Counted And Countless: Who Are the 144,000 in Revelation 7?

Who are the 144,000 in Revelation? Not a Jewish remnant left behind after a rapture, and not an elite class in heaven. They are the whole people of God: sealed, counted, and kept.

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Some numbers carry a picture. “1776” and Americans see quill pens in Philadelphia. “144,000” and anyone who’s read Revelation, or opened the front door to a pair of Jehovah’s Witnesses, sees something too.

For many of our evangelical friends, the picture is 144,000 Jewish converts who evangelize the world during a seven-year tribulation after the rapture of the church. Think of the Scofield Reference Bible, Hal Lindsey, and the Left Behind novels.

For Jehovah’s Witnesses, the picture is believers who go to heaven to rule with Christ, while the rest of the faithful live forever on a paradise earth.

Both pictures make the 144,000 a fraction of God’s people. Revelation 7 says the opposite. The 144,000 isn’t part of God’s people but all of them: every one of God’s people, from the Old Testament and the New, sealed, counted, and kept through the whole age between Christ’s first and second comings. Let me explain why I took this interpretation I my recent sermon on Revelation 6:1–8:1.

Why Chapter 7 Comes Where It Does

Revelation 6 ends at the end. When the Lamb opens the sixth seal, the sky rolls up like a scroll, and kings and slaves alike beg the rocks to hide them from the great day…of wrath (6:17), crying, “who can stand?” (6:17).

Chapter 7 isn’t the next event on a timeline. John steps back to show us who will stand. He sees four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth (7:1). Zechariah connects four horse-drawn chariots with “the four winds of heaven” (Zech. 6:5), and these are the same horses that rode out of the seals.[1] Before any of them may harm the earth, another angel cries out: “Do not harm the earth or the sea or the trees, until we have sealed the servants of our God on their foreheads” (7:3).

Note the order: God marks his people before the winds are let loose. The 144,000 aren’t created after the church has been raptured from the earth; they are the church within the very history chapter 6 describes.

What the Seal Means

John’s first readers would have heard an echo of Ezekiel. Before judgment fell on Jerusalem, a man with a writing case went through the city to “put a mark on the foreheads of the men who sigh and groan over all the abominations that are committed in it,” and the executioners were told, “touch no one on whom is the mark” (Ezek. 9:4, 6). Seals authenticate. Ancient kings sealed their letters so the recipients knew the letter really came from them. God has “sealed [us] with the promised Holy Spirit” (Eph. 1:13; cf. 4:30; 2 Cor. 1:22). What’s written on the forehead? Revelation tells us later: the 144,000 have the Lamb’s “name and his Father’s name written on their foreheads” (14:1; cf. 3:12).

This seal doesn’t mean immunity from suffering. The souls under the altar in 6:9–11 had been slain, and they were God’s. Jesus doesn’t keep us from tribulation, but in and through it. William Hendriksen put it memorably: “Let the winds blow; they will not harm God’s people. Let the judgments come; they will not hurt His elect!”[2]

A Census Like No Other

And I heard the number of the sealed, 144,000, sealed from every tribe of the sons of Israel (7:4). Then John hears twelve thousand from each of twelve tribes (7:5–8).

That’s a census, like the one in Numbers 1, where Moses counted “every male… all in Israel who are able to go to war,” tribe by tribe (Num. 1:2–3). Richard Bauckham reads John’s list as the muster of an army.[3] But this army fights the way its Captain did. They “follow the Lamb wherever he goes” (14:4), and they conquer “by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony” (12:11).

Yet no census in the Old Testament reads like this one.

Judah comes first. Not Reuben, the firstborn, but Judah, the tribe of the Lion who has conquered (5:5; Gen. 49:9–10).[4]

Levi is counted despite the Lord saying in Numbers, “the tribe of Levi you shall not list” (Num. 1:49). There, the Levites served at the tabernacle, not in the army. Here, Levi stands with the rest because in Christ God’s people are all priests (1:6; 5:10; 1 Pet. 2:9).

Idolatrous Dan and Ephraim are missing (Judg. 18:30–31; 1 Kgs. 12:29–30; Hos. 4:17). Joseph stands in Ephraim’s place. As Hendriksen asked, if the 144,000 were ethnic Israel, why would two tribes be left out?[5]

The numbers come out even. Biblical censuses don’t. In Numbers, Judah mustered 74,600 men and Manasseh 32,200 (Num. 1:27, 35). Here every tribe sends exactly 12,000. The number itself leads to a symbolic understanding. Twelve tribes times twelve apostles, whose names John later sees on the gates and foundations of the New Jerusalem (21:12–14), times a thousand, which is ten cubed, completeness on completeness.[6] The city is measured in the same numbers: 12,000 stadia in length, width, and height, and a wall of 144 cubits (21:16–17). The city is the bride, the people of the Lamb (21:9–10).

The Servants of Our God

John tells us who the sealed are before he tells us how many: the servants of our God (7:3). That’s Revelation’s ordinary name for all believers. The book itself was given “to show to his servants the things that must soon take place” (1:1). From the throne the call to worship goes out: “Praise our God, all you his servants” (19:5). In the New Jerusalem, “his servants will worship him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads” (22:3–4).

These servants are marked and kept amidst tribulation. The locusts from the pit are told to harm “only those people who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads” (9:4). If the sealed were only Jewish believers, every Gentile Christian would be left exposed with the world. Revelation knows only two kinds of people: those with God’s seal and those with the beast’s mark (13:16).

Counted and Countless

Then John turns. After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb (7:9). He hears a number, then sees a numberless crowd, just as he heard of a Lion but saw a Lamb (5:5–6). Only God knows the number of those sealed: “The Lord knows those who are his” (2 Tim. 2:19).

 

 

Who Are the 144,000?

 

“Counted by God. Countless before the throne.”

 

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This numbered census is the numberless multitude promised to Abraham: “number the stars, if you are able to number them.… So shall your offspring be” (Gen. 15:5). He was then called “the father of a multitude of nations” (Gen. 17:5). In the words of Paul: “If you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise” (Gal. 3:29). Israel never was a singular ethnic family in one land—think Rahab and Ruth (Rom. 9:6–8). But now this is evident as family of Abraham extends throughout the world.

Who are they? These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb (7:14). The great tribulation is not seven years at the end of history, but the tribulation John already shared with his readers (1:9). Note also the present tense of coming. Every time a believer dies in the Lord, the multitude grows by one. Hendriksen noted how the Dutch speak of dying as overlijden, “to get over (or beyond) suffering.”[7] That’s what every one of them has done.

Every One Accounted For

The Heidelberg Catechism puts Revelation 7 into language children could understand:

I believe that the Son of God
through his Spirit and Word,
out of the entire human race,
from the beginning of the world to its end,
gathers, protects, and preserves for himself
a community chosen for eternal life
and united in true faith.
And of this community I am and always will be
a living member. (Q&A 54)

Out of the entire human race: “from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages” (Rev. 7:9; cf. 5:9). From the beginning of the world to its end: from Adam to the last man, woman, or child. Gathers, protects, and preserves: sealed with the name of God.

Counted by God. Countless to us before the throne. Standing in the white robes of Christ’s blood and righteousness.

Revelation: Jesus Wins

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© 2026 Daniel R. Hyde. Permission is granted to reprint this article in full, unaltered, for non-commercial use, provided the attribution below is included and links to the original. For excerpts, translations, or commercial use, see Permissions.

To attribute: Daniel R. Hyde, "Counted And Countless: Who Are the 144,000 in Revelation 7?" https://www.danielrhyde.com/articles/who-are-the-144000-revelation-7. Used by permission.

