Tag: Book of Revelation

Jesus the Lamb challenges empire

~ Ted Grimsrud ~ 3 Comments

Ted Grimsrud—October 17, 2025

The Bible has a reputation of being pretty pro-violence. Some Christians want the Bible to approve of violence—that helps them justify the violence they currently support. I decided back when I first embraced pacifism that I wanted to try to read the Bible as pro-peace as much as I could. I still do. An early test for me came with trying to understand the book of Revelation. Is it truly about visions of future God-approved warfare and violent judgment?

I had heard because God wants wars in Revelation, God may also want wars in our time. I decided to study Revelation to see what it actually says. I soon discerned Revelation may be read as a book of peace. I also realized that Revelation is not about predicting the future; it is about applying Jesus’s message of peace and healing in our present. A key concern in Revelation has to do with following Jesus while living in the idolatrous Roman Empire. Thus, Revelation becomes for us an essential text for reflection of the relation between Christian faith and empire.

Revelation as part of Jesus’s peace agenda

For Jesus, to resist the Empire means: Love our neighbors, say no to idolatry, give our loyalty to the God of mercy, and recognize the empire as the enemy of God, not God’s servant. Early Christians faced constant temptation to conform to Rome. It could be costly to resist. Many also found the imperial claims to be seductive. This struggle with conformity to the empire had a tragic ending for Christianity; we will see in our next post that it became an empire religion. In the early years, though, the struggle led to a sharp critique of the Empire—see Revelation.

Revelation does not collect predictions about “End Times” but describes the dynamics of imperial seduction. It describes the deep conflict between the ways of empire and the ways of the gospel. This “war of the Lamb” can only be successfully waged in one way. Wage this war with what the New Testament letter to the Ephesians described as the “whole armor of God”: The belt of truth, the breastplate of justice, the gospel of peace, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and sword of the Spirit (which is the word of God) (Eph 6:13-17).

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The book of Revelation and peace, part I: The peace of the Lamb [Peace and the Bible #18]

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Ted Grimsrud—March 28, 2024

The book of Revelation has a pretty bad reputation among many people—not least because it is easily interpreted as portraying quite a bloodthirsty God. And many Christians have affirmed that interpretation. I first decided to study Revelation after hearing a teacher argue against pacifism by claiming that Revelation teaches that divinely initiated violence is part of Revelation’s End-Times scenario. This teacher coupled Revelation’s violence with the violence of the Old Testament stories such as Joshua to argue that sometimes God does want war.

I knew in my heart (though not yet my mind) that the Bible should not be read in such a pro-violence way. So, I decided to look closely at Revelation for myself. I discovered that indeed Revelation may be read in a very pro-peace way. My recent book, To Follow the Lamb: A Peaceable Reading of the Book of Revelation (Cascade Books, 2022), articulates my latest understandings about Revelation’s peace message. In this post and one to follow I will share some of the key ideas in that peaceable reading.

The key step for me was my starting point in reading Revelation. I took very seriously the opening words of the book, “the revelation of Jesus Christ” and read the book expecting it to complement the story of Jesus in the gospels. I was open to be proven wrong about Revelation’s Jesus-linked orientation, but I first wanted to see if indeed Revelation did further Jesus’s own message. That is, I read Revelation asking, “What (if anything) does Revelation teach us about peace?” rather than “What does Revelation teach us about the future?” or “What does Revelation teach us about a violent, pro-war God?” Along with the opening words that refer to Jesus, I also quickly recognized that the key image (in a book full of images, symbols, and metaphors) in the entire book was the image of the Lamb. Clearly, this Lamb image was meant to evoke Jesus and, as I came to recognize, to keep the various visions and imagery anchored in Jesus’s message.

I will develop two aspects of the Lamb image in what follows. In this post I will discuss “the peace of the Lamb.” With the Lamb’s peaceable orientation in mind, I will then turn to “the war of the Lamb” in the next post and show that Revelation’s “war” is actually a struggle for peace on earth that uses thoroughly peaceable methods.

