We Could Do With a Good Dose of Disillusionment

We love stories - it's a part of our nature. And we like stories with happy endings. A few nights ago, my wife and I watched the series finale of House. It's amazing to realize just how angry my wife, and so many other viewers would have been if the show did not conclude with a happy ending. Myself, I'm the type to enjoy a realistic ending that might have a bit of dreary, realistic humanity attached to it. To give you an idea where my tastes are, I thought the ending of Revolutionary Road was perfect.

In the same way, Christians love conversion stories. We love to hear about how God took a sinner and changed his heart and drew that person to Himself. What's not to love about it? You have what once was dead brought to life. It's beautiful, it glorifies God, and it's Biblical, to boot! The Apostle Paul spoke frequently of his own past (1 Tim. 1:13; 1 Cor. 15:9; Gal. 1:13). But how often do we reflect that our own story becomes shockingly unsexy once the dust has actually settled? I'm not saying there is not a happy ending for the saints of God, but for some it is often very long in the making.

After coming to Seminary, I made friends with a great guy who has an extraordinary conversion story (or so I'm told). My wife and I had him over for dinner one night and after some time he looked at me and said that if I was okay with it he'd rather not tell his conversion story. He explained that he had told it to so many people and that he didn't think it was good for himself or those he told it to. He'd become so saturated by his own story that those he told didn't look at him as a saint of God. They saw him as a notorious sinner first, and perhaps as a redeemed saint a distant second. And this is at a Reformed seminary where the grace of God is proclaimed weekly from the chapel pulpit and in every class. People weren't ready for the reality of this guy's old life.

Protestants, generally speaking, have a problem with the grit and the dirt and the messy reality of life. I hear all sorts of theories of why that is, but at the end of the day I think we really enjoy the world as it will be, and we want to escape from the world as it actually exists in the here and now. This sentiment may have something to do with the co-emergence of premillenial dispensationalism in the 19th century alongside of an entertainment-saturated culture of unprecedented proportions. If you compare the sort of  fiction books produced in protestant religious circles with those coming out of catholic or even humanistic ones, what one finds is a protestantism preoccupied with seeing the good in life and seeing the good that will eventually come out of life and a perspective on the other side that is either completely diversionary or else hyper-gritty in terms of the realistic approach to portraying life.

One need only compare The Lord of the Rings with the Song of Ice and Fire books that are written by George R.R. Martin (an agnostic). Protestants like The Lord of the Rings for lots of reasons relating to the high quality of the books, to be sure, but also, I think, because they are filled with people who are well-intended and who want to see good defeat evil. The Song of Ice and Fire books, on the other hand, are filled with what seems like irredeemably bad people, some (most?) of whom the reader is able to sympathize with in spite of it because of the dirt between their toes and the hunger in their bellies. Tolkien's enemies are faceless minions without names and without souls. With a couple of exceptions (one thinks of Smeagol or Denethor) the evil in LORT is kept at a safe distance while the SOIF books force the reader into the minds of the sorts of people we like to think that we are not. Why is it that we as Christians have such a problem with facing the harsher or dirtier side of reality (or if we do, we dare not tell others)? Isn't it time that we gave ourselves permission to admit that all is not roses and butterflies followed by rapturous moments of delight?

Christians are leaving the church. This is no secret. I live in my own little corner of the evangelical world where I am a conservative Westminster Standard-loving Reformed Christian whose (almost) entire base of friends "back home" are the emergent sorts who think Rachel Held Evans really "gets" them. Almost all of them at one time or another express either publicly or privately in conversations with me, just how unhappy they are with the church. But why? What is happening that is causing such frustration or disappointment? I suspect it's nothing more than the average boring stuff of life, the sin and frustrations involved in living in community with other people who have yet to experience the complete renewal of their persons.

When you go to church on a Sunday morning, you enter this room with other people in it. You often know what their shortcomings are. Or you notice that they sing off-key. Or you maybe heard the song-leader yelling at his son in the parking lot a few minutes before the service. Or maybe you saw an elder's eye wander someplace that it shouldn't during greeting time. Maybe you went into the bathroom before the service and you saw the pastor leave without washing his hands first. Maybe you went to get coffee but the creamer was all out... the sunday school teacher took the last of it. These are the sorts of raw, boring "little things" that, taken on their own are nothing, but collectively, when we think about it later, can shatter our illusions that the church is a sort of utopia. The imperfections and flaws of our neighbors and churches become apparent over time. The seams start to show.

Or maybe your problems are bigger. Maybe you think the church isn't "getting it right" on some social issue or maybe you think the church should talk about this or that a little bit less. Everybody sees things that those around them just aren't "getting right," whether it's at work, at a family reunion, or even at church.

What the church needs is not a good dose of correction on these points. Instead, it's the complainers who need something. What the complainers need is a nice, healthy inoculation delivered intravenously, the way I take my Starbucks in the morning. What we need is to experience the inevitable (if we're in the church for long enough) disillusionment, to deal with it, and then to remember that this is still Christ's bride. Stephen Nichols, in his book Bonhoeffer on the Christian Life, touches on precisely this need. Echoing the thoughts of Bonhoeffer's book Life Together, Nichols says that Christians have this tendency to approach the church with a sort of utopian dream wherein we idealize the body of Christ and see her as what she ought to be rather than as what she is. This is what Bonhoeffer refers to as a "wish dream." Says Nichols,

because of this wish dream "innumerable times a whole Christian community has broken down."... God in his grace shatters our illusions and dreams of peace and harmony...The sooner we come face-to-face with the disillusionment with others and the disillusionment with ourselves, Bonhoeffer adds, the better off we and the church are. There is a realism here that we should appreciate, and a realism that, once grasped, goes a long way in sustaining true and genuine community in the church. We come to grips with all of our own limitations and weaknesses and besetting sins. And we come to grips with the same in others - even in our leaders and heroes. Then we live in real and not ideal communities. Church is not a wish dream. We also need to jettison our misplaced zeal to see the Christian life as a wish-dream life. The Christian life, like the church, is lived in the real world. (Bonhoeffer on the Christian Life, p. 68-69)

