Quizzing the New Testament : Revelation

Answer: Winston Churchill's "We will fight on the beaches" speech

"He who overcomes will inherit all this, and I will be his God and he will be my son." (Revelation 21 v. 7)

John is writing to encourage Christians to stand firm in very difficult times and to trust that, in God, they will have the final victory. The key word is "overcome" which occurs nine times in the book.

Churchill's speech was given before the British House of Commons in 1940, when all seemed bleak in the war against Germany. He was brutally frank about the difficulties Britain was facing and that these would probably get worse. He clung to the hope, though, that victory would come in the end. The language of his concluding words comes very close to being a perfect summary of the book of Revelation:
"... we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old."

Answer: 7

There are seven churches, seven spirits, seven lampstands, seven stars, seven lamps, seven horns, seven eyes, seven seals, seven angels, seven trumpets, seven thunders, seven crowns, seven plagues, seven bowls, seven hills and seven kings. Need I say more?

In Hebrew numerology, seven is the number associated with God and spiritual perfection. Six is the number that represents humanity and, therefore, imperfection. It has been claimed that this is the origin of the phrase "at sixes and sevens" (adrift between the two) and of the superstition attached to 13 (their sum). In most of the ancient languages, letters also represented a numerical value. The phrase "KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS" (Revelation 19 v. 16), if translated into Aramaic, yields the number 777 when all its letters are added up. Likewise, the name of the emperor Nero gives 666 (described as "man's number" in chapter 13), the value of the antichrist beast.

Answer: Turkey

"On the Lord's Day I was in the Spirit, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet, which said: 'Write on a scroll what you see and send it to the seven churches: to Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea.'" (Revelation 1 v. 10-11)

The seven churches are located in what was the Roman province of Asia, so called because it was the first territory that they conquered in the continent. These are not the only churches in this area - Colossae and Troas, for example, are not listed. This has led to the suggestion that the seven churches are named because they were on a circular loop around which a messenger would travel with an epistle or other communication. Other churches would still be included, but as secondary messages from the original seven.

The nature of the persecution faced by these churches is unclear. The Roman emperor, Domitian (81-95 AD), re-established the cult of emperor worship and most scholars consider that the book was written during his lifetime. There was, however, no known empire-wide persecution of Christians under Domitian and it is most likely that any such action was at a local level.

Answer: A lamb

"I watched as the Lamb opened the first of the seven seals." (Revelation 6 v. 1)

In Revelation, John uses several different images to represent Jesus, one of which is that of the lamb.

The tradition symbolising Jesus as the lamb of God goes back to his death at the time of the Passover festival which, in turn, links back to the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt. At that time, God asked each Israelite household to kill a lamb, eat it, and daub its blood on their doorposts to ward off the angel of death. In later years, the Passover festival commemorated this event with the sacrifice of a lamb and a meal, the setting for Jesus' last supper with his disciples.

The early Christians also looked to verses from Isaiah 53 which they interpreted in the light of Jesus. There, Isaiah describes the "servant of God" in the language of sacrifice. He is "led like a lamb to the slaughter" (v. 7), and endures this suffering in order to bear people's sins.

Answer: Man-eating plants

Apart from earthquake, war and plague, the world also has to brace itself for more terrors, which are chronicled in chapters 6 to 9. These include death, famine, stars falling from the sky, tumbling mountains, thunder, lightning, hail, fire, blood, polluted water, darkness and incredibly scary locusts. And that's only the warm-up for what's to come later in the book!

Answer: Babylon

For the Jews, the Exodus was one of the Old Testament's most significant events, as was the later exile in Babylon. By the time that John was writing, however, Babylon's heyday was long in the past and it lay deserted. He is not, therefore, describing Babylon literally, but as a symbol of earthly power.

John never refers to Rome by name, an understandable omission when you consider what might have happened had the book fallen into the wrong hands. It does, however, appear very clear that it is to Rome that he is referring. This is, perhaps, clearest in the picture of a prostitute "sitting on a scarlet beast that was covered with blasphemous names and had seven heads and ten horns" (Revelation 17 v. 3). By way of explanation, we are pointed towards the fact that Rome is built upon seven hills:
"This calls for a mind with wisdom. The seven heads are seven hills on which the woman sits." (Revelation 17 v. 9).

Answer: Forehead

"He also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead, so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name." (Revelation 13 v. 16-17)

The number of the beast is 666 and, as we have seen, one possible explanation is that John is alluding to the emperor Nero. Nero committed suicide in 68 AD, several years before the date that most scholars attribute to the writing of Revelation. There was, however, a widespread myth ("Nero redivirus"), uncannily like the modern "Elvis is alive" phenomenon, that held that he would return. The myth is recorded in the work "Sibylline Oracles" and probably behind John's description of the beast thus:
"One of the heads of the beast seemed to have had a fatal wound, but the fatal wound had been healed." (Revelation 13 v. 3)

In the following chapter, the saints are also described as having God's mark printed upon their foreheads, which may allude back to the book of Ezekiel:
"Then the Lord called to the man clothed in linen who had the writing kit at his side and said to him, 'Go throughout the city of Jerusalem and put a mark on the foreheads of those who grieve and lament over all the detestable things that are done in it.'" (Ezekiel 9 v. 3-4).

Answer: Armageddon

"Then they gathered the kings together to the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon." (Revelation 16 v. 16)

The name Armageddon has found its way into popular usage but, as Har Megiddo, is actually a geographical site in Israel. Here is played out the last great battle between good and evil. Ultimately, evil is defeated. The devil, beast and false prophet are thrown into a lake of burning sulphur for eternity (Revelation 20 v. 10).

Answer: As a bride dressed for her husband

"I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband." (Revelation 21 v. 2)

The new Jerusalem is a spiritual rather than a physical reality. John makes this clear by referring back to the creation story at the beginning of Genesis. One by one, the inanimate, physical elements from this account are stripped away. Earth and sky are dispensed with in Rev. 20 v. 11, followed by sea (Rev. 21 v. 1), the sun and moon (Rev, 21 v. 23) and night (Rev. 21 v. 25). All that remains from the Genesis story are animate beings (humans and animals) and the light that comes from the presence of God. To anyone who queries the existence of animals in heaven, I would say - where in the Bible does it say otherwise? Only humans, in Christian theology, have the choice of opting out!

Answer: Ezekiel

"The man brought me back to the entrance of the temple, and I saw water coming out from under the threshold of the temple toward the east (for the temple faced east)." (Ezekiel 47 v. 1)

In Ezekiel's vision, the river begins at the Jerusalem temple and grows progressively deeper as it flows to the Dead Sea. The vitality that it brings leads to fruit trees, uncannily similar to John's description of the tree of life, growing alongside its banks:
"Every month they will bear, because the water from the sanctuary flows to them. Their fruit will serve for food and their leaves for healing." (Ezekiel 47 v. 12).

And so, the Bible finishes where it began with a picture of Eden, the idyllic harmony of God and his creation living in peace.