Category Archives: The Universe

Those of you who read my last entry will realize that we have reached the end of the New Testament. For better or worse, this project is just about finished.  I started reading and reviewing the New Testament in April 7th of this year (2010) and I will put a capstone on this project this coming Tuesday, December 28th, 2010. Just in time to ring in the new year!

I am going to take a break from now through the end of Christmas weekend. I think I’ve earned a break after 8 months of this. [grin]

Until then, Happy Holidays! Enjoy this time of the year. I truly believe it is the most wonderful time of the year. No matter how much that song is overplayed.

Speaking of songs, here’s one for you to use to help enjoy the holiday.

New installments of The New Testament In Review will be posted each Tuesday and Thursday. The new posts will always be on my blog, http://biffster.org. The entire series is accessible via http://biffster.org/ntir. If you are one of my Facebook friends, you can get an advance preview on my Facebook page. You can also follow me (@biffster) on Twitter to be alerted to new posts.

We have arrived at the end of the universe, at the end of all things, and the creation of the new Heaven. At the end of Chapter 19, Christ led heaven to a final, climactic battle with the armies of evil. The White Rider trampled all enemies, and banished both the Beast and the Anti-Christ to the lake of fire.

One might wonder what is there left to do? Evil is vanquished. Doesn’t that mean that good has won, and the story is now over?

About the only complaint I had about the Lord of the Rings movies regarded The Return of the King. The last, oh, half-hour or so was a series of endings. The battles had been fought, Sauron had been defeated, Mordor was no more. But there was scene after scene with someone saying goodbye, or someone heading off across the sea, or of someone claiming their power. All of which could’ve been edited down to a 5-minute montage.

The end of Revelation is pretty much exactly like that. Only without Orlando Bloom.

Chapter 20

An angel from heaven comes down to earth and captures Satan. He throws the serpent into the bottomless pit, then seals and locks the pit. The dragon must stay in that pit for a thousand years, giving him no power over the nations. However, at the end of the thousand years, he will be set free.

After the serpent is captured, John sees thrones set up. Those who sat on the thrones were given authority to judge the living and the dead. However, that is neither here nor there since it isn’t mentioned again.

John then saw the souls of those martyred in the name of Christ. These had continued to worship Christ in the face of mortal peril, they rejected the beast and did not receive the mark. These souls were resurrected and were able to rule with Christ for the thousand years that Satan was imprisoned. This is the First Resurrection.

After the thousand years, Satan was released from prison. He set out and gathered another army of nations to make war against the armies of God. This time, Satan took the assembled armies to the “beloved” city. That was a bad move: God rained down fire on the army, burning them all to a crisp. Satan was once again captured, but this time was thrown into the lake of fire to join the beast and the false prophet. The three will be tortured there forever.

Finally, with his enemies defeated and the earth and heaven destroyed, God took his throne. Death, Hades and the sea had to surrender the dead they held. Everyone who had ever died were raised and brought before the throne. Books were opened for each person, and that person was judged according to their works. Anyone worthy had their name recorded in The Book of Life. Once the judgement was done, those whose name wasn’t in the Book of Life were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death, the eternal death.

Chapter 21

John saw a new, Utopian earth and heaven. God lived among man. There was no more death, no more grief or crying or pain. Nothing unclean would be allowed in, no one who’d do destestable things or would tell lies. There’s only the righteous and God.

Here’s where being a non-believer changes one’s perceptions. For a Christian, the new Heaven and Earth are their ultimate goal. They want to be in the new Holy City living with God/Christ forever. On the other hand, I can’t help but think this would be boring. I could live with not dying, of course. But I wouldn’t want to spend eternity with people who all act and think the same way, worshiping a god who just destroyed all of humanity along with the universe.

If there’s no suffering, who is going to write the great works of literature? If there’s no pain, who is going to create new musical masterpieces? How can there be joy, if there’s never any sorrow? Who can enjoy light if there isn’t dark to differentiate?

Nope, this vision of the afterlife is not palatable to me at all.

But I digress…

Chapter 22

The book closes with John coming back to his present. Both the angel and Jesus say that Christ will be returning “soon.” The angel warns John not to seal up this prophecy, because the time is near for the Lord to return. “Let the one who does what is evil continue to do evil, and let the filthy person continue to be filthy, and the righteous person continue to do what is right, and the holy person continue to be holy.”

John wraps up the book – and the New Testament – by inviting Jesus to return. “Amen! Come, Lord Jesus!”

Amen!

Up next: Time for goodbyes

New installments of The New Testament In Review will be posted each Tuesday and Thursday. The new posts will always be on my blog, http://biffster.org. The entire series is accessible via http://biffster.org/ntir. If you are one of my Facebook friends, you can get an advance preview on my Facebook page. You can also follow me (@biffster) on Twitter to be alerted to new posts.

