GOD'S NEW WORLD, DAY 12 (the language of heaven)

“After this I looked, and there in heaven a door stood open! And the first voice… said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.” At once I was in the spirit, and there in heaven stood a throne, with one seated on the throne! And the one seated there looks like jasper and carnelian, and around the throne is a rainbow that looks like an emerald.” (Rev. 4.1-3)

     Concerning heaven.  As far as the Bible is concerned, heaven is not far away.  “God’s dimension”, if you will, is just behind a curtain that is sometimes drawn back so we can glimpse what’s going on “behind the scenes” (“Revelation” is the translation of the Greek word apocalypto, i.e. to “unveil”, to “uncover”).

     Whether it’s Abraham welcoming three strangers to lunch and later realizing that one of them is “God” (and the two others are angels: Gn. 18-19),

or Jacob dreaming of a ladder reaching up to God’s abode and then awaking to the fact that he had spent the night on the threshold of heaven (cf. Gn. 28.10-17);

or Moses discovering that a shrub in the desert is actually a heavenly portal (cf. Ex. 3.1-6);

or the prophet Elisha seeing the chariots of the armies of heaven surrounding the armies of Aram who were besieging Jerusalem (cf. 2 Kings 6.14-17);

or Isaiah having a vision of God’s throne while praying in the Temple (cf. Is. 6.1-10);

or Ezekiel being awestruck by the sight of God’s throne-chariot while sitting by the rivers of Babylon (cf. Ez. 1.1-28; cp. Dn. 7.9-10),

heaven is portrayed in the Scriptures as being right there – behind the veil of everyday reality.  Indeed, the phrase, “the heavens were opened” is a recurrent one in Scripture (cf. Ez. 1.1; Mt. 3.16; Mk. 1.10; Ac. 7.56; cp. Rev. 4.1).  In biblical cosmology, “heaven” is the “control room” for earth.  The deliberations of the “heavenly council” influence the unfolding of events on earth (cf. Jer. 23.16-32; 1 Kings 22.13-28; Job 1, etc.).  So, when John is flitting about between earth and heaven, the book of Revelation is invoking this biblical habit of portraying heaven as being intimately connected with “earth”, i.e., reality as we normally experience it (cf. Rev. 21-22).

     Apocalyptic language.  Not only is Revelation called Apocalypse in French, it is indeed a prime example of apocalyptic literature (cf. Is. 24-27; Zechariah 9-14; Daniel 7-12; Mk. 13, as well as many extra-canonical books written during the Second Temple period, etc.).  This literary genre is characterized by all those strange things we have mentioned in regards to Revelation – visions, journeys to God’s throne-room, fantastic beasts, angels, symbols and wild imagery, and let’s not forget all the biblical allusions.  Several “clues” in apocalyptic texts serve to alert the reader that there is more going on than meets the eye – phrases such as “Here is wisdom” (Rev. 13.18); “let those with ears hear” (Rev. 2.7, 11, 17, 29, etc.); “This is a mystery” (Rev. 17.7).  However, at first glance, these clues may simply reinforce our conviction that we simply don’t know what’s going on!  The apocalyptic lexicon is a kind of “language” unto itself. 

     However, the authors of apocalyptic literature were actually referring to people/things that their readers were familiar with.  Apocalyptic texts are using highly evocative, symbolic and “coded” language to invest historical events with their full significance.  Hence all the language about the basic structures (from a prescientific perspective) of the cosmos being destroyed – the sun, moon and stars being darkened or falling from the sky (cf. Rev. 8.12) or the earth, the sea and the rivers being poisoned/emptied of life (cf. Rev. 8.7-10).  The events that these texts are describing were indeed “earth-shattering”!  (but we shouldn’t read them literally, and we should not follow the example of Chicken Little…).  So, to be clear, Revelation doesn’t have anything to say about a literal “end of the world” (actually, the book ends with a vision of a new world…).