Churches are keen in sending its members knocking on doors to 'evangelise’, nearly always begin their coercive act with Revelation. More troubling is the extent to which Revelation is fascinating larger numbers of contemporary "evangelical" Christians, especially in the US, who have made the "Premillennial Dispensationalism" a central part of their faith, for example, the fictionalised version of dispensationalism, the Left Behind series of novels by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins.
With much of mainline Christianity seemingly doing its best to ignore the Book of Revelation, there has not been a strong enough voice to challenge the increasing acceptance of the dispensationalist way of reading it. The images of violence, including the possibility of divine vengeance, seem to overpower such a call to justice, peace, compassion and reconciliation.
How does one sort through this barrage of images that are rather foreign to our modern worldview?
Revelation takes violent apocalyptic imagery from the Hebrew tradition and means to subvert it from within, primarily through the dominant actor in Revelation, the Lamb slain.
It's not God's violence: The point of Revelation is that we so often face in this world is not God’s violence but the violence of empires under the deception of Satan, the dragon. And God’s defeat of that violence is not one of superior firepower, instead
God’s defeat of violence is to expose it through the love of the Lamb slain whose self-giving love lets itself be slaughtered by the violence, and the Lamb’s resurrection shows its power of life to be victorious.
Satan's violence and Lamb's non-violent victory: Disciples of the Lamb follow not in a hope that there would be a different kind of victory someday, a victory in which the Lamb became a Lion and devoured all its enemies. But followers of the Lamb believe that his slaughter and resurrection have already won the victory, such that we wait with endurance and hope, following in the Lamb’s loving nonviolence, until the day when Satan’s violence finally becomes its own defeat, collapsing in on itself.
Let’s take a quick look at the most relevant passages. The first pivotal point in the drama comes with John’s despairing over no one being worthy to open a sacred scroll with seven seals.
Rev. 5:4-7
And I began to weep bitterly because no one was found worthy to open the scroll or to look into it. Then one of the elders said to me, "Do not weep. See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals." Then I saw between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders a Lamb standing as if it had been slaughtered, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth. He went and took the scroll from the right hand of the one who was seated on the throne.
· John doesn't look at a Lion of Judah who devours God's enemies, instead he sees the Lamb slain.
· This is the beginning of a subversion from within of the dominant human hopes for a divine violence and vengeance that will someday put all evil-doers in their appropriate place, a hellish place of God's condemnation. But Revelation begins to subvert this hope right from the very beginning with the one who has truly won God's victory on the cross, the Lamb slain.
· And the Lamb is never portrayed as someday coming back like a lion. No, the emphasis is not on the future but on the continuing present.
· The Greek for "a Lamb standing as if it had been slaughtered" uses participles in the perfect tense: arnion hestekos hos esphagmenon. It is something that has already happened and is continuing on into the future.
The other crucial passage comes in chapter 12 describing the war in heaven: Rev. 12:7-12
And war broke out in heaven; Michael and his angels fought against the dragon. The dragon and his angels fought back, but they were defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. The great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world-- he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. Then I heard a loud voice in heaven, proclaiming, "Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Messiah, for the accuser of our friends has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. But they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they did not cling to life even in the face of death. Rejoice then, you heavens and those who dwell in them! But woe to the earth and the sea, for the devil has come down to you with great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!"
· In the nonviolent ministry of Jesus and his disciples, culminating and coming to power through his death as the Lamb slaughtered and his resurrection, the satanic powers of violence are thrown out of heaven.
· The battle has already been fought and won, signified by Michael and the angels throwing Satan out of heaven.
· Was this victory won by superior divine firepower? No, the nature of the victory is made crystal clear: "they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they did not cling to life even in the face of death."
· It is a continuation of the ministry begun on this earth by Jesus Christ and furthered through his disciples -- his witnesses (martyrs in the Greek) -- who continue in his way of loving self-giving instead of hate-filled vengeance.
At the beginning of the 21st Century, I believe the principle witness to this way of nonviolence has been a Hindu follower of Jesus Christ, Mahatma Gandhi, who has inspired a revival of Jesus' way of nonviolence. Gandhi is named as a model for many, many subsequent movements, perhaps the most significant of which has been the Civil Rights movement in the United States led by Martin Luther King, Jr. In fact, Gandhi has become a new symbol who for many who need to distance themselves from the many so-called followers of Christ, "Christians," who have fallen back into the Satanic ways of violence and remain duped along with the "kings and nations" by the deceptions of the dragon -- making it all that much more important for a Christian voice to strongly put forward a more faithful reading of the Book of Revelation. Gandhi's way of nonviolence follows in the way of the Lamb slaughtered.
The Book of Revelation shows us;
· Not the picture of a devouring Lion, but a Lamb slain
· A picture of the beastly powers of violence finally collapsing into their own hell-hole of violence
· A plea to the faithful to maintain their faith. In the midst of relating his vision, John pauses to speak directly to those faithful
· It is through the self-giving love, we win the forces and the principalities of darkness
· Our lives are a continuation of the ministry begun on this earth by Jesus Christ and furthered through his disciples -- his witnesses (martyrs in the Greek), and now we continue in his way of loving self-giving instead of hate-filled vengeance
References
1. Margaret Barker, The Revelation of Jesus Christ: Which God Gave to Him to Show to His Servants What Must Soon Take Place (Revelation 1.1), T&T Clark, 2000
2. Austin Farrer, A Rebirth of Images: The Making of St. John's Apocalypse, 1949.
3. G. B. Caird, The Revelation of St. John the Divine (Harper's New Testament Commentaries), 1966 (original; reprinted by Hendrickson, 1993).
4. Wilfrid J. Harrington, Revelation (Sacra Pagina Series), Liturgical Press, 1993.
5. Richard Bauckham, The Theology of the Book of Revelation, Cambridge UP, 1993;
6. Mark Bredin, Jesus, Revolutionary of Peace: A Nonviolent Christology in the Book of Revelation, Bletchley, England: Paternoster, 2003.
