The content of this study is copyright by John Shearman, 2005.
The Adult Bible Study Group is led by Rev. John Shearman. Following are the study notes for each session. You can scroll through the list or click on the links to go directly to that session's notes.
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A class of literature called apocalypse, derived from the Greek word "to uncover" or "reveal," appears in both Old and New Testaments. This type of literature existed in Jewish circles between 250 BCE and 200 CE and was subsequently taken up by the Christian authors. Most scholars believe that the style originated with or depended upon the oracles of Israel's prophets. In general it has the form of divine disclosures made through visions, dreams, and angelic beings.
In the Christian Bible, the two main apocalypses are Daniel and Revelation. But the Old Testament prophetic books also includes similar writings in Ezekiel 38-39, Isaiah 24-27, Zechariah 12-14, and Joel 3. Mark 13 and Matthew 24 and 25 in the New Testament also qualify as apocalyptic teaching attributed to Jesus. A number of non-biblical apocalypses appeared in both Jewish and Christian circles, including some of the Dead Sea Scrolls discovered in the mid-20th century CE. None of these were admitted to either canon.
Three main stylistic types can be identified in this genre: 1) Visionary experiences in dreams, trances or visual/physical transference to the ends of the earth or heaven. 2) Symbolic imagery. 3) Counsel for tough times resolved by God's intervention in history. Through these literary means the authors sought to deal with issues of their own times and the anticipated end of history. Often this involved cosmic cataclysms symbolized by earthquakes, famine, dreadful portents and holocausts. Finally, there would be a final resolution of all these troubles when history would be consummated in the reign of God, the eschaton. From this came the theological term "eschatology," the study of end times.
Professor Northrop Frye, of Victoria University, Toronto, described the Book of Revelation as the happy ending of God's great romance with creation. Professor J.W. Bowman of Illich School of Theology, Denver, called it Christianity's first drama. Most scholars would classify it as prophecy. Its closest other biblical documents are Isaiah 24-27 and Mark 13.
Like all Old Testament prophecy, John sought to set forth his insight into God's will and purpose for the faithful at a critical time in the life of the congregations he knew in seven Greek cities of Western Asia. John's own faith centred on Jesus Christ and what God had done in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. In his letters to the seven churches and his visions of what was soon to happen, his expressed his deep conviction that God's sovereign love offered the only hope for those who like him would soon be martyrs.
Apparently, he himself had run afoul of the Roman authorities and had been imprisoned on the island of Patmos in the Aegean Sea More intense martyrdom than he had already suffered lay ahead. In the end their victory in faith was assured by the victory of God' s redeeming love in Christ.
Scholars generally agree that Revelation was written about 95 CE during the last years of Emperor Domitian. That emperor persecuted all who refused to accept the state religion and worship him as divine. For Christians this created a very simple but critical issue: Was Jesus Lord and God or was Caesar?
John wrote Revelation to communicate his own faith in the absolute sovereignty of God and Jesus Christ and to encourage the faithful to stand fast under the coming persecution. His visionary prophecies presented the Gospel tradition in a very different way.
We do not know who John really was. Through the ages he has been identified with several of the same name: John the Apostle, another person who authored the Gospel of John, and John the Elder who wrote one or more of the three letters of John. Scholars still debate the question without resolution.
In the introduction to his modern paraphrase, J.B. Phillips (1957) described the primary intent of the book as a whole as follows: To uphold the absolute sovereignty of God and God's ultimate purpose to destroy all forms of evil. The death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ ("the Lamb who was slain" in John's words) accomplished this. Accordingly, the faithful can endure persecution and even martyrdom for this faith and be assured of the final victory in life beyond death.
The congregations in the seven cities would be mostly illiterate. So the book was written to be read aloud in the churches. The visions, therefore, were word pictures and vivid symbols intended to carry special meaning to the audience. They may well have understood the symbols and figures in relation to contemporary events, but we have much more difficulty interpreting them. It is a great mistake to interpret these symbols in relation to events of our own time.
Chapter 1 consists of brief details of John's call (vss. 1-3) and a covering letter addressed to the seven churches. Included in the letter are a few details about his exile and his first vision of the Son of Man standing among seven golden lampstands representing the seven churches. The intent of this covering letter and visions is to give particular authority to what John is about to say. The Son of Man was a typical Jewish apocalyptic figure, but in this case referring to Jesus, the true Messiah.
