Rapture; Evil; Throne of Justice
There are many people who go
through life and face many different kinds of problems and adversity. Sometimes
they are faced again and again with personal injustices. Beyond
that, as we watch the evening news we are acquainted with vast amounts of
injustice, suffering, war, famine and disease throughout the world.
Often people question and wonder how God can allow these things to take place. Is
there no justice in God? It appears that the unjust and the unrighteous seem to
go on and one without any justice, without any retribution. Where is God? This
view is often reflected by the psalmist who says, “O Lord, how long will the
righteous suffer and the wicked prosper?” Revelation gives us God’s final
answer on that question.
Revelation 4:1 NASB
“After these things I looked, and behold, a door {standing} open in heaven, and
the first voice which I had heard, like {the sound} of a trumpet speaking with
me, said, ‘Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after these
things.’” This introduces us to the next section of the book which extends from
chapter four through the end of the book of Revelation. Here we see the
beginning of God’s revelation to John of the final judgments in human history,
and that these final judgments are written on a scroll which is sealed with
seven seals. And it can only be opened by one who is uniquely qualified. The opening
of the scroll brings with it the final series of judgments on human history and
on planet earth, judgments which will end up destroying the
usurp of Satan and establishing Jesus Christ as the rightful ruler and
King on planet earth.
In chapters four and five we
see the presentation of that scroll. Chapter four presents us the scene in
heaven. It is important for us to understand as we come to the end of human
history, and as God reveals it to us, He doesn’t start with human events. He
doesn’t start with what is happening within human history, he starts with God.
He starts with this vision of God upon His throne in heaven. It is a picture of
the supreme judge of all the earth sitting upon His
judicial throne about enact His justice on human history and planet earth. Chapter
four pictures that throne and what is going on around the throne,
and it is a picture designed to focus our attention upon the majesty, the
holiness and the righteousness of God as the ultimate judge of all the earth.
Chapter five then focuses on this scroll that appears. It is not mentioned
until 5:1 and then the question comes as to who is qualified to open it, who is qualified to break the seals. That focuses our
attention on the Lord Jesus Christ, for only the Lamb of God who has purchased
us, who has paid the redemption price, is qualified be the judge, to bring that
judgment into human history, to bring final judgment on the human race and to
establish His kingdom. So in chapter four we see the presentation of the throne
of God and in chapter five the presentation of the one who is qualified to open
the scroll.
In 4:1 we see that John is
brought into heaven through some form of vision or prophetic transformation. He
is brought into the very throne room of God, into the heaven of heavens. There
he sees and describes for us what is going on in the heavenly during the end
times. This period that we are coming into is a period that is first described
back in Revelation
Some time subsequent to the
Rapture there will be a period on the earth known as the Tribulation. It begins
with the signing of a peace treaty between the Antichrist (the prince who is to
come in Daniel 9) and the nation
In Revelation 4:1 the door
open in heaven is often understood to be the symbol of what happens at the
Rapture. The church is taken to heaven as John is taken to heaven. He hears the
voice like a trumpet and the shout that occurs at the Rapture: ‘Come up here,
and I will show you what must take place after these things.’ Then in verse 2
he says: “Immediately I was in the Spirit…” Because of the construction here
the normal use of EN [e)n] plus
the dative in the Greek, which usually means “by means of the Spirit,” doesn’t
man that. Because it is conjoined with the to be verb it
is the idea of location and it is the same phrase used in chapter one when he
talks about being in the Spirit on the isle of
There are numerous people who
have problems with the whole idea of evil. They stumble over this, and
sometimes we stumble over it as Christians because we go through situations
where somebody betrays us, or we are abused, or we lose a job, or we lose a
loved one, or we go through a war and we lose a limb. We are aware of all the
suffering in history and we wonder how in the world can
a loving, just God allow all of this horror, evil, and suffering to take place.
