3/9/2025, 3/23/2025
We’re reading through Revelation along with NT Wright’s Revelation for Everyone. These notes include discussions of topics of additional interest and attempt connections with more Old Testament material.
14
We’ve seen the number 144,000 before, in Revelation 7, where John hears that each tribe of Israel contributed 12,000 but then sees people of every nation, tribe, people and language in an uncountable crowd. Here, they are the ones who remained faithful to God through the time of the beasts’ influence.
An angel flies overhead declaring the gospel to all nations, that we should fear, glorify, and worship God.
A second angel declares Babylon (here likely the stand-in for the corrupt human and spiritual powers we’ve previously seen in Cain’s and Nimrod’s cities, Sodom, Egypt, the Canaanites, Babylon, Assyria, and Rome) to have fallen.
A third angel declares that anyone who worships the beast will “drink the wine of God’s anger” before the angels and the Lamb.
A voice from heaven speaks, and the Spirit answers, saying that those who die in the Lord are blessed and that their work will follow them.
One “like a son of man” appears seated on a cloud with a golden crown. Given his location, attributes, and status, this must be Jesus. He has a sickle in his hand and swings it over the earth to reap.
An angel, also with a sickle, gathers the clusters of grapes from the earth because they are ripe and “tossed them into the great winepress of the wrath of God…and blood poured out of the winepress up to the height of the horses’ bridles for a distance of almost 200 miles.”
We discussed Jesus as judge. Many people view the God of the Old Testament as violent, judgmental, and intolerant, while Jesus of the New Testament is the loving, self-sacrificial figure everyone feels comfortable with, yet Revelation doesn’t allow us that view of him. Here, he brings judgment leading to some of the most violent imagery in Scripture. Given the relationship cycle we’ve frequently discussed in class (God forms people in the wilderness, brings them into a fruitful land for relationship with him, people rebel against his standard for life in the land, rebellion leads to broken relationship and ruin in the land, God observes the brokenness and acts in judgment to restore the land and relationship, after which he brings a remnant back into a fruitful land to begin again), Jesus, through his torture and death at the hands of the Romans, takes the judgment required by our sin onto himself, so he is uniquely qualified to finally judge. The New Testament describes his new life and the new life we have in him such that those of us who receive his life will be the remnant he will finally bring into the new earth.
15
Seven angels with seven plagues continue the pervasive motif of sevens in Revelation.
John sees a sea of glass mixed with fire. The imagery isn’t explained, but we discussed possibilities including that the sea of glass refers to placid waters, which represent God’s sovereignty, a kind of opposite of the Genesis 1:2 pre-creation dark waters, and the fire may suggest finality , as in a sunset over the ocean, judgment, as at Sodom, and the juxtaposition of opposites – fire and water, all of which are compatible with the passage that follows. The sea is apparently part of the heavenly temple, as Solomon’s Temple had a bronze sea and the Tabernacle had the Laver.
The faithful surround the sea, hold harps, and sing the song of Moses and of the Lamb. The Song of Moses is in Exodus 15, sung by the Israelites to praise God after he rescued them from the Egyptians through the sea. This passage in Revelation and the following chapter contain numerous allusions to the Exodus story, which John no doubt intended us to meditate on as we consider the final judgment.
The end of the chapter tells us the heavenly temple is the origin of point of the seven angels we learned of in the beginning. The temple is filled with smoke from God’s glory and power, and no one can enter until their plagues are complete.
The last half of Exodus is an extensive set of instructions for and then description of the building of the Tabernacle, yet at the end of the book, God’s glory descends on it, and Moses cannot enter. The book of Leviticus appears organized as a response to this problem, with the end of Exodus, and the two narrative portions of Leviticus surrounding laws that apparently enable the priests and Levites to approach, enter, and work in the Tabernacle, while the narrative portions take the reader through judgment narratives progressively deeper inside.
This passage in Revelation describes a similar circumstance to the end of Exodus – God’s glory is evident in the heavenly temple with judgment imminent as preparation for the restoration of relationship with him.
We’re 2/3ds of the way through and moving more quickly now. Not far to go!
Additional material related to discussions we had:
The relationship cycle or judgment cycle
https://cateclesia.com/2023/04/10/the-canaanite-conquest-and-the-pattern-of-judgment/
Genesis 1-11 as paradigm of faithful and of unfaithful living
https://cateclesia.com/2024/07/16/genesis-1-11-as-introduction-and-paradigm/