That His Ways May Be Known Upon Earth

Acts 16:9-15 Psalm 67 Revelation 21:10, 22-22:5 John 14:23-29

That His Ways May Be Known Upon Earth

Two weeks ago, I preached a sermon at a wedding in Villiersdorp, South Africa. I originally wrote the sermon in English thinking that it would be simple to translate it into Afrikaans. Boy, was I wrong!

Language is a complex creature…there is so much more to language than words. English evolved primarily in England, drawing inspiration from northern hemisphere cultural practices and centuries of conflict and collaboration with invading and conquering nations, and later with people in the so-called colonies. Afrikaans, on the other hand, was in one sense born in the Netherlands but restructured in southern Africa being enriched by the heat of the country and the sweat of striving against the harsh environment and the struggle between people groups, many of whom were brought there under the dark clouds of persecution and slavery. 

And to complicate matters even further, idiomatic and metaphoric and poetic speech is largely created in the crucible of experience…the experience of those who use the language as a tool to deal with day-to-day occurrences in their particular situations in life and, as such, this type of expression does not translate easily from one language to another without a lot of thought and hard work and interpretation. In order to translate the language, the would be translator needs a working knowledge, not only of the language, but also of the people who have shaped it over time.

Now, this is equally true regarding the translation of ancient languages, such as Hebrew, Aramaic, and Koine Greek, into modern languages such as English. Take the word ‘star’ for instance. When the ancients spoke about stars, they viewed them as objects set in the heavens to be read as signs or even as omens for good or for bad. Today we know that “stars” are balls of gaseous, inanimate matter that have nothing to say about our present or our future. 

Or take the word “wind” as another example. In ancient Hebrew, the word for “wind” is the same word for “spirit” or for “breath” and more often than not they were meant to be understood as one concept rather than three. The breath of God is at once breath, wind and Spirit. But we view each one as distinct from the other. 

The bottom line is, there’s more to the language than words, and this has a direct impact on the interpretation of ancient texts, such as the Scriptures. This is especially important when dealing with passages that are highly idiomatic or poetic. When approaching such texts, one must be weary of transposing an alien set of rules on the text, especially in the interpretation of metaphors and images and any attempt to translate or decipher or unravel or exegete such texts demands respect for the integrity of the manuscript itself. Therefore, we need to diligently study the Bible…all of the Bible…so that we might immerse ourselves in the whole story, using Scripture to interpret Scripture instead of using our prevailing culture or our fashionable ideologies. 

Take the book of the Revelation as an example. Now, I am sure you have heard a number of fantastical predictions about the so-called end times or last days that are peppered with quotations from this letter of the Apostle John to seven churches in Asia. But when I read some of these extrapolations, I wonder what John would have to say if he were around today. Would he even recognise his own writings? Or, more importantly, would the Holy Spirit recognise them?

You see, we cannot simply take a letter like Revelation and gaze into it as if it were a crystal ball because it was never meant to be read like that. It was written to seven known churches and was meant to be read and understood by the members of those churches at that time. In fact, John tells them that they will be blessed by reading it and that the events written about in the letter were to take place shortly…he said that a few times in the opening chapter…not at the end of time. The letter itself was meant to be a revelation of Jesus…an unveiling of His exalted and ascended Person and an explanation of His continued work in and through His Body, the Church.

So, we must ask ourselves how would they have read the letter? Clearly, they were meant to understand the message…but what would they have understood? Thankfully, today we have access to Cultural and Archaeological Study Bibles that help us to come to terms with things that happened in ages past…that give us a glimpse into cultures and behaviours and idioms and images of the time. 

These tools are all very helpful, but even more importantly, when reading the Bible, we must always keep in mind the fact that the books and letters and Psalms and Gospels were written by people who were steeped in what had been written before and who truly valued the Scriptures and who shaped their lives and practices by what they had internalised and memorised. So, when we read about a holy city, a river of the water of life, a tree of life, the number 12, seeing the face of God and having His name imprinted on the foreheads of His people, we need to think as the author and as the first recipients of the letter would have thought. They would immediately have thought about what had already been written in what we now call the Old Testament, and they would have interpreted the images accordingly.

Now, I believe that at the time John wrote this letter, the Temple in the geographical City of Jerusalem was still standing, simply because there is no mention of its destruction by Rome in AD…not in any of the New Testament document for that matter…rather it is predicted as something yet to take place. 

The revelation then is that in Jesus, things have changed. As He said to the Samaritan woman at the well, the time had come for worshippers to worship, not at a Mountain in Samaria nor at a Temple in Judea, but to worship God in spirit and in truth…in other words, wherever believers were gathered together regardless of geographical location. 

