Nielsen’s Nook

I came across an interesting entry in The Anglican Tradition: a Handbook of Sources edited by G. R. Evans that caught my eye this morning while I was reading. A little water is customarily added to the wine during the consecration of the elements (BCP, 404). Buy why? How has this come to us and what is it attempting to communicate to those who participate in the Eucharist?

Part 3, §110, Evans directs us to the Council of Florence and the Decree for the Armenians:

Water is mixed in because, according to the testimony of the holy Fathers and Doctors of the Church mentioned in the preceding discussions, it is believed that our Lord himself instituted this sacrament with wine mixed with water. Furthermore, this is a fitting representation of our Lord’s passion. … For we read that both, that is, blood and water, flowed from the side of Christ’ (Evans, 120-1, c.f., John 19:34).

Further more, Revelation 17:15 appears to equate the waters with the people and so the mixing of water and wine marks out the union that is celebrated at the Eucharist between Christ and His people.

For we see that the water represents the people and the wine manifests the blood of Christ. Thus, when wine and water are mixed in the chalice, the people are united with Christ, and the faithful people are closely joined to him in whom they believe.’ (Evans, 121)

Translation

2 For the fire (which made the appearance of a vaulted ceiling, [1] like a ship’s sail being filled by wind) completely enclosed [2] the body of the martyr. It was there in the midst of the flames, not as burning flesh, [3] but as gold and silver being smelted in a furnace. For we also noticed such a fragrance like incense rising [4] from a thurible [5] or some other precious perfume.

[1] καμάρας vault, vaulted ceiling, arch. This word appears only once in all of scripture and does not seem to appear frequently in general. Psalm 40:22b (LXX) reads ὁ στήσας ὡς καμάραν τὸν οὐρανὸν καὶ διατείνας ὡς σκηνὴν κατοικεῖν, … [It is the Lord] who erected the heavens as a vaulted ceiling and stretched it out as a tent to indwell (author’s translation).

[2] BAGD renders κύκλῳ περιετείχισεν as completely surrounded. καμάρας is imagined in a three dimensional way (i.e. as a vaulted ceiling with supporting walls and floor), so we render κύκλῳ περιετείχισεν as completely enclose (or perhaps envelope).

[3] ἄρτος ὀπτώμενος, ἢ ὡς (”a loaf in the oven or like”) is noted by Lightfoot as being questionable, perhaps “nothing more than Irenæus’ own comments.” (Lightfoot, Joseph Barber, and J. R. Harmer. The Apostolic Fathers. (London: Macmillan and Co., 1891) 195). Consequently, we are opting for the shorter reading as preferred and omitted this phrase from our translation.

[4] πνέοντος breathing out, giving forth (BAGD, 679).

[5] λιβανωτοῦ (λιβανωτός) incense or censer. Here we break with previous translations. Lightfoot renders λιβανωτοῦ πνέοντος as “wafted odour of frankincense,” which is to us aesthetically less pleasing. While Lake and Holmes do a much better job aesthetically rendering the phrase as “the scent of incense,” we feel translating λιβανωτός as thurible (i.e., censer used in religious worship), more specifically connects with the worship tropes running throughout the work (e.g., §14.2) and, perhaps, more explicitly the eschatological worship of Revelation 8:3-5.

Resource
Beale, Gregory K. The Book of Revelation: A Commentary on the Greek Text. in The New International Greek Testament Commentary. Edited by I. Howard Marshall and Donald A. Hagner. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999.

Caird, George Bradford. The Revelation of St. John the Divine. 1st ed. New York: Harper & Row, 1966.

Johnson, Dennis E. Triumph of the Lamb: A Commentary on Revelation. Phillipsburg: P&R, 2001.

Kistemaker, Simon J. Exposition of the Book of Revelation. Vol. 20 of New Testament Commentary. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2001.

The Saint’s Place in Christ
Since it is the same all encompassing God, the Alpha and the Omega of the promises and of History, who makes us stand firm in Christ (2 Cor 1:21), the saint has full assurance that these promises given Christ are most surely his or her own. That is to say that the nature of God’s character, his covenant, his promises and the sure means by which he both obtains these for us and redeems us for them give us great hope to know that we who are in Christ will indeed prevail as overcomers to the very End.

