Where is the Trinity in the Book of Revelation?

The Book of Revelation is the most explicitly Trinitarian book of the New Testament. Amongst its complex cast of characters in the narrative of the text, it presents God (the Father, the ‘one seated on the throne’), Jesus (either named, or presented symbolically as the lamb slain and standing, or the rider on the white horse), and the Spirit (as the ‘seven spirits’ or the eyes of the lamb) both as distinct characters and agents in the text. But in various ways, the text then merges both their roles and even their identities as the vision reports unfold. Revelation therefore presents the godhead as three-in-one.

I wrote a chapter on the Trinity in Revelation as part of the collection of essays Trinity Without Hierarchy – Reclaiming Nicene Orthodoxy in Evangelical Theology. I offer here the first part of the chapter, focussing on the epistolary greeting at the start of Revelation. The full chapter then looks at the Trinity in the vision of worship in Rev 4 to 5 (and you can find commentary on that here) before looking specifically at the description of the Spirit in the book.

You can find a summary of my approach to Revelation in my Grove booklet here, and the full commentary on the text here.

The Titles in the Epistolary Greeting

The extended epistolary greeting in 1:4–8 provides the foundation for John’s proto-Trinitarian description of God and introduces titles and ideas that are developed throughout the text. It thus offers a template for exploring a wide range of issues in John’s understanding of God, Jesus and the Spirit and the relationship between them.

The opening form, ‘John, to the seven assemblies in Asia, grace and peace to you…’ follows the Pauline adaptation of the standard Greco-Roman epistolary form of: sender; recipient; greeting and wish for divine blessing. Paul consistently includes Jesus with God as the source of divine blessing, which in itself is of enormous theological significance as Bauckham points out:

It shows how naturally early Christians implicitly included Jesus in the divine…even if they had no way of conceptualising in ontological terms this relation of Jesus to God. (Richard Bauckham, The Theology of the Book of Revelation, New Testament Theology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993) p 24.)

But the greeting in Revelation is unique in having a three-fold (rather than two-fold) structure, and in using titles and attributes along with (for Jesus Christ) or instead of (for God and the Spirit) names—titles and attributes that draw on Old Testament texts and which develop their theological significance throughout the book. 

a. The First Title for God

The threefold title for God as ‘the one who is, who was and who is to come’ is in the nominative, rather than the expected genitive, suggesting that John is using this as an indeclinable title. It derives from the multivalent meaning of the name of Israel’s God revealed to Moses in Exodus 3:14 אֶֽהְיֶ֖ה אֲשֶׁ֣ר אֶֽהְיֶ֑ה rendered in English translations as ‘I am who I am’ or ‘I was who I was’ or ‘I will be who I will be’. John arranges the title in a surprising order, with the present tense first, presumably to emphasise God’s living presence and power, and the third term is not a future (as we might expect) but the present participle phrase ‘the coming one’, ὁ ἐρχόμενος. This immediately links the distinct identity of the God of Israel with Jesus; it is Jesus who says seven times ‘I am coming’, ἔρχομαί, twice in a local and immediate sense (2:5 and probably 2:16) and five times in a cosmic and final sense (probably 3:11, certainly 16:15, 22:7, 12, 20). The future of God’s relationship with the created order is made manifest in the coming of Jesus to the world as the consummation of both judgement and redemption. The title is repeated for emphasis in verse 8, and occurs a third time in the heavenly worship of 4:8.

b. The Spirit as ‘seven[-fold] spirits’

