Making Sense of the Revelation of John
LECTURE 12
LECTURE 12
Final lecture of this series (Scroll down for more)
Hansie Wolmarans
For many Christians today, the Book of Revelation has become the core of their religion: Jesus is coming soon and you should be prepared for it, or you will burn in hell. Before he returns, there will be horrific trials and disasters. Other Christians find the text problematic because of its bizarre imagery, profuse bloodshed and extreme violence. It seems far removed from the gospel of Jesus.
The text was written around 95CE by a person with the name of John. He may have been a Christian leader exiled by the Roman authorities to the island of Patmos. The book circulated in Asia Minor in the form of a letter to the Christian churches there. Finally (around the third century) it became part of the New Testament under the assumption that it was written by John, the beloved apostle. Today we know it cannot have been him.
The reason why it is placed at the end of the New Testament is because it talks about the end of history: the judgement upon unbelievers, the second advent of Christ, the destruction of Satan and the New Jerusalem. In this way the Bible with Genesis (about the beginning), and Revelation (about the end), forms a chronological unity.
Reading Revelation in Context
Two ways of reading this book have developed. The first regards the book as informative, as an end-time prediction in coded form written to Christians of all times. It supplies detailed information of the horrible circumstances preceding Christ’s second coming.
The second view regards the book as consolation. It was written to Christians at the end of the first century who suffered political, economic, and religious oppression in the Roman Empire. The basis of the comfort is fantasy revenge: the oppressors are going to be annihilated. As a work of fiction, it describes the cosmic battle between good and evil, where the forces of Satan are finally conquered by the forces of Christ. The rule of God is ushered in and Satan and his followers punished in hell.
I think the two ways of reading put us before one of life’s basic questions: Does history unfold according to a divine blueprint? It has implications for our lives as well: Do things happen for a reason? Is there a master plan for my life? These are questions each person should make out for themselves. This brief exploration of John’s Apocalypse (‘Unveiling’) is intended to initiate dialogue and discussion about this topic. In what follows, I will explain why we have two ways of reading the book, and how it translates into practise.
Why Two Ways of Reading?
Those who read the book as end-time prophecy (normally fundamentalist evangelical Christians) feel the book speaks directly to Christians of all times. We find, for example, in Revelation 13:18 reference to ‘the beast’, a man who would appear as a ruler. His number is 666 and it is stated that it is possible to deduce who he is. In 17:9 reference is made to a woman riding on a beast with seven heads. Again it is regarded as easy to decipher.
Those who read the book as consolation, refer to the first verse (Rev. 1:1) which clearly states ‘…revelation from Jesus Christ’ about ‘what must shortly happen.’ It is strengthened by 1:3, ‘The hour of fulfilment is near.’ The book is therefore not meant for a time outside the period in which it was written.
Evangelicals view the Bible as written by one author (God) and argue that we will understand Revelation better if we read it together with other apocalyptic (‘end-time) texts in the Bible which will help us to construct a complete timeline. Those who approach the text from a literary viewpoint, think we should interpret the text on its own terms.
The Timeline of Revelation
According to the storyline of the book, there will be seven years of tribulation (Rev. 4-19), indicated by quakes from below and fire from the sky. Part of the ordeal is the rule of a ‘beast’ that puts a mark on everybody, a name or the number 666, to allow them to buy and sell (Rev. 13:18). This will be followed by the battle of Armageddon (Rev. 19:11-21), a combat between the forces of good and evil, Jesus and Satan. It is followed by the millennium rule of Jesus, during which time the devil will be chained (Rev. 20:1-7). At the end of this period, Satan is released and with Gog and Magog he fights a final battle with Christ and is again defeated (20:7-9). After this the last judgement occurs where all the dead are raised and the book of life is opened. Those, whose names were not written in the book, are cast into the lake of fire, along with Satan, the beast, and Death (20:10-14). Finally a new earth and a new heaven appear with the Holy City coming down out of heaven (21:1-4).
An Alternative Timeline: The Rapture
Those who approach Revelation from an evangelical perspective, add to the above timeline. They include ‘The Rapture’ (1 Thess. 4:15-18) after the tribulation and before the start of the millennium reign of Jesus. If we look at the context on which the doctrine of The Rapture is based, it does not fit in with Revelation. It seems that Paul and his readers expected the second coming of Jesus within their own lifetime (1 Thess. 4:15 ‘…we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord…’). People asked about what would happen with those who had died in the meantime. Paul supplies an answer: (a) At the sound of God’s trumpet, Jesus will descend from heaven (1 Thess. 4:16), the dead will rise first, and go up into the air. (b) Those who are alive (‘we’) will suddenly receive spiritual bodies, and be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air.
Paul’s visualisation has nothing to do with the unexplained disappearance of millions of people before the expected tribulation. The context implies that the final judgement is then going to take place, and not that unbelievers would be left behind to face the horrors preceding the end of the world.
