All Power to the Lamb

[David B. wrote:]
Similarly, there are spiritual things that we cannot relate to other
than by figurative languance, since there are no words in our language
that adequately describe them. This is what I see in Rev. 21. If I
am wrong, no problem — just demonstrate this to me. I can see where
a literal interpretation of Rev. 21 could be quite erroneous if we are
pinning God down to the dimensions, pavement and furnishings of
heaven. But again, I would not be dogmatic on this because if my
brother believes that heaven is going to be on a recreated earth, I do
not see that as being something worth arguing about. I just want to
do what God wants so that we all get into heaven. I will take
whatever He wants to give me at that point.

[James J. replies]
In your statement, David, you have made the assumption that there are
spiritual things that we cannot understand in terms of literal
language. On what basis do you make that assumption? I find
compelling evidence that requires a literal intepretation of Rev 21.
Consider the resurrection of Christ. It is the fundamental fact of
Christianity. Upon it rests our whole hope and future. The evidence
for that resurrection is a literal body of Christ that is risen from
the dead. We can hear it, look upon it, carefully scrutinize it, and
touch it (I Jn 1:1). Christ’s resurrected body was a substantive body
that was the same body that was buried (with some changes–Jn 20:26,
Lk 24:16,31,36-37, 39). After He rose from the dead, Christ invited
people to touch him (Lk 24:39) and he ate the same food that other
people ate after His resurrection (Jn 21:13-15, Acts 10:39-41). That
resurrected substantive body is the keystone of Christianity. It is
the evidence that Jesus is the Son of God, and it is our guarantee
that we also shall rise from the dead. Consider the following verse:

Romans 8:11 But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the
dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also
quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.

The resurrection of Christ is the same as our resurrection, otherwise
His resurrection cannot be the guarantee of ours. We know Jesus
received a physical body raised to life and His resurrected physical
body is the guarantee that our physical bodies will arise, because the
same Spirit works on both occasions.

Every Christian is pretty much agreed that Jesus physically rose from
the dead, but opinions differ as to what happened to Jesus’ body as He
ascended back to the Father. Those who hold that nothing material can
enter heaven assume Jesus’ body disintegrated after it entered into
the cloud (Acts 1:9). They are sure that Jesus’ resurrected body
could not enter heaven, for it was physical (I Cor 15:50). However,
we know that Jesus’ spirit is in heaven for He is now sitting by the
right hand of God (Acts 2:34-35). If His body is not there, however,
Jesus died on the way to heaven, for the body apart from the spirit is
dead (Jas 2:26). It is not possible that Jesus’ died, however, for
Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more (Rom 6:9).

Some feel the force of the argument that Jesus’ resurrected body could
not die and attempt to avoid it by assuming that the physical body of
Jesus changed to an insubstantial body, but that also cannot be. The
reason that it cannot be is that Paul was an eyewitness of the
Resurrection of Christ (Acts 26:16, I Cor 15:8). If Paul was an
eyewitness, what did he see, and of what could he testify? He
testified that Jesus rose from the dead (I Cor 15:15, Acts 25:19).
How could Paul testify that Jesus rose from the dead if all Paul saw
was the spirit of Christ? Before He ascended back to the Father,
Jesus assured the other apostles, as evidence that He was truly risen
from the dead, that in His risen form He was not a ghost (Lk 24:39).
If Paul did not see the physical body of Christ, Paul cannot testify
that Jesus rose from the dead, he is inferior to the other apostles
(II Cor 11:5, 12:11), and he is not qualified to be an apostle (Acts
1:22). Paul therefore saw the physical body of the resurrected Christ
several years after Jesus had already ascended back to heaven.

David, I want you to carefully consider what I have written above,
because it is crucial to understanding the world to come. Jesus’ body
in its physical form is eternal. Jesus cannot die (Rev 1:18, Rom
6:9). Paul is a witness that Jesus’ physical body resides in heaven,
as the apostle John also witnessed–Rev 1:17. His body now is like
our body will be (I Jn 3:2), but His body now is material (I Cor
15:8), observable (Rev 1:12-13) and eternal (Acts 13:34).
Furthermore, He promises us that if we overcome we will eat of the
tree of life (Rev 2:7). However, the tree of life is a real tree that
it was possible for Adam to eat from and live forever (Gen 3:22). The
tree of life is inside the city of God and grows by a river (Rev
22:2). The tree of life is therefore not a figure representing the
resurrection of the dead, but is a real tree that will be accessible
to those righteous who have already risen from the dead (Rev 22:14).
Our resurrected bodies will eat, just like Jesus’ body ate (Jn 21:15,
Acts 10:41).