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A political reading of the New Testament (part 2): The apostolic witness

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Ted Grimsrud—November 8, 2023

[Back in 2015, I posted a series of short essays in Thinking.Pacifism.net on an anarchistic reading of the Bible. The series included several pieces on the Old Testament and one on Jesus. At the time, I planned to conclude the series with a post on Paul and Revelation. For various reasons, I have only just now completed that post. Here is a link to the post on Jesus, “part one” of the two parts on the New Testament.]

One way to read the New Testament is essentially to go from the beginning to the end, reading the gospels as the main event and seeing the epistles as commentary on the story of Jesus and application of that story to the lives of the early Christians. In relation to our task of reading the Bible for its political content in light of an anarchistic sensibility, we will find that the apostolic witness reiterates the basic political content of the gospels—adding perspective on our reflections on politics as if Jesus matters. This short chapter will only scratch the surface of an anarchistic reading of the apostolic witness of the New Testament. I will touch very briefly on the book of the Acts of the Apostles, discuss a few texts from the Apostle Paul’s writings, and conclude with some reflections on the book of Revelation.

The story of early Christianity

The Acts of the Apostles, attributed to Luke, the same author of the gospel of that name and presented as a kind of sequel to the story of Jesus, has as its main agenda an account of the spreading of the message of Jesus from Jerusalem to “the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8; in this case, from Jerusalem to Rome). The story reinforces the political message of Jesus—not an overt attempt to replace the Roman Empire with a different territorial kingdom but a political sensibility that de-centers the state and the nations and understands humane politics to involve grassroots, self-organized communities free from state domination that embody generosity, mercy, and restorative justice (these are elements of what I call an “an anarchistic sensibility” regarding politics)—and willingly accept the likelihood of suffering at the hand to authoritarian political and religious institutions.

The general tenor of social life in Acts shows a strong commitment on the part of the early Christians to defy human authority when it stands against the gospel (“we must obey God, not human authorities,” Acts 5:39-42). In Acts, as in the gospels, the “human authorities” who most commonly presented problems were leaders in the institutional religious arena (the Temple authorities and the Pharisees)—but in the Judaism in the period of Acts (the first 70 years of the Common Era) in Palestine operated as the political authorities as well as religious authorities.

The Roman Empire is a somewhat ambiguous presence in Acts. The hero of the book, the Apostle Paul, does at one point declare that he is a Roman citizen when that helps protect him from local authorities. Near the end of the book, Paul makes it to Rome and has not entirely negative encounters with Roman leaders. It appears that the writer of Acts wants to focus on the conflict with the religious leaders and minimize problems with Rome, perhaps to keep the book from being repressed by Roman authorities. However, we have good reasons to believe that Paul himself (along with the Apostle Peter) was executed by the Empire, following the path of Jesus. When read in light of the Jesus story (as well as other New Testament writings and the Old Testament), Acts mainly communicates a general suspicion of human authorities that would implicitly include the Roman Empire. The focus of the book, in any case, is on the constructive model of the early Christian communities as a counter-witness to the ways of authoritarian human structures—empires and oppressive religious institutions.

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Vindication (Revelation, chapters 17–22)

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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.

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Healing amidst the chaos (Revelation 6–16)

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Ted Grimsrud—August 9, 2023

[This is the third 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 fourth is “Vindication (Revelation, chapters 17–22).”]

In this post, I will focus on three passages from the middle section of Revelation, starting with the seal plagues in chapter six. Then, I will talk about how chapters 10,11, and 12 provide a counter-testimony to the plagues, a picture of how God actually does gain repentance. And third, I want to spend a bit of time looking at the famous vision of the Beast in chapter 13 and point out that that vision also includes the first part of chapter 14 and ends up being another version of the story about the Lamb’s victory.

I want to take just a second first, though, for a word about an approach to Revelation that is quite different from my approach. When I first became a Christian, I was taught to read Revelation as a book of prophecies about the future. The term “dispensationalism” describes the view that human history has been divided, by God, into seven distinct era or dispensations. We are currently in the fifth of the seven and may look ahead to the sixth (the millennium—by seeing the millennium in the future, dispensationalism has also been called “premillennialism”). The seventh dispensation will be the new heaven and new earth. As I learned more about this approach, I decided that I could not affirm it. I came to see Revelation as not being concerned with future prophecy (“foretelling,” we could say) but rather speaking to its present (“forthtelling”) and, like the rest of the Bible, by speaking to its present speaking to our present. Mennonites have long debated about this. I won’t say more about this view except that, again, I think Revelation is about the present world we live in and is most of all concerned with encouraging the following of Jesus in this life, not with what will happen in the future.

