The Short-Sightedness of Culminating Measurement
Over the last few sections of this study, we've come to understand the trans-generationally unfolding nature of John’s Revelation---marked by incipient forerunning fulfilments measured over so many generational death cycles in the Lord's people---all embraced within the meaning of "soon."
For instance, as discussed previously, the "anti-christ" (or "man of sin") figure has had incipient and developmental fulfilment already since the day that John wrote about it. Yet there has been no culminating fulfilment of this person. John himself spoke to this incipience in his first epistle when he wrote:
2:18 Children, it is the last hour; and just as you heard that antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have appeared; from this we know that it is the last hour.
And indeed, there were yet many more to come as well. But see in this letter how the Holy Spirit made room for understanding developmental incipient fulfilments of those things John was yet to be shown in the Revelation.
What John already understood in his first letter about the antichrist to come is also true for the "beast" and "harlot" systems he was yet to be shown in the Revelation. The beast system began incipiently “rising from the sea” since “soon” after John first wrote about it. Yet after 2000 years the system has not yet fully risen to its cumulative manifestation in world history as John saw it. The full number of death cycles has not been completed. We are in fact still watching it rise and awaiting its culminating manifestation that includes the forced branding on the hand or forehead.
Once we understand all this, we can immediately see the blind spot responsible for the eschatological strife throughout this age regarding the fulfilments of what Revelation prophesies. The blind spot is that the church measures Revelation’s prophetic fulfilments only in terms of their culminating manifestation in context of their own generation. There has been this “all or nothing” approach to understanding and defining these prophetic fulfilments.
In our finiteness of measure, if we don't see the finality of the thing, we say the thing has not happened, while all along, the thing is in process of happening under our very noses. Because the culminating fulfilment is all that anyone takes the prophecies to mean, it has led to conflicting claims, counterclaims, denials and cross-denials from generation to generation over “who” the antichrist and false prophet are / were, "what" the beast is / was—tainted by spirits of derision and mocking by one party or another because the anticipated culminating manifestation did not or has not appeared.
But that is not how God sees it—He who sees the end from the beginning and Who knows the whole planting and harvest process behind the Revelation. He sees the spirit kings across their centuries. (I once heard the story of a deliverance encounter where the spirit to be cast out of the individual defied the deliverance minister saying, "I've inhabited this family line for 600 years and I am NOT COMING OUT NOW!")
Yes, therefore, and Amen. The One "Who Is, and Was and Is to Come" has already seen the incipient fulfilments of all these things, their intermediate developmental fulfilments throughout this age, and is still waiting to reveal their final culminating manifestations.
This brings us back to our original illustration of the Wife and Children waiting for Dad to come home from work.....
Preparing for Dinner
When we last heard from our illustrative family in Part II, the final conversation about "Dad's arrival" went down like this:
Kids: “But when? How come it is taking [Dad] so long [to come home]?”
Mom: “He still has a few things to finish up at the office, and then he is leaving soon to come home. He is taking the fast way home. But it will be at least an hour once he leaves.”
Kids: “Awwwwwww. That isn’t soon!! Daddy lied again! I want Daddy now!”
From here, we want to look at what Mom did and what the kids did after the conversation. Let's start with the kids, Billy and Sally.
- Kids At the Window
Billy and Sally, dejected by Mom's answer, nonetheless go out to the living room where they can watch out the big bay window for Dad's car when it comes down their street off the main boulevard. They live on King Street in a fairly populated neighborhood, about "twenty" houses or so in from the main boulevard where Dad will be coming in from.
Dad drives this really nice looking white car, and so they know what they're looking for. And each, of course, wants to be the "first" to be able to run and tell Mom they see Dad coming.
Meanwhile, as we already understand, it's rush hour. Everybody's coming home from work down the long street. And so now the "watch" begins. The cars are already coming down King Street, moms and dads all coming home from work. Suddenly, Billy exclaims,
"Look, I see him, I see him! There he is!"
Billy is looking as far down the street as he can possibly see till he spots the first white car, sure that he can out-see the younger Sally.
Then Sally looks:
"I don't know, I'm not sure."
The car comes a little further, and Sally says,
"That's not his car!"
"Is too! Just you see!" yells Billy.
The car finally gets close and whizzes by. It isn't Dad. Sally is pumped:
"See, I told you it wasn't his car! You're dumb, Billy!"
