The Feast of the Transfiguration

The Transfiguration is one of the most critical, glorious, enigmatic texts in the Gospel story, not to mention one of the most neglected. I sat in an Episcopal church yesterday morning, and no mention was made of the upcoming feast at all. (Labor Day, on the other hand, is going to be a big to-do.) The Catholics didn't even decide to uniformly celebrate it until the fifteenth century. Only the Orthodox seem to have afforded the story and its commemoration the appropriate place of importance in their corporate life.

Perhaps it's not as sexy as the various smaller, less central passages about sexual ethics or gender economics. It's certainly not as gory as the Passion. But, in spite of its gross inability to satisfy our western lust for sex and violence, the Transfiguration represents a crucial moment in the Christian narrative when God manifests Himself to the world, glorifies His Son, and declares our hope and our promise in Christ. Jesus is revealed for who he truly is, and we glimpse what we will be through conforming ourselves to his likeness.

So, to commemorate the Transfiguration--in addition to eating grapes--consider the following quotes from two great theological masters for whom the Transfiguration was central.

Maximus the Confessor, First Century on Theology, 13-14:

If a man seeks spiritual knowledge, let him plant the foundation of his soul immovably before the Lord, in accordance with God's words to Moses: "Stand here by me." But it should be realized that there are differences among those who stand before the Lord, as is clear from the text, "There are some standing here who will not taste death till they have seen the kingdom of God come with power"...To those who follow him as he climbs the high mountain of his transfiguration he appears in the form of God, the form in which he existed before the world came to be...

When the Logos of God becomes manifest and radiant in us, and his face shines like the sun, then his clothes will also look white. That is to say, the words of the Gospels will then be clear and distinct, with nothing concealed. And Moses and Elijah--the more spiritual principles of the Law and the prophets--will also be present with him.

Gregory Palamas, Triads, I.3.5:

So, when the saints contemplate this divine light within themselves, seeing it by the divinizing communion of the Spirit, through the mysterious visitation of perfecting illuminations--then they behold the garment of their deification, their mind being glorified and filled by the grace of the Word, beautiful beyond measure in his splendor; just as the divinity of the Word on the mountain glorified with divine light the body conjoined to it. For "the glory which the Father gave him," he himself has given to those obedient to him, as the Gospels says, and "He willed that they should be with him and contemplate His glory."

..It is necessarily carried out in a spiritual fashion, for the mind becomes supercelestial, and as it were the companion of him who passed beyond the heavens for our sake, since it is manifestly yet mysteriously united to God, and contemplates supernatural and ineffable visions being filled with all the immaterial knowledge of a higher light. Then it is no longer the sacred symbols accessible to the senses that it contemplates, nor yet the variety of Sacred Scripture that it knows; it is made beautiful by the creative and primordial Beauty, and illumined by the radiance of God.

Revelation as History

History is fundamentally an exercise in hindsight, and, if you believe the old adage, it is always written by the winners. It is, at its heart, a looking back on the past in an effort to order it and interpret it based on a more perfect knowledge. The historian knows who wins and who loses, and can make judgment based on that knowledge. History, for example, allows us to see from the beginning what never could have been known at the outset of the Civil War, that the Union would prevail and that American society would be committed to personal over corporate liberty and national government over state governments.

It has been sometime since I finished my little devotional commentary on Revelation, and I think enough time has passed that I can safely muse about the book once again. It seems to me that the purpose of Revelation may best be understood by reading the book not as prophecy or even as the narrative of a past mystical experience but as history. Revelation takes the reader into the future (or, perhaps more accurately, into the eternity of God) in order to look at the past. (Of course, whether this is the past in a preterist or a historicist or an idealist sense is up for debate.) We are granted the perfect knowledge of a God who stood not only at the beginning of history but who is already standing atemporally at its end. Armed with that knowledge, we can look back at "the past," which includes our present, with the kind of "objective," critical eye that historians look at the past. We can know that God and His righteouness will prevail. We can know that our own deeds will be subject to judgment. We can know that a horrible defeat (more horrible than Sherman marching to see, for certain) awaits the devil and his cohorts.

It is history at its finest and its most ironic. It is wonderful because it allows us to look back into the past with a knowledge more perfect and more comprehensive than even the most learned historians. It leaves no ambiguity about the outcome; it has all the certainty of decided fact. Yet it teases our minds because the "past" which it writes so authoritatively about is not only our past, but our present and our future. It cannot properly be called prophecy because it does not say, "I predict this will happen" or even assume a tone of anticipation. It is history because it declares frankly, from the perspective of transcendent eternity, "This is what happens." Live accordingly.

Late Breaking News

Dr. Richard Oster, HST professor of New Testament, recently unveiled a blog he calls "Seven Subversive Letters." Based upon research and ideas for a manuscript he has sent off to a publisher, the blog looks at Revelation 1-3.

So says a bulletin which, through a mail mix-up, only very recently reached me. The blog, which began in September, might have saved me a great deal of work, as it treats much of the same material I did. Without intending to in any way implicate him in my interpretations, I received much of my perspective on Revelation from Oster. For those who are interested, both in Revelation and the sociocultural context of the New Testament (which is Oster's specialty), the blog appears to be regularly updated.

Re-Reading Revelation: An Invitation (Ch. 22)

I realize that, from the outset, I promised that this series would be about how you can read Revelation rather than how you should read it. I have done my best to hold true to that promise, trying to offer a way for the troubled Christian to engage Revelation without being overcome by the hairsplitting nuance of Christian eschatology. This final thought will try to tread the fine line between describing a facet of the book and prescribing a hermeneutic for it. A problem arises, however, in that the final section of Revelation has something critical to say of the way that most people today read Revelation. The conclusion of the text, which traditionally ties any literary work together, specifically lends itself to something other than a strictly eschatological interpretation. In other words, John spends a great deal of time talking about the end but that vision of the future is not an end in itself. John tells us "what must soon take place" with another purpose in mind.

He is not shy about revealing that purpose to his readers either. In fact, from the beginning, John announces how he intends his readers to receive his work: "Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near." The sentiment is paralleled in the final passage: "And behold, I am coming soon. Blessed is the one who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book." What precisely does it mean to "keep" the words of a prophecy? Certainly John is not talking about merely possessing them. The NIV renders the term as "take to heart" and the NASB as "heeds." John himself gives no shortage of clues about what he means. Consider these verses which follow after the call to "keep" the words of Revelation:

-- When John falls down to praise the angel, the messenger repeats one of the central commands of the book: "Worship God."

-- "Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is near. Let...the righteous still do right, and the holy still be holy."

-- "Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay everyone for what he has done."

-- "Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life and that they may enter the city by the gates. Outside are the dogs and sorcerers and the sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood."

It is almost as if, realizing that he is running out of papyrus, John feels the need to hammer his point home with a quick repetition of essentially the same command: obey. In a way that ought to be telling to modern readers, John does not spend his final moments in an exposition of the cryptic future that he predicts. Instead of stressing the when and the how of Jesus' coming, he merely assumes that coming and proceeds to tell us how we should respond. "The Spirit and the Bride say, "Come." And let the one who hears say, "Come." And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price." With these words, we discover that Revelation is not a history book written cleverly in advance of the events it records. It is an invitation to the lost and an exhortation to the found. Jesus is coming soon. How will you react to that good news?

