From there he will come to judge the living and the dead.

Rev 22.12-21: From there he will come to judge the living and the dead.

I am coming.  
“I am he Alpha and the omega” (v 13) : Jesus who is speaking, is God the son.  He judges with the full authority of God himself. Remember what we have already stated about Jesus: he is “LORD” , the Word who became flesh,  and was born of the virgin Mary.  He was crucified, dead, buried.  He rose again and ascended to the father.  

This Jesus is coming back.  The same Jesus. who in his life on earth enabled people to see God’s glory.  The Jesus who was born in Bethlehem; the one who lived he kingdom. The Jesus who died for our sins, (John has already seen is the Lamb that was slain); this Jesus who has risen again and is the victor – he is coming back.  

We can expect his demeanour to have changed.  He comes as the Lion of Judah, with all the power of God, in full victory. But the Lion still looks like a lamb (Rev 5. 5-6)  so his values are unchanged. We can expect the coming Jesus, the Judge of all the earth, to be passionate about God’s Kingdom; to be opposed to all impurity, oppression and violence.  To desire to bring healing.  The fruits of the tree are for the healing of the nations. (Rev 22.2)   

Jesus of Nazareth, the Jesus of History; and the Alpha and the Omega, the Lion and the Lamb, the Christ of faith are one and the same.   He has the authority of the Alpha and the Omega; and he has the values of Jesus.   And he is coming back.

I am coming soon.   
A matter of timing.   What does “soon” mean?  “See, I come quickly!” (Phillips)

Image: © G Lilly

is a good translation. The Greek word suggests a sudden or rapid event rather than an imminent one. If the hearers around 70AD thought it meant “in the next couple of years” or even “in the next seven years” they were wrong.  How do we square “soon” with the millennium, the seven year tribulation?  Some of these values have to be symbolic.  Because if they are all to be taken at face value, they contradict one another.  It is more consistent with the rest of the New Testament – where in Mt 24. 41f for example, Jesus talks about two women grinding wheat: “one will be taken and the other left” – to say that we don’t know the day or hour when the Lord will come.  I am all for keeping this simple.  Jesus says he is coming again – today that has to be sooner than it was 2000 years ago.  But “suddenly” is the same every century.   We need to be ready.

My reward is with me…v. 14f 
Jesus comes to judge the living and the dead.   Rev 20. 11-15 describes judgement day.  The lamb on his throne; books are opened.  Some are registered in the books. Others are not, and they are thrown into the lake of fire.  Judgement separates people into two clear groups. He rewards people according to what they have done. Michael Wilcock says that means “What they have done with Jesus” and “what they have allowed him to do through them”.   

1. Inside.  “Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city.”   Rev 7. 14 talks about the people who have “washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”  It is in an encounter with Jesus, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, that we become clean.  

Now “Wash their robes” is present tense.   So Jesus is not just talking about a single act in past time but a continuing action. “All cleansing from sin whether the sin of unbelieving days or the sin committed by disciples of Christ is accomplished only by the blood of Christ. Eternal life and a blessed destiny are found only through the atoning work of Christ.”  (G E Ladd)  

There has been a lot of attention on court decisions in the past few weeks, on both sides of the Atlantic.  This is  a legal judgement.   Those who wash their robes have the right to the tree of life and may enter the city.  The sad history of humanity involves eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge, and being thrown out of Eden, unable to eat the fruit of the tree of life.  But that curse has been reversed.  Through what we do with Jesus, we are in – healed, for eternity.

2. Outside are the dogs, those who practise magic arts, the sexually immoral,

Dogs_and_heat by Iwoelbern PD the murderers, the idolaters” and liars.  Outside means outside the city.  Outside of the City, separated from god, is a dreadful existence: Rev 20. 14, and 21. 8 describe it as a lake of fire and the second death.  A lake of fire, a second death, locked out of the city, are different ways of describing the same thing.  John finishes off by using – as we should too – one simple word for the dreadful consequences of not doing the right thing with Jesus: Outside.   

"Dogs adn Heat" by "Iwoelbern"  PD image

Dogs in ancient times were often half-wild creatures that appeared to scavenge what they could find, and nobody wanted.  Not the pampered pooches of today!  For Judaism they were unclean animals, the lowest of the low, and  represented the gentiles.  But for John dogs represent the godless of any nation, in contrast to men of all nations have washed their robes and made themselves white.  

