The Number Seven in Revelation

In the first chapter of Revelation I am immediately struck by the number Seven.  This book is addressed to the seven churches in Asia.  There are seven spirits before the throne of God.  The Son of Man stands among seven golden lamp stands.  In his hand are seven stars representing seven angels.  Later in the Revelation we read of seven Seals, seven Trumpets, seven Thunders, seven Bowls of wrath; sevens are everywhere.  In fact, the book of Revelation easily divides itself into seven sections:  Letters to the seven churches, the seven Seals, the seven Trumpets, the Woman and her enemies, the seven Bowls of wrath, the fall of the Enemies of the Woman, and the final consummation.

So what's with the sevens?

This is another characteristic that this last book of the canon shares with the first, and this is a good place to note that essentially all the symbolism used by God in Revelation was taught to us in the Old Testament.  The first place we see a strong "seven" is right there in the Genesis account of creation.  As noted in the last post, the fullness of God's work in creation, including his own contemplation of it and his fellowship with Man, is accomplished in Seven Days.  (BTW, I am an "Old Earth creationist", more or less, and think that to consider these “days” to be literal 24 hr periods is to almost miss the whole point of the whole account.  The same wooden, concrete reading of what is meant to be highly symbolic, poetic material leads to the misinterpretation of Revelation in the same manner.)  In Genesis, and in the Sabbath laws given later to Moses, God deeply grounds this symbolic seven.  His work, including His rest, is a Seven.  Man's work, like God's, is to be done in six days, and the seventh, like God's, is to be rest and fellowship with God.  It is the seventh day, the Sabbath, which relates Man's work to God's.  Seven is the number of completion of God's will with regard to Man and his world.  Man was created on the sixth day, and without the seventh, without the Sabbath of fellowship with God and rest from his own work, he is alone with himself and the world.  Six is the number of man alone, of Man without the Sabbath.  Seven is the number of God's work, in its completion.

This symbolism is shot right through the Book of Revelation.  The Seven Churches in Asia represent the complete set of all God's churches through the ages.  What is written to them is not written only to them, but to any and every church that is like them, just as what was written by Paul to the Corinthians was not written only for the Corinthians of the first century.  The Seven Lampstands (now separate...in the Old Testament temple lampstand they were seven branches on one stand) are the complete New Testament Church, through the NT age, seen in its light giving capacity.  The Seven Spirits do not mean that the Holy Spirit is divided into seven, but represents His being distributed (remember Pentecost) among the churches down through the age, in His completeness.  The Seven Seals represent the entirety of God's working in history through the entire church age, from the perspective of causality and the effects of the Gospel, culminating in the return of Christ.  The Seven Trumpets represent the entirety of God's actions, through the church age, as regards providing warnings for mankind, culminating in the return of Christ.  The Seven Bowls represent his visitation of final justice upon the unrepentant throughout the church age, culminating in the final judgement.  The seven sections of Revelation itself represent a complete, whole view of the Church Age, from Jesus' first coming until his second and last.  Seven represents the completeness of God's work, from beginning to end.  It is a symbol whose meaning God has taken great pains to teach us.