A glance at a map will show that the seven churches were all located in the western edge of the Roman province of Asia (modern Turkey). Pergmum, Smyrna and Ephesus lay on the Aegean seacoast; Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea no more than 100 miles inland on rivers draining into that sea. All seven faced varying circumstances which impaired their faithful witness to Christ.
Ephesus is described as a passionless church. They had suffered and endured, but they had lost their enthusiasm for their faith. They also had some traitors - Nicolaitans - among them. Scholars presume that these were either Gnostics or another heretical sect that still retained some pagan practices like idolatry and immorality.
Smyrna, on the other hand, apparently struggled with a synagogue of Jews. They also were threatened with imprisonment and possibly death for their faith.
Pergamum felt serious oppression from Roman imperial authorities. Already one of their number had been martyred. The Nicolaitans also were causing them trouble, but were not being dealt with decisively.
Thyatira had been faithful but their witness had been compromised by a prophetess who still led some astray into sexual immorality and eating meat sacrificed to idols.
Sardis had fallen into a lazy participation in the life of faith, although some still maintained a vigorous witness.
Philadelphia also struggled with Judaizers, but were patiently enduring. Laodicea, however, had become complacent and lukewarm in their witness. They needed to repent and realize their true situation.
Like all of us today, none were perfect.
The next section of John’s Revelation portrays a great disaster about to befall the church community. He describes this ordeal as a myth, a story told about the remote past to interpret present reality. Cleverly to disguise his real intent, in 12:1-6 John uses a pagan myth common to many cultures in ancient times. To contradict the current political situation, John wrote of a Mother Goddess who gave birth to a son.
In this instance, the mother was not Mary and the son Jesus, but the messianic community and the faithful witnesses. The mother’s birth agony referred the suffering endured by the people of God waiting for their anointed Messiah. John was not thinking of the Nativity but the death the Cross by which Jesus came to reign with God over God’s eternal realm.
The strange figure of the seven-headed red dragon about to devour the newborn infant came from an old Canaanite myth still evident in a number of Old Testament references (Ps. 74:14; Jer. 51:34; Ezek. 29:3). The mother’s and child’s escape from the dragon referred to the first consequence of the crucifixion and ascension of Christ. As long as Jesus lived he was tempted to yield to Satan’s temptation, to do that which is not God’s will. His death freed him from Satan’s power. In other words, by his death and resurrection Jesus and the believing community escaped to the security of eternal life.
Yet there is ambivalence in what John is saying. Symbols from the Israel’s Exodus from Egypt to wander in the wilderness reflect this ambivalence. While the church remains in the world amid great evil and suffering, it is sustained by God just as Israel escaped to the freedom of the desert to be sustained by God in their wandering for an extended period.
In the next section (12:7-12) John described a war in heaven that again had its basis in a pagan myth that had found its way into Jewish literature of the period between the Old and New Testaments (1 & 2 Enoch; Life of Adam and Eve). The archangel Michael and an army of angels fought Satan, the dragon, and his angels. Satan and company suffered defeat and were thrown down to earth.
But that doesn’t end the story. John heard a voice from heaven announcing that the hour of God’s victory had arrived, at least in the heavenly realm of God. In fact, Michael’s victory in heaven was the spiritual and symbolic counterpart of Jesus’ victory on the Cross on earth.
Several terms in this passage speak of different roles Satan has in the Bible: the Devil, deceiver, accuser. The passage also described Satan as a heavenly figure. In Job 1:6ff, Satan appeared as God’s adversary, the Hebrew meaning of the name. In Zechariah 3:1ff, Satan accused Jerusalem of unacceptable moral and religious practices symbolized as filthy clothes.
In the New Testament letters of 1 Peter 5:8, Jude 9 and 1 Timothy 3:6, Satan appears as a prosecutor. In some cases, Michael confronts Satan as he would a respected barrister before a law court. Although John saw the conflict with Satan in military terms, it was essentially a legal battle which ended with one of lawyers disbarred.
By describing Satan’s defeat in this way, John warned his people that while their martyrdom still lay ahead, their salvation can be treated as a fait accompli already achieved by Christ on the Cross. The power, guilt and effects of sin have been overcome by God’s forgiving love in Christ.
