Vision of the Ages: The Message of the Book of Revelation (Revelation 1.1-11)

Introduction

The title of the book of Revelation comes from the opening line of the book itself, which in the original language literally says “the apocalypse.” This is the apocalypse or revelation of Jesus Christ. It could be taken to mean that it came from Jesus or that it contains revelation about Jesus, both of which are true about the book. The Revelation made its way to us all the way down the heavenly chain of command: it came from God to Jesus who gave it to an angel who then gave it to John. This is the same apostle John who wrote the Gospel and the New Testament epistles and who had been an eyewitness of Jesus’ earthly ministry, death, and resurrection. But by this time John was an old man and the last living apostle. John has been exiled by an increasingly hostile Roman government to a tiny island in the Aegean Sea called Patmos. It was there that this incredible revelation, the very last book of the Bible, was given to him.

The book was originally addressed to the seven churches of Asia. This region was the Roman province of Asia also called Asia Minor, which is the modern nation of Turkey. Each church is addressed specifically and quite personally by Jesus Himself. And so, the book of Revelation begins more like an epistle. Jesus wants to prepare these churches for something that is coming that John is already experiencing. Suffering opposition and persecution is a central theme of the book of Revelation. The 7 churches of Asia need to be ready for what is coming so they can be overcomers just as Jesus Himself overcame the world and was exalted by the Father.

After this introduction, John sees the exalted, glorified Jesus who gives his messages to the 7 churches of Asia. After the letters to the churches have been recorded, John is taken up into the heavenly realm where he sees a series of visions which comprise the bulk of the book of Revelation. These visions have continued to both amaze and confound all those who read this book. The Revelation has been one of the most mysterious, difficult, and controversial books in the Bible.

Our first task when reading a book of the Bible is to try to understand the central focus or subject that is being addressed. In other words, what is the book of Revelation about? What is the theme of the book? This seems to be a rather obvious question to ask when reading a book of the Bible, but many Christians skip this step and immediately move to some detail in the book without first understanding the central theme. But this is always a bad idea, especially in a difficult book like Revelation. Details are meaningless and confusing without a context.

Worse yet, details that are taken out of context may become a pretext for someone’s own ideas and agenda. This has certainly been true of Revelation. Before we attempt to understand the mysterious visions in this book we need to try to get the main theme.

Fortunately, the main theme of this book is not difficult to understand and is developed almost from the very first pages of the book. While on the isle of Patmos John sees the glorified Christ. This is the same Jesus John had walked with along the shores of the sea of Galilee, but now Jesus has been glorified. The Gospels record how Jesus ascended into heaven and John recorded in his own Gospel how Jesus had to return to the Father to complete the work of redemption. The exaltation of the Christ had also been predicted in the Old Testament and when the Church began on the Day of Pentecost Peter had preached about Christ’s enthronement as God’s chosen ruler. But on the Isle of Patmos the veil that separated heaven from earth is pulled back and John sees Jesus as He now is in heavenly glory. And that reality of Christ reigning in heaven with God the Father is the central revelation of the book of Revelation. John sees a personal vision of the glorified Christ who gives his messages to the seven churches. But then John is taken up to heaven and sees Jesus in the Throne of God.

But we already knew from other places in the New Testament that Jesus went back into heaven and was received into glory by God the Father. The central revelation of Revelation is not a new revelation or a new doctrine at all. So why do we even need this book? We must remember that Christ’s heavenly reign does not appear to have made any difference in the world that we experience. In fact, the world does not even acknowledge that Jesus is Lord. Christians have declared their allegiance to a King the world cannot see. In the world of the 7 churches of Asia, Caesar was Lord. And this brought Christians into a collision course with the world around them. How do Christians live in a world that does not acknowledge or even welcome the Lordship and supremacy of Jesus? The book of Revelation was written to address that very issue. And it is still a relevant issue for every church and every individual Christian. The book of Revelation is not just for the seven churches of the Roman province of Asia Minor. This revelation addresses issues faced by every generation of the church from the time when Jesus ascended into heaven until the time He comes out of heaven and returns to the earth in all His glory. Revelation is showing how God’s people are to overcome a world order that does not acknowledge the reign of Christ.

The Major Revelations in Revelation

One of the first revelations in the book of Revelation is the fact that there are two realms: earth and heaven. The Bible is constantly showing us these two realms. The earth is the home of mankind and is the lower, inferior, temporal region. The earth is also where the Devil and his legions have power and influence. Heaven is the realm of God and His servants the angels. Heaven is always where all the real decisions are made. Heaven rules the earth. The earth and most of her inhabitants are really in a state of rebellion against heaven. We are living in the middle of a war! There is now a separation between these two realms, just as there was a veil in the Tabernacle separating the Holy of Holies from the Holy Place.

If you could go beyond the veil the first thing you would see is the throne of God. There were other prophets before John who saw into heaven and saw a throne. Isaiah saw the Lord seated on His throne, as did the prophet Daniel. It is interesting to notice that the throne is usually seen when times are difficult for God’s people on the earth. This throne is the control room for the earth. And the throne is never empty, there is always someone seated on the throne. John himself gets this vision in chapter 4 of Revelation. After he has delivered Christ’s message to the churches of Asia upon the earth, he is taken into heaven and sees the eternal throne of God. Things may look chaotic on the earth, but in heaven nothing has changed. God is still on His throne. That throne is the central fact of all Biblical revelation.

But John sees something in heaven that had not been seen before. He sees a lamb, looking like a freshly sacrificed lamb, sharing the throne of God. And all the inhabitants of heaven are worshiping the slain lamb just as they were worshiping the one seated on the throne. John sees the lamb with a kind of double vision: first as a lion who has conquered his enemies, and then as a sacrificial lamb. This lamb is sharing the throne of God. The lamb even takes a sealed scroll from the hand of God. Some have said this scroll represents the purpose of God for the final chapters of world history. Others have said this scroll represents the title deed to the earth. Perhaps both perspectives are true and right. This slain lamb is ruling the world and administering the purpose of God. Everything that happens in the rest of the book of Revelation will happen under the authority of the slain lamb who shares the throne of God. Absolutely everything that happens on the earth is under the control of Heaven.

Chapters 4 and 5 of Revelation contain the vision of the heavenly throne room. These chapters are the theological anchor for the entire book of Revelation. Everything that follows comes as a directive from the throne room in heaven.

What happens on the earth was first decided in heaven. A cosmic drama is about to unfold. The rest of the book of Revelation is really a cyclical series of visions. It is divided into 3 cycles that each have 7 elements. These visions are cyclical because they cover the same period from different perspectives. Here we have 3 different perspectives on the history of the world from the time Jesus went back into heaven at His ascension until the time when He comes again.

The first cycle is the 7 seals. The lamb seated on the throne begins to break the seals and open the scroll that he received from the hand of God. This is a picture of Christ’s heavenly reign over all events upon the earth and all the various forces of history. Jesus is running the world from heaven, administering the Kingdom of God, and fulfilling God’s eternal purpose. Jesus really does have the whole world in His hands. Christ’s heavenly reign is for the salvation of believers in the world. We could not be saved unless Jesus were really reigning over all. All the forces that are opposed to God’s people in the world must submit to Christ. If God is for us, who can be against us?

The second cycle is the 7 trumpets. A trumpet is a signal or a warning. In this cycle the enemies of Christ are revealed and there is a series of Divine judgments on the world. These judgments are only partial and should be taken as warnings to the inhabitants of the earth, none of whom ever repent of their wicked rebellion against God. These partial judgments are the signs of the final judgment that is coming. God has not passively ignored the fact that the world has followed in the rebellion of Satan and declared war on the people of God.

The third cycle is the 7 bowls. This cycle depicts the final judgment of the world, the defeat of all Christ’s enemies, and the beginning of the New Creation. The judgments of the 7 trumpets are partial. The judgments of the 7 bowls are complete and final. All evil is purged from the world and the final Day of Judgment arrives. The present world passes away and a new world appears in which heaven and earth are merged into one and the dwelling of God is with men.

Much of the imagery in these visions comes from the story of the Exodus. God’s people are strangers in the world just like Israel was in Egypt. Just as the children of Israel were mistreated in Egypt, the world persecutes the followers of Jesus. And just as God punished the Egyptians with plagues the Lord will punish the wicked world and then bring His people out in a final, cosmic exodus. Our Promised Land is the New Creation. This great deliverance of His people from a wicked world that is going to be judged and pass away is the central theme of history.

We have all probably heard that poetic line from Robert Browning: “God’s in His heaven, all’s right with the world.” But the book of Revelation tells us that all is not right with the world. An important part of Revelation is the revelation of the enemies of Christ.

