The End of the World (6)

By Chris Theobald    30th May 2004    0 responses

revelation

Part 6 – The New Testament: A General Overview.

As we move on now to consider the post-Jesus eschatology, let me re-emphasise that we are in this part studying not the re-writing of the Old Testament teaching, but the expansion and explanation of it. We shall find that all we discussed in the previous articles is called into use. Before we begin therefore let us just review what we know in brief from these studies in the Old Testament. We know that there will come a day when God will return to judge this world in his wrath, but also to save those whom he loves as his people. At that point in time this means his chosen people Israel. We also know that unlike times when God has partially revealed himself in the past, he will reveal himself in full. What we don’t know is how this will all work on a practical level. It is this gap that the New Testament fills in for us. We shall find out how these concepts will work. There are several key points of confusion surrounding this Old Testament teaching that, if we are honest, still haunt us today. This is partly because we seem to undervalue the study of this, and also because we do not fully understand the explanation. We seem to have a greater fear of the unknown in this time than before. For a good example of this if we consider some old hymns, the theology of the end of the world is there and accurate. A short while ago I was leading a study on ‘the resurrection body’ from 1 Corinthians 15, and the point was raised that in several creeds the belief in this idea is expressed; this was raised as a point of concern that none of us there present had up to that point received any formal teaching in Church on that point, yet we ‘blindly’ expressed our belief in that doctrine.

In the next three articles I hope to clarify exactly how some key issues within these teachings are applicable to us and to the world in general. They will closely follow the pattern established when we studied the Old Testament, so if it is possible to have those articles in mind, if not in view, whilst reading these it would aid the discussion.

God’s ‘Day’

Having emphasised the similarity between Old and New Testament teachings, I am now about to give an example of one of the key differences. The concept of a day exists as lip service to the Old Testament; yet as a true reflection of the nature of the ‘end times’ we must be cautious about its use other than as a metaphor. From Revelation we can see that the ‘end times’, as I shall now refer to them, will cover a long period of time. Jesus has hinted at this by referring to the ‘end of the age’ being signified by ‘signs’ over a period of time. However we cannot lose sight of the fact that there is a point when God will call and end (Rev 20:11-15), and it is this that we must now associate with the ‘day of the Lord’ rather than grouping all of these events together under that term. Paul for example in Romans 13:8-14 refers explicitly to the ‘day’ being nearly upon us, and encourages us to love each other and God for this reason.

The Glory of the Lord

We have seen some vivid descriptions of how God will appear, and it is to these that we must refer for the basis upon which to ground our understanding of the New Testament. In 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 we find a description of the Lord coming down from heaven with a ‘loud command’ and ‘trumpet call’. This is one of the more graphic descriptions to be found in the New Testament. John uses the phrase ‘when he appears’ (1 John 3:2). There are two possible reasons: either this is no longer a key feature, or it is taken as read that the readers understand what this entails. I have often come across this problem; when you are given a book to read you start at chapter 1 and read on to the end. When many of us first receive a Bible we look only at directed parts of it. I do not mean to suggest that directing ourselves to certain scriptures is wrong; but I do say that if we are to understand them we must have read the whole. This is not just true in this area. If you want to understand the story of Easter, you must also have read the stories of Genesis and Exodus, paying particular attention to the Passover, these early signs of the coming salvation give Easter its context. Very little can be added to what has already been said about God’s true glory, so very little is added! What we do now see is the development of the imagery we find in Daniel 10, Isaiah 6 and Ezekiel 1; these are now given their true context by Revelation 1.

I do not intend to go into depth at this point on who wrote Revelation when. I have discussed this in the series on apocalypses some time ago. Suffice it to say that the origin of it is with John (‘the disciple whom Jesus loved’ as he is often referred to), and was probably developed by his disciples over a period of time. The vision itself is one of the most detailed in the Bible, and the most detailed in the New Testament. Before we find the description of Jesus as he is and will be, let us look at verses 5 to 8. Here we find implied within the text that the long-expected restoration of God’s people has, at least to some extent, taken place; he has ‘made’ his people a ‘kingdom’ of ‘priests’ to serve him. This shows the power of the resurrection in this world. We do not wait for a day when salvation will suddenly come upon us, it is already here and open for all to accept through the death and resurrection of Jesus. With that victory in mind let us look at the description of the victor! The first thing we must notice is that the one walking amongst the lamp stands is described in terms of Daniel 7:13 and 10:1-21, which serves to develop our understanding of who it is that we see now, and who it was that Daniel saw; Daniel saw God and John sees Jesus and the two are by this reference inextricably linked as one and the same person. To draw upon this comparison let us examine the readings side by side:

