No Longer a Carpenter’s Son
Throughout his messianic ministry we see Jesus in his state of humiliation. In the four gospels Jesus is revealed as the Son of God whose true and eternal glory is hidden by a veil of human flesh. In the gospels Jesus hungers. He thirsts. Jesus suffers. And he bleeds. When our Lord died upon the cross, we see him in his most humble estate, torn and bloody, bearing the wrath of God toward our sins in his own flesh. But the gospels do not end with the cross and Jesus’ humiliation. The gospels end with the account of our Lord’s bodily resurrection, the empty tomb and Christ’s glorious exaltation. The Christ we meet in the opening chapter of the Book of Revelation is not the carpenter’s son. Nor is he the humble and suffering Christ. The Christ we meet in the Book of Revelation is the Exalted Christ, the Risen One who is Lord of his church. He is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords!
It is sad that so many Christians avoid the Book of Revelation because of its difficult and mysterious nature. It is even sadder, perhaps, that so many use this book as a springboard for speculation about the Bible’s relationship to current events. Revelation is not a guide for interpreting breaking news. Instead, Revelation depicts Jesus Christ’s victory over all his enemies as the final chapters of redemptive history draw to a close. Therefore, we should not be afraid to read and study this book. Nor should we handle it irresponsibly by attempting to connect it to recent headlines as though John predicted every war, earthquake, and global crisis which could possibly befall the human race. John does not do this.
What John does do is describe the on-going struggle between Christ and Satan until our Lord returns to raise the dead, judge the world, and make all things new. While John may not predict specific future events in exacting detail, he does provide us with a theological explanation of all the wars and rumors of wars, the earthquakes and famines, and those signs of his coming which Jesus called the birth pains of the end (Cf. Matthew 24:8).
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