Victory through the Lamb: A Guide to Revelation in Plain Language

Victory through the Lamb: A Guide to Revelation in Plain Language

© 2014 by Mark Wilson

Lexham Press, 1313 Commercial St., Bellingham, WA 98225

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First edition by Weaver Book Company.

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The translation of portions of the New Testament and the entire book of Revelation is by Mark Wilson. Translation of the book of Revelation copyright © 2014 by Mark Wilson. Used by permission. All right reserved.

Old Testament quotations are from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com

Print ISBN 9781683591962

Digital ISBN 9781683591979

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To the memory of Necati Aydın,

Uğur Yüksel, and Tilmann Geske

who laid down their lives

for the word of God and

the witness of Jesus Christ.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Victory in the Seven Churches

Chapter 2

Victory of the Lamb

Chapter 3

Victory of the Large Multitude

Chapter 4

Victory of the Two Witnesses

Chapter 5

The Victory of the Male Child, the Woman, and Her Offspring

Chapter 6

Victory over the Beasts

Chapter 7

Victory of the 144,000 and the Harvest of the Victors

Chapter 8

Victory in the Songs of Moses and of the Lamb

Chapter 9

Victory over Mystery Babylon

Chapter 10

Victory over the Lamb’s Enemies

Chapter 11

Victory in the New Heaven and New Earth

Chapter 12

Victory at Jesus’ Second Coming

Epilogue

Prologue

On April 18, 2007, three Christians were killed in eastern Turkey in the city of Malatya. Two were Turks, Necati Aydın and Uğur Yüksel, while the third was German, Tilmann Geske. Their brutal murder shocked both the country’s small Christian community as well as many Turkish citizens. At the time my wife Dindy and I were living in Izmir, ancient Smyrna, one of the Seven Churches of Revelation. Necati had formerly lived in Izmir so his funeral, interment, and a later memorial service were all held in that city. We attended these along with many other Christians from around Turkey.

Before this, my understanding of martyrdom had been an academic one. I had read about Ignatius, the bishop of Antioch, who had visited Smyrna on the way to his death in the Roman Colosseum in the early second century AD. And I had also read about the martyrdom of Polycarp, the bishop of Smyrna, in the city’s stadium in AD 156. (Both Ignatius’ letter to the church in Smyrna and the account of Polycarp’s death are found in a collection of early Christian documents called The Apostolic Fathers.) I had shared the story of their deaths with many visitors who came to Izmir. But suddenly the suffering of these early Christians was no longer abstract; we were part of the community that was mourning the tragic loss of brothers in Christ. I wrote an account of my impressions in a reflective article called In the Presence of Martyrs, which can be found in the Epilogue. We felt the apprehension that came upon the church in Turkey about what the future might hold for Christian witness. Experiencing the effects of martyrdom among Turkey’s Christians reinforced a view about suffering that I had gained from reading Revelation. It is this perspective that I would like to share with you in the following pages.

Persecution is generally viewed in two ways today in the church, especially in the West. On the one hand, it is largely forgotten and ignored, as something that happened in the past or is happening currently to a few unknown believers in faraway places. To think about tribulation and death in a society fixated on youthfulness and entertainment is very much out of step. On the other hand, there are scholarly voices today that suggest that the early Christians invented the stories of martyrdom and that the accounts of deaths like Polycarp’s are pious frauds. The purpose of this volume is to remind the church of its martyr heritage, while affirming that these accounts are real indeed and that many Christians in the first centuries of the church did, in fact, die for their witness about Jesus.

The premise of this book is a simple one: Christians have and always will suffer tribulation until Jesus returns at his second coming. I am aware that this view runs against the grain of much contemporary teaching on the subject. Because of many popular books, novels, and movies about the end times released in recent years, the expectation of many Christians in North America and beyond is that they will be taken out—raptured—before the Tribulation.

But this is not the teaching of Scripture or the experience of the church. Two thousand years ago John had a vision while exiled on the island of Patmos. This vision, written to Christians in seven cities of the Roman province of Asia (modern Turkey), continues to impact our world today. Its central message is that believers can overcome the tribulations of life, even persecution and martyrdom, because of the victory won by the Lamb of God. Despite John’s use of complicated symbols and abstract language, this core message is developed chapter by chapter throughout Revelation. This book seeks to present that message in an understandable way to all believers rather than just to scholars.

