Hoping for redemption

I guess I've almost been writing a post a month over here, so I'll try to keep it up.

I'm just going to type out some scriptures next to each other.  I hope this is not an inappropriate use of scripture, picking portions and looking at them together.  In the process, I'm leaving some sections out, but not because I am am trying to ignore or subvert them, only because I want to focus attention on the parts I am putting down here.

Here we go:

For although they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened . . .
And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.  They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness . . .
slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.  Though they know God's decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

And the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness.  God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.

(From Romans 1:21, 28-29a, 30-31 and 2 Timothy 2:24-26, all from the ESV)

Highlights that I pray from the Lord's Prayer (I pray the whole prayer, but I linger on these):

Hallowed be Your Name 
May all of us, including the rebellious, recognize who You are and revere you -- Psalm 33:8, "Let all the earth fear the Lord; let all the people of the world revere Him." (NIV)

Your will be done.
Do your will.  Lead lost souls to repentance.  Illuminate truth.  Reveal the futility of sin and the wonder of Your grace and glory.  Tear down idols, and replace hearts of stone with hearts of flesh.  Subjugate the enemy.  Do whatever it takes to bring Your victory into the hearts of men.

Deliver us from evil.
You are the Great Deliverer.  Our battle is against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.  Deliver us, Lord, for You are our only hope, and our hope is in You alone.  May Your unfailing love triumph in the hearts of our lost loved ones.  You have told us to take heart, for You have overcome the world.  Oh, God of peace, crush Satan under our feet (Romans 16:20).  Grant the repentance that leads to freedom from sin.  Oh please, deliver us from evil.

For Thine is the Power.
Your power created the heavens and the earth.  Your power raised Jesus--after He was crushed by the cumulative sins of all humanity--raised Him from the dead and seated Him in heaven on the throne.  Your power is at work in believers through your gift of the Holy Spirit.  Your power purifies.  It can undo the effects of sin and death.  You are the only one who was able to touch a leper and heal him, instead of being infected by him. Your power can do all things, and Your power can raise a sinner up from the miry clay, set him on a solid rock, and give him a new song to sing.  You are Lord.  You are God.  You are in me.  Give me courage and confidence to go forth in Your power, without fear, and bring Your light to dark places, Your truth to the deceived, and Your salvation to the perishing.

Thank you that You forgive.  Thank you that You are patient to wait for people to come to repentance.
Thank you for Your goodness and faithfulness.  Thank you, Jesus.

The flaw in amillennialism

Amillennialism makes sense on a whole lot of levels.

The idea that the church age, the age of the Holy Spirit that Jesus promised to send, is the Millennium during which the Lord reigns in victory . . . this idea works.  It's simple, it follows, it's cohesive on nearly every level.  Jesus came, triumphed at the cross, and now reigns in victory with the saints who are seated with Him in the heavenlies--this is all perfectly in accord with scripture.  Believers who die in this present age are immediately with Jesus, reigning until the coming of the New Heaven and the New Earth.  The Holy Spirit is loosed in the world, illuminating truth, convicting and teaching in ways unprecedented throughout history.  The church has access to the full power of God through His Spirit.  The age of the church is the age of the Holy Spirit, which is a triumphant time of God's power going out.  It makes so much sense.

Except for Revelation 20:3 --
"He threw him into the Abyss, and locked and sealed it over him, to keep him from deceiving the nations anymore until the thousand years were ended . . ." (NIV)

As far as I can tell, Satan is still effectively deceiving lots of people.

Is "deceiving the nations" any different from deceiving individuals?

Is there any way we could think that nations are not deceived in this present age?

I'm thinking about this because I am so sick of the way the enemy lies, and people believe the lies.  I'm sick to death of truth being hidden.  Yet, the truth is hidden.  People have to seek it.  People have to want it.

It is a cold, rainy May day, and these are not my favorite thoughts.

The Gospel in the Epistles

I've had it on my heart for a long time to do a particular homework assignment.  I want to find where the gospel is explained in each of the epistles.   This will not be an exhaustive list.

Here we go:

*Romans 5:1-11

1 Corinthians 6:11, 14, 19-20 
1 Corinthians 11:23-26
*1 Corinthians 15:1-8

*2 Corinthians 5:14-21

Galatians 1:3-5
*Galatians 4:4-7

*Ephesians 1:4-8
(and pretty much all of Ephesians 2)

*Philippians 2:5-11

*Colossians 1:13-23

*1 Thessalonians 5:9-10
1 Thessalonians 4:14

2 Thessalonians 2:13-17  ?

1 Timothy 1:12-17

2 Timothy 1:8-11

*Titus 3:3-7

Philemon ?

Hebrews (so many!)
1:1-3
5:7-10
9:11-15, *24-28
10:10
12:2
13:20-21

James 1:18 ?

1 Peter 1:18-21
1 Peter 2:24
1 Peter 3:18

2 Peter 1:3-4 (slightly more clear in other translations)

1 John 4:10 (there are more in this book--quite a few, really--I think this one is clearest)

2 John ?

3 John ?

Jude 21 ?

Some of these proclaim the full gospel more clearly than others.
It would be interesting to consider what aspects of the gospel each of these scriptures highlight and emphasize, and then synthesize an understanding of how they work together in stereo.

That would make a long blog series, or maybe even a book.

The three sixteens

This is a compilation of verses with a positive message that stands alone without heavy dependence on context, with the reference numbers 3:16. (James 3:16 and Revelation 3:16 can also stand alone, except that their message is not positive and thus lacks balance, although I guess you could say that I lack balance in choosing only the positive verses.  That's fair.  Consider yourself apprised.)

--All quotes are from the NIV--

Matthew 3:16
As soon as Jesus was baptized, He went up out of the water.  At that moment heaven was opened, and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on Him.

Luke 3:16
John answered them all, "I baptize you with water.  But one more powerful than I will come, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.  He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire."

John 3:16
For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.

1 Corinthians 3:16
Don't you know that you yourselves are God's temple, and that God's Spirit lives in you?

Galatians 3:16
The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed.  The Scripture does not say "and to seeds," meaning many people, but "and to your seed," meaning one person, who is Christ.

Ephesians 3:16
I pray that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being.

Colossians 3:16
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing songs, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God.

2 Thessalonians 3:16
Now may the Lord of peace Himself give you peace at all times and in every way.  The Lord be with all of you.

1 Timothy 3:16
Beyond all question, the mystery of godliness is great:
He appeared in a body,
was vindicated by the Spirit,
was seen by angels,
was preached among the nations,
was believed on in the world,
was taken up in glory.

2 Timothy 3:16
All scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.

1 John 3:16
This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down His life for us.  And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.

An explanation

I almost never write here anymore.

This may be indicative of a change in me.  Used to be, I kept my faith over here, and my life on my Memoirs blog.  These days, my faith and my life are inextricably bound up together, and I think that is a good thing.

It's not that my faith and my life weren't joined before.  It's just that I tried to keep this blog more for devotional and teaching purposes, and the Memoirs blog was more of a personal divulgence.  But just as reading the Bible developed a taste in me for the Bible as vastly superior to any other book, so it has come to pass that there isn't much of anything worth writing about in life apart from how God is working.  At any rate, I see God in every aspect of my life more clearly now, and the scriptures keep flowing into my Memoirs, and when I am finished writing there, it doesn't seem that there is much more to be said here.

