VI. The Joy of Revelation: The Beatitudes of Revelation - 2 of 7

1.     14:13 Then I heard a voice from heaven say, “Write this: ‘Blessed are the dead, those who die in the Lord from this moment on!’”

Generally, especially when we look at one verse of a biblical passage, we do well to consider its context so as to see better what it is attempting to tell us. Now, as I might have already stated, Revelation is not always written in such a way that this is as important here as in other scriptures that present, for example, a story. Revelation is not a book written in a linear fashion. As we have begun to see, Revelation is somewhat of a compilation of pictures, visions, as much as stories. Indeed, some present the same picture/vision or ‘story’ again in a different way, from a different perspective or vantage point, sometimes even seemingly from a different time.  

Here is one saying, described as coming from heaven. It is actually preceded by the appearance of three angels, each with a different message (14:6-11). These and a following comment directed to ‘the saints’ along the lines of other messages to God’s people, are dealt with in part III of this blog on Revelation, Messages to the Churches.

At first reading some might wonder, how can one be blessed when dead. Most of us want to live as long as possible, or at least as long as we are well enough and finding some joy in life. Indeed, many fear death. By this time though, if we have read the whole of Revelation especially, we can understand that death might have been seen as a welcome reprieve from the suffering and persecution Christians were experiencing at the time Revelation was written. We have also begun to see positive images of what is in heaven. So, to be taken from this earth with all of the problems they were going through, to die, for the believers could indeed be seen as a blessing. The blessing aspect of dying for and in your faith is emphasized by the positive attention, the recognition, given to martyrs in some of the visions in Revelation. To be a martyr was indeed coming to be considered a blessing.

This might be true for some of us in today’s world too. We might be suffering from cancer or some other debilitating illness and long to be freed of our affliction, knowing too that only in death would that occur. Christians, more in other parts of the world than here in North America where I write from, who are being beaten, burned, put in prison and even killed, would surely long even more strongly for escape. 

Then there is the second part of the beatitude. The preceding passages suggest Christ has already come to redeem his saints but that God’s actions are still bringing some to repentance. Needless to say, in a world deprived of the salt and light of Christianity, their lives could be unimaginably difficult. There is in this blessing also a call to them to endure, as the preceding verse had said, to be faithful. Only then, if they maintained their faith in the face of the tremendous odds of the time, the tribulation, would they die in the lord and receive this blessing. May that be true of all of us, that we keep the faith till we have passed from this life. 

The Joy of Revelation VI. The Beatitudes of Revelation - 1 of 7

After the initial 3 posts on Revelation, the last of which was put up three weeks ago, I thought it was time to add to them – before you lose interest. I am working on the whole book but that takes time. I am not, as you will notice, posting these chapters in the order in which the material appears in the text. It is more of a topical division of the book, posting a topic, or even a part of a topic when there is a lot of text covering one area, at a time. Some of those subjects, by reason of both the quantity of material and its complexity, take longer to work through. So, I am posting here part one of one topic or theme that is easier to deal with: The Beatitudes of Revelation. 

Many of us will be familiar with the Beatitudes Jesus delivered as recorded in Matthew 5:3-11, a brief summary of which also appears in Luke 6:20-22. When the word beginning each of those, “blessed,” is taken as a cue, commentators have singled out seven passages in Revelation as being Beatitudes. Seven, of course, is a commonly used number in the book and we know it stands for completeness and perfection. The passages are:

Ch. 1:3; 14:13; 16:15; 19:9; 20:6; 22:7, 14.

Let us look at them in order.

1:3 reads “Blessed is the one who reads the words of this prophecy aloud, and blessed are those who hear and obey the things written in it, because the time is near!”

Just a couple of comments about the actual words of the text first.  It is stated that the person who reads this book aloud is blessed. In our day, when we all have our own Bibles – if we want – this does not seem remarkable. Some might have read that there is something different, perhaps superior, in terms of how our brain processes things read aloud as opposed to silently. However, that is not the concern here. 

In the days when this was written few had copies of these writings. It is stressed several times in the book that the messages contained herein are important for the target audience, the Early Churches. The time is supposedly short, so it is important that the message get out to as many as possible as soon as possible. Reading this text aloud was the best way to do this, likely to a house church congregation or in a synagogue, as part of worship or teaching. That is why the person who reads this aloud gets a special blessing; he is spreading The Word to as many as possible with the best available means at the time.

The message is that “The time is near,” referring in the short term to a time of persecution, in the longer term to Christ’s return. To best arm believers to endure the suffering to come, they will do well to hear the encouraging message of Revelation. It is incumbent on the reader to share this message. To begin with, book contains reassuring examples of where the saints are especially singled out for protection (see Protection of God’s People, another section to come in these postings). The other significant positive message is that the Jesus they serve as Lord has in some measure already defeated Satan through his sacrificial death and resurrection. More to the point, he will in the end be victorious over all those evil powers that are making life difficult for them and even taking some of their lives in martyr deaths. The Caesars of the day might demand allegiance, but the Christian’s allegiance is to Christ. He and his kingdom, of which they are a part, are more powerful than any earthly ruler or kingdom.

