by N. T. Wright
★★★★
This
is a friendly, feel-good peek at the bloodiest book in the Bible. As
one who has written about Revelation from a historical-critical
viewpoint, detailing all the gory first-century details which inspired
the Book of Revelation, Wright’s approach felt a little to me like
bouncing happily along the surface. This is not a criticism; Wright’s
Revelation is more palatable than mine, certainly more inspirational for
a 21st-century audience.
Given
Wright's more conservative brand of Christianity, it's eerie how often
he and I agree on the meaning of the Bible's most mysterious book.
Wright recognizes the conflict between Christianity and Caesar worship
pulsating through Revelation. He recognizes (as does nearly every
serious scholar of Revelation) that the "Beast of the Sea," identified
by the hideous number 666, refers to Nero Caesar, and Wright pays homage
to the rumor that Nero had come back to life. He counts, like I do, the
seven kings of Revelation beginning with Augustus, not Julius Caesar,
the popular choice among preterists. He even acknowledges the
frightening urgency in the tone of Revelation, because its prophecies
were expected by John to be fulfilled immediately. Indeed, some had already occurred, like the two witnesses of Revelation, before John put pen to paper.
Yet
in all these cases, Wright glosses over the historical connections and
emphasizes, instead, Revelation's relevance to today. His focus is for
Christians of today, recognizing that we still await the moment of
Christ’s return. The “earthquakes” of Revelation (which should be read
non-literally as merely earth-shattering events) remind us of the fall
of the Berlin Wall, or the smashing of the Twin Towers. That’s a
relevant stance, yet it did leave me feeling like Wright’s treatment was
a bit artificial, regardless of his claim … that Revelation “in fact
offers one of the clearest and sharpest visions of God’s ultimate
purpose for the whole creation.”
This
highlights the fascinating thing about scripture, and in particular the
book of Revelation. Its vivid imagery and Christian lessons relate to
followers of every century. Unless you read the book of Revelation
literally—a method of reading that was appropriate only to one age and
audience, the people of Asia Minor to whom John was actually
writing—Revelation continues to be just as meaningful and "true" today
as then.
Do
not miss the final chapters, about the New Jerusalem! Wright reminds us
that “Jesus, according to the whole New Testament, is already reigning.”
He points out the fascinating verse in Ephesians 2:6, where the church
is “seated in heavenly places in the Messiah Jesus.” As to the binding
of Satan, Jesus had already accomplished this (Matthew 12:29). What it
all means is the great promise: God has come to dwell with humans. So
many readers of Revelation assume that the final description would be
about heaven that they fail to see the glory of God's New Jerusalem on
earth—a "newness" we can share in today. Heaven and earth are forever
joined together.
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