Category Archives: Revelation

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Who are the 144,000?—Revelation 7:1-8

Did you know that you’re in the Bible? Sometimes we might wish that there were Bible stories about us, but in fact there are stories that talk about God’s people from all nations. Revelation 7:9-17 is one of these passages.

The scene before it, however, talks about the 144,000, twelve thousand from each tribe (Rev 7:1-8). Who are they?

If we take the number literally, we should also take the other details literally: Jewish male virgins (using Rev 14:1-5 also). For this reason, the interpretation offered by Jehovah’s Witnesses is inconsistent and cannot be correct.

Some scholars take the details as literally as possible. They argue that John envisions a literal 144,000 Jewish men from twelve tribes in the end-time. After all, many Jewish people expected the restoration of the lost tribes, and there is biblical reason to expect a special movement among the Jewish people near the end (Rom 11:25-27). This is a respectable scholarly interpretation, although most of the twelve tribes are no longer known.

Other scholars, by contrast, believe that Revelation intends the details here as figurative, communicating a different inspired point. They offer several reasons:
1. This is the number of God’s “servants” (Rev 7:3). Elsewhere in Revelation this title often includes all Jesus’s followers (1:1; 2:20; 22:3, 6).
2. They are those who follow Jesus and have been redeemed (14:3).
3. Revelation often uses symbols. After all, no one takes literally the woman clothed with the sun (12:1). Further, Revelation sometimes explains details as symbolic (1:20). A symbolic reading is actually more consistent with Revelation as a whole.
4. The numbers connect with a later passage in Revelation. The New Jerusalem is said to be 12,000 stadia (about 1400 miles, or 2200 kilometers!) wide, long, and high, with a wall of 144 cubits (about 200 feet or 65 meters). Through this narrative connection, Revelation portrays them as the people of God for the city of God—they are new Jerusalemites.
5. That’s why 14:1 portrays them “standing on Mount Zion” with Jesus. Zion was the temple or, more generally, Jerusalem.
6. Why might they be described in terms of the twelve tribes? This listing of the tribes is unusual, and even leaves out the tribe of Dan. But elsewhere in Revelation all believers are described as spiritually Jewish (cf. Rev 2:9; 3:9)—what Paul would call grafted into the heritage of God’s people. The churches appear as lampstands (1:20)—the standard symbol in the ancient Mediterranean world for Jewish communities.
7. The next vision speaks of a numberless multitude from all nations. We could read this as a contrast instead of as a parallel, but we should note the description of this multitude …
8. They serve him day and night in his temple (7:15)—just like priests in ancient Israel (Ps 134:1). That they will never hunger, thirst, or suffer heat (Rev 7:16), and that the Lord will lead them to springs of water, echoes promises to Israel in the time of restoration (Isa 49:10). That God will wipe away all tears from their eyes (Rev 7:17) likewise echoes a promise probably especially to God’s people (Isa 25:8). In other words, they are portrayed as God’s people just as the 144,000 are. The passages thus appear to be parallel, with the second further explaining the first.

For these reasons, I believe that the case for reading them as representative of all God’s people is stronger than the case for reading them as a literal 144,000. Thus, the 144,000 may stand for all those who will someday be in the New Jerusalem—all New Jerusalemites, all of God’s people.

Another possible view is compatible with this one, although I am less certain about it. Many scholars see the people in the second passage as martyrs. Some see the 144,000 in the first passage as God’s end-time army, because they are portrayed as consecrated men numbered like a military census in the Old Testament. These views are debated, but if they are correct, then God’s church is portrayed as an “army” of nonviolent martyrs.

If this is correct, a parallel would then emerge. In Revelation 5:5-6, John heard about the lion from the tribe of Judah—the conquering, warlike Messiah. When he turned, however, what he saw was instead a slaughtered lamb. That is, Jesus conquered not in the expected way, but through laying down his life. Here in chapter 7 Revelation might portray the end-time army that some expected as instead a movement of martyrs—of people who laid down their lives to announce Jesus and his purposes in the world. What price are we willing to pay to follow Jesus’s truth and depend on him?