It is interesting to me that my faith writing has invaded my life writing, and not the other way around.  I choose to believe that this is a good thing, bequeathed by a good source.

I will keep this blog, because there are some things that I consider resources here, writing I would like to preserve for my own reference.  I hope and pray that a person who happened upon this blog could explore it and find the way to salvation.  So I will leave it, in hopes that it might bear fruit someday, like a stunted apple tree, a late bloomer.

If the Lord wills, I will be back.

More about Revelation, a sort of overview of the first half

A few years ago, I wrote about creation on this blog, and received the following comment from a friend of mine who is a pastor.

I once read a book called "The Science of God," by Gerald Schroeder, a Jewish physicist and theologian. I don't agree with everything he says, but he points out (perhaps similarly to Shawn) that time is relative. He says that if you measure the age of the universe by the rate of the flow of time on Earth today, it's almost 15 billion years. But if you measure it by the rate of the flow of time for the universe as a whole at the moment that matter emerged after the Big Bang (called "quark confinement"), the universe is almost but not quite seven days old. That would mean we're actually still living in the sixth day of creation. That would mean that Gen. 2:1-3 actually describes the future—that everything is still being built into what is "very good." It would explain why Jesus worked to improve human life on the Sabbath after the pattern of his Father (John 5:17). It would mean that what the author of Hebrews says about the Sabbath rest is more than a metaphor (Heb. 4:1-11).

(The author of that comment is Cory Hartman, and if you are interested, you can read his blog here.)

The idea that we are still in the sixth day, and that the seventh day is the culmination of all history, when redeemed creation will exist eternally in the presence of God, when the saints enter God's perfect rest (see Hebrews 4)--this is very interesting to me.

I think it fits with the way the seven seals and seven trumpets unfold in Revelation.  In both cases, there is a gap before the seventh, and the seventh arrives with the fully revealed presence of God.  In the gap, it talks of how the elect are saved.  (I haven't gotten to the seven bowls yet, but they are a bit different--there isn't so much of a gap between 6 and 7, although the seventh still demonstrates the revealed presence of God, very similarly: thunder, lightning, earthquakes.)

If you read Genesis carefully, between chapter 1 and chapter 2, it seems to tell all the way through to the seventh day, but then to go back and rest on the sixth day (Genesis 2:4--review Cory's comment above regarding Genesis 2:1-3).  In this sense, Genesis never really explicitly comes back out of the sixth day, almost as though it sets up the rest of what follows throughout scripture as part of the sixth day, until we get to Revelation 21-22 (and of course some allusions to The End by Old Testament prophets).

Have you ever had the chain of a necklace get knotted up on you?  When this happens to me, I have to lay out the necklace on a smooth, flat surface, put on my very best reading glasses, and use two straight pins, one in my right hand and one in my left.  I gently work at the knots of the necklace with the pins, sticking the pointed tips into the thickest parts of the knots and pulling carefully outward to try to tease out the tangles.  Sometimes I have to do this for quite a long time before anything loosens enough for me to be able to see how the knots are tied up, and therefore how to go about undoing them.  Sometimes I feel as though I'll never get it.

Over the years, as I have read and tried to study Revelation, I've often felt like I was at the beginning stages of trying to untangle a particularly fine metal chain.

Although I am still far from figuring it out, recently I've been feeling as though I'm starting to make some progress, starting to see how some things fit together.

I think it is important to read with a view to the circular nature of Hebrew rhetoric.  While there is undeniably a sense of crescendoing chaos as we hurtle towards the Last Day, there is also a great deal of repetition in Revelation.  I think we can quite safely break The End down to only a few events, and not perhaps the complicated and sometimes convoluted timeline that some pull out of this book.

Currently, in my BSF study, we have arrived at Revelation 12, and Revelation 12 has always been a signpost to me that this book is not a sequence of chronological events along a timeline.  In Revelation, sometimes we are looking forward to the future, sometimes we are looking backward at the past, and sometimes we are in the present.  Sometimes a symbol may stand for a very specific and particular thing, and sometimes a symbol might stand for a universal idea or be one picture of what may, throughout history, be a recurring event.

Here are what I think are the defining themes of Revelation:

(1)  Jesus is Lord.  Jesus is Victorious.
I base this first on Revelation 1, where the first verse states that this is the revelation of Jesus Christ.  Revelation 1:4-8 proceeds to tell who Jesus is, what He has done, and what He will still do in the future.  Revelation 1:9-20 describes John's vision of Jesus, and Jesus' instruction for John to write this message for the churches.  Revelation 1 lays this foundation, but theme of Jesus as our victorious Lord recurs again and again throughout the book.

(2)  There will be a Last Day.
The corollary to this point is that, at the Last Day, it will be the end, and too late to change one's mind.
This idea is implicit in the letters to the seven churches (in Revelation, chapters 2-3).
Another way to state it is: Be Ready!
But also, for the faithful who actually are ready, the message is :  Hold Firm!
To those who are drifting into disobedience, the message is:  Repent!

(3)  The faithful will live forever in eternal glory with the Lord.
By the marvelous grace of God, this truth is highlighted at the beginning of the visions, in chapters 4-5.  Personally, I think the Lord does this to build our hope and confidence before showing us what difficulties we may be called to face before we arrive at our prize.  Revelation encourages God's people to trust in God's promises and to hope for the future.

(4)  Those who are unwilling to repent, who reject Christ's offer of redemption and eternal life, will be cast out (Revelation 2:22, 20:15).
This is not our favorite thing to think about.  It is frightening and sorrowful.  However, God warns us and gives us time to repent, because of His great mercy and grace.  This is part of why the book of Revelation is so important.  It is a warning, a call to action.

(5)  There will be suffering, trials and tribulations for God's people on earth, but nothing can compare to the everlasting paradise we will gain when we get home to Jesus.
I do not think that these trials and tribulations are necessarily specifically matched to historical events, or revealed to us in a particular order to help us draw up a timeline for predicting the date of the Lord's return, although they might be.  However, I think the point we should be sure to take away is this: We will experience difficulties, but they will be controlled and limited by our sovereign God, and we can be completely assured that He will save His people in the end, providing eternal comfort and joy.

(6)  Satan, sin and death will one day be completely destroyed, never to come back and mess with us, ever again.
Revelation 20:10 is one of my favorite verses.  The tempter, the accuser, the father of lies will be cast away, and we will be free of him and safe for ever after.  No more pain or sorrow or fear or danger or waste or loss.  Amen!

(7)  Perfect fellowship between God and humankind will be restored, and God will make His dwelling with His people, among us.  We will be in God and God will be in us.
Ages ago, there was a golden ark hidden in the most interior room of the tabernacle, a perfect cube of a room, draped in curtains and too holy for anyone to enter.  The death of Jesus tore the veil away, and the Holy Spirit now resides in every believer.  But after the Last Day, perfect fellowship with God will be restored, the City of Our God will be the perfect cube (replacing, or fulfilling, the Holy of Holies), and we will all live within Him and see Him face to face while He will provide our light (this is from Revelation 21 and 22; I am not making it up).  I think we cannot understand much of what this will entail, being mortal and finite as we are, but I have faith that it will be marvelous beyond anything anyone has ever been able to imagine (1 Corinthians 2:9).  We'll have constant, uninterrupted access to the Lord.

