Ted Grimsrud

7. Theology by numbers (Revelation 7:1-17)

[This is the seventh in a series of posts summarizing the message of the book of Revelation.  I have been writing on Revelation off and on for a long time. My intent with this project is to write a new book applying Revelation’s message to our modern world.]

Two types of symbols

The book of Revelation is full of numbers. Clearly, they have symbolic meaning. But there are different kinds of symbols. We can break symbols into two categories: specific symbols and general symbols. With specific symbols, one particular meaning is meant by the symbol. Like with the American flag—the thirteen stripes symbolize the original thirteen colonies and the fifty stars symbolize the current fifty states.

With general symbols, the meanings are much broader, more dynamic and subjective. Think again of the American flag—what does the flag itself symbolize? Tons of things. Democracy, religious freedom, the destination for many of our ancestors fleeing trouble—and, empire, war-making, global domination, hypocrisy.

I think the numbers in Revelation work both ways—some symbolize specific things, others are more general. Without explaining why right now, I suggest that “666” and “7” are two examples of general symbols—7 having to do with wholeness in a broad sense, applied in different ways in different settings; and 666 having to do with a general sense of humanity resisting the wholeness of God’s shalom (the “6” meaning just short of the “7”, intensified by being repeated three times). On the other hand, I believe that 144,000 is a specific symbol. It has one particular meaning. And it is one of Revelation’s most important numbers.

Continue reading “What does the book of Revelation say? (part 7)” →

Ted Grimsrud

5. What is God like? (Revelation 4:1–5:14)

[This is the fifth in a series of posts summarizing the message of the book of Revelation.  I have been writing on Revelation off and on for a long time. My intent with this project is to write a new book applying Revelation’s message to our modern world.]

My sense with Revelation is that most people start to read it with the assumption that Revelation’s God is violent and judgmental. This assumption can lead some Christians to be happy. There are others who also might agree with the God-as-violent-judge reading of Revelation—but for these such a picture of God is a good reason to reject Christianity altogether. If this is what the Christian God is like, forget about it.

Well, we do have other options, starting with taking the vision at the heart of the book seriously.

Revelation chapters four and five contain one vision. This is a vision, we could say, of a worship service. It begins with the twenty-four elders worshiping, then moves to the four living creatures, and then to the central focus, the Lamb taking the scroll from the One on the throne’s right hand. Then the service kind of repeats itself with more worship that ends with the living creatures and finally back to the elders. This movement from the elders to the four living creatures and then back emphasizes the point in the middle. If we want to learn about God from this vision, we must center our attention on the high point of the worship service. In the middle is the shocking revelation that the Lamb defines God’s self-revelation.

Jesus’s divinity, properly understood

The first scene of the heavenly vision centers on the one on the throne. However, this character is never physically described—evidence, actually, that indeed the One is God. The surroundings make this clear: the throne, the worship by all creation. This vision of power echoes the claims for the god-emperor of Rome. But there is no hint here of anger or judgment, only joy and celebration. This is the true God, comparable to the emperor but profoundly different. That is, the true God and the emperor are rivals. You cannot divide your loyalty between the two, Revelation insists.

The difference becomes even more clear as the vision proceeds. When read as a whole, the most remarkable element of this vision is how the One on the throne and the Lamb are seen together. Both receive the same worship. And it is only the Lamb who can open the One on the throne’s scroll.

This vision underlies the Christian affirmation of Jesus’s divinity. Jesus, the Lamb, stands on the same level as the One on the throne. However, with tragic and ironic consequences, Christians have tended to misunderstand this affirmation. Jesus as linked with the One on the throne all too often becomes a kind of supernatural “Christ”—separate from the vulnerability and peaceableness of the Lamb image.

Continue reading “What does the book of Revelation say? (part 5)” →

Ted Grimsrud

[This is the fourth in a series of posts summarizing the message of the book of Revelation.  I have been writing on Revelation off and on for a long time. My intent with this project is to write a new book applying Revelation’s message to our modern world.]

4. Weakness in power (Revelation 3:1-22)

We may read Revelation as a book of conflicts—the Beast vs. the Lamb, the Holy Spirit vs. the False Prophet, Babylon vs. the New Jerusalem. The question is: Who is more powerful? Which is actually the question: What kind of power is more powerful —the power to conquer through domination or the power to conquer through self-giving love? 

