always spiritual blessings for which he longed. H. B. Swete summarizes Augustine’s position: “He had learned to see in the captivity of Satan nothing else than the binding of the strong man by the stronger than he which the Lord had foretold (Mk.3:27; Lk.11:22); in the thousand years, the whole interval between the first Advent and the last conflict; in the reign of the saints, the entire course of the kingdom of heaven; in the judgment given to them, the binding and loosing of sinners; in the first resurrection, the spiritual share in the Resurrection of Christ which belongs to the baptised” (Augustine: The City of God 20: 7). Augustine spiritualized the whole idea of the Millennium.
Millennarianism is by no means extinct within the Church; but it has never been the universally accepted belief of the Church, this is the only passage in the New Testament which unequivocally teaches it, its whole background is Jewish and not Christian, and the literal interpretation of it has always tended to run into danger and excess. It is a doctrine which has long since been left behind by the main stream of Christian thought and which now belongs to the eccentricities of Christian belief.
THE CHAINING OF SATAN
Rev. 20:1-3
The abyss was a vast subterranean cavern beneath the earth, sometimes the place where all the dead went, sometimes the place where special sinners were kept awaiting punishment. It was reached by a chasm reaching down into the earth and this the angel locks in order to keep the Devil in the abyss.
It was the abyss which the devils feared most of all. In the story of the Gerasene demoniac the request of the devils was that Jesus would not command them to leave the man and to go out into the deep, that is, the abyss (Lk.8:31).
The seal is set on the chasm to ensure the safe-keeping of the prisoner, just as the seal was set on the tomb of Jesus to make sure that he would not escape (Matt.27:66).
The Devil is to be kept in the abyss for a period of a thousand years. Even the way in which the word thousand is used in Scripture warns us against taking this literally. Ps.50:10 says that the cattle on a thousand hills belong to God; and Jb.9:3 says that a man cannot answer God once in a thousand times. Thousand is simply used to describe a very large number.
At the end of the period the Devil is to be let loose for a little time. H. B. Swete suggests that the reason for the final loosing of the Devil is this. In a period of peace and righteousness, in a time when the opposition, so to speak, did not exist, it might easily happen that people came to take their faith unthinkingly. The loosing of the Devil meant a testing-time for Christians, and there are times when a testing-time is essential, if the reality of the faith is to be preserved.
THE PRIVILEGE OF JUDGMENT
Rev. 20:4-5
In the first resurrection only those who have died and suffered for the faith are to be raised from the dead. The general resurrection is not to take place until after the thousand year reign of Christ upon earth. There is special privilege for those who have shown special loyalty to Christ.
Those who are to enjoy this privilege belong to two classes. First, there are those who have been martyred for their loyalty to Christ. The word used for the way in which they were killed means to behead with an axe, and denotes the most cruel death. Second, there are those who have not worshipped the beast and have not received his mark on their hand or on their forehead. H. B. Swete identifies these, as those who, although they were not actually martyred, willingly bore suffering, reproach, imprisonment, loss of goods, disruption of their homes and personal relationships for the sake of Christ.
In the ancient Church in the days of persecution two terms were used. Martyrs were those who actually died for their faith; confessors were those who suffered everything short of death for their loyalty to Christ. Both he who dies for Christ and he who lives for Christ will receive his reward.
Those who have been loyal to Christ are to receive the privilege of judgment. This is an idea which occurs more than once in the New Testament. Jesus is represented as saying that, when he returns to sit on the throne of his glory, his twelve apostles will sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel (Matt.19:28). Paul reminds the litigious Corinthians that the destiny of the saints is to judge the world (1Cor.6:2). Again we do not need to take this literally. The idea symbolized is that the world to come will redress the balance of this one. In this world the Christian may be a man under the judgment of men; in the world to come the parts will be reversed and those who thought they were the judges will be the judged.
THE PRIVILEGES OF THE WITNESSES OF CHRIST
Rev. 20:6
Rev. 20:6 describes the privileges of the Christians who have been true to Christ, even when loyalty was a costly thing.
(i) For them death has been utterly vanquished. The second death has no power over them. Physical death for them is not a thing to be feared, for it is the gateway to life everlasting.
(ii) They are to be the priests of God and of Christ. The Latin for priest is pontifex, which means a bridge-builder. The priest is the builder of a bridge between God and man; and he, as the Jews saw it, is the one man with the right of direct access into the presence of God. Those who have been loyal to Jesus Christ have the right of free entry into the presence of God; and they have the privilege of introducing others to Jesus Christ.
(iii) They are to reign with Christ. In Christ even the most ordinary man becomes a king.
THE FINAL STRUGGLE
Rev. 20:7-10
At the end of the thousand years the Devil is to be loosed, but he has learned no lesson; he begins where he has left off. He will assemble the nations for the final attack on God.
A final attack on Jerusalem by the hostile nations is one of the standard pictures of the last times in Jewish thought. We find it especially in Dn.11 and in Zech.14:1-11. The Sibylline Orders (3: 663-672) tell how the kings of the nations shall throw themselves against the land in troops, only to be ultimately destroyed by God.
But here we come on a picture which etched itself deeply, if mysteriously, on Jewish thought, the picture of Gog and Magog. We find it first in Eze.38-39. There Gog of the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and of Tubal, is to launch the great attack upon Israel and is to be in the end utterly destroyed. It may be that originally Gog was connected with the Scythians whose invasions–all men feared.
As time went on, in Jewish thought Gog (HSN1463; GSN1136) and Magog (HSN4031; GSN3098) came to stand for everything that is against God. The rabbis taught that Gog and Magog would assemble themselves and their forces against Jerusalem, and would fall by the hand of the Messiah.
The hostile armies under the Devil’s leadership come up against the camp of God’s people and against the beloved city, that is, Jerusalem; the hosts are consumed with fire from heaven, the Devil is cast into the lake of fire and brimstone to share the fate of the beast and of the false prophet, and the triumph of God is complete.
THE FINAL JUDGMENT (1)
Rev. 20:11-15
Now comes the final judgment. God, the Judge, is on his great white throne which symbolizes his unapproachable purity.
It may be that some will find a problem here. The regular picture of the New Testament is that Jesus Christ is judge. Jn.5:22 represents Jesus as saying: “The Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son.” In the Parable of the Sheep and Goats it is the glorified Christ who is the judge (Matt.25:31-46). In Paul’s speech at Athens it is said that God has appointed a day in which he will judge the world by Jesus (Ac.17:31). In 2Tim.4:1 Jesus is the one who is about to judge the living and the dead.
There are two answers to this apparent difficulty.
First, the unity of the Father and the Son is such that there is no difficulty in ascribing the action of the one to the other. That is in fact what Paul does. In Rom.14:10 he writes: “We shall all stand before the judgment seat of God.” But in 2Cor.5:10 he writes: “We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ.”
Second, it may be that the real reason why God is the judge in John’s Revelation is that the whole background of the book is Jewish; to a Jew, even when he became a Christian, God stood unique; and it would seem natural to him that God should be judge.
As John tells the story, the judgment begins with the passing away of this present world; earth and sky flee from his presence. John is thinking in pictures which are very familiar in the Old Testament. God laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of his hands. None the less it is still true that “they will perish … they will all wear out like a garment; thou changest them like raiment, and they pass away” (Ps.102:25-27). “The heavens will vanish like smoke, the earth will wear out like a garment” (Isa.51:6). “Heaven and earth will pass away” (Mk.13:31). “The heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and the works that are upon it will be burned up” (2Pet.3:10). The new man in Christ must have a new world in Christ.
THE FINAL JUDGMENT (2)
Rev. 20:11-15 (continued)
Now follows the judgment of mankind.
It is the judgment of great and small. There is none so great as to escape the judgment of God, and none so unimportant as to fail to win his vindication.