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Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. ESV Text Edition: 2025. The ESV text may not be quoted in any publication made available to the public by a Creative Commons license. The ESV may not be translated in whole or in part into any other language. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Italics in Scripture quotations are added.

Notes

[1] Kim Riddlebarger also reads Zechariah’s horses and chariots as “symbolizing the four winds of heaven.” “The Seven Seals” (Revelation 6:1–8), Sermons on the Book of Revelation 12, Reformed Perspectives Magazine 11, no. 12 (March 22–28, 2009), https://reformedperspectives.org/articles/kim_riddlebarger/kim_riddlebarger.Rev.12.html. William Hendriksen ties the winds instead to the trumpet judgments about to fall. More Than Conquerors: An Interpretation of the Book of Revelation (1940, 1967; Baker Book House, seventh printing, 1990), 109.↩

[2] Hendriksen, 111.↩

[3] Richard Bauckham, The Theology of the Book of Revelation (Cambridge University Press, 1993), 76–78.

The Lion Is the Lamb: A Theology of the Cross in Revelation 5

Why does Revelation call Jesus both Lion and Lamb? John hears that the Lion of Judah has conquered, then turns and sees a Lamb standing, as slain — because in Revelation 5 the conquering is the dying.

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One of the cool things of John’s visionary world are the times he hears something, then looks to see what he’s just heard. In Revelation 5, John is told one thing but then shown another.

He’s weeping because the scroll in the right hand of the One on the throne is sealed with seven seals and no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth is worthy to open it. And an unopened scroll means no protection for God's children in bitter trial, no judgment on a persecuting world, no triumph, no new heaven and earth.[1] John is weeping loudly.

Then an elder tells him to stop because the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered and thus can open the scroll and its seven seals (5:5). He’s the long hoped-for king Jacob said would come from his son Judah’s line (Gen. 49:9–10) and the root that gave Israel’s greatest king, David, life. He’s worthy.

So, John turns to look at this conquering Lion; he sees a Lamb standing…as slain (5:6).[2]

Richard Bauckham argues that this contrast between what John hears and what he sees is the key to the whole vision.[3] Two messianic titles summon a Messiah who conquers the nations by destroying them. Then John looks, and the image is reinterpreted by a slaughtered Lamb. What John hears isn’t cancelled. Jesus really is the expected Messiah greater than David. But what he sees tells you how that Messiah won.

G. K. Beale finds the same device working elsewhere in the book: visions are placed directly after heavenly sayings in order to interpret them.[4] John hears the announcement, then sees the explanation.

Revelation 5 isn’t merely a scene of worship. It’s a theology of the cross (theologia crucis) interpreted for us in picture form. It claims that Christ’s death wasn’t the interruption before the victory but the form the victory took. He conquered as he was slaughtered, not merely afterward. He is worthy because he was slain, not in spite of it. He still bears the marks because what he did there hasn’t stopped being true.

The Conquering Is the Dying

John is told a Lion conquered yet shown a Lamb slain.

John doesn’t correct the elder; Revelation doesn’t resolve the tension. There’s nothing to resolve.

• The Lion is the Lamb.

• The Victor is the Victim.

• The Strong One is the Sacrificed One.

The One who gives life to all things is the One by whose death new life is given. In Bauckham’s words, by juxtaposing two images, “John has forged a new symbol of conquest by sacrificial death.”[5]

Ironically, the Lamb’s wounds are worthy precisely because he’s alive to bear them. 5:6 depicts a Lamb standing, not lying dead. As he said in chapter 1: “Fear not, I am…the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore” (1:17, 18). Of course, his resurrection is essential to his conquest, but in the context of Roman power, Christ’s victory comes through death.

And the Lamb who was slain isn’t weak. He stands with seven horns and with seven eyes (5:6). He has fullness of right, might, and sight. The perfect number seven is used twice over. The slain Lamb is ironically Almighty.

Note that chapter 5 doesn’t proclaim what the Lamb conquered. Bauckham reads the silence as deliberate: the object is left undefined so that the victory is boundless in its scope.[6] Everything opposed to the Lion’s rule has been defeated. Paul says the rulers of this age crucified the Lord of glory, but had they understood they wouldn’t have done it (1 Cor. 2:8). They thought a cross was regicide. The cross ironically was his coronation.

 

 

The Theology of the Cross

 

“The cross ironically was his coronation.”

 

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The coronated Lamb is viewed in the midst of (ἐν μέσῳ) the throne. Christ’s sacrificial death is the means of God’s rule of the world. The risen Christ stands in the midst of the lampstands (ch. 1) and in the midst of the throne (ch. 5).

Physically Defeated, Spiritually Victorious

How exactly does conquering-through-suffering work? In the seven letters (chs. 2–3), believers overcome by persevering in faith in the midst of suffering and persecution. Christ’s overcoming must be essentially like theirs, since 3:21 compares the two so closely.[7] Christ overcame by maintaining loyalty to the Father through suffering and finally death. He was physically defeated but spiritually victorious.

His victory is more than abstract. While he was suffering the defeat of death, he was simultaneously overcoming by creating a kingdom of redeemed subjects over whom he would reign and over whom the devil would no longer have power (5:9–10). While defeated by the forces of evil at the cross, he was establishing his kingdom.

It isn’t that he was defeated on Friday and vindicated on Sunday. The defeat itself was the conquering. His kingdom didn’t begin after the resurrection. It began at the cross.

A Ransom With Nothing Narrow About It

Listen to how the new song expresses what his blood accomplished: you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God (5:9–10).

Tribe, language, people, nation means every ethnic, linguistic, social, and political corner of the world. Every way human beings divide from one another is broken down. There is nothing narrow or national about this redemption.

The Lamb was given a kingdom and priesthood, not a collection of random individuals, but one corporate people, drawn from the many. This is what the LORD said to Israel at Sinai: you shall be to me a kingdom of priests (Ex. 19:6). What was said to one nation gathered at one mountain is now said to a people gathered from all of them.

The concentric circles of praise widen across chapters 4–5. Four living creatures praise (4:8). Then twenty-four elders join in (4:9–11). Then the four and the twenty-four are together (5:8). Then myriads of myriads of angels are heard (5:11–12). Finally, every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea (5:13).

The cosmic choir’s song of the Lamb echoes what the blood of the Lamb does to the nations.

John will use the same device again two chapters later. He hears the number of the sealed, 144,000 from the twelve tribes of Israel (7:4). Then he looks, and sees an innumerable multitude from every nation (7:9). Hearing and seeing, one reality under two images — the same technique as 5:5–6, now applied to the church. The people of the Lion of Judah turn out to be the people of the slaughtered Lamb.

He Is Still Standing as Slain

There’s one grammatical detail here with weight.

John sees a Lamb standing, as slain (ἐσφαγμένον). A perfect passive participle. The Lamb’s victory has present, ongoing effect. Beale said the perfect participle, “expresses an abiding condition as a result of the past act of being slain.”[8] His wounds aren’t scars of something finished and filed away. Heaven’s throne room is permanently occupied by a Lamb who bears the marks of slaughter and is standing to plead them before the throne of grace.

We preach a crucified Christ; that’s his abiding state, not merely a past event.

This is why Hebrews says he’s able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, because he always lives to make intercession for them (Heb. 7:25). The offering doesn’t need repeating, because it never stops being offered.

Are you a sinner? There’s a sacrifice for your sins in Jesus.

Weep No More

John wept because a sealed scroll meant history with no one at the wheel. He stopped weeping because someone was worthy to open it.

When you look at the world and conclude that if Christ is on the throne, he’s not doing a very good job, Revelation doesn’t tell you things are better than they look. It says God conquers another way.

