Framework:
construction of
Section 1 - blood of the Lamb
The consequences of the shedding of the blood of the Lamb
(5:5-6:1, 12:9-12, 12:17-18)
1A) Section construction
This section focuses on the construction of the first part of the proposed macrostructure, which is controlled by three (of four) steps back in relative time within the vision. It covers the consequences of the Cross (the death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ), which is recorded as time-parallel 1 in Figure 1.
This is a spatio-temporal analysis of Revelation so it is particularly important to know the space and relative timing of events from the perspective of the author-narrator (John). John describes how he was praying on Patmos when he turned around and saw ‘one-like-a-son-of-man’ (the Warrior), with a sharp double-edged sword coming out of his mouth, The Warrior walks among seven golden lamp-stands (church assemblies) and he holds their seven spiritual representatives (angels) as stars in his hand (1:10-2:1). This suggests John was now standing on a visionary version of Patmos, but it was also spiritual because John was in the presence of the ‘first and the last and the living one’ (Christ; 1:17); the visionary space was a physical-spiritual version of earth. In spatio-temporal terms, the introduction (1:1-3:22) is mapped onto an earthly space which corresponds to John’s era (the late 60’s or mid 90’s A.D.
The Warrior dictates a letter to John for the servants of God. It contains seven messages for the congregations in Asia Minor (present day Turkey), and these have topical significance for John’s readers (2:1-3:22). John is still on Patmos so this new dimension represents the visionary physical earth (John) and spiritual earth (the lamp-stands and Warrior). It would be a spatial and temporal paradox for the Warrior to be in heaven itself at this time because he is in the same space as John; John does not see the door to heaven open until 4:1 and John does not go into heaven until 4:2. The first visionary space is the physical-spiritual earth. At this point in John’s journey, the boundary between the physical-spiritual earth and heaven’s throne-room is opaque, but this will change in Framework 2. Boundaries will be considered in more detail in Framework 4.
Figure 1 - the Cross: time-parallel 1
In Figure 1, the x axis is location and the y axis is relative time. The dashed and dotted arrows show the narrative paths of the two dramas and when John describes an event that happened in the story’s relative past, the narrative arrows point up the page instead of down into the future.
In this spatio-temporal analysis, it is particularly important to know the space and relative timing of events from the perspective of the author-narrator (John). John describes how he was praying on Patmos[1] when he turned around and saw ‘one-like-a-son-of-man’ (the Warrior), with a sharp double-edged sword coming out of his mouth. The Warrior walks among seven golden lamp-stands (church assemblies) and he holds their seven spiritual representatives (angels) as stars in his hand (1:10-2:1). This suggests John was now standing on a visionary version of Patmos, but it was also spiritual because John was in the presence of the ‘first and the last and the living one’ (Christ; 1:17); the visionary space was a physical-spiritual version of earth.
The Warrior dictates seven messages to John for the servants of God. It contains seven messages for the congregations in Asia Minor (present day Turkey), and these have topical significance for John’s readers (2:1-3:22). John is still on Patmos so this new dimension represents the visionary physical earth (John) and spiritual earth (the lamp-stands and Warrior). It would be a spatial and temporal paradox for the Warrior to be in heaven itself at this time because he is in the same space as John; John does not see the door to heaven open until 4:1 and John does not go into heaven until 4:2. The first visionary space is the physical-spiritual earth. At this point in John’s journey, the boundary between the physical-spiritual earth and heaven’s throne-room is opaque, but this will change in Framework 2. Boundaries will be considered in more detail in Framework 4.
[1] If the vision occurred in A.D. 95-97, i.e. accepting as truth Irenaeus’ comment that Revelation was written towards the end of Domitian’s reign (Irenaeus, Against Heresies V.30.3) some of the first audiences may have experienced the fear of Nero’s cruelty and persecution (late A.D. 60’s), fled from the first Jewish-Roman war (A.D. 66-70), known the temple and Jerusalem had been destroyed (A.D. 70) and they were recovering from oppression under Domitian. If an earlier date is correct (A.D. 68-70; Hengel, 1989: 126-127), Nero’s persecutions would be a recent memory and Jerusalem was still standing, but under threat.