Revelation 1 Daniel 7 Daniel 10
One like a human being One like a human being A man
Dressed in a robe His clothing was white as snow Dressed in linen
A golden sash round his chest  A belt of the finest gold round his waist
His head and hair were like white wool, white as snow, his eyes were like a flame of fire The hair of his head like pure wool His body was like Beryl, his face like lightning, his eyes like flaming torches
His feet were like burnished bronze, refined as in a furnace  His arms and legs like the gleam of burnished bronze
His voice was like the sound of many waters  The sound of his words like the roar of a multitude
I fell at his feet as though dead  My strength left me, and my complexion grew deathly pale

For those who are in doubt about this parallel seeing the same phrases used, you may be wondering whether Revelation isn’t just an example of ancient plagiarism. To this I can only say that either you are right, or the God that we believe to be unchanging is the same for John and he was for Daniel and is for us. The parallels here are so striking as to confirm that once again we see John emphasising the humanity and divinity of Jesus, just as it is given emphasis in Daniel long before he walked the earth. The subject of resurrection is also prevalent here; we are reminded, as Moses was, that for a sinful human to look upon God is to die, but in Christ the power of the resurrection from death that is seen as Jesus reaches out and picks John up, just as he did at the transfiguration. The concept of resurrection is one that we shall return to later.

Further consideration is also needed when we think that Jesus after his resurrection was recognisable to his disciples, and therefore we may assume that John is accurate in his identification of the vision as Jesus in a way we clearly could not expect of Daniel.

Another fascinating addition to the previous conception of the ‘day’, is that Jesus is already shown as walking amongst the seven lamp stands which represent the seven Churches (symbolically the whole Church). This gives the vision a certain degree of Trinitarian thinking, in that Jesus promised to send the Spirit to comfort the Church in his absence. Jesus is God walking with his people in the Spirit at one with the Father.

Skipping on through Revelation we see that God’s glory is manifested in various forms that fit in with our impressions from previous readings. The humble King of Zechariah 9:9 is an idea we see in Jesus the ‘Lamb’ of chapter 5; a lamb is a creature associated if anything with weakness, yet it is the Lamb of God alone who is able to break the seals and make possible the fulfilment of God’s plan. The ‘Lamb’ is also the ‘Lion of the tribe of Judah’ (Revelation 5:5), a symbol of strength and majesty. In chapter 19:11-21 we are given an image of Jesus; it is clearly linked back to chapter 1 by verse 15 which matches chapter 1 verse 16, in that the rider and Jesus both have a double edged sword coming out of their mouths. As well as this we see that the description of the rider fits exactly with our table used above to describe Christ. This image is completed by the title the rider holds of ‘King of Kings and Lord of Lords’, which we know to be Christ. Note also the link back to John 1 from verse 13 in which the rider is called ‘the word of God’. Another interesting link here is that the robe the rider wears is dipped in blood, just as was required for the priestly garments (Exodus 29:21), from Hebrews we know that Jesus is the ‘great high priest’ of the new Covenant (Heb 4:14-6:12), and this image enforces this link back to the symbolic consecration of the priests of the old covenant in the high priest of the new covenant who offered his own blood as a sacrifice for our sins.

Our previous studies of God’s glory now bear their fruit in that we can inform our reading of these scriptures with what we already know. Nothing descriptive should come as a surprise to us, as much of it is linked strongly with the Old Testament tradition. What we can now add into the picture is the strong emphasis on the glory of the ascended Christ, using similar terms to the previous depictions of God. We can also see some practical issues addressed: we know that God’s glory will be revealed from the clouds, and that we shall meet him there.

What next?

We have now begun our comparison of the teachings about the end times. Our next point of interest is one which is a cause of major confusion to many people that does not appear to any great extent in the Old Testament as many of us have it, although some of the later apocryphal works do begin to discuss it (in 2 Maccabees 7:1-21 and 12:38-45 reference is explicitly made to the resurrection of the human body, as does 2 Esdras 2:23); Daniel 12 also indicates a tendency towards this idea. The idea of ‘the resurrection of body’ is one that comes out primarily during the 200 years before Jesus’ birth, but in the New Testament this concept is given fuller discussion. Suffice it to say that when we study resurrection of body, we are considering an idea that is unique to Christianity, and was revolutionary at the time of the early Church. This is a good point to consider for a while, as it means that it cannot have been copied from another religion, it must be original to theologian contemporaries of Christ; our own knowledge of this comes mainly from Paul in 1 Corinthians 15.

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By Chris Theobald

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