Two kinds of book are mentioned. The first contains the records of the deeds of men. This is a common idea in Scripture. “The court sat in judgment,” says Daniel, “and the books were opened” (Dn.7:10). In Enoch the sealed books are opened before the Lord of the sheep (Enoch 90: 20). The Apocalypse of Baruch foretells the day when “the books shall be opened in which are written the sins of all those who have sinned, and again also the treasuries in which the righteousness of all those who have been righteous in creation is gathered” (2 Baruch 24: 1). When the present age passes away, the books will be opened before the face of the firmament, and all shall see together (4 Ezra 6: 20).
The idea is simply that a record of all men’s deeds is kept by God. The symbolism is that all through life we are writing our own destiny; it is not so much that God judges a man as that a man writes his own judgment.
The second book is the Book of Life. This, too, occurs often in Scripture. Moses is willing to be blotted out of the Book of Life if it will save the people (Exo.32:32). It is the prayer of the Psalmist that the wicked will be blotted out of the Book of the Living and not written with the righteous (Ps.69:28). Isaiah speaks of those who are written among the living (Isa.4:3). Paul speaks of his fellow-labourers whose names are in the Book of Life (Php.4:3). It is the promise of the Risen Christ to the Church at Sardis that the name of him who overcomes will not be blotted out of the Book of Life (Rev. 3:5). Those whose names are not written in the Book of Life are given over to destruction (Rev. 13:8). The idea behind this is that every ruler had a roll-book of living citizens under his control; and, of course, when a man died, his name was removed from the roll. Those whose names are in the Book of Life are those who are living, active citizens of the kingdom of God.
At the time of judgment it is said that the sea will give up its dead. The point is twofold. First, in the ancient world burial was all important; if a man did not obtain burial, his spirit would wander, homeless, neither in earth nor in heaven. And, of course, those who died at sea could never be buried. John means that even such as these will appear before the judgment seat of God. Second, H. B. Swete puts the matter in a more general form. “The accidents of death,” he says, “will not prevent any from appearing before the judge.” No matter how a man dies, he will not escape his punishment nor lose his reward.
Finally, Death and Hades are thrown into the lake of fire. As H. B. Swete puts it, these voracious monsters who have themselves devoured so many are in the end themselves destroyed. In the judgment those who are not in the Book of Life are condemned to the lake of fire with the Devil, their master, but for those whose names are in the Book of Life, death is for ever vanquished.
THE NEW CREATION
Rev. 21:1
And I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had gone; and the sea was no more.
John has seen the doom of the wicked, and now he sees the bliss of the blessed.
The dream of a new heaven and a new earth was deep in Jewish thought. “Behold,” said God to Isaiah, “I create new heavens and a new earth; and the former things shall not be remembered, or come into mind” (Isa.65:17). Isaiah speaks of the new heaven and the new earth which God will make, in which life will be one continual act of worship (Isa.66:22). This idea is equally strong between the Testaments. It is God’s promise: “I will transform the heaven and make it an eternal blessing and light; and I will transform the earth and make it a blessing” (Enoch 45: 4). There will be a new creation accomplished which will endure to eternity (Enoch 72: 1). The first heaven will pass away, and the new heaven shall appear; the light of heaven will be seven times brighter; and the new creation will last for ever (Enoch 91: 16). The Mighty One will shake creation only to renew it (2 Baruch 32: 6). God will renew his creation (2Esdr.7:75).
The picture is always there and its elements are always the same. Sorrow is to be forgotten; sin is to be vanquished; darkness is to be at an end; the temporariness of time is to turn into the everlastingness of eternity. This continuing belief is a witness to three things–to the unquenchable immortal longings in man’s soul, to man’s inherent sense of sin and to man’s faith in God.
In this vision of the future bliss we come on one of the most famous phrases in the Revelation–“And the sea was no more.” This phrase has a double background.
(i) It has a background in the great mythological beliefs of John’s time. We have already seen that the Babylonian story of the creation of the world is of a long struggle between Marduk, the god of creation, and Tiamat, the dragon of chaos. In that story the sea, the waters beneath the firmament, became the dwelling-place of Tiamat. The sea was always an enemy. The Egyptians saw it as the power which swallowed up the waters of the Nile and left the fields barren.
(ii) It has a much more human background. The ancient peoples hated the sea, even though, by the time of John, they were voyaging long and far. They did not possess the compass; and, therefore, as far as possible, they coasted along the shores. It is not till modern times that we come on people who rejoice in being sea-faring.
Matthew Arnold spoke of “the salt, estranging sea.” Dr. Johnson once remarked bitterly that no man who had the wit to get himself into gaol would ever choose to go to sea. There is an old story of a man who was weary of battling with the sea. He put an oar on his shoulder and set out with the intention of journeying inland until he reached people who knew so little of the sea that they asked him what strange thing he carried on his shoulder.
The Sibylline Oracles (5: 447) say that in the last time the sea will be dried up. The Ascension of Moses (10: 6) says that the sea will return into the abyss. In Jewish dreams the end of the sea is the end of a force hostile to God and to man.
THE NEW JERUSALEM (1)
Rev. 21:2
And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, like a bride adorned for her husband.
Here, again, is a dream of the Jews which never died–the dream of the restoration of Jerusalem, the holy city. Once again it has a double background.
(i) It has a background which is essentially Greek. One of the great contributions to the world’s philosophical thought was Plato’s doctrine of ideas or forms. He taught that in the invisible world there existed the perfect form or idea of everything upon earth, and that all things on earth were imperfect copies of the heavenly realities. If that be so, there is a heavenly Jerusalem of which the earthly Jerusalem is an imperfect copy. That is what Paul is thinking of when he speaks of the Jerusalem that is above (Gal.4:26), and also what is in the mind of the writer to the Hebrews when he speaks of the heavenly Jerusalem (Heb.12:22).
That way of thought left its mark on Jewish visions between the Testaments. We read that in the Messianic Age the Jerusalem which is invisible will appear (2Esdr.7:26). The writer of 2 Esdras was, he says, given a vision of it in so far as it was possible for human eyes to bear the sight of the heavenly glory (2Esdr.10:44-59). In 2 Baruch it is said that God made the heavenly Jerusalem before he made Paradise, that Adam saw it before he sinned, that it was shown in a vision to Abraham, that Moses saw it on Mount Sinai, and that it is now present with God (2 Baruch 4: 2-6).
This conception of preexisting forms may seem strange. But at the back of it is the great truth that the ideal actually exists. It further means that God is the source of all ideals. The ideal is a challenge, which, even if it is not worked out in this world, can still be worked out in the world to come.
THE NEW JERUSALEM (2)
Rev. 21:2 (continued)
(ii) The second background of the conception of the new Jerusalem is entirely Jewish. In his synagogue form of prayer the Jew still prays:
And to Jerusalem thy city return with compassion, and dwell therein as thou hast promised; and rebuild her speedily in our days, a structure everlasting; and the throne of David speedily establish there. Blessed art thou, O Lord, the builder of Jerusalem.
John’s vision of the new Jerusalem uses and amplifies many of the dreams of the prophets. We shall set down some of these dreams and it will be clear at once how the Old Testament again and again finds its echo in the Revelation.
Isaiah had his dream.
“O afflicted one, storm-tossed, and not comforted, behold, I will set your stones in antimony, and lay your foundations with sapphires. I will make your pinnacles of agate, your gates of carbuncles, and all your wall of precious stones” (Isa.54:11-12).
Foreigners shall build up your walls, and their kings shall minister to you…. Your gates shall be open continually; day and night they shall not be shut…. You shall suck the milk of nations, you shall suck the breast of kings…. Instead of bronze I will bring gold, and instead of iron I will bring silver; instead of wood, bronze, instead of stones, iron…. Violence shall no more be heard in your land, devastation or destruction within your borders; you shall call your walls Salvation, and your gates Praise. The sun shall be no more your light by day, nor for brightness shall the moon give light to you by night; but the Lord will be your everlasting light, and your God will be your glory. Your sun shall no more go down, nor your moon withdraw itself; for the Lord will be your everlasting light, and your days of mourning shall be ended (Isa.60:10-20).
Haggai had his dream.
