Revelation for the Rest of Us: A Prophetic Call to Follow Jesus as a Dissident Disciple

by Scot McKnight

The Apocalypse is not about prediction of the future but perception and interrogation of the present. It provides readers with a new lens to view our contemporary world.

The book of Revelation is for modern-day disciples who have eyes to see the power of the empire in our world and in our churches and in our lives and yours.

Our point is that good readers of Revelation will read it more like The Lord of the Rings than Paul’s letter to the Romans.

An apocalyptic imagination aims at deconstruction of the status quo, perhaps even revolution. Dissidents aim to change the world. They do this through sometimes bizarre, almost cartoonish images, and they create battles where good characters conquer evil ones.

Babylon is always here—even today. Babylon is an image, a metaphor, a trope Jews used for empires that oppress and persecute the covenant people. As a trope, Babylon names empires that oppress those who walk in the way of the Lamb. When we turn later in this book to the story at work in the book of Revelation and look at its timeline, we will need to depict Babylon as timeless.

Like Babylon, 666 does not point to one person at one future moment in history but to all political tyrants who have the powers to establish the way of the dragon and oppress Team Lamb.

In other words, the book of Revelation is first and foremost a revelation about Jesus.

Privileged people tend to abuse Revelation with their misreadings, while the abused of this world find hope for the coming day.

Being a witness has two sides: it is public affirmation in word and life of the lordship of Jesus, and it is public resistance in word and life to the way of the dragon embodied in Babylon.

There is no reason a nation with as many Christians as the USA has (or claims to have) should have such disparity in income, in housing, in wages, in healthcare, and in community social capital. We may not embrace a radical solution like equal incomes, but as Christians we ought to be firmly committed to influencing our policies in the direction of greater economic justice. Dissident disciples ask questions about free market capitalism.

Without a virtuous character, everything is measured by markets and fueled by ambition, competition, self-determination, and self-interest. Absent character, capitalism naturally produces a culture of greed. And it gets religious icing on its cake far too often.

The weapon of choice for Jesus was the cross. The Lamb of Revelation slays with the sword that proceeds from his mouth. Christian realism compromises the way of the Lamb because true realism is a deep reality that sees God on the throne and the Lamb in its center.

Revelation is written to shape disciples of Jesus into dissidents who can discern the dominant influence of empire (Babylon) and who have the courage to follow the way of the Lamb in a world run by the dragon. Those who utilize Revelation to speculate about the future have turned the book into a predictive timeline for people to ask who and when, while John wrote the book for disciples of Jesus who want to faithfully follow Jesus while living within Babylon. Christian nationalism is a new iteration of wannabe Christendom, led by its own versions of Constantine and Theodosius and some of the Puritans (to get closer to our time). Those who don’t recognize Babylon in Christian nationalism need a new reading of Revelation.

Christian eschatology is the alternative to Babylon’s eschatology. Christian eschatology formulates hope in the midst of lament, petition in the face of the dragon, and it knows from the incarnation of Christ that God is with us all the way to the hideousness of crucifixion. Christian eschatology enables us to grow through resilience and allegiant witness into the shape of the Lord who is the Lamb. Christian eschatology, contrary to Christian nationalism, progressivism, and pessimism, assumes evil, does not explain it away, and knows what lies beyond and in front of us. Christian eschatology turns us away from both progressivism and pessimism, not by denying progress or working to improve life, and not by pretending harsh realities don’t exist, but by trusting the God of promise who broke the power of death in the resurrection of the Lamb and who also promises that someday new Jerusalem will descend, and justice will finally arrive on the earth.