Although Scripture teaches us that God’s love is unconditional,
it also makes plain the fact that the measure of God’s favor is dependent on the
human response to His love. Some
modern Bible interpreters reject the idea that God’s full character
includes an element of judgment. Yet, to do this these people must excise
entire sections of the Scripture record and ignore scores of passages which in
plain language describe the wrath of God which leads to judgment. ( See The
Goodness of Wrath)
We only have to read to the third chapter of Genesis to find
God executing judgment on His creation. Due to their disobedience, Adam and Eve,
our fore parents, are removed from the perfection of the Garden of Eden and
left to fend for themselves, more or less, in an environment that is far from
perfect. A mere ten generations later, the record reveals that humans had
become so despicable in their misbehavior that God passed judgment using a
world-wide flood to wipe clean his creation, saving one faithful man and his family
by means of the ark. Here too, there is another division when Noah’s son Ham is
excommunicated for his transgression leaving the lines of Shem and Japheth to
continue.
A few more generations pass when God again must
deal with human disobedience at the Tower
of Babel, dividing them into groups by giving each a different language. Shortly
thereafter, God again chose one man to further His plan, the man called Abram,
descendent of Shem. This line is further split assigning chosen status to the
progeny of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. This line, after growing into a nation we
call Israel, then became God’s history lesson. God repeatedly showed His love
and favor while continuing to display His wrath when His people disobeyed.
In the desert wanderings, after God lovingly removed Israel
from Egyptian bondage, He winnowed out the unbelievers so that His remnant was
prepared to conquer the land He had promised Abraham. After the conquest, throughout
the period of the judges and kings, God chastised Israel time and again by allowing the
surrounding heathen nations to place them in bondage. The low point for Israel
was the Babylonian captivity and destruction of Jerusalem with its holy temple in 576 B.C. which seemed to mark the end of
God’s favor, but He promised through His prophets that after seventy years they
would return. And so they did.
The returned remnant rebuilt the temple and instituted a
system of religious observance that sometimes mirrored God’s plan and sometimes
mocked it. Then, when the time had fully come, as
Paul puts it, God sent the Seed He had promised all the way back at the
fall of Adam. The Jews had been looking for the Promised One for centuries.
Ironically, when He finally arrived in history, the Jewish religious leaders
who should have welcomed Him failed to recognize Him because of their slavish
reliance on the human religion they had developed.
God’s plan continued unthwarted as He used the disobedience
of His chosen people to complete His perfect plan. The Spotless Lamb of God,
pictured for centuries in the Jewish ceremonial sacrifices, was mocked, beaten,
and crucified by the very people He came to save. In their recklessness, the
Jewish leaders inadvertently brought salvation to all who would believe, and they
wrought destruction on their cherished religious charade. The very people who
killed their Messiah lived to see Jerusalem utterly destroyed as a judgment for
their unbelief.
It was here that the mystery of God, hidden
for the ages says Paul, came to light. The Seed that had been promised to
Abraham became the Light to the nations spoken of by many of the prophets throughout
Israel’s history. The ringing bell of the New Testament sounds the message that
the kingdom of this world has become the kingdom of the Lord. God brought His
Son into the world not just to save humans but to
save His entire creation. The hidden mystery is that God will recreate Eden
and populate it with the faithful of every generation, nation, tribe, and
tongue.
As I finish the year in the book of Revelation, I am
reminded that many people today hold to an interpretive scheme for the book
that looks for a coming rapture, tribulation and subsequent thousand-year reign
of Christ on earth. Most of the people I know who treasure that view are
unaware that for about eighteen hundred years, a different interpretation held
sway over most of the church. Indeed, many Christians today still believe the
ancient message. According to that view, God’s judgment pictured in the book of
Revelation was executed in 70 A.D. when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and the
temple for the final time. That view rings most true to me as it recognizes the
history-changing significance of the Cross of Christ and the finality of the subsequent
judgment on the apostate nation of Israel. (See “Why I
am a Preterist”)
Whether one holds to the dispensational-millennial view of Revelation
that places most of the book in the future or the view that sees all but the
last couple chapters as completed history, one thing remains the same for all
believers. We can all treasure the fact that God is in control, whether in
judgment or in favor, in war or in peace, in tragedy or blessing. That is the
ultimate message of the Bible, in my opinion. God loves His creation, and the record
given to us in Scripture demonstrates that He is calling a people to Himself. I
pray that you may be among the called so that no matter how the last pages of
Scripture play out, you will be assured an eternity with God sharing nothing
but His favor as the ages roll on.
i am going to have to read Revelation again. I am not sure how I view your opinion of it. Thank you for writing like you do and sharing it with everybody.
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