Disconnect in Judgment
Revelation
4 & 5 naturally go together. Knowing
what is to come, I find that these chapters have an obvious disconnect to the
world. Vast amounts of the following 15
chapters is all about judgment, wrath, doom, and destruction upon the earth -
yet everyone in these chapters is just so gosh darn happy about
everything! There is an obvious
disconnect here about feelings for what is coming upon the earth. I have a few theories on that. None are probably right, but perhaps some
truth lies in some combination of them.
It
could be that the people in heaven are so focused on God that they simply
cannot be brought to care much about the earth any more. It doesn’t matter what happens to the earth,
all that matters is God and being in His presence. Now, at first that sounds really cold-hearted
and I don’t really mean it that way. I
simply mean that God’s presence is so overwhelming and so self-sustaining that
it cannot help but to draw our attention to Him. We realize that anything that does not contain
Him is simply just not worth our time.
In that perspective, I do think there is some truth in that. The focus is so much on God that the judgment
to come on the earth is not even noticeable – or even on the radar screen – until
God Himself draws our attention to it.
It
could also be that the earth (and especially its inhabitants) deserves to be
judged. Of course, from my perspective I
care about those people being judged – whether they are about to be judged
righteous in God’s eyes or judged unrighteous.
To me there is great sorrow at the time of judgment knowing that some
will not be judged to go into heaven and dwell with God eternally. But, that is also me only being able to look at
the outside the person. God, who can see
the true essence of the person, is such a pure and correct judge of people that
perhaps the sorrow will simply not be present.
Again, at one level this cannot be completely correct as I cannot
imagine the judgment of the damned without the presence of sorrow. But I am not also pure in my judgment and
insight, either!
Four Living Creatures
I
like the fact that there are 4 living creatures presented here. I don’t know exactly what they represent, but
I have always enjoyed the thought that these four represent the spirit of the
Gospels in our Bible. However, I doubt
that is true since our Christian Bible was assembled a few centuries after the
Apocalypse of John or any other work in the Bible was written. So
when John wrote this, there weren't four Gospels because there wasn't even a
Bible.
But
we do nonetheless have four Gospels.
They are ever-vigilant in telling the story of Christ. They embody so well the message of the living
creatures: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty; who was, who is, and who
is to come.” Oh, that we could be like
those creatures, or the Gospels, and be ever-vigilant in our own life about
praising God. For that matter, oh that
we could be like the 24 elders (commonly thought of as the 12 sons of Jacob
plus the 12 apostles – although that is not even absolutely certain). Oh that our entire existence would be
ever-vigilant in pointing towards the creator and giving thanks for creating
and sustaining us!
Jesus
I
have always loved the description of Jesus in Revelation 5. John sets us up in verse 6 with a simple one
word description so that we would know who he is speaking about that is worthy
to take the scroll: a lamb. But then he
goes on to add: “as though it had been slain, with seven horns and seven
eyes.”
Okay,
this is no ordinary “little innocent lamb.”
There is no “cuddly lamb” present in this text. Jesus is the lamb who was slain, who has now
been equipped with horns and eyes. No
more sneaking up on this guy and no more escaping His wrath without a
fight! The innocent lamb laid down His
life once, from this point forward there is no more innocent little lamb.
Jesus
comes to the world now to grab it and take it and retain His hold on it. Yet, at the same time He does that precisely
in a way that still allows us to have free will. So here we have a picture of the conquering
lamb. And I might argue that even my earlier description of the innocent
lamb who laid down His life was actually this same conquering lamb conquering
incognito.
Worship
Then
we have one of the great worship scenes in the Bible. When Jesus takes the scroll and the process
of judging the earth has begun its inevitable process, God’s host is revealed
in full. Myriads of angels appear. So many that they cannot be counted. It isn’t like God has Gabriel, Michael, and a
few others. God has a host, a multitude,
or even an army.
But
there’s something even cooler about this passage than the number of
angels. Think back to when Jesus first
appeared on earth – born of Mary and lying in a manger. There were angels there, too – more than
anyone could count. Whenever Jesus comes
to do something marvelous, then all of heaven shows up to give glory. That’s a really cool thought.
In
many respects, I have always wondered if the Book of Revelation has more to do
with “retelling the history of Man through God’s eyes” than “telling the future
of Man” through God’s eyes. Certainly
John is writing to the actual physical churches of Asia Minor to encourage them
in the midst of their persecution at the hands of Rome. And certainly a grand case can be made for
this book also containing words pointing us to the great judgment of God.
But
is it also possible that there is a third layer of meaning that the Holy Spirit
has added to this? Is it possible that
John is also writing about the past? Is
it possible that the Book of Revelation might also be a grand allegory as he
attempts to retell the Gospel story – with a few interesting twists along the
way by taking the story into the future judgment?
Think
about it. Here in this chapter alone we
have a story of worship that mimics the birth of Christ as well as a
description of Christ that clearly speaks to the crucifixion. I’m not saying that we have to choose between
the three options. Rather, I think that
in order to get the fullness out of this book, we should embrace all three
perspectives! In Revelation, the past
meets the present which meets future.
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