Cracking The Code
Cracking The Code
It has been said that the Bible's Book of The Revelation is "the playground of religious eccentrics", and that it either "finds a man mad, or leaves him mad"!
The great Protestant Church reformer, Martin Luther, wanted it to be left out of the Bible altogether. However the gruff Presbyterian, New Testament scholar, William Barclay (Scotland 20th C), wisely counselled, "We shall doubtless find this book difficult and bewildering. But equally doubtless we shall find it infinitely worthwhile to wrestle with, until it gives us its blessing, and opens its riches to us."
His sentiments are entirely in accord with the Holy Spirit's, expressed in The Revelation,
"Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near." (1.3)
"And behold, I am coming soon. Blessed is the one who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book." (22.7)
The Revelation's difficulty is also its key for unlocking. Many approach to interprete it as a "christian" book...which it is, and which it isn't. It is a "christian" book, insofar as it is "The revelation of Jesus Christ" (1.1) and is contained in the NT Canon. But it also is not a "christian" book, because it is first-and-foremost and uniquely Jewish.
As William Barclay has pointed out, The Revelation is "written exactly on the Jewish pattern" of numerous post-OT and pre-NT "apocalypses". "Apocalyptic Literature was (uniquely) the product and result of an undefeated and indestructible Jewish hope," he has said.
 John the Apostle |
The key and most potent Jewish symbol in The Revelation appears in three places...most significantly at the book's actual centre. (Revelation 12.9 is the book's centre by verse count.) At the beginning of this chapter there appears "a great sign...in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars".
Who is "she"? The Roman Catholic Church sees Mary, the mother of the Lord Jesus. Protestants by-and-large believe they are viewing the Church...especially in the Last Days.
But what does the Bible itself have to say about this woman?
In Genesis 37.9, Joseph dreamed that "the sun, the moon, and eleven stars were bowing down" to him. His father Jacob (who became Israel) immediately understood that this dream was about him and his family.
"Shall I and your mother and your brothers indeed come and bow ourselves to the ground before you?" Jacob asked, sounding somewhat irritated. (37.10)
The woman is Israel, and we need to understand that God's Jewish People are, so far as He is concerned, His "great (prophetic) sign". Speaking of His own return and preceding events (Luke 21.25) the Lord Jesus said, "There will be signs (attesting miracles) in the sun, moon and stars." What could be more miraculous and public than Israel's endurance for the past 2000 years, the reconstitution of the nation-state of Israel, their survival of the onslaught of the 1948 War of Independence, and the 1967 restoration of Jerusalem to Jewish jurisdiction and care?
So chapter 12 gives us an extraordinarily panoramic view of the history of God's Jewish People from beginning to end. (By the way, Revelation 12's position in this book also puts paid to any notion that this Apocalypse can be interpreted chronologically.)
And how does it end for them? Well, certainly not as so many Christians today arrogantly believe, around 70 AD with the destruction of Herod's Temple. Israel's history continues long after Calvary, and ends not in assimilation or annihilation. It ends in the total victory described by the Apostle Paul in Romans 11.25-26,
"Lest you be wise in your own conceits, I want you to understand this mystery, brothers: a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And in this way all Israel will be saved ..."
And this is precisely what is pictured in The Revelation 12.13-14,
"And when the dragon (satan) saw that he had been thrown down to the earth (after Jesus' victorious ascension into Heaven), he pursued the woman (historical anti-semitism) who had given birth to the male child (Jesus). But the woman was given the two wings of the great eagle so that she might fly from the serpent into the wilderness, to the place where she is to be nourished ..."
The eagle here is not the USA, as some rather nationalistic preachers are presently claiming. According to the Bible the eagle is God who saves,
"You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself." (Exodus 19.4)
"He found him (Jacob-Israel)in a desert land ... He cared for him ... Like an eagle that stirs up its nest ... spreading out its wings ... bearing them on His pinions, the Lord alone guided him ... He suckled him with honey out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty rock." (Deuteronomy 32.10-13)
This exclusively Jewish icon of the "sun, moon and star" appears in two other places in The Revelation.