The seven messages that make up chapters two and three, the first of Revelation’s many visions, set the book’s agenda. In my last post, I discussed “power in weakness”—how the little church in Smyrna, besieged, suffering persecution, with little visible power, actually was praised above all the other churches and proclaimed to be rich indeed. Here, I will focus on “weakness in power”—how the big church in Laodicea, wealthy, comfortable, lacking in nothing, actually was condemned above all the other churches and proclaimed to be “wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.”

Empire in Revelation

In these messages, the Roman Empire is everywhere. Each of the seven cities was a center for devotion to the Empire—shrines, temples, monuments. The various strengths and weaknesses in the congregations that the messages speak to are in some sense related to how the congregations navigate being in the midst of empire.

Smyrna and Philadelphia are both small, struggling, fragile congregations. They suffer in large part because their people refused to go along with the Empire’s civil religion, even at the cost of their jobs or more. Thyatira and Pergamum have many who resist bending the knee to Rome. But these congregations also have within them strong voices for going along. Now, in chapter three, we encounter two congregations where the struggle seems to be about over. Sardis has the appearance of being alive, but is actually dead. And Laodicea….

It is no accident that the message to the congregation in Laodicea is the last of the seven. Here, what we see is that the church has, in a genuine sense, actually become Rome. The Laodicean congregation has absorbed the values of Empire so totally that there is no longer any resistance. The Laodicean Christians simply parrot the language of the Empire.

How does the Laodicean church understand itself? “I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing” (3:17). How does the Roman Empire, in Revelation shown as a great harlot, understand itself? “I rule as a queen; I am no widow, and I will never see grief” (17:7). In both cases, in the visions of Revelation, these smug affirmations of self-sufficiency and autonomy, are turned upside down. The powerful are shown to be weak. Continue reading “What does the book of Revelation say? (part 4)” →

Ted Grimsrud

[This is the third in a series of posts summarizing the message of the book of Revelation.  I have been writing on Revelation off and on for a long time. My intent with this project is to write a new book applying Revelation’s message to our modern world.]

3. Power in weakness (Revelation 2:1-29)

Chapters 2 and 3 in the book of Revelation contain messages to seven churches in cities in the northeastern corner of the Mediterranean. We don’t usually think of these as the key to understanding the visions that follow. I think that’s what they are, though. The seven messages are, you could say, instructions for understanding the rest of the book.

Living in empire

John’s main concern is with how the people in the churches will negotiate living in the Roman Empire—the visions that follow will in their own creative ways repeat what John conveys here: confrontation to those who too easily find themselves at ease in Babylon and comfort to those who seek to follow the Lamb and suffer because of that.

The reference in the message to Smyrna (2:8-11) seems to pit Christians against Jews. But that is not actually the case. John and other Christians thought of themselves as Jews. The conflict here is not between Christians and non-Christians but between two different ways of envisioning being the people of God. What was at stake was their attitude toward the empire. This charge of being a “synagogue of Satan” has to do with being too tight with the empire, which is linked elsewhere in Revelation with the Dragon, that is, Satan.

Pergamum is where “Satan’s throne” is (2:13)—a major regional center for emperor worship. In John’s view, the Roman Empire is a force for evil in the world, not a representative of the true God as it claimed. The empire sought to separate believers from God, probably most fundamentally by its ideology of power as domination. Rome was ruthless; nations and peoples who did not go along were crushed. Witness the thousands of Jews who were crucified by the empire before and after Jesus’ execution.

“Fornication” (2:20) is an old prophetic metaphor for when the community of faith turned from the ways of Torah and trusted in idols. To “commit fornication” in this figurative way is to forget the calls to justice, compassion, care for those in need—to forget that true worship is to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God.

What’s at stake in these messages is the politics of empire versus the politics of the Kingdom of God. To which vision of ways humans relate to one another will those in the churches commit themselves?

The empire’s threat to faith

John is deeply concerned with the powerful currents in his culture that push believers to forget Jesus’ way of being in the world. The empire gives the message that it represents the gods. Because of this its power is to be feared and accepted as definitive. The villains in the messages to the seven churches, though, are not the beast and dragon so much as people in the churches who advocate cooperation with empire.

