The First Resurrection
Notes
Transcript
The First Resurrection
6.13.21 [Revelation 20:1-6] River of Life (3rd Sunday after Pentecost)
Rev 1:4-5 Grace and peace to you from him who is, and who was, and who is to come, and from the seven spirits before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.
What are you doing at 1am on Monday, August 2nd? Most of us don’t have anything planned, other than sleeping, right? If you’re not sleeping at 1am on Monday, you’re likely in for a long day. But, if you find yourself awake at that wee hour, you might be able to find something worth staying up for. Because, if my time zone math is right, on Monday, August 2nd at 1am, the women’s gymnastics teams will be competing in floor routines. That’s the one where they have this big, wide open, bouncy mat and they do all the jumping and the flipping and the tumbling and the pirouetting.
Even if you’re not a big fan of gymnastics, you can still appreciate the athleticism of these young women in their routines. They make incredible acts of strength and balance and coordination look effortless. And at the Olympic level, they’re all so good. More times than not, I have no idea who won until the judges scores flash across the bottom of the screen. To my untrained eyes, it all looks great. Unless they mess up. I know when they fall or their foot steps out of bounds that scores begin to tumble with them.
Sometimes, reading the book of Revelation is little bit like watching gymnastics at the Olympics. There is a lot going on. It’s dazzling and impressive. Sometimes, there is so much happening at once that it almost feels overwhelming. Our text for today, from Revelation 20, might feel a little bit like that. There’s so many strange and even scary figures. An angel and the Abyss, a dragon and a beast, thrones and beheaded souls, talk of a thousand years, a first resurrection and a second death.
It’s enough to make some of us just give up. And that’s not the right approach. Of course there’s another approach that is pretty popular, but isn’t any more profitable. There are many who pour years of detective work into trying to connect the dots between every figure in these visions of John and the events and powers of our modern world.
And this is where we must return to the gymnastics floor, in a manner of speaking. If you do catch the women’s gymnastics floor routines, and you pay close attention to the gymnasts right before they do their impressive sprints and flips and spins, they have a subtle and graceful way of doing little jumps and spins so that their feet land perfectly in the corner of the floor. They have to get their starting point right, or the whole thing will end up a disaster, even if they do everything else right.
In much the same way we need to get our feet right, first, too. How do we do that? Well, we have to know what the rest of Scripture says in order to make sense of what we are seeing here. So any connection we make between the angel and a great chain and the abyss, the dragon and the beast, the thousand years and the beheaded souls, the first resurrection and the second death must align with the rest of the Word of God. This is what we mean when we say We let Scripture interpret Scripture.
So let’s start with the most controversial detail—the thousand years. It sounds simple enough. But this little detail has caused great divisions among God’s people. So what does Scripture say? Jesus tells us (Mt. 24:36) But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. (1 Th. 5:2) The day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. (Mt. 24:44) So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him. God is not providing a timeline for us. If the thousand years were a literal thousand years, then Jesus’ warnings to us would be unwarranted and unnecessary. That cannot be the case. Rather, like many other things in this vision, the thousand years is a picture of a period of time—in much the same way that we still use the word “era”. But what is that era?
It is the era when (Rev. 20:1) an angel comes down from heaven and seizes and chains and restrains the dragon. It is the era when (Rev. 20:4) those who had been beheaded because of their testimony about Jesus and the Word of God and their refusal to worship the beast live and reign with Christ. It is an era when (Rev. 20:5) the dead stay dead. It is the era when those faithful believers (Rev. 20:6) serve as priests of God and of Christ. So what is this era? Well, in order to figure that out, we need to find out more about these figures.
The dragon is the simplest. John calls him (Rev. 20:2) the ancient serpent, the Devil, or Satan. The Devil injected the venom of sin into the world beginning with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. What angel can oppose him and win? What angel is powerful enough to seize the dragon by the scruff of his neck and stop him from deceiving the nations any longer?
It is here where we must remember what angel means. An angel is a messenger of God. There are times in the Old Testament where the Angel of the Lord appears and testifies that he is no-created being, but rather God himself. The Angel of the Lord appeared to Abraham when he was about to sacrifice Isaac and put a stop to it saying, (Gen. 22:12) Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son. The Angel of the Lord appeared to Moses in the burning bush and identified himself as (Ex. 3:6) the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The pre-incarnate Christ—the Son of God before he took on flesh and became known as the Son of Man—is often called an angel. And look at how well that interpretation fits! This angel comes (Rev. 20:1) down from heaven and holds in his hand a great chain. With his magnificent power and this great tool, he (Rev. 20:2) seizes Satan and locks him up for a thousand years. This is the work of our Christ. The Son of Man came to earth to preach and the complete good news of our salvation. The Kingdom of God has come near and Satan cannot withstand it. With the Gospel he has prevented Satan from deceiving people any longer as he began in the Garden of Eden. The Valiant One has crushed the ancient serpent’s powerful head. He ties up the strong man Satan and plunders the nations from him. Jesus alone is (Rev. 1:18) the Living One who holds the keys of death and Hades. And his coming marks the beginning of this new age, the New Testament Era.
