The Theology of the Book of Revelation by Richard Bauckham

Author:Richard Bauckham [Bauckham, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780521356107
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 1993-03-04T00:00:00+00:00

DEFEATING THE BEAST

Of the three major symbolic motifs we have been tracing – the messianic war, the new exodus and witness – it is, of course, the third that dominates the story of the two witnesses (11:3–13), although there are hints of the messianic war (11:7) and the new exodus (11:6, 8). These hints are taken up and developed in chapters 12–15, which treat at greater length the same theme of the role of the faithful followers of Christ in the coming of God’s kingdom. In this section we shall consider the theme of messianic war in chapters 12–14.9

The call to Revelation’s readers or hearers to ‘conquer’ is fundamental to the structure and theme of the book. It demands the readers’ active participation in the divine war against evil. Everything else that is said in the seven messages to the churches has this aim, expressed in the promise to the conquerors that concludes each (2:7, 11, 17, 28; 3:5, 12, 21): to enable the readers to take part in the struggle to establish God’s universal kingdom against all opposition. The eschatological content of the promises, as well as the single promise to the conquerors which matches them at the climax of the whole book in 21:7, shows that it is only by conquering that the members of the churches may enter the New Jerusalem (cf. 22:14). The visions that intervene between the seven messages to the churches and the final vision of the New Jerusalem are to enable the readers to move from one to the other, to understand what conquering involves.

The verb ‘to conquer’ is left intriguingly without an object (except once, when the beast is its subject: 11:7) until chapter 12. This is because it is only in chapters 12–13 that the principal enemies of God, who must be defeated to make way for his kingdom, are introduced. They are the satanic trinity: the dragon or serpent (the primeval, supernatural source of all opposition to God), the beast or sea-monster (the imperial power of Rome), and the second beast or earth-monster (the propaganda machine of the imperial cult).10 (Babylon, the great harlot, who represents the corrupt and exploitative civilization of the city of Rome, supported by the political and military power of the empire, is not properly introduced until chapter 17, but she has a rather different status. Christians are not called to conquer her, but to ‘come out of her’ (18:4), i.e. to dissociate themselves from her evil.) The powerful mythic resonances of the images of chapters 12–13 place the coming confrontation between Christians and the power of Rome in the perspective of the cosmic war of evil against God and his faithful people. The initial confrontation between the serpent and the woman who bears the child who will defeat him in the end (12:1–5) takes the story back to the garden of Eden (cf. Gen. 3:15), and, since the woman is not only Eve but also Zion, from whom the Messiah is born (cf. Isa. 66:7–9), also takes in the history of pre-Christian Israel.

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