Sárospataki Füzetek 15. (2011)
2011 / 1. szám - TANULMÁNYOK
HOUWELINGEN, P. H. R. VAN This thousand-year imprisonment of Satan also proves to be a judgment-inadvance. After a short time of release, he is to be thrown into the lake of fire, and this will bring his acts of deceit to a definitive end (20: 10). When Death and Hades themselves are also thrown into the lake of fire (‘the second death’), there will finally be room for the full realization of the promise of God. For then, John sees a new heaven and a new earth. In Revelation 21 and 22, John describes the features of a new Jerusalem, a city of peace at the centre of the new world. And here we have the Christian expectation for the future, both for martyrs and for every faithful believer. With transgressors at a safe distance, and with the Lord God Almighty together with the Lamb on the throne, all the righteous will flourish. And the Messianic kingdom of peace will have no end! Conclusion The book of Revelation functions as a guide which, in a manner similar to the interpreting angel of the visions, leads Christian readers of all ages through the various facts and events of this world into the Kingdom of God. Their expectation, based on the victory of the Lamb, will be focused on the glorious return of Jesus Christ at the last day of this world. As for the Christian martyrs, they may already share in the rule of the Messiah during the thousand years when Satan is bound. Their vindication makes them the advance guard of all the righteous. The redemptive-historical approach, developed in this article, is rooted in the actual situation of early Christianity, remains valid through the ages until the return of Jesus Christ, points ahead to the triumph of all Christian martyrs and predicts the victory of good over evil, thanks to the Lamb of God. Read in this way, then, the enigmatic book of Revelation appears to be a book full of expectation. Abstract This article aims to reflect particularly on the questions as to the why, how and when of the last book of the biblical canon. The first part deals with the tide, where nobody other than God is indicated as the great initiator of the revelation which came to John on the island of Patmos, and suggests a redemptive-historical perspective as the most appropriate approach to the enigmatic book of Revelation. In the second part, as an example of such an approach, the ‘millennium’ in chapter 20 is interpreted as a thousand years of vindication of the Christian martyrs. The article concludes that the book of Revelation, read in this redemptive-historical way, appears to be a book full of expectation, both for martyrs and for every faithful behever. “It is conceivable that he [the writer] thought of this ‘first resurrection’ in physical terms, locating the righteous in an embodied heavenly world” (474). 18 Sárospataki füzetek 2011/1
