Crescent Hill Baptist Church
Crescent Hill Baptist Church
Louisville, Kentucky
Pentecost 5
July 1, 2007
W. Gregory Pope
MAKING SENSE OF THE BOOK OF REVELATION
Revelation 1:1-8; 22:16-17, 20-21
I know when Jesus is going to return. But I can’t tell you. You’ll have to buy my book due out later this summer entitled Who’s Gonna Get It and When? written under my installation name, The Infallible Baptist Pope Gregory X.
Though the book is not out yet, we’re going to spend the month of July in the Book of Revelation, reflecting on this strangest of biblical books. I also thought it would be a fitting time to have Sermon Talk-back sessions (or Sermon Back-Talk sessions as Karen Scott referred to them in a recent email), where we engage the book together.
When asked what comes to mind when you hear about the book of Revelation, one survey showed that the three most common themes that come to mind are “anti-Christ,” “rapture,” and “the Second Coming.” Interestingly, the first two are not found in the book of Revelation. And rapture is not even in the Bible, though we will spend some time talking about the rapture and the Left Behind novels, because they relate to what Christians believe about Revelation.
The concept of “anti-Christ” is in the small letter of First John and speaks more about a spirit that is against Christ than a particular person. If you think the anti-Christ may be a person and are interested in learning more about it, I refer you to a recently published book, “How to Tell If Your Boyfriend is the Anti-Christ,” subtitled (And If He Is, Should You Dump Him?). If your discover that your boyfriend is not the anti-Christ, I don’t know what else to tell you, because Revelation doesn’t help us.
Many people find in the book of Revelation a blue-print for the end of time. People are always searching for some clue to unlock the mystery of the end of time. There are those who have created these elaborate charts that indicate what has to happen in order for Jesus to return and what will happen when he does. And they claim to be guided by the Book of Revelation in the creation of these charts. It makes for exciting preaching and usually draws a crowd. But in my mind it contradicts what Jesus said about his return coming as a thief in the night when you least expect it, as well as his warning about trying to predict the time.
So if elaborate charts and finding historical events predicted in the Book of Revelation is what you’re looking for this month, you’ll probably be disappointed. Though many shy away from this book because of the way in which it has been abused, I think it is important for us to understand the context and nature of the book, else it can easily be misused and its important message easily forgotten.
The historical context for the Book of Revelation is this: For the first thirty years of its life the church did not experience too much persecution. However, in 64 AD Rome would burn and Nero would lay the blame on Christians. Sporadic persecution would continue for the next fifteen years until the time of Domitian who reigned over Rome from 81-96 AD. At that time the persecution became systematic. A failed military uprising against Domitian led to his unleashing the full fury of the state against two defenseless opponents - Jews and Christians. This widespread persecution sets the stage for the last book of the Bible.
The Revelation comes to a man named John. He is a prophet and a prisoner (in the darkest of times the two often go together). Because he has refused to bow down and pledge his ultimate allegiance to Rome and profess “Caesar is Lord,” John has been banished and imprisoned on the island of Patmos. His brothers and sisters in Christ that he had to leave behind are in great danger. If they refuse to pledge their allegiance to the Empire they too risk persecution, imprisonment, and even death.
So the context for the Revelation is this: A persecuted church in the face of the Roman Empire. With our elaborate charts and predictions we have turned Revelation into a frightening book, when in reality it was written to be a book of comfort and hope to persecuted Christians. The only people to whom this book should be frightening is those who run the Empire.
As we ponder the message of this book for us in our context, the question for us who live in the American Empire is: In what ways are we like the persecuted church, and in what ways are we like the Roman Empire?
In this historical context of the first-century church being persecuted by the Roman Empire, God gave John a story. It came as a vision. It is a wild fantastic story filled with weird looking animals and mysterious persons, and glimpses into heaven, eternity’s own light. The book is a survival document for a persecuted church. It is God’s message to the downtrodden. It is a secret document written in codes - an animal code, a number code, and a color code. It is an underground document written to reveal the meaning of history to persecuted Christians and to conceal the meaning of history from their persecutors. It has been an important word from God to the people of God undergoing persecution throughout history.
The Revelation to John is also known as the Apocalypse, the first word of the book, a Greek word meaning “revelation” or “unveiling.” The Book of Revelation belongs to a genre of sacred literature called “apocalyptic.” The last half of the book of Daniel and some of the words of Jesus would be considered “apocalyptic.” The language of apocalyptic literature is highly symbolic.
As I hope you are aware, I am very open to a variety of interpretation when it comes to biblical matters. But when it comes to apocalyptic language, a literal reading is simply a wrong reading. Just as you cannot call steak a vegetable (and believe me, I’ve tried), and just as you cannot read poetry literally as prose without violation, so it is wrong to read apocalyptic literature literally. It makes for exciting preaching and best-selling books. But it violates the very nature of the text. The language of Revelation is symbolic language, apocalyptic language.
Apocalyptic language borrows heavily from Jewish imagery regarding the end of time. It’s a word that simply means “revelation.” And contrary to popular thought, apocalyptic literature does not require violence or the destruction of the world.
Apocalypse means “unveiling” and, like Daniel in the Old Testament, Revelation is an unveiling of not necessarily particular events leading up to the end of history, but more an unveiling of the meaning of history during dark and terrible times and of God’s final victory to come.