The final segment of 12:13-17 contains some poignant symbols that refer to both a familiar Old Testament story and some real events within the seven churches to which John wrote. The Old Testament reference is the Exodus from Egypt when the Israelites were pursued by the Egyptian army, but saved by the intervention of God. Specifically the reference in vs. 14 to eagle’s wings aiding the woman’s escape is to Ex. 19:4.
In vs. 15 another obscure image of the serpent spewing out a river of water to engulf the woman refers to a little known detail of the Egyptian Pharaoh’s command that the Israelite midwives drown all Hebrew males in the Nile (Ex. 1:22). Several Psalms and passages from Isaiah, all with reference to the Exodus, lie behind vs. 16 where the earth swallowed the river which the dragon has spewed from his mouth (Pss. 32:6; 18:4; 124:4; Isa. 42:15; 43:2; 50:2).
When John wrote in vs. 17 of the dragon waging war on the rest of the woman’s children, he spoke directly to the circumstances the seven churches were dealing with at that time: slanderous attacks from outside (Rev. 2:8; 3:9) and false teaching corrupting the faith to destroy it within (2:6, 14-15).
Throughout history, the great enemies of church have always been the tendency for those who oppose it to accentuate negative aspects of its life and work, or to corrupt its faith from within. John defines the only real security the church has as “keeping God’s commandments and holding to the testimony of Jesus.” Being faithful under such duress, however, is by no means simple.
John concluded this section saying that the dragon had withdrawn to the seashore to find reinforcements.
The unusual symbols of 13:1-10 were taken mostly from Jewish literature composed later those now in our Old Testament. One tradition held that God on the fifth day created two mythical creatures, Leviathan and Behemoth, to inhabit the sea and the land. The first monster represented the Roman imperial power which annually came “out of the sea” in the arrival of a new Roman proconsul at Ephesus.
The monster’s characteristics (vs. 1b-2) were much like those found in Daniel 4 and 7. In other words, by exercising absolute power and demanding loyalty due only to God, Rome became bestial. Its ten horns and seven heads referred to the Greek and Roman emperors who had dominated that part of the world for four hundred years.
In vs. 3 there is a reference to a local belief that Emperor Nero, who had committed suicide in 68 CE, had come to life again. The rule of Vespasian (68-79) and his sons, Titus (79-81) and Domitian (81-96), merely continued the same brutal policies which proved so disastrous for both Jews and Christians. The monster’s attack on the church (vss. 6-7) blasphemed the divine presence in the world formed whenever Christians gathered in the name of Christ.
John appears to have a strong sense of predestination in mind in vss. 8-10. Yet his view springs from the biblical tradition that salvation is a wholly unmerited act of God. This is qualified by an equally strong statement of human responsibility. This meant that the church must submit to the civil authority as their Lord had done so that their Lord alone might win the victory over sin and death. This calls for endurance and faith from God’s people as the final words of vs. 10 states.
Whereas the first monster represented the Roman proconsul, appointed annually from Rome, the second monster represented a local council of civic and religious authorities administering each community in the empire. One of the council’s responsibilities was to foster the worship of the emperor by erecting a statue of the emperor then in power. This is the context of the time ca. 95 CE when Domitian reigned and John composed his cryptic visions.
The image of the emperor John so vividly condemned “had two horns like a lamb’s but spoke like a dragon.” Its lamblike appearance heightens the parody of Christ that John envisioned. In other words, it represented a false Messiah, even to the point of working miracles and deceiving the general populace in many other ways.
One of the most popular superstitions of the time held that Emperor Nero (54-68 CE), who had committed suicide, had not really died but would return from the east. In 88 a pretender in Asia had actually claimed to be Nero. Another popular philosophy of this era used magic, mysticism and mathematics to further impress the common people. These informed the symbolism John used to warn his Christian community of the dangers they faced.
Specifically the mark of the monster and the number of its name (vss. 16-18) referred directly these popular beliefs. Every Roman commercial document and coin bore the mark or the image of the reigning Caesar. The number 666 was a cryptogram that must have appealed to John for some symbolic meaning. Although many have tried to decipher it, no one has yet done so. Traditionally, the number is thought to refer to the incredible legend about Nero’s return.
