A Hopeful and Secure Future - Revelation 21 & 22

1. A Prayer for the People of God
Grant, O God, that your holy and life-giving Spirit
may so move every human heart, including our own,
that barriers which divide us may crumble,
suspicions disappear, and hatreds cease;
that our divisions being healed,
we may live in justice and peace;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.

2. The Church Calendar
May 22

3. Revelation 21 & 22
a HOPEFUL and SECURE future

4. • Meaningful work
• Other people
• Meaningful values
• Status and respect
• Hopeful/secure future
• Childhood trauma
• Natural world
• Genes/DNA
• Brain changes
NINE LOST ”CONNECTIONS”
LEADING TO DEPRESSION

5. • Means “to unveil”
• Singular, not plural
• Not a predictive calendar
• Not meant to be read literally
• Largely in the “apocalyptic” genre
o In the context of oppression
o Hope of victory after suffering
o Symbolic resistance literature
SOME BASICS on
the BOOK of REVELATION

6. • “Babylon” vs. “New Jerusalem”
o Wine of immorality v. water of life
o Beast v. Lamb
o Great city v. Holy City
o No more light v. God is its light
o Deceives nations v. heals nations
o City with death v. city with life
o NOTE: USA = Babylon, not Israel
SOME BASICS on
the BOOK of REVELATION

7. Revelation provides eternal
perspective…unity of the church’s
worship with heaven’s worship…
victory depends on Christ’s final work,
not on human circumstances…
Christians must be ready to face death
for Christ’s honor; (people) from every
(nation) will stand before his throne;
(and) the imminent hope of his return is
worth more than
all this world’s goods.

8. John is trying to explain, in the light of
(their) current crisis, what is going on
with God’s purposes in heaven, and how
all that corresponds to his audiences
plight…Heaven and earth are two
aspects of the one stage in which God’s
drama to put the world to rights is being
played out.

10. Then I saw a new heaven and a new
earth; for the first heaven and the first
earth had passed away, and the sea
was no more. And I saw the holy city,
the new Jerusalem, coming down out
of heaven from God, prepared as a
bride adorned for her husband. And I
heard
a loud voice from the throne saying:
REVELATION 21:1-3a (NRSV)

11. ‘See, the home* of God is among
mortals. He will dwell* (tabernacle)
with them; they will be his peoples,
and God himself will be with them;
he will wipe every tear from their eyes.
Death will be no more; mourning
and crying and pain will be no more,
for the first things have passed away.’
REVELATION 21:3b-4 (NRSV)

12. Then one of the seven angels …
came and said to me,
‘Come, I will show you the bride,
the wife of the Lamb.’ And in the spirit,
he carried me away to a great,
high mountain and showed me
the holy city Jerusalem coming
down out of heaven from God.
REVELATION 21:9-10 (NRSV)

13. I saw no temple in the city, for its
temple is the Lord God the Almighty
and the Lamb. And the city has no
need of sun or moon to shine on it, for
the glory of God is its light, and its
lamp is the Lamb. The nations will walk
by its light, and the kings of the earth
will bring their glory into it. Its gates
will never be shut by day—
and there will be no night there.
REVELATION 21:22-25 (NRSV)

14. Then the angel showed me the river of
the water of life, bright as crystal,
flowing from the throne of God and of
the Lamb through the middle of the
street of
the city. On either side of the river is
the tree of life with its twelve kinds of
fruit, producing its fruit each month;
and the leaves of the tree are for
the healing of the nations. Nothing
REVELATION 22:1-3a (NRSV)

15. But the throne of God and of
the Lamb will be in it, and his servants
will worship him; they will see his face,
and his name will be on their
foreheads. And there will be no more
night;
they need no light of lamp or sun,
for the Lord God will be their light,
and they will reign for ever and ever.
REVELATION 22:3b-5 (NRSV)

16. Revelation 21 & 22
a HOPEFUL and SECURE future

17. • Earth destroyed v. Earth restored
• Select few v. a “bunch” v. everyone
• Disembodied v. embodied
• Temporary v. eternal
DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES
on THE SCOPE of “SALVATION”

