Friday, February 18, 2022

Robert Gundry on the Angel in Revelation 10 and God in the Bible Swearing

  

Though sometimes thought to rule out an identification with Jesus, the angels’ raising his right hand to heaven and swearing by the ever-living Creator (10:5-6; cf. Dan 12:7) suits well the element of subordination to God in Johannine Christology (cf. the implication of “our Lord and his Christ” in 11:15). According to Deut 32:40 God lists his hand to heaven and says, i.e., swears, “As I live forever . . .”; and in Heb 6:13 God even swears by himself, so that neither swearing itself nor swearing by God implies less than deity in the swearer. The fact that earlier in Revelation John has referred four times to the right hand of Jesus (1:16, 17, 20; 2:1), the only exception being the right hand of God his Father (5:1, 7), also lends some support to an identification of an angel with Jesus. In view of the many parallels in Johannine Christology between Jesus the Son and God his Father (in Revelation, for example, they share the same throne, kingdom, and authority—3:21; 5:13; 6:16; 7:9-11, 15-17; 11:15; 12:5, 10; 20:6; 22:1, 3), the two earlier references to God’s right hand add to this support (the imprint of the mark of the Beast on the right hand of his worshippers has yet to appear [13:16]; and inasmuch as the Beat parodies Christ, that later reference hardly damages a reference to the right hand of Christ in John’s mention of the angel’s right hand). (Robert Gundry, “Angelomorphic Christology in the Book of Revelation,” in The Old Is Better: New Testament Essays in Support of Traditional Interpretations [Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen Zum Neuen Testament 178; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005; repr., Eugene, Oreg.: Wipf and Stock, 2010], 382-83)

 

Such refutes how some absolutise Matt 5:34 against all oaths, swearing, etc.