A few minutes go by, and another white car turns down King Street. Billy keeps his mouth shut. This car, now a little further in, has Sally convinced it's Dad.
"That's him!" yells Sally.
"No it's not! That car is too little. Dad's car is big!"
"No, you just think it's little because you have bad eyes. It's his car!"
The car now gets close, and is indeed too little. It is not Dad's car. Now it's Billy's turn:
"See? I told you it was too little. Sally, you're a jerk!"
And on the story goes with the kids, back and forth over the white car down King Street that isn't Dad.
- Mom in the Kitchen
So where is Mom during all this? Mom is looking at Dad's coming a whole different way. She is not in the living room speculating over every white car coming down King Street. She is busy in the kitchen preparing for dinner! She is actually making ready for Dad's arrival.
Mom already knows what Dad said, that he's already (soon) on his way, and that he's taking the fast way home, but it will be an hour at least before his arrival. And she also knows what he is expecting to find when he arrives. He is expecting to arrive home to dinner that is already prepared for him! He is not expecting to arrive home to have to then wait for dinner because "wife" was too busy watching white cars come down King Street.
Sorry if this sounds like the opposite of the Martha and Mary lesson, but it's true. When it comes to the Lord's arrival, He is expecting, as He told the Laodiceans, to have the door opened to Him and to come in and dine with His people (Rev. 3:20). And that means a prepared meal. And that means time spent doing something more than merely watching for culminating fulfilments of His arrival.
And that is the lesson here. The children are stuck on the shortsightedness of culminating manifestation. That is all they are thinking about when they think of Dad's return. And so that is what governs their action and their attitudes.
But Mom knows Dad's return is developmental, not just culminating, which means other "forerunning" white cars are going to be coming down King Street, maybe even some that are the same model as Dad's car. But it doesn't matter. Because Mom's view is developmental, and she is making herself equal to that reality by preparing the way for when Dad arrives.
That is what it means when Revelation tells us "the Bride has made herself ready!" This is the readiness to fellowship and eat with the Lord at His arrival. And it requires preparation. It is not about watching for all the signs of the times coming down King Street at rush hour.
Meeting His Expectation
The lesson again here, and the irony here is that a view only to the Lord's culminating arrival is actually shortsighted. The more fixated we are on the Lord's culminating arrival, the less we will actually be prepared for that arrival! Why is this? It is because in expecting the Lord, we must also have a heart that is equally seeking to meet His expectations of us upon that arrival. (Expectations of us? Really?? You mean not "unconditional"?)
The Lord's coming involves a mutual expectation of readiness. We are to be expecting Him, but we are also to be expectable to Him. We are to be expecting Him with an eye to meeting His expectations when He arrives. And that is where the expectation of culminating fulfilments alone fails the test. We may be expecting Him, but with no preparation to meeting His expectations of us on arrival.
What a tragedy that will be to spend your life looking for the Lord's return and yet not actually be ready for Him when He arrives! That is going to be the great embarrassment and shame of the "proudly pre-millennial, pre-tribulational any-moment-rapture [Laodicean] church." There is simply a total inadequacy of words to convey what that shame will be like:
3:18 I advise you to buy from Me ....white garments so that you may clothe yourself, and that the shame of your nakedness will not be revealed;...20 'Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me....16:15 ("Behold, I am coming like a thief. Blessed is the one who stays awake and keeps his clothes, so that he will not walk about naked and men will not see his shame.")
Preparing the Way of the Lord
Great emphasis is given in scripture to preparing the Lord's way, and not just to His culminating arrival. It begins in Isaiah and is carried right through the forerunner concept of John the Baptist. The Spirit of Elijah is the Spirit of Preparation for the Lord's Arrival. It is not just the expectation of His arrival as a standalone event.
So what does preparation actually signify about the Lord's return? Let's read about it here:
Is. 40:3 A voice is calling, "Clear the way for the LORD in the wilderness; Make smooth in the desert a highway for our God. 4 "Let every valley be lifted up, And every mountain and hill be made low; And let the rough ground become a plain, And the rugged terrain a broad valley; 5Then the glory of the LORD will be revealed, And all flesh will see it together; For the mouth of the LORD has spoken."
See here very carefully please. The Lord's coming includes an advanced work of extensive preparation. Isaiah is using the illustration of cutting a highway through a mountainous wilderness. The Lord's arrival is to be made on a smooth flat highway. And that means mountains have to first be blasted out and valleys have to be filled in and all ruggedness has to be graded down. And not until this all happens will the glory of the Lord's culminating arrival manifest!
