Fr. Stephen De Young: Okay, we’ll go ahead and get started. When we get started here in just a moment, we’re picking up at the beginning of the Revelation of St. John, chapter 14. Last time, we did, I believe, half of chapter 13. I think we’ll make more progress than that tonight, but I’m not going to say how much more; I’m just going to say: more. And there was a lot there, so I don’t want to spend too much of tonight recapping last time.

Q1: You promised you would tell us the name of the beast.

Fr. Stephen: Yeah, we identified the beast last time. By the time anyone’s hearing this, that recording will be available.

What we saw was an extension. We saw at the beginning of chapter 12 was the beginning of a new cycle. We talked about how St. John’s Apocalypse is organized around this series of cycles, that he goes through, and then they start over, but it’s kind of a spiral, because each cycle he sort of will introduce ideas and then in the next cycle he’ll come back to those ideas and elaborate them a little more, and then a little more, and then a little more, sort of as the book progresses. At the beginning of chapter 12, we saw an account of the birth of Christ. We saw the dragon who was identified as being the devil, the serpent, make war against Christ, and then, once Christ ascended into heaven, against his followers, against the Church.

And then in chapter 13, we saw these two beasts, the one beast that came out of the sea and then the beast that came out of the earth, who were sort of earthly manifestations, images, manifestations of the dragon. So the beast from the sea was the image of the dragon. We talked about all the things connecting it in the vision to the succession of world empires in Daniel’s vision of the beasts. This was sort of the super-beast, which represented not one particular empire but sort of all of them, all rolled together, and that this was Rome at the time St. John was writing, and that this has been other entities in the world since then, but that this imperial power is doing the work of the dragon, of the devil, on earth.

Then we saw the beast from the earth. We talked about the connection between the beast from the earth, the beast from the sea, in other earlier literature that St. John was drawing on. But the beast from the earth, we talked about how that meant from the underworld, that that beast represented sort of the false religious system that worked hand-in-hand with the imperial power.

And then we ended, as we mentioned, with St. John making it clear to people who understood what’s called gematria, where letters had sort of numerical values, one incarnation of whom he was talking about, that he was talking about this antichrist figure who is sort of the embodiment of these beasts; and how, in the second half of the first century especially, but even after that in the Roman Empire, the Emperor Nero was the embodiment. That isn’t to say that, oh, the Emperor Nero was the antichrist, so now all this antichrist stuff is over, because, as St. John who wrote this said in 1 John, “You have heard an antichrist will come; already antichrists (plural) are.” So there have been many individuals throughout history who have sort of embodied this will and desire of the devil on earth. Nero is just one example contemporary to the first century.

So that’s where we’re picking up now, here in chapter 14. Unless there are any leftover questions or comments or distinctions about international socialism that we need to make, we’ll go ahead and pick up in the Revelation of St. John, chapter 14, verse one.

“Then I looked, and behold: a Lamb standing on Mount Zion, and with him 144,000, having his Father’s name written on their foreheads.” This is imagery we’ve already seen in the book of Revelation, both pieces of it. We’ve seen Christ represented as the Lamb, remember, on the throne, who opened the seals earlier on in the book; and we saw when these 144,000 were sealed on their foreheads with God’s name.

We talked about, but just to make sure we remember: we saw the mark of the beast was put on people’s hands and their foreheads. St. John brings the 144,000 back here just to make it clear that that mark of the beast is paralleled with this seal, with this other mark from God. As we’ve said a couple times before, if the mark of the beast is a bar code tattooed on your forehead, then that means there also has to be some kind of holy QR code that the faithful Christians are going to get. If you’re going to say the mark of the beast is a vaccine, then there has to be some kind of holy vaccine that the righteous are going to get. Whatever you want to say the mark of the beast is, there has to be a parallel mark, which should encourage us all not to take it in that kind of literal, material sense, and understand it in the spiritual sense that St. John is using it.

Verse two: “And I heard a voice from heaven, like the voice of many waters and like the voice of loud thunder, and I heard the sound of harpists playing their harps.” Both of these images we’ve also heard before. Where did we hear them before? We heard them before, again, around the throne of God in heaven, where the Lamb was. The Lamb has, in this vision, “relocated” from the throne of God in heaven to standing on the Mount of Olives outside Jerusalem, and he’s got the 144,000 with him, and now sort of his court, the things that were going on around him in heaven, the worship and things that were going on around him in heaven, has come with him. So he hasn’t left it, but it’s all come with him to this point on the earth.