The last of the seven promises to the seven churches anticipates this vision: to the one who conquers I will grant to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne (3:21). Read the letters. By the time you reach chapter 5 you’ve been told seven times that there’s such a thing as conquering, and once that Christ has already done it. Then you’re shown what his conquering looked like: a Lamb, standing, as slain.

The plan of the ages is in worthy hands. And you can see the wounds.

Revelation: Jesus Wins

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• NextCounted and Countless

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© 2026 Daniel R. Hyde. Permission is granted to reprint this article in full, unaltered, for non-commercial use, provided the attribution below is included and links to the original. For excerpts, translations, or commercial use, see Permissions.

To attribute: Daniel R. Hyde, "The Lion Is the Lamb: A Theology of the Cross in Revelation 5," https://www.danielrhyde.com/articles/lion-and-lamb-theology-of-the-cross-revelation-5. Used by permission.

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Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. ESV Text Edition: 2025. The ESV text may not be quoted in any publication made available to the public by a Creative Commons license. The ESV may not be translated in whole or in part into any other language. Used by permission. All rights reserved. 

Notes

[1] William Hendriksen, More Than Conquerors: An Interpretation of the Book of Revelation (1940, 1967; Baker Book House, seventh printing, 1990), 89.↩

[2] I have rendered ἱς ἐσφαγμένον as “as slain” rather than the ESV’s “as though it had been slain.” “As though” is misleading, as if the Lamb only looked slain. See G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation, The New International Greek Testament Commentary (Eerdmans, 1999), 352.↩

[3] Richard Bauckham, The Theology of the Book of Revelation (Cambridge University Press, 1993), 74.↩

[4] Beale, 353.↩

[5] Bauckham, 74.↩

[6] Bauckham, 74.↩

[7] Beale, 352–53.↩

[8] Beale, 352.↩

From Reformed Dream to Reformed Reality: The Problem and Possibility of Reformed Church Unity

An address to the thirty-eighth meeting of the North American Presbyterian and Reformed Council (NAPARC)held at Mid-America Reformed Seminary on November 13, 2012

Dear fathers and brothers, I would like to play off Dr. W. Robert Godfrey’s “A Reformed Dream” spoken at NAPARC last year and speak tonight on “From Reformed Dream to Reformed Reality: The Problem and Possibility of Reformed Church Unity.” As one who became a Reformed Christian although I was neither raised nor converted within the tradition, I, too, am a dreamer and an idealist. Yet as a Calvinist church planter I know that dreams don’t always match reality. I’m also a student of history, so I know that nothing is as neat and clean as it sounds in textbooks when you actually read the sources for yourself. Whether it was post-Constantinian Christianity, Outremer (the Crusader kingdoms), or pre-Cromwellian English Non-Conformity and then post-Cromwellian English Dissent, I have learned to be a realist.

The Dream: Organic Union Among Reformed Churches

We all know the dream. It is stated in the Constitution of NAPARC: “hold out before each other the desirability and need for organic union of churches that are of like faith and practice” (art. II).

This “dream” is rooted in and is an application of the prayer of our Lord Jesus Christ in John 17. I want to be clear, though. Jesus is not praying for “organic union of churches.” That’s our application of his words. He is praying for that union and communion that he had as the Son with the Father before time existed to be realized in a new way, after his ascension, between him as theanthropos, the God-man, and the Father: “And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed” (v. 5). He goes on to pray for his immediate disciples to know that union and communion with the Triune God inasmuch as creatures can experience it: “I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours…Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one” (vv. 9, 11). He finally prays for the catholic church extended through time: “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me” (vv. 20–23). Notwithstanding D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ influential exposition of John 17,[1] since we find ourselves in a situation where believers are gathered into distinct communities as our denominations are, we can legitimately apply Jesus’ prayer in terms of the ecumenical imperative.

This dream is also rooted in and an application of Paul’s exhortation in Ephesians 4:1–6. What a lofty calling we have: “maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (v. 3). What is so interesting to note is that this exhortation comes not only in the ethical context of “walk[ing] in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called” (v. 1) but also in a doctrinal context. There is unity, and Paul expresses it in terms of a sevenfold—that is, complete—oneness: there is one body of Christ, Spirit, hope, Lord, faith, baptism, and God (vv. 4–6).

The Problem: Sin and Division in the Reformed Churches

This leads me to address the problem. The fact that Paul actually has to exhort those who have already been “made…alive together with Christ,” who have already been “raised…up with him,” and have already been “seated…with him in the heavenly places” (Eph. 2:5, 6), to then bear “with one another in love” and to be “eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit” with humility, gentleness, and patience (Eph. 4:2, 3), says something about us, doesn’t it? Paul’s exhortation is evidence that we do not do this anywhere near the level God demands and desires, and that we need. Simul iustus et peccator is a living reality for the church. The problem of unity in the Reformed churches, then, is sin. That’s why on a bad day I would say that the Reformed churches are hopelessly divided in the spirit of Corinth: “‘I follow Paul,’ or ‘I follow Apollos,’ or ‘I follow Cephas,’ or ‘I follow Christ’” (1 Cor. 1:12).

Let me press this deep into your hearts by saying something that I trust shocks you. We are so divided that we cannot have a Synod of Dort or a Westminster Assembly today. Not shocking enough? Here is why I believe this: we are too carnal and insufficiently spiritual for such an assembly. We are too carnal in holding up “distinctives” as virtually inerrant. We revel in famous dates in our respective histories, as if they are a direct line from the apostles through the Reformation to us. We hold up our church polity issues as being passed down from the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15). Let me illustrate by speaking of my own churches. For those of us with Dort-esque church orders, do we really believe the consistory rules the church? Then are we willing to drop the canon law of a second service requirement for the sake of “weaker” brothers, many of whom even mirror our practice of two services yet do not see it as a biblical mandate? If elders rule, let them rule their people as they know best. We are too carnal with so much infighting over preaching. We cluster in our respective corners and raise our flags: biblical-theological, redemptive-historical, grammatical-historical, experiential, evangelistic, fallen-condition focus, and everything in between. We do this as if preaching methodology trumps what we all confess is the first and primary mark of the true church: preaching the gospel of God’s grace in Jesus Christ. And I say that as one who thinks Reformed preaching today needs to imbibe and apply William Perkins’ The Art of Prophesying!

Unity amid Diversity at Dort and Westminster

Because of this we are insufficiently spiritual. We do not evidence the fruit of the Holy Spirit that reflect the high calling to which we are called (Eph. 4:1). Therefore I believe our once-legitimate historical, cultural, circumstantial divisions are now a discipline from the Lord upon our movement. Will we fall on our faces together in repentance? Will we arise and with open arms embrace in charity and humility our brothers who differ with us on lesser matters? Can we not follow the example of our forefathers? Are our distinctives and differences any more important than those that existed at the Synod of Dort? One example should suffice. On the issue of how to express the extent and intent of Christ’s satisfaction, there was diversity. Some said Christ died for the elect—period—and that the ancient sufficiency/efficiency distinction was useless. Others said that this distinction was useful since Christ’s intent was not to save the whole world; however, his death had an infinite and intrinsic value sufficient in extent to save the whole world. And there were a few who affirmed an even broader sufficiency, saying that Christ died efficiently with intent to save the elect, but that he also died sufficiently for the whole world, with the intention of establishing a conditional covenant of grace such that everyone who believes will be saved.[2] And as you read the Minutes of the Westminster Assembly[3] what you learn is that in virtually every chapter of its Confession, there was a serious and significant debate. And I don’t mean just with the “Dissenting Brethren,” but amongst the Presbyterians, both the ius divinum men and more moderates. On the broad context of unity and diversity within our tradition as exemplified by Dort and Westminster, we all need to read Michael Haykin and Mark Jones’ volume, Drawn Into Controversie: Reformed Theological Diversity and Debates within Seventeenth-Century British Puritanism.[4] Especially of note is Richard Muller’s opening essay, in which he chronicles debates over non- or subconfessional issues such as supralapsarian-infralapsarian question, non-Amyraldian hypothetical universalism, the mediate or immediate imputation of Adam’s sin to his posterity, the imputation of Christ’s active obedience, the nature of the keys of the kingdom, the millennial kingdom, the nature of Adam’s reward, the organization of covenant theology, justification from eternity, and elements of Cocceian theology.[5]