The beauty of realizing this overarching message and purpose for Revelation is that it transcends all our petty disputes. The wonderful, terrible God of judgment offers salvation to His church and solicits a response of obedience and praise from it. That message--more clearly and surely stated than any eschatological supposition--applies to the pre-millennialist and the post-millennialist alike. This preterist and the idealist are both compelled to read His glorious works and fall down at the feet of the Son of Man. The outpouring of God's wrath convicts us all, regardless of where (if anywhere) you want to locate the rapture relative to the tribulation. That is not to say that some of these issues are not mentioned in Revelation or that there discussion may not be relevant, to an extent. It is merely an effort to demonstrate that John has an intention for his text that our modern descent into polemical madness has caused us to forget--or at the very least to subordinate to petty squabbling. That Jesus is coming seems to be enough for the author and when he is coming seems to be precisely the kind of irrelevant thinking Jesus warned us against. John tells us what our first response to his text should be, and it isn't to construct an eschatological timeline. The Spirit invites us to come, to wash our robes, to persist in holiness, to worship God, and to relish the blessings we have as those who have heard and kept the words of the prophecy. "Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!"

*****

For a full list of "Re-reading Revelation" posts, see Re-reading Revelation: Statement of Purpose.

Re-Reading Revelation: All Things New (Chs. 21-22)

With the dual climax of victory and judgment now behind, the narrative turns toward the denouement. The great villain leaves the scene for ever and, with the exception of some brief exclusionary phrases, all unpleasantness is behind John. What remains is to see the great reward for which the witnesses of the Lord have endured, to realize the promise that is issued in the death of Christ (depicted in the beginning of the book as the slain Lamb) and finally ensured under the triumphant Christ(depicted at the end of the book as the conqueror on a white horse). God declares, "Behold, I am making all things new." Suddenly the world is returned to a pristine paradise, edenic in its appearance only more wonderful still. The Tree of Life is reopened to public consumption without that pesky Tree of Knowledge to wreak havoc with humanity. The river and the garden are accompanied by a great new city that represents Jerusalem as it ought to have been: pure, wonderful, and with God at her center. The imagery is enough to tantalize a lifetime's worth of imaginings.

Yet, as easy as it may be to delight in the particulars of the picture offered up to us as our hope for eternity--and that delighted is heightened when we consider just how unpleasant the narrative has been to this point--there is a more important theme at work here. Before God declares that all things will be made new, before we tour the New Jerusalem, before the thirsty are promised the waters of life, and before the whole chorus lapses into an eternal doxology, a voice from heaven makes an initial pronouncement: "Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God." In this is the actual resolution of the tension in Revelation. As with the entirety of Scripture, the real villain has not been Satan but separation. Through the entire narrative, the persistent scene has been of the commands of God in heaven and their actualization on earth. God stands at a distance throughout as He works out His plan of justice and, ultimately, reconciliation.

This desire that God should be our God and we His people has been a persistent theme in Scripture. It is the essence of God's covenant with Abraham which in turn forms the whole basis for the divine work of election and redemption in the world. It was the purpose of Israel's sacrificial system of atonement that God should have some tangible presence with His people. It was the reason Solomon built the temple and the reason he knew it was ultimately inadequate. It both explains Israel's disintegration and exile and fuels their hopes for return. Paul will use it to warn Christians against repeating the sins of Israel. This ardent hope, both of God's and of humanity's, John depicts as fulfilled. His readers then, as we do now, knew that God's dwelling with humanity was still merely a promise only partially fulfilled with the gift of His Spirit for His church, but they understood after centuries of having the theme reverberating over and over again in the Scriptures that all their hope rested on the fact that God would someday break through the barriers which separate us.

It is interesting that this declaration of achievement precipitates every other blessing which is offered. Because He is there, God will wipe away all tears, and "death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore." Our former mode of existence, living apart from God, is no more. In the New Jerusalem, there is no temple anymore. After all, it was merely a symbol of God's presence; the New Jerusalem needs no inadequate symbols. The city will be beautiful radiance of fine jewels because it has "the glory of God." This radiance of God replaces the very sun, and all people will walk in His light, by His light. It is He who bids them drink from the river of life. There will be no doubt, no idolatry, no sin, because God is present and has taken His people unto Himself. Cast in this light, the final scene of Revelation becomes for us a call to refocus our hope, to strip ourselves of any superficial desire to escape this material world into a heavenly realm of mansions, robes, crowns, gold, and even more substantial things like release from disease and death and sorrow. All these are accidents. The true substance of our hope is that God should be, in a real and tangible sense, our God and that we may be purely, reverently, joyously, His people.

*****

For a full list of "Re-reading Revelation" posts, see Re-reading Revelation: Statement of Purpose.

Re-Reading Revelation: Joy and Judgment (Chs. 19-20)

Judgment is something of a frightening theme throughout the book of Revelation. The theme is constant throughout the text. In the prologue, John warns that "the time is near" and, in his greeting, goes farther by warning that "every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all tribes of the earth will wail[a] on account of him." While John adds the resignation, "Even so, let it be" there is a certain sense in which you can expect the churches not to want to put their own "amen" on that particular sentiment. In the letters which launch the book, the prospect of judgment for the clearly flawed kingdom of God is frightening. The insinuations included in those letters are given teeth as God acts on His promise of judgment for the rest of the book. Stars fall from the heaven, rivers dry up, monstrous locusts torture humanity, and they are finally harvested into a winepress and crushed to death. Judgment is ugly business.

It would stand to reason then that when the time for final judgment actually rolled around that the Christians in the narrative of Revelation would respond to the prospect of judgment much in the same way we do, with fear, trembling, and uncertainty. It is curious to find that just the opposite is true. After looking on to chapters of the terrible outpouring of God's wrath, the Christians approaching final judgment are positively exuberant. In the course of a single chapter there is a cluster of three of the most exultant hymns of the entire text. First the great multitude sings:

Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God,
for his judgments are true and just;
for he has judged the great prostitute
who corrupted the earth with her immorality,
and has avenged on her the blood of his servants.

And the elders answer, "Amen. Hallelujah." Then a voice from the throne says:

Praise our God,
all you his servants,
you who fear him,
small and great.

Then the multitude begins again:

Hallelujah!For the Lord our God
the Almighty reigns.
Let us rejoice and exult
and give him the glory,
for the marriage of the Lamb has come,
and his Bride has made herself ready;
it was granted her to clothe herself
with fine linen, bright and pure.

Given that the final roll call is about to be taken, we might expect a great deal more trepidation on the part of the multitude. Instead, they are praising God specifically for the truth and justice of His judgment. Too often, we take away from the text of Revelation just how frightening is the wrath of God, and that is, as far as it goes, an appropriate message. That is not, however, the primary message that the multitude in heaven seems to be taking away from the cosmic judgment drama that it has seen unfold. Quite the contrary, they seem to take note of just how righteously God has dispensed His justice. If you think back on the recipients of divine wrath, they are the sexually libertine, the idolatrous, the apostates, the murderous, and the avaricious. More than anything, however, it is the unrepentant. Quietly, subtly, John issues in Revelation no less than ten different calls to repentance or rebukes for being unrepentant. Faced with the continuous experience of divine rebuke and a constant stream of witnesses to the Gospel--including John, those beheaded for Christ, anyone who reads the text of Revelation, the squatters living under the altar, and other notables--the most notorious targets of God's wrath are those obstinate members of the human race who would still rather debauch, murder, and steal than direct their worship to its appropriate object.

