God's weakness or hypocrisy and reading Revetion literally
Just to pull some up to speed, I have been doing a study of Revelation on Sunday nights at my church. A week ago a text jumped out at me that made me see how reading Revelation literally is quite dangerous to a rigourous doctrine of God. Here's the text:
Rev. 11:18: "... The time has come for judging the dead, and for rewarding your servants hte prophets and your saints and those who reverence your name, both small and great--and for destroying those who destroy the earth" (emphasis mine). Now, if God indeed does destroy those who destroy the earth, and Revelation's judgments are read literally, then I am left with one of two conclusions:
1. God is (somewhat) hypocritical: Granted that the earth is the Lord's and everything in it (and he can flood it!), it still does seem a little hypocritical for God to carry out punishment with the act which he is actually punishing!
2. God is weak: Those who destroy the earth have pushed it too far and God can only "complete the job," so to speak.
Good thing a symbolic reading of the book is much more faithful to the text.
Rev. 11:18: "... The time has come for judging the dead, and for rewarding your servants hte prophets and your saints and those who reverence your name, both small and great--and for destroying those who destroy the earth" (emphasis mine). Now, if God indeed does destroy those who destroy the earth, and Revelation's judgments are read literally, then I am left with one of two conclusions:
1. God is (somewhat) hypocritical: Granted that the earth is the Lord's and everything in it (and he can flood it!), it still does seem a little hypocritical for God to carry out punishment with the act which he is actually punishing!
2. God is weak: Those who destroy the earth have pushed it too far and God can only "complete the job," so to speak.
Good thing a symbolic reading of the book is much more faithful to the text.
posted by Aaron Perry at
9:46 AM
11 Comments:
AP,
conclusion 1 confuses me.
"it still does seem a little hypocritical for God to carry out punishment with the act which he is actually punishing!"
I don't understand how this is hyprocritical. It seems logical to me that punishment would occur through the act.
Help me understand
yeah, that's a confusing sentence, dave. here's what i mean:
it seems hypocritical that God would punish those who destroy the earth by destroying the earth himself. my concession is that it is his to do with as he does with it.
hey aaron
do you believe the earth will, on its last day, be destroyed with fire or purified with fire literally or spiritually?
I believe it will be purified and made new but I am not sure what such a thing would look like.
i believe that Jesus will return, raise the dead and judge, those judged righteous will reign with him and the earth will cease groaning as the sons and daughters of God have been revealed. so, it will be renewed in the same way that God renews dust, remains, bones--'souls'--as resurrected bodies. sounds like some kind of purification to me.
Gotcha,
Does this presume those who are innocent are on earth when the earth is destroyed?
hmmm....maybe something more is not clear. i don't think the earth is destroyed. if God just destroyed, that's why i think he'd be weak or hypocritical.
ap,
i think it is fair to use the word 'destroyed' when talking about the passing away of the old heavens and earth since peter uses it in 2peter3:10-11.
But I still agree with you that the focus is on 'in what way' it will be destroyed and i tend to think the old will be 'destroyed' by being 'made new'
Kinda similar to how we are made new w/o our bodies being blown to bits.
matt, thanks for raising a crucial text. of course, one must keep in mind the nature of apocalyptic literature which points to a symbolic reading of heavens disappearing and elements being destroyed by fire, etc. beyond this, the NIV is kind of helpful, kind of not with its translation, "...and everything in it will be laid bare." you'll see the textual variant of "be burned up." another set of manuscripts has the translation "will be found." wright points out the insight of some commentators that "will be found" best conveys the intention, "will be found out," as in discovered, brought to light.
now notice what peter does: "since everything will be destroyed **in this way**..." what he has just described--judging, is the way things will be "destroyed." it makes perfect sense then for peter to exhort his hearers to godly lives if all of creation will be "found out" and judged.
he then completes his hope for creation by describing the new heaven nad hte new earth...not in a physical way, but as "the home of righteousness"! this only makes sense if the destruction peter has described is meant to rid it of unrighteousness.
so, you rightly point out the purging aspect of this "destruction." so, in order to use destruction, you'll have to stay faithful to peter's use here. this just isn't in the mind of (the vast majority of) your hearers who are thinking a destruction of hte earth and a life in heaven.
The irony in all of this, of course, is that reading Revelation "symbolically" is to read it in accordance with the literal sense of the text. I.e., we read it that way because that is how apocalyptic literature is supposed to be read.
SGFMB
hmm...speaking of redemptive words and reading literally. maybe i should change it to, "nonfigurative" reading?
"Good thing a symbolic reading of the book is much more faithful to the text."
everyone please! teach it and preach it until every last one of them shall know!
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