Thus in all these instances, as well as in the more general statement of 19:10, which does not give specific words of the Spirit, ‘the Spirit’ indicates the inspired utterance of Christian prophets, principally, in this context, John himself. The Spirit of prophecy brings the words of the exalted Christ to his people on earth, endorses on earth the words of heavenly revelations, and directs the prayers of the churches to their heavenly Lord. The Spirit in these references is the divine presence on earth, not in heaven, but unlike the seven Spirits which are ‘sent out into all the earth’ (5:6), the Spirit’s sphere is the churches, where he inspires the ministry of the Christian prophets to the rest of the community.
PROPHECY AS THE WITNESS OF JESUS
We have seen that the distinction between ‘the seven Spirits’ and ‘the Spirit’ is that the former represent the fulness of the divine Spirit, sent out from the presence of God, through Christ’s victory, in a mission to the whole world which is the prophetic witness of the churches to the world, whereas ‘the Spirit’ refers to Christian prophecy within the churches. ‘The Spirit’ speaks through the prophets to the churches; ‘the seven Spirits’ address the whole world through the churches. However, this does not mean that the two are unconnected. The notion of prophecy connects them. Prophecy as the Spirit’s message through prophets to the churches is designed to prepare and to enable the churches to bear their prophetic witness to the world, inspired by the Spirit.
A key statement is in 19:10: ‘the testimony of Jesus is the Spirit of prophecy’. Difficult as it is, this must mean that when the Spirit inspires prophecy, its content is the witness of jesus. In this context, the prophecy in question (and the only way Revelation uses the noun) is prophecy communicated by the Christian prophets to the churches. Most immediately, it is John’s own prophecy, the book of Revelation (cf. 1:3; 22:7, 18–19). So it is relevant to notice that the content of Revelation is said to be the witness of jesus, as well as the word of God (1:2), attested by Jesus himself (22:20) as well as by the angel who communicates it to John (22:16) and by John himself (1:2). But if the content of Christian prophecy, and Revelation in particular, is ‘the witness of Jesus’, and so the Christian prophets in their ministry to the churches can be called ‘those who hold the testimony of Jesus’ (the probable meaning of 19:10), it is by no means only the Christian prophets who witness as Jesus did. All Christians, in their witness to the world, are those who ‘hold the testimony of Jesus’ (12:17; cf. 6:9; 12:11; 17:6; 20:4). Moreover, the link between the witness of jesus and the word of God is found both in reference to Revelation itself as prophecy (1:2) and in reference to the Christian martyrs (6:9; 20:4).
Revelation clearly distinguishes between prophets and other Christians (11:18; 16:6; 18:20, 24; 22:9). But it can use the same terms for the prophecy given by the prophets to the churches and for the witness given by faithful Christians in general to the world. Only in the story of the two witnesses is the latter actually equated with prophecy (11:3, 6, 10). This does not mean that every Christian could be called a prophet, as the two witnesses themselves are, because the two witnesses are not, as it were, paradigmatic Christians, but symbolic individuals standing for the whole church. Each Christian is not a lamp-stand. Only a church is symbolized by a lampstand. It is not primarily each individual Christian’s witness to the world, but the church’s witness to the world which is depicted as prophetic in 11:3–13. Of course, every Christian is called on to participate in that witness, but this stops a little short of saying that each Christian is a prophet. It is relevant to note that, although witness itself, in Revelation, appears to be always verbal and although verbal witness is certainly required of every Christian when the circumstances demand it, it is also closely connected with obedience to the commandments of God (12:17).7
This suggests that the reason why Revelation extends the vocation of prophecy to the church as a whole is probably not because of the thought that all Christians, as members of the eschatological community on which the Spirit has been poured out (cf. Acts 2:17), are endowed with the Spirit of prophecy and so are actually (Acts 19:6), or at least potentially, prophets. This idea apparently had some influence in early Christianity, but the thought in Revelation is different. It is connected with the idea of the church’s newly revealed role of confronting the idolatry of Rome in a prophetic conflict, like that of Moses with Pharaoh and his magicians or of Elijah with Jezebel and her prophets of Baal, and in the power of the Spirit of prophecy winning the nations to the worship of the true God. The fact that the revelation of this role is the central content of John’s own prophecy accounts for the specially close correlation between the way he describes his own witness as prophet (1:2) and the way he describes the witness of Christians to the world. It also accounts for the virtual impossibility of deciding whether, in 10:11, John is commanded to prophesy to the nations, so that his own prophetic role is paradigmatic for the churches’ prophetic witness to the nations, or to prophesy about the nations, in a prophecy to the churches enabling them to prophesy to the nations.
