Introduction

It is difficult for us to comprehend the impact the Christian gospel, and the images of Revelation in particular, had upon Gentile converts in the first century. Whilst almost all people in the Roman Empire believed in gods, no-one thought that they had a personal interest in humanity. The idea that God was so personal as to prepare a home in which he might share himself with humans forever, caused a revolution at every level of consciousness.

For over 1500 years, the prevailing paradigm for Western societies became centred on the reality of life after death. Folk generally took it for granted that when you die you either go “up” or “down”. Within my own lifetime all this has radically changed. A significant majority of Australians still say they believe in God, but only a small majority believe in heaven and roughly a third in hell[1]. Of those who do believe in heaven, it would be fair to say this belief has little influence on their daily life.

The minds of most of our countrymen are “homeless”, adrift in a raft of unconnected experiences in a world without ultimate purpose. This is especially the case for younger people. The vision of the average Westerner is “short ranged and looks only a few steps down the road and does not look up at all.” (David Wells). Whilst the AMP[2] ads proclaim “Own Tomorrow”[3], their tomorrow is but a few short years. The obsession with immediate personal pleasure combined with the desire for a comfortable retirement drives the vast majority of Australians into an obsession with control. In truth, having lost a sense of realities beyond this world, they are out of control, manipulated by popular culture, media, peer pressure and appearances and inebriated with immediate experience. A very insightful theologian once said, “If within us we find nothing over us we succumb to what is around us.” [4] Without some ultimate framework, everything dissolves into a sea of subjectivity.

When a freak storm caused a $1/4 billion dollars damage here a week ago we had lots of reports about how dramatic it was and our Premier spoke of “how lucky” we were that no one was killed. Yet there was no sense that such “natural disasters” prefigure the final breakdown of this world. I doubt if there were people who came back to church last Sunday seeking refuge in the God of heaven.

If the reality of heaven has been lost as a presence in Western society, it is largely because the people of God have abandoned the cosmic vision of R/revelation for the sake of the subjective transformation of the individual. In many ways, Christian theology and spirituality has been transformed into psychology[5]. The reality of heaven can only return to our “post-Christian” societies through a restoration of the presence of the heavenly Christ[6]. The book of Revelation, which includes the final vision of heaven in chapters 21-22, describes itself as “The revelation of Jesus Christ” (1:1), it is the disclosure of Jesus to us that makes heaven a personal reality today[7].

(read Revelation 21)

All Things New

This series was provoked by news of the suicide of a Christian family man- in the end, battling depression, he “gave up”. People give up all the time – give up the battle to save their marriage, to quit their addictions, to stay in difficult work environments, to keep on asking hard questions about life. Many believers “give up” on a disciplined routine of Bible reading, prayer and worship. When it comes to the inner world, I think we are a nation of “quitters”.

Ultimately, this is because we lack a revelation that God has never given up on us. The climactic vision of Revelation, the book of “The Lamb’s War”, communicates categorically that the Creator considers this battle, a battle fought through the ages for his own glory and our salvation, has been worth it.

John enters into his vision of ultimate things only after the casting of all evil “into the lake of fire” (20:15). “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more[8]…..And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.”” (21:1, 5). The word for “new” (kainos) means new in quality[9]. The old world is always impermanent and everything “new” in it, from children’s toys to high fashion to new technology, soon becomes stale. In our microwave society boredom is always close at hand. The works of believers however can be always fresh, for they draw their inspiration from the heavenly world which is forever new[10].

Various atheistic philosophers have argued that doing the same things over and over would make eternity incredibly boring. Their position is quite understandable, and presents a solid case against popular views of heaven, which sadly have often been promoted by the church.

I was talking with a friend the other day who is very critical of a form of evangelism which focuses on the question, “Where would you go if you died today, and why?” In this approach the real goal is heaven (as people imagine it to be), and responding to Jesus is simply a means to get there. Let me explain with an illustration why such views of heaven are egocentric and idolatrous.

At the marriage of our oldest daughter Leah, Donna told a story how she had been approached with the question, “Isn’t being with only one person all your life boring?” To which Donna shared with the audience, “If there’s one thing I have never found my marriage to be, it is boring.” Every true Christian, no matter how long they have known Jesus, and we are talking about Jesus here, not church or religion, has ever experienced him as predictable, dull or boring.

The “new creation” is perpetually dynamic[11] because it is the old creation[12]stripped of evil and filled with the presence of God “in Christ” (2 Cor 5:17). Our key text for this series, Revelation 5:6, states, “I saw a Lamb standing, as slain” (5:6), speaks to us of the death and resurrection of Jesus for us all– in the cross we witness the taking away of the old order plagued by sin, Satan and death, in his risen life we see the emergence of a vital incorruptible newness[13]. Without a connection to the Jesus resurrected from the dead all our talk of a “new heavens and a new earth” is at best wishful thinking and at worst escapism.

