Class 6: The Apostle Paul and the Book of Revelation

The culmination of the New Testament envisions God’s design for creation to be a perfected world with all its people’s happily united in God’s reign of love despite all differences. This vision is advanced by two of Paul’s core theological insignts and Revelation’s vision of the coming unity of every tribe, people, language, nation, and family.

The Class

Justification by Faith

Galatians 3.26-29

²⁶ So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, ²⁷ for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. ²⁸ There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. ²⁹ If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.

1. Usually when we think of ourselves as better than someone else we have some achievement or affiliation that is the basis of comparison.  I’m smarter, more successful, drive a cooler car, live in a certain neighborhood, have notable relatives.  We can look down on people for religious reasons.
2. Justification by grace not only is a theological issue, but it is also a social issue.  When our standing with God is not secured by something we do or something we are, then we are no better than anyone else.  Christians who were Jews before their conversion, were observers of the Torah.  The God of Israel was the same God as the father of Jesus Christ.  Jewish Christians may have thought of themselves as messianic Jews.  The thought of themselves as miles ahead of converts who had worshipped idols or participated in strange mystery rituals.  Right away, the formerly Jewish new Christians realized that they were much more familiar with, and lived lifestyles compatible with the new life they were moving into.

The Body of Christ

I Corinthians 12

Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many. ¹⁵If the foot were to say, ‘Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body’, that would not make it any less a part of the body. ¹⁶And if the ear were to say, ‘Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body’, that would not make it any less a part of the body. ¹⁷If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be? ¹⁸But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. ¹⁹If all were a single member, where would the body be? ²⁰As it is, there are many members, yet one body. ²¹The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you’, nor again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you.’ ²²On the contrary, the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, ²³and those members of the body that we think less honourable we clothe with greater honour, and our less respectable members are treated with greater respect; ²⁴whereas our more respectable members do not need this. But God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honour to the inferior member, ²⁵that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another. ²⁶If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honoured, all rejoice together with it.

1. Principle: What God instructs for the internal character of both Israel and the Church is what God intends for the whole world.
2. Notice the egalitarian character of the fellowship of the church.
3. Notice also the follow-on about love (I Corinthians 13)

The Community of Differents: The Book of Revelation

1. The fourfold formula “tribe, language, people, nation, family” is the writer’s formula for the worldwide embrace of God’s redeeming intentions.  The fourfold formula (tribe, language, people, and nation) occurs throughout Revelation, playing an important role in the book. It occurs seven times (5: 9, 7: 9, 10: 11, 11: 9, 13: 7, 14: 6, 17: 15), and the sequence order of the four terms is different each time.
2. Rev. 5.9   They sing a new song: “You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slaughtered and by your blood you ransomed for God saints from every tribe and language and people and nation;
3. Rev 7.9   9 After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands.
4. Rev 11.9   Then they said to me, ‘You must prophesy again about many peoples and nations and languages and kings.’
5. Rev 13.7   7Also, it was allowed to make war on the saints and to conquer them. It was given authority over every tribe and people and language and nation,
6. Rev 14.6  6 Then I saw another angel flying in mid-heaven, with an eternal gospel to proclaim to those who live on the earth—to every nation and tribe and language and people.
7. Rev 17.15   15 And he said to me, ‘The waters that you saw, where the whore is seated, are peoples and multitudes and nations and languages. 

Conclusions

1. The biblical world was multi-ethnic, and Blacks were involved in God’s unfolding plan of redemption from the beginning.
2. All people are created in God’s image and therefore all races and ethnic groups have the same status and unique value that results from the image of God.
3. Genesis 10 and the Abrahamic promise combine to form a theme that runs throughout Scripture, constantly pointing to the global and multi-ethnic elements inherent in the overarching plan of God.
4. Racial intermarriage is sanctioned by Scripture.
5. The gospel demands that we carry compassion and the message of Christ across ethnic lines.
6. The New Testament envisions the Church to be a “community of differents” and demands active unity in the Church, a unity that explicitly joins differing ethnic groups together because of their common identity in Christ.
7. The picture of God’s people at the climax of history portrays a multi-ethnic congregation from every tribe, language, people, and nation, all gathered together in worship around God’s throne.