Verse three: “They sang, as it were, a new song before the throne, before the four living creatures and the elders. No one could learn that song except the 144,000 who were redeemed from the earth.” Notice who else is there. The elders are all there, the four living creatures—the cherubim whom we talked about, the four living creatures are there. So this is everybody who was up in heaven; they’re wherever Christ is. This is important. This is an important little theological piece that gets neglected, because— St. John Chrysostom basically summarizes this. He says, “Wherever Christ is, there are the angels, there are the saints, there is— Heaven is wherever Christ is, and so everything that’s within heaven is wherever Christ is.” But when St. John says that, he’s talking about, for example, when we gather in worship, in the liturgy, or even when we gather with our family to pray in our homes.

Now why is this an important theological thing? Well, we will a lot of times be asked by our friends, especially our Protestant friends: How is it that a saint who is in heaven can hear people praying to them all over the world in different languages? There’s a bunch of problems with the question, because already you have heaven as this place where they are, like up, and it’s running on a parallel timeline. I don’t know what timezone it would be, but it is “some time” in heaven; time passes. And these disembodied folks have ears and are hearing in that way.

So there’s lots of problems with the question, but beyond pointing to problems with the question, this bypasses this idea that we see here, this idea that St. John was talking about, that if we’re gathered in worship, we are gathered with the saints. We enter in worship, into the worship already in progress, that’s going on in in heaven. We just jump right in. So there’s not like a distance between us and them. It is really on this level no more complicated to ask the Theotokos or another saint to pray for us than it is to ask one of you to pray for me, because we’re all there together, is the idea. It’s not that the saints now have magical powers. It’s not that the saints are now omni-present. It’s that they’re where Christ is. So it’s about Christ; it’s not about them. It’s not about them getting super-powers. It’s not about them becoming gods, though that’s true in a sense, with a small-g. It’s about who Christ is as God, the fact that they’re with him, and we come to be with him in worship.

And so they sing this new song, meaning different [from] the one he heard before. What was the one he heard before? “Holy, holy, holy.” He heard the one that Isaiah heard, that Ezekiel heard, from the Old Testament, but this now is a new song that is particularly worship for… Notice it says nobody can learn it; it doesn’t say no humans can learn it. Nobody can learn it; the angels can’t learn it. This is a song of redeemed human beings, because human beings who have lived through this life on earth and found salvation have had a different experience than angels have had, or any other creature has had, so this is a particular song of worship for us in heaven.

Verse four:

These are the ones who were not defiled with women, for they were virgins. These are the ones who follow the Lamb wherever he goes. These were redeemed from among men, being firstfruits to God and to the Lamb. And in their mouth was found no deceit, for they are without fault before the throne of God.

A lot of folks get into this and decide to take this very literally. So they say, “Aha!” Notice it says, “Not defiled with women,” so they say, “Ah, look: they’re all men.” [Laughter] They say, “Oh, look, they’re all celibate.” And so try to connect that to salvation. The problem is, if you continue through this, that becomes trickier and trickier, because, for example, “in their mouth was found no deceit,” so these are also people who never told a lie in their entire life, if we want to take it that literally.

And then the question becomes: Why does it say they were redeemed? Redeemed from what? And so we have to read this together, all in one piece. And we have to keep in mind what we read about the 144,000 earlier, which was what? That when they were redeemed, they were washed and given new, clean, white robes. That means they weren’t always wearing clean, white robes that they never tarnished. Yes, sir?

Q2: Didn’t you also say that 144,000 wasn’t a specific number?

Fr. Stephen: Right.

Q2: Okay, it was a big group of people.

Fr. Stephen: Right. It’s twelve times twelve, because you’ve got the twelve, remember the twelve tribes, even though they switched around some of the twelve tribes, when we talked about it. Twelve times twelve, and then times a thousand, which—“thousand” is just a big number. It’s the way we use “gazillion.” So the idea is it’s a huge— It’s not a literal number of people.

Now, this redemption language is important because redemption—even in English, still. If you redeem a coupon, it has to do with a transaction, like a monetary transaction. Redemption is not ever like a judicial or juridical metaphor. Redemption is about buying back, buying something back. This is something we need to reiterate again and again. I’ve talked plenty about atonement right here. I wrote a dissertation about it. So it is prominent, but in Western Christianity, the idea of atonement is the most prominent thing when we’re talking about Christ and when we’re talking about salvation, but that’s not true biblically. Biblically, whether we’re talking about the Old Testament or the New Testament, Passover is the primary experience in the Old Testament and feast that is held up and connected to Christ and salvation, not the Day of Atonement. There is Day of Atonement language—Hebrews, as we saw, went through that in Hebrews; St. Matthew’s gospel uses it a lot; 1 John even uses that atonement language—but far more common, even calling Christ the Lamb—there’s no lamb on the Day of Atonement; it’s two goats—there’s a Passover lamb. Passover, Pascha, is by far the predominant— Christ dies at Passover, literally. So that’s by far the most common metaphor.

