Martyrdom

A line of witnesses runs from the first murder to the last vision of Revelation: the righteous slain for what they offered, what they spoke, what they would not deny. Their blood is heard, their names are kept, their robes are given. The pattern is consistent. A faithful person testifies — by sacrifice, by prophecy, by refusal to defile a covenant, by confession of the Name — and is killed for it. The killing does not silence the testimony; the testimony is what the killing makes loud.

Abel and the First Blood

Abel is a keeper of sheep, and Cain a tiller of the ground (Ge 4:2). Cain brings of the fruit of the ground; Abel brings of the firstborns of his flock and of its fat, and Yahweh has respect to Abel and to his offering, but to Cain's he does not have respect (Ge 4:3-5). Yahweh warns Cain that "sin is crouching at the door" (Ge 4:7). Cain rises up against his brother in the field and slays him (Ge 4:8). The Hebrews letter reads the offering as faith: "By faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, through which he had witness borne to him that he was righteous, God bearing witness in respect of his gifts: and through it he being dead yet speaks" (Heb 11:4). Abel's voice does not stop with his death; his blood becomes a category — what is laid alongside, and surpassed by, "the blood of sprinkling that speaks better than [that of] Abel" (Heb 12:24). Jesus dates the prophets' blood to the same source: "from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zachariah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary" (Lu 11:51), so that "the blood of all the prophets, having been shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation" (Lu 11:50).

The Prophets Slain by Jezebel

Jezebel daughter of Ethbaal, brought into Israel as Ahab's wife (1Ki 16:31), set herself to cut off the prophets of Yahweh. Obadiah hid a hundred of them by fifty in a cave, feeding them with bread and water "when Jezebel cut off the prophets of Yahweh" (1Ki 18:4); he later reminds Elijah of the rescue: "what I did when Jezebel slew the prophets of Yahweh" (1Ki 18:13). Her own table fed the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal and the four hundred prophets of the Asherah (1Ki 18:19). When she heard that Elijah had slain her prophets she sent word to him, swearing his life by tomorrow's hour (1Ki 19:1-2). The pattern — a queen who hunts down Yahweh's prophets — fixes her name, and centuries later Paul reaches for Elijah's complaint to describe the same thing: "Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have dug down your altars; and I am left alone, and they seek my soul" (Ro 11:3).

Zechariah Son of Jehoiada and Uriah Son of Shemaiah

The priest's son Zechariah is stoned in the temple court "at the commandment of the king" (2Ch 24:21); Joash "didn't remember the kindness which Jehoiada his father had done to him, but slew his son. And when he died, he said, Yahweh look at it, and require it" (2Ch 24:22). His dying word is the same word Revelation puts in the mouth of the souls under the altar.

Uriah son of Shemaiah of Kiriath-jearim is the prophetic counterpart. He prophesied in Yahweh's name in Jeremiah's day, and his name is preserved in the verse that introduces him: "And there was also a man who prophesied in the name of Yahweh, Uriah the son of Shemaiah of Kiriath-jearim" (Jer 26:20). His death belongs to the catalogue of the slain prophets that Paul and the writer to the Hebrews keep open.

John the Baptist

Herod's marriage to his brother's wife drew the Baptist's rebuke: "It is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife" (Mark 6:18). Herodias set herself against him and "desired to kill him; and she could not" (Mark 6:19), because Herod, "knowing that he was a righteous and holy man, kept him safe" (Mark 6:20). On Herod's birthday, the daughter of Herodias danced; the king swore to give her whatever she asked, "to the half of my kingdom" (Mark 6:23). She asked the head of John the Baptist on a platter (Mark 6:24-25). The king was sorry but, for the sake of his oaths, "would not reject her" (Mark 6:26); a soldier was sent to the prison and beheaded him there (Mark 6:27). Herod had previously kept him in prison "for the sake of Herodias, his brother Philip's wife; for he had married her" (Mark 6:17). The death follows from the prophetic word that named the marriage unlawful.

Faithful unto Death in 1 Maccabees

Antiochus's edict made Israelite faith a capital matter: "whoever would not do according to the word of the king should be put to death" (1Ma 1:50); "every one with whom a book of the covenant was found, and whoever consented to the law, they put to death, according to the decree of the king" (1Ma 1:57). They burned the books of the law (1Ma 1:56). The mothers who circumcised their children were slain — "the women who circumcised their children, were slain according to the commandment" (1Ma 1:60), and "they hanged the infants about their necks, and put to death their families, and those who had circumcised them" (1Ma 1:61). The faithful response is not flight from death but acceptance of it for the covenant's sake: "many in Israel prevailed and were strengthened in themselves, not to eat common things. And they accepted death so as not to be defiled by food, and not to profane the holy covenant: and they died" (1Ma 1:62-63).

