So, a study of Revelation should end by talking about eternal life, about what our state will be when God's Mighty Acts are completed. Which is a bit of a stumper since we don't, certainly I don't, know much of anything about the future state. A much wiser, much more insightful, and much much much more inspired man than I wrote that, "Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is." from 1 John 3. I personally think that John the Apostle, is John of Patmos, that is the author of John's Gospel is the author of John's Epistles, and also the author of the Revelation. I don't know it for a fact but I suspect it. Further, I think that the visions He records in the Revelation he had at a rather early date, probably in the 40 AD decade, long before he wrote the epistle that we call 1 John. I think, that much of what seems so different between John's writings and those of the other apostles, and the Christology that critics say is much too advanced and developed for the first century, especially that found in his Gospel, is explained by years, decades more likely, of thinking about the Jesus that he saw in these visions recorded in the Revelation and looking for the unity between that Jesus and the Jesus that he walked around Galilee with in his youth. And the man who saw the throne room of heaven, saw the New Jerusalem come down out of heaven, saw the city that needs no sun for it's light is the Lamb, said that it wasn't really clear to HIM what WE shall be in that day. So you can bet that I don't know.
So much focus is put on trying to bring men to eternal life, but it's an eternal life that is a big mystery to us. So, I want to look at it another way, in the light of John's comments that "seeing Christ as He is" will make us like him, and " this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent." from John 17. So, our stated goal has been to Reveal Christ, to bring men to the knowledge of Him, so I will attempt to recap what we have said about Christ, not merely as a conclusion, but as offering us the only knowledge about the next life, about who and what we will be, which can be meaningful to us in this life.
So, the story is about a Scroll that's how we began this journey almost two years ago, the knowledge of God sealed in a scroll, a knowledge which must be opened not once, but seven times, that is to say continually, by the Slain Lamb, the knowledge of God must never launch itself into exalted speculation but must be unceasingly grounded in the Hill of Calvary. The knowledge of God is described either as four separate horsemen or as the four activities of the Rider of the White Horse. He is the Conqueror, who is righteous in Judgement and when He makes War, and who is followed by and holds the keys to Death and Hell.
In what sense is He the Conqueror? We said that legalism is the placing of God in a box, it is limiting what He can or will do for us, such that we seek good from other sources, from our own knowledge, from an apple, from a snake. And so the conquering Gospel is the news that the Heavens cannot contain Him! All of creation is too small an arena for His grace to be fully unfurled, and He is sovereignly determined to be absolutely as good and gracious as can be, and so certainly no temple, no box, no statutes, no limitations on who or how or when he might be merciful can be stipulated. We are bound to ways and means, but His Gospel rides over the whole earth. In short, the Rider of the White Horse may be said to always be riding down the Damascus Road, always taking us stubborn Sauls so zealous for the Law, so eager to persecute any who do not walk according to our traditions, always taking us and making us into Pauls. Thus He irresistibly conquerors our rebel hearts. We, then, will be Conquerors, more than conquerors as John has it in another place. We will have the ability to bring the Gospel to bear in any situation, as Christ did to Saul, to transform our world by applying the power of His resurrection.
We looked at His judgments, specifically those which seem most abhorrent to us, His plagues. When we see Him raining fire on the Earth, destroying the trees and grasses, killing the fish and the animals, poisoning the water, and causing diseases on men, our fallen minds conclude that He is unrighteous, we ourselves, conclude that He is unrighteous. But just and true are all of His ways, and these plagues only take away the means, the signs of blessing and not the blessing itself. He separates us from those things on which we imagine we are dependant, water and food the grasses and trees, all of those things which we imagine bring us good, peace and health, which we imagine we need, life itself, so that we can see that He alone has always been the sole source of our good. If we lose all else and retain Christ then we have lost nothing, and we have gained clarity. This absolutely applies to us. Paul tells us that we will judge angels and are absolutely competent to judge earthly matters. In the Resurrection then, we will be able to do what men have been trying to do since the Fall, to set the systems of society and the earth right. Utopia famously doesn't exist, and every attempt to create it has only led to hate and destruction. Every Revolution has only been a swapping of one set of oppressors for another. But there is a time coming when He will rule the world from His holy mountain.
