Reading Revelation 4–9
If you brand apply of Scripture Matrimony'sEncounter with God Bible reading notes, and so yous will be reading through Revelation 4–9 this week. (If you don't, why non subscribe?) Here are the comments I wrote on these chapters; for more detailed comment, meet my Grove bookletHow to Read the Volume of Revelation.For my notes on chapters 1 to 3, see my previous mail service.
Rev iv.1–11: Worshipping our Creator
At this point in Revelation it feels that we are leaving earthly realities behind and going on an otherworldly journeying. For modern readers, nosotros are leaving the familiar and historical and entering a strange world of thrones, elders, beasts and angels. It is a globe full of life, colour and dissonance, overwhelming our senses. Break for a moment and imagine the sights, sounds and sensations of this worship scene. What tin can yous hear? What do y'all see? What do you experience?
For John's readers notwithstanding, this is the blending of two familiar worlds. Beginning, the world of the Old Testament. The trumpet that announced temple worship calls John (v 1). The same Spirit which lifted Ezekiel to see the ane on the throne (Ezek i:26-28) does the same for John too (5 ii). Jewels from Genesis ii (v 3) back-trail the rainbow from Genesis ix, the story of the alluvion. The thunder and lightning of Mount Sinai draw him to the vii torches of Zechariah four (five 5) and the sea of glass from Solomon'south temple (v 6, cf 1 Kings 7:23). This is an run across with the God who made the world, who longs to see its restoration, and who travelled the long journey of redemption with his people.
Simply this reality is intertwined with another – the globe of the Roman Empire and the worship of its Emperor. Here city elders dress in white, bow down to their august ruler, casting their crowns and hailing him with choruses. Merely, says John, it is the creator God who deserves this honour, and not any human ruler (vs 9-11). If anyone makes a claim to be the source of peace and prosperity, they are usurping God's rightful praise, setting themselves up against him. God is the source of all power and majesty, and so all praise rightly belongs to him.
Revelation 5.1–14: Worshipping our Redeemer
The contrast between capacity 2 and 3, and affiliate iv presents a problem. How tin we make sense of the stark dissimilarity between the messy and compromised reality of everyday life, and the splendour and majesty of God? How tin can we hold together the sin and suffering of the world with the perfection and glory of God? More than that, how might we see God working his purposes out in a disruptive world, and come across him bring it under his just reign? Who is able to unfold the will of God and make it happen?
John'south perplexity and frustration are brought to an finish by a fresh vision of the risen Jesus. In this symbolic world, we must allow go of making literal sense of things – after all, how tin a multi-coloured rainbow be the color of an emerald (Rev 4:iii)? Instead, we must brand sense of John's imagery in the globe of Scripture, and the showtime century.
The lamb stands 'at the centre of the throne' (five 6); he is the i who mediates God's reign to his creation (the living creatures) and his people (the elders). Although alive, he bears all the marks of sacrifice – one who has offered himself up to save his people. He both bears the Spirit of God in his person, but also sees reality by means of the Spirit of God; his discussion to the states is 'Spirit and life' (John 6:63). He is able to unfold God's purposes, considering he died to bribe a people for God, just rose again to exist their helm and king. In doing so he fulfilled God's purposes for his people – to be a holy nation and a priestly kingdom from every nation (Exod 19:six). In Jesus, nosotros find the meeting point of suffering and kingdom (Rev 1:9), of reality and hope, of failure and of organized religion.
Revelation half dozen.one–17: Racing towards Judgement
We now leave the heavenly court, being plunged once more into the reality of the world. As ever, John reaches for biblical ideas to depict this, hither adapting the four horses from Zechariah (Zech 1:8-xi). At that place, they signified a false peace; here, they signify global calamity. This is not some future scenario, but the earth every bit it is (vs 2-8) – a world plagued past simulated religion (the white horse), war (blood-red), dearth (black) and decease (pale green). If you don't believe me, open a paper or watch television news!
Every bit God'due south purposes unfold with the opening of the fifth seal, nosotros run into God's people suffering persecution just, under the altar (five 9), nevertheless enjoying God's protection and safe-keeping. The saints who accept suffered don't appear to be followers of the lamb; dissimilar John (Rev one:nine), the give-and-take of God they held to was 'testimony' (v 9), but not yet 'of Jesus'. In fact, they are waiting for their other 'brothers and sisters' (v 11) to be added to their number.
With the sixth seal comes the resolution of both the violence of the world and the persecution of the saints – God comes in judgement (vs 12-17). John uses images from Isaiah (the sky rolled like a ringlet, Isa 34:4) too as from Joel (lord's day darkens, moon turned to blood, Joel 2:31; Is 51:6) relating to the solar day of the Lord and the end of the age. This language is used by Jesus (Matt 24:29), and at Pentecost, by Peter (Acts 2:20). In Jesus' death and resurrection and the giving of the Spirit, the new age has cleaved in, though the final judgement on 'this' age is still to come. And then this chapter paints a wide-brush history of the world in biblical terms. Having turned from God, the earth suffers hurting and confusion, rejecting the testimony of God's people and hurtling towards sentence.