I think that just about anything we come across in Revelation can be categorized under one of these seven themes.

Revelation 1 -- Jesus is Lord

Revelation 2-3 -- There will be a Last Day

Revelation 4-5 -- Jesus is Lord

Revelation 6 -- There will be suffering, There will be a Last Day

Revelation 7 -- The faithful will live in eternal glory with the Lord, Perfect fellowship with God will be restored

Revelation 8-9 -- There will be suffering, Those unwilling to repent will be cast out

Revelation 10  -- Jesus is Lord

Revelation 11 -- There will be suffering... but nothing cam compare to the everlasting paradise

Revelation 12 -- There will be suffering, Jesus is Lord

If I get a chance to write about this again, I would like to discuss the inter-relatedness of chapters 10-12.

... more thoughts on Revelation 10

This saga began here.

I apologize for the scatteredness of these posts.  Honestly, when the connections and understanding dawned on me, I was awake nearly an entire night, thinking through it all.  It is simple, yet complicated.  I wanted to explain my thoughts as simply as possible.  How I hope and pray that someone will bear with me and hear me out.

It seems to me that one of the biggest mistakes people make, when they study Revelation, is in assuming that it is all written out in a chronologically sequential order.  That assumption is probably based on our western mindset; it's how Americans and Western Europeans approach things.  One, two, three, you know.  Steps in order.  Ordered points leading to a conclusion.  To us, it seems the right way to do something.

I've read Revelation a number of times, probably at least six times.  Now, reading something and understanding something, those are two very different things.  I've studied Revelation, and portions of it, a few times.  Some of the studies have made more sense to me than others.  But, whether reading or studying, I've noticed something.  Certain themes, images and phrases keep rolling around and coming back again in Revelation.  For instance, the twenty-four elders keep falling on their faces, overcome with worship for Almighty God.  This happens in Revelation 4:10, 5:8, 7:11, 11:16, 19:4 (and in 1:17, John himself fell at the feet of Jesus, as though dead).  Now, certainly the awesome presence of the Lord could (and most likely will) cause this kind of worship to happen repeatedly in eternity.  However, I think we can also consider the possibility that this climactic moment of worship is, in fact, one climactic moment of worship--at the culmination of all that God has accomplished in Christ--that is so significant and stunning that the visions continually revert to describing it.

I say this because my understanding is that Hebrew rhetoric, unlike western rhetoric, is not linear.  Hebrew rhetoric is circular.  In Hebrew rhetoric, one considers a point, and then one circles around and considers the same point from a different angle, and again and again, until myriad angles have been examined.  This being the case, I think we ought to be very cautious before we plunge into Revelation assuming that it is written in a linear, chronological sequence.  No matter what else you may or may not agree with me on here, nobody can deny that Revelation 12 is out of sequence, a flash back in time.  Revelation 12 clearly describes the incarnation of Christ.

The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that he might devour the child as soon as it was born.  She gave birth to a son, a male child, who will rule the nations with an iron scepter.  And her child was snatched up to God and to His throne.
Revelation 12:4b-5 (NIV)

If Revelation 12 is "out of sequence," why would we assume that the rest of Revelation is all (or mostly) in chronological order?  Perhaps rather than event-following-event-following-event along a timeline, we may be dealing with just a few major events, examined from multiple angles.

If this is the case, then I think it could be quite possible that Revelation 10 is a vision John was given to help him (and us) understand more deeply who Christ is, the grandeur and deity of the Christ whom John had pledged his life to follow while He was on earth as a man.

In my previous post, I explained how--after I had been frustrated by trying to figure out Revelation 10, but at a time when I was thinking about something entirely different--the Lord led me to Luke 9:21, where Jesus told his disciples not to tell anyone who He was.  That reminded me of Revelation 10:4 when John was told not to write down what he had seen.  This connection was a huge clue to me: this chapter could be all about Jesus.  Revelation is, after all, "The revelation of Jesus Christ," (Revelation 1:1).

In my previous post, I proceeded to work through Revelation 10:1-3, verse by verse, trying to show through cross references how this idea could be supported.  I'll continue to work through the chapter that way, beginning by finishing what I was trying to say about Revelation 10:3.

Revelation 10:3a (NIV)
... and he gave a loud shout like the roar of a lion...

Jesus is the Lion of Judah, in fulfillment of Old Testament prophesy.  This was even mentioned earlier in  Revelation, in a clear reference to Jesus Christ.

Then one of the elders said to me, "Do not weep!  See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed.  He is able to open the scroll and its seven seals."
Revelation 5:5 (NIV)

Revelation 10:3b (NIV)
When He shouted, the voices of the seven thunders spoke.

Seven is the perfect number, complete, fulfilled.  God's presence on earth is often accompanied by thunder and lightening.  The voices of the seven thunders in Revelation 10:3b immediately make me think of the voice of God at the baptism of Jesus--

When all the people were baptized, Jesus was baptized too.  And as He was praying, heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended on Him in bodily form like a dove.  And a voice came from heaven: "You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased."
Luke 3:21-22 (NIV)

And it also makes me think of how God spoke at the Transfiguration--

Jesus . . . took Peter, James and John with Him and went up onto a mountain to pray.  As He was praying, the appearance of His face changed, and His clothes became as bright as a flash of lightening . . . [A] cloud appeared and enveloped them, and they were afraid as they entered the cloud.  A voice came from the cloud, saying, "This is my Son, whom I have chosen; listen to Him."
from Luke 9:28-29, 34-35 (NIV)

Revelation 10:4 (NIV)
And when the seven thunders spoke, I was about to write; but I heard a voice from heaven say, "Seal up what the seven thunders have said and do not write it down."

This is where I first began to see that this might be a passage about Jesus, when God led me to Luke 9:21 (NIV)--"Jesus strictly warned them not to tell this to anyone."

The same command followed the Transfiguration, recorded in both Matthew and Mark--

As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus instructed them, "Don't tell anyone what you have seen, until the Son of Man has been raised from the dead."
Matthew 17:9 (NIV)

As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus gave them orders not to tell anyone what they had seen until the Son of Man had risen from the dead.
Mark 9:9 (NIV)

Revelation 10:5-7 (NIV)
Then the angel I had seen standing on the sea and on the land raised his right hand to heaven.  And he swore by him who lives forever and ever, who created the heavens and all that is in them, the earth and all that is in it, and the sea and all that is in it, and said, "There will be no more delay!  But in the days when the seventh angel is about to sound the trumpet, the mystery of God will be accomplished, just as He announced to His servants the prophets."

Rather than blathering on and on with my own words, I'm just going to give you some scriptures to read, and you can do your own reflecting on how they might relate to this passage.