The first enemy revealed is the greatest enemy of them all, the Dragon, who is Satan himself. In chapter 12 the whole drama of Redemption is replayed for us. As the Son of God is being born into the world the Dragon waits to devour Him. Unable to do so, the Dragon then makes war on the people of God who remain in the world. The Dragon cannot directly assault the Throne of God in heaven because the Dragon has been cast out of heaven. So, he focuses his attacks on the people of God upon the earth. To wage his war the Dragon calls up some helpers.

Out of the raging sea, which is a picture of the world’s wickedness, Satan calls forth a beast. We know from the book of Daniel that a beast is used to represent kingdoms or earthly government. This beast in Revelation is a combination of Daniel’s 4 beasts that he saw in a vision. This beast is arrogant, blasphemous, and begins to feed on the blood of the saints. In the time immediately following the writing of Revelation the church went through an intense period of persecution at the hands of the Roman government. Satan has continued to use governments to attack the Church.

There is a second beast. This beast uses deception. It looks like a lamb, but when it speaks it sounds like a dragon. This beast is a religious beast and represents all false religion that tries to deceive the Church. If Satan cannot overcome the Church through violent persecution, he may then use religious deception. This may have been a reference to the paganism of Rome which tried to force Christians to worship the Caesar. After the period of violent persecution at the hands of the Roman government came Constantine’s Edict of Milan in which Christianity was made the official religion of the Roman Empire and eventually created Roman Catholicism and the Papacy.

There is one more enemy. She is the most shocking image of the three enemies that are revealed. She is a beautiful woman, richly and seductively attired, riding on the back of the beast. Like the first two beasts she is also bloodthirsty for the lives of the people of God. But her way is to woo and to seduce the people of God with her pleasures and vices. She is a prostitute and her name is Babylon. She is a prostitute in contrast to the holy Bride of Christ, the Church. And she is Babylon, the secular, idolatrous City of Man in contrast to the holy City of God, the New Jerusalem. At the time of John’s writing the Prostitute was most vividly seen in the corruption of the city of Rome. But Rome was only the beginning.

This woman represents the efforts of Satan to attack the Church with worldliness. If Satan cannot succeed by persecuting the Church or by deceiving the Church, he will try to seduce the Church with the pleasures of the world. And this attack has perhaps proven to be the most effective of the three and is certainly the attack the Church faces in our society. And when the Church gives in to the seduction, “Babylon” becomes the Church’s name too. (Our Protestant forefathers often referred to the Roman Catholic Church and especially the Papacy as Babylon.) God’s people are commanded to come out of the world and to be separate and holy, not even touching anything unclean. We are not to join our affections to the world with its lusts and prideful rebellion against God.

The Interpretive Keys to Revelation

When our eyesight is not quite clear, we can go to a doctor who can make some lenses through which our vision will be corrected and sharpened. Sometimes our ability to see or understand Scripture is clouded, especially with a difficult book like Revelation. Many people choose to utilize interpretive lenses for understanding the Bible. And there is probably no other book that has more of these interpretive lenses than the book of Revelation.

There is the view of Revelation that says everything that is in this book has already happened, either right at the end of the first century or immediately following the end of the Apostolic era. So, the book was prophetic but only for the immediate future and does not speak of the entire history of the Church in the world. We can learn from the book but only as much as we might learn from the history of Israel or other events recorded in Scripture.

Another view of Revelation says that almost everything in the book of Revelation is still in the future and will only happen at the very tail end of world history. Those who take this view say that everything after the letters to the churches is still to come. So, we can learn from Revelation, but only as it pertains to some future time at the very end of the world.

Yet another view of Revelation is that this book is not about any actual events at all, past or future, but is simply a book of spiritual principles written in symbolic form. Therefore, we should not be concerned about identifying specific events depicted in the book but should try to decode the message that could apply to Christians in any period. So, everyone can learn something relevant from Revelation if we see the spiritual principles behind the strange visions.

Of course, you want to know the correct view. You will find good Christian people who take different positions on the interpretation of Revelation. Let’s not make this a test of fellowship. We don’t have to wear any interpretive lenses when we read Revelation. Why can’t the book of Revelation contain elements of all three positions: historical, futurist, and spiritual? If we use these lenses we might have to bend the text to fit our position instead of listening honestly to the Word of God as we should.

Unfortunately, many people simply avoid the book completely because of all the potential controversies the different views create. Hopefully we can fall between the extremes of condemning everyone who does not agree with us or ignoring this book altogether. We may not have a perfect understanding of the book of Revelation, but we can get within hearing distance of the message Jesus wants His people to know before He comes again.

But I am not saying that every interpretation of Revelation is equally valid. There are two serious mistakes that are made with the book of Revelation. Sometimes these errors are made by ignorant teachers who may not know any better way to understand the book. But sometimes the book of Revelation is used by religious hucksters to manipulate people and prey upon them.

First, there are interpretations of Revelation that produce fear in good, Christian people. There are some scary images in Revelation and it is part of human nature to fear the unknown. Doom and gloom is easy to sell because the future is dark and we tend to assume the worst. So, people are afraid of the Antichrist, the mark of the beast, or a future world government. So-called prophecy experts mix this fear with a little conspiracy theory and political intrigue and sell it to people who are ready to believe that something bad is just around the corner for the late, great planet earth. Never mind the fact that the book of Revelation clearly shows that Jesus is more powerful than all the forces of evil and all opposition to Christ’s reign amounts to nothing in the end.

A person with faith in Jesus cannot read the book of Revelation and then be afraid of the future. If the book scares you then you have not heard the message that was intended for God’s people.

Secondly, there are interpretations of Revelation that take the focus away from Christ and the Gospel. The message of all Scripture is the Gospel of Christ. So, if we come away from the book of Revelation with something that does not relate to the Gospel we have missed the point. It is the book of Revelation that tells us “the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.” Jesus is the star of this show and it is always wrong to upstage Him with some other issue.

Unfortunately, when it comes to the book of Revelation many people are more concerned with the mark of the beast, the rise of the Antichrist, the tribulation, the rapture, Armageddon, and the meaning of the millennium than with Christ and the Gospel. But the same Gospel that is taught all through the Bible is also revealed in Revelation. It would make no sense for God to suddenly introduce some new doctrine in the final book of the Bible.

But many people have an infatuation with the new and the novel. The book of Revelation is often viewed as entertainment, like a comic book or graphic novel, that we can enjoy in our spare time or ignore if we choose. But Revelation deserves the same kind of serious and careful consideration that the rest of inspired Scripture demands from those who want to know the whole truth of God. Those who twist, ignore, or flippantly use the Scriptures are not serious about understanding the Truth but are only interested in novelty, sensationalism or personal gain.

But we do have to admit that Revelation poses a special challenge. Humility is the first required attitude when reading this book. We may never have all the answers. Interpreting this book is sort of like playing golf: you are not going to get a perfect score, but you should try to get as close as possible. To get as close to the meaning of Revelation as we can I suggest the following guidelines:

First, we should always allow Scripture to interpret Scripture. This is true no matter what book of the Bible we are reading. But one of the reasons many people miss the meaning of Revelation is because they are not familiar with the Old Testament, particularly the Prophets.

Much of the imagery in Revelation is borrowed and recast from the Old Testament Prophets, especially Daniel and Zechariah. In fact, scholars have noticed that Revelation contains more Old Testament allusions than any other New Testament book.

Second, we must become familiar and comfortable with symbolic language. Much of the language in Revelation is meant symbolically, not literally. All the numbers in Revelation should probably be taken figuratively, for instance. These symbols cannot simply be assigned a meaning as we see fit and this is where many modern interpreters go wrong. People often want to read all kinds of modern associations into the meaning of Revelation, like one interpretation I heard that took the locusts to be attacking helicopters! The text can’t mean today what it never meant.

Third, it is wise to keep the big picture in view and not get caught up in understanding every detail. Revelation is a book of visions or pictures. In every picture, there is a focus or something that we are supposed to see. It is not wise to try to strain at every detail and miss the focus of the vision. Imagine a person who looks at a photograph of a glorious sunset, only to focus on a large rock in the foreground! However, if we do look first at the big picture we will often find the details coming into focus as well. The details are always meaningless things without this larger view. But I tend to think the book of Revelation takes the macro rather than the micro view of things. It is like looking at the lay of the land from an airplane at 30,000 feet.

