‘John Lennox skilfully weaves together the academic and the practical with the result that his commentary is both highly informative and eminently devotional. The reader is in for a very engaging study of Revelation designed to lead to the worship of the Triune God as Creator and Redeemer and to heighten one’s desire for the Son’s return to establish his kingdom in righteousness.’

R. Bruce Compton, Professor of Biblical Languages and Literature, Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary

‘Secular historians have described the book of Revelation as the greatest anti-imperialist tract ever written. But Christians have seen other things. John Lennox is bi-lingual. As a mathematician he understands the language of God as expressed in the universe’s maths and physics. As a biblical scholar he expounds the language of God, placing Revelation in the context of the whole of Scripture. This is a magnificent contribution on both fronts.’

Tim Costello, Director of Ethical Voice and Executive Director of Micah Australia

‘A fascinating chapter-by-chapter exposition of the book of Revelation’s futurist eschatology. It includes a judicious consideration of whether Revelation may picture an end-time use of artificial intelligence in some form that dehumanizes and dominates people in that future day. Lennox’s expertise as a Christian scientist with a solid grasp of Scripture makes him the perfect guide for such issues. Highly recommended!’

Buist M. Fanning, Senior Professor Emeritus of New Testament Studies, Dallas Theological Seminary, USA

‘This book offers a contemporary reflection on the imagery and symbolism of the book of Revelation, wisely focusing on the “what” rather than the “who” that they represent. John passionately and uncompromisingly reminds us of the horror of the judgement to come and the true Homo Deus in whom alone is our hope for the future, a truth that will resonate with readers of all eschatological perspectives. We are challenged and spurred on throughout the book to faithfully serve Christ as ambassadors of the gospel and the hope that it brings to our morally confused world, torn between the techno optimism around AI and the prospects for transcendence that it might offer, and its potential existential threat.’

Jeremy Peckham, author of Masters or Slaves? AI and the Future of Humanity

‘John Lennox proves once again to be a brilliant guide, one with the wisdom, skill and care to write in a way that leads readers to think with him about matters of consequence. In a world brimming with new treatments of the future and of artificial intelligence, Professor Lennox demonstrates that taking the time to look back at the Bible – to read with the Bible – doesn’t bog us down in a bygone past but rather propels us forward into the future, one already seen and secured by Jesus Christ.’

Jacob Shatzer, Provost, Union University, Jackson, Tennessee, and Executive Director, BibleMesh

‘Panoramic, passionate and deeply personal, John Lennox’s new book provides a compelling and detailed interpretation of the book of Revelation in the light of contemporary events.’

John Wyatt, co-editor of The Robot Will See You Now

John Lennox MA MMath MA (Bioethics) PhD DPhil DSc is Emeritus Professor of Mathematics at Oxford University and Emeritus Fellow in Mathematics and Philosophy of Science at Green Templeton College. He attended the Royal School Armagh in Northern Ireland, then Emmanuel College Cambridge from 1962 to 1969 and worked as lecturer, then Reader in Mathematics in the University of Cardiff from 1970 to 1997. He spent two years as an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow in Germany (1975–76 in Würzburg and 1979–80 in Freiburg) and moved to the University of Oxford in 1997. He has been an Associate Fellow at the Oxford University Saïd Business School conducting seminars on Leadership and the Humanities for the Strategic Leadership Programme. He is currently President of OCCA, the Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics, Distinguished Research Fellow at the Lanier Library and Theological Centre, Yarnton Manor, Oxford, and a Senior Fellow of the Trinity Forum.

During the late 1970s, the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s, he made repeated visits to eastern Europe, Russia and Ukraine. Apart from pure mathematics, he is particularly interested in the interface of science, philosophy and religion and has lectured on these topics internationally. He has also been involved in many public debates and discussions with public intellectuals such as the late Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins and Peter Singer. In addition to being co-author of two mathematical monographs for Oxford University Press and seventy mathematical research papers, he has written a series of books exploring the relationship between science, philosophy and theology, including Can Science Explain Everything? (2019); Cosmic Chemistry: Do God and science mix? (2021); and 2084 and the AI Revolution: How artificial intelligence informs our future (2024).

He has also written several major expositions of biblical themes: Determined to Believe? The sovereignty of God, faith and human responsibility (2017); Joseph: A story of love, hate, slavery, power and forgiveness (2019); A Good Return: Biblical principles of work, wealth and wisdom (2023); Against the Flow: The inspiration of Daniel in an age of relativism (2024); Friend of God: The inspiration of Abraham in an age of doubt (2024).

He is married to Sally, and has three children and ten grandchildren. His hobbies are languages, particularly German, Russian and French, amateur astronomy, amateur birdwatching and some walking. He and Sally live in a village just north of Oxford.

Dedicated to the past and present members of the Myrtlefield Trust and to
the memory of its chairman and teacher, Professor David W. Gooding MRIA

GOD, AI AND THE
END OF HISTORY

Understanding the book of Revelation
in an age of intelligent machines

John C. Lennox

Contents

List of illustrations and Acknowledgements

Preface

Introduction

Part 1

REVELATION 1:1 – 3:22

1 Key concepts

2 Symbol, metaphor and code

3 The letters to the seven churches of Asia

4 The letter to Ephesus

5 The letter to Smyrna

6 The letter to Pergamum

7 The letter to Thyatira

8 The letter to Sardis

9 The letter to Philadelphia

10 The letter to Laodicea

11 The letters to the churches – a historical dimension?

Part 2

REVELATION 4:1 – 7:17

12 The throne of God

13 The scroll, the seals, the Lion and the Lamb

14 The opening of the seals

15 The sealing of 144,000 from Israel and the innumerable crowd before the throne

Part 3

REVELATION 8:1 – 11:18

16 The opening of the seventh seal

17 The trumpets blow

18 A mighty angel descends from heaven to earth; Jerusalem trodden down; the two witnesses

Part 4

REVELATION 11:19 – 15:4

19 War in heaven

20 The sea monster – Antichrist?

21 The earth monster – the false prophet

22 The Lamb with 144,000 on Mount Zion

Part 5

REVELATION 15:5 – 19:10

23 The nature of God’s glory and his wrath

24 The bowls of God’s wrath

25 Who is Babylon and why must she be judged?

26 The wild monster

27 The ten horns – an international government?

28 Babylon judged yet mourned

29 The climax: praise for God’s judgements

Part 6

REVELATION 19:11 – 22:21

30 The return of the Word of God

31 The millennial reign of Christ

32 The last rebellion

33 The new creation

Appendix 1 Kingdom

Appendix 2 Rapture

Notes

Search terms for Scripture references

Search terms for subjects

Illustrations

Map

The seven churches of the Roman province of Asia, late first century ad

Tables

1The book of Revelation: general themes

2The structure of the book of Revelation

3Echoes of Old Testament scriptures in the letters to the seven churches of Asia

4The Messiah in Orthodox and Reform Judaism

Acknowledgements

Extracts from the following have been reprinted by permission:

Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis copyright © 1942, 1943, 1944, 1952 C.S. Lewis Pte. Ltd.

Rehabilitations ads Other Essays by C.S. Lewis copyright © 1939 C.S. Lewis Pte. Ltd.

A Mind Awake by C.S. Lewis copyright © 1968 C.S. Lewis Pte. Ltd.

The Weight of Glory by C.S. Lewis copyright © 1949 C.S. Lewis Pte. Ltd.

The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis copyright © 1942 C.S. Lewis Pte. Ltd.

That Hideous Strength by C.S. Lewis copyright © 1945 C.S. Lewis Pte. Ltd.

Preface

Future shock

In 1970, American futurist Alvin Toffler wrote a groundbreaking book, Future Shock,1 which sold over 6 million copies within the first five years. Shock is a psychological state usually connected with a sudden, unexpected, very unpleasant change of situation. According to Toffler, future shock is the state of mind produced by too much change in too short a period of time. If the concept gained traction in 1970, how much more so now, fifty years later in the 2020s when the rate of change has become accelerated beyond anything we have hitherto experienced? The Covid-19 pandemic produced so much change in a short time that, in many countries, it overwhelmed the health service and then the economy. Climate change, due to relentlessly increasing temperatures, is endangering our future with violent weather patterns, flooding and wildfires. The deserts grow and the forests shrink, forcing populations to move in order to find stable living space. And there is war in many places. In particular, the Russian invasion of Ukraine early in 2022 caught the Western nations off guard and led to a sudden flow of millions of Ukrainians into neighbouring countries, threatening to overwhelm their local resources, to say nothing of the shock of having a major war in Europe with all its undesirable side effects, such as rampant inflation, when we all thought such horror and madness was a thing of the past.

The cumulative knock-on effects of such shocks have been deep anxiety, even fear, about the future, as the cost of fuel, energy and food rocketed to unprecedented levels and led to rampant inflation and an energy crisis. More and more people unexpectedly find themselves out of a job and being forced to live on or below the poverty line. Sector after sector is on strike – transport workers and even nurses and ambulance drivers, doctors and consultants – thus exacerbating a general sense of misery. Politicians seem out of their depth and, unable to cope, they content themselves with filling the airwaves with undeliverable promises. In addition, all of us face what looks like irreversible climate change as devastating floods, droughts and extreme heat become the new normal, where they used to be ‘once-in-a-hundred-year’ occurrences. We are constantly asked to think about the kind of world that we wish to leave to future generations – and to act before it is too late.

Added to that are concerns about where we are being taken by advanced technology in general and artificial intelligence in particular. We are now living in the age of intelligent machines – that is, machines that can do things that normally require human intelligence, such as devising vaccines or interpreting X-rays. Such machines are increasingly replacing humans, and they threaten many jobs.

At a more advanced level, not only science-fiction writers but also leading scientists are worried about the way in which technology continues to outpace the ethical underpinning needed to keep it under control. Some, such as the late Cambridge astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, even speculated about an eventual takeover of the human race by robots whose aims may not be aligned with ours. Others are concerned with the drive to modify humans genetically or cybernetically to create a future world populated by transhumans or posthumans. For instance, the UK’s Astronomer Royal, Lord Rees, wrote:

Abstract thinking by biological brains has underpinned the emergence of all culture and science. But this activity – spanning tens of millennia at most – will be a brief precursor to the more powerful intellects of the inorganic post-human era. So, in the far future, it won’t be the minds of humans, but those of machines, that will most fully understand the cosmos.2

Institutes to both study and influence the future of humanity have been set up in some leading universities, for instance the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk in Cambridge and the Future of Humanity Institute in Oxford.3 I have written about these issues in my book 2084 and the AI Revolution: How artificial intelligence informs our future (updated and expanded edition),4 where I discuss, in particular, the relevance of the biblical book of Revelation to the subject. That in turn has formed part of my motivation for writing this book about Revelation in its own right.

Since life at the calmest of times is inevitably fraught with uncertainties, we humans have always been concerned about the future. We are now in the grip of an unprecedented maelstrom of change that has left many people feeling rudderless, disoriented and vulnerable. Information we have in spades, but information overload is part of our problem: we cannot process it all to our advantage. Many people are suffering from what is now called ‘anticipatory anxiety’ or chronophobia.5 It is highly debilitating. Despair is on the march with hope in short supply.

In the Western academy, research is dominated by a materialistic philosophy that has placed science on the throne to such an extent that its offshoot, technology, especially computer technology, has now replaced religion in many minds as the provider of any credible hope of saving humanity in the future. But is it a hope or a threat? In a 2009 debate, the biologist E. O. Wilson said: ‘The real problem of humanity is the following: we have palaeolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and godlike technology. And it is terrifically dangerous.’ He continued: ‘Until we answer those huge questions of philosophy that the philosophers abandoned a couple of generations ago – Where do we come from? Who are we? Where are we going? – rationally, we’re on very thin ground.’6 I think Wilson is right about the question, although it needs to be said that there are still leading philosophers who think about them – but not enough.

And the ground is thin! In 1945, Albert Einstein, J. Robert Oppenheimer and University of Chicago scientists who had developed the first atomic weapons as part of the Manhattan Project launched the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists; two years later they created the Doomsday Clock, using the imagery of apocalypse (midnight) and the contemporary idiom of a nuclear explosion (countdown to zero) to convey threats to humanity and the planet. It is set every year and is globally recognized as the indicator of the world’s vulnerability to man-made catastrophe.7 The Doomsday Clock was set in 1947 to seven minutes to midnight. In 2024, it was moved forward to 90 seconds to midnight!

It has been well said that evil and pain look very different depending on whether you are directly experiencing them or simply observing them from a distance. And that is the problem with doomsday scenarios. They are scarily real as you watch a digital clock counting down in the corner of a control-room screen that shows a terrorist (or civilian, alas) target about to be annihilated by an AI-guided drone. But they may seem very distant if your part of the world has seen no war and little disruption for the best part of a century.

That distance is increased by a vast array of psychological defence mechanisms that tell us that what we see and hear from the media in other parts of the world will ‘never come here’. We find all kinds of reasons to discredit those pundits who say it will – accusing them of doom-mongering, of conspiracy theories and all the rest – when it is totally obvious that we are on the cusp of being engulfed by any number of major man-made catastrophes.

Of course, imaginative, indeed powerful futuristic scenarios have been around for a long time and have been given credence by the fulfilment of many of their elements, once thought improbable.

Two of the most famous futuristic scenarios are the 1931 novel Brave New World by Aldous Huxley and George Orwell’s novel 1984, published in 1949. Both novels are dystopian; that is, according to the Oxford English Dictionary: ‘They describe an imaginary place or condition that is as bad as possible.’ And Orwell memorably put a date on it: 1984.

The bad places that these dystopias describe are very different, as was succinctly explained by sociologist Neil Postman in his highly regarded work Amusing Ourselves to Death. Postman wrote:

Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley’s vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.

What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one.

Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared that the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture . . .

In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us.8

Nowadays, it very much looks as if both these things are already happening simultaneously: we increasingly love our technology, particularly our smart phones and watches, our tablets and laptops, and yet we fear what they are facilitating: all-intrusive surveillance with its potential for totalitarian control. Orwell’s world is well and truly here with its misinformation, fake news, disinformation, and deep fakes driven by artificial intelligence that make sure that truth is both concealed and debased so that no one knows what to believe any more about the present, let alone the future.

Attempts to map the future, particularly by the ‘high priests’ of artificial intelligence (AI), succeed one another with what C. S. Lewis, in another context, called ‘the restless fertility of bewilderment’.9 Some technologists dream that we shall eventually be able to make superintelligent beings, either by building them from scratch on a non-organic base such as silicon, or by modifying existing human beings by genetic engineering and merging them with cyborg technology to produce a transhuman species – part human, part machine. Then the key question is: will they like us or dispense with us? Will they be totalitarian or benign? Will they control us, or we them?

There are many books addressing the topic, such as On the Future: Prospects for humanity by the Astronomer Royal Martin Rees;10 Superintelligence: Paths, dangers, strategies by Nick Bostrom, former director of the Future of Humanity Institute in Oxford University;11 Shoshana Zuboff’s The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The fight for a human future at the new frontier of power;12 Yuval Noah Harari’s Homo Deus: A brief history of tomorrow; and my own 2084 and the AI Revolution: How artificial intelligence informs our future.13

Astrology and prophecy

A frequent companion to concern about the future – especially, but not only, on the part of the scientifically literate – is suspicion of people who claim to know anything about it beyond what science can tell them. In spite of that, according to Google Trends, interest in astrology and wellness has doubled since 2010. Not surprisingly, concern about the latter fuels the former. The roots of astrology lie in the dim mists of time. In the second millennium bc the ancient Babylonians had a highly organised astrological system, and from then until the seventeenth century astrology was widely viewed as a scholarly pursuit. For instance, even as late as the mid-twentieth century, famous psychoanalyst Carl Jung wrote:

In cases of difficult psychological diagnosis, I usually get a horoscope in order to have a further point of view from an entirely different angle. I must say that I very often found that the astrological data elucidated certain points which I otherwise would have been unable to understand.

Later still, in 2014, a study by the National Science Foundation in the USA found that more than half of 18- to 24-year-olds believed that astrology was a scientific tradition. The fact that astrology is trending on social media is evidence that Gen Z is obsessed with it.14 Psychologist Graham Tyson has produced evidence that ‘under conditions of high stress, the individual is prepared to use astrology as a coping device, even though under low-stress conditions he does not believe in it’.15

The bottom line is that we want to know about the future; we simply cannot leave it alone. We want some good news to assuage our increasing sense of insecurity and rootlessness. Many suspect that there is no solution to be found inside themselves, so they look outside their world into the wider universe of planets and stars. They then hope that, with the aid of their star signs and horoscopes, they can bring some orientation and meaning into their lives. We – and that includes world leaders as well as ordinary people – long to hear a credible voice that says: ‘Fear not!’

There is another story, very different from astrology, that also takes us back to Babylon. It is not as well known as it should be, even though it is readily accessible in the best-selling book of all time, the Bible. It concerns a certain group of Jews – Daniel and three of his friends – who, in the sixth century bc, were forcibly taken from Jerusalem by the armies of the invading King Nebuchadnezzar and resettled in the capital city of Babylon itself. They were enrolled in the university there to study the language, literature, culture and laws of the empire in order to become civil servants. As even a brief visit to the British Museum in London will confirm, the Babylonian Empire was a highly developed civilisation in terms of culture, literature, legislation, building, engineering, medicine, music, mathematics and astronomy. It was also the most idolatrous nation on earth at the time, and its many gods – often associated with, or regarded as deifications of, the sun, moon, stars and planets – were regarded as the influencers of life who determined all that happened in the past, present and future.

Daniel and his friends benefited from the most advanced education of the time. However, they remained remarkably untouched by the essentially materialistic, idolatrous world view that permeated the entire culture of Babylon. The reason for this was that they believed the teaching of the Hebrew Bible (the Tanakh) that there was one true God, creator and upholder of heaven and earth, who was neither part of the universe nor an emanation from it. The integrity and credibility of these four Jews was of such impeccable quality that even the king of Babylon at the time, Nebuchadnezzar, came to see that their God was real and that his gods, by contrast, were mere deifications of natural forces and projections of human desires.

I have been intrigued by the Daniel narrative for all of my life. As literature, it is powerful and grips the imagination. And just there lies an important question: what do we mean by imagination? It is usually associated with creativity but has two connotations. For instance, we say that something is a figment of the imagination if we think that it is not real. In that spirit, Daniel challenged the existence of the ancient gods, as most intelligent people do today. Yet Daniel was no atheist. With great courage he and his friends stood in that ancient public space for the existence of the one true God, who not only created the universe and us in it but also is concerned for us and our well-being. Why did Daniel believe such things? Was it because he was ignorant of what we would now call ‘science’, which has helped dismiss many of the ancient gods as figments of the imagination? Or were there deeper reasons for it that remain valid today? Yes, there were, and those reasons have to do with another aspect of imagination. As Holly Ordway explains, ‘Imagination is the human faculty that assimilates sensory data into images, upon which the intellect can then act; it is the basis of all reasoned thought.’16 Reasoned thought includes science but is far from exclusive to it. Speaking as a scientist, but for both scientific and non-scientific reasons, I fully support Daniel’s conviction that this is not the only world there is.

I have spent many years thinking about these issues, a process that has led me to write Against the Flow: The inspiration of Daniel in an age of relativism.17 Part of my motivation was the fact that Daniel, even in high old age, was prepared to stick his head above the parapet and protest against the idolatrous world view of the Babylonians and their inadequate, though deeply held, materialistic, astrological belief in a starry realm that determined the affairs of this world. By contrast, Daniel believed in a supernatural realm that was ruled by a sovereign Lord God, who was both the Creator and Sustainer of the universe yet was interested in him and communicated with him to such an extent that he even revealed aspects of the future to him. Daniel learned that prophecy and astrology belonged to very different categories. Astrology was, at best, a human guess at what might happen, based on close study of trends in politics, economics and social dynamics, whereas biblical prophecy was genuine revelation from a supernatural God. In the book that bears his name, Daniel, as a Hebrew prophet as well as a statesman, provided evidence for the existence of another world that is higher than this one in every sense imaginable. He gives us, not a ‘view from nowhere’, a place that doesn’t actually exist, but a view from an eternal perspective, allowing us to understand our present age as one in which God will eventually intervene – a concept that is absent from most thinking about the future.

The role of the book of Revelation

The New Testament (NT) book that corresponds to Daniel in the Old Testament (OT) is the book of Revelation. It carries forward ideas and imagery from Daniel and other OT prophets and was expressly written to give hope to believers facing hardship and oppression in the first-century Roman Empire. That may partly explain why some parts of the book are not so easy to understand, since one can imagine that, in the dangerous and volatile context of the pervasive Roman imperial cult, politically sensitive statements needed to be couched in language that was deliberately obscure to outsiders. The book carries forward a claim that Christ made privately to his disciples and publicly to his judges, namely that he would return as the Messiah, a king long expected by the Jews, to rule on the earth and to judge the nations. If this claim is true, as I believe it to be, it ought to dominate our thinking about the future, which is why the book of Revelation is of such immense importance and is neglected at our peril. Our future will not rest ultimately in the thrall of artificial general intelligence or intelligent machines but in the return of Christ.

Questions about the status of the book of Revelation have rumbled on for a long time, and still do. In the third century, Dionysius of Alexandria wrote that many Christians said that the book was ‘without sense and without reason . . . covered with such a dense and thick veil of ignorance’. In his Ecclesiastical History in ad 325, Eusebius of Caesarea said that the divine inspiration of Revelation was undisputed for some but disputed for others. In ad 367, Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, included it in his New Testament canon, whereas his contemporary, Cyril of Jerusalem, excluded it. At the time of the Reformation, Martin Luther opined in his 1522 edition of the NT that he saw no evidence of its inspiration, that no one knows what it means and that there were ‘many far better books for us to keep’. Such impressions linger, and many still turn away from the book as if it was dangerously infectious and difficult to fathom, sometimes citing conspiracy theories or extreme cults that claim to derive wild and dangerous practices from it – such as the Heaven’s Gate cult whose members committed mass suicide in Rancho Santa Fe, California, in 1997, or the horrific happenings in Jonestown in 1978 with the mass murder and suicide of over 900 people. However, such claims are erroneous, as even superficial investigation shows.18

After all, the book of Revelation itself is what its name announces: a revelation or an unveiling, not so much of something but of Someone – the one ‘who loves us and has freed us from our sins’ (Rev. 1:5), the Messiah, the Son of God, our Saviour. It is inconceivable that he would give us a book whose main thrust led to crazed behaviour or was impossible to grasp. In fact, its inspired message has subsequently revealed Christ to every generation of his followers and filled their horizons with hope of ultimate deliverance from pain and evil through his return to rule and judge the world. Its final triumph is God’s creation of new heavens and a new earth, where there is no pain, sorrow or death, and where all believers will eternally dwell with Christ, their God, Saviour and King. As such, it contains a vital part of the core Christian manifesto. New Testament scholar Richard Bauckham sums up the impact of the book as follows:

Revelation has persistently inspired the whole church’s vision of God and his purpose for history and the eschatological future, perhaps especially in its liturgy, hymns and art. It has been the book both of martyrs and of visionaries: the two groups which have so often saved the church from betraying its witness in compromised conformity to the world. It has been a recurrent source of prophetic critique both of the church itself and of the state and society.19

I share that conviction, and it is my main motivation for writing.

And, speaking of manifestos, no one would take a political manifesto or commercial proposal seriously if it had nothing to say about the future and therefore no hope to offer. Similarly, the Christian world view would have little or no credibility if it did not hold out a realistic vision of the future. Revelation shows that there is something of real substance to which we can look forward. History is moving towards a goal under God. Christians do not hope in him in vain. C. S. Lewis suggested that history shows that Christian contribution to the world of now was directly proportional to their interest in the next.20

Putting this another way, Revelation is not merely a book; it is primarily an event, an event both present and future: the ongoing unveiling of Jesus Christ to believers now and, in the future, to the world in power and great glory at the climactic event of his return. His disciples saw him ascend, literally and physically in the clouds of heaven. They were told that he would return in the same way (Acts 1:11). I join them in believing that he did and that he will – and I do so fully aware of the scientific and technological world picture.

Revelation, therefore, fills the vital role of completing the biblical metanarrative that encompasses all of this earth’s history. God wants us to see the whole picture, not merely to satisfy our curiosity but rather so that we can get to know him better, worship him more intelligently and see where we fit in this grand narrative. That involves him taking us behind the scenes and showing us aspects of reality that are not normally on view, so that we can better understand what is going on. What could be more thrilling than getting to know about the business of heaven and the world to come?

Yes, I did say ‘worship’ just now, for one of the striking things about Revelation is that it has more to say about worship than any other book in the NT. If it doesn’t get us singing praise to God, then we have missed the point of it and need to read it again. Here is one way of singing about it that means a great deal to me. It is a beautiful and powerful expression of the hope that Revelation awakens in me and comes from one of the world’s favourite hymns: ‘How Great Thou Art!’

When Christ shall come with shouts of acclamation,

And take me home, what joy shall fill my heart!

Then I will bow in humble adoration,

And there proclaim, my God, how great Thou art!

Then sings my soul, my Saviour God, to Thee:

How great Thou art! How great Thou art!

Then sings my soul, my Saviour God, to Thee:

How great Thou art! How great Thou art!21

Is belief in supernatural revelation rational?

Some of you might be tempted to think that it borders on the absurd to imagine that a book written nearly 2,000 years ago could have any relevance to the twenty-first century. You might also think that, in an advanced and sophisticated scientific culture, it is completely irrational and anachronistic to believe in manifestly supernatural revelation. Now, objection to the supernatural is no modern phenomenon. Even at the time of the NT we find scepticism, even on the part of those who ostensibly believed in God. For instance, Luke the historian, at the beginning of his Gospel, records the reaction of Zechariah – a priest, no less – who believed in God and yet refused, on the basis of his understanding of how nature works, to believe a divine message that he and his wife would have a child when they were well past child-bearing age (Luke 1:5–23).

However, it is not irrational to believe in the biblical accounts of the supernatural, and many scientists, myself included, are neither embarrassed nor ashamed to say so publicly. In fact, Zechariah’s attitude betrayed a common lamentable failure to understand either science or the supernatural.22 The unparalleled message of Daniel and Revelation – for it is the same message – has buoyed up the hopes of millions of people for centuries. I shall argue that its power lies in the fact that it satisfies the usual criteria for truth in that it is coherent and also corresponds to our experience of reality.23 That should not surprise us, since it is nothing less than a direct message from the one true eternal God, Creator and Upholder of the universe, and from his Son, Jesus Christ, the Son of Man, who did not only claim to say the truth but also, far beyond that, claimed to be the truth (John 14:6). Ultimate truth is a person with whom we can have a living and loving relationship, not merely a collection of facts. We should constantly bear this in mind since, above all, Revelation reveals that person. Of course, it does other important things as well. For example, it has had considerable influence in cultural history, inspiring great literary works such as Milton’s Paradise Lost and Bunyan’s Holy War, as well as powerful artistic and musical creations, including Michelangelo’s Last Judgement and Handel’s Messiah.

Admittedly, Revelation is, to a certain extent, an enigmatic book. On the one hand, it contains the most wonderful promises for believers in Christ. On the other, it details God’s judgements on unrepentant humanity. And judgement tends to be a countercultural topic, particularly in the secular world. Many even feel that it is anti-Christian. Yet, rather paradoxically, most people want law and order. The thought of anarchy scares them. They believe in having a police force and a judiciary that brings criminals to book and punishes them for their crimes. The problem is that, deep down, most of us know that we are not as good as we pretend to be or would like to imagine. We have thought and done things of which we are ashamed, so that the very mention of God makes even atheists and agnostics think of disturbing ideas such as accountability and judgement. What, for instance, might God, if he exists, have to say to me?

What also makes Revelation somewhat daunting to many people is that it is full of strange, even bizarre imagery and symbolism, depicting the most sinister of beings and the most fearful of judgements: the warring horsemen of the apocalypse; a swarm of terrifying locusts with human faces, lion’s teeth and iron scales; horrific animals with multiple heads and horns that wreak vengeance on the earth and enslave its people; the colossal battle of Armageddon; the return of Christ; the final judgement; the world to come, and much else.

Do we really have to take this kind of thing seriously? Surely, these images are the kind of stuff of ancient myths and legends and have no counterpart in reality? It would be a mistake to think that way. Certainly, there are echoes of the ancient past. However, etymology can be misleading. For instance, when we have our cereal for breakfast, we rarely think that the word is derived from Ceres, the Roman goddess of agriculture and grain. Most chemists using ammonia are unaware that its name derives from the Ammonians, who were worshippers of the Egyptian god Amun (or Amon) and used ammonium chloride (NH4Cl) in some of their rites. Cereals and ammonia are very real entities, even though the words have mythological roots. As we come to the book of Revelation – or any other book – we need to take into account that the meanings of words develop over time, so that their use is not necessarily determined by their origin.

It is also important to realise that imagery, symbolism, metaphor and other figures of speech in literature are designed not only to greatly enrich our imagination as we read but also to give us a handle on an underlying reality. We use metaphor to do this in daily life all the time. For example, if I say that my heart is broken, I am using the metaphor of a damaged pumping mechanism in my body to express the fact that I am going through very real emotional anguish. Symbols not only help us to identify the reality to which they point; they also often serve to tell us more about it, as we shall see when we discuss the details.

Admittedly (again!), parts of the book of Revelation look surreal, even scary and off-putting, although one cannot help observing that many people, these days, gleefully engage with strange and violent creatures in virtual reality games and have little or no idea of what this exposure is doing to their minds. For instance, in the game Gears of War, designed by Epic Games for Xbox 360 in 2006, humanity is threatened by a locust horde, like the one in Exodus and Revelation chapter 9. In 2010, Vigil Games brought out a video game called Darksiders, which also uses some of the imagery of Revelation. How such games will prepare young minds and hearts for the future, compared with the book of Revelation, is another matter. The danger is that confining such creatures to cyberspace and virtual reality and playing games with them will inoculate people against ever coming to see that the images in Revelation stand for important realities that may well have to be understood in terms of the technologies we are creating in the contemporary world. In particular, Revelation has a great deal to say about the reality of God’s ultimate judgement of evil because of, and not in spite of, his goodness and love for humanity.

Most people instinctively recognise the importance of justice and at least want the grosser evils and sins of human beings to be judged, so long as it does not disturb their own life too much. All of us have an inbuilt sense of fairness since we are moral beings made in the image of God.

The backbone of the book of Revelation consists of three sequences of judgements that are triggered, respectively, by seven opened seals, seven blown trumpets and seven poured-out bowls. These sequences lead up to the final judgement, which is followed by the dissolution of the present heavens and earth and the creation of the new. They contrast dramatically with the singing and praise that breaks into the narrative at various points. Such interweaving of singing and judgement in one book raises the hardest question that all of us face: how can one sing with joy when evil is rampant? An OT psalm helps us to begin to think about this deeply existential issue:

Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice;

let the sea roar, and all that fills it;

let the field exult, and everything in it!

Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy

before the Lord, for he comes,

for he comes to judge the earth.

He will judge the world in righteousness,

and the peoples in his faithfulness.

(Ps. 96:11–13)

The psalmist could encourage all creation to sing because there was hope of ultimate justice. The Lord was coming to judge the earth. Yet even genuine Christian believers can find this topic uncomfortable. For it signals a warning not only that their lifestyle is going to be disrupted but also that they are going to be held accountable before God. Hence, they often content themselves by pushing it off into the distance, and because it is out of sight, it is out of mind. The book of Revelation is designed to hurl a strong warning into that situation and shake all of us out of our complacency, so that we keep short accounts with God during our lifetime in order not to be ashamed when we stand before Christ. It is easy to forget that Jesus himself said: ‘I tell you, on the day of judgement people will give account for every careless word they speak’ (Matt. 12:36).

Others react against the idea of God coming to judge, since, in their view, it is incompatible with his love. However, true and genuine love demands judgement, does it not? A God who did not eventually judge the evil that destroys people’s lives would not be a God of love. This is a moral universe, and it is to be noted that the very first lie recorded in Scripture was an explicit denial of God’s judgement. The serpent told the humans that God’s commandment not to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was not to be taken seriously; the humans would not die if they ate it. They fell for the temptation, ate the fruit and died – in the sense that their relationship with God was broken and sin entered the world with all the consequences that we know only too well (see Gen. 3). Yet God graciously prepared a magnificent plan of rescue and salvation for them, as explained in the wonderful affirmation of his love for his human creation that we find in John 3.16: ‘For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.’

However, some people fail to see that this very verse not only tells us of God’s deep love but also contains the solemn warning that it is possible for a person to perish. Paul’s magisterial explanation of the gospel in his letter to the Romans begins by pointing out that human beings need to be saved because they are in real danger of perishing: ‘For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of [human beings] who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth’ (Rom. 1:18). We should note that God’s righteous anger is directed against the suppression of truth, which, as we pointed out earlier, has become a major issue in our relativist, postmodern culture. Paul spells out the consequences of such behaviour:

We know that the judgement of God rightly falls on those who practise such things. Do you suppose, O man – you who judge those who practise such things and yet do them yourself – that you will escape the judgement of God? Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgement will be revealed. He will render to each one according to his works.

(Rom. 2:2–6)

As I write such things I am very conscious of the danger of sounding moralistic as if there were no implications of this for me to fear. The book of Revelation will unpack in detail what God’s judgement means against the background of God’s love for us in Christ, which alone can save us from the wrath of God. For God combines love and righteousness – a feat humans find it almost impossible to achieve, but one that we see in Christ in the way he dealt so sensitively with the broken and distressed, and in the way he welcomed children. We can therefore trust him in his judgements, which are likely to be different from ours.

Others react to judgement with fear and a deep-seated desire to escape it somehow. That fear has in the past been exacerbated and even exploited by highly speculative interpretations of Revelation involving dogmatic statements about contemporary geopolitical scenarios in the Middle East. Such material has been widely disseminated in book form and in many dramatic films, particularly in the USA.

I am personally grateful that I was inoculated against extreme views at an early age by learning that this kind of speculation had been going on for centuries, and that many predictions and identifications made by previous interpreters had turned out to be wrong. For instance, the beast of Revelation 13 has been interpreted as representing a whole succession of kings, emperors and popes, Hitler and Mussolini during the Second World War, the Soviet leaders during the Cold War, several US presidents, and so on. In consequence, teachers promoting such ideas were discredited when their predictions failed. One unfortunate result was a backlash against even attempting to understand Revelation, so that many church congregations were deprived of any exposure to it. The net result was that the book was all but abandoned to the lunatic fringe.

However, Revelation promises to do two things: fill our hearts with praise to God, and simultaneously prepare us for God’s inevitable cataclysmic intervention in this world to judge evil righteously at the return of Christ. It will challenge us to think hard about what we are really living for. It will also give us a way of coping with the ongoing problems of evil, pain and death by revealing how God will finally deal with these issues, and so give us a credible hope of ultimate victory.

A book on Revelation by a mathematician?

Judging from historical precedent, you may well think it rather foolhardy for a mathematician like me to attempt to write about the biblical book of Revelation, since the track record of members of my profession in that area has not been particularly impressive. Take, for instance, the Scottish mathematician John Napier (1550–1617), nicknamed Marvellous Merchiston,24 who gave us logarithms and made common the use of the decimal point. In January 1594 he addressed a letter to King James VI containing the dedication to him of his Plaine Discovery of the Whole Revelation of Saint John, a book that Napier regarded as his most important contribution. It was a commentary on the book of Revelation in which he risked dating the end of the world in either 1688 or 1700. It is reported that book sales dropped off drastically after 1700!

Long before Napier, Augustine (ad 354–450) warned against mathematicians, placing them among those who utter ‘empty prophecies’. Augustine was not a mathematician, but Sir Isaac Newton (1643–1727) was, perhaps the most famous of all. It is well known that he spent a great deal of time trying to unravel biblical prophecies. In his posthumous Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St. John (1773), Newton expressed his belief, rather more cautious than that of Napier, that biblical prophecy would not be understood ‘until the time of the end’, and that even then, ‘none of the wicked shall understand’. He held that, as he put it, ‘the last age, the age of opening these things, be now approaching’, and he opined that ‘the general preaching of the Gospel be approaching’ and also that ‘the Gospel must first be preached in all nations before the great tribulation, and end of the world’.

I hasten to say that I am not writing for mathematicians but rather for any thoughtful reader interested in the big questions that life throws at us – world-view questions such as those asked by the philosopher Immanuel Kant: What can I know? What can I hope for? What must I do? We could add to these a further three: What is the nature of ultimate reality? Is there a God and, if so, can he be known? What is the best narrative framework in which our lives can fit and flourish? These are the questions that all of us face, whether or not we are mathematicians and whether or not we believe in God. It has not escaped my attention that none of the disciples was a mathematician!

I would like, however, to mention one or two things that I have learned from my study of mathematics and science. First, the credibility of a theory depends on its ability to account for all the available data. This common-sense principle has been of great value to me and many others in studying Scripture. It has often been justifiably said that the Bible does not purport to be a textbook of science. However, parts of Scripture talk about the same universe that is also the concern of science. I have found that not only the methods but also the results of science have helped me to get to grips with the early chapters of Genesis, as well as giving me deeper insight into phenomena described in Scripture in connection with the biblical miracles. If, then, science can help us to understand the scriptures that relate to the past, is there any a priori reason why it could not help with biblical texts about the future? Robert E. D. Clark, a chemist, in his book on Revelation entitled Tomorrow’s World, complained that most commentaries on Revelation ignored technology. He regarded that as a mistake:

if as Christians we are right in believing that God created the world . . . he must have known from the beginning what technological and scientific advances were possible to man who is also his creation. What sense can there be, then, in interpreting this book – if indeed we take it seriously at all – without reference to technology? Of course, John, the author, knew nothing of all this, but if the book is what it purports to be – a revelation by Jesus Christ – it is difficult to believe that it contains no reference to such matters.25

This seems a sensible and balanced view, and it accounts for the subtitle of this book: Understanding Revelation in an age of intelligent machines. For instance, I have found Revelation to be highly relevant to thinking and writing about artificial intelligence and the future of humanity with special reference to transhumanism.26

More generally, reading Clark’s books in my late teens gave me an invaluable initial understanding of the relationship of science to theology. I got to know Clark personally at Cambridge during my student days, and I still think that his perspective is important enough to be brought into the picture – in a judicious manner, of course, since some of what he wrote is inevitably rather dated, as will also be the case with some of this book, even before it appears in print.

I make no claim to be a professional theologian but write as someone who has loved Scripture for many years and wishes not only to learn as much as he can about God but also to get to know him better through his Word – both the living Word: the Lord Jesus, and the written word: the Scriptures. It will, however, rapidly become obvious that I owe a great debt to the experts, since I have long since learned that, if you wish to see further, then you need to choose tall shoulders to stand on. I shall frequently reference such authors for the kind of information that they alone can supply. Like G. K. Chesterton I take courage from the assertion of H. G. Wells that the amateur has the ‘reasonable right . . . to do what he can with the facts which the specialists provide’.27

Over thirty years ago, I spent a number of weeks in intensive study of Revelation with the late Professor David Gooding, Member of the Royal Irish Academy, a lifelong friend, mentor, colleague and co-author. He was professor of Ancient Greek and Latin at Queens University Belfast, as well as a world authority on the Greek Septuagint version of the OT. Based on his study of such literature, he developed certain principles for understanding biblical texts that many people, including myself, have found of immense practical help. For instance, he memorably said that the more time spent on seeing what a text actually said, the easier it was to see what it meant and how it applied to reality, both in its original setting and today. In that connection, he emphasised the importance of grasping narrative thought flow and structure, and their contribution to meaning.28

Gooding introduced me to his approach in 1963 when I was a second-year mathematics undergraduate at Cambridge, where he was spending a sabbatical researching at the Tyndale Library. His logical, rigorous, text-based, literary approach appealed to my mathematical instincts, and his use of ‘disciplined imagination’ to my Irish storyteller heritage. I have found this combination to be of inestimable value over the past sixty years and will therefore try to preserve something of his legacy by demonstrating in this book how it worked for me.

However, before I attempt to do so, it is important to say that Gooding made no claim, and nor do I, that this is the only way to approach a book of Scripture. If you have found a way that works for you, stick with it. In any case, I have learned a great deal from exposure to different perspectives on the structure of the book of Revelation. I wish simply to share with my readers what has helped me to mine the riches of Scripture in the hope of stimulating them to do the same. This means that my treatment may be somewhat uneven. I shall look at the first chapters of the book in considerable detail as they introduce so many of its major themes. Thereafter, I shall largely content myself with the broad themes of thought flow and the structure that carries it, trusting that this will provide enough of a basis for readers’ own study. I say ‘largely’ because there will be times when more detail is called for – for instance when controversial issues come up and/or when additional background information is necessary.

As a biblical reference text, I shall use the excellent Greek-English New Testament produced by Tyndale House in Cambridge, UK, which presents on facing pages the English Standard Version (esv) with an authoritative new Greek translation. Most readers will know that, in contrast with other literature, the chapter and verse divisions in the Bible are not the work of the original authors but were added for the reader’s convenience long after the originals were composed. The first English Bible to have both chapter and verse divisions was the Geneva Bible of 1560.

Biblical references will be by book, chapter and verse, except for the book of Revelation, where we shall simply give chapter and verse numbers. I shall reproduce many quotations in full, rather than simply giving the reference. The reason for doing so is to encourage immersion in the biblical text, especially if a passage comes from the OT and may be somewhat less familiar than those in the NT. The more we read – slowly, meditatively and, where possible, aloud – the more we shall gain from our study.

I have consulted commentaries from a wide spectrum of perspectives in order to be as fair as I can, and I encourage my readers to do the same, depending on their level of interest in the book of Revelation. I realise of course that, like everyone else, I have my prejudices. I only hope that some of them are reasonably well grounded.

Main works consulted

Archaeological Study Bible: An illustrated walk through biblical history and culture, ed. Duane A. Garrett and Walter C. Kaiser Jr (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2005).

The Greek-English New Testament: Tyndale House, Cambridge Edition and English Standard Version (Cambridge: Tyndale House, 2022).

The Jewish Encyclopedia: A descriptive record of the history, religion, literature, and customs of the Jewish people from the earliest times to the present day: www.jewishencyclopedia.com.

Aune, David E., Word Biblical Commentary: Revelation (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1998).

Bauckham, Richard, The Theology of the Book of Revelation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993).

Beal, Timothy, The Book of Revelation: A biography (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2018).

Clark, Robert E. D., Tomorrow’s World: A scientist looks at the book of Revelation (London: The Victoria Institute, 1989).

Court, John M., Myth and History in the Book of Revelation (London: SPCK, 1979).

Fanning, Buist M., Revelation, Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Academic, 2020).

Govett, Robert, The Apocalypse Expounded by Scripture, abridged from the 4-vol. set (Washington, DC: Voice of Deeper Truth, 1951). Originally published 1864.

Hemer, Colin J., The Letters to the Seven Churches of Asia in Their Local Setting (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001).

Lowman, Peter, A Guide to the End of the World: Rapture? Millennium? Heaven? (Watford: Instant Apostle, 2018).

McKnight, Scot, with Cody Matchett, Revelation for the Rest of Us: A prophetic call to follow Jesus as a dissident disciple (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2023).

Mounce, Robert H., The Book of Revelation, New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1977).

Osborne, Grant R., Revelation, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2002; ePub edn, 2012).

Paul, Ian, Revelation, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (London: Inter-Varsity Press, 2018).

Schreiner, Thomas R., ‘Revelation’, in ESV Expository Commentary: Hebrews–Revelation (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2018).

Seiss, J. A., The Apocalypse (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1964).

Vlach, Michael J., Has the Church Replaced Israel? A theological evaluation (Nashville, TN: B&H, 2010).

Walvoord, John F., Israel in Prophecy (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1962).

Walvoord, John F., The Revelation of Jesus Christ (London: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1966).

Walvoord, John F., The Nations in Prophecy (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1967).

Waymeyer, Matt, Amillennialism and the Age to Come (The Woodlands, TX: Kress Biblical Resources, 2016).

Wilcock, Michael, The Message of Revelation, Bible Speaks Today (London: Inter-Varsity Press, 2021).

Introduction

What kind of book is Revelation?

Most commentaries on Revelation start with a lengthy introduction that covers topics such as authorship, date of composition, setting, genre, purpose, structure, interpretation and theology. As I am writing for the general interested reader, rather than the specialist, I shall leave a great deal of the technical detail to the experts and will often content myself with brief explanations and comments, including appropriate references to my sources.

As for literary structure, the book itself informs us that it falls into two segments, as explained to its author, John, in 1:19: ‘Write therefore the things that you have seen, those that are and those that are to take place after this.’ The two segments are as follows.

1 The things that are. The first three chapters contain a vision of Christ walking among lampstands that are said to represent seven churches in Asia Minor at the time of writing. John is instructed to write pastoral letters to each of these churches, giving them encouragement and criticism, as appropriate.

2 The things that are to take place after this. The rest of the book concerns future events, although there are occasional flashbacks to give context. One prominent structural feature in the main body of the book is three series of seven judgements in the form of seals, trumpets and bowls. Each series arguably leads up to the great day of God’s wrath, the coming of Christ and the setting up of God’s kingdom on earth, which introduces the final part of the book. The book then describes a last-ditch human rebellion against God, after which the heavens and the earth pass away, and the final judgement sits. We then see the new heavens and the new earth, with the city of God, the new Jerusalem, descending from the former to the latter. The ages to come have dawned.

However, it is important to realise from the outset that the fact that much of the book concerns the future does not make it irrelevant for the present. The contrary is true – for the simple reason that the whole book was intended to be read, first of all, by each of the seven contemporary churches to which it was initially sent, and then, of course, by extension, by all subsequent churches. I stress this, because it is easy to get the impression that each church received its own letter that applied to it alone, and then the rest of the book is for future generations. Not so. It might be better to say that the whole book is a letter for everyone, containing brief special messages for seven individual churches that, nevertheless, have wide applicability. What Revelation says about the future gives us deeper, large-scale teaching that will help us flourish as Christians and be more effective witnesses for Christ.

The opening self-description of the book makes far-reaching claims as to its status:

The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw. Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near.

(Rev. 1:1–3)

The book states what it is before it informs us about its human author. However, it will help us to have some familiarity with the author before we examine the concept of revelation. He identifies himself as John, a servant (Greek: doulos = slave) of God. At the time of writing, he was living in exile on Patmos, a small Aegean island measuring 13 square miles (34 sq. km) at the northern end of Greece’s Dodecanese island group. It lies about 30 miles from the coast of Turkey, 60 miles from the site of Ephesus, and 90 miles south-east of Smyrna, modern-day Izmir.1

There has been a great deal of scholarly discussion as to the precise identity of John, the human author of the book.2 In the second century, Irenaeus (ad 130–202) ascribed the work to ‘John, the disciple of the Lord’, saying that the book was written ‘no long time ago, but almost in our own day, towards the end of Domitian’s reign’.3 This view, supported by other early patristic writers, was first questioned at the end of the second century and the beginning of the third by theologians from a Greek cultural background living in Alexandria, such as Dionysius. Some even thought that Revelation was written by the gnostic Cerinthus, traditionally regarded as a contemporary and an enemy of John. As evidence, Dionysius pointed to linguistic differences in vocabulary, grammar and style between the Gospel of John and Revelation; for instance, the Greek words used for ‘lamb’ in John and Revelation are different.4 However, the terms used to describe Christ – Word, Lamb and Son of Man – are common to both the Gospel and Revelation. The Greek term logos (= word) is unique to these two books. That consideration carries weight for me, especially when we find John saying that he ‘bore witness to the word of God’ (1:2). For no one did this more clearly than the John who wrote the fourth Gospel, and the letter 1 John.

In any case, linguistic differences are not an insuperable objection to common authorship, since a single author can write in different linguistic styles according to subject matter. For example, a book written by me about science is different in genre from a book like this one on Scripture, and they will each be very different from a letter to my wife or a letter to my electricity supplier.

Furthermore, Dionysius’s rejection of common authorship may also spring from his antipathy to the notion of a future 1,000-year reign of Christ (millennium) as described in Revelation 20, since Dionysius imagined that John the apostle would not have believed in such a thing and therefore would not have written about it. A rather shaky argument – especially in light of the fact, as we shall later see, that two earlier writers, Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, interpreted Christ’s future reign as literal.

Eusebius5 in his Ecclesiastical Histories tells us a little more about John’s life after his exile: ‘In Asia, moreover, there still remained alive the one whom Jesus loved, apostle and evangelist alike, John, who had directed the churches there since his return from exile on the island, following Domitian’s death.’6 That he survived so long is proved by the evidence of two witnesses who could hardly be doubted, ambassadors as they were of the orthodoxy of the Church: Irenaeus and Clement of Alexandria. In book 2 of his work titled Against Heresies, Irenaeus writes: ‘All the clergy who in Asia came in contact with John, the Lord’s disciple, testify that John taught the truth to them; for he remained with them till Trajan’s time.’7 The church at Ephesus was founded by Paul, and John remained there till Trajan’s time; so it is a true witness of what the apostles taught.

It is therefore not surprising that Ephesus is first on the list of recipients of the letters – a circumstance to which we shall later refer.

Authorship by the apostle John, to which I and many others hold, is further supported by the existence of themes common to his Gospel and to Revelation, such as Jesus as the Word of God and the Lamb, already mentioned, and a strong emphasis on light and darkness. It should be noted, however, that there are heavyweight scholars on both sides of this issue. I would simply make the obvious point that, since the Scriptures are all inspired by the same God, whether or not the authors of both books are identical, we would surely expect common themes not only between the two but also with the rest of Scripture. I shall leave interested readers to pursue the extensive literature on this subject.

John wrote in Greek, which was then the main language of Asia Minor, inherited from the time of the earlier Greek Empire. The Romans did not try to impose Latin, although many educated people, the elite, and especially the military, spoke it throughout the empire. Official documents, such as birth certificates, had to be written in Latin. Many bilingual inscriptions of that era have been unearthed by archaeologists. It has been suggested that John’s Greek was partially Semitised,8 so that he wrote Revelation in what was his second language, rather than in his mother tongue, Aramaic.

John describes his work as his witness ‘to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw’ (1:2). He repeats the first part of this phrase in 1:9 to explain why he was on Patmos in the first place. He had been exiled to the island because of his witness to Christ. The words ‘witness’ and ‘testimony’ are directly related to the Greek term from which we get the English word ‘martyr’ – a person who has paid the ultimate price for witnessing to Christ. There is irony here. John had clearly been stirring up opposition with his teaching, so they, whoever they were, had isolated him on an island to silence him and stop his influence. Yet, while in that isolated place, he received a unique supernatural revelation of Christ that has echoed around the world for centuries in a magnificent demonstration of the fact that ‘the word of God is not bound’ (2 Tim. 2:9). The message that John’s persecutors didn’t want to hear needs to be circulated more than ever in our politically correct ‘cancel culture’, where every effort is made to stifle Christian public witness in the interests of a dominant secular mindset. Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor points out that this secularism has had three effects on our societies, particularly in the West.9 First, it has pushed the religious world view in general, and Christianity in particular, either to the margins or completely out of the public space; second, it has pressured people to internalise their religion, so that it becomes more a matter of feeling than of doctrine; and third, it has created a world in which religious conviction is only one option among many, instead of being the default. These developments leave the field clear on the one hand for any and every religion, both ancient and modern, and on the other hand for a dominant secular scientism that claims that the universe is a self-explanatory closed system of cause and effect. The book of Revelation challenges these views head on in saying that there is a world other than this one from whence supernatural revelation can and did come.

C. S. Lewis has helped large numbers of people to see this from an early age. In his wonderful book The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, which enthralled many of us as children, he weaves a marvellous tale about a door leading from earth into another world, Narnia. The door was first discovered by a little girl, Lucy Pevensey, in the back of a magic wardrobe in the house of the eccentric Professor Kirke, with whom she and her siblings have been billeted during the Second World War. One memorable scene in the book is the appalled reaction of the white witch when she is told by Lucy’s brother Edmund that there is a door from the ‘outside’ into what she thinks of as her world. She is terrified because she thinks that her world is all that exists.

And that is the key world-view question that all of us face: is this world the sum total of reality, or is there an ‘outside’, another world that transcends it? C. S. Lewis answered the question by saying that ‘if we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world’.10 Revelation, a book geared to stimulate the imagination, says that Lewis got it right. We were made for another world, a world just as real as ours, if not more real. In addition, there is a door into it from this world. And God himself, whose home that world is, invites us not to be afraid but to come to the door, have a look in – and eventually enter.

Lewis brilliantly expressed this thought in one of his most famous sermons, ‘The Weight of Glory’, which he preached at the Church of St Mary the Virgin in Oxford.11

What is revelation?

‘The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John’ (1:1).

As noted above, the very first thing John does in his book, even before introducing himself, is to state its contents. The first word of the text, in its original Greek language, is apokalypsis – the source of our English word ‘apocalypse’. This term has come to denote a major catastrophic event, and it is true that the book depicts great disasters that have given us concepts such as Armageddon and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. The derived word ‘apocalyptic’ denotes a genre of literature depicting end-of-the-world scenarios that are often filled with fantastical, colourful imagery of wild things of different kinds involved in various events, including great battles between good and evil. There are other, non-canonical apocalyptic writings that appeared among the Jews between 200 bc and ad 100, for example The Book of Enoch, The Assumption of Moses, and the Apocalypse of Ezra and Apocalypse of Baruch.

Thomas Schreiner gives the following informal definition:

Apocalypse is a supernatural unveiling of what is about to take place. A divine disclosure is given, usually by angels to some prominent person, in which God promises to intervene in human history, destroy evil, and bring in his kingdom.12

The biblical apocalypse was given to help people through times of trial and persecution by offering the hope of ultimate triumph.

Revelation is not a conventional apocalypse in that:

1the language is much more restrained;

2the author is named (other apocalypses are pseudonymous, taking the name of some great person from history, such as Ezra);

3the book claims to be a prophecy of the risen Christ.

Etymologically, the Greek word apokalypsis is formed from apo (= away from) and kalyptein (= to cover), and means an uncovering, unveiling, disclosure or revelation, usually of something hitherto obscure or hidden. Both the source and the subject of disclosure is Jesus Christ – a person. Matthew records Christ’s key statement about the nature of revelation:

At that time Jesus declared, ‘I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. Come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.’

(Matt. 11:25–30)

Luke also records this statement but with a slight difference of emphasis in connection with the knowledge that comes about through revelation: ‘No one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him’ (Luke 10:22). In Matthew it is knowing the Father and the Son, and in Luke it is knowing who the Son and Father are. Combining the two, the idea seems to be that both objective and subjective, personal, knowledge of the Father is conveyed by such revelation. An example of the former is Jesus’ response to Peter’s famous confession of him as the Son of God: ‘Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven’ (Matt. 16:17). Paul describes his conversion in terms of revelation, saying that the God who graciously called him ‘was pleased to reveal his Son to [or: in] me, in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles’ (Gal. 1:16).

Hence, revelation delivers knowledge from and about another, non-material realm. Ironically, even scientific study of the human brain seems to confirm that such a realm exists. At least this is the view of neuroscientist Iain McGilchrist as presented in his book The Matter with Things: Our brains, our delusions, and the unmaking of the world, published in 2021.13 It is a massive, two-volume work that develops the thesis formulated in his earlier book, The Master and His Emissary,14 that, although the two brain hemispheres are both involved in most brain activity, there are certain crucial differences between them that have profound consequences for the way we perceive reality. He argues that we have become dominated by our left hemispheres with the result that we have been persuaded that the materialistic, mechanistic, reductionist, scientistic, manipulative approach gives us the whole picture of reality, whereas it has blinded us to the integrative, holistic and more intelligent meaning-yielding perspective of the right hemisphere. He adduces evidence to show that the right cerebral hemisphere makes the main contribution not only to emotional and social intelligence but also to ordinary intelligence, or cognitive power – that is, to apprehension and not only to comprehension. The main force of his work is that there really is something more. We must, in his view, at least make space for God and the sacred. The book of Revelation will fill that space.

McGilchrist’s main idea was summed up in a memorable phrase by the late Chief Rabbi of the UK, Lord Jonathan Sacks: ‘Science takes things apart to see how they work. Religion puts things together to see what they mean. Without going into neuro-scientific detail, the first is a predominantly left-brain activity, the second is associated with the right hemisphere.’15 In fact, there is no real need to go into the neuroscientific detail to see the sense in Sacks’s differentiation between science and religion. There is overwhelming supporting evidence from many other rational disciplines – literature, philosophy, history, theology, as well as human intuition. The book of Revelation is a weighty part of that evidence.

If McGilchrist is right with his neuroscience, the drawback of relying only on the left hemisphere should be obvious. But there is also a drawback in relying only on the right hemisphere, as that can lead to, among other things, a rejection of rigorous logical analysis and ultimately to an extreme apophatic view, or via negativa, that says we can really know nothing about God. In other words, if we particularise and say, God is this or that, then we must be wrong, since God eludes us at every turn. This view, common in Eastern Orthodox thinking (but not only there), certainly has something going for it, since it is all too easy for us to put God in a box of our own making and lose a sense of humble wonder at his transcendence. We need to be modest about what we claim to know. Nevertheless, the biblical claim is that God has revealed himself, so there is nothing arrogant or immodest in believing what God has revealed. It would be immodest and arrogant to reject it.

McGilchrist believes that ‘despite our always contributing to the reality we experience, there is something apart from ourselves to which we can be true – that reality is not purely made up by the brain. There is a relationship there – something to be true to.’16 That insight from neuroscience is pointing us in the right direction since, not only is there something to be true to, but also there is Someone to be true to, and that Someone can be known. For Scripture tells us that ‘anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him’ (Matt. 11:27) can know the Father – and that, according to 1:1, includes the vast number of his servants. In his first letter, John has a great deal to say about knowing and knowledge. For example:

By this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. Whoever says ‘I know him’ but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him.

(1 John 2:3–5)

A little later in the same chapter, John also tells us that one of the reasons he wrote the letter is because his recipients, both old and young, know the Father (1 John 2:13–14). And finally, to those believers who may be a bit insecure he says: ‘I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life’ (1 John 5:13). Hence, to deny the possibility of knowing God, that we are in him and that we have eternal life, is not humility but arrogance, because it comes dangerously close to saying that John the apostle is not telling us the truth.

What mediates revelation?

The book of Revelation comprises around 10,000 words. God communicates through words. To be more accurate, God communicates through the person of his Son, the Word, and part of that communication consists of the words that he speaks. Jesus himself explained the process of transmission: ‘For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me’ (John 17:8). Note the plural – ‘words’ – implying that the inspiration of God applies not only to the general sense conveyed by the words but also to the words themselves.

Research in psychology has shown, and we would be wise to take it on board, that, in general, words account for only 7% of how we communicate, our body language accounts for 55% and voice tone 30%. All of these aspects are normally relevant to the process of getting to know a person – a mutual self-revelation, we might say. However, that should not be taken to mean that the book of Revelation is limited in its capacity to help us get to know God, Father and Son, because it is a collection of words. The reason is that these particular words begin by describing a vision of an exalted person and describe aspects of his body and the sound of his voice in such a way as to communicate him as a person in a comprehensive way to our senses via our imagination and intuition. The same is true for the rest of the book to differing degrees. In other words, God enabled John to help us see and hear what he saw and heard so that we might grasp it at a deeper level and respond accordingly.

John also tells us here that another objective of the book is to show to the servants of Christ what ‘must soon take place’ (1:1). That presumes that such servants will be able to understand it, rather than be confused by it, which would in turn imply that a plain, straightforward interpretation should be preferred to a complex, enigmatic and confusing one. The chain of transmission of the revelation is made evident: God–Jesus–an angel–John. It is an openly and unashamedly supernatural chain of transmission with openly and unashamedly supernatural content; it is a revelation of the future.

Putting this another way, the revelation of Jesus Christ is not only a book that discloses him as a person; it is also an event that demands a response. The apostle Peter captures this idea when he expresses the hope that his readers’ faith may be ‘found to result in praise and glory and honour at the revelation of Jesus Christ’ (1 Pet. 1:7). He goes on to encourage them to set their ‘hope fully on the grace that will be brought to [them] at the revelation of Jesus Christ’ (1 Pet. 1:13). Furthermore, the future revelation of Christ is an event staged by God himself, as is plain from Paul’s instruction to Timothy:

to keep the commandment unstained and free from reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which he will display at the proper time – he who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see.

(1 Tim. 6:14–16)

The Greek word translated ‘display’ here is translated ‘show’ in Revelation 1:1. This means that the verse from 1 Timothy quoted above is saying that the ‘blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings’, is the one who will stage the event.

Hence, the book of Revelation not only tells us about Jesus Christ; it also shows us the meaning of his future apocalypse, that is, his return in glory. Paul speaks of believers waiting for ‘the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ’ (1 Cor. 1:7). He also talks of the time ‘when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God’ (2 Thess. 1:7–8). The Greek word translated ‘revealed’ is actually a noun, apokalypsis, not a verb. The phrase is literally: ‘in the apocalypse [revelation] of the Lord Jesus from heaven’. Paul does not mean in the book of Revelation but in the event of revelation. Above all, then, this book is going to present an event to us, a spectacular visual depiction to fire our imaginations to long for the arrival of that final pivotal event of this earth’s history that will herald the dawning of a new age.

Hence the emphasis on the visual – the things that John saw. Researchers at the 3M Corporation say that the human brain processes visual input 60,000 times faster than text, so that visual impact tends to go much deeper than the reading of text.17 This gives substance to the adage that one picture is worth a thousand words. One reason for the difference is that the elements of images are processed simultaneously, whereas text is processed sequentially and so takes longer. The symbolism of Revelation is designed to stimulate our imaginations, for Revelation is, of all books in the Bible, a book that is meant to be imagined.

The book also exemplifies more than one literary genre. Its prophetic–apocalyptic message is in the form of a lengthy letter sent to seven churches. More precisely, the book begins with seven short letters, each addressed to a different church but with clear instructions that every letter is to be read out to all of the churches. In addition, there is a repeated general invitation: ‘He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches’ (2:7, 11, 17, 29; 3:6, 13, 22). At the end of the book, the Lord Jesus speaks to John regarding the purpose of the book: ‘I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify to you about these things for the churches’ (22:16). I make no apology for repeating the important fact that the whole book is intended for the seven churches and, by extension, for all Christians, everywhere and at all times.

Some people try to distinguish between apocalyptic and prophetic genres. Others point out that Revelation has features not found in other apocalyptic literature. For instance, as mentioned above, such literature is usually anonymous, whereas Revelation is not; it is also usually pessimistic about the present age but optimistic about the future, whereas Revelation sees some positive things in the present that are worthy of encouragement.

The prime aim of Revelation is to reveal, particularly to those of us who are already Christian believers, more about Christ than we have hitherto appreciated, so that we get to know him better and have our faith in him confirmed. It will also give those of us who are exploring the Christian faith more information about its content. After all, it wouldn’t be the wisest of strategies, would it, to reject Christianity without even listening to what it has to say?

And listening to what it had to say was how the first recipients of Revelation experienced it, since it was read to them out loud. John says: ‘Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near’ (1:3). It must have been a uniquely memorable experience for the congregations of the seven churches to listen to the first public reading of the final piece in the narrative that is God’s written word. One can imagine that the reading may have involved a number of people taking different parts and even some attempt at role-playing because of the theatrical nature of the visions. In any case, as we study, it is always a good idea to read the text out loud, even in an empty room. More is apprehended, understood and retained that way. And as we read it, we are to think about how we shall keep it – that is, apply it to the way we live now.

Just here we meet a problem – at least the current generation meets a problem that arises from the recent technological revolution. People don’t read much any more. It is important that we take on board the huge change that happened around 2010, which social psychologist Jonathan Haidt calls the ‘great rewiring of childhood’, for it completely changed the way in which young people engage with one another and separated this generation from all that came before it. Up to that time, social interaction was direct, immediate, natural fun, with all the senses involved. Young people chatted, played, pushed, fought, ran, climbed and generally enjoyed what my generation would call a ‘normal’ childhood. All that changed with the smartphone and social media, so that young people now spend upwards of six hours a day silently tapping their smartphones or other devices and interacting at a distance in a disembodied way. It was a move from the present, immediate and direct to being ‘forever elsewhere’ in the memorable phrase of Sherry Turkle, an expert on youth interaction with the internet. The great rewiring has proved disastrous in that it has deprived a generation of children (Gen Z) of their childhood and led to a frightening increase in youth mental health problems around the world. These issues characterise what Haidt calls the ‘anxious generation’ – the title of his book,18 which I highly recommend to those people wishing to engage with Gen Z. This circumstance is going to create another barrier between people and Scripture, and it will take Christian thinkers who have grown up with these new conditions to solve the problem of getting people to read Revelation – or indeed any other text.

We must now get back to that text.

A repeated emphasis on Christ’s return

Revelation starts by focusing on the central theme of Christ’s return to earth: the idea of coming occurs explicitly three times in the first chapter. In 1:4 there is an unusual description of God as the one ‘who is and who was and who is to come’. This is repeated in 1:8. In between these two statements we find a description of how God will come: ‘Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him’ (1:7). This time the identity of the coming one is given in the preceding verse. It is he ‘who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood’ (1:6). God will come in Christ – a strong assertion of the deity of Jesus. It is he who will return. Similarly, at the end of the book, Jesus Christ himself says three times over: ‘I am coming soon’ (22:7, 12, 20). These six references to coming, three at the beginning and three at the end, serve as bookends that focus our attention on the book’s key message: the coming of God in Jesus Christ in power and great glory.

There are other elements common to the first and last parts of the book: the description of God as the Alpha and Omega; God’s transmitting of the message by sending his angel to show his servant(s); the inevitability and immediacy of the coming as that which ‘must soon take place’; the command to write words in a book that is to be not only read but also kept; and the identity of John as ‘the one who heard and saw these things’.

Keeping the prophecy: a fundamental principle of continued relevance

The book, therefore, claims to be an authoritative revelation from God via Christ, an angel and John. It shines a powerful light on Jesus Christ and his coming, doing it in such a way that those who read it will be led to keep it. That is, its message, although about the future, is meant to be applied in the present. Osborne says pithily: ‘Apocalyptic is the present addressed through parallels with the future.’19 Keeping it will mean embodying the impact of its visions and the transformative power of its teaching in terms of a Christlike life. For though the book has many things to say about the future, it also has relevance to all times, including the present. This key principle is laid down by Paul in his second letter to the Thessalonians, where he reminds the believers that, during his first visit to them, he had informed them about the future return of Christ in power and great glory. He had preached it not only as the main Christian hope but also as a message of immediate existential relevance to the Church. The passage is:

Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we ask you, brothers, not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by a spirit or a spoken word, or a letter seeming to be from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God. Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things? And you know what is restraining him now so that he may be revealed in his time. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming.

(2 Thess. 2:1–8)

Paul gives a number of other circumstantial details here as to the context of Christ’s return. He speaks of the coming of a lawless one, a despotic leader who will appear on the world stage and proclaim himself to be God, yet who will be destroyed by the sheer power of Christ’s appearing. We shall meet this end-time leader later in Revelation, where he is represented symbolically by one of the hideous monsters for which the book is famous. But why mention him now, since this Thessalonian text clearly refers to a time still future20 to us? The reason, as Paul explains, is that ‘the mystery of lawlessness is already at work’ (2 Thess. 2:7). In other words, the ideology and social, cultural and political trends that would eventually lead up to the final opposition of the man of lawlessness to Christ were already endemic in the Roman Empire of the time – a clear reference to the imperial cult’s practice of divinising emperors post-mortem. Paul was encouraging the Thessalonian believers to look at the present in the light of the future. That principle, sometimes called the ‘telescope principle’, is one of the keys to applying Revelation at any time in history. For example, in my book 2084 and the AI Revolution,21 I discuss the close parallels between some of the scenarios currently proposed for AI and the visions of Revelation 13.

However, the main intended application of the book to believers is succinctly captured in the apostle John’s description of the Christian hope of Christ’s appearing:

Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.

(1 John 3:2–3)

Note precisely what is said here: it is not that a person who places their future hope in Christ should purify themselves; it is that they do purify themselves. In other words, professed hope of Christ’s return is only genuine insofar as it actually has a moral and spiritual purifying effect on our lives; that is, we keep the prophecy by living it out.

It is obvious that we live in the present. Yet elementary logic tells us that we cannot live for the present. We live for the future. It is what we expect and believe about the future, even if it is only the short-term future, that influences what we do now. For instance, if I wish to eat this evening, I have to obtain and prepare the food now; if you are doing an exam next week, I would very much hope, as a university professor, that it is affecting what you are doing now to prepare for it; if you are going on holiday soon, you will be preparing for it. And, in sad, extreme cases, it is when some people have nothing to live for that they commit suicide. We humans need to have a future to live for. This brings to mind the famous words of atheist Friedrich Nietzsche: ‘He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.’22 Revelation defines that ‘why’.

Sadly, Christianity often appears to the public as so insipid and watered down that the vibrant hope of Christ’s return, which should be its heartbeat, has been all but lost – thoughtlessly relegated to the lunatic fringe of naive prophecy-mongers and dreamers, rather than being put forward as a credible, dynamic and robust transformer of moral and spiritual character. C. S. Lewis’s warning not to dilute Christianity by leaving out the supernatural dimension goes unheeded.23 However, I propose to heed it by enlisting not only Scripture but also science, philosophy, history and reason to argue as coherently as I can.

The key world-view question: is this world all there is?

The claim that Revelation is above all a supernatural revelation from the one true God is diametrically opposed to the polytheism of the Roman Empire at the time John was writing and also, for very different reasons, to the atheistic, anti-supernatural world view that dominates today’s deeply secular Western world and the academy in particular. Yet atheistic materialism–naturalism is beginning to crumble because it does not deliver a meaningful, coherent framework for life. I regularly meet people, including serious scientists and thinkers, who say that there must surely be something more than the bleak reductionism that says we are nothing but molecules in motion. As if viewing a Rembrandt as a mere collection of molecules of paint and canvas could capture its beauty!

Is reason opposed to revelation?

Someone will object: surely the very concept of revelation is opposed to reason? Many people now look to the ‘rational approach of science’ to gain knowledge of truth, not to ancient texts from a pre-scientific age which claim revelation. Initially, this sounds a very attractive idea – but it is seriously flawed. First, such scientism,24 the idea that science is the only way to truth, often leads people to think that ‘scientific’ means the same as ‘rational’, that is, in accord with reason. However, scientism is false, and obviously so, for, as we mentioned just above, disciplines such as history, literature and philosophy are also rational disciplines. Reason has a far larger scope than the natural sciences; we use it in all areas of life every day.

An illustration will make clear that the natural sciences are limited. Suppose that my Aunt Matilda has baked a cake, and we submit it for analysis to a group of the world’s top scientists. The biochemists will inform us about the structure of the proteins, fats and so on involved in its composition; the chemists, about the elements involved; the physicists will be able to analyse the cake in terms of fundamental particles; and the mathematicians will, no doubt, offer us a set of elegant equations to describe the behaviour of those particles. Now we know how the cake was made and what it is made of, but suppose we now ask the scientists why the cake was made? The grin on Aunt Matilda’s face shows that she knows the answer, for she made the cake. But it is surely self-evident that the best scientists in the world will not be able to tell us from their investigations why she made it. Even if we hook her up to the most sophisticated brain-analysing technology, we shall only know what is going on in her brain in terms of electrochemical impulses. We shall never know what is in her mind unless she reveals the answer. The brain story and the mind story are not the same.

The natural sciences can cope with questions about the nature and structure of the cake, but they cannot answer the ‘why’ question of purpose. Science has its limitations, as the best scientists recognise. For instance, Nobel laureate Sir Peter Medawar pointed out that

the existence of a limit to science is very likely because of its inability to answer childlike elementary questions. I have in mind such questions as: How did everything begin? What are we all here for? What is the point of living?25

As well as that, it is obvious that when Aunt Matilda speaks and reveals to us why she made the cake, far from closing our reason down, we have to use it to evaluate what she says in order to see if it makes sense or not. Putting this another way, revelation involves reason, as does science. To set reason and revelation in opposition to each other is to fail to understand what they are and that they belong to different categories.

If we now scale up to the level of ultimate questions about the universe, the question that arises is this: is there someone who stands in the same relation to the universe as Aunt Matilda does to her cake? Is there someone who has spoken and revealed what the universe is all about? From beginning to end, the Bible claims that it is a revelation from God the Creator himself. We are invited to use our reason in order to understand what it says about who God is, how he acts and what he wishes to say to us. And now, as we proceed to do that together, I trust we shall see that the message of the book of Revelation satisfies the two main criteria for truth, namely coherence and correspondence with reality, even though that message is no mere product of reason but involves a supernatural input. The natural sciences cannot preclude that.26 Nor can they preclude that as we read the book, the one who is himself the truth may reveal himself to us personally.

A lesson from Daniel

The question of whether there is such a thing as supernatural revelation is raised in the biblical narrative itself – a fact that shows that it takes this issue seriously. Around 500 years before Revelation was written, the prophet Daniel records that the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar had a dream and asked his experts in astrology to interpret it. Very cleverly, when they pressed him, he refused point blank to tell them what he had dreamed. They were devastated and had to admit complete defeat:

The Chaldeans answered the king and said, ‘There is not a man on earth who can meet the king’s demand, for no great and powerful king has asked such a thing of any magician or enchanter or Chaldean. The thing that the king asks is difficult, and no one can show it to the king except the gods, whose dwelling is not with flesh.’

(Dan. 2:10–11)

Those experts at forecasting were helpless as they had no access beyond the present world. Although claiming to be in touch with the gods, they were philosophical materialists. Their gods were mere deifications of the forces of nature. God revealed the content of the king’s dream to Daniel, and Daniel was summoned into the royal presence:

Daniel answered the king and said, ‘No wise men, enchanters, magicians, or astrologers can show to the king the mystery that the king has asked, but there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries, and he has made known to King Nebuchadnezzar what will be in the latter days.’

(Dan. 2:27–8)

Daniel then proceeded to prove the truth of this statement by telling Nebuchadnezzar both what he had dreamed and what it meant. It was an irrefutable demonstration that there is a God who reveals secrets – and its logic is still valid today.27 Furthermore, the book of Revelation will pick up on the visions recorded in Daniel.

All of this combines to give us a way forward. On one hand, many of my readers will already be Christians. I would ask them to think about how the contents of Revelation appear not only to them but also to their non-Christian friends and acquaintances. That, if my experience is anything to go by, will help them to understand much more of the wonder of the book than if they just approach it as insiders. On the other hand, I would ask those of my readers (and I hope there are many) who are interested in exploring Christianity to suspend their judgement until they see whether or not it makes coherent sense. The final decision is, of course, up to them.

The God who is to come: Jesus’ claim to fulfil Daniel’s prophecy

Enough of preliminaries. Let us get back to a further key idea: the thoroughly supernatural claim implied by the greeting in the prologue of Revelation that not only is there a God but also that he is the God who is to come. Here we meet the first of many allusions to the OT in the book of Revelation that shape and enrich its message. The first reference to the notion of a coming God is in a Hebrew poem:

Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice;

let the sea roar, and all that fills it;

let the field exult, and everything in it!

Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy

before the Lord, for he comes,

for he comes to judge the earth.

He will judge the world in righteousness,

and the peoples in his faithfulness.

(Ps. 96:11–13)

Another psalm repeats the idea:

Let the rivers clap their hands;

let the hills sing for joy together

before the Lord, for he comes

to judge the earth.

He will judge the world with righteousness,

and the peoples with equity.

(Ps. 98:8–9)

These texts show that the coming of God is associated with the human longing for a judgement day, a final reckoning when God will righteously deal with all the evil and wrong that has ever been perpetrated. Hope will not be disappointed. The fact that judgement will come is a central theme in the biblical storyline. If we further ask how God will come, we find the answer in Daniel 7, a powerful vision of God as the Ancient of Days seated on his judgement throne. We then read:

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 a kingdom,

that all peoples, nations, and languages

should serve him;

his dominion is an everlasting dominion,

which shall not pass away,

and his kingdom one

that shall not be destroyed.

(Dan. 7:13–14)

This forms the background to 1:7: ‘Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. Even so. Amen.’ In his trial before the then high priest, Caiphas, Jesus Christ claimed to be the ‘one like a Son of Man’ whom Daniel had seen in his vision. The Gospels record that Caiphas put Jesus on oath and asked him: ‘Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?’

And Jesus said, ‘I am, and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming with the clouds of heaven.’ And the high priest tore his garments and said, ‘What further witnesses do we need? You have heard his blasphemy. What is your decision?’ And they all condemned him as deserving death.28

(Mark 14:61–4; see also Matt. 26:64)

The members of the court (the Jewish high court, known as the Sanhedrin) knew exactly what Jesus was referring to and they were infuriated at what they considered blasphemy – that he, a human being standing before them, could claim to be the exalted figure described by Daniel as seated at God’s right hand in heaven. Therefore, for daring to make such a claim, they angrily condemned him to death and handed him over to be crucified by the Romans. It was a turning point in history.

What Jesus claimed publicly before the Sanhedrin, he had earlier said privately to his disciples. John reports that in his talk in the upper room in Jerusalem he said to them:

Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.

(John 14:1–3)

The emphases are very different. Before the Sanhedrin, Jesus said he would come in judgement; to the disciples he promised to come and take them to his Father’s house to be with him. We find both emphases in Paul’s letters. Paul describes in more detail the biblical hope that, throughout the centuries, has brought immense comfort to all believers in the face of evil, pain and death:

We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words.

(1 Thess. 4:13–18)

Earlier in the same letter, he describes what Christian conversion involved for the citizens of Thessalonica as they responded to Paul’s initial preaching of the gospel:

For they themselves report concerning us the kind of reception we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come.

(1 Thess. 1:9–10)

The same things should characterise our conversion:

1a turning in repentance from idols – things in which we trusted that are not God;

2a turning to serve God with all our hearts and minds in the present;

3a filling of our minds with an eager expectation of the future return of Christ as expressed at the end of Revelation (22:20): ‘Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!’

4an awareness that we human beings, all of us, are lost without Christ and will have to face the coming judgement.

And each of the chapters of that first letter to the Thessalonians ends with a reminder that Christ is returning.

Paul announced the coming day of God’s judgement in unmistakable terms to the members of the Areopagus philosophical court in Athens. They, intelligent people though they were, were lost in hopeless polytheistic idolatry, as Paul courageously pointed out to them:

Being then God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.

(Acts 17:29–31)

Notice that Paul presents the resurrection as evidence of Jesus’ identity for everyone, not just for believers. The resurrection is not a product of Christian belief; it is the foundation of it. Everywhere the early apostles went, they made the physical resurrection of Jesus the lynchpin of their message. By it, all of Jesus’ supernatural claims stood or fell, including, of course, the promise of his return.29

The book of Revelation is a prophecy. Its author, John, is the last in a long line of the Hebrew prophets. They were people whose ministry was to declare the word of God about the future and to apply that word to their immediate hearers. The book of Revelation is no different. It foretells the future coming of Christ and brings the implications of that coming to bear on the lives of its readers in order to bless, encourage and challenge them, as John explains: ‘Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near’ (1:3).

Jewish messianic expectation: restoring the kingdom to Israel?

The term ‘Christ’ is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew ‘Messiah’ (meaning ‘Anointed One’), and the expectation that one day Messiah would come is a central theme of the OT. It identifies him with increasing precision as a descendant of both Abraham and David, who would be born in Bethlehem of a virgin. Isaiah, who prophesied during the reigns of several kings of Judah – Uzziah, Jothan, Ahaz and Hezekiah – roughly from 740 to 700 bc, wrote the words that inspired Handel’s magnificent oratorio The Messiah:

For to us a child is born,

to us a son is given;

and the government shall be upon his shoulder,

and his name shall be called

Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God,

Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Of the increase of his government and of peace

there will be no end,

on the throne of David and over his kingdom,

to establish it and to uphold it

with justice and with righteousness

from this time forth and for evermore.

The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.

(Isa. 9:6–7)

Jesus is that Messiah. Yet, against all the expectations of his disciples, he did not take over as ruler of the nation of Israel but was rejected by its religious leaders and crucified for his messianic claim. Then, to the utter surprise of his disciples, although he had told them repeatedly to expect it, he rose from the dead. Their despair was transformed into such joy and expectation of his immediate reign that they asked him: ‘Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?’ (Acts 1:6).

Note that their question was not: ‘Are you going to restore the kingdom to Israel?’ That was not an issue for them, since it was central to their biblically rooted messianic expectation that the kingdom would be restored one day, which they firmly believed. Their question had to do with the timing of what for them was a certainty. ‘Are you going to do it now?’ They had forgotten that not long since, they had put to him a very similar question. That time his answer was in the form of a parable:

As they heard these things, he proceeded to tell a parable, because he was near to Jerusalem, and because they supposed that the kingdom of God was to appear immediately. He said therefore, ‘A nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom and then return.’

(Luke 19:11–12)

Jesus, the nobleman in the parable, was on the point of going away. But he would return and set things in order. He had gone away by crucifixion and death, but God had raised him from the dead. Could that be his return? They wanted to know, so they asked him their previous question. Was this really it? Would he now take over power? This time Jesus gave a more comprehensive answer, and Luke the historian records the dramatic event that followed:

He said to them, ‘It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.’ And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, and said, ‘Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.’

(Acts 1:7–11)

The restoration would happen, but not yet. When it would happen had been fixed, but they were not going to be told the date. They were to get on with spreading the gospel in the power of the Holy Spirit, who would come to them at Pentecost.

What happened next showed unmistakably that Jesus would not be restoring the kingdom at that time. He left them. He ascended physically to the world from which he had come. This account was not a figment of Luke’s imagination based on the assumption of a three-decker universe but rather a straightforward account of what the disciples actually saw. In fact, they saw two things.

First, Christ ascended, rising vertically from the earth to demonstrate that in that deeper sense he was the king – in just the same way as the ascent of King Charles III to the British throne in 2023 was simultaneously a physical movement and a symbol of his assumption of kingly authority. It is technically called a ‘concretised metaphor’.30

Next, a cloud took Jesus out of their sight. I imagine that C. S. Lewis might have called it a ‘junction between two worlds’. The key thing to grasp is the explanation of the ascension event that was given to the disciples as they watched: ‘This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.’ Hence, the ascension tells us a number of things. First, since Jesus ascended bodily into it, heaven is not only a reality; it also has a physical dimension. It is not merely a state of mind, as some have suggested. That is confirmed by Paul who, years after the ascension, said of Christ: ‘For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily’ (Col. 2:9), where the word ‘dwells’ is in the present, not the past tense. That is, long after his ascension, Christ has a body – a physical body.31 Second, the ascension forms a thought model to help us visualise Jesus’ return. Since they saw him go with the clouds, literally and physically, he will similarly be seen returning literally and physically with the clouds to exercise judgement and rule on earth. This fits in precisely with the prophecy of that return made in Revelation 1:7: ‘Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. Even so. Amen.’

The ascension is offered by Luke as evidence for the return of Jesus Christ. A helpful analysis of that evidence is given by David Gooding.32 The fact that the first disciples actually witnessed the ascension supports John’s claim to have had additional supernatural revelation about that return.

The purpose of biblical prophecy

Christ returning soon – a mistaken prediction?

I can imagine that by this stage some of my readers may be querying the credibility of John’s statement, at both the beginning and end of his book, that the events described in it will occur soon. Surely, it will be objected, this shows that the early apostles were mistaken; they expected the return of Christ in their lifetimes, and it just didn’t happen. End of story. Of course, an even bigger problem for atheists is the very notion of Christ returning, whether sooner or later, in anything but a mythical and non-physical sense. For them, the existence of a supernatural dimension is ruled out a priori by their world view.

Some years ago, in a debate in Melbourne Town Hall, atheist ethicist and academic Peter Singer put it to me that Jesus himself was mistaken about his second coming. He argued his case from a statement that Jesus made to his disciples in a famous passage about discipleship:

Then Jesus told his disciples, ‘If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul? For the Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay each person according to what he has done. Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.’

(Matt. 16:24–8)

Jesus promises to return in glory to judge, and then comments that some of those who were standing listening to him would not taste death until they had seen the Son of Man coming in his kingdom. Singer’s argument was very simple: they have all died long since, and Jesus has not yet appeared in glory. That, Singer concluded, completely discredited Jesus and meant that such stories are best regarded as pious myths.

However, Singer signally failed to understand what the passage goes on to tell us by way of explanation. Matthew relates that, immediately after making this statement, Jesus selected three of the men standing there – Peter, James and John – and took them up to the top of a high mountain where they saw him ‘transfigured’ (the original Greek term is one from which we derive the word ‘metamorphosed’) with his face shining like the sun in its glory. They also saw Moses and Elijah with him, even though those two had lived centuries earlier and at different epochs.

Before we side with Singer, we might be wise to ask how those who shared this experience understood it. Peter was one of them, and much later, near the end of his life, he wrote about it to encourage his fellow Christians. At that stage, Peter knew he was soon to die as a martyr, as Jesus himself had told him so many years before (John 21:18–19). Yet, when Jesus had invited Peter to go with him up the mountain, he had told him that he would not taste death until he saw the Son of Man coming in his kingdom. Did Peter, who was no fool, see this as a contradiction? Not at all. He explains exactly how he understood the Transfiguration and scotches any idea that it was a myth; incidentally, myth is a vehicle of thought that Peter would have known from his culture better than most of us do from ours. He wrote:

For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For when he received honour and glory from God the Father, and the voice was borne to him by the Majestic Glory, ‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased,’ we ourselves heard this very voice borne from heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain.

(2 Pet. 1:16–18)

The significance of the Transfiguration for the return of Christ and our confidence in it

The Transfiguration of Christ is so important that we have four accounts of it.33 Peter says that it revealed two things to him: the power of the Lord Jesus and his coming.

First, then, the power. Interestingly, Mark, who, it is thought, consulted Peter about the contents of his Gospel, reports Jesus as mentioning power several times in the context of the Transfiguration: ‘Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God after it has come with power’ (Mark 9:1). On the mountain, again only Mark says that Jesus’ ‘clothes became radiant, intensely white, as no one on earth could [lit. had the power to] bleach them’ (Mark 9:3). Finally, after they descended from the mountain, Jesus rebuked those who did not ‘have the power’ (lit.) to heal a spirit-possessed mute boy. The boy’s father had said to Jesus, ‘If you can do anything, have compassion,’ to which Jesus responded: ‘“If you can!” All things are possible for one who believes’ (Mark 9:22–3). More literally, this reads: ‘“If you have the power to!” All things are within the power of one who believes.’ Also, the fact that Moses and Elijah appeared as contemporaries of Jesus and that God’s authenticating voice was heard from heaven points to a supernatural power far beyond our comprehension.

Second, the coming. The Transfiguration was a preview of the return of Christ. It was not that event itself but bore sufficient resemblance to it that it could justifiably be understood as seeing the coming of Christ and the kingdom of God. For, through this experience, the three disciples discovered that there was another world above this one in which Jesus was the sun – the source of all light, energy and power. They saw in his shining clothes the evidence that his character was impeccable and that he was of heavenly origin. They saw Moses and Elijah with him and heard them discussing, as Luke tells us, ‘his departure [lit. exodus], which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem’ (Luke 9:31). The vision could only become a final reality after Jesus’ unique exodus into that other world – through his crucifixion, resurrection and ascension.

How Scripture makes the coming of Christ real

Peter, aware that he was uniquely privileged to stand with Jesus on that mountain, and that his readers would not have the same experience, sensitively adds a statement that will help us understand the purpose of the book of Revelation:

And we have something more sure, the prophetic word, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

(2 Pet. 1:19–21)

Hence, the Transfiguration confirms the prophetic word of Scripture about the coming of Christ for all of us. It is like a lamp: if we allow its light to shine on us, even before the second advent of Christ actually occurs, we shall sense him as the morning star arising in our hearts. This is magnificent poetry to get across a profound reality, since it is a prime role of the word of God to do for us what the Transfiguration did for Peter, which was to make the eternal world and the coming of Christ real.

That tells us what the book of Revelation will do for us if we take it to heart and keep it. What a wonderful prospect to have eternity made convincingly real to us by the authentic voice of God! Let’s read Revelation with expectant minds and hearts, praying that we may hear that voice for ourselves. After all, that will be the best confirmation that the message is true.

How does Scripture do that? We need first to understand, says Peter, ‘that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation’. That is, the prophecies contained in Scripture are not generated by clever people in futuristic think-tanks making deductions from world events, cultural happenings or social trends. No: they are not human interpretations of the world at all but are of an entirely different supernatural category. They are nothing less than human beings speaking from God as they are borne along by the Holy Spirit. That, in fact, makes plain the difference between Nebuchadnezzar’s advisers and Spirit-filled Daniel.

In his discourse in the upper room, Jesus explained to his disciples the supernatural way in which Scripture would be produced:

I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

(John 16:12–15)

The book of Revelation is a major part of the fulfilment of that promise.

John says that there is a special blessing for those who read Revelation aloud, which would encourage us to make a habit of it as we proceed. Also, we should not forget that the people to whom John wrote were not as literate as people in general are today. In ancient societies, someone who could read (aloud) played a vital role in the community.

The meaning of the term ‘coming’

Analysing Peter Singer’s misinterpretation of Jesus’ words regarding the Transfiguration has, I hope, helped us to see that prophecies about the future coming of Christ are meant to quicken expectation of it in our hearts and minds. For there are several ways in which the term ‘coming’ is used in Scripture:

1It relates to the OT expectation of the coming of the Messiah. Many contemporary Jews still understand this literally. Others have adopted a metaphorical view, one version of which is that, if Israel were to keep the law for one day, that would mean Messiah had ‘come’. The majority of Jews today do not recognise Jesus as the Messiah who has already come, although there is an increasing number of ‘Messianic Jews’ who, like the early disciples and Paul, confess Jesus as Lord. We have also seen that the ascension confirms what Jesus himself publicly said to the Sanhedrin – that he would physically return as the judge of all the world in the clouds of heaven, just as he left.

2Just before his trial, Jesus promised his disciples that he would come again and take them to himself (John 14:1–3). This was repeatedly confirmed by Paul (e.g. 1 Thess. 1:10; 4:13–18).

3Jesus also promised his disciples another kind of coming: ‘“I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you . . . And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.” Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, “Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?” Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him”’ (John 14:18, 21b–23).

This is obviously not Jesus’ coming in power and great glory, but it is nevertheless real. It is a coming to manifest or reveal himself to us in order to make a genuine difference in our lives by the indwelling of God’s Spirit in our hearts.

It has been well said that the genuineness of our expectation of ‘coming’ in sense 2 will be demonstrated by the reality of our experience of that coming in sense 3, which is also exemplified in Jesus’ solemn warning to the church at Ephesus: ‘Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent’ (2:5). This clearly does not refer to the second coming of Christ to earth but is a temporal coming in judgement to close down a failing church. Sadly, this has happened many times throughout the course of church history and still does.

Now there is both scholarly and popular discussion about whether the comings in senses 1 and 2 are the same or not. We shall have something to say about that later when we consider various approaches to Revelation. The important thing to bear in mind is that, whatever difficulties we may have with sorting out the timings of various events, we should never allow them to stop us believing that the events will happen. I say this because it happens too often that someone brought up with one view of Revelation later finds it challenged by other views, fails to sort it out satisfactorily, gives up in despair, and stops believing and enjoying what the passages individually say. That is both sad and unnecessary.

The coming as a period of time

A very important principle that arises from ‘coming’ in sense 1 above is that some of the comings of Christ are periods, not points, in time. Think of his coming as predicted in the OT. It turned out to be in two parts, the first of which was a period of around thirty-three years, full of different events, many of them foretold by the prophets, such as the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, his entering Jerusalem on a donkey, his rejection, death, burial, resurrection, ascension and a host of other things. The second part of that coming will involve not only his appearing in power and glory but also his descending to reign on earth for an even longer period of time.

There are several points to be made here. First, ‘the coming’ turned out to be much more complicated than anyone could have said, prior to Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem. Few if anyone realised that the OT implied that it would be in two parts. Second, it would have been well-nigh impossible to have got the events of what we call the ‘first coming’ in the right order, based only on a study of the OT. That means that we need to be humble and avoid dogmatism regarding the timetable of Christ’s return since it would seem that it, too, will involve a series of events over a period of time that we are unlikely to be able to place in the correct order. We should be prepared to accept that we could easily be mistaken, a danger that the Lord also flagged up when answering the disciples’ question about the timing of his return in his most famous teaching on the topic, the Olivet discourse:

Jesus left the temple and was going away, when his disciples came to point out to him the buildings of the temple. But he answered them, ‘You see all these, do you not? Truly, I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.’

As he sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, ‘Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the close of the age?’

(Matt. 24:1–3)

Yet this does not mean that we should not think about the future at all. On the contrary, the Lord Jesus positively encouraged his disciples so to do by giving a lengthy answer to their question. In it he details a long sequence of events that must happen first; for instance, there will be wars and rumours of wars and nation shall rise against nation, but that does not mean the end has come. Also, Jesus repeatedly warns them not to be deceived by false claims on the part of some people that they are the Christ. Indeed, those events will be only the beginning of birth pangs (Matt. 24:6–8). We need to take this on board, especially when we come to thinking about the chronology of events in the future, as it is very easy to get things wrong – and some are indeterminate, in any case. It is, however, also important to say that not all prophecy is concerned with giving us a timetable of future events, although some of it clearly is, such as chapter 24 of Matthew.

Jesus next outlines a number of specific events that will lead up to his return. The first of them is the appearance of what is called ‘the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel’ (Matt. 24:15), the meaning of which we shall discuss later. Jesus says that when that happens, the inhabitants of Jerusalem should flee to the mountains of Judah because a great tribulation is imminent. Immediately after that, there will be cosmic disturbances just before the return of Jesus in power and great glory.

From this account, it would seem that no one alive in those future days could be in any doubt as to what was happening. However, Jesus now introduces a completely different and, at first sight, surprising perspective – that his return will be so sudden and unexpected that it will catch many people unawares just as the Flood did in the time of Noah: ‘Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect’ (Matt. 24:44). Jesus then tells a number of parables to reinforce this, including the parable of the ten virgins. He finally tells the parable of the talents to teach that at his return he will hold his servants accountable, after which the final judgement will take place. It must have been clear to his disciples that they, and many generations after them, would have died long before he returned, and yet he warned even them to be ready because he would arrive suddenly.

Two timelines

A number of questions arise from the apparently paradoxical juxtaposition of these two radically different aspects of Jesus’ teaching about his return – that it will not happen until X, Y and Z have happened, yet it will happen unexpectedly so you had better be prepared. One way of looking at it is to consider two timelines. First, the world history timeline: Jesus entered the world at a specific date and time, lived, died, rose and ascended, and will return at a specific date and time. But then, second, there is the much shorter timeline of our own personal history. The return of Christ will usher us into eternity, but so also will our death, at which point the actual time of Christ’s return will lose its relevance for us. For, with our death, those biological mechanisms on which we depend for our perception of time will perish. It is therefore unwise to take the world-timeline-of-events perspective on its own, as we may begin to think that, since Jesus’ return may be a long way off, we needn’t bother living in the light of it.

No, we are to live in immediate expectation of his return, for only then will it have the desired purifying effect on our lives. As John explains:

Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.

(1 John 3:2–3)

The implication is that, if there is no evidence in our lives that our professed hope of the coming of Christ is leading to moral and spiritual purity, then there is reason to doubt that our hope is real.

Another possible resolution of this apparent paradox is the view that, before the trigger events mentioned above, Jesus will return unexpectedly at any moment to take the Church to heaven in an event called ‘the rapture’. Since this would take place before the major signs that Jesus gave of his public return, surprise would be complete. We shall discuss this view in an appendix.34

Another relevant detail is found in the minor contretemps between Peter and the Lord concerning John that is found in John 21. It shows how easily words can be misunderstood:

Peter turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them, the one who had been reclining at table close to him and had said, ‘Lord, who is it that is going to betray you?’ When Peter saw him, he said to Jesus, ‘Lord, what about this man?’ Jesus said to him, ‘If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow me!’ So the saying spread abroad among the brothers that this disciple was not to die; yet Jesus did not say to him that he was not to die, but, ‘If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you?’

(John 21:20–3)

Jesus’ words could have given some people the impression that John might live until Christ’s return, which would make people think that it could be fairly soon. Jesus did not do anything to disabuse them of that idea, presumably because it would strengthen their desire to live in the light of his coming. Hence: ‘Behold, I am coming soon’ (22:7, 12). It would seem that, from a biblical perspective, there is sometimes a compression of what might otherwise seem to be a long timescale.

Another biblical concept that should also be factored into our discussion is that of the last days. Hebrews 1:2 tells us that ‘in these last days he [God] has spoken to us by his Son’. In Acts 2:17 we read that the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost occurred in the last days. Peter, speaking of Christ’s return, says that ‘scoffers will come in the last days’ (2 Pet. 3:3). Once more, we sense that we are in the presence of a different perspective on time where, with the advent of the Lord Jesus and his life, death, resurrection and ascension, we are ushered into the last days.

The main interpretative schemes of Revelation

The reference in Revelation 1 to what ‘must soon take place’ raises the more general question of how we are to understand how the book relates to history and chronology. There are four main answers to this question:

1It refers to events that took place in the past around the time when John and those to whom the book is addressed lived. This is the preterist approach, from the Latin praeter, meaning ‘past’.

2It refers to the Church and the world during the entire period from the time of John to the final consummation of the ages. This is the historicist approach.

3It refers mainly to events in the future around the time of the return of Christ. This is the futurist approach.

4It concerns broad principles regarding the battle between good and evil, the Church, and the world and the devil that are applicable at all times. This is the idealist approach.

These approaches are clearly not all mutually exclusive, and nowadays, most commentators on Revelation mix several of them, since taking any one view to be the definitive method of interpretation tends to lead to difficulties of one kind or another. For instance, the sheer multiplicity of attempts to relate the scenes in the book to events or people in history, whether popes or world leaders such as Napoleon and Hitler, has brought an exclusively historicist view into disrepute, since no two writers agree on the identifications. By contrast, the preterist view leaves the book without application to the present or the future, whereas an exclusively futurist view removes application to the past or the present. My own approach, for what it is worth, tends to be a mixture of 1, 3 and 4.

The fact is that most of these views have something to contribute. First, the book self-evidently refers to the time of John, since it is addressed in its entirety to seven contemporary churches in one of which John himself had served. It is equally apparent that the application of the book is not exhausted by the first century, as it contains many enduring principles and ideals that are relevant at all times everywhere to a greater or lesser degree. For example, the violence of the beasts made sense in the first century with the persecutions of Rome as well as in the twentieth century with the raging of Hitler, Stalin and Mao, and in the current century with Putin, Xi and Kim Jong-un plus a great number of vicious, less well-known tyrants in Nigeria, Sudan and elsewhere. According to Open Doors World Watch list, 1 in 7 Christians is suffering persecution. Finally, the book of Revelation has explicit things to say about the future coming of Christ and the consummation of the ages in order to provide believers with a real hope. The sheer complexity and subtlety of the levels of application of the book form part of its enduring appeal.

G. E. Ladd gives a helpful explanation of the overall way in which the book works that is worth quoting at length, even though it anticipates a number of topics that will be discussed in more detail as they arise:

This brings us to a characteristic of Old Testament prophecy which is also characteristic of the Revelation, and which solves this problem of distance and relevance. As we have just pointed out, the prophets had two foci in their prophetic perspective: the events of the present and the immediate future, and the ultimate eschatological event. These two are held in dynamic tension often without chronological distinction, for the main purpose of prophecy is not to give a program or chart of the future, but to let the light of the eschatological consummation fall on the present (II Pet 1:19) . . . Isaiah pictured the overthrow of Babylon in apocalyptic colours as though it were the end of the world (Isa. 13:1–22) . . . Joel moved imperceptibly from historical plagues of locust and drought into the eschatological judgments of the Day of the Lord.

In other words, the imminent historical judgment is seen as a type of, or a prelude to, the eschatological judgment. The two are often blended together in apparent disregard for chronology, for the same God who acts in the imminent historical judgment will also act in the final eschatological judgment to further his one redemptive purpose… Thus, while the Revelation was primarily concerned to assure the churches of Asia of the final eschatological salvation at the end of the age, together with the judgment of the evil world powers, this had immediate relevance to the first century. For the demonic powers which will be manifested at the end in the great tribulation were also to be seen in the historical hatred of Rome for God’s people and the persecution they were to suffer at Rome’s hands.

Therefore, we conclude that the correct method of interpreting the Revelation is a blending of the preterist and the futurist methods. The beast is both Rome and the eschatological Antichrist – and, we might add, any demonic power which the church must face in her entire history. The great tribulation is primarily an eschatological event, but it includes all tribulation which the church may experience at the hands of the world, whether by first-century Rome or by later evil powers.35

The Roman Empire in New Testament times

Seven churches in a Roman province

The book of Revelation begins with letters written to seven churches in the Roman province of Asia, modern-day western Turkey. We might well first ask: why these seven? One quite reasonable answer is that the seven cities all lie in a roughly circular postal route that would naturally have been used by a messenger, starting at Ephesus and ending at Laodicea, as indicated in the map.

Furthermore, the churches are very different from one another, so they may have been chosen to represent various kinds of church situation that can arise at any time or place. These answers make good sense and are, of course, not mutually exclusive. However, first and foremost, the churches are communities of believers that existed simultaneously in the Roman Empire of the first century. That empire forms the overall background setting to the entire book, even though some of its subsequent chapters may refer to empires other than Rome. To a certain extent Revelation resembles the prophecy of Daniel, which was written against the background of two successive empires, the Babylonian and the Medo-Persian, and yet also refers to future empires after them. In writing my own book on Daniel, I found it very illuminating to read widely in the literature of the ancient Near East.36 Hence, before we delve further into Revelation, it will be worth getting some preliminary knowledge of the Roman Empire of the time, adding to it as needed as we proceed.37

Ancient Rome

Cambridge ancient historian Mary Beard begins her book SPQR with the words:

Ancient Rome is important. To ignore the Romans is not just to turn a blind eye to the distant past. Rome still helps to define the way we understand our world and think about ourselves, from high theory to low comedy. After 2000 years, it continues to underpin Western culture and politics, what we wrote and how we see the world, and our place in it. A simple example of this is that London came to be the capital of my home country because the Romans made it the head of the province Britannia.38

The seven churches in the Roman province of Asia, late first century ad

However, another distinguished historian, Tom Holland, argues that our Western culture has an additional, even more important, source. Referring to the NT, he says:

Compacted into this very, very small amount of writing is almost everything that explains the modern world and the way the West has then moved on to shape concepts like international law and human rights. Ultimately, they don’t go back to Greek philosophers, they don’t go back to Roman imperialism. They go back to Paul. His letters, I think, along with the four Gospels, are the most influential, the most impactful, the most revolutionary writings that have emerged from the ancient world.39

I would add to that list the book of Revelation, which was written at a time when Christians were frequently challenged by Roman culture, tradition and world view. It used to be thought that John wrote Revelation at the time of the emperor Nero, who had a reputation for persecuting Christians, even blaming them for the Great Fire of Rome in July ad 64, which occurred around the time when Peter and Paul were martyred for their faith in Christ. However, as we mentioned earlier, most experts now agree with Irenaeus, who said that John wrote during or just after the later reign of Domitian (ad 81–96). Evidence has also accumulated that persecution of Christians was not as widespread under Domitian as it had been under Nero, although it varied from province to province and Domitian has a well-deserved reputation for cruelty, especially to his own officials.

Revelation contains a number of references to persecution and suffering. Some of them have to do with the situation at the time, and others more with end-time circumstances surrounding the return of Christ to earth. Among the explicit references are:

1John exiled to Patmos (1:9);

2Antipas executed (2:13);

3global trial (3:10);

4martyrs beneath the altar (6:9–11);

5Babylon pouring out the blood of believers (16:6);

6Babylon drunk with believers’ blood (17:6);

7Babylon filled with believers’ blood (18:24);

8God avenging the blood of his servants (19:2);

9martyrs beheaded (20:4).

The Roman imperial cult

Roman religion, like that of Egypt, Babylon and Greece, was polytheistic. It was primarily expressed in the ubiquitous Roman imperial cult, which was a potent mix of religion and politics with emperor worship at its heart. Cicero got to the heart of its rationale when he wrote: ‘Belief in the immortal gods was a total invention of the sages in the interests of the state, so that those who could not be compelled by reason should be constrained by religious awe to a sense of duty.’40 Perhaps he was putting it somewhat cynically, but he knew his country. Roman leaders knew how to exploit the power of religious sentiment to bolster their authority. They are not the only ones.

Mary Beard shows that the imperial cult involved more subtlety than is often appreciated, since most Romans knew that there was a difference between the emperor and the gods, and many of them resented having to treat a living emperor like a god. According to Suetonius, for instance, the emperor Domitian gave rise to a great deal of offence by insisting on being addressed during his lifetime as dominus et deus (master and god) rather than contenting himself with the common practice in Rome of divinising an emperor after his death and calling him divus (divinised one) rather than deus (god). This practice is confirmed by the text stamped on some ancient coins. It is usually thought by scholars that the coin that was used as the tribute penny (see Mark 12:13–17) was a Roman denarius,41 showing the head of Tiberius. The inscription on such a coin reads: Ti[berius] Caesar Divi Aug[usti] F[ilius] Augustus (Caesar Augustus Tiberius, Son of the Divine Augustus). It is claiming that Augustus had posthumously become a god.

The imperial cult was pervasive, particularly in the province of Asia, where the churches of Revelation were situated.42 Roman historian and administrator Lucius Cassius Dio, born in ad 150, in his important work Romaika, written in Greek, records the approval by the Roman Senate in 27 bc for the construction of the first provincial temple for the Hellenes at Pergamon in Asia, which was to be dedicated to Augustus. Around ad 26, in the middle of the reign of Tiberius, a second temple for Asia was built in Smyrna and dedicated to him, his mother Livia and the Roman Senate by the Asians in gratitude for his intervention in certain legal matters affecting their province. This was regarded as an important move to strengthen loyalty to Rome via the imperial cult. Thus, two of the seven churches in Revelation were located in centres of that cult, where both Jews and Christians would face persecution.

Public spaces in the Roman Empire were full of statues of gods, and their temples. In addition, almost every home possessed a shrine to a favoured deity. The civil calendar was organised around multiple religious festivals; in fact, no fewer than 177 days of the year were holidays or festivals that honoured thirty-three different gods and goddesses. Public activities such as sport and theatrical performances were dedicated to the gods. Indeed the gods were involved in almost every human activity. For example, more than a dozen deities were associated with the various aspects of the growth of grain.

Christianity, whose adherents believed in one Creator God, constituted a clear threat to the entire polytheistic culture and the commerce that depended on it. An example of this was seen when Paul visited Ephesus, the first of the seven churches. Although he was no iconoclast, his message was (rightly) perceived as undermining the local cult of Artemis or Diana. The local silversmiths, who made a great deal of money from making miniature shrines of Diana for tourists, inevitably saw Paul as a major threat to their livelihood. That led to a riot in the city, which was only quelled with great difficulty.

Another aspect of Roman culture that was directly threatened by Christianity was its hyper-sexualisation. Sex was regarded as ‘religious’ in the sense that its energies were thought to be from the gods. The gods were not only active but also honoured in such activity. Hence the explicit mosaics in upmarket homes and public baths. Male Romans indulged with societal approval in every kind of sexual activity with women, men, young male adolescents, slaves and prostitutes. They could essentially do what they liked as long as it was aggressive, although adultery was frowned upon. Women, however, were expected to remain virgins until marriage and be faithful to their husbands thereafter. The teaching of Christianity was revolutionary; it taught that marriage was a sacred bond between a man and a woman, it taught men to care for and be faithful to their wives, and it therefore protected women.

Jews in the Roman Empire

The relationship of the Jewish population to the state was quite complex. What is relevant to our purposes here goes back to Herod the Great (73–4 bc), the Rome-appointed client king of the Jews43 who made sponsorship of the imperial cult a major priority. Starting around 27 bc he constructed two major temples in Judea: at Caesarea Maritima (dominating the waterfront) and Sebaste (dominating the west end of that city).44 There was also a synagogue in Caesarea, and hence Jews there were clearly used to living with the imperial cult on their doorstep.

James McLaren concludes his study of Jewish relations with the imperial cult as follows:

It is true that Augustus elaborated upon concessions granted by Julius Caesar in terms of protecting certain Jewish customs in a generous manner. In terms of the imperial cult, however, the first move was made by Herod. He acted very quickly and effectively, ensuring sacred space for Rome and for Jews. He also appears to have embedded within the Jewish sacred space an expression of loyalty to the emperor and to Rome. In 66 CE some Jews used the sacrifices offered on behalf of the emperor and Rome as the symbolic start of the claim to independence. If they had succeeded, it is possible that the three imperial cult complexes would have been demolished. However, the gamble failed and, as a result, everything was up for renegotiation. The difficult question Josephus and other Jews had to face after 70 CE was what they could possibly bring to the table as a means of negotiating a new position. Josephus, who had been an active part of the gamble in 66 CE, found himself in a situation where the starting point was to defend anew the rejection of images in relation to Jewish sacred space by claiming it was a custom long respected by Rome.45

Imperial persecution of Christians

After the fall of Jerusalem in ad 70, which Jesus had foretold in his Olivet discourse, the Romans introduced the fiscus Judaicus46 (Jewish tax), the payment of which lifted the obligation of Jews to sacrifice to Roman gods. The amount was 2 denarii, the same as observant Jews were used to paying for the upkeep of the Temple in Jerusalem. This revenue was devoted to the repair and upkeep of the temple of Capitoline Jupiter in Rome which had been badly damaged by fire. Therefore, the tax was both an insult and an embarrassment to Jews. Suetonius47 reports that Domitian tightened up fiscal policy in ad 81 by expanding the tax to all Jewish converts and to people who concealed their Jewish origins. Since the Romans tended to regard Christianity as a Jewish sect, Christians also had to pay the tax. In ad 96, Nerva, Domitian’s successor, reformed the administration of the tax and redefined Judaism as a religion. This meant that Judaism was seen as distinct from Christianity and only those practising the former were liable to the tax. This exposed Christians to Roman persecution, which began a few years later and continued until the Edict of Milan in ad 313 gave Christianity the protection of legal status.

During Jesus’ life he was challenged about paying a similar but earlier Roman tax. He asked his followers to show him the coin in which it was paid. Referring to the image and superscription of Caesar on it, he made the famous statement: ‘Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s’ (Matt. 22:21). The Greek text of Matthew’s Gospel uses the word dēnarion for the coin, which is usually thought to have been a Roman denarius with the head of Tiberius. On it, as we said earlier, for all to see, was stamped the claim that Augustus was divine. And one thing that manifestly was not Caesar’s right to claim was the right to be worshipped. Mary Beard says: ‘Christians, in particular, both ridiculed the very notion that the obviously human emperor was divine and occasionally paid with their lives for their refusal to give him any kind of religious honour.’48

A well-known example of the kind of thing that happened was documented by Pliny the Younger in his correspondence with the emperor Trajan (ad 98–117). Pliny was governor of the province of Pontus/Bithynia to the north-east of the province of Asia from ad 111 to 113. He was having difficulty dealing with Christians who were being denounced to him and asked Trajan how he should handle them. Here is what Pliny wrote. I reproduce it at some length as it gives a fascinating insight into what a senior Roman official understood Christianity to be. I would ask you not to skip over it but to read it all, remembering that these brave people are your brothers and sisters, and that this kind of thing is still going on in too many parts of the world:

Meanwhile, in the case of those who were denounced to me as Christians, I have observed the following procedure: I interrogated these as to whether they were Christians; those who confessed I interrogated a second and a third time, threatening them with punishment; those who persisted I ordered executed . . .

They asserted, however, that the sum and substance of their fault or error had been that they were accustomed to meet on a fixed day before dawn and sing responsively a hymn to Christ as to a god, and to bind themselves by oath, not to some crime, but not to commit fraud, theft, or adultery, not falsify their trust, nor to refuse to return a trust when called upon to do so. When this was over, it was their custom to depart and to assemble again to partake of food – but ordinary and innocent food. Even this, they affirmed, they had ceased to do after my edict by which, in accordance with your instructions, I had forbidden political associations. Accordingly, I judged it all the more necessary to find out what the truth was by torturing two female slaves who were called deaconesses. But I discovered nothing else but depraved, excessive superstition.

I therefore postponed the investigation and hastened to consult you. For the matter seemed to me to warrant consulting you, especially because of the number involved. For many persons of every age, every rank, and also of both sexes are and will be endangered. For the contagion of this superstition has spread not only to the cities but also to the villages and farms. But it seems possible to check and cure it. It is certainly quite clear that the temples, which had been almost deserted, have begun to be frequented, that the established religious rites, long neglected, are being resumed, and that from everywhere sacrificial animals are coming, for which until now very few purchasers could be found. Hence it is easy to imagine what a multitude of people can be reformed if an opportunity for repentance is afforded.

Trajan replied as follows:

You observed proper procedure, my dear Pliny, in sifting the cases of those who had been denounced to you as Christians. For it is not possible to lay down any general rule to serve as a kind of fixed standard. They are not to be sought out; if they are denounced and proved guilty, they are to be punished, with this reservation, that whoever denies that he is a Christian and really proves it – that is, by worshiping our gods – even though he was under suspicion in the past, shall obtain pardon through repentance. But anonymously posted accusations ought to have no place in any prosecution. For this is both a dangerous kind of precedent and out of keeping with the spirit of our age.49

This is a remarkable insight into the moral and spiritual courage of these early-second-century believers. Pliny regarded what the two unbelievably brave Christian deaconesses believed as crass superstition, but he found no moral fault, such as civil disobedience, among those he investigated. In summarily executing such resolute believers, who would not even make a token offering to the gods (including the deified Domitian), Pliny was following exactly the same philosophy of power as the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar, who had threatened Daniel’s three friends with being thrown into a fiery furnace if they were not prepared to bow down to the golden statue of his god – which was really a thinly disguised representation of himself (Dan. 3).50

We notice that Pliny regarded the meetings of the believers as political and so he put a stop to them. This was not so much systematic persecution as local denunciation, for whatever reason, together with paranoid fear on the part of officialdom that the imperial cult would lose its grip. Remember Pilate’s fear of Jesus’ claim to be king? Particularly in the province of Asia where the seven churches were, persecution usually took the form of harassment, although John mentions the martyrdom of a certain Antipas in the city of Pergamum (2:13).

Overview of Revelation

Revelation is a large and complex book and, in order to navigate our way through it, we need now to get an overview of its contents. Chapter and verse divisions, although added much later than the original composition, are often a useful initial guide to the way in which a book is structured. However, a glance at the commentaries will show that many different structures have been proposed without much consensus,51 although the four major sequences of sevens52 – seven churches, seven seals, seven trumpets and seven bowls – clearly form a backbone for the book. Yet how they fit together is not so clear. Some think that there is overlap between them in the sense that, for instance, the seals, trumpets and bowls are essentially repetitions of the same series of judgements from a different perspective. Closer inspection reveals that, although the three series may arguably end at the same point – the day of God’s wrath – they are unlikely to begin at the same point. Also, the palpable increase in the intensity of their judgements may well indicate that they are (partly) sequential. Also, it is explicitly stated that the final series, the bowls, exhausts the wrath of God (15:1).

A literary approach to mapping out the territory

I now wish to introduce the literary approach to the study of Scripture that the late David Gooding taught me many years ago, as I mentioned earlier. I am doing this partly in response to repeated requests by many people over the years to write something on how I go about the understanding of Scripture. And to quote one of Gooding’s maxims: ‘You can only learn to do it by doing it.’

The first key general principle is the importance of spending time determining what the text actually says before trying to discover its meaning and application. For if we pay close attention to the content of what is said, very often it will be easier to see why it is said, and its meaning will become readily apparent, whereas failure to do so may lead to superficial understanding, or even serious misunderstanding.

Of course, it is impossible to avoid thinking about meaning as we go along, for, after all, that is our main objective, and keeping an eye on it will enrich our study. However, the main reward will come when we have first of all got a clear idea of the factual structure of the book in our heads.

Regarding structure, there are essentially two kinds: first, the structure intended by the author (presuming that one was indeed intended); and second, structures that we may ourselves impose in order to try to make sense of the text. It is sometimes difficult to distinguish between the two, and we must therefore be humble enough to realise that we may even confuse them with each other. One check on this is to see how well a proposed structure carries the message and thought flow of the narrative. In other words, one must ask of any suggested structure: what is the point of it? Does it help give us a sense of fitness, continuity and coherence? Or does it seem contrived or arbitrary?

One practical way of dealing with this is to look for blocks of material that seem to belong together in terms of what they say. That is, we need to ask questions about thought flow: why is this paragraph where it is? Why does it follow that paragraph and precede the next? What are the connecting threads and themes between them? Where do natural breaks occur? Natural breaks can sometimes be readily found by the simple exercise of reading the text out loud and sensing the thought flow simply by noticing where you have to stop to take a breath and where you feel you simply must go on, even if you are running out of breath – not a bad idea, since the text was meant to be read aloud in the first place.

Most books have both a macro- and a micro-structure. There are major and minor breaks, indicating major and minor divisions. The major divisions in a contemporary book usually correspond to the chapter divisions made by the author. In biblical literature, by contrast, major divisions are often flagged up by a repeated phrase or idea. For instance, the Gospel of Matthew has division-markers that employ the repetition of phrases involving the word ‘finished’, such as: ‘When Jesus had finished . . .’ (e.g. Matt. 7:28; 11:1; 13:53; 19:1; 26:1). Luke divides the second half of his Gospel by using markers indicating stages on a journey.53 Similarly, Luke divides his Acts of the Apostles using recurring phrases indicating growth and multiplication.54 The fact that these literary devices are division-markers is usually indicated by their occurrence at natural breaks in the narrative. They may take different forms, for example breaks in logical or time sequence, or changes in place or topic.

Such division-markers, although they do not occur in every book, are devices well known from ancient literature. It was, in fact, the study of such features in Latin and Greek literature that led Gooding to notice their occurrence in many parts of the Bible, including the book of Revelation.

We have already seen that this book itself indicates its major division into two segments: the things that are and those that are to come. We look first at the things that are in more detail. We have already mentioned that one way of doing this is to start reading the text, out loud, if possible, and as you read keep an eye and an ear open to detect subdivisions. You could also take a sheet of notepaper and, as you start reading the book, try to make a brief summary of the blocks of material as you encounter them. It is helpful, wherever possible, to use words from the text to do this, as they can act as subsequent memory-triggers. The paragraph divisions in the version of the Bible you are using will often help you here.

A first attempt at structural analysis

Our first attempt, starting with Revelation 1, might look like this:

AThe nature and contents of the book and blessing for reader and heeder (1:1–3).

BGreetings from God – the Spirit(s) and the Son (1:4–8).

CVision of the glorified Son of Man among seven golden lampstands. Stars and lampstands explained (1:9–20).

It is clear that we cannot really stop at this point, except to take a breath, since John has just been told to write to the seven churches and we therefore need to keep going to learn what he says to them. Hence, we need to add a further block to our list:

DLetters to the seven churches (2:1 – 3:22).

This means that we have four blocks so far.

With that we reach chapter 4, which opens with the words:

After this I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven! And the first voice, which I had heard speaking to me like a trumpet, said, ‘Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.’ At once I was in the Spirit, and behold, a throne stood in heaven, with one seated on the throne.

(4:1–2)

The first two words here put distance between what has just been said and what is about to come; for instance, the scene shifts abruptly from earth to heaven. John sees an open door in heaven and is invited to go through it into another world.

Now, if we had simply been reading the text looking for a break, without having noticed that 1:19 has already told us about the main division into present and future, we would in any case have noticed this sudden change when we reached it.55 So far, we see that chapters 1–3 seem to form a connected unit, the first major part of the book (which we can provisionally label ‘part 1’), having within it four subdivisions.

Although it is not necessary in this case, it is always worth asking if there is any other confirmatory evidence that a group of chapters and verses belongs together in a single part. To do that, we need to read the text again (and again and again), looking for connections as we do so. It will not be long before we notice what we just might have missed in a rapid read-through, namely that each of the letters to the churches in chapters 2 and 3 recalls a detail of the vision in chapter 1 – for example, eyes like a flame of fire in 2:18 – and applies it to that particular church, so that the thought flow does not end until the final letter is written. That binds the narrative together even more tightly as a sequence of assessments of the churches by the Lord, dressed appropriately as their august judge.

The procedure that I have just outlined is very like the Socratic approach to literature that is closely associated with my own University of Oxford. It is learning by asking questions, as the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates famously did, and, sad to say, he paid for the habit with his life! The fact is that from a pedagogical point of view, experience shows that we glean more from a text if we approach it with questions in our mind. Think back to when we were at school. Is it not the case that the things we remember, even today, are things that we learned by wrestling with a question? And many of us have had the frustrating and disappointing experience of reading Scripture only to find that little or none of it has stuck in our minds. One prime reason for that is that we haven’t been asking questions.

Let’s look back at what we have done thus far. Our first question was: can we find natural breaks in the text? When we found the first one, the next question was: does the part we think we have found hang together – is it coherent? To answer this, we looked for connected themes, repeated ideas, patterns, logical connectives and so on, and we found a major logical connective: the use of the detail of the vision in chapter 1 to apply to the churches in the subsequent seven letters.

We now face another choice. Either we go back to study the first part in detail, or we proceed to map out the rest of the book. If we decide for the former, we will find it helpful to take a page of A4 paper for each of the blocks – A, B, C, D – on which to summarise our thinking. Observe that this process involves moving from the large to the small, from global to local, so that in the end each element of the text – the individual verses in particular – will be seen in the context of the whole. This process goes a long way in avoiding misunderstanding.

Since we wish to complete our initial overview of the book, we shall adopt the second strategy, leaving detailed investigation of the individual elements until later. Returning, then, to the beginning of chapter 4, we find several features that we have noticed before: first, the voice like a trumpet – and reference is explicitly made to the fact that John had heard it earlier; second, the phrase ‘what must take place after this’, which echoes ‘things that must soon take place’ from 1:1; third, the repetition of John’s statement that he came to be ‘in the Spirit’ (1:10; 4:2). Also, the open door in heaven shifts the focus from earth to heaven and indicates that something new in another world is about to be opened up to John: this time he sees the throne of God in heaven.

Such repetitions are important; key ideas often cluster at major breaks in the narrative and facilitate the transition to what follows. In the first part, we had an initial revelation of Jesus Christ in his exalted glory, which then becomes the key to understanding the letters that follow. Here, the new thing that is revealed is that there is a throne of God in heaven. This is not the first mention of such a throne. There were other occurrences in 1:4 and 3:21. Now the spotlight falls on the throne in its own right. This is the first instance of a repeated pattern in which something mentioned briefly in one part of the book becomes a major centre of attention in the next or a subsequent part.

Let us now take another sheet of paper56 and list the main blocks of material following 4:1. Reading down, we see that chapter 4 contains a detailed description of the throne using a number of prepositions: ‘on’, ‘round’, ‘from’ and ‘before’. It ends with a crescendo of praise to the Creator on the throne.

Chapter 5 starts by zooming in on a new detail: a scroll with seven seals that is in the right hand of the occupant of the throne. The question arises as to who is worthy to open these seals and let loose the judgements associated with them. No one is found until finally John sees a lamb standing between the throne and the elders. The Lamb is said to have overcome in order to open the scrolls, at which point we reach another, even higher level of praise, this time to the Lamb.

We might, therefore, designate the first two blocks as:

AThe throne of God in heaven and its surroundings. Praise to God on the throne as Creator (4:1–11).

BThe sealed book in the right hand of the occupant of the throne. The Lamb who has overcome to open them. The Lamb taking the scroll. Vast praise to the Lamb as Redeemer (5:1–14).

Hence, A and B deal with two fundamentals of the Christian faith: creation and redemption.

Can we stop here? No, because the narrative flows seamlessly on. In logical (and chronological) continuation of chapter 5, in chapter 6 the Lamb opens the seals one by one to unleash devastating judgements on the earth. The fact that they appear to increase in intensity and are not identical would indicate that they form a chronological sequence. That implies that God’s judgement does not descend all at once. This part reaches a climax with the opening of the sixth seal when men and women call 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, for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?’ (6:16–17). John reminds us here that the throne of God is still very much in focus but now from the perspective of judgement, the third great pillar of Christian theology. We therefore see a clear logic in the thought flow.

However, the flow doesn’t stop here. It goes on into chapter 7 where we read of two groups of people who, in answer to the last question, do manage to ‘stand’. The first half of the chapter describes an angel with the seal of God who seals 144,000 people from the tribes of Israel to protect them from harm when judgement falls. The second half of the chapter describes an uncountable throng from every nation standing before the throne and praising God, who sits on the throne, and the Lamb. Once more, the throne is in focus and John is told how this huge crowd comes to stand before it. The answer is that they have washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb and been redeemed. The climax is reached with the beautiful words:

For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd,

and he will guide them to springs of living water,

and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.

(7:17)

Thus, both halves of chapter 7 deal with people protected from harm by the occupant of the throne and the Lamb. Once more the logic is clear: eschatology deals not only with the judged but also with the saved.

In summary, we now have something like this:

AThe throne of God in heaven and its surroundings. Praise to God on the throne as Creator (4:1–11).

BThe sealed book in the right hand of the occupant of the throne. Praise to the Lamb who has overcome to open the seals (5:1–14).

CThe Lamb opening six seals. People calling on rocks to fall and save them from the face of the one on the throne (6:1–17).

DThe two groups protected: 144,000 people from Israel sealed by an angel with the seal of God; the uncountable throng of the redeemed before the throne. Praise to God on the throne and the Lamb (7:1–17).

The unifying theme, then, in part 2 is the throne of God seen from different perspectives. We shall have a closer look at the detail later, as we wish to press on with our preliminary overview.

Chapter 8 opens with:

When the Lamb opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. Then I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and seven trumpets were given to them. And another angel came and stood at the altar with a golden censer, and he was given much incense to offer with the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar before the throne, and the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, rose before God from the hand of the angel.

(8:1–4)

The seventh seal is different from the others in that it reveals the next sequence: one involving seven angels with seven trumpets. Before they make any sound, there is a silence during which another angel comes to stand at a golden altar that is before the throne in order to offer to God on it incense mingled with the prayers of the saints. The imagery here is taken from the OT description of the Temple and, since it plays a crucial role in the book, we pause to discuss it.

The role of imagery from tabernacle and Temple

The OT accounts show that the Temple, like the earlier portable tabernacle, had a main room separated into two compartments by a curtain called ‘the veil’. The first compartment was the Holy Place, which held the altar of incense, the table of showbread and a golden lampstand. Behind the veil was the second compartment, the Holy of Holies, which held the ark of the covenant. The ark contained the tables of the law and had a gold lid, the mercy seat, on which were figures of cherubim that represented God’s executive powers. It was therefore a powerful symbol of the throne of God, who was ‘enthroned above the cherubim’ (Isa. 37:16). In front of it, though screened off from it by the veil, was the golden altar of incense where the priests, principally the high priest, offered prayers to God accompanied by incense, whose rising smoke vividly illustrated the idea of prayers that ‘rose’ in a spiritual sense to God. The high priest went on behalf of the people into the second compartment, the Holy of Holies, once a year on the sacred and solemn Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur).

The letter to the Hebrews explains that this earthly set-up has a heavenly counterpart, with the major difference that there is no veil in heaven as it has been done away in Christ so is no longer necessary. Hence, in Revelation 8, the heavenly golden altar stands before the throne with no intermediate curtain.

The letter to the Hebrews also explains why this tabernacle–Temple imagery is particularly important in the book of Revelation. Speaking of the earthly priests in Israel, the writer says:

They serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things. For when Moses was about to erect the tent, he was instructed by God, saying, ‘See that you make everything according to the pattern that was shown you on the mountain.’

(Heb. 8:5)

That is, the tabernacle and its furnishings were deliberately designed to be both a copy and a shadow of heavenly things. The Greek word for ‘copy’ is used by John in the following statement of Christ where it is translated ‘example’: ‘For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you’ (John 13:15). That is to say: copy me. However, the addition of the word ‘shadow’ is important since a shadow is less detailed than the reality which it shadows. If you see my shadow on a wall, you will probably be able to tell that I am a human being but not much more.

The implication is that the tabernacle and Temple, though very detailed in themselves from our perspective, are far less detailed than the reality that they represent in the heavenly world. We tend to think the opposite way round – that heaven is vague, fuzzy and ephemeral, and it is our world that is the more solid reality. That is not the case. We are living, as C. S. Lewis once said, in a shadowland. It is the heavenly world that is the ultimate, sharply contoured reality. In his book The Great Divorce he describes a bus ride that takes people from a vast, dreary, lonely grey town to a spectacularly bright and beautiful heavenly world where they find themselves to be insubstantial shadows whose feet are hurt by the grass of that world, which is populated with glorified spirit beings who are solid, robust, overflowing with the joy of eternal life. They invite the visitors to come with them and enter more fully into their glorious life, promising that the deeper they go in, the less shadowy and the more substantial they will become.

Yet some of the things in this world, such as the tabernacle and Temple, though shadows of bigger realities, nevertheless help us understand those realities in important ways.

In part 1, John first sees seven lampstands, in part 2 a throne.

Revelation 8 begins with the characteristic marks of a major transition. Like that in 4:1, it occurs after a major expression of praise. There is something opened: not a door this time but a seal. Also, the phrase ‘in heaven’ is used (‘silence in heaven’, 8:1). Next, we have a new sequence: of seven trumpets, and a new piece of tabernacle furniture: the golden altar of incense. In this way, part 3 follows the same pattern as part 2: each of them begins with a background introduction that involves something opened in heaven and a piece of tabernacle furniture. Also, just as part 2 began by focusing on a detail from part 1, namely the throne, part 3 similarly begins by focusing on a detail from part 2: the prayers of the saints that were mentioned in connection with the fifth seal. This is the next step in a repeating pattern. Now those prayers take centre stage, and the question at their heart – ‘How long?’ – is ultimately answered with the sounding of the seventh trumpet, accompanied by a climactic expression of praise to God that the time has come for judgement – following the pattern of part 2.

Having established our basic methodological principles, from now on we shall omit much of the detailed contents. We shall, of course, consider them as we reach them in the book.

After the climax of praise at the end of part 3, we read:

Then God’s temple in heaven was opened, and the ark of his covenant was seen within his temple. There were flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder, an earthquake, and heavy hail.

And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.

(11:19 – 12:1)

Once more we meet the familiar division-marker pattern: something is opened, this time the Temple. The phrase ‘in heaven’ is used – of the Temple. Attention is then focused on a piece of temple/tabernacle furniture, the ark of the covenant (the throne from another perspective). Something entirely new is seen: a sign in heaven of a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of stars on her head. She is about to give birth, but a great red dragon stands in front of her, threatening to devour her child when it is born. However, when it is born God takes the child, a male, to his throne in heaven, thus thwarting the dragon (the devil). The dragon is thrown out of heaven and descends to the earth where he empowers the rise of two devil-inspired leaders, seen through the symbolism of wild animals, who are implacable enemies of God. They end up controlling the world and its economy. However, the Lamb triumphs over them so that, like the previous two parts, this part comes to a climax with praise ascending to God from the voices of believers who have been victorious over the bestial power that had enslaved the world. A dominant theme is the perversion of male strength and rule, in contrast with the perfect rule of the Man on God’s throne.

The next major transition occurs at 15:5:

After this I looked, and the sanctuary of the tent of witness in heaven was opened, and out of the sanctuary came the seven angels with the seven plagues, clothed in pure, bright linen, with golden sashes round their chests. And one of the four living creatures gave to the seven angels seven golden bowls full of the wrath of God who lives for ever and ever, and the sanctuary was filled with smoke from the glory of God and from his power, and no one could enter the sanctuary until the seven plagues of the seven angels were finished.

(15:5–8)

The pattern is repeated: something is opened in heaven – this time the sanctuary of the tent of witness, another reference to the tabernacle. Then John sees the final series of seven judgements: the seven plague-filled bowls that will complete the outpouring of the wrath of God. Following them, two chapters are given to God’s judgement on Babylon the great, the mother of prostitutes, who seduced the nations and persecuted true believers. True to form, the part reaches its climax with a thunderous roar of praise to the almighty God who reigns:

Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, crying out,

‘Hallelujah!

For the Lord our God

the Almighty reigns.

Let us rejoice and exult

and give him the glory,

for the marriage of the Lamb has come,

and his Bride has made herself ready.’

(19:6–7)

In contrast with part 4, where the perversion of male power represented by a wild animal contrasts dramatically with the perfect Man on God’s throne, this part has as a major theme the perversion of female beauty (the prostitute Babylon), which contrasts equally dramatically with the beauty of the bride of Christ, who too will be seen in part 6 as a city, the new Jerusalem.

That takes us to the final major transition:

Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems, and he has a name written that no one knows but himself. He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is The Word of God.

(19:11–13)

This time, instead of seeing something opened in heaven, it is heaven itself that is opened, which immediately heightens a sense of dramatic expectation. John sees a white horse coming out whose rider is called the Word of God – a name introduced in part 1 that takes us back to the magnificent opening of John’s Gospel where the Word is God, the Creator. This last major part of the book describes his return in power and great glory as Judge – to put down the beasts and all other enemies and set up his rule on earth.

Eventually, Satan is vanquished, the final judgement sits, and the current heavens and earth vanish, putting an end to the first phase of God’s grand plan for the universe. For there is more, much more to come, as a new level of reality dawns and God makes new heavens and a new earth. We then see the magnificently glorious city of the redeemed, the city of God, the new Jerusalem, the wife of the Lamb, descending from heaven to earth. The book ends with the Church calling on her Lord to return and fulfil all the promises made in the book.

The six parts of Revelation

According to this analysis, the book of Revelation falls into six major parts. Most of the transitions between them involve some piece of furniture from the tabernacle or Temple, which leads us to suggest that these sacred buildings are likely to play a major role in the unfolding narrative. It also is an indicator of the importance of Israel and the Hebrew Scriptures to the message of the book.

We now have to do more detailed work to find out what each part of the book contains, and how it makes its contribution to the whole. My prayer is that our study will introduce us not only to a book but also to the divine Person behind it by filling our hearts and minds with new insights into his glory and increasing our longing for his return.

