I wrote this in response to a CRC-Voices thread on fears prompted by RFID tagging or tattoes with respect to the “mark of the beast” found in the book of Revelation
Check out a concordance search of “forehead” from the NRSV in the book of Revelation:
Revelation 7:3 (NRSV)
saying, “Do not damage the earth or the sea or the trees, until we have marked the servants of our God with a seal on their foreheads.”
Revelation 9:4 (NRSV)
They were told not to damage the grass of the earth or any green growth or any tree, but only those people who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads.
Revelation 13:16 (NRSV)
Also it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead,
Revelation 14:1 (NRSV)
Then I looked, and there was the Lamb, standing on Mount Zion! And with him were one hundred forty-four thousand who had his name and his Father’s name written on their foreheads.
Revelation 14:9 (NRSV)
Then another angel, a third, followed them, crying with a loud voice, “Those who worship the beast and its image, and receive a mark on their foreheads or on their hands,
Revelation 17:5 (NRSV)
and on her forehead was written a name, a mystery: “Babylon the great, mother of whores and of earth’s abominations.”
Revelation 20:4 (NRSV)
Then I saw thrones, and those seated on them were given authority to judge. I also saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their testimony to Jesus and for the word of God. They had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ a thousand years.
Revelation 22:4 (NRSV)
they will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads.
Everyone in the book of Revelation gets a “mark”, and it’s either the name of God and his Messiah or the name of the beast or the city. If you want to be “literal” and you read 17:5 you’ll see just how big this “mark” needs to be. The point is that God has his own and they are “marked” and “preserved”.
Ginger, if you want a very readable account of the CRC’s take on “end times” check out Anthony Hoekema’s “The Bible and the Future”. I would hope it is in your church library instead of “Left Behind”.
The Dispensationals like to tart up the book of Revelation to understand it to disclose a lot of “insider information” that gives the Bible reader an edge in order to game the system of you are one of those fortunate (or unfortunate) few who live in the “last days”. One should ask of what practical purpose would there have been for the Spirit to reveal this to John and to write a letter and send it to the churches he was ministering to? Is the Bible some code book/time capsule designed to send secret messages that would be useful only to a specific group of people at a particular date and time but because of this lead every other generation astray imagining the Pope, Hitler or Napoleon to be “the antichrist”?
I think what John is doing is essentially interpreting Old Testament prophesy now with the new light of the resurrected Christ for the context of a cruciform church. It’s not as much about delivering insider information as it is encouraging a people crushed, discouraged and brutalized by the empires of the world to believe that in fact Jesus is Lord. The book really doesn’t do anything much different than Paul does in his epistles, John just approaches it armed with a very vivid application of much of the Old Testament that we pay very little attention to but where very much paid attention to by the churches in John’s day.
Dispensationalism looks all sexy with their end times movies and their driver’s seats emptied by “The Rapture”, but what they deny is the far older, far broader far more Biblical understanding that the blood of Christ replaces the blood of Abraham as defining the people of God. It also encourages us to imagine that the godly and ungodly can be so easily delineated by things such as political parties and government leaders. The truth is that we’ve had “one world government” under the age of decay even with a multiplicity of empires. The rule of government is the rule of the sword, and all who live by the sword die by the sword. The rule of Christ, the rule of the age to come is the way of life by God whose heart is grace and the generosity of God expressed in “your wellbeing at my expense” which finds its ultimate manifestation at the cross.
The reason the Reformed (and the RC, Lutherans and Orthodox) don’t follow the likes of Jack Van Impe and his speculations is because we don’t believe we need to. The way of Christ is the way of Christ and you don’t need insider information to “game the system” to try to figure out where you should be to manage the coming of the antiChrist beyond simply following Jesus.
Truth is that Dispensationals are really just a less heterodox manifestation of the same western, cultural wave that gave us the LDS, the JWs, the Adventists and other millennial groups. Their imagined rapture makes for some really fun B movies, but one must ask why the church never bought into this in the prior 1800 years of church history before them. pvk
Of Rights and Grace
Again, another response to a CRC-Voices post.
I suspect the word “grace” is often misapplied when we demand the benefits of it for ourselves or those we ally with. Grace can only be asked for in an request from a position of repentance I suspect. Grace is not itself generosity although grace can flow from generosity. We also confuse “grace” with “niceness”. Likewise we confuse “grace” with “give me a break. How much will it cost you to just give me what I want?” like a beggar asking for a dollar from someone who seems able to spare it. This isn’t grace either, it’s charity.
Too often we throw around the word “grace” in a conversation like this and we’re talking about “rights” which is really a different conversation. “Rights” demanded are done so before a judge who has the power to both render judgment and execute punishment on the guilty. A judge recognizes and acknowledges “rights”. “Grace” is an appeal to the judge after the sentence has been both declared and acknowledged by the guilty. It is an appeal for mercy. Only those who define themselves as guilty apply for grace.
What many of us who are asking for “grace” are really asking for is an appeal, that our case be re-examined and that we (and the position we hold) be declared to be right and that we be vindicated. That is a different thing.
Part of the irony of contemporary conflicts is that many groups demanding the recognition of “rights” posit no divine judge and especially no divine judgment. That would probably be a beneficial avenue to explore. A lot of the “rights” language in an imagined context without this divine judge or divine punishment really seems to be more of a rhetorical device to leverage previous general acceptance of a position and to get it extended towards that which they wish included.
If someone expands their mental purview beyond the church or the state and includes in their minds a picture of the judge of all history, a bit more humility about one’s actual “rights” might develop. We might also begin to value humility, repentance and in fact begin to see a need for grace for ourselves. pvk