Now, why did I spend so much time to carefully establish the eternal
physical existence of Jesus’ body? Because if Jesus’ body in heaven
is substantive, it requires a substantive place. The idea that heaven
is sooo different that it cannot even be described by things that we
know, is not correct based upon the eternal existence of Jesus’ body.
What is to come will be familiar to us in that it will have length,
width, and depth, inertia, weight, and time because His substantive
body requires those things to support it. Jesus’ substantive body
will not just be floating in an etherial fog in dimension x with no
means to interact with anything. He is King of kings (Rev 19:16, Eph
1:20-21, Php 2:9-11) who requires a suitable environment in which He
may interact with His realm, if the term “king” is meaningful in any
real sense. When Jesus is said to be sitting on a throne (Rev 3:21),
the fact of His substantive body requires a substantive throne upon
which He can sit and the fact of the substantive throne requires a
substantive place. Heaven is a real place with real dimensions and
structure and substantiality. It was created “in the Beginning”, just
like the earth was (Heb 4:3). Furthermore, King David by inspiration
spoke of his physical Descendant who would one day sit upon David’s
throne (Ps 132:11, Acts 2:30). The resurrection of Christ supplied
that physical seed of David who will sit upon David’s throne for ever
(I Chr 17:12, Lk 1:33).

[David wrote:]
I do believe that it is a sin to elevate this type of issue to the
point of dogma. This is a favorite trick of cultists. This is
exactly what JWs and Mormons do to destroy faith in basic fundamental
doctrine. We recently lost a couple of our members recently to a cult
that teaches that there is only one pronouncable name of God. It is
amazing how people get so fascinated with this type of thing that they
lose all regard for sound biblical teaching. Please do not think I am
accusing you of this — you have stated that you do not make this a
test of fellowship, and I respect you for that.

I am interested in moving our discussion ahead, but don’t really know
what question to ask. Do you see where we might have a disagreement?

[James replies:]
I have outlined our differences above. It appears to me that you hold
that heaven is immaterial and unknowable. It is so utterly different
that we cannot even comprehend what it is like. The physical
description of Rev 21-22 is God’s attempt to create a vague notion for
us poor mortals of the glories He has prepared that defy description.
My view of heaven is dramatically different. I believe that Rev 21
and 22 are a straightforward description of what will be. The only
thing I see in Rev 21 that is figurative is Rev 21:9 where the angel
promises to show John the bride of Christ and John actually sees a
city (Rev 21:10). However, when John saw the city of God, it
contained the redeemed who are the bride of Christ (Eph 5:31-32), so
he did see the bride of Christ as far as where they were located was
concerned.

You have listened to the teaching regarding the impossibility of
anything material entering heaven that you cannot conceive of heaven
having a substantial reality. If you can train your mind to look at
heaven as a place having substance, Revelation stops being a complete
bewilderment, and becomes much plainer and more reasonable. The rest
of the prophets begin at once to fall into place. It is the only
approach that offers a harmonious and satisfactory explanation that
will enable one to make sense of God’s wonderful Revelation.

[David B. wrote:]
I agree with all that you state below. We should not assume anything
to be figurative unless there is evidence to this effect. However,
realize that we can be JUST as wrong assuming something is literal
when it is figurative as we can the other way around.

[James J replies]
It is possible to take something literal that should be figurative,
such as the 1000 year reign of Christ in Rev 20:4-5. However, we are
much more likely to take something figuratively that should be literal
because we do not understand it. An example is the four living
creatures under the throne of God in Rev 4:6. They are typically
taken to be figurative when there is no reason they cannot be taken
literally. If they are figurative, we have no key to understanding
the meaning of the supposed figure, and in that case free-association
is about all you have to work with. One expositor was sure that they
represent the four gospels, Mt, Mk, Lk, and Jn! Many other examples
could be cited. However, every reference to them depicts them as
intelligent persons acting with volition. They are just different
from anything else that we have ever seen.

