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to pass. John is told to share his
vision to motivate God’s people to
do good. In the words of God, the
angel says, “Let the one who does
wrong continue to do wrong; let the
vile person continue to be vile; let
the one who does right continue
to do right; and let the holy person
continue to be holy” but warns, “I
will give to each person according
to what they have done” (22:11–12).
In the final verses of Revelation,
John returns to an image that
emphasizes the relationship of love
that God longs to have with allACTS, EPISTLES, AND REVELATION
people. When John first saw the
New Jerusalem, he described it as
“a bride beautifully dressed for her
husband” (21:2). Now, at the end
of the vision, this “bride”—God’s
people, collectively cleansed from
sin and dressed in the robes of
righteousness—awaits the groom,
Jesus, God’s Son, the true king of
all. The marriage and celebrations
will signal the beginning of the
new life of eternity, where heaven
and Earth are wedded together,
God’s home is among His creation,
and all of God’s people, that is
“everyone who does right,” will be
released from sin and death to live
in holy freedom forever. The vision
ends with a longing cry for this
future, “Come, Lord Jesus” (22:20).Interpreting the vision
John’s vision in Revelation is the
basis for Christian eschatology,
a word that means “the study of
last things” and is an attempt to
describe the indescribable. His
words depict the end of evil and the
beginning of God’s reign of peace
in awe-inspiring detail. Over the
centuries, some people have tried
to fit the visions of Revelation into
a chronology, using them to predictThe Kingdom of Heaven The terms “kingdom of Heaven”
and “kingdom of God”’ are
used extensively by Jesus in
His teaching to refer to God’s
righteous reign on Earth. The
arrival of Heaven’s kingdom on
Earth is the purpose of Jesus’s
ministry. He says, for instance,
“Repent, for the kingdom of
Heaven is near” (Matthew 4:17),
and uses it as the motivation for
prayer, “Your kingdom come,
Your will be done, on Earth as
it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10).
In popular imagination, heaven
is often thought of as a spiritual,
non-physical realm. The earlyChristians, however, building on
the convictions of Jewish faith,
understood heaven as the reality
of living under God’s order, as
directed by Him.
While some might perceive
heaven as existing elsewhere,
the Christian hope is for heaven
to come to Earth, so that God’s
rule is established in the
physical world. Such a hope
reassures Christians that the
injustices of this life will be
made right in God’s future, and
that death is not the end, but
rather—for those with faith—a
gateway into God’s kingdom.when the world will end. Given
Jesus’s warning that “You
do not know when that time will
come” (Mark 13:33), it seems better
to focus on what God’s future looks
like rather than when it will occur.
One key theme of eschatology
is recapitulation, which means that
the end is a summary of all that
has gone before, and a return to ❯❯A stained-glass window depicts
the alpha and omega, the first and
last letters of the Greek alphabet,
symbolizing God as “the Beginning
and the End” (Revelation 22:13).Let us rejoice and be
glad and give Him glory!
For the wedding of
the Lamb has come,
and His bride has
made herself ready.
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