Conversation and Revelation

So as I mentioned in my last blog I've been in conversation with some friends from church over Scripture, the Apocalypse, that is, the last book of the Bible has been the subject of recent conversation.  We started out by learning the ins and outs of the four mainstream theological viewpoints as pertains 'End Times' or what I like the think of rather as the in-breaking of the 'Age to Come' or 'World to Come' (aka Eternal Life) Luke 18v30 , John 17v1-3.  The mainstream viewpoints are Historical Premillennialism, Amillennialism, Dispensational Premillennialism and Postmillenialism. The material was good and I believe the teacher did a good job of presenting the differing viewpoints from an objective stance which was very cool to see.  This was a time of Spiritual awakening for me and I wrestled with all sorts of things as the Lord was doing a work in us.  All said and done though I still find myself in the camp of Inaugurated Escatology, not only because I find it as the most compelling and accurate to the full counsel of God's revelation of Himself and His purposes in Holy Scripture, but because it is, in my opinion, the most faithful to the Spirit of these Writings.  Knowing that He works all things according to the counsel of His purpose as summarized in John 3v16-17, namely to redeem a people for His own possession, who in turn will play a substantive role in the redemption of His world by loving Him and rejoicing in His amazing grace and covenant faithfulness at work in and through us.


We had intended to go through the Revelation line by line after this introduction to established viewpoints, but it was prayerfully decided to ensure a firm foundation in Messiah by beginning rather in the Gospel according to John, before we delve into such a powerful discipleship experience as John's Revelation.  That being said I still have a desire to work through Revelation with the Lord Jesus in 2012.  So, my journey is going to start here on the blog and those who would like to are welcome to join me in the conversation and Revelation.  I will be posting as I have opportunity and would welcome any guest bloggers who would like to add something to the conversation.  I will be using a few resources as I embark on this journey, my Bible, a commentary, a resource to help me with spiritual disciplines and a whole lot of prayer.


May the curtain be drawn up and Heaven revealed...

¹Revelation of Jesus the Messiah!  God gave it to him to show his servants what must soon take place.  He signified it by sending a message through his angel to his servant John, ²who, by reporting all he saw, bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus the Messiah.  ³God’s blessing on the one who reads the words of this prophecy, and on those hear them and keep what is written in it.  The time, you see, is near!

⁴John, to the seven churches in Asia: grace to you and peace from He Who Is and Who Was and Who Is to Come, and from the seven spirits that are before his throne, ⁵and from Jesus the Messiah, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.  Glory to the one who loved us, and freed us from our sins by his blood, ⁶and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and father-glory and power be to him forever and ever. Amen.

⁷Look! He is coming with the clouds, and every eye shall see him; yes, even those who pierced him.  All the tribes of the earth shall mourn because of him. Yes! Amen.

⁸“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, Who Is and Who Was and Who Is to Come, the Almighty.

When things are going 'wrong' in our lives we can very quickly get scared and out of sorts.  For the early church it was severe and violent religious, social, economic and political persecution.  That is where apocalyptic literature comes in.  It is designed to look through the horrific circumstances of the day to the endurance and holiness required of us as God's beloved children and upward toward the hope of the renewal of all things.  

The first thing we see in these verses is that Jesus is to be the central figure, everything flowing through him by the Holy Spirit, and ultimately...intimately... from God the father, 'He Who Is and Who Was and Who Is to Come'.  We see that there is order in God's Kingdom, the revelation is given from the father to Jesus the son, who gives it to his angel who gives it to the seer (John in this case) who ultimately and obediently delivers it to the church.  So we have a four-stage revelation as the basic framework of the epistle.

We see that this is going to be a letter or epistle, there are specific letters to specific churches, that by the symbolic number seven represent the complete church throughout history.  The whole revelation is in the form of an epistle though, telling the children of God what he has seen.  This is also prophecy, Jesus is drawing up from the deep well of John's knowledge of Hebrew prophecy from Daniel, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Isaiah, ect and yet in light of the revelation of Jesus the Messiah, He is painting a fresh picture with images showing up in new and dramatic ways to bring hope and encouragement to the struggling Christian community.