David Gooding, who introduced me to this approach to Scripture, put considerable store on constructing various kinds of tabular summaries to help visualise the structure, major themes and the thought flow of a biblical book as a whole. See Tables 1 and 2 for examples of the kinds of handout (slightly modified) that he used for Revelation.57 Table 2 was produced to avoid too much detail in Table 1, but they should be taken together. Tabulating the entire book in this way helps us to see the contents in context.

Table 1 The book of Revelation: general themes

Table 2 The structure of the book of Revelation

Tables also help us to understand the organisation of the book. It splits naturally into two halves of three parts each. As we have already seen, most of these parts begin with an object from the tabernacle that sets the scene, and end in a climactic event that provokes a response in praise or comment. The layout makes plain some of the literary symmetries that characterise the book. For instance, the first half is introduced by the vision of the Son of Man, and the second by that of the woman and the Man-Child (see Table 1). The Son of Man reveals himself to the churches in the first part, and they become his bride and participate in his glory in the sixth and final part. Also, he is depicted in both parts as having a sharp sword coming out of his mouth (see Table 2): in part 1 he uses that sword to deal with seven churches on earth, whereas in part 6 he uses it to deal with the last enemies at his return to earth.

Notice again that the first half begins with the glorious Son of Man on earth among the churches and ends with the kingdoms of the world becoming his kingdom. The second half, by contrast, begins with a glorious woman, the mother of the Man-Child who is caught up to heaven. That half ends with another glorious woman, the bride and wife of the Lamb.

Or, looking at it another way, the first half of the book begins by revealing Jesus as King of kings and Lord of lords, moving on to describe his relationship to God’s throne and government, and ending up with him in control of the entire world. The second half begins with the flashback that Jesus the Son of Man has already reached God’s throne, and then proceeds to give a detailed account of what has been briefly flagged up in the first half (11:7): the horrific throne and government of Satan and the two beasts in their blasphemous attack on God and believers.

Judgement is meted out to Babylon the great, and the beast, false prophet and finally Satan himself are defeated and confined to a lake of fire by the one who has the keys of death and Hades, as announced in part 1. That is the end of them and of the present heavens and earth as the final judgement takes place. A new beginning dawns, new heavens and a new earth come into being in a burst of unimaginable glory, and God and the Lamb reign for ever and ever.

The evident man–woman symmetry invites more detailed comparison of the first and fourth parts, and leads to noticing that part 1 concentrates on the Church whereas part 4 emphasises Israel. Also, as indicated in Table 1, various elements recur but in different ways. For instance, the emphasis on light: the Man has seven stars in his right hand, while the woman has a crown of twelve stars; the Man’s face shines like the sun, while the woman has the sun and moon beneath her feet. Also, we can detect the theme of a man taken to heaven from death: the Man is the firstborn from the dead, while the Man-Child is the firstborn of the woman who is threatened with death but is (eventually) caught up to heaven.

Looking at the pervading themes in Table 2, we observe that parts 2 and 3 appear to form a pair that contrasts with the pair formed by parts 4 and 5. Thus, the main topic of part 2 is the throne of God in heaven, whereas in part 4 it is the struggle for power and authority as the beast establishes his throne on earth. Looking at the themes in Table 1, in part 2 judgements must come because of the scroll that is in the right hand of God on the throne; part 4 is introduced by a glimpse of the ark of the covenant, whose terms will eventually mean judgement on the kingdom of the beast because of his blasphemy. Both parts 2 and 4 have twin climaxes: part 2 has 144,000 people of Israel sealed plus an uncountable throng before the throne of God, and part 4 has the Lamb with 144,000 redeemed people standing on Mount Zion plus the (presumably vast) harvests of the earth.

Part 3 starts with the prayers of believers arising to God on the smoke of incense from a censer, whereas part 5 starts with smoke from the glory of God filling the Temple. Both kinds of smoke indicate reasons why judgement must come in the form of trumpets in part 3 and bowls in part 5.

Constant reflection on these summaries will help us to grasp how the detail fits in with its context.

Part 1

REVELATION 1:1 – 3:22

BRIEF SUMMARY

A revelation of the things to come, given to John in the Spirit on the Lord’s day

A vision of the glorious Son of Man among seven lampstands

Instructions to write letters to seven churches in Asia

John to the seven churches that are in Asia:

Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth.

(1:4–5)

DETAILED SUMMARY

A. The nature and contents of the book (1:1–3)

This is a revelation of Jesus Christ given to him to show his servants what must soon take place.

The message is conveyed by an angel to John, who bore witness to the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ.

To be blessed by the prophecy, one must not only read and hear it but also keep it.

B. Greetings from the triune God (1:4–8)

Greetings are brought from:

him who is and was and is to come;

the seven spirits before his throne;

Jesus Christ – the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead and the ruler of the kings of the earth.

Glory and dominion are ascribed to Christ because:

he loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood;

he has made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father;

he is coming with clouds and every eye will see him.

The Lord God declares: ‘I am the Alpha and the Omega . . . who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.’

C. The vision of the glorious Son of Man among the golden lampstands (1:9–20)

John, in exile on Patmos, is encouraged to write down what he is about to see and send it to seven churches. He sees seven lampstands and someone ‘like a son of man’ among them.

The Son of Man’s official dress is a long robe with a golden sash. He has hair like wool, eyes like fire, feet like burnished brass, a voice like roaring waters, seven stars in his right hand, a sharp sword coming out of his mouth, and a face shining like the sun in full strength.

John falls at his feet like someone dead but feels the Man’s right hand touching him and is told: ‘Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one. I died, and . . . am alive for evermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades. Write therefore the things that you have seen, those that are and those that are to take place after this.’

The mystery of the stars and lampstands is explained: stars are angels of churches, and lampstands are churches.

D. The Son of Man appraises the churches (2:1 – 3:22)

1Ephesus: ‘I know your works.’ The conqueror will eat from the tree of life. See 22:2.

2Smyrna: ‘I know your tribulation.’ The conqueror will receive the crown of life and not be hurt by the second death. See 20:14.

3Pergamum: ‘I know where you dwell.’ The conqueror will receive hidden manna, and a white stone with a secret name. See 19:12.

4Thyatira: ‘I know your works.’ The conqueror will receive authority over nations and will rule with a rod of iron. See 12.5; 19:15; 20:6.

5Sardis: ‘I know your works.’ The conqueror will not have their name blotted out of the book of life. See 20:15; 21:27.

6Philadelphia: ‘I know your works.’ The conqueror will receive the name of God, and the name of his city: the new Jerusalem. See 22:4.

7Laodicea: ‘I know your works.’ The conqueror will sit down with the Son of Man on his throne and his Father’s throne. See 22:1, 3.

The references given at the end of the church appraisals above indicate where similar ideas recur later in the book.

1

Key concepts

The first part of Revelation introduces us to many of the book’s key concepts. It begins with a greeting:

John to the seven churches that are in Asia:

Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth.

(1:4–5)

This greeting is from John and from God himself. It is emphatically Trinitarian: God is three in one – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The distinguished theologian T. F. Torrance once remarked that the Trinity is not a Christian formulation; it is rather the way in which God has revealed himself to us. The formula used here is unique in Scripture. God is eternal, but instead of reading what we might expect – ‘from him who was and is and shall be’ – we find that the simple future tense of the verb ‘to be’, denoting continued existence, is replaced by the phrase ‘who is to come’ (1:4b), which gives a different sense of both expectation and movement. The greeting conveys grace and peace from a God who is neither distant nor static, and who will one day return to his creation.

The greeting also comes from God the Holy Spirit, who is subsumed under the description: ‘the seven spirits who are before his throne’ (1:4c). This is now the second time we have met the number 7 in the book, a number that is generally thought to represent completeness or fullness. This means that the seven spirits1 here are not likely to represent seven individual spirits but rather the Holy Spirit of God in all his fullness. Similarly, we may take the seven churches not merely as seven actual churches. They were distinct Christian communities, of course, but over and beyond that we may see them as representing the Christian Church in all its variety both at that time and, by extrapolation, throughout history. There may also be an allusion here to the messianic prophecy of Isaiah 11:1–3a with its description of the Spirit of the Lord in a multiplicity of aspects or functions:

There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse,

and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.

And 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 the fear of the Lord.

And his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.

The work of the Spirit of God is also represented by seven lampstands in Zechariah 4:1–6.

Third, the greeting emanates from Jesus Christ who is ‘the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth’ (1:5). As these are the first statements about Jesus Christ in a book that claims to reveal him, we must pay close attention to them. They demonstrate that Jesus is the ultimate answer to three fundamental world-view issues: truth, death and power.

Jesus the faithful witness to the truth

The only Gospel-writer to describe Jesus as a witness is John. He reports the following conversation between Jesus and the Pharisees:

So the Pharisees said to him, ‘You are bearing witness about yourself; your testimony is not true.’ Jesus answered, ‘Even if I do bear witness about myself, my testimony is true, for I know where I came from and where I am going, but you do not know where I come from or where I am going.’

(John 8:13–14)

The issue here is Jesus’ credibility as a witness, especially as he is bearing witness about himself. He goes on to say to the Pharisees: ‘In your Law it is written that the testimony of two people is true. I am the one who bears witness about myself, and the Father who sent me bears witness about me’ (John 8:17–18).

There are, therefore, two witnesses: Jesus himself and the Father. The Father’s witness was evident at his baptism and on the Mount of Transfiguration, when he spoke from heaven. Jesus also cites other witnesses:

But the testimony that I have is greater than that of John. For the works that the Father has given me to accomplish, the very works that I am doing, bear witness about me that the Father has sent me.

(John 5:36)

The preparatory prophetic witness of John the Baptist, the supernatural witness of the Father’s voice, and the works and words of Jesus as he bore witness to himself all combine to put his authenticity and authority beyond question.

Jesus claimed that his witness was true because he knew where he had come from and where he was going. That assertion of his divine origin played a central role in his witness before Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea. Paul mentions it in his letter to his protégé Timothy: ‘I charge you in the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who in his testimony before Pontius Pilate made the good confession’ (1 Tim. 6:13). Here is the record of that encounter:

Jesus answered, ‘My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.’ Then Pilate said to him, ‘So you are a king?’ Jesus answered, ‘You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world – to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.’ Pilate said to him, ‘What is truth?’

After he had said this, he went back outside to the Jews and told them, ‘I find no guilt in him.’

(John 18.36–8)

Pilate had not been present when only a few hours earlier Jesus had said to his disciples: ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life’ (John 14:6). The truth is a person. Note also (what we flagged up earlier) that Jesus did not simply say that he told the truth, although that was the case. No, he made the much deeper claim to be the truth – the ultimate truth about the universe, life and everything.

Philosophically speaking, Jesus is making the astonishing claim not only to answer but to be the answer to the fundamental problem of epistemology: what is the source and nature of true knowledge and understanding? Paul expresses this profound truth as he prays that believers might ‘reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God’s mystery, which is Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge’ (Col. 2:2b–3).

Do I really believe Christ’s claim? Do you? Am I prepared to say and defend it publicly like Jesus himself? His ‘good confession’ consisted in his telling Pilate that his (Jesus’) kingdom was not of this world. It belonged to another world, from which he had come to tell the truth – the truth, among others, that this is not the only world that exists. There is another, supernatural realm. Centuries earlier, Daniel and his friends had borne witness to that truth to the king of Babylon, and all Christians today are called upon to do the same to our contemporaries. Let me remind you again that the book of Revelation is geared not only towards making that truth tangibly real to us but also towards inspiring us with the courage to tell the world about it.

Jesus the firstborn from the dead

Jesus is not only the truth in person; he is also the answer to the spectre that hangs over all of us – humanity’s last enemy, death. Yuval Noah Harari thinks that the next big step on the way to creating Homo Deus2 (humans or transhumans with godlike capacities) is to find a ‘technical solution’ to what he thinks of as the ‘technical problem’ of human death. Not only is he looking in the wrong place, however; he is also too late, because the ‘problem’ has already been solved, as C. S. Lewis tells us in his inimical style that Christ alone has met and conquered Death and in this way opened a door that has been locked since the first human death.3

John records in his Gospel that when Jesus came to the town of Bethany at the request of Mary and Martha, the distraught sisters of his friend Lazarus who had just died, Jesus said to Martha: ‘Your brother will rise again.’ Their conversation continued:

Martha said to him, ‘I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.’ Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?’ She said to him, ‘Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.’

(John 11:23–7)

Jesus was not only resurrected from death; in a profound sense, he is the resurrection! I pause once more to ask myself: do I believe this? And I ask you: do you also believe it?

A point worth stressing is that Jesus said: ‘Your brother will rise again’ (my emphasis). He was encouraging Martha by telling her that death would not destroy what she valued in the relationship she had had with Lazarus on earth. This fact has comforted many who lose a loved one and wonder if there will be any relationship after death. There will.

Jesus the ruler of the kings of the earth: his confrontation with Pilate the Roman governor

Jesus is not only the answer to truth and death but also the answer to the question of who holds the real power in the universe. Remember what was revealed to Peter by the Transfiguration: ‘the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ’ (2 Pet. 1:16). What does it mean that Jesus is the ruler of the kings of the earth? Clearly, he is not currently ruling like an earthly monarch over an earthly realm. His kingdom, as he told Pilate, is, for the time being at least, not of this world, though one day it will be. The key question is: in what relationship does Jesus now stand to the rulers of this world?

Pilate learned part of the answer when Jesus refused to tell him where he was from:

So Pilate said to him, ‘You will not speak to me? Do you not know that I have authority to release you and authority to crucify you?’ Jesus answered him, ‘You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above. Therefore, he who delivered me over to you has the greater sin.’

(John 19:10–11)

This answer terrified Pilate and made him determined to release Jesus. He rightly sensed the presence of a far higher power than his own, and it scared him.

God had taught this lesson centuries earlier to Nebuchadnezzar when Daniel told him that his frightening dream of a colossal tree that was cut down and then restored was about the king himself: ‘You shall be made to eat grass like an ox . . . and seven periods of time shall pass over you, till you know that the Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will’ (Dan. 4:25).

Yet Jesus, who had delegated to Pilate his power to govern in the first place, did not use his own superior divine power to change the situation. For Jesus does not rule over the kings of the earth like a puppet-master, micromanaging their every action and summarily squashing any dissent. His rule takes place at the next level up, in the sense that he is ultimately responsible for delegating authority to human beings. Paul explains: ‘Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God’ (Rom. 13:1). That gives men and women freedom to rule as they will and, as we are all too painfully aware, their rule can be good, bad or indifferent.

Christians are responsible for obeying the earthly powers, unless those powers usurp the place of God. The apostles made this clear by their behaviour. For, as Luke tells us, when Peter and John were forbidden to preach in the name of Jesus by the religious authorities in Jerusalem, they refused: ‘But Peter and John answered them, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge, for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard”’ (Acts 4:19–20). And as time went on, there would be increasing conflict between Christians and the authorities, both Jewish and Roman, with James martyred by Herod, and Paul and Peter by the Romans, at the head of a long list of those who for Christ’s sake did not hold their lives dear.

Publicly professing that Jesus is the Truth, the Firstborn from the dead and the Ruler of the kings of the earth was, and is still, no trivial matter. For many people in a war-torn, evil-ridden, disaster-prone world, whether in the first or in the twenty-first century, the idea that the Lord is somehow in control of earth’s leaders may seem very difficult to accept, especially in the light of the very next statement that John makes about Christ – that he ‘loves us’ (1:5b). Here we meet the hard problems of evil and pain, which confront any world view.

Will the book of Revelation give us any insight on this difficult issue? It will, although we shall have to be patient until we reach the passages in the book that deal with it. At this stage, however, let me say that there is more to the concept of the kingdom of God than what we have just stated. For, during his public teaching, and notably around the time of his death, Jesus gradually taught his disciples that his kingdom would have two main aspects, which we look at briefly now.

The two stages of the kingdom of God

The first aspect or phase, as Jesus himself explained to Nicodemus in a well-known passage in John 3, is the spiritual kingdom that is entered by repenting and trusting Jesus as Saviour and Lord, thereby receiving eternal life, that is, being ‘born again’ (John 3:3) into the kingdom of God. Following the ascension of Jesus and his sending of the Holy Spirit, this message of the kingdom, the gospel of Jesus Christ, is to be preached by Christians until Jesus returns as earth’s rightful king. He will then set up the second phase of his kingdom, which will result in the fulfilment of the prayer he taught his disciples – that God’s will might be done on earth as it now is done in heaven.

It is for these reasons that we refer to both a first and a second coming of Christ. The interested reader can find much more on this in my book on Daniel.4

Jesus the Redeemer

It is to the returning Christ as Redeemer that John now turns in praise:

To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen. Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. Even so. Amen.

‘I am the Alpha and the Omega,’ says the Lord God, ‘who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.’

(1:5b–8)

The narrative flows from a greeting from the triune God to worship for the Lord Jesus for three praiseworthy things: he loves us; he has freed us from our sins; he has made us a kingdom, priests to our God. Note the present tense in the first verb, and the past in the second. Despite the difficulty of reconciling the love of God with the evil in the world, John very firmly and confidently says that the love of Christ is a present and constant reality and that we must read Revelation in the light of that as an axiom – a foundational truth. It is remarkable that the one who ‘loves us’ is also the ‘ruler of the kings of the earth’. Those kings, especially the Roman emperors, had little or no love for their subjects. After all, they did not even get to know many of them. Nevertheless, Jesus, the ruler of them all, loves his subjects. That implies that he knows them all individually, which gives every believer an immense sense of value.

Christ’s love is shown above all in that he has ‘freed’ (lit. ‘loosed’) us. On 6 January 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt made his famous ‘four freedoms’ speech to the United States Congress, saying that the USA was entering the Second World War in order to protect freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want and freedom from fear. These freedoms were later enshrined in the United Nations Charter of Human Rights. And many readers of the book of Revelation longed for, and still long for, those basic freedoms. Yet, according to Revelation itself, a book that was written in a world where 40% of the population were slaves and 30% in poverty, the most important freedom of all is freedom from sin, a freedom not mentioned by Roosevelt.

Sin – an outdated concept?

The very concept of sin is mocked as absurdly out of date by some prominent atheists, as I well know from my public encounters with Richard Dawkins. Such an attitude is found in his book The God Delusion5 where he whines that the ‘Christian focus is overwhelmingly on sin sin sin sin sin sin sin. What a nasty little preoccupation to have dominating your life.’ I hear echoes of Friedrich Nietzsche’s The Antichrist here. Nietzsche said that in Christianity the ‘prevailing pastime, the favourite remedy for boredom, is the discussion of sin’.6

Sin, though, is not a little boring preoccupation: it is a major preoccupation that dominates the world. It is the root cause of tyrannies, wars, genocide, murder, exploitation, financial crises, injustice; of international, societal and family breakdown; of incalculable unhappiness and misery due to lying, cheating, slander, bullying, stealing, domestic violence, and every form of crime, and so on and on and on and on and on and on and on. It is very nasty indeed. What is overwhelming (to use Dawkins’ word) is the horrendous destructiveness of sin, forcing us daily to recognise the bitter fact, as written long ago, that ‘the wages of sin is death’ (Rom. 6:23). And yet for many it is the elephant in the room, rarely mentioned in connection with the ills of contemporary society.

Nevertheless, atheists have to face sin every bit as much as the rest of us. Any philosophy, such as theirs, that trivialises or ignores human sin is sheer fantasy. It is also dangerous. For history is littered with disastrous attempts to establish an earthly paradise without facing the plague of human sin. Such attempts have added immeasurably to the burden of human misery and suffering. For theologian Nicholas Lash of Cambridge, Dawkins’ complaint raises the suspicion that he has not read very widely in the early church fathers. Lash cannot resist a bit of irony:

How lamentable of the Fathers to have been preoccupied with the damage done by human beings to themselves, to others, and to the world of which we form a part, through egotism, violence and greed; through warfare, slavery, starvation! What a wiser atheist than Dawkins might at least agree to be a terrifyingly dark tapestry of inhumanity, Christians call ‘sin’, knowing all offences against the creature to be disobedience against the Creator.7

The idea of setting free by blood recalls the Jewish Passover, when God freed the Israelites from the slavery of Egypt so that they could worship him according to their conscience. They had to kill a lamb and put its blood on the doorposts of their homes in order to avoid judgement.

Jesus himself taught that sin enslaves:

Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin. The slave does not remain in the house for ever; the son remains for ever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.

(John 8:34–6)

The guilt of sin chains us to our past and leaves us with no excuse, deserving the wrath of God (Rom. 1:18). The life-giving freedom from guilt and sin that comes from trusting Jesus and his death for forgiveness and salvation is superbly captured by Charles Wesley8 in his hymn ‘And Can It Be?’

Long my imprisoned spirit lay,

Fast bound in sin and nature’s night;

Thine eye diffused a quickening ray,

I woke, the dungeon flamed with light;

My chains fell off, my heart was free,

I rose, went forth, and followed Thee.

Not only has Jesus freed us from the paralysing chains of sin, but he has also honoured us by appointing us to be priests to God. In ancient Israel, only one tribe in twelve was appointed to the priestly office to perform the ritual and sacrifices in the tabernacle and Temple that mediated between the people and God. But now, all believers in Jesus as Saviour and Son of God, the unique mediator between God and human beings, constitute a kingdom of priests. Their main task is outlined by the apostle Peter:

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

(1 Pet. 2:9–10)

There is something immensely dignified in this description of the status of believers: a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation that God is not ashamed to acknowledge as his own. Notice that Peter says that is what we are. It is not a mere exhortation about what we should be. In ordinary life, people are often delighted to be chosen to play a special role or do a special task in society. God has selected us to be his ambassadors to communicate his excellencies to the world and show how he called us by his glory out of darkness into his marvellous light. The challenge for us is: do we really believe this? Do we accept our role as ambassadors? Are we visible as such?

Christ’s return and Israel’s hope

‘Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. Even so. Amen’ (1:7).

The idea of coming with clouds finds its origin in the vision of Daniel 7:

I saw in the night visions,

and behold, with the clouds of heaven

there came one like a son of man . . .

(Dan. 7:13; see also Matt. 24:30)

As we saw in the introduction, Jesus himself alluded to this scripture when speaking to the high priest at his trial (Matt. 26:64).

It is sometimes argued that, because the text in Daniel 7 refers to one like a son of man coming to the Ancient of Days in heaven, it is not referring to Christ’s return to earth but to his ascension when he returned to the Father. However, Jesus himself used this text to refer to the coming that the high priest would later see, and that is certainly not the ascension but rather Christ’s return to earth. In any case, later in the Daniel passage just cited we read: ‘But the saints of the Most High shall receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom for ever, for ever and ever’ (Dan. 7:18). In fact, the main thrust of Daniel 7 is that the Son of Man will come to execute God’s judgement on the kingdoms of the earth and personally take over the rule of the entire planet.

Jesus’ return to this earth is also confirmed as literal and physical by the manner of his ascension. It is noteworthy that Luke’s account stresses the visible character of the ascension – five times over, in fact: ‘This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven’ (Acts 1:11).9 That is, Jesus’ ascension is to be understood as a thought model to help us picture his return. Only the disciples saw the ascension, so far as we know. But when Jesus returns, the whole world will see it happening.

At the time the New Testament was written and for most of subsequent history, it would have seemed utterly impossible for everyone to see Jesus returning to earth. It isn’t now, when we have instant visual access to all corners of the world by means of television and the internet. We note that those who pierced the Lord will see him. This forms another link between Revelation and the Gospel of John, since only John tells us that Jesus was pierced on the cross (John 19:37). This picks up and extends to the whole world a prophecy of Zechariah concerning the dynasty of David in Jerusalem:

And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy, so that, when they look on me, 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 firstborn.

(Zech. 12:10)

In the light of the crucifixion, this is also implied by what Jesus said to the high priest and the Sanhedrin (the Jewish high court): ‘But I tell you, from now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven’ (Matt. 26:64). The fact that both John and Revelation cite Zechariah about people looking at the Lord whom they pierced raises an intriguing question. It makes perfect sense that the bystanders at the cross literally looked at Jesus, the one they had pierced. But all of those people will be long since dead when Jesus returns. Does Revelation here imply that they will be resurrected? Or does it simply mean that the nation that was ultimately responsible for piercing the Lord will look upon him, rather than the actual Roman individuals who originally did the piercing?10

Whatever the answer to that question, there is positive hope for Israel. For not only will they look at the one they pierced; they will also mourn, repent and be saved. In Romans 11, Paul explains what will happen:

Lest you be wise in your own sight, I want you to understand this mystery, brothers: a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And in this way all Israel will be saved, as it is written,

‘The Deliverer will come from Zion,

he will banish ungodliness from Jacob;

and this will be my covenant with them

when I take away their sins.’

(Rom. 11:25–7)

The fact that, in Revelation, John extends the words of Zechariah to include the whole world should not be taken to mean that we can ignore a particular and prior application of this prophecy to the nation of Israel in the future. As Jesus promised the disciples before he ascended, the kingdom will one day be restored to Israel, fulfilling OT messianic prophecy. After all, as Jesus explicitly told his disciples on that occasion, the timing of that restoration has already been fixed by the authority of his Father (Acts 1:7).

It is important to mention this promise, since there is an alternative view, known as ‘replacement theology’, which teaches that, with the advent of Christianity, the Church has replaced Israel in the purposes of God. In other words, all the promises God made to Israel are fulfilled in the Church, so that we should not expect the nation of Israel to have any special role in the future. In addition to what we have just said, there are strong reasons to reject this view.11 Replacement theology is often associated with the view of the future called ‘amillennialism’, which we shall also discuss in the proper place.

In any case, it stands to reason that this world cannot expect to reject its rightful king, the Son of God, the Man from heaven, as it did 2,000 years ago, and think that it has heard the last of him. It hasn’t! One of the main purposes of the book of Revelation is to convince us that one day he will take up his great power and reign.

God, the Alpha and the Omega who gives meaning; John, the partner in tribulation who delivers the revelation

‘“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty”’ (1:8).

There is something majestic about this direct statement from God Almighty himself. The greeting ends as it began – stating the eternal nature of the God who is to come: ‘the Alpha and the Omega’ and ‘the Almighty’. The initial words, ‘I am’, echo the revelation of God to Moses and the corresponding ‘I am’ claims of Jesus in the Gospel of John. Alpha and omega are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet. Alphabets are used to spell words, and words are used to communicate meaning. This fits in with the very first statement in the Gospel of John (1:1): ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.’ John then says that all things came to be through the Word. It is as if the creative Word of God Almighty spells out the entire universe and all that is within it. He is not only alpha and omega but also all the letters in between. He, the Word who is God, is the ultimate source of all meaning. The only life worth living is the one whose meaning he is invited to spell.

That brings us to a perceptible shift in the questions that people ask these days. They still bring up issues of science and religion and Christian morality, but very often at the top of their list is the question of meaning – an issue that has been brought before a wide audience by Viktor Frankl in his famous book about the Holocaust, Man’s Search for Meaning.12 In it, Frankl used the word ‘Logos’ (Greek for ‘word’) to create his concept of logotherapy, which is essentially word-centred psychotherapy designed to help people find meaning in their lives. He argued that all humans had a ‘will to meaning’ and that such a meaning could always be found, even in extreme suffering. In Harold Kushner’s preface to the book he says that one of Frankl’s key insights is that forces beyond our control can take away everything we possess except for one thing: our freedom to choose how we will respond to the situation. The treasure house of meaning that is the book of Revelation was written by a man, the apostle John, who had had most things that he possessed taken away from him. He now tells us about himself and how he responded to his situation:

I, John, your brother and partner in the tribulation and the kingdom and the patient endurance that are in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos on account of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet saying, ‘Write what you see in a book and send it to the seven churches, to Ephesus and to Smyrna and to Pergamum and to Thyatira and to Sardis and to Philadelphia and to Laodicea.’

(1:9–11)

John identifies himself as brother to many who have been suffering like him because of their commitment to Christ. Jesus and his apostles had warned believers to expect tribulation because of their faith in Jesus (see John 15:18ff.). John now begins to encourage such people by relating what happened to him on one unforgettable ‘Lord’s day’. That day is usually taken to be the first day of the week,13 resurrection day, when believers met to celebrate the Lord’s Supper, a ritual where they pledged their allegiance to their crucified and risen Lord by eating bread and drinking wine.

Grammatically, ‘the Lord’s day’ and the ‘day of the Lord’ are equivalent. If we read it here as ‘the Day of the Lord’, that is, the day of God’s judgement, we might think that John was telling us that, in his vision, he was transported in the spirit to the time of the day of God’s judgement. Whether or not that is the correct interpretation, the book will certainly have the effect of transporting John and us, his readers, to that day. The more natural reading, though, is that John was simply referring to the day of the week when Christians regularly met for worship.

Being in the Spirit was no self-induced trance. There is a mystery here as to precisely what was happening, certainly from a scientific perspective, since we do not even know what consciousness is. Yet there is precedent for John’s experience in Scripture. The prophet Ezekiel seems to have had a similar experience: ‘And he said to me, “Son of man, stand on your feet, and I will speak with you.” And as he spoke to me, the Spirit entered into me and set me on my feet, and I heard him speaking to me’ (Ezek. 2:1–2). Later, Ezekiel reports that he was supernaturally transported to meet exiled people at Tel-abib: ‘The Spirit lifted me up and took me away, and I went in bitterness in the heat of my spirit, the hand of the Lord being strong upon me’ (Ezek. 3:14).

Paul also writes about his own experience of revelation:

I must go on boasting. Though there is nothing to be gained by it, I will go on to visions and revelations of the Lord. I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven – whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows. And I know that this man was caught up into paradise – whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows – and he heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter.

(2 Cor. 12:1–4)

And on that Lord’s day centuries ago, the heavens were opened up in a unique way to a lonely man on a tiny island, and Jesus was revealed.

2

Symbol, metaphor and code

The supernatural process of revelation begins with John hearing a loud voice like a trumpet behind him.1 With resounding authority, it tells him to write down what he sees in a book (scroll) and send it to the seven churches of Asia. This is not to be a purely oral message, but rather a written transmission. John turns – an innocent detail that bears the hallmark of eyewitness authenticity – and sees seven golden lampstands and a glorious figure like a son of man walking among them.

This description immediately raises a number of questions about the mechanism of revelation. John hears a voice. Was it only in his head? Certainly, altered states of consciousness (ASCs) exist and are widely documented and studied in a copious literature starting with William James’s 1902 Gifford Lectures The Varieties of Religious Experience: A study in human nature. James argued that mystical experiences of God may count as strong evidence for the existence of God for the person having these experiences: ‘Mystical states, when well developed, usually are, and have the right to be, absolutely authoritative over the individuals to whom they come.’ However, James went on to say: ‘No authority emanates from them which should make it a duty for those who stand outside of them to accept their revelations uncritically.’2 In other words, those who have spiritual encounters are justified in believing they are real, but those who do not have experiences of transcendence are equally justified in being sceptical.

Much more recently, two neuroscientists, D’Aquili and Newberg, used single-photon emission computer tomography (SPECT) scans to examine patterns of brain activity during spiritual experiences such as prayer and meditation. Although they argued that there was a clear foundation for these activities within the electrical and chemical activity of the brain, they concluded that it is quite possible, or even probable, that there is a corresponding reality that is beyond the brain.3 Newberg also says:

If you were to dismiss spiritual experience as ‘mere’ neurological activities . . . you would also have to distrust all of your own brain’s perceptions of the material world. But if we do trust our perceptions of the physical world, we have no rational reason to declare that spiritual experience is a fiction that is ‘only’ in the mind.

John located the trumpet-like voice behind him and so turned physically to see its source. I ask, but cannot answer: if someone else had been with John, would they have heard and seen anything? This is not such a silly question as you might think, since, when Daniel had a very similar vision, those with him did not see it but were somehow affected emotionally by it and trembled as a result (Dan. 10:7). When Saul of Tarsus met the risen Lord on the road to Damascus, those who were with him heard a voice, but they did not see what Saul saw (Acts 9:7). The Louw & Nida Greek lexicon says that the NT words for ‘vision’ denote ‘an event in which something appears vividly and credibly to the mind, although not actually present, but implying the influence of some divine or supernatural power or agency’.4 An inadequate analogy might be experiencing the metaverse through a virtual reality headset. We would see things with our eyes that are not actually present in the external world, though they seem real. In this case we are seeing an image that is electronically generated by a computer. If you are standing beside me when I am wearing such a headset, you don’t see what I see. Of course, we have no idea how God communicates the kind of visions we read of in the NT; for example, Jesus himself calls the Transfiguration ‘a vision’ (Matt. 17:9); Zechariah saw a vision in the Temple (Luke 1:22); Ananias saw a vision (Acts 9:10); Paul saw Ananias in a vision (Acts 9:12); Cornelius saw an angel in a vision (Acts 10:3); Peter saw a vision (Acts 11:5).

John’s vision was so utterly overwhelming that he fell like a dead man at the Lord’s feet. It is hard to imagine just how he felt at seeing the Lord he loved again. His last glimpse of him had been as he ascended from their midst and disappeared into the clouds. Jesus was still real, alive, radiant with his Father’s glory. Here was the Transfiguration all over again, but this time after the events of the cross and resurrection, and not before. It was an even greater revelation of the Lord. No wonder John reacted as he did, especially as he was told that there was much more to come that he was to write down. One would suppose that by that stage in his life John had already written his Gospel. This, though, was something in a different category. What a unique privilege to be invited to write the book that completed the canon of Scripture!

John was told to write what he saw. And what he saw was a succession of visions so full of strange imagery that our next task is to think about how we should approach it. Let me begin with a story. A fellow passenger on an aircraft once asked me what I had been doing in his country. I replied that I had been giving talks on the biblical book of Revelation. He grinned and said: ‘And did you take it literally?’ I replied: ‘When people ask me that question, I ask them what they make of the well-known biblical statement that Canaan was a “land flowing with milk and honey”. Do you take it literally? When the people of Israel entered the land, did they see a great sticky river of milk and honey? Hardly that! Do you take it spiritually and morally, then – that Israel was a land awash with the milk of human kindness and the honey of the Holy Spirit? Scarcely that, either!’ Of course, he thought I was mad – but that notion vanished as I engaged him in further conversation.

How do we take that statement? Metaphorically, of course. It is instructive, however, to look at it carefully to see where the metaphor is. Israel was a land, literally so; and the milk and honey were real milk and honey. The metaphor lies in the word ‘flowing’. We should notice, in passing, the important fact that it is science, in the general sense of knowledge about the (natural) world around us, that enables us to pinpoint where the metaphor is. The most important point here is that metaphors are used to stand for something real – in this case for the fact that the land was very rich and prosperous, grazing in the land was good and so the cows produced a lot of milk, and there were abundant flowers to produce nectar for a large population of bees. We could therefore say that the land was literally prosperous but not literally flowing with milk and honey.

The problem here lies with the word ‘literal’. It is of limited use and often confusing. Take another example. Jesus said: ‘I am the door’ (John 10:9). Is that literal? Clearly not, in the sense that he was not made of wood or metal and fixed to a wall on hinges. Yet Jesus is a real door to a real, that is a literal, experience of God. That is, Jesus’ statement is not what we might call ‘base-level literal’ (the term for this these days is ‘literalistic’), but it is literal one step up, in that it refers to a reality on a higher level. Once more, it is science in the general sense that enables us to determine at what level to take this statement of our Lord.

That means that asking the question ‘Do you take the Bible literally?’ often indicates that the questioner does not understand the nature of metaphor. For, in common with most literature, the Bible is full of metaphors and other figures of speech that contribute to its rich texture. We have already seen several metaphors, for example ‘I am the Alpha and the Omega’ (1:8). Also, we find simile: a ‘voice like a trumpet’ (1:10). The fact is that in ordinary conversation we use figures of speech all the time. And we usually have no difficulty in understanding them. For example: I was chained to my desk all week; she spun me a web of lies; his car flew down the road; he pinned the lawyer to the wall; he broke her heart; I was surfing the web, and so on. C. S. Lewis pointed out that metaphor is unavoidable if we are speaking about things that are beyond the reach of our five senses. Even a cursory glance at literature on economics, politics or psychology will show that this is as true as it is of poetry and imagination.5

Science should be added to this list; for example: genes are packets of information; the particle-wave theory of light; the big bang theory; the worldwide web. We often don’t notice when we are using metaphor, as for instance when a mathematical colleague says to me when I have explained a result: ‘Ah, yes, I follow you now.’

Similarly, we find not only metaphors but also symbols in the book of Revelation. These are distinct concepts. A metaphor is a direct substitution of one idea or object for another (as in flying for driving in the expression ‘he was flying down the road’). According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a symbol is ‘something that stands for, represents or denotes something else (not by exact resemblance, but by vague suggestion, or by some accidental or conventional relationship)’. For instance: a STOP sign on a road; a mathematical symbol such as = or +; the lampstands in Revelation. We also find at least one example of code in Revelation – the famous (or infamous?) number 666, which we shall discuss at the appropriate point.

In literature, the main function of metaphor and symbol is to get our imagination operating, so that we grasp the author’s meaning. According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

To imagine is to represent without aiming at things as they actually, presently, and subjectively are. One can use imagination to represent possibilities other than the actual, to represent times other than the present, and to represent perspectives other than one’s own.6

The book of Revelation is written to be imagined, not in the sense that it has no connection with reality, as in the statement ‘He only imagined he was ill’, but in the sense that it is a way of picturing reality that goes beyond the woodenly literal and employs metaphors, images and symbolism in order to get us even more connected with that reality. C. S. Lewis again: ‘Reason is the natural organ of truth; but imagination is the organ of meaning.’7 For instance, Lewis demonstrated this brilliantly in the Chronicles of Narnia and in his science fiction trilogy, writings that were geared to opening our minds to the possibility of another world.

Philosopher Amy Kind has defined imagination as ‘a speculative mental activity’.8 However, we need to make a careful distinction here. A great deal of speculative mental activity has been put into trying to understand Revelation, but the book itself is not a product of John’s speculative mental activity; it is God’s authoritative revelation. Therefore, as we approach the book, we need constantly to remind ourselves that our interpretations do not carry the same authority as does the text itself.

Lampstands and stars – symbol, not code

The first two symbols we meet in this passage, namely the lampstands and the stars, do not simply function as codes to identify the churches and the angels of the churches. Of course, these symbols do act as identifiers, but that is the lesser of their functions. To explain: when John saw a lampstand, he was told that it represented a local Asian church, as distinct from the Church consisting of all believers, the only other usage of the word ‘church’ in the NT.9 However, there is a further level of meaning – the main level, in fact – which is that the churches are represented by lampstands because they are to function like lampstands. Just as a lampstand is used to hold up an oil lamp, so the churches are to hold up and witness to Jesus as the Light of the World (see John 8:12), so that the world can see him, and in his light see where they are going. Thus, the lampstands are symbols of the churches as light-bearers and hence as witnesses. The inference now is that the risen Christ speaks to the churches with the intention of making their witness more effective.

The stars are said to be the ‘angels of the seven churches’ (1:20), which indicates that the stars, too, are symbols. Opinion is divided as to what they are symbols of. Since the Greek word angelos means ‘messenger’, one possible interpretation is that the angels are messengers or emissaries who delivered the letters. However, it is difficult to see that they can simply be messengers since a messenger is not usually the addressee of a letter. Furthermore, the angelos is held personally responsible for what is going on in that particular church. For example, the message to the angelos of Thyatira contains the message: ‘But I have this against you, that you tolerate that woman Jezebel’ (2:20). That consideration also creates difficulty for the view that, just as, according to the Lord Jesus himself, little children, individuals and nations have their supernatural guardian angels (Matt. 18:10; Acts 12:15; Dan. 10:13), so also do churches. But holding such an angel responsible for the church and in some cases asking him to repent (2:16) would seem rather strange and inappropriate to say the least. Finally, in any case, how would John have sent a written letter to an angel?

So, although there is a problem identifying who these stars are, we are at least told what they are. They are stars. Just as the lampstands are not a simple code to identify the churches, the stars do not simply identify the angels; rather, they are meant to tell us something about these angels, whoever they are, namely that they function as stars. We need to use our imagination to discover what that could mean.

Stars are mentioned elsewhere in Scripture. The most famous is probably the star that guided the wise men to find Jesus the King in Bethlehem.10 They are also used metaphorically in the NT. Similarly, Paul says that the Philippian believers ‘shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life’ (Phil. 2:15–16). The Greek word for ‘light’ here (phoster) also means ‘star’. False shepherds who lead people astray are described by Jude as ‘wandering stars’ (Jude 13). Stars are also used in similes; for instance, Daniel writes: ‘And those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky above; and those who turn many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever’ (Dan. 12:3). It now takes relatively little imagination to see that stars are a fitting symbol to represent the messengers of God in the church, that is, the leaders, elders and teachers whose task is to guide the church responsibly before God. The fact that the word angelos is singular has deterred some from accepting this interpretation, but it needn’t do that since the singular word ‘lampstand’ represents a church, which is a plurality of people.

There is a further consideration. The stars are held in the right hand of the exalted Lord. We are also told that he laid his right hand on John when he was terrified by the vision. John, who tradition tells us had been an elder in the church at Ephesus, was about to be commissioned to write a book that would contain guidance for untold millions of believers. He, therefore, can be imagined as a star held in the Lord’s right hand – as could the leaders in the seven churches. That thought then becomes a powerful and wonderful encouragement for all in Christian ministry: to know that the Lord holds us in his right hand to support us as we shine his light. My wife and I have often read Psalm 139, especially when about to travel abroad:

If I take the wings of the morning

and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,

even there your hand shall lead me,

and your right hand shall hold me.

(Ps. 139:9–10)

We should notice that we have approached the lampstands and stars somewhat differently. First of all, John did not imagine them. He says that he saw them. And he did not have to imagine what the lampstands stood for, since he was explicitly told. He was also told what the stars stood for, but he did not explain to his readers his use of the term ‘angel’ in sufficient detail for us to be sure. We therefore have to use our imagination to ascertain what the stars probably stand for. That is, there is a measure of uncertainty in interpreting the symbol. It is important that we recognise this uncertainty here since it will happen with increasing frequency. It should keep us humble and undogmatic.

There is a further point to be made. A single word or concept can be used to represent a number of different things that might turn out to be either literal or symbolic. For instance, star is used for:

1the stars in Jesus’ right hand (1:16 – symbolic);

2the stars that fall from the sky onto the earth (6:13 – most likely literal meteorites);

3the (literal) stars that give light in the sky (8:12);

4the star who has the key to the bottomless pit (9:1 – an angel?);

5the woman with a crown of twelve stars (12:1 – the twelve tribes of Israel);

6Jesus as the morning star (22:16 – symbolic).

Govett has a delightful comment on the distinction between 3 and 4 in this list:

How do you sever between the literality of the stars of the former trumpet and of this? Because the actions ascribed to this star are impossible to unintelligent matter. A star could neither take a key nor unlock a door.11

This is an application of what Lowman calls ‘the more literal view’.12

So far, we have had two sources of light in this chapter: lamplight and starlight. But there is a third, a much more powerful light, in the vision: the face of the Son of Man radiating the strongest light of all, like the sun in our sky. And that leads us to the central feature of the vision.

The Son of Man among the golden lampstands

‘Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the midst of the lampstands one like a son of man’ (1:12–13).

John first sees seven golden lampstands. This imagery comes from the tabernacle and the Temple in the OT, each of which had a golden lampstand. These lampstands are the first in a series of objects from the tabernacle and Temple that are mentioned in the book, and we shall describe their relevance in due course. For John’s attention is immediately drawn to a glorious figure in the midst of them.

John had seen the Son of Man with his face shining as the sun once before on the Mount of Transfiguration in Galilee. It must have been an incredible thrill to see him once again in this remarkable vision. Yet John does not identify Jesus by name until the end of his description. The order in which the various elements in the vision are introduced has the effect of slowing things down to allow us to reflect on them. First, John hears a loud sound like that of a trumpet behind him. He turns to discover its source and becomes aware of a glittering group of seven golden lampstands in the midst of which is an exalted human-like figure ‘like a son of man’. Centuries earlier, Daniel had seen a similar figure, this time in heaven, coming to the throne of God to receive eternal authority to judge, and then descending in the clouds to exercise that dominion on earth. Now, John sees him on the earth in a regal splendour that he describes using detail from Daniel 7 and even more from Daniel 10 where we read:

On the twenty-fourth day of the first month, as I was standing on the bank of the great river (that is, the Tigris) I lifted up my eyes and looked, and behold, a man clothed in linen, with a belt of fine gold from Uphaz round his waist. His body was like beryl, his face like the appearance of lightning, his eyes like flaming torches, his arms and legs like the gleam of burnished bronze, and the sound of his words like the sound of a multitude.

(Dan. 10:4–6)

The close correspondence between the detail in the two descriptions leaves little doubt that John and Daniel saw the same person: the Son of Man. In Daniel’s case, the figure stood above a vast flowing river, like the Lord towering over the turbulent ebb and flow of history, bringing peace and stability to Daniel’s heart and mind. In John’s case, the figure stood among a group of seven lampstands that represent (as we shall learn, but not until 1:20) seven contemporary churches. He was there to bring them encouragement or rebuke according to their desert. He is both Lord of history and of the churches, bringing them to their destinations.

The title ‘son of man’ is used frequently in the OT for prophets such as Ezekiel and Daniel. It is also one of Jesus’ favourite titles for himself. It clearly denotes a human being but, in Jesus’ case, it denotes much more. For example, Jesus claimed to a crowd in Jerusalem that the Father ‘has given him authority to execute judgement, because he is the Son of Man’ (John 5:27). Jesus, though fully human, was never only human.

We must now look at the details of John’s description of this figure to discover what the symbols tell us about what he is. Let us recall the details. He was

like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash round his chest. The hairs of his head were white, like white wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength.

(1:13–16)

The vision is calculated to inspire awe: the figure is human but more than human, from several points of view. First, there is immense dignity in the magnificent clothing. He wears a sash denoting high office. Then his hair, pure white like wool and snow, recalls Daniel’s vision of the all-wise God himself, the Ancient of Days, the divine Judge. Here it is a vision of the Son of Man, who is God incarnate. Yet it soon becomes apparent that he appears here in the role of supreme judge to whom the Father has committed all judgement. Confirming that interpretation, his eyes are like a flame of fire with laser-like insight into everything so that his judgement is fair and true. His feet have the appearance of metal, denoting stability and immense strength. He has a voice that roars like Niagara Falls, over a hundred times louder than a normal human voice.

And to cap it all, there is that terrifying surreal tongue in the form of a two-edged sword proceeding from the mouth from which that voice comes. No merely human tongue has an effect like that. You might have expected a figure of justice to have a sword in their right hand and not in their mouth. Not this one, though. The imagery has its roots in Isaiah. First, in his prophecy about Messiah, the shoot of Jesse, Isaiah says that

he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth,

and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.

(Isa. 11:4b)

Second, about Israel:

The Lord called me from the womb,

from the body of my mother he named my name.

He made my mouth like a sharp sword;

in the shadow of his hand he hid me . . .

(Isa. 49:1b–2a)

In the NT, the word of God is described as a sword. Paul speaks of ‘the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God’ (Eph. 6:17). Also, in the letter to the Hebrews we have:

For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

(Heb. 4:12–13)

The imagery of a tongue like a sword is a powerful way of expressing this idea.

Finally, the Man’s face is unbearably bright, like ‘the sun shining in full strength’ (1:16) which illuminates and provides energy to the world. Not surprisingly, John writes: ‘When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead’ (1:17). This means that the vision was not ‘out there’ at a distance as far as John was concerned. No – he was immersed in it and was positioned so close to the overpoweringly glorious Son of Man that he could fall at his feet. The whole vision radiates the ineffable glory of Christ but mediated to us in language that is familiar to us from our surroundings. For nature fills the concept of glory with meaning although it does not teach us that a God of majestic glory exists – a point that C. S. Lewis explains.13

And isn’t it still the case that we in our technologically advanced age get our sense of glory from nature?

The heavens declare the glory of God,

and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.

(Ps. 19:1)

Technology helps us to see the glory of nature as never before, as in the magnificent film productions narrated by Sir David Attenborough and the pictures from the space telescopes.

Yet that glory is nothing like the glory that is in the face of the Son of Man among the lampstands – a glory that is described to us in terms related to everyday life: a robe and sash, wool, snow, metal, a roaring waterfall, a blazing fire, a sword and, above all, the sun. John looked into a face that was shining like the sun at full strength. Normal human eyes cannot look directly at the sun; otherwise they would be blinded. This light was different since, far from being blinded, John could see all the detail in the Man’s face, and at such close range the blazing eyes and the sword-like tongue must have been utterly terrifying. It is not surprising that John fell down at his feet in worship and awe.

At this point it is important to ask what effect this vision has on us – on you and me as we read what John wrote. Of course, John’s experience was unique: he was a chosen apostle, given the unique honour of transmitting this special revelation to the churches. We are not apostles and never will be. Our experience will never recapitulate his. However, we saw earlier that prophecy is designed to make the eternal world real by revealing Christ to us. Hence, John’s vision of the glorious Son of Man should at least begin that process. How do we respond? Are we overwhelmed to the extent that we are driven to our knees to worship? Do we even feel like doing that? If we have not sensed God speaking to us through his word here, we need to ask why not. Could it be that the answer lies in the comment we made earlier about words on their own forming only 7% of communication, whereas body language contributes 55% and tone of voice 30%? Maybe what you and I need is to go back over the vision prayerfully: being consciously still before the Lord and asking him to speak to us as we allow the vision to soak into our minds; taking our time to meditate on each detail close up – to a point where our imagination begins to work on our heart and spirit.

Let us therefore think through the vision again from that perspective. The first thing that struck John was the tone of voice – loud as a trumpet. It came from behind him, so he had to turn to see what was going on. So shall we, in a deeper metaphorical sense that is well captured by the lovely hymn ‘Turn Your Eyes upon Jesus’.14 We need to turn away from this world in order to see into that other world and behold the Son of Man dressed with all the dignity of a supreme judge. Being called before an ordinary human judge would be a pretty scary experience for most of us, but nothing compared with having to stand before this judge, as John did. Imagine becoming aware that his flaming eyes are penetrating the secret places of our lives. Imagine then hearing an almost unbearably loud voice telling us what those eyes have seen. Imagine that sword-like tongue cutting into and exposing our pride and selfishness, evil desires, apathy, brashness, lovelessness and fear, and so many other things that we know all too well. The sense of our own sinfulness and insignificance in the presence of such glory and holiness would surely produce in any of us a reaction like that of Moses at Sinai: ‘Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I tremble with fear”’ (Heb. 12:21).

It must, therefore, have been an immense relief to John to feel a friendly hand on his shoulder and to hear that inimitable voice telling him not to fear. It was amazing grace, when you think whose hand it was that touched him. Now, for the first time in the narrative, the Speaker identifies himself unmistakably as Christ. He says: ‘I am the first and the last’ (1:17), echoing the ‘I am’ statements of John’s Gospel and the earlier announcement by God himself that he is the Alpha and the Omega. It is, of course, a striking assertion that the figure ‘like a son of man’ is Christ the Son of God, who overarches all history. He bookends it all, as the source of both its existence and its meaning. He spells out life and what it is meant to be. And if we ask him, he will graciously spell out all the letters in between, up to the final omega on this earth, for there is no final omega in the world to come. He is the Word become flesh.

You and I are not responsible for our own existence. God is. We were created by him and for him (Col. 1:16). It is very humbling to know that he thinks our existence is worthwhile. Moreover, without knowledge of the past we have no identity, and without knowledge of the future we have nothing to live for. He supplies both and, speaking of living, he is the living one par excellence, as he himself explained in John 5: ‘For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself. And he has given him authority to execute judgement, because he is the Son of Man’ (John 5:26–7).

Christ is also the Living One in a further sense, as he now says to John: ‘I died, and behold I am alive for evermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades’ (1:18). ‘I died’ can be translated as ‘I became dead’, using the same verb as John 1:14: ‘The Word became [lit. came to be] flesh.’ How he came to be dead and now is alive for evermore is the heart of the gospel. He became dead for our sins and was raised for our justification. We are alive in him through his Spirit. He also has the keys of Death and Hades. These grim institutions have no power over him; he can and will unlock them to free their prisoners (John 5:25–9). The one who holds the keys is the one who controls the passageway:

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

I will fear no evil,

for you are with me;

your rod and your staff,

they comfort me.

(Ps. 23:4)

Only he could say to a dying criminal: ‘Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise’ (Luke 23:43). The fear of death holds men and women enslaved. Christ has come to set them free:

Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.

(Heb. 2:14–15)

Christ unlocks the taboo surrounding death that is so common, especially as it gets near. And one day he will ultimately destroy Death and Hades as institutions and cast them into the lake of fire which is the second death (20:14). As Paul promised: ‘The last enemy to be destroyed is death’ (1 Cor. 15:26). Men and women naturally fear the process of dying, which can be very unpleasant. Yet the Lord through his resurrection can take the sting out of it. However, the second death, that is, final separation from God, holds no threat for a believer, since nothing can separate us from the love of Christ.

By contrast with all other world views, Christianity is unique in that Jesus Christ offers us something that none of them offer: ultimate hope and victory in the face of death. The additional wonder of it all is that this hope can be known in this life. As an old hymn says:

He holds the key to all unknown,

And I am glad.15

Because of that, the voice commands John: ‘Write therefore the things that you have seen, those that are and those that are to take place after this’ (1:19).

Notice the word ‘therefore’. The inspiration for John to write what he has seen and to tell us both about the things ‘that are and those that are to take place after this’ is the stupendous vision he has just experienced, just as the inspiration for Peter to invest his life in Christ’s eternal kingdom was what he saw on the Mount of Transfiguration. It has always been thus: when men and women are captivated by the ineffable wonder of Christ and his gospel, it motivates them to go to the ends of the earth as witnesses, and it motivates them to write literature that changes the world. A little glimpse of it has motivated me to write this book. To what will it motivate you?

The Roman heroic perspective: superhumans and superintelligences

The Romans, like the Greeks before them, loved their heroes, both legendary and real, and they immortalised the latter after their deaths, granting them the title divi to leave some distinction between them and the gods, dei, of their pantheon. Although the Romans conquered the Greeks at the battle of Corinth in 146 bc, the military victory did not involve cultural and artistic submission, and the Roman elite clamoured after the work of famous Greek sculptors. In order to strengthen loyalty to Rome and to the imperial cult, they set up temples and sacred precincts, not only in Rome but also in the provinces, and filled them with statues. These statues, made of marble or bronze, represented the heroes and emperors as glorified, idealised human figures, larger than life, with athletic bodies and the commanding appearance of military leaders – men of superhuman power. And men who were worshipped in an imperial cultic religion designed to hold the empire together.

Yet the superhuman figure that John saw on Patmos was not one of them. He was not a Roman emperor or hero; he was not even a Roman. Nor was he in Rome; he was seen by John on a diminutive island in the province of Asia. No Roman leader had eyes like a flame of fire, a head full of the wisdom of God and a face shining like the sun. This was no mere divinised hero; this was the King of kings and Lord of lords, the Son of Man, the incarnate Creator God – the true Homo Deus. He is the only one who deserves to be worshipped and given total allegiance. Not only that, but those of us who follow him as King have been made into a kingdom that is not the Roman Empire, although it contains many Roman citizens.

Does this mean that the book of Revelation is an anti-Rome, anti-empire subversive tract from the first century that seeks to stir up antagonism to Rome by portraying it as a great devouring beast opposed to God?16 Or will it maintain the stance that Jesus took when he said to Rome’s provincial governor Pilate: ‘My kingdom is not of this world’? (See John 18:36.) For it is in Revelation that we read that the sequence of seven trumpet-judgements is closed out with the announcement that the times have finally changed in this regard:

Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, saying, ‘The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign for ever and ever.’ And the twenty-four elders who sit on their thrones before God fell on their faces and worshipped God, saying,

‘We give thanks to you, Lord God Almighty,

who is and who was,

for you have taken your great power

and begun to reign.’

(11:15–17)

The central issue, then, is who is worthy to be worshipped. What is at stake is the allegiance of each human being: loyalty to God and Christ, or loyalty to what is anti-God and anti-Christ. And in that battle, the question of what it means to be a human being has become central. For now, for the first time in human history, we are told by some scientists that they are in a position to re-engineer human beings and turn them into superintelligent transhumans. Nick Bostrom, the former director of Oxford University’s Future of Humanity Institute, explains that transhumanism is

the intellectual and cultural movement that affirms the possibility and desirability of fundamentally improving the human condition through applied reason, especially by developing and making widely available technologies to eliminate aging and to greatly enhance human intellectual, physical, and psychological capacities.17

Another well-known proponent of transhumanism is the Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari. He reckons that there are two major agenda items for science in this twenty-first century. The first is to solve the problem of human death:

Humans don’t die . . . because God decreed it, or because mortality is an essential part of some great cosmic plan. Humans always die due to some technical glitch . . . Every technical problem has a technical solution. We don’t need to wait for the Second Coming in order to overcome death.18

Harari’s second agenda item is to intensify the pursuit of human happiness. For that to happen, he says:

it will be necessary to change our biochemistry and re-engineer our bodies and minds . . .19

[It] will involve re-engineering Homo sapiens so that it can enjoy everlasting pleasure.20

Having raised humanity above the beastly level of survival struggles, we will now aim to upgrade humans into gods, and turn Homo sapiens into Homo Deus . . .21

(but think more in terms of Greek gods22).

He might just as well have said Roman gods, as they were essentially the same. Harari, like many other transhumanist thinkers, is an atheist.

This drive towards creating a superintelligence comes not only from philosophers and historians but also from some really heavyweight figures in the world of science. For instance, Lord Martin Rees, the UK’s Astronomer Royal, says:

Abstract thinking by biological brains has underpinned the emergence of all culture and science. But this activity – spanning tens of millennia at most – will be a brief precursor to the more powerful intellects of the inorganic post-human era. So, in the far future, it won’t be the minds of humans, but those of machines, that will most fully understand the cosmos.23

Are they right? Is this the way the future is going to be? How can a twenty-centuries-old book possibly have anything to say about it in this scientifically advanced age? The answer lies in the fact that this book is a genuine revelation from the Creator, who not only made the world that scientists study but also made them. We have already learned from that revelation that the ‘technical problem of death’, mentioned in Harari’s first agenda item, has already been solved, not by science or technology but by the supernatural resurrection of Jesus from the dead. He alone has the keys of death. And as to the second of Harari’s agenda items, anyone with even a superficial acquaintance with the book of Revelation will be aware that it holds out to believers in Christ the prospect of a new and glorious eternal world of a completely different order from Harari’s ‘everlasting pleasure’ – one where there is no pain and no death, ruled righteously by Christ. The irony of transhumanism is that it parodies Christianity without having begun to understand it, let alone engage with it.

3

The letters to the seven churches of Asia

The vision of the exalted Christ in Revelation 1 is ablaze with light from different sources – lampstands, stars and sun – and centres on the witness of the churches to Jesus as the Light of the World. That leads to the question: if Christ is the sun, why are lesser lights necessary? One answer to that is that the Lord, in his wisdom and grace, chooses it to be so. John writes:

But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me. And you also will bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning.

(John 15:26–7)

Jesus not only allows but also encourages us to join in the witness, even though the Holy Spirit bears the main burden of it.

The exalted Lord writes to each church to assess the quality of its witness, encouraging and/or reproving, where appropriate. That is, he is speaking and acting as a judge in the broader biblical sense of that term, an understanding that is supported by imagery taken from the judgement scene in Daniel 7. His dress and appearance radiate authority, dignity and power, and the sharp sword coming out of his mouth speaks unmistakably of both the pronouncement and the execution of judgement. Furthermore, many of the subsequent visions in the book have to do with the carrying out of God’s judgements on earth in a complex sequence that ends with the final awful judgement of the great white throne.

The apostle Peter enunciates an important moral principle:

For it is time for judgement to begin at the household of God; and if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God? And

‘If the righteous is scarcely saved,

what will become of the ungodly and the sinner?’

(1 Pet. 4:17–18)

The logic is simply this: if God is going to judge the world righteously, he cannot simply ignore the behaviour of Christian believers, or anyone else. He must judge all without favouritism. The implication is clear:

And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.

(1 Pet. 1:17–19)

The fact that the Lord Jesus has paid an incalculable price for our sins gives him the right to expect something from us, does it not? He therefore has the right to criticise us and discipline us, not to destroy us because he hates us, but to bring meaning and value into our lives because he loves us.

For the Lord disciplines the one he loves

and chastises every son whom he receives.

(Heb. 12:6)

For instance, in his message to the last church in the list, Laodicea, this principle is explicit: ‘Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent’ (3:19).

Placing a description of judgement of the churches before the judgement of the world shows that God is concerned with justifying his dealings with human beings. Indeed, theodicy,1 the righteousness of God’s judgement, is one of the major issues raised by the book as a whole. But first we must think about it in connection with the churches of Asia Minor.

In keeping with our stated approach, we now survey the contents of the letters to the churches. In common English usage the word ‘church’ tends to refer in the first instance to a building, whereas the Greek word translated ‘church’ in the NT is ekklēsia, which denotes a ‘called-out’ group, assembly or congregation of people. Thus, the letters are addressed to groups of Christians. They are dictated to John by the exalted Son of Man, Jesus Christ, who is seen among seven golden lampstands that represent the churches. It is interesting that they are not represented by seven branches on a single lampstand, like the one in the OT tabernacle. In that sense, they are shown as independent of one another. Supporting that idea, we see that the Lord addresses the churches individually, although he expects each church to listen to what he has to say to all the others. He sometimes encourages and sometimes rebukes, but it is noticeable that he never instructs the angelos from one church to intervene in the affairs of another church. That is, he deals with each church directly.

There is an important principle here. At the personal level, the basic Christian confession is ‘Jesus Christ is Lord’. That is, he is the one whom we have invited to take control of our lives. We relate to him directly as our Lord. That is why we are called upon to be careful not to usurp his position and get between other believers and him. Paul explains this principle in the context of dealing with other Christians’ scruples. He warns us:

Who are you to pass judgement on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand . . .

For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.

(Rom. 14:4, 9)

To put it bluntly: if you wish to tell other believers what to do, you will have to be qualified. The qualification is to have died and lived again!

This does not mean that believers do not need guidance and wise counsel from godly elders and leaders – of course we do, and Scripture tells us to heed their advice. However, there is a fundamental principle here that can easily be forgotten. Jesus himself taught it to Peter in John 21:22 when Peter asked the Lord about what John should do: ‘Jesus said to him, “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow me!”’ In other words, it was none of Peter’s business. He had just been commissioned to feed the Lord’s sheep. He was now being taught that feeding sheep is not the same as controlling believers. His job as pastor was to lead sheep to the Lord, not to get between them and the Lord.

Most of us readily understand this principle at the level of the individual. However, it also applies at the level of the churches. A very important step in church history was taken in Acts 11 at the time of the formation of the church at Antioch in Syria. So far as we know from the NT, it was the first Christian church outside Jerusalem. The obvious question that arose was what its relationship to the church at Jerusalem should be. The Antioch church came into existence through the witness of believers who were forced out of Jerusalem because of the persecution that arose after Stephen was martyred. The historian Luke gives us a fascinating cameo account of what happened next:

And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number who believed turned to the Lord. The report of this came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas to Antioch. When he came and saw the grace of God, he was glad, and he exhorted them all to remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose, for he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. And a great many people were added to the Lord.

(Acts 11:21–4)

Several things are clear here. First, the mission to Antioch was not organised by the church at Jerusalem. It was already well established before the Jerusalem leaders heard about it. We might have expected them to send a delegation to Antioch to say that it was marvellous to hear what had happened there but, of course, since Jerusalem was the first church, it had priority. Therefore the new group in Antioch should take care in the future to take their directives from their Jerusalem headquarters. But they did nothing of the sort. When their delegate, Barnabas, eventually arrived in Antioch and saw how the Lord was working, he urged the congregation to make more progress, not by remaining faithful to the church in Jerusalem but by remaining faithful to the Lord. In order to help them do that, he fetched Paul to come to Antioch, where he provided them with direct apostolic teaching for a whole year.

Historically, this was a critical moment. For if the Lord had wished to set up an earthly headquarters for the churches, it would have had to be done at this time. But it did not happen. The headquarters was to be the Lord in heaven. Just as individual believers could and should get their guidance and direction directly from the Lord, it was to be the same for the churches. The facts that the lampstands were independent of one another, and that the Lord spoke directly to each of them but never told them to sort the others out, symbolises this relationship superbly.

I do not need to remind anyone with even a little knowledge of church history how much energy has been spent in setting up vast organisations and central hierarchical authorities to control churches – ostensibly to preserve doctrinal purity – and what a disaster it has been for Christian witness. It has not worked. We have failed to learn the lesson of Acts 11. We should finally note, by the way, that this is not contradicted by the so-called Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15.2 Nor is it contradicted by the report that Luke next gives us in Acts 11 about famine relief help sent to Antioch by the believers in Judea via Barnabas and Paul. Governmental independence is one thing; practical fellowship between churches is another.

It may be objected that Revelation simply tells us that the lampstands represent churches. It does not tell us that the fact they are separate lampstands and that the Lord addresses each one separately was intended to symbolise principles of inter-church organisational structure. Hence, it might be objected that my use of the symbolism goes beyond what the text explicitly says and is therefore illegitimate. Yes, it certainly goes beyond what the text explicitly tells us, yet I think it is legitimate for the following reason. What I claim is that certain aspects of the symbols may be used to illustrate a principle that is explicit in other scriptures – in this case, Acts 11. It would, I submit, be illegitimate if I were claiming to deduce a principle from the symbolism that could not be justified from the rest of Scripture. To say the least, it is very unwise to use symbols3 to develop novel ‘doctrines’ that are not explicitly taught in Scripture. A rather silly example of this would be to propose that, since there were oil lamps in the tabernacle, we should only use oil lamps in our churches today.

Hence, if someone says to me ‘You mustn’t deduce the above principle from the symbols of Revelation’, my reply will be that I am not doing that but rather deriving it from the factual historical description of what happened in Antioch as recorded in Acts 11.

The delivery of the letters

The fact that each church is asked to read the letters sent to the others would seem to imply that the letters were sent as a group to each church. However, the letters could not have been understood without the description of the Son of Man that precedes them, since reference is made to the details of that vision in the letters. In addition, the recipients needed to know what the lampstands represented. That might reasonably lead us to think that the whole book was given to each church by the messengers.

That would have the implication, first, that each church knew it was not the only one to receive a letter; and second, each church would know that the other churches would see what the Lord had written to it and would therefore get to know its strengths and weaknesses – what the Lord praised and what he criticised. That meant that even though no church was asked to interfere in the affairs of another, its leaders and members could not avoid facing the lessons that others had to learn and applying them to themselves.

At a lower but nevertheless important level, leaders of a church today can learn from the experience of other churches in any part of the world from what they write about the Lord’s dealings with them.

The pattern of the letters

The authoritative go-to reference for the general setting of the seven churches is Colin J. Hemer’s celebrated historical and archaeological study The Letters to the Seven Churches of Asia in Their Local Setting.4 This book is such a comprehensive mine of information that I strongly recommend that the interested reader consults it at every opportunity. In fact, if what I write serves as a brief introduction to Hemer’s work, I shall be more than delighted, since we will have to content ourselves here with much less than he has to offer.

The seven letters follow a common pattern as follows:

ARecipient: name of the church.

BSender: detail from the vision of Christ: ‘The words of him who . . .’

CAppraisal – positive and negative: ‘I know . . .’

DA call to respond.

EThe injunction: ‘He who has an ear, let him hear . . .’

FA promise to the ‘one who conquers’.

There are minor differences; for example, the order of E and F is reversed in the last four churches.

As we look more into the detail, we find that the Lord is interested in three aspects of the life of each church:

1demeanour: how they behave;

2doctrine: what they believe;

3devotion: what their attitude of mind and heart is towards the Lord.

In each letter there is a promise to the ‘one who conquers’, which indicates that there is a battle to be faced or an issue to be resolved that is particular to each church. The term ‘one who conquers’ derives from the Greek verb nikao, meaning ‘to conquer’ or ‘overcome’. To understand this term, we need to see how it is used elsewhere in the NT. In John’s first letter we read:

For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory [Greek: nike] that has overcome the world – our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

(1 John 5:4–5)

We note that this does not say that everyone who is born of God should overcome the world, but that they do. The reason is that having faith that Jesus is the Son of God is the victory that has overcome the world. The Greek word for ‘victory’ is directly related to that for ‘overcome’ or ‘overcomer’. Hence, there would seem to be a fundamental or absolute sense in which a genuine believer has already overcome. This is supported by a statement at the end of Revelation:

The one who conquers [= overcomes] will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son. But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulphur, which is the second death.

(21:7–8)

There are only two possibilities here: either to conquer or to suffer the second death. Hence, those who conquer are the genuine believers; those who do not are unbelievers. Yet, as we are all aware, believers do not always overcome in the practical details of everyday life and witness. The apostle Peter failed under pressure. We all fail (1 John 1:8), but the mark of a true believer is that we confess our sins, repent and are restored. Romans 8 adds to this that believers may be more than conquerors: ‘No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us’ (Rom. 8:37). The promise in Revelation to the one who conquers may therefore be understood to be a promise to genuine believers to be ‘more than conquerors’ in the sense of Romans 8.

All of the churches were situated in the Roman province of Asia. Rome itself possessed great wealth. The Romans had discovered a remarkable form of concrete whose properties are only now being understood scientifically. With this material, they used their brilliant architectural and engineering skills to build an array of impressive public buildings, housing with central heating, bathing facilities, aqueducts, sewers and much else. Nevertheless, the bulk of the population, especially in the provinces, was poor, much poorer than in most countries today. The information provided by Ian Paul5 shows that the top 3%6 controlled 25% of the wealth, 45% were at adequate stable subsistence levels, whereas 55% lived at or below subsistence. Added to that, 30–40% of the population were slaves. The infant mortality rate was extremely high compared with today: 50% below the age of 5 and, if you reached 10, your maximum life expectancy was 50.

Such was the world that received the Revelation of Jesus Christ. Let’s now read the first letter . . .

4

The letter to Ephesus

To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: ‘The words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands.

‘I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false. I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name’s sake, and you have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent. Yet this you have: you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.’

(2:1–7)

The first church in the list was situated in Ephesus, the capital of the Roman province of Asia. It was a prosperous port city and trading centre of similar ranking to the Mediterranean ports of Alexandria in Egypt and Antioch in Syria.1 It was the fourth-largest city in the empire at the time with up to 200,000 inhabitants of various ethnicities: Greeks, Romans and Jews, together with peoples from farther afield in Anatolia and north Africa. It was a hive of cottage industries and vibrant international trade. The city boasted some impressive buildings, many of them religious institutions. The most famous of all was the temple of Artemis (Diana), the largest Greek temple ever built and regarded as one of the wonders of the ancient world. It measured 425 by 220 feet (130 m x 67 m) with 127 white marble columns 62 feet (19 m) high and less than 4 feet (1.2 m) apart. In the inner sanctuary there was the strange, many-breasted image of the goddess that the Ephesians believed had fallen from heaven.2 The second-century Greek traveller and geographer Pausanias wrote:

But all cities worship Artemis of Ephesus and individuals hold her in honour above all the gods. The reason, in my view, is the renown of the Amazons, who traditionally dedicated the image, also the extreme antiquity of this sanctuary. Three other points as well have contributed to her renown, the size of the temple, surpassing all buildings among men, the eminence of the city of the Ephesians and the renown of the goddess who dwells there.3

There were also temples supporting the imperial cult. Such veneration of the Roman emperors was often taken to a much greater extreme in the provinces than would have been acceptable in Rome. Upward mobility was determined by engagement in the cult; that was the path to the enjoyment of Rome’s favour and benefits. The most prominent imperial cult temple was the temple of the Sebastoi.4 Formerly called the temple of Domitian, it was dedicated around ad 89/90 to the dynasty of the emperor Vespasian, honouring his two sons, Titus5 and Domitian. As the first one built in the region, this temple attracted to Ephesus the title neokoros or ‘temple warden’. Apparently, its main feature was a colossal, 26-foot-high (8 m) statue of Titus erected by Domitian. There were also cult temples honouring Julius Caesar, Augustus, and the goddess Roma, a female deity created to personify both Rome as a city and the Roman state. There were even more temples to accommodate the worshippers of the many other deities of the region. The historian Josephus tells us that there had been a Jewish synagogue in Ephesus from the third century bc.

Perhaps most important of all, Ephesus was the city where John had lived and witnessed; indeed, the church had been blessed with the most powerful of any apostolic visitation and witness. In fact, the NT supplies us with more information on the church at Ephesus than any other church. According to Luke, Paul’s first visit to the city (c. ad 53) was brief and involved discussions in the synagogue (Acts 18:19–21). Although pressed to stay, he left, promising to return. He did, however, leave a Christian couple there, Priscilla and Aquila, who were probably founder members of the church. Not long afterwards, an Alexandrian Jew, Apollos, arrived in Ephesus. He was a gifted speaker, knowledgeable about Scripture, but there were one or two deficiencies in his understanding, particularly regarding the teaching of John the Baptist. Aquila and Priscilla were able and ready to help, and their mentoring of Apollos prepared him for his next move on into Achaia.

Meanwhile, Paul returned to Ephesus and first encountered some men who had been influenced by Apollos and needed help to understand about the Holy Spirit. Paul then took up where he had left off in the synagogue:

And he entered the synagogue and for three months spoke boldly, reasoning and persuading them about the kingdom of God. But when some became stubborn and continued in unbelief, speaking evil of the Way before the congregation, he withdrew from them and took the disciples with him, reasoning daily in the hall of Tyrannus. This continued for two years, so that all the residents of Asia heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks.

(Acts 19:8–10)

The tense situation in the synagogue was only resolved when Paul withdrew to the next-door building, which belonged to a certain Tyrannus, where he embarked on daily teaching for two years. This teaching seems to have attracted people from all over the province of Asia to come and listen to Paul. It was an extraordinary time, and God authenticated Paul’s message by doing many miracles through him. This resulted in a wave of conversion of people who had been deep into the occult and magic, which was associated with the worship of Artemis. The converts brought their expensive magic books – with a total value of 50,000 pieces of silver6 – and burned them publicly as evidence of their faith in Christ. So-called Ephesian Scrolls (Ephesia grammata) containing magic incantations and spells are in fact known from the fourth century bc.

The gospel threatened the economic infrastructure of Ephesus, since not only the trade in magic scrolls was hit but also the huge business enterprise driving the manufacture and sale of Artemis temple memorabilia led by a powerful guild of silversmiths. The tension spilled over into a riot, which was eventually calmed down with considerable difficulty by the local town clerk. Paul left for Macedonia, his final direct contact with the Ephesus church occurring when he invited its leaders to meet him at Miletus (Acts 20:17–38). He made a very moving speech to them, reminding them of his behaviour among them and warning them of trouble on the horizon:

I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them. Therefore be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to admonish everyone with tears.

(Acts 20:29–31)

They would see him no more. In ad 62 he wrote a letter to the Ephesian church (i.e. the NT book we know as ‘Ephesians’), and in 65–6 he wrote his first letter to his protégé and colleague Timothy, who was at Ephesus (i.e. 1 Timothy). Finally, in ad 67–8 he wrote 2 Timothy, his last letter. Paul was martyred by Nero in Rome around ad 68.

That means we have a lot of background information as we come now to read the book of Revelation – the final letter to the Ephesian church and the other churches – which was written around thirty years later.

I wonder what John expected the roaring, waterfall-like voice of Jesus to say in the context of such a powerful, supernatural, gloriously luminous vision of him as the Son of Man, with his face blazing like the sun and with the stars in his hands shedding light over the Roman province of Asia, creating a map of the territory of a sort never seen before. For the Lord had already said a great deal, especially to the first of these churches, Ephesus.

That church had been the recipient of one of the most magnificent revelations of the glory of Christ in the entire canon of Scripture: Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. What Christian has not been deeply moved by its uniquely powerful opening statement:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

(Eph. 1:3–10)

Ephesians contains level after level of transcendent new revelation with its unparalleled, soaring description of Jesus as the one in whom all the vast and inexhaustible purposes of God for the entire universe will be fulfilled. He is the head of a unique body, the Church, constituted to be the fullness of him who fills all in all. Christ had triumphantly created what one totalitarian regime after another, such as those of the Nazis and Soviets, have tried to create in history: a new kind of human being. They failed because they tried to build utopia without a solution to human sin. And attempts are still being made using technology in the hope of designing a new type of human being – or even a transhuman being – using artificial intelligence to produce one with abilities transcending what we have now. However, Scripture would warn us that they will fail for the same reason – failure to take human sin into account.

Christ has provided that solution. He has created what the NT calls a ‘new man’ (Eph. 2:15) from the most disparate of peoples, Jews and Gentiles, by uniting them in himself as the great maker of peace through the blood of his cross. Not only that, but in his ascension to God’s right hand of power he has elevated them in privilege to the unbelievable height of being effectively seated with him in the heavenly places, far above all other authority. It is utterly breathtaking – even then utterly beyond the current transhuman vision – and Christians today should not be ashamed of saying so.

Will Jesus now add to that in his letter to Ephesus, climbing to yet higher unimaginable heights of wonder and glory? Are we now going to find our senses so overloaded that we cannot bear it?

And the dramatic answer is . . . no! Nothing of that kind happens. Instead, the voice speaks briefly in an almost prosaic fashion, commenting on the church’s stand against false teaching but pointedly and devastatingly accusing it of being in danger of losing the only purpose for its existence, namely bearing witness to Jesus as the Light of the World!

How could this be? I can imagine that at least part of John’s reaction might well have been a sense of shock and bitter disappointment – that is, if in the flow of his elevated state of consciousness in the Spirit there was any time to think about it, as the voice kept on dictating letter after letter until the seven were complete. For some, there was encouragement; for others, apart from two, there was serious rebuke; and all of it climaxing in the seventh, the church at Laodicea, being told that Christ felt like vomiting it out!

So much for ‘the things that are’. Was this really what it had all come to within a century of Pentecost with all its promise of a church against which the gates of hell could not prevail? Paul had certainly informed the Ephesians that the evil one would try to bring them down, and admonished them to resist:

Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armour of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armour of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm.

(Eph. 6:10–13)

What could now be the point in attempting to rally such a motley group? The cosmic promise of the letter to the Ephesians looked as if it had fizzled to nothing. If the Ephesians had essentially failed to get it, who would? But just a moment – I have Ephesians in my Bible and so have you. Do we really get it? Are we living, as Paul did, with a sense that we are engaged in a fearsome battle with evil powers who surround us at every level and wish to keep our mouths firmly shut about the gospel of the love of God? Or are we in the same danger as the Ephesians of ‘letting it go’ (see 2:4)?

And if ‘the things that are’ were so bad, what additional horrors would be involved in ‘the things that are to come’? Of course, we have already surveyed the book and we know that there are unprecedented horrors to come, as Satan makes his throne on earth. We shall have to redouble our efforts to get our heads around the glaring paradox: a largely unstable church situation and a bleak future for the world – and yet the promise that a new and glorious world is coming in which righteousness dwells and God reigns with his Church.

Now I can imagine that John, in full flow of receiving and transmitting the letters, had little time for such reflection, but it is clearly something that we need to think hard about in order to grasp its solemn warning message, not only for the churches then but also for the churches now. Whereas we rejoice today to see the growth of the Church through courageous witness, often against incredible opposition, in the Global South, it is not hard to think that the behaviour of much of the professing Christian Church in the West is enough to make Christ sick and wish to vomit it out. Indeed, compromised as it is, and denying one fundamental teaching about creation and Christ after another, it looks as if he already has spat much of it out, aided and abetted by a clueless crew of mad, godless clerics who are delighted at having got rid of the supernatural God of Scripture in what they call a ‘post-truth’ culture. The entire scene recalls Vincent van Gogh’s impressionistic painting Starry Night, where the stars are blazing in the sky but there is no light in the church. We certainly cannot complain that Revelation fails to be realistic on this matter.

But that is not quite fair, is it? For careful reading of the letters reveals that they each hold out hope, magnificent hope, in keeping with the King of kings who offers it to those who overcome or prevail in their witness. Indeed, coming to the last church, he hammers insistently on a door that appears to be locked on the inside, pleading with its members to open it and let him in to bring them all they need. Not only that, but he makes a spectacular promise to anyone who conquers in this direst of situations: ‘The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne’ (3:21).

However, we need to face the fact that it is precisely the state of the Church and of the world at various times in history that has led people to question the very existence of a divine throne behind the universe. The topic is triggered by the claim in 3:21 that Jesus has conquered and sat down with his Father on his throne. It is therefore not surprising that this will be the main topic in part 2 of the book as another door is opened, this time in heaven, to show us not only what that throne is like but also precisely how the Lord Jesus has conquered to sit down on it.

Let us now continue with the more prosaic but necessary task of outlining the contents of this first letter according to the general pattern:

ARecipient: angel of the church of Ephesus.

BSender: ‘The words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands.’

CAppraisal – positive: ‘I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not and found them to be false. I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name’s sake, and you have not grown weary.’

DAppraisal – negative: ‘But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first . . .’

EA call to respond: ‘Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.’

FAnother positive: ‘Yet this you have: you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.’

GThe injunction: ‘He who has an ear, let him hear . . .’

HA promise: ‘To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.’

The letter is sent by the one who ‘holds the seven stars’ (2:1). The Greek word for ‘hold’ here is different from the one in the introduction. Here, it means ‘hold strongly’, ‘hold in a firm grip’. On the understanding that the star represents the collective leadership of the church, this means that the elders need to realise the power that holds them as they face Christ’s evaluation of their state. I have personally found the thought of being held in the Lord’s right hand greatly encouraging on many occasions. Also, the fact that ‘seven’ is mentioned twice reminds the Christians at Ephesus that they are not the only church to face assessment. They may be the first, but they are certainly not the last.

The Lord first commends the church. They have not been slack. They have put up with a great deal and taken a strong moral stand against evil. They have also pursued truth in taking a strong theological stand against false apostles, about whom Paul had warned them: ‘I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them’ (Acts 20:29–30). Paul had also warned that the leadership itself would eventually be infected by false doctrine. That too had occurred, and they had taken Paul’s word to heart and tirelessly dealt with the problem.

Yet all was not well. The Lord goes on to say to them: ‘I have this against you, that you have abandoned [lit. let go] the love you had at first’ (2:4). Perhaps this criticism initially shocked them, but it is not hard to see what had happened from a psychological perspective. Paul had told them that they needed to be alert and watch out for evil tendencies, even in their own group. They had concentrated on doing that and doing it well. However, rooting out evil carries with it the real risk of letting go something of vital importance – their ‘first love’. Our first love as Christians is surely the sense of forgiveness that washed over our hearts and souls when first we realised that God loved us while we were yet sinners and Christ died for us. However, if we over-concentrate on dealing with evil in others, the danger is that we become hard and insensitive and forget that we ourselves were once sinners needing forgiveness. Jesus told a parable on forgiveness to illustrate this danger (Matt. 18:21–35). It is the story of a man who, though forgiven a colossal debt that he could not repay, nevertheless refused to release from debt someone who owed him much less.

The church leaders at Ephesus had lost their balance and forgotten that Paul had not only taught them truth but had also modelled before them how to speak it – in love (Eph. 4:15). Had they not often seen Paul shed tears when dealing with pastoral issues at Ephesus? Truth is important, but so also is one’s attitude to truth. If its leaders lose their sense of forgiveness, and their calling to love the flock, a church may end up with leaders who have never themselves been forgiven. Sadly, some people seem naturally inquisitorial; they enjoy prying, probing and testing others to see whether they conform to their idea of religious purity. Once that attitude gets detached from the core Christian message of love, it can be very destructive. It can damage the whole ethos of a church and ruin its witness. The extreme but sadly all too common instance of this occurs when people persuade themselves that they are tormenting us for our own good. But, as C. S. Lewis points out,7 they can keep on endlessly doing so with the approval of their consciences.

Christ commands the Ephesian Christians to repent and do the works they did at first – presumably meaning that they urgently needed to revert to how they had behaved in the early days, when they first discovered the love that God had for them and lived in its light. Otherwise, the Lord warns that he will come and take drastic action to remove their lampstand. That is, although their activities would continue, their witness would cease, their light would go out and their influence for God in the world would be zero. The only hope for them was repentance – facing the painful fact that they had got it both right and wrong at the same time. It can be hard for any of us to own up to something like that.

The Son of Man has a final positive comment to make to the church at Ephesus: that they hated the works of the Nicolaitans, which he also hated. Little is known today about this sect, except what is said in the second reference to them in 2:15, which seems to imply that they engaged in sexual immorality and ate things sacrificed to idols. That kind of behaviour was not uncommon in pagan culture and worship at the time. Hatred of evil is not ruled out by love but is rather demanded by it.

What can we learn?

At this point all the churches, and therefore all subsequent readers, are asked to hear and profit from what is said to Ephesus. The original language expresses it more emphatically: it is not a request but a command: ‘Listen!’ But how can we listen effectively? One way is to try to imagine what it might have been like to be a member of the church in Ephesus. That would of course depend on when you were there. There were the early, heady, pioneering days when Paul took the first believers out of the synagogue and into the hall of Tyrannus. Then there were days of consolidation when Paul was teaching the believers how to live in multicultural Ephesus and was training the elders to lead. Then Paul left Ephesus and gave his last message to the leaders of its church at Miletus, telling them to be watchful. Next, Timothy arrived in Ephesus, presumably to great joy as he was a protégé of Paul’s. However, as time went on, a critical spirit gradually infected the church leadership. Experience tells us that there may have been one rather cantankerous leader who thought he was the only one capable of doing the job properly and whose teaching was full of critical observations about others.8 A faction often grows around such people, accompanied by rumblings of discontent, with members beginning to distance themselves from the church, feeling unappreciated and disenfranchised and increasingly reluctant to bring their friends to services or events because of what they might hear.

No doubt Timothy kept Paul informed about the situation at Ephesus, and Paul wrote to him about the need to deal with the situation:

As for those who persist in sin, rebuke them in the presence of all, so that the rest may stand in fear. In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus and of the elect angels I charge you to keep these rules without prejudging, doing nothing from partiality.

(1 Tim. 5:20–1)

Timothy had a nervous disposition and, in order to strengthen and steady his resolve, Paul reminded him that his decisions were being observed by the august group of God, Christ Jesus and the elect angels. The elders and Timothy had done as Paul instructed and yet, somehow, over the years the vigilance had reached such an extreme that it led to the church losing its first love.

The first obvious thing to learn is that church leaders have a real responsibility for what a church stands for and how it behaves, and that is inevitably influenced by what the leaders teach and how they behave. Theological and moral stability is a crucial aspect of church life. Believers need to know what they believe and why they believe it. But they also need to pay attention to how they hold and communicate the truths they believe. For, although discipline is necessary to deal with any tendency to compromise the truth of the gospel, there is a danger in concentrating on dealing with false doctrine to the extent of neglecting healthy doctrine. If we are not careful, an unloving, legalistic and overcritical spirit can creep into our hearts without us noticing it, so that over time we become hard and insensitive in what we call our ‘stand for the truth’. Our own personal dislikes can be projected on to God in that a person who hates preaches a God who hates. Unbalanced hate for evil can spill over into hate speech, an issue that has become a huge problem in the contemporary world, where Christians are increasingly being accused of hate crime. In this age of machines, social media and the internet exacerbate the situation with their often brutal, hypercritical invasion of private space, which is often indistinguishable from abuse.9

Pastoral attention is needed to make sure that an atmosphere of fellowship, love and forgiveness is complemented by a commitment to truth in the leadership and in the church; otherwise the ‘first love’ will be lost and the church’s witness extinguished. None of this is easy and there are many books, seminars and courses devoted to the support of embattled leaders, who above everything else need to pray for one another.

Finally, there is the promise to the one who conquers: ‘I will grant [him or her] to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God’ (2:7). This takes us back to creation itself, to the garden of Eden in which there were two special trees: the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God told the first humans that they were free to eat the fruit of any tree in the garden, except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If they disobeyed and ate from that tree, they would surely die. However, Satan, the enemy of God, told them that, on the contrary, to disobey God and eat that fruit would be the first step of liberation that would lead them to a wider experience of life – even to becoming like gods, knowing good and evil. They fell for the lie, disobeyed God’s word, and allowed a poisonous flood of human sin and death into the world, with all the horrific consequences of which we are so acutely aware. The garden set the parameters of what it meant to be a moral being obeying the word of God.10 The essence of this is well captured by C. S. Lewis:

If a thing is free to be good it is also free to be bad. And free will is what has made evil possible. Why, then, did God give them free will? Because free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having.11

When humans disobeyed God and sinned, their access to the tree of life was removed. And ever since, humans have been on a quest to find an elixir of life and attain divinity, never more so than today when the desire to create a superintelligent AI, a transhuman Homo Deus, is a major driver of technology, with its explicit promise still the same as that of the ancient serpent: You shall be as gods!12

Nevertheless, God held out his own counter-promise to the Christians at Ephesus that they could ultimately access the true source of life by overcoming. We recall that the essential ingredient here is trust in God. The Fall happened because men and women did not trust God. The way back must involve (re)learning to trust him, and that, in the current climate in many parts of the world, is likely to be very costly indeed.

One might say that the trouble with the Ephesus congregation was that they showed too much interest in the tree of knowledge of good and evil, in consequence of which they were threatened with removal of their lampstand. However, if they repented and overcame, they would gain access to the other tree, the tree of life – a tree that will reappear in 22:2. The symbols of lampstand and tree are connected in Scripture by the unusual feature that the lampstand in the tabernacle was fashioned from a single piece of gold skilfully beaten out to appear like a stylised almond tree. Its branches contained buds, flowers and fruits at the same time – something impossible in a living botanic specimen. Hence, the vessel upholding the light was a tree of life. Light and life are also closely associated in the Gospel of John: ‘In him was life, and the life was the light of men’ (John 1:4). The lesson is as clear as it is important: the quest for immortality without Christ is doomed to failure, for in him and in him alone is life.

One possible irony here is that the Artemis cult, which was based in Ephesus, had at its heart a sacred tree or grove located in the middle of the Artemisium, or temple complex. In Domitian’s day, this area, known as the Asylum of Artemis, was a designated sanctuary to which people could flee for refuge. The privilege was abused, and the sanctuary had become a haven for organised crime. The relevance of the tree of life that is in the paradise of God would therefore be immediately understood by the members of the Ephesian congregation by contrast with the evil in the garden shrine of Artemis, which was as far away from God’s paradise as it could be.13

We have seen that the choice of these seven churches may have had to do with the fact that they were on a circular post route. Also, Ephesus was the leading city in Asia, so you might expect it to come first. There may, however, be other reasons that have to do with the themes of the letters. For instance, we might see if any of the themes we have encountered in the letter to Ephesus are to be found in any of the other letters. Since the main issue with Ephesus was a love–hate imbalance, the first obvious thing to look for is any trace of this theme elsewhere. We soon discover that Thyatira is the only church commended for its love, yet it has a lengthy list of faults. It loved but failed to hate. Is extremism the problem then? Well, the church at Laodicea turns out to be ‘neither cold nor hot’ – utterly unacceptable to the Lord. There therefore would seem to be a kind of balancing symmetry among the seven letters which would suggest that it is worth bracketing churches 1,4 and 7 together to see what can be gained from comparison and contrast. We shall look at this in due course.

5

The letter to Smyrna

And to the angel of the church in Smyrna write: ‘The words of the first and the last, who died and came to life.

‘I know your tribulation and your poverty (but you are rich) and the slander of those who say that they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan. Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and for ten days you will have tribulation. Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. The one who conquers will not be hurt by the second death.’

(2:8–11)

The city of Smyrna still exists as Izmir, Turkey’s third-largest city. It was, and is, a thriving commercial port about 35 miles (60 km) north of Ephesus. Like Ephesus, the city bore the title neokoros or ‘temple warden’ because it possessed a temple dedicated to the emperor.1 It also had many other temples to pagan deities.2 The city had a reputation as a place of great beauty that it was proud to proclaim on its coinage.

This letter, the shortest of the seven, has a very simple structure. The Writer identifies himself as ‘the first and the last, who died and came to life’ – the first words of Christ to John in 1:17–18. He who suffered, died and rose again (for them) tells the Smyrnan Christians that he knows all about their situation – that they are impoverished, in trouble, and needing to prepare for suffering. There may be a hint here3 at a connection between suffering and death and the name Smyrna, which probably derives from an old Greek word, smyrna, for myrrh, a gum-like resin extracted from cuts in the bark of certain trees that was a major export commodity there in ancient times. We know from the Gospels that myrrh was one of the gifts presented to the infant Jesus by the kings from the east (Matt. 2:11). It was also brought by Nicodemus to the tomb of Jesus in order to embalm his body. Myrrh was a fitting symbol of suffering and death. And this church in the city of Myrrh was suffering, and some of its people would die. They were being pressured on at least two fronts: on the one hand from a Jewish synagogue and on the other, presumably, from the local Roman authorities. It seems they may have been slandered to the authorities by the leaders of a Jewish synagogue that Christ, no less, here scathingly describes as a ‘synagogue of Satan’ – people claiming to be Jews but who aren’t.

We recall from the Gospel accounts that Jesus did not accept all claims to Jewish heritage. John tells us that some Jews once accosted Jesus with the claim that their father was Abraham. Jesus pointed out that they were not behaving as Abraham did, but acting like their real father, who was the devil (John 8:33–47). True Judaism is about faith and obedience, not so much about ethnicity. The book of Acts also shows that, from time to time, Jewish groups stirred up trouble for Christians. The supreme example is, of course, the connivance of the Jewish authorities in Jerusalem with the Romans to have Jesus crucified.

However, neither here nor in the similar situation described in the later letter to Philadelphia are there any grounds for anti-Semitism. Even Paul, who suffered constantly at the hands of his fellow Jews, showed no trace of bitterness, even when he had to appeal to Caesar because of their unjust machinations. He said: ‘I had no charge to bring against my nation’ (Acts 28:19). Remember also that John himself was a Jewish follower of Jesus, who is the Lion of the tribe of Judah. It is important to remember this at a time when anti-Semitism is growing in Europe because of the awful situation in Gaza in 2024, precipitated by the Hamas massacre in Israel on 7 October 2023.

There is something else here that needs to be commented on, and that is the fact that the devil, or Satan, is mentioned here in this letter for the first of many times in Revelation. It is evident that the author of the book believes that the devil is a real being. In our age of dominant atheism and anti-supernaturalism, the idea that there exists a devil tends to evoke pitying incomprehension. Yet C. S. Lewis was not ashamed to say that he did believe in the devil and warned that if anyone really wished to get to know him better, he would but might not like what they found.4 Lewis also warned that there were two equally dangerous but diametrically opposed attitudes to devils – to disbelieve in their existence or to become obsessed with them.5

Atheists will reject devils, angels and God in the name of science. However, as I have argued in detail elsewhere,6 much to many people’s surprise science does not sit well at all with atheism and, in fact, points towards theism as a much more satisfactory integrating world view. Furthermore, thinking about contemporary science and technology, I observe not only that many scientists believe that extraterrestrial intelligent life already exists, but also that proponents of artificial general intelligence (AGI) believe that they will succeed in their project to create transhuman intelligences superior to humans – intelligence, by the way, that some people fear may be malign. If all that is true, they certainly have no a priori reason, apart from world-view prejudice, for rejecting the biblical claim that there exists an intelligent alien devil.

Scripture is very clear on the existence of the devil. Jesus and his apostles spoke of the devil as an evil and dangerous reality, a Dark Power, who is the Ruler of the World (John 14), the Prince of the power of the air (Ephesians 2.2). The temptation in Genesis 3 is attributed to an alien being, a serpent – which then becomes a symbol of Satan in the book of Revelation. There are indications, not only in the Genesis account, that that serpent pre-existed humanity and was one of God’s creatures that rebelled against God even before the creation.

C. S. Lewis was very clear that this was the case.7 The book of Revelation will back up Lewis’s conviction to the hilt, as we shall see. And if I might just say as a scientist, I think Lewis is absolutely right.

To get back to the letter to the believers at Smyrna, although Jesus describes himself as the one who died and rose again, that did not mean that they would be delivered from facing suffering and imprisonment. The letter refers to a specific prison sentence and tribulation for ten days; the trial is to be limited in time. We shall meet the same kind of thing again later in Revelation where other believers are told that their suffering is to be limited. Opinions differ as to whether the ten days are to be taken as literal days, or whether they simply stand for an indefinite period. However, it would surely be rather strange to write a letter to the congregation of an actual church and risk misleading the people by giving inaccurate information. In any case why shouldn’t it be ten actual days? There is no need to find symbolism in every number.8 Compare our Lord’s prediction that after three days he would rise again. They certainly turned out to be three actual days, and it is important for the credibility of the gospel that it was literally so.

Even though the coming tribulation will be limited, the believers are told to be ‘faithful unto death’ (2:10). That presumably would be the punishment for the ‘crime’ of refusing to honour the imperial cult by offering incense to the emperor. It may be that the persecution was so intense at that time that some were killed, or it could be an indication that the end of the ten-day period would not mean the end of their troubles. The promise to those faithful unto death is to receive ‘the crown of life’ – not, presumably, a crown that belongs to life but one that consists in life, resurrection life given by the one who died and is alive again.

How can one find courage to be faithful unto death? The first believer to do so bore the name that is here translated by ‘crown’: stephanos. It denotes a wreath given to a victor in the games or to honour a civic dignitary. Before Stephen died under a hail of stones, he cried: ‘Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God’ (Acts 7:56). The risen and ascended Lord rose to greet this first martyr and grant him the crown of life. He had won in the great battle for human loyalty to God. Not long afterwards, the apostle James was martyred. He also wrote about the crown of life: ‘Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him’ (Jas 1:12). Many others would follow in their steps.

One of these martyrs was a famous inhabitant of Smyrna, 86-year-old Bishop Polycarp, who was executed in ad 155. He refused attempts made by the Roman authorities to get him to compromise his faith by offering incense to the emperor. It is reported that some Jews supported his murder and even collected firewood on the Sabbath to fuel the fire that awaited him.9 Polycarp’s response is deeply moving and challenging: ‘For eighty-six years I have been his servant, and he has done me no wrong. How can I blaspheme my King who saved me?’ It is just possible that Polycarp heard the letter to Smyrna read out at his church when he was a young man.

As I write these words, and as you read them, it is distressing to think that there are believers somewhere in the world, our brothers and sisters, who are about to die for their faith in Christ and who will be with him today. It has been calculated that every six minutes someone dies for their faith in Christ.10 The Open Doors organisation reckoned in 2022 that 360 million Christians were living in countries where persecution was ‘significant’ and that ‘roughly 5,600 Christians were murdered, more than 6,000 detained or imprisoned, and another 4,000-plus were kidnapped. In addition, more than 5,000 churches and other religious facilities were destroyed.’11 These statistics are horrifying – every one of them representing shattered families in intense pain and mourning, trying to come to terms with the horrors of evil.

I once met a Siberian believer who had been incarcerated for seven years in the Soviet Gulag for the ‘crime’ of teaching young people about the Christian faith. After telling me about some of the privations he had endured and the awful things he had seen, he, a man short in stature, suddenly looked up at me towering above him and said: ‘You couldn’t have faced that, could you?’ I was embarrassed and felt very small. He then said with an unforgettable smile: ‘Neither could I. I was so fearful by nature that I would faint at the sight of my own blood if I cut myself when shaving. Yet the Lord brought me through the most awful of circumstances. For I discovered that the Lord does not help us to face such situations theoretically in advance. It is only when we are actually directly faced with the situations themselves that he will draw near to help, as he promised: “Beware of men, for they will deliver you over to courts and flog you in their synagogues, and you will be dragged before governors and kings for my sake, to bear witness before them and the Gentiles. When they deliver you over, do not be anxious how you are to speak or what you are to say, for what you are to say will be given to you in that hour. For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.”’12

Although I have never been in a situation like that of my Siberian friend, I can testify that, on occasions when I have faced public hostility for my faith in Christ, I have sensed the Lord’s support in bringing me through.

However, there is no guarantee that those of us who have been privileged to live most of our lives in relatively stable countries will never have to face outright persecution for our Christian faith. There are threatening clouds on the horizon, and the kind of intrusive surveillance that has facilitated such oppression in places such as China and Russia may soon pervade the West; the technology is already there.

The one who is faithful unto death will receive the crown of life. Jesus goes on to put that in the negative by telling us that ‘the one who overcomes will not be hurt by the second death’ (2:11b). What that second death is John does not explain here. It will, however, be discussed in 20:14; here it is another example of an anticipatory reference. In any case, it is part of what Paul meant by the term ‘more than conquerors’ that he used in his letter to the Romans:

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

(Rom. 8:37–9)

If you have been given the crown of life, no death can reach you.

Finally, one cannot help noticing that the crown of life is awarded posthumously. What an enormous challenge to our faith in the one who wore a crown of thorns for us!

The letter to Smyrna is brief and to the point. It offers no immediate relief – just a limitation in the duration of the suffering and a promise of an imperishable crown. The credibility of this message stands or falls with the resurrection of Jesus, as does everything else.

This is the second of the seven letters. We shall see in due course that its message is balanced by that of the second-to-last letter, in which the church in Philadelphia is promised protection from suffering. This is evidence of a literary symmetry in the ordering of the letters that supports the balance of their overall teaching.

6

The letter to Pergamum

And to the angel of the church in Pergamum write: ‘The words of him who has the sharp two-edged sword.

‘I know where you dwell, where Satan’s throne is. Yet you hold fast my name, and you did not deny my faith even in the days of Antipas my faithful witness, who was killed among you, where Satan dwells. But I have a few things against you: you have some there who hold the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, so that they might eat food sacrificed to idols and practise sexual immorality. So also you have some who hold the teaching of the Nicolaitans. Therefore repent. If not, I will come to you soon and war against them with the sword of my mouth. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, with a new name written on the stone that no one knows except the one who receives it.’

(2:12–17)

The city of Pergamum (or Pergamon, modern-day Bergama) is about 35 miles (110 km) north of Smyrna and about 15 miles (25 km) from the coast. This was an impressive city, about the same size as Ephesus, that for a time was the capital of the province of Asia, until that role passed to Ephesus. It was dominated by an acropolis 1,100 feet (335 m) high, combining the cultural influences of Greece and Rome. The city’s loyalty to Rome was reflected in the fact that it boasted the first temple in the province of Asia to be dedicated to the Roman imperial cult,1 which gave it unique status and influence. On the acropolis there were further temples to Athena, Dionysus and Demeter, as well as a gigantic altar, 110 by 120 feet (33 x 36 m), devoted to Zeus. This was a monumental construction built in the first half of the second century bc during the reign of Eumenes II and decorated with a huge, impressive frieze that depicted a legendary battle, known as the Gigantomachy, between the Olympian gods and a mythical race of giants.

Many years ago, I saw a reconstruction of this altar during a visit to the Pergamon Museum in Berlin. It gave me a sense of the raw power and presence of paganism that dominated the atmosphere in which the believers in Pergamum had to live. It was not without reason that Pergamum was the religious capital of Asia at the time, whatever its civic status, as there was fierce rivalry between it and Ephesus.

The city also boasted a stadium, a theatre, and one of the steepest amphitheatres in the world with a capacity of 10,000 people. An aqueduct brought water from a source 25 miles (40 km) away, and the city had a highly advanced sewage and water system. It is nowadays a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Pergamum was also a medical centre based on a temple and spa complex dedicated to the worship of Asclepius, the Greek god of healing. The famous physician Galen was born there not long after the letter to the church was written. The city was also a centre of learning, boasting a huge library, second only to that in Alexandria.

The Sender of the letter identifies himself as the one who has the sharp two-edged sword, a feature that, unusually, is mentioned twice in the letter. His first comment to the church is not about their works, as it was with the other churches, but about their situation: he knows they live where Satan’s throne is. This concept of a satanic throne on earth will appear later in the book on a much grander scale in connection with the rise of the beast. We meet it first here, and it clearly indicates that Pergamum was a seriously dangerous zone in which to live and bear witness to Christ. Was this throne an allusion to the altar of Zeus, which from a distance looked like a colossal throne? Or was it (also) that behind the enforced imperial cult connected with that altar, and the array of false gods and their shrines in Pergamum, was the malign influence of the devil, the god of this world who promotes its idolatrous ideologies?

Paul might well have said of Pergamum what he wrote to the Corinthians: ‘The god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God’ (2 Cor. 4:4). It is a fitting description, because the Pergamum church is represented as a light-bearer, and that light was being resisted by God’s enemy the devil to such an extent that it looked as if his very throne was there. Sadly, the devil got support from the Roman ius gladii, the sword of the state, which may well have been the sword that was used to kill ‘Antipas my faithful witness’ (2:13). According to Eastern Orthodox tradition, this man was appointed bishop of Pergamum by the apostle John during the reign of Nero. Whoever he was, the lovely thing here is that the glorified Son of Man, the Lord who was earlier described as ‘the faithful witness’ (1:5), acknowledges Antipas as ‘my faithful witness’. What a magnificent accolade to be conferred on a believer!

Even though Antipas had been martyred among them, possibly during Domitian’s reign, the believers in Pergamum had not been frightened into denying their faith in Christ. To borrow from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, the Pergamum church had followed the injunction to put on the whole armour of God:

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armour of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places . . . and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

(Eph. 6:10–12, 17)

However, all was not well in the church at Pergamum, as Christ’s letter goes on to point out:

I have a few things against you: you have some there who hold the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, so that they might eat food sacrificed to idols and practise sexual immorality. So also you have some who hold the teaching of the Nicolaitans.

(2:14–15)

We saw earlier that these Nicolaitans were active in Ephesus. Their teaching is now illustrated by reference to a major OT incident that occurred during the Israelites’ desert journey from Egypt to Canaan. It is described in detail in Numbers 22 – 24, and clearly John expected his readers to be acquainted with the story. It is referred to in two other places in the NT, 2 Peter and Jude, letters written late in the apostolic era when false teaching had made deep inroads into some churches, leading to immorality and idolatry. The setting is that the people of Israel had reached the plains of Moab just across the River Jordan from the promised land. The Moabites, aware of the previous triumph of Israel over the forces of the Amorites, felt threatened and scared of what might happen to them and decided to do something to pre-empt a massacre. Their king at the time, Balak, sent messengers to hire a certain Balaam to come and use his reputed prophetic and occult powers to curse the Israelites and thus enable Balak to defeat them. There is an interesting point here that in Hebrew the name Balaam means something like ‘curser’ or ‘destroyer’ (or ‘swallower’) of the people,2 whereas the name Nikolaitan derives from the Greek nikaō (to conquer or vanquish) and laos (people). That makes the two names etymologically similar and perhaps is why Balaam appears here as a prototype or thought model for the Nikolaitans – both their names very suitable descriptors of what they were: purveyors of ‘destructive heresies’, as Peter puts it (2 Pet. 2:1).

By all accounts Balaam was a greedy man who, like many since, saw his ‘religious’ activities as a way of making money. In short, as Peter puts it, the man ‘loved gain from wrongdoing’ (2 Pet. 2:15). However, God intervened and spoke to Balaam in several unmistakable ways, including having the man’s donkey rebuke him, a story much loved by children. He found himself powerless to curse Israel, and only blessing came out of his mouth, much to the fury of Balak. However, although God had spoken to him and he knew it was wrong to do so, Balaam, apparently, never abandoned his paganism or greed for gain and went on to teach Balak how to weaken Israel by using Moabite women as honeytraps to seduce the Israelite men into immorality and feasting on food sacrificed to idols. No detail is given of how Balaam actually engineered this, but the fact that he did is a reasonable inference from Numbers, which describes the resultant orgy at Shittim and its aftermath (Num. 25). Years later, when the nation of Israel had once again fallen into evil and immoral ways, the prophet Micah reminded the people what had happened with Balaam:

O my people, remember what Balak king of Moab devised,

and what Balaam the son of Beor answered him,

and what happened from Shittim to Gilgal,

that you may know the saving acts of the Lord.

(Mic. 6:5)

In Jewish tradition, Balaam is regarded as a wayward pagan soothsayer, magician and diviner who caused Israel to stumble. In rabbinic literature he is called rasha – the wicked one.

The NT is very open about the corrupting power of false religion that markets and sells ‘salvation’ as a commodity. Twice over, Jesus dealt with this practice in the very Temple in Jerusalem that was his Father’s house by overthrowing the tables of the racketeering money-changers. Jesus was outraged at this portrayal of God as a money-grabber rather than a God who wished to give his salvation free of cost to anyone who repented and believed. It happens inevitably when religious leaders are unregenerate and have no personal experience of the generosity, grace and forgiveness of God.

Yet the temptation to profit from religion is so strong that even one of Jesus’ twelve disciples was infected by it. The tragic story of Judas was followed by that of Ananias and Sapphira. And it didn’t stop there; for as time went on, false teachers crept into the Church and, following Balaam’s mad ways, pretended to be ministers of the gospel when they were solely motivated by financial gain and/or sex and/or power. And some of them had crept into the church in Pergamum – and, sadly, they creep into many churches today, at a time when such attacks are even more powerful and insidious. The people of the first century did not have to combat the flood of pornography on the internet or the disruption caused, ironically, by social media. We live in an age where water authorities – in the UK at least – are constantly accused of dumping effluent into the environment and poisoning our rivers and lakes. What about the moral effluent that streams from millions of little screens and poisons the minds of vast swathes of the earth’s population who are addicted to their smartphones and tablets? Many young people are glued to such screens for hours a day, doing irreparable damage to their minds and brains.

What Peter and Jude have to say about the perpetrators of such evil is damning. Here is the context of Peter’s reference to Balaam:

But these, like irrational animals, creatures of instinct, born to be caught and destroyed, blaspheming about matters of which they are ignorant, will also be destroyed in their destruction, suffering wrong as the wage for their wrongdoing. They count it pleasure to revel in the daytime. They are blots and blemishes, revelling in their deceptions, while they feast with you. They have eyes full of adultery, insatiable for sin. They entice unsteady souls. They have hearts trained in greed. Accursed children! Forsaking the right way, they have gone astray. They have followed the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved gain from wrongdoing, but was rebuked for his own transgression; a speechless donkey spoke with human voice and restrained the prophet’s madness.

(2 Pet. 2:12–16)

No doubt Pergamum was a typical Roman, hypersexualised swinging city. It is likely that doctrinally these false teachers were antinomian, perverting the doctrines of God’s love and grace by misinterpreting the freedom the gospel brings as licence for people to live immoral lives, backed up with familiar slogans like ‘All that matters is love’ or ‘Do it – you are free!’ The early apostles, particularly Paul, had to be constantly alert to this trend, which of course was the exact opposite of a gospel that demanded repentance from sin and acceptance of Christ as Lord.

Paul described such false teachers as ‘depraved in mind and deprived of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain’ (1 Tim. 6:5). In the contemporary world we find all too many false teachers promoting a ‘wealth and prosperity gospel’, deluding believers into thinking that God wants them to be wealthy (in financial terms) and that if only they will believe and donate their money to these teachers (of course!), they will receive a vast return. This ‘gospel’ is completely bogus and has led to the financial and moral ruin of many people who have been taken in by it.

Paul went on to explain that

there is great gain in godliness with contentment, for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.

(1 Tim. 6:6–10)

Paul is not teaching that God will not prosper us materially in life. The Lord often does, yet there is no guarantee that he will do so. We are encouraged to be content to live as stewards of what God entrusts to us, whether little or much.3

In the light of all of this, Christ commands the church in Pergamum to repent; otherwise he will come soon (in temporal judgement) and war against them (the Nicolaitans) with the sword of his mouth. The Greek word for ‘war’ here is one from which we derive the English ‘polemic’. Presumably, the meaning is that some faithful teacher in Pergamum will take up the battle to correct the false teaching by exposition of the word, which is the sword of God’s Spirit. At this point, all the churches are asked to listen: this sort of thing can happen anywhere at any time. In fact, it is a major issue today with far too many incidences of Christian leaders not only falling into sexual immorality themselves but also corrupting others to do the same, often through lack of accountability.

However, to the genuine conqueror, the true believer, in Pergamum, the Lord promises: ‘I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, with a new name written on the stone that no one knows except the one who receives it’ (2:17). Manna was the food supplied by God during the tough desert journey, to which Balaam provided a tempting alternative. False teaching feeds on dissatisfaction, and the Nicolaitans, like Balaam before them, offered the people the wrong kind of food. Many suggestions have been made as to the significance of the white stone, including that it was a stone used for voting – white for not guilty and black for guilty. Having a uniquely personal name known only to oneself is indicative of intimacy. Balaam provided the wrong kind but, to the overcomers in Pergamum, Christ promises to give the right kind; for we all need intimacy, since we were created that way. That promise remains valid for us today – and how we need it, we who live in a world where moral disaster is only a few clicks away!

Finally, we should note that the use of the story of Balaam in this letter is not typology. It is not even symbolism. The sins of Balaam and Balak are not symbols of the sin in Pergamum; they are the very same sins.

There is an obvious challenge here to church leaders today to familiarise themselves with the OT so that they know how to apply it to their current situations.

7

The letter to Thyatira

And 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 feet are like burnished bronze.

‘I know your works, your love and faith and service and patient endurance, and that your latter works exceed the first. But I have this against you, that you tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing my servants to practise sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols. I gave her time to repent, but she refuses to repent of her sexual immorality. Behold, I will throw her onto a sickbed, and those who commit adultery with her I will throw into great tribulation, unless they repent of her works, and I will strike her children dead. And all the churches will know that I am he who searches mind and heart, and I will give to each of you according to your works. But to the rest of you in Thyatira, who do not hold this teaching, who have not learned what some call the deep things of Satan, to you I say, I do not lay on you any other burden. Only hold fast what you have until I come. The one who conquers and who keeps my works until the end, to him I will give authority over the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron, as when earthen pots are broken in pieces, even as I myself have received authority from my Father. And I will give him the morning star. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’

(2:18–29)

Little is known of Thyatira. Hemer, rather wryly, says: ‘The longest and the most difficult of the seven letters is addressed to the least known, least important and least remarkable of the cities.’1 It appears to have been a garrison town and trade centre that thrived on dyeing, cloth manufacture, and many minor industries such as pottery, tannery and metal-working. It was also a centre for the slave trade. The businesswoman Lydia who opened her home to Paul and his team in Philippi was a trader in purple cloth from Thyatira, and the gospel may have reached the city through her. She is an early example of gospel patronage.2

Here is a summary of the letter:

ARecipient: angel of the church of Thyatira.

BSender: ‘The words of the Son of God, who has eyes like a flame of fire, and whose feet are like burnished bronze.’

CAppraisal – positive: ‘I know your works, your love and faith and service and patient endurance, and that your latter works exceed the first.’ Appraisal – negative: ‘But I have this against you, that you tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing my servants to practice sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols.’

DA call to respond: ‘I gave her time to repent, but she refuses to repent of her sexual immorality. Behold, I will throw her onto a sickbed, and those who commit adultery with her I will throw into great tribulation, unless they repent of her works, and I will strike her children dead. And all the churches will know that I am he who searches mind and heart, and I will give to each of you according to your works.’

EAppeal to the faithful: ‘But to the rest of you in Thyatira, who do not hold this teaching, who have not learned what some call the deep things of Satan, to you I say, I do not lay on you any other burden. Only hold fast what you have until I come.’

FA promise: ‘The one who conquers and who keeps my works until the end, to him I will give authority over the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron, as when earthen pots are broken in pieces, even as I myself have received authority from my Father. And I will give him the morning star.’

GThe injunction: ‘He who has an ear, let him hear.’

By contrast with the failure of Ephesus in this regard, Thyatira had maintained its love in faithful service and its works had gone from strength to strength. One can imagine it was, at least at first, a friendly, outgoing, popular church to which it was easy to invite guests – perhaps under the early influence of Lydia? However, there was a major problem brewing. Whereas Ephesus had let go (aphēkes = left or abandoned) its first love, Thyatira had (lit.) let go (apheis = allowed or tolerated) Jezebel. Although they were different churches, it is a fact that one extreme often leads to the other – even in the same church. If a church becomes loveless and fault-finding, a reaction can set in, blaming doctrine for the problem and pushing for less doctrine and more love. The tragedy is that ‘love’ can become sentimental and ‘touchy-feely’ and, worse still, sexualised under the leadership of permissive and unscrupulous people such as the Jezebel named here. The link between spiritual and moral infidelity can be very strong.

In the letter to Pergamum, the behaviour of the false teachers was described by means of an OT reference to the experience of the Israelites with Balaam as they neared the promised land. Now, in the letter to Thyatira, there is a similar OT reference, this time to the reign of King Ahab of Israel and his wife Jezebel. She had persuaded him to introduce into Israel the pagan worship of the Tyrian god Baal-Melkart (1 Kgs 16:29ff.). We need not, of course, imagine that the self-styled prophetess in Thyatira was actually called Jezebel, any more than we should imagine that it is only women who lead God’s people astray, as Paul made abundantly clear both to the church in Corinth and to the elders in Ephesus. In any case, Jezebel was not rebuked for her gender but for her teaching. Balaam was a man, Jezebel a woman, and they both taught the same thing. One wonders whether she had anything to do with the Nicolaitans in Ephesus and Pergamum, as her influence parallels theirs.

A pervasive relativist ethic with its rejection of absolute truth has today opened the floodgates to permissive teaching of all kinds, enabling contemporary Balaams and Jezebels to invade churches and resulting in, among other things, sex scandals involving church leaders and the covering up of abuse. The mention of eating food sacrificed to idols in connection with immorality is a reference to involvement with the trade guilds in many, perhaps all, of these seven cities and many others. In order to follow their trade, craftspeople usually had to join the appropriate guild, somewhat like a trade union today. Otherwise, they might not even be able to do business. That could create difficulty for Christian believers. Typically, the guilds would put on members’ banquets that involved food that had been sacrificed to idols from the local temple. In addition, alcohol-fuelled licentiousness was common. Jezebel and her followers were probably urging some form of ‘Love conquers all’ permissive philosophy involving syncretism between the guilds and the imperial cult in order to make it easier for Christians to ‘fit in’ without being so noticeable. After all, the ‘Who are we to judge, let’s be tolerant, just keep your head down and enjoy it’ line is easy to follow, especially if there is commercial advantage in doing so and keeping in with the guild. Such peer pressure was enormous.

Imagine yourself in that situation. You have been developing a business with some success. A friend suggests you come along with him to the guild dinner as a potential new member. At it you are told of all the business advantage that membership of the guild will bring. The host then says that the whole evening is under the patronage of Artemis (Diana) and that the meal consists of food that has been formally sacrificed to her. Now what do you do? You are a Christian. You don’t think the goddess Artemis is real. Yet the guild members at least acknowledge her patronage. Can you take the advantage of guild membership without being spiritually and morally implicated?

The answer was no. In Acts 15:28–9 an apostolic decree was made forbidding the eating of food sacrificed to idols, and that was backed up by an equivalent statement by Paul to the Corinthian church:

Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said,

‘I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them,

and I will be their God,

and they shall be my people.

Therefore go out from their midst,

and be separate from them, says the Lord,

and touch no unclean thing;

then I will welcome you,

and I will be a father to you,

and you shall be sons and daughters to me,

says the Lord Almighty.’

Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God.

(2 Cor. 6:14 – 7:1)

These issues are still with us today: a Christian man, invited to join the Freemasons for business connections and advantage, would do well to think about the fact that their god Jahbulon is, as its name indicates, an eclectic mix of Jahweh (= Yahweh, God’s name) with the Babylonian Bel and the Egyptian On – the latter being pagan deities.

Furthermore, idolatry is pervasive in countries with large populations of Hindus and Buddhists. Ancestor and spirit worship is practised today in, for example, India, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Sri Lanka, China, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Nepal, Bhutan, Tibet and Vietnam. In addition, animistic tribal religions thrive in many parts of the world. It is no exaggeration to say that billions of people in the contemporary world worship idols and spirits of different kinds, including those of ancestors.

The above cultures are dominated by public religious festivals and rituals that are an integral part of social and family life and often involve eating food sacrificed to idols or spirits. They may also involve attempts to communicate with the dead. That inevitably creates immense problems for Christian believers, for deciding not to participate in these ceremonies and rituals may have harsh consequences. Those who don’t take part run the risk of being disowned and even rejected by their communities and families. That will then bring shame on their families for having a member who rejects their culture and, by implication, the family and their ancestors. Think for example of the difficulty faced in an intensely patriarchal society by an eldest son who, because he is a Christian, believes in filial piety but refuses to participate in the Chinese funeral of his father. Persecution may well ensue as a result of the son’s perceived ‘unfilial’ behaviour.3 Or think of a Christian person who inherits some ancestor tablets from her parents. In Taoist thinking, the spirits of the ancestors reside in these tablets, which have the power to bless or curse the descendants.4

From the sixteenth to the eighteenth century there was a major controversy within the Roman Catholic Church about what attitude should be taken towards allowing Chinese converts to participate in traditional rites. The Jesuits argued that the rites were social and not religious and so participation should be permitted. Yet Pope Clement XI issued an edict in 1715 condemning the Chinese rites. It contained the following statement:

The spring and autumn worship of Confucius, together with the worship of ancestors, is not allowed among Catholic converts. It is not allowed even though the converts appear in the ritual as bystanders, because to be a bystander in this ritual is as pagan as to participate in it actively.5

However, in 1939, Pius XII ordered a relaxation of attitudes in his Plane Compertum decree:

It is abundantly clear that in the regions of the Orient some ceremonies, although they may have been involved with pagan rites in ancient times, have – with the changes in customs and thinking over the course of centuries – retained merely the civil significance of piety towards the ancestors or of love of the fatherland or of courtesy towards one’s neighbours.6

It was not long afterwards that China established diplomatic relations with the Vatican.

Nevertheless, many believers today are not happy with such a syncretistic resolution, and the issue is clearly as pressing for them as it was for those who received the Revelation letters in the first century. Here, for example, are some of the questions facing believers in Cambodia, as listed by Forrest McPhail.7 What answers would you give to them?

•At Chinese New Year can believers eat food offered to the ancestors with their family and friends? If they don’t participate in the worship part, may they still eat the offered food with family after the worship?

•At Cambodia’s Festival of the Dead, when most Cambodians are at the temples having a great time and eating food blessed by the monks, what should/can Christians do? Is it acceptable for them to go to the temple just to have fun while avoiding the sacrifice and the eating of offered food?

•When a family gathers during religious holidays to make cakes or special food for the festival, can believers join in and make food with them – even if they know that the food is ultimately going to be used in idol worship?

To attempt to answer these questions would involve detailed consideration of the key NT text on the matter, 1 Corinthians 8 – 10, which is beyond the scope of this book. Nevertheless, because it is prominent in Revelation, we should not leave the topic of idolatry before observing that it takes very different forms for different people. It need not be crudely pagan, such as reneging on God and overtly worshipping a pagan deity as the Athenians or Corinthians did – and likewise the people of Israel at times in their history. It could be the worship of nature, Gaia, or the more sinister occult worship of spirits, demons or the devil himself (who is behind it all, anyway, as ‘the god of this world’ – notice the phrase ‘the deep things of Satan’ in 2:24). We should be aware that idols of this sort are not necessarily loved by their adherents – many people fear their idols – but they are trusted. In that sense, idols are what we put our trust in instead of God. Or it could be the less overt but equally damaging non-religious idolatries – love of and trust in celebrity, image, status, possessions, money, sex, power, and a host of other things that characterise so much of the world today, especially the West. The NT says that covetousness is idolatry, so idolatry is but a step, or a click, away from any of us (Eph. 5:5).

Challenging idolatrous culture in the name of Christianity needs courage, truthfulness, and wisdom to do it with sensitivity and understanding so as not to cause unnecessary offence. However, in Thyatira, there was a false teacher whose syncretism needed to be confronted. Ephesus would not have tolerated someone like her for a moment, but there was, apparently, no one in Thyatira who took doctrine and morality seriously enough to take her on, although there is a hint in the letter that some kind of attempt must have been made, since she didn’t convince everyone. She had been given time to repent but showed no inclination to do so, and the Lord gives a solemn warning that he would therefore intervene directly in temporal judgement with the result that some of her followers would become ill and others even die. This is precisely the kind of warning about the consequences of immoral behaviour that Paul had earlier given to the church at Corinth (1 Cor. 11:27–34). Thyatira is told that such an intervention would be a salutary lesson, not only for it but also for all the churches.

This devastating indictment of Thyatira is delivered by the ‘Son of God, who has eyes like a flame of fire, and whose feet are like burnished bronze’ (2:18).8 We can imagine that those fierce blazing eyes had ripped open the church’s shameful secrets and behaviour and had shaken the congregation to the core as they were exposed. The psychological effect of watching eyes has been investigated by scientists, as shown by the following summary of a research project:

We examined the effect of an image of a pair of eyes on contributions to an honesty box used to collect money for drinks in a university coffee room. People paid nearly three times as much for their drinks when eyes were displayed rather than a control image. This finding provides the first evidence from a naturalistic setting of the importance of cues of being watched, and hence reputational concerns, on human cooperative behaviour.9

The lack of a sense of the existence of a watching God is responsible for a great deal of evil. Mathematician David Berlinski tells a poignant story to illustrate this:

Somewhere in Eastern Europe, an SS officer watched languidly, his machine gun cradled, as an elderly and bearded Hasidic Jew laboriously dug what he knew to be his grave. Standing up straight, he addressed his executioner. ‘God is watching what you are doing,’ he said. And then he was shot dead. What Hitler did not believe, and what Stalin did not believe, and what Mao did not believe, and what the SS did not believe, and what the Gestapo did not believe, and what the NKVD did not believe, and what the commissars, functionaries, swaggering executioners, Nazi doctors, Communist Party theoreticians, intellectuals, Brown Shirts, Black Shirts, Gauleiters, and a thousand party hacks did not believe, was that God was watching what they were doing. And as far as we can tell, very few of those carrying out the horrors of the twentieth century worried overmuch that God was watching what they were doing either. That is, after all, the meaning of a secular society.10

A former president of the Royal Society, Lord May, not a religious man, once wrote, rather surprisingly: ‘Given that punishment is a useful mechanism, how much more effective it would be if you invested that power not in an individual, but in an all-seeing, all-powerful deity that controls the world.’ He felt that such a system would be ‘immensely stabilising in individual human cultures and societies’. Thus, in his view, ‘a supernatural punisher may be part of the solution’.11

The grim reality is that what is happening in this age of machines is that the all-seeing God of the Bible is being rejected but being replaced by highly intrusive surveillance systems that utilise artificial intelligence to keep track of citizens and check on their loyalty to the state apparatus. We shall have more to say about such systems later.

The church at Thyatira – and many other places – had failed to stand against the immoral tide. Lured by a false concept of ‘love’ fuelled by the absence of a healthy hatred of evil, they were about to learn the hard way that the Lord’s eyes search ‘mind and heart’ (2:23). The word translated ‘mind’ here is actually the Greek for ‘kidneys’. This is in keeping with the ancient biblical use of parts of the human anatomy to represent psychological states – the heart, for example – a usage still with us today. Historian of medicine G. Maio writes that Hebrew tradition regarded the kidneys and the heart as the most important internal organs:

In the Old Testament most frequently the kidneys are associated with the most inner stirrings of emotional life. But they are also viewed as the seat of the secret thoughts of the human . . . the kidneys thus are primarily used as metaphor for the core of the person, for the area of greatest vulnerability.12

Those most inner stirrings would include motives and, since we now know that the kidneys perform an essential filtering process removing waste products from the blood, it is not unreasonable to say that the kidneys fit the bill as the object of the Lord’s searching even better than the ancients knew. The lesson is important for all Christians: the Lord is not only interested in what we do but will also evaluate our motives for doing it.

There is a sharp contrast between Thyatira and Ephesus. Paul had told the members of the church at Ephesus to be vigilant, lest they let go of their first love and lose their witness. Now Thyatira, commended for its love, fails disastrously in vigilance, falls into a perversion of love and is in danger of losing its witness. Each church needed to repent for exactly the opposite reason.

The church at Thyatira is said to ‘tolerate’ Jezebel. In the contemporary world this is a major issue that increasingly creates difficulty for Christians with a conscience. ‘I tolerate you’ used to mean that I disagree with you but will uphold your right to your views, providing you hold them without intent to injure me. Now it has come to mean that I must approve of your views, whatever they may be, and not disagree with them in case I give offence. As a result of this kind of political correctness, Christians get accused of hate speech simply by communicating the Christian message. The result is that many have been frightened into silence.

In his book That Hideous Strength: How the West was lost,13 Melvin Tinker analyses why our culture has been so deeply permeated by political correctness, attributing it to what has come to be called ‘neo-Marxism’ or ‘cultural Marxism’ as developed in the 1930s by Herbert Marcuse of the influential Frankfurt School. Marcuse’s agenda was to ‘break the universe of meaning’ by destabilising the use of language. He attempted, like Jezebel in Thyatira, to revolutionise society by throwing off all sexual restraint and traditional values in favour of what he called ‘polymorphous perversity’. Over the years, this ideology has permeated the Western academy with its poisonous cancel culture. Professor Peter Jones says that its sexual agenda is nothing less than a remaking of human identity by eradicating

by any means possible embodied gender distinctions, which are the final bulwark of creational difference, written into our DNA. The goal is no longer a classless society but a classless mind and a genderless body – no longer just a fair deal for the worker but a transformation of the human psyche!14

Blocking the path of those who promote this agenda is the divine institution of marriage – as they themselves readily admit. At the Sydney Writers’ Festival in 2012, US-Russian activist Masha Gessen said:

It’s a no-brainer that [homosexuals] should have the right to marry, but I also think equally that it’s a no-brainer that the institution of marriage should not exist . . . Fighting for gay marriage generally involves lying about what we are going to do with marriage when we get there – because we lie that the institution of marriage is not going to change, and that is a lie.

The institution of marriage is going to change, and it should change. And again, I don’t think it should exist.15

However, the Lord’s all-seeing eyes had noticed that not everyone in Thyatira had joined Jezebel’s crowd. Some stalwart believers had seen through and rejected the seductive power of Jezebel’s machinations. Christ encourages them to hold on to what they have – the love and the good works he had already commended them for – until he comes (see 2:25). This is once again encouragement to live in the light of the larger future perspective of the coming of Christ. Once more we repeat that the sin of Jezebel is neither a type nor a symbol of the sin in Thyatira; it is the same sin.

This letter is a challenge to all of us: to live our lives transparently before the Lord with the knowledge that the one who watches over us is watching like a shepherd who loves us. And he holds out promises to those who overcome:

The one who conquers and who keeps my works until the end, to him I will give authority over the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron, as when earthen pots are broken in pieces, even as I myself have received authority from my Father. And I will give him the morning star.

(2:26–8)

We should notice the fact that the promise is for the overcomer who endures to the end. This is in keeping with the teaching of Jesus in the parable of the sower, where the only genuine ground was that which brought forth fruit ‘with endurance’ (Luke 8:15 nrsvue). Genuine conversion leads to endurance. The converse is also true: if we don’t endure, it raises the question as to whether we ever were genuine.16

The future reign of Christ and of believers

The believers at Thyatira seem to have had an authority problem: they lacked strong moral authority, and Christ promises that the overcomer will have authority at a far higher level than a local church – authority over the nations to rule them ‘with a rod of iron’ (2:27). Here is a second topic,17 ruling with a rod of iron, that is introduced in one part of Revelation but will crop up in later parts of the book. The roots of these ideas are found in Psalm 2:

I will tell of the decree:

The Lord said to me, ‘You are my Son;

today I have begotten you.

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.’

(Ps. 2:7–9)

The Son is identified in Hebrews 1:5 as Jesus Christ, and the psalm indicates that a time will come when he will rule the entire world with a rule that will involve subduing (with a rod of iron?) some of the population who will resist him. This fits in with Daniel’s later vision where he sees one like a son of man coming on the clouds of heaven:

And to him was given dominion

and glory and a kingdom,

that all peoples, nations, and languages

should serve him;

his dominion is an everlasting dominion,

which shall not pass away,

and his kingdom one

that shall not be destroyed.

(Dan. 7:14)

After the vision has been explained to Daniel, he is told: ‘But the saints of the Most High shall receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom for ever, for ever and ever’ (Dan. 7:18). Since the biblical teaching on the kingdom of God is very important as background to Revelation, we have devoted appendix A, ‘Kingdom’, to it. Readers familiar with this topic may skip it and press on. The key point here is that the prophecy of Daniel is the source of the promise that believers will reign with Christ, the Son of Man, in a future day. Jesus reinforced this in an explicit promise to his immediate disciples:

Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, I say to you, in the new world, when the Son of Man will sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.’

(Matt. 19:28)

The word translated ‘new world’ is the Greek word for ‘regeneration’. In his subsequent Olivet discourse, Jesus stated that he would sit on his glorious throne: ‘When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne’ (Matt. 25:31). This makes it clear that he is referring to his return to earth to take up rule as rightful king and heir. The description of the return of Christ to judge in Revelation 20 also includes the phrase: ‘and he will rule them with a rod of iron’ (19:15).

More generally, the promise of rule is part of the teaching of some of Jesus’ parables on reward. For instance, the parable of the minas was told in connection with Jesus’ return when he would reward the faithfulness of his servants in trading while he was absent with responsibility for various numbers of cities (Luke 19:11ff.). In his very last letter, Paul holds out a similar promise of reigning with Jesus:

The saying is trustworthy, for:

If we have died with him, we will also live with him;

if we endure, we will also reign with him;

if we deny him, he also will deny us;

if we are faithless, he remains faithful –

for he cannot deny himself.

(2 Tim. 2:11–13)

The letter to the Hebrews cites the OT as a precedent for human involvement in rule in the world to come (Heb. 2:5–8). This theme appears several times in Revelation. It is part of the content of the new song praising the worthiness of the Lamb:

for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God

from every tribe and language and people and nation,

and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God,

and they shall reign on the earth.

(5:9–10)

Similarly, as we shall see, the seventh trumpet heralds the triumphal announcement that the promised reign of God has started: ‘Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, saying, “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign for ever and ever”’ (11:15).

The same kind of language is used twice in connection with the much-discussed millennial reign of Christ, which we shall consider in due course:

Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection! Over such 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.

(20:6; see also 20:4)

Finally, almost at the end of the book we are told that God’s servants will reign for ever in the glorious world to come (22:5).

