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Apocalypse (4)¹ Apocalyptic Times

The word “apocalyptic” is often used rather loosely, when we speak about catastrophic or overwhelming events which might remind us of things described in the last book of the Bible. In fact, hardly anything which happens to us today has this apocalyptic signature – what (forcefully) disrupts our more or less placid life is hardly “apocalyptic”, even if nowadays we use the word for such events. When we look more precisely, we must acknowledge that only what happens when the heavens begin to make their presence felt can be called “apocalyptic”, that is: when our own human world and our world of earth is being shaken up by as yet unknown, “revealing” forces.

This is what the “Apocalypse to John” is about, when after an introduction and a first vision it describes a series of events triggered off by the opening of seven seals, by the sounding of seven trumpets and the pouring out of seven bowls of wrath. We have already looked at this apocalyptic process by focusing on the Writer, on the Book and on the so-called “Second Coming”. Let’s here look at what we can find out about the process itself.

An important moment in the course of the unfolding apocalypse has come when the 24 elders who sit on their thrones before God, at the beginning of the Third Throne Vision, when the 7th Trumpet has sounded, state that He “has begun to reign” (11:17). Now, the forces of adversary in earnest show themselves in battles of various kinds: the heavenly dragon and the beast rising out of the sea as well as the beast rising out of the land. Another such moment comes when, after the pouring out of the seven bowls and the sacking of Babylon, at the beginning of the Sixth Throne Vision, the voice of a great multitude resumes with another Hallelujah, crying that “The Lord our God the Almighty reigns” (19:6). Now the die is really cast, and the White Rider and his armies begin to mop up the forces of evil, who with Death and Hades eventually all end up in the “lake of fire that burns with sulphur” (19:20, 20:2, 10 and 14).

Decisive moments of the apocalyptic process happen when the Godhead takes steps to overcome the forces of evil, of adversary, which have taken over parts of the world. What goes before, through seals and early trumpets, is all in preparation of such final apocalyptic confrontations.

We can look at one of Rudolf Steiner’s “Anthroposophical Leading Thoughts”² for help, to understand more about the stages of overcoming cosmic adversaries. In the aphorism numbered 112 in this series, he states that the Divine Spiritual in cosmos manifests itself in the following stages:

1. By way of its innate, very own, Being;

2. By way of the Revelation of its Being;

3. By way of Activity, when the Being has drawn back from revealing;

4. By its manifestations itself, when the Divine is not anymore present in the “universe of manifestations”, but only in its forms.

September 10, 2011/0 Comments/by CCNA

Essays and Articles

For the Advancement of the World 1: Michael’s Call¹

Our title has been taken from what even in The Christian Community we call “The Creed”, although we don’t use this specific word to introduce contents in which we would “believe” in the old-fashioned sense, the word “credo” (“I believe”) lacking at the very beginning. What we find in this modern version of the Christian “Creed” outlines in nine sentences, as simple matters of fact, our human spiritual and physical setting in the world. After the crucial middle sentence which describes the Resurrection, there follows the description of Christ’s activity in the world, ongoing since His resurrection, as “the Lord of the heavenly forces upon earth”, now that He “lives as the fulfiller of the fatherly deeds of the ground of the world”. The following sentence says that, “for the advancement of the world”, in time He will unite “with those whom, through their bearing, He can wrest from the death of matter”. Here we find the background for this Michaelmas talk.

In these words the future connection of Christ with human beings is being described. Such human beings for whom Christ has become an inner reality will, according to the beginning of the last sentence of the Creed, by virtue of their own present connection with Christ be able to do their part in preparing this future connection. This will happen in the setting of the one church “to which all belong who are aware of the health-bringing power of the Christ”. It’s this church in which communities may feel united whose members ”feel the Christ within themselves”. This inner connection with Christ constituting communities will be an expression of His “health-bringing power”, and eventually will help to overcome the death within our material world. To this end, these human beings will be able to overcome “the sickness of sin” which defines their physical being; they will receive (we might even say “achieve”, as their own activity plays a part herein) the “continuance” of their human being as well as “the preservation of their life, destined for eternity”.

Between those sentences in the Creed, speaking of Christ’s future connection with human beings, as well as of the future connection of human beings with Christ, we find a sentence which puts to rest a millennium-old problem in the church. This is the question whether the Spirit proceeds from the Father only (as the Eastern Churches say) or from Father and Son both (with the “and of the Son”, the “filioque” of the Western Churches). The modern Creed here modifies its earlier use of “holy Spirit” when speaking of the birth of Jesus, and now speaks of the healing Spirit – the healing Spirit which is working through Christ.

This means that, when thinking about the “advancement of the world”, we must think of human beings “wrested from the death of matter” by the Christ who himself rose from the dead. It’s through Him, the Lord of the heavenly forces on earth, the “healing Spirit” can work. Human beings, aware of the health-bringing power of Christ, united in one church, will also be able to hope for and work towards the renewal of their whole being.

