Ah, the Revelation. Years ago, I’d preached and taught multiple expository studies through the final book of the Bible.
I had charts representing the seven seals, the seven trumpets, a beast with a number, and an imminent rapture of the saints that would surely freak the rest of the world out.
I saw the Revelation as a map of the future, one that could serve as a kind of transparency to overlay current events and highlight for us that all the conflict in the Middle East had a point: the return of Jesus.
I don’t preach the Revelation that way anymore. A lot has changed in my mind. First of all, Peter, preaching at Pentecost, told the crowd that what they were watching was Joel’s prophecy coming true: God pouring out his Spirit “in the last days.”
So the “last days” didn’t start somewhere in the 1970’s or 80’s, with the publishing of any best-selling evangelical books on the topic, or the next two decades, in which that one famous fiction series, with a couple of movies to boot, spelled out how the end would come upon us.
We’ve been in the “last days” or the “end times” since Jesus ascended to heaven. John wrote his Revelation during the last days, not as a prediction of them. We are not waiting on the end times. We have been living in them for two thousand years.
The Revelation certainly features some foreshadowing of heaven and eternity to come, but as Brian Zahnd has said, the Revelation is more of a prophetic takedown of empire, starting with Rome and yielding implications for every modern power, including America.
Chapter one is the introduction. Chapters two and three are the practical words of correction and affirmation for seven of the earliest churches in Christian history. Chapters four and five are a glimpse into the throne room of heaven and the kind of worship that happens in the invisible, spiritual dimension that interfaces with our own.
Chapters six through eighteen are an exposé. These chapters paint a vivid picture of what the world looks like when the love of God and the way of Jesus are absent from it: war, famine, the collapse of civil order, the strong oppressing the weak, and everyone clawing to be king of the hill.
John wasn’t looking a couple thousand years ahead to our times. He was describing his own in vivid, picturesque detail. The peak of John’s message comes in chapter 18, with a funeral dirge spoken over “Babylon” (empire and conquest, from Rome onward). The kings weep. The merchants cry out. And John tells us why: nobody is buying their consumer goods anymore.
John mentions gold, silver, silk, spices, cattle, horses, and as if it were just one more item on the shopping list… people. Human lives. The empire was a machine that ran on the fuel of human energy and called it commerce. John called it all out so the church could spot it.
And in John’s Revelation, what ultimately takes down an empire isn’t another human empire. John is shown that “the Lion of the tribe of Judah” was going to claim authority over earth, but when John looks for the lion, he simply sees “a Lamb, as though it had been slain.”
We often miss that image. We’re trained to celebrate lions. To look for the strong, the mighty, and the powerful. Jesus, the Lamb of God, shows us that self-sacrificing love is what ultimately topples the oppressive power of empires.
And the part of all of this that gets personal is that “empire” isn’t just about which nation is the biggest and strongest. It’s about that part of me that wants to win the argument. Every time I demand the right to be first, right, or best, I’m embodying the spirit of empire.
We’re often so busy building our own little Babylons that we can’t see it. We lose touch with how meekness ultimately wins. The merchants’ grief in chapter 18 lands uncomfortably close to home. When I demand that my country is supreme, my business will dominate the market, and my own interests are of primary importance in the world.
The Lamb wins by laying down his life. By sacrificial love. By selflessness. By doing what is best for everyone rather than the wealthy and powerful. It’s a wounded, bleeding Lamb that has the right to take the scrolls (what one of my college professors called “the title deed to planet earth”).
Jesus’ authentic right to rule and reign wasn’t won by fighting and overcoming, but by laying it all down, surrendering to the evil instruments of empire, and overcoming death with life and love.
Revelation isn’t about decoding the future, or even the present. It’s about Jesus’ followers’ stubborn unwillingness to bow to power gained through violence and oppression.
In the end, every empire gets a funeral. The Lamb is the One left standing.
Here’s the shorthand version of the Revelation: King Jesus wins.