Tag Archives: Eschatology

Kings and their kind

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We have just returned from the UK… a long 15 hour journey home: a car ride, a train, a plane, a bus, a train, a taxi. Key in door and bed!! Loved our time away. I was with friends in the Black Country with a particular focus on the social enterprise work there. Inspiring. Also had time to catch up with Sam Miller and Justin Abraham. Then Gayle and I were both able to spend a weekend at Silverdale, home / friary for Roger and Sue Mitchell. If you have not linked to Roger’s blog it is so worthwhile. Check it out. Kenarchy is the theme and keep an eye out for a forthcoming book on the fall of the church. Our time there is always stimulating. So this is a spin off from it… discussion about filling a seat and then emptying it out.

Let me try and explain the above short phrase. Jesus model of leadership was leadership by example, by servanthood. He critiqued the model of hierarchy saying that was the model for the ‘lords of the Gentiles’, saying that was not to be the way among his followers, and that he himself was ‘one among them’. He demonstrated this in the extreme through the washing of the disciples’ feet, a task that was beneath that of a Hebrew slave to perform. And of course further demonstrated it through the cross.

So positions of authority can be problematic when they perpetuate inequalities, marginalisation and oppression. (Of course in a wider discussion on authority there is the need to look at the exercise of right authority based on functional issues such as task and gift-set within a given context – I am simply looking at positions that are inherently problematic.)

So before looking at occupying to empty or not (tomorrow) there is a piece I want to clarify. Israel rejects God as king, choosing to have an earthly king ‘as the other nations’ did. Kingship is not in the mind of God for us (nor was priesthood a godly institution). I want to push this one step further though. What kind of king is God? It is true that Israel susbtituted Saul / David / Solomon et al. for God. But there is something more going on that is important and we should not miss it.

Step 1: Substitute human king for God
Step 2: human king is as a king of one of the nations
Step 3: we now have a picture of what a king is – some good some bad
Step 4: God is the same as a good king (only better).

This final step is the challenge. We now have a grid to understand how God is king. WRONG!!! Barth: ‘You cannot say ‘God’ by saying ‘man’ with a loud voice’ comes to mind (sorry about the non-pc terminology in his quote). So we cannot understand kingship that way round, ending up with a sovereign God over us all (which is of course true, but it misses how he is king).

Eschatology is vital and necessary. How things will be is what is to shape us now. We are to live in and from a new creation. In that new creation we do not find a centre. There is no Temple in the city, there is not even a centralised throne – the life of the Lamb and of the Lord God are throughout the city. A radical distribution of Presence – the fulfilment of Pentecost which is the Feast of Firstfruits.

Now all of this Roger has elaborated on in a much more eloquent way in his writings on kenarchy.

God is Sovereign, he is king; but our imagery of king and sovereignty are deeply flawed.

This is an element that has to be born in mind. God does not occupy the throne of king and empty it out in love. He is king among us. He was not sovereign and then decided to pour that out in love. He is love.

Revelation #20

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This is a slightly technical look at the structures we are encountering. To try to make Revelation fit a nice pattern chronologically is problematic. The issue of the battles – in Rev. 19 where there is total destruction only to be followed by post-millennial Gog and Magog is somewhat difficult to perceive. Where do they come from??? The nature of the book is that it is symbolic and highly structured. Many times we encounter the common shape of the chiasmus (X shape: points to a mid point and then reversed), and I look at this within Chapter 18, where there is a chaismus within a chiasmus. I also take from Chapter 17 with the judgement on Babylon through to Chapter 22 and the vindication of the New Jerusalem and seek to show how it is a chiasmus with the Millennium right at the centre. If so we should not be looking to over-interpret what that is / will be. It is an image.

Password: revelation

Revelation #19

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In this video I focus on the four descriptions for the fall of Babylon. The abused woman, the abandoned city, the burning city and the millstone cast into the sea. Also there is a key part relating to the sequence of seven kings, five have been, one is, one is to come. I suggest this is not a technique by which we can date Revelation – which ‘king’ would we start with, which ‘kings’ would we include.

Password: revelation

Revelation #17

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We are now in chapters 15 and 16 with the final bowls poured out. This is the chapter that mentions ‘Armageddon’, however John is very explicit that it is a Hebrew name: ‘Harmagedon’ – the Mount of Magedon. It does not exist!! This is no earthly warfare, but the cosmic judgement of heaven against everything that resists the coming of the New Creation.

We also have the second announcement of the fall of Babylon: preparing the way for a fourfold telling of its fall.

Password revelation.

Revelation #16

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This video is a short interlude in the sense that I take a look at a passage within Rev. 14, that on the surface supports eternal punishment:

The smoke of their torment will rise, they hall have no rest day and night

I put forward two issues: the passage uses the genitive for the phrase ‘night and day’: the genitive of time being related to the kind of time (relentless) rather than length of time.

Then I look at the parallel in Isaiah 34 where there is a sequence of fire and sulphur, a night and day experience followed by smoke. (A ‘normal’ sequence of a relentless process that leads to a final, and finalised, outcome.) In Revelation we have the same elements – maybe in a different order, but when looked at structurally it is likely to have the same sequence as the underlying Isaiah passage.

Password: revelation.

Revelation #15

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In this video I am taking a look at chapter 14 of Revelation. We have the Lamb and 144,00o followers. There is a strong martyrdom theology in Revelation, and the terminology that is used to describe this army is in sacrificial terms. we are coming to how will the:

dragon –> the beasts –> Babylon (kings of the earth and worshippers of the beast) be overcome?

War was set out in Chapters 12 and 13. So what is the strategy? In the upside down kingdom overcoming is done through obedience to the Lamb, with possible outcomes in the short term of not being allowed to buy and sell and ultimately through martyrdom.

