Views of the Revelation - Part 1

Views of the Revelation - Part 1 - By Tom Roe

There is an axiom, "What we don't know is so much bigger than what we do know." This is very true of everything in the universe, and for Christians it is especially true about the Bible. John tells us in Revelation, that anyone who reads or hears the words of Revelation will be blessed by it. I am no expert, but I have been studying it for as long as I've known about God, that was sometime in 1974 I think. I was ten. I am blessed by it, even now, after all the times I've read it. Some people just consider it strange or confusing. That's not God's intended purpose. I believe that God is trying to help you to understand some things about His creation with Revelation. Some things that are so important he went over it several times in the same book. You must understand that at one point Revelation goes all the way back to when Lucifer got on God's bad side, and it also revisits some events several times.

There is a lot of imagery in Revelation, and it is big important stuff. Just reading it is cool, but what if you could see it? The imagination is a great place to consider things because there are no limits, but some folks gave up their imagination when they got their first job, or when they entered high school so they might have trouble comprehending some of these images. If that's the case, I would like to take a shot in this series at explaining some of the things I see when I read Revelation in the hope that it will help someone else to better appreciate it. God help me with this so I don't mess up.

I saw Star Wars III recently, (Who hasn't?), and I loved the shots of Corescant, with it massive buildings. This is fiction of course, but I thought it would be neat to illustrate something from the Bible that is just as cool, and even more so because I believe the Bible is true, and therefore know that this is not fiction, it is something I will actually get to see. With that in mind, here goes...

John was on the Island of Patmos near Turkey, and he had visions, a Revelation, about God's creation, past, present, and future. Near the end of the book of Revelation, in chapter 21 verse 10 and 11 John writes, "And he [the angel] carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me the great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, having the glory of God. Her light was like a most precious stone, like a jasper stone, clear as crystal."

In an effort to comprehend the size of this Holy City, I've begun modeling it to scale in Lightwave 3D version 8.3. Most people can't really appreciate this just by reading it, myself included, so I thought this would be a good way to finally and completely get it through my thick skull, exactly what God was revealing to John that day.

Brace yourself.

This city is so freaking huge, (you have to use the word freaking when something is this big <grin>), that standing on the tallest mountain, Everest, wouldn't even give you a good view of it unless it was waaay out in space. So I'm assuming it was. So there's John standing on Mt. Everest with this angel and what does he see. Well, he sees the curvature of the Earth for one thing, because the only way to see this massive city is to stand a thousand miles away and that will cause the Earth's edge to somewhat block your view. Also, he sees very little of a wall, unless the angel takes him on a tour and gets him real close to the city so he can examine the particulars of the design, which, of course, the Bible says he did.

The reason he couldn't see the walls from the initial wide view is that they are very small in the grand scheme of things. Imagine that you are looking through one of the massive 12 gates toward the inside of the city. The angel measures the thickness of the walls and you see that they are a mere 80 meters thick, that's 262 feet to us Americans. Nearly the length of a football field.

You may think that's one seriously thick wall, but you ain't seen nuthin yet. (Warning for english teachers or grammar gurus: I will occasionally modify the english language somewhat for dramatic effect or written inflection. Please don't get anal about this, it is just my writing style.) I ignored that number for my illustration because you wouldn't be able to see a wall only 80 meters thick inset into a city that was 1380 miles across, deep, and wide. It would be so small it wouldn't be visible. So, just to balance things out a bit, I made the wall a bit bigger, ok, a thousand times bigger.

Please ignore my use of artistic license there and realize that the fact that I'm telling you about this tweak, implies that I'm not adding aaaanything whatsoever to the book of Revelation. Why am I saying this? Well that's a story for another article. For a preview of why I wouldn't want to add anything to Revelation see chapter 22.

Most of the time when you see this city depicted, it is a giant cube, like something the Borg would build if they assimilated God's kingdom into their collective. They didn't, and won't, because first of all He is God, and second of all, They are fiction <grin>.

This illustration shows a more city-like city. Not exactly what I want, but for a reasonable amount of design time, it will do.

Let me know what you think at tom@tomroe.com and if you want to use this illustration or article in a sermon, go ahead, just give me credit. If you want to use a higher resolution version of this image in print or in a project you will sale, get permission and rights first. I have to make a living too.