Revelation Study End of chapter One, beginning chapter
2
Revelation 1:18-19 18 I am He who lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen. And I have the keys of [a]Hades and of Death.
This is where we see the resurrection brought
out, the bearing of the resurrection. Christ’s victory over death was immensely
important to the early Christians as evident in the book of Acts. The
resurrection being stressed so early on in Revelation truly ties right in to
not only the gospels and Acts, but old testament books like Isaiah who spoke of
this day
Isaiah
53:5 5But he
was
pierced for
our transgressions, he was
crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
Here is
the translation from the complete jewish Bible which gives us a more reverent
look at what Jesus did for us:
Complete
Jewish Bible: But he was wounded because of our crimes,
crushed because of our sins;
the disciplining that makes us whole fell on him,
and by his bruises* we are healed.
Now Hades…hades is the place of departed spirits as
in Acts 2:27, 31
Acts 2:27 27 For You will not leave my soul in Hades,
Nor will You allow Your Holy One to see corruption.
Acts 2:29-31 29 “Men and brethren, let me speak
freely to you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and
his tomb is with us to this day. 30 Therefore,
being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that
of the fruit of his body, [a]according
to the flesh, He would raise up the Christ to sit on his throne, 31 he, foreseeing this, spoke concerning
the resurrection of the Christ, that His soul was not left in Hades, nor
did His flesh see corruption.
It is NOT the place of torment, GEHENNA
The word gehenna is the Greek
transliteration of the Hebrew ge-hinnom, meaning “Valley
of [the sons of] Hinnom.” This valley south of Jerusalem was where some of the
ancient Israelites “passed children through the fire” (sacrificed their
children) to the Canaanite god Molech (2
Chronicles 28:3; 33:6; Jeremiah
7:31; 19:2–6). The place is
called “Tophet” in Isaiah
30:33. In later years,
Gehenna continued to be an unclean place used for burning trash from the city
of Jerusalem. Jesus used Gehenna as an illustration of hell.
God so despised the false god Molech that He
explicitly forbade the Israelites from having anything to do with him in Leviticus
18:21. He even warned
them of the impending judgment He would send their way if the Jews didn’t keep
their attention and worship directed toward Him. In another prophetic warning,
God re-named the Valley of Hinnom as the Valley of Slaughter (Jeremiah
19). The
Gehenna Valley was thus a place of burning sewage, burning flesh, and garbage. Maggots and worms crawled
through the waste, and the smoke smelled strong and sickening (Isaiah
30:33). It was a place
utterly filthy, disgusting, and repulsive to the nose and eyes. Gehenna
presented such a vivid image that Christ used it as a symbolic depiction of
hell: a place of eternal torment and constant
uncleanness, where the fires never ceased burning and the worms never stopped
crawling (Matthew
10:28; Mark
9:47–48). (gotquestions.org)
Mark
9:47-48 47 And if your eye causes
you to sin, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with
one eye, rather than having two eyes, to be cast into [a]hell fire— 48 where
‘Their worm does not die
And the fire
is not quenched.’
That word for hell is GEHENNA
However hades in this book is linked with death and
regarded as an enemy
Now the Keys! Keys represent authority and Christ
Holds the keys of death and hades. He has the power to send people to death and
Hades OR to deliver one from death and Hades. Christ is a supreme ruler, he is
seated at the right hand of the Father which indicates the highest level of authority
next to Almighty God. He has a supremacy over the spirit world and over death
itself. The Tyrants and wicked rulers who persecuted John’s reader’s as so far
from having this kind of power and supremacy.
Again in vs 19 John is told to write down what he
has seen, the things that are, and the things that will happen in the future.
This is obviously very important to the Lord because it is REPEATED, like the
Lord looking at John and saying “CAPISCE?”
Verse 19 was a most important bit of information to John,
and it ought to be a word of caution for us. God tells John that this vision is
both for now and for the future. However, which part of it is “for now”, which part is
for the future? How far into the future is this future part spoken of, are left
unanswered.
