This video has a focus on the first three chapters – the easy bit!! The warfare through the resistance to the kingdom of God coming (cosmic and timeless resistance) is localised and temporalised as seen in the 7 churches of Asia.
An overall chiasmic structure:
A Prologue
B Church in the Cities of Asia: creation and pressure
C Opening sealed scroll: Exodus plagues
D Bitter-Sweet scroll: War against the community
C` Exodus from the oppression of Babylon
B` Liberation from evil and God’s world-city
A` Epilogue
The prologue has a movement of
God (with closed scroll)
to Jesus (who opens the scroll)
to the angel (who comes with scroll)
to John (who eats the scroll) so that he can prophesy (10:11).
John hears then sees – this is a very normal sequence in the book. Sight gives understanding to what is heard.
The vision of the son of Man is shaped by Daniel 7. From that vision he writes to the 7 churches (representative of the whole)… the cosmic battle is localised, and the eternal battle is temporalised.
It then ends with a call to go higher – do not be earthbound, go beyond beyond the restrictions of chronological time – see the end from the beginning. This is the call we read in Rev. 4:1.
The video password is revelation.
Okay, well it took some time to get to this one. I take heart from a comment that is almost a throw away line – that Christ will return and all that is unholy will be expelled from creation. That makes me think of plastic in the oceans, chemicals in the water, all the toxins we pour into the land and air, the results of mining those tar sands, and even, is it possible, that the terribly evil practice of mountain top removal for coal would be addressed! I wait with eager anticipation.