Ted Grimsrud

Shalom Mennonite Congregation—May 13, 2012—Revelation 7:1-17

The book of Revelation is full of numbers. If you pick it up and start to read it, you may feel like it is a kind of impenetrable code. Journalist Jonathan Kirsch, in his book A History of the End of the World, writes that “the book of Revelation is regarded by secular readers—and even by progressive Christians—as a biblical oddity at best and, at worst, a kind of petri dish for the breeding of dangerous religious eccentricity.”

The numbers certainly play into this dangerous religious eccentricity. I want to focus on one number in particular this morning. But first, I’d like for us to think about as many numbers as we can remember from the book. What are the numbers in Revelation? And what do they mean?

Two types of symbols

Clearly, the numbers have symbolic meaning. But there are different kinds of symbols. We can break symbols into two general 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. Probably significantly different things for different ones of us even in our small group here today. Democracy, religious freedom, the destination for many of our ancestors fleeing trouble—and, empire, war-making, global domination, hypocrisy.

Right after September 11, 2001, a friend of mine who teaches at a Mennonite college put a picture of the American flag on his office door. You can imagine that this led to some controversy (to say the least). The meaning of that symbol for my friend changed just within weeks and he soon took the picture down—from a statement of solidarity with victims and relief workers, the flag came soon to symbolize revenge and a new war of aggression against Afghanistan.

I think the numbers in Revelation work both ways—some symbolize specific things, others are more general. Let me read from chapter 7, which gives us several numbers. Think about what these numbers may symbolize—and think of other numbers in Revelation. We’ll talk about these when I’m done reading.

I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth so that no wind could blow on earth or sea or against any tree. I saw another angel ascending from the rising of the sun, having the seal of the living God, and he called with a loud voice to the four angels, “Do not damage the earth or the sea or the trees, until we have marked the servants of our God with a seal on their foreheads.”

And I heard the number of those who were sealed, 144,000, sealed out of every tribe of the people of Israel: From the tribes of Judah, Reuben, Gad, Asher, Naphtali, Manasseh, Simeon, Levi, Issachar, Zebulun, Joseph, and Benjamin 12,000 each.

After this, I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. They cried out in a loud voice, saying, “Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!” And all the angels stood around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, singing, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”

Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?” I said to him, “Sir, you are the one that knows.” Then he said to me, “These are they who have come out of the great ordeal; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. For this reason they are before the throne of God, and worship him day and night within his temple, and the one who is seated on the throne will shelter them. They will hunger no more, and thirst no more; the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat; for the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.” (7:1-17)

So what are some of the numbers in Revelation? What do you think they mean?

Without explaining why I think so 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 beingrepeated three times). So, 666 is not referring to a specific person. Now, I used to think it referred to Ronald Wilson Reagan, three names, six letters each. But no, 666 is more general than that.

The 144,000 as a specific symbol

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. In fact, the way one interprets the 144,000 will say a lot about one’s reading of the book as a whole.

But there are lots of different views, that’s for sure. Some who believe Revelation is giving us a blueprint of predictions about the future think that the 144,000 here is a group of Jewish converts to Christianity during the 7-year Great Tribulation that will follow after the Rapture—these new converts will evangelize those “left behind.”

The Jehovah’s Witnesses in their early years about 100 years ago thought that once they gained 144,000 members the End of the world would come. As the group got bigger and the End failed to materialize, they have had to revise their theology. Now the 144,000 are faithful believers who will be resurrected as spirit beings to provide leadership for the rest of those who make it to heaven.There’s one New Age group that teaches that a spiritual master from Venus brought 144,000 souls with him to earth to bring spiritual transformation to those enlightened enough to respond.

The tendency, then, is to see the 144,000 as a limited number, a form of scarcity. Only a few, the proud and brave are chosen for this small group of the faithful. But the symbolism here in Revelation 7 is actually about abundance. The symbolism a kind of open invitation—a celebration, even, of God’s generosity. Let me explain why.

Symbolizing God’s generosity

To understand Revelation rightly, we must read it as a narrative, beginning at the beginning, and keeping what has come before in mind as we work through the book. So, when we get to chapter seven, we have an important precedent to help us understand what is being pictured here.

Revelation five, the book’s most important chapter, makes a brilliant rhetorical move. We read of a terrible crisis—the one on the throne has a scroll that, when read, will bring ultimate healing and salvation to creation. But no one can be found to open the scroll. John weeps bitterly. But then he is comforted; someone has been found. And then, John hears about this great victor—the promised great warrior king, messiah, conqueror, a Lion. But what John actually sees is a resurrected slain Lamb.

The Lamb is the conqueror. What John heard was accurate. But he conquers through self-giving, persevering love—not by domination and violence. It is as the incarnation of love that the Lamb then is celebrated by “myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands.” He is declared worthy “to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing” (5:11-12). The true meaning of the symbolism in chapter five is found in combining both what John hears and what John sees—but the decisive meaning is found in what he sees—a Lionb who is actually a Lamb—conquering, but through love.

There is a direct connection between that vision of the Lamb in chapter five and the 144,000 in chapter seven. John uses the same rhetorical technique. What he hears here is the 144,000. What he heard in chapter 5 was the hoped-for Jewish Messiah who would establish God’s kingdom. What he hears in chapter 7 is the hoped-for restoration of the twelve tribes of Israel as a kingdom.

What John saw in chapter 5 was a vision of the identity of this Messiah—and its God-blessed method of conquering. What John sees in chapter seven is another amazing vision: “a great multitude that no one could count, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white” (7:9).

That is, the restoration of the twelve tribes of Israel as a kingdom looks exactly like what Abraham and Sarah had been promised way back at the very beginning—their descendants would bless all the families of the earth (Gen 12:3). The 144,000 and the great multitude are the same thing (just as the Lion of Judah and the slain Lamb are the same thing). The multitude is the restored kingdom, but not a limited group of those specially elected to the exclusion of most other people—rather, the restored kingdom is made up of everyone who wants to be there, from all peoples.

And, just as vision of the slain Lamb leads to extraordinary worship, so too does the vision of the countless multitude, echoing the same words of praise: “Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever!” (7:12). The symbol of 144,000 then is anything but a symbol of scarcity. It is a symbol of abundance that leads to celebration. It is to be understood in terms of the countless multitude. Which actually makes sense when we think about it.

The number 144,000 breaks down into a number of abundance. We start with the 12 tribes, named here in chapter 7. But then we multiply that by another 12 (which we should understand to symbolize the twelve apostles, based on a later vision from the New Jerusalem). These two sets of 12 are inclusive of all believers in both Testaments. Then we multiply again by 1,000—a number in the ancient world that was much, much bigger than it is today. In fact, the number 1,000 in general symbolizes a huge, huge amount, really beyond measure.

So, it’s easy to see how the 144,000 could equal “countless multitude.” Still, John’s vision anchors this celebration of the salvation of the multitude in the story of Israel. God called this particular people to know God and to share God’s mercy with the rest of the world—and this mission is precisely what is celebrated here.

What does Revelation 7 mean in the book of Revelation?

But what does this all mean in the book of Revelation? More directly, what does this vision of abundant salvation and celebration mean here in chapter seven? Because, we must not forget, this vision occurs in the midst of the terrible plague visions that begin in chapter six with the breaking of the seals of the great scroll.

Here we come to another of the important forks in the road of how we interpret Revelation—and, really, how we interpret the Bible—and, really, how we interpret God and life in our world. We read of the first six plagues: wars, famine, pestilence, and cries for vengeance. And then we have this interlude before getting back to the breaking of the seventh seal in chapter eight—which actually turns out to be a direct link to seven more plagues connected with the sounding of trumpets that then lead to another plague series linked with the pouring out of “bowls of wrath.”

This is the fork in the road. Remember Yogi Berra said, when you come to a fork in the road, take it. That’s what we must do here, too. This is the issue: do we read the worship vision as a side point in the context of the fundamental reality of plagues? Or do we read the plague vision as a side point in the context of the fundamental reality of worship and celebration? Which actually best defines the message of Revelation—and which actually best defines our understanding of reality? Plague or celebration? Scarcity or abundance? Do we laugh to keep from crying—or do we laugh out of genuine joy?

Here is why I think Revelation is about celebration. The book is a revelation of Jesus Christ, it says in the first verse—not a revelation of plagues. It starts with a present-tense statement about Jesus: the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. He loves us, has freed us from our sins, and made us a kingdom. This Jesus, later in chapter one and in the messages of chapters two and three, is present among the churches.

Then in chapter five, the key vision of the Lamb’s witness and the present-tense celebration of all creation. The book continues with plagues, to be sure, but always there are visions of worship and strong statements like this in chapter 11: “We give you thanks, Lord God Almighty, who are and who were, for you have taken your great power and begun to reign” (11:17). These worship visions reach their culmination in the vision of the New Jerusalem at the end of the book where healing comes—even to God’s human enemies, the kings of the earth. Revelation contains not a hint of doubt—the Lamb that was slain stands, and those who would follow him (countless multitudes from all nations) celebrate in the present tense.

And in this present reality, the celebration of the Lamb’s way of conquering reflects what is most real. The plagues are also real, but they are but a passing phenomenon. Don’t live in fear of them. Don’t become fatalistic—don’t think they portray the way things most fundamentally are and the way things must be. Celebrate the Lamb, now—and, now, follow him wherever he goes.

This call to celebrate, to worship as if the way of the Lamb is the fundamental reality—this is what might be the most difficult part of Revelation’s message for us to embrace.

An example of celebration amidst “plagues”

There was a secular Jewish philosopher named Phillip Hallie who helps us understand this challenge. Hallie was a soldier in the American army that fought the Germans in western Europe during World War II. He believed that was necessary and remained proud of his service. But he always felt uneasy about the incredible violence and destruction of that war—and its legacy of only accelerating the spiral of violence leading to more violence.

As a philosopher, he became intrigued with human cruelty—or we could say, he had a horrible fascination with human cruelty. So he studied it as a philosophical inquiry—focusing on the terrors of the 1930s and 1940s in Germany and surrounding areas. And he became increasingly calloused, it seemed. It’s as if he wanted to assure himself of the necessity of his own warring—and found himself increasingly burdened by despair. Cruelty leads to ever more cruelty. Then he ran across a strange story that made him weep. He tried to pooh pooh his reaction, until he realized he couldn’t get the story out of his mind.

So he sought to learn more about a small group of people in LeChambon, a rural mountain village in southern France. They risked their lives to save thousands of Jewish refugees who found their way to this remote area. Hallie ultimately wrote a book, Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed, about this case of goodness—in the terms of Revelation, this case of people of faith following the Lamb wherever he goes in the midst of the terrible plagues of war.

Hallie, you wonder if almost in spite of himself, Hallie I think challenges his readers to think—what was the more fundamental reality here: the reality of the fog of war, the kill or be killed dynamic of such a conflict, the husbanding of extraordinary resources of violence to defeat evil-doers; or the reality of these weaponless villagers, taking huge, life-threatening risks, to offer refuge to strangers, refuge to people who could not possible hope to repay their rescuers? Which was more real?

Again, returning to Revelation’s images—what kind of action will be most at home in the New Jerusalem? What kind of action best reflects the way that the Lamb works as ruler of the kings of the earth? What kind of action most clearly corresponds to the way things truly are?