Five groups are specifically singled out
Sorcerers – There a number of ancient practises that people still use today, that involve using supernatural forces to do one or more of three things.   To help you remember (and avoid) them  I will call them three K's
1. Kontrol – trying to harness or channel “Spiritual power” or energy to control things in the physical world: various forms of healing such as Reiki; and the use of charms and incantations to gain protection or prosperity – or to hurt other people.  God has given us prayer in the name of Jesus, spiritual authority in his name, and a scientific world that includes medicine and skills like counselling.  To look in places other than science or the Bible and the Holy Spirit for healing or power is to toy with sorcery
2. Knowledge – trying to find out the future through things like tarot, palm-reading and astrology; I saw on FB this week, someone posted a “what age will you die?” app.  That seems like a laugh if it says you will live to be 99 (which is the result my friend got)!  But scary if it suggests you won’t live past your next birthday.  So if it’s on the internet and it says it can tell you who your soulmate is, whom you will marry, whether you’ll get pregnant this year or who or what you were in a previous life, avoid it.  It’s the thin edge of the sorcery wedge! 
3. Kontact – trying to get in touch with people who have died.  Losing someone you live is a terrible thing.  We spend ten or maybe fifty or sixty years getting to know someone, making a place for them in our hearts, and then they are not there.  Learning to live with the gap they leave is incredibly hard – and as a Pastor I can tell you there is no good time to lose a loved one.  We need to let them go.  To keep trying to contact the dead, is to have our finger on the self destruct button.
Fornicators – are those who indulge their sexual appetites, with the same sex or with the opposite sex.  Those who give in to our society’s prevailing tendency which is to say “if you feel like doing something, do it.  
Murderers – literally people with a thirst for blood.  
Idolaters – people who worship (literally hire themselves to serve)  idols.  People who sell their inner lives to anyone or anything other than God himself.
Those who love and practise lies – in particular the lies that the Roman Empire, or the world we live in today, try to pass off as truth. 

So there’s a judgement: a clear division between those on the inside – who “wash their garments” expressing trust in what Jesus has done for us; and those who haven’t, who are outside – with the actions and attitudes of the “World” still sticking to them.

So what?
Remember, to faith is more than simply thinking something is true: it is the solidness of things hoped for.  We believe that from his place at the right hand of the Father, Jesus will come to judge the living and the dead. What solid difference does that make to our lives. 
Mission:  “The spirit and the Bride say come (v. 17); let the one who hears say come.  Who are the spirit and the bride talking to?   The answer is in the second phrase which says let him who is thirsty come. In other words it is the mission of the church in the power of the spirit to say come and drink the water of life.
Warning. v 18f and not to add anything to or remove anything from the prophecy.  We can add, when we stick our interpretations over the top of the pages of this prophecy.  There have been dozens of different interpretation of revelation.  We make it complicated.  The world is in a mess, and the Church has a battle on its hands in every generation.  But Jesus is the Victor and Jesus will return to judge.   And we can take away, when we ignore it completely or try to  reducing its big themes to the level of a comment of the state of the Roman world.  Take it seriously
Expectancy.   We respond “Amen, come Lord Jesus.  Maranatha is an ancient prayer of the Church. To cry “Come, Lord Jesus!”  is to remind ourselves that however much we look to see God’s Kingdom come on earth, in the here and now, we look forward to the final triumph of the Kingdom, when Jesus returns and judges the living and the dead.  
Grace. And we experience the grace of the Lord Jesus.  The future is there; the future is bright. It is filled with Jesus and his Kingdom.  But we don’t live in the future. We live in the present.   We live for the future. But we live in the present. And in the present we receive the grace of God: his favour; his joy-bringing presence; his gifts.

© Gilmour Lilly February 2017

Ephesians 1. 15-23 and 2. 1-10

The third day he rose again from the dead. He ascended to heaven and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty.

The whole of this reading, in Greek, consists of three sentences. Chapter 1. 15-23; Chapter 2. 1-7, and 8-10. Somebody is very excited! As Paul writes to his friends in Ephesus, to encourage them in their faith, he knows about the cultural melting pot they lived in. The temple of Diana or Artemis, the goddess with the Greek name but with a history that went back way before the Greeks arrived in Asia Minor. The Greek Artemis as a hunter. The Ephesian one was a mother goddess, a fertility goddess. So there was a strong Pagan influence. There was the Greek influence. All the philosophical ideas that had developed in Athens, over hundreds of years, were there in one form or another. Questions like “Do we really know anything? Is the world as we know it real or is it a copy of he real world?” (A bit like the idea of the film “the Matrix”) Or the idea that “the universe is layered like a sheet of plywood or a slice of puff pastry so we need some secret knowledge to get to the supreme being at the top” And then there was Roman culture which liked to copy Greek education and art but expressed Greek logic in a highly organised and centralised empire. And all of these elements were present in Ephesus. This stuff was hitting them all the time, just as a soup of weird and wonderful ideas hits us all the time through TV. Facebook and conversations with friends and family. No wonder they needed to have God’s Spirit to give them wisdom and revelation and understanding of his great power as Paul prays for them.

