GOD'S NEW WORLD, DAY 25 (welcome to Asia II)
Unmasking the matrix. The Jesus-followers of Ephesus lived in a
world where Caesar was Lord, in which the (temples of the) gods were everywhere,
a world where everyone knew their place, a world populated with countless nameless
slaves, a world of empire – both efficient and ruthless, with a social order
that demanded loyalty (and taxes!) and which promised peace, justice and prosperity
(for the 1%). Everything the Ephesians would
have encountered on a daily basis served to reinforce the official, imperial interpretation
of reality – the architecture, the many statues of the emperor, the temples of the
many gods, the social protocols, the way money was spent (and collected), the
dress codes – everything proclaimed “this is the way things are and the way they
are meant to be”. As John writes to the
seven churches of Asia, he faced a significant challenge – how to get his
readers to “see” the world for what it really was, to see themselves as who
they really were – in a nutshell, how to see everything’s true nature. John offers his readers an alternative vision
of all things “on earth and in heaven”. In
Revelation, John wants to “draw back the curtain” on reality so as to
permit his readers to see things from God’s perspective, i.e., “from heaven”.
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).
Purposes of the Creator for his world. Part of John’s challenge as he seeks to
redefine reality for his readers is the fact that their world looked the same
as it always had. Had the life, death
and resurrection of Jesus actually made a difference in the world? It didn’t look like it during the years
following the first Easter. Yes,
followers of Jesus were travelling throughout the Roman empire announcing the
gospel of Jesus’ lordship and establishing new communities loyal to him. However, the business of the empire rumbled
on unabated. It didn’t look very much
like the kingdom of God was present. The
imperial machine continued to advance, and most Christians probably thought
that the prudent course of action was to keep their heads down and not draw unnecessary
attention to themselves. Indeed, as the
inhabitants of the seven cities of Asia went about their usual routines, they
were probably blissfully unaware that their daily decisions had cosmic
significance and contributed to the victory of the Creator over all the forces
of evil. They were called to “overcome” all
anti-God forces (cf. Rev. 2.7) because Jesus had already overcome (Rev. 3.21;
5.5). John wanted to impress upon his
readers that, as followers of Jesus, their lives were anything but mundane – au
contraire, John was telling them that they were living at the climactic
moment of world history (cf. Rev. 11.15-18) – by following Jesus, they had been
swept up into the purposes of the Creator, of the One seated on the throne (of
heaven) and of the Lamb.
Already and not yet. On the cross, Jesus accomplished the victory
of God over all the powers in rebellion against him. Through his resurrection, God had inaugurated
the “Age to Come”, the time where the kingdom of God would become a reality in
the world, an era of peace and justice where the people of God would “rule” the
earth (cf. Rev. 5.10). However, as Paul
pointed out in 1 Corinthians 15, the launch of the Age to Come through Christ’s
resurrection had not put an end to the “present evil Age” (cf. 1 Cor. 10.11) –
Jesus, says Paul, was the “first fruits”, the evidence/guarantee that the
harvest would follow, i.e., the resurrection of all those who belong to Jesus
(1 Cor. 15.20-23). Christians live in a
time when the two “Ages” exist simultaneously – the kingdom of God is being established
in the midst of the kingdoms of the world – and this means that Christians should
expect to experience conflict. The kingdom/victory
of God has already been established and, at the same time, has not yet been
(completely) established.[1] John is calling his readers to “patiently
endure” (cf. Rev. 1.9) this “clash of kingdoms” and assures them that God’s
final victory is guaranteed and that their suffering is actually part of God’s
triumph over evil.
[1] Scholars refer to this dynamic as “inaugurated eschatology”, i.e.,
the “end” has already happened, but is not yet complete. By “end”, we mean the completion of the
purposes of God.
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