It is no wonder then that the church, clothed in the pure white linen which is "the righteous deeds of the saints," should welcome God's judgment. They have correctly understood the Gospel, that salvation is for all who would turn from sin and to God. Wrath, in contrast, is reserve for those who stubbornly and in spite of all divine prompting prefer sin and death to righteousness and life. This disposition of the church is vindicated as judgment finally plays out. The righteous rule with Christ, heavenly fire consumes the enemies of the church, Satan is cast into the eternal fire with the beast and the prophet, Death follows shortly after into the pit of fire, and all humanity is fairly "judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done."

Judgment should scare us. Clearly Jesus expects it to when he invokes it during the course of his ministry and when he employs the prospect of it to inspire repentance among the churches in Revelation. On the other hand, the fear of the prospect of judgment is certainly only a means to an end. In the final reckoning of things, judgment is not something to be feared but something to delight in, not because we relish the prospect of punishment but because we delight in our service of a just God. Judgment, as much as it is an expression of wrath against evil, is first and foremost the moment our salvation is actualized. It is the moment when, after a life of service and devotion, we come before the throne to hear that our names are written in the Lamb's book of life. All too often, our collective Christian imagination sees final judgment as a moment of intense fear as we stand before a stern judicial figure rescued only by a last minute intercession of Christ as our advocate. The image Revelation gives us is different. It is one of joyous anticipation, in which we can cry out confidently in advance "Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God, for his judgments are true and just."

*****

For a full list of "Re-reading Revelation" posts, see Re-reading Revelation: Statement of Purpose.

Re-Reading Revelation: Fall of Babylon (Chs. 17-18)

The next two chapters of Revelation are a continuation of the great battle sequence that began in chapter twelve, but their tone is decidedly different. Much in the same way the first chapter of Genesis tells the broad story of creation and chapter two zeros in to tell a more specific part of the story, the pronouncement of the fall of Babylon appears to be a snapshot taken from some point in the earlier narrative. An earlier angel has already declared that Babylon is fallen--part of the eternal gospel of God--and with the pouring out of the seventh bowl of God's wrath, the heavenly host declares "It is done." What this passage does, therefore, is take a closer look at what the collapse of Babylon looks like, and it does so with a poetic flair for the macabre reminiscent of the Old Testament prophets.

Many of the same themes that have persisted thus far are revisited in this passage: the terrible and wonderful nature of God, the consequences of human actions, the contrast between right and wrong worship, and, of course, the inevitability of God's victory over evil. There are, however, new insights which can be gained from looking at this passage independently. It tells us something about the nature of evil in the world. Over the course of the narrative there are numerous distinct groups of "villains," all of whom interact with one another and all of whose interplay has something to teach. There is, figuring prominently, the woman variously referred to as the prostitute or as Babylon and the beast on which she rides. There are the kings of the earth and the nations who have debauched with the prostitute, the merchants of the sea who are dealers in human souls, and the ship builders whose avarice was satisfied by the trade in the ports of Babylon.

The first and most noticeable fact when reading through the poetic tribute to the destruction of the woman is how neatly interwoven all of these evil forces are. They all stand back and wonder at her fate and suffer, either directly or implicitly, from the plagues that are brought upon her. It is clear that evil is a complex enough entity that it is self-sustaining. The sexual licentiousness of the woman satisfies the lechery of the kings of the nations, and the subservience of the nations satisfies the woman's lust for power. The gluttony of Babylon feeds the avarice of the merchants and ship builders, and, of course, greed is always willing to subsidize consumption. Evil is a self-perpetuating cancer in the world. It delights in itself and feeds itself until it grows beyond any individual sin into a web of related villainy.

Yet, even as we watch Babylon suffer with all her sinful subsidiaries suffering vicariously through her, it is interesting to note at the outset precisely what vehicle God uses to prompt the destruction of Babylon. The angel interpreting the vision for John explains, "And the ten horns that you saw, they and the beast will hate the prostitute. They will make her desolate and naked, and devour her flesh and burn her up with fire." It is not a heavenly army or even God (directly) that will instigate the fall of Babylon. It will be the very beast and the ten kings--the ones who will "will make war on the Lamb"--who will turn on the prostitute. They will make her desolate and naked, and they will devour her flesh. It is interesting that the saints, rather than being called on to participate in God's righteous judgment of Babylon are called out of the city before it self-destructs. And there is no better description of what evil does here. It turns on itself. It implodes. Evil is, at its core, self-defeating. In practical terms, how often do we see one evil dictator overthrown not by righteous forces promoting peace and justice but by another, more powerful, evil dictator? It is the nature of evil to take on all comers, including other forces of evil.

The result is the classic image of eternity as a snake eating its own tail. Evil, as depicted here, is a reality which is always simultaneously feeding itself and devouring itself. It makes for an interesting contrast to the goodness of God which is infinitely sustaining without ever consuming. In chapters to come, the promise of God will be depicted in these kinds of inexhaustible terms with a city that never crumbles, a sun which never sets, a garden which never withers, and a life which never ends. With evil, in contrast, we may take comfort in the fact that its very attempts to sustain itself inevitably result in moves to destroy itself. Divine providence is such that it allows evil to persist because, in persisting, it destroys itself. Babylon is fallen, and only she is to blame.

*****

For a full list of "Re-reading Revelation" posts, see Re-reading Revelation: Statement of Purpose.

Re-Reading Revelation: Three Angels (Excursus 2)

There is a gem buried in the midst of the great battle narrative. In chapter fourteen--just as God begins His earthly victory to mirror the preexistent victory in heaven--three pronouncements are offered by three angels. It's placement in the text would seem to suggest that the angels serve merely as end time heralds of the final triumph of God, yet John introduces this passage with a curious pronouncement of his own: "Then I saw another angel flying directly overhead, with an eternal gospel to proclaim to those who dwell on earth, to every nation and tribe and language and people." It is clear that John intends this message to transcend its place in the narrative. This is a three point sermon for eternity, and its message is no less potent now than when it was recorded.

Grasping the beauty of the passage requires understanding the chiastic structure of the three proclamations. The words of the first and the third angels are almost perfect parallels. The first angel declares that people of all nations should worship the Lord. The third angel gives a gruesome image of those who worship the false gods instead. In a chiasm, the outer parallels function to emphasize the more important central text. It is the message of the second angel that is the key to this enduring homily: "Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great, she who made all nations drink the wine of the passion of her sexual immorality."

What appears at first glance to be a simple statement of fact--shorter, plainer, and less engaging than the passages around it--actually functions as the explanation for the messages of the other two angels. It was suggested previously that the purpose of the whole battle narrative of chapters twelve through sixteen was to demonstrate to Christians who had every reason to feel as though Satan was winning that in fact God would be and always was the victor. The same theme resounds here and functions as a call to worship in the "eternal gospel." God is victorious and the devil defeated, therefore worship God and despise the devil. At the crux of the narrative, the angels repeat and apply the message of the text in a way that bears our renewed examination.

