By Beverly Beem
A Comment on the Sabbath School lesson for August 4–10, 2001
The Dragon and the Lamb in mortal combat. Where would you put your money? This is the theme of the book of Revelation—God and Satan in a fight to the finish. Good vs. Evil. Life vs. Death. And our champion is the Lamb. The victory celebration is the wedding feast. The location is the New Jerusalem. For it is the battle between two cities: The City of God vs. the city of Man; Babylon vs. Jerusalem. These are the images that come together in Revelation. The conflict between good and evil will not last forever. There will be an end to it and a celebration that lasts for all eternity. The question for us is not which side will win, but rather, which side will we be on.
In the closing chapters of Revelation, we see "the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan" (20:2) dropped into the bottomless pit for a thousand years until he is loosed for his last rampage, one last chance at deception to gather forces against the kingdom of God. Who is going to win? No question. This is the moment we have been waiting for.
The forces of evil are devoured by fire that comes down from God out of heaven (20:9) and the "devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are" (20:10). The originator of evil is subsumed forever in the lake of fire and cast in with him are death and hell, evil’s natural results (20:14). The battle is over.
Now, the celebration. Now we see "a new heaven and a new earth." Now is the time for the new Jerusalem, to come "down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband" (21:l–2).The city itself expresses the nature of God and his kingdom. Here is the presence of God. Here is the absence of death and sorrow and crying and pain. Here is the River of Life and the Tree of Life, whose fruit is for the healing of nations. Here is a city built on the foundations of God’s dealings in human history. Here is a city of perfect order and of all things valuable and good. Here is home for those who are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.
Where is Babylon now? Its fate is the fate of all the Babylons of human history, for it is the symbol of human power arrayed against God. The city takes its name from its prototype, the Tower of Babel, built as the final act of defiance against God in the primeval narratives of Genesis 1–11. These are the stories that trace the effects of the fall on human nature. The image of God is destroyed in an act of murder in the story of Cain and Abel; the imaginations and creativity of human beings is perverted to evil ends so that God destroys his creation in a flood and starts over again; and finally in defiance against God’s command to replenish the earth, the builders of Babel build a tower to concentrate human power and array it against God.
"Go to," they say to themselves, "let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar. And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth" (11:3–4).
In a parody of the act of creation, they say, "let us make us a name." Not content to be in the image of God, they want to make their own name. Not willing to follow the will of God, they follow their own will. Not accepting the earth as their home, they build a tower that will scrape against the sky. Not willing to be God’s children, they set themselves up as God’s rivals.
"And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded" (11:5), and in his own parody of evil, he says, "Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech" (11:7). So, the people who sought a name for themselves find that their name is a byword for confusion. The tower they built is the prototype of the doomed powers of human arrogance.
The story ends waiting for the next chapter—the call of Abraham, who "looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God" (Heb. 11:10).
EMAIL THIS ARTICLE
|