And as he prays, the backdrop is – Jesus! Jesus raised from the dead and seated at God’s right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. No wonder Paul is excited! In our mixed up world we say “The third day he rose again from the dead. He ascended to heaven and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty.” For Paul these are not separate things but past of a huge, continuous journey of triumph and hope. Paul is speaking about a pair of historical, physical event that took place on the earth but affected the heavens.

Jesus is

• Risen from the dead. God raised him from the dead. An event on earth that demonstrated the meaning and effectiveness of Jesus’ death. That showed that whatever forces were at work against Jesus, against God’s kingdom and rule, were now spent forces. Paul speaks about the resurrection with the confidence of an eye-witness, based on his visionary encounter with the risen Jesus on the road to Damascus, and on repeated encounters with Jesus in the power of he Spirit. Peter as an eye-witness makes the same statement: “ God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of it.” (Acts 2. 32) The four Gospels each describe the resurrection with the immediacy, un-doctored candour and local colour of eye-witness accounts that tell the same story without having to iron out the slight differences in perspective. People saw him. He appeared. But he didn’t have to. Paul as we have said runs the resurrection and ascension together as one continuous flow: as far as he was concerned, the place where Jesus was raised to was heaven. But God has always cared about the physical, created world; so the Jesus who became flesh and died a physical death at a place and time on earth, was raised at a place and time on earth.

• Ascended – “far above all “rulers and authorities and powers and lordships”… (v. 21) Paul lists the variety defeated cosmic powers to show the scope of the victory God has secured. Yes, sin is dealt wit, the price is paid. But Satan, sin and death are defeated. Jesus is bigger than all the people and institutions who hold power and claim authority in our world. He is above all of those powers. Paul’s language suggests angelic beings who had authority over nations. We began to understand through the last few chapters of the book of Daniel that there is a connexion between our earthly battles, and heavenly battle between spiritual “princes.” Paul tells us that Jesus is ascended, therefore, is above and over all of these princes. They are arranged in subjection under his feet.

Jesus is the one “in whom all things hold together.” (Col 1. 17) The ascension of Jesus to the Heavenly Realms means there has been a shift in the Cosmic centre of gravity: the central figure is now not on Earth but in heaven; so what was above us is now below us. We are seated in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. (2. 6: literal translation: “God raised us together and seated us together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus”)

• seated at the right hand of the Father – with all things under his feet. The right hand of the father is a place of special Honour. It is a symbol of sovereignty, that belongs uniquely to Jesus. There has never been anyone like Him and there never will be anyone like Him. As Paul says in Philippians 2, God has bestowed upon him a name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow. Jesus shares his authority with us. But not his sovereignty. We are seated together in the heavenly places in Christ – but Paul very carefully doesn’t say we are at the Father’s right hand. We too must bow our knees in wonder and adoration before this Jesus who is seated at the right hand of the father in glory.

So Jesus is risen; ascended, seated at the father’s right hand. He is is head over all things for the Church which is his Body, the fulness of him who fills everything in every way. 4 small words but big concepts:-

• head -- Christ's rule and authority over all things. The Greeks sometimes thought of the world or universe as like a body. Paul doesn’t go there – but he does say that Jesus is head over all things... -- which is bigger than the church but of course includes the church
• Church, Christ’s body. Jesus is head over all for the Church. The AV translates literally “gave him to be the head over all things to the church” Jesus exercises that headship for the benefit of the Church. In Corinthians, the Church is a local body; in Ephesians and Colossians it is the Christian community in its totality.
• Fulness was another of these words for the Greeks dripped meaning. Sometimes they talked about God as fulness. Paul says all God’s fulness dwelt in Christ (Col 1. 19) and the Church is the fulness of Christ. The Church is meant to be full of God. There’s a connexion between the Church and the universe – and that connexion is Jesus.

