Word of Salvation – Vol. 23 No. 39 – June 1977
The Great Dialogue
Sermon by Rev. A.I. de Graaf, B.D. on Rev.1:5(b)-8
Scripture Reading: Deut. 7:6-21
Psalter Hymnal: 282; 319; 187; 469
Brothers and sisters, boys and girls, Young people, Congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ!
The striking thing throughout this last book of the Bible, time and again, is the great DIALOGUE between God and His people, as indeed it runs through all the Bible.
To start with, we are not just told WHAT WILL HAPPEN but always: WHAT HE WILL DO, what He will do IN RESPONSE TO WHAT WE DO, and we again in response to what He said, showed, revealed.
He revealed HIMSELF, that is the great centre and Content of God’s Revelation, also of this: Revelation. And finally and ultimately He revealed Himself to us in The Word, His Son.
The faithful, trustworthy Witness, the Firstborn from the dead, the Ruler and Authority over all the earth’s Kings and powers. And after having heard this mighty and liberating message, what else can God’s people do but burst out in song??
Here in Revelation 1:5b we have the first SONG TO THE LAMB OF GOD. Many follow in this book. If ever you need a Biblical excuse for starting singing or work on a choir, Revelation is full of it. The Song to the Lamb of God.
By the way, central to this book is the teaching of the LAMB OF GOD WHO BOUGHT OUR FREEDOM AND TOOK AWAY THE SINS OF THE WORLD.
As this theme is also central in the GOSPEL of John (who mentions it more than Matthew, Mark or Luke) it constitutes a strong Biblical argument that this book of Revelation was also written by John the APOSTLE.
The Bible does not claim that the JOHN who wrote this book IS the apostle, so you’re not a heretic or unbeliever if you question on good grounds whether John the Apostle wrote it or some other John. The same thing applies with the authorship of Hebrews; The Bible does NOT claim that it was written by Paul and so you’re not unReformed or disrespectful if you wonder if the Lord picked some other man to write it. But there are in spite of differences in style etc., many strong clues that the John who says he wrote this Revelation is the same John who wrote the Gospel. It is true he NEVER mentions his name in the Gospel but simply and humbly calls himself the disciple whom Jesus loved. But that shows how people can develop as they grow older. Sometimes the English of a Dutch migrant to Australia gets worse as he, growing older, falls back upon his native Dutch. So John’s good Greek he wrote in the Gospel could have gotten worse as he, growing older, falls back upon his native Aramaic.
THE LAMB OF GOD that theme unites the Gospel of John with Revelation. There is another one, which people often have missed. And that is the struggle Jesus the Messiah had with – what John, himself an Israelite – calls: THE JEWS. The Jews who rejected Christ as Messiah, who time after time picked up stones to kill Him; who even went together with the followers of Herod to trap Him; who plotted His death and finally screamed for His blood at Pilate’s court; who crucified their Lord; of whom the disciples were afraid even after the resurrection as they locked the doors for fear of the Jews….!
Now John is an Israelite himself, and do not ever think that in his Gospel and his Revelation you have that ugly thing that later was to rear its head: antisemitism. Antisemitism is the most hateful form of racism there is and God who never forgets His promises, despises it.
But Israel was God’s COVENANT people. The people God called and chose to be His partners in the world.
But when that people becomes unfaithful and rejects His will and like an unfaithful adulterous wife lusts after other gods, then Scripture is full of God’s covenant vengeance and wrath, too.
He can call Jerusalem His city, BABYLON
and lash out at it in terrible fury.
This is also what happens here in this book. That means that as the Lord had a quarrel with His people that killed the prophets and murdered those sent to it, yes, in the end, even His Own Son, so this book describes what the old prophets described.
Immediately we see that therefore this is so up-to-date and relevant.
In describing this, Revelation, immediately warns the CHURCH OF THE NEW TESTAMENT TOO that to live in a covenant relationship with God is not to be taken lightly. The fury that hit Israel – not because it was Israel but because it became so unfaithful can lash at any unfaithful or lukewarm church today. If the Lord calls Jerusalem Babylon when she became the Murderer of the prophets, what then would He call Rome or Melbourne for that matter?
