Waiting for the Generations
Rev. 6:9 When the Lamb broke the fifth seal, I saw underneath the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God, and because of the testimony which they had maintained; 10 and they cried out with a loud voice, saying, "How long, O Lord, holy and true, will You refrain from judging and avenging our blood on those who dwell on the earth?" 11 And there was given to each of them a white robe; and they were told that they should rest for a little while longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brethren who were to be killed even as they had been, would be completed also.
Heb. 11:39 And all these, having gained approval through their faith, did not receive what was promised, 40 because God had provided something better for us, so that apart from us they would not be made perfect.
From the beginning of this series we have been unpacking the meaning of “soon” in the promise of the Lord’s coming, reconciling our temporal sense of soon as little children to the trans-generational meaning of soon as seen by the waiting wife who understands that her Husband is indeed already on his way home from work, even though He has not arrived.
In all this we have been seeking to account for the concept of “duration” within the meaning of “soon.” Duration speaks of sequence of action. It speaks of beginning and ending to action. It speaks of process embracing “befores” and “afters.” All of this we call “time.”
The Meaning of Time
Time is the perceiving of sequence. Sequence of action is measured by “length.” It is known by answer to the question, “How long” will something “take” to happen?
Interestingly, all sequence is measured against the sequence of something else. This makes all measure of sequence (hence time) relative.
For instance, when we say something takes “one day” to happen, we are measuring the beginning to ending of that “something” by how long it takes the earth to begin and end one rotation on its axis. The turning of the earth is its own sequence that has a beginning and end.
For mortals, the sequential rotations and revolutions of heavenly bodies around one another form the basis of measure of all other sequences. Physical sequences are being measured against other physical sequences. Thus time as measured here is all relative.
Because the measuring of physical sequences under mortality is all relative, it means the meaning of “soon” as we use it is also relative. We have already discussed the variety of factors that affect our perception of the speed of action (such as pressure, size and distance of objects, process and imminence of presence).
Time in the Heart of God
But so then, if our concept of “soon” is relative because our measures of sequences are all relative to each other, the real question becomes How does God measure sequence??
How does God measure duration? Does He measure the sequential length of physical things against the relative sequential length of other physical things like we do? And is that therefore the basis of His concept of “soon”?
Or does He perhaps have some other measure altogether?
Here in the book of Revelation, the Lord gives us His true measure of sequence and duration. It is not found in the measure of rotations and revolutions of physical bodies. It is found in the measure of the completion of His death processes in His people.
“…and they were told that they should rest for a little while longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brethren who were to be killed even as they had been, would be completed also.”
You will remember in Part 3 that we gave great attention to the living process of harvest and its application to the conceiving and reaping of His People. From the process of harvest to the unfolding of the scroll of the Lamb, we eventually came to see that we are talking about a trans-generational coming of the Lord.
And now here at last, with a certain sense of finality, the Lord is telling us that His clock indeed runs on trans-generational time. It is not a clock based on seconds and minutes and hours. It is a clock that counts a fixed number of completed trans-generational death cycles.
This is our God, people. And this is His clock. The earlier martyrs ask the Lord, “How long?” They are asking, “By what sequence of duration will you measure the time for our vindication? What is the duration unto the time of Your vengeance, Your wrath, your Day?”
He does not answer in years or months or seasons based on heavenly bodies. He answers based on completed death cycles in His people. This is a fixed number of cycles covering a fixed number of generations. And in the Lord’s mind, this fixed number of death cycles and generations is embraced within the meaning of “soon” in the present progressive coming of the Lord.
Rest After Death and the Withholding of Knowledge
Now the Father does not disclose that fixed number of martyrs to those already under the altar. He does not say “When the 10th or 20th generation of martyrs is complete, then I will avenge.” Even the Son does not know what that fixed number is, for if He did, He would then know the time of His return, which He said even He did not know.
So why does the Father not disclose the number of trans-generational death cycles on which He is waiting? It is because not only is their death required, but so is their resting after death. See again what the Father tells the martyrs:
“and they were told that they should rest for a little while longer…”
Elsewhere He speaks of the importance of His rest after death:
14:13 And I heard a voice from heaven, saying, "Write, 'Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on!'" "Yes," says the Spirit, "so that they may rest from their labors, for their deeds follow with them."
There is an entrance into rest that precludes certain knowledge. Knowledge involves work. Knowledge precludes rest. The two are somewhat exclusive of each other. And so after death, it is time to rest, free from certain knowledge of things. If the Father had told the martyrs how many death cycles were yet to be accomplished, it would have left them more “restless” until that number was completed. “So when will that number be reached?” It would have just led to more questions. The Father did not want that. He wanted them to rest, and therefore not to know.
This is an aside, but just so we all understand: we know already that in order to enter the Lord’s spiritual rest, we have to die to knowing. The Lord constantly withholds knowledge from us because He wants to kill our trust in any labor or effort springing from it that would displace resting in Him. Knowledge is our most fundamental source of work. Knowing is at the root of all work. But one can do no work if he knows not what to do.
So too here, after our work on earth is done, the Father wants us to rest, really rest. Our work here is extremely bruising. Passing through all our death processes is bruising. And He wants us to rest a certain season after death is completed before we assume our new glorified labors beyond knowledge. And so, until our rest is completed, He withholds any and all knowledge that will preclude that rest.
Esteeming the Death Cycles
But all of that is an aside to our main point. Our main point is that God measures duration by the accomplishment of a fixed number of trans-generational death cycles in Christ. And it is by this clock we should be assessing our sense of duration until His arrival.