The “army of martyrs” interpretation may be correct. I am less certain about it than about these being God’s people, because some of the supporting evidence is less than certain. I do believe that the evidence is strong, however, that this multitude represents God’s people.

Who are the 144,000? You are, if you trust Jesus as your Lord and Savior. Together we have a mission to honor Jesus, no matter what the cost.

Craig Keener is author of The NIV Application Commentary on Revelation (Zondervan, 2000).

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Suffering and exploitation in Revelation

Does Revelation have any relevance for today? Among the points where the book’s message might help people today is its challenge to the security people often feel going about their own lives while neglecting the suffering of others. Revelation originally addressed seven churches; two or three of them were facing significant suffering, while many of the others felt comfortable as part of a social and economic system that ignored and sometimes inflicted suffering. They all lived in a society that honored the wealthy, the powerful and aristocratic celebrities while neglecting or despising the weak.

A corporate embodiment of evil in Revelation is often called “Babylon.” The name made sense to Revelation’s first audience, who knew that an earlier Babylon had destroyed the temple and enslaved God’s people. Most scholars see “Babylon” in Revelation as a transparent analogy for the empire reigning when Revelation was written — Rome. After all, Rome had also destroyed the temple and enslaved God’s people less than three decades before when Revelation was probably written. Some Jewish people had long envisioned Rome as an evil empire, a successor to oppressive Babylon. Although Rome fits the description for John’s day, the same spirit or ethos lives on in other oppressive regimes and economically exploitive systems today.

Revelation climaxes with Babylon’s fall just before narrating the return of Jesus. Scholars often observe that the list of imports to Babylon in Revelation 18:12-13 closely resembles the known imports into Rome. Much of the list depicts luxury goods, such as pearls for which divers in the Indian Ocean or Persian Gulf had to risk their safety; gold and silver taken from slave-worked mines seized from Spain; the ivory trade that had already nearly driven extinct Syrian and north African elephants; and the like.

At least one item suggests exploitation even without being a luxury good: Rome imported massive quantities of wheat to feed its large population. To maintain stability in the capital, Rome distributed wheat free to its residents, but at the expense of the overtaxed peasants in Egypt who had to raise the grain. Although Egypt was itself once a mighty Empire, Egypt’s peasants around the fertile Nile now had to send a large amount of their produce to Rome. Yet these peasants suffered from lack of resources themselves. Possibly up to one-third of their own children died within a year of birth; most families crowded into small dwellings. So oppressive was the exploitation that on some occasions when harvests were bad and a village heard that a tax collector was coming, the entire village skipped town and started a new village somewhere else. The climax of Revelation’s list, however, is the most directly exploitive practice of all: “the bodies and lives of people” — Rome’s notorious slave trade.

In contrast to inequitable trade patterns in the Roman empire, international trade can raise living standards when carried out justly and with cross-cultural wisdom. Yet one needs little knowledge of economics to recognize that some systems contain elements that unjustly profit some peoples while others are exploited. To take one commonly cited example: much of the coltan used in electronic devices is mined by impoverished workers in Congo-DRC under unsafe conditions; natural resources in the same nation help fuel civil conflicts and degrade the ecosystem on which people depend. Likewise, it is common knowledge that an international slave trade continues, often forcing women and children from poorer regions into sexual service for more economically endowed regions.

Revelation suggested that the empire’s economy, built on injustice, was ultimately doomed to collapse, taking with it the economic systems too dependent on it. On the one hand, Revelation offered comfort and hope of a better future for the suffering churches. To those churches that were complacent about others’ sufferings, however, the book sounded a stark warning: there is a God of justice, and those who unjustly indulge their comforts at the expense of others will one day have to face reality. Perhaps Revelation still has something to teach us today.

(Note: this post is a condensed version of an article originally published as part of Craig’s ongoing blogging on the Huffington Post website. See more of his articles here.)

