12. Hope Beyond Tribulation

12

Hope Beyond Tribulation

T here is no need to be afraid of one or even many antichrists. In light of eternity, their time to cause trouble is infinitesimally brief (see Revelation 17:12).

In times of suffering, the Church realizes who she is and what she really has to live for. Jesus never promised us nontribulation; He promised that we would have tribulation in this world and said that we should be courageous because He has already defeated the world (see John 16:33).

Persecution is the Church’s default setting, the setting in which she was born. Once we become followers of Jesus, our lives in this world become forfeit, while we also gain the promise of true life worth living, life that lasts forever. In truth:

Those who want to come after Me as My disciples must deny themselves, take up their cross and follow Me to the cross. For those who want to save their lives will lose them, but those who surrender their lives for My sake and the Gospel’s sake will save them.

paraphrase of Mark 8:34–35; Luke 9:23–24

People cannot be My disciples unless they hate their own families and even their lives in comparison with their love for Me. They cannot be My disciples unless they carry their own cross and come after Me. . . . They cannot be My disciples unless they surrender to Me everything they have.

paraphrase of Luke 14:26–27, 33

Jesus Is Worth Anything

Jesus tells of someone who found a valuable pearl or treasure hidden in a field. The finder sells everything to obtain what is priceless (see Matthew 13:44–46). Treasure in heaven far outweighs any treasure on earth. Yet when Jesus offers a young man treasure in heaven if he sells his possessions to give them to the poor, the young man prefers to keep his possessions for this life (see Matthew 19:21–22). How foolish! Jesus and the Kingdom are worth anything . They are worth more than any price we could ever pay for them.

Some early hyperdispensationalists may have thought that most of the contents of the gospels were applicable only for Jewish Christians in the first century and in the final Tribulation. Of course, if you limit sufficiently the pool of verses that you are willing to apply to believers, you can always argue from the ensuing silence that some teaching is not for us. Yet our Bibles are full of such teachings, and Jesus’ followers under persecution over the centuries have had to live and die by them. By now, the dead in Christ might possibly outnumber living Christians, and none of the fifty to a hundred generations so far have faced the final Tribulation. Does it make any sense for so much of Scripture (e.g., Revelation 6–18) to be relevant for believers in Christ only during the final Tribulation but not for the present Church age?

Even if we limited the part of the Bible that is relevant for us to Paul’s letters—a limitation that Paul himself would have denounced (see Romans 15:4; 1 Corinthians 10:11; 2 Timothy 3:16–4:3)—we must be ready to suffer for Christ. For example, note Philippians 1:27–29:

Just act as citizens in a way that suits the good news of Christ. This way, whether I come see you or hear about you while away, I’ll know that you’re standing in one spirit, contending together with one heart for trust in the good news, and not intimidated at all by those who oppose you. This is evidence to them that they’ll be destroyed, but that you’ll be saved; and this is from God. Because you’ve been given this gift for Christ’s sake: not just to trust in Him but also to suffer for His sake.

Those who withdraw from the world, stockpiling weapons for impending persecution, make exactly the same mistake as those who ignore the prospect of suffering. If we act either way, we act as though our lives in this world are all we have to live for. Jesus calls us to live for something higher and better so that we invest our lives in serving people in love and reaching them with the transforming truth of Christ’s Gospel.

Being ready to lay down our lives does not mean that every one of us will have opportunity to do so in a single act of martyrdom; it does mean that we should offer ourselves to Christ as living sacrifices (see Romans 12:1). It means that we should have the frame of mind that devotes everything to Christ, whether in life or in death. Billions of people have yet to hear the message of eternal life from a true Christian. Hundreds of millions of people lack safe drinking water or any form of health care. Love demands attention to the world’s needs.

Christ sacrificed His own home in heaven to serve us, to heal us and to die for our sins. As His followers, we each have only one life to invest in what will count for all time. May we count the cost and grasp a vision for what we can each do for the Kingdom. When I (Craig) was a doctoral student, I once talked with a university student who obviously cared deeply about his friends and wanted to benefit their lives. Although he knew about Christ, he had never committed his life to Him. I asked him what gift he could ever give his friends that was greater than life forever with Christ, but also pointed out that he could not give what he did not have. Over time he committed his life to Christ, and within a few weeks of his commitment he had shared Christ one-on-one with fifty of his friends. He endured considerable mockery at first, but in time his peers began to respect his consistent and loving stand for Christ. He has since gone on to reach probably more people one-on-one for Christ than I have.