The patterns of human history (6:1–7:17)

So, let’s turn to Revelation 6. We note right away the vision of the Lamb breaking the seals in the chapter—an act that leads directly to the riding forth of the fabled “four horsemen of the Apocalypse,” bringing with them plagues of war, famine, and sickness. This comes as a shock given what we see in Rev 1–5, the Lamb’s peace witness. Let’s think carefully here.

We need to keep Revelation’s master vision, chapters 4–5 in mind as we turn to the rest of the book. The final vision of the book, New Jerusalem in chapters 21 and 22 brings a vision of the final healing. That is where the entire book is heading. But in between these two visions, we have others that offer what appear to be quite mixed messages about healing and judgment. First, we have the Lamb breaking the seals of the scroll. This is the scroll the Lamb was given by the One on the throne in chapter 5 that only he is worthy to open—and we should all want the scroll opened So, what’s going on? Note, first, that all the Lamb does is break the seals. The events that follow are not the contents of the scroll. The plagues are not the contents of the scroll; they simply accompany the seals to the scroll being broken. It would seem that, in some sense, to move toward the final healing (which surely is the actual content of the scroll) will involve going through these plagues.

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The pattern of Jesus (Revelation, chapters 1–5)

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Ted Grimsrud—August 8, 2023

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

If we take up the book of Revelation expecting it to present a case for the truthfulness of the peaceable way of Jesus, we will find plenty of evidence to confirm that expectation. The first five chapters introduce us to Jesus and his presence among Christian congregations of the late first century. These chapters make it clear that Jesus’s way stands in opposition to the domination system of the Roman Empire of the time—and all empires since.

The pattern of Jesus (1:1-6)

The first six verses of the book set the stage for what the book as a whole will be about. This is the “revelation of Jesus Christ.” That is, this is the Jesus of the gospels. We may accurately say this revelation comes from Jesus. More so, though, I think the meaning is that this book is about Jesus. And about interpreting life in light of Jesus. Once we look for it, we will see throughout the book allusions to the way of Jesus—or, as I want to say, “the pattern of Jesus.”

The word translated “revelation” is apocalypsis, may also be translated “apocalypse.” I think that latter translation may be misleading for us, though. It often has the connotation of future oriented, catastrophe oriented, kind of magical. Revelation is all too often seen as a different kind of writing than the rest of the Bible (“apocalyptic” literature). We should note that the word is not used again in Revelation. The book does not seem to want to make a point of being different. I think the best meaning is that this is a book of insight about Jesus and applying his message to life. This book is about our world, both the 1st century and the 21st century.

The statement, the “time is near” is not about predicting the future but rather urgency about the importance of the message of the book. To say “near” is a rhetorical flourish that has to do with the importance of choosing between Jesus and the Empire as the bases for one’s approach to life. We see an increased sense of urgency as we move through the three sets of plagues that come later in the book—going from 1/4 destruction to 1/3 to full, not to signify chronology but to say with increased intensity that this stuff really matters.

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Reading Revelation with an Anabaptist sensibility

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Ted Grimsrud—August 7, 2023

[This is the first in a series of four blog posts on the book of Revelation. This one will introduce a peaceable-Revelation reading strategy for the book. The following three will offer an interpretation of Revelation based on that reading strategy./

Is there a way to read the book of Revelation as a peace book? To read it as a Jesus-centered book? To read it as source of encouragement and hope? What happens when we read Revelation with an Anabaptist sensibility? In a series of posts, I will show that indeed Revelation can be read as a peace book. In this first one, I will sketch what I mean by reading with an Anabaptist sensibility or, one could say, with an Anabaptist reading strategy. In the three posts to follow I will run through the main themes of Revelation and its peace theology to show the fruit of such a way of reading Revelation—a fruitful approach for non-Anabaptists too!

