For The Church

Some of the roles John sets forth in Revelation lack appeal for modern readers, just as they would have for John’s live audience. As creatures, humans tend to avoid pain, not embrace roles that might lead to suffering. Let alone death. John exhibits pastoral concern in Revelation, compelling him to esteem those taking up the role of being slaughtered for Christ. The general hue of Revelation places believers in the cross-hairs of spiritual war, and in Rev 6:9, 18:24, and 20:4 John lauds those who have embraced the role of suffering for their faith even to the point of death. 

The Slaughtered Ones Heard in Heaven

Revelation can be seen as a protracted answer to the saints’s question John hears when the sixth seal is broken, “Lord, the one who is holy and true, how long until you judge those who live on the earth and avenge our blood?” (Rev 6:10, CSB). John notes that the ones crying out to God for justice are those who had been slaughtered because of God’s word and their testimony of Christ (Rev 6:9). The role of being slaughtered or martyred in Rev 6:9 and in Rev 18:24 expresses the highest degree of faithfulness to Christ. Beale states it clearly: “Since the symbol of identity for all Christians is the slain Lamb, they all also can be referred to by the same metaphor.” 

Two ideas in Rev 6:9 underscore the saints’ devotion to God as they cry out for justice. First, John’s grammatical choice of “those who had been slaughtered” portrays the violent means of the martyrs’ deaths as yet vivid and in full color. Even if their deaths were decades before, the effects and violent frame of those deaths cast a shadow extending to the very moment when they cry out for God to avenge their blood. The slaughter they endured was thus an antecedent action that placed the saints in the resulting state implied by the slaughtering event. To be slaughtered is to die violently with scars and visible effects that forever mark a person as having been slaughtered.

Further, the nearness and proximity of the violent death of the martyrs anticipates John’s description of why the saints were slaughtered. At the conclusion of Rev 6:9, John notes that the saints had been martyred because of their continuous, consistent testimony of Christ. Those who acted faithfully, even to the point of being slaughtered, did so after fulfilling the role of testifying to the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. The saints were not one-offs or kamikaze-like actors; instead, regularly as believers, they were holding fast in the role of witness.

Second, the slaughtered ones’ testimony was related to the word of God. God’s word and the testimony of the martyrs, in this context, must be understood not only as two sides of one coin but the latter as the expression of the former. The martyrs personally testified God’s word as revealed in Christ and they, not God’s word, shed blood for that testimony. God’s word guided their lives and was worth their lives.  

The Slaughtered Ones Rejected on Earth

John’s description of the fall of Babylon underscores God’s just wrath. In Rev 18:21–23, John employs a series of emphatic negations to note that the very characteristics for which Babylon was attractive would cease at the moment of God’s judgment. Everything earthly in her would be condemned. Why? Babylon is portrayed not only as the city of neon and glitz but blood and gore—of God’s people. “In her was found the blood of prophets and saints, and of all those slaughtered on the earth” (Rev 18:24). 

Just as in Rev 6:9, here in Rev 18:24 as well, the interpretation of the conjunction “and” plays a formative role in understanding the verse. Does it coordinate three separate groups of humanity or three labels/functional roles for one group of humanity? The flexibility of descriptors like saints, prophets, and slaves, with not only martyrdom but also general suffering in Revelation, portrays a broad spectrum of persecution that the single people of God have endured across the ages (à la Hebrews 11). Thus Rev 18:24 refers to one group, and God’s people, the saints are faithful in their prophetic calling, they fulfill the role of suffering for their testimony, sometimes unto death.

The Behaded Raised to Reign

We noted that in John’s vision of the fifth seal (Rev 6:9–11), the slaughtered ones suffered because of God’s word and their testimony. In Rev 20:4, John writes that the testimony of believers and God’s word are why believers are beheaded: “Then I saw thrones, and people seated on them who were given authority to judge. I also saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony about Jesus and because of the word of God.” On the spectrum of suffering, slaughter and beheading rank on the high extreme. And in Rev 6:9 and 20:4, those faithful in the role of suffering even unto death are rewarded, in the former with white robes and in the latter with thrones upon which they will rule and reign with Christ.

