Blood and smoke

“Bowl” ( phiale ) is used twelve times in the New Testament, all in Revelation. This is obviously the number of Israel. Israel’s twelve tribes are the twelve golden vessels of God, molded by God, fired in the furnace of affliction, shined up for service in God’s house. Once in Revelation, in 5:8, the bowls contain incense that is the prayer of the saints. The other eleven vials are filled with the wrath of God, the wine that is squeezed from the harvested grapes, which is the blood of saintly martyrs (Revelation 15:7; 16:1-4, 8, 10, 12, 17; 17:1; 21:9).

The two uses of bowls are connected: The prayers of the saints are prayers for vengeance for blood that has been shed (cf. 6:9-11), and when the prayers ascend and the blood descends, the Lord brings an end to the harlot-city that drinks holy blood.

There is a neat little anthropology here:

We are vessels of God’s service, designed for two purposes: To give off aromas that ascend to God and to spill blood. We are vessels of sacrifice, aromatic blood-bags created for prayer and martyrdom.

And there’s a neat political theology too: Tyrants are destroyed, harlots burned, when the vessels of the new Israel offer the incense of prayer and confess Jesus to the shedding of blood. Smoke and blood are the two mechanisms of Christian revolution. Neither can be stopped. Prayer is harder for tyrants to control than Twitter. Killing Christians just makes more blood, and quickens the tyrant’s collapse. Not killing Christians doesn’t work so well either, because they multiply and create a bigger incense cloud, more of the aroma that ascends to the Father and more of the fragrance of Christ that is for life and death.