So in the end, Phillip Hallie reminds us, in his story of the villagers of LeChambon of the biggest lesson. The lesson is this: even in the midst of the worst the Beast can do, genuine worship of the one on the throne and the Lamb happens and reflects true reality—embodied worship that remains extraordinarily powerful on behalf of life.

Index for Revelation sermons

Chapter seven commentary

Index for Revelation commentary

Walter Wink, one of the greatest peace theologians of the past half-century, has passed from the scene. He died in his home in Massachusetts Thursday, May 10, 2012. He was 76 and had suffered from some years from dementia.

Wink has been one of the thinkers who has influenced me the most. On two different occasions I wrote short summaries of what I found most profound in his thought. As a tribute to his life and work, I offer excerpts from each of these.

Engaging Walter Wink

[In March 2001, Eastern Mennonite University hosted a conference that featured Wink as the main speaker. My colleague Ray Gingerich and I gathered a number of the papers from the conference and published the resultant book: Transforming the Powers: Peace, Justice, and the Domination System (Fortress Press, 2006).]

Walter Wink is that rare, and much appreciated, cross-disciplinary scholar and committed activist who informs and inspires.  Trained as a New Testament specialist, Wink’s first publications in the late 1960s made still-cited contributions to the study of John the Baptist. John the Baptist in the Gospel Tradition remains in print.  He began reaching a wider audience with his provocative The Bible in Human Transformation that forecast his broadening his concerns to psychological and ethical ramifications of how we read the Bible.  Transforming Bible Study emerged from Wink’s work as Professor of Biblical Interpretation at Auburn Theological Seminary in New York, work paying special attention to the study of the Bible among lay people.

Fortress Press published the first volume of Wink’s “Powers trilogy,” Naming the Powers: The Language of Power in the New Testament in 1984.  As Wink recounts in that book’s preface, it originated as a book review, critiquing another book on the principalities and powers in the New Testament that Wink disagreed with.  Wink had been working on the theme of the powers for a number of years, originally stimulated by the pioneering work of the notorious Episcopalian lawyer and lay theologian William Stringfellow.

What eventually emerged were two additional full-scale books, Unmasking the Powers: The Invisible Forces That Determine Human Existence (1986) and the magisterial Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination (1992), and several shorter works fleshing out the trilogy’s core insights.

The principalities and powers. Wink argues that the “principalities and powers,” in the New Testament (and he uses this term as shorthand for the various other terms that also expresses the idea) refer to the realities of all human social dynamics – our institutions, belief systems, traditions, and the like.  All of these dynamics, what he calls “manifestations of power” have an inner and an outer aspect.  “Every Power tends to have a visible pole, an outer form – be it a church, a nation, and economy – and an invisible pole, an inner spirit or driving force that animates, legitimates, and regulates its physical manifestation in the world.  Neither pole is the cause of the other.  Both come into existence together and cease to exist together” (Naming, 5).

The New Testament offers a crucial insight that should govern how we think about all the Powers.  The Powers are simultaneously (1) a necessary part of the good creation, providing the ligaments of human social existence, the structure and even languages that we require to function, (2) part of creation as fallen, with a tendency to seek to usurp God’s centrality and pervert God’s purposes for the good of the whole, and (3) part of creation as the object of God’s redeeming work, seeking to heal and transform brokenness into wholeness.

“To put the thesis of these three volumes in its simplest form: The Powers are good.  The Powers are fallen.  The Powers must be redeemed.  These three statement must be held together, for each, by itself, is not only untrue but downright mischievous.  We cannot affirm governments or universities or businesses to be good unless at the same time we recognize that they are fallen.  We cannot face their malignant intractability and oppressiveness unless we remember that they are simultaneously a part of God’s good creation.  And reflection on their creation and fall will appear only to legitimate these Powers and blast hope for change unless we assert at the same time that these Powers can and must be redeemed” (Engaging, 10).

Wink sees the Powers motif as pervasive in the New Testament.  We must not be bound by simply looking for the terms “principalities and powers,” though they are plentiful in Paul’s writings.  There are many other terms that speak to power and hence speak to our theme.  Wink lists a number of examples.  “Rulers and great men (Mt. 20:25); those who supposedly rule and great men (Mk. 10:42); Kings and those in authority (Lk. 22:25); Chief priests and rulers (Lk. 24:20); authorities and Pharisees (Jn. 7:48); rulers and elders (Acts 4:8); kings and rulers (Acts 4:26); angels and principalities (Rom. 8:38); power and name (Acts 4:7); power and wisdom (1 Cor. 1:24); power and authority (Lk. 9:1; Rev. 17:13); authority and commission (Acts 26:12); authority and power (Lk. 4:36)” (Naming, 7).

We must recognize that in each of these cases, and all the others where the New Testament writers refers to various expressions of power, political and spiritual alike, both the inner and outer aspects in some sense are in mind.  All expressions of power have both.

In Wink’s view, this awareness is essential for us today if we are be able accurately to understand the world we live in and fulfill God’s calling that we be agents for healing in this world.  “Any attempt to transform a social system without addressing both its spirituality and its outer forms is doomed to failure” (Engaging, 10).

Awareness of how crucial the applying of the Powers analysis is to the Christian mission leads to Wink’s deep concern with addressing the questions of worldviews.  The worldview that people in Western culture live with inhibits our ability to be properly attentive to the inner/outer aspect of social life.  “Only by confronting the spirituality of an institution and its concretions can the total entity be transformed, and that requires a kind of spiritual discernment and praxis that the materialistic ethos in which we live knows nothing about” (Engaging, 10).

Wink’s Powers trilogy. So, with his Powers trilogy and related writings, Wink has undertaken several inter-related tasks.  He first describes in detail the New Testament teaching on the Powers, with close-grained exegesis – examining specific key words and New Testament passages.  Then he looks more broadly at the broader meaning of the language of power in the biblical world and in our own, addressing the key question of the places of worldviews in understanding that language and “the invisible forces that determine human existence.”  And, finally, with great effect, he provides a perceptive cultural analysis of contemporary North America, focusing on the role of violence in our culture.  Wink applies what we have learned through the exegetical and worldview discussions in his critique of the “myth of redemptive violence” and his profound proposals for how to combat that myth and help create “God’s domination-free order” that Jesus inaugurated.

The language of power in the New Testament includes numerous words (e.g., archon, arche, exousia, dynamis, kyriotes, thronos, onoma) variously translated as “power,” “authority,” “dominion,” “throne,” “name.”  This language is dynamic, unsystematic, impressionistic (Naming, 10). The key underlying understanding, in Wink’s view, may be summarized in recognizing that the spiritual Powers are not separate heavenly or ethereal realities but rather the inner aspect of material or tangible manifestations of power.

“I suggest that the ‘angels of nature’ are the patterning of physical things – rocks, trees, plants, the whole God-glorifying, dancing, visible universe; that the ‘principalities and powers’ are the inner or spiritual essence, or gestalt, of an institution or system; that the ‘demons’ are the psychic or spiritual power emanated by organizations or individuals or subaspects of individuals whose energies are bent on overpowering others; that ‘gods’ are the very real archetype or ideological structures that determine or govern reality and its mirror, the human brain; that the mysterious ‘elements of the universe’ are the invariances (formerly called ‘laws’) which, though often idolized by humans, conserve the self-consistency of each level of reality in its harmonious interrelationships with every other level and the Whole; and that ‘Satan’ is the actual power that congeals around collective idolatry, injustice, or inhumanity, a power that increases or decreases according to the degree of collective refusal to choose higher values” (Naming, 104-5).

Wink’s exegetical work in Naming focuses primarily on writings in the Pauline constellation, largely because Paul and his close followers use “principalities and powers” language most overtly.  However, the underlying assumptions and theology reflected in Paul’s writings are paralleled in other New Testament writings.  This is most obvious with the book of Revelation’s symbolism.  However, as well, “the synoptic Gospels use the terminology of power almost as frequently as Paul,” only they speak more overtly of human or structural power than using spiritual terminology (Naming, 100). Given that in the New Testament, “spiritual” and “human” are not separate categories, though, the differences in terminology do not reflect theological differences.

The biblical worldview, in Wink’s understanding, allowed its writers to understand the spiritual nature of human systems and structures.  The language of demons, angels, spirits, principalities, et al, gave biblical writers a way to recognize that social life has both seen and unseen elements, and that both need to be taken into account genuinely to understand the dynamics that shape our lives.

That worldview fell by the way with the development of the modern consciousness, and it cannot simply be reappropriated.  The biblical worldview, Wink believes, “is in many ways beyond being salvaged, limited as it was by the science, philosophy, and religion of its age (Unmasking, 5).” However, the materialistic, modern worldview has proven itself inadequate to take account of the complexity of social reality since it cannot recognize the possibility that the Powers actually exist.  Among other things, as Wink makes clear, when we fail to respect the reality of the Powers we become most vulnerable to their manipulations, for example, being blinded to the pervasiveness of the myth of redemptive violence in North American society.

What is needed is recognition that we have the power and responsibility to adjust our worldview better to take actual reality into account.  To resist destructive myths we must acknowledge that myths do have power and reality does involve more than materialism allows for.  Wink challenges us to adjust our worldview in order to appropriate the profound insights of New Testament Powers thought.

“A reassessment of these Powers – angels, demons, gods, elements, the devil – allows us to reclaim, name, and comprehend types of experiences that materialism renders mute and inexpressible.  We have the experiences but miss their meaning.  Unable to name our experiences of these intermediate powers of existence, we are simply constrained by them compulsively.  They are never more powerful than when they are unconscious.  Their capacities to bless us are thwarted, their capacities to possess us augmented.  Unmasking these Powers can mean for us initiation into a dimension of reality ‘not known, because not looked for,’ in T.S. Eliot’s words….The goal of such unmasking is to enable people to see how they have been determined, and to free them to choose, insofar as they have genuine choice, what they will be determined by in the future” (Unmasking, 7).

Toward nonviolent transformation. Wink’s third book of the Powers trilogy, Engaging the Powers, both completes the series and transcends it.  Here he reiterates his learnings about the Powers in the New Testament, and provides a quite perceptive, if preliminary, account of possibilities emerging in our post-modern world for a worldview that will help us do justice to the multi-layered reality of which we are part.  The bulk of the book, then, powerfully applies the Powers and worldview insights to a powerful proposal for peace and justice activism.

Rarely, if ever, has a contemporary biblical scholar done so much to show the profound relevance of biblical teaching for social life in our current world.  This relevance, in Wink’s portrayal, lies not so much in particular teachings as in worldview shaping and consciousness raising.  Along with his cultural criticism, theological analysis, and powerful articulation of the cruciality of thorough-going nonviolence, Wink concludes his amazing book with some perceptive reflections on spirituality and hope for the person committed to being agents for peace in our violent world (obviously drawn from his own wide-ranging experiences).

