Vindication (Revelation, chapters 17–22)

Ted Grimsrud—August 11, 2023

[This is the fourth in a series of four posts on the book of Revelation. The first is “Reading Revelation with an Anabaptist Sensibility.” The second is “The pattern of Jesus (Revelation, chapters 1–5).” The third is “Healing amidst the chaos (Revelation, chapters 6–16).” ]

I believe that one of the key points that Revelation consistently makes is that the victory of God has already been won—this is emphasized most clearly in the vision in chapter 5 of the Lamb who takes the scroll. However, the book nonetheless does play along with the idea that there still is something important to come. It does have a forward movement and a sense of culmination at the end. As we finish our look at Revelation in this post, I want to discuss two visions that portray some sort of final conflict (the judgment of Babylon in chapters 17 and 18 and the “battle” with the Rider on the white horse in chapter 19), and then end by looking at the end of the book, the vision of New Jerusalem.

The judgment of “Babylon” (17:1–18:24)

The visions in chapters 17–18 focus on the destruction of the city of the “destroyers of the earth” alluded to 11:18, where we read that the time has arrived to destroy those who destroy the earth. I think this sense of movement in the plot of Revelation leading up to the visions in 17–18 is meant to give a sense of how God is involved with the world, including overcoming the evil Powers and bringing healing. The destroyers of the earth are who God takes on, not the earth itself. The natural world in Revelation is the object of healing love—including human beings. Revelation makes a clear distinction between the evil Powers and the human beings who affiliate with them.

Chapters 17 and 18 portray how “great Babylon” (16:19) is taken down. We need to read these visions carefully to see that evil Powers are punished, not evil people. “Babylon” refers to the human city as organized against God. It is closely affiliated with the Beast, and hence, the Dragon, but not identical with it. For John, the Beast was seen in the Roman Empire, but the way the visions are presented makes it clear that the image is broader than simply that one manifestation. “Babylon” refers to all empires, all domination systems. Revelation tells us that it will be the Beast and Dragon that are destroyed in the lake of fire. Babylon’s ultimate fate, though, is left ambiguous. I note the presence of the kings of the earth in New Jerusalem; these are Babylon’s human leaders. So, may we hope that Babylon is not so much destroyed as transformed? Let’s think about that.

John has an agenda with these visions. It is not to focus on the destruction per se. He offers what is actually a picture of hope and an exhortation toward faithfulness. We have two cities portrayed in the final section of Revelation, chapters 17 through 22—Babylon and New Jerusalem. As glitzy and powerful and dominant at Babylon may seem, insofar as it is organized in opposition to the way of the Lamb, it is doomed to self-destruct. To highlight the contrast between the two cities, we read that each one is introduced to the readers by the same angel—first, at 17:1, then at 21:9, using the same words. Here’s one city, based on violence and doomed to fall; here is the other city, based on love and the site of ultimate healing. This is another way that John poses the choice he challenges his readers with.

The first part of chapter 17 uses a symbol (“the Great Harlot,” 17:1) to symbolize another symbol (“Babylon,” 17:5). This is civilization organized against God wherever you find human societies that dominate and oppress—not simply limited to Rome. The Harlot symbol punctures the pretensions of these human societies. They present themselves as grand and glamorous but in reality, they are morally corrupt and doomed to fail. I will say that I think this is an unfortunate symbol (I prefer to stick with “Babylon”); it stigmatizes a vulnerable class of people. The point, though, that seems important is this: What seems great actually is corrupt and broken.

The story here links directly back to earlier parts of the book and gives an answer to how the suffering of the Lamb and his comrades contributes to the healing of the world. The image’s key part is the “golden cup full of abominations, and the impurities of her fornication” (17:4). These “fornications” are the violence of Babylon against the Lamb’s comrades and all prophets (or truthtellers) who resist the empire. We read, a couple of verses later: “the woman was drunk with the blood of the saints and the blood of witnesses to Jesus” (17:6). Again, this hugely important image, “blood.” This is a repeat of the picture of the Beast in chapter 13 making war on the saints and the Dragon in chapter 12 making war on the woman’s children. However, again, we must recognize the broader story—we know from the vision of the Lamb in chapter 5 and the great statement in chapter 12: The Lamb and his comrades have already won—they “conquered [the Dragon] by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony” (12:11).

The way this all works is spelled out more in chapter 18. Babylon the great is fallen (18:2)! How does this happen? She is mixed “a double draught in the cup she mixed” (18:6). This is a process called “wrath”—the very acts of violence performed by Babylon become the poison she drinks that makes her fall. Think back to the image in chapter 6 of the comrades of the Lamb who lost their lives, were given white robes, and told to be patient, their vindication is coming. What we hear here is that vindication: The self-sacrifices of those faithful to the Lamb are the means of conquering. All the ways we might embody the message of the Lamb are part of the great work to bring healing and to destroy the Powers of evil. The comrades from chapter 6 are probably the same people as the “saints and apostles and prophets” of 18:20. “Rejoice over her [fall]…. God has given judgment for you against her.” That is, God has vindicated you.

