A wrapping it up video, with some comments about the beginning and the end: creation -> new creation, followed by some comments on the New Jerusalem.

Password: revelation

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

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

As we come toward the climax of the book we have the very stark tale of 2 cities. The contrasts between the 2 cities are so evident. The city that rises up and the city that comes down. The contrasts too are deliberate. I list 26 contrasts.

Password: revelation

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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

In this video cast it is the 7 trumpets that I look at. They form a pattern of 4 which affect 1/3 of what they touch (the seals had touched 1/4), then a further 2 which build image upon image. Then comes an interlude with a series of events described… followed by the 7th trumpet. Again we reach the / an end – yet not fully.

Password: revelation

So on to the 7 seals in more detail, where I seek to tie the imagery to what would be the unfolding of the sequence of Roman Emperors up to AD70… the period that is connected to, ‘this generation will not pass away until…’

Password: revelation