If this happens to the green wood – what would happen to the dry?
But we are running ahead.
Even though at this stage we did need this preview a bit.
We saw that there is a dialogue going on between God and His people. God’s revelation calls for an answer. And that answer, if correct, is a song of praise to the LAMB, to the Lord WHO LOVED US it says here.
Really, what it always becomes is:
Who loved us FIRST.
God’s love is sovereign.
It came to us as it came to Israel not because of what was in us, but purely from His grace. That’s how Deuteronomy 7 has it:
“The Lord did not set His love upon you or choose you because you were more in number than other peoples…. but just because the Lord loved you…..!”
Then there is Isaiah 43:4:
“Since you are precious in My sight…. and I love you…..,
I will give other men in your place,
and nations in exchange for your life.”
Then there is Jeremiah 31:3:
“I have loved you with an everlasting love;
Therefore I have drawn you with lovingkindness…..!”
There in all those texts, it speaks of God, The Lord Yahweh. But here in Revelation 1 we sing it of the Lamb, Jesus Christ, in Whom the Love of God took flesh and blood, and who sought to gather Jerusalem’s children and died for His enemies outside the gate.
In Him the Love of God comes and looks us up, lost as we were. And so we sing in response: Him that loved us – yes loved us first and bought us free from our sins by His Blood. It is a wrong translation that makes this text say:
“…and WASHED US IN HIS BLOOD”
It is: “Bought us free with the price of that blood”.
Paid the ransom and here we have again that Jubilee motif, the freeing of the slaves by the Redeemer, the restoration of the lost estate, by the One who comes as the Defender of the defenceless. How else did God ever get a covenant people on earth? Not because a bunch of goodies was smart enough to volunteer!
THE REDEEMED OF THE LORD SHALL COME IN WITH SINGING, sings Isaiah,
and Micah proclaims it: “I the Lord RANSOMED YOU from the house of slavery!”
But then it goes on in that song to the Lamb Jesus,
That:…
“HE HAS MADE US TO BE A KINGDOM OF PRIESTS”
That’s the best way to translate this, as that’s the way it also says in Exodus 19:6 where God calls Israel:
A KINGDOM OF PRIESTS…..!
In Israel that was startling…..!
Some were more priests than others, in that day of shadows. But surely after the curtain rent in the temple when The Great High Priest had spilt His Blood for the sins of the people, then that whole people is called to the priesthood. All God’s servants, as Psalm 134 sings, stand in God’s house by day and night and serve Him with the sacrifice of their own lives. Priests are they, God’s people over whom He rules by His Word and Spirit.
Priests, mediators between Him and a sinful world.
Mediators not between God and man for that is Christ alone
but between God and a fall-crushed creation.
Praying for it…
bringing it back to the Lord in the great work of reconciliation of which we are now the ministers, the ambassadors, as Paul says in 2Cor.5.
Praying for others, wrestling in prayer that God’s peace may extend to all that He made….. God’s allies, holy to Him, set aside to Him, in the long white robe of His holy service. Their kingly job is not yet clearly to rule. That will come when they shall rule with Christ. When they will wear their crowns and sit in judgement. Now their kingly job is primarily to fight after Christ. Fight sin and fight all dishonour to the Name of their Master.
But they are a Kingdom, and they are priests. That’s what the Lamb made them. And thus the praise to Him rises up from this weary earth when this priesthood functions in 1977. When men and women on God’s side pray for those who struggle and those falling away, pray and seek to reconcile. They are then peace-makers and shalom-bringers, bearing in their own bodies the suffering with Christ which they share that later they may share also in His glory. That is the function of God’s people on earth. At times we may have been too triumphalistic: seeking to reign now instead of being priests. Seeking to establish POWER STRUCTURES now instead of prophesying and suffering and sacrificing ourselves.