The Spiritual Outcomes of Revelation

Even if we do not understand every detail of this book, the intended effect that Revelation should have on believers is to encourage hope and produce reflective sobriety. Revelation is both a word of hope and a word of warning for Christian people.

This book shows us that the world is under the control of Heaven. God has not vacated His throne and His eternal purpose marches on under the capable administration of Jesus. The world may be raging against God and His Christ now, but a new world order is coming and all opposition to the Kingdom of God will be utterly swept away. All evil will be defeated.

The message of Revelation comes to believers like good news to a besieged city that on the battlefield their King has won a decisive victory and the war is over. Very soon the enemies that God’s people see encircling them will be gone for good. Until that time, we must keep the faith. Everything that we are waiting for will eventually come into view and faithfulness will be rewarded.

On the other hand, we must be warned that the danger is not over. We are still in enemy occupied territory. The Church must not fall asleep. It seems the letters to the Seven Churches are put first for a good reason. Suffering comes before glory, as was also true of our Lord, and before we wear a crown we must take up our cross. When the New Creation finally comes, there will be people excluded. A great separation is coming and now is the time for us to choose sides. The time is coming when all choices will be finalized and locked in for eternity.

Conclusion

If we see nothing else in Revelation that is clear, let us at least see Jesus in this book. Revelation shows us that Jesus is alive and is reigning in heaven with God the Father. The main vision of Christ in Revelation is as a freshly slain lamb in the presence of God. Revelation shows us in a vision what the book of Hebrews teaches us: Christ has entered heaven with His own blood to appear for us in the presence of God.

While He was on earth Jesus won a decisive victory over the Devil, the world, and even death itself. Believers can overcome because Jesus has overcome. His victory can be our victory. And no matter how great the forces seem to be that are arrayed against us we know that “greater is He who is in us than he that is in the world.” If we will stay with Jesus there is no way that we can lose. We are more than conquerors through Him who loves us!

And very soon our beloved Bridegroom will come for His Bride. Someday the veil separating heaven and earth will be torn asunder and He will appear. The book of Revelation ends with the greatest celebration in the history of the universe: the wedding supper of the Lamb! Every great story has a happy ending, and we know how the story of all stories is going to end. God’s people will truly live happily ever after. 

What Happens When People Reject God? Romans 1.18-32

Romans: An Exposition of the Gospel

Time spent in the book of Romans is never wasted! This epistle is the clearest exposition of the Gospel in the Bible. For that reason, it has always been regarded as one of the most important books in the Bible. From one perspective, Paul is giving an exposition in Romans of the message of the entire Bible. So, this epistle is crucial if we want to understand what God is saying to us in Scripture.

But Romans is not a light-weight book! Paul is reasoning in this book and it is important for us to follow his layers of logic as he develops his thoughts. It is crucial that we understand Paul’s flow of thought and not take any verse or phrase out of the context of the entire argument.

Our text is the beginning of the first major section of Romans, which ends in 3.20. In other words, 1.18-3.20 is a single argument and thought. The thesis of the book is stated in 1.16-17. Paul then immediately writes “for” or “therefore” and we need to understand what the therefore is there for! Paul is setting the stage for his exposition of the Gospel. And this means that he must first prove man’s need for what God offers in Christ. Unless we understand the need, we will not be ready to accept the provision in the Gospel. 

So, Paul states his thesis (1.16-17), proves the universal need of mankind for the Gospel (1.18-3.20) and then returns to expound his major theme in 3.21 and following. These whole theme of Romans is the good news of God’s imputed righteousness which is available to all men through faith in Jesus Christ. But before we can accept that all men can be made righteous we must first understand that all men are not righteous in and of themselves.

Our Need for the Gospel

In this section, Paul begins to build an argument about the sinfulness of mankind and the wrath of God against sin. Paul addresses two groups of people: Gentiles and Jews. First Paul deals with the Gentile world. He then turns and addresses the sin of the Jewish people.

Jew and Gentile are the only two groups of people in the world from a purely human or fleshly perspective. Paul anticipates that both groups might try to wiggle out from under his indictments. In other words, each group might want to point out the sins of the other group while finding reasons to justify themselves. This is a favorite activity of human beings when confronted with their faults. But there is no escape from the guilt of sin and the righteous wrath of God. There is nowhere to hide. Not only are human beings sinful, we are also dishonest about our sin and we avoid the truth. But it is necessary for us to face the truth about our true condition or we will never be prepared to receive God’s remedy in the Gospel.

One of the key ideas in this section is that men are without excuse for their sin. Now this indictment even includes Gentiles who unlike the Jews had never received any direct or special revelation from God. How can God hold the Gentiles responsible for their sins if He never spoke anything like the 10 commandments to them? Paul will answer that question here. The fact is that God HAS revealed something to the Gentiles about Himself, and yet they have rejected Him anyway. The interesting thing is that included in Paul’s indictment of the Gentile world is all the great, ancient civilizations that we still admire and study today: Babylon, Persia, Egypt, Greece, and Rome. With all the great philosophy, literature, art, and architecture, these ancient people rejected the knowledge of the one, true God and suffered the consequences of their sin. Perhaps we can also see principles here that apply to our own culture.

The Wrath of God Revealed

The wrath of God is a consistent Biblical doctrine and revelation. We cannot prove the wrath of God scientifically any more than we can prove the existence of God. We come to know about God’s wrath through the revelation of Scripture. And God’s wrath is something that is taught in almost every chapter of the Bible: from His expulsion of Adam and Eve from Eden, to the Flood, the plagues on Egypt at the Exodus, the Babylonian Captivity of Israel, and then all the way through the New Testament to the apocalyptic judgments depicted at the end of the world in the book of Revelation. There is no need to prove this point. Anyone who reads the Bible is confronted with the reality of God’s wrath. There can be no disputing this truth.

But what caused some confusion in the minds of people is equating the wrath of God with the anger of men. Some people think of God as a man who gets angry and loses his temper. Perhaps we remember our earthly fathers getting angry with us for something rather petty and we carry this idea forward and transfer it to God’s wrath. But God is not a man. Men get angry because they are selfish and sinful. The anger of man does not work the righteousness of God. We must not see God’s wrath as that of a man.

We are talking here about the nature of God. God is perfectly righteous and holy. Wrath is an expression of His nature. If God is good, then He must be opposed to what is evil. If God were not opposed to evil, then He would not be good and that is unthinkable!

We read in Scripture about a final Day of Wrath when God will judge the world and every person who has ever lived. But Paul is not talking about that here in Romans. Paul says here that God’s wrath is a present, active reality in the world of men. God is revealing or expressing His wrath in the world even now. This has been the very thing shaping the history of mankind. God is not absent from the world but is actively involved, though men do not see it that way. The wrath of God that is being revealed in the world is not a fiery cataclysm like Sodom and Gomorrah, though God is certainly capable of that. Paul is writing here of God’s judicial wrath.

Remember that in the preceding verses Paul said that the righteousness of God is being revealed. Then he says that the wrath of God is being revealed. And both revelations are true. The good news of God’s imputed righteousness that comes through faith in Christ must be seen against the dark backdrop of God’s wrath against sin. In fact, this is what makes the Gospel good news! We cannot accept the first revelation of God’s imputed righteous and then reject the second revelation about His wrath. It is the revelation of God’s wrath that makes the revelation of His righteousness necessary. One of the reasons the Gospel is often not understood or accepted today is because this revelation of the righteousness of God has not been clearly communicated by the Church. People do not feel the need for the imputed righteousness because they do not know about the wrath of God.

The Gospel declares that God has provided a way for us to be saved from His wrath. The Gospel offers salvation. But from what are we being saved? Perhaps some people think we are being saved from the Devil. But ultimately it is God who is our judge, not the Devil. The Gospel provides a way for us to be righteous in God’s sight so that He is pleased and satisfied with us. God is both savior and judge. He is saving us from Himself! Someday each of us will face God either as our judge or our justifier.

In Romans Paul speaks of two revelations of God’s righteousness: there is the revelation of God’s imputed righteousness and there is the revelation of God’s righteous wrath. We will experience one or the other. In some sense, we get to choose which aspect of God’s nature we will experience. If we are not right with God we will experience His wrath. But the Gospel promises a way for us to be made right with God and escape His wrath. The very God who is our judge has also provided the only way for us to be saved. Instead of running away from God in fear we are to run to God for His gracious provision in the Gospel.

The Reason for God’s Wrath

As I have said, God is not a man. His wrath is not capricious or arbitrary. There is always a just cause for God’s wrath. In the broadest possible definition, God is opposed to all sin and that is wrath. But Paul has in mind a very particular sin and God’s response to it. What has mankind done that has brought down the wrath of God? Paul’s whole point in this section is that the Gentile world has rejected the knowledge of God. But since God never spoke directly to the Gentiles as He did to the Jews, what knowledge of God did they reject?

