In | Names for Believers

Many of Revelation’s themes and titles are familiar. We’ve seen them everywhere from Genesis to this final book of the New Testament. Others, like the reference to believers as “offspring of ‘the woman’,” are peculiar to this letter. The context for these titles includes the horror and fantastical scenery that we might expect from apocalyptic literature. Believers find themselves “at war with the dragon,” and Christian martyrdom has a disturbing new angle—the “mother of prostitutes and of the abominations of the earth” drinks Christian blood to the point of drunkenness.

John’s vision is jarring, and the immediate prognosis is not good. In this lifetime we can expect to become “companions in Jesus’ suffering,” to be victims and martyrs. It’s a difficult message but a necessary one for anyone who might confuse worldly success or wealth with the gospel of Jesus. 

Reference: Mark Wilson, Charts on the Book of Revelation, 2007, pp. 35-36.