It's not Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine and it's not mandated vaccine passports.
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The Book of Revelation, the Apocalypse of John, describes a heavenly vision that John experiences, a vision that offers a heavenly perspective on the actualities of life in John’s cultural context. The word apokaluptÅ or apocalypse, means “to lift the veil” or “to reveal.” It’s to do with seeing from a divine rather than earthly perspective. Bizarre and unusual imagery is used in order to shake the reader up and force them to see things in a new light, in a manner that might not otherwise be apparent.
The Revelation of John, sent as one
letter to seven churches, is written to particular people, facing particular
issues, and with a particular message. It's prophetic in that it calls two different
types of Christians to renewed faithfulness in God and to live as faithful witnesses
to the one who is The Faithful Witness. Christians who are being persecuted and
who are suffering under the oppression of the Roman Empire, and also,
Christians who are prospering through compromise and inappropriate allegiance
to the Roman cult of Empire. Both are being called to faithfulness in their fidelity
to the Lordship of Jesus and the eternal Kingdom of God. They are to reject the
lordship of Caesar, the temporary Empire of Rome and the cult of empire worship
that comes with it.
Revelation promises that faithfulness will be rewarded, justice will be given to those who are oppressed, oppressors will be judged. God's kingdom will come, his will done on earth as in heaven. Those who are faithful to Jesus will, in the restoration of all things, be restored to the priestly roll of image bearers they were created to be – faithful representatives and worshipers of God. There will be no more tears, heaven and earth will be wholly united, and the dwelling place of God will be with humankind.
Roughly speaking chapters 6 through 19
are a commentary on the Roman Empire, and as Scripture all empires. Empires are
inherently evil, only every temporary, and exist in contrast to the eternal
Kingdom of God – a city whose gates will never be shut – and where all will be
made well. As Revelation unfolds the message is essentially; don't worry, God’s good
judgement will come, faith, hope and love will prevail, resurrection life,
renewed creation around the corner – hold fast to faith in Jesus. The prayers
of the righteous will be heard, the Roman Empire will not have the final word,
no empire that exalts itself against the knowledge of God will be the final
word. All will be set right under Christ.
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Revelation uses all sorts of fantastic imagery,
mostly plucked from the OT, to unveil and reveal this truth in the face of the
might of the Roman Empire. In Revelation 6 we read about seals being broken and
judgement being poured out, we read of the 'four horsemen of the apocalypse,’
with one of them on a white horse with bow and arrow. It isn't a timeline of
future events, it’s the announcement that the Christian oppressors, the Roman
Empire, is destined to pass away. We have four seals, four horses, four riders,
four different types of judgement and consequences. They serve as a symbolic
literary function and are likened to the four different coloured horses
patrolling on the Lord's behalf in Zechariah 1:8-11.
Metallica sing about it in their song Four Horseman.
Horsemen are drawing nearer, On
leather steeds they ride, They've come to take your life. On through the
dead of night, With the four horsemen ride, Or choose your fate and die. Pestilence,
for what you have to endure, And what you have put others through, Death, deliverance
for you for sure, Now there's nothin' you can do. And on it goes. I think that is what is known as
Scripture in Song.
I'm not sure what Metallica thought they were
singing about or their fans thought they were headbanging about, but essentially
it is this; Revelation uses the imagery, the four riders on coloured horses,
bringing destruction, to underscore the point that eventually the Roman rule
will collapse. The Parthian's were an unconquered people and a major threat to
the Roman Empire, they had archer warriors who rode white horses – the only
known mounted archers known of in the ancient world. The imagery of a white horse
and an archer were a threat to the Empire. The point being that the Empire will
fall, not necessarily to Parthia and then not that Parthia will reign forever,
but ultimately because all Empires are destined to fail and only the Kingdom of
God will prevail. Four seals, four judgements on Rome, invasion, conquest,
famine, pestilence, plague, death. All realities that come with 1st century
warfare and conquest. So yeah, good stuff Metallica. Hallelujah. Revelation 6
through 19 are full of this kind of wonderful imagery. Ok, chapter 13.
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Revelation 13:1-3
The dragon stood on the shore of the sea. And I saw a beast coming out of
the sea. It had ten horns and seven heads, with ten crowns on its horns, and on
each head a blasphemous name.