The latter splendour of this house shall be greater than the former, says the Lord of hosts; and in this place I will give prosperity, says the Lord of hosts (Hag.2:9).
Ezekiel had his dream of the rebuilt Jerusalem (Eze.40 and Eze.48) in which we find even the picture of the twelve gates of the city (Eze.48:31-35).
The writers between the Testaments had their dreams.
The city which God loved he made more radiant than the stars and the sun and the moon; and he set it as the jewel of the world and made a Temple exceeding fair in its sanctuary, and fashioned it in size of many furlongs, with a giant tower, touching the very clouds, and seen of all, so that all the faithful and the righteous may see the glory of the invisible God, the vision of delight (The Sibylline Oracles 5: 420427).
And the gates of Jerusalem shall be builded with sapphire and emerald, And all thy walls with precious stones, The towers of Jerusalem shall be builded with gold, And their battlements with pure gold, The streets of Jerusalem shall be paved With carbuncle and stones of Ophir, And the gates of Jerusalem shall utter hymns of gladness, And all her houses shall say, Hallelujah! (Tob.13:16-18).
It is easy to see that the new Jerusalem was a constant dream; and that John lovingly collected the differing visions–the precious stones, the streets and buildings of gold, the ever-open gates, the light of God making unnecessary the light of the sun and the moon, the coming of the nations and the bringing of their gifts–into his own.
Here is faith! Even when Jerusalem was obliterated, the Jews never lost confidence that God would restore it. True, they expressed their hopes in terms of material things; but these are merely the symbols of the certainty that there is eternal bliss for the faithful people of God.
FELLOWSHIP WITH GOD (1)
Rev. 21:3-4
And I heard a great voice from heaven. “Behold,” it said, “the dwelling-place of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they will be his peoples, and God himself shall be with them; and he will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death will be no more, nor will there be any grief or crying, nor will there be any more pain, for the first things have gone.”
Here is the promise of fellowship with God and all its precious consequences. The voice is that of one of the Angels of the Presence.
God is to make his dwelling-place with men. The word used for dwelling-place is skene (GSN4633), literally a tent; but in religious use it had long since lost any idea of an impermanent residence. There are two main ideas here.
(i) Skene (GSN4633) is the word used for the Tabernacle. Originally in the wilderness the Tabernacle was a tent, the skene (GSN4633) par excellence. This, then, means that God is to make his tabernacle with men for ever, to give his presence to men for ever. Here in this world and amidst the things of time our realisation of the presence of God is spasmodic; but in heaven we will be permanently aware of that presence.
(ii) There are two words totally different in meaning but similar in sound which in early Christian thought became closely connected. Skene (GSN4633) is one; and the Hebrew shechinah, the glory of God, is the other. SKENE (GSN4633)–SHECHINAH (compare the Hebrew verb, shakan, to dwell, HSN7931)–the connection in sound brought it about that men could not hear the one without thinking of the other. As a result, to say that the skene (GSN4633) of God is to be with men immediately brought the thought that the shechinah (compare HSN7931) of God is to be with men. In the ancient times the shechinah (compare HSN7931) took the form of a luminous cloud which came and went. We read, for instance, of the cloud which filled the house at the dedication of Solomon’s Temple (1Kgs.8:10-11). In the new age the glory of God is not to be a transitory thing, but something which abides permanently with the people of God.
FELLOWSHIP WITH GOD (2)
Rev. 21:3-4 (continued)
God’s promise to make Israel his people and to be their God echoes throughout the Old Testament. “I will make my abode among you… and I will walk among you, and will be your God, and you shall be my people” (Lev.26:11-12). In Jeremiah’s account of the new covenant the promise of God is: “I will be their God, and they shall be my people” (Jer.31:33). The promise to Ezekiel is: “My dwelling-place shall be with them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people” (Eze.37:27). The highest promise of all is intimate fellowship with God, in which we can say: “I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine” (SS.6:3).
This fellowship with God in the golden age brings certain things. Tears and grief and crying and pain are gone. That, too, had been the dream of the prophets of the ancient days. “They shall obtain joy and gladness,” said Isaiah of the pilgrims of the heavenly way, “and sorrow and sighing shall flee away” (Isa.35:10). “I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and be glad in my people; no more shall be heard in it the sound of weeping and the cry of distress” (Isa.65:19). Death, too, shall be gone. That, too, had been the dream of the ancient prophets. “He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces” (Isa.25:8).
This is a promise for the future. But even in this present world those who mourn are blessed, for they will be comforted, and death is swallowed up in victory for those who know Christ and the fellowship of his sufferings and the power of his Resurrection (Matt.5:4; Php.3:10).
ALL THINGS NEW
Rev. 21:5-6
And he who is seated upon the throne said: “Behold, I make all things new.” And he said: “Write, for these are words that are trustworthy and true.” And he said to me: “It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. Without price I will give to the thirsty of the fountain of the water of life.”
For the first time God himself speaks; he is the God who is able to make all things new. Again we are back among the dreams of the ancient prophets. Isaiah heard God say: “Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing” (Isa.43:18-19). This is the witness of Paul: “If any one is in Christ, he is a new creation” (2Cor.5:17). God can take a man and re-create him, and will some day create a new universe for the saints whose lives he has renewed.
It is not God but the Angel of the Presence who gives the command to write. These words must be taken down and remembered; they are true and absolutely to be relied upon.
“I am Alpha and Omega,” says God to John, “the beginning and the end.” We have already come upon this claim by the risen Christ in Rev. 1:8. Again John is hearing the voice that the great prophets had heard, “I am the first, and I am the last; besides me there is no God” (Isa.44:6). Alpha (GSN0001) is the first letter of the Greek alphabet and omega (GSN5598) the last. John goes on to amplify this statement. God is the beginning and the end. The word for “beginning” is arche (GSN0746), and does not simply mean first in point of time but first in the sense of the source of all things. The word for “end” is telos (GSN5056), and does not simply mean end in point of time but the goal. John is saying that all life begins in God and ends in God. Paul expressed the same thing when he said perhaps a little more philosophically: “For from him, and through him, and to him are all things” (Rom.11:36), and when he spoke of “one God and Father of us all, who is above all, and through all, and in all” (Eph.4:6).
It would be impossible to say anything more magnificent about God. At first sight it might seem to remove God to such a distance that we are no more to him than the flies on the windowpane. But what comes next? “To the thirsty I will give water without price from the fountain of the water of life.” All God’s greatness is at the disposal of man. “God so loved that he gave …” (Jn.3:16). The splendour of God is used to satisfy the thirst of the longing heart.
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
Rev. 21:7-8
“He who overcomes will enter into possession of these things, and I will be his God and he will be my son. But as for the cowards, the unbelieving, the polluted, the murderers, the fornicators, the sorcerers, the idolaters, and all the liars–their part is in the lake burning with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.”
The bliss is not to everyone but only to him who remains faithful when everything seeks to seduce him from his loyalty.
To such a man God makes the greatest promise of all–“I will be his God and he shall be my son.” This promise, or something very near to it, was made in the Old Testament to three different people. First, it was made to Abraham. “I will establish my covenant between me and you and your descendants after you,” God said to Abraham, “… to be God to you and your descendants” (Gen.17:7). Second, it was made to the son who was to inherit David’s kingdom. “I will be his father,” said God, “and he shall be my son” (2Sam.7:14). Third, it was made in a Psalm which the Jewish scholars always interpreted of the Messiah. “I will make him the first-born, the highest of the kings of the earth” (Ps.89:27). Here is a tremendous thing. The promise of God to those who overcome is the same that was made to Abraham the founder of the nation, to David on behalf of Solomon his son, and to the Messiah himself. There is no greater honour in all the universe than that which God gives to the man who is true to him.