So Jesus said, "When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am the one I claim to be, and that I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me.  The one who sent me is with me, He has not left me alone, for I always do what pleases Him."
John 8:28-29 (NIV)

Therefore, when Christ came into the world, He said,
Sacrifice and offering you did not desire,
but a body you prepared for me;
with burnt offering and sin offering you were not pleased.
Then I said, "Here I am--it is written about me in the scroll--
I have come to do your will, O God.
Hebrews 10:5-7 (NIV)

Jesus replied, "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified."
John 12:23 (NIV) 

"Now my heart is troubled, and what shall I say?  'Father save me from this hour'?  No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour.  Father, glorify Your name!"
Then a voice spoke from heaven, "I have glorified it, and will glorify it again."
John 12:27-28 (NIV)

Father, the hour has come.  Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify You.  For You granted Him authority over all people that He might give eternal life to all those You have given Him.
John 17:1-2 (NIV)

He went away a second time and prayed, "My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may Your will be done.
Matthew 26:42 (NIV)

When He had received the drink, Jesus said, "It is finished."  With that, He bowed His head and gave up His spirit.
John 19:30 (NIV)

My goal is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ.
Colossians 2:2 (NIV) 

His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms,
according to his eternal purpose that He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Ephesians 3:10-11 (NIV)

(Actually, that Ephesians reference may also shed some light on what is going on in Revelation 11, too, but I'm not dealing with Revelation 11 today.) 

Revelation 10:8-11 (NIV)
Then the voice that I had heard from heaven spoke to me once more: “Go, take the scroll that lies open in the hand of the angel who is standing on the sea and on the land.”
So I went to the angel and asked him to give me the little scroll. He said to me, “Take it and eat it. It will turn your stomach sour, but ‘in your mouth it will be as sweet as honey.’
I took the little scroll from the angel’s hand and ate it. It tasted as sweet as honey in my mouth, but when I had eaten it, my stomach turned sour. 
Then I was told, “You must prophesy again about many peoples, nations, languages and kings.”

I feel that this part of the chapter is much easier to understand if we view the preceding verses as a revelation of the deity and perfect ministry of Christ.

If the little, open scroll is the prophecy of the life and times of Jesus Christ, and the vision is confirmation that Christ accomplished all that the Father sent Him to do, then for John to eat the little scroll would be for him to share in the life and ministry of Jesus.  John had done and was doing exactly that.

It gives special meaning to the opening of John's gospel when we see it this way:  

In the beginning was the Word.  And the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
John 1:1 (NIV)

The Word is the scroll, and the Word is Christ.

To know and follow Christ is unutterably sweet, but also painful in this lifetime.

When Jesus was a baby at the temple, Simeon told Mary:

"This child is destined to cause the rising and falling of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed.  And a sword will pierce your own soul, too."
from Luke 2:34-35

Jesus tried to explain about the duality of weeping and rejoicing in the Christian life, before He went away:

Very truly I tell you, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy.
John 16:20 (NIV)

Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy.
from John 16:22 (NIV)

The end of Revelation 10, as it ushers into Revelation 11, discusses the time of weeping that Christ's followers will face.  But Revelation never leaves us there.  Indeed, it seems to me that God so mercifully desires the encouragement of our hearts, that He had John start out with visions of the culmination of glory in the throne room of heaven (Revelation 4-5) before He even began to reveal any of the intermediary difficulties.

The last verse here, Revelation 10:11, gives John the directive to go and prophesy about many peoples, nations, languages and kings. Now is the time to prophesy. Earlier, while Jesus was on earth, John had been told not to tell people what he had seen until after Jesus had died and risen again, but all that has now been accomplished. The time has come to bear testimony, to trust God and bear His gospel to the nations regardless of the risks. Revelation 11 will develop more on the theme of bearing testimony.

This, to the best of my ability, is my understanding of Revelation 10.  

I will leave you with one of my all-time favorite verses.

“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
John 16:33 (NIV)

Thoughts on Revelation 10

Last week in BSF, we studied Revelation 10-11.  I was confused and frustrated with it.

Yesterday, while I was searching for something else (you can read that story here), God showed me something remarkable.  He led me (while I was searching for something else) to Luke 9:18-21 where Jesus was asking His disciples about their perception of His identity.  The disciples told Jesus how the crowds thought He was one prophet or another, so Jesus asked them, "But what about you?  Who do you say that I am?"  Peter replied (famously): "The Christ of God."  And then, in verse 21, it says, "Jesus strictly warned them not to tell this to anyone."

It has always been rather mysterious to me how Jesus did not want His disciples to talk about who He was while He was out and about.  But, just coming out of a study on Revelation 10, reading Luke 9:21 made me think of Revelation 10:4, "And when the seven thunders spoke, I was about to write; but I heard a voice from heaven say, 'Seal up what the seven thunders have said and do not write it down.'" (NIV)

That's where it started.  I am not going to broach Revelation 11 here, but I would like to record what God showed me about Revelation 10.

I'll preface this with a comment.  The BSF position says that in Revelation, an angel is always an angel, so the mighty angel in Revelation 10 could not possibly be Christ.  That came across uncomfortably to me because of the angel in Revelation 20.  The angel in Revelation 20 came down from heaven with the key to the Abyss, seized the dragon, and bound him with a great chain for a thousand years (Revelation 20:1-2).

In Revelation 1, Jesus himself is the one who proclaimed, "I am the First and the Last.  I am the Living One; I was dead and behold I am alive forever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades." (from Revelation 1:17-18, NIV)  If Jesus is the One who holds the keys, and this angel held the keys, it seems plausible to me that the angel of Revelation 20 might be a symbol for Jesus in one of His roles as the Savior of the world.

If the angel of Revelation 20 could plausibly be a symbol for Jesus, why couldn't the mighty angel of Revelation 10 also be a symbol for Jesus?

The description of the angel in Revelation 10 matches parts of both the description of Jesus in Revelation 1, and the description of God in Revelation 4.  For example:

Revelation 10:1
He was robed in a cloud...

Revelation 4:5
From the throne came flashes of lightening, rumblings and peals of thunder.   (storm cloud?)

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Revelation 10:1
...with a rainbow above his head...

Revelation 4:3
The one who sat there had the appearance of jasper and carnelian.  A rainbow, resembling an emerald, encircled the throne.

* * * * * * * * * * * * 

Revelation 10:1
His face was like the sun...

Revelation 1:14, 16b
His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire... His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Revelation 10:1
...and his legs were like fiery pillars.

Revelation 1:15
His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace.

I do not think the match ups of these descriptions could be happenstance or coincidence.  This angel is a conglomeration of the visions John has already described of Jesus and of Father God.

This suggests to me that John is explaining how he, personally, came to understand that Jesus was divine, God incarnate (Luke 9:18-21, where I began).

Revelation 10:2 proceeds to say that the angel was holding a little scroll, which lay open in his hand.  Let's think about this for a minute.  What actually is the little scroll, and why is it open?  The other scroll we have seen is the scroll with seven seals that only the Lamb could open in Revelation 5:1-7.  That scroll was sealed shut.  What if the little scroll was the prophecy of Jesus' first coming, and what if it was open because it had already happened?  Then the scroll with the seven seals could be the prophecy of Jesus' second coming, when He will destroy Satan, evil and death once for all, and usher in the new heaven and the new earth.  Perhaps that one was sealed shut because and it has not yet happened.

Also in Revelation 10:2, the angel put one foot on land and one foot on the sea.  Conspicuously absent here is the third element of nature: the heavens.  This might signify how Jesus, the God-man, left the heavens and came down to live on the earth and sea.

Revelation 10:3 says that the angle gave a loud shout like the roar of a lion.  This, of course, evokes thoughts of the Lion of Judah, the promised Messiah.  Remember Revelation 5:5?   