Time and again Jeshurun has waxed fat and kicked back:
Here WE come; the Lord’s Shock Troops,
The Pedigree of the Almighty.
But He made us a Kingdom of priests.
Humble sufferers who follow the Lamb wherever He goes,
and thus, by simply proclaiming the Word,
prove more than conquerors
even when being led to slaughter all the day long.
He made us that.
That also means: Made us ABLE to do that and keep going….!
And then the song of praise to HIM turns into proclamation, prophecy: LOOK HE COMES WITH THE CLOUDS and every eye shall see Him, even those who, pierced Him, and all the tribes of the land will mourn over him:-
WHAT HAVE WE DONE?
Now Acts 1:11 tells us that Jesus who went up to heaven shall COME BACK IN LIKE MANNER FROM HEAVEN, and we are not saying that Revelation isn’t full of that glorious fact we are awaiting even now. But this business of coming WITH THE CLOUDS OF HEAVEN is not quoted from Acts 1, but from Daniel 7:13.
There it says: And I kept looking in the night visions,
and behold, with the clouds of heaven
One like a Son of Man was coming,
and He came UP TO THE ANCIENT OF DAYS
AND WAS PRESENTED BEFORE HIM.
Now note that this is a COMING OF THE SON OF MAN ON THE CLOUDS OF HEAVEN…
TOWARDS THE THRONE O F GOD!
Now go with me to the judgement Room of the Jewish Council where Jesus stood in trial for his life. What were the words that cost him his death penalty?
Matthew 26:64:
“I tell you, hereafter
YOU SHALL SEE THE SON OF MAN
SITTING AT THE RIGHT HAND OF POWER
AND COMING ON THE CLOUDS OF HEAVEN”.
That is not only quoting Daniel but also Psalm 110!
But Jesus said that these Jews would SEE that. But they have not seen Jesus come back yet! Neither have we! What then did they see?
What for that matter – did the people think Jesus talked about in Matthew 24 (that much misunderstood chapter) when he said that some would stand there who would not taste death before they’d see the Son of Man come in His power?
The Sign of the Son of Man!?
If we look through what Matthew 24 describes, we are drawn to the conviction that that first visible manifestation of the Son of Man was His judgement over His faithless city, the city over which He wept, the City of the Great King that had rejected its Messiah:- Jerusalem.
Do not forget, it was as an answer to the question of the disciples what would happen with the TEMPLE, and what would be the sign of the end of THE AGE (Not: the world!) that Christ gave the sermon in Matthew 24.
Now like so many prophecies, He shows us more than one storey on the building: and the visions telescope ahead towards the great day of the Final Coming and judgement. But first of all the Lord Jesus vindicates His glory by judging His faithless covenant people.
Again let me state most emphatically that this does NOT mean that The Lord is against JEWS as such and that the Book Revelation would be a Book of antisemitism. But rather: that to have an eternal covenant with God – as now the Church has – is a precarious thing. It is very rich indeed, but how responsible we are! We do not sin against our covenant God without running terrible risks. All of Scripture deals – rather than with some Santa-Claussy “God is Love” theory, wishy-washy and sentimental – with the relationship of a sovereign God with HIS PEOPLE. And if after Israel turned faithless and the door was also opened for Gentiles to become part of that people, we should not forget that a JEALOUS GOD the Lord still is: He Who gives so much, yes indeed gives all, expects all, too. When God’s covenant people begin to stone the prophets and reject its Messiah, then the Lord has a quarrel with that people. And the Bible does not close before that quarrel has been settled. WHAT HAPPENS TO JERUSALEM? is the moot question of Revelation. And for us – partly at least that involves the very important question: what happens to the church? The manifestation NOW of God’s visible Body on earth? The House and temple of the Living God? The Nation of His Covenant, His partners on earth? The early church suffered bitterly under the persecution of those that said they were Jews but were not. Romans, Galatians, Acts,… they are full of the treason of God’s covenant people against the very Messiah of that people. How the young church struggled and suffered under it. More than under the Roman Emperors!
