Why is there so much violence in Revelations?

We're taking a break from our chapter-by-chapter study of Revelation to answer your questions about the book. Instead, Pastor Greg will address the question of violence in the Bible, particularly in the book of Revelation.

Transcript

Today’s message is going to be a little different. We’re taking a break from our chapter studies of Revelation. I’m doing this for two reasons.

1. Chapters 18 & 19, which were originally on the schedule, should come with a parental advisory sticker. Parts are straight-up rated R, and I just couldn’t preach it with young kids in the room.

2. I had a troubling experience with Revelation last week, and in an effort to be transparent, I wanted to share it with you.

So today, it’s not going to be a sermon; instead, it’s more of a story. It’s my journey over the last 7 days—of doubt and questions, but also faith and new ideas I learned this week.

Last week while preparing the sermon, I had a minor faith crisis. Ya see, over the last four weeks of this Revelation series, I’ve poured myself into twelve chapters of God’s wrath and judgment on sin, evil, and unrepentance.

We saw plagues and natural disasters from scrolls, trumpets, and bowls. We saw the four horsemen of the apocalypse: conquest, war, famine, and death. We saw the dragon and the beast devouring, deceiving, and destroying.

All of that week after week got really hard—both intellectually and emotionally. So much war and violence. So much death, plagues, and destruction. Over and over again. It finally got too much for me, and I broke down.

• How could a good God do all of this?

• More specifically, how does all this violence reconcile with the central and centering image of the Lamb as king?

I figured that if I’m asking those questions, some of you might be as well.

Now, I understand the ultimate reason behind these acts of judgment—to bring people to repentance and ultimately into right relationship with God. I also understand the gravity of this because the consequences of unrepentance are eternally horrific.

Nonetheless, something was still very unsettling to me. Do the ends justify the means? It seems like God is inflicting immeasurable pain on people he loves and a world he created. That doesn’t sound like love or goodness or even justice.

God started to remind me of Hamilton’s portrayal of King George III as an abusive ex-boyfriend. It’s in lyrics like: “’Cause when push comes to shove // I will kill your friends and family to remind you of my love!” Or the chorus: “You'll be back, soon you'll see // You'll remember you belong to me.”

It’s also the rationalization used by nearly every one of the now disgraced mega-pastors who have abused and silenced women in the name of kingdom ministry. “You can’t say anything about (fill in the blank). It’ll destroy all the good work the ministry is doing.”

“The ends justify the means” is always a dangerous proposition.

Is God’s work in Revelation really all the different from the Crusades when soldiers of the church tortured people to force conversions in the name of saving their souls?

These were the questions swirling around my head last Sunday night. And I wasn’t quite sure what to do with them. That’s when I proposed to Kong that I do something different this week. And here we are…

So, Monday morning, I started reading. And I read a lot this week. I mean, A LOT – books, blogs, bumper stickers. I listened to podcasts and sermons. I watched videos from well-known pastors to crackpots.

So, here are three things I learned this week and one key mistake I realized I was making.

This question I was asking about violence in Revelation is really part of a much larger question: Why is there so much violence in the whole Bible? And as I studied this question, people seemed to have one of three answers to this question.

But first, let me tell you about the mistake I made. About halfway through this week, I realized that I was reading Revelation all wrong. I had forgotten one of the five principles that I/Pastor Kong has taught on week 1 of this series: the book uses lots of symbols and images.

I literally said these exact words on Sunday, May 22, “The primary language of The Revelation is metaphor. It wants to speak to your heart and imagination, not just your head… This book is full of fantastic symbols, images, and animals that are used to convey broader ideas and truths. Don’t get stuck on what the text says; focus on what it means.”

I was getting overwhelmed by the literal plagues and dragons and beasts. And completely forgetting about the metaphor and meaning behind them.

Then I realized why. I accepted Christ as a teenager in 1986 into an evangelical megachurch that was highly dispensationalist. That meant they believed that Revelation was a literal, predictive prophecy about the future. So, that’s what I believed. And continued to believe for the next 25 years. But then, I started to discover that there were other, more biblically faithful ways to read Revelation.

Over the last few weeks, that literalist approach to Revelation started to come back out without me even realizing it.

