Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God: The Scandalous Truth of the Very Good News

by Brian Zahnd

Perfect theology is not a system of theology; perfect theology is a person. Perfect theology is not found in abstract thought; perfect theology is found in the Incarnation. Perfect theology is not a book; perfect theology is the life that Jesus lived. What the Bible does infallibly and inerrantly is point us to Jesus, just like John the Baptist did.

So here is an important interpretive key for reading Revelation: keep in mind that all the monstrous images

found in the book are symbols for cosmic evil working through Caesar and the Roman Empire. The final book of the Bible is not a coded newspaper foretelling of future geopolitical events. Rather, it is a glorious depiction of the triumph of Jesus Christ.

Perhaps the best way to understand the book of Revelation is that it is a prophetic critique of civil religion. By civil religion I mean the religion of state where the state is the actual object of worship.

“faith is ordered primarily to the inconceivability of God’s love.”*1

But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love…. We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in his love. God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them.*3