Revelation says, “There will be No More Delay”
When Jesus began His ministry of going about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, He entered the synagogue in Nazareth and opened to read the Book of Isaiah 61: 1 and 2. But He left off before the second to last phrase:
“The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound. To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn.”
He omitted the Day of Vengeance that the Revelation martyrs would long for. There would be a delay to the second part “….and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn.” Keep in mind that mourning over sin wouldn’t just be for those who accept Jesus Christ; it’s also a word used to describe those who receive this corrective punishment, causing them also to mourn.
The reason for this “delay” in God’s vengeance was that there are two sides to His ministry, and the offering of repentance and healing comes first. There’s an opportunity to repent before judgment falls. And it falls first on the House of God:
- Healing and liberty to captives. To bring comfort to those of a contrite spirit (=who mourn).
- Bringing vengeance / justice for all. This would mean vengeance against those who rejected the offered free gift of righteousness and the relationship with God in Christ, and so had harmed the family of God. They had persecuted, tortured and killed God’s people – the very ones offering them love and salvation. This was not about a sinful world, for those outside the Promised Land had never had a marriage covenant with God. It was about an unfaithful wife in physical Judea of that time.
The earthly ministry of Jesus was about dying for both the Jew first and then the Gentile. His life was given for the whole world.
This offering of Life and health is for absolutely everyone who wants to be in God’s loving family. That’s, by the way, how you know if someone is in God’s family – thier love is relentless.
People in Jesus’ land back in His day made the free-will choice to be His – or to be, basically, their own god. In so doing, they chose darkness and fell under corrective judgment.
The judgment of those in ancient Israel who rejected Him, was carried out through war as prophesied. The judgment was carried out by the last empire (Rome) before the coming of the Kingdom of God in its fullness. See Daniel 2:31 to 45.
Revelation shows this in symbols. Beasts, as we see in Daniel, are biblical symbols of unspiritual nations. The beast coming out of the sea is identified as Rome.[1] The sea represents the nations of the world. The local state leader, Herod also rides on the Roman Empire of nations. We see this as the angel continues to reveal the identity of Babylon, the harlot to John, when he says that “the waters which you saw where the harlot sits are peoples, nations, multitudes, nations and tongues”. Revelation 17:15, thus, the extensive Roman Empire which Paul referred to as “the whole world.” Colossians 1:6,23 and Romans 10:18.
The second beast is also a national identity, but this one comes from the (promised) land – the word “γῆ (gē)” being used here (Revelation 13:11. This beast is the carnal entity of Jewish apostate priesthood, the custodians of the “law” in Israel at that time. These are the ones who opposed Christ and then His followers, denying truth to many.
That is why the “angelos” (messenger) has one foot “on” the land and one foot “on” the sea. Some scholars suggest this “messenger” depicts Christ. Jesus has conquered both enemies of Himself / spiritual Israel – the land is Israel, the sea, we are told depicts the nations, in particular Rome who ruled the nations of the day. We know from Paul that Jesus had to reign until all His enemies were under His feet. This was written to the first century saints. Jesus reigned on earth through those saints. That was how the enemies finally went under Jesus’ feet. We don’t have to do that. We have to act on the truth, not re-enact it. But putting His enemies under His feet for forty years may seem strange to Christians, because we know His work on the cross was final, finished and complete. He’s triumphed over the enemy/ies. But elsewhere Paul tells us he’s filling up the sufferings of Christ as if there is something the first century saints must do to get the enemies under Jesus’ feet.
It is the first believers’ faithfulness to Christ, even unto death, that Jesus Christ brought evidence of the success of the cross in that first century. Now demons have real torture, knowing that not only are they defeated because of the cross / resurrection, it ihas been proven among humans! Their lot was different to ours. We have much to thank them for. After 70AD and the collapse of the animal sacrificial system, life in Christ had the ability to change gears. But with the Life, the challenges of darkness didn’t disappear. What we have to realise today, is the power the Jesus has brought by the total fulfilment of all the law, setting us above and not below.
The “little scroll” is the message that John, the revelator has to consume (understand deeply) so that he can share the explanation (prophesy). Scholars aren’t certain whether this messenger with the little scroll (Chapter Ten) is Jesus Christ or his angelic messenger It is not clear. But that it speaks of Him as overcomer of both legalistic religion and the state, in this “end of the Old Covenant age” is very clear. Victory is declared “that there should be delay no longer” meaning that the testing time of the saints spoken of in Revelation 2 and 3 is about to be over and that would mean their suffering had filled up what was needful in Christ. Note that this suffering for Christ’s sake is not “sickness” or “disease”. Jesus promised persecution to His followers, especially to Paul, but never spoke of disease coming by His will. Jesus heals disease when we repent. But he uses the fire of persecution to prove and refine His own.[2] That is why we get the little book being “eaten” by John to prophesy about the specifics of these beasts. Martyrdom is involved. Martyrdom is about being spiritually crucified with Christ and raised into His new life. It’s not an optional extra. It is the call for all humans. If one won’t do it, one stays in the half-life of darkness and dread.