It is highly questionable I think to suggest that a first century writer writing to first century persecuted Christians would be spelling out events that would happen now more than 2000 years later.
As I mentioned earlier, Revelation is written in code language. Once you learn the code you understand that the symbols in Revelation stand for first century realities. For instance, the beast. North American interpreters have said at various times in history that the beast is Russia or China because they were our enemies. (And of course our enemies are God’s enemies! Right?) Interestingly, Christians in South America who have suffered under the often brutal political and economic policies of the United States believe that we are the beast.
And while it is true that from time to time different nations have taken on the nature of the beast by their injustice, brutality, and demand of ultimate allegiance from others, for John, the writer of Revelation, ancient Rome is the beast sitting on seven hills which the whole world is blasphemously worshiping as “God.” John uses the code name “Babylon” to stand for Rome, hiding the true meaning of his words from persecutors.
We will be focusing on three primary themes that weave their way through the Book of Revelation:
(1) The Second Coming, or Return, of Christ,
(2) The Battle Between Good and Evil, and
(3) The New Creation When God Makes All Things New
We’ll be talking about all of these this month.
This morning regarding the Return of Christ, let me just say that Christ’s return has been understood in various ways throughout history. One interpretation made quite popular in the last hundred years or so is an interpretation that takes the book of Revelation as a linear blueprint of prophecies leading up to the day of Christ’s return. Elaborate charts have been set up to pinpoint when various parts of the book are being fulfilled, and dates are projected for when the end will come. Hal Lindsay’s best-seller The Late Great Planet Earth adopted this approach and since its original publication in 1970, Lindsay has had to continually revise his end-times scenario.
Hal Lindsay along with others like John Hagee and Tim Lahaye need to be read with great caution. I do not believe they are intentionally misleading anyone. But I do have questions about their mode of biblical interpretations and its implications, just as I’m sure they would about mine.
I do not believe that the Bible predicts historical end-time events, things that must take place before Jesus can return. Nor do I believe that God has set into place world events as part of a foreordained plan for the end of the world.
There are plain words from Jesus that warn against projections concerning the return of Christ and the end of time. Jesus said: But of that day or that hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.
Our objections, however, to the ways in which some people talk about the end of the world, with so many wild and crazy theories about what Jesus’ return might look like and mean for our present world - those objections should not keep us from talking about the end of the world.
It is difficult for some of us to get our minds around what any kind of “second coming” would look like. To think about a human Jesus literally coming down to earth on the clouds is too much for some of our minds to imagine. And so many of us shy away from any talk about any kind of return from Jesus.
While the details may be confusing, it is important I think for us to talk about. When the Christian faith talks about The Second Coming of Jesus the essence of it is about our hope in the final completed salvation of the world, when God will triumph over evil and suffering and all things will be made new. We long for that day. And as we look at the present state of our world we cry the final cry of the biblical story: “Come, Lord Jesus, come.”
Without the hope of Christ’s return we are apt to fall into despair, wondering if anything will ever be made right. But we do not live without that hope. The return of Jesus Christ is the living hope that God’s dream for this world will come true. And even now is in the process of coming into being. Paul said the whole creation is groaning with birth pangs for redemption. And perhaps the most amazing part is that we have a role to play in making God’s dream for this world come true.
This world is not just a testing ground or preparatory school for heaven. This is God’s world. And Jesus came to teach us how to live in this world.
We need to think carefully about this hope in Christ’s return. For there is a multitude of beliefs and opinions about how and when the end will come. Christians sometime lose sight of the one hope we all share and get into fights over the details of what the Second Coming will be like and when it will be.
In our humanity we sometimes pretend to know too much, and our presumed knowledge can make us mean. I won’t bore you today with all the details of post-millennialists and pre-millennialists and a-millennialists, and pre-tribulation, post-tribulation, and dispensational pre-millennialists. It’s a lot like “how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?” But Christians have broken fellowship over these things because they pretended to know too much. It’s important that we not claim to know too much about Christ’s return. But it’s also important that we examine certain beliefs about Christ’s return because they shape the way we understand God and the way we live here on earth.
Until the time of Jesus’ return, both Paul and Jesus taught us to be ready. The Second Coming of Christ should always be taught not as a lesson in charts and date-setting but as a call to spiritual readiness. Because no one knows the hour of his return, we should all be ready to meet the Christ. We are to live lives in the light of Christ and not in the darkness of this world. Paul writes in Romans:
Now is the time for you to wake from sleep. For God’s completed salvation is nearer to us now than when we first became believers; the night is far gone, the day is near. Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. (13:11-14)
We come to the table where we anticipate the great messianic banquet where we will eat with Jesus. This meal is a foretaste of that final promise. Until that time, this table reminds us that we are the Body of Christ broken for the world. So let us lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light, faithful to the gospel.
TALK-BACK QUESTIONS:
1. Are there any who would see the Book of Revelation as a predictor of end-time events?
2. In what ways are we as Christians in America like the persecuted church? How can we respond?
3. In what ways are we like the Roman Empire? How should we respond?
feed back to Greg
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CRESCENT HILL BAPTIST CHURCH
2800 Frankfort Avenue
Louisville, Kentucky 40206
(502) 896-4425
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