The Great Tribulation
With regard to the Great Tribulation, evangelicals read it together with texts like Matthew 24:3-33 talking about wars, rumours of wars, famines, pestilences, and earthquakes. Many are convinced that we are experiencing it now. Catastrophic weather patterns, terrifying new plagues (like HIV AIDS, the Ebola virus), horrific natural disasters, and deadly madmen leading Al Qaeda, ISIS, and Boko Haram, point in this direction. There are those who view the 2004 South Asia earthquake and the Tsunamis that killed 270,000 people as a fulfilment of Revelation 16:18. The smoke from the bottomless pit (Rev. 9:2) can only refer to nuclear bombs. The giant locusts (Rev. 9) that look like horses, have tails like scorpions, and making a noise like many chariots, can only be lethal attack helicopters.
Read contextually, the image of the Great Tribulation makes more sense as a symbolic reference to various disasters of the first century. In 64CE, after a fire had destroyed Rome, the emperor, Nero, blamed it on the Christians and had many of them tortured and executed. Then there were the destruction of the temple and the sacking of Jerusalem in 70CE by the Roman armies. In 79CE Vesuvius erupted and many inhabitants of the cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum died because of the volcano.
The four horsemen (Rev. 6) may refer to the Parthians, East of Rome, who was involved in a war from the 1st to the 3d centuries. They were famous for their horses. It is therefore possible to understand Revelation in terms of events which occurred in the first century. We are reminded that each generation will have its own tribulations: like the Bubonic Plague in Europe (14th-16th centuries), and the Great Flu Epidemic (1918).
The 666 Beast / False Prophet
Literalists read Revelation 13 together with other texts (e.g. Mk. 13:22; 2 Thess. 2:1-2; I Jn. 2:18, 22; I Jn. 4:3; II Jn. 1:7) where terms like ‘false Messiahs’, ‘the lawless one’, ‘son of perdition’ and ‘antichrist’ occur. They identify the beast as The Antichrist who appears amidst the Great Tribulation. Revelation 13:18 invites the reader to use gematria (numerical values) to decipher his name.
Literalists made numerous attempts to assign it to figures of history. In the 13th century, Pope Innocent III applied it to the prophet Mohammed. In the 17th century Martin Luther argued that it was the Pope in Rome. During and after the Second World War, some referred it to Hitler. This is how it was done. If you suppose A=100; B=101 etc. Then the name HITLER becomes: H (107) I (108) T (119) L (111) E (104) R (117). It totals to: 107 + 108 + 119 + 111 + 104 + 117 = 666! For modern Evangelicals, the Antichrist is already alive and will dominate the world using 666.
Hal Lindsey, a fundamentalist Christian writer, made millions profiteering from these apocalyptic expectations. He argued that the ten-horned beast preceding the Antichrist refers to the European Economic Community, which was formed by the Treaty of Rome (the city built on seven hills!). The Antichrist would be the future ruler of the EEC and he has already been born, but we don’t know who he is.
However, if we assume that the first readers would have known the reference of 666, it is easy to decipher the symbol. You could only buy and sell using Roman coins. The image of the Emperor Nero appeared on these coins. Though he died in 68CE, there were stories going around that he would reappear, revived. When one count the number values of the coins’ inscription NERON CAESAR, we get 666. We therefore have excellent evidence to refer the number of 666 to Nero, confirming the hypothesis that Revelation was written for a very specific audience and situation at the end of the first century CE.
The Battle of Armageddon (Rev. 16:16)
The Plain of Megiddo in Israel is a strategic location where the Egyptians fought the Canaanites in 1479BCE. For literalists it is the place where the biggest army ever will be assembled. The Christian army will consist of those who repented after the Rapture(!).
It does not seem to be a ‘prediction’ but rather part of the fictional plot of Revelation. It fits in with an archetypal storyline: the cosmic battle between the forces of good (God) and the forces of evil (Satan, or a primordial monster of chaos). In fact, we have various references in the Old Testament to this battle, where God’s opponent is invariable referred to as a monster named Rahab, or Leviathan. Pharaoh is also identified as ‘the great dragon’. (See Ps. 74.12– 13; Ps. 89.9– 10; Isa. 27.1; 30.7; 51.9; Ezek. 29.3; Job 7.12, 9.13, 26.12– 13; 41:1-34). These facts support the hypothesis that Revelation is a fictional (or rather factional) work based upon the principle of fantasy revenge.
The Millennium Rule of Christ
According to Revelation 20:4-6, the saints will come to life and rule with Christ for a thousand years. It was taken literally by Eusebius, Papias (2nd Cent.), Irenaeus, the Montanists Movement, Joachim of Fiore and the Radical Reformers of the 16th Cent.).
However, it does not seem responsible to randomly decide that the number 1000 is to be taken literally in this context, whilst symbolic numbers clearly predominate in the rest of the text. It is therefore more feasible to interpret the millennium rule as a symbolic reference to the permanent reign of Christ as an alternative to the oppressive Roman Empire. The New Jerusalem is the opposite of Rome, the capital of oppression.
