Revelation

Luther's opinion regarding the canonicity and value of the "disputed books" (a category including Revelation) in the biblical canon is well known. But his personal opinion on the canonicity of these books has no bearing on his conviction that the canonical Scriptures are to be accepted as God's Word and are normative for all that is to be taught and practiced in the church. Luther expressed various opinions regarding the canonicity of certain books of the New Testament, including Revelation, and this is of historical interest.

But his commitment to the infallibility of the divine revelation given in the Scriptures remained unwavering. Luther himself was well aware of the history of the development of the biblical canon, including the historic distinction between what were called the "antilegomena" (books "spoken against") and the "homologoumena" (books unanimously attested as apostolic) Significantly, Luther's opinions regarding James and Revelation, for example, did not prevent him from revering these books and teaching from them as God's Word; in fact the Scripture lesson read in Lutheran churches in Luther's time on the Feast of the Reformation was from Revelation.

I know lots of Lutherans are curious about Revelation, but I can't possibly explain the whole book in this blog. I can say that if you want serious exegesis you need to turn to Dr. Louis Brighton's CPH Commentary on Revelation (it is the best work ever done on the subject). Following is an excerpt that gets to the main point of the book - eternal life (note: eternal life is the key to the book - not crazy interpretations that lead to poor understanding .... ie. dispensationalism).

Eternal Life in the New Heaven and Earth

While faith defines the first mode of eternal life and while heaven points to the second mode of the same eternal life, the third is illustrated by the description of the new heaven and earth. This third mode or stage of eternal life begins with the resurrection of our bodies at the End, and it will last forever in the new heaven and earth. While the term heaven sometimes is used in a general way in reference to this third mode (e.g., Matt. 5:12; 6:20; Luke 10:20; Eph. 2:4-10; 1 Pet. 1:3-5), it does so by conjoining our souls before God in heaven, the second mode, and of our bodies and souls after the resurrection, the third mode. Nevertheless, there is an important distinction between the second and third modes. For the ultimate goal and consummation of Christ's redemptive activity is not the second mode, but the third. Our souls before God in heaven while our bodies sleep in their graves is but a transient and temporary experience of God's gift of eternal life in Christ. The lasting, and forever, experience of eternal life is to live in our souls and resurrected bodies with God in the new heaven and earth. What do the holy Scriptures have to say about this mode of eternal life?

That the bodies of Christians in their graves will be raised is a factual truth of the Holy Scriptures. They will be raised for eternal life. Already in the Old Testament the resurrection of bodies from the grave is attested. For example, in Daniel 12:2 it is said that those who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake, some to everlasting life and others to everlasting shame. And in Ezekiel 37 in the vision of the valley of dry bones we have a graphic illustration of such a bodily resurrection. While this vision points first to the restoration of Israel after the Babylonian exile, it also serves as an extended metaphor of an actual resurrection of bodies (see vv. 11-14). In Isaiah 26:19 the prophet declares that the dead will live again and their bodies will rise from the dust (cf. Ps. 104:29-30). But it is especially in the New Testament that the resurrection is fully declared and defined. The Lord Christ in John 5:28-29 tells how He will call all bodies from their graves. His authority and power to do so were demonstrated in the raising of Lazarus and others, which authority and power He had earned by His own death and resurrection (cf. Matt. 27:52-53). In 1 Corinthians 15:35-58 Paul carefully defines and describes the resurrection of our bodies, bodies that had been mortal and dead but now immortal and living forever.20 And in Revelation 20:13 we are pointedly told how in the resurrection the sea will give up its dead, and death and grave will give up their dead.

What will it be like to live forever in our resurrected bodies, and where will we live? The Scriptures witness to the fact that we will live on a new earth and heaven. Already Isaiah the prophet speaks of this, for God Himself said to the prophet that He will create a new heaven and a new earth, and because of this new creation the former things will never again be remembered (65: 17).21 And in Isaiah 66:22 it is said that this new heaven and earth which God will make will last forever.22 Peter in his second epistle echoes this truth when he says that at the coming () of the Lord the present heavens will be destroyed, and there will be a new heaven and earth (3:10-13). And in Revelation 21:1 John says that he saw a new heaven and earth, for the first heaven and earth had passed away.