We can return to 19:10 and consider the whole verse. When John offers to worship the angel, he is told: ‘You must not do that! I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers and sisters who hold the testimony of jesus. Worship God! For the testimony of jesus is the Spirit of prophecy.’ Probably the final sentence is more than an appended note explaining what the ‘testimony of Jesus’ is and therefore that John’s brothers and sisters who hold it are the prophets. It is more integrally connected with the point of the angel’s words. With the words ‘Worship God!’ the angel directs John back to the central theme of all prophecy and certainly of the revelation that is to be the theme of John’s prophecy. To distinguish the one true God and his righteousness from idolatry and its evils is the theme of true prophecy. It is the theme of the witness of jesus, certainly as that witness must be continued by his followers in the pagan cities of Asia. But, once again, it is equally the theme of John’s prophecy and the theme of the prophetic witness which his prophecy calls on the churches to bear to the nations.
When the incident is repeated, the angel’s words are: ‘You must not do that! I am a fellow servant with you and your brothers and sisters the prophets, and with those who keep the words of this book. Worship God!’ (22:9) Here the fellow servants are extended to include all faithful Christians who heed and obey John’s prophecy along with the prophets themselves. This is an acknowledgment that the role to which Revelation calls all Christians is, in essence, the same as that of prophets: bearing the witness of jesus, remaining faithful in word and deed to the one true God and his righteousness.
THE PROPHETIC MESSAGES TO THE CHURCHES
We have seen that there are close links between, on the one hand, prophecy addressed to the churches and, on the other, the churches’ prophetic witness to the world. Both are the witness of jesus and the word of God. Both concern the truth of the one God and his righteousness. Both are inspired by the divine Spirit as the power of God’s truth in the world. Both concern the establishment of God’s kingdom in the world. Prophecy within the churches equips the churches to fulfil their prophetic ministry to the world, which is their indispensable role in the coming of God’s kingdom, the task to which it is the function of Revelation to call them.
Having understood this connexion between prophecy to the churches and the churches’ witness to the world, we can see more clearly the significance of the seven messages to the churches within the overall purpose of Revelation. Several features of them are worth noticing:
First, we may notice a dominant concern with truth in the messages. The churches are commended for not denying (2:13; 3:8). They are reproved for having a false reputation which hides the truth of their condition (3:1) or for deceiving themselves about their condition (3:17). The prophet Jezebel is charged with deceit (2:20). There are the false apostles, who say they are apostles but are not (2:2), just as there are those who lie, saying they are Jews but are not (2:9; 3:9). In every
message, with its opening ‘I know … ‘, Jesus Christ addresses the churches as the one who knows the real truth of their condition, despite misleading appearances (2:9), false reputations (3:1), false confidence (3:17) and slanders (2:9). Those who were probably claiming that outward participation in idolatry was permissible because what counts is only one’s inner integrity, he reminds that he sees the truth of hearts and minds (2:23). He walks among the lampstands, observing their real condition (2:1), and his eyes of flame penetrate the hidden truths of motives, thoughts and feelings (2:18). Thus the function of prophecy addressed to the churches is to expose the uncomfortable truth, just as the two witnesses torment the inhabitants of the earth by bringing home to them their sin (11:10).