Two Modern Examples
One may argue that it is innocent to read Revelation either way: as a book predicting the end of the world and how history will proceed before the second coming of Christ, or as fiction. I would argue that it is not. Think of how a fundamentalist Christian, with the power of launching an atom bomb, may react if he/she believes they are only doing what has already been decided by God.
I am also going to supply two examples of events, based upon a fundamentalist approach, which proved to be catastrophic to a lesser or greater extent.
The Suicide of the Xhosas (1856-1857)
After contact with Christian missionaries, the Xhosa people of the Eastern Cape reacted suicidal to the phenomenon of European colonisation. Nongqawuse, a young girl supported by her uncle, Mhlakaza, made various proclamations. If the Xhosa people would slaughter all their cattle, destroy their grain, and do no planting, something spectacular would happen. On Wednesday the 19th February 1857 the sun would rise red and their ancestors rise from the dead. They would form an army and drive the settlers into the sea. Their grain supplies would be miraculously supplemented and healthier and better cattle supplied. The blind would see and the lame walk. A Golden Age of Peace would be inaugurated for the Xhosas.
They killed around 350,000 head of cattle. In the resultant famine about 78,000 people died. The survivors streamed over the borders and started to work on white owned farms. Sir John Gray tried to mitigate the disaster by erecting soup kitchens. Mhlakaza died in the famine and Nongqawuse was exiled to Robben Island.
Edgar Whisenant Predicts the Rapture
Edgar Whisenant (1932-2001) was a rocket scientist at NASA, and also an avid evangelical student of the Bible. In 1998 he published a book, 88 Reasons Why The Rapture Will Be In 1988 (Nashville, Tennessee: World Bible Society). In a few months his book sold more than two million copies. He predicted that The Rapture would occur on the Rosh Hashanah festival, 11-13 September 1988, and that it would be followed by the Great Tribulation.
This is how he arrived at his dates. Firstly he departed from Jeremiah 30:3 where the restoration of the fortunes of Israel and Judah is promised (they will be brought back to their ancient country). His second text was Matthew 24:32-34, where Jesus says that when the branch of a fig tree puts forth its leaves, we know that the summer is near. Jesus also says that ‘this generation’ will not pass away until all these things had happened.
Whisenant correctly assumes that the fig tree is often a symbol for Israel. A ‘generation’ in the Bible is 40 years. The state of Israel was established in 1948 (for him, fulfilling Jer. 30:3). Making his sums: 1948+40 = 1988. He corroborated his calculations by another Biblical verse, Leviticus 26:28, where God says God will punish the people ‘sevenfold’ for their sins. He interprets it as that, after the return of the Jews from exile in 532BCE, they would still be punished ‘sevenfold.’ For him this could only refer to a period of time. A Jewish year consisted of 360 days and ‘sevenfold’ would be: 7 x 360 = 2520 days. However, one day is often viewed as one year and should be seen as 2520 years. So the punishment of Israel would end 2520 years after the return from exile, i.e. -532 + 2520 = 1988!
On the Campus of the then Rand Afrikaans University where I taught, his ideas influenced a number of students. They took a week off their studies to camp out on the terrain of a nearby theological college—and in this way many failed their studies.
Whisenant’s mistakes should be clear: he interpreted a promise of the return of Judah from exile as the restoration of Israel in the 20th century. He also applied the imagery of the fig tree incorrectly to Israel in the words of Jesus. He wrongly interprets 1 Thessalonians 4 as an event preceding the Great Tribulation. Furthermore, he incorrectly assumes that history unfolds according to a divine and predictable timeline.
Conclusion
It does seem, however, that the Revelation of John could be read constructively as fiction, expressing a perspective against all types of Empires and oppression. It also makes us aware that the forces of evil and oppression would be there in each generation. Revelation 21:1-8 supplies a vision of an alternative society. A new heaven and earth is possible, where there is no church, because of God’s presence everywhere. All is renewed.
Personally, I don’t think it is meaningful to think of time linearly, and its events as predetermined by God. This is a typical male view. The more feminine cyclical view of time should be incorporated into our thinking: how we can progress, cyclical, i.e. in ups and downs, to a new future. I also don’t think we should emphasise the visible second coming of Christ. It is more consequential to rather express it as the belief that Jesus comes time and again in the life of believers. We experience it in worship, in the sacrament of the Eucharist, in the celebration of Christmas, and in our feeble attempts to be Christs to one another.
The South African singer, Laurika Rauch, sang a haunting song, ‘Hot Gates’ (after the Greek Thermopylai). Her song enumerates places of human suffering, like Hiroshima, Jericho, Dunkirk and Sebokeng. It ends with the repeat chorus:
There’s another song that will be sung
There’s another bell that must be rung
There’s another city I’ve been told
Where the streets are paved with gold