The band Metric has a song called "Breathing Underwater," where the lead singer Emily Haines says, "They were right when they said/ We should never meet our heroes." It's a glimpse inside the mind of a person who wants to live in the "wish dream." I'm not immune to this desire to preserve the wish-dream. Earlier this year I was at The Gospel Coalition and I saw D.A. Carson and Tim Keller sitting in a pair of facing chairs in the hotel, talking. I chose not to go up to them or say anything. Why? Because I'd rather not meet two of my heroes. The conversation wouldn't go well, maybe I'd embarrass myself. Maybe they wouldn't be friendly. Maybe I was afraid of having an illusion shattered. I wish I had gone over to them, spoken to them and had the mystique dispelled just a bit. It would have been good for me.

In the same way, it was told, Shelby Foote and Walker Percy once went to visit William Faulkner in Oxford, MS. When they got to his house Percy wouldn't leave the car. He didn't want to have his wish dream shattered by actually meeting the man.

Someone needs to give Christians permission to live in the real world, not in the ideal wish-dream world that so many inhabit. I think that Bonhoeffer's notion that the wish-dream has broken down whole Christian communities might actually lie at the core of why the church sees so many critics and defectors today. The church has a new world in which it does its work in some ways, sure. But human nature is still the same. We still have the same feet of clay that we've always had. We often preach a church triumphant, but that is not what people usually see or sense. Usually people see the little failures that make up the average Christian's life. The message of grace that comes out of our pulpits, out of our seminaries, and out of our family worship times needs to be one by which our audiences are able to make sense of the pains, difficulties, muck, frustrations and realities of life without losing their understanding that a church can be triumphant without always seeming like it is.

Don't Try to Be Einstein - Just Tighten The Screws

One of the blessings/curses of the era of connectivity in which we live is the possibility that anyone can become a celebrity or develop a following. This is true of niche blogs like ours, and it is true of the big dogs as well. In many respects, it is a new phenomenon that nobodies can become somebodies simply by speaking their mind in a unique voice. One of the temptations in this day and age that isn't new is the temptation to innovate for the sake of innovation.

In other words, it is tempting to draw attention to ourselves by becoming crackpots. And this is where the show 'This American Life' comes in. In case you've never heard 'TAL' before, it are a radio program which explores different issues in each episode, usually by telling the story of an average person. In episode #293, titled "A Little Bit of Knowledge," the hosts talked to a guy who believed he had disproven Einstein and shown that E does not equal MC squared. So convinced was this man that he quit his job and spent an entire year doing research to show that his math was good. Even though he was not a trained physicist and admittedly not very good at math he nevertheless believed he had felled the giant of physics himself.

The hosts of TAL finally found a trained physicist named John Baez who was willing to spend time with the man's paper explaining his theory and the results were not surprising. After a very short time with this paper the physicist explained that his paper contained errors which seem like the sort that a psychology student taking a physics elective would make. In short, there was absolutely nothing to this man's theory. In truth, he was just another crackpot.

Baez then explained that there is a whole community of crackpots out there who exist to disprove Einstein and what they see as conventional scientists who "tow the party line." When asked to explain ultimately why such people exist, the physicist admitted that these people want to know what the universe is like and to understand it. He explains that it isn't glamorous to do what most scientists do. So what does Baez think it is about the crackpots that distinguishes them from the good physicists?

They don't want to be somebody whose epitaph says that they tightened the screws on a particle accelerator that made a great experiment. They want to be Einstein. And most of us can't be Einstein, and that's the trouble.

So in Baez's interpretation, one obvious reason for the emergence of the crazy is the belief that one can become important and offer the breakthrough of the century. Everyone wants to come up with the idea that will change the orbit of the earth and send children running and singing into the streets while Coldplay simultaneously broadcasts on stations across the globe while confetti blankets the streets. However, Baez explains that this just isn't what physics is like, and it isn't what the nitty gritty of furthering science really involves, either. At some point, innovation must slow down and people have to start tightening the screws.

What if those who are in the ministry or those of us who are preparing to enter the ministry could take these words to heart? What a revolutionary and beautiful thought to concede that no, I'm not here to come up with general relativity. I'm not here to be a Calvin or a Luther. I'm not here to come up with a movement that will bear my last name in a slightly modified form 400 years from now. I'm here to serve my little church, to feed my little flock, and to protect them from the wolves. We must be faithful and not lose heart. At the end of our lives, our success is not measured by anything on our epitaph - it is measured by how many people are following Jesus Christ and growing because of what God has chosen to do through us.

Doing Church Without God

Piggybacking on my last post, I wanted to note a few sporadic and yet related thoughts.

It is worth noting that Christianity does, in fact, have its own branches which wouldn't care or even notice if God didn't exist. Things would move along pretty much as they always have if it turned out He never existed or if He just up and disappeared. Christianity is infected with what often gets termed 'moralistic therapeutic deism.' These churches have given up worship of God in exchange for moralizing their members - making them good citizens who obey the golden rule and teach their kids that God will let them into heaven if they just follow God's rules and check all the marks on the list.

Many churches have such little belief in the sovereignty of God that they believe they must be the ones to make God come within their midst. Inspired by Charles Finney and his axiomatic belief that it is man and not God who decides when revival happens, much of Christendom has set to work doing religion when the show has already left the building. The sad reality is, many churches have gotten so used to 'making church happen' that it now bears no urgent dependency upon the Divine. If God were to depart, such churches would scarcely even notice.