*****

For a full list of "Re-reading Revelation" posts, see Re-reading Revelation: Statement of Purpose.

Re-Reading Revelation: Great Battle (Chs. 12-16)

After reading the triumphant announcement of the last section in which the kingdom of God is declared to have come at last, it is a bit jarring, to say the least, to enter into this next narrative. The triumphant which is announced is immediately contradicted, at least in appearance, by an ensuing struggle between God and Satan. It begins with the image of a great dragon poised to prey on the newborn infant of promise, an image familiar to Christians familiar with the stories of Moses and Jesus. While the latter is almost certainly who John intends to portray, there is a sense in which it is the principle and not the identity of the unborn child that is important. This is a child for whom God has a definite purpose in the working out of His will. The dragon's menacing purpose is a direct attempt to contravene God's will. In predictable triumph, God spirits the newborn into the throne room and guides the woman into a prepared safe haven. As for Satan, God sends his soldiers out to meet him and, inevitably, they triumph.

Cast from heaven, and frustrated in his attempts to find the woman, Satan turns his wrath on the rest of her offspring (which, interestingly, yields an interesting parallel to the Pauline image of Christ as the new Adam with Mary as the new Even...but I digress). Thwarted time and again, suddenly Satan meets with tremendous success on earth, something heaven was aware would happen: "But woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!" First a beast rises out of the sea, tempting humanity until "all who dwell on earth will worship it." Then a second beast rises out of the earth and persecutes anyone who does not worship the first beast.

This apparent victory would resonate with John's audience. It is hard to imagine that John isn't intentionally describing the practices of the Roman government with regard to the imperial cult. Christians were under tremendous social and political (even capital) pressure to worship the genius of the emperor. In the syncretistic culture of the early empire, one could be any religion he pleased provided that it didn't conflict with the state religion. Most didn't. Christians, however, worship only one king of kings, and their refusal to burn incense to Caesar would be the impetus for persecution for centuries to come.

What John makes clear and what it is ultimately critical even today is that the victory of Satan on earth is only apparent. Reading chapter thirteen in isolation would lead any intelligent person to believe that Satan has the upper hand and that God and His people are left to look on in horror as the mighty power of the beasts wins the many and destroys those who resist. John makes clear for his readers, however, that the fact that Satan is even wreaking havoc on earth is a product of his constant frustration at the hands of God. God stopped him from devouring the baby; God prevented him from finding the woman; God cast him down out of heaven. Satan stands in a position of perpetual defeat, even before he begins to work his deceit on an unsuspecting humanity. Every time a Christian gets the impression that Satan is triumphing, John commands us to remember that he is only here "winning" because he has already lost.

And, what's more, he has a lot more losing left in him. Chapter fourteen opens with a return to the triumphant imagery of chapter eleven. Jesus is depicted standing gloriously atop Mount Zion as if to say, in simplified English, "...98-99-100. Ready or not, Satan, here I come!" When he does come, it is with power, as the following passage contains some of the book's most gruesome imagery. The sinful peoples of the earth are "reaped" like grapes with a sickle, dropped into a winepress, and crushed so that their blood created a flood as high as a man's shoulder covering an area a little larger than the distance between Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. If the "great winepress of God's wrath" weren't enough, there are seven bowls of His wrath as well, which are poured out with consequences vaguely reminiscent of the plagues of Egypt: rivers into blood, hail, boils, darkness, and more.

The point is not, however, the particulars of God's victory of Satan and his beasts but the finality of it. With the pouring out of the seventh bowl of wrath, the angel says, "It is done" and, in fact, it is. When we next encounter Satan some time later, he is bound, and, when he is released, it is only for a perfunctory final skirmish before he is forever cast into hell. With this, John offers comfort and strength to an audience that ultimately is deceived by appearances (a favorite trick of the devil's). Everywhere around them they are confronted by overwhelming evidence that God is absent and the devil triumphant, but these illusions are nothing more than fleeting artifices for a defeated enemy. The great battle narrative of Revelation reminds us that Satan stood defeated before he ever set about his program of leading the world astray. He is not winning now; he is certain not to claim victory in the future.

*****

For a full list of "Re-reading Revelation" posts, see Re-reading Revelation: Statement of Purpose.

Re-Reading Revelation: Kingdom Come (Chs. 10-11)

After, perhaps, the Resurrection, these chapters represent one of the most triumphant and exultant scenes in all of Scripture. It represents a glimpse of the promises which have sustained the church since the time of Jesus' ministry. The mighty angel straddling the world has announced that the fulfillment of the mystery of God will be delayed no longer. Finally, after the terrible trials endured by the faithful and the horrific wrath exacted upon the whole earth by God, the kingdom of the Lord is come. The whole company in heaven announces that "The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever." The twenty-four elders sing still another new song of praise to Lord God Almighty. The temple in heaven is opened and the ark--the symbol of God's presence with His people--is revealed with flashes of lightning and peals of thunder. The servants of God are rewarded; the destroyers of the world are destroyed; God is glorified. Hallelujah! Amen.

Yet this triumphant image is preceded immediately by a cold reminder of the reality of the church's road to that glorious moment. First, John is commissioned once again to prophesy, the very behavior which has landed him in exile on Patmos to begin with. This calling is illustrated graphically with the little scroll which, if you'll pardon the pun, proves a bitter pill to swallow. If it was not already obvious, the eating of the scroll foreshadows the hardship which will always be associated with enlistment into the divine cause.

The succeeding narrative continues this theme, as John records the prophetic career of two witnesses sent to preach to a city. He goes to extraordinary lengths to demonstrate for the reader the awesome power of these witnesses. If they are harmed in anyway, the aggressor will die by that same means. Any offense against them is met with a consuming fire which pours from their mouths. They can shut up the sky, turn rivers to blood, and inflict upon the people any plague imaginable. No sooner has John told us how tremendous is their power, however, then they are martyred on the streets of the city and left their to rot. The two witnesses who stood before the throne of God and wielded His power on earth suffer the same seemingly ignoble fate as so many simple Christians in John's audience.

The story does not end there nor should our retelling of it. The witnesses are raised, the oppressors punished, the final trumpet sounds, and the Lord reigns. The one truth does not, however, change the other. That there will be vindication one day does not promise any easy road today; the treacherous path to God does not negate the magnitude of His promises. In fact, the two play off each other as they do in this passage. It is precisely the hardship which is endured which make the triumphant announcement of the kingdom so sweet. It is precisely the promise repose of the divine reign that makes the bitterness of the journey bearable. The rapid succession of what appear to be three loosely related stories--John and the little scroll, the two witnesses, and the seventh trumpet--in truth resound this very theme. God's demands on His people are great, His rewards greater still. We can forever take comfort in this, allowing our hope for salvation be the force which sustains us and spurs us toward greater heights of faithfulness.

*****

For a full list of "Re-reading Revelation" posts, see Re-reading Revelation: Statement of Purpose.