Like other New Testament writers, John often used Old Testament passages to make his point that Jesus is the Messiah/Christ. He did so again in 14:1-5 as he interprets on Psalm 2 in this way. He envisions the decisive battle between the hostile forces opposed to God and those who by faith share with Christ the task of reducing the rebellious world to submission.
The scene depicted Mount Zion on which were gathered the Lamb and 44,000 faithful. This military roll call was like the census of Israel’s twelve tribes in 1 Chronicles 4-7. Unlike preparing for battle, this army of God has already begun the song of victory (vs. 3). But no one could learn this song but those who had been martyred. Their song would consist of the agony and groans of their ordeal transformed by the mysterious power of the cross into the harmonies of heaven (vs. 2).
Vs. 4 has a somewhat unusual reference to an ancient practice in Israel’s traditional struggle for survival. War was initiated with religious ceremony and so consecrated as holy war. Soldiers were required to maintain sexual abstinence as did Uriah in the story of David and Bathsheba (2 Sam. 11). To John this meant that the Christian martyrs would maintain their purity by resisting any association with the imperial cult required of all Roman citizens.
In so doing, the Christian martyrs would follow Christ wherever he went, even to death. They would share his royal and priestly office so that through them he may complete his redeeming work. Thus they would be offering themselves as the first fruits of the harvest representing all living things, so redeeming the whole. John is not saying that only they would be saved out of the world. Rather, they would be as Jesus, the lamb without blemish in their unwavering loyalty.
We tend to think of angels as God’s messengers bringing good news, like the angels of Luke 2:8-14. That isn’t how John saw them. Instead, these messengers brought a message first proclaimed by Christ himself. It could never be replaced and so “an eternal gospel. By his life, death and resurrection Christ had ransomed for God every human being who ever lived. The function of the martyrs to whom John wrote was to proclaim the same message with their lives and their deaths. That is the meaning of 14:6-7.
At the same time a second angel (vs. 8) declares that judgment has come to those who would destroy God’s purpose for creation. As in the Old Testament, Babylon represented all worldly powers marshaled against God. In this instance, John meant Rome which seduced other nations and peoples into believing in its absolute authority through worshiping the emperor.
But what if someone did not believe and continued to worship the idol? A third angel (vss. 9-11) describes what would befall them if they did not repent. John’s description of a life of eternal torment after death is almost beyond words. He is saying as best he could with references from Jewish apocalyptic literature what it would be like for those who rejected God’s offer of redemption through faith in Jesus Christ. We must decide if this still confronts the unrepentant today.
Remember that John was issuing this dire warning and an urgent appeal to the faithful Christians of the seven churches to endure to the end (vs. 12). They might well be martyred for their faithfulness, but even so they would receive the eternal blessing of God. They would inherit eternal bliss and rest in God’s presence (vs. 13). He firmly believed too that their martyrdom would win many more converts to the faith
The climax to John’s visions approaches swiftly as he describes the reaping of the harvest of the Son of Man by angels from the heavenly temple. In the Old Testament harvest and vintage were frequently used as symbols of divine judgment, either of God’s own people Israel or of their enemies. John also believed that such a judgment was about to happen or had already occurred. He wrote about this to reveal the final choice confronting his fellow Christians.
In 14:14 the presence of “one like a son of man sitting on a cloud” is a figure drawn from the gospel tradition (Mark 13:27; Matt. 24:31) and earlier Hebrew apocalyptic literature. Vss. 15-16 indicate that it is Christ himself who is doing the harvesting (i.e. judging).
In vss. 17-19 another angel is bidden to join in the vintage harvest.
The vine was a traditional symbol for Israel in the Old Testament. In the Gospel of John 15:1-8, the symbol is applied to the Christian Church. The location of the winepress “outside the city” refers to the place of the crucifixion. By using these several images John found a unique way of telling his friends that Christ who turned the cross into victory over sin and death can transform the shambles of their martyrdom into a glorious celebration of harvest.
Other important symbols can be found in this passage. The golden crown worn by the Son of Man (vs. 14), the three angels from the temple and the altar (vss. 15-18), and the river of blood (vs. 20) all represent the faith that the sacrifice of Christ himself and of the martyrs is God’s judgment that will ultimately establish God’s sovereignty which the martyrs will share with Christ. Puzzling as this may seem to us, it is a profound declaration of faith for difficult times.
