Revelation (Paideia: Commentaries on the New Testament)

Tonstad, Sigve K., Parsons, Mikeal C., Talbert, Charles, Longenecker, Bruce

• Publisher: Baker Academic
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781493419623
• Topic: Théologie et religion
• Subtopic: Commentaire biblique

This practical commentary on Revelation is conversant with contemporary scholarship, draws on ancient backgrounds, and attends to the theological nature of the text. Sigve Tonstad, an expert in the early Jewish context of the New Testament, offers a nonretributive reading of Revelation and addresses the issue of divine violence. Paideia commentaries explore how New Testament texts form Christian readers by attending to the ancient narrative and rhetorical strategies the text employs, showing how the text shapes moral habits, and making judicious use of photos and sidebars in a reader-friendly format.

Revelation 1:1–20

Incentive to Read

Introductory Matters

Revelation meets the criteria of a letter, but it is distinctive for claiming to be sent from God (1:1). Although the subject matter is called “the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1:1), Jesus acts as the Revealer of God (1:1–2). The relationship between God as sender and Jesus as the Revealer is by this criterion like the Gospel of John (Rev. 1:1–2; John 1:1–2, 14, 18). Lesser characters in the letter chain are God’s mediating angel, John, and “the seven believing communities in Asia” (1:1, 4). Everyone in the chain counts. Faithful transmission along the letter chain enables faithful representation at the point of reception. John contributes by seeing and writing (1:2, 4, 9–11), and the seven believing communities participate by reading the message out loud, hearing it, and protecting it (1:3). To our surprise, Jesus appears not only at the point of origin (1:1) but also at the point of reception, standing “in the middle of the lampstands” (1:12–13). He represents God to the believing communities, but the communities represent God in the world, as conspicuous yet vulnerable points of light (1:12–13, 20). From the very first verse, the language idiom blends OT passages with familiar elements in the story of Jesus. We are explicitly enticed to read, not only the text of Revelation but also the text within the text—the OT background—and thus take possession of the message and the blessing promised (1:3).

Revelation 1:1–20 in the Rhetorical Flow

►Incentive to read (1:1–20)

Letter opening: From whom to whom (1:1–6)

“Hope,” signed Alpha and Omega (1:7–8)

From where to where (1:9–11)

Vision of the glorified Jesus, and a commission (1:12–20)

Tracing the Train of Thought

For a book like Revelation, “train of thought” is a hazardous concept. Readers are in for a dense bombardment of thought, but the thought is symphonic, not single instrument, and the ebb and flow of symphonic communication is how this book works. “Leaps of thought” describe the flow better than “train of thought.” Like a symphony, too, the theme may be soft at first, a background whisper played softly on a clarinet, before all the instruments join in. Add to this that there is an undulating emotional tenor, that “the scenes and events . . . are repetitive and jump back and forth in time” (Sweet 1979, 58). Moreover, John’s thinking “was generally done in the form of images,” as Max Brod (1995, 52) says of Franz Kafka. A disorderly time line and a profusion of images are challenging. How does a reader prepare for such an encounter except by buckling up?

Letter Opening: From Whom to Whom (1:1–6)

1:1–3. Revelation is in character with the kind of person God is: a God who reveals. This note is struck with emphasis from the very beginning. The disclosure [apokalypsis] of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to make known [deixai] to his servants what must soon take place; he made it known [esēmanen] by sending his angel to his servant John (1:1). John deploys two different verbs to describe the commission, but either verb comes down to “making known.” God is the first to speak in direct address (1:3). Then John steps up to the microphone (1:4). God is also the last one to talk (22:20), with an opportunity for all readers of the book to respond (22:21). The symmetry of direct divine speech at the beginning and ending is striking.

God’s first word is a blessing. Blessed is the one who reads aloud and those who hear the words of the prophecy, and (blessed) are those who keep what is written in it; for the time is near (1:3). To be blessed in the biblical sense is more than being the recipient of a good wish, like “safe travels” or “good luck,” and it means more than the promise of subjective happiness. “Bliss” is not measured on an emotional scale. The person thus described is in an enviable state and objectively in a position of privilege.

“The one who reads aloud” would in the first century be indistinguishable from “the one who reads” because silent reading had yet to be invented. Reading out loud would also be a matter of necessity because of the low literacy rate. Readers and hearers are included in the blessing, but appropriation comes to fruition only for “those who keep” the revelation. Two specific aspects of this text should be kept in mind in the twenty-first century. First, reading aloud is an act of interpretation. The human voice—in varying cadences, pitch, feeling, and emphasis—has an enormous influence on the message conveyed. Monologue, monotone, and monochrome are alien to reading out loud. Facial expression and body language are also part of the communicative arsenal of “the one who reads aloud.” The opening beatitude envisions the reader and the hearers working together in a communal and collaborative venture that gives life and clarity to the message. The concept “liturgical dialogue” is helpful. Formal features to this effect are striking in the prologue and epilogue (Kavanagh 1984; Vanni 1991). Even on the printed page, Revelation is rhetorically masterful.

The blessing is for those who read and receive “the words of the prophecy.” It is tempting to pause after the word read to make the beatitude say, “Blessed are those who read.” Period. Mastery of Revelation requires reading proficiency that is at risk in an era of half sentences, sound bites, and tweets. A competent reading of “the words of the prophecy” may therefore begin with the rehabilitation of basic reading skills and with raising the prestige of reading real books. The blessing promised to the reader could have the side effect of placing reading—and books—at the center of education and culture that befits the notion of paideia. We cannot master this book if we do not read competently.