Re-Reading Revelation: Two Woes (Ch. 9)

The fifth and sixth trumpets are the first and second (of three) woes to be poured out on the earth. Even more than the trumpets and seals that came before them, these woes seem to be little more than a senseless raking of creation across the coals. The first woe involves the unleashing of an army of monstrous locusts with human faces and scorpion tails. They are empowered to torture--the divine permutation of "enhanced interrogation techniques"--all of creation for five months, such that "in those days people will seek death and will not find it. They will long to die, but death will flee from them." When the five months of unrelenting torture are complete, God is kind enough to oblige the wishes of humanity. The sixth trumpet blows, and the second woe comes in the form of two hundred million chimera-esque warriors tasked with killing one third of the world's population. In the course of a few lines of text, we have a level of carnage that would put Saving Private Ryan to shame.

Yet while so much of the text thus far has focused on revealing truths about the nature of God, John is clearly using this narrative to teach the reader something about the nature of humanity. The moral of the story, tact deftly on to the tail of all the bloodshed is this little revelation: "The rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands nor give up worshiping demons and idols of gold and silver and bronze and stone and wood, which cannot see or hear or walk, nor did they repent of their murders or their sorceries or their sexual immorality or their thefts." That thought, arriving as it does so rapidly on the heels of that awesome display of divine might, justifiably boggles the mind. The foolishness of the lost who pray to the mountains to protect them from their creator has already been highlighted, but with this scene they are shown to truly scale the heights of folly. God reveals Himself in power, in a way which is so patently undeniable that one would assume that humanity could not but turn to God and plead for mercy. That assumption would be incorrect.

With brutal clarity, John displays for the reader the human penchant for obstinacy. Like a divine reversal of the paradisial garden in which Adam and Eve were given every opportunity to avoid sin and found a way to sin anyway, at the end of the world God gives His creation the most powerful motivation imaginable to repent of its evil and turn to its creator. Still, it clings to its idols of murder and theft and sexual licentiousness, not to mention more tangible idols. With two sentences, John challenges the "if only" rhetoric still in use today. "If only God would still speak to us." "If only we had some proof that Jesus rose from the dead." "If only He would give us a sign." The fact of the matter is that even if someone where to be raised from the dead in their midst, they would not believe.

Contemporary Christians can take away from this a comfort that we have been specifically blessed for having believed without having seen. More importantly, however, it is a cautionary tale meant to keep us from wandering into the pitfalls of wanting just a little more proof than we have. We cannot be too often reminded that faith requires...well, faith. It is not about proof, whatever proofs may exist. It is not about well-reasoned arguments, whatever reasoned arguments we can make. It is about belief in and trust of a self-revealing God. It matters little whether we are hard pressed on every side by an oppressive Roman government or by the onslaught of evangelistic atheism. We must remember in whom we have faith and how paramount that faith is. I cannot help but recall the old hymn and concur that I know not why God's wondrous grace to me He has made known, but I know whom I have believed. That should be, for me, enough.

*****

For a full list of "Re-reading Revelation" posts, see Re-reading Revelation: Statement of Purpose.

Re-Reading Revelation: Seals and Trumpets (Chs. 6-8)

With the beginning of chapter six it becomes significantly easier, and more tempting, to slip into quarrels about hermeneutics and misadventures into decoding symbols. While there are certainly eschatological questions to be answered in the chapters to come and there are serious disputes which require resolution, there are perhaps less contentious truths--though they are not, for this, less important or deliberate on the part of John--which can be embraced. What John offers the readers in the opening of the seven seals and the blowing of the first four trumpets is undoubtedly cryptic. It is even probable that his audience would have found the text equally cryptic, though they may have been less baffled by what was a more typical phenomenon at the time. What is apparent, however, are several central themes which run throughout.

The first of these is the way that John alternates deliberately between destruction and salvation, between judgment and mercy. For four seals, one terror after another is released upon the world. God's agents unleash war, death, conquest, and famine in rapid succession until one quarter of the earth's population is destroyed. Then the narrative jerks violently away to the martyrs of God beneath the altar, and the divine agents are depicted clothing the suffering servants of God and telling them to be at rest. Immediately, the sixth seal is broken and even greator horrors are unleased on the earth, leaving its inhabitants to cry out to the mountains, "Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb." After spending most of a chapter on the wholesale destruction of the earth, the scene breaks away for a full chapter of the angels proclaiming salvation on the servants of God. "...he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes." The imagery is as tender as the former was alarming.

The juxtaposition is not merely a matter of demonstrating that God is both loving and stern. John also goes to great lengths to clearly contrast the responses of the children of God with those who are hopelessly set against Him. The saved, from every tribe, nation, and tongue, cry out together, "Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!" This is almost certainly intended by John to be ironic, considering that mere verses ago the objects of God's wrath sought salvation from the mountains. While the saints offer their prayers to God, the lost pray senselessly to the mountains for salvation. They should have known that God is God over all creation, even the mountains.

Which is the second theme running through the text. The catalogue of destruction which is offered up in the opening of the seven seals and the blowing of the first four trumpets is not some litany of divine sadism and must certainly be more than a mere ennumeration of destructive methodology. Instead, Revelation 6-8 is a creation text supremely concerned with reminding God's creatures in astonishing fashion that He is creator and Master of His creation. God created the myriad and magnificent flora of the earth; with the first trumpet He permits their destruction. God created the oceans and the life which teems in them; with the second trumpet He permits their destruction. God created the fresh water rivers which sustain all life on earth; with the third trumpet He permits their destruction. God made all the lights of the heavens; with the fourth trumpet He permits their destruction. Over the course of the divine drama, God rolls up His heavens, displaces His mountains, casts down His stars, opens up His depths, unleashes His wind, and shakes the very foundations of His earth until all creation is reminded that He is in fact Almighty. Even death, that most pernicious of Christian enemies, is not above God. He is its master and will allow its persistence in accordance with His will, be it through war or through famine. In a trivial sense, the whole passage boils down to the great, familiar Bill Cosby adage, "I brough you into this world; I can take you out of it." Except God can say it to the whole of creation.

Finally, the reader is reminded throughout this text that God is not only a God who judges, who forgives, who creates, and who can uncreate but He is also a God who listens. This would have been uniquely important to the Christians of John's audience who were suffering great trials. One can only imagine the countless prayers for deliverance which were offered up and which, by all appearances, were never answered. It would be a long time before Christ's church ever found longterm safety, and in many places it still languishes in waiting. That we suffer, John reminds us, is not because our God is apathetic. When the saints beneath the altar cry out to God, their pleas are not ignored. They do not get the retribution they are begging for, but it is not because God does not sympathize with them. His plans just supercede our impatience. Later, the prayers--presumably the similar prayers to those before--of God's people are offered up with a censer before the throne. In response, that censer is filled with fire from the altar and cast onto the earth with "peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning, and an earthquake." The prayers of the saints were not ignored nor were they wrong simply because they did not result in immediate action. They were heard and answered in power, an expectation that we can share provided that our prayers align themselves with the will of God.

*****

For a full list of "Re-reading Revelation" posts, see Re-reading Revelation: Statement of Purpose.

Re-Reading Revelation: Songs of the Church (Excursus 1)

With the exception of the Psalter, there is no text quite so littered with songs as Revelation. Yet, unlike with Psalms, questions of worship rarely arise when reading through Revelation. They are buried unceremoniously under a spate of eschatological quandries. With the exception of the occasional hymn writer, most readers skim quickly over the at least fifteen distinct songs in Revelation. That sad fact is unfortunate when one considers the rich fruit even a cursory study of them can bear.