Like Reinhold Niebuhr’s Moral Man and Immoral Society, Martin Buber’s I and Thou, and John Howard Yoder’s The Politics of Jesus, Wink’s Engaging the Powers is a classic with a depth of meaning one never fully plums even after repeated readings.  Among other extraordinarily important insights that he offers, these are several that I believe have the potential to shape Christian thought for years to come:

1) His delineation of the revolution going on in our contemporary world concerning our worldview (a discussion expanded in chapter two below).  He helps us understand what worldviews are, how much they shape our perceptions of the world around us, and how important it is that we seek to revise our modern worldview if we hope to be able to appropriate biblical insights into human well-being.  Only what he calls the “integral worldview” will enable us to remain modern people while also recognizing the interconnections of all things and the spirituality that infuses all of creation.

2) He coins the useful term “domination system” to help us understand our present context.  Only with the aid of the analysis of the role of the principalities and powers in human culture may we make sense of why it is that our structures are so destructive of human well-being.  The domination system operates according to the myth of redemptive violence, and entraps us all in the amazingly self-destructive dynamic of violence responding with violence to violence and on and on.

3) Along with providing necessary insight into why we are so dominated by the forces of violence, Wink’s powers analysis also provides a crucial angle the provides an essential sense of hope and empowerment.  As we break free from the illusions of the domination system, we may be freed to recognize the biblical confessions that the powers are not only corruptible (“fallen”), but they are initially the good creations of God and, most essentially, they are redeemable.  So Wink’s analysis, sobering as it is, counsels not despair but hope and empowerment.  The powers can – indeed, must – successfully be resisted.

4) Wink then gives us a biblically based vision of a domination-free order based on the life and teaching of Jesus (a vision since developed in scholarly detail in his more recent book, The Human One).  Here Wink delights nonviolent activists with a thorough demonstration of how antithetical violence is to the vision Jesus gives us of genuinely authentic human living.   As if his biblical, theological, cultural, and psychological insights are not profound enough, Wink also displays some genuine tough-mindedness and honesty in discussing some of the main tensions and potential problems with nonviolence.

Wink helps us understand both the depths of our culture’s commitment to its very core to the way of violence (and why this is happening) and the depths of the gospel’s presentation of a viable alternative to that way of violence.  Anyone who might suspect that Wink’s preoccupation with the Powers has primarily esoteric significance surely would have to admit that he makes an irrefutable case for the practical relevance of the analysis he has constructed.

Wink’s work certainly deserves our deepest gratitude.  Few if any other Christian thinkers in recent memory have done so much for assisting people of faith to apply their convictions to real life.  And few if any have done so much to help us have courage and hope concerning the relevance of the gospel.

However, even more than deserving our gratitude, Wink’s work deserves our on-going attention.  He has helped unlock a world of theological and ethical resources from the biblical tradition that are needed in our world today.  But the work has only begun!  The best display of our gratitude for the Wink’s accomplishment is to converse deeply with it, to challenge his insights and to seek to continually test them and apply them in ever-broader spheres of life.

Walter Wink and Peace Theology

When Wink retired from Auburn Theological Seminary, the seminary hosted a celebration of his career. I was asked to share a short reflection on his work from the perspective of peace theology. This was consequently published in a collection of presentations from the celebration: D. Seiple, ed., Enigmas and Powers: Engaging the Work of Walter Wink (Pickwick, 2008).

A few years ago, I heard the folksinger Richie Havens in concert.  Prior to one of his songs, he said that he wished he didn’t feel he had to perform the following song, not because it wasn’t a good song, but because he wishes we could come to a point where it would no longer be relevant.  But we have not made it to that point yet.  So he proceeded with a passionate reading of the anti-war song, “Lives in the Balance.”

Maybe we could say the same think about Walter Wink’s theological analyses related to nonviolence and his critique of the myth of redemptive violence.  It would be nice to say that our world has changed so much since Engaging the Powers came out in 1992, that that book’s powerful articulation of a genuine peace theology based on the way of Jesus has lost much of its relevance.  Were it only so.

If anything, Walter’s work on peace versus violence is more relevant than when he first articulated it.  I say this with gratitude for the brilliance and farsightedness of this work, but also with a great deal of sorrow that our society and the broader world have, if anything, become even more under thrall to the powers of domination.  However, if the need continues, we may be grateful that we have Walter’s work to draw upon – just as Richie Havens expressed gratitude for Jackson Brown’s song, “Lives in the Balance.”

The term “peace theology” has been used in recent years of theological reflection that places at the center of its concern a vision for opposition to warfare and other forms of violence and the cultivation of alternative strategies of conflict resolution and the creation of communities of resistance to the injustices of our world’s trust in redemptive violence.

A very short, eclectic list of recent examples of such peace theology would include John Howard Yoder, The Politics of Jesus; J. Denny Weaver, The Nonviolent Atonement; Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer, Jesus Against Christianity; Timothy Gorringe, God’s Just Vengeance; Gil Baillie, Violence Unveiled; Rita Nakashima Brock and Rebecca Parker, Proverbs of Ashes; Christopher Marshall, Beyond Retribution; Howard Zehr, Changing Lenses; Gordon Kaufman, In Face of Mystery; and Stanley Hauerwas, The Peaceable Kingdom.

Walter’s Engaging the Powers, along with the rest of his writings, ranks at the very top of any such list.  Every Fall semester, when I introduce my undergraduate students to Engaging the Powers. I am always gratified by the excitement with which many greet this new discovery.  I believe Walter has helped set the agenda for peace theology for years to come.  Among many extraordinarily important insights that Walter offers that have done this, I will mention just four that we need to keep working on:

Four central themes. 1) His description of the revolution going on in our contemporary world concerning our worldview.  He helps us understand what worldviews are, how much they shape how we perceive the world around us, and how we must rethink our commitment to the modern worldview if we hope truly to be able to appropriate biblical insights in our work for human well-being.

He helps us see how many elements characteristics of our modern, materialistic worldview reinforce domination – not least the tendency to view the world as constituted of discrete, autonomous entities.  The failure to see how all things are interconnected in itself underwrites a great deal of violence toward other humans beings and the natural world.

2) Walter coins the useful term “domination system” to help us understand our present context.  Certainly this is obvious in our the militarism of the United States finds justification in the ever-more violent efforts to dominate others in the world – most clearly right now in Iraq and Afghanistan.  However, all kinds of dynamics in our lives reflect the domination dynamic, from the approach to nature (hence the language of “conquering” in terms of transforming “wilderness” into areas suitable for human settlement) to the spread of global capitalism.

His profound analysis of the role of the Powers in human culture helps make sense of why our structures are so destructive of human well-being, with their reliance on the “myth of redemptive violence.”  One of the great mysteries of modernity is how so many human efforts to bring about well-being have resulted in misery and injustice.  Even well-intentioned people so often end up causing damage rather than healing with their efforts “to do good,” and even more troubling, people will less-than-good intentions all too often end up being elevated into positions of power.  Walter helps us see that human institutions, in a sense, have “minds of their own” that all too often twist even the best of intentions to their own will.

3) Also, though, along with a basis for critique, Walter’s Powers analysis provides a sense of empowerment and hope.  As we break free from the illusions of the domination system, we may be freed to recognize the biblical confession that the powers are not only corruptible (“fallen”), but they are the good creations of God and, most essentially, they are redeemable.

He provides us with a powerful basis for affirming human beings, our structures, and the wider world as “good,” and as capable of transformation.  As he asserts, simply being disillusioned with the domination system itself is extraordinarily powerful in undermining its power.  So much of our bondage is self-imposed through our believing in the system.  When our beliefs change, our innate goodness may assert itself and transformation may result.

4) Walter then gives us a biblically-based vision of a domination-free order based on the life and teaching of Jesus.  In giving a positive vision, he provides a crucial sense of possibility that goes beyond simply the (extraordinarily important and profound) critique of the domination system.

Walter thoroughly demonstrates how antithetical violence is to the vision Jesus gives us of genuinely authentic human living.  And he provides us with a practical outline of creative responses to conflict, of the value from learning from our enemies, and of the importance of a vital spirituality for the task of nonviolent transformation.

Walter helps us understand both the depths of our culture’s commitment at its very core to the way of violence and the depths of the gospel’s presentation of a viable alternative to that way of violence.  He makes a powerful case for the practical relevance for our world of Jesus’ message of a domination-free order.

At various times since 1525, groups of Anabaptists have gained notoriety for their eschatological views, particularly the Anabaptists who gained control of the city of Münster in 1534–5, proclaiming it to be the New Jerusalem.  As a rule, though, the Anabaptist tradition has been characterized by caution concerning views of the “last things.”

Anabaptist convictions, at their heart, have focused on faithfulness in this present life much more than on speculation concerning the future.  Implicit in such a focus, we may see a sense of trust in God.  As we follow the way of Jesus we may be confident that the God who remained faithful to Jesus will also remain faithful to Jesus’ followers.

What follows are two meditations on these convictions concerning importance of the call to discipleship for viewing the doctrine of eschatology.

The End of the World

At the turn of the millennium, many Christian bookstores and the Christian airwaves included an extra large number of “end times” types of writings and sermons.  Reflecting on “the end of the world” is called “eschatology,” the doctrine concerned with the end of the world.  However, what follows here more accurately could be seen as “anti-eschatology,” or, at least, a different kind of eschatology than that found on the Christian airwaves.

“End” as purpose. This is my main point: In the Bible, and I want to propose, for us today, the point in talking about the “end of the world” is not so much to focus on what is going to happen to the world in the future.  Rather, to talk about the “end of the world” biblically points us to the purpose of the world.  Or, more directly, our purpose in living in the world.

The word “end,” of course, can have two very different meanings.  One is, “the last part, final point, finish, conclusion.”  In this sense, “the end of the world” is something future and has to do with the world ceasing to exist.  The other meaning, though, is “what is desired or hoped for; purpose; intention.”  “End of the world,” in this sense, is, we could say, what God intends the world to be for.  Why is the world here and why are we here and what are we to be about?

In the years right after I became a Christian as a teenager, I thought of the “end of the world” strictly in terms of the future and how things will conclude.  I looked for the soon return of Christ—and would have been shocked to be still living in the twenty-first century.  When I was in college in the mid-1970s, I quite seriously contemplated dropping out.  Why should I work at preparing for the future when the future wasn’t going to come?

In those days, I basically welcomed the development of nuclear weapons, the conflicts in the Middle East, the likelihood of war with the Soviet Union and possibly also China.  I welcomed wars and rumors of wars.  These all meant that the second coming was at hand.  The “end of the world” was coming soon, and in that I rejoiced.

At some point, though, I realized with a start that I welcomed, actually, incredible human suffering and the destruction of nature, unprecedented death and bloodshed.  I welcomed, in a word, extreme evil.  And, I understood God to be the agent of this evil.  In this view, God’s purposes could only be worked out, I realized, by God killing human beings and all other living creatures on an unimaginable level.

When the scales fell from my eyes (which is how I see it now), I recoiled at my old worldview.  But it has taken many years since then to think through these issues more, and to decide that I don’t need to reject the Bible’s understanding of the “end of the world”, but I need to reject the lenses I had been given as a young Christian for reading the Bible.

“Hope” as escape. I do not fully understand how this view of the “end of the world” as the destruction of the world came to dominate Christian thinking.  However, as with many problems in the so-called Christian worldview (such as seeing God as punitive, such as supporting so-called just wars, such as viewing human beings as corrupted by original sin), I suspect that the “Doctor of the Church,” Augustine of Hippo, had something to do with it.

