Revelation Through Old Testament Eyes

SERIES PREFACE

The New Testament writers were Old Testament people. Their minds were populated with Old Testament stories and concepts. Their imaginative world was furnished with Old Testament images, motifs, metaphors, symbols, and literary patterns. When Jesus came and turned much of their conventional wisdom on its head, they largely had Old Testament tools to understand what was going on in order to explain Jesus to others and to themselves. So that’s what they used.

For many Christians the Old Testament has, unfortunately, become a closed book. It seems long, mysterious, and boring with a confusing history full of many strange, unpronounceable names. And then there are those sometimes bizarre prophecies populated with strange creatures. Yet my consistent experience in teaching the New Testament is that when I turn the attention of students to relevant Old Testament passages, the proverbial light bulbs go on. The room is filled with ahas. Formerly obscure New Testament passages suddenly make new sense in light of the Old. Indeed the whole of each book of the New Testament takes on fuller, richer dimensions not seen before.

The purpose of the Through Old Testament Eyes commentaries is to give preachers, teachers, and other readers this same experience. This series opens the New Testament in greater depth to anyone who wants to see fresh ways that Scripture interconnects with Scripture.

Scholars have long known that the Old Testament influenced the New Testament (an idea known as intertextuality). In fact, more than a millennia and a half ago Augustine famously proposed that we understand the relationship of the two testaments in this way: The new is in the old concealed; the old is in the new revealed. Yet no commentary series is as devoted as this one is to seeing the richness of Old Testament allusions, references, echoes, and background to illuminate both puzzling passages and explain others in fresh ways.

Practices like baptism, meals, fishing, and fasting; concepts like rescue, faith, sin, and glory; and terms like wilderness, Sabbath, and Lord are just a few of the dozens of words in each New Testament book and letter with deep Old Testament resonances. Sometimes a narrative arc or an argument is also shaped by the Old Testament. An appreciation of this background enriches our understanding and helps us appropriately apply each passage.

In these commentaries you will find four repeating features which will enrich your encounter with the Scripture.

Running Commentary

Verse-by-verse or paragraph-by-paragraph commentary will include Old Testament background as well as other key information, to give readers an understanding of the text as a whole and to answer questions as they naturally arise.

Through Old Testament Eyes

Periodic summaries offer overviews of chapters or sections. These occasional pauses give the opportunity to step back from the detail to see the bigger picture of how Old Testament themes and motifs are being used by the New Testament authors.

What the Structure Means

New Testament authors often get their points across through the way they structure their material. The very organization of their writing conveys significant meaning in and of itself. How the events and teachings are linked makes a difference that, while not explicit, is an important part of the message. Again it is important to not take verses out of context as if they were timeless truths standing apart from their original settings, which affect how we understand them.

The authors of the New Testament also deliberately use, for example, repetition, contrast, hyperbole, metaphor, story, and other techniques so they can have the maximum impact on their readers. What the Structure Means will highlight these every so often and help us keep track of the overall flow of each book and letter so that the Old Testament background can be seen in its proper context.

Going Deeper

New Testament writers did not want merely to convey information. They wrote with the needs of the early church in mind. What should their attitude be toward family members who weren’t Christians? How should they respond to challenges from Jewish or Roman authorities? What about internal disputes within the church? These and many other issues were on their minds, and the New Testament addresses them and many more.

Through Old Testament Eyes commentaries will not only leave readers with an enriched understanding of the text but with enriched lives. In Going Deeper the authors will unpack the practical implications of each book and letter for Christians and churches, especially drawing from the Old Testament dimensions uncovered in the text.

As much as this series champions the importance of understanding the New Testament’s use of the Old, two key points need to be mentioned. First, the Old Testament is not merely a tool for understanding the New. The Old Testament is important and valuable in its own right. It was the Bible of Jesus and the first Christians. They guided their lives by it. The Old Testament needs to be and deserves to be understood on its own terms, apart from the lens it provides for seeing the New Testament clearly. All the commentary authors in this series begin just here as they approach the text. In fact, our hope is that these commentaries will be a window into the Old Testament that will motivate many readers to look more deeply into what some have called the First Testament.