Where we might now expect Jesus to be the second agent in the three-fold greeting, we find the ‘seven spirits before his throne’. Craig Koester follows R H Charles, E Schweizer, D Aune and others in interpreting these as seven angelic beings (against Bauckham, Beckwith, Bousset, Fee, Keener, Osborne, Sweet and others), since the Dead Sea Scrolls uses ‘angels’ and ‘spirits’ as parallel expressions, and because of the existence of ‘angelic spirits’ before the throne of God in Tobit 12:15 and 1 Enoch 20:1–7. But Bauckham had earlier pointed out that this identification is rare in early Christian literature, and that the description of the seven angels ‘who stand before God’ in 8:2ff is in quite different terms. There is a large and varied cast of angels throughout the text (most notably in the six arriving as two sets of three in chapter 14) so there is no reason to think that John would slip a further seven in here ‘in disguise’ as it were. And the insertion of this reference between the titular introductions of God and Jesus, who (as we shall see) converge in title, function and authority, has the effect of removing any ambiguity, since ‘grace and peace’ as divine blessing flow from all three.

There are two Old Testament springboards for the language of ‘seven spirits’ which occurs here and in 3:1, 4:5 and 5:6. The messianic text Is 11:1–9 begins by describing the ‘branch of Jesse’ as anointed with the Spirit of Yahweh which has six attributes (wisdom, understanding, counsel, might, knowledge and fear of Yahweh). But the grammatical structure of the LXX puts the opening clause ‘Spirit of God’ as the first of what then becomes seven attributes. Combined with the symbolic significance of seven indicating completeness (since in the ancient world there were not only seven days of the week but also seven seas and seven planets), this might lie behind the complex narrative of Zech 4. In Zechariah’s vision, a golden lampstand has seven lamps on it and stands next to two olive trees, which symbolize the two ‘sons of oil’ (Zech 4:14) Joshua and Zerubbabel. The meaning of the vision is given as ‘“Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit” says Yahweh of hosts’ (Zech 4:6), clearly identifying the seven lamps as the Spirit of God, an understanding John deploys in 4:5. 

Zechariah’s later image, the ‘seven eyes of Yahweh that range throughout the earth’ (Zech 4:10) are not immediately connected with the (seven) Spirit(s) in that passage, but John fuses this image with the earlier one in 5:6 by identifying the Lamb’s ‘seven eyes’ with ‘the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth:’ This conjunction has two effects: firstly to identify in some sense the lamb and Yahweh, since the ‘eyes of Yahweh’ have now become the ‘eyes of the lamb’; and secondly to place the Spirit in a subordinate position in relation to both God and the lamb. The situation of the seven lamps ‘before the throne’ is one that is shared by the various members of the assembled throng (including elders, living creatures and angels) and which signifies worship and obedience. The fact that the throne itself belongs to God, but the lamb then occupies it, and the (seven) Spirit(s) being the eyes of both Yahweh and the lamb offers a narrative portrayal which might be later expressed in a different register as the Spirit ‘proceeding from the Father and the Son’.

c. Titles of Jesus Christ

At first sight, the three titles of Jesus (the only one of the three persons in the greeting who is actually named) in Rev 1:5 seem to focus on his humanity and do not impinge on the question of divinity, as they all derive from Ps 89’s praise of the Davidic kingship (and lament of its failure). Like the Davidic monarchy, Jesus is a ‘faithful witness’ (ὁ μάρτυς, ὁ πιστός) reflecting the permanence of the moon (Ps 89:37). But both the moon in creation and the Davidic rule in Israel are expressions of the faithfulness of God (Ps 87:1, 2, 5, 8, 14 and so on). The LXX of the psalm translates the Hebrew אֱמוּנָה with the term ἀλήθειά, ‘true’, though the participle of the cognate verb אמן is rendered by πιστός in Ps 89:37. The two terms are closely related in Revelation, with Jesus being ‘faithful and true’ in 3:14 and 19:11 (πιστὸς καὶ ἀληθινός) and the words from God that John has written down being ‘faithful and true’ in 21:5 and 22:6. 