So, to say “We believe the third day he rose again from the dead. He ascended to heaven and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty” is an immense statement. We will look at hat it means to “believe in the Church” next month. But for now, we note that to believe that Jesus is risen, ascended and seated at the Father's right hand, affects the Church; it affects all of us.

Paul, remember, is praying and giving thanks for the Church in Ephesus. And specifically, he is giving thanks because he has heard of their faith in Jesus. Now when we talk about faith in Christ, we mean that Jesus is the person we trust. When Paul wanted to say “Jesus is the person we trust” he talked about faith “towards Jesus”. (For the Greek Scholars, either using the word “pros” or the objective Genitive.) So when he mentions faith in Jesus, he doesn’t mean Jesus is the one we one we trust. He means Jesus is where we are. He is not only the object of faith; he is the environment of faith. Paul has heard of the faith they exercise in their relationship with Jesus. So where are we. We are “in Christ”. We are “seated in the heavenly places in Christ”. In our union with Jesus, we are in a place where all the enemy’s powers, all the evil forces that are at work in the nations, are under our feet. There, in Christ, is where we are called upon to exercise faith.

To believe Jesus is risen, ascended and seated at the father’s right hand, is to take our place of authority in him. It is to use that authority in prayer. It is to receive God’s grace and his gifts by faith (2. 9). It is to do the good works that God created brought us into being for, and that he has already got ready for us to walk in (2. 10). In Christ, you exist for a purpose. That purpose is already prepared for you.

Photo © G Lilly.

Part of that purpose is to over come strongholds that set themselves against the word of God – in three areas: Political (where there are movements that have values that are quite the opposite of the values of God’s Kingdom; Cultural (there is an increasing gap between the culture we live in and the Church’s attempts to witness for Jesus); and Personal (often our thoughts are out of line with God’s word, we are negative and despairing about ourselves, and need to take our thoughts captive so they come in line with Jesus).

In Christ, discover that purpose and by faith, grab hold of it.

© Gilmour Lilly February 2017

He Suffered under Pontius Pilate…

Was crucified, daed and buried, he descended into Hell

Matthew 27. 11-26; 32-37; 45-54

The Story

In Jesus, the Word – who was God, in the beginning with the Father – became flesh. Fully god and fully human. So today we look at there that eventually led. It led to suffering under Pontius Pilate. It’s a very human story, full of very human. weaknesses. Pilate was the Roman Governor of Judea. Aristocratic, used to being obeyed; unafraid to use violence (he was eventually recalled to Rome for violently suppressing an uprising in Samaria); slow to understand to sensitivities of the Jewish religion: a pragmatist who was more concerned about what worked than about what was right.

Christ & Pilate by Nikolai Ge. PD Image

And around Pilate, were these Jewish leaders who had handed Jesus over for their own interests. Pilate knew about that – even if he didn’t understand the finer points of Jewish law. Then there was his wife – possibly a bit superstitious; when she had a dream about Jesus, she sent a message to her husband, warning him not to be involved in executing that innocent man.

So, for a few hours, this was Jesus’ world. He was the victim, in the petty world of political connivance, power-seeking, prejudice and crowd-pleasing. It’s not so different from our world today in the week when the inquest into the Tunisia shootings hears stories of victims; in the week when stories come to light of families split up by the USA’s ban on immigrants. Eventually Pilate gives in to the baying crowd, washes his hands of responsibility for the matter in a meaningless gesture, and hands Jesus over to be crucified. That, in the end, is the world of Jesus – the Word, who was in the beginning with the father, who was full of grace and truth, who brings life and light, who demonstrates God’s glory.

He suffered under Pontius Pilate. Was crucified, dead and buried. Like his deity, and like his humanity, his suffering and death were real and complete. He was really crucified: he suffered one of the most unpleasant forms of execution ever contrived. And he really died. Muslims believe that Jesus just passed out on the cross… blood and water suggest that Jesus had died before he was pierced by the soldier’s spear.

But we can’t just leave it there. As he died, some things happened.

1. Shortly before he died, he said “My God, why have you forsaken me?”
2. Then, Matthew tells us that as Jesus died, there was an earthquake;
3. the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom
4. and tombs were opened. Some dead bodies were raised and in the tumult after the resurrection of Jesus, they appeared to people in Jerusalem.