The key to experiencing the reality of heaven is contained in the refrain, “3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people,” (21:3).[14] This passage teaches that the whole cosmos will become a temple in which God and his loved ones live together forever. When John is told of the dimensions of the heavenly city[15]the angel says, “Its length and width and height are equal.” (21:16). These are the same proportions of the holy of holies in Solomon’s temple (1 Ki 6:20) where the fullness of God was dwell. In the future, in heaven, the fullness of the Godhead will dwell in his people. To explain how this is possible we must return to the signature theme of this series, the identity of the Lamb.

“And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb.” (21:22). Because of his faithfulness as the complete prophet, priest and king (3:14) Jesus is completely filled with the Holy Spirit. He is the true Holy of Holies and in perfect heavenly union with him we too will be “filled with all the fullness of God” (Eph 3:19).

There is another way of putting this, it comes to a climax in the declaration, “The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son.” (Rev 21:7). At the end of the book which ends the biblical story, God announces himself as our eternal Father, a Father to “the one who conquers” (2:7, 11, 17, 26; 3:5, 12, 21). Those who have lived for Jesus as prophets, priests and kings on the earth[16] will be his sons forever. If heaven is not real to us, I am afraid it is because we not lived the testimony of Jesus with all our hearts. Again, it is to Jesus we must turn to remedy this condition.

(read Revelation 22)

Jesus the Key to Heaven

At the beginning of Revelation God introduces himself, ““I am the Alpha and the Omega…who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”” (1:8) The expression “Alpha and the Omega”[17] is based on the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, but also implies everything in between. It signifies God’s sovereign Lordship of all history. Whilst Jesus speaks at various times, the most outstanding thing he says about himself in Revelation is found in its final chapter, ““Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay everyone for what he has done. 13 I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.”” (22:13)[18] There could be no more direct way than for Jesus to claim he is coequal and coeternal with his Father, and that the origin, the development and the destiny of all things is about him[19]. All history is about the Lamb, and the revelation that Jesus is the Alpha and Omega is the revelation that God has always planned to be with us forever.

What will God give?

In Christ, God has found a way of giving himself to us in totality. “God himself will be with them as their God. 4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”” (21:3-4). In reading this text the emphasis can either fall upon the absolute absence of pain in Paradise, or upon ““God himself will be with them.” All false religions emphasise the benefits of heaven: for the Moslem, heaven holds promise of rivers of milk and wine, perfected spouses, 70 virgins and numerous servants, sensuality and sexuality are limitless in the next life as a reward from restraint in this one[20]; one only has to look at Jehovah’s Witness literature to see the emphasis is on happy people in a beautiful garden environment; at the centre of Mormon teaching is the promise that through temple marriage a good Mormon will inherit an “eternal family unit”[21].

At the centre of Revelation’s vision of the end is not our personal satisfaction but “God himself” [22]; whilst the judgements of God throughout the book are indirect- fire, hail, blood, disease, famine poured out at the hand of angels, here, at the End, it is God himself who directly touches humanity. God himself is our future.

Remember the scroll given by God to the Lamb in the throne vision of chapter 5. This scroll is a book of covenantal inheritance[23]; it is the will and testament of God in which are contained all his promises to his Son, as the “heir of all things” (Heb 1:2)[24]. The book of Revelation is the story of how the Father unfolds history in order to give everything to the Son and so to us.

“The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son.” (Rev 21:7). God himself is our inheritance; it is his complete pleasure to give his whole self to us himself to us in the same way that he has already given himself to the risen Lamb[25].

The Holy City

If the vision of final bliss with God is not a simple extension of the most pleasurable features of this life –marriage, sex, food, drink, family, neither is it a vague formless, featureless, totally inconceivable state like the Nirvana of Buddhism or the post heavenly realm of Hinduism.

Revelation pictures eternal reality in terms of a city. The Bible begins with a garden and ends with a city, a garden is a great place to visit[26] but humans live in a city[27]. At the centre of the Garden of Eden were two trees, the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen 2:9), but at the centre of the eternal city is the Lamb.

“No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him[28].” (22:3). Since the Lamb of God who has taken away the sin of the world[29] is the light[30] and centre of the city, it is impossible that anything that would in the least degree separate God from humanity should be there[31].

John goes on to describe a city full of gold and precious stones[32]. “And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great, high mountain, and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, 11 having the glory of God, its radiance like a most rare jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal.” (21:11). The real physical nature of heaven surprises us unless we are aware of the deep structure of scripture.

Several years ago Donna and I were in Switzerland, and I was out praying early one morning in the French speaking city of Lausanne. It is a beautiful, cultured[33] and extremely humanistic city. Everywhere human ability and creativity seemed to be celebrated. Whilst walking through the botanical gardens, praying in some agony about humanity’s forgetfulness of God, I felt the Lord say, “It does not matter how much man remembers himself, I have not forgotten him.”