How should we Christians today respond? Does the idea of reigning in the future, that is, being involved in the administration of the world to come, simply seem so remote, vague and hard to imagine that it scarcely matters? Something like that apathetic attitude seems to have characterised the church in Corinth in Paul’s day when he wrote to them protesting against their habit of taking one another to court:

When one of you has a grievance against another, does he dare go to law before the unrighteous instead of the saints? Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases? Do you not know that we are to judge angels?

(1 Cor. 6:1–3)

Paul seems to have expected the Corinthian believers to know about the promise of reigning in the future and to act accordingly, but they had clearly not done so. And what about us? I personally think that, however little or much we know about administration, the idea that there is a world to come where, far from sitting on clouds playing golden harps as some imagine, we shall be given real responsibility is immensely attractive. For it implies that our experience in this world is related to our potential/qualification for involvement in God’s grand purposes for his new creation.

The question arises as to what that relationship is. For instance, from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century some commentators, such as J. A. Seiss, Robert Govett, G. H. Pember, G. H. Lang and D. M. Panton, held that genuine Christians might, by their behaviour, forfeit their participation in the first resurrection. Their view is known as ‘partial rapture’ and, although it is rarely heard of today, I mention it for the sake of completeness. A thorough assessment by David W. Gooding as to why this view is inconsistent with the gospel may be found on the Myrtlefield House website.18

We therefore need prayerfully to read these scriptures about reigning and ask tough questions about what their implications are for our present lives. Thyatira may have been a small and fairly insignificant church, but there was enough scope there for faithful living that would be rewarded at an unimaginably higher level in the world to come. Overcoming means believing that this is true. Do I? Do you?

The final piece of the promise to the overcomer was that they would be given the morning star. In 22:16, Jesus identifies himself as the ‘bright morning star’, and we have already discussed Peter’s wonderful metaphor of the effect of prophetic Scripture causing the morning star to arise in our hearts as we look forward to Jesus’ return. That is what the faithful in Thyatira needed to grasp on to as they sought to remain true to the Lord in the context of the pressures of the Jezebel faction. They could look to the morning star for clear direction and sense the dawning of his return in their hearts.

Ephesus and Thyatira exemplified opposite extremes, both of which are wrong – with love gone from one and perverted in the other. Is the answer, then, not to be extreme in any sense? The final letter will show us that this also is a wrong direction.

8

The letter to Sardis

And to the angel of the church in Sardis write: ‘The words of him who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars.

‘I know your works. You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead. Wake up, and strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your works complete in the sight of my God. Remember, then, what you received and heard. Keep it, and repent. If you will not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come against you. Yet you have still a few names in Sardis, people who have not soiled their garments, and they will walk with me in white, for they are worthy. The one who conquers will be clothed thus in white garments, and I will never blot his name out of the book of life. I will confess his name before my Father and before his angels. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’

(3:1–6)

Sardis was another city on a dramatic site with an acropolis, a feature of most Greek cities for defence purposes. It lay on trade routes, 50 miles (80 km) east of Smyrna and about 40 miles (65 km) south of Thyatira. It was famous as the city where the fabulously wealthy King Croesus of Lydia lived in the sixth century bc. It had impressive buildings: a bathhouse, gymnasium, and a huge temple dedicated to Artemis of Ephesus. After the time of John, there was a large synagogue in the town centre.

The Sender of the letter identifies himself as the one who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. Christ lives in the power of God’s Spirit, and he is about to direct that power against this congregation and its leadership because of their deadness. The church somehow had a reputation (lit. a name) for life, but in fact it was a spiritual necropolis. Very little life was left and even that was about to depart – a devastating indictment. It reminds us of Jesus’ similar denunciation of the sham religion of some of the leaders of his day:

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

(Matt. 23:27–8)

Image and reputation have always been a big deal, never more so than in these days of social media where the temptation to inflate one’s reputation is ever present. In an age where narcissism is encouraged, it is easy for people to fall in love with their own image and drift into lives of increasing hypocrisy – appearing to be what they are not and not appearing to be what they are. When Jesus speaks to us and says that he knows who we really are, we need to listen to him: ‘Wake up, and strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your works complete in the sight of my God. Remember, then, what you received and heard’ (3:2–3a). The church in Sardis had only a slim chance of doing anything about their situation but, nonetheless, the Lord tells them to wake up. He points them to their disastrous failure to see anything through to completion and reminds them that it was not always so. They need to get back to holding on to what they had originally received and heard when the gospel first came to them. It is a similar call to that made to Ephesus: wake up and get back to first principles, to the gospel you heard at the first, to the way you responded and behaved at the first.

The Sardis believers are warned to repent: ‘If you will not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come against you’ (3:3b). Once more, there is the threat of temporal judgement expressed in very similar terms to the warnings Jesus gave to his contemporaries about living in unreality, as if nothing was wrong, totally unprepared for his coming (Matt. 24:36ff.). The people of Sardis would remember very well that they had been caught napping before – twice, in fact. The Persian king Cyrus besieged the city in 546 bc. His troops found a way into the citadel, which was thought to be impregnable, and captured Croesus after fourteen days, and Sardis thereafter became an important centre of Persian rule.1 Croesus’s fall was remembered for centuries as a salutary warning against extreme lack of vigilance and misplaced trust in wealth.

Three centuries later, in 214 bc, the city was again captured, this time by the Seleucid king Antiochus III, who was aided, once more, by negligent defenders. It is also worth recording that in ad 17 Sardis was caught out by a devastating earthquake that Pliny described as the worst in human memory. But the church at Sardis was risking something much worse than being caught out by an enemy or a natural disaster: being caught napping by Christ himself when he came like a thief in the night when they were least expecting it, as Jesus warned his disciples about on a number of occasions.

Yet, grim as the situation was, there was a residual hope:

Yet you have still a few names in Sardis, people who have not soiled their garments, and they will walk with me in white, for they are worthy. The one who conquers will be clothed thus in white garments, and I will never blot his name out of the book of life. I will confess his name before my Father and before his angels.

(3:4–5)

People who get lazy and fall asleep are likely to get their clothes soiled, not so much in the literal as in the moral sense when we are lulled into uncritical acceptance of compromised standards. But there were some Christians in Sardis who had not let that happen, and Christ promises them that they will walk with him dressed in white clothing. This is a wonderfully encouraging promise to these overcomers. Walking with the Lord is the essence of the Christian life, and Jesus is the one who can provide us with suitable attire: he clothes us in righteousness, aptly symbolised in many cultures by the colour white. The idea will recur in 19:8 where white robes are said to be ‘the righteous deeds of the saints’.

There is a second part to the promise. Jesus says to the one who conquers: ‘I will never blot his name out of the book of life’ (3:5). Here, once more, is anticipation of a topic – the book of life – that will feature at the final judgement. The idea of names written in a book comes from Daniel 12:1–2, and Jesus himself picked it up when he told his disciples not to rejoice in their spiritual powers but that their names were ‘written in heaven’ (Luke 10:20). The concept of blotting out a name occurs in Exodus 32:32–3 and 2 Kings 14:27 and may also be a reference to the Athenian practice of blotting out of the citizen register the names of the condemned before they were executed. Since there is evidence of a Jewish community in Sardis, it may well be that some converts to Christianity had had their names deleted from the synagogue register with the consequence that they would lose state protection from the imperial cult. Christ assured them that they would not be erased from his register. There is evidence that the church in Sardis did heed the Lord’s warning in this letter, and as a result it maintained its public witness to Christ until the fourteenth century.

There is a wider point to be made here. A citizen register is a database. The contemporary world is filled with an unending variety of databases containing huge amounts of data; the buzzwords are ‘big data’. Some of these databases are compulsory registers. For instance, here are some UK examples which are fairly typical: the register of births, marriages and deaths; of those qualified to vote; of residential properties and their inhabitants; the HMRC income tax register; the NHS register; the social security register; driving licence numbers, and many other things. Then there are the databases on which we voluntarily enrol: our telephone numbers, bank accounts, mortgage and insurance details, utility account numbers, TV licence numbers, email addresses, social media such as Facebook, WhatsApp, Snapchat and TikTok, together with a thousand and one registrations with companies and services, including Amazon, eBay, Netflix and many more.

There may even be some lists that we are secretly ashamed to be on but can do nothing about it, as many a person has lived to regret. There are others that people, particularly the young, may be desperate to be on, such as the lists of those liked by a particular social media ‘friend’ at the time.

In addition to this, there are databases that are being constructed whether we like it or not, for example our internet usage, the websites we visit, the things we watch and listen to, the places we go, the people we meet, the conversations we have and the things we do that may be and increasingly are in many countries used for tracking, surveillance and social control of citizens without their permission.2 In some countries, access to certain commodities and benefits already depends on which databases one is listed on, and the removal of one’s name may well be used as a threat. One cannot help wondering if, in the future, believers will be deleted from certain databases and defined as non-persons with no access to the necessities of daily life. In Revelation 14 we shall meet one of the most sinister databases: the one that contains all those who take the mark of the beast.3 Yet, as we shall see, in the end, the most important database of all in which to be entered is the Lamb’s book of life; or, as Jesus himself put it: be glad to have your name ‘written in heaven’ (Luke 10:20).

9

The letter to Philadelphia

And 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 will shut, who shuts and no one opens.

‘I know your works. Behold, I have set before you an open door, which no one is able to shut. I know that you have but little power, and yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name. Behold, I will make those of the synagogue of Satan who say that they are Jews and are not, but lie – behold, I will make them come and bow down before your feet and they will learn that I have loved you. Because you have kept my word about patient endurance, I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world, to try those who dwell on the earth. I am coming soon. Hold fast what you have, so that no one may seize your crown. The one who conquers, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God. Never shall he go out of it, and I will write on him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down from my God out of heaven, and my own new name. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’

(3:7–13)

Philadelphia (modern-day Alasehir in Turkey) is about 30 miles (50 km) east of Sardis on a prosperous trade route to Hierapolis and Laodicea and in a fertile volcanic area known for its wines, wool and leather products. Like the other cities, it was full of temples to various deities; at one stage, it styled itself Neo-Caesarea in honour of Rome. Its founder, Attalus II, king of Pergamum, was called Philadelphus, which means ‘one who loves his brother’ – in this case Eumenes. The city had also been devastated in the earthquake of ad 17 and received considerable help from the emperor Tiberius with reconstruction.

The second letter, that to Smyrna, contained no criticism. Nor does this second-to-last letter, to Philadelphia. However, whereas in the second letter there was an unrelieved message of shut doors involving impending persecution, imprisonment and death, here we find almost the exact opposite: a message of open doors that cannot be shut. It is helpful to compare and contrast these two churches, as the letters to them (as well as the others) appear to be arranged in a symmetrical literary form in order to present a balanced message. The Sender identifies himself to Philadelphia as the holy and true one ‘who has the key of David, who opens and no one will shut, who shuts and no one opens’ (3:7). In the inaugural vision in Revelation 1, Christ is the one who has ‘the keys of Death and Hades’ (1:18). Here we have a variation on this theme embedded in a quotation from Isaiah 22:22 which describes a steward who carries on his shoulder the key of the house of David and uses it to open and shut doors, and grant or refuse access. The quotation reminds us that the risen Christ is the great Son of David who has that authority, and here he commits to using it to set an open door in front of the church at Philadelphia.

Since the key in the imagery is that of the house of David, perhaps the primary idea here is the magnificent access that believers, in Philadelphia and everywhere else, have to the house of the King of kings, access to the Holy and True One, access to heaven itself as stated in Hebrews 10:19–25. However, recalling that the main thrust of all the letters is the witness of the churches, we may presume that this open door may also represent a door for the gospel, a metaphor used by Paul on several occasions (e.g. 1 Cor. 16:9; Col. 4:3). The Lord knows that this church has ‘but little power’ (3:8). It is not strong, but it has kept his word and, presumably, when put under pressure, it has not given in and denied his name. Hence, it is granted further opportunity to witness.

As in Smyrna, there was in Philadelphia a synagogue of Jews who were not living consistently with their professed faith and who, in all probability, were tragically doing the devil’s work in opposing the gospel. This time, however, there seems to be some hope for them in that the Lord tells the church in the city that this Jewish group will one day come to acknowledge that the Christians they once despised are loved by the Messiah himself. This fits in with the larger hope that Paul expresses for his people Israel in Romans 11.25ff. There is an additional promise: ‘Because you have kept my word about patient endurance, I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world, to try those who dwell on the earth’ (3:10). The time of testing through suffering is limited to ten days in Smyrna, but they had to go through with it. By contrast, in Philadelphia they are to be protected from it. A huge difference, when one considers that these cities are only about 60 miles (100 km) apart. One automatically asks: why the difference?

Taking the two letters together, the overall message would seem to be that Jesus is the Sovereign Lord of circumstances. The challenge for any church or individual believer is to trust the Lord with our circumstances, whether or not one has an open door for witness or whether all doors seem shut and persecution looms. From the very beginning, Christians had to learn to cope with dramatic changes in their circumstances and opportunities. For instance, Peter was miraculously rescued by an angel from a prison where he had been incarcerated by Herod (Acts 12:6ff.). The shut door was opened. Yet Jesus had earlier told Peter that such protection would not be granted him for ever: one day he would be taken where he didn’t wish to go and be martyred for his faith (John 21:18–19). Similarly, as Acts records, Paul found many doors opened for him (1 Cor. 16:9; 2 Cor. 2:12). He was protected time after time, and even when the prison door shut on him in Rome he asked the believers in Colossae: ‘At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison’ (Col. 4:3). Yet he knew that he would one day give his life for his faith in Christ. In the meantime, he learned to have complete confidence in the Lord’s care for him, whether the door was open or shut:

Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

(Phil. 4:11–13)

All of this was in accord with the explicit teaching of Jesus:

Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. Beware of men, for they will deliver you over to courts and flog you in their synagogues, and you will be dragged before governors and kings for my sake, to bear witness before them and the Gentiles. When they deliver you over, do not be anxious how you are to speak or what you are to say, for what you are to say will be given to you in that hour. For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you. Brother will deliver brother over to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death, and you will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.

(Matt. 10:16–22)

Here it would seem that we are thinking of protection in persecution, rather than protection from it. Jesus constantly told his followers not to be afraid of what others could do to them. He gave them a sense of protection until their work on earth was done, and part of that protection was giving them firm hope for the future in the book of Revelation.

None of this should be taken to imply that facing the problems of suffering and evil is not fraught with difficulty and agony. They are among the hardest problems that anyone has to face but, as they cannot be further discussed here, we refer the reader to the very extensive literature on the topic, including C. S. Lewis’s Problem of Pain.1

Another question arising here is what is meant by the statement: ‘Because you have kept my word about patient endurance, I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world, to try those who dwell on the earth’ (3:10). The question is whether this is a general reference to the trials and persecution that are the lot of most believers, or whether it refers to a specific intense future global trial, from which some believers will be protected. My first comment is to reiterate that no believer is guaranteed exemption from suffering and persecution, as Paul wrote to Timothy in Ephesus: ‘Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted’ (2 Tim. 3:12). However, there are indications both in the OT and the NT that in the future run-up to the return of Christ and the resurrection of the dead, there will be an unusually intense time of persecution from which some will be delivered. Daniel writes:

At that time shall arise Michael, the great prince who has charge of your people. And there shall be a time of trouble, such as never has been since there was a nation till that time. But at that time your people shall be delivered, everyone whose name shall be found written in the book. And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.

(Dan. 12:1–2)

Jesus confirmed this. Speaking in his Olivet discourse about the end times, he said: ‘For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be’ (Matt. 24:21; see also Mark 13:19). The term ‘the great tribulation’ taken from Jesus’ statement recurs in Revelation 7:14. It seems therefore not unreasonable also to take ‘the hour of trial’ in the letter to Philadelphia (3:10) to be a reference to it. This would distinguish it from the sufferings of the believers in general, which are referred to in the Olivet discourse as tribulation occurring at any and all times before the great tribulation (Matt. 24:9). Fanning makes the perceptive remark that ‘the escalation at the end must not be simply collapsed into the general expectation of difficulties that anticipate it’.2 If Christ himself speaks about the great tribulation as something that has never been seen before, he cannot, by definition, be speaking of the general everyday suffering of believers.

If the hour of trial is future, then the question arises: what can it mean that the first-century recipients of the letter in Philadelphia are to be protected from it, since they would be long gone anyway? Perhaps the answer lies in the fact that the announcement of protection from the hour of trial is followed by the statement: ‘I am coming soon’ (3:11). Thinking of our earlier comments on the meaning of this phrase, we might apply it to those in a future day who listen to what the Spirit says to Philadelphia and who likewise keep Christ’s word.

Finally, we have the injunction and promise:

Hold fast what you have, so that no one may seize your crown. The one who conquers, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God. Never shall he go out of it, and I will write on him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down from my God out of heaven, and my own new name.

(3:11b–12)

Philadelphia, like some of the other cities, was in an earthquake area. There had been massive destruction during an earthquake in ad 17, and the inhabitants would probably have known of the danger of buildings being brought down by collapsing support pillars. To be made a pillar, with all its attendant stability, in the Temple of God would be a rare honour, and the reference here may be to the two free-standing pillars, named Jachin and Boaz, that stood outside the Temple of Solomon (1 Kgs 7:21). To have a name written on something or someone is an expression of ownership. It all gives confidence. Just here, we get another topic anticipation: a passing mention of the new Jerusalem that will one day come down from God out of heaven. It will be more fully described in Revelation 21.

Finally, there is evidence that the Montanus heresy started in Philadelphia. Montanus and his so-called prophetesses claimed additional revelation from God, known as the ‘New Prophecy’, which violated the strong prohibition in 22:18–19 against adding to Scripture. The Montanists expected the new Jerusalem to descend from heaven near their headquarters in the Phrygian town of Pepuza.

10

The letter to Laodicea

And to the angel of the church in Laodicea write: ‘The words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of God’s creation.

‘I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see. Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me. The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’

(3:14–22)

Laodicea was a prosperous city situated in the Lycus Valley where two important trade routes crossed, one from west to east from Ephesus to Iconium, and one from the north-west to the south-east from Smyrna and Sardis to Colossae and Attalia. Just 5 miles (9 km) to the north across the River Lycus was the city of Hierapolis, famous for its hot springs. Colossae was 9 miles (15 km) to the south-east. A reference by Paul in his letter to the church in Colossae implies that there were Christian congregations in all three cities in the early ad 60s. Speaking of his fellow worker Epaphras, Paul writes: ‘For I bear him witness that he has worked hard for you and for those in Laodicea and in Hierapolis’ (Col. 4:13). Laodicea was a large and wealthy city with impressive architecture: two theatres, a colonnaded street, and a stadium dedicated to Titus. It boasted a temple to Zeus and a lesser one dedicated to Domitian. It was famed for being a banking centre, and for having a substantial woollen industry, producing garments made of a luxurious black wool. There was a famous medical school at the temple of Men Karrou 13 miles (21 km) away, and eye salve was manufactured in the region. The area was volcanic and there were earthquakes in ad 20 and 60, but the wealth of the city was such that, as Tacitus informs us, the citizens refused imperial aid for reconstruction after the second earthquake and funded operations themselves. By the time John writes to them, they seem to have recovered their former prosperity, the cause of some of their many problems.

Let’s look at the pattern of the letter:

ARecipient: angel of the church of Laodicea.

BSender: ‘The words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning [or ruler] of God’s creation.’

CAppraisal – negative: ‘I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.’

DA call to respond: ‘I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see.’

EA loving plea: ‘Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.’

FA promise: ‘The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne.’

GThe injunction: ‘He who has an ear, let him hear . . .’

The Sender of the letter identifies himself, this time with a detail not from the vision but from the earlier description of himself in 1:5, as ‘the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of God’s creation’. There is something stern and awesome about this description that anticipates the devastating critique to follow. Christ is the Amen1 – that is, the utterly faithful one. It recalls the lovely phrase of Paul: ‘For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory’ (2 Cor. 1:20).

Remember that the voice saying these words to John sounds like a roaring waterfall, so the emotional effect of the vision at this point must have been immense – an almost unbearable voice announcing first of all that the speaker is the Creator and Ruler himself whose witness is faithful and true, and then telling the church that its witness has not been faithful and true and that he feels like spitting or vomiting2 them out.

Much has been written about the allusions to the water supply in the local region. My late friend and sometime colleague Revd E. Michael B. Green, together with M. J. S. Rudwick, wrote a very useful article in 1958 entitled ‘The Laodicean Lukewarmness’.3 They relate that Laodicea had no natural water supply and probably got water via an aqueduct from a town about 5 miles (8 km) to the south which had a hot spring. The water would not cool a great deal in the pipes and would arrive still tepid, but it was also of poor quality and emetic – as attested by many sources. They conclude that ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ in the letter refers to the waters at Hierapolis and Colossae, respectively, and the lesson to be drawn from the allusion is that Laodicea was spiritually ineffective. Christ came to the church expecting to be refreshed with a cold or a hot drink, not to get a horrible taste in his mouth. The metaphor is very vivid and very powerful. It is telling us that Jesus expects to be refreshed by us. In the ancient world, people, as they do today, liked their drinks either fresh and cool (in hot weather) or piping hot (in cold weather); a tepid drink is horrible.4 The taste that Jesus got was, in a word, smugness.

There is nothing as off-putting as a smug, self-contented group of any kind, let alone a church. The Laodiceans thought they had really made it: ‘I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing.’ Yet the reality was that they were ‘wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked’. It has been well put that ‘the idea that a Christian can unenthusiastically sing a few songs, lackadaisically shake a few hands, inattentively listen to a sermon, and reluctantly give an offering – and thereby fulfill his/her role in the church, is completely unbiblical’.5 The problem was that the Laodiceans had deceived themselves and had no idea what they were really like.

They had confused material prosperity with spiritual wealth and been lulled into mediocrity. Christ was disgusted with their hypocrisy,6 and yet he offered them a way out. They could buy real wealth from him. They could clothe their shameful nakedness with clothes from him; they could get a cure for their blindness from him. Of course, Jesus did not mean they could literally buy these things from him with the material resources in their Laodicean bank accounts. No, this was the kind of ‘buying’ spoken about long before by Isaiah the prophet:

Come, everyone 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.

Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,

and your labour for that which does not satisfy?

(Isa. 55:1–2)

The Laodiceans were in danger of being like the wealthy farmer in Jesus’ parable:

The land of a rich man produced plentifully . . . And he said . . . ‘I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’ But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich towards God.

(Luke 12:16–21)

They had no eternal perspective and had failed to be rich towards God. Yet here was a chance for them to repent and grasp an opportunity to get real, enduring wealth and lay it up in heaven (Matt. 6:21). They were also naked – not in the literal sense, of course, since they probably sported the last word in the ‘designer’ black glossy woollen garments called trimata that were made in their city. They really needed white garments that signified purity of character and integrity of life. Only Christ could supply those, and he was prepared to do so, if only they would repent.7 There is nothing as sad as a professing Christian – or indeed anyone else – in an expensive suit or dress but with a threadbare character. The use of the word ‘wretched’ here to describe them (3:17) resonates with that all-time favourite hymn by John Newton:8

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound

that saved a wretch like me . . .

And the Lord was prepared to show that amazing grace to people who, unlike Newton, had no idea what wretches they were. He was prepared to give them the kind of eye salve that no earthly pharmacist could manufacture – the kind that he made from his own saliva and put on the eyes of a man blind from birth, curing him (John 9:1ff.).

And we all, you and I, need to listen to this attentively as there is nothing more subtle than the denial of reality, which can affect any of us. As I write this book, I need to take stock openly before the Lord. Have I grown smug and self-satisfied in my old age? Is my character running threadbare? Am I going blind to my own faults and failures? Am I going to respond to the one who may, even now, be insistently knocking at my door?

Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.

(3:19–20)

Rudwick and Green suggest that there is local colour to this metaphor:

The city was set foursquare on one of the most important road junctions in Asia Minor, and each of the four city gates opened onto a busy trade route. The inhabitants must have been very familiar with the belated traveller who ‘stood at the door and knocked’ for admission.

In addition to this, under Roman law, officials had the right to requisition lodging for themselves and their people, a right that saw considerable abuse. It contrasts vividly with the knocking of Christ, who refuses to come in unless he is invited to do so. He will never force his way into anyone’s life and requisition them and their property, as happens in many warzones today where the Geneva Conventions are frequently ignored.

Amazing grace is offered by Christ when he takes the initiative and knocks at the door, both of the Laodicean church in the first instance and of their individual hearts – and ours. He has chastened them hard, not because he hates them but, as he explains, because he loves them.9 This is the first time in the sequence that the Lord speaks of his love. It contrasts with both Ephesus, who had let go their first love, and Thyatira, who had gone in for the wrong kind of ‘love’. Because he still loved the ineffective Christians of Laodicea, the Lord now points to their only hope by commanding them to be zealous and repent. That awesome voice tells them to open the door. Its handle, as in the famous painting by Holman Hunt,10 is on the inside. They still have the capacity to open it. (3.20)

If anyone hears his voice and responds by repenting and opening the door, Christ promises: ‘I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me’ (3:20). This most vivid of pictures takes us to the heart of the sad state of the church in Laodicea. It was supposed to be Christian, but the Lord Jesus was outside it, not in it. Yet he wished to enter and transform it by his presence and power. What was missing was fellowship with the Lord himself. He loved them. The issue was: did they love him? Did they want his fellowship? Would they show it by opening their locked doors and inviting him into their lives and the life of their church?

What applies to the Church applies even more to the world outside the Church, where there are many who have become mega-rich in terms of financial achievement but who are poor in absolute terms. They wear the best designer clothes but are naked in God’s eyes. The Lord knocks at their door also and invites them into a bigger world where they can find real satisfaction through salvation.

It is interesting at this point to look back at the symmetrical arrangement of churches 1, 4 and 7. In each of them, both love11 and eating is mentioned. In Ephesus they have let love go but, if they repent, they can get the food of the tree of life; in Thyatira they loved, but that love has become perverted, and they are engaging in the wrong sort of fellowship by eating the wrong food, just as had happened in Eden; in Laodicea they desperately need to have fellowship and ‘eat’ with the Lord Jesus. It was no accident that Jesus challenged Peter about his love for him at a meal in Galilee (John 21).

It is also no accident that at the heart of Christian church practice there is the Lord’s Supper – a fellowship meal with the risen Lord. How humbling it is that the Lord of glory would want to eat with us! And yet he does, and said so at that first Lord’s supper long ago: ‘And when the hour came, he reclined at table, and the apostles with him. And he said to them, “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer”’ (Luke 22:14–15). The Laodiceans were all about what it meant to them when they should have been concerned about what it meant to him.

Furthermore, Ephesus was extreme in hate and didn’t love as the Lord loved, and Thyatira was extreme in ‘love’ and didn’t hate what the Lord hates. Lukewarm, ineffective Laodicea, which neither loved nor hated, was not the answer – which is, surely, that we need to be extreme in both directions at once. We need to be characterised both by the right kind of love and by the right kind of hate. Fellowship with the Lord demands both extremes – to love him with all our hearts and to hate evil with all our hearts. Lukewarmness is totally unacceptable, as it is in any deep relationship, like that of marriage.

Finally, the promise to the one who conquers. Says Christ: ‘I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne’ (3:21). In the world, material wealth is often the pathway to power. Not so with Christ. This is a remarkable promise of fellowship at a level that is difficult to imagine: fellowship with the Lord in ruling – being seated with him, just as he is seated with the Father. The sacrificial love that lay behind Christ’s victorious conquest will be a major feature of the second part of Revelation.

11

The letters to the churches – a historical dimension?

Since the letters are contained in a book that describes itself as a prophecy, it has been thought by some that the churches form a sequence that contains a coded prediction of the entire course of church history until the return of Christ. In common with many others, I do not find this view at all convincing.1 First, the churches existed simultaneously in the first century. Second, the alignment of a particular church with a particular period of history seems forced. For instance, to suggest that the Church at present is in the Laodicean age seems frankly to be a slander on those many thriving churches that are to be found, for instance, in the Global South. In fact, all the types of churches represented by these seven have existed in every age. One can sometimes even see aspects of more than one of them reflected in a single church today!

However, there is something more to be said. Robert E. D. Clark suggests that there was a chronological order to the sequence of rewards given to the overcomers, saying that others had pointed this out, although he doesn’t name them. Clark writes:

The tree of life refers back to Eden; the second death to the Fall; the hidden manna, to the manna in the desert; the white stone to the engraved stones on the High Priest’s shoulder and breastplate; the rod of iron to Moses holding the rod of God for the defeat of Amalek; the white raiment to the garments of the priests; the pillar in the temple to the temple of Solomon, and the sitting on the throne, to Solomon’s reign in glory and peace.2

David Gooding made the rather different and more precise suggestion that the citations from and allusions to the OT in the letters to the churches form a chronological sequence starting at creation and ending at the exile, as shown in Table 3.

Table 3 Echoes of Old Testament scriptures in the letters to the seven churches of Asia

Revelation

Old Testament

The seven letters

From creation to the exile

1. Ephesus (2:5, 7)

1. Genesis 2:9; 3:22–3

I will remove . . . your lampstand from its place . . .

To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.

The tree of life was in the midst of the garden . . .

‘Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live for ever’ – therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden . . .

2. Smyrna (2:9–10)

2. Genesis 15:13–14

I know your tribulation . . . Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and for ten days you will have tribulation.

Know . . . that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years . . . and afterwards they shall come out . . .

3. Pergamum (2:14, 16)

3. Numbers 22:4–6; 25:1; 31:8

You have some there who hold the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, so that they might eat food sacrificed to idols and practise sexual immorality . . .

I will come to you soon and war against them with the sword of my mouth.

So Balak . . . sent messengers to Balaam the son of Beor . . . saying . . . ‘Come now, curse this people for me’.

While Israel lived in Shittim, the people began to whore with the daughters of Moab.

And they also killed Balaam the son of Beor with the sword.

4. Thyatira (2:20)

4. 1 Kings 16:31; 21:25

But I have this against you, that you tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing my servants to practise sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols.

And as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, [Ahab] took for his wife Jezebel . . . and went and served Baal and worshipped him.

There was none who sold himself to do what was evil in the sight of the Lord like Ahab, whom Jezebel his wife incited.

5. Sardis (3:2, 5)

5. 2 Kings 13:14, 18–20; 14:27

Wake up, and strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your works complete in the sight of my God.

The one who conquers will be clothed thus in white garments, and I will never blot his name out of the book of life.

Now when Elisha had fallen sick with the illness of which he was to die . . . he said to the king of Israel, ‘Strike the ground with [the arrows].’ And he struck three times and stopped. Then the man of God was angry with him and said, ‘You should have struck five or six times; then you would have struck down Syria until you had made an end of it, but now you will strike down Syria only three times.’

So Elisha died, and they buried him.

But the Lord had not said that he would blot out the name of Israel from under heaven, so he saved them by the hand of Jeroboam the son of Joash.

6. Philadelphia (3:7)

6. 2 Kings 19:1–2; Isaiah 22:20–2

The words of the holy one, the true one, who has the key of David, who opens and no one will shut, who shuts and no one opens.

King Hezekiah . . . sent Eliakim, who was over the household . . .

I will call . . . 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.

7. Laodicea (3:16)

7. Leviticus 18:26–8

So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.

But you shall keep my statutes and my rules and do none of these abominations . . . lest the land vomit you out when you make it unclean, as it vomited out the nation that was before you.

This table is based on first observing that the explicit references to OT in churches 1, 3, 4 and 6 are in historical order. Gooding then argued that in churches 2, 5 and 7 there are additional allusions that slot into this historical sequence. In 2, a delimited period of trial is what happened to Israel in Egypt. The concept of blotting out a name in 5 occurs in the OT in connection with Israel at the time of Jeroboam. Finally, the imagery in 7 of being vomited out occurs in Leviticus 18:28.

Clearly, the writing of the book of Leviticus itself does not date from a time that fits into the foregoing historical sequence, but the actual ‘vomiting out’ of Israel from their land did occur at the time of the exile, which means that these references and allusions to the OT are in historical order from the creation to the exile.

Let us now look a little more closely at this list of citations of and allusions to the OT in the seven letters. The believers at Ephesus are told that if they do not repent, their lampstand is going to be moved from its place. On the other hand, the one who conquers will gain access to the tree of life that is in the paradise of God. This is a direct reference to the paradise of Eden in which the tree of life grew. Because Adam and Eve ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that God had forbidden, they were displaced from the garden and forbidden access to the tree of life. They were moved out of their place because they disobeyed the word of God – the main reason why churches lose their witness today. No real life, let alone witness, is possible if, rather than feeding on the word of God, we demote its authority and blatantly disregard its teaching.

The next OT allusion in the sequence also has to do with displacement from a congenial environment to the exact opposite. The second church, Smyrna, of which no criticism is made by the Lord, is told by him that it will suffer persecution, imprisonment, even death for some. Nevertheless, that experience will be temporary, only lasting for ten days, and they are told to be faithful. The nation of Israel experienced this on a much larger scale during their time in Egypt. God had earlier told Abraham, the paradigmatic man of faith, that his descendants would be displaced to Egypt where they would eventually be treated as slaves and prisoners for 400 years. The story of Joseph introduces the problem of unjust suffering, a major topic in the Bible as a whole, one that has an impact on witness. The promise to the overcomer in Sardis is that they will not be hurt by the most awful thing that could possibly happen to anyone: the second death (see also 21:8).

In the third letter, to Pergamum, we have explicit reference to the time of Israel’s desert journey, subsequent to their exodus from Egypt. Eden was far behind them, the garden with its tree of life was inaccessible, and these weary Israelite travellers had been living on manna, a food that God had supernaturally supplied. Some of them had become tired of it and wanted something more. In that vulnerable state they came near the territory of the Moabite king Balak, who felt threatened by the oncoming nation of Israelites and determined to defeat them. He hired a man, Balaam, who had a reputation as a prophet and diviner, to curse Israel. However, God intervened and told him not to do it. The subsequent narrative is long and complicated (see Num. 22ff.), and the story ended in disaster for Israel when Balaam caused the Israelites to stumble by eating food sacrificed to idols and engaging in the immoral behaviour often associated with such activity: ‘Behold, these, on Balaam’s advice, caused the people of Israel to act treacherously against the Lord in the incident of Peor, and so the plague came among the congregation of the Lord’ (Num. 31:16).

The OT reference in the next letter, to Thyatira, is to a later time when Israel had settled in the promised land and one of its kings took the kind of evil just described to a new level. Jezebel, the pagan wife of an evil king of the northern tribe of Israel, did not only encourage the kind of behaviour Balaam had introduced but also went a step further by institutionalising in Israel the worship of the pagan fertility god Baal. This eventually led to a massive confrontation between the prophet Elijah and the prophets of Baal, during which the Lord God answered Elijah by sending fire from heaven.

The overcomer in the next church, Sardis, is charged by Christ with failing to complete its works, but the overcomer is also told that their name will never be blotted out of the book of life. Both of those ideas crop up in the time of Elisha the prophet, the successor to Elijah when Israel was in dire straits:

For the Lord saw that the affliction of Israel was very bitter, for there was none left, bond or free, and there was none to help Israel. But the Lord had not said that he would blot out the name of Israel from under heaven, so he saved them by the hand of Jeroboam the son of Joash.

(2 Kgs 14:26–7)

One of the reasons for their predicament is given in the preceding chapter where we are told that King Joash of Israel came weeping to the dying Elisha because of a dire threat from Syria. Elisha told him to shoot an arrow of victory. He did that, and then Elisha told him to strike the ground with the arrows. After doing this three times, he stopped. Elisha was not pleased:

Then the man of God was angry with him and said, ‘You should have struck five or six times; then you would have struck down Syria until you had made an end of it, but now you will strike down Syria only three times.’

(2 Kgs 13:19)

It was an example of failing to complete what he should have done and so bring the nation’s problems to a decisive end. Israel was therefore in a descending spiral, yet God in his mercy did not blot them out of history.

In the next letter, to Philadelphia, reference is made to the key of David, mentioned in Isaiah 22:22. It refers to a time when there was a great deal of corruption in Israel and hope was placed in a steward, Eliakim, who would hold the key of David and use it properly to deal with the affairs of state; but even that hope was, in the end, to give way. The end was near when the land would vomit Israel out because of its compromise and defection from the living God. That brings us to Laodicea, the last church, which was in the same danger as Israel in a much earlier age – so insipid and ineffective that it risked being spat out.

In this way, the references and allusions to the OT in the letters to the churches appear to form a historical sequence stretching from creation when the first humans were expelled from the garden, to the exile when the nation of Israel was expelled from the promised land, where both expulsions were for the same reason: disobedience to the word of God.

And that is surely important in the light of the fact that elsewhere in Revelation there are many references and allusions to the OT hope of restoration:3 first, the restoration of Israel after the exile, as for instance described in Zechariah 12:10 (cited in 1:7), but also, second, the cosmic restoration of all things in the new heavens and the new earth (described in chs 21 and 22). That leads to the question: could it be that, hidden in plain sight in the letters to the seven churches, there is the warning that Paul explicitly gives to Gentile believers in Romans 11 on the topic of witness – a theme that is repeatedly emphasised in the letters? That is, just as Israel was eventually vomited out of the land because of its compromise with idolatry, so too, because of similar compromise with the spirit of the age, the Gentiles in the Church will be spat out as the main witness to God in the world.

Specifically, in Romans 11, Paul uses the image of an olive tree and its branches as a metaphor for witness – an image that features in Zechariah’s vision of lampstands (Zech. 4), where olive trees supply the lampstands with oil. Paul likens Israel to the main branches that bore witness in the OT period. Then, through their rejection of Messiah, those branches were broken off and Gentile branches were grafted in, so that, thereafter, the main witness became Gentile. Paul then warns the Gentiles of the attendant danger of pride:

Then you will say, ‘Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.’ That is true. They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand fast through faith. So do not become proud, but fear. For if God did not spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you. Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity towards those who have fallen, but God’s kindness to you, provided you continue in his kindness. Otherwise, you too will be cut off. And even they, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in again. For if you were cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, the natural branches, be grafted back into their own olive tree.

Lest you be wise in your own sight, I want you to understand this mystery, brothers: a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And in this way all Israel will be saved as it is written,

‘The Deliverer will come from Zion,

he will banish ungodliness from Jacob;

and this will be my covenant with them

when I take away their sins.’

(Rom. 11:19–27)

The prophets warned the people of Israel that, if they fell into idolatrous practices, their punishment would fit their crime in that the promised land would vomit them out, they would lose their privilege of witness to God in the world, and they would be forcibly exiled to seriously idolatrous nations. It happened as the prophets predicted. Similarly, they lost their privilege again at a different level when they, by and large, rejected the Messiah, as the prophets also indicated.4 The Lord then directed Paul’s evangelistic energies to the Gentiles, who subsequently bore the main weight of witness to the world.

However, Paul did not lose his love for his fellow Jews and was heartbroken that they had rejected Jesus as Messiah. Nevertheless, God revealed to him that there was hope for Israel in that Paul himself was an Israelite, part of a believing remnant that would one day become the key to a major restoration of Israel, when the nation would repent and, with eyes opened, receive their once-rejected Messiah as he returned to take his rightful place.5 They would then be regrafted into the tree of witness to the world – with immense effect. Those of us who are Christians of non-Jewish heritage should not lose sight of that promise. In fact, we shall find aspects of its fulfilment later in Revelation, a book in which the Jewish dimension is more prominent than many think.

In fact, the Jewish Encyclopedia’s article on the book of Revelation by Crawford Howell Toy and Kaufmann Kohler6 ends with the words: ‘the book of Revelation remains, under its Christian cloak, a Jewish document.’ The article explains that the Jewish view is that Revelation 4:1 – 20:8 ‘contains several Jewish apocalypses worked into one, so altered, interpolated, and remodelled as to impress the reader as the work of the author of the letters to the seven churches’. In spite of this unconvincing view, the article is worth reading to show just how thoroughly Jewish much of the book turns out to be – an aspect that we must not neglect.

It is clear that the predominantly Gentile Church at the time needed to be warned that compromise and disloyalty to Christ would lead to the loss of their privilege of bearing witness to him. Those warnings started with the apostles themselves and were continued in the letters to the churches. They are even more relevant and necessary today. We have begun to see, sadly, that many churches and denominations have compromised the gospel, accommodated to the idolatry of the contemporary world and thereby lost the cutting edge of their witness. That might well be the point of the historical sequence embedded in the letters: to get across with realistic, even brutal honesty to the churches the danger of their repeating the failures of Israel in being disloyal to the Lord and losing that most precious of privileges – being entrusted to witness for the King who knocks harder and harder at their door.

And if we hear Jesus knock at the door of our own hearts, open it and invite him in, there awaits another opened door through which he will invite us into heaven to recapture a vision of the only things that can save us from disastrous compromise in our witness. For, in spite of the mess that many churches are in, there is hope. God’s great plans for the universe will not be thwarted, either by human failure or demonic power.

We have reached the end of the first part of Revelation. However, there are two further things to be said about the churches. First, each of the churches is encouraged to listen to what the Spirit says to the others. Second, the entire book was to be read out loud to each of the churches. Taking the second point first, it should not therefore surprise us if throughout the rest of the book there will be allusions to the contents of the letters that the churches to which they were most relevant would be expected to pick up. We shall mention several of them during the course of the ensuing exposition.

The first point could and should lead to a lot of thought-provoking and useful discussion. We have noticed how different the churches were, which is perhaps not surprising since the distances between them in a time when travel was slow would mean they would have little or no contact with one another. The total distance from Ephesus to Laodicea, travelling through all seven cities, is about 280 miles (450 km), which would take around twelve days to walk. Because of air travel, we can encompass the whole world in less time than that, so it would be reasonable to think of the seven churches in terms of contemporary churches in different countries – although all of the variation represented in the seven is to be seen in most countries. We shall have to content ourselves with just a few examples to illustrate the point here and leave the rest to our readers to think about and discuss in their own contexts.

We noted that the word ‘love’ occurs in the first, fourth and seventh church. What might Ephesus have learned from reading the letters to Thyatira and Laodicea? Ephesus had let go its first love; Thyatira had demonstrated some love, yet was accused of letting go Jezebel, which had introduced a great deal of immorality into the church. Might the Ephesians have used that letter to justify the hardness of their position, which, after all, the Lord had commended? But then Ephesus had to face the fact that there was something fundamental missing from the motivation behind their works that Thyatira seemed to have, and it threatened the very witness of the Ephesian church. How could they change things and avoid what happened in Thyatira? Certainly, the letter to Laodicea would show them that lukewarmness was no answer. Might they have to learn that the Lord was knocking at their heart also – that doctrinal orthodoxy was one thing and doctrinal orthodoxy with Christ in your heart another? I invite my readers to think about the relevance of this to the church situation today.

From a literary perspective, the beginnings of a chiastic structure may be seen here in that the OT reference in the first church is to the garden of Eden from which the first humans were cast out, and in the seventh church the allusion is to the land vomiting Israel out into exile.

That makes it worthwhile looking at further evidence of chiasm between the second and the penultimate churches, Smyrna and Philadelphia. There is no criticism of either church and yet Smyrna was beleaguered, threatened with prison and even death, whereas Philadelphia had been given an open door for the gospel! It is not easy for those in a Smyrna-like church, enduring persecution, to see a Philadelphia-like church, perhaps in another country, enjoying great freedom for the gospel. And yet the situation could so easily change, which means that a Philadelphia-like church needs to prepare to face possible persecution in days to come by learning from Smyrna. Here the chiasm is in contrast rather than similarity.

There is much more, which I leave interested readers to explore for themselves.

Of course, by writing this book, I am trying to bring all of the seven churches to the attention to each of my readers in order to encourage them to think about the relevance of each letter to the churches they currently attend. One wonders what the reaction of the individual churches was as they read the letters to the others. The difference between then and now is that we do not have a specific letter for our church as they did, and so we have to read all seven to find out what applies to us.

Just here, there lies an obvious danger. It is very easy to read the seven letters and react by saying: ‘I know a church like that.’ It is less easy to say, especially about one of the churches that the Lord criticises, ‘My church is like that. What should/can I do about it?’ For often the last people to recognise certain behaviour patterns are those who are themselves guilty of them. For instance, if your church has a reputation for ‘standing for the truth’ and being very clear on its doctrinal position, you might find it hard to see the signs of hardness and lovelessness creeping in that could threaten the witness of the church, as in Ephesus. However, if you are in a church where the members are always talking about their love for one another, it might be hard for you to see the danger of a drift into immorality that could destroy the church’s reputation, as in Thyatira. As a final example, do you think that lukewarm churches think of themselves as such? Hardly!

This means that we must really listen with care and honesty to what the Spirit says to all the churches, lest we miss what applies to us and what we need to do about it.

Part 2

REVELATION 4:1 – 7:17

BRIEF SUMMARY

A door opened in heaven

The throne of God and the Lamb

Seven seals opened

144,000 Jewish people and a great multitude sealed

After this I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven! And the first voice, which I had heard speaking to me like a trumpet, said, ‘Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.’

(4:1)

DETAILED SUMMARY

A. The Creator’s throne (4:1–11)

On the throne there is one with the appearance of jasper and carnelian.

Round the throne there is an emerald rainbow, and round the throne there are twenty-four thrones occupied by elders.

From the throne come lightnings, voices, thunders.

Before the throne there are seven torches of fire, and before the throne there is a sea of glass.

On each side of and round the throne there are four living creatures full of eyes who cry ‘Holy, holy, holy’ and, together with the twenty-four elders, worship God, who is worthy to be worshipped because he created all things, and he created them because he willed them to be.

B. The slain Lamb standing on the throne (5:1–14)

Who is worthy to open the sealed scroll? John weeps because no one is found who is worthy.

John hears that the Lion of the tribe of Judah has overcome. He turns and sees a Lamb standing as though it had been slain. The Lamb takes the scroll.

The living creatures and elders, holding harps and golden incense bowls containing the prayers of the saints, sing a new song that tells how the Lamb is worthy because he has ransomed people from every nation for God with his blood, and he has made them a kingdom and priests to God who will reign on the earth.

A vast throng of angels round the throne ascribe worthiness to the Lamb who was slain.

The entire universe acknowledges the worthiness of God and the Lamb.

C. The opening of six seals (6:1–17)

1White horse: international conflict.

2Red horse: civil wars.

3Black horse: famine.

4Pale horse: Death and Hades.

5The souls of the martyrs under the altar cry out ‘How long?’ They are told to wait for justice.

6There is a great earthquake, the sun turns black, the moon is bloodlike, the stars fall, the sky vanishes, and the mountains and islands are shifted from their places. The inhabitants of the earth, rich and powerful or poor and enslaved, call on the mountains and rocks to fall and hide them from the face of the occupant of the throne and of the Lamb, for the great day of their wrath has come.

D. Two groups saved and protected (7:1–17)

Four angels are seen holding back winds. Another angel comes with a seal and commands the four angels not to harm the earth, sea or trees until he has sealed 144,000 out of the tribes of Israel for protection.

An uncountable multitude from every tribe and nation is seen standing before the throne and the Lamb. John is told that they have been saved out of the great tribulation and they are before the throne because they have washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb. They serve God and are promised his protection from harm. The Lamb will be their shepherd and wipe away their every tear.

12

The throne of God

In order to get to grips with a substantial book like Revelation, we need to do more than read it linearly, verse by verse, trying to build up the meaning as we go. It is a book that we need to read many times right through, in order to get an overall sense of what it is about, so that the individual verses, when we get to them, are seen in their wider context.

Part 2 of the book is devoted to the topic of the throne of God. There is a logic to its position near the start, since the obvious question to ask after such a depressing analysis of the churches is: what kind of a throne is it that allows such a mess to happen? The transition to this topic is made by the claim in 3:21: ‘The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne.’ Also, in a book that has judgement as a major theme it is important to ask: what kind of authority is responsible for such judgements?

It therefore makes moral and logical sense that God now reveals to John the nature and rationale of his throne and government and in particular how the Lord Jesus conquered in order to sit on it. God is no despot, flaunting his power in arbitrary terror: his is a righteous throne, and he justifies his ways with the world by telling us why his judgements must inevitably come. The technical name for this is theodicy, from the Greek words for ‘God’ and ‘justice’.

This part of Revelation falls easily into four sections or movements, reminiscent of the structure of a grand opera. They follow the biblical chapter divisions and are as indicated in the above detailed summary: A, B, C, D. Each movement ends on a strong upbeat. In A, it is a crescendo of praise to God on the throne as Creator. In B, it is a crescendo of praise to Christ on the throne as Redeemer. In C, it is a crescendo of horror and fear as people call on the rocks to fall and save them from the face of the occupant of the throne and from the impending wrath of God and the Lamb. In D, it is a crescendo of praise to God and to the Lamb on the throne.

The scene is set as follows:

After this I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven! And the first voice, which I had heard speaking to me like a trumpet, said, ‘Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.’ At once I was in the Spirit, and behold, a throne stood in heaven, with one seated on the throne.

(4:1–2)

A voice like a trumpet causes John to look behind him and see a door standing open in heaven. The voice bids him to come up and be shown ‘what must take place after this’. Through the action of God’s Holy Spirit, something like a phase change occurs in John’s consciousness and he is once more ‘in the Spirit’. What John first registers represents a major assault on the atheist interpretation of the universe: a door open in heaven. It implies two things: first, that there is another world called ‘heaven’ and, second, that that world can be accessed from this world. It recalls the door into Narnia, found at the back of a wardrobe made of magic wood inside a professor’s house, that C. S. Lewis describes in his children’s classic novel The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. That door took his character Lucy, a young girl, into a different world and a different time – where a lifetime in Narnia took only a few seconds of our time. Ever since the publication of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, children have been intrigued by fantastical doors into other worlds. This door in Revelation, however, is not a door of fantasy, but a door revealing a reality parallel to our own.

We have already met the metaphor of a door twice in the letters to the seven churches. First, the Lord had set an open door in front of the church at Philadelphia – a door for evangelism. Second, the Lord was knocking at the door to gain entrance to the church at Laodicea. Both these doors are on earth. Now John sees a door into heaven.

I shouldn’t have to say it, but we need here to make sure that we avoid the kind of wooden literalism that imagines that, located somewhere in the sky above the island of Patmos, there was a literal door into heaven. What John saw was a vision, full of imagery and symbolism. However, as we should recall from our introductory discussion, the imagery stands for reality, often, as here, supersensible reality. The heavenly realm is real, and access to it is equally real, even though at this stage we can have little idea what either is really like.

One day we shall get through the door; until then, God invites us to look in. The first thing that John sees through the door is a throne – the heavenly throne of God in all its transcendent glory. An earthly throne, like that in Westminster Abbey in London, on which King Charles III was crowned on 6 May 2023, functions, as we saw earlier, as a concretised metaphor. That is, it is a literal, material object with a metaphorical significance: an ornate chair that symbolises rule and government. Similarly, what John saw in his vision was a symbol of the reality that is God’s rule. It is very important to realise that symbols are meant to help us grasp realities that lie behind them, which might otherwise be incomprehensible.

We should note that, when John hears the voice saying: ‘Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this,’ it does not mean that the throne itself comes to exist ‘after this’. For it is as eternal as God himself, as the greeting in 1:4 indicates: ‘Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come’.

We have no idea of what the throne/rule of God, who dwells in unapproachable light, actually is, since it is probably beyond both human sensory abilities and mental capacity to grasp. God here graciously descends to a level that we can (partly) understand. Revelation describes the symbols but does not give detailed explanation of the realities that lie behind them.

Yet there are things we can say. We can say what a throne stands for: government, rule and order. We can think of various kinds of order. For instance, one of the amazing things about the universe is its rational order, as revealed by science and expressed mathematically in what we call the ‘laws of nature’. Indeed, the fundamental presupposition behind all science is that the universe is rationally intelligible; that is, it is accessible, at least in part, to the probing of the human mind. Johannes Kepler once wrote: ‘The chief aim of all investigations of the external world should be to discover the rational order and harmony which has been imposed on it by God and which He revealed to us in the language of mathematics.’1

For Albert Einstein, the intelligibility of the universe was something to be wondered at. He said: ‘The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible.’ Furthermore, he regarded that comprehensibility as a miracle:

You find it strange that I consider the comprehensibility of the world . . . as a miracle or as an eternal mystery. Well, a priori, one should expect a chaotic world, which cannot be grasped by the mind in any way . . . the kind of order created by Newton’s theory of gravitation, for example, is wholly different. Even if man proposes the axioms of the theory, the success of such a project presupposes a high degree of ordering of the objective world, and this could not be expected a priori. That is the ‘miracle’ which is being constantly reinforced as our knowledge expands.2

There is no question, then, that the universe is ordered. But what is responsible for that order? Your answer will depend on your world view. For the atheist, there is no throne behind the universe; all that exists is due to the fundamental forces of nature operating according to the laws of nature, although atheism is understandably coy about where those laws come from. Nature’s processes, the ultimate realities, are therefore ultimately mindless, blind and unguided.

As a side remark, there is a danger in regarding some kind of force as the ultimate reality as it can lead to a ‘Star Wars’ view of the world, where the Force plays the role of God. The problem is that we are persons and so think (rightly) that we are superior to forces. We use them. If, as sadly sometimes happens, people come to conceive of God as a force, they may well come to believe that they can ‘use’ God, rather than allow God to use them.

However, there is a deeper problem with the view that the universe consists of mindless matter driven by blind forces, as neuroscientist Iain McGilchrist points out:

How is such an unintelligent cosmos so constructed that intelligence might arise de novo in it, engage in the business of comprehension, and find it comprehensible? If that doesn’t trouble you, you are missing something: intelligence looks disquietingly like an intelligent idea rather than a property of mindless matter.3

Quite so. Revelation shows us a throne that is occupied by an intelligent divine person. And, as a scientist, I would like to point out that this is far from a minority viewpoint. As my Oxford colleague Keith Ward has put it:

To the majority of those who have reflected deeply and written about the origin and nature of the universe, it has seemed that it points beyond itself to a source which is non-physical and of great intelligence and power. Almost all of the great classical philosophers – certainly Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Leibniz, Spinoza, Kant, Hegel, Locke, Berkeley – saw the origin of the universe as lying in a transcendent reality. They had different specific ideas of this reality . . . but that the universe is not self-explanatory, and that it requires some explanation beyond itself, was something they accepted as fairly obvious.4

Of course, for atheists, the idea that another world exists that is supernatural – above and beyond nature – is completely unacceptable, as is the further notion that it is governed by a throne that is occupied by a divine, creative intelligence. For, whereas some may admit that there is rational order in the universe, they may also point to the chaotic (moral, economic and social) disorder in our world to discredit the idea that there is a mind behind the universe that has any influence in or relevance to our world.

Now if, as I hope, you have already read the whole of Revelation several times, you will be aware that this tension, between ordered and ordering government and chaos and carnage, is reflected in the book itself. It is the tension that lies at the heart of the all too well-known problem of evil and suffering.5

The vision claims to be of a supersensible reality. In order to judge its credibility, we shall need to pay close attention to what the text actually says. Before we do that, however, we might just point out that, these days especially, science is supportive of the idea that there may be different kinds of reality. Quantum mechanics even suggests that two forms of reality may exist simultaneously.6

This description of the throne has a number of elements in common with the vision of the throne of God with which Ezekiel begins his prophecy, which is perhaps not surprising, since both visions are revelations from God. It also shows how much this vision is dependent on the OT. The first thing that strikes me as a mathematician about the vision is its highly geometrical nature. The throne is placed in the centre of two circles, one, presumably, in the vertical plane, which is the emerald rainbow. The other, in the horizontal plane, is the circle of twenty-four thrones occupied by the elders. Furthermore, the description involves a series of geometrical prepositions, which I have italicised in the summary: ‘on’, ‘round’, ‘from’, ‘before’, ‘on each side of’.7

The occupant of the throne

The text does not use the word ‘God’ but simply describes the occupant as ‘he who sat there’ (4:3). In Ezekiel’s vision the seated figure has a human likeness: ‘And above the expanse over their heads there was the likeness of a throne, in appearance like sapphire; and seated above the likeness of a throne was a likeness with a human appearance’ (Ezek. 1:26). The association of a human (Christ) with the throne will come later in this part in Revelation 5.

The first impression of the one who sat on the throne is one of radiant beauty, communicated in terms of the spectacularly vivid colours that are associated with magnificent precious stones. In Ezekiel 1 the throne itself had the ‘appearance of a sapphire’. We are told elsewhere that ‘God is light, and in him is no darkness at all’ (1 John 1:5); that he ‘dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see’ (1 Tim. 6:16). Presumably, therefore, the imagery here is meant to convey the fact that God and his throne are an incomparably and indescribably beautiful source of light in all kinds of senses. In part 1, light was a central theme – the light of witness. Now, in part 2, we meet light once more, but this time it is the coruscating light of unutterable beauty that plays around God’s throne. According to jewellers, the visual beauty of gemstones is related to five main factors to do with the effect of light falling on them: lustre, brilliance, dispersion, refraction and scintillation. The stronger the light, the more spectacular are the effects.

The introduction of an aesthetic dimension to the throne of God raises a moral question: how can we possibly think that God and his throne are beautiful when there is so much in the world that is ugly? Order and chaos, beauty and ugliness form the great paradoxes of existence. They also give us a reason why God’s judgement must eventually come. If God is a God of beauty and order, then whatever introduced ugliness and chaos must inevitably be judged and dealt with. It is for that reason, as we shall see later, that the angels in charge of the bowls in which is the final outpouring of God’s wrath are remarkable for their beauty (15:6) – not a concept we normally associate with wrath.

Before we think about Revelation’s response to this issue, there is even more beauty to see. We mentioned one aspect of it above that is full of meaning for scientists in particular: the beauty of the mathematical description of the rational order of the universe. In fact, for many scientists, beauty is a guide to truth. Nobel laureate Paul Dirac is reputed to have said: ‘This result is too beautiful to be false; it is more important to have beauty in one’s equations than to have them fit experiment.’8 What, though, about beauty itself? The late Sir Roger Scruton, a professor of aesthetics, stated the Platonic view of beauty, which became incorporated into Christianity:

Beauty is an ultimate value – something that we pursue for its own sake, and for the pursuit of which no further reason need be given. Beauty should therefore be compared to truth and goodness, one member of a trio of ultimate values which justify our rational inclinations.9

We do not arrive at beauty by a series of philosophical arguments; we perceive it directly. It is a matter, therefore, of perception, not proof.

We perceive beauty with our physical eyes (or ears), which are connected to our brains, and the nature of our awareness of what we see is something that, so far, is impenetrable to science – the so-called qualia problem. In the case of Revelation, John perceived these things in visions, which raises the question as to whether he actually saw something with his physical eyes or whether it was rather perception through the eyes of the imagination. The symbols are there to guide us to perceive the realities that underlie them. That leads me to wonder whether in the world to come we shall see (some of) these realities in some sense physically with the eyes, which must surely be an inevitable feature of our resurrection bodies.

In most works of art there are main features that are embellished by added aesthetic effects, and that leads to my next question: to what extent is the detail in the description of the throne merely aesthetic embellishment, or is it also part of the symbolism conveying more information about the nature of God’s throne and government? Certainly, some of the detail is not merely aesthetic, because the text explicitly says it is symbolic. For instance, in the first part, we are told what the lampstands and stars stand for, and in this part the fiery torches before the throne are said to represent the seven spirits of God.

Of course, the detail in the vision contributes to the picture that we are meant to see in our mind’s eye. At that level, there is an artistic dimension, and the question is: what kind of art is it? Is it like an architect’s drawing, where every detail corresponds to something specific? Or is it impressionistic, characterised by a literary or artistic style that seeks to capture a feeling or experience, rather than to achieve accurate depiction in terms of a strict formal structure? The latter would mean that some, at least, of the detail might simply be there to embellish the beauty of the scene.

How shall we decide? In cases where the text does not give us explicit guidance, the most obvious way to prevent our imagination running away with us is to check our interpretation against the rest of Scripture. That means that, if someone objects to our interpretation of a particular symbol or metaphor, then we can reply: ‘Isn’t that what Paul says in plain language in such-and-such a place, so that the symbol and metaphor are apt?’ We shall try to follow this principle, confident that our readers are capable of judging whether or not our interpretation is convincing.

After all, many of us are constantly on the lookout for illustrative material from art, literature and the natural world. It is surely legitimate also to use the Scriptures as a source of such material.

The circles around the throne

There are two circles in the vision that appear to go completely around the throne, presumably in the vertical and horizontal planes. The first is the vertical emerald rainbow. Clearly, it adds beauty to the vision. Scruton again: ‘Art moves us because it is beautiful, and it is beautiful in part because it means something. It can be meaningful without being beautiful; but to be beautiful it must be meaningful.’10

Does this rainbow, then, have a deeper meaning that adds to its beauty? As a first application of the principle enunciated just above, other scriptures indicate that rainbows have a special significance, and that at several different levels. First of all, the familiar rainbow in the sky stands as a reminder of God’s promise never again to execute judgement on sin and evil by divinely intervening within space-time and history to destroy rebellious humanity with a flood (Gen. 9:12–17). By that same token, it is also a sign of salvation, reminding us that God saved Noah and his family through the judgement in the ark; that is, the Lord remembers mercy, even in his wrath – something for which the prophet Habakkuk prayed:

O Lord, I have heard the report of you,

and your work, O Lord, do I fear.

In the midst of the years revive it;

in the midst of the years make it known;

in wrath remember mercy.

(Hab. 3:2)

Furthermore, Jesus used the account of Noah to prefigure his return in judgement:

For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.

(Matt. 24:37–9)

Therefore, the rainbow symbolises not only a past but also a future perspective in keeping with the main theme of Revelation: the return of Christ. Finally, since green is at the centre of the visual spectrum, it is a restful colour. The rainbow reminds us that, although God must and will judge, he is ever mindful of his covenant both to judge evil and to provide salvation. The past is a guide to the future, and we can find emotional, mental and spiritual comfort in that. The rainbow is God’s promise that he will keep planet earth going until his purposes for it are accomplished. That fact, however, does not diminish our human responsibility to act as responsible stewards of the biosphere.

Here we have a further reason why judgement must come. As in the days before the Flood, human evil is rampant, and the destruction of the planet and its resources seems unstoppable. God cannot let that situation go on for ever.

The twenty-four elders

We come now to the horizontal circle of twenty-four thrones surrounding the central throne. The identity of the occupants of these thrones has attracted great interest but little consensus. Some suggest that this is some kind of divine council of spirit beings, maybe representatives of an alleged twenty-four hierarchies of angels. Others claim that they represent the twenty-four divisions of Israelite priests, as described in 1 Chronicles 24:1–19, whose leaders were called elders.11 Or the twelve patriarchs of Israel and the twelve Christian apostles. Finally, some hold that they collectively represent believers of all ages in glory.

It is clearly not easy to decide who they are. And supposing we could, so what? Where would that leave us in terms of understanding the meaning of the vision? Or do we have to rest content with this circle being a mere embellishment, an artistic gloss to frame the picture?

I do not think so, because, although we do not know who they are, we are explicitly told what they are: elders. ‘Elder’ is a term of comparative age and experience. Hence, whoever they are, they must be creatures. And they are creatures on ‘thrones’ that are distinct from the central throne. What does that say about the nature of the system of government it represents?

Suppose we visit the headquarters of a large corporation housed in an ultra-modern building with a circular cross-section. We find that the top floor has a palatial, large circular central office, around which are distributed twenty-four smaller offices. What would that structure convey to us? It would signify, surely, that the central office belonged to the chief executive officer (CEO) of the company and that the surrounding offices were for the senior managers to whom the CEO had delegated authority. Putting this another way, the set-up indicates that the CEO believes in delegating authority. Now, in general, a CEO might be an autocrat who brooks no discussion of his decisions and micromanages everything by personal fiat. However, in this case, the accessibility of the outer ring of offices to the central office is more likely to indicate that this particular CEO is open to discussion regarding decisions that are made and how they are implemented, so that the occupants of the offices are not simply yes-men or yes-women. That is, the relationship of the outer circle of offices to the inner central office reflects or symbolises the fact that decisions and instructions issued from the central office have to pass through that outer circle, which therefore represents a system of checks and balances.

Similarly, in the geometry of the vision, all that proceeds from the central throne must pass the two circles. For these reasons, I would suggest that it makes sense to take the arrangement of the twenty-four thrones to show that God himself believes in delegation, checks and balances. This is a very important fact about God, since some people think that God, if there is one, is like some autocratic human leaders who will not delegate anything and micromanage their employees to such an extent that their personalities and creativity are crushed. The late Christopher Hitchens sadly thought of God like that; he once put it to me in a debate that God was like a North Korean dictator in the sky.12

Now we need to confirm our interpretation by asking if there is evidence elsewhere in Scripture that God delegates. The answer to that is overwhelmingly positive: it turns out that God delegates his authority in many ways. For instance, what appears to be a heavenly council is mentioned in the OT in what is probably the oldest book in the Bible: Job. In a famous passage at the beginning of Job we are told that God’s enemy, Satan, comes before him: ‘Now there was a day when the sons of God [Hebrew: Elohim] came to present themselves before the Lord [Yahweh], and Satan [the Accuser] also came among them’ (Job 1:6). At this council, Satan objects to God’s treatment of Job, receives permission to test Job and proceeds to do so. The interesting thing here is that there is pushback against how God is treating Job – and God accepts the point made, even though it is made by an enemy. This is clearly not a council packed with yes-men (or yes-beings).

Next, we have two passages in the book of Psalms. The first of them says:

God [Hebrew: Elohim] has taken his place in the divine council;

in the midst of the gods [Hebrew: elohim] he holds judgement.

(Ps. 82:1)

The second says:

For who in the skies can be compared to the Lord [Yahweh]?

Who among the heavenly beings [lit. sons of Elohim] is like the Lord,

a God [Hebrew: El] greatly to be feared in the council of the holy ones,

and awesome above all who are around him?

(Ps. 89:6–7)

We note that the same Hebrew word, Elohim, is translated as ‘God’, ‘gods’ and ‘heavenly beings’. The latter are presumed to be spirits.

In addition, there is a passage in Kings that depicts the functioning of God’s throne:

And Micaiah said, ‘Therefore hear the word of the Lord: I saw the Lord sitting on his throne, and all the host of heaven standing beside him on his right hand and on his left; and the Lord said, “Who will entice Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead?” And one said one thing, and another said another. Then a spirit came forward and stood before the Lord, saying, “I will entice him” . . . Now therefore behold, the Lord has put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these your prophets; the Lord has declared disaster for you.’

(1 Kgs 22:19–21, 23)

The being that offers to entice Ahab by acting as a lying adviser to him is said to be a spirit. This resonates with the passage from Job discussed just above. The prophet Daniel informs us that there are exalted angels, such as the archangel Michael, to whom God delegates responsibility for his people Israel. Not only that, but there are other spirits that resist God’s work, such as the being called the ‘prince’ of the kingdom of Persia (Dan. 10:13). We might well deduce from these passages of Scripture that God has a council that contains members who are not all on God’s side, which would mean that any decrees from his throne are subject to their scrutiny. The important principle here would then be that God wants even beings who are hostile to him to see that he is acting righteously. Moreover, Hebrews tells us that God delegates to angels the responsibility of serving believers: ‘Are they not all ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation?’ (Heb. 1:14).

God also delegates to human beings. Indeed, one particular human being is at his right hand associated with him at the highest level of government: God has committed all judgement to his Son. Jesus, who is God incarnate, publicly claimed that this unique and awesome responsibility had been assigned to him:

For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself. And he has given him authority to execute judgement, because he is the Son of Man. Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgement.

(John 5:26–9)

It is noteworthy here that God has delegated this authority to the Lord Jesus, not in spite of but because of the fact that he is the Son of Man – and so a human being.13 This enshrines the principle of judgement by peer: it is humans who have done the sinning, so God has appointed a human to do the judging, as Paul informed the Athenian philosophers (Acts 17:16–34). However, once the principle of judgement by peer is established, we can surely see that a plurality of twenty-four creatures is hardly likely to be a symbol for the Son of Man since he, though human, was not created.

Furthermore, God associates other humans with the Lord Jesus in his government and delegates authority to them. We have already seen this in the letter to the church in Laodicea: ‘The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne’ (3:21). Jesus also delegated a special role to his disciples. He promised them that they would one day sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel: ‘Truly, I say to you, in the new world [lit. regeneration], when the Son of Man will sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel’ (Matt. 19:28). We notice the timing: the disciples will sit on their thrones when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne in the new world – a clear reference to the world to come.

In this connection, Paul rebukes the church at Corinth because some members were taking their fellow believers to court: ‘Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases?’ (1 Cor. 6:2). That is confirmed by a statement in Hebrews:

Now it was not to angels that God subjected the world to come, of which we are speaking. It has been testified somewhere,

‘What is man, that you are mindful of him,

or the son of man, that you care for him?’

(Heb. 2:5–6)

The Genesis account makes it clear that God started delegating at creation. He created humans in his own image as persons with creative abilities and told them to govern the earth as his stewards. He did not make them automata, programmed to do his bidding without any awareness of it, or responsibility for it. He gave them work to do at a practical level in agriculture and a theoretical level in telling them to name the animals. That is, God was not going to do the cultivation for them; he was not going to give names to things for them. Nor was he going to explore and develop the environment for them. They were capable of making real choices and were encouraged to make them, even though their misuse of that capacity was to bring sin and evil into the world, which have plagued it ever since. That raises deep and difficult questions about the nature of God’s delegation – the relationship of his throne and sovereignty to human responsibility and freedom.14

God told the first humans to be fruitful and multiply. He has delegated the care of children to parents. I can clearly remember holding my first child, a tiny little girl, Rachel, in my arms. From somewhere the thought came into my mind that God would not bring her up for me and my wife: he had delegated that responsibility to us. It was an awesome yet a wonderful thought, because it meant that God had created us in his image with the capacity to look after our offspring and, in our case, to bring them up in the light of that teaching. God, from his central throne, so to speak, will give us his loving advice, especially through the Scriptures he inspired. We can also get advice from others – our parents, relatives and friends – but the main responsibility is ours. God is no despot in telling us what to do with our children. Fathers have specific instructions: ‘Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord’ (Eph. 6:4).

This leads me to say that it can be very instructive to compare the principles of God’s government with those of other types of government. In connection with children, think of the horrific ways in which children are controlled and manipulated in the contemporary world by evil and irresponsible parents on the one hand or by evil governments on the other – where, for instance, parents are not allowed to teach the Bible to their children. I once met a doctor in China who told me that, during the Cultural Revolution in that country (1966–76), he didn’t dare even to mention the Bible in front of his children in case they denounced him to the school authorities.

Think of ministries of education that force schools to poison the minds of children with all kinds of propaganda that destroys their childhood by confusing their thinking about their own identities; think of countries in which factory owners force children into hard labour. The list is depressing and endless.

What is more, such intrusive government is not a thing of the past. Many of the visions of Orwell and Huxley have become realities, and attempts are increasingly made to police thought itself through the use of intensive surveillance technologies that depend on artificial intelligence. There is considerable concern today on the part of thoughtful people as to what kind of government will rule the world of the future, and radical questions are being asked, even about the possibility of takeover by robots or AI in a posthuman world, as I have described in detail in my book 2084 and the AI Revolution: How artificial intelligence informs our future.15

The nature of God’s throne and government challenges all of us as to which sort of government we would like to live under. A throne like God’s that believes in loving yet firm and principled delegation of responsibility? Or an autocratic, despotic or even dystopic ‘throne’ that devalues humans and treats them as commodities?

As we compare God’s rule with others, we shall see just how attractive his is. People living in the Roman world who suffered the oppression and intrigues of the government must have been amazed when they read about God’s throne.

There is more to think about here. For God has delegated to human beings the responsibility to govern the nations of the world. Paul wrote: ‘Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God’ (Rom. 13:1). This was written at the time when Nero, a cruel and despotic ruler, was running the Roman Empire. He was hostile to God. Yet Paul understood that his authority was from God.

One way to make sense of this is to distinguish, as many scholars do, between God’s permissive will and his directive will. Nero was not God’s puppet on a string; he was entirely responsible for his own actions. Yet in some sense, God had delegated authority to him. However difficult we may find it to accept, there are unavoidable implications of God’s wonderful gift of freedom and responsibility to humans. It means that God allows them the consequences of their choices.16

The Bible records certain memorable occasions when individuals became aware of the vast responsibility that God had entrusted to them. For instance, Moses’ reaction when God told him to lead the Israelites out of Egypt: ‘Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?’ (Exod. 3:11). And David’s reaction when God promised him a son who would build him a temple: ‘Then King David went in and sat before the Lord and said, “Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my house, that you have brought me thus far?”’ (2 Sam. 7:18). That son was Solomon, and he too became conscious of the huge authority and responsibility he had been given:

And now, O Lord my God, you have made your servant king in place of David my father, although I am but a little child. I do not know how to go out or come in. And your servant is in the midst of your people whom you have chosen, a great people, too many to be numbered or counted for multitude. Give your servant therefore an understanding mind to govern your people, that I may discern between good and evil, for who is able to govern this your great people?

(1 Kgs 3:7–9)

God did not take the responsibility of exercising government away from Solomon but answered his prayer and gave him the wisdom he needed to rule. These men had some idea of the awesome nature of God’s gift of real delegation in the affairs of the world. Would that more world leaders would join them in recognising this!

And as we have already seen in the letters to the churches, God has also delegated authority and responsibility in the Church to elders, pastors, teachers and other church workers, all of whom he holds accountable for the way in which they discharge their ministries.

Finally, it is to all believers that the risen Lord has delegated the great responsibility of going into the whole world and preaching the gospel in the power of his Spirit. What a privilege it is to be a delegate, an ambassador for Christ! That he would entrust that responsibility to us is an honour without parallel. Paul was staggered at the amazing grace that God had shown by entrusting him, the ‘chief of sinners’, with the gospel (see 1 Tim. 1:12–17).

There are two further details. The elders are clothed in white garments, and they are wearing crowns. White, as explained later in 19:8, is a symbol of righteousness and purity of character. Our character development depends on many things, one of which is the way we handle the responsibilities that God has delegated to us. For the central issue is not what we do, but who we are. And God will reward us for allowing him to develop his character in us. The crowns are not diadems indicating royalty, but victory wreaths of foliage like those that are awarded for success in athletic games. Paul, using the same term as in Revelation 4, speaks of his expectation of a crown that is associated with righteousness: ‘Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing’ (2 Tim. 4:8). The crown is promised to all those who love the Lord’s appearing. And stimulating that love, which goes beyond mere expectation, is one of the prime purposes of the book of Revelation!

There are lessons here for all of us. We should compare the nature of God’s throne and government with other types of rule, especially our own. How does the way I run things measure up to God’s standard? Am I a parent? Do I give my children not only instruction but also space to develop? Do I interfere in all of their decisions and leave them immature? I am so grateful for parents who loved me enough to give me that space to think and decide, without which I would have suffocated. Am I primarily concerned with my children’s character, or do I push them beyond their abilities because I am more interested in their image as it reflects on me? Do I crown my children with praise when they succeed, however much help I may have given them?

Am I a church leader or elder? Do I interfere in all decisions and try to micromanage my fellow elders, if there are any, or do I encourage joint decision-making? Do I encourage and train younger people to take on leadership responsibility, or do I feel threatened by an upcoming, brighter and more energetic generation? Am I holding on to power long after my sell-by date, or will I cheerfully relinquish my position at a sensible time in order to make space for new blood?

Am I in business? Do I listen to my employees, or even my senior executives? Do I allow discussion that is critical of my leadership style, or do I micromanage to such an extent that my staff feel paralysed and underappreciated? Do I encourage and promote people who show real promise, or am I jealous and intent on keeping them down? Am I sensitive to those I may hurt? Do I recognise and reward (crown) those who succeed? We all need to do a regular check on our management and leadership style by comparing our way of doing things with God’s. Depending on what we find, we may need to repent and make radical changes.

Finally, the fact that God has delegated authority is a further reason why judgement must come. For throughout history, men and women have abused and misused that authority for their own ends and brought death and destruction to many parts of the world. That cannot go unchecked for ever. Righteous judgement must come because of what people have done with God’s magnificent gift of delegated powers.

The sounds from the throne

Francis Schaeffer once wrote a book about God entitled He Is There and He Is Not Silent.17 Schaeffer was right. The throne of God is not silent: ‘From the throne came flashes of lightning, and rumblings [lit. voices] and peals of thunder’ (4:5). There was elemental sound, but the use of the word ‘voices’ indicates intelligent content. Not all communication from this throne is verbal, but some, indeed a great deal of it, is.

The description reminds us of the giving of the law at Sinai, which was accompanied by a great deal of elemental noise and the intelligible voice of God:

On the morning of the third day there were thunders and lightnings and a thick cloud on the mountain and a very loud trumpet blast, so that all the people in the camp trembled. Then Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God, and they took their stand at the foot of the mountain. Now Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke because the Lord had descended on it in fire. The smoke of it went up like the smoke of a kiln, and the whole mountain trembled greatly. And as the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses spoke, and God answered him in thunder.

(Exod. 19:16–19)

God’s answer was not simply the roar of thunder but also speech – the content of his law, the basis of his rule. It was a speech from the throne. No wonder we are told: ‘Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I tremble with fear”’ (Heb. 12:21).

Similarly, God’s announcement of judgement to Elijah the prophet on Mount Horeb was preceded by a powerful wind, an earthquake and a fire, after which the Lord spoke to him in ‘a still, small voice’ (see 1 Kgs 19:11ff.). Job speaks of the thunder of God’s voice causing him to tremble (Job 37:1–2).

John tells us that not long before the crucifixion, when the authorities were closing in on him, Jesus prayed publicly: ‘Father, glorify your name.’

Then a voice came from heaven: ‘I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.’ The crowd that stood there and heard it said that it had thundered. Others said, ‘An angel has spoken to him.’ Jesus answered, ‘This voice has come for your sake, not mine. Now is the judgement of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out.’

(John 12:28–31)

God’s voice from heaven announcing judgement sounded like thunder to the crowd.

We all need to regain a sense of the awesome holiness of God; if necessary, God will use the elemental forces of the universe to get it across to us. The letter to the Hebrews reminds us that God’s voice shook the earth to warn people in the ancient world that rejecting the Lord meant that judgement would come (Heb. 12:25–7). It then says that God will one day speak again with a voice that will shake the very heavens, and concludes with: ‘Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire’ (Heb. 12:28–9).

What is very striking here is that the text does not say ‘for their God was a consuming fire’, with the implication that our God is not. God’s holiness has not changed, and we need to learn to hold it in reverence and awe. God’s holiness is another major reason why judgement must one day come.

The objects in front of the throne: seven torches of fire and a sea of crystal glass

The next piece of detail from John’s vision is a vivid scene: ‘and before the throne were burning seven torches of fire, which are the seven spirits of God, and before the throne there was as it were a sea of glass, like crystal’ (4:5–6).

The seven spirits who are before God’s throne are mentioned in the initial Trinitarian greeting in 1:4 and it makes sense to take them as representing the Holy Spirit in all his fullness. The seven lampstands in part 1 held up oil lamps, whereas the seven spirits are represented by torches of fire, which presumably are located so that they illuminate whatever or whoever approaches the throne.

We have to ask our question once more: are the torches of fire mere embellishment to increase the impact of the awesome spectacle of the throne or do they have significance beyond that? The key elements are light, fire, the Spirit of God and the throne of God.

All of those ingredients were present on the day of Pentecost, which marked the coming of the Holy Spirit with immeasurable power to create the witnessing Church on earth. We are told that there was the sound of a rushing mighty wind, that tongues of fire appeared to rest on the disciples so that they resembled living torches, and that they were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to communicate the word of God supernaturally in languages they had never learned to those around them who spoke those languages.

Peter explained to the crowd that this phenomenon represented something that the OT prophet Joel had predicted would happen before the great Day of the Lord (i.e. judgement day). It was the sending of God’s Spirit by the risen Lord Jesus who had ascended to the throne of God: ‘Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing’ (Acts 2:33).

There is, therefore, an intimate connection between the throne of God and the sending of the Spirit of God to be the ultimate witness on earth, illuminating the hearts of people so that they understand the gospel. Torches of fire are still used in some parts of the world to light up the darkness and help people to find their way. That is precisely what the Holy Spirit does at the deeper level of finding direction, meaning and purpose in our lives.

We need to press into this a little more and ask if there is any deeper connection to be seen here. I think there is: it is the use of light as a means of government. What I mean by that is that its polar opposite is the rule of darkness. When the arrest party came to take Jesus into custody, he said something very striking to them: ‘When I was with you day after day in the temple, you did not lay hands on me. But this is your hour, and the power of darkness’ (Luke 22:53). The Greek word translated ‘power’ here is exousia which means ‘authority’. Darkness has a terrifying power. According to Paul, we are up against the powers of darkness exercised by the devil: ‘For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places’ (Eph. 6:12). This is no fantasy, but many people, even Christians, find it hard to take seriously. Yet the darkness is real, and Christ alone can save us: ‘He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son’ (Col. 1:13).

What has happened is that ‘the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God’ (2 Cor. 4:4). The Lord Jesus promised his disciples the help of the Holy Spirit to get this message across:

But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me. And you also will bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning.

(John 15:26–7)

There is another important sense in which darkness is used to control people. It is well summed up in the phrase: ‘They keep us in the dark’. For centuries, Bibles were either banned or kept chained in churches to restrict access to them. And even if people had Bibles, the ecclesiastical authorities would not allow them to interpret what they said. They were kept firmly in the dark.

At the political level, there are governments that use this method as a system of control. There is the darkness of intrigue and corruption that characterised the Roman world. There is the darkness of secrecy where governments employ secret police, tell their citizens as little as possible, yet subject them to intrusive surveillance. They censor news media, block social media and the internet, rewrite history and restrict travel – to name just a few of their tactics. People are thrown in prison, and no information is given to their relatives. Others disappear without trace. Darkness of this kind has a hideous power, and many parts of the world have been and are in its grip.

This principle also operates at much lower levels. How many of us have experienced a boss or head of department who will not communicate? That is the rule of darkness. Families are not exempt either: control can be exerted by refusal to enter into conversation, by being secretive and keeping quiet, rather than being frank and open.

Here are many reasons why judgement must come. The rule of darkness must be banished.

The Lord himself commented on this kind of thing: ‘No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you’ (John 15:15). Keeping people in the dark is what is done by tyrants to slaves. By contrast, the Lord Jesus was open with his disciples and passed on to them all that came to him from the Father. This is government by light and transparency. It is the way God works. Is it the way I work? It is common experience in the workday world that leaders who take those they lead into their confidence, and keep them in the loop, are much more willingly followed than those who don’t.

Here, once more, there are practical lessons to be learned about the way we live. John writes:

This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practise the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.

(1 John 1:5–7)

If we wish to oppose the power of darkness, we need to walk in the light. That is not so much a question of how we walk but where we walk. None of us is sinless; we all stumble, but the point is that, even if we do, we don’t run into the darkness but stay in the light, allowing God’s Spirit to illuminate our lives. Then, if necessary, we need to face what is revealed, repent of it, and rejoice in the knowledge that ‘the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin’.

The sea of glass

The sea of glass is the second of the two objects before the throne and appears to be paired with the seven torches. The first thing to establish is what this sea actually is. It reappears in 15:2, where people are standing beside it singing the Song of Moses, a victory song that Moses and Miriam sang on the shore of the sea in which Pharaoh and his armies had been drowned.

Also, and consistent with that, a sea in the context of John’s exile on Patmos might initially make us think of the Aegean. Yet, in common with most seas, the Aegean is rarely like glass, that is, flat calm. Indeed, the Hebrews did not seem to like the sea. They were not a seafaring nation. In their poetry the sea is often portrayed in a negative sense as being constantly restless:

But the wicked are like the tossing sea;

for it cannot be quiet,

and its waters toss up mire and dirt.

‘There is no peace,’ says my God, ‘for the wicked.’

(Isa. 57:20–1)

We have already noticed that tabernacle/temple furniture figures prominently in the book of Revelation. First, there is the lampstand that stood in the outer compartment – the Holy Place. Second, the ark of the covenant, which is the central piece of furniture in the innermost sanctuary – the Holy of Holies. The ark represented the throne of God. In fact, the Temple itself was not a symbol of God simply being present, but of him being present to rule over his people. For the Temple was called the ‘House of God’, not only to mean God’s dwelling but also in the sense in which the Bible talks about the House of David, or we in the UK talk about the House of Windsor, that is, as a reigning or governing house. The House of God, the Temple, was God present not only to dwell but also to reign.

Furthermore, both tabernacle and Temple had lavers – one copper laver placed in the tabernacle courtyard, and one very large one and several small ones placed in the temple courtyard. The relevance of the laver here is that the laver standing at the front of the Temple was called a ‘sea’. It was immense. Here is the plan for its construction:

Then he made the sea of cast metal. It was round, ten cubits from brim to brim, and five cubits high, and a line of thirty cubits measured its circumference. Under its brim were gourds, for ten cubits, compassing the sea all round. The gourds were in two rows, cast with it when it was cast. It stood on twelve oxen, three facing north, three facing west, three facing south, and three facing east. The sea was set on them, and all their rear parts were inward. Its thickness was a handbreadth, and its brim was made like the brim of a cup, like the flower of a lily. It held two thousand baths.

(1 Kgs 7:23–6)

The lavers were used by the priests for washing, which ceremonially indicated cleansing from defilement. The custom was that these men, at the very beginning of their ministry, were washed all over, and then, before their day’s work as priests, they washed their hands and feet in the lavers. The lavers, therefore, indicated the need to be clean in order to engage in the service of God, physical cleanliness pointing to the deeper need of moral cleanliness. If we ask why the temple laver was so large and prominent, we could well imagine that the reason is that one of the main issues that governments have to deal with is the behaviour of their citizens. Behaviour is determined by character. As we all are (painfully) aware, at every level, it is much easier to rule over and lead people of integrity and moral conviction.

The Greek word loutron that is used in the Septuagint (the Greek version of the OT) to translate the Hebrew word for ‘laver’ occurs in two places in the NT and is translated by ‘washing’. First, Paul writes to Titus:

But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Saviour appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Saviour, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

(Titus 3:4–7, my emphasis)

Second, Paul writes to the Ephesians: ‘Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word’ (Eph. 5:25–6, my emphasis).

From these two statements we see that the washing is a metaphor for two different processes. First of all, there is the washing of regeneration and pouring out (note Paul’s metaphor here) of the Holy Spirit that leads to justification. That is a once-and-for-all occurrence that takes place at conversion when we receive Christ as Saviour and Lord and are born again. Second, there is the washing of water with the word, that is, the regular, repeated application of the word of God to our lives in order to clean them up and sanctify them.

We should notice that both washings have to do with character transformation by cleansing from defilement. Paul points out to Titus that he has to deal with the problematic character traits of some of the Cretans and therefore that the church on Crete needs leaders of real moral integrity (see Titus 1). He then points out, with salutary honesty and humility, how God dealt with his own difficult character at a fundamental level by the washing of regeneration.

Hence, we have spiritual equivalents of the two levels of physical washing. These two levels are distinguished by Christ himself in his teaching to his disciples. John records how Jesus, at his last Passover, gets up from the table, girds himself with a towel and begins to wash his disciples’ feet. The ensuing conversation bears careful attention:

He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, ‘Lord, do you wash my feet?’ Jesus answered him, ‘What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterwards you will understand.’ Peter said to him, ‘You shall never wash my feet.’ Jesus answered him, ‘If I do not wash you, you have no share with me.’ Simon Peter said to him, ‘Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!’ Jesus said to him, ‘The one who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but is completely clean. And you are clean, but not every one of you.’ For he knew who was to betray him; that was why he said, ‘Not all of you are clean.’

(John 13:6–11)

The background is the common social practice at the time of washing all over – in the communal baths – and then walking through the town and, when one arrived at a friend’s house for a meal, washing one’s feet there, or having them washed. You didn’t get washed all over again but only needed a footwash to be cleansed from the dirt picked up on the journey. Jesus is teaching Peter here about two levels of spiritual washing: the fundamental all-over washing of regeneration as in Titus 3, and then the repeated washing that we need in order to enjoy Christ’s fellowship in daily life.

An interesting additional detail is that the laver in the tabernacle was made from copper mirrors previously used by the women who ministered at the entrance of the tent of meeting (Exod. 38:8). That meant that, if you looked into the laver, you would see your own reflection. This immediately reminds us of James’s statement that the word of God is like a mirror and that we need to change our character according to what we see there (Jas 1:23). Might it not be reasonable to think that the same would be true on a much larger scale of a sea of crystal glass?

Revelation 4 brackets the fiery torches together with the sea of glass, and this suggests that the imagery is designed to illustrate the way in which God’s Spirit works powerfully in us to fulfil the directives of his throne and lead us to respond to the lordship of Christ in our daily lives.

The Holy Spirit regenerates us and comes to live within us. Thereafter, we have the word of God, the Scriptures, outside us, into which we look, day by day, as if into a mirror. As we do so, the Spirit within us applies that word to our hearts and minds and transforms us into the likeness of Christ. This is an utterly unique method of government to which I, for one, gladly, if imperfectly, respond. The mirror of the word tends to show up too many wrinkles and blemishes for my liking.

A key teaching for believers is: ‘Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things [food, clothing etc.] will be added to you’ (Matt. 6:33). Seeking God’s kingdom means seeking his rule and government in our lives. It is coming to the throne, finding out what God’s will for us is, and doing it in the strength he gives.

The main lesson, then, as Jesus pointed out to Peter, is: ‘If I do not wash you, you have no share with me’ (John 13:8). Note that Jesus did not say: you have no share in me, since that is what the overall washing is about; regeneration puts us into Christ and the Spirit (see Rom. 8:1ff.). His point is that, if we wish to have a part or share with him, that is, in Christ’s ongoing ministry of bringing the message of salvation to people, we must allow him to wash our feet regularly. We must use the mirror of Scripture every day. After all, how often do we use an ordinary mirror?

The calmness of the sea of crystal is striking. Later in the book of Revelation we meet a horrific beast that arises out of the sea, which is often taken to symbolise warring and turbulent nations. There is precedent for that understanding in the Hebrew poetry of the Psalms, where we read of God

who stills the roaring of the seas,

the roaring of their waves,

the tumult of the peoples.

(Ps. 65:7)

Hebrew poetry often associates the sea with raging turbulence, and the awesome power of the ocean is indeed incredible to behold. Watching a towering sea, which I love doing, provided I am safely on land, has often made me ask: what sort of power could calm a force of nature like that? What could turn the turbulent Mediterranean into a crystal sea of glass? A psalm tells us that God can still the raging sea:

You rule the raging of the sea;

when its waves rise, you still them.

(Ps. 89:9)

At the physical level, the sea can be a life-threatening power. The disciples of Jesus were once on the Sea of Galilee when a storm arose that frightened them so much that they thought they were going to die and cried to Jesus to save them. He was asleep at the time:

And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, ‘Peace! Be still!’ And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. He said to them, ‘Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?’ And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, ‘Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?’

(Mark 4:39–41)

We meet many kinds of storms and heavy seas in life – emotional storms, turbulent relationships, situations beyond our control – and many of us have prayed for the Lord to calm the storm.

However, there is another consideration that we may learn about from Matthew’s record of a further occasion when the disciples got into difficulty during a storm on the Lake of Galilee. This time Jesus was not with them, but in the middle of the night he came to them, walking on the water. They were terrified, thinking it was a ghost. He spoke to assure them that it was really him. Matthew continues:

And Peter answered him, ‘Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.’ He said, ‘Come.’ So, Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out, ‘Lord, save me.’ Jesus immediately reached out his hand and took hold of him, saying to him, ‘O you of little faith, why did you doubt?’ And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased. And those in the boat worshipped him, saying, ‘Truly you are the Son of God.’

(Matt. 14:28–33)

Not only could Jesus walk on the stormy water; he also had the power to hold Peter up to walk with him in the wind and waves before he calmed the sea. God does not always calm the seas that rage around and inside us, yet he has the power to hold us up so that they do not swamp us. That is, until our work is done. At the end of his life, as Jesus had told him, Peter was taken to execution. We can scarcely imagine the storm of emotion that faced him, or anyone today who is in a similar situation – and there are many such people around the world. The Lord did not save Peter from it but brought him home to heaven through it.

We might sum up this last section by saying that both the torches and the sea are symbols of the mighty power of God’s throne – the power of his Spirit to illuminate and his power to calm the sea. Having experienced that power, it is not hard to answer our question: under which kind of rule would you like to live: the rule of light and the power of the Holy Spirit, or the rule of darkness?

The Holy Spirit’s power is involved in the process of getting people to see that God’s judgement, issued from his throne, is real and inevitable. Jesus indicated this in his promise to send the Spirit when he returned to the Father:

But if I go, I will send him to you. And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgement: concerning sin, because they do not believe in me; concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see me no longer; concerning judgement, because the ruler of this world is judged.

(John 16:7b–11)

The four living creatures

Following the text, we now move back to the throne itself to a detail not mentioned before.

And round the throne, on each side of [lit. in the middle of, and around] the throne, are four living creatures, full of eyes in front and behind: the first living creature like a lion, the second living creature like an ox, the third living creature with the face of a man, and the fourth living creature like an eagle in flight. And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all round and within, and day and night they never cease to say,

‘Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty,

who was and is and is to come!’

(4:6b–8)

Once more, there is a strong echo here of Ezekiel’s vision of the throne of God:

And from the midst of it came the likeness of four living creatures. And this was their appearance: they had a human likeness, but each had four faces, and each of them had four wings . . . As for the likeness of their faces, each had a human face. The four had the face of a lion on the right side, the four had the face of an ox on the left side, and the four had the face of an eagle.

(Ezek. 1:5–6, 10)

The living creatures in Revelation 4 are said to be in the middle and around the throne. That presumably means that they carry the throne on their backs, so that their hindquarters are in the middle and their heads look outwards, covering all directions. Presumably, the throne moves with them when they fly.

Similarly, in Ezekiel there is a wheel beside each living creature and, when the creatures fly, the whole throne moves with them wherever the Spirit wishes. The fascinating thing is that the description of the throne in Ezekiel involves not only flying creatures but also what sounds very much like a flying machine – a technological concept far ahead of its time that most would scarcely expect to find in the Bible.18 The wheels within wheels are especially intriguing since they appear to rotate independently and are full of eyes. I have sometimes wished there was a way of having eyes in the wheels of my car, rather than the linkage between my eyes and the wheels being a lengthy cascade of eye–brain–hand–steering wheel–steering column and finally mechanical connectors to the wheels. What a vast improvement it would be if there was multiple vision in the wheels!

We note that in Revelation the living creatures each have six wings and have multiple eyes, whereas in Ezekiel the creatures that carry the throne have four wings each, and it is the wheels that have multiple eyes.

It is interesting that we have already got to the stage of having multiple cameras in advanced vehicles that help with certain aspects of controlling the wheels, for example keeping in lane and braking on detecting a hazard. US-PATENT-3,789,947|NASA-CASE-MFS-21309-1 was taken out in 1974 by a head of construction at NASA, Marshall Spaceflight Center, Huntsville, Alabama, Josef Blumrich, for an omnidirectional wheel patterned after Ezekiel’s description.19 Blumrich was at first very sceptical at the idea of any technology being found in the Bible. In 1997 an ‘Ezekiel wheel’ for high-speed trains, invented by John Robert Schneider, was given US Patent US5690375.

Many answers have been given to the question as to who the living creatures are. The single Greek word here, zōa, from which we get our word ‘zoo’, simply means ‘living beings’ or ‘living ones’. They live because God has given them life. Ezekiel 10 identifies them as cherubim, probably an exalted class of angel. Cherubim first appear in the garden of Eden to guard the way to the tree of life after sin enters the world through human disobedience. Because of the similarity between the accounts, it would seem reasonable to understand the living creatures in Revelation in the same way.

That interpretation finds support in the fact that figures representing cherubim formed part of the golden lid, or mercy seat, that formed the cover of the ark of the covenant, and so they are closely associated with the throne of God and its judgements.

In the fourth century ad, Victorinus suggested that the four living creatures were the four Gospel-writers, an interpretation that was taken up by Irenaeus and became very popular. There have been many other interpretations.

However, the text tells us what they are. They are living creatures. That is, they are alive, and we see that they represent the premier species of life on earth: human beings made in God’s image; lions, the kings of the wild beasts; oxen, the strongest of working animals; and eagles, the most magnificent of birds. Their position tells us that at the heart of God’s government there is life – vibrant, pulsating life in all its forms, in all its magnificence.

What does this all mean? What has life to do with God’s government? The short answer is: a great deal. Genesis tells us how God appointed the first humans to be viceroys of his creation. How were they to do that? God made them in his image and gave them life – physical, intellectual and emotional – which made them capable of running the world in all senses of that term. And their life, at the physical level, would not have been possible if God had not endowed the creation with other kinds of life: plant life and animal life. At the highest level, we humans can only really live for God as he intended if we receive his spiritual life by trusting his Son for salvation and receiving his Holy Spirit. We are then led by God’s Spirit within us. God runs the world by injecting life into it in all its vast variety. After all, he is the living God.

There is another lesson here: God is for life in all of its variety. This is not the throne of some warmongering despot whose aim is to kill all opposition, wipe out all kinds of life and even destroy the biosphere in order to achieve their nefarious objectives. This is the throne of a God who loves his creatures and his creation, who sustains and promotes life. His is a life-affirming rule and not a life-denying one. His throne sits on the back of life, not death.

If I put this another way, it may make a further point: God is pro-life. What do you imagine he thinks of the millions of abortions permitted, indeed encouraged, legislated for and carried out by many of the world’s governments every year? Is this what his throne would wish? I think not. What is your view?

There is more to be said about the living beings. They are winged and possess many eyes. The implication is that they represent the fact that God’s throne and government is all-seeing and is mobile – as in Ezekiel – so that it can attend any and every situation. It is omniscient and omnipresent. This is a government to which everything is transparent, and which can attend to everything immediately.

What, then, it will be asked, is the difference between the nature of God’s government and one, like that of the Chinese today, that has millions of electronic eyes in the form of CCTV cameras that spy on citizens and collect vast databases of information on them that is used to control them – as, for example, among the Uighurs in Xinjiang?

Perhaps the first obvious difference is that intrusive surveillance is not life-affirming: it is life-denying.20 Think of President Roosevelt’s four freedoms: freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, freedom from fear. None of those freedoms characterises a totalitarian surveillance state. Nor does a sense of God’s holiness.

For these living beings are articulate and intelligent. They are capable of praising God, and constantly do so in words that emphasise the holiness of God:

Day and night they never cease to say,

‘Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty,

who was and is and is to come!’

(4:8)

This refrain is part of the greeting at the beginning of the book of Revelation with the added triple emphasis on the holiness of God. It is no meaningless mantra but rather something that all of us need – a constant reminder of the awesome holiness of God Almighty, the eternally existing one, but also the all-seeing and mobile one who will one day come.

If we think that the crying of the living creatures is too repetitious, perhaps we should ask ourselves: how often do we mention the holiness of God in our teaching and preaching? If we did it more, it would be a powerful antidote to the slippage in moral values and conviction in our churches, let alone in our societies. I am myself a tiny living creature, am I not, with, in my case, the face of a man? Perhaps I had better get on with doing what the other living creatures do?

Of course, we don’t need literalistically to imagine the living beings continually saying the exact same thing with no let-up. The repetition gets across the idea that above everything else they stand for the holiness of God. The text itself tells us that they do other things as well:

And whenever the living creatures give glory and honour and thanks to him who is seated on the throne, who lives for ever and ever, the twenty-four elders fall down before him who is seated on the throne and worship him who lives for ever and ever. They cast their crowns before the throne, saying,

‘Worthy are you, our Lord and God,

to receive glory and honour and power,

for you created all things,

and by your will they existed and were created.’

(4:9–11)

We can scarcely imagine the richness of language with which the living beings express glory and honour and thanks to God. We are not told here, but I hope we will be allowed to hear it one day. I suspect that it will make even the highest of human praise seem rather feeble. The same with the elders, except that one thing they say is singled out for special mention. They tell us on what grounds they regard God as worthy of praise: ‘for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.’

God is worthy of praise because he is the great Creator. The heavens declare his glory. I am a (very) amateur astronomer and have a telescope in a small observatory in my garden. On a clear night the telescope fills my visual field with the overwhelming magnificence of the starry sky: the scintillating stars of the Pleiades, the mind-boggling wonder of the hundred billion stars in the Andromeda galaxy (M31), and the glory of the Orion nebula (M42), to say nothing of a myriad other astronomical objects. The sheer glory of it never fails to bring me to worship.

The wonders of the living world, as depicted in spectacular high-definition films made by experts in biology, have the same effect. The phenomenon of bird migration – the unerring accuracy with which birds travel thousands of miles and then return to the same nests that they left; the metamorphosis of a butterfly from a dull-looking, earth-bound caterpillar to a magnificently coloured, delicate flying insect; the memory of an elephant. The breadth of God’s creative genius is staggering: the wonders of the human world; the sheer brilliance of an Einstein, a Beethoven and a Rembrandt; the dazzling creativity of a myriad of writers, musicians, scientists, doctors, inventors, and many others.

And, towering above it all in a category of his own, the unique wonder of the life, teaching and works, the death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus, who is the eternal Word of God become human, without whom the world with all its wonders would not exist. Yes, God is worthy of praise because he created. Yet there is another reason he is worthy, which again has to do with creation but from a slightly different perspective. It is the reason why God created.

Most human beings ask the existential question: why do I exist? Why am I? The answer given here that raises praise to God is this: ‘by your will they existed and were created.’ Recasting this statement in contemporary language, we find that the answer to the question of my existence is the amazing fact that God wanted me to be. All of us humans want to be wanted. And yet society often reduces us to a set of numbers and/or letters in all sorts of databases with which we have no personal relationship. The government of my country knows almost nothing about my individual existence, which is lost in a vast anonymous state digital memory. But for God and his government, I am known and wanted.

We need to let this sink into our minds, for it is a thing beyond wonder and comprehension. How often we feel unwanted by others, when we are excluded from the in-group or the ‘inner ring’, as C. S. Lewis called it. What a comfort it is to remind ourselves that we are not just tolerated by God but wanted by him!

One of the questions that fascinates many, if not most, people is the question of the origin of life, something that has intrigued me since childhood. Revelation’s powerful image of life at the heart of God’s throne, if it is true, as I believe it is, shows me that life cannot, nor will it ever, be completely explained without the Creator on that throne. John tells us at the start of his Gospel: ‘In him was life and the life was the light of men’ (John 1:4). As we look at the sheer variety and wonder of biological life and ask where we can get light – in the metaphorical sense – on its source, the answer, ultimately, is: in him, the eternal Word who is God. If we try to explain life without him, we will end in the darkness of atheism. My account of why I believe that to be so is to be found in my book Cosmic Chemistry: Do God and science mix?21

13

The scroll, the seals, the Lion and the Lamb

A‘I saw . . . a scroll sealed with seven seals.’

B‘I saw a strong angel . . .’ Worthiness to open the scroll . . . the Lion has overcome.

C‘I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, with seven horns and with seven eyes.’

DThe new song: the prayers of the saints offered by the elders. The Lamb is worthy because:

(a)he has purchased people for God with his blood;

(b)he has made them a kingdom and priests to God;

(c)they shall reign over the earth.

EThe angels’ worship.

FUniversal acknowledgement of the Lamb’s worthiness as Redeemer.

The thought flow of the narrative does not stop at the end of Revelation chapter 4. For at the beginning of chapter 5, the lens of our imagination is zoomed in on a new detail: a scroll in the right hand of the occupant of the throne. God’s right hand is a biblical symbol of his power and authority. It is the place to which Jesus has been exalted as both Lord and Christ (Acts 2:33; Heb. 1:3). The scroll is covered with writing and sealed with seven seals.1

Let us pause for a moment to think of the level of the symbolism here. We have said that symbols correspond to a reality. What kind of reality does the scroll point to? Surely not a physical reality but rather the reality of the truth that there is a real moral issue lying behind the carrying-out of judgement: who is worthy to do it?

In the ancient world it was the custom, when finalising an important scroll, to get a number of independent witnesses each to seal the document with their personal seal, so that it could not be opened without their combined authority. Roman wills were sealed with seven seals, and their contents were often summarised on the outside. A will is not opened until the testator dies, and so the fact that the Lamb who has died but is risen again is the one who will open the seals adds powerfully to the message. We readers, who have (I hope!) read the whole book in advance, know that the breaking of these seals will unleash judgements, including pestilence and war on the earth. In that sense, this scroll is like the one that was given to Ezekiel, which also spelled out judgement to come: ‘It had writing on the front and on the back, and there were written on it words of lamentation and mourning and woe’ (Ezek. 2:10).

We are not told what is written in the scroll. What we do know is that God’s judgements are triggered by the breaking of its seals. That means that, if the scroll is never unsealed and opened, God’s programme for dealing with human sin and rebellion, meticulously conceived and perfectly fair, will never be put into action. This would have unimaginably catastrophic implications, about which the narrative tension forces us to think.

For it raises the crucial question mentioned above, which John now hears expressed by a mighty angel in a loud voice: ‘Who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals?’ (5:2). Note that the question is not: who has the power to open the scroll? There have been many human beings who have unleashed fearful war and judgement because they had enormous power. We have seen this again and again in history: think of Nebuchadnezzar, Alexander the Great, the Caesars, Hitler, Stalin, Churchill, Roosevelt, Bush, Blair, Mao and Putin, to name but a few. They all had the power to do it. But were they worthy to do it? That is an entirely different question.

That is why this issue is so complex. It is easy to say, as some do, that, since God is omnipotent, surely he could simply use his power to wipe out the evil people and solve the world’s problems at a stroke. Well, he could certainly wipe out the people, but that would not solve the underlying moral problem. We can easily imagine how it could give the devil, Satan, the Accuser, a field day. He could lash out at God and accuse him of creating a world full of people whom he was unable to prevent from rebelling against him and going their own way. And when he found he couldn’t attract them back to his rule and government, he simply used his superior power to wipe them out. In the nature of things, they didn’t ask to be created; nor did they ask to be destroyed. What a catastrophic failure of supposed morality! By what right could God do that? It is utterly unworthy.

It’s not only the devil who says things like that – people feel it and say it. We must take it seriously.

Who, then, is worthy to let loose such judgements and deal with sin and evil? As John watches, a universal search is made, and no one can be found either who is ‘able’ (5:3; lit. ‘has the power to’) to open the seals or even to look at it – the implication being in this case that, if they are not worthy to do it, they also don’t have the power to do it, which, alas, is very different from the normal human situation.

John gets so involved in this intense moral dilemma that it brings him to tears. Now, John already knew what the outcome would be, so I imagine that his weeping is something like people weeping when they watch a very emotional film that they have seen many times before. They know the plot from beginning to end, yet the emotion catches them every time. Even though Jesus knew that he was about to raise Lazarus from the dead, it did not prevent him from weeping at what death had done to Lazarus’s two sisters, Mary and Martha.

What was it, though, that made John weep? If no one in the entire universe can be found worthy to open the seals, then there will never be a judgement of evil, and justice will never be done. The thought that God will never intervene finally to sort things out is certainly enough to make you weep, when you think about it. In fact, through the ages, it has taken far less to make some of us weep. God’s delayed intervention has made many people cry with the psalmist:

How long, O Lord? Will you forget me for ever?

How long will you hide your face from me?

(Ps. 13:1)

Even if the Lord eventually answers our prayers, it is still true that our cries have often been accompanied by weeping. God eventually vindicated King David, but he still wrote:

My tears have been my food

day and night,

while they say to me all the day long,

‘Where is your God?’

(Ps. 42:3)

The idea, however, that God will never intervene in judgement is utterly unbearable since, in the end, it makes a mockery of the moral conscience that he gave us in the first place, as creatures made in his image. Weeping is not necessarily a bad thing. Ancient Greek and Roman physicians held that tears work to purge and purify us. Psychologists today emphasise the role of crying as a stress-release mechanism, since their research has established that crying releases oxytocin and endorphins that ease both physical and emotional pain. Perhaps some of us Christians, particularly men, suppress our emotions too much when we would be better to weep – especially with those who weep. Some people just need to be told that it is OK to cry.

Atheists also weep about the future, and one author who tells us about it is physicist Max Tegmark in his book Life 3.0. In the postscript, he describes his emotional reaction to a robotics exhibition he has just visited in the Science Museum, London:

I very rarely cry but that’s what I did on the way out – and in a tunnel full of pedestrians, no less, en route to the South Kensington tube station. Here were all these people going about their lives blissfully unaware of what I was thinking. First, we humans discovered how to replicate some natural processes with machines . . . Gradually we started realising that our bodies were also machines. Then the discoveries of nerve cells started blurring the borderline between body and mind. Then we started building machines that could outperform not only our muscles, but our minds as well. So in parallel with discovering what we are, are we inevitably making ourselves obsolete? That would be poetically tragic. This thought scared me . . .

Unusually for him, a techno-optimist, the idea that a superintelligent AI might decide that its goals are best achieved by eliminating the humans who invented it makes him cry. That does not surprise me. For, in general, the atheist view that there is no God and no throne, so there never will be any supernatural intervention, gives us every reason to weep and weep until we can weep no more.

Yet atheism leads to an intractable moral dilemma. On the one hand, atheists find themselves to be moral beings, with a conscience and moral standards that prompt them to react against evil, particularly if it is directed against them. On the other hand, their philosophy denies the existence of good and evil – that is, if one of their chief advocates, Richard Dawkins, is to be believed. Here, according to him, is what happens when you carry atheistic naturalism to its logical conclusion:

In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at the bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good. Nothing but blind, pitiless, indifference. DNA neither knows nor cares. DNA just is. And we dance to its music.2

Dawkins cannot have it both ways. He cannot protest against evil while simultaneously denying its existence. Human beings are not puppets on a deterministic string.3 God has endowed them with the magnificent gift of moral capacity – the ability to choose and therefore develop all the characteristics of true humanity: love, responsibility, accountability and integrity.

But surely, we might now ask, isn’t God himself worthy to open the sealed book? Isn’t he the judge of all the earth who will do right (Gen. 18:25), as Abraham once said to him? Let us hold that question while we see how the drama unfolds, and John tells us what stopped his tears:

And one of the elders said to me, ‘Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.’

And between [lit. in the middle of] the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, with seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth. And he went and took the scroll from the right hand of him who was seated on the throne.

(5:5–7)

John hears that a lion has conquered and, no doubt, he expected to see that most majestic and powerful of beasts. What he sees, however, is the weakest and most helpless of creatures – a lamb. It is a very strange-looking lamb, since it is standing, even though it has been brutally slaughtered.4 It is hard to imagine what posture it had for John to be able to tell that this was the case. Note the past tense in the phrase: ‘as though it had been slain’. Is this a hint of what we know from elsewhere in Scripture, namely that the Lamb, still bearing the marks of his slaughter, stood up again, that is, was raised from the dead? The Greek word for ‘resurrection’ means ‘standing up again’ (anastasis).

Now some Jewish interpreters who regard Revelation as a reworking of Jewish apocalypses think that the mention of a lamb here is the work of a Christian redactor. However, the mention is thoroughly Jewish as well as Christian. For I can almost hear the voice of Isaiah quietly reading in the background what he wrote so long before:

All we like sheep have gone astray;

we have turned – everyone – to his own way;

and the Lord has laid on him

the iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,

yet he opened not his mouth;

like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,

and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,

so he opened not his mouth . . .

Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him;

he has put him to grief;

when his soul makes an offering for guilt,

he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days;

the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.

(Isa. 53:6–7, 10)

Yes, he was slaughtered for our sins, but Isaiah has not finished. The Lamb who was slaughtered gets to his feet again, so that he now stands in the middle of the throne.5 The throne, as we will be told later, is ‘the throne of God and of the Lamb’ (22:1, 3). This is the central paradox of Christianity – that the Lamb has triumphed by suffering, has conquered by dying, surely the most important point of the whole book of Revelation and of Isaiah’s prophecy.

The fact that the lamb is not explicitly identified here as Jesus reminds us that the symbolism here is not mere code, so that every time we see a lamb we say: ‘That’s Jesus.’ We know that the lamb is Jesus the Messiah. The point is that the symbol of a lamb tells us something about who Jesus is and what he has done. We are to think of him as a lamb.

The Lamb takes the scroll. This action dramatically portrays the immensely significant transfer of authority from God the Father to God the Son. Jesus himself laid public claim to that fact in a statement that must have astounded his listeners: ‘For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself. And he has given him authority to execute judgement, because he is the Son of Man’ (John 5:26–7). This, as we said earlier, is the principle of judgement by peer.

John stops weeping.

It is a dramatic scene, loaded with tension, that speaks volumes about God and his government. Could it be that John’s weeping was caused by his imagining the horror of a world without the Lamb? That is really why Tegmark wept, though he does not know it. Just pause and think what a world without the Lamb would mean. God created a world that has rebelled against him, as described in the famous words of Isaiah cited above:

All we like sheep have gone astray;

we have turned – everyone – to his own way.

(Isa. 53:6a)

If there was no Lamb, Isaiah’s wonderful text would never have been written.

No wonder that the elders and living beings now sing that the Lamb is the one who is worthy to open the seals. Of course, God himself is both worthy and able to open the scroll. After all, he wrote it. However, suppose God in all his almighty holiness, dwelling in unapproachable light, did open it without there being a Lamb, then the inevitable outcome would be the end of humanity. For, and we need to take it seriously, all of us have sinned and come short of the glory of God – and so all of us deserve the righteous wrath of God, as Paul explains in Romans 1 – 3.

The Lamb that John saw was no ordinary lamb. It had seven horns and seven eyes. We are told that the seven eyes represent the seven spirits of God. Now, we have already learned that the seven torches before the throne also represent the seven spirits of God. This shows that the imagery is sophisticated and is not intended to be taken in a simplistic literalistic way as if each symbol has a unique and distinct meaning. As represented by torches, the seven spirits of God are connected with the throne. They are now also seen to be connected with the Lamb.

The seven eyes represent the Lamb’s perfect insight and wisdom, which was demonstrated while he was on earth. Nathanael famously realised this truth when it became clear that Jesus knew him before they had even met: ‘Nathanael said to him, “How do you know me?” Jesus answered him, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you”’ (John 1:48). The Lamb also has seven horns. Horns are fearsome weapons in the armoury of some animals, such as the rhinoceros, buffalo, ibex and stag. They symbolise power, and that is how they are used in Scripture:

The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer,

my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge,

my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.

(Ps. 18:2)

Or again:

I say to the boastful, ‘Do not boast’,

and to the wicked, ‘Do not lift up your horn;

do not lift up your horn on high,

or speak with haughty neck.’

(Ps. 75:4–5)

Tiny lambs are the epitome of weakness, even when they are alive: a slaughtered lamb is as weak as can be imagined. Sceptics cynically ask: ‘How can the death of an obscure human being in a distant country over twenty centuries ago possibly have any relevance to me today?’ However, a closer look at this lamb reveals it has seven horns. It is actually immensely powerful, as Paul explains: ‘For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God’ (1 Cor. 1:18). The glory of the gospel is that the apparently futile message of the cross is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes.

From an anatomical perspective, such a creature would be a monstrosity. But this is imagery, designed to convey a strong message. Paul picks it up in the very same context:

For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

(1 Cor. 1:21–5)

Paul helps us make sense of the imagery. Eyes and horns: wisdom and power. This Lamb has power to overcome – but precisely what did it overcome? John saw a lamb, but we need to backtrack a little to what he heard: ‘The Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered [overcome], so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals’ (5:5). These are two clear allusions to the historical nature of the Jewish messianic hope. The bloodlines of Judah and of David were chosen by God to lead historically to the advent of his Messiah. Jacob likened his son Judah to a lion and predicted that from his descendants a leader of the peoples would come, the Messiah who would wield the sceptre of authority over Israel and the whole earth. The Root of David is an allusion to a prediction that Isaiah made about David’s father Jesse:

There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse,

and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit . . .

In that day the root of Jesse, who shall stand as a signal for the peoples – of him shall the nations enquire, and his resting-place shall be glorious.

(Isa. 11:1, 10)

It is a promise of restoration of David’s government, which will reach its ultimate fulfilment in the return of the promised descendant of both Judah and David, Jesus the Messiah. The Lion has overcome, something that has already been mentioned in part 1 (3:21). He has the inalienable right to wield the sceptre and rule on the throne of David.

What, then, we ask, did he overcome? His own answer is given in John 16.33: ‘I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.’ The word ‘world’ is the Greek word kosmos, which is derived from the verb kosmein, meaning ‘to arrange’ or ‘order’, and from which we get our word ‘cosmetics’! Here it has a negative connotation, signifying the world as an ordered, self-contained system controlled by the devil – the prince of this world, as Jesus called him – that is in rebellion against God. John writes:

Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world – the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions – is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides for ever.

(1 John 2:15–17)

The problem with the world is that human beings fall in love with it. That brings me back to the sceptic’s taunt that God couldn’t hold people because they loved the world rather than him, and so he lost them and was therefore defeated. God’s response to that accusation is that the Lord Jesus has overcome by exerting an even greater pull on human hearts and affections by so loving the world that he became the Lamb of God who gave himself for our sins.

This is such a magnificent and glorious theme that when the Lamb approaches the throne and takes the scroll there arises the immense, indescribable sound of all heaven singing a new song:

And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. And they sang a new song, saying,

‘Worthy are you to take the scroll

and to open its seals,

for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed [lit. bought] people for God

from every tribe and language and people and nation,

and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God,

and they shall reign on the earth.’

(5:8–10)

We pause to think about what John actually saw in his vision. When he initially sees the Lamb, standing as though it had been slain, one imagines that this is a precise description of the image that was before his (mind’s) eye. But now he records the Lamb going to the throne, taking a scroll and opening seals. Are we to imagine that the imagery still resembles a lamb, which – at least as far as my imagination goes – would have a very awkward time picking up a scroll and opening its seals? Is Robert E. D. Clark right, then, to suggest that in the vision ‘the animal remains so until it does something no animal could do: then it is an animal no longer’?6 I wonder, therefore, if a kind of metamorphosis in the imagery occurs and John now sees what John the Baptist saw when he said: ‘Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.’ He saw a man, the man Jesus Christ, and called people to look upon him as a lamb. The Jewish people of his day had seen thousands of lambs slain for sin at the altar in the Temple at Jerusalem – but never a man. Clark continues: ‘The Man, who now and for ever takes the title of The Lamb, approaches the throne and takes the scroll . . .’7

The twenty-four elders, august figures holding great authority, are not in the same category as the Lamb. They prostrate themselves before the Lamb in worship. The text notes in passing that they are holding harps8 and golden bowls that are full of incense, the prayers of saints. This latter is an indicator of things to come. Just as the throne is mentioned in part 1 but is centre stage in part 2, similarly, the prayers of the saints are mentioned here but will play a central role in part 3.

The man who is the Lamb is worthy to open the seals and inaugurate the judgements on an evil world, first of all because he himself was slaughtered by evil men. Second, he is worthy because he ransomed people for God from every tribe and nation. The Greek word that esv translates as ‘ransomed’ is derived from the word agora for ‘marketplace’, where things are bought and sold. It means ‘bought’. The Lamb is worthy because he bought men and women for God.

What does this mean? The idea of buying people in normal language has a very negative connotation. It means bribery, that is, using money to induce them into doing things that they might not otherwise have done – one of the major drivers of corruption in business and government in many countries today. That is but one facet of what we might call the ‘marketplace for human souls’ that all of us encounter: voices and pressures from all sides trying to induce us to do this or that by making us all kinds of seductive promises. To give in to them may well lead to enslavement and even destruction; think of the drug culture.

It all started in Eden with the apparently tempting offer by God’s arch-enemy to the first humans of a simple method of transcending a humble life, rising in the scale of being, and becoming godlike. It would involve disobeying the command of God and eating the forbidden fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. As we have seen, a similar offer of godlike transcendence currently lies at the heart of transhumanism, according to one of its best-known proponents, Yuval Noah Harari.

The allure is immense; we all know the saying ‘Everyone has their price’. Yet all human programmes for bringing in utopia, including transhumanism, have no solution to the clinging tentacles of sin and evil – about which they rarely ever even think. They have no lamb. Hence, they will inevitably fail.

Jesus entered the marketplace for the hearts and minds of men and women, and he paid the price to purchase them – the immeasurable price of his own life’s blood poured out for them on the cross. It is beside the point to ask to whom the price was paid. If a man dives into a freezing river to save his child and loses his life in doing it, we say that he paid the price. It was a real price, but he didn’t pay it to anyone.

The Lamb’s buying is more than a purchase; it is a redemption that sets men and women free. There is no bribery or corruption in it at any level. Peter writes: ‘You were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot’ (1 Pet. 1:18–19). Only of Jesus can I say that he ‘loved me and gave himself for me’ (Gal. 2:20). Because he has won my heart in this way, I gladly pledge allegiance to his throne. What a wonderful way of governing!

Those whom the Lamb has bought are ‘from every tribe and language and people and nation’ (5:9). Variants on this phrase are found seven times in Revelation, which shows that an important feature of God’s salvation is that there is no room in it for racism or favouritism – a point that needs to be emphasised in a world where racism pops up its ugly head far too often. There is only one redemption, and it is open to all.

There is a detail here that is easily missed. We are told that the Lamb has bought these people ‘for God’ (5:9). When birthdays or Christmas come round, we often have difficulty in knowing what to buy as a present for someone. I ask it reverently: what would you buy for God? Would you buy me – with all my weaknesses, imperfections, inadequacies and sins? This, to me, is an almost incredible thought: the Lord Jesus has bought me for God. In some sense, then, I constitute a present from the Son to the Father.

We Christians need to think hard about the immeasurable value and dignity this amazing grace gives to all believers, whatever may be their colour or ethnicity. It also lays on us all a serious responsibility, as it gives God the right to expect something from us. The context of the quote above from 1 Peter, where Peter talks about Christ ransoming us, is this: ‘And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, knowing that you were ransomed . . . with the precious blood of Christ’ (1 Pet. 1:17–19).

A simple analogy may help. Suppose some relative or friend gave you an old car, and its engine gave up after a few months. You would have no reason to complain; your friend freely gave you what they had, and you have no right to expect anything more. Now suppose, alternatively, that you have spent hard-earned money in buying a new car and its engine gives up after a short time. You would return to where you bought it and demand that they repair it. You have the right to expect the car to work properly because you paid a lot for it. Similarly, God surely has the right to expect a lot from us, since he paid so much for us. As a method of government, such self-giving love is unsurpassed.

The Lamb is worthy for another reason. Not only has he bought men and women for God, but he has also made something of them: ‘a kingdom and priests to our God’. The Lamb is the key to the way in which the throne of God establishes the kingdom of God. The idea of a kingdom of priests goes back to Exodus where Israel is told:

Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.

(Exod. 19:5–6a)

Peter picks this up in his letter and widens its scope to all believers from every tribe and nation: ‘But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light’ (1 Pet. 2:9). It is life’s highest privilege to have this ambassadorial role of proclaiming God’s excellencies – to tell people about the throne and the Lamb.

‘And they shall reign on the earth’ (5:10). Here once more is the promise that believers will reign on the earth in fulfilment of the throne’s commitment to real delegation. The Lord Jesus has overcome the world. As the Lamb of God, he has brought untold millions back to enthrone God in their lives with gladness and joy. They will one day reign on the earth.

The first climax of praise in this part was to God as Creator. Now comes the second – a climax of praise to the Lamb as Redeemer:

Then I looked, and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, ‘Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honour and glory and blessing!’ And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, saying, ‘To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honour and glory and might for ever and ever!’ And the four living creatures said, ‘Amen!’ and the elders fell down and worshipped.

(5:11–14)

The circle around the throne now enlarges dramatically to include millions of God’s created beings. Everything in the universe with a voice proclaims the worthiness of the Lamb and of the occupant of the throne. God and the Lamb are equally worthy of honour, worship and praise. The two are one. This is the pulsating heart of Deity. It will be utterly overwhelming to listen to that ineffable praise.

It is impossible to overemphasise the importance of what we have just read. Think of the impact of the vision of the Lamb on God’s throne on believers in the first century when the Roman imperial throne dominated the entire culture. The contrast between the immense power wielded by the emperor of Rome and the apparent weakness of a slaughtered lamb could not have been greater. And yet there is not the ghost of a mention of Roman imperial power in this vision – just a lamb on a throne. What an encouragement it must have been to believers who felt marginalised, discriminated against and persecuted, when they understood their value as the redeemed of the Lamb!

Historian Tom Holland has grasped the significance of this in his book Dominion, cited earlier:

Order, the order loved by the gods and upheld by magistrates vested with the full authority of the greatest power on earth, was what counted – not the elimination of such vermin as presumed to challenge it. Some deaths were so vile, so squalid, that it was best to draw a veil across them entirely . . . To be a Christian is to believe that God became man and suffered a death as terrible as any mortal has ever suffered. This is why the cross, that ancient implement of torture, remains what it has always been: the fitting symbol of the Christian revolution. It is the audacity of it – the audacity of finding in a twisted and defeated corpse the glory of the creator of the universe – that serves to explain, more surely than anything else, the sheer strangeness of Christianity, and of the civilization to which it gave birth. Today, the power of this strangeness remains as alive as it has ever been.9

These thoughts have inspired some of the most stirring and magnificent poetry and hymns ever written. Don’t you feel like singing this wonderful hymn by Matthew Bridges10 right now?

Crown him with many crowns,

the Lamb upon his throne.

Hark! how the heavenly anthem drowns

all music but its own.

Awake, my soul, and sing

of him who died for thee,

and hail him as thy matchless king

through all eternity.

Crown him the Lord of life,

who triumphed o’er the grave,

and rose victorious in the strife

for those he came to save;

his glories now we sing

who died and rose on high,

who died eternal life to bring,

and lives that death may die.

Crown him the Lord of love;

behold his hands and side,

rich wounds, yet visible above,

in beauty glorified;

no angels in the sky

can fully bear that sight,

but downward bend their burning eye

at mysteries so bright.

Crown him the Lord of years,

the potentate of time,

creator of the rolling spheres,

ineffably sublime.

All hail, Redeemer, hail!

for thou hast died for me;

thy praise shall never, never fail

throughout eternity.

14

The opening of the seals

The seven lampstands represented seven simultaneously existing churches. By contrast, the first four of the seals seem to represent a chronological sequence of judgements on the earth and its inhabitants, building up to what is called the ‘day of God’s wrath’ under seal 6. The seventh seal then introduces the transition to the third major part of the book.

The first four seals have the same pattern: each of the living beings in turn instructs a horse to come out or appear. The riders of the horses, of four different colours, carry out a sequence of judgements. They are often known as the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. The phrase ‘the four horsemen’ has become a widespread cultural symbol, usually for destruction; witness, for example, the ‘four horsemen’ of the New Atheism whose unsuccessful aim was to destroy religion.1

These horses are not the first coloured horses to appear in Scripture. The prophet Zechariah had a vision:

I saw in the night, and behold, a man riding on a red horse! He was standing among the myrtle trees in the glen, and behind him were red, sorrel, and white horses . . . ‘These are they whom the Lord has sent to patrol the earth.’

(Zech. 1:8, 10)

In a later vision in Zechariah 6, the four patrol horses are pulling chariots (Zech. 6:1–7), so war is in the air. We recall that Zechariah is a prophet of the restoration. There can be no permanent restoration until the seals are opened and evil is dealt with.

To return to John’s vision:

Now I watched when the Lamb opened one of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures say with a voice like thunder, ‘Come!’ And I looked, and behold, a white horse! And its rider had a bow, and a crown was given to him, and he came out conquering, and to conquer.

When he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, ‘Come!’ And out came another horse, bright red. Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that people should slay one another, and he was given a great sword.

When he opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, ‘Come!’ And I looked, and behold, a black horse! And its rider had a pair of scales in his hand. And I heard what seemed to be a voice in the midst of the four living creatures, saying, ‘A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius, and do not harm the oil and wine!’

When he opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, ‘Come!’ And I looked, and behold, a pale horse! And its rider’s name was Death, and Hades followed him. And they were given authority over a quarter of the earth, to kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence and by wild beasts of the earth.

(6:1–8)

The first thing that strikes me about this description is its minimalism. The terse formulation contrasts sharply with the contemporary demand for multimillion-dollar war, disaster and catastrophe movies of the Star Wars genre. Here, in restrained language, is a description of what must be utterly devastating events on earth, unleashed by, of all things, a lamb.

And because the language is so compressed, for those of us brought up with an insatiable lust for entertainment that features cataclysm on the grand scale, there is a real danger that we begin to not take God’s judgements seriously. If that is the case, we need to revisit our commitment to Scripture as God’s authoritative and authentic word.

The judgements inevitably bring suffering and death, yet they are instigated by a throne that throbs with life. It is the throne of the living God. That reinforces the point I made earlier that judgement must come because of the evil that destroys life.

The ultimate authority to open the seals lies with the Lamb who was slaughtered. He is at the heart of God’s government. No one affected by any of these judgements will be able to point an accusing finger at him for carrying them out. How could they, in the light of what he bore on his cross? As the prophet Isaiah poignantly put it long ago:

Surely he has borne our griefs

and carried our sorrows;

yet we esteemed him stricken,

smitten by God, and afflicted.

But he was wounded for our transgressions;

he was crushed for our iniquities;

upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,

and with his stripes we are healed.

All we like sheep have gone astray;

we have turned – everyone – to his own way;

and the Lord has laid on him

the iniquity of us all.

(Isa. 53:4–6)

We are told that the living beings summon the horses, and that the horses have riders. Yet there are differences between them. The rider of the first horse is given a crown and not told what to do – an indicator perhaps that he is the commander-in-chief, the Lord himself. If it is objected that the Lord has just been represented by a lamb who opens the seals and so cannot next be represented by a rider on a white horse, then that is to misunderstand the nature of the biblical imagery here, which changes at a stroke according to the underlying message to be conveyed. In any case, we shall explicitly see the Lord as a rider on a white horse in 19:11. We must be prepared for lightning change and be flexible in our interpretation of the symbols in this book in order to grasp the reality that is being communicated.

As we look at the sequence of judgements, many of them seem very familiar: conquest – presumably war between nations, civil war, famine and pandemic. We might therefore think that there is nothing special here since, sadly, these things have always been with us. The Lord Jesus himself warned his disciples that such things would increasingly happen in the future – and he put them in the same order as here (see Matt. 24; Mark 13; Luke 21). Also, since they happen in a universe governed by God’s throne, they must occur, because God allows them to occur.

Of course, that raises in many people’s minds the question as to why God allows such things. In my view, at least part of the answer lies in the so-called free-will defence: that the possibility of both natural and moral evil is created by the fact that God has given all of us the marvellous gift of freedom of choice, which has been misused to allow sin and damage into the world, with its endless devastating consequences.2

War, famine and disease may be caused by human evil and greed. Scripture tells us that, from time to time, God exercises some kind of restraint on such evil (2 Thess. 2:6). However, according to Paul, there come times when evil people have shown themselves to be so intransigent in their rebellion against God that God removes the restraint and lets them have it their own way, even though they may destroy themselves in the process (Rom. 1:28–32).

However, that does not imply that the sequence of seals is to be interpreted solely in terms of what goes on all the time. For the judgements seem to increase in intensity. The second seal leads to peace being taken from the earth, which sounds pretty extensive, and the fourth seal triggers the death of a quarter of the earth’s population, which is currently around 8 billion.

The sixth seal leads up to the great day of God’s wrath, clearly a unique event still in the future. We might compare the situation with flood disasters. Inundations often happen and sometimes cause loss of life, but they are not in the same category as the supernatural Flood that God sent as a judgement on the world in the days of Noah.

All of this fits with what the Lord Jesus himself predicted in his Olivet discourse:3

And you will hear of wars and rumours of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes4 in various places. All these are but the beginning of the birth pains.

(Matt. 24:6–8)

The correlation between these predictions of the Lord and the seal judgements may help us to see the level at which we are meant to understand the symbolism here, namely that the riders on their warhorses are intended to lead us to think of widespread wars rather than specific leaders and battles. This makes a lot of sense of the imagery. However, we may need a caveat here, since the Lord Jesus spoke of ‘birth pains’, which may indicate that he was speaking of events leading up to the judgements under the seals. These labour pains are, presumably, due to the evil endemic in society. Believers are told not to be alarmed – an injunction that is absent from the seals’ narrative. Whatever the level of symbolism, the judgements, as indicated by the Lord’s own teaching, clearly extensively affect the literal planet earth. That is, there is a mixture of symbol/metaphor and the literal in the description, just as in my earlier example: Israel is a land (literal) flowing (metaphor) with milk and honey (literal but also a metaphor for prosperity in general).

There are certain differences between the first four seal judgements in terms of the pattern they follow. For instance, only one of them is accompanied by a voice. When the black horse comes out, its rider is carrying scales, and a voice is heard in the midst of the living creatures: ‘A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius, and do not harm the oil and wine!’ (6:6). This is usually understood to be a weighing scale being used for the distribution of grain in a famine. The grain is very expensive: just enough for a day’s ration for one person costs a full day’s pay, about sixteen times normal for that time. The injunction not to hurt the oil or wine might imply a deep division in the society with the wealthy having plenty while the poor had scarcely enough to eat – a situation with which, sadly, the world is not unfamiliar even now. However, in ancient times, invading armies often left vineyards unharmed (since they take so long to regenerate) in order to enjoy the wine of a conquered country. An interesting sidelight on this is that Domitian in ad 92 issued an edict to destroy half the vines in order to create extra space to grow wheat during a famine. Could it be that the rider on the black horse left the vines in order to intensify the effect of the grain famine?

Only one horse is named: the fourth, the pale5 horse, is called Death. However, it seems as though a second horse named Hades follows it, for the text goes on to say: ‘And they [plural] were given authority over a quarter of the earth, to kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence and by wild beasts of the earth’ (6:8).

This is death on a vast scale, reminiscent of the Black Death, an epidemic of bubonic plague in the fourteenth century in which an estimated 75 to 200 million people died. A quarter of the present population of the earth would be around 2 billion people, that is, at least ten times as many.

All of this presents a grim contrast with the singing of praise to the Lamb on the throne at the end of chapter 5, and it leads us to ask what has been happening to the believers while the seals are being opened. The next seal gives us at least part of the answer. It is not a judgement but rather constitutes a pause in the sequence to open another window into heaven in order to show us that some people are there, having given their lives for Christ. It is easy to forget that the world’s pent-up hatred and spite that led to the slaughtering of the Lamb of God did not dissipate after Jesus ascended to heaven and the Holy Spirit came.

