2022/07/11

47. Structure of the Book of Revelation

The Gospel of Matthew described the wise men visiting from the East when Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea in the time of King Herod. They asked Herod: "Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the East, and have come to worship him" (Matthew 2:2). Herod, getting uneasy with the reason for their visit, did not realise that these words of theirs were subtly different from the prophet's words quoted by the chief priests and the people's scribes whom he had summoned: "For from you shall come a ruler who will govern my people Israel" (Matthew 2:6). Then Herod "summoned the wise men secretly and ascertained from them what time the star appeared; and he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, 'Go and search diligently for the child, and when you have found him bring me word, that I too may come and worship him'" (Matthew 2:7-8). However, they did not return to Herod but returned to their country following a warning in a dream. When Herod realized that he had been deceived by the wise men, he became furious. He, becoming suspicious, "sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under, according to the time which he had ascertained from the wise men" (Matthew 2:16). Here, we can see that the characters – King Herod, the wise men from the East and Jesus' parents – each have their own principles of action. Herod, connected with the emperor and taking in the information of the dragon, had become a beast (cf. this blog № 44, № 45, № 46). On the other hand, the wise men, who had come to worship the newborn king of the Jews, seeing his star in the East, and departed to their own country being warned in a dream, had a worldview acquired through their search for truth. Jesus' parents, who left for Egypt by night and remained there until Herod’s death following the words of the angel of the Lord in a dream, had a worldview based on the words of prophecy as it is written in the Gospel: "This was to fulfil what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, 'Out of Egypt have I called my son.'" (Matthew 2:15). Both the wise men and the parents, as the signs and words they each had received pointed to the very things drawn from their worldview, believed them and acted according to them with conviction. However, when Jesus grew up later, his parents encountered a situation where they "did not understand the saying which he spoke to them" (Luke 2:50). That happened because the parents did not yet have the worldview of Jesus Christ. Jesus came of age and injected his worldview into his disciples. Then the Holy Spirit descended and let them know the meaning of "the saying which he spoke to them." The first half of the Book of Revelation prophesies the formation of the New Testament and injects the worldview of Jesus Christ into the trainees. In the second half, the "blessedness" appears one after another and directs the trainees towards the formation of the Holy Spirit, accompanying them. This structure of Revelation reflects the flow of the Gospel.

Maria K. M.

 2022/07/04

46. Divine Knowledge and Human Knowledge Part 3

"Also it was allowed to make war on the saints and to conquer them. And authority was given it over every tribe and people and tongue and nation" (Revelation 13:7). This first beast, who became emperor with power and authority, controls politics and the economy and rules over the people. "Then I saw another beast which rose out of the earth; it had two horns like a lamb and it spoke like a dragon" (Revelation 13:11). The horns of this second beast symbolize the fact that this beast is clothed with someone else's authority and power. He is the false prophet who, with eloquence, made the people worship the emperor and showed great signs by starting wars and taking the wealth and territories of other nations (cf. Revelation 19:20). He even made fire fall from heaven to earth with new weapons and deceived the people. Before the people, who were deceived, a monetary system of coins with the mark of the name of the beast (cf. Revelation 13:16), i.e., the name and image of the emperor, was set up. As is still the case today, once a person comes to use money, there is no escape from the system, as if he were marked on his right hand or his forehead. The people become accustomed to the sight of money transforming into bread, fish, and everything else. When people start to live in a monetary economy, they unconsciously begin to think of everything in terms of money. It was the same for Jesus' disciples. In the scene where Jesus multiplied bread, the disciples immediately responded to Jesus that it would cost about 200 denarii to provide bread for a crowd of 5,000 people (cf. Mark 6:37, John 6:7). The disciples, who were in this state, witnessed the sign of the multiplication of bread and fish but did not come to realize that it was from God. So, Jesus "made the disciples get into the boat and go before him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds" (Matthew 14:22). And "in the fourth watch of the night he came to them, walking on the sea. But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, saying, 'It is a ghost!' And they cried out for fear" (Matthew 14:25-26). Then Peter, asking Jesus to command him, had the dramatic experience of walking on the sea to him. The disciples worshipped Jesus, saying, "Truly you are the Son of God" (Matthew 14:33), but again, perhaps because of fear, they still did not understand (cf. Matthew 16:5-12). Jesus continued to teach his disciples by making them experience many signs and miracles so as to release them from the mark of the name of the beast and write on their foreheads "his name and his Father's name" (Revelation 14:1). In the Gospel of John, Jesus reveals the true meaning of the sign of the multiplication of bread through his exchange with the crowds (cf. John 6:22-58), leading the disciples to the confession of faith. For the disciples, the three years they spent with Jesus were also a series of experiences of distinguishing divine knowledge from human knowledge (man's accidental information). So, the worldview of Jesus Christ in the Revelation of John aims to provide the same experience for the trainees.