Revelation 1:20: The mystery of the 7 stars and 7 gold menorahs
The mysteries of God and there are MANY:
we have for a long time attempted to put the form, nature
and substance of God in a nice neat box. That box is usually labeled The
Trinity; and then rather rigid descriptions and functions of each “person” are
defined. Any disagreement is met with the charge of heresy. There is no denying
the multiple attributes of God (sometimes called persons) that the Bible itself
identifies clearly as God the Father, God the Son, and the Holy Spirit. However,
the Old Testament also adds other attributes of God called the Shekinah and the
Angel of the Lord. Yet just how these attributes all function together and how
precisely they function and what form or forms they appear in is not so cut and
dry in the Holy Scriptures. Yes, it is biblically explicit that God the Father
is preeminent, He is on the Throne. It is equally explicit that God the Son
(Jesus Christ) saves sinners and the Holy Spirit empowers Believers with new
natures, and is also the counselor. But beyond that the functions and forms of
each are not exhaustively defined and seem to have rather elastic boundaries,
because they make up 1 Godhead, 1 ruling body with three parts. (torah class)
Now here
mystery does not mean what is mysterious like we think i.e. having an atmosphere of strangeness or secrecy.
(merriam-webster), like an eerie mystery unfolding that has that dark strange
feeling. Mystery here means something people of their own power could never
work out for themselves, BUT has now been made known to them by Almighty God.
This theme travels through the gospel messages as well
2
thessalonians 2:6-7 6 And now you know what is restraining, that he may
be revealed in his own time. 7 For the [a]mystery of lawlessness is already at
work; only [b]He who now restrains will do
so until He is taken out of the way
1 corinthians 2:7 7 But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God [a]ordained before the ages for our glory,
In revelation mystery means that Jesus Christ, Yeshua, reveals
and makes known to man the meaning of certain symbols which man could not have
guessed. As we see john does not know the meaning until Christ reveals it.
Other mysteries of God: in last weeks teaching we examined Zechariah
14 which actually turns on its head the nearly universal Christian doctrine
that when Christ returns He’ll step foot on the Mt. of Olives and then it
splits. Yet the original Hebrew of the Bible says clearly that YHWH, God the
Father, is coming and it is HE that will step foot on the Mt. of Olives and
split it in two. John seems to agree with Zechariah by identifying God the
Father as the One who is, was, and is coming.
Now we see this divine being in John’s vision not define
himself in standard terms, because long standing, back to the OT, of God the Father
are mixed or spoken of with very clear attributes of God the Son, Jesus
Well it is not wise here to apply a neat and tidy solution
to a problem that clearly is not neat and tidy
Rather we should take these unconventional descriptions of
unnamed divine persons and understand this as a mystery, knowing that in one
form or another this is the God of Israel, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob. Our real challenge is that as modern humans, including Believers, we
just don’t like lingering unanswered questions about God. We want and
answer for everything. We are so used to googling and the internet and
IMMEDIATELY getting an answer that these lingering unanswered questions or
MYSTERIES about God make us uneasy at times. However we are not meant to know
everything about the Lord until we meet Him. Somethings are better left a
mystery sometimes for our own mental well being, until the appointed time
The last verse of chapter 1 directly relates to the subject
matter of chapters 2 and 3: the letters to the 7 Believing congregations of
Asia. Back in verse 16 of chapter 1, God is said to be holding 7 stars. Now in
verse 20 God explains that the 7 stars symbolize 7 Heavenly angels. Stars are
standard Old Testament imagery representing angels so this wasn’t hard for John
to make the connection
So the seven stars are first explained
The 7 stars are the 7 angels each assigned to 1 of the 7 churches
across the continent of Asia. Now the word angel can mean messenger. There is
actually no place in revelation where it does not refer to heavenly beings. The
term angel is found 67 times in revelation
In the upcoming chapters you will see these letters addressed
to the “angel” of the church being written to which is a strange way to treat a
“guardian angel”. It may actually be directed to the spirit of that church
what is a bit more difficult a concept for modern Believers is that it is said that
these are 7 angels each associated to one or the other of 7 Asian Churches.