The same time-urgency of getting this message out underlines the blessing given to those who not only hear the word, but obey it. The obeying part is that the listeners are not to be cowed into denying their Lord by doing such things as yielding to receiving “the mark of the beast.” Nor are they to be lured away by the charms of the age as personified in the whore, named Babylon (both of these pressures to be dealt with further in the coming sections on Judgments and The Wars of Satan). They are to read the signs of the times with wisdom, and, secure in the hope the message of this book should bring, endure. Those who do so to the end will receive the rewards frequently pictured in this book (some of this is dealt with in the previous post Messages to the Churches). They will ultimately arrive safely at their eternal and blessed prize for their faithfulness and devotion, even their deeds. 

THE BEATITUDES XI

THE BEATITUDES XI

Today's text continues somewhat the verse from the previous beatitude. It really just expands or builds on it:

5:11 “Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you and say all kinds of evil things about you falsely on account of me. 5:12 Rejoice and be glad because your reward is great in heaven, for they persecuted the prophets before you in the same way.

Whereas verse 10 talked about being persecuted for righteousness, this verse is more specific. A person can be fairly good, some might even say righteous, in the eyes of the world. This might even be said of a non-believer, a non-Christian. A person who is so good might make others jealous and 'persecute' them.

However, we have talked about true righteousness, complete righteousness, being only that which God can give us. We can't earn it on our own. To attain, to get that, requires, necessitates, belief in Jesus and what he did. So, Jesus ties this together by adding here to verse 10 that it is when we are persecuted because of our connection to Him that we will be blessed. Furthermore, it is when people tell lies about us, accuse us falsely, because of Jesus, that he is talking about. As Jesus' chief disciple Peter wrote later (2:20): "What glory is it if, when you are criticized for your faults, you take it patiently? But if, when you do well and suffer for that, you take that patiently, that is acceptable to God." In other words, if you get in trouble for your own wrongdoing, there is no merit, nothing praiseworthy in that. It's only if you get in trouble for doing well, that God rewards you.

You see, when you do well, do what is right and others around you have not, it bothers their conscience. It points out their ways of error. It gets on their nerves. They understandably don't like it. They don't like to be 'shown up' as we say. So, they get angry and want to get back at you. They can't really say anything bad about you because you have done nothing bad. So, they turn to insulting you, or saying things falsely, lying, about you. They have no other option, no other way to express their anger. This is what happened to Jesus and his earlier followers as we can read in our Bible. Time and again it is recorded that their persecutors brought false charges against them because they really had nothing actually negative to say about them.

Jesus then goes on to try to comfort his hearers by saying they are in good company if this happens to them. The prophets, the religious leaders of Israel's own past, were also persecuted for doing God's will, doing the right thing. Jesus refers to this more than once. Just a few days before his own death, he looks over the city of Jerusalem, the city of Zion, and accuses its inhabitants of killing the prophets and other messengers god sent to them and then says (Matt. 23:29-39 but especially vs. 37), "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets, and stone those who are sent to you, how often would I have loved to gather your children together, just like a hen gathers her chicks, but you would not let me! Look, [because of that] your house [your temple] is left desolate [empty]."

There is another way of looking at this. If we never get persecuted, if no one is convicted enough by our behaviour or our words to make false accusations against us, we should perhaps be asking ourselves, Is our life really showing the Light of Jesus?' Are we speaking out against the wrongs of this world, for what Jesus wants done in this world? If we really were, we would probably sooner or later get persecuted.  Then we will be rewarded for really doing what we ought. Then we can be glad and rejoice because we will know we are making an impact, we are having the effect on our world that Jesus wants us to have on it. We are being the salt and light that he wants us to be. Those are figures of speech that come from a subsequent passage in Matthew.

THE BEATITUDES X

THE BEATITUDES X

As some of my readers know, I have been to China twice for two weeks each trip, traveling to three or four different cities. We met Christian brothers and sisters; some of you are reading this. We also went to Christian churches every Sunday. Now, we hear Christians are still being persecuted in China. So why did we never hear about that in our visits? How come we never heard about all the terrible things the Falun Gong members say the government is doing to them? Here in Vancouver, this being the democratic country of Canada, the Falun Gong has the right of free speech. For years they protested in front of the Chinese Embassy. You could see their posters on the walls of the embassy all the time when you drove by, as it was on the main street from the airport to downtown so almost everyone coming to Vancouver saw it.

Jesus said:

5:10 “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to them.

I think the Falun Gong came under persecution because they protested about something and the government became worried about how much power they seemed to have. How were they able to stage, to put on, such a big protest? Governments are always worried about power. They only think in political terms so they could not conceive of people actually banding together for other purposes.