Second, the Old Testament is not the only interpretive lens we need to understand the New. Roman and Greek culture and history, for example, had a very significant influence on the New Testament era. So did the Second Temple period (from the start of rebuilding the temple about 537 BC to the destruction of the temple by Rome in AD 70). Where essential, these commentaries will reference such background material. But the emphasis will be on providing in-depth Old Testament background that readers too often overlook.

While these commentaries are grounded in solid scholarship, they are not intended primarily for an academic audience. For this reason many topics, approaches, and debates found in technical commentaries are absent. This series is for those who want to teach or preach, as well as any serious reader committed to understand Scripture.

The past is always present. The question is: Are we aware of how it affects us or not? The Old Testament was present with the New Testament writers. They knew that and treasured it. We can too.

—Andrew T. Le Peau

Series Editor

INTRODUCTION AND MAIN THEME OF THE BOOK OF REVELATION

Ask most people who read the Bible, casually or seriously, and a large percentage will say that the book of Revelation is hard to understand. Not only that, but they find it strange, even bizarre. In one sense, I can’t blame them. The first three chapters are relatively tame, but even in the introduction and the letters to the seven churches we read about one coming with the clouds (1:7), the mystery of seven stars and seven golden lampstands (1:20). The glorified Christ rebukes a group called the Nicolaitans (2:6, 15), a synagogue of Satan (2:9), those who hold to the teaching of Balaam, 2:14), and that woman Jezebel (2:20). Churches that resist the temptation to compromise are promised hidden manna as well as a white stone with a new name written on it (2:17).

When readers reach the visions that start in Revelation 4 and extend to the end, the imagery seems overwhelming. A short list includes a seven-sealed scroll, four horsemen bringing destruction and death, 144,000 people with a seal on their foreheads, horselike locusts from the Abyss with scorpion tails and faces like humans, a woman battling a dragon, a beast from the sea and a beast from the earth, and a great prostitute called Babylon the Great. This constitutes just a few of the things that confound most modern readers of the book.

The difficulty, though, is not because of the complexity of the book of Revelation, but rather because we modern readers are unfamiliar with imagery that would have been known to its first readers. These images, for the most part, were not created out of thin air, but have a background not only in first-century-AD Greco-Roman culture but also in the Old Testament, which itself has its background in ancient Near Eastern literature.

Thus, it is important to familiarize ourselves with that background. This commentary has as its focus Revelation’s Old Testament background. It’s important to recognize that Revelation is not as esoteric as many assume, because some writers take advantage of a modern reader’s (and often their own) lack of knowledge of the background to make all kinds of outlandish claims about the message of the book of Revelation. This includes those who might use the book as a source to predict the timing and nature of Christ’s return. Recent well-known popular treatments would include those by Hal Lindsey, Harold Camping, Tim LaHaye, and many Sunday morning TV preachers.

Truth be told, Revelation’s main theme is as clear as day: despite present trouble, God is in control, and he will have the final victory. God wins in the end, even though his people at the present live in a toxic culture and are marginalized and even persecuted. This leads to a secondary theme: hope that leads to perseverance. Starting in the letters to the seven churches but continuing through the visions, the author’s purpose is to engender hope in the hearts of his Christian readers so that they will have the resolve to withstand the turbulent present.¹ Of course, these messages are for those who respond to John’s admonition to hear the book and take to heart what is written in it (1:3). Those who don’t will find judgment or, as the glorified Christ warned the church of Ephesus, have their lampstand taken away (2:5).

Author and Date

The very first chapter of Revelation makes it clear that the book was written by John. He was the one who received the revelation that constitutes the contents of the book. God revealed the visions of the book by sending his angel to his servant John, who testifies to everything he saw (Rev 1:1–2). John then writes a letter to the seven churches in the province of Asia (Rev 1:4; the letters themselves in Revelation 2–3 come from the glorified Christ). He further discloses that at the time he received the revelation from God and wrote the letter, he was on the island of Patmos (Rev 1:9), presumably in exile because of his faith (see note at 1:9). In this verse, he identifies himself with the recipients of his letter as their brother and companion in the suffering and kingdom and patient endurance that are ours in Jesus. At the end of the book, he summarily states, I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. And when I had heard and seen them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who had been showing them to me (22:8). Though John only appears by name in these four mentioned verses, he makes his presence known through many first-person references.