1A.a) The first step back in relative time (earth and the throne-room)
John is invited up to the throne-room by the Warrior (4:1) and John moves in the spirit from Patmos after the crucifixion to heaven’s throne-room to a time before it (4:2, see Figure 1). 4:2 is the first of four steps back in relative time in the vision (4:2, 12:1, 12:13, 15:1) (see: Towards … 4b). John sees the one seated on the throne, whose appearance is like jasper and ruby/ carnelian, and the encircling rainbow looks like an emerald (4:3). Lightning and thunder emanate from the throne and Creation is being celebrated in the heavenly worship of God (4:11); there is no indication when the worship begins. Stephen Smalley describes the heavenly celebration as ‘an ongoing and ceaseless liturgy’ (Smalley, 2005: 126) so the celebration John witnesses may have begun as heaven’s response to Creation itself.
The slain Lamb appears before the throne while John watches (5:5-6) and John witnesses the immediate consequence of the shedding of the blood of the Lamb for the first time. The Lamb stands before the throne (5:6, NRSVA) or at its centre (New International Version). In 3:21 and 7:17, the Lamb is on the throne. The throne in the New Jerusalem is the seat of God and the Lamb (22:3). The meaning of the image is debated, but it identifies the slain Lamb with the paschal lamb (Ex. 12, 29/ Num. 28-29) and suffering servant (Is. 53) (Osborne, 2002: 255-256):
‘Then I saw in the right hand of the one seated on the throne a scroll (…), sealed with seven seals; and I saw a mighty angel proclaiming with a loud voice, ‘Who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals?’ And no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or to look into it. And I began to weep bitterly because no one was found worthy to open the scroll or to look into it. Then one of the elders said to me, ‘Do not weep. See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals. Then (καί) I saw (…) a Lamb standing as if it had been slaughtered, (…) He went and took the scroll from the right hand of the one who was seated on the throne. (…) the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell before the Lamb, (… they) sing a new song: ‘You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slaughtered and by your blood you ransomed for God saints from every tribe and language and people and nation.’ (5:1-9, my italics)
John weeps because no-one is worthy to open the scroll that is held by the one seated on the throne and then (καί) the slain Lamb appears. Καὶ is a conjunction and could be translated ‘and (or also) I saw a lamb…’ but the timing is not based upon καὶ or word-play with verb tenses in this study. A significant feature of these verses is their absolute timing because the Lamb appears while John watches. The earthly timescale is very short; the Gospels indicate that Jesus was resurrected within three days of his death (Mt. 28:1-10, Mk. 16:1-11, Lk. 24:1-12, Jn. 20:1-18) and then he ascended to heaven (Acts 1:1-11). The mix of verb tenses describing events in the throne-room indicates timings follow ‘God’s time’ and not earthly time (Boxall, 2002: 119), but these timings coincide here. This gives an underlying sense of the eternal perspective of God’s intentions; what John sees and hears in the throne-room has as much to do with the past as the future (Smalley, 2005: 131, 141). Verb tenses are unreliable indicators for relative event timings in Revelation and this may reflect the tension between the narrative literary form and content, and/or how John saw future events unfold (Collins, 1979: 126, with reference to 18:1-24, but this has wider implications). 5:5-7 anchors this part of the vision to the precise time of the Cross in heaven’s throne-room, witnessed by John.
When the scroll is opened, earth experiences the torments of the seals opening. The torments are both physical (conquest, war, famine and death) and spiritual (the four horsemen) (6:2-8), so the torments affect the same dimension that John, the Warrior and the congregations/ lamp-stands occupy (1:10-4:1) i.e. the visionary physical-spiritual earth.
1A.b) The second and third steps back in relative time (heaven's environs and earth)
The seals progress onto the trumpets (Frameworks 2 and 3) and after the seventh trumpet sounds, the heavenly sanctuary is seen to be open (11:15-19, Framework 3). This does not herald the Parousia (Christ’s appearance) or his ‘coming’, in Revelation; instead, John sees a new cosmic space and new characters. The transition in the text at 11:19/12:1 is abrupt[1] and John sees a great sign in heaven (or the sky) in which a magnificent celestial woman is about to give birth (12:1-2) and there is another sign when a great red dragon appears and it threatens the woman (12:3-4). 12:1 is the second step back in relative time, and this time he witnesses the birth of the celestial child (12:5). In the presence of the dragon, the woman gives birth to her son who is ‘snatched away’ to God and his throne (12:5). The dragon is satan, the devil, that ancient serpent/ snake (12:9, 20:2). The child is almost certainly the Messiah-Christ but he could be the Messiah of the Hebrew Bible, Jesus at Bethlehem or representative of the messianic community. The identity of his mother is debated (usually Israel, Mary or the Church).[2] The identity of the mother and child are considered in the following Interpretation.
