Summarizing Revelation, Chapters 1 to 14
Pausing once again to review what I've read so far, in the context of The Soul's Reckoning, the second novel I'm writing for The Q'Zam'Ta Trilogy
The vision begins. Literal reality fades. Metaphors appear. Truths hide within symbols and imagery. An angel calls John’s attention to Jesus and to a message. John turns. Jesus appears. Strong and sharp-tongued honest; a pure authority figure, cradling the churches, ready to slice apart our assumptions and preconceptions. Not exactly the beneficent and passive paintings of him we know so well.
No matter how much I visualize and verbalize à la Lindamood-Bell — and write these posts — I can’t remember the details of what I’ve read so far. So I’m going to summarize the points salient to my next novel.
I typed The Soul’s Reckoning furiously during November 2024, a chapter a day for a total of 30 chapters. As I revise it, I want to align Charlotte Elisabeth’s continuing adventures with how Revelation outlines God’s plan in metaphor and symbolism. As much as I can understand it, anyway. Let me know if you think my summary has gone astray anywhere.
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 Seven Churches
What are the churches — what are we? — supposed to achieve? The letters hint at the answer.
Ephesus. Show love, patience, ability to test those who say they’re messengers for God and Jesus but are frauds. Will eat from the Tree of Life. In other words, no second death.
Smyrna. Don’t fear suffering. Be faithful to Jesus. Will be given Crown of Life. No second death.
Pergamum. Cling to Jesus and don’t deny faith in him. Reject those who entice you away. Will be nourished and given a new name only you know.
Thyatira. Love. Have faith. Serve. Be patient. Don’t tolerate deceivers who follow cultural practices that make skirting Jesus’s teachings sound OK. Will have authority over the nations to do with them what you will (implying the will is the same as Jesus’s) and rule alongside Jesus.
Sardis. Wake up and live! Repent of incomplete works. Will be purified and get to walk with Jesus. Your name will remain in the Book of Life. And you will be acknowledged before God and the angels.
Philadelphia. Keep Jesus’s word about patience. Don’t deny him. Walk through the open door. Will become a pillar in the temple of God. Will have God’s, the new city’s, and Jesus’s new name written on your person.
Laodicea. Don’t be lukewarm. Go all in in following Jesus. Open the door to Jesus’s knocking. Be a friend who can be honest and receive honesty. Come back to life. You will sit beside Jesus on his throne.
Did you notice recurrences? Love, faith, serve people, be brave, and live. Don’t be fooled by fraudsters and deceivers. Learn to discern. Don’t find excuses to skirt the line. Repent when you stray. And patience, patience, patience. Boy, do we have that in short supply! The reward is life. But what kind of life? For it seems to not be the same as living here on earth. Sardis and Laodicea are told to come back to life, yet it’s distinct from the Tree and Crown of Life. So life after death isn’t quite the same as our life today here.
The Throne Room Thunders In
We move into a busy, noisy throne room. God sits in the centre. Four creatures surround God. Twenty-four elders sit around God and the creatures. Thunder. Lightning. A sea of glass.
The Lamb and Lion Opens Seven Seals in the Throne Room
Jesus then appears as a lamb and a lion in God’s throne room. He’s the only one qualified to open the seven seals on the scroll God is holding. The bleeding lamb lion takes the scroll and unseals it to reveal God’s plan.
First four seals. Four horse riders.
Jesus opens the first four seals in turn. Four horse riders charge out. The horse riders conquer, strew war, create economic disparity and oppression, and fling death about like famines and diseases.
Fifth and sixth seals. The killed hide under God’s altar. The killers hide from God.
Upon opening the fifth and sixth seals, the lamb reveals those killed “because of the word of God’ and because they witnessed for Jesus, are crying out for justice.
And then the jerks cry out to be hidden from God and the lamb’s anger.
Scene break!
Time for a break between seal openings, like between Acts during a play. Four angels hold back the four winds of retribution as a fifth seals God’s people. We’ll see the effect of this mark in the following chapters.
Back in the throne room, a great number shout, wave palm branches about, and praise God and the lamb for saving them. It’s like we see the future of the ones hiding underneath the altar, crying out for justice, as well as, what the seal is for.
Seventh seal. Prayers rise like incense smoke. God answers in fire.
Scene break over. The lamb opens the seventh seal. Prayers rise up from Earth to God’s throne room where they become incense smoke that an angel offers on God’s altar. Then the angel throws fire from a Golden Censer down to Earth in response. Our prayers are fragrant to God, like a cherished friend’s phone call. And God’s answer has the power and light of fire.
It’s kind of an interesting metaphor. Many scoff at prayers, mocking people who believe prayers work, demanding we shouldn’t offer “useless” prayers to the suffering. Yet prayers are intentional communications: convey compassion to the hurting and appealing to a higher power for help and in doing so, bubbling up ways to help even when helpless and only support through the ether via the offer of prayer. Revelation is saying here God’s answers are as thunderous and light-creating as fire. The answers sweep away the detritus and provide a clean slate for birth. What do you think?
The Seven Trumpets: Another Perspective of the Seven Seals
Revelation begins its message again in the form of seven trumpets.
First four trumpets herald destruction.