And what is Passover about originally? It’s about manumission; it’s about freedom from slavery: some people who were enslaved being set free. That’s the primary metaphor: being bought back. And slavery to what? To sin and, through sin, to the beast, and, through the beast, to the devil, because in Exodus, Pharaoh is the representative. He’s the embodiment of the Egyptian state and its worship, who’s worshiped as a god. He was it.

So this is what’s going on with the redemption here. They now stand before the throne of God faultless, without fault, without sin or blemish, because they’ve been redeemed—because they’ve been redeemed. There was a time before they were redeemed when they were enslaved, but we saw that redemption, and now this redemption is being referred to.

So chastity, the idea of now being chaste and pure, sexually, is an effect of salvation, not a cause, because then it wouldn’t be redemption. It’s an effect, not a cause. Having a mouth where there is found no deceit is an effect of salvation, not a cause. So when St. John depicts this, he’s not doing this to condemn people, to say, “Look, this isn’t you. This is what saints look like, as opposed to you.” Because, remember, what is the purpose of the whole thing he’s writing, that we’ve seen over and over again? He’s talking to Christians who are being persecuted, and he’s talking to them about the big picture, looking at this from the perspective of heaven, looking at this from the perspective of God, as they’re going through suffering and hardship. So he’s not telling those people, “You’re not going to make it into the 144,000.” It’s quite the opposite. He’s saying, “This is a picture of where you end up, if you stay faithful through this life, through this suffering. All these words I’m using to describe them may not describe you at this moment, but they can and they will. They can and they will if you remain faithful and follow Christ.”

Because, remember, the one characteristic he lists here: “These are the ones who follow the Lamb wherever he goes.” And what is that “wherever he goes”? Well, Christ went to the cross. Christ went to suffering, he went to shame, he went to death. And so the people who, when hardship comes, when suffering comes, when death comes—the people St. John is writing to, the ones who stay faithful are the ones who are following Christ no matter where he goes. It’s easy to follow Christ. As we saw in the gospels, it was really easy for everybody to follow Christ when he was a charismatic preacher and he was healing people and casting out demons and everything was great. And then all of a sudden everybody kind of starts dispersing during that last week. Everybody was psyched up for Psalm Sunday and then even the disciples all sort of drift off and vanish. So that’s the “wherever he goes.”

Verse six: “Then I saw another angel flying in the midst of heaven.” That’s a great phrase, “in the midst of heaven.” Where is the middle of heaven? [Laughter]

I saw another angel, flying in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting Gospel to preach to those who dwell on the earth, to every nation, tribe, tongue, and people, saying with a loud voice: Fear God and give glory to him, for the hour of his judgment has come, and worship him who made heaven and earth, the sea and springs of water.

Let’s notice something. We’re told he proclaims the Gospel; he proclaims the Gospel to everyone. Does he says, “Here’s what you need to do to get saved”? Kind of, but not really. [Laughter]

Q1: Well, you could read it that way.

Fr. Stephen: [Laughter] Right? But what does he say? He says, “The hour of judgment has come.” So this sounds more like St. John the Baptist, St. John the Forerunner, preaching the Gospel, than the way we hear the Gospel most of the time in the present day. One of my favorite— The way they have it in our gospel book, which is based in the RSV, is St. John says, “ ‘You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?’ With these and other similar words, he preached to them the Gospel.” [Laughter] It’s like: Wow! He’s really trying to win people over… [Laughter]

I mean, this is more in that vein. The hour of judgment has come. The hour of judgment has come: what does that mean? What does the hour of judgment mean? We’ve talked before, but it’s always worth reiterating. Justice is when everything is in the correct order in the creation, everything is functioning properly, everything is correctly related, everything is in harmony, everything is good. Injustice is when that is broken, when that order is broken somewhere. So a judge is a being who comes and then restores justice, and that restoration of justice is called judgment, putting things back in order, correcting what went wrong, reestablishing peace and harmony.

This angel proclaims that the hour of judgment has come. We talk about the final judgment or the last judgment, which is when God finally and forever puts everything in order. So this angel is proclaiming: that hour is here. That hour is here, so what do you need to do? You need to get yourself in order, because if you don’t, you’re going to be put back in order, and that might not be a good experience for you.