One of the most immediately striking facts about the worship is Revelation is precisely who is engaged in praise of God. The congregation of praise ranges from the limited company surrounding the throne of God (4:8,11; 5:9-10; 7:12) to a comprehensive picture of the whole creation (5:13). Certainly this should teach us that none of God's creation is exempt from the obligation to worship, but lest we think that the phrase "every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea" is just a euphemism for all humanity, John throws a few curveballs our way. For example, at one point (16:7) the altar of God joins in the praise, singing "Yes, Lord God the Almighty, true and just are your judgments!" Not to be outdone, later (19:4) the throne of God will offer its own worship: "Praise our God, all you his servants, you who fear him, small and great." Without trying to be too flippant, it is clear that John truly believes that if God's people won't praise Him then at least His furniture will.

More critical, though perhaps less amusing, than who is doing the praising in Revelation is who the object of that praise is. John makes a particular point of contrasting throughout the book those who worship God and those who worship the beast (14:9) or those who worship demons (9:20) or the dragon (13:4). Much of the contents of the hymns deal directly with God's worthiness to receive praise. From the outset (4:11), the elders declare "Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power," and, of Christ, the multitude in heaven says (5:12) "Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!" At the triumph over the beast (15:3-4), the victors ask in praise "O King of the nations! Who will not fear, O Lord, and glorify your name?" Finally, as the narrative winds down (19:1-3), "Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God." In contrast, those who worshiped the beast are recipients of God's wrath (14:9-11). The good news for those who are constantly tempted to offer devotion to false gods--whether it be the genius of Ceasar or the perennial temptress of wealth--is that John shows himself not entirely immune to the temptation of false worship. On two occasions (19:10; 22:8) John tries to offer worship to an angel. In each instance, the angel rebukes John and offers him the simple command "Worship God." The latter of these instances occurs at the very end of the text, indicating that John's message is central to the whole book: whatever other idols vie for our allegiance, the duty of the whole creation can be distilled into "Worship God."

Finally, the content of the songs in Revelation have a great deal to teach us, in part because they say so little. While Psalms is notorious for its, at times, expansive, florid poetry, the psalms of Revelation are often no more than a couplet of Hebrew verse. For the most part, the conspiciously short hymns all have the same basic theme: glory to God. This is, undoubtedly, in part because the overarching purpose of Revelation is to demonstrate the superiority of God to all other powers which may be oppressing the churches. Still, it cannot be denied that John clearly demonstrates that the unqualified--not to mention unassuming--worship of God is appropriate in every situation. Before God has done anything (4:8), they sing, "Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!" When God is blessing (7:12), they sing, "Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen." When God is punishing (16:5-6), they sing, "Just are you, O Holy One, who is and who was, for you brought these judgments." And when the end of the book comes (19:6-8) and God has fulfilled all His people's expectations, the same theme resounds, "Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory." At all times, in all places, in all situations, the core message, simply and repeatedly expressed is fitting: "To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!" (5:13)

*****

For a full list of "Re-reading Revelation" posts, see Re-reading Revelation: Statement of Purpose.

Re-Reading Revelation: Throne Room (Chs. 4-5)

At the close of Chapter 4, with nearly one fifth of the book now completed, John has spent strikingly little time doing anything like predicting events of the near or distant future. Chapter 4 itself, quite the opposite, is dedicated to John's first direct experience of God. He finds himself standing before the divine throne in a surreal and awe-inspiring landscape. Heralded into the throne room by a trumpet like voice, he beholds the divine person seated on a throne, ruddier than the most fiery gemstones, and crowned with a emerald rainbow. The great throne, from which issues pleas of thunder and flashes of lightening, is surrounded by dozens of lesser thrones, seven burning flames, and a sea of crystal. Just to punctuate the scene, the four most gruesome creatures ever devised in Old Testament apocalyptic--all eyes and wings and bestial visages--surround the throne.

What should immediately strike the reader, and it is hard to imagine that this was not John's intention, is that these creatures--infinitely more terrible and wonderful and awesome than John himself--devote themselves constantly to worship. "They never cease to say, 'Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!'" These creatures are the kind of divinities etched on hundreds of ancient Sumerian, Babylonian, and Assyrian reliefs; they are the type of figures you would expect to find Canaanite idols of scattered throughout the Levant. They represent the epitome of human imagination and our conception of the supreme otherness of the demons and deities which populated the ancient world, and yet they have no other purpose in the throne room of God but to declare His holiness for all eternity. What's more, as often as they offer their praise to God--which is ironic, since John has always told us that this is a continuous act--the two dozen regal figures on the lesser thrones prostrate themselves before the throne of God and cry out "Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power..." In other words, John bursts into the throne room of God, and no sooner does he describe the splendor of its royal figures and mythic creatures than the whole scene erupts into a celestial liturgy in which all the most magnificent inhabitants of heaven take turns bowing and praising God eternally. The reader can even infer, by turning back to the narrative in Ezekiel 1 which John is clearly invoking, that John himself responded much as he had when confronted with the presence of the Lord in chapter 1 and joined the divine company in worship.

It is perhaps enough to take from this scene that the God whom we serve and who the persecuted readers served is greater than all other powers, familiar and fantastic. Certainly this is true and would have come to John's readers as a continued reassurance that the forces which oppressed them, both civil and celestial, were immediately reduced to nothing in the presence of God. There is, however, an additional message which can be derived from experiencing this scene with John. A professor of mine as an undergraduate once told our New Testament class that the greatest lesson that no one takes away from Revelation is that it teaches us who we worship and how we should worship Him. It is telling that the worship of God begins first with who He is and moves into what He has done. Beginning with a tripartite recognition of that supreme divine quality of holiness, the four creatures announce that God is praised as the one who was and is and is to come. Merely that God exists and that He exists as He is seems enough to warrant never ending praise from the four creatures. The elders, in turn, offer an antiphon announcing that God deserves all glory, honor, and power because He "created all things and by your will they existed and were created." If it were not enough that God is God, then the fact that He deigned to create obliges all of creation to glorify Him for their existence. Quite contrary to a modern attitude which praises God most fervently when some blessing is bestowed or some calamity averted, the lesson in worship given by John is that before you ever encounter God on a personal level or entreat Him for any specific blessing He is worthy of your unreserved, unqualified, unceasing praise. The moment He spoke everything which is into existence--and before even that by virtue of who He is--He deserved everything. That He settles for less is a testimony to His mercy; that we expect Him to, a testimony to our hubris.

Much the same formula continues passing into chapter five. After having been introduced to "him who sits on the throne," the reader is then confronted with the equally dramatic image of the Lamb: seated at the right hand of the throne of God with the appearance of a seven-horned, seven-eyed slain lamb. The response of the living creatures and the elders is no less immediate and no less unqualified than it was for the Father. They instantly begin a new song dedicated to the lamb which declares his worthiness for praise in terms equal with that of the one of the throne. The message becomes clear in the closing lines of the whole throne scene which summarize all of creation's appropriate response to God: "And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, saying, 'To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!' And the four living creatures said, "Amen!" and the elders fell down and worshiped." There is no other appropriate response to the presence of our blessed, honorable, glorious, mighty God but immediate, unconditional, and unqualified worship.

*****

For a full list of "Re-reading Revelation" posts, see Re-reading Revelation: Statement of Purpose.

