Revelation 19 describes the “final battle” between Christ and the “unholy trinity” of the Dragon, the Beast, and False Prophet. Like most of the denouements in Revelation, the description is anticlimactic. Everyone shows up, then the battle is over.
And I saw the Beast and the kings of the earth and their armies gathered to make war on the one seated on the white horse and with his armies.
And the Beast was caught, and with him the False Prophet who did the signs before him, with which he seduced those who had received the mark of the Beast and who worshiped his statue. The two of them were thrown alive into the lake of fire that burns with sulfur.
And the remaining were killed with the sword that comes from the mouth of the one seated on the white horse. And all the birds gorged themselves with their flesh.
– Revelation 19:19-21
On the surface of it, this is a violent, bloody image. People often remark that this calls God’s goodness into question; does this bloody scene reflect a good, loving God?
However, I believe there are indications that something more subtle is going on. The first indication is that the enemy are slain “with the sword that came from the mouth of him who was sitting on the horse….”
It is obvious that this sword is the Word of God. So we are already given a clue that something unexpected is going on: there is no actual sword (or other weapon) used.
I think it is interesting to look at the idea of a word as something that can overthrow institutions and empires. In 1983, Ronald Reagan called the Soviet Union an “evil empire.” In less than ten years, the Soviet Union ceased to exist. What is more, the fall of the Soviet Union was almost bloodless.
While it may seem a bit far-fetched that an empire can be brought down with a simple turn of the phrase, we must realize that empires only exist as long as they have an aura of legitimacy. People may not be enthusiastic, but they need to give some level of support to a government. Governments only govern because we give them power. Perhaps we feel like we can do nothing else, but there are ultimate limits on how deeply a government can enslave its people against their will. When fighting and dying is preferable to living, there will be upheaval that may be successful.
Reagan’s phrase destroyed the legitimacy of the Soviet Union. It was displayed to the world — and to its own people — as an edifice built on slavery and evil. This contrasted with the way that for many years international socialism was seen as a moral force, uplifting the poor and exploited of the world.
Whether or not Reagan’s speech was the final cause of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the resonances it set up certainly did not make the structure more stable. The point here is that a simple word, even one unaccompanied by violence, can have major effects on the human condition.
Now it is clear that the scenario described in Revelation 19 is, on its surface, very violent. However, we have another perspective on this event from the Old Testament. In Haggai we read the following:
Speak to Zerubbabel, governor of Judah, saying, I will shake the heavens and the earth; and I will overthrow the throne of kingdoms, and I will destroy the strength of the kingdoms of the heathen; and I will overthrow the chariots, and those that ride in them; and the horses and their riders shall come down, every one by the sword of his brother.
– Haggai 2:21-22
If this prophecy applies to the passage in Revelation 19, then we have a fascinating view of the way evil turns on itself. We see this elsewhere in Revelation. For example, Revelation 17:16-17 describes the fall of the Great Whore as follows:
And the ten horns which you saw, and the Beast, they will hate the Whore, and make her desolate and naked, and they will eat her flesh and burn her with fire.
For God put it in their hearts to do his will by making them of one mind, to give their royal power to the Beast until the word of God is fulfilled.
– Revelation 17:16-17
That is, the kings under the Beast unite and turn on the Great Whore, consuming and destroying her. And yet the Great Whore is the “bride” of the Beast!
It is also possible that some of the plagues involve the consequences of evil recoiling on the evildoer. For example, those who receive the Mark get “painful and harmful sores” (Revelation 16:2). One can speculate (admittedly it is only speculation) that these sores are actually caused somehow by the Mark itself.
At any rate, if the Haggai passage does apply to the battle in Revelation 19, then what we see is that the Word of God sets the evildoers against one another so they in fact destroy one another. Haggai quotes God as “destroying the strength of the kingdoms of the heathen” but the slaughter that occurs is actually brought about by the enemy warriors themselves.
This is not the only place in the Old Testament where God wins a battle by exploiting the latent enmity that exists among his enemies. In Judges 7 we read how God overthrew the Midianites on behalf of Gideon:
So Gideon, and the hundred men that were with him, came unto the outside of the camp in the beginning of the middle watch; and they had but newly set the watch: and they blew the trumpets, and brake the pitchers that were in their hands.
And the three companies blew the trumpets, and brake the pitchers, and held the lamps in their left hands, and the trumpets in their right hands to blow withal: and they cried, “The sword of the Lord, and of Gideon.”
And they stood every man in his place round about the camp: and all the host ran, and cried, and fled. And the three hundred blew the trumpets, and the Lord set every man’s sword against his fellow, even throughout all the host: and the host fled to Beth–shittah in Zererath, and to the border of Abel–meholah, unto Tabbath.
– Judges 7:19-22
Now you might ask, “Didn’t it say that God caused them to fight one another?” Yes; but this does not mean that God controlled them as if they were puppets on strings. The history of humanity makes it clear that people will fight one another in quite bloody fashion at the drop of a hat. God simply brought about the circumstances wherein they would do this: groups of soldiers unfamiliar with each other; a nighttime battle with the battle cry of the enemy; trumpets sounding calling people to battle. One can easily imagine how int he confusion people would start fighting each other.
Fine, but doesn’t this still call God’s goodness into question? Not at all. One can view this — and the other incidents described above — as God simply redirecting the impulse that people already had. In other words the reason they fought is that they chose to fight; they were there to fight. Armies came to fight; God was not the one who made them do that. He simply exploited their aggression to cause them to fight the people he wanted them to fight. He allowed them to express their free will in fulfilling their evil intention to murder their fellow humans. But in his sovereignty he protected his people from the consequences of that evil will. And the effect was that evil imploded on itself.
And so we see how the battle in Revelation 19, described in such anti-climactic terms, almost as if it were over before it started, is likely another instance of evil imploding; the Word of God slays them by somehow inducing them to slay one another. Far from impugning God’s goodness, this displays it by contrast. The evil forces arrayed against him are as willing to fight one another as to fight God’s army. The fact that even when they are united they simply tear apart the “bride” of the unholy trinity — the Great Whore — shows that evil is inherently self-defeating. A big part of the way God defeats it is by simply letting it consume itself.