Fresh revelations of eternal truths
I pray that we will have fresh revelations of the eternal truth we have already received - Chris Cartwright
For Christians throughout the ages, the Book of Revelation has been viewed as the strangest and most difficult of Bible books. John’s visions of apocalypse seem strikingly both beautiful and baffling, triumphant and terrifying.
Yet, one of the most often overlooked aspects of Revelation is its impact on the man John who received and recorded it. The first chapter opens with John exiled on the island of Patmos.
The church that has spread across the Great Roman Empire is now experiencing a fierce onslaught. In this empire ‘Caesar is Lord’ and followers of Christ who will not bow to Caesar’s lordship and divinity face relentless and unimaginable persecution. John is the disciple who has been with Jesus, who had laid his head on Jesus’s shoulder at the last supper and witnessed so many of Christ’s amazing miracles. He is the one to whom Jesus entrusted his mother Mary at his crucifixion. This is the John who had written the Gospel.
If anyone could lay claim to really knowing Jesus, it was John. In walking and talking with Jesus along with the other disciples, John had heard and witnessed the fullness of who Jesus is and what he had come to do. Yet, John records the most extraordinary encounter. He sees a vision of “one like a son of man… his head and his hair were like wool… his eyes like blazing fire.” John’s response is: “When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead.” Even though he is so familiar with every moment, every story, every word of his Lord and Master, John is overwhelmed. He continues: “Then he placed his right hand on me and said, ‘Do not be afraid. I am the first and the last, the living one; I was dead and behold I am alive for ever and ever.’”
What a moment. Even the ‘eyewitness’, beloved apostle John could not bear or fully comprehend the awesome greatness of the presence, power and glory of the risen, glorified Christ. Yet, it’s in this moment of encounter in fresh revelation that the familiar becomes alive again in him.
Many of us may recognise that we’ve become so familiar with the story of Jesus, with his words and his works, that somehow they have lost their impact in our hearts and minds. We still believe, but have lost the wonder and awe that Jesus once drew from us – and we lack the faith and obedience that comes from the revelation of his holiness, his might and his great love.
Years ago, in one of our city churches, a highly educated and well-travelled young Pakistani man arrived at the door one weekday morning. Speaking with one of our ministers, he told his story. Raised as a Muslim in a very wealthy and influential family, he had a vision one night in which a flood washed away his family home and all were perishing.
He heard a voice telling him to reach out his hand to be saved. He did so and immediately woke up. After years of searching for the meaning of his vision, while visiting a family in our city, he walked into the home of his hosts as they were watching the Jesus film. The moment he heard and saw Jesus in the film, he knew that was the person calling him in his vision. He came to the church to ask how he could know Jesus and how to be saved. My colleague had the joy of introducing him to Jesus and sharing the promise of eternal life. He prayed with him to receive Christ as his Saviour.
In the following months, this young disciple grew quickly in his new relationship with Jesus. In coming to Christ, he had immediately been rejected by his family, lost his wealth, his job and his community. But he knew deep within him that he had gained Christ. And though he faced the genuine human pain of loss and separation from those he loved, his new-found relationship with Christ and the gift of eternal life was greater by far.
We were truly humbled by his response. I will never forget him coming regularly with his Bible, reading aloud verses of Scripture he had just discovered. Some had a particular immediacy and impact for him, such as “Anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple” and “Any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14: 27,33).
We knew the verse, but he was living the reality of it. Over those months, we began to be freshly impacted by the words with which we had become so familiar.
John’s revelation comes to him for the whole world to hear. Yet it also comes to him personally, as someone who loved Jesus and whom Jesus loved. There on the island of Patmos in the final years of his life, it brings alive half-remembered words and awakens him to live on in the revived revelation of God’s promises through Jesus our Lord.
I pray that we will have fresh revelations of the eternal truth we have already received of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour. I pray that this will awaken in us a new zeal and courage to share him and his gift of eternal life with everyone, everywhere.
This article first appeared in Direction Magazine. For further details, please click here.
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