Many people – even Reformed scholars and for instance the well-known Bible commentator William Barclay – see in Revelation a book of bitter hatred against ROME especially when under Emperor Diocletian the EMPEROR WORSHIP was enforced upon the Christian Church and it had no choice but say “NO” to this idolatrous demand. But that would be a strange thing compared with the REST OF THE NEW TESTAMENT where even the magistrate under NERO is called a SERVANT OF GOD. Not a BEAST mind you! Not a DRAGON, but a LITURGICAL SERVANT OF GOD TO PUNISH EVIL AND REWARD GOOD. Even as late as Paul’s letters to Timothy when Emperor worship was already getting well established, the church is NOT asked to “COME OUT OF” the state but to PRAY FOR IT as the framework in which the Gospel can operate. The only limit of course being that one shall obey God; rather than man. Here, too, we must be careful not to let Revelation all of a sudden speak a language foreign to that of the entire New Testament. For instance even Peter, the fiery Peter, says: Honour the emperor! though that same emperor is to have him crucified.
No… the beast, the dragon, the Babylon of the Revelation is first of all the disobedient city of God, the false church that had forsaken the covenant. No enemy is worse than one who had first been a friend and son. That was the enemy of the early Christian Church, but even then we do not just see vindictiveness, but we see the coming of Christ in judgement AS THE OTHER SIDE, THE FLIP-SIDE AS IT WERE, of the very covenant relationship with God. That is not a cheap relationship. The coming of Christ to His Covenant city and His covenant people can mean the greatest comfort and beauty. But it can also mean the greatest terror, greater than when He comes to judge the (outside) WORLD. THAT IS WHAT REVELATION SAYS!
The beauty of it is that this is not the LAST thing we shall hear of Jerusalem. BEYOND that terrible judgement there is still a NEW Jerusalem coming to earth adorned as a bride before her husband. Then there is that great faithfulness with which God says YES to His fallen creation because it is the creation He redeemed in Jesus Christ. The UNITY of the work of God which breathes through this book of Revelation is in complete harmony with Romans 9-11 where God wrestles for the soul of His people. Now He is grafting in the gentiles, but one day He will make all Israel come back.
Revelation lies on the same line as the prophets. In the writings of the prophets KINGDOM AND COVENANT GO HAND IN HAND. God has a go at His world with a partner-people whom He calls to Himself. The redemption of that people will go hand in hand with lions lying down with lambs and oxen eating straw with wolves. God’s rule which starts in His people who are the agents of that Rule, is to ooze out over all His world. All the New Testament extends that line of the Covenant of God and Revelation does not step away from it. Universal salvation is bound up with PARTICULAR grace:- the special people of God with the special calling….. and the special responsibility. There is no sudden switch to a general religion where all men are automatic brothers and any old religion is right. This modern abomination has nothing to do with the Bible and certainly has nothing to do with Revelation.
WHERE IS MY PEOPLE?! cries the Lord, My Jerusalem is NOT turning into a faithless Babylon, is it? And that way we can spot glimpses of Rome….. or of the Reformed Church for that matter.
How up-to-date this book is: Indeed how up to date is the whole Bible! How relevant for the life of the world AND of the church today! For – says the Lord – I am Alpha and Omega, I, Yahweh, the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob, The God of Christ, did not evolve in some way as suggested by Mitchener, from a savage Old Testament God to some nice fatherly New Testament Indulgent Permissive Parent before Whom any old thing goes. No the Alpha Who was there at the end, true to Himself and true to His Word… He will judge Jerusalem when it has become Babylon.
The God Who Is….. always Is – Yahweh the Faithful One, and yet is the one Who was…. and shall come. He is the One who goes along with His people manifesting Himself alive and present – right in our history. The Almighty, before Whom nothing is impossible. Whom we may follow trustingly into the future, yes, but whom we are called also to honour and to fear. The one can never be without the other.
There always is that Dialogue, you know, that Discussion, that ongoing question- and-answer communication between Him, the Lord…… and His people.
Amen.