That day I presented him with this simple math: An hour is greater than a minute, a lifetime is greater than an hour and eternity is far greater than a lifetime in this present age. What we do that counts for eternity outweighs anything we do for our momentary distraction or entertainment.

The average American reportedly watches five hours of television a day. Imagine what would happen if forty million of the Christians in the United States turned off their televisions and devoted that time to praying, sharing their faith with their neighbors, mentoring needy children, loving and witnessing to isolated international students and so forth. Imagine if forty million Christians gave an extra three hours a day to the work of the Kingdom: That would allow for 120 million more hours of ministry per day and over 43 billion more hours of ministry per year by Christians within the United States alone.

The Value of Some Trials

We can be very grateful for times and places protected from persecution; sometimes the early Church had that experience (see Acts 9:31), and we are supposed to pray for that (see 1 Timothy 2:1–2; cf. Matthew 6:13). Crowds gathered around Jesus to hear His message, which was welcomed by the ordinary people in Galilee (see Mark 1:32–33, 37; 2:2). Leading, non-Christian officials of one of the Roman Empire’s most prosperous provinces helped sponsor Paul’s ministry there while it was popular (see Acts 19:31). When we have such times, we should thank God as we make use of them for the Gospel.

Unfortunately though, when the Church does not face opposition, it often grows complacent. The book of Revelation addresses seven churches in the prosperous Roman province of Asia (today, western Turkey). Of these churches, the only two that are commended unconditionally, the churches in Smyrna and Philadelphia, are suffering churches. The two that receive the harshest reproofs, the churches in Sardis and Laodicea, appear to be the ones facing the fewest challenges. Archaeology shows that Sardis welcomed its Jewish community; it probably tolerated its Christians, too. Yet the church there was a dead church (see Revelation 3:1–6). The church in Laodicea thought that it had everything it needed—but it neglected to depend on Christ. In so doing, the church in Laodicea proved so distasteful to the Lord that He was ready to spit it out (see Revelation 3:14–22).

This is not to say that we should try to be persecuted. Ultimately, in one way or another, all those who desire to live in a godly way in Christ will face some opposition (see 2 Timothy 3:12). We are just saying that we should live for Jesus one way or the other. If we cannot do it in prosperity, we will have to learn how to do it in hardship. Because judgment begins with the house of God (see 1 Peter 4:17), the Church gets sorted out when hard times come; we find out who really puts God first and who is instead ready to sacrifice Him when testing becomes unbearable or even merely inconvenient.

Today, if someone beats or ridicules another person for his or her minority faith or ethnicity, it often makes the news and people are rightly outraged. Yet when I (Craig) was a new believer in Christ, I was on more than one occasion beaten for my witness, but I did not bother to report it to any authorities because I assumed, probably wrongly, that no one would care. I rightly understood that persecution for my witness was par for the course. But I was probably wrong to assume that the authorities would simply admonish me for talking to potentially dangerous people to begin with. At least in one of the cases, they would have at least taken a description and a report, for what little it might have been worth by that point. I did not consider that Paul did appeal to the non-Christian Roman government at times for protection. In many societies, honorable people will recognize that such abuse is wrong, and it is still appropriate to appeal for justice and protection.

Nevertheless, Jesus makes clear that we cannot simply take for granted that justice will always be done in this world. Most of His followers were economically poor Galileans, geographically, politically and socially marginalized from all centers of power. They could not take justice for granted. They could not expect everyone who claimed to be honest to care about truth. Remember that not everyone who witnessed the raising of Lazarus became a follower of Jesus (see John 11:45–46). Many do not value the truth, and without such integrity they will distort our claims and believe whatever they want (see 2 Thessalonians 2:10–12).

Our conversion gave us eternal life in return for counting our present life forfeit for the Kingdom. If we recognize that, nothing we must face can deter us. Trials include persecution, bereavement, famine, poverty and war, but none of these can separate us from Christ (see Romans 8:35). When we learn to desire most what is best, Christ Himself, this is a gift no one can take away.

Earlier in this book we posed some questions to consider. Here are a few more.

Is the church in the West ready for serious tribulation?

If not, does that mean we will not face it?

Biblically, should not all Christians be ready to suffer for Christ?

How will we help get ourselves and others ready spiritually?

Suffering Can Draw Us Closer to God

Suffering can draw us closer to God, and what is more precious than that? It affords us an opportunity to honor God in a special way.

Here is what the Lord says:

Those who’ve been harassed for righteousness’ sake are privileged, because the kingdom of heaven belongs to them. You are privileged when others put you down and harass you and falsely say all kinds of bad things about you for My sake.

