Tag: revelation

Revelation scares a lot of people. Both the complexity of the content and the multitude of possible interpretations combine to prevent people from delving into this book. But what if there was an assurance at the very beginning, even in the greeting, that could serve as an anchor as we navigate our way through?

Revelation 1:1-8 is densely packed with information about what kind of book this is and the theology of who it is from. Verse 1 tells us directly that this is “the revelation of Jesus Christ.” The word revelation is apokalypsis in Greek and means to reveal. This kind of literature uses symbols and metaphors to help interpret earthly realities through a heavenly lens. Examples of apocalyptic literature are also found in portions of Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel, parts of the Old Testament that also confuse us. But verse 4 sounds familiar:

“John to the seven churches that are in Asia: Grace to you and peace..”

New Testament letters, or epistles, follow a standard pattern. John is greeting his original readers here, just like Paul does in many of his letters, but things get a little bit extra after this:

…from him who is, and who was, and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth.

Every other similar greeting in Paul or the epistles of John mention the Father and the Son. Here we have what may be called a super-sized Trinitarian greeting.

The Father is the one who is and who was and who is to come. This appellation calls to mind the scene in Exodus 3 with Moses at the burning bush, when the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob identifies himself as YHWH, the being one, the ever-living, promise keeping God who covenants with his people and is for his people.

The Spirit is described with this sevenfold symbolism, underlining his fullness and presence with the Father before the throne, proceeding from the Father and the Son and doing his will.

And finally the Son, Jesus Christ, who is described here with three titles which encompass his work on earth and now in heaven. He is the faithful witness, the one who always tells the truth about God. We can trust what he will say in this book. He is also the firstborn from the dead. This doesn’t mean he was created, it means he is the forerunner of the new creation, the preeminent of those who have been resurrected. And then he is the ruler of kings on earth. The original audience of this letter were under threat from the ruler of the Roman Empire. Christians throughout history have also faced opposition from their earthly rulers. But John wants all of us to know that Christ is ruling and reigning – right now!

Why does John expand on the usual greeting? I think he knows what is coming and he knows his audience will need a spiritual ballast, a theological anchor as they hear the words of this book with all its apocalyptic imagery and symbolism. That anchor is the doctrine of God. Who God is in all his Trinitarian glory will strengthen and comfort them as they are called to patiently endure.

If that were not enough to encourage John’s audience and us, he adorns the anchor with praise. After the super-sized greeting chock full of Trinitarian glory and beauty, John’s choice of words should pierce our hearts in the sweetest way. Don’t rush past this!

To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

Both Paul and Peter broke out in doxology in the middle or at the end of their letters. At the end of 2 Peter, Peter says, “To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity.” In 1 Timothy 1 Paul says, “To the King of ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.” Both of these would be appropriate ways for John to proceed. Or what about Jude? At the end of Jude he breaks out in praise to God: “Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy.” The original hearers of Revelation would definitely be encouraged by those words. But John begins by highlighting the love of God. Is that what you would expect?

To him who ____________ us. How would you fill in that blank? If you were listening to this letter being read for the first time, what would you want to know? What would enable you to endure patiently through this present evil age and on to eternity?

God loves us.

Read that again, but preach it to your soul this time.

Have we become so accustomed to those words that we’ve lost the wonder of them? The gloriously beautiful, all powerful, Sovereign Lord, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, loves us. There’s more to this doxology – blood bought freedom from our sin and union with Christ as a kingdom of priests – but sit back and meditate on the truth John deliberately puts at the beginning.

This book of Revelation tells us the end of the story where God will bring redemptive history to an end and every sin to light. What John’s audience needs to know at the beginning of this letter is that the God who is, and who was, and who is to come soon both to save and to judge, this God, first of all, loves them with an unbreakable covenant love, and that love has brought freedom from sin and a kingdom that cannot be shaken.

I can’t think of a better or more secure anchor.

They thought it was a good idea, building a tower to the heavens. They had the will, the manpower and the materials. What could go wrong? Brick after brick, layer after layer went up, up, up to the clouds. Nothing man had done could compare with this. Using language reminiscent of Genesis 1, they said let us make, let us build, but they ignored God’s command to Noah to multiply and fill the earth. Instead, they turned inward, desiring to concentrate their power and make a name for themselves. But God was not ignorant of their plans. As they laid each layer of bricks higher than anyone had ever seen, God was higher still, and he came down to assess their work. The result was Babel, the city where languages were confused and man was dispersed throughout the earth. Man’s attempt to be God was thwarted, at least for now.

