Dr. Lowery closed out the Seminary’s spring chapel sermon series with this message entitled, “Culmination: Our New Home.” His text was Revelation 2.
(And one more — “The worship of the living and true God is essentially an engagement with him on the basis on the terms that he proposes and in the way that he alone makes possible.” David Peterson, Engaging With God: A Biblical Theology of Worship, p. 20.)
“The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon (that is, suddenly or quickly) take place…” (Revelation 1:1a; see 22:6,7,12,20)
“Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near.” (Revelation 1:3; see 22:10)
Two beautiful thoughts, often misunderstood or ignored, are brought together in these two verses: the speedy manner in which the Lord will return and the ongoing nearness of the Lord’s return. Christ’s first coming started the long-awaited kingdom (God’s rule), and it is a kingdom which will continue to exist throughout the church age until Christ returns.
Unknown Yet Certain
The first century Christians would not have been surprised if Christ had come during their lifetime. This observation does not mean that they knew when he was going to return or that they knew that most certainly he was going to return during their lifetime (see Matt. 24:36-25:46; John 21:20ff.; I Thess. 5:1ff.; II Pet. 3:10; Rev. 3:3; 16:15). They lived with the strong and eager sense of expectancy that he indeed would return. But such an outlook did not mean they knew he was going to return during their lifetime. In fact, they knew full well that Jesus and Paul, to name just two individuals, taught that no one knew when Christ was going to return. Yet they would not have been surprised if he indeed did come during their lifetime because they had accepted the certainty of Christ’s final return.
No doubt the book had meaning for the original recipients. After part four our concern as we conclude this series is this: What is the significance of the book for us in the twenty-first century?
V. CONSIDER THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE BOOK
Only by paying attention to the setting, style, symbolism and structure of the book are we then ready to ask: What is the significance of the book? How does it speak to us today? I have chosen to spend less time on this today because if we get the above right then the significance will certainly become clearer. There can be no shortcuts taken in the previous four categories without risking missing God’s intended meaning of this great book. If we are not willing to follow the first four categories, then we must not preach Revelation.
The Book of Revelation was not written to satisfy our curiosity about the future. We must not use it to work out in detail a schedule leading up to the end of the world. It was not given to us to scare the hell out of people. All who have done this, contemporary authors included, have been wrong, without exception.
By placing this book in the contexts of Christ’s first and final comings, John impressed upon his audience an awareness of the Christian life and mission. It was a context in which Christians were called upon to choose between holy living and unholy living. Revelation asks the Church today: Are you going to be seduced by the whore or are you going to be a faithful and pure bride. No compromise is allowed. There were no shades of gray in the book. Throughout, John sets up stark contrasts between good and evil and invites believers to make a choice. Christians are exhorted to choose between two clearly opposed sides.
Accordingly, there are three areas where we need to strive to keep the balance.
Having discussed the use of symbolism in part three, we come now to the what many consider to be most difficult feature of the book to understand, the way the book is organized. Symbolism is relatively easy when compared to analyzing the book’s structure, at least to some.
IV. CONSIDER THE STRUCTURE OF THE BOOK
Revelation is a notoriously difficult book to analyze structurally. There really is no parallel to it in the Bible. (It is acknowledged, by the way, that two other writings by John, the Gospel and the First Letter are difficult to outline).
There are three areas where we need to strive to keep the balance.
In the second part we focused on the style of genres of the book. The form shaped the substance in a significant way. Closely related to the genre is the use of symbolism in the book.
III. CONSIDER THE SYMBOLISM OF THE BOOK
I know of no interpreter, denials notwithstanding, who interprets everything in Revelation literally, plain and unadorned. No one believes that Jesus is literally a door or a Lamb or that the Devil is literally a Dragon. There are those who say that anyone who does not interpret Revelation literally is denying its inspired message. This is a bogus perspective. Such accusers themselves do not practice such an approach to language. Once again, we must interpret a book of the Bible naturally in light of its genre. It was the nature of such apocalyptic works in the ancient world to use symbolism.
Rev. 1:1 as translated in the KJV highlights the use of symbolism: “The revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave unto him, to show unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John.” He sent and signified it . . . Unpack one verb, signify. God signified it, that is, God made the message known in signs. As John revealed Christ through the signs in the Gospel, so Christ is revealed through signs in the Revelation!
In part one we considered the historical setting of the book. The book must have meant something to the original recipients, and we must seek to know what it meant before we can know what it means. Part 2 focuses on the fact that the book must have been written in a style that would have been understood by those recipients.
II. CONSIDER THE STYLE OF THE BOOK
I am talking about genre. What kind of book is this? We have gospels, history, and letters, but what about this book? Where would Barnes and Noble shelve this book? It would have to create a new category. A genre mistake is made by many preachers. They read Revelation like a “Book of Acts” with a twist, a kind of “Book of Future Acts.” Revelation tells us in great detail what is going to happen, so we are told. And we can draw up our charts and we distribute our videos. But remember this: Every single person or school of thought or church group who has done this have been consistent…consistently wrong, from the Millerites in the 1840s to the LaHaye-ites in the twenty-first century.
A genre mistake is made because we ask the wrong questions and therefore we don’t get the right answers because we impose our agenda on this book. We don’t allow God to set the agenda with the literary form that he has chosen to reveal himself. The bottom line is this: A book must be interpreted naturally in light of its genre.
“Critics are madder than poets…And even though St. John the Evangelist saw many strange monsters in his vision, he saw no creatures so wild as one of his own commentators.”
G.K. Chesterton
How in the world does one preach the Revelation responsibly?
When we read this book we may, at various points, think we have picked up a demented copy of the National Geographic Magazine filled with grotesque creatures—a slaughtered Lamb standing, a dragon with its tail sweeping stars out of the sky, or a beast with seven heads and ten horns. Or we may think that we have been surfing with our remote controls and we have come upon the weather channel revealing a world gone amuck with lightning and thunderstorms and hundred pound hailstones and raging seas and fierce tsunami-like conditions. Or perhaps we may think we have picked up a jigsaw puzzle with 5000 pieces and we have no picture of what it is we are trying to piece together or a puzzle book with crossword puzzles and page after page of scrambled letters where we are supposed to circle hidden words or phrases. Or perhaps we may think that we have picked up a college level higher mathematics book with incomprehensible numbers and equations, with threes, fours, twelves and multiples of twelve, and tens and multiples of tens and times, time and half a time. Or perhaps upon reading through the book in one sitting we conclude that it reads like a poorly directed film whose director and editor did not know when and how to end the movie. Or perhaps we think someone has typed in the words “The End” on some apocalyptic search engine and we have come up with web sites never dreamed of.
Indeed, when we open this last book of the Bible we experience a collision of sounds, smells, and sights. The book assaults our senses. We see a funeral procession, a wedding celebration, a brothel, a homecoming, a banquet, a dance; we smell incense and we see falling stars; we taste bitter waters; we see storms on the horizon and a childbirth; and we feel the winds of judgment; and we hear beautiful praise choruses or dire warnings too horrible to contemplate.