Revelation: The Smoke of Their Torment

Bernard was a Seminarian. 

That means he was a student at a theological cemetery- that’s what we disdainfully called highbrow divinity schools where aspiring young preachers went to question their faith and spiritually die. 

Bernard and his buddies liked to play basketball after class, but the seminary didn’t have a gym.  The custodian at the local public school kindly allowed the scholars to use theirs as he would complete his chores. 

One night Bernard noticed that the white-haired gentleman had been reading his Bible while waiting for the fellows to finish their game.  

"Whatcha reading?" Bernard asked.

"The book of Revelation," the old man replied.

"Do you understand what it means?"

"Oh, yes."

Bernard was surprised.  How could the simple untrained broom pusher possibly understand the most difficult book in the Bible when its mysterious meaning eluded him and his highly educated friends?

"You do?" Bernard wondered aloud. "Then what does it mean?"

The janitor didn't hesitate.  "It means Jesus is gonna win."

Revelation is a difficult book.  But many are more than happy to explain it to you.  In my experience, some of the most certain of explanations are also the most bizarre.  Revelation, the Bible’s apocalyptic picture book, is the most figurative by far of all sixty-six. 

While pictures are worth a thousand words, these pictures have spawned a million interpretations.  I like the janitor’s the best.  

And he’s right.  Jesus is gonna win. 

It's baffling to me that this last and most mysterious book has become some sort of theological talisman, a secret key to unlocking the previous and plainest sixty-five.  Its allegorical ambiguities and metaphorical fog oddly overwhelm the rest of the Bible’s clear blue sky.  The unpretentious language of John 3:16 is distorted through the funhouse mirror of Revelation’s surreal symbols.  Wholly smoke!

Jesus is gonna win.  That's the final score.  But Revelation's play by play and color commentary narrating the conflicts of the contest are never neatly logical or literal.  

“Well, I take it literal!” claimed a no-nonsense nemesis defending endless torment.  He was speaking of the book of Revelation in general, and the thousand year binding of Satan and torment of the beast in particular.

"So you believe it's exactly one thousand years?" I questioned.

"Absolutely!" he affirmed.

"Not a day less or more?"

"Nope."

"So what is the beast?" 

My annoyed antagonist figuratively walked right into my literal trap: "Oh, well, now… the beast, uh… the beast is some type of end time political leader."

"I thought you took it literal."

He looked puzzled, then perplexed.  His eyebrows went from curious arches to angled daggers.

"So you don't really take it literal," I observed. "You don't believe a beast is literally a beast."

I've yet to meet anyone who is consistent in deciphering the pictures of Revelation.  Prophecy teachers flit back and forth between literal and figurative interpretations like honey bees in a field of clover.  And it seems the only rhyme to their reason is when it suits them.  

One such honey bee assured his audience that he was a conservative Bible believer who embraced a literal interpretation.  In the same breath he explained that “the sea of glass” (Revelation 15:2) was “a great mass of humanity.”  He didn’t even blink.  Literally.

And forays into the figurative can be both wildly speculative and wackily specific.  A study guide on Revelation at a Kingdom Hall read that the seven trumpets of Revelation were actually annual meetings of their international organization beginning with an eight day assembly in Cedar Point, Ohio in 1922.  A couple of uncomfortable elders admitted to me later that no one would have had any idea if angels hadn't whispered this secret info in the ears of their twelve apostles in Brooklyn, New York.  "Jinkies!" as Velma would say.

A coarse-voiced radio preacher apologized to his listeners that on an earlier program he had erred in identifying Billy Graham as the Antichrist. "Folks, I was sitting in a rocking chair on my front porch when God spoke to me, 'Son, Billy Graham is not the Antichrist.  Billy Graham is the angel who flies through heaven preaching the gospel to all the nations.'"  Unique apologetics.  The earnest backwoods broadcaster finished with a flourish: "Folks, when that Um-fer-tees River dries up, there's gonna be a big battle between Gag and Maytag."  I heard it myself, folks, or I wouldn't have believed it.

I don’t mean to mock.  My purpose is to set the stage before pulling back the curtain on key passages in Revelation that are used to support endless torment.  The apocalyptic drama is grand theater.  A seven headed ten horned leopard like beast with bear feet and lion lips rises from the sea.  Three unclean spirits like frogs come out of a dragon's mouth and a bejeweled woman drunk with blood rides a scarlet beast. The backdrops and props are a smoke filled temple, lightning filled sky, and blood filled sea with seven of everything made of gold.  Surround sound of many waters and mighty thunder rumbles through the auditorium.  It is in the midst of this tapestry of catastrophe and panorama of the paranormal that traditionalists imperceptibly separate texts and isolate phrases they presume prove their dogma.

Such as Revelation 14:11: "And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night."  That's where my exacting adversary fled right after abandoning his literal beast.  

"So you believe hell is in heaven?" I cross-examined.

"What?!"  His knitted brows and snarled scow revealed this easy-to-read thought bubble: "Of course not!  What in the world are you talking about?"  

I obliged: "This torment takes place 'in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb' (vs. 10).  There are 'harpers harping with their harps' (vs. 2), singing 'a new song before the throne' (vs. 3).  Sure sounds like heaven to me." 

As if demanding to examine the artifact, he reached for my Bible to see for himself.  Speechless and befuddled, his eyes widened twice their size as his nose squinched in half.  He searched and saw that what I said was so.  I have since come to believe that Revelation 14 is a picture of the events of Matthew 24, but at the time it seemed like a valid point, and at least proved that my combatant had no familiarity with the context of his proof-text.

"Furthermore," I wasn't done yet, "Who exactly is being tormented?  It is they 'who worship (present tense) the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name' (vs. 11).  Who are they?  And this is six full chapters before the Great White Throne judgment.  And the 'tormented day and night for ever and ever' in chapter twenty is spoken exclusively of the devil and beast and false prophet (20:10).  Is there even a day and night in eternity?  And that isn't the language used when humans are judged and the lake of fire is twice defined as 'the second death' (20:14; 21:8).

And I’ve also since come to recognize that it is the smoke of their torment that continues for ever and ever, not the torment itself.  It would be similar to "the muffins were baked in the presence of the Mayor and the smell of their baking lingered for ever and ever." The muffins weren't still baking, but the smell of their baking lingered. I've often been in an Amish bakery and can attest to that lasting aroma.  It is possible that the baking went on and on, but that's not what it says. It says the smell of their baking lingered for ever and ever. The smell of their baking lingering does not require that the baking continued. The baking could have taken a short time and happened a long time ago, but the smell could still linger on.  Same with the smoke (see  chapter ? Ever-Ascending Smoke).

My rapid-fire arguments may not have been my best Ben Matlock moment, but my overwhelmed opponent looked as if his lawyer had just instructed him to refuse to answer any more questions.  His sudden paralysis encouraged me to hurl one more zinger: "And did you know the word "forever" is not in the Bible?  It's always two words.  It's a prepositional phrase- for ever."

Lest this chapter go on for ever and ever, let's save that subject until the next one where we'll see that "for ever" is definitely indefinite.  And then whoever can read whichever of whatever whenever, wherever, and however they choose.  

Maybe while seminarians finish their game.

Literally and figuratively.