Rev 14:8 And another, a second messenger, follows, saying, “It falls! It falls! Babylon the great has made all nations drink of the wine of the fury of her prostitution!”
Rev 14:9 And another, a third messenger, follows them, saying with a loud voice, “If anyone is worshiping the wild beast and its image, and is getting an emblem on his forehead or on his hand,
Rev 14:10 he, also, is drinking of the wine of the fury of God, blended undiluted in the cup of His indignation, and he shall be tormented in fire and sulphur in the sight of the holy messengers and in the sight of the Lambkin.”
Rev 14:11 And the fumes of their torment are ascending for the eons of the eons. And they are having no rest day and night, those worshiping the wild beast and its image, and if anyone is getting the emblem of its name.”
Rev 14:12 Here is the endurance of the saints, who are keeping the precepts of God and the faith of Jesus.”
Rev 14:13 And I hear a voice out of heaven, saying, “Write: ‘Happy are the dead who are dying in the Lord henceforth! Yea, the spirit is saying that they will be resting from their toil, for their acts are following with them.'” Concordant Literal Version[1]
Revelation 14:8-13 is a challenging passage from the last book of the Bible for many people. Its mysteries never started becoming apparent to me until I simply believed the first phrase of the Bible’s last book at face value, which is The Revelation of Jesus Christ, or better The Unveiling or Disclosure of Jesus the Messiah. Leave it to the devil to get us “sheeople” off focus and to obsess about future events in a book with such a title and introductory statement! The enemy does not want us beholding the “Being-Beauty” of Jesus revealed.
I am not saying that the Revelation of Jesus Christ does not present future events. Rather, I am saying that its primary purpose is to show us Who Jesus is BEING within and in and among a people, city, bride – and how easy it is for us to get off focus. The Ephesians church lost sight of their First Love, or more literally their “love, the one at first” – a reciprocal being-reality as opposed to something mechanical or more concrete. It is the devil that makes us look to this book for “last works” when Jesus explicitly says, “bring forth the first actions, energies, and works” of being in desperate pursuit of the one you love, which always comes as the result of His revelation and unveiling of His BEING in you.
The revelation you had at first that caused you to ask Jesus to come into your heart was never supposed to stop. Who Jesus is BEING is always new to us as we corporately seek to see Him being Himself in familiar Bible stories. When a body loses focus, the Apostle Paul is quick to call them bewitched (Gal 3:1). This danger of settling for familiar religion has arguably been the plague of all church bodies ever since Paul penned 2 Timothy 1:15, “…everyone in the province of Asia has deserted me…” All the churches in the book of Revelation are in the province of Asia (Western Turkey). Where are their congregations now? To whom was the Revelation of Jesus, The Anointed One written?
The study of the nature of being is ontology. Friction is resistance and contrariness to being acted upon. “They rub me the wrong way,” is a way of describing this. Ontological friction is then a state of being that is in contrast and opposition to how another person is being.
Consider this as the reality of the lake of fire. On the earth, friction leads to heat, then fire. Spiritual realities generally have earthly manifestations that depict it, since we often forget the spiritual existed before the material. The smoke of their torment is related to spiritual being. Its ascending and rising forever is a fuming resistance to The Lambkin’s Trajectory of Being. In other words, they refuse to give up their lives as Jesus did for a variety of reasons that are all missing the flow, thought and way of Jesus as the Dying Seed (John 12:24). Let’s ponder the nature of this friction that result in this fuming resistance.
By default, the trajectory of Jesus’ BEING is in our ontological blind spot. Peter receives revelation from The Father of the Son in Matthew 16:17, then verses later in 16:23 Jesus is calling him, “Satan.” Peter did not suddenly become evil embodied; rather he simply expressed the default all humans have of self-preservation. Jesus came to give Himself away like how a lone seed takes the trajectory of decline into the ground towards death. Peter is trying to stop The Promised Seed of Genesis 3:15 from following His cycle to increase: The Higher Way of Isaiah 55:8-11.
Jesus is quick to save those who call on Him. Prior knowledge is not a requirement. However, there is this being-way that permeates the God’s Kingdom and all its citizens that looks like their King in Revelation 5:6. The Lone Seed fell into the ground as the Slain Lamb, yet He stands risen and reigning in Life. This Way is The Way of the book of Acts. And even saved people in the primitive church like Ananias and Saphira can miss it.