But there are those who are condemned. The cowards are those who loved ease and comfort more than they loved Christ, and who in the day of trial were ashamed to show whose they were and whom they served. The King James Version gives a wrong impression when it translates deilos (GSN1169) by “fearful.” It is not fear that is condemned. The highest courage is to be desperately afraid and in spite of that to do the right thing and to hold fast to loyalty. What is condemned is the cowardice which denies Christ for safety’s sake. The unbelieving are those who refused to accept the Gospel or those who with their lips accepted it, but by their lives showed that they did not believe it. The polluted are those who allowed themselves to be saturated by the abominations of the world. The murderers may well be those who in persecutions slaughtered the Christians. The fornicators are those who lived lives of immorality. Ephesus was full of sorcerers; Ac.19:19 tells how at the preaching of the name of Christ in the early days the magicians burned their books. The idolaters are those who worshipped the false gods of whom the world was full. The liars are those who were guilty of untruth and of the silence which is also a lie.
THE CITY OF GOD
Rev. 21:9-27
It will be better to read the description of the city of God as a whole before we deal with it in detail.
9 There came to me one of the seven angels who have the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues, and he spoke with me. “Come,” he said, “and I will show you the Bride, the wife of the Lamb.” And he carried me away in the Spirit to a 10 great and lofty mountain, and showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, and it had the glory of God. 11 Its light was like a most precious stone, like a jasper stone, glittering like crystal. 12 It had a wall great and high with twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels. There were names written on the 13 gates which are the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel. On the east were three gates, and on the north were three gates, and on the south were three gates, and on the west were three gates. 14 The wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. 15 He who was speaking with me had a golden measuring rod, that he might measure the city and its gates and its walls. 16 The city lies four-square, and its length is the same as its breadth. He measured the city with his measuring rod, and the measurement was twelve thousand stades. Its length and breadth and height are equal. And he measured its wall, 17 and the measurement was one hundred and forty-four cubits, by the measurement of a man, that is, of an angel. 18 The building material of the wall was jasper, and the city was of pure gold like pure glass. 19 The foundations of the wall of the city were adorned with every kind of precious stone. The first foundation was a jasper; the second, a sapphire; the third, a chalcedony; the fourth, 20 an emerald; the fifth, a sardonyx; the sixth, a carnelian; the seventh, a chrysolith; the eighth, a beryl; the ninth, a topaz; the tenth, a chrysoprase; the eleventh, a jacinth; the twelfth, an amethyst. 21 The twelve gates were twelve pearls; each one of the gates consisted of a single pearl. The street of the city was of pure gold, like transparent glass. 22 I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God, the Almighty, is its temple, and the Lamb. 23 The city has no need of the sun or the moon to shine for it, for the glory of God illumines it, and its lamp is the Lamb. 24 The nations will walk in its light, and the kings of the earth 25 will bring their glory to it. Its gates will never be shut by day, 26 for, as for night, there will be no night there. They shall bring 27 to it the glory and the honour of the nations; but nothing unclean shall enter into it, nor shall he who practises abominable things or uses falsehood, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.
THE BRINGER OF THE VISION
Rev. 21:9-10
The personality of the bringer of the vision of the heavenly Jerusalem must come as a surprise. He is one of the angels who had the seven bowls filled with the last seven plagues; and the last time we met such an angel he was the bringer of the vision of the destruction of Babylon, the great harlot. It is extraordinary that in Rev. 17:1 the invitation of the angel is: “Come, I will show you the judgment of the great harlot,” and that in Rev. 21:9 the invitation, perhaps even of the same angel, is: “Come, I will show you the Bride, the wife of the Lamb.”
No one can say for certain what much of the symbolism of this chapter stands for. John must have meant something by making the same angel the bearer of such different messages. It may be that John wishes us to see that the servant of God does not choose his task but must do whatever God sends him to do, and must speak whatever word God gives him to speak.
The angel, says John, carried him away in the Spirit to a high mountain. It is in this way that Ezekiel also describes his experience. “He brought me in the visions of God into the land of Israel, and set me down upon a very high mountain” (Eze.40:2). H. B. Swete points out that it is wrong to take this literally; the lifting up stands for the elevation of spirit in which a man sees the visions and hears the words which are sent to him by God.
THE CITY’S LIGHT
Rev. 21:11
There is a certain difficulty of translation here. The word used for “light” is phoster (GSN5458). The normal Greek word for “light” is phos (GSN5457), and phoster (GSN5458) is normally the word used for the lights of heaven, the sun, the moon and the stars, for instance, in the Creation story (Gen.1:14). Does this, then, mean that the body which illumined the city was like a precious stone? Or does it mean that the radiance which played over all the city was like the glitter of a jasper?
We think the word must describe the radiance over the city; it is later quite distinctly said that the city needs no heavenly body like the sun or the moon to give it light, because God is its light.
What, then, is the symbolism? H. B. Swete would find a hint in Php.2:15. There Paul says of the Christians at Philippi: “You shine as lights in the world.” The holy city is inhabited by thousands and thousands of the saints of God, and it may well be that it is the light of these saintly lives which gives it this glittering glow.
THE WALL AND THE GATES OF THE CITY
Rev. 21:12
Round the city is a great high wall. Again John is thinking in terms of the prophetic pictures of the re-created Jerusalem. The song of the land of Judah will be: “We have a strong city; God sets up salvation as walls and bulwarks” (Isa.26:1). Zechariah hears God say: “I will be to her a wall of fire round about” (Zech.2:5). The simplest interpretation of the wall is that it is “the insurmountable bulwark of faith.” Faith is the wall behind which the saints of God are secure against the assaults of the world, the flesh and the devil.
In the wall are twelve gates, and on the gates the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel. The word for gate is interesting. It is not the normal word which is pule (GSN4439); it is pulon (GSN4440). The pulon could be either of two things. A large house was built round an open courtyard. It opened on to the street by a great gate in the outer wall, leading into a spacious vestibule. That could be the picture here. Pulon (GSN4440) can also mean the gate-tower in a great city, like the gate leading into a battlemented castle.
There are two things to note.
(i) There are twelve gates. Surely this stands for the catholicity of the Church. A man can come by many roads into the kingdom, for “there are as many ways to the stars as there are men to climb them.”
(ii) On the gates are the names of the twelve tribes. Surely this stands for the continuity of the Church. The God who revealed himself to the patriarchs is the God who also, and far more fully, revealed himself in Jesus Christ; the God of the Old Testament is the God of the New Testament.
THE GATES OF THE CITY
Rev. 21:13
There are three gates on each of the four sides of the city of God. Part at least of that picture John got from Ezekiel (Eze.48:30-35). What John meant to symbolize by this arrangement other than the catholicity of the Church we do not know. There is one symbolic interpretation which was unlikely to be in his mind, but which is none the less very beautiful and very comforting.
There are three gates on the east. The east is the place of the rising sun and the beginning of the day. These gates could represent the way into the holy city of those who find Christ in the glad morning of their days.
There are three gates on the north. The north is the cold land with a certain chill in it. These gates could stand for the way into the holy city of those who come to Christianity by the intellectual exercise of thought, and have found the faith through their minds rather than through their hearts.
There are three gates on the south. The south is the warm land, where the wind is gentle and the climate soft. These gates could stand for the way into the holy city of those who have come to Christ through their emotions, whose love ran over at the sight of the cross.
There are three gates on the west. The west is the land of the dying day and the setting sun. These gates could stand for the way into the holy city of those who come to Christ in the evening of their days.
THE MEASURING OF THE CITY
Rev. 21:15-17
John takes his picture of the man with the measuring rod from Eze.40:3.
(i) We must note the city’s shape. It was four-square. It was common enough for cities to be built in the form of a square; both Babylon and Nineveh were like that. But the holy city was not only square; it was in the form of a perfect cube. The length, breadth and height were the same. This is significant. The cube was the symbol of perfection. Both Plato and Aristotle refer to the fact that in Greece the good man was called “four-square” (Plato, Protagoras 339 B; Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 1. 10. 11 ; Rhetoric 3.11).
