10 - The concept of witness in the Book of Revelation

Summary

The idea of witness appears to be very much a live metaphor in the Book of Revelation. Since this point is most fully treated in the Black commentary, it will be necessary from time to time to refer to its treatment of that subject.

THE RELATION TO THE OTHER JOHANNINE WRITINGS

At first sight, the importance of the idea of witness in the Apocalypse is not surprising in view of the striking similarities between this book and the other Johannine writings. Dr Caird has made this point very clear:

The repeated use of the words 'witness and ‘testimony’ is one of the many points of resemblance between the Revelation and the Fourth Gospel. In Greek as in English these words could be treated as dead metaphors, without any conscious reference to the lawcourt, which was their primary setting. But both these books use the words in their primary, forensic sense. The author of the Fourth Gospel, perhaps inspired by the example of Second Isaiah, presents his argument in the form of a lawcourt debate, in which one witness after another is summoned, until God's advocate, the Paraclete, has all the evidence he needs to convince the world that Jesus is the Son of God, and so win his case. In the Revelation the courtroom setting is even more realistic; for Jesus had borne his testimony before Pilate's tribunal, and the martyrs must face a Roman judge. What they have to remember as they give their evidence is that the evidence is being heard in a court of more ultimate authority, where judgments which are just and true issue from the great white throne.