The preparation is part of the coming. That means it is part of the meaning of "soon." When the Lord said He was coming soon and quickly, He meant that the work necessary to begin preparing His way was to start virtually immediately! And that is exactly what has been happening across the generations. A highway has been under construction now for two thousand years. Mountains have been being leveled and valleys raised across history. Rugged places have been being smoothed out. And each generation has had their part in working on this highway. At the same time, each generation has had their sleepers who were supposed to be at work on the highway, but who stopped working so that they could "watch for the Lord's coming."
The "Trans-generational Railroad"
I want to borrow a final illustration from American history that helps put the developmental preparatory fulfilment of the Lord's coming and His total meaning of "soon" into great perspective.
Many readers are familiar with the story of the trans-continental railroad that was built across the United States in the 1860s. The railroad took roughly six years to build, involving the blasting of mountains, grading of elevations, building of bridges and the like. On a good day on the plains, a mile of track (1.6 km) could be laid. Obviously, far less could be laid in the hills and mountains. Maybe only a quarter mile of track could be laid. Maybe not even. Yet once finished, the track would enable a journey that once took months across the nation to now take less than a week.
Keeping this in mind, now put yourself in the shoes of the Native American Indian out on the plains watching this take place. He has never seen such a thing.....men laying down these iron rails across innumerable timbers on the ground. And he has no idea what a "train" is. So he watches this go on, day by day.
After some time, he asks the workers,
"What is it that you are doing with this long iron and the wood?"
The men say to him,
"A train is coming soon."
"What is a train?" he asks.
The men reply,
"It is an iron horse that travels faster than one of your horses. It will be here soon and comes quickly."
The Indian cannot comprehend what they are talking about. But he just watches day after day after day as the men keep leveling the ground and lay the track. After a few weeks, the men are now out of his view. He cannot see them. All he sees is the track they have laid down, a forever puzzle to him promising the arrival of something he cannot imagine. And the days go by. And the seasons change. The snow now covers the track. Another year goes by, and the track reappears. But nothing else.
And so this goes on for a few years. Until, suddenly on a bright June day, he hears a sound in the distance he has never heard before. It is the sound like to that of a trumpet, even of multiple trumpets at once! Alarmed he looks down upon and hastens toward the track he has seen before. The blaring of this trump grows louder and then again louder. Now, he sees smoke arise to his east. But from what?
And then he sees it. A black iron horse belching smoke, fire and brimstone! It is the horse of which the men had spoken years before. And it is swifter than any horse he has ever seen. Both suddenly and quickly the iron horse is upon him and passes him by! And it carries many carriages behind it with many people. His eye follows the horse to the west as far as he can see it, until it disappears as the small speck that it started in the east, in only a matter of minutes!
&&&&&&&&&&
This story shows us the totality of the Lord's coming from a soon-ly executed but seemingly slow process of preparation ahead of His sudden swift arrival along the path of that preparation. From the day that the book of Revelation was given, the highway track for the Lord's return was begun to be laid across the spiritual continent of time, measured in distance not by miles, but by generations. This track has been laid from generation to generation, one generation at a time, some generations laying more track than others depending on the spiritual terrain. Yet no bystander along the track has ever seen such a thing or understands what is so soon and rapidly to come down that highway.
The generations pass, and no train has yet arrived. The prophesied trumpet has not been heard, at least not to the human ear. And yet, in the laying of the track of the kingdom gospel across the leveled mountains and raised valleys of the generations, the Lord's coming has already been in progress. The preparation is intrinsic to that coming and is inseparable from it. As there can be no train without a track laid, there can be no arrival of the Lord without the first building of the trans-generational "way of the Lord."
This totality of perspective cures the faultiness of measuring prophecy only by culminating fulfilment. It transcends the shortsightedness of those who bicker over the color of the cars coming down King Street at rush hour, and leads us to the place in the kitchen where we belong, preparing for the fellowship meal with our Husband when He arrives!
When at last His car pulls into that driveway and we hear that horn toot out the door, we will be gratified to know that we were truly ready. We will not bear the shame of presenting him an undressed dinner table.
To be continued......
Chris Anderson
New Meadow Neck, Rhode Island
First Love Ministry
- a ministry of Anglemar Fellowship
http://www.firstloveministry.org6/16
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