Re-Reading Revelation: Letters (Chs. 2-3)

After promising the readers a prophecy of things to come in the opening lines of his text, John takes a brief aside to record letters to the churches which are less like prophesies and more like sermons. It is perhaps telling that after the first chapter focuses so keenly on the persecution suffered by Jesus, John, and the churches these letters are not primarily calm reassurances of the seven churches but strongly worded indictments. In a reverse of the structure of Amos--who first directs his attentions to God's enemies before turning viciously on God's people--the frightful Jesus of the first chapter, as the author of the letters, takes aim at his own kingdom even though we all know that his sights will ultimately be set on her enemies.

Amid accolades for their staid endurance under hardship, Jesus peppers the letters with biting imprecations. The Ephesians have forgotten their first love, and, if they cannot get their act together, Jesus promises to come and "remove your lampstand from its place." Pergamum and Thyatira are dens of sexual iniquity, with the latter harboring a seductive prophetess. Of the church in Laodicea he writes, "you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked." And if those words to the "lukewarm" Ladocieans are not strong enough, he says of those in Sardis that they are "dead."

The purpose here is obviously not to rain down unqualified condemnation on the churches, and certainly any reader should anticipate--and rightly--that infinitely more forceful judgment is just a page turn away for those who persecute Christ's imperfect churches. The point, then, is to set the right attitude for John's audience. It would be all too easy and altogether inappropriate for the churches to take a divine pledge of fire and brimstone for their enemies and to adopt an air of unjustified self-righteousness. God's judgment is coming not because the churches are perfect but because God is perfect, and Jesus makes clear from the beginning that any hint of self-glory, any impulse to rest on their spiritual laurels would be dangerous.

Instead, he delivers a message of perseverance to the churches which ought to convict contemporary readers as well. Over and over in the letters he repeats his promise to the churches--they will get new names, eat from the tree of life, be spared the second death, sit on a heavenly throne, and more--but he precludes almost every promise with some variation on the phrase "to the one who conquers." It is not enough that Thyatira has endured thus far, that Ephesus once loved God truly, that Pergamum did not deny Jesus' name in the days of Antipas, or that you can remember a time when your faith was strong. In a book which is so often touted as being about "the end," the initial emphasis is not on will happen at the end or when the end will come but on how Christians are to live until the end. The first duty of these suffering Christians, and of all Christians, was not the condemnation of their enemies or dreams of escape into an eternal home but living righteous lives of faith. Jesus forcefully turns the focus of the churches away from his promised justice and onto their own need for personal and corporate repentance. It is almost as if Jesus is playing on his own teaching in Matthew 7, "We're going to deal with the speck in the world's eye, but first let's have a word about the plank in your own."

*****

For a full list of "Re-reading Revelation" posts, see Re-reading Revelation: Statement of Purpose.

Re-Reading Revelation: Encountering Jesus (Ch. 1)

Significantly, the first verse of Revelation begins by rooting the entire text immediately in Christ and his authority. The first three words (five in English) rapidly establish that what follows is not a word from John himself but "the revelation of Jesus Christ." It should not be surprising, therefore, as Jesus takes center stage that what we read in Revelation is not only a revelation belonging to Jesus but a revelation of Jesus himself. John is writing to churches that are hurting in some form or another, a fact which he makes clear in presenting his own credentials. Immediately upon the first mention of John's name, he identifies himself as the one who "bore witness," the Greek for which is quickly becomes a technical term from which we get our English word "martyr." As he starts in the first person, John again immediately identifies himself as "your brother and partner in the tribulation and the kingdom and the patient endurance that are in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos on account of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus." John knows that his audience is suffering and wants them to know that he suffers alongside them.

It is unsurprising then that for this persecuted author writing to a persecuted audience the first image of the savior for which they suffer is so crucial. After his introduction, John spends most of the first chapter describing his initial encounter with the celestial Jesus. It is immediately apparent that this is not the Jesus on whose breast John lay at the last supper, at least not in appearance. The "son of man" that John encounters is like something out of an apocalyptic prophecy with woolen hair, flaming eyes, bronze feet, and a roaring voice, audible apparently in spite of the double-edged sword protruding from his mouth. It is understandable, if a bit melodramatic, that John should all "at his feet as though dead." Frankly, the encounter would frighten most of us out of our right minds. In a single motion, however, this son of man reveals that he is the same compassionate Son of Man whom John knew. He reaches out, touches the prostrate John, and says "Fear not."

In this paradoxical image of our Lord and Savior--an appropriate title--as both terrible and merciful is the heart of the picture of Christ which will be echo throughout the rest of Revelation. It is an encounter with the divine which spoke to the heart of John, tried to the limits of endurance, and to the churches as they suffered unspecified trials. They served a Lord who was compassionate without being weak, a Savior who was terrible without being malicious. He declares his sovereignty; "I am the first and the last." He reveals his sympathy; "I died, and behold I am alive forevermore." He reiterates his promise; "I have the keys of Death and Hades." He is a suffering king, perfectly suited for a kingdom beset on all sides.

This encounter should continue to resonate with us as often as we strive for our faith, be it against worldly powers or against spiritual ones. We can be reminded by this image of Jesus, bursting dramatically onto the narrative scene of Revelation, that we do not serve an impotent Lord nor an apathetic Savior. Ours is the Christ who reveals himself to John, "who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom." He will come and will make trivial the demons which haunt us because he loves us and because he has in him the power to actualize that love. It is a message of hope not for some distant point in chronology but in a living God who is right now, in this moment, ready to bless those who read the words of his prophecy and who keep to them.

*****

For a full list of "Re-reading Revelation" posts, see Re-reading Revelation: Statement of Purpose.

Re-Reading Revelation: Statement of Purpose

There is perhaps no more contentious issue in biblical studies than how to interpret Revelation. There are certainly more important issues, more uplifting issues, more fruitful issues for our examination, but for whatever reason--most likely because the cryptic nature of the book allows for such a breadth of interpretation--nothing inspires the kind of doctrinal knockdown-dragout fights that Revelation does. Today, of all days, is the perfect day to illustrate this, as I assume that once again Harold Camping's predictions will have fallen short of expectations. No matter if you are a radio evangelist, a theologian, an exegete, a minister, a layman, or (as I am) a historian, one can easily weary by looking at contemporary and historical disputes over premillennialism versus postmillennialism versus amillennialism versus millennialism and more. At a more basic level, there are preterists and historicists and idealists and futurists and probably -ists so remote in their thinking that they have yet to find a label. A thousand issues which ultimately transcend Revelation inevitably get bogged down in its enigmatic imagery.

In a recent discussion with someone about a thoroughgoing preterist approach to the text, I made the suggestion that we might all be better off if we could just set aside the eschatological questions we bring to the text and read Revelation for the many truths it reveals about God: who He is, what He does, and how we ought to respond to Him. In reflecting on that conversation, I realized that it had not been since my early youth--ignorant as I was of the complex of controversial questions which the book generated--that I had read through Revelation for anything other than polemical purposes.