The first four trumpet a different perspective of the four horse riders. Destruction of the earth, the sea, the heavens, and the days and seasons. We haven’t yet faced up to how serious sin is, how much evil sways our thoughts and hearts. Although, I have to say, the global mood has shifted since the pandemic began. People are far more distressed and are asking themselves why. Governments, public health, and those clinging to certain political parties, strive to hold onto complacency, the belief that judgemental policies, which hold the vulnerable and poor as responsible for their terrible lot and not worth saving, and tax cuts will save the well off (health and wealth wise). They don’t heed David Lepofsky’s warning that everyone is one incident away from disability and joining the ranks of the judged. Instead, they’ve eagerly swept out innovations the pandemic created so that the truths the pandemic revealed can be hidden again. Still, the mood swirls doubts deep in hearts, ready to burst the truth back into the light.
Fifth and sixth trumpets. Locusts and the three plagues of fire, smoke, and brimstone.
Locusts arrive. The four angels are let loose. Horses kill a third of humans with their three plagues and serpent tails. Like with the prodigal son, God lets evil hearts have their reins until they perish under the strain and repent. Yet despite witnessing the onslaught and mass death, none who survived repented. A metaphor for what does it take for a human to “see the light”?
Scene break! A little scroll and two witnesses.
John must eat the little scroll, the one that tastes sweet yet disturbs the stomach, so as to prophesy again.
Two witnesses now show up. We don’t know their genders or exactly who they are or what they represent. But they go about prophesying, to the annoyance and rage of those who hadn’t repented under the great weight of the evil the four winds brought. The witnesses are killed. Everyone rejoices. I mean, who wants to hear bad news and warnings all the time, right? Just like who wants to keep seeing all those people dying. Reframe that scene as it’s their fault, nothing to do with me, and voilà, no worries. The witnesses are dead! Whoo hoo!! Great celebration time!
Oh, um, hang on there.
What’s God doing?
The rejoicers stop.
They look.
Horror crosses their faces.
God has resurrected the two and drawn them into heaven. Great consternation!
The seventh trumpet completes the plan!
The seventh trumpet blast brought praises and triumph in heaven. The destroyers will be destroyed.
A Sign from Heaven
A sign appears in heaven. A pregnant woman. Near her, a fiery red seven-headed dragon waiting to kidnap her baby as soon as it’s born. But God snatches the baby first and takes it into heaven away from the dragon’s grasp. God also hides the woman in the desert, but unlike the baby boy, only temporarily. Furious at being denied killing the baby and unable to find the woman, the dragon searches for her children, instead.
You and me.
The Dragon, The Sea Monster, and the Land Beast
The dragon stands on the shore. A seven-headed monster rises from the sea, an almost exact copy of the seven-headed dragon, except one head was lopped off. It’s healed over. Then a beast appears on the land, one that isn’t quite a copy of the sea monster. The land beast demands the woman’s children create images and worship the sea monster. Many (most?) comply, for the land beast represents the city’s elites, the powerful, the ones in charge; it’s easier to live in conformity to the obviously powerful and remain complacent, averting their eyes from those who suffer under the monster’s and beast’s direction. You see, the children don’t realize the fiery red seven-headed dragon on the shore is really the one in charge. The dragon directs both the monster (eg, Rome) and its minion beast (eg, a city’s elites who demand citizens worship Rome).
Battle Time!
We look up and see the lamb standing high on Mt. Zion with the many people who’d appeared in the throne room praising God and who’d been sealed by the angel before the four angels released the four winds of destruction.
This sealed multitude stand ready for battle. Jesus leads them.
An angel flies over the earth, warning it’s judgement time.
A second angel flies over, declaring the sea monster, Babylon, has fallen.
A third angel flies over and warns that anyone who’d followed the dictates of the land beast and had the sea monster’s image marked on them will drink the wine of God’s wrath. God’s people are asked to have patience and rest from their work while these beast-marked ones are tortured through their wine drinking. Why does the wine torture them? Read on!
The grapes of wrath. Not just a song!
An angel cries out its harvest time. The one with the sickle must scythe the grapes from the vine and press the wine. These grapes remind us of the fruit that Jesus talked about. He is the vine; we are the branches; we bear fruit. The fruit is ready to be harvested. The fruit becomes the wine of God’s wrath.
“So the angel went to work with his sickle on the earth, and gathered the fruit from the vine of the earth, and threw it into the great winepress of God’s anger. The winepress was trodden outside the city, and blood came out of the winepress, as high as a horse’s bridle, for about [three hundred and twenty-two kilometers].”
The grapes become blood in the winepress. The blood of those killed, hiding under the altar. Their pain. Their suffering. Their endurance. Their patience. Their faith. Their love for Jesus. Their works. All become torture to the ones marked by the beast for the monster under the dragon’s secret guidance.
So, basically, God’s plan is to let evil reign; to ask the ones faithful to God and Jesus to have patience; and then torture the ones who follow the dragon with the pain of the faithful that they’d deceived, defrauded, oppressed, lead away from Jesus, conquered, warred with, made ill, and killed.
Mission Completed
Revelation ends the New Testament, which began with the story of Christ’s birth. Maybe when life is good, health is good, and peace keeps war distant and detached, the Resurrection seems unreal and unnecessary. It’s hard enough to believe Jesus actually lived and showed us God up close. Jesus created friendships and taught anyone who wanted to learn. Once we get to know a person, we want to know more. We listen to their plans and hopes. Same with Jesus. Revelation is God’s plan and Jesus’s hope. It fulfills the Christmas birth that began in poverty and misery. It reveals how hope puts evil in its place. Revelation was written to a persecuted, suffering community of Christians to rekindle their hope. It’s hope that keeps us taking one painful step at a time through the narrow, light-blotting valley.