The next morning, before dawn, I was up, troubled and praying again, walking through the streets of “the great city”[34] past shop after shop full of luxury items. “Where was God?” I was asking. Suddenly I began to see Jesus everywhere; this is what my journal records, “You are here – I see you in the shop windows, you are in the pearls, diamonds, gold, wood leather…in the coiffured hair, in the textiles…you are SPARKLING in all these things.” I started to laugh with a sense of the all sufficient overcoming wisdom of God, “For those with eyes to see, you are in everything, everywhere.” I could sense/ taste his beauty in all this[35].

The beauty of all created things is a reflection of the beauty of Christ. This is especially true of the creators of cities, human beings. It is the life of the glorified saints that sparkles, glistens, and shines radiant and resplendent with the glory of God[36] in the heavenly city. In eternity each of us will gleam with the love of God perfectly reflecting all that he is. This can begin now.

I am reminded of the testimony of Jacqui Pullinger, who has been running a dynamic ministry delivering addicts from heroin addiction in Hong Kong for nearly 45 years. A radical transformation occurred early in her ministry when she met a young Chinese couple who, she said, were literally “shining” with the presence of God, seeking what they had with God she came into a powerful experience of the Holy Spirit[37].

Followers of the Lamb walking in the power of the Spirit and the revelation that in Jesus the curse has been taken away may live life now without shame[38]. We are already able to image God’s eternal goal, that all of his attributes, his peace, righteousness, wisdom, goodness etc., will be perfectly imparted to his children. We are able to testify that the ultimate goal humans have sought through all their moral, religious or artistic endeavours is the beauty of Christ. This raises a vital practical question, if it is all about Jesus, what can I bring?

What can I Bring?

The following text has puzzled many commentators, “By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it, 25 and its gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there. 26 They will bring into it the glory and the honour of the nations.” (Rev 21:24-26). In the symbolism of Revelation the kings must be identified with those who have conquered evil (2:7, 11, 17, 26; 3:5, 12, 21), by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony (12:11), they are the saints of God.

In the Spirit we can already be involved in this great process of bringing glory into the heavenly city. The traditional division of reality between the sacred and secular, between present time and End time[39] has no ground in Revelation. The present rule of Christ through the church and his future eternal realm are deeply continuous[40].

When my friend Phil employs ex-convicts, this is a real imaging of the everlasting compassion of God, when Pastor Ken’s fellowship in Belmont freely distributed 10 tonnes of food free to the needy last year they were manifesting something of the generosity of God’s new creation. When the church breaks forth as a kaleidoscope of creative artistry it reveals the “manifold wisdom of God”[41] that communicates to every creature, especially evil powers, that God has a way to heal “all things”. Through the Lamb we bring God’s light to the world (Matt 5:14). The church as the city of God on earth reflects the light of the city in heaven[42] to all nations (Acts 13:47).

The glorious and difficult vocation of the saints is to image the New Jerusalem (Gal 4:26; Heb 12:22) in the midst of Babylon by every means God has provided. This means bringing the manifest presence of Christ into government, education, business, law, family, health, sports, media[43]. What can you bring in to the New Jerusalem? Whatever part of creation you are involved in transforming NOW[44].

The very last vision of Revelation climaxes in a poignant healing promise, “Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 2 through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations[45].” (22:2). The nations are healed by being brought into their inheritance in God’s eternal kingdom through the Lamb[46].

This vision is immeasurably relevant to our nation, because if there is one lie of Satan that has strangled the advancement of the kingdom of God in Australia again and again, it is, “God is not Father who has prepared a heavenly inheritance for his children.” Think of how this land was settled by the Europeans who first brought to it the gospel– not with personal zeal for gain as with the conquistadors, not with piety as with the Pilgrim Fathers, but by a bunch of soldiers and convicts who were constrained by force to leave their motherland of birth[47]. And what did these first settlers do with the natives, disinherit them by force. This nation, black, white and in between, has never recovered from its corrupted spiritual foundation. Deep in their hearts the vast majority Australians, including many believers, struggle to believe that there are treasures laid up for us in heaven[48]. This is why we are so materialistic.

Years ago as I was flying over the Pacific returning home from South America the Lord spoke to me about this: Aussies, he said, do not believe that my joy is to give them good things to enjoy, they think that I am, to quote Jesus parable of the talents, “‘a harsh man, harvesting crops I didn’t plant and gathering crops I didn’t cultivate.” (Matt 25:24). Deep in the Australian subconscious, God is not a Father who loves to bring us joy but a hard and distant God who takes and does not give. It is the healing task of the church, in the sort of ways I have already indicated, to reveal the truth that is in Jesus.

