Superb thoughts on Revelation from Brian Zahnd’s Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God:
“After riding the peace donkey on Palm Sunday to contrast his peaceable kingdom with the violent empires of a pagan world, Jesus does not later contradict himself by riding a war-horse in an exaggerated imitation of Genghis Khan...Jesus is ever and always the slaughtered Lamb...Christ always rules from the cross...John stresses that Jesus reigns through self-sacrifice by depicting the white horse’s rider as wearing a robe drenched in blood BEFORE the battle begins. Jesus’ robe is soaked in his own blood. Jesus doesn’t shed the blood of his enemies; Jesus sheds his own blood. This is the gospel! The rider on the white horse is the slaughtered Lamb, not the slaughtering beast...
...the sword the rider uses to smite the nations is not in his hand but in his mouth...this is not Caesar’s sword but the word of God...
...Jesus wages war by self-sacrifice and by what he says. Jesus combats evil by co-suffering love and the word of God...A fallen world addicted to war does not believe this, but the followers of Jesus do, or should! If Jesus conquers evil by killing his enemies, he’s just another Caesar. But the whole point of John’s Revelation is that Jesus is NOTHING like Caesar...”