We should also keep in mind that our first cut at understanding a
scripture must be to take it literally. Our preference for literal
should be so strong that we are reluctantly FORCED to take a passage
figuratively. Unfortunately we are more likely to hasten to make it
“figurative” because it does not fit our world view and by taking a
passage figuratively, we can make it mean pretty much anything we want
by using free association. The figurative approach, as it is often
used, essentially renders a passage meaningless.

[David B. wrote:]
We sure should not just use free association to interpret figures. I
know of no one who teaches this method, and I never have (at least in
the Lord’s church).

[James J. replies]
Art Ogden does what I would call free association in his commentary on
Revelation when he
applies Revelation’s seven trumpets to the Jewish War and the
Destruction of Jerusalem (DOJ) in AD 70. The only difference between
what he does and totally free association is that he has the agenda
that the association must apply to the DOJ. He does not have any more
justification, though, for what he comes up with than the guy who
reads tea leaves and tells you what he sees. He also interprets Rev
21-22 in terms of the DOJ. That takes a pretty good imagination with
a lot of free association to read Rev 21-22 where God describes the
world come and imagine that anything there has to do with the DOJ.
There is no basis for what he concludes other than he wants it to be
that way. Homer Hailey also comes up with some far distant
associations. One example is in his comments on Rev 12 where he
identifies the sun, moon and stars clothing the glorious woman in Rev
12 as the divinely revealed light of the three dispensations;
Patriarchical, Mosical, and Christian. He arrives at his conclusion
apparently because the sun, moon and stars give light. God’s word
gives light. Therefore the light is the different light from the
three dispensations. Okay. But where is the proof? It is just free
word association.

[David B wrote:]
The purpose of figures are to clarify, not to obscure. If I say that
“he is as quite as a mouse,” that is figurative language, but it is
intended to convey a better message than if I were just to say he is a
quiet person.

[James J. replies]
Prophecy is often designed to conceal and to reveal only grudgingly.
Figures are used to conceal meaning from the unlearned. Usually they
reveal to those who are willing to study. There is always a key to
the figures in the prophecy somewhere that you can use to unlock a
figure. Often the prophet himself will provide the key (e.g. Dan
8:20). However, you often have to be willing to give up
preconceptions in order to find and use the keys. If a “figure” does
not have a key, it’s probably not a figure. About the only exception
I have found to every figure having a key to unlock it is the 1000
years of Rev 20:4. The best I can do with 1000 is that it is 10*10*10
or ten cubed. Cubing is the divine perfection of a number (the number
three times). The number ten also itself represents complete. So ten
cubed would be ten divinely perfected and would represent a divinely
perfected complete number. As an example, the ten commandments are
the complete epitome of the Law. An example of the use of 10 as the
complete number is where Elkanah asked Hanah, “Am not I better to thee
than ten sons?” where the presumption is that if she had ten sons she
would be completely satisfied. There were ten washbasins, ten tables,
and ten candlesticks in the holy place of Solomon’s temple (II Chr
4:6-8) so that the holy place would be completely furnished. We know
that 10 = 7 + 3 where seven is perfection and three is the symbolic
divine number (Homer Hailey, Revelation, p45). Therefore 10 is divine
perfection and 1000 is complete divine perfection. It appears that
the 1000 year reign of Christ is symbolic of a divinely determined
number that is perfect for the complete reign of Christ in heaven.
God cannot tell us exactly how long Jesus will rule there because it
is secret (Mt 24:36). Hence, God uses a symbolic number indicating
complete divine perfection to describe the duration of Christ’s rule
in heaven.

There is no way that figures such as the glorious woman (Rev 12:1) and
the seven headed sea beast (Rev 13:1) are intended to clarify. They
are figures that are designed to contain truth in an obscure but
decipherable fashion. They will be decipherable at the appropriate
time even as the prophecies regarding Jesus became decipherable as the
time drew near (e.g. Dan 2:44).

[To be continued]