The desert episode follows. Many who sought after righteousness and justice went down into the desert with their children and wives and cattle (1Ma 2:29-30). The king's army gave them battle on the Sabbath, and they refused to defend themselves: "We will not come forth, neither will we obey the king's edict, to profane the Sabbath day" (1Ma 2:34). Their last word puts the case for the witness: "Let us all die in our innocency: and heaven and earth will be witnesses for us, that you⁺ put us to death wrongfully" (1Ma 2:37). They were slain "with their wives, and their children, and their cattle, to the number of a thousand souls" (1Ma 2:38), and Mattathias and his friends "mourned for them exceedingly" (1Ma 2:39). The first generation of the resistance pledged the covenant in the same terms: "I and my sons, and my brothers will obey the covenant of our fathers" (1Ma 2:20). Eleazar later "exposed himself to deliver his people and to get himself an everlasting name" (1Ma 6:44), going under the elephant and dying there (1Ma 6:46). Even the persecutors' own attendants understood whose blood had been spilled: "The flesh of your saints, And their blood they have shed round about Jerusalem, And there was none to bury them" (1Ma 7:17).

The Sufferings of the Apostles

What befell the prophets falls also on the apostolic church. Paul's catalogue of his own life is martyr-shaped: "in labors more abundantly, in prisons more abundantly, in stripes above measure, in deaths often" (2Co 11:23); "Of the Jews five times I received forty [stripes] less one" (2Co 11:24); "pursued, yet not forsaken; struck down, yet not destroyed" (2Co 4:9). The apostles are placed last of all, "as men doomed to death: for we are made a spectacle to the world, both to angels and men" (1Co 4:9). Hebrews names the same office for the wider church: "being made a gazingstock both by reproaches and afflictions; and partly, becoming partners with those who were so used" (Heb 10:33). The pattern is the imitation of the Lord — "We are fools for Christ's sake" (1Co 4:10), "being defamed, we entreat: we are made as the filth of the world, the offscouring of all things, even until now" (1Co 4:13). The pattern reaches Paul's own body of evidence: "we toil, working with our own hands: being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we endure" (1Co 4:12); "for we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh" (2Co 4:11). Paul writes from chains as their consequence — "I Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus on behalf of you⁺ Gentiles" (Eph 3:1), "the prisoner in the Lord" (Eph 4:1), "an ambassador in chains" (Eph 6:20), "in my bonds" (Php 1:7), bonds "manifest in Christ throughout the whole Praetorian Guard" (Php 1:13), "in bonds, as a criminal; but the word of God is not bound" (2Ti 2:9). The same lineage in 1 Thessalonians runs from Lord to prophets to apostles: "who both killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove out us, and do not please God, and are contrary to all men" (1Th 2:15).

The promise to the church is not exemption: "all who would live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution" (2Ti 3:12). The promise is the converse: "to you⁺ it has been granted in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer in his behalf" (Php 1:29); "if we endure, we will also reign with him" (2Ti 2:12); "if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with [him], that we may be also glorified with [him]" (Ro 8:17). The prophets stand as the example: "Take, brothers, for an example of suffering and of patience, the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord" (Jas 5:10).

The Sayings That Frame the Witness

Jesus' own warning frames the readiness. "Whoever would save his soul will lose it; but whoever will lose his soul for my sake, the same will save it" (Lu 9:24). The same in John: "He who loves his soul loses it; and he who hates his soul in this world will keep it to eternal life" (John 12:25). The Olivet warning is concrete: "brother will deliver up brother to death, and the father his child; and children will rise up against parents, and cause them to be put to death" (Mark 13:12); "you⁺ will be delivered up even by parents, and brothers, and kinsfolk, and friends; and [some] of you⁺ they will cause to be put to death. And you⁺ will be hated of all men for my name's sake" (Lu 21:16-17). To the church Jesus had said in advance, "If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you⁺" (John 15:20), and "they will put you⁺ out of the synagogues: yes, the hour comes, that whoever kills you⁺ will think that he offers service to God" (John 16:2). The risen Christ writes to one church in just these terms: "Don't at all fear the things which you are about to suffer: look, the devil is about to cast some of you⁺ into prison, that you⁺ may be tried; and you⁺ will have tribulation ten days. Be faithful to death, and I will give you the crown of life" (Re 2:10).

The psalm voice underwrites the apostolic experience. "Yes, for your sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter" (Ps 44:22). Paul cites the line: "Even as it is written, For your sake we are killed all the day long; we were accounted as sheep for the slaughter" (Ro 8:36). And Peter writes from inside that fellowship: "I exhort, who am a fellow-elder, and a witness of the sufferings of Christ" (1Pe 5:1).