It was the same with the Jews. The altar of the burnt offering, the altar of the incense, and the High Priest’s breast-plate were all in the form of a cube (Exo.27:1; Exo.30:2; Exo.28:16). Again and again this shape occurs in Ezekiel’s visions of the new Jerusalem and the new temple (Eze.41:21; Eze.43:16; Eze.45:2; Eze.48:20). But most important of all, in Solomon’s temple the Holy of Holies was a perfect cube (1Kgs.6:20). There is no doubt of the symbolism which John intends. He intends us to see that the whole of the holy city is the Holy of Holies, the dwelling-place of God.
(ii) We must note the city’s dimensions. Each side of the city was twelve thousand stades (compare GSN4712). A stade is very nearly a furlong; therefore, each side was 1,500 miles long, and the total area of the city was 2,250,000 square miles. The rabbinic dreams of the re-created Jerusalem were vast enough. It was said that it would reach to Damascus and would cover the whole of Palestine. But a city with that area would stretch nearly from London to New York. Surely we are meant to see that in the holy city there is room for everyone. Men are so apt to limit their Churches, to shut out those who do not believe as they do or who do not administer as they do.
Strangely enough it is different when we come to the wall. The wall is 144 cubits high, that is, 266 feet, not very high. The wall of Babylon was 300 feet high, and the walls of the porch of Solomon’s temple were 180 feet high. There is no comparison between the height of the wall and the size of the city. Again there is symbolism here. The wall cannot be for defence, for all hostile beings, spiritual and human, have been obliterated or cast into the lake of fire. The only thing the wall can do is delimit the area of the city; and the fact that it is so low shows that delimitation is comparatively unimportant. God is much more eager to bring men in than to shut them out–and his Church must be the same.
THE PRECIOUS STONES OF THE CITY
Rev. 21:18-21
The city itself was of pure gold, so pure that it seemed like transparent glass. It is possible that John is here accentuating a feature of the earthly Jerusalem. Josephus describes Herod’s temple: “Now the outward face of the temple in its front lacked nothing that was likely to surprise either men’s minds or their eyes; for it was covered all over with plates of gold of great weight, and, at the first rising of the sun, reflected back a very fiery splendour, and made those who forced themselves to look upon it to turn away their eyes, just as they would at the sun’s own rays. But this temple appeared to strangers, when they were at a distance, like a mountain covered with snow, for as to those parts that were not golden, they were exceeding white” (Josephus: Wars of the Jews 5.5.6).
John goes on to speak of the twelve foundations of the city. Between the twelve gates there were twelve spaces, and the idea is that between these spaces there was one vast foundation stone. Again John may have been thinking of the vast stones in the foundations of the Jerusalem Temple. In the passage which we have just quoted Josephus speaks of stones in the Temple foundation walls of almost 70 feet in length, 8 feet in height, and 9 feet in breadth. In verse 14 John has said that the stones are inscribed with the names of the twelve apostles. They were both Jesus’ first followers and his ambassadors, and they were literally the foundations of the Church.
In the city of God these foundation stones were all precious stones. The jasper was not the modern opaque jasper but a translucent rock crystal, green in colour. The sapphire appears in the Old Testament story as the stone of the paving on which God stood (Exo.24:10). Again, it was not the modern sapphire. Pliny describes it as sky-blue, flecked with gold. It was most likely the stone now known as lapis lazuli. The chalcedony was a green silicate of copper, found in mines near Chalcedon. It is described as being like the sheen of green on a dove’s neck or in a peacock’s tail. The emerald was the modern emerald, which Pliny describes as the greenest of all green stones. The sardonyx was an onyx in which the white was broken by layers of red and brown; it was specially used for cameos. The sard or carnelian took its name from Sardis. It was blood-red, and was the commonest of all stones used for engraving gems. The identification of the chrysolite is uncertain. Its Hebrew name means the stone of Tarshish. Pliny describes it as shining with a golden radiance. It could be a yellow beryl or a gold-coloured jasper. The beryl was like an emerald; the best stones were sea-blue or sea-green. The topaz was a transparent, greenish-gold stone, very highly valued by the Hebrews. Job speaks of the topaz of Ethiopia (Jb.28:19). The jacinth is described by ancient writers as being a violet, bluish-purple stone. It is likely that it was the equivalent of the modern sapphire. The amethyst is described as being very similar to the jacinth, but more brilliant.
Have these stones any symbolism?
(i) It may be noted that eight of them are the same as the stones in the breast-plate of the High Priest (Exo.28:17). John may simply have used the breast-plate as his model.
(ii) It may well be that the only intention of John is to stress the splendour of the city of God in which even the foundations were stones beyond price.
(iii) There is another interesting possibility. In the east there was the idea of the city of the gods in the skies. There the gods dwelt; the sun and the moon and the stars were its lights; the Milky Way was its great street; there were twelve gates through which the stars went in and out upon their business. Connected with the city of the gods there are the signs of the Zodiac, the signs of the parts of the heavens through which the sun passes. The curious thing is that the signs of the Zodiac have as their corresponding precious stones exactly these twelve.
The table is as follows:
The Ram — amethyst. The Bull — jacinth. The Twins — chrysoprase. The Crab — topaz. The Lion — beryl. The Virgin — chrysolite. The Balance — carnelian. The Scorpion — sardonyx. The Archer — emerald. The Goat — chalcedony. The Water-carrier — sapphire. The Fishes — jasper.
There is at least the possibility that John was thinking of the city of God as the consummation of the old idea of the city of the Gods, but far outshining it.
But there is one curious point. If that be so, John gives the signs of the Zodiac in precisely the reverse order! What the symbolism of that would be it is impossible to tell, unless it is John’s way of saying that the city of the gods is made new in the city of God.
The most staggering use of precious stones in this picture is that the gates of the city of God each consist of one vast pearl. In the ancient world pearls were of all stones most valued. All his life the merchantman would seek the pearl of great price and then count it worth selling all his possessions to buy it (Matt.13:46). Gates of pearl are a symbol of unimaginable beauty and unassessable riches.
THE PRESENCE OF GOD
Rev. 21:22-23
In Rev. 21:22 John lays down a unique feature of the city of God; in it there is no temple. When we remember how precious the Temple was to the Jews, this is amazing. But we have already noted that the city is built in the shape of a perfect cube, indicating that it itself is the Holy of Holies. The city needs no temple because the presence of God is continually there.
Here is symbolism which is plain for all to see. Buildings do not make a Church nor liturgy, nor form of government, nor method of ordination to the ministry. The one thing which makes a Church is the presence of Jesus Christ. Without that there can be no such thing as a Church; with that any gathering of people is a real Church.
The city of God needed no created light, because God the uncreated light was in the midst of her. “The Lord,” said Isaiah, “will be your everlasting light” (Isa.60:19-20). “In thy light,” said the Psalmist, “do we see light” (Ps.36:9). Only when we see things in the light of God, do we see things as they are. Some things which seem vastly important are seen to be unimportant when seen in the light of God. Some things which seem permissible enough are seen to be dangerous when seen in the light of God. Some things which seem unbearable are seen to be a path to glory when seen in the light of God.
THE WHOLE EARTH FOR GOD
Rev. 21:24-27
A passage like this enables us–and even compels us–to redress a wrong which is often done to Jewish thought. Here is a picture of all nations coming to God and of all kings bringing him their gifts. In other words, here is a picture of universal salvation. It is often said that the Jews looked for nothing but the destruction of the Gentiles. It is true that we find sayings like: “God created the Gentiles to be fuel for the fires of hell.” It is true that there is a strain of Jewish thought which expected the annihilation, or at least the enslavement, of the Gentiles; but there is much on the other side, and voice after voice speaks of the time when all men shall know and love God.
