Friday, March 1, 2013

Revelation 17:1-18 and 20:9-27: What is and What’s to Come

Presented to Swift Current Corps of The Salvation Army 03 Mar 13
By Captain Michael Ramsay

Quiz: Name that beast (answers at bottom).

  1. A Swiss inventor created him.
  2. The creature killed his maker’s family.
  3. His creator pursued the creature to the Artic where the creator died.
  4. This beast doesn’t really have a name.
  5. He is remembered by the name of his creator.
  6. His creator is Dr. Frankenstein.

  1. This beast is in need of a shave.
  2. Zevon and CCR (maybe) sings about him.
  3. Michael J. Fox played one.
  4. This beast comes out at night.
  5. He should be avoided during the full moon.
  6. What the 3 little pigs ask?

  1. This beast has many names throughout the world
  2. He has been spotted in the U.S., China, and Canada
  3. In China, he may be related to Frosty yet
  4. In the U.S, he needs to see a specialized cobbler
  5. In Canada, apparently he drinks Kokanee beer
  6. It is another name for a timepiece made in Regina

Susan just got a book, the other day about worst-case scenarios. It speaks about what do if you are attacked by an octopus, an alligator, a python. I was looking for something in there about a beast from revelation but I didn’t find one. The passage that we are speaking about today speaks about a beast and prostitute. Revelation itself has the answer to the question, what do you do when you face a prostitute with a beast in this worst case scenario and that is what we are going to look at briefly today. Now I will tell you off the (vampire?) bat what is the main theme of this pericope. It is the same as the main theme of this whole letter. That is this: whatever happens in this world, as you turn to and remain in Christ, everything will be okay.

Our message today is entitled, ‘What is and what is to be’. First we are going to look at what is: the political reality of the text in Revelation 17 that we read today.

The passage speaks about a prostitute. There are a lot of things that are left open to interpretation in the book of Revelation. The identity of this prostitute is not one of those.[1] She is ancient Rome; she is not contemporary Rome but she is ancient Rome. That she is Rome of the Roman Empire there is no real question. (Also Babylon; cf. 2 Baruch 11:1; Sib Oracles 5:143, 158; 1 Peter 5:13; Hippolytus Christ and Antichrist 36; TDNT, 1:516). Rome was a great city (v. 18), Rome was set on seven hills (v. 9), and Rome (by the time of Domitian, A.D. 85), was notorious for persecuting and killing the saints (v. 6).[2] Ancient Rome was the centre of trade and capital and war and the Roman peace. The Roman prostitute, she conquered the Mediterranean world and starting with Julius or Augustus Caesar, who are each variously accepted as the first of the ten kings here mentioned, this prostitute’s leaders were worshipped as gods and any who would worship them could live.[3] “But [as one Roman Official wrote] if they are accused and handed over, they are to be punished, but only if they do not deny being Christians and demonstrate it by the appropriate act, i.e., the worship of our gods. Even if one is suspect because of past conduct, he or she is to be acquitted in view of repentance.”[4] So Christians to whom their faith didn’t matter were spared by Rome. But, of course, Christians who did that – renounced God – when God returns, He will accept their resignation and they will be sacrifice eternity for a moment.

Now there are a lot of parallels between Rome of the first century our world today. Babylon of Revelation, Rome of the first century, closely mirror many (if not all) empires who have ruled are world since. I remember before the end of the Cold War depending on whether you erred towards the sin of American democratic-capitalism or the sin of Soviet communism, people would identify the beast as either Mikhail Gorbachev because of the birthmark on his forehead or they would identify the beast as Ronald Wilson Reagan because the number of his name was 666. Reagan was not the beast. Gorbachev is not the beast, neither is Putin for that matter. This passage is quite clear that when it refers to the prostitute it is speaking about ancient Rome but nonetheless there are a lot of the sins of ancient Rome in which our world today likes to indulge.

Our society’s elites “dignity and splendour combined with prosperity, overabundance, and luxury (Jeremiah 51:13; Ezekiel 16:13, 49; Nahum 2:9; cf. Revelation 18:3, 7, 16-17); self-trust or boastfulness (Isaiah 14:12-14; Jeremiah 50:31; Ezekiel 16:15, 50, 56; 27:3; 28:5; cf. Revelation 18:7) power and violence, especially against God’s people (Jeremiah 51:35, 49; Ezekiel 23:37; Nahum 3:1-3; cf. Revelation 18:10, 24); oppression and injustice (Isaiah 14:4; Ezekiel 16:49; 28:18; cf. Revelation 18:5, 20); and idolatry (Jeremiah 51:47; Ezekiel 16:17, 36; 23:7, 30, 49; Nahum 1:14; cf. Revelation 17:4-5; 18:3; 19:2) are all here. Wherever and whenever these characteristics have been manifested historically, there is the appearance of Babylon”[5], Rome, the prostitute, and the beast. Worship of people: movie stars, athletes, Presidents, or most common these days, I think, ourselves. Sexual immorality; persecution of the church; the church itself giving up on its traditional values; a love of money and a love of self: these are all as prevalent now as they have ever been. Verse 18 talks about how devastating the fall of Rome will be on the economies of the earth.[6] If that was true of Rome, how much more true is that as America, the Empire of our day, is teetering on the edge of the abyss? When it falls think of what will happen to our economy. That is now and that is then. That is the problem as described in Revelation 17-18.