Maria K. M. 

 2022/06/27

45. Divine Knowledge and Human Knowledge Part 2

"And again, she bore his brother Abel" (Genesis 4:2). Adam and Eve became the parents of the two children. Parents are like gods to their children. In fact, Adam and Eve seemed to be as if they had become God. As we have discussed, Adam had the illusion that he had power like God, and he made up the fiction in which he had also gained authority as the "mother of all living" by naming and ruling over his wife as he did over other creatures. On the other hand, in the words of Eve, who gave birth to Cain, "I have gotten a man with the help of the LORD" (Genesis 4:1), we can sense the meaning of making God a men's helper, a subordinate. Eve, who had in her body the womb, the castle of life, made up the fiction connected to the mysterious pleasure. She understood she had gained the symbol of power, a male child, and that by divine authority. Eventually, a murder was committed under the condition of these parents. Cain killed Abel out of jealousy. Murder was something God called sin for the first time because it was an explicit denial of the work of God who created man. In this way, the community of kinship based on the relationship between a man and a woman that had difficulties from the beginning was called a family and cemented by the social institution of marriage. The marriage system became the foundation of society, which always seeks power and authority with its built-in risk of sin. Eventually, society demanded kings and emperors with power and authority (cf. 1 Samuel 8:1-22). God accepted the demand but planned to establish a parent-child relationship between God and man in due time (cf. 2 Samuel 7:14). However, people sought an image of marriage rather than a parent-child relationship in their relationship with God. That was the "human knowledge." In this situation, by the Word being born human and calling God his father, God made it clear to the world that the relationship between God and man is parent and child. Joseph and Mary were also placed on Jesus' side, who called God his father, by accepting Jesus the Word as their son. Moreover, Mary conceived God's only begotten Son and had an experience of complete union with God. This experience was a foretaste of Jesus' disciples receiving the Holy Eucharist. That is suggested by the answer of the boy Jesus one day when his parents found him in the temple after they had lost him: "How is it that you sought me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?" (Luke 2:49). Just as his parents found Jesus in the temple, so his disciples will find the Eucharist in "my church" (Matthew 16:18). And when they receive the Eucharist at the Mass, they will have an experience of union with God. Jesus' disciples have the daily routine of returning to the next Mass when they leave the Mass. This routine is not an easy one. So, Jesus admonishes them as follows. "If any one comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me, cannot be my disciple" (Luke 14:26-27). The "divine knowledge" is here.

Maria K. M. 

