This note is interpretation, not translation. It is Jon’s telling of the whole book in a few steps, in his own words, with the scriptures set under each step. The readings on the sword and on the harvest carry the longer arguments.
The story, as I tell it — Jon. When I started on Revelation, I told people it would only confirm the rest of the Bible, and that is what it does. The Bible is one word and does not contradict itself, so if it says somewhere that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved, it means that everywhere. Here is the story as I see it. The great pressure is God’s just repayment, and it is there to make people rethink: all anyone has to do is change their mind, and they are saved. That way out is open while the pressure lasts, and the book shows it closing at the end. The sword comes out of Jesus’ mouth, so He speaks to people first, and He states the warning plainly: change your mind, or the sword of His mouth will fight against you. Then He comes in as the Harvester and saves their souls. The people who already believe the good news, He marks, and He keeps them from God’s plagues; those have no purpose for them, because they already believe. That does not mean they suffer nothing: the slanderer and the animal still make war on God’s people. For everyone still here, the advice is Joel’s: call on the name of the Lord, and the Harvester comes to save them. Then there is the vision of the throne: a crowd no one can count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, saved and standing before God, and they are the ones who came out of the great pressure. And that is not even everyone who is saved. There are more.
One word. This is the principle of the About page: scripture interprets scripture, and the clear passage explains the unclear one. Revelation never quotes the Hebrew scriptures by formula, and yet nearly every verse of it is made of them; that is why its pictures can be read from the rest of the Bible rather than from outside it. Paul’s warning is against complicating it: “I am afraid that, as the snake deceived Eve by his cunning, your minds may be led away from the simplicity and purity that is toward the Anointed” (2 Corinthians 11:3).
The pressure: the repayment, and the way out of it. The phrase “great pressure” is found in Revelation twice, and the first time it comes with its purpose stated. Of the woman at Thyatira: “I gave her time to change her mind … Look — I am throwing her onto a bed, and those who commit adultery with her into great pressure, unless they change their minds about what she does” (2:21–22). The Greek there, thlipsin megalēn, is the same as “the great pressure” at 7:14, and the translation gives both the same words. The bowls are called just: “You are just … because you have judged these things. Because they poured out the blood of God’s people and of the prophets, and you have given them blood to drink” (16:5–6). And it is under those same bowls that the book keeps saying who did not turn, which is only said where turning was open (9:20–21; 16:9, 16:11). Before Babylon’s plagues fall, the call is to come out of her, “so that you do not receive any of her plagues” (18:4), and after the earthquake some did: “the rest were terrified and gave glory to the God of the sky” (11:13). God says it through Ezekiel: “I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn, turn from your evil ways; why will you die?” (Ezekiel 33:11). Peter: the Lord “is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to a change of mind” (2 Peter 3:9); and Paul: God “wants all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:4).
A sword from the mouth. Every time Revelation shows Jesus with a sword, it comes out of His mouth: “a sharp double-edged sword came out of his mouth” (1:16); “I will make war on them with the sword that comes out of my mouth” (2:16); “a sharp sword comes out of his mouth, to strike the nations with it” (19:15). The rest of scripture says what that sword is: “the word of God is living and active, sharper than any double-edged sword” (Hebrews 4:12); “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (Ephesians 6:17); “He will strike the earth with the rod of His mouth, and with the breath of His lips He will kill the wicked” (Isaiah 11:4); and Paul, “the Lord Jesus will destroy him with the breath of His mouth” (2 Thessalonians 2:8). And the sword comes with its warning stated: “So change your mind. If you do not, I am coming to you soon, and I will make war on them with the sword that comes out of my mouth” (2:16). At the end, those who would not are the ones it strikes: “the rest were killed by the sword coming out of the mouth of the one sitting on the horse” (19:21). Jon takes that as written: his reading is meekness, a sword used only when nothing else is left, and where the text is unclear he errs on the side of grace. The longer case is in the reading on the double-edged sword.
Marked, and kept. Before any harm is done, God’s servants are sealed: “Do not damage the land or the sea or the trees until we have sealed the servants of our God on their foreheads” (7:3). The locusts are sent “only” against “the people who do not have God’s seal on their foreheads” (9:4), and the first bowl falls on “the people who had the stamp of the animal and bowed to its image” (16:2). That is the order Ezekiel saw: a mark on the foreheads of those who grieved over the city’s abominations, and the command, “do not come near anyone who has the mark” (Ezekiel 9:4–6), already marked at 7:3. And to Philadelphia: “because you kept my word about staying power, I will keep you through the hour of testing that is about to come on the whole inhabited world” (3:10). What they are kept from is God’s plagues. They are not kept from what the slanderer and the animal do: John writes as a “partner in the pressure” (1:9), Smyrna is told, “you will be under pressure for ten days” (2:10), the souls under the altar were slaughtered for God’s message (6:9), and the animal is “allowed to make war on God’s people and to defeat them” (13:7). The crowd of 7:14 came out of the great pressure, which means they were in it.
Call on His name. Joel puts the sky signs and the promise side by side: “the sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes. And it will come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the LORD will be saved” (Joel 2:31–32, 3:4–5 in the Hebrew). The sun and moon are the sixth seal (6:12), and the saving on Mount Zion is marked at 14:1, just before the harvest. Peter preached the same verse at Pentecost (Acts 2:20–21) and Paul wrote it to Rome (Romans 10:13). At Cornelius’s house it did not even need to be called for: Peter was saying “everyone who trusts in Him receives forgiveness of sins through His name,” and “while Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit fell on all who were listening to the message” (Acts 10:43–44). Then the harvest: someone like a son of man on a white cloud, and “the earth was reaped” (14:14–16), which the reading on the Harvester takes up.
The crowd no one can count. “After this I looked, and there was a crowd so large that nobody could count it, out of every nation and tribe and people and language, standing in front of the throne and in front of the Lamb” (7:9). They shout, “Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb” (7:10), and the elder says who they are: “These are the ones coming out of the great pressure. They washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb” (7:14). The book shows others besides them: the souls under the altar (6:9–11), the hundred and forty-four thousand on Mount Zion (14:1–4), the people bought “out of every tribe and language and people and nation” (5:9), and the nations who walk by the city’s light (21:24).
And then it is done. The way out does not stay open forever. When the last bowl is poured, a voice from the throne says, “It is done” (16:17); the bowls are “the last” plagues, “because with them God’s anger is finished” (15:1). The judgments after them carry no call (19:20–21; 20:15), and near the end the book says, “Let the one doing wrong go on doing wrong, and the filthy one go on being filthy, and the just one go on doing what is just” (22:11). The call is open while the pressure lasts; the time to answer it is now (2 Corinthians 6:2).