God has revealed Himself to every man in what He has made. The creation itself reveals a little of the glory of God. This natural or general revelation of God is available to every man, even the most primitive tribes in the deepest, darkest jungles can still see this revelation of God. Nature does not reveal everything about God. But it does reveal that God exists, that He is powerful, and that He is certainly not a part of the natural order but is separate from it and over it.

Deep down every man knows there is a God. But instead of worshiping and acknowledging God, man instead worships the creation. This is the great sin of idolatry: worshiping creation rather than Creator. In the ancient world, they did this quite literally, and we have all seen the various images of pagan deities. Mankind wanted to create his own gods rather than worship the true God. In so doing, man wanted to be his own god rather than submitting to the true God. Idolatry, in whatever form it takes, is nothing more than an attempt to escape our responsibility to our Creator.

This rejection of the Creator was not at all an innocent thing. It is not that man did not know about God. They knew and they intentionally suppressed that knowledge. They exchanged the glory, or the knowledge of God, for something else. In other words, they did not think the glory of God was worth retaining. They did not see the value in thinking about God! This is like a prospector who throws away a gold nugget and picks up a piece of quartz instead! Foolish! But think of how common this sin really is. Every day men choose to think of and pursue other things instead of the glory of God. And they consider the glory of God to be a waste of their time and effort. That is surely the great sin of humanity.

Objections to this Doctrine of the Wrath of God

As you might have known, there are many objections to the doctrine of the wrath of God. And we should be aware of what people today are thinking and how we might answer these arguments. We do not simply want to win arguments, we want to be good witnesses to the truth of the Gospel and we also want to care about people’s souls.

Secular Objections to the Wrath of God

First, there are secular objections to the wrath of God. If there is a God, they will say, we reject the idea of a judgmental, angry God. That is too exclusive, narrow, and intolerant. Furthermore, they say, in teaching people that God is angry you are manipulating their fears. We must point out to people who say that Christians are intolerant that they themselves are also being narrow and intolerant. They are saying that there is no absolute except for their belief that there are no absolutes.

The idea that we are manipulating people’s fears is based on the presupposition that what we are saying about God is not true. Otherwise, if it is true, the wrath of God is something to be feared and we are doing people a great service in warning them about it so they can avoid it, just as a good physician warns the patient about a serious disease.

Religious Objections to the Wrath of God

Secondly, there are religious objections to the wrath of God. Some people say that the idea of an angry God is just a primitive, pagan view of God. The pagan deities were always angry and had to be feared and placated. But we have more advanced, sophisticated views of God today. An angry God is an Old Testament, tribal deity, not the loving God of Jesus in the New Testament. Well, here is Paul in the New Testament saying the same thing about the wrath of God that the Old Testament prophets said about God’s wrath! And Jesus Himself warned people about Hell and the wrath of God more than any other New Testament preacher. But some Christians will say that they believe in the wrath of God, but that we must win people with love. So, they simply do not talk about it. But when we present the Gospel we must present the whole message, or we are not really presenting the truth of Gospel. In fact, we cannot really understand the love of God fully without understanding the doctrine of God’s wrath. The Gospel tells us that Jesus died to deliver us from the wrath of God and the Cross makes no sense unless we understand this doctrine of wrath.

God’s Wrath Revealed in His Abandonment of the Wicked

What Paul is really talking about here in this text in connection to the wrath of God is God’s judicial wrath. Paul is not talking about the final wrath of God on the Day of Judgment and he is not referring to come kind of cataclysmic wrath. God’s judicial wrath is expressed in the fact that God abandoned these people. This may be a new thought for some people. In fact, the very idea that God would abandon people does not fit with the popular conception of God. The popular idea about God is that He never abandons anyone but is infinitely patient and always gives everyone another chance to make things right. But that popular notion that God is infinitely patient is not taught in Scripture. God is long-suffering. God does not have a short fuse. But neither is God always tolerant of people’s sin and rebellion. God’s grace and patience should never be interpreted as tolerance or used as a license.

Consider the fact that the people Paul is speaking about were abandoned by God because they had abandoned God! These were not people seeking God, as if God were pushing them away. They had pushed God away and so God let them alone. God let them go their own way, which is an expression of His wrath. C.S. Lewis said that there are two kinds of people: those who say to God “Thy will be done” and those to whom God says “thy will be done.” In the end, Hell is God giving people what they want and leaving them alone forever. Everyone will get what they want in the end. Paul says as much right here in the next chapter of Romans: “He will render to each one according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury” (Romans 2.6-8). Whoever seeks finds. But to him who does not seek God, there comes a time when God will turn away and let him go his own way.

Paul’s words in this text seem to have been written only yesterday. People who say that the Bible is irrelevant to modern man are simply shallow in their views of man. The reason why these words seem so modern is because the moral and spiritual condition of man has not changed. The Bible operates on a deeper level than the shifting sands of culture. Cultures shift and change. Each generation looks back with disdain on the views of the previous generation and how they saw the world and lived their lives. In 50 years, the views of the most progressive people today will be laughed at as absurd by the next generation. But the problem in every generation is the same. Modern man has not progressed beyond the paganism and idolatry of his ancient ancestors. We are pagan once more, though we do not see it that way. But idolatry is a modern problem, not an ancient one. Sure, you will probably not see the old, graven images and people bowing down to them, not in Western civilization at least. But the idols are everywhere, if you know how to see them. Idolatry is just worshiping a created thing rather than the Creator. And everyone worships; even the most secular persons have something that gets them out of bed each morning. Idolatry is making anything the absolute thing, other than God. For some people this is money and everything that can be obtained with money. For some it is their career. Some worship art and all aesthetic pleasures. For others, their adoration is for other people and relationships.

Idolatry takes many forms and is still the main issue with mankind. Behind all idolatry is the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life (1 John 2.15-17). We recognize the idolatry of various illicit lusts or desires for worldly things. But the thing that really drives the world and all its idolatry is the sin of pride. Paul says that mankind rejected God while at the same time professing to be wise. People think that they are too smart to need God. Pride is a wicked, rebellious self-sufficiency and is the greatest sin of all.

The True Nature and Consequences of Sin

Many Christians have a simple understanding of the nature of sin. We think of sin only as transgressions, or breaking the commandments of God. And sin is certainly that. But it is much more than that and goes much deeper than the things we do. The sinful behavior is only the tip of the iceberg. Paul hints at this when he uses two, not one word, to describe sin in this text: ungodliness and unrighteousness. There you have this two-fold distinction of sin. The root and true nature of sin is ungodliness. This is our attitude toward God or our relationship to Him. Ungodliness is the root of sin and unrighteousness is the fruit of sin. Unrighteousness are those things people do BECAUSE they are ungodly.

Men want to be independent and to feel that they are the masters of their own fates. People want to call the shots and make their own decisions without any interference from God. We often hear people say “this is my life.” They want to not only decide what they will do, they also want to be able to make their own moral decisions as well. Rather than obeying God they want to be able to make their own rules and decide for themselves what is right and what is wrong for them. There is always a moral element in man’s rejection of God, not simply an intellectual problem. Men become atheists to maintain their moral freedom, not because they have heard some crushing argument against God’s existence.

The problem of sin is not just that we do sinful things but that we are by nature rebels who hate God. There is enmity between God and man. Men have made themselves enemies of God. Most people would never admit this. Most people say they believe in God. But when it comes to the true God they are hostile toward Him. For example, everyone wants to believe in a God of love. But if you mention the wrath of God, which is the Biblical revelation of the true God, they reject that and become hostile. They hate the true God and have invented idols in their minds.

Sin means that we fail to acknowledge or glorify God. People simply ignore God. This can be seen in a simple thing, as Paul mentions, like failing to give thanks to God. Now all of us are guilty of this. God gives us many good things, but we fail to acknowledge that these things come from God. We complain about our difficulties and we fail to thank God for His goodness and mercy toward us. That is surely the essence of sin yet it often escapes our notice completely, even with Christian people. Ingratitude is latent hostility to God. And nothing is more pagan than failing to be thankful to God for His good gifts.

When people reject God, He will let them go and allow them to suffer the inevitable consequences of their sin. We live in a moral universe. We cannot reject God and escape the consequences, any more than we can escape the consequences of the natural laws of the universe. Paul describes here the downward, degenerative spiral that happened because of the wrath of God. Increasing wickedness in society is a sign of the wrath of God as He pulls away and lets people go. We are seeing this everywhere in Western culture. We are in a more serious situation than the people Paul was describing. They pagan Gentiles sinned against natural revelation. The Jews sinned against the revelation given under the Law. Our civilization has sinned in the full, blazing light of Gospel truth.