Other experiments in fulfilling John Gray's supposedly 'novel' idea have been tried. Back in the 60s, Thomas Altizer and William Hamilton posited a 'Christian' denial of God's existence known as the "God is dead" movement. It is of course, a relic of the old liberalism which is long forgotten by most Christians today. Such men truly argued that God is dead and gone - most specifically that Christian theism is not true. And yet they insisted on calling themselves Christian. They may have made great elders in most churches in the PCUSA.

In truth, attempts throughout recent church history have been made to separate the existence of God from the practice of religion. One need only look at the demise of the mainline protestant denominations in the United States to see that a divorce of God from religion is not sustainable in the long-term for more than the obvious reasons. When experience of God and devotion to God is split off from liturgy and sacraments, one is left with a rank and odious procession which is more a funeral for the divine than worship or celebration.

In the end, it is sad to say that despite my own protestations, I'm afraid John Gray's arguments may have been unwittingly adopted by large portions of American Christianity without their conscious awareness. Is there help for such churches? Sure. But the changes needed are fundamental, and I'm not holding my breath waiting for them to turn around.

The Onion Understands the American Church

The Onion: Church Cancelled Due to Lack of God. After reading this satirical article in the Onion, I wonder how many churches shouldn't just close up shop anyway. After all, this piece isn't that far off. How many churches just keep doing church because they don't know of any better place to get together and do some singing once a week? My favorite zingers :

“I enjoyed the lovely singing during church service, and was very sad to see it go, particularly because I am a lonely septuagenarian waiting to die,” Mabel Graskowsky, 78, said. “But then Pastor explained to me that there are groups who get together just for singing only, and I could go to any one I wanted whenever I wished. Just singing! None of that boring inbetween stuff I always slept through. I’m much happier now.”
...
“I’m meeting once a week, not Sundays but on Wednesdays, with anyone who cares to join me. We won’t be worshipping anybody, just practicing my favorite hobby, horticulture. I’ll admit, it doesn’t have the power to grant eternal absolution from earthly pain, but at least flowers are real. We must cultivate our garden.”

I fear that many people in churches feel this way, but they are unwilling to give up the feeling of togetherness, the country-club atmosphere, the potlucks, the pleasing music, some free wine and friendly conversation. If you took away those things and left only God, I fear most churches would close their doors - and I daresay such a thing would be for the better. In fact, I can't help but think that such a thing has happened in places like China where there is no room for superficial niceties. If going to church means you could be detained or killed, only the serious need apply. In America where church is by and large a place for entertainment and creature comforts, precisely the opposite principle is in play.

The Church in a Mass-Media World

Personally, I think cyberspace means the end of our species...because it means the end of innovation. This idea that the whole world is wired together is mass death. Every biologist knows that small groups in isolation evolve fastest. You put a thousand birds on an ocean island and they'll evolve very fast. You put ten thousand on a big continent, and their evolution slows down. Now, for our own species, evolution occurs mostly through our behavior. We innovate new behavior to adapt. And everybody on earth knows that innovation only occurs in small groups. Put three people on a committee and they may get something done. Ten people, and it gets harder. Thirty people, and nothing happens. Thirty million, it becomes impossible. That's the effect of mass media - it keeps anything from happening. Mass media swamps diversity. It makes every place the same. Bangkok or Tokyo or London: there's a McDonald's on one corner, a Benneton on another, a Gap across the street. Regional differences vanish. All differences vanish. In a mass-media world, there's less of everything except the top ten books, records, movies, ideas. People worry about losing species diversity in the rain forest. But what about intellectual diversity - our most necessary resource? That's disappearing faster than trees. But we haven't figured that out, so now we're planning to put five billion people together in cyberspace. And it'll freeze the entire species. Everything will stop dead in it's tracks. Everyone will think the same thing at the same time. Global uniformity.

-Michael Crichton in The Lost World (1995)

Although Crichton's words from 15 years ago seem quite prescient, our concerns lie in different directions. What I wonder about is not necessarily the evolution of species or whether innovation will continue at a stunning space. What concerns me is what the constantly interconnected online community will mean for the church. In the short term, if it is used in a healthy way by the church, then it means sharing of resources, the spreading of preaching, knowledge, and information. It means having an online community (Puritanbard for example) where men can help each other pursue truth and a love of the gospel. On the downside, I think Crichton is right that society will continue to break into smaller communities within the cyberspace domain in ways that are theologically unhealthy, and therefore genuinely unhealthy.

I think, for example, of a group that a friend invited me to on Facebook (I declined) called "Facebook Church." Many may look at FB Church as an innocent enough of a group, and it probably is, but it reflects a shifting understanding of community away from physical, organic, and personal interaction towards impersonal, inorganic, and purely platonic categories of what defines a community - and especially a community of Christ's people. We're only 15 years or so into the widespread acceptance of the internet as a part of everyday life, and now we're seeing entire churches which appear online, and which webcast their messages - often live - for their audiences to "participate" in.

Taken on their own these developments have their undeniably positive aspects. I love going to Puritanboard to get my tough questions answered. I love downloading podcasts of The Narrow Mind, Christ the Center, the Heidelcast, the Dividing Line, etc. I love podcasting in the latest sermons from Tim Keller, Ligon Duncan, John Piper, Sinclair Ferguson, and the rest of the team.

However, Christianity becomes anemic if disconnected from our real community at our local church, where we contribute our gifts, where we take communion together, where we hear the same word preached from the same pulpit, and where we know and pray for one another. Online communities can only present a faint shadow of the true Christian community as God intended it. Christianity is a physical religion. In contrast to the platonists the neo-platonists, and the gnostics, Christianity taught that the physical world is good and blessed by God, and that physical interaction is good. This is part and parcel of why Christians do not simply hide themselves in a monastic cloister and practice their private religious ceremonies (such as communion) alone.

So here comes the real irony of when the internet is used in an unhealthy way by Christians. While all Christian online communities start as a way of connecting the church, if abused (like all of God's gifts) its purpose is perverted and people end up being disconnected in meaningful ways from one another. The internet is so young that we are all the pioneers in a sense of how to balance our lives on it and with the church.