In the Russian Context, На � усском Контексте
To apply this passage to a particular people group, I would encourage my Russian brothers and sisters in light of the aftermath of all the failed and hollow promises of the former communist regime and their tendency to view America as a salvation. Communism, Socialism and Democratic-Capitalism are all snowflakes on the furnace of history. They are not all encompassing nor can they do much of what they promise to do. Legislated capitalism may provide more sustenance than communism did and much more than the poorly legislated (unlegislated?) capitalism that exploits the Russian people now. However, that sustenance will perish, and ultimately leave a person from any country in a wasteland of emptiness.

What has a Russian to hope for? How can one who has sold her soul to the Party, only to see the Party die and fail her now have any hope that the promises made by some other ideology (e.g., Christianity) are worth the risk of so great a humiliation again? The Bible’s answer is profound. Communism and Capitalism have not the sovereignty over history and humanity that God Almighty does. Human Politico-Economic systems have hope in what depraved people should do, but do not do. In Christianity, the promises of God are placed fully on God’s ability to fulfill them in the God-Man, Jesus Christ. Where Human systems hope in an uncertain (and unattainable) future of fallen people, the Promises of God are secure in Messiah’s historic accomplishments of the past and his sovereign rule over all that was, and is and is to come.

Conquering, Inheritance and Sonship
“But there is more in this word than the fulfillment of an ancient prophecy. It contains the very heart of John’s vision of heaven. Before he attempts to summon up the full resources of language to depict what is beyond language and thought, he leaves us with this first indelible impression that heaven is belonging to the family of God.”¹ That is to say all that are in Christ are heirs with Christ. It is Christ who has swallowed up death in victory (1 Cor. 15:54-57, c.f., Isa 25:8). This victory over death is shared by all who are united to Christ through the Gospel, through faith in Jesus (Rom. 8:17; Gal. 3:26-4:7; Eph. 3:6; Titus 3:7).

Kistemaker notes well that in John’s citation of 2 Samuel 7:14, he replaces the word ‘father’ in the 2 Samuel verse with the word ‘God’ in the Revelation 21:7 verse, and suggests that this is because

For us, the link between being children of God and being heirs is unbreakable. Whereas Jesus is the one and only Son, we are adopted sons and daughters. And whereas Jesus inherits all things (Heb. 1:2), we as co-heirs share in all his blessings….in Jesus Christ God has adopted us as his sons and daughters and made us members of his family (compare 2 Cor. 6:18). In Revelation, John never calls God the father of believers; yet he is the Father of Christ (1:6; 2:27).”²

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¹ Caird, 267.
² Kistemaker, 560.

Christ as Fulfillment of the Davidic Covenant
Not only is Christ the all encompassing God of History and the source of life and salvation, he is the fulfillment of the Davidic covenant. As previously noted, Revelation 21:1-8 is lavish with covenant language: blessings and cursings, obedience and disobedience, and “I will be your God and you will be my people” language. In 21:3 we read, “He will dwell with them as their God: they will be his peoples,…” As previously mentioned, Revelation 21:6-7 is in the context of covenantal blessings and cursings which hearken back to Deuteronomy 28. It is more specifically a fulfillment of the Davidic Covenant made in 2 Samuel 7:14:

The Davidic covenant is ultimately fulfilled in the singular masculine son¹ of 2 Samuel 7:14. The covenant language of Revelation 21:3 has been narrowed from people or peoples to a singular son. Ultimately the peoples and the people are by nature covenant breakers in dire need of a covenant keeping son to fulfill the Davidic Covenant. That son, clearly not being Solomon, is the Son of God, Jesus Christ. Kistemaker suggests that this is a mere allusion to the Davidic Covenant; rather, it appears that John the Apostle is exclaiming, “Jesus is the fulfillment of the Davidic Covenant. Stop playing in the shadows and worship Him!”