Now, the nations are closely involved; they have drunk of the cup filled with “the wine of [Babylon’s] fornication” (18:3) and the kings of the earth and the merchants are complicit. However, we notice that those human beings, though implicated in Babylon’s crimes, do not go down with her. They “stand far off” and mourn Babylon’s passing. The call at 18:4: “Come out of her, my people, so that you do not take part in her sins,” shows the purpose of this vision. Not to dwell on Babylon’s fall but to emphasize the choice that lies before John’s readers—to whom is loyalty due? The Lamb or the Beast? In which city will you be at home? This call to “come out” is also addressed to the kings and merchants. They too can “come out.” To come out is not necessarily to move physically out of the city. It is to move spiritually and philosophically out.

Chapter 18 details two key charges against Babylon: (1) The economic dynamics of empire, extracting wealth from the land and from working people and putting it in the hands of the merchants and kings of the earth. We have a jarring image when we see the long list of what the merchants traffic in, mostly ordinary goods (though note “horses and chariots,” a code term in the Bible for weapons of war) but with the concluding item that indicates the true nature of the economics: Babylon traffics in “slaves—and human lives” (18:13). (2) The systemwide violence, “in you was found the blood of prophets and of saints, and of all who have been slaughtered on earth” (18:24). We have learned that this “blood” has been redemptive. It has led to the Lamb’s victory. However, that positive outcome does not at all negate the evil of the violence that produced it. The practices of empire: economic exploitation and systemic violence.

Finally, in the list of things that will no longer be found in Babylon, many are positive—music and crafts and wedding celebrations. These are things that actually will endure, in New Jerusalem, though. not Babylon. What is destroyed is not the “glory of the nations” (see 21:24 and the promise that that glory will be in New Jerusalem) but the systems of evil, the beliefs, the biases, the lies, the ideologies. The Dragon and the Beast, I believe, are not actually personal beings but metaphors, personifications, of the structures that have evolved that oppress people and sustain injustice—the destroyers of the earth. These structures and ideologies are destroyed for the sake of the earth and for the sake of the inhabitants of the earth.

The Lamb’s war (19:11-21)

In my emphasis on God’s already achieved victory, the question arises—What about the famous battle of Armageddon? Doesn’t Revelation have some future final conflagration? Well, we do have something like that in chapter 19. A careful reading shows, though, that we actually have a confirmation of what I have claimed about the victory already being won.

The book itself does hint at such an final battle in the bowl plagues in chapter 16: The Dragon, the Beast, and False Prophet gather “the kings of the whole world for battle on the great day of God the Almighty” (16:14). They assemble at the place called Armageddon (16:17). Then the book turns its attention elsewhere—and only in chapter 19 will we return to this “battle.” But what do we see? John reports at 19:11, that he sees “heaven opened,” and the battle scene is set.

Back at 4:1 we also see “heaven opened,” the beginning of the long series of visions that make up the rest of Revelation. At 4:1 what immediately follows is a worship service and here we learn about a supposed “battle;” nonetheless, the two visions are closely related. The Rider in chapter 19 is closely linked with the picture of Jesus in chapters 1–3, who is the Lamb at the center of the worship service in chapters 4–5. Jesus is called “faithful and true” at 3:14, with eyes “like a flame of fire” (2:18), and with “a sharp sword coming” out of his mouth (2:12). The Lamb of chapters 4–5 “conquers” with persevering love, with “blood” that symbolizes the life Jesus led. In 19:11-21, the picture of the Rider, who clearly is Jesus, contains each of these elements.

The “Rider is called Faithful and True” (19:11). “His eyes are like a flame of fire” (19:12), and “from his mouth comes a sharp sword” (19:15). “He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood” (19:13). I believe the blood on the robe is Jesus’s own blood, already shed before any battle here in chapter 19. This is the blood that symbolizes Jesus’s entire life, death, and resurrection and is the reason there will be no battle here. Jesus has already won. To further support this point, remember that chapters 7 and 14 use military imagery of Jesus’s way. The 144,000 (that is, a countless multitude) of Jesus’s comrades have washed their robes white in Jesus’s blood and celebrate his victory in chapter 7. And in chapter 14, this same 144,000 gathers with the Lamb to celebrate defeating the Beast—a victory pictured at the end of that chapter by a river of blood, a gruesome image that invokes the faithfulness of chapter 7. What we have here in chapter 19 is the Rider with a robe dipped in his blood who rides forth with another army that wears “white linen” and rides with him on “white horses” (19:14).