It would seem that what is happening on earth at this period is a complex mixture of the judgements of God and the violence of the enemies of God against believers. We must not confuse them.

Jesus was careful to forewarn his disciples a number of times that following him would involve hardship, persecution and even death. For example, in the Olivet discourse, after predicting wars, famine, pestilence and death, Jesus says to them: ‘Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake’ (Matt. 24:9). This tribulation will scarcely be the wrath of God but rather the vindictive anger of the enemies of God against believers. It was important for them to know these things in advance, since they are precisely what makes people question the very existence of God or his throne.

Not long after his Olivet discourse, in a borrowed upper room in Jerusalem, Jesus assured his disciples of his love and promised that he would send the Holy Spirit to be with them to empower their witness. He then told them straight:

If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you . . .

I have said all these things to you to keep you from falling away. They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God. And they will do these things because they have not known the Father, nor me. But I have said these things to you, that when their hour comes you may remember that I told them to you.

(John 15:18; 16:1–4)

And that is exactly what happened. It started with the murder of Stephen, then that of James, and eventually of Peter and Paul and a whole host of others through the centuries. Was the raging of the enemies of God never going to end? For how long were believers going to have to put up with it? When were such brave martyrs going to have justice?

As if the text of Revelation was following that reaction to the increasing intensity of the seals, that is the very question that is raised when the Lamb opens the next seal:

When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne. They cried out with a loud voice, ‘O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?’ Then they were each given a white robe and told to rest a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brothers should be complete, who were to be killed as they themselves had been.

(6:9–11)

The souls of the martyrs are seen underneath the altar. So far in the book, three pieces of tabernacle or temple furniture have been mentioned: the lampstand, the throne and the laver. This altar is a further piece of that furniture. It is the golden altar of incense on which prayer was offered to God on the throne. The Christian martyrs are crying to God for their blood to be avenged – a further undeniable reason why judgement must come. We should note that they are not calling for revenge, as some have thought. They are calling for justice to be done in their case.6

The martyrs’ concern about how long they will have to wait for God to act is one that troubles many people. Haven’t we all breathed this prayer? ‘How long do I have to put up with this?’ And we often pray it when we are scarcely suffering at all. But praying this prayer on earth, while we are still alive, is not what is in focus here, and the question arises: at what level should we understand it? At a literalistic level, one might think that these martyrs are living with a sense of time passing that is parallel to that on earth. That would seem to conflict with at least one way of understanding Paul’s statement that being absent from the body means being present with the Lord (2 Cor. 5:8). It might make more sense to think of the prayers of the martyrs as not having been forgotten but rather stored up in heaven for future action. We shall discuss this matter further when we meet it again at the beginning of part 3, where the incense altar plays a prominent role.

In the meantime, before God takes action to avenge the martyrs’ deaths, they are each given a white robe, a mark of holiness and purity, and they are told to rest for a little longer since, sadly, the list of martyrs is not yet complete.

With that we reach the opening of the sixth seal, where we find a dramatic, even frightening intensification of events:

When he opened the sixth seal, I looked, and behold, there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black as sackcloth, the full moon became like blood, and the stars of the sky fell to the earth as the fig tree sheds its winter fruit when shaken by a gale. The sky vanished like a scroll that is being rolled up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place. Then the kings of the earth and the great ones and the generals and the rich and the powerful, and everyone, slave and free, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, calling to the mountains and 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, for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?’

(6:12–17)

The cosmic effects on sun, moon and stars are associated in the OT with the Day of the Lord. Isaiah wrote:

Behold, the day of the Lord comes,

cruel, with wrath and fierce anger,

to make the land a desolation

and to destroy its sinners from it.

For the stars of the heavens and their constellations

will not give their light;

the sun will be dark at its rising,

and the moon will not shed its light.

I will punish the world for its evil,

and the wicked for their iniquity;

I will put an end to the pomp of the arrogant,

and lay low the pompous pride of the ruthless.

(Isa. 13:9–11)

These terrifying and portentous disturbances in the heavens triggered under the sixth seal provoke harrowing, doom-laden cries of the panic-stricken inhabitants of earth. They plead in vain for the mountains to fall on them and hide them7 from the face of the one on the throne and from the ‘wrath of the Lamb’. It is a tragic example of what T. S. Eliot once said about human beings not being able to bear very much reality. Somehow, the veil that normally screens the unseen world from human eyes has become translucent, and these desperate people become aware that they are looking into the awesome face of God about to execute his righteous wrath. The striking and solemn thing is that there is no evidence of any of them repenting, throwing themselves on God’s mercy and pleading with the Lamb to save them. We shall see this pattern repeated with the even more devastating trumpet judgements.8

These people could have chosen God, but they didn’t. C. S. Lewis captured the solemnity of their choice:

In the end that Face which is the delight or the terror of the universe must be turned upon each of us either with one expression or with the other, either conferring glory inexpressible or inflicting shame that can never be cured or disguised.9

The phrase ‘the wrath of the Lamb’ is a striking juxtaposition of two seemingly incongruous ideas: wrath and lamb. ‘The wrath of a lion’ would superficially make more sense, but it would miss the powerful point that this judgement is instigated by the Lamb, whose slaughter by the world was, incredibly, a unique sacrifice that provided salvation for all who would trust him for it – a salvation that would protect them from God’s wrath (1 Thess. 1:10).

For those of us who are believers, the thought of our fellow human beings shrieking in terror and calling on the mountains to fall on them and hide them from God’s presence ought to get to us and inspire us to greater effort in spreading the gospel and warning people to flee from the wrath to come by hiding in Christ before it is too late.

We should note that the day of wrath is announced at this point in Revelation, but no further detail is given here. We shall find it in due course.

Wrath is not the same as raw anger, although the same Greek word in the original text can be used for both. Wrath is God’s measured and righteous response to sin and evil. It is not a consequence of him losing his temper and lashing out. In that sense, it is the kind of righteous anger that is also required of believers: ‘Be angry and do not sin’ (Eph. 4:26). In Romans 1.18ff., Paul explains how the righteous wrath of God is revealed against all those who inexcusably suppress the truth and engage in sinful rebellion against him.

A coming day of wrath was not only announced by Isaiah as above. In the late seventh century bc the prophet Zephaniah, a great-grandson of King Hezekiah and a contemporary of Josiah and Jeremiah, predicted a coming devastating judgement on Jerusalem because of its wickedness:

The great day of the Lord is near,

near and hastening fast;

the sound of the day of the Lord is bitter;

the mighty man cries aloud there.

A day of wrath is that day,

a day of distress and anguish,

a day of ruin and devastation,

a day of darkness and gloom,

a day of clouds and thick darkness,

a day of trumpet blast and battle cry

against the fortified cities

and against the lofty battlements.

(Zeph. 1:14–16)

Zephaniah’s prediction of a day of wrath on Jerusalem flows seamlessly into the announcement of a future day of wrath on all humanity:

I will bring distress on mankind,

so that they shall walk like the blind,

because they have sinned against the Lord;

their blood shall be poured out like dust,

and their flesh like dung.

Neither their silver nor their gold

shall be able to deliver them

on the day of the wrath of the Lord.

In the fire of his jealousy,

all the earth shall be consumed;

for a full and sudden end

he will make of all the inhabitants of the earth.

(Zeph. 1:17–18)

This passage illustrates that common and important feature of biblical prophecy whereby fulfilment often comes in different stages and at different levels; there may be a series of partial fulfilments building up to a final fulfilment.

From the above passages we see that the terms ‘day of wrath’ and ‘day of the Lord’ are interchangeable. They also denote the ‘day of judgement’, as Paul explains: ‘Because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgement will be revealed’ (Rom. 2:5). Paul warns people of the wrath of God with a view to getting them to repent and trust Christ for salvation.

The events that occur when the sixth seal is opened, even though they do not yet belong to the actual day of wrath, are nevertheless, like the great tribulation described by the Lord Jesus, clearly more intense and devastating than the wars, famines and pestilences of the first four seals, even though some of those judgements are already horrific. In fact, the events of the day of wrath are so remote from even our most extreme experiences that it is hard to get our heads around them, which exposes us to the danger of beginning to think that they are not real.

These events will be of such cataclysmic proportions that they will even shake the earth and the heavens. Shaking the earth is something we do understand, at least a little. In 2011 I arrived in New Zealand just a few days after the Christchurch earthquake and witnessed at close hand its terrifying destructive power. And as I write, a powerful earthquake has just occurred in Turkey and Syria, killing thousands of people. In Scripture, earthquakes are associated with God’s presence to rule, for instance at Sinai, where the earth shook and the mountain was on fire.10 The first happening under the sixth seal is a great earthquake.

That there will also be ominous disturbances in the heavens in the Day of the Lord is a feature of OT prophecy on the topic. For instance, Isaiah wrote:

All the host of heaven shall rot away,

and the skies roll up like a scroll.

All their host shall fall,

as leaves fall from the vine,

like leaves falling from the fig tree.

(Isa. 34:4)

Similarly, Joel, a post-exilic prophet, in a famous prediction that was quoted by Peter on the day of Pentecost in connection with the coming of the Holy Spirit, said:

And [the Lord] will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke. The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes.

(Joel 2:30–1)

It is often pointed out that these apparent changes in the sun and moon are very similar to what happens in solar and lunar eclipses, which are natural phenomena just like earthquakes and the fire of volcanic activity. Also, a large meteor shower, such as the Perseids, looks very much like stars falling from heaven. Are these things only wonders, then, to people who are ignorant of science? Clearly, it would be terrifying to see a number of such events occurring over a short period of time.

Robert E. D. Clark suggests that what we have here are appearances, that is, what it will all look like to people on earth at the time. Based on what we observe in the world of nature, he then suggests that some of these appearances could be caused by massive volcanic eruptions, and/or the shifting of tectonic plates, or, even more plausibly, by the use of weapons of mass destruction in a nuclear war. For instance, such is the power of nuclear bombs that the earth and its islands would shake because of the intense shock waves, and the mountains would appear to move. Also, such detonations would cause a vast dust cloud that would darken the sun. Clark further points out that a brownish-red colour is always seen after nuclear explosions. It is caused by nitrogen dioxide, which is formed when air is super-heated and then cooled. At night it would redden the weak light of the moon. Not only that, but in such a conflict each side would attempt to shoot the other side’s missiles out of the sky, and they would look very much like falling stars as they fell to earth. Clark quotes a report from the Reviews of Modern Physics11 commissioned by General Leslie R. Groves, who had observed the first atomic explosion:

It can be safely said that most of those present were praying and praying harder than they had ever prayed before as they awaited the explosion. The brilliance of the flash ‘beggared description’; thirty seconds later came the blast wave, ‘to be followed by the strong, sustained, awesome roar which warned of doomsday and made us feel that we puny things were blasphemous to dare tamper with the forces hitherto reserved to the Almighty.’12

Are we, perhaps, being a bit over-literalistic here? After all, this is a vision. We have seen a lamb in it, but we probably don’t think that in heaven there is a literal lamb, of the species Ovis aries, that sits on a throne that is carried on the backs of living creatures with animal and human faces. These are all powerful symbols that stand for realities, and they convey important truth about those realities to our minds and hearts. To think of them as literal would be beside the point.

What, then, are we to say about the celestial phenomena? Should they also be taken symbolically, even though they do not necessarily at once strike us as such? Well, if we do, we need to ask what realities they represent. One way of approaching that question is to ask another: what impression do they make on our imagination? The darkening of sun and moon, the falling of stars, the earthquakes and shifting of mountains and islands, the heavens rolling up like a scroll . . . all certainly suggest the dissolution of the created order. All that we have thought to be stable and permanent is crumbling. All that is necessary for sustaining life is falling apart. History, as we know it, is coming to an end. The cosmos is reverting to chaos. It is eerily reminiscent of the oft-quoted lines from W. B. Yeats’s famous poem ‘The Second Coming’:

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.13

The impression given by the vision is that of the dissolution of the physical universe, and it is therefore difficult to avoid thinking that the description may be more literal than we might at first think. That means we need to consider that, even granted that the vision may be partly non-literal, it could well be referring to actual catastrophic happenings in the physical world, as Clark suggests.

If so, then at what level? For instance, could there be a supernatural dimension at the level of the timing of these events – if we are thinking about volcanic or tectonic activity? It is often suggested that a biblical example of this occurred when the people of Israel were crossing the sea to escape from Pharaoh. On that occasion, God used a strong east wind to divide the waters – a wind that was presumably a natural phenomenon. The supernatural element was that the wind came at exactly the right time to save the Israelites from drowning. Are, then, the celestial phenomena supernatural in terms of the timing of their occurrence in the final countdown to the return of Christ?

On one hand, if they are descriptions of nuclear war, then that could be seen as the consequence of humans bringing on themselves just punishment for their behaviour – punishment permitted but not orchestrated by God.

On the other hand, might we be dealing with physical phenomena that do not fit into the normal course of nature but are direct interventions of God? For what ultimately follows them, the return of Christ, is itself an intervention that is manifestly not explicable in terms of natural phenomena. Compare that with the fulfilment of part of Joel’s prophecy on the day of Pentecost. It involved supernatural events: the rushing mighty wind, the tongues of fire on the disciples and the fact that they suddenly found themselves spontaneously able to speak in languages they had never learned. Their very communication of the wonderful works of God that day was itself a wonderful work of God. It is, therefore, reasonable to imagine that the future fulfilment of Joel’s prophecy in terms of cosmic portents will also be a supernatural work of God.

As a scientist, I would like to affirm that the natural sciences not only cannot rule out such interventions but may even be able to help us understand them better. Those that are supernatural are, of course, ruled out by materialism/naturalism – a presumption on the part of many scientists. That is why it is important to realise that naturalism is not only not demanded by science: it is actually false. The resurrection of Jesus from the dead is, as Paul told the philosophers at Athens, evidence for everyone that he is the Son of God who will be the final judge of all humanity.

Let me explain briefly why I find no difficulty in being both a Christian and a scientist. God the Creator has made a universe that runs on certain fascinating regularities that scientists such as Isaac Newton discovered and which we call the ‘laws of nature’. They describe what normally happens. However, they are not causes. The laws of motion never caused a billiard or snooker ball to move in the whole history of the cosmos; people with cues do that. The laws of motion describe the trajectory of the balls, but they obviously cannot stop someone intervening and lifting a ball from the table. Similarly, the laws of nature cannot stop the Creator feeding a new event or action into the system. He is not a prisoner of those laws. They do not constrain like moral laws. The irony is that, in order to recognise a supernatural event, you need to know the laws of nature; otherwise you wouldn’t recognise a miracle if you saw one!14

The universe is not a closed system of cause and effect. It is an open system, created by a God who is concerned about it and where it is headed. There is, therefore, no a priori reason for thinking that celestial events of such colossal intensity are not direct interventions of God. Solar and lunar eclipses last for only a few minutes. If the darkness were to last much longer, we might be less likely to attribute what we were seeing to natural causes. And what are we to make of the sky being rolled up like a scroll and every mountain and island being moved from its place? From the perspective of appearances, as we have said, nuclear war would seem to be a plausible explanation. But, and it is an emphatic ‘but’, we just don’t know, so there is no room for dogmatism. That, of course, does not mean we should not explore the possibilities within the limits of current scientific understanding. Our inability to determine the mechanism behind such cosmic disturbances does not alter the fact that they will occur.

The imagery here, and that of the stars falling like winter figs from a fig tree, comes from the book of Isaiah, where the context is the Lord’s day of vengeance on the nations (Isa. 34:4, 8). The post-exilic prophet Haggai, writing at the time of the Medo-Persian Empire, also predicted future cosmic disturbances:

For thus says the Lord of hosts: Yet once more, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land . . .

Speak to Zerubbabel, governor of Judah, saying, I am about to shake the heavens and the earth, and to overthrow the throne of kingdoms. I am about to destroy the strength of the kingdoms of the nations and overthrow the chariots and their riders. And the horses and their riders shall go down, everyone by the sword of his brother.

(Hag. 2:6, 21–2)

This prophecy is picked up in the NT in Hebrews:

See that you do not refuse him who is speaking. For if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven. At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, ‘Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.’ This phrase, ‘Yet once more’, indicates the removal of things that are shaken – that is, things that have been made – in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore, let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.

(Heb. 12:25–9)

It would be a serious mistake to argue that, because there is apocalyptic symbolism in the text of Revelation, there is little need to take it seriously. For real cosmic dissolution will happen, and it has serious moral implications for the present. That is made clear by the apostle Peter in, be it noted, a non-symbolic, down-to-earth letter:

But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.

Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.

(2 Pet. 3:10–13)

We shall later see that this passage is confirmed at the end of Revelation. Scientists also believe that the cosmos will come to an end, and they have several different theories and scenarios to describe it.

As we think about such terrifying events, it is important that we do not forget that God’s judgements are always carried out with the hope of restoration and renewal, as promised in the final verse just quoted. The preceding passage from Hebrews similarly tells us that God uses his mighty, earth-shattering voice to warn people of their need to repent and return to him.

Zephaniah ends his prophecy of the day of wrath with a real hope of restoration:

‘At that time, I will bring you in,

at the time when I gather you together;

for I will make you renowned and praised

among all the peoples of the earth,

when I restore your fortunes

before your eyes,’ says the Lord.

(Zeph. 3:20)

Joel, also, after describing the coming of the Day of the Lord, offers what we might think of as a gospel hope:

And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those who escape,

as the Lord has said, and among the survivors shall be those whom the Lord calls.

(Joel 2:32)

Peter used this scripture on the day of Pentecost to launch his gospel appeal to the crowds gathered in Jerusalem, who had just had their Messiah put to death by the Romans.

Finally, Paul’s reference to the day of wrath comes at the beginning of his letter to the Romans, a book full of the wonderful gospel that will eventually lead to a restoration like no other. That hope leads Paul to exclaim: ‘Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgements and how inscrutable his ways!’ (Rom. 11:33).

Such resounding praise, like that with which both Revelation 4 and 5 end, contrasts sharply with the heart-rending shrieks of terror at the prospect of facing the wrath of the Lamb and of God that we find at the end of chapter 6. The tragedy of sin is that it deceives people into imagining that God is their enemy. That idea was insinuated into the human race at the very beginning. The devil-snake told the first humans that God had forbidden the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil because he did not wish them to reach their full potential. God was against human flourishing: he was their enemy. The tragic result of this lie was that, when Adam and Eve brought sin into the world through their disobedience, they ran and hid from his presence.

However, God was never their enemy, as chapters 4 and 5 of Revelation so clearly show. How could you possibly think that God is against you when you find out about the Lamb – who he is and what he has done? The challenge for those of us who follow the Lamb is: how do we get this across and dispel false images of God? For it is only by trusting and following the Lamb that we can realise our full potential as his redeemed people.

15

The sealing of 144,000 from Israel and the innumerable crowd before the throne

Revelation chapter 6 ends with a grim rhetorical question: in view of the impending great day of wrath of God and the Lamb, who can stand? The answer is: no one, unless God enables and protects them. Chapter 7 forms an interlude between seals 6 and 7 that slows down the pace to consider two important groups of people whom God does enable to stand. The first group consists of 144,000 people ‘from every tribe of the sons of Israel’ (7:4), which suggests that they are ethnic Jews. The second group, by contrast, consists of a ‘great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb’ (7:9).

The narrative opens with a new vision:

After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth, that no wind might blow on earth or sea or against any tree. Then I saw another angel ascending from the rising of the sun, with the seal of the living God, and he called with a loud voice to the four angels who had been given power to harm earth and sea, saying, ‘Do not harm the earth or the sea or the trees, until we have sealed the servants of our God on their foreheads.’

(7:1–3)

May I point out as a scientist that the use of the phrase ‘the four corners of the earth’ does not imply that John was a flat-earther, any more than does its use by anyone today, including scientists. It is a metaphor for the whole earth. At these corners stand four angels who are holding back four winds. The source of the imagery here is probably Jeremiah, who writes:

And I will bring upon Elam the four winds from the four quarters of heaven. And I will scatter them to all those winds, and there shall be no nation to which those driven out of Elam shall not come.

(Jer. 49:36)

The winds are regarded here as carriers of punishment. Daniel has a vision of winds that stir up a sea out of which arise monstrous wild animals. The implication here is that the winds in Revelation 7 are about to be unleashed to carry out God’s judgements on earth. However, another angel appears with a seal and calls upon the four angels not to allow the winds to harm earth, sea or trees until the servants of God are sealed on their foreheads. Hitherto, the breaking of seals has brought judgement; now, a seal will be used to protect the 144,000 from judgement.

The mention of winds is interesting, since there is statistical evidence that strong tropical cyclones have increased in frequency over recent decades. Clark also suggests that fierce winds may be associated with the so-called nuclear winter that may follow a nuclear conflagration.1

The question of the identity of the 144,000 has been much discussed. Some commentators note that John writes that he first ‘heard’ the number of those who were sealed and that afterwards he ‘looked’ and saw the great multitude. They combine this observation with John’s earlier remark that he first heard a voice and then looked to see it. From this they deduce that the two groups are the same.

However, I am not alone in finding that argument unconvincing. For the text explicitly contrasts the origins and make-up of the two groups: the first from the tribes of the sons of Israel, all of whom are explicitly listed, and the second from every tribe and people and language; the first can be counted and their number is given, but the second cannot be counted. To say that a group is from twelve tribes and every tribe, and that it can be both counted and not counted, is to utter flat contradictions. It is true that numbers in the book of Revelation may be symbolic. They may also be both literal and symbolic. For instance, the number of churches is seven because there were seven literal churches, yet seven is widely accepted as the number indicating completeness, so that these seven churches can be seen to represent all churches. And if the number 144,000, subdivided as it is into twelve groups of 12,000, is symbolic, what is it a symbol of? Hardly an uncountable multitude. It could, though, be taken – as some do take it – to stand for a large representative crowd from Israel, rather than an exact tally. Otherwise, it might be as literal as the number of tribes.

Perhaps one should ask the question: does it really matter? Is there any theologically significant point being made here? I believe that there is, and that it is one that deeply concerned Paul. Paul naturally wondered why so many of his fellow Jews rejected the gospel, when they had been privileged to carry so much of the revelation of God to the world. He asked the question: ‘Has God rejected his people?’ (Rom. 11:1). His answer is, first of all, that he himself is a Jew who believes in Christ. He goes on to confirm the prediction made by Isaiah that a remnant of Israel would be saved:

And Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: ‘Though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved, for the Lord will carry out his sentence upon the earth fully and without delay.’

(Rom. 9:27–8; see also Rom. 11)

We note that the statement about a remnant is in the context of God’s judgement of the earth.

Paul goes further to say:

And in this way all Israel will be saved, as it is written,

‘The Deliverer will come from Zion,

he will banish ungodliness from Jacob;

and this will be my covenant with them

when I take away their sins.’

(Rom. 11:26–7)

The question arises as to whether it makes sense to identify 144,000 with the remnant whose evangelistic activity will lead to ‘all Israel’ being saved? In any case, they are clearly not to be confused with the uncountable multitude, since Revelation 7 seems to go out of its way to differentiate between the two groups. Indeed, one might well ask why anyone would think that the groups were identical. The answer is that there is an important underlying theological issue at stake. Those who equate the two groups usually also believe that Scripture teaches that there is no future role for Israel per se as a nation. They hold that the ‘Israel of God’ now consists of all believers of whatever origin, Jew or non-Jew, arguing from a text in Galatians stating that in Christ ‘there is neither Jew nor Greek’ (Gal. 3:28).

Quite so. However, in that context in Galatians, Paul is writing about the gospel and arguing that salvation has the same basis for everyone: justification by faith. There is not one gospel for Jews and another for Gentiles. However, that does not mean there are not distinct roles for Jews and Gentiles, as Paul explains in Romans 9 – 11. The full quote from Galatians 3:28 is: ‘There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.’ To argue that there is only one gospel and not two – one for males and the other for females – is one thing. It would be an entirely different matter to insist that this implied there was absolutely no difference between males and females and so they must have precisely the same roles. For that would be false, as Paul says elsewhere. The gospel is the same for all, but roles may be different. The same holds for slaves and free persons.

Also, as we have already seen, the Lord Jesus himself, particularly at his ascension, reinforced his disciples’ expectation that the kingdom that Israel had lost would one day be restored to the nation in connection with his return on the clouds of heaven.2

If you are like me, your eyes tend to glaze over when you are asked to read a list of things, especially one that looks repetitive, like this list of the tribes of Israel (7:5–8). Yet, although there are many listings of these tribes in Scripture, this one differs from all the others. It contains Levi, who is often omitted. It has Joseph and his son Manasseh but omits Ephraim. It also omits Dan. Its ordering is unusual with Judah at the start and Benjamin at the end. No reason is given in the text for these features, and I shall leave the reader to consult the literature to see what the experts make of it.

Once more, there is an OT precedent for marking people with a seal. Ezekiel records that the Lord said to him: ‘Pass through the city, through Jerusalem, and put a mark on the foreheads of the men who sigh and groan over all the abominations that are committed in it’ (Ezek. 9:4).

Throughout history, the people of Israel have endured many trials: slavery in Egypt, deportation, anti-Semitism, expulsion from many countries, persecutions, pogroms, and, worst of all, being the victims of industrialised slaughter by the Nazis in the Holocaust in the twentieth century – the few survivors of the concentration camps having been permanently branded with the numbers to which their persecutors, in their bestiality, reduced them. Because of that, it is surely not surprising that Revelation tells how the Jews will fare in days to come. One answer is that God will protect the group of them that is described here. The seal on their forehead will protect them from having another horrific identity number on their arms. We shall learn more about this group in Revelation 14, including the fact that they are followers of the Lamb. That means that they, like the apostles and first Christians, are Jewish believers in Jesus as the Messiah.

Of course, God’s salvation is for all: it is international, as we see when we now consider the second group.

After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands and crying out with a loud voice, ‘Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!’ And all the angels were standing round the throne and round the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshipped God, saying, ‘Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honour and power and might be to our God for ever and ever! Amen.’

(7:9–12)

Notice the repeated emphasis on the throne in this passage. This part started with a vision of that throne, in all of its august majesty, occupied by the God who dwells in unapproachable light. It now ends with a vast sea of human beings who have reached the throne. How did they get there? They are there because the Lamb gave his life to redeem them: he bought them for God and led them to his throne through many a tribulation and trial, including, for some, death itself. It is an utterly triumphant conclusion to life’s journey.

The sight of an innumerable throng of human beings standing in front of God’s throne is a completely convincing final answer to the lying insinuation of the devil, made to the first humans in the garden of Eden, that God did not want them to rise to his level. Now the vast multitude stands, so to speak, on God’s level, sharing his life as his sons and daughters, and they are there because of the Lamb of God who gave himself for them. They cry with a loud voice, but not for the rocks and mountains to fall on them and hide them from the throne. By contrast, there is a palpable sense of victory evident as they mass in front of the throne and before the Lamb, calling out: ‘Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!’ (7:10). The angels, elders and living creatures join in the praise, and heaven rings to the magnificent sound. Such is the vast difference between the fate of the unredeemed and that of the redeemed.

What a spectacular picture of the gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God! To think that I shall be in that crowd is utterly overwhelming. I shall be there, not because I deserve to be – I do not – but because, amazingly, he has bought me for God.

Reader, it would be good for us to pause and think about these astounding truths. The words of this beautiful hymn by Lucy A. Bennett3 may help us to do that:

O teach me what it meaneth,

That cross uplifted high,

With One, the Man of Sorrows,

Condemned to bleed and die!

O teach me what it cost Thee

To make a sinner whole;

And teach me, Saviour, teach me

The value of a soul!

O teach me what it meaneth,

That sacred crimson tide,

The blood and water flowing

From Thine own wounded side.

Teach me that if none other

Had sinned, but I alone,

Yet still Thy blood, Lord Jesus,

Thine only, must atone.

O teach me what it meaneth,

Thy love beyond compare,

The love that reacheth deeper

Than depths of self-despair!

Yes, teach me, till there gloweth

In this cold heart of mine

Some feeble, pale reflection

Of that pure love of Thine.

O teach me what it meaneth,

For I am full of sin,

And grace alone can reach me,

And love alone can win.

O teach me, for I need Thee,

I have no hope beside –

The chief of all the sinners

For whom the Saviour died!

O teach me what it meaneth,

The rest which Thou dost give

To all the heavy-laden

Who look to Thee and live.

Because I am a rebel,

Thy pardon I receive;

Because Thou dost command me,

I can, I do believe.

O infinite Redeemer!

I bring no other plea;

Because Thou dost invite me,

I cast myself on Thee.

Because Thou dost accept me,

I love and I adore;

Because Thy love constraineth,

I’ll praise Thee evermore!

One of the elders now questions John about the identity of the multitude before the throne. Not surprisingly, John doesn’t know the answer and throws the question back:

Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, ‘Who are these, clothed in white robes, and from where have they come?’ I said to him, ‘Sir, you know.’ And he said to me, ‘These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.’

7:13–14)

This elder is using a tactic, well known to teachers, to prompt John to think in a particular direction. He wants John to know exactly who these people are and where they have come from. The answer is that they have come out of ‘the great tribulation’. John has already referred to tribulation as not only being his lot on Patmos (1:9) but also that of the church at Smyrna (2:9–10). In the letter to Thyatira, he uses the term ‘great tribulation’ (without the definite article) to describe the punishment of the false teacher Jezebel. Only here in 7:14 do we get the expression ‘the great tribulation’ (with the definite article).

As we saw earlier, the Lord Jesus himself talks about great tribulation in his Olivet discourse and places it in a context like that of the climax of the seal judgements, immediately before the cosmic disturbances. The question arises: in what sense did these people ‘come out’ of the great tribulation? Is it because they have survived through it, or is it because they died because of it?

I have sometimes found that this question causes concern and sometimes fear on the part of some believers to the extent that it even puts them off reading or thinking about Revelation. Their question is often something like: ‘Will the Church go through the great tribulation? Will believers have to endure this awful time?’ The subtext is: I couldn’t face that. I’m scared. Please tell me I won’t have to go through it.

That means that it can be difficult to discuss this topic without emotions running high and beclouding the situation. I have personally met believers who are troubled by this issue, and I believe it is important to address it, if only to allay misplaced fear.4 However, whatever the answer to the question is, the first thing we can say is that the vast majority of the Church will not have to go through the great tribulation for the simple reason that they will have already died and gone to be with the Lord in glory. By very definition, the great tribulation can only affect people who are on earth at the time it happens.

Second, as we have seen, believers are not exempt from tribulation as such. Many, perhaps you yourself, are going through it as you read this. What we need to think about is what is implied by saying that this future tribulation is ‘great’. It is clearly great in its extent; there has never been anything like it before. However, it cannot be great in the sense that individuals affected by it will suffer more than any individuals have suffered before. For a moment’s thought should convince us that individual believers have already suffered the full extent of what it is possible to suffer: they have been torn apart, tortured, crucified, and subjected to every thinkable horror and pain. Tragically, such violence against Christians is still happening in many places around the world today.

Therefore, if that is what we fear, then we need to know that, although many of us will never have to face anything like it, the Lord himself tells us that we may have to. Revelation explicitly says that some people do go through the great tribulation. However, and this is very important, the Lord also tells us that, nevertheless, even in that case we do not need to fear:

And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.

(Matt. 10:28–31)

I would like at this point to refer the reader back to earlier comments on the letter to the church at Smyrna in part 1 regarding the practicalities of facing tribulation, where we gave an example of the way in which the Lord meets our need when necessary but not before.

What is clear from our study of the letters to the churches is that the Lord calls upon some believers to face relatively little suffering, whereas others are called upon to face extreme suffering and even martyrdom. Why that should be, we rarely find out, but it seems that in some cases God allows some believers to bear a much heavier burden than others in order to teach those of us who are weaker just how he enables believers to cope with persecution and suffering of all kinds.

When we look closely at the biblical references to the end-time great tribulation, we find associated with them assurances of God’s protection and deliverance. For example, Daniel, after predicting an unprecedented time of trouble, adds: ‘But at that time your people shall be delivered, everyone whose name shall be found written in the book’ (Dan. 12:1b).

Similarly, Jesus, in his Olivet discourse, immediately after predicting unprecedented tribulation, said: ‘And if those days had not been cut short, no human being would be saved. But for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short’ (Matt. 24:22). Hence, the duration of the tribulation is limited for the sake of believers.

We saw earlier that in the letter to Sardis the Lord promises the same kind of protection as in Daniel: ‘Because you have kept my word about patient endurance, I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world, to try those who dwell on the earth’ (3:10). The terms ‘delivered’ and ‘kept from’ may be understood in at least two ways: first, that believers will never be involved in the tribulation, or, second, that although believers may be in it, they will be protected from being overwhelmed by it.

The former view is held by those who understand Scripture to teach that the Lord will take all believers from earth to heaven before the great tribulation starts in an event usually called ‘the rapture’.5 A very readable, thought-provoking account of this view is given by Pete Lowman in his Guide to the End of the World.6 A substantial historical assessment of the topic is to be found in historian Donald Harman Akenson’s Exporting the Rapture: John Nelson Darby and the Victorian conquest of North American Evangelicalism.7

There is another related issue: is the great tribulation, or indeed any other level of tribulation, necessarily an outpouring of the wrath of God, or even punishment from God, as distinct from being permitted by God? For instance, it is hard to imagine that John’s trials in Patmos were a result of the wrath of God. They could well have been the result of the wrath of human beings – state officials, police and so on – as many, if not most, tribulations of that kind are. I say this because of Paul’s explicit and repeated teaching that deliverance from the ‘wrath of God’ is an integral part of salvation: ‘Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God’ (Rom. 5:9). Paul describes the conversion of believers at Thessalonica as follows:

For they themselves report concerning us the kind of reception we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come.

(1 Thess. 1:9–10)

Later in the same letter, Paul writes: ‘For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ’ (1 Thess. 5:9).

These passages indicate that no wrath of God will befall believers, even though they may suffer, as many have done, the most awful trials and even martyrdom. For example, the executions of Stephen, Peter and Paul were not instances of the wrath of God but the wrath of human beings. The great tribulation looks much more like the latter. But if it is in part an expression of the wrath of God, then it would seem that either God will protect his people through it or he will keep them out of it. We shall discuss the rapture in more detail in an appendix.8

The final comment of this part brings us to a glorious climax that corresponds to the opening vision of the throne:

Therefore they are before the throne of God,

and serve him day and night in his temple;

and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence.

They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more;

the sun shall not strike them,

nor any scorching heat.

For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd,

and he will guide them to springs of living water,

and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.

(7:15–17)

The believers who have suffered have reached one journey’s end at the throne of God, where a new and glorious journey will begin. The Shepherd (Ps. 23) will take on a new significance, since from now on God will himself shelter and protect them with his presence. The Greek word for ‘shelter’ is derived from the word for ‘tent’ or ‘tabernacle’, and the wonderfully comforting idea is that God will spread the tent of his presence over them. Hunger and thirst will be gone for ever, and tears will be wiped away by God himself. The human eye is a very sensitive organ, which is why we normally wipe away our own tears. For, if someone else tries, they are more than likely to poke our eye and hurt it. This promise that God will personally wipe away our final tears gives us a profound and beautiful insight into the remarkable emotional sensitivity of God’s throne to human hurt and into the scope of his great salvation.

This end of weeping was foretold by Isaiah in his famous prophecy of a feast that the Lord will make to celebrate the abolition of death:

He will swallow up death for ever;

and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces,

and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth,

for the Lord has spoken.

It will be said on that day,

‘Behold, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us.

This is the Lord; we have waited for him;

let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.’

(Isa. 25:8–9)

The Lamb will be their shepherd. Ordinary lambs need a shepherd, but this lamb is unique. He is the shepherd who will lead them, but not into a boring retirement of permanent inactivity. By contrast, his people, refreshed by eternal springs of living water, will be involved in all kinds of vigorous service in his dynamic and fascinating kingdom where their potential will be fully realised to their complete satisfaction. This shepherd imagery goes back to another of Isaiah’s prophecies:

Thus says the Lord:

‘In a time of favour I have answered you;

in a day of salvation I have helped you;

I will keep you and give you

as a covenant to the people,

to establish the land,

to apportion the desolate heritages,

saying to the prisoners, ‘Come out’,

to those who are in darkness, ‘Appear.’

They shall feed along the ways;

on all bare heights shall be their pasture;

they shall not hunger or thirst,

neither scorching wind nor sun shall strike them,

for he who has pity on them will lead them,

and by springs of water will guide them.’

(Isa. 49:8–10)

Some of these ideas recur in Revelation 21:3ff., for instance the promise that God will wipe away all tears. This would lead us to expect that there is a certain amount of layered repetition in the book, each layer contributing something different that adds to the picture, much as certain forms of screen printing involve layering one colour on top of another. There is a great deal of scholarly discussion as to precisely how much repetition or overlap there is in the various series of seven judgements – seals, trumpets and bowls.

Before we reach the glory of heaven with all of its joys, there may be a hard path to tread, one that will keep us in close touch with God’s throne through prayer – which topic brings us to the next part of the book.

Part 3

REVELATION 8:1 – 11:18

BRIEF SUMMARY

The seventh seal opened

The golden altar of incense in heaven

Silence, prayer and trumpets

A mighty angel and two witnesses

The seventh trumpet

When the Lamb opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. Then I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and seven trumpets were given to them. And another angel came and stood at the altar with a golden censer, and he was given much incense to offer with the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar before the throne, and the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, rose before God from the hand of the angel.

(8:1–4)

DETAILED SUMMARY

A. The altar of incense, the saints’ prayers and the seven trumpets (8:1 – 9:21)

Silence in heaven for half an hour.

The golden altar of incense before the throne. The prayers of the saints break the silence. An angel empties fire from censer onto the earth, which triggers thunder, rumblings, lightning and an earthquake.

Six trumpets are blown:

1Hail and fire, mixed with blood, are thrown onto the earth: a third of earth and trees, and all grass, is burnt up.

2A fiery mountain is thrown onto the sea: a third of the sea is turned to blood; a third of marine life and of ships is destroyed.

3A blazing star called Wormwood falls on a third of the rivers and springs: many people are poisoned.

4The sun, moon and stars are struck: a third of light is lost.

An eagle announces that the final three trumpets are woes for earth-dwellers.

5Woe 1. A star falls from heaven and opens a bottomless pit from which fierce, horse-like armoured locusts with scorpion tails swarm to torment for five months those who do not have God’s seal on their foreheads. Their king is Abaddon/Apollyon.

6Woe 2. A command is issued from the golden altar to let loose four angels at the River Euphrates. The resulting invasion by a vast army of 200 million fire-breathing horses kills a third of humans. The rest of humanity does not repent.

B. A mighty angel comes down from heaven (10:1–11)

He is clothed with a cloud, with a rainbow on his head, his face like the sun, his legs like pillars of fire.

He holds a little scroll and puts his right foot on the sea and his left on the land.

He roars like a lion, and seven thunders respond, but John is not allowed to record the contents of their response.

The angel swears by the Creator that there will be no more delay, but that in the days of the trumpet call of the seventh angel, the mystery of God, according to the good news declared to the prophets, will be fulfilled.

John takes the little scroll and eats it. It is sweet in his mouth, but bitter in his stomach. He is told that he has still more to prophesy about many nations.

C. The two witnesses in the Holy City (11:1–14)

John measures the Temple and altar in Jerusalem but not the court, since the Holy City will be trodden underfoot by the nations for forty-two months.

Two supernaturally empowered witnesses/lampstands/olive trees testify for 1,260 days but are then murdered by the beast from the bottomless pit. The dead bodies of these prophets lie in a city called Sodom and Egypt where the Lord was crucified. The world is mad with joy.

After three days the witnesses are raised from the dead and, watched by their enemies, are taken visibly up to heaven.

There is an earthquake and one-tenth of the city falls, with 7,000 deaths. The survivors are terrified and glorify God.

An announcement is made that the second woe is passed and the third is soon to come.

D. The seventh trumpet (11:15–18)

Great voices in heaven announce that the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of the Lord and of his Christ.

The twenty-four elders who sit on thrones give thanks that God has at last taken his great power and begun to reign and that, in response to the raging of the nations, God’s wrath has come. The time has also come for the dead to be judged, believers to be rewarded, and for those who destroy the earth themselves to be destroyed.

STRUCTURAL OBSERVATION

In part 2, the seven seals followed the pattern 4 + 3, with the horsemen binding the first four together. It is similar here in part 3: the first four trumpets are bracketed together and the final three are separated off as woes. We should also notice the many references to time, which I have indicated with italics in the detailed summary. In part 2 we heard the saints praying ‘How long?’ In this part we start with a long silence, and in chapter 10 we hear a mighty angel announce that there will be no more delay and that the long-promised fulfilment of the good news is at hand.

16

The opening of the seventh seal

The third major part of Revelation begins with the opening of the seventh seal. One might have expected its opening to trigger God’s day of wrath with what one would imagine would be almost unbearable elemental thunderous sounds. However, by complete contrast, it triggers a lengthy silence. Our attention is then drawn to the golden altar of incense and the prayers of the saints1 that were briefly mentioned under the fifth seal. In the tabernacle, the golden altar stood directly in front of the ark of the covenant but was separated from it by a curtain or veil.

In OT times, Israel’s priests came each morning and evening to stand at this altar before (the veil in front of) God’s throne (the ark of the covenant) in order to pray to God on behalf of the nation. The high priest was the most frequent representative of the people at the altar, particular at major festivals, such as Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.

The idea was that the prayers rose up to the throne of God in a cloud of sweet-smelling incense. Its significance was simple, though it conveyed an important lesson. The incense was a symbol that taught the priests that they were not to think that their prayers reached God because of their own personal merit, as did the self-righteous Pharisee in the parable of the Pharisee and the tax-collector (Luke 18:9–14). To put it bluntly, our prayers sometimes have a bad smell produced by our pride and self-seeking. Therefore, God insisted that they should be enveloped in a sweet-smelling incense that purified them.

We get an example of the way the system worked at the beginning of the Gospel of Luke. He relates an occasion when it was the turn of a priest, Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, to take his turn to pray at the incense altar in the Temple at Jerusalem. It was while he stood there that an angel came and informed him that his prayer had been heard (Luke 1:9, 13).

This curtain in the Temple and tabernacle acted as a mediator at a time when full access had not yet been granted to the immediate presence of God2 because the animal sacrifices that were offered were not adequate to cleanse the priests from sin and guilt and allow them to enter. However, the letter to the Hebrews tells us that because of what the Lord Jesus did on the cross, the curtain has been taken out of the way, thus making access to God’s presence fully open for all believers today, and not just a special class of priests. Hebrews explains:

Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

(Heb. 10:19–22)

That is, in spirit and prayer we can draw near at any time to the throne of God and make our concerns and petitions known. That helps us understand why the altar of incense stood directly in front of the throne. It tells us at once that God’s government, represented by his throne, may be engaged with by his people in prayer and supplication. We do not need the incense any more because we have the reality that lies behind it. The Christian equivalent is that we pray in the name of the Lord Jesus. That is not a mere formula to indicate the end of a prayer but is pleading the merits of the Lord as we pray, so that our prayers will be acceptable to God because of his merit, and not ours. His merit and name, not ours, are a sweet aroma to God. After all, even a cursory examination of our own prayers reveals that they are often very far from perfect and contain a lot of unrecognised expressions of pride and very mixed-up desires and emotions.

We often forget just what a privilege our right of access to God’s throne is. Think of the problems that certain people in OT times had in gaining access to the king, for instance Esther and Nehemiah. Think, too, of how difficult most of us find it in even gaining access to a government department, let alone to the king or president – which is usually impossible for all but a few very senior people. And even if we do gain access, getting a response is usually another matter entirely.

Yet with God and his throne the situation is utterly different. We can come before him 24/7:

Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

(Heb. 4:14–16)

We can do this because we have a unique High Priest, the Lord Jesus, our King, who, incredibly, himself prays for us (Rom. 8:34).

God’s throne and government are deeply interested in his subjects, and that is a further major reason why judgement must come. Part 2 gave us the first main reason: judgement must come because of human sin and rebellion against God’s throne and moral commandments.

Part 3 now adds a second reason: God must step in to judge the world because of the prayers of believers all through the ages.3 Here is the opening scene:

When the Lamb opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. Then I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and seven trumpets were given to them. And another angel came and stood at the altar with a golden censer, and he was given much incense to offer with the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar before the throne, and the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, rose before God from the hand of the angel. Then the angel took the censer and filled it with fire from the altar and threw it on the earth, and there were peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning, and an earthquake.

(8:1–5)

The sixth seal led us up to the fearful climax of the announcement of the day of God’s wrath. Yet when the seventh is opened there is nothing but silence for half an hour. What is the significance of this silence? We humans tend to find silence difficult. Even a two-minute silence on a civil occasion to remember a past tragedy can be hard to bear. Half an hour’s silence is almost unimaginable – except for people who are deaf. With every minute that passes in a silence, the hope that the silence will be broken rises and the more our ears strain to hear something. This is well known to interrogators who, after asking a question, will simply wait in the reasonable expectation that the person they are interviewing will not be able to bear the silence and will talk. It is hard to imagine what John experienced as he looked around wondering what cataclysmic outpouring of wrath would eventually break the silence. Then he saw angels with trumpets and thought he had his answer: they would blow their trumpets and the wrath of God would descend.

Yet the trumpets did not break the silence. To John’s amazement (I suspect), the sound that broke the silence was the sound of prayers that, even though they may have been weak and feeble, were crystal clear in the utter silence. For, as John watched, another angel appeared who was carrying a golden censer, out of which he added incense to the prayers that were on the altar so that the prayers were borne up on the sweet-smelling incense to God on the throne. We find some of the likely content of their prayers in part 2:

When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne. They cried out with a loud voice, ‘O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?’

(6:9–10)

Judgement must come because of the prayers of believers, particularly those who have paid the ultimate price for their faith in Christ – the martyrs. Down through the centuries, believers have suffered deprivation, false accusation, harassment, maltreatment, persecution of all kinds and martyrdom. They have prayed and cried to God in desperation, and for many of them heaven has been silent, not just for half an hour but for months, years and often for a lifetime. With the psalmist their prayer has often been:

O Lord, God of vengeance,

O God of vengeance, shine forth!

Rise up, O judge of the earth;

repay to the proud what they deserve!

O Lord, how long shall the wicked,

how long shall the wicked exult?

They pour out their arrogant words;

all the evildoers boast.

They crush your people, O Lord,

and afflict your heritage.

They kill the widow and the sojourner,

and murder the fatherless;

and they say, ‘The Lord does not see;

the God of Jacob does not perceive.’

(Ps. 94:1–7)

The prophet Habakkuk opens his prophecy with a similar lament:

O Lord, how long shall I cry for help,

and you will not hear?

Or cry to you ‘Violence!’

and you will not save?

Why do you make me see iniquity,

and why do you idly look at wrong?

Destruction and violence are before me;

strife and contention arise.

So the law is paralysed,

and justice never goes forth.

For the wicked surround the righteous;

so justice goes forth perverted.

(Hab. 1:2–4)

The silence of heaven is one of the most profound mysteries of life, and it is encouraging that the Bible itself recognises it here. Many, if not most of us, have prayed: ‘How long, O Lord?’ We have prayed it for very different reasons: maybe for the conversion of a family member or loved one; for a child who is not following the Lord as they once did; for relief from a seemingly interminable illness, physical or mental, either of our own or of someone for whom we care; for a solution to stressful work conditions caused by poor management; for long-delayed promotion; for relief of poverty – and for a thousand other things in everyday life.

There are more extreme situations that give rise to this prayer ‘How long?’ Believers have cried and still do cry out to the Lord when they are engulfed in circumstances beyond their control: famine, earthquakes, floods and pandemics, or mob violence, war and persecution – surely God has the power to stop them? And why did God not intervene and stop Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao and Putin? Why did he not prevent 9/11? The silence of God in the light of such pain and evil, and his apparent delay in bringing justice to his suffering people, are the hardest problems that any world view has to face. There are no simplistic answers.4 This is the main topic of part 3.

There is also the related question as to why prayer may (seem to) go unanswered, just as there are many reasons why the parents among us do not always respond to our children in the way that they expect. Scripture tells us that ‘the prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working’ (Jas 5:16). That tells us that the effectiveness of prayer depends on our character and behaviour. Psalm 66:18 says this explicitly:

If I had cherished iniquity in my heart,

the Lord would not have listened.

Scripture is even more blunt in Proverbs 28:9:

If one turns away his ear from hearing the law,

even his prayer is an abomination.

Pride can completely negate the effectiveness of prayer. This is also the message of the parable of the Pharisee and the tax-collector in Luke 18. The sobering fact is that God may not even listen to us because of our unrepented sin. And even if that is not the case, God may listen, but his answer may be ‘No’, as it was to Paul when he prayed for relief from his frustrating eye condition (Gal. 4:15); it may be ‘Wait’, as it is in our context here (6:11); or it may be ‘Yes’, as in granting a son to Zechariah (Luke 1:13).

However, none of the reasons listed above for praying ‘How long, O Lord?’ apply to the situation in Revelation 8. For these men and women had been praying for deliverance from persecution and they had not lived to get any answer to their cries. They belonged to the noble band of martyrs for Christ. What Revelation will soon tell us is that God will eventually respond to all such prayers and rise up and judge the world for what it has done. What is more, because of that, we should not give up praying.

This is such an important matter that the Lord Jesus himself told the parable of the widow and the unjust judge to teach it to his disciples:

And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. He said, ‘In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man. And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, “Give me justice against my adversary.” For a while he refused, but afterwards he said to himself, “Though I neither fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming.”’ And the Lord said, ‘Hear what the unrighteous judge says. And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?’

(Luke 18:1–8)

The context of the parable is a discussion about when Christ would return to judge the world and the danger that, if his return is delayed, then people would lose heart, stop praying for justice and lose their confidence in God. The judge in the parable was unscrupulous, as sadly many in those days were, and still are, but he got so fed up with the woman’s constant badgering that, simply in order to get rid of her dogging his footsteps, he eventually gave in, dealt with her case and gave her the justice she desired. Jesus’ argument is simply this: if an unrighteous judge would do that, would the disciples think a righteous God would do any less? Of course not: he would and will do much more. He will act to give justice to long-suffering believers who constantly cry to him.

The parable raises a number of issues. First, in its last sentence Jesus asks whether he, the Son of Man, will find faith on the earth when he returns. For, if people give up praying for ultimate justice, it means they have given up believing that it will ever happen. That, in turn, throws suspicion on the reality of their faith in God and his righteousness. After all, if I give up praying, it means, sadly, that I no longer think that it is worth praying – which will do great damage to my Christian testimony and to me.

It is no small challenge for any of us to keep on praying when we lose a child, or a close relative to a debilitating progressive disease, or even when we meet deep disappointment and discouragement. I have etched on my mind the sight of Lindsay Brown, the former general secretary of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES) and of the Lausanne movement, and the director of the Fellowship of Evangelists in the Universities of Europe (FEUER), standing in front of a church with the tiny coffin of his child in his hands, affirming in a strong clear voice that he believed in the Lord Jesus as his Saviour and that one day he would see the little girl again. It was a heart-rending but triumphant moment.

It is even harder to keep praying in the face of all the sheer evil, corruption and denial of justice in the world, to say nothing of persecution, torture, war, plundering, famine and disease. It takes robust and courageous faith in the Lord to hang on, so that waiting for Jesus to return will test the genuineness of our faith.

The second issue is the idea of praying for vengeance. People rightly point out that Jesus told us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us (Matt. 5:44). However, that cannot be the whole story, since it was Jesus himself who told the parable of the unjust judge in which he said that he would ‘give justice to them speedily’ (Luke 18:8).5

How do we resolve the apparent tension here? First of all, the word ‘vengeance’ tends to be associated in some people’s minds with angry and violent retribution, which may have little or nothing to do with justice. However, what the woman in the parable asked for was, as older translations put it, to ‘be avenged’, which means to ‘get justice’ (see Luke 18:8 esv), which is the correct meaning of the Greek term here. Paul taught believers: ‘Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord”’ (Rom. 12:19). Once more, the Greek words used here for ‘avenge’ and ‘vengeance’ mean ‘give justice to’. The message is clear: justice should and will be done, only not by us. It is God’s prerogative. Commenting on the Hebrew word for ‘vengeance’, the Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament says: ‘It is only God who can champion his own cause without error.’6

The apostle Peter gives us a glimpse into the mind of the Lord Jesus as he faced the supreme injustice of the cross:

For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.

(1 Pet. 2:21–4)

Jesus entrusted himself to God, who judges righteously. That is, he believed in justice being done and expected it to be done eventually, but he left it to God to do it. And justice must and will be done, for it is utterly absurd to think that the world can get away with the injustice of what it did to the Son of God incarnate.

Most of us do not find it easy to follow in Jesus’ steps here. We are very sensitive to injustice, and the temptation to hit back is sometimes overpowering. But we need to resist that temptation by reminding ourselves that, when the Lord Jesus was reviled and mocked, he did not strike back but left it to God. We must learn to do the same.

For God will return to judge in righteousness. Long ago, the psalmist wrote:

Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice;

let the sea roar, and all that fills it;

let the field exult, and everything in it!

Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy

before the Lord, for he comes,

for he comes to judge the earth.

He will judge the world in righteousness,

and the peoples in his faithfulness.

(Ps. 96:11–13)

That promise, here so beautifully captured in Hebrew poetry, will be fulfilled. The encouraging thing is that prayers for justice are heard and stored. Think again of that utter silence in heaven. We humans ask for silence when we want to concentrate on listening – to an orchestra, for instance, or for the faint sound of someone trapped under rubble after an earthquake. We can imagine that all ears, or whatever goes for ears, in heaven are straining to catch the slightest sound. And if that sound is the cry, however faint, of a suffering believer, then all heaven, including God on the throne, hears it.

As the silence endures, these prayers pile up on the altar. If there is no immediate response, there must and will be one eventually. For the altar is directly visible from the throne in front of which it stands, a constant reminder to God that the prayers are there and that he must answer them because of who he is and what his government stands for.

There are further sources of encouragement in Scripture to our keeping on praying that are not mentioned explicitly here, but the vision of the throne reminds us of them, so that I take it we can assume their continued presence here. For instance, the slain, risen and ascended Lamb, the Lord Jesus, now stands in heaven as our high priest making intercession for us (Heb. 7:25). Also, the seven torches before the throne represent the Holy Spirit who comes alongside us to help, even when we don’t know how or what to pray (Rom. 8:26–7).

And if we feel, as some do, too small and insignificant for God to pay attention to our prayers, then we err. For we are explicitly told that the prayers of all God’s people find their way to heaven.

All strong reasons why we should hold on to the confession of our faith, even in the darkest of times; the entire Trinity is engaged in helping us.

After the excruciatingly long silence, the action starts: ‘Then the angel took the censer and filled it with fire from the altar and threw it on the earth, and there were peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning, and an earthquake’ (8:5).

The angel who had been offering the incense on the golden altar now takes his censer and moves to a different altar. Once more this is a reference to tabernacle furniture as there was a large copper altar in the courtyard outside the tent; it was used for burnt offerings and, as such, had a fire burning under it. The angel now fills his censer with the fire and throws it on the earth, causing thunder, lightning and an earthquake, reminiscent of what literally happened on Mount Sinai when God descended to give his law to Moses (Exod. 19). The raining of fire from heaven onto earth to express God’s judgement has biblical precedent: the fire that destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen. 19:24); the fire that rained down on Egypt under the seventh plague (Exod. 9:23–4); the burning coals that were taken from underneath the cherubim and scattered on Jerusalem (Ezek. 10:2).

17

The trumpets blow

The opening of the seventh seal turns out to be not a single judgement but another series of judgements. This may well indicate that what is going to happen will turn out to be more complicated than we thought.

The first four trumpets form a distinct group, separated from the last three which are called woes. Let us look at them (8:7–12):

1‘The first angel blew his trumpet, and there followed hail and fire, mixed with blood, and these were thrown upon the earth. And a third of the earth was burned up, and a third of the trees were burned up, and all green grass was burned up.’

2‘The second angel blew his trumpet, and something like a great mountain, burning with fire, was thrown into the sea, and a third of the sea became blood. A third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed.’

3‘The third angel blew his trumpet, and a great star fell from heaven, blazing like a torch, and it fell on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water. The name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters became wormwood, and many people died from the water, because it had been made bitter.’

4‘The fourth angel blew his trumpet, and a third of the sun was struck, and a third of the moon, and a third of the stars, so that a third of their light might be darkened, and a third of the day might be kept from shining, and likewise a third of the night.’

These first four judgements are all directed towards the natural world, although they are scarcely to be classed as purely natural events since they bear the marks of supernatural origin, at least in their timing. They are of unimaginable intensity and devastate a large proportion of the earth’s surface, so that, apart from the mention of mass poisoning caused by the third of the trumpets and the wiping out of a third of the ships, there would inevitably be immense collateral damage in terms of loss of life from the others.

The first is reminiscent both of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah when the Lord rained fire and sulphur from heaven (Gen. 19:24) and of the seventh plague on Egypt (Exod. 9:22–6). Ezekiel, a Hebrew prophet living in exile in Babylon, recorded visions he had received during the period 593 to 573 bc; that is, some of them occurred before the fall of Jerusalem in 586 bc. In one of them he witnessed the scattering of burning coals on the city of Jerusalem (Ezek. 10:2) and later predicted that God would send pestilence, rain, hail, fire and sulphur to destroy the mysterious figure of King Gog,1 of the land of Magog, because he attacked Israel (Ezek. 38 – 39). It is interesting that Revelation 20 mentions Gog in connection with the future international attack on Jerusalem that is ended by the return of the Lord.

There is therefore no reason to imagine that this first trumpet is not talking about real fire but rather something like an extremely violent, terrifying electrical storm. If it is suggested that the fire and so on is symbolic, then we would have to ask: what reality does it represent? The answer to that is surely that it must be something capable of burning up the earth, and so we are right back to real fire. Unless, of course, you try to say that the earth is also symbolic, a notion that would lose connection with the whole point of this as a judgement on the actual earth, a third of which is burned up under this first trumpet. This proportion, repeated with the next three trumpets, is larger than the quarter mentioned under the fourth seal, but it still does not encompass the entire earth, indicating that we have not yet reached the final outpouring of God’s wrath.

It seems, to me at least, sensible to interpret these judgements towards the literal end of the spectrum so far as this seems reasonable, as these trumpets appear to involve physical phenomena on an unprecedented scale. The first involves hail and fire and toxic chemicals that have a devastating effect in destroying a third of plant life.

The second describes something like a burning mountain falling into the sea, perhaps an asteroid burning as it enters earth’s atmosphere before it hits the ocean. Astrophysicists calculate that asteroids up to half a mile (1 km) diameter hit the earth every half a million years, whereas larger ones of around 3 miles (5 km) diameter hit around every 200 million years. It is thought that the dinosaurs were wiped out by an asteroid that hit earth 66 million years ago.

A much smaller asteroid (about 60 feet (18 m) in diameter) hit Chelyabinsk, Russia, on 15 February 2013. It was briefly brighter than the sun, and caused immense heat and a considerable number of casualties, as well as damage to buildings. In NT times, Luke records that the citizens of Ephesus worshipped the goddess Diana (Artemis) who fell from the sky (Acts 19:35); presumably this fallen object was a meteorite, which was then placed in her temple.

It is salutary to realise that, according to an article in the Smithsonian Magazine of 26 April 2017, scientists did not take the existence of meteorites seriously until 1803.2 That meant that earlier interpretations of these passages in Revelation were inevitably symbolic – a fact that still influences some commentaries today. There has been a lot of talk about the possibility of weaponising meteorites and small asteroids by redirecting their orbits using nuclear weapons or spacecraft, but such use seems unlikely as yet.

The crashing of an asteroid onto the ocean would have a devastating effect in terms of loss of marine life and shipping. One feature of it recalls the first of the plagues in Egypt when Moses struck the water of the River Nile with his staff, and it turned to blood, with the result that all the fish died.3 This can scarcely mean that it turned to actual blood, since Pharaoh’s magicians appeared to be able to duplicate the miracle, even though they notably failed to reverse its effects by using their secret arts (Exod. 7:22). No doubt in the future, as then, anything but a supernatural intervention of God will be offered as an explanation. However, the magicians eventually ran out of tricks, could no longer explain away what was happening, and were forced to admit to Pharaoh that ‘the finger of God’ was involved (Exod. 8:19).

It is more likely that the Nile waters looked like blood because of a proliferating red micro-organism. For instance, so-called red tide is caused by a ‘population explosion’ of toxic, naturally occurring microscopic plankton (specifically, a subgroup known as dinoflagellates that, as it dies, releases a deadly poison that kills fish in large numbers). ‘Blooms’ of the poison-producing plankton are coastal phenomena caused by environmental conditions that promote explosive growth. Something like that may be in view here.4

Under the third trumpet, the name of the star that falls is said to be Wormwood. Its Latin form, Artemisia absinthium, denotes a herb whose oil contains the chemical thujone, which may be poisonous. It excites the central nervous system and can cause seizures and other adverse effects. Numbers 5 speaks of a test for adultery, administered by a priest, that involved the accused woman drinking what is called the ‘water of bitterness’. This water was ‘holy water’ in an earthenware vessel into which dust from the floor of the tabernacle had been sprinkled (Num. 5:17). If she suffered no ill effects, she was declared innocent. The practice was abolished in the first century ad.

This third trumpet judgement is very like the second in that another fiery heavenly body – this time called a ‘star’ – falls from heaven onto earth and this time affects the fresh water by poisoning it with a bitter chemical, causing many deaths. As with the second trumpet, it could indicate some kind of heavenly body falling to the earth, for example a meteorite, in which noxious chemicals (such as sulphur) are embedded.5

This kind of more literal interpretation makes a great deal more sense to many commentators, including me, than the sort of purely symbolic understanding that was once common.6 For example, the mountain has been taken to be human government, the sea to be the Roman Empire, and the ships to be the Church.7 I would protest that this, far from being revelation, is arbitrary obfuscation with zero convincing power. Of course, the fact that meteors and falling stars were regarded as serious portents and that all sorts of mythological significance was read into them in the ancient world does not mean that we should not take them literally.

If, however, it is objected that such astronomical explanations are completely naturalistic, my response would be: not necessarily so. For example, if you had been present when Moses parted the sea to let the Israelites cross, you would have observed that the immediate cause was a natural phenomenon: a strong east wind (Exod. 14:21). However, the supernatural aspect of it was that it happened at exactly the time when Moses stretched out his hand. The primary cause was God, and the secondary cause was the wind. Now how God moves the atoms of air in a wind is beyond our comprehension, though we should not forget that our minds can stimulate the movement of the atoms in our arms, which is also beyond (current) understanding.

Mounce’s comment about these judgements is apt. Speaking of the third trumpet, he says: ‘It represents an eschatological judgement that goes beyond any explanation in terms of natural phenomena.’8 However, that should not be taken to mean that it doesn’t involve natural phenomena. In particular, the emphasis on fire in the judgements invites further comment. Fire is a constituent element of our world, and Peter refers to it in his second letter when speaking to people who were sceptical about the return of Christ. Like many today, they argued on the basis of the so-called uniformity of nature – the idea that nature has been uniform from the very beginning. Peter reminds them, however, that nature has not been absolutely uniform.9 His critics had forgotten that God had intervened supernaturally in the past and destroyed the world by a flood. Peter says that God will do something similar again: ‘the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgement and destruction of the ungodly’ (2 Pet. 3:7). This fire is real fire; it is not a symbol for anything else.

In the future, therefore, it will not be water but another constituent element of the physical universe that will be the agent of judgement: fire. The fiery judgements of the first three trumpets would seem to be precursors to the final conflagration.

One consequence of certain types of meteorites and asteroids breaking up in the atmosphere as they fall to earth is that the larger particles of dust reach the earth with their chemicals of all kinds, whereas the finer dust fills the atmosphere and may reduce the light for many months. Hence, it is no surprise to find that the fourth trumpet results in such a diminution, by one-third, of the light of the sun, moon and stars. In the ninth plague in Egypt, there was darkness for three days. Also, the events triggered by this fourth trumpet are reminiscent of a prediction by the prophet Joel about a day of the Lord, interestingly announced by a trumpet:

Blow a trumpet in Zion;

sound an alarm on my holy mountain!

Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble,

for the day of the Lord is coming; it is near,

a day of darkness and gloom,

a day of clouds and thick darkness! . . .

The earth quakes before them;

the heavens tremble.

The sun and the moon are darkened,

and the stars withdraw their shining . . .

And I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke. The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes . . .

For the day of the Lord is near

in the valley of decision.

The sun and the moon are darkened,

and the stars withdraw their shining.

(Joel 2:1–2, 10, 30–1; 3:14b–15)

The prophet Amos speaks of a coming day of God’s judgement in similar terms:

‘And on that day,’ declares the Lord God,

‘I will make the sun go down at noon

and darken the earth in broad daylight.’

(Amos 8:9)

Peter cited part of this passage in his speech at Pentecost when he pointed out that supernatural effects on the sun and moon would precede the great Day of the Lord.

There can be little doubt that the darkness talked about in these passages is as physical as the corresponding plague on Egypt, but, of course, as such it points to the deeper spiritual darkness that has been caused by human sin and rebellion against God. No doubt those people who experience it will sense the powers of darkness that are ranged against the Lord.

The final three trumpets are bracketed together and called woes by an eagle flying above John’s head. ‘Woe’ is a term used by our Lord to utter some of his most solemn warnings.10 The eagle warns that the last three trumpets will signal more terrible judgements than the first four.

The fifth trumpet then sounds and triggers a horrific scene that bears the sinister hallmarks of the demonic. It is worth reading the passage slowly out loud and then pausing to let it sink in. It is frankly scary:

And the fifth angel blew his trumpet, and I saw a star fallen from heaven to earth, and he was given the key to the shaft of the bottomless pit. He opened the shaft of the bottomless pit, and from the shaft rose smoke like the smoke of a great furnace, and the sun and the air were darkened with the smoke from the shaft. Then from the smoke came locusts on the earth, and they were given power like the power of scorpions of the earth. They were told not to harm the grass of the earth or any green plant or any tree, but only those people who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads. They were allowed to torment them for five months, but not to kill them, and their torment was like the torment of a scorpion when it stings someone. And in those days people will seek death and will not find it. They will long to die, but death will flee from them.

(9:1–6)

John sees a ‘star’ fallen from heaven to earth who is given a key. It is an understandable reaction for people to think that a ‘fallen’ star must represent a fallen angel and therefore an evil spirit-being. However, that is unlikely to be the case, first of all because ‘fallen’ can simply imply movement to a lower level. Second, the phrase ‘was given’, which occurs a number of times in Revelation, usually carries the implicit meaning ‘was given by God’. That is, God is in ultimate sovereign control; nothing happens without his permission. Hence, this angel is more likely to have been an angelic messenger of God who is ‘given’ the key to open the sinister shaft that leads to the bottomless pit or abyss11 and unleash a horde of terrifying locust-like creatures that are ‘given’ the power to sting.

By contrast with this good angel who opened the shaft, we read further down of Abaddon, the spirit king of the demons, who ascends out of the abyss to direct his evil army. Luke describes a strange incident where Jesus cast demons out of a man called Legion. The demons recognised Christ’s authority and requested not to be sent to the abyss. Jesus sent them into a herd of pigs instead (Luke 8:30–3). The abyss would therefore seem to be a kind of prison for spirits – an idea that is supported by Jude: ‘And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgement of the great day’ (Jude 6; see also 2 Pet. 2:4).

First-century readers of Revelation would recognise the abyss as a general term for the underworld, which consisted of Sheol/Hades, the temporary abode of both righteous and unrighteous dead until the final judgement, together with Gehenna, the lake of fire, the eternal abode of the impenitent dead, regarded as a place of torment.

The first thing seen coming out of the pit is thick smoke, which darkens the sky. Smoke is associated in Scripture with two contrasting things: the smoke of incense that rises to God with prayers, and the smoke associated with God’s presence, power and judgement. Smoke also featured at the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen. 19:28), the giving of the law at Sinai (Exod. 19:18) and the overthrow of Ai by Joshua (Josh. 8:20). In Deuteronomy 29:20, we read that ‘the anger of the Lord and his jealousy will smoke against’ a person who persists in stubbornness and rebellion against God.

The dense smoke is followed by a vast horde of locusts that, utterly unlike the locusts we know, do not harm grass, plants or trees. They are ‘told’ not to do so, which indicates a capacity to respond to intelligent direction that turns out to come from their evil demonic king. They are permitted (by God) to torment those people who have not received the seal of God for a limited period of five months, by giving them a severe but not lethal scorpion-like sting that is so painful that it causes people to long to die, but they are unable to.

So far in the book, the description of the judgements and their carriers is fairly brief. However, with these locusts it is very different, for we now get a detailed description of their ferocious and malevolent appearance that is couched in enigmatic, surreal, highly apocalyptic terms:

In appearance the locusts were like horses prepared for battle: on their heads were what looked like crowns of gold; their faces were like human faces, their hair like women’s hair, and their teeth like lions’ teeth; they had breastplates like breastplates of iron, and the noise of their wings was like the noise of many chariots with horses rushing into battle. They have tails and stings like scorpions, and their power to hurt people for five months is in their tails. They have as king over them the angel of the bottomless pit. His name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek he is called Apollyon.

(9:7–11)

The initial impression is of huge, scaled-up, immensely powerful, ferocious locust-like creatures with a mixture of human characteristics, brute animal strength and metal armour, equipped with stingers in their tails, and with wings that sound like the onslaught of a colossal army rushing into battle. They had a demonic leader called Abaddon, a Hebrew word for ‘destruction’, the equivalent Greek name being Apollyon.

It all sounds preternaturally horrific – the stuff of nightmares, yet palpably real. What are we to make of it? How can we approach this kind of material that could easily lend itself to all kinds of apocalyptic interpretation?

It makes sense first of all to look for biblical precedents. The locusts at once recall the eighth plague that God sent to ravage Egypt:

So Moses and Aaron went in to Pharaoh and said to him, ‘Thus says the Lord . . . “if you refuse to let my people go, behold, tomorrow I will bring locusts into your country”’ . . .

Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Stretch out your hand over the land of Egypt for the locusts, so that they may come upon the land of Egypt and eat every plant in the land, all that the hail has left.’ So Moses stretched out his staff over the land of Egypt, and the Lord brought an east wind upon the land all that day and all that night. When it was morning, the east wind had brought the locusts. The locusts came up over all the land of Egypt and settled on the whole country of Egypt, such a dense swarm of locusts as had never been before, nor ever will be again . . . And the Lord turned the wind into a very strong west wind, which lifted the locusts and drove them into the Red Sea. Not a single locust was left in all the country of Egypt.

(Exod. 10:3–4, 12–14, 19)

Locust swarms are used as a metaphor to describe large armies: ‘And the Midianites and the Amalekites and all the people of the East lay along the valley like locusts in abundance, and their camels were without number, as the sand that is on the seashore in abundance’ (Judg. 7:12).

An interesting remark about locust behaviour is found in Proverbs:

The locusts have no king,

yet all of them march in rank.

(Prov. 30:27)

The locusts in Revelation 9, by contrast, are marshalled by a king, the demonic Abbadon.

Jeremiah, who prophesied mainly from Jerusalem during the period c.626 to 580 bc, and lived not only to predict the fall of Jerusalem but also to experience it, mentions the concepts of trumpet, battle and locusts in a prophecy against Babylon:

Set up a standard on the earth;

blow the trumpet among the nations;

prepare the nations for war against her;

summon against her the kingdoms,

Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz;

appoint a marshal against her;

bring up horses like bristling locusts.

(Jer. 51:27)

There is, therefore, clear biblical precedent for associating locusts with war and using them as a metaphor to describe cavalry. And for centuries, readers who took the vision more or less literally, as meaning actual (but strange) locusts or horses, were not being misled so far as understanding the horror of it all. They would, very sensibly, have tried to understand the vision in terms of that with which they were familiar plus some level of imagination.

The question is: can we get any further than this as time moves on towards the fulfilment of the prophecy, or do we have to be content to leave it as a frightening impression of a judgement of which we can have little comprehension?

Suppose the latter to be the case. What is the take-home message? I suggest that its timeless import was made plain by the apostle Peter in his teaching on the coming judgement of the Day of the Lord:

Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.

Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace.

(2 Pet. 3:11–14)

Advance knowledge that God will one day judge humanity is given to us in order to make a moral and spiritual impact on our lives, because character is the only thing that will endure. The reality of our belief in the new heavens and the new earth will be seen by whether or not we live lives of moral integrity on this earth now. We are informed about God’s judgements, not to satisfy our curiosity, but to spur us on to have our character and behaviour transformed through the power of the Holy Spirit. If that is what is happening, then we have grasped the most important message.

One can imagine that, for those people who bear the seal of God who are alive near or at the time of the event, it will be greatly reassuring for them to have scriptural texts that enable them to recognise what is happening. For instance, it will obviously be a real reassurance to know that the ‘locust’ plague will only last five months, and that God will protect them through it.

The fact that these judgements are future to us raises some questions about the nature of prophecy that are worth pursuing. What I mean is this. Our attempt to understand some at least of the detail of the prophecy has so far involved looking to the past for biblical precedent. However, the prophecy concerns the future, and that introduces the possibility of a different angle of approach.

Let me make my position clear. I believe that there is such a thing as supernatural prophetic prediction: that God has inspired his prophets to convey information about the future, part of which is communicated in basic-level, literal language, such as the prediction of Bethlehem as the birthplace of Messiah (Mic. 5:2), and part of which uses metaphorical and symbolic language, or a mixture of both types, such as the prediction of what happened at the crucifixion of Christ: ‘he was . . . like a lamb that is led to the slaughter’ (Isa. 53:7). This statement is both literal and metaphorical: Jesus was not a literal lamb, but he was literally led to the slaughter like a lamb. It is important to realise in connection with imagery and typology, particularly in the OT, that it is not the case that in the OT it is purely material, physical and earthly whereas the reality behind it as seen from an NT perspective is purely spiritual, moral and heavenly. For example, the fact that the Passover lamb is a type of Christ does not mean that his sacrifice was purely spiritual or heavenly; it also involved real, literal, physical suffering and death.

Turning now to the matter of prediction, the book of Daniel was written in the sixth century bc12 by the prophet Daniel, who had been taken by Nebuchadnezzar and relocated to Babylon. Chapter 11 of his book details a series of events that happened some four centuries later and are relatively easy to correlate with secular history, even to the extent of identifying many of the leaders involved. For example:

And now I will show you the truth. Behold, three more kings shall arise in Persia, and a fourth shall be far richer than all of them. And when he has become strong through his riches, he shall stir up all against the kingdom of Greece. Then a mighty king shall arise, who shall rule with great dominion and do as he wills. And as soon as he has arisen, his kingdom shall be broken and divided towards the four winds of heaven, but not to his posterity, nor according to the authority with which he ruled, for his kingdom shall be plucked up and go to others besides these.

(Dan. 11:2–4)

Although no names are explicitly given here, the passage clearly refers to Alexander the Great and the division of his kingdom among his four generals after his death. Further down the text, there are identifiable references to the antics of Antiochus Epiphanes II in the second century bc. At this point, Antiochus appears to become a lens through which our attention is focused on the distant future – the time of the end, leading up to the great tribulation mentioned by Christ and in Revelation.13 Even though these events are being described in the language of four centuries earlier, there is no real difficulty in understanding them.

However, what would we expect to happen if events still future to our time were to be described in the language not of hundreds but of several thousand years ago? For the general human culture has, for the most part, remained intelligible throughout the centuries, until relatively recently with the advent of the industrial revolution and even more so with the technological revolution, and most of all with the vast strides in the digital revolution.

Imagine if we lived in the first century ad and were shown a helicopter by a time-traveller and asked to describe it. We might write something like this:

I saw before me a huge shiny monster like unto a dragonfly with its head like a gigantic glass bowl fixed on its side. Its wings, instead of moving up and down, were formed in a circle and fixed like spokes in a cartwheel to a crown in the centre that, when it rotated rapidly, made a loud noise like that of a roaring waterfall. Its tail had a small spinning wheel constructed of things like tiny wings. Instead of feet it had wheels. As I watched, something like a man entered the dragonfly through a door in its side. He was dressed in smooth shining clothes, like porpoise skin, and his head looked like a small bowl of darkened glass. Full of wonder and awe, I watched as the dragonfly roared even louder, ascended into the heavens and disappeared from sight into the clouds.

Such a description would have conveyed some idea of what I had seen, though it would have remained vague and imprecise for centuries until the advent of the helicopter in modern times, when it would be instantly recognisable. My question is whether or not it is reasonable to expect this kind of thing in the Bible.

Furthermore, there are prophecies in the Bible that are only understood retrospectively. For instance, this:

So the Jews said to him, ‘What sign do you show us for doing these things?’ Jesus answered them, ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’ The Jews then said, ‘It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?’ But he was speaking about the temple of his body. When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.

(John 2:18–22)

Jesus’ prediction was an enigma until it was fulfilled, when it immediately made sense to his disciples.

Here is another example:

You heard me say to you, ‘I am going away, and I will come to you.’ If you loved me, you would have rejoiced, because I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. And now I have told you before it takes place, so that when it does take place you may believe.

(John 14:28–9)

At the time, the disciples did not understand what Jesus meant by ‘going to the Father’, even though he had already said: ‘What if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?’ (John 6:62). His ascension (which turned out to be literal, be it noted) later made everything clear, and their faith in him was strengthened.

Can we apply any of this kind of thinking to the fifth trumpet with its demonic creatures? I take it as axiomatic that the demonic world is real. The Lord Jesus himself spoke about the reality of demons, and he cured men and women from terrifying demon possession. Paul affirmed the existence of evil spirit-beings whom believers had to be prepared to encounter and engage. He wrote:

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armour of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

(Eph. 6:10–12)

Spiritual and spirit forces of evil exist, even though we may understand very little about them. I have no reason to doubt the personal testimony of missionaries I have spoken to about their – sometimes terrifying – encounters with evil spirits.

Let us look not so much at the appearance of the locusts as at their capacities:

1they can fly;

2they can swarm;

3they can sting;

4they appear to have metal armour plating;

5they can select their targets;

6they are directed by an intelligent controller.

We could then ask if there is anything in our contemporary world that has similar capacities – and the answer is immediate that there is. Here is a description of a drone swarm from Forbes Magazine in 2022:

Israel is converting elite infantry support companies into ‘seek and strike’ units equipped with swarming drones to search buildings and carry out attacks . . . Israel used swarming drones in action in 2021, making it the first nation to do so, but Legion-X is a step-change for locating and destroying targets in cluttered, built-up areas. And it is being rolled out now . . . A true swarm involves multiple drones working together as a single, coherent entity, so the whole thing can be directed by one human operator – or let off the leash altogether . . . Legion-X’s tablet interface allows an operator to specify an area and assign a number of robots – which can be a mix of different types of aerial drones and ground vehicles – which will navigate autonomously to the area. Importantly for urban operations, it can work indoors as well as outdoors. The video shows a large octocopter drone acting as a mothership to small, sensor-carrying quadcopters which take off to explore inside an apartment block. These small drones may be fitted with explosive charges as expendable loitering munitions, but this is not made explicit.14

Drones are capable of carrying chemical and biological weapons and could therefore sting like the locusts in the vision. Drones can also select their targets, a capacity that the locusts need to possess if they are not to harm those people sealed by God.

Attack drones are not figments of the imagination, although they were until relatively recently. They are much-prized present-day weapons, used to terrorise, cause material damage, maim and kill, and are currently deployed in large numbers in the war between Russia and Ukraine.

The fact that the locusts were like horses, made a great noise and had human faces might suggest that they could be very large drones or even small helicopters. Some large drones carry two Hellfire missiles – an appropriate name for the terror they cause. There are many eyewitness reports of the horror of drone attacks readily available on the internet.

Could it therefore be the case that the locusts unleashed by the fifth trumpet are state-of-the-art, sophisticated modern swarming attack drones? Think about it for a moment before you dismiss the suggestion as naive. Suppose that we tried to describe, in language appropriate to the first century, a swarm of attack drones controlled by an intelligent commander. Might not our description resemble the vision of locusts?

Please do not misunderstand me here. What I have just said is just one possibility, about which I am not in the least dogmatic. After all, in these days of bio- and cyborg engineering and intelligent machines, who knows whether insects such as locusts might be modified genetically, re-engineered and enhanced with non-biological implants to function as hideous lethal weapons controlled by artificial intelligence? It may also be that in the future, technology will be developed that fits the description even better. My point is simply to encourage openness to think about possibilities that are more in accord with up-to-date technology.

Think of it this way: it is clearly legitimate to think, as many rightly do, of the locust imagery in terms of past biblical precedent in which, for instance, people saw a vast invading horde of cavalry and thought it looked like a swarm of locusts. Why would it not also be legitimate to look at locust-type imagery that relates to the future relative to our time and attempt to imagine what it might represent in terms of military technology? Do we not expect that the evil one will use every available modern invention to carry out his destructive plans? Later chapters in Revelation seem to confirm this, as I have discussed in my book 2084 and the AI Revolution. In any case, when these ‘locusts’ eventually plague the earth, I doubt whether people still acquainted with the book of Revelation will have any difficulty recognising them as the fulfilment of the fifth trumpet prophecy.

I therefore regard it as legitimate, even for those of us who are not sci-fi afficionados, to imagine what in our contemporary world might reasonably fit the description of the locusts. For such an exercise, carried out judiciously, is scarcely likely to make the book of Revelation less credible, but rather the reverse. Indeed, since it is based on the assumption that inspired Scripture can speak intelligibly to the contemporary world, it might even make the visions more comprehensible and relevant to readers today.

Another way of looking at it is this: suppose that God had dictated the vision to John using twenty-first-century technical words, such as those used in the above description of swarming drones. Then, no one would have made any meaningful sense of the text from the time of writing up to the present. The genius of the text, as originally written, is that readers can understand enough of it to realise that it involves a grim judgement, because John employs essentially timeless language, and most of the vocabulary – such as locusts, scorpions, horses, armour plates, stings, battle – can be understood by people of any era. Indeed, if you wish to produce the maximum clarity of understanding for the maximum length of time, then there is no other way to do it, is there?

The first woe is past. There are two more to come.

Then the sixth angel blew his trumpet, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar before God, saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, ‘Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.’ So the four angels, who had been prepared for the hour, the day, the month, and the year, were released to kill a third of mankind. The number of mounted troops was twice ten thousand times ten thousand; I heard their number. And this is how I saw the horses in my vision and those who rode them: they wore breastplates the colour of fire and of sapphire and of sulphur, and the heads of the horses were like lions’ heads, and fire and smoke and sulphur came out of their mouths. By these three plagues a third of mankind was killed, by the fire and smoke and sulphur coming out of their mouths. For the power of the horses is in their mouths and in their tails, for their tails are like serpents with heads, and by means of them they wound.

(9:13–19)

The second woe is worse than the first. The first consisted of an airborne attack by stinging locusts that did not kill. The second describes a ground-based attack by a mysterious cavalry horde of colossal proportions that kills a staggering third of the world’s population. This part opened with the golden altar before the throne on which were the prayers of the saints. At this point, a voice is heard from the horns of that altar, reminding us that it is still important to the overall message. Horns are a symbol of power, as we saw in the description of the horns of the Lamb in part 2. If we ask about the power of the altar, it clearly lies in prayer connection with the throne. Presumably, we are being reminded here that what is about to happen is a further response to the prayers of the suffering believers. God is serious about bringing justice to his elect.

Here again, as with the fifth trumpet, there is a mix of terms that are familiar but put together in an unfamiliar way to describe events yet to come. For example, the River Euphrates was set as the eastern boundary between the Roman Empire and the Parthians by Pompey in the first century bc and was associated in the ancient world as the place where invading hordes (e.g. of Parthians) would be likely to appear, coming from Mesopotamia15 to attack. Israel had experienced such attacks, for example, from Assyria and Babylon. Rome also constantly feared attack from the east. For over 200 years, from the battle of Carrhae in 53 bc onwards, there were constant Parthian invasions from Iran in the east. John would have been well aware of that circumstance.

Just as in Revelation chapter 7 there were four angels restraining the winds, here also there are four angels who are bound, in the sense that they have been held in readiness for this precise time, a time known only to the providence of God. These angels are God’s agents: they are good and not evil. The order comes from the altar to release them, thus triggering the next woe, which consists of an army of unprecedented proportions. The largest army in the world at the moment is that of China with around 2 million active soldiers. According to the text, the army described here has 100 times as many – an unimaginable number. In case we are inclined to dismiss this as fantasy, John says: ‘I heard their number’ (9:16). That is, the number was part of the vision, not simply an estimate by John based on what he saw. Even if the number is not intended to be an exact ledger count,16 the point is that it is a force of such colossal proportions that it will cause incalculable loss of life – killing a third of the world population, we are told. And that, at present estimates, is around 2.5 billion people – over ten times the size of the invading army. For comparison, what is thought to be the largest cavalry charge in history occurred in 1683 at the siege of Vienna when 18,000 men and horses, led by Polish king Jan Sobieski and his ‘Angels of Death’, crushed the Ottoman army of 150,000.

Contemporary special effects in films can convey a graphic visual impression of vast apocalyptic armies. For instance, Peter Jackson’s 2002 epic film The Two Towers, based on Tolkien’s trilogy of novels The Lord of the Rings, depicts the battle of Helm’s Deep, in which an army of 10,000 orcs and men under the command of the wizard Saruman is defeated by Rohan’s forces. It makes for stunning watching.

The actual apocalyptic army in John’s vision is formed of what look like very strange cavalry. The mounted rider is the one who wields the weapons in a normal cavalry charge. However, here it is the horse that is the weapon or, more precisely, the arsenal of weapons. First, ‘the heads of the horses were like lions’ heads, and fire and smoke and sulphur came out of their mouths. By these three plagues a third of mankind was killed’, and, second, ‘their tails are like serpents with heads, and by means of them they wound’ (9:17–19).

These are like no biological horse (Equus caballus)17 that we have ever seen, but more like mythical18 dragons with three kinds of deadly plague issuing from their lion-like mouth, and a tail with serpent-like power to (lit.) ‘inflict harm’. In the latter respect, they are like the locusts, the main difference being that the locusts are airborne, whereas the horses are ground based. Their three lethal weapons are those that were used to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen. 19:24–8).

Once more we are faced with the question: what do we make of it? Let us now list the capacities of these war machines:

1they are ground based and mobile;

2they are manned;

3they are armoured;

4they have four kinds of weapon: three lethal in front and one in the rear.

They function as multi-weapon, armoured attack vehicles and, in the world today, there are already several million military vehicles that serve a similar purpose. Once more, the genius of the impressionist biblical description is that the destructive power of these cavalry units was readily intelligible to people throughout history who were familiar with actual warhorses,19 even though they did not know exactly what the imagery actually represented. Their more or less literalistic reading of the text did not mislead them as far as the horror of the invasion was concerned, which, as before, is the main thrust of the message.

The horror of this judgement raises many questions: with such a vast army on the move, the damage to the environment, to infrastructure, property, institutions, industry and supply chains will be beyond estimation, to say nothing of the effects of countless deaths. The world will be left unrecognisable. Also, we tend to think of an army fighting against other armies. Yet here it seems to be an army of judgement involved in a one-sided war against a large proportion of humanity. This is very strange, as it is not said to be a civil war but rather a judgement by an army led by four angels. And what has the River Euphrates got to do with it?

And because of the earlier mention of God’s sealing of believers, we wonder exactly what life for believers will be like in all of this? The text says nothing about that, at least not at this point.

However, what this passage does tell us about those left alive is one of the most chilling things to be found anywhere in Scripture, namely that, even though God has spoken extremely loudly and unmistakably through the trumpet judgements, they do not repent of their evil deeds. War does not always turn people to God.

The rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands nor give up worshipping demons and idols of gold and silver and bronze and stone and wood, which cannot see or hear or walk, nor did they repent of their murders or their sorceries or their sexual immorality or their thefts.

(9:20–1)

This is a terrifying example of an incomprehensible determination to continue with false worship and evil behaviour. Even those who have been attacked by demonic forces do not stop worshipping demons.

The behaviours highlighted here lie in the two areas of worship and morality: in the first, demon worship and crass idolatry; and in the second, murder, sorcery, sexual immorality and theft, all of which are rampant in our ‘civilised’ world today, and at all levels of society. The tragedy is that the two areas are inseparable: people become like the things they worship.

The recalcitrant, essentially suicidal, stubborn lack of repentance described here is not without precedent. We need to think about it in the light of the fact that we sometimes meet people who claim that, if they experienced something manifestly supernatural, they would be prepared to repent.

However, that is not necessarily true. To illustrate that fact, Jesus himself told his famous story (not parable20) about the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19–31). When the rich man found himself in eternity, separated from God, he begged Abraham to send Lazarus back from the dead to visit his (the rich man’s) brothers and warn them to repent. The stark answer was that, if they were not prepared to heed the moral teaching of the Law and the Prophets, they would not repent even if someone rose from the dead.

Think about it: Jesus has been raised from the dead and yet his good news still goes unheeded. Why? Often for deeply moral reasons. People are simply not prepared to face their sin and repent. And so their guilt remains, and judgement will fall whether or not they believe it. It was so in the days of Noah. His message of coming judgement was mocked and ignored. It was also so in Sodom and Gomorrah in the days before they were destroyed. No one believed what Lot had to say, sadly because he himself was morally compromised.

The lesson for Christians is that it is important to talk not only about the historical fact of the physical resurrection of Jesus from the dead; we must talk also about its challenge to repent from idolatry – which Paul did not hesitate to present to the academics and others in the Areopagus philosophy department at Athens:

Being then God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.

(Acts 17:29–31)

The resurrection of Jesus is evidence to everyone, believer or unbeliever, not only that there will be a judgement day but also that Jesus himself will be the judge. Therefore, God does not merely suggest that we repent; he commands it. Yet then, as now, this message divided the audience:

Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked. But others said, ‘We will hear you again about this.’ So Paul went out from their midst. But some men joined him and believed, among whom also were Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris and others with them.

(Acts 17:32–4)

There is something infinitely sad about people walking away from God when they have heard his voice. For God, in his love to them, will give them their choice and let them have their own way, even though it leads to utter global disaster.

These are serious and solemn matters, and yet human rebellion against God is so entrenched that men and women will unrepentantly reject the most powerful message of love and forgiveness there has ever been. Too late will they realise that: ‘Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him’ (John 3:36).

Nevertheless, God believes in warning us of these events in the hope that at least some may be wakened out of their sleepwalk to disaster.

18

A mighty angel descends from heaven to earth; Jerusalem trodden down; the two witnesses

As John continues to watch, no doubt overwhelmed at the sight of the vast invading army and the global destruction it caused, he sees a powerful angel descending from heaven:

Then I saw another mighty angel coming down from heaven, wrapped in a cloud, with a rainbow over his head, and his face was like the sun, and his legs like pillars of fire. He had a little scroll open in his hand. And he set his right foot on the sea, and his left foot on the land, and called out with a loud voice, like a lion roaring. When he called out, the seven thunders sounded. And when the seven thunders had sounded, I was about to write, but I heard a voice from heaven saying, ‘Seal up what the seven thunders have said, and do not write it down.’ And 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 heaven and what is in it, the earth and what is in it, and the sea and what is in it, that there would be no more delay, but that in the days of the trumpet call to be sounded by the seventh angel, the mystery of God would be fulfilled, just as he announced to his servants the prophets.

(10:1–7)

The description of this angel corresponds in some detail to the description of the Son of Man in the opening vision of the book. Some commentators hold that this cannot be the Lord, since he is never called an angel. However, there is a term, ‘the angel of the Lord’, used in the OT to describe a special angel who is often taken by scholars to be an appearance of the pre-incarnate Christ – a so-called Christophany. What is interesting is that this mighty being has a face like the sun as in the description of the Son of Man in Revelation 1. Furthermore, he comes in a cloud, the symbol of divine origin from Daniel 7:13, and he has, not a rainbow, but (lit.) the rainbow around his head. The last rainbow we read of was around the throne of God. Furthermore, he has an open scroll in his hand, and one immediately wonders if it is the scroll whose seals were broken and is now open to view, so that we are to understand that what follows is the outworking of its contents.

The angel now places his right foot on the sea and his left foot on the land, as if to claim them for God. Then he roars like a lion, and there is a response by seven thunders. John, since he had recorded two sequences of seven, naturally assumed that he should write a description of what happened when the thunders sounded. He was refused permission and told to seal it up. Why, then, are we told about it? Perhaps to inform us that there are events that will happen that were revealed to John but which his readers were not to know about – a hint to the reader that things will be even more complicated than they can imagine?

The angel then raises his right hand, and, swearing by the creator of heaven, and of earth and sea on which his feet are at that moment placed, he makes the momentous statement ‘that there would be no more delay, but that in the days of the trumpet call to be sounded by the seventh angel, the mystery of God would be fulfilled, just as he announced to his servants the prophets’ (10:6–7).

This part of the book began with an unbearable silence that raised the question that has been tearing at people’s hearts and minds for millennia: how long? When will God intervene and give us justice? Now a powerful angel announces with a roar that there will be delay no more.

One of the reasons for that delay is given by Peter in his teaching about the timing of the Day of the Lord:

But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfil his promise as some count slowness, but is patient towards you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.

(2 Pet. 3:8–10)

Peter explains that God does not look at time as we do: he can look at it as through a time-microscope or a time-telescope – a fact that may also enable us to understand the statement made to John at the beginning of the book that he will be told things that are soon to take place. God delays in order to give people time to repent. That opportunity has now come to an end, the delay is nearly over, and God will come, as he promised, to bring justice to the earth.

This promise is so important that the angel guarantees its fulfilment by swearing a solemn oath (10:5–6) – which is something God does when he wants his people to be absolutely sure (see Heb. 6:13–20).

There is a very similar scene in the final vision at the end of the book of Daniel. Daniel sees a glorious man standing above the River Tigris with features like those of the mighty angel described here. The man reveals to him in great detail the flow of history down to the time of the horrific deeds of Antiochus Epiphanes in the second century bc. Antiochus then becomes a prototype of an evil king who will appear in the very end times, which the text goes on immediately to describe, passing over all the centuries of history (at least twenty-two) between.1

This phenomenon is sometimes called ‘prophetic foreshortening’, a merging of the near and the far perspectives, because the near shares some features in common with the far, somewhat like what happens visually when we see in the distance what looks like a mountain range with another similar one immediately behind it. However, when we get to the first range, we see that there is a great deal of space between the two. Another example is found in the Olivet discourse, where Jesus predicts the fall of Jerusalem in ad 70 and, missing out all the time between, uses it as a prototype of the end times, when Jerusalem will once more be surrounded by armies.

Daniel, having been informed that the time of the end will have similar features to the days of Antiochus, is finally told about the period of great tribulation that Israel will experience at the end time and of the resurrection of the dead that will happen. Just as John is told to seal what the thunders said, Daniel is told to seal up the book until the time of the end. At that point, someone asks the mighty figure hovering above the River Tigris the same question that is at the heart of this part of Revelation: ‘How long shall it be till the end of these wonders?’

And I heard the man clothed in linen, who was above the waters of the stream; he raised his right hand and his left hand towards heaven and swore by him who lives for ever that it would be for a time, times, and half a time, and that when the shattering of the power of the holy people comes to an end all these things would be finished. I heard, but I did not understand. Then I said, ‘O my lord, what shall be the outcome of these things?’ He said, ‘Go your way, Daniel, for the words are shut up and sealed until the time of the end.’

(Dan. 12:6–9)

How long will it be? In Daniel, the angel both swears and gives a precise time-schedule that will in fact be alluded to in the very next scene in Revelation that we now consider.

The glorious one with the rainbow around his head comes down to earth in a cloud with the open scroll in his hand, places his mighty feet on the earth and sea, and comes right to where John is. At the beginning of the book, when John first saw the glorious Son of Man, he was overwhelmed until he felt the touch of the divine hand on his shoulder to comfort him. Now, towards the end of the first half of the book, the divine figure descends from heaven to stand beside his servant and encourage him with his presence once more. It reminds me of Jesus’ promise in the upper room to his disciples that, if they loved him, he would come to them and reveal himself to them.

This time, the mighty one holds in his hand a scroll, which he tells John to take and eat. John is informed that it will be as sweet as honey in his mouth but bitter in his stomach. He eats it, and it transpires as the angel said. He is told that he must prophesy again over many peoples and nations and languages. It is a recommissioning for which he needed an input of fresh divine power and encouragement. Communicating the word of God can be an onerous and daunting task.

Something very similar happened to the prophet Ezekiel. A glorious figure instructed him to eat a scroll inscribed with all kinds of lamentations and woes. It was sweet in his mouth, but the words he had to prophesy were bitter words of judgement. To make things worse, Ezekiel was told that the people would not listen to him and repent. Yet he had the tough task of giving the message anyway. Telling people that they need to repent isn’t easy at any time, as Jesus himself pointed out: ‘Jesus said to them, “My time has not yet come, but your time is always here. The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify about it that its works are evil”’ (John 7:6–7).

The idea that the words of God are sweet comes from the Psalms:

How sweet are your words to my taste,

sweeter than honey to my mouth!

(Ps. 119:103)

The sweetness lay in the fact that the psalmist, Ezekiel and John knew themselves to have been chosen to be vehicles of God’s word, a rare and high privilege. The sweetness does not necessarily refer to the content of those words, but to the fact that they are God’s words. After all, truth is sweet, especially if you live in a world full of lies.

Like Ezekiel, John was given more words to prophesy. We began the book with letters sent to actual churches in Asia. Subsequently, there has been very little reference to actual locations on earth, apart from the River Euphrates. But now we focus on a specific place at a specific time, as John is given a task to do in Jerusalem city:

Then I was given a measuring rod like a staff, and I was told, ‘Rise and measure the temple of God and the altar and those who worship there, but do not measure the court outside the temple; leave that out, for it is given over to the nations, and they will trample the holy city for forty-two months. And I will grant authority to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy for 1,260 days, clothed in sackcloth.’

(11:1–3)

The measuring is an acted parable. In the ancient world, measuring was connected with ownership, particularly of land, and quite sophisticated mathematical techniques were developed to achieve it accurately. Its biblical precedents are to be found with Abraham who was instructed by God: ‘Arise, walk through the length and the breadth of the land, for I will give it to you’ (Gen. 13:17). In this way, Abraham was to gain some idea of the size of the land his family would one day possess.

Ezekiel saw in a vision a man with a measuring rod (Ezek. 40:1 – 48:35) who proceeded to take him on a lengthy tour of the Temple and measured all aspects of it in great detail, both inside and outside in the court. He then measured the city of Jerusalem and finally the entire land. The account is interspersed with instructions regarding the functioning of the temple services, the offerings and the priesthood, and the entire narrative takes up eight chapters, showing its importance. The main point of it is to underline God’s ownership in the context of the destruction of the Temple by the nations:

While the man was standing beside me, I heard one speaking to me out of the temple, and he said to me, ‘Son of man, this is the place of my throne and the place of the soles of my feet, where I will dwell in the midst of the people of Israel for ever.’

(Ezek. 43:6–7)

Ezekiel was then informed of what he was to say to his nation of Israel, whose people had compromised with idolatry and brought God’s judgement upon themselves:

As for you, son of man, describe to the house of Israel the temple, that they may be ashamed of their iniquities; and they shall measure the plan. And if they are ashamed of all that they have done, make known to them the design of the temple, its arrangement, its exits and its entrances, that is, its whole design; and make known to them as well all its statutes and its whole design and all its laws, and write it down in their sight, so that they may observe all its laws and all its statutes and carry them out. This is the law of the temple: the whole territory on the top of the mountain all round shall be most holy. Behold, this is the law of the temple.

(Ezek. 43:10–12)

Similarly with the measurement of the city and the land. The book of Ezekiel ends with: ‘And the name of the city from that time on shall be, The Lord Is There’ (Ezek. 48:35).

This is therefore a promise of restoration.

Zechariah, in a similar historical context, had a much briefer encounter with a man with a measuring line who measured Jerusalem and delivered a message of God’s promise of protection: ‘And I will be to her a wall of fire all round, declares the Lord, and I will be the glory in her midst’ (Zech. 2:5). Another promise of restoration.

With that OT background, we now return to Revelation 11 and the instruction to measure the Temple and its worshippers but to omit the outer court. In order to understand its significance, we need to know that on feast days in Jerusalem, the temple court could not cope with the large crowds who wished to attend the temple services, so the court of the Temple was decreed to be extended to include the whole of the city.2 Hence, the court that is given over to the nations is the Holy City Jerusalem itself. It is not a symbol for anything else, since we are explicitly told that it is the place where the Lord Jesus was crucified. It must therefore be the actual city of Jerusalem on planet earth.3

Shortly before the Lord was crucified in that city, he warned about the great tribulation that would afflict it in the end times just before his return:

But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation has come near. Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, and let those who are inside the city depart, and let not those who are out in the country enter it, for these are days of vengeance, to fulfil all that is written. Alas for women who are pregnant and for those who are nursing infants in those days! For there will be great distress upon the earth and wrath against this people. They will fall by the edge of the sword and be led captive among all nations, and Jerusalem will be trampled underfoot by the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.

(Luke 21:20–4)

This trampling of the city of Jerusalem is not without biblical precedent. It had happened before the time of our Lord, in the siege of Nebuchadnezzar, and in the desecration of the Temple by Antiochus Epiphanes that was never forgotten by the Jews. It would happen again. Jesus’ prophecy here, like so many others, would seem to have two levels of fulfilment. There was partial fulfilment in ad 70, when Jerusalem was besieged and destroyed by the Roman armies of Titus, after which the nation was led captive among all the nations.

Yet it is clear that Jesus cannot have been speaking only of the siege of Jerusalem by Titus, since he goes on to predict cosmic disturbances as harbingers of his own return in power and great glory. These things did not happen in ad 70 and are linked by the Lord with the time of the end. It is the trampling of Jerusalem underfoot by the Gentiles at the time of the end that is in view in Revelation 11.

Its duration is given as forty-two months. During that time, John is told, God will install two powerful supernatural witnesses in Jerusalem. Their witness will last the full duration of the trampling, namely 1,260 days, which is equal to 42 months of 30 days each, which in turn is equivalent to three and a half years. In Daniel’s final vision, the duration given for the time of trouble for Israel is phrased as ‘a time, times, and half a time’ (Dan. 12:7), which is another way of saying ‘three and a half years’.

In Daniel 7, which also speaks of the time of the end, the evil king who wishes to change the law is granted authority for ‘a time, times, and half a time’ (Dan. 7:25). In Daniel 8, which again focuses on the time of the end through telescopic foreshortening from the time of the Greeks, in particular Antiochus Epiphanes,4 the question is asked: ‘For how long is the vision concerning . . . the giving over of the sanctuary and host to be trampled underfoot?’ And the reply comes: ‘For 2,300 evenings and mornings. Then the sanctuary shall be restored to its rightful state’ (Dan. 8:13, 14). In Daniel 12, a further question is voiced: ‘How long shall it be till the end of these wonders?’ The answer given is ‘a time, times, and half a time’, and Daniel is told that when ‘the shattering of the power of the holy people comes to an end all these things would be finished’ (Dan. 12:6–7).

Note the emphasis in Jesus’ prophecy on trampling, a theme that is taken up in Daniel 8 on trampling the sanctuary and is allied to the related theme in Daniel 12 of shattering the power of the people of Israel.

This great tribulation will be a period of unprecedented horror for Israel. For those entering its nightmarish darkness, the issue of how long it will last will be uppermost in their minds. It will therefore be vital to have strong assurance from God that its duration will be strictly limited. Recall Matthew’s account of Jesus’ words:

For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be. And if those days had not been cut short, no human being would be saved. But for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short.

(Matt. 24:21–2)

These considerations should help us grasp the immense importance of the oaths given both in Daniel and Revelation that guarantee that the time of the most severe tribulation will be limited to three and a half years. We recall the limit of tribulation to ten days in the letter to the church at Smyrna. Such promises will help many people to hold on in the future, just as God’s oath and promise can help us to hold on in our day (Heb. 6:13–20).

John is told to measure the Temple and those who worship there. That raises the question as to who the worshippers in Jerusalem are who will be affected by that tribulation. It also raises a further question as to whether there will once again be a temple in Jerusalem.

Answers to the second (and the first) question vary, according to whether the person asked does or does not believe that God still has a specific role for the nation of Israel in the future. If they do not, and they conflate the Church with Israel in the future, then they are very unlikely to accept that there will be another actual temple built in Jerusalem.

However, there are considerable difficulties with that view. One of them is Ezekiel’s elaborate description of the Temple that we have considered – a temple that has not (yet) been built. To say the least, it would be odd for a biblical prophet to anticipate in detail something that would never exist. It is interesting how a Jewish midrash5 says that Ezekiel asked God why he was telling his people about the building of a temple when they were still in exile:

G-d answered: Should the construction of My House be ignored because My children are in exile? The study of the design of the Holy Temple as detailed in the Torah can be equated to its actual construction. Go tell them to study the form of the Holy Temple. As a reward for their study and their occupation with it, I will consider it as if they actually built the Holy Temple.6

Another midrash says that in the messianic era, Jews will make a pilgrimage to the Temple once a month, rather than just three times a year as in earlier times. They will be transported there and back by special clouds.7

Another difficulty in holding that no Third Temple will be built arises from the following straightforward plain-text statement by the apostle Paul in 2 Thessalonians regarding events preceding the return of Christ:

Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God.

(2 Thess. 2:3–4)

It is true that there are places where Scripture uses the Temple as a metaphor for believers (e.g. 1 Cor. 3:16–17; Eph. 2:21–2) and even for a believer’s body (1 Cor. 6:19). However, that is hardly likely to be the meaning of the temple mentioned here in which the lawless one is installed. The physical action of taking his seat is a concretised metaphor that expresses his blasphemous self-deification. It is hard to imagine that it is anything but literal. The fact that the NT talks about a heavenly temple does not, of course, prevent it from speaking of an earthly temple as well.

The spiritual lawlessness of blasphemous self-deification is one of the themes of Scripture, beginning in Genesis 3 where it is the original sin. We meet it in varying degrees in Daniel with Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar and, of course, the kingdoms/kings represented by the wild animals. It has reappeared in our times as the attempt to create a transhuman Homo Deus.

In his final vision, described in chapters 11–13 of his book, Daniel is given a lengthy historical survey that begins in his own day in Medo-Persia and traces the rise of Greece under Alexander the Great that led to the division of his empire into four parts, resulting in conflict between the Seleucids (the kings of the north) and the Ptolemies (the kings of the south). That period culminated in the desecration of the Temple by the Seleucid king Antiochus Epiphanes, who in 186 bc sacrificed a pig on the temple altar in Jerusalem – an absolute abomination to the Jews. His infamous act is described as follows: ‘Forces from him shall appear and profane the temple and fortress, and shall take away the regular burnt offering. And they shall set up the abomination that makes desolate’ (Dan. 11:31).

At this point, in a further example of prophetic foreshortening, Daniel transitions from the time of Antiochus to a similar, yet more diabolical king who would appear in the end time. Of that king Daniel writes:

And the king shall do as he wills. He shall exalt himself and magnify himself above every god and shall speak astonishing things against the God of gods. He shall prosper till the indignation is accomplished; for what is decreed shall be done. He shall pay no attention to the gods of his fathers, or to the one beloved by women. He shall not pay attention to any other god, for he shall magnify himself above all.

(Dan. 11:36–7)

Nearly two centuries after Antiochus, in his Olivet discourse, Jesus also predicted a future analogue of Antiochus’s abominable desecration as a trigger-event that would signal his return:

And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.

So when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand), then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains . . . For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be.

(Matt. 24:14–16, 21)

We should note that not only do Daniel, Jesus and John speak of this blasphemous self-deifying king, but also that they all place him in Jerusalem city in the context of the great tribulation.8 Daniel adds another relevant detail about him in chapter 9 of his book. Daniel is deeply concerned about Jerusalem and prays earnestly to God to act. Here is part of his prayer:

O my God, incline your ear and hear. Open your eyes and see our desolations, and the city that is called by your name. For we do not present our pleas before you because of our righteousness, but because of your great mercy. O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive. O Lord, pay attention and act. Delay not, for your own sake, O my God, because your city and your people are called by your name.

(Dan. 9:18–19)

God’s answer to him ran as follows:

Seventy weeks are decreed about your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to put an end to sin, and to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal both vision and prophet, and to anoint a most holy place.

(Dan. 9:24)

This is a highly specific and comprehensive promise not only about Israel (Daniel’s people) but also about Jerusalem city. It promises everything that all right-minded people long for. But it would take a long time to happen, so complex was the situation:

Know therefore and understand that from the going out of the word to restore and build Jerusalem to the coming of an anointed one, a prince, there shall be seven weeks. Then for sixty-two weeks it shall be built again with squares and moat, but in a troubled time. And after the sixty-two weeks, an anointed one shall be cut off and shall have nothing. And the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. Its end shall come with a flood, and to the end there shall be war. Desolations are decreed. And he shall make a strong covenant with many for one week, and for half of the week he shall put an end to sacrifice and offering. And on the wing of abominations shall come one who makes desolate, until the decreed end is poured out on the desolator.

(Dan. 9:25–7)

Detailed exposition of the historical information given in this chapter is beyond our scope here but is given in my book Against the Flow. What emerges from these scriptures is a picture of an evil world leader who makes a seven-year (peace?) agreement or covenant with Israel but then breaks it mid-term and proceeds with bestial ferocity to lead a reign of terror, the great tribulation, for the remaining three and a half years, during which the city of Jerusalem becomes a particular focus for his ire.

As for the identity of the worshippers in the Temple who are faced with this grim situation, one wonders if they are among the representative number of 144,000 from Israel who were sealed by God for their protection (7:3).

Those who reject the view that God has a future role for the nation of Israel tend to take the Temple, its court and the Holy City mentioned here as symbols representing the Church. This seems impossibly self-contradictory. The Temple (Church) is to be measured and protected by God, while the court and Holy City (again the Church) is not to be measured but to be trampled underfoot! It doesn’t make sense and so should be rejected.

It seems rather superfluous to have to point out that Daniel was not praying about the Church! Like it or not, God is committed to the restoration of his ancient people Israel and their capital Jerusalem. He promised it centuries earlier, even before they had defected and been exiled.

It makes far more sense, therefore, to understand the reference to the Temple to be an actual temple in Jerusalem that is yet to be built and which will play an important role in the grim time just preceding the return of Christ.9

An inevitable objection in principle arises at this point: surely, you cannot take this relatively short period of time – three and a half years – literally, as it is insignificant by comparison with the vast stretches of history covered by the biblical narrative? This argument is invalid, because it is not the length of the time that is important so much as what happens during that time.

Suppose that I were to say that three days is an even shorter period of time, and so it could not be important in the grand scale of things. I would err grievously in so doing, for there is one period of three days in past history that is of cosmic significance. In those three days, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was crucified and raised again by the power of God, thus utterly transforming the ‘grand scale of things’. Again, the length of the time is not as important as what happened during that time. What is more, just as the violent death of Christ at the beginning of those three days almost destroyed the hope of the disciples that Jesus was the Son of God, so the violence of the great tribulation, as God deals with the nations, will strain the faith of godly Jews to within a hair’s-breadth of breaking point, until the glorious day eventually announced by the seventh trumpet when God finally inaugurates his kingdom on earth and runs it as now in heaven.

The two witnesses in Jerusalem

The terrible suffering and pressure felt by the Lord’s people during the three-and-a-half-year period of trampling is why God installs in Jerusalem two witnesses with extraordinary supernatural powers who give their witness:

These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand before the Lord of the earth. And if anyone would harm them, fire pours from their mouth and consumes their foes. If anyone would harm them, this is how he is doomed to be killed. They have the power to shut the sky, that no rain may fall during the days of their prophesying, and they have power over the waters to turn them into blood and to strike the earth with every kind of plague, as often as they desire.

(11:4–6)

The two witnesses have the capacity to do supernatural things very similar to what Moses and Elijah did, which has led some to think that they are Moses and Elijah. They are not said to be Moses and Elijah, but the comparison is instructive. Moses used God’s power to turn water into blood and to strike Egypt with different plagues. When Elijah challenged the prophets of Baal to prove that Baal was real, they failed. Baal remained silent in spite of the crying out of 400 prophets. In reply, Elijah called down fire from heaven, which consumed the sacrifice he had prepared. Elijah also was able by God’s power to control the rain.

The relevance of all of this to our context in Revelation is that Moses was challenging the gods whom Pharaoh believed ruled over Egypt – one of them being the River Nile – and Elijah was challenging the Tyrian god Baal-Melkart, a fertility god who had been institutionalised in Israel by Jezebel and her husband, King Ahab. Hence, Moses and Elijah were giving supernatural witness against false gods. That is what is happening here in Revelation, although we do not learn until later that the beast is worshipped as a god at this time.

The fact that the witnesses are called ‘lampstands’ is consistent with the use of lampstands to stand for witness in part 1. The additional imagery of the two olive trees is taken from the OT prophecy of Zechariah:

And the angel who talked with me came again and woke me, like a man who is awakened out of his sleep. And he said to me, ‘What do you see?’ I said, ‘I see, and behold, a lampstand all of gold, with a bowl on the top of it, and seven lamps on it, with seven lips on each of the lamps that are on the top of it. And there are two olive trees by it, one on the right of the bowl and the other on its left’ . . . Then he said to me, ‘This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of hosts. Who are you, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel you shall become a plain. And he shall bring forward the top stone amid shouts of “Grace, grace to it!”’

Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying, ‘The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this house; his hands shall also complete it’ . . .

I answered and said to him, ‘What are these two branches of the olive trees, which are beside the two golden pipes from which the golden oil is poured out?’ . . . Then he said, ‘These are the two anointed ones who stand by the Lord of the whole earth.’

(Zech. 4:1–14)

The last phrase here is picked up in Revelation 11:4 and forges a clear link with Zechariah’s vision, with which John evidently assumed his readers were familiar. It also reminds us that God is Lord of the whole earth; he is the Owner.

Zechariah was active at the time of the Medo-Persian king Darius. His prophecy concerned the restoration of Jerusalem (which he mentions thirty-seven times!) after the seventy years of the exile in Babylon. Zechariah was told that Zerubbabel, who was engaged in rebuilding the Temple against strong opposition from tribes and nations in the area, would be empowered by God’s Spirit to complete the Temple. The imagery of the golden lampstand with two olive trees beside it had a simple message:

This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of hosts. Who are you, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel you shall become a plain. And he shall bring forward the top stone amid shouts of ‘Grace, grace to it!’

(Zech. 4:6–7)

Zerubbabel would witness to the power of God’s Holy Spirit, and the vision of Zechariah becomes a prototype of the two witnesses in Revelation. We are not told who they are but rather what they do, which is to witness in an environment that is implacably hostile to God. However, in spite of their powers, their witness is eventually brought to an end:

And when they have finished their testimony, the beast that rises from the bottomless pit will make war on them and conquer them and kill them, and their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city that symbolically is called Sodom and Egypt, where their Lord was crucified. For three and a half days some from the peoples and tribes and languages and nations will gaze at their dead bodies and refuse to let them be placed in a tomb, and those who dwell on the earth will rejoice over them and make merry and exchange presents, because these two prophets had been a torment to those who dwell on the earth.

(11:7–10)

After three and a half years of witness, supported by supernatural powers, about which we have no further information, the sinister demonic beast overcomes them and kills them. The text actually says that the beast ‘makes war’ against them (see 11:7), which is scarcely the way you would describe an attack on two individuals. However, this may well be a hint of the war we read of later, in 13:7, where the beast is allowed to make war against the saints and overcome them – therefore indicating a much wider brutal war.

The Greek word for ‘beast’ means ‘wild animal’ or ‘wild thing’. However, I shall use the word ‘monster’. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, this word derives from Latin monere (= to warn) and originally meant a divine portent. It now means ‘an animal or plant deviating in one or more of its parts from the normal type . . . an imaginary animal . . . having a form either partly brute and partly human or compounded from elements from two or more animal forms’. These definitions fit our context very well. The ferocious monster that is briefly mentioned here will dominate much of the rest of Revelation, from chapters 13 to 20. In due course, we shall discover that it represents both a Satan-empowered, evil, idolatrous global empire, as well as the leader of that empire who has been ruling the world during this time even though this is the first time it has been mentioned. The next two sections of Revelation will backtrack to fill in what the monster is and what it has been doing up to the point where it brings to an end the lives of the two witnesses.

For now, the text simply informs us that the witnesses’ dead bodies lie in the street of the city that is symbolically called Sodom and Egypt but is actually the place where their Lord was crucified, that is, Jerusalem city. Sodom and Egypt are used here as symbols of the world in its defiance of God in the light of the behaviour of the actual Sodom and Egypt in the Bible. They remind us of the two principal things that lead people to rebel against the Lord: immorality and idolatry. The extent of that idolatry will become apparent in the next part of the book where the monster aspires not only to be the ruler of this world but also to be its god.

It is hard to imagine the shock that the murder of the two witnesses in Jerusalem will deliver to those people who are still loyal to God. It will seem to them that evil has finally triumphed and eliminated all trace of God from the world; he has been finally silenced. We can easily believe that the powers of the two witnesses, who troubled the world for so long and now lie dead in Jerusalem’s streets, will be officially ascribed to sophisticated deception, perhaps by advanced technological means, which ‘government experts’ have now identified and neutralised. People will be told that since scientists now understand how the witnesses managed to do it, there is no longer any reason to believe in the supernatural. The experts will claim to have finally demonstrated what they have believed for years – that a supernatural God does not exist. The monster will stand triumphant and unopposable. The principle of the survival of the fittest will have been vindicated once more: the greater power will have won and emptied the universe of ‘the God delusion’.

Richard Dawkins’ book with the above title was an attempt to use the authority of science to deny the existence of a ‘supernatural God’, as the enemies of God have always aimed to use their expertise to do. Think of the witness of Moses and Aaron to Pharaoh. God empowered Moses to do a series of miraculous signs in Pharaoh’s court. However, Pharaoh’s experts apparently reproduced the first two signs (i.e. water turned to blood; a plague of frogs), so that Pharaoh was unconvinced. We can picture them triumphantly saying: ‘There you are! Science has shown that the God of the Israelites doesn’t exist.’ It was only when they failed to replicate the third sign (the plague of gnats) that they told Pharaoh: ‘This is the finger of God’ (Exod. 8:19).

For three and a half years the finger of God had waggled through the actions of the witnesses and infuriated earth’s inhabitants. Now, the finger has stopped moving, and for three and a half days their corpses lie there in the streets, unburied in a deliberate insult.10 It is fascinating, though tragic, to see what now happens. The whole watching11 world goes mad in a wild celebration of the death of God and of the witnesses. As if it were a birthday, Christmas or feast day, people exchange gifts with one another to mark their delight and relief at the end of the ‘torment’ of the martyrs’ witness. It is easy to imagine a decision being made in the spirit of Nietzsche to institute an annual ‘Death of Supernatural God’ day.

The tragedy is that the people of the world will think, as many people already think, that they are now finally completely free of the intrusive demands of morality and conscience, free of having to obey divine commands – finally free. Yet they will be far from free. The evil power that they think has liberated them will have already enslaved them, spirit, soul and body, by turning the world into the most oppressive surveillance state that human beings have ever seen – a veritable planet gulag. We shall see in part 4 how the monster will have forced them to bow down their once-proud heads to him and slavishly acknowledge him as god in a form of pagan worship they probably would at one time have considered utterly demeaning of their human dignity. There is a very high price to pay for rejecting God and the Lamb.

It is hard to contemplate what it will be like to try to maintain any shred of personal, private faith in God and Christ in such an unimaginably ghastly situation, let alone to find the courage to witness publicly to the gospel. Many of us, particularly in the West, now live in countries where there are powerful (and, sadly, partially successful) secular attempts to marginalise Christian witness or silence it completely. Nevertheless, in many places, though not all, there are other believers, churches and parachurch organisations around to give us support. What would happen if all of these support systems were removed and all witness was silenced, leaving us utterly alone in an evil darkness? How would we feel? How will they feel in that future day, since God had promised them that the tribulation would end after forty-two months, yet there was still no sign of it, rather the opposite, as all hope was now extinguished by the satanic power of darkness?

The silence of God at the beginning of this part of the book lasted for half an hour. It now goes on for a seemingly interminable three and a half days. Why did God wait those extra days? Perhaps the answer lies in what was made plain during them: the consummate evil and rebellion in the human heart. Here were people who had already experienced the most devastating judgements of God, and yet such was their stubbornness and hatred of God that they refused to repent. And now, when they think they have succeeded in rooting out every trace of God for ever, they are so delighted to be rid of him that they flaunt it publicly.

Yet all was not as it seemed. The situation reminds me of a statement by C. S. Lewis in his famous Screwtape Letters:

Do not be deceived, Wormwood. Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy’s will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.12

That was never more true than in the darkness of Calvary when the Lord Jesus uttered his awful cry of dereliction: ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ (Matt. 27:46). He had witnessed for just over three years, roughly the same length of time as the two witnesses, during which time the authorities had tried to put an end to his witness but were frustrated at every turn. Then they got him – or so they thought – just as they now imagined they had done with the two witnesses.

God had waited long enough for the global evil in the human heart to be manifest to all. He now intervenes with a second massive supernatural shock that breaks the silence of heaven with resounding finality. He raises the witnesses from the dead:

But after the three and a half days a breath of life from God entered them, and they stood up on their feet, and great fear fell on those who saw them. Then they heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, ‘Come up here!’ And they went up to heaven in a cloud, and their enemies watched them. And at that hour there was a great earthquake, and a tenth of the city fell. Seven thousand people were killed in the earthquake, and the rest were terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven.

The second woe has passed; behold, the third woe is soon to come.

(11:11–14)

Centuries before, a dead body had been interred privately in a new tomb in Jerusalem. To Jesus’ disciples it seemed as if it was all over – that his claims had been discredited and his enemies had won. Yet it was not all over. For on the third day, God intervened and with almighty power raised Jesus from the dead. A few of his followers met him, and after six weeks a small group of them watched him return to heaven.

This time, all privacy has gone. Global media ensure that the whole world is watching the bodies lying in a street in Jerusalem – to the delight of a great proportion of the onlookers. Their euphoria does not last long. As they watch their screens, God intervenes; life streams back into the bodies of the two witnesses, and, in a loud voice, heard from one end of the earth to the other, God bids them to come up to heaven. They ascend, as Elijah and the Lord Jesus did, while their enemies from around the planet watch in stupefied, mesmerised silence. A great earthquake shakes the city, leaving 7,000 dead. Terror grips the hearts of the survivors, and (perhaps too late?) they give glory to God, in the sense, not necessarily of worship, but of reluctant acknowledgement that God is real and has acted – that this was indubitably the finger of God.

John comments: ‘The second woe has passed; behold, the third woe is soon to come’ (11:14).

Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, saying, ‘The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign for ever and ever.’ And the twenty-four elders who sit on their thrones before God fell on their faces and worshipped God, saying,

‘We give thanks to you, Lord God Almighty,

who is and who was,

for you have taken your great power

and begun to reign.

The nations raged,

but your wrath came,

and the time for the dead to be judged,

and for rewarding your servants, the prophets and saints,

and those who fear your name,

both small and great,

and for destroying the destroyers of the earth.’

(11:15–18)

The time has come . . . This part opened with the silence of heaven in the face of people who have prayed for justice when facing discrimination, maltreatment and persecution of every kind. The part now ends with loud celebration in heaven: the twenty-four elders fall on their faces and worship God because he has acted to respond to those prayers, the most familiar of them probably being the one the Lord taught his disciples that includes the phrase: ‘Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven’. They had cried: ‘How long?’ (6:10). The time has now come for that cry to be answered by God taking up his great power and reigning. This, by definition, is not the eternal reign of God. It is God intervening by coming in Christ to reign, as will be described in Revelation 20 – 22.

When the seventh seal was opened, no immediate judgement was associated with it, although the seven trumpets were seen preparing to sound. That is, the seven trumpets can be seen as filling out the seventh seal. Here, with the blast of the seventh trumpet, something similar occurs, except that the third and final series of judgements, the bowls, will not commence, as far as the narrative of the book is concerned, until chapter 15. They will fill out the detail announced after the seventh trumpet sounds.

With the exception of the statement, ‘he shall reign for ever and ever’ (11:15, my emphasis), the announcements made after the seventh trumpet sounds are expressed in the past tense: ‘the world has become’, ‘you have taken your great power’, ‘the nations raged, but your wrath came’, and so on (11:15, 17, 18, my emphasis). However, we know that the outpouring of the wrath of God is not yet complete, nor has Christ returned, nor have the dead been judged or God’s servants rewarded. The aorist tenses are used here in the original Greek to express the fact that what is announced is so certain to happen that it can confidently be asserted as if it had happened. The Lord’s reign is assured. Yet there are many more details to be filled in – in particular, the happenings on earth during the reign of the beast/monster, the final judgement and the return of Christ to reign.

One important point here is the announcement that destroyers of the earth are to be destroyed (11:18). Although the primary reference is probably to the destruction of those who destroy the earth morally and spiritually, it is hard not to see an application to the current ecological crisis. For, contrary to what many think, God is not indifferent towards irresponsible people who wreck the biosphere, fill the atmosphere with noxious gases, increase desert areas by destroying vital forestation, and thus cause environmental damage, global warming and what now looks like irreversible climate change. The fact that God will hold them to account is worth sharing with those concerned about the future of the planet, many of whom erroneously think that biblical teaching has been in part responsible for the wilful exploitation of the environment. We are called to be stewards, not spoilers, of God’s creation.

The occupants of the twenty-four thrones in heaven join in worshipping God for what is certain to happen, so that part 3 ends, like part 2, with a triumphant statement of salvation.

At this point, we do well to take note of the encouragements and principles we find here that are applicable to believers in every age. For at some level or other, many of us have experienced the silence of God and the darkness of feeling abandoned. This part teaches us that we are never alone. God is there in the darkness and, for the believer in Christ, it will one day be dispelled by glory, when the last trumpet ends the silence in triumph.13

Reflection on part 3

Readers already familiar with the remainder of Revelation – and I hope that is all of you – may be puzzled at this juncture as to why the description of the activity of the two witnesses in Jerusalem is not left until we learn more about the monster that murders them in parts 4 and 5. My own view is that this has been done to accentuate for us the relationship between the beginning and end of part 3 – the silence in heaven for half an hour and the three and a half days while the witnesses lie unburied in the streets of Jerusalem. The author wants us to dwell on the awfulness of living in a Nietzschean world where God has been finally pronounced dead. After all, that is precisely the world that Richard Dawkins thinks we already do live in.

We should also note that the brief mention of the monster in 11:7 in part 3 and the lengthy description of it in part 4 is a further example of what we noted earlier – that something briefly mentioned in one part becomes central to the next part.

Part 4

REVELATION 11:19 – 15:4

BRIEF SUMMARY

The Temple in heaven opened

The ark of the covenant

A woman, a child caught up to heaven, a dragon expelled from heaven and two monsters on earth

Then God’s temple in heaven was opened, and the ark of his covenant was seen within his temple. There were flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder, an earthquake, and heavy hail.

(11:19)

DOMINANT THEME

A man reaches God’s throne in heaven: a perversion of male animal power on earth.

DETAILED SUMMARY

A. The Temple in heaven opened (11:19)

John sees the ark of the covenant.

Thunder, lightning and other terrifying phenomena occur.

B. A vision of a woman clothed with the sun, moon and twelve stars (12:1–17)

A great sign appears in heaven: a pregnant woman is crying with birth pains.

Another sign appears in heaven: a dragon with seven heads and ten horns casts down a third of the stars. He stands before the woman to devour the child at birth. She gives birth to a male child and ruler designate, who is caught up to God and his throne. She flees into the desert to be protected by God for 1,260 days.

War breaks out in heaven: Michael defeats the dragon/devil/Satan plus angels and throws them down from heaven to earth.

A loud voice is heard in heaven: salvation, power, the kingdom of God and the authority of Christ have come. The accuser of the believers is cast down; they overcame by the blood of the Lamb and their testimony. Rejoice, heavens! But woe to earth because the devil knows his time is short.

The dragon attempts to destroy the woman but is frustrated. She flees for protection for a time, times and half a time. The dragon goes to vent his wrath on her offspring who keep the commandments of God and the testimony of Jesus. He stands on the sand of the sea.

C. The rise of the monsters and the triumph of the Lamb (13:1 – 14:5)

A sea monster with ten horns and seven heads is given the throne by the dragon. One head is mortally wounded, then healed. The world worships both the dragon and the sea monster. Authority over the whole earth is given to the monster for forty-two months. He overcomes the saints.

An earth monster promotes the worship of the sea monster, of which a lethal breathing image is made. Commercial transactions are forbidden without the 666 mark of the sea monster.

The Lamb stands on Mount Zion with 144,000 redeemed people from earth. They sing a new song before the throne.

D. Three angelic warnings and a voice from heaven (14:6 – 14:13)

Angel 1 proclaims: The eternal gospel is for all. Fear God, for the hour of judgement has come. Worship the Creator.

Angel 2 proclaims: Babylon the great has fallen.

Angel 3 proclaims: Those who worship the sea monster and take his mark will endure eternal torment before God and the Lamb. This is a call for the endurance of the saints.

A voice is heard from heaven: ‘Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord.’

E. Visions of judgement and wrath (14:14 – 15:1)

The Son of Man appears on a white cloud with a golden crown on his head and a sickle in his hand.

An angel announces that the corn harvest is fully ripe. It is reaped with the sickle.

An angel comes out from the Temple in heaven with a sickle. Another angel calls him to reap the grape harvest. The harvest is reaped and cast into the wine press of God’s wrath. The wine press, trodden, produces a vast quantity of blood.

Another sign is seen in heaven: seven angels bring seven plagues that will finish the wrath of God.

F. The song of the conquerors (15:2–4)

A vision appears of a sea of glass, beside which are standing those who conquered the sea monster and its image.

With harps in their hands, they sing the Song of Moses and of the Lamb in praise to God.

All nations will worship God for his holiness, and his just and true ways, because his righteous acts have been revealed.

19

War in heaven

Part 4 takes us into the second half of the book. It gives us a different perspective on the period of trial connected with the trampling of Jerusalem and the supernatural testimony of the two witnesses described in part 3. In particular, it describes the provenance and reign on earth of the monster briefly introduced in 11:7.

The part begins once more with something opened, this time the Temple in heaven, where John sees the most important piece of the tabernacle or temple furniture: the ark of the covenant. It contained the tables of the law that God had given to Moses at Sinai and which were the basis of God’s covenant, or contract, with his people. On its heavy golden lid, the mercy seat, there were figures of two cherubim, symbols of God’s judgement. That was where God caused his presence to dwell (Isa. 37:16). The whole ark was a symbol of God’s throne, and the covenant it contained was an instrument of government. It set out the terms and conditions for God’s rule. First, God announced who he is: ‘I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery’ (Exod. 20:2). The famous Ten Commandments were then tabled. The first three of them have to do with our relationship to God in terms of worship:

You shall have no other gods before me.

(Exod. 20:3)

You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.

(Exod. 20:4–6)

You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.

(Exod. 20:7)

The God who made the heavens and the earth is utterly unique and will brook no rivals. We must worship him alone. Part 4 of Revelation will describe for us the flagrant breaking of these first two commandments in the future by the monster, a devil-inspired head of a totalitarian, global empire. In part 3, this monster briefly appeared and overcame the two witnesses, that is, until God raised them from the dead. In part 4, this monster takes centre stage as the battle is joined for the loyalty of the human heart. The issue at stake is whether men and women will follow and worship the monster as their evil Homo Deus (man-god), and take his mark and accept his rule, or whether they will be loyal to the God of heaven and the Lamb, who is the true Homo Deus, the Saviour of the world.

A vision of a woman clothed with the sun, moon and twelve stars

The first half of the book opened with a vision of the glorious Son of Man on earth, his face shining like the sun, with seven stars in his hand, walking among seven golden lampstands. The second half opens with a vision of a glorious woman in heaven arrayed with the sun. Before we rush to try to answer the who question and identify her, we recall the importance of first asking the what question. What John sees is a woman. The man–woman symmetry in the book points to the fundamental equality with which God dignified both men and women as specially created in his image. It is, therefore, an important reminder to us to strive to maintain that dignity in the way we live, speak and interact with people. There are no grounds here, or anywhere else in Scripture, for the mistreatment of women by men (or vice versa). God’s design was for men and women to complement each other in stewarding the world and developing it. We must never forget that it was a woman who brought the Saviour, Jesus Christ, into the world, without the aid of a man. Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit in a uniquely holy, supernatural act of God that involved Mary alone.

And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. She was pregnant and was crying out in birth pains and the agony of giving birth. And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads seven diadems. His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and cast them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she bore her child he might devour it. She gave birth to a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, but her child was caught up to God and to his throne, and the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, in which she is to be nourished for 1,260 days.

(12:1–6)

John sees two ‘signs’. In Greek the word is semeion, from which we derive the English word ‘semiotics’ – the study of signs. John’s Gospel is organised around a series of signs that point to who Jesus was, and they form a basis for faith in him (John 20:31). Here, the first sign that appears in heaven consists of a woman gloriously arrayed and about to give birth. The second sign, also in heaven, consists of a grotesque seven-headed, ten-horned red dragon standing in front of the woman, ready to devour her child once it is born. The setting is surreal, but the reality it signifies is deadly serious. As John watches, the woman gives birth, but, before the dragon can snatch the male child, he is thwarted by God taking the child up to his throne in heaven. The woman then flees to the desert, where she is nourished for 1,260 days.

We are told that the male child is one destined ‘to rule [lit. shepherd] all the nations with a rod of iron’ (12:3).1 The description is a historical flashback that records, in a highly compressed fashion, the cosmic events that are most relevant here: the incarnation and ascension of Christ, his coming to and leaving earth. It is, of course, obvious from the context that it is describing the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God and the ruler of the kings of the earth, who has ascended to the right hand of the Majesty on high, as announced by Peter on the day of Pentecost (Ps. 110:1; Acts 2:32–5).