Finally, the Apocalypse serves as Witness / Testimony and this is of paramount importance to the Christian church in every age and certainly today.  As we will learn later it is by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony that we are to overcome the Accuser.  So when God does something in your life...remember it, celebrate it tell of it to whoever will listen and give God the glory He deserves. It's more than God allowing you to pull into that sweet parking spot right near the front doors of the mall though...Witness carries the idea that God is conducting a heavenly law-court and the 'witness' borne by Jesus and ultimately by those who call themselves Christian's is the key that unlocks the final judgment and verdict.  It also carries the sense of the word 'martyr' meaning you are signing up for suffering, even death.

So why would anyone want to bear this cross Jesus calls us to?  Because He has 'made us a kingdom, priests to his God and father' and for the hope...the only reason Christianity makes sense at all...He will come again and set all things right! AMEN

Some thought’s on Judaism, Christianity and the Kingdom of God as the Holy Spirit leads…

Some thought’s on Judaism, Christianity and the Kingdom of God as the Holy Spirit leads…

"But if we would turn to the Father’s grace, We would never be the same, This is an unseen land of a devastated soul, That’s prepared in contemplative silence, For the mighty working hand of an unseen Lord, To come restore this land from its violence, I said walk another mile, Stare across the fields of grain, This is how the prophets train, Learn this lesson well my friend, There’s a time to rejoice and lament, Every season will find an end"

I was gathered together with some friends recently and we were talking scripture when a question came up about the Kingdom of God (Heaven)…how would you explain it to someone? Everyone had some idea, but had never thought to articulate it. Now, this was the primary message of Jesus, this is the Messiah’s Gospel. So I went away from the convo figuring I would spend some time…praying about it, studying and in the name of discipleship share some thoughts…God is always faithful!

The day after I had this convo, a friend of mine returned a book I had lent to him and his wife. The book is titled ‘To Heal A Fractured World’ written by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks. It had been a while since I read the book and when I opened it I found myself face to face with a verse we had discussed the previous night. It comes from the prophet Isaiah:

They will neither harm nor destroy On all My holy mountain, For the earth will be full of the knowledge of YHVH As the waters cover the sea. - Isaiah 11v9

Now this conversation, to place things in context, stems from our study of ‘Last Days’ and ‘Eternal Life’ also known as ‘The Age to Come’ (Luke 18v30). So let’s look and see what the Lord delivered to me concerning this…

 From ‘To Heal A Fractured World’ pg 77.

‘The prophets and sages, virtually without exception, shared a vision of ‘the end of days’ (the messianic age, the world to come) in which restoration would be far-reaching and macrocosmic. At one level, the political-historical, it would return the Jews to their land and the renewal of the covenant between God and Israel. At a deeper, spiritual-metaphysical level it would mean the end of war and strife and the dawn of a universal sense of the presence of God, as in Isaiah’s great vision: They will neither harm nor destroy On all My holy mountain, For the earth will be full of the knowledge of LORD As the waters cover the sea. - Isaiah 11v9 The question is, how do we get from here to there, from historical to messianic time? That was always a difficult question in Judaism.’

R. Sacks goes on to state …

‘On one hand, redemption comes from God; on the other, without human initiative, there is nothing through which God can act.’

Though, in regards to the lack of human initiative, Jesus did say, “Let me tell you,” replied Jesus, “if they stayed silent, the stones would be shouting out!” Implying of course, to get out of the way of those who are willing to engage and celebrate with God for His glory. Those whose human initiative comes from a place of faith.

