Days of Vengeance - The Preterist Archive

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14:14-16 I may find them prompt; nay, I will entice them that they may devour me promptly, not as they have done to some, refusing to touch them through fear. Yea, though of themselves they should not be willing while I am ready, I myself will force them to it. Bear with me. I know what is expedient for me. Now I am beginning to be a disciple. May naught of things visible and things invisible envy me; that I may attain unto Jesus Christ. Come fire and cross and grappling with wild beasts, cuttings and manglings, wrenching of bones, hacking of limbs, crushings of my whole body, come cruel tortures of the devil to assail me. Only be it mine to attain unto Jesus Christ. The farthest bounds of the universe shall profit me nothing, neither the kingdoms of this world. It is good for me to die for Jesus Christ rather than to reign over the farthest bounds of the earth. Him I seek, who died on our behalf; Him I desire, who rose again for our sake. The pangs of a new birth are upon me. Bear with me, brethren. Do not hinder me from living; do not desire my death. Bestow not on the world one who desireth to be God’s, neither allure him with material things. Suffer me to receive the pure light. When I am come thither, then shall I be a man. Permit me to be an imitator of the passion of my God. If any man hath Him within himself, let him understand what I desire, and let him have fellow-feeling with me, for he knows the things which straiten me.” 17 Alexander Schmemann reminds us, however, that “Christianity is not reconciliation of death. It is the revelation of death, and it reveals death because it is the revelation of Life. Christ is this Life. And only if Christ is Life is death what Christianity proclaims it to be, namely the enemy to be destroyed, and not a ‘mystery’ to be explained.” 18 Yes, says the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors; and their deeds follow with them. Again there is a contrast with the fate of the Beast-worshipers, who will have no rest day and night from their torments. The persevering saints are encouraged to continue in faithfulness, for their eternal rest is coming and their works will be rewarded. Biblical perseverance is determined by the rewards of eternity, not by the tribulations of the moment. Biblical hope transcends the battle. This does not mean that the Bible commands an other-worldly neglect of the present life; but neither does it countenance a perspective that is only, or primarily, this-worldly. Our sinful tendency is to go in one direction rather than the other, but God calls us to be both this-worldly and other-worldly. Biblical faith calls us to work in this world for dominion with all our might (Gen. 1:28; Eccl. 9:10), and at the same time reminds us constantly of our eternal hope, our ultimate rest. The Son of Man, the Harvest, and the Vintage (14:14-20) 14 And I looked, and behold, a white Cloud, and sitting on the Cloud One like the Son of Man, having a golden crown on His head, and a sharp sickle in His hand. 15 And another angel came out of the Temple, crying out with a loud Voice to Him who sat on the Cloud: Put in your sickle and reap, because the hour to reap has come, because the harvest of the Land is ripe. 16 And He who sat on the Cloud threw His sickle over the Land; and the Land was reaped. 17 And another angel came out of the Temple which is in heaven, and he also had a sharp sickle. 18 And another angel, the one who has power over the fire, came out from the altar; and he called with a loud shout to him who had the sharp sickle, saying: Send forth your sharp sickle, and gather the clusters from the vine of the Land, because her grapes are ripe. 19 And the angel threw out his sickle to the Land, and gathered the vine of the Land, and threw it into the great winepress of the wrath of God. 20 And the winepress was trodden outside the City, and blood came out from the winepress, up to the horses’ bridles, for sixteen hundred stadia. 14-16 These verses form the centerpiece of the whole section, verses 6-20. We have seen three angels making proclamations to the Land of Israel (v. 6-13); three more will appear, to perform symbolic actions over the Land (v. 15, 17-20); and in the center is a white Cloud, and sitting on the Cloud One like a Son of Man, having a golden crown on His head. This is the familiar Glory-Cloud, with which Christ was clothed in 10:1; now it is white, and not dark as on Sinai (Ex. 19:16-18; cf. Zeph. 1:14-15). St. John’s reason for referring to the Cloud in this context can be discerned from his connecting it with the Son of Man. The reference is to Daniel’s prophecy of the Coming of the Messiah to His inauguration as universal King – a vision which follows his prophecy of the Beasts with seven heads and ten horns: I kept looking in the night visions, And behold, with the Clouds of heaven One like a Son of Man was coming, And He came up to the Ancient of Days And was presented before Him. And to Him was given dominion, Glory, and a kingdom, That all the peoples, nations, and men of every language might serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion Which will not pass away; And His kingdom is one Which will not be destroyed. (Dan. 7:13-14) St. John’s point is clear: Let the Beasts do their worst – the Son of Man has ascended in the Clouds and received everlasting dominion over all peoples and nations! His Kingdom will never be overthrown; He will never have a successor. It is clear also that this is a vision, not of some future coming to earth, but of the result of Christ’s original Ascension in the Clouds to the Father – the definitive Parousia. 19 The Son of Man reigns now as the Second Adam, the King of kings. St. John does not show Christ coming in the Cloud, but in fact already seated on the Cloud, installed on His heavenly throne. Earlier (v. 6), he showed us the 17. St. Ignatius, Epistle to the Romans, iv-vi, ed. and trans. J. B. Lightfoot, The Apostolic Fathers (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, [1891] 1956), pp. 76f. On the early Christian attitude toward martyrdom, see Louis Bouyer, The Spirituality of the New Testament and the Fathers (Minneapolis: The Seabury Press, 1963), pp. 190-210. 18. Alexander Schmemann, For the Life of the World: Sacraments and Orthodoxy (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1973), pp. 99f. 152