Matthew 5:10–11

Here is what Paul says:

We boast in our confident expectation that we will share God’s glory. Not just that, but we boast also in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation instills in us endurance, and endurance instills in us character that has been proved, and character instills in us hope. And this hope doesn’t let us down, because God’s love has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

Romans 5:2–5

Here is what James says:

Treat it as complete joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you encounter trials of whatever sort, since you know that the proving of your trust [in God] instills endurance. But let endurance perform its ultimate work, so you may be mature and whole, not lacking anything.

James 1:2–4

Here is what Peter says:

In this promise you celebrate, even though now you must briefly experience grief in the face of trials of whatever sort. This is so that the proving/testing of your trust [in God]—which is far more valuable than gold (gold is also tested through fire but is [unlike pure trust] destructible)—may be revealed for praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.

1 Peter 1:6–7

After being whipped with 39 lashes by the leaders of their people, Peter and the other first apostles celebrated that they had been counted worthy to suffer public disgrace for Jesus’ honor (see Acts 5:41). Their backs torn and bleeding from a humiliating public beating, Paul and Silas prayed and celebrated God’s goodness in jail (see Acts 16:25). In this, our brothers were following the teaching of their Master and ours:

How wonderful it is for you when others hate you, exclude you, and mock and treat you as evildoers because of the Son of man. Celebrate when that happens and even leap for joy! For look, your reward in heaven is great! That is how their predecessors treated the prophets!

Luke 6:22–23

It is not always easy to rejoice when we are misrepresented, marginalized, mocked or (especially) murdered. I (Craig) think that Michael is more mature, but I confess that I was not rejoicing during my beatings, and do not always find it easy during ridicule, either. In some parts of the United States, we have gotten used to being respected, welcomed or at least tolerated. But whether welcomed or rejected, we need to remember who we are and to whom we belong. We really need to believe the Gospel and that life and eternity with Christ matters more than what this world offers .

Hope and Vindication

Viktor Frankl, a concentration camp survivor, noted that the one personality trait that made a difference in survival in the death camps was hope. Jesus’ followers have a secure hope that transcends death itself. Jesus will return and raise the dead, and we will reign with our Lord forever and ever.

Indeed, even judgments offer encouragement by reminding us that God is not simply looking the other way in this world of injustice. Judgments in Revelation especially vindicate God’s suffering people. In Revelation 8:6–9:21, the judgments begin apparently in response to the prayers of the saints, which are like incense before God (see Revelation 8:2–5; cf. golden bowls in Revelation 5:8 and 15:7). More explicit is Revelation 16:5–6: God is just, because His people’s persecutors “spilled the blood of consecrated ones and prophets, and so you gave them blood to drink. This is just what they deserve!”

But such judgments in history merely foreshadow the ultimate vindication. Babylon will be overthrown, because God will avenge the blood of His consecrated ones, apostles and prophets murdered by Babylon (see Revelation 18:20, 24; 19:2; cf. Revelation 6:10; 17:6). Already in Revelation 6:9–10, believers martyred for their testimony and faithfulness to God’s Word ask how long until God vindicates them by avenging their sacrificial deaths. The answer is that this time will come when the full number of martyrs is completed (see verse 11). The judgment scene that follows depicts the catastrophic end of the age (see verses 12–17).

Although any texts that tell us about the timing of Jesus’ Second Coming make clear that it is at the end of this age, chronology is not their focus. Their focus is that we will finally see our wonderful Lord Jesus. In light of this focus, they summon us to lives of holiness—to live our present lives in light of that future hope, instead of what the world around us values.

Awaiting Christ’s coming does not mean pie in the sky. No one could make a bigger difference in this world than those who serve those around them in light of eternity. When we live in light of eternity, everything we do in this life takes on eternal significance. We want to make our lives count for what matters to God: What matters to Him most is other people’s lives and welfare.

How do we prepare in light of promised tribulation in this world? Not by stockpiling as if we know the times or the seasons (though as noted, having a few supplies for emergencies is always prudent, no matter what the emergency might be). We prepare the same way Daniel and his three friends did: by being faithful in whatever situations we find ourselves now. We prepare for suffering in the same way that we prepare for our Lord’s imminent return: We watch and pray and walk with Jesus Christ our Lord.

We are not called to be afraid of tribulation. Suffering is par for the course in this world—indeed, death comes to us all whether we are followers of Jesus or not. For every generation so far since the time of Jesus, death (rather than Jesus’ physical return) has provided us with our only foretaste of the final judgment. Instead of living in fear of tribulation, we can live in expectation of God’s promise for a renewed world where suffering and death will be no more. And we who believe that truth will share that hope with as many others as possible, hoping that they will want to share that promised future world with us.