A Cloud of Witnesses

Hebrews binds Israel's old testimonies into a single catalogue. "What shall I say more? For the time will fail me if I tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah; of David and Samuel and the prophets" (Heb 11:32). Some "stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword" (Heb 11:33-34). Others did not escape: "Women received their dead by a resurrection: and others were tortured, not accepting their deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection: and others had trial of mockings and scourgings, yes, moreover of bonds and imprisonment: they were stoned, they were sawn apart, they were slain with the sword: they went about in sheepskins, in goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, ill-treated" (Heb 11:35-37). The choice "rather to share ill treatment with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season" (Heb 11:25) is dignified in advance — "accounting the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt: for he looked to the recompense of reward" (Heb 11:26). Hebrews ends the line outside the camp: "Let us therefore go forth to him outside the camp, bearing his reproach" (Heb 13:13).

Sirach reads the same lineage from inside Israel's memory. The prophet "from the womb" who was persecuted — "Because they persecuted him, and from the womb he was a prophet" (Sir 49:7) — is named with the Twelve, "May their bones sprout beneath them, who made Jacob whole, and delivered him by confident hope" (Sir 49:10). The remembered word of the witness lives past the witness: Samuel "called Yahweh and his anointed to witness: 'From whom have I taken a bribe, or a pair of shoes?' And no man accused him. And also to the time of his end" (Sir 46:19).

Christians in the World

The Epistle to the Greeks describes the same office become a daily condition. "They love all, and are persecuted by all" (Gr 5:11). "They are unknown and are condemned; they are put to death, and made alive" (Gr 5:12). "Doing good, they are punished as evil; being punished, they rejoice as being made alive" (Gr 5:16). "By the Jews they are warred against as aliens, and by the Greeks they are persecuted; and those who hate them can give no reason of their enmity" (Gr 5:17). The persecution is itself a fruit-bearing thing: "The soul when ill-treated in meats and drinks is made better; and Christians when punished increase the more day by day" (Gr 6:9). The arena scene is given without comment: "Do you not see those thrown to the wild beasts, that they might deny the Lord, and not overcome? Do you not see that the more they are punished, the more others multiply?" (Gr 7:7-8). The mark of those who suffer for righteousness' sake is named: "Then you will marvel at those who for righteousness' sake endure the temporal fire, and will call them blessed" (Gr 10:8).

Peter's Pattern

Peter writes the doctrine of the witness to congregations under fire. "Christ also suffered for you⁺, leaving you⁺ an example, that you⁺ should follow his steps" (1Pe 2:21). "If, when you⁺ do good, and suffer [for it], you⁺ will take it patiently, this is acceptable with God" (1Pe 2:20). "Even if you⁺ should suffer for righteousness' sake, blessed [are you⁺]: and don't be afraid of their fear, neither be troubled" (1Pe 3:14). "If you⁺ are reproached for the name of Christ, blessed [are you⁺]; because the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you⁺" (1Pe 4:14). "If [a man suffers] as a Christian, let him not be ashamed; but let him glorify God in this respect" (1Pe 4:16). The end is given: "the God of all grace, who called you⁺ to his eternal glory in Christ, after you⁺ have suffered a little while, will himself restore, establish, strengthen, [and] firmly set [you⁺]" (1Pe 5:10). Peter calls himself plainly: "a witness of the sufferings of Christ" (1Pe 5:1).

The Souls Under the Altar

Revelation answers the dying word of Zechariah ("Yahweh look at it, and require it") with the heavenly liturgy of the slain. At the fifth seal, "I saw underneath the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the Speech of God, and for the testimony which they held: and they cried with a great voice, saying, How long, O Sovereign Yahweh, Holy and True, do you not judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth? And there was given to each of them a white robe; and it was said to them, that they should rest yet for a little time, until their fellow slaves also and their brothers, who should be killed even as they were, should have fulfilled [their course]" (Re 6:9-11).

The two witnesses who finish their testimony are killed by the beast that comes up out of the abyss; their bodies lie three and a half days in the street of the great city, "where also their Lord was crucified" (Re 11:7-8). Their enemies rejoice and exchange gifts, but "the breath of life from God entered into them, and they stood on their feet... And they heard a great voice from heaven saying to them, Come up here. And they went up into heaven in the cloud; and their enemies watched them" (Re 11:11-12). The conquering pattern is given as a song: "they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb, and because of the word of their testimony; and they did not love their soul even to death" (Re 12:11). The judgment vials answer the appeal of the souls under the altar — "they poured out the blood of saints and prophets, and blood you gave them to drink: they are worthy" (Re 16:6). The harlot is seen "drunk with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus" (Re 17:6). The throne vision closes with their reign: "the souls of those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus, and for the Speech of God" (Re 20:4).

The death of the witness, from Abel onward, has not been forgotten. Heaven and earth have stood as witnesses for those put to death wrongfully (1Ma 2:37). Their cry is heard, their robes are given, and the line "should be killed even as they were" is left open until the number is full (Re 6:11).