Related articles

• All good things must come to an end… NTiR (biffster.org)
• The anti-Christ and the Beast – Revelations 12-15 (NTiR) (biffster.org)
• Angels can be bad-asses! – Revelations 9-11 (NTiR) (biffster.org)

It is getting harder to keep track of what is happening in Revelation. Everything seems to happen again and again. Angels unleashing major carnage on the earth. The sun and moon first turning black as cloth, then red as blood, then green as cheese. Or something like that.

All I know for certain is that God is letting an eternity’s worth of wrath loose upon the earth, and mankind is getting screwed. Take the trials of Lot, add the plagues of Egypt, and throw the Angel of Death into the mix. What do you have?

God’s love.

Chapter 16

It is time for the angels to pour god’s wrath onto the earth. These sound a lot like what happened when the seven seals were open, and definitely sounds like the signs that were shown in The Seventh Sign. So I am just a little confused. Not that this matters much, especially when there are seven bowls full of destruction to write about!

• The first angel poured his bowl onto the earth. A sore appeared on everyone who had the mark of the beast, or who worshipped the beast’s image.
• The second angel poured his bowl into the sea. The sea became like the blood of a dead body, and everything that lived in the sea died.
• The third angel poured his bowl into the rivers. Water in all of the rivers and springs turned to blood.
• The fourth angel poured his bowl onto the sun, which then burned people with its fierce heat. (Global warming?)
• The fifth angel poured his bowl onto the beast’s throne. The beast’s kingdom was plunged into darkness.
• The sixth angel poured his bowl on the Euphrates river, which then dried up completely.
• The seventh angel poured his bowl into the air. God roars “It has happened!” and then there’s a powerful earthquake.

Chapter 17

More imagery, but this time one of the angels of the bowls provides an instant translation. That was very nice of him! John sees the notorious prostitute Babylon sitting at the edge of many waters. The angel says this prostitute is the mother of all detestable things, and the waters she sits on are peoples, multitudes, nations and languages. When the time comes, the beast will leave the woman abandoned and naked.

John is then carried off into the wilderness, where he sees a woman. She is wearing the finest of clothing and jewelry, but holds a gold cup filled with detestable things. The woman is drunk on the blood of true believers. This woman represents the great city that rules over the kings of the earth.

The woman sits on top of a seven-headed, ten-horned beast. The heads are the seven mountains on which the city rests. The are also seven kings. In a sentence that could be ripped straight from Tolkein, “Five of them have fallen, one is living, and the other has not yet come.” The beast is actually the eighth king, and will be destroyed with the other seven.

The ten horns are also kings. These kings have not received their kingdoms yet. They have one purpose: to give their authority to the beast.

Chapter 18

There is one thing that is absolutely, positively, 100% obvious in the book of Revelation: the city Babylon is going to get fucked up when the world ends. Plagues of death, misery and famine will strike the city all in the same day. The city will burn to the ground. Merchants everywhere will cry and mourn, since the city’s destruction means the destruction of commerce throughout that region of the world. The city is destroyed, as is industry.

Chapter 19

We are at the beginning of the end. There is celebration in heaven at the fall of Babylon. Everyone in heaven sings their praises to God. And everyone rejoices because it is time for the wedding of the lamb and the church.

Heaven once again stands open, and at the gates is a white horse ridden by Faithful & True. The rider wears a robe that was dipped in blood. The robe has “King of Kings and Lord of Lords” written on it. The rider has a secret name written on himself, and his name is the Word of God. To quote from the Gospel of John, “In the beginning, the Word existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God.” That all kind of flows together nicely.

The white rider leads the armies of heaven. A sharp sword comes out of his mouth (we heard of the mouth and sword thing earlier) and he uses this to battle the beast and the armies of the earth. In the end, the beast was captured. The beast and its false prophet are thrown into the lake of fire; the rest of the beast’s followers die by the sword of the white rider.

Up next: One resurrection, two deaths and a thousand years

New installments of The New Testament In Review will be posted each Tuesday and Thursday. The new posts will always be on my blog, http://biffster.org. The entire series is accessible via http://biffster.org/ntir. If you are one of my Facebook friends, you can get an advance preview on my Facebook page. You can also follow me (@biffster) on Twitter to be alerted to new posts.

Related articles

• The anti-Christ and the Beast – Revelation 12-15 (NTiR) (biffster.org)
• Angels can be bad-asses! – Revelation 9-11 (NTiR) (biffster.org)
• What is Babylon? (weareisrael.wordpress.com)