11/19/2023
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. Quotations on this page are from the NET Bible.
7:11-17
Revelation is part of a genre called “Apocalypse” or “Apocalyptic Literature.” Like any other literary genre, there are tropes, ways of communicating that are common within the genre. For Apocalypse, these may include a human placed in a spiritual context, human-spiritual conversations, judgment scenes, appalling/horror scenes, etc. One such element is this conversation between John and a spiritual being, in which the elder/spiritual being talks to John as though he ought to know something he cannot know, then reveals the hidden knowledge.
Then one of the elders asked me, “These dressed in long white robes—who are they and where have they come from?” So I said to him, “My lord, you know the answer.” Then he said to me, “These are the ones who have come out of the great tribulation...
In his book Revelation through Old Testament Eyes, Tremper Longman flatly states the martyrs here are those killed during the period in which John was writing Revelation. Other commentators disagree, believing these to be future events. Longman’s position is reasonable given that John was writing in roughly the time of Rome’s victory over rebel Jews and destruction of the Temple, when 100s of thousands of Jews were killed, and of Nero, who publicly persecuted and executed Christians, but that doesn’t mean he’s correct.
Many commentators have developed eschatological systems, frameworks to explain the events of Revelation, but all require compromises in interpreting the text. The only safe thing we can say about many of these passages is, “I don’t know,” which, rather than being a cop out, enables us to explore options free of allegiance to one person or movement’s interpretive restrictions. The Old and New Testament books and the history, culture, and beliefs of the Jews/early Christians and Romans in the 1st century all provide clues for interpretation and more than enough material to meditate on without speculatively comparing Revelation with current events or imagined future military, political, social, or religious ones.
This passage includes several reversals – the ones who were slain in tribulation now serve in the throne room of God, robes washed in blood are ceremonially white, the Lamb becomes a shepherd. v.16-17 contain references to Isaiah 49:10, Psalm 23, and Isaiah 25:8, John once again layering images from the Old Testament to construct a rich vision of heaven.
At the end of class, the discussion wandered from Revelation to our purpose here on earth, for instance, why doesn’t God just take us to heaven when we’re saved?
In Genesis 1, God states his purpose in making people:
Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, after our likeness, so they may rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move on the earth.”
God created humankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them,
male and female he created them.
God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply! Fill the earth and subdue it! Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and every creature that moves on the ground.” Then God said, “I now give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the entire earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food…”
In her book Being God’s Image, Biola University Old Testament professor Carmen Joy Imes extensively argues for an understanding of our role as image that includes representing God to his creation and being intercessors to God on behalf of it. Wherever and whenever we may be, we can represent God to his creation, tend and guard the garden (Genesis 2), fill the land and subdue it. Several commentators summarize this set of responsibilities as making the whole land like the Eden garden.
Psalm 1, the beginning of the “Wisdom” books provides insight into how:
How blessed is the one who…
…finds pleasure in obeying the Lord’s commands;
he meditates on his commands day and night.
He is like a tree planted by flowing streams;
it yields its fruit at the proper time,
and its leaves never fall off.
He succeeds in everything he attempts.
For the Psalmist, when we meditate on God’s law and obey it, it as if we are skillfully cultivating the garden.
Joshua 1, the beginning of the historical books, agrees:
Carefully obey all the law my servant Moses charged you to keep. Do not swerve from it to the right or to the left, so that you may be successful in all you do. This law scroll must not leave your lips. You must memorize it day and night so you can carefully obey all that is written in it. Then you will prosper and be successful.
In Hosea 1, the beginning of the minor prophets, God tells the prophet to marry a prostitute, but my friend Dr. Douglas K. Smith convincingly argues in a recent presentation on his discourse analysis of the Book of the 12/Minor Prophets that a primary overarching theme is return to the Torah resulting in God restoring the people to the land.
The Old Testament consistently tells us that meditation on God’s word forms us to represent him well in the world, to continue the vision of Genesis 1-2 of tending, guarding, and spreading the garden throughout the land, a fruitful place where we can be in right relationship with God. We have a purpose, a high calling, to represent God to his creation and to intercede on its behalf before him.