Do the Holy Scriptures tell us what the new heaven and earth will be like and what kind of life God's people will have and experience in the new heaven and earth? The apostle John in Revelation 21 gives no physical description of the new heaven and earth. He does, however, give a beautiful picture of life with God in holiness and righteousness, which life and relationship will be lived and experienced eternally on the new earth. In so doing John describes the bride of Christ, God's people in Christ, as the holy city Jerusalem coming down from heaven to the new earth (21:2, 9-10). The city is a perfect cube, patterned after the holy of holies of Solomon's temple (21:15-16; cf. 1 Kings 6:20). This suggests that the people of God will be the holy of holies of the new earth among whom God will dwell as He did with Adam and Eve before their fall into sin.23 God in His holy presence will dwell in the midst of His people on the new earth. And because of His presence there never again will be any pain or tears or suffering or death (21:3-4).

While John in Revelation does not write about the new heaven and earth in geophysical terms, he does indirectly suggest in Revelation 22:1-5, with reference to the tree of life, that it will be like the original earth in its pristine form, that is, like the Garden of Eden. It will be Eden restored.24 Hints of such a renewal of the earth so as to be again like Eden are given in Isaiah, though Eden by name is not mentioned. Because of the righteous action of the Branch of Jesse natural life of the earth will be again like that of Eden (11:1-9), and when speaking of the new heaven and earth, the prophet again speaks of natural and animal life being like that which was true of Eden (65:17-25).

But in particular it is Paul who addresses what the new heaven and earth may be like in natural, physical terms. In Romans 8 he describes how all creation () apart from the human race is eagerly awaiting the revelation of God's people at the End (v. 19).25 Because of man's sin, all creation was put under the judgment of God (cf. Gen. 3:17-18) and has ever since been subject to decay, atrophy, destruction, and death. But God subjected His creation to such frustration, futility (), because of man's sin, on the basis of hope (v. 20). For creation itself will be set free from this slavery of decay and ruin into the freedom of the glory of the children of God (v. 21). Meanwhile, all creation groans and suffers as it awaits its final liberation at the End when God's saints receive the redemption of their bodies, that is, the resurrection (vv. 21-22). In 1 Corinthians 15 Paul, by way of analogy, makes a comparison between the Christians' resurrected bodies and "the subhuman bodies of earthly animate life and the heavenly inanimate bodies" (vv. 39-41).26 "With poetic boldness and with a penetrating prophetic insight Paul sees the whole splendid theatre of the universe together with all subhuman life within it as eagerly awaiting the time when the sons of God will be made manifest in their true glory.27 As God's saints in Christ, at and through the resurrection, will be restored to their original created perfection, so also will the entirety of God's created cosmos be restored from its ashes to its pristine created condition. For this reason Peter declares how we Christians look forward to when God will destroy the present heaven and earth and then according to His promise bring about a new heaven and earth (2 Pet. 3:11-13; cf. Is. 65:17; 66:22).28

Whatever physical form the new heaven and earth will have, whether exactly like the original creation as related in Genesis, or one that will be similar, it will be a real earthly home for God's people to live in forever with Him in righteousness and perfection.29 It will be the Garden of Eden all over again in which God's saints in Christ will live forever in the third mode of eternal life. The same eternal life that Adam and Eve would have lived if they had not sinned and lost that gift of life with God. This eternal life with God has now been restored in Christ, by faith now, in heaven before God's heavenly throne at death, and at the resurrection and forever in the new heaven and earth.

Conclusion

The end result of the incarnation "suggests that, as a result of Christ's redemptive activity and his own bodily resurrection, those in Christ in the resurrection will be restored to God's original design for humanity's bodily state, and so also will the present earth be restored to its original, divinely intended state as a home for God's resurrected people.30 If the Biblical doctrine of the incarnation is taken seriously, that is, that God's eternal Son became a real human being so as to restore human earthly life to its original human bodily estate, then we must also believe that the earthly home of real bodily human beings will be restored to its original pristine condition. For God's saints in the third mode of eternal life will live forever in that perfect state that Adam and Eve would have lived if they had not fallen into sin. And thus will be completed what God set out to do through and because of the incarnation of His Son.