I had a dear
friend who was a landscape painter; he is now with the Lord. One of the blessings
of having an artistic friend is watching the creative process, both in the
moment as he brings a canvass to life and over years as you absorb the body of
his work. We have two paintings and one print of his hanging in our home, and
to see them is to see my friend, not just to see the individual work, but to
see years of friendship and to see the individual work within his body of work.
A visitor to our
home may appreciate a painting, but he cannot appreciate the body of work for
he does not know the body of work. As much as a visitor may enter into a
painting, he cannot possibly appreciate my friend’s body of work; for while the
body of work expresses common threads and nuances, all of these are not
necessarily contained in every individual painting, or if they are, they may
not always be discernable.
One of the
original paintings we have is quite special, in fact, it is especially special.
It is a beach scene from the Outer Banks of North Carolina and it has five people
in it. Two of the people are walking down the beach together. One person, a woman,
is sitting in a sand chair close to the ocean. A man is sitting in a chair
under an umbrella reading a book. A young woman is sitting in a chair under an
umbrella not far from the man.
The couple
walking down the beach are strangers to the artist.
The young woman
is the artist’s daughter.
The woman in the
sand chair is my wife Vickie.
I am the man
reading the book.
Our friend and
his family were vacationing with us and the painting is from a photo he took.
This would be a
special painting if I told you no more about it, but there is more. You don’t know
there is more, but there is more.
Our friend seldom
included people in his paintings. Animals yes, people no.
His wife,
however, is also an artist. They collaborated on this painting, our friend the
husband painting the landscape and our friend the wife painting the people. They
painted this for us as a Christmas gift. This painting has always been prominently
displayed in our home and we love telling the story of our friends as people admire
the beautiful scene.
Someone familiar
with the husband’s body of work might view the painting and say, “That’s
unusual, I’ve never seen people in his paintings.” Someone unfamiliar with our
friend would not think the people unusual.
Darrell W.
Johnson writes that the imagery of Revelation “sustains the new vision of
reality” (page 22). “The images have to stay as they are, for it is the image
that embodies the message” (page 23).
On page 23
Johnson has a quote from Eugene Boring which we would do well to ponder:
“They [Revelation’s
images] are not mere illustrations of something that can be said more directly.
A picture makes its own statement; it is its own text. It does not
communicate what it has to say by being reduced to discursive, propositional
language. Just as is the case in visiting an art gallery, while commentary and
explanation may help one to ‘get the picture,’ language about the picture can
never replace the message communicated in and through the picture itself…
“It would be
a violation of Revelation’s mode of communication to attempt to summarize its
message in a manner that would make the image itself unnecessary.” (Italics
mine).
Now let me
attempt to tie my story about our artist friend and the imagery of Revelation
together.
“John sees what
he sees and hears what he hears through his Old Testament-informed imagination.
There are more than 500 quotations from and/or allusions to the Old
Testament in his work. This fact alone tells me that if I want to read
Revelation correctly, I, too, need to be steeped in the whole biblical story”
(page 23, italics mine).
It is one thing
to see one of my friend’s paintings, it is another thing to see the painting in
the context of his body of work. With Revelation, it is more of a case that we
can see very little in a scene, in an image, unless we see it in the tapestry
of the Old Testament, unless we see the images of the Old Testament flowing into
and through the imagery of Revelation. A single painting by my friend is not
likely to be misinterpreted, each painting can stand alone. However, misunderstanding
a single passage of Revelation is highly likely if two things are missing; a
heart seeking the unveiling of Jesus Christ, and a heart, mind, and soul
steeped in the Old Testament.
Another way to
put this is, if we do not know the prophet Zechariah, if we do not know Exodus,
if we do not know Ahab and Jezebel, if these images and stories are not coming
through the pores of our skin, then we had better think again before we think
we know much about Revelation. Furthermore, if our desire is not for Jesus
Christ, to know Him, obey Him, and tell others of Him – no matter the cost!
– then we had better think again before we are so very foolish as to think we
can gain insight into Revelation.
Anyone teaching
Revelation outside the context of radical obedience to Jesus Christ, which
means nonnegotiable witness today, is someone to be avoided.
Does this mean
that if we are low on the Biblical learning curve that Jesus will not reveal
Himself to us through Revelation? I don’t think it means that, for the Holy
Spirit takes of His and reveals it to us (John 16:12 – 15). However, it does
mean that our vision is limited by our Biblical travels, our context. It also
means that we are more susceptible to being diverted by teachers who sensationalize
their “prophetic” teaching and who seek to entice us to discern the entrails of
the news and current events rather than seek Jesus Christ.
We cannot, I
think, touch and experience the texture of Revelation without living in the
texture of the Old Testament. This does not happen overnight and any teacher or
pastor who says otherwise is to be avoided – discipleship is a lifelong
journey, there are no quick avenues to conformity to the image of Jesus Christ.
To see Jesus in the text of Revelation is to be continually challenged to
obedience to Him and witness for Him to others.
And here let me again
quote Johnson on page 16 of his book:
“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 though to me.”
It seems to me
that this humility, and this recognition of our need for Jesus and the Holy Spirit,
is the prerequisite for not only "seeing” Revelation, but for reading and
experiencing the entire Bible.
No comments:
Post a Comment