14:17-18 Israelite officials sitting over the Land; over against them sits the Lord Christ, enthroned on the Glory- Cloud (cf. Ps. 2:2-6). The King has not only a crown on His head, but also a sharp sickle in His hand. And another angel came out of the Temple, crying out with a loud voice to Him who sat on the Cloud: Put in your sickle and reap, because the hour to reap has come, because the harvest of the Land is ripe. The first angel in this triad repeats what the first angel of the other triad had said (v. 7): The hour has come! This time, however, the emphasis falls not on judgment but on blessing, the gathering in of the elect. This, too, is connected with the work of the Son of Man in His Parousia, when He sends out His “angels,” His apostolic messengers, to gather in the elect (Matt. 24:30-31). The word for gather is, literally, to synagogue; His meaning is that Israel, which refused to be synagogue under Christ (Matt. 23:37-38), will be replaced by the Church as the new Synagogue. The first churches were simply Christian “synagogues” (James 2:2), and looked forward to the soon-approaching Day when apostate Israel would be thoroughly disinherited, and the Church revealed as the true Synagogue, “gathered together” in the final, New Covenant form (2 Thess. 2:1). Jesus described the Kingdom of God as a great harvest (Mark 4:26-29), and told His disciples: “Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes, and look on the fields, that they are white for harvest. Already he who reaps is receiving wages [cf. Rev. 14:13], and is gathering fruit [cf. Rev. 14:4] for life eternal; that he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together” (John 4:35-36). Accordingly, the first angel (representing his earthly counterparts) calls on the Son of Man to put in His sickle (mentioned seven times in this passage) and reap, praying in obedience to Christ’s command: “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few; therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest” (Matt. 9:37-38). From His Cloud- Throne the King answers the Church’s prayer: Throwing His sickle over the earth, He sends out harvesters; the Land is reaped, and the fruit is brought into His Kingdom. The image of the sickle is connected in Scripture with Pentecost, celebrated after the grain had been harvested (Deut. 16:9), when the Spirit is poured out in salvation and blessing (Acts 2). 17-18 St. John returns to the theme of judgment, for the concomitant of the gathering of the Church is the excommunication of Israel. Genesis 21 records how the recognition of Isaac as the child of promise required the casting out of the bond-woman Hagar and her son, Ishmael; and St. Paul saw in this story an allegory of the rejection of old Israel and the recognition of the Church as the “heir of the promise.” He spelled it out to the churches of Galatia, which had been infiltrated by Judaistic teachings: “It is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the bondwoman and one by the free woman. But the son by the bondwoman was born according to the flesh, and the son by the free woman through the promise. This is allegorically speaking: for these women are two covenants, one proceeding from Mount Sinai bearing children who are to be slaves; she is Hagar. Now this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. But the Jerusalem above is free; she is our Mother. . . . And you, brethren, like Isaac, are children of promise. But as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so it is now also. But what does the Scripture say? ‘Cast out the bondwoman and her son, for the son of the bondwoman shall not be an heir with the son of the free woman.’ So then, brethren, we are not children of a bondwoman, but of the free woman” (Gal. 4:22-31). Old Jerusalem, the capital city of apostate, persecuting Judaism, was cast out, excommunicated from the Covenant, even as the Church was being recognized as the legitimate heir of the promise. Christians, born of the Spirit, are the true children of the heavenly Jerusalem. A second angel, therefore, comes out of the Temple which is in heaven to assist in the harvest with his sharp sickle. At first this appears to be simply a continuation of the first harvest, but St. John makes a subtle shift, going all the way back to the beginning of this section of Revelation in order to draw on its imagery of wrath. Christ instructed his disciples to pray, not just for the conversion of Israel, but for its destruction as well; and thus in 6:9-11 we saw the saints gathered around the golden altar of incense, offering up their imprecatory prayers for vengeance. Shortly after that scene, at the beginning of the Trumpet visions, an angel took the censer of the saint’s prayers, filled it with the fire of the altar, and threw it onto the Land; “and there followed peals of thunder and voices and flashes of lightning and an earthquake” (8:3-5). Now, at the close of the Trumpet section, St. John sees the same angel, the one who has power, not just “over fire,” as most translations render it, but over the fire, the fire burning on the altar; and he comes specifically from the altar of the saints’ prayers in order to render judgment, to bring about the historical response to the worship and the prayers of the Church. He too prays for a harvest – but this time it will be a harvest of the wicked, the “grapes of wrath” (Joel 3:13 similarly combines the images of harvest and vintage). So this third angel calls to the second angel, the one holding the sickle, and says: Put in your sharp sickle, and gather the clusters from the vine of the Land, because her grapes are ripe. God’s Vineyard, Israel, is ripe for judgment. My well-beloved had a vineyard on a fertile hill. And He dug it all around, removed its stones, And planted it with a bright red grape. And He built a tower in the middle of it, And hewed out a wine press in it; Then He expected it to produce good grapes, But it produced only worthless ones. 19. See David Chilton, Paradise Restored: A Biblical Theology of Dominion (Ft. Worth, TX: Dominion Press, 1985), pp. 68ff., l02f. 153
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But when you see Jerusalem surround
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Copyright @ 1987 by Dominion Press
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FOREWORD Foreword Readers of the Bo
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PUBLISHER’S PREFACE Publisher’s
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PUBLISHER’S PREFACE case for esch
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PUBLISHER’S PREFACE this book bec
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PUBLISHER’S PREFACE In contrast,
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INTRODUCTION St. Irenaeus is somewh
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INTRODUCTION we must be saved” (A
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INTRODUCTION previous relationship
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INTRODUCTION You have lain down as