To complete the picture, we are told the Rider will tread on the wine press of the fury of the wrath of God,” another gruesome image. However, we should read this in light of the visions of the wine press in chapter 14 and the cup of “wine of wrath” (18:3) that actually takes down Babylon in chapters 17 and 18. In this light, the picture of the wine press in chapter 19 alludes to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus along with the righteous deeds of the saints that are the only means for conquering and victory in the book.

None of the armies who ride with Jesus have any kind of weapon. The only weapon the Rider has is the sword from his mouth—that is the Word of God, the word of Jesus’s testimony and that of his comrades. So, not surprisingly, there is no battle. There is no battle. The only blood present in the entire scene is the Rider’s own blood, shed before he rides forth. We will be shocked if we still think the Dragon and the False Prophet are powerful and that there truly will be a great Battle of Armageddon; those two symbols of the Powers of evil are simply captured thrown into the lake of fire to their destruction. The same thing will happen to the Dragon in chapter 20. The Powers “have gathered to make war against the Rider … and his army” (19:19)—but they actually had long ago been defeated.

After the destruction of the Beast and False Prophet, we conclude the vision with a complicated scene. “The rest were killed by the sword of the Rider on the horse, the sword that came from his mouth; and all the birds were gorged with their flesh” (19:21). This event seems to go against the rest of the vision. But let’s think about what might be meant. “The rest” here clearly are the kings, the captains, the mighty, the horses and their riders” mentioned at 19:18. We need to remember the place of the kings of the earth in the book as a whole. In the initial verses of the book, we read that Jesus is the ruler of the kings of the earth. Throughout the book, these kings are mentioned as the servants of the evil Powers, the main human enemies of God. But, to look ahead, we will learn that they will be present in New Jerusalem. We also will learn that nothing unclean will be found in New Jerusalem. Surely, as servants of the Beast, the kings of the earth are unclean. It would follow, I think, that something radical must happen with the kings to make them able to be at home in New Jerusalem. They must be transformed from being unclean to being fit to be in New Jerusalem. Perhaps this vision of the birds being gorged with the kings’ flesh is a macabre picture of their healing transformation.

Let’s note something more about this vision of the Rider. As I said, the only weapon is the sword that comes out from his mouth. This sword may be seen as a symbol of the word that Jesus and his comrades proclaimed, a “word” surely to be understood as deeds as well as speech. We are told throughout Revelation about things coming out of characters’ mouths (good and evil) as well as other allusions to speech and proclamation. So, it makes sense to think of this picture of the Rider “killing” the rest with his sword to refer to a radical transformation brought about due to the witness of the Lamb and his comrades—perhaps a bit analogous to the “violence” of the Apostle Paul’s conversion. I like the imagery in that it indicates that we are not talking about “cheap grace” in Revelation where a nice God simply accepts everyone as they are. The healing that happens is costly, radical, and deep-seated.

One last thought on the “battle” vision, to get back to something from my previous post. I interpret the Powers of evil, personified in Revelation as actual creatures (the Beast, the False Prophet, the Dragon) as not actually personal beings. The distinction being made in the book is that God indeed judges and destroys these Powers, and that God does not act violently toward actual personal beings, and certainly not toward human beings. The Beast, False Prophet, and Dragon are symbols and personifications. They symbolize structures of injustice, human culture insofar as it dehumanizes and exploits. They symbolize white supremacy and other forms of racism; they symbolize what we could call “warism” (the belief that war is necessary and must be prepared for and be allowed to dominate our society); they symbolize our capitalistic economic system and our idolizing our nation-state. The image of these Powers being thrown into the lake of fire is not revenge against human beings; it is not God exercising punitive judgment against people who have offended God. The image is about God destroying the destroyers of the earth and ending white supremacy and capitalism and warism and exploitation of nature. I think this is the only way that the Lamb’s method of conquering is consistent with the destruction of the destroyers of the earth.

What is paradise for? (21:9–22:4)

The same angel that had showed John Babylon and its fall (17:1) now shows John the other city (21:9), the city that rises—New Jerusalem. It seems that Revelation is not offering a critique of cities as such. The place of healing is a city. The problem is when the cities are organized for injustice. While the details of New Jerusalem are too fanciful and symbolic to provide any actual guidance for how cities can be organized for justice, I believe that Revelation does challenge us to seek to imagine such cities. The idea of New Jerusalem is that humane living is our purpose. I think deep democracy, decentralized power, economic sharing, collectives, cooperatives, credit unions, bottom-up power, gentleness with nature, and restorative justice practices all point in the right direction.