Centuries later another building project reached its zenith. Nebuchadnazzar, the king of Babylon, believed in the lie of his own greatness even despite the warnings God gave him in his dreams. One day, twelve months after the Jewish exile Daniel had given him the interpretation of his second dream and warned him to repent, the king found himself walking on the roof of his palace, surveying the majesty of what he thought belonged to him. He said, “Is not this great Babylon, which I have built by my mighty power as a royal residence and for the glory of my majesty?” Though God had given him time to repent, that time was up and immediately the judgment came down from heaven. The kingdom would depart from Nebuchadnezzar and he would lose his faculties, dwelling with the beasts of the earth, and eating grass like the oxen until he recognized that the Most High rules over all.

Nebuchadnezzar died and the kingdom of Babylon was replaced by another, but the spirit of Babylon endures. It has been a subtext in the story of redemption all along. Any time man turns inward, exalting himself and believing in his own greatness, Babylon is there. Many themes in the Bible find their full flowering in Revelation, and in Revelation 17 we get a full picture of how God sees Babylon and her relationship with those who dwell on earth and the saints of God:

Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and said to me, “Come, I will show you the judgment of the great prostitute who is seated on many waters, with whom the kings of the earth have committed sexual immorality, and with the wine of whose sexual immorality the dwellers on earth have become drunk.” And he carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness, and I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was full of blasphemous names, and it had seven heads and ten horns. The woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and jewels and pearls, holding in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the impurities of her sexual immorality. And on her forehead was written a name of mystery: ‘Babylon the great, mother of prostitutes and of earth’s abominations.’ And I saw the woman, drunk with the blood of the saints, the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. — Revelation 17:1-6 (ESV)

Notice the contrasts in the description we’re given above. An alluring and beautiful woman dressed in royal attire and yet she is called a prostitute, one who traffics in sexual immorality and leads the people on earth astray with her abominations. The last line emphasizes her deadly intentions – she desires to destroy the saints and is drunk with their blood. Is Babylon a real woman? Technically no. But what John is doing here, and what all apocalyptic literature does is use symbols to represent real things. Babylon then is the embodiment of the spirit of the age concentrated in the image of a worldly city, attractive and beautiful on the outside, promising all kinds of wealth and prestige and power but ultimately bringing her worshipers down to death. According to Vern Poythress, “Babylon sums up in herself the worship of the godless world.”

As you look at the whole book, you see there are two women portrayed in Revelation. We have Babylon, the prostitute, arrayed in costly attire and jewels, riding the beast who represents worldly power, intent on the destruction of the saints. In contrast, we have the Bride of Christ, the faithful ones who follow the Lamb wherever he goes, the ones who have washed their robes white in his blood and will rejoice in the consummation of their relationship with him at the marriage supper of the Lamb.

This is powerful imagery, and I’m convinced it’s meant to shake us out of our spiritual lethargy. As you go about your ordinary day, doing your ordinary things, remind yourself of Babylon. Be alert and watchful for signs of her seduction. We (in the comparatively free and relatively peaceful West) may not be experiencing the kind of suffering and persecution that our brothers and sisters in North Korea or Nigeria are experiencing, but that doesn’t mean Satan has left us alone. In his commentary, Dennis Johnson differentiates between three kinds of Satanic attacks. Satan can attack with head-on persecution, by slow infection, or with insidious temptations to compromise. I believe that Babylon the prostitute is meant to represent that insidious kind of seduction that’s presented to us every day, an attraction to worldly power and success that seems good at first but will eventually cause us to compromise. The way of the world is so alluring! Thankfully, we are given a clear picture here in Revelation of what it really is, and what will become of it in the end.

We are also given a clear warning as God prepares to exact judgment on Babylon.

Then I heard another voice from heaven saying, “Come out of her, my people, lest you take part in her sins, lest you share in her plagues; for her sins are heaped high as heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities.” — Revelation 18:4 (ESV)

The Bible gives us language and imagery to help us grasp spiritual truth. To pull back the curtain on what reality actually is. The next time you read Revelation try to trace the imagery backward. Where have you seen it before? How has it been developing? What may seem strange to us at first may actually be the culmination of a theme that began in seed form long ago. The Bible is the true story of the world and acts as a corrective lens through which to understand what is really going on around us. What began on the plains of Shinar in Genesis 11 will experience a great and mighty fall as described in Revelation 18 but the saints of God will find their rest in the New Jerusalem.

Almost every night as I settle into bed I pull out my book light and a book and read until my eyelids get heavy. Silent reading seems second nature to us and essential to every day life, but did you know that this is a rather new practice and something that used to be frowned upon? For hundreds of years, reading was a communal activity where people would gather to hear someone else read aloud. It was a shared activity with others who may have been illiterate but also didn’t have access to scrolls or books. With this in mind, look at the blessing that is proclaimed in the first chapter of Revelation:

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.

Revelation 1:3

There is a blessing here for those who read aloud, for those who hear, and for those who keep the words of this prophecy. Focus on the first descriptor – those who read aloud. Some of us have heard portions of this book read aloud. How many of us have heard the whole book read aloud? How many of us have read it aloud ourselves? The original audience would have likely heard the whole book read to them out loud. What was that experience like? More on that at the end of this post.