The Joy of Church Family

Next Sunday, God willing, my wife and I will be joining our new church family in Wichita, KS by becoming members and having our children baptized. The church is Heartland Community Church, which is a PCA church located about an hour from where we live. For as long as we've been married, we've never belonged to a PCA church (even though we fit best with the PCA in our convictions).

These are photos from this last Sunday, where we introduced our new daughter, Penelope, to our church family. I would post photos of the baptisms next week, but I doubt if we'll have anyone to take pictures then. Needless to say, it is very exciting to belong to a church where our theological convictions are considered an asset, rather than a liability. Every other church where we have ever attended has either been Arminian or credo-baptist. Becoming members at Heartland is simply a dream come true for me, and I am excited to begin finding opportunities to exercise my gifts in places other than in cyberspace.

Al Mohler on the Burdens of Young Christians

Friday, July 2nd marked the last episode of the Albert Mohler Program. Al Mohler has written on his blog some parting thoughts and lessons that he has learned over the years of doing his radio program. One of the points that Mohler makes which I particularly connected with was his point that young Christians bear a tremendous burden in many respects:

Just imagine being a young Christian in postmodern America. Everything appears up for negotiation, from sexuality to spiritual realities. In these times, the young are bearing the greatest burden, paying the greatest social costs, and carrying much of the intellectual freight as well.

They need help — and understanding. They desperately need the church to respond with the full witness of Scripture and the full measure of conviction. They are pressed on by all sides, pulled by the vortex of a secular culture, and faced with frontal attacks on the Christian faith. They are on college and university campuses where Christianity is derided as imperialistic and where belief in the supernatural is written off as insanity.

They face moral and cultural temptations that no previous generation of Christians has faced. They need help, and I heard their voices with particular concern and priority.

Most of the men whom we look to right now for leadership - from men like Piper, Mohler, Dever, Duncan, Sproul, Keller, et al are between 30 and 50 years older than us. We won't have these redwoods of the faith around forever to fight our fights for us; eventually, as young Reformed Christians, these fights will be fully our own to fight.

Craig Koester's Amil-Preterist Commentary of Revelation (Part 8)

The Beast and the Lamb (Revelation 12-15)

The Dragon (Chapter 12)

• Dragon = Satan
• The Woman = The Church
• The Child = Jesus

In Koester's take on this section of Revelation, we see that Satan pursues the church, attempting to overtake Christ and end his rule. Satan believed that he had succeeded in his attempt, in the crucifixion. However, after the resurrection, instead of remaining on earth, Jesus is caught up into heaven and demonstrates that Satan has been defeated in his rising. This is what we see in verses 7 and following; after a war in heaven, the dragon is defeated and is now confined to the earth. He is restricted from again entering heaven. Because of this, Satan is flailing; he knows that he is defeated, and like a beaten animal in an enclosed space, he lashes out in "great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!" (12:12) After this, the dragon tries repeatedly to make war on the church, yet is repeatedly foiled in its attempts.

The Two Beasts (Chapter 13)
Satan stands on the shore of the sea "as if to conjure up a new and terrible specter of evil." Satan, as well as his two minions - the beast of the sea and the beast from the land - form a new sort of "Unholy Trinity." The beast of the sea wears ten crowns - emphasizing its desire for renown and power. Revelation presents this beast as something of an evil counterpart to the Lamb. Whereas the Lamb's suffering brings glory to God, the first Beast's apparent suffering brings worship to Satan. The beast is an amalgamation "of oppressive powers from various times and places, creating a composite picture of evil."

While the beast of the sea brings worshippers to Satan, the Beast of the land serves as a false prophet. If the people of the world will not identify with this servant of Satan, then they will face economic pressures (13:17). It would be easy to simply say that Koester takes the typical Preterist approach and names Nero as the Beast from the land right away. However, Koester sees the beast of the Land as something larger and more epically far-reaching than simply one individual who functions in a single moment. He says that this is part of the reason why so many throughout history seem to "fit the bill" of the Beast; because while John does link the Beast with a single individual, the Beast also represents leadership which demands worship over and above that which God deserves. This is a common and persistent enemy of the Church throughout all eras of history.

666

This calls for wisdom: let the one who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man, and his number is 666 (13:18).

A couple of observations. First, John believes that his readers in the churches - if they have wisdom - will be able to identify the Beast. 666 "is the number of a man." A historical figure. A literal person whom first century readers would have known.

Koester sets forth Nero as a prime candidate. Several of his traits line up with what we expect from the Beast:

• Nero ruthlessly persecuted Christians of John's time, "making war on the saints" (13:7).
• Nero killed himself by slitting his own throat, though, like Elvis, rumors persisted that he was still alive (13:3, 12, 14).

Koester points out that deducing the identity of the Beast merely by way of gematria is insufficient, since it is possible to spell out many names which add up to 666. For example, if simply adding up 666 were sufficient, one would discover that Barney the "Cute Purple Dinosaur", "Ronald Raegan" or "Computer" were the Beast. Rather, he says that gematria is only one piece of the puzzle. If you already knew somebody's name, you could easily see if their name matched a given number. Nevertheless, he does substantiate the claim that Nero matches up with 666, and in his demonstration he does not disappoint.

The gematriatic method of communication has a historical basis. For example, in Pompeii a man proclaimed his love for a girl in graffiti by writing, "I love her whose number is 545." This was a known method of communication. In many respects, Nero did, in fact, fit the bill for the Beast. When written in Hebrew, "Caesar Neron" transiterates as "nron qsr."

• nun (50) + resh (200) + waw (6) + nun (50) + qof (100) + samech (60) + resh (200) = 666

One interesting textual variant found in some manuscripts lists the Beast's number as being 616. This is exactly what the name "Caesar Neron" adds up to if you dropped the second "n" from "Neron" and simply transliterated his name as "Nero." This variant is tremendously insightful as to what the earliest scribes understood to be happening here in this section of the text. It shows that the earliest textual scribes understood Nero to be the Beast.

