St Mary's Church, Dymock

The Bible's last book (called 'Revelation') is a prophesy about the future that can be considered as God's response to evil and corruption. God is perfect caring love, there's no evil in him, but humanity that was originally made in the image of God has been infected by evil, as we learnt in Module 1. Having allowed evil to do all it can, therefore, God finally destroys it and re-creates a new and perfect heaven and earth. This Module explores that prophesy, which the book reveals in the form of a vision given to a man called 'John the Divine'.
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The book of Revelation was written in a style called 'apocryphal' that was popular at that time because the points it makes are 'hidden' in considerable symbolism and have to be interpreted by expert scholars to help us understand it.
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This book is important as it tells us of what will happen in the future, and it also justifies the whole of the Bible that's gone before because it includes hundreds of references back to passages in both the Old and New Testaments.
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As usual, this Module includes sample questions and answers to help us think it out for ourselves.

• 6/0: Introduction (This page)
• 6/1: A Warning for Today
• 6/2: God's Plan Summerized: 1
• 6/3: God's Plan Summerized: 2
• 6/4: God's Plan Detailed: 1
• 6/5: God's Plan Detailed: 2
• 6/6: God's Plan Completed
  
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The book begins with a warning from Jesus to current Christians to be on our guard against starting well, but allowing our response to Jesus' Gospel message to weaken, or worse, to fall back into our old ways.
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The warning takes the form of seven letters written to seven churches to point out their failings or to encourage them where that's due. The seven churches are interpreted as describing the type of responses we all make, and so the letters apply to us too.
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• God has given us free-will to respond to him, or not, and his love is so great that, where we sin and submit to evil, he gives us many warnings to change before he destroys evil people, and eventually evil itself.
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The vision changes - John describes events in heaven's Temple where God is seated on a grand throne holding a scroll with seven seals; but no-one is good enough to open it until the crucified and risen Jesus comes forward. The scroll contains details of God's plan - to destroy evil and re-create a new heaven and a new earth.
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Jesus breaks the seals one at a time and the result of each is described; although at this stage somewhat in general.

• As each of the first four seals is broken, a horseman appears, and deals with a particular aspect of humanity's evil and corruption.
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The vision continues, seven angels each with a trumpet, sound the start of the events that destroy evil, beginning with those parts of current creation that have been corrupted by the events of people, then the destruction of evil itself.
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• There's a pause whilst the vision is justified. It proves to come from Jesus himself, and if we don't change, we won't be able to claim we didn't know what will happen.
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Many of the events just described are now described again, only this time in more detail and with much symbolism. A woman is about to give birth but Satan waits to whisk the baby away - scholars disagree over who or what the woman symbolizes but it could well be the Christian church and its converts, as we saw in the letters where people start with good intentions but then drop away.
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A fight develops in heaven with Satan trying to take too much power for himself, so a battle ensues and Satan is defeated by the archangel Michael. Satan and his supporters (called demons) are thrown out of heaven only to reappear on earth where the evil they cause among humans is described in some detail.

• Three angels appear that give a final warning to humanity to change and then the destruction of evil begins.
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The way in which evil is destroyed is now described in some detail. It involves plagues sent by God, which are similar to those God used in Egypt to free the Hebrew slaves, and like the Egyptian plagues, God provides a way of marking those people who are to be saved.
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Satan is captured and locked in hell for a 1,000 years before he's released again to make final mischief before he's destroyed by God, along with death and hell itself.
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• Revelation says evil was destroyed by God's wrath - the nature of wrath is described to justify how a loving God can appear to be a cause of evil himself.
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In England, King Henry VIII fell out with the Pope over divorce and separated the church in England from Rome, creating himself 'Head of the church in England', and allowing his Archbishop, Thomas Cranmer, to introduce some of the Protestant reforms.
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After Henry (and a short reign by his Protestant son Edward VI), his daughter Mary I became queen, persecuting Protestants and reintroducing Roman Catholic practices, but she died after 5 years and was succeeded by her sister Elizabeth I who changed back to Protestant ways again. Following Elizabeth came James I, who had an authorised version of the Bible and Prayer Book produced in English. He was followed by Charles I, whose policies so upset the Scots, the Church, and Parliament that he was removed from the throne and beheaded as a 'traitor against the people'.

• The new creation is described that includes the 'River of (eternal) Life' that was denied to Adam and Eve after they were corrupted by the serpent (Satan).
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• As at the beginning of the vision the source and truth of the vision was emphasized, so it is again - it comes from Jesus himself.
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