The Possibility: The Holy Spirit and Reformed Church Unity

So where does this leave us? Hopelessly divided? Yes, if we continue to be carnal and immature. But with God all things are possible. I believe the possibility of Reformed church unity hangs upon the person and work of the Holy Spirit. In Matthew 7, we read one of Jesus’ famous sayings on prayer, that we are to ask, seek, and knock for our good God’s good gifts (vv. 7–11). What is fascinating is that in Luke 11, our Lord Jesus Christ specifies that there is one thing we are to ask, seek, and knock for most specifically—the Holy Spirit. He is the answer to what often feels to me like our own version of ex opere operato: the notion long that as long as we have the confessions, as long as we preach orthodoxy, as long as we have the means of grace, as long as we stick to the old forms, our bare external conservatism makes us the true church. He is the key, as we must have everything I just said along with our reliance upon the Holy Spirit as the wind that blows the ship of our churches. I believe the possibility, then, of Reformed church unity comes down to our pleading and praying for the Holy Spirit himself to “rend the heavens and come down” (Isa. 64:1) to bring with him “the latter rain” (Joel 2:23), the sweet wine that drips from the mountains, the milk that flows from the hills, and the streambeds that flow with water (Joel 3:18). And when he comes in his gracious person and presence, he brings revival, which leads to reformation, which leads to reconciliation.

Revival, Not Revivalism

We need the Spirit to bring revival. I’m not speaking of revivalism, but of authentic, genuine, and true revival, which J. I. Packer once described as first and foremost “the sense that God has drawn awesomely near in his holiness, mercy, and might.”[6] We need the Spirit’s presence to grant us an awakening to our sins of arrogance, pride, and stubbornness. We need the Spirit’s presence to rekindle in us not only a diligent use of the means of grace, but an awareness and experience that they are means of the Holy Spirit. Caspar Olevianus said that the minister of the Word, and by extension the Word and the sacraments themselves, was Spiritus Sancti organum, organs, means, instruments of the Holy Spirit himself.[7] We need the Spirit to cause us to devour the Word as in the days of our forefathers, who traveled great distances and who stood for hours to hear the Word—not opinions—but the Word. We need the Spirit to cause us to long for Christ and his comfort through the sacraments. We need the Spirit to cause us to pray—I mean really pray—like the boiler room at the Metropolitan Tabernacle in Charles Spurgeon’s day. We need the Spirit’s presence to lead us to pursue “the holiness without which no one will see the Lord” (Heb. 12:14).

Reformation: The Church Confessing the Truth

We need the Spirit to move us to reformation. As God revives, the church reforms. The evidence of this is found in our confessional documents. When you learn of the history behind the men and the movements that led to these documents, you see the hand of the Holy Spirit leading them to respond to the Spirit’s reviving work in the church in confession of the truth. Until we are revived, we will not have a new reformation. Until we are revived, we will continue to bicker, blog, and tweet carnally over creation days, the historicity of Adam, the relationship between justification and sanctification, law and gospel, how the two kingdoms relate to each other, the church’s witness and work in a dying culture, and a whole host of struggles we are having right now.

Reconciliation: Unity in Our Confessed Faith

We need the Spirit to lead us to reconciliation. I believe reconciliation is Spirit-wrought and leads us to acknowledge our already-existing unity on the basis of our publicly confessed faith—not exegetical differences, not extraconfessional issues, not historical and cultural boundaries, but the truth. We may not see that now through the clouds of our sins, but it is possible. As Willem van Vlastuin, of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, said,

Union in the truth is the primary necessity. That is an organic union that is, which is far more important than organized unity. If we put two sick chickens in a chicken-house, it will not benefit either. The illness of the Church should first be healed, not the divisions, for divisions are only the result of the lifelessness and the poor spiritual life within our churches. A spiritual revival is necessary, which is the work of God.[8]

This brings me back to John 17. What we see here is that the unity between Father and Son (and Spirit) is the basis of what unites us. As the Spirit revives and as we reform we will come to experience that union and communion which Jesus prayed we would have with the Father through the Son. The fact that the one true God is Triune helps us to see that just as there are distinctions between the Persons, in the same way we are one, although with real distinctions that do not obliterate the union. And we can continually be so. The problem of sin is great. But the possibility in the Spirit is even greater. Amen.

Notes

[1] D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, The Basis of Christian Unity (Banner of Truth, 2003) and The Assurance of Our Salvation (Studies in John 17): Exploring the Depth of Jesus’ Prayer for His Own (Crossway, 2000).↩

[2] W. Robert Godfrey, “Tensions within International Calvinism: The Debate on the Atonement at the Synod of Dort, 1618–1619” (PhD diss., Stanford University, 1974).↩

[3] Chad Van Dixhoorn, The Minutes and Papers of the Westminster Assembly, 1643–1653, 5 vols. (Oxford University Press, 2012).↩

[4] Eds. Michael A. G. Haykin and Mark Jones, Drawn Into Controversie: Reformed Theological Diversity and Debates within Seventeenth-Century British Puritanism (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2011).↩

[5] Richard A. Muller, “Diversity in the Reformed Tradition: A Historiographical Introduction,” in Drawn Into Controversie, 11–30.↩

[6] J. I. Packer, God in Our Midst: Seeking and Receiving Ongoing Revival (Servant Books, 1987), 26.↩

[7] Olevianus, De substantia, 2.33, cited in R. Scott Clark, Caspar Olevian and the Substance of the Covenant: The Double Benefit of Christ, Rutherford Studies in Historical Theology (Rutherford House, 2005), 192.↩

[8] Willem van Vlastuin, Revival (The Bunyan Press, 1998), 43.↩

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© 2026 Daniel R. Hyde. Permission is granted to reprint this article in full, unaltered, for non-commercial use, provided the attribution below is included and links to the original. For excerpts, translations, or commercial use, see Permissions.

To attribute: Daniel R. Hyde, "From Reformed Dream to Reformed Reality: The Problem and Possibility of Reformed Church Unity," https://www.danielrhyde.com/articles/reformed-dream-to-reformed-reality. Used by permission.

He Never Left the Room: The Presence of Christ in Revelation

Where is Jesus now? The ascension seems to put him at a distance, but Revelation answers by showing where he walks: in the midst of the lampstands, among his churches.

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Jesus’s ascension creates a problem the New Testament doesn’t hide. A cloud took him out of his disciples’ sight (Acts 1:9). He “sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high” (Heb. 1:3). The ancient creeds say the same: he “ascended into heaven, and sits on the right hand of the Father” (Nicene Creed).

This raises an obvious question: if Jesus is there, where does that leave us here?

The New Testament answers mostly by assertion. Jesus said, “I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matt. 28:20). “I will not leave you as orphans” (John 14:18). True and comforting promises, but they can feel abstract to hurting souls.

The book of Revelation does something else. It doesn’t assert the presence of Christ. It shows you where he’s walking.

In the Midst

John turns toward the voice speaking to him and sees seven golden lampstands, “and in the midst of the lampstands one like a son of man” (1:12–13). Eighteen verses later the image is decoded: the seven lampstands are the seven churches (1:20).

So, the living Jesus is located in the middle of his congregations.

