The End, Kind Of

May the best story win

The Lord's story is a better one—so we've seen.

To be lord is to get your way. It’s amazing to consider that even when things are not going well, Jesus will have His way.

But the other side of that coin is a bold statement of who isn’t Lord. No one and no thing can ultimately have its way in our lives. And no encouragement could have been more meaningful to the first readers of Revelation.

...

Location: the Roman Empire. Time: about 2,000 years ago. At its peak, Rome was one of the greatest, most desirable places to live in all of human history. It was a place of peace, a place of safety, a place where goods and services were affordable. It was a place where everyone was united. Don’t you wish our world was more like that?

We often hear about how hard it was to be a Christian in Rome. We hear that Rome was very hostile to Christianity, making life very difficult for those who followed the way of the Cross. In reality, scholars have known for a while that this is not true. If anything, Rome offered great stability for people of all faiths.

Of course, there were some rough moments, don’t get me wrong. For example, when a huge fire broke out in the city, Emperor Nero needed a scapegoat, and he blamed and killed hundreds of Christians because they were still just a small group that most people knew little about. In other words, they were an easy target because nobody knew enough about Christians to defend them. But moments such as these were few and far between.

It wouldn’t be until decades after Revelation was written that the Romans began purposefully targeting Christians just for being Christian.

In fact, Paul is partly getting at just how perfect the conditions in Rome were for Christianity when he says in Galatians 4:4, “When the fullness of time came, God sent his son.” After Alexander the Great conquered much of the known world, almost everyone learned to speak the same language: Greek. Centuries later, the Romans established elaborate road systems to connect the entire empire and allow for safe travel. It was now easier to communicate than ever. The result? Missionaries like Paul could easily spread their message. In other words, the moment was ripe for the gospel.

So what’s the big deal? It seems like Rome was the perfect place for Christians, right?

And you’d be wrong. Because Rome was in love with its own glory, and it maintained its position by obsessing over power and status. How different is that from the words of our Savior? “I am gentle and humble in heart.”

One writer from the time describes the emperor as, “a savior who put an end to war and brought order to all things.” Another said, “the honor of Augustus should endure forever,” while still others referred to Rome as, “the eternal city.” Everything from the most popular works of poetry to the political ads of the day claimed that the new world that Rome had built was the way things were meant to be, that this new world would never end. Perhaps the most important thing to remember for modern readers of Revelation is this: Revelation tells a story of the end of the world from within an empire that claimed to last forever.

In other words, Revelation does not predict the end of the world as if it is a frightening event that will happen just because God said so. Instead, it attacks a specific way of understanding the world and insists, “If the world really was like that, it would be very short-lived.” It tells us what’s really true about the way our world is meant to be and who is really lord over it by exposing how the old way of understanding the world is doomed to fail. And it tells about the only kind of world that will last.

We could understand the so-called “end-times” of Revelation this way: it is not the world itself that has to end but a specific kind of world.

Perhaps calling our political leaders "savior" is a bit excessive, but we are all too familiar with what this kind of world is like. The message of life in Rome was that you are saved by your successes, by making a name for yourself, your ability to pull yourself up by your bootstraps, to climb up the ranks and accumulate more wealth. We all have felt the crushing weight of this mindset. 

The biggest mistake most readers of Revelation make is to miss the fact that this book is very intentionally fighting back against the way of empires. Rome had convinced the world that the path to everlasting greatness was through more and more achievement, whatever the cost. The only way to counter that narrative was to tell a story of the end.

This is about as true of a prophecy as you can get. Nations that find their hope in their own successes are doomed to fail from the beginning because success in this world depends on human effort. At some point, they come to a crossroads: are we happy with what we have or do we need more? They always choose “B.” They consume and consume and consume, until finally, they devour themselves. In that sense, we could ask: is Revelation a prediction or simply a recognition of what was true from the start?

However you look at it, it did come true, just as it always will for people of all time. The hope of Revelation’s first readers outlasted Rome up to this day. Their hope that the greed of this world would collapse on itself came true, as it did for all who came before and after. Was it not true for Israel, or Babylon and Persia? What is left of the Mongols in China, the Ottoman Turks, or the great British Empire?

We'd be crazy to follow in their footsteps.

Prev: Even the Crazy Ones | Next: And You Thought They  Were Crazy
Enjoy this blog? Share with a friend!
For more like this, click here.