As “the bride of the Lamb” (21:9), the city is made up of the Lamb’s comrades. Over and over in Revelation we get visions of and allusions to multitudes from every tribe and nation and people and language joining together in common celebration. It would be a mistake to define the Lamb’s comrades simply in terms of the Christian religion. John envisions something much broader and more open than a particular religion. The Lamb’s way, centered on love in practice, is a way of life that makes one at home in New Jerusalem. I think it is important that Revelation centers on how people live and their practice of Jesus’s style of living, not on formal religiosity.

The physical structure of the city is strange—1,500 cubic miles. So, it is unimaginably huge, enough to contain an uncounted multitude of comrades. The symbolism connects this city with the holy of holies in the old temple. The holy of holies was a cube, though much smaller of course and also very rigidly kept separate from the community. What was exclusive and violently protected in the Old Testament is transformed in this vision. John actually sees no temple in New Jerusalem, that is, no temple building. Instead, the temple is God and the Lamb themselves (21:22). In some sense, as well, we could say that the city, cube that it is, is the temple—the city, of course, being the people of God, the multitudes from every tribe and nation. The big point, though, is that in this city everyone has full access to God. God’s presence is not restricted or controlled or limited in any way.

Let’s think about another point in relation to the temple. Contrast the temple imagery here with the mentions in chapters two and three of all the temples in the cities of Asia that were devoted to the Empire religion. The notion of temple is turned upside-down here. It is about healing and unlimited access and linked, we could say, to a politics of love and peace. The temples in the seven cities are all devoted to the domination system of the Roman Empire. They claimed to be open to everyone but only at the cost of loyalty to that domination system—and the “everyone,” of course, would not include slaves and other non-citizens.

The New Jerusalem vision again makes clear the close identification of the Lamb with the One on the throne. Note that at 22:3 there is one single throne, “the throne of God and of the Lamb.” Among other things, I see this as an affirmation that there is one will of God as shown in the Lamb’s way of love. There is no sense of some kind of distinction between the Lamb’s mercy and the One’s retributive justice.

The glory and honor of the nations is brought in (21:26)—remember, “the nations” earlier rose up against God. This fulfills the promise of Genesis 12 that the descendants of Abraham and Sarah would bless “all the families of the earth.” The kings of the earth are brought in. Are they somehow a different group than the kings mentioned throughout the book as the human allies of the Beast? I think not. I find it impossible to believe that John would be so careless as to use the same freighted term with two different meanings. This vision shows that Jesus is indeed the “ruler of the kings of the earth” as asserted at 1:6.

The final part of the New Jerusalem vision, 22:1-5, let’s us know that finally the scroll that the Lamb took from the One on the throne in chapter 5 is fully opened and its content made known—and made real. The content of the scroll, I would say, is this vision of healing. The leaves that heal the nations and the unencumbered access to God: the servants will see his face. The ambiguities of the earlier visions of Revelation, so much brokenness, are just like the ambiguities of human history as we know of it and experience it. We are given clarity in light of the final revelation of the contents of the scroll opened by the crucified and resurrected Lamb. The nations will be healed. The evil Powers will be banished. The Lamb’s comrades, the countless multitude, will see God’s face and will reign forever and ever.

This final vision of paradise is important as a statement of Revelation’s philosophy of history. Truth, meaning, vocation, purpose, the direction things are going—the outcome of history is healing. The true purpose of everything in some sense has to do with making things whole, transforming creation from coercion and injustice to peaceableness and reconciliation. The idea that “realism” about history teaches the necessity for “necessary violence,” a retributive God, the exploitation of nature, conflict and competition, winners and losers is wrong, according to Revelation. Part of the point of the plague visions, in light of the New Jerusalem vision, is to affirm that the brokenness and viciousness that are present during this 3½ years of broken time, do not defeat God. The moments of celebration amidst the plagues are genuine and authentic as are the hopes that the righteous suffering of those who resist the Beast will somehow help bring the Beast down.

The vision of healing, though, I tend to think, is not predictive so much as exhortative. The two cities, Babylon and New Jerusalem reflect two ways to interpret the present—is our world most basically plagues or most basically worship? Which is definitive? Which should shape our morality and our aspirations? The New Jerusalem vision answers this: Trust in the healing philosophy of life. God’s will is transformation through love. Revelation reveals the one way, the only way, New Jerusalem will come down—as the Lamb’s comrades conquer like the Lamb conquers. A piece of ancient literature like this cannot guarantee any particular outcome. Any universe governed by love is going to be open-ended and not pre-determined. But Revelation does claim to tell us what it will take to build New Jerusalem—love is the only means to a healing outcome. Amen.

[I offer a much more extensive exposition of this fascinating, challenging, and ultimately encouraging biblical text in my recent book, To Follow the Lamb: A Peaceable Reading of the Book of Revelation.]