Thus, the book clearly claims to have John as its originator and author. But who is John? Or another way to ask this question is, Which John? After all, John was a popular name during the first century after Christ. Besides some minor characters, there are at least two and more likely three Johns who play a significant role in the New Testament, though only two are likely candidates.

The first John mentioned in the Gospels is John the Baptist, but he is certainly not the author of the book of Revelation. He was the herald who announced the coming of the Messiah at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry (Mt 3). But John was executed by Herod before the crucifixion of Christ (Mt 14:1–12), so he was not alive at the time the book was written (see below).

Perhaps the most likely candidate for the authorship of Revelation is John the Apostle,² who is also credited with writing the Gospel of John, though he is not so named in the Gospel. John was part of the inner circle of disciples (Lk 8:51) and was a witness, along with Peter, of the transfiguration of Christ (Mt 17:1–13). He also played a leading role in the development of the church after the resurrection of Christ, even being arrested along with Peter for his public witness to Jesus (Ac 4:1–22).

But in the modern era the idea that John the Apostle wrote Revelation has been challenged, mainly on the grounds that the language of the Gospel of John and Revelation could not come from the same person.³ Among those who reject the authorship of John the Apostle, many say that the book of Revelation was written by the author of the three letters of John, who is actually not named in these three letters beyond being called the elder (2 Jn 1:1; 3 Jn 1:1). Tradition, though, names the elder John, some thinking that John the Elder is the same as John the Apostle, and others who think they are two different people.

So who is the John who wrote Revelation? John the Apostle? John the Elder? A third man named John? No one knows for sure. Fortunately, the exact identity of John the author of Revelation is unimportant for the meaning of the book. We will simply refer to the author as John.

But when did John write Revelation? The answer to this question too is uncertain since no date is explicitly provided. Of course, since the church seems well established in western Asia Minor, as the reference to the churches in the seven letters in Revelation 2–3 make clear, we are talking some decades after the death of Christ. The book also indicates conflict between the church and Rome so that one of the main purposes of the book is to encourage its readers to persevere in the face of opposition and even persecution. Still there is no explicit mention of specific Roman emperors or specific historical events.

On the other hand, Revelation 13:18 (see commentary) informs the reader that the number of the beast is 666, which besides being a number of imperfection is suggestive of the name of Nero who ruled the Roman Empire from AD 54 to 68. In AD 64 a great fire broke out in Rome that Nero blamed on Christians, who were then persecuted. The Roman historian Tacitus wrote that Nero himself set the fire and used Christians as a scapegoat.

Nero died at the young age of thirty-one, likely having taken his own life. There then arose particularly in the eastern part of the Empire a myth that he would come back from the dead. Some scholars connect this Nero Redivivus myth to the statement that the beast seemed to have had a fatal wound, but the fatal wound had been healed (Rev 13:3).

Thus, some scholars believe that Revelation was written soon after the time of Nero, perhaps in the late 60s. But even if, as seems likely, these references in Revelation do allude to Nero, that does not require that the book be written that early.

An argument is also to be made that the book was written in the 90s during the reign of another persecutor of Christians, namely Domitian who ruled the Roman Empire from AD 81–96. The arguments in favor of this later date include the fact that emperor worship, about which John warns in Revelation, was more developed by this time. Also, as Metzger and deSilva point out, the church at Smyrna, according to the testimony of Polycarp who served as bishop in that city in the early second century, did not form until after Paul, making a date in the sixties unlikely. Also, they point out that Laodicea, described as wealthy in 3:17, suffered an earthquake in AD 61 and so it is unlikely that they regained their status as early as the end of that decade.⁴ This view is the majority view not only today but among the leaders of the early church (e.g., Irenaeus writing around AD 180).

The weight of the evidence tilts toward a later date in the first century AD for the composition of the book of Revelation, though we cannot be dogmatic. Fortunately, as with the exact identification of the author, the specific date of composition also does not bear on the meaning of the book.