Continue reading “What does the book of Revelation say? (part 3)” →

Ted Grimsrud

[For the past two years, one of the projects I have been working on is an updated take on the book of Revelation. I have preached a series of sermons at Shalom Mennonite Congregation that is nearing its completion. The next step (between November and next July) will be to expand the sermons by thinking more about how Revelation directly speaks to our present day, especially for those of us living in the United States. I hope to have at least one book that results from this work. As preparation for the sermon finale November 17, I will put up a series of posts that highlight the main points of each sermon. I have been writing on Revelation off and on for a long time. This time through is reinforcing much of what I have seen before, but with some new insights that help me to see Revelation as even more helpful and radical than I had perceived earlier.]

2. A revelation about Jesus (1:1-20)

The book of Revelation forces the reader to answer some basic questions about how to approach it. Is Revelation mainly predictions about the future or exhortation for first century believers? Is it better read in relation to other, non-biblical writings in the so-called apocalyptic genre or read in relation to the New Testament? Are the plagues in Revelation from God or from the Beast?

Maybe the most important choice comes right away. When the first words of the book tell us this is a “revelation of Jesus Christ” do they mean a revelation from Jesus or a revelation about Jesus? Either reading is possible. Maybe we should see both as being intended. But I think we still have to choose which meaning to emphasize more; our choice will be important.

To emphasize more “a revelation from Jesus” may set a tone of distance between Jesus and the visions that follow. This distance makes it easier to see Jesus as describing terrible judgment that God visits upon the earth—and Revelation as a fear-inducing book.

To emphasize more “a revelation about Jesus” may lead to seeing Jesus as more directly involved in the visions; they reveal Jesus, not what Jesus describes. This is my choice: This book is most of all a revelation about Jesus that gives a vision of how compassion might work in our violent world. Such a choice of how to read Revelation will, I believe, open our imaginations to find in the wild and wooly visions of Revelation help for our healing work.

Jesus is very, very powerful

If I had to say it in a nutshell, I think Revelation’s first chapter means to tell us that Jesus is very, very powerful. He is powerful in relation to the nations (“the ruler of the kings of the earth,” “on his account all the tribes of the earth will wail”). He is powerful in relation to the churches with a loud, loud voice, holding the angels of the churches and walking among the churches themselves. He holds the keys to death and Hades. Continue reading “What does the book of Revelation say? (part 2)” →

Ted Grimsrud

[For the past two years, one of the projects I have been working on is an updated take on the book of Revelation. I have preached a series of sermons at Shalom Mennonite Congregation that is nearing its completion. The next step (between November and next July) will be to expand the sermons by thinking more about how Revelation directly speaks to our present day, especially for those of us living in the United States. I hope to have at least one book that results from this work. As preparation for the sermon finale November 17, I will put up a series of posts that highlight the main points of each sermon. I have been writing on Revelation off and on for a long time. This time through is reinforcing much of what I have seen before, but with some new insights that help me to see Revelation as even more helpful and radical than I had perceived earlier.]

1. The Twenty-First Century According to Revelation (Introduction)

What an interesting time to think about the Book of Revelation. Contrary to Revelation’s cultured despisers, and contrary to the Left Behinders, and contrary to the timid and fearful people in the pew who simply think Revelation is too scary and confusing to be worth paying attention to—I believe that Revelation provides extraordinary insights for those of us who want to respond creatively (and peaceably) to the spiral of violence all too apparent in our world right now.

In this introductory post, I propose one element of Revelation to be especially relevant: Revelation’s vision of worship. I have boiled Revelation down to six short paragraphs. Read them now and imagine how Revelation might speak to our violent world.

Revelation in six paragraphs

The revelation of Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, firstborn of the dead, and ruler of the kings of the earth. To the church at Philadelphia, “I know you have little power, yet you have kept my word and not denied my name. Because of your steadfast endurance, I will make you a pillar in God’s temple.” And to the church at Laodicea, “You say, ‘I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing. You do not realize that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.”

I saw the right hand of the one seated on the throne holding a scroll. I began to weep because no one could open this scroll. But I was told, do not weep, the Lion of the tribe of Judah can open the scroll. Then I saw a Lamb standing as if it had been slain. He went and took the scroll from the one who was seated on the throne. The creatures and multitudes from all the nations cry out: “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain.” Continue reading “What does the book of Revelation say? (part 1)” →