Revelation – Letter to a Friend (3)

 

There are many books and commentaries on Revelation and the so-called End Times, one of the few I recommend is Discipleship on the Edge by Darrell W. Johnson. In fact, I’d put Johnson’s work in first place and last place, that is, it is good to begin with Johnson and end with Johnson and keep referring to Johnson – because Johnson is focused on Jesus Christ, insisting on seeking Christ, insisting on living with Christ.

 

“I am convinced that no other book helps us see Jesus as he is right now as clearly and compellingly as the last book John wrote” (p.13, italics in text).

 

“No other book helps us see Jesus relative to “the powers” at work in our time the way the last book does. No other book helps us see him in a way that overcomes our fears and frees us for radical faith” (p. 13).

 

Johnson writes that if he could keep only one book of the Bible that it would be Revelation. Then he rephrases himself and writes, “If I could be kept by only one book of the Bible I want to be kept by the last” (pg. 14).

 

I love Johnson’s humility and his trust in Jesus as he writes:

 

“I do not claim to have the last word on the last book of the Bible…I believe what John believes…I am not always sure what he believes! I am, therefore, gladly constrained to simply live in the particular texts of the Revelation until they open themselves up to me; or, as I should say, live in the text until the Jesus of the text breaks through to me” (pg. 16, italics mine).

 

Lest you think the above means that Johnson is wishy – washy, in my next reflection I will share a quote from him that should correct that impression. Furthermore, his determination to know and seek Jesus and only Jesus is the type of commitment and perseverance we need today within the professing church in America.

 

A wrong approach to Revelation and Biblical eschatology can lead to evil beyond anything I could have thought possible, I know this as I look around me, both nationally and internationally, as I witness professing Christians endorsing and participating in evil. Without a nonnegotiable focus and commitment to Jesus Christ we have no hope – and this focus and commitment must be exclusive.

 

As we see Jesus and participate in His life, in His Cross, we become overcomers in Him and begin to experience the “already – not yet” glory of the Lamb, the Father, and the New Jerusalem.

 

“To Him who loves us and released us from our sins by His blood – and He has made us to be a kingdom, priests to His God and Father – to Him be the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen” (Rev. 1:5 – 6; see also 1 Peter 2:9).

 

Revelation is written to bondservants of Jesus Christ. These slaves have been released from their sins by the blood of the Lamb and being released they have become the perpetual bondservants (with the ear pierced by an awl, Deut. 15:17) of the Lamb. Revelation is written to those who have been made a kingdom in Christ, priests to God the Father. In other words, Revelation is written to the Kingdom of Priests in Jesus Christ. We are to read Revelation as bondservants, we are to read Revelation as citizens of the Kingdom of God, and we are to read Revelation as God’s Priesthood.

 

We are not to read Revelation to satisfy our curiosity, to know more than those around us, or to look for a way to escape our responsibility as disciples of Jesus Christ, as priests unto God the Father. Priests, at least faithful priests, give themselves for others, they live on behalf of others; faithful priests do not run away, they stand with their people, they suffer with their people, they lay down their lives for others, just as our High Priest Jesus Christ laid down His life for us.

 

Bishop Fulton Sheen wrote a book a few decades ago that Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox clergy should read prior to ordination, its title is, The Priest Is Not His Own. Since God has made every Christian a priest, we all ought to live by the truth of this statement, for we all have been purchased by the blood of the Lamb.

 

The Scriptures call us to be overcomers in the midst of trial and tribulation, to suffer with Jesus and for Jesus, to live cruciform lives on behalf of others. The message of Revelation is clear, just as the Lamb overcame by His death on behalf of others, so we overcome as we lay down our lives for the Lamb and others.

 

Those who follow Jesus wherever He goes are those who lose their lives for His sake and the Gospel (Mark 8:34ff). They are those who do not love their lives, even unto death (Rev. 12:11).

 

I make a point of all this for many reasons, one of which is to state what should be obvious; you aren’t going to sell many books and videos, or get many people to attend your hyped conferences, with this message; you aren’t going to get your radio audience hooked on your next broadcast.

 

But you will be telling the truth.

 

Lambs of the Lamb

 

 

“All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; but the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him. He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He did not open His mouth; like a lamb led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, so He did not open His mouth” (Isaiah 53:6 – 7).

 

“For Your sake we are being put to death all day long; we were considered as sheep to be slaughtered. But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us” (Romans 8:36 – 37).

 

“But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).

 

Are we lambs of the Lamb?

 

More precisely, are we sacrificial lambs of the Sacrificial Lamb?

 

Is it enough to read Isaiah 53 and say, “Here is evidence that Jesus is Messiah?” Is it enough to read Isaiah 53 and preach it as an evidentiary text?

 

Are we not called to believe into the Christ of the passage and surrender ourselves to Him, allowing Him to enter into us, living in us and through us to others?

 

If this is so, then what is this to look like? How is Christ Jesus to be manifested?

 

Are we not to lay down our lives for others, just as Jesus Christ laid down His life for us?

 

“This is my commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:12 – 13).

 

“We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren” (1 John 3:16).

 

And here is the thing dear friends, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us! Jesus teaches us that we are to love our enemies, blessing those who are opposed to us (Matthew 5:43 – 48), so that we may be the sons and daughters of the Living God. As the sacrificial life and death of Jesus Christ redeemed us, reconciling us to God when we were enemies of God (Rom. 5:10), so we are called to lay down our lives so that others may be reconciled. After all, we are the organic Body of Christ, are we not?

 

Note the emphasis on “He did not open His mouth,” in Isaiah 53:6 – 7. Consider that “Our griefs He bore and our sorrows He carried” (53:4), ponder “the anguish of His soul” (53:11), “He poured out His soul to death” (53:12), and “He Himself bore the sin of many, and interceded for the transgressors” (53:12).

 

And then let us ask ourselves, “Is this a description of my life? Is this a portrayal of my local congregation? Is this how the professing church in America looks today?”

 

Dear, dear friends, what matters to the world…and I think to our Lord Jesus Christ, is not so much the evidence we have in linking the events of Isaiah 53 to those of Good Friday and Easter, but rather the evidence the world sees in our lives as we embody the sacrificial Lamb of Isaiah 53 – for this is indeed our calling. To have the former without the latter is to have a body without a soul.

 

In Romans 8:36 Paul brings his readers to the glorious fruit of the Gospel in our lives, the result of justification and sanctification, the glory of all that he has taught leading up to his quotation of Psalm 44:22, and that glory is that we follow the Lamb wherever He goes…and He goes to the Cross. The glory we lost in Romans 3:23 is eclipsed (if we can use such a term) in 8:28 – 39, for we enter into the koinonia of His sufferings (Phil. 3:10).

 

“To the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing, so that also at the revelation of His glory you may rejoice with exultation” (1 Peter 4:13).

 

“Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I do my share on behalf of His body, which is the church, in filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions” (Colossians 1:24).

"Death works in us, but life in you" (2 Cor. 4:12).

 

Is Isaiah 53 a portrait of our lives?

O Jesus, please make it so.