The celestial mother flees to the wilderness (12:6) and there is war in heaven (12:7) and the dragon is defeated and expelled to earth (12:8-9). At the precise moment the dragon is defeated and the Messiah assumes his authority (12:10), the blood of the Lamb results in the efficacy of the testimony of the faithful and heaven’s rejoicing and woe on earth (12:11-12):
‘And war broke out in heaven; Michael and his angels fought against the dragon (…) and his angels (…), but they were defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. The great dragon (…) was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. Then I heard a loud voice in heaven, proclaiming, ‘Now (Ἄρτι) have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Messiah, for the accuser of our comrades has been thrown down, (…) But they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they did not cling to life even in the face of death. Rejoice then, you heavens and those who dwell in them! But woe to the earth and the sea, for the devil has come down to you with great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!’ (12:7-12, my italics).
The word used for ‘now’ (Ἄρτι) means the ‘strictly present time’ or ‘just now, this moment’ (Abbott-Smith, 1991: 61) so the expulsion of the dragon from heaven to earth occurs at the precise moment the Messiah assumes his authority and the dragon is defeated by the blood of the Lamb. 12:9-12 is the second time John witnesses the impact of the shedding of the blood of the Lamb. Both 5:5-7 and 12:9-12 refer to the precise time of the Cross (so Smalley, 2005: 379; see Figure 1); these verses are synchronous (time-parallel 1, Figure 1).
12:13 is the third step back in relative time in the story and John witnesses satan appearing on earth. After his defeat in the heavenly battle, the dragon follows the celestial mother to earth but she is given two wings of an eagle so she can escape him and he tries to drown her and, by implication, her other children (12:13-16). Events on this earth is a reminder of the Garden of Eden (Gen. 3:1-24) and the psalmists’ yearning for the wilderness as a place of safety (12:14; for example: Ps. 55) and the flood story (12:16) (see the following Interpretation). The dragon was so angry, he went off to make war on ‘the rest’ of her children; faithful Israel (those who keep God’s commands) and the followers of Jesus (12:17).[3] 12:17 cannot be before the time of Jesus so 12:17 is the third reference to the immediate consequence of the Cross (time-parallel 1, Figure 1), and 12:6 and 12:13-16 are pre-Cross events.
[1] 12:1 is an intentional ‘uncharacteristically abrupt fresh start’ to the vision (Bauckham, 1993b: 15) but Aune suggests 11:19 is an introduction to 12:1-17 and a conclusion to 11:15-18, based upon literary internal structures and external forms (Aune, 1998: 661).
[2] Aune, 1998: 680-682. Israel is ‘the people amongst whom Christ was born (… and) the Church and the true Israel are in one sense identical’; the mother bears ‘the Messiah and His servants’ (sic) (Kiddle, 1940: 223, 226; so Collins, 1976: 107, Osborne, 2002: 456-458, Smalley, 2005: 315); or, the mother may be the Church, and her child the messianic community (Resseguie, 2009: 171). Pagan myth or specific non-canonical text allusions are uncertain but the apocalyptic genre would have been familiar to early audiences (Bauckham, 1993b: xi, xvii).
[3] 12:17, ‘Then the dragon was angry with the woman, and went off to make war on the rest of her children, those who keep the commandments of God and (i.e. faithful Israel and or also or then (καὶ) followers of Jesus who) hold the testimony of Jesus.’ (My bracketed comment and italics).
