Jesus as High Priest in Revelation

(avg. read time: 4–8 mins.)

I have noted in my mini-commentary on Hebrews and in other posts on Hebrews how the christological presentation of Jesus as the heavenly high priest is a peculiar emphasis of that book. Of course, that does not mean it is not present elsewhere in the NT, as I have argued here for example, but that example and others simply convey how it is not as obvious and extensive in other texts. I similarly argue, bringing together observations I have made elsewhere, that Jesus is presented in an implicit fashion as the heavenly high priest in Revelation.

When John presents us with a series of narrative tags succinctly summarizing the major gospel events in 1:5, one of the events referenced is how Jesus released us from our sins by his blood. By this event and the others he constitutes the community of faith as “a kingdom, priests to God and to his Father” (1:6). This clearly relies on Exod 19:6 and God’s identification of the covenant community there. Jesus executes the will of God in this manner through making them a kingdom by virtue of his kingly authority and through making them priests by being God’s high priest himself. At least, that is what I take to be the implication here, for such an act of purification and consecration is the work of one with priestly authority. After all, the efficacy of his work is a result of the fact that he is God the Son, so that his blood could release from sins everlastingly, and he could communicate everlasting life, as well as the authority to share in his divine reign. This is the kind of argument pursued in Hebrews, but the similar imagery suggests that a similar idea is assumed here. Furthermore, in the rest of Revelation, as in Hebrews, Jesus is rightly presented as the priestly king of Ps 110 who acts in the sanctuary throne room, as we have seen here and here that the imagery of the heavenly sanctuary is linked with the heavenly throne room.

Other suggestive imagery appears later in ch. 1 with the vision of Jesus. John sees one like a Son of Man walking in the midst of seven golden lampstands, wearing a long robe girded with a golden sash, with a head and hair white like wool and snow, eyes like a blazing fire, feet like glowing burnished bronze, and a voice like the sound of many waters. The reference to one “like a Son of Man” is a clear reference to the figure in Dan 7, who in the fullness of time would come to be known as Jesus, the one who would call himself the Son of Man in his own teaching (so distinctively that despite his plethora of self-references in this way, the term only appears sparingly outside of the Gospels in Acts and Revelation). Likewise, the imagery of having the hair of his head be white like snow derives from the description of the Ancient of Days in Dan 7:9. Other descriptions for have less precise equivalence to the Ancient of Days in that text. The golden lampstands also evoke sacred space imagery of the tabernacle and temple, though here it is in reference to the heavenly counterpart. The attire he wears could be priestly, even as later imagery in Revelation implies (15:6), or it could simply signify his majesty. I am inclined to think the former is the case because of his operating in sacred space here and because of how the sanctuary and throne room are linked in Revelation. The eyes of blazing fire and feet like burnished bronze derive from and expand on imagery in Dan 10:6 to describe the angel who appeared to Daniel to give him his last message to record. The voice like the sound of many waters recalls the description of God’s voice in Ezek 1:24 and 43:2 (cf. Rev 19:6). In short, Jesus draws together kingly, priestly, and prophetic hopes and fulfills them all as the one who shares God’s authority, functions as the true high priest enabling people to have communion with God (including by interceding for them, atoning for them, and sanctifying them), and is more glorious in appearance and authoritative in speech than any angel who gave a message to a prophet. He is the unifier of all of salvation history and its various institutions.

Once the vision of the setting of heaven and of the ruler of heaven are established, ch. 5 incites the plot of the rest of Revelation with the question of who will open the scroll that is in the right hand of the one sitting on the throne. The Lamb is said to take the scroll from the one who sits on the throne (5:7), even as he is said to occupy the throne himself. This fits with how the Lamb here and elsewhere in the NT is described in terms of the executor of God’s will. This is further communicated through the fact that the Lamb is said to have “purchased for God by your blood from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation, and made them to our God a kingdom and priests” (5:9–10; cf. 3:21; 20:6; 22:5). As with the text from ch. 1, in making them a kingdom and priests, we see the execution of God’s will for establishing his holy kingdom, making it a kingdom of priests (cf. Exod 19:6) and bringing to completion his will for humans to be priestly kings as the bearers of his image and likeness (Gen 1–2; Ps 8; see here, here, here, and here for more). And this is accomplished by the one who is himself the king and high priest in God’s kingdom.

