Keeping Focus
To this point, we have begun opening up the Book of Revelation relative to the soon-ness of Christ’s Coming. The time element is what attracts us most to this book. Time is a subject of deep fascination to all men. We all want to know first and foremost about the “when” of the Lord’s return—just as the disciples did in Matthew 24. We all want this piece of “information” as one would pan for gold. Saints have groped after the timing of Christ’s coming ever since the Revelation was given.
So that’s where we have started. But we must undergird this start by re-establishing a more central truth: The Revelation is not about unveiling the timing of Christ’s coming. And it is not about the unveiling of events. It is about the unveiling of Him. The timing of His coming and the concomitant events are incidental to Who He Is being revealed to be.
This is something we have to constantly remember. In drawing us to this Revelation of His Son, the Father is not interested in reinforcing our idolatrous human quest for knowledge relative to time. Rather, He wants to kill that motive. We are naturally lured to study Revelation through our human lust to understand time. The Lord knows this. And He advantages Himself of it to lead us to what He is really after in showing us this Book—which is to show us the ways of His Son.
So if all we do is come to Revelation in order to better discern the timing of His return and interpret history’s events relative to that arrival—if we never get past this—then we have already missed the purpose of the Book as stated in verse 1: “The revelation of Jesus Christ…”
As we stay focused on Him then and not on trying to discern the “information” about His return, the Lord will prophetically open up the wisdom surrounding His return as the added blessing. That is what we want out of this series.
The Unfolding of Process
It’s in this spirit we have begun tackling the problem of “soon.” To stabilize our hearts in Christ, the Lord wants us to have a clearer understanding of the meaning of “soon.” To that end, He has shown us already that our perception of soon is affected by three things: pressure, perspective and process.
§ Under pressure, time is perceived as long and delayed. (Such is the case in tribulation.)
§ Under perspective, the largeness and distance of objects increases our perception of their slowness of motion. (There is no event greater in magnitude than the coming of the Lord.)
§ Under process, events have a beginning, a development and a terminus, which if viewed only by their terminus, fools us into a sense of their being delayed. (The Lord’s coming is about much more than His arrival.)
In this section, we want to learn more about this processal nature of the Lord’s coming through what we see in the pattern of harvest.
The “Harvest” of Prophetic Fulfillment
Throughout this teaching ministry, we have talked about the crucial importance of the harvest process to all the ways of God. The harvest process has a beginning in the form of a hidden planting that eventuates through growth over time into a manifest culmination of realization called harvest.
Over and over we have said that everything God does, He does this way:
§ Harvest is built into the creation of all things. It is built into the formation of plants, animals, minerals (such as pearls) and of man himself, beginning with a hidden conception leading to a manifest birth leading to an even more manifest fulfilled maturation (Gen. 8:22).
§ Harvest is built into the economy of life among mankind. This is called investment, usually beginning with a small insignificant deposit or relational connection eventually yielding large, significant returns. It applies to the economy of resources and money, and to the economy of relationships themselves (Mt. 25:14-30 with Lk. 16:9).
§ Harvest is built into the cause and effects of the deeds of men. Small hidden deeds are planted that reap great manifest consequences for good or for bad (Gal. 6:9).
§ Harvest is built into the hidden spiritual new creation of man, and in turn ultimately into the open restoration or re-birth of the universe itself. As new spirit beings, we were conceived of the hidden Word of God, we have been born of the Word of God, and we are to be harvested of the fully ripened Word of God into glorified manifestation (I Cor. 15:35-49).
Most all the things just listed are the product of the past Spoken Word of God. Well, what does that tell us about all prophecy of things future? What is true of creation past is true about all things yet to be made by the Word of God. The harvest process is built into the very structure of all prophetic fulfillment, including that pertaining to His Coming, and, as we shall later see, is built into the very structure of the Book of Revelation itself.
Gaining a Harvest Perspective on the Prophecy of Revelation
Prophetic fulfilment cannot and must not be measured merely by its culminating manifestation. It must be measured from the time its seed is planted in the ground as a spoken word! It is to be measured from its incipient fulfilment as a conception. (Life begins at conception, right? So does the fulfilment of the prophetic word.)
Fulfilments are planted. And when they are planted is when their time is rightly credited as beginning to come to pass. But the time of their incipient fulfillment this way is not recognizable. Nevertheless, the conception has happened. Incipient fulfilment has been realized.