1A.c) Time-parallel 1: the Cross and its immediate consequences
(5:5-6:1, 12:9-12, 12:17-18)
The shedding of the blood of the Lamb cannot occur at different times in different locations in the cosmos; its ongoing consequences may be staggered but the Cross itself was unique to a precise time on earth. There are three occasions in Revelation where the immediate impact of the shedding of the blood of the Lamb is described (5:5-6:1, 12:9-12, 12:17) so these occasions must be synchronous; they are time-parallel 1 in Figure 1. Other references to blood do not refer to the exact time Jesus was crucified; they are references the continuing power and efficacy of the blood of the Lamb (1:5, 5:9, 7:14), or blood associated with persecution (6:10, 16:6, 17:6, 18:24, 19:2), or judgement affecting the environment (6:12, 8:7-9, 11:6, 16:3-4). Blood at the Grape Harvest and on the Rider’s gown is discussed in Framework 5.
The Cross creates a paradox for earthly time; it has consequences (causation, not association) that are widely separate in humanity’s concept of time:
The first series of consequences is the earthly torments associated with the opening seals at the time of the Cross (from 6:2). 1:1-3:22 (the prologue and seven messages) also occurs after the Cross, but not as a consequence of the broken seals. There is a discontinuity between 3:22 and 6:2 in the earthly time-line but discontinuities are permitted as long as the verses within each time-line are sequential (they can indicate that the event covers more than one space). From a spatio-temporal perspective, the four horsemen and their horrors (seal torments) are part of the same time-line as John’s first meeting with the Warrior.
The second series of consequences of the Cross follows the defeat of satan in the heavenly realms. Satan and his angels move (12:9-12) to a mythic, pre-history earth and they attack the celestial mother and her other children. What happens in heaven’s environs after the heavenly battle is unknown because there is no further reference to this space after this time in Revelation.
The third series of consequences of the Cross are attacks on the followers of Jesus as well as faithful Israel (12:17) but from 12:18 the dragon/ satan stood on the seashore.
1A.d) Why there are two earths
It would be a temporal violation for 6:2 to follow 12:18 in the proposed model, i.e. if the beginning of the vision on Patmos (1:1-3:22) and the torments of the first four seals (6:2-8) happen before the celestial mother (12:6) and satan appear in an earlier era on earth (12:13). This spatio-temporal analysis begins with the assumption that the verses in Revelation, after the introduction (1:1-3:22), represent a linear chronology and verses cannot ‘jump over’ one another (see Towards … methodology) – unless the text indicates otherwise and there are spatial or temporal shifts in the story (in which case, dimensional changes are indicated); this is a standard spatio-temporal rule and not devised for this study. In this analysis there must be two steps back in relative time in the story – at 4:2 (Framework 1A.a) and 12:1 (Framework 1A.b) and these initiate two dramas – the one drama complements the other but it does not recapitulate it because the dramas tell different stories, set at different times and in different spaces.
The celestial mother may have a material presence as Israel, Mary or the Church and her child may be Jesus Christ in 12:1-18, but they are described in more allegorical ways than events described in 6:2-11:19. In the following Interpretation it is suggested that the character are immaterial concepts (Israel, Messiah) within a biblical version of earth’s history and stories of satan ‘behind’ or influencing earthly activities and wars. The second earthly time-line is a more allegorical, biblical version of earth but it complements the story in 6:2-11:19 (see Framework 1B.d).
Both earthly time-lines are associated with the triumph of the saints (5:8-10, 12:11) and war on earth (6:2, 12:17). The two series are not recapitulations of the same events, contra many authors including Adela Yarbro Collins (Collins, 1979: 75, 80), because they describe one event in one space and time (the crucifixion on earth) that has immediate consequences in every other space and time, including in earth’s deep past. Theologically, this is possible because the Lamb was slain from the foundation of the cosmos (13:8) and he transcends earthly chronologies. From John’s point of view, he experiences two dramas unfolding (from 4:1 and then from 12:1) and both focus on the consequences of the Cross. Both dramas begin in heaven and end on earth; they are linked together but they give very different view-points of a single story. The structure proposed in Figure 1 is possible because of the steps back in relative time in the story that were mentioned earlier (at 4:2, 12:1 and 12:12).