 * * * * * * Due to technical difficulties, this post will be continued later * * * * * * *

Jesus' Disciples. For reference.

Simon Peter (“You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church” [Matthew 16:18], wrote 1 & 2 Peter)
 
Andrew (Peter’s brother--followed John the Baptist, first disciple called by Jesus, ran and got Peter, then seemed to step out of the way)
 
James (first to be martyred [Acts 12:2]--he and brother John were called sons of Thunder)
 
John (James’ brother, sons of Zebedee--John wrote 5 books of the Bible, including the gospel of John; he was the youngest disciple, the one Jesus loved)
 
Philip (recruited Nathanael aka Bartholomew)
 
Bartholomew (also known as Nathanael, recruited by Philip -- Jesus said, “Here is a true Israelite in whom is nothing false,” [John 1:47])

Thomas (who doubted)
 
Matthew (also called Levi, the tax collector, wrote the gospel of Matthew)
 
James (son of Alpheus -- possibly Matthew’s brother as Matthew’s father was also Alpheus [Mark 2:14])
 
Thaddaeus (also known as Judas son of James, or Lebbaeus [Matthew 10:3], may be Jude the author of Jude, but the book of Jude is more commonly attributed to Jesus’ brother, and the book of James to their other brother)
 
Simon the Zealot (very little known about him)
 
Judas Iscariot (who betrayed Jesus with a kiss)

Information about the disciples can be found at these references :

Matthew 4:18-22 (lists 12)
Matthew 9:9 (Matthew)
Matthew 10:1-4 (list)
Mark 1:16-20 (Peter, Andrew, James and John)
Mark 2:13-14 (Matthew)
Mark 3:13-18 (list)
Luke 5:27-29 (Matthew)
Luke 6:12-16 (list)
John 1:35-51 (Andrew, Peter, Philip, Bartholomew/Nathanael)
John 11:16 (Thomas)
John 14:5-6 (Thomas)
John 14:8 (Philip)
John 14:21-24 (Thaddeus/Judas/Jude)
John 20:24-28 (Thomas)
John 21:1-3 (Peter, Thomas, Bartholomew/Nathanael, James, John and “two others”)
Acts 1:13-14 (list minus Judas Iscariot)

There are many more references, especially to Peter and also to James and (of course) John, but these give glimpses of some of the lesser known disciples.

...But take heart! I have overcome the world.

John 16:33 tells us that in this world we will have trouble, but there is hope because of Jesus.  There is victory in Jesus.

Lately I've had Psalm 46 on my mind.

God is our refuge and strength,

an ever present help in trouble.

Therefore we will not fear,

though the earth give way

and the mountains fall

into the heart of the sea,

though its waters roar and foam

and the mountains quake

with their surging.

There is a river whose streams

make glad the city of God,

the holy place where the Most High dwells.

God is within her, she will not fall;

God will help her at break of day.

Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall;

He lifts His voice, the earth melts.

The Lord Almighty is with us;

the God of Jacob is our fortress.

Come and see the works of the Lord,

the desolations He has brought on the earth.

He makes wars cease to the ends of the earth;

He breaks the bow and shatters the spear,

He burns the shields with fire.

Be still and know that I am God;

I will be exalted among the nations,

I will be exalted in the earth.

The Lord Almighty is with us;

The God of Jacob is our fortress.

(Psalm 46 NIV84)

God is with me.  This is His promise, and He always keeps His promises.  He will be with me, wherever I go (Joshua 1:9).  He will never leave me nor forsake me (Deuteronomy 31:6, Hebrews 13:5).  Nothing can separate me from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus my Lord (Romans 8:35-39).  God is constantly with me, and I can absolutely always depend on this fact, no matter what comes.

I've been through a tough time.  A number of stressors piled up and put me into a lupus flare like I had never before experienced.  I literally thought I was going to die.  Even after I was stabilized, I felt bad for days, and at one point I just had a good, long cry for all the things I felt were lost to me: sunshine walks on the beach, romps with grandchildren, an adventure to see the giant redwoods of the west.  I sat within the small walls of my bathroom and felt the limits of my world, grieved the cookies I will never bake and the bread I will never again eat.  The loss of dreams, giving up gluten and "normal food," adjusting myself to a life of limited energy, limited strength, limited resources after medical bills are paid, possibly limited medical care because of limited insurance coverage.

But the Lord Almighty is with me.  The God of Jacob is my fortress.

And then I started to learn of other tragedies.  A dear friend just learned that her husband has an aggressive, malignant brain tumor.  I went to see them in the hospital.  They are the most beautiful family, full of peace and love for one another.  He is a farmer, one of those saintly farmers who cannot leave a good deed undone.  Clear eyed, radiating kindness, smiling gently.  His strong hands looked so out of place amongst the little plastic tubes of his monitors and IVs.  Two daughters sat in front of the window, quiet and serene, loving their dad, just being there and loving him.

You look around at all the smoking, drinking, cheating, stealing, lying, wife-smacking men who seem to live forever, and you wonder why this gentle, God-fearing saint of a farmer has a medical death sentence on his head, just before the harvest, in the middle of a kitchen remodel.  Why?

The righteous perish,

and no one ponders it in his heart;

devout men are taken away,

and no one understands

that the righteous are taken away

to be spared from evil.

Those who walk uprightly

enter into peace;

they find rest as they lie in death.

(Isaiah 57:1-2 NIV84)

We don't understand.  We cling so hard to this life, storing up treasure here, valuing the temporal instead of the eternal, seeking thrills, beauty and happiness in a world destined for destruction.

Paul said, "To live is Christ and to die is gain." (Philippians 1:21 NIV84)

To live is to pour ourselves out sacrificially for the sake of the world, and to die is to go to our heavenly reward.

Sometimes God takes people home because He loves them.  1 Kings 14 tells the story of the one righteous descendant of wicked King Jeroboam.  This boy died and was buried ". . . because he is the only one in the house of Jeroboam in whom the Lord, the God of Israel, has found anything good." (1 Kings 14:13 NIV84)

We need to get over our fear of death.

Perfect love drives out fear (from 1 John 4:18).  When we can--if we can--understand the love God has for us, and then love Him in return, the way He has commanded us, with all our hearts, souls, minds and strength, then we will no longer be afraid.

The Lord Almighty is with us.  The God of Jacob is our fortress.

I met a lady for the first time last week.  She has just received a diagnosis of breast cancer, and she is facing a double mastectomy in the near future.  After the surgery, there will be chemotherapy and radiation, pain, malaise, hair loss, days lost, medical bills and more medical bills.

In this world we will have trouble, Jesus tells us.  In this world we will have trouble.  But we can take heart, for He has overcome the world.

In Philippians 3, Paul tells us that he considers everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus.  Jesus is our Lord, and for His sake we lose all things, considering them rubbish compared to the treasure of Christ.

The kingdom of heaven

is like a treasure hidden in a field.

When a man found it, he hid it again,

and then in his joy went 

and sold all he had

and bought that field.

(Matthew 13:44 NIV84)

May we have that same joy as we learn to apprehend the love God has for us, the promises He gives to us, the future He has prepared for us.  Nothing can compare.  We only see dimly what is in store, but by faith we go forward.  God, grant us more faith.

Our hope is in Christ.  Our hope is in the next life.
Our trials here are temporary, but our joy in heaven will be eternal.