Many people become entrapped by this particular question. So we have to be able
to address this particular question, not only in our own soul but also in terms
of other people, especially unbelievers, who may address this. Often the
question is asked: How can a loving God allow war, child abuse, the death of
innocents, famine, the holocaust, Joseph Stalin’s mass murder of millions? Whenever
we ask this question we have to stop and think through the character of God,
and that is what Revelation does; it starts with God’s character. This is what
is emphasized when we look at Him upon His throne in chapter four. Our
attention starts with the character of God, who he is, before we look at what
he is going to do.
The underlying question as we
will hear it is, if God is truly a loving God and absolute good, how can He
allow evil? Sometimes the question is put: If the Christian God is omnipotent,
just and loving, and evil exists, either God is loving
but is neither just nor powerful enough to stop it, or He is powerful enough to
stop it but He is not loving or just.
We are often challenge with, how can you explain evil in the world? There
are only three possible answers to the existence of evil in the world.
The first answer is that evil
is random, normal, and is uncontrolled and there is no God. This is the
position that comes out of evolutionary thought, secular humanism,
postmodernism; all these systems buy into some form of Darwinism, there’s really
no God out there is atheism, we just have these events and suffering on earth
and it is all just random and our of control. So we respond to the challenge: So
you believe in Darwinism, in the survival of the fittest? Well how do you get
survival? There has to be the threat of death, extinction and suffering to get
survival, you have to survive something. So from the very beginning you have evil,
suffering and death as part of your system! Right? In
Darwinism you can’t call it evil because without it there is no evolution. They
can’t call suffering and death evil because without suffering and death there
is no survival of the fittest, without the survival of the fittest there is no progression,
without progression there is no evolution. So for them, suffering and death and
struggle is necessary and normal for the process. They can’t call it evil
within their system.
The second position is that
evil really doesn’t exist. Not too many people hold this position today, but
there are people down through history who have. That
was part of Platonism, part of Mary Baker Eddy’s
position in Christian Science—ultimate reality is out here in the realm of the
ideal and what we experience on earth is not really real. That played it out in
Gnosticism in the ancient world, in elements of the New Age movement, mind science
cults, and various derivatives of that.
The Christian position is
that evil exists but it is not normal, not random, and not uncontrolled; that
there is a higher good, that God is allowing evil to exist for a long period of
time in order to accomplish His ends. From this we see that evil either
originated from God or His creatures. Scripture teaches that it originated with
His creatures. He created the angels first and then man, He gave them free will
or volition, and Lucifer is the one who chose to disobey God, bringing sin and
evil into the angelic realm, and then in humanity it was Adam’s decision to disobey God, brining sin into the human
race. So evil came into creation, according to Christianity,
through the abuse of freedom and responsibility. Therefore it is not
normal, it is abnormal.
The unintended consequence of
that disobedience brought about all of this evil and suffering. Satan really
wanted to do good, he just wanted to be like God; but
it brought all kinds of calamity. Adam wanted to be like God, so he ate that
fruit. So all of the death and suffering and disease is
the unintended consequence of that disobedience.
God allows evil and suffering
to go on as long as He allows His creatures to exercise free will and to choose
sin. In other words, to stop sin and evil God has to stop free will, to stop
human responsibility and shut it all down. So as long as God continues to give His
creatures the freedom to be disobedient there will be evil and injustice and suffering
in human history. However, what the Bible teaches is that they don’t get away
Scott free. We may not see the justice, the retribution, in time but it will be
judged. It began with the cross when Jesus Christ paid the penalty for sin,
known as redemption. 1 Peter 1:18 NASB “knowing that you were not
redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of
life inherited from your forefathers,
The second issue is the
resolution of God’s character because to be a just God, God has to have the penalty
paid. This happened on the cross, 1 John 2:2 where the word “propitiation”
relates to the satisfaction of divine justice. So on
the one hand in the manward direction Christ paid the penalty for sin, and in
the Godward direction the justice of God is satisfied
by the payment of the Lamb. Romans