Genre Triggers Reading Strategy

Authors send signals to readers as to how to take their words. A commonly cited and obvious example of such a signal is a story that begins once upon a time. Unless an author is trying to be mischievous, readers know that what follows is a fairy tale.

This is not the place to develop a nuanced genre theory which would take account of fuzzy boundaries between genres, the acknowledgment that literary texts actually participate in multiple genres (though some are more influential on our reading than others), the pros and cons of using modern literary categories to describe ancient genres, and so forth.⁵ For our present purpose, it will suffice to focus briefly on the main genres of the book with a focus on how it affects our reading strategy. Interestingly, the book rather obviously communicates its genres through its form and through self-identification.

The form of the book is a letter. There are seven individual letters in which the glorified Christ writes to different churches in Asia Minor (Rev 2–3), but we should not miss the signal that the entirety of the book—the seven letters and the visions—is a letter written by John to the seven churches in the province of Asia (Rev 1:4), which has a benediction upon the recipients of the letter typical to letters of the time period. That the whole book is a letter is confirmed by the ending benediction on the reader, again typical of letters of the time.

That the book of Revelation is in the form of a letter is a reminder that the contents of the book address the existential issues of the church at the time of its writing. We can see also from the contents of the seven letters that the churches were marginalized and threatened by the wider culture. We also learn that some of the churches and individual Christians were tempted to give in to the pressure and compromise their faith. They needed to hear a message of hope and receive encouragement to persevere.

And that is where the second genre comes in. The very first verse of the book identifies it as a revelation from Jesus Christ (Rev 1:1). The word revelation translates the Greek word apokalupsis and gives us our English word apocalypse. Revelation is an apocalypse. True, the book identifies itself as a prophecy (1:3; 22:7, 10, 18, 19), but an apocalypse is a prophecy of a distinct type. Revelation is such an apocalypse bearing formal and content similarities with Daniel and other Jewish and Christian apocalypses of antiquity.

Again, this is not the place to give a lengthy definition of the apocalyptic genre. Here I will just list the leading features of an apocalypse which we see manifest in the book of Revelation, followed by a brief statement of how that should guide our readerly expectations. We begin with the statement that an apocalypse like Revelation shares with other prophecy like, say, Jeremiah, an interest in the future. They also both are interested in the future not for its own sake but to generate a response from their contemporary readers. However, the reason for this future orientation differs between them. Jeremiah presents a picture of the future, which is largely conditional, with the hope that his hearers/readers will repent. John in Revelation presents the future, indeed including a much more distant future, to evoke hope in his readers who are in sore need of it.

Another feature of apocalyptic literature is how the future is portrayed, and this may be the most important matter for modern readers to keep in mind. As Revelation looks to the future, it pictures that future using highly figurative language, indeed much of it derived from the Old Testament and ancient Near Eastern mythic language (beasts from the sea and a divine figure riding a cloud are two obvious examples). Thus, it becomes important for readers to realize the figurative nature of the language to understand the message of the author. We do not need to dwell on this feature since that is the heart of this commentary: to recognize and explain how Revelation uses the Old Testament to communicate its important message.

Even though this discussion will be carried on in the commentary itself, it is important to provide a few general observations to prepare us for what follows. How are we to take the figurative language of the book of Revelation? There are three main options: literally, as symbols pointing to a concrete literal reality, or as pointing to a more general literal reality. To illustrate, I will refer to the description found in Revelation 9:3–11 of locusts that emerge from the Abyss when the fifth angel sounded his trumpet. These locusts are described as having the tails and power of scorpions. They wear crowns and have human-like faces with hair like women and teeth like lions. They have breastplates like iron and wings.

It stretches the imagination that this describes a literal locust plague considering the hybrid nature of these locusts and, as we will observe in the commentary proper, the figurative use of even ordinary locusts in the Old Testament. Some, though, believe that the metaphors of Revelation, including this one, point to a specific reference that bears what they consider to be similarities to these locusts. That these locusts fly, have hardened shells, and are here described as having stingers led Hal Lindsey to say that they predicted a future helicopter attack. This type of reading results from a faulty belief that the referent can be found at the time of the interpreter, in this case Hal Lindsey.