the Little Scroll is a smaller book than the “scroll” βιβλίον (biblion), of Revelation 5:5, which dealt with the broad situation of judgment beginning. In the little scroll, βιβλαρίδιον (biblaridion), which is the sweet Word of God about relief for the saints, we see that there is bitterness in the consuming. The sweetness indicates the divine nature of the Word John is to bring. He takes the Word into Himself, he’s not just going to parrot some phrases. In so doing he knows there will be judgments when the martyrs are revenged. Justice will be sweet for some, and bitter for others, but the nature of martyrdom is also bitter-sweet. Being crucified with Christ involves laying down our own agendas, beliefs and personal moral high ground. It’s humbling.
That is very hard for some of us, at first. But once you get in the practice of it – neurogenesis of Romans 12:1 and 2 takes over and it becomes a habit. This creates a humbler character capable of love, joy and peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
You can often tell where there is true humility because an arrogant character has a great difficult in saying “I was wrong.”
What is important for us today is to understand that there isn’t a delay on the victory we have in Christ in any of these things. We don’t have to “tarry” over any spiritual war, because it is won. We don’t have to tell demons to get back under Jesus’ feet. We just remind them of their position. Christ reigned with the first century saints until that was done. Now, also reigning with Christ in what Jesus called the “Age to Come”, we do as He did and expel demons simply with a word. Lengthy deliverance sessions have been a demonstration of our unbelief. This unbelief is born of materialistic doctrines of an unfinished Day of Atonement. We had the wrong word. The Day of Atonement is absolutely finished. That’s God’s Word. All is fulfilled in Christ according to the pattern of the types.
When we look to Revelation 20:7 to 10 and understand that this was the war of 66 to 70AD, we see this 3½ years was also the “time of the end” of the Old Covenant. The first century saints had to wait for the completion of “this generation” of forty years of illegal Judaism. The forty years was like the wilderness time for apostate Israel, with increasing wars, earthquakes and famines, culminating in war, sedition, tribulation as never before in terror. They could have turned to Christ at any time. And many did; for example, St Paul. He was once a persecutor of The Way.
But for the faithful and enduring saints this same time was righteousness lived in Christ – their time being symbolised by a “thousand years”. The thousand symbolises fullness, complete victory, three dimensions of fulfilled law in Christ – ten being the symbol of law. The “thousand years” is the saints’ walk in Jesus’ righteousness, victory and wisdom. The city is twelve thousand furlongs, wide, long and high. So we now can take our own place in that temple which is symbolic, as it morphs into a city, a bride, a garden etc. For it is measured in fulness – in three dimensions (measured in thousands of furlongs). And from that place, knowing that legalism is dead, there is no more delay – there is an immediacy in our ministry to send demonic opposition off to their torment. We don’t put them under our feet anymore. They are there. We say aloud that we are risen in Christ to demonstrate Jesus’ “triumph over them in the cross.” We, in Christ, make the spectacle of Colossians 2 “public”.
The Kingdom of God that was described as being “near” and “at hand” in Jesus’ ministry on earth, has come. We must stop waiting and praying for what has come and thank God for it. It is not a case of “already but not yet” as reformed theology has been teaching us. That notion leads to the half-life I have spoken of. The half-life is a life infected with the old life, the old nature of Adam – like leaven. Historically that’s when the ekklēsia started to degrade into the old system which the Day of Atonement of 70AD had killed. That was when spiritual death was no more for those who take this Word of Revelation as finsihed.
But if we still work at trying to revitalise the old system of keeping laws, and walk backwards into
- having physical altars
- and a separate priesthood,
- in gowns or otherwise….
- or link ourselves to the state (like Rome) to get tax benefits,
- mimicking worldly corporations
- with their “boards of management”,
- and Greek style sermons which are poor teaching methods (no, the sermon on the mount was not in one sitting – it was the apostles collection from various times)….
then we need to go back and read the judgments that came on such behaviours which tried to deny the liberty in Christ to God’s children. We need to rethink who the ekklēsia is and follow the Lamb wherever He goes.
Only then will we come out of the “Backwards Church” and avoid the stifling institutionalism that we have allowed the western world to slip back into. Only then will we be fully salt and light.
[1] Rome – that last of the world empires of nations before the Kingdom of God claimed supremacy. See also Daniel 7:7 to 8 and 14. Any empire rising thereafter is subject to the King of Kings, Jesus Christ because all things are now under His feet.
[2] Prove to the powers of darkness. Up to the time of the cross demons had operated freely. Now they would be put in subjection under Christ’s feet. The Bride of Christ did this in the 40 years between the cross and the Roman Jewish War. They proved, as it were, the effective victory of the cross and resurrection. And this against the spiritual enemy behind them, “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”