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INTRODUCTION are only elaborating a
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INTRODUCTION early churches had suc
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INTRODUCTION actions mean more than
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INTRODUCTION Some will complain tha
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INTRODUCTION Outline of Revelation
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1:1-3 that must shortly take place.
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1:4-6 accomplishment. We probably h
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1:7-8 observe that a central aspect
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1:9 14 And His head and His hair we
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1:16 That all the peoples, nations,
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1:20 things that must shortly take
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INTRODUCTION TO PART TWO Part Two H
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INTRODUCTION TO PART TWO The confli
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2:4-6 endure evil men. . . . And yo
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2:9-10 dead, and has come to life:
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2:14-16 expression (none of which m
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2:18-23 and leads my servants astra
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2:26-29 end, to him I will give aut
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3:4-6 church, or even against a nat
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3:8-11 And I will clothe him with y
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3:14-16 sons disinherited and cast
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3:21-22 the elders of a church, and
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INTRODUCTION TO PART THREE The laws
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4:2-3 numerous names and descriptio
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4:5-8 19) led Biblical writers to s
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5:1-4 family worship; it is radical
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5:5-7 St. John; and it seems as if
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5:8-10 have gained the victory for
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6:1-2 6 IN THE PATH OF THE WHITE HO
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6:3-4 forth conquering, and to conq
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6:9-10 And authority was given to h
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6:15-17 that Israel’s time has ru
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7:4-8 Though he flourishes among th
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7:4-8 they were listening to the Ap
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7:9 is presumably deliberate, for i
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7:10-14 inheriting the Kingdom (Mat
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7:15-17 They will not hunger or thi
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8:3-5 for that would be about the l
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Page 124 and 125: 12:1-2 12 THE HOLY WAR The Book of
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Page 146 and 147: 14:1 14 THE KING ON MOUNT ZION St.
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20:4 The relationship between the p
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20:5-6 earth? The answer should be
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20:7-8 ministry; that was Satan’s
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20:9-10 St. John’s image for the
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20:12 redeemed with Thy precious bl
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21:1 21 THE NEW JERUSALEM The Bible
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21:1 Pet. 3:5-7; cf. the same analo
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21:3-5 will be established finally,
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21:9-11 The New Jerusalem (21:9-27)
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21:15-21 Covenant of Grace; the fac
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21:24-27 And deep darkness the peop
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22:3-4 Paradise is not, therefore,
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22:6-9 Final Warnings and Blessings
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22:17-21 unconquerable strength and
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CONCLUSION the pure Bride-City, is
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CONCLUSION does not exempt us from
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APPENDIX A it is reflected in “It
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APPENDIX A make him a pillar in the
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APPENDIX A and wine the night befor
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APPENDIX A Babylon, falsely priestl
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APPENDIX A B. CHRISTIAN WORSHIP 1.
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APPENDIX B been the defining mark o
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APPENDIX B The Bible teaches us tha
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APPENDIX C APPENDIX C Common Grace,
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APPENDIX C for all eternity because
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APPENDIX C better arrangement cultu
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APPENDIX C be destroyed. The two ex
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APPENDIX C universe. It is governed
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APPENDIX C completed, the world was
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APPENDIX C deceive the nations. The
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APPENDIX C creeds and theological u
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APPENDIX C coherence that at least
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APPENDIX C There is continuity in l
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Athanasius. On the Incarnation of t
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________. The Institutes of Biblica
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