In this era, the Son of God gave authority to his Church, the keys of the kingdom of heaven. (Mt. 16:19) Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven. Whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. There is no greater power than the power to pronounce the forgiveness of sins. This (Rev. 20:4) authority to judge has been given to God’s people, whom Christ has given his authoritative Word.
But despite the victory over the dragon, and the authority of the Word of God, there are real challenges for God’s people. The Apostle John who had this vision was experiencing this at this very moment. John himself was suffering in exile (Rev. 1:9) on the island of Patmos because of the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus. Yet, John was not wallowing in grief. He knew many others had met a far more violent sentence. According to early leaders in the Christian church, the Apostle Paul was beheaded under the brutal reign of Nero. Peter, who was not a Roman citizen as Paul was, was likely crucified. Many died as martyrs under Nero. Many more would be executed because of (Rev. 20:4) their testimony about Jesus and the word of God under the Roman Emperor Domitian. Because they feared, loved, and trusted in God they refused to say Caesar is Lord and instead testified that (1 Cor. 12:3) Jesus is Lord. They made this deadly testimony because they had been made alive (1 Cor. 12:3) by the Holy Spirit. (Eph. 2:1-5) Once they had been dead in their transgressions and sins, but because of God’s great love, they were made alive with Christ. It was by God’s grace that they had been saved. They (Acts 4:20) could not help but speak of what they had seen and what they had heard—all that Christ had accomplished for them. They knew that Christ’s power surpassed that of even the Roman Caesar and so they were not afraid to surrender their bodies to this death. As Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego had done before them, they too trusted that (Dan. 3:17-18) the God we serve is able to deliver us from physical death, and even if he did not, he would ultimately deliver them from the hand of the blasphemous beast.
And here we ought to pause and catch our breath and marvel at God’s mercy. Consider what John and the Christians of his day and age might have been thinking. They saw good and faithful Christians rounded up by the beast of Rome, given a choice between a life of faithlessness or death (Rev. 20:4) for their testimony about Jesus and the Word of God. It must have been deeply distressing to see and suffer through. It must have felt like Satan was succeeding in Jesus’ absence. And that is why Jesus saw fit to give the Apostle John and his generation—and us!—this vision.
Because there is never any shortage of things people point to, in any generation, as the beast or the mark of the beast. Because there are times and places where it feels as if the Dragon is running roughshod over the faithful believers. Yet, that is not what dominates this vision. What dominates this vision is the power of the Christ and the first resurrection.
And that is why we have confidence. Because Christ Jesus has seized the ancient serpent and triumphed over the devil, and death, and set us free from slavery to sin so that we do not need to fear any of that any longer. (Eph 1:19-20) By the same power that prevents Satan (Rev. 20:2) from deceiving the nations any longer—the Gospel—he has brought us to life. Once we were like (Eph. 2:3) the rest of the dead. (Eph. 2:5-6) But we have been raised to life by God’s grace.
By grace, we have come to know the Word of God. By grace through faith we have come to trust the testimony about Jesus. By grace, we have come to believe that (Mt. 16:26) even if a person could gain the whole world, it is not worth forfeiting their soul. By grace, we have become convinced that while (Rom. 5:6) we were still powerless, the powerful Son of God died for the ungodly. By grace through faith, we have been made holy. By grace through faith, we have been called to be (Rev. 20:6) priests of God and of Christ. By grace through faith, we live in him. By grace through faith, he rules within our hearts and we have entered into his kingdom. By grace through faith, we trust that when that short time of Satan’s being set free comes, the angel of the Lord who seized Satan by the scruff of his neck, will do so again. By grace through faith, we are assured that Jesus has already given (Jn. 10:28) us eternal life and because of that we will never experience the second death. By grace through faith, we have come to understand that the one (Jn. 11:26) who believes in Jesus will never really die. (Jn. 10:28) No one can snatch us out of our Good Shepherd’s powerful hand.
Because of God’s powerful Word we are blessed and holy—we share in the first resurrection, what we often simply call conversion, or being brought to faith. Through Word and Sacrament God has made us alive. Through Word and Sacrament, God has set us apart to serve in his kingdom as royal priests. We are (Rom. 12:1) living sacrifices to the Lord. This is our true and proper worship.
This is the hope that lets us rest secure, even if we do happen to be up at 1am on Monday, August 2nd. We realize we do not know the day or the hour, but we do know who is coming back and what he has done for us. This is the most blessed kind of hope and life.
Rev 1:5-6 To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood, and has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve his God and Father—to him be glory and power for ever and ever! Amen.