GOD'S NEW WORLD, DAY 20 (the keys of death)
“I, John, your brother who share with you in Jesus the persecution and
the kingdom and the patient endurance, was on the island called Patmos because
of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. I was in the spirit on the
Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet…Then I turned to
see whose voice it was that spoke to me, and… I saw seven golden
lampstands, and in the midst of the lampstands I saw one like the Son of
Man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash across his chest. His
head and his hair were white as …wool, white as snow; his eyes were like a
flame of fire…In his right hand he held seven stars, and from his mouth came a
sharp, two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining with full force. When
I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he placed his right hand on
me, saying, “Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last, and the living
one. I was dead, and see, I am alive forever and ever; and I have the keys of
Death and of Hades.” (Rev. 1.9-18)
Over 200 years after the first Hanukkah[1],
which had celebrated the victory of the people of God over the imperial Hellenic
forces of Antiochus IV, yet another dreamer was granted a vision of the Son of
Man (cf. Dn. 7). This time, it was “John”,
an early follower of Jesus who had been exiled to the island of Patmos in the
Aegean Sea, off the western coast of the province of Asia (i.e., Turkey). John had been banished from Roman society “because
of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus” (Rev. 1.9). John was a member of the Jewish diaspora in
the eastern end of the Roman empire[2],
and, like his compatriots in Judaea a couple of centuries previous, he faced pressure
to conform to pagan conventions. Not
that anyone was forbidding him to practice Judaism[3],
but the pressure, widespread in the province of Asia, was to acknowledge the divinity
of the emperor.[4] For John, this would be a betrayal of both
his Jewish monotheism (based on “the word of God”, i.e., the Scriptures) and
his “testimony” to Jesus of Nazareth as Messiah and Lord (“ruler of the kings
of the earth”: Rev. 1.5).
Plus ça change, plus c’est
la même chose. Since the conquest of the
kingdom of Judah by the Babylonians in the 6th-century B.C., the
people of Yahweh had had to worship the one God while being ruled by kings who
took themselves for “gods among (ordinary) mortals”. Of course, this presumption to divinity is understandable
– when you’re the most powerful person in your world, it seems to be the logical
conclusion. According to the Jewish
Scriptures, the Messiah of Israel would also rule over all the nations of the
earth (cf. Ps. 2.7-9). Those who
believed that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah (“Christ”) believed that he was
the one that the second Psalm had spoken about, the Son of God who would rule
the nations “with a rod of iron” (cf. Rev. 2.27; 12.5; 19.15). During his lifetime, Jesus had often referred
to himself as the Son of Man, especially when he predicted his sufferings and
during his trial before the Sanhedrin (cf. Mk. 14.61-62). As we have seen, the Son of Man from Daniel’s
dream was exalted to share the throne of the Ancient One after having suffered
at the hands of the four pagan empires (“beasts”: Dn. 7.1-14). Now, in John’s vision, the Davidic Son of God
who rules the nations (Ps. 2) has been combined with the Danielic Son of Man (Dn.
7) who receives an everlasting kingdom after having suffered at the hands of
empire – in an awesome depiction of the resurrected and exalted Jesus, who summons
John to record his vision and send it to “the seven churches of Asia” (Rev.
1.10-13). Jesus and the emperor are on a
collision course! Both demand absolute
allegiance from “all peoples, tribes, nations and languages” (e.g. Rev.
7.9). There is only one Lord of the world,
and he does not share power.
