Four Questions from the Oracles
A theological faq from the oracles of Revelation 2–3 (Pt. 1)
Audio Version!
We are now at a major turning point in Revelation. The first three chapters introduced the “Gospel of the Risen Jesus” and the beginning of the vision on Patmos to John.
Jesus revealed himself to John and gave the oracles to the seven churches.
Of the three genres (letter, prophecy, apocalypse), the letter and the prophetic dominated.
That will change with Revelation 4.
From that point into chapter 22, the apocalyptic form predominates with prophetic insertions.
As the saying goes “the fun is about to begin!”
With Revelation 4, we will see a major change—from chapters 4 to 22 John recounted a long series of visions (and auditions) that he witnessed and heard.
But at this point in Revelation, there are so many theological topics that beg to be addressed, especially from the seven oracles, that I hesitate to move on until I have at least made a stab at tackling some of the more pertinent issues.
The theology of the remainder of Revelation is consistent with what we have already seen, so in my opinion meeting these topics head on is worth the delay.
Here are several questions that have jumped out to me (in no particular order):
What is God’s wrath on sin?
What is the Biblical theology of works?
How does the church respond to idolatry or heretical teachings?
Do those who are deceived forfeit their salvation?
How is the (seeming) triumphalistic language of the Kingdom an expression of God’s love?
Why is Revelation so hard on the Jews?
Why was Jesus so “harsh”?
What about the fulfillment of Prophecy?
What did Jesus mean by “I will keep you out of trial”?
If you have others, please ask in the comments!
None of these questions/issues are easy to answer and I only have tentative responses based on my years of thinking about each.
Nor can I cover them all in one post!
I’ll try to get through them in short order though with a couple of posts.
I want to get to chapter 4 as quickly as possible.
(continued)
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A Theological “FAQ” for Revelation 1–3 (part 1):
Why does Revelation put such an emphasis on works?
Revelation is very consistent with the the entire rest of the New Testament on the topic of works.
A life transformed by the love of Jesus will result in a life of good works. In the oracles endurance, love, faithfulness and service are listed.
The converse is never true—“good works” in themselves, from our own effort, will never be “good enough” to “merit” salvation.
That notion is related to karma or to the meritorious notions in Judaism or even popular religion in the US (“I’m a good person”).
Paul railed against “works of the law” as necessary for salvation, probably referring to circumcision and (kosher) food laws, but by extension anything that is deemed necessary for salvation apart from trust in Christ and what he has accomplished on our behalf.
Rather, good works for the Christian are those God has prepared for us (Ephesians 2:10) and that are wrought by God (John 3:21).
My only task (work) is to trust in Jesus and his work on the cross, and the Spirit will work in and through me for God’s glory. The “works” of love, endurance, faithfulness, service, bearing of evil, renunciation of idolatry, and humility—all of these flow from a relationship with Jesus; they are not the means to that relationship.
To think my actions are meritorious is idolatrous in itself.
As Paul said, “Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the first,” and “I am crucified with Christ … the life I live, I live by the faithfulness of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”
Any good works I have are those Jesus works through me.
Why was Jesus so harsh in the letters?
Well, Jesus was harsh in the eyes of many when he walked the earth.
To our ears, the truth about ourselves is harsh.
It is brutal.
It is hard to hear and consider.
But to those with “ears to hear,” Jesus’s words were loving, kind, and dare I say even gentle—his words were meant to shake believers from their slumber, so they could experience the grace of God in its fulness.
I was recently reminded in a conversation with a person I am tutoring in Greek that the Greek word we translate as “truth” literally means “not forgotten,” Greek alētheia (a=not, lētheia=forgotten).
Our lives are full of intentional forgetting (lies).
Truth serves to reveal what is intentionally or unintentionally forgotten.
Jesus’s mission from God was to show us who we “truly” are, not the lie we have constructed about ourselves—the lie that we are gods, that we are in control of our destiny, or that on our own we can storm heaven.
Truth (uncovering the reality beneath the varnish of lies) may seem harsh—it is certainly uncomfortable—and that is the singular human reason Jesus went to the cross: all those in power could not handle the truth, so they had to kill it.
Jesus knew that there is no true love apart from truth, even if it led to his death.
Speaking platitudes that contained lies for the sake of being liked or maintaining harmony were not in Jesus’s vocabulary.
Jesus came to speak truth and truth only about our condition as sinful and broken, and God’s loving desire for us to be free to serve him only.
Jesus’s oracles in Revelation continued to speak the same unvarnished reality to the churches, as well as to the Jews and pagans persecuting those churches.