Revelation 7.1–17: Divine intermission
This chapter offers an interlude in the serial of seven seals; having mentioned God's people in chapter 6, John turns aside to look in more detail at how they share in his purposes in the globe.
Verses ane to three echo Ezekiel'south business relationship of God'south people being sealed to protect them from the calamities and judgement that the world experiences (Ezek 9). Note that John hears the number of those who are sealed—they are being counted out, tribe by tribe, just as Moses counted the people in the desert (Num 1) and David counted the people in the land (ii Sam 24). In both cases, the purpose was to appraise the fighting forcefulness of the people, since every human being would be expected to fight. And then hither we have a disciplined ordering of God's people, ready for spiritual warfare. The list of tribes here is dissimilar from any Old Testament list, and omits the tribe of Dan, who were guilty of idol worship (Judg xviii:30). Our readiness for spiritual conflict is continued to our worship of God.
John then looks to see those he has been hearing about (five 9). Equally previously ('I turned to see the voice', Rev 1:12), what John sees and what he hears interpret each other. Those who are counted and ready for battle are in fact uncountable (cf Gen 22:17); the 12 tribes of Israel are now composed of people from 'every nation, tribe, people and language' every bit a consequence of the ransom of the lamb (Rev 5:9). God's people are no longer saved 'out of all nations' (Ex 19.v) every bit a separate people or nation (Ex xix:five), but are saved 'out of the nations' (Ezek 36:24), a new community coming from every function of the globe. Though they suffer (five 14), they praise God as they look forrad to their future with him (vs xv-17).
Revelation 8.1–13: Connecting Heaven and Globe
Every bit we return from the interlude of affiliate 7, we are once more confronted with the stark contrast between the tranquillity and order of the heavenly scenes, and the anarchy and turmoil on earth. Only there is something connecting the two—the prayers of the saints, mixed with the incense. We take heard the worship of the elders (representing the people of God, Rev 4, 5), and the cry of the saints under the chantry (Rev 6). Each fourth dimension we pray 'hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will exist washed,' we make connections between world and heaven (Matt half-dozen:9,10).
The disasters that unfold as the trumpets are sounded follow the pattern of the seven seals, though with greater intensity. There are strong echoes of the plagues sent on Arab republic of egypt as a warning to recognise God and let his people go. But there are echoes as well of real events in the world of John'due south readers; the blazing mount (v 8) looks very much like the eruption of Vesuvius in Ad 79. If the recipients of the 7 letters in chapters ii and 3 are going to compromise their faith to retain a stake in the globe around them, they demand to know what kind of globe that is.
John has already presented God as almighty (Rev 4:8), the one who sees all and is sovereign over all. Still he is reticent to portray these events as existence directed by God. Although the angels stand up before the throne, they have only an oblique role in what is happening. The earth 'is burned' (v 7), the mountain 'is thrown' (v 8), and the dominicus, moon and stars 'are struck' (v 12). The commencement time God acts straight, from the throne, it is to pronounce that God is now present with humanity, that all pain is over, and that he is making 'all things new' (Rev 21:3-5).
Revelation ix.1–21: A Earth without God?
I am a massive fan of Lord of the Rings. I read it avidly as a teenager, and have watched the Peter Jackson films once more and again. 1 of the almost bright features of the films is the depiction of the forces of evil—Saruman, Sauron (although nosotros don't know what he looks similar) and their henchmen, the orcs and uruk-hai. With their thirst for claret and ruthlessness in boxing, they become a parody of the human characters. Their shuffling march and motley assembly of weapons are a poor imitation of the beauty and discipline of the elves.
Nevertheless Tolkein was not just creating a fantasy earth, unconnected to reality. It was his deep response to the horrors of the Outset World State of war, and his grief at the loss of his friends in the evil of war. This affiliate does something similar. The locusts, with their chaotic mixture of homo and creature features, are a demonic parody of the living creatures effectually the throne. Their hideous cacophony contrasts starkly with the harmonious singing of the elders and creatures. The suffering they inflict is a bright portrayal of life in a globe handed over past God to other powers (cf Rom 1:24).
And yet, this chaos is nevertheless nether the ordering of God in the numbering of the trumpet blasts – even if that ordering is strained to its limits. 'The effect is something like an orchestral performance in which the strings scrape dissonant chords, while woodwinds shriek … in what seems to be a wild discord – except that all the players motility to the steady beat out that is set up by the conductors manus: one, two, three, four…' (Craig R Koester, Revelation and the End of All Things, Eerdmans, 2001, p 93). The event is not however the repentance of the people (v 21); that volition take to await until God's decisive intervention through his true-blue, witnessing people (Rev 11.13).
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