Readings for today: Revelation 11-13
Today’s reading is filled with all kinds of symbolism. Symbolic numbers. Symbolic figures. Fantastic visions of beasts and dragons with multiple horns and heads. It’s like an installment of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. The symbolism is notoriously difficult to decipher. Literally thousands of books have been written over the centuries as Christians attempted to make sense of what the Apostle John is trying to communicate here. Some attempt to take John more literally. They believe there will be two witnesses in Jerusalem who will be killed and then resurrected. They believe the beast is a real person as is the second beast called to prophesy on behalf of the first beast. They have spent all kinds of time trying to tie the number 666 to a specific person whether it be Nero, the pope, Hitler, or some future Anti-Christ who will emerge in the future. Others believe John is speaking more metaphorically. They believe he is describing the persecution of the church using language that can pass the Roman censors who would carefully monitor his communications from his prison on Patmos. They use the Old Testament as a cipher of sorts to make sense of what John writes.
Full disclosure, I tend towards the latter view. It makes the most sense to me. John is living in prison. The early church is facing fairly significant and widespread persecution. He’s already seen so many of his friends martyred. Indeed, he is the last of the disciples to survive. The churches he references in the first few chapters of this book are clearly under duress. They face all kinds of oppression, persecution, and violence. They are struggling internally with divisions. It’s not an easy time to preach the gospel and the future of the Jesus movement looks dicey at best. As a Jew, John has mastered the Old Testament. He knows it backwards and forwards. It was the only “Scripture” he had at the time as there would be no New Testament for about a hundred years. (Collections of what would become the New Testament started circulating in the 2nd century.) So he draws on the imagery of the Old Testament as he writes knowing his Christian friends all had access to it.
If one takes this position, several things become more clear. 1,260 days or 42 months or 3.5 years (all the same by the way because every month numbered 30 days in the ancient world) refer symbolically to the present age of the church. The age between the first and second comings of Christ where she will undergo great persecution as she preaches the gospel to the world. The two olive trees are a reference to Zerubbabel and Joshua from Zechariah 4 and signify faithful witness as do the two lampstands which are a reference back to the churches in Rev. 1:20. John is encouraging his friends to bear witness even to the point of death and trust the Lord to raise them back up again as He has promised. The woman who gives birth to the Messiah is faithful Israel. She who has been pursued by the devil since the Garden. Satan has been given authority to make war on the saints, much like he was given authority to afflict Job, but it will only be for a time. There have been many beasts throughout history who have promoted blasphemy and idolatry. In John’s day, it would have been the emperors of Rome who demanded to be worshipped. To take their mark was to betray the faith. To not take their mark was to become subject to all kinds of persecution. Thus the call for the “endurance and faith of the saints.” (Rev. 13:10b) The number 666 probably doesn’t refer to a particular person but rather the fulfillment of sin. The number six throughout the Book of Revelation refers to God’s judgment on sin just as the number seven refers to God’s victory over sin. The number six is seen as the number of “incompletion” or “imperfection” and the number seven is seen as the number of “completion” or “perfection.” The triple mention of the number six is an adaptation from the Old Testament where the triple mention of anything signified ultimate importance. “Holy, holy, holy” for example. Not only that but when John says “it is the number of a man”, he is most likely referring to general humanity. The Greek word is anthropos and when used without the definite article - as it is in Rev. 13:18 - it most often is a general reference to humankind not a particular person.
I realize that’s a lot to take in so what difference does it all make? Here’s where it’s important not to miss John’s major point. Christ wins. Despite the devil’s best efforts, he cannot catch up to the woman. He cannot devour the child. He cannot overcome the Lamb. When God blows the seventh trumpet, “The kingdoms of the world will become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ and He shall reign forever and ever.” (Rev. 11:15) On that great day, all of faithful Israel and all the faithful saints of the church - symbolized by the twenty-four elders - will fall on their faces in worship before the Lord and give thanks to God for “destroying the destroyers of the earth.” (Rev. 11:18)
Readings for tomorrow: Revelation 14-18