The Lord Almighty is with us.  The God of Jacob is our fortress.

He is our refuge and strength, an ever present help in trouble.

Be still and know that He is God.

Take heart, for He has already overcome the world.

For our light and momentary troubles

are achieving for us an eternal glory

that far outweighs them all.

so we fix our eyes not on what is seen,

but on what is unseen.

For what is seen is temporary,

but what is unseen is eternal.

(2 Corinthians 4:17-18 NIV84)

Love one another.

I have noticed that churches often center on telling us to share the gospel.

"Preach the gospel to the world!" they tell us.

"Share your faith!"

"Witness for Christ!"

"Evangelize!"

When I was very little, I remember being herded into an assembly of children and taught, "Missionaries are not just people who go to Africa or South America!  You are all missionaries!  You all need to tell your friends about Jesus!"  Well yes, sort of.

Spreading the good news is considered synonymous with being a Christian.  It is the mark, the measure of your Christianity.  I'm not sure if they say it, but they certainly suggest that you are not a worthy, complete or certain Christian if you are not actively going out into the world and spreading the gospel regularly.  Regularly.  Like, multiple times per week in circumstances planned and orchestrated by you.

Now, I am not going to deny that the Great Commission is in the Bible:  "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit..."  (Matthew 28:19, NIV)  But look at that:  it says to make disciples and baptize them.  I don't think I am supposed to baptize anybody!  I don't think this is an open invitation for any believer, no matter how new, to share his faith and proceed to baptize somebody.  So, I'm not convinced that this directive is addressed to everybody (it does specifically say that Jesus was speaking with His 11 disciples at the time), and thus, I am not sure that everybody is equally obligated to evangelize.

I once heard a pastor who maintained that Jesus gave the Great Commission four times, based on Matthew 28:19, Mark 16:15, Acts 1:8 (as a continuation of Luke) and John 20:21.  Given that at least three (and perhaps all) of these references are quite possibly accounts of the same event, an event where Jesus had a private, intimate conversation with His eleven closest followers, I thought it was rather a stretch to say that Jesus repeated the Great Commission four times, and intended it for all believers.

I'm just saying.

It's not that we shouldn't share the gospel.  We should.  But we should do it according to God's direction and the opportunities He provides.  I've blown opportunities, and for that I am ashamed and sorry.  But I still maintain that it is not imperative that we go out forcing opportunities to inflict the gospel message on people who do not want to hear it.  It's not that they don't need to hear it; it's just that God knows when they are ready to respond, and it is His power that converts souls, not our gung-ho enthusiasm. 

The reason I bring this up is not to discourage people from sharing the gospel!  By no means!

The reason I bring this up is because I think we have misplaced priorities.

If you really want to live out your Christian faith in a life that is pleasing to God, you should read the Bible and find out what God wants from you.  When I read the Bible, specifically the New Testament, the thing I see repeated over and over is this:  Love one another.

What if instead of beating ourselves and each other up over how many times we shared the gospel last week, instead of living under guilt and pressure to perform, what if we set our hearts to learn and live the kind of love that God asks of us?

What if we are focusing on the wrong thing, and the right thing would be to focus on loving each other?

In Matthew 22:37-40 and  Mark 12:29-31, Jesus said that the greatest commandment is to love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and the second is to love your neighbor as yourself.  In Luke 10:26-28, He tells an expert of the law that these two commandments are the summation of what God requires of us.

In John 13:34-35, Jesus said, "A new command I give you: Love one another.  As I have loved you, so you must love one another.  By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another," (NIV, my emphasis).

Jesus laid down the gauntlet.  We are to testify to His love by loving each other, especially within the brotherhood, or the family of believers.  Do we do this?

Am I accurate?  Is love an important trait for Christians to exhibit?  Is it a recurring theme in the New Testament?

Well, of course there is the entire book of 1 John, which uses the word, "love," 27 times.

1 John 3:11 says, "For this is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another," (NIV).

1 John 4:7 says, "Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God," (NIV).

1 John 3:23 says, "And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us," (NIV).  You can read the rest of the book if you want a whole lot of material about love (and, as far as I can tell, no overt emphasis on boldly proclaiming the gospel).

But what about others besides John?  Does Paul exhort us to love?  Paul was the first missionary; wouldn't he be more interested in telling us to join him in spreading the gospel to the ends of the earth?

As far as I can tell, Paul says, "It was he [Christ] who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers..."  (Ephesians 4:11, NIV).  Do you see the repeated word there?  It's some.  Some does not mean the same thing as all.

Again, I'm just saying.

But what does Paul say about love?

Romans 12:9-10, "Love must be sincere.  Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.  Be devoted to one another in brotherly love.  Honor one another above yourselves." (NIV)

Romans 13:8, "Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellow man has fulfilled the law," (NIV).  And there is more in Romans 13:9-10.

Then there's 1 Corinthians 13, Paul's famous love chapter.  Here are some excerpts:  "If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.  If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.  If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. . . And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love," (NIV).

Galatians 5:6, "For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love," (NIV)

Galatians 5:13, "You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love," (NIV)

Ephesians 4:2, "Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love," (NIV).

Ephesians 5:1-2, "Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God," (NIV).

Philippians 1:9, "And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight," (NIV).

Philippians 2:1-4 (which not only exhorts us to love, but explains what love looks like),  "Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind.  Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.  Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others," (NIV).

There are so, so many verses.  I can't possibly list them all.  A few more, but far from exhaustive . . .

Colossians 3:12-14, "Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.  Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another.  Forgive as the Lord forgave you.  And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity."

And this is where I was studying, that spurred me to write this post in the first place...

1 Thessalonians 3:12, "May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you," (NIV).

1 Thessalonians 4:9-10, "Now about your love for one another we do not need to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love each other.  And in fact, you do love all of God’s family throughout Macedonia. Yet we urge you, brothers and sisters, to do so more and more," (NIV).

2 Thessalonians 1:3, "We ought always to thank God for you, brothers and sisters, and rightly so, because your faith is growing more and more, and the love all of you have for one another is increasing," (NIV).

2 Thessalonians 3:5, "May the Lord direct your hearts into God’s love and Christ’s perseverance," (NIV).

I could list more from Paul, but I am running out of space, so I will just give you a few quotes on the importance of love from non-Paul sources before I stop.

Hebrews 10:24, "And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds," (NIV).

James 2:8," If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing right," (NIV).

1 Peter 1:22, "Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for each other, love one another deeply, from the heart," (NIV).

1 Peter 3:8, "Finally, all of you, be like-minded, be sympathetic, love one another, be compassionate and humble," (NIV).

1 Peter 4:8, "Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins," (NIV).

Jude 1:21, " . . . keep yourselves in God’s love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life," (NIV).

There is much more about love in the New Testament than I have listed here.  Yet I challenge anyone to come up with even half as many references that exhort us to go out and proclaim the gospel.

Again, I am not saying that we should not proclaim the gospel, as God leads us.  We should.

However, I am mystified as to why our churches spend so much time telling us to proclaim the gospel, exhorting us to proclaim the gospel, even piling guilt on us for not proclaiming the gospel, while at the same time, we hear so little about the importance of loving one another.

Maybe if we got the love part right, the primary command, the foundation of our faith, the identifying mark of who we are, then the witnessing would fall into place.

