Triumph Of Jesus (part 10)

The tale of the “triumph,” offered from an attendee’s perspective, simply followed a pattern to be found in the same chapter from which that verse was drawn.  Revelation nineteen, quite obviously, presents  a “triumph of Jesus,” providing the Creator God’s point of view on His world, doing so as Rome continues to celebrate itself as the greatest of empires while not realizing that it has already become subject to one that is greater by far.  As the fictional but historically plausible “tale of the triumph” was being told in the course of this study, those that have ears to hear (or eyes to see), will have recognized the almost exact parallel with the Scriptural text. 

Looking to those words now (and it may be worthwhile for the reader to quickly review the “eyewitness account” before doing so), one can read “Then the angel said to me, ‘Write the following: Blessed are those who are invited to the banquet at the wedding celebration of the lamb!’  He also said to me, ‘These are the true words of the God.’  So I threw myself down at his feet to worship him, but he said, ‘Do not do this!  I am only a fellow servant with you and your brothers who hold to the testimony about Jesus.  Worship God, for the testimony about Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.’ 

Then I saw heaven opened and here came a white horse!  The one riding it was called ‘Faithful’ and ‘True,’ and with justice He judges and goes to war.  His eyes are like a fiery flame and there are many diadem crowns on His head.  He has a name written that no one knows except Himself.  He is dressed in clothing dipped in blood, and He is called the Word of God. 

The armies that are in heaven, dressed in white, clean, fine linen, were following Him on white horses.  From His mouth extends a sharp sword, so that with it He can strike the nations.  He will rule them with an iron rod, and He stomps the winepress of the furious wrath of God, the All-Powerful.  He has a name written on His clothing and on His thigh: ‘King of kings and Lord of lords.’  Then I saw one angel standing in the sun, and he shouted with a loud voice to all the birds flying high in the sky: ‘Come, gather around for the great banquet of God, to eat your fill of the flesh of kings, the flesh of generals, the flesh of powerful people, the flesh of horses and those who ride them, and the flesh of all people, both free and slave, and small and great!’ 

Then I saw the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies assembled to do battle with the One who rode the horse and with His army.  Now the beast was seized, and along with him the false prophet who had performed signs on his behalf---signs by which he deceived those who had received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped his image.  Both of them were thrown alive into the lake of fire burning with sulfur.  The others were killed by the sword that extended from the mouth of the One who rode the horse, and all the birds gorged themselves with their flesh” (Revelation 19:9-21).  Though this is obviously  much shorter, primarily owing to the fact that the first century reader would not need any background information to provide context for the visuals on offer in a triumphus, the parallels to the Roman triumph “observed” earlier in the this study should be inescapable. 

Love On John's Terms (part 13)

When it comes to the question of love on display, the fifteenth verse of John’s sixth chapter informs the reader that “Jesus, because He knew they were going to come and seize Him by force to make Him king, withdrew again up the mountainside alone” (6:15).  How does this show love?  There is a marked and remarkable self-restraint on the part of this man Jesus, as He refuses to succumb to the people’s desire to make Him king; and perhaps even the temptation to receive the acclimation must at least partially stem from the fact that an acclimation of Him as king is going to come with a declaration of war against Rome. 

Of course, the author writes from a position of the knowledge of what happened when the Jews rebelled against Rome a few decades preceding the time of the written composition of this work (though it is a possibility that the oral tradition that eventually took this written form preceded the written work by a number of years), whereas Jesus is presented as having an implicit knowledge of what will happen if He allows Himself and His people to travel the path that will follow from their desire to make Him king.  Not only will destruction come to Israel, but the plans for the kingdom of the Creator God, and how it is to be brought about, will be nullified.  Here, through this withdrawal, Jesus preserves His disciples, these people, and His nation, in a way that does not derail the purposes of the kingdom that He believes begins and is to be found in unity with Him.  So indeed, this could be looked upon as an example of love to be worked out, understood, and manifested by the community of those that claim allegiance to Jesus.   

