Ted Grimsrud

14. Confessions of a Birthright Imperialist—Revelation 18:1-24

[This is the fourteenth 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.]

Revelation, chapter 18, focuses on a critique of the great city, called here Babylon—probably with Rome in mind, but also most other imperial capital cities ever since. John challenges his first readers with how they think about the empire they are part of. As such, I think Revelation, chapter 18 works as a good challenge for us today to think about how we feel about our empire.

What’s wrong with Babylon?

What does Revelation 18 say is wrong with Babylon/Rome? Well, Babylon may seem all powerful, full of greatness and things to inspire awe and respect. But the vision in Revelation states that Babylon is home for demons, every foul spirit, bird, and hateful beast. Now, it wasn’t obvious to everyone that Rome was disgusting and foul. This is not an objective statement of clear sociological fact. It’s more a kind of moral or theological interpretation that said, in effect, that Babylon/Rome in actuality, beneath the smoke and mirrors of imperial power and splendor, was corrupt—and corrupting. It was not a place of genuine life-enhancing beauty, but the opposite, the haunt of death.

Babylon/Rome did like all imperial centers did and do—it demanded and, by and large received, loyalty. People believed in it, trusted in it, gave it their consent to dominate. Babylon gives wine to the nations that makes them drunk. And it “commits fornication” with the “kings of the earth.” And it makes the “merchants of the earth” rich. The problem is not literally alcohol and sex. The problem is that by trusting in Babylon, the nations, the kings, and the merchants join in Babylon’s injustice.

Revelation 18 twice details in subtle but powerful ways the dynamics of empire that Babylon follows. First, the chapter portrays the economic dynamics of empire. The merchants of the earth grow wealthy almost beyond measure due to their collaboration with Babylon. They profit from trade of all sorts of things, according to a long list: gold, silver, jewels and pearls, fine linen, purple, silk and scarlet, all kinds of scented wood, all articles of ivory, all articles of costly wood, bronze, iron, and marble, cinnamon, spice, incense, myrrh, frankincense, wine, olive oil, choice flour and wheat, cattle and sheep, horses and chariots. At the end of all the cargo comes this, stated as just one more item: “slaves—and human lives.” This is what’s wrong with Babylon. The commerce may benefit many people, but the great wealth it generates for the merchants and Babylon ultimately comes off the backs of the poor, the vulnerable, the defenseless—and makes their lives worse. Continue reading “What does the book of Revelation say? (part 14)” →

Ted Grimsrud

12. Transforming Babylon—Revelation 15:1–16:21

[This is the twelfth 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.]

At the very beginning of World War II, British poet W. H. Auden wrote what became a famous poem called “September 1, 1939”—the day that Germany invaded Poland and that Britain and France declared war on Germany. Auden realized this was a world-changing moment. He laments: “I and the public know, what all schoolchildren learn, those to whom evil is done, do evil in return.” He struggles with the outworking of this spiral of evil, then concludes with the poem’s most famous line: “We must love one another or die.”

Now, as it turned out, Auden repudiated this poem and especially this line. He rarely allowed the poem to be reprinted and when he did once, he left that line out. I suppose he thought that it showed him to be too sentimental and weak. After all, what was necessary to stop the Nazis was brute force, not love. But still, did the Nazi spirit truly lose that war? Was Auden’s plea for the need for love refuted? I tend to think not.

In fact, were we to summarize the life work of Martin Luther King in just a few words, this phrase, “we must love one another or die” would work pretty well. But we live in a world not all that friendly to love, it would seem—look at what happened to King himself, shot to death at the age of 39.

The “real world”

Revelation 15–16 actually can be helpful for us as we think about love and the “real world.” What we have here is the third of three terribly destructive sets of seven plagues. Each set gets worse—first, we read of terrible destruction that brings death to one-quarter of the earth; then, the destruction comes to one-third of the earth. And now, here, in chapter 16, “every living thing in the sea died.”

What’s going on with these visions? Well, they are not meant to be read with precise literalism. We have these visions of death and right afterward the story goes on with people and things still living. The tales of destruction should be read symbolically. They symbolize—not particular moments of extraordinary, even unbelievable death and destruction—but the on-going reality of human life.

The numbers, one-quarter, one-third, total, do not tell how many are going to be destroyed. Rather, they simply convey terrible destruction. People die in wars and famine, empires and nation-states wreak havoc, the earth itself is exploited and polluted and poisoned. Such destructiveness ebbs and flows throughout human history. But the brokenness, the alienation, the attempts at domination and control, the conflicts, the corruptions, wars rumors of war, all stretch back over most of the past 2,000 years. Continue reading “What does the book of Revelation say? (part 12)” →

Ted Grimsrud

11. How to Read Revelation—Revelation 14:1-20

[This is the eleventh 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.]

Many of the commentaries on Revelation agree that the blood at the end of chapter 14 indicates God’s punishing judgment. The blood that flows “from the winepress as high as a horse’s bridle for a distance of about two hundred miles” shows just how widespread God’s retribution will be.

I’m impressed with how easy it is to assume the worst about this vision—as if this same book does not include the vision of the Lamb’s self-giving love in chapter five and the vision of the healing of the nations in chapters 21 and 22. Interpreters seem to find it obvious that “blood” symbolizes death and punishing judgment. Some cultured despisers of Revelation are horrified by this theology that they see in Revelation and reject it. They think Revelation is bad news. Others welcome this kind of bloody theology—they embrace the idea of God as punisher and see Revelation as a key source. However, I have discovered that Revelation actually teaches something quite different.

Revelation’s theology of “blood”

We can see that Revelation is not about violence if we focus on this most troubling of metaphors—the blood flowing from the wine press in chapter 14. This is not the first time blood is used in Revelation. Let’s look at some of the other places that speak of blood.