The point:

So what is that all about? These verses tell us that

1. Jesus suffered the hellish experience of separation from God the father. Sin separates us from God. Sin separates you and me from God. It separates our kids from God; it separates our neighbours from God. It means we live our lives, out of touch with God. And if we die with our sin still attached to us, we remain separated from God forever. Jesus was carrying our sin, when he died on the Cross. So as he died, the Father turned his face away. As he took our sins, Jesus experienced the separation from god that we all experience as the result of our sins.
2. The earthquake tells us that Jesus’ death had truly cosmic significance. He died for our sins, but he died to undo the damage the fall has brought to the whole of the universe: to heal a broken world and bring God’s Kingdom. With the death of Jesus, the new age of the Kingdom is breaking into our world.
3. There was a curtain in the temple – as there had been way back in the days of the tent in the desert – that separated the Holiest place, from the rest of the building. The curtain represented the separation between God and people. Coming to God was a matter of fear and formality: Israel understood the otherness of God and the seriousness of sin and the only way past that was through detailed sacrifices. The tear from top to bottom opens the way up – starting from God’s end not from ours – for people to be in God’s presence.
4. And death itself is beaten. It has no sting any more. It can’t hold the saints – people who have faith – any more. Eternity, eternal life, a future and a hope with God, are now a possibility. Jesus has opened up the future, a bright and good and living future, by his death on the cross.

The Creed sums that up in the statement that Jesus “descended into Hell.” Eph 4. 9 says “He descended in the the lower parts of the earth”. That doesn’t only mean that he suffered but that he triumphed and conquered: he led captivity captive (Eph 4. 8). He preached freedom to the souls held in prison. (1Peter 3. 19) The Christian group Phatfish sing “I thank You, for the cross, where You bled, for the cross, where You died, for the cross, where You've broken Satan's back.” Charles Wesley put it “Christ has burst the gates of hell! Hallelujah.” Christus Victor. Christ the Conqueror. Remember that when he broke bread with his disciples, Jesus declared himself to be not the scapegoat or the sin-offering, but the passover lamb. His death on the cross, his descent into hell, was a victory of even greater magnitude than the victory over pharaoh in he days of Moses. It deals with our sin; it opens God’s presence to us; it seals the triumph of God’s Kingdom and gives us everlasting life.

The problem

Jesus said “I will build my church and the gates of Hell (Hades) shall not prevail against it.” But look at us. And look at our world. Oppression, violence, inequality, greed, selfishness, are everywhere. As they were in Matthew’s world. And as they were in the world of the early compilers of the Creed. The earliest creed “Jesus is Lord” had to be asserted against the backdrop of an empire that demanded “Caesar is lord!”.

The Difference

But Matthew tells us the earth shook and the tombs were opened. The early Fathers said “We believe..” And to believe is to act.

1. It is to face our struggles with courage and dignity. Jesus knows what it is like to be struggling, to be a victim, to be misunderstood, mocked, misjudged. He knows what it is to suffer, and to die. And we are to have the same mind, the same way of thinking he had; although he was God he did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped but emptied himself. (Phil 2. 5f) Psalm 73 wrestles with the problem of why the the world is full of injustice. And in verse 16 the writer says “W

   

   Christo Crucificado by Velaquez. PD Image

   hen I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task until I went into the sanctuary of God. For us, looking at what Jesus suffered puts our problems into a different perspective.
2. It is to receive forgiveness and grace. A few weeks ago I was messing around at home imitating Edith Piaf singing “non, je ne regrette rien...” and John said to me “Dad, she sang it so you don’t have to!” Jesus cried out “My God, why have you forsaken me?” so you don’t have to. To believe it is to put your trust in him today.
3. It is to come with thanks and trust, through the veil, into Gods’ presence. “Bold I approach the eternal throne and claim the crown though Christ my own!” Enough of hanging our heads in shame and embarrassment. Enough of distance between ourselves and our heavenly father. Jesus’ death makes us god’s children. We approach with boldness the throne of grace.
4. It is to seek the Kingdom, in our world. It is to be people who pray, not just pathetic, insipid little prayers that nobody would notice whether they got answered or not; but big prayers, prayers of faith. Prayers for the sick. Prayers for revival. Prayers for the lost. Prayers for peace and reconciliation among the nations. And in these days I need some of that. The world is looking increasingly messy. But We are called to live for the Kingdom, until the Kingdom comes. And we continue to pray for the coming of that Kingdom.
5. It is to have the perspective not only of the Cross but of eternity. We fear nothing. Not even death. Death itself is defeated.

© Gilmour Lilly February 2107