The Apocalypse - Letter by Letter: Spiritual Nakedness and the Fall
The Apocalypse - Letter by Letter
Blog to discuss the book "The Apocalypse - Letter by Letter: A Literary Analysis of the Book of Revelation" and current events that point to the events described therein.
Recall the symbolical description at the beginning of Chapter 4. John saw an opened door in the heaven, and a voice commanded him, 'Come up here..." [literally, "Ascend hither..."]. The wordage implies that there is a wall separating the [naos] from the [aulë], and that the [naos] is higher up, i.e., spiritually superior.
The reason for these symbolical expressions is that the "temple" stands atop the "mountain," God's "holy mountain." The intimation is that the [naos], with its surrounding wall, will become the city called the New Jerusalem described in Chapter 21, verses 9-27.
Those who wear white robes have "conquered" or "overcome," for the color "white" symbolizes victory. They shall inherit the "kingdom of the heaven" in the Millennium, and they shall inherit also the earth.
Consider what Christ said, in 3:15-17, to the bishop at Laodicea,
"I know your works [,] that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were cold or hot. So, because you are lukewarm and neither hot nor cold, I am about to vomit you out of my mouth. For you say that 'I am rich and I have prospered and I have need of nothing', and you do not know that you are the one wretched and pitiable and poor and blind and naked..."
In ancient times, the [aulë] was where the beasts were kept at night. Beasts do not wear clothes. From Christ's point of view, the bishop at Laodicea is spiritually naked because he, like the bishop at Ephesus, no longer keeps the first great commandment: to love God with all one's heart and all one's soul and all one's mind. Half-heartedness will not do. Moreover, a human being, by means of self alone, cannot keep the first great commandment, and, consequently, not the second, a point pellucidly made in the citation from Chapter 7,
"...they washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Little Lamb."
The individual must become clothed in the new creation, clothed most of all with love [as St. Paul wrote], in order to be properly attired for the sanctuary, in the presence of the God on his throne, where one may come to God's table, the altar, to partake of the Eucharistic Christ. Strictly speaking, the lukewarm are still within the Church, but their position is perilous; for Christ warned in strong, blunt language,
"I am about to vomit you out of my mouth."
This means He will expel them from his body, that is, He will cast them out of his Church. In other symbolic terms, they will be cast out of "the heaven" and fall onto the earth. This symbolism should be familiar to more than a few, for, historically, it is long from new; indeed, the very first violation by man against the first great commandment has always been called--the Fall.