This is as far as my own demonstration goes, since I know next to nothing about Hebrew or gematria. Even though I was public schooled, I do know enough about math to know that those numbers do equal 666 when added together.

In his conclusion of this section, Koester seems to appreciate other historical interpretations. For example, some identify the beast of the sea as Rome, with the beast of the land standing for "the local Asian supporters of Rome." He says, however, that the difficulty of identifying a single historical figure to identify with these enemies of the Lamb is not a problem.

Rather, it shows that the imagery depicts threats that cannot be limited to a single time and place. On the one hand, the portrayal of the two beasts does not convey coded information that will allow readers to know when the end of time has come. On the other hand, the visions may have called first-century readers to resist Roman practices...The summons to persevere is not simply a message for a generation living in the first century or at the end of time; it is a message for all generations that are confronted with idolatry and violence.
(Pg. 135)

Craig Koester's Amil-Preterist Commentary of Revelation (Part 7)

The Second Cycle of Seven: Revelation 8-11
Now, instead of seals being opened, we have a new cycle; this time with trumpets being blown. Again, as before, each trumpet ushers in new disasters:

• First Trumpet: Hail, Fire, Blood; All grass is burned up
• Second Trumpet: Sea of Blood, Sea Life Killed, Ships Destroyed
• Third Trumpet: Wormwood in the water makes it undrinkable; Many die from the bitter water
• Fourth Trumpet: Sun darkened, Moon, and Stars darkened

These scenes should not be seen as depicting future disasters for the following reasons:

• "After the sixth seal is opened, the sun becomes black...the stars fall, and the sky vanishes, which seems like a decisive end of heavenly bodies, yet by Revelation 8, the sky and the heavenly bodies are back again so that they can become dark all over again in the new cycle of threats."
• In 8:7 all of the grass on the earth is burned up, and yet we see that in 9:4 the grass has very quickly returned so that God can tell the locusts not to eat it up. "These inconsistencies disrupt attempts to take the visions as a linear sequence of events" (97).

Rather, according to Koester, these "stylized" events are warnings designed to "strip away the readers' sense of security," and thus bring repentance. He cites 9:20 as evidence. In spite of all these events, the wicked "did not repent of the works of their hands or give up worshipping demons and idols." As before, again and again, Revelation is pressing the readers of the seven churches not to find security in the World, because that security is an illusion, preserved only temporarily by God Himself.

Just as the first four trumpets bring danger upon the earth, the fifth trumpet shows that there is danger from under the earth, as well. "The text has a surreal quality that makes it impossible to situate in time and space - one would be hard pressed to locate the shaft of the bottomless pit on a map - but the repulsive images that appear effectively display the horrors of falling under God's wrath" (99).

Chapter 11 opens with John measuring the temple and altar, which Koester identifies as representing "the Christian community being preserved despite threats by the unbelieving world to overwhelm it. The inner part of the sanctuary, which is kept safe from the nations, is the community in which true worship continues. The comment about the outer court being given over to the nations cautions that God will allow a part of the community to come under the sway of the pagan world" (107).

The two witnesses, who represent the "community of faithful Christians," make an appearance in 11:3-14. Koester points out the different elements of their witness:

• The speech of the witnesses is like fire; a trait shared by the prophet Jeremiah (Jer. 5:14).
• They can call fire from heaven and stop the rain, like the prophet Elijah.
• They turn water to blood like Moses.
• They witness for God unto death. "The deaths of these witnesses are parabolic of the fate of the faithful in many times and places."

The blowing of the seventh trumpet results in praises to God being sung in heaven. In what sense, then, is the seventh trumpet a "woe"? Koester points out that "God's kingdom does not bring the destruction of the world, but the destruction of 'those who destroy the earth' (11:18)." He also points out that the "appearance of the ark in 11:19 is a signal that people should be prepared to meet God, but such a meeting can bring either blessing or judgment...The lightning, thunder, earthquake, and hail portend disaster for his adversaries (11:19)."

Craig Koester's Amil-Preterist Commentary of Revelation (Part 6)

The Second Cycle of Seven: Opening The Seven Scrolls: Revelation 4-7 (Continued)

If, as Shakespeare said, brevity is the soul of wit, then this has by far been the most witless book review in history. As such, I'm going to step it up by dealing more broadly with Koester's interpretation of the more difficult symbolism and less on substantiating his claims.

Revelation 7: The 144,000 of Israel Sealed

Some observations about the 'seals' which are placed on God's people:

• The seal suggests that "the people belong to God."
• The seal "also suggests protection."
• God's sealed people are not immune to suffering.
• However, the seal "does shield people from the wrath of God and the Lamb (6:16-17)."

So who are the 144,000?

• Just as the new Jerusalem is not literally a 12,000 Stadia (1500 mile) cube (Rev. 21:16), so we understand that 12,000 from each tribe of Judah is not literal, but symbolic of completeness.
• The 144,000 referred to in 7:4-8 are the same group as the multitude in 7:9-17. This happens by first hearing and then seeing. First he hears about the 144,000 and then he sees the great multitude.
• Just as Jesus is the Lion and the Lamb, whereby we learn about Jesus' multifaceted character, so we learn about the church from this discussion that the church is identified with Israel, and that the church is an ingrafted mass of Gentile humanity. We see from the 144,000 that God has not abandoned his promises to preserve Israel.

Anticlimactically, the seventh scroll is opened, and the heavens are silent for a half an hour. As we prepare for the next cycle of seven, the heavens are silent, that we might "be still and know that" he is God.