Augustine’s great fifth-century book, The City of God, grafts Greek philosophy onto biblical theology and comes up with a notion of heaven (the “city of God”) as something outside of time and history and future.  This city, “heaven,” is sharply distinguished from the world we live in, from historical life in the here and now (the “city of man”).  For Augustine, life in history is characterized by brutality, sinfulness, and the struggle for power.

This disjunction between heaven and life in the present led to focusing Christian hope, in effect, on the destruction of this world.  Genuine salvation requires an escape from this life to heaven and eternity and something totally different and separate.

Life on earth is nasty, brutish, and short.  The end of the world is coming (thank God), and the sooner the better.  It is tragically ironic that the worldview that looks to the future for salvation and achievement of heaven, in the present tends to justify violence and punishment and domination—and uses the Bible for support.  This worldview fosters self-fulfilling prophecy.  Since we believe that life here and now is nasty, brutish, violent, and short, we act to make it so.  We see these actions in Augustine and so many other Christians since supporting death-dealing violence toward heretics, pagans, and criminals.

A more life-affirming worldview. What if, to borrow my friend Howard Zehr’s metaphor, we change our lenses?  What if we look at the Bible and at the world differently?  I found a typo a while ago that, in a published bibliography, switched the name of Howard’s book from Changing Lenses to Changing Lanes.  I think that image also works.  Let’s push the metaphor.  What if we changed lanes and exited this six lane interstate of the Western, anti-creation worldview?  What if we got on a local road where we could see the world more how it actually is and realize that our key question is not about the future destruction of the world but about our purpose in the here and now?

I believe that the biblical worldview was corrupted by the fusion of Greek philosophy and the Bible.  This worldview has much more in common not with our modern western worldview but with the worldview of the very cultures western civilization has sought to stamp out.

This other worldview has been identified by recent writers as “primal”, “aboriginal”, and “indigenous.”  In the primal worldview, the world has purpose, full of the grandeur of God.  We don’t need a future destruction of the world to experience God’s presence, to know the beauty of creation, to be in harmony with the creator.  What we need is a new awareness of God in the here and now, a new awareness of the purpose of the world.  This world is where the action is.

Looking at the Bible with new eyes. Should we look at the Bible with new eyes, looking for what it tells us about the purpose of the world rather than looking for what it tells us about the future destruction of the world, what might we see?  To illustrate, I will briefly mention three biblical texts.

First, Mark 2:23–8 tells us of Jesus’ encounter with opponents who challenge his laxness in allowing his followers to feed themselves on the Sabbath, ignoring God’s law, acting as if the earth is friendly.  Jesus responds: the law is to serve human well- being, not human beings to serve the letter of the law.  The purpose of the law, of the world, of life is to flourish right now.  The purpose of the law is to enhance peace, wholeness, well  being in this life.

In Jesus’ entire ministry, he makes it clear that the law is something to be welcomed as a means to the end of abundant life.  Jesus utterly rejects the notion that life is bad, nasty, brutish, and short and that we need the coercive restraint (of legalistic law and its human enforcers) to keep us in line until we go to heaven.  No.  For Jesus the law reflects the God behind the law.  It guides us into the fullness of life in the present and into harmony with the rest of creation.

A second text comes from Revelation 21:1–4.  As often interpreted, Revelation provides a challenge to my proposal.  Is Revelation not about the future destruction of the world?  Well…it is precisely through studying Revelation that I have developed my understanding of the biblical notion of the end of the world.  The message of the Bible challenges us to find the purpose of life in the here and now, not in some otherworldly future.

The Book of Revelation is highly symbolic.  We need to take seriously the opening words of the book—this is a revelation of Jesus Christ.  We shown with symbolic imagery the meaning of Jesus’ message.  We have here a revelation of a different way of seeing the world; different from power politics, from nationalism, from the worship of wealth.  The revelation of Jesus Christ is simply that the purpose of the world is found in love, in mercy, in peaceableness, in faithfulness to the Lamb’s way.  The world is where singing and celebration and joy happen—here and now, if we but have eyes to see and ears to hear.

A key world-affirming vision in Revelation comes in chapter four, where we see the one on the throne being worshiped by all creation.  Chapter five follows with joyful singing of uncounted voices from heaven and earth and under the earth.  So, when we get to the end of the book and the vision of the New Jerusalem we realize that we are not seeing something from the future and outside of history coming into being after the destruction of this world.  Rather, we see a revelation of what reality is right now.  We need but change our lenses to see the holy in the firm, the presence of the spirit of God here and now, the reality that creation is good and is to be embraced.

Finally, the following words from Micah have become well known precisely because they contain such a precise but comprehensive message of the end of human life—our purpose.  These words could, I imagine, come from any number of primal or aboriginal cultures:  “What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (6:8).

“Do justice.”  In the Bible, and in aboriginal justice as well, this means seek wholeness and the restoration of relationships; seek to bring healing when there is harm.  “Love kindness.”  Treat people, all people, with respect, with friendliness and hospitality, with compassion.  Be gentle.  Listen.  Enjoy.  “Walk humbly with God.”  Know your place in the cosmos.  Remember and accept your finitude.  Remember your responsibility to your children and your children’s children and on and on.  Trust in God – don’t grasp for power and control and dominance.

The “end of the world”, then, remains the same even as we change millennia.  The world is the good creation of a good God.  Our end, our purpose, is to seek harmony and wholeness in relationship with one another and this good world.

Revealing a New World

I find it understandable that people who seek peace and justice in our world and advocate for the vulnerable, would want to stay away from the Bible.  As Desmond Tutu famously said, in reaction to most every movement for social justice in the past two centuries, Christians have used the Bible to defend the status quo, often violently.  “Bible-thumper” is usually used of a person who thumps the Bible while making a strong point.  In reality we could also say a “Bible-thumper” is someone who uses the Bible to thump the peace and justice advocate.

I am thankful I didn’t grow up in a Bible-thumping family.  I was lucky enough to be able, in time and without too much emotional trauma, to begin asking after what the Bible actually says rather than simply accept the authority of those who use it to oppress.

I now believe the emperor has no clothes.  The “Bible thumpers” do not reflect the central teachings of the Bible.  People justify capitalism in the name of what they call biblical Christianity when, in fact, the Bible has a term of condemnation for what capitalists do—usury.  People assert that government leaders come straight from God and, as citizens we are simply to obey, not to question why but simply to ask how high when we are ordered to jump. In fact, from the start to the end, the Bible itself teaches suspicion of and takes quite a critical stance toward kings.  The typical sentiment in the Bible is not, “obey the government.”  The typical sentiment is, “we must obey God not human beings.”  Human beings who lord it over others are singled out by Jesus as being exactly what his followers are not to be like or to be impressed with.

As Americans, we live in a time of Bible thumpers in high places.  Now, perhaps more than ever, people who read the Bible as the story of God’s incredible love and care for vulnerable victims of power politics and for the people who resist the unjust status quo need to recover and spread abroad the actual content of this book.

Children of Abraham. The story of God’s promise to Abraham and Sarah in Genesis twelve has long been one of my favorites.  We have in a nutshell the basic message: God brings life out of barrenness (Sarah was unable to have children, a terrible tragedy; she and Abraham had no future). God gave life as pure mercy.  That is what God is like.  But the point is not simply to give Abraham and Sarah children and future descendants.  There is a bigger point for this gift.  God has an agenda.  Through Abraham and Sarah’s descendants God will bless all the families of the earth.

As Christians, we consider ourselves to be children of Abraham.  We live in light of this promise and have been blessed as a consequence of the promise.  With this blessing, though, comes a calling.  Be channels of blessing to all the families of the earth.  Jesus repeated this calling. His final words call his followers to go to the nations, take the message of God’s love, teach the nations to follow Jesus’ commands (see Matt 28:18–20).

The last book in the Bible, Revelation, tells of the fulfillment of the promise.  The world is transformed, the New Jerusalem comes down, and within this renewed world we find leaves from the tree of life that are for the healing of all the nations.  The blessing is carried out.

The promise to Abraham and Sarah sets the agenda for the rest of the Bible, actually, for the rest of history.  Live as a channel of blessing for all the families of the earth.  This promise, in a real sense, conveys a worldview, an understanding of what matters most.  As human beings, we are meant to be in communities of wholeness and healing.  We are meant to know God and to know each other as children of God.

The context of the promise, the context for the rest of the Bible and for the rest of history, is that we all need healing.  Abraham and Sarah are broken and without hope.  They need healing.  The nations need healing.  And this is how God brings healing.  God forms a people who know love and who share this love.

As we know, Jesus lived directly out of the promise.  He ended up coming face to face with powers of brokenness and being broken.  The conclusion to that story is the basis for hope that the promise remains.  But God raising Jesus from the dead does not gloss over the reality of the brokenness, though it does inspire us to continue to trust in the promise as God’s way.

Brokenness in the world. However, the brokenness continues.  The worldview centered on the promise remains contested.  It is not the only option in our world, not even the dominant option.  People in our world have other worldviews in which to trust.  Some of these, though, instead of fostering wholeness foster barrenness and alienation.  A buzzword today is “globalization.”  Globalization often refers to a worldview that I would suggest is a major rival to the worldview of the promise to Abraham and Sarah.

Globalization, in one definition, refers to neo-liberal economics that increasingly dominant all four corners of the globe, transforming everything in its path, treating everything (and everybody) as a commodity fit to be exploited for the sake of profit.  This globalization stands dead set against the promise.

One expression of globalization may be seen in the incredible growth of urban slums throughout the world.  I quote from the beginning of an article called “Slum Politics” by James Westcott posted on the AlterNet website on February 18, 2005.

In the last three months, the Bombay Municipal Corporation has demolished eighty thousand shanties in a city where three million people are slum dwellers.  The local government recently granted legal status to homes built before 1995, and bulldozed everything else.  The devastation is “tsunami-like” according to the Indian Inter Press news agency.  Three hundred and fifty thousand people have been made homeless but only fifty thousand new apartments have been provided.  The program is part of Bombay’s plan to re-model itself on the ruthlessly prosperous Shanghai, which has tried to eradicate its slums.

But Shanghai’s slums remain, as they do in other cities, as part of an inexorable global trend: two hundred thousand people a day are carrot-and-sticked from the countryside to cities that then refuse to accommodate them.  In Bombay they end up in shacks by the road, on the railway tracks and next to the airport—embarrassingly visible from landing planes.  In Lagos, two-thirds of which is made up of slums, a shantytown has sprouted up on an enormous, slowly burning garbage dump.  In Kibera, the slum surrounding Nairobi, raw sewage flows over the few water pipes, and latrines are so scarce that people simply defecate in plastic bags and then throw them as far away from their dwelling as possible—a phenomenon called “flying toilets.”  Eighty-five percent of the developing world’s urban population now lives in slums, and forty percent of slum dwellers in Africa live in what the UN calls ‘life-threatening’ poverty.

We ask, why this proliferation of slums?  Probably the main factor is the dispossession of masses of the world’s people.  The economics of globalization have driven people from the land.  The ages-old farm economies are being devastated.  The rural populations have become utterly expendable.  So they end up in urban areas in hopes of scraping some kind of livelihood together—where they tragically remain expendable.