However, John transforms the Davidic language of Ps 89:27 ‘my firstborn, most exalted of the kings of the earth’ in two ways. First, Jesus is now ‘firstborn from the dead’, expressing the common New Testament idea of Jesus as the pioneer (Heb 12:2) or the ‘firstfruits’ of the resurrection (1 Cor 15:20). But John also shifts Jesus from being pre-eminent amongst the kings of the other nations (as David is) to being ruler over the kings of the earth. In making this move, John is putting Jesus on a level with God as the ‘king of the nations’ (15:3–4) to whom all the nations will bow down in worship. This universal authority of God is stated in absolute and incomparable terms in these verses, yet the use of the title for Jesus here in the prologue incorporates him within this divine supremacy. This is reflected in the single throne of God being occupied jointly by God and the lamb from chapter 5 onwards, and in the startling use of a singular verb in the proclamation of the reign of ‘our Lord and his Christ’ when ‘he shall reign forever and ever’ in 11:16. 

[John] is evidently reluctant to speak of God and Christ together as a plurality. He never makes them the subjects of a plural verb or uses a plural pronoun to refer to them both. The reason is surely clear: he places Christ on the divine side of the distinction between God and creation, but he wishes to avoid ways of speaking which sound to him polytheistic (Bauckham, The Climax of Prophecy pp 139–140).

The kingly rule of Jesus is expressed most fully in the title ‘king of kings and lord of lords’ in 17:14 and 19:16, a phrase common in Jewish and Christian devotion for God emphasizing his unique and universal authority. It originates in Deut 10:17 and is reflected in Paul’s use in 1 Tim 6:15. Several texts note the phrase being usurped by other rulers as a sign of their hubris (Dan 2:37, Ezra 7:12, Ezek 26:7)—but it is applied to Jesus in Revelation without any sense of irony. There is a parallel here to Paul’s ascription of ‘the name that is above every name’ to Jesus in Phil 2:9–11 leading to devotion (‘every knee shall bow and tongue confess’) in the phrase that Isaiah records as expressing God’s own claim to be without equal (‘I am God, and there is no other’ Is 45:22–24). Jesus, in Philippians and in Revelation, is equal to the one who is without equal. 

d. The doxological interjection

It is not unusual to include a doxological statement early in a letter (compare 2 Cor 1:3) but it is characteristic of Revelation’s narrative discontinuity for it to form an interjection, after which comes a prophetic pronouncement by God in verse 8, followed by the resumption of the epistolary opening by John in verse 9. The pairing of motivation and action in redemption (‘loved us and has freed us…by his blood’) is not uncommon, occurring in Gal 2:20 and Eph 5:2, and highlights the willing offering by Jesus of himself found in what appear to be catechetical statements such as Mark 10:45 and Matt 20:28. But this is the only example in the New Testament of doxology directed to Jesus rather than to God, and almost unique in Christian devotion, which quite quickly took a three-fold, proto-Trinitarian form in post-canonical writings. The actions of loving, freeing from sin, and making a kingdom of priests are in the Old Testament ascribed to God (Ex 19:6, Ps 103:3) and in the New Testament are the actions of God through the agency of Jesus (John 3:16 is typical). But here the actions are presented as Jesus’ own accomplishment and performed in his own right. The concluding acclamation (‘to him be glory and power’) anticipates the exalted worship of chapter 5.

The apocalyptic-prophetic oracle that follows in verse 7 is considered by the majority of commentators to be an anticipation of the parousia, Jesus’ final return; David Aune is typical when he comments:

[It] uses a traditional combination of allusions to Dan 7:13 and Zech 12:10 to predict the Parousia (“coming”) of Christ as a cosmic event that will be witnessed by all… The imminence of the Parousia and of the end of the world is a central emphasis of Revelation (Aune, Revelation 1-5 Word Biblical Commentary, p 59).