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Hate the sin but love the sinner — Revelation 2

In Revelation chapter 2, positive models provided by the Ephesian church include testing of prophets. As relativism increases in our culture, discernment and backbone to stand against error become both increasingly unpopular and increasingly vital.  The current postmodern culture of the universities encourages the sharing of diverse beliefs (welcoming Christians in some new ways and providing opportunities previously unavailable to us). But it also forbids us to try to convert  anyone as if  we have absolute truth. We want people to understand  the gospel, but we also seek for them  to embrace  it. Even many Christians, however, are growing uncomfortable with the idea of absolute truth.

If there were in John’s day self-styled “apostles” (2:2) and prophets (2:20), preaching falsely called “deep secrets” (2:24), their number does not seem to have declined  in our own, and the need for vigilance against infiltration by false teachers has not decreased. Thus, for example, a few charismatics have closed ranks against noncharismatic critics of excesses in Word-of-Faith circles, rather than carefully examining the challenges to see which are cogent. Yet the biblical citations for some of these teachings are out of context, and some of the teachings contradict both Scripture and historic charismatic faith.

As a prophet  and an apostle, John  surely was not against  prophets or apostles in general;  but he demanded discernment in his day and would demand it no less in ours. If the Nicolaitans (2:6) supported the popular cultural values of sexual and/or religious compromise,  they also serve as a warning to us to beware  of modern purveyors of what people simply want to hear. Indeed, in talking with some members of churches that preach biblical holiness I have been struck by the number of people who embrace what their pastor says on matters that comfort them but prefer other, more worldly sources for instruction on morality.

Yet part of discernment involves knowing what we must discern, and the tragedy of the Ephesian church’s failure on this count is a tragedy of human nature that recurs through history and in our own time. The same church that rightly “hated” the works of the Nicolaitans  (2:6) wrongly abandoned their earlier commitment to “love” (2:4); like many Christians today, they may have neglected the adage that we should “hate the sin but love the sinner.”

Today,  in fact, our hatred of what we disapprove has sometimes carried beyond sin and those who commit it. Not all doctrines are at the heart of the gospel, not all errors are properly labeled heresy, and not all disagreements are worth  fighting about.

Yet despite important, notable exceptions, many of the churches most firmly committed  to the truth of the gospel are also those churches that have drawn boundaries too tightly on secondary issues. Countless times we have witnessed committed Christians marginalized for their views on gender roles, their different cultural or political perspectives, or for other reasons. In many of these cases those we have marginalized have naturally found circles where they were more accepted- even though many of those circles proved lax on matters that were close to their hearts.

In some of those  cases I  have also watched these  wounded Christians react against the rejection they experienced in their more traditional background in ways that discarded the proverbial baby with the bath water. For example, a professor marginalized by her evangelical campus ministry years ago because she held different views on gender roles now reportedly multiplies her hostility toward the Bible among her students.

Often we have marginalized people by careless thinking. For example, in our biblically correct opposition to divorce we have sometimes condemned faithful spouses abandoned and divorced against their will (about as sensible as condemning a rape victim because we oppose rape).  When  they  then leave our church,  we sometimes  feel confirmed  in our suspicion  that  they must have been unspiritual to begin with!

Even when  we are dealing  with clear cases of sin and error, does not Scripture call us to offer correction  with love and grace (Luke 15:1-2; 2 Tim. 2:24-26)?  Meanwhile, as J. I. Packer rightly notes, many of us Western evangelicals “can smell unsound  doctrine  a mile away,” and yet the fruit of personal experience of God often proves rare among us.

A church  where  love ceases can no longer  function  properly  as a local expression of Christ’s many-membered body. This is one of the offenses for which  a lampstand can  be moved  from its place  (2:5),  through which  a church can ultimately cease to exist as a church. Some churches die from lack of outreach,  lack of planning for the rising generation, or lack of courtesy to visitors; some churches,  like the church  in Ephesus, may risk simply killing themselves off by how they treat others.