The darkness of the mind

When people reject the truth of God, they become spiritual fools who will believe all manner of falsehoods, errors, and outright lies. People refuse to believe in a sovereign, creator God, yet they will believe in astrology and that their fates are governed by the movement of the planets and stars. People will refuse to believe in a creator God, yet they will believe that the whole universe, with all its wonders, came about by a chance explosion. They will not believe the Scripture, but they will believe in black magic, ghosts, UFOs, and elaborate conspiracy theories. They refuse to listen to the preaching of the Gospel, but will listen to the ignorant ramblings of entertainers, academics, politicians, and talk-show hosts. In this state of darkness men will tolerate nearly anything except for the truth.

The loss of conscience

They no longer feel ashamed of their sin but are proud and boastful. They don’t try to hide it but take great pleasure in putting their sin on parade. They congratulate themselves and each other on their ability to be wicked.

The loss of moral discernment

They can no longer tell right from wrong. There is complete moral confusion. The ultimate example of this inability to tell what is right is the example Paul gives of the sin of homosexuality. Even a fool should be able to see that a man goes with a woman. But in this state, they cannot even recognize this perversion.

The loss of community

But to be fair, sexual sin is not the only thing Paul mentions in this litany of wickedness. What this long list of sin illustrates is the fact that when we are alienated from God we also become alienated from each other. Human community breaks down and we can no longer live together without hurting one another and making each other miserable. The word “civilization” comes from the word “civil.” But men in this state of wickedness are anything but civil toward each other. One of the greatest miscalculations of modern thinking is that we can learn to live together in peace without being at peace with our Creator.

Are you any better?

It is very easy for Christians to read a list of sins like this and then immediately make the application to our own culture. We see these things everywhere. And so, we are quick to identify and then sit in judgment of all the dirty pagans around us. Before we go there, let’s remember what Paul is doing this this section of Romans. Paul is addressing both Jews and Gentiles. He is addressing the pagans AND the religious people of his time. And Paul’s main point is that the pagan Gentiles and the religious Jews are all in the same state! Everyone is equally guilty before God. In the next chapter, Paul will then turn to the Jews, whom he imagines are probably saying “Amen!” to everything he has been saying about the pagan Gentiles, and then writes:

“Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things.We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things. Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgment of God” (Rom. 2.1-3)?

And then at the end of this argument Paul concludes by writing:

“Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God” (Rom. 3.19).

The pagan Gentiles ignored natural revelation. The religious Jews disobeyed special revelation. And that means everyone is guilty. No one is righteous, no, not even you! In our natural state, we are all under the wrath of God. Of course, one of our favorite pastimes is to condemn others and justify ourselves. But that is exactly what Paul says we cannot do. Religious people are especially prone to being self-righteous. We believe we are safe from God’s wrath because we are religious. We are like the Jews in Jeremiah’s day who said “The Temple of the Lord! The Temple of the Lord!” while firmly believing they were safe from God’s wrath because they had the Temple. We feel that we can safely cloister ourselves behind the walls of our Temple and lob grenades out at the wicked world around us. There are many ways to hide from God, and some of those ways involve religion. But it won’t work. God sees us as we are and we cannot hide from His righteous gaze. No amount of self-righteous moralism or religious activity can make up for our lack of righteousness before God.

Conclusion

If the religious person can’t be saved by his morality, is there any hope for the immoral pagan described in this passage? The only thing that can save an immoral, irreligious person is the power of the Gospel. And the only thing that can save a self-righteous religious person is the power of the Gospel. There is no one righteous. And that means that everyone needs the righteousness that is offered through faith in the Gospel of Christ.

In the next section of his letter Paul returns to his original thesis, having established that no one is righteous:

“But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (Rom. 3.21-26).

How could a righteous God justify the guilty sinners who deserve His wrath? That would make God unrighteous and the very foundations of the universe would be shaken. But the Gospel is good news about God’s righteous way of making the unrighteous righteous (John Stott). Christ’s death on the cross was an act of Divine propitiation. Propitiation means that when Jesus died He became a lightning rod for the wrath of God.

Jesus took the wrath that we deserved and made it possible for God to be righteous while justifying the unrighteous. The God from whose wrath we cannot hide is the only safe place where we can hide.

“Rock of Ages, cleft for me,

let me hide myself in thee;

let the water and the blood,

from thy wounded side which flowed,

be of sin the double cure,

save from wrath and make me pure.”

God and the Nations (Final Message in Series)

The Healing of the Nations

Revelation 22.1-5

The Tree of Life has reappeared here at the very end of the Bible after disappearing at the very beginning of the Bible. The Tree of Life reappears in the world to come, after the entire cosmos has undergone a kind of purge. Everything that is evil or in opposition to God, or that which is offensive to Him, or that which is not in harmony with God’s nature, has all been permanently removed. What remains after this purge is the City of God, the New Jerusalem, which is the people of God, and a regenerated earth, which is where the people of God will live forever. John is seeing a vision of this new world order and what will be waiting for us there.

There is more said here about the Tree of Life than what is mentioned in the beginning in Genesis. There is nothing mentioned in Genesis, for example, of the power of the leaves of the Tree of Life. The emphasis in Genesis is on what mankind lost. Paradise regained is something even more glorious than what was lost and this vision is meant to give us hope for the future. This passage in Revelation is a preview of coming attractions and it is meant to provoke a deep longing in the hearts of God’s people.

The Tree of Life is a picture of having access, at the very source, to eternal life. And this source of Life is so potent that even the leaves of the tree will heal the nations.  God’s purpose is to reverse all the effects of sin so that all the nations are fully healed. Healing is just another way of talking about salvation. To be saved is to be healed from the deadly effects of sin. These deadly effects culminate in the Second Death, the effects of which will continue forever.

There is a way of escape from the Second Death and some will never experience the ultimate and final effect of sin. Some will have access to the Tree of Life. Instead of dying forever, they will live forever. If the leaves of the Tree can heal the nations, what do you think the fruit of the Tree will do?

We are not yet at the source of Life. We are still strangers and aliens in this world and we are not yet at home. We might think that tasting of the power of the world to come is potent and intoxicating even now. What would it be like to be at the Source of all Life? When we see the Tree of Life, the Door that had been shut to us will finally be opened, and we will be welcomed inside forever.  

The Tree of Life stands as bookends to the story of the Bible. In Eden, the Tree of Life was there. And the presence of God was there. Adam and his wife had access to the source of eternal life in the presence of God and would have lived forever in that state. But there was another tree there from which they were forbidden to eat. Here are two choices: fellowship with God or a life apart from God. God told them that if they disobeyed Him, or chose to separate themselves from Him, they would die. That would be the price of their freedom from obeying His commands. In other words, they could go their own way, do their own thing, and choose not to live in harmony with their Creator, but there would be a price to pay for that freedom and the price was death.

We know what happened next. They chose to be independent from God and the Bible says that the way to the Tree of Life was blocked and they were exiled from Paradise.

Before they were exiled from Eden, God pronounced a curse: the man and his wife would be alienated from the presence of God, from the earth itself, and from each other. Eventually their physical bodies would return to the dust. But the Lord had said that in the DAY they ate from the forbidden tree they would die. This death was not just a physical death. They died spiritually that day that they sinned. Unless God intervened, that spiritual death that began when they fell would eventually culminate, not only in their physical deaths, but in what the book of Revelation calls the Second Death, which is eternal separation from the presence of God.

All of Adam’s children are destined for the same fate. We cannot rise higher than our Father Adam. All the nations sprang from Adam’s loins and that means that men from every nation must suffer Adam’s fate. In Adam, we all died. As soon as we are born we start to die and nothing can stop that natural descent. The problem is that people today think of sin only as transgression, or the things we do that break God’s commands. But sin is much more than that. Sin is a state, a condition, even a Power, under whose dominion we are born and under whose dominion we will remain forever unless released by a greater Power. Death is the great enemy of humanity.

From the very beginning God has set Himself against Death and promised to bring Life. Even there in the Garden there was the promise of the Seed of the Woman who would come to defeat the Enemy who held the power of death. The Gospel promises eternal life. Eternal life is the gift of God. We cannot remove ourselves from Death’s grip, but God has provided a way out.