 2022/06/20

44. Divine Knowledge and Human Knowledge

In an age when the word "information" did not exist, people tried to understand the accidental information that occurs when creatures are multiple by personifying them. "Man's accidental information," compared to the "serpent" in Genesis, soon became personified as the devil and Satan, and so on. The Holy Spirit, however, inspired John to describe it as a great dragon and write, "that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world" (Revelation 12:9). The Holy Spirit communicated the existence of this "information," which could not be expressed in words at that time, to people so that they could identify it. The dragon is pure "information" because it signifies "man's accidental information," called "serpent" in Genesis, that has evolved with people. The contrast between the dragon, which is "information," and the beast rising out of the sea at the beginning of Revelation 13 illustrates well how people took "information" and made it into "human knowledge." The dragon is described as having "seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems upon his heads" (Revelation 12:3). The fact that the number of "heads" representing "information" and that of diadems boasting "information" are the same and consistent indicates that the dragon is pure "information." The number of horns suggests that people made "information" into "human knowledge." The beast from the sea, on the other hand, is described as having "ten horns and seven heads, with ten diadems upon its horns and a blasphemous name upon its heads" (Revelation 13:1). The beast is depicted with its heads and horns in the reverse order of the dragon. In addition, the diadems are on its horns instead of its heads. That expresses people are prouder of what they did and said by making this information into knowledge than the "information" itself they have. By saying that the dragon is an "ancient serpent," Revelation suggests the author wrote these things above with the account in Genesis 3 in mind. There are seven scenes in Genesis 3 where the man and his wife took in "man's accidental information." So, Revelation puts seven diadems on the seven heads of the dragon, the "information." Ten instances are in these seven scenes where the two persons made this "information" into "human knowledge," and then into words and actions. Therefore, the beast in Revelation has ten diadems on its ten horns. The breakdown of the ten horns is as follows: three actions that the two did together, for a total of six horns for the two of them (cf. Genesis 3:6-8), two actions of excuse by the man (cf. Genesis 3:10,12), one action of excuse by his wife (cf. Genesis 3:13), and finally, one action taken by the man alone (cf. Genesis 3:20), for a total of ten horns. The "blasphemous name" is the name traced back to Eve because the last action taken by the man, naming his wife, was an act of blasphemy. People further evolve by taking information that gives the "power and throne, along with great authority" (Revelation 13:2) and making it "human knowledge." God, on the other hand, with "divine knowledge," had already fulfilled for those who love him what no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived (cf. 1 Corinthians 2:9).

Maria K. M.

 2022/06/13

43. The Eerie Tree of Knowledge

God sought to establish a parent-child relationship over God and people, promising King David about his son Solomon saying, "I will be his father, and he shall be my son" (2 Samuel 7:14). David told Solomon about this. However, when Solomon became king, he loved many foreign women, including Pharaoh's daughter, and did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and did not wholly follow the Lord. He, like Adam, thought he could maintain his power and authority by dominating women who were backed by authority. Similarly, his wives burnt incense and offered sacrifices to their gods (cf. Deuteronomy 11:8-9), which indicates that they, like Eve, had an illusion that they each had a special relationship with their gods making gods their helpers (cf. this blog №42). Eventually, the Song of Songs, attributed to Solomon, was preserved for posterity, and people began to interpret the book's nuptial imagery as an allegory of the relationship between God and his people. In other words, the man's accidental information, which had been called the ''serpent'' in Genesis, evolved with man and possessed man as the ''great red dragon'' (Revelation 12:3) and has become an eerie tree of knowledge. So, God sent the Word to the earth and told people that God is the genuine parent. Jesus, the motherly God as the Word through whom all things came to be (cf. John 1:1-5), was born male to become the prophesied Messiah. Jesus said, "Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father in me; or else believe me for the sake of the works themselves" (John 14:11), and these words of Jesus, who exhorted his disciples diligently, show that God is the genuine parent with both paternal and maternal qualities. He added: "I will pray the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, to be with you for ever" (John 14:16), promising the coming of the Holy Spirit, and said, "I will not leave you desolate; I will come to you" (John 14:18). These words of Jesus are full of motherly love. Jesus, who is God, imparted to Mary the knowledge of the maternal God, which he had carried from his heavenly Father, for the sake of the people, the children. Then, on the cross, he tied his mother and the Apostle together in a parent-child bond. The Apostles became those who took on Mary, the mother of Jesus. The "great red dragon" challenged the Apostles, who were thus clothed with the knowledge of the motherly God, but he could not prevail (cf. this blog № 22). The dragon was furious with them and "went off to make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep the commandments of God and bear testimony to Jesus" (Revelation 12:17). The first half of Revelation prophesied the formation of the New Testament, and the trainees put the worldview of Jesus Christ into their memory. In the second half, from chapter 13, trainees, still continuing the training of the first half, begin the training to notice and distinguish man's accidental information. We want to recall once more the "blessedness" at the beginning of the book, which has guided us. "Blessed is he who reads aloud the words of the prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written therein; for the time is near" (Revelation 1:3).

Maria K. M.

