Rapture;
Evil; Throne of Justice
There are many people who go through life and face many different kinds
of problems and adversity. Sometimes they are faced again and again with
personal injustices. Beyond that, as we watch the evening news we are
acquainted with vast amounts of injustice, suffering, war, famine and disease
throughout the world. Often people question and wonder how God can allow these
things to take place. Is there no justice in God? It appears that the unjust
and the unrighteous seem to go on and one without any justice, without any
retribution. Where is God? This view is often reflected by the psalmist who
says, “O Lord, how long will the righteous suffer and the wicked prosper?”
Revelation gives us God’s final answer on that question.
Revelation 4:1 NASB “After these things I looked, and behold,
a door {standing} open in heaven, and the first voice which I had heard, like
{the sound} of a trumpet speaking with me, said, ‘Come up here, and I will show
you what must take place after these things.’” This introduces us to the next
section of the book which extends from chapter four through the end of the book
of Revelation. Here we see the beginning of God’s revelation to John of the
final judgments in human history, and that these final judgments are written on
a scroll which is sealed with seven seals. And it can only be opened by one who
is uniquely qualified. The opening of the scroll brings with it the final
series of judgments on human history and on planet earth, judgments which will
end up destroying the usurp of Satan and establishing Jesus Christ as the
rightful ruler and King on planet earth.
In chapters four and five we see the presentation of that scroll.
Chapter four presents us the scene in heaven. It is important for us to
understand as we come to the end of human history, and as God reveals it to us,
He doesn’t start with human events. He doesn’t start with what is happening
within human history, he starts with God. He starts with this vision of God
upon His throne in heaven. It is a picture of the supreme judge of all the
earth sitting upon His judicial throne about enact His justice on human history
and planet earth. Chapter four pictures that throne and what is going on around
the throne, and it is a picture designed to focus our attention upon the
majesty, the holiness and the righteousness of God as the ultimate judge of all
the earth. Chapter five then focuses on this scroll that appears. It is not
mentioned until 5:1 and then the question comes as to who is qualified to open
it, who is qualified to break the seals. That focuses our attention on the Lord
Jesus Christ, for only the Lamb of God who has purchased us, who has paid the
redemption price, is qualified be the judge, to bring that judgment into human
history, to bring final judgment on the human race and to establish His
kingdom. So in chapter four we see the presentation of the throne of God and in
chapter five the presentation of the one who is qualified to open the scroll.
In 4:1 we see that John is brought into heaven through some form of
vision or prophetic transformation. He is brought into the very throne room of
God, into the heaven of heavens. There he sees and describes for us what is
going on in the heavenly during the end times. This period that we are coming
into is a period that is first described back in Revelation
Some time subsequent to the Rapture there will be a period on the earth
known as the Tribulation. It begins with the signing of a peace treaty between
the Antichrist (the prince who is to come in Daniel 9) and the nation
In Revelation 4:1 the door open in heaven is often understood to be the
symbol of what happens at the Rapture. The church is taken to heaven as John is
taken to heaven. He hears the voice like a trumpet and the shout that occurs at
the Rapture: ‘Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after
these things.’ Then in verse 2 he says: “Immediately I was in the Spirit…”
Because of the construction here the normal use of EN [e)n] plus the dative
in the Greek, which usually means “by means of the Spirit,” doesn’t mean that.
Because it is conjoined with the to be verb it is the idea of location and it
is the same phrase used in chapter one when he talks about being in the Spirit
on the isle of
There are numerous people who have problems with the whole idea of evil.
They stumble over this, and sometimes we stumble over it as Christians because
we go through situations where somebody betrays us, or we are abused, or we
lose a job, or we lose a loved one, or we go through a war and we lose a limb.
We are aware of all the suffering in history and we wonder how in the world can
a loving, just God allow all of this horror, evil, and suffering to take place.