Another strange portent replaces the bloody scene of the last vision in 15:1-8 symbolizing the final denouément of God’s judgment. The sea of glass mingled with fire represents the chaos over which God established authority in creation. There are echoes of the Exodus too in the seven angels with seven plagues (vss. 1 & 3). Also prominent in this new vision are “the Conquerors,” i.e. the Christian martyrs who had died because they refused to worship the statue of the emperor (vs. 2). Their song (vss. 3-5) recalls the vision in ch. 5 when the seals of the great scroll were opened by the Lamb.
The final words of the martyrs’ song, “for your judgments have been revealed” (or alternately, “the justice of your decrees stands revealed”) signify that the death of the innocent martyrs bears persuasive witness to the redeeming love of God in Christ. In this respect Prof. George Caird noted that in Romans 3:26 Paul wrote that by implementing this decree God has proved to the world that God is “both just and justifier of anyone who puts his faith in Jesus.” For John, the martyrdom his friends suffered would bring a world-wide turning to God.
Vss. 5-8 recalls the scene in the desert where God instructed Moses to build an elaborate Tent of Testimony (Exodus 25-30 cf. Heb. 8:5) in which was to be placed the tablets of stone bearing the terms of the Covenant. The robes of the angels (vs. 6) invoke the priestly robes to be worn by Aaron and his sons (Exod. 28). In that story and at the dedication of Solomon’s temple (Exod. 40:34; 1 Kings 8:10) the priests could not enter the shrine because it was filled with the cloud of the glory of God. Here no one could enter the shrine until God’s judgment was accomplished.
Whereas the seven bowls of plagues in chs. 15-16 gave a general outline of divine judgment, In chs. 17-18 John now begins a closer examination of the causes of Rome’s downfall (i.e. Babylon or the great whore as he called it.) The latter term refers directly to the three statues of the god Roma and assumes a relationship to the almost universal figure of a fertile Mother Goddess of Middle Eastern religious traditions.
In the Old Testament the Israelites met this same goddess in the fertility cults of the Canaanites in which prostitution played a dominant role. In John’s time, Rome’s supremacy over the ancient world and the required worship of the imperial cult could be similarly, although metaphorically described (15:2).
In vs. 4, John escaped into the desert in a trance, which was a place of security as the Exodus was for the Israelites. From there he could see the true bright colours of the seducer dressed in all her worldly glory. John may well have had a real appreciation of the grandeur of Rome. We still regard it as one of the great civilizations of the past. Then as now, faith is not easy in a seductive culture.
At the same time John also saw that it was full of obscenities and filth – i.e. its abominable idolatry and general immorality. The Greek word for obscenity is the same word sued in Daniel 9:27 and Mark 13:14 for the desecrating idol placed in the temple by earlier invaders of Jerusalem.
John had two counts against Rome: the idolatry diffused throughout the empire and the persecution of all who refused to participate in it (vss. 5-6). This figure in John’s vision is just the same old bewitching sorcerer in a new incarnation of supreme power to which we are all attracted.
In 17:7-18 John interprets his vision of the Great Whore. This monster is a parody of Christ, event of the point of a future second coming. All of the symbols John uses to describe the enemies of God’s people – the monster, the abyss, the great city, Babylon, the great whore, the monster from the sea - actually describe the one reality – imperial Rome.
Identifying the various numbered kings in vs. 9-13 is a confusing and pointless exercise. Many have tried, even to identifying some of them with modern nations like Australia and China, which is certainly a false approach. The point John is making is that many nations will surely persecute the Christian faithful and in so doing will make war on the Lamb (vs. 14).
John saw these agents of persecution from the point of view of Christ who is ever the victor. Furthermore, his companions in victory will also be those who are faithful. Indeed, John believed that the victory of Christ over sin and death on the cross was the inaugural victory of God. It would be re-enacted again and again in his faithful followers in John’s time and thereafter until the end time determined by God alone.
Vss. 15-18 contains another prophecy describing the destruction of the great whore, i.e Rome. This appears to happen by the rebellion of client kingdoms which formerly yielded their power and authority to Rome. But this too is within God’s purpose. As Professor Caird noted, “the savaging of the whore by the monster and its horns is John’s most vivid symbol for the self-destroying power of evil.… Every power which sets itself up against God shall in the end break itself on the Cross of his Son and the martyr witness of his saints. In the end, self-giving love triumphs.
