I’m taking a class in apocalyptic literature
that’s pretty darn fascinating. In these texts, there’s a lot of talk about God “coming down.”So what do they mean?
What do they claim that God is going to do
when God comes down?
Well, it doesn’t say anything about God setting up a soup kitchen, delivering casseroles, or picketing in the streets (not to disparage any of those things).
It says that God is going to smash all your idols (yes, and mine too). And not just the little wooden or golden statuettes that you may have lying around your home (or the rectangular plastic, metal, and glass one you carry around in your front right pocket all day).
Our idols make up the foundation of our existence and serve as our existential guardrails. Our idols are the mental, spiritual, and social constructs that we lean on to save us (but which are merely made of imaginary sand).
This is what God is coming to rip out of our ground.
Sounds like good fun, doesn’t it?
Warmly,
Jonas
Books like Revelation, Enoch, Jubilees, Daniel, Qumran, etc. - you know, the terrifying ones.
Along with a lot of other books throughout Scripture, particularly in the Old Testament, but also in the New.
Not that God is actually “up there” in a directional sense, but you get the point.