The Book of Revelation itself testifies to the harvest nature of the Lord’s coming:
14:14 Then I looked, and behold, a white cloud, and sitting on the cloud was one like a son of man, having a golden crown on His head and a sharp sickle in His hand. 15 And another angel came out of the temple, crying out with a loud voice to Him who sat on the cloud, "Put in your sickle and reap, for the hour to reap has come, because the harvest of the earth is ripe." 16 Then He who sat on the cloud swung His sickle over the earth, and the earth was reaped. 17 And another angel came out of the temple which is in heaven, and he also had a sharp sickle. 18 Then another angel, the one who has power over fire, came out from the altar; and he called with a loud voice to him who had the sharp sickle, saying, "Put in your sharp sickle and gather the clusters from the vine of the earth, because her grapes are ripe." 19 So the angel swung his sickle to the earth and gathered the clusters from the vine of the earth, and threw them into the great wine press of the wrath of God. 20 And the wine press was trodden outside the city, and blood came out from the wine press, up to the horses' bridles, for a distance of two hundred miles…. 19:11 And I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse, and He who sat on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and wages war. …15 … and He treads the wine press of the fierce wrath of God, the Almighty.
This of course is talking about the harvest time end of His coming. But what about the beginning? What about the planting that started the whole process? Where did His own crop come from, and who planted it?
The Lord’s manifest coming in this passage is keyed to His age-long ripening development within His people in the earth (He being formed in us). Before He comes to reap His people, He first “came” in the planting of Himself in His people, and He has continued to “come” in His growing season within His people to water and to weed throughout history. And then He comes at last as revealed here to reap that which is His—at last face to face, and to destroy that which has counterfeited His planting and coming throughout history.
Remember again, this Book is about the Revelation of Him. And so it is that every event cited in this Revelation is tied to His coming, to His revealing. That means where there is a coming to reap as here in Revelation 14, there is an implied coming first to plant. The actual planting-phase of the Lord’s coming is earlier revealed in His parable of the wheat and tares:
Mt. 13:37 And He said, "The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man…”
See, the Son is revealed in His planting of men. And He is revealed in His harvesting of men. His planting of men is the planting time of His own coming. And His harvesting of men is the harvest time of His own coming. Thus it is, His own coming has been an age long process—all of one.
John’s Conception through the Generations
What does all this mean about the Lord’s Word to John that Jesus was coming “soon”? It means that the Lord’s promise was literal to John in his time, and not just to some future generation that would experience the manifest culmination.
The Lord’s return began with the planting of the prophetic word that He was returning—a Word planted in the secret place of an island prison to thence eventually come forth into open universally acclaimed harvest manifestation in a Day to come generations afterward.
This means that the fulfilment of soon-ness was sooner than even John was capable of grasping. What John experienced on that lordly day in Patmos was the immediate conception reality of what was promised to eventually fully come—all under the progressive statement “I am coming quickly.”
John himself literally experienced the Second Coming then and there in its conception. And the truth is that from the moment of that Revelation through to its first transcribings and disseminatings to the seven churches, all kinds of events toward His ultimate manifest appearing were prophetically set in seed motion in the heavenlies mere days or less after John had received the witness there on Patmos! Those seed events have been tied to His coming as a planter, a grower, a conqueror, a maker of war and a mover and shaker among the kingdoms of this world these last two millenniums as described by other events in the Book of His Revelation.
“Age of Christ’s Revelation”
As a harvest reality, the conception of the Lord’s coming through John’s testimony was an entering into reality “as good as done” as the eventual manifestation to be “harvested” later in the time continuum among those born many generations after John, and perhaps after us as well. From this perspective, the Lord’s coming was indeed soon and has always been soon. It had (and therefore has) already begun and been in process.
Do we understand the implications of the present tense unfolding of the Revelation of Christ since John first received it? It means no generation has been left out of involvement with the unfolding of Christ’s return since its inception on Patmos!
Every generation has had a part to play in the gradual developmental revealing of the Lord’s coming, regardless how little perception they had of it in their day—from the days of the catacombs, to the Dark Ages of the “Holy Roman Empire,” to the Renaissance and Reformation, through to the great Eschatological Awakening since the mid 1800s and to our present Prophetic Movements!
All of us have had a role to play somewhere in this continuum toward Christ’s evident appearing in the flesh to His glorified ones—whether we were like John on the seed planting and germination end of His coming, or if we were somewhere in the mid-stalk springtime development of His coming, or if we should be found at the finally ripened harvest time of His appearing as every generation has desired to be.
But being blind to the 2000 year harvest process of His coming, we have chosen to look at ourselves historically as the center of this age. We have missed the point of this 2000 year developing history stemming from John’s vision. Therefore we have called this, the “Church Age.” The reality according to Revelation however is that this has not ultimately been the Church Age. It has never been about “us” or “the world” with its “beasts” and “men of sin.” It has ultimately been the Age of Christ’s Revelation, of which John’s testimony was but the opening witness. It has always been the Age of Him, however unperceived behind the antics of this otherwise rightly named Second Age of Unbelief.
(To be continued…..)
Chris Anderson
New Meadow Neck, Rhode Island
First Love Ministry
- a ministry of Anglemar Fellowship
http://www.firstloveministry.org4/16
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Page updated January 24, 2018