This brings us to the perceived Jewish / Christian divide, then and now. It can be seen as the result of human error that there ever was a divide, but Paul tells us in Romans that God, in His sovereignty, sent a partial hardening on the hearts of national Israel so that they don’t accept Jesus as Messiah, why? So that salvation, that is, the renewal of the covenant and the inheritance (all things), would extend beyond national Israel to all peoples by faith and so that He can have mercy on National Israel at the appropriate time. That is, when every knee bows and every tongue confesses that Jesus, Messiah, is Lord to the glory of God the father. In the Sacred Scriptures we are told that ‘Christian’s’ were at first seen as a sect of Judaism. Of course, early Christian’s saw their Messiah, Jesus, and those in him as the answer to the aforementioned question Judaism continues to struggle with to date. So, I insist on seeing Christianity as the answer to which Judaism is the preceding question. In fact, Paul and certainly John via Jesus himself, see’s Christian’s as the true Jews, ref Revelation 2v9, 3v9. This does and should not lead to any form of anti-Semitism, because Paul says he would give up his salvation and be cut off from Messiah for the sake of national Israel if that were possible. That’s what love looks like, not hate. Who would you give up eternal life for?

As I stated, Christianity, also known as ‘The Way’, was seen early on by those who rejected it as one among many sects of Judaism since there were significant divisions between the likes of the Pharisees, the Saducees, the Essenes, different Zealot sects and even other messianic movements...which usually ended up with dead would-be messiahs. None of which resulted in its followers claiming that their Messiah had risen from the dead. It quite simply was not expected, even amongst those who believed in the Resurrection, even those who followed Jesus…it was supposed to all happen at once, not that the Messiah would lead the way as the firstborn from the dead, and that he would ascend to the highest throne (heaven) and would rule from the right hand of God, sharing His throne. (note: ascension is not the same as resurrection) Though it would stand to reason that that is exactly what God would do when He was ready to launch the renewal of His Kingdom on Earth as in Heaven. Besides reason, it is what David prophesied in Psalm 110.

So what is ‘the Kingdom of God (Heaven)’? In its simplest terms, it is the reign of God. His will, done on Earth as in Heaven. This is mediated through Jesus as King and High Priest. Jesus of course expounds on the Kingdom of God (Heaven)…what it looks like, how it arrives, where it is at…all in his parables. And he teaches these truths in parable for a reason. Jesus also shows us when he casts demons out by the finger of God (the Holy Spirit), and he says the Kingdom of God has come upon you. You see, God has taken charge; His rule/authority has manifested itself because it met with faith. You see Love never insists on its own way. But when met with faith amazing things that some see as supernatural start to happen, but in God’s world, the Messianic world, they are perfectly at home and exactly what you ought to expect to see as the Kingdom comes. (Matthew 13v58, 17v20)

According to God’s wisdom, the King of this Kingdom, God’s anointed, in leading the way and himself being the Way, Jesus is the place where Heaven and Earth come together. In pre-Messianic times this was the temple in Jerusalem, but Jesus re-established the people of God around himself as both Messiah and High Priest (according to the order of Melchezidek). This is why there was so much conflict between him and the temple (which was a type of Christ – temporary until the real thing came), which like the fig tree had ceased to produce fruit. Now, Jesus is the place…or rather the person… where Heaven and Earth come together, the ‘place’ where you come to meet with God, to confess your sins and find forgiveness, to find healing and restoration, justice, mercy and faith. He was able to do this because it pleased the Father to have the fullness dwell in him.

So, if we have washed ourselves in the blood of the Lamb, what does this mean to be a living stone in the temple of God, that is, in Messiah until that Day when all things are brought into subjection to Him who will even transform our present body, this shabby old thing, so that it’s just like his glorious body, by the power which makes him able to bring everything into line under his authority, how then ought we to live now?

“The kingdom of heaven is like leaven,” he said, “which a woman took and hid inside three measures of flour, until the whole thing was leavened.”

“God’s Kingdom,” replied Jesus, “Isn’t the sort of thing you can watch for and see coming. People won’t say, ‘Look, here it is,’ or ‘Look, over there!’ No: God’s kingdom is within your grasp.”

May we take hold of the Life that is truly Life. AMEN