Craig Koester's Amil-Preterist Commentary of Revelation (Part 5)

The Second Cycle of Seven: Opening The Seven Scrolls: Revelation 4-7 (Continued)

Revelation 6: The First Six Seals
As the Lamb opens each of the first four seals, we are presented with the arrival of a new horseback rider who ushers in portents of danger. Koester spends some time arguing against seeing the visions of chapter six as predictions of future events. Many think that this is a chapter issuing predictions of coming disaster. However, it is not right to describe these visions as "predictions" for various reasons:

• The horsemen and seals represent "threats that do not fall neatly on a time line."
• Virtually everyone realizes that the horsemen have a symbolic quality.
• The visions "stand for larger realities" that cannot be confined to any one period: "waves of conquest, outbreaks of violence, and periods of economic hardship have occurred repeatedly in human history, and death finally comes to all."

According to Koester, the primary purpose of Revelation 6 "is to awaken a sense of uneasiness in readers by vividly identifying threats to their well-being so that the understanding reader will cry out, "Who is able to stand?" (6:17). The four horsemen show that one cannot find security or well-being even within the borders of a seemingly secure nation or empire.

• The first horseman with the bow represents threats by foreign powers.
• The second horseman with the sword represents threats from within society.
• The third horseman with the scales represents economic insecurity.
• The fourth horseman is death, whom none can escape.

The opening of the fifth seal results in a vision of "under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne" (6:9). "The martyrs rest in heaven (6:9-11) and the remainder of humanity is disturbed on earth (6:12-17). These visions press readers to give up the idea that they can remain neutral, asking if they identify with the martyrs or with the rest of humanity. There is no middle ground." He also points out that the vision of martyrs is a notice to believers that martyrdom is not meant to be a special event or a rarity, but it is meant to awaken in readers a willingness to identify with those who have suffered for the faith. Notice that again and again Koester returns us to the audience, reminding us constantly to consider the first century response to these visions, and then to apply this to our own lives. For Koester, Revelation should not be read strictly as a devotional work, devoid of context (as the modern reader is prone to do), or as a mere historical document (as the professor within us Reformed types is prone to do).

The opening of the sixth seal presents us with a world full of earthquakes, a blackened sun, stars falling to earth, the sky being "rolled up," and every mountain being "moved from its place." These events "echo prophetic warnings about the coming day of divine wrath, showing how the creation itself responds to the will of its Creator (Isa 34:4; Joel 2:30-31; Amos 8:9)." These are all events which happen by the will of God; they are supernatural events which do not fit within the natural order. Pairing a vision of God's sovereignty with prophetic warnings of coming judgment, the idea is challenged that we can live in society, blend in, and have a compromise of our faith "in order to blend in with the beliefs of the general populace, as some of the readers of Revelation were inclined to do" (88). If we seek refuge in the world and compromise ourselves for safety's sake, we are actually taking shelter with a damned throng who are themselves terrorized by God's might to the point of helplessly cowering under the mountains.

Now, before the seventh seal can be opened, we encounter an images which deserve careful attention. This image is of the 144,000 whose foreheads are sealed. We will encounter this issue in our next post.

Audio of Craig Koester 16-Part Lectures on Revelation

To me, it's simply divine timing. Monergism is now hosting a sixteen-part series by Craig Koester discussing the book of Revelation. I haven't had a chance to listen to these lectures yet, but you can bet that I will, once I finish reading his book Revelation and the End of All Things.

Craig Koester Lecture Series: Amil-Preterist Interpretation of the Book of Revelation

Craig Koester's Amil-Preterist Commentary of Revelation (Part 4)

The Second Cycle of Seven: Opening The Seven Scrolls: Revelation 4-7

Revelation 4: The Sovereign God

As the divine voice beckons John into heaven where we will experience the next cycle of visions, Koester is careful to remind us that "the visions in this second cycle do not raise new issues but deal with the issues of faithfulness that emerged in the messages to the churches.

The visions in Revelation 4-5 center readers on God and Christ Those who ponder these two chapters discover the heart of the book, for here its essential revelation is to be found. Through the images of the throne and the Lamb, readers learn how God's will is done through the crucified and risen Christ (Koester Pg. 72, My italics).

In verses 1-11, we are treated to a vision of the Sovereign God in His majestic glory in heaven. The center of the vision is God Himself. Worship is taking place around the throne. "The actions that occur in the heavenly throne room show that in the proper order of things, all creation is oriented towards its Creator" (73). The four creatures around the throne have the faces of different animals; only one has a human face (cf. Ezekiel 1:10). Koester points out that these creatures represent the whole created order, with man only being a small part of the creation which is continually declaring the glory of God.

Next we see the 24 elders who worship in words and in actions by throwing down their crowns at his feet (4:10). "Their thrones and their crowns are theirs not by right, but as gifts of God." Koester beautifully exegetes the worship which occurs in heaven. Reading his commentary on this section causes me to greatly worship the Lord. Unfortunately, for the purposes of the blog, I will move along.

Koester notes three different responses which first century readers would have had to this vision of the heavenly courts and worship in verses 1-11:

• Those facing persecution would have found reassurance in God's reign despite constant threats and danger.
• Those tempted to syncretism would have been uneasy, because God's rule over creation means that compromise warrants the censure of God Himself.
• The "complacent and self-satisfied" would been disturbed by the vision because God's grandeur, radiance, and glory expose their riches and pretentions to majesty for the self-worship that they represent.

Revelation 5: The Lamb Who Was Slain

In the right hand of God is a scroll bearing seven seals; as soon as it is mentioned, heaven is filled with expectancy. While the document is presumably a divine decree, the seals on it reflect that their contents are valid (he presents historical background on seals in the first century to substantiate this claim). Chapter five presents the heavenly search for the one who is meant to open the seals on the scroll, only to find that there are none on earth who are worthy to unseal its contents so that God's plan might be fulfilled. Christ - the Lamb who was slain - is the only one who is worthy to bring forth the divine decree in God's right hand. As the Lamb takes the scroll and prepares to open the first seal, we prepare for the coming of the four horsemen and disaster.