Isaiah has a picture of the day when all nations will go up to Mount Sion to be taught the law and to learn to walk in the ways of God (Isa.2:2-4). God will set up an ensign to which all the nations will come (Isa.11:12). It is God’s word of privilege to Israel: “I will give you for a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth” (Isa.49:6). The isles will wait upon God and in his arm will they trust (Isa.51:5). Nations who never knew God will run to him (Isa.55:5). The sons of the stranger will learn to love God and to serve him. God will gather others to him (Isa.56:6-8). It is Israel’s task to declare God’s glory among the Gentiles (Isa.66:19). The ends of the earth are invited to look to God and to be saved (Isa.45:22). All nations shall be gathered to Jerusalem, and shall recognize it as the throne of the Lord, and will no more stubbornly follow their evil heart (Jer.3:17). The Gentiles will come to God from the ends of the earth, confessing and repenting of the previous errors of their ways (Jer.16:19-21). All peoples, nations and languages will serve the one who is like a son of man (Dn.7:14). All men shall worship God, everyone from his place, even all the isles of the heathen (Zeph.2:11). God will give all men a pure language in which they may with one consent call upon him (Zeph.3:9). All flesh will be silent before God (Zech.2:13). Many people and the inhabitants of many cities will come to Jerusalem. People of all races and tongues shall “take hold of the robe of a Jew, saying, Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you” (Zech.8:20-23). The day will come when the Lord will be king over all the earth; in that day there will be one Lord (Zech.14:9).
What is true of the Old Testament is true of the literature between the Testaments. The vision in Tobit is:
A bright light shall shine unto all the ends of the earth; Many nations shall come from afar, And the inhabitants of the utmost ends of the earth unto thy holy name; With their gifts in their hands unto the king of heaven (Tob.13:11).
All the nations which are in the whole earth, all shall turn and fear God truly, all shall leave their idols (Tob.14:6).
Enoch writes nobly of God’s chosen one:
He shall be a stall to the righteous whereon to stay themselves and not fall, And he shall be a light of the Gentiles, And the hope of those who are troubled of heart. All who dwell on earth shall fall down and worship before him, And will praise and bless and celebrate with song the Lord of Spirits (Enoch 48: 4-5).
The writer of Enoch hears the voice of God say: “All the children of men shall become righteous, and all nations shall offer adoration, and shall praise me, and shall worship me” (Enoch 10: 21).
The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs is full of this universal hope. When the Messiah comes “in his priesthood the Gentiles shall be multiplied in knowledge upon the earth, and enlightened in the grace of the Lord” (Testament of Levi 18: 9). It is the word of God: “If ye work that which is good, my children, both men and angels will bless you; and God shall be glorified among the Gentiles through you.” It is Israel’s task “to gather the righteous from among the Gentiles” (Testament of Naphtali 8: 3, 4). God will save all Israel and all the Gentiles (Testament of Asher 7: 3). The Sibylline Oracles has a noble passage which tells of the reaction of the Gentiles when they see the goodness of God to Israel:
Then all the isles and the cities shall say, How doth the Eternal love those men! For all things work in sympathy with them and help them, the heaven, and God’s chariot the sun, and the moon. A sweet strain shall they utter from their mouths in hymns. Come, let us all fall upon the earth and supplicate the Eternal King, the mighty, everlasting God. Let us make procession to his Temple, for he is the sole Potentate. And let us all ponder the law of the Most High God, who is the most righteous of all upon the earth. But we had gone astray from the path of the Eternal, and with foolish heart worshipped the work of men’s hands, idols and images of men that are dead (Sibylline Oracles 3: 710-723).
Nations shall come from the ends of the earth to see the glory of God (Wis.17:34).
When John pictured the nations walking in the light of the city of God and the kings bringing their gifts to it, he was foretelling the consummation of a hope which was always in the hearts of the greatest of his countrymen.
RECEPTION AND REJECTION
Rev. 21:24-27 (continued)
We gather up three further points before we leave this chapter.
(i) More than once John insists that there will be no night in the city of God. The ancient peoples, like children, were afraid of the dark. In the new world the frightening dark will be no more, for the presence of God will bring eternal light. Even in this world of space and time, where God is, the night is as bright as the day (Ps.139:12).
H. B. Swete sees further symbolism here. In the city of God there will be no darkness. Again and again it has happened that an age of brilliance has been followed by an age of darkness. But in the new age the darkness will be gone and there will be nothing but light.
(ii) John, like the ancient prophets, repeatedly speaks of the Gentiles and their kings bringing their gifts to God. It is true that the nations did bring their gifts to the Church. The Greeks brought the power of their intellect. To them, as Plato said, “the unexamined life was the life not worth living,” and so the unexamined faith was the faith not worth having. To the Greeks we owe theology. The Romans were the greatest experts in government the world has ever seen. To the Church they brought their ability to organize and to administer and to formulate law. When a man enters the Church, he must bring his gift with him; the writer his power in words, the artist his power in colour, the sculptor his mastery of line and form and mass, the musician his music, the craftsman his craft. There is no gift which Christ cannot use.
(iii) The chapter ends with a threat. Those who will not lay aside the evil of their ways are barred from the city of God. There is a sinner who sins against his will; there is a sinner who deliberately sins. It is not the repentant sinner, but the defiant sinner, who is barred from the city of God.
THE RIVER OF LIFE
Rev. 22:1-2
And he showed me the river of the water of life, shining like crystal, coming out from the throne of God and of the Lamb, in the midst of the city street. And on either side of the river was the tree of life, which produced twelve kinds of fruit, rendering its fruit according to each month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.
So far the description has been of the exterior of the holy city; now the scene moves inside.
First, there is the river of the water of life. This picture has many sources in the Old Testament. At its back is the river which watered the Garden of Eden and made it fruitful (Gen.2:8-16). Still closer is Ezekiel’s picture of the river which issued from the Temple (Eze.47:1-7). The Psalmist sings of the river whose streams make glad the city of God (Ps.46:4). “A fountain,” says Joel, “shall come forth from the house of the Lord” (Jl.3:18). “Living waters,” says Zechariah, “shall flow out from Jerusalem” (Zech.14:8). In Second Enoch there is the picture of a river in Paradise, which issues in the third heaven, which flows from beneath the tree of life, and which divides into four streams of honey, milk, wine, and oil (2 Enoch 8: 5).
Closely allied with this is the picture so common in Scripture of the fountain of life; we have it in Rev. 7:17; Rev. 21:6 in the Revelation. It is Jeremiah’s complaint that the people have forsaken God who is the fountain of living waters to hew themselves out broken cisterns which can hold no water (Jer.2:13). The warning in Enoch is:
Woe to you who drink water from every fountain, For suddenly shall ye be consumed and wither away, Because ye have forsaken the fountain of life (Enoch 96: 6).
The mouth of a righteous man is a well of life (Prov.10:11). The teaching of the wise is a fountain of life (Prov.13:14). The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life (Prov.14:27). Wisdom is a fountain of life to him who has it (Prov.16:22). With God, says the Psalmist, is the fountain of life (Ps.36:9). “God,” said the rabbis in their dreams of the golden age, “will produce a river from the Holy of Holies, beside which every kind of delicate fruits will grow.”
H. B. Swete identifies the river of life with the Spirit. In the Fourth Gospel Jesus says: “He who believes in me, out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water.” John goes on to explain: “This he said about the Spirit which those who believed in him were to receive” (Jn.7:38-39).
But it may well be that there is something simpler here. Those who live in a civilization in which the turn of a tap will bring cold, clear water in any quantity can scarcely understand how precious water was in the East. In the hot lands water was, and is, literally life. And the river of life may well stand for the abundant life God provides for his people which is there for the taking.
THE TREE OF LIFE
Rev. 22:1-2 (continued)
In this passage there is an ambiguity of punctuation. In the midst of the city street may be taken, not as the end of the first sentence, but as the beginning of the second. It will then be not the river which is in the midst of the street but the tree of life. Taking the phrase with the first sentence seems to give the better picture.
John takes his picture of the tree of life from two sources–from the tree in the Garden of Eden (Gen.3:6); and even more from Ezekiel. “And on the banks, on both sides of the river, there will grow all kinds of trees for food. Their leaves will not wither nor their fruit fail, but they will bear fresh fruit every month. Their fruit will be for food, and their leaves for healing” (Eze.47:12). Here again the rabbinic dreams of the future are very close. One runs: “In the age to come God will create trees which will produce fruit in any month; and the man who eats from them will be healed.”
