The Greatest Season

[HKHaugan]

The Greatest Season

 This is the one begging for a description, so the Holy Spirit pushed John to write one down for the ages. No one before or since John could write about, see, feel, hear or taste what only John was given. If there is a time it is Heaven. If there is a season it is eternity. Few have had the privilege. Paul for one, John for another and a few of the prophets like Isaiah, Ezekiel and Daniel. The Book of Revelation given to John is a panorama of God’s final spiritual victory in Christ. He was given it to prophesy its nature and future for us who believe in Jesus as our personal Savior and Lord. It is the seal to reveal and congeal how we deal and feel and know that Christ is real, forever.   The Lord God shows that everything He started spiritually; He will consummate spiritually.

 What a magnificent picture of the final defeat of sin and evil and their perpetrator. Some commentators believe they have it all figured out with charts and graphs to prove their interpretations. What we need to realize is John was drawn by the Spirit to experience in the Spirit what only the Spirit could interpret through Him (Rev.1:10). That changes how we read Revelation. We have to see that John’s humanity was, in essence, taken over by the Spirit. It’s what the Lord is training us to experience.

 Let me give you a parallel. You are having trouble with your computer, so you call a savvy techy. Instead of coming to your home he uses his skill to take over your computer from his lab. With your permission of course. You trust him. Then you watch your screen as he wanders through your computer finds the issues involved, corrects them and returns it back to you. You have no idea what he was doing but you are thankful to be able to use it again. What impresses you is the way he does it and resolves it. It’s a rough parallel I know, but a like picture.

 One impression that stands out through John’s experience of the spiritual dimension is how, in his limited humanity, he would turn around in amazement, look here and there, overwhelmed with the newness and breadth of each scene opening before him. The images given him were what his mind was able to grasp and share with the wisdom given him.

 John was the last surviving Apostle. It is suggested that he was probably about 90 when these visions were given him. If you ask why John? What was so special about him? Then read his Gospel, Ch. 21:20-25, for a perspective. The Lord was working in Him through suffering, pain and isolation over many years, building him spiritually through the Holy Spirit, for Revelations’s climactic purpose.

 Revelation is a spiritual testimony to bring confidence to every believer who reads it. Let’s say John was, say 30, when he met Jesus. That would have given him 60 years of mature growth to yield to the Spirit working this vision through him. To show the spiritual transition in John, it is captured by his words about what he saw in the Holy City: “I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God and the Lamb are its temple (21:22).” But what he describes in that vision is spiritual and it takes spiritual eyes to see. What the Lord is building in us is a heart with spiritual eyes (Paul prays in Eph.1:18, “May the eyes of your heart be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which He has called you, the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe (Eph.1:18-19).” A prayer perhaps that should be part of our personal hope, especially when you read the rest of it.

How does Ecclesiastes express this hope? Solomon notes almost immediately after his ‘time and season’ list, the yet to be fulfilled understanding,

 “He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men…(3:11).

 Therefore, everything has a beauty and happens at a certain time in the season of eternity, both spiritual. In Jesus you have been reborn spiritually to be a child of God. You are beautiful and this is your time, your every-next moment existence in the world. The season in which you live is spiritual. For each of us from our birth and spiritual birth, the season in which we live is eternity. You life here is the beginning of your eternity. So we don’t look forward to our death but to the fulfillment of our life in eternity.

 Therefore, if you choose to read Revelation, read it with a contemporary spiritual awareness in mind. What is it saying to us now, where we are? Spiritual vision is possible for those who want to read the deeper working of the Spirit around us. Not only confidence matures, but the peace that passes understanding develops in us as well. The present crisis? There is always a present crisis happening personally and universally in different ways. But spiritually absorbed, they give us the foundation for growth in the Spirit. That’s what the Word does for us; gives us the Lord’s intention, to grow in our relationship with Him.