Modern Gospel of Jesus - I
The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave to Him to show to His servants things which must soon take place. He sent and signified it by His angel to His servant John, who bears record of the word of God, and of the testimony of Jesus Christ, and of all things that he saw. Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of this prophecy and keep those things which are written in it, for the time is near.
Apocalypse of Jesus (1:1-3)
Brother Alziro Zarur, named the Apocalypse or the book of Revelation of Jesus as “Modern Good News” because it brings the greatest good news of all times: The Triumphal Return of Jesus Christ.
This is also a common theme throughout religion: The Return of the Messiah. In all sacred books, it is the central topic, because it discusses the sequential and prophetic changes society will and need to endure to then be the most timely ready it can be to have the presence of the Messiah, which can also be interpreted as a Divine Ideal.
All sacred books are part of the History of God’s Revelation. God works to reveal to us what is necessary and humanly possible to be done for this Great Event. The Holy Bible, for instance, is one book that gives us the insights for a Divine Connection towards our readiness for the Triumphal Return of Christ.
You may ask: What does this have to do with the Old Testament? Isn’t the Apocalypse of Jesus a later work brought after the stories in the Old Testament?
From a linear perspective, yes, but I challenge you to question your understanding of Time, which we will be discussing later.
Spiritual Formation to Christ
In the first part of God’s Testament is a story of true repentance and spiritual baptism of responsibility. Its characters are examples of human trials for the Spirit to achieve what is testified in the second part of God's Testament: Christianity, which is the spiritual condition of one who realizes the unction of God.
Thus, making Jesus the epitome of every archetype of the Spiritual Formation of humankind. Through His example, we can identify the process of Individuation to Illumination, and then Glorification.
This process is a natural movement of the Spirit toward its integration with God. As we find in His Gospel, according to John, 14:6: “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through Me”.
The Universal Culture of Christ
This natural movement is culturally represented around the world and through its many religious manifestations. As Jesus is the One who primarily brought to us the comprehension of a more Universal and Loving God, we cannot say that the Culture He created is something based on previous ones. It has a uniqueness and originality because it shows us that regardless of earthly cultural backgrounds, we are all part of a primordial and universal one.
In this same sense, we can say that any kind of cultural practice comes from one central and universal aspect of the Eternal Spirit: A natural movement to find a Way, a Truth, a Life that leads it towards unity with God.
Time and its perception
Now, about Time itself and its perception. I have a few questions to ask you and it's regarding the authors of the Holy Bible: What about Time? What is the Greek comprehension of it?
If we take from its mythology, it is personified as Chronos (devouring his children, from fear of being destroyed). But does time have a personhood? Our logical answer is no. But, do we live by that, or do we sense time as a destructive being and act through the myth of preserving our material state?
What about the Jews? What was their comprehension of Time?
Historical perspective of Judaism
It is interesting to discuss this, because even though John wrote in Greek he was still a Jew, so it shows us that with a Judaic perspective, John still tried to promote the Universality of Jesus.
Imagine the difficulty in explaining in words what he was experiencing with Christ's teachings, the immeasurable amount of new and exciting things happening and being given.
Today, we have this difficulty as well. How many times were we without words to express our feelings or what we experienced?
With that in mind and going back to our discussion, John tried at his best as well as the other Apostles who wrote about Jesus Christ, to convey what they received. In light of it, comes the question: what about Christ’s perspective of Time? How He comprehended and lived Time?
Primacy of the Apocalypse
As we claim here the Holy Bible itself starts from the Apocalypse of Jesus. Multiple questions may emerge in our head, but one in particular may come strong: Are you ignoring the fact that the Apocalypse was written roughly +1000 years later than the TaNaKh?
Well, some may think that I’m (laugh). But I'm not trying to deny the existence of actual historical documents that prove the moment they were written in a linear perspective of Time. The argument here is to perceive History as an actual consequence of Prophecy. This is based on two assertions that I want you to think about:
“The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy” (Revelation, 19:10);
“Prophecy is History in God’s Voice” (Paiva Netto).
I’ll get into it more throughout our study, but these two things will lead to our comprehension of the primacy of the Apocalypse.
(Continue)