Consider that the lake of fire’s reality became manifest with bronze altar, located before the Tabernacle, Tent, Temple, hence before the Presence of God. Thus, if every sacrifice pointed to Jesus, then only Jesus could give what the altar demanded, so to speak. Only Jesus, as the Son of God and man, has the ability and love to give more than death can take. In fact, if given correctly, as Jesus did, death becomes dislodged. Since Jesus is also fully a human being, He can share His victory over death with all who willingly “learn His BEING” by spiritually beholding Him in this Dying Seed Way as “Greater Love.” This term from John 15:13 aligns with Philippians 2:5-11 – both depicting the trajectory of The Seed’s Being as crucial Life Reality for us. The extent of Jesus’ love can easily be seen as scandalous. Paul describes the offense of the cross in Galatians 5:11. In Hebrews 12:2-6, Jesus despised the shame of the cross for love.
Thus, what is the lake of fire if not the place where we find those offended by and resisting This Love? God never changes. Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. “Therefore, blessed are the dead…” Rev 14:13 says as a result, “who die in the Lord from now on.” Jesus’ death as Greater Love is their death too. They rest in Him as opposed to resist. “Dying in the Lord” means going with the Dying Seed on His path to eternal life increase. How else do seeds bring abundance? Thusly being congruent in heart, their works do follow them into forever’s life increase.
Spiritual Reality is bundled in such earthly pictures. It is how you should read Genesis 1 by focusing on the seed and then that seed’s cycle reality as our food. To make His point, God created Eve according to the seed-cycle picture in Genesis 2.[2] Adam is dirt and a lone seed falling to the ground, where God does a work by openings that pull out the stuff of that “giving all” – by which the living bride rises. She is of the same stuff of His descending, but she is also risen and living by Him.
From the start, before sin, there exists a trajectory of being that looks like a seed going on its cycle. As a result of the fall – taking in the forbidden seed of knowing good and bad relative to finite self – we got sucked into an inverse flow. I am still speaking of ontology here. It is a dead-end flow, disconnected from the seed-cycle for lack of a better term. And if you are not with that seed cycle – The Person of Jesus, Who is Life – then “loss of life” is what you have; the fading echo of life; “the smoke of your torment rising” as long as He is loving.
People debate about the eternality of hell, and invariable get off focus from Jesus, Who is by being Eternal Life. “How could a loving God let people fume in torment forever?” they say. However, I say, how could a loving God stop being Love? Love does not force Himself on people.
The eternal fire was created for spiritual entities that are locked into their opposing trajectory of being from outside of our space-time continuum (Matthew 25:41). It was never meant for human beings to experience. When we die, the trajectory of being within our core is locked in like the goats who shall go away motivated for self in Matthew 25:46. “For self” is in ontological friction with Jesus “for others.” As with a dying seed falling into the ground for the harvest, eternal life only has vitality when it is likewise directed for the increase of others.
Living for self is a dead end. All default human goals apart from inner congruency with Jesus giving Himself away by Greater Love for others are like a branch cut off from a tree. How long can the echo of life from Life fade if its source was Infinite? What could people want more than Greater Love giving All of Himself eternally? If you resist The One Who never changes being Greater Love, how long does that last?
Let us focus on Jesus as The Resurrection and The Life, True Reality and The Way (of the Seed)… for others in love. We can “learn Him” – learn His Heart this way by encountering His Spirit. While people where brutalizing and torturing Jesus to death on the cross – so they thought – Jesus was operating by a Higher Thought and Way by being The River of Life… for others by Greater Love. We can transcend the defaults of this life by freely drinking from The Way of Being flowing out from Jesus at the cross. Meditating on The OT’s / TaNaK’s Jesus Pictures can transform from glory to Glory, because it is really Him by His Eternal Spirit being beheld. Your sanctification is for others by Greater Love.
I strongly encourage you to read the books listed on the other page.
[1] I encourage the reading of this version, CLV, and the JMNT (Jonathan Mitchel New Testament) with www.e-sword.net , because both translations explore the possibilities of the Greek text, rather than the dominant tradition. Notice the word “dominant” and at least entertain the idea that a beast often dominates as opposed to the little Lambkin giving Himself away.
[2] God called and formed all things into being by The Way and Thought of His Being that came out of His mouth and follows the trajectory of seed in its cycle. Adam “falls into death” like a seed. He is both that seed and the mud dirt. The holes in and out are God’s doing as He takes of the very seed-stuff that gave and gives all from near the man’s sinless heart. That Dying Seed constitutional reality is provided in risen form at the presentation of Eve, the mother of all living. It is a Rev 5:6 picture being with a Rev 21:23 picture of the wife going the same Dying Seed way… descending.
Seeing Jesus as The Life of The Bible Stories 