I was initially going to cover the opening of the seals, but in discussing that section Koester makes very interesting arguments in disfavor of reading Revelation 6 as predictions of future events by which we might discern the end of time. I believe that this deserves careful attention. In addition to that, I don't want to rush past the opening of the first six seals. As such, in our next part, we will directly be dealing with the opening of the first six seals. I promise.

Craig Koester's Amil-Preterist Commentary of Revelation (Part 3)

The First Cycle of Seven: Messages to the Seven Churches

Revelation opens with an exhortation for the readers of this prophecy to "keep it" (1:3). "If John primarily intended to dispense information about the future, we might have expected 1:3 to speak of the blessing that comes on those that 'understand' this book...To 'keep' the message of Revelation's prophecy means to 'worship God' (22:9)" (Pg. 47).

Next, we note in 1:4 that this letter has recipients, and those intended recipients - the audience - to whom John wrote this series of exhortations and visions was "the seven churches that are in Asia" (1:4). The churches:

• Ephesus
• Smyrna
• Pergamum
• Thyatira
• Sardis
• Philadelphia
• Laodicea

Chapters 2 and 3 of Revelation contain specific messages for these specific churches and issues. Koester notes, however, that "Revelation is an open prophetic letter that is sent to seven particular congregations, yet it contains a message that applies to the church as a whole." The fact that these seven churches and not the churches in Colossae, Hieropolis, or Troas were recipients and that seven churches were chosen implies that the message of this letter is for the church as a whole.

Koester is careful to point out the analogous way in which John communicates what he saw in the book. Observe how he writes about the hard to describe figure he sees in 1:14-16:

"His head and hair were white as wool...his eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet were like burnished bronze...his voice was like the sound of many waters...and his face was like the sun."

"The repeated us of 'as' and 'like' indicates that John was describing something that did not fit within the confines of ordinary speech."

If there is one area where most commentators seem to be able to come together, it is in reading the actual words of the letters to the seven churches. Most are willing to read their exhortations plainly and "without horns." As such, I will not dwell on the seven letters or emphasize Koester's exegesis of the letters to the churches, except to point out that they follow the same basic pattern:

• Address from Christ
• Words of rebuke and encouragement
• Summons to listen and promise to the conqueror

Many commentators want to go from chapter 3 to chapter 4 and assume John foresaw a jump in the subject matter of two thousand years. As we prepare to look at the opening of the seven seals in our next installment, let us keep in mind that the intended audience (the seven churches) has not at any point changed.

Craig Koester's Amil-Preterist Commentary of Revelation (Part 2)

The Book of Revelation and Roman Imperialism

Revelation emphasizes that God, not Caesar, is Lord of the world. The splendor of God's heavenly throne room shows that the pageantry of the Roman court is but a mockery of the true sovereignty of God (4:1-11). When the Lamb opens the seals on God's scroll, a mounted bowman appears, resembling the Parthian warriors that threatened the borders of the Roman Empire, and another horseman takes away the "peace" that Rome claimed to provide (6:1-4). The beast that persecutes the saints seems to be another Nero, while the beast's chief ally promotes idolatrous worship like that of the imperial cult (13:1-18). The harlot that rides upon the beast is the city set on seven hills - clearly Rome - and it is called "Babylon," since Babylon destroyed the first temple and the Romans destroyed the second temple (17:1-18). Yet Revelation warns that the Roman "Babylon" will fall, and Christians are called to separate themselves from it in the confidence that God's purposes will triumph (18:4). (Pg. 31)

Koester points out that this is the sort of context in which first century readers would have lived, and it is this context which was part of how this letter to the seven churches would have been read in the first century. He hammers home again and again that this was a book written to a specific people, and the meaning which we must seek from the text must be a meaning which the first century audience would have drawn.

We will take Revelation contextually, as a book written by 'John, to the seven churches that are in Asia' (1:4). Accordingly, instead of first asking how Revelation relates to the headlines in today's newspapers, we will ask how it relates to the situation of the Christians of John's own time...Revelation is not a coded collection of secrets that will finally become intelligible at the end of time, for from the beginning it has been an open book that was designed to communicate with Christians living on earth.

Koester's interpretation of Revelation distinguishes itself from the traditional historicist approach in two ways:

1. An increased emphasis on the fact that this book "addresses a number of different issues, not just one issue, and that there are valuable analogies between first-century life and modern life."
2. It "considers how Revelation's imagery evokes associations that fit multiple periods of time, not only one period of time.

"The idea is not that Revelation's images are 'timeless,' but that they disclose things that apply to many generations."

Revelation as a Non-Linear Whole

1. Revelation must be taken as a whole. He contrasts this with the premillennial approaches which "assume that verses of the Bible are like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle." This means no jumping around from Daniel 9 to 1 Thessalonians 4 to Reveation 6, for example.
2. Revelation moves in a non-linear way. Koester, taking his cues from Victorinus, points out that Revelation moves in a series of loops. Each loop consists of seven distinct visions:

• Loop 1: Seven messages to the churches (Rev. 1-3)
• Loop 2: Seven seals (4-7)
• Loop 3: Seven trumpets (8-11)
• Loop 4: Unnumbered visions (12-15)
• Loop 5: Seven plagues (15-19)

Visions celebrating the triumph of God also occur at the end of each cycle (4:1-11; 7:1-17; 11:15-19; 15:1-4; 19:1-10; 21:1-22:5).

Other characteristics of each loop of Revelation.

1. In the middle of each loop, there are images of horsemen "that represent conquest, violence, hardship, and death."
2. This feature of each loop always gives way to the top of the loop, where we find visions of heaven, of the presence of "God, the Lamb, and the heavenly chorus."