I'm just saying.

I'm pretty sure that if we got the love part right, the witnessing would be much more powerful and effective.

I'm not certain that the Bible commands every single believer to go forth preaching the gospel to the nations, but I am very certain that the Bible commands us to love one another.

Love one another.

A little bit more on Amillennialism, and why I don't think it is heretical

Amillennialism is the belief that we are currently in the Millennium, that famous "1000 year reign" from Revelation 20:2, 3 & 5.

One (I suppose) obvious problem:  If the Millennium is basically synonymous with the Church Age, and Millennium means 1000 years . . . we are currently living approximately 2000 years after Christ vanquished the devil at Calvary.  So, that proves it's wrong, right?  Because the Church Age has been twice as long as a Millennium already.

This is not a big problem if you read Revelation symbolically rather than literally.  If you take things symbolically, then "Millennium" could just mean, "a very long time."  You may ask, "Why would God call it a thousand years if He did not mean a thousand years?"  I would rejoin, "Why did Ezekiel eat the scroll in chapter 3?  Why did Daniel dream about four beasts, and a ram and a goat?  Why did Amos write about ripe fruit, and Zechariah about a woman in a basket?  Why so many stories about shepherds and sheep throughout both the Old and New Testaments?  Why did Jesus speak in parables?"

I don't think we exactly know the answer to this question, but clearly God makes a practice of using symbols to convey deeper truths.  The whole Old Testament is packed with symbols and pictures that convey truths about the coming Christ, from the Passover, to the tabernacle and the sacrificial system, to all the strange things the prophets had to do.

And speaking of prophets, if you read them, you unveil a pattern: Hebrew rhetoric does not usually follow a straight line.  Hebrew rhetoric is usually circular, circling a topic and looping back, examining it multiple times from multiple angles (aside: this is interesting to think about when you consider that God provided us with four separate accounts of the life of Jesus in the four gospels).

If you apply the idea of circular Hebrew rhetoric to the book of Revelation, you come up with one event, viewed multiple times, from multiple angles, with varied emphases.  One victory, one judgment, one burning of the earth, one gathering in of the saints to glory.  Many different pictures of what it looks like, from many different angles.

I'm not going to lie.  I like the idea of the earth being destroyed once much better than the thought of it being destroyed over and over again.  Just as I sometimes suspect Dispensational Premillennialists of liking their position because they figure they will be raptured out of here before the trouble starts, I could be guilty of liking Amillennialism because the earth only gets burned once.  I will own that.

Going back to Hebrew circular rhetoric one again (aha, perhaps we are using it), it often starts with a preview, or a story, or some sort of introduction to present the issue, and then is followed by deep delving into consideration by these looping circles.

The book of Hosea is a prime example of this.  It begins with the story of Hosea and how God asked him to marry a prostitute, and it narrates what happened.  This all takes place in the first three chapters, although the second chapter explains the symbolism that is developing.  The remaining eleven chapters consider the scenario around and around again as it relates to the relationship between God and His chosen people.

A couple of years ago, we had a pastor who preached a wonderful sermon series on the Sermon on the Mount from the same perspective, showing how Jesus led out with the Beatitudes (in Matthew 5), and then fleshed them out through the rest of the Sermon on the Mount.  He had us study how each of the topics in the Sermon on the Mount related back to the Beatitudes in one way or another, sometimes in multiple ways.

Apply the same principle to Revelation, and you get a book that begins with a vision of the victorious Christ, and seven letters to seven churches, exhorting them to be ready for the end.  Following these letters (Revelation chapters 1-3), the apostle John goes into descriptions of what the end will be like.

He starts, in chapters 4-5, describing a very encouraging picture: God and the Lamb in complete victory, in heaven, receiving the glorious and joyful adoration of the saints.  Chapter 6 switches over and describes judgment poured out.  Between chapters 4, 5 and 6, we have victory, the joy of the redeemed, and judgment on sinners.

Chapter 7 seems (perhaps?) to begin a new cycle of considering the end.  It opens with God holding back judgment until 144,000 of the tribes of Israel are sealed as servants of the Lord.  Now, Dispensational Premillennialists see this as a literal, exact, 144,000 Jewish people.  Do you remember what I said before? "Dispensationalists, in their literal reading of the scripture, always understand 'Israel' to mean national Israel, Jewish people, the descendants of Jacob.  Just bear that in mind.  It is a defining feature of the position.  More on that later."

I guess we've arrived at "later."

This is where the difference between Dispensationalism and other interpretations becomes very clear.  I am going to try to explain it briefly.

Non-dispensational views see "Israel" as meaning the chosen people of God. In the Old Testament, Israel was a nation, a family of people who came from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, especially Jacob whom God actually renamed, "Israel."  This group, or family, or race of people was chosen by God for a special purpose: to bring Messiah to the world to be our Savior.  This purpose is first stated in the covenant God made with Abraham in Genesis 12, where God told Abraham that through his seed all nations would be blessed.  The seed of Abraham is Christ, as Paul makes clear in the New Testament in places like Galatians 3 and Romans 4.

"The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed.  The scripture does not say, 'and to seeds,' meaning many people, but 'and to your seed,' meaning one person, who is Christ."  (Galatians 3:16 NIV)

"If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise."  (Galatians 3:29 NIV)

"Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham's offspring--not only those who are of the law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham.  He is the father of us all."'  (Romans 4:16 NIV)

God made a covenant with Israel, but those Israelites who broke their part of the covenant (which is most of them) have no claim to it.  However, the Old Testament traces a remnant all through its pages, a remnant of Israelites who believed in God and lived by faith, like the faith of Abraham.  Do a word study on "remnant" in the Bible sometime, and see what you find.

The remnant of Israel seeded the beginning of the church, which began among Jews, but soon spread to Gentiles, as you find when you study the book of Acts.  This is no disrespect to the Jewish believers; indeed, all of the early church leaders were Jewish.  Jesus was Jewish.  God loves Jewish people.  However, unless they stand by faith in Christ, they are no more saved than anybody else (this is the main point of Romans 2, where Paul uses the term "Jew" to mean true Israel, the Israel of faith).

All of God's promises to the nation of Israel were fulfilled (see Joshua 21:45 and 23:14).  I think we can say that God's promises to Israel will also have a new fulfillment, in a spiritual sense, for spiritual Israel, the church, God's children by faith (see Galatians 3:29).  Many of these spiritual promises have already been fulfilled, but some will yet come to pass.

God also made promises to David, some of which were not fulfilled in a literal way to Israel, the nation, but have been fulfilled spiritually through Christ. "I will raise your offspring to succeed you, one of your own sons, and I will establish his kingdom.  He is the one who will build a house for me, and I will establish his throne forever," (1 Chronicles 17:1-12, NIV).  If this only applied to the throne as a succession of thrones (from father to son, over and over) God would have said, "I will establish your throne forever," because he was talking to David about David's son.  But God was not talking about the succession of a family.  Clearly not, because the national line of Davidic kings ended when Israel was exiled to Babylon.  No, God was talking about Christ, the Son of David, who would reign on the throne forever.

According to Amillennialism, Christ does reign on the throne, even now, since He has overcome the devil, and the grave, and hell itself (see Ephesians 1:19-22).  This is the age of His reign with His saints (see Revelation 20:3-6, really, please look it up).