I have been teaching the book of Revelation for over two decades in various contexts—Sunday school classes, university and seminary classrooms, and church seminars. I have also written or edited five books dealing with Revelation and its history. The uniform feedback of my students is that Revelation is the most difficult book in the Bible to understand. It is also the most controversial because of the numerous theories, even abuses, of interpretation that have developed. Within my lifetime its apocalyptic visions have been used to predict the end of the world in 1988, 2000, and, most recently, in 2011. Of course, planet earth is still here, the church has not been raptured, and Jesus has not returned. Approaching Revelation as a kind of biblical crystal ball for reading current events in the media was not John’s intention. Rather it was to help Christians get through the daily struggles of life that they were facing.

What are some of the problems we encounter while trying to understand Revelation? First of all, its language and imagery are very strange to us. Can you imagine John making sense of a modern work of science fiction or fantasy written by a writer like C. S. Lewis or J. R. R. Tolkien? This resembles our historical situation in reverse. We can make sense of Lewis or Tolkien, but have difficulty with a type of literature called apocalyptic that ancient readers would have readily understood. Jewish readers of Revelation would especially understand such imagery because it is found in Old Testament books like Ezekiel, Daniel, and Zechariah.

Today another particular challenge encountered by many Christians is that they lack a basic knowledge of the Old Testament. I have taken surveys at various times and usually discover that many Christians in the audience or even students in my classes have never read the Old Testament in its entirety. For some reason Christians have gotten the idea that the New Testament is the only part of the Bible that must be read. John the Revelator, however, assumes that his audience knows and understands the Old Testament. Let’s look at one example: in chapter 2 he never explains who Balaam or Jezebel is. He presumes that these characters and their stories in the Old Testament are familiar to his audience.

A final challenge is that many Christians have been taught to read Revelation through a particular grid of interpretation. This popular perspective views everything after chapter 3 as future and without relevance to Revelation’s first audience. The church is MIA in chapters 4–18 until it returns in chapter 19 at the return of the Lord. However, we read no other book of the Bible in this way, but instead try to read each book on its own literary, cultural, and historical terms. As mentioned earlier, Revelation was written to real Christians in seven actual cities in today’s western Turkey. And all 22 chapters of the book were meant to instruct them how to have victory through the Lamb in the midst of trials and tribulation.

I am usually asked right away what my perspective is on end-time issues such as the tribulation, the rapture, and the millennium. Generally I ask the questioner to wait until after we have studied Revelation together. Then he or she can better understand my approach to its challenging contents.

However, in this book I want to state up front my position on these issues. I believe in a rapture of the saints. However, I understand rapture to describe that final generation of Christians who will not die a physical death, something taught both by John and Paul (see 1 Thess. 4:15–17). These living believers will be caught up with the resurrected saints to meet Jesus at his second coming. I believe that the thousand years mentioned in Revelation 20 is a future event that will be inaugurated when Jesus returns, hence I am premillennial. However, I do not believe that the saints will reign for a thousand years on this present old earth and offer sacrifices again in a rebuilt temple in Jerusalem. Rather the return of Jesus inaugurates a series of events, which John symbolically calls the thousand years, whose culmination is the rule and reign of saints from every nation, people, tribe, and language in New Jerusalem on a new heaven and new earth for eternity.

And regarding the tribulation, I am post-tribulational, that is, I believe that Jesus will return again after the church’s tribulation on earth is over. Revelation, indeed the entire New Testament, teaches that tribulation is an expected dimension of the Christian life on this earth. Listen to these words of Jesus spoken shortly before his death: In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have been victorious over the world (John 16:33).

This verse highlights two key words of our study—tribulation and victory. So this theme, introduced by Jesus in his earthly teaching, is likewise continued in the book of Revelation. If you have a red-letter edition of the New Testament, it is evident how much of Revelation’s early chapters are the words of Jesus. For Revelation is the only New Testament book in which Jesus, after his ascension described in Acts 1, speaks to the church from his place of authority on the throne at the right hand of God the Father.

Why is this topic so important for Christians today? Because many have been misled into thinking that tribulation is a future reality from which we will miraculously escape through the rapture. Instead, I believe that Revelation teaches that we are in the tribulation right now. Since Jesus’ ascension, the devil, through his earthly representatives, has been bringing tribulation against the people of God.