The beast I saw resembled a leopard, but had feet like those
of a bear and a mouth like that of a lion. The dragon gave the beast his power
and his throne and great authority. One of the heads of the beast seemed to have had a
fatal wound, but the fatal wound had been healed. The whole world was filled with wonder and followed the beast.
The dragon
is a picture of ultimate evil that exists behind any manifestation of evil. In regard to the beast, John is borrowing some
imagery from Daniel 7. Daniel sees four beasts; like a lion, like a bear, like
a leopard, and a fourth that was more terrifying than the others. These beasts represent, in Daniel, the successive empires with whom
Israel was confronted. The Babylonian Empire, the Median Empire, the Persian
Empire, and Alexander’s Macedonian (or Greek) Empire (the most terrifying).
In John’s vision, Revelation pictures
Rome as a conglomerate of all four of these beasts. This is
the Beast from the sea we read about here in chapter 13, something worse than Daniel
experienced.
The seven heads represent successive emperors and Rome built on seven hills. The ten horns with crowns represent smaller regional powers under the authority of the larger Beast (the Empire). Thus, the Beast is a symbol that embodies evil empire, it comes from the sea, the place of chaos and death. One of the heads of the beast seemed to have had a fatal wound, but the fatal wound had been healed. Emperor Nero was fatally injured – and he does die of his fatal wound – but it isn’t the death of the Empire. The Empire is healed and continues. turns out not to be the end of this beastly Empire.
Revelation 13:3-4
The
whole world was filled with wonder and followed the beast and its military
might. People worshiped the dragon because he had given authority to the
beast, and they also worshiped the beast and asked, “Who is like the beast? Who
can wage war against it?"
Wow, the pax romana, the peace
of Rome! No one can bring peace on earth like Rome can. The emperor is the prince
of peace. Worship and the question, “who is like the beast,
who can wage war against it?” is a parody of faithful worship to God. Who is
like our God, there is no other? Psalm 86.
The Beast
goes about doing what the beast does... an Empire that exalts itself against
the knowledge of God. But like
every Empire, it only has an allotted time, it will not last forever.
Verse 11… John sees
a second beast. This beast represents the Cult of the Emperor or of the Empire,
the imperial religion and propaganda that props up the war machine and the
myths of the wonder of the Empire. The good news that the Caesar, the son of
the gods, had brought peace on earth, the pax Romana. Every empire has
its propaganda propping it up.
Verse 13… This beast does signs and wonders. Numerous
sources report that priests in the cult of emperor would often stage signs and
wonders. They would organise healings or moving statues or fire using machines
and contraptions and actors. No surprise to John's audience, Jesus warned that
false prophets would perform false signs in Matthew 24.
Verse 15… Some Christians were persecuted and
killed for not giving divine honours to the Emperor, for refusing to worship the
Beast.
Revelation 13:16-18
It
also forced all people, great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to
receive a mark on their right hands or on their foreheads, so that they could
not buy or sell unless they had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the
number of its name. This calls for wisdom. Let the person who has insight
calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man. That number
is 666.
666 is the construction of Hebrew
"gematria" – the practice of assigning numeric value to letters. 666
is just the total of Nero's name. Neron Caesar = Nrwn Qsr
N (nun)-50, R
(resh)-200, W (vav)-6, N (nun)-50, Q (qoph)-100, S (samekh)-60, R (resh)-200. Sum
= 666
As well, in 1st century Rome, folk would come up with nick names for famous people that also added up to their number. Nero had a nick name "he killed his mother" which added up to 666. So essentially what is happening is that the Roman empire, pictured as the Beast, and personified in Nero, one of the evilest of emperors. He killed his mother, kicked his pregnant wife to death, and had countless rivals executed.
The mark of the beast, far from being
some future conspiracy, simply uses the symbolism of foreheads and hands, to symbolically
represent thoughts, affections and actions that are marked by allegiance and loyalty
to the Beast, to the Empire, to Nero – rather than to Christ and the Kingdom of
God. Life in fidelity to the cult of emperor worship rather than the worship of
Christ. It is the antitype to the Mark of the Saints seen in Revelation 7 and
also Revelation 14. The servants of God are sealed in their foreheads (7:2-3),
those with the Lamb had the Father’s name written on their foreheads (14:1). Revelation
is a vision of unusual imagery to reveal something true, not something literal.
You are marked by God via one’s devotion and faithfulness to God.
