What does Revelation tell us about the human condition?
I have contributed a chapter to a volume actualization side by side year onAnthropology of the New Testament, exploring Revelation's depiction of the man condition. I include here some paragraphs from my introduction, and the conclusion. Revelation'due south anthropology (like much else about it!) is less straightforward and less predictable than usually thought.
Excavating the anthropology of the Book of Revelation holds some unique challenges. Inside the Pauline corpus, although we do not detect doctrinal statements every bit such, there is no shortage of theological cloth to draw on. Within the gospels, we are offered paradigmatic examples of healing, deliverance and forgiveness, which throw light on the human condition, human need and the route to homo wholeness. In contrast to the Pauline correspondences, though in mutual with the Gospels, much of the material in Revelation is in narrative class, and so Revelation's distinctive anthropological perspective needs to be inferred from the elements of the narrative.i Unlike the Gospels, though, Revelation is hardly conventional narrative, so the usual tools of narrative criticism (plot, label, point of view, narrative time, role of the narrator, and so on) practice not utilize straightforwardly.
A fruitful fashion into questions of anthropology is to expect at the terms used in the text for human figures and humanity, observing how they part within the narrative and where they occur in both narrative space and narrative time. This allows us to focus on both the metaphorical/symbolic significance of the terms used and structural features related to their occurrence, thus addressing direct some of the distinctive aspects of Revelation'southward narrative approach. The almost pregnant terms relating to human figures are the names of John himself and Jesus, and both of these offering important insights into Revelation'southward anthropology. Two important related collective terms, the 'kings of the earth' and the 'inhabitants of the globe' are analysed adjacent, followed by the named individuals and groups in the messages to the 7 assemblies in chs. 2 and 3. Finally, the remaining commonage terms are assessed prior to last observations well-nigh how Revelation depicts humanity.
(Here follows the main actual of the analysis, before drawing these conclusions.)
In the text of Revelation nosotros are offered a rich tapestry in the delineation of humanity. On the ane manus, the general descriptions of humanity highlight the variegation of power and ethnicity, and make this variety more clearly visible than any other New Testament writing. On the other manus, the item Christian congregations (assemblies) are depicted equally very mixed in their struggle to maintain faithfulness in their calling as followers of the lamb. Some are doing well; others are finding it hard to resist misleading didactics and influences; some appear to be at the betoken of fatal compromise. In both these descriptions of humanity (the general and the particular), the text makes space for the mundane realities of starting time-century life.
Against this variegated reality, Revelation also depicts humanity in 'ideal' categories, which involve a abrupt bifurcation between the redeemed and the rejected, and so anticipate future destiny. The tension inside the narrative, in each section of the volume, is largely generated by the question of how the diversity of humanity (within and across the assemblies) relates to these two possible destinies.
Some readings of Revelation take seen the bifurcation of these destinies as an all-pervasive binary, which makes the book a simplistic and potentially dangerous text. Merely the evidence of the mixed nature of the assemblies in chs. 2 and 3, and the ambiguities inherent in the terminology of the 'kings of the earth' and between the redeemed as the '144,000' and 'from every tribe, people, language and nation' demonstrate that the mapping of future destinies onto nowadays identity is fluid and indeterminate. The present age is construed as a period of testing and trial but consistently every bit an opportunity for 'repentance' (for those within the assemblies also as those without) which will affect one'southward final destiny.
Because of this, humanity is portrayed equally having the power as a moral agent with a qualified sense of free choice. The earth is shaped by catholic forces of proficient and evil (represented respectively by the multitude of angels in the text and the figures of the dragon, beasts, whore and false prophet) and, although these are powerful, they are not in themselves determinative of human destiny. They create a earth in catholic conflict, and considering of this, humanity does not have absolute liberty – only does accept the freedom to decide which side to be allied with. We are not completely costless, simply we are free enough to respond to the liberating invitation of God to share in the victory of the lamb. Redemption is constantly a possibility, and this involves liberation from oppressive powers of spiritual domination which operate in the sphere of the mundane and the political.
This sense of moral responsibility is reinforced by the effigy of John, who is a well-nigh-model of faithful witness but who must choose to commit to this path, and the qualified confidence in the procedure of revelation. God's perspective and insight on the way the world is and the choices faced by the Christian communities is not expressed in unqualified autocratic terms, only must be listened to, received and acted upon.
The theme of creation is prominent in the text, in the authority of God as creator, in the praise of his power as creator and in the final goal of the cosmos being the renewal and redemption of the created order. The notion of humanity as created in the epitome of God can only be inferred from this rather than existence expressed explicitly. The sin of humanity is in the failure to worship the true God, and humanity's redemption comes from the sacrifice of the Lamb upon the throne in breaking the power of all false claimants to worship, and liberating humanity to experience the victory of keeping faith every bit truthful witnesses and true worshippers.
Humanity in Revelation is portrayed as inhabiting a specific chronological fourth dimension and a specific cultural, social and political space. Simply these locations are not of absolute importance. Spatially, the redeemed in some sense already inhabit the heavenly reality, and then that both vertical (heaven/globe) and temporal (past/hereafter/ present) distinctions are relativized. To go a follower of the lamb is to enter into a sense of history as the story of God's faithful dealings with his people in the past, and the eschatological story of God'south redemption and renewal of the whole of cosmos. At the Stop, the space occupied past the people of God in the New Jerusalem is also the space occupied by the presence of God; the metropolis is a cube, rep-resenting the Holy of Holies, and the whole city shines with the low-cal of the glory of the presence of God (Rev 21:23).
For these reasons, Revelation'south anthropology is both realistic – in that information technology expounds the complexities of life and organized religion as they are experienced in practise – and idealistic – in that the text constantly holds out the promise of clarity and perfection in the eschaton. The comfort of the text lies in the possibility of locating humanity's messy reality in the ideal vision of human destiny; the challenge of the text lies in the urgency of the need to do and then.
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