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¹ As important as I deeply believe gender inclusive language to be in general, this is an instance where attempts to be gender-inclusive eradicate the OT connection to the NT fulfillment. Rev. 21:7 in the NRSV reads, “Those who conquer will inherit these things, and I will be their God and they will be my children.” The substantival participle ο νικων is not plural and it is masculine. Further God is spoken of in reference to a singular masculine son, not people or children in general because it is in direct reference to 2 Sam 7:14 which is also with reference to a single masculine son, not to children in general. That is to say, let’s be gender-inclusive in a conceptual way not simply on the basis of words.

Fount of Living Water
Another theme that is prominent in both the Bible and this passage in Revelation is that of Christ as the source of living water. In the context of Revelation this could either be an attributive genitive (“fountain of living water”) or a genitive of apposition (“fountain of water, which is life”).¹

Beale further argues that the fountain of living water is in the context of a covenantal cursings and blessings formula. Revelation 21:7-8 certainly gives this connotation in light of the “I will be their God and they will be my people” concept, which runs through 21:3-8. Further, the blessings of 21:7 seems to be juxtaposed with the cursings of 21:8 in a way most intentionally drawing the reader back to these notions in Deuteronomy 28.

Revelation 22:1 sets forth Christ’s throne, sovereign rule, as the source of the river of life, the very fountain itself. The living water idea is found in John 4, where Christ identifies himself as source of the living water, which is conceptually that which will eternally and perfectly nourish the Syro-Phoenician woman so that she never thirsts again. That is to say that the living water is that which is true and eternal nourishment. John 6 conceptually equates that with Christ himself, who is the living bread or bread of life. That is the nourishment of life. That is to say that Christ is fulfilling what the Prophet Isaiah revealed:

8 Thus says the Lord:
In a time of favor I have answered you,
on a day of salvation I have helped you;
I have kept you and given you
as a covenant to the people,
to establish the land,
to apportion the desolate heritages;
9 saying to the prisoners, “Come out,”
to those who are in darkness, “Show yourselves.”
They shall feed along the ways,
on all the bare heights shall be their pasture;
10 they shall not hunger or thirst,
neither scorching wind nor sun shall strike them down,
for he who has pity on them will lead them,
and by springs of water will guide them (Isa. 49:8-10, NRSV).²

In addition to being “resonant with the echoes of the Beatitudes,”³ the fountain of living water being Christ Jesus himself is the source and the sustenance of eternal life, that is life that does not die. In the context of the Bible as a whole, Christ, the Last Adam, offers freely (dwreavn) to the progeny of the First Adam the life source, which Adam the First failed to obtain (c.f., Romans 5:12-21). Adam was overcome. Christ overcame. This New Testament contrast echoes the very problem endemic to post-Edenic humanity which is found in Jeremiah 2:13:

13 for my people have committed two evils:
they have forsaken me,
the fountain of living water,
and dug out cisterns for themselves,
cracked cisterns
that can hold no water (Jer. 2:13 NRSV).

Here again, the Lord equates himself with the fountain of living water (מְקוֹר מַיִם חַיִּים), which his people forsake and then in His place erect idolatrous cisterns which cannot do what covenant breakers desire. This source of life idea ultimately returns us to the Garden in which Adam the First failed to obey God, having chosen instead disobedience by eating the fruit of the tree which was not a source of life but which brought death into the world.

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¹ Beale, 1056.
² See also, Genesis 16:7; Genesis 24:13; Genesis 24:43; Exodus 15:27; Numbers 33:9; Joshua 15:19; 1 Kings 18:5; 2 Kings 2:21; 2 Kings 3:19; 2 Kings 3:25; Psalm 107:33; Psalm 36:8-9; 107:35; 114:8; Song of Solomon 5:12; Isaiah 35:7; Isaiah 41:18; Isaiah 49:10; Isaiah 58:11; Jeremiah 2:13; 9:1; Joel 3:18; John 4:10,14; 7:38; Revelation 8:10; Revelation 14:7; Revelation 16:4.
³ Caird, 267.

Revelation 21:6-7 (NA26) 6 καὶ εἶπεν μοι· γέγοναν. ἐγώ [εἰμι] τὸ ἄλφα καὶ τὸ ὦ, ἡ ἀρχὴ καὶ τὸ τέλος. ἐγὼ τῷ διψῶντι δώσω ἐκ τῆς πηγῆς τοῦ ὕδατος τῆς ζωῆς δωρεάν. 7 ὁ νικῶν κληρονομήσει ταῦτα καὶ ἔσομαι αὐτῷ θεὸς καὶ αὐτὸς ἔσται μοι υἱός.

