Dec 30, 2016
MALACHI 4:
As
people like Simeon and Anna (Luke 2) waited for the Messiah to
come, I am sure that they were thinking of verses like Malachi
3:1:
“Look! I am sending my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. Then the Lord you are seeking will suddenly come to his Temple. The messenger of the covenant, whom you look for so eagerly, is surely coming,” says the LORD of Heaven’s Armies.
Re-reading ISAIAH 66:
Isaiah ends with blessings and promises
that foreshadow Revelation, such as these:
12
GNT The Lord says, “I will bring you lasting prosperity; the wealth
of the nations will flow to you like a river that never goes dry.
…
22 “Just as the new
earth and the new heavens will endure by my power, so your
descendants and your name will endure.
In stark contrast to the promises and blessings, Isaiah also ends with vivid warnings against judgments and punishments that are like those in Revelation. Jesus himself quoted that final verse about the worms and the unquenchable fire. (Mark 9:48) You can take that as Jesus’ stamp of approval on all that Isaiah said!
REVELATION 22:
In
chapter 21 we heard the invitation to receive free life-giving
water for anyone who is thirsty, and that invitation is repeated in
today’s chapter. The culmination of everything promised and the
healing of everything sick and broken occur here. God says, “Look,
I am making all things new.” There is again symbolism in every
aspect of the New Jerusalem— including even the shape of a huge
cube. As noted above at the end of Isaiah, in stark contrast to the
eternal blessings for God’s people are the vivid ending warnings of
eternal judgment in the last two chapters of Revelation.
In Rev. 22:8-9, most translations make it sound that John made the same mistake twice— bowing down again to the angel that was showing everything to him. But the Greek in those verse in chapter 22 can be understood to be retelling that event that happened in chapter 19, and I think that makes better sense. The probable reason that John included the story twice was to emphasize that angels should not be worshipped. Let’s beware of such heresy! Because such false teaching keeps on resurfacing and some forms of Gnosticism remain to the present day.
Congratulations on finishing the Digging Deeper Daily reading plan!
Translation
notes:
8 I, John, have
heard and seen all these things. And when I finished hearing and
seeing them, (as I told you before) I fell down at the feet of the
angel who had shown me these things, and I was about to worship
him.
14-15 [It makes
better sense to me to include verses 14-15 in Jesus’ quote, which
means I did not read those verse the way I would if they were
John’s narration.]