Are Christians being persecuted for their faith, their righteousness? I think many times nowadays, both in China and elsewhere, so-called Christians may not be persecuted if they keep their faith to themselves. They can talk about it with one another. They can even have a church. However, if they begin to speak out because of their righteousness, because of their Christian beliefs, about bad things the government is doing, or problems in society, they will be persecuted.

A Chinese lawyer was once arrested because he was defending the underprivileged in China against the government. His clients had problems like being evicted from their homes to make way for developers, or for becoming ill because of pollution from state sponsored industrial and chemical plants.

I have to wonder if some of the churches we attended in China are allowed to be because they don't do or say anything that offends the government. Is that how it should be? In fact, some are saying that the totalitarian government in China (it is really not communist anymore) accept people being Christian because they realize they are good citizens. Good citizens, in their terms, means not disturbing the peace. If we really stand up for what we should believe as Christians, if we would really and totally follow what Christ taught, we would probably be persecuted. Even in North America. 

Jesus said, "Whoever therefore shall confess me before others, that person I will also confess before my father in heaven. But whoever shall deny me before others, that person I will also deny before my Father in Heaven" (Matthew 10:32-33). Those are strong words. We can all do better at speaking out for our faith.  Speaking out for our fait does not just mean telling people 2 repent and be saved. It also means telling them how to the disciples, how to live as Christians. That is a whole different story and expectation. If we do that, then Jesus and the father God will truly say the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to us. 

THE BEATITUDES IX

THE BEATITUDES IX

I originally wrote this on August 8 2008. This is supposed to be a most auspicious day for the Chinese: 8 8 8. For those readers who aren't Chinese it's because the words for the number eight, ba in Mandarin and paat in Cantonese, sound similar to the words for prosperity, fa in Mandarin and faat in Cantonese. This date, like last year's, 7/7/07, is an extremely popular wedding date, and planners say they are expecting people to choose 9/9/09 as well, as the word for the number nine in Mandarin sounds like the word for longevity. Eight is considered the luckiest number though (I've also heard some funny statements when an English-speaking person put the wrong tone on the word, spelled 'zhyou' in English, and it came out sounding like 'alcohol' rather than 'nine' or 'longevity', 'long-life'.

So, maybe for me as an Anabaptist (person who believes in adult baptism) it's timely (lucky?) that the beatitude I get to write about today is this one:

5:9 “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the children of God.

You see, if you haven't already learned this about us Anabaptists or Mennonites, we consider peacemaking to be one of the highest virtues. However, we are far from perfect in carrying peacemaking out. In fact, sometimes it looks as though we are so bent, so stuck, on keeping peace that when a dispute arises, rather than go through the possibly conflicted struggling un-peaceful route of solving the problem, we just walk away. Maybe that is part of the reason there are something like 40 branches of Mennonites, all thinking they know best! I guess we are not unique in that area – how many kinds of Baptists and Lutherans and Pentecostals are there, to name just a few other denominations or types of Christianity?

Yes, our ancestors, our faith forefathers and mothers, when they started to study the Bible in Switzerland in the 16^th century, realized that Jesus had come to make peace. Even before he was born, his mother, inspired by the same Holy Spirit that made her miraculously pregnant as a virgin, said that her child would, "guide our feet into the way of peace" (Luke 1:79). When he was born, the angels sang from the skies to the shepherds on the hillside outside of Bethlehem, "On earth, peace, goodwill toward men" (Luke 2:14). Before Jesus went to the cross to give his life for us he told his disciples, "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you" (John 14:27). When he rose from the dead, his greeting to his disciples became, "Peace be unto you" (John 20:19, 26).

If Jesus came to bring jus peace, the first Anabaptist church reformers reasoned, they figured, his followers must also be peacemakers. Indeed, if you study church history, the history of Christianity, you will see that for the first three hundred years, Christians did not join the army or partake in violence. It was only when the Roman Emperor Constantine apparently became a Christian that things changed. Indeed, when the state and faith start to mix, things always go wrong, at least that's how we see it from our perspective, our viewpoint, as Anabaptists. That is why we also were among the first to believe in separation of church and state. You see, Jesus never promoted any state; he did not preach nationalism, in spite of what people like former American president George Bush and many Americans think.

Jesus is not really interested in Christian nations. He might even say that is an oxymoron, two words that don’t really go together. The scriptures indicated that God only allows or gave man the ability to form nations and governments because we humans are so miserable at keeping peace we need such orders and systems to help us do so.  Jesus taught us only about The Kingdom of Heaven, the Kingdom of God; that is the only important kingdom for us as Christians, as Anabaptists. Let us be peacemakers as our Lord is, and we will be the children of God. What better family to belong to than that!

Jesus is the Son of God. He is a peacemaker. He makes peace between God and us and helps make peace between us and other humans, if we let him. He calls us his brothers and sisters. So, especially if we are peacemakers, we are also children of God.