There's a well-established narrative within Christian belief that God punishes sin. A significant proportion of churches in the West declare in their basis of faith that sin incurs divine wrath, and that Jesus dies in our place (to take God's punishment of sin instead of us).
We read about God's retributive judgements so often in the Old Testament that we often accept this view without critique and attend churches which teach this.
Those of us, like myself, who challenge this way of reading the Bible, point out how God's use of violence to punish sinners makes him the opposite of the nonviolent Jesus who reveals to us fully who God is and how violent he is.
"Anyone who has seen me," Jesus said, "has seen the Father" (John 14:9 NIV).
Both Paul and the author of Hebrews echo this by saying that Jesus is "the visible image of the invisible God" (Col. 1:15 NLT) and "the exact representation of [God's] nature" (Heb. 1:3 NASB).
God is therefore as nonviolent as his son, Jesus. This should be our non-negotiable approach to reading Scripture; however, it's not in mainstream Christianity. This causes us to misread John's visions in Revelation.
The seven trumpets
Which brings us to the next cycle of seven in Revelation 8-11. Here, John sees seven angels blow seven trumpets, cueing a series of devastating events on Earth. Before I list the destruction from the first six of these trumpet blasts, bear in mind how the standard Christian explanation of this vision teaches that God shows great restraint to limit his punishment of sin to only a third of the planet.
A third of the earth is set on fire (8:7).
A third of the trees are burned up (8:7).
All the green grass is destroyed by fire (8:7).
A third of the sea becomes blood (8:8).
A third of sea creatures die (8:9).
A third of ships sink (8:9).
A third of all drinking water becomes bitter (8:11).
A third of the sun is darkened (8:12).
A third of the moon is destroyed (8:12).
A third of the stars no longer shine (8:12).
A third of daylight hours are dark (8:12).
A third of the night sky is without light (8:12).
Unsealed people are tortured for five months (9:5).
A third of humankind is killed by fire, smoke, or sulphur (9:18).
Are these the actions of the Father revealed by Jesus?
Are these the actions of a god I want to worship?
Without the Gospels and the epistles witnessing to a nonviolent Jesus, I wouldn't still be a Christian after reading passages as shockingly violent and evil as this.
The tragedy is that my response is uncommon. Instead, you will more likely hear that these sinful acts of environmental abuse and the indiscriminate killing of a third of humans and sea creatures alike count as holiness.
We must stop reading it this way.
The purpose of the trumpets
Unlike many other visions in Revelation, we're told the purpose of all these trumpet blasts. Their purpose is to bring repentance (see Rev. 9:20).
And what does all this divinely approved slaughter actually achieve?
Nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
But the people who did not die in these plagues still refused to repent of their evil deeds and turn to God.
— Revelation 9:20 NLT (emphasis mine)
It doesn't work.
Sadly repentance is not the result. It seems that retributive justice of this kind, even if administered by angels, does not ultimately produce repentance. As such the judgement scenes tell us as much about the limitations of punishment as they do about human hard-heartedness.
— Jamie Davies
Reading Revelation, p.130
Retributive punishment does not lead to repentance.
And maybe that's John's point.
