johnmarkum

Why is Revelation so Confusing?

Posted on December 17, 2024December 20, 2024 by johnmarkum

I recently finished an End Times series at Life Valley Community Church, called The Last Amen, in which I walked us through the important points of Biblical prophecy yet to be fulfilled. But Revelation – the last book of the Bible – can be very intimidating to read, not to mention confusing.
Here are four reasons why this concluding book of Scripture can be difficult to understand:

Author’s Perspective. Revelation was written from the perspective of a first century writer to a first century audience. For example, Revelation 8;10-11 describes a “star” crashing into earth. It is clearly not a star as we understand the word, but it could mean an asteroid, meteorite, satellite, or an ICMB for all we know. We need to remember that Revelation was written for us, but it was not written to us.
Apocalyptic Symbolism. Revelation is the only book of the whole Bible written almost entirely in a literary genre known as apocalyptic literature. It is replete with symbolism and iconography that is both terrifying and bizarre at times. Various people, creatures, and beasts with seemingly alien descriptions are almost all intended figuratively and are part of this style of writing.
Chronology in Snapshots. Revelation is not a perfectly linear timeline of future events. Rather there are parts of the book which play out like a flashback scene in a movie. This is most evident with chapters 11-14 in the middle of the book, which many theologians refer to as a “Historical Interlude” as it retraces how we got to that specific point in the Tribulation. Additionally, many of the “scenes” of Revelation work as snapshots in time, as if different segments of John’s revelation which are connected, but not necessarily chronological.
Summation of Scripture. So much of Biblical prophecy comes to an apex in Revelation that it is difficult to know what is being cross-referenced and what is simply borrowing language. Matthew 24, 2 Thessalonians 2, Daniel 7 and 9, Psalm 2, Zechariah 4, Genesis 3, 1 Corinthians 15, and many other passages seem to be overlapping and intersecting with Revelation. Nothing interprets Scripture like Scripture. And yet we must be careful not to force interpretations that are not intended by the Holy Spirit.

Revelation is a deeply important piece of inspired Scripture, worth studying and obeying (Revelation 1:3). But like all of Scripture, we must be careful to read and interpret it as it is intended, not as we would make it. God bless you as you spend time in the Word!

Blessings,
Pastor John

Sermon Recap: The Last Amen, week 3

Posted on December 16, 2024December 16, 2024 by johnmarkum

In the final week of our End Times series, The Last Amen, I led our church through graphs and timelines of what to expect with the approaching end of the age. In this message we sought to understand and answer three common questions:

How do all of the events of the End Times fit together?
When is Jesus coming back for His church?
What happens after the Tribulation?

We considered the timing of our rescue from the judgment to come, the general timeline of the Tribulation, the Millennial Kingdom, the final judgment of Satan and all those who have rejected the grace of God, and the New Heaven and New Earth that awaits. 1 Corinthians 2:9 reminds us, “Eye has not seen and ear has not heard, and which have not entered the heart of man, all that God has prepared for those who love Him.”

As such, the BEST is yet to come! One day God will wipe away every tear from our eyes, and there will no longer be any pain, nor sickness, nor death (Revelation 21:4-5).

You can catch the entire service here, and this week’s 5-day Devotional based on the message. Below, are the two main graphs I made to summarize what the Bible teaches about the End Times. I also shared that I tend to believe in a Mid-Trib Rapture of the church, as this seems to make the most sense of Revelation 14:14-16, when contrasted to other teachings such as 1 Corinthians 15:51-52, and 2 Thessalonians 2:4.

Here is the graph I made, giving a broad overview of the 7-year Tribulation period, along with the key passages of Scripture that we can use to discern the layout of these events, and study each in more detail.

This is my graph showing a big picture of the events of the End Times, primarily focused on the culmination of Revelation.

Did Mary Ever Sin?

Posted on December 13, 2024December 13, 2024 by johnmarkum

I recently began addressing the doctrines of Catholicism that revolve around their belief that Mary was something more than Protestants Christians claim her to be. The four core dogmas of RCC Mariology include:

Perpetual Virginity. This is the notion that Mary remained a virgin after giving birth to Jesus, and was never sexually intimate with her husband Joseph, and gave him no children aside from Jesus (who was not biologically Joseph’s son).
Immaculate Conception. The idea behind this doctrine is that in order for Mary to have been the vessel for bringing God’s Son into the world, she too must have been sinless. Catholics will argue that Mary still needed Jesus as a Savior, but that she was saved from sinning, not saved from sin she committed like everyone else.
Mary as “The Mother of God”. This doctrine is based on the Greek title theotokos meaning “God Bearer” or “Mother of God”. Protestants generally reject this title, and I’ll discuss why in a later post.
The Assumption of Mary. This doctrine insists that Mary did not physically die like most people, but that she ascended into Heaven – or, God “assumed” her into Heaven – like Christ, Elijah, and Enoch are described as having experienced.