18. • Earth destroyed v. Earth restored
• Select few v. a “bunch” v. everyone
• Disembodied v. embodied
• Temporary v. eternal
VINTAGE CHURCH holds no official position
on this subject, and you’re
free to disagree with what follows!
DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES
on THE SCOPE of “SALVATION”

20. the view that because
of the life, death, burial,
and resurrection of Jesus,
all things and people
will ultimately be saved
and restored to a right
relationship with God
CHRISTIAN UNIVERSALISM or
UNIVERSAL RECONCILIATION

21. - John 12:32
- Acts 3:21
- Rom 5:18
- Rom 11:32
- Rom 14:11
- 1 Cor 15:22-28
- 2 Cor 5:19
RELEVANT PASSAGES
- Phil 2:9-11
- Col 1:20
- 1Tim 2:4
- Titus 2:11
- 2 Pet 3:9
- Heb 2:9
- 1 John 2:2

22. 1. The nature of God
2. The nature of hell/judgment
3. The nature of persons
4. The nature of freedom
5. The issue of logic
An ARGUMENT for UNIVERSAL
SALVATION BASED on…

23. “…the God of eternal retribution and
pure sovereignty proclaimed by so much
of the Christian tradition is not, and cannot
possibly be, the God of self-outpouring
love revealed in Christ. If God is the good
creator of all, he must also be the savior
of all, without fail, who brings to himself
all he has made…if he is not the savior
of all, the Kingdom is only a dream,
and creation something considerably
worse than a nightmare.”
1: God

24. “Hell appears in the shadow of the cross
as what has always already been conquered,
what Easter leaves in ruins, to which we may flee
from the transfiguring light of God if we so wish,
but where we can never finally come to rest – for,
being only a shadow, it provides nothing to cling
to…Hell exists, so long as
it exists, only as the last terrible residue of a fallen
creation’s enmity to God, the lingering condition
of slavery that God has conquered universally in
Christ and will ultimately conquer individually in
every soul.” 2: Judgment

25. “…It would be possible to be saved as individuals
only if it were possible for us
to be persons as individuals; and we know
we cannot be...the personhood of any of us, in its
entirety, is created by and sustained within the
loves and associations and affinities that shape
us.There is no
such thing as a person in separation…
The profoundest truth in the doctrine
of the resurrection (is) about the fully
restored existence of the person as socially,
communally, corporately constituted.” 3: Persons

26. “The irresistibility of God for any soul
that has truly been set free is no more
a constraint placed upon its liberty than is
the irresistible attraction of a flowing spring of
fresh water in a desert place to a man
who is dying of thirst; to choose not to drink in
that circumstance would be not an act
of freedom…but a manifestation of the delusions
that enslave him and force
him to inflict violence upon himself,
contrary to his nature.”
4: Freedom

27. “Freedom is a being’s power to flourish
as what it naturally is, to become even
more fully what it is…To be fully free is to
be joined to that end for which our nature’s
were originally framed, and for which, in the
deepest reaches of our souls, we ceaselessly
yearn…Any rational will that does not surrender
to God as the true end of desire and knowledge is
a whole world from which God is absent, and so is
God’s defeat.”
4: Freedom

28. “To say that, on the one hand,
God is infinitely good, perfectly just,
and inexhaustibly loving, and that –
on the other hand – God has created
a world (that obliges him) either to
impose, or to permit, the imposition
of eternal misery on finite rational beings,
is simply to embrace a complete contradiction. If
‘justice’…if ‘love’…
if ‘goodness’ means anything
at all, it cannot be that.”
5: Logic

29. “(Does any finite rational creature have
the power to freely reject God? Could
God create a world in which the eternal
punishment of rational spirits is even a possibility,
and still be considered, not only
good, but asTheTranscendent Good?)
The answer to both (of these) questions
must be an unqualified and unyielding no.”
5: Logic

30. Is David Bentley Hart right?
Is the doctrine of Christian
Universalism accurate?
I think it might be, and sure want
it to be, and that is my ultimate hope:
a hopeful and secure future for ALL.
And I genuinely can’t imagine
hoping for anything less.

31. Prayer
O God, you have blessed us
and given us responsibility for the earth:
Increase our reverence before the mystery of life;
and give us new insight into your purposes
for the human race, and new wisdom
and determination in making provision
for its future in accordance with your will;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.