The use of “miraculous signs” in the second verse of the sixth chapter of John has been mentioned, as it is this instance that took this study down this particular path.  The sixth chapter contains another usage of the phrase, and it occurs following the story of the feeding of the five thousand.  There, when pressed as to how it is that He had been able to make it to the place at which He was now encountered, Jesus says “I tell you the solemn truth, you are looking for Me not because you saw miraculous signs, but because you ate all the loaves of bread you wanted” (6:26).  To that He adds, “Do not work for the food that disappears, but for the food that remains to eternal life” (6:27a).  Here, as in the third chapter and the conversation with Nicodemus that stemmed directly from His actions in the Temple as they were recorded in the second chapter, the witness of miraculous signs is tied to “eternal life,” which the hearers of this story know is linked to the need for belief in Jesus as the harbinger of the kingdom of Israel’s God. 

The notion that Jesus’ miraculous signs, especially as they relate to the provision of bread, are connected to the kingdom of God, is given further concretion by the people’s response, which is “What must we do to accomplish the deeds God requires?” (6:28b)  This, of course, comes as Jesus expresses the love of His God, and as there is a desire on the part of the hearer or reader to know what it means to express love to and for one another in aspiration towards discipleship, as this is what Jesus is said to desire from His people.  Relating to the belief in Jesus in connection to the presence of the kingdom of the Creator, Jesus simply offers “This is the deed God requires---to believe in the one whom He sent” (6:29). 

Here, Jesus insists that belief must take on the form of a loyal allegiance to the Creator God and to His purposes to lead His people in an exodus (eternal life---the life of the age to come invading the present) and to bring them into that which He has promised to them, as the statement makes a push towards the previously mentioned reference to Moses.  This push towards Moses culminates with the response to Jesus’ statement about the deeds required by God, which is “Then what miraculous sign will you perform, so that we may see it and believe you?  What will you do?  Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, just as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’” (6:30-31) 

Visiting Bethany (part 4)

If a compare and contrast is underway, one glaring contrast between Jesus and the Caesar can be found in verses previously quoted from the third chapter of John.  There it is said that the covenant God of Israel “gave His one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.  For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world should be saved through Him” (3:16b-17).  Caesar, the man entitled with “son of god,” was looked to as the one who dragged the world from darkness to light.  With this, the parallel between John and the Augustus inscription becomes increasingly obvious. 

Yes, it was Caesar Augustus who was said to have brought order out of the chaos.  It was Caesar Augustus that was said to be responsible for the life and vitality of the world, with this spread throughout the world via the pax Romana (Roman peace).  It is Caesar Augustus who is referred to as the “Savior” of the world.  Ironically, though war would be almost endless, Augustus is credited with putting an end to war.  It is worth nothing that, though death continues, Jesus is credited with putting an end to death. 

For Ceasar of course, the end of war was accomplished by crushing his enemies through massive warfare.  Furthermore, it is said that Caesar Augustus is the fulfillment of all hopes and in him the world has “good news.”  How did this son of god “save” the world?  How did he bring the world into new life?  It could be argued that he did so through the instrument of death. 

He, his predecessors, and those that would follows and take up his mantle, slaughtered millions so as to usher in an era of “peace” and to give their version of life to the world.  Effectively, in order to give the world life and vitality through the establishment of the Roman empire, the world experienced an almost unprecedented level of condemnation.  The other Son of God, however, is said to bring eternal life and peace and light, which will be accomplished and effected through His worldwide kingdom. 

As the Gospel of John informs its readers, through Jesus the world will be saved, but this salvation will not come about through the world-condemning instrument of war and its power of death.  Ultimately, this salvation will come about through the laying down of His own life and going willfully into death in an act of self-sacrificial love---making Himself subject to that which was (and still is) the Caesar’s only true power. 

Returning to the issue at hand then, Martha can be heard speaking to Jesus and saying, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.  But even now I know that whatever You ask from God, God will grant you” (John 11:21-22).  In calling Jesus “Lord,” and doing so in the context of what is increasingly looking to be a “parousia” of Jesus, Martha has conferred upon Him one of the titles that was then accorded to and reserved for the Caesar.  Much like that which would have been experienced by the emperor when he would visit subjects within his realm, the one that has come out to greet Jesus makes it a point to honor the world’s ruler and to make comment upon His power. 