(Adapted from The NIV Application Commentary: Revelation, published by Zondervan in 2000. Buy the book here.)

 

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I will remove your lampstand from its place — Revelation 2:6

That  the letters to the seven churches of Revelation often betray characteristics of the cities in which these churches flourished reminds us how easily churches  can reflect the values of their culture if we do not remain vigilant against those values. (This is especially true of the less persecuted churches.)

The two cities that are now completely uninhabited belong to two of the churches most severely rebuked (Sardis and Laodicea); the two cities that held out longest before the Turkish conquest are the only two churches fully praised (Smyrna and Philadelphia); and the city of Eph­esus was later literally moved to a site about three kilometers from where it was in John’s day, just as the church was threatened with removal from its place (2:5)

Such parallels may be coincidence, but they might also illustrate a pat­tern in history: The church, no matter how powerless in a given society, is a guardian of its culture. Just as the presence of the righteous in Sodom was the only factor that could have restrained judgment (Gen. 18:20-32), the fate of a culture may depend ultimately on the behavior of the believers in that culture.

Given the high degree of assimilation of North American Christians to our culture’s values- more time spent on entertainment than on witness, more money spent on our comfort than on human need- the prognosis for the society as a whole is not good.

When pagans charged that Rome fell because of its conversion to Christianity, Augustine responded that it fell rather because its sins were piled as high as heaven and because the commitment of most of its Christian popu­lation remained too shallow to restrain God’s wrath. Naturally we recognize that not all suffering reflects judgment; but some does, especially on the societal level. Is Western Christianity genuinely different enough from our cultures to delay God’s judgment on our societies?

(Adapted from The NIV Application Commentary: Revelation, published by Zondervan. Buy the book here.)

 

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Blessed is the one who reads — Revelation 1:3

Before printing presses were available, well-to-do  people often “published” works especially in public readings, perhaps most often at banquets. But that the book of Revelation was read in churches alongside Old Testament Scripture suggests that the early Christians began treating  it as Scripture then or soon afterward (d. also 22: 18-19).

That one person would read the work (“blessed is the one who reads”) and the whole congregation would hear it (“blessed are those who hear it”) fits what we know of the time; even in urban areas, many people could not read much.

“Blessed are” is the familiar ancient literary form “beatitude,” which is espe­cially prominent  in the  Hebrew  Bible and Jewish texts (e.g.,  Ps. 1:1; Prov. 8:34).13  The  “blessing” form itself is general,  but the context  specifies  the blessings of the end (Rev. 21-22) for which only the listener will be prepared (“the time is near,” 1 :3).

In biblical idiom, “hearing” also often meant “heeding,” i.e., obedience (e.g., the Hebrew of Gen. 26:5; 27:8), but John allows no ambiguity,  adding “take to heart” (lit., “keep”); one  used this language  for observing commandments. Though Revelation is not a collection of laws, its message provides us demands no less serious (Rev. 12:17; 14:12; 22:7).

(Adapted from The NIV Application Commentary: Revelation, published by Zondervan. Buy the book here.)

 

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Mission strategy and church reality — Revelation 1:4-8

The fact that Revelation was sent first to the most strategic cities of Asia Minor, trusting that its message would spread from there, invites us to think strategically in our plans to spread God’s message to our communities and the world. We should think as strategically as possible as we mobilize believers for world mis­sions, develop strategies for serving our communities, organize target­ group evangelism, and so forth.

Yet our vantage point in history may also allow us to draw an additional application that would have been less clear in John’s day. When Revelation was written, Christianity flourished in western Turkey, but over the centuries each of these churches gradually succumbed to pressures until the last was virtually  stamped out  by  Islam. The regions where the early church was strongest (Turkey, Syria, and North  Africa) are now Islamic strongholds.

