[The angel] said to me, "The waters that you saw, where the prostitute sits, are peoples and crowds and nations and languages. The ten horns, that you saw, and the beast, these will come to hate the prostitute, and she will be made desolate and naked, and they will eat her flesh and burn her up with fire. Rev. 17:15, 16.
Texts such as this disturb many readers of Revelation--and understandably so. A woman is brutalized, cannibalized, and left naked and desolate. That sounds like a major atrocity to contemporary ears. While the Babylon represented here was herself certainly brutal and violent, does that justify the use of such violent images in a biblical book? If television depicted such a scene, we would rush to turn it off so it would not scar our children.
But perhaps we are not seeing the whole picture in this text. I am reminded of a business establishment in Philadelphia that put up a scandalous sign: "We would rather do business with a thousand Arab terrorists than a single Jew." Now, Philadelphia is the city of brotherly love and has plenty of sensitive people in it (including Jews). You would think that crowds of people would have come to protest that sign. I would have expected the governor of Pennsylvania to call out the National Guard in case of rioting. Yet not a single person protested the sign, not even in the Jewish community.! What was going on?
You had to see the sign in its larger context to understand. The business establishment was Goldberg's Funeral Home. If anyone was outraged, it was Arab terrorists, and they weren't talking! The sign was not an expression of hostility to Jews, but rather a wish that Jews would have long life.
The violence in Revelation is also a matter of context. On the surface it appears that God overcomes evil by the use of forces just as brutal and violent as those Babylon employed. Does that mean He is in the right because He has the might? Only if you ignore the larger context in the book of Revelation. You see, the agent of God's power is the Lamb (Rev. 17:14, 17) that was slain (Rev. 5:6). The violence by which Jesus conquers Babylon is ultimately the violence done to Him.
Although images of battle appear in the book of Revelation, God never calls His people to use violence in His behalf. They are summoned instead to suffer as the Lamb did, overcoming not with the sword, but by the word of their testimony (Rev. 12:11). In the end Babylon's violence leads to her own destruction (Rev. 13:10; 18:5-7). But the sacrifice of the Lamb and His followers results in a world without any violence at all (Rev. 21:4).
Lord, I am in awe as I consider the self-sacrificing path You took to end hatred and violence in the universe. I want to be more like You.
Texts such as this disturb many readers of Revelation--and understandably so. A woman is brutalized, cannibalized, and left naked and desolate. That sounds like a major atrocity to contemporary ears. While the Babylon represented here was herself certainly brutal and violent, does that justify the use of such violent images in a biblical book? If television depicted such a scene, we would rush to turn it off so it would not scar our children.
But perhaps we are not seeing the whole picture in this text. I am reminded of a business establishment in Philadelphia that put up a scandalous sign: "We would rather do business with a thousand Arab terrorists than a single Jew." Now, Philadelphia is the city of brotherly love and has plenty of sensitive people in it (including Jews). You would think that crowds of people would have come to protest that sign. I would have expected the governor of Pennsylvania to call out the National Guard in case of rioting. Yet not a single person protested the sign, not even in the Jewish community.! What was going on?
You had to see the sign in its larger context to understand. The business establishment was Goldberg's Funeral Home. If anyone was outraged, it was Arab terrorists, and they weren't talking! The sign was not an expression of hostility to Jews, but rather a wish that Jews would have long life.
The violence in Revelation is also a matter of context. On the surface it appears that God overcomes evil by the use of forces just as brutal and violent as those Babylon employed. Does that mean He is in the right because He has the might? Only if you ignore the larger context in the book of Revelation. You see, the agent of God's power is the Lamb (Rev. 17:14, 17) that was slain (Rev. 5:6). The violence by which Jesus conquers Babylon is ultimately the violence done to Him.
Although images of battle appear in the book of Revelation, God never calls His people to use violence in His behalf. They are summoned instead to suffer as the Lamb did, overcoming not with the sword, but by the word of their testimony (Rev. 12:11). In the end Babylon's violence leads to her own destruction (Rev. 13:10; 18:5-7). But the sacrifice of the Lamb and His followers results in a world without any violence at all (Rev. 21:4).
Lord, I am in awe as I consider the self-sacrificing path You took to end hatred and violence in the universe. I want to be more like You.
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