Secondly, when Christ, in his relentless knowledge of the truth, has something against a church, the consequence is the alternative: repentance or judgment (2:5, 16; 3:3, 19). It is the same alternative with which the churches’ witness confronts the world (11:3; 14:6–11). (And notice how 14:12 indicates that the churches themselves are not beyond needing to heed the alternative presented to the worfcl in 14:6–11.)
Thirdly, Christ in his exposure of the truth of the churches appears in the role of’the faithful and true witness’, and ‘the Amen’ (3:14), that is, the divine truthfulness (Isa. 65:16). These titles appear at the head of the message to the church at Laodicea, probably not because they have more relevance to that church than to the others, but because Laodicea is the last of the seven. Like the description of Christ at the head of the first message, to Ephesus (2:1), they relate to Christ’s knowledge of all the churches. They characterize him as the one who gives truthful evidence. Those who accept his evidence against them repent. It proves salvific. To those who reject it, the evidence itself becomes their condemnation. The witness becomes the judge (cf. Jer. 42:5 with Rev. 3:14). In imagery which anticipates the description of the parousia (19:15), he threatens to make war against them with the sword of his mouth (2:16), which is his truthful word of witness and, consequently, condemnation.
The role of prophecy as the witness of jesus to the churches is thus entirely parallel to the witness of the churches, bearing the witness of jesus, to the world. Judgment at the parousia threatens the churches (2:16; 3:3; cf. 16:15) no less than the world. Prophecy warns of that judgment with salvific intent, just as does the churches’ witness to the world. And so there is no reason to suppose that the significant dictum, ‘I reprove and discipline those whom I love’ (3:19), applies only to Christ’s reproof of the churches, and not also to his churches’ witness to the world.
Fourthly, the domestic problems within the churches in part parallel Revelation’s depiction of the world ruled by the devil and the beasts. The complacent affluence of the Laodicean Christians (3:17) is reminiscent of Babylon’s exploitative self-indulgence (cf. 18:7). The idolizing of material prosperity characteristic of Rome here characterizes a whole church. Their repentance of this will be equivalent to coming out of Babylon, as God’s people are urged to do, renouncing her sins lest they share her judgment (18:4).
Even closer is the link between Jezebel and the Nicolaitans, on the one hand, and the enemies of God’s kingdom, on the other. Idolatry and fornication (2:14, 20) are not only characteristic evils of pagan society in general (9:20–1; cf. 21:8; 22:15): they are also the dominant characteristics respectively of the beast (chapter 13) and Babylon (chapter 17). What the Nicolaitans and Jezebel are urging is not some minor accommodation to the ways of the pagan society Christians have to live in, but complicity in that denial of the true God and his righteousness which characterizes the forces of evil incarnate in the Roman system. No wonder Jezebel is said to ‘deceive’ Christians (2:20) – a word used elsewhere in Revelation only of the devil, the false prophet and Babylon (12:9; 13:14; 18:23; 19:20; 20:3, 8, 10).
The point is made also by wordplay. The name of the Nicolaitans, followers of Nicolaus, which means ‘conquer the people’, alludes to Revelation’s keyword ‘conquer’ (nikaō). Their teaching made it possible for Christians to be successful in pagan society, but this was the beast’s success, a real conquest of the saints, winning them to his side, rather than the only apparent conquest he achieved by putting them to death. Hence the name Nicolaus is aptly explained by that of Balaam (2:14), the Old Testament false prophet who destroyed many of the Israelites by his plan to lure them into idolatry and fornication (Num. 25). With reference to this event, Jewish exegesis explained the name Balaam as meaning ‘destroy the people’ (b. Sanh. 105a).