Revelation’s picture of the New Jerusalem reminds us of the great hope that lies beyond any tribulation in this age. “In this world you have tribulation, but . . . I overcame the world” (John 16:33).

No More Sorrow

Jesus’ first coming changed everything; the new creation has already invaded our lives. The expected King has come; the promised resurrection of the dead began with Jesus. Just as the Normandy invasion decided the outcome of World War II well before the Nazi-run regime controlling Germany surrendered, so has Jesus’ victory on the cross and His resurrection decided the ultimate outcome of spiritual warfare in this world (cf. Revelation 12:5, 10).

Jesus’ miracles were signs, foretastes of the promised Kingdom. God often continues to provide such signs in this world, reminding us of His promise of full wholeness in the world to come. Although such signs proliferate especially in conjunction with preaching the Good News and breaking new ground for the Kingdom, God continues to provide reminders elsewhere as well. In the meantime, however, suffering and death remain. Deeper than the signs is the message of the cross: Even when suffering and injustice seem to have the final word, God is at work to bring about His purposes.

The foundations of the New Jerusalem are the twelve apostles of the Lamb (see Revelation 21:14), and the rest of us can be among its pillars (see Revelation 3:12). But John was the only one of those twelve apostles who remained alive when Revelation was given, and even John has now been dead for almost two millennia. We still await the resurrection of our bodies.

Yet the present sufferings cannot be compared with the future glory (see Romans 8:18; 2 Corinthians 4:17). Present blessings are just a foretaste of what is to come, a reminder in this world of suffering that suffering is not our permanent state or destiny. The Lord will wipe away every tear from our eyes (see Revelation 7:17; 21:4), and death and mourning, crying and pain will all pass away (see Revelation 21:4). Jesus’ first coming changed everything; so will His Second Coming. God declares, “Look, I am making everything new” (Revelation 21:5, emphasis added).

Who can withstand the temptation and pressure of Babylon the prostitute, the great city decorated with gold and pearls (see Revelation 17:1–5)? Those who have paid attention to enough of God’s faithfulness that they trust His promise of New Jerusalem the Bride, an incomparably greater city built of gold and with gates of pearls (see Revelation 21:9–21).

Better than a Temple

Our present experiences of worship are but a shadow of the truest worship in heaven and especially in the New Jerusalem. Heaven is a place of worship, and so it is furnished like a temple. It has the tabernacle (see Revelation 7:15; 13:6; 15:5) or temple (see Revelation 7:15; 11:19; 14:15, 17; 15:5–8; 16:1, 17) and the Ark of the Covenant (see Revelation 11:19). It has a sea (see Revelation 4:6; 15:2), like Solomon’s Temple (see 1 Kings 7:23–25, 39); it has altars of sacrifice and incense (see Revelation 6:9; 8:3–5; 9:13; 14:18; 16:7) and golden bowls of incense (see Revelation 5:8; cf. Revelation 15:7). God’s servants there have harps (see Revelation 5:8; 14:2; 15:2), like priestly musicians in the Old Testament Temple.

By contrast, the New Jerusalem on the new earth is said to have no temple (see Revelation 21:22). This picture of the New Jerusalem is greater than the pictures of heaven earlier in Revelation. Of course, it contrasts with more than Revelation’s earlier pictures of heaven. Nearly all cities of John’s day had temples, and Jewish people expected a new Temple. The Temple’s explicit absence in the New Jerusalem does not suggest that God has forgotten the future Temple promised in Ezekiel, which was many times more massive than any temple Israel had previously known (see Ezekiel 40–48). God provided Ezekiel that design so that God’s people could see His favor toward them and be ashamed of their unfaithfulness to Him (see Ezekiel 43:10–11). Interpreters debate whether Ezekiel’s design will occur before the New Jerusalem or merely foreshadows it; but in any case, biblical images of the future are only vague pictures compared to the reality to come. As Paul reminds us, we have neither seen nor heard the wonders that God has prepared for us; we experience merely a foretaste of them by the Spirit (see 1 Corinthians 2:9–10).

So Why Does the Great New Jerusalem Have No Temple?

The New Jerusalem needs no Temple because the entire city is a temple. Revelation declares, “I did not see a temple in it, because the Lord God almighty and the Lamb are its temple” (21:22). When John sees the New Jerusalem descend from heaven like a bride adorned for her husband (see Revelation 21:2), he hears an accompanying declaration: “Look! God’s tabernacle will be with people, and He will dwell [using the Greek verb related to “tabernacle”] with them, and they will be His people, and God Himself will be with them” (Revelation 21:3). Nothing is better than the presence of Jesus, and we will experience His presence fully forever and ever!