This is how sociologist Mike Davis describes the situation in his book Planet of Slums: “The labor-power of a billion people has been expelled from the world system, and who can imagine any plausible scenario, under neo-liberal auspices, that would reintegrate them as productive workers or mass consumers?” (p. 199)

A biblical alternative to globalization. Does biblical faith provide resources for responding to these developments?

It is tragic that so many Christians have capitulated to the worldview of globalization.  This capitulation has been accompanied by neutering probably the most powerful sets of images in the Bible that could help Christians resist, the so-called apocalyptic writings of the Bible.

Modern interpreters of the Bible tend to read biblical apocalyptic as irrelevant to present life.  They see apocalyptic as speaking of the future final outcome of history, the destruction of this world, the catastrophic intervention of God to use brute power to obliterate and rebuild.  On the one side are the future-prophetic interpreters (such as the writers of the Left Behind books) who take this as literal prediction of the future.  Biblical apocalyptic then becomes actually a buttress for the status quo.  Its concern is not the here and now but the by-and-by.

On the other side we find the scholars and mainstream interpreters.  They tend to assert that the early Christians (including Jesus himself) believed this world-ending catastrophe would happen in their lifetimes.  Of course the early Christians were wrong (plus, such world-ending supernatural acts are unbelievable for modern scholars), so these early Christian visions end up having nothing to say for our lives in the here and now.

Rethinking biblical apocalyptic. However, a closer look at biblical apocalyptic, reading it on its own terms in the context of the entire Bible, without the blinders of either the future-prophetic or the failed-expectation views, reveals a worldview that directly speaks to us and can help us resist globalization.

We start the rethinking by considering the word “apocalypse” itself.  This is the beginning word in the Book of Revelation: “the apocalypse of Jesus Christ.”  This term is translated in English, of course, as “revelation”—“the revelation of Jesus Christ.”  The Book of Revelation is about envisioning the world in light of Jesus Christ.  The visions given in Revelation address the need for fresh insight into the meaning of history.

However, what is the actual content of this revelation?  What is the author of Revelation trying to convey?  John, in reality, gives a concrete message about life in this world.  The focus of the book is on John’s pastoral message to the churches of Asia Minor (see Revelation 2–3).  John gives this basic exhortation: stand strong in the face of the “globalizing worldview” of the day.  Stand strong in the face of the civil religion of the Roman Empire that treats people as commodities, stand strong in the face of Rome shedding the blood of the prophets and seeking to separate people from God’s love by requiring them to trust in the Empire’s supremacy.

Revelation concludes with a clear and direct contrast between two kinds of community—the community of Babylon (the community of empire, of exploitation and oppression) and the community of the New Jerusalem (the community where people worship together, where the Lamb is followed in the paths of persevering love, where even the kings of the earth find healing).  The reader is given the choice.  Which community will you be part of?

If we stick with this motif of “revelation,” using the Greek term “apocalypse,” we may see that Paul’s writings, say especially Romans, are also apocalyptic.  At several key points in Romans the term “apocalypse” is used, again translated “revelation” or “revealed.”  At the beginning, Paul’s thesis statement: “I am not ashamed of the gospel; it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.  For in it the righteousness of God is revealed through faith to faith”—or we could say, the righteousness of God is “apocalypsed” through faith (1:16–7).  The gospel reveals the true will and saving character of God.  And God’s will is revealed for the purpose of bringing together Jew and Gentile in a new community to carry out the promise to Abraham.

The other key moment of “revelation” in Romans is at the end of Paul’s long and careful argument about the need all people have for God’s mercy: The righteousness of God has been revealed (“apocalypsed”) apart from the law in the message of Jesus Christ (3:21).  We misunderstand this “apart from the law” if we read this as a rejection of Judaism.  Rather, it is the opposite.  Paul is saying that the true message of the promise is the unification of Jews and Gentiles in one community of faith.  The exclusiveness centered on a misuse of the law is abolished through Jesus’ death and resurrection.

The result, again, of the “apocalypse” of God through Jesus is something that transforms life in the here and now—a new community that knows peace due to the breaking down of walls of enmity.  Remember that the letter to the Romans was written to Christians in the belly of the beast, the capital of the Empire.  This community of faith directly challenges the oppression of Empire, as we see in Paul’s litany of various “Gentile” injustices in Romans chapter one.

Transforming life in this world. So, in these two apocalyptic texts—Revelation and Romans—what we see is not a promise about the end of the world but a promise about the transformation of life in this world.  As God’s answer to Rome’s injustices, Rome’s version of globalization, the apocalyptic message focuses on the formation of communities of resistance.  These communities embody the worldview of the promise and make it known to the nations.

A third passage reflecting these same dynamics comes is the foundational revelation of the entire ancient Hebrew story, God’s involvement in freeing the people from slavery in the exodus.  Again, God acts in opposition to the world’s “globalizing” empire, in this case Egypt.  Egypt also treated people as commodities, breaking their backs in exploitation (Exodus 1:13–4).

God intervenes with saving work—a revelation (“apocalypse,” even if the actual word is not used in the book of Exodus) with the same consequence as in Revelation and Romans.  God’s intervention results in the formation of a community of resistance, a community formed out of the ashes of the exploitation and enmity, to be characterized by transformative justice.

So, biblical apocalyptic speaks directly to our present world crisis.  We see in the apocalyptic imagery of the Bible a direct clash of worldviews.  On the one hand, we see the worldview of promise, of healing community, of valuing each human being.  On the other hand, we see the worldview of forced labor, of hard work in mortar and brick, of the trafficking in human souls spoken of in Revelation, of the manifold injustices mentioned in Romans one.

The Bibles resolves this clash of worldviews not by a history-ending catastrophe.  The Bible’s message does not give hope for escape from life on earth.  Rather, the Bible’s resolution may be found in witnessing to genuine life in history, in banding together in communities of resistance to say no to the idolatry of violence and the so-called progress that creates a planet of slums—and to say yes to ways of life that are sustainable and equitable and joyful.

[Adapted from Ted Grimsrud, Embodying the Way of Jesus: Anabaptist Convictions for the Twenty-First Century (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publications, 2007), pp. 179-189.]

The first members of the Anabaptist churches in the 16^th century chose to join that movement. Then severe persecution had a huge impact—many of the first generation even lost their lives. In time, for most of the Anabaptists’ spiritual descendants, the Mennonites, ongoing viability depended much more on retaining the children of the church more than on gaining new converts from the outside.

The survival of the Mennonite tradition depended on a change from their initial belief. From the first, they believed in the baptism of choosing adults—this separated them from other Christians who baptized infants. Later the practical focus was more on the community sustaining itself mainly by keeping its young people from choosing to leave.

For a long time, Mennonites differed a great deal from the surrounding society (most obviously by speaking a different language). So their young people rarely felt comfortable leaving—the shock was too great.

A number of years ago I became acquainted with a Hutterite community where the people mostly spoke German, where they were different from those of us on the outside. A few young people chose to leave, though. They called them runaways. Most of these runaways headed to a nearby city. When they got there, they felt lost, like fish out of water. They tended to congregate with other runaways, and in time most headed back to the Hutterite communities.

The viability of the Mennonite tradition today?

For mainstream Mennonites in the United States, those days are long gone. More than ever since the 16^th century, Mennonites must choose to stay in the church. Our continued identification with this community is a choice. Hence the ongoing viability of the Mennonite tradition cannot be taken for granted.

The viability of the Mennonite tradition depends on Mennonite churches self-consciously embodying core Mennonite convictions. What are several of the basic convictions that are distinctively Mennonite? What is it we are choosing when we choose to identify ourselves as Mennonite?

In reflecting on these questions, I need to make clear that Mennonites have a great deal in common with other Christians that is important. Many basic Mennonite convictions are also basic Christian convictions. I focus here on distinctive convictions (recognizing also that Mennonites are not necessarily unique in these convictions).

Distinctive Mennonite convictions

1. Mennonite faith seeks to hold belief and practice together. The Letter of James puts it famously, “Faith without works is dead.” So did early Anabaptist leader Hans Denck, “No one may know Christ unless one follows him in life.” As I read Mennonite theology, I don’t always find myself in complete agreement with many things, but shining through from 1525 to the present is the conviction that you can never separate beliefs from practices—authentic theology must be on-the-ground theology; authentic theology must be lived theology.

2. Mennonite faith explicitly affirms pacifism as central to Christianity. This is commonly understood, but to me the word “explicitly” is crucial—Mennonite faith explicitly affirms pacifism. I have found myself on numerous occasions over the years in conversations with people who, when I identify myself as a Mennonite, immediately bring up the Mennonite peace testimony—not always with affirmation but always in a way that opens the door for direct conversation about peace and about following Jesus.

3. Mennonite faith seeks for its pacifism to express itself in practical works of service. This is to say, Mennonite pacifism over the centuries has cared a lot more about finding ways to put into practice the ethic of love, about finding concrete ways to serve, about meeting human needs and has focused more on acting than on developing sophisticated arguments. As John Howard Yoder stated, convictions that foster faithful living matter more than developing intellectualized arguments.

4. Mennonite faith understands commitments to particular nation-states to be secondary and affirms a strong international awareness. Back in the 16^th century, Anabaptist leader Michael Sattler was executed for saying that he would refuse to defend Europe against the Turks with violence. Throughout their history, Mennonites have picked up and migrated to new locations when they have been prevented from practicing their faith. They have had the conviction that their loyalty to their faith community as an expression of the coming kingdom of God is a higher loyalty than their commitment to any human government.

5. Mennonite faith fosters active participation of all people in the fellowship, thus decentralizing power. This is an ideal that has not always been met, but the belief in the priesthood of all believers, that we are all on the same level before God, logically points in the direction of sharing power.

Holding belief and practice together

The central distinctive Mennonite conviction is the first one, the commitment to holding belief and practice together. In the Mennonite tradition, the key word has been “following.” Mennonites’ faith does not focus on the “mysteries” or on abstract creeds or on the sacraments so much as on listening to Jesus’ teaching and seeking to walk in his way.

It has been said that when approaching the Bible, Mennonites tend to start with Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount—in contrast with, say, Lutherans beginning with Paul’s Letter to the Romans or Catholics beginning with the Gospel of John. The differences among these three traditions to a large extent stem from their varied starting places.

The Mennonite approach to making the Sermon on the Mount teaching central to Christian faith reflects two key beliefs: (1) that Jesus’ life and teaching provide the basis for understanding the rest of the Bible and, indeed, all of life; and (2) that it is possible to obey, it is possible to follow Jesus’ way.

The conviction that Jesus’ life and teaching provide the key to understanding everything else stands in contrast to ways creedal Christianity tends to jump from the Virgin Birth to the crucifixion (for example, see the Apostles’ Creed: “We believe in Jesus Christ…who was…of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified…[and] rose again”—with nothing about what happened between Mary and Pilate).

The hopeful conviction that it is possible to obey Jesus, that God expects people of faith to embody Jesus’ way and that we are able to do so contrasts with the pessimism about human possibilities that has characterized much of Western Christendom, at least since the fourth century. Mennonites believe all Christians should be held to a high standard of ethical faithfulness and that such a standard may realistically be met by all who seek to, with each other’s help.