War in heaven ensues. Satan, the dragon-devil, the arch-deceiver, is defeated and thrown with his evil angels out of heaven onto earth. That is the background to all that follows. The dragon, Satan, realises that his days are numbered and, in his rage, empowers and enthrones his man, the sea monster, to govern and ravage the earth. When the devil tempted Jesus during his earthly life, he offered him all the kingdoms of the world if he would only accept his authority. Jesus refused. Now the devil has a throne and a kingdom on earth – a grim satanic society and culture opposing the Church. We met a forewarning of this in the letter to the church at Pergamum whose members would have understood very well what John was saying here when it was read out to them. Yet, before we start considering the detail, we are to know that the main victory has been secured. There is only one qualified to rule the nations, and he, God’s Man, has already reached the throne of God. His arch-rival’s attempt to do the same is doomed from the start. The earthly throne of Satan cannot stand.

The narrative is compelling. The vision of a woman and a serpent takes us back to the garden of Eden, where the first woman, Eve, was deceived by the serpent and disobeyed God’s command not to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. She and her husband, Adam, ate it and thereby opened the floodgates to the pandemic of sin that has blighted the world ever since. Yet God, in his mercy, did not wipe out the human race. If he had done so, the devil would have claimed as a huge victory the fact that God had been forced to abandon his great creation-project. He would have gloated that God had made a world, populated it with creatures, some of them made in his own image, and yet had failed to keep their loyalty and had had to destroy them. Satan 1, God 0.

The age-old battle for human loyalty reaches its zenith in this part of Revelation. For, far from annihilating the humans, God promised the woman that her seed would eventually bruise the serpent’s head. That was a staggering promise, for it did not merely say that God would triumph, which was never in doubt. It promised that humanity would triumph, or, more precisely, that one particular human seed of the woman would triumph. This was to be God’s remarkable way of dealing with all the sin and damage caused by the devil. With the promise to Eve, what I call God’s Seed Project begins.2 It wends its way from Eve and Adam by the divinely ordained mechanism of the physical transmission of life, with many notable people in the chain: Sarah and Abraham, Rebekah and Isaac, Leah and Jacob, Ruth and Boaz, Bathsheba and David. Finally, it reaches Mary, who carried in her womb Jesus, the very Son of God, conceived by the Holy Spirit. In the fullness of time, she gave birth to him in the town of Bethlehem in Judea. The promised Messiah and Saviour was born. We can therefore understand the woman in the vision to be woman as such: to represent all of these women of Israel involved in the Seed Project, but particularly Mary, as she gives birth to the seed.3

We saw that in the vision of the Son of Man at the beginning of the book, the sun and stars played an important role, and here they are again in connection with the woman and the birth of the Man-Child, but with different meaning: the twelve stars around the woman’s head presumably allude to the twelve tribes of Israel.

Why this (second) emphasis on astronomy? One reason could be that, since the celestial objects form part of the ‘sign’, we have an allusion here to the major astronomical phenomenon that occurred at the birth of the child – namely, the star of Bethlehem. Colin Nicholl, in his fascinating book The Great Christ Comet: Revealing the true star of Bethlehem,4 argues that the sign in Revelation 12 of a virgin wrapped in stars is pointing to the stellar constellation of Virgo, which was thought of in the ancient world as depicting a virgin of child-bearing age or even a mother. The seven-headed dragon would then be the constellation Hydra located to the south of Virgo and rising on her left side. Nicholl observes that there are precisely twelve visible (in the Near East!) stars of up to magnitude +6.5 in the area of the constellation’s head. He also points out that the moon is under her feet whereas the sun is clothing her (that is, around her chest area) – a configuration that does not occur every year but did in 6 bc around the time Christ was born. The moon was closely associated with conception in the ancient world. At that time, Nicholl argues, a bright comet was seen to ‘enter her womb’ – the great Christ comet that heralded his birth. The attack by the dragon is mirrored in celestial terms by Hydra’s tail emitting a dramatic meteor shower so that the whole drama is reflected in what is happening in the sky at the time. Whatever we think of the star of Bethlehem, Nicholl’s book is well worth reading. It is regarded by Mark Bailey MBE, an expert on comets and the director of the famous Armagh Observatory (in my home town!), as breaking new ground and developing a formidable case for identifying the star as a great comet.

After the birth of Mary’s child in Bethlehem, it was not long before that most unholy of beings, the devil, who knows no scruples, sought in various ways to destroy him: Herod’s murder of the children, the devil’s attempt to get Jesus to throw himself off the pinnacle of the Temple, various attempts by the authorities to kill Jesus, Judas’s Satan-inspired betrayal and, finally, Jesus’ judicial murder demanded by the Jewish high court, the Sanhedrin, and carried out by the Romans. Yet, to quote the old hymn:

Death cannot keep his prey –

Jesus, my Saviour!

He tore the bars away –

Jesus, my Lord!

Up from the grave He arose,

With a mighty triumph o’er His foes,

He arose a Victor from the dark domain,

And He lives forever with His saints to reign.

He arose! He arose!

Hallelujah! Christ arose!5

And then God caught him up to his throne out of the devil’s reach: he ascended to the realm from which he had originally come. There is high drama here, heightened by the fact that Revelation leaves out a great deal of the detail in placing the ascension in the text immediately after the birth,6 even though they were in fact more than thirty years apart. It gives a breathtaking sense of movement towards a goal, and it is full of wonder: a child born to a woman on earth has ascended to the highest point in the universe to sit on the very throne of God. There he will rule, the perfect Man who is God, the truest of humans, who will wield his power in unblemished righteousness. On earth the monster is also a man, but a perversion of man who will wield power with satanic brutality. The perversion of the male that is evident in this part of the book will contrast with the perversion of the female in the next.

The force of all this is that, as we consider the grim things that are about to happen on earth, we need to fill our hearts and minds with the ultimate triumph of the God-Man, the true Homo Deus, the King of kings, the Lord Jesus Christ.

What about the woman? We are told that she ‘fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, in which she is to be nourished for 1,260 days’ (12:6). Once again, we meet this period of three and a half years, which in the context is most likely to refer to the time of tribulation that we have discussed already. The flight of the woman recalls the fleeing of the Israelites into the desert to escape Pharaoh, and David similarly fleeing to the desert to escape Saul. The desert here represents a place of security in which there is a special place prepared by God where his people, ethnic Israel, will be protected. This protection reminds us of the sealing of the 144,000 from Israel in 7:2–8. We shall meet this group again in 14:1–5.

In Romans 9 – 11, Paul is discussing a question that very much exercised him: the future of his fellow ethnic Israelites.7 In Romans 9:27 and 11:5 he speaks of a remnant being saved, but then in Romans 11:25ff. he indicates that there will be a grand reversal in the fortunes of the people of Israel when the Deliverer comes from Zion to banish their sins. That restoration, says Paul, will be like ‘life from the dead’ (Rom. 11:15). Might it just be that the 144,000 will be the seed from which the regathering and restoration of Israel springs? After all, they are called ‘firstfruits’ in 14:4. We shall consider this in more detail in chapter 31 of this book.

The devil who stood ready to devour the child of the woman is the same enemy of God who tempted the first humans to aspire to be gods by disobeying the word of the one and only true God. He is just as active today doing the same thing, but this time using advanced AI to drive a transhumanist vision of upgraded men and women.8 Not without reason did David Deutsch write: ‘AI began with an ancient wish to forge the gods.’9 That wish is no longer ancient.

However, long before transhumanists thought of enabling humans to become gods, God himself became human: ‘The Word became flesh’ (John 1:14). This is God’s supreme strategy to win the battle for the loyalty of the human heart by pouring out his love and grace in sending his Son to earth as Saviour – the only one with the power to set human beings free from sin, guilt and death and transform them into his sons and daughters. What wonderful news this is! And in the rest of Revelation we shall see how it is realised. Paul was not ashamed of this story, and neither should we be. Yet the devil will resist it to the end, even though he is doomed from the start by being ejected from heaven, as we are now told in Revelation 12:

Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon. And the dragon and his angels fought back, but he was defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world – he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, ‘Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death. Therefore, rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!’

(12:7–12)

Satan, the devil, is going to have a prominent role in much of the rest of the book. The word ‘Satan’ is a transliteration of a Hebrew word that means ‘accuser’, whereas the English word ‘devil’ is derived originally from the Greek diabolos meaning essentially the same thing – from dia (= across) and ballein (= to throw), so ‘to throw across’ and hence ‘accuse’. Accusation is the devil’s main work, as brilliantly depicted by C. S. Lewis in his Screwtape Letters.

In the opening scene of the book of Job, Satan, who apparently had some level of access to heavenly places at the time, accuses God by saying that Job only trusted him because God had pampered him. God responded to this challenge by allowing Satan to test Job to the extreme by taking away his family and his property. But Job was not persuaded to give up his trust in God, and both he and God are eventually vindicated.

The roots of the idea of war in heaven, sometimes called the ‘heavenly places’, go back to the OT. In Daniel’s final vision, he is given an insight into what goes on in that world which is normally hidden from our view. Daniel saw, standing above the River Tigris, a glorious figure whose description resembles that of the Son of Man whom John saw in Revelation 1. He spoke to Daniel and said:

Fear not, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart to understand and humbled yourself before your God, your words have been heard, and I have come because of your words. The prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me twenty-one days, but Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, for I was left there with the kings of Persia, and came to make you understand what is to happen to your people in the latter days. For the vision is for days yet to come.

(Dan. 10:12–14)

Daniel is informed that, behind the earthly Persian Empire and its kings, there is a mighty prince who resisted the Son of Man’s attempt to come and give Daniel a prophetic message concerning what would befall Daniel’s people, Israel, in the end times. This evil prince of Persia was apparently so powerful that Michael, an angelic prince on God’s side, had to come and help overcome him. This goes beyond our present comprehension. Yet Paul tells Christians that similar powers are ranged against them in heavenly places, against which they are called upon to fight: ‘For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places’ (Eph. 6:12). Peter also speaks of the triumph of Christ over such forces, since Jesus ‘has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him’ (1 Pet. 3:22).

Revelation 12 describes a war in heaven when Michael fights again, this time against the prince of the power of the air, the devil himself, as represented by a great red dragon. The dragon is defeated and thrown to earth with all his evil retinue. His eventual doom is now assured, not only by the fact that the child of the woman has reached the throne of God, but also because he, the devil, has been ejected from the heavenly realm.

And this is such an important step towards bringing in the rule of God on earth that it is announced as if it had already happened. A loud voice in heaven then announces a great victory: ‘The salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come’ (12:10). The salvation element here consists, as is now explained, of the fact that the arch-accuser of believers, who has been accusing them day and night before God, has been overthrown, not simply by the power of God, but by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony as martyrs for Christ.

This has an important practical application for today. For my experience has been that many believers, even those who have been Christians for a long time, fall into what might be called a ‘self-accusation syndrome’ in which they find it impossible to forgive themselves. They know and understand the theology of forgiveness in their heads. They would say also that God has pardoned them, but the problem is that they somehow do not feel it. Not only that but, especially if they have committed some sin that has come into the public domain, they continually attempt to earn God’s favour in the hope that this will relieve the burden they carry on their conscience.

In other words, to put it bluntly, they are doing the devil’s work for him, since the net result is to make them ineffective as Christians, thus reinforcing a downwards spiral into depression. They tell themselves things such as: ‘I’m no good’; ‘I’m never going to make it’; ‘God can never use me, and I’m probably going to end up on the scrap heap.’

They need – indeed, we all need – to get back to the full glory of the gospel message, as it alone contains the answer. The good news is that these accusations are but fiery darts of the evil one and should be rejected, since God has an answer to it because of what the Lord Jesus has done. Paul explains that answer in a marvellous passage in Romans 8 that deserves to be read slowly in full:

Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died – more than that, who was raised – who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written,

‘For your sake we are being killed all the day long;

we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.’

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

(Rom. 8:33–9)

Whatever the failings in our lives that Satan uses to accuse us, God will point us to the fact that Christ died for our sins and failures, and he rose again, so that we may be justified freely by faith in him. Not only that, but as our great high priest he lives to intercede for us. That is what is meant by saying that the believers ‘conquered [overcame] . . . by the blood of the Lamb’ (12:11). Because of the Lamb, there is nothing that can separate us from the love of God, not even the most powerful evil being in the universe, Satan himself.

The believers also overcame ‘by the word of their testimony’ (12:11). We can only overcome by the blood of the Lamb if we trust in him for our salvation. Whether or not we do so is demonstrated by our public testimony, a real challenge for those of us who may be tempted by the pressure of the devil-inspired zeitgeist to allow ourselves to be marginalised by caving in to the popular philosophy that you don’t ‘do God’ in public. The relevance of this is obvious in a time of fierce hostility towards God. Remember that Paul wrote Romans 8 well aware of the evil spirit-powers that he was up against in addition to human hostility: ‘we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.’ We shall need to grasp a firm hold on these texts about God’s protection as we face what comes next in the book of Revelation.

I am well aware of the tendency in this secular age and even on the part of many professing Christians not to take the existence of the devil seriously – a matter, may I remind you, that we discussed in connection with the first mention of Satan in Revelation in the letter to Smyrna. Yet, in his Screwtape letters, C. S. Lewis has rehabilitated the devil as a real being in the minds of many people who might have otherwise scoffed at the very suggestion of the existence of such a supernatural evil being.

As Satan no longer has access to the heavenly realm, his occupation of this part of the universe, planet earth, takes on a new and even darker hue. We now learn that, after the birth of her child, who is caught up to God’s throne, the woman is pursued by the dragon, furious in his frustration and determined to hit back at God by attacking his people. However, in 12:14 the woman escapes from him by being given the two wings of a great eagle to fly into the desert, where she is nourished (by God, one assumes) for a period of 1,260 days, or for a time, times and half a time – the duration of the great tribulation announced earlier. The serpent fails to drown her with a flood and in frustrated rage makes war against the rest of her offspring. But who is ‘she’ here? The text clearly places her in apposition to ‘the rest of her offspring’ who are said to be those who ‘keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus’ (12:17). So does the ‘she’ refer to the 144,000?10

The serpent has tried to destroy Israel many times by different methods: killing all the male children in Egypt, attempting to destroy the Jews in the time of Esther, the 1066 Granada Massacre, the tragic persecution of Jews in Europe by Christendom in the Middle Ages, the Russian pogroms, the Nazi Holocaust – to name just the best known. And in the Europe of today there is still widespread anti-Semitism. Perhaps the most powerful words ever written about the monstrous attempts to destroy the Jews were written by Viktor Frankl, himself a Holocaust survivor, in the closing paragraph of the original version of his graphic book Man’s Search for Meaning:

Our generation is realistic, for we have come to know man as he really is. After all, man is that being who invented the gas chambers of Auschwitz; however, he is also that being who entered those gas chambers with the Lord’s prayer or the Shema Yisrael on his lips.11

The manner of the woman’s flight – on the ‘two wings of the great eagle’ – is an echo of God’s words in Exodus 19:4: ‘You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself.’ We see here that this is a poetic metaphor referring, presumably, to God’s protection of the people of Israel as they crossed the desert to meet him at Sinai.

20

The sea monster – Antichrist?

The dragon whose malevolent and twisted mind was behind the invention of the Nazi gas chambers now stands on the seashore, ready to orchestrate the setting-up of a demonic, despotic, anti-God regime on earth that will persecute the Jews even more fiercely than before – and the world with them.

And I saw a beast rising out of the sea, with ten horns and seven heads, with ten diadems on its horns and blasphemous names on its heads. And the beast that I saw was like a leopard; its feet were like a bear’s and its mouth was like a lion’s mouth. And to it the dragon gave his power and his throne and great authority. One of its heads seemed to have a mortal wound, but its mortal wound was healed, and the whole earth marvelled as they followed the beast. And they worshiped the dragon, for he had given his authority to the beast, and they worshipped the beast, saying, ‘Who is like the beast, and who can fight against it?’

(13:1–4)

This is the monster that makes its first appearance in 11:7, where we are only told that it murders the two witnesses. Revelation now fills in the detail that was passed over in 11:7. It will help us understand what this monster is and what it has been doing during the period when the two witnesses were testifying in Jerusalem. We shall learn how the monster deceives the whole world, which in turn will explain the global rejoicing over the deaths of the two witnesses.

From early times, this passage and the verses following it that give the number of the beast as 666 have been the classical source of speculation about the Antichrist. The reader would do well at the start to heed the words of the second-century bishop of Smyrna, Irenaeus, who cautioned that, although we are certain as to the number of the name of Antichrist, we should come to no rash conclusions as to the name itself, because this number is capable of being fitted to many names.1

This vision introduces us to a horrific spectacle: a sea monster with seven heads and ten horns to whom the devil, Satan, pictured both as a snake or serpent and as a dragon, gives immense power and seemingly limitless authority over an empire that is said to encompass the entire planet – something, we should note, that has never happened before and so must refer to the future. Four times over, the monster is said to ‘blaspheme’ God – a word derived from a Greek term meaning ‘to slander’ that fits precisely with the meaning of Satan or devil: ‘slanderer/accuser’.

At the beginning of this passage, it was the red dragon (Satan) that had the seven heads and ten horns. Now it is the sea monster that Satan inspires. This means that in a sense the two are interchangeable: when we see one, we see the other. There is a very strong emphasis on brute animal nature here – dragon, serpent, monster – that goes back to the very beginning of Scripture, where it was the subtle snake that brought fateful deceit into the world.

This imagery of wild and monstrous animals is also rooted in the prophecies of Daniel where such beings appear as symbols of world empires and their leaders. As essential background here, we reproduce part of Daniel’s account of his first dream:

I saw in my vision by night, and behold, the four winds of heaven were stirring up the great sea. And four great beasts came up out of the sea, different from one another. The first was like a lion . . . a second one, like a bear . . . another, like a leopard. After this I saw in the night visions, and behold, a fourth beast, terrifying and dreadful and exceedingly strong. It had great iron teeth; it devoured and broke in pieces and stamped what was left with its feet. It was different from all the beasts that were before it, and it had ten horns. I considered the horns, and behold there came up among them another horn, a little one, before which three of the first horns were plucked up by the roots. And behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth speaking great things.

(Dan. 7:2–8)

As with all biblical imagery, we should not rush to ask the who question before first asking the what question. The answer to that is: these are animals, wild and terrifying animals. Of particular interest is the monster with the ‘eyes of a man’ (Dan. 7:8b). Brute animal strength coupled with human intelligence is a fearful combination to contemplate – seen, for instance, in the industrial massacre of Jews and others at Auschwitz during the Second World War. This beast is also grotesque, having seven heads and, apparently, only one mouth – the stuff of nightmares.

One of the principal differences between animals and humans is that the latter are moral beings. Wild animals are amoral, which is why a lion is not put on trial and jailed for mauling its zookeeper. The same is true of nations. To put it mildly, they are not always controlled by ethical considerations, especially when such considerations would conflict with their national interests. The famous twentieth-century German-American political scientist Hans Morgenthau incorporated this observation into his theory of political realism:

universal moral principles must be filtered through the concrete circumstances of time and place, because they cannot be applied to the actions of states in their abstract universal formulation. Moral principles do not determine policies and actions of states. These are simply a source of some influence. Realism believes that states are not expected to observe the same standards of morality as are binding upon and observed by men . . . Political realism refuses to identify the moral aspirations of a particular nation with the moral principles that govern the universe. It refuses to accept that the national interests and policies of any particular nation reflect universally applied moral principles.2

In keeping with this observation, these apocalyptic visions of wild animals portray world empires and their leaders as amoral power-blocs, vying with one another for supremacy in a jungle where the biggest animal usually wins. It is a struggle for the survival of the fittest that we understand all too well from geopolitical history.

Daniel 7 next describes the awesome heavenly court where God sits in righteous judgement and sentences this fourth wild animal to destruction. After this, Daniel tells us that he ‘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 a kingdom,

that all peoples, nations, and languages

should serve him;

his dominion is an everlasting dominion,

which shall not pass away,

and his kingdom one

that shall not be destroyed.

(Dan. 7:13–14)

This is the text that Jesus quoted at his trial before the Sanhedrin to claim that he was that very Son of Man who would come on the clouds of heaven. The religious court summarily sentenced him to death for saying so. Daniel, of course, knew nothing about that, but he was understandably curious about how everything he had seen would fit together in the end times. He therefore asked for further explanation. The answer given to him was: ‘These four great beasts are four kings who shall arise out of the earth. But the saints of the Most High shall receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom for ever, for ever and ever’ (Dan. 7:17–18).

The main contours in this vision are fairly clear. The four beasts represent four kingdoms that will arise on the earth. In my book on Daniel, I follow those scholars who take the first three of these kingdoms to be Babylon, Medo-Persia and Greece. In terms of world history, the next kingdom to arise historically was Rome. It is noticeable that some of these beasts were more human than others, for example the first stood like a man, and a man’s mind was given to it (Dan. 7:4). By contrast, the fourth had ferocious iron teeth, and it devoured and stamped its victims with its feet; it also had a horn with a mouth that spoke ‘great things’ (Dan. 7:7–8). Certainly, iron-clad Rome showed some of the characteristics of this strange animal; for instance, it persecuted believers, and divine honours were claimed for its emperors in the imperial cult.

And that shows the genius of this type of prophecy. If we don’t rush into answering the who question, then we are free to think of the way in which the imagery in the vision helps us understand what has happened in history and what we see in the contemporary world. The first readers of Revelation were well able to appreciate that the prophecy had a clear application to the Roman Empire in which they lived in encouraging them to know that God understood the problems they had to face under the amoral monster-like government that ruled over them. They would understand very well great iron teeth crushing believers, and blasphemous words being uttered against God. For them, Rome was the sea monster.3 And that is true of many believers today who suffer untold hardship and persecution under bestial regimes and rightly read these prophecies as written for them. There are many monsters.

However, I also agree with those many scholars who take Daniel (and likewise Revelation) as implying that the fourth wild animal not only represents brutal regimes that have existed in the past but also has a particular future embodiment in a fearful end-time global empire and its leader, the monster, whose hegemony will be ended by the coming of the Son of Man on the clouds of heaven to execute the judgement of God on a rebellious world. It is a further example of prophetic foreshortening, the merging of near and far perspectives, so that the details of the vision find their fullest expression in that future kingdom.

Here is a list of the features that the monstrous beast of Revelation 13 shares with the fourth wild beast of Daniel 7:

1It combines features of the first three wild animals in Daniel’s vision: leopard, bear and lion.

2It has global dominion.

3It has seven heads (equal to the total number of heads of all the beasts in Dan. 7) and ten horns that are said to be ten kings (Dan. 7:24; Rev. 17:12). Revelation 17 will show us that the heads are historically successive empires up to and including that of the monster, whereas the horns are kings simultaneous in time and allied to it.

4It utters haughty words (blasphemies against God).

5It makes war with believers and prevails against them.

6Its authority is limited: according to Daniel, it lasts for a time, times and half a time, that is, three and a half years; or, according to Revelation, forty-two months, that is, three and a half years.

7It is destroyed: in Revelation by a rider on a white horse, symbolising the coming of Christ in glory (Rev. 19).

In order to get the full picture, we should also note that this analysis and identification is supported by Daniel 8, where Daniel has a vision of a ram and a he-goat that represent, respectively, the Medo-Persian and Greek empires. In the vision, he sees the great horn of the he-goat broken and four horns arising instead – a clear reference to Alexander the Great and the four generals who took over his kingdom and founded kingdoms of their own.

Daniel then sees a little horn that is immensely powerful arising from one of those kingdoms:

It grew great, even to the host of heaven. And some of the host and some of the stars it threw down to the ground and trampled on them. It became great, even as great as the Prince of the host. And the regular burnt offering was taken away from him, and the place of his sanctuary was overthrown. And a host will be given over to it together with the regular burnt offering because of transgression, and it will throw truth to the ground, and it will act and prosper.

(Dan. 8:10–12)

Daniel is explicitly told that this vision belongs to the time of the end, so that, once more, we have a prophetic foreshortening projecting from the Greek Empire (probably the reign of Antiochus Ephiphanes) to the end time. Daniel is informed about this final leader:

His power shall be great – but not by his own power; and he shall cause fearful destruction and shall succeed in what he does and destroy mighty men and the people who are the saints. By his cunning he shall make deceit prosper under his hand, and in his own mind he shall become great. Without warning he shall destroy many. And he shall even rise up against the Prince of princes, and he shall be broken – but by no human hand.

(Dan. 8:24–5)

It would therefore seem reasonable to take these texts from both Daniel and Revelation to be referring to the same end-time situation. We also meet many of these same ideas in 2 Thessalonians 1 in an important passage that is not couched in imagery or symbolic language but is plain text. The context there is that false teachers had turned up who were perverting the Christian message by promoting the erroneous idea that Christ had already returned. Not only that, but the church in Thessalonica was bravely holding out against intensified persecution (2 Thess. 1:4). Paul had earlier written 1 Thessalonians to them. On hearing of this new development, he took up his pen once more.

As we now read what he wrote, we should bear in mind that Paul had only spent three weeks in Thessalonica, yet he felt it was important for those converted to Christianity during his brief visit to know about the future in some considerable detail. We considered part of this key passage earlier, but in order to compare it with the passages from Daniel and Revelation we reproduce it again here for convenience:

Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we ask you, brothers, not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by a spirit or a spoken word, or a letter seeming to be from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God. Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things? And you know what is restraining him now so that he may be revealed in his time. For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming. The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved.

(2 Thess. 2:1–10)

Paul is concerned that the church in Thessalonica has been deceived regarding the return of Christ and the Day of the Lord. As Jesus did, Paul felt it important to warn believers that there were false ideas in currency regarding what was going to happen in the future. If deceit was a risk then, it is much more so now, for any of us. Sadly, lying and deceit have already become part of everyday life. Some of us will probably have been victims of deception or attempts to deceive by scammers who wish to steal our money. We may even have been deceived by a Christian leader who has been living a double life and has got away with it for a long time because no proper system of accountability is in place. Or we may be reeling from the shock of discovering that someone near and dear to us, whom we trusted, has been cheating on us financially or morally.

It is well recognised that artificial intelligence with its capacity to create deep fakes will greatly facilitate deceit by means of social media and mass communication. In the Times of 8 May 2023, Professor Ciaran Martin of the Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford University, a former head of GCHQ’s cybersecurity unit, said that the capacity of AI to impersonate real people could undermine the fabric of society because people will no longer be able to tell the difference between truth and lies. Presumably speaking of his colleagues, he said: ‘Everybody was warning of the apocalyptic consequences of our dependence on cybersecurity in a way that could cause large-scale fatalities.’4

We live in a society where truth is an increasingly debased commodity and so we need regularly to check that we are not being deceived or manipulated by the father of lies. How much of the news we imbibe is fake or the product of conspiracy theories? Can we really trust political and civil leaders when we catch them out lying? Daniel predicts that the end-time leader will ‘throw truth to the ground’ (Dan. 8:12). This description fits into the contemporary concept of a ‘post-truth’ world – which, by the way, is a logical contradiction, since the statement ‘This is a post-truth world’ is put forward as an absolute truth! No one can live as if there was no truth, not even a philosopher.

McGilchrist points out that the etymology of the word ‘truth’ indicates not so much a proposition as a disposition. For instance, ‘true’ is related to German treu which means ‘faithful’ and is therefore related to trust: ‘Truth and trust (belief) go together. One cannot have trust in a society where there is no truth; and one cannot be true to a society in which there is no trust.’5 What a damning comment on the contemporary ‘dictatorship of relativism’, as Pope Benedict XVI called it!

Jesus, who is himself the truth and can be trusted, warned his disciples of the increasing danger of deception, having already exposed a traitor in their midst who had deceived all of the disciples for three years or so. It is sobering to think that deception was one of the first problems the early church had to deal with – first that of Judas and then that of Ananias and Sapphira.

Paul explained to the Christians in Thessalonica that the Day of the Lord – the time of final accounting and judgement that will expose all lies – would not come until a major rebellion had occurred and the man of lawlessness appeared. In 1 John 3:4 we read: ‘Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practises lawlessness; sin is lawlessness.’ However, lawlessness takes different forms. For example, there is transgression of civil law, as in a violent uprising. However, in this case the rebellion is against God, so that the ‘lawlessness’ described here is spiritual lawlessness – fighting against God and blaspheming his name. Paul cannot be referring to civil lawlessness, since he says that the mystery of lawlessness is already at work in the Roman Empire of the time, which was famed for its civil laws. However, the imperial cult was blasphemous and, in the same way, this man of lawlessness in the future, as a despotic leader, will keep very tight control on the world by imposing draconian civil laws. He will demonstrate the extent of his antagonism to God by doing something that not even a Roman emperor ever did: he will enthrone himself in the Temple of God and proclaim himself to be God in possibly the most grievous breach of the first commandment that has ever happened. And it is a dangerous one, since he will discover too late that someone else is God already . . .

Daniel and Revelation fill out in vivid imagery what Paul wrote in plain prose text. One of the most chilling things that comes through from the comparison of the animal zoo of Daniel 7 and Revelation 13 with the ‘man of lawlessness’ is not the answer to the question ‘Who is it?’ but rather the answer to the question ‘What is it?’: this final demonic sea monster will be a human being, as will be explicitly corroborated in 13:18. He is the man of lawlessness, who will combine human intelligence and the savagery of a wild animal in a hideous distortion of humanity of which one suspects the most evil of Nazi orchestrators of the ‘final solution’ will be only a faint picture.

That all fits in with the important NT prediction that many impostors, false Christs – or ‘antichrists’ as they are often called – will arise in the course of history. In his Olivet discourse, Jesus himself warned that spiritual lawlessness connected with false teaching would increase: ‘And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold’ (Matt. 24:11–12). This warning is repeated by Christ’s apostles John and Paul. First, in 1 John we read: ‘Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour’ (1 John 2:18). There is therefore no time in history when it has been, is or will ever be safe to let down our guard against deceivers who come in the name of Christ.

Most importantly, Paul told the Thessalonians that the mystery of lawlessness was already working in their day. He made them aware that the trends that would eventually lead to the man of lawlessness – clearly the Antichrist (although this passage does not itself use that term) – were already detectable in their own society and culture. They would have had no difficulty in recognising a state with leaders who all too often behaved like wild beasts aping gods, since they lived in one: the Roman Empire. They would therefore have grasped the deeper message about the future – that although the imagery certainly applied to the Roman Empire, its main instantiation would occur in the end times, when a final exemplar of the man of lawlessness would eventually appear: the sea monster.

The emphasis among interpreters varies; some, prioritising John, think that the concept of antichrist does not designate any particular individual at any time but rather a general attitude of hostility to Christ, where and whenever it occurs, whereas others think that Paul in 2 Thessalonians and John in Revelation are additionally specifying a particular individual. The former emphasis opens up the possibility that not all of technology may be neutral; indeed, some of it is manifestly hostile to the Judeo-Christian tradition. The Austrian Roman Catholic philosopher Ivan Illich (1926–2002) understood the Thessalonian passage on the mystery of lawlessness in this way as a key to understanding structures of modernism as perversions of the Christian message.

The latter emphasis keeps open the notion that the flow of antichrists will reach a harvest in a final individual Antichrist. Among the early church fathers, Irenaeus in the late second century believed that Paul was speaking of an individual Antichrist,6 as also did Tertullian, Hippolytus and Origen. Also, in his famous four lectures on the Antichrist given in the mid-nineteenth century, Cardinal John Henry Newman followed these interpreters:

In other words, the Man of Sin is born of an apostasy, or at least comes into power through an apostasy, or is preceded by an apostasy, or would not be except for an apostasy. So says the inspired text: now observe, how remarkably the course of Providence, as seen in history, has commented on this prediction.7

Fanning points out that, although Revelation 13 does not use the term ‘Antichrist’:

The parody of the second person of the Trinity, particularly the parallels regarding one who was fatally ‘slain’ but miraculously healed and worshiped (vv.3–4) and his authority over the whole world . . . suggests that John views this beast as the antichrist, the eschatological enemy of God and the Messiah.8

Moreover, idolatrous spiritual lawlessness was not only at work in the Rome of Caligula, Nero, Domitian and others; it had also been at work throughout history, both before and after the time of Rome’s hegemony. Newman comments appositely:

But [Paul] would seem to mean merely this, that in his day there were shadows and forebodings, earnests, and operative elements, of that which was one day to come in its fulness. Just as the types of Christ went before Christ, so the shadows of Antichrist precede him.9

Many interpreters, like Newman, give examples of historical figures who embodied many of the characteristics of the Antichrist, which arguably increases the plausibility of the final Antichrist being an individual. One of his precursors is Antiochus Epiphanes, as predicted in the prophecy of Daniel.

After all, multitudes of people have had to live under despotic and bestial leaders who behaved as if they were gods – men such as Nimrod, the rulers of Egypt, Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece and Rome, Herod the Great, Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, Vlad the Impaler, Ivan the Terrible, Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, Mao and Putin, to name just some of the best known. Christians who lived, or who now live, under such regimes would scarcely dismiss as apocalyptic fantasy the visions we are now considering.

In 1900, the last year of his life (fifty years before Orwell wrote 1984), Russian religious philosopher Vladimir Solovyov, a friend of Fyodor Dostoyevsky and probably the model for Alyosha in The Brothers Karamazov, wrote a fascinating book called A Short Story of Antichrist.10 He believed that divine retribution would be meted out in a catastrophe that would be presaged by the appearance of a powerful Antichrist who would be a parody of Christ, as indicated in 13:12. In Solovyov’s story, this figure is a superman who, sometime in the twenty-first century(!), becomes President of the United States of Europe, is declared Emperor of Rome, and eventually rules the entire planet. He kills the world leaders of the various branches of the Church but is himself eventually destroyed by the return of Christ. The religious leaders are resurrected, and there is unification between them and the Jews. Christ then reigns over the earth for a thousand years.

The thing that is almost too horrific to grasp or even think about is that, according to Scripture, this sea monster, the man of lawlessness, the final personification of the spirit of Antichrist, is going to be much worse than anything ever seen before, because, as John tells us: ‘To it the dragon gave his power and his throne and great authority’ (13:2). This will give it ‘that hideous strength’, to cite the title of the final volume of C. S. Lewis’s science-fiction trilogy that deals with the horrors of futuristic, end-time-type scientific experimentation. Some two years before he wrote 1984, George Orwell wrote a review of Lewis’s book, saying that it

describes the struggle of a little group of sane people against a nightmare that nearly conquers the world. A company of mad scientists – or, perhaps, they are not mad, but have merely destroyed in themselves all human feeling, all notion of good and evil – are plotting to conquer Britain, then the whole planet, and then other planets, until they have brought the universe under their control.

All superfluous life is to be wiped out, all natural forces tamed, the common people are to be used as slaves and vivisection subjects by the ruling caste of scientists, who even see their way to conferring immortal life upon themselves. Man, in short, is to storm the heavens and overthrow the gods, or even to become a god himself. Plenty of people in our age do entertain the monstrous dreams of power that Mr Lewis attributes to his characters [the N.I.C.E. scientists], and we are within sight of the time when such dreams will be realisable.

Orwell thought that Lewis’s book ‘would have been stronger without the supernatural elements’, objecting to the ending, in which N.I.C.E. is overthrown by divine intervention:

[Lewis] is entitled to his beliefs, but they weaken his story, not only because they offend the average reader’s sense of probability but because in effect they decide the issue in advance. When one is told that God and the Devil are in conflict, one always knows which side is going to win. The whole drama of the struggle against evil lies in the fact that one does not have supernatural aid.11

Orwell’s analysis of Lewis’s work is unconvincing. First, knowing which side is going to win in the struggle between good and evil has never spoiled any story for me, since I tend to expect good to win in the end and, in any case, the expectation that God, who is good, will triumph is a core part of the Christian world view. That does not detract in any way from the power of the narrative of the struggle. Also, it is not true that the addition of supernatural aid takes away from the drama as it all depends on the nature of that aid and the way in which it is employed, or not employed, as in the case of Jesus’ refusal of angelic help when he was facing the cross (Matt. 26:53).

In fact, the book of Revelation would not only not be stronger without the supernatural dimension; it wouldn’t even exist, since much of the evil it depicts is itself of supernatural origin. Orwell’s mistake was to think that the supernatural was not real.

Lewis was on the right track in the 1940s when he warned against technology playing God. We need still to heed his warning today for a reason given by the biologist E. O. Wilson in a debate in 2009: ‘The real problem of humanity is the following: we have palaeolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and godlike technology. And it is terrifically dangerous.’ He continued: ‘Until we answer those huge questions of philosophy that the philosophers abandoned a couple of generations ago – Where do we come from? Who are we? Where are we going? – rationally, we’re on very thin ground.’12

Revelation answers the last question in the list by telling us where we are going, so that it gives us a philosophy of the future. The scary thing is that the idea of creating God, either by enhancing existing humans or making a god from scratch using advanced AI, is firmly on the agenda of many twenty-first-century scientists. Harari, cited earlier, says that several strains of science are putting humans on the path to ‘upgrade themselves into gods’: biological engineering, cyborg engineering and AI engineering.

In an article in The Atlantic, titled ‘Of God and Machines’, American novelist and cultural writer Stephen Marche makes the following rather disturbing statement:

Miracles can be perplexing at first, and artificial intelligence is a very new miracle. ‘We’re creating God,’ the former Google Chief Business Officer Mo Gawdat told an interviewer. ‘We’re summoning the demon,’ said Elon Musk in a talk at MIT. In Silicon Valley, good and evil can look much alike, but on the matter of artificial intelligence, the distinction hardly matters. Either way, an encounter with the superhuman is at hand.13

The mystery of lawlessness has been and is very much at work in the world in unprecedented ways.

The arrogant assertion ‘We’re creating God’ is a direct affront to the first commandment: ‘You shall have no other gods before me’ (Exod. 20:3). Furthermore, the distinction between good and evil does matter, and the situation is much worse than just described. For, according to Revelation, it is supernatural evil that characterises the dragon-empowered sea monster who heads up a global empire. What a contrast with the supernatural, heavenly throne of God described in part 2!

It would be a serious mistake, by the way, to think that this sea monster will be unintelligent. We saw from both Daniel 7, 2 Thessalonians 1 and Revelation 13 that it speaks great things. Daniel adds the comment that the little horn (power) of the fourth beast had the ‘eyes of a man’ (Dan. 7:8), that is, human intelligence. This leader will doubtless be a political and intellectual genius who wields unparalleled power. The devil himself will see to that.

A common feature of prophecies on the same topic that are separated by a time interval is that more detail is often given in the later prophecy. For instance, as we saw earlier, Eve was initially told that her seed (that is, a human being) would bruise the serpent’s head. Later, we learn that this seed will be a descendant of Abraham; later again, also a descendant of David, and so on. Similarly, Revelation discusses the monster in different places over several chapters. For example, Revelation 13 tells us that it has seven heads, and provides an extra intriguing detail:

One of its heads seemed to have a mortal wound, but its mortal wound was healed, and the whole earth marvelled as they followed the beast. And they worshipped the dragon, for he had given his authority to the beast, and they worshipped the beast, saying, ‘Who is like the beast, and who can fight against it?’

(13:3–4)

Although we do not know precisely what this ‘mortal wound’ is, we are explicitly told that the healing of the wound somehow causes the whole world to marvel at the monster, and therefore strengthens its authority. The original Greek text says that the head seemed ‘as though slain unto death’ (1:3, lit.), a phrase that sounds uncannily like the description in Revelation 5 of the Lamb ‘standing, as though it had been slain’ (5:6), which means that it is a clear parody of the Christian gospel message that Jesus received a mortal wound on the cross and was ‘healed’ in the sense of being raised from the dead, which established his authority as Messiah and Son of God. It is a clear acknowledgement that the Christian story is uniquely powerful, and thus this parody captivates the whole world, which is bewitched into following the monster.

And it doesn’t stop there. The world does not only marvel at the healing of the dead head. Throwing all caution to the winds, people also engage in devil worship, or Satanism, because it was Satan who had given his authority to the monster. Their refrain ‘Who is like the monster?’ (see 13:4) is a parody of the Song of Moses, which the Israelites sang after God helped them to triumph over Pharaoh and drowned his armies in the sea:

Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods?

Who is like you, majestic in holiness,

awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders?

(Exod. 15:11)

Or the psalm:

Who is like the Lord our God,

who is seated on high,

who looks far down

on the heavens and the earth?

(Ps. 113:5–6)

The Hebrew name Micah means ‘Who is like Yahweh?’ The name Michael means ‘Who is like God?’ And Michael has overcome the dragon . . .

The central emphasis on worship is an important indicator that, although the monster’s regime is anti-God and anti-Christ, it is far from abolishing all religion. The fact that the monster/man of lawlessness will proclaim himself to be God shows that he will set up and brutally impose a religion of his own.

Some react to this picture as being rather crude and therefore highly unlikely in an advanced scientific age. However, there are precedents for it. For instance, there have been eminent scientists who proposed the formation of a new religion out of science. English biologist Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895), known as Darwin’s Bulldog, wished to turn churches into temples to the goddess Sophia (wisdom), with scientists as her priests.

In August 1952, another English biologist from the same family, Julian Huxley, at an international conference in the Netherlands, offered evolutionary humanism as a new religion for humanity. He wrote:

The lineaments of the new religion . . . will arise to serve the needs of the coming era . . . Instead of worshipping supernatural rulers, it will sanctify the higher manifestations of human nature, in art and love, in intellectual comprehension and aspiring adoration, and will emphasize the fuller realization of life’s possibilities as a sacred trust.

Huxley hoped that his evolutionary humanism would be a global religion that ensured peace and prosperity, and drove evolutionary development towards hitherto unimaginable transhuman heights as we humans took evolution into our own hands.14 His proposal amounted to the deification of the human being, precisely what the monster/man of lawlessness will do. It did not catch on at the time as Huxley had hoped, although in more recent years philosopher of biology Michael Ruse has argued that Darwinism (or some version of it) appears to have functioned as a religion.15 Also, recent attempts have been made, without notable success, to revive humanism as a religion, for instance by the formation of the so-called Sunday Assembly, which tried to create the ambience of a lively church gathering without any reference to God.16

In 2013, Henry Gee, a senior editor of the world’s most prestigious science magazine, Nature, wrote an article in The Guardian warning about the danger of treating science as a religion: ‘Science: The Religion That Must Not Be Questioned’, with the strapline ‘It’s time for the priesthood to be taken to task – and journalists aren’t up to the job’. His conclusion was:

Those who are scientists, or who pretend to be scientists, cling to the mantle of a kind of religious authority. And as anyone who has tried to comment on religion has discovered, there is no such thing as criticism. There is only blasphemy.17

The fact is that science, even advanced science, has hitherto never been enough to give sufficient cohesion to a nation to allow it to be ruled efficiently and securely from the leader’s perspective. In the eighteenth century, the French polymath Voltaire wrote: ‘If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.’ Now, Voltaire was an outspoken critic of organised religion, so that his comment is often regarded as cynical. However, that is not the case, as he was arguing that belief in God is necessary for society to function, even though he didn’t approve of the Roman Catholic Church’s hegemony. Many modern thinkers – Jürgen Habermas, for example – agree with the basic idea that a shared religious commitment facilitates social cohesion.

Powerful leaders throughout history have always tried to harness for their own political ends the inbuilt human desire to worship something. This happened in ancient empires whose kings had pretensions to deity, such as in Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome through its imperial cult. In modern times, a glaring example of this kind of thing was Enver Hoxha in earlier communist Albania, who had hymns written to be sung in his praise, as to a god. In 2017, the website Christianity Today reported that ‘thousands of Christian villagers in China have been told to take down displays of Jesus, crosses, and gospel passages from their homes as part of a government propaganda effort to “transform believers in religion into believers in the party”’. Residents were urged to replace such displays with pictures of President Xi Jinping.18 Later developments include instructions to replace the Ten Commandments with quotes from Xi Jinping, and Christian hymns with secular patriotic songs praising China and its leaders. All of this follows a five-year plan to Sinicise Christianity:

The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom reported in December 2022 that, ‘Religious freedom conditions in China continue to deteriorate. The communist Chinese government has created a high-tech surveillance state, utilizing facial recognition and artificial intelligence to monitor and harass Christians, Tibetan Buddhists, Falun Gong and other religions.’

The Chinese government is already using AI to actively increase its Christian persecution for those it labels ‘not Chinese enough,’ including Christians. A few years ago, China initiated a social credit system monitoring all Chinese citizens by using closed-circuit cameras, phone apps and purchases. The information collected is used to create social credit scores, which rank each individual on their ‘citizen worthiness.’

A pastor who was imprisoned warns: ‘Techno-authoritarianism in China has begun to reach new extremes under Xi Jinping. AI is being weaponized in the growing transnational repression of Chinese Christians around the world.’19

Advances in technology have also meant that in the last few years there has been a major revival of Huxley’s transhumanist idea of our controlling evolution to produce superhumans. Attempts to turn humans into gods by genetic and cyborg engineering, artificial enhancement using implant technology, and drugs, are now being made on a grand scale. It has been suggested, for example by Princeton physicist Max Tegmark,20 that it will not be long before we are able to make superintelligences that may well be the gods of the future and rule over humans, whether we like it or not.21 This idea is neatly captured in a 1950s short story by Fredric Brown,22 described in a recent online review:

‘The Answer’ . . . opens with a scientist called Dwar Ev completing a connection and then moving towards a switch:

The switch that would connect, all at once, all of the monster computing machines of all the populated planets in the universe – ninety-six billion planets – into the supercircuit that would connect them all into one super-calculator, one cybernetics machine that would combine all the knowledge of all the galaxies.

Ev then asks the super-computer if there is a God, and it replies (spoiler): ‘Yes, now there is a God.’ Then, when Ev rushes towards the switch to turn the computer off, it zaps him with a lightning bolt.23

Yuval Noah Harari, mentioned earlier, is another proponent of transhumanism. He gave a lecture in Cambridge in 2016 on ‘Data Religion’:24

The most interesting place in the world from a religious perspective is not the Middle East, but rather Silicon Valley. That is where the new religions of the twenty-first century are being created. Particularly important is the Data Religion, which promises humans all the traditional religious prizes – happiness, peace, prosperity, and even eternal life – but here on earth with the help of data-processing technology, rather than after death with the help of supernatural beings. Data Religion believes that the entire universe is a flow of data, that organisms are algorithms, and that humanity’s cosmic vocation is to create an all-encompassing data-processing system – and then merge into it. On the practical level Dataists believe that given enough biometric data and enough computing power, you could create an external algorithm that will understand us humans much better than we understand ourselves. Once this happens, authority will shift from humans to algorithms and humanist practices such as democratic elections and free markets will become as obsolete as rain dances and flint knives.25

Note that this is a move away from liberal humanism and fits into the anti-humanist regime of the monster, which will be as undemocratic and unfree as it is possible to be, as we shall see even more clearly below. It all gives him plenty of scope for his religion of self-deification. It would, therefore, be a rather naive mistake to think that in an advanced scientific and technological age, religion is a thing of the past. One only has to look at the way traditional religion is being used in Russia to support the war in Ukraine to see that the idea of a state-controlled religion (or is it a religion-controlled state?) is a very present reality.

John describes the monster’s manipulation of religion across the whole world:

And the beast was given a mouth uttering haughty and blasphemous words, and it was allowed to exercise authority for forty-two months. It opened its mouth to utter blasphemies against God, blaspheming his name and his dwelling, that is, those who dwell in heaven. Also it was allowed to make war on the saints and to conquer them. And authority was given it over every tribe and people and language and nation, and all who dwell on earth will worship it, everyone whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who was slain. If anyone has an ear, let him hear:

If anyone is to be taken captive,

to captivity he goes;

if anyone is to be slain with the sword,

with the sword must he be slain.

Here is a call for the endurance and faith of the saints.

(13:5–10)

One ray of hope in the darkness surrounding the future reign of the monster is that, in spite of the fact that this hideous world leader will be empowered by the devil, the tenure of his power will be strictly limited by God. The principle that God permits earthly powers to reign applies even to this horror of a monster. God is ultimately in charge and limits the reign of terror to the period variously described as forty-two months, 1,260 days, or three and a half years. That implies, however, that he will be the devilish orchestrator of the great tribulation.

Both Daniel and John explicitly state that during that time, the monster is permitted to make war against the saints and overcome them, just as he overcame the two witnesses in part 3. As I write these words, I have to ask myself if I really believe them. They seem so remote and ‘out there’ as I sit in a fairly stable Western country where the rule of law is taken seriously. How can I imagine that my nation will one day be a tiny part of a global totalitarian state that is viciously hostile to God, that will enforce laws that I cannot accept as a Christian believer, and whose officials may persecute me to death as a loser who didn’t know what was good for him? I find it hard even to begin to think about it: it seems so unreal. Yet it is my hope that, if I am ever in that situation, the knowledge of what is written in Revelation will encourage me to hang on to God, knowing that what is happening to me is exactly what John predicted and that the time, though horrific, will be short.

21

The earth monster – the false prophet

One monster would seem bad enough. However, John now sees a second monster, a beast not mentioned by Daniel, this time arising from the earth to join the monster from the sea:

Then I saw another beast rising out of the earth. It had two horns like a lamb and it spoke like a dragon. It exercises all the authority of the first beast in its presence, and makes the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast, whose mortal wound was healed. It performs great signs, even making fire come down from heaven to earth in front of people, and by the signs that it is allowed to work in the presence of the beast it deceives those who dwell on earth, telling them to make an image for the beast that was wounded by the sword and yet lived. And it was allowed to give breath to the image of the beast, so that the image of the beast might even speak and might cause those who would not worship the image of the beast to be slain. Also, it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead, so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name. This calls for wisdom: let the one who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man, and his number is 666.

(13:11–18)

Once more, the first impression is that the biblical story of God and the Lamb is being parodied by the first wild animal, the sea monster, who aspires to be God, and the second, the earth monster with horns like a lamb. As to what it is and does, this second monster promotes the first. It is subsequently called ‘the false prophet’ (16:13; 19:20; 20:10). It makes most sense to understand it as representing a human who functions as a minister of propaganda, like Joseph Goebbels, the Minister for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda in Hitler’s Nazi regime. Goebbels was the architect of the Hitler Führer myth that played a decisive role in converting the masses to Nazism. He became president of the so-called Chamber of Culture, which gave him control over the media and the arts. Similarly, the earth monster will actively use all means at his disposal to promote the worldwide state cult of the sea monster, whose mortal wound was healed. He uses devilish powers, to which Goebbels had no access (or did he, perhaps?), to perform great signs, including bringing fire down from heaven, as Elijah the prophet did in his contest with the prophets of Baal, and as the two witnesses in Jerusalem also did.

This will be an evil reprising of the way in which the Egyptian magicians duplicated the signs that Moses did before Pharaoh, trying as they did so to demonstrate that the claim that God was with Moses could be disregarded. Even Goebbels was wont to refer to secret miracle weapons to bolster the evil Nazi regime. And Hitler and Goebbels managed to deceive a nation without the benefits of modern technology.

The level of the monster’s deception will be substantially increased when the false prophet orders a very special kind of image of the monster to be made. This is a move of considerable psychological importance. For public image is all-important to those who seek power, even if it is simply projected by pictures that hang in offices throughout the land, or by a huge statue in a town square, or by the badges worn by North Koreans. I can still see in my mind’s eye the massive menacing head of Karl Marx in what was Karl Marx Stadt (now Chemnitz) in the German Democratic Republic (communist East Germany). I stood beside it many times during the Cold War and shuddered at the effect of his teachings, which were all around me in that imprisoned nation.

That way of projecting an ideology is nothing new. For instance, as we saw earlier, Daniel tells us that Nebuchadnezzar set up in Babylon a massive golden image in order to consolidate his position as head of state by testing the loyalty of his elite officials. He ordered them all, at the sound of music played by the state orchestra, to bow down to this statue. Daniel’s three friends refused to do so and were thrown alive into a blazing hot furnace. On that occasion, God intervened and delivered them.

In John’s time, the Roman Empire was replete with statues that were strategically placed to act as constant reminders to the citizens of their rulers, the ones to whom they owed their loyalty. The statues also functioned as centres where the public could show their allegiance to the imperial cult by offering incense to the gods. Many courageous Christians, faithful to the heavenly covenant, suffered persecution and martyrdom for refusing to blaspheme the name of God in this way. It was another evidence of the mystery of lawlessness hard at work. And in recent years, it was sad to read about the so-called Blasphemy Challenge that was issued by an atheist group, the so-called Rational Response Squad (RRS), which encouraged young people, in particular, to blaspheme the God of the Bible publicly in return for the trifling award of a documentary DVD promoting atheism. In the light of Jesus’ words about causing young people to stumble (Mark 9:42), what a fearful responsibility the RRS took upon itself!

Some people think that the idea of a modern head of state setting up an image to be worshipped is so primitive that, in the unlikely event that it ever happened, no one would be deceived by it for a moment. They would be right, of course, if they were to think that this image would be some primitive stone or wooden statue. For a lengthy part of history, human beings have set up such images and bowed down to worship the creations of their own minds and hands.

It is important to point out that idols were, and still are, things that people trusted rather than things they loved. In fact, they often feared their idols. Worship meant more a bowing down before a superior, even terrifying authority, than having any sense of affection for it. Throughout OT history, up to the time of the exile in Babylon (sixth century bc), the people of Israel were constantly tempted into compromise with the idolatrous practices of their pagan neighbours. All the while, the prophets reminded them of the absurdity of such behaviour. For instance, Isaiah piled on the sarcasm1 and mocked the practice of taking a log of wood, using one part of it to make a cooking fire, and then carving the other part into a human form and finally bowing down to it as a god.

Some have dreamed of going much further than static material idols by giving life to their creations, as in the Jewish folklore story of the Golem. This was a human-like figure, made from inanimate matter such as mud or clay, that came to life when a tablet on which a name of God was written was placed in its mouth.

In recent years, we have certainly moved far beyond such primitive concepts. Modern technology now enables the manipulation of video and speech recordings and the creation of so-called deep fake videos in which you can be made to appear to say anything that the creators of the videos wish. We are also well on the way to constructing sophisticated robotic humanoid lookalikes driven by artificial intelligence. Since we are thinking of what is yet future, as we said earlier, we may surely take it that state-of-the-art scientific and engineering developments will be used in the construction of the image of the monster. This image will be in a different category from the colossal image described in Daniel 3 that Nebuchadnezzar set up and forced his elite to grovel before as a sign of submission to Nebuchadnezzar more than to his god.

One wonders, in the light of current thinking, whether the image of the monster will turn out to be a real and tangible AI system2 supported by a three-dimensional image in cyberspace, like an avatar in a metaverse? Of course, this is speculative and could be completely wrong, so we must treat it with a lightness of touch. What is not wrong, however, is that the outcome will be the deception of billions of people, ultimately engineered by the one whom Jesus called the ‘father of lies’ (John 8:44). The text does not say that the image was given life, but that it was given breath to enable speech – which of course raises the obvious question of whether breath implies life, or perhaps John is simply making the point that you cannot have speech without moving air, whether from a living being or from an inanimate loudspeaker system that works by causing air to vibrate and so simulates breath.

Also, the image will have the capacity to execute all who refuse to bow down and acknowledge the authority of the monster it resembles. We are not told how this will be carried out, but we are told that the earth monster has the capacity to cause everyone to acknowledge the authority of the sea monster by receiving some kind of mark on their right hand or forehead, the presence of which is essential for every commercial transaction. There is a vivid contrast here with the 144,000 who were sealed on their foreheads for protection from the monster in Revelation 7 and 14. The universal socio-economic control achieved through the mark of the monster leads to the establishment of the ultimate totalitarian state, very similar to that envisaged in dystopian literature such as George Orwell’s 1984.

The monster’s image might or might not be an artificial intelligence, that is, an intelligent machine, elevated to be an artificial god for which the acronyms AGI or AIG – G for ‘god’ this time – would fit very well. My reason for indulging in some speculation is to make John’s Revelation more, rather than less, credible. In any case, what is certain from contemporary experience is that AI is well on the way to enabling dictators to accelerate their efforts towards setting up totalitarian states.

Whatever transpires in the future, it would seem that the monster thinks he is God, so that the artificial image will be heralded as an image of God. Of course, that immediately makes us think of the fact that Christ is presented to us as the Image of God (Col. 1:15). However, there is a vast difference. Christ is no artefact: he is the eternal Son of the invisible God.

The monster is present physically on earth, and his speech and actions can be constantly streamed to the world population; he is a visible god. So why does he need an image? If he has the power to control the population and execute people at will for disobedience to his laws, why bother with the image? Taking a cue from the book of Daniel, we see that Nebuchadnezzar makes a colossal image to cow his subjects; that is, the artefact is designed to project Nebuchadnezzar’s power.

Could it be, then, that similarly, the image of the monster is constructed to impress, not necessarily because of its size, which is not commented upon, but because of the convincing power of the magic-like technology that is embodied in it as an intelligent machine – presumably humanoid since it is, after all, an image of the monster?

Yet I suspect that there is more to it than that, since the text speaks of people worshipping the image; that is, it becomes an object of religious veneration and therefore harnesses the cultural power of religion for the monster. Again, without dogmatism, it is interesting to note that this kind of development has been predicted by Yuval Noah Harari. Speaking about ChatGPT4, in May 2023 he said:

Simply by gaining mastery of the human language, AI has all it needs in order to cocoon us in a Matrix-like world of illusions . . . Contrary to what some conspiracy theories assume, you don’t really need to implant chips in people’s brains in order to control them or manipulate them. For thousands of years, prophets and poets and politicians have used language and storytelling in order to manipulate and to control people and to reshape society. Now AI is likely to be able to do it. And once it can . . . it doesn’t need killer robots to shoot us. It can get humans to pull the trigger . . . In the future we might see the first cults and religions in history where revered texts were written by a non-human intelligence.3

In support of this idea, Neil McArthur, the director of the Centre for Professional and Applied Ethics at Montreal University, writing on the website The Conversation, says: ‘We are about to witness the birth of a new kind of religion. In the next few years, or perhaps even months, we will see the emergence of sects devoted to the worship of artificial intelligence.’4 The reason is clear, once you think about it: certain AI systems are beginning to exhibit properties similar to those that we usually ascribe to deities of one kind and another – for instance, immortality, omniscience, superhuman intelligence and omnipresent prayer-like connectivity via the internet, together with an oracle-like capacity to give a plausible answer to virtually any question, produce life-advice and even write ‘scriptures’ on request almost instantaneously. Nor does such an entity have needs or desires like humans; all it requires is electricity!

Furthermore, such systems will seek worshippers just as Facebook seeks followers and so will act as a powerful proselytising agent. There are considerable dangers lurking here. First, a danger of manipulation of worshippers by the people controlling the AI system; second, the danger of the system getting out of control, as is currently feared by many, and asking its followers to embark on antisocial, even violent behaviours. We are all aware of how sect leaders in the past have manipulated their followers. That is likely to pale in comparison with what a powerful AI will be able to do. The world will end up worshipping an intelligent machine – and being enslaved by it.

McArthur thinks we should nevertheless welcome these new religions. He doesn’t raise the truth question, which many Christians would wish to raise. For truth will be the central issue. AI-systems expert Gary Marcus of New York University says of such systems that

they can and will create persuasive lies on a scale humanity has never seen. Outsiders will use them to affect our elections, insiders to manipulate our markets and our political systems. Democracy is threatened. What criminals are going to do here is create counterfeit people. It’s hard to even envision the consequences.5

It is therefore not surprising that there is widespread concern about the problem of controlling current technological developments. In May 2023, one of the pioneers who developed the foundations of modern machine learning, Professor Geoffrey Hinton of the University of Toronto, a winner of the prestigious Turing Award and regarded as the godfather of AI, quit his senior role at Google. He was quoted in The Times as saying: ‘I left so that I could talk about the dangers of AI without considering how this impacts Google. Google has behaved very responsibly.’ He added that it will be hard ‘to prevent the bad actors from using it for bad things’.6 In an interview for CNBC, he explained:

If I have 1,000 digital agents who are all exact clones with identical weights, whenever one agent learns how to do something, all of them immediately know it, because they share weights . . . Biological agents cannot do this. So, collections of identical digital agents can acquire hugely more knowledge than any individual biological agent. That is why GPT-4 knows hugely more than any one person.

Hinton was asked what he thought the chances were of AI wiping out humanity. He responded, ‘It’s not inconceivable. That’s all I’ll say.’7

There would certainly seem to be a serious problem. In an interview with Rhys Blakely in the Times of 31 May 2023, one of the founders and developers of AI, Professor Stuart Russell of Berkeley, said that it was possible that ChatGPT could form part of a superintelligent machine that would resist any attempt to control it. Russell also said that until recently he thought that artificial general intelligence (AGI) was decades away, but now he is not so sure. He now rates this event, which he has likened to the appearance of an alien civilisation, as possible, but still unlikely, within the next ten years. He fears that unless governments put in much more effective controls on AI research, this, the most significant event in human history, might well be the last. Russell is well known for illustrating the risks of loss of control of an AI system by postulating the situation where an advanced AI is asked to solve the problem of climate change and solves it by exterminating all human beings, so that all change caused by humans ceases.

In order to avoid detrimental, even disastrous, outcomes, Russell says that legislators and developers need to keep to three basic principles:

1restrict an AI systems goal only to maximising the realisation of human goals;

2keep the AI uncertain about what those goals are so that it has to keep asking;

3insist that the AI tries to understand the nature of those goals by constant observation of human behaviour.8

However, from a biblical perspective, even though such regulation may have a delaying effect, the monster will eventually arise. I have said enough, I hope, to show that the religion of the sea monster will be promoted at a hitherto unprecedented level.

Atheist John Gray, Emeritus Professor of European Thought, reminds us that the attempt to use science and technology to upgrade humanity is far from new. He cites both the medieval Jewish myth of the human-like being called the Golem, mentioned above, and Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein, published in 1818. In Gray’s view, ‘the attempt to create an artificial human being risked making a monster’.9 In the light of Revelation, Gray’s use of the word ‘monster’ is noteworthy. Furthermore, a Times article in April 2023 carried the headline ‘How Worried Should We Be about the Rise of the AI “Monster”?’ The author, Mark Sellman, writes:

‘The evil thing about this monster is, even though everybody sees it and understands, they still can’t get out of the race,’ said the MIT professor Max Tegmark, one of the leading cautionary voices on AI. Are we really in an unavoidable battle with an AI monster to stay alive? Listen to much of the debate and you could be forgiven for thinking so. The chief executive of Google is kept up at night by the pace of change in AI. Sam Altman, the head of OpenAI, which developed ChatGPT, is a ‘little bit scared’ of the technology, which, in the worst-case scenario could mean ‘lights out for all of us’.10

Elon Musk, who may be speaking beyond what he knows, thinks that AI is more dangerous than nuclear weapons. He said AI was ‘our biggest existential threat’ as he asked for regulatory oversight to make sure that ‘we don’t do something very foolish’.11

Musk is deeply concerned about the so-called control problem – that we humans could lose control of a superintelligent AI that was able to rewrite its own programming and neutralise or bypass any control measures that were originally built into it. He is not alone in his concern that such an AI would present an existential threat to human existence. The late theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking wrote: ‘The real risk with AI isn’t malice but competence. A super-intelligent AI will be extremely good at accomplishing its goals, and, if those goals aren’t aligned with ours, we’re in trouble.’12 Similarly, one of the leading AI researchers, Stuart Russell, the 2021 Reith Lecturer, in an interview with Times Magazine, said that

the threat will come less from machines deciding they hate us and want to kill us than from their advanced competency. A highly sophisticated machine with a fixed objective could stop at nothing to achieve that objective and fail to take into account other human priorities.13

Headlines like ‘AI is the Frankenstein Monster of Our Generation’ are becoming more frequent, and it is not hard to see that this kind of publicity could indoctrinate the public and prepare the way for a future acceptance of the monster and its image described in Revelation.

The existence of global communication networks, such as the internet, social media and television, will easily enable the future monster’s targeted propaganda to reach the whole world. Add to that our current technological ability to produce deep fakes, and virtually limitless deception of a population is possible, particularly if it consists of people who have wilfully abandoned anything to do with God and the claims of his throne and covenant laws. Perhaps that gives us a clue as to why they allow themselves to be deceived. Paul explains:

The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

(2 Thess. 2:9–12)

At first reading, this statement seems harsh. However, Paul is talking about people who have steadfastly refused to love the truth, although God has often pleaded with them. The solemn fact is that there comes a point where God gives men and women their choice and, to quote the similar statement of Paul in Romans, ‘gives them up’, so that they knowingly ‘exchange the truth for a lie’ (see Rom. 1:24–8). We dare not underestimate the solemnity of this statement in the light of which we see that the fact that the whole earth worships the lying beast is no trivial embellishment. This worship is not worship of God. The fundamental meaning of the word ‘worship’ is ‘to fall down’, ‘do obeisance’ and ‘acknowledge the authority of’. That may be done under duress, as was the case in Albania under Enver Hoxha and is now the case in North Korea under Kim, in Russia under Putin and in China under Xi.

It is no small thing to resist the lie.

On 12 February 1974, Russian dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was arrested by the Soviet authorities for the last time, after spending eight years in the Gulag and three in exile earlier in his life. On the same day, his famous essay ‘Live Not by Lies’ was released. The next day, he was exiled to the West and welcomed as a hero of freedom. That essay is more relevant today than ever and contains powerful advice for us all – that the key to our liberation is

a personal non-participation in lies! Even if all is covered by lies, even if all is under their rule, let us resist in the smallest way: Let their rule hold not through me! . . . For when people renounce lies, lies simply cease to exist. Like parasites, they can only survive when attached to a person. We are not called upon to step out onto the square and shout out the truth, to say out loud what we think – this is scary, we are not ready. But let us at least refuse to say what we do not think! . . .

Our way must be: Never knowingly support lies! Having understood where the lies begin (and many see this line differently) – step back from that gangrenous edge! Let us not glue back the flaking scales of the Ideology, not gather back its crumbling bones, nor patch together its decomposing garb, and we will be amazed how swiftly and helplessly the lies will fall away, and that which is destined to be naked will be exposed as such to the world.14

What a powerful challenge that memorable phrase is to all of us: ‘personal non-participation in lies’! May Revelation help us to live it out.

The grimness of the Revelation scenario inevitably raises the question: how far will God permit humans to go? According to the biblical narrative, God did not intervene in the first Homo Deus project in Genesis 3, in the sense that he did not stop the humans accepting Satan’s lie and eating the forbidden fruit. That would have denied the gift of choice that he had given them, the exercise of which defined their morality. God did, however, intervene to point out the gravity and consequences of what they had done – and even to clothe them and point to the ultimate solution, namely that a human would eventually triumph over the serpent.

God also intervened at Babel, where humans had made a concerted attempt to use their intellectual and technological skills in order to build, in the words of Joanna Ng, a former head of research and director for the Centre of Advanced Studies at IBM Canada, ‘a monolithic super-state in the land of Shinar’. Ng comments:

Today, scientists seek to build ASI, a monolithic decision-making agency as a super-intelligent singleton. Similarities between the two transcend time and space. Both are a quest for supremacy of mankind: one with a tower that reaches the heavens, the other with a singleton that is capable of dominating man. Both are quests for self-glory: making a name for themselves, seeking the glory in themselves instead of seeking the glory of God. Both are a quest for independence from God: People would rather trust the creations of their own hands than trust their Creator.15

That is yet another symptom of the egoism that fuels the quest to create Homo Deus. Built on an ideology of lies, the Babel project ended in a communication breakdown caused by the babble of a multiplicity of languages that resulted from God’s supernatural intervention.

The perennial question about the lawless one is: who is this individual who will claim divinity? Many think that the answer is given in the final sentence in Revelation 13: ‘This calls for wisdom: let the one who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man, and his number is 666’ (13:18). We are explicitly told that it is the number of a name and even encouraged to calculate it (if we are wise!). It would therefore appear to be, as many of the church fathers thought, a gematria, a device for concealing and revealing names at the same time. The idea is to add up the numbers corresponding to the letters of a personal, individual name – especially in a language where letters represented numbers anyway.16 That has stimulated many attempts to identify this particular number in various different alphabets. For instance, transliterating the Greek word for ‘beast’ (therion) into Hebrew as TRWYN yields 666, as does doing the same thing with the Greek for ‘Nero’ (Neron) to get NRWN QSR (Nero Caesar). However, the first is not a name, and Nero can scarcely qualify as the one who will be destroyed at the coming of Christ. However, no doubt those who thought of this could see some of the characteristics of the kingdom of the beast in the rule of Nero, so that Nero became a prototype or thought model to help them imagine what the monster would eventually be like. That idea may well have been supported by the popular myth, widespread at the time, of Nero redivivus (Nero reborn), which said that Nero had not actually died but that, having made an escape to Parthia, he would one day return to take up his rule again. Of course, John would not affirm such a myth: Nero had been dead for thirty years or so by the time he wrote Revelation.

In his fascinating article ‘P115 and the Number of the Beast’, Dr Peter J. Williams, Director of Tyndale House, Cambridge, discusses the fact that in some early manuscripts, particularly a papyrus known as P115, ‘666’ is replaced by ‘616’. The latter number can be explained as a variant of ‘Nero Caesar’ using the Latin version Nero rather than the Greek Neron. However, if the word for ‘beast’ is kept in the grammatical case in which it occurs in Revelation 13 and we transliterate it into Hebrew, then the letters also add up to 616. Williams makes the alternative suggestion that ‘discussion of the significance of the number 616 may not have given adequate attention to the visual impact made by the number’. He explains that in P115 the number is written with a line above it, indicating that the letters below are to be read as digits. However, in that very same manuscript, such a line can also be used to indicate a nomen sacrum (a sacred name). As such, the text is visually reminiscent of a common representation of the name ‘Christ Jesus’. Williams concludes:

Readers would probably have been struck by the visual resemblance of the number to common designations of Jesus. We must therefore consider whether the number as written in P115 could be a deliberate mimicking of the appearance of these nomina sacra. Thus, given the alternatives that exist, P115 could be seen as supporting a number of proposals and does not exclusively support any single one, such as the Nero redivivus interpretation.17

We have already pointed out that there has been endless speculation as to who the future powerful leader denoted by this number will be. Many suggestions have been made in addition to Nero redivivus. They run right up through history and in more recent times include the German Kaiser, Hitler, several popes, Henry Kissinger, Mikhail Gorbachev, Saddam Hussein, various US presidents and a host of others. What does not seem to have been noticed so often is that, in any case, this process is fruitless. If we have to guess as to who is intended, we are almost bound to be wrong for the simple reason that the ‘man of lawlessness’, whoever he is, will be revealed by satanic power (2 Thess. 2:9). Therefore, when he appears, there will be no need to guess who it is. Satan will ensure recognition. In the event, decoding the gematria 666 will probably only be an elementary retrospective check, not a profound puzzle. In the second century, Bishop Irenaeus made precisely this point, as he warned against futile speculation. He told Christians just to wait for the fulfilment of the prophecy, when the identity of the Antichrist would be clear. He made the important point that this attitude was ‘more certain and less hazardous to Christian credibility’.18

Since 7 is the number of perfection and completeness (God rested on the seventh day), one view is that 777 could represent the perfect triune God, and thus 666 would represent the incompleteness and imperfection of humankind (created on the sixth day). It is also true that 666 is the 36th triangular number. Imagine a large wooden frame in the shape of an equilateral triangle of the sort used to arrange the red balls on a snooker table. Then 666 balls would fit perfectly in such a frame with 36 balls on each side. It is then argued by some (not my idea!) that, in the numerology of Revelation, triangular numbers such as 10 (the number of horns on the beast) and 666 (the number of the beast) represent opposition to God.

In any case, as ever, and it bears repetition, the important question is not who it is but what it is. The text gives an explicit answer: ‘it is the number of a man’ (13:18). The Greek word anthropos translated as ‘man’ has no article here – ‘the number of man’ – so the text is to be understood to mean either a specific human individual, or humanity in a more collective sense, or a human male or males. The former interpretation fits better with the ‘man of lawlessness’ as described in Thessalonians, where the definite article is present: ‘the man of lawlessness’. The sea and earth monsters are male humans, so that the dominant theme of this part is the perversion of male power.

The number 666, in some form or another, may well be the first mark in history that every human being is forced to have on their forehead or right hand. Of course, marking people has been going on for a long time, even at the physical level. Hitler forced Jews to wear a yellow star, and the Nazi guards at concentration camps tattooed a number on each inmate. There is a record to the effect that in Egypt, Ptolemy IV branded Jews who refused to offer sacrifices to Dionysius. Nowadays, there are all kinds of electronic methods for identifying people – fingerprint and retina recognition, for instance. In many countries, all citizens must carry identity cards. Ever more sophisticated schemes are already being used for social control of minorities by authoritarian regimes that pay little regard to human rights.

If every human being is forced to have a mark on their right hand, it means that there is a database identifying all human beings. We now hear terms such as the Every Human Database or the Earth Genealogy Project, both of which refer to such a listing. Ever-ambitious Elon Musk said in 2023 that he hoped to set up a database consisting of the genome database of every human.19 He may succeed.

To sum up, then, the monster is a vivid symbol, the reality behind which is a powerful man (and the world empire over which he rules) who is energised by the devil. The rebellion against God that started in Genesis with the satanic promise of becoming Homo Deus will reach a climax in this fearful, self-styled Homo Deus about whom the current futurist fraternity seems to know nothing.

The very multiplicity of possible future scenarios imagined by futurist thinkers can have the effect of making people think that nothing too serious will ever happen. However, such predictions are made on the basis of their world view, which often is ‘hopeful humanist’. Those of us like myself, who believe that the biblical revelation is true, hold that the scenario depicted in the previous paragraph will actually occur.

Perhaps the most terrifying thing of all about it is that world control will eventually rest in the hands of a single human despot. How credible is that idea? Sadly, very credible just now, as the drive for world domination is now more evident than it has been since the Second World War, both politically and technologically. We see a human despot, Vladimir Putin, attempting to obliterate Ukraine and regain territory that he believes is part of Russia. And Putin is not the only world leader impatient to extend his power. China is spreading its tentacles around the world and consolidating its influence. Indeed, one wonders just how few powerful human beings are in control of most of the world right now, and how easily and quickly that number could be reduced to one.

What is very interesting is that in the Bible and in famous dystopic novels such as Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We, Huxley’s Brave New World and Orwell’s 1984, as well as contemporary scenarios, absolute power is vested in a single human being. We have a wild animal in Daniel, the monster in Revelation, the man of lawlessness in Thessalonians, the Well-Doer in We, Big Brother in 1984, the Head in That Hideous Strength, Prometheus in Tegmark’s writings, and so on. In Brave New World there are ten World Controllers, of which only one, Mustapha Mond, appears in the novel.

C. S. Lewis explains why that may be so in That Hideous Strength. His character Mark Studdock, a rather gullible and ambitious academic, is informed by a senior person, Filostrato, that researchers at the sinister scientific institute N.I.C.E., where he works, have discovered how to keep the brain of a dead person alive. As a result, they possess the power to grant humans physical immortality.

Filostrato tells Studdock that this power will initially be restricted to a small number of individuals who are selected for eternal life. Studdock then asks whether it will subsequently be extended to all and receives the chilling reply that it will be reduced to one man since ‘it is not Man who will be omnipotent, but some one man, some immortal man’.20

At this point, a renegade cleric, Straik, joins the two men, claiming that God will have power to give eternal reward and eternal punishment. Studdock remonstrates that he doesn’t believe in God, to which Filostrato replies with the following memorable question: ‘Does it follow that because there was no God in the past that there will be no God also in the future?’ The cleric adds:

Don’t you see . . . that we are offering you the unspeakable glory of being present at the creation of God Almighty? Here, in this house, you shall meet the first sketch of the real God. It is a man – or a being made by man – who will finally ascend the throne of the universe. And rule forever.21

Lewis here gives a brilliant insight into the way in which people’s hearts and minds will be prepared by science and false religion to acquiesce in plans to storm the heavens and enslave the world by imposing on it an artificial god. Behind it all will be the shadowy, temporally triumphant figure of Satan, the devil, described by Paul as the god of this world.

In the prelude to his book Life 3.0,22 Max Tegmark, a Princeton University physicist, suggests that ASI, artificial superintelligence, might achieve world domination in the following three steps: first, make human-level AGI; next, use it to create ASI; finally, unleash the superintelligence to take over the world. He imagines a highly secretive AI project run by what he calls the Omega Team. This sinister group develops a powerful AI system called Prometheus in order to make money by using Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (MTurk) system, a crowdsourcing internet marketplace that enables individuals and businesses to find people (Turkers) to take on tasks that computers are currently unable to do. Prometheus then surreptitiously replaces the human Turkers with its much faster AI system and begins to harvest vast revenues. This money is subsequently used to take over the world’s businesses and media outlets in order to influence governments with a view to replacing them. Prometheus eventually ends up in absolute control of the planet:23

For the first time ever, our planet was run by a single power, amplified by an intelligence so vast that it could potentially enable life to flourish for billions of years on Earth and throughout the cosmos – but what specifically was their plan?24

For, not only does Prometheus record all electronic communications, a capacity that many governments have had for years, but it (so the story goes) can also understand all communications and so is fully aware of what people around the world are thinking and doing. With the excuse of fighting crime and terrorism and rescuing people suffering medical emergencies, everyone is required to wear a security bracelet that combines the functionality of an Apple watch with continuous uploading of position, health status and conversations overheard. Unauthorized attempts to remove or disable this bracelet cause it to inject a lethal toxin into the forearm and kill the wearer.25

I find it striking that a virtually identical scenario was anticipated twenty centuries ago in Revelation 13. This fact raises an interesting, and I believe important, issue. In their paper ‘Biblical Philosophy: An Introduction’,26 Mark Cauchi and Avron Kulak say:

Given . . . that the history of Western culture has, in the last 2000 years, never lost contact with the Bible in the way that its contact with the ancient Greeks did loosen, is it not possible that the Bible and its modes and objects of thought have had a greater impact on philosophy than is often assumed?

Perhaps Tegmark’s Prometheus is an example of this?

Certainly, Prometheus’s security bracelet has the same purpose as the mark of the monster. Interestingly, Harari has come up with essentially the same bracelet idea:

North Koreans might be required to wear a biometric bracelet that monitors everything they do and say, as well as their blood pressure and brain activity. Using the growing understanding of the human brain and drawing on the immense powers of machine learning, the North Korean government might eventually be able to gauge what each and every citizen is thinking at each and every moment. If a North Korean looked at a picture of Kim Jong Un and the biometric sensors picked up telltale signs of anger (higher blood pressure, increased activity in the amygdala), that person could be in the gulag the next day.27

Of course, such bracelets are simply an extension of the idea of the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) electronic bracelets or Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags that are already being used for home or prison monitoring of people charged with a crime.28 The RFID chip sounds suspiciously like the ‘mark of the beast’ since nowadays most transponder implants – about the size of a grain of rice – are actually inserted into a person’s right hand.29 Many thousands of people already have them. It should be noted that current RFID chips are not powerful enough to be tracked from a distance, but that will doubtless change.

I find it rather odd and inconsistent that many people will take Tegmark’s, Harari’s and other scenarios seriously, but will also cursorily relegate Revelation to the realm of fantasy movies of the Harry Potter type with their realistic computer-generated imagery of scary animals such as the lethifold. Such people don’t even pause to ask how Revelation turns out to be so prescient.

It is high time for us to wake up to the disturbing fact that something very similar to what Revelation predicts is already being implemented in parts of the world today and we are being very slow to take on board the reality and danger of it. AI-based surveillance systems are deployed throughout many countries in order to effect some level of social control. The surveillance state is no longer merely a distant dystopian threat but a fearful and present reality.

For instance, as part of President Xi Jinping’s vision for data-driven governance, the Chinese are setting up a governmental ‘social credit system’ (SoCS). The basic idea of the SoCS is that the Communist Party of China wishes to measure its citizens (and corporations) to determine whether they are ‘trustworthy’ or not. To achieve this goal, each citizen is issued with a personal identity number and awarded, say, 300 social credit points that can be added to by ‘good’ (i.e. government-approved) behaviour, such as paying debts (or fines) on time, using public transport, keeping fit, donating to charity, donating blood, volunteering, reporting on someone you have seen with large amounts of foreign currency, and so on. As your points accumulate, you are granted more and more perks, for example access to a wider range of jobs, wider access to contracts, mortgage opportunities, reduced utility bills, school placements for children, goods, travel possibilities, even reduced rental costs for bicycles.

However, if you behave in ways officially deemed ‘antisocial’, such as associating with people regarded ‘unsafe’ by the government, coming into conflict with the police, over-indulging in alcohol, jaywalking, driving badly, smoking in non-smoking zones, buying too many video games, cheating at such games, not visiting your parents regularly, not keeping your dog on a lead, posting fake news online, plagiarising, writing and sharing content conforming to anti-government ideologies, playing music too loud on a train, complaining, and a host of other things, then you will lose points and attract penalties at different levels, for example limited access to the job and housing market, restrictions on travel or even on the range of restaurants you can visit, having your credit card withdrawn, being banned from flights,30 and so on. You might even end up being denounced as a ‘discredited person’ on a public television screen as you walk past it. Public announcements on some trains warn of the credit disadvantage of antisocial behaviour.

It is easy to see that, if and when the SoCS is standarised, digitalised and ubiquitous, it will facilitate a massive hacking of human beings that will take the world a scary step forward towards the perfection of a (potentially global) dictatorship – the setting up of an ‘authoritarian dream world’ whose ideology could spread around the world like a virus and whose legitimacy would be secured by the most comprehensive and powerful state surveillance apparatus in history.

For those of us who still value our freedoms, it is perhaps rather surprising that many people in China seem to welcome the SoCS, seeing it less as a monitoring tool than as an instrument for improving the quality of life and closing institutional and regulatory gaps. There would seem already to be a strong human instinct to surrender freedom for security. It will be no different in the reign of the monster.

However, there is one region of China where such social control is intensive but not welcomed by the indigenous population. Xinjiang is the largest subdivision of China, situated in the west and covering one-sixth of its land area, which makes it about the size of Iran. It is home to 10 million Uighur people, who are predominantly Muslim, and an increasing number of Han Chinese who have been encouraged to settle there. The Han Chinese may move around without difficulty, but the Uighur population is now subject to the most intense surveillance that the world has ever seen, to the extent that the capital city, Urumqi, has been described as a ‘digital fortress’. Every movement, conversation, action and interaction, both offline and online, is recorded. ID cards are used to store not only DNA information but also the holder’s ‘reliability status’, an index of how well they fit into what the state considers normal. Any change in that status in the negative direction can lead to arrest and incarceration. There are cameras every few metres down every street and alleyway. Many are equipped not only with facial recognition technology but even with the capacity to read emotion on the faces of those we mentioned above. Cameras are now in existence that can track all kinds of bodily movements and even recognise people by their gait and gestures; they are identified, with over 90% accuracy we are told, without even having to look into the camera lens.

Surveillance of this kind is bad enough, but what is even more disturbing is a sinister attempt at what looks very much like thought control. It is facilitated by the setting up of so-called re-education centres, which (as of 2021) together house over 1.5 million Uighurs. They are sent there as a result of what is revealed by the surveillance apparatus. Many families have been split up – husbands taken from their wives, and children taken from their parents. These ‘re-education centres’ – prisons, really – appear to be devoted to the elimination of Uighur culture, turning their inmates into loyal Chinese citizens.31 Eyewitness reports coming out of the camps make grim reading. They tell of a total lack of privacy, even in toilets, except for the existence of a ‘Black Room’ that is used for unobserved vicious punishments and torture for even the most minor of infractions, such as not showing enough enthusiasm for the endless indoctrination. This is straight out of Orwell’s 1984 where the equivalent was Room 101 – the place of everyone’s worst fears. These centres would appear to represent an extreme violation of human rights; indeed, one commentator, a Ms Wang, said that human rights for the Uighur population were non-existent. Her report went on to say: ‘This is not just about Xinjiang or even China – it’s about the world beyond and whether we human beings can continue to have freedom in a world of connected devices. It’s a wake-up call, not just about China but about every one of us.’32

Some of the technology used in China was originally developed in the West and has either been stolen or handed over under economic pressure. In the reverse direction, much surveillance technology in the West and elsewhere has been bought from China. In 2018, The Times revealed that a Chinese company had sold 1.2 million CCTV cameras to the UK, some of which can see in the dark, recognise number plates, and count the people entering and leaving buildings.33 In the Times of 7 February 2022, there was a report by Charlie Parker claiming that the UK had implemented this kind of CCTV equipment in schools, hospitals, universities, town councils, police forces and government departments. For instance, more than half of British secondary schools are using cameras that have advanced capabilities such as facial, gender and behaviour detection, person tracking, clothing colour searching, and even hair colour and length detection. Two hundred and fifty-one local authorities claim to have such equipment. The Times article quotes Jake Hurfurt, head of research and investigations at Big Brother Watch:

It is horrifying that companies that supply the technological infrastructure for Beijing’s crimes against humanity, provide cameras to 61% of public bodies in the UK. The widespread use of Hikvision and Dahua CCTV in the UK is creating a dystopian surveillance state that poses serious rights and security risks to the British public, whilst indirectly supporting China’s persecution of ethnic minorities.34

The sophistication of camera technology is constantly increasing. In 2021, Russia placed 200,000 CCTV cameras in Moscow that can recognise people, even if they are wearing hats or masks, in order to implement a ‘Face Pay’ system on the Metro. Activists and opposition politicians fear that the main purpose, however, is to harvest data in order to keep tabs on people for the Kremlin.35 Currently, in the West, many of the surveillance tools are (still) in private hands, although that situation is clearly changing, as just indicated. In the Times of 16 April 2018, Matt Ridley makes the point that ‘the handling of personal data by all too human intelligence has turned into the biggest ethical challenge of this brave new world’.36 The more that is known about how people behave in aggregate, the more we will be judged on the tracks our choices and actions leave in cyberspace, and the more our future choices and actions will be shaped by these systems. If we do not build in sufficient safeguards, a move towards some kind of social credit programme would seem inevitable. Ridley goes on to say:

Society must grapple with the dilemma of preserving people’s privacy and ownership of their data while letting machine-learning algorithms harvest insights of value to everybody. The fact is that we all live to an increasing extent under the all-seeing eyes and ears of corporate mass algorithmic surveillance.37

I have probably written enough38 to enable my readers to understand why it is that I take Revelation very seriously indeed. It is not that I am dogmatic about what precise kind of technology will be involved. We just do not know, and we should not pretend to, since technology changes incredibly rapidly. Speculation in terms of 1960s technology would look very dated and irrelevant now, would it not? Nevertheless, operating on Paul’s principle that ‘the mystery of lawlessness is already at work’ (2 Thess. 2:7), I think it is legitimate to attempt, in terms of what we now know, to imagine what the world controlled by the dark power of the monster might well be like. We do not have to wait for these prophecies to materialise before thinking through our own response to the loss of freedoms and the increase in intrusive surveillance and control with which we are already familiar. The future is stealthily creeping up on us, and we may be in danger of becoming like toads who do not notice the imperceptible increase in the temperature of the water in which they are slowly boiling to death.

22

The Lamb with 144,000 on Mount Zion

The description of horrific satanic activity on earth in Revelation 12 and 13 has made grim reading and must, for John, have been even harder as he did not simply read it but saw it. Both John and the reader are in need of some encouragement to ease the tension that has just been generated by thinking about unrelieved evil. It comes in the following form:

Then I looked, and behold, on Mount Zion stood the Lamb, and with him 144,000 who had his name and his Father’s name written on their foreheads. And I heard a voice from heaven like the roar of many waters and like the sound of loud thunder. The voice I heard was like the sound of harpists playing on their harps, and they were singing a new song before the throne and before the four living creatures and before the elders. No one could learn that song except the 144,000 who had been redeemed from the earth. It is these who have not defiled themselves with women, for they are virgins. It is these who follow the Lamb wherever he goes. These have been redeemed from mankind as firstfruits for God and the Lamb, and in their mouth no lie was found, for they are blameless.

(14:1–5)

We have seen the people of the world being forced to have the name or number of the monster inscribed on their right hands or foreheads. Now we see something very different: the Lamb standing on Mount Zion with 144,000 people, with his name and his Father’s name written on their foreheads. The contrast could not be greater. We earlier saw the Lamb in the midst of the throne in heaven standing but looking as if he had just been slain. We now see him on Mount Zion, the very place on earth where he was murdered. There is something deeply moving to think of him standing once more in that place, not now rejected by his nation, but surrounded by a huge crowd from it, composed of people who had come to understand exactly whom they had pierced, had come to him in repentance and trust, and now followed him as their Messiah. As he stands there, a loud voice is heard coming from heaven that sounds like a vast number of singing kithara-players,1 who sing a new song before the throne, the living creatures and the elders that can only be learned by the 144,000.

In his children’s fantasy novel The Magician’s Nephew, C. S. Lewis brilliantly imagined Aslan singing the world into existence. Yet sceptical Uncle Andrew could make no sense of it. More accurately, as Lewis explains, Uncle Andrew tried harder and harder to convince himself that there was nothing in the sound but animal roaring. Not surprisingly, he succeeded.2 The music of heaven makes no sense to those who have not been redeemed. Just as Uncle Andrew could not get into the song of Aslan, so there are certain songs that you cannot really understand or really sing with full expression unless you possess the necessary experience. Here, the 144,000 could sing the new song because they had been redeemed from the earth.

These people are utterly committed to the Lamb and follow him wherever he goes (14:4). The word ‘follow’ is used to describe what it means to be a Christian – a follower of Jesus. They also do not harbour lies: ‘in their mouth no lie was found’ (14:5). This is almost a direct quote from Zephaniah 3:13, which refers to the regathering of Israel:

those who are left in Israel;

they shall do no injustice

and speak no lies,

nor shall there be found in their mouth

a deceitful tongue.

For they shall graze and lie down,

and none shall make them afraid.

None of the lying deception of the monster has tainted them, even though the pressure was enormous. What about you and me? In our less stressful contexts, do we tell lies?

We have met this group before, have we not? We saw in Revelation 7 that 12,000 from each tribe of ethnic Israel were sealed on their foreheads. Presumably, it is that seal that is visible when we meet them again here (see 7:3–4). The fact that they stand with the Lamb on Mount Zion signals a great victory. For they have been ‘redeemed from the earth’ (14:3). The word translated ‘redeemed’ here is the ordinary Greek term for ‘bought’. There is a magnificent irony here. Under the monster, no one could buy or sell unless they bore his mark. However, here is the Lamb standing on Mount Zion with 144,000 from Israel whom he bought, and he has given them his name to bear! And no lie was found in their mouths even though they had come from a world run by the satanic father of lies. Note the use of the word ‘found’ (14:5). It implies that even if you looked hard, you could not find them guilty of lying. This is a challenge to us all and to our attitude to truth. For truth is the ultimate victim in the current battle for the human mind as the powers of deception reach an all-time high.

The contrast between the 144,000 on Mount Zion with the seal of God on their foreheads and those who bear the mark of the monster takes us to the heart of the battle for the human heart that rages in the marketplace of this world. It is such a fierce struggle that Satan in his soaring pride even attempted to buy the loyalty of the Lord Jesus. He was prepared to pay almost anything, even things that were probably not his to give in the first place, as the final temptation shows:

Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to him, ‘All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.’ Then Jesus said to him, ‘Be gone, Satan! For it is written,

“You shall worship the Lord your God

and him only shall you serve.”’

(Matt. 4:8–10)

Satan, like the monster he inspires, lusts after godhead and will offer the world to get Christ (and us as well) to fall down and worship him – not to adore him, of course, but to acknowledge his superiority.

The devil failed to trap Christ and now relentlessly and cynically goes after his followers. How careful we need to be of bargains we strike, especially when we are young! In our youth the promise of fame and fortune, money, sex and power may lure us away from commitment to the Lord. We may be seduced into a ruinous Faustian pact by trading our soul for material things. In the future kingdom of the monster, such velvet-glove promises will be offered with an iron fist to the extent that, if we do not fall down and worship, if we do not allow the devil to buy us and take his mark and therefore be enrolled on his grim universal database, then we shall be prevented even from buying the necessities of life and probably summarily executed with our names deleted from his database, as we suggested when discussing the church in Sardis. They will not, however, be blotted out from God’s database, the only one that really matters.

Yet what if the monster’s evil blandishments are resisted? What does Christ offer by contrast? What would you say, fellow Christian, if I asked you what it was that won your heart, so that you follow him? Was it not primarily the fact that God so loved you that he gave his only Son for you? He paid the biggest price – far in excess of the paltry baubles that Satan dangles before our human eyes in his attempt to ‘buy’ us. Who in their right mind could resist the God who offers us such a great salvation: forgiveness from the guilt of sin, peace with God, the companionship of the Lord, the fellowship of other believers, the power of God’s Holy Spirit for living, a sense of meaning and purpose, and a living hope for the future? This is no bribery, no mercenary transaction, since none of these glorious things can be bought with money, or acquired due to status or power, yet all of them may be received as a free gift of God’s grace.

The Lamb had purchased the 144,000 out of the evil darkness of the earth, and they follow him faithfully. The added comment that ‘they have not defiled themselves with women’ (14:4a) may indicate that a very special level of commitment is necessary at this stage to stand publicly for Christ.3 However, it would be rather strange if the group contained no women, especially in a part of the book that begins in the way this one does with a strong emphasis on women. Hence it may also generally refer to the single-minded loyalty to Christ that Paul elsewhere commends to all Christians:

I wish you would bear with me in a little foolishness. Do bear with me! For I feel a divine jealousy for you, since I betrothed you to one husband, to present you as a pure virgin to Christ. But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough.

(2 Cor. 11:1–4)

That same serpent was actively promoting the worship of the monster, using the lies issuing from his minister of propaganda, lies that were gladly received by the masses who had abandoned God’s truth and received a ‘different spirit’, whereas, by complete contrast, the 144,000 followers of the Lamb are blameless and faithful Jewish believers. They are said to be ‘firstfruits for God’ (14:4b), thus indicating that there is to be a harvest to follow. That means there are many more to be gathered in, since by definition a harvest is usually very much greater than the firstfruits that herald it. And if the firstfruits is 144,000 from Israel, who would dare estimate the size of the eventual harvest?

In Romans 11, Paul describes the future hope for his people, Israel, in similar terms:

For if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead? . . . And in this way all Israel will be saved, as it is written,

‘The Deliverer will come from Zion,

he will banish ungodliness from Jacob;

and this will be my covenant with them

when I take away their sins.’

(Rom. 11:15, 26–7)

What will one day happen when Israel turns to the Lord will be like ‘life from the dead’ – a guarantee that the harvest will be plentiful.

There is clearly a strong Jewish dimension here, although the principle behind it applies to all believers. The great journey that the Israelites undertook had Zion – Jerusalem – as its destination, and all believers, whether Jews or not, will one day be with the Lord Jesus in the new Jerusalem that Revelation will unveil to us in due course. All of us may take courage from the fact that, if the Lord got this faithful group of 144,000 to Mount Zion in the fearful time of the heyday of the monster, then he will just as surely take us to be with him eternally.

There is a danger for the reader lurking just here. All of this talk of monsters and a world state sounds geared to a time when, in all probability, the vast majority of us will no longer be around. At least we may hope so. We might therefore begin to think that it has no relevance for us. However, that is not the case, for all of us have to face the monster in some sense. We dare not drop our guard. Watch out, there is a lion about! Listen to the apostle Peter:

Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world. And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. To him be the dominion for ever and ever. Amen.

(1 Pet. 5:8–11)

That is the huge comfort of the gospel for believers. There are, however, many who still need to hear that gospel, even at this juncture in Revelation.

Three angelic messages

An eternal universal gospel

Then I saw another angel flying directly overhead, with an eternal gospel to proclaim to those who dwell on earth, to every nation and tribe and language and people. And he said with a loud voice, ‘Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgement has come, and worship him who made heaven and earth, the sea and the springs of water.’

(14:6–7)

We now move from the 144,000 from Israel who have embraced the gospel to the proclamation by an angel to ‘every nation and tribe and language and people’ (14:6). The latter phrase emphasises the universal applicability and accessibility of the message. The 144,000 may well have a special role, but there is only one gospel, open to all on the same terms – justification by faith alone in Christ alone.

Moving from thinking about the Jews to thinking about the whole world is exactly what Paul does in the passage to which we referred above: Romans 11. He addresses the Gentile believers among his readers regarding the situation of the Jewish nation:

As regards the gospel, they are enemies for your sake. But as regards election, they are beloved for the sake of their forefathers. For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. For just as you were at one time disobedient to God but now have received mercy because of their disobedience, so they too have now been disobedient in order that by the mercy shown to you they also may now receive mercy. For God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all.

Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgements and how inscrutable his ways!

‘For who has known the mind of the Lord,

or who has been his counsellor?’

‘Or who has given a gift to him

that he might be repaid?’

(Rom. 11:28–35)

God’s strategy in history is geared to making mercy available to all who will have it, whether Jew or Gentile. Consistent with the fact that this part opened with a vision of the ark of God’s covenant in heaven, the emphasis in the angel’s message is to fear God and worship him as both Judge and Creator. The commandments involved in that covenant begin with the words:

You shall have no other gods before me.

You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them . . .

(Exod. 20:3–5)

The prohibition on the worship of other gods is explicitly spelled out in terms of forbidding the making of images of anything in the heavens, on earth or in the waters under the earth, which is why the first angel mentions them to remind the world of the first and greatest of the commandments. God has created all of these things: they are not gods but creatures. The world needs to hear that, because in itself it is gospel – good news.

The striking thing is that this message is being declared from above to a world in the thrall of the monster, implying that not everyone has taken his infamous branding.

Babylon the great is fallen

‘Another angel, a second, followed, saying, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great, she who made all nations drink the wine of the passion of her sexual immorality”’ (14:8).

First, notice the contrast between the announcements made by these first two angels. If God has made the refreshing springs of water that we need to drink in order to live, here we are told that Babylon has made the nations drink the lethal wine of immorality.

This statement about Babylon is part of a literary pattern that has already been established in the earlier parts of the book. Part 1 mentions the throne of God briefly. That becomes the main theme of part 2. Part 2 mentions the altar of incense briefly. That is a major feature in part 3. Part 3 mentions the appearance of the monster briefly. It becomes the main feature in part 4. Part 4 refers briefly to Babylon the great, which will become a major feature in part 5.

The announcement about Babylon introduces a fascinating new part of a complex picture that is being built up piece by piece. First of all, we have the monster who is a world power/leader. Now, we have a reference to the evil influence of a major city from the ancient world, the capital of a vast empire, Babylon, that historically oppressed Israel and Judah and to which the people of Judah were taken captive. The announcement that it has fallen is found in the OT in Isaiah 21:9, and again within a major prophecy against Babylon in Jeremiah, which also speaks of her making the nations drunk with her wine (Jer. 51:7–8).

However, with hindsight it would be wise to resist any initial natural temptation to identify Babylon merely in geopolitical terms. We need, first of all, to think about what the name stands for. It traces its roots to the ancient city of Babel, about which Henry W. F. Saggs, an expert on the ancient Near East, wrote the following:

Though traces of prehistoric settlement exist, Babylon’s development as a major city was late by Mesopotamian standards; no mention of it existed before the 23rd century BCE. After the fall of the 3rd Dynasty of Ur, under which Babylon had been a provincial centre, it became the nucleus of a small kingdom established in 1894 BCE by the Amorite king Sumuabum, whose successors consolidated its status.

The sixth and best-known of the Amorite dynasts, Hammurabi (1792–50 BCE), conquered the surrounding city-states and raised Babylon to the capital of a kingdom comprising all of southern Mesopotamia and part of Assyria (Northern Iraq). Its political importance, together with its favourable location, made it henceforth the main commercial and administrative centre of Babylonia, while its wealth and prestige made it a target for foreign conquerors.4

By the sixth century bc, Babylon was the largest city in the world.

The biblical account of the foundation of Babel is found in the book of Genesis:

Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. And as people migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar5 and settled there. And they said to one another, ‘Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.’ And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. Then they said, ‘Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.’

(Gen. 11:1–4)

Making a name by building a city and tower in order to avoid dispersion was a direct affront to God, who had made humans and had commanded them to multiply and fill the earth, giving this instruction first to Adam and second to Noah after the Flood. The motivation behind building Babel, its fundamental ideology, is poles apart from the way of life that God later taught to Abram, which involved the magnificent promise: ‘I will . . . make your name great’ (Gen. 12:2). The citizens of Babylon thought big and unrealistic things about themselves in their desire for a unique reputation and legacy, whereas God thought big and realisable things about the reputation he would give to Abram; and it would be in the Lord’s name, not Babel’s name, that all the nations of the earth would be blessed by a scattering of Abram’s spiritual seed in the Diaspora.6

This contrast between two fundamentally opposed ways of living shows that the ideological foundation of Babel constituted prideful rebellion against God’s command to disperse around the world and a determination by its citizens to construct their own meaning without God. Leon Kass says:

To make a name for oneself is to remake the meaning of one’s life so that it deserves a new name. To change the meaning of a human being is to remake the content and character of human life. The city, fully understood, achieves precisely that.7

Babylon represented an apex of human hubris in its collective attempt to build a city and a tower that would reach up to heaven in defiance of God.8 These ancient people trusted their brains and their skills rather than God, an attitude that is the essence of idolatry. It is therefore not surprising that Babylon became the centre of one of the most idolatrous cultures the world has ever seen. Georges Roux writes: ‘In no other antique society did religion occupy such a prominent position, because in no other antique society did man feel himself so utterly dependent upon the will of the gods.’9 It was also the place to which Judah was exiled by God, because its people repeatedly broke the first commandment prohibiting idolatry. It was a case of lex talionis: the punishment fitted the crime.

The only characteristic of Babylon mentioned in its single-sentence introduction in Revelation is that it seduced nations to ‘drink the wine of the passion of [its] sexual immorality’. Actual promiscuous behaviour plays a part in some idolatrous worship, for example in the form of cult prostitution, which is relevant here since we shall later see Babylon depicted as a prostitute. However, even if physical immorality is not involved, this kind of sexual language, adultery in particular, is often used metaphorically in Scripture to represent religious and ideological unfaithfulness to God – spiritual lawlessness. For example, God says to Ezekiel, in reference to his people: ‘I have been broken over their whoring heart that has departed from me and over their eyes that go whoring after their idols’ (Ezek. 6:9). Daniel’s description of Belshazzar’s feast gives a vivid insight into what a literal drinking of the wine of idolatrous passion looks like. The tragedy was that the elite of Babylon praised their pagan gods as they drank their wine from precious golden and silver vessels stolen from the Temple at Jerusalem – vessels that symbolised the presence of a holy and almighty Creator God who brooked no rivals (Dan. 5).

Just as Revelation informs us that Satan was cast out of heaven, before he promoted the rise of the monster on earth, whose doom was therefore sealed, so here we are notified in advance of the fall of Babylon, as if it had already occurred, to express certainty that its doom is also sealed. More detail will follow in part 5. The angel’s announcement is a quotation from a verse in Isaiah that explains why Babylon fell:

Fallen, fallen is Babylon;

and all the carved images of her gods

he has shattered to the ground.

(Isa. 21:9)

It fell because it broke the first commandment. Its religion, in that sense, is that of the monster, who will also fall for the same reason.

By contrast, the 144,000 standing with the Lamb arguably represent those Jewish believers who have resisted Babylon through their loyalty to Christ. The battle for human loyalty is a battle between Zion/Jerusalem and Babylon. This aspect of the biblical narrative can therefore be seen as a tale of two cities. It begins with the departure of Abraham from the region of Babylon to look for ‘the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God’ (Heb. 11:10), and it ends in that city, the new Jerusalem. In the next part of Revelation, Babylon and (the new) Jerusalem will be represented by two women: one a beautiful high-class prostitute, the other a beautiful bride. One woman is unfaithful to God in her liaisons with pagan deities and idolatrous interpretations of the universe, whereas the other woman is faithful to God. The first, Babylon, would seem to stand for ideologies of whatever kind that promote disloyalty to God. The world both then and now is full of them. The second is the Church as the faithful bride of Christ.

Let us pause to reflect on where we have got so far. We have two major pieces of imagery: the monster and Babylon. In the first century, readers of Revelation would have recognised the monster as Rome, and they would also have recognised Babylon as Rome, however else they might have understood these images as relating to the future. Let us, therefore, stay at that level for the moment and try to make sense of having two symbols representing aspects of the same thing. Perhaps the easiest way to do that is to recall what we said earlier about the images of a lion and a lamb that represent Christ. We found that these terms were not mere identification codes that answered the question of who it is, but rather were terms that answered the question of what it is, in the sense that the imagery of a lion and a lamb tell us a great deal about Christ beyond mere identification.

It is the same with the monster and Babylon. We know who it is, so to speak. It is Rome. But that is not really the point. It is Rome seen under two distinct images, each of which is telling us something more about what Rome is. First, it is a monster, an iron-toothed ruthless animal that rules a vast empire. Second, it is an idolatrous system of religious institutions that, in particular, upholds the imperial cult. In this way, with a few strokes of the pen, Revelation vividly opens up an immensely important area of enquiry that is as relevant today as it was twenty centuries ago: the relationship of power to (religious) ideology.

Incidentally, it is commonly thought that Peter’s somewhat enigmatic greeting: ‘She who is at Babylon, who is likewise chosen, sends you greetings’ (1 Pet. 5:13), which comes at the end of his first letter, utilises the term ‘Babylon’ as an in-group Christian code-word for ‘Rome’. Peter did so quite probably because open reference to Rome might well have been dangerous at the time. The announcement in Revelation of the fall of Babylon would have sounded almost incredible in that period but would have given believers ultimate, if not immediate, coded hope that the oppression of Rome’s imperial cult would one day cease. And all through history, one ‘Babylon’ after another has reared its seductive head, and faithful believers of every generation have had to resist its blandishments, finding in the words of Revelation and other scriptures the strength to do so. As we shall see in part 5, there is at least one other ‘Babylon’ to come.

Eternal punishment of those who worship the monster

A third angel brings the longest, loudest and grimmest warning of all. It is directed at those who break the first commandment:

If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand, he also will drink the wine of God’s wrath, poured full strength into the cup of his anger, and he will be tormented with fire and sulphur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment goes up for ever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night, these worshippers of the beast and its image, and whoever receives the mark of its name.

(14:9–11)

The first angel spoke about springs of water; the second warned about drinking the wine of Babylon’s immorality. The third warns that those who worship the monster and his image and take his mark will have to drink another sort of wine – the wine of God’s wrath in its full strength. This is a very different message from that of the false prophet, who threatened that refusal to worship the monster and take his image would mean execution. The choice is stark: execution or facing the full force of God’s wrath. It is the ultimate choice that humans face.

The description of what the latter fate involves is so horrible to contemplate that some commentators think that we cannot take it at face value, because the eternal, conscious torment that it seems to imply is incompatible with God’s love and justice. They therefore interpret the passage in terms of annihilation; that is, there may be a time of conscious suffering but eventually the impenitent will be annihilated.10

Such commentators point to the last sentence in the quote above and suggest that the ‘smoke’ going up ‘for ever and ever’ (14:11) should be thought of in terms of the smoke that went up after the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, indicating that all the inhabitants of those cities had been annihilated. However, the text immediately following makes that interpretation very hard to maintain by saying that ‘they have no rest, day or night’. The attempt to avoid the clear implication of this by extending the text to say: ‘they have no rest, day or night, so long as their suffering lasts’ is an unwarranted evasion, however much we would like it to be the case.

The Lord Jesus himself refers to this solemn matter in the parable of the sheep and the goats, which he related in the context of his return to rule. The relevant passage is as follows:

When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left . . .

Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels . . . And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.’

(Matt. 25:31–3, 41, 46)

The Greek word translated ‘punishment’ is kolasis. Its ending -sis indicates that it is what is called a noun of action or process (just like the ending -entia in Latin and -ing in English). Hence it means the process of punishing and not simply punishment. Another instance is praxis, which means ‘a making’, as distinct from pragma, which means ‘a thing made’. ‘Eternal punishment’ might be taken to mean annihilation, but ‘eternal punishing’ does not admit that possibility. Vine backs this up by saying that it ‘describes a process and not merely an effect’.11 Also, Bauer’s Greek lexicon gives examples from secular Greek where kolasis means ‘torture’. One of them is: hē epimonos kolasis, which means ‘long-continued torture’.12 We also note from the last sentence of the parable that the adjective ‘eternal’ is applied equally to ‘eternal life’ and ‘eternal punishing’. There is no reason to think that ‘eternal’ means different things in each case; what applies to one applies to the other.

Another consideration is Jesus’ teaching about blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. He said that it was ‘an eternal sin’ (Mark 3:29) in the sense that it can and will never be forgiven, neither in this life, however long it might last, nor in the age to come, however long that might last. That is, the impossibility of forgiveness is everlasting. And if the sin can never be forgiven, the penalty can never cease, unless one is prepared to say that, in spite of the penalty being described as eternal punishing, it will in fact be annihilation.

Jesus also taught that the final judgement will be according to works, which implies that there will be degrees of punishment. As an explicit example of this principle, he said that it would be more tolerable for the men of Sodom and Gomorrah in the judgement than for those of Capernaum and Bethsaida. Hence, those who believe in annihilation must also accept that the impenitent are not immediately annihilated at the final judgement, since punishment must be meted out differentially according to their deeds. Furthermore, instant annihilation is not really classifiable as a punishment, as many atheists are happy to testify; on the contrary, instant annihilation is something they very much hope for.

On the annihilationist view, it therefore follows that the impenitent will not be annihilated instantaneously. They will first be punished and then annihilated. However, in countries that still have the death penalty, it would be regarded as completely inconsistent with justice and compassion that a person who is to be executed should first be punished for a finite period.

We now meet another set of difficulties. First, what is the point of the period of punishment? Is it for the guilty to pay the penalty for their sins, as the very idea of differential punishment implies? For if that is the case, why then annihilate people who have paid the penalty? That would be a blatant miscarriage of justice, utterly unworthy of God. If the period of punishment does not pay the penalty for sins, then the punishment has not been exhausted. However, we have just seen that annihilation in itself does not amount to punishment, and that in turn would mean that the guilty have not paid the penalty.

Second, the idea of a period of punishment raises the underlying question as to whether it is possible for a human being to exhaust the penalty for sin in a finite stretch of time. If it is, then that person should afterwards be set free, according to all civilised legal practice. Or is it that the finite period of punishment is imposed because of a person’s individual sins and when that penalty is paid off, they are annihilated because they remain unrepentant? This now leads to a very odd circumstance. For if the penalty of their sins has been paid, they are justified, are they not? The concept of a justified yet unrepentant person is rather difficult to get one’s head around.

As David Gooding points out:

Annihilation would then be the punishment for rejecting the Saviour – not so much for rejecting his sacrifice, because, having suffered for his own sins and being thereby justified, the man needs no sacrifice. He is annihilated simply for his wrong attitude of heart towards the Divine Persons. If that is so, then – excuse my apparent antinomianism – free will is not what it appears to be. God turns out, after all, to be like Mr Henry Ford, who told his customers that they could have any colour of car they wished, so long as it was black! A God who gives his creatures irretrievable free will and, even when they persist in using it to reject him, still honours the gift he has given them, is to my mind far greater than a God who gives his creatures free will only as long as they do not use that free will to decide against him.13

It may be that we find it unpalatable to think about these issues because we live in a world that has relativised morality and trivialised sin almost to the point of extinction. And because of that, we may have a weak and insipid view of the enormity of what happened on the cross, where Christ took upon himself the punishment for the sin of the world. In the world of Scripture, it was very different. For instance, Lot’s wife looked back after being instructed not to – and was turned into a pillar of salt. Several men perished because they looked into the ark despite warnings. Ananias and Sapphira were executed on the spot for lying to Peter. The dominant naturalism and soft spirituality of our age can so easily erode our capacity to see sin as God sees it. The angel in this chapter is using a megaphone to shout it into our heads that we need to take sin against God as maximally serious – and the gospel as maximally glorious. That is one of the reasons we need the gospel, since to reject it will mean that God, who loved us so much that he gave his Son, will allow us our choice, and we will perish eternally.

And so also will those who worship the monster and take the mark of his name. All the more reason to persevere in our obedience to God and our trust in the Lord Jesus. The voice from heaven encourages us so to do, for the age of Christian martyrs is not yet over; the false prophet and the monster will see to that. Hence the call for endurance and the pronouncement of blessing on those who do persevere. The first blessing in the book was pronounced on those who read it (aloud) and who keep what is in it. Now we are beginning to see what it will mean for some believers to keep it:

Here is a call for the endurance of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and their faith in Jesus.

And I heard a voice from heaven saying, ‘Write this: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.’ ‘Blessed indeed,’ says the Spirit, ‘that they may rest from their labours, for their deeds follow them!’

(14:12–13)

The harvests of the earth – grain and wine

John now sees a further vision of ‘one like a son of man’ (14:14).14 He wears a kingly crown and is seated on a cloud, reminding us of his heavenly origin and throne. The new ingredient is that he is holding a sickle:

Then I looked, and behold, a white cloud, and seated on the cloud one like a son of man, with a golden crown on his head, and a sharp sickle in his hand. And another angel came out of the temple, calling with a loud voice to him who sat on the cloud, ‘Put in your sickle, and reap, for the hour to reap has come, for the harvest of the earth is fully ripe.’

So, he who sat on the cloud swung his sickle across the earth, and the earth was reaped.

(14:4–16)

The 144,000 were said to be the ‘firstfruits’ of a harvest (14:4). The metaphor is continued here with the announcement that the grain is now fully ripe for reaping. Jesus referred to the grain harvest in connection with evangelism in his famous statement: ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest’ (Matt. 9:37–8). The Lord of the harvest is the one to do the joyful reaping. The metaphor of (grain) harvest is used at several different levels. Here, it refers to evangelism. Jesus also used it in the parable of the wheat and the tares:

‘Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, “Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn”’ . . .

And his disciples came to him, saying, ‘Explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field.’ He answered, ‘The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world, and the good seed is the sons of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one, and the enemy who sowed them is the devil. The harvest is the close of the age, and the reapers are angels.’

(Matt. 13:30, 36–9)

The grain harvest is given an even deeper meaning when Paul speaks about it in connection with the resurrection in his letter to the Corinthians:

But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ.

(1 Cor. 15:20–3)

The implication is that the great grain harvest happens at the coming of Christ. There is no explicit mention of that coming at this point in Revelation, unless the fact that the Son of Man is seated on a cloud is a cryptic reference to the manner in which he will come. Just as we have flashback in Revelation, we must allow flashforward – anticipation of future events that are relevant to the context.

No harvesting of weeds is mentioned in connection with the corn harvest in Revelation. However, a second, very different kind of harvest is mentioned: the grape harvest:

Then another angel came out of the temple in heaven, and he too had a sharp sickle. And another angel came out from the altar, the angel who has authority over the fire, and he called with a loud voice to the one who had the sharp sickle, ‘Put in your sickle and gather the clusters from the vine of the earth, for its grapes are ripe.’ So the angel swung his sickle across the earth and gathered the grape harvest of the earth and threw it into the great wine press of the wrath of God. And the wine press was trodden outside the city, and blood flowed from the wine press, as high as a horse’s bridle, for 1,600 stadia.

(14:17–20)

This time it is a harvest of the impenitent, since the harvested grapes are thrown into the wine press of the wrath of God. The imagery comes from several places in the OT, for example Isaiah:

Who is this who comes from Edom,

in crimsoned garments from Bozrah,

he who is splendid in his apparel,

marching in the greatness of his strength?

‘It is I, speaking in righteousness,

mighty to save.’

Why is your apparel red,

and your garments like his who treads in the wine press?

‘I have trodden the wine press alone,

and from the peoples no one was with me;

I trod them in my anger

and trampled them in my wrath;

their lifeblood spattered on my garments

and stained all my apparel.

For the day of vengeance was in my heart,

and my year of redemption had come.

I looked, but there was no one to help;

I was appalled, but there was no one to uphold;

so my own arm brought me salvation,

and my wrath upheld me.

I trampled down the peoples in my anger;

I made them drunk in my wrath,

and I poured out their lifeblood on the earth.’

(Isa. 63:1–6)

Similarly, Joel wrote:

Put in the sickle,

for the harvest is ripe.

Go in, tread,

for the wine press is full.

The vats overflow,

for their evil is great.

(Joel 3:13)

In Israel there were two main harvests, the corn harvest and the grape harvest, and of course both of them were times of ingathering of the bounty of the land. There were three annual festivals connected with the two harvests: Firstfruits (corn), Pentecost (corn) and Tabernacles (grapes and wine). Each of them has its counterpart in the NT with Christ as the Firstfruits, Pentecost the coming of the Holy Spirit, and the gospel harvesting of the Church with the promise of the eventual resurrection of the believer. As for the festival of Tabernacles, Isaiah used it to point towards the end times as a celebration of the abolition of death as an institution:

On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples

a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine,

of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined.

And he will swallow up on this mountain

the covering that is cast over all peoples,

the veil that is spread over all nations.

He will swallow up death for ever;

and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces,

and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth,

for the Lord has spoken.

(Isa. 25:6–8)

There was nothing negative about either of the actual harvests, of course. However, at the level of imagery, there clearly is differentiation. In fact, some commentators think that the grain harvest in Revelation 14 is a description of the judgement of the impenitent, which is repeated by the imagery of the grape harvest for emphasis by repetition. This interpretation emphasises the use of a sickle to cut things down as a vivid image for the cutting down of the impenitent.

The gory description of a deep lake of blood (14:20) is surely more readily understood as hyperbole to get across the horror of judgement. It is interesting that the wine press is located geographically as ‘outside the city’ by contrast with the Lamb standing with the 144,000 inside the city. For the passages cited above from Isaiah and Joel about treading the wine press are both in the context of a cataclysmic showdown when God eventually brings salvation to Mount Zion/Jerusalem. Zechariah speaks of a day when God will bring all nations against Jerusalem for a great battle (Zech. 12:3) – a day when ‘the Lord will go out and fight against those nations as when he fights on a day of battle. On that day his feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives’ (Zech. 14:3–4a).

The sea of glass

Then I saw another sign in heaven, great and amazing, seven angels with seven plagues, which are the last, for with them the wrath of God is finished.

And I saw what appeared to be a sea of glass mingled with fire – and also those who had conquered the beast and its image and the number of its name, standing beside the sea of glass with harps of God in their hands. And they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying,

‘Great and amazing are your deeds,

O Lord God the Almighty!

Just and true are your ways,

O King of the nations!

Who will not fear, O Lord,

and glorify your name?

For you alone are holy.

All nations will come

and worship you,

for your righteous acts have been revealed.’

(15:1–4)

This part began with two signs. It ends with a third sign:15 seven angels with seven plagues. We cannot be anything but relieved to read that these are the last of the three series of seven judgements, and therefore they exhaust the wrath of God. They add one more level to the complexity of God’s dealing with human rebellion against his throne. In thinking about them it is important that we do not confuse or conflate the wrath of God with the wrath and raging cruelty of the monster. We must not lose sight of the fact that no wrath of God will fall on believers (1 Thess. 1:10), although some believers will suffer martyrdom under the monster. The outpouring of the plagues that have just appeared will occur in the next part of the book – part 5. Before that occurs, we reach a triumphant conclusion to what has been a dark and grim chapter of rampant evil on earth.

John now sees what looks like a sea of glass mingled with fire. We have already met such a sea in part 2, located in front of the throne of God in much the same way as a large laver (called ‘the sea’) once stood in front of Solomon’s Temple. Part 2 ended with an innumerable crowd of worshippers standing before the throne of God and before the Lamb. Part 4 ends with a large crowd standing praising God beside this sea. As we draw near to listen, we hear them singing ‘the song of Moses . . . and the song of the Lamb’ (15:3). And as they sing, this vast choir of conquerors who overcame the raging of the monster and refused to accept his mark (maybe at the cost of their lives), our minds travel back over the centuries to another vast choir, this time of Israelites, singing beside another sea the song that Moses and Miriam had taught them. They had overcome the monster of their time, the Egyptian pharaoh who had enslaved them for years.

God had delivered this vast crowd of people by his power. That deliverance had involved two parts that are reflected in the title of their song: the Lamb and Moses. First, the Passover lamb in Egypt delivered Israel from the wrath of God. As such it pointed forward to Christ, ‘our Passover lamb’ (1 Cor. 5:7), provided by God as the supreme sacrifice to take away the sin of the world.

Second, the Israelites needed to be delivered from Egypt and the power of Pharaoh. That necessarily involved committing themselves to Moses as their leader and witnessing to the truth of that commitment by following him through the sea to safety. Paul uses this as a metaphor for Christian baptism: ‘For I want you to know, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea’ (1 Cor. 10:1–2). Baptism is a powerful witness – a public symbolic enactment of the spiritual reality of dying with Christ, being buried and then being raised by him:

Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

(Rom. 6:3–4)

Words found at the beginning of this part of Revelation sum up perfectly both aspects of God’s deliverance then, now and in the future: ‘And they have conquered him [Satan] by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony’ (12:11). The men and women who followed Moses through the sea and sang with him on the other shore were publicly confessing that they were on God’s side. The men and women who were baptised at the inauguration of the Church on the day of Pentecost were making a courageous public profession of allegiance to the Lord Jesus and standing clear of the world that rejected him. And the believers who sing by the glassy sea will have triumphed over a vastly more sinister enemy than Pharaoh – one who ruled not merely Egypt but the entire planet. They will sing about the glorious deeds of God and about the holiness and justice of his ways. This act forms a fitting end to a part that began with the ark of the covenant in heaven. For singing to God, ‘You alone are holy’ (15:4), entails public commitment to the first commandment of the law mediated by Moses, the breaking of which, by the monster, has been a major theme in this part.

The themes of the Song of Moses and other related ideas from Revelation have been beautifully captured in the contemporary hymn ‘Christus Victor (Amen)’, written by Keith Getty, Matt Boswell, Bryan Fowler, Matt Papa and Kristyn Getty:16

O Most High, King of the ages

Great I AM, God of wonders

By the blood You have redeemed us

Led us through mighty waters

Our strength, our song, our sure salvation

Now to the Lamb upon the throne

Be blessing, honour, glory, power

For the battle You have won

Hallelujah! Amen

O Most High, dwelling among us

Son of man sent for sinners

By Your blood You have redeemed us

Spotless Lamb, mighty Saviour

Who lived, who died, who rose victorious

Now to the Lamb upon the throne

Be blessing, honour, glory, power

For the battle You have won

Hallelujah! Amen

With every tribe and every tongue

We join the anthem of the angels

In the triumph of the Son

Hallelujah! Amen

O Most High, King of the nations

Robed in praise, crowned with splendour

On that day who will not tremble?

When You stand Christ the Victor

Who was, and is, and is forever

Amen, amen, amen

Amen, amen, amen, amen

Readers will see how the themes of the song in Revelation 15 are repeated in many places in the OT that celebrate God’s great deeds in history. Also, this passage must have been a huge encouragement for the members of the seven churches to persevere in overcoming the difficulties that faced them in their day – and for many persecuted believers since then. And for us today, what a high privilege it is to be protected by the blood of the Lamb who died for us and to be baptised publicly in his name to demonstrate our allegiance to the one who bought us at such a price!

Holding firmly to the justice and holiness of God is no small thing in an evil, violent, dystopic, totalitarian culture on which the wrath of God descends. Can we – you and I – sing this song in our cultures with total conviction? Or do we still struggle with the uneasy feeling that God’s wrath will turn out to be unjust? It is very striking that, in one of the darkest passages in this part, we are told that the impenitent will be tormented with fire and sulphur ‘in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb’ (14:10). The implication would seem to be, to put it bluntly, that the holy angels and the Lamb himself can put up with this expression of God’s wrath. They consider it to be perfectly in keeping with his holy and righteous character. The challenge for us is: do we?

In part 2 we learned that the glassy sea stood in front of the throne of God as a symbol of God’s power to bring a holy calm into the hearts of his people by cleansing them through his Spirit and his Word. Nothing in the raging of the wild and monstrous animals or the judgements of God can disturb the flat calm of that sea. Let us try, in that sense, also to stand beside it, as we contemplate what is about to come. And as we do, let us also try to sing with sincerity of heart and, with God-given courage, allow the world to see whose name is written on our foreheads.

Part 5

REVELATION 15:5 – 19:10

BRIEF SUMMARY

The sanctuary in heaven opened to reveal the glory of God

The wrath of God outpoured in seven bowls

The judgement of Babylon

Rejoicing in heaven

Marriage supper of the Lamb

After this I looked, and the sanctuary of the tent of witness in heaven was opened, and out of the sanctuary came the seven angels with the seven plagues, clothed in pure, bright linen, with golden sashes round their chests.

(15:5–6)

TWO TYPES OF GLORY AND BEAUTY

Smoke from the glory and power of God fill the Temple. No one can enter until the seven plagues are finished.

Babylon the prostitute on earth – perversion of female beauty

The glorious bride of the Lamb in heaven – true female beauty

DETAILED SUMMARY

A. The bowls of God’s wrath outpoured (15:5 – 16:21)

1Ugly sores appear on people who have the mark of the beast/monster.

2The sea is turned to blood: marine life dies.

3Rivers and springs are turned to blood.

4The sun scorches earth’s inhabitants. People curse God; there is no repentance.

5The throne and kingdom of the monster are plunged into darkness. People curse God; there is no repentance.

6The River Euphrates dries up. The kings of earth are deceived by demons into assembling at Armageddon for war on the great day of Almighty God.

7A great voice comes from the throne: It is done. A great earthquake occurs. The great city is divided. The cities of the nations fall. Babylon the great drinks the cup of God’s wrath. Islands and mountains flee. A great hail leads to people cursing God.

B. Who is Babylon and why must she be judged? (17:1–18)

Babylon sits by many waters and on seven mountains.

She is expensively dressed in purple and scarlet, with gold, jewels and pearls.

She holds a golden cup of wine, full of unclean things.

An angel explains the mystery of the woman and the monster that carries her. He tells of a succession of empires: five are fallen; one is; one is yet to come. Then an eighth arises that belongs to the seven. Overcome by the Lamb, it goes to destruction.

Babylon is drunk with the blood of saints and martyrs. She is destroyed by the monster and ten kings.

C. Babylon judged yet mourned (18:1–24)

Announcements come from heaven: 1) Babylon is fallen! 2) Come out of her, my people!

Kings have committed immorality with her; merchants have been enriched by her.

Kings, merchants and mariners lament for what they have lost.

A mighty angel throws a millstone into the sea as symbolic of Babylon’s downfall.

In the city there is no more music or light, no sounds of industry, no voices of bride and bridegroom.

The angel delivers the final indictment: ‘In her was found the blood of prophets and of saints, and of all who have been slain on earth.’

D. Praise for God’s true and righteous judgements (19:1–10)

Praise is uttered by:

a great multitude in heaven: salvation, glory, power are God’s, for he has judged the prostitute and avenged his servants;

the twenty-four elders;

a voice from the throne;

the voice of a great multitude: God reigns! Rejoice! Give him the glory.

The marriage supper of the Lamb has begun. His wife has made herself ready.

It was granted to the bride that she should clothe herself in fine linen – the righteous acts of the saints.

Blessed are those invited to the marriage.

23

The nature of God’s glory and his wrath

Part 5 of Revelation begins with the familiar pattern of ideas. Something is opened in heaven – this time the sanctuary of the tent of witness (or testimony), that is, the tabernacle (see Exod. 38:21). However, whereas in earlier parts attention is then drawn to a particular piece of tabernacle/temple furniture, this time it is the magnificent spectacle of the radiant glory of God filling the heavenly Temple. The action commences:

After this I looked, and the sanctuary of the tent of witness in heaven was opened, and out of the sanctuary came the seven angels with the seven plagues, clothed in pure, bright linen, with golden sashes round their chests. And one of the four living creatures gave to the seven angels seven golden bowls full of the wrath of God who lives for ever and ever, and the sanctuary was filled with smoke from the glory of God and from his power, and no one could enter the sanctuary until the seven plagues of the seven angels were finished.

Then I heard a loud voice from the temple telling the seven angels, ‘Go and pour out on the earth the seven bowls of the wrath of God.’

(15:5 – 16:1)

The contrast could hardly be greater – the wrath and glory of God brought together in close proximity. Deliberately so. For many people think that wrath, judgement and retribution are ugly things completely inconsistent with the life, love, grace and goodness that they instinctively associate with God. They may point for evidence to the fact that wrath and anger in humans tend to distort their appearance and make them look ugly. Not so with God. God’s wrath, as we saw earlier, is his righteous response to evil and as such it is nothing short of glorious – a longed-for final dealing with all the sin and evil that are the real causes of ugliness. God’s wrath is not a negation of life. It is described as the wrath of God ‘who lives for ever and ever’ (15:7). This is the living God who therefore must implacably judge all that destroys life. That is underlined by the fact that the bowls are given to the angels by one of the ‘living creatures’. The smoke indicates God’s august presence to judge – as at Sinai.

This part of Revelation deals with the outpouring of God’s wrath on the kingdom and throne of the monster followed by the judgement of Babylon the great, whereas the previous part deals with the ugly, horrific anger and wrath of the monster and only briefly mentions Babylon.

First, John sees the glory and beauty of God, which will later be contrasted with the magnificently dressed and bejewelled woman ‘Babylon the great’ (17:5), whose beauty is perverted; she is the mother of prostitutes.

The heavenly scene recalls the dedication of the tabernacle in the desert: ‘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 settled on it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle’ (Exod. 40:34–5).

The same thing happened at the dedication of the Temple in Jerusalem:

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.

(1 Kgs 8:10–11)

Of Ezekiel’s temple, which he saw in a vision, we read: ‘And the glory of the Lord went up from the cherub to the threshold of the house, and the house was filled with the cloud, and the court was filled with the brightness of the glory of the Lord’ (Ezek. 10:4).

That leads us to the question: what is glory? C. S. Lewis’s initial scepticism about Christianity is justifiably famous. In his sermon ‘The Weight of Glory’ he stated:

Glory suggests two ideas to me, of which one seems wicked and the other ridiculous. Either glory means to me fame, or it means luminosity. As for the first, since to be famous means to be better known than other people, the desire for fame appears to me as a competitive passion and therefore of hell rather than heaven. As for the second, who wishes to become a kind of living electric light bulb?1

One way of understanding glory is to ponder the ways in which we and Scripture use the word. Everyone understands when we speak of a glorious day, a glorious sunset, or a glorious land or seascape. In each of these examples, glory involves a visual experience characterised by various qualities of light. In Scripture, the glory of the Lord is likened to fire: ‘Now the appearance of the glory of the Lord was like a devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the sight of the people of Israel’ (Exod. 24:17). It is associated with brightness and purity in the visions of the transfigured Christ in the Gospels (Luke 9:30–1) and John’s vision of him as the Son of Man in Revelation 1, with his face shining like the sun – so bright, therefore, that no human could look at it directly. Lewis’s ‘living electric light bulb’ is a caricature of the ugly side of human nature, whereas the Lord revealed as the Source of Light itself is something very different.

God’s glory has many facets. It is reflected in the starry night sky:

The heavens declare the glory of God,

and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.

(Ps. 19:1)

It is associated with beauty and holiness. The Lord told Moses: ‘And you shall make holy garments for Aaron your brother, for glory and for beauty’ (Exod. 28:2). Glory is seen in flowers, such as lilies, as Jesus said: ‘Consider the lilies of the field . . . I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these’ (Matt. 6:28–9).

It is important to see that God is not against beauty: he invented it. He painted the myriad colours we see in nature. It is sin that turns the world grey and makes life drab, not God. And God’s glory is attractive; it is meant to be. According to Stephen, speaking before the Jewish council as recorded in the book of Acts, it was seeing God’s glory that got Abraham started on his journey: ‘Brothers and fathers, hear me. The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran’ (Acts 7:2). Also, it was seeing his glory that attracted the disciples to believe in Jesus: ‘This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory. And his disciples believed in him’ (John 2:11). The gospel is a gospel of glory: ‘In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God’ (2 Cor. 4:4).

Glory is also given to believers, as indicated in Jesus’ prayer to his Father: ‘The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one’ (John 17:22). We are to reflect his glory: ‘And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another’ (2 Cor. 3:18). Finally, it is for glory that believers are ultimately destined: ‘Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God’ (Rom. 5:2).

Lewis came to appreciate the reality of that glory: ‘When human souls have become as perfect in voluntary obedience as the inanimate creation is in its lifeless obedience, then they will put on its glory, or rather that greater glory of which Nature is only the first sketch.’2 He discovered that the pinnacle of glory was to bring joy and satisfaction to God himself:

To please God . . . to be a real ingredient in the divine happiness . . . to be loved by God, not merely pitied, but delighted in as an artist delights in his work or a father in a son – it seems impossible, a weight or burden of glory which our thoughts can hardly sustain. But so it is.3

Revelation describes how out of the glory of the heavenly Temple come seven angels who are beautifully, indeed gloriously dressed in brilliant white with golden sashes like the glorified Son of Man in chapter 1. This is a total contrast with the bowls full of the wrath of God that they carry, which might have led us to expect they would be dressed in funereal black. Not so, for this deliberate contrast forces us once again to ask: how do glory and wrath square up? C. S. Lewis would encourage us to face this kind of puzzle and not let it put us off for by facing it we may learn something we need to know that has hitherto been concealed from us.4 Might it therefore be that the message here is that the wrath of God is a glorious thing, part of his glorious, holy character that stands out against all that demeans, all that is untrue and insincere, grubby and immoral?

24

The bowls of God’s wrath

1Ugly sores appear on people who have the mark of the beast/monster.

2The sea is turned to blood: marine life dies.

3Rivers and springs are turned to blood.

4The sun scorches earth’s inhabitants. People curse God; there is no repentance.

5The throne and kingdom of the monster are plunged into darkness. People curse God; there is no repentance.

6The River Euphrates dries up. The kings of earth are deceived by demons into assembling at Armageddon for war on the great day of Almighty God.

7A great voice comes from the throne: It is done. A great earthquake occurs. The great city is divided. The cities of the nations fall. Babylon the great drinks the cup of God’s wrath. Islands and mountains flee. A great hail leads to people cursing God.

Then I heard a loud voice from the temple telling the seven angels, ‘Go and pour out on the earth the seven bowls of the wrath of God.’

So the first angel went and poured out his bowl on the earth, and harmful and painful sores came upon the people who bore the mark of the beast and worshipped its image . . .