6) And he said to me, “These things have come into being. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the Completion. I will give freely to the one who thirsts from the spring of the water of life. (7) The one who is overcomes will inherit these things and I will be his God, and he will be my son. (author’s translation)

The Bible begins with Paradise and ends with Paradise, and in this way it functions as a kind of merism.¹ In the Genesis account that paradise is lost, while in the Revelation account it is restored. The Garden of Eden and the New Jerusalem stand as cosmic bookends to the voluminous story of God in Human History. The one who orchestrated the end from the beginning is the one who composed the entirety of the prose of History which lies in between, thus emphasizing God’s sovereignty over all that is, was and will be.

Alpha and Omega

This same God declares himself to be the Alpha and the Omega at the beginning of the book of Revelation (1:8) and then at the end of the book in 21:6 and 22:13. He also refers to himself as the Beginning and the Completion (τέλος) in 21:6 and as the First and the Last (εσχατος) in 1:17 and 22:13. By using these merisms as bookends in the book of Revelation, John is emphasizing the sovereign rule of God over all things.² He is also emphasizing that the End or Completion of all things, is not εσχατον, but rather εσχατος.³ The significance being that the Beginning, the End and all that lies in between is not some impersonal neuter but rather a Person working his will in time and space, a phenomenon commonly called History.

Beale suggests that Isaiah 41-48 also contains similar merisms, which may have also given rise to the one in view in Rev. 21:6 (e.g., Isa 41:4; 44:6; 48:12). Interestingly, although there are small differences in the LXX and the BHS in these passages, the nature of the merism is conceptually preserved in both. However, in light of those differences John apparently had in mind the Hebrew variation.

It is on this all encompassing sovereign basis, seen in this merism pair, that the Lord declares that all his promises, particularly those in view in 21:1-5, “have come into being” (γέγοναν). The significance of the perfect aspect of this plural verb seems to be under emphasized in most of the English translations, which generally translate it as “It is done” (e.g., NIV, NRSV, NASB). It is not the abstract that has been checked off, but the promises of God which have come into being as reality.⁴ All things will have been made new and the record is written down because God’s word is “faithful and true” (c.f., 21:5).

Further, these statements of all encompassing sovereignty are set forth as definitive of God’s person in light of the εγώ είμι phrase which precedes them. This hearkens back to the Gospel of John in which the Apostle seeks to identify Jesus with the burning bush theophany found in Exodus 3:14.⁵ This is to say that “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the Completion” is a statement which drives the reader to both the Christotelic nature of history and the Divinity of Christ, who just as YHWH declares himself to be the First and the Last in Isaiah so also Christ, the second person of the Trinity, makes the same statement about himself here in Revelation 21:6.

In summary, the Alpha and Omega merism is paralleled by the Beginning and the Completion merism. These literary devices serve to fix Revelation firmly in the context of biblical history and to establish the basis for hope in the promises of God therein revealed to the church of all ages.

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¹ A merism is a grammatical device by which two poles are taken as representation of the whole.
² Beale, Gregory K. The Book of Revelation: A Commentary on the Greek Text. in The New International Greek Testament Commentary. Edited by I. Howard Marshall and Donald A. Hagner. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999) p. 1055.
³ Caird, George Bradford. The Revelation of St. John the Divine. 1st ed. (New York: Harper & Row, 1966) p. 266. Caird makes the statement that “the word εσχατον (neuter) does not occur in the New Testament.” While the neuter form occurs in Luke 12:59 in the singular accusative and in other neuter forms – in Mt. 12:45; Lk 11:26; Acts 1:8, 13:47; 2 Pe 2:20; and Rev. 2:19 – his statement per context seems to mean that whenever the End (εσχατον) is in view it is always spoken of as a person rather than an impersonal event.
⁴ Kistemaker, Simon J. Exposition of the Book of Revelation. Vol. 20 of New Testament Commentary. (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2001) p. 559.
⁵ ibid.