In a nutshell, I read Revelation like I read the rest of the New Testament, maybe most similarly to, say, the book of Romans. I read it as an Anabaptist. Actually, what happened when I started to make a list of the important assumptions I make about Revelation, I realized I was making an Anabaptist list—and that I probably would say that these are the assumptions I have about the entire Bible. I won’t argue that this is a list that is drawn directly from the 16th century Anabaptists so much as that this reflects an Anabaptist sensibility, an Anabaptistic way of reading the Bible. I’m not trying to reproduce the way certain Anabaptists read Revelation in the 16th century so much as present a reading based on a theological perspective in the 21st century that is informed by what I understand to be Anabaptist convictions.

So often, people treat Revelation as if it is something different, something unique to the Bible with different assumptions—maybe most obviously that Revelation is predicting the future rather than speaking to the people of the first century. But I think we should read it in its own context—I would call it a “historic-symbolic” rather than, say, “future-prophetic” approach. Let me share my list—first, I will name the assumptions and then I will briefly explain what I mean by each one: I read Revelation as (1) Jesus-focused, (2) present-oriented, (3) blood-drenched, (4) Empire-resisting, and (5) discipleship-directed. I’ll explain:

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Why don’t we know how things will end? [Questioning faith #27]

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Ted Grimsrud—May 31, 2023

I have published two books that offer interpretations of the book of Revelation—in 1987 and 2022. I learned a lot during those 35 years, and I think that is reflected in the more recent book, To Follow the Lamb, being the better one. At the same time, I am happy that I still agree with most of what I wrote in Triumph of the Lamb, the first book. There is one issue, though, about which my views very definitely changed.

Triumph of the Lamb, the 1987 book, self-consciously provided an alternative reading of Revelation to the End Times-focused view I had been taught as a new Christian. That future-prophetic view has for a long time been very popular and remains so. I set out to refute that view and present what I believed was a better approach. I think I did a pretty good job of that and still affirm most of what I wrote. However, while rejecting the details of looking into the future, I still expressed hope for a happy outcome to human history. My views now are more explicitly uncertain about the End.

I concluded Triumph of the Lamb with these words: “From start to finish, the Bible records the fulfillment of God’s purpose in creation. There has always been a longing for a time to come when true peace shall reign over all the earth. Fear, hatred, and bitter tears will be no more. The affirmation of Revelation 21 and 22 is that this fulfillment, the conclusion of history, will be worth all the pain and struggle which humankind has experienced throughout the ages. The completion of God’s work is the New Jerusalem—the establishment of the holy city—within which God’s people will reign for ever and ever. If the city of Babylon is characterized by terror, deception, and injustice, the New Jerusalem is the exact opposite. There the nations walk in harmony and justice and peace, where the light of the glory of God guides everyone’s path” (Triumph of the Lamb, p. 164).

While I did not think that Revelation, or anywhere else in the Bible, taught a timeline for the End Times with specific predictions of the final events of history, I did believe that the Bible gives trustworthy promises that we will experience a genuine New Jerusalem at the end of time. I believed that Revelation was predicting that much about the future—and that we should believe that that prediction will happen.

So, I had quite a bit of confidence that we could know from the Bible that the human project will have happy ending. I no longer have such confidence. These are the final words of my 2022 book: “The peaceable message that Revelation proclaims, I suggest, is not a message the everything will turn out okay in the end. It is not a message of an interventionist God who is in control of history. It is a message of the sovereignty of love. It is a message of the call to let love shape our lives and ideals and convictions and loyalties in all areas of life” (To Follow the Lamb, p. 269).

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New Book—To Follow the Lamb: A Peaceable Reading of the Book of Revelation

~ Ted Grimsrud ~ 4 Comments

I am happy to announce the publication of my most recent book: To Follow the Lamb: A Peaceable Reading of the Book of Revelation (Cascade Books, 2022), ix + 278pp.