John is aware that to refuse to worship the Beast (the Empire) is very likely going to place
Christians in a predicament. Yet in all things, Christians are not to bow under
the persecution of Empire nor live in compromised coalition with Empire – allegiance
is to be to the Way of Jesus, the Kingdom of God.
Revelation
13:18
This
calls for wisdom.
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Revelation, its largely about the inevitable demise
of the Roman Empire and the victory of the Lamb of God. Its about the truth
that the Kingdom of God will prevail, God’s dwelling place will be with his
people, every tear will be wiped away, there will be no more death, or
mourning, or crying, or pain, for the old order of things will pass away. While
this is the meaning of Revelation in John’s context, we also need to consider
the significance of the passage in our own context. Here we can appreciate that
Revelation serves as a commentary on all empires across all time, and in the
in-between-time. Though the Roman Empire has passed away the old order of
things has not. Empire’s prevail even though the Kingdom of God is simultaneously
among us, and within us, here and now, but also now but not yet.
In a nutshell, this means is that there is always a
beast, always propaganda, always an anti-Christ, always empires that exalt themselves
against the knowledge of God. There are always challenges to our allegiances to
Christ, always the potential to be marked by the beast, always the potential to
run into trouble for following Jesus, always the potential for difficulties,
always the potential for catastrophe, and always endings. In other words; end
times, always!
This calls for wisdom. We shouldn’t be so quick to
label current events as the end times. We shouldn’t be so quick to label
technology as the mark of the beast – credit cards, barcodes, QR codes,
microchips, payWave, vaccines, or vaccine passports. That’s not the mark of the
beast. We shouldn’t be so quick to label people as the antichrist – Henry
Kissinger, Mickel Gorbichov, Ronald Reagan, Dennis Conner, George Gregan,
Ashley Bloomfield or anyone else. We shouldn’t be so quick to label some left
or right or centralist political party as the evil empire of the end of the
age. Mostly all of the labelling, predicting and timelining is an exercise in
missing the point.
While socially and politically we will experience realities that are the antithesis to the way of the Kingdom of God, certainly, it’s the internal empires we mostly have to watch out for. Empires of individualism, consumerism, narcissism, hedonism, and self-interest that are far more likely to trip us up. We have to be careful that we don't live in such a way that we embrace the mark of the beast via the affections, pursuits, and patterns of self-interest, self-rule, and self-worship that so easily creep into our lives. It is we who mostly end up playing the role of the antichrist, something we do when we displace Christ from the throne of our lives, whenever we force Christ to stand at the side rather than sit in the center of our lives.
While it might always be end times though, we take
great comfort that at the same time, there is always a cross, always a Savioir,
always Christ coming back to heal and restore and mend and put all things
right. Christ will return one day, but Christ also returns every day when we
make more space for the rule and reign of Christ in our lives, in our families,
in our church. End times, always, but also the Second Coming of Christ always
as well – healing, mending, restoring, renewing and re-creating lives. It
always the Second Coming of Christ we make more space for Christ at the table.
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Revelation 22:1-5
Then
the angel showed me a river with the water of life (water of life is the life sustaining
presence of God, so what we are seeing here isn’t literal even though its true),
clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb. It flowed
down the center of the main street. On each side of the river grew a tree of
life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, with a fresh crop each month. The leaves
were used for medicine to heal the nations (nothing to do with COVID, the
healing of the entire cosmos). No longer will there be a curse upon anything.
For the throne of God and of the Lamb will be there, and his servants will
worship him. And they will see his face, and his name will be written on their
foreheads (they’ll be marked by their devotion and allegiance to God in
faithful worship – not a Jesus tattoo). And there will be no night there—no
need for lamps or sun—for the Lord God will shine on them (no more
darkness, no more fear, no more unknown, faith, hope, love, peace, life and
light to all he brings).
That’s good
news. That’s Christian hope, not religious propaganda. Weeping may tarry for
the night, but joys comes in the morning. Know that the dwelling place of God
is among His people. Know that He will wipe every tear from every eye. Know
that there will be no more death, our mourning, or crying, or pain – for the
old order of things will pass away. There is no empire that will prevail,
rather it is the Kingdom of God, and the rule of Christ that will reign
eternal. Live as a faithful witness, to The Faithful Witness that is Jesus
Christ.