Western Christianity generally has a harder time with this than some of the
other branches of Christianity because the more evangelical denominations tend
to emphasize the ministry of Christ and the Holy Spirit, and deemphasize or
minimize the ministry of angels. Thus it is common in Revelation commentaries
to say that these are NOT heavenly angels at all, but rather they are
messengers…..human messengers associated with those churches. These are NOT
human messengers for clearly the word and the context used make it very clear
these are indeed heavenly beings
what we do know is throughout the Word of God we see angels
dispatched from different “divisions” who oversee various interests,
assignments, and regions for the Lord. We see Gabriel, an Archangel visit Daniel
with a VERY important message, we see Michael an archangel and “chief prince” dispatched
as a warring angel in that same chapter to engage the prince of Persia principality.
In Joshua 5 we see the captain of the army of the Lord of Hosts was dispatched
to lead Joshua and the Jews into battle. In Genesis 3 a cherubim angel was
placed on the east side of the garden of Eden to guard the way to the tree of
life.
The seven menorahs are the 7 congregations/churches that actually
exist. Now why are these congregations menorahs? Because the light is Christ, Yeshua,
the menorah’s are simply for showing and displaying the light as congregations
of believers should very well be
Now before we proceed we must discuss something
While we are usually unaware of it, we all live in our own
religious and cultural bubbles or our personal worldviews. These bubbles are
often not transparent and so we aren’t always conscious (or only vaguely
conscious) of what exists outside of them. For example as related to the
Christian faith: European and American Christians usually believe that whatever
we know of Christianity is generally shared by all who call themselves
Christians. This very broad type of Christianity shared by Europeans and
americans today is known as western Christianity
Because time has a way of causing us to forget much of our past,
it surprises Western non-Catholics to learn that the main branch of Western
Christianity called Protestantism owes it’s existence and a good percentage of
it’s holidays, sacraments, customs and doctrines to Catholicism from whence it
came.
Until the time of 1000 A.D. the Catholic Church represented
and controlled the majority of the known world’s Christianity; but then the
Eastern Orthodox Church split off from it in what was called “The Great
Schism”.
The great Schism: was the break of communion since
the 11th century between the Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodox Churches.[1] The schism was the culmination of theological
and political differences which had developed during the preceding centuries
between Eastern and Western Christianity.
A
succession of ecclesiastical differences and theological disputes between the Greek East and
Latin West pre-dated the formal split that occurred in 1054.[1][2][3] Prominent among these were
the issues of the procession of the Holy Spirit,
whether leavened or unleavened bread should be used in
the Eucharist,[a] the Bishop
of Rome's claim to universal jurisdiction, (Wikipedia.org)
What remained of the still large Catholic Church as
controlled by the Pope remained largely intact until the early 1500’s. This is when
Martin Luther shook things up and began his protest movement that eventually
led to the Protestant Reformation that birthed the Protestant branch of the
Western Church. However in the 5 centuries that had passed since the Great
Schism, by the time of Luther many sub-branches of the Eastern Orthodox Church
had already come into existence. And since the creation of the Protestant
branch with Luther as its founder, a few thousand sub-branches of Protestantism
have sprung from it. (torah class lesson 4 revelation 1)
Most Western Christians don’t have a vast knowledge of any
denomination beyond their own, or for that matter anything about the workings
of the Eastern Orthodox Churches or their doctrines and beliefs. Even further
removed from our awareness are the many independent and lesser known Christian
branches such as the Chaldean, Coptic and Ethiopian whose Bibles contain some
books the Western Branch doesn’t have, and the reverse is the same.