Many people become entrapped by this particular question. So we have to be able
to address this particular question, not only in our own soul but also in terms
of other people, especially unbelievers, who may address this. Often the
question is asked: How can a loving God allow war, child abuse, the death of
innocents, famine, the holocaust, Joseph Stalin’s mass murder of millions?
Whenever we ask this question we have to stop and think through the character
of God, and that is what Revelation does; it starts with God’s character. This
is what is emphasized when we look at Him upon His throne in chapter four. Our
attention starts with the character of God, who He is, before we look at what
He is going to do.
The underlying question as we will hear it is, if God is truly a loving
God and absolute good, how can He allow evil? Sometimes the question is put: If
the Christian God is omnipotent, just and loving, and evil exists, either God
is loving but is neither just nor powerful enough to stop it, or He is powerful
enough to stop it but He is not loving or just.
We are often challenged with, how can you explain evil in the world?
There are only three possible answers to the existence of evil in the world.
The first answer is that evil is random, normal, and is uncontrolled and
there is no God. This is the position that comes out of evolutionary thought,
secular humanism, postmodernism; all these systems buy into some form of
Darwinism, there’s really no God out there is atheism, we just have these
events and suffering on earth and it is all just random and out of control. So
we respond to the challenge: So you believe in Darwinism, in the survival of
the fittest? Well how do you get survival? There has to be the threat of death,
extinction and suffering to get survival, you have to survive something. So
from the very beginning you have evil, suffering and death as part of your
system! Right? In Darwinism you can’t call it evil because without it there is
no evolution. They can’t call suffering and death evil because without
suffering and death there is no survival of the fittest, without the survival
of the fittest there is no progression, without progression there is no
evolution. So for them, suffering and death and struggle is necessary and
normal for the process. They can’t call it evil within their system.
The second position is that evil really doesn’t exist. Not too many
people hold this position today, but there are people down through history who have.
That was part of Platonism, part of Mary Baker Eddy’s position in Christian
Science—ultimate reality is out here in the realm of the ideal and what we
experience on earth is not really real. That played it out in Gnosticism in the
ancient world, in elements of the New Age movement, mind science cults, and
various derivatives of that.
The Christian position is that evil exists but it is not normal, not
random, and not uncontrolled; that there is a higher good, that God is allowing
evil to exist for a long period of time in order to accomplish His ends. From
this we see that evil either originated from God or His creatures. Scripture
teaches that it originated with His creatures. He created the angels first and
then man, He gave them free will or volition, and Lucifer is the one who chose
to disobey God, bringing sin and evil into the angelic realm, and then in
humanity it was Adam’s decision to
disobey God, brining sin into the human race. So evil came into creation,
according to Christianity, through the abuse of freedom and responsibility.
Therefore it is not normal, it is abnormal.
The unintended consequence of that disobedience brought about all of
this evil and suffering. Satan really wanted to do good, he just wanted to be
like God; but it brought all kinds of calamity. Adam wanted to be like God, so
he ate that fruit. So all of the death and suffering and disease is the
unintended consequence of that disobedience.
God allows evil and suffering to go on as long as He allows His
creatures to exercise free will and to choose sin. In other words, to stop sin
and evil God has to stop free will, to stop human responsibility and shut it
all down. So as long as God continues to give His creatures the freedom to be
disobedient there will be evil and injustice and suffering in human history.
However, what the Bible teaches is that they don’t get away Scott free. We may
not see the justice, the retribution, in time but it will be judged. It began
with the cross when Jesus Christ paid the penalty for sin, known as redemption.
1 Peter 1:18 NASB “knowing that you were not redeemed with
perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited
from your forefathers,
The second issue is the resolution of God’s character because to be a
just God, God has to have the penalty paid. This happened on the cross, 1 John
2:2 where the word “propitiation” relates to the satisfaction of divine
justice. So on the one hand in the manward direction Christ paid the penalty
for sin, and in the Godward direction the justice of God is satisfied by the
payment of the Lamb. Romans