Laments are songs of sorrow, grief and mourning. It may seem astonishing that John would express such feelings about the fate of Rome. But he was a Roman citizen himself and naturally shared some sense of its glory. This ambivalence comes to the fore in the second of the laments in 18:9-19.
The first lament (18:1-8) has two parts given voice by two angels from heaven. The first angel expressed prophetic grief that Babylon (i.e. Rome) has indeed come to such a sad end. This echoes similar words uttered about the fall of Babylon in Isaiah 21:9. The haunted scene inhabited by demons and wild animals in vs. 2 described the desolation well known to people of ancient times when great cities were overwhelmed by ruthless invaders.
In vs. 3 John gives the reason for Rome’s downfall. The empire had given peace and security to the Mediterranean world which enabled many of its subject peoples to share widespread prosperity. Idolatrous worship John likened to fornication seemed a small price for petty monarchs and merchants to pay for the privilege of luxurious trade with Rome.
A second angelic voice from heaven echoes Jeremiah’s summons to faithful Jews to leave Babylon because that city was about to fall to an invader. The seductive situation of Rome would receive double retribution for her arrogant lifestyle from which God’s people must dissociate themselves.
John believed that it was never too late for anyone to repent and turn back to God. To the bitter end, God’s grace remains open and God never ceases to welcome back prodigals. Jesus had shown this in his parables and actions. Long before that Hosea had also expressed this same everlasting mercy (Hosea 2:20-23).
In 18:9-19 the powerful people on earth join the lament. John cites kings, merchants and sea captains mourning the fall of the great city because they too suffer inestimable losses.
The Romans succeeded because its leaders had the administrative genius to organize the most stable civilization that had ever existed. In particular, Roman roads enabled the imperial armies to travel quickly to any place where political unrest threatened.
Merchants and ship owners from around the Mediterranean basin traded stable foods and luxury goods not only with the capital city but wherever imperial garrisons were established. Even as far away from Rome as England and Germany, Roman villas dotted the landscape.
So John cites many examples of the rich trade flowing back and forth across the empire 18:11-17). In the remaining verses, 18:20-24, John describes his vision of the disaster to be brought about by Rome’s downfall.
This is prophecy, but was it a prediction? We often mistake the two. Scholars carefully distinguish between them, especially in apocalyptic writing such as Revelation. “The essence of prophecy,” Prof. R.B.Y Scott wrote, “is not prediction but the declaration of religious truth.” Eternal moral and spiritual issues are at stake and inspired prophets declare God’s will and purpose for God’s people in critical times. Apocalyptic literature depicts mythological struggles between good and evil in successive crises leading to the transcendent end of history.
John did cast the downfall of Rome against the eschatological end of history. He also saw the glory of Rome as contrary to God’s purpose and Christian faith.
On earth Babylon (i.e. Rome) has been judged. From heaven, John hears and sees great rejoicing of the martyrs, as in his vision in 7:9-17. But this time there is a difference. God alone receives the praise, and not the Lamb who was slain as well. This is the signal that the end has come. The victory of Christ on the cross and of the martyrs who died as witnesses to Christ is the victory of God’s love over all that stands in love’s way. As Paul also declared in Romans 8:31-39, nothing stands in the way of sovereign divine love.
John’s vision dissolves into yet another symbolic scene. Another song from the throne room celebrates the marriage supper of the Lamb. The image of a great feast or a marriage feast at the end of history is found in the Old Testament and other Jewish eschatological literature and in the New Testament (Isaiah 25:6; Mark 2:19; Matt. 22:1ff; Luke 14:15ff). The church made up of the faithful martyrs who witnessed by their deaths is not only invited to the marriage feast, but is actually the bride of Christ.
In 19:9-10 the one seeing the vision is rebuked for worshipping the angel. John thereby issues a warning against any form of idolatry. In other words, he acknowledges that anything or anyone other than God can be afforded the absolute worth or the absolute control of a person’s life that belongs to God alone. This is the standard that brought Jesus to the cross and the same standard to which the martyrs also witnessed.
The next scene is not a pretty one. It envisions the destruction of the destroyers by a rider on a white horse, i.e. Christ. His only weapon is the Word of God, the faithful confession of obedience to God alone. The only way to destroy all that opposes God is to proclaim the gospel of love in life and in death.