It is much more reasonable to understand the analogy in more general terms. These fearful, hybrid locusts stand for horrific devastation that could take many different forms. They could point to war or to environmental devastation or any number of things. The main teaching is that God will bring judgment on sinful humanity.

But is the book of Revelation talking about the past, the present, or the future? The short answer is yes. All of the above. While some people think that Revelation is all about the future and indeed all about the end times, the book speaks to its contemporary audience by describing what they are presently experiencing, namely marginalization and even persecution, and encouraging them to remain faithful and obedient in the present. While the letters clearly address the issues confronting John’s contemporary church, the visions do as well. That said, Revelation is not all about the present and the past; the book does look to the future and indeed to God’s final intervention in history to defeat evil and bring his church to himself.

Thus, the original readers would have recognized the relevance of the letters and the visions to their present situation even as John speaks about the future. But what about us? In particular, what about the church in the twenty-first century? One of the reasons why the church recognized Revelation as canonical, and thus part of our standard of faith and practice, is that the church knew that the book of Revelation would remain relevant throughout the ages.

Why? Because the church will always to the end of the history be under threat of marginalization and persecution. Christians have always and will always live in a culture that is toxic to their faith. Western, and particularly American, Christians sometimes lose sight of this because they live with the fiction that our culture or our nation or our government is or should be Christian. First, this belief is false as is becoming increasingly clear; and second, this belief is dangerous, as the wedding of political power and Christian faith has time and time again led not to the strengthening of the church but to its weakening.⁶ Indeed, the message of Revelation is to not give up on the faith by falling in lockstep with the culture. This message, by the way, is not a call to culture war but rather to faithful living in the midst of the culture.⁷ But of course, the church is global, not western. I start with the American church because that is my social location and will almost certainly be the location of most of my readers. I will simply say, though, that as Americans we should never lose sight of the fact that many of our brothers and sisters in other parts of the world live in a context that is more like that in which John lived. They live in nations where they are the minority and/or marginalized and perhaps even persecuted. They will not share the myth that they live in a Christian context. They know their culture is toxic and even dangerous to the faith. Revelation’s message of present perseverance and future hope will be readily and encouragingly received.

OUTLINE OF REVELATION

Introduction to the Book and the Seven Letters (1–3)

Superscription and Blessing (1:1–3)

Greetings and Doxology (1:4–8)

The Glorified Christ Commissions John (1:9–20)

The Letter to the Church in Ephesus (2:1–7)

The Letter to the Church in Smyrna (2:8–11)

The Letter to the Church in Pergamum (2:12–17)

The Letter to the Church in Thyatira (2:18–29)

The Letter to the Church in Sardis (3:1–6)

The Letter to the Church in Philadelphia (3:7–13)

The Letter to the Church in Laodicea (3:14–22)

Christ Opens the Seven Seals of the Scroll (4:1–8:5)

The Lamb Worthy to Open the Scroll? (4–5)

The Heavenly Throne (4:1–11)

Who Is Worthy?—the Lion of Judah, the Root of David! (5:1–5)

The Lamb of God Takes the Scroll (5:6–7)

The Four Living Creatures and the Twenty-Four Elders Sing a New Song (5:8–10)

Thousands of Angels and Every Creature Join in the Worship (5:11–13)

Four Living Creatures and the Elders Say Amen (5:14)

The Seven Seals (6:1–8:5)

The First Seal (6:1–2)

The Second Seal (6:3–4)

The Third Seal (6:5–6)

The Fourth Seal (6:7–8)

The Fifth Seal (6:9–11)

The Sixth Seal (6:12–17)

Interlude: The 144,000 and the Great Multitude (7:1–17)

The Seventh Seal (8:1–5)

The Seven Trumpets (8:6–11:19)

The First Trumpet (8:6–7)

The Second Trumpet (8:8–9)

The Third Trumpet (8:10–11)

The Fourth Angel (8:12)

Interlude: An Eagle’s Funeral Lament (8:13)

The Fifth Trumpet (9:1–11)