If a person does not know Jesus, life simply has too many struggles to believe that God is a joy-loving Father, but many Christians put stumbling blocks in the way of others.

I was visiting a local church listening to a guest preacher, he pointed to a partition in the building and said, “Jesus will say to the faithful Christian, ‘Here is your full reward’, then he will say to the unfaithful believer, “Here is your actual reward, your full reward is on the other side of the partition, but you can’t have the full reward.” All the people sat there meekly as if it was obvious what this man was saying were true[49].

This preacher, supposedly an ‘evangelist”, is totally wrong on a number of counts. First, there is no limit to God’s grace, the reward God has for us is Christ himself. Second, even if God gave me a lesser reward than a “faithful” Christian in heaven I would see this as perfectly righteous and rejoice in it as part of my perfected joy and glory in exactly the same measure as the “faithful Christian” would rejoice in their reward[50]. In heaven the joy of all the followers of the Lamb will be full (Ps 16:11).

Putting it bluntly, preaching and teaching that denies the absolutely full and free nature of the inheritance that God has for all his children is simply a mechanism by which the devil controls the church through shame!

The Judgement

I am nearing the completion of this talk on the very end of things, and have deliberately focussed on heaven rather than hell, just as the Bible does[51]. Nevertheless, a note on judgement is necessary. Judgement is the means by which creation is taken beyond the threat of evil. In Revelation, the throne of God descends from above to below uniting heaven and earth as one only after all evil has been destroyed. Once the universe has been cleansed as by fire[52], there is immediate access to God, his servants will “see his face” (22:4)[53], which is to see the face of the Lamb[54].

It is very important that we understand God’s heart on this. In what I believe is the most important scripture in the Bible on the essential nature of hell, Jesus pronounces judgement on those who never recognised him in the life of his saints[55], “‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” (Matt 25:41). Hell was never a part of God’s plan for humanity, no-one “belongs” in hell as it is not a part of God’s inheritance for man. Hell only exists for those who have never believed that through the Lamb they have something to offer God for eternity.

The Time is Near

If there is one outstanding feature of Revelation that contrasts sharply with Western spirituality, it is the expectation[56] and longing that Jesus come back soon[57]. This is despite the clear testimony of scripture that we are at the time of the End[58]. Rather than describing why we fail to sense Christ’s near return[59], it will be more effective to read out an email I received a few days ago about a situation in Pakistan:

“Arshed Masih (38), his wife Martha and their three children aged 7-12 are a Christian family who have been living in the servant quarters of Sheikh Mohammad Sultan’s estate in Rawalpindi since 2005. Arshed (a driver) and Martha (a maid) recently fell out of favour with their wealthy employer because they refuse to convert to Islam. When Arshad offered to resign, Sultan threatened to kill the family if they ever tried to leave. On Friday 19 March a group of Islamic fundamentalists (including local police) set fire to Arshed and raped Martha in front of their two younger children. Arshed has burns to 80 percent of his body and is not expected to survive (he has since died). Not so long ago Muslims would have used a false blasphemy charge to remove or punish Christians they resented. (In Pakistan, anyone accused of blaspheming Islam can be immediately imprisoned.) Increasingly now it is ‘convert or die!’ The situation in Pakistan is deteriorating rapidly.” (Then follows a quote from Revelation 22,) ‘He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!’ (Rev 22:20 ESV)”

Wherever the Holy Spirit is applying the victory of Christ in this world in the face of intense opposition, that is, whenever the Lamb’s War rages, the Lord’s return is near!

Conclusion

“18 I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, 19 and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.” (22:18-19)

Whilst it is not the direct intention of the teachers of the mainstream church in the West to add or take away from Revelation, our overall failure to testify to the Lamb with authority, authenticity and effectiveness convicts us that we have supplemented to and subtracted from this book [61].

In our generally comfortable churches it simply does not look like that we are at war. Yet at war we are, for this whole world is engaged in the battle between the Lamb and the forces of evil, and of this we have no choice[62]. If we ignore this reality, if we do not share with the Apostle John a Lamb’s eye view of God’s sovereign rule over all history, we may very well end in depression and despair[63].

It is Revelation’s cosmological perspective[64] that revises our whole world view and releases Overcoming Joy. Anyone who enters “in the Spirit” (1:10; 4:2; 17:3) into the book of the Lamb can never be small minded or purposeless again, but must live every moment in the light of the coming of God’s kingdom to bring an End to all history as we know it[65]!

The revelation that the God who “created all things” (4:11) is also a Lamb, “standing as slain” (5:6), crucified and resurrected, is so radical, profound, so deep, that it calls for a new way of being a human person, a new way of being church, and a new society, because contained within this vision is a whole new creation. Whoever “in the Spirit” has seen the death and resurrection of the Lamb, has seen that in him “the former things have passed away” (21:4) and that “all things (have become new)” (21:5).