Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 164:656 (Oct 2007)
Article: The Adoration Of God The Redeemer: An Exposition Of Revelation 5:8–14
Author: David J. MacLeod

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BSac 164:656 (October-December 2007) p. 454

The Adoration Of God The Redeemer: An Exposition Of Revelation 5:8–14

David J. MacLeod

David J. MacLeod is Dean for Biblical Studies, Emmaus Bible College, Dubuque, Iowa, and Associate Editor of The Emmaus Journal.

This is the final article in a three-part series on Revelation 4–5, “Worship in Heaven.”

In recent years a smorgasbord of ideas has been propounded about who Jesus is and what He has done.1 An increasing number of essays, books, and seminars advocating bizarre and nonsensical ideas about Jesus have been spawned, and the biblically illiterate public has been quick to embrace these ideas.

Jesus has been portrayed as a political zealot (S. G. F. Brandon), a social prophet (Richard A. Horsley), a charismatic Jew (Geza Vermes), a magician (Morton Smith), a cynic philosopher (F. Gerald Downing), or a modern chief executive officer (Laurie Beth Jones). Writers have argued that He was born near Qumran, traveled to Egypt in His teens where He was influenced by Buddhism, married Mary Magdalene in His thirties, was crucified but escaped death through the use of special medicines, married Lydia in His fifties, and celebrated the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Last Supper in Thessalonica (Barbara Thiering).

BSac 164:656 (October-December 2007) p. 455

Another person has written that myth makers invented the idea of Jesus in order to disguise their fertility cult centered in the use of hallucinogenic mushrooms (John M. Allegro). A popular novelist said that Jesus survived Calvary only to be finally crucified overlooking the Bay of Naples as an old man (Irving Wallace). Meanwhile liberal theologians continue to deny the deity of Christ, His incarnation, substitutionary atonement, and resurrection from the dead (John Hick, Shelby Spong).2

In the theater He has been portrayed as a clown (Godspell) and as the Rock Redeemer (Jesus Christ Superstar).3 In the infamous film The Last Temptation of Christ director Martin Scorsese portrayed Jesus as wracked by doubt and indecision. At one point Jesus confessed His personal sin, saying, “I am a liar, I am a hypocrite, I am afraid of everything.. .. Lucifer is inside of me.”4

The publication of Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code has given great impetus to conspiracy theories that the early church covered up the truth about Jesus. Brown claims that (a) Christians did not view Jesus as Go...

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