The Role of Martyr Without the Martyr Complex

Jesus called his disciples to take up their cross and follow him (Matt 16:24; Mark 8:34; Luke 9:23). They knew what Jesus meant. Luke notes that when large crowds were traveling with Jesus, he told them that if they wanted to follow him, they would, comparatively speaking, have to hate their closest family members and even their own lives to be his disciples (Luke 14:25–27). Jesus does not call us to look for ways to suffer but to know that we will suffer for him. Disciples have an endurance mindset because of the value of knowing and being known of Jesus. John’s esteem for those who have been slaughtered and those who have been martyred reminds us that our faith is valuable.

¹ This is the fifth entry in a series of FTC blog posts noting how John uses a particular grammatical form, the articular substantival participle, for specific words in Revelation that resemble a playwright’s roles in a script.

² σφάζω in Rev 6:9; 18:24; πελεκίζω in Rev 20:4.

³ G.K. Beale, The Book of Revelation: A Commentary on the Greek Text, NIGTC (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), 28, 392.

⁴ Beale, Revelation, 391.

⁵ J. Scott Duvall writes, “These Christian martyrs suffered and died specifically because of their witness” (The Heart of Revelation [Grand Rapids: Baker, 2016], 109).

⁶ Babylon will never be found again (v. 21), the sounds of musicians will never be heard again (v. 22a), craftsman will never be found again (v. 22b), the sound of a mill will never be heard again (v. 22c), lamp light will never be seen again (v. 23a), the voice of bride and bridegroom will never be found again (v. 23b).

⁷ Rev 11:18; 12:11; 16:6; 17:6; 19:2.

⁸ “Throughout Revelation, God’s people are not simply called to avoid evil and endure suffering, they are pictured as faithful witnesses and called to faithfully bear testimony to Jesus Christ, conquering by being faithful even to the point of death” (Andreas J. Köstenberger and Gregory Goswell, Biblical Theology: A Canonical, Thematic, and Ethical Approach [Wheaton: Crossway, 2023], 681).

₉ David E. Aune notes that in the ancient world, beheadings were a public affair signaled by a trumpet so that the crowd could observe the punishment for the crime (Revelation 17–22, vol. 52C of Word Biblical Commentary [Dallas: Word, 1998], 1086-87). 

I have been a pastor for twenty-five years. That’s a lot of Bible reading and hearing. And I can’t wait for the next time my church gathers so we can read and hear the word together. I am fascinated by John’s emphasis on Revelation as Scripture and how he describes reading and hearing Scripture in Revelation. John establishes formal roles of reading and hearing Revelation, the final book of Scripture, so the word of God will forever guide the church.

The One Who Reads God’s Word

John begins Revelation by noting two streams of communication. What he is writing has come from God through Jesus through an angel to John. John’s words are the very words of God. The first communication stream in Rev 1:1–2 could be labeled spatially as a descending communication stream. The second stream is horizontal, described in Rev 1:3. John’s grammatical choices portray reading, hearing, and following (what was heard in the reading) like roles believers should embrace as a part of their Christian life. 

The link between Rev 1:2 and 3 is a text, words on some material form. John wrote, and he envisions believers embracing the role of the public reader. The public reading of Scripture that John expects pre-dates the synagogue communities and churches of his day, finding its early precedent in Moses’s reading of the law to Israel as they prepared to cross the Jordan River in Deuteronomy 27–32. After the exiles returned to Jerusalem, they gathered to hear the law read publicly (see Nehemiah 8). When the synagogue communities in Palestine and throughout the Mediterranean region gathered, reading Scripture was a part of their agenda (Luke 4:16-21; Acts 13:13-15, 27, 42-44; 15:21). Paul exhorted Timothy to devote himself to the public reading of Scripture (1 Tim 4:13) and told the Colossians to exchange letters with the Laodiceans so that both letters could be read in both churches (Col 4:16).

The one taking up the role of reading Scripture was not only blessed, he was a blessing. Not simply a blessing, but he was even necessary since the vast majority of the ancient world could not read. Therefore, those who read Scripture to the community enabled God’s people to hear his word and be blessed in the hearing.

The One Who Hears God’s Word

Those faithful in the role of hearing God’s word read to them, John notes in Rev 1:3, are indeed blessed. The proverbial predicate nominative “blessed” recalls many points in the storyline of Scripture, including Psalm 1 and Jesus’s Beatitudes at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5:3–12) and Sermon on the Plain (Luke 6:20–22). The faithful enjoy God’s blessing for many activities—including hearing Scripture.