During the last festival of the Christian year, the festival of Michael, what is expressed in these central statements of the Creed comes together. Now Michael, the Archangel, calls on us to become ever more conscious of this life bringing, life sustaining deed of Christ: that more and more we make it of our life – divining it in a higher way. Responding to his call, we human beings turn to him with our heart, in order that the healing Spirit may work in us.

September 9, 2011/0 Comments/by CCNA

Essays and Articles

Apocalypse (5) Human Evolution in the Apocalypse of John¹

“We shall now survey the Apocalypse in an endeavor to see what it has to say concerning mankind’s Christian progress” (writes Rudolf Frieling). “This continually changes the scene of its realization between earth and heaven. Christianity – on the one side embodied on earth, on the other existing in heaven – increasingly develops into an important factor working in the eschatological drama. At the end, upper and lower world penetrate each other. A ‘new earth’, made new by what has come from above, joins a ‘new heaven’, which itself has been rejuvenated by what happened through Christ on earth. Out of this merging of the two there comes the New Jerusalem, which is both ‘heaven’ and ‘earth’. The Christ-Mystery, unifying heaven and earth, has become powerful within a Christendom now ripe for it. John’s Apocalypse shows in the sequence of its visions this process of ripening.” (p 90-91) Frieling adds that “from that survey we shall return once more to reincarnation” – the subject of the book of which “Human Evolution in the Apocalypse of John” is the last chapter.

Here, giving a short impression of this chapter, I will also [in square brackets] refer to the “Structure” of the Revelation to John” by Christoph Rau, which has been added to the second contribution in this series. This overview, far from able to recreate the depth and profound scholarship of Rudolf Frieling in his essay, is here made in the hope that you will, somehow, later, acquire his original text.

The image of the throne in the last of the Seven Letters (3:21) opens the great vision of Chapters 4 and 5, in the midst of which stands the divine throne. [First Throne Vision] John is drawn into the upper world by the voice speaking to him: “Come up hither” (4:1). Here, the Lamb of sacrifice brings his own deed before the Father’s throne. This is echoed in the “New Song” which is added to the “Sanctus” of the four cherubim “living creatures” of the innermost circle, in which the twenty-four elders join. This contains an ingredient coming from human beings on earth, in whose midst the sacrifice of the Lamb took place: “the prayers of the saints” (5:8); that is, of Christians living on earth. Even when these can’t join the song directly, impulses from their souls are received in the heavens, becoming visible as the smoke of incense, rising up from the golden bowls of the elders together with the New Song.

After the opening of the seals has begun, Christians who have gone through martyrdom on earth now themselves appear in the upper world, seen under the heavenly altar (6:9). “Souls” as they are (“psychai” in Greek), in their disembodied, conscious state after death they are not satisfied with their new form of existence, having not yet fully grasped the redeeming consequences of Christ’s death. The “not yet” implicit in the answer they receive, “to rest a little longer”, shows that there will be a further development of their existence after death as a result of their martyrdom. They “were each given a white robe” (6:11), that they may become more active and responsible citizens of the higher world.

When in the pause between the sixth and the seventh seal the 144,000 are sealed, we are again looking at the earthly scene. The figure, “heard” in the spirit (7:4) is of course not an “arithmetical” figure but, with its 12 times 12 (thousand), in a divine order showing the sum total of all the nuances possible of “being human”. Standing in the catastrophic and apocalyptic storms which began with the opening of the seals, in a moment of profound divine calm they are sealed on their foreheads by an angel ascending from the rising of the sun. This sealing marks a stage of development towards the resurrection body, to which Christ refers when he speaks about the food the Son of Man will give, food “which remains as life throughout the ages”, because he himself is the one sealed by the Father God (Jn 6:27).² On those devoted to Christ, the sealing begins to work as a preparation for the resurrection of the Last Day.

The next vision [beginning the Second Throne Vision] shows Christians in the other world as “a great multitude which no man could number” (7:9) – “after this”. Here, the Greek plural for “this” indicates that a greater interval of time may in the meantime have happened, the time of “the great tribulation” out of which these Christians have come (7:14). It’s a great change from the first vision of the dead souls under the heavenly altar; now the dead are privileged to become active in the upper world in the way described to John by one of the elders (7:15-17), singing the great hymn, “Salvation to our God … and to the Lamb” (7:10). Now that the deliverance brought by Christ has arrived on the earth, has really “come” to human beings, it begins to radiate from truly Christian souls as thanks, returning “to” God in the higher world. When the Lamb “guides them” on their paths, their inner reconciliation with the terrible things they endured on earth can come about (7:17).

September 9, 2011/0 Comments/by CCNA