Scholars, like countless unscholarly readers, have found ch. 20 exceedingly difficult to understand. There seems to be a pause in the final denouement of divine judgment. The pause lasts for a millennium after which the great dragon, Satan, (i.e. the personified power of evil) is again released to wreck havoc on the earth. During this hiatus, the martyrs reign with Christ while others wait for their resurrection.
John appears to believe that even though the great evil of his time, imperial Rome, may disappear, evil will still remain unconquered in the world. On the other hand, until all of creation is redeemed by love and brought under the reign of God’s sovereign love, God’s purpose in the history of the universe will not be complete.
The first thing John saw in his early visions was a great white throne (4:2). Now he sees it again (20:11). This time God’s final judgment is taking place. All the dead appear before the throne, all there to be judged as the books recording the deeds of each one are opened. A book of life containing the names of the righteous was common in Hebrew apocalyptic literature and the New Testament (Ps. 139:16; Luke 10:20; Phil. 4:3; Heb. 12:23). John saw another book listing everyone’s deeds, both good and bad. The dead were raised even from the sea, revealing that resurrection will be universal before the last judgment.
Much lurid detail has been read into this vision that goes farther than John intended. His vision simply affirmed that there is to be a final judgment to be decided by God alone and cannot be usurped by any human. He makes clear, however, that those who are the enemies of God and live contrary to God’s nature and will do suffer the annihilation of the second death.
In Chs. 21 & 22 the end of John’s visions reveal the new creation and the Holy City, New Jerusalem, coming down from heaven. There have been passing intimations of this ending in promises to the faithful martyrs, the white-robed multitude, the triumph songs of Moses and the Lamb, the wedding feat of the Lamb and his bride. Now John reveals with certainty how the story is to end. The sea, death, grief, suffering, all that is opposed to God’s purpose is no more.
The invisible barrier between humanity and God is gone as God’s dwelling is with us. We are at last to be blessed by God’s eternal presence as it had been prefigured in the earlier experiences of Israel, the covenant people of God, and the Incarnation.
The hope of the world rests in God forever making all things new. Paul spoke of this happening in each person as we are transformed into the likeness of Christ (2 Cor. 3:18; 4:16-18; 5:16-17; Col. 3:1-4). John sees this same transformation occurring on a cosmic scale. Above all else, he believed that from start to finish all of this is the work of God.
As Prof. Caird wrote: “Blind unbelief may see only the outer world, growing old in its depravity and doomed to vanish before the presence of holiness; but faith can see the hand of God in the shadows, refashioning the whole. The agonies of the earth are but the birth-bangs of a new creation.”
Perhaps this is the most important revelation that we should learn from this climactic vision in John’s long apocalypse. In the end, The Book of Books is the same as in the beginning - God. Jesus Christ, the Lamb who was slain, and now stands at the right hand of God, is at the centre of it all. Those who do not wish to believe depart to their assigned place – Babylon.
John’s final vision describes the Holy City, the New Jerusalem “coming down out of heaven … bright with the glory of God.” His human eyes could only see the radiance as a walled city built of precious jewels. From foundation stones to gates, its measurements repeated the number twelve or its multiples. Vs. 14 states the reason: there is theological significance to the number.
Twelve was the number of the twelve tribes of Israel and of the apostles. John’s whole apocalypse held that the Christian church was the new Israel built on the foundation of the apostles, i.e. as Caird put it, “the apostolic tradition, the revelation of God of which the apostles were eye-witnesses and guarantors.”
We cannot take this description as we would take a photograph or even a replica of the actual city of Jerusalem. It is not intended to be taken literally in any way. John may never have seen Jerusalem before its destruction by the Romans in 70 CE. What he envisions here is the eternal presence of God. It is the holy place – if something spiritual can ever be so described – where no temple is needed because God is there. Everything that can be offered to God is there and all that is unfit for God is excluded.
In the closing segment of John’s vision two primary models from the Old Testament come to the fore again: Ezekiel’s vision of the new Jerusalem and the Garden of Eden. God will not be content with a handful of martyrs. Into the holy city, all peoples and nations and all the treasures of the nations will be welcomed because they have been redeemed by Christ.
The epilogue presents readers with a warning that what John has written is the truth and a challenge to put their lives in order while the opportunity for change remains.