FLUID IMAGERY IN THE BOOK OF REVELATION

Those who attempt to understand this fascinating book in a logical and literal manner find themselves in an uphill fight. One of the many reasons is the way specific descriptions and images within it meld into one another and are transformed in a rather confusing manner. The intent of the author appears to be a parade of pictures as an almost psychedelic kaleidoscope that conveys the idea of the final incomprehensibility of the spiritual world to our limited understanding.

Follow the following rabbit trail for example:

    The whore in Revelation 17 is first seen sitting on many waters (v. 1) but also seated on a beast with seven heads at the same time (v. 3).

    It turns out that the seven heads are actually seven mountains (v. 9a), or is it seven kings instead (v. 9b)?

    But then we learn in v. 15 that the waters on which she is sitting are actually people and language groups.

    And at the end of chapter 17 we are told that the woman herself is “the great city,” identified earlier (17:5) as Babylon. However, going back a few chapters we are inexplicably informed that “the great city” is not Babylon at all, but actually Sodom, Egypt and Jerusalem all at the same time (11:8).

    And it is in that same “great city” that the two witnesses of God (11:3) are first described as two olive trees and then called two lampstands.

    All this brings up the question of whether these two “lampstands” are two of the seven churches portrayed as lampstands in Revelation 1:12-20. If so, which of the two churches of Rev. 2-3 are they?

I could go on in this vein even longer, but I think you get the general idea. And such fluidity in the imagery of Revelation extends to the heavenly personages themselves. This should not be surprising for those familiar with the theophanies which occur in the Old Testament, especially in Genesis. Thus, it is often hard to distinguish between appearances of God, an angel, the angel of God, and possibly the pre-incarnate Christ. And the same thing happens in this last book of the Bible.

Thus, the Lord God calls Himself “the Alpha and the Omega” in 1:8. But at the conclusion of Revelation, it is Christ who uses that same descriptor of Himself. Of course, such identification of the two is not unfamiliar to those who accept the concept of the Trinity.

Then, John is often privileged to hear the sound of a (great) voice from heaven or from the temple but it is unclear if it comes from one of the angelic beings, from God, or from Christ. For the latter possibility, remember that I Thessalonians 4:16 describes Christ coming from heaven accompanied by a loud cry of command. Such a heavenly voice speaks in passages such as Revelation 9:13; 10:4,8; 11:12; 16:1,17; 18:4; 19:4; etc.

But even more prone to misinterpretation are other passages, such as Revelation 10:1 in which a mighty angel is described as having a “face like the sun” and being “wrapped in a cloud.” It is tempting on the basis of those dual descriptions to identify him securely as Christ, who appears in 1:16 with “his face like the sun shining full” as well as appearing in the clouds in Revelation 1:7 and I Thessalonians 4:17. But to do so would be to relegate Christ to the mere role of an angel.

Then there is Revelation 14:14 in which John sees a mysterious person seated on a cloud who was “like the Son of Man” and has a golden crown on his head. That phrase in quotes definitely applies Christ in Revelation 1:13 as well as being Jesus' favorite self-description in the Gospel accounts. And even it comes from the vision in Daniel 7:13 in which the mysterious heavenly figure with that same designation has usually been taken as the pre-incarnate Christ. The reference to a crown of gold would seem to confirm that identification here. But if we jump to that seemingly logical conclusion, then we are faced with the unsupportable concept of even Christ Himself having to wait around on a cloud until an angel shows up to give him marching orders (Revelation 14:15).

Or we could start with the description of Christ found in Revelation 1:12-19 as one with eyes like a flame of fire having a sharp, two-edged sword coming out of his mouth. These same two characteristics are found in the person called The Word of God who is a rider on a white horse who comes to conquer and rule (Revelation 19:11-16). But the problem comes in when we consider the rider on a white horse in Revelation 6:1-2 who is also come to conquer. Most people would consider him to be Christ also. However, in the context of chapter 6 he is seen to be only one of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse who takes his orders from one of the four living creatures who surround God's throne. Again, that identification would relegate Christ to the mere servant of those creatures.

As you can see from the above examples, we must be very careful in getting dogmatic concerning the meaning of a particular image since it may be used in a variety of different ways within the same book of the Bible, especially when that book is Revelation.