The Mystery of “Time Release” Digestion
In describing the revelation of Christ as a process of harvest and the unrolling of a scroll, we noted how the beginning of revelation is comparatively imperceptible to its consummation. When the word of Christ’s revelation is first uttered, not much may seem to happen. This affects our perception of Christ’s promise of “soon” return.
But it is not that nothing has happened. It is that the prophetic word operates on its own internalized timing mechanism. Another way we understand this naturally is through the process of digestion, specifically in what we call a “time release capsule.”
Some decades ago, pharmaceutical companies devised a way to create pills that would not launch all their medicine at once into the digestive system. Instead, they were designed to release their medicine gradually over time until the pill had completed its release. This prevented the need for many pills to be swallowed over short periods of time.
Similarly, the prophetic Revelation first reported by John has functioned like a medicine capsule