We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.

How Revelation Uses Violent Images in an Anti-Violent Way
All the violent scenes in Revelation are symbols for the battle of truth and deception. They never involve literal violence. In fact, they symbolize ANTI-VIOLENCE. The ingenious way John helps us get free of deception of trust in violent power is by taking a standard violent symbol and juxtaposing it with a symbol that undermines its violence and reverses its violent meaning.
An interesting example of this is when John introduces the mysterious 144,000, which represent the army that fights with the Lamb. They are introduced in Revelation 7: 4: “Then I heard the number of those who were sealed: 144,000 from all the tribes of Israel.”
The 144,000 was a well known Jewish symbol of the army that would accompany the Messiah in a violent uprising against Israel’s foes to restore Israel to its place as a sovereign nation.
But this image of violence gets turned on its head. One example of this is found in Revelation 7:14: “These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”
If you read Revelation literally, you have to wonder how washing a robe in blood could make it white. Taken literally its absurd, but interpreted symbolically its profound because this washing of the robes is a Jewish military metaphor.
To be covered with another’s blood rendered you ceremonially unclean, so when Jewish warriors came back from battle covered with the blood of their enemies, they had to go through a purification bathing process before they could reenter society. Instead of washing OFF the blood of foes to become clean, these warriors are made clean by being washed IN blood – and it’s the blood of the one they followed into battle!
Many scholars believe John is not simply saying their sins are washed away by the blood of the lamb, though that is of course true. He is also saying that this army wears white linen because they shared in the blood of the Lamb.
They were willing to suffer with Christ. As it says in chapter 14, this 144,000 was willing to “follow the lamb wherever he goes,” even to the cross. While the standard image of the army of 144,000 following their messiah into battle was based on Babylon’s sword power, John has turned it on its head to communicate slain lamb power — the power of self-sacrificial love.
We are indeed part of an army, but not one that wins by shedding blood: we win by shedding our blood, just as Jesus did.
Category: General
Tags: Book of Revelation, Cruciform Theology, Non-Violence, Violence
Related Reading

Crucifixion of the Warrior God Update
Well, I’m happy to announce that Crucifixion of the Warrior God is now available for pre-order on Amazon! Like many of you, I found that the clearer I got about the non-violent, self-sacrificial, enemy-embracing love of God revealed in Christ, the more disturbed I became over those portraits of God in the Old Testament that…

A Revelation of Beauty Through Ugliness
In my recent post, Getting Honest About the Dark Side of the Bible, I enlisted no less an authority than John Calvin to support my claim that we need to be forthright in acknowledging that some of the portraits of God in the OT are, as he said, “savage” and “barbaric.” What else can we…

Divine Accommodation in the Early Church
One of the basic points made in The Crucifixion of the Warrior God is that the Old Testament reveals how God adjusts his revelation and instructions to accommodate the weakness of his covenant people. This is actually not a new observation as is reflected in a variety of ways throughout Church history. For example, in…

Violent Parables?
Some try to argue that Jesus did not make loving enemies and refraining from violence an absolute mandate. They make their case on the basis of several passages from the Gospels. The first concerns the cleansing of the temple which we addressed here, while the second is about how Jesus spoke harsh words to the…

The Cleansing of the Temple and Non-Violence
Jesus’ cleansing of the Temple is the most commonly cited example of those who allege that he did not absolutize loving enemies or refraining from violence. I submit that this episode implies nothing of the sort. First, it is important that we understand that this episode was not an expression of unpremeditated anger on Jesus’…

Podcast: Who is Allowed to Kill and Who Isn’t?
How could it have been ‘just’ to Kill Hitler but also not something a Christian should do? Greg wrestles with non-violence in a world where God uses the violence of others for his own will. http://traffic.libsyn.com/askgregboyd/Episode_0360.mp3