The Lamb's Supper: The Mass as Heaven on Earth by Scott Hahn

Author:Scott Hahn
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Tags: Religion, Catholicism, Worship, Christianity
ISBN: 9780385504805
Publisher: Image
Published: 1999-11-09T00:00:00+00:00

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FOUR

Judgment Day

HIS MERCY IS SCARY

RECENT GENERATIONS of interpreters have fixated on Revelation’s wars and beasts, which are fascinating because they’re frightening. Readers have legitimate fears about how such severe judgment might apply during their own lifetime. Indeed, some have dismissed Revelation’s judgments as too grotesque and scandalous, and even irreconcilable with the idea of a merciful God.

Yet God’s justice, like His mercy, appears everywhere in the Bible. It is an integral part of His self-revelation. To deny the force of divine judgment, then, is to make God less than God, and to make us less than His children. For every father must discipline His children, and paternal discipline is itself a mercy, a fatherly expression of love. In order to understand the judgment of Revelation—and its application to our own lives—we need first to understand the covenant bond that unites us to God the Father.

A covenant is a sacred family bond. We can see that God—by His covenants with Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, and Jesus—gradually extended that family relationship to more and more people. With each covenant came a law; but these were not arbitrary acts of power; they were expressions of fatherly wisdom and love. Every healthy home, after all, has clear guidelines for acceptable and unacceptable behavior. Yet, even more than this, God’s law enabled us to love as He Himself loves, to grow in our imitation of the “divine family” of the Blessed Trinity. For Father, Son, and Holy Spirit live eternally in perfect peace and communion.

If God’s covenant makes us His family, then sin means more than a broken law. It means broken lives and a broken home. Sin comes from our refusal to keep the covenant, our refusal to love God as much as He loves us. Through sin, we abandon our status as children of God. Sin kills the divine life in us.

Judgment, then, is not an impersonal, legalistic process. It is a matter of love, and it is something we choose for ourselves. Nor is punishment a vindictive act. God’s “curses” are not expressions of hatred, but of fatherly love and discipline. Like medicinal ointment, they hurt in order to heal. They impose suffering that is remedial, restorative, and redemptive. God’s wrath is an expression of His love for His wayward children.

God is love (1 Jn 4:8), but His love is a consuming fire (Heb 12:29), which stubborn sinners find unbearable. God’s fatherhood does not lessen the severity of His wrath or lower the standard of His justice. On the contrary, a loving father requires more from his children than judges demand from defendants. Yet a good father also shows greater mercy.

CAN I HAVE A WITNESS?

We need that understanding of covenant if we’re to understand the judgments of the Book of Revelation. And there’s no mistaking the situation. John’s vision is not merely liturgical, or merely royal, or merely military. It is all these, but it is also juridical. It’s a courtroom scene. To citizens of modern democracies, this combination

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