Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 156:621 (Jan 1999)
Article: Heaven’s Hallelujah Chorus: An Introduction to the Seven “Last Things” (Rev. 19:1-10)
Author: David J. MacLeod

BSac 156:621 (Jan 99) p. 72

Heaven’s Hallelujah Chorus:
An Introduction to the Seven “Last Things” (Rev. 19:1-10)*

David J. MacLeod

In his play entitled Saint Joan, George Bernard Shaw tells the story of Joan of Arc and how she left her home to inspire her fellow citizens in France to battle against the British conquerors. In the second scene the young heir to the throne, Prince Charles, age twenty-six, is whining and complaining because Joan, obedient to her heavenly vision, is rebuking him for his softness and cowardice. As she rebukes the prince he responds, “I want to be just what I am. Why can’t you mind your own business, and let me mind mine?” The peasant girl, filled with the urgency of the situation, speaks: “Minding my own business is like minding your own body: it’s the shortest way to make yourself sick. What is my business? Helping mother at home. What is thine? Petting lapdogs and sucking sugarsticks [i.e., lollipops]. .. I tell [you] it is God’s business we are here to do: not our own. I have a message to you from God; and you must listen to it, though your heart break with the terror of it.”1

These words of Joan of Arc reflect, in a way, the urgency of apostolic Christianity. This urgency grew out of the apostles’ belief in the return of the Lord. Belief in the Lord’s return, they taught, should produce purity in life (1 John 3:1–3), forbearance and patience toward brethren (Rom. 14:10), comfort in sorrow (1 Thess. 4:13–18), urgency in service (1 Cor. 3:10–14; 2 Cor. 5:10), and vitality or vibrancy in worship (Rev. 19:1–5).

* This is article one in an eight-part series, “Expositional Studies of the Seven ‘Last Things’ in the Book of Revelation.”

David J. MacLeod is a member of the faculty of Emmaus Bible College in Dubuque, Iowa, and is associate editor of The Emmaus Journal.

BSac 156:621 (Jan 99) p. 73

Revelation 19:11–22:5 is the New Testament’s classic passage on Christ’s return. These chapters set forth seven major motifs of biblical eschatology,2 “the Last Things,” as Austin Farrer calls them:3 the second coming of Christ (19:11–16), the defeat of the Antichrist (You must have a subscription and be logged in to read the entire article.
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