Better than the New Jerusalem being a temple city, however, is that it is like the Temple’s most holy place, the locus of God’s fullest presence. The New Jerusalem is shaped like a cube; its length and breadth and height are the same. (Some might contrast that shape with the number of evil, 666, which in geometry is a doubly triangular number.) A cube was the shape of the holiest place in Solomon’s Temple (see 1 Kings 6:20), the place that only the high priest could enter once a year (see Hebrews 9:7). The difference is that the New Jerusalem will be incomparably larger! At more than 2 billion cubic miles (or more than 10 billion cubic kilometers), the new holiest place is over 10 quadrillion times larger than the earlier one, which was 27,000 cubic feet or 765 cubic meters (thanks to Chris Keener, whose Ph.D. is in physics, for helping with the math here).

This image seems to be a very graphic, apocalyptic way of saying that the city is far larger than we can possibly imagine. It makes the supposedly “great city” of this world, Babylon (see Revelation 11:8; 16:19; 17:18; 18:10, 16, 18–21), look smaller than a flea in a herd of elephants or a pea on a mountainside. Its floor plan alone is over seven times larger than France; it could cover about half the present United States, the Middle East or Europe. That is just its floor plan, however; in cubic measurements, the New Jerusalem may be about half the size of the moon! (Not that John’s contemporaries had much idea of the moon’s size.)

Perhaps more important are the specific figures used in the Greek text of Revelation 21:16: 12,000 stadia times 12,000 stadia times 12,000 stadia, mismatched with a wall of only 144 cubits (about 200 feet or 60 meters). The mismatched size of the wall may invite us to look for something more than the literal significance of these numbers. These figures recall numbers with which the careful reader of Revelation will already be familiar: the 144,000 followers of the Lamb, standing with Him on Mount Zion (see Revelation 14:1).

This is God’s city for God’s people, where all of us who follow the Lamb, whether Jewish by birth or Gentiles grafted in by faith, will dwell. Notice that Revelation elsewhere includes Old Testament end-time promises for God’s people, not only ethnically Jewish believers such as Michael, but also people from all nations (Gentiles––Craig, for example) who follow Jesus. One may compare, for example, Revelation 5:9–10 with Exodus 19:6; or Revelation 7:9, 16–17 with Isaiah 25:8 and 49:10. The Old Testament already foreshadows this welcome of loyal Gentiles among God’s people (e.g., in Isaiah 19:23–25; 56:3–8; Zechariah 2:11.)

Paradise Restored

Revelation’s New Jerusalem resembles Ezekiel’s glorious future, yet far transcends it. Ezekiel promised a life-giving river flowing from God’s Temple in Jerusalem (see Ezekiel 47:1–5, 8–10), with many trees on both sides that bear perennial fruit and healing leaves (see verses 6–7, 12). Since Scripture can speak of God enthroned above the cherubim in the holiest place (e.g., 2 Samuel 6:2; 2 Kings 19:15; Psalms 80:1; 99:1), one can envision Ezekiel’s river flowing from God’s throne.

But as with Ezekiel’s Temple, Revelation’s picture of the river again goes beyond Ezekiel’s. Here the river of the pure water of life flows from the throne of God and of the Lamb (see Revelation 22:1). Yet what grows around it is not merely a series of perennial trees, as in Ezekiel, but the perennial tree of life. Now its leaves bear healing explicitly for all nations (see verse 2). The tree of life harks back to the Garden of Eden, from which also a river flowed that became the source of four great rivers (see Genesis 2:9–10). That is why Revelation has already located that promised tree of life in the paradise of God (see Revelation 2:7); the Greek word here for “paradise” ( paradeisos ) is used in the Greek translation of the Old Testament for the Garden of Eden (see Genesis 2:8–16; 3:1–10, 23–24). Moreover, there will be no more curse (see Revelation 22:3)—a reversal of the curse against the earth that followed the fall (see Genesis 3:17).

With Noah, God initiated His plan to reverse the curse (see Genesis 5:29; 8:21) through a seed eventually narrowed to Abraham and David and finally to our Lord Jesus Christ, who bore all the curse for us (see Galatians 3:13). In the renewal of the creation that Jesus purchased, the curse will be no more. Paradise will be restored.

Toward the end of Revelation we find these words:

And the Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” Let whoever hears likewise say, “Come!” And let whoever is thirsty come. . . . He who testifies to these matters says, “Indeed, I am coming quickly!” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!

Revelation 22:17, 20

This is our prayer. Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!

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