Last summer I took a day to get away and fast and pray and part of that time I devoted to reading the whole book of Revelation aloud. Granted, this is probably not the way John meant it to be read aloud – one person, by themselves and to themselves. But this is the only book of the Bible that proclaims a blessing on those who read it, and read it aloud. Because of the length of the book and the intensity of the language, I had been intimidated to do it. I didn’t want any distractions or feelings of self-consciousness. But now was the perfect time.

What was my experience? Was I blessed? What constitutes a blessing? Is it a rush of emotion, a spiritual high? Is the blessing something that comes not instantaneously but over a long period of time? I don’t know all the answers to those questions yet and I still have a lot of studying to do in this book, but here are my first impressions.

A Thrilling Ride

Revelation is in the genre of apocalyptic literature which is very important if we are to read it and understand it for all its worth. This kind of literature was well known to the original audience but us moderns can be uncomfortable with the imagery and symbolism, trying to fit every piece of this puzzle into its proper place. Reading it out loud forced me to move faster through all the parts that confused me and as I did that I began to appreciate the thrill of it. There’s a roller coaster at Six Flags over Georgia called Goliath. This hypercoaster reaches speeds of up to 70 mph, but what is most thrilling is the steep climbs followed by precipitous drops paired with the restraints on the seats that don’t seem to be enough for what you’re about to experience. As you crest the hills you can look off to the west and see the Atlanta skyline before the drops force you to rise out of your seat as you plummet down. The tracks of the coaster go outside the park at one point completely disorienting you. But suddenly, you arrive at the end, breathless and wondering whether you should go again.

Revelation is a literary roller coaster, taking you to the heights of heavenly worship then immediately plunging you to the depths of man’s depravity and the coming judgment on Satan and those who worship the Beast. This happens several times over the course of the book, telling us the same story from different angles, until at last you get to the wedding feast of the Lamb and the glorious New Jerusalem. By the end of my reading I was left breathless and in awe of God. I wanted and needed to read it again.

A Humbling Experience

One of the temptations we all face in this world is to shrink God down to our size while at the same time inflating our own egos and importance. Revelation will have none of that. From the beginning vision John has in chapter 1 of the glorious son of man with eyes like a flame of fire and a voice like the roar of many waters, we are encouraged to see ourselves rightly and take our place with John humbly worshiping at the feet of the Lord.

As John gets whisked up to the throne room of heaven by the Spirit, we get a vision of who the hero of this book is. It is not us. Yes, the Lord desires to see his church witness faithfully and endure patiently through every trial on this earth. And there are glorious rewards promised for those who overcome. But we have not written the script and we are not worthy to open the seals. We don’t overcome by clever church growth strategies or by “taking back America” (whatever that means). We overcome by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony having loved not our lives even unto death. (Rev. 12:11)

A Sobering Experience

Many people are scared to read this book. The imagery of the beast and the false prophet, the dramatic visions of judgment and the picture of the church suffering for their witness of Christ makes people afraid for their own salvation and for their children’s futures. They would rather be raptured out of all of it! But as I read the book out loud that day and have continued to read or listen to it being read, it has had the effect of downing a strong cup of coffee or being splashed in the face with ice cold water.

If the events of this book are describing the experience of the church throughout what’s called the inter-advent period (between the ascension and the second coming of Christ) from the perspective of heaven, then we should not be surprised by, for example, Christ’s words to the rather wealthy church in Sardis – “Wake up!” Perhaps the over the top imagery of this book is John’s way, and God’s way, of changing our perspective, not so we would fear, but that we would look at the world around us through the right lens, being equipped and prepared to endure.

Read This Book!

I highly recommend reading this book out loud, preferably in your church or another group setting. Imagine how it must have felt being an original recipient of this message. Perhaps you were a member of the church in Smyrna, poor (but rich in God’s eyes!) and about to suffer severe trial, or maybe Laodicea, at ease and rich but sorely deceived about your true spiritual condition. Christ had a message just for you. He knew your works, he was walking among you, and offered encouragement, rebuke, and a promise of reward for those who overcame.

Many scholars believe that these seven churches represent the whole church throughout history. If this is so, then we should also take to heart Christ’s words. He speaks them as the Lamb who alone is worthy to open the seals, who is the faithful witness and ruler of kings on earth. He has given us the true story of the world and how we are to endure patiently as those who are the much-loved, blood-bought kingdom of priests to our God.

Reading this book will be difficult, but in all the best ways. Yes, it will confuse you. It has confused the church for many centuries and no one has unlocked every truth contained in it. But remember, the promised blessing is not for those who understand Revelation but for those who read and hear and keep what is written in it.

The time is near! So join me for this thrilling, humbling, and sobering journey through the book of Revelation.