The first line, alluding to Dan 7:13, omits the reference to ‘one like a son of man’, but this lacuna is filled in John’s description of his vision of Jesus in verse 13. The combination of allusions, but in reverse order, also occurs in the Olivet Discourse (sometimes called the Little Apocalypse) in Matt 24:30, where the son of man is mentioned, but the quotation from Zechariah is truncated to omit mention of ‘those who pierced him’. Commentators like Aune who take 1:7 as a reference to the Parousia do so on the basis that the same allusions are ‘clearly’ referring to the Parousia in Matt 24—but R T France has demonstrated conclusively that this is not the case. This cluster of predictions in Matt 24:4–31 is followed immediately by Jesus’ emphatic declaration: ‘Amen I say to you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have come to pass’ (Matt 24:34). Reading this as a failed expectation of Jesus’ imminent return does not take into account Matthew’s lack of embarrassment at recording such words at the point (by any reasonable reckoning of dating) when ‘this generation’ was indeed passing away, and ignores the consistent use elsewhere in the gospels and Acts of Dan 7:13. In the trial narrative in Mark 14:62, Jesus cites Dan 7:13 with reference to his vindication by God in his resurrection and ascension, and immediately prior to his execution, Stephen has a vision of this fulfilled in Acts 7:56. In all these contexts, ‘coming’ (ἐρχόμενος) indicates the coming of the son of man to the throne, and not coming to the earth—the direction of travel is upwards, not downwards.

So in both Matt 24 and Rev 1:7, the use of Dan 7:13 and Zech 12:10 refer to Jesus’ exalted status before the Ancient of Days, and his receipt of ‘authority, glory and sovereign power’ and a ‘kingdom that will not be destroyed’ (Dan 7:14). This understanding fits much better with the immediate context of John’s proclamation of Jesus as ‘ruler’ and the language of the doxology, rather than seeing it as an anticipation of his return, which is a minor note (only represented by the third ascription of God ‘who is to come’) in this section. For our purposes, we need to note that, as is common in Revelation, texts where Yahweh is the subject are now applied to Jesus without qualification, so that he becomes the subject and performs the actions that Yahweh performed in the source text. In the oracle in Zech 12:10, it is Yahweh who is speaking to his people (Zech 12:1), and his being ‘pierced’ is a metaphor for the way the people have wounded God by their disobedience (compare the similar metaphor in Luke 2:35). Jesus now becomes the one who is pierced, as he has done in John 19:37 where his crucifixion becomes the ‘fulfilment’ of this text. Although the ‘mourning’ in Zech 12:10 suggests fear of judgement, the way that both Revelation and Matthew adapt the LXX suggests recognition and repentance by including allusion to the blessing of the nations in Gen 22:18. The exaltation of Jesus being seen by ‘all the tribes of the earth’ (rather than the clans of the land [of Israel] in Zech 12:14) thus anticipates the followers of the lamb being ‘redeemed from every tribe, language, people and nation’ (5:9; compare 7:9). 

So, far from being an unexpected anticipation of Parousia disconnected from the doxological language and the focus on sovereign power in the surrounding verses, this oracle articulates Jesus’ exaltation in the presence of God and the consequent recognition of his sovereignty by his followers from every nation. It does so, at least in part, by adapting Old Testament language about Yahweh and making Jesus the subject, as other New Testament writers have done.  

e. The prophetic oracle: additional titles of God

John’s language in verse 8 ‘says the Lord God’ appears to be a deliberate echo of authoritative prophetic pronouncements from the Old Testament (for example, Ex 4:22, 1 Kings 11:31, Jer 9:22, Is 48:17) and forms an inclusio with the opening of the greeting in verse 4 by returning to the subject of God. The first part of the statement ‘I am the Alpha and the O’ is unique to Revelation in the New Testament (despite its widespread deployment in Christian worship) and functions both as a counter-claim to that of Zeus to be ‘the beginning, the middle and the end’ and an engagement with Greco-Roman magical cults. Members of these cults were often interested in letters and their repetition, and there is evidence of their interest in the transliteration of the tetragrammaton into Greek as ΙΑΩ. Thus this title in Revelation is specifically connected with the name of Yahweh and the polemical displacement of other gods and their claims to supremacy. It is, then, very striking that this title is repeated in two variant forms, seven times in total, and alternating in ascription to God and to Jesus:

The first variant ‘I am the first and the last’ in 1:17 is a direct allusion to Is 44:6, and is part of the repeated refrain in this section of Isaiah that ‘apart from me there is no God’, denying the power or even ontological reality of other spiritual powers—and it is this title which is claimed by Jesus in John’s opening vision. The second variant ‘I am the beginning and the end’ in 21:6 also derives from Second Isaiah: God is the ‘first and the last’ in Isaiah 41:4, 44:6 and 48:12 in contrast to other powers, and has been speaking and acting ‘from the beginning’ (Is 40:21, 41:26). Whilst the characters of Jesus/the lamb and God/the one on the throne have distinct titles and roles throughout the narrative, Jesus’ claim of the triple title in 22:13 offers the clearest sense of the convergence of his status and identity with that of God. In the end, the fulness of God is found in our encountering him in the person and redemption of Jesus. Bauckham observes:

This pattern underlines the identification of Christ with God which the use of the titles themselves expresses… It does not designate [Jesus] a second god, but includes him in the eternal being of the one God of Israel who is the only source and goal of all things (Bauckham, The Theology of the Book of Revelation p 58).

This offers an interesting parallel to Paul’s inclusion of Jesus in his citation of the Shema (Deut 6:4) in 1 Cor 8:4–6. On this, Gordon Fee uses very similar language to Bauckham’s concerning Revelation:

In the same breath that he can assert that there is only one God, he equally asserts that the designation “Lord” which in the old Testament belongs to the one God, is the proper designation of the divine Son. One should note especially that Paul feels no tension between the affirmation of monotheism and a clear distinction between the two persons of Father and Jesus Christ (Gordon D. Fee, First Epistle to the Corinthians, 2nd Revised edition, New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987) p 375).

The second part of the prophetic oracle in verse 8 recapitulates the opening threefold title of God (thus also emphasising the inclusio of this short section) and then adding the Old Testament title ‘Almighty’ (παντοκράτωρ). In conjunction with ‘Lord God’ , this appears seven times in the text (here and in 4:8, 11:17, 15:3, 16:7, 19:6, and 21:22) and corresponds to the Old Testament phrase  יהוָ֛ה אֱלֹהֵ֥י צְבָא֖וֹת ‘Yahweh God of hosts’. In Revelation it appears in praise and in the context of conflict and victory, and is only ever used of God. There is some connection with the activity of Jesus, in that he ‘holds fast’ (κρατέω, cognate with παντοκράτωρ) the seven stars in 2:1—but for the most part this title serves to distinguish God from other divine actants, Jesus and the Spirit, in the narrative. 

Conclusion

The Book of Revelation aligns with other parts of the New Testament is describing the relationship between God the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit, but does so in more explicit and distinctive ways. Where many of the claims about the relation between Jesus and the God of Israel are implicit in other parts of the New Testament, in Revelation they become quite overt and explicit. Revelation presents the equality of the persons of the Godhead, particularly the relation between the Father and the Son, much less ambiguously than some NT texts; it does not include language of subordination (found for example in 1 Cor 15.28), and uniquely in the New Testament depicts Jesus as being the object of divine praise in his own right.

Revelation is distinctive in depicting the Spirit (through a complex set of images) as speaking the speech of both Jesus and the One on the throne, acting for them and with them in revelation and insight, and having a symmetrical relationship (as the eyes of Yahweh who has now become the eyes of the lamb, as well as possibly being the river of the water of life flowing from the throne of God and the lamb) with both these other two.

Nicene belief in God as Trinity is the only doctrinal and theological framework which can make sense of the narrative shape and diverse imagery of the Book of Revelation in its depiction of the threefold identity of God.