Revelation: - Knights of Columbus, Supreme Council

puts the triumph in the indefinite future, at the time of the resurrec tion of the
just: “Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father
after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign
until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed
is death.” Yet in the same breath he adds (v. 27): “For God has put all things
in subjection under his feet.”
The triumph of Christ can be spoken of as past, because once for all
through His life, death, and resurrection He has conquered death and sin. But
He has done so only to the extent that men accept His salvation and live by
it. He has con quered the enemy, which no longer has any power over one who
is truly Christ’s. But men can fall under this power again and again if they will
to reject Christ’s grace. Hence the life of Christians in this world is a battle,
characterized by both victories and defeats, and the ulti mate triumph of Christ
is reserved to the future when this battle has been fought to its conclusion.
It is about this that John has written. For him Christ is the conqueror
Who “has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests
to his God and Father” (1:5-6); He is “the ruler of kings on earth” (1:5); “I
died, and be hold I am alive for evermore, and I have the keys of death and
Hades” (1:18). But Christ lives on in His Church, as Paul also taught, and the
victory of Christ must consequently be constantly repeated in his members.
“To him who conquers…” is the condition of His promises to the churches
(2:8; 2:11; 2:17; 2:26; 3:5; 3:12; 3:21). “Be faithful unto death and I will give
you the crown of life” (2:10). Until the work of the Church has been done,
Christ’s victory is not complete. It was to assure his readers that this victory
would be complete, that the Revela tion of John was written.
Prophecy
This, when all is said and done, is the entire message of the Apoca lypse.
True, some details of the Church’s victory are included, but relatively few, and
then nothing precise but rather in generalities. The book is not concerned
with various stages or ages of the Church, for example, or with sharply defined
eras of the future. Past, present, and future are rather mingled in the one
prophetic vision, precisely as our Lord mingled the prediction of the
destruction of Jerusalem with His description of the last times (Matthew 24;
Mark 13; Luke 21). They are, in fact, one; or rather, they are various aspects of
the same thing. The destruction of Jerusalem and the temple was a
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