So we’ve talked about how in the Old Testament especially we see all these people praying that God would judge the earth, and we’re like: Are you crazy? [Laughter] Like, why would you want that? Are you sinless? Are you deluding yourself? That’s not what it’s about, because, again, it’s not about rendering a criminal verdict about sin; it’s about putting things back in order. So if you’re an oppressed person, if you’re one of the souls of the martyrs that we saw, crying out, “How long, O Lord, until you put this right?”—if you’re one of those people, then judgment is a hope for you. You’re praying for that to happen, because, as Christ says, the last will be first and the first will be last. So if you’re the last, you’re rooting for that! The problem is if you’re one of the first, who’s going to end up being the last. The problem is if you’re one of the people who’s been the oppressor rather than the oppressed, who’s been the victimizer rather than the victim, the person who— like in the rich man and Lazarus: if you’re more like the rich man and less like Lazarus, then you’re the one in trouble. And so for you, judgment coming is this fearsome prospect, that you have to be afraid of.

A lot of what’s going on with St. John, since I brought it up, is St. John is talking to a group of people who considered themselves to be the oppressed, who considered themselves to be the innocent victims of the Romans, and therefore would have been those people: “God, when are you going to come and vindicate us? When are you going to come and overthrow the Romans and make the Gentiles our slaves?” [Laughter] And St. John is going: “You know, when that judgment comes, you guys might not be doing quite as well as you think… You may not be who you think you are in this equation”—especially to the Pharisees and to the religious leaders.

We’ve talked about the religious leaders before were up to, but for example, the high priestly family among the Sadducees owned 70% of the land that wasn’t owned by Romans in Judea. And they didn’t come by it honestly. They did it by jacking up the Temple taxes, and then when people couldn’t pay those Temple taxes, they confiscated their land and forced them to work what used to be their land to return a profit to the Sadducees.

But they’re the priests, right? They’re the good guys. They’re the righteous, the holy people, right? They’re the ones whom God’s going to vindicate. St. John’s saying, “No. Nooo. You’re the wrong guy in this picture.”

And so this is why Christ says if we judge ourselves we will not be judged—actually, that’s St. Paul who says that. If we judge ourselves, we won’t be judged. If we set ourselves in order, if we get ourselves right, then we don’t have to worry about the judgment. And this is what our whole process of confession comes from. That’s the idea of repentance and confession in the Orthodox Church. It’s not that I have a magic power to forgive your sins, and if you don’t come talk to me, they won’t be forgiven; your crimes will follow after you. I literally— The first thing I say in the absolution prayers is: “I have no power on earth to forgive sins, but God alone!”

It’s that we come and, the way we do it, you’re speaking to Christ’s icon; you’re speaking to Christ. And you’re judging yourself. You’re saying, “Here’s where things are out of order in my life. Here’s where things are broken. Here’s where things aren’t where they should be. I need help to get them right.” And I’m standing there, number one as a witness to the fact that you’re forgiven for those things, but also to try to offer any helpful advice I can to try to help you work on getting those things in order and getting them fixed and being able to move on. It’s not a criminal court up there either; it’s the same kind of thing, that’s trying to get ourselves straight, so that when the time comes and we’re going to stand before Christ—either he returns or we leave this life—that we don’t have to be afraid. We don’t have to be afraid; we don’t have to be one of those who’s in fear.

The Gospel, as here, is in a certain sense a warning, as when St. John proclaimed it. It’s a warning. God gives warnings out of love. He doesn’t want to see anyone perish. He doesn’t want anyone to have to fear the day when he puts everything right in heaven and on earth. But that requires our cooperation. And so that’s what this call is: You need to fear God, you need to worship him, because the hour is here; there’s no more time. No more saying, “Tomorrow, I’ll get this straightened out. Tomorrow I’ll call this person and apologize. Tomorrow, I’ll— Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow.” “There’s not going to be any more tomorrows,” the angel’s saying, “so whatever you need to do, you need to do it now.”

But don’t count on this angel showing up on your last day on earth and reminding you. Every day God gives us is the day for us to do this. It’s why, again, from St. Paul: This is the day of salvation—not tomorrow, not next week, not once I’m older. And then we don’t have to be afraid of anything. Do you have anything?

Q1: You answered my question.

Fr. Stephen: Oh, okay.

Q1: We need to understand the angel in the same way, like Christ, like this isn’t just…

Fr. Stephen: Yeah, that’s why he calls it the everlasting Gospel. This is the word that’s always true. It’s true today, it’s true tomorrow, it’s true that this is the day of salvation. Now is the day to “get right.” [Laughter]

And the reference to creation there is related to that, too, because when God created everything it was in perfect harmony, perfect order, perfect beauty. He looks at it, he said it was good. We made it not-good. We messed it up. But now it’s going to be set right again.