At the beginning of Revelation, we are introduced to Jesus, the faithful witness who followed a path of nonviolent love that led him to resist the powers to death. He is described as well as the firstborn of the dead—his life was vindicated when God raised him. Because of this witness and vindication, he is also described as the true ruler of the kings of the earth. Then we are told that he loves us and frees us from the power of sin by his blood—by his ministry as faithful witness.

This same point is made in chapter five. Jesus, the executed and resurrected Lamb is the true Lion of Judah (Messiah) who has the power to open the great scroll that tells of the ultimate victory of God. Jesus is worshiped here as God. The worship includes these words of praise: “You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain and by your blood you ransomed for God saints from every tribe and language and people and nation.” Continue reading “What does the book of Revelation say? (part 11)” →

Ted Grimsrud

10. How do we fight the Beast—Revelation 13:1–14:5

[This is the tenth 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.]

One of the most famous characters in Revelation is the Beast that rises out of the sea. There is something important to remember as we think about this character. Not everyone would see it as beastly. There would have been people in the book’s audience with a quite positive view of what John is calling the Beast. John’s agenda, in part, is to challenge his readers to recognize the Beast here as a beast.

A vision of the Beast’s power

The vision in Revelation 13 that introduces the Beast gives an overwhelming sense of the its power. John had in mind the Roman Empire which had conquered most of John’s known world, executed Jesus and many other prophets, destroyed the Jewish temple in Jerusalem, and demanded of its subjects reverence and loyalty crossing the line into religious worship.

The Empire brooked no opposition. The Beast is set to wreak havoc for 42 months. These 42 months, a number often used in Revelation, are the time in the present where we live. If John’s vision had ended with chapter 13, it would indeed be a vision of despair. No wonder people in John’s churches would also have wanted to give the Empire their homage and grant it the loyalty it demanded. Resistance was futile—it seems.

But we need to go on to chapter 14—and ultimately to the end of the book. John’s agenda is not to counsel despair nor to give comfort to those in his audience who don’t think the Beast is so beastly. John’s agenda is to empower his audience to resist, to bear witness, even (remarkably) to celebrate in the present.

Celebration as resistance

In stories of resistance to various historical Beasts, celebration played an important role in undermining the domination system. In Denmark during World War II, people gathered for public hymn sings that served to undermine the attempts by the Nazi occupiers to define their reality. The black church in the American south during the Civil Rights movement provided a place to praise and celebrate and find solidarity and to be reminded that the white so-called Christians did not have the power to define God’s will for them.

The celebrations scattered throughout Revelation play a similar role. And John promises before the book is over that the witness will be fruitful and the celebrations will not be simply whistling in the dark. They will in fact help lead to the healing of creation, healing of the nations, healing even of the kings of the earth (the human beings most enslaved to the Beast). Continue reading “What does the book of Revelation say? (part 10)” →

Ted Grimsrud

9. Standing by words—Revelation 11:1–12:17

[This is the ninth 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.]

I am trying to wrest this most fascinating of biblical books from two different kinds of reading. One sees it as being a truthful account of the future, full of predictions and a set-in-concrete plan of God that will violently cleanse the earth of all those who oppose God—both rebellious human beings and the evil satanic powers. The other sees Revelation as the paranoid ravings of a religious fanatic who projects onto God all his anger and envy and judgmentalism and gives us an unbelievable picture of future catastrophes and punishing tribulations.

Of course, though one view loves Revelation and the second hates it, both agree on many important details about its content—violence, judgment, future catastrophes.

A quixotic quest?

What I am trying to do is read Revelation instead as a book of peace that intends to strengthen people of good will so that we might witness to healing in a violent world—healing even for God’s human enemies. Right in the middle of the book, we find two wondrous stories that, in all their bewildering detail, each essentially tells us the same thing. God is indeed work to heal God’s good creation—and a crucial role in this work is to be played by the human followers of the Lamb. The role these followers have to play asks of them two things—that they embrace a ministry amidst the nations of the world of telling the truth. And that, in embracing this ministry, they refuse to be deterred by suffering and even death. Continue reading “What does the book of Revelation say? (part 9)” →

Ted Grimsrud

8. How Not to Get Repentance—Revelation 8:2–10:10

[This is the eighth 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.]

The standard interpretation of Revelation 8–10

We read in Revelation 8 of another series of terrible plagues. The first series of plagues in Revelation six, that had a kill-rate of one-quarter began when the Lamb broke the to the great scroll he had been given by the one on the throne. These were terrible things—wars, famine, disease. Just as the first plagues are initiated by the Lamb, it seems, this second series is initiated by God’s angels. What is God trying to do?

The trumpet plagues in chapter 8 continue with horrific and destructive locusts that torture people so badly that they seek death. Then comes more war. An army of 200 million that, with the locusts, brings death to one-third of humanity.

Then we get to the point—according to most interpreters. John writes: “The rest of humankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands or give up worshiping demons and idols of gold and silver and bronze and stone and wood, which cannot see or hear or walk. And they did not repent of their sorceries or their fornication or their thefts” (9:20-21). After all this judgment, stiff-necked, rebellious humanity still will not repent, turn from its idols and turn toward God. So, the text seems to imply, the reason God initiates these plagues is to try to get repentance. Thus, the text emphasizes how incredibly stubborn these unrepentant human beings are. Crazy. They see one-third of the earth destroyed and they won’t turn in faith toward the destroyer!

If this indeed is what the text means to say—those who remain rebellious richly deserve their fate.

Is Revelation 8–10 wrong?

If this is what the text says, let me suggest, the book is wrong. Why would I say this?

Continue reading “What does the book of Revelation say? (part 8)” →

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)” →