The Revelation to John

Question:

I fail to get a sense of peace and love when reading this book – just an overview of Unity's interpretation would be greatly appreciated, and thank you for all your spiritual help through the years.

Comment:

You're certainly not alone in your feelings about this final book of the Bible. Indeed, those who most love it often do so precisely because it seems so dramatically fraught with doom and judgment and punishment. I believe, however, that it offers a powerful affirmation of the spiritual promise that Jesus taught and demonstrated – along with a realization that achieving that promise can be challenging indeed.

  The Revelation to John is packed with vivid, sometimes horrific, imagery; I can only touch on an overall theme in this brief response to your question. It is the great culmination of the epic journey that began in the first pages of Genesis – the journey of a spiritual being through the distractions and challenges of human consciousness to the higher spiritual consciousness that Jesus describes as “the kingdom of heaven.”   That journey is summarized and concentrated as the epic battles and tribulations described in the Revelation. The vision isn't linear; it echoes and repeats aspects of its epic battle and, at the same time, offers quieter, more reflective interludes as well. It all culminates in the great realization of Chapter 21: "Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God."   The kingdom of heaven, then, is not some place beyond the clouds where we will go after death. It occurs in this human experience; it is the perfect spiritual expression of everything that has been imperfectly expressing here on earth. "Behold, the dwelling of God is with men (21:3)."   The promise is, then, that our journey will be joyfully complete when we have removed from our consciousness every thought and false belief of separation from our divine Source and become clear and nonresistant channels for the creative power that is God. Then our lives here on earth will be completely infused with the divine, and the kingdom of heaven will not only be at hand; it will be the consciousness in which we live.

Blessings!

Rev. Ed