3:14 and Jn. 1:1-5 state that the birth of the Messiah is the origin of Creation (so Kiddle, 1940: 222) and this indicates that the story in Revelation may include Creation from two perspectives: celebration in the throne-room (4:11) and the Messiah’s birth (12:5). Some may argue that Creation is the first time-parallel because it is the beginning of the story in Revelation, but 4:11 represents the celebration at the point John enters the throne-room so it is not part of a Creation time-parallel. 4:11 affirms that worship is the ongoing response to Creation. The story’s focus is on the unique, cosmos-wide impact of the shedding of the blood of the Lamb so the precise time of the Cross (5:5-6:1, 12:9-12, 12:17) is time-parallel 1 in Figure 1. Subsequent events follow linear progressions in every space and the time-lines are next linked when satan’s beasts arise (time-parallels 2 and 3, Framework 3 Figure 3). In this section, the structure of Revelation is recognised as one story, beginning with Creation, as seen from two perspectives (1:1-11:19 and from 12:1) and this dual pattern follows in subsequent sections. The narrative paths through the two dramas may follow the path of John’s eyes, rather than always reflecting his movement between the cosmic spaces; this is discussed in more detail when considering John’s visionary vantage points (Framework 3B.c).
There are hundreds of references (over four hundred has been mentioned) to the Hebrew Bible in Revelation, the exact number is uncertain because some are allusions or echoes and none use formal ‘quotation formulas’ of Scripture (Beale, 1998: 60-61, 68). It seems likely that John’s biblical allusions reflect his deep grounding in the Scriptures and Elizabeth Schüssler Fiorenza suggests John uses the Hebrew Bible like a ‘language arsenal’ to express his own prophetic vision (Fiorenza, 1998: 135). It would be interesting to compare how John used biblical references in the two earth time-lines, but that is outside the scope of this study.
The keystone for the whole macrostructure is the Messiah assuming his authority, defeating satan (in battle by Michael and by Jesus’ own death, resurrection and ascension) and taking the scroll from the hand of the one seated on the throne. From that point onwards, the faithful are victorious – but there is war on earth.
1A) Summary
The underlying story in Revelation is chronologically linear (Creation to the New Order) but this section describes the first three (of four) steps back in relative time in the story (at 4:2, 12:1 and 12:13). These relocations enable John to see events from multiple perspectives, linked by ‘time-parallels’ which are like text parallels but with a chronological component. This section focuses on the first time-parallel (5:5-6:1, 12:9-12, 12:17-18), which represents the cosmos-wide impact of the death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ (called ‘the Cross’ in this study) and why there are two earths in the story.
The first step back in relative time enables John to see worship in heaven that celebrates creation, which may have begun at the moment of creation (4:11), and he sees the triumphant slain Lamb appears on (or before) the heavenly throne (5:6). This is part of time-parallel 1, in heaven’s throne-room.
The second step back in relative time enables John to see two ‘signs’ in heaven’s environs, so called because the signs may be a vision in the sky but they are not of this earth and they are not in the throne-room. John sees a celestial pregnant woman who is being harassed by an enormous red dragon (12:1-4). The woman gives birth to a child, who is snatched away to the throne (12:5) and this represents the moment of creation itself (12:5). The woman flees to the wilderness (12:6). There is war in heaven and the dragon (satan) is defeated and thrown to earth (12:7-9). Satan’s defeat is the result of the Messiah assuming his ‘authority’ and heaven celebrates because God’s people can now conquer satan ‘by the blood of the Lamb’; but the earth and the sea are under attack (12:10-12). This is part of time-parallel 1, in heaven’s environs.
12:13 represents the story’s third step back in relative time and the women and her subsequent children are attacked on earth by satan in ways that recall early history events recorded in the Hebrew Bible (hence, it is called the ‘biblical earth’). The earth of chapter 12 is not John’s present day earth in this spatio-temporal analysis because the time periods/ verses cannot inter-mingle. It includes the first appearances of those who ‘hold the testimony of Jesus’ (12:17) and satan standing by the sea-shore (12:18); this is part of time-parallel 1, on the biblical earth.
This section ends with the immediate consequence of the Cross. In the throne-room, the Lamb takes a scroll from the one seated on the throne and he opens its seals and torments follow on the physical-spiritual earth (from 6:2). War against the faithful continues and satan stands by the sea on the biblical earth (12:17-18) and it is quiet in heaven’s environs until the next sign appears (at 15:1).
Page updated 20 August 2024