For today, let’s address Immaculate Conception…

First of all, it is worth mentioning that among a very small, select group of people in the Bible, Mary is not mentioned as having ever sinned. Noah got drunk, Abraham lied, David committed adultery and murder, Peter denied Christ, and on we could go. And yet, Mary is an exception to this norm.

The origin of this dogma begins in the 5th century, around the idea of Mary as the Christotokos or “Christ-bearer,” and culminates in the Council of Ephesus in 431 AD, where she was labeled the Theotokos, or “God-bearer,” which I’ll address in a later post. But some of the language around Mary’s innocence dates back earlier. Patristic fathers such as Irenaeus, used words such as “innocent” to describe Mary, in the mid-to-late 2nd century, And others such as Ambrose of Milan and Augustine more directly asserted that she was free from original sin.

While I hold high regard to the earliest church fathers, it is important to recognize that they were fallible also. Even the apostles were not free from mistakes! The perfect inspired words of Scripture they wrote in no way indicates that everything they thought or said was without error. We see this illustrated in Acts 15 at the Council of Jerusalem, where Peter, Paul, and James had robust debates about Gentiles coming to Christ!

Furthermore, we see from the letters of Paul that there were already a wide range of bizarre thoughts and heresies that were trying to seep into the early church. While Paul and the other apostles worked diligently to defend the Gospel against all perversions, their parting words foretold that heresy would continue to pry into the church (2 Timothy 4:1-4).

Catholics are quick to suggest that this means she never sinned. The problem is that she is not the only person in Scripture who is not directly charged with a recorded sin. Most of the apostles are not specifically recorded as sinning. Joseph, Mary’s husband, is not recorded as sinning. Timothy, Phoebe, Priscilla, Stephen, Phillip, and probably hundreds more are named, and yet never mentioned sinning. That’s because the Bible is an indictment on the sin of all humanity, not every individual human, with a log of their transgressions. And the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

One could just as easily say that the New Testament makes no mention of Mary being sinless, either! There is no veneration of Mary in the NT, no prayers offered to her, recognition of her outside the angel Gabriel who announced to her. So let’s look at what Gabriel says…

Luke 1:28, “And coming in, he said to her, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” Yes, you likely remember the verse saying “Hail Mary full of grace…” and that is how it is recited in the Catholic rosery. While the root word in the Greek is the root word for “grace” the original word is more often translated as “favored”. The semantics hardly matter, as both are an expression of God’s grace and favor over someone. The RCC will use this as one of very few verses about Mary’s spiritual character, however, to assert that she was sinless. But there’s a lot of problems with that interpretation.

The Greek word is used elsewhere in the NT. Ephesians 1:6-8, “to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace which He lavished on us. In all wisdom and insight…”

In these verses “freely bestowed” or “favored” is the same Greek word as “favored” or “full of grace” back in Luke. And it applies to all believers in Christ – who have definitely sinned. Furthermore, after the announcement of her pregnancy, Mary wrote a song that found its way into Luke – which I find beautiful. Luke 1:46-47, “My soul exalts the Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior.” In her outburst, Mary declares her own need for a Savior, and worships God for providing such a Savior for her!

Catholics have been careful to try to clarify that yes, Jesus is Mary’s Savior. But! Just as He saved us from our sin, He saved Mary from sinning at all. Thus, Jesus is still her Savior, but she also never sinned… It sounds nice, there is just no Biblical support for that! Romans 3:23 tells us plainly, “For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” Jesus is the only human who walked the earth which the Bible clearly identifies as having never sinned. Hebrews 4:15 tells us that Jesus experienced temptation like the rest of humanity, “Yet without sin”. Luke records about 6 times at Jesus trials and crucifixion that He was innocent, blameless, and had done nothing wrong. Such is never said about Mary.

Conclusion: The doctrine of Immaculate Conception arose from the logic that Mary had to be sinless in order to give birth to the sinless Son of God. She did not need to be sinless, she just needed to be a virgin. Romans 5 makes it clear that we inherit our sin nature – sometimes called “original sin” – from our first father, Adam (Genesis 3). And as such, Jesus came from our Heavenly Father, rather than an earthly father who would pass on Adam’s curse. Romans 5:12, “Therefore, just as through one man [Adam] sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned…” verse 19, “For as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One [Jesus] the many will be made righteous.”

Christ skipped over the fallen nature of man by coming from His Heavenly Father, yet born of an earthly mother. As such He was fully God Himself, and free from sin – and yet fully human, able to take on the punishment of sin on behalf of the rest of humanity.

Takeaways:

The Doctrine of Immaculate Conception is based in human reasoning, not Scripture.
When we take the Bible at face value without asserting our opinions into it, there is no room for Mary to be sinless.
Mary is certainly worthy of our acknowledgment, as she brought our Savior into the world.
She is blessed among women – not above women. (Luke 1:42).

Next post in this series on Mary, we will address the Theotokos, the title ascribed to Mary by Catholics and Eastern Orthodox alike, meaning “Mother of God.”