The role of hearing John’s prophecy—the culmination of Scripture—is not to be a one-off endeavor. Those who hear God’s word and enjoy its blessing do not stand on the stage once but repeatedly—with the company of hearers. The axiomatic portrait of hearing and blessing in Rev 1:3 is carried not only by the use of blessed as the predicate nominative but also through John’s grammatical choice describing those who hear, and hear, and hear. “Play it again!” John envisions hearers of Revelation exclaiming. John describes a crowded stage of actors that includes a reader and many hearers who respond to what they have heard by keeping their testimony of Christ to the end despite danger and opposition that will come upon them precisely because they are hearing and heeding John’s prophetic message. 

And at the end of Revelation, John returns to the role of those hearing God’s word. In Rev 22:17, he writes, “Both the Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come!’ Let anyone who hears, say, ‘Come!’ Let the one who is thirsty come. Let the one who desires take the water of life freely” (CSB). The one who hears is the first of three roles that John would have his readers embrace. The placement of the role of hearing in Rev 22:17 is noteworthy for two reasons. First, at the broader discourse level of Revelation, it returns us to Rev 1:3 and further accentuates the communicative string John describes in Rev 1:1-3. Anyone who has heard the apocalypse has heard God’s revelation through Jesus, an angel, and John. Second, at the micro discourse level of Rev 22:17, the one who hears is the first of three roles, including desiring and thirsting. That hearing is listed first in this string of roles implies that hearing what John has written stimulates the hearer’s senses to seek God. 

John portrays the role of hearing such that those embracing God’s word as it is read would undertake two specific tasks. First, they would long for John’s message to be actualized. The hearer is to say, “Come!” John likely has in mind that those hearing his prophecy of Jesus’s victorious return in Rev 19:11–21 would long to see the rider on the white horse arrive to conquer evil and consummate his kingdom. Second, in Rev 22:18, John states, “I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues that are written in this book,” John admonishes those hearing his prophecy that they are stewards of God’s word. Because John has truthfully written what the angelic messengers revealed to him from Jesus from God, again recalling the authoritative communicative string outlined in Rev 1:1–3, those in the role of hearing John’s prophecy must maintain God’s word to the next generation unchanged. They must heed it faithfully, adding or subtracting nothing.

Feeling the Weight of the Word

All of this is serious business. If we read Scripture in public, we should attend to our words. Sometimes, we should read faster. For instance, a passage like Isaiah 40 is a long thought, and it would be good to pick up the pace so that the hearers sense the crescendo of Isaiah’s argument about God’s faithfulness. Sometimes, we need to read more slowly. Don’t hustle through John 1:1-18. We should familiarize ourselves with the words of a text so that when we read it, we can emphasize repeated words or phrases, pause without interrupting ideas, and give hearers a sense of the wholeness of Scripture. 

And when we hear the word, let’s airplane mode our devices and turn off all notifications. Prioritize the printed page so that as you listen and follow along, even in a different translation, you can follow the broader flow of thought surrounding that portion of Scripture. Be blessed in the reading and hearing of God’s word! 

¹ This is the first entry in a series on FTC noting how John uses a particular grammatical form, the articular substantival participle, for specific words in Revelation that resemble a playwright’s roles in a script.

² ἀναγινώσκω in Rev 1:3.

³ “Although the ‘scripturalization’ of Christian worship certainly became more formalized and regularized across time, both the importance and the impact of corporate reading of Scripture writings are evident from the outset of the Jesus-movement” (Larry W. Hurtado, Destroyer of the gods: Early Christian Distinctiveness in the Roman World [Waco: Baylor University Press, 2016], 108).

⁴ See especially Harry J. Gamble, Books and Readers in the Early Church: A History of Early Christian Texts (New Haven: Yale, 1995). 

⁵ ἀκούω in Rev 1:3; 22:17, 18.

₆ This is the first of seven beatitudes that John writes in Revelation (see also, 14:13; 16:15; 19:9; 20:6; 22:7, 14).

⁷ If, as David E. Aune states, “ancient authors not only chose words to convey the meanings they intended but also chose words whose sounds effectively communicated those meanings” (Revelation 1-5, WBC 52A [Dallas: Word, 1997], 21, italics original), we would expect no less concerning the final installment of Holy Scripture.