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!"

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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.

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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.

On the Anniversary of David Lipscomb's Death

I stumbled across the following quote some time ago while doing some work on David Lipscomb. I was touched by it, being myself deeply influenced by the man, and thought it would be appropriate to share it here on the 94th anniversary of Lipscomb's death. It is an entry from the diary of Price Billingsley, a younger contemporary and great admirer of Lipscomb's. These are his thoughts the day after Lipscomb died upon seeing his body for the first time:

Not soon can I forget today. Early this morning I was called over the phone by Bro. Leo Boles and informed of the death of David Lipscomb, and asked whether I could be at the funeral...I then got my first sight of the dear old Brother Lipscomb dead. I was amazed to see how fine looking and tall he was when straightened out in the casket. I saw him when he was dying, and a more abject object of decaying senility I never before beheld - body and soul distraught in the parting! But did I pity him? I pitied myself for not being as ready to die as he! But today he rested in the composure and dignity of death and nobility sat upon his features as though stamped by birth, and he showed the youth and preservation he had lacked for twenty years. I could not doubt that there lay the form of a great man! - how great it will take us all some years yet to find out. And I found the relief which violent weeping gives that I have not known for years! Nashville has always seemed the city of David Lipscomb - I have never been there with that thought out of mind completely. This conception has colored all my varied relationships to that busy and hard to grasp melting pot and [kaleidescope] beehive of strange energies. And today the shock I suffered when this spell came from off me when I knew it to be no longer his city - that his body had now gone back to the dust and his white soul to heaven - - left in a state bordering collapse. I did not realize how much I had loved and leaned upon him! And tonight I am broken and sad.

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.

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

The End of an Era

Goodbye, JoePa.

The big question that keeps running through my mind is "why?" What did JoePa do to deserve a perfunctory phone call bringing an even more perfunctory end to the most storied career in college football history? After all, he did what was legally required of him, which is precisely why there are no charges against him. He is a football coach and not a detective. When an allegation came across his desk--one of what we should imagine were countless accusations, suppositions, and rumors to be reported to him over 46 years--he reported it to the people whose job it was to launch an investigation. Could he have done more? Of course. Hindsight has a beautiful clarity to it. (Imagine if Sandusky were innocent and JoePa had led a crusade slandering a civic leader and founder of a charitable organization. Would we be any less judgmental then, armed as we are with afterthought?) The fact that JoePa himself recognizes, in retrospect, that he could have done more and offered as a voluntary penance his own retirement ought to have been enough. The difference would have been allowing a man who has revolutionized the public image of your university (so that people even care if there is a scandal there) and dedicated more than half of his life to developing and mentoring college athletes to coach four more games.

That apparently seemed like too magnanimous a path to the board of trustees. Why? What was JoePa's crime?

“I’m not sure I can tell you specifically,” board vice chair John Surma replied when asked at a packed news conference why Paterno had to be fired immediately. “In our view, we thought change now was necessary.”

Well that's a little vague. Perhaps they could clarify for us why they felt the need to eschew all courtesy and professionalism and destroy a four decade career over the phone.

Asked why he was fired over the phone, Surma said, “We were unable to find a way to do that in person without causing further distraction.”

So, in short, they remove the greatest fixture in college sports, ultimately confound the university's fundraising ability, athletic ability, and character, and incite mob violence, and their reasoning for doing it was "I don't know" and for doing it the way they did "It seemed convenient."

It all leaves me feeling a little unsatisfied. The victims have not been healed, the perpetrators have not been punished, and Happy Valley is no happier. I hope, in addition, that the board of trustees have trouble sleeping tonight.

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.

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