This is the fourth part in a series that begins with The Conqueror. I am pasting here the introduction from Part 1 that serves as the introduction to the whole series.
"We are wrong about everything else but we are right about the Gospel." It's a pretty good one liner and I have kind of been using it as the unofficial motto of our church. "We are wrong about everything else but we are right about the Gospel." What I mean to imply by that is that the Gospel is the only thing that matters. The Gospel, quite literally, justifies all of our other mistakes, errors, and failures. So, I don't know how far our little look into Revelation will get but the key that I intend to use is something like this. "I am wrong about eschatology. I am wrong about numerology. I am wrong about symbolism. But I intend to be right about what the Revelation says about Christ." Where it is necessary to try and interpret John's visions to tell my story, I don't intend to seek a coherent system of symbolism, I don't intend to offer any opinion on the chronology of the "End Times", not even in the most general of ways. Instead, I will shamelessly use all of the imagery and mysticism to try and illustrate the Christ of Revelation. If that is how John intended it to be used then it might work out pretty well. If it isn't, "Oh well."
From Revelation 14 starting at verse 9:
Then a third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, “If anyone worships the beast and his image, and receives his mark on his forehead or on his hand, he himself shall also drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out full strength into the cup of His indignation. He shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever; and they have no rest day or night, who worship the beast and his image, and whoever receives the mark of his name.”
Here is the patience of the saints; here are those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.
Then I heard a voice from heaven saying to me, “Write: ‘Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.’ ”
“Yes,” says the Spirit, “that they may rest from their labors, and their works follow them.”
So, what I want to talk about today is Rest. I think that most of us want rest but we can't seem to get it. I suppose that our text today is the source of the saying, "No rest for the wicked.", and that's a pretty good summary of the first part of the passage we read, "they have no rest day or night" it says about God's enemies, it also mentions them being tormented, and that word torment suggests not so much being locked up in the torture chamber as it does hard labor, a job that is irksome, irritating, that makes you miserable. One other issue, before we move on, with the way our text reads is with the torment of the wicked occuring "in the presence" of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. The word translated "in the presence" is enOPion, literally in the eyes of and it is often used exactly the way that we use the phrase "in somebody's eyes" in English. Often in the New Testament this word is used to contrast something being one way in the eyes of God and another in the eyes of men. And I can't help but wonder if there is some of that here. Whenever we hear about the suffering of the damned in Scripture we are hearing about it from the point of view of the Lamb and the saints, in their eyes, but I suspect that it might look different to the ones who are doing this hard, unending, tormenting labor. We imagine that the work with which we have filled up our lives is purposeful, meaningful and that the slavery which characterizes our lives is the way that good people live their lives. And the Lamb, and the Saints look on in pity wandering how to show us what we are missing, searching for words that will convince us of the rest that God has in store for us, if we will only put our labors away.
God, is not engaged in continual labor. He is not always working. He sat down. He wrapped it all up. Moses says that on the seventh day He rested, but actually Jesus said, "It is finished" and knocked off Friday at about 3, which is a very good example to follow. Jammed right into the middle of His Law, shoved into the face of all of us who seek our own righteousness, is the Sabbath, the express image of God thumbing His nose in our faces, trying to wake us up to the rest we are missing. And don't let the characterization of the "wicked" following the Beast and what not fool you, seeking righteousness is exactly what they are doing. They are working 24/7 at being good parents, good husbands, good human beings, going ninety miles an hour the wrong way down a one way street.
God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high Hebrews 1
Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says:
“Today, if you will hear His voice,
Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion,
In the day of trial in the wilderness,
Where your fathers tested Me, tried Me,
And saw My works forty years.
Therefore I was angry with that generation,
And said, ‘They always go astray in their heart,
And they have not known My ways.’
So I swore in My wrath,
‘They shall not enter My rest.’ ”
Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God; but exhort one another daily, while it is called “Today,” lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. For we have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end, while it is said:
“Today, if you will hear His voice,
Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.”
For who, having heard, rebelled? Indeed, was it not all who came out of Egypt, led by Moses? Now with whom was He angry forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose corpses fell in the wilderness? And to whom did He swear that they would not enter His rest, but to those who did not obey? So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief. from Hebrews 3
Those awful rascals with the Mark of the Beast get the same treatment as who, the Children of Israel who followed Moses out of Egypt. And what is the sin that is being pointed out to us by their example? "We become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence unchanged to the end." And those who do not do this are accused of unbelief. The beginning of our confidence, is simply the unmerited favor of Christ, we begin, confessedly unworthy, appealing for mercy based on His goodness not our deservingness. And then, we think maybe His goodness is missing a little around the edges, we think that there are things that we need to do to complete Christ's work. I mean, He should have at least kept going right up until the Sabbath, even if He was gonna take Saturday off, shouldn't He? He went and sat down and left us this whole kingdom to build, this whole world to win, all this work to do. So we see that we can not enter in because of unbelief, we cannot rest because we refuse to believe that our righteousness, our goodness is entirely superfluous, is in fact an obstacle, as much as anything can be an obstacle to the relentless, furious, saving love of God.
Our life of works and worthiness is the problem, all of the things that we are trying to contribute, to add on top of the works which were finished at the foundation of the world. What then is the solution?
Then I heard a voice from heaven saying to me, “Write: ‘Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.’ ”
“Yes,” says the Spirit, “that they may rest from their labors, and their works follow them.”
The solution is to die. To stop contributing, stop adding to the work of Christ, stop using our fig leaves to accessorize His pure, unalloyed, unmixed, goodness clean and white. It's not just ok to give up, it's commanded. The only thing that is required of us is something that all of us can do. Die.
But Christ came as High Priest of the good things to come, with the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is, not of this creation. Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? And for this reason He is the Mediator of the new covenant, by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant, that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance.
The Old Covenant said, The man who keeps the Law shall live by the Law. And no one kept the Law and so all died without that covenant providing the promised inheritance, the promised rest. The New Covenant works by means of death, it brings life, by means of failure we become more than conquerors, by means of condemnation we are justified. Our life, which in the eyes of God is really death, is replaced by the death of Christ, which is truest life. Our righteous works, which in the eyes of God are sin, are replaced by the rest of Christ, an idleness which powerfully upholds all things. Our accomplishments are buried in the depths of the sea and we obtain rest.
For where there is a testament, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator. For a testament is in force after men are dead, since it has no power at all while the testator lives. Therefore not even the first covenant was dedicated without blood. For when Moses had spoken every precept to all the people according to the law, he took the blood of calves and goats, with water, scarlet wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, saying, “This is the blood of the covenant which God has commanded you.” Then likewise he sprinkled with blood both the tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry. And according to the law almost all things are purified with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no remission.
Therefore it was necessary that the copies of the things in the heavens should be purified with these, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ has not entered the holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us; not that He should offer Himself often, as the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood of another— He then would have had to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now, once at the end of the ages, He has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment, so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation.
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