Watch what John does with the same phrase. In chapter 5 he’s looking into the throne room of God itself, and sees in the midst of the throne a Lamb standing as though slain (5:6). The identical construction, en mesō (ἐν μέσῳ). Christ is in the midst of the throne and in the midst of the lampstands. Revelation feels no tension between the two.

That’s the answer to the ascension question, given to us in a picture rather than a proposition. Jesus didn’t go away and leave just a faint memory behind.

The Presence That Knows Particulars

In chapters 2 and 3, Christ says seven times “I know.” What he knows isn’t generic. He knows particulars like Smyrna’s bank balance: “your tribulation and your poverty, but you are rich” (2:9). He knows Pergamum’s address: “where you dwell, where Satan’s throne is” (2:13). He knows that Thyatira’s latter works exceed the first (2:19). He knows Sardis has a reputation for being alive but is really dead (3:1). He knows what Laodicea says about itself, and what’s actually true (3:17).

That isn’t surveillance like an orbiting satellite. These are words of someone who’s been in the room for years.

And to the smallest church on the list, he says touchingly, “I know that you have but little power” (3:8). Small isn’t invisible. A congregation can be beneath the notice of its own city while it’s not beneath Jesus’s.

He Can Be Among You and Not With You

These seven letters end somewhere the opening vision doesn't prepare you for.

To Ephesus, Jesus threatens, “I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place” (2:5). The presence isn’t a fixed piece of furniture. It can be withdrawn.

And to Laodicea, Jesus woos, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock” (3:20). Revelation opened with Christ in the midst of the lampstands, and his letters end with him outside one of them, locked out of his own church, so to speak. Yet, note his long-suffering, still knocking, still offering himself.

A congregation can have Jesus among them and not with them. It can be a lampstand and lose its light.

What This Means During an Ordinary Week

The Heidelberg Catechism asks a question directly, then answers it with the whole truth:

But isn’t Christ with us until the end of the world as he promised us?

Christ is true man and true God. In his human nature Christ is not now on earth; but in his divinity, majesty, grace, and Spirit he is never absent from us. (Q&A 47; URCNA Synod 2016 revision)

Revelation is that answer in picture form. Jesus isn’t here the way your neighbor is. He’s here the way the light is in the lampstand.

The Presence of Christ

“He is here the way the light is in the lampstand.”

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So, next Lord’s Day, when the congregation is smaller than you’d like and the singing is so thin you wonder whether any of it registers anywhere, know that Jesus hears because he’s present in the midst.

And he’s still knocking on the doors of churches that have stopped noticing.

Revelation: Jesus Wins

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© 2026 Daniel R. Hyde. Permission is granted to reprint this article in full, unaltered, for non-commercial use, provided the attribution below is included and links to the original. For excerpts, translations, or commercial use, see Permissions.

To attribute: Daniel R. Hyde, "He Never Left the Room:The Ascension and the Presence of Christ," https://www.danielrhyde.com/articles/where-is-jesus-now-presence-of-christ-revelation. Used by permission.

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Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. ESV Text Edition: 2025. The ESV text may not be quoted in any publication made available to the public by a Creative Commons license. The ESV may not be translated in whole or in part into any other language. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

William Ames’s Exhortation to Students of Theology

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William Ames (1576–1633), the English Puritan theologian exiled to the Netherlands, delivered An Exhortation to the Students of Theology at the University of Franeker on August 22, 1623. Convinced that theology is "the doctrine or teaching of living to God," he urged future pastors to know the true end of theology, the high calling of the ministry, and the practical skills it requires. He closed by prescribing five exercises: disputation, sermon rehearsal, prayer, meditation, and mutual exhortation.

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“The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of ἐπισκοπή (bishop, KJV; overseer, CSB, ESV, NASB, NIV) he desires a noble task” (1 Tim. 3:1). My exhortation to theology students is to emblazon this passage on your mind and heart.

Yet aspiration doesn’t equal ordination. Entering the gospel ministry requires more. Godly aspiration must result in cultivation of learning and sanctification. This is why John Calvin asked, “what are the theological schools if not nurseries for pastors?”[1]

As sometimes professor at theological seminaries and pastor of these students, how should we cultivate this aspiration to enter the ministry? What should we do to nurse these infants so they mature in knowledge and godliness?

I think it’s always helpful to go back in time first. Afterwards we can move forward. The wisdom of Reformed Catholic forefathers like William Ames is instructive today.

Who Was William Ames?

“The learned doctor” William Ames was an Englishman exiled to the Netherlands. Subsequently he spent the final decades of his life and ministry (1610–33) there due to Puritan sensibilities over liturgy.[2] 

Because of the close relation of England and the Netherlands in the late 16th–early 17th centuries, he had some difficulty entering his calling to teach at the University of Franeker. If you know much about the people of the province of Friesland, you’ll appreciate their independence (perhaps, stubbornness). The Frieslanders installed their chosen man despite English objections on May 23, 1622, at the small but “gracious academy of Friesland.”

On August 22, 1623, he gave a lecture entitled, Paraenesis ad studiosos theologiae, “An Exhortation to the Students of Theology.”[3]

The Nature of Theology: Living to God

Ames began with a definition of the nature of theology. This is how he began his 1623 Marrow of Theology (Medulla Theologiae) as well. In his Marrow, Ames famously began: Theologia est doctrina Deo vivendi—“Theology is the doctrine or teaching of living to God.”[4] Theology was intimately linked with piety according to Ames. Truth was always in accord with godliness (Titus 1:1).

In his Exhortation, Ames exhorted the University to “call theology away from questions and controversies, obscure, confused, and not very essential.” On the contrary, professors should “introduce it to life and practice so that students would begin to think seriously of conscience and its concerns.”

Theology Must Lead to Piety

What was he saying? This was a warning against studying theology for theology’s sake. Such conviction no doubt reflected his relationship to his Franeker colleague, Johannes Maccovius (1588–1644). Ames saw Maccovius's theological precision as having no connection to piety.[5] Ames even signed a petition against Maccovius on June 22, 1626: “In short, his entire life is nothing else but continued impiety.”[6] The list of impieties included drunkenness with his students, fighting, and slander. Ames’s exhortation to theology students was this: the nature of theology leads to piety.

Nearly three centuries later, B. B. Warfield pressed the same point on the students of Princeton Theological Seminary: "Why should you turn from God when you turn to your books, or feel that you must turn from your books in order to turn to God?"[7]

Know the End of Theology

His Exhortation continued with a list of three basic concerns.

First, theology students lacked understanding of “the proper end of theology.” Ames turned to Paul’s exhortation that Timothy be aware of his teaching. Why? The “end” or purpose of doctrine was salvation: “you will save both yourself and your hearers” (1 Tim. 4:16). For Ames, this meant students needed to be devoted to the glory of God and the edification of the church. Theology has practical results. This is true not only in the theologian but also in the church. We need to recapture this today.

Ames explained contrary ideas for the proper end of theology. He felt it necessary to give this exhortation to theology students because some wanted entrance for wrong motives. For example, financial gain or as if entering any other business vocation. God help us who are already ministers from having this attitude in ourselves. Some of us are privileged to be involved in training for the ministry. We need to constantly purge this attitude from those we’re shepherding while in seminary. Ames explained they were “useless weights to the church.” Nevertheless, “the greater marvel is the grace and providence of God, by which it has come about that up till now the church has lived on, although burdened to an unhappy degree by men of this hireling kind.”

Cultivate a Godly Conscience

Ames’s concern for the proper end of theology caused cultivation of a Christian conscience:

The mirror in which the image of eternal truth is reflected must be pure and clean. As far as possible there ought to be no stains of vice or flaws of selfishness in that heart in which the divine wisdom is to tabernacle.