Faithfulness in response to God’s love

These core convictions of Mennonite faith—on-the-ground faith, the commitment to pacifism, service, open participation in community life, following Jesus—are best understood as responses to God’s love, not means to gain favor with God. Because God loves us, we respond with faithful living.

How then do we sustain Mennonite faith? One key is to recognize how much it depends on choices made by the rising generation of young people. We must simply, genuinely love our children and communicate to them a sense of vitality of following the way of Jesus. We must seek to live as disciples in a way that respects the spiritual responsibilities of each person and encourages all toward self-conscious choices to walk Jesus’ path.

The point then becomes that our children join us in the Mennonite community not out of obligation, not out of fear of what might happen if they do otherwise, but out of a free desire to share life in their life-enhancing environment. This means we ourselves must work together to make our Mennonite communities genuinely life enhancing.

As we foster genuinely life-enhancing Mennonite communities that welcome our own children, surely we will also attract others from the outside. These newcomers will be attracted because of our embodiment of Mennonite convictions and will be assets in sustaining our tradition.

[This article was published in The Mennonite, January 6, 2004.

During the Spring of 2012, I have had the challenge of writings a series of (very) short Bible study reflections for the Mennonite World Review (which was Mennonite Weekly Review when my series of articles began in February).

This has been an excellent discipline. I have written these kinds of reflections for MWR several times before, and I always enjoy doing so—not least because I am often asked to write about texts I am unfamiliar with.

For some time, I have wanted to look more closely at John’s Gospel. I have tended to focus on the other gospels much more (including a recent series of thirteen sermons on the Gospel of Luke). John is a bit different, to say the least.

I benefited from insights from the fine commentary on John by Gail O’Day that is included in my favorite commentary series, The New Interpreters Bible (published by Abingdon).

The format for these reflections allows very little opportunity for in-depth analysis of any sort. And they are meant to be accessible to non-scholars. So it’s a challenge to find something to say that has substance.

I did find myself, as I expected, much more attracted to John than I have been before. John, as argued by Marcus Borg in his book Jesus: A New Vision, has provided most of the proof texts used by those who assume a divine (not human) Jesus who is kind of an otherworldly super savior of individuals who had little to say about social and political concerns. However, such usage of John misreads the book terribly.

In my reflections (which may be read here), I could not really develop a counter perspective in any overt and detailed way. But I did try to suggest another way of reading John.

Ted Grimsrud

Revelation 6:1-17—Shalom Mennonite Congregation—April 15, 2012

Kathleen and I love to go on rides out in the beautiful countryside around Harrisonburg. We’ve gotten lost a few times and once or twice had close calls with the gas gauge. But mostly it’s great and we enjoy the rides as much now as ever.

One memory is the first time we ventured west on state highway 257, years ago, not long after we moved here. I hadn’t bothered with a map, thinking part of the fun is figuring things out as we go. We drove through Briary Branch and cruised on our way to West Virginia—I thought. A nice highway. Then all of a sudden the nice highway ended. It was a shock; little warning. We had a couple of options, but they weren’t too appealing. Narrow, steep, windy roads with no lines. After wandering around for awhile, we turned back and left the way we came.

This sense of disorientation when the expected continuation of the nice highway ends is kind of how I feel with I come to Revelation, chapter 6. You may remember the first five chapters. Maybe not totally easy sailing, but fairly clear. And it’s not too difficult to see in Revelation one through five a nice message of peace, the Lamb as the way. But then with chapter six, the plagues begin. The nice part ends. What in the world is going on?

God must be ticked off….

For most readers of Revelation, this apparent turn toward judgment seems to come as kind of a relief. This slain Lamb metaphor as the key to history—that notion can only get us so far. We are happy to see as we turn to the plagues that the mercy rests on some good, hard wrath of God that gives the wrong-doers of history their due. Sure, God on the throne and the Lamb give us the picture of mercy in chapters four and five. But God must be angry, too, right? I mean, wouldn’t you be? Look at all the stuff there is to be ticked about.

I remember a bumper sticker from a long time ago that we often saw around Eugene, Oregon: “God is coming…and she is ticked off!” So, this is our first question, to get us thinking about what’s going on in Revelation six with its visions of terrible plagues. What is there for God to be angry about in our world—think back over the course of human history? Reflect on that as I read from Revelation six and we’ll talk about it a bit.

Then I saw the Lamb open one of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures call out, thunderously, “Come!” I looked, and there was a white horse! Its rider had a bow; a crown was given to him, and he came out conquering and to conquer. When he opened the second seal, the second living creature called, “Come!” Out came another horse, bright red; its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that people would slaughter one another; and he was given a great sword.

When the Lamb opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature call, “Come!” There was a black horse! Its rider held a pair of scales in his hand, and from the midst of the four living creatures a voice said, “A quart of barley for a day’s pay, but do not damage the olive oil and the wine!” When he opened the fourth seal, the fourth living creature called, “Come!” There was a pale green horse! It’s rider’s name was Death; Hades followed; they were given authority over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword, famine, and pestilence, and by the wild animals of the earth.

When the Lamb opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slaughtered for the word of God and their testimony; they cried out loudly, “Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you judge and avenge our blood on the inhabitants of the earth?” Each was given a white robe and told to rest a bit longer, until the number would be complete of their fellow servants who were soon to be killed as they had been.

When he opened the sixth seal, there came a great earthquake; the sun became black as sackcloth, the full moon became like blood, the stars of the sky fell to the earth as the fig tree drops its winter fruit when shaken by a gale. The sky vanished like a scroll rolling itself up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place. Then the kings of the earth and the magnates and the generals and the rich and the powerful, and everyone, slave and free, hid in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, calling to the mountains and rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of the one seated on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb; for the great day of their wrath has come, and who is able to stand?” (6:1-17)

So what do you think? What is there, in our world, for God to be angry about?…

A counter-intuitive suggestion

Well, let me suggest something that might seem counter-intuitive—or at least contrary to the most obvious reading of Revelation 6—or at least contrary to Christianity’s teaching about God’s anger. I don’t think we should read these verses as being about God’s anger or God’s punitive judgment. Let me say that again: I don’t think we should read these verses as being about God’s anger or God’s punitive judgment.

This is the basic question that comes to me as I read this chapter after having reflected on Revelation four and five. The main point of Revelation four and five, I suggested in my last sermon, is to show us God and the Lamb as incredibly merciful. We don’t get a physical description of the one on the throne; all we see is the slain and resurrected Lamb, the personification of persevering love. I concluded that sermon with two biblical quotes.

From John’s gospel: “No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made God known” (1:18). From the letter of 1st John: “God is love. God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him….No one has ever seen God, [but] if we love one another, God lives in us, and God’s love is perfected in us” (v. 4).

Remember also the agenda of the book of Revelation as a whole. In a sentence: Revelation seeks to encourage followers of Jesus to remain faithful to his way as they negotiate living in empire. This remains encouragement that we who identify with Jesus today might also want to pay attention to, I’d say.

But it is interesting to read interpreters of Revelation. Most seem automatically to assume that Revelation six is about God’s punishing judgment, directly visited upon the earth—even many interpreters who take a peaceable approach to Revelation overall. As if the one on the throne who endorses the Lamb’s persevering love as the basis for the opening of the scroll now starts to rip things apart. As if the Lamb himself all of a sudden becomes angry. Think about it though, can you imagine an angry lamb?

My little canine companion Sophie is an absolute sweetheart. She does like to play and growl and bark, but she shows very little evidence of having much of a temper—though maybe a little. But a lamb? I don’t really think so. I believe it is clear that the metaphor in Revelation of the Lamb means to evoke a sense of gentleness, not punishing anger, vulnerability not domination.

Bringing together two truths

So what then might be going on in Revelation six?

John brings together two truths. First, he affirms that the one on the throne made, sustains, and heals creation. The scroll that the Lamb took from the one’s right hand truly does contain the story of the healing of heaven and earth. And this healing will happen through persevering love, expressed most fundamentally in the Lamb’s path of faithful witness.

But the second truth cannot be avoided. And it is this: The world we live in remains broken. It remains powerfully alienated. It remains the home of terrible injustices, violence, and domination. People suffer, nature suffers. The need for healing remains all too obvious—as does the influence, even we could say, the reign of the powers of greed and inhumanity.

How can we understand and affirm God’s care for creation and all that is in it in face of the brokenness that is so apparent? That is the question Revelation six (and the bulk of the rest of the book) tries to respond to with these horrific visions of destruction—the so-called plague visions.

But does God add to creation’s hurt with punishing judgment? How could this be in light of what we learned from Revelation four and five? How could this be if truly we see God in Jesus, the Jesus who shows us, above everything else, that God is love?
So, we remember, front and center, what Revelation has already told us about God and the Lamb. Then we look more closely at the imagery of chapter six itself.

Let’s note that the Lamb breaks the seals to the scroll. This act does not reveal the content of the scroll. These plagues are not the message of the scroll—that message is the New Jerusalem, the healing and renewing of heaven and earth.

Breaking the seals as a metaphor

I suggest we best see the opening of the scrolls as a metaphor. The Lamb in this way provides insight into how we understand the world we live in right now. These are not visions of a future catastrophe a punishing God is going to visit on rebellious creation. Rather they are visions into the world in which we live.

Think about all the terrible tragedies in human history—especially almost continual wars somewhere, and the accompanying disease and hunger. We don’t have to look to the future to see the four riders. They are in the past and in the present.

A key number in Revelation, not yet mentioned but significant in relation to these plague visions is the number 3½ years and variations. It contrasts with seven years (the time of wholeness). The three and a half years (or 42 months or 1260 days) refer to the time of the present—our time of brokenness. We will read in other visions that the plagues last these 3 ½ years. The plagues characterize the time before the establishment of the New Jerusalem. The plagues characterize the brokenness of the world we live in.

That the Lamb opens the scrolls does not mean the Lamb causes the violence and destruction. That the Lamb opens the scrolls tells us that we are to understand the various expressions of hurt and damage in our world from the Lamb’s perspective.

Note, as well, with the four riders, the passive voice: “a crown was given” (6:2); “its rider was permitted” (6:4); “they were given” (6:8). This passive voice makes the source of the plagues ambiguous. The source actually could be the Dragon. Chapter 12 will imply this. But even if in some sense we are to think of God as involved in the plagues, the passive voice creates distance. If it is God, in some mysterious providential way, God does not intervene directly way. God does not reach down to make the plagues happen. Many other wills shape these dynamics—especially those who oppose God.

“Wrath” and God and the Lamb

But what about the “wrath” here—“the great day of their wrath” (the one on the throne and the Lamb)? What does “wrath” mean? “Wrath” in the Bible actually most often means something much more indirect and less personal than anger. In fact, often the word “wrath” is used alone. The English translators add “God’s.” But it really just says “wrath,” not “God’s wrath.”

In Romans one, Paul talks about the outworking of “wrath” being that “God gave them (the idolaters) up,” not that God directly punished them. Wrath has to do with the processes of life. We tend to become like that which we trust in the most—if we trust in lifeless idols, we become damaged, our hearts are darkened. As we could say, time wounds all heels. I’ve wanted to use this saying in a sermon for a long time. I’ve also wanted to use “praise with faint damns,” but haven’t found a spot yet….But this is wrath in a nutshell: time wounds all heels.

