I feel as though I am still standing outside the book of Revelation
waiting to go in. The book is now, to me, like a Museum of treasures inviting
me to know God more and better than I have ever known him before. My eyes are
drawn to the sign high on the Museum wall that simply announces, “THE
REVELATION.” Below the building’s name, as though authorizing the sign with a
signature, is the addition: “of Jesus
Christ.” The signature is in a handwritten script my heart quickly
recognizes, as though the name itself was sounding with my Shepherd’s own
voice.[1]
Today
I set out to meditate on the significance of the revelation belonging to Jesus
Christ. I wanted to consider afresh how this personal authorization of a
revelation belonging to God’s own Son sets it apart from anything else ever claimed
by man. However, as the book of Revelation itself speaks of both the word of
God and the testimony of God’s children,[2] this partnership found a new expression for me. I found my
appreciation of all the Scriptures that soundly declare that a revelation
owned, authorized and presented by Jesus Christ was absolutely trustworthy,
turned into a testimony of how God has led me to know this with a genuine and
maturing faith.
In
all the years I have been a Christian I have listened to people tell me that I
am wrong and they are right. I grew up with an angry agnostic dad who hated
Jesus. It didn’t make sense that a self-proclaimed agnostic would be sure
enough about anything to do with God to have such a strong emotional response
to denying his existence. However, Dad’s anger was triggered repeatedly by my
faith in Jesus Christ, and there were no verbal restrictions to what he would
express of both thought and feeling.
A
boy growing up into teenage years does not want to be despised by his dad. My
heart cringed at his outbursts as though it was physically scourged by every
angry word. It was clear that, if I would renounce my faith in this unknowable
Jesus, the attacks would stop. I was trapped between what my Dad said about me
and God, and what God said about me and my dad. They could not both be right.
The
problem was that I was faced with the claims of Jesus Christ who gave me every
reason to believe that he indeed was the Creator of the world, making me fully
accountable to him for what I was doing with the life he created. Jesus gave me
every reason to believe that he was the Savior of the world, making me
desperately dependent on him for a good relationship between him as my Creator
and myself as his creation. My dad’s anger against this Jesus he wasn’t sure
existed, and his anger against me for trusting such a fictitious figure, forced
me to answer probing issues early in my life.
My
journey could be summarized with this triad of questions: Was there enough
evidence for Jesus that made losing my dad as my dad an inevitable sorrow? When
I came to the end of my life, whose judgment of my personhood would most affect
what happened next? When I compared the basis for my faith in the Bible to the
basis for my Dad’s faith in himself, which one was best substantiated by
external evidence?
When
these questions were answered, I knew that there was so much evidence for Jesus
in all his claims that I had no option but to surrender to his salvation call
no matter what it cost me in this earthly lifetime. This did not make me a
strong person. It did not make me bold in sharing Jesus with everyone I met. It
did not instantly heal all the wounds of a traumatized soul. It just made me
settled in my heart that Jesus was much bigger than my dad, and Jesus’
worldview was perfect and trustworthy. This salvation also contained the
healing balm to the wounds inflicted from my dad’s worldview.
I
also knew that there was overwhelming evidence that I will stand before Jesus
Christ in the judgment and give account to him for how I lived as one of his
creatures. I will give account for how I lived out my existence in the world he
had made, and how I related to all the people he had created. I will have to
answer for how I responded when he spoke, the choices I made in relation to the
things I read in the Bible, and specifically, what I did when I heard the
gospel calling me to repent and receive the good news. After my death, I will
not find my dad sitting on some divine throne finalizing his judgment against
me. Rather, my dad will find himself before the divine throne of Jesus Christ
answering for how he lived in Jesus’ world, how he fulfilled his design as a
man, a husband, a father, and a human being, and how he responded to the gospel.
His judgment of me will mean nothing to Jesus, or me, whatsoever.
Then there was the Bible. I learned how God’s word came to
existence, how it was passed down from one generation to another, how so many
different men contributed to this book over ten centuries of time in such
uplifting harmony, how it was filled with detailed prophecies of the first
coming of Christ that were substantiated by more than enough eye-witness
testimony to deserve a faith-verdict, how it answered the questions of where we
came from, why the world is in such a messed-up condition, and how the
messed-up condition of a sinful world has a unique and undeniable cure. The
more I read the Bible, the more I realized that this Book was the most comprehensive
description of life ever communicated, and that I could trust it, and its
Author, with all my heart.
While
my confidence in the Bible’s integrity had good reason simply from the Bible
and its history, the attacks on my faith, and the offering of opposing
worldviews, did nothing to dissuade me from my faith in Jesus. In fact, being
presented with so many contrasts to the Scriptures helped me to see the superiority
of the Bible over all other worldview sources. It was as though I had found
real money and now could distinguish it from the myriad counterfeit
expressions.
The
bottom-line for me was that no other worldview was substantiated by such a
record of writings as was contained in the Bible. I could not believe how
little evidence people used to support their religious convictions, their
evolutionary philosophies, and even their denial of God. I could not believe
how unreasonable people’s arguments could sound and yet give them reason to
aggressively attack my faith in Jesus Christ; a faith based on such a
historically documented manual on life as was given us in the Bible.
Everything
came down to a conflict between Jesus and the world, between the Bible’s
genuineness and the counterfeits’ falseness. Jesus was the authority; anyone
who thought otherwise had to still take him on whether they knew it or not. No
one would change my worldview without presenting something, anything, that was
great enough to push Jesus off his throne. The childhood game, “I’m the King of
the Castle” had a greater counterpart in reality, and Jesus was and is the
undeniable King of Creation. Calling me to a counterfeiters’ convention where
every challenger to Jesus Christ and his Bible could speak against my faith in
Jesus would still do nothing to my faith for the simple reason that, at the end
of such a convention, Jesus is still on the throne.
This
brings me to the first words of the book of Revelation: “The revelation of Jesus Christ”. This climactic book of the Bible
introduces itself based on what the whole rest of the Bible has already made
ultimately clear about Jesus:
“…God exalted him to the highest place and
gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every
knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue
acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”[3]
If
we listen to anyone else give their revelation, it is coming from a name, a
person, inferior to Jesus and his exalted position over heaven and earth. When
we listen to the opponents of the cross of Jesus Christ, the intellects and
scholars and skeptics who mock and malign the book of Revelation, we hear the
squeals of little children in contrast to the roar of the Lion of the Tribe of
Judah.[4]
From
my first exposure to Dad’s angry opposition to a Jesus he did not believe
existed; through both the mocking and sincere challenges to my faith from
school friends, employers and fellow employees; through the challenges of other
religions, other philosophies, and, of course, the pseudo-science of the
not-so-almighty-contender Evolution; to the pluralism of the everybody-is-right
mirage, and the apathy of modernists who simply don’t care who is right, my
confidence in Jesus remaining securely in full, sovereign control of his throne
has continued to grow and mature.
So,
when I approach a museum emblazoned with the sign, “THE REVELATION” I am not
immediately drawn to go in and take the tour. But when I see that the sign is
signed, “Of
Jesus Christ”, I am not only drawn to enter with a heart full of
awestruck expectation, but I am fully prepared to come out of this museum a
changed man.
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