Resurrection and Identity Formation in Revelation
(avg. read time: 39–78 mins.)
In my planned series on resurrection in the NT, Revelation will be getting its own volume (as will Hebrews). As with Hebrews, Revelation has some notably idiomatic ways of referring to resurrection relative to the rest of the NT, as well as some underappreciated commonalities with the rest of the NT in this regard that provide the impetus for giving this text its own treatment. As a preview of what is to come that will also involve extensive interaction with scholarship on the book, I first supply my own engagement with the primary text that is based on something I wrote for Lent a few years ago.
The basic idea I wish to pursue here is that resurrection—both Jesus’s and the believers’—serves an important function in Revelation that has not received sufficient recognition to this point. One reason for this ignoring of the function is that resurrection does not explicitly appear that often in Revelation, and often when it does appear it is tied with language that is not typical resurrection language in the NT. Instead, resurrection is tied with certain key themes in Revelation that also feature in John’s project of identity formation to an audience that has given mixed responses to the pervasive, multifarious challenge of choosing between assimilation to context and allegiance to Christ (3:10; 6; 8–9; 11:7–10, 17–18; 13; 14:9–20; 16; 17:1–5, 8, 14–18; 18:2–3, 9–24; 19:1–3, 15–21; cf. John 7:7; 1 John 2:15–17; 3:1, 13, 16–17; 4:1, 3–5, 17; 5:19). On the one hand, it is a feature of his Christology, which is part of the foundation of his eschatology. On the other hand, it plays both explicit and implicit roles in the eschatological goal of the book in the last three chapters. In between these two poles, resurrection is essential to the victory language of Revelation that is more frequent here than in the rest of the NT combined and particularly to the participatory victory theme that is woven throughout this victory language and is made especially clear in five texts. In order to grasp how this link between resurrection and identity formation functions, it is best to proceed through this book in order of contents, mostly, rather than by theme.
The Narrative Framework of the Gospel
The first relevant text for us is in the first chapter in reference to Jesus Christ, who John describes as the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead and the ruler of the kings of the earth (1:5). Indeed, the three appellations in this verse are correlated to the three-stage gospel narrative of his death (as a faithful witness), resurrection (as firstborn from the dead), and exaltation (as ruler over the kings of the earth). In one sense, the reference to him as “faithful” can overlap significantly in its meaning with “true” (as in Greek translations of the Hebrew root of “amen”), meaning that Jesus is the true witness, the one with unimpeachable integrity. This seems to be the sense in the cases where the word pair “faithful” and “true” appear elsewhere in John, either in reference to Jesus (3:14; 19:11) or the message of the new creation (21:5; 22:6), where the word pair expresses the surety that this consummate promise will come to pass just as the others have come to pass through Jesus, God’s witness. In another sense, the adjective is applied to Christians who hold fast to their testimony in the face of suffering and death (2:10, 13; 17:14). This sense is also likely to be present in the case of Jesus, who was God’s witness unto death and paved the way for those who follow his path of witnessing to resurrection to everlasting life on the other side of death. Indeed, in other cases where a “witness” is referred to, apart from Jesus, the person(s) in question has faced or will face suffering and death for their testimony (2:13; 11:3; 17:6). In many cases, this is also true of the associated vocabulary of “testimony” (1:9; 6:9; 11:7; 12:17; 20:4). Thus far, these witnesses share with Jesus the testimony unto death, but because of what happened with Jesus—as Revelation itself will lay out in due course—these witnesses will also share in the resurrection of that prime Faithful Witness. While some of Jesus’s appellations apply to him alone, others, such as this one, are meant to link him with his followers to show them that they are participating in the story he has already enacted.
The reason why they are able to participate in this story and to reach the same goal Jesus reached by the blood he shed for the forgiveness of sins is because of what is indicated by his second appellation: the firstborn of the dead. This statement is similar to Col 1:18—except that the latter adds the preposition ἐκ to the phrase to differentiate it further from the similar phrase in 1:15—and both texts refer to resurrection. The description of Jesus as πρωτότοκος does not in and of itself imply a relation to others who are born later, as the term is at times used to signify Jesus’s preeminence (as in Col 1:15, as well as Heb 1:6). Surely, both Col 1:18 and Rev 1:5 have this shade of meaning as well, as both texts have contexts that connect Jesus’s resurrection to his exalted authority. But in both contexts (as well as Rom 8:29), it is also clear that Jesus does indeed function as the firstborn of a family. In Col 1:18, this is indicated by the reference to Jesus as head of the body that is the church and that in a similar way his “birth” out of death is the first of others. In Rev 1:5, this is indicated by the reference to Jesus as the faithful witness, implying that other faithful witnesses will become like him in being born from the dead in the event of resurrection. This future is secured by Jesus already blazing the trail in his death and resurrection and by his blood that liberates those who follow him from their sins. Indeed, Jesus’s resurrection enables and ensures all of his action that brings about the future salvation, not least because his resurrection is connected to his exaltation to ruling over the world. The future is in his hands. The believers simply must persevere in faithfulness to inherit that future.
Indeed, Jesus has already made them to be a kingdom and priests to God. Revelation invokes this image multiple times hereafter, explicitly in 5:10 and with some more extensive description in 20:4–6, both of which I will address below. In short, John is saying that Jesus has already accomplished—and will yet consummate this goal further in the anticipated future—making his covenant community into the fulfillment of God’s covenant community per Exod 19:4–6. God spoke these words to Moses to say to the Israelites after they arrived at Sinai subsequent to the exodus out of Egypt. As is typical in these statements of covenantal relationships, the statement of who God is and what God has done is the foundation for covenant communal identity and covenant communal responsibility. This is as true for the Revelation text as it is for the Exodus text. This connection between the holy rule of Christ and the holy rule of his people here is also similar to the scene in Dan 7 where the vindicated Son of Man represents the holy people of God and their rule over his world, along with the reception of glory and dominion. In the same ways, Jesus’s death (signified here by his blood), resurrection (signified here by being the firstborn of the dead), and exaltation (signified here by his being the ruler of the kings of the earth) establish this framework of the identity of believers as a kingdom and priests that will be relevant to everything else that John says about believers in this work. As in Exodus, the salvific event by God brings about the covenantal identity of God’s people. As in Daniel, those who share in the vindication of Christ (which also implies sharing in his death, as the suffering righteous in Daniel are eventually shown to experience resurrection as their vindication) will also share in his kingdom.
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