From our Western Christian perspective these foreign and
remote Church branches might call themselves our Christian brothers and
sisters; and we may accept that association until we find out just how
different some of their doctrines are from ours, their sometimes divergent
views of God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit, how they worship, and more. What happens
many times is then we have doubts about their faith or whether they can even
rightfully be called “Christian”.
But perhaps what is as troubling is that the part of the
make-up of these bubbles we all exist in that defines our faith has also resulted
in most Believers not being aware or educated in the actual beginnings of our
faith as presented first in the Old Testament and later in the Gospel accounts;
a Jewish faith, on account of one very special Jew (Yeshua, Jesus), within the
backdrop of the Jewish religion as it existed in the 1st century. It is within this context and mindset that
John writes and his visions from the Lord are tailored. It is not the easiest
context to access or understand for gentile Believers of all eras past or
present. The farther in time we live and go forth from those amazing days of
the New Testament authors, the challenge becomes greater and perhaps more
complex. Yet without interpreting God’s Word in the proper context, the door
opens wide to a large variety of interpretations and doctrines. Common sense
says that since there are this many interpretations and doctrines and that they
vary so greatly they can’t all be right. How do we discover the truth?
Sometimes it feels like searching for a needle in a haystack doesn’t it?
In this case is it necessary to know about all the many
branches of Christianity in order for us to have a firm and proper faith? Maybe
not all but enough at time to get the jist. Nonetheless just as we have gained
from learning about the Torah and the Old Testament, and that they are anything
but a threat to our faith in the salvation that Christ offers. Actually the OT
makes us appreciate what He did for us and why, all the more. Perhaps in that
same way there are some other wonderful, faith-strengthening truths that reside
just outside these bubbles we have inhabited for so long. We need to in
a way understand this in order to approach revelation as we go forward and
deeper in this study
There are vast complexities in the book of revelation as
you can already tell.
Some of the reason is that it was written within the
construct of the ancient Jewish faith, mindset and culture of the 1st century A.D., BUT it is handed down to us in Greek
manuscripts that are then translated into English (which complicates the issue
of communicating Jewish thought when translated outside a jewish construct).
Therefore we are going to discuss some underlying elements
of Revelation that are based on Jewish
thought and culture and can easily be (and have been) overlooked and misconstrued.
The hope is it will go even further than giving a better understanding of
revelation BUT of the new testament in general.
One example is discussing the crucial passage in Daniel 7
that is alluded to by John in Revelation 1:7 and 1:13, which speaks about “the
one like a son of man” coming in the clouds. This will be a good example
of what I just spoke of
What does Daniel mean by “son of man”? What did “son of
man” mean to Jews in Christ’s era? Because John is writing within this context.
since Yeshua regularly used “son of man” as a title for Himself, what did He truly mean
by it? If you studied the Book of Daniel you may know this already If not, this
will be entirely new to you. We will try and go another layer with this.
The most prevalent and perhaps influential Christian
doctrines of our day say that the title Son of God refers to Christ’s divine
nature, while the title Son of Man refers to His humanness. That is clearly not
what the Scriptures says or means. In Old Testament times it was believed (and
the Scriptures say) that the Lord adopted each Israelite King as His own son
(mostly from a spiritual standpoint, but in a real way nonetheless). We get a
straightforward example of this adoption as God spoke to David about the issue
of David not being allowed to go forth with construction of a Temple for the
Lord. Instead David’s son Solomon would.
1 Chronicles 28:6:
CJB 6 "Moreover, He (God) said to me, 'David (Shlomo) your son
will build my house and courtyards, for I have chosen him to be a son to me,
and I will be a father to him
NKJV 6 Now He said to me,
‘It is your son Solomon who shall build My house and My courts; for I have chosen
him to be My son, and I will be his Father.
the idea of a King of Israel being God’s adopted son (Son
of God), was at this point in history establishing a very close bond between
the earthly, entirely human, ruling King of Israel and God Almighty, Yahweh.