Today, we stand around and say, “It’s been two thousand years since the Lord said He would come back. How many more years will it be?” And every mortal generation has been asking this same question.
But that is not the question we should be asking. We should be asking, “How many death cycles are yet required before the Lord may bring in His Day of justice?” Yet as we have said, He will not tell us that. But the point is that, if we are going to ask the Lord about the soon-ness and duration until His coming at all, these are the terms in which that question should be asked. Because that is His measurement of time.
This is what we want to see, then. Time to the Lord is really measured in terms of life and death process sequences, not the sequential motions of physical non-living objects.
Hastening the Day through Death
What does this divine understanding of time mean for us personally when considering the Lord’s return? It means we should be less focused on counting the years and days of physical generations, and more focused on being sure we ourselves are completing our appointed death cycle in the continuum of harvest. The more faithful we are to our death cycle, the more it “hastens” His arrival:
II Pt. 3:11….what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, 12 looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God,…?
Holiness hastens the coming of the day of God. What does holiness involve? It is all about losing one’s life for His sake. It is about death. It is about completing death cycles.
So as we “die daily” as Paul says, we hasten the day of the Lord of which the souls of the fifth seal speak. The soon-ness of the Lord’s coming becomes closer in our perception.
The Meaning of “Slain”
This leads us to further prophetically understand the meaning of the interchange between the Father and the souls under the altar, specifically the meaning of being “slain.”
Remember that Revelation is speaking of prophetic reality according to the Spirit, not only of factual reality measured naturally. When we read here of the souls slain under the altar, we immediately envision the physical martyrs of the faith across time. And this is correct and true to the intent of what John sees.
But what John sees is not limited to this factuality. That is because there is spiritual factuality in the slaying of all of our souls for the sake of our testimony, whether or not our bodies are taken to that same extreme. Paul says we are all accounted as “sheep for the slaughter.” He says we are all “living sacrifices.” There is a martyrdom of the body of which many partake. But there is a very present, ongoing martyrdom of the soul of which all disciples must be partakers to be disciples.
And from this vantage, we should understand that the fifth seal is speaking to all of us whose souls have “died”—whose life force has been being bled out of us on the altar of the Lord’s service—for the sake of our testimony, and who are awaiting the Lord’s vindication for our many deaths for His Name’s sake.
For is not the cry of the martyrs the same cry in all of our hearts, “How long, O Lord, must my life remain in this state of “slainment” under your altar?” And His answer is the same to us, “Rest a little longer, until all your fellow disciples have completed their death cycles in Me.”
Hebrews: The Entering of Rest and Awaiting of Trans-generational Death Completion
The writer of Hebrews marvelously tracks everything we are learning about God’s time clock under the altar. The writer specifically explains how those who have died before us must await the completion of our deaths as well, because they may not be made perfect apart from us. He is speaking of none other than these in Revelation 6 under the altar:
“…so that apart from us they would not be made perfect.”
Hebrews is also the prime book associated with exhorting us to enter into the Lord’s rest:
Heb 4:10 For the one who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from His. 11 Therefore let us be diligent to enter that rest,…
That which the Father whispers to the souls under the altar, Hebrews whispers to us. It is the same Voice. But see how the book of Revelation instructs us on how that rest is entered. It is entered by being slain.
As often as we die then, we are to enter into rest. And in our entrance into rest, we are to give up knowing the exact time of when all our labor under the sun will be vindicated in the Lord’s arrival to judge all things.
We are only to know that we will be made perfect together with the completed number of the Lord’s saints across all the generations since John, once the last sweet smelling death has been received into the Holy nostrils of Him Who sits on the Throne, and the angel is instructed to put His censer into the altar and cast its fire on the earth. Compare prophetically please:
II Cor. 2:15 For we are a fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing;
8:3 Another angel came and stood at the altar, holding a golden censer; and much incense was given to him, so that he might add it to the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar which was before the throne. 4 And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, went up before God out of the angel's hand. 5 Then the angel took the censer and filled it with the fire of the altar, and threw it to the earth; and there followed peals of thunder and sounds and flashes of lightning and an earthquake.
See how the Spirit of prophecy in Christ is compelling us in these things. It is our sweet smelling death that provides the incense along with our prayers that goes up before the Father, leading to His fiery acts of vindication.
Taking Our Place in the Line Up
See then how our lives in this present mortal generation line up with those who have already gone before us and those who will yet proceed after us. Souls have been being added under the altar awaiting vindication, each in their generation, each added through soul-death while living, and added through physical death if and when martyred.
Each waits for those behind them, all awaiting completion together with the last death. The death of each measures off a tick on God’s divine clock of life process. And the Father has had this duration numbered from its beginning as was shown to John.
If we know these things, then it should entirely reshape our sense of “soon-ness” in the Lord’s return. We should stop asking “how many years” will it be? We should ask, “how many deaths” must yet be offered on the altar?
If one asks, “How soon will it be before the Lord returns?” We should ask in return, “How soon are you ready to die?” The sooner we die, the sooner He arrives.
Do we wish to hasten the day of His arrival? Let us dedicate ourselves more faithfully as living sacrifices and martyrs for the sake of His Word in us. And let us enter into our rest.
“Even so, complete your death cycles in us all. Come quickly, Lord Jesus.”
To be continued......
Chris Anderson
New Meadow Neck, Rhode Island
First Love Ministry
- a ministry of Anglemar Fellowship
http://www.firstloveministry.org5/16
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Page updated January 24, 2018
