REJOICING IN HEAVEN

On earth Babylon (i.e. Rome) has been judged. From heaven, John hears and sees great rejoicing of the martyrs, as in his vision in 7:9-17. But this time there is a difference. God alone receives the praise, and not the Lamb who was slain as well. This is the signal that the end has come. The victory of Christ on the cross and of the martyrs who died as witnesses to Christ is the victory of God’s love over all that stands in love’s way. As Paul also declared in Romans 8:31-39, nothing stands in the way of sovereign divine love.

John’s vision dissolves into yet another symbolic scene. Another song from the throne room celebrates the marriage supper of the Lamb. The image of a great feast or a marriage feast at the end of history is found in the Old Testament and other Jewish eschatological literature and in the New Testament (Isaiah 25:6; Mark 2:19; Matt. 22:1ff; Luke 14:15ff). The church, made up of the faithful martyrs who witnessed by their deaths, is not only invited to the marriage feast, but is actually the bride of Christ.

In 19:9-10 the one seeing the vision is rebuked for worshiping the angel. John thereby issues a warning against any form of idolatry. In other words, he acknowledges that anything or anyone other than God can be afforded the absolute worth or the absolute control of a person’s life that belongs to God alone. This is the standard that brought Jesus to the cross and the same standard to which the martyrs also witnessed.

The next scene is not a pretty one. It envisions the destruction of the destroyers by a rider on a white horse, i.e. Christ. His only weapon is the Word of God, the faithful confession of obedience to God alone. The only way to destroy all that opposes God is to proclaim the gospel of love in life and in death.