Here we may also mention ‘those who say they are Jews but are not’ (2:8; 3:9), because they are virtually a domestic problem for churches with largely Jewish Christian leaders and members. Their estrangement from the synagogue was probably only recently complete as the non-Christian Jewish congregations disowned them, and even sometimes, it seems, denounced them to the authorities. Because the language about the non-Christian Jews (2:8; 3:9) now sounds offensively and dangerously anti-Semitic – and would be, if repeated outside its original context – it is important to recognize here an intra-Jewish dispute. This is not the Gentile church claiming to supersede Judaism, but a rift like that between the temple establishment and the Qumran community, who denounced their fellow-Jews as ‘an assembly of deceit and a congregation of Belial’ (1QH 2:22).
Moreover, it is not because they are not Christians that Revelation calls some non-Christian Jews in Smyrna and Philadelphia a ‘synagogue of Satan’. It is because they ‘slander’, i.e. lay false accusations, which is the activity of the devil (diabolos means One who makes false accusations’) and Satan (12:9; Satan means ‘accuser’ and by this period, when the reference is to the devil, it means ‘the one who makes false accusations’). It also links them with the beast, who blasphemes (slanders) not only God but also his people (13:6). By denouncing Christians to the authorities, claiming that Jewish Christians are not Jews and so should not enjoy the legal status of Judaism as a religion, they aid and abet the beast’s opposition to the worship of the true God. It is their own statement about Jewish Christians – that they ‘say they are Jews but are not’ – that Revelation turns against them. (Using Revelation’s own conceptuality, it would have to be said of later Christians who played the beast’s role against Jews, that they say they are Christians but are not.) In its context, the polemic against non-Christian Jews is an instance of the way the issues of the great conflict between the beast and the witnesses of jesus already impinge on the largely more domestic concerns of the seven messages.
Clearly a church which listens to the Nicolaitans or imitates Babylon cannot bear faithful witness to the truth and righteousness of God. The churches must be exposed to the power of divine truth in the Spirit’s words of prophecy, if they are to be the lampstands from which the seven Spirits can shine the light of truth into the world.
Finally, however, all seven messages end with encouragement and eschatological promise. Whether a church’s need is for repentance or simply for endurance, all are invited to ‘conquer’ so that they may inherit the eschatological promises. The Spirit’s prophetic ministry is both to expose the truth in this world of deceit and ambiguity, and to point to the eschatological age when the truth of all things will come to light. To live faithfully and courageously according to the truth of God now requires a vision of that eschatological future. This the Spirit gives, first in terms adapted to the situation of each church in each of the seven messages, then much more fully in the great climax of John’s whole visionary revelation: the vision of the New Jerusalem, to which we turn in our next chapter.
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1 The word πνεύμα occurs also in 11:11 ; 22:6, which I judge not to be references to the divine Spirit, and in 13:15; 16:13, 14; 18:2, which clearly are not.
2 Cf. the very similar passage Ps. 33:13–19; cf. also Ps. 34:15; Sir. 34:15–16.
3 See, e.g., Y. Congar, I Believe in the Holy Spirit, vol. 1 (New York: Seabury Press; London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1983), chapter 2.
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sp; 4 On this, cf. D. Hill, ‘Prophecy and Prophets in the Revelation of St John’, NTS 18 (1971–2), 401–18; and New Testament Prophecy (London: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1979), chapter 3.
5 For fuller discussion of these references, see R. Bauckham, ‘The Role of the Spirit in the Apocalypse’, EQ 52 (1980), 66–83; revised version (chapter 5) in Bauckham, The Climax of Prophecy.
6 Ezek. 3:12, 14; 8:3; 11:1, 24; 37:1; 43:5; Bel 36 (Theod.); 2 Bar. 6:3; Hermas, Vis. 1:3; 5:1; Josephus, Ant. 4.118; Pseudo-Philo, L.A.B. 28:6; cf. Did. 11:7–9; Polycrates, ap. Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. 5.24.2; Melito, ap. Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. 5.34.5.
7 Note also especially 14:12, which is another variation on the language of 6:9; 12:11, 17; 14:12; 20:4, but uniquely does not refer to verbal witness.
The Theology of the Book of Revelation Page 15