Building the Big Picture: What Is Real?
Summarizing where we've come in Revelation chapters 1 to 5, and asking questions about interpreting this vision. Is it conveying reality?
Visions. They’re not part of our modern cultural life, but for some cultures today and ours centuries or millennia ago, humans accepted visions as normal, given to help us understand the world, each other, and where we’re going. Sometimes people received visions for their personal or family’s edification; sometimes for the whole world. John received Revelation for all peoples during his imprisonment on Patmos.
John’s contemporaries respected and would’ve regarded his vision with gravity when he sent it to them. They wouldn’t have condescended or rolled their eyes at him like many do now.
Visions contain both literal and metaphorical aspects. Sometimes, an apple in a vision is an apple, and sometimes it’s a metaphor for what we feed on. Is it worm eaten or a shiny, fresh-plucked fruit that nourishes us? Since Ancient Greek and Jewish cultures debate and discuss as much as Zoroastrians do (and way more than Christians who tend to yell, talk at each other, or prefer agreeing over debating), they probably discussed each point ad nauseum.
A Brief Summary
So far, John has told us who drew him into his vision (chapter 1); he’s copied down dictated letters to seven churches (chapters 2 to 3); he’s described God and their throne room (chapter 4); and he’s introduced us to the lion-lamb aka Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah (chapter 5).
Literal or Metaphorical
Some languages are metaphorical; their speakers would think in metaphors and not require every written description to be literal. English is not that. It’s a literal language. We say “good morning,” meaning it’s morning and we hope it’s good for you. We don’t say “we hope your garden is beautiful,” which means the same as “good morning” in a contemporary language but creates a beautiful picture of growth, abundance, and beauty for the listener’s ear unlike English’s literal “good morning.”
It’s no surprise then that modern English-speaking readers interpret the Bible literally. But like great works of literature, the Bible contains layers and layers of meaning. Each time we read its familiar stories, whose literal layers kids can understand, our life experiences and repeated readings reveal another layer, a new perspective.
Revelation challenges from first reading. Is any part of it literal? Yes, in the sense that some humans do experience visions. They ain’t hallucinating or having an immersive imagination moment. Some being, or some thing, sends a message via visual and auditory paths to a receptive human — in John’s case, Jesus sent the vision.
Note: I’m following N.T. Wright’s Revelation: 22 Studies for Individuals and Groups and his newest book 20th Anniversary Edition with Study Guide, Revelation for Everyone. See my post Prepare for Revelation for suggested materials.
The Introduction
“I, John…was on the island called Patmos…in the spirit on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet…So I turned to see the voice that was speaking with me. As I turned, I saw seven gold lampstands, and in the middle of the lampstands ‘one like a son of man’.”
John tells his readers that Jesus spoke to him and sent him this vision. It’s kind of interesting that Jesus said, “Hi!” in such a way, appearing fierce and overwhelming, that John “fell at his feet as though I was dead.” Then later on, shows John another version of himself, bloodied and vulnerable (lion-lamb, chapter 5).
Yet while Jesus’s instructions and introduction are literal, his appearance conveys metaphorical messages. A two-edged sword as a tongue cuts and reveals. Should we expect to see Jesus as John described him in chapter 1? I don’t think so. But we can expect, like in the Gospels, he won’t sugar coat his words nor be nicey-nice to us; yet his compassion and love will strike us like his appearance did John. Would people in the Resurrection be able to handle it? Or be more like Moses when he requested to see God, or like John when he saw Jesus in a vision? Will our ability to handle Jesus’s appearance and energy be different in life after death versus in the Resurrection? These questions I’ll ponder and refer to near-death experiences, as well, for answers, as if any of us could really know!
The Letters
Each letter requires us modern readers to understand both their contemporary context and universal messages. We know from how the Ephesian church died that that congregation either didn’t believe its message or didn’t ponder the lampstand metaphor. Maybe they understood the literal message of “abandoned the love” and stopped listening there.
Our culture likes a clever metaphor — they do work in conveying ideas in fiction — but not so much in non-fiction books like the Bible, otherwise we wouldn’t hear reactions like mocking literal interpretations, as well as some of the silly literal interpretations themselves. Understanding the Bible’s metaphorical language requires focused mental work — and requires pulling emotion into our thinking — for emotion clarifies thinking, contrary to what North American male culture drums into our heads. Is it any wonder too many churches and atheists tend to interpret the Bible as literal only? It’s so much easier!
I’ll review my post on letters when writing the second book in my trilogy.
God’s Seat
John describes a feast for the senses. So much is going on in God’s throne room, it’s a wonder he didn’t faint, a wonder he could describe it. It’s easier to think about it literally and leave it at that — trying to absorb, process, synthesize each layer for each element slays the neurons.
Truly, only a discussion energizes one to plunge into each element’s layers.
I find my brain skitters away from asking questions of each element such as, “What does it mean that God ‘has the appearance of a jasper stone or a carnelian’?” And N.T. Wright writes people haven’t agreed on what the “sea of glass” represents. Two thousand years after John wrote Revelation, we still debate that brief descriptor. For my third trilogy novel, I’ll dig into these metaphorical elements deeper, for therein lies meanings useful to me as I describe the new Earth. But how hard it is when conversing alone with oneself!
The Lion-Lamb
In some ways, this chapter is the easiest. It’s all metaphorical, yet we’ve heard so much about Jesus as the lamb in songs that it feels literal. But as I wrote earlier, there’s this little bit about all the creatures praising Jesus, which flies into the face of who we believe have the sole relationship with Jesus: us.
The Big Picture
Lindamood-Bell taught me when verbalizing after visualizing — and boy, is visualizing Revelation tough! — to connect each element to create the book’s big picture. So far, the big picture began with an introduction filled with literal and metaphorical imagery moving into requiring John to write literal letters to seven real-life churches then moving into a metaphorical introduction to God, their seat and throne room, and ending with who is the only one qualified to read God’s plan for the universe.
The only qualified person is bloodied, vulnerable, sees all, and has no weapon.
That reminds me of the good guy versus bad guy motif. It’s easier to write it with guns than to write that scene with de-escalation techniques sans any weapons. The latter approach is so hard to imagine that most scenes include weapons, even when a character may start a show sans any. The plethora of such scenes have lead us to believe good guys cannot win without weapons.
Yet YouTube videos explain how to do it, and there Jesus is, showing John what qualifies him is not weapons but vulnerability and loving every single person. Yes, even the bad guys. Jesus didn’t slay them but engaged and challenged them. They believed they had triumphed by killing him; yet death didn’t defeat him.
Doesn’t that challenge our perception of existence?
So much so that Christianity prefers to venerate the crucifixion and give lip service to Jesus’s resurrection; while, though the general public accepts the crucifixion as real and knows of the Passion Play, it perceives the Resurrection as some weird fable.
That’s what my first trilogy novel is about: what is existence?