 2022/06/06

42. Until the Fullness of Time

As I wrote in the previous issue, we will examine how the fact that God and people have a parent-child relationship has become ambiguous. In Genesis, we see God is meticulously caring for the people he created. God is the true parent of people from the beginning. God, who had known that when living things become plural, accidental information arises because of their spontaneity (cf. this blog №4), prepared "enmity" for when people fail to comply with his command forbidding them to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (cf. this blog № 23, № 24). Also, it is written that at expelling them from the Garden of Eden, "the LORD God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins, and clothed them" (Genesis 3:21). God was always the parent who accompanied people and helped them evolve even outside the Garden of Eden. The man, on the other hand, after getting knowledge by eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, in his interaction with God, heard that God said to the woman, "your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you" (Gen. 3:16), and had the illusion that he was to rule over her. The man created the fiction that "she was the mother of all living" (Genesis 3:20) and gave her the name Eve. By naming her and ruling over her, the "mother of all living," the man wanted to become as authoritative as God, just as he had given "names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field" (Genesis 2:20) to rule over them. Thus, he judged the word of God by the knowledge he got by taking in accidental information and made it an act, which was the decisive cause of his expulsion from the Garden of Eden. The word of God: "[T]he man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil" (Genesis 3:22), means that the man became one who knows good and evil not from God but by taking in accidental information. Jesus pointed out this situation as follows. "Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires" (John 8:43-44). It was the same with Eve, who was expelled from the Garden with the man. Eve, who bore a son Cain through intercourse with the man, became under the illusion that God was the cause of her pregnancy and said, "I have gotten a man with the help of the LORD" (Genesis 4:1) because God had said to her, "I will greatly multiply your pain in childbearing" (Genesis 3:16). This illusion eventually created a fictional world in which people would overlap the image of the marital relationship with the relationship between God and people and dream of its future. Humans, who became "Lords" replacing God, having authority and power, established the institution with contracts and guarantees, called marriage, in a society based on blood relations. Women were seen as part of the property of men, and the relationship between God and people was left more and more ambiguous. Meanwhile, God, the true parent of people, had been waiting for the fullness of time while people evolved, continuing to accompany them and their history. (To be continued)

Maria K. M.

 2022/05/30

41. "My church" and the Triune God

Jesus' "my church" (Matthew 16:18) has the significant role of being a community where visitors can encounter God, as Peter's confession indicates (cf. Matthew 16:16). God made known the one God through Jesus in three modes of existence - the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit - so that people may fully realise they were created in the likeness of God. People fulfil what they conceived with their "will" and "knowledge" by making it into "word" and putting it into an act, and then they again verbalise what was done and memorise it as "information". As Jesus said, "But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only" (Matthew 24:36), so in the case of God, the Son fulfils what the Father conceived with "the will of God" and "the knowledge of God" by making it into "the word of God" and putting it into an act, and then the Holy Spirit re-verbalises what was done and memorises it as "divine information." The following description in Genesis illustrates this fact: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters" (Genesis 1:1-2). When God created the heavens and the earth, "the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters," in other words, the Holy Spirit was recording what the word of God had fulfilled as "divine information." Jesus came to earth carrying the "will of God" and the "knowledge of God" from the Father to be born human into the world. The ''life'' Jesus said in the phrase: "For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself" (John 5:26), can be considered to be the ''will of God." The Father and the Son share the "knowledge of God" because Jesus said, "the Father knows me and I know the Father" (John 10:15). On the other hand, as Jesus said of the Holy Spirit, "All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you" (John 16:15), the Holy Spirit, who was to descend, received everything Jesus had accomplished and made it "divine information." After that, the Holy Spirit established the New Testament by connecting with the disciples, who had been taught by Jesus and had the worldview of Jesus Christ, drawing from their memory the words spoken by Jesus and collaborating with them (cf. this blog № 40). As we have been discussing, the Holy Family was prepared in the likeness of the Triune God so that Jesus, the Triune God, could become a man. Therefore, the Holy Family is the model of Jesus' "my church" (cf. this blog № 31, № 34). The idea of the Holy Family receiving the only Son of God is based on the fact that the relationship between God and people is that of parent and child (cf. this blog № 26, № 27, №28). However, this basis has been left ambiguous. Next time, I will discuss the circumstances and start the second half from chapter 13 of Book of Revelation.

Maria K. M.