I propose to remedy that now and in the process to share what I believe are some of the eternal (and incontestable) truths which Revelation has to offer readers that have little or nothing to do with the what, the when, or the how of the end of the world. As a disclaimer, I should clarify that I do not think that Revelation is totally without anything to say on these matters. Clearly, the text raises important questions about God's ultimate plan for the world, questions that require serious thought. I am by no means a full-fledged idealist (or really a full-fledged anything). I do believe, however, that there are ideals which the author of Revelation, assumed to be John, embeds in the text, those that he wants to teach to his audience and those which are implicit by virtue of their common faith in a single God. It should not be forgotten that while the eschatological questions which dominate the study of Revelation are certainly valid, they are probably not primary. John was, after all, writing to comfort and strengthen an audience in a time of intense trial. He was not writing an academic treatise on the end times. The approach that will be taken here will be to look at Revelation as a spiritual text from an apostle to the languishing churches. The truths which will be the focus will be those that resonated with the foremost desire of the audience for salvation, for vindication, and for a glimpse (a revelation, if you will) of the God whom they served. In re-reading Revelation with these specific principles in mind, Christians can be enriched and find strength and solidarity in a text which has been the source of so much divisiveness.

List of Entries:

Encountering Jesus (Ch. 1)
Letters (Chs. 2-3)
Throne Room (Chs. 4-5)
Seals and Trumpets (Chs. 6-8)
Two Woes (Ch. 9)
Kingdom Come (Chs. 10-11)
Great Battle (Chs. 12-16)
Fall of Babylon (Chs. 17-18)
Joy and Judgment (Chs. 19-20)All Things New (Chs. 21-22)
An Invitation (Ch. 22)

Songs of the Church (Excursus 1)
Three Angels (Excursus 2)

Death and the Prospect of Eternity

Reading Dumitru Staniloae’s Orthodox Dogmatic Theology, I was intrigued by the way he relates death to our understanding of natural revelation, which for Staniloae consists primarily of our innate awareness of an eternal purpose for which all humans exist. Consider these two somewhat antithetical quotes:

No matter how self-evident it appears, natural faith, which has as its source in God’s revelation through nature, is subject to doubt…because the inevitable reality of death is opposed objectively to our thirsting after the fulfillment of the meaning of our existence in an eternal perfection.

By means of the words of supernatural revelation, man has also learned what he can understand from natural revelation when this is enlightened by supernatural revelation…Even death – and our inability to get used to death – teaches us not to be attached to this world, and shows that we are created for eternal existence.

I found it interesting that death should be both the cause obscuring the content of natural revelation and, in light of God’s more direct self-revelation, an evidence which attests to the basic content of natural revelation. On the one hand, the very fact that we experience death with an sense of finality – however illusory – tends to focus human existence on the finite and the temporal, the tangible here and the now. Death, after all, marks the period on the very short sentence of human life. To squander life on projecting ourselves theoretically beyond its inevitable end appears the greatest possible foolishness. Still, the very fact that in each person is an insatiable enmity with death testifies to its unnaturalness. Death looms always as the unconquerable enemy precisely because there is something within us which cries out to have it conquered nonetheless. There is some not-so-quiet voice within us that cries out to transcend death and temporality and here and now. In this sense, God truly has set eternity in the hearts of men, though we cannot fathom the contents of that eternity (Ecc. 3:11).

Death is the great enemy, but through our longing for its defeat we are drawn forcefully to Jesus Christ who has conquered it. Just another beautiful paradox of faith.

"Reason and Revelation"

During the course of my adventure into the 1880-1881 issues of the Gospel Advocate, I have chanced upon a number of amusing articles. I have particularly enjoyed some of the marital advice contained therein. It has, at one and the same time, a kind of amusing antiquity and a certain timelessness. I had something of the same reaction when reading an article by F. D. Srygley titled "Reason and Revelation." (I regret that I do not have the exact date for the purpose of more accurate citation.) Srygley, who was very nearly the subject of a recent term paper of mine, wrote the article to correct a misprint in his "Missionary Spirit vs. Missionary Plans" which said that "the Bible was given to supplant human judgment." Srygley clarifies:

It is far more reasonable to conclude the Bible was given to supplement, not supplant, human judgment. In fact, this is the only view of the matter which will comport with reason.

My immediate reaction to that was pronouncedly negative, given my belief about the fundamental nature of Scripture. Nevertheless, as I read on I was struck by the way he expressed this belief. His language in several places (particularly when presented out of context as I am about to do) has a ring of orthodoxy - dare I even say Orthodoxy - that appealed very directly to me.

It is the province of the Bible to supply what reason cannot furnish.

The axioms which constitute the foundation and beginning of revelation are wholly without the scope of unaided reason. To the mind enlightened by revelation these principles are clearly axiomatic, but to the mind destitute of inspired light they are darkly incomprehensible.

If the Bible does not occupy ground beyond the reach of human reason, it is not a revelation. Can it in any sense be considered a revelation to tell a man what he already knows?

In the article, Srygley develops the idea of complementary provinces of reason and revelation such that they form a mutually exclusive but "harmonious whole." He reacts to two opposite and equally dangerous extremes. Some make reason all sufficient and revelation only a marginal improvement on reason:

...they seem to consider the Bible only a better guide than reason concerning matters of which both have jurisdiction.

Others reject reason altogether in a perverse pietism:

Some seem to think a total rejection of human judgment an indication of great fidelity to God.

Srygley rejects both of these. Reason and revelation both have their root in God. They must each have their ordained purpose. To reject either outright or even to diminish either is to reject or diminish God. One can just as easily reject reason as proper to the human person as he can reject the Bible as the revelation of God. "Both sins are rebellion against things of divine origin. Both proceed from a common cause." This whole philosophy gives Srygley a very healthy view of the role of Scripture in my opinion. I certainly reject the idea that the Bible is somehow synonymous with revelation - something Srygley would undoubtedly affirm - but when it comes to questions of the Bible and science or logic, I think Srygley hits the mark:

To talk about a conflict between science and the Bible, is about as sensible as to apprehend an actual quarrel and assault between one's manhood and boyhood.

God never explained in the Bible what man by reason could find out. There can never be a conflict between the Bible and geology because the Bible proposes to give no light upon the science of geology.

In the end, however, Srygley still comes out with a position on the adequacy of reason that I cannot endorse. "Human judgment properly cultivated, like revelation correctly interpreted, is absolutely safe as guide on all matters in its jurisdiction." This sentiment was enough to make me suspicious (especially because I know that Srygley is part of a tradition that sees the "correct" interpretation of revelation as being dependent on the powers of human reason), but where he finally concludes was enough to make me recoil.

Where reason is guide at all, revelation never interferes to offer a more excellent way. In fact, I apprehend that it is absolutely impossible for God by revelation to give a light superior to reason on themes within the scope of human judgment.

I agree with Srygley that reason has its proper province. I even support that it is ultimately reliable within that province (though I would say it was functionally reliable while Srygley would say its reliability is unqualified). What I cannot agree on is that God's self-revelation is in any sense restricted by human reason. I not only affirm that God's revelation can overrule, overwhelm, and even contradict human reason, this is one of the fundamental realities of the faith as far as I'm concerned. Revelation is the light which is superior to reason, even regarding things which reason purports to have grasped.

I suppose the real difference is that Srygley has confidence that what reason apprehends is in fact reality. I am more skeptical about our ability to adequately apprehend reality by the means of reason. Reason, for me, is only competent to allow us to function within reality. Reality cannot be circumscribed by reason. After all, God is real.