IN SPIRIT our Lord Jesus Christ has revealed
Himself to us, and is present with us. We have already
experienced His apocalypse and His parousia. But we
eagerly look forward to the day when He will be actually unveiled before
our wondering eyes, when we shall enjoy His presence and be with Him
always. Like all great truths in God's Word, this has suffered from
human manipulation and our mental disabilities. Some insist that we have
no part in His apocalypse, that it is reserved for Israel alone.
The only possible conclusion is that He will not reveal Himself
to us at all. That can never be! So also they insist that His parousia
does not concern us, for it is not in Paul's prison epistles. According
to this we will never enjoy His presence! May it never come to
that!
Only those who do not wish or expect Christ to reveal Himself
to them, or to be present with Him, have a right to claim that
they will not have part in His apocalypse, or a place in His parousia.
These terms are filled with meaning, and descriptive of a marvelous act
and fact which no saint would intelligently thrust from him. It is only
because the precious contents have been emptied out of them, and the
Greek shell has been forcibly confined, in theological debate, to a
single event, that saints have actually gone to such extremes as to
claim that there is no apocalypse for "body-members,"
and no parousia for those in the present administration of God's
grace. Are they willing to face the future without a revelation of Him,
and apart from His presence? If not, then they must await an apocalypse
and welcome a parousia.
That Christ will reveal Himself to others, to Israel and the earth,
is beyond question. But that does not hinder Him from unveiling Himself
to us at a different time. And if, in each case, there is the act of
revealing, why should not the same name apply? The
"apocalypse" is not a proper noun in the Scriptures, limited
to one time and place. It is not even confined to Christ. God's sons
(Rom.8:19), and God's righteous judgment (Rom.2:5) will also have an
apocalypse. Paul has already had an apocalypse of the Lord (2 Cor.12:1).
And so those who have their allotment with Him among the celestials will
also have an apocalypse of Christ before He unveils Himself to Israel
and to the world.
In order to aid in ridding our minds of this false notion that there
is only one "apocalypse" of Christ, that to Israel and the
earth, with which we cannot be associated, let us broaden our minds by
considering the word in all its contexts as it appears in the
Scriptures.
apokalupsis, FROM-COVERING,
revelation, unveiling
| Luke |
2:32 |
A Light for the revelation
of nations (to lighten) |
| Rom. |
2: 5 |
revelation of the just
judgment of God |
|
8:19 |
the unveiling of the
sons of God (manifestation) |
|
16:25 |
the revelation of a
secret hushed in times eonian |
| 1 Cor. |
1: 7 |
awaiting the unveiling
of our Lord Jesus Christ (coming) |
|
14: 6 |
speaking either in revelation |
|
26 |
each of you...has a revelation |
| 2 Cor. |
12: 1 |
apparitions and revelations
of the Lord |
|
: 7 |
transcendence of the revelations |
| Gal. |
1:12 |
through a revelation
of Jesus Christ |
|
2: 2 |
I went up in accord with a revelation |
| Eph. |
1:17 |
giving you a spirit of wisdom
and revelation |
|
3: 3 |
the secret is made known to
me by revelation |
| 2 Thess. |
1: 7 |
ease with us, at the unveiling
of the Lord Jesus (when...shall be revealed) |
| 1 Peter |
1: 7 |
at the unveiling of
Jesus Christ (appearing) |
|
:13 |
in the unveiling of
Jesus Christ (revelation) |
|
4:13 |
exulting in the unveiling
of His glory (when... shall be revealed) |
| Rev. |
1: 1 |
the unveiling of
Jesus Christ (revelation) |
It may help to have the renderings of the Authorized Version, so we
have added these in parenthesis where they differ. It will be seen that
we have always rendered it revelation, except when referring to
persons. The revelation of a person, in English, is vague, and suggests
that this person reveals rather than is revealed. Hence unveiling
is necessary in such cases.
The great variety of renderings in the Authorized Version -- lighten,
manifestation, coming, appearing, as well as revelation--has
helped to confuse our thoughts, especially in regard to the unveiling of
persons. It is important to remember that this word is a negative, an uncovering.
A cover was or is over everything which was or is uncovered or revealed.
Such words as coming and appearing fail to suggest this
fully. In this point unveiling is better than revelation.
When we deal with revelations other than that of our Lord's
unveiling, we find ourselves handling them much more sensibly. Should we
ask, When was God's truth revealed? No one would fix on one event and
ignore all the other occasions. There had been many an apocalypse
of truth before Paul's day, and he had several of them himself. He
received his evangel through one apocalypse (Gal.1:12), the
secret of the evangel through another apocalypse (Rom.16:25),
this secret administration in another apocalypse (Eph.3:3), as a
matter of fact the word apocalypse, instead of having no place in
the grace which is ours in Christ Jesus, is used oftener in connection
with this secret administration than with all the rest combined, simply
because this secret was covered as no other was, and needed to be
uncovered more than the rest.