"Threatening visions and assuring visions function differently, but they serve the same end, which is that listeners might continue to trust in God and remain faithful to God" (Pg. 39).

Now that we've seen Craig R. Koester's basic approach and outline of Revelation, we're ready to move on to the major themes in the text itself. Therefore, in our next installment, we'll look at the specifics of the first cycle of Revelation, Chapters 1-3. Presumably, this means that there will be five more installments to this review, since I want to at least give a cursory glance at how Koester understands each cycle. I do foresee a greater emphasis once we get to Revelation 20.

Craig Koester's Amil-Preterist Commentary of Revelation (Part 1)

A Review of Revelation and the End of All Things by Craig R. Koester

Revelation Commentaries by Amillennialists aren't exactly a dime a dozen. Commentaries by orthodox Preterists are even rarer. So when I found Revelation and the End of All Things by Craig Koester, I was very excited, because in this book Koester, a professor of New Testament at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, MN, has done us a tremendous service by writing an Amil-Preterist commentary on the book of Revelation. Over the course of this 200 page book, Koester lays out his case that Revelation was a book written by John for a specific audience, and that they would have understood the entirety of Revelation as timeless truths for the purposes of encouraging and building up the church so that they could see and understand the victory that Christ has over the world.

He begins by asking the question of whether the book of Revelation should be viewed primarily as predictions of future events or as 'timeless truth'. Obviously, how one answers this question is tremendously decisive to how you read Revelation or understand a good deal of Jesus' prophecies (particularly those in Matthew 24). He identifies those early in church history who held the futurist understanding of Revelation. These included Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, as well as the heretic Montanus (in an extreme form).

On the other side of things, he points to Origen, Jerome, and Dionysius of Alexandria as those who held that Revelation's meaning was deeper than mere 'literal predictions'. One significant figure during this time was Tyconius, who died around the time of Augustine. Tyconius "argued that the millenial kingdom of Rev. 20:1-6 was not a future hope, but a present reality" (Pg. 7). To shore up his argument, Tyconius pointed out that at the start of the millenium, Satan was "bound" (Rev. 20:2). The next thing which he points out is that this was achieved by Christ in his first coming. He makes this point by appealing to Matthew 12:29, where Jesus discusses how

"But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, surely the kingdom of God has come upon you. Or how can one enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man? And then he will plunder his house" (Matthew 12:28-29).

Here, Jesus is saying that Satan is the strong man who is bound, and now that the Kingdom of God has come, Jesus is tying up Satan and plundering his house. "By putting these texts together Tyconius concluded that the thousand-year kingdom began with the first coming of Christ. Tyconius, however, recognized that Satan's being "bound" (Rev. 20:1-3) was not the same thing as his being completely destroyed (vv. 7-10). Therefore, until Christ's return, the church should still expect persecution as believers and unbelievers "exist side by side."

This view was also adopted by Augustine, where it finds a very ardent defender. Even though he opposed Tyconius as a Donatist, he "found that Tyconius' interpretation provided a way to read Revelation that could be applied to the interior life of Christians in all times and places."

Several helpful contributions from Augustine in this respect:

• People entered the millenial kingdom through the "first resurrection" (Rev. 20:4-6) by "dying and rising again" through faith in baptism.
• The second resurrection (Rev. 20:11-13) would be bodily at the end of time when Christ returned.
• When Revelation speaks of Satan's being cast into "the abyss" he "explained that this referred to the abyss of human hearts, where wickedness would reside until God destroyed it" (Pg. 8).
• Augustine also argued that the millenium "was not an exact period of time but a way of speaking about time as totality." He does this in The City of God 18.53.

By Koester's estimation, this reading of Revelation was the most widespread for centuries to come.

[I'll continue with this review of Koester's arguments in a later installment]

The Death of Claude Le Painctre

Bruce Gordon, in his book Calvin, recounts the death of a young French Protestant at the hands of his Catholic executioners. The tale is narrated by a young Catholic German student named Knobelsdorf:

I saw two burnt there. Their death inspired in me differing sentiments. If you had been there, you would have hoped for a less severe punishment for these poor unfortunates... The first was a very young man, not yet with a beard . . . he was the son of a cobbler. He was brought in front of the judges and condemned to have his tongue cut out and burned straight afterward. Without changing the expression of his face, the young man presented his tongue to the executioner’s knife, sticking it out as far as he could. The executioner pulled it out even further with pincers, cut it off, and hit the sufferer several times on the tongue and threw it in the young man’s face. Then he was put into a tipcart, which was driven to the place of execution, but, to see him, one would think that he was going to a feast. . . .When the chain had been placed around his body, I could not describe to you with what equanimity of soul and with what expression in his features he endured the cries of elation and the insults of the crowd that were directed towards him.He did not make a sound, but from time to time he spat out the blood that was filling his mouth, and he lifted his eyes to heaven, as if he was waiting for some miraculous rescue. When his head was covered in sulphur, the executioner showed him the fire with a menacing air; but the young man, without being scared, let it be known, by a movement of his body, that he was giving himself willingly to be burned.

These are not simply academic matters.

Hitchens Knows That The Resurrection is Important

It goes without saying that Christopher Hitchens isn't exactly a huge advocate for traditional Christian theology. However, Hitchens was apparently interviewed recently by a Unitarian "Christian" who had the following question for him:

The religion you cite in your book is generally the fundamentalist faith of various kinds. I’m a liberal Christian, and I don’t take the stories from the scripture literally. I don’t believe in the doctrine of atonement (that Jesus died for our sins, for example). Do you make and distinction between fundamentalist faith and liberal religion?

Christopher Hitchens: I would say that if you don’t believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ and Messiah, and that he rose again from the dead and by his sacrifice our sins are forgiven, you’re really not in any meaningful sense a Christian.

I love it. Now, all Hitchens needs to do is change his entire worldview and become a Christian, then he can keep making good points like this one.

Panel Discussion on Multi-site Churches