Been There, Read That
It's Deja Vu all over again...
It’s called a switchback, and it’s an important matter for a person who is hiking.
If you’re planning to hike a mountain trail, climbing to the top, you quickly discover that no mountain path simply goes straight up the side of the mountain to the summit. Why is this?
A straight-line path would worsen one of the challenges of the climber - the elevation to be achieved. Going straight up makes the ascent an unrelenting encounter, with gravity and your body squaring off for a long, long time.
It is for this reason that mountain trails have switchbacks. The switchback allows the hiker to climb higher up the mountain by spreading out the change in elevation over the course of many “horizontal” walks, each one a little higher than the last.
There is, however, a downside to this. One switchback on the trail looks much like another; even to the point where the hiker may wonder if there is any reaching the summit at all.
Why? The reason is that you feel like you’ve been there before.
Revelation’s Looping Trail
Such is the experience of those who read the book of Revelation. The vision recorded by John has a way of looping back as you read forward. Of this, we have evidence at our fingertips in Chapter 10.
Previous to Chapter 10, we read John’s account of the trumpets sounding, one after another. The trumpets unleash a series of God’s judgments, the more severe coming at the end of the series. The final section of Chapter 9 (v.13-21) records the sound of the sixth trumpet, and the torment that unbelievers will receive for their hard-hearted rejection of the gospel.
But instead of Chapter 10 describing the execution of the seventh trumpet, we find something else.
Then I saw another mighty angel coming down from heaven, wrapped in a cloud, with a rainbow over his head, a nd his face like the sun, and his legs like pillars of fire. He had a little scroll open in his hand. And he set his right foot on the sea and his left foot on the land.
And [he] called out with a loud voice, like a lion roaring. When he called out, the seven thunders sounded. And when the seven thunders had sounded I wasa about to write, but I heard a voice from heaven saying, “Seal up what the seven thunders have said, and do not write it down.
That’s right. The unfolding events of the trumpets comes to a standstill. Time out.
But before we try to make sense of this Time Out, we need to realize that we’ve been here before. This is a switchback.
How so? Just as Chapter 6 recorded the opening of the seals, ending with the sixth seal, so Chapters 8-9 have recorded the blasts of the trumpets, once again ending with the sixth trumpet.
And just as the seventh seal is not opened until after the sealing of God’s elect in Chapter 7, so in Chapter 10 there is a “delay” of sorts. Once again, like Chapter 7, we are taken courtside to the presence of God and his messengers. We hear the declaration of heaven attending to the final countdown of human history.
As it might be (mis)spoken, “It’s Deja Vu all over again.”
The ramifications of this looping pattern are something we can better appreciate at a later point in the book. But, in the meantime, (with apologies to the Apostle Paul) what then shall we say to these things? Just this: John does not present us with a narrative of events which we can follow from first to last. Instead he presents a sequence of divine decrees and actions which then is repeated, with additional developments sometimes added. It is a story told, and then re-told - not once, not twice, but three times.
The interpretive problems facing the reader begin by attempting to read Revelation the way we do the book of Acts. Acts, to a large extent, has a linear flow - how the gospel spread into all the world, as evidenced in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and finally Rome when Paul arrives there. This is where the book of Acts (as a literary work) is headed from the beginning, and we are safe in reading this book that way.
But something different is happening in Revelation. It’s not Today, then The Next Day, and the Day After the Next Day. It’s a book which resists such a framework, and frustrates the reader who attempts to understand it that way. On the other hand, it rewards attention to detail, and one of those details is repetition.
The letters to the seven churches in Asia Minor are written with a repeating pattern - greeting, what is good, what is bad, and what must be done. And of course, they all end with the admonition to hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
The description of the “throne room” of God’s presence in 4:5 reappears in 8:5 (Spoiler alert: it will reappear a third time. Be ready.)
The visions of what transpires in heaven - the worship of men and angels, the decrees God has made concerning both the Church and the World, the word of angels explaining what John has seen - regularly re-occur to assure the reader of God’s unfailing sovereignty, promise, and purpose.
So as we move forward in Revelation, do not adjust your television; there’s nothing wrong. Do not despair at your puzzlement. Remember, you’ve been there and seen the sequence twice. One more time and you can get the tee shirt.
Oh, yes… what about Chapter 10? We had so much fun looking at patterns that we never scratched the surface. What was this chapter all about? That’s for next time.
This point about switchbacks is really helpful--not just for thinking about Revelation, but also about life.