2 Chronicles 36 Revelation
22 Malachi 4
And
so we come, fittingly at the end of the year, to ‘The End of the World,’ in 3
different scenarios. As far as the Jews were concerned, the fall of Jerusalem Judah
Malachi
continues to look forward to ‘the Day of the Lord.’ We have noted before that
biblical prophecy often fuses together different levels of fulfillment. Here,
Malachi mixes images from the Incarnation of Jesus and his Second Coming.
Verses 1–3 have clear references to the very end of all things, the image of
fiery destruction taken up by Peter in 2 Peter 3:10. Verse 3 supports the
interpretation of the Millennium as outlined a day or so ago. Whether Malachi
knows his words will ‘close’ scripture for 400 years of silence we cannot tell.
But he ends by straining his prophetic sight into the future, and seeing the
one God would send to prepare the way for Jesus, John the Baptist (Matthew
17:11-13).
Revelation
is truly the end of the world – or, to be more theologically accurate, the
re-beginning of the world. ‘I am making everything new,’ says God in 21:5. His
ultimate plan is nothing less than the complete restoration or recreation of
the entire cosmos, and these final chapters of scripture outline the wonderful
beauty of this new world. In 22:2 we read that the old divisions and hatreds of
human existence will disappear, because there will be healing for the nations.
I
love C S Lewis’s phrase in the Narnia Chronicles, as the children enter Aslan’s
Country (Lewis certainly grasped the fundamental biblical concept that the
future for which we are saved is a physical, created one) – ‘Further on and
further in, further up and further in’.
There is progression in eternity.
There’s a glorious cosmopolitan harmony awaiting us in the city of God
The
image of the bride of Christ should also strengthen our commitment to the
Church. It’s so easy to knock the Church, especially when things are hard in a
fellowship. Some feel that they can be more Christian by not going to church.
But you can’t. God’s new order is God’s people in social form. The gates of the
City are the Patriarchs of the Old Testament; its foundations the Apostles of
the New. To be a Christian now is to be part of an entirely new social order,
ahead of time. Augustine said there is
no salvation outside the Church; and although those words have been abused over
the centuries, there is still truth in them. Get stuck into the Church, John
seems to be saying, because one day, the day when God’s glory comes to take up
permanent residence on the new earth, it’s going to be the Bride.
The
local church, with all its faults, prepares us for the new order that is to
come. Whatever your experience of Church, you are nearer Heaven when you’re
with your fellow Christians than when you are in isolation at home. And the
Church may seem dull and boring and unexciting now, but on its wedding day, you
won’t be embarrassed to belong any more.
One
of the wonderful things about the closing chapters of Revelation is the way
John describes the complete reversal of the consequences of sin:-
·
evil &
chaos will have no place (21:1)
·
there will be
no more suffering (21:4)
·
there will be
no more dissatisfaction (21:6)
·
there will be
no more wrath (21:9)
·
there will be
no more night (22:5)
·
there will no
longer be any curse (22:3)
·
there will be
no more threat to peace (21:25)
·
there will be
exquisite intimacy with God
ü
the image of
parenthood (21:7)
ü
the image of
matrimony (21:9) (think of Jesus in Matthew 22:30; Mark 12:25; Luke 20:35)
ü
the image of
servanthood (2:3, 4) - ‘They will see his face’
In
short, there will be all the potential of Eden
“The things that began to happen
after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us
this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all
lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real
story. All their life in this world ... had only been the cover and the title
page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no
one on earth has read: which goes on for ever: in which every chapter is better
than the one before.”