PMW 2023-060 by Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr.

In my last two postings I engaged a brief series on John’s method of presenting his material in Revelation. I have noted thus that John is presenting his material as a drama. Though it is not intended as an acted drama, it is designed as a oral one — as I noted in my first article. But it is also cast as a forensic drama, which is set in a court. In this my final article, I will focus on the nature of the court in view.

We must remember that in the OT Israel is the covenantal wife of Jehovah God and he is her “husband” (Jer 31:32). Oftentimes the prophets mention the marital relation between God and Israel. Thus, when Israel chases after foreign gods she is committing spiritual “adultery” against her husband (Isa. 50:1b; Jer 3:20; Eze 16:31–32; Hos 1:2; 9:1, 10; Mal 2:11). The prophets then act as God’s lawyers, bringing a covenantal lawsuit against her with the hope of calling her back to her husband. When God chastens her with destruction or exile, the lawsuit pattern serves to demonstrate that “Yahweh’s punishment is righteous, and not an expression of arbitrary wrath” (Nielsen 33).

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According to Nielsen (5, 9, 12) Gunkel sees lawsuits in Ps 50:7–13; 85; Isa 1:18–20; 3:13–15; 41:1ff; 41:21ff; 43:9ff; Jer 2:4–9; Hos 2:1ff; and Mic 6:1ff. Julien Harvey adds Jdg 2:1–5; Ernst Würthwein adds Mal 3:5. Herbert B. Huffman (1959: 289), who coins the phrase “covenant lawsuit,” adds Dt 32:1–25 which “has very close affinities in form and content” with the prophetic examples. We could also add: Am 2:4–16; Isa 5:1–7; 12:1; 15:10; Eze 17; 20:33–44; and Hos 4:1 (see the longer list in Bandy 2010: 4).

Unfortunately, the prophets’ legal work ultimately fails in that Israel resists their testimony. Her failure to hear God’s legal witness through his lawyer-prophets is the point of Jesus’ parable of the landowner (Mt 21:33–40), though he uses a horticultural rather than a judicial image to press the point. In this parable the Lord teaches that Israel continually abuses God’s prophets before his time (Mt 21:34–36) and that she will finally turn on the landowner’s son (Jesus) and kill him (Mt 21:37–39). This is also Stephen’s message to Israel in his sermon: “You men who are stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears are always resisting the Holy Spirit; you are doing just as your fathers did. Which one of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who had previously announced the coming of the Righteous One, whose betrayers and murderers you have now become” (Ac 7:51–52).

Returning to Revelation, John frames his forensic drama in such a way as to represent God’s judicial divorce decree against Israel for the sin by which she commits her final act of spiritual adultery: killing the Son (1:7; cp. 11:8). Regarding Revelation’s flow, Campbell (2004b: 92) argues that the latter chapters open “the way for Babylon’s repudiation as a faithless wife and for New Jerusalem’s betrothal.” He notes (2004b: 72n) of Revelation 17–20 that “the moment has come for irrevocable covenant divorce and for a (re)marriage.” This is significant in that he sees “Babylon” as Jerusalem (Campbell 2004a: 82, 100n). Thus, God’s wife finally rejects his love by crucifying his Son while crying out: “We have no king but Caesar” (Jn 19:15) and “His blood be on us and on our children” (Mt 27:25). Consequently, in Revelation 4 we see God sitting on his judicial throne to execute judgment against Israel.

Witherington (41, 42) comes close to what I believe to be the proper understanding of Revelation’s specific forensic significance when he states that John’s prophetic function is to bring a “covenant lawsuit.” But he wrongly frames it: “in this case it is the new covenant lawsuit.” Actually John is dramatically setting it up as the final old covenant lawsuit against Israel. Though Christ’s death (Lk 22:20; 1Co 11:25; Heb 12:24) legally secures and formally enacts the new covenant, AD 70 finally establishes and publically confirms it by the destruction of God’s house wherein he dwells with Israel as her husband.

In Revelation 5:1 God has in his hand a seven-sealed scroll. This represents his divorce certificate against Israel (as I will argue in detail in my forthcoming commentary, The Divorce of Israel). In God’s Law the punishment for adultery is death (Lev 20). So in Revelation 6–19 (with interludes and additional actions, e.g., 12:1–5; 13:1–10) we will discover Jerusalem appearing as the Babylonian harlot (dressed as the high priest, 17:4) and being judged under the righteous wrath and curse of God.

Then, after legally disposing of Israel-Jerusalem as an adulterous wife we read of the marriage supper of the Lamb (19:7, 9) in preparation for his taking a new bride, the new covenant Church. We then see the glorious bride-city coming down out of heaven adorned as a spotless virgin-bride for her husband — and designated a new Jerusalem (21:2, 9). Thus, this new spiritual Jerusalem replaces the old earthly Jerusalem (cp. Mt 23:37–24:2; Gal 4:22–31; Heb 12:18–29) because that was where the Lord is crucified (11:8). Fekkes (1990: 269) notes that “two of the principal dramatis personae which appear are the collective images of Harlot-Babylon and the Bride-New Jerusalem.” This fits well with the divorce court scheme. (I will demonstrate in the course of the commentary that “the interpretation of the Babylon spoken of in Revelation 16–18 conditions the reading of the whole book of Revelation itself, since Babylon, along with the Beast rising from the sea, is the target of John’s attacks” [Biguzzi 2006: 371])

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Thus, the theme of Revelation is the execution of God’s divorce decree against Israel, her subsequent capital punishment, followed by his turning to take a new bride, the Church, the new Israel of God. As Carrington (381) expresses it: “The old religion died in the year A.D. 70, and gave birth to two children; the elder was modern Judaism without temple or priest or sacrifice; the younger was Christianity which was proud of possessing all three.” I will fully develop this theme in the course of the commentary.

Conclusion

I hope you have found this series helpful. And I hope it has whetted your appetite for my commentary, which should be out this Fall (barring the rapture spoiling my theories).