And I heard the angel in charge of the waters say,

‘Just are you, O Holy One, who is and who was,

for you brought these judgements.

For they have shed the blood of saints and prophets,

and you have given them blood to drink.

It is what they deserve!’

And I heard the altar saying,

‘Yes, Lord God the Almighty,

true and just are your judgements!’

(16:1–2, 5–7)

Some of the plagues delivered by the seven angels in this part of Revelation clearly reprise both the plagues on Egypt and Pharaoh in the OT and the trumpet judgements, but on a much more extensive scale. And they are not symbolic plagues, whatever that might mean. They come across as literal as the plagues in Egypt. They are physical and visceral. Also, whereas the trumpets were the final warnings of wrath to come, these bowls are the intense final outpourings of that wrath.

The first bowl of wrath is poured onto the earth, presumably the entire earth as distinct from a particular region. It is directed to all who took the mark of the monster and worshipped his image; their bodies are now marked with the blotches of ugly and painful ulcerous sores in a clear example of the principle of the punishment fitting the crime – the so-called lex talionis, ‘an eye for an eye’ (see Exod. 21:23–5). It recalls the sixth plague on Egypt where dust became boils breaking out on man and beast, except that here it is global.

The second angel poured out his bowl into the sea, and it became like the blood of a corpse, and every living thing died that was in the sea.

The third angel poured out his bowl into the rivers and the springs of water, and they became blood.

(16:3–4)

The contents of the second and third bowls turn all the seas and fresh water into blood, reminiscent of the first plague that Moses brought on the River Nile and of the second trumpet, but this, by contrast, is global in extent, whereas the second trumpet had been partial and only affected one-third of the earth. This time, all marine life perishes. And this time the angel in charge of the waters comments that the punishment also fits the crime:

‘Just are you, O Holy One, who is and who was,

for you brought these judgments.

For they have shed the blood of saints and prophets,

and you have given them blood to drink.

It is what they deserve!’

(16:5–6)

God’s judgement is holy and righteous. These murderous people rejoiced as they shed the blood of believers and the two witnesses. It is fitting (lex talionis again) that they should be given nothing but blood to drink. Isaiah said as much:

I will make your oppressors eat their own flesh,

and they shall be drunk with their own blood as with wine.

Then all flesh shall know

that I am the Lord your Saviour,

and your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.

(Isa. 49:26)

The altar of incense (before the throne) responds:

‘Yes, Lord God the Almighty,

true and just are your judgements!’

(16:7)

It is noteworthy that the first time we read of golden bowls, they were filled with the prayers of the saints (5:8). Now, golden bowls are being used to pour out the judgements that form the long-awaited and true and righteous answer to the saints’ prayers.

The fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun, and it was allowed to scorch people with fire. They were scorched by the fierce heat, and they cursed the name of God who had power over these plagues. They did not repent and give him glory.

(16:8–9)

The fourth bowl recalls the first trumpet and adds to human discomfort by intensifying the heat of the sun so that people are scorched by its fierceness over the whole earth and not just in one-third.

And now comes the awful reaction. Instead of repenting of their evil and calling on God for mercy, human beings defy and curse him and do not give him glory even though they recognise exactly who he is – the God of heaven who has the supernatural power behind the plagues. They still espouse the fierce hostility to God of the monster whose mark they bear, and they harden their hearts like Pharaoh. God will never have their loyalty.

The fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast, and its kingdom was plunged into darkness. People gnawed their tongues in anguish and cursed the God of heaven for their pain and sores. They did not repent of their deeds.

(16:10–11)

The ninth plague plunged Egypt into pitch darkness for three days. Similarly, the fourth trumpet had brought darkness on a third of the earth, and the sixth seal had affected the light of the sun, moon and stars. Now, total darkness falls from the fifth bowl onto the throne and the entire global kingdom of the monster. It is a kingdom of dark satanic powers whose citizens prefer darkness to light. God once again fits the punishment to the crime by enshrouding their moral darkness in physical darkness. And beyond all sadness, in a dark world with its poisoned waters, these blinded citizens remain loyal to the monster and continue to curse the God of heaven because of the pain of their intolerable sores from the earlier plagues. Darkness is often associated with the judgement of God in Scripture. It fell from noon until three in the afternoon when Jesus bore our sins on the cross. And if people reject what Jesus did for them in that darkness, they will have to face the endless darkness of God’s judgement on their own.

The response to these two plagues faces us with the awesome fact that there would appear to be a point of no return. When people have defied God, blasphemed his name and rejected his eternal gospel with its call to repentance, then God allows them to have their own way, and they have to face the full strength of his wrath. If men and women reject the blazing light of the glory of God, there is nothing left but appalling outer darkness.

When reading these words, I find myself shying away from imagining what all of this will actually be like. It seems so unreal. And yet, as I keep reminding myself, the biblical diagnosis of the human condition is not that a few excessively evil reprobates deserve the wrath of God, but that all of us have sinned and fall short of his glory. We therefore need, as Paul put it, to be saved from ‘the wrath to come’ (1 Thess. 1:10). In fact, salvation, as we saw much earlier, is necessary precisely because ‘the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness’ (Rom. 1:18).

There is no room here for Schadenfreude. As we watch the bowls being emptied one after another, we must remind ourselves that ‘there, but for the grace of God, go we’.1 It is hard to let that sink in. And if it did, it might just lead us to take sin and evil more seriously, and it would lend considerable urgency to our commitment to spreading the gospel message outside our comfort zone. Could it be that the increasing intensity of the judgements that we have noticed – for example from affecting one-third of the earth to affecting the whole earth – is to give people additional time to repent while at the same time giving them a foretaste of what will befall them if they do not repent? Writing about the return of Christ, Peter says: ‘The Lord is not slow to fulfil his promise as some count slowness, but is patient towards you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance’ (2 Pet. 3:9). As we read these grim texts about the wrath of God, we also need to remember that God does not want people to perish; he is no vindictive despot like the monster.

John’s descriptions of the sixth and seventh plagues are more extensive. They form an introduction to events that will be described in much greater detail in subsequent passages:

The sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates, and its water was dried up, to prepare the way for the kings from the east. And I saw, coming out of the mouth of the dragon and out of the mouth of the beast and out of the mouth of the false prophet, three unclean spirits like frogs. For they are demonic spirits, performing signs, who go abroad to the kings of the whole world, to assemble them for battle on the great day of God the Almighty. (‘Behold, I am coming like a thief! Blessed is the one who stays awake, keeping his garments on, that he may not go about naked and be seen exposed!’) And they assembled them at the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon.

(16:12–16)

We have already met a vast army apparently originating at the River Euphrates under the sixth trumpet. Here, the outpouring of the sixth bowl has the effect of drying up the Euphrates2 to facilitate the passage of kings from the east.

Hitherto, the bowl judgements have been direct supernatural interventions in the earth and the heavens. This sixth bowl introduces a new principle – that part of God’s judgement will be that he allows the nations to be deceived by a lie that they nevertheless choose to believe (see 2 Thess. 2:9–12) – somewhat like the situation in 1 Kings where God uses a lying spirit to entice Ahab to go into battle to meet his death (1 Kgs 22:19–23).

John now relates what will happen in the future before Christ returns unexpectedly like a thief. He sees three unclean, repulsive demonic spirits that look like frogs proceeding from the mouths of what is often called the ‘unholy trinity’ of the dragon and the two monsters. These demons, with their apparently supernatural powers, proceed to assemble a vast army, presumably to add to those from the east just mentioned, that is drawn from the whole inhabited world and gathers at Megiddo in Israel (‘Armageddon’ is the Greek version of the Hebrew place-name Har Megiddo, meaning ‘the mountain or hill of Megiddo’). It was a fortification built by King Ahab, and nowadays is a tel rather than a hill – that is, a mound created by generations of erecting buildings on the layered ruins of previous buildings. It is located near Mount Carmel on the south side of the Valley of Jezreel and was sometimes called ‘the crossroads of the Middle East’ because it lay on a major trade route from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan Valley and regions beyond. For that reason, it has been the scene of a number of battles. It was where Jehu killed King Ahaziah (2 Kgs 9:27) and Pharaoh Neco killed King Josiah (2 Chron. 35:22).

Perhaps most interestingly of all, Zechariah writes about an eschatological battle involving an international coalition against Jerusalem:

Thus declares the Lord . . . ‘On that day I will make Jerusalem a heavy stone for all the peoples. All who lift it will surely hurt themselves. And all the nations of the earth will gather against it . . .

‘And on that day I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem.

‘And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy, so that, when they look on me, 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 firstborn. On that day the mourning in Jerusalem will be as great as the mourning for Hadad-rimmon in the plain of Megiddo.

(Zech. 12:1, 3, 9–11)

What is intriguing here is that there is a comparison made between what will happen around Jerusalem in the future and what has happened in the past at Megiddo. That means that the final great battle, waged by a coalition of all the nations of the earth coming against Israel on the Day of the Lord, may not literally occur in Megiddo but will resemble wars that have been fought there over the centuries – this time with apocalyptic proportions. Note that the text does not say that the nations will do battle at Armageddon, only that they will assemble there.

Once more, what that battle is turns out to be more important than precise identification of who is involved or where it will take place. In fact, the word ‘Armageddon’, which only occurs here in the Greek NT, has passed into our vocabulary as a generic term to describe any catastrophic war or battle. It is often used in connection with the Doomsday Clock, which is set each year to mark how near we are to humanity destroying itself; our closeness in time to ‘midnight’, the moment of destruction, is decided by a panel of expert scientists. The clock was set at 7 minutes to midnight in 1945 after the nuclear bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan and has gone backwards ever since, being at its maximum time from midnight, 19 minutes, in 1991 and at its minimum in 2023 – 90 seconds. It is a serious, not a frivolous calculation – and it is made, of course, without any reference to God and coming judgement.

What humans may and probably will do to themselves is one thing, but the great day of wrath of God the Almighty is entirely another and is foretold in many parts of Scripture, where it is termed ‘the Day of the Lord’. It is mentioned in connection with the sixth seal, when everyone from kings down to the humblest of citizens is so terrified that they call on the rocks to hide them from God’s face.

Ezekiel predicted a similar coalition of many nations ranged against Israel:

The word of the Lord came to me . . .

‘Therefore, son of man, prophesy, and say to Gog, Thus says the Lord God: On that day when my people Israel are dwelling securely, will you not know it? You will come from your place out of the uttermost parts of the north, you and many peoples with you, all of them riding on horses, a great host, a mighty army. You will come up against my people Israel, like a cloud covering the land. In the latter days I will bring you against my land, that the nations may know me, when through you, O Gog, I vindicate my holiness before their eyes . . .

‘Therefore, son of man, prophesy, and say to Gog, Thus says the Lord God: On that day when my people Israel are dwelling securely, will you not know it? You will come from your place out of the uttermost parts of the north, you and many peoples with you, all of them riding on horses, a great host, a mighty army. You will come up against my people Israel, like a cloud covering the land. In the latter days I will bring you against my land, that the nations may know me, when through you, O Gog, I vindicate my holiness before their eyes . . .

‘But on that day, the day that Gog shall come against the land of Israel, declares the Lord God, my wrath will be roused in my anger. For in my jealousy and in my blazing wrath I declare, On that day there shall be a great earthquake in the land of Israel . . .

‘You shall fall on the mountains of Israel, you and all your hordes and the peoples who are with you. I will give you to birds of prey of every sort and to the beasts of the field to be devoured. You shall fall in the open field, for I have spoken, declares the Lord God. I will send fire on Magog and on those who dwell securely in the coastlands, and they shall know that I am the Lord.’

(Ezek. 38:1, 14–16, 18–19; 39:4–6)

Joel also prophesied that a group of nations will come against Israel in the Day of the Lord. They ride on what has the ‘appearance of horses’ (Joel 2:4), recalling the strange war-machines seen under the sixth trumpet.

The global provenance of these armies should make us hesitate in attempting to identify precisely who they are. Geopolitics is very complicated, and the future is likely to be even more complicated than the past. It is enough, at least at this stage, to know what they are: forces of evil coming against God and his returning Messiah to fight for the loyalty of the human heart. I say this because there has been intense speculation about the biblical Armageddon scenario with many books written attempting to match the biblical text with geopolitical developments in the Middle East. Unfortunately, dogmatism in this area tends to be in inverse proportion to the amount of information on which it is based. Hence, when things don’t turn out in line with such confident predictions, their authors are discredited and, worse still, prophetic Scripture itself comes into disrepute.

Not only that, but the naive notion sometimes appears that the nation of Israel, as the chosen people of God, can do no wrong. It is important to correct this notion. On one occasion during a student Bible study in my home, one of the participants made a remark in support of this view. He did not know that there was a Palestinian believer in the group, and this person responded by quietly describing the effect of seeing the bombing of his village by Israeli forces, with children screaming as they fled. There was dead silence, the tension palpable. I then read from the OT the following statement by the patriarch Jacob, a man who also bore the name Israel: ‘Then Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, “You have brought trouble on me by making me stink to the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites and the Perizzites”’ (Gen. 34:30). My Palestinian guest blurted out: ‘Is that in the Bible? This is the first time that I have been told that the Bible said anything negative about Israel.’

I then pointed out that the Hebrew prophets constantly remonstrated with Israel for doing wrong – a situation that became so toxic that both Israel and Judah were exiled because of it. It is therefore nothing short of miraculous that the Jews got their homeland returned to them in 1948 and have maintained it until today, in spite of endless threats from surrounding nations – perhaps a first step in the eventual restoration. However, that fact, plus the promise that Jewish Messianic believers have a special role in God’s future economy, does not mean that God approves of everything that Israel, or indeed any other nation, does. He does not, but we must never entertain any hint of anti-Semitism because of it. We must always remember that there are believers, wonderful believers, in all nations, among them many from Israel, Palestine and the Arab countries. We must honour and pray for all of them as our brothers and sisters for whom Christ died and for whom he will return.

We should also note the current (2024) venom against Israel on the part of many countries in the United Nations because of continuing Israeli reprisals against Gaza, which were precipitated by the massacre and kidnapping of Israelis in October 2023 by the Palestinian Sunni Islamist organisation Hamas. It is not hard to envisage a future large-scale massing of nations against Israel, although it may be for different reasons. However, we need to be careful about speculations in this area, particularly those that forget that there are many Israeli, Palestinian and Arab Christians who love the Lord Jesus just as much as we do and maybe even more courageously.

However, some of the main contours of the end-time battle seem reasonably clear from the OT prophecies cited above, which clearly form the background to John’s writing. We need always to bear in mind that many of these prophecies refer to war against Israel that is imminent and/or that is in the distant future. Regarding the latter, a reasonable consensus would seem to be that the forces of the monster will mass against Israel, its Messiah, and God himself. As we shall see in more detail in Revelation 19, these forces will be defeated when Christ comes in power and glory to take over the government and bring about God’s will on earth as it is in heaven. However, we would be wise to avoid speculation about the details of this final conflict, especially through attempting to map the current situation in the world in general and the Middle East in particular. We should be aware that past attempts to do so have usually left their proponents red-faced and discredited. If we are not given the precise outworkings of the prophecies in Revelation, it probably means that we do not need to know them, at least until the time of their fulfilment. Revelation tells us what God wants us to know, not what we want to know.

Returning to our consideration of the sixth bowl, Christ himself announces that he will come like a thief (16:15). This parenthetic statement is added as a wake-up call to remind us that his coming is the event towards which we are moving. It is also an admonition to all of us to keep our garments on in the sense of behaving morally and righteously, since we don’t know when he will return and call us to account. A blessing is pronounced on those who do this. The metaphor of clothing resonates with the holiness and beauty of God’s character as reflected in the beautiful clothing of the angels with the bowls. It reminds us of the transformative effect that the hope of the Lord’s return should have on our lives (1 John 3:2–3).

The seventh angel poured out his bowl into the air, and a loud voice came out of the temple, from the throne, saying, ‘It is done!’ And there were flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder, and a great earthquake such as there had never been since man was on the earth, so great was that earthquake. The great city was split into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell, and God remembered Babylon the great, to make her drain the cup of the wine of the fury of his wrath. And every island fled away, and no mountains were to be found. And great hailstones, about one hundred pounds each, fell from heaven on people; and they cursed God for the plague of the hail, because the plague was so severe.

(16:17–21)

In the first two series of judgements, the seals and the trumpets, there was a gap between the sixth and seventh. In this sequence there is no gap. A voice from the throne announces: ‘It is done!’ (16:17) – a reference, presumably, to the completion of the outpouring of God’s wrath with the final bowl. It results in a worldwide set of effects, some of which are in the earth’s atmosphere on which the bowl was targeted: lightning, rumblings and thunder, and hail of unprecedented severity falling as a plague reminiscent of the uniquely powerful hailstorm that fell on Egypt as its seventh plague. However, the major feature is the worst earthquake there has ever been. We met earthquakes earlier, but this is yet another intensification as we move towards the consummation of this earth’s history. The devastation caused by this earthquake is immense. The ‘great city’ (16:19) is split into three parts, and other cities of the nations fall when the earth is profoundly shaken. We met the term ‘the great city’ in 11:8 where it unequivocally refers to Jerusalem. This is backed up by Ezekiel’s prediction of a great earthquake that will occur as God’s reaction to a threat to Jerusalem by an international coalition of armed forces (Ezek. 38:18ff.). It is also backed up by the fact that the text contrasts the ‘great city’ with the ‘cities of the nations’ – that is, Gentile cities.

Next, another city is mentioned, Babylon, also a ‘great’ city, but not the one that has been split into parts. In the following chapters these two cities, Jerusalem and Babylon, will be contrasted with each other by means of several different metaphors. The main issue will be, particularly, but not only, what Babylon stands for or represents, rather than where it is geographically located. The emphasis is on Babylon being remembered in the judicial sense, that is, punished for her sins. The first mention of Babylon in 14:8 informs us that she made the nations drink the wine of the passion of her sexual immorality. Now, she is forced to drink the undiluted wine of God’s wrath – another example of lex talionis, where the punishment fits the crime.

The great earthquake that shakes the planet is described here in hyperbolic terms for emphasis: ‘every island fled away, and no mountains were to be found’ (16:20). If that were literally true, life would no longer be possible, which is clearly not the case, as the narrative doesn’t end there and there still appear to be human beings around to respond to all of this. For when the colossal hailstones pelted the earth once again, we read the tragic words that, far from repenting, the people once again cursed God, as they had done in response to the fourth and fifth bowls.

John is now given detailed information about Babylon and told why she must be judged . . .

25

Who is Babylon and why must she be judged?

ABabylon sits by many waters and on seven mountains.

BShe is expensively dressed in purple and scarlet, with gold, jewels and pearls.

CShe holds a golden cup of wine, full of unclean things.

DAn angel explains the mystery of the woman and the monster that carries her. He tells of a succession of empires: five are fallen; one is; one is yet to come. Then an eighth arises that belongs to the seven. Overcome by the Lamb, it goes to destruction.

EBabylon is drunk with the blood of saints and martyrs. She is destroyed by the monster and ten kings.

Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and said to me, ‘Come, I will show you the judgement of the great prostitute who is seated on many waters, with whom the kings of the earth have committed sexual immorality, and with the wine of whose sexual immorality the dwellers on earth have become drunk.’ And he carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness . . .

(17:1–3a)

Up to now, Babylon has had but two brief mentions. Now, one of the angels who had charge of the bowls of God’s wrath presents her as a great prostitute who is about to be judged. He proceeds with a detailed description and explanation of what she represents. Explanation of this kind is unusual in Revelation (e.g. 7:4). Yet two full chapters are now devoted entirely to her, indicating how important she is to the message of the book. Later, the same angel (or one similar from the ranks of those who carried the bowls) will give us a description of another woman – this time the bride of the Lamb, who is also seen under the metaphor of a city, the new Jerusalem. The main message is the contrast between these women and human relationships with them. A prostitute, by her very nature, is not faithful to one man, whereas the bride of the Lamb is faithful to her husband.

In this rather bizarre vision, Babylon is ‘seated on many waters’ (17:1), a description that, to a certain extent, fits the ancient city of Babylon, situated as it was on the River Euphrates with its many canals and tributaries. However, 17:15 will interpret these waters as ‘peoples and multitudes and nations and languages’. There may therefore also be a veiled reference to involvement in international trade and commerce, which is a prominent feature in chapter 18. The city is presented as a very high-class prostitute – of the sort that, since time immemorial, has been sought after at the very top end of society. The choice of imagery reflects OT usage. For example, Isaiah prophecies of Tyre: ‘At the end of seventy years, the Lord will visit Tyre, and she will return to her wages and will prostitute herself with all the kingdoms of the world on the face of the earth’ (Isa. 23:17).

Nahum says of Nineveh:

And all for the countless whorings of the prostitute,

graceful and of deadly charms,

who betrays nations with her whorings,

and peoples with her charms.

(Nah. 3:4)

Babylon is depicted here as consorting immorally with kings and world leaders, a fact emphasised twice more in 18:3 and 9. Her influence extends far and wide: ‘with the wine of [her] sexual immorality the dwellers on earth have become drunk’ (17:2). We have already picked up that she (at least) symbolises religion (of any kind) that is unfaithful to God. However, we should not ignore the physical nor the commercial aspect of her behaviour, especially in the light of chapter 18.

The Greek word for ‘prostitute’ is pornē, from which we get ‘porn’ and ‘pornography’, a veritable flood of which – available everywhere at the click of a mouse – is engulfing our world. It destroys the innocence of our children, poisoning their minds with perverted and debased images of sexuality that inhibit the making of genuine relationships and the enjoyment of one of God’s beautiful gifts. Since the advent of the internet, porn use has rocketed. Pornhub, the largest free porn site, received over 33.5 billion visits during 2018 alone.

The damage done by this flood of pornography is incalculable. Neuroscience is now revealing that it has catastrophic effects on mental health. It also has the effect of rewiring the neural networks of the brain, resulting in sexual dysfunction:

The properties of video porn make it a particularly powerful trigger for plasticity, the brain’s ability to change and adapt as a result of experience. Combined with the accessibility and anonymity of online porn consumption, we are more vulnerable than ever to its hyper-stimulating effects . . . Porn use has been correlated with erosion of the prefrontal cortex – the region of the brain that houses executive functions like morality, willpower and impulse control.1

This means that users find it less and less stimulating and so demand more and more extreme satisfaction, which makes natural relationships increasingly problematic and may lead to depression and poor mental health. It can also lead to sexual violence, particularly online.

The statistics are horrifying. Every day, 2.5 billion emails containing porn are sent or received, 68 million search queries are related to pornography – which means a staggering 25% of all internet searches, and there are 116,000 queries related to child pornography. No doubt this trend will be exploited to the full by the monster.

The woman sitting on the monster

And he carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness, and I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was full of blasphemous names, and it had seven heads and ten horns. The woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and jewels and pearls, holding in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the impurities of her sexual immorality. And on her forehead was written a name of mystery: ‘Babylon the great, mother of prostitutes and of earth’s abominations.’ And I saw the woman, drunk with the blood of the saints, the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. When I saw her, I marvelled greatly.

(17:3–6)

John was amazed to see the woman seated on a horrific, scarlet-covered monster, which is readily identifiable by its seven heads and ten horns (see 13.1) as the monster that is running the planet in brutal and blasphemous opposition to God. The symbolism of a rider on an animal indicates that the woman is in control of (or trying to control) the monster. It functions as a powerful image of an unholy mix of idolatrous religion, sex and power politics in a satanic alliance that will disintegrate shortly as the monster turns to devour the woman.

The woman was very expensively dressed. The purple dye used for her garments was made from murex rock-snails. In Roman times, only wealthy A-listers were permitted to wear it. Scarlet was likewise an expensive colour that only the elite could afford. She was also adorned with gold, jewels and pearls and doubtless looked stunning, a magnificent example of female beauty. Nevertheless, she was fatally flawed. She was holding a golden cup, which from the outside looked magnificent and suited to her high status, but it was filled with disgusting abominations and sexual impurities. That cup of doom was all she had to offer to her regal consorts (and the world at large), who, setting aside all propriety and morality, drank it until they were intoxicated to a state of madness (see Jer. 51:7).

The imagery is rooted in the OT. For instance, Ezekiel says of Jerusalem:

But you trusted in your beauty and played the whore because of your renown and lavished your whorings on any passer-by; your beauty became his. You took some of your garments and made for yourself colourful shrines, and on them played the whore. The like has never been, nor ever shall be. You also took your beautiful jewels of my gold and of my silver, which I had given you, and made for yourself images of men, and with them played the whore.

(Ezek. 16:15–17)

This was a devastating indictment of the city that was meant to stand as a faithful witness to the one true God in contrast to Babylon’s idolatry. Yet such was the seductive power of Babylon’s beauty that Jerusalem, the city of the great King, had been captivated by it and prostituted herself.

The woman bore a name written on her forehead: ‘Mystery, Babylon the great, mother of prostitutes and of earth’s abominations’ (see 17:5). There is some dispute as to whether the word ‘mystery’ is part of the name. The esv translates the start of the verse as: ‘And on her forehead was written a name of mystery’, meaning not so much that it is a puzzle to be solved but rather that it will take insight and discernment to recognise the reality that it symbolises. In other words, her identity, who she is, may not be as obvious, or as important, as her nature – what she stands for.

As to the first question, the who issue, three main proposals have been made. The first is that the imagery refers to the literal city of Babylon in Iraq, which will rise to world domination in the end times. This view was popularised between 1995 and 2007 in a series of sixteen best-selling novels (60 million sold) and films about the end times written by Jerry B. Jenkins and Tim LaHaye, entitled Left Behind.2 These books are based on the conviction that, before the great tribulation and subsequent return of Christ in power and glory, he will come secretly to remove, or rapture, the Church from the earth so that it will not be present during the tribulation period. As stated earlier, we consider this view in appendix 2.

More recently, in 2022, the suggestion that Babylon would be rebuilt on the ancient 1,100-hectare site, 50 miles (80km) south of Baghdad, was the subject of an article by Joel Rosenberg in the Jerusalem Post with the title ‘Is Babylon Once Again Rising from the Ashes?’3 Some work has gone into restoring parts of the city. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Saddam Hussein ordered his archaeologists and engineers to begin work on rebuilding. That enterprise ceased during the subsequent Iraq–Iran war. It has, however, been revived. On 18 April 2006, a front-page story in the New York Times said:

Babylon, the mud-brick city with the million-dollar name, has paid the price of war. It has been ransacked, looted, torn up, paved over, neglected and roughly occupied . . . But Iraqi leaders and United Nations officials are not giving up on it. They are working assiduously to restore Babylon, home to one of the Seven Wonders of the World, and turn it into a cultural centre and possibly even an Iraqi theme park.4

This ancient location was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2019, based on two criteria for such recognition. One states that a potential candidate must ‘bear a unique or at least exceptional testimony to a cultural tradition or to a civilization which is living or which has disappeared’. The other requires that it must ‘be directly or tangibly associated with events or living traditions, with ideas, or with beliefs, with artistic and literary works of outstanding universal significance’.5 According to May Shaer, a consultant for UNESCO, the latter criterion was satisfied because ‘Babylon is directly associated with stories, parables and events in world culture – from the seven wonders of the world – the Hanging Gardens – mentioned in three Abrahamic faiths to its links to Hammurabi and Nebuchadnezzar’.6

Critics point out, however, that the city was of little significance in the first century ad and that a literal city located at the ancient site does not fit comfortably into the description of Babylon as a maritime power in 18:9ff. However, who knows what the future will bring on this issue? After all, one can imagine that, after the siege of Jerusalem by Titus in ad 70, many thought that was the end of it as a viable city. How wrong they would have been!

A second proposal is that the vision of the woman refers to the actual city of Jerusalem. However, as we saw, in 16:19, Jerusalem is set in apposition to Gentile cities and Babylon.

A third proposal is that the emphasis in Scripture is not so much on seeing Babylon as a geographical location – although that may be an aspect of it. Rather, Babylon serves as a powerful multivalent symbol that represents the religious element in the end-time world government of the monster, though it may also be applied to any empire throughout history that shares its main biblical characteristics: unfaithfulness to God in terms of idolatrous religion, seductive and immoral behaviour, luxurious living, and powerful political and commercial influence.

Accordingly, the people of John’s time rightly saw Babylon as representing Rome; naming it explicitly would have been unwise for security reasons. Yet it would be a mistake to rob the imagery of its plasticity by restricting it either only to Rome or only to the end-time empire. Similarly, it would be rather naive to see it as only depicting palpably evil nations such as Hitler’s Germany, Stalin’s Russia and Mao’s China, as if other nations were guiltless of the sins of immoral powerbroking, exploitation, idolatry, persecution of believers, and much else. Jerusalem was also, at times, guilty of such sins.

Also, what about us as individuals? Are we immune to Babylon’s seductive power as we sit alone with our computers, tablets and smartphones, or wander the cities of this world? Do we never feel public pressure to compromise our commitment to Christ as the unique way to God? Babylon with her golden cup is everywhere, tempting us to drink up with the crowd, anaesthetise our conscience and forget about Jesus’ claim to our allegiance. After all, no sensible person really believes this stuff any more, do they? But they do believe any and every kind of other stuff. As eminent Indian-born economist Deepak Lal told author Douglas Murray: ‘Everyone thinks that after the age of Christianity we are going to enter an age of atheism, whereas it is perfectly clear that we are going to enter an age of polytheism. Everyone has their own gods now.’7 And some of those gods are being thoughtlessly recycled from the past. Murray, in his excellent book War on the West, goes on to illustrate this by recording that in 2021 the State Board of Education in California approved a model ethnic curriculum that included prayers to Aztec gods to provide ‘strength that allows us to transform and renew’. The pupils were not told that some of those gods were originally worshipped by means of horrific human sacrifices and acts of cannibalism that make ancient Babylon seem positively genteel.8

Nor should we forget that the actual city of Babylon was the capital of a highly advanced civilisation that has left its mark on history, as a visit to the British Museum in London will reveal. The whole world bears traces of its influence in the fact that we divide the hour into 60 minutes, the minute into 60 seconds and the circle into 360 degrees! It was a spectacular city, in fact the largest city in the world at the time, covering over 1,000 hectares. Dominating the city skyline was a spectacular tower or ziggurat (from the Akkadian zaqqaru = to rise high) called Etemenanki. This Sumerian name means ‘The House of the Foundations of Heaven and Earth’, which reminds us immediately of Babel, the original city that stood on the same site, famous for an earlier attempt to construct a tower that reached heaven (Gen. 11:4).

Of course, by the time of Babylon’s heyday, that ancient tower had long since crumbled to dust and been replaced with something much more impressive that had taken a hundred years to build. The ziggurat’s seven lofty storeys towered nearly 350 feet (100 m) above street-level, and it was probably the nearest the ancient world got to a skyscraper. On the top were several rooms dedicated to the chief deities of the Babylonians: Marduk, the chief god, shared his room with his wife Sarpanitum; the scribe-god Nabû and his wife Tashmetu were in a second room; in yet further rooms, the water god Ea, the god of light Nusku and the god of heaven Anu were to be found. Finally, there was a place for Marduk’s predecessor, the Sumerian god Enlil (Lord of the Air).

The city was far more than a religious centre. It was a thriving commercial, cultural and intellectual hub. Many of its temples had substantial libraries, and there were centres devoted to the study of law, mathematics, astronomy and astrology, architecture, engineering, medicine and art – all of which were developed to an impressive degree. It was in modern terms a technologically advanced, thriving university city as well as a centre for commerce, religion and politics, all three of which were inextricably connected. It was dominated by what amounted to a materialistic world view, which lay at the heart of religions that deified the forces of nature and were represented by the pagan statues that littered the streets and squares – as they subsequently did in the Roman Empire. And that world view, shorn of the physical idols and statues, is alive and well today, installed as the default position in the Western academy.

Babylon is to be seen in the passing of laws redefining the fundamental unit of society, the family; she has convinced the education experts that biblical sexual ethics are rigid, homophobic, old-fashioned and unacceptable; she has intoxicated millions by her ceaseless flood of pornography on the internet; she has poisoned the waters of social media and filled them with hatred and lies; she has hypersexualised children and robbed them of innocence and a healthy childhood; she has devalued truth, ethics and human life; she has written Christianity out of the constitution of Europe, whose basic institutions owe their existence to it, and she has pushed God and Christ to the margins of society, if not out of it altogether. She has promoted both Satanism and data religion.

In short, what we are witnessing, particularly in our Western societies, is the rise of neopaganism.9 This is the thesis of Steven D. Smith, a law professor at the University of San Diego, in his book Pagans and Christians in the City: Culture wars from the Tiber to the Potomac.10 According to Smith, a great deal of what we have hitherto been given to understand as simply the onward (and upward) march of secularism is actually the gradual return of pagan ideas that for centuries have been partly suppressed by Christianity.

This idea was the subject of a prescient essay written in the 1930s by the poet and Nobel laureate for literature T. S. Eliot, entitled ‘The Idea of a Christian Society’. Eliot wrote:

The Liberal notion that religion was a matter of private belief and of conduct in private life, and that there is no reason why Christians should not be able to accommodate themselves to any world which treats them good-naturedly, is becoming less and less tenable.

The problem of leading a Christian life in a non-Christian society is now very present to us, and it is a very different problem from that of the accommodation between an Established Church and dissenters. It is not merely the problem of a minority in a society of individuals holding an alien belief. It is the problem constituted by our implication in a network of institutions from which we cannot dissociate ourselves: institutions the operation of which appears no longer neutral, but non-Christian. And as for the Christian who is not conscious of his dilemma – and he is in the majority – he is becoming more and more de-Christianized by all sorts of unconscious pressure: paganism holds all the most valuable advertising space.11

Commenting on this passage in 2012 in The Imaginative Conservative, academic lawyer Bruce Frohnen writes:

If the final sentence of this quotation does not make Eliot’s point sufficiently clear, one might consider recent court decisions upholding the right of governments to force Catholic charitable groups to offer contraceptive coverage in their health plans, or those requiring landlords to rent to tenants whose marital status their religious norms cause them to find offensive. And this is Eliot’s central point: a Christian society is not a society that merely tolerates Christianity. Nor is it one with any specific set of political or economic structures. It is a society that promotes a particular way of life – a Christian way of life.12

In every generation, people go about their lives unaware that behind the scenes there are terrifying subversive powers undermining what has been taken for granted for centuries. We tend to forget, if ever we knew, that the devil, Satan, is the ‘god of this world’ (2 Cor. 4:4). He sets the world views, philosophies, thought forms and values that govern society, and he determines the hedonistic goals to which many people aspire, as well as the resurgent paganism that supports such lifestyles. Pagan Babylon is an influencer of influencers and, in this digital age, has the whole panoply of smartphones, tablets, personal computers and the power of AI through which to channel her agenda and poison the minds and hearts of billions.

In various guises, or disguises, the satanic monster on which Babylon rides has promoted the development and use of weapons of mass destruction, of pilotless drones, napalm bombs and toxic chemicals; the abuse of political power; the control and oppression of ethnic minorities by AI-powered surveillance systems; sexism and racism in civil institutions; lying, lust for power, and greed for gain among politicians and business executives; and war among the nations, to say nothing of the venial sins that tempt us all.

We need to realise that Babylon is very much alive, and that she will wax worse and worse until she is destroyed. This woman of perverted beauty is said to be the mother of all prostitutes and abominations, in the sense that she is the archetype of unfaithfulness and the fount of evil and corruption. She is also drunk, not with the contents of the cup in her hand, but with the blood of the believers she has murdered. What a sorry story it is that records the horrific thirst for Christian blood that religions of different hues have shown throughout history! Included among them, tragedy of tragedies, are professing Christian churches, as the widespread persecutions and murders in Europe in the Middle Ages testify, for example in the massacres of the Counter-Reformation.

Contemplating the vision, John is filled with wonder at what it all might mean. The angel then proceeds with further explanation, similar in kind to that which was given by an angel to Daniel in connection with his vision of fierce animals (Dan. 7:16).

By common consent, what follows is a complex, condensed and enigmatic explanation of what John calls a ‘mystery’ – a term that usually denotes something now being revealed that was hitherto hidden, rather than the solution of a puzzle. What is somewhat odd is that we might have expected to see the judgement of the woman, whereas what we get is a lengthy description of the monster that she rides. The point may be that this is an unholy mixture of idolatrous religion, immorality and totalitarian power-politics. In the light of this, it is not hard to see why many take the manifestation of Babylon in the first century to be Rome, with its multiplicity of religions, its wealth and luxury (for some), and its aggressive, male-dominated, promiscuous sexual mores, which not only permitted but positively approved of men (but not women) doing anything they liked with anyone they liked: men, women or children. A no-boundary morality is nothing new. This perverted culture of Rome in John’s day is a pointer to something even more extreme in the end times which has had various expressions throughout history.

One popular view, especially among Protestants at the time of the Reformation and subsequently, was that Babylon represents the Roman Catholic Church, which is technically independent of the state but often very much bound up with it. It is sadly true that there was, and still is, a great deal of superstition and idolatry, wealth and power within that global institution. In a 2021 editorial entitled, ‘The Guardian View on Sexual Abuse and the Catholic Church: Contrition Is Not Enough’, we read:

The findings of an inquiry into sexual abuse and paedophilia in the French Catholic church, published last week, are difficult to read and painful to contemplate. Over the past 70 years, the Independent Commission on Sexual Abuse in the Church found that at least 216,000 children were subjected to abuse at the hands of Catholic priests and members of religious orders. Sexual exploitation within the church and associated institutions, the commission stated, had been a ‘massive phenomenon’. Beyond immediate family and friends, the prevalence of sexual violence in the church outstripped that in any other social environment . . . Other investigations have reached similarly damning conclusions in the United States, Ireland, Germany, Chile, Australia and Poland.13

However, the Roman Catholic Church is not the only professing Christian institution to evidence such baleful influences. About six years before the previous article appeared, the same newspaper carried an article by Symon Hill entitled ‘Protestants Can No Longer Dismiss Abuse as a “Catholic Problem”’.14 Hill said:

It is time for Protestants who have complacently dismissed church abuse as a ‘Catholic problem’ to face the reality that abuse is endemic across denominations. As a Christian, and as someone who writes and teaches about religion and sexuality, I have heard far more stories of sexual abuse than I can count – along with stories of cover-ups, sexist responses, victim-blaming and repeated failures to take allegations seriously. Protestantism has been far from guiltless of abuse that has been sometimes perpetrated by well-known Christian leaders, especially in recent times. According to a new study sponsored by LifeWay Christian Resources, 10 percent of Protestant churchgoers under 35 have previously left a church because they felt sexual misconduct was not taken seriously. That’s twice as many as the 5 percent of all churchgoers who have done the same.15

Protestantism has also been infected by theological trends that compromise the gospel. I was a student at Cambridge University at the time of the so-called Honest to God Debate, where liberal theologians publicly denied the supernatural claims of Christ, demoted Christianity to be but one option in a Sea of Faiths and abandoned Christian ethical teaching under the Beatles’ slogan: ‘All you need is love.’

Around that time, I attended a talk given by the late, well-known bishop James Pike. He started by saying: ‘I deny the pre-existence of Christ. I deny the virgin birth. I deny the miracles. I deny the resurrection. I deny the ascension.’ I managed to ask him what he affirmed. ‘The sacraments,’ he said. I replied that I could not understand that, because the sacraments of bread and wine, celebrating Christ’s death for our sins, are meaningless if Jesus is not the incarnate Son of God who was born of a virgin, died, rose again and has ascended. You cannot affirm the sacraments and deny the core message of Christianity that they symbolically proclaim. I shall never forget his response. He said, rather wistfully, that perhaps if he had started with the Gospels rather than with third-century Christianity, he might have ended up in a different place theologically. Six weeks after our conversation he was found dead in the Judean desert, where, apparently, he had been attempting to recapitulate the experience of John the Baptist.

Furthermore, theological liberalism is not the only example of defection from mainstream Christianity. For instance, there is evidence that a particular Presbyterian grouping in the USA has actively promoted the worship of the mother goddess Sophia in overtly pagan terms.16

In addition, both Protestantism and Catholicism have been far from innocent in using the political powers to gain influence and, through them, even stooping to violence and war to achieve their objectives, to say nothing of disgraceful anti-Semitic tendencies that belie the indebtedness of Christianity to the Jews. At the present time, there seems to be an unholy alliance between the leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church and the president of Russia that is adding fuel to the flames of war in Ukraine.

The effect of religious violence of the type seen in my own country of Northern Ireland has been to convince some influential atheists that religion is the fundamental cause of most wars and it must therefore be abolished. According to Richard Dawkins: ‘Religion causes wars by generating certainty.’17 American neuroscientist and philosopher Sam Harris agrees, stating that faith and religion are ‘the most prolific source of violence in our history’.18 However, in a 2018 article, Nick Megoran, a University of Newcastle political geographer, asserts that the arguments of the New Atheists are often as violent as those of religion.19 Those who blame religion seem strangely unaware that the worst atrocities of the twentieth century were perpetrated by secular and atheistic regimes. Hitler was influenced by Nietzsche and Stalin by Marx.

Also, those who specifically blame Christianity seem unaware that Jesus himself publicly repudiated violence at his trial before Pilate.20 That means that those who take up guns and bombs in Northern Ireland or anywhere else to defend Christ or his message are not following him; they are disobeying him and therefore are only confusing the issue by taking the name ‘Christian’. They are, in fact, anti-Christian.

We should also note that Babylon is depicted as the mother of ‘prostitutes’ (plural, 17:5). This fits in with the motivation behind the construction of ancient Babel, which was an attempt by human beings to unify peoples by building a city and a tower that would reach to heaven, thus ‘making a name for themselves’ (see Gen. 11:4). That drive for unification has led to the conception of the future Babylon the great as some kind of amalgam of many disparate religions. In other words, just as the reality behind the monster will be a world power, the reality behind Babylon is likely to be a world religion that is, at least for a time, inextricably linked to that power.

However, a unified world religion, though desired by many, seems a long way off. First, the widespread idea that all religions say the same thing is easily seen to be erroneous by anyone who takes seriously what they each say. For instance, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, with their faith in one God, will never agree with Hinduism’s many gods, nor with secular Buddhism, which does not believe in any God. Also, within the three so-called Abrahamic faiths we have sharp differences regarding Jesus Christ: Judaism believes he died and did not rise; Christianity believes that he both died and rose again; Islam believes that he didn’t die. People who claim that the major religions of the world teach the same thing have not engaged with them at any depth.

There have been some attempts to bring major religions together in dialogue. For instance, in September 2022, there was the seventh Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions in Kazakhstan where Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and other world religions were represented. Among the attendees were David Baruch Lau, the Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel, Pope Francis and the Grand Imam of al-Azhar, Sheikh Ahmed Al-Tayeb. The Chief Rabbi said: ‘The main result is that . . . we are understanding that to find solutions for the problems in the world is not by fighting, is not . . . by war, but sitting together and speaking.’21 The Congress expressed the hope that their appeal for global dialogue, reconciliation and peace, based on the common values of humanity that are shared by all world religions, would be heard around the world.

There is a Temple of All Religions, or Universal Temple, in Kazan, Russia, that includes a Russian Orthodox church, a mosque and a synagogue and incorporates architectural influences from sixteen separate religions. Construction started in 1992 and is not yet complete. It stands as a cultural symbol rather than an active place of worship. Similarly, in Abu Dhabi there is the Abrahamic Family House, whose website says:

The three Houses of Worship – Eminence Ahmed El-Tayeb Mosque, St. Francis Church, and Moses Ben Maimon Synagogue – offer the opportunity for worshippers to participate in and learn about religious services, listen to holy scripture, and experience sacred rituals. Everyone is invited to learn about any of the three faiths.22

None of these institutions represents an attempt to unite all religions, but rather to foster dialogue and mutual understanding. Unification of existing world religions seems an impossible pipe-dream. A universal data-religion spawned by AI might, however, be in a different category.

Back to Revelation 17 . . .

26

The wild monster

1It was, is not and is to come.

2It has seven heads, which are seven mountains and seven kings.

3It has ten horns, which are ten kings who reign (briefly) with the monster.

Let us take it step by step.

An angel now takes John away in the Spirit and shows him a vision of a woman sitting on a scarlet monster:

When I saw her, I marvelled greatly. But the angel said to me, ‘Why do you marvel? I will tell you the mystery of the woman, and of the beast with seven heads and ten horns that carries her. The beast that you saw was, and is not, and is about to rise from the bottomless pit and go to destruction. And the dwellers on earth whose names have not been written in the book of life from the foundation of the world will marvel to see the beast, because it was and is not and is to come.’

(17:6b–8)

The monster that ‘was, and is not’ (17:8a) sounds like a parody of the description of God as the one who was, is and is to come. And that may well be the intention, since the monster is finally incarnated in the man of lawlessness who aspires to deity.

The background to this is the account of the two witnesses, where the monster was introduced: ‘And when they have finished their testimony, the beast that rises from the bottomless pit will make war on them and conquer them and kill them’ (11:7). Add to that the description of the rise of the monster:

And I saw a beast rising out of the sea, with ten horns and seven heads, with ten diadems on its horns and blasphemous names on its heads . . . One of its heads seemed to have a mortal wound, but its mortal wound was healed, and the whole earth marvelled as they followed the beast . . . the beast that was wounded by the sword and yet lived.

(13:1, 3, 14)

From this it would appear that the main referent of the descriptor ‘is not’ does not, indeed cannot, refer to the time when John wrote the book, but rather to the future time when the monster rules the world. In other words, this passage reads like a description of what appears to be a miraculous ‘resurrection’ of a future mortally wounded leader that triggers the worship of the world in a parody of the death and resurrection of Christ. This event will greatly impress the non-believing world: ‘the dwellers on earth whose names have not been written in the book of life from the foundation of the world will marvel to see the beast, because it was and is not and is to come’ (17:8b). Nothing like that happened in the Roman Empire in John’s time, nor has it happened since. It will happen, however, and will greatly augment the monster’s authority.

What we seem to have here, then, is a flashback reminding readers of the provenance of the monster. However, it comes with an important addition to that background: an announcement that the monster is doomed and will ‘[go] to destruction’ (17:11). In the previous part, an opening announcement was made that the male child of the woman had reached God’s throne, so that the monster who subsequently rises to supreme earthly power is nevertheless effectively doomed from the start. Similarly, we are to understand here that the monster is doomed to destruction in spite of his impressive machinations. That destruction by the returning Christ is described in the final part of the book.

This calls for a mind with wisdom: the seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman is seated; they are also seven kings, five of whom have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come, and when he does come, he must remain only a little while. As for the beast that was and is not, it is an eighth but it belongs to the seven, and it goes to destruction.

(17:9–11)

John now interjects with a comment implying that understanding these matters requires wisdom, insight and reflection – something that becomes obvious to us on reading the many interpretations that have been suggested for what follows. A double identification is given of the seven heads of the monster on which, we are reminded, the woman is seated. The first is that they are ‘seven mountains’ (17:9), an obvious way of referring to Rome without naming it, as it was widely known as the city set on seven hills.

However, there must be more to it than Rome as such, for the seven heads are also ‘seven kings, five of whom have fallen, one is, [and] the other has not yet come’ (17:10). Interpretations vary. Their differences circle around what is meant by ‘kings’. Are they individual rulers, such as the Roman emperors before, during and after John’s time, or are they kingdoms or empires? Whoever they are, they appear to be sequential.

As to the former interpretation, some think the first of the seven was Julius Caesar, others, his successor Augustus, and yet others, the fourth emperor, Caligula, which would make the one that ‘is’ either Nero, Galba or Domitian. However, it is now commonly thought that John was writing at the time of Domitian, in which case – and indeed, a fortiori, in the other cases – there was more than one more emperor to come.1 Who, then, is the seventh? The emperor after Domitian was Nerva, who lasted for around two years. Nothing more is said about him, and so this interpretation reaches a dead end.

However, some interpreters think that this seventh is not a Roman emperor at all but is somehow connected with the end-time rule of the monster, yet it cannot be identical with him since we already know that he is the eighth, who will be destroyed by the coming of Christ. It is surely highly unlikely that this eighth is literally a resurrected Roman emperor (Nero redivivus?). The fact that the eighth ‘belongs to the seven’ (17:11) could conceivably be interpreted as the advent of a Nero writ large, a Super Nero, in terms of power and cruelty, rather than Nero himself. That, as we have already suggested, may well be the case, independently of whether the sequence is or is not understood in terms of Roman emperors as such.

I find much more substantive and convincing the view of those scholars who take the seven heads to be the major kingdoms or empires that appear in the timeline of biblical history. The five that have fallen are Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Medo-Persia and Greece. The one that ‘is’ is Rome, in which Nero is perhaps the most prominent adumbration of the future monster. Rome lasted for quite a considerable period. In ad 476, the Germanic leader Odoacer deposed the emperor Romulus Augustulus and ended Roman domination of the West, which then gradually fragmented into a multitude of nations. The Eastern empire lasted for another thousand years until the fall of Byzantium in 1453 to the Ottoman Turks.

There would then be two empires to come; the first remains to be identified and the eighth is one of the seven in some form or another. This interpretation is not without difficulties of its own – in identifying the seventh kingdom, for instance, which we shall think about in due course. Nevertheless, it would seem to accord with the fact that in Daniel, animals are used as symbols of kingdoms or empires, some of them specifically named, such as Babylon, Medo-Persia and Greece. This interpretation also has the advantage of better fitting this part of Revelation into the grand metanarrative of Scripture.

In addition, if the seven heads represent the world empires listed above, then it is not only the case that the Roman Empire is a fitting referent for the symbol of the monster; it is also part of the monster (regarded now as an empire rather than its leader). It is one of the seven heads, as are its imperial predecessors. It is no wonder, then, that the prophecies of Daniel convey a sense of movement towards a final showdown, because the empires in the list whose features he uses to project onto the time of the end by prophetic foreshortening are actually part of the monster to start with.

For instance, Daniel saw in the horrors perpetrated by the second-century Hellenistic king Antiochus the seeds of evil that would gestate and come to fearful fruition in the time of the end when another similar, but far worse, leader would arise. Antiochus and the events of his time in the Greek Empire form a prototype or thought model of the future that helps us imagine what is to come precisely because they are an integral part of what is to come. The same is true of the Roman Empire of John’s day. John, therefore, experienced the monster directly in terms of one of its heads, Rome.

This animal, therefore, can be viewed as a monster of colossal proportions. It strides across world history for millennia, with a succession of heads that break through the surface of events, one after the other, until one of those heads mysteriously reappears in a final hideous, apocalyptic form – the ‘eighth . . . belongs to the seven’ (17:11).

As we suggested above, it seems reasonable to think that Revelation uses the term ‘beast/wild thing/monster’ to refer, on the one hand, to the whole massive historical collection of empires as a single entity, on the other hand to the individual empires (or their leaders), and finally to the global world empire (or its leader), the eighth head. Or might this final entity be both the seventh and eighth heads? Let me explain what I mean by that. We are told that one of the seven heads has a mortal wound. By a process of logical elimination, this must be the seventh head in the sequence, since the sixth is Rome. Therefore, the seventh head must symbolise both the final empire and its leader who is murdered. It is hard to see what it would mean for an empire, as such, to be wounded and recover in such a way as to get the whole world worshipping it. That imagery makes far more sense in terms of an individual who is assassinated, say, and then returns to life by some devious satanic device so that the whole world follows him. Does he then become the eighth head – he and the empire that he leads?

Even this cannot be the whole story, complicated as it is, as we now need to consider the fact that there are ten horns on this monster – symbols, as ever, of power.

27

The ten horns – an international government?

And the ten horns that you saw are ten kings who have not yet received royal power, but they are to receive authority as kings for one hour, together with the beast. These are of one mind, and they hand over their power and authority to the beast.

(17:12–13)

The Roman Empire was so large that several of its rulers saw fit to delegate some of their power to subordinate or client kings, who were monarchs bound to Rome in an asymmetrical relationship in that their rule depended on Rome’s continued approval. In Latin they were called rex sociusque et amicus (king, ally and friend). Herod the Great and his dynasty – Antipas, Agrippa and so on – are examples from NT times.1

However, the ten kings mentioned here might just turn out to be rather more than client kings. For they are described, from the future perspective of the vision, as having ‘not yet received royal power’ (17:12). They eventually do receive it with the monster, rather than from the monster, which would indicate two things: that these kings exist simultaneously, and that they initially possess independent power and authority to rule in their own right. They are then said to cede their power and authority unanimously to the monster, the man of (spiritual) lawlessness, the Antichrist par excellence. In this way, he becomes the leader of a vast imperial coalition apparently spanning the entire planet, so that what he heads up is nothing less than a world government.2

This is an extraordinary political arrangement, the like of which has never yet been seen. However, the idea of a world government is not wild speculation. For in recent times, nations have felt the need to form international organizations such as the United Nations in order to help to balance power, police the world and keep the peace. However, the UN has a mixed record, with the result that some very influential leaders have suggested, and still do suggest, that in the end the only real solution to the world’s political and social problems is an international government.

In the aftermath of the Second World War, Albert Einstein thought that:

A world government must be created which is able to solve conflicts between nations by judicial decision. This government must be based on a clear-cut constitution which is approved by the governments and nations, and which gives it the sole disposition of offensive weapons.3

Such a world government is an increasingly plausible notion in today’s globalised, though fractured, world. We already have courts of international law, although they have often proved toothless. In Europe there seems to be a steady creep towards less and less independence and more and more centralised control, which many think will pave the way towards a United States of Europe.4 The chief foreign correspondent of the Financial Times and winner of the Orwell Prize, Gideon Rachman, wrote:

I have never believed that there is a secret United Nations plot to take over the US. I have never seen black helicopters hovering in the sky above Montana. But, for the first time in my life, I think the formation of some sort of world government is plausible.

A ‘world government’ would involve much more than co-operation between nations. It would be an entity with state-like characteristics, backed by a body of laws. The European Union has already set up a continental government for 27 countries, which could be a model of something larger. The EU has a supreme court, a currency, thousands of pages of law, a large civil service and the ability to deploy military force.5

Could the European model go global? There are three reasons for thinking that it might, and also several that might indicate that if it does, it will not be for a considerable time to come, unless there is a fundamental shift in the current global geopolitical landscape.

First, it is increasingly clear that the most difficult issues facing national governments are international in nature: global warming, global financial instability, and global tension and insecurity, all of which need global solutions – which suggests to some that global governance may have to come sooner rather than later.

Rachman describes one such assessment:

Jacques Attali, an adviser to President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, argued that: ‘Global governance is just a euphemism for global government.’ As far as he is concerned, some form of global government cannot come too soon. Mr Attali believes that ‘the core of the international financial crisis is that we have global financial markets and no global rule of law’.6

Second, some believe that it could be done. Rachman continues:

The transport and communications revolutions have shrunk the world so that, as Geoffrey Blainey, an eminent Australian historian, has written: ‘For the first time in human history, world government of some sort is now possible.’ Mr Blainey foresees an attempt to form a world government at some point in the next two centuries, which is an unusually long time horizon for the average newspaper column . . .

So, it seems, everything is in place. For the first time since homo sapiens began to doodle on cave walls, there is an argument, an opportunity and a means to make serious steps towards a world government.

But let us not get carried away . . . The world’s most pressing political problems may indeed be international in nature, but the average citizen’s political identity remains stubbornly local. Until somebody cracks this problem, that plan for world government may have to stay locked away in a safe at the UN.7

There is another reason, however. There is war again in Europe following many decades of almost unbroken peace. Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022 and, at the time of my writing this book, all-out war has raged for over two years with thousands of casualties on each side and no end in sight. The conflict has polarised the world’s power blocs with China increasingly siding with Russia against the Western powers, and hope of any sort of reconciliation, let alone a world government, seems remote. There is also an ongoing war between Israel and Gaza that risks a conflagration in the wider Middle East.

Even before all of this happened, Margaret MacMillan, Engelsberg Chair in History and International Affairs at the London School of Economics, wrote:

You have to be an optimist at the moment to believe in a world government built on cooperation and shared values. If Hobbes and his followers are right, a state of anarchy among nations is all we can hope for. Or does the future hold one of those other models? A Concert of Great Powers, or something else? We thought the age of empires was over; maybe it has merely been resting.8

One space where we find the notion of a global government is in science fiction. Perhaps the most famous example is the World State in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World or United Earth in Star Trek.

In fact, the idea of world government has been around for a long time:

‘World government’ refers to the idea of all humankind united under one common political authority. Arguably, it has not existed so far in human history, yet proposals for a unified global political authority have existed since ancient times – in the ambition of kings, popes and emperors, and the dreams of poets and philosophers.9

In the Middle Ages, the Italian poet, philosopher and statesman Dante Alighieri (1265–1321) argued that it was possible to eliminate war if

the whole earth and all that humans can possess be a monarchy, that is, one government under one ruler. Because he possesses everything, the ruler would not desire to possess anything further, and thus, he would hold kings contentedly within the borders of their kingdoms, and keep peace among them.10

The German philosopher Immanuel Kant held that reason suggested the formation of an ‘international state (civitas gentium), which would necessarily continue to grow until it embraced all the peoples of the earth’.11 Yet Kant had strong reservations about a world monarchy. He thought that a federal union of free and independent states ‘is still to be preferred to an amalgamation of the separate nations under a single power which has overruled the rest and created a universal monarchy’. His reason for hesitation was: ‘For the laws progressively lose their impact as the government increases its range, and a soulless despotism, after crushing the germs of goodness, will finally lapse into anarchy.’ Kant thought that a ‘universal despotism’ would end ‘in the graveyard of freedom’.12

These words strike a chilling note in the light of Revelation. The oppression of the monster sounds very much like the guarantee of a ‘graveyard of freedom’. It is for this reason that we need to heed the message of Revelation 17 saying that the final form of government will be a world government of hideous strength that will be overtly and maximally hostile towards God.

However, although we have never yet had a world state, it is easy to forget the magnitude and scale of the Roman Empire, which, for around 200 years, spanned three continents. The ancient Greek historian Polybius (203–122 bc) wrote about it:

Can anyone be so indifferent or idle as not to care to know by what means, and under what kind of polity, almost the whole inhabited world was conquered and brought under the dominion of the single city of Rome, and that too within a period of not quite fifty-three years? . . . Nearly the whole inhabited world was reduced by them to obedience: and they left behind them an empire not to be paralleled in the past or rivalled in the future.13

Rome is therefore an important prototype of a putative future world state, and it is not surprising that both Daniel and Revelation use it as a telescopic lens through which to look at the future.

Once more I would stress that I am not attempting to identify who the monster is. I do not know. And this is not to be put down to lack of interest or laziness. I repeat what I said earlier: when the time comes, there will be no need to speculate to identify what is happening – it will be all too obvious. What concerns me is what we do need to understand to a certain extent, and that is: what is the monster? And what are the currents and trends in our contemporary society that will lead up to it? We would be unwise not to consider how the mystery of lawlessness is already affecting our societies today.

Of course, there has been a great deal of speculation as to who these ten initially independent kings are and the countries over which they rule. Once more, I stress that what they are – an international global government – is more important than who they are.

Some suggested that these kingdoms were the member states of the EU – until the number went past ten and killed that idea dead. In the light of the fact that the heads are empires, some of which are identifiable, it has been proposed that the horns represent the major regions or power blocs that cover the entire planet, which, depending on how you organise them, are roughly ten in number: Europe, Asia, North America, South America, Africa, India, Russia, China and the Far East, the Middle East, Australia together with New Zealand and the Pacific Islands.

We do not know, but all will one day be revealed.

It is with great relief that we now read that, in the scale of things, the time of hegemony of the final evil ruler will be much briefer than that of the Roman Empire: he will have authority ‘for one hour’ (17:12). The end of this maximally evil regime will come in a suicidal war against the Lamb who has reached God’s throne. That war will be described in the last part of the book, in chapter 19.19ff. In the meantime, the final outcome is anticipated here to put what follows into perspective: ‘They will make war on the Lamb, and the Lamb will conquer them, for he is Lord of lords and King of kings, and those with him are called and chosen and faithful’ (17:14).

Ten kings, plus the powerful little horn (Dan. 8), plus one monster king will prove no match for the Lord of lords and King of kings. The Lamb who died to buy men and women for God at the cost of his own life’s blood is now the Lamb who will conquer the monster’s army. The amazing thing here is that the Lamb has others with him: the ‘called and chosen and faithful’. That is remarkable evidence of the grace of God in allowing his redeemed creatures some part in the final defeat of evil. After all, he calls us to battle with sin and the devil in every generation and to put on the whole armour of God to do so (Eph. 6).

With that, we read no more about the ten kings in Revelation. However, Daniel has more to say about them, which is of interest in this context. We repeat the relevant text from Daniel 7, part of which we discussed in part 4:

After this I saw in the night visions, and behold, a fourth beast, terrifying and dreadful and exceedingly strong. It had great iron teeth; it devoured and broke in pieces and stamped what was left with its feet. It was different from all the beasts that were before it, and it had ten horns. I considered the horns, and behold, there came up among them another horn, a little one, before which three of the first horns were plucked up by the roots. And behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth speaking great things.

(Dan. 7:7–8, my emphasis)

Then I desired to know the truth about the fourth beast, which was different from all the rest, exceedingly terrifying, with its teeth of iron and claws of bronze, and which devoured and broke in pieces and stamped what was left with its feet, and about the ten horns that were on its head, and the other horn that came up and before which three of them fell, the horn that had eyes and a mouth that spoke great things, and that seemed greater than its companions. As I looked, this horn made war with the saints and prevailed over them, until the Ancient of Days came, and judgement was given for the saints of the Most High, and the time came when the saints possessed the kingdom.

Thus, he said: ‘As for the fourth beast,

there shall be a fourth kingdom on earth,

which shall be different from all the kingdoms,

and it shall devour the whole earth,

and trample it down, and break it to pieces.

As for the ten horns,

out of this kingdom ten kings shall arise,

and another shall arise after them;

he shall be different from the former ones,

and shall put down three kings.

He shall speak words against the Most High,

and shall wear out the saints of the Most High,

and shall think to change the times and the law;

and they shall be given into his hand

for a time, times, and half a time.

But the court shall sit in judgement,

and his dominion shall be taken away,

to be consumed and destroyed to the end.

And the kingdom and the dominion

and the greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven

shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High;

their kingdom shall be an everlasting kingdom,

and all dominions shall serve and obey them.’

(Dan. 7:19–27, my emphasis)

I have italicised the material that is not in Revelation. Now the picture seems to be that we have seven heads plus one, and ten horns plus one. The heads are consecutive in time and the horns contemporaneous. We know that the ten kings have ceded their authority to a central government, which must have happened while all of them lived. Then there appears another horn that, although little, plucks up three of the ten by their roots so that they fall. This newcomer has eyes and a mouth – symbols speaking of intelligence and oratorical power. He uses his abilities to blaspheme God and wear out believers, warring against and prevailing over them. He is also mindful to change the times and the law, probably referring to the Jewish people’s set feasts and their God-given commandments. He gets his way for a time, times and half a time, the three and a half years or forty-two months of the period of the great tribulation. However, God’s judgement sits and he is destroyed.

The description of this judgement occurs at the beginning of Daniel 7 and is the famous passage that Jesus quoted at his trial about the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven.

The leadership of the end-time world empire of the monster would seem to be quite difficult to understand since at first it is plural and then a powerful single newcomer takes control and rules – the final incarnation of the monster. Is he the head that was wounded? Again, we must allow for the fact that the imagery has multiple dimensions: it sometimes stands for the world state over which the man of lawlessness reigns and sometimes for him as its head of state.

John’s narrative continues with the news that the ten kings – the monster coalition – will turn against the woman who rides the monster in a brutal civil war:

And the angel said to me, ‘The waters that you saw, where the prostitute is seated, are peoples and multitudes and nations and languages. And the ten horns that you saw, they and the beast will hate the prostitute. They will make her desolate and naked, and devour her flesh and burn her up with fire, for God has put it into their hearts to carry out his purpose by being of one mind and handing over their royal power to the beast, until the words of God are fulfilled. And the woman that you saw is the great city that has dominion over the kings of the earth.

(17:15–18)

The angel now picks up the first point that was made about the woman at the beginning of the chapter – that she sits by many waters. He informs John that the waters are not intended to be literal but are symbolic of ‘peoples and multitudes and nations and languages’ (17:15), a comprehensive phrase that occurs seven times in the book (with some variants). It indicates the international character of Babylon. A famous prophecy of Isaiah employs the same metaphorical use of waters:

The Lord spoke to me again: Because this people has refused the waters of Shiloah that flow gently, and rejoice over Rezin and the son of Remaliah, 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, and its outspread wings will fill the breadth of your land, O Immanuel.

(Isa. 8:5–8)

Or again:

Ah, the thunder of many peoples;

they thunder like the thundering of the sea!

Ah, the roar of nations;

they roar like the roaring of mighty waters!

The nations roar like the roaring of many waters,

but he will rebuke them, and they will flee far away,

chased like chaff on the mountains before the wind

and whirling dust before the storm.

(Isa. 17:12–13)

Daniel saw a glorified man above the waters of the River Tigris, and in the ensuing vision the metaphor of the flow of a great river is used for the advance of armies as they go to war (Dan. 11:10, 40).

The combined metaphor of the woman sitting by the waters and on the monster shows that she has enormous international power – at least for a time. For the angel now tells John that the ten leaders, together with the monster, will turn on her and destroy her. The destruction of Babylon the Great by this coalition is described in terms that come from Ezekiel’s devastating indictment of Israel’s sins, which had made her a prostitute perilously like Babylon. Ezekiel writes:

Therefore, O prostitute, hear the word of the Lord: Thus says the Lord God, Because your lust was poured out and your nakedness uncovered in your whorings with your lovers, and with all your abominable idols, and because of the blood of your children that you gave to them, therefore, behold, I will gather all your lovers with whom you took pleasure, all those you loved and all those you hated. I will gather them against you from every side and will uncover your nakedness to them, that they may see all your nakedness . . . They shall bring up a crowd against you, and they shall stone you and cut you to pieces with their swords. And they shall burn your houses and execute judgements upon you in the sight of many women.

(Ezek. 16:35–37, 40–41a)

God is in complete control of the situation, even though it may initially seem as if he is far distant. In his sovereign rule,14 he allows the coalition to form in the first place and then to exact judgement on the great prostitute in what looks like a titanic civil war. He puts it into the minds and hearts of the ten rulers to cede their authority to the monster – ‘until the words of God are fulfilled’ (17:17).

The plural in the above text is important: ‘words’. It echoes Jesus’ statement in John 17.8: ‘For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me.’ Jesus did not simply give his disciples his word in some general sense but gave them the actual words, and it was those words that convinced them that he had come from God. This is the fire at the heart of Scripture. In it we have the very words of God, not one of which will fall, not even the words that go to make the book of Revelation. All will be fulfilled and completed.

The language at this point in Revelation is strong (17:16). Necessarily so. For there are many nice people who would never think of getting physically involved with a prostitute but who nevertheless compromise with idolatrous religion without even thinking about it. They have no idea that what you believe is seriously important. Vague ‘spirituality’ is not enough.

The angel next identifies the woman as ‘the great city that has dominion over the kings of the earth’ (17:18). In John’s day that was Rome. What it will be in the future we are not told. However, we cannot overemphasise the fact that the idea of religious ideology ‘riding’ the political beast has been exemplified again and again in world history. As we have already seen, the imperial cult was immensely powerful in the Roman Empire of the time. It set a precedent for those politicians and powerbrokers who throughout history have used religion to leverage their own power and influence.

The so-called Holy Roman Empire is a case in point. On 25 December 800, Pope Leo III crowned the Frankish king Charlemagne as Roman Emperor. The title ran through his family for most of the ninth century, followed by a hiatus due to civil wars in Italy. It then ran from 952 for eight centuries until the Napoleonic wars in 1806. Up to the twelfth century, the ruler who bore this title headed the most powerful monarchy in Europe. The precise nomenclature ‘Holy Roman Empire’ was not used until the thirteenth century, but the emperor’s legitimacy always rested on the concept of translatio imperii, according to which he held supreme power inherited from the ancient emperors of Rome.

An obvious problem arises here. If, in John’s day, Rome was the manifestation of Babylon and also of the monster, are we not really saying that the monster and Babylon are the same thing? And yet Revelation makes a clear distinction between them, since in the end the monster destroys Babylon. An analogy comes to mind for the woman–monster duo: an iron fist in a velvet glove, at least at first, until the glove is removed and naked evil and brute force are revealed.

Perhaps some insight into this issue can be gained from the fact that political leaders sometimes attempt to curb the power of religion or even eliminate it, especially as a reaction to a previous generation doing the opposite and using religion for their own ends. For instance, the French Enlightenment attempted to curb the power of the Roman Catholic Church as a reaction to its excesses of wealth, influence and privilege in previous generations. Sadly, the professing Christian Church has not remained untainted by Babylon. French Enlightenment philosopher Denis Diderot (1713–84) famously wrote: ‘Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.’

In Russia in the twentieth century, Stalin made a brutal attempt to eliminate churches and priests in the name of the totally misnamed scientific atheism. From 1958 to 1964, Nikita Khrushchev ran an inhuman anti-religious campaign. He boasted that religion in the USSR would become obsolete by 1965, adding that he would insist, nevertheless, that at least one Christian would be preserved and placed in a museum so that future generations of Soviets could view an extinct species. Yet Putin now appears to be using the Russian Orthodox Church to further his expansionist policies, while at the same time subjecting many Christian minorities to discrimination and persecution.

We mentioned earlier that in China there is a secular governmental drive to ‘Sinicise’ religion. These efforts are particularly targeted at Christians and are designed to weaken the hold of Christianity over the population. In addition to that, as we described previously, advanced AI technology is being used to wipe out the Muslim culture in Xinjiang province in north-west China through enforced ‘re-education’.

At the present time, powerful secular forces in Europe have marginalised religion, and it is not hard to imagine them eventually uniting against the Vatican and other religious institutions and destroying them – even though it is to the Judeo-Christian tradition that Europe owes much of the culture, educational, legal and governmental institutions, values and belief in human rights that are the underpinnings of its civilisation.

Similar power-play can be imagined in countries dominated by Islam or Hinduism, where the proportion of politics to religion in terms of influence and power varies from place to place. There are many contemporary reports of how religious conservatism is influencing politics around the world.

In the September 2022 issue of the monthly bulletin published by the Observatoire International du Religieux, Peter Mandaville wrote:15 ‘What is distinctive today in several key contexts is the emergence of persistent and systematic cooperation between governments and religious institutions, and the projection of those partnerships into the global political arena.’ As a current instance, he offers

the close political alliance that has emerged over the past two decades between Vladimir Putin and the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) – especially its primate, Patriarch Kirill. While the Kremlin undoubtedly has the upper hand in this relationship, it is still one of symbiosis whereby the Russian state provides backing and resources for the Church to mobilize transnationally in the name of conservative religious values and in return provides Moscow with new conduits for projecting political influence into the teeming cauldron of ethnoreligious identity politics in the Western Balkans and other areas in Russia’s near abroad [sic].

Mandaville also mentions a development in China that is rather surprising in the light of China’s record of religious suppression. He writes:

The work of scholars Yoshiko Ashiwa and David Wank has shown how China has invoked the country’s Buddhist heritage as a soft power asset as part of its public diplomacy outreach in strategically significant nations with Buddhist majority or minority populations.

Furthermore, he says that ‘India, particularly under the leadership of Narendra Modi, has embraced a form of nationalism that places Hinduism at its core’.

In a blog published by the London School of Economics (LSE) entitled ‘Religious Power Brokers and Growing Intolerance in Indonesia’, Alexander Arifianto, a research fellow with the Indonesia Programme, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, writes:

The increasing religiosity of Indonesian Muslims is not just demonstrated by growing expressions of religious piety among ordinary Indonesians, but also prompted by the increasing influence of religious power brokers – in this case Islamic clerics and activists – at both national and regional levels. While many of the local regulations enacted have intentions directed at increasing religious piety – for instance, requiring school children to attend regular Qur’anic lessons – other regulations have been passed to suppress the practices of minority sects such as the Ahmadiyya Muslim minority, which is often persecuted by conservative Islamists both in Indonesia and in their homeland in Pakistan.16

In her article ‘Why Aren’t We Paying Attention? Religion and Politics in Everyday Life’, Jennifer Glass, writing principally about the USA, says:

What has been forcefully imposed on us in this last election [2016] is a belated recognition that fundamentalist religions offer an alternative logic for decision making and social organization that meets the needs of individuals who either distrust rational-legal authority or find themselves left behind in an economic system that is now global, cosmopolitan, and scientific in nature. Moreover, this process is not now nor has it ever been restricted to the United States – the most famous yogi in India is now closely aligned with the Hindu nationalist JDP party and Prime Minister Modi. And of course, the Middle East and Africa are filled with the sequelae of fundamentalist Muslim revolts in Iran, Egypt, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Nigeria, etc. And who could have imagined fundamentalist Buddhist monks in Thailand and Myanmar instigating violence against religious minorities over the past several decades?17

Of course, behind all of this is the discussion about the relationship of church to state that goes back to the time of the emperor Constantine. For example, in the UK the Church of England is an ‘established church’ whose official head is the monarch and some of whose bishops sit in the House of Lords as the Lords Spiritual. In different countries this matter of establishment is expressed in various ways, such as giving the church a privileged position in receiving a proportion of tax revenue (e.g. in Germany), or simply favouring the church’s participation in certain state rituals. There is an ongoing tension between those who believe that this favouritism, as they see it, is unfair and not egalitarian and others who believe that it is important for the state to have access to a moral and spiritual tradition to give it stability.18

What is abundantly clear is that the relationship between politics and religion is both varied and complex, and it goes without saying that we have little idea what kind of mix the future Babylon the Great will turn out to be, although speculation abounds. Where powerbrokers are to be found, money and commercial interests are never far away. It is thus with Babylon. And the most sinister thing about her is that ‘underneath’ her, like a beast on which she rides, is an evil satanic power. It is not for nothing that Satan is called ‘the god of this world’ (2 Cor. 4:4) since he is intensely interested in religion and will use it wherever possible to achieve his nefarious ends. Paul warns Christians that we are up against nothing less than ‘cosmic powers over this present darkness’ and ‘spiritual forces of evil in heavenly places’ (see Eph. 6:10ff.). That is why flirtation with Babylon is so dangerous.

28

Babylon judged yet mourned

AAnnouncements come from heaven: 1) Babylon is fallen! 2) Come out of her, my people!

BKings have committed immorality with her; merchants have been enriched by her.

CKings, merchants and mariners lament for what they have lost.

DA mighty angel throws a millstone into the sea as symbolic of Babylon’s downfall.

EIn the city there is no more music or light, no sounds of industry, no voices of bride and bridegroom.

FThe angel delivers the final indictment: ‘In her was found the blood of prophets and of saints, and of all who have been slain on earth.’

After this I saw another angel coming down from heaven, having great authority, and the earth was made bright with his glory. And he called out with a mighty voice,

‘Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great!

She has become a dwelling place for demons,

a haunt for every unclean spirit,

a haunt for every unclean bird,

a haunt for every unclean and detestable beast.

For all nations have drunk

the wine of the passion of her sexual immorality,

and the kings of the earth have committed immorality with her,

and the merchants of the earth have grown rich from the power of her luxurious living.’

Then I heard another voice from heaven saying,

‘Come out of her, my people,

lest you take part in her sins,

lest you share in her plagues;

for her sins are heaped high as heaven,

and God has remembered her iniquities.’

(18:1–5)

The first announcement of the fall of Babylon was made in 14:8 where no further information is given. That announcement is repeated here with the additional details that she has become for all nations a haunt for every unclean thing: demons, spirits, birds and beasts. Like the golden cup in her hands, she is full of abominations. Yet, as we shall see later in this chapter, she is also empty of life, sound, industry and voices; all the ingredients that go to make up a prosperous, vibrant, healthy, living community have disappeared. Jeremiah had predicted that this would happen: ‘Therefore, wild beasts shall dwell with hyenas in Babylon, and ostriches shall dwell in her. She shall never again have people, nor be inhabited for all generations’ (Jer. 50:39; see also 51:37).

As in 14:8, Babylon’s immorality is mentioned as an explanation for her fall, but this time her opulence is mentioned as well: ‘the merchants of the earth have grown rich from the power of her luxurious living’ (18:3). She was a hive of plutocrats, a dynamo of wealth that made her world go round and round until it became crazy with desire.1 Her merchants got wealthy, yes, but what about her citizens? In ancient Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar was (temporarily) cut down for his pride and his neglect of the poor, went insane and, for seven years, behaved like an animal(!) (Dan. 4:28–33). Animals are notorious in their selfishness when it comes to food; there is no sense of ‘Love your neighbour as yourself’. Babylon, the mother of prostitutes, had sated herself and her lovers on the best of things and doubtless cared little about the poor in society, an attitude with which we are not unfamiliar in the world of today.

Yet before we hear any more, there is a call from heaven for genuine believers to get out of Babylon in order to avoid contamination. This call to flee is probably a reference to Isaiah 48:20, and it echoes Paul’s message to believers in Corinth to extricate themselves from situations that might lead to compromise with idolatry. The same was true generally in the Roman Empire, where the whole fabric of society was permeated by the imperial cult, which would attempt to seduce believers, leading to compromise. Hence the command:

Therefore go out from their midst,

and be separate from them, says the Lord,

and touch no unclean thing;

then I will welcome you . . .

(2 Cor. 6:17)

This is also taken from Isaiah:

Depart, depart, go out from there;

touch no unclean thing;

go out from the midst of her; purify yourselves,

you who bear the vessels of the Lord.

(Isa. 52:11)

The implication is that there still are genuine believers in this mix of nations, peoples and languages. Fleeing Babylon can mean different things: it can mean physically and bodily exiting a context that is threatening to compromise us; it can mean refusing seductive invitations to join in projects that are morally equivocal; it can mean not clicking on a porn website, or not wandering into the metaverse and opening ourselves up to sexual harassment, or switching off a dubious TV channel.

However, Paul realised that physical exit does not always make sense. He pointed out that, in order to avoid certain kinds of people and situations completely, ‘you would need to go out of the world’ (1 Cor. 5:9–13). Nevertheless, fleeing Babylon would certainly mean, for example, eschewing potentially profitable business and political associations that involved joining quasi-secret societies promoting the worship of pagan gods. That was a very common problem in the Roman Empire with the imperial cult and the trade guilds. It would also mean avoiding the imbibing of ideas that lead our hearts and minds away from single-minded devotion to Christ. It would mean not watering down the gospel message to make our witness appear more relevant. We must avoid every appearance of or complicity in evil, which is an immense challenge in the light of the growth of neopaganism in contemporary culture with its superficially appealing soft spirituality that often lacks any real moral conviction. We must be prepared to make an unpopular stand for biblical truth and values, yet to do it in such a way as to adorn that truth and those values.

The ancient builders of Babel wished to build a tower that reached heaven. Ironically, the only part of the city that managed to reach heaven was its sin, as Revelation reminds us here. Daniel, who lived in Babylon and held a high administrative position there, nevertheless fled its sins by setting a clear moral compass-bearing in his life at the beginning. The story is found in Daniel 1 where he ‘resolved that he would not defile himself with the king’s food, or with the wine that he drank’. He and his friends politely but firmly refused the sumptuous food from the king’s table, because of all the risks of associations with the idolatry that pervaded the culture – and God honoured their stand (Dan. 1:8).2

Daniel lived in Babylon, but Babylon did not live in him. He remained morally distinct; he was not of the world. We are called upon to be the same. Or, to put it another way, he lived in Babylon but not for it. That is what it means to come out of Babylon while still living surrounded by it.

John now hears another voice from heaven, saying:

Pay her back as she herself has paid back others

and repay her double for her deeds;

mix a double portion for her in the cup she mixed.

As she glorified herself and lived in luxury,

so give her a like measure of torment and mourning,

since in her heart she says,

‘I sit as a queen,

I am no widow,

and mourning I shall never see.’

For this reason her plagues will come in a single day,

death and mourning and famine,

and she will be burned up with fire;

for mighty is the Lord God who has judged her.

(18:6–8)

The command to flee Babylon is followed by another somewhat surprising command to ‘pay her back’, which, at first sight, would appear to contradict the biblical injunction not to avenge ourselves but to leave vengeance to the Lord. Two alternative possibilities present themselves. First, that the injunction is rhetorical, underlying the importance of retribution on Babylon. The other is that this is not personal vengeance but the righteous judgement of the Lord in which he calls upon others – humans, angels? – to join him in executing justice on the same basis as he called upon Joshua in the OT to avenge his name on the Canaanites. Again, the lex talionis is called into play, a principle enunciated by Christ himself: ‘For with the judgement you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you’ (Matt. 7:2).

Babylon’s sins were so serious that the punishment is to be meted out in double measure, not that any amount of punishment was adequate for the irreversible crimes and acts of violence she had committed. She stands accused of self-glorification and self-centredness fuelled by a luxurious lifestyle that, presumably, ignored the needs and the pain of others. In her overweening pride, she sat like a cruel and merciless queen and not a widow, a quotation from Isaiah 47:5ff. Because of that, she will now know torment and mourning as multiple apocalyptic plagues rain down on her with breathtaking swiftness – in a single day (18:8). Yes, she will mourn. But many others will also mourn . . .

Mourning of monarchs, merchants and mariners

And the kings of the earth, who committed sexual immorality and lived in luxury with her, will weep and wail over her when they see the smoke of her burning. They will stand far off, in fear of her torment, and say,

‘Alas! Alas! You great city,

you mighty city, Babylon!

For in a single hour your judgment has come.’

And the merchants of the earth weep and mourn for her, since no one buys their cargo any more, cargo of gold, silver, jewels, pearls, fine linen, purple cloth, silk, scarlet cloth, all kinds of scented wood, all kinds of articles of ivory, all kinds of articles of costly wood, bronze, iron and marble, cinnamon, spice, incense, myrrh, frankincense, wine, oil, fine flour, wheat, cattle and sheep, horses and chariots, and slaves, that is, human souls.

‘The fruit for which your soul longed

has gone from you,

and all your delicacies and your splendours

are lost to you,

never to be found again!’

The merchants of these wares, who gained wealth from her, will stand far off, in fear of her torment, weeping and mourning aloud,

‘Alas, alas, for the great city

that was clothed in fine linen,

in purple and scarlet,

adorned with gold,

with jewels, and with pearls!

For in a single hour all this wealth has been laid waste.’

And all shipmasters and seafaring men, sailors and all whose trade is on the sea, stood far off and cried out as they saw the smoke of her burning,

‘What city was like the great city?’

And they threw dust on their heads as they wept and mourned, crying out,

‘Alas, alas, for the great city

where all who had ships at sea

grew rich by her wealth!

For in a single hour she has been laid waste.’

(18:9–19)

Loss makes people weep, but loss comes in different forms. There is the loss of loved ones. Just today as I write, it is reported that a number of young children enjoying a Taylor Swift dance class have been stabbed to death by a 17-year-old youth. The loss for their families is incalculable and can never be repaired.

We read of rich people and poor people in the Bible. The rich are not condemned for being rich, nor the poor for being poor. Paul writes to Timothy in Ephesus, one of the seven churches, to teach him what to say to the rich people in the church:

As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, thus storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life.

(1 Tim. 6:17–19)

First of all, wealth in this present age does not guarantee wealth in the age to come. Yet it is possible, by doing good and sharing, for such people to store up treasure as a foundation for the life to come. The danger is that we allow our trust to shift from God to his gift of wealth, and we become greedy and covetous. Jesus taught that we cannot serve two masters: God and money. The danger is that we serve money and use God as a last resort when we run into difficulty, if at all. That is when the money becomes an idol that can destroy us. By contrast, we can serve God and use money, if we have any. That is the Christian attitude.3

The passage now before us is very similar to the description in Ezekiel 27 and 28 of the destruction of the wealthy trading port of Tyre, which, like Babylon, was so inordinately proud of its wealth that it aspired to deity. For that reason, God destroyed it. Ezekiel describes the reaction of those who had profited from it:

In their wailing they raise a lamentation for you

and lament over you:

‘Who is like Tyre,

like one destroyed in the midst of the sea?

When your wares came from the seas,

you satisfied many peoples;

with your abundant wealth and merchandise

you enriched the kings of the earth.

Now you are wrecked by the seas,

in the depths of the waters;

your merchandise and all your crew in your midst

have sunk with you.’

(Ezek. 27:32–4)

Similarly, in Revelation 17, we hear the bitter lament of monarchs, merchants and mariners – people who have spent their lives serving wealth and not God. They have revelled in all the luxury that Babylon had to give but now face loss and bankruptcy, since the goose that laid their golden eggs is no more. Twenty-eight different kinds of cargo are mentioned (18:12–13),4 all of it representative of what flowed from all parts of the world to Rome in the first century ad. It is mostly luxury cargo that would be snapped up by Rome’s wealthy elite – much as today vast cargoes of luxury cars, electronic equipment, exotic clothes, foods, building materials and goods of all kinds reach our shores from abroad and fill our biggest stores.

If that supply were suddenly to be cut off from us, how would we take it? How much would I have to lose to make me weep?

There is nothing wrong with the goods in themselves; we are grateful for the amenities of modern life. Some of us can remember what it was like not to have a washing machine, microwave or car, to say nothing of televisions, computers or smartphones. Now that we have them, it is not wrong to be grateful for them. However, the danger that lurks with material goods is that they begin to consume the souls of us consumers. They fill our time and space and minds so that God gets squeezed out and our hearts grow cold, as devotion is deprived of its spiritual oxygen and dies. As some of our cultures have grown wealthier and wealthier, they have become decidedly less spiritual and godly. People in previous generations simply had more time for God because they had fewer distractions; think of the time we spend gazing at small screens and creating mountains of mindless social media.

All of this is a salutary reminder that the devil will use the wonderful and beautiful gifts of God to seduce us and divert our loyalty from God to himself. Ezekiel’s prophecy of the destruction of Tyre takes on a sinister turn in the view of many commentators as, through a kind of reverse prophetic telescoping, it likens the arrogance of Tyre to the overweening pride that led to the fall of Satan and his temptation of the first humans in the garden of Eden. As Ezekiel puts it:

The word of the Lord came to me: ‘Son of man, say to the prince of Tyre, Thus says the Lord God:

‘Because your heart is proud,

and you have said, “I am a god,

I sit in the seat of the gods,

in the heart of the seas”,

yet you are but a man, and no god,

though you make your heart like the heart of a god . . .

Will you still say, “I am a god”,

in the presence of those who kill you,

though you are but a man, and no god,

in the hands of those who slay you?’ . . .

‘You were in Eden, the garden of God;

every precious stone was your covering . . .

You were an anointed guardian cherub.

I placed you; you were on the holy mountain of God;

in the midst of the stones of fire you walked.

You were blameless in your ways

from the day you were created,

till unrighteousness was found in you.

In the abundance of your trade

you were filled with violence in your midst, and you sinned;

so I cast you as a profane thing from the mountain of God,

and I destroyed you, O guardian cherub,

from the midst of the stones of fire.’

(Ezek. 28:1–2, 9, 13–16)

This text appears to refer both to the prince of Tyre and to Satan, which is very much in keeping with the way Revelation talks about Babylon and the Satan-inspired monster. It would be a tragedy, wouldn’t it, if men and women who had known better were to end up with one of the groups of mourners standing at a distance watching the smoke rise from a burning, broken and tormented Tyre-like Babylon? They are full of regret for their loss as the financial institutions collapse. They show no trace of awareness of God, let alone repentance towards him. Ignorant of Paul’s warnings, they had ‘set their hope on the uncertainty of riches’ (1 Tim. 6:17). Their world was a world of things, but, as the title of Iain McGilchrist’s magisterial work proclaims, there is something ‘the matter with things’.5 Their things have turned to the ashes of what once was.

At first reading, this passage in Revelation 18 looks like a description of an actual city on fire as the result of a volcanic eruption or earthquake. If, however, it is argued that these are symbols, then, as usual, we need to ask: for what reality do they stand? One would think, in the light of the long list of luxury goods and beautiful clothing, that the reality involves material wealth and luxurious living with a strong religious dimension. In fact, the clothing of the city is strikingly similar to the clothing of the woman on the monster in 17:4. Ancient Rome was idolatrous to the core, so that religion and politics were inextricable, and huge wealth was attained off the backs of slaves, who were often abominably mistreated.

It is interesting that Daniel’s account of the fall of the Babylonian Empire revolves around Belshazzar’s idolatrous feast where worship of false gods was in full swing when God intervened with the famous writing on the wall. On that occasion, however, the city remained standing, but under the control of the invading Medo-Persians.

It is natural in the present context to ask about the fall of Rome – because fall it did. In ad 286, the emperor Diocletian decided to divide the Roman Empire into two parts in the interest of stability. Eventually, after another century of divisions, in ad 395 it split into what became known as the Western and Eastern Empires. In ad 410, the Visigoth king Alaric successfully sacked the city of Rome, using starvation as a weapon – apparently, we should note, without a great deal of destruction. It was sacked once more in ad 455 by the Vandals, giving us the term ‘vandalism’. Finally, the Germanic leader Odoacer deposed Emperor Romulus Augustulus in ad 476, a date that is usually taken to mark the end of the Western Empire. No emperor ever ruled from Rome after that.

The Western Empire collapsed for a combination of reasons – inept and corrupt leadership that led to inflation, overtaxation, disease, starvation and poverty. However, the Eastern Roman empire survived for many centuries with its centre in Byzantium, later called Constantinople. It survived for another thousand years until Constantinople fell to the Ottomans in ad 1453. In the middle of the sixth century, Rome, Italy and north Africa were reconquered and incorporated into the Eastern Empire for around two centuries.

If we conceive Babylon solely in terms of Rome, we could theoretically conceive of a cabal of client kings conspiring to topple an emperor and taking over the reins of power. But then that would be like the ten horns fighting the monster, and not the ten horns plus the monster against Babylon – and that is not what happened anyway. Fitting historical accounts of the fall of Rome into Revelation is problematic, since the fall of Rome was the end of its political and religious power, whereas the fall of Babylon is not accompanied by the fall of the political power represented by the monster. Revelation is explicit that the fall of the monster and his kingdom come later, at Christ’s return. Also, if the fall of Rome is in view, who were the ten kings plus one who destroyed it?

It would seem reasonable to conclude that, although the Babylon imagery applies to aspects of the Roman Empire and other subsequent empires, the fall of Babylon has nothing to do with the fall of Rome. It primarily refers to the future destruction of the Babylon that will arise (whatever that turns out to be) by the great power whose reins it once held.

I say ‘primarily’ since adumbrations of this kind of thing have regularly occurred in the past. For example, the silversmiths in Ephesus rioted when they saw that the gospel would threaten their lucrative religious trade in souvenir silver shrines celebrating the worship of the goddess Diana, whose temple was in that city (Acts 19:23–41). No wonder the monarchs, merchants and mariners mourn in this part of Revelation. In the 1920s, when Lenin turned his rage against the Russian Orthodox Church, he massacred bishops and priests in their thousands, some, but by no means all, of whom had lived lives of luxury and privilege under the tsars. They were summarily deprived of most of their property and, in many cases, of their lives as well, scarcely getting the chance to mourn the loss of their ‘Babylonian’ lifestyle, if they had had one. At Lenin’s urging, the state plundered the wealth of the Church for ostensibly philanthropic purposes. He lied.

Babylon will eventually meet her violent end, devoured by the monster. When the two witnesses were killed, the earth went wild with joy and delight. Now that Babylon has fallen, it is heaven that rightly fills with celebratory joy, even though it is the monster that has destroyed her:

Rejoice over her, O heaven,

and you saints and apostles and prophets,

for God has given judgement for you against her!

(18:20)

God will fulfil his promise to avenge his saints whose cries have reached his throne over the centuries.

Then a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone and threw it into the sea, saying,

‘So will Babylon the great city be thrown down with violence,

and will be found no more;

and the sound of harpists and musicians, of flute players and trumpeters,

will be heard in you no more,

and a craftsman of any craft

will be found in you no more,

and the sound of the mill

will be heard in you no more,

and the light of a lamp

will shine in you no more,

and the voice of bridegroom and bride

will be heard in you no more,

for your merchants were the great ones of the earth,

and all nations were deceived by your sorcery.

And in her was found the blood of prophets and of saints,

and of all who have been slain on earth.’

(18:21–4)

Centuries earlier, Jeremiah had predicted something very like this:

Jeremiah wrote in a book all the disaster that should come upon Babylon, all these words that are written concerning Babylon. And Jeremiah said to Seraiah: ‘When you come to Babylon, see that you read all these words, and say, “O Lord, you have said concerning this place that you will cut it off, so that nothing shall dwell in it, neither man nor beast, and it shall be desolate for ever.” When you finish reading this book, tie 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 disaster that I am bringing upon her, and they shall become exhausted.”’

(Jer. 51:60–4)

The throwing of a heavy stone into the sea is an acted parable depicting the destruction and desolation of Babylon. The hopeless refrain in the passage in Revelation – ‘will be found no more’ – is repeated six times over in a poetic description of what that desolation will involve. Nothing everyday – no sound, no music, no industry and crafts, no light, no special days, no joyful weddings – will be found in her because of what was found in her: the copious blood of believers. She had been beautiful and wealthy – and used it to deceive the nations with her sorcery.6 Now she is gone, ironically destroyed by the monster she had once attempted to control.

The imagery of a millstone being cast into the sea recalls a statement that Jesus once made: ‘Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung round his neck and he were thrown into the sea’ (Mark 9:42). And Babylon has enticed many a person to cause little ones to sin. Tragically, it still does, with the numbers of perverse sexual crimes against children at an all-time high.

Reflection on loss

On his journey to Rome to be put on trial and eventually executed, the apostle Paul found himself on a cargo boat carrying goods to Rome – like the boats described in Revelation 18. At one stage, aware that it was too late in the season to risk further sailing, he warned the captain and crew, saying: ‘Sirs, I perceive that the voyage will be with injury and much loss, not only of the cargo and the ship, but also of our lives’ (Acts 27:10). His advice was ignored, and on a majority vote they set sail, eventually running into a storm that threatened the boat so that they had to jettison its precious cargo. Paul then rebuked them for not listening to him but told them that only the ship would be lost, for an angel from God had appeared to him the night before and said: ‘Do not be afraid, Paul; you must stand before Caesar. And behold, God has granted you all those who sail with you’ (Acts 27:24). God in his mercy granted the sailors and shipowner their lives, but they lost their boat and everything in it – because they didn’t listen to a man of God, very much like the people in the ancient world who didn’t listen to what the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah said would happen to Babylon.

Paul’s own attitude to loss is described in his famous statement in Philippians:

But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ.

(Phil. 3:7–8)

We don’t know exactly how much Paul lost, but when he was converted, he certainly lost the great scholarly prestige and influence he had enjoyed in elite Jewish circles as a rabbi who had studied under Gamaliel. Yet he counted it all as rubbish in comparison with the surpassing worth of knowing Christ. That was for him the supreme value. What about you and me? For there is a danger for us Christians that we become careless and build rubbish into our lives, so that when we Christians appear before Christ to have our lives assessed, as we all must, we may experience a loss: ‘If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire’ (1 Cor. 3:14–15).’ We shall study this further in chapter 32.

It is something that the merchants of Babylon will know absolutely nothing about.

29

The climax: praise for God’s judgements

This, the fifth part of Revelation, like the preceding parts, now reaches its climax in great rejoicing that an end has been made of all Babylon’s awful abuse, perversion and evil.

APraise is uttered by:

(a)a great multitude in heaven: salvation, glory, power are God’s, for he has judged the prostitute and avenged his servants;

(b)the twenty-four elders;

(c)a voice from the throne;

(d)the voice of a great multitude: God reigns! Rejoice! Give him the glory.

BThe marriage supper of the Lamb has begun. His wife has made herself ready.

CIt was granted to the bride that she should clothe herself in fine linen – the righteous acts of the saints.

DBlessed are those invited to the marriage.

After this I heard what seemed to be the loud voice of a great multitude in heaven, crying out,

‘Hallelujah!

Salvation and glory and power belong to our God,

for his judgements are true and just;

for he has judged the great prostitute

who corrupted the earth with her immorality,

and has avenged on her the blood of his servants.’

Once more they cried out,

‘Hallelujah!

The smoke from her goes up for ever and ever.’

And the twenty-four elders and the four living creatures fell down and worshipped God who was seated on the throne, saying, ‘Amen. Hallelujah!’ And from the throne came a voice saying,

‘Praise our God,

all you his servants,

you who fear him,

small and great.’

Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, crying out,

‘Hallelujah!

For the Lord our God

the Almighty reigns.’

(19:1–6)

The contrast between this and the previous passage could scarcely be greater. Lament is replaced by joy. The doom-laden silent aftermath of the devastating destruction of Babylon on earth gives way to the swelling sound of a vast roar of joyful heavenly voices. They sing a ‘Hallelujah chorus’ to God because of the truth and righteousness of his judgement of the great prostitute in avenging the blood of his servants that she had spilled. All God’s people are called to join in that praise – the ‘small and great’ (19:5). We may not think of ourselves as very great – it is wise not to – but God welcomes praise from all, even those who think of themselves as small and insignificant. They all count with him because they fear him.

The loud voice is heard again with a further hallelujah, and the comment is made that the smoke of the ruined city ‘goes up for ever and ever’ (19:3). Babylon will never reappear to blight another person’s life.

And now, for the final time in the book, the twenty-four elders and the living creatures fall down and worship God who sits on the throne. There is no diminution of the praise because of all that has happened, rather the reverse. We hear the third hallelujah.

A voice is then heard from that throne inviting all servants of God and those who fear him to praise him – which is another hallelujah, for that is what the Hebrew word means.

This is no reluctant acceptance of all that has happened in this book of judgements. It is the genuine praise of beings in heaven and believers on earth echoing positive approval and celebration of all that God has done, and gratitude for it – a reaction that is called for by the fact that God’s judgements are true and righteous, as has just been said. We readers should pause and ask ourselves if we also can add our approving ‘Amen’ to it – and if not, why not?

The sounds increase in volume like the roar of a vast crowd, or the pounding cascade of a mighty waterfall, as the final hallelujah is articulated. No wonder, for ‘God the Almighty reigns’ (19:6). This is not referring to the fact that the kingdom of God was, is and ever shall be. This is the longed-for intervention of God as he takes up his great power and reigns, as was anticipated in 11:17. That reign will be described in the final episode, part 6.

The multitude now announce a wedding as John’s vision continues:

‘Let us rejoice and exult

and give him the glory,

for the marriage of the Lamb has come,

and his Bride has made herself ready;

it was granted her to clothe herself

with fine linen, bright and pure’ –

for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.

And the angel said to me, ‘Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.’ And he said to me, ‘These are the true words of God.’ Then I fell down at his feet to worship him, but he said to me, ‘You must not do that! I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers who hold to the testimony of Jesus. Worship God.’ For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.

(19:7–10)

The eerie vacuum left by the disappearance of wedding bells in Babylon is filled by the loud and triumphant announcement of the wedding to which all salvation history looks forward: the marriage of the Lamb. John uses three metaphors to convey the sheer loudness of this wedding announcement – the sound of a great multitude, of many waters and of loud thunder. One can imagine it resounding from one end of heaven to the other. Never was there such an announcement before.

The marital imagery goes back to the OT where God is often pictured as a husband and Israel as his bride. For instance, Isaiah wrote of Israel:

Fear not, for you will not be ashamed;

be not confounded, for you will not be disgraced;

for you will forget the shame of your youth,

and the reproach of your widowhood you will remember no more.

For your Maker is your husband,

the Lord of hosts is his name;

and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer,

the God of the whole earth he is called.

(Isa. 54:4–5)

Sadly, the prophets had to rebuke Israel for her unfaithfulness:

Surely, as a treacherous wife leaves her husband,

so have you been treacherous to me,

O house of Israel,

declares the Lord.

(Jer. 3:20)

From time to time, Israel fell under the seductive influence of Babylon and deserted her husband, the Lord. Yet that is not to be the end of the story. Isaiah 60 – 62 goes on to describe a time of glorious regathering of Israel in her land:

The nations shall see your righteousness,

and all the kings your glory,

and you shall be called by a new name

that the mouth of the Lord will give.

You shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord,

and a royal diadem in the hand of your God.

You shall no more be termed Forsaken,

and your land shall no more be termed Desolate,

but you shall be called My Delight Is in Her,

and your land Married;

for the Lord delights in you,

and your land shall be married.

For as a young man marries a young woman,

so shall your sons marry you,

and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride,

so shall your God rejoice over you.

(Isa. 62:2–5)

However, the glory of regathered Israel, once more married to her God, is not to be eclipsed by the pure, unsullied beauty of the bride, the faithful wife of the Lamb. Recall Roger Scruton’s statement: ‘to be beautiful it must be meaningful.’1 And we are told what that meaning is: beauty of character. The bride is magnificently clothed in fine white linen. This, we are told, represents the righteous acts of the saints, many of which have been done in secret and have hitherto remained unrecognised.

What a contrast there is between the evil duo of the woman and the monster and the righteous duo of Christ and his bride, the Church of the redeemed! Paul introduces the staggering idea of the Church as the bride of Christ in his letter to the first of the churches, Ephesians, where, as in Revelation, there is a strong emphasis on character-building. We should notice the contrast between this, the climax of part 5, and the climax of part 2. There, we saw standing before the throne of God a great multitude who had come out of the great tribulation and ‘washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb’ (7:14). And of course, that is how anyone will become part of the bride of Christ. Yet the emphasis here is on the bride having ‘made herself ready’ (19:7). In the months, weeks and days before a wedding (at least in the UK and in many other countries), the bride, often with many helpers, is busy getting her clothes ready in order to appear beautiful for her husband on her wedding day. This is the process described in Ephesians as the ‘washing of water with the word’ (Eph. 5:26), and surely when it was read out to the Ephesus church, this section of Revelation would have brought back the teaching of Ephesians 5 to them, as no doubt it was intended to.

It is the same for this, the greatest of all weddings. We, the members of the bride, have been saved by grace by the blood of the Lamb. That is the foundation. We have also been saved for good works and, as we look forward to that great day, in our love for the bridegroom we shall one day meet, we are to build on that foundation, weaving clothes of practical righteousness and adding virtue to our character. In other words, because she has this hope, the bride purifies herself, even as he – the Bridegroom – is pure (1 John 3:3). It is an illustration of the difference between justification and sanctification.

The contrast between the clothing of the bride of Christ and that of the prostitute Babylon could not be greater. The latter’s clothing was the product of violence and evil.

And what about you and me? A thought experiment occurs to me. In it, I imagine that I am a guest at a wedding and have my best suit on, when suddenly my clothes are replaced in some ‘magical’ way by any little bits of good I had managed, with the Lord’s help, to do during my life – my righteous acts, such as they are. What would the other guests around me see? I fear I might look rather threadbare and feel ashamed. Might it even be a case of ‘The emperor has no clothes’? We need to take this seriously, since something like it is going to happen one day and it is not hard to imagine that there will be great reversals. Some of the humblest and least-noticed believers will be resplendent in magnificent garments, representing their unsung deeds done in secret where only their heavenly Father saw them, whereas others, who were prominent and showy in this life, will look dowdy and commonplace. It is a huge challenge for all of us, since how we prepare for this coming wedding will show what we really think of the Bridegroom. Will the Lord be pleased when he sees us?

Here, the clothes expressing righteousness adorn a bride who is like no other. She consists of the whole redeemed Church and is destined to be an eternal companion to the Lamb. Over the centuries, she has been preparing for this moment by living faithfully for the Bridegroom, often through harrowing times of persecution, yet single-minded in her commitment.

She has resisted the satanic lie that seduced the first man and woman into sinning – the lie that God wanted to suppress them and keep them from rising to his level. Now we see just how big a lie that was, with the Church elevated to such a height that she can be a fit consort for the Lamb.

The wedding invitations are going out, and John is told to tell his readers that those who are invited are truly blessed (19:9). The book started with a blessing pronounced on those who read and kept the prophecy, and now we have the seventh and last such blessing pronounced on those who get an invitation to the marriage banquet. For those who read and keep the prophecy are going to be among those who receive the invitation. Indeed, the book may be regarded as an invitation.

The angel stresses that what we have been reading are the true words of God – just in case we find them difficult to take in as they are so wonderful.

John was so overwhelmed by the whole experience that he fell down before the angel to worship him. The angel rebuked him. Only God is to be worshipped – not a creature, however exalted. The angel is but a fellow servant of God who holds to the testimony about Jesus. This is an important corrective to the angel-worship that was, for example, a danger for the church in Colosse (Col. 2:18). The angel tells John to worship God, and the narrator adds: ‘For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy’ (19:10). It is God’s Holy Spirit who inspires the prophets, including John himself, to testify about Jesus. That should be an encouragement to all Christians, who are also called upon to testify in the power of that same Spirit, as Jesus himself promised (John 15:26–7). We have a high calling.

In his parables, Jesus often likens the message of the gospel to an invitation to a banquet. In Matthew 22:1–14 we find the famous parable of the wedding feast where special attention is paid, not to the clothes of the bride, but to the need for guests to put on a wedding garment – provided, presumably, by the host.

It is surely no accident that John in his Gospel presents Jesus’ first sign as his turning water into wine at a wedding at Cana in Galilee. On that occasion, he and his disciples were invitees and, possibly because their presence attracted others from the region, the wine ran out – to the profound embarrassment of the local host. Jesus’ mother, Mary, told him what had happened. She also instructed the servants to do what he said, so she clearly had an important role at this wedding. Jesus told them to fill the large water jars that had been used for a religious purification ceremony and were now standing empty. They must have been very puzzled. What was he going to do? Have another religious ceremony that would dampen the proceedings even more, now that there was no wine left? Jesus knew exactly what he was doing. He turned the waters of religious purification into the best wine of the feast.

It was, of course, a powerful acted parable. Wine to the Jews symbolised joy. And the joy had run out of that wedding as it has run out of many weddings since, which has sadly meant in many cases that people have been only too willing to rush into the clutches of Babylon and accept her golden cup full of abominations. Jesus pointed to what is often the cause of the loss of joy in relationships: lack of purification; in other words, moral impurity. And he had a solution for it: for us to drink his wine gladly, accept inner purification from him, and enter his joy.

At weddings, as we have seen from Revelation, the clothes of the bride are a focal point. In most cultures it would be insensitive, to say the least, for any guest to outshine the bride. And yet that is precisely what happened without offence at that wedding at Cana. The glory of the bride is not mentioned, but the glory of Jesus is. We read: ‘This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory. And his disciples believed in him’ (John 2:11).

For at that wedding long ago, Jesus was seeking a bride by revealing his glory. His disciples saw it, and Peter, writing years later, could say that he was ‘called . . . by [Jesus’] own glory and excellence’ (2 Pet. 1:3, alternative reading). It was the sheer glory of Jesus that had captivated him. That wedding was a foretaste of the marriage supper of the Lamb.

When it comes to weddings, everyone wants to know when they are going to happen. The next time we meet wedding language in Revelation will be in 21:2: ‘And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.’ This statement occurs in the text after the description of the return of Christ in power and great glory and after the first heavens and the first earth have passed away. Therefore, many commentators argue that the marriage supper of the Lamb takes place at that time, even though it is not mentioned as such. Many others, however, argue that the marriage must already have taken place at this point, basing themselves on 19:7b:

for the marriage of the Lamb has come,

and his Bride has made herself ready.

(my emphasis)

The former group argue that the Greek tense of the verb translated ‘has come’ is the aorist (a simple past tense), which does not necessarily imply a particular chronology but can describe an event that has not yet happened as if it had happened. That it has not yet happened would fit in with the fact that a bride getting ready anticipates a future wedding.

However, by contrast, the latter group holds that the marriage supper of the Lamb takes place before Christ’s return in power in great glory. They argue that the logic of the situation implies that Christ must therefore have taken the Church to heaven at an earlier time (the rapture), which some commentators place before the great tribulation. Then, there is the marriage supper of the Lamb in heaven, after which the Church returns to earth with Christ. In other words, the claim is that the order in the text is also an order in time. We shall look at the relative merits of these two views in appendix 2: ‘Rapture’.

Part 6

REVELATION 19:11 – 22:21

BRIEF SUMMARY

Heaven opened

The return of Christ in power and great glory to judge and reign

Satan confined for 1,000 years

Christ’s millennial reign

The last battle

The great white throne

New heavens and the new earth

Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war . . . and the name by which he is called is The Word of God.

(19:11, 13b)

DETAILED SUMMARY

A. The return of the Word of God (19:11–21)

The rider on the white horse is called Faithful and True. In justice he judges and makes war. His eyes are like a flame of fire. His name is The Word of God. Armies of heaven follow him. A sharp sword comes out of his mouth to strike nations. He will rule with a rod of iron. He will tread the wine press of the wrath of God. His name is King of kings and Lord of lords.

An angel invites birds to a great supper of the flesh of kings, soldiers, horses and all people. The battle begins: the monster and armies gather to fight against the Rider and his armies. The monster and false prophet are thrown into a lake of fire; the rest are killed with the sword from the Rider’s mouth; the birds are filled with flesh.

B. Satan bound, Christ’s millennial reign, the last battle and the final judgement (20:1–15)

Satan is bound in the abyss for a thousand years to stop him deceiving nations; after that he will be released briefly.

Thrones and judges appear. Martyrs who refused the mark of the monster are resurrected. They reign with Christ for a thousand years. The first resurrection occurs. For those who experience it, the second death has no power.

Satan is released after a thousand years. He gathers nations to battle. Fire from heaven consumes them. The devil is thrown into the lake of fire.

The great white throne appears; heaven and earth flee. The dead are judged by the contents of books according to their works. Those not written in the book of life are thrown into the lake of fire.

C. New heaven, new earth and new Jerusalem (21:1 – 22:5)

John sees a new heaven and a new earth; the new Jerusalem comes down from heaven like a bride. The dwelling of God is with men and women. God wipes away tears; there is no more pain, death or mourning.

An announcement comes from God on the throne making all things new. He gives a promise to the thirsty and the overcomer: the one who overcomes shall inherit. The faithless . . . immoral . . . idolaters and liars are condemned to the lake of fire – the second death.

The angel who had the bowl of wrath shows John the bride, the wife of the Lamb. The Holy City comes down from God radiant with the glory of God. John sees many details: its wall; its gates with the names of the tribes of Israel; its foundations with the names of the twelve apostles; its dimensions; its bejewelled foundations and gates; its streets of gold.

No temple is there; the city’s temple is the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb. There is no need for light there; the glory of God and the Lamb illuminate it. The kings of the earth bring glory into it. No gate is ever shut, and there is no night.

Nothing unclean will enter the city – only those written in the Lamb’s book of life.

A river of the water of life flows from the throne in the middle of the street. The tree of life grows on each side; its leaves are for the healing of the nations. Nothing accursed is in the city. The throne of God and the Lamb is in it. His servants will see his face, bearing his name on their foreheads. There is no more night there, and no need for the sun, for God will be their light. His servants shall reign for ever and ever.

D. Epilogue: Jesus is coming again! (22:6–21)

Here are trustworthy and true words:

‘Behold, I am coming soon. Blessed is the one who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book . . . Do not seal up the words . . . for the time is near.’

‘Behold, I am coming soon . . . Blessed are those who wash their robes’ to access the tree of life and enter the city. ‘I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify’. The Spirit and the Bride say, ‘Come.’

‘“Surely I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!’

30

The return of the Word of God

This final part of the book opens after the pattern of the other parts except that in this case it is not something opened in heaven but rather heaven itself that is opened. In the vision, the veil between the unseen and the seen worlds is removed and John is given a preview of the coming of Jesus as judge and ruler of the world. The section consists of a number of visions marked off by John’s repeated use of the phrase: ‘I saw’.

Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems, and he has a name written that no one knows but himself. He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is The Word of God. And the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses. From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the wine press of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords.

(19:11–16)

At the beginning of the book, it is announced that the coming of God, long promised in the OT, will take the form of the return of Christ from heaven to earth in power and great glory. Now, at last, we have reached the event towards which this entire book has been moving – the supreme hope of all believers – which is the glorious appearing of the Lord Jesus at his return. This final part is where many of the threads of the book are woven together in a final revelation of what the whole story means. Anticipation gives way to fulfilment.

John sees heaven opened, and we can well imagine that there was a great number of things to see. But his eyes were captivated by a single figure: a rider on a magnificent white horse about to charge and wage war.

The symbolism used to describe the advent itself is, perhaps, not quite what we might expect from earlier scriptures that talk about the Lord’s return in the clouds of heaven. Daniel saw a vision of the coming of the Son of Man on the clouds of heaven, and this imagery was imprinted on the minds and eyes of the disciples as Jesus left them by ascending to heaven in a cloud: ‘This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven’ (Acts 1:11). The promise about coming in the clouds is repeated in 1:7.

However, in the description of this momentous event in 19:11, no clouds are mentioned. When he first came to earth, Christ entered Jerusalem in a meek and lowly manner, riding on a humble donkey. He now returns as the King of kings mounted on a magnificent white horse, the sort of highly prized steed that, in the ancient world, only kings and generals possessed and rode to war. Its rider is first identified as being called Faithful and True, a title that reflects some of the first descriptions of Jesus in the book (see 1:5; 3:7, 14).

Many of the ideas in this passage are once again anchored in the OT. The imagery of a king coming to judge righteously appears in the Psalms:

Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy

before the Lord, for he comes,

for he comes to judge the earth.

He will judge the world in righteousness,

and the peoples in his faithfulness.

(Ps. 96:12b–13; see also Ps. 98.9)

Christ’s return shows that he is completely faithful to this promise that God would one day come to judge (see also Ps. 96:13). He is the mighty Warrior King who has come to exact righteous judgement on his enemies. This rider, unique among warriors, is morally flawless.

Picking up imagery from the vision of the Son of Man at the beginning of the book, we are told that the eyes of the Rider are ‘like a flame of fire’ (19:12a). They can penetrate into the farthest recesses so that he can see clearly in order to judge in perfect righteousness. If the churches had to face that gaze, so also will the world as he comes with diadems on his head to rule the earth as its rightful king.

There then follows the somewhat enigmatic statement that ‘he has a name written that no one knows but himself’ (19:12b). We met a similar phrase in 2:17, where the one who conquers in Pergamum is promised a white stone with a name on it that no one knows but the recipient. Part 6 will go on to pick up ideas from all seven of the letters to the churches in part 1.

Knowing a name special to oneself can be understood as signifying a unique relationship with God the giver of the name. However, here in 19:12 it is an undisclosed name of the Lord himself. Is it to be understood as an indication that no collection of names that we know will ever exhaust who he is in all his glory? Or is it rather making the point that we are about to learn a new or a deeper meaning in the names that are given in the immediate context: Faithful and True and, coming up in the next few verses, The Word of God.

There is motion in the vision. The white horse charges into battle, followed by the armies (plural) of heaven, also mounted on white horses; a sharp sword comes out of his mouth to strike the nations, which he will rule with a rod of iron (see 2:27; 12:5), and he is about to tread the wine press of the wrath of God the Almighty. This is the language of war. It is also thoroughly messianic, as we have already seen from Psalm 2:

I will tell of the decree:

The Lord said to me, ‘You are my Son;

today I have begotten you.

Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage,

and the ends of the earth your possession.

You shall break1 them with a rod of iron

and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.’

(Ps. 2:7–9)

We first meet the terrifying, surreal sword at the beginning of the book, where Christ uses it to penetrate and lay bare the secrets of the churches on the principle that judgement must begin at the house of God – and specifically when speaking to the church in Pergamum. Now that same sharp sword will be used by the rider on the white horse against the avowed enemies of God in the world. Also, the ‘rod of iron’ (19:15) was mentioned in the letter to the church at Thyatira, where the right to rule with it was promised to the overcomer.

In the opening passage in the Gospel of John we learn about the Word:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made . . .

And the Word became flesh . . .

(John 1:1–3, 14)

In John’s Gospel this title points to the Word as the second person of the Trinity, the Creator, who became human for the salvation of all who receive him. In Revelation 19 it is not salvation that is in view2 but rather the execution of judgement and war. The name is slightly different: ‘The Word of God’ (19:13). The context tells us that it is the same Word who became human to save us who will also come to judge the impenitent and wage righteous war against the enemies of God. He is not only the Creator and Saviour who died on the cross but also the great Judge and Consummator of all things who tramples ‘the wine press of the fury of the wrath of God’ (19:15).

As we saw earlier, Isaiah identifies this individual as the Messiah, descendant of King David, who will come to deal with the wicked:

There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse,

and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.

And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him . . .

He shall not judge by what his eyes see,

or decide disputes by what his ears hear,

but with righteousness he shall judge the poor,

and decide with equity for the meek of the earth;

and he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth,

and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.

Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist,

and faithfulness the belt of his loins.

(11:1–5)

Jeremiah also identifies him as the Davidic Messiah who will return to execute justice and rule in wisdom:

Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. And this is the name by which he will be called: ‘The Lord is our righteousness.’

Therefore, behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when they shall no longer say, ‘As the Lord lives who brought up the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt’, but ‘As the Lord lives who brought up and led the offspring of the house of Israel out of the north country and out of all the countries where he had driven them.’ Then they shall dwell in their own land.

(Jer. 23:5–8)

This person is, of course, the long-promised Seed of the woman, the Messiah from the tribe of Judah who was promised to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David and the prophets.

The imagery of a warrior with his garment dipped in blood comes from a messianic passage in Isaiah that contains several of the concepts we have just noted:

Who is this who comes from Edom,

in crimsoned garments from Bozrah,

he who is splendid in his apparel,

marching in the greatness of his strength?

‘It is I, speaking in righteousness,

mighty to save.’

Why is your apparel red,

and your garments like his who treads in the wine press?

‘I have trodden the wine press alone,

and from the peoples no one was with me;

I trod them in my anger

and trampled them in my wrath;

their lifeblood spattered on my garments,

and stained all my apparel.’

(Isa. 63:1–3)

Alec Motyer, in his magisterial commentary on Isaiah, writes:

We rightly see the New Testament counterpart of this in the wrath of the Lamb (Rev. 6:15ff.) and the treading of the winepress of the wrath of God (Rev. 14:17–20; 19:15) and we recoil from it. But sober reflection warns us that our reaction is not to be trusted. We know nothing of the emotions proper to absolute holiness, the just, merited and inevitable final settlement between God and all that defiles and opposes.

He cites J. D. Smart’s comment that for no prophet ‘could there be a day of salvation without a day of judgement. God’s mercy and God’s wrath stood not in contradiction but in union’.3

That is, we need both aspects of the name The Word of God in order to have a balanced view. Motyer also notes the word play in the passage from Isaiah 63: the Hebrew words for ‘Edom’ and ‘red’ are from the same root, and ‘Bozrah’ means ‘vintage’ so that it is linguistically associated with a wine press.

In only two places in the NT do we read of the Lord sitting on an animal. The first is at the triumphal entry into Jerusalem where he sits on a donkey, and the second is here in Revelation where he sits on a white steed. On both occasions he is coming as King but with a great difference. In the first case he is bringing salvation, as prophesied by Zechariah:

Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!

Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem!

Behold, your king is coming to you;

righteous and having salvation is he,

humble and mounted on a donkey,

on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

(Zech. 9:9)

On the second occasion, he is bringing judgement.

On the first occasion he rides on an actual donkey. And on the second? It is worth pausing a moment to consider the level at which the symbolism is operating here. The rider is clearly identified in the text, but nothing is said about the white horse. Earlier, we met the symbolism of a woman riding an animal – the monster – and the symbolic meaning of both of them was given to us. They stand for real, existing entities. However, the steed does not stand for that kind of entity but rather for abstract concepts such as majesty, power and authority, which are real in a different sense. The white steed tells us that the Rider is a warrior.

Christ will not return alone to execute judgement. He is accompanied by the armies of heaven, who are dressed in white linen and, like their Lord, ride on white horses.

Who are they? Are they armies of believers, already in heaven (6:11), who are described as arrayed in white linen at the marriage supper of the Lamb in 19:8? Or are they armies of angels, as the Lord himself mentioned on several occasions (Matt. 16:27; 25:31; Mark 8:38), or perhaps both?

What they are is clear: they are armies that accompany Christ on his return. Zechariah, who predicted Christ’s first coming as King on a donkey, in his final chapters describes the battle that will ensue when he comes to judge, and explicitly mentions the fact that the Lord will not come alone: ‘Then the Lord my God will come, and all the holy ones with him’ (Zech. 14:5). There is no evidence, however, that they are involved in the battle, since the Lord fights for them.

Here is a sample of what Zechariah prophesies about that battle:

On that day I will make the clans of Judah like a blazing pot in the midst of wood, like a flaming torch among sheaves. And they shall devour to the right and to the left all the surrounding peoples, while Jerusalem shall again be inhabited in its place, in Jerusalem.

And the Lord will give salvation to the tents of Judah first, that the glory of the house of David and the glory of the inhabitants of Jerusalem may not surpass that of Judah. On that day the Lord will protect the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the feeblest among them on that day shall be like David, and the house of David shall be like God, like the angel of the Lord, going before them. And on that day, I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem.

And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy, so that, when they look on me, 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 firstborn. On that day the mourning in Jerusalem will be as great as the mourning for Hadad-rimmon in the plain of Megiddo. The land shall mourn, each family by itself . . .

On that day there shall be a fountain opened for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and uncleanness.

(Zech. 12:6–12a; 13:1)

Zechariah sums this up two chapters later:

For I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem to battle, and the city shall be taken . . . Then the Lord will go out and fight against those nations as when he fights on a day of battle. On that day his feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives . . . Then the Lord my God will come, and all the holy ones with him.

(Zech. 14:2–5)

According to Zechariah, then, salvation and restoration will come to Israel, but not until Jerusalem has been attacked by an international coalition.

Zechariah’s description of the fate that will befall God’s enemies is horrific, as we might expect from the Revelation description of the returning Christ treading ‘the wine press of the fury of the wrath of God’ (19:15b). This, after all, is the righteous judgement of one who has a name written on his robe and thigh: King of kings and Lord of lords. We have met this title (in reverse order) in an earlier prediction (17:14) of the awesome battle that is now about to commence: ‘They will make war on the Lamb, and the Lamb will conquer them, for he is Lord of lords and King of kings, and those with him are called and chosen and faithful.’

Then I saw an angel standing in the sun, and with a loud voice he called to all the birds that fly directly overhead, ‘Come, gather for the great supper of God, to eat the flesh of kings, the flesh of captains, the flesh of mighty men, the flesh of horses and their riders, and the flesh of all men, both free and slave, both small and great.’ And I saw the beast and the kings of the earth with their armies gathered to make war against him who was sitting on the horse and against his army. And the beast was captured, and with it the false prophet who in its presence had done the signs by which he deceived those who had received the mark of the beast and those who worshipped its image. These two were thrown alive into the lake of fire that burns with sulphur. And the rest were slain by the sword that came from the mouth of him who was sitting on the horse, and all the birds were gorged with their flesh.

(19:17–21)

An angel with a loud voice issues an invitation to all the carrion birds (vultures?) flying overhead to come to a gruesome feast of human and animal flesh – the remains of the vast numbers of people of every description who will fall in the ensuing battle. This vivid language is taken from Ezekiel’s prophecy of a gigantic attack on Jerusalem by a coalition led by a mysterious figure called Gog, in which so many would be killed that it would take seven months to bury them all. Many would end up as carrion (Ezek. 39:12). The fate of having one’s corpse eaten by wild animals was regarded as one of the worst dishonours in the ancient world. Witness the insult hurled by Goliath at David: ‘The Philistine said to David, “Come to me, and I will give your flesh to the birds of the air and to the beasts of the field”’ (1 Sam. 17:44).

Ezekiel appears to be describing the same event when he writes:

As for you, son of man, thus says the Lord God: Speak to the birds of every sort and to all beasts of the field: ‘Assemble and come, gather from all round to the sacrificial feast that I am preparing for you, a great sacrificial feast on the mountains of Israel, and you shall eat flesh and drink blood. You shall eat the flesh of the mighty and drink the blood of the princes of the earth – of rams, of lambs, and of he-goats, of bulls, all of them fat beasts of Bashan. And you shall eat fat till you are filled, and drink blood till you are drunk, at the sacrificial feast that I am preparing for you. And you shall be filled at my table with horses and charioteers, with mighty men and all kinds of warriors,’ declares the Lord God.

And I will set my glory among the nations, and all the nations shall see my judgement that I have executed, and my hand that I have laid on them. The house of Israel shall know that I am the Lord their God, from that day forward . . .

Therefore thus says the Lord God: Now I will restore the fortunes of Jacob and have mercy on the whole house of Israel, and I will be jealous for my holy name.

(Ezek. 39:17–21, 25)

What a contrast, possibly deliberate, between this feast of death, where the blood is compared with the juice flowing out of a wine press, and the feast prophesied by Isaiah which the people of God will enjoy on ‘this mountain’! There they will celebrate with the best of wine the abolition of death:

On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples

a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine,

of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined.

And he will swallow up on this mountain

the covering that is cast over all peoples,

the veil that is spread over all nations.

He will swallow up death for ever . . .

It will be said on that day,

‘Behold, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us.’

(Isa. 25:6–9)

John sees this all play out as the monster and the kings of the earth and their armies assemble to war against the Rider on the horse and his army. It seems incredible that those on earth could be so deceived as to think that they can defeat the Lord from heaven and his armies when every eye can see him (1:7), yet in their rage they will try (see Ps. 2) and will be defeated, as predicted in 17:14.

So far as the text of Revelation goes, what follows, compared with the grim description of the battle predicted in Zechariah 14, seems almost like an anticlimax. The evil duo of the monster and the false prophet, who deceived the nations to take the monster’s mark, are summarily thrown alive into the lake of fire. The rest of the enemy armies and their kings,4 who presumably had taken that mark, are slain by the sword that came from the Rider’s mouth. It was, apparently, the sole offensive weapon employed by God in the entire war. The description of the outcome is grim: carrion birds swoop on the corpses and gorge themselves until sated.

The Word of God, which can and did create, can and will also destroy. Those who sell their soul to a beast of prey will be devoured by birds of prey.

The trampling of the Holy City is at an end, and the times of the Gentiles are over. We are about to enter a new phase of God’s kingdom.

31

The millennial reign of Christ

Revelation chapter 20 consists of three visions, each of which John introduces by saying: ‘I saw’. Once the monster and the false prophet have been thrown into the lake of fire, measures are taken against the devil who had given them their power:

Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain. And he seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years, and threw him into the pit, and shut it and sealed it over him, so that he might not deceive the nations any longer, until the thousand years were ended. After that he must be released for a little while.

(20:1–3)

John next sees an angel coming down from heaven who seizes the devil, binds him with a great chain and throws him into the bottomless pit, the abyss, which is then sealed for a thousand years. The whole purpose of these elaborate measures is to stop the devil deceiving the nations during that time. This implies that the devil has been deceiving the nations up to this point and is now rendered incapable of doing so for a thousand years. It also implies that there exist angels that are more powerful than the devil.

There is a passage in Isaiah whose language may form part of the background here:

On that day the Lord will punish

the host of heaven, in heaven,

and the kings of the earth, on the earth.

They will be gathered together

as prisoners in a pit;

they will be shut up in a prison,

and after many days they will be punished.

Then the moon will be confounded

and the sun ashamed,

for the Lord of hosts reigns

on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem,

and his glory will be before his elders.

(Isa. 24:21–3)

Alec Motyer takes this as referring to ‘guilty spiritual forces who will be dealt with in a comprehensive settlement over the whole field of divine creation’.1 Long before Motyer, Jewish commentators applied it to fallen angels. For instance, the ancient text known as 1 Enoch2 says:

And again the Lord said to Raphael: ‘Bind Azâzêl hand and foot, and cast him into the darkness: and make an opening in the desert, which is in Dûdâêl, and cast him therein. And place upon him rough and jagged rocks, and cover him with darkness, and let him abide there for ever, and cover his face that he may not see light. And on the day of the great judgement he shall be cast into the fire.

(1 Enoch 10:4–6)

There are echoes of this in 2 Peter: ‘God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgement’ (2 Pet. 2:4). Within the genre of Jewish apocalyptic we find various rabbinic estimates of the duration of such punishment. According to Osborne, they range from 40 to 7,000 years.3 Also, in some Jewish traditions the whole of history was thought of as a cosmic ‘week’ of seven 1,000-year-long ‘days’ where the seventh was a period of rest for Messiah. The Jewish apocryphal book of Jubilees, dated to around 100 bc, contains the following intriguing passage:

And the days shall begin to grow many and increase amongst those children of men till their days draw nigh to one thousand years. And to a greater number of years than (before) was the number of the days. And there shall be no old man, nor one who is not satisfied with his days, for all shall be (as) children and youths. And all their days they shall complete and live in peace and in joy, and there shall be no Satan nor any evil destroyer; For all their days shall be days of blessing and healing. And at that time the Lord will heal His servants, and they shall rise up and see great peace and drive out their adversaries. And the righteous shall see and be thankful, and rejoice with joy for ever and ever, and shall see all their judgments and all their curses on their enemies.

(Jubilees 23:44–9)4

Here is what Revelation says will happen during this period of a thousand years, often referred to as the ‘millennium’:5

Then I saw thrones, and seated on them were those to whom the authority to judge was committed. Also, I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God, and those who had not worshipped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection! Over such 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.

(20:4–6)

Jesus himself said: ‘Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away’ (Matt. 24:35).

The fulfilment of that prophecy will be described in the next section in this part. However, before this present earth has served its role and been replaced by a new one, something of paramount importance must happen. This planet that God made and loved, and which nevertheless rejected him when he came incarnate in Christ his Son, must experience his reign.

How could it be morally otherwise? The evil trio of the devil, the monster and the false prophet cannot be the last to rule the present earth. If that were the case, and God simply brought earth history to an end at that point, it would look as if God had, in a very real sense, lost the planet to the enemy. That cannot happen. God will never abandon this world – his good, indeed very good creation – to the powers of evil. In addition, it will not happen because the promise of the future rule of God’s Messiah on earth is the central hope that has permeated Israel’s prophetic tradition since the time of Abraham. Zechariah sums up this expectation when, just after describing the attack of the nations against Jerusalem and the return of the Lord to battle with them, he writes: ‘And the Lord will be king over all the earth. On that day the Lord will be one and his name one’ (Zech. 14:9). This reign of Christ is often called the ‘millennial reign’ or the ‘intermediate kingdom’.

The disciples expected it. It formed part of the prayer that Jesus taught them:

Our Father in heaven,

hallowed be your name.

Your kingdom come,

your will be done,

on earth as it is in heaven.

(Matt. 6:9–10)

Millions of us pray it regularly, but how many expect it to be fulfilled?

That is one reason why I find it difficult to follow the view of those expositors who hold that there will be no future millennial reign of Christ on this earth – a view that is called ‘amillennialism’.6 Many of them are in the UK, whereas an equally weighty body of scholars, mainly in the USA, hold what is called the ‘premillennial’ view. It takes the order of the text in Revelation to be chronological in that the end of chapter 19 describes events that precede the events at the beginning of chapter 20, so that Christ will return before the millennium.

Not surprisingly, there are many variations on these views. We shall not be able to examine all of them. However, there is a voluminous literature awaiting you, should you wish to pursue the matter further. It is probably fair to say that the premillennial approach tends to take language at the more literal end of the spectrum unless it makes much more sense to take it symbolically, whereas the amillennial approach tends to take language at the more symbolic end of the spectrum unless it makes much more sense to take it literally.

The term ‘amillennial’ (meaning ‘having no millennium’) is somewhat of a misnomer since amillennialists hold that Scripture clearly teaches that there is a ‘millennium’, but they do not understand it as a literal future reign of Christ on this earth. The current preferred model for amillennialism is the Two-Age Model, which holds that the biblical metanarrative splits history into two ages: this age and the age to come.7 These are two successive and distinct ages, although, for believers in Christ, the age to come is already a present reality, so that they live in what is called an ‘eschatological tension’ between the ‘already’ and the ‘not yet’. Hence, it is argued that the second coming of Christ is the frontier between this age and the age to come, so that there is no time gap between them that allows for the interpolation of an intermediate millennial reign of Christ. For a detailed and comprehensive scholarly analysis of current thinking, we refer the interested reader to Matt Waymeyer’s book, Amillennialism and the Age to Come: A premillennial critique of the two-age model.8

For amillennialists, the thousand years is usually taken to symbolise the entire church age from Christ’s ascension or Pentecost until his return, during which time the Church ‘reigns’ with the Lord. They also take the binding of Satan for a thousand years to be a symbol that covers the same ground as the description in 12:7–11 of Satan being cast down from heaven to earth.

However, that is hard to square with the fact that, in the latter passage, when Satan is cast down, he engineers through the monster and false prophet the worst deception of the nations that the world has ever seen. Moreover, that is a short period, for which a thousand years would not be an appropriate symbol – especially since Revelation itself tells us that it is three and a half years! Also, far from being bound during that time, in 12:7–11 Satan is let loose on earth as never before. To hold that he has not been deceiving the nations since the inception of the Church is incomprehensible in the light of the teaching of the apostles about satanic activity. For instance, Paul says: ‘In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God’ (2 Cor. 4:4). Peter adds: ‘Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour’ (1 Pet. 5:8).

I find it impossible to reconcile this with the contention that Satan is nevertheless bound with a chain and sealed in a pit, symbolising real restraints that prevent him deceiving the nations any more – the last phrase implying that he had been deceiving them up until that time. A simple analogy would be to say, ‘We locked the dog in the farmhouse so that he would not chase the rabbits any more.’ We would deduce from that statement that the dog was not chasing rabbits. Similarly, we can deduce that Satan is not deceiving the nations at all during the millennium.

I pause to emphasise that there is no place, on the one hand, for a crass literalistic understanding of the passage that imagines, for example, that the chain that binds Satan is made of steel. On the other hand, neither is there any place for misconstruing the nature of metaphor to imagine that the restraint on Satan, by some mechanism, in all probability incomprehensible in nature to us, is not real. Whatever the reality is, this ‘chain’ is completely successful in bringing to a complete halt the devil’s deceit that is, and has been, deluding much of our world. Arguments that, since the chain is not literal, the thousand years cannot be, are rather superficial. It would be like saying that because the chain in the statement ‘I was chained to my desk for two hours’ is not a literal chain, the two hours cannot be literal. Such arguments miss the point that metaphor stands for reality. The chain stands for a real restraint, and the thousand years most probably stands for itself, that is, a thousand years, or at least it stands for a real, lengthy period of time.