What is eternal life? When we use the word “eternal” we usually only think of a certain amount of time that never ends or cannot be measured. But eternal is not just a quantity it is a quality. And there is only one Being in the universe who possesses the quality of eternality. God said to Moses “I Am.” No other personality in heaven or on earth can say “I have always been and I always will be.” Everything and everyone draws its being from another source. But the source of all being has no other dependencies. At the center of all reality there is an eternal being, an eternal life, from which all other life proceeds and on which all other life depends.

This eternal life consists of three personalities who all share this Divine quality. Eternal life is Divine life. We must think of a quality not just a quantity. This is much more than simply existing, because those who experience the Second Death will continue to exist but they will not have life. To have eternal life is to share in the Divine Life. As C.S Lewis said, this Divine Life is like a great, eternal, cosmic dance and we are being invited to join in. Life consists of activity and movement as well as a relationship or reciprocity. Just like people who are dancing are moving together in perfect harmony and rhythm, in agreement about their next move, those who have eternal life are in perfect agreement and unanimity with God.

This eternal life is a gift that God wants to give and to share with Adam’s race. He is inviting us into the Divine dance. Those who were once alienated, estranged, and exiled can be brought back into harmony with the heart of all reality. To know God intimately and experientially is to have eternal life. God is giving us Himself. The gift of God is God. Without God, we die. With God, we will really begin to live. This is the life for which we were created and for which we are also recreated in Christ. Jesus, the Son of God, is the distributor of this Divine Life. He has this Life in Himself and He can give it to whomever He touches.

Get close enough to Jesus and He will inject you with His eternal, Divine life. Jesus Himself is the Tree of Life.

But in the book of Revelation we do not see or have access to the Tree of Life until the New Creation appears. The Gospel promises us eternal life through Jesus now, yet access to the Tree of Life has not yet been given. Right now, you and I are living in that tension between the “now” of the Gospel and the “not yet” of the Kingdom of God. We are not in the New Creation yet. The old order of things has not yet passed away. We still find ourselves bound to a world where the principles of sin and death still hold sway. The children of God are promised eternal life, yet it is obvious that every believer occupies a physical body that is destined to return to the dust.

There is a sense in which this New Creation, this new world order, has already broken through. We have become new creatures in Christ. But the project is not complete. There is more to come, in fact, the best part of the Kingdom of God and our salvation is still in the future tense. The children of God are in a state of patient waiting in this world and the incompleteness of our redemption causes us to groan and to travail, like a woman who is in labor. A woman who is with child must wait in hope. And even though the bringing forth of a new life is filled with joy, as she progresses toward her time her pain and her labor increase in intensity. We are experiencing birth pains, along with the rest of Creation, as we wait for the New Creation to be born. Only when the New Creation has fully come will we be given access to the Tree of Life. Until then, we groan with longing for our complete redemption as the children of God.

The idea of waiting for a new world to come or going to heaven immediately raises a chorus of objections from our modern culture. It was Karl Marx who said that religion is the opiate of the people, the thing that keeps them numb to their misfortune in this world while they wait for heaven. Modernity is all about progress. But how do you make a better world here and now when people are content to wait for heaven instead? And modern thinkers have done their best to convince people that this world is the only world there is and that every step should be taken to improve it for all concerned. Christianity is often seen as the enemy of modern, scientific progress. The charge against Christianity is that Christians are content to wait for heaven instead of making the world a better place now. Let’s admit there is a real concern here. There is a brand of mystical, escapist religion that neglects the duty to love our neighbor, help the poor, and stand against evil and injustice.

The Modernist is concerned about the state of the world because he believes this is the only world. They urge us to be concerned about humanity while also teaching that humans are the random product of time and chance and that all our thoughts, hopes, and dreams are just the products of chemicals in the brain. Eventually, says the Modernist, we will all become extinct like the dinosaurs and the whole history of humanity will prove meaningless in an uncaring universe.

But the Christian is concerned about the state of the world because he believes people are made in the image of God and are loved by their Creator. The Christian believes in a righteous God who cares about injustice and will eventually right every wrong.

If there is a world coming in which righteousness will reign, then it makes sense to begin to prepare for that world now. If there are things that won’t make it into the world to come, then it makes sense to root them out now.

And that’s why Christians have always been the most socially active people. It was Christian influence that ended modern slavery, established hospitals for the sick, built orphanages for neglected children, established universities for learning, and championed the cause of the poor and oppressed all over the world. Like a gardener who clears the rocks from a field in preparation for planting, Christians want to prepare for the world to come.

The fear of the secular person is that people who believe in heaven and a spiritual world are simply waiting for pie in the sky that they will never obtain. We naturally have a real fear of disappointment. Are we hoping in a myth and just playing make-believe to help us deal with the natural difficulties of life? Some say faith is just a crutch for the weak who cannot deal with the harsh realities of the world.

But we must ask these same questions of the secular world view. On what do they build their hope? How do they know that human progress will continue to achieve all their goals? Perhaps the utopian vision of modern man is nothing but pie on the earth instead of pie in the sky. Why should we trust humanity and put our hopes in the progress of science and technology? Do we really have evidence that a better world is coming? Many secular people are beginning to wonder if the earth itself can endure as the home of humanity and are beginning to look at colonizing other planets! Almost all the Hollywood movies are depicting dystopia in the future rather than utopia. We are living in a generation of despair not of hope for the future.

But Christians claim to have hope for the future. We say there is a new world coming and the book of Revelation gives us a glimpse of that future hope. How do we know that vision of the future is real and reliable? If we want hope for the future, we must look to the past. We have already seen a glimpse of the future in the past. We know there is a world coming in which there will be no more death because Someone has already overcome death. Jesus, risen from the dead and exalted into Heaven, is the first fruit of this New Creation. Jesus is the Second Adam, the first of the New Humanity. And we shall be like Him. Jesus is our guarantee that we will one day eat from the Tree of Life in the New Creation and live forever. We live because He lives! Our hope is based on the resurrection. If He has not been raised, then we who have placed our hope in Him are of all men the most pitiable.

But there is another piece of evidence that the Tree of Life is real. This evidence is more subtle and personal. Within the heart of every person there are desires and longings. We go through life desperately trying to fulfill these desires. We turn to relationships, career, romance, and family to satisfy the longing of our hearts. Most of the time we fail to think about this longing in any rational sense and when we do it often hurts us to realize that there is nothing that we have found that has really fulfilled those deepest desires. To avoid this painful longing, we just don’t think much about it and we keep on trying to find those little distractions to dull the ache. At the same time, we must also deal with the painful reality that, no matter what we might gain in this world that means so much to us, eventually we are going to die and we will suffer the loss of all our earthly dreams and accomplishment.

Every pleasure on earth is tinged with the bitterness of mortality. But we desperately want something that does last forever. We want a love that will never end. We want to be happy forever and yet we know that in this world we can’t be, and it breaks our hearts.

We often fail to realize that this deep longing of the heart is a clue to the central meaning of our lives. That desire which nothing in this world can satisfy was placed in our hearts by our Creator. The fact that nothing in this world can satisfy those desires means that there must be another world where God will satisfy all our desires. I do not mean to imply that everyone will eat from the Tree of Life. The book of Revelation makes it clear that some will be excluded from the New Creation. But if there are desires in our hearts that nothing in this world can satisfy, then surely the central point and meaning of our lives is to seek for that which can satisfy us, even if that means letting go of everything else in this world. The whole reason for our existence is to look for this Tree of Life.

But you will never find the Tree of Life in this world. The Tree of Life will only reappear in the New Creation. And that is why a large part of the Christian life consists of learning to wait patiently. It is when we are not willing to wait on God but seek to fulfill our own desires that we fall into vanity and foolishness. This is one of the great follies of youth, and sometimes the lesson only comes through painful experience. This world is not the Kingdom of God. The Christian must learn to lower his expectations about life in the world. If we do not learn this lesson, we will continually be disappointed with life and will eventually come to despair.

Christians can become uncompromising idealists. We have the image of the perfect marriage, the perfect family, the perfect Church, the perfect Christian society. And these things keep eluding us and it is frustrating. Even more dangerous is the doctrine that Christianity is a way of getting what you want in the world. The Gospel of health and wealth is as popular as it has ever been. We have simply baptized the American Dream.

And the number of people who have become angry with God when they did not get out of life what they want continues to grow. Most people don’t quit Christianity or become atheists because of some convincing intellectual argument. People stop believing in God because this world has failed to deliver their expectations for perfect happiness. But, why should it? The Tree of Life is not here.

