Many Christians subconsciously believe in two different Jesus’s. The enemy-loving Jesus of the Gospels and the enemy-destroying Jesus of Revelation. How do they fit together?
The One to whom “every knee will bow and every tongue confess” is none other than the One who dined with, forgave, liberated, and healed sinners. The One who will judge the world is none other than the One who bound up broken hearts and freed the oppressed, who said to the adulteress, “I don’t condemn you.” It’s the same One.
Jesus, the compassionate and merciful, does not morph into Jesus the hateful and condemning. Jesus, the One who said in order to be like God, we need to forgive our enemies, saying that if we don’t, then we are no better than the heathens, will not one day act like a heathen.
The One who died at the hands of his enemies with forgiveness on his lips is the same yesterday, today, and forever. If you believe we are in between two different Jesus’s, gospel Jesus and future Jesus, enemy-forgiving Jesus and enemy-decapitating Jesus, then you might want to re-examine your theology, in particular your eschatology and understanding of judgment and the symbolism of Revelation.
The lion is a little slain lamb; his power is his humble love, the way he wages war is by making peace through the cross. His wrath is his lamb-likeness; he destroys the powers of evil by being slain. He is the antithesis of the violent and forceful means by which the world has its way. He subverts it all.
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