Everyone knows how to summarize Calvinism. It’s TULIP. And it’s a venerable summary, going all the way back to Dordt. Not so, argues Ken Stewart in his recent Ten Myths About Calvinism: Recovering the Breadth of the Reformed Tradition . On page 291, Stewart reproduces a page from a 1913 issue of The Outlook , which he claims is the earliest known reference to the acronym. Read more
Bauckham notes that the census of the sealed in Revelation 7 hearkens back to the censuses of Israel in the Old Testament, which were typically of a military character. He concludes that the numbered and sealed are an arm, sealed like the soldiers of a Roman legion with the mark of their commander. Bauckham is wrong, I think, to identify the 144,000 with the “innumerable multitude,” but he is right to suggest that the sealed constitute an “army of martyrs.”... Read more
Bauckham gives a plausible explanation of the “parable” of the two witnesses in Revelation 11. The witnesses, he notes, are Elijah-like as well as Mosaic, and against this background the killing of “7000” is suggestive. In 1 Kings 19, the 7000 are a remnant who keep faith with Yahweh when all others are turning to Baal. Bauckham discerns an inversion in Revelation 11. When the city is judged, a tenth is killed; Bauckham says, “Not the faithful minority, but the... Read more
Bauckham offers this neat explanation of the Nicolaitans of Revelation 2: “The name of the Nicolaitans, followers of Nicolaus, which means ‘conquer the people,’ alludes to Revelation’s keyword ‘conquer’ ( nikao ). Their teaching made it possible for Christians to be successful in pagan society, but this was the beast’s success, a real conquest of the saints, winning them to his side, rather than the only apparent conquest he achieved by putting them to death. Hence the name Nicolaus is... Read more
The Lamb has seven eyes which are the seven Spirits of God, and, as Richard Bauckham points out, Lamb and Spirit continue to track together throughout the book. The word “Lamb” appears 28 times in the book, which Bauckham rightly recognizes as a symbolic all-space-and-time number, the product of the seven of creation’s time and the four of earthly space. The Spirit is also a 28 in Revelation – the phrase “seven Spirits” is used four times (1:4; 3:1; 4:5;... Read more
Beale notes the connection between the mark of the beast on the hand and forehead and Yahweh’s instruction that Israel place the Torah on hand and forehead as a reminder (Exodus 13:9). This link is especially sharp when we recognize that the beast from the land who is requiring this mark is the Jewish beast, allied with the Roman sea beast. The Jewish beast is enforcing loyalty to Caesar instead of Torah. Read more
In a post last week, I suggested that there is at least a tension, perhaps an internal contradiction, in Wright’s view that justification is both a declaration that creates a legal status and a declaration regarding a preexisting fact; it both creates the status “in the right” as a speech-act, and declares the fact that the person who believes has already entered the people of God. I hinted cryptically that my idea of justification as a “deliverdict” might help resolve... Read more
When Paul talks about justification by faith, he normally contrasts it with justification by works. But elsewhere in Paul, “by faith” is contrasted with “by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7). In 2 Corinthians 5, Paul is speaking of two different “walks,” but can the same contrast apply to justification? Does it make sense to say that we are justified by faith rather than by sight? It would seem so. Justification by sight would be something like this: God makes it publicly... Read more
666 is the numerical value of Neron Caesar, spelled in Hebrew letters. It’s the number of a man. As Richard Bauckham points out ( Climax of Prophecy: Studies on the Book of Revelation ), 666 is also the numerical value of therion (beast), spelled in Hebrew letters. It is the number of the beast. Thus, Bauckham suggests, “The gematria does not merely assert that Nero is the beast: it demonstrates that he is. Nero’s very name identifies him by its... Read more
The beast from the land forms a priesthood. He turns the people of the land to worship the first beast, and Mosaic/Elijan signs and wonders encourage the people to worship the image of the beast (Revelation 13:14). He can bring fire from heaven, not only like Elijah, but like Yahweh Himself who descends from heaven in fire at the dedication of the temple (2 Chronicles 7:3; Revelation 13:13). The worshipers he organizes into a pseudo-church, where distinctions of economic and... Read more
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