Coming vs. Revealing
From the beginning of this study, we have sought to deal with the problem of "soon" in understanding the promise of the Lord's coming. A prophecy of something happening soon and quickly doesn't make sense to people reading it 2000 years after it was given if it still has not perceptually "happened."
In approaching this, we have reiterated that John's Revelation is primarily about the unveiling of Christ, not of events. The events track and shadow the Lord's revealing, but are not its essence. So in discerning these things, we must have a heart geared to seeing Him, not to trying to understand "what" has or is going to happen when. And as we keep the focus on spiritually beholding Him, the wisdom comes that makes more sense to us of "what" is or has happened relative to His coming in these 2000 years since the predictions were first written down.
Speaking of "beholding Him," something more to grasp is that the ideas of the Lord's "coming" and of His being "revealed," while essentially the same, carry distinctly difference nuances that significantly affect our perception of His nearness.
When we think of "coming," we tend to think of a precise event in which a distant object approaches us. But when we think of a "revealing," we think more of a gradual unveiling of an object which is already in our proximity. In a "coming," the object of interest moves toward us. But in a revealing, the object does not move, but rather that which conceals the object from the beholder. The concealing element is simply removed. The concealing element could be something draped over the object at hand (like a shroud over a statue). Or it could be something immediately covering the eyes of the beholder (like a blindfold).
The Lord's appearing involves both "coming" and "unveiling." While His coming may be from a distance, in His unveiling He has never been far from us, regardless of how long the wait for that appearing may seem to be taking. The imminent nearness of an object to be unveiled can affect the meaning of its soon-ness of appearance in which soon-ness is measured by imminence due to proximity rather than time due to distance traversed. Thus we are given to understand yet one more dimension of perspective for apprehending the soon-ness of Christ's coming.
Review of Perceptions
To this point then, we have been introduced to the following concepts that affect our perception of the soon-ness of the Lord's return:
· pressure under tribulation makes time seem to move slowly and thus the Lord's coming to be delayed. (Our time on earth is spent under conditions of constant pressure).
· the size and distance perspective of greater objects cause them to appear to move slowly. (The Lord's return is a universally massive event, therefore seems interminably slow in coming about).
· the act of coming is a process that has a beginning, development and conclusion over time. (the Lord's coming measured only by its conclusion appears to be delayed.)
· the active process of the Lord's coming is witnessed to us in the concepts of harvest, the unfolding of the scroll of the Lamb and the bitter medicinal digestion of the little scroll. (The digestion of the little scroll within the unfolding scroll of the Lamb introduces us to the perspective of sub-processes within process)
· soon-ness perceived as time over distance rather than as imminence in proximity causes the Lord's appearing to seem delayed.
Moving forward, we now turn our attention to understanding the mystery of sub-processes within the Lord's coming, i.e., of processes within processes.
Like Clockwork
Within the unfolding of John’s revelation, we are introduced to a number of serial happenings involving scrolls, seals, trumpets and vials. The unrolling of vials within trumpets, trumpets within seals, seals within scrolls and scrolls within scrolls as John reports it shows us that Christ’s Revelation is comprised of an intricate interrelated network of prophetic processes within processes across the history of the generations since the Revelation was first unveiled.
This makes us think of the inside of a clock—a mechanical clock—the kind of clock that uses internal gears to turn the hands on the outside. The hands are turned by the movements of the largest gears completing their cycle, which are in turn moved by smaller gears that complete a number of smaller cycles to complete one larger gear cycle, which are similarly moved by still smaller gears that complete numbers of their cycles to complete one larger gear cycle.
As the gears within the clock, so are the processes of the internal prophecies within the larger more encompassing prophecies that enfold them, leading to the complete overall unveiling of Christ. We are witnessing cycles of prophetic release and fulfillment within larger cycles of prophetic release and fulfilment. This idea has much to do with the common saying that “history repeats itself.”
The Mystery of Incipient and Consummate Fulfilments
The overlap of smaller cycles of unfolding prophecy within larger cycles across history introduces us to the mystery of incipient and consummate fulfilments. By incipient fulfilments, we are talking about foretypical fulfilments—or “beta” fulfilments—that portend the ultimate fulfillment of what has been prophesied.