This vision of the Tree of Life in Revelation is not meant to make us passive. The Tree of Life has not yet appeared, but the healing of the nations has already begun. Earlier in the book of Revelation we saw a great multitude that could not be counted from out of every nation on earth. The Bible does not teach that every person will be saved, but the book of Revelation makes it clear that there will be saved persons from out of every nation on the planet. It is God’s express purpose to make Himself and His salvation known throughout the world and in every nation on earth. The leaves of the Tree of Life will eventually heal the nations, but before that the message of salvation must be preached among the nations.

We are preparing for that time when the Tree of Life appears again. We are making our reservations for that new order. The Gospel is the harbinger of that new order, that new world. Some people have said that talking too much about the world to come is a distraction from the mission of the Church to the nations. But this vision at the end of the Bible of the Tree of Life is the very thing that motivates us to keep preaching the Gospel.

Eternal Life has been made available and God is inviting, through the Gospel, all the nations to come and participate. Everything has been made ready.

But think for a moment what was required for us to be able to come to the Tree of Life. After they sinned the way to the Tree of Life was blocked by an angel with a flaming sword. That meant that anyone who sought access to the Tree of Life would have to pass under the sword of judgement and death. The price for access to the Tree of Life was death.

When Jesus went to the Cross He passed under the sword of God’s judgment and death to give us free access to the Tree of Life. That’s why in the book of Revelation Jesus is most often pictured as a lamb freshly slain. God wants us to see and understand the price that was paid to give us access to the Tree of Life.

We could never have found our way back to the Tree of Life or managed to pass under the sword of God’s judgment. But a way has been made for us. There is a way back into the presence of God without any fear of death. Jesus is that way. If we believe that Jesus is the Son of God, He will begin to share His Divine life with us, securing us a place in the New Creation. He came to share God’s very life with us, to invite us to come into that Divine, eternal dance at the center of all reality where we can be happy forever. At any moment, we may step into this eternal life and begin to enjoy it.

Special Christmas Message

God Remembers His Holy Covenant with Abraham

Luke 1.68-75

Luke’s account of the birth of Jesus really tells of two miraculous births. The angel is first dispatched to announce the birth of John the Baptist to two old people who had never been able to have children. And then there is the famous announcement of the birth of Jesus to a woman who had never been with a man. When Mary asks the angel how this will happen, the angel reminds her that “nothing is impossible with God.” Angelic visitors announcing a miraculous birth reminds us of another episode in Scripture where an old couple who had never been able to conceive were promised a son. Angels visited Abraham and Sarah and told them that Isaac would be born. Sarah had laughed at the idea of having a child in her old age and the angel asked her “is there anything too hard for the Lord?” God fulfilled His promise to Abraham and Isaac was born. Luke wants us to understand that the birth of Jesus was the ultimate fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham.

Luke is connecting the birth of Jesus with the whole history of the people of Israel and God’s promises to them, beginning with Abraham. We cannot begin to understand the Gospel until we see it in this larger context. Jesus did not simply appear on the stage of world history as if out of thin air. Jesus was born to fulfill, or bring to completion, a long history of God’s dealings with the people of Israel, beginning with a crucial promise that God had made to Abraham. If we want to really understand the meaning of Christ’s birth, we must see it in this way. Jesus was born to fulfill Scripture and prophecies which had been given to Abraham and to his descendants, the people of Israel. The Savior of the world would be born in Israel. He would be a descendant of Abraham and of King David. This was what God had promised and what had been written down in holy Scripture. And so, this is how we would be able to recognize the one God had sent to be the Christ: he would fulfill the prophetic Scriptures and all the promises God had made to Abraham and his family.

This means that Jesus is really the theme of the entire Bible. Everything that was written in what Christians call the Old Testament was pointing to Jesus in anticipation of His birth, and everything that was written afterward, in what we call the New Testament, was written to unpack the significance of who Jesus is and what He came to do on this earth. Everything God has promised to do for us is fulfilled and completed in Jesus Christ. This fact was announced by an angelic messenger when Jesus was to be born so we would understand the context and the significance of what was taking place. At Christmas, with all our tradition and sentimentality, we often do not stop to think deeply enough about the true meaning of Christ’s birth. Even Christians, who respect the Scripture as the Word of God, fail to see everything the Bible is communicating about the significance of Jesus’ birth. The Gospel, or the good news about Jesus, is deeply rooted in what God had already promised to Abraham.

The first eleven chapters of the Bible, in the book of Genesis, tells of the creation of the world and the subsequent fall of humanity because of Adam and Eve’s original sin. Everything that follows the expulsion of our parents from Eden is an illustration of the effects of sin on humanity. The section ends with the incident at the tower of Babel where God comes down to confuse the languages of men and scatter them over the earth. In the next chapter of Genesis, we meet Abram. Abram is a descendant of Shem, one of Noah’s three sons. Abram is living with his family in Ur, a city which is known even to secular historians as one of the great cities of the ancient world. The Bible makes it clear that humanity has already forgotten about the one, true God and has begun to worship idols. Abram does not know the true God, but Abram receives a call from God. Without an explanation, God speaks directly to Abram giving him a command and a wonderful promise:

“Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 12:1-3).

This promise of blessing comes on the heels of God’s judgement and curse on all the peoples of the earth at Babel. But God’s revealed purpose is to bless the entire world through Abram. This promise of blessing is repeated to Abram several times during his life, always at key times, such as Abraham’s obedience to God’s command to sacrifice his only son, Isaac. The same promise of blessing is then reaffirmed to Isaac and then to Jacob.

Clearly, this promise to Abraham is setting the stage for everything else that God is going to say and do in the rest of Scripture. This promise of blessing for the world, that will come through Abraham, is the revealed purpose of God and thus becomes the context for the progressive revelation of the rest of the Bible. In other words, the rest of the story of the Bible is about how God will keep this promise that He made to Abraham. When the angel announces the birth of Jesus, it is made clear that the time had come for God to fulfill His promise to Abraham. What we have in this promise and its fulfillment in Christ is the key to the message of the entire Bible, the heart of the Gospel, and the essence of Christian faith. New Testament writers, especially the Apostle Paul, will continue to unpack the significance of this promise to Abraham and its fulfillment in Jesus Christ, as well as what this means for the world.

It is difficult to overstate the importance of this revelation. Anyone who really wants to be a student of the Bible and to understand the meaning of the Christian message must understand the significance of the promise God made to Abraham and its fulfillment. Unfortunately, there is tendency, even in Christian circles, to view the Bible as a collection of many teachings on different subject, all of which have equal importance, depending on what our needs happen to be at any moment in time. And while Scripture certainly does speak authoritatively on every subject, we will never gain insight into the whole of Scripture if we approach it piecemeal in this way. Scripture has a single message that runs throughout and forms the foundation for our faith and relationship to God. We must first become familiar with this message or we will inevitably misuse Scripture for our own purposes. The promise of God to Abraham and its fulfillment in Christ is this message that we need to understand.

This word that God gave to Abraham is called a promise, it became the basis for a covenant that God made with Abraham, and it is also something about which God Himself swore an oath to fulfill. This is something that the one, true God has committed Himself to in a radical fashion. God bound Himself to this promise and sealed the deal, so to speak, as a man might sign a legally binding document in a business deal. This consideration should make us pause. Why would God be doing something like this?

We must consider the fact that God owes us nothing in the first place. Other than God’s own desire to do this, there is no other explanation for His choice of Abram. God seems to be doing this just because He wants to, and for no other reason. Abram was not seeking God. But God was seeking Abram. All the impetus was with God. God made a promise He did not have to make, and then, to make things even more interesting, He bound Himself to that promise by making a covenant, a formal agreement, with Abram. Abram did not ask God to do this. And the covenant that God made does not even follow the traditional outline of a covenant. There is nothing for Abram to do on his side of the deal, except to agree to what God is pledging Himself to do for Abram! Under normal circumstances, a covenant has two sides, both of whom must agree to do certain things to keep their end of the bargain. But God did not bargain with Abram at all. God simply made a commitment to Abram. Furthermore, to top it all off, God even swore an oath. We must see the remarkable condescension of God in all of this! God did not have to promise Abram anything, nor did God have to ratify it with a formal covenant. To add one final, seemingly unnecessary thing to this deal, God took it upon Himself to swear an oath to Abraham, that the promise would be fulfilled. Again, Abraham did not insist on God swearing this oath. In fact, it would seem to be an insult to God to insist that He must swear an oath after making a promise. The only reason we would insist on someone swearing an oath is if we felt there was a chance that the individual might not carry through and keep their end of the deal. But God swears an oath that He will keep His promise to Abraham! Is there any chance that God is telling a lie or that God might not be faithful to His promise?