Both Revelation and church history confirm this. As I mentioned earlier, my wife and I live in Turkey, the land of the Seven Churches, for most of each year. Many martyrs lost their lives not only in Turkey (also called Asia Minor or Anatolia) but in the greater Mediterranean region because of their witness to the gospel. So I decided to include the stories of a few of these courageous men and women at the beginning of each chapter. Their words and actions continue to challenge and inspire us—their spiritual heirs today. By better understanding the reality of suffering of Christians throughout the centuries, we can be more prepared to face our own tribulations in life. As we study Revelation, we will see that victory in the Lamb is possible, despite the challenges brought against the church!

I want to thank my wife Dindy for her usual helpful editorial work on the manuscript. She asked many questions that helped me to sharpen the discussion of key texts. Thanks are also given to two of my Revelation students at Regent University. Peggy Hadad also read the manuscript and offered excellent suggestions. Daniel Cross proofread the translation. Bernard Bell’s thorough reading of the final proof caught a number of errors. I am grateful to those friends who kindly provided favorable endorsements. I want to thank Cüneyt Oral for preparing the map of the Seven Churches included in the volume. Nevertheless, I take responsibility for any errors that still remain in the book.

Thanks also go to my pastor James Bultema for giving permission to use the cover image. These seven stained-glass panes—each interpreting one of the prophetic letters to the Seven Churches—stand behind the altar of the St. Paul Union Church in Antalya, Turkey. Their artist, Meri Ala-Seppälä-Dalkilinç, who designed and prepared the septych, is also to be thanked for graciously assenting to let us illustrate the cover with her masterwork. Christen Bordenkircher graciously provided the high-quality photograph of the windows. I have the privilege of gazing on these colorful panes each Sunday when I worship here in Antalya. When you visit the land of the Seven Churches, stop by the St. Paul Cultural Center

(www.stpaulcc-turkey.com/) and see these windows for yourself.

I want to thank Jim Weaver for his interest in publishing Victory through the Lamb. I have worked with Jim on several previous writing projects and appreciate his commitment to quality Christian publishing. Our prayers are with his new venture, Weaver Book Company, that it will be blessed with great success.

In closing, I want to comment on the format of the book. The translation of Revelation and other New Testament texts is my own made from the Greek text. I did not set out to provide a fresh translation of John’s magnum opus. But after completing the main text, I felt a nudge from the Holy Spirit to make my own translation of Revelation for this volume.

Hopefully its style and language, different at times from the main published translations, will allow you to understand the text better. One feature in the translation is the use of (parentheses) to indicate verses where John gives an explanation or aside to his narrative. Old Testament verses are quoted from the niv. If only a chapter and verse is given in the text, it is always from the book of Revelation. Footnotes are kept to a minimum. Further discussion on specific verses can be found in my commentary Revelation in the Zondervan Bible Background Commentary series or in The Victor Sayings in the Book of Revelation published by Wipf & Stock. Several of the charts in the volume are adapted from my Charts on the Book of Revelation: Literary, Historical, and Theological Perspectives published by Kregel Publications.

Mark Wilson

Attalia (Antalya), Turkey

February 8, 2014

Chapter 1

Victory in the Seven Churches

(1:1–3:22)

Martyr Account

The Witness of Stephen in Jerusalem (ca. AD 33)

Acts 6:8–7:2, 7:51–8:1

Now Stephen, full of grace and power, began to perform great wonders and signs among the people. Then some Jews from Cyrenia, Alexandria, Cilicia, and Asia who attended the synagogue called the Freedman rose up to argue with Stephen. But they were not able to oppose his wisdom and the Spirit through whom he was speaking. Then they secretly induced some men to say, We have heard him speaking blasphemous words against Moses and God. So they incited the people, the elders, and the teachers of the law who approached Stephen, seized him, and brought him to the Sanhedrin. They put forward false witnesses who said, This man does not cease speaking words against this holy place and against the law. For we have heard him say that Jesus the Nazarene will destroy this place and will change the customs that Moses handed down to us. As everyone sitting in the Sanhedrin stared at Stephen, they saw his face transformed like the face of an angel. Then the high priest asked, Are these things true?

Then Stephen said, "Gentlemen—my brothers and fathers—listen to me. . . . You stubborn people, uncircumcised in hearts and ears! Like your fathers, you likewise always resist the Holy Spirit.