This king is not divine, he is not God (In fact in other cultures like the
Egyptian culture they took is way too far in the opposite direction believing
their very human king/pharaoh was a god), but he, the king, is raised up by God
to rule over His people and given special attentiveness, like a shepherd which
David was long before he was made King, wisdom, and protection. This adoptive
father/son relationship between the God of Israel and an Israelite king was
primarily aimed at kings who came from the authorized line of kings which was the
line of David. This was the Line the messiah, Jesus, would come
through on earth.
So, now lets take this new found knowledge and apply it in
the new testament:
The opening words of The Gospel of Mark are: CJB Mark 1:1 The beginning of the Good News of Yeshua the Messiah, the Son of
God.
The term “son of God” is meant to communicate that Jesus, Yeshua
is the long awaited Davidic king; it is not meant to reference Yeshua’s divine
nature at that point. Now by no means does this mean that Mark did not
think that Jesus was divine.
Now the term “the Son of God” coupled with the term Messiah
(Mashiach) had
a well established, well understood and culturally specific meaning to the
Jewish people otherwise many may of not recognized who Jesus truly was. It
spoke of the Jews’ long anticipated expectation for not just any Hebrew who
might be king, but of a Davidic King to once again appear. So naturally these familiar terms for that culture are what Mark
uses to convey to his Jewish readers that Yeshua of Nazareth is not only the
anointed one, the Messiah, but as Son of God, He is also from the line of David
which had to be prophetically fulfilled with Jesus coming to earth. So the term
Son of God actually refers to the human nature of Yeshua and not His divine.
This needed to be identified this way to signal to the Jewish people that their
Messiah, the King of the Jews, had arrived on the scene.
And at the Jordan river when Jesus was baptized by John the
Baptist
Mark 1:9-11 9 It came to pass in those days that Jesus
came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized by John in the Jordan. 10 And immediately, coming up [a]from the
water, He saw the heavens [b]parting
and the Spirit descending upon Him like a dove. 11 Then a voice came from heaven, “You
are My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”
The Lord God was solidifying that as the Messiah Jesus is
His Son, as he adopted other kings as His son in the line of David. So the Lord
was proclaiming Jesus as such, His One and ONLY Son, John 3:16. However what
this also did, the baptism, the Lord saying this was His beloved son, also then
made Jesus High priest in the order of Melchizedek, another fulfillment of
prophecy. This was the genesis 14 teaching
Now the “like the
son of man”
With that let’s deal directly about the “one like a Son of
Man” in Daniel’s vision in Daniel 7. In verse 13 Daniel speaks of two distinguishable
divine figures: The Ancient One and the “One like a Son of Man”. It must be
understood that the original Aramaic this was written in says bar-enash, which
correlates directly to the Hebrew word bene-adam, which both mean human being.
In Daniel’s vision when he sees this individual “like a Son”
of Man come on the clouds from heaven, and in verse 14 it says that the Ancient
One, who is God the Father, is giving him, Yeshua, rulership, glory and a
kingdom over all the inhabitants of the earth. When Daniel sees a human being
coming on the clouds, however, Daniel knows this figure cannot be a human
being, so he writes “One LIKE a Son of Man”; or better “One LIKE a human being”.
Daniel was given a vision of a future divine/human Messiah,
but he didn’t realize it. However, A new theological concept was born here in
Daniel in Israelite/Jewish religious understanding; the theological concept of
a human-appearing deity, who is given the title of the Son of Man, who is directly
associated with the God of Israel.
This Figure is human, but in some unexplainable way he is
also divine. He will come in clouds, this is clear as well. He will occupy a
throne, in Heaven, right next to God the Father, the Ancient of Days. The
Ancient of Days delegates dominion and authority over the entire planet of
earth, and over everyone, this amazing Son of Man. These attributes that we
find of the Son of Man concept in Daniel 7 we find in Jesus Christ of Nazareth.
So what we learn is that, ironically, it is the Son of Man idea and the claim
of Yeshua, that He is that Son of Man, that identifies Him as divine.
