Repetitions, abrupt transitions
and paradoxes in Revelation (the Parousia)

When the Rider appears from heaven, ‘he is clothed in a robe dipped in (or sprinkled with) blood’ (19:13).  The robe, not his head or body, is bloodied, so the Rider was not wounded or slain at the crucifixion (so Smalley, 2005; 491; contra Resseguie, 2009: 238, 240).  Several explanations have been put forward as to why there is blood on the Rider’s robe before the winepress/ Great Battle (Osborne, 2002: 682-683).  Osborne discounts the blood as being that of Christ’s enemies (because it is present before the battle) but he also accepts it because of ‘the circularity of the imagery (…) Chronology is ignored for the sake of rhetorical effect.’ (Osborne, 2002: 682; so Paul, 2018: 317).  Smalley considers the blood to be a symbol of the death of God’s enemies (Smalley, 2005; 491) and this study proposes that the blood is a reference to the Rider’s previous battles with his enemies.  Until the Messiah assumes ‘his authority’ (at his crucifixion, resurrection and ascension; 12:10), Michael is the leader of the heavenly army (12:7) but then satan is defeated by the blood of Christ (12:11, 12:17).  Assuming the Warrior/ Rider is the ‘man clothed in linen’ who fights with Prince Michael against the evil princes (Dan. 10:4-11:1), as is most likely, this indicates the Warrior/ Rider transcends time and he fights against evil in the ongoing war which began at Creation (see Section 2).  This suggests Christ the Rider is humanity’s spiritual protector throughout history. 

The manner in which the references to the Parousia are reconciled is a defining feature of any commentary.  Ian Paul suggests the different images of Christ in Revelation should be read together because they illustrate ‘a remarkable composite picture of Jesus’ (Paul, 2018: 319-320).  Bauckham suggests the differences between one-like-a-son-of-man on the cloud and the Rider are more than a function of Revelation’s apocalyptic (revelatory) genre,[5] they are ‘deliberately different’ images of Christ, with separate roles; the first receives his universal kingdom (an allusion to Dan. 7:13-14) and the second is divine warrior and judge (Bauckham, 1993b: 294-295).  Figures 4 and 5 illustrate how this study reconciles these roles or identities of Christ: Christ the King on the cloud (14:14-16) reflects the Gospels and Dan. 7:13-14, and thus the Parousia as anticipated in Acts 1:9-11.  Christ the Warrior/ Rider is the leader of the heavenly armies in the Great Battle on the physical-spiritual earth (19:17-21), i.e. he crushes the grapes (19:15) on the biblical earth.  On the physical-spiritual earth, he interacts with John throughout the vision (1:10-4:1, 16:17, 22:7, 22:12-16), which reflects Dan. 10:4-11:1; Christ is our heavenly defender throughout history.  Christ is also our Saviour.  The slain Lamb (the crucified Christ) is present in heaven’s throne room (5:5-6:1) and on the biblical earth (14:1-5).  The many roles of Christ transcend space and time.

In summary, as well as describing the immediate impact of the shedding of the blood of the Lamb three times, Babylon’s fall four times, and the Parousia three times, there are other unique events which are described more than once in Revelation – for example, there are two references to the winepress full of God’s wrath (14:19-20, 19:15).  Scattered concurrent events and possible separations between causes and consequences indicate that the story-line is sometimes non-linear, and the construction of the proposed model is described in Section 5 and illustrated on the Macrostructure Model webpage.

The harvests and battle/ judgement/ winepress motifs are well established in the Scriptures as eschatological symbols.[6]  From a theological point of view, all three choices for the Parousia are appropriate because each one represents the different roles of Christ (saviour, king and judge), so the Parousia will be something like the three parts.  The fall of Babylon indicates that the appearances of the Lamb, King and the Rider are not contemporaneous (see Figures 4 and 5).  It is appropriate that this spatio-temporal analysis is open to interpretation at this point in the story because if there was a definitive answer in the theological literature as to which image of the Parousia is ‘correct’, this would have been settled by earlier generations – together, they represent the Parousia.