Yet by and large it was the church rather than Islam that destroyed the church; Muslim invaders simply mopped up after them. In North Africa, Christianity weakened itself through internal doctrinal and ethnic divisions, heresies, and the insensitivity of Byzantine and Latin Christians to local cul­ture. Nubia remained a richly Christian African culture until its growing weakness in both missions and Christian education led to its collapse to Islam in the fourteenth through the sixteenth centuries. The disunity of the church led to the demise of a glorious Eastern Orthodox culture before Islam. Regions relatively barren of the gospel two centuries ago are now flourishing with the gospel, while parts of the Western world struggle to maintain a Christian voice.

Lampstands can be moved from their place (Revelation 2:5), and this should serve as a warning to believers in various parts of the world today: We dare not take our role in God’s plan for granted. When part of the church abandons its mission, God will raise up others to fulfill it.

(Adapted from The NIV Application Commentary: Revelation, published by Zondervan. Buy the book here.)

 

 

 

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The Gospel and modern pluralism: Revelation 2:18-19

In a broader sense, the principles of temptation to compromise here go beyond economic temptations, and many applications we note here continue the basic themes evident in the letter to the Pergamum Christians.  Rome was tolerant of religions as long as they did not make universal claims that might ultimately compete with loyalty to the state; but a universal religion was a threat to Rome, and “such a religion must conquer or die” (Martin Person Nilsson, Greek Piety).

A praiseworthy aspect of modern pluralism is that it provides more of a voice for minorities -whether for ethnic minorities, religious minorities like committed  Christians,  or others.

A danger of modern pluralism, however, like that in the Roman empire, is that it can inadvertently  appear to lend credibility to the claims of philosophic, moral, or religious relativism. Seventy-two percent of Americans in the 18-25 age bracket believe there is no such thing as absolute truth; this view appears to be shared by over half of those who claim to be born-again Christians.  Much of our society has absolutized relativism (how is that for oxymoronic  thinking?) as the only nonnegotiable  truth, in essence arguing that everyone  is right unless one claims to be.

One  commentator cautions, “For some people today tolerance is the only real virtue and intolerance  the only vice” (J.R. Michaels, Revelation); another  that “while the message to Ephesus warns the church about  the  dangers  of loveless orthodoxy, the message to Thyatira  warns against the dangers of a ‘soft’ love that tolerates all things and judges none” (González, Revelation).

Many non-Christians no longer deny the possibility of miracles or of Jesus being a way to God. But to them the Christian way is only one way among many; they bristle at the claim that Jesus is the only true way.

Yet the world is not alone in its excessive tolerance.  Like the Thyatiran Christians, we may tolerate some who falsely claim “deep” teachings  that directly undermine the gospel or Christian ethics. As noted above, few evangelicals today are tempted  to question  some cardinal  Christian teachings like Jesus’ deity or resurrection.  But because relativism has become increasingly popular in our culture, the absolute necessity of faith in Christ for salvation has become a more uncomfortable  position for many to hold. “Over nineteen  centuries  of Christian  missionary  activity hinged  on  this belief alone,” but studies reveal that this remains “the single most socially offensive aspect of Christian  theology,” and that  this has been  the most prominent impact of theological liberalism.

This trend toward accepting  relativism is likely to take its toll in evangelical circles and will probably  become  a primary battleground of early twenty-first  century  evangelicalism. Among students  at “elite” evangelical liberal arts colleges and seminaries, one third believe that other ways of salvation  may be possible for those who have never heard of Jesus Christ. Most will not go so far as a Hindu acquaintance of mine who acknowledged Jesus as a legitimate but not the only path of salvation; they simply claim that God may have a special plan for those who have never heard the gospel.

Yet even this more modest claim guts the very heart of the saving gospel. The standard Jesus-is-the-only-way texts aside (e.g., John  14:6; Acts 4:12), what kind of heavenly Father would send his own Son to the cross if the plan of salvation was actually multiple choice (Gal. 2:21)? The  New Testament presents the apostolic preaching of salvation from a variety of complementary angles: rebirth by the Spirit, justification by faith, passing from death to life or from darkness to light, and so forth.  Yet all these models share the common element that the criterion for transition from one state to another is dependence on Christ;  all humanity  remains alienated  from God  until saved through  this gospel John 3:17-18; Rom. 10:13-17). In practice, the apostolic gospel demands from us a nonnegotiable commitment to missions.