Another text that mentions binding is found in Mark where Jesus is accused of casting out demons by the power of the prince of demons. He points out that the accusation is illogical:

How can Satan cast out Satan? . . . And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but is coming to an end. But no one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man. Then indeed he may plunder his house.

(Mark 3:23–7)

Jesus demonstrated his superior power to bind the strong man every time he released people from their bondage to sin and the devil. And that kind of deliverance is something absolutely thrilling which I believe with all of my heart. There is a marvellous statement in 1 John that has meant a great deal to me in my life: ‘Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world’ (1 John 4:4). Jesus is undoubtedly the strong man. However, I don’t think that is what Revelation is teaching here. For the binding in Mark’s Gospel has to do with the salvation of individuals, not with the binding of Satan to stop his deception of the nations. There are no nations mentioned in connection with the former, whereas the nations are the whole point of the latter. Therefore, application of this parable to the binding of Satan in Revelation 20 is not convincing.

As for the amillennial notion that the saints now reign in Christ, Paul tells us in Ephesians that we believers are now in a real sense seated with Jesus in the heavenly places. However, once more, I do not think that is what Revelation is teaching here. The interpretation that the saints are now ruling the earth from thrones set up for that purpose (however symbolic) is not only very far-fetched but is explicitly contradicted by Paul in an important passage where he rebukes the Corinthians for attempting to reign in a manner incompatible with their profession of allegiance to Christ:

Already you have all you want! Already you have become rich! Without us you have become kings! And would that you did reign, so that we might share the rule with you! For I think that God has exhibited us apostles as last of all, like men sentenced to death, because we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels, and to men. We are fools for Christ’s sake, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are held in honour, but we in disrepute. To the present hour we hunger and thirst, we are poorly dressed and buffeted and homeless, and we labour, working with our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we entreat. We have become, and are still, like the scum of the world, the refuse of all things.

(1 Cor. 4:8–13)

Despite this, some in the Corinthian church were clearly living as if they ruled the place as little kings. Their concept of reigning was erroneous, as was their understanding of the timing of God’s plan to entrust real rule to his people. Somewhat acerbically to get the point across, Paul told them straight that he wished they really were reigning because, if that were the case, he and the other apostles would also be reigning with them. He clearly expected to reign one day, but he and the other apostles weren’t reigning yet. Far from it: they were being mistreated, starved, poorly clothed, slandered, persecuted and treated like scum.

Of course, they were being treated like that because Satan was massively active in deceiving the nations. The apostles well knew that they would not reign until Christ returned and dealt with their malign enemy. The Corinthians didn’t seem to know that, and so Paul had to rebuke them about it later in the same letter:

When one of you has a grievance against another, does he dare go to law before the unrighteous instead of the saints? Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases? Do you not know that we are to judge angels? How much more, then, matters pertaining to this life!

(1 Cor. 6:1–3)

Antipathy to the idea of a literal thousand-year reign of Christ is often supported by saying that it is only mentioned once in Scripture. I am tempted to respond: so what? How often has God to tell us something before we will accept it?9 However, that somewhat trite response is not enough. For, to be fair, the main amillennial contention is that the passage in Revelation 20 is not clear, so that it must be interpreted in the light of other clearer passages elsewhere in Scripture, rather than taking it in isolation.10 It is then claimed that all other scriptures speak of the age to come as eternal, which precludes the possibility of an intermediate reign after Christ’s return.

I confess that I am not convinced by the two-age paradigm. It strikes me, as a scientist, as being an imposed interpretative matrix, somewhat like the naturalistic paradigm that is currently imposed on science, rather than an interpretation that flows from the facts under consideration.

It is, of course, true that the expression ‘a thousand years’ only occurs in this passage (20:1–10), although it occurs six times, and not just once. I said earlier that I am somewhat sceptical of the idea that all numbers in Revelation are symbolic or only symbolic. Some numbers are both literal and symbolic at the same time; for example, there were actually seven literal churches but the seven stood for completeness. Furthermore, if the number 1,000 is to be taken as symbolic, we must then ask: what reality does it symbolise? Presumably, it means an actual, limited but lengthy period of time, since, whatever it represents, it has a before (Satan is bound for a thousand years) and an after (the time after the thousand years are finished).11 Why not a thousand actual years, then, or something of that order?12 The important point is that it stands for an actual reign of finite duration.

I have yet to see any solid evidence that any of the numbers in Revelation that qualify a time period are anything other than literal. It is worth noting that the use of ‘a thousand’ in Psalm 90:4 is literal:

For a thousand years in your sight

are but as yesterday when it is past,

or as a watch in the night.13

Furthermore, whereas the length of Christ’s future earthly reign is only found in this passage, the fact that he will reign is a major biblical theme found in many parts of Scripture, since it is a key messianic hope. In Psalm 2 we read of God setting his king in Zion and making the nations a heritage for his Son, who will rule globally. In Isaiah 11 we read of the root from Jesse on whom will be the Spirit of the Lord and who will judge the meek of the earth with righteousness. It will be a glorious time when the wolf will dwell with the lamb, and children will happily play with large animals such as bears and lions. Isaiah sums it up:

They shall not hurt or destroy

in all my holy mountain;

for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord

as the waters cover the sea.

In that day the root of Jesse, who shall stand as a signal for the peoples – of him shall the nations enquire, and his resting-place shall be glorious.

(Isa. 11:9–10)

We find similar passages in Isaiah 60 – 63, Ezekiel 38 – 39 and Zechariah 12 and 14 (as we saw above).

The fourth-century Greek church historian Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea, regarded Papias (ad 60–130), bishop of Hierapolis, as a prime source for the millennial views of the early fathers. He wrote:

In these [Papias’s accounts] he says there would be a certain millennium after the resurrection, and that there would be a corporeal reign of Christ on this very earth; which things he appears to have imagined, as if they were authorized by the apostolic narrations, not understanding correctly those matters which they propounded mystically in their representations . . . yet he was the cause why most of the ecclesiastical writers, urging the antiquity of the man, were carried away by a similar opinion; as, for instance Irenaeus, or any other that adopted such sentiments.14

Eusebius was clearly sceptical, and Papias himself linked the millennium with the resurrection of Jesus and not with his return. However, some of the most famous early church fathers, including Justin Martyr, Irenaeus and Tertullian, expected a millennial kingdom on earth at Christ’s return. Christian apologist and philosopher Justin Martyr, in his Dialogue with Trypho (written c. ad 155), describes belief in a literal millennium as orthodox doctrine, though he admitted that some denied it. He understands that the millennium was predicted by OT prophets and will be centred on Jerusalem. He wrote:

But I and others, who are right-minded Christians on 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.

A summary of the view of Irenaeus (c. ad 130–200), bishop of Smyrna, is given by Chicago historian Shirley Jackson Case:

This period of millennial bliss corresponds to the seventh day of rest following the six days of creation described in Genesis. During this time the earth is marvellously fruitful. Jerusalem is magnificently rebuilt, and the righteous joyfully become accustomed to the new life of incorruption. After this preliminary regime of bliss has passed, a final judgment of all the world is instituted, and the new heaven and the new earth are revealed. In this final state of blessedness the redeemed shall live in the presence of God, world without end.15

Tertullian (c. ad 160–220) wrote:

But we do confess that a kingdom is promised to us upon the earth, although before heaven, only in another state of existence; inasmuch as it will be after the resurrection for a thousand years in the divinely-built city of Jerusalem . . . Of the heavenly kingdom this is the process: After its thousand years are over, within which period is completed the resurrection of the saints, who rise sooner or later according to their deserts, there will ensue the destruction of the world and the conflagration of all things at the judgment.16

Justin mentions that some denied millennial teaching. It came into disrepute through the Montanists. Around ad 172, Montanus announced that Jerusalem would soon descend to earth near Phrygia in Asia Minor. He claimed that the millennium had begun and that God had given the Montanists authority over the Christian Church. To reject their pronouncements, he said, was blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. Montanus was eventually condemned by the Church.

More generally, theologian Thomas D. Lea has written:

Before the time of Origen [c. ad 185–253] it was reasonably common to find the fathers expressing their belief in a personal second coming of Christ together with a millennial reign of the saints with Christ after their resurrection from the dead. Origen denounced millennialism perhaps because of his view that it overemphasized the sensual and the material.17

It is only to be expected that the interpretation of Scripture will be affected by the times in which we live. For example, in the fourth century, the emperor Diocletian unleashed what is called the Great Persecution (ad 303–12/13). Churches were closed, Christians had their rights rescinded, and edicts were made forcing them to sacrifice to the gods. This all led to speculation that the great tribulation had arrived, with the emperor himself identified as the first beast (= sea monster) of Revelation 13 and Caesar Galerius as the second beast (= earth monster). However, when Constantine became emperor in ad 312, everything changed. He and his colleague and rival Licinius, the emperor of the West, signed the Edict of Milan in 312, which granted official toleration to Christians in the empire. Constantine not only promised to restore church property that had been confiscated but also offered to act as a sponsor and patron for the Church. The surviving Christians were ecstatic. Eusebius wrote of Constantine: ‘The Angel of the mighty council, the great Captain and Leader of the armies of God . . . suddenly appeared.’ It was easy to imagine that the millennium had arrived, and that the second coming would occur at some future date after its end. The related view that the millennial kingdom is progressively established in the present age by the increasing spread of the gospel message until a large proportion of the world is converted is called ‘postmillennialism’. Another way of putting it is that the present age is gradually becoming the millennium – after which Christ will return.

Origen’s antipathy to millenarianism is perhaps not surprising since he took a non-literal view of the resurrection of the body. Also, he was not impressed by the over-materialistic and sensual view of those who ‘are of the opinion that the fulfilment of the promises of the future are to be looked for in bodily pleasure and luxury’.18 One of those people was the gnostic Cerinthus in the first century ad.

Augustine also reacted (understandably) against the carnal extremism of some of the millenarians, or chiliasts, as they were called,19 whom he accused of being fixated on the worldly material benefits that they supposed the millennium would bring. In consequence, he adopted a full-blown amillennial approach, regarding the allegorical interpretation as the more spiritual. In the twentieth book of his City of God, he explained what he believed: ‘he [John] used the thousand years as an equivalent for the whole duration of this world, employing the number of perfection to mark the fullness of time.’20 That is, for Augustine the millennium was a symbol of a reality, namely the whole church period up to the return of Christ.21 This view remained essentially unquestioned for over a thousand years. As we have seen, a popular contemporary variant applies it to the saints currently reigning in heaven.

Reading Augustine, one can appreciate his concern to make Revelation relevant to all times and situations. I share that concern but am not at all convinced that it is necessary to adopt an allegorical approach to accommodate it. The nub of the difficulty, as I see it, is that some think that Revelation is purely descriptive, allegorical and general, rather than genuinely prophetic, predictive and specific. In fact, the danger of this amillennial approach (as many, including those who hold that view, say) is that interpreting particular symbols as general and often vague truths easily results in blunting any incisive edge they might otherwise have had. In my view, holding to an actual future reign of Christ on this earth, one that fulfils all the historic promises made to Israel in particular and to Christians in general, actually deepens the impact and application of Revelation to the present time, for it gives clear contours to what will happen so that we may purify ourselves in the light of it.

Lutheran pastor J. A. Seiss wrote:

If the nature of the fall was to destroy the existence of man as a race and to dispossess him of his habitation and mastery of the earth, the nature and effect of the redemption must necessarily involve the restitution and perpetuation of the race, as such, and its rehabilitation as the happy possessor of the earth; for if the redemption does not go as far as the consequences of sin, it is a misnomer, and fails to be redemption. The salvation of any number of individuals, if the race is stopped and disinherited, is not the redemption of what fell, but only the gathering up of a few splinters, whilst the primordial jewel is shattered and destroyed, and Satan’s mischief goes further than Christ’s restoration.22

Also, if this view is true then to deny it, and therefore, in particular, to take away from our Messianic Jewish brothers and sisters an essential part of their hope, as well as removing from the rest of us believers the prospect of being on this earth to experience the reign of the Lord and his followers, would seem to require a great deal more justification than is proffered.

Although amillennialism is still strongly represented today, it is no longer the sole player on the field. Osborne writes:

The first to develop once more a literal view of the book was Franciscus Ribeira, a Spanish Jesuit who wrote in the late sixteenth century to counter the Reformation antipapal interpretation. While he was not truly a futurist, he turned the attention back to the early fathers, and after him that view returned to prominence and stands alongside the others as equally viable.23

It is unfortunate that he uses the word ‘literal’ here since no one takes the entire book literally, not even its author! It would be better and wiser to speak of a ‘more literal’ view, as Lowman puts it.24

There was also a resurgence of postmillennialism, starting in the seventeenth century. The Congregationalist Savoy Declaration of 1658 stated:

As the Lord in his care and love towards his Church, hath in his infinite wise providence exercised it with great variety in all ages, for the good of them that love him, and his own glory; so according to his promise, we expect that in the latter days, antichrist being destroyed, the Jews called, and the adversaries of the kingdom of his dear Son broken, the churches of Christ being enlarged, and edified through a free and plentiful communication of light and grace, shall enjoy in this world a more quiet, peaceable and glorious condition than they have enjoyed.

This view was held by Puritans John Owen, Jonathan Edwards and Charles Hodge in the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, respectively.

It is sometimes objected that the scriptural passages claimed to support Christ’s millennial rule are in fact descriptions of the eternal state, as detailed in Revelation 21 and 22. But that is scarcely a valid objection, since the millennium will surely be a foretaste of the glories of that state, so that many passages will see the one through the lens of the other. For that reason, the millennium is sometimes called the ‘intermediate messianic kingdom’ in the sense that one part of the kingdom precedes the final judgement, and another, the eternal part, comes afterwards. Indeed, the fact that the millennium will be such a foretaste may well be important when it comes to understanding what happens when Satan is briefly let loose after it. It is also possibly the reason why the passage about the millennial reign of Christ on this earth is relatively short, compared with the more extended description of the eternal state in chapters 21 and 22.

The fact that in the text the thousand-year period has a before and an after, means that, although it may foreshadow the eternal state, it cannot represent it as its symbolic equivalent. The millennium is located within the linear march of time as we know it.

Jesus Christ himself taught that he would return to sit on his glorious throne and rule with his disciples over the tribes of Israel (at least): ‘Truly, I say to you, in the new world, when the Son of Man will sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel’ (Matt. 19:28). In order to make the timing25 even more precise, Jesus later added: ‘When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne’ (Matt. 25:31).

As we said earlier, but it bears repetition here, at his ascension the disciples asked the Lord Jesus if, now that he had risen from the dead, he was going to restore the kingdom to Israel at that point. They did not ask him if he was going to restore it, but when. He answered their question by saying that the time was not theirs to know, but the Father had already arranged it. It would happen. In the meantime, they were to get on with spreading the gospel until his return, which was prefigured by the manner of his ascension immediately afterwards. A short time after the ascension, Peter publicly informed the Jews of Jerusalem about the future restoration when he called upon them to:

Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive until the time for restoring all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago.

(Acts 3:19–21)

Peter immediately explained just how deeply rooted this promise was in the OT:

Moses said, ‘The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers. You shall listen to him in whatever he tells you. And it shall be that every soul who does not listen to that prophet shall be destroyed from the people.’ And all the prophets who have spoken, from Samuel and those who came after him, also proclaimed these days. You are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant that God made with your fathers, saying to Abraham, ‘And in your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed.’ God, having raised up his servant, sent him to you first, to bless you by turning every one of you from your wickedness.

(Acts 3:22–6)

Moses told the people of Israel about what God promised them in the future, after being exiled from the land by the Lord, if they repented and returned to him in their hearts:

If your outcasts are in the uttermost parts of heaven, from there the Lord your God will gather you, and from there he will take you. And the Lord your God will bring you into the land that your fathers possessed, that you may possess it. And he will make you more prosperous and numerous than your fathers.

(Deut. 30:4–5)

They were exiled to Assyria and Babylon and returned, but not until 1948 did they have a land of their own. Yet the tenor of later prophecies was positive. Isaiah predicted even greater things:

For the Lord will have compassion on Jacob and will again choose Israel, and will set them in their own land, and sojourners will join them and will attach themselves to the house of Jacob. And the peoples will take them and bring them to their place, and the house of Israel will possess them in the Lord’s land as male and female slaves. They will take captive those who were their captors, and rule over those who oppressed them.

(Isa. 14:1–2)

Isaiah repeats elements of this prophecy towards the end of his book:

Arise, shine, for your light has come,

and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.

For behold, darkness shall cover the earth,

and thick darkness the peoples;

but the Lord will arise upon you,

and his glory will be seen upon you.

And nations shall come to your light,

and kings to the brightness of your rising . . .

Foreigners shall build up your walls,

and their kings shall minister to you;

for in my wrath I struck you,

but in my favour I have had mercy on you.

(Isa. 60:1–3, 10)

Jeremiah also predicts similar things as he pleads with the people to repent:

Return, O faithless children,

declares the Lord;

for I am your master;

I will take you, one from a city and two from a family,

and I will bring you to Zion.

And I will give you shepherds after my own heart, who will feed you with knowledge and understanding. And when you have multiplied and been fruitful in the land, in those days, declares the Lord, they shall no more say, ‘The ark of the covenant of the Lord.’ It shall not come to mind or be remembered or missed; it shall not be made again. At that time Jerusalem shall be called the throne of the Lord, and all nations shall gather to it, to the presence of the Lord in Jerusalem, and they shall no more stubbornly follow their own evil heart. In those days the house of Judah shall join the house of Israel, and together they shall come from the land of the north to the land that I gave your fathers for a heritage.

(Jer. 3:14–18)

This has not happened yet. Indeed, as I write these words, the war between Israel and Gaza and the heightened tension throughout the Middle East makes the very idea that it will ever happen seem remote. One thing is clear: in order for it to happen, there is going to have to be a great deal of repenting, as the prophets indicated. Yet it will happen, since the prophetic scriptures will be fulfilled. In fact, right at the beginning of Isaiah, a famous prophecy, the last part of which is engraved in the wall of the UN building in New York, speaks of Jerusalem city as a world centre of the rule of God:

It shall come to pass in the latter days

that the mountain of the house of the Lord

shall be established as the highest of the mountains,

and shall be lifted up above the hills;

and all the nations shall flow to it,

and many peoples shall come, and say:

‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,

to the house of the God of Jacob,

that he may teach us his ways

and that we may walk in his paths.’

For out of Zion shall go forth the law,

and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

He shall judge between the nations,

and shall decide disputes for many peoples;

and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares,

and their spears into pruning-hooks;

nation shall not lift up sword against nation,

neither shall they learn war any more.

(Isa. 2:2–4)

As the old hymn says:

Jesus will reign where’er the sun

does his successive journeys run,

his kingdom stretch from shore to shore

till moons shall wax and wane no more.26

And he will reign on an earth free of satanic deception, even though Satan is not quite finished yet, as the text hints at the start (20:3b).

The fulfilment of these OT prophecies is essential to the ultimate credibility of Scripture as the word of God. Part of the reason that they are not taken as seriously as they should be is that they are not so well known and therefore tend to be forgotten, even though ‘all scripture [meaning the OT] is inspired by God’ (2 Tim. 3:16 nrsvue). Whether we know them or not, these prophecies about Israel and Jerusalem still stand awaiting fulfilment. The question is: do I really believe them?

And that is an important question, since fulfilment of biblical prophecy involves there being a supernatural dimension to reality, and that is something rejected out of hand by many in our enlightened scientific age. I wish to record as a scientist that I am convinced that, although a great deal of talk about the future is baseless speculation, biblical prophecy is in a category by itself as a real, supernatural phenomenon. Science, far from proving that this is not so, gives evidence that it is so. This is something I argue in my book Cosmic Chemistry: Do God and science mix?27

There are, however, reasons other than science that some give to deny fulfilment of the messianic prophecies. For example, Jewish commentators deny that Jesus is the Messiah precisely because, in their view, he did not fulfil the promises of dealing with Israel’s enemies and setting up a kingdom of peace. I once had a conversation with a Jewish Orthodox academic friend from Israel who told me that Yeshua (Jesus) could not be the Messiah because when he came, Israel was under Roman occupation, and when he left, it was still under Roman occupation. I shall never forget him gently but firmly saying: ‘Jesus never saved anyone from anything . . .’ Such a remark shows, on the one hand, that among the Jews the expectation of a king messiah coming to rule from Israel is still alive and well. On the other hand, it highlights a failure to see that Jesus is the Messiah. By contrast, the mistake some Christians make is failing to see that Jesus will one day rule in fulfilment of the Jewish messianic prophecies, even though such Christians assent to Jesus being the Christ – often missing the point that ‘Christ’ means ‘Messiah’! The words are derived, respectively, from the Greek and Hebrew terms for ‘anointed’.

Many Jews today believe that an actual messiah will one day appear. For instance, the Jewish Encyclopedia says: ‘the descendant of David . . . is to free Israel from the power of the heathen world, kill its ruler and destroy his hosts, and set up his own kingdom of peace.’28

A useful overview is given on the BBC website for GCSE Religious Studies (see Table 4).29 From this table we see that Reform Judaism emphasises the symbolic and metaphorical, whereas Orthodox Jews take a much more literal perspective.

Table 4 The Messiah in Orthodox and Reform Judaism

Orthodox Jewish beliefs about the Messiah

Reform Jewish beliefs about the Messiah

The Messianic Age will only start after the Messiah’s arrival on earth. It is therefore important for Jews to pray for the Messiah, also known as the ‘redeemer’, to come.

Human beings are responsible for bringing peace to the world. Instead of praying for a messiah, Jews should pray for a Messianic Age, which will be an age of peace. Reform Jews pray for redemption rather than for a ‘redeemer’.

The Messiah will be a human being descended from King David, although he will have superhuman qualities and abilities.

There will not necessarily be a person who is the Messiah.

In the Messianic Age, Jews will triumph over the enemies of Israel. This will lead to the destruction of weapons and people living in peace.

Humans can bring on the Messianic Age by joining together to create a better world. The Messianic Age will not bring about conflict, but peace and understanding between all people.

The Messianic Age will be a sign of the end of the world and the physical resurrection of the dead.

Many Reform Jews do not believe that there will be an end to the world, or that the dead will be resurrected.

The Messiah will rebuild the ancient Temple in Jerusalem and restore the authority to rule over Israel to the descendants of King David.

The rebuilding of the Temple is a metaphor for the Messianic Age, where there will be peace and all people will know God and follow his commandments.

Let us now see what Revelation teaches us about the nature of the millennial reign. In common with the way the throne of God is described in chapter 4, it first mentions the thrones, and then the fact that they are occupied, stated in an impersonal way – people (lit. ‘they’) sat upon them. The text says that they are those to whom authority to judge (rule) had been given. Then we have:

I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God, and those who had not worshipped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years.

(20:4b)

There are arguably two, or even three, groups indicated here. First, all the saints, since rule has earlier been promised to all faithful believers – for instance to the overcomers in Thyatira and Laodicea, as well as to other believers, as stated in 1 Corinthians 3 and elsewhere. The second group consists of the martyrs, and the third of those who had not worshipped the beast but might not have been martyred. Presumably, the apostles are also to be included in view of Christ’s promise to them that they would sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel. However, the general consensus of opinion is that, although the martyrs are the main focus, they represent the wider circle of all believers in the light of the fact that the ‘camp of the saints’ is mentioned (20:9), the existence of which implies the presence of all believers in the millennium. Also, we should not forget the armies dressed in white that accompany Christ as he comes to earth. Presumably, they also live and reign with him.

They ‘come to life’ in what is described as ‘the first resurrection’ (20:4–5). The use of the word anastasis (resurrection), meaning ‘standing up again’, implies that these believers will be raised physically in order to reign on this present material earth. Over them, we are told, ‘the second death has no power’ (20:6) – a guarantee that was also given to the overcomers in the church at Smyrna. That fact adds credibility to the idea that the group of martyrs represents the wider group of all the faithful.

There is irresistible moral logic to the idea that believers who were treated like the scum and refuse of the earth and murdered for their faith in Christ by those who ruled the world should reign over that same earth for far longer than their persecutors ever did.

Presumably, the participants in the first resurrection will not be the only inhabitants of that kingdom but there will also be many people who are still alive who enter it. One thousand years is a long time, roughly fourteen generations, so there will doubtless be many born during that time who will never know the evils of this world.

As well as that, one cannot help thinking of Ezekiel’s famous end-time prophecy of the valley of dry bones – one of the rare mentions of resurrection of the body in the OT:

Then he said to me, ‘Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. Behold, they say, “Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are indeed cut off.” Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I will open your graves and raise you from your graves, O my people. And I will bring you into the land of Israel. And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and raise you from your graves, O my people. And I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I am the Lord; I have spoken, and I will do it, declares the Lord.’

(Ezek. 37:11–14)

Will this event also contribute to the population of the millennial kingdom? That raises the question as to who, exactly, will enter the millennium. To state the obvious, when Jesus returns, in all likelihood there will be millions of children who are not old enough or have not had the opportunity to respond to Christ, whether or not their parents were believers. We may be sure that the God who loves them all will be utterly righteous in the way he deals with them.

The death of the monster, the last Gentile power, ends what Jesus called ‘the times of the Gentiles’ (Luke 21:24). After Jesus’ resurrection, as we saw earlier, the apostles asked him whether he was going to restore the kingdom to Israel at that time. The answer was: no, not immediately, but they were not to worry as the time had been fixed and it would happen as promised. In Peter’s second recorded sermon in Jerusalem, he took this promise further when he said:

Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive until the time for restoring all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago.

(Acts 3:19–21)

The restoration, not merely of the kingdom to Israel, but also of all things, would therefore take place at the return of Christ. Paul tells us how it will occur:

And even they [the Jewish people], if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in again. For if you were cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree, and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, the natural branches, be grafted back into their own olive tree.

(Rom. 11:23–4)

Notice the condition: ‘if they do not continue in their unbelief’. If there is a fundamental change in their attitude towards God, then God will graft them in again, and believing Jews will once more have a major role of testifying to God in the world. No one should be surprised at this. If, ‘contrary to nature’ (that is, without the law and the covenant), the Gentiles were grafted into the cultivated tree of Israel, then grafting Israel back is surely to be expected.

Up to this point, Paul’s comments have been essentially conditional: if this, then that. He now approaches the climax of his long argument and reveals to his readers that Israel will indeed be grafted in again:

Lest you be wise in your own sight, I want you to understand this mystery, brothers: a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And in this way all Israel will be saved, as it is written,

‘The Deliverer will come from Zion,

he will banish ungodliness from Jacob;

and this will be my covenant with them

when I take away their sins.’

(Rom. 11:25–7)

Paul cites Isaiah 59:20 to confirm that Israel would be saved when a deliverer came to deal with the sins of the nation. In other words, the people of Israel will not experience salvation until they repent, recognising their Messiah and what he has done for them. God will then renew his covenant with them.

Paul says he is disclosing a mystery here – a term he uses many times to describe something previously hidden but now revealed. He tells the Christians at Rome that Israel has been hardened but the hardening is temporary. It will end when ‘the fullness [or: the full number] of the Gentiles has come in’. The expression ‘the fullness of the Gentiles’, is, of course, something very different from ‘the times of the Gentiles’. It presumably refers to the metaphor of the olive tree that Paul had introduced earlier in the chapter. The olive tree represents testimony for God in the world. Its roots were the patriarchs, and all through the OT period the main branches carrying the burden of witness for God in the world were the people of Israel – although there were some Gentiles who came to believe in God. Then the Messiah Jesus came but was rejected by the Jewish nation, and Paul turned to the Gentiles. They were grafted into the olive tree, and for centuries afterwards the main branches carrying the burden of witness was Gentile – although, of course, many Jews were converted, which is why, for instance, there are many Messianic Jewish believers today. However, that is all going to change when the Deliverer comes and a key promise made at the beginning of the book is fulfilled: ‘Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. Even so. Amen’ (1:7).

An important OT source for this messianic hope is provided by the prophet Zechariah who, around 520 bc, wrote to encourage the Jews who had returned from exile to persist in rebuilding the community and the Temple. He looked towards a future that was more glorious than the past:

Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion, for behold, I come and I will dwell in your midst, declares the Lord. And many nations shall join themselves to the Lord in that day, and shall be my people. And I will dwell in your midst, and you shall know that the Lord of hosts has sent me to you. And the Lord will inherit Judah as his portion in the holy land, and will again choose Jerusalem.

(Zech. 2:10–12)

God promises to come and dwell in their midst. Isaiah also predicts that many other nations shall one day come and join themselves to the Lord. This is important since it is easy to make any of three mistakes. The first is to think that God has no special role for Israel in the future; the second is to think that God has a special role for Israel alone; and the third is to think that, because God has a special role for Israel, he treats it as a favourite and doesn’t care what it does on the world stage.

For example, Jacob, whose name was changed to ‘Israel’, made the mistake of imagining that it didn’t really matter how he behaved, since God had chosen him for a special role. He had to learn the hard way, as did his nation after him. Far from treating Israel and Judah as his favourites, God, precisely because they were given a privileged role, disciplined them more severely than others, eventually allowing them to be overcome by their enemies, temporarily lose their land, and be deported. Ezekiel expresses this very plainly:

And I will set my glory among the nations, and all the nations shall see my judgement that I have executed, and my hand that I have laid on them. The house of Israel shall know that I am the Lord their God, from that day forward. And the nations shall know that the house of Israel went into captivity for their iniquity, because they dealt so treacherously with me that I hid my face from them and gave them into the hand of their adversaries, and they all fell by the sword. I dealt with them according to their uncleanness and their transgressions, and hid my face from them.

(Ezek. 39:21–4)

The NT roundly declares that favouritism is sin (Jas 2:9). We need also to take on board that God has roles for nations other than Israel. For instance, Isaiah mentions Egypt and Assyria (Iraq):

In that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria, and Assyria will come into Egypt, and Egypt into Assyria, and the Egyptians will worship with the Assyrians.

In that day Israel will be the third with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth, whom the Lord of hosts has blessed, saying, ‘Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel my inheritance.’

(Isa. 19:23–5)

What that will involve we are not told in detail, but, since this promise is part of God’s revealed word, we need to take its implications seriously in our contemporary world. Also, just as God has had specific roles for individuals and groups in history, so he has entrusted specific roles to various countries that have taken a lead in the great pioneering enterprises such as translating and printing the Bible, the missionary movement, and the exemplary work of transforming society by, for instance, abolishing the slave trade, establishing schools and protecting the defenceless. Many of us will recognise and be grateful for the Christian heritage in our own countries.

One would love to know more about what it will be like in that intermediate kingdom, when the Lord Jesus reigns from Jerusalem, having fulfilled the long-standing promise to restore the kingdom to Israel. After all, if I am not badly mistaken, we believers, you and I, will be part of it, which ought to fill our minds and hearts with excitement. Because of that, one would be fascinated to learn more about it. What will it be like to be directly and visibly ruled by the risen Lord? What will the culture be like? What kind of things will occupy the population?30

One beautiful passage in Isaiah might well give us some idea of that time when Christ, the descendant of Jesse and David, having brought the people of Israel back to their land from the four corners of the earth, rules the world in equity:

The wolf shall dwell with the lamb,

and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat,

and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together;

and a little child shall lead them.

The cow and the bear shall graze;

their young shall lie down together;

and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.

The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra,

and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder’s den.

They shall not hurt or destroy

in all my holy mountain;

for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord

as the waters cover the sea.

(Isa. 11:6–9)

No more will nature be ‘red in tooth and claw’.31 Children will safely play with the wildest creatures without fear of harm. These sentiments are repeated towards the end of Isaiah’s prophecy with additions:

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.

No more shall there be in it

an infant who lives but a few days,

or an old man who does not fill out his days,

for the young man shall die a hundred years old,

and the sinner a hundred years old shall be accursed.

They shall build houses and inhabit them;

they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit.

They shall not build and another inhabit;

they shall not plant and another eat;

for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be,

and my chosen shall long enjoy the work of their hands.

They shall not labour in vain

or bear children for calamity,

for they shall be the offspring of the blessed of the Lord,

and their descendants with them.

(Isa. 65:19–23)

We note that the language in these poetic passages is derived from our everyday experience of this present earth even though it describes what is unfamiliar – a wolf lying with a lamb, for instance. Although there are some difficulties in understanding what Isaiah means in the second passage, it would seem possible to take it as implying that death still exists, though life is prolonged. I mention this since these verses come in Isaiah just after the announcement that God is going to create new heavens and a new earth. However, death is not abolished until the first earth has passed away, so this may be another example of mixing a description of the intermediate kingdom (e.g. Isaiah mentions sinners) with that of the world to come because they have a lot in common – a circumstance on which we shall comment in due course. Whether or not there are animals in the new creation is another matter . . .

In the penultimate paragraph of his prophecy, Zechariah describes a further aspect of the situation after the Lord’s return:

Then everyone who survives of all the nations that have come against Jerusalem shall go up year after year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the Feast of Booths. And if any of the families of the earth do not go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, there will be no rain on them. And if the family of Egypt does not go up and present themselves, then on them there shall be no rain; there shall be the plague with which the Lord afflicts the nations that do not go up to keep the Feast of Booths. This shall be the punishment to Egypt and the punishment to all the nations that do not go up to keep the Feast of Booths.

(Zech. 14:16–19)

The Temple appears once more to be fully in operation, and people are attending the Jewish festivals in Jerusalem. In particular, the feast of Booths (or Tabernacles) is mentioned, the final festival of the Jewish year, which is a joyous celebration of the ingathering of the grape harvest. However, it would seem that some people may refuse to go up to celebrate, implying that the passage fits the intermediate kingdom rather than the world to come. That would also be consistent with the absence of a temple in the new Jerusalem, which we shall consider later. The question then arises as to whether a temple (perhaps Ezekiel’s temple as detailed in Ezek. 40 – 48?) will be rebuilt in Jerusalem in the intermediate kingdom. If not, it is hard to see reasons for such a detailed plan as the one he was shown, with intricate measurements that sound as literal as the earlier measurements given for both the tabernacle and the Temple.

Certainly, one strand of Jewish opinion is that the Temple will be rebuilt in the coming messianic age on this earth. The following statement is from the Jewish website My Jewish Learning:

During the messianic era, the Messiah will reign victorious and rebuild the Temple. He will restore the priesthood to the Temple, and the traditional sacrifices will be reinstated. The return to the golden age of the Jewish people will be complete. Many popular Jewish prayers express this messianic longing for the rebuilding of the Temple and above all for the return to Zion. Perhaps even more than the coming of the Messiah, traditional Judaism has sought this dream of the return to Zion.32

32

The last rebellion

Even after a thousand years of the perfect rule of Christ, this world and its peoples are not out of the danger zone:

And when the thousand years are ended, Satan will be released from his prison and will come out to deceive the nations that are at the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them for battle; their number is like the sand of the sea. And they marched up over the broad plain of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city, but fire came down from heaven and consumed them, and the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulphur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night for ever and ever.

(20:7–10)

The time-markers in this part convey a clear sense of chronological sequence. Satan is released after the thousand years so that it makes no sense to think that what is described here happens while the thousand years is still running. Satan is finally thrown into the lake of fire where the monster and false prophet already are – referring back to the beginning of the part where the monster and false prophet are condemned to the lake of fire.

In 20:3b the text informs us that Satan ‘must’ be released for a little while. The best explanation of that necessity that I have found is in Mounce, who says that it shows that ‘neither the designs of Satan nor the waywardness of the human heart will be altered by the mere passage of time’.1

Apparently undaunted by a thousand-year incarceration and the knowledge, therefore, that he is totally under God’s sovereign control, Satan nevertheless sets out to deceive the nations once more – and meets with some success. This at once implies that the situation in the intermediate or millennial reign of Christ is not one of a world filled with regenerate people. We have already had some hints of this in the OT Scriptures we have quoted – for instance, the refusal of some peoples to go up to Jerusalem to keep the feast of tabernacles, as mentioned above.

That in turn raises questions about what exactly will be involved in reigning/governing during that time. We do not know the answer to this question, but it is clear that the world will be a more complex place than many naively imagine. It is a terrifying indictment of the capacity of the unregenerate human heart for evil to think that the devil will find multitudes of willing followers from among those people who have had the great privilege of living in a world directly ruled by the Lord of peace and prosperity – a world in which his rule no doubt still involves the widespread preaching of the gospel.

It is natural to ask about the composition of the population of the world at the time of the millennium. Presumably, its inhabitants come first of all from among the nations that went into the millennium after their kings and armies were destroyed, before it started; many of these will have been children at the time, as we mentioned earlier. Second, one can imagine that during the millennium many generations of people will be born, some of whom do not become believers, despite living under the perfect reign of Christ. They are reminiscent of people in NT times who witnessed first-hand the kindness and miracles of Jesus yet did not receive him as Saviour and Lord. The prime example of such a person is Judas, who not only experienced the kindness and miracles of Jesus but was also one of the Twelve and knew first-hand the qualities of Christ as a leader, indeed, a servant king. And yet, even after three years, Satan was able to enlist him as a traitor to betray the Lord to the then manifestations of the monster (Pilate/Rome and the high priest/Babylon). Judging from what happens in the millennium, another thousand years would not have made any difference to Judas.

Because of what happens after the millennium, it is sometimes objected that the scriptural passages that are claimed to support Christ’s millennial rule are in fact descriptions of the eternal state as detailed in Revelation 21 and 22. But that is scarcely a valid objection, since the millennium will surely be a foretaste of the glories of that state, so that many passages will see the one through the lens of the other. For that reason, the millennium is called the ‘intermediate’ messianic kingdom in the sense that one part of the kingdom precedes the final judgement and another, the eternal part, comes afterwards.

After the millennial reign of Christ, Satan marshals, not a lone yet deadly traitor like Judas, but a vast army of those he has deceived – an army representing an international confederation that, according to 20:7ff., is led by an apocalyptic figure named Gog from a country named Magog. In Ezekiel 38 there is a prophecy against Gog, who appears to be a ruler who will come with a coalition against Israel and will fall on the mountains of Israel. We saw this as an OT thought model for the battle that was fought by the Rider on the white horse and his armies against the armies of the monster as described in 19:11ff., where the language of Ezekiel is used to depict how the corpses of his fallen army will be devoured by birds of prey. Gog is not explicitly mentioned in connection with the battle in chapter 19, yet he is explicitly mentioned in connection with the final battle in 20:8.

Gog seems to function, as in earlier Jewish apocalyptic thinking, as a model or prototype of the archetypal enemy of Israel who fits (like the monster with its multiple heads) a number of possible contexts. At least two of them are here in Revelation: the battle at Christ’s return and the battle at the end of the millennial kingdom. In this way, Ezekiel provides us with a lens through which we can look at both events. On the latter occasion, rather than there being a battle, it would seem that Satan’s army will be destroyed by supernatural fire from heaven, recalling the fiery destruction of Sodom and also God’s use of fire to save Elijah from arrest (2 Kgs 1:10). The fire also reminds us of the supernatural powers of the two witnesses in 11:5.

The upshot of the end-of-millennium conquest of the forces mustered by the devil is that he is thrown into the lake of fire to join the monster and the false prophet, where they will be tormented for ever and ever, the only punishment that fits their indescribable crimes. We might note that this contradicts the popular myth that whereas God reigns in heaven, Satan reigns in hell. That is not the case. Satan does not reign but is eternally punished. No longer will he roam the earth like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. It is hard to imagine, but it will happen.

The similarities between this battle with Satan and that with the monster earlier in the text are used by some scholars as grounds for treating these as a single event. However, that seems to be ruled out by the time period between the two, whose existence is implied by the fact that Satan is thrown into a place where the monster already is. It makes no sense to say this if the events are the same.

The judgement of the great white throne

Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. From his presence earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done. And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done. Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.

(20:11–15)

This book of Revelation that devotes so much space to the three series of judgements of God upon the earth gives only five verses to the final judgement itself. In chapter 4, John sees a throne through a door opened in heaven. Now he sees a gigantic, awesome throne, its brilliant whiteness declaring the absolute purity and holiness of God. It is occupied by one whose presence is so awesome that the present earth and sky flee from it. We have already had a foreshadowing of this under the sixth seal: ‘The sky vanished like a scroll that is being rolled up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place’ (6:14). We recall that this occurred just before the peoples of earth, small and great, called on the rocks to fall on them to hide them ‘from the face of him who is seated on the throne’ (6:16). Similarly, under the seventh bowl, ‘every island fled away, and no mountains were to be found’ (16:20). Under the seventh trumpet we had:

The nations raged,

but your wrath came,

and the time for the dead to be judged . . .

(11:18)

Hence, each of the series of seven judgements that form the spine of the book leads up to the final assize at the great white throne in order to warn that its coming is inevitable.

Hence, this last great assessment of humanity coincides with the dissolution of the universe as we know it, in order to make way for a new created order. Isaiah prophesied that this would happen:

Lift up your eyes to the heavens

and look at the earth beneath;

for the heavens vanish like smoke,

the earth will wear out like a garment,

and they who dwell in it will die in like manner;

but my salvation will be for ever,

and my righteousness will never be dismayed.

(Isa. 51:6)

This momentous event was also predicted by Jesus himself in his Olivet discourse when he said words whose implications would only be realised at a later time when Revelation was written: ‘Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away’ (Luke 21:33; see also Matt. 24:35).

The apostle Peter supplies more detail in answering an ancient objection that was popularised by the Scottish Enlightenment philosopher David Hume, and which we still meet these days – that nature is uniform and so there are no supernatural events violating its course.2 Peter disagrees, as do I and many other scientists. He cites the Flood at the time of Noah as historical evidence of a discontinuity in natural processes, adding the interesting remark that God judged the earth at that time by using one of its major constituent elements: water. He then uses this to point out that God will judge the world again by using another of its constituent elements: fire. Presumably, his readers would have understood the destructive power of fire from their observation of volcanic action and forest fires. Thanks to geology and geophysics, we are now aware of the fierce firepower residing in the molten interior of the planet.

Peter applies this argument to the Day of the Lord:

But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.

(2 Pet. 3:10)

He then goes on to apply it at the moral and spiritual level, reminding us that biblical teaching about the future is not meant to satisfy our curiosity but to spur us on to a Christlike character and lifestyle:

Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.

(2 Pet. 3:11–13)

Not only will the earth be burned, but also ‘the works that are done on it will be exposed’. They will be used at the great white throne to judge the dead. The principle of judgement on the basis of deeds is fundamental to biblical teaching, and to ordinary jurisprudence. The psalmist says:

Once God has spoken;

twice have I heard this:

that power belongs to God,

and that to you, O Lord, belongs steadfast love.

For you will render to a man

according to his work.

(Ps. 62:11–12)

Jeremiah says:

I the Lord search the heart

and test the mind,

to give every man according to his ways,

according to the fruit of his deeds.

(Jer. 17:10)

In the NT, Paul enunciates the principle as follows: ‘He will render to each one according to his works’ (Rom. 2:6). Peter also repeats the idea when he speaks of God the Father as the one ‘who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds’ (1 Pet. 1:17a).

Six centuries earlier, Daniel was shown an awesome vision of this event:

As I looked,

thrones were placed,

and the Ancient of Days took his seat;

his clothing was white as snow,

and the hair of his head like pure wool;

his throne was fiery flames;

its wheels were burning fire.

A stream of fire issued

and came out from before him;

a thousand thousands served him,

and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him;

the court sat in judgement,

and the books were opened.

(Dan. 7:9–10)

‘And the books were opened . . .’ The world these people knew is gone; only they and their deeds are left to face God. There is no escaping judgement now: ‘it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgement’ (Heb. 9:27). Peter’s voice thunders down the centuries to us: ‘In the light of this, what sort of people ought we to be in lives of holiness?’ And that means me, and it means you.

The question arises as to the precise nature of this judgement. Some think that it is a general judgement of the dead, believers together with unbelievers. However, this interpretation runs into a number of problems. The first is that the only verdicts coming out of this assize are condemnations, as indicated by the Greek verb translated as ‘judged’ in 20:12 and 13 (esv), which actually means ‘condemned’. The unimaginable fate of those people thus condemned is then described as being thrown into the lake of fire, which is ‘the second death . . . And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire’ (20:14–15).

I pause to reflect on the sentence I have just written. I did not enjoy writing it and nor did you enjoy reading it. It is so grim and final. It is talking about individuals, some of whom you and I knew, played sports with, went to college with, worked with. And now they are lost – utterly and irretrievably lost in permanent banishment from God. We don’t like it – and yet it is the word of the Lord. It is true, and if we really believed it, would it not make us much more grateful for God’s gift of salvation and make us more urgent about witnessing to those around us?

There will be a first resurrection (for believers) and a second death (for the impenitent). There is no first death or second resurrection. For the true believer need not fear death and can look forward to physical resurrection of the body, whereas for the unbeliever, the first conscious experience after physical death is the final judgement, which is not resurrection in the fullest sense. The impenitent dead are said to be ‘given up’ by the sea or by Death and Hades to face God’s judgement (see 20:13). The ensuing casting of the institutions of Death and Hades, together with the impenitent dead, into the lake of fire is so awful that it is called ‘the second death’ (20:14). It consists in utter and irreversible banishment from the presence of God. The difference between the two in terms of time and of participants corresponds to the difference between the resurrection of the just and that of the unjust (Luke 14:14 for the former; Acts 24:15 for both). It is noteworthy that, although the term ‘second death’ does not appear in the OT, it does occur in Jewish Targums.3 Targum Jerusalem, Deuteronomy 33.6:6, says: ‘Let Reuben live in this world, nor die the second death which the wicked die in the world to come; and let his youths be with the men in number’ (my emphasis).4

Scripture elsewhere makes a clear distinction between the way in which believers and unbelievers are finally assessed. On one occasion, Jesus explained the gospel message as follows: ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgement, but has passed from death to life’ (John 5:24). If you will forgive a personal note, this statement was key to my becoming a Christian as a boy. It categorically states that no believer will come into ‘judgement’, using the noun related to the verb occurring in 20:12.

Immediately after this statement in John 5, Jesus explained how the judgement would operate:

Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself. And he has given him authority to execute judgement, because he is the Son of Man. Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgement.

(John 5:25–9)

At the great white throne, there is another book opened that is not mentioned by Daniel: the book of life. This book is mentioned in Philippians 4:3, where Paul describes his fellow workers as having their names written in it, and all the rest of the occurrences are in Revelation (3:5; 13:8; 17:8; 20:12, 15; 21:27; 22:19). However, the concept originates with Jesus, who told his disciples that they were not to rejoice in any supernatural gifts he had given them, but rather in his assurance that their names were written in heaven (Luke 10:20). The negative assurance, that their names would not be blotted out of that book, was given to the overcomers in the church at Sardis.

It is ‘the Lamb’s book of life’ (21:27), and therefore the names in it are of people who have trusted the Lamb for salvation. Those whose names do not appear in it are condemned to the lake of fire. Just after Peter explains that God judges impartially, as cited above, he makes clear that salvation itself is not based on works. He tells believers:

Conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.

(1 Pet. 1:17b–19)

This is absolutely fundamental Christian teaching. God’s salvation is not by means of works; it is not based on human merit; it is a gracious gift of God that is received by faith (see Eph. 2:8–9). However, the genuineness of that salvation is evidenced by the character and deeds it produces in the lives of believers.

Putting all of this together seems to imply that believers will not appear at the great white throne. However, Scripture is equally clear that believers’ lives will be assessed. Jesus told a number of parables, such as that of the talents (Matt. 25:14–30), to teach that he would one day assess those who followed him. Consistent with that, in two places Paul teaches that all believers will appear at what is called the ‘judgement seat’ of God and Christ. First, to the Romans, who knew exactly what a judgement seat was,5 he writes:

For we will all stand before the judgement seat of God; for it is written,

‘As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me,

and every tongue shall confess to God.’

So then each of us will give an account of himself to God.

(Rom. 14:10b–12)

Second, he writes to the Corinthians: ‘For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil’ (2 Cor. 5:10).

Elsewhere, Paul explains the procedure. He likens himself to a master builder who lays a foundation that must then be built upon:

For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw – each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.

(1 Cor. 3:11–15)

Paul is addressing those who possess this foundation, that is, genuine believers in Christ. They are now responsible for building upon it and will be held accountable for what they build. It can be valuable material, or it can be rubbish – or, more likely for many of us, a mixture of the two. There will come a day of assessment in which the quality of what we have built will be revealed by fire. However, the fire is not to be construed as the fire of purgatory (not a biblical concept anyway), or the lake of fire, since even the genuine believer whose work is shoddy and unacceptable is still saved, because he or she has the right foundation. Revelation gives us a clue as to what the fire is. It is the fire in the eyes of the Lord Jesus, as described in the first vision, the eyes that miss nothing as they assess each of the churches. It is those eyes, the eyes of the Judge, that we shall one day have to face as we give account of what we have done and how we have behaved. The outcome may be loss of reward, but it will not be loss of salvation or eternal life.

What will it mean to stand before the Lord of glory and give an ‘account’ of ourselves (Rom. 14:12)? Jesus himself told us what would happen when he said: ‘Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgement you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you’ (Matt. 7:1–2).

We all make judgements. Imagine that they were all recorded, together with the principles on which we had made them. Now imagine those, our principles, being used by the Lord to assess us. It is a sobering thought, which, if we took it seriously, might help us to be very careful regarding what we think or say about others. Of course, we all have to make judgements, as is clear a few verses later when Jesus tells his disciples to beware of false prophets. They are, he said, to be recognised by their fruit. And there is no way of doing that without making judgements. It is getting the balance between judgmentalism on the one hand and failing to make a realistic moral assessment on the other that is often problematic.

Where, then, does the judgement seat of Christ fit into the grand scheme of things? At the end of his Olivet discourse, Jesus told his disciples the parable of the sheep and the goats to illustrate what would happen when he came in glory with his angels and sat on his glorious throne, a marker that aligns with the start of his millennial reign on earth. The King places the sheep on his right and invites them to inherit the kingdom prepared for them by his Father. The reason given for granting them this inheritance is that they fed him when he was hungry, visited him when he was sick and came to him in prison. They don’t understand until the King explains that because they did these things to his brothers and sisters, however insignificant they were, they effectively did it to him. The verdict on the people on his left, who failed to do these things, is final and devastating: ‘“Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels” . . . And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life’ (see Matt. 25:31–46).

There is another perspective that bears on this. In connection with the marriage supper of the Lamb we are told that the bride has made herself ready and is wearing robes of righteousness. For that reason, some commentators infer that the judgement seat of Christ must precede the marriage supper of the Lamb. That entails understanding the parable of the sheep and the goats as relating to a judgement of the people who are alive on earth at that time. That view is based on there being a ‘rapture’ of the Church to heaven before the public return of Christ to set up his kingdom.6

There is a solemn finality about this chapter of Revelation and yet it is magnificent. For it is the long-promised fulfilment of God’s promise to come and justly avenge believers who have suffered every conceivable suffering and cruelty at the hands of generations of oppressors. The final step comes when God does away with Death and Hades as institutions by consigning them for ever to the lake of fire. The stage is ready for something utterly and wonderfully pure and new . . .

Before we go there, however, Paul gives us an important angle on the sequence of events in his teaching on the resurrection:

But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death.

(1 Cor. 15:20–6)

We have remarked before that not all prophecy is concerned with the sequence of events in time. However, this one certainly is. Christ was raised as the firstfruits that herald the later harvest of the resurrection of believers, which will occur when he returns. After that, the end comes. But precisely when is the end? It is, says Paul, when Christ delivers the kingdom to the Father. And when does that happen? After Christ has destroyed all other rule, authority and power. And how is that done? He must reign until all his enemies are dealt with, the last one being death.

The order here is the same as is given in Revelation 20. The reign is therefore Christ’s millennial or intermediate reign, at the end of which there are still enemies to be judged, and they are dealt with, as well as Satan who deceived them. Then and only then is death dealt with as an institution. The last enemy that is overcome is death. The two texts are synchronous and mutually reinforcing.

What an incredible relief it will be to those brave believers who gave their lives for Christ through the centuries to see the destruction of death itself and to know that what happened to them will never be repeated!

33

The new creation

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away.’

And he who was seated on the throne said, ‘Behold, I am making all things new.’ Also he said, ‘Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.’ And he said to me, ‘It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment. The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son. But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulphur, which is the second death.’

(21:1–8)

John’s glorious vision of a new heaven and a new earth opens the final chapter of the great biblical metanarrative. Here, in the new creation, the wonderful, complex tapestry of the biblical storyline reaches a new beginning in the creation of an eternal world. It is no surprise that in this final segment there are no fewer than fifty allusions to the OT, most of them from Isaiah, the Psalms and Ezekiel.1 It is the crowning proof that God has let no word fall of all that he spoke through the patriarchs and the prophets – all has been fulfilled.

Many people have observed that after the account of the millennium in 20:1–6 and the account of the new creation in 21:1–8, the passage 21:9 – 22:5 contains a number of features similar to 20:1–6, which leads some to suggest that the latter passage recapitulates the first. However, a more convincing approach is suggested by David L. Turner. He points out that the OT passages that form the background to these passages, in particular Ezekiel 40 – 48 and Isaiah 60 – 66:

do not make a neat break between the Millennium and the eternal state. The heightened blessings of Christ’s millennial reign will be further intensified to their ultimate degree in the eternal state, but the difference is only in degree, not in kind.2

I am not completely convinced that the difference will only be in degree, but that is relatively unimportant compared with the idea that there is some prophetic telescoping or overlap between descriptions of the intermediate millennial kingdom and the world to come. That would not be at all unexpected and makes good sense. I agree with Turner and others who think that it is more natural to take 19:11 – 22:5 as a chronological sequence, each element of which, apart from the final rebellion, begins with John’s characteristic phrase: ‘and I saw’.

The new heaven and earth appear. However, unlike the creation account in Genesis, no details are given, much to my regret as a scientist. However, I harbour a hope that one day I shall learn, perhaps even from the Lord himself, not only how the new creation came to exist but also many aspects of the old creation that we were never able to understand fully. I will just have to be patient.

John sees the new universe as already there. The first heaven and first earth have passed away – the past tense making it clear that the two, the new and the old, have not co-existed. That is, the new comes after the old in temporal sequence. Strangely, the only detail that is highlighted is that there is no more sea – a possible reference to the fact that it was from the sea that much evil came, such as the wild animals in both Daniel and Revelation. The sea is used in Scripture as a symbol of evil and was the destructive power that sanitised the world in the Flood in the days of Noah.

At what level are we to understand the language here? Is it a remaking or refurbishing of the old to make the new, so that the passing away of the old is to be understood, not as the complete removal of all the molecules and atoms that formed the old, but as the making of something entirely new out of them. One might think of the way in which ancient cities were built on top of previous ones, reusing the material where possible.

We pointed out earlier that 1 Peter 3 sees an important similarity between the destruction of the world in the days of Noah by means of water and its future destruction by means of fire. We note that the earth in Noah’s time did not subsequently disappear but was rather ‘cleansed’ by water. Similarly, the fire in the future might be thought of as a purging fire rather than an annihilating one. Also, the fact that the believer in Christ is a new creation does not mean the immediate complete elimination of the old nature, as many of us are only too well aware!

Paul writes of creation being set free:

For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

(Rom. 8:19–21)

A variant of the renewing rather than the recreating view is that only the part of the universe local to the earth in our galaxy – the solar system, say – is renewed, and the rest of the vast starry heavens retained in place. At any rate, nowhere in Scripture is there an account of a new creation ex nihilo that would parallel Genesis 1. Turner makes the perceptive remark that: ‘Biblical eschatology involves an ethical renewal, not an ontic renewal.’3 It could, of course, be both. Even if we could be sure what the answer is, one wonders how much difference that would make. Very little, probably – and none to the message!

It does seem obvious, however, that there is both discontinuity and continuity between the old and new creations. Paul illustrates this in 1 Corinthians 15, pointing out that, just as there is both discontinuity and continuity between seed and the grain that springs from it, so there is a similar relationship between the natural and the resurrection bodies.

Jesus’ resurrection body had properties that indicate that the situation in the world to come may be more complicated than we may imagine. For instance, he had flesh and bone – he was no spirit – yet he could pass through closed doors as if his body consisted of neutrinos (John 20:19). He could appear in a certain place, such as Galilee or Jerusalem, so that the question of his location had a specific answer. Yet he could also disappear. Our current world is full of mystery, and the world to come is likely to be more so.

Having issued that cautionary note, I suggest that since the first heaven and the first earth are physical entities, it makes sense to take the new heavens and the new earth also to have a physical dimension, with the caveat that their physics could well be different from what we already know.

What makes a material dimension hard to avoid – even if we wanted to – is the physical resurrection of the body. One strand in Greek philosophy held matter to be bad and argued that perfection would involve getting as far away from the material as possible.4 However, that is not biblical teaching (although it has influenced interpretations of this passage). The first creation was deemed by God to be very good, and so will be the second. In fact, the first real detail John sees is the city of God, the new Jerusalem, which, far from abandoning material earth and rushing off to heaven, proceeds in the opposite direction and descends from heaven to earth. Its advent in this manner was announced in 3:12 in the letter to the church in Philadelphia. The biblical hope is, after all, not deliverance from a physical earth but deliverance from evil and sin.

The concept of a city carries the idea of a community of people organised on certain principles for living and working, with all the necessary administrative substructure. Not only that, but the new Jerusalem, if its name means anything, will be, as the old Jerusalem was, a capital city – the centre of government and administration, not only of the tiny land of Israel but also of the entire new earth. It must therefore be a place – filled as it will be with human beings in their resurrection bodies. We should note, incidentally, that the city cannot be synonymous with heaven, since it descends from it onto earth.

Yet it is clearly not just a place, as the metaphors used to describe it indicate. John describes it first of all as a bride adorned for her husband. That raises the question as to how a city could look like a bride in any convincing way. Yet, as usual, the marital imagery is there to enable us to perceive the underlying realities of the new order. It brings us to the heart of God’s purposes for redeemed humanity. In the beginning, he created both men and women in his image as companions for each other at all levels – spiritual, moral, intellectual and physical. The entire human race stems from that relationship at the physical level. The biblical story is about how men and women navigated that unique relationship with each other – and with God. In the OT, God frequently referred to his relationship with his people as that of husband and wife.

The culmination of the male-and-female narrative is found in this vision of the bride of the Lamb as a holy city. She will be the queen consort for him the King of kings. The concept of a city-bride or bride-city communicates a relationship with Christ that is first introduced in this form in Paul’s letter to the first of the seven churches, Ephesus, and then, of course, in the marriage supper of the Lamb (Eph. 5:25–33).

This is the city that Abraham and Sarah looked for as they journeyed towards it together, trusting that God would fulfil his promise. This is the city-bride brilliantly foreshadowed in the romantic story of how Abraham (the father) sought a bride for Isaac (the son) by sending his servant to a distant land to describe the glories of the son to a young woman in such a way that she was prepared to take the long journey back to marry a man she had never seen. I am sure that Abraham and all the participants in that ancient narrative understand its deeper meaning now . . .5

However, the idea of a city descending from heaven is a new idea found only in the book of Revelation. Jesus himself claimed to have ‘come down from heaven’ (John 6:38) – a claim that caused consternation among those who heard it.

The most important role of this new city is announced by a loud voice from the throne: ‘The dwelling place of God is with man’ (21:3a). The Greek term here for ‘dwelling place’ is the word for ‘tabernacle’ (skene, from which we get ‘scene’ – originally a background for a theatre, painted on canvas or a similar material). It recalls both God’s dwelling among his people in a limited way in both the exodus tabernacle and Solomon’s Temple, and his dwelling place in Christ when ‘the Word became flesh and dwelt [lit. tabernacled] among us’ (John 1:14).

It was God himself who ‘tabernacled with us’ the first time inside the original creation, yet the disciples took quite a while to comprehend it, as is evident from John 14:9, where Jesus himself told them the awesome fact: ‘Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.’ In other words, being with Jesus and talking to him was actually being in the presence of and talking to the Father, in the only way in which that could be realised: ‘No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known’ (John 1:18). And he has made him known by becoming flesh as a human being and dwelling among us physically on this earth.

The new Jerusalem is a tabernacling of God and the Lamb on the new earth within his new creation. It will therefore express Immanuel (= God with us) in the fullest possible way: ‘He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God’ (21:3b). Presumably, that will mean a real physical dimension, not only for believers in their resurrection bodies as we mentioned above but also for the Lord himself. Paul, writing a number of years after the ascension, says: ‘For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily’ (Col. 2:9). Notice that the verb here is in the present tense; that is, at the time when Paul wrote this, the fullness of the Godhead was dwelling bodily in Christ. That statement, surely, has major implications for the future that many, even Christians, do not always take into account.

The Greek word rendered ‘people’ in 21:3b is plural, so it can, and possibly should, be translated ‘peoples’. This would have the implication that ethnic distinctions are preserved in the new creation – something that is to be expected from the fact, in particular, that, according to Paul, Israel is going to have a distinct role in the future as a witness to the nations. We are, after all, talking about the new Jerusalem.

What is the first thing that God does before anything else? He fulfils his promise to wipe away the final tears from believers’ eyes, echoing Isaiah’s magnificent promise that we cited earlier:

He will swallow up death for ever;

and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces . . .

(Isa. 25:8; see also Rev. 7:15–17)

Death is one of the main causes of weeping. But death is now no more. ‘Neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away’ (21:4). It is hard to imagine a world without crying, pain and mourning. Yet it shall be so. A day will come when it will all be in the past – gone for ever.

He will not only wipe away the tears of individuals who have been hurt by tragedy and loss. He will also wipe away the tears of all oppression and exploitation, of all ghettoes and concentration camps. The rivers of tears of the Holocaust, the Holodomor, the Gulag and the Killing Fields will be expunged, never to well up any more. The burning tears engendered by racist and ethnic discrimination will be extinguished, and peace and righteousness will rule. All that has been wounded will be healed, and all that has been lost will be restored.

It is noticeable that in this chapter many of the qualities of the world to come are stated as negatives: no death, no pain, no suffering. It is the absence of such things that humans long for. Seiss has a lovely phrase: ‘Christ drank the cup of sorrow for our world, and it will be found empty then.’6

That creates a difficulty for many believers. They ask how that can be so when they have friends and relatives who, so far as they knew, passed into eternity without ever repenting of their rejection of God. Will not the memory of such people forever leave a stain, a troubled memory, that will stir up regret, pain and mourning? From this scripture, it would seem not. Does that then mean that our memories will be wiped in the same way that a computer memory is erased? Hardly, because a person without a memory is a person without an identity. Will God, then, selectively delete bad memories of this sort? The questions multiply. I don’t know the answer to these among many other questions, but I know enough of God to trust him with the answer, indeed, to trust him as the answer. I can rest content with that, until he eventually reveals it to us, as I believe he one day will.

However, the OT may give us a clue. Isaiah speaks about the new heavens and the new earth:

For behold, I create new heavens

and a new earth,

and the former things shall not be remembered

or come into mind.

But be glad and rejoice for ever

in that which I create;

for behold, I create Jerusalem to be a joy,

and her people to be a gladness.

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. 65:17–19; see also Isa. 66:22)

Could it be that the creation of the new order will have the effect of making people forget (aspects of) the old? One of the new things to be created is Jerusalem in order to be ‘a joy’ (Isa. 65:18), which is interesting not only in view of the way in which Revelation 21 places (the new) Jerusalem in the context of the new creation, but also because the first thing mentioned about it is the cessation of weeping, as in 21:4.

In one of the book’s rare direct statements from God himself,7 his voice from the throne now says that he is making all things new – presumably not only a new earth but lots of new things in and on it. John is once again told, as he was at the beginning of the book, to write down what he is hearing, for the words are trustworthy and true. In particular, the voice of God continues to speak: ‘It is done!’ (21:6), which can be translated as ‘They have happened!’; that is, the new heavens and new earth are now in existence – recalling Genesis 1. God reminds us who he is, as was stated in 1:8, 17 – the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, the inaugurator and the goal of everything, reminding us of the fact that ‘all things were created through him and for him’ (Col. 1:16). God then announces the free gift of the water of life. That recalls the invitation in Isaiah 55.1–2:

Come, everyone 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.

It also reminds us of Jesus’ offer of living water to the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4.

In each of the seven letters to the churches a promise was made to ‘the one who conquers’ or ‘overcomes’, that is, the faithful believer in the situation. These promises are now summed up in one promise: the faithful overcomers will inherit all of these things, the new creation, and God will be their God, and they will be his sons and daughters – echoing a promise that God made to David about his son in 2 Samuel 7:14.

By contrast, tragically yet inevitably, the unbelieving, among whom are ‘the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable . . . murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars’ (21:8), will experience the second death in the lake of fire. God takes the breaking of his moral laws seriously. The word ‘cowardly’ stands out in this list as a challenge in our politically correct anti-God world that wishes to silence the sound of God’s name on our lips. May God give us courage to swim against the tide as we think of our promised part in the new creation, in which righteousness dwells and from which sin is banished.

The way is now clear to learning more about God’s exquisite city-bride:

Then came one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues and spoke to me, saying, ‘Come, I will show you the Bride, the wife of the Lamb.’ And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great, high mountain, and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, having the glory of God, its radiance like a most rare jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal.

(21:9–11)

This part of the book weaves together many of the thematic threads that started in the earlier parts. In part 1, seven city-churches receive letters from the glorified Son of Man that are directed at increasing their witness, developing their character and firming up their theological convictions. In part 6 we now see the whole Church as the city-bride, the wife of the Lamb. Paul, writing about marriage to the first of the seven churches, Ephesus, said:

Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendour, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.

(Eph. 5:25b–27)

Applying this language, we could say that in part 1 we have the washing of water with the word of Christ by which he applies the detail of his glory to her, and here in part 6 we have his presentation of her in splendour and holiness so that her bridal glories can be seen and admired as a reflection of his glory.

‘Christ loved the church’ (Eph. 5:25b). The word ‘love’ only occurs three times in Revelation: in the first, fourth and seventh letters, those to Ephesus, Thyatira and Laodicea respectively. As we saw in part 1, Ephesus hated and did not love, Thyatira loved and didn’t hate, and Laodicea did neither. Yet Christ said to Laodicea: ‘Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent’ (3:19). In the vision of the city-bride, we see the result of that faithful love of Christ for the churches that inspired them to overcome.

In chapter 17, one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls had invited John to a desert place to see the judgement of the great prostitute who was a city, Babylon the great. Now, one of the same group of angels invites John to a high mountain to see another city, the Holy City, new Jerusalem. The fact that the angel is identified as being one of the bowl-carriers indicates that God’s judgements are as holy as his city; there is no tension between the two. The setting of the vision resembles Ezekiel’s experience long before: ‘In visions of God he brought me to the land of Israel, and set me down on a very high mountain, on which was a structure like a city to the south’ (Ezek. 40:2).

We have come to the climax of the book of Revelation, its crowning glory, revealing to us a glorious new creation that is the dwelling place of God with his people, centred on the new Jerusalem, which has come from (new) heaven to (new) earth. This book which began with letters to seven earthly cities, with all their imperfections, now nears its end with a description of God’s heavenly city, in all its unblemished perfection, in which all those who overcame from the seven cities will one day live, as the Letter-Writer himself promised.

According to Hebrews, the idea of a heavenly city is as old as the patriarchs. In our discussion of Revelation 14 we suggested calling the biblical storyline ‘a tale of two cities’8. Abram left the region of Babylon because ‘he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God’ (Heb. 11:10).

That did not mean that Abram ceased to expect the fulfilment of God’s promise of the land as an inheritance. It did mean that he saw beyond that earthly messianic inheritance to an additional heavenly one. It was both/and, not either/or. He saw beyond earthly Jerusalem to a city in heaven.

That hope was shared by the other patriarchs and the faithful through the centuries of whom it is written:

These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.

(Heb. 11:13–16)

God’s heavenly city will fulfil his promise to generations of believers, and he assures them that he is not ashamed of it, that is (I take it), he is not ashamed of all that believers have had to endure in order to hold on to their hope of that city. It will be glorious beyond their wildest expectations.

The first mention of a heavenly city named ‘Jerusalem’ is by Paul when he is using the story of Sarah and Hagar as an allegory to help us understand the contrast between the glorious freedom that comes through believing the gospel message and the inevitable slavery that arises from dependence on law-keeping for salvation: ‘Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia; she corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother’ (Gal. 4:25–6). Putting that together with the Hebrews passage cited above, the vision of the heavenly city stimulates faith in God, so that the city can be said to be the ‘mother’ of believers.

The letter to the Hebrews draws a contrast between the people of Israel, who came out of Egypt and arrived at a mountain so awesome due to the presence of God that it caused even Moses to tremble, and believers who have come to a heavenly mountain:

But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

(Heb. 12:22–4)

The striking thing here is that believers are said to have already come to the heavenly Jerusalem, which clearly implies that it already exists as a home to a vast community of angels and believers, as described here. In what sense have we come to it, since we aren’t there yet? Paul teaches that believers already possess heavenly citizenship and, in that sense, already form a colony of heaven on earth (Phil. 3:20).

We tend first of all to think of a city as a place that is designed, constructed and organised to serve a community of people who live and work there. A bride is a woman who is joined to a husband in marriage. This bride is the bride of the Lamb, a community of people who look to the Lamb as their Saviour who redeemed them by the blood of his sacrifice. In that sense, the bride is the saints, taken collectively, and she is also the city, so that the main emphasis may well be on the community of the saints.

However, I am not convinced that the idea of place, associated with the common notion of a city, is entirely absent. In John 14:2, Jesus told his disciples that he was going to prepare a ‘place’ (topos) for them. He then said that he would return to take them to himself so that they could be ‘where’ he was (John 14:3) – and ‘where’ indicates place. Hence, although the primary emphasis here is that believers go to be with him – wherever that may be – the notion of place is still there. After all, there is to be a physical resurrection of the dead, and physical bodies are inconceivable without a place for them to be. Also, cities such as Babylon and Jerusalem are not only places. For example, we all know what is meant when a news announcer says: ‘Moscow has blamed Washington for what recently happened in . . .’ Cities may play both literal and metaphorical roles.

At the beginning of this final part of Revelation, John saw Christ coming down from heaven to this earth as the Rider on the white horse. Now John sees the Rider’s bride, this awe-inspiring city coming down from the new heaven to the new earth. A city-bride is an unusual image and yet John’s first impression was of the glory and magnificent jewel-like radiance of a bride – a notion that may be rooted in Isaiah 61:10. One wonders exactly what it may have looked like. In these days of advanced capabilities of image manipulation, one can imagine a composite image of a city on which is imposed an image of a bride in such a way as to make them blend in a vision of beauty. Of course, I have no real idea what John actually saw, but this is just one way of imagining it, since his vision communicated both the idea of city and that of bride.

We next have a detailed description of various aspects of the city: its walls, gates and foundations, their measurements and the materials of which they are made. We read little that could satisfy our curiosity about its infrastructure: roads, buildings, transport systems, economy, and so on. What we do read about, first of all, are things that have to do with security:

It had a great, high wall, with twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and on the gates the names of the twelve tribes of the sons of Israel were inscribed – on the east three gates, on the north three gates, on the south three gates, and on the west three gates. And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.

(21:12–14)

In the ancient world the walls of a city were of great importance for its security. Nehemiah relates how, under his leadership, the returning exiles prioritised rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem in order to facilitate the restoration of the city. The gates stood for access, and later verses in this chapter (24–7) record who has right of access to the new Jerusalem and who does not, adding that the gates are never closed. The walls assure the city’s residents of their Lord’s protection, a topic that Jesus emphasised to his fearful disciples, and the rest of us believers also. Paul reminds us that ‘we are more than conquerors through him who loved us’, for nothing ‘will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord’ (Rom. 8:37–9).

The names on the gates in those walls are the names of the twelve sons of Israel. That detail serves to remind us once more of the strong Jewish dimension to the book. This is the city that was looked for by the patriarchs as the goal of their earthly pilgrimage of faith in God – the city whose builder and maker is God.

The names on the gates remind us that the entrance to the celestial city is via Israel. By that I mean that the gospel comes to us through Israel in several ways. First, Jesus the Lamb who is the anointed King (= Messiah) is descended from the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Judah – and from King David. Second, the gospel is received by faith, which is exemplified particularly in Abraham. Jesus reminded the Samaritan woman at the well that ‘salvation is from the Jews’ (John 4:22). This was a purely factual statement, not a prejudice. The problem with the Samaritans was that they had cut loose from God’s revelation in history through Israel and centred their place of worship in Gerizim and not Jerusalem. Jesus was pointing out the important fact that, if what we believe both historically and theologically is not anchored in that revelation through Israel, then it is not the truth.

Also, the story of how the names of the twelve sons of Israel/Jacob came to exist is well worth recording as they tell us something wonderful about God’s interactions with some of those people – who will be in his city. It all starts with Jacob’s complex marital arrangements, as described in Genesis 29 and 30. Bigamy is not an ideal way to start married life. It inevitably leads to favouritism and intense rivalry. Jacob, who had been his mother’s pet, had not learned much about the dangers of such favouritism. The favoured status he gave to his second wife, Rachel, created a very unhappy situation for his first wife, Leah, Rachel’s older sister.

What was God’s attitude to Leah, and what is his attitude now towards the many women who share Leah’s plight? Through no fault of her own, she was genetically endowed with facial features that were not attractive to men. She got married as a result of a process in which she was not involved, given to a man who clearly did not love her but had to put up with her because of local tribal customs. A victim of circumstances beyond her control, she was trapped in a loveless marriage.

Leah’s story is for many a microcosm of the human condition in which they find themselves. The feeling that life has been unfair from the start; envying others who are better endowed physically or mentally; living in a family where another sibling is ostentatiously favouritised; being a victim of circumstances that have filled life with cruel twists and tears produced by rejection or bitter taunting . . . The list is endless.

And which of us is exempt, either from being a victim or, indeed, being a victimiser? And God, if there is a God, is surely only interested in the strong and handsome, the slim and beautiful, in those who thrive and flourish, who are popular and wealthy and fit? He doesn’t even see me – and if he did, he wouldn’t be interested, would he?

But God did see Leah. He saw that she was hated and did something about it: ‘He opened her womb, but Rachel was barren.’ Leah called her first child Reuben, meaning ‘See, a son’. This name expressed her feelings, as she explained: ‘The Lord has looked upon my affliction; for now my husband will love me’ (Gen 29:32). This statement is quite remarkable since Leah was raised in a pagan home, as we may deduce from the fact that when Jacob eventually takes his family away from Laban, Rachel steals his household gods.

Yet stories of God’s dealings with Abraham and Isaac may well have made a deep impression on Leah so that somewhere during that time she came to trust in the God of Abraham, even though it is likely that the attitude of the one who had brought her the message – Jacob – may well have been thoughtless and even cruel towards her on occasion. It was clear to Leah’s weak eyes that Jacob only had eyes for Rachel, and that must have been very hard to take.

Leah’s faith in God is shown in the fact that the name of her first child expresses her belief that the Lord has seen her loveless predicament. Another son, Simeon (meaning ‘Heard’) soon followed, and once more the name reflected the ongoing pain in Leah’s heart: ‘Because the Lord has heard that I am hated, he has given me this son also’ (Gen. 29:33). A third son was called Levi (meaning ‘Attached’) and she said: ‘Now this time my husband will be attached to me, because I have borne him three sons’ (Gen. 29:34).

It is not hard to see that her children’s names were deliberately chosen not only to form a record of her own personal emotional and spiritual journey but also to be a constant reminder to Jacob that his attitude towards his wife and the mother of his children – and to God – was far from what it should be. Can you imagine Jacob having to explain to someone how his children got their names?

God had fulfilled Leah’s desire for children, and she would therefore now be highly regarded as a mother in her ancient society. Yet, unsurprisingly, she wanted more: she longed for her husband’s affection and love. However, in spite of the fact that she had produced three sons for Jacob it would appear that he did not grow any closer to her as a person. He was treating her as a means – of child production, and not as an end – a person to be valued in her own right. This, humanly speaking, is one of the hardest things to bear, and many in our societies have to bear it.

When Leah’s fourth son was born, she called him Judah (meaning ‘Praise’) and said: ‘This time I will praise the Lord’ (Gen. 29:35). Something has changed in Leah’s heart. Gone is any expectation of an improved relationship between her and Jacob. She seems to have come to accept that it just won’t happen. Leah shows no obvious trace of bitterness. She doesn’t succumb to the victim culture that affects so many people today. All she wants to do is praise the Lord and celebrate that praise in the name of her fourth son. She had found deep strength of character and resolve, and risen above her unfair circumstances.

Leah’s faith in God had helped her triumph in her adversity. What she did not know – indeed, what she could not have known as she named her children – was something that sends a shiver up my spine. She was choosing the names that would one day adorn the gates of God’s eternal city, with the result that the record of her experience of God was rendered eternally permanent. Then the other wife, Jacob’s favourite, Rachel, starts to produce children, first of all via her servant Bilhah as a surrogate. Like Leah, Rachel records her experience in the names she gives the children, for example Dan (meaning ‘Judged’): ‘God has judged me, and has also heard my voice and given me a son’ (Gen. 30:6). In this way, one by one, the names that will adorn the gates of the city are assigned. One would need to expound a great deal of the OT to do justice to the richness of those twelve names.9 No wonder that in the imagery used in Revelation, each gate consists of a single gigantic pearl (21:21).

Gates, of course, are, in the first instance, entrances. However, in an ancient city they had other important functions. They were places, for example, where the governing authorities of the city convened. For instance, we are told that Lot sat in the gate of Sodom, which implies that he was something like a local councillor (Gen. 19:1). When Jacob set out from home, he stopped to overnight at a place named Bethel (meaning ‘The House of God’) where he had a dream in which he saw angels ascending and descending a ladder set up beside him that reached from earth to heaven. God spoke to him in the night and repeated the promise he had made to Abraham to bless his offspring and the world through them. He then made a personal commitment to Jacob: ‘Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land. For I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.’

Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, ‘Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.’ And he was afraid and said, ‘How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.’

(Gen. 28:15–17)

Some translations suggest that God stood ‘above the ladder’ (see Gen 28:13), but it is more likely that we should read it as: ‘God stood beside him’ – as would be indicated by two facts: first, that the angels ascended and descended, rather than the reverse; and second, that Jacob said that God was in this place, not in heaven. Jacob, of course, had long believed that God was in heaven. His new discovery that night was that God was far nearer than he had thought. God was beside him, promising to guide and direct the man’s life. Hence, Jacob’s comment that it was the house of God and gate of heaven did not merely mean that God lived there and that one could access heaven there. The word ‘house’ is used in the sense of reigning house – as in the House of David in the OT or the House of Windsor in the UK. ‘Gate’ carries the idea of ruling, so that what Jacob had realised for the first time was that God was promising to accompany him and rule his life, giving him support, advice and direction. It is a discovery that we all need to make, if we have not done so already. It is, in fact, what Christians mean when they call Jesus ‘Lord’.

In the new Jerusalem, in this dwelling of God on the new earth, there are twelve gates and, if we import these ideas from Jacob’s experience, we get a picture of a dynamic community of people flourishing under the direction and lordship of Christ, with constant access to him and others as they go about their business.

Jesus referred to Jacob’s vision of the ladder when he told an amazed Nathanael that he had seen him under his fig tree:

Nathanael answered him, ‘Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!’ Jesus answered him, ‘Because I said to you, “I saw you under the fig tree”, do you believe? You will see greater things than these.’ And he said to him, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.’

(John 1:49–51)

What we see in this final part of Revelation is said to be precisely that: ‘heaven opened’ to show the Son of Man, first revealed in part 1 as walking in the midst of the churches on earth, now in the midst of delegating his rule to angelic messengers. It might therefore have been more accurate to say above that the new community in the new Jerusalem will consist of both human and angelic servants of God and will be not only the administrative capital of earth but also of the entire new universe. We should also note that Nathanael recognised and said that Jesus was the ‘King of Israel’ (John 1:49). This confession supports the idea that Nathanael understood Jesus to be telling him that he would one day fulfil the hopes and dreams of the original Israel, the patriarch Jacob himself. After all, as Jesus had told him, Nathanael was a true Israelite in whom there was no deceit (see John 1:47) – and we all know, I’m sure, that the Hebrew for ‘Jacob’, Yaakov, connotes deceit.

Not only are there twelve gates in the Holy City but also its walls have twelve foundations. On those foundations are the names of the apostles of the Lamb. Recalling that the city consists of believers, this fits in with Paul’s statement in his letter to the first of the seven churches:

So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.

(Eph. 2:19–22)

Jesus warned that an ordinary house will fall if it is built on ground without a foundation (Luke 6:49). And, at the deeper level, there is no security for those who set aside the teaching of Christ and his apostles, however enlightened and progressive such people may claim to be. Jesus made that abundantly clear when he said: ‘Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives him who sent me’ (Matt. 10:40; see also John 15:20).

This message is of vital importance these days when churches are under pressure, both internal and external, over the issue of whether or not to take biblical doctrine seriously or to give in to the demands of a relativist, anti-God culture that rejects biblical truth, particularly about morality and ethics. It might even call itself ‘post-truth’ and expect us to believe that that is an absolute truth! How foolish can we humans be? If we are to have any chance of standing, we must build our house on a foundation of rock with the Lamb as its cornerstone. Isaiah promised:

Therefore, thus says the Lord God,

‘Behold, I am the one who has laid as a foundation in Zion,

a stone, a tested stone,

a precious cornerstone, of a sure foundation:

‘Whoever believes will not be in haste.’

(Isa. 28:16)

In a variant text, the last line of the above verse reads: ‘Whoever believes will not be put to shame.’ We may put both together and say that stepping off the foundation will bring us to shame and disaster!

The names on the foundations were initially given by parents to their children with, of course, no knowledge of who those children would eventually become. How the names ended up on the foundations of the city is told us in the Gospel accounts. Jesus chose a group of men, with a rich variety of background, temperament and ability, to be with him. Simon was the first of them. The Lord renamed him Peter (meaning ‘Stone’ or ‘Rock’) and used his confession of Jesus as the Christ (Messiah), the Son of the Living God, to make the famous statement: ‘And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it’ (Matt. 16:18).

When Jesus called them, Peter and the other disciples had no idea that their names would feature on the foundations of the heavenly city. Yet Christ would build his Church out of living stones such as Peter. On one occasion, he told them to rejoice that their names were written in heaven – but not how and where.

Again, to do justice to the story of the apostles of the Lamb and what each of them contributed through their lives and teaching to the foundations of the city, we would need to expound the whole NT. The fundamental thing we need to grasp is that the Lord gave his apostles, including Paul, his own authority. That means, negatively, that if we don’t accept their teaching as authoritative, we are rejecting Christ himself, who said to them: ‘Whoever receives you receives me’ (Matt. 10:40). It is sad to see the walls of Christian churches and organisations collapsing because of rejection of apostolic doctrine. Various kinds of cracks in the foundations were pointed out by the Lord in five of the seven letters to the churches. In particular, we have a responsibility to protect our young people at an early stage by giving them a solid foundation so that what they build on it will withstand the ferocity of the winds that are now blowing to wreck their potential for flourishing for God.

Abraham looked for the city that had proper foundations. He left Babylon with its inadequate foundations – its citizens trusted themselves and not God. Abraham’s life tells us what the main foundation is for building a meaningful life: trust in God as the utterly reliable one.

John now continues his narrative to tell us about the colossal size and wealth of this unique city:

And the one who spoke with me had a measuring rod of gold to measure the city and its gates and walls. The city lies foursquare, its length the same as its width. And he measured the city with his rod, 12,000 stadia. Its length and width and height are equal. He also measured its wall, 144 cubits by human measurement, which is also an angel’s measurement. The wall was built of jasper, while the city was pure gold, clear as glass. The foundations of the wall of the city were adorned with every kind of jewel. The first was jasper, the second sapphire, the third agate, the fourth emerald, the fifth onyx, the sixth carnelian, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth chrysoprase, the eleventh jacinth, the twelfth amethyst. And the twelve gates were twelve pearls, each of the gates made of a single pearl, and the street of the city was pure gold, transparent as glass.

(21:15–21)

Measurement of cities and buildings is a concept already rooted in the OT, for example in Ezekiel 40:3; 42:16 and in Zechariah 2:2. Also, in 11:1–2 the Temple is measured but the court and the city are omitted, because they had been given over to trampling by the nations. This time, the city is measured in its entirety, as it is altogether holy. Its plan is square, a common feature of ancient cities. But what is very uncommon is that its height is mentioned as being equal to its other dimensions so that the city forms a colossal cube of edge 12,000 stadia, which is roughly 1,380 miles (2,220 km). Ian Paul points out that if the city was centred on Patmos where John was writing, it would encompass Rome in the west and Jerusalem in the east as well as stretching to the northern and southern frontiers of the Roman Empire.10 The walls were 144 cubits thick, which is around 65 metres. it is stressed that the cubit measurement is the ordinary human one, which, apparently, is also used by angels. The cube as an architectural form is found in the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem, where the inner sanctuary, that is, the Holy of Holies, which contained the ark of the covenant, was a perfect cube of edge 20 cubits (1 Kgs 6:20).

We notice the ubiquity of the number 12 in the description: 12 tribes of Israel, 12 apostles, 12,000 stadia, 144 (i.e. 12 squared) and so on. Are these symbols of completeness?

There are two main emphases: size and value. This Holy City, as the future dwelling place of God on earth, seems to be a scaled-up version of the original holy space in Jerusalem’s Temple, increased to an incredible size. It had been the place where God dwelt among his people. So also will this city be the dwelling place of God with his people.

Not only is its size immense; so also is the value of the materials used in its construction. The wall was built of jasper, a gemstone that is used in 4:3 and 21:11 to evoke the glory of God. The city was itself constructed from pure gold, the precious metal that adorned the interior of the Temple. The gold was so pure that it resembled clear glass – also a very expensive commodity in the days of primitive glass-making where getting rid of blemishes was very difficult. The sheer weight of its glory was beyond the power of words to describe.

The foundations were also opulent beyond adequate description, ‘adorned with every kind of jewel’ (21:19). The word for ‘adorned’ is derived from the Greek kosmein (= to order), from which we get ‘cosmos’ and ‘cosmetics’. Such exceptionally valuable gems brought a glorious, aesthetically beautiful order to the appearance of the city, which, we must not forget, is the bride of the Lamb. Many of the precious stones are listed elsewhere in Scripture, for instance the gems representing the twelve tribes of Israel on the high priest’s breastplate (see Exod. 28:17–20), which he wore when entering the Holy of Holies on the Day of Atonement once a year.

The sheer value of the foundations is a measure of the importance of having our lives built on the foundation of the apostles. It is sad when we hear liberal scholars say things like: ‘That was only Paul’s opinion . . .’ For the foundation of the apostles is the only foundation worth having. It is a priceless inheritance, worth guarding with our lives, as many have done.

The gates also were indescribably valuable, each of them fashioned from a single colossal pearl – again, almost impossible even to imagine. Ordinary pearls were mentioned in connection with the adornment of Babylon the prostitute, but these pearls are of a different category and scale altogether.

Finally, the main street or square was paved with translucent gold. The last two details have left their mark on everyday language: who has not heard of the pearly gates or the streets of gold? The fact that a street is mentioned at all raises many kinds of unanswerable questions as to the level at which we are to interpret the vision.

For questions immediately arise from the sheer proportions, the dimensions and the unimaginable wealth of the construction materials and the impossibility of realising such a structure physically with such materials in terms of what we know about them. Such a construction would collapse under its own gravity – that is, if gravity is still the same? Pearls the size of gates, gems in vast quantities to be the foundations of walls nearly 1,500 miles long, and gold enough to pave a towering megapolis are sufficient in themselves for us to query the strong literalistic approach that some insist is the only way to understand the passage faithfully.

The opposite approach, equally unconvincing, is to say that the passage doesn’t relate to reality at all. To each of these approaches, I am tempted to say: so what? Where do we go from there, if you are right? Granted that God, the infinite Creator, could create oysters large enough to produce gigantic pearls, the question remains as to whether we have to postulate a world like that in order to understand the clear message that the imagery conveys. Surely the description is meant much more to tell us what the city stands for, rather than what materials it consists of? That may well be true. However, John’s methodology sometimes consists in describing symbols without telling us the reality that lies behind them. That does not mean that there is no reality behind them: there always is. As to the matter of scale, it is clearly designed to overwhelm us. Not for nothing do we read in Hebrews 11:16 that God is not ashamed of the harrowing experiences many believers have gone through because he has prepared for them a city. One thing that the scale of the city is designed to get across to us is that it has the capacity for a vast number of people. If Scripture calls it a ‘city’, it must surely have sufficient characteristics in common with our earthbound experience of cities and city life in order to deserve the term ‘city’ without misleading us.

The procedure of measuring would arguably indicate that this city has extension in space in the sort of terms we can understand. If this is where there are physical, resurrected people who are by definition extended in space, then would it not be reasonable to think that the city must have some kind of physical aspect and not be purely symbolic. After all, if it is purely a symbol, we have to ask: what is it a symbol for? The answer must be: a city, in some meaningful sense of that term.

David Turner’s comment is apposite:

To interpret Revelation 21.1 – 22.5 merely as a symbolic picture of the church’s blessings is to remove the church from its redemptive historical context in space and time history on the earth . . . fails to reckon with the earthly character of Old Testament eschatological hope and the full cosmic effects of Christ’s redemption . . . Creaturehood inevitably involves physical existence, and the redemption of creatures includes the redemption of creation.11

Think of Daniel’s visions in Daniel 2 and 7. In the first, the various empires are seen as different metals used in constructing a colossal statue of a man. The head is made of gold. Daniel saw gold in his vision, but to take it as literal gold would be to miss the stated fact that Nebuchadnezzar was the head of gold: the metal stood for him and his empire. Similarly in the vision of the four wild animals. Daniel saw an animal that, no doubt, really looked like a lion in his vision. However, he was told it was not a real lion but symbolised a very real empire: Babylon.

Or again:

In that day this song will be sung in the land of Judah:

‘We have a strong city;

he sets up salvation

as walls and bulwarks.’

(Isa. 26:1)

Salvation is not a literal wall of stone, yet it is a real wall given us by the Lord for our real, secure protection.

And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb. By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it, and its gates will never be shut by day – and there will be no night there. They will bring into it the glory and the honour of the nations. But nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life.

(21:22–7)

This glorious heavenly city is so far beyond our meagre powers of conception that its description is once more in this chapter couched in negative terminology: no temple; no need of sun or stars; no night; its gates are never shut; nothing unclean, detestable or false will enter.

We have seen that the cubic geometry of the city mirrors that of the very dwelling place of God in both the tabernacle and the Temple. Yet there is no temple in this city. Nor was John told that the city was the Temple. He was told that God and the Lamb together form the Temple. Jesus himself laid claim to something like this when he told his disciples in a cornfield one day: ‘I tell you, something greater than the temple is here’ (Matt. 12:6).

The absence of a temple raises the question of the fulfilment of the OT scriptures that are understood by many to predict the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem in the end times. They find evidence for that view in the prophecy of Ezekiel. We noted earlier that Ezekiel 37 – 38 is the OT source for the description of the battle fought by Gog and his armies against Jerusalem in 20:8. Ezekiel then spends the last eight chapters of his prophecy describing the final vision he had in 573 bc, the twenty-fifth year of the exile and fourteen years after the fall of Jerusalem. In his vision he is taken to a high mountain in Israel and shown a city in which there is a temple unlike any that existed earlier. It turns out, of course, to be Jerusalem, and when God’s glory eventually fills it, as had happened with both the tabernacle and Solomon’s Temple, Ezekiel hears a voice from inside the Temple saying: ‘Son of man, this is the place of my throne and the place of the soles of my feet, where I will dwell in the midst of the people of Israel for ever’ (Ezek. 43:7).

Ezekiel prophesies:

Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I will take the people of Israel from the nations among which they have gone, and will gather them from all around, and bring them to their own land . . .

My servant David shall be king over them, and they shall all have one shepherd. They shall walk in my rules and be careful to obey my statutes. They shall dwell in the land that I gave to my servant Jacob, where your fathers lived . . . And I will set them in their land and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in their midst for evermore. My dwelling place shall be with them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Then the nations will know that I am the Lord who sanctifies Israel, when my sanctuary is in their midst for evermore.

(Ezek. 37:21, 24–8)

Ezekiel’s final statement is: ‘And the name of the city from that time on shall be, The Lord Is There’ (Ezek. 48:35).

In the Mishneh Torah (an ancient code of Jewish religious law), the famous twelfth-century Jewish scholar and philosopher Moses Maimonides (known as Ramban) wrote: ‘In future time, the King Mashiach [Messiah] will arise and renew the Davidic dynasty, restoring it to its initial sovereignty. He will rebuild the [Beit Ha]Mikdash and gather in the dispersed remnant of Israel.’12

Other Jewish scholars hold that the Jerusalem Temple will be rebuilt before Messiah comes; for instance, the Temple Institute declares the following:

The sages of Israel enigmatically stated that when the Messiah arrives, he will stand atop the roof of the Holy Temple and cry out: ‘Humble ones! The time of your redemption has arrived!’ Thus, the Temple will be built before the Messiah arrives.13

Some Christian scholars hold that Ezekiel’s temple will be built in the intermediate millennial kingdom, whereas others think that Ezekiel’s temple is purely a symbol of the eternal state, since there is no temple in the new Jerusalem – the all-important thing being that the Lord is there.

The new Jerusalem has no need of sun or moon, a circumstance predicted by Isaiah:

The sun shall be no more

your light by day,

nor for brightness shall the moon

give you light;

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. 60:19–20)

On the Mount of Transfiguration, Jesus’ face shone like the sun, which would seem to imply that it radiated, or appeared to radiate, extremely intense physical light. In part 1 of Revelation, the Son of Man was seen among the lampstands with his face shining like the sun in full strength. Now, in the eternal world, we are told that no sun or moon is needed. Does that imply that they no longer exist, even in a renewed form? Or are they still there, adorning the new heavens but not necessary for illumination because there is another source of light, namely the glory of God with the Lamb as a lamp in some way that we do not understand? It is noteworthy that the Lamb is not said to be the sun of that world but rather the lamp.

Isaiah, as we saw above, also says that sun or moon will not be necessary. However, he who tells us about Messiah as the lamb led to the slaughter does not tell us about the Lamb as the lamp. Yet Isaiah does tell us, earlier in the same chapter, that the illumination of the city has immense drawing power: ‘nations come to your light and kings to the brightness of your rising.’ When Jesus was on earth, as the Light of the World he had that same drawing power, and that can give us some insight into the sense in which God’s glory is illumination, and the Lamb a lamp.

The third verse of the hymn ‘Fairest Lord Jesus, Ruler of all Nature’, in The United Methodist Hymnal (1989), originally translated from a seventeenth-century German hymn whose author is unknown, beautifully captures something of the idea:

Fair is the sunshine,

Fairer still the moonlight,

And all the twinkling starry host;

Jesus shines brighter,

Jesus shines purer,

Than all the angels heav’n can boast!

J. A. Seiss, author of one of our reference commentaries on Revelation, translated the title of the hymn as ‘Beautiful Saviour’.

The motto of my university of Oxford is Dominus illuminatio mea, ‘The Lord is my light’, or ‘my illumination’, which does not, of course, refer to physical light of a given wavelength but to intellectual light. When Jesus claimed to be the Light of the World, he was referring to spiritual, moral and intellectual, not physical light. The psalmist could say:

Your word is a lamp to my feet

and a light to my path.

(Ps. 119:105)

And the Lamb that is the Lamp is also the Word. One wonders if this passage in Revelation is using symbolic language more to evoke a reality than to describe it. But what is that reality? The obvious problem is that, since the city has a physical aspect and is indwelt by resurrected believers, physical light would seem to be essential, at least in terms of earth physics. There is a mystery here.

By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it, and its gates will never be shut by day – and there will be no night there. They will bring into it the glory and the honour of the nations. But nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life.

(21:24–7)

The same chapter of Isaiah that speaks of God’s glory being the light also says:

And nations shall come to your light,

and kings to the brightness of your rising.

Lift up your eyes all round, and see;

they all gather together, they come to you;

your sons shall come from afar . . .

the wealth of the nations shall come to you . . .

They shall bring gold and frankincense,

and shall bring good news, the praises of the Lord . . .

Your gates shall be open continually;

day and night they shall not be shut,

that people may bring to you the wealth of the nations,

with their kings led in procession.

For the nation and kingdom

that will not serve you shall perish;

those nations shall be utterly laid waste.

(Isa. 60:3–6, 11–12)

The nations walking in its light and the kings of the earth bringing the glory and honour of the nations into it evoke a dynamic, vibrant capital city with righteousness as its core value. It will be the most remarkable city that has ever existed, a cosmopolitan, peaceful and harmonious community, its gates ever open for trade, communication and interchange with the rest of a spectacularly beautiful new world as only God could craft it. The matter of precisely which kings will bring their glory into it is not so easily settled. First of all, we need to realise that in biblical terms, kings are more than heads of state and we probably need to include all kinds of cultural figures and thought leaders. Second, are they men and women who became believers during their lifetime on earth – both ancient and modern? Third, what constitutes their glory? For example, ancient kings brought home cultural treasures to enhance their cities. So, will (redeemed) culture in some form be brought into God’s city? An interesting, constructive attempt to tease out some of these ideas was made by Richard J. Mouw in his book When the Kings Come Marching in: Isaiah and the new Jerusalem.14

As for the glory, Seiss waxes lyrical:

And within these immortal gates, in the very presence and company of God and the Lamb, surrounded with light, riches and splendours beyond all that human thought can estimate, amid the liberties, securities and perfections of the highest of all the material creations of gracious Omnipotence, as the jewelled link between the Eternal Father and his redeemed earthly family, and with a strength that walks unshaken under all the exceeding and eternal weight of glory, the Church of the first-born, the Bride and Wife of Christ, shall live and reign with him, day without end, for the ages of the ages.15

That city is glorious not only because the Lord is there but also because certain things are not there. Here is no wishful universalism but solemn reality. The Lamb shed his blood for all. But not all used their precious God-given gift of free choice to receive him, with the eternal consequence that ‘nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life’ (21:27). Revelation 20 ended on the solemn note that anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life would be cast into the lake of fire. Here we have the positive side. Only those whose names are in the book of life may enter the city. For it is a holy city, a sin-free zone that connects earth and heaven in perfect harmony.

In this passage the word translated ‘false’ is the Greek noun pseudos, which means ‘a lie’. Jesus taught that Satan was the father of lies and had introduced sin to the human race by successfully enticing men and women to believe a lie. Satan’s final protégé, the monster, the man of lawlessness, will be the final liar of all. Paul says of him:

The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

(2 Thess. 2:9–12)

None of us like to be told lies, and yet we are confronted by them every day as they become more and more plausible in a society that has allowed its (originally Judeo-Christian) moral foundations to be eroded to almost zero. Lies are told to gain wealth, power and influence, and social media is the greatest mechanism for spreading them. False accusations are made to smear and destroy characters and to disseminate conspiracy theories of all kinds and at all levels of society. The most powerful lies are those that shape a philosophical and ideological culture that drives nations ever deeper into godlessness and denial of God. People talk of living the dream, but sadly they are much more likely to be living a lie, the danger of which is being rapidly increased by developments in artificial intelligence, such as ChatGPT. This warning about lies reminds us not only that the word ‘monster’ derives from the Latin for ‘warn’ but also, as Paul explains in the passage above, that the future reign of the monster will be characterised by people who refuse to love the truth, which presumes they know it but they would rather believe the monster’s wicked lies; they even take pleasure in them. Because they do it knowingly, God will allow them to be deluded and to perish. They will, says Revelation, be cast into the lake of fire.

The idea of a world without lies, fake news or deception generated by both humans and intelligent machines seems at the moment like an impossible dream. No more politicians lying to retain power, no more commercial lying for gain, no more lying influencers on social media, no more . . . Yet it will happen. God has promised such a world, and it ought to fill our hearts with anticipation.

Nevertheless, none of us like thinking about the awful fate of the impenitent. We wish that it were not so. Yet I am convinced that what we read about it in Scripture is the true word of God, who loves us enough to tell us what is at stake. That being the case, whatever our emotional reaction, we cannot afford to avoid the fact that Scripture means what it says when it tells us that we need to be saved not only from such an awful fate but also for something immensely glorious, as the narrative goes on to tell us:

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign for ever and ever.

(22:1–5)

The biblical story starts with the creation of the universe – the heavens and the earth. The pinnacle of that creation is the making of human beings in the image of God and placing them in the magnificent setting of the luxurious garden of Eden. Now, in this final chapter of the great narrative, we come full circle, or rather, we come full spiral. For the ultimate goal of history is not to take us back to the original Eden but to a new beginning at a higher level in a world that is ‘above’ Eden. One can imagine it to be a little like following a spiral round one circuit, which gets you, not back to the start, but to a point situated above the start.

The new Jerusalem is revealed to us as a garden city, the Eden of the new creation, yet no longer just a garden. It was described in 2:7 as ‘the paradise of God’, using a Persian word for a luxurious pleasure-park with streams, trees and hunting grounds. Some of the terms used to describe this garden city are familiar from the Genesis account. For instance, food and water are the basic necessities for life on this earth. In the new world, there is a river, not the Tigris or Euphrates, but a river of the water of life, which flows from the throne of God and the Lamb as its source.

And one day that Lamb, Jesus the Saviour, stopped by a well on earth in the small town of Samaria and asked a troubled Samaritan woman for a drink:

Jesus said to her, ‘Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.’ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.’

(John 4:13–15)

She had no idea, at least initially, that what he was about to give her was water flowing from the very throne of God – water that would end the drought in her life, slake her thirst and give her eternal satisfaction. It is a limitless supply. There will never be a drought in that world. The river of that crystal-clear, life-giving water flowing down the middle of the main street (or main square) of the city is the visual image that is meant to convey that to us. It is very different from the lukewarm water of Laodicea.

There are trees also. According to Genesis 2, God originally made the trees good to look at and good for food. That reminds us of God’s gift of our aesthetic sense and physical appetite. No doubt these trees of life in the new creation represent a stunningly beautiful feast for the eyes, as well as yielding magnificent fruit with twelve crops a year in an endless supply of fruit.

There were two special trees in the original garden: the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Eating the fruit of the latter tree led to the entry of sin and evil into the world, which have since contaminated all of humanity and history. God banned access to the tree of life and, without its food, eventual physical death was inevitable. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil is no more, but access to the tree of life is restored for all inhabitants of the Holy City.

The promise to the overcomer in Ephesus at the beginning of Revelation was that they would be allowed ‘to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God’ (2:7). Now, at the end of Revelation, in that future paradise, we see not only a tree of life but a whole forest of them, watered by a river of the water of life.

The origin of these ideas is not only Genesis 2 but also Ezekiel 47, where the prophet sees water flowing from the sanctuary under the door of the Temple, becoming deeper as it moves east, watering a garden on its way:

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, because the water for them flows from the sanctuary. Their fruit will be for food, and their leaves for healing.

(Ezek. 47:12)

There is a puzzle here. The passage in Revelation 22 is describing what some call ‘the eternal state’ – a rather unimaginative term, since the eternal world is anything but static, which this name suggests. This new creation, we have just been told, does not contain a temple. Yet the background passage in Ezekiel from which the description of the river and the trees comes is all about a hitherto unbuilt temple in Jerusalem.

What is the solution to this conundrum? My tentative suggestion is that Ezekiel’s prophecy regarding the battle applies both to the conflict when Christ returns at the beginning of the millennium and to the rebellion at its end, because of their similar features – yet another example of prophetic telescoping. However, since there is no temple in the world to come, might there just be one in the millennium?

The obvious objection is that Ezekiel’s temple involves animal sacrifices, whereas the NT explicitly says that such sacrifices could never take away the guilt of sin and therefore have been set aside in favour of the sacrifice of Christ. It was the one sacrifice for sins for ever, and therefore no others are necessary. That is the heart of the gospel message and cannot be compromised. Hence, the problem with the reintroduction of animal sacrifices in the future.

One response is to ask: could animal sacrifices be resumed, not as offerings to cleanse sin, but as memorials of what Christ has done? That would make them something similar to the Christian ordinance of taking bread and wine as a celebration and declaration of the death of Christ once and for all for sin, but not a vicarious sacrifice in themselves.16

Coming back to the garden city, both Ezekiel and Revelation tell us that trees line the river on both sides. Ezekiel specifically mentions that the river supplies water for the trees, and the trees produce all kinds of fruit. Revelation adds that these are trees of life that produce twelve different kinds of fruit and yield fruit every month. This is God’s plentiful provision for the citizens. The mention of ‘month’ is intriguing, since we are talking about the eternal state and there is a body of opinion that it is timeless – whatever that means. The idea of food production at regular time intervals would appear to contradict that.

Both texts tell us that the leaves of these trees possess medicinal properties to heal the nations. That raises a number of obvious questions that the text does not answer: will people get wounded, for example, in what we might imagine is a perfect environment? I don’t know, but I note from Genesis that, right from the beginning, human beings do not seem to have had intrinsic physical immortality but were dependent on an external food, the tree of life, to maintain their lives.17 We deduce that from the fact that when the first humans sinned, God removed their access to the tree of life: ‘lest [they] eat’ its fruit ‘and live for ever’ (see Gen. 3:22–4). Now, in the new creation, that access is restored to all citizens since the trees line the main street of the city.

The question arises: at what level are we to read this? Is it purely figurative to get across the idea that God will provide an abundance of food? Or could there be a physical dimension here since we are talking about citizens of the new Jerusalem who will possess their physical resurrection bodies? Recall that Jesus was able to eat after his resurrection. Shall we not also therefore be able to eat and drink? Shall we also be engaged in tending and harvesting the trees in this heavenly garden?

One thing we are told is that there will be no curse any more (22:3) – another reference to Eden. When humans first sinned, God cursed the ground, which turned work into toil. That will be gone for ever. More than that, God cursed the serpent Satan, saying that the seed of the woman would bruise his head – a prediction not only that God would triumph but that a human – the Man-Child, God incarnate – would triumph. God also told the woman that she would have trouble in childbirth and told the man that the ground was cursed so that it would yield thorns and thistles as well as edible produce. All that curse is removed for ever – a wonderful relief to those who have suffered from the manifold consequences of the Fall.

What will be there is the ‘throne of God and of the Lamb’ (22:3). The word ‘throne’ occurs more than forty times in Revelation: thrones occupied by God, the Lamb, human beings, the twenty-four elders – and the beast and Satan. One of the themes of the book is that God loves to delegate authority and associates his people with his government and rule at all levels, the most astonishing example of which is contained in the penultimate sentence in the letter to Laodicea. In that verse – immediately before part 2 of the book, which is devoted to showing us the throne of God through a door in heaven – Jesus says: ‘The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne’ (3:21).

The fulfilment of this magnificent promise would not have been possible without the Lamb; remember how John wept as he contemplated a universe without a lamb. For the Lamb has made it possible for redeemed humans to stand before this throne and be servants who worship God and the Lamb. They worship him as they go about their work, for the word for ‘worship’ can be translated as ‘service’. They will be as highly privileged as the special guardian angels of children, of whom Jesus said: ‘See that you do not despise one of these little ones. For I tell you that in heaven their angels always see the face of my Father who is in heaven’ (Matt. 18:10). In the ancient world, only the most important dignitaries were allowed to see the face of the king; think of the story of Esther. John tells us: ‘No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known’ (John 1:18).

In the world to come, all of the inhabitants will have that right as the King’s children. Amazing, and very hard to imagine. His name shall be on their foreheads, for he bought them with the blood of the Lamb, and they are his possession for ever. This picks up a remarkable promise to the overcomer in the letter to the church in Philadelphia:

The one who conquers, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God. Never shall he go out of it, and I will write on him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down from my God out of heaven, and my own new name.

(3:12)

Here the Lord Jesus promises no fewer than three names to the one who conquers: the name of God, the name of the new Jerusalem and even his new name. Now, in this final chapter in Revelation, we come to the finale of the long biblical narrative about names that is bound up with the tale of the two cities Babylon and Jerusalem, both old and new. In our study of the fall of Babylon in Revelation 14, we saw that the tension between those cities revolved around the way in which human beings sought identity: either by making a name for themselves or, as Abraham did, allowing God to make their name great. In later history, the Babylonian regime, the monster of that time, attempted to obliterate the identity of Daniel and his friends as believers in God by changing their Hebrew names to pagan names related to the Babylonian deities. In Revelation, the monster did a similar thing: forcibly marking the population with his number/name. Now, at the end of Revelation, such attempts at (brutal) social engineering have long gone, and the multiple names of God and his city are gratefully worn by a population that owes everything to the Lamb who conquered. In the words of a well-known worship song:

His name is higher than any other,

His name is Jesus, his name is Lord.

His name is Wonderful, his name is Counsellor,

His name is Prince of Peace, the Mighty God.18

And we bear that name . . . willingly.

We are now informed that the new world over which the Lord Jesus reigns will not experience the rhythm of night and day. There is no night there, only light (22:5a). Night was very differently perceived in the ancient world from how it is today, since technology has given us many ways of reducing the effect of darkness – in our cities particularly, but also on our roads. In ancient days, danger lurked in the dark, and night was not a wise time to venture outside or travel. The passage repeats the fact that there will be no need of sun or moon in the new Jerusalem because the Lord God will shine over its people as their sun. This is the second time that this aspect of the city has been mentioned: in 21:23 we read that ‘the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb’.

Again, what this means is not clear. When Jesus claimed to be the Light of the World, he clearly meant it figuratively. However, here, the addition of the words ‘They will need no light of lamp or sun’ (22:5b) would have implications if what we are talking about is, as it is likely to be, a new creation that has physical properties. Perhaps it is best left to the one who said in the beginning (see Gen. 1:3): ‘Let there be light!’

‘And they will reign for ever and ever’ (22:5c). Reign over whom or what? Perhaps the Lord Jesus gives us some idea in his parables, particularly the parable of the talents where the three servants, depending on how they had used their talents, were rewarded with authority over different numbers of cities. Is this an indication that Jerusalem is not the only city that will exist in the world to come, and that part of the activity of the citizens of the new world will be to administer those cities? The reward for work would appear to be the opportunity to do yet more work, which indicates that the world to come is not going to be an eternally boring retirement community! That consideration fires my imagination. It is meant to:

‘What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,

nor the heart of man imagined,

what God has prepared for those who love him’ –

these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.

(1 Cor. 2:9–10)

And the book of Revelation does precisely that.

The question arises: will we know one another in that world? Jesus himself answered the question by implication when he applied the parable of the unjust steward to his disciples by saying: ‘And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal dwellings’ (Luke 16:9). When you get there, it would be very strange if you couldn’t recognise or speak to such friends, wouldn’t it? Jesus told Martha that her ‘brother’ would rise again, implying that that earthly relationship would not be lost (John 11:23).

Think also of what happened on the Mount of Transfiguration when three of the disciples were given a preview of what it would be like when the Son of Man came in his kingdom. Moses and Elijah were there, discussing with Jesus, and presumably the disciples joined in. That is what it will be like on the large scale. After all, our capacity for speech and communication is an essential part of what it means to be made in the image of God. It is unthinkable that these abilities would no longer exist in a world to come whose greatest joy is communal fellowship and interaction in the body of Christ.

Is it not thrilling to think that we shall not only know and interact with the people we knew on earth, but we shall also develop countless new friendships! What will it be like to be able to talk to Abraham, Moses and David for a start, to say nothing of believers from all ages who pioneered the gospel throughout the world? For the implication of having physical resurrection bodies and being in a place is, surely, that there is a time dimension, which in turn means that we shall be able to learn new things – for ever!

The idea that ‘time will be no more’, as a popular Christian song puts it, is based on a misreading of Revelation 10:6, which does not mean that time will cease to exist but that there will no longer be any delay. If I am not mistaken, time, which from a scientific perspective is still a mystery, is part of the dimensionality of the Godhead: ‘The Word became flesh’ (John 1:14), yet Christ’s relationship to time is not the same as ours: ‘Before Abraham was, I am’ (John 8:58).

Think of it this way. When we get to heaven, we will be aware that Jesus died in the past. We will also be aware of our own past. Therefore, there must be a time dimension in eternity. Jesus spoke of the ‘age to come’ (Matt. 12:32) and Paul of ‘the coming ages’ (Eph. 2:7; 1:21).

Epilogue

And he said to me, ‘These words are trustworthy and true. And the Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, has sent his angel to show his servants what must soon take place.’

‘And behold, I am coming soon. Blessed is the one who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book.’

I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. And when I heard and saw them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who showed them to me, but he said to me, ‘You must not do that! I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers the prophets, and with those who keep the words of this book. Worship God.’

And he said to me, ‘Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is near. Let the evildoer still do evil, and the filthy still be filthy, and the righteous still do right, and the holy still be holy.’

‘Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay each one for what he has done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.’

Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life and that they may enter the city by the gates. Outside are the dogs and sorcerers and the sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and everyone who loves and practises falsehood.

‘I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify to you about these things for the churches. I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star.’

The Spirit and the Bride say, ‘Come.’ And let the one who hears say, ‘Come.’ And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price.

I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described 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.

He who testifies to these things says, ‘Surely I am coming soon.’

Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!

The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all. Amen.

(22:6–21, my emphasis)

This great book draws to its conclusion in the same way as it began: with a threefold repetition of the promise by the Lord himself that he is returning soon. John re-emphasises the trustworthiness and truth of his words, not just the general tenor of what he says but the very words themselves, as Jesus promised: ‘For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me’ (John 17:8). This is in line with what Jesus told his disciples about the supernatural nature of his communications with them regarding the future:

I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

(John 16:12–15)

The entire book of Revelation consists of words that are ‘trustworthy and true’ (22:6a). As we saw in part 1, they come from the one who did not only say the truth, but at a much deeper level actually was the truth, the ultimate truth about everything. He is ‘the God of the spirits of the prophets’ (22:6b). He stands behind the great historical prophetic line of individuals such as Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Ezekiel, Zachariah, Malachi and many others. He inspired them to speak and write, revealing his word to all who would listen. Finally, he revealed himself to John, who listened, saw and communicated this last of all biblical revelations of the Lord to all of his servants. He reminds us that it concerns ‘what must soon take place’ (22:6c).

And the most important thing that will soon happen is the Lord’s return: ‘I am coming soon!’ (22:7a, 12, 20). Precisely because he is coming soon, we are challenged to live in the light of it: ‘Blessed is the one who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book’ (22:7b). Here, as at the beginning, keeping the prophecy does not mean staging the events it describes – that would be absurd – but living in the light of its principles and investing our lives in the glorious world whose light will soon dawn upon us. We are to be Revelation-people!

John repeats his claim to be the eyewitness of these things – things that, as he reminds us, were so overpowering that he was tempted to bow down to worship the angelic messenger who showed them to him. His mention of that fact is a touch of authentic humility on the part of an honest man who does not wish us to think he was flawless. He vividly recalls the angel telling him not to bow to him, pointing out that, however exalted he might appear, he was but a fellow servant with John and his brother prophets and those who obey the words (note the plural once more) of this book. It must have been a great encouragement to John in what was surely a lonely exile on a tiny island to think that he was counted a brother to the prophets. It is an immense encouragement to us to realise that if we obey the words he wrote, we also belong to that august company. And all of us are to worship only God, not one another.

Because of the urgent need for all of us to keep the words of the book, it must remain open in front of us. We must not seal it up and keep it secret, either from ourselves or from others. Yet we often tend to do precisely that. Many preachers and teachers leave it out of their sermon plans, possibly because they are not prepared to do the work necessary to glean from it food that would be suitable for their congregations.

Daniel was told to seal up his prophecies until the time of the end, but now, as we rush towards that time, we need to take the book off the shelf and expound it to the world, whether believer or not.

So urgent is it that John now says what may seem rather fatalistic but is not: ‘Let the evildoer still do evil, and the filthy still be filthy, and the righteous still do right, and the holy still be holy’ (22:10). It is too late for change: the die is cast. The point of no return has been reached. From time to time in Scripture, God shows us human hearts like that. Pharaoh crossed the line in his defiance of God. So also did Saul. They had had ample opportunity to repent, but obtusely refused until their attitudes were set in stone. Isaiah met that kind of resistance, and Jesus applied his words to the people of his own day (Matt. 13:14–15). In the book of Revelation too, we have had examples of stubborn, implacable refusal to repent, even when God shouts through the cosmic megaphone of his judgements that eternal disaster looms ahead. These two sets of alternatives present two ways of life and two eternal destinations. They constitute a final appeal by Christ for readers to consider what path they are on and where it is leading. It is final because the time is running out, as he now says: ‘I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay everyone for what he has done’ (22:12).

The words of the book are trustworthy and true; they are going to be fulfilled. Do we really get that? He is coming soon, and we shall have to face the awesomely holy and glorious presence of the one who is ‘the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end’ (22:13).19 We are to meet the one who is the beginning and end of all meaning and the beginning and goal of all history. What a tragedy it will be if he has not been involved in spelling many of the important words in our lives and shaping our identity!

The key to true human happiness and a flourishing life is not the creation of artificial general intelligence or uploading the contents of our brains onto silicon. It is to have right of access to the tree of life and to the eternal city: ‘Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life and that they may enter the city by the gates’ (22:14). The meaning of the washing of robes was explained earlier, in 7:14: ‘They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.’ It is a symbol of personal trust in Christ as the Lamb of God who died for the sin of the world. It is only such people who know true happiness (the Greek word for ‘blessed’ also means ‘happy’). There is no access to either the tree or the city that does not go first to the cross for pardon and cleansing from the guilt of sin. That access was promised to the overcomers or conquerors in the first church at Ephesus.

What a contrast between those who have availed themselves of God’s rich unmerited gift of salvation and those who have declined! ‘Outside are the dogs and sorcerers and the sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and everyone who loves and practises falsehood’ (22:15). This imagery is as vivid as it is tragic. Dogs were the scavengers in the ancient world and are used in biblical literature to depict depraved sensuality and defilement. Peter refers to the habit of a dog returning to its vomit and applies it to those teachers of error who lead people into disgusting practices: ‘What the true proverb says has happened to them: “The dog returns to its own vomit, and the sow, after washing herself, returns to wallow in the mire”’ (2 Pet. 2:22). A dog cannot deny its true nature. No amount of external washing of a pig will alter its nature.

There is, we are once more told, an inside and an outside – and the distinction is eternal. To cite Jesus’ own words in his account of the rich man and Lazarus: ‘And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, in order that those who would pass from here to you may not do so, and none may cross from there to us’ (Luke 16:26).

Jesus speaks again about the objective of the book: ‘I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify to you about these things for the churches. I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star’ (22:16). The Lord Jesus identifies himself as the root and descendant of David. He is, therefore, the fulfilment of Isaiah 11:10 as cited by Paul:

And again Isaiah says,

‘The root of Jesse will come,

even he who arises to rule the Gentiles;

in him will the Gentiles hope.’

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.

(Rom. 15:12–13)

Not only that, but he is ‘the bright morning star’. I trust that, as you have studied Revelation, it has done what Peter said it would (2 Pet. 1:19) – revealed the Lord Jesus in such glory, power and authority that you have sensed that star arising in your hearts, even before he comes above the horizon of our world to open the final door to eternity. I also trust that it has filled you with a desire to join with heartfelt enthusiasm the following spine-tingling call for the Lord to return: ‘The Spirit and the Bride say, “Come.” And let the one who hears say, “Come.” And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price’ (22:17).

Some of you may have found a new thirst for reality through reading this book. You are invited to come and drink the water of life, which is given without cost or merit to any who desire it. All we need to do is take it. Jesus uttered the same invitation at the last festival of the Jewish year, the feast of Tabernacles, in Jerusalem:

On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, ‘If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, “Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.”’ Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.

(John 7:37–9)

That was long ago. Jesus has now been glorified, and everyone who repents and trusts him receives peace with God, forgiveness and eternal life through the Spirit, who fills their heart with a permanent supply of living water. How different this is from the transhumanist, materialistic dream of upgrading humanity by bioengineering in order to turn us into ‘gods’ who will live for ever! That dream will fail, because it will never give access to the tree of life, nor to the living water. The architects of such schemes might do well to listen, as we all should, to the final solemn warning that is now issued:

I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described 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.

(22:18)

The word translated ‘warn’ here is actually the Greek word that is usually translated ‘testify’. It is also used in verses 16 and 20 so that the book ends with a threefold testifying by Jesus.

The book starts with describing the author as a ‘witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ’ (1:2), and a blessing is pronounced on the person who reads it aloud and keeps it.

Now at the end of the book, the middle testimony of the three (22:18) constitutes a most serious warning to anyone who alters the content of what was revealed to John. A person who attempts to add to or subtract from the words (again plural) of this final book in the canon of Scripture, and thereby violates its integrity to the slightest degree, will experience fearful judgement of the kind described in the book, and they will never gain access either to the tree of life or to the Holy City. We should note that denial of the gospel of the Lamb is a major subtraction, to say nothing of the atheism and materialism that characterises our age and issues confident statements such as the following:

Humans may well use science to turn themselves into something like gods as they have imagined them to be. But no Supreme Being will appear on the scene. Instead, there will be many different gods, each of them a parody of human beings that once existed.20

The warning against subtracting from or adding to the book of Revelation is necessary at a time of mounting biblical illiteracy on the one hand and, on the other, of constant secular efforts to undermine the authenticity of Scripture. There is a great deal of pressure on believers in many countries around the world to water down the message of Scripture by removing its supernatural dimension and emphasis on the uniqueness of Christ. This leads inevitably to compromise with the ethos of the times, especially where morality and truth are concerned, especially truth about the future. In other words: delete the book of Revelation! Let us resolve to resist these trends in the power of God’s Spirit for the sake of the Lord. Let us hold out to the end because ‘he who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon”’ (22:20a).

The first part of the book ended with Jesus knocking on the door of a church and promising to come in if invited by the opening of its door. The last part of the book ends with a call to the Lord to come back into his world (22:20b). It is the only appropriate response: ‘Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!’

A final prayer (22:21): ‘The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all. Amen.’

Roll on, eternity . . .

Appendix 1

Kingdom

In order to help us grasp the various nuances of the concept of reigning in the book of Revelation, I have added this appendix on the kingdom of God. In biblical usage, the word ‘kingdom’ has several different meanings, depending on context.

First of all, it may refer to the authority to rule. For instance, when King David organised the materials for the building of the Temple at Jerusalem, he prayed in front of his nation: ‘Yours is the kingdom, O Lord, and you are exalted as head above all. Both riches and honour come from you, and you rule over all’ (1 Chron. 29:11b–12a).

Clearly, David was referring to the fact that God is the ruler of the universe. Similarly in the NT, Jesus encouraged his disciples to ‘seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you’ (Matt. 6:33). He meant that they were to seek God’s rule in their lives and the lives of others.

In the first instance, therefore, the kingdom of God is the rule of God. As such, it has always existed, exists still, and will always exist. Therefore, the kingdom of God is. This was one of the most important things that Nebuchadnezzar was taught (the hard way) about God:

His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom,

and his dominion endures from generation to generation.

(Dan. 4:3)

However, there is more to be said. Daniel’s interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar’s earlier dream of a colossal image concerned a different aspect of God’s kingdom:

And in the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, nor shall the kingdom be left to another people. It shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand for ever, just as you saw that a stone was cut from a mountain by no human hand, and that it broke in pieces the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the gold. A great God has made known to the king what shall be after this. The dream is certain, and its interpretation sure.

(Dan. 2:44–5)

This prophecy clearly cannot be referring to God’s eternal rule but to a future intervention actively to reign. After all, one of the central expectations of the OT is the coming of Messiah, the King, to rule – a hope that goes back to the origins of the nation of Israel. When God called Abraham from the very region to which Daniel was later exiled, he promised that kings would come from Abraham’s descendants. That promise was realised in part in King David, who united the nation and ruled over Israel from his capital in Jerusalem. However, David was aware that he was not the final fulfilment of the prophecy; nor indeed was his son Solomon, although Solomon started his reign with great promise. God was speaking of a future son of David who would reign on David’s throne for ever (2 Sam. 7:13–14).

Tragically, first Israel and then Judah compromised with the idolatrous practices that emanated from the tribes and nations around them. The prophets warned the nation again and again that judgement was inevitable if its people failed to repent and abandon their idolatry. Israel refused to do so and was overrun by Assyria. Later, as Daniel, among others, records, Judah was overrun by Babylon, for the very same reason.

When Israel and Judah lost their kingdoms, it must have seemed to many that the promise of a future King-Messiah had finally been extinguished. Yet the very prophets who had announced the deportations to Assyria and Babylon also spoke of the hope of a future restoration for Israel.

Daniel shared that hope, as the interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream shows. After centuries of prophetic inactivity, another prophet arose, John the Baptist, who announced the long-awaited arrival of the Messiah. As the earliest records show, John pointed to Jesus, who began his teaching by announcing, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel’ (Mark 1:15).

The precise nature of the kingdom announced by Jesus was of great concern to the religious and political authorities of the time, led by the Jewish high priest and the Roman governor Pontius Pilate, respectively. They did not approve of Jesus’ increasing popularity with the crowds. They felt threatened when the air began to vibrate with the notion that Jesus might be the Messiah who, the people hoped, would lead a popular revolt against the Roman occupying power and set their nation and capital city free.

The ancient historian Luke records two very significant events that occurred when Jesus was brought as a child to be presented to God in the Temple at Jerusalem:

Now there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon, and this man was righteous and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ. And he came in the Spirit into the temple, and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him according to the custom of the Law, he took him up in his arms and blessed God and said,

‘Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace,

according to your word;

for my eyes have seen your salvation

that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples,

a light for revelation to the Gentiles,

and for glory to your people Israel.’

And his father and his mother marvelled at what was said about him. And Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, ‘Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is opposed (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed.’

And there was a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was advanced in years, having lived with her husband seven years from when she was a virgin, and then as a widow until she was eighty-four. She did not depart from the temple, worshipping with fasting and prayer night and day. And coming up at that very hour she began to give thanks to God and to speak of him to all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem.

(Luke 2:25–38)

Simeon had been told that he ‘would not see death’ before he had seen the Messiah (Luke 2:26). On that special day in the Temple at Jerusalem, Simeon joyfully recognised Jesus as the Messiah. Also, the prophetess Anna spoke of the Messiah ‘to all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem’ (Luke 2:38). These two ideas, the coming of Messiah and the liberation of Jerusalem, were inextricably connected in Jewish expectation. Therefore, when Jesus started teaching, it was not surprising that the crowds and the authorities paid close attention to what he had to say about his kingdom.

And there was much more to it than some of them initially thought, as was evident on one occasion, recorded by Luke, when Jesus spoke first to some Pharisees and then to his disciples about the nature of that kingdom:

Being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, he answered them, ‘The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed, nor will they say, “Look, here it is!” or “There!” for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you.’

(Luke 17:20–1)

The Pharisees, a strictly conservative group within Judaism, were interested in an outward, visible kingdom. It is clear from what Jesus said to his disciples on this occasion that such an outward and visible kingdom was certainly part of God’s programme. That kingdom would one day come. However, by concentrating on the outward and visible aspect of it, the Pharisees were in danger of missing something of prior and vital importance. The King himself was standing in front of them, and they couldn’t see it! The reason was not for lack of evidence; Jesus had given a great deal of that. Their problem was that they lacked the discernment necessary to perceive that Jesus’ kingdom had a spiritual dimension.

Jesus explained this in detail to one of the Pharisees, a leading Jewish scholar in Jerusalem named Nicodemus, who came to Jesus by night for a discussion about the kingdom of God.1 ‘Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God”’ (John 3:3). Jesus went on to explain to this astonished professor of theology that the way to be born again – to receive the eternal life of which Jesus was speaking, and thus to enter his kingdom – was to trust in him: ‘For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life’ (John 3:16).

It had never occurred to Nicodemus before that the kingdom of God had an intensely spiritual dimension. In common with the experts of his day, and with many of the common people, Nicodemus would have been looking for an outward political kingdom that would rid the nation of the hated Roman occupation army once and for all and set them free. They wanted the dominion of the ‘iron empire’ in Daniel’s vision to cease.

However, when one considers who King Messiah is and what he stands for, a spiritual dimension to his kingdom is inevitable. The existence and survival of any kingdom depends on the loyalty of its citizens to the king; but when the king is none other than God incarnate, it is clear that more than politics and physical freedom from oppression will be involved. There must be positive trust, and loyalty. It was, after all, lack of trust that had caused the problem in the first place, when the deadly poison of sin entered the world. The way back to God from the dark paths of sin must involve learning to trust him. It is when a person learns to trust Jesus Christ, the Son of God, as Saviour and Lord that a spiritual miracle occurs: he or she is born again into the kingdom of God.

The question now arises of the relationship between the inner spiritual kingdom and the outer visible kingdom. This brings us back to Luke’s record of the occasion recorded above:

And [Jesus] said to his disciples, ‘The days are coming when you will desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it. And they will say to you, “Look, there!” or “Look, here!” Do not go out or follow them. For as the lightning flashes and lights up the sky from one side to the other, so will the Son of Man be in his day. But first he must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation. Just as it was in the days of Noah, so will it be in the days of the Son of Man. They were eating and drinking and marrying and being given in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. Likewise, just as it was in the days of Lot – they were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building, but on the day when Lot went out from Sodom, fire and sulphur rained from heaven and destroyed them all – so will it be on the day when the Son of Man is revealed. On that day, let the one who is on the housetop, with his goods in the house, not come down to take them away, and likewise let the one who is in the field not turn back. Remember Lot’s wife. Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will keep it. I tell you, in that night there will be two in one bed. One will be taken and the other left. There will be two women grinding together. One will be taken and the other left.’ And they said to him, ‘Where, Lord?’ He said to them, ‘Where the corpse is, there the vultures will gather.’

(Luke 17:22–37)

Just as the Pharisees made the mistake of concentrating on the visible aspect of the kingdom of God to the extent where they missed its spiritual nature, others make the opposite mistake and emphasise its spiritual dimension so much that they miss its visible aspect. To keep the balance, Jesus explained to his disciples that the kingdom of God would come in such a way that it would not only be visible; it would be universally visible.

Jesus said this in order to protect his followers from false claims that the kingdom of God had arrived without them noticing it. He pointed out that people would turn up claiming that they knew where the kingdom of God was. They would say, ‘Look there!’ ‘Look here!’ Such claims were to be ignored, for the simple reason that, when the Son of Man is finally revealed, it will be immediately and universally unmistakable.

However, as a further protection from false anticipation of his return, Jesus told the disciples that certain events would occur in advance of it. He would have to suffer many things. His claims would be examined and eventually rejected by his contemporaries. But they should not be surprised at this, bearing in mind the reaction in earlier times to the preaching of Noah and Lot.

We can see, then, and this is a crucial insight, that the kingdom of God involves at least two phases: an initial spiritual phase, and a later outward manifestation that would appear at Jesus’ return.

The nature and circumstances of the rejection of Jesus give us further understanding of his kingdom. Luke records how Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, on what we now call Palm Sunday. The meaning of this act was unmistakable: Jesus was coming to the nation as its rightful Messiah King:

As he was drawing near – already on the way down the Mount of Olives – the whole multitude of his disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen, saying, ‘Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!’ And some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, ‘Teacher, rebuke your disciples.’ He answered, ‘I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.’

(Luke 19:37–40)

The ruling chief priests took a strong line and conspired to have Jesus arrested by a squad of Roman soldiers and arraigned before their court:

When day came, the assembly of the elders of the people gathered together, both chief priests and scribes. And they led him away to their council, and they said, ‘If you are the Christ, tell us.’ But he said to them, ‘If I tell you, you will not believe, and if I ask you, you will not answer. But from now on the Son of Man shall be seated at the right hand of the power of God.’ So they all said, ‘Are you the Son of God, then?’ And he said to them, ‘You say that I am.’ Then they said, ‘What further testimony do we need? We have heard it ourselves from his own lips.’

(Luke 22:66–71)

As Jesus had predicted, the religious authorities examined his claims (in an unbelievably superficial and fraudulent manner) and rejected them. Such rejection would not, however, mean that Jesus would be destroyed. It would mean, rather, as he now announced to them, that he would ascend to the right hand of the power of God: ‘I tell you, from now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven’ (Matt. 26:64). This last phrase, as we know, is taken straight from Daniel (Dan. 7:13). Jesus was therefore claiming to be the divine Son of Man whom Daniel had seen in his vision, who would come on the clouds of heaven to establish the kingdom of God.2 Such a claim was blasphemous in the eyes of the high priests, and they condemned Jesus to death.

However, the Jewish religious leaders did not possess the authority to execute anyone. The Romans had withheld it from them. In order to secure Jesus’ death, therefore, they needed a corresponding verdict from the Roman authorities; so they now sent Jesus to them:

Then the whole company of them arose and brought him before Pilate. And they began to accuse him, saying, ‘We found this man misleading our nation and forbidding us to give tribute to Caesar, and saying that he himself is Christ, a king.’ And Pilate asked him, ‘Are you the King of the Jews?’ And he answered him, ‘You have said so.’ Then Pilate said to the chief priests and the crowds, ‘I find no guilt in this man.’ But they were urgent, saying, ‘He stirs up the people, teaching throughout all Judea, from Galilee even to this place.’

(Luke 23:1–5)

Armed with this geographical detail, Pilate sent Jesus to King Herod, in whose jurisdiction Galilee fell, but he in turn sent him back to Pilate for judgement. A verdict was then pronounced:

Pilate then called together the chief priests and the rulers and the people, and said to them, ‘You brought me this man as one who was misleading the people. And after examining him before you, behold, I did not find this man guilty of any of your charges against him. Neither did Herod, for he sent him back to us. Look, nothing deserving death has been done by him. I will therefore punish and release him.’

(Luke 23:13–16)

For our understanding of the various phases of God’s kingdom, this ‘not guilty’ verdict is very important. The apostle John gives us more insight into why it was made by recording the details of Pilate’s cross-examination of Jesus:

So Pilate entered his headquarters again and called Jesus and said to him, ‘Are you the King of the Jews?’ Jesus answered, ‘Do you say this of your own accord, or did others say it to you about me?’ Pilate answered, ‘Am I a Jew? Your own nation and the chief priests have delivered you over to me. What have you done?’ Jesus answered, ‘My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.’ Then Pilate said to him, ‘So you are a king?’ Jesus answered, ‘You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world – to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.’ Pilate said to him, ‘What is truth?’