From Micah 4: Now it shall come to pass in the latter days
That the mountain of the Lord’s house
Shall be established on the top of the mountains,
And shall be exalted above the hills;
And peoples shall flow to it.
Many nations shall come and say,
“Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
To the house of the God of Jacob;
He will teach us His ways,
And we shall walk in His paths.”
For out of Zion the law shall go forth,
And the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
He shall judge between many peoples,
And rebuke strong nations afar off;
They shall beat their swords into plowshares,
And their spears into pruning hooks;
Nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
Neither shall they learn war anymore.
But everyone shall sit under his vine and under his fig tree,
And no one shall make them afraid;
For the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken.
For all people walk each in the name of his god,
But we will walk in the name of the Lord our God
Forever and ever.
“In that day,” says the Lord,
“I will assemble the lame,
I will gather the outcast
And those whom I have afflicted;
I will make the lame a remnant,
And the outcast a strong nation;
So the Lord will reign over them in Mount Zion
From now on, even forever
And you, O tower of the flock,
The stronghold of the daughter of Zion,
To you shall it come,
Even the former dominion shall come,
The kingdom of the daughter of Jerusalem.”
We considered when Christ makes war. He makes war on those who accuse the Saints, whether in Heaven or on the Earth. Though He waits long He will stand up for His martyrs and will show that in the words of the Prophets, "His arm is not shortened." For our sake, He makes war on every idea, every Angel, every power, which is against His people and against the knowledge of the Cross. Most of all, He makes war on the "handwriting that is against us", He makes war on Law, as it is understood by fallen hearts, He makes war on condemnation, He makes war on the whole system of the universe, when it proves itself, as it has, to be against Him and against His little flock. Christ makes war on the Law, exactly by placing himself under it. He makes war on the Law by being killed by it, and being justified against it when God raises Him not merely from the Grave but to the Right Hand of His Father.
But He has placed Himself not merely under Law but under Death and under Hell. All of the things which condemn us are themselves condemned because they have condemned Christ, who is not merely undeserving of condemnation but is the Lord of Glory. But they have been more than condemned, they have been conquered as completely as Saul of Tarsus. Death is condemned for raising its hand against Jesus but is delivered from the futility to which it has been subjected so as to become the vehicle of Resurrection. He has descended beneath all things that He might raise all things up with Him.
Law is confronted by something more primal, more basic than itself. Mercy triumphs over justice in the way that the foundation triumphs over the superstructure. And when all of the books of our works are opened and speak condemnation to us, they are silenced by Another Book, by the book of the True and Living Lamb. And though we have grown old in the ways of this world, we will be made children again in His resurrection, though we have grown wise in evil and suffering, we will be innocent and simple once more. There are New Heavens and a New Earth, an abiding home for us, a city with foundations, which Abel and Abraham and all of our Fathers before us have preferred to seek as pilgrims rather than to live in this world as their home. If we didn't feel like strangers and pilgrims in this world previously, then the events of the past few months have made it painfully clear that we will never belong here. Our home has been far away, invisible, it has been the stuff of dreams but it will not be so much longer.
Our beloved is returning soon, the very same Jesus who loved us and gave Himself for us, He is returning unchanged, returning in and through the Way of the Cross. His feet shall stand again on the Mount of Olives shall again walk the paths of Gethsemane. His return is a response to the cry of the martyr's under the altar who say, "How long, O Lord, until you avenge our blood?" for precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints. This world's attachment to its own righteousness is fundamentally irreconcilable with the Saints who do not justify themselves but hope that God will justify them, as He indeed does by raising them up just as He raised up Christ. The Great Pauline Antithesis between Faith and Works must end, and it ends in blood, it ends with works being cast into the Lake of Fire that there may be rest. The Lord has seen that all of Creation needs its Rest, its Sabbaths, and since we continue to deprive ourselves and our world of that rest by our obsession with justifying ourselves by our works, He will put an end to all works. Human effort and the worship of that Beast is overcome by the Lord who would not fight the soldiers who came to take Him but healed the ear that Peter cut, the Lord who is returning is the Lord who said, "Take me then but let these go." So that whatever attends the return we can see it is the return of the Beloved, and say with real feeling, "Even so, Come quickly Lord Jesus"