So, we may link the wrath of God and the Lamb with God’s respect for human choice. God lets us make our choices and then face the consequences, for better and for worse. Revelation six, then, does not picture an active, punishing, angry God and an angry, vicious Lamb. Rather, Revelation six, through the breaking of the scrolls, helps readers understand better the world in which we live so we might better follow the Lamb wherever he goes—the way of persevering love.

A key image in the chapter points in this direction, though it is commonly misunderstood. Interpreters usually assume that somehow God and the Lamb change character between chapter five and chapter six. They seem all of a sudden to become crusading avengers; then interpreters also assume that this punishing vengeance is fueled in part by the cries of the martyrs “under the altar” spoken of in verse 9.

These martyrs cry out, “Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long will it be before you judge and avenge our blood on the inhabitants of the earth?” (6:9). Clearly a cry for punishing revenge, right? Well, not so fast….

The key word here is the word often translated “avenge.” However, the word, more literally, could be translated “bring justice.” If we recognize that it is a “justice” term, our understanding of what it means here will be shaped by our more general understanding of what “justice” means in the Bible. And biblical justice is not about vengeance. Biblical justice is about restoring relationships; biblical justice is about healing that which has been damaged. So maybe this is what the martyrs cry out: “How long before you heal creation; how long before you transform the inhabitants of the earth?”

Because, notice two more things here. First, each of the martyrs was given “a white robe” (6:11). The white robes throughout Revelation are the garments worn by those who follow the Lamb wherever he goes. And what was the Lamb’s attitude toward those who took his life? “Forgive them, for they do not know what they do.” Does it not stand to reason that those who are closest to Jesus, to the point that they receive the reward of the white robe, wouldn’t you think those closest to Jesus would share his views about the treatment of offenders?

I know that in my own life, when I feel closest to Jesus, I find forgiveness to be a much more natural response than a desire for revenge—not that I’m claiming I’m always that close to Jesus! Just that I have had glimpses of closeness, and when I do I find I tend toward being more merciful.

And then, second, after their call for justice, the martyrs are told to remain patient. This “3 ½ years” of struggle we live in will continue for a while longer. Then God will answer your pleas. This promise, of course, makes us want to peek ahead in Revelation to the ending. How will the cries for justice ultimately be answered?

Before we peek, let me mention one more image from chapter six. A great earthquake—a metaphor for a major upheaval in the social and political realm. I think actually this upheaval refers to the revelation and embodiment of the politics of the Lamb—a politics of disillusion with empires and hierarchies and greedy corporations. As this kind of politics gains traction, the great ones indeed tremble. The leading tremblers are the “kings of the earth.” They experience the Lamb’s ways of love as “wrathful.” Terrified, they cry out, “who can stand against it?” Indeed, we see in the various empires that have crashed and burned that they can’t stand over the long run.

God’s answer

But how does this all end? How is the call for justice answered? Let’s peek at the end of Revelation, the vision of the New Jerusalem, renewed heaven and earth, the completing of the story from the inside of the scroll.

How do God and the Lamb bring justice? The story ends in the New Jerusalem. “The nations will walk by [the light of the glory of God], and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it” (21:24). Indeed. The justice of God heals even God’s greatest enemies. How does this happen? Well, one important part is for those with the white robes to remain patient, to follow the Lamb wherever he goes, and to trust in God’s true justice.

So, it turns out that maybe Revelation has more coherence than many think. Visions of the slain Lamb as the meaning of history bracket the middle part, the plague visions that make up chapters six through eighteen. These plague visions, then, also illumine the Lamb’s sovereignty, the sovereignty of love. They do not contain certain predictions of God punishing judgment on creation. Rather, they contain insights into what actually is going on in our world right now—and how this is to be negotiated by people genuinely committed to the ways of peace. Our “highway” through Revelation actually remains viable and well-marked—leading us to the New Jerusalem.

The book has a clear message: Cry out, passionately cry out, for justice—for God’s healing justice. And follow the Lamb’s way, strive for the white robe of love and compassion. Amen.

Index for Revelation sermons

Chapter six commentary

Index for Revelation commentary

The column was called “Pursue Peace,” and my assignment was to write a 400-word essay each month that would relate peacemaking to that issue’s theme. This turned out to be a pretty challenging task.

A number of the themes were not necessarily things I had thought about in relation to peace before. I couldn’t simply draw from my already existing arsenal of peace stories and teachings. Plus, I was severely limited by the 400-word ceiling. No careful development of sophisticated arguments here!

I enjoyed the challenge, though. Several of the pieces challenged me to make connections I would not have thought about otherwise. And it’s always a useful discipline to seek to write clearly, accessibly, and concisely. And because of the context for these mini-essays, I found myself often taking a more personal and practical slant on the theme—and less heady and intellectual.

Unfortunately, Purpose does not have a web presence. So I have uploaded the essays to PeaceTheology.net so they won’t simply disappear. The home page for the essays is here.

[See notes on Revelation 5]

John enters the door into heaven at the beginning of chapter four and begins to describe what he sees. First it’s a vision of the throne room—which turns out to be a vision that reassures the reader of God’s on-going presence and worthiness of continued worship from all creation. This reassurance forms the first of a set of bookends that is matched at the end of the book with the vision of the New Jerusalem that returns to the image of the “one on the throne” (21:5) being worthy of praise and adoration.

It’s is essential that we keep these two references to the one on the throne’s mercy and healing love—and power—as we enter into reflection on the visions that come between the throne room and the New Jerusalem. In some ultimate sense, those visions must be seen as serving the purposes of the healing power of the one on the throne.

To emphasize that the intentions of the God of Revelation are healing, the first vision after the throne room account (chapter 5) portrays the power of the Lamb, seen in faithful witness and crucifixion followed by resurrection and vindication, to take the scroll. Because of this power, the Lamb receives that same all-encompassing worship from the entire animate creation. The power of the Lamb leads to the liberation from the powers of sin and evil of people “from every tribe and language and people and nation” (5:9). And these liberated people for a nation of the their own that stands in resistance to the nation ruled by the Beast.

So, with the context set—God as ruler, the Lamb as liberator, the nation of Lamb-followers established—we turn to a new set of visions within the broader vision of one on the throne establishing the New Jerusalem.

Revelation 6:1-8—The four horses and their riders

We are never told in Revelation exactly what the “scroll” is that the one on the throne turned over to the slain and risen Lamb (5:7). The way chapter five presents this scene clearly infers (once we read the entirety of Revelation) that this scroll contains the message to be fulfilled with the coming down the New Jerusalem. The visions between chapters five and twenty-one convey the process of the scroll being opened so the healing message may come to fruition.

The first step will be to break the seven seals that keep the scroll closed (5:1). No one had been found to break these seals and open scroll—hence John’s bitter weeping in 5:4. Finally, the opener arrives, in a genuine sense a mighty king (5:5), but a king who conquers through persevering love (5:6). Now, with 6:1, this conquering Lamb begins his work.

What follows must be interpreted very carefully. We must remember first of all that all references to “the Lamb” are references to the Lamb of persevering love (that is, the “Jesus Christ” the book of Revelation reveals, 1:1). So whatever the Lamb does should be understood as consistent with this persevering love.

Then we must note right away in 6:1 that all that the Lamb is doing at this point is breaking the seals. The actual contents of the scroll are not yet revealed—the contents, we could say, that come from the One on the throne and are directly linked with the will of that One. The events that accompany the breaking of the seals can’t be linked directly with the content of the scroll because that content has not yet been revealed.

The seal-breaking events that are envisioned in chapter six, therefore, need not be seen as the direct expression of God’s will. In fact, what we know of God from chapters four and five should cause us to assume that these terrible events described in chapter six are actually contrary to the will of God and the Lamb. One interpretation of a forthcoming vision in chapter twelve concludes that the terrible traumas that befall the earth beginning with 6:1 are in fact the consequences of the dragon (Satan) “making war” on God’s children (12:17).

The events associated with the breaking of the seals, like the events later associated with the blowing of the trumpets (chapters eight and nine) and the pouring out from the bowls (chapters fifteen and sixteen), are actually (though dramatically stated) simply some of the on-going events of human history. In linking these events with the breaking of the seals, John seems to be telling us that with the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, the Lamb, we are now as never before situated to understand and respond to the violence and domination and injustice and destruction the dragon wreaks on earth, so often through the dragons human minions—the empires and the kings of the earth.

When the “four living creatures” call out “Come!” (NRSV) with the breaking of each of the first four seals, they are not asserting that God Godself directly sends forth war and famine and death. Rather, they are commanding John’s attention. Each creature cries out and each time John “looks.” What John sees, finally, is “Death and Hades…were given authority over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword, famine, and pestilence, and by the wild animals of the earth” (6:8).

The passive tense (“were given”) that avoids naming the source of the authority Death and Hades receives is another way of pointing to the indirectness of God’s involvement in these events. Probably the ambiguity here is intentional. There is a sense that Death and Hades get their authority from the dragon. The dragon is the one who desires the destruction of “a fourth of the earth.” Yet, John cannot allow that to be the last word. The dragon is not the final authority. The fate of the earth is not destruction but healing. And so, somehow the wars and famines do not operate outside of God’s providential involvement to bring history to its healing end (again, the story of this healing end makes up the content of the scroll).

The role of the Lamb, then, in these initial plague visions, is not to be the source of war and famine, but to signal that the dragon-inspired destruction will not defeat or negate the Lamb’s victory and ultimate healing work. So, the lesson to be learned from the Lamb’s presence here is a reminder to follow his way of persevering love even in the face of war and famine.

Revelation 6:9-11—The cry for justice

Throughout the book of Revelation, the pattern of Jesus (faithful witness, death at the hands of the powers that be, and vindication through resurrection) stands as both the fundamental path the conquering Lamb followed that actually provides the decisive victory the book celebrates and as the fundamental path the followers of the Lamb are to take as well.

The opening of the fifth seal reminds John’s readers again of this pattern. With the breaking of this seal, John sees the faithful witnesses who had followed this path to the bitter end and now await their vindication. One step in the vindication is that they received “white robes” (throughout Revelation a symbol of those whose lives were conformed to the pattern of Jesus).

We should remember again the character of the one the faithful witnesses were imitating—that is, the one whose response to his killers was, “Lord, forgive them.” It is difficult to imagine Jesus seeking revenge against his enemies. He called for and practiced love and forgiveness (even 70 times 7).

So, it seems counterintuitive to imagine that the faithful witnesses here are calling for punishment and revenge. If they were seeking such they would not have received white robes. Rather, the better understanding of their cry comes with a more literal translation of the word translated in the NSRV as “avenge” (6:10).

The root of edikeis is –dik, often translated as “just” or “justice.” The cry from the witnesses, thus, may be understood as a cry for justice, not simply revenge. “How long will it be before you bring justice in response to the violence of the inhabitants of the earth.” This could be understood, then, actually as a call for healing not punishment. How long until the contents of the scroll are revealed and the New Jerusalem come down and the inhabitants of the earth are healed of their warring madness?