Raising A Temple (part 2 of 2)

Why go through all of this analysis of Paul’s sermon in Acts?  We did so because we needed to be able to have some perspective on David, and the fact that David is not there held up as a model for emulation, as we examine his desire to build the Temple.  After expressing his desire to the prophet Nathan, David hears it said to him by that same prophet: “You should go and do whatever you have in mind, for the Lord is with you” (2 Samuel 7:3).  However, it so happens that “That night the Lord told Nathan, ‘Go, tell My servant David: “This is what the Lord says: Do you really intend to build a house for me to live in?  I have not lived in a house from the time I brought the Israelites up from Egypt to the present day.  Instead, I was traveling with them and living in a tent.  Wherever I moved among all the Israelites, I did not say to any of the leaders whom I appointed to care for My people Israel, ‘Why have you not built Me a house of cedar?’”’” (7:4-7) 

This now allows us to return to the issue of motivation, as it is incumbent upon us not to place men like David on a super-spiritual level, but to remember that they were people like us, with fears and insecurities, prone to mistakes, and subject to the corrupting forces that shape any and all interaction with this world.  What’s more is that it is perfectly okay and legitimate to do this, as in the end it gives us an even more amazing picture of a faithful God---which seems to be one of the points of the Bible. 

So what was the motivation to build a Temple?  Through Nathan, God asks David as much, when He says, “Do you really intend to build a house for Me to live in?”  It’s almost as if God was saying, “Is this for Me or for you?”  To answer that, we cannot separate David’s desire to build a Temple from the relief from enemies that the Lord had given to His people and their king, and it is unlikely that the God of Israel separated these things from each other.  What was it that was signified by the temple of a god?  Power.  Prestige.  Authority.  Domination.  This was what Israel now had in their land.  They claimed that their God had given them these things.  However, if other nations and other peoples were to begin to look to Israel and to Israel’s God, which is precisely what the Lord desired, where would they find Him?  In a temple?  No.  They would find Him (in a manner of speaking) in a lowly tent.  This, of course, was not troubling for God.  However, in contact with many nations, Israel knew that such was not the house of a powerful god.  So not only would this invite scorn upon Israel, but with the lack of a glorious display of their God by a beautifully adorned temple, Israel’s position in the land could come to be looked upon as something of a fluke.  This would invite attack.  The tabernacle alone as the place of God’s dwelling could be understood as a source of embarrassment for Israel, as well as an undermining of their security. 

Apart from all of this, one had to consider the items that were to be found in the tabernacle.  There were a number of precious articles that were composed of gold and bronze, and yet, here they were housed in a simple tent.  This position, for a number of reasons, could be understood as untenable, and we can sympathize with David thinking that it needed to be addressed.  Therefore, to rectify the shortcomings of the house of their God, David proposed the construction of a Temple that would more adequately convey, at least in His mind, the power of Israel’s God.  It would seem that the prophet Nathan even succumbed to this idea for a brief period of time before God intervened to dissuade him, and David through him, of what he had encouraged David to do. 

As an aside, we here note that in the ancient world, the temple of a god was understood to be the resting place of that god.  The God of Israel, the Creator of all things, did not need to dwell in an elaborate temple, for the whole of creation was His Temple; and that was the Temple in which He rested on the seventh day, according to the record of Genesis.  Ultimately, God would take up His dwelling in human flesh, and call that His Temple. 

When Solomon would take up the task of building the Temple, it was not strictly because of a stated desire to do so.  He was simply following the instructions given to him by his father, as we find in the first book of the Chronicles (22:7-10).  There, we find David informing Solomon about his desire to build a temple, God’s denial of that desire, the reasons provided for that denial (David was a man of blood and war), and God’s insistence that it would be Solomon himself that would build the Temple to honor God (though this is never explicitly communicated in 2 Samuel---only that David’s son would build a “house” for the name of the Lord).  It is still of great interest to note that, even there in the Chronicles, it is not God that is demanding a temple to be built, but still only David. 

The Scriptural record is clear, in that it is David’s wish to build the Temple in Jerusalem, and this is probably due in large part to David’s desire to consolidate power and increase Israel’s relative security in its land, with an elaborate temple also serving as a witness of the divine sanction of his rule before the people.  So though this was not necessarily God’s doing, God made sure that when His Temple was built---even though David provided much of the supply, the building process would be carried out by a man of peace, wisdom, understanding, and justice (though this last term may be a pit problematic for Solomon in some cases).  These are epithets that are not given to David.  We cannot help but elaborate on this point, and say that the Temple of God that would come to be called the Church of Christ is built by the one known as the Prince of Peace.  It is in such a Temple that God will dwell.