Saturday 11 August 2012

Background

Chapters 4 and 5 of the book of Revelation setout God's plan. Chapters 20-22 set out its fulfilment. Chapters6-19 describe the defeat of evil, the overcoming of the resistanceof human beings, and the stripping away of the structures behindwhich they attempt to hide. Rather than showing this in onepicture, there is a long series of scenes. That is becauseapocalyptic writings like this are not obsessed with the eternal'end' but with pulling back the curtains to show what is happeningin the ambivalent time and history in which we live. We arecompromised with the powers of this world simply by living in it.What matters is how we can turn our attention from those powers toconcentrate on God; to discern that we need to judge our experiencein the light of the stark images of the 'end'.

In the presence of God, sitting on a throne,everything is stripped away. All the boundaries of the old orderhave vanished (the earth and the heaven have fled - verse 11). Allthose saints and martyrs who have never been marked with the marksof the Beast have already been dealt with in Revelation 20:4. Now the others (called here"the dead" (v. 12)) are dealt with. Verses 13-15 draw out what issummarised in verse 12. There are books which contain the evidenceof their lives. The main evidence is whether people have turned toGod or away from God. That explains why their names have been orshould be written in another book, the "book of life" (v. 12),which is a register of God's people. Although today's passage seemsto emphasise punishment and destruction, even here in the finalresort the ultimate note is of God's forgiveness and love. In Revelation 21:22 - 22:5 the kings of thenations whose structures have compromised with the beast have beenable to turn to God and to be cleansed enough to be written in thebook of life.

To ponder

• What does it feel like to see that you are in the presence ofGod?
• What might be in the book of evidence of your life?
• How can you use these images to help you discern how to turn toGod in the ambivalences of your life?