1:4–6. John is now speaking for God in a recognizable epistolary greeting to the seven churches. Yet the idiosyncrasies are conspicuous. The phrase the one who is [ho ōn] and who was [ho ēn] and who is to come [ho erchomenos] defies the rules of grammar and syntax (1:4). Why the odd wording, using the nominative instead of the genitive after the preposition apo, and mixing participles (ho ōn, “the one who is”) and an indicative verb (ho ēn, “the he-was”) in the sentence (Walther 1995; Ozanne 1965, 6–7; Koester 2014, 215)? The answer should not be that John lacks mastery of Greek. He is reproducing God’s self-designation in the encounter with Moses at the burning bush, “I AM WHO I AM [ho ōn]” (Exod. 3:14 LXX), and he implies that God’s name is indeclinable. Although God’s name is identified with reference to the past (was), the present (is), and the future (is to come), the emphasis should not be God’s existence, that God is eternal, or that God is inscrutable. The question is not whether God exists but whether God will show up (B. Jacob 1992, 71–74). In the original setting, “I AM WHO I AM” means that God is first and foremost the One who is with you. As Edmond Jacob (1971, 52) notes, “It is not the idea of eternity which is primary when the Israelites pronounce the name Yahweh, but that of presence. . . . God is he who is with someone” (see also Albertini 1999; den Hertog 2002). An affirmation of God’s existence or self-existence fits a philosophical construct, but Revelation is more interested in God’s conduct. This matches the situation in Exodus. Whether past, present, or future, God is with people: God is the One “who approaches you and helps you” (Albertini 1999, 22). The affirmation cannot find a stronger guarantee than to “define” God by what is most emphatically true of God: “I Myself am there, count on Me!” (Vriezen 1970, 180).

Equally important but less appreciated is the implied contrast—and conflict—reflected in this phrase.

God	God’s adversary
the one who was [ho ēn], the one who is [ho ōn], and the one who is to come. (1:4)	was [ēn] and is not [ouk estin] and is to come [parestai]. (17:8)

Wherein the contrast? God’s self-designation is anchored in fact. The adversary, by contrast, is defined by what he pretends to be but isn’t. Whether the criterion is ontology or character, the adversary is not God. And yet the comparison is not pointless in the context of Revelation’s story. A re-reader will know what is coming so as not to miss the contrast (17:8; 1:4).

The texture of conflict is not softened when Jesus is described as the witness, the trustworthy one [ho martys, ho pistos], the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth (Rev. 1:5a; cf. Ps. 89:27, 37 [88:28, 38 LXX]). Jesus is “faithful” (pistos) in the sense of carrying out his heaven-sent mission, and he is “faithful” by keeping faith with God. But the context of conflict sharpens the tenor of the description. He is “the trustworthy one” (ho pistos); he, not the adversary, is the one who is worthy of trust; he goes head-to-head with “the Mudslinger and the Antagonist, the deceiver of the whole world” (12:9). Trustworthiness is not a trivial quality compared to an adversary that has misrepresentation of God as his trademark. As “the firstborn of the dead,” Jesus’s resurrection is the hardware of hope, but the resurrection has death as its point of reference. Dying and self-giving gleam at the zenith of his witness.

The exclamation that follows is of a piece with the story of Jesus’s self-giving (1:5b–6). It is expressed in a “hymnic-proclamatory style,” implying that it is familiar to the recipients and quite possibly related to baptism (Fiorenza 1974, 222). The exclamation expands the statement that “the one who is and who was and who is to come” (1:4) is on the side of human beings in life’s struggle. Liberation is accomplished by God’s intervention, not by human efforts (cf. Rom. 3:24–25). The notion of being released or set free from our sins (lysanti ek tōn hamartiōn hēmōn) is open to a wide range of conceptions as to the plight from which liberation is needed. John, speaking in the plural for himself and the churches, accepts ownership of sin. But in this book deliverance is projected on a wide canvas. “Sin” is not only transgression with a need for forgiveness or empowerment in the face of moral weakness (Fiorenza 1974, 225). It is also misperception of what is good. The poisoned seed of misperception was the original achievement of “the ancient Serpent” (Gen. 3:1; Rev. 12:9). For sin in all its expressions, the violent death of Jesus is the means of deliverance. God’s love comes first, however, and the self-giving of Jesus is the expression of God’s love. The converse is false. God’s love is the cause, not the result, of Jesus’s self-giving.

The exclamation has a further application that is both political and priestly (Fiorenza 1974). In political terms, the reversal of fortune for the believers is spectacular, but the priestly connotation is more defining. The companies of believers in Asia Minor are participants in a new exodus. God calls them to be “for me a priestly kingdom [basileion hierateuma, LXX] and a holy nation” (Exod. 19:6; cf. Isa. 61:6). This means vocation and witness for the believers, not political hegemony, and the call of ancient Israel is now actualized in the churches. The astounding “transfer” of status is best understood as realization rather than supersession. Revelation’s high view of the church in the first three chapters cannot be surpassed.

“Hope,” Signed Alpha and Omega (1:7–8)

1:7–8. No sooner has John paid an exclamatory tribute to Jesus Christ for his accomplishment than he turns to contemplate the result. Look! He is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him—even those who pierced him—and all the tribes of the earth will mourn deeply and sincerely because of him. That’s how it will be! Amen! (1:7). My translation requires an explanation, b...