The response to the witness’s cry confirms this reading. They are told to continue to rest, with the assurance that indeed vindication and healing are coming. We have to read to the end of Revelation to get a clear answer as to what this “vindication” will entail. The New Jerusalem does “come down” (chapters 21-22) and at that point the nations (whose citizens are the “inhabitants of the earth”) find healing from the fruit of the tree of life that straddles the river of the water of life (22:1-2)—as do even the “kings of the earth” (the human rulers who led the “inhabitants” in their murderous ways).

In the meantime, for God’s own purposes, history continues. As an inevitable part of history, those who follow the Lamb’s path of resistance to the ways of the Beast will continue to suffer the consequences. That notion that “the number” of martyrs is yet to be “completed” (6:11) could be understood more in relation to the need for sustained resistance that will lead to martyrdom during this time between Revelation 5 and Revelation 21 than that God has a set number of martyrs that must be achieved before the end.

Revelation 6:12-17—The ultimate earthquake

The opening of the six seal leads to a terrible, all-encompassing earthquake, powerful enough even to knock the stars out of the sky (6:13). This earthquake image comes from numerous Old Testament prophets (e.g., Isa 13:10; Ez 32:7-8; Joel 2:30-31; Amos 8:9; Zeph 1:15). The “earthquake” reflects terrible chaos and judgment—though in actual life things continue. The earthquake does not literally end the story.

Here, John seems to convey with the earthquake vision a condemnation of the corruption of the nations and empires that are the agents of the dragon in plaguing humanity with wars, famine, and pestilence. All the dynamics of death fueled by the dragon are summed up in this vision of judgment. Their seemingly inexorable domination will not stand as it stems from rebellion against the true God of creation.

That the earthquake image actual is a political image rather than a literal vision of an actual earthquake may be seen in the list of those who flee in terror: “the kings of the earth and the magnates and the generals and the rich and the powerful, and everyone, slave and free” (6:15). The earthquake, that is, is actually God’s condemnation of the ways of empire that victimize and violate so many people.

This vision concludes with an extraordinarily paradoxical image. The great ones are hiding in terror from “the wrath of the Lamb.” What in the world? I suppose it is possible for a real-life lamb to get angry, but vicious anger is not what we associate with lambs. Nor is it what we associate the Jesus, the Lamb. Is there another way to understand “wrath”?

Actually, there is. The use of “wrath” here actually may well be another way that John emphasizes the indirectness of the involvement of God in these terrible events of human self-destruction and catastrophe (events, remember, that are characteristic of all eras of human history). “Wrath,” as used throughout the Bible, often tends to have the connotation more of “God gave them up” (Rom 1:24) or God left them to the dynamics of cause and effect than of God’s direct and person punitive anger.

This “earthquake,” then, could be seen as the destructive political consequences of “the kings of the earth” idolizing power and domination and exploitation—approaches to governing that inevitably lead to famine and pestilence and war. The role of the Lamb then becomes one of revealing the idolatry behind the kings (mis)rule for what it is.

The story in the gospels of Jesus’ faithful witness (which involved confronting misused power, both in individual leaders and in systems of domination) leading to the terrible violence against him by the religious and political structures (who were claiming to be God’s agents in the world) leading to vindication by God in resurrection (thus exposing the powers-that-be in their rebellion against God) actually involves a revelation of the “wrath of the Lamb.” It is “wrath” in the sense that through his consistent love, Jesus actually challenges the powers-that-be and makes more clear than ever before their illegitimacy as God’s agents.

The “face of the one seated on the throne and…the Lamb” is indeed wrathful toward the kings (6:16-17) because it is unrelenting in its rejection of the dominating ways of the kings. This rejection delegitimizes the kings and they simply cannot “stand” (6:17) in the presence of such wrath. The powers of darkness wither in the presence of genuine light.

The Lamb is utterly contrary to the “great ones” (Mark 10:42). They try to crush his way of freedom from idolatry. In doing so, they place themselves in the center of God’s wrath. The result is their destruction, as Revelation’s visions will continue to emphasize.

[See notes on Revelation 7 (coming soon)]

[Index for Revelation notes]

[See notes on Revelation 4]

After the throne room time of praise of the one on the throne, we move to the next part of the vision of chapters four or five. If we think of this vision as a kind of worship service, at this center point we get the main content of the service that allows us to understand the significance of the worship that precedes it and follow it.

Revelation 5:1-5—Who can open the scroll?

John sees a “scroll” in the right hand of the one on the throne. That this scroll is in God’s “right hand” emphasizes its weightiness as does the fact that it is so securely secured with seven seals (“seven,” again, is the number of completeness). Though we are not told directly, we surely are to understand the contents of this scroll to be the fulfillment of God’s work with creation, a message of final and complete healing.

But the message cannot simply be given. Someone must be found to open the scroll and bring the message to its fruition. To John’s bitter frustration, given his longing that the healing come, “no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or look into it” (5:3). We can only speculate as to why this is the case. One idea, though, is that everyone misunderstands the way the scroll is to be opened. Everyone looked for the power of domination as the power to bring history to its conclusion.

John’s vision may thus be making a point similar to the point Paul makes in 1 Corinthians 2 about the “wisdom” of the age that fails to see in the preserving love of Jesus the revelation of the deepest and most profound truths of the universe (1 Cor 2:7).

No one is found and John weeps bitterly (5:4). Then he is told to weep no more because one has indeed been found. He is told that a king, great and powerful enough to break open the scroll has made an appearance—at least this is the sense one gets from what John is told. It is “the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David,” a great conqueror who can open the scroll.

This is all for dramatic effect. John of course already knows the identity of this victor. However, the drama is important. Many did expect that the deliverer would indeed be an all-powerful king of the type of King David of old. This would be the hoped for Messiah longed after for many generations, the one who would “redeem Israel” (Luke 24:21) with great force. This expectation is what John hears.

Revelation 5:6-10—Triumph of the Lamb

What John actually sees creates a theological revolution that leads to a transformation in how theo-politics is to be understood—and actually reorients the way we understand the vision of the one on the throne in chapter four.

What John actually sees makes for a dramatic re-emphasis on the claim from chapter one that Jesus, the faithful witness, actually has become ruler of the kings of the earth (1:5).

“Then I saw between the throne and the living creatures and among the elders a Lamb standing as if it had been slaughtered [who] went and took the scroll from the right hand of the one…on the throne” (5:6-7). What John sees, though, is not different from what he hears. It is just that the mighty king who has the power to open the scroll and bring the story of humanity to its healing end is actually the gentle, compassionate, consistently loving, self-sacrificial Jesus who conquers by persevering on the path of love, all the way to the cross and beyond.

We must notice, though, just how profound the exaltation of this slain and raised Lamb is here. This vision may reflect, in a certain sense, the highest christology in the entire New Testament. The Lamb stands right next to the throne. He is not part of worshiping creation but actually himself becomes the object of worship. What follows in chapter five in relation to the Lamb almost exactly echoes what John reports in chapter four in relation to the one on the throne.

So, we have a profound affirmation of the godness of the Lamb. This affirmation precisely follows from the self-emptying of the Lamb (see Philippians 2). It is as the one whose persevering love leads to a cross who embodies God as nothing else. Hence, the most important revelation here is not that Jesus is divine. The most important revelation is what this affirmation tells us about God.

The one on the throne is seen most clearly and best understood in terms of the persevering love of the Lamb. This vision thus becomes a radical and transformative theophany. We see God here, indeed, God on the cross, God as bringing victory and transformation and healing to creation through self-giving love.

Revelation 5:11-14—Worshiping the Lamb

The worship service then culminates in an ever-widening set of affirmations: “Worthy is the Lamb that was slaughtered to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!” (5:12). The worship ripples wider and wider, including praise from every tribe and nation, then from angels beyond count, and then—amazingly—from “every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea” (5:13).

Of course, this is confessional hyperbole. But John clearly wants to drive home the point with every bit of rhetorical force that he can muster that Jesus, the epitome of peaceable embodied convictions, shows us the character of God and the means of victory. And this revelation of what God is like and how God works gains the strongest imaginable endorsement from creation itself. So, the slain and raised Lamb not only reveals God’s character, he reveals the character of God’s created universe by the response he generates from “every creature” when he takes the scroll.

We must also note in this amazing vision the verb tenses. The Lamb’s victory is praised because it has already been won. As will be reemphasized in creative ways in the visions to follow, in the live, death, and resurrection of Jesus the end has come. The victory that determines the outcome of human history has been won. There will be no other battle. No other victory—other than actions and commitments that reinforce the victory already won, and that conquer in precisely the same way (faithful witness to the very end confirmed by God’s nonviolent vindication through resurrection).

This vision determines the meaning of the rest of Revelation. As we turn to the terrible plague visions we will be challenged to keep the basic message of Revelation four and five in mind (that God is most accurately revealed in the Lamb and that the Lamb’s victory via cross and resurrection is what determines the outcome of the story). The vision could not be clearer, however. So it challenges us to read what follows very carefully—and in light of the way of the Lamb. As we will see, such a reading is indeed possible.

[See notes on Revelation 6]

[Index for Revelation notes]

[See notes on Revelation 3]

The basic message of the seven messages to the faith communities in chapters two and three, when taken as a whole, focused on the call to those communities to maintain their loyalty to Jesus and his way in face of demands from the Roman Empire for this loyalty. These messages conclude with a promise of a place with the Lamb and his God for those who “conquer.”

The call to “conquer” is a call to Jesus’ way of persevering love. Chapters four and five now provide the bases for taking this call with the utmost seriousness and the utmost hope.

After the messages conclude, John looks and sees an “open door” in heaven (4:1). He’s taken inside and sees a throne. The appearance of the one seated on the throne is never described—confirming that this is the creator God.

So John gets a theophany in this moment of transition from the challenges to the actual recipients of the book to the terrible visions that will follow. This direct vision of God seems to be intended both to ground the challenges in the realities of the sovereign one who calls them forward and to remind the readers that the visions to come do not negate the healing intentions of the one on the throne.

Chapters four and five actually make up one vision with one main message: God is present in the Lamb who brings healing to the world. The two chapters present a kind of worship service. It begins with worship and praise from the twenty-four elders (4:4, 11), proceeds to the four living creatures (4:8), then focuses on the core content—the triumph of the Lamb. It then proceeds to more worship, including from the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders, concluding as the service began, with the elders (5:14).

Several of the elements of the initial throne vision are important for understanding what is to come in Revelation. The throne is surrounded by a rainbow (4:3), a reference back to the covenant made with Noah in Genesis 9 and God’s promise not to destroy the earth again. This is an important reminder going into the coming plague visions.

The general tone of this scene is one of joy and celebration, not anger and impending judgment. The one on the throne, it would appear, is a healer not a punisher. All of creation joins in praise of the one on the throne—not a likely response should God be about to embark on the spree of destruction many see in the plague visions.

Probably the key point that this part of the vision makes is that God is indeed present, enlivening creation, and worthy to be praised by all with voices to raise. The true significance of this throne room theophany in the overall message of Revelation will only become clear, though, as we move on to the second part of the “worship service” in chapter five, the most important chapter in the book.

[See notes on Revelation 5]

[Index for Revelation notes]