To suggest that God  has other  means of salvation in addition  to faith in the message about Christ,  then,  runs counter  to the center  of the Christian faith.  While Christians may divide from one another on many  issues (see comments on 2:4), some of us have proved too tolerant – or too lacking in backbone  (Prov. 25:26) – on matters that directly affect people’s salvation. Jews suffered in the Roman world for insisting that God  is one; Christians merely compounded the offense by insisting that even their fellow monotheists were unsaved if they did not come through Christ. The ancient  challenge of idolatry was a denial that God is one and demands correct worship; that  challenge  has appeared  in a new guise today, and Christians  must be ready to fight it even at the cost of our lives.

(Adapted from The NIV Application Commentary: Revelation, published by Zondervan. Buy the book here.)

 

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Because you are lukewarm I will spit you out — Revelation 3:15-18

Laodicea became an important Phrygian city in Roman times.  It was capital of the Cibryatic convention, including at least 25 towns.  It was also the wealthiest city in Phrygia, and especially prosperous in this period.  It was 10 miles west of Colosse and its rival city was Phrygian Antioch.  The city reflected the usual paganism of the larger Mediterranean culture: Zeus was the city’s patron deity, but Laodiceans also had temples for Apollo, Asclepius (the healing deity), Hades, Hera, Athena, Serapis, Dionysus, and other deities.

The church seemed to share the values of its culture, an arrogant self-sufficiency in matters including its prosperity, clothing and health, all of which Jesus challenges in 3:17-18.  Laodicea was a prosperous banking center; proud of its wealth, it refused Roman disaster relief after the earthquake of AD 60, rebuilding from its own resources.  It was also known for its textiles (especially black wool) and for its medical school with ear medicine and undoubtedly the highly reputed Phrygian eye salve.  Everything in which Laodicea could have confidence outwardly, her church, which reflected its culture, lacked spiritually.

The one sphere of life in which Laodiceans could not pretend to be self-sufficient was their water supply!  Laodicea had to pipe in its water from elsewhere, and by the time it arrived it was full of sediment; Laodicea actually acquired a bad reputation for its water supply.  Jesus comments on the temperature of the water: they were lukewarm, neither cold nor hot.  This does not mean, as some have suggested, that hot water was good but cold water was bad; Jesus would not want the Laodiceans “good or bad,” but only good.

Cold water was preferred for drinking, and hot water for bathing (also sometimes drunk at banquets), but the natural lukewarmness of local water (in contrast with the hot water available at nearby Hierapolis or cold water of nearby mountains) was undoubtedly a standard complaint of local residents, most of whom had an otherwise comfortable lifestyle.  Jesus is saying: “Were you hot (i.e., for bathing) or cold (i.e., for drinking), you would be useful; but as it is, you are simply disgusting.  I feel toward you the way you feel toward your water supply–you make me sick.”

 

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Behold, I stand at the door and knock — Revelation 3:20

Here Jesus knocks not at the door of the individual sinner, but rather at the door of a church that was acting like one!  Whereas Jesus had set before another church an open door, inviting them into his presence despite the false accusations of their persecutors (Rev 3:8), he was here locked out of another church.  Ancient hospitality required sharing food with a guest, but the Laodicean church had locked Jesus out by their arrogant self-sufficiency (3:17-18).  He wanted these Christians to repent and express again their need for him (3:19).

This does not make illegitimate the faith of those led to Christ using this verse; the principle applies, and it is in any case the gospel message, not the interpretation of a verse, that converted them.  But the point remains that if we misinterpret the verse, we do not learn what this passage has to say to us.  There may be arrogant churches today that have locked Jesus out.