All this discussion is simply to differentiate national Israel--the bloodline of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the nation chosen by God to receive His law and dwell with His presence in their midst--from spiritual Israel--the children of God by faith.  A Dispensationalist reads, "144,000 of the tribes of Israel," and thinks, "144,000 literal Jews, 12,000 from each of the twelve tribes."  A non-dispensationalist is more likely to read, "144,000 of the tribes of Israel," as a symbol.  144,000 is a very large, complete, cubic number.  It could stand for the complete and perfect number of all the redeemed whom the Lord has called into His Kingdom (Romans 11:26 tells us that all Israel will be saved).  The fact that they are "Israel," means that they are indeed the chosen ones, sealed by the Holy Spirit, the treasure of the Lord.

"But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light."  (1 Peter 2:9 NIV)

Another thing.  Remember my post about when we go to heaven?  Amillennialism answers this question quite neatly: saints (believers) who die during the church age (which, remember, we are considering to be the same as the Millennium in this discussion) go immediately to reign with Jesus.  The New Heaven and the New Earth have not yet come into being, but the saints who die are ushered into the presence of God and reign with Christ who sits on the throne.

Argh.  Out of time.  Out of space.  Although, this is a pretty decent explanation of how the theory of Amillennialism fits with what we read in scripture.  We just didn't get to finish outlining the book of Revelation.  Ha.  As if anybody could outline the book of Revelation.

Some more on eschatology: historic premillennialism, postmillennialism, and amillennialism

When I began to address this subject, I explained that there are three main events that Christians agree will take place, and the differences in opinion arise from how we understand the order of the events to unfold.


Simply speaking, there are three main end time events that the Bible alludes to in various places.

1. The Tribulation--a time of great trouble, when wars and natural disasters will be rampant on earth.  (See Matthew 24, Revelation 6:12-17, Revelation 8:5-9:21, Revelation 16, etc.)
2. The Rapture--when Jesus gathers His followers ("the elect" or "brothers") to be with Him.  (See Matthew 24:30-31 and 1 Thessalonians 4:16-18.)
3. The Millennium--a time when Christ will rule on earth for a thousand years.  (See Revelation 20:4-7.)

I am going to try to do some "nutshell" explanations of the different positions today.  I will not thoroughly discuss where each position gets its basis, according to scripture, but each one can be supported by selected Bible verses.

As we consider the different views, I think it is important to maintain a humble heart and remember that Jesus said,
"But about that day or hour no one knows, 
not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son,
but only the Father." 
(Matthew 24:36 NIV)

We already discussed Dispensational Premillennialism, which is somewhat complicated, compared to some of the other views, probably because of the way it works hard to make sense of Biblical prophecies of the End Times from a very literal point of view.

Historic Premillennialism is similar to Dispensational Premillennialism, in that it agrees with the general order of events, the important point being that those who hold to this position believe that there will be a Tribulation, followed by the Millennium, followed by the coming of the New Heaven and the New Earth.  As I understand it (I could be wrong about this), proponents of Historic Premillennialism are undecided as to when the rapture occurs.  Some believe that the rapture comes before the tribulation, some believe that it happens in the middle of the tribulation, and some think it happens at the end.  Some straight-out admit that they do not know when it will happen.  

Regardless of the timing, Historic Premillennialists differ from Dispensational Premillennialists in this:  they believe that the rapture is a grand and unmistakeable event that nobody will miss.  They do not hold to the idea that people will simply disappear from the earth, leaving  those who are "left behind" mystified as to where their Christian cohorts have gone.  They believe that the rapture will happen in great glory and the almighty power of God, for all the world to see:  
"Then will appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven. And then all the peoples of the earth will mourn when they see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory.  And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other." (Matthew 24:30-31 NIV)

Postmillennialism is the view that I understand the least, although parts of it make a certain amount of sense to me.  Whereas in the premillennial views, the Tribulation happens before the Millennium, in the Postmillennial view, the tribulation comes at the end of Millennium, culminating in the last battle (of Gog and Magog), the great judgment, and finally the New Heavens and the New Earth.

In the Postmillennial view, the Millennium is a time when the church marches forward in victory, proclaiming the truth of the gospel to all nations.  The nations are happy to receive the gospel and receptive to it.  At the end of this victorious age, the tribulation, rapture and final judgment will usher in the New Heavens and the New Earth.  I believe that part of this view stems from their reading of Matthew 24:14, "And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come." (NIV)

Quick Review
Historic and Dispensational Premillennnialism both hold to the idea that the Rapture and, especially, the Tribulation happen before the Millenium, hence the use of the prefix pre- in Premillennial.  Dispensational Premillennialists believe that it is a literal 1000 year reign of Christ on earth, with His believers, while Historic Premillennialists are undecided as to whether it is a literal or symbolic time frame.

Postmillennialism espouses the idea that the tribulation and rapture happen after the Millennium, hence the use of the prefix post- in Postmillennial.  People who hold to this view are divided on whether they believe that it is a literal or figurative 1000 years.

One belief, or assumption, that all these views share in common is that the Millennium is a period of time that we look forward to in the future.

Amillennialism is a much maligned view, poorly named and poorly understood by many, often not spoken of by the people who believe in it.  This may be because many conservative evangelicals have often adopted a dogmatic and condemning attitude toward those who do not share their Dispensational Premillennial viewpoint, sometimes accusing them of heresy.

If you consider the term, amillenial, the prefix, a-, generally means "not," or "no."  Amoral means without morals.  Atypical means not typical.  Atheist means someone who maintains that there is no God.  So, one would assume that Amillennial means that the people who hold this view think that there will be no Millennium.   However, this is not the case.

Amillennialism is similar to Postmillennialism in that both views figure the tribulation and rapture are coming after, not before, the Millennium.

The big difference between Amillennialism and Postmillennialism is that unlike Postmillennialists, Amillennialists do not think the Millennium is something that will come to pass in the future.  They believe that it is the church age that we are living in right now, that the good news of the gospel is currently going out in the power of the Holy Spirit.  They believe that the Millennium began when Jesus triumphed over Satan, over sin and over death at Calvary, and rose again.  They believe that the Millennium will continue until Jesus comes again in the clouds to gather His believers and to judge the living and the dead.

Amillennialism uses a symbolic approach to interpret the book of Revelation.   Rather than understanding the prophecy as a sequence of chronologically unfolding events, they see it as a telling and retelling of one story of victory, judgment and rewards.  Jesus is coming back in victory, and when He does, the wicked will be punished and His elect will be rewarded and ushered into eternal bliss in the New Heavens and the New Earth.

I would like to discuss Amillennialism further, but for today, I have lingered here too long.  

I will just close with some scripture, scripture that focuses on what Jesus has accomplished at the cross and lends credibility to the idea that we are already reigning in victory with our Lord:

When you were dead in your sins 
and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, 
God made you alive with Christ. 
He forgave us all our sins,  
having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, 
which stood against us and condemned us; 
he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross.   
And having disarmed the powers and authorities, 
he made a public spectacle of them, 
triumphing over them by the cross. 
(Colossians 2:13-15, NIV)

But thanks be to God! 
He gives us the victory 
through our Lord Jesus Christ. 
(1 Corinthians 15:57, NIV)