So, when John spoke about the New Jerusalem coming from heaven, he was describing the City of God that did not have an earthly origin…He was describing the gathering of people who, in Jesus, were born from above. A people inhabited by the Lord God Himself. What we do as the Church when we gather together in worship is not merely a representation of the reconciliation of the Creator and His creatures…no, God is really present with us. He is enthroned amongst us. He lives within each one of us. He has taken up residence in us. The dwelling of God is with us and He lives with us. As such, He has made and is making all things new.

John used a wonderful part of speech called a double possessive when he began to describe the Heavenly City. He spoke about the City having the glory of God. On the one hand, the glory is hers, but on the other hand it is the glory of God. Now think about that. God’s glory is ours because we are united in Him. 

But it does not originate with us…indeed it cannot. As created beings, we only have what we receive…we have nothing that is not gifted to us. But precisely because we have received it, we shine out a glory that is at once both His and ours. 

Now, isn’t that a beautifully comforting image? Our God is that close to us…He is that near that His glory is your glory. But it is exactly because of this closeness…this unity, that John used Edenlike language to describe the reality of the Church. Because we are reconciled to God through Jesus and are now new creations in Him, in a spiritual sense, we have returned to a pre-Fall state. The river of life that flows from the throne of God and of the Lamb, flows through us. The tree of life that John described using an almost strange plural form evokes the tree in Genesis as well as the tree in the first Psalm…and that tree in the first Psalm is a person…a person whose whose delight is in the Law of the Lord. That person is likened to a tree planted by a stream of water that bears it fruit in season and whose leaves do not wither. Does that sound familiar? It is the same imagery John used in the passage we read from earlier.

This passage that we read today, dearest beloved brethren, is John’s depiction of the Body of believers…this is a picture of the Church. The River of Life is an image of God’s Spirit flowing in and through us. The Tree of Life is an image of Jesus and us – indicating our purpose as the Church…the purpose of this plural Tree of Life is to bring healing to the nations. The purpose of the Church is to bring the message of our reconciliation with God through Jesus to the nations…and just as Jesus promised, He is with us always, even to the end of the Age. 

You see, in Jesus, the curse has been removed. There is no longer any need for a Tabernacle or a Temple because the ultimate, once-for-all-time sacrifice has been made and accepted and the separating wall between us and God has been removed and we – we who are in Jesus – we have been made a kingdom of priests who have their residence in God. 

John said that there is no need for the sun or the moon as they were created to indicate the passing of time…to mark seasons, days, and years (see Genesis 1). But because we are in Jesus, we are eternal beings. And there is no longer any darkness in those who are clothed in the light of Jesus. God’s glory has become our glory, His light is our light, His life is our life…

But with this glory, this light, and this life, comes a certain responsibility. We are the light of the world or of the nations and we are meant to shine so that all people who are still captives in darkness will see and be attracted to the King who lives in the City. That is why Paul, and the other First Century believers, as well as believers down through the centuries, preached the Gospel in countries beyond the borders of their own homeland…that is why they left their homes and sometimes their families to share the liberating message of the Gospel with other people groups. And, true to His word, Jesus was with them wherever they went, opening ears and turning hearts through the guiding purpose of His Holy Spirit. 

So, far from being a scary, I‘d-rather-not-read-it kind of letter, Revelation is a must read. It is filled with beautiful images of God’s redemptive purposes in a world He loves with a love that is so deep it simply cannot be comprehended. But it must be read in the context of the whole Bible…it must be interpreted according to the figures of speech, the idioms, the images, the cultural practices, and the understanding of the words used by the original recipients. When we do that, we are blessed by what we read, just like John said we would be because the glory of God in Jesus is revealed, not obscured. 

Like my English wedding sermon had, in part, to be rewritten using images, words, humour, and practical applications native to the Afrikaans culture, so we need to read and interpret the Scriptures within the context of its original authors and recipients. Once we have done our homework, then we may recast the principles learned in words and images akin to our own culture.  

The Scriptures teach us that we are here on this planet for one purpose and one purpose only…to worship our Lord in such a way that His ways may be known upon earth. We are a city set on a high mountain…we are the new heavenly Jerusalem. We are the light of the world. We are a kingdom of priests living in the Heavenly throne room of God. We are Holy Spirit indwelt people…the Holy Spirit flows in and through us so that our leaves may bring healing to the nations…and therein lies our purpose. We are witnesses…witnesses to the reality of deliverance from slavery to sin and Satan and of the defeat of death and hell through the death and resurrection and ascension of Jesus…witnesses to the removal of the curse through the reconciling power of the substitutionary sacrifice of Jesus. 

Dearest beloved brethren…let the Light that is ours in Jesus, shine…

Let us pray.

© Johannes W H van der Bijl 2022