It’s vital for those preparing for the ministry to cultivate a godly conscience. Ames likened the conscience to a mirror, upon which God reflected his truth. Like a smudged mirror, the conscience that’s unclean won’t reflect as clearly the truth of God’s Word. Here’s my exhortation to you theology students. Be concerned with cleansing your minds as much as cramming them with truth. The two go together. Wipe greed and envy, arrogance and pride, anger and contentiousness from your conscience. I speak as a former seminary student. I remember those days well.

Know the High Calling of the Ministry

Ames’s second concern was impressing upon his students their need to know the high calling of the sacred ministry. “What can be thought more important or useful than the profession of the ministry?” Why was the ministry such a high calling in contrast to other callings and vocations?

Here one does not treat of lands and estates and similar earthly matters, as in civil law, but of the supremest good and the highest heaven, not of temporal bodily health, as in medicine, but of salvation and eternal life. Not here, as elsewhere, do they enquire into the sentiments, orders, decisions, and rulings of men, but into the eternal wisdom of God and His perfect will.

The Ministry Is a Good Work

The ministry is καλὸν ἔργον, a “good work” (1 Tim. 3:1). It’s “good” because it treats the supreme good and highest heaven. The ministry treats of eternal life, not earthly. Pastoral ministry treats of God’s wisdom, not men's wisdom. Therefore, no calling is greater or higher. Do you know this, seminary student?

Know the Skills Necessary for the Ministry

Ames’s third concern was an exhortation that theology students need to know the ministry concerned not only doctrine, but practice. Theology students need to know all the skills necessary for ministry. For example, Ames illustrated from ancient physicians. They divided their discipline into the three areas of doctrine (dogma), method (methodon), and practice (empeirian). The ministry is a craft. Certain skills need to be understood to practice the craft.

Why was this important for Ames? Even “our ministers” needed correct understanding of the ministry. For example, some “think [they’re] quite prepared for all the parts of their office if they know only the doctrines.” This concern is present today. Ministers need to study the Scriptures for the doctrines derived from it. At the same time, we need to show how they lead to the practice of godliness. For example, imagine a young man in your congregation who likes to read Calvin’s Institutes. Maybe that was you. Let’s say this man eagerly attends theological conferences. Perhaps he can cite the Westminster Confession or Heidelberg Catechism verbatim in a crowd. What does this mean? He's not necessarily called to the sacred ministry.

Godliness Before Giftedness

As pastors of students, we need to take this to heart. We know we live in days of doctrinal ignorance. Because of this there’s a need to plant more churches that actually teach the Word. The temptation is to grab hold of anyone who seems outwardly different than the masses. However, the apostle’s list of qualities for the office of minister (bishop/overseer) only includes one doctrinal quality: “able to teach” (1 Tim. 3:2). Have you noticed the rest of the list is moral? He needs to know the Word. Yet Paul’s focus is godliness in the aspirant himself. His focus is on his godliness in relation to his family. How he deals with his spiritual brothers and sisters and the world has Paul's concern (1 Tim. 3:1–7).

Ames’s Five Theological Exercises

Ames concluded his Exhortation to students of theology that they exercise their gifts. They were to do this in “theological exercises.” Ames structured the Exhortation in a twofold way. In his opening and three concerns he explained the doctrines students needed to know. Now in his conclusion he showed how these doctrines applied. This was a classic Puritan way of doing theology with doctrine and use.[8]

What are “theological exercises”? These were the students’ putting into practice what they learned. Ames exhorted his students to engage in five exercises:

1. Disputations or formal theological debate. This ancient pedagogical method ensured a student would understand all sides of an argument. This resulted in clear articulation of Scripture’s meaning.

2. Rehearsal of sermons. Ames said this would ensure that hearers would benefit from preaching.

3. Prayer. A Puritan like Ames meant prayers not “based on childish forms, but on the innermost perception of the heart.”

4. Holy meditation. This meant taking time to think about, mull over, and hide in their hearts what they learned.

5. Exhort, admonish, and console their fellow students as brothers. Doing this put into practice what one day they'd preach.

In summary, aspiring to enter the holy ministry of Jesus Christ is a good, noble, and blessed work. This is why forefathers like William Ames spoke with great passion and exhortation to theology students. We need to take up the passion and concerns of his Exhortation. Theology students, their professors, and those who pastor need William Ames.

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Originally published at Meet the Puritans, June 2016; revised 2026.

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Notes

[1] John Calvin, The Second Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians and the Epistles to Timothy, Titus and Philemon, trans. T. A. Smail, Calvin’s New Testament Commentaries (Eerdmans, 1964), 10:222.↩

[2] For biography on Ames see Keith L. Sprunger, The Learned Doctor William Ames: Dutch Backgrounds of English and American Puritanism (University of Illinois Press, 1972). For the theology of Ames see William Ames, The Marrow of Theology, trans. John Dykstra Eusden (1968, repr., Baker Books, 1997) and William Ames, A Sketch of the Christian’s Catechism, trans. Todd M. Rester, Classic Reformed Theology (Reformation Heritage Books, 2008).↩

[3] “An Exhortation to the Students of Theology,” trans. Douglas Horton (1958).↩

[4] Ames, The Marrow of Theology, 77. On the practical nature of theology in Reformed thought see 47–51.↩

[5] On Ames’s days at Franeker in relation to Maccovius, see Sprunger, The Learned Doctor, 71–95. For an introduction to Maccovius’s theological thought, see Martin I. Klauber, “The Use of Philosophy in the Theology of Johannes Maccovius (1578-1644).” Calvin Theological Journal 30:2 (November 1995): 376–91; Willem J. Van Asselt, “The Theologian’s Tool Kit: Johannes Maccovius (1588–1644) and the Development of Reformed Theological Distinctions.” Westminster Theological Journal 68:1 (Spring 2006): 23–40.↩

[6] Sprunger, The Learned Doctor, 87–88.↩

[7] B. B. Warfield, The Religious Life of Theological Students (P&R, 1983), 2. This was an address delivered at Princeton Theological Seminary on October 4, 1911.↩

[8] For more on the use of this twofold approach see Keith L. Sprunger, “Ames, Ramus, and the Method of Puritan Theology.” Harvard Theological Review 59:2 (April 1966): 133–51.↩

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© 2026 Daniel R. Hyde. Permission is granted to reprint this article in full, unaltered, for non-commercial use, provided the attribution below is included and links to the original. For excerpts, translations, or commercial use, see Permissions.

To attribute: Daniel R. Hyde, "William Ames’s Exhortation to Students of Theology," https://www.danielrhyde.com/articles/william-ames-exhortation-to-students-of-theology. Used by permission.

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Revelation Is Not a Puzzle: 4 Keys to Interpretation

How should Christians read Revelation? Discover four biblical keys: Christ, its purpose, Old Testament imagery, and the call to hear and obey.

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Most people open Revelation looking for a solution. Jerome said Revelation “has as many mysteries as it has words…for in every one of its words manifold meanings lie hidden”[1]. So we approach it asking: Which empire is the beast? What does the mark of the beast 666 mean? Where is Armageddon? When do the trumpets sound? We don’t know why the voluminous commentator, John Calvin, avoided it. What we do know is that when he came to 2–3 John and Revelation, he moved to the Old Testament instead.[2] For others, whole publishing careers have been built on answering those questions, charts included.

The book does ask to be understood. Yet not in the way so many think. The seals, trumpets, and bowls are not a collection of coded predictions that we can confidently match, one by one, to individual events in a modern timeline. If each symbol pointed to one datable event, how would we identify which event among thousands? Thus, we’d get endless interpretations and no certainty, and the book would stay closed.