Nowhere is there any ground for the position that the apocalypse
of Christ is confined to His coming or advent to Israel. Even with
reference to His return to earth, the spirit of God uses this term of a
whole scroll, which includes much more than His actual descent to earth.
He is revealed in the previous judgments as well as in His personal
presence. And there is a sense in which His revelation is not complete
until He has finished His mediatorial work at the consummation.
Two phases of our Lord's unveiling especially concern us: when He is
revealed to us (1 Cor.1:7), and when He deals out vengeance through
messengers and is revealed and glorified in us to the world. They are
entirely different in their setting and occur at distinct times. We are
awaiting the one, and we look for rest at the other. The background in
Thessalonians is the suffering and affliction which they (and we) have
from the world. In contrast to this we look for the tables to be turned,
when the world will be afflicted and we are at ease. Our trials in the
world arise from the fact that He is unknown to them. The trials will be
over when He is unveiled to the world. Do we long for rest? Then we
simply cannot help having an earnest desire for the time of His
apocalypse to the world, even though it is not for us.
In giving thanks for the grace given to the Corinthian saints, Paul
ends up with "awaiting the unveiling of our Lord Jesus Christ"
(1 Cor.1:7). The knowledge and the gifts, which they had, possibly
exceeded those of any other ecclesia at the time but they could never
attain their consummation until the time when Christ will be revealed to
them. This introductory thought is fully developed in the latter part of
the epistle, and is further enlarged by revealing the secret of the
resurrection. This is to be at the last trump, in an instant, when
Christ Himself trumpets and calls the dead to life. The seventh trumpet
which ushers in the kingdom is blown by a messenger, and leads to sore
judgments, and a resurrection does not take place till some months
later. The apocalypse Paul speaks of is to the Corinthians, not to the
world, although both will occur in the great crisis in the world's
history between this eon and the next, and His revelation in all of its
phases is welcome to our hearts.
To escape the supposed teaching of this verse, that the Corinthians
would remain on earth until Christ comes to Israel, it has been
suggested that the word awaiting should be differently rendered,
so as to give the idea of away from the unveiling, for the
elements of the word are FROM-OUT-RECEIVING. But it is
always unwise to conform a translation to an interpretation. That is the
reverse of the concordant method. It leads to diversity in rendering,
while an examination of all of the contexts leads to uniformity and
agreement. Nor is it well to stress the elements of a word of this
character. For instance, FROM-RECEIVED apodechomai
means welcome. The FROM apo does not convey the
thought of away from. Why then should it in FROM-OUT-RECEIVE?
The only safe and dependable course is to examine all of the
occurrences:
apekdechomai, FROM-OUT-RECEIVE,
await
| Rom. |
8:19 |
creation is awaiting
the unveiling of the sons of God (waiteth for) |
|
:23 |
awaiting the sonship,
the deliverance of our body (waiting for) |
|
:25 |
what we are not observing we
are awaiting (wait for) |
| 1 Cor. |
1: 7 |
awaiting the unveiling
of our Lord Jesus Christ (waiting for) |
| Gal. |
5: 6 |
we are awaiting, in
spirit, the expectation (wait for) |
| Phil. |
3:20 |
heavens, out of which we are awaiting
a Saviour (look for) |
| Heb. |
9:28 |
will be seen a second time,
by those awaiting Him (that look for) |
| 1 Peter |
3:20 |
when the patience of God awaited
in the days of Noah (another reading) |
This word presents a problem in translation. The word OUT-
RECEIVE ekdechomai clearly denotes wait (AV wait
1 Peter 3:20, wait for John 5:3, Acts 17:16, James 5:7, tarry
for 1 Cor.11:33, look for 1 Cor.16:11, Heb.11:10, expecting
Heb.10:13). How does the prefix FROM affect it? The word FROM-
RECEIVE (apodechomai) means welcome. So we seem to
have a combination here of waiting for what is welcome,
according to the elements. This is borne out by the contexts. For this
there seems to be no definite English word available. But there is the
special form await, which tends to take on this meaning. The most
practical solution seems to be the use of this term in these contexts
exclusively, for there are enough passages to fix its exact force.
Let our attitude, then, be that of welcome waiting for the apocalypse
of our Lord Jesus Christ, when He will be revealed to us in fact as He
is now in faith. And let us also exult in His apocalypse to
Israel and the earth, when He will be glorified in us, and we,
being like Him, shall have a share in revealing Him. Indeed, all that we
long for and all that this world needs is all involved in His unveiling.
When the cover is lifted from the hidden Christ, there will flow forth
blessing for us and for all, and the knowledge of God will spread
throughout the universe until He becomes All in everyone. Since He will
be revealed to all, then all, at some time and place, must enjoy His
apocalypse.
