Political Redemption

In an older article in CBQ , Elisabeth Fiorenza argues from Revelation 1:5f and 5:9f that “the author of the Apoc conceives of redemption and salvation in political-social categories and that he underlines the significance of the eschatological reservation for the sake of preventing salvation from becoming an illusion.”

The two passages share a number of themes. Both are triadically structured, both refer to the work of Christ (His “love” and His being “slain” respectively), both combine priest and king. 5:10 includes the key difference, the phrased “they shall reign on earth,” which Fiorenza insists is future.

She notes that 1:5-6 gives us a complex statement in praise of Christ, in what she describes as a “hymnic-hieratic style.” Three titles are followed by three predications (using participles) about the work of Jesus, and the whole concludes with a doxology. She thinks that predications about Christ had their origin in a baptismal tradition. She argues that the verb in the second predicate is “loose” rather than “wash,” and notes other NT passages that link loosing or redemption with blood (Romans 3:24-26; Ephesians 1:7; Hebrews 9:12). THus, redemption is conceived of as “liberation from the evil actions and deeds of their past” through the blood of Jesus, a liberation communicated at baptism.

Jesus has also “made kingship and priests” of those who are liberated. Fiorenza finds parallels in the LXX of 1 Samuel 12:6, 1 Kings 12:31 and 13:33-34, as well as close analogies in Mark 3:14ff and Acts 2:36. These all refer to “investing or installing someone” and granding them “a new dignity.” The addition to 5:10, however, indicates that the author was worried that the baptismal liberation would be taken too far, and he tries to rein in eschatological fervor by stressing the eschatological reserve – the fact that those liberated by Jesus, made kingdom and priests, will reign in the future, not now.

The hymn in Revelation 5 also uses political and economic imagery to describe the work of Jesus. The Lamb is God’s “purchasing-agent” who “has traveled the whole world to purchase men for God.” Those purchased are pictured as slaves in a slave-market, or as POWs who are purchased by the blood of the Lamb. The Exodus is in the background, with Christians liberated from bondage as Israel was.

Fiorenza suggests that the message is partly one of resistance and antagonism toward the Roman empire: “The Christian community as the kingdom of God is understood in political terms as the alternative to the Roman empire.” But this antagonism demands an eschatological understanding of redemption and liberation, and of the kingship that the saints exercise: “As long as the beast and Babylon have the power on earth, it is an illusion and enthusiastic misunderstanding of the baptismal formula . . . to understand it in the sense that those who have been set free from their sins are already exercising their kingship.”

Several critical comments: First, the idea that these passage pick up on baptismal formulae and theology is attractive. Unproven, certainly, but also certainly plausible. It wasn’t long before the baptismal rite included hints that Christians were being invested as priests. Second, the translation of 5:10 as “they will reign” is questionable, and I think wrong. The saints are a kingdom, and they already reign. Third, the notion that the reign of the saints is “illusory” as long as the beast holds power assumes a bestial notion of power. Perhaps the saints reign as Jesus did, in suffering, as a slain Lamb. That power is “illusory” only if we think that bestial power is the only sort of power.