The first (6.12-13) appears when the Lord breaks the sixth seal of the "scroll written within and on the back, sealed with seven seals". (5.1)
"When He opened the sixth seal, I looked, and behold, there was a great earthquake (collision of massive, opposing forces), and the sun became black as sackcloth (mourning for the death of a loved one), the full moon became like blood (murder), and the stars of the sky fell to the earth as the fig tree (Israel) sheds its winter fruit when shaken by a gale (out-of-control force)."
In very broad (impressionistic) terms, at the breaking of the scroll's seals I believe we are witnessing the long-term, historical consequences of mankind's failure to receive Jesus as Lord, Saviour and King. Events at the breaking open of the sixth seal portray the ugly history of anti-semitism and the fact that at the end God will judge this with unparalleled fury.
"Hide us...from the wrath of the Lamb" cry "the kings of the earth and the great ones and the generals and the rich and the powerful..." (6.14-17)
Immediately after the appearance of this key icon and interpretative marker-post, another potent symbol of Israel springs off the page...the 144,000 (7.4) which represents the fullness of Israel saved by Jesus and sealed by the Holy Spirit.
As in Revelation 12, Israel's history is here again portrayed as one of long-term, heart-breaking suffering which culminates not in shame and death...but rather in glorious salvation and eternal life.
The second appearance of our key sign is in Revelation 8.12, "The fourth angel blew his trumpet, and a third of the sun was struck (violence), and a third of the moon, and a third of the stars, so that a third of their light might be darkened, and a third of the day might be kept from shining, and likewise a third of the night."
The blowing of the seven trumpets is God's prophetic countdown through the days prior to His Second Coming. What is portrayed here is chilling for three reasons in particular,
- This passage speaks of the 20th C Holocaust in Europe, in which at least one third of the world's Jewish People were systematically murdered by decree of the government of Hitler's Germany. A searing account of a childhood spent in Nazi death camps was bluntly titled by its author Elie Weisel, "Night"!
- This sign gives a clear and unequivocal date to plot onto the prophetic countdown represented by the seven trumpets. The Holocaust occurred during the 1930s and 40s.
- After the Holocaust, God Himself cries out over the whole earth a message of the utmost gravity, "Then I looked, and I heard an eagle crying with a loud voice as it flew directly overhead, 'Woe, woe, woe to those who dwell on the earth, at the blasts of the other trumpets that the three angels are about to blow.' " (8.13)
We are living in those days...between the blowing of the fourth trumpet and the seventh, which itself is the last and which heralds the arrival of the King of kings, "In the days of the trumpet call to be sounded by the seventh angel, the mystery of God would be fulfilled, just as He announced to His servants the prophets." (Revelation 10.7)
"Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, saying, 'The kingdom of the world has become the Kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever.' " (11.15)
By way of confirmation of the above, the employment of the icon of "the sun,moon and stars" to represent Israel in the Last Days also occurs in the Prophet Joel. Before the arrival of "the great and dreadful day of the Lord" Joel predicts that "the sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood". (2.31) And further he prophesies that when "the day of the Lord is near...The sun and moon will be darkened, and the stars no longer shine." (3.14-15)
But as is also uncovered in The Revelation, Joel similarly foresees a glorious conclusion for Israel, "The Lord will...thunder from Jerusalem...The Lord will be...a stronghold for the people of Israel...Jerusalem will be holy; never again will foreigners invade her...In that day...all the ravines of Judah will run with water...Judah will be inhabited forever and Jerusalem through all generations. Their bloodguilt which I have not pardoned, I will pardon. The Lord dwells in Zion." (Joel 3.14-21)
Now, read on (out loud) and be blessed! Now that's a promise.