Three angels proclaim:

  • an eternal Gospel
  • Babylon is fallen
  • judgement on all those who worshipped the beast

Then the chapter ends with a two-fold harvest: of salvation and judgement.

Here is the video with a password of revelation.

Revelation #14

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Back to the camera after a break!! Chapter 13 sees the rise of two beasts: one out of the water and one from the land. we have a hierarchical trinity: the dragon (in creation myths is chaos that resists creation; here is the resister of New Creation – where the book is headed) gives authority to the sea beast (Rome across the waters) and in the land there is a beast that calls for worship – the Imperial cult.

So a strong historical setting – even with a probable reference to Julius Caesar’s assassination.

So here we are with password of ‘revelation’. Enjoy!

All.. all

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Romans 5: 18,19:

Therefore just as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all. For just as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.

This along with other Scriptures such as 1 Cor. 15:22 are probably the strongest that present Universalism as a possibility. This Adam-Christology / Barthian / perichoresis slant at least suggests that there is a solidarity in Adam and a solidarity in Christ. The question comes – is the human race ‘in Adam’ (past) and now ‘in Christ’ (present) or is the human race either in Adam or in Christ.

Jesus, is the elect one. Ephesians 1: 4,5 I think makes that plain:

just as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will…

Election is not of one person and not of another, it is not ultimately of a race and not another. Election is of One, and we are chosen ‘in Him’. It is our solidarity with him that brings us in to his destiny (predestination). Just as a Jew could say ‘I am chosen in Abraham some xxx years ago’ (Abraham was the chosen one, not the individual Jew), so a follower of Christ can say ‘I was chosen in Him before the foundation of the world’ (Jesus is the chosen one, not the individual believer).

If this is the angle we pursue then all are potentially chosen in him. And there still remains the element of being ‘in Him’. Is this automatic or is it through response?

It is at this point that I want the best of the extremes. To be in Christ might not exclude those who have not prayed the sinner’s prayer (I use that term not because I believe in it – where is it in Scripture???? – but because it is a neat, rather tongue-in-cheek way of saying ‘those who accept Jesus as their personal Saviour’). And it might include many who have not. Does it include all?

Consider then the following (which also touches on the ‘reconciliation of all things’, Colossians 1:19-23 with emphases added):

For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.
And you who were once estranged and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his fleshly body through death, so as to present you holy and blameless and irreproachable before him — provided that you continue securely established and steadfast in the faith, without shifting from the hope promised by the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven.

This kind of passage is what we have to wrestle with, and sometimes there are no straightforward answers. We have the reconciliation of all things as the purpose of the cross – yet in Revelation there are certain ‘things’ that burn; we have a people who are now reconciled, but it is alongside the provided phrase.

I am an optimist with respect to the wideness of the mercy of God. Yet hold back from a Universalist position.

There are those who are ‘in Christ’. Paul’s wonderful description of himself as ‘I know a person in Christ who…’ This is surely why baptism was so important in the NT. There was a death / a separation from Adamic union and a baptism into the Last Adam. By referring to baptism I am not thereby suggesting all non-baptised are ‘lost’, but to suggest that a transfer from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of his son (Col. 1:13) is something to experience and participate in.

The huge privilege of being in Christ is not to be part of the ‘in’ crowd and know that we are ‘safe’, but to know that salvation is in order that we can be redeemed, find purpose again, hear the heartbeat of the Father, and make a contribution to the future ‘reconciliation of all things’ under the rightful head.

Who will benefit from that? I consider that it is likely to be more than the active followers of the Lamb. The ambiguities in the final chapters of Revelation must push me that way. The privileges are ours now who have received the firstfruits in terms of the Spirit. The challenge also must be ours to live eschatologically. Hence the two posts I put together the other day by Peter Emms and Andrew Perriman.

My hope is in Jesus, the Saviour of all.

I think we are being given this opportunity once again to place our hope in him, not in political systems, nor in finances, nor in ‘democracy’.

Universalism? Well if he died for all I have to live for all. Not for my class of people, nor for my ‘country’. It seems to me that the real issue the Bible deals with is not answering all the questions about the future but about presenting enough clarity about the present.

Revelation #13

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In this video we come to Chapter 12. The 3 chapters to chapter 14 are an interlude between the blowing of the seven trumpets and the pouring out of the final seven bowls. They deal with the Messianic war, an OT theme and something very present in many Jewish writings. There has to be a radical re-interpretation of what this means. The enemy is not flesh and blood (no surprise there) but the Satan / dragon. So the weapons are not flesh and blood weapons.

This is a critique of the Pax Romana, as well as any views concerning ‘the myth of redemptive violence’. We will have to bear this in mind for later when we come to the Armageddon texts.

The three visions in this chapter relate together:

The woman gives birth to a child, the dragon opposes her in order to destroy the child, but he ascends to heaven, and the woman is protected in the desert.

There is warfare in heaven, the dragon falls to the earth, the battle becomes more intense. The overcoming is described two-ways: by Michael and his angels / by the saints. The connection between heaven and earth is very clear in this expression of the world view of the writer.

The dragon pursues the woman, the earth comes to her aid, and then the dragon pursues the followers of Jesus / the children of the woman.

Password: revelation

Revelation #13.

Revelation #12

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Here is the latter part of the 7 trumpets with a focus on the 2 witnesses. They prophesy for 1260 days and the ‘nations’ trample on the outer court of the temple for the same period of time: 42 months. Both those numbers are ‘rectangular’ numbers: these indicate the battle-ground in Revelation. Times are in the hands of God… and the times are limited. The feeling might be of an endless cycle – but there is a progression toward the end.

We have faith choices to make as to who overcomes… and then how we overcome has to be shaped by following the Lamb.

Password: revelation