The tree gives many and varied fruits. Surely in that we may see the symbolism of the fruit of the Spirit (Gal.5:22-23). In the different fruit for each month of the year may we not see symbolized that in the life which God gives there is a special grace for each age from the cradle to the grave? The tree of life is no longer forbidden; it is there in the midst of the city for all to take. Nor are its fruits confined to the Jews; its leaves are for the healing of the nations. Only in the Spirit of God can the wounds and the breaches of the nations be healed.
THE BEAUTY OF HOLINESS
Rev. 22:3-5
No longer shall there be any accursed thing. And the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and his servants shall worship him, and shall see his face, and his name shall be on their foreheads. And night will be no more, for they have no need of the light of a lamp, or the light of a sun, for the Lord God will be a light to them, and they will reign for ever and ever.
Here is the final culmination of the description of the city of God.
There will be no accursed thing there. That is to say, there will be no more of the pollutions which harm the Christian life.
God’s servants shall see his face. The promise will come true that the pure in heart will see God (Matt.5:8). We may best understand the greatness of that promise by remembering that the Christian is promised a privilege which was denied even to Moses to whom God’s word was: “You cannot see my face; for man shall not see me and live” (Exo.33:20,23). It is in Christ alone that men can see God.
The sight of God produces two things. It produces the perfect worship; where God is always seen, all life becomes an act of worship. It produces the perfect consecration; the inhabitants of the city will have the mark of God upon their foreheads, showing that they belong absolutely to him.
John returns to his vision that in the city of God there can never be any darkness nor need of any other light, for the presence of God is there.
The vision ends with the promise that the people of God will reign for ever and ever. In perfect submission to him they will find perfect freedom and the only true royalty.
FINAL WORDS
Rev. 22:6-9
And he said to me: “These words are trustworthy and true, for the Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, has sent his angel to show to his servants the things which must speedily happen.”
“And, behold, I am coming soon. Blessed is he who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book.”
It is I John who am the hearer and the seer of these things. And, when I heard and saw them, I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel who was showing them to me. And he said to me: “See that you do not do this. I am your fellow-servant, and the fellow-servant of your brothers the prophets, and of those who keep the words of this book. Worship God.”
What remains of the last chapter of the Revelation is curiously disjointed. Things are set down without any apparent order; there are repetitions of what has gone before; and it is often very difficult to be sure who is the actual speaker. There are two possibilities. It may be that John is deliberately sounding again many of the themes which run through his book, and bringing on the stage many of the characters for a final message. It is perhaps more likely that he did not finally set in order this last chapter and that we have it in unfinished form. We have three speakers.
The first is one of the angels who have been the interpreters of the divine things to John. Once again he stresses the truth of all that John has seen and heard. “The God of the spirits of the prophets” means the God who inspired the minds of the prophets. Therefore the messages John received came from the same God as inspired the great prophets of the Old Testament, and must be treated with equal seriousness.
The second speaker is Jesus Christ himself. He reiterates that his return is not to be long delayed. Then he pronounces his blessing on the man who reads and obeys the words of John’s book. Swete aptly calls this “the felicitation of the devout student.” The devout student is the best of all students. There are too many who are devout, but not students; they will not accept the discipline of learning and even look with suspicion upon the further knowledge which study brings. There are also too many who are students, but not devout; they are interested too much in intellectual knowledge and too little in prayer and in service of their fellow-men.
The last speaker is John. He identifies himself as the author of the book. Then, strangely enough, he delivers exactly the same warning against angel worship as in Rev. 19:10. Either John would have removed this passage as a needless repetition, if he had had opportunity fully to revise his book; or he was so aware of the danger of angel worship that he believed it necessary to give the same warning twice. He certainly leaves us in no doubt that worship of angels is wrong and that worship must be given to God alone.
THE TIME IS NEAR AND THE TIME IS PAST
Rev. 22:10-11
And he said to me: “Do not seal the words of the prophecy of this book; for the time is near. Let the wrong-doer continue in his wrong-doing; let him who is filthy continue in his filthiness; let the righteous man continue in his righteousness; let him who is dedicated to God continue in his dedication.”
This passage insists that the coming of Christ is close at hand; it must be the Risen Christ who is speaking.
In the older Apocalypses, written between the Testaments, the instruction is always to seal them and lay them up for a distant future. In Daniel, for instance, we read: “Seal up the vision, for it pertains to many days hence” (Dn.8:26). But now it is not the time to seal but it is the time to open and read; for the coming of Christ will take place at any moment.
What, then, is the meaning of this curious passage which seems to say that men must remain as they are? There are two possibilities.
(i) There comes a time when it is too late to change. In Daniel we read: “The wicked shall do wickedly” (Dn.12:10). As Ezekiel had it: “He that will hear, let him hear; and he that will refuse to hear, let him refuse” (Eze.3:27). A man can so long refuse the way of Christ that in the end he cannot take it. That is the sin against the Holy Spirit.
(ii) The ancient commentator, Andreas, says that the Risen Christ is saying: “Let each man do what pleases him; I will not force his choice.” This, then, would be another warning that every man is writing his own destiny.
THE CLAIMS OF CHRIST
Rev. 22:12-13
Behold, I am coming soon, and I have my reward with me, to render to each man, as his work is. I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.
The Risen Christ once again announces his speedy coming; and he makes two great claims.
(i) He has his reward with him and will render to every man according to his work. H. B. Swete says: “Christ speaks as the Great Steward, who in the eventide of the world will call the labourers to receive their day’s wages.”
(ii) He is Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end. This is a repetition of titles used in Rev. 1:17; Rev. 2:8; Rev. 21:6. There is more than one idea here.
(a) There is the idea of completeness. The Greeks used from alpha (GSN0001) to omega (GSN5598) and the Hebrews from aleph to tau to indicate completeness. For instance, Abraham kept the whole Law from aleph to tau. Here is the symbol that Jesus Christ has everything within himself and needs nothing from any other source.
(b) There is the idea of eternity. He includes in himself all time, for he is the first and the last.
(c) There is the idea of authority. The Greeks said that Zeus was the beginning, the middle, and the end. The Jewish rabbis took over this idea and applied it to God, with their own interpretation. They said that, since God was the beginning, he received his power from no one; since he was the middle, he shared his power with no one; and since he was the end, he never handed over his power to anyone.
THE ACCEPTED AND THE REJECTED
Rev. 22:14-15
Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life, and that they may enter into the city by the gates. Outside are the dogs and the sorcerers and the fornicators and the murderers and the idolaters and everyone who loves and acts falsehood.
(i) Those who wash their robes have the right of entry into the city of God; the King James Version has: Blessed are they that do his commandments. In Greek the two phrases would be very like each other. Those who have washed their robes is hoi (GSN3588) plunontes (GSN4150) tas (GSN3588) stolas (GSN4749), and those that do his commandments is hoi (GSN3588) poiountes (GSN4160) tas (GSN3588) entolas (GSN1785). In the early Greek manuscripts all the words are written in capital letters and there is no space left between them. If we set down these two phrases in English capital letters, we see how closely they resemble each other.
HOIPLUNONTESTASSTOLAS HOIPOIOUNTESTASENTOLAS
“Those who have washed their robes” is the reading of the best manuscripts, but it is easy to see how a scribe could make a mistake in copying and substitute the more usual phrase.
This phrase shows man’s part in salvation. It is Jesus Christ who in his Cross has provided that grace by which alone man can be forgiven; but man has to appropriate that sacrifice. To take a simple analogy, we can supply soap and water, but we cannot compel a person to use them. Those who enter into the city of God are those who have accepted the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
(ii) There follows the list of those who are debarred from the city of God. We have already considered a very similar list in Rev. 21:8 of those who were cast into the lake of fire. The new phrase here is the dogs. This can have two meanings.
(i) The dog was the symbol for everything that was savage and unclean. H. B. Swete says: “No one who has watched the dogs that prowl in the quarters of an eastern city will wonder at the contempt and disgust which the word suggests to the oriental mind.” That was why the Jews called the Gentiles dogs. There is a rabbinic saying: “Whoever eats with an idolator is the same as he who would eat with a dog. Who is a dog? He who is not circumcised.” Andreas suggests that the dogs are not only the shameless and the unbelieving, but also Christians who after their baptism “return to their vomit.” The dog may, then, be a symbol of all that is disgusting.