But the exalted Jesus of Revelation could no longer be put to death—he was “the slain Lamb standing,” the crucified and risen Lord who was shown to be truth and all others false.
The exalted Jesus spoke truth to the seven churches and we do well to listen to every word—and in the listening we will understand that far from being harsh, they are full of love for us.
(cont.)
Do those who are deceived forfeit their salvation?
This is a tricky question.
In the oracles, Jesus called out the Nicolaitans, “the teachings of Balaam,” “Jezebel,” and those in the churches who followed them.
Whoever these people were, they claimed (it appears) to be Christians.
Their platform was inside of the churches.
Their teachings were connected, it seems, to a libertarian view of grace that accommodated to society, especially eating meat sacrificed to idols (and perhaps unbridled fleshly desires).
But only one time was there even a suggestion that any of these had “lost” their salvation.
In the oracle to Thyateira, Jesus said,
But I have this against you: that you allow the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and teaches and deceives my slaves to fornicate and eat idol-meat, and I gave her time to repent, and she did not want to repent from her fornication. Look, I am throwing her into a (sick)bed, and her adulterers with her into a great tribulation, unless they repent from her works, and her children I shall kill with death, and all the churches will know that I am the one who searches kidneys and hearts, and I will give to you, to each one, according to your works.
Harsh words, indeed. But even here, though, suffering and physical death seemed to be the judgment, not necessarily spiritual death, though I expect some would disagree with me.
All of Jesus’s judgments toward the churches were (are) disciplinary, as he explicitly stated with Laodicea, because of his love.
The eternal destiny of every individual is known only to God—God alone knows if their presence in the church is from a genuine conversion or a fake assent to follow the crowd.
There was certainly plenty of warning in these oracles, but the love of Christ for his church will always use that warning to draw his own back into their vocation of being a kingdom of priests serving our God no matter how far they have strayed.
How does the church respond to idolatry or heretical teachings?
Another tricky question.
The oracles contained multiple instances of teachings not in line with the truth of the gospel, as the previous section implied.
Jesus praised the Ephesian church for “hating the works of the Nikolaitans, which I also hate,” and criticized the churches at Pergamum and Thyateira for tolerating the Nikolaitans, the teachings of Balaam, and the prophetess Jezebel.
The issue is that Jesus did not directly say what to do about the issue except “repent.” If not, Jesus himself promised to render consequences—the church is not charged to do anything.
Here is where we need to search back through the New Testament—Matthew 18; 1 John; 1 Corinthians 5 and 2 Corinthians 2:1-11; 1 Timothy 1:18–20; 2 Timothy 2:14–26; 2 Peter 2.
The overall impression of these passages was one of speaking the truth about the false teachers and perhaps the actions of walling off those people from infecting the rest of the church—“Handing them over to Satan” is language of Paul.
Only in Matthew 18:15-17 is there anything close to confrontation—and the case there is “if someone sins against you” not the teaching of heresy, though earlier in Matthew 18 Jesus spoke about cause one of these little ones to stumble. But even with the offending person, the only response to an intransigent sinner was to “treat them as a Gentile or tax-collector.” And then Jesus told Peter to keep forgiving no matter how many times someone sinned against him!
In Galatians, Paul recounted a dispute with Peter—and the dispute corresponded with those Jewish Christians who were troubling the Galatian Christians to follow the Jewish law. Paul however engaged them verbally over their theology, he did not reject them (God would do that if necessary).
What we often see today in the church is a zero sum game of “you are with us or you are out of here!” rather than engaging the scriptures together and seeking the voice of the Holy Spirit in the midst of our differences.
Honest inquiry into the Word of God with humility and love (and without rancor and anger) will not only yield unity in the church, but also be the opposite of the world (which always seems ready to fight about everything).
The only judgment in Revelation comes from God, not from his saints.
Paul again expressed God’s role well in Romans 12:
Repay no one evil for evil, considering good things before all men—if possible from you, pursue shalom with all men, not avenging yourselves, but give a place(holder) for anger: as it is written, “avenging belongs to me, I will repay,” says the Lord. Rather, if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he thirsts, give him something to drink—for in doing this you will heap burning coals upon his head.” Do not conquer by evil, rather conquer evil with good.
God is the ONLY judge.
Our response to any evil—even heresy—is to show and model the love and forgiveness of Jesus.
May God help us all.
In part two of the FAQs I will take up at least some of the remaining questions I listed. Please send others if you have them!