That’s why I say Revelation was not given like a mass of puzzle pieces to be solved. God did not give Revelation to be interpreted by us but to interpret the world for us. That one sentence changes what you’re doing when you open it. You’re not the detective. You’re the one being shown something.

So how do you read Revelation? Here are four keys: Read it as a book about Christ, to reveal, written in Old Testament signs, and to be heard and obeyed.

Reading Revelation

“God did not give Revelation to be interpreted by us but to interpret the world for us.”

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Who is Revelation About?

It’s “the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1:1). That means from him, about him.[3] Every year for Christmas we put out a puzzle on a table with all the pieces just dumped out. Anyone who walks by is free to dive in and start putting pieces together. Inevitably one of us will get lost in the thousand pieces. So, what do they do? Find the picture on the box top. Jesus is the picture on the box. He’s the One who brings the book’s many pieces into a focused image. Revelation is not a puzzle; it’s about a person. 

What Does Revelation Do for Us?

The Greek word apokalypsis means revelation or unveiling. God pulls back the curtain, not so that we can satisfy our curiosity about the future, but so that we can see the world in the light of Jesus Christ.

Here’s the exciting thing: God did not give Revelation to be interpreted by us but to interpret the world for us.[4] As the very opening words say, “God gave” this “revelation of Jesus Christ” who “sent…his angel to his servant John” so that all “his servants”—that’s you—might see and know “the things that must soon take place” (1:1). When I became a Christian, I was given three books: the Bible and two of Hal Lindsey’s: The Late Great Planet Earth and The Rapture. I was told these were “the keys to understanding the Bible.” Over time, I’ve come to see that Revelation was not given to make us dependent on prophecy experts. It was given to reveal Jesus Christ and teach us how to understand the world in which we live.

How Do We Understand its Imagery?

Revelation was written to real churches in real trouble (1:4). But they didn’t need a prophecy chart to crack its code of “signs.” Interestingly, the verb the ESV translates as “he made it known” (sēmainō) is related to the word John uses of Jesus’ “signs” in his Gospel. If there is a cheat code for the things “signified” in Revelation, it’s the Old Testament. These ancient churches were to go back “to the law and to the testimony” (Isa. 8:20; KJV, NASB) to understand this revelation of their Lord and Savior.

For example, when John sees the gloriously resurrected and ascended Lord, with white hair “like white wool, like snow” (1:14), that’s directly from Daniel 7:9 and the vision of the Ancient of Days. Here’s the remarkable truth revealed by this imagery: Jesus, the Son of Man, shares the divine glory of the Ancient of Days. We’ve made Revelation difficult; Jesus is the key to cracking what’s become a code. I worked through this whole vision in the opening sermon of our series through Revelation. After all, it was these Jewish Scriptures of “Moses and all the Prophets” that the resurrected Jesus himself “interpreted” to two disillusioned and downtrodden disciples “the things concerning himself” (Luke 24:27). 

How Should We Respond to Revelation?

Blessed is the one who reads aloud (singular) the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear (plural), and who keep (plural) what is written in it (1:3). Revelation was intended as a circular letter from the exiled apostle to the churches, so that they would be enlivened and encouraged to action. That’s you, wherever you gather with God’s people to hear and wherever you go back into the world to keep.

This means it’s not a book to gather around at prophecy conferences to satisfy our intellectual curiosities; it’s meant to be practical. It shapes the worship, endurance, and obedience of Christ’s people.

Conclusion

None of these keys makes Revelation simple. It’s still a strange book, full of imagery that resists quick summary. What they do change is what you’re looking for when you open it.

You’re not hunting for a hidden timeline. You’re being shown a person.

So, read Revelation with your Bible open to the Old Testament, not to a chart. Read it aloud, and read it with other Christians. Read it expecting to be given courage rather than information.

And when you get lost in the pieces—and you will—look at Christ on the box top. 

Daniel R. Hyde is preaching through Revelation at Oceanside United Reformed Church this fall. The series, Jesus Wins, runs through December 20; full manuscripts, audio, and video are posted as we go.

Revelation: Jesus Wins

• NextHe Never Left the Room

All articles in this series

Notes

[1] Jerome, Letter to Paulinus, AD 394.↩

[2] On the chronological history of Calvin's commentaries, see Wulfert de Greef, The Writings of John Calvin: An Introductory Guide, trans. Lyle D. Bierma (Baker Books, 1993), 93–109.↩

[3] William Hendriksen, More Than Conquerors: An Interpretation of the Book of Revelation (1940, 1967; Baker Book House, seventh printing, 1990), 43.↩

[4] Hendriksen reads this as the revelation Jesus gives. More Than Conquerors, 51. G. K. Beale sees both. The Book of Revelation, NIGTC (Eerdmans, 1999), 183.↩

[5] See David A. deSilva, Unholy Allegiances: Heeding Revelation's Warning (Hendrickson, 2013), 8.↩

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© 2026 Daniel R. Hyde. Permission is granted to reprint this article in full, unaltered, for non-commercial use, provided the attribution below is included and links to the original. For excerpts, translations, or commercial use, see Permissions.

To attribute: Daniel R. Hyde, "Revelation Is Not a Puzzle: 4 Keys to Interpretation," https://www.danielrhyde.com/articles/revelation-is-not-a-puzzle-4-keys-to-interpretation. Used by permission.

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Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. ESV Text Edition: 2025. The ESV text may not be quoted in any publication made available to the public by a Creative Commons license. The ESV may not be translated in whole or in part into any other language. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Christianity Does Offer Answers to the Coronavirus

A Response to N.T. Wright from the Book of Common Prayer

Daniel R. Hyde

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N.T. Wright wrote in Time that Christianity offers no answers about the coronavirus. Daniel R. Hyde replies from five prayers in the Book of Common Prayer for times of plague and sickness, which teach that God is Lord over sickness and call his people to lament, humble themselves, pray for deliverance, and give thanks.

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This article first appeared in April 2020, in the early weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic. It is republished here with minimal edits.

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French translation

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Ever since we began hearing about the coronavirus we’ve heard everyone’s opinions—where it came from, how contagious it really is, and what the government’s role should be against it. Thankfully, I’m just a Christian pastor who’s able to speak from my “lane.”

Yet recently, N.T. Wright wrote in Time that “Christianity Offers No Answers About the Coronavirus. It’s Not Supposed To.” He first engaged in ad hominem against “the usual silly suspects.” These have embraced rationalism to search for answers to “why God is doing this to us” whether as “punishment,” “warning,” or “sign.” These offer “knee-jerk would-be Christian reactions” in which “everything must have an explanation.”

In contrast to his foil, Wright asks, “But supposing [everything] doesn’t [need an explanation]? Supposing real human wisdom doesn’t mean being able to string together some dodgy speculations.” He then offers his remedy that we need to recover the biblical tradition of lament, doing so by invoking the emotional images of a refugee island off Greece, Gaza, and South Sudan instead of thinking of New York or London. Who’d be against that? It’s a false dilemma.

But Wright sets up another false dilemma in which he sets himself up as the answer: “The mystery of the biblical story is that God also laments. Some Christians like to think of God as above all that, knowing everything, in charge of everything, calm and unaffected by the troubles in his world. That’s not the picture we get in the Bible.” If you’re looking for solace with the daily headlines of increasing numbers contracting this virus and dying from complications related to it, would you want an unfeeling God or one right there in the tears with you? What Wright doesn’t tell you is that the classic view of God being impassible (without passions like us humans) also says that in the Incarnation of the Son of God as Jesus Messiah he was and is fully passionate! In the end Wright says it’s not our job “to be able to explain what’s happening and why” but “not to be able to explain—and to lament instead.”