That is what is and what was. But there is good news too. There is still what will be. This is the good news. Now the good news is shown in chapter 21 with the advent of a New Jerusalem and this New Jerusalem isn’t to be confused with modern day Jerusalem or even ancient Jerusalem. The author of Revelation says that Jerusalem contemporary to this text is evil. Revelation 11:8 refers to their present day Jerusalem as Sodom and as Egypt (cf. also Ezekiel 16 and 23). It is evil. This New Jerusalem is quite different. Let me read what the Bible says about the New Jerusalem. Let me re-read from Revelation 21 to us now. Beginning at verses 9-11 and then picking up at 21-27.
9 One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came and said to me, “Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.” 10 And he carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and showed me the Holy City, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. 11 It shone with the glory of God, and its brilliance was like that of a very precious jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal…
 21 …The twelve gates were twelve pearls, each gate made of a single pearl. The great street of the city was of gold, as pure as transparent glass.
22 I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. 23 The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. 24 The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendour into it. 25 On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no night there. 26 The glory and honour of the nations will be brought into it. 27 Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.
So, at the eschaton, at the end of the world, we don’t all disappear into outer space, God comes here. He makes the heavens and the earth anew. He makes a new heavenly Jerusalem, a true city of God that will descend from heaven and God will live down here on a renewed earth with us. Look at this – I love this – 21:22-23: there is no need for a temple even, for God is here himself. God is here Himself on earth and so bright is His glory that the world doesn’t even need a sun and, verse 27, nothing unclean will enter it. This is beautiful and this is something to which we have to look forward.

Earlier today we dedicated young Kaedin to the Lord. As it is true that Canada in the 21st Century and the American Empire probably resembles the more the beasts of Babylon, Rome, the Jerusalem of chapter 11 and even Frankenstein’s monster than it does the New Jerusalem that will descend to earth as recorded in chapter 21 but the good news is that this New Jerusalem is coming. It will come. Heaven is coming to earth. Jesus is coming back. In light of that, no matter how many beasts, plagues, curses, problems, addictions, struggles, etc. face us; everything ultimately will be fine. Jesus promises that he is coming back. God, Jesus and the New Jerusalem will descend to earth to be with His bride and even until then we can be strong because as He is coming so even if we suffer every plague and every curse and every misadventure of the book of Revelation, God promises that as we are faithful, we will rejoice to see the day of His return and everything will be okay. If there is any of you here today who haven’t pledged allegiance to God, I invite you to do so now. Today, also you have all been charged with an extra incentive to be faithful. Today, we as a congregation promised that we would help raise Kaedin so that he can celebrate with us the conclusion of all things at the eschaton. We owe it to Kaedin. We owe it to all our children. We owe it to all our grandchildren and we owe it to God. May the Lord find us faithful! May we all meet together in the future in the New Jerusalem at the eschaton. Amen.

Let us pray.
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ANSWERS TO QUIZ: 1) Frankenstein's monster, 2) Werewolf, 3) Sasquatch (Canada), Big Foot (USA), Yeti or Abominable Snowman (China).
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[1] Paul N. Anderson, ‘Revelation 17:1–14’, Interpretation 63 no. 1 (January 2009): 60
[2] Alan F. Johnson, The Expositor's Bible Commentary, Pradis CD-ROM:Revelation/Exposition of Revelation/III. Vision of the Seven-Sealed Scroll, the Seven Trumpets, the Seven Signs, and the Seven Bowls (4:1-19:10)/D. The Seven Bowls (15:1-19:10)/3. The harlot and the beast (17:1-18), Book Version: 4.0.2
[3] Cf. Stephen J. Friesen, Imperial Cults and the Apocalypse of John: Reading Revelation in the Ruins, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 178.
[4] M. Eugene Boring, ‘Revelation’ (Interpretation: a Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching: Louisville, Kentucky: John Knox Press, 1989), 15.
[5] Alan F. Johnson, The Expositor's Bible Commentary, Pradis CD-ROM:Revelation/Exposition of Revelation/III. Vision of the Seven-Sealed Scroll, the Seven Trumpets, the Seven Signs, and the Seven Bowls (4:1-19:10)/D. The Seven Bowls (15:1-19:10)/3. The harlot and the beast (17:1-18), Book Version: 4.0.2
[6] Cf. Leon Morris, Revelation: An Introduction and Commentary. Downers Grove, IL : InterVarsity Press, 1987 (Tyndale New Testament Commentaries 20), S. 209
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