This will now better help you further understand the gospels and why Jesus
indeed said these terms on many occasions.
Ok On To Chapter 2…
The first thing we need to know is there is a general pattern
these letters to these 7 congregations follow:
1. A greeting
“to the angel of the church in..”
2. A title
of the risen Christ that appears to be taken from the description in chapter 1
3. A section
we will title “I Know” which gives praise for what is good in the congregation’s
record,. What they are doing right
4. A criticism
of the congregation
5. A warning
6. A encouragement
beginning with “he who has an ear..”
7. A promise
that begins something like “to him who overcomes I will give..”
Now in the last 4 letters the order of 6 and 7
are reversed. So the promise comes first, then the encouragement
Now in the last study we covered something called
a chiasm which is a literary technique. This is how chiasm is at play with the
writing of these 7 congreagations:
Churches 1 and 7, so the first and the last, are
in grave danger. So they suffer from the same spiritual condition
Congregations 2 and 6 are in great shape
Congregations 3,4,5 the middle, are teetering for
they are neither really good nor really bad. Perhaps we would call these
churches lukewarm!
The first congregation in chapter two is Ephesus.
It was the most important of the seven cities. Though Pergamum was said to be
the official capital of the province of Asia, Ephesus by far was its greatest
city
It was a town where there were sitting judges to
rule on matters
Acts 19:38 speaks of this: 38 Therefore, if
Demetrius and his fellow craftsmen have a [a]case against anyone, the courts are open and there are
proconsuls. Let them bring charges against one another.
when a magistrate took up his appointment he had
to go to his province at Ephesus
Ephesus was near the mouth of the river Cayster
and a hub of a commercial center. The road from the Euphrates river and various
valleys all ended and met at Ephesus
Ephesus was bustling with all sorts of religious
activities
The chief cult of Artemis: in Greek religion, the
goddess of wild animals, the hunt, and vegetation and of chastity
The city had a prized status of temple sweeper: one consecrated to the
service of the goddess
The great temple of this false goddess was one of the seven wonders
of the world
However, there was a BIG problem with the spiritual culture
of that city. Religion and magic were very intermingled. Magical arts were very
popular amongst the people
Acts 19:19 19 Also, many of those who had practiced magic brought their
books together and burned them in the sight of all. And they counted up the value of
them, and it totaled fifty thousand pieces of silver.
Ephesian letters were considered charms widely
regarded to cure sickeness and bring luck. Is this beginning to sound familiar
at ALL to today? IE harry potter and faith, “Christian witches”
Now Paul spent over 3 years in Ephesus helping
the church get established. You could imagine with that city saturated in such occultic
practices it took some determination to get the church up and running. Timothy
also spent time in Ephesus
So the greeting is to the angel at the church of
Ephesus BUT the letter is addressed to that congregation. This message is very
serious as it comes from Jesus Christ himself, who was holding the seven stars
in his right hand, Revelation 1:16.
This was meant to give an effect that Christ
himself as being present in the midst of the congregations. This is a Christ
was is very concerned for them and cares for them and their spiritual condition
Jesus Christ, the exalted Christ, it is clear He
KNOWS what is happening amongst His people. He selects three things:
1.
Their deeds
2.
Their hard work
3.
Their perseverance
There is something pointed out here. That the Ephesians
are very zealous in their inability to tolerate wicked men. The scriptures say
the Ephesians tested out men who claimed to be apostles and exposed them for
what they were, false.
Paul had warned that savage wolves would come to
trouble the Ephesian church
Acts 20:29 29 For I know this,
that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock.
The Ephesians did not take their faith lightly, they were zealous that is
clear. It was very demanding on them and they worked very hard amongst that
climate to be followers of Christ
Reference materials:
Brittanica.com
Biblegateway.com
Biblehub.com
Torah Class, revelation
Revelation by leon morris
Wikipedia
Gotquestions.org
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