The end of chapter 11 and the beginning of chapter 12 mark the unofficial halfway point in the book of Revelation, and so I thought I would take a brief intermission before continuing. When you have been studying trees for so long, sometimes it is helpful to step back and remember to look at the forest.
So as we step back and look upon the book of Revelation up until this point, you notice very quickly that events happen in a sequence of “sevens.” There are seven letters written to seven churches, each letter with appropriate words of warning and encouragement (chs. 2-3). Jesus takes a scroll containing God’s divine plan of redemption and judgment, breaking its seven seals (chs. 4-8.5). Seven trumpets blow, announcing God’s judgment on the earth (8.6-11.19), and later in the book, seven angels will pour out seven bowls of God’s wrath (ch. 16).
In chapters 12-15, there is another sequence of “Seven”, although the sequence is not as easily identified as the others. Instead of “seals,” “trumpets,” or “bowls,” these take the form of seven separate but inter-connected “visions”, each introduced with either, “And I Saw,” “And Behold!” or both (12.3, where the NIV fails to translate the Greek; 13.1; 13.11; 14.1; 14.6; 14.14; 15.1).
John first “beholds” a conflict between a woman and a dragon. He then “saw” persecution of God’s people, first by a Sea Beast, and then by a Land Beast. The fourth vision shows victory of God’s people over that very persecution while the fifth vision depicts angels proclaiming the gospel and judgment. At the end, the sixth sight “beholds” the harvest of the earth before the seventh shows the final victory of the saints in chapter 15.
All of these sequences of seven seem to tell the same story four different times. The bowl judgments will be a little different, but there is a common progression of events in the sequences. First, there is persecution of God’s people. That is followed by the judgment on their persecutors with their final punishment, and the sequences end with God’s people being ironically victorious: It is in their unjust death that they are able to gain life.
While they all seem to tell this same story, John adds new elements with each new sequence of seven. All of the visions symbolically portray the same conflict between the church and the world, but there is something more about the conflict that is revealed.
The letters to the seven churches in chapters 2 and 3 serve as a sort of “table of contents,” introducing key players: good, faithful followers of God; evil pagan Romans outside the church; evil false teachers inside the church, and etc. In the broadest of terms, there is conflict between the people of God and the hostile persecuting world.
The seven seal judgments symbolically act out the conflict introduced by the letters, again in the broadest of terms. In General, the hostile world persecutes the saints. In General, God will punish his enemies. In General, God’s people will be “sealed”: though they may not be physically protected from harm, they will be spiritually protected.
In chapter 8, the seven Trumpet judgments portray the same conflict introduced by the Seals, but the author adds new elements. This time, the same conflict is rehearsed from the perspective of the exodus from Egypt. God’s people are identified with their ancient Israelite forefathers. Egypt kept God’s people in bondage, and in the same way, Rome was keeping God’s people in spiritual bondage. However, God would judge his Roman enemies in the same way he judged his enemies in the past, complete with tormenting plagues. In fact, Rome is nothing more than Egypt and Caesar himself is nothing more than Pharaoh. The first reader would have remembered how God dealt with Pharaoh and Egypt and could be encouraged that he would deal with Caesar and Rome in the same way. And as God delivered Israel from Egypt by passing through the Red Sea, he would deliver his people from Rome in a New Exodus.
This same story is then re-told beginning in chapter 12 with the introduction of the seven “visions”, “sights”, or “beholds”. However, now the elements of a spiritual realm are added. On an earthly plane, it seems like bad things are happening; God’s enemies are persecuting God’s people. Yet there is a spiritual plane that had been kept hidden from John’s sight. Beginning in chapter 12, God “pulls back the curtain” and reveals something deeper (hence the name of the book, “Revelation”).
Yes, there is a conflict going on, and yes, the conflict can be appropriately compared to the exodus story. However, there is something far more demonic happening. Caesar’s (and Pharaoh’s) desire to persecute God’s people does not derive from within himself: it comes directly from a spiritual realm. There is something demonic that Caesar is participating in, whether he knows it or not (chapter 13 suggests that Caesar is simply a puppet of the dragon). There is something demonic that pagan Romans are involved in, whether they know it or not. And there is something demonic that false-teachers inside the church are accomplices of, whether they know it or not.
This makes the warnings to the seven churches of chapters 2 and 3 that much more serious. It is as if John were saying, “Dear Mr. Christian, if you sell out your beliefs and allow non-Christians to persuade you into compromising behaviors, you are not simply turning your back on God but you are actually pledging allegiance to the demonic.” The serpent/dragon is a master at the art of deception, creating an anti-prophet, anti-Christ, and even setting himself up as an anti-God. The message from John is, “Don’t be fooled! There is something far more demonic than meets the eye. Endure to the end!”
It remains for the rest of the book to show how that conflict gets played out. The seven bowls of God’s wrath mete out God’s final judgment on his enemies and eventually God’s faithful people are rewarded for their faithfulness. In fact, the entire book of Revelation can be summed up in two words: “God wins.”
There are two false assumptions that people may fall into when reading Revelation. The first assumption is that what John has spoken of happened purely in the past. Namely, this is a story about Caesar, Rome, and first-century believers exclusively. In this way, the relevance of the book for us is to look into the past and see how the first readers might have been encouraged, but it doesn’t really have much to say to us. The message of Revelation certainly involves the past, but not to such a limiting degree.
Second, another assumption is that what John has spoken of is purely predictive—this will all happen in the future. Namely, this is a story about a single-world ruler, a single world-state, and end-time believers exclusively. In this way, Revelation becomes a puzzle we need to put together and “figure out” by paying close attention to contemporary world-affairs and guess who the anti-Christ is. Perhaps Revelation involves some of this, but again, not to such a limiting degree.
Instead, the conflict portrayed in Revelation can and does happen in every generation prior to and following the resurrection of Christ. ANY person in a position of power, political or otherwise, who intentionally persecutes God’s people because they are God’s people is LIKE Pharaoh and Caesar. ANY group of people who try to persuade God’s people to worship something other than God are LIKE ancient Egypt and first-century Rome.
The oppression that happened to God’s people at the hands of Pharaoh and Egypt was repeated by Caesar and Rome. Not only that, it was repeated centuries before when Nebuchadnezzar threw three Hebrews into a furnace for refusing to worship his image (Daniel 3). It was also repeated by Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany. In fact, it is still being repeated in parts of Communist China, the Middle East, and Sudan even today. And you can bet that it will again be repeated by multiple anti-Christ figures in the future. Whether the oppression of God’s people happened in the past, will happen again in the future, or if you are living that oppression today, the message is still the same: "Though they may take your life, they cannot take your soul! Endure to the End!" As John writes in Revelation 14.13,
“Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on. Blessed indeed... that they may rest from their labors, for their deeds will follow them!”
Perhaps our time as Christians would be better spent not trying to identify the anti-Christ, but praying for a New Exodus for our Chinese, Middle Eastern, and Sudanese brothers and sisters who are presently living under the rule of a modern-day Pharaoh.
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