There are two reasons God did these things: first, God wanted to underscore the importance of what He said to Abram. Obviously, this matters to God if He is willing to bind Himself in a covenant and then swear an oath. Secondly, God is helping Abram, and everyone who reads about this promise, to believe what God has said He will do. God is helping us to trust Him and believe His word. The writer of Hebrews gives a profound exposition of this truth:

For when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself, saying, “Surely I will bless you and multiply you.” And thus Abraham, having patiently waited, obtained the promise. For people swear by something greater than themselves, and in all their disputes an oath is final for confirmation. So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us” (Hebrews 6:13-18).

God’s promise to Abraham has been ratified by a covenant, and confirmed by an oath. There is nothing in heaven or on earth that can stop this promise from being fulfilled! This is a sure thing, and that gives us a reason to trust God and to have hope. This promise is as sure as the rising of the sun each morning.

God’s promise was blessing, not only for Abram and his family, but for all the families of the earth. This blessing would flow out into the world through Abram and his family. To be specific, the blessing would come through Abram’s “seed”, or descendant, the meaning of which will become extremely important. But this promise was made to an old man who had no descendants at all because Sarah, his wife, had never been able to conceive a child. The fulfillment of this promise of blessing would depend initially on Abraham having a child. How would this happen if Abraham and Sarah were barren and past the natural age of child-bearing? Sarah and Abraham decide to help this process by using Hagar to have children for them. The result is Ishmael, who, while technically being the descendant of Abraham, was not the child of promise. God makes it clear that Sarah will have a child and the only way this could have happened was through Divine intervention, since Sarah was barren. The promise was not going to be fulfilled through human effort but by Divine power. And this is more than a passing detail.

God’s blessing cannot be enjoyed through any effort of the flesh, no matter how noble the intentions. Abraham’s blessing is not obtained through our works but only through the work of God in our behalf. In other words, the blessing is enjoyed only by God’s grace. Abraham and Sarah were simply asked to believe or to trust God’s word on the matter. Both Abraham and Sarah had laughed to themselves when they were told by the Divine messengers that they would bear a child in their old age. And so, the child of promise was named Isaac, which means laughter. There is simply no human explanation for the fulfillment of God’s promise and there is nothing we can do to earn the blessing for ourselves. We must trust in the power of God to bring about His promise, as Abraham and Sarah had to do. The blessing would flow to anyone, even those who were not Abraham’s descendants, who would trust God’s promise as Abraham had done.

The rest of the world would come to know the one, true God, and to trust Him, through Abraham and what God had said to him. This is so important in Scripture that God, the one, true God, is called the God of Abraham. We are supposed to think of God in connection to what God promised Abraham. Through this word and the promise made to Abraham we come to know the true God.

Even though God later appeared to the people of Israel at Mt. Sinai and made a covenant with them through Moses, this original covenant made with Abraham was never forgotten by God. The covenant made with Abraham and the covenant made through Moses were both part of a single, Divine purpose from which God never deviated. However, we must understand that the promise to Abraham was always God’s original intent. The Law that God gave through Moses must be seen and understood in the light of God’s first revelation to Abraham. We get a crucial perspective on this from the Apostle Paul. Paul wanted to make it clear to the Galatian churches, who were attempting to go back to the Law as a means of justification, that the Law was never the source of God’s blessing. In fact, the Law that was added to God’s original promise to Abraham, until the promise could be fulfilled. Paul makes his profound argument in this way to the Galatian believers:

“This is what I mean: the law, which came 430 years afterward, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to make the promise void. For if the inheritance comes by the law, it no longer comes by promise; but God gave it to Abraham by a promise” (Galatians 3:17-18).

When God gave the Law through Moses, this did not in any way cancel the promise He had made to Abraham. If the blessing came through Law, then that would have to mean that the promise made to Abraham had become void. But this could not be, or God would be unfaithful. God would fulfill His promise to Abraham, but the Law was not the fulfillment. The Law was not the blessing God had promised. And the Law could not bring the promised blessing of God to the world. In fact, the Law brought a curse because it underscored the sinfulness of the human heart. The Law was put into effect only until the time came for God to fulfill His promise. The Law did exactly what God designed it to do, which was to point out the problem of sin. For the blessing of God to be realized, something would also have to be done about sin and the guilt brought by the Law. But the Law itself could never remove sin and bring the blessing that God had promised to Abraham.

The blessing promised to Abraham would come through his “seed.” The identity of this seed, or descendant, is crucial here. Could this “seed” simply be Abraham’s children, the people of Israel? Collectively, they are the seed of Abraham and they have certainly been a blessing to the world since through them the world can come to know the true God. But God’s promise to Abraham was that he would have many descendants, and that they would be as numerous as the stars in the sky and the grains of sand on the seashore. The blessing would come through a single “seed” not through many descendants, although many descendants were promised to Abraham. The apostle Paul picks up this line of reasoning to the Galatian believers: “Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, ‘And to offsprings,’ referring to many, but referring to one, ‘And to your offspring,’ who is Christ” (Galatians 3:16). Paul is saying exactly what had previously been revealed and announced at Jesus’ birth: Jesus is Himself the “Seed” of Abraham through whom the promised blessing would come to the world! Jesus is the fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham and the source of the Divine blessing for all the families of the earth. Jesus is the true child of promise, born through the miraculous intervention of God into human life. Jesus is the promised blessing and the source of further blessings from God. As the Gospel of John says of Him: “For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace” (John 1:16). The blessing of God flows out to the world through a specific person. If we want the blessing, we must come to know this person. And this is what moved the Gospel writers to show us the facts about who Jesus is. Their accounts do not read like ancient myths, but as actual history and events witnessed by real people. These are not cleverly invented fables designed to start a new man-made religion. This is God visiting His people and keeping promises that He had made previously to Abraham and his family.

Even though the fulfillment of the God’s promise was announced when Jesus was about to be born, we should not think that the birth of Jesus was the single event that fulfilled everything about God’s promise. Rather, the birth of Jesus would begin the fulfillment of the Promise. Remember that we are talking about the incarnation of the Son of God. God had to take on human flesh and be born as a helpless baby to bring about the blessing that God had promised. This would not be any ordinary blessing if it required the Son of God to come in this way. There were blessings that God could send by direct order from His throne without coming to earth as a man. God had blessed Abraham and made him rich. God also promised many blessings to the people of Israel, if they kept His covenant. God is certainly capable of blessing us with material things or with physical strength and vitality. God can bless parents with many children, give increase to our labor, and even victory over our enemies. All these blessings God can give directly from heaven without coming to earth himself as a little baby. But when God really wanted to bless the world, He sent His Son. Therefore, the blessing that God promised to Abraham had to be much more than something earthly or material, such as health or wealth. People today who think of God’s blessing us only in those terms fail to understand the true meaning of God’s blessing and the nature of the Gospel of Christ.

Remember that the Law was not the blessing God promised Abraham, but brought a curse instead of a blessing. The curse of sin and death hung like a dark, black cloud over humanity, shutting off the light and blessing of God. The Law was given to make it clear to us that something had to be done about the problem of sin and guilt if we were to really experience the fullness of God’s blessing. In fact, it would be unrighteous for God to bless us while we were still in our sin. Blessing guilty sinners would be a breach of Divine justice and a compromise of God’s character. The problem of sin was not a simple one. It even presented God with a kind of dilemma. God wants to bless. But, God is righteous and cannot ignore sin, evil, or rebellion. We deserved a curse, not a blessing from God. And so, Jesus came into the world to answer and solve this dilemma. He became a man to take away the curse that man’s sin had brought into the world. In fact, Jesus was made a curse when He went to the Cross. He suffered the death that we all should have died so that God could bless us. That is why Jesus was born. And so, at Christmas we are fond of singing these words:

“No more let sins and sorrows grow

Nor thorns infest the ground

He comes to make His blessings flow

Far as the curse is found

Far as the curse is found

Far as, far as, the curse is found!”

All that remains is for the blessing to be received by us. And for that, Abraham can also instruct us. How did Abraham receive the promise of blessing? He believed God’s word. Abraham became the father of all those who trust God. Abraham was justified by faith. All of Abraham’s children, even those who are Gentiles, are justified, or made righteous before God, in the same way: by faith. Just as Abraham believed the word that God gave to him, we must believe the word of the Gospel of Christ to be justified and made righteous before God. Being justified is more than just being forgiven. We are truly made righteous, given a whole new status with God, and made into His children through the adoption of the indwelling Holy Spirit. The ultimate blessing that God promised to give us was Himself, which is eternal life.