The Last Word

What is the last book of the Bible all about? Is Revelation a series of visions about the end times that few people can understand, or is it a work of encouragement for all Christians in every time to endure even hardship and suffering for the sake of their faith, strengthened by this vision of heaven with Christ on the throne with his Father, where sorrow and pain will be no more? Revelation deals forthrightly and dramatically with the reality of evil in God’s good creation; but the message is that God has conquered the forces of evil through his son, Jesus, the Lamb of God who was sacrificed for us. In the end God wins; and the end is coming soon, but in God’s time, not ours.

Countless songs and hymns of the church have been inspired by this book, but also, John’s visions have inspired artists to try to capture their teaching in visual form, as in the wonderful fourteenth-century tapestries of the Apocalypse in Angers, France. Their illustrations of the text give us insight into how Christians in every generation find hope and faith in its message.