And that’s why it’s important to understand your spiritual history and your church background. Because however you grew up, it’s still inside you—our childhood church, your shamanism, your family system. And many times, these lessons you learned growing up still influence you today. I was certainly reminded of that this week.

Now, let me shift to a couple of the things I learned this week to help me make sense of the violence in Scripture and particularly in Revelation. This isn’t meant to be exhaustive. It’s just an overview of two ideas I found helpful as I wrestled with the question of violence in Scripture.

I believe there is value in each one of these ideas. Neither of them holds the monopoly on being right. They are both equally, biblically true.

The first answer is this: All the violence is justified.

This is the most traditional and conservative of the ideas.

The Bible is clear that

• All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

• There is none righteous, no not one.

• There is no one who does good, not even one.

Because of that, we all deserve condemnation from God, who is both holy and just. None of us deserve anything from God. Anything good in our lives is 100% an act of God’s grace and mercy.

Whenever we use or think the phrase—“They got what they deserve”—we’re usually referring to someone else. But have you ever said it about yourself? “Ya… I kinda got what I deserved.”

That’s one way to look at violence in the Bible. Without Christ, we deserve any punishment that a holy and just God wants to dole out. The fact that he doesn’t just kill us for our selfish rebellion again him is evidence that he is also loving.

So, that’s one answer I found this week. It’s not very comforting, but it is very sobering. It’s also not the only explanation.

The next two came from Pastor John Piper. He argues that the violence underscores the seriousness of sin. Let me explain.

The reason there’s so much violence in the Bible is because there’s so much violence in the world. All throughout Scripture, the effect of moral evil is displayed or represented by all kinds of physical evil—earthquakes, floods, famine, pandemics, wars. And that doesn’t even include the horrific treatment of people by other people.

Remembering that Revelation is heavily symbolic, we get a front-row ticket to the horrific consequences of sin. One author described that the book’s purpose was to “create a literary, rhetorical, and emotional experience of shock and awe” (Gorman). Yes! That’s exactly what I was feeling. Shock and awe. Wait! You mean this might be exactly where God wants me to be as I enter into the Second Coming of Jesus.

The violence underscores the seriousness of sin… and our desperate need for a savior.

Piper used a great analogy to illustrate this. Let me read it to you.

“God did it because he knew that people who are dead in their trespasses and sins would never comprehend the moral outrage of treason against God unless they saw it reflected in the physical outrage of violence against people.”

“Nobody loses sleep over their treason against God. But let their physical body be touched with cancer or their house be touched with rioting, and then their emotions really rise up with moral indignation. Violence and suffering exist in this world as a divine witness to the meaning and the seriousness and the outrage of sin against God.”

I found that to be really helpful. So, I allowed myself to feel overwhelmed. Because that might be exactly where God wants me to be so that I might move closer to Him.

CONCLUSIONS

So, where do I go from here?

• • Well, I am a little more encouraged and a little less wrecked.

• • I want to keep reading because there are still a couple of major ideas out there that I didn’t have the time to dive into this week.

• • Most importantly, I think I’m ready to teach the rest of the book of Revelation in trust and faith in a good God.

What do I hope you take away from all this?

1. That being honest about where you are in your faith is really important. Some of you have been pretending that you’re okay spiritually when in reality you’re not. I hope you’ve seen from me that it’s okay to honest, with yourself and with others.

2. That having doubts and questions and even faith crises is okay. God will never strike you down for having doubts or asking questions. Be like the father in Scripture who cried out to Jesus, “I do believe; help my unbelief!”

3. When you have doubts and questions and faith crises, you take them to God instead of pulling away from God. This is probably the most important thing you hear this morning. The seemingly irreconcilable problem of violence in the Bible has led many people to abandon their faith. In fact, any big, soul-rattling question could do that. But there is an alternative. Bring your doubts to God and seek answers from Him. When you do that, your doubts can actually lead to growth.

I want to close with a little reflection exercise. I’m going to have you write something down. You can do it on your phone or grab a Connection Card in front of you.

What question or doubt have you been holding onto? It can be about anything; it doesn’t have to be about Revelation. But it can be if you like. What’s the thing that just nags at you, that bothers you?

I want you to write that down. And then, say a short prayer bringing that to God like an offering.