Now, it is worth observing that Jesus is primarily presented in the imagery of the Lamb in Revelation (5:6, 8, 12–13; 6:1, 16; 7:9–10, 14, 17; 12:11; 13:8; 14:1, 4, 10; 15:3; 17:14; 19:7, 9; 21:9, 14, 22–23, 27; 22:1, 3). We have previously explored uses of this imagery here, here, here, and here. But the fact that the focus is on him offering himself and shedding his own blood for others does not at all undermine an understanding of him as high priest. This is aptly demonstrated by Hebrews, where we are reminded both that Jesus was and is acting as high priest and that his offering as high priest was nothing other than himself. The purifying effects of his blood are also stressed in both books (7:14; 22:14; cf. 12:11; 19:13). Moreover, as in Hebrews, he is the priestly king, as his altar is in proximity to his throne (8:3–5; cf. 6:9; 9:13; 14:18; 16:7).

As I have said previously, the linkage of the sanctuary with the throne is not some notion new to Revelation. God’s throne is biblically linked with God’s sanctuary in some fashion in both the heavenly reality and the earthly counterpart, particularly in the ark of the covenant and its mercy seat (1 Sam 4:4; 2 Sam 6:2 // 1 Chr 13:6; 2 Kgs 19:15; Pss 11:4; 80:1; 96; 99:1; Isa 6:1; 37:16; 66:1–2; Jer 3:16–17; Ezek 10; 37:24–28; 43:1–12; Zech 14:9, 16–21). Likewise, Ps 110, a popular text for NT Christology, further upholds the imagery of the priestly king, as the Lord who sits at the right hand of the Lord in v. 1 is also said to be a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek (himself a priestly king) in v. 4. The Israelite king could also function in a priestly capacity, as seen in 2 Sam 6:14, 17–18; 8:18; 1 Kgs 8:14, 55, and 62–64. Indeed, it should hardly be surprising that the divine throne room would at the same time “double” as a sanctuary of worship in light of these contexts, and that the golden altar should be before the throne in the heavenly sanctuary as it was before the ark of the covenant in the earthly one (Exod 40:5, 26; 1 Kgs 6:22; 7:48). And so too does the ark of the covenant appear here in the heavenly scene of Rev 11:19.

The ties between the sanctuary and the throne room are conveyed in other ways in Revelation as well. For example, it is notable how angels at various points are presented as both royal emissaries and priestly attendants. This is apparent in the imagery of the altar in ch. 8, and it is also indicated throughout chs. 14–16. Note how the angels go out from the sanctuary with commands from God or in execution of the same in 14:15, 17; and 15:6. In 15:6 in particular, the angels are dressed in priestly fashion. Unlike in Hebrews, the narration of the operation of the heavenly sanctuary as portrayed in Revelation is not about making atonement, as that is in the past, but it is now focused on the execution of God’s will for judgment and salvation, the implementation of his royal decrees from the throne, the comfort of his people, and, in the process, preparing earth for the heavenly sanctuary to come from heaven to earth in the form of the new Jerusalem.

In such preparation, judgment must be executed. Thus, the angels who carry the seven bowls come from the sanctuary to pour them out upon the earth. At that point in the story, John tells us that the sanctuary was filled “with smoke from the glory of God and from his power, and nobody was able to enter into the temple/sanctuary until the seven plagues/judgments of the seven angels should be completed” (15:8). This fits other scenes in the earthly sanctuary observed in the OT (Exod 40:34–35; 1 Kgs 8:10–11 // 2 Chr 5:13–14; 2 Chr 7:1–2; Ezek 10:4). Moreover, when the seven bowls are poured out, a voice is said to come “out of the sanctuary from the throne” (ἐκ τοῦ ναοῦ ἀπὸ τοῦ θρόνου; 16:17). This linking of the throne with the sanctuary and God’s glory also fits what we have observed in the vision of Stephen in Acts 7:55–56, where Jesus is also presented in implicitly high priestly fashion.