Beginning to End

The end of The Revelation of the Apostle John in the New Testament is as positive, as glorious, and victorious as a narrative could be.  God’s disappointment on the admission of depravity to the human race in the early verses of Genesis is now ended with a summary of the redemptive conclusion to the bitter/sweet history of man and earth.  It is a story of restoration, and new beginnings, and in that process God is proved to mankind with clarity.  No longer will we look through a glass darkly (smoked glass). (1 Corinthians 13:12)  The contact between man and God will be quite direct.   I remember as a child that we were going to look as directly as we could at an eclipse of the Sun.  We were warned in the newspaper and by adults attending us that we must look at the eclipse through darkened glass.  We could see the eclipse, but details would not be available.  To look directly might damage our eyes, perhaps cause blindness.  The Old Testament reminded readers that even though God was nearby, he could not be seen.  If he were seen the person of nature would die.   Samson’s parents had a bit of a tiff over the matter.  (Judges 13:22)  His mother won.

The final two chapters of the Revelation could not be more positive for future earth and mankind.  Just as the Apostle is coming to the end, he offers a complimentary close as a personal accent.  He wanted his readers to know that all the preceding narrative came from God, and, given the nature of the material, persons needed to be comforted in some way relative to the cataclysm of the world’s ending events and judgment, all transitional to the magnificent description of restoration and life to follow, beginning with Chapter 21, and carried through Chapter 22 – to the Apostle’s personal note at the end.  He warns against any addition to the Book, so to provide the faith belief that this is the close of Scripture.  Anything added from this point will be spurious to Scripture, if divine source is claimed.  The order is strong, and includes as well a warning against any subtraction or addition to what is written.  This is foundational for our reviews.

The verse here, verse eleven, is somewhat different than any other verse in Scripture.  The writer asserts with forceful language that tolerance is commanded of God.  Although God hates sin, he tolerates it, for the present, and so should we.  In no way does that approve any matter that violates the holy nature of God, but it does permit mankind to survive for the present in a context of good and evil, of right and wrong.  In this tolerance God protects his nature of love and peace with patience.  He also protects his full right to be judge (evaluate for purpose) of all matters in his creation, so to judge righteously and look forward to correction of violations.  The whole of the ethical context of the Christian is written in this admonition that there is a common grace that permits the conduct of mankind as free, and that God will provide, in that freedom, for moral responsibility of each person.  God’s perception begins with the individual, and completes it for mankind in the society.  Made for fellowship with others and God, individuals will be provided resources to maintain righteousness as fulfillment of who they are meant to be, and meant to be from the beginning.  Choice by the human individual relates not only to God, but the preferred context of life.  Free to choose, we choose not only God (or no god), and consequent culture from one’s choice.

Mankind, unique in the animal world because of self-consciousness and reason, has been provided something from God in that uniqueness (God image) that must never die.  Consciousness must remain, whether in the body (corporeal) or separate (essence) from it.  That consciousness will have a body meaning, but so different from that of mortality that it comprises a new creation.  The more we try to explain it, the more far out it becomes so to invite skepticism.  Just enough is provided in Scripture to reduce the follies of man in telling God what to do, and making excuses.  Those matters include: witness and the building of the Church of believers in Christ; conduct (righteous) guided by Scripture and informed conscience; attitudes founded in love and prayer for all; and, service given freely to mankind regardless of the orientation in which mankind is found.  Clear enough, with room for tolerance: Revelation 22:11.