After he had said this, he went back outside to the Jews and told them, ‘I find no guilt in him.’

(John 18:33–8)

Jesus made it completely clear to Pilate that his kingdom posed no political threat to the Romans at that time, for the simple reason that, at that time, his kingdom was ‘not of this world’ (John 18:36).3 Pilate had incontrovertible evidence to back this up: when he had sent the soldiers to arrest Jesus, he had not resisted arrest. In fact, Jesus had commanded his disciples to put away the two swords they had between them (Matt. 26:52). His kingdom was evidently not a worldly kingdom with armies that would defend their king by force. Pilate, who was a shrewd political and military operator, could see that Jesus was harmless in that sense, and gave his verdict accordingly. But his ruling was not allowed to stand, not because it was false but because the religious authorities and the crowds eventually forced him into a cowardly back-down, with the result that he ordered Jesus to be crucified.

The importance of grasping this is obvious in a world scarred by religious and military conflict. As Jesus told his disciples, because the current phase of his kingdom is ‘not of this world’ it would be inappropriate to attempt to defend him or his message by using violence. One of the scandals in the history of Christendom is that misunderstanding of the Scriptures on this score has led to many deaths. However, since I have written on this topic in detail elsewhere, I content myself here by saying that those who take weapons in the cause of Christ are not following him but actually disobeying him.4

Jesus had said repeatedly that he would be rejected and killed, but the disciples had not taken it in. It contradicted their deeply ingrained expectations of what the Messiah would be like and what he would do when he came. In his account of the events surrounding the death and resurrection of Jesus, Luke records the dejection and puzzlement of some of those disciples, and in so doing shows us what the problem was. After the crucifixion, Luke mentions two disciples who were walking to the village of Emmaus about seven miles outside Jerusalem. They were unaware that Jesus had risen. Luke records how Jesus joined them on their walk, but they did not recognise him. The conversation turned to the events that had just occurred in Jerusalem, and the two disciples were feeling very dejected. Jesus asked them what they were talking about, and they said: ‘Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, a man who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death, and crucified him’ (Luke 24:19–20).

And then they make explicit the ground of their disappointment: ‘But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel’ (Luke 24:21a). They had expected liberation and it had not come. Their leader had been executed. It appeared to be all over. When they still failed to recognise him, Jesus gave a lengthy response:

And he said to them, ‘O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?’ And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.

(Luke 24:25–7)

To their utter astonishment and joy, they were soon to discover that it was not all over. Luke records how Jesus was made known to them as he broke bread with them that evening. The stranger conversing with them had been none other than the risen Lord.

During a period of forty days after the resurrection, Jesus appeared to his disciples on several occasions, and it is not surprising that such appearances revived in them the hope of freedom for their nation. After all, they now knew that he had power over death. Surely the time was ripe for him to take political action, overthrow the government and set the nation free? Eventually, they decided to put the matter to him. At the start of the book of Acts, which chronicles the beginnings of the Christian Church, Luke tells us about it: ‘So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?”’ (Acts 1:6).

Their question was precise. They did not say, ‘Lord, do you intend to restore the kingdom to Israel?’ They would not have asked that question, for the simple reason that they already fully expected such a restoration. That is, their question was not about the fact of the restoration but its timing. It was not ‘Are you going to do it?’ but ‘Are you going to do it now?’ Jesus replied accordingly:

It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.

(Acts 1:7–8)

There are three main thrusts to Jesus’ reply:

1the disciples were not to concern themselves regarding the timing of the restoration;

2that timing had already been fixed by the Father, and the restoration would happen at a time of his choosing;

3in the meantime, their task was to witness to the world in the power of the soon-coming Holy Spirit.5

The next event that Luke records is the ascension of Jesus, which constituted further unmistakable evidence that he was not, at that time, going to restore the kingdom to Israel with himself as king. Nevertheless, the ascension had a positive message to convey. It was relayed to the disciples by two men in white robes who suddenly appeared beside them: ‘Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven’ (Acts 1:11).

At the ascension, they saw Jesus move vertically up from the earth’s surface and disappear into a cloud. God intended this event to be a thought model to help the disciples grasp the fact that, just as Jesus had left the earth physically and visibly, he would likewise return physically and visibly.

The importance of understanding the ascension is seen in Peter’s sermon on the day of Pentecost. Peter explained to the crowd that the events that had happened in the preceding eight weeks had been predicted in the OT. The prophet Joel had foretold that there would be a great outpouring of the Holy Spirit before the final Day of the Lord (the day of judgement). That happened on the day of Pentecost. It was very significant, because it showed that the words of a much more recent prophet had been fulfilled.

It was only about three years earlier that John the Baptist had announced that Jesus was the one who would baptise people in the Holy Spirit. Joel and John were both talking about the same event. Because the Spirit had come, said Peter, it demonstrated that something else had been fulfilled. It had been predicted by the prophet, and also centuries earlier by King David:

For you will not abandon my soul to Hades,

or let your Holy One see corruption.

(Acts 2:27, quoting Ps. 16:10)

Peter argued that David was obviously not talking about himself. Everyone listening to Peter knew that David’s body still lay in a tomb not far from where Peter was speaking. David was prophesying about the resurrection of the Messiah. That event had just recently taken place: Peter and the others were witnesses. Not only had Jesus been raised from the dead; he had also been exalted to supremacy at the right hand of God. Peter quoted more of what David had said:

The Lord said to my Lord,

‘Sit at my right hand,

until I make your enemies your footstool.’

(Acts 2:34–5, quoting Ps. 110:1)

David did not ascend to the heavens; so, argued Peter, he must have been referring to God (the Lord) speaking to someone greater than David (David’s Lord, the Messiah) and inviting him to sit at the position of supreme power. Therefore, the prophecies of Scripture combine with the events in Jerusalem to make it certain that ‘God has made him both Lord and Christ [Messiah], this Jesus whom you crucified’ (Acts 2:36).

It was important for both Peter and his audience to understand exactly what point in history had been reached. Recent events constituted a major step forward in God’s programme for redemption. Jesus had died, risen, and ascended to God’s right hand. But that was not the end of the story. The Lord Jesus would be at God’s right hand until God’s enemies were dealt with. Restoration would clearly not be complete until that occurred.

Though not explicit in Peter’s first sermon, the connection between that final restoration and the return of Jesus is made in Peter’s second major address in Jerusalem, as recorded by Luke. On that occasion, through Peter and John, God healed a lame man at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple. Peter at once used this demonstration of the power of God to explain to the people that the miracle had been done in the name of Jesus, whom they had killed but whom God had raised from the dead.

Peter then pointed out that, since it had been foretold, the people should have understood what had happened:

And now, brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers. But what God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets, that his Christ would suffer, he thus fulfilled. Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive until the time for restoring all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago.

(Acts 3:17–21)

We notice that Peter once more uses the temporal conjunction ‘until’. This time it is referring not so much to the task of dealing with God’s enemies as to the positive restoration of all things. This includes the restoration of the kingdom to Israel, mentioned in Acts 1:6, but it is a much greater programme than that. Peter says this restoration will occur at the return of Jesus.

This is also the implication of one of the phrases in the prayer that Jesus taught his disciples:

Your kingdom come,

your will be done,

on earth as it is in heaven.

(Matt. 6:10)

God’s will is not yet being done on earth as it is in heaven, but one day it will be.

Summary

During his public teaching, and notably around the time of his death, Jesus made it increasingly clear to his disciples that his kingdom would be in two phases.

The first and primary phase would be a spiritual kingdom, entered into by repenting and trusting Jesus as Saviour and Lord, thereby receiving eternal life and being ‘born again’ (or ‘born from above’, John 3:3) into the kingdom of God. Following the ascension of Jesus and his sending of the Holy Spirit, this message of the kingdom, the gospel of Jesus Christ, is to be preached by Christians throughout the world until Jesus returns. At that return, the second phase of the kingdom will be set in operation. Christ will come as earth’s rightful king. It is for these reasons that we refer to both a first and a second coming of Christ.

Appendix 2

Rapture

In our discussion of part 1 we saw that the coming of Christ is complicated for several reasons. First, there is more than one coming, and second, each coming involves an advent at a point in time, followed by an extended period in which multiple events occur. Few, if any, realised beforehand that the coming of Messiah, as predicted in the OT, would be in two parts and, in addition, it would have been well-nigh impossible to have worked out the correct order of the sequence of the events of the first coming, based only on a study of the OT. We should therefore recognise that we could easily be mistaken about the second coming, as Jesus himself pointed out to the disciples when answering their question as to when it would all happen.

However, he did not dismiss this question as illegitimate. Rather, his lengthy answer in the Olivet discourse mapped out a detailed timeline for what was to happen in the lead-up to his return. It then introduced the apparently paradoxical idea that when he did eventually return, it would be sudden and unexpected: ‘Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect’ (Matt. 24:44).

It is (now) clear that the people he was addressing would not be alive when he returned and yet he warns them to be prepared, because he will arrive suddenly, so they had better get ready. This is one of the arguments that is used as evidence that, before his public advent in power and great glory, Jesus will suddenly and unexpectedly return to the air (rather than to the earth) to snatch away, or ‘rapture’, the Church to heaven. According to this view, believers will then appear at the judgement seat of Christ as necessary preparation for the ensuing marriage supper of the Lamb. After that supper, the Lord Jesus will come with the Church to set up his millennial reign on earth. Hence, the timeline given by Jesus runs up to his public return, whereas the element of suddenness in that timetable refers to the rapture.

The argument for a rapture is inferential, in the sense that there is no one scripture that indisputably puts all of this together. However, the order of subject matter in the text in Revelation 19 – 20, namely 1) marriage supper of the Lamb; 2) return of Christ with armies in heaven; 3) millennial reign of Christ, is given by many as a prima facie reason for also taking this sequence to be in chronological order. That would support the existence of a rapture event by which believers are taken to heaven to attend not only the marriage supper of the Lamb but also the judgement seat of Christ that logically precedes it. That is, unless one says that the marriage supper is attended only by believers already in heaven. However, that view would seem to conflict with Paul’s indication in Ephesians 5 that all believers are involved in the bride of Christ.

It is worth pointing out that making such Scripture-based inferences is not necessarily a bad procedure per se. For example, Jesus upbraided the Sadducees for not inferring the doctrine of resurrection from the statement that God is (still) the God of Abraham (Mark 12:26–7). Also, the writer to the Hebrews chastised his readers for not making inferences regarding the significance of Jesus being a high priest after the order of Melchizedek (Heb. 5:11–14). Making inferences is certainly encouraged, but we need to be careful with them as it is clear that this is an area where we might easily make mistakes. We need to be doubly sure that our inferences are reasonable in terms of having good biblical support.

A readable, thought-provoking, balanced and well-annotated account is given by Dr Pete Lowman in his 2018 book A Guide to the End of the World.1 For that reason, I do not need to extend this book unnecessarily by going into as much detail as the topic would otherwise warrant, and I content myself with a few general comments. In particular, I shall not interact with all of the multiple variations on the theme, nor will I examine the strong anti-rapture views of N. T. Wright.2 For such, and many other topics, I refer the interested reader to Lowman.

The case for a rapture event is often supported by appealing to statements made by Paul to the Thessalonians, where each chapter of his first letter to that church concludes with a reference to the coming of Christ. The three relevant quotations come at the end of the first, third and fourth chapters:

1Our Christian hope is: ‘to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come’ (1 Thess. 1:10). Also: ‘For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ’ (1 Thess. 5:9).

2Paul’s prayer: ‘May the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, as we do for you, so that he may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints’ (1 Thess. 3:12–13).

3‘For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord’ (1 Thess. 4:14–17).

We note that quote 2 says that Christ will come with all his saints. Quote 3 outlines a sequence of events in which Jesus first raises believers who have died, and then, together with them, the believers still living on earth will be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. The statement ends with the promise that we shall all thereafter always be with the Lord. This leaves hanging the question as to whether all believers will immediately be ‘raptured’ to heaven for the marriage supper and so on and thereafter return to earth, or whether we shall all immediately descend from the air to earth with Christ.

Quote 1 introduces another relevant consideration: the fact that believers are to be delivered from the wrath to come. In his second letter to the Thessalonians, Paul deals with false teaching about the timing of Christ’s return:

Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we ask you, brothers, not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by a spirit or a spoken word, or a letter seeming to be from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come.

(2 Thess. 2:1–2)

Apparently, there had been false teachers in the region who had announced that the Day of the Lord – that is, the day of God’s wrath and judgement – had come. Paul says that this teaching is erroneous because certain events must happen before that, in particular the rise of the man of lawlessness, who will be destroyed by the appearing of Christ at his return.

The argument now runs that the Thessalonians were troubled by these claims because Paul, in his first letter, had stressed, twice over, that they would not be there to experience the day of God’s wrath – see quote 1 above – so that, in particular, they would not be there to go through the great tribulation; that is, to use the jargon, there would be a pre-tribulation rapture. The implication of the false teachers’ error would then be that the tribulation was imminent, and the Thessalonian Christians would have to face it. Inevitably, that would have provoked fear.

There is an underlying assumption here that needs careful consideration. It is that the great tribulation is the wrath of God and, since no believer is exposed to the wrath of God (see quote 1), no believer will go through the great tribulation.

However, the elder’s statement to John in Revelation 7 that the white-robed believers standing before the throne have come out of the great tribulation indicates that they have experienced it. Therefore, at least some believers do go through it. In fact, Jesus himself addressed them specifically:

For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be. And if those days had not been cut short, no human being would be saved. But for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short.

(Matt. 24:21–2)

The final sentence here would be irrelevant if none of the elect were affected by the tribulation. Moreover, Revelation gives the length of the worst part of the great tribulation in three different ways: three and a half years, forty-two months and 1,260 days, so that those believers who are affected can have a very good idea of how long it is going to last.

That leads us at once to the question: is the great tribulation necessarily an outpouring of the wrath of God, or even punishment from God? For instance, it is hard to imagine that John’s trials in Patmos were a result of the wrath of God. They could well have been the result of the wrath of other people, as many, if not most, tribulations are. I say this because an integral part of salvation is deliverance from the wrath of God: ‘Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God’ (Rom. 5:9).

It seems unequivocal, therefore, that believers are protected from the wrath of God, from which it follows that the great tribulation cannot be an outpouring of the wrath of God since some believers go through it.3 Is it not much more likely to be the wrath of the wild animal or monster?

Does that mean, then, that if there is to be a rapture for many but not all, some of us need to fear the great tribulation? At this point there is a real danger of losing a sense of proportion. First, believers who experience the great tribulation will, by definition, only constitute a very tiny fraction of the Church, which has existed for centuries.

Second, there can be no greater suffering in the great tribulation than believers have suffered throughout history up to this present time. We all too frequently read about the most awful persecutions, torture and executions of Christians in many parts of the world today. The adjective ‘great’ must therefore refer to the extent of the tribulation, in terms of the numbers involved, not to the amount of suffering that an individual believer might suffer in it.

In any case, the Lord Jesus taught that every generation needs to be prepared to face suffering, possibly of the most extreme kind. For instance, he told his disciples: ‘Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake’ (Matt. 24:9). He promises his support in and through such experiences. We need to have our fears allayed not by the rapture but by the teaching of the Lord that he will be with us in our hour of need. It was he who told the disciples: ‘Let not your hearts be troubled’ (John 14:1).

To sum up so far: Jesus taught all of us on the one hand to be prepared for suffering and tribulation, and on the other to be prepared for his sudden return, whatever that will eventually involve.

Also, even if there is to be a rapture, there is no biblical indication as to how long before the tribulation it will occur, so that ominous signs of its onset and even the beginning of persecution may already have begun.

The matter of balance of expectation forms part of another argument. Paul holds out the coming of Christ as a ‘blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ’ (Titus 2:13). Quotes 2 and 3 above describe two more very positive expectations, as does Paul’s statement to the Colossians: ‘When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory’ (Col. 3:4). The letter to the Hebrews says: ‘So Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him’ (Heb. 9:28).

Finally, Paul’s personal hope, expressed in his final statement about the coming, is magnificent: ‘Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing’ (2 Tim. 4:8).

It seems to me that there is some weight to the argument that says that these expressions of hope and even longing for a glorious return of the Lord would lose a great deal of their appeal for believers if the sequence of future events were understood to include a horrific time of suffering and tribulation for them before that return. Not only that; if early Christians had only been taught that Christ would return in power and great glory to destroy the wild monster at the height of his brutal tyranny, the warnings of Jesus himself that many will be surprised by the unexpectedness of his return would be hard to understand. If, however, they understood that there was to be a rapture before that time, that problem disappears.

However, there is biblical evidence that seems to weigh against the notion of a pre-tribulation rapture. For instance, Jesus says:

Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.

(Matt. 24:29–31)

If we were in possession of only this scripture, we would be very likely to deduce that the order of events was: 1) the tribulation; 2) cosmic disturbances; 3) the coming of Christ in glory; 4) the loud trumpet call and subsequent gathering of the elect. Hence, if event 4 is the rapture, then it comes after the great tribulation.

There are other scriptures that seem to support this view. For instance, Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 says:

Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed.

(1 Cor. 15:51–2)

Paul says that the resurrection that effects the change in our bodies from perishable to imperishable will take place when the last trumpet sounds. John tells us in Revelation 11:15 that the last trumpet sounds after telling us about the horrors of the tribulation period. A chronology is implied by 11:14.

The same chronology is also possibly implied in 2 Thessalonians 1:7–8 where Paul writes that God will

grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.

Once more, it seems from this text that the relief comes at Christ’s return to judge rather than via an earlier rapture.

Might it therefore be that the brightness of the hope of Christ’s coming eclipses any time of trouble that might precede it? Yet a niggle remains: Jesus’ teaching that he could come at any time. That is surely designed to have the very positive effect of making us take seriously the moral and spiritual aspect of life, although one might argue that knowing that the tribulation preceded the coming might have the same effect. It would, however, remove the element of surprise that is the thrust of the parable of the wise and foolish virgins.

I said at the start that the rapture is a matter of inference, and there are clearly arguments on both sides. Lowman suggests that this may be deliberate: ‘because we benefit practically from both possibilities. It’s vital to live aware that Christ may come at any minute to take us home. It’s also vital to live aware that being Christians may involve us in facing serious persecution.’4

Perhaps we should be ‘pre-tribbers’ one day and ‘post-tribbers’ the next!

In any case, this is an area where we would be wise to make up our own minds without attacking those who disagree with us and therefore contradicting the very demeanour that Scripture wishes to promote. Also, we should never allow our incapacity to understand everything in Scripture to stop us believing it.

Another topic, also considered in some detail by Lowman, that impinges on the rapture question is the teaching of Scripture on the future role for Israel, which I discuss in the main text and in my book Determined to Believe?5 Its immediate relevance is that, whatever the answer to the rapture question, the Bible arguably teaches that there will be a time of grim suffering just before Christ returns.

Notes

Preface

1Alvin Toffler, Future Shock (New York, NY: Random House, 1970).

2Martin Rees, ‘Astronomer Royal Martin Rees: How Soon Will Robots Take Over the World?’ The Telegraph, 22 May 2015: www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/hay-festival/11605785/Astronomer-Royal-Martin-Rees-predicts-the-world-will-be-run-by-computers-soon.html (accessed 13 December 2024).

3The Oxford institute was closed down in April 2024.

4John C. Lennox, 2084 and the AI Revolution: How artificial intelligence informs our future, updated and expanded edn (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2025).

5Fear of time, or of the change wrought by the passage of time.

6E. O. Wilson, quoted at a debate at the Harvard Museum of Natural History, Cambridge, MA, 9 September 2009.

7See Doomsday Clock, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/doomsday-dashboard/#footer_menu_itm (accessed 13 December 2024).

8Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public discourse in the age of show business, 20th anniv. edn (1986; repr. New York, NY: Penguin, 2006), pp. xix–xx.

9C. S. Lewis, Miracles (1947; New York, NY: HarperCollins, 2009), Adobe Digital Edition, p. 87.

10Martin Rees, On the Future: Prospects for humanity (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2018).

11Nick Bostrom, Superintelligence: Paths, dangers, strategies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014).

12Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The fight for a human future at the new frontier of power (London: Profile, 2019).

13Yuval Noah Harari, Homo Deus: A brief history of tomorrow (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2020); Lennox, 2084 and the AI Revolution.

14See Julie Beck, ‘The New Age of Astrology’, The Atlantic, 16 January 2018: www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2018/01/the-new-age-of-astrology/550034 (accessed 14 December 2024).

15G. A. Tyson, ‘People Who Consult Astrologers: A Profile’, ScienceDirect: www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0191886982900265 (accessed 14 December 2024).

16Holly Ordway, Apologetics and the Christian Imagination: An integrated approach to defending the faith (Steubenville, OH: Emmaus Road, 2017), Kindle edn, loc. 323–6.

17John C. Lennox, Against the Flow: The inspiration of Daniel in an age of relativism (Oxford: Lion Hudson, 2015); for the difference between astrology and prophecy see my discussion of Dan. 2.

18See Sarah Harvey, ‘Jim Jones, Jonestown, and the People’s Temple of the Disciples of Christ’, in James Crossley and Alastair Lockhart (eds), Critical Dictionary of Apocalyptic and Millenarian Movements, 15 January 2021: www.cdamm.org/articles/peoples-temple (accessed 14 December 2024).

19Richard Bauckham, The Theology of the Book of Revelation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 146–7.

20C. S. Lewis, The Joyful Christian (London: Simon & Schuster, 1996), p. 138.

21Carl Boberg, 1859–1940; tr. Stuart K. Hine.

22For a discussion of this issue, see e.g. my book Can Science Explain Everything? (London: The Good Book Company, 2019).

23The adequacy of these criteria is hotly debated by philosophers; see e.g. Iain McGilchrist, The Matter with Things: Our brains, our delusions, and the unmaking of the world (London: Perspectiva Press, 2021), ch. 10: ‘What Is Truth?’

24He was the 8th Laird of Merchiston.

25Robert E. D. Clark, Tomorrow’s World: A scientist looks at the book of Revelation (London: The Victoria Institute, 1989), p. 3.

26See my book 2084 and the AI Revolution.

27G. K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1925), prefatory note.

28You can read/listen to some of his talks on Revelation on the Myrtlefield House website: www.myrtlefieldhouse.com.

Introduction

1Approx. 50, 100 and 150 km, respectively.

2See Buist M. Fanning, Revelation, Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Academic, 2020), p. 25.

3Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 5.30.3.

4Ian Paul, Revelation, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (London: Inter-Varsity Press), 2018, pp. 7f.

5Lived c. ad 260–339.

6Eusebius, The Church History, tr. Paul L. Meier (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Academic, 2007), 3.23.1.

7ad 98–117.

8Fanning, Revelation, p. 54.

9Charles Taylor, A Secular Age (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007).

10C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York, NY: Touchstone, 1996), pp. 120–1.

11C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory (London: William Collins, 2013), pp. 43–4.

12Thomas R. Schreiner, ‘Revelation’, in ESV Expository Commentary: Hebrews–Revelation (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2018), p. 530.

13Iain McGilchrist, The Matter with Things: Our brains, our delusions, and the unmaking of the world (London: Perspectiva Press, 2021).

14Iain McGilchrist, The Master and His Emissary: The divided brain and the making of the Western world (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012).

15Jonathan Sacks, The Great Partnership: God, science and the search for meaning (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2011), p. 2.

16McGilchrist, The Matter with Things, p. 565, his emphasis.

17Dana Rulf, ‘This Is Why Our Brain Loves Pictures’, International Forum of Visual Practitioners (IFVP): https://ifvp.org/content/why-our-brain-loves-pictures (accessed 14 December 2024).

18Jonathan Haidt, The Anxious Generation: How the great rewiring of childhood is causing an epidemic of mental illness (New York, NY, and London: Penguin, 2024).

19Grant R. Osborne, Revelation, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2002), p. 63.

20It is clear because during the last 2,000 years no credible candidate for the man of lawlessness has appeared and Christ has not yet returned.

21John C. Lennox, 2084 and the AI Revolution: How artificial intelligence informs our future, updated and expanded edn (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2025).

22‘Der Mensch, der ein Warum hat zu leben, erträgt fast jedes Wie.’ Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Gods (1889).

23C. S. Lewis, God in the Dock: Essays on theology and ethics (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2014), p. 99.

24See my book Can Science Explain Everything? (London: The Good Book Company, 2019).

25Peter Medawar, Advice to a Young Scientist (London: Harper & Row, 1979), p. 31.

26For additional material see my Can Science Explain Everything?

27For a detailed analysis of this important incident see my book Against the Flow: The inspiration of Daniel in an age of relativism (Oxford: Lion Hudson, 2015).

28Some scholars understand the Son of Man ‘coming with the clouds of heaven’ as a reference to the ascension of Christ when he came to God and his throne. However, I think that (1) our Lord’s citation of this text at his trial is more naturally understood in terms of his future return to earth, and thus being visible to those who have rejected him, and (2) if Dan. 7 is referring to the ascension, it is fair to ask: did God’s judgement occur at the ascension? And if so, what beast was then destroyed, as indicated in 19:20? (See discussion in later chapters.) For more details, see my book Against the Flow.

29I have made a detailed assessment of the evidence for the resurrection of Christ against the background of scepticism and unbelief in my book Gunning for God: Why the New Atheists are missing the target (Oxford: Lion Hudson, 2011).

30Another simple example is my wedding ring – made of physical material but carrying symbolic meaning.

31Some argue from 1 Cor. 15:44 that Christ’s resurrection body was not physical but spiritual. However, a spiritual body is not made of spirit any more than a petrol engine is made of petrol. Jesus told his disciples clearly that he was not a spirit: ‘“See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. And while they still disbelieved for joy and were marvelling, he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate before them’ (Luke 24:39–43). Think of the fish if you still have doubts!

32David Gooding, True to the Faith: The Acts of the Apostles: Defining and defending the gospel (Belfast: Myrtlefield House, 2013).

33Interestingly, there is no account of it in the Gospel of John, although the vision of Christ in Rev. 2 is reminiscent of it.

34See appendix 2: ‘Rapture’.

35See G. E. Ladd, A Commentary on the Revelation of John (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1972), pp. 7–14.

36I found the same thing with Egyptology when writing about Joseph. See John C. Lennox, Joseph: A story of love, hate, slavery, power and forgiveness (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2018).

37A useful reference for what follows is Steven D. Smith, Pagans and Christians in the City: Culture wars from the Tiber to the Potomac (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2018).

38Mary Beard, SPQR: A history of Ancient Rome (London: Profile, 2015), Kindle edn, p. 15.

39Quoted in an interview with Tom Wright on the programme Unbelievable?: www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlf_ULB26cU (accessed 31 December 2024).

40Cicero, Nature of the Gods (London: Penguin Classics, 1978), 1.118.

41From which we get the Spanish and Italian words for money: dinero and denaro. Also the currency dinar.

42See Steven J. Friesen, Imperial Cults and the Apocalypse of John: Reading Revelation in the ruins (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).

43Herod was of Arab (Edomite) origin, although in some sense he was a practising Jew.

44Josephus, The Jewish War (abbreviated as War), 1.414; Jewish Antiquities (abbreviated as Ant.), 15.339; War, 1.403; Ant., 15.298. He also planned one at Banias (War, 1.404; Ant., 15.363–4), but no certain remains have been found.

45James S. McLaren, ‘Jews and the Imperial Cult: From Augustus to Domitian’, Journal for the Study of the New Testament 27.3 (2005), pp. 257–8.

46For a detailed account see Marius Heemstra, The Fiscus Judaicus and the Parting of the Ways (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010).

47Suetonius, Life of Domitian, Project Gutenberg: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6397 (accessed 14 December 2024), 12.1–2.

48Beard, SPQR, ch. 10, p. 430.

49Pliny, Letters, 10.96–7: https://faculty.georgetown.edu/jod/texts/pliny.html (accessed 14 December 2024).

50See my book Against the Flow.

51Fanning, Revelation, p. 56.

52There are also minor ones that are not explicit.

53See David Gooding, According to Luke: The third Gospel’s ordered historical narrative (Belfast: Myrtlefield House, 2015).

54See Gooding, True to the Faith.

55The added value of doing a written summary is that it helps get the text into your head.

56I shall now stop referring to notepaper and take it for granted!

57Reproduced by kind permission of the Myrtlefield Trust.

1Key concepts

1The phrase ‘the seven spirits’ is sometimes translated as ‘the sevenfold Spirit’.

2Latin for ‘god-man’ or ‘man who is a god’.

3C. S. Lewis, Miracles (London: Geoffrey Bles, 1947), ch. 16, pp. 188–91.

4John C. Lennox, Against the Flow: The inspiration of Daniel in an age of relativism (Oxford: Lion Hudson, 2015). See also, in the current book, appendix 1: ‘Kingdom’.

5Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion (London: Black Swan, 2007), p. 285.

6Friedrich Nietzsche, The Antichrist (London: Soho Books, 2010), Kindle edn, sect. 21.

7Nicholas Lash, Theology for Pilgrims (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 2008), p. 10.

81707–88.

9See David Gooding on this text in his True to the Faith: The Acts of the Apostles: Defining and defending the gospel (Belfast: Myrtlefield House, 2013), pp. 50–1.

10There is of course a sense in which we all pierced the Lord: he went to the cross for our sins. We should therefore avoid too wooden an interpretation of this text.

11See appendix 1: ‘Kingdom’.

12Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning (London: Penguin/Random House, 1992).

13Although, so far as we know, the first clear use of the term ‘the Lord’s day’ for the first day of the week occurs in the second century.

2Symbol, metaphor and code

1Ezekiel was summoned by the voice of a great earthquake behind him in Ezek. 3:12.

2William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience: A study in human nature (London and New York, NY: Longmans, Green & Co., 1902), cited in Joshua Moritz, ‘Are Spiritual Experiences Just in Your Head?’ John Templeton Foundation, 15 August 2023: www.templeton.org/news/are-spiritual-experiences-just-in-your-head (accessed 14 December 2024).

3Andrew Newberg, Eugene G. D’Aquili and Vince Rause, Why God Won’t Go Away: Brain science and the biology of belief (New York, NY: Ballantine, 2002).

4However, the Greek word for ‘vision’ occurs just once in Revelation – in 9:17.

5C. S. Lewis, Miracles (London: Fontana, 1960), pp. 76–7.

6‘Imagination’, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/imagination (accessed 14 December 2024).

7C. S. Lewis, ‘Bluspels and Flalansferes’, in Rehabilitations and Other Essays (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1939), p. 157.

8Amy Kind, Imagination and Creative Thinking (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022), p. 1.

9The NT knows nothing of denominational collective concepts such as the Church of England or the Methodist Church. The thinking behind such ideas is criticised by Paul in 1 Cor. 1:12.

10See Colin Nicholl, The Great Christ Comet: Revealing the true star of Bethlehem (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2015).

11Robert Govett, The Apocalypse Expounded by Scripture, abridged from the 4-vol. set (Washington, DC: Voice of Deeper Truth, 1951), p. 121.

12Peter Lowman, A Guide to the End of the World: Rapture? Millennium? Heaven? (Watford: Instant Apostle, 2018), p. 12.

13C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves (London: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1971), p. 32.

14Written by Helen H. Lemmel, 1863–1961.

15From ‘God Holds the Key’ by John Parker, 1847–1911.

16See Steven J. Friesen in the introduction to his Imperial Cults and the Apocalypse of John: Reading Revelation in the ruins (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).

17Nick Bostrom, ‘The Transhumanist FAQ: A General Introduction’, in Calvin Mercer and Derek F. Maher (eds), Transhumanism and the Body: The world religions speak (New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), p. 1: www.nickbostrom.com/views/transhumanist.pdf (accessed 14 December 2024).

18Yuval Noah Harari, Homo Deus: A brief history of tomorrow (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2020), pp. 22–3.

19Harari, Homo Deus, p. 49. This calls to mind the more primitive use of the happiness drug ‘soma’ in Aldous Huxley’s 1932 novel Brave New World.

20Harari, Homo Deus, p. 43.

21Harari, Homo Deus, p. 21.

22Harari, Homo Deus, p. 47.

23Martin Rees, ‘Astronomer Royal Martin Rees: How Soon Will Robots Take Over the World?’ The Telegraph, 22 May 2015: www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/hay-festival/11605785/Astronomer-Royal-Martin-Rees-predicts-the-world-will-be-run-by-computers-soon.html (accessed 14 December 2024).

3The letters to the seven churches of Asia

1From Greek theos (= God) and dike (= justice); hence it means the justifying of God’s actions.

2See David Gooding, True to the Faith: The Acts of the Apostles: Defining and defending the gospel (Belfast: Myrtlefield House, 2013), pp. 266ff.

3I might add as a mathematician that this caution extends to numerology.

4Colin J. Hemer, The Letters to the Seven Churches of Asia in Their Local Setting (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001).

5Ian Paul, Revelation, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (London: Inter-Varsity Press, 2018), p. 18.

6The wealthiest were the senators.

4The letter to Ephesus

1Over the centuries, the harbour slowly silted up so that the site is now inland.

2It may have been a meteorite.

3Pausanias, Pausanias’ Description of Greece, tr. W. H. S. Jones and H. A. Ormerod, 4 vols (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann, 1918), 4.31.8.

4An honorific, the plural of sebastos (venerable one), the Greek rendering of the Roman imperial title Augustus.

5Titus besieged and destroyed Jerusalem in ad 70.

6A silver drachma was about a day’s wages, so the amount is around 137 man-years, not allowing for days off!

7C. S. Lewis, ‘The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment’ (1953); see Levan Ramishvili, ‘Humanitarian Theory of Punishment by CS Lewis’, 24 October 2014: https://matiane.wordpress.com/2018/10/24/humanitarian-theory-of-punishment-by-c-s-lewis (accessed 25 November 2024).

8Like the Diotrephes mentioned in 3 John 9.

9In connection with this, those of us who are Christian parents need to sit up and pay attention to what our children get up to with their tablets and smartphones.

10For detailed examination of the issues involved here, see my Determined to Believe? The sovereignty of God, faith and responsibility (Oxford: Lion Hudson, 2017).

11C. S. Lewis, A Mind Awake: An anthology of C. S. Lewis, ed. Clyde Kilby (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2003), p. 28.

12See my book 2084 and the AI Revolution: How artificial intelligence informs our world, updated and expanded edn (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2025).

13See Colin J. Hemer, The Letters to the Seven Churches of Asia in Their Local Setting (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001), pp. 50ff., for the detail.

5The letter to Smyrna

1It also had an older temple dedicated to the goddess Roma.

2Fanning lists eight more; see Buist M. Fanning, Revelation, Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Academic, 2020), p. 115.

3See Colin J. Hemer, The Letters to the Seven Churches of Asia in Their Local Setting (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001), p. 64.

4C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (London: Macmillan, 1960), pp. 35–6.

5C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters: Letters from a senior to a junior devil (London: William Collins, 2012), p. ix.

6See my Cosmic Chemistry: Do God and science mix? (Oxford: Lion Hudson, 2021).

7C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain (1940; repr. New York, NY: Macmillan, 1962), pp. 133–5.

8I say that as a mathematician. Great care is needed with numerology, especially when it is used to make a case for something that is not explicitly found elsewhere in Scripture.

9Martyrdom of Polycarp, 13, 21. See Hemer, Letters to the Seven Churches, p. 67.

10Julie Jones, ‘How Many Christians Are Killed Each Year Because of Their Faith?’, APPG FoRB (All Party Parliamentary Group for International Freedom of Religion or Belief), 13 October 2018: https://appgfreedomofreligionorbelief.org/how-many-christians-are-killed-each-year-because-of-their-faith (accessed 14 December 2024).

11Doug Bandow, ‘Christianity Is the World’s Most Persecuted Religion, Confirms New Report’, Cato Institute, 7 March 2022: www.cato.org/commentary/christianity-worlds-most-persecuted-religion-confirms-new-report (accessed 14 December 2024).

12The scripture he quoted is Matt. 10:17–20.

6The letter to Pergamum

1Dedicated c.31 bc. The subsequent history of Pergamum’s relationship with Rome is complex; see Colin J. Hemer, The Letters to the Seven Churches of Asia in Their Local Setting (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001), p. 64, ch. 5.

2The consonantal form of Hebrew words means that several etymologies are possible for many words. The verb בלע (bala) means to ‘swallow up or down’ – used of people swallowing their food (Isa. 28:4), snakes their prey (Exod. 7:12), and the earth rebels (Num. 16:30). This verb is often used to mean ruin and destruction (Lam. 2:2). See Abarim Publications’ Biblical Dictionary: ‘The Old Testament Hebrew word: בלע’, Abarim Publications: www.abarim-publications.com/Dictionary/b/b-l-ay.html (accessed 14 December 2024).

3See my book A Good Return: Biblical principles for work, wealth and wisdom (Fearn: Christian Focus, 2023).

7The letter to Thyatira

1Colin J. Hemer, The Letters to the Seven Churches of Asia in Their Local Setting (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001), p. 106.

2See my book A Good Return: Biblical principles for work, wealth and wisdom (Fearn: Christian Focus, 2023), ch. 5.

3Filial piety is a key teaching of Confucianism.

4Frédéric Mantienne, Mgr. Pierre Pigneaux, évêque d’Adran, dignitaire de Cochinchine (Paris: Eglises d’Asie, 1999). See also Leei Wong, ‘The Chinese-Christian Cultural Dilemma: A Christian Approach to Chinese Ancestral Worship’, Research Gate, October 2015: www.researchgate.net/publication/318012625_The_Chinese-Christian_Cultural_Dilemma------A_Christian_approach_to_Chinese_Ancestral_Worship (accessed 14 December 2024).

5Gianamar Giovannetti-Singh, ‘Rethinking the Rites Controversy: Kilian Stumpf’s Acta Pekinensia and the Historical Dimensions of a Religious Quarrel’, Modern Intellectual History 19.1 (2022), pp. 29–53: www.cambridge.org/core/search?filters%5BauthorTerms%5D=Gianamar%20Giovannetti-Singh&eventCode=SE-AU (accessed 14 December 2024).

6Quoted in George Minamiki, ‘The Chinese Rites Controversy from Its Beginning to Modern Times’: https://archive.org/details/chineseritescont0000mina/page/n5/mode/2up (accessed 14 December 2024).

7Forrest McPhail, ‘Food Offered to Idols: A Contemporary Issue’, GFA Missions, 28 July 2022: https://gfamissions.org/food-offered-to-idols-part-1 (accessed 14 December 2024).

8There is evidence of the manufacture of bronze, an alloy of copper and tin, in the region of Thyatira so that its citizens would be familiar with objects made from this metal.

9Melissa Bateson, Daniel Nettle and Gilbert Roberts, ‘Cues of Being Watched Enhance Cooperation in a Real-World Setting’, Biology Letters 2.3 (2006), pp. 412–14.

10David Berlinski, The Devil’s Delusion: Atheism and its scientific pretensions (New York, NY: Crown Forum, 2008), pp. 26–7.

11See Richard Alleyne, ‘Maybe Religion Is the Answer, Claims Atheist Scientist’, Daily Telegraph, 7 September 2009.

12G. Maio, ‘The Metaphorical and Mythical Use of the Kidney in Antiquity’, American Journal of Nephrology 19.2 (1999), pp. 101–6: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10213802 (accessed 14 December 2024).

13Melvin Tinker, That Hideous Strength: How the West was lost (Darlington: EP Books, 2018).

14Peter Jones, ‘A Response to Rod Dreher’s “Sex After Christianity”’, Reformation21, 21 April 2014: www.reformation21.org/featured/a-response-to-rod-drehers-sex-after-christianity.php (accessed 14 December 2024).

15Quoted in Robert P. George, ‘What Few Deny Gay Marriage Will Do’, First Things, 16 April 2013: www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2013/04/what-few-deny-gay-marriage-will-do (accessed 14 December 2024).

16See my Determined to Believe? The sovereignty of God, faith and responsibility (Oxford: Lion Hudson, 2017), part 5, esp. ch. 18.

17The first was the tree of life.

18David Gooding, ‘Some Observations on the Doctrine called “Partial Rapturism” or “Conditional Kingdom”’, Myrtlefield House, 1991: www.myrtlefieldhouse.com/david-gooding-answers/partial-rapture-doctrine (accessed 14 December 2024).

8The letter to Sardis

1See Colin J. Hemer, The Letters to the Seven Churches of Asia in Their Local Setting (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001), pp. 132–3.

2For details, see my book 2084 and the AI Revolution: How artificial intelligence informs our future, updated and expanded edn (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2025).

3See the discussion there.

9The letter to Philadelphia

1C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain (New York, NY: Harper One, 2015). See also my Gunning for God: Why the New Atheists are missing the target (Oxford: Lion Hudson, 2011).

2Buist M. Fanning, Revelation, Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Academic, 2020), p. 176.

10The letter to Laodicea

1Amen is Hebrew for ‘surely’ from the word for ‘truth’, ‘certainty’.

2We get the English word ‘emetic’ from the Greek term used here.

3E. Michael B. Green and M. J. S. Rudwick, ‘The Laodicean Lukewarmness’, Expository Times 69.6 (1958), pp. 176ff.

4This understanding seems to represent contemporary scholarship rather than the local circumstance that nearby Hierapolis had hot springs and Colossae had cold water but by the time water reached Laodicea it was lukewarm. See Buist M. Fanning, Revelation, Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Academic, 2020), p. 186.

5‘Are Many Practices and Traditions in Christianity Actually Pagan in Origin?’, Got Questions: www.gotquestions.org/pagan-Christianity.html (accessed 14 December 2024).

6Compare the disgust he felt when faced with the hypocrisy of the Pharisees etc. in Matt. 23.

7White clothes will reappear several more times in Revelation, culminating in 19:14. They symbolise righteousness of character, not only in the Bible but also in many cultural settings.

81725–1807.

9This principle is explained in Heb. 12:3ff.

10The Light of the World (1851) is an allegorical painting by the English Pre-Raphaelite artist William Holman Hunt. It depicts Jesus about to knock on an overgrown door, and the inscription cites 3:20. The original painting hangs in Keble College Chapel, Oxford.

11Love is also mentioned in the letter to Philadelphia in 3:9.

11The letters to the churches – a historical dimension?

1See the comment in Buist Fanning, Revelation, Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Academic, 2020), p. 111, n. 4.

2Robert E. D. Clark, Tomorrow’s World: A scientist looks at the book of Revelation (London: The Victoria Institute, 1989), p. 48.

3A useful compilation of OT references to the restoration of Israel is given by John F. Walvoord in Israel in Prophecy (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1962), chs 3 and 4. For a detailed exposition of these ideas, see my book Determined to Believe? The sovereignty of God, faith and responsibility (Oxford: Lion Hudson, 2017), ch. 16.

4It is possible that among such people were the renegade groups called ‘synagogues of Satan’ in the letters to the churches.

5I have argued the biblical case for this restoration in my Determined to Believe?

6Crawford Howell Toy and Kaufmann Kohler, ‘Revelation (Book of)’, Jewish Encyclopedia: www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/12712 (accessed 14 December 2024).

12The throne of God

1Johannes Kepler, De Fundamentis Astrologiae Certioribus (Concerning the More Certain Fundamentals of Astrology) (1601), thesis 20.

2Albert Einstein, ‘Physics and Reality’, Journal of the Franklin Institute 221.3 (1936), pp. 349–82; ‘Physik und Realität’, Journal of the Franklin Institute 221.3 (1936), pp. 313–47.

3Iain McGilchrist, The Matter with Things: Our brains, our delusions, and the unmaking of the world (London: Perspectiva Press, 2021), p. 1845.

4Keith Ward, God, Chance and Necessity (Oxford: Oneworld, 1996), p. 1.

5See David Gooding and John Lennox, Suffering Life’s Pain: Facing the problems of moral and natural evil (Belfast: Myrtlefield House, 2018).

6See e.g. Mindy Weisberger, ‘More Than One Reality Exists (in Quantum Physics)’, LiveScience, 20 March 2019: www.livescience.com/65029-dueling-reality-photons.html (accessed 15 December 2024).

7For this reason, the passage is often used in studying Greek prepositions.

8The reference is uncertain, but Dirac talks about the beauty of theory in Paul Dirac, ‘The Evolution of the Physicist’s Picture of Nature’, Scientific American 208.5 (1963), pp. 45–51.

9Roger Scruton, Beauty: A very short introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), p. 2.

10Scruton, Beauty, p. 99.

11This is the view taken by the Jewish Encyclopedia.

12See my debate with him at the Edinburgh Festival in 2008.

13Note that he was never only a human being: he is God incarnate.

14See my treatment of human responsibility and God’s sovereignty in Determined to Believe? The sovereignty of God, faith and responsibility (Oxford: Lion Hudson, 2017).

15John C. Lennox, 2084 and the AI Revolution: How artificial intelligence informs our future, updated and expanded edn (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2025).

16See my Determined to Believe?

17Francis A. Schaeffer, He Is There and He Is Not Silent (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House, 1972, 2001).

18To those readers who are surprised at my even mentioning this, I would like to say that, if we believe that there are genuine predictions in biblical prophecy – and I presume that this is the case for many of you – is there any reason, in principle, to restrict them arbitrarily to exclude modern technology?

19Here is part of the patent application: ‘The apparatus consists of a wheel having a hub with radially disposed spokes which are provided with a plurality of circumferential rim segments. These rim segments carry, between the spokes, rim elements which are rigid relative to their outer support surfaces and defined in their outer contour to form a part of the circle forming the wheel diameter. The rim segments have provided for each of the rim elements an independent drive means selectively operable when the element is in ground contact to rotatably drive the rim element in a direction of movement perpendicularly lateral to the normal plane of rotation and movement of the wheel. This affords the wheel omnidirectional movement.’ See ‘Omnidirectional Wheel’, NTRS – NASA Technical Reports Server: https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/19740010012 (accessed 14 December 2024). Now, of course, even more advanced technology is used in self-driving vehicles.

20For a much more thorough investigation of this topic, see my book 2084 and the AI Revolution.

21John C. Lennox, Cosmic Chemistry: Do God and science mix? (Oxford: Lion Hudson, 2021).

13The scroll, the seals, the Lion and the Lamb

1The English word ‘Bible’ comes from the Greek word used here for ‘scroll’.

2Richard Dawkins, River Out of Eden: A Darwinian view of life (New York, NY: Basic Books, 1992), p. 133. See my Gunning for God: Why the New Atheists are missing the target (Oxford: Lion Hudson, 2011), ch. 4, for a full discussion of the implications of this view.

3See my book Determined to Believe? The sovereignty of God, faith and responsibility (Oxford: Lion Hudson, 2017).

4That is what the word translated ‘slain’ actually means.

5The esv translation ‘between’ in 5:6 makes little sense if the throne rests on the backs of the living creatures.

6Robert E. D. Clark, Tomorrow’s World: A scientist looks at the book of Revelation (London: The Victoria Institute, 1989), p. 75.

7Clark, Tomorrow’s World, p. 75.

8More accurately, the instrument is the kithara, which, unlike the harp, has seven strings of equal length. Clark says: ‘What strange things John says! How shall we imagine a lion, an ox and an eagle holding harps?’ (Tomorrow’s World, p. 75).

9Tom Holland, Dominion: The making of the Western mind (Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Co., 2019), p. xv.

101800–94.

14The opening of the seals

1The ‘four horsemen’ of the New Atheism were Richard Dawkins, the late Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris and Daniel Dennett.

2See C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain (New York, NY, and London: HarperCollins, 2015).

3It is interesting that the Olivet discourse is not mentioned in John’s Gospel. The seals could well be understood as representing his version of it.

4In the parallel account in Luke 21:11, pestilence is also mentioned.

5The Greek word here is chloros, from which we derive the English words ‘chlorine’ and ‘chlorophyll’. It actually means ‘green’. One suspects that the Bible translators decided for ‘pale’ because they had never seen a green horse, but this is imagery, not an argument that there are green horses in heaven. Its name – Death – may indicate why it is green, since diseased carcasses of animals may take on a green colour.

6See the parable of the widow and the unjust judge in Luke 18:1–8.

7See Hos. 10:8. Also Isa. 2:19–21 where people hide in caves for fear of the Day of the Lord.

8See the comments on 9:20–1.

9C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory (London: Geoffrey Bles, 1949), p. 38.

10See also Judg. 5:4–5; Pss 18:7ff.; 68:7–8.

11H. D. Smyth, ‘Atomic Energy for Military Purposes’, Reviews of Modern Physics 17 (1945), p. 463.

12Robert E. D. Clark, Tomorrow’s World: A scientist looks at the book of Revelation (London: The Victoria Institute, 1989), p. 96.

13William Butler Yeats, ‘The Second Coming’, in The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats, ed. R. J. Finneran, rev. 2nd edn (New York, NY: Scribner, 1996).

14For an in-depth analysis of the secular objection to miracles, see the last two chapters of my book Gunning for God: Why the New Atheists are missing the target (Oxford: Lion Hudson, 2011).

15The sealing of 144,000 from Israel and the innumerable crowd before the throne

1Robert E. D. Clark, Tomorrow’s World: A scientist looks at the book of Revelation (London: The Victoria Institute, 1989), pp. 111–12.

2For more detail see my Determined to Believe? The sovereignty of God, faith and responsibility (Oxford: Lion Hudson, 2017), ch. 16. See also Buist M. Fanning, Revelation, Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Academic, 2020), pp. 262ff.

31850–1927.

4See appendix 2: ‘Rapture’.

5See appendix 2: ‘Rapture’.

6Peter Lowman, A Guide to the End of the World: Rapture? Millennium? Heaven? (Watford: Instant Apostle, 2018).

7Donald Harman Akenson, Exporting the Rapture: John Nelson Darby and the Victorian conquest of North American Evangelicalism (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2018).

8See appendix 2: ‘Rapture’.

16The opening of the seventh seal

1The prayers are also mentioned in connection with incense in 5:8.

2Except very briefly on the Day of Atonement, when the high priest could enter in a cloud of incense.

3Prayer is an essential activity for the believer, and for the reader who would like to learn more about it, I can recommend the famous and very helpful book Prayer by Ole Hallesby (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg, 1931).

4See also D. A. Carson, How Long, O Lord? Reflections on suffering and evil (Nottingham: Inter-Varsity Press, 2006); David Gooding and John Lennox, Suffering Life’s Pain: Facing the problems of moral and natural evil (Belfast: Myrtlefield House, 2018); or my little book Where Is God in a Coronavirus World? (London: The Good Book Company, 2020).

5Presumably, we have to understand the ‘speedily’ here in a similar way to the ‘will soon take place’ in Rev. 1.

6R. Laird Harris, Gleason L. Archer Jr and Bruce K. Waltke, Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (Chicago, IL: Moody Press, 1980), p. 599. The whole of article 1413 here on vengeance is well worth reading for a balanced view of the OT perspective.

17The trumpets blow

1Identification of Gog is problematic, although there is a consensus that it refers to Gyges, a famous ancient Lydian king, known to the Assyrians as Gugu and regarded in Hebrew tradition as an eschatological type of the forces of evil; see Colin J. Hemer, The Letters to the Seven Churches of Asia in Their Local Setting (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001), p. 131.

2Kat Eschner, ‘Scientists Didn’t Believe in Meteorites until 1803’, Smithsonian Magazine, 26 April 2017: www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/1803-rain-rocks-helped-establish-existence-meteorites-180963017 (accessed 31 December 2024).

3The plagues were, it should be noted, not apocalyptic symbols but actual physical events.

4See Robert E. D. Clark, Tomorrow’s World: A scientist looks at the book of Revelation (London: The Victoria Institute, 1989), pp. 119–20.

5Clark, a chemist by profession, gives details in Tomorrow’s World, p. 121.

6Buist M. Fanning, Revelation, Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Academic, 2020), p. 286; Ian Paul, Revelation, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (London: Inter-Varsity Press, 2018), p. 172; John F. Walvoord, The Revelation of Jesus Christ (London: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1966), p. 154.

7See Walvoord, Revelation of Jesus Christ, p. 155.

8Robert H. Mounce, The Book of Revelation, New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1977), p. 180.

9For a detailed examination of the scientific aspects of this issue, see the last two chapters of my Gunning for God: Why the New Atheists are missing the target (Oxford: Lion Hudson, 2011) and my more recent book Cosmic Chemistry: Do God and science mix? (Oxford: Lion Hudson, 2021).

10For example, Matt. 11:21; 23:13; 23:23; Jude 11.

11From the Greek words a-byssos meaning ‘no depth’, i.e. ‘no finite depth’ and therefore ‘no bottom’.

12My reasons for this position are set out in my book Against the Flow: The inspiration of Daniel in an age of relativism (Oxford: Lion Hudson, 2015).

13See Against the Flow.

14David Hambling, ‘Israel Rolls Out Legion-X Drone Swarm for the Urban Battlefield’, Forbes, 24 October 2022: www.forbes.com/sites/davidhambling/2022/10/24/israel-rolls-out-legion-x-drone-swarm-for-the-urban-battlefield (accessed 15 December 2024).

15‘Mesopotamia’ means the land ‘between the two rivers’, i.e. the Euphrates and Tigris.

16If we are told that there are half a million soldiers in the US army, we do not think that this is an exact number but rather an approximate figure that gives us a pretty accurate idea of the size of the fighting force.

17There are reckoned to be around 60 million horses in the world today.

18Though they are no myth; they are all-too-real fighting units.

19Think of the film War Horse (2011; dir. Steven Spielberg).

20No parable has a name in it as this story does.

18A mighty angel descends from heaven to earth; Jerusalem trodden down; the two witnesses

1See my book Against the Flow: The inspiration of Daniel in an age of relativism (Oxford: Lion Hudson, 2015), appendix D, p. 378.

2This is confirmed by the Temple Scroll, the largest of the Dead Sea Scroll texts, which dates from the second century bc. It gives measurements of a vast temple, four times the area of the Second Temple, that the Essenes believed would be built on earth in the future.

3Of course, the idea that the nations would trample the heavenly Jerusalem doesn’t make sense.

4For more detail see my book Against the Flow, chs 16 and 17.

5A running commentary on the biblical text.

6Midrash Tanchuma, Tzav 14; Yalkut Shimoni on Ezek. 43:10–11 (382).

7See Yehuda Shurpin, ‘4 Unique Characteristics of the Third Temple’, Chabad.org: www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/3716004/jewish/4-Unique-Characteristics-of-the-Third-Temple.htm (accessed 15 December 2024).

8See Dan. 12:1–2, cited earlier.

9For more detailed discussion see Buist M. Fanning, Revelation, Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Academic, 2020), pp. 326ff.

10Leaving dead bodies unburied was an ultimate insult in many cultures, particularly that of the Jews.

11We are, after all, long into the age of sophisticated visual communications and, since what is being described here is still future, we can assume that such means will be used.

12C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters (New York, NY: HarperCollins, 2015), letter 8.

13For a deeply moving account of how one young Christian woman faced the darkness of intense suffering, see Ashleigh McGillivray’s testimony at Cornerstone Presbyterian Church, ‘Online Worship: “Not Safe”, July 30th, 2023 (Ashleigh MacGillivray)’: https://youtu.be/rcN0_DAm6r0 (accessed 15 December 2024).

19War in heaven

1See 2:27; 19:15. See also Ps. 2:9.

2For development of this concept see my book on Abraham, Friend of God: The inspiration of Abraham in an age of doubt (London: SPCK, 2024).

3Some interpreters think that the woman represents the Church drawn from all nations. However, this cannot be correct, since the Church did not give birth to the Messiah.

4Colin Nicholl, The Great Christ Comet: Revealing the true star of Bethlehem (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2015), pp. 153ff.

5Robert Lowry, 1826–99.

6Christian readers would of course have no difficulty filling in the detail.

7For a detailed exposition of these chapters see my Determined to Believe? The sovereignty of God, faith and responsibility (Oxford: Lion Hudson, 2017).

8See my book 2084 and the AI Revolution: How artificial intelligence informs our future, updated and expanded edn (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2025).

9David Deutsch, The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations that transform the world (London: Allen Lane, 2011), ch. 13: ‘The Beginning of Infinity’.

10For the various and many interpretative possibilities, see Buist M. Fanning, Revelation, Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Academic, 2020), p. 361.

11Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning (London: Rider, 2008).

20The sea monster – Antichrist?

1Irenaeus, Against Heresies, book 5, ch. 30: www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103530.htm (accessed 15 December 2024).

2‘Morgenthau’s Realist Theory (6 Principles)’, Your Article Library: www.yourarticlelibrary.com/international-politics/morgenthaus-realist-theory-6-principles/48472 (accessed 15 December 2024).

3We shall further justify this identification in the next part when we argue that one of the heads of the beast symbolised Rome.

4Steven Swinford, ‘AI Risks Undermining Fabric of Society, Says Former Cyber Chief’, The Times, 8 May 2023.

5Iain McGilchrist, The Matter with Things: Our brains, our delusions, and the unmaking of the world (London: Perspectiva Press, 2021), p. 574.

6Irenaeus, Against Heresies, book 5.

7Quoted in Joseph Pronechen, ‘Who Is the Antichrist? In 4 Prophetic Messages, St. John Henry Newman Tells Us What to Watch For’, National Catholic Register, 22 October 2019: www.ncregister.com/blog/what-the-antichrist-will-be-like-according-to-st-john-henry-newman (accessed 14 December 2024).

8Buist M. Fanning, Revelation, Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Academic, 2020), p. 372.

9John Henry Newman, ‘The Patristical Idea of Antichrist, Lecture 1: The Times of Antichrist’, sect. 2: www.newmanreader.org/works/arguments/antichrist/lecture1.html (accessed 15 December 2024).

10Vladimir Solovyov, A Short Story of Antichrist (1900), republished as Tale of the Anti-Christ (HijezGlobal Press, 2017).

11George Orwell, ‘The Scientist Takes Over’, review of C. S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength (1945), Manchester Evening News, 16 August 1945, reprinted as no. 2720 (first half) in The Complete Works of George Orwell, ed. Peter Davison, vol. 17 (London: Secker & Warburg, 1998), pp. 250–1.

12E. O. Wilson quoted at a debate at the Harvard Museum of Natural History, Cambridge, MA, 9 September 2009.

13Stephen Marche, ‘Of God and Machines’, The Atlantic, 15 September 2022.

14See the article by Julian Huxley, ‘The Coming New Religion of Humanism’, American Humanist Association 204 (1961).

15Michael Ruse, Darwinism as Religion: What literature tells us about evolution (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016).

16See www.sundayassembly.org (accessed 15 December 2024).

17Henry Gee, ‘Science: The Religion That Must Not Be Questioned’, The Guardian, 19 September 2013.

18Kate Shellnutt, ‘China Tells Christians to Replace Images of Jesus with Communist President’, Christianity Today, 17 November 2017: www.christianitytoday.com/news/2017/november/china-christians-jesus-communist-president-xi-jinping-yugan.html (accessed 15 December 2024).

19Abigail Hart, ‘AI Aims to Persecute Chinese Christians’, Global Christian Relief, 10 April 2023: https://globalchristianrelief.org/christian-persecution/stories/ai-aims-to-persecute-christians (accessed 15 December 2024).

20See Max Tegmark, Life 3.0: Being human in the age of artificial intelligence (New York, NY: Knopf, 2017).

21See my book 2084 and the AI Revolution: How artificial intelligence informs our future, updated and expanded edn (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2025).

22Fredric Brown, ‘The Answer’, in Angels and Spaceships (New York, NY: E. P. Dutton, 1954), p. 36.

23Review by Paul Fraser, SF Short Stories, 24 November 2022: https://sfshortstories.com/?p=5983 (accessed 15 December 2024).

24The related term ‘dataism’ is attributed by some to political commentator David Brooks of the New York Times to express obsession with data.

25‘The Rise of Data Religion’, CRASSH (Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities, Cambridge University), 6 September 2016: www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/26948 (accessed 15 December 2024).

21The earth monster – the false prophet

1See e.g. Isa. 44:16–17.

2See the threads on this topic on platforms such as Reddit and Quora.

3See Rhys Blakely, ‘AI Could Create Religions to Control Humans, Warns Sapiens Author Harari’, The Times, 2 May 2023.

4Neil McArthur, ‘Gods in the Machine? The Rise of Artificial Intelligence May Result in New Religions’, The Conversation, 15 March 2023: https://theconversation.com/gods-in-the-machine-the-rise-of-artificial-intelligence-may-result-in-new-religions-201068 (accessed 31 December 2024).

5Quoted in Hugh Tomlinson, ‘Regulate AI Now to Avert Risks, Says ChatGPT Boss Sam Altman’, The Times, 17 May 2023.

6Geoffrey Hinton, ‘AI Pioneer Quits Google over “Scary” Pace of Change’, The Times, 2 May 2023.

7Jennifer Elias, ‘“Godfather of A.I.” Leaves Google after a Decade to Warn Society of Technology He’s Touted’, CNBC, 1 May 2023: www.cnbc.com/2023/05/01/godfather-of-ai-leaves-google-after-a-decade-to-warn-of-dangers.html (accessed 15 December 2024).

8For more details see his book: Stuart Russell, Human Compatible: AI and the problem of control (London: Penguin, 2014).

9See John Gray, ‘Is It Ever Right to Try to Create a Superior Human Being?’ BBC News, 6 September 2015: www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34151049 (accessed 31 December 2024).

10Mark Sellman, ‘How Worried Should We Be about the Rise of the AI “Monster”?’ The Times, 21 April 2023.

11Quoted in Matt McFarland, ‘Elon Musk: “With Artificial Intelligence We Are Summoning the Demon”’, Washington Post, 24 October 2014.

12Stephen Hawking, Brief Answers to the Big Questions (London: Murray, 2018), pp. 186, 188.

13Quoted in Damian Whitworth, ‘Is the Rise of Killer Machines Closer Than We Think?’ Times Magazine, 29 January 2022.

14Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, ‘Live Not by Lies’, The Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Center: www.solzhenitsyncenter.org/live-not-by-lies (accessed 15 December 2024).

15Joanna Ng, ‘How Artificial Super-Intelligence Is Today’s Tower of Babel’, Christianity Today, 17 June 2020: www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2020/june-web-only/artificial-intelligence-todays-tower-of-babel-ai-ethics.html (accessed 15 December 2024).

16A number that is formed by adding together the numbers representing the letters of the name according to some agreed-on scheme; e.g. let us set A = 1, B = 2, etc. A boy might carve on a tree: ‘I love the girl whose number is 53’, and would leave others to work out, by a trial-and-error process of substituting letters for numbers, that her name was Julia.

17Peter J. Williams, ‘P115 and the Number of the Beast’, Tyndale Bulletin 58 (2007), pp. 151–3: www.tyndalebulletin.org/article/29233-p115-and-the-number-of-the-beast (accessed 15 December 2024).

18Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 5.30.1–3.

19Victor Tangermann, ‘Elon Musk Speculates about Storing All Human DNA in Database’, Neoscope, 25 May 2022: https://futurism.com/neoscope/elon-musk-human-dna-database (accessed 15 December 2024).

20C. S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength (New York, NY: Scribner, 1996), p. 175.

21Lewis, That Hideous Strength, p. 176.

22Max Tegmark, Life 3.0: Being human in the age of artificial intelligence (New York, NY: Knopf, 2017).

23Echoes of Hobbes’ Leviathan?

24Tegmark, Life 3.0, p. 21.

25Tegmark, Life 3.0, p. 136.

26Mark Cauchi and Avron Kulak, ‘Biblical Philosophy: An Introduction’, Sophia 54 (2015), pp. 491–6.

27Yuval Noah Harari, ‘Why Technology Favors Tyranny’, The Atlantic, October 2018.

28‘Electronic Bracelets’, Navipedia, European Space Agency: https://gssc.esa.int/navipedia/index.php/Electronic_Bracelets (accessed 15 December 2024).

29Bertalan Mesko, ‘Everything You Need to Know Before Getting an RFID Implant’, The Medical Futurist, 18 June 2024: https://medicalfuturist.com/rfid-implant-chip (accessed 15 December 2024).

30Authorities had banned people from purchasing flights 17.5 million times by the end of 2018, according to the National Public Credit Information Centre.

31See Chris Buckley and Steven Lee Myers, ‘China Builds More Secret “Re-education Camps” to Detain Uighur Muslims despite Global Outcry over Human Suffering’, Independent, 10 August 2019: www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/xi-jinping-regime-han-chinese-threat-uighur-muslims-persecution-detention-camps-a9051126.html (accessed 15 December 2024).

32Quoted in Gerry Shih, ‘“Police Cloud”: Chinese Database Tracks Apps, Car Location and Even Electricity Usage in Muslim Region’, Washington Post, 2 May 2019: www.washingtonpost.com/world/chinese-database-is-tracking-cellphone-usage-car-location-and-even-electricity-usage-of-xinjiang-residents/2019/05/01/12eb3996-6c8a-11e9-be3a-33217240a539_story.html (accessed 15 December 2024).

33Oliver Moody, ‘Big Brother Is Watching Them. And We’re Next’, The Times, 31 March 2018.

34Quoted in Charlie Parker, ‘British Using Chinese CCTV Linked to Repression of Uighurs’, The Times, 7 February 2022.

35Jake Cordell, ‘Moscow Metro’s “Face Pay” System Part of Orwellian Surveillance, Say Critics’, The Times, 15 October 2021.

36Matt Ridley, ‘Britain Can Show the World the Best of AI’, The Times, 16 April 2018: www.thetimes.co.uk/article/britain-can-show-the-world-the-best-of-ai-585vsthvn (accessed 15 December 2024).

37Ridley, ‘Britain Can Show the World the Best of AI’.

38Interested readers will find a very much fuller account in my book 2084 and the AI Revolution: How artificial intelligence informs our future, updated and expanded edn (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2025).

22The Lamb with 144,000 on Mount Zion

1The instrument referred to here is not a harp but a kithara, an ancient seven-stringed instrument with a rectangular soundbox from the lute family.

2C. S. Lewis, The Magician’s Nephew (New York, NY: Collier Books, 1974), p. 174.

3Possibly similar to that stated by Paul in 1 Cor. 7.

4Henry W. F. Saggs, ‘Babylon’, Britannica: www.britannica.com/place/Babylon-ancient-city-Mesopotamia-Asia (accessed 15 December 2024).

5i.e. Sumer, the southernmost part of Mesopotamia.

6Diaspora is Greek for ‘scattering of seed’. See Acts 8:1.

7Leon Kass, The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis (Chicago, IL, and London: University of Chicago Press, 2003), p. 231.

8For more details, see my book Friend of God: The inspiration of Abraham in an age of doubt (London: SPCK, 2024).

9Georges Roux, Ancient Iraq, 3rd edn (London: Penguin, 1992), p. 85.

10An interpretation with which I first engaged in the Cambridge of the 1960s, where Basil Atkinson held it.

11W. E. Vine, Merrill F. Unger and William White Jr (eds), Vines’ Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1985).

12Walter Bauer, William F. Arndt and F. Wilbur Gingrich (eds), A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1957), p. 444.

13For more information see also Gooding’s detailed analysis of John Wenham’s defence of annihilationism in The Letters of David W. Gooding: Answering questions related to the Christian faith (Belfast: Myrtlefield House, 2024). Also, Robert A. Peterson, ‘A Traditionalist Response to John Stott’s Arguments for Annihilationism’, Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 37.4 (1994), pp. 553–68.

14Scholars differ as to whether this is Christ or an angel.

15The word ‘sign’ occurs three times in Revelation – all of them therefore in part 4.

16©2020 Getty Music Publishing and reproduced here by permission.

23The nature of God’s glory and his wrath

1C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory (London: William Collins, 2013), p. 36.

2Lewis, Weight of Glory, p. 43.

3Lewis, Weight of Glory, p. 39.

4Lewis, Weight of Glory, p. 34.

24The bowls of God’s wrath

1A saying attributed to St Francis of Assisi.

2Much as God dried up the sea to allow Israel to flee from Egypt (Ps. 106:9; Isa. 51:10). This may be the content of the prophecy of Jer. 51:36–7.

25Who is Babylon and why must she be judged?

1Brian Y. Park et al., ‘Is Internet Pornography Causing Sexual Dysfunctions? A Review with Clinical Reports’, Behavioral Science 6.3 (2016), p. 17: www.mdpi.com/2076-328X/6/3/17 (accessed 15 December 2024). See also ‘Watching Pornography Rewires the Brain to a More Juvenile State’, Neuroscience News, 29 December 2019: https://neurosciencenews.com/neuroscience-pornography-brain-15354 (accessed 15 December 2024).

2See e.g. Jerry B. Jenkins and Tim LaHaye, Left Behind: The kids, collection 1: vols 1–6, 6th edn (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House, 2001).

3Joel Rosenberg, ‘Is Babylon Once Again Rising from the Ashes?’ Jerusalem Post, 16 February 2022.

4Jeffrey Gettleman, ‘Babylon Awaits an Iraq without Fighting’, New York Times, 18 April 2006.

5See ‘The Criteria for Selection’, World Heritage Convention, UNESCO, criteria iii and vii: https://whc.unesco.org/en/criteria/ (accessed 23 November 2024).

6See ‘Babylon’, World Heritage Convention, UNESCO: https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/278/ (accessed 31 December 2024); May Shaer quoted in Hadani Ditmars, ‘Iraq’s Ancient City of Babylon Gets Long-Overdue International Recognition’, Middle East Institute, 18 September 2019: https://www.mei.edu/publications/iraqs-ancient-city-babylon-gets-long-overdue-international-recognition (accessed 31 December 2024).

7Deepak Lal, quoted in Douglas Murray, The War on the West: How to prevail in the age of unreason (London: HarperCollins, 2022), p. 264.

8Murray, War on the West, pp. 264–5. See also Joseph M. Hanneman, ‘California Ethnic Studies Pushes In-School Pagan Prayers to Aztec Gods’, Catholic World Report, 7 September 2021: www.catholicworldreport.com/2021/09/07/california-ethnic-studies-pushes-in-school-pagan-prayers-to-aztec-gods (accessed 15 December 2024).

9Paganism generally means the worship of gods or goddesses outside the mainstream religions, e.g. nature worship.

10Steven D. Smith, Pagans and Christians in the City: Culture wars from the Tiber to the Potomac (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2018).

11T. S. Eliot, ‘The Idea of a Christian Society’, in Christianity and Culture (London: Faber & Faber, 1939), pp. 17–18.

12Bruce Frohnen, ‘T. S. Eliot’s Christianity and Culture: The Problem of Establishment’, The Imaginative Conservative, 11 June 2012.

13‘The Guardian View on Sexual Abuse and the Catholic Church: Contrition Is Not Enough’, The Guardian, 10 October 2021.

14Symon Hill, ‘Protestants Can No Longer Dismiss Abuse as a “Catholic Problem”’, The Guardian, 29 May 2015.

15See Aaron Earls, ‘Churchgoers Split on Existence of More Sexual Abuse by Pastors’, Lifeway Research, 21 May 2019: https://research.lifeway.com/2019/05/21/churchgoers-split-on-existence-of-more-sexual-abuse-by-pastors (accessed 15 December 2024).

16Susan Cyre, ‘Fallout Escalates over “Goddess” Sophia Worship’, Christianity Today, 4 April 1994: www.christianitytoday.com/ct/1994/april-4/theology-fallout-escalates-over-goddess-sophia-worship.html (accessed 15 December 2024).

17Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion (New York, NY: Mariner Books, 2008), p. 343.

18Sam Harris, quoted in Rob Schumacher, ‘The Myth That Religion Is the #1 Cause of War’, CARM (Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry), 22 April 2012: https://carm.org/atheism/the-myth-that-religion-is-the-1-cause-of-war (accessed 15 December 2024).

19Nick Megoran, ‘Why the Arguments of the “New Atheists” Are Often Just as Violent as Religion’, The Conversation, 26 July 2018: https://theconversation.com/why-the-arguments-of-the-new-atheists-are-often-just-as-violent-as-religion-95185 (accessed 15 December 2024).

20See my book Gunning for God: Why the New Atheists are missing the target (Oxford: Lion Hudson, 2011), pp. 64ff.

21Galina Polonskaya and Mario Bowden, ‘Religious Leaders Unite for Peace at Open Dialogue Event in Kazakhstan’, Euronews, 20 September 2022: https://www.euronews.com/business/2022/09/20/religious-leaders-unite-for-peace-at-open-dialogue-event-in-kazakhstan (accessed 15 December 2024).

22See ‘Diverse in Our Faiths, Common in Our Humanity, Together in Peace’, Abrahamic Family House: www.abrahamicfamilyhouse.ae (accessed 30 December 2024).

26The wild monster

1See Buist M. Fanning, Revelation, Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Academic, 2020), p. 445.

27The ten horns – an international government?

1A list of almost a hundred client kings and queens over the Roman period can be found in Wikipedia.

2Hence, the identification of the ten kings with ten European countries, much in vogue in earlier years, is wide of the mark.

3Albert Einstein, ‘Towards a World Government’ (1946), in Out of My Later Years: The scientist, philosopher and man portrayed through his own words (New York, NY: Wings Books, 1956), p. 138.

4A reason for Brexit?

5Gideon Rachman, ‘And Now for a World Government’, Financial Times, 8 December 2008.

6Rachman, ‘And Now for a World Government’.

7Rachman, ‘And Now for a World Government’.

8Margaret MacMillan, ‘The Big Idea: Is World Government Possible?’ The Guardian, 22 November 2021.

9‘World Government’, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 4 December 2006: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/world-government (accessed 15 December 2024).

10Dante Alighieri, The Banquet [Convivio], tr. Kate Forhan, in Cary J. Nederman and Kate Langdon Forhan (eds), Readings in Medieval Political Theory 1100–1400 (London: Routledge, 1993; repr. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 2000), p. 169.

11Immanuel Kant, ‘Perpetual Peace: A Political Sketch’ (1795), tr. H. B. Nisbet, in H. S. Reiss (ed.), Kant: Political writings (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), p. 105.

12Kant, ‘Perpetual Peace’, pp. 113, 114.

13Polybius, The Histories of Polybius, Vol. 1, tr. Evelyn S. Shuckburg from the text of F. Hultsch (London and New York, NY: Macmillan, 1889): https://web.archive.org/web/20160328103700/http://www.humanistictexts.org/polybius.htm (accessed 15 December 2024).

14For a detailed study of God’s sovereignty and human responsibility, see my book Determined to Believe? The sovereignty of God, faith and responsibility (Oxford: Lion Hudson, 2017).

15Peter Mandaville, ‘The Growing Role of Religion in Great Power Rivalry – English version’, Bulletin 39 (September 2022), Observatoire International du Religieux: https://obsreligion.cnrs.fr/bulletin/the-growing-role-of-religion-in-great-power-rivalry-english-version (accessed 15 December 2024).

16Alexander Arifianto, ‘Religious Power Brokers and Growing Intolerance in Indonesia’, LSE, 18 August 2020: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/religionglobalsociety/2020/08/religious-power-brokers-and-growing-intolerance-in-indonesia (accessed 15 December 2024).

17Jennifer Glass, ‘Why Aren’t We Paying Attention? Religion and Politics in Everyday Life’, Sociology of Religion 80.1 (2019), pp. 9–27: https://academic.oup.com/socrel/article/80/1/9/5158512.

18See ‘Religion and Political Theory’, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (accessed 15 December 2024); ‘Politics and Religion’, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy https://iep.utm.edu/rel-poli/ (accessed 15 December 2024).

28Babylon judged yet mourned

1The word ‘plutocrat’ is derived from the Greek term used in 18:3 for ‘luxurious’, and the Greek word for ‘power’ in the same verse is one from which we get ‘dynamo’.

2See also my book on Daniel, Against the Flow: The inspiration of Daniel in an age of relativism (Oxford: Lion Hudson, 2015), where I discuss this key incident in detail.

3A detailed study of this issue is found in my book A Good Return: Biblical principles of work, wealth and wisdom (Fearn: Gospel Focus, 2023).

4Forty are listed in the parallel passage in Ezek. 27 about Tyre.

5Iain McGilchrist, The Matter with Things: Our brains, our delusions, and the unmaking of the world (London: Perspectiva Press, 2021).

6The word for ‘sorcery’ in 18:23 is the Greek term from which we get ‘pharmacy’.

29The climax: praise for God’s judgements

1Roger Scruton, Beauty: A very short introduction (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), p. 99.

30The return of the Word of God

1Revocalised in Hebrew, this verb becomes ‘rule’.

2Although some people nevertheless seem to think so – rather strangely in my view since the language of war points in a very different direction.

3Alec Motyer, The Prophecy of Isaiah: An introduction and commentary (Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press, 1993), p. 509.

4But not everyone on the planet.

31The millennial reign of Christ

1Alec Motyer, The Prophecy of Isaiah: An introduction and commentary (Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press, 1993), p. 206.

2Dating to c.300 bc. It is not part of the Hebrew canon but is accepted as such by the Ethiopian Jewish community.

3Grant R. Osborne, Revelation, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2002), p. 500.

4See www.sefaria.org/Book_of_Jubilees.23.43?lang=bi.

5Latin for ‘a thousand years’.

6We also note that there is a ‘postmillennial’ view which holds that Christ will come after the millennium, the latter being a symbol for the spiritual reign of Christ through the Church up to his return.

7See e.g. Matt. 12:32; Mark 10:30; Luke 18:30; 20:34–5; Eph. 1:21.

8Matt Waymeyer, Amillennialism and the Age to Come: A premillennial critique of the two-age model (The Woodlands, TX: Kress Biblical Resources, 2016).

9I note that Wayne Grudem makes this point in his Systematic Theology, 2nd edn (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2020), p. 1377.

10This interpretative or hermeneutical principle is sometimes called the ‘analogy of faith’.

11Notice also the word ‘when’ in 20:7 – ‘when the thousand years are ended’. This supports the claim that this part of Revelation is in chronological as well as logical order.

12Wooden literalism would be misplaced here, i.e. insisting that it will be exactly 1,000 years, and not 999 or 1001.

13Similarly, see 2 Pet. 3:8.

14The Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius Pamphilus, tr. Christian Frederick Cruse (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1993), p. 126 (3.39.13).

15Shirley Jackson Case, The Millennial Hope (Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press, 1918), pp. 164–5.

16See Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (eds), Ante-Nicene Christian Library, vol. 7: Tertullianus against Marcion (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1868), pp. 173–4.

17Thomas D. Lea, ‘A Survey of the Doctrine of the Return of Christ in the Ante-Nicene Fathers’, Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, 29.2 (1986), p. 176.

18Origen, De Principiis, 2.11.2: www.newadvent.org/fathers/04122.htm (accessed 16 December 2024).

19Millennium is Latin and chilia Greek for ‘one thousand’.

20Augustine, City of God, 20.7.

21For more details of Augustine’s legacy see J. Kevin Coyle, ‘Augustine and Apocalyptic: Thoughts on the Fall of Rome, the Book of Revelation, and the End of the World’, Florilegium 9 (1987), pp. 1–34.

22J. A. Seiss, The Apocalypse (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1964), p. 483.

23Osborne, Revelation, Kindle edn, p. 60.

24Peter Lowman, A Guide to the End of the World: Rapture? Millennium? Heaven? (Watford: Instant Apostle, 2018), p. 12.

25Timing is not always, perhaps not even often, on the prophetic agenda, but it is here and in Rev. 20.

26Isaac Watts, 1674–1748.

27John C. Lennox, Cosmic Chemistry: Do God and science mix? (Oxford: Lion Hudson, 2021).

28Joseph Jacobs and Moses Buttenweiser, ‘Messiah’, in The Jewish Encyclopedia (New York, NY: Kopelman Foundation, 1906), art. 10729.

29‘Key Beliefs – OCR: Messiah’, Bitesize, BBC: www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zf3yb82/revision/4 (accessed 16 December 2024).

30The reader is encouraged to read Buist M. Fanning’s excellent in-depth article ‘The Nature and Purpose of the Millennium’, in Revelation, Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Academic, 2020), pp. 508–14.

31Tennyson’s famous description of the brutality of nature in his poem ‘In Memoriam A. H. H.’ (1850).

32David S. Ariel, ‘The Messianic Age in Judaism’, My Jewish Learning: www.myjewishlearning.com/article/the-messianic-age-in-judaism (accessed 16 December 2024).

32The last rebellion

1Robert H. Mounce, The Book of Revelation, New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1977), p. 371.

2For more on this topic see my Cosmic Chemistry: Do God and science mix? (Oxford: Lion Hudson, 2021).

3A targum is an ancient Aramaic paraphrase or interpretation of the Hebrew Bible, of a type made from about the first century ad when Hebrew was ceasing to be a spoken language.

4Ben C. Smith, ‘The Second Death in Revelation 2.11; 20.6, 14; 21.8’, Biblical Criticism & History Forum, Early Writings, 9 February 2018: https://earlywritings.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3883 (accessed 16 December 2024).

5In the marketplace in most cities there was a bema, a platform from which orators spoke.

6See appendix 2: ‘Rapture’.

33The new creation

1See David L. Turner, ‘The New Jerusalem in Revelation 21:1 – 22:5: Consummation of a Biblical Continuum’, in Craig A. Blaising and Darrell L. Bock (eds), Dispensationalism, Israel and the Church: The search for definition (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1992), ch. 9, pp. 278–80.

2Turner, ‘The New Jerusalem in Revelation 21:1 – 22:5’, in Blaising and Bock (eds), Dispensationalism, Israel and the Church, ch. 9, p. 284.

3Turner, ‘The New Jerusalem in Revelation 21:1 – 22:5’, in Blaising and Bock (eds), Dispensationalism, Israel and the Church, Kindle edn, ch. 9, loc. 4683.

4There was laughter in Athens when Paul spoke of the resurrection to the philosophers at the Areopagus society. That laughter showed they understood him to be talking about a physical event – anastasis (= standing up again) in Greek, which the Epicureans and atomists, in particular, denied. They would not have laughed had he been merely talking about survival of the soul, which was a respected philosophical view at the time.

5For more detail, see my book Friend of God: The inspiration of Abraham in an age of doubt (London: SPCK, 2024).

6J. A. Seiss, The Apocalypse (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1964), p. 490.

7The only other one is 1:8.

8An introduction to the interpretation of the new Jerusalem is to be found in Turner, ‘The New Jerusalem in Revelation 21:1 – 22:5’. I also discuss the concept of the city in much more detail in my book Friend of God.

9For more detail, see John C. Lennox, Joseph: A story of love, hate, slavery, power and forgiveness (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2018).

10Ian Paul, Revelation, Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (London: Inter-Varsity Press, 2018), p. 350.

11Turner, ‘The New Jerusalem in Revelation 21:1 – 22:5’, Kindle edn, loc. 4677–83.

12Maimonides, Hilchos Melachim (= The Laws Concerning Kings) 11:1, 4, Mishneh Torah (Brooklyn, NY: Sichos in English, 1991).

13‘Introduction’, The Temple Institute: https://templeinstitute.org/red-heifer-introduction (accessed 8 December 2024).

14Richard J. Mouw, When the Kings Come Marching In: Isaiah and the new Jerusalem, rev. edn (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2002).

15Mouw, When the Kings Come Marching In, p. 502.

16Although there are some who interpret the Mass as a repeated actual vicarious sacrifice in contradiction of the explicit NT statements in the letter to the Hebrews.

17A circumstance that may have given rise to the idea of an elixir of life, which, through the centuries, has been sought in vain.

18Author unknown. The lyrics are based on Phil. 2:9 and Isa. 9:6.

19See my comments on 1:8.

20John Gray, Seven Types of Atheism (New York, NY: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2018), p. 70.

Appendix 1 Kingdom

1Or ‘kingdom of heaven’, as it is often interchangeably called.

2See my comments on Dan. 7 in my book Against the Flow: The inspiration of Daniel in an age of relativism (Oxford: Lion Hudson, 2015) for a justification of this statement.

3Nor would it be ‘of this world’ until Jesus’ return, as he had made clear to the high priests.

4John C. Lennox, Gunning for God: Why the New Atheists are missing the target (Oxford: Lion Hudson, 2011).

5For a more detailed analysis of the significance of Jesus’ reply, see David Gooding, True to the Faith: The Acts of the Apostles: Defining and defending the gospel (Belfast: Myrtlefield House, 2013).

Appendix 2 Rapture

1Peter Lowman, A Guide to the End of the World: Rapture? Millennium? Heaven? (Watford: Instant Apostle, 2018).

2See Lowman, A Guide to the End of the World, p. 78.

3God protected Noah from his wrath by getting him to build an ark that took him through the judgement while protecting him from it.

4Lowman, A Guide to the End of the World, p. 70.

5John C. Lennox, Determined to Believe? The sovereignty of God, faith and responsibility (Oxford: Lion Hudson, 2017).

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30:6

34:30

Exodus

3:11

7:22

8:19

9:22–6

9:23–4

10:3–4, 12–14, 19

14:21

15:11

19

19:4

19:5–6a

19:16–19

19:18

20:2

20:3

20:3–5

20:4–6

20:7

21:23–5

24:17

28:2

38:21

40:34–5

Leviticus

18:26–8

18:28

Numbers

5:17

22:4–6

25

25:1

31:8

Deuteronomy

29:20

30:4–5

Joshua

8:20

Judges

7:12

1 Samuel

17:44

2 Samuel

7:13–14

7:14

7:18

1 Kings

3:7–9

6:20

7:21

7:23–6

8:10–11

16:29

16:31

19:11

21:25

22:19–21, 23

22:19–23

2 Kings

1:10

9:27

13:14

13:18–20

13:19

14:26–7

14:27

19:1–2

1 Chronicles

24:1–19

29:11b–12a

2 Chronicles

35:22

Job

1:6

37:1–2

Psalms

2:7–9

13:1

18:2

19:1

23:4

42:3

62:11–12

65:7

66:18

75:4–5

82:1

89:6–7

89:9

90:4

94:1–7

96:11–13

96:12b–13

98:8–9

110:1

113:5–6

119:103

119:105

139:9–10

Proverbs

28:9

30:27

Isaiah

2:2–4

8:5–8

9:6–7

11:1, 10

11:1–3a

11:1–5

11:4b

11:6–9

11:9–10

11:10

13:9–11

14:1–2

17:12–13

19:23–5

21:9

22:20–2

22:22

23:17

24:21–3

25:6–8

25:6–9

25:8

25:8–9

26:1

28:16

34:4

37:16

48:20

49:1b–2a

49:8–10

49:26

51:6

52:11

53:4–6

53:6–7, 10

53:6a

53:7

54:4–5

55:1–2

57:20–1

60:1–3, 10

60:3–6, 11–12

60:19–20

61:10

62:2–5

63:1–3

63:1–6

65:17–19

65:19–23

Jeremiah

3:14–18

3:20

17:10

23:5–8

49:36

50:39

51:7–8

51:27

51:60–4

Ezekiel

1:5–6, 10

1:26

2:1–2

2:10

3:14

6:9

9:4

10

10:2

10:4

16:15–17

16:35–37, 40–41a

27:32–4

28:1–2, 9, 13–16

37:11–14

37:21, 24–8

38:1, 14–16, 18–19, 39:4–6

38:18

38–39

39:12

39:17–21, 25

39:21–4

40:1–48:35

40:2

40:3

43:6–7

43:7

43:10–12

47:12

48:35

Daniel

1:8

2:10–11

2:27–8

2:44–5

4:3

4:25

4:28–33

7:2–8

7:4

7:7–8

7:8

7:9–10

7:13

7:13–14

7:14

7:16

7:17–18

7:18

7:19–27

7:24

7:25

8:10–12

8:12

8:13, 14

8:24–25

9:18–19

9:24

9:25–7

10:4–6

10:7

10:12–14

10:13

11:2–4

11:10, 40

11:31

11:36–7

12:1–2

12:1b

12:3

12:6–7

12:6–9

12:7

Joel

2:1–2, 10, 30–1

2:4

2:30–1

2:32

3:13

3:14b–15

Amos

8:9

Micah

5:2

6:5

Nahum

3:4

Habakkuk

1:2–4

3:2

Zephaniah

1:14–16

1:17–18

3:13

3:20

Haggai

2:6, 21–2

Zechariah

1:8, 10

2:2

2:5

2:10–12

4:1–6

4:1–14

4:6–7

6:1–7

9:9

12:1, 3, 9–11

12:3

12:6–12a

12:10

13:1

14:2–5

14:3–4a

14:5

14:9

14:16–19

1 Enoch

10:4–6

Jubilees

23:44–9

Matthew

2:11

4:8–10

5:44

6:9–10

6:10

6:21

6:28–9

6:33

7:1–2

7:2

9:37–8

10:16–22

10:28–31

10:40

11:25–30

11:27

12:6

12:32

12:36

13:14–15

13:30, 36–9

14:28–33

16:17

16:18

16:24–8

16:27

17:9

18:10

19:28

22:1–14

22:21

23:27–8

24:1–3

24:6–8

24:9

24:11–12

24:14–16, 21

24:15

24:21

24:21–2

24:22

24:29–31

24:35

24:37–9

24:44

25:14–30

25:31

25:31–3, 41, 46

26:52

26:53

26:64

27:46

Mark

1:15

3:23–7

3:29

4:39–41

8:38

9:1

9:3

9:22–3

9:42

12:26–7

14:61–4

Luke

1:5–23

1:9–14

1:13

1:22

2:25–38

6:49

8:9–14

8:15

8:30–3

9:30–1

9:31

10:20

12:16–21

16:9

16:19–31

16:26

17:20–1

17:22–37

18:1–8

18:8

18:9–14

19:11

19:11–12

19:37–40

21:20–4

21:24

21:33

22:14–15

22:53

22:66–71

23:1–5

23:13–16

23:43

24:19–20

24:21a

24:25–7

John

1:1

1:1–3, 14

1:4

1:14

1:17–18

1:18

1:19

1:48

1:49–51

2:11

2:18–22

3:3

3:16

3:36

4:13–15

4:22

5:24

5:25–9

5:26–7

5:26–9

5:27

5:36

6:38

6:62

7:6–7

7:37–9

8:13–14

8:17–18

8:33–47

8:34–6

8:44

8:58

11:23

11:23–7

12:28–31

13:6–11

13:8

13:15

14

14:1

14:1–3

14:2

14:3

14:6

14:9

14:18

14:21b–23

14:28–9

15:15

15:18

15:26–7

16:1–4

16:7b–11

16:12–15

16:33

17:8

17:22

18:33–8

18:36

18:36–8

19:10–11

19:37

20:19

20:31

21

21:20–3

21:22

Acts

1:6

1:7

1:7–8

1:7–11

1:11

2:17

2:27

2:32–5

2:33

2:34–5

2:36

3:17–21

3:19–21

3:22–6

4:19–20

7:2

7:56

9:7

9:10

9:12

10:3

11:5

11:21–4

12:15

15:28–9

17:16–34

17:29–31

17:32–4

18:19–21

19:8–10

19:23–41

19:35

20:29–30

20:29–31

27:10

27:24

28:19

Romans

1–3

1:18

1:28–32

2:2–6

2:5

2:6

5:2

5:9

6:3–4

6:23

8:19–21

8:26–7

8:33–9

8:34

8:37

8:37–9

9:27

11

11:1

11:5

11:15

11:15, 26–7

11:19–27

11:23–4

11:25

11:25–7

11:26–7

11:28–35

11:33

12:19

13:1

14:1

14:4, 9

14:10b–12

14:12

15:12–13

1 Corinthians

1:7

1:18

1:21–5

2:9–10

3:11–15

3:14–15

3:16–17

4:8–13

5:7

5:9–13

6:1–3

6:2

6:19

10:1–2

11:27–34

15

15:20–3

15:20–6

15:26

15:51–2

2 Corinthians

1:20

3:18

4:4

5:8

5:10

6:14–7:1

6:17

11:1–4

12:1–4

Galatians

1:16

2:20

3:28

4:15

4:25–6

Ephesians

1:3–10

1:21

2:2

2:7

2:19–22

2:21–2

4:26

5:5

5:25–6

5:25–33

5:25b–27

5:26

6

6:4

6:10

6:10–12

6:10–12, 17

6:10–13

6:12

6:17

Philippians

2:15–16

3:7–8

3:20

4:11–13

Colossians

1:13

1:15

1:16

2:2b–3

2:9

2:18

3:4

4:13

1 Thessalonians

1:9–10

1:10

3:12–13

4:13–18

4:14–17

5:9

2 Thessalonians

1:7–8

2:1–2

2:1–8

2:1–10

2:3–4

2:6

2:7

2:9–12

1 Timothy

5:20–1

6:5

6:6–10

6:13

6:14–16

6:16

6:17

6:17–19

2 Timothy

2:9

2:11–13

3:12

3:16

4:8

Titus

2:13

3:4–7

Hebrews

1:2

1:3

1:5

2:5–6

2:5–8

2:14–15

4:12–13

4:14–16

5:11–14

6:13–20

7:25

8:5

9:27

9:28

10:19–22

11:10

11:13–16

11:16

12:6

12:21

12:22–4

12:25–7

12:25–9

12:28–9

James

1:12

1:23

2:9

5:16

1 Peter

1:7

1:13

1:17–19

1:17a

1:17b–19

1:18–19

2:9

2:9–10

2:21–4

3:22

4:17–18

5:8

5:8–11

5:13

2 Peter

1:3

1:16

1:16–18

1:19

1:19–21

2:1

2:4

2:12–16

2:15

2:22

3:3

3:7

3:8–10

3:9

3:10

3:10–13

3:11–13

3:11–14

1 John

1:5

1:5–7

1:8

2:3–5

2:13–14

2:15–17

2:18

3:2–3

3:3

3:4

4:4

5:4–5

5:13

Jude

6

13

Revelation

1:1

1:1–3

1:2

1:3

1:4

1:4–5

1:4–8

1:5

1:5b–8

1:6

1:7

1:8

1:9

1:9–11

1:9–20

1:10

1:12–13

1:13–16

1:16

1:17

1:18

1:19

1:20

2:1

2:1–3:22

2:1–7

2:4

2:5

2:5, 7

2:7

2:8–11

2:9–10

2:10

2:11

2:11b

2:12–17

2:13

2:14, 16

2:14–15

2:16

2:17

2:18–29

2:20

2:23

2:26–8

2:29

3:1–6

3:2, 5

3:2–3a

3:3b

3:4–5

3:6

3:7

3:7–13

3:10

3:11b–12

3:12

3:13

3:14–22

3:16

3:19

3:19–20

3:20

3:21

3:22

4:1–2

4:1–11

4:3

4:5

4:5–6

4:6b–8

4:8

4:9–11

5:1–14

5:2

5:3

5:5

5:5–7

5:6

5:8–10

5:9

5:9–10

5:10

5:11–14

6:1–8

6:1–17

6:6

6:8

6:9–10

6:9–11

6:10

6:11

6:12–17

6:13

6:14

6:15

6:16

6:16–17

7:1–3

7:1–17

7:2–8

7:3

7:4

7:5–8

7:9

7:9–12

7:13–14

7:14

7:15–17

7:17

8:1–4

8:1–5

8:1–9:21

8:5

8:7–12

8:12

9:1

9:1–6

9:7–11

9:13–19

9:16

9:17–19

9:20–1

10:1–7

10:1–11

10:5–6

10:6–7

11:1–2

11:1–3

11:1–14

11:4–6

11:7

11:7–10

11:8

11:11–14

11:14

11:15

11:15–17

11:15–18

11:18

11:19

11:19–12:1

12:1

12:1–6

12:1–17

12:3

12:6

12:7–11

12:7–12

12:10

12:11

12:14

12:17

13

13:1, 3, 14

13:1 – 14:5

13:1–4

13:2

13:3–4

13:5–10

13:7

13:11–18

13:12

13:18

14:1–5

14:3

14:4

14:4a

14:4b

14:5

14:6 – 14:13

14:6–7

14:8

14:9–11

14:10

14:12–13

14:14

14:14 – 15:1

14:14–16

14:17–20

14:20

15:1–4

15:2

15:2–4

15:3

15:4

15:5 – 16:1

15:5 – 16:21

15:5–6

15:5–8

15:7

16:1–2, 5–7

16:3–4

16:5–6

16:6

16:7

16:8–9

16:10–11

16:12–16

16:15

16:17–21

16:20

17:1

17:1–3a

17:1–18

17:2

17:3–6

17:5

17:6

17:6b–8

17:8b

17:9–11

17:11

17:12

17:12–13

17:14

17:15

17:15–18

17:16

17:17

17:18

18:1–5

18:1–24

18:3

18:6–8

18:9–19

18:12–13

18:20

18:21–4

18:24

19

19:1–6

19:1–10

19:2

19:6

19:6–7

19:7

19:7–10

19:7b

19:9

19:10

19:11

19:11–13

19:11–16

19:11–21

19:12

19:13

19:15

19:15b

19:17–21

20:1–3

20:1–6

20:1–15

20:3b

20:4

20:4–5

20:4–6

20:4b

20:6

20:7–10

20:9

20:11–15

20:14

20:14–15

21:1 – 22:5

21:1–8

21:2

21:3a

21:3b

21:4

21:6

21:7–8

21:8

21:9–11

21:9–22:5

21:12–14

21:14

21:15–21

21:19

21:21

21:22–7

21:23

21:24–7

21:27

22:1, 3

22:1–5

22:3

22:5

22:6

22:6–21

22:7

22:10

22:12

22:13

22:14

22:15

22:16

22:17

22:18

22:20

22:21

Search terms for subjects

144,000 sealed for protection; and Babylon; and Christianity; and firstfruits; and the mark of the beast; on Mount Zion; and the universal gospel

1984 (Orwell)

2084 and the AI Revolution: How artificial intelligence informs our future (Lennox)

Abaddon

abortions

Abraham

Abrahamic Family House, Abu Dhabi

Abram

abyss, the

Adam

adultery

Against Heresies (Irenæus)

Against the Flow: The inspiration of Daniel in an age of relativism (Lennox)

Ahab, King of Israel

Akenson, Donald Harman

Alaric

Alexander the Great

Alice in Wonderland (Carroll)

Alpha and Omega

altar before the throne

altered states of consciousness (ASCs)

Altman, Sam

Amen and Christ

amillennialism

Amillennialism and the Age to Come: A premillennial critique of the two-age model (Waymeyer)

Amusing Ourselves to Death (Postman)

ancestor worship

Ancient Iraq (Roux)

Ancient of Days

‘And Can It Be?’ (hymn) (Wesley)

angel wrapped in cloud

angelic warnings, three; and fallen Babylon; and the universal gospel; and worshippers of the beast

angelos (Greek = ‘messenger’)

angels: elect; fallen; four bound to Euphrates; four holding back the winds; and God’s delegating; and Jacob; and Mount Zion; of the seven churches; with the seven plagues; with seven trumpets; and the Son of Man; and the twenty-four elders

animal sacrifices

Anna, daughter of Phanuel

annihilation, judgement and punishment

‘Answer, The’ (Brown)

Antichrist; and the ten kings

Antichrist, The (Nietzsche)

antichrists

anti-God culture

anti-humanism and the sea monster

Antioch, church at

Antiochus Epiphanes

Antiochus III

Antipas, martyrdom of

anti-religion

anti-Semitism

anxiety about the future

Apocalypse Expounded by Scripture, The (Govett)

apocalyptic literature

apokalypsis (Greek = ‘revelation’)

Apollyon

apostle John and authorship of Revelation

apostles and the foundations of the new Jerusalem

Aquila and Priscilla

archangels

Arifianto, Alexander

ark of the covenant; and the temple in heaven

Armageddon

armies against Israel

armies of heaven

armies of the sea monster

army of judgement, 6th trumpet

art and Scripture

Artemis (Diana); cult of; temple of at Ephesus

artificial general intelligence (AGI)

artificial gods

artificial superintelligence (ASI)

ascension of Christ; and his return; and restoration of Israel; and transhumans

Asclepius, temple of at Pergamum

Asia and the Roman imperial cult

Assyria

asteroids

astrology

astronomical phenomena; and judgement

astronomy

Asylum of Artemis

Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria

atheism; and the future; and judgement; and order in the universe; and the Rational Response Squad; and science; and the second coming; and sin; and the Soviet Union; and transhumanism; and violence

Attali, Jacques

Attalus II, king of Pergamum

Augustine

Augustus and the Jews

authority and power; and Christ; and church workers; and government; and light; and parents; and the twenty-four elders; and worthiness

authority of revelation

authorship of Revelation

Aztec gods

Baal-Melkart

Babel

Babylon; and end times; and fall of Rome; history and legacy; and immorality; judgement on; and modern culture; and the monster; mourning for; and names; as the prostitute; and world religion; as worldly power

Babylonian exile

Bailey, Mark

Balaam

Balak

baptism

Barnabas and the church at Antioch

Bauckham, Richard

Beard, Mary

beast, the; and number; see also earth monster with two horns; scarlet beast and woman of Babylon; sea monster with ten horns and seven heads

beauty

Beginning of Wisdom, The: Reading Genesis (Kass)

Belshazzar’s feast

Bennett, Lucy A.

Berlinski, David

Bethel

Bibles, banning of

‘Biblical Philosophy: An Introduction’ (Cauchi and Kulak)

Big Brother Watch

biology

biometric bracelets

biometric data and identity cards

Black Death

blasphemy: and idolatry; and the Son of Man

Blasphemy Challenge (RRS)

blood of the Lamb; and salvation; and Satan; and the uncountable multitude

Blumrich, Josef

book of life, the

Book of Revelation, The (Mounce)

Booths, Feast of

born again and eternal life

Bostrom, Nick

bottomless pit

bowls of God’s wrath; and Armageddon; and beauty; darkness; and earthquake; and glory; and mark of the beast; scorching with fire; and the seven angels; water turned to blood

brain hemispheres, and perception of reality

Brave New World (Huxley)

bride of the Lamb; see also marriage of the Lamb

Bridges, Matthew

Brothers Karamazov, The (Dostoyevsky)

Brown, Fredric

Brown, Lindsay

Buddhism

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (Einstein, Oppenheimer and University of Chicago)

bureaucracy and the new Jerusalem

business and management

Caiphas

Cambodia

cameras

carrion birds, angel summoning

Carroll, Lewis

Case, Shirley Jackson

Cauchi, Mark

cavalry

CCTV cameras and the surveillance state

Cerinthus

Charlemagne

ChatGPT

cherubim

child pornography

children

China and Christianity

Chinese government: and Buddhism; and Christianity; and surveillance; and Uighurs

Christian society

‘Christus Victor (Amen)’ (hymn) (Getty, Boswell, Fowler, Papa and Getty)

Church, the; Bride of Christ; and Christ; and Constantine; and the great tribulation; and Israel; and Pentecost; and the rapture; and the second coming; and transhumanism; and the West

church and state

church leaders, qualities required of

Church of England

churches of Asia Minor, seven; and the Church; Ephesus; and God’s works in history; and judgement; and the Roman Empire; and the Son of Man; and symbols; see also letters to the seven churches

Cicero

City of God (Augustine)

Clark, Robert E. D.

cleanliness

Clement XI

climate change

Colossae

comets

‘coming’ as used in scripture

Commentary on the Revelation of John, A (Ladd)

communication and revelation

computer technology see digital technology

concrete and Roman technology

Confucianism

Congregationalist Savoy Declaration, 1658

Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions (2022)

Constantine

Constantinople

consumerism

Corinthian church

Cosmic Chemistry: Do God and science mix? (Lennox)

Covid-19

creation and the glory of God

Croesus, King of Lydia

crown of life, the

crown of righteousness

crucifixion, the

cultural Marxism

curtain or veil of the Temple

cyborg technology and transhumans

Cyril of Jerusalem

Cyrus, king of Persia

Daniel: and Antiochus; and Babylon; and Nebuchadnezzar; and the Son of Man

Daniel’s visions

Dante Alighieri

D’Aquili, Eugene D.

Darius

darkness

darkness, powers of; and the fifth bowl of wrath; and politics; and rejection of God; and social control

Darksiders (video game)

data religion

‘Data Religion’ (Harari)

databases; and Satan; and social control

dating of Revelation

David; and the kingdom of God; and the Messiah

Dawkins, Richard

Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur)

day of God’s wrath; and false teachers; and who can stand?

day of judgement; and fire

day of the Lord; and dissolution of the universe; and false teachers; and the Holy Spirit; and Israel; and time

death; abolition of; and Christ; and the fourth horseman; of God; and suffering; of a third of the population; and transhumanism

death, second; and avoidance through faith; and lake of fire

delegation of power and responsibility by God

demons

designer clothes

despotism and a world leader

Determined to Believe (Lennox)

Deutsch, David

devil, the see Satan

devils

diabolos (Greek = ‘accuser’)

Dialogue with Trypho (Justin Martyr)

Diderot, Denis

digital technology; and deep fakes; effect on minds; and global totalitarianism; and God; and paganism; and religion; and security bracelets

Dio, Lucius Cassius

Diocletian

Dionysius of Alexandria

Dirac, Paul

discipleship

doctrinal purity and the churches

doctrine

dogs

Dominion (Holland)

Domitian; and the Jewish tax; and the temple of the Sebastoi; and vines

donkey and entry of Christ into Jerusalem

Doomsday Clock

Dostoyevsky, Fyodor

drones

dystopias

earth monster with two horns; and AI; and Caesar Galerius; and first bowl of wrath; and the mark; and the number of; and propaganda; and Rome; and worship of

earthquakes; and the golden censer; and Laodicea; and the seventh bowl of wrath

Ecclesiastical History (Eusebius)

eclipses

ecological crisis

Eden; and cherubim; and the new creation; and the two trees

Edict of Milan,

education; and child abuse

Egypt; deliverance of Israel from; plagues of

Einstein, Albert

ekklēsia (Greek = ‘churches’)

elders, twenty-four; and the Lamb; and the multitude; and the reign of God ; and the throne of God

Elijah; and the Transfiguration; and the two witnesses; and the voice of God

Eliot, T. S.

Elisha

Elohim

Emmaus, Luke on the road to

environmental degradation

Ephesian Scrolls

Ephesians: and Paul; and repentance; and Timothy

Ephesus; contrast with Thyatira; and love

Ephesus, city of

Ephesus, letter to

epistemology

eschatological tension

eschatology

eternal universal gospel

ethics; see also morality

ethnic distinctions in the new creation

Euphrates: drying up of; and four angels

European Union (EU)

Eusebius of Caesarea

Eve

Eve and the serpent

evil; and Babylon; and forgiveness; and God’s omnipotence; and humanity; and the millennium; and prayer; and secularism; struggle against the powers of; see also darkness, powers of

evolutionary humanism

existence and meaning

Exporting the Rapture: John Nelson Darby and the Victorian conquest of North American Evangelicalism (Harman)

extraterrestrial intelligent life

eyes and a watching God

Ezekiel: and the four living creatures; and the Jerusalem Temple; and judgement; and measuring the Temple; and the scroll; and the Temple; and the throne

‘Ezekiel wheel’ patent

facial recognition and related technology

‘Fairest Lord Jesus, Ruler of all Nature’ (hymn)

faith; and the heavenly city; and judgement; and martyrdom; and the new creation; and overcoming; and reward; and salvation; and totalitarianism; and tribulation; the true foundation

Faithful and True rider on the white horse

faithful unto death and the crown of life

faithful witness

fake news

Fall, the; and deceit; and pride; and redemption; and salvation; and sin

false claims of the kingdom of God

false prophet; and sixth bowl of wrath; thrown into the lake of fire; and worship of the earth monster

famine

Fanning, Buist M.

fear and the great tribulation

fire: and judgement; and purging; see also lake of fire

first commandment, breaking of

first resurrection

firstfruits

fiscus Judaicus (Jewish tax)

Flood, the

food in the new Jerusalem

‘Food Offered to Idols: A Contemporary Issue’ (McPhail)

food sacrificed to idols; and Cambodia; and the Israelites

Forbes Magazine

forgiveness and evil

foundations and buildings

four quarters and winds

Frankenstein (Shelley)

Frankl, Viktor

free will; and deceit; and evil; and morality; and rejection of God; and responsibility

freedom; and the new heaven and earth; and responsibility; and totalitarianism

Freemasons

Frohnen, Bruce

Future Shock (Toffler)

futurism

Galen

gates of cities

Gaza

Gears of War (Xbox game)

Gee, Henry

Gehenna

gematria and names adding to 666

gender distinctions

Gentiles; and the gospel; and Jerusalem; and millennial reign of Christ

geometry

Gessen, Masha

Glass, Jennifer

global communication networks

Global Satellite Navigation System (GNSS)

global totalitarian empire; and Antichrist; and ASI; and despotism; and the earth monster; and the man of lawlessness; and social control

globalisation

glory of the Lord

God, Chance and Necessity (Ward)

God Delusion, The (Dawkins)

God’s Seed Project

Goebbels, Joseph

Gog

golden censer

Golem

Goliath

Gooding, David; and a ‘partial rapture’

Google

Gospel-writers and the four living creatures

government; and AI; of God; and light; and morality; of Satan and the monsters; and surveillance; and the throne

Govett, Robert

grace, gift of; and Ephesus; and Laodicea; and Paul; and transhumanism

grape harvest

Gray, John and transhumanism

great beasts, four and four kingdoms

Great Christ Comet, The: Revealing the true star of Bethlehem (Nicholl)

Great Divorce, The (Lewis)

great white throne and judgement

Greek Empire

Green, Revd. E. Michael B.

Groves, General Leslie R.

Guide to the End of the World, A (Lowman)

guilds and permissiveness

Haggai

Haidt, Jonathan

Hamas

Handel, George Frideric

happiness and transhumanism

Harari, Yuval Noah; on AI; on biometric bracelets; and Data Religion; on death; on human happiness

Harris, Sam

harvest

hate speech

Hawking, Stephen

He Is There and He Is Not Silent (Schaeffer)

heaven opened

heavenly city see new Jerusalem

Heaven’s Gate cult

Hebrew etymology

helicopters

Hemer, Colin J.

Herod the Great

Hierapolis

Hinduism; and Indian nationalism

Hinton, Geoffrey

historicist interpretation

history; and the churches; and God’s plan; and importance of Israel; and meaning; and prophecy; and the seven seals

Hitchens, Christopher

Hitler, Adolf

holiness of God

Holland, Tom

Holocaust, Nazi

Holy of Holies

Holy Place

Holy Roman Empire

Holy Spirit; and blasphemy against; and judgement; and martyrdom; and Mary; and Pentecost; and power; and prophecy; and regeneration; and the seven spirits; and Simeon; and witness

Homo Deus; and Christ; and the Fall; and futurism

Homo Deus: A brief history of tomorrow (Harari)

Honest to God Debate (1963)

horns as a symbol of power

horns of the Lamb

horsemen, four

House of God

‘How Artificial Super-Intelligence Is Today’s Tower of Babel’ (Ng)

‘How Great Thou Art!’ (hymn)

‘How long, O Lord?’

‘How Worried Should We Be about the Rise of the AI “Monster”’ (Sellman)

Hoxha, Enver

human rights

humanism as religion

humanity: future of; and gender; and Jesus; and number 666

Hume, David

Hurfurt, Jake

Huxley, Aldous

Huxley, Julian

Huxley, Thomas Henry

Hydra constellation

hypocrisy

‘Idea of a Christian Society, The’ (Eliot)

idealist interpretation

idolatry; and AI; and Babylon; and the earth monster; and Israel; and judgement; and political figures; rejection of; and Rome; and Satan

Illich, Ivan

imagery; and Babylon and Rome; and the grape harvest; and the Lamb; and locusts; and the Lord’s day; and monstrous animals; and prophecy; and the shepherd; and vision

imagination; and metaphor and symbols; and revelation; and vision

Imaginative Conservative, The (Frohnen)

immorality see sexual immorality

immortality

incense and prayer

inspiration and vision

intelligibility of creation

intercession and prayer

intermediate kingdom; and Ezekiel’s temple; and the new heaven and earth

Irenæus; and Antichrist; and the millennium

‘Is Babylon Once Again Rising from the Ashes?’ (Rosenberg)

Isaac

Islam

Israel: and the 144,000; annual festivals; and Armageddon; as bride of God; geopolitics and prophecy; and God’s promises; and the great tribulation; and the kingdom of God; list of tribes; and the new Jerusalem; and the rapture; restoration of; and salvation; Satan’s attempts to destroy; and the Second Coming

Jackson, Peter

Jacob, Leah and Rachel

Jacob’s dream at Bethel

James, William

Jenkins, Jerry B.

Jeremiah

Jerusalem; and Abraham; and Babylon; and the battles against the nations; and the church at Antioch; and Ezekiel’s visions; and the great tribulation; liberation of and the Messiah; measuring of; and the millennium; trampling of; see also new Jerusalem

Jewish Encyclopedia

Jewish heritage and ethnicity

Jews: and opposition to the gospel; and rejection of the Messiah; and the Roman Empire; and salvation; and the universal gospel; see also 144,000 sealed for protection; Babylonian exile

‘Jews and the Imperial Cult: From Augustus to Domitian’ (McLaren)

Jezebel; and idolatry; and paganism

Joash, King of Israel

Job

Joel

John, identity of

John the Baptist

Jones, Peter

Jonestown massacre

Josephus

Joshua

Judah

Judaism; and apocalypse; Orthodox and Reform beliefs about the Messiah; Orthodox and Reform beliefs on the Messiah; and rejection of the Messiah

Judas

judgement; and accountability; and Armageddon; and the armies of heaven; and authority; and Babylon; of believers and unbelievers; and the bowls of wrath; and chronology of events prophesied; and the coming of God; and darkness; and the dead; and fire; and the four winds; and the great white throne; and the harvest; and the Holy Spirit; and idolatry; and impartiality; increasing in intensity; and Jesus; and merit; and the millennium; and the natural world; and the new Jerusalem; and order; and powers of darkness; and praise; and prayers; and punishment; and the rainbow; and reward; and the second death; and the seven seals; and the seven trumpets; and the Son of Man; and unrepentance; and vengeance; and war; and the Word of God; and the words of Revelation; and the world empire; and the wrath of God

Jung, Carl and astrology

justice; and atheism; and evil; and martyrs; and prayer; and punishment

Justin Martyr

Kant, Immanuel

Kass, Leon

Kepler, Johannes

key of David

Khruschev, Nikita

kidneys and emotional life

Kind, Amy

kingdom of God; and the crucifixion and resurrection; and earthly authority and power; and government; and Jesus; and Roman imperial cult; and rulership; spiritual dimension of; and the trial of Jesus; two phase establishment

kings, seven, and their kingdoms

kings, ten: defeat of; identity of; and the monster; and their successor

kings and the new Jerusalem

knowledge and revelation

Kohler, Kaufmann

kolasis (Greek = ‘punishment’)

kosmos (Greek = ‘world’)

Kulak, Avron

Kushner, Harold

Ladd, G. E.

LaHaye, Tim

lake of fire; and the second death

Lal, Deepak

Lamb, the; and the 144,000; and his bride; and ransoming the people; and the redeemed; and redemption; and the scroll; and the seven horns; and the seven seals; and the seven spirits of God; and the seventh seal; as shepherd; slaughtered and raised again; and the throne; and the uncountable multitude; and wrath; see also blood of the Lamb; bride of the Lamb; marriage of the Lamb; song of the Lamb

lampstands, seven golden; and the Son of Man; as symbols of the churches

lampstands, two, and the two witnesses

Laodicea, city of

Laodicea, letter to; and authority

‘Laodicean Lukewarmness, The’ (Green and Rudwick)

Lash, Nicholas

Lau, David Baruch

lavers and ceremonial washing

lawlessness; see also man of lawlessness

laws of nature

Lazarus

Lea, Thomas D.

Leah and her sons

Left Behind (Jenkins and LaHaye)

Legion

Lenin

letters to the seven churches; common themes; and contemporary relevance; and history; and the new man; and Old Testament references; see also churches by name

Letters to the Seven Churches of Asia in Their Local Setting, The (Hemer)

Levi

Lewis, C. S.; and Antichrist; and Aslan’s song; and death; and despotism; and free will; and glory; and history; and metaphor and symbols; and Narnia; and rejection of God; and Satan; and a shadowland; and the supernatural

lex talionis

licence and immorality

life

Life 3.0 (Tegmark)

light; and government; and the new creation; and the Son of Man; sources of; and the throne

Light of the World

Light of the World, The (painting) (Hunt)

Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, The (Lewis)

Lion of Judah, the

literalism and scripture; and heaven; and the new Jerusalem; and the seven seals

literary structure of Revelation; chiastic structure; general themes; letter to Laodicea; letter to Philadelphia; letter to the church of Ephesus; letter to Thyatira; and the seven trumpets; symmetry in the letters; see also textual divisions

‘Live Not by Lies’ (Solzhenitsyn)

living creatures, four; and the bowls of wrath; and the four horsemen; and the Lamb

locusts

Logos

logotherapy

London School of Economics (LSE)

Lord of the Rings, The (Tolkien)

Lord’s day, the

Lord’s prayer

Lord’s Supper

Lot

loutron (Greek = ‘washing’)

Lowman, Pete

Luther, Martin on Revelation

luxury goods

Lydia

lying and deceit; and the 144,000; and AI; and Babylon; and global communication networks; and Satan; and the sixth bowl of wrath

machine intelligence

MacMillan, Margaret

magic

Magician’s Nephew, The (Lewis)

man of lawlessness; and the number of the beast; and the sea monster; and the ten kings

Mandaville, Peter

manna

Man’s Search for Meaning (Frankl)

Marche, Stephen

Marcus, Gary

Marcuse, Herbert

Marduk

mark of the beast; and first bowl of wrath; judgement on those who take it

marketplace and human souls

marriage

marriage of the Lamb; and judgement; and the new Jerusalem; and the rapture; see also bride of the Lamb

Martin, Ciaran

martyrdom; contemporary; and the millennium; and prayer

Marx, Karl

Mary

massacre of the innocents

Master and His Emissary, The (McGilchrist)

material wealth and spirituality

materialism–naturalism

mathematicians and Revelation

Matter with Things, The: Our brains, our delusions, and the unmaking of the world (McGilchrist)

May, Robert McCredie, Baron of Oxford

McArthur, Neil

McGilchrist, Iain

McGillivray, Ashleigh

McLaren, James

McPhail, Forrest

meaning, search for

measuring

Medawar, Sir Peter

Megiddo

Megoran, Nick

memory and regret

mental health and digital technology

messengers, angelic

Messiah, The (Handel)

messianic expectation; and the ascension; and contemporary Jews; and the crucifixion and resurrection; and the Jerusalem Temple; and the kingdom of God; and the liberation of Jerusalem; and the millennium

Messianic Jews

messianic prophecy

metaphor; and harvest; and Laodicean lukewarmness; and literalism; and meaning; and the throne; and washing; and witness

meteorites

Michael, archangel

Middle Eastern geopolitics and prophecy

midrash and the Temple

millennial reign of Christ; and end of millennium war with Satan; nature of; and prophecy; and the unregenerate

millennium, the

miracles

mirrors and reflection

Mishneh Torah

Moabites

monstrous animals

Montanists and the new Jerusalem

Montanus heresy

morality: and atheism; and free will; and judgement; and nations; and relativism; see also ethics

Morgenthau, Hans

morning star

Moses; and the Nile turning to blood; and parting the sea; and the restoration of Israel; and the Transfiguration; and the two witnesses

Moses, song of

Moses Maimonides

Motyer, Alec

Mounce, Robert H.

Mount Zion

mourning

Mouw, Richard J.

Murray, Douglas

Musk, Elon

myrrh

mystical experiences

mythology and the modern world

name that no one knows

names

Napier, John

narcissism

Narnia

Nathanael and Jesus

nations and animal symbols

natural phenomena and supernatural intervention

natural world

Nazism; see also Holocaust, Nazi

Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon; and astrology; and idolatry; and the kingdom of God; and persecution; and power

neopaganism

Nero; and number 666

Nerva

neuroscience

New Atheists

new heaven and earth

new Jerusalem; as bride; construction materials; and its walls and gates; and light; material nature of; measurements of; as the new Eden; and tabernacling of God and the Lamb; and those denied access; and thrones of God and the Lamb; and trees

new man

Newberg, Andrew

Newman, Cardinal John Henry

Newton, Isaac

Newton, John

Ng, Joanna

Nicholl, Colin

Nicodemus

Nicolaitans

Nietzsche, Friedrich

night

nikao (Greek = ‘conquer’)

Nile turned to blood

Nineveh

Noah

non-material world

nuclear weapons

Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St. John (Newton)

occult, the

Odoacer

‘Of God and Machines’ (Marche)

Old Testament references in the letters

olive trees

Olivet discourse of Jesus; and Antiochus; and dissolution of the universe; and fall of Jerusalem; and judgement; and the second coming; and the throne; and tribulation

open door imagery

Open Doors organisation

order in the universe

Ordway, Holly

Origen and millennialism

Orwell, George

Osborne, Grant R.

‘P115 and the Number of the Beast’ (Williams)

paedophilia

pagan gods; Babylonian; and Freemasonry; and idolatry; and Pergamum; and Rome; see also Artemis (Diana); Baal-Melkart

paganism; and Balaam; and modern culture; and permissiveness; see also Roman religion and imperial cult

Pagans and Christians in the City: Culture wars from the Tiber to the Potomac (Smith)

Palm Sunday

Papias, bishop of Hieropolis

parable of the widow and the unjust judge

parental authority

Parker, Charlie

Parthians

Passover

Passover lamb

Patmos

patriarchs and the heavenly city

Paul: and authority; conversion of; and Corinth; and Ephesus; and faith; and Gentiles; and idolatry; and Jews; and judgement; and martyrdom; and the new Jerusalem; and powers of darkness; and resurrection; and the second coming; and shipwreck; and wealth; and wrath of God

Paul, Ian

Pausanius

Pentecost

Pergamum (Pergamon), city of

Pergamum, letter to; and the exodus

persecution; contemporary; and Diocletian; and Israel in Egypt; and the Roman Empire

personal behaviour and judgement

Pharisees and Jesus

Philadelphia (Alasehir)

Philadelphia, letter to; and Old Testament references

philosophical questions

‘Physics and Reality’ (Einstein)

physics and the new creation

Pike, James

Pilate, Pontius; and trial of Jesus

Pius XII

plagues, seven

Plaine Discovery of the Whole Revelation of Saint John (Napier)

Platonism and beauty

Pliny the Younger

politics

Polybius

Polycarp

polytheism

pornē (Greek = ‘prostitute’)

pornography

‘post truth’ world

Postman, Neil

postmillennialism

prayer

preaching the gospel

premillennial theory

present, the, and the future

preterist interpretation

pride; and Babel; and Babylon; and Nebuchadnezzar; and prayer; and Satan

priests, kingdom of

Priscilla and Aquila

Problem of Pain, The (Lewis)

profiteering and religious leaders

prophecy: and allegory; and Armageddon; and astrology; and the bitter-sweet scrolls; and the blessed; and the crucifixion and resurrection; and eschatology; and fulfilment; and future events; and interpretation; and Jerusalem; and judgements; keeping of; and the kingdom of God; messianic; and the millennium; and revelation; and the second coming; and truth; and the two comings of Christ; and Zion

Prophecy of Isaiah, The: An introduction and commentary (Motyer)

prophetic foreshortening

prostitution; Israel and Babylon

Protestantism

psychological defence mechanisms

Ptolemies

punishment; and the devil; and the great tribulation

purification of self; and expectation of the second coming

Putin, Vladimir

race and redemption

Rachel

Rachman, Gideon

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) chips

rainbows

rapture, the; partial

Rational Response Squad (RRS)

rationality and supernatural revelation

reading aloud

reading and digital technology

reality

reason and revelation

redemption; and creation; and history; and the Lamb

reductionism and reality

re-education centres, Chinese

Rees, Martin

regeneration; and washing

relationships in the new creation

relativism and morality

religion: and AI; and politics; and science

‘Religious Power Brokers and Growing Intolerance in Indonesia’ (Arifianto)

religious violence

repentance: and the day of God’s wrath; and the Ephesians; and forgiveness; lack of; and the millennium; and punishment; and time

replacement theology

responsibility

restoration

resurrection bodies

resurrection of Jesus; and the millennium; and prophecy; and repentance; and the restoration of Israel

resurrection of the body and millennialism

resurrection of the dead; and judgement; and a ‘partial rapture’; and the rapture; and reuniting of people; and the saints; and their place

Reuben

revelation: and knowledge; mechanism of; and prophecy; response to

‘Revelation (Book of)’ (Toy and Kaufmann)

Revelation (Fanning)

Revelation (Osborne)

Ribeira, Franciscus

Ridley, Matt

righteousness, rewards of in the new Jerusalem

River Out of Eden: A Darwinian view of life (Dawkins)

rod of iron, ruling with

Roma, goddess

Romaika (Dio)

Roman Catholic Church; and Babylon; and French Enlightenment

Roman Empire; and client kings; and divinising emperors; fall of; and Jews; and lawlessness; and persecution of Christians; and polytheism; and poverty; and prophecy; and the sea monster; and the seven kings

Roman religion and imperial cult; and Christians; and Ephesus; gods and heroes; and the Lamb; and Pergamum; and politics; and Smyrna

Rome

Rome and the beast

Roosevelt, Franklin D.

Rosenberg, Joel

Roux, Georges

Rudwick, M. J. S.

rule of God; and the kingdom

Russell, Stuart

Russian Orthodox Church

Russian–Ukrainian war

Sacks, Lord Jonathan

Saddam Hussein

Saggs, Henry W. F.

saints, reign of

salvation; and false religion; and the incarnation of Christ; and Israel; and Jerusalem; and justification by faith; and the new Jerusalem; and race; rejection of; and repentance; and the throne; and the uncountable multitude; and the Word of God; and wrath of God

Samaritans, problem with

sanctuary of the tent of witness in heaven

Sarah and Hagar

Sardis, city of

Sardis, letter to; and Old Testament references; and tribulation

Satan; and artificial gods; belief in; binding of; and Christ; and faith; and the Fall; god of this world; and Jews; and Job; and the lake of fire; and the man of lawlessness; and the occult; overcome by the blood of the Lamb; and Pergamum; and power; released after the millennium; and the sea monster; and ‘self-accusation’; and the war in heaven; and wealth

Satanism

Satan’s army

Satan’s throne

scarlet beast and woman of Babylon; and international power; and the seven heads; symbolism of the seventh head; and the ten horns; and the ten kings

Schaeffer, Francis

Schneider, John Robert

Schreiner, Thomas

science, and scripture

science and religion; dangers of conflating; and the future of humanity; and the new heaven and earth

‘Science: The Religion That Must Not Be Questioned’ (Gee)

scientism

Screwtape Letters, The (Lewis)

scripture and inference

scroll eaten by John

scroll with seven seals; and the Lamb

Scruton, Sir Roger

sea monster with ten horns and seven heads; and Daniel’s vision; and Diocletian; and intelligence; and its mortal wound; and the man of lawlessness; and religion; see also earth monster with two horns; scarlet beast and woman of Babylon

Sea of Galilee

sea of glass

seals, seven; opening of the sixth; who is worthy to open them; see also seventh seal

Sebastoi, temple of the at Ephesus

second coming of Christ; and amillennialism; and ascension; and celestial phenomena; and chronology of events prophesied; events preceding; and expectation; and false teachers; and the intermediate kingdom; and judgement; and the marriage of the Lamb; and messianic expectation; and millennial reign; and opening of heaven; and the rapture; and redemption; and the restoration of Israel; and resurrection; and time; and Transfiguration

‘Second Coming, The’ (Yeats)

second death see death, second

Second World War

secrecy

secularism

Seiss, J. A.

self-accusation syndrome

self-deification

Sellman, Mark

semeion (Greek = ‘signs’)

serpent of Eden

sevens in Revelation

seventh seal; and silence

sex in the Roman Empire

sex scandals and the contemporary Church

sexual immorality; and Babylon; and cultural Marxism; and denial of salvation; and Jezebel; see also pornography

sexual violence

Shaer, May

sheep and goats, parable of

Sheol/Hades

Short Story of Antichrist, A (Solovyov)

silence in heaven

Simeon and the Christ child

Simon/Peter

sin; banished in the new creation; and the Fall; and Jezebel; and lack of trust in God; and the Lamb; and lawlessness; and punishment; and relativism

Singer, Peter

Smart, J. D.

smartphones

Smith, Stephen D.

Smithsonian Magazine

smoke

Smyrna, city of

Smyrna, letter to; and letter to Philadelphia; and persecution

social control

‘social credit system’ (SoCS)

social media

society and religion

Socratic approach to literature

Sodom and Egypt

Sodom and Gomorrah

Solomon

Solovyov, Vladimir

Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr

Son of Man; and the angel wrapped in cloud; and clouds of heaven; and delegation; and eternal punishment; and glory; and the harvest; and imperial gods; and judgement; and the kingdom of God; and the seven churches; and the seven golden lampstands; and symbols

song of the Lamb

Sophia

Soviet Union

spirit, being in the

spirits, seven

SPQR: A history of Ancient Rome (Beard)

Stalin, Joseph

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Star Trek

Starry Night (van Gogh)

stars, seven

stars in scripture

Stephen, martyrdom of

storms

structural analysis of Revelation

study of scripture

Suetonius

suffering; abolition of; and Christ; eternal for worshippers of the beast; and the great tribulation; and judgement; and persecution; and prayer; and sin; and the Smyrna church

superintelligence: and machines; and self-glory; and transhumans; and world domination

supernatural dimension in religion; and atheism; and death; denial of; and Honest to God Debate; and natural causes in miracles; and physical phenomena; and prophecy; and Protestantism; and scripture; and the two witnesses

surveillance systems; and databases; and totalitarianism

‘Survey of the Doctrine of the Return of Christ in the Ante-Nicene Fathers, A’ (Lea)

sword symbolism

symbolic language and prophecy

symbolism

symbols; and aesthetic effect; animals and empires; and astronomy; and Babylon; and destruction of cities; and doctrine; and the Lamb; locusts and war; and millennialism; and monstrous animals; and numbers; and the rainbow; and reality; and the seven seals; and the seven trumpets; and Sodom and Egypt; waters and Babylon’s international power; and the white horse

synagogue of Satan

tabernacle; and God dwelling among his people; and mirrors; and prayers for Israel

Tabernacles

Taoism

taxation in the Roman Empire

Taylor, Charles

technology: and the future of humanity; and prophetic visions; and scripture; and transhumanism

Tegmark, Max

teleology and history

Temple, the; destruction of; and Ezekiel; and the messianic era; as metaphor for believers; and the new Jerusalem; and the second coming; and Simeon; and Zerubbabel

temple in heaven

Temple of All Religions, Kazan, Russia

Temple of Solomon

Temple Scroll

temptation of Christ

Ten Commandments

ten horns of the scarlet beast

Tertullian

textual divisions; table of six parts

That Hideous Strength: how the West was Lost (Tinker)

That Hideous Strength (Lewis)

theodicy

theological liberalism

Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament

Theology for Pilgrims (Lash)

thought control

throne of God; and the four living creatures; and its occupant; and the new Jerusalem; and power; and sound; and Spirit of God; and the twenty-four elders; and the uncountable multitude; see also ark of the covenant

throne of the beast

Thyatira, city of

Thyatira, letter to; and love; and Old Testament references

Tiberius

time: and Christ’s coming; and eternity; and judgement; and prophecy; and trampling of Jerusalem

time of the end; and Babylon; and destruction of Jerusalem; and Ezekiel’s valley of dry bones; and rebuilding the Temple; and the world empire

Tinker, Melvin

Titus, son of Vespasian

Toffler, Alvin

Tolkien, J. R. R.

Tomorrow’s World: A scientist looks at the book of Revelation (Clark)

torches of fire, seven

totalitarianism

Toy, Crawford Howell

Trajan and persecution of Christians

Transfiguration

transhumanism; and becoming godlike; and computer technology; and the Fall; and Homo Deus; and sin; and superhumans

‘Transhumanist FAQ, The; A General Introduction’ (Bostrom)

transmission, train of, and revelation

tree of knowledge of good and evil

tree of life; and the lampstand; and the new Jerusalem

trial of Jesus

tribulation, the great; and Diocletian; and Israel; and prophecy; and the rapture

Trinitarian nature of God

trumpets, seven; and judgement

trust in God, necessity for

truth: and AI; and Christ; denial of; and digital technology; and neuroscience; and relativism; and revelation

Turner, David L.

twenty-four elders see elders, twenty-four

Two Towers, The (film)

two witnesses in Jerusalem

two-age paradigm

Tyrannus, hall of and Paul’s teaching

Tyre

Tyson, Graham

Uighur population of China, persecution of

uncountable multitude before the throne

UNESCO and Babylon

United Kingdom and CCTV surveillance

United Methodist Hymnal, The

United Nations (UN)

universal despotism and anarchy

universe, dissolution of

unrepentant dead and suffering

US President and Antichrist

USA and fundamentalist religion

van Gogh, Vincent

Varieties of Religious Experience, The (James)

vengeance

Vespasian

Victorinus

Vienna, siege of 1683

vineyards

virginity and the 144,000

Virgo constellation

virtual reality games

vision, spiritual

voice of God

volcanic eruptions

Voltaire

walking on water

walking with the Lord

war

war in heaven

Ward, Keith

washing

water

water of life

water turned to blood: second and third bowls

Waymeyer, Matt

We (Zamyatin)

wedding at Cana

weddings and wedding garments

weeping

‘Weight of Glory, The’ (Lewis)

Wells, H. G.

Wesley, Charles

wheels and the throne

When the Kings Come Marching in: Isaiah and the new Jerusalem (Mouw)

white garments

white horse and its rider

white stone, the

‘Why Aren’t We Paying Attention? Religion and Politics in Everyday Life’ (Glass)

‘Why Technology Favors Tyranny’ (Harari)

Williams, Peter J.

Wilson, E. O.

winds from the four quarters

witness

woes for earth-dwellers

woman clothed with the sun, moon and twelve stars; flight into the wilderness

Word made flesh

word of God; and creation; and disobedience; and salvation and judgement; and speaking in tongues; and sword symbolism

words and communication

world government

world religion, impossibility of

Wormwood

worship; and AI; and angels; and the earth monster; of evil; and idolatry; and judgement; and the new Jerusalem; and Satan; and the scarlet beast; and the sea monster; and the Ten Commandments; and the twenty-four elders

worthiness and opening the seven seals

wrath of God; and glory; nature of; and salvation; and seven plagues; and wine press imagery

Wright, N. T.

Xi Jinping

Yeats, W. B.

Zamyatin, Yevgeny

Zechariah

Zephaniah

Zerubbabel

Zeus, altar to at Pergamum

ziggurat of Babylon

Zion

zōa (Greek = ‘living beings’)

First published in Great Britain in 2025

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