The New Testament is clear – the long-awaited
kingdom of God was established by Jesus in a radically unexpected way. Jesus had been “crowned” and “enthroned” as
King of the Jews (i.e., Messiah) – so the Evangelists tell us – at the very moment
when he was humiliated, tortured and executed by the imperial justice system as
a powerless, condemned revolutionary (cf. Mk. 15.16-39). One of the many ways that Revelation depicts
Jesus is as “the lamb that was slaughtered” (Rev. 5.6, etc.; cf. Jn. 1.29, 36). However, the death of this humble victim of
Roman “justice” had actually been his victory over death itself (Rev. 1.18) and
now, the Son of Man tells John, he is alive forever and has been exalted as the
ruler of the kings of the earth. All
power has been granted to the lamb that was slaughtered (Rev. 5.12-13). The Creator’s mission to re-take his world
has been launched as Jesus’ apostles proclaim his “gospel”[5]
and expand his kingdom by establishing communities (“churches”) of people – loyal,
not to Caesar, but to the Lord Jesus – who shine “as lights in the world” (cf. Phil.
2.15). The stakes are high – Caesar does
not tolerate rivals, and John anticipates a bloodbath as he encourages the subjects
of Jesus in Asia to “patiently endure” whatever the empire doles out (Rev. 1.9;
7.9-17). The book of Revelation “unveils”
the final triumph of the kingdom of the Creator and of the Lamb over all earthly
rulers and empires. Daniel’s dream is
thus taken up, expanded and finally, comes true (cf. Rev. 19.11-21; 21—22).
[1] The book of Revelation was written during the second half of the
first century AD.
[2] The Roman empire of the first century AD encompassed the Mediterranean
Sea, referred to at this time as “a Roman lake”. The province of Judaea had been annexed in 63
B.C. and was ruled alternately by either Roman governors (e.g. Pontus Pilate)
or client kings of the Herodian family (Herod the Great, whose reign coincided
with that of Augustus, was an Idumean warlord who fought for Rome against the
Parthians and had been granted the title “King of the Jews”).
[3] Or Christianity, for that matter – though John, a Jew who lived
before the official “parting of the ways” between Judaism and what would become
known as “Christianity”, saw himself, not as a member of a “new religion”, but
rather as a faithful Jew who believed that the long-awaited Messiah had come,
and that his name was Jesus. At this
early stage of the church’s life, the parameters of distinctly “Christian”
practice were still being established, especially pertaining to the inclusion
of non-Jews in the communities loyal to Jesus.
This is precisely why Christians could often fly “under the imperial radar”
in the early days of the church – they were considered by many to be simply
another subset of Judaism (cf. Ac. 24.5; 28.22), a religion which had been granted
special status by Rome, due to its antiquity (and the preference of Jews to die
rather than worship the deities of the empire – and as we know, the dead don’t
pay taxes). It has often been noted that
the book of Revelation is imbued with a very Jewish form of “Christianity”;
some interpreters have even expressed their opinion that this mysterious book
should not be part of Christian Scripture!
[4] Upon the death of Julius Caesar in 44 B.C., the Roman senate voted in
favour of granting him “apotheosis”, i.e., he was proclaimed to have ascended
to join the Roman pantheon as a god. As
a result, shrines were constructed for the worship of “the divine Julius Caesar”;
this also meant that his adopted son and heir, Octavian (aka “Augustus”, the first
to succeed in consolidating power over the empire in one person, which was the
reason Caesar had been assassinated) was “the son of a god” (this was inscribed
on the coins bearing his image, along with his other titles of “lord” and “saviour”). Augustus eventually added the title of “divine”
to his resume. Every successor to the throne
of Rome would perpetuate this tradition.
Emperor worship was especially fervent in the eastern part of the
empire, and there were temples and statues of the emperors everywhere. The expectation was that faithful subjects of
the empire would burn incense in front of the images of the emperor as a sign
of both their loyalty to the emperor’s person and to the imperial order. For John, and many early Christians, this
would have been tantamount to a betrayal of their faith in Jesus as the (true)
Son of (the true) God, the true Lord and Saviour of the world, and as far as
they were concerned, the only human being worthy of divine honours.
[5] Another imperial term, which referred to either a victory on the
part of Rome’s legions or the accession of a new emperor to the imperial
throne. In both cases, the result would
be “peace” (civil war often broke out upon the death of an emperor).
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