(ii) But there is another possibility. There is a strange phrase in Deut.23:18. The full verse runs: “You shall not bring the hire of a harlot or the wages of a dog into the house of the Lord your God in payment for any vow.” The first part is clear enough. It is forbidden to offer to God money that has been made by prostitution. But the wages of a dog is more difficult. The point is this. In the ancient temples there were not only female sacred prostitutes, there were also male sacred prostitutes; and these male prostitutes were commonly called dogs. Dog can denote a thoroughly immoral person, and that may be its meaning here.
Every one who loves and acts falsehood is shut out. Here is an echo of the Psalmist: “No man who practises deceit shall dwell in my house; no man who utters lies shall continue in my presence” (Ps.101:7).
THE GUARANTEE OF TRUTH
Rev. 22:16
I, Jesus, sent my angel to you to testify to these things for the sake of the Churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright morning star.
Jesus guarantees the truth of all that John has seen and heard. The point of this guarantee is this. The book begins by promising a revelation to be given by Jesus (Rev. 1:1); this is the attestation of Jesus that, however the vision came, it came from him.
He then goes on to give, as it were, his credentials. “I am the root and the offspring of David,” he says. That is a reference to Isa.11:1: “There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots.” Jesus is saying that in him is the fulfilment of this prophecy, that he is at one and the same time the eternal source of being from which David came and his promised descendant.
“I am the bright morning star,” he says. To call a man a morning star was to class him very high among the heroes. The rabbis, for instance, called Mordecai by that name. More than that, this would recall the great Messianic prophecy: “A star shall come forth out of Jacob” (Num.24:17).
This would awaken other realms of thought. The morning star is the herald of the day which chases away the darkness of the night; before Jesus the night of sin and death flees away.
Surely this would awaken still another memory. In the days of his flesh Jesus had said: “I am the light of the world; he who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (Jn.8:12). When the Risen Christ said that he was the morning star, he claimed again to be the light of the world and the vanquisher of all the world’s darkness.
THE GREAT INVITATION
Rev. 22:17
The Spirit and the Bride say: Come! And let him that hears say: Come! Let him who is thirsty come and let him who wishes take the water of life without price.
There are two different interpretations of this passage.
H. B. Swete takes the first two parts as an appeal to Christ to fulfil his promise and come quickly back to this world; and he takes the third part as an invitation to the thirsty soul to come to Christ. But it seems very improbable that there should be such a difference between the first two parts and the third. It is much more likely that the whole passage is a great invitation to all men to come to Christ. It falls into three sections.
(i) There is the invitation of the Spirit and the Bride. The Bride, we know, is the Church. But what are we to understand by the Spirit? It may be the Spirit who is operative in all the prophets and who is always calling men back to God. Much more likely, John uses the Spirit for the voice of Jesus himself. The regular ending of the letters to the seven Churches is an invitation to hear what the Spirit is saying (Rev. 2:7,11; Rev. 2:17; Rev. 2:29; Rev. 3:6,13; Rev. 3:22). Now, the speaker to the seven Churches is the Risen Christ; and, therefore, quite clearly there the Spirit and the Christ are identified. “The Spirit and the Bride say: Come!” probably means that Christ and his Church join in the invitation to accept all that he has to offer.
(ii) “Let him that hears say: Come!” symbolizes the great truth that every Christian is to be a missionary. He who has been found by Christ must find others for Christ.
(iii) The third section is an invitation to all thirsty souls to come to Jesus Christ that their need may be satisfied. It must remind us of God’s great invitation, “Ho, every one who thirsts come to the waters, and he who has no money; come, buy and eat! come, buy wine and milk without money and without price” (Isa.55:1); and also of the great word of Jesus himself. “He who comes to me shall not hunger; and he who believes in me shall never thirst” (Jn.6:35). In Christ alone the longing of the soul can be satisfied.
O Christ, in thee my soul hath found, And found in thee alone, The peace, the joy, I sought so long, The bliss till now unknown. Now none but Christ can satisfy, None other Name for me! There’s love, and life, and lasting joy, Lord Jesus found in thee.
THE WARNING
Rev. 22:18-19
I give this warning to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book. If anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues which are written in this book. And, if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.
There are certain things to note about this solemn warning.
(i) It is not to be interpreted with absolute literalness. It does not refer to every individual word of the Revelation. It so happens that the text is, in fact, in bad condition and we do not know for certain what the actual wording is. What it does warn against is distorting the teaching which the book contains. It is very much what Paul meant, when he said: “If any one is preaching to you a gospel contrary to that which you received, let him be accursed” (Gal.1:8-9). It is the truth, and not the wording of the truth, which must not be changed.
(ii) This is far from being an unique ending to an ancient book. It is, in fact, the kind of ending that ancient writers commonly added to their books. We find similar warnings in the Bible in other places. “You shall not add to the word which I command you, nor take from it; that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you” (Deut.4:2). “Every word of God proves true…. Do not add to his words, lest he rebuke you, and you be found a liar” (Prov.30:5-6). In the Book of Enoch the writer demands that no one should “change or minish ought of my words” (Enoch 104: 10).
The Letter of Aristeas tells how the Septuagint, the Greek version of the Hebrew Bible, was made by seventy Jewish scholars at the request of the King of Egypt. When the task was done “they bade them pronounce a curse in accordance with their custom upon any who should make any alteration either by adding anything or changing in any way whatever any of the words which had been written or making an omission” (Letter of Aristeas 310, 31 1). In the preface to his book On Origins, Rufinus adjures in the sight of God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, anyone who reads or copies his book, not to add, subtract, insert, or alter anything. Eusebius (The Ecclesiastical History 5.20.2) quotes the way in which Irenaeus, the great second century Christian scholar, ends one of his books: “I adjure thee who mayest copy this book, by our Lord Jesus Christ, and by his glorious advent, when he comes to judge the quick and the dead, to compare what thou shalt write, and correct it carefully by this manuscript, and also to write this adjuration, and to place it on your copy.”
In the ancient days, since all books were hand-copied by scribes and everyone knew how easy it was for a scribe to make mistakes in the copying, it was a regular custom to insert at the end of a book a solemn warning against change.
It is in the light of that regular custom that we must read John’s words. To use this passage as an argument for verbal inspiration is an error.
One final word must be said about this passage. R. H. Charles points out that this warning may not be part of the original book at all. We must be impressed by the number of times John insists that Christ will come at any moment (Rev. 22:7,10,12,20). “Behold, I am coming soon” is the very refrain of the chapter. And yet this warning would seem to imply the expectation of a long time of reading and copying the book, a time which John himself clearly did not expect. It is, therefore, by no means impossible that these words are the words not of John but of a later scribe, anxious that none should alter the book in the days to come.
LAST WORDS
Rev. 22:20-21
He who testifies to the truth of these things says: “Yes, I am coming soon.” So let it be! Come, Lord Jesus!
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.
There is both pathos and glory in the way in which the Revelation ends. Amidst the terrible persecution of his day, the one thing which John longed for was the speedy return of Christ. That hope was never realized in the way in which he expected, but we can never doubt that Christ nevertheless abundantly kept his promise that he would be with his own even to the end of the world (Matt.28:20).
Then comes the glory. Come what may, John was sure of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and equally sure that it was sufficient for all things.
It is surely symbolic, and it is surely fitting, that the last word of the Bible should be GRACE.
FURTHER READING
G. B. Caird, The Revelation of Saint John the Divine (ACB; E)
R. H. Charles, Revelation (ICC; G)
T. S. Kepler, The Book of Revelation
H. B. Swete, The Apocalypse of St John (MmC; G)
Abbreviations
ACB : A. and C. Black New Testament Commentary
ICC : International Critical Commentary
MmC : Macmillan Commentary
E : English Text
G : Greek Text