Incipient fulfilments are small cycle prophetic fulfilments layered within the process toward the large cycle consummate fulfilments of those things witnessed in Revelation. These incipient fulfilments are unwound relative to the various generations since the book was first released into time, leading toward the final generation that is to witness the large cycle consummations.
Jesus gave us some idea of the reality of incipient fulfilments when He described His return in terms of a process of “birthpangs.” The process of birth is not just a singular exit event from the womb, but the progressing of serial cyclical contractions consummating in that exit. The contractions are all incipient to the birth. They all look and feel alike, each portending itself to possibly be the birth event, yet none of them being the consummate birth.
So it is that the cycles of prophetic event contractions within the grand Revelation of the Lord have been progressing in their development over what to us has been a very long period of “labor”—long to us because the developing cycles are happening across the borderlines of many human generations, and because the only measure we ever go by is the culminating manifestation. No one generation gets to see the big picture or the complete development of the largest “clock gears” within John’s Revelation. While smaller incipient prophetic cycles may occur within one average lifespan, the largest cycles leading to the culminating fulfilments occur over several generations, even centuries.
The incipient fulfilments begin at various times and at various levels of world history subsequent to John’s delivery of the testimony to the seven churches. Each of these incipient fulfilments begins as its own seed, progresses through its own mini-development, and yields its own mini-harvest, all within the arch-developmental framework of the grand Revelation, creating a series of “foretype” fulfilments or “shadow” fulfilments prior to the manifest culmination of all.
These are the foretypical fulfilments we have already witnessed in history in the form of various revivals, world government attempts, singular individuals believed in their generation to be “the antichrist,” and so forth. None of these foretypical contraction cycles have ever brought forth the consummate revelation of Christ. But at the end, all these smaller cycle prophetic fulfilments will "roll up into" the culminating harvest fulfilment of the apocalyptic manifestations as John reports them to us. (More on this in our next episode.)
Discerning the Spirit Action Behind the Prophetic Objects
This is what we want to be appreciating then as we come to the internal workings of John’s revelation. This mystery of unfolding incipient fulfilments applies to all the sub-elemental prophecies within the greater Revelation—the seals, the trumpets, and the vials. When we are reading about these things, we not just looking for one singular manifest culminating event. (This is even true regarding the seven churches themselves whose “seven spirits” go on into church history long after the original incarnate churches are gone. The spirits of these churches are still with us today, and all our churches are identified by one or a combination of the traits of those seven churches. More on this also to come.)
The key to understanding Revelation's sub-prophecies then is in perceiving the nature of the cyclical prophetic flows within flows behind human events—not in being able to peg a specific singular event or personage past or future as the culminating fulfilment of a specific seal, or trumpet or vial for all time. Such ironclad identifications negate what "the Spirit is saying unto the churches" across all the generations.
It is more about the developmental spirit action behind the objects seen in the prophecies, and less about tagging the objects to momentary events and personages seen with the naked eye. It is about how the scrolls, seals, trumpets and vials are all unpacked within and across the generations, not about the objects themselves to be nakedly beheld by somebody somewhere on a certain date. For all these prophetic objects originate from inside eternity and so must be perceived and understood with the kind of vision only heaven can afford.
Once this is appreciated, then we are able to again understand that the Book of Revelation has been relevant to every generation since it was written. It has never been culminatingly fulfilled at any time in the past since it was given. But neither is it awaiting all beginning of fulfilment in some unknown generation yet to come. It has simply been a matter for each generation to discern by the same spirit of prophecy that authored the prophecy where along the spectrum of incipience toward culminating fulfilment they were or now are.
And that is our task in our present generation as we continue to absorb and digest this testimony: “What is the Spirit saying to the 21st century church?”
To be continued…..
Chris Anderson
5/16
New Meadow Neck, Rhode Island
First Love Ministry
- a ministry of Anglemar Fellowship
http://www.firstloveministry.org
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