Day 103 - Revelation & Second Coming

I had an interesting discussion with a friend about the book of Revelation. He believed, as most people do, that most of what's in it still hasn't happened yet. I believe that most of it happened a long time ago. I have many reasons for that, but the main ones are: 1) The first chapter of the book says it's about things that will "soon take place", 2) I believe that it was useful and meaningful to the people it was originally written to, and 3) If you look deeper into the metaphors (and don't take the obviously symbolic language in a wooden literal way), it describes exactly the situation being faced by the people the book was written to.

I'd say that same thing about the prophesies in the book of Daniel.. that most of those also were fulfilled during the first century (by the way, long after they were written, even if you don't believe the traditional dating & authorship of the book!!). But the biggest problem I've had with all that is the return of Jesus. It supposedly hasn't happened yet, but it's supposed to fit right in with all those prophecies that seem to have been fulfilled.

I know full preterism (i.e., basically the belief that everything in the Bible was fulfilled already, including Jesus' return) is considered a heresy, but as I was talking to my friend something occurred to me. The incarnation wasn't the first time he came. John wrote that it was the "word" ("memra" in Aramaic, "davar" in Hebrew, and "logos" in greek) that became flesh, the same "word" who was there in the beginning, and who made many 'appearances' throughout the Old Testament. He just wasn't always in human form, and wasn't called "Jesus". He was usually called "malach Yahweh" (literally "Yahweh messenger", usually translated somewhat misleadingly as "the Angel of the LORD"). And sometimes he was called "dabar-Yahweh" ("Yahweh word", usually translated as "the word of the LORD").

What if, when Jesus said he would return, was speaking as malach Yahweh/davar-Yahweh, his eternal identity before (& presumably after) the incarnation? Maybe the church shouldn't have expected him to return in human form, and maybe he did return, in a similar way as in the Old Testament, toward the middle or end of the first century.

Jews were criticized for not recognizing Jesus as davar-Yahweh during his 'first' coming. But perhaps Christians didn't recognize davar-Yahweh as Jesus during his second coming.

Just something to think about.

posted by Matt @ 11:59 PM