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Episodes
Saturday Dec 09, 2017
Saturday Dec 09, 2017
Part 125 - Revelation 1:9-20
We do not know what Jesus looked like. Paintings, by Westerners, show him as a tall Nordic type, broad shouldered, blond and blue eyed. All of which is very unlikely. If we may guess what he looked like he was probably fairly small by modern standards, dark skinned, with black hair and dark brown eyes. It will have been his personality rather than his size that enabled him to walk through a crowd intent on lynching him (Luke 4: 30). I hope by now you are saying to yourself something like ‘so what, does it matter’. Of course, it doesn’t.
So when John wants to tell us what Jesus was like he says something quite different:
“and among the lampstands was someone like a son of man, dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet and with a golden sash around his chest. 14 The hair on his head was white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire.15 His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters. 16 In his right hand he held seven stars, and coming out of his mouth was a sharp, double-edged sword. His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance.” (Revelation 1:13-16).
It is an impossible picture if taken literally but it isn’t meant to be taken literally; it is a word picture. The different parts of the image are copies of Old Testament images. The ‘son of man’ is described in Daniel 7: 13 and is a figure of a human being but also stands for all the people of God. It was also the way that Jesus referred to himself. He did not say ’I’ or ‘myself’; he talked about himself as the ‘son of man’. The ‘robe and the golden sash’, the blazing eyes’ and the ‘glowing bronze feet’ are all reminiscent of the divine messenger in Daniel 10: 5, 6, who is described as a man but might be an angel or even Jesus or God himself. ‘White hair’ is like that of the God figure in the vision of Daniel in his 7: 9. The ‘sound of rushing waters‘ uses the image of the approach of God’s glory in Ezekiel 43: 2. His ‘face like the sun shining in all its brilliance’ resembles the ‘likeness of the glory of the Lord’ in Ezekiel 1: 27, 28. You will note that I have deliberately left out the image of the ‘sharp double edged sword’ reserving that as the next great gem for next week.
The whole picture is not a gem but more like a necklace of gems strung together to glorify our Lord. This is Jesus - beyond ordinary words to describe and therefore described with images drawn from Old Testament visions, with which it has much in common. Images like these have to be employed to try and give some impression of his glory.
The description goes on as he touches the worshipping John. He describes himself as the first and the last, which is the same as being Alpha and Omega (the first and last letters in the Greek alphabet, so the A and the Z in English), the resurrected one, who will be alive for ever and ever. Therefore he is of the same status as the ‘Alpha and the Omega, the Lord God, who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty’, all descriptions of God in the very recent verse 8. Thus we see something more than a hint of the Trinity in his self-description.
But in the end, it is no good me explaining the image or you reading about it - it is meant to be thought about and meditated upon. Do just that.
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Saturday Nov 18, 2017
Saturday Nov 18, 2017
Part 122 - Revelation 1:1–3
Jesus - when will it all happen?
We have an immediate problem with the question - when is it all going to happen? John starts straight off with “what must soon take place” and “the time is near”. The full quote is “The revelation from Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, 2 who testifies to everything he saw—that is, the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ. 3 Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it, because the time is near”.
But here we are nearly 2000 years later and it still has not happened. If IT is the end of the age as we shall soon see that in John’s thinking it is, it has not happened. And, as you may well know, the idea that the return of Jesus to this world as a conquering king is a common idea throughout the New Testament writings and almost always expected ‘soon’.
On the other hand you will probably also be all too well aware that there are many people prepared to make forecasts of when it will all end. In the 1980s I heard a preacher who confidently predicted that Jesus would return within the next 12 months. Then I heard that our church had booked him to come and speak next year!!! That was all too much of an amusing story but the difficult part was that there was a lad in our church about to go to university who was asking what the point was if Jesus was coming so soon. That is the danger of such things said by irresponsible preachers who have never come to terms with Jesus saying “about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” Mark 13: 32.
Let me share my own vision of how this can be: as we progress through life we are moving along a long and comparatively narrow tunnel which is this world. Outside it, almost visible through the thin walls of the tunnel is the kingdom of God. In the far distance, showing as only a small blob of light is the end of the tunnel, which is the end of the world in which we are in. but the walls of the tunnel are so thin it is obvious that we could break out, or the kingdom could break in at any moment. Indeed one day we shall break out as we die and go to be with the Lord. Because of the thinness of the tunnel walls it is entirely reasonable to use words like ‘soon’ and ‘near’ for that moment of breakout. We think, but we do not know, that the end is the point of light so far away at the end of the tunnel
I hope that picture will help you.
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Saturday Nov 11, 2017
Saturday Nov 11, 2017
Part 121 - Revelation 1:1–3
More steps in the truth.
Did you think we were finished with John’s Gems? No. We may have to cheat slightly by turning to the writings of what is probably another John to get the joys of the book of Revelation - but let us do that. I say a different John because his writing looks and sounds so different from the writings of the John of the Gospel and the 3 letters. The difference is obvious even in the English translation and it is even more obvious in the original Greek. But it is a wonderful book, full of gems, so here goes …..
Before we can get to the gems though we need to look at some of the gold and silver settings first. I will be trying to talk about his gems without getting caught up in any of the many different, and sometimes antagonistic schemes of interpretation that have been developed over the years. Particularly I will avoid like the plague all the many schemes that think the book is a detailed prophecy of what is happening in our day, which tend to make it meaningless for all the years up till very recently. John was writing in a way that was perfectly meaningful for those for whom he was writing. Since he talks about how people, some of the few who could read fluently, were to read the book to those who could not, I will call them his reader/listeners.
The trouble with this book in our very literal scientific age is that people are very slow to realise that it mainly consists of word-pictures. Ordinary pictures don’t make much sense if you try to describe them in words, they need to be seen to give their full value. Much the same is true of word-pictures. Some people try to turn them into ordinary pictures but you end up with some funny things like a figure with a sword coming out of his mouth without having any difficulty speaking!
So - what do these first 3 verses, “The revelation from Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, who testifies to everything he saw—that is, the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ. Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it, because the time is near.” say to form a gem? The whole book is given from the Lord God to John, but not directly. It comes to him, first through Jesus, who passes it on to an angel, who in turn passes it on to John. He does not explain quite how. Probably much of it was in the form of a vision, which we might call a succession of dreams. John has taken these, applied his consecrated mind to them, and come up with this long series of visions passing on ideas of how Christians are to live in the largely antagonistic world of the late first century (John probably wrote during the reign of the emperor Domitian who was responsible for the second harsh persecution of Christians).
Your reaction to these statements will depend on where you live and what your society and culture are like. If you live in a Western country you will be likely to view a book based on visions with considerable suspicion. If you live in many other parts of the world you will be inclined to like the idea and accept them as thoroughly valid. I cannot direct your thinking. May the good Lord incline your heart to learn many truths about Jesus from these pages and my scribbling!
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~You can now purchase our Partakers books including Roger's latest - The Puzzle of Living - A fresh look at the story of Job!
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