Ironically, Wright—a former bishop in the Church of England—fails to reckon with his own tradition on this issue. That’s what I want to focus on here in my response. From the perspective of the Church of England’s “gold standard” 1662 edition of the Book of Common Prayer (BCP) I’d like to ask what involvement God has in the present COVID-19 pandemic and what should the prayerful response of his people be? We’ll look at five relevant prayers then make some application.

*As an aside, note my friends at Church Society in the UK, expositing these historic resources for a contemporary audience.

A Response to N.T. Wright

“Ironically, Wright—a former bishop in the Church of England—fails to reckon with his own tradition on this issue.”

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Prayer from “The Litany”

The first prayer comes from “The Litany or General Supplication,” which is an ancient pattern of prayer the BCP intended to be used after daily Morning Prayer on Sundays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. After prayers of invocation for the Triune God’s mercy there is a series of prayers of confession and pleas for deliverance, including this:

Minister: From lightning and tempest; from earthquake, fire, and flood; from plague, pestilence, and famine; from battle and murder, and from sudden death,

People: Good Lord, deliver us.

Following the teaching of Scripture, things we today term “natural” disasters such as plague and pestilence are considered things God is able to deliver from and for which his people are expected to pray for such deliverance. One thing Wright gets right in his recent article is that we are to lament in such times as these, but precisely because the BCP says God is intimately involved in such plagues and pestilences.

Prayer “In Time of Great Sickness and Mortality”

Second, the BCP offers a selection of “Prayers and Thanksgivings Upon Several Occasions” including a petitionary prayer entitled, “In Time of Great Sickness and Mortality” (added by the 1789 US edition). It prays thus:

O Almighty God, the Lord of life and death, of sickness and health; Regard our supplications, we humbly beseech thee; and; as thou hast thought fit to visit us for our sins with great sickness and mortality, in the midst of thy judgment, O Lord, remember mercy. Have pity upon us miserable sinners, and withdraw from us the grievous sickness with which we are afflicted. May this thy fatherly correction have its due influence upon us, by leading us to consider how frail and uncertain our life is; that we may apply our hearts unto that heavenly wisdom which in the end will bring us to everlasting life; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

God is Lord “of,” meaning, “over” all life and death, sickness and health. As Jesus revealed himself to John, “I have the keys of Death and Hades” (Rev. 1:18). The church humbles itself under its Lord in times like these because He “hast thought fit to visit us for our sins with great sickness and mortality.”

Again, with Wright the BCP eschews any rationalism here needing to know precisely what sin caused this sickness; but it recognizes that the Lord has an active hand in sending upon the world at particular times and places such sicknesses because of the sinfulness of the human race. This is not merely Old Testament religion; this is what the New Testament says. Jesus plagues his own church with sickness and even death for its sinfulness. Just read 1 Corinthians (especially 11:27–32). Because he is Lord as the Lamb who triumphed over death and the grave, John describes in visionary form how Jesus opened the seals on the scroll of human history including the unleashing upon this earth of pestilence (e.g., Rev. 6:8). As his people, we humble ourselves under his kingly wisdom during times like these as an expression of his discipline of us to lead us to contemplate our frailty and mortality.

Prayer “In the Time of Any Common Plague or Sickness”

The third prayer is also from the “Prayers and Thanksgivings Upon Several Occasions.” This time the title is “In the Time of Any Common Plague or Sickness”:

O Almighty God, who in thy wrath did send a plague upon thine own people in the wilderness, for their obstinate rebellion against Moses and Aaron; and also, in the time of king David, didst slay with the plague of Pestilence threescore and ten thousand, and yet remembering thy mercy didst save the rest; Have pity upon us miserable sinners, who now are visited with great sickness and mortality; that like as thou didst then accept of an atonement, and didst command the destroying Angel to cease from punishing, so it may now please thee to withdraw from us this plague and grievous sickness; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

This prayer gives us specific instances of God’s people’s sins and the plagues he sent (note this again!) in the Old Testament: Korah’s rebellion (Num. 16) and King David’s census (2 Sam. 24). But again, this was not how antiquated people viewed a tribal deity; this applies to us who experience such viruses as this coronavirus.

Thanksgiving “For Deliverance from the Plague, or other Common Sickness” (1)

Fourth, after this section of petitionary prayers are several thanksgiving prayers including “For Deliverance from the Plague, or other Common Sickness.” In it we pray:

O Lord God, who has wounded us for our sins, and consumed us for our transgressions, by thy late heavy and dreadful visitation; and now, in the midst of judgment remembering mercy, hast redeemed our souls from the jaws of death; We offer unto thy fatherly goodness ourselves, our souls and bodies which thou hast delivered, to be a living sacrifice unto thee, always praising and magnifying thy mercies in the midst of thy Church; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

This prayer assumes all the above prayers and in response the church is to offer thanks, not just of lips but of entire lives—souls and body. In plagues we lament our sins and humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God so that when He removes his hard providence we can rejoice!

Thanksgiving “For Deliverance from the Plague, or other Common Sickness” (2)

The fifth and final prayer is a second thanksgiving prayer in which the church offers these words:

We humbly acknowledge before thee, O most merciful Father, that all the punishments which are threatened in thy law might justly have fallen upon us, by reason of our manifold transgressions and hardness of heart: Yet seeing it hath pleased thee of thy tender mercy, upon our weak and unworthy humiliation, to assuage the contagious sickness wherewith we lately have been sore afflicted, and to restore the voice of joy and health into our dwellings; We offer unto thy Divine Majesty the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, lauding and magnifying thy preservation and providence over us; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

In sum: we deserve judgment, but God delights in showing mercy. And to this let the church say, “Amen!”

Lessons Learned

Given that the Book of Common Prayer not only prays but teaches, what lessons can we learn from it at this time?

1. The BCP confronts us as twenty-first century Westerners especially that we are overly “naturalized” adherents of what C.S. Lewis called “scientism.” We don’t speak of “creation” as the theater of God’s glorious activity but of “nature” as the result of random processes. Thus our modern fascination with controlling and manipulating our lives through our allegiance to scientific experts.

2. The BCP follows Scripture—both Jewish (Old Testament) and Christian (New Testament)—in teaching the comforting reality of God’s involvement and presence in plagues. If he wasn’t, we’d have no hope and no reason to pray to him for deliverance.

3. The BCP enables us to plead with our ever-present help in trouble that he would deliver us and our world from such plagues.

4. The BCP reminds us that God is not just able to deliver, but that he’s Lord over such sicknesses. He sends them, he removes them. In Job’s words, “blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21).

5. The BCP helpfully expresses the truth that you and I cannot necessarily link one specific personal or even national sin to one particular punishment. Only God can do that. What we can express is the link between our sin as humanity in general to specific instances of punishment on the world, which for us as believers, are fatherly corrections.

6. The BCP calls us to embrace our need to ever-humble ourselves under the kingly wisdom of the resurrected and exalted Lord Jesus in such times as these.

So yes, Dr. Wright, orthodox Christianity does offer answers to the present coronavirus crisis; it’s right there in the historic prayers and liturgy of the English Reformed Church. It offers a God fully cognizant of what’s going on “down here” because he is here and fully capable of doing something about it—this is why we pray.

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Related reading

• Anointing the Sick with Oil: A Missing Aspect of Pastoral Ministry in the Reformed Tradition

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© 2026 Daniel R. Hyde. Permission is granted to reprint this article in full, unaltered, for non-commercial use, provided the attribution below is included and links to the original. For excerpts, translations, or commercial use, see Permissions.

To attribute: Daniel R. Hyde, "Christianity Does Offer Answers to the Coronavirus," https://www.danielrhyde.com/articles/christianity-does-offer-answers-to-the-coronavirus. Used by permission.