To Follow the Lamb is a commentary of the entire book of Revelation that places a special emphasis on the peace message of Revelation. Revelation is not a book that portrays a violent, vengeful God but rather than shows God to be most profoundly revealed in the gracious Lamb. The key to reading Revelation is to take seriously the opening words of the Book that tell us it is a”revelation of Jesus Christ.”

Revelation is an exhortation to discipleship—follow the Lamb wherever he goes! It offers a sharp critique of the world’s empires and a sharp critique of how people of faith all too easily find ways to be comfortable within the empires. Revelation portrays God as merciful and peaceable—but engaged in a battle against the spiritual powers of evil that energize the nations’ domination systems.This battle, though, is fought with the weapons of love, not worldly violent weapons.

Available online from:

Amazon (the Kindle version is only $9.99)

Wipf and Stock Publishers

Both sites have previews that show the first part of the book.

Also available at: Bookshop.org

Endorsements:

“Ted Grimsrud is a worthy and capable guide through the often misread and confusing images laid out by John of Patmos to the churches of Roman Asia. Anyone who has ever wondered how to make sense of this powerful narrative will find a great companion in To Follow the Lamb. Go form a study group and dig in!”—WES HOWARD-BROOK, Seattle University, author of Unveiling Empire: Reading Revelation Then and Now

“In this important book, Ted Grimsrud clears away decades of misunderstanding and misuse to reveal the beauty and power of the Apocalypse. Writing with deep insight and lucid prose, Grimsrud forcefully challenges violent interpretations of Revelation and fixes our gaze on the nonviolent Jesus. A treasure trove for peacemakers and justice seekers, To Follow the Lamb is accessible, relevant, and sorely needed. Guaranteed to deepen your appreciation of Revelation—I highly recommend it!”—ERIC SEIBERT, Messiah University, author of Disarming the Church: Why Christians Must Forsake Violence to Follow Jesus and Change the World

“In the midst of the sometimes violent rhetoric of Revelation, Grimsrud makes abundantly clear that Revelation features the nonviolent victory by the slain and resurrected Lamb, who reveals a nonviolent God, over the powers of evil, represented by the Roman empire. One of the most valuable contributions of this comprehensive theological analysis of Revelation is how it applies the book’s nonviolent resistance to empire to our call to challenge the American empire.”—J. DENNY WEAVER, Bluffton University, author of God Without Violence

More posts on Peaceable Revelation

How Revelation’s non-predictive prophecy speaks to our pandemic (Peaceable Revelation #7)

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Ted Grimsrud—January 29, 2021

I am sure that it is no coincidence that the emergence of mass crises in the 20th and 21st centuries (world wars, pandemics, famines, environmental devastations, et al) has corresponded with increased interest in the book of Revelation and other materials in the Bible that are said to have prophetic importance. Sadly, the assumption that “biblical prophecy” has mainly to do with predicting the future has blinded many Christians to the wisdom that prophecy understood in a non-predictive sense has to offer for our difficult times.

One way to get insights into the wisdom of Revelation is to try to apply it to our present pandemic—but not in the sense that Revelation directly predicted what is happening now nor even in the sense of thinking of our current events as in some sense related to the End Times. Instead, I will reflect a bit on how Revelation’s insights into the world of the first century might be helpful for us in the same ways that the stories of the gospels or the theological analyses of Paul’s letter might be helpful.

Revelation as non-predictive prophecy

I begin with an assumption that we should read Revelation in the same way as we read other books in the New Testament. We understand it to be written by a person of the first century addressing readers in the first century about issues that mattered in the first century. It is indeed prophetic writing—in the same sense that Paul’s writings were prophetic writing. These writings follow the Old Testament prophets in speaking on behalf of God to people of their own time, offering challenges and exhortations that their readers live faithfully in light of the message of Torah and (in Paul’s context) the message of Jesus.

So, I do not read Revelation to be offering predictions about the long-distant future. It is “non-predictive prophecy.” As a “revelation of Jesus Christ,” it is basing its critique and exhortation on the message of Jesus. Too often, interpreters of Revelation have (and still do) miss the ways that the book is oriented around Jesus—missing, that is, the relevance of its first verse that gives a self-identification as the revelation of Jesus Christ.

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