Welton Art of Revelation

1. Auflage 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4835-9360-9
Verlag: BookBaby
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 168 Seiten

In this book about the Bible's most misunderstood book, Dr. Welton gives the reader profound insight and understanding, yet in his warm casual writing style. If you want to understand the ancient and mysterious book of Revelation, this is the best place to start.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Welton, Jonathan

Leseproben

NAMING THE
WORK Another important aspect of any painting is its name. The same is true of a book. The full name of Revelation is “The Revelation of Jesus Christ.” It is not the book of revelations in general but the revelation of someone specific—Jesus Christ. This should cause us to ask some questions. First, why is this unique from the events of Jesus’ life and death? Was He fully revealed in His birth, ministry, death, and resurrection? Or is a further revelation necessary? Second, if He still needed to be revealed, what was hiding Him? The ideas in these questions may seem to contradict much of what we have learned in Christianity, but they actually fit well with the New Testament, which speaks in several places of an imminent revealing of Jesus Christ. For example, Peter wrote: These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith— of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed(1 Peter 1:7). Just a little bit later, he repeated this idea when he said, “Therefore, with minds that are alert and fully sober, set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at his coming ” (1 Pet. 1:13). As mentioned previously, coming is an idiom used throughout Scripture to refer to God coming in judgment. Peter was not talking about Jesus’ final coming in this passage, but about Jesus’ coming in destruction on Jerusalem. Too often we personalize what we read in the New Testament letters. We must remind ourselves that Peter was writing to real people that he knew in the first century, and he says to them “that the proven genuineness of your faith” and “grace to be brought to you.” Peter was writing to them, not to us; therefore, the events he was predicting would have been expected in their lifetime. Likewise, in Second Thessalonians 1:6–7, while addressing people under tremendous persecution, Paul wrote: God is just: He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you and give relief to you who are troubled, and to us as well. This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels. That is exactly what happened in AD 70, when the destruction of Jerusalem brought an end to those who were troubling them. The Jewish persecution of Christians stopped, and though the Romans did continue to persecute the Christians, the severity of it significantly decreased after the death of Nero in AD 68. All this happened as Paul said it would—“...when the Lord Jesus is revealed.” In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul also wrote of his first century expectations, “Therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed” (1 Cor. 1:7). These are just a few examples of a topic that is a prominent theme in the New Testament. The early believers were waiting for the full revelation of Jesus in the near future, and they knew it was connected to the destruction of Jerusalem. So, when John named the Book of Revelation, he was clearly advertising it as a prophesy of the revealing of Jesus in judgment on Jerusalem. It was the event they had all been waiting for. This is connected to the second question—What was hiding (or veiling) Jesus? The answer is in Second Corinthians 3, where Paul talks about the old covenant. Now if the ministry that brought death, which was engraved in letters on stone, came with glory, so that the Israelites could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of its glory, transitory though it was, will not the ministry of the Spirit be even more glorious? If the ministry that brought condemnation was glorious, how much more glorious is the ministry that brings righteousness! For what was glorious has no glory now in comparison with the surpassing glory. And if what was transitory came with glory, how much greater is the glory of that which lasts (2 Corinthians 3:7–11). First, Paul establishes that the glory of the new covenant is far greater than the glory of the old covenant ever was. Based on this, Paul concludes: Therefore, since we have such a hope, we are very bold. We are not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face to prevent the Israelites from seeing the end of what was passing away. But their minds were made dull, for to this day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read. It has not been removed, because only in Christ is it taken away. Even to this day when Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts. But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit (2 Corinthians 3:12–18). In other words, it was the old covenant that veiled Jesus. It veiled Him when He was born. It veiled Him when He died. And it veiled Him when He was resurrected. It wasn’t until the events of Revelation that the old covenant veil was ultimately taken away. What Revelation prophesied became reality when the Temple and the old covenant were finally destroyed. The veil of judgment and death, through which people had seen God since the days of the Mosaic covenant, was finally removed. The old covenant had prevented people from seeing who God really is; all they had seen was judgment and condemnation. But in the destruction of AD 70, that veil was taken away, and we are now free to see God as the loving Father He is. The first century believers would have clearly understood that this is what Revelation is about—prophesying the destruction of the old covenant, which had been veiling God. Through destroying the old covenant, God would fully reveal the glory of Christ and His new covenant. Knowing this helps us understand God’s heart in the events of Revelation. GOD’S HEART IN REVELATION When people read Revelation without understanding the background and purpose, it can seem very terrifying, disturbing, tragic, and confusing. Many live with a fearful expectation of these events in their lifetime. Instead, we should actually be looking over our shoulder at these historically fulfilled prophecies with awe at their fulfillment and horror at their devastation. When we view Revelation with an understanding of the new covenant, we can begin to see God’s heart in it. Certainly, the loss of life was tragic and terrible. We do not want to overlook that. However, to God, the events of the Book of Revelation were glorious and beautiful because they finally removed the veil of the old covenant that had disguised God’s true heart. God had suffered through fifteen hundred years of being misunderstood and rejected. The old covenant had veiled who God really was. This wasn’t His idea, but Israel’s. They had rejected His covenant offer to make them into a nation of priests, and instead, they had asked for the Law (the old covenant) and for a mediator (Moses) between them and God.12 He wanted to speak with each of them, face-to-face, but they feared Him, so they asked for rules instead. However, when the old covenant system was destroyed in AD 70, the veil that hid God’s nature was also destroyed. It could no longer get in the way and prevent people from relating with Him. If we get this, we can see how glorious the events of Revelation truly were. Revelation was not about the destruction of a people but about the destruction of a flawed system that had veiled God for years. It was also the revelation (or unveiling) of the new covenant in Christ. We see this in Revelation 11:19, where it says: Then God’s temple in heaven was opened, and within his temple was seen the ark of his covenant. And there came flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder, an earthquake and a severe hailstorm. The earthly ark of the covenant had been lost in the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BC. It had not been seen on earth for many years. When Jesus died, the Temple was shaken and the veil was torn, revealing an empty room where the ark should have been. When John saw the ark of the covenant in his vision, he was not seeing that old earthly ark of the old covenant, which had been lost. He was, instead, seeing the Temple in Heaven, where Jesus had entered and sprinkled His blood on the heavenly ark of the covenant (see Heb. 9:21–24). If Jesus had put His blood on the ark of the old covenant, His blood would have sealed us into the old covenant forever. Thankfully, instead, He put His blood on the ark of the new covenant in the Temple in Heaven. This was an incredible and glorious transition from the burden of the Law into the freedom of faith! We see confirmation of Revelation as a covenant document in this often-misunderstood passage: I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this scroll: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to that person the plagues described in this scroll. And if anyone takes words away from this scroll of prophecy, God will take away from that person any share in the tree of life and in the Holy City, which are described in this scroll...