Reading Revelation Responsibly: Uncivil Worship and Witness: Followingthe Lamb into the New Creation

by Michael J. Gorman

This is not to negate the claim that Revelation has a plot. Rather, we must recognize that the plot unfolds like a symphony, with variations on the main theme as the piece moves toward its goal.

This non-linear movement means that an outline of the book is more like a spiral, a series of connected circles that moves forward.60

“History is littered with failed attempts to use Revelation to predict history.”9 Interest in decoding and correlating has been heightened before epochal moments (such as the years 1000 and 2000) and during turbulent political events, whether in the world or in the church.

Although the meaning of Revelation should not be limited to its significance in its original context, understanding and building on that first, or most literal, sense is critical to responsible interpretation.

Christian resistance to empire and idolatry conforms to the pattern of Jesus Christ and of his apostles, saints, prophets (like John), and martyrs: faithful, true, courageous, just, and nonviolent. It is not passive but active, consisting of the formation of communities and individuals who pledge allegiance to God alone, who live in nonviolent love toward friends and enemies alike, who leave vengeance to God, and who, by God’s Spirit, create mini-cultures of life as alternatives to empire’s culture of death. This is a Lamb-shaped or cross-shaped (cruciform) understanding of discipleship and mission.

We should therefore be examining our ideologies and -isms for manifestations of idolatry and immorality as expressed in imperialism, militarism, nationalism, racism, classism (the worship of the corporate self and the degradation of the corporate other), consumerism, and hedonism (the worship of things and pleasure).

examine our own Western, Northern, American, and even Christian systems and values,

Many, perhaps the majority of scholars today, believe that 666 is a reference to the emperor Nero, for the following reasons

Hebrew gematria, with the conventional number values as shown below, adds up to 666:

This gives the sum of 616, which is the number that actually appears in some manuscripts of Revelation.

616 may represent Caligula (with Greek transliterated into Hebrew) or Gaius, Caligula’s given name (with Greek alone). And 666 may represent Domitian.

an imperial figure who in a very ungodly way pretends to be God.

a parody of the feminine images of Roma Aeterna and Dea Roma (Eternal Rome and Goddess Rome).

Bruce Metzger, writing in 1993,

Babylon is allegorical of the idolatry that any nation commits when it elevates material abundance, military prowess, technological sophistication, imperial grandeur, racial pride, and any other glorification of the creature over the Creator . . . . The message of the book of Revelation concerns . . . God’s judgments not only of persons, but also of nations and, in fact, of all principalities and powers—which is to say, all authorities, corporations, institutions, structures, bureaucracies, and the like.23

This vision suggests that the woman is not primarily an individual (such as Mary, the mother of Jesus) but a symbol of the entire people of God,

from whom come first the Messiah

Jesus and then other ...

The beautiful vision of “a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands” (Rev 7:9) is—or should be—at the heart of the church’s self-understanding. This is what God is up to in the world.

If Christians around the globe truly understood themselves as part of this international community, and fully embraced that membership as their primary source of identity, mission, and allegiance, it is doubtful that so many Christians could maintain their deep-seated national allegiances, or their suspicions of foreigners.

a recapturing of the wisdom of the earliest church.

We would of course be misguided not to see these also as divine punishment, similar to the snowball effect of sin unleashed in the world according to Paul in Rom 1:18—32.7

But it is clear that sin precedes judgment, and is not the will of God.

Christ does not sit on the red horse, ever.8

Most obvious as sources are the plagues narrated in the book of Exodus, but other biblical accounts of judgment (such as the locusts in Joel) also factor into the imagery.

Armageddon (16:12–16). Despite the vast amount of speculation regarding the time and location of this battle, Revelation mentions it only in passing. The place name means “mountain of Megiddo,” a city where numerous battles had taken place in the Old Testament. It is a logical setting for a symbolic battle of cosmic proportions—and nothing more.

These chapters are deeply rooted in the prophetic critiques of the original Babylon and of Tyre (Isaiah 23–24, 27; Jeremiah 50–51; Ezekiel 26–28) for their idolatry, violence, and lavishness.

idolatry and injustice, the two fundamental charges brought against humanity throughout the Bible,

It engages in a sort of corporate corruption of covenantal obligations.

As individuals, families, and churches, we are shaped in the West by consumerist, anti-God, and anti-human values that oppose the very essence of the gospel.

Do our ways of spending benefit the least, the last, and the lost? Do they promote justice and the healing of the nations? Do they reflect our convictions about the reign of God and the Lamb? Or do they reflect the values and practices of Babylon, of those who do not know God? Revelation 18 prompts us to think through these sorts of issues, and to do something explicitly, perhaps even radically, Christian, about them.

it would be theologically irresponsible to interpret every earthquake or tsunami or epidemic as an act of divine judgment

to do so is once again to misinterpret symbolic, apocalyptic language literally.

correlating specific disasters with intentional divine wrath and judgment is tantamount to claiming an intimate knowledge of the mind of God, and that is an...

death may be fully realized in God’s work of renewal.

there is no actual final battle in Revelation. Why? Because the images of battle are supposed to suggest to us the promise and reality of God’s defeat of evil, but they are not the means of that defeat.

I]n the cataclysmic battle of Revelation 19, what do the heavenly armies do? Nothing. . . . All the actions belong to Christ,”33 and his only weapon is the “sword” of his word.

To read Revelation otherwise—for example, finding justification for wars conducted by superpowers against people and systems deemed evil—is not merely to make a theological decision that offends the sensibilities of pacifist Christians; rather, this approach completely misreads the book’s symbolism and plot.

It draws on some of the greatest texts of hope in the Jewish tradition, many found in the latter parts of Isaiah (especially chapters 54, 60, and 65–66), but also on images from texts about the Temple and its priests, including the hope of a new Temple envisioned in Ezekiel 40–48.

The promise of new creation is most famously found in Isaiah 65 and 66 (cf. Isa 43:18–19):

12,000 stadia (1,500 miles) in length, width, and height means that the city “has a footprint approximately equal in size to the entire land mass of the Roman empire”; it is “large enough to encompass . . . the world as John knew it.”5 It is probably depicted as square because the ancient ideal of perfection, especially for a city, was a square; indeed, Babylon was remembered as a square (Herodotus, History 1.178).

But Revelation goes a dimension further and portrays the city as a cube, because the Holy of Holies was a cube (1 Kings 6:20), and the victorious children of God are a community of royal priests (Rev 1:6; 5:10; 20:6).

God’s eschatological reality is ultimately about reconciliation among peoples—the “healing of the nations” (Rev 22:2)—and not just individual salvation.

As communities of uncivil worship and witness, Christians seek to practice the ways of peace, justice, reconciliation, evangelism, and earth care that are implied in the vision of the new heaven and new earth given to us in Revelation 21–22.

the final vision is deeply pastoral, spiritual, evangelical, and liturgical, as well as social.

the word spirituality in a Christian context simply means the lived experience of Christian faith,

Thus the vision required for discernment does not make Christian faith anti-Rome, anti-American, or anti-culture in some general, all-encompassing sense. Rather, it calls us to rely on the discerning Spirit to distinguish the good (and the neutral) from the bad in order to remain in Babylon but not of it. We learn where we can say “yes,” and where we must say “no.” Then the church’s mission can go forward in faith and in faithfulness.

Revelation depicts in 3-D visions and at length what Ephesians 6 says in less fully developed but still powerful images:

For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God [see vv. 14–17], so that you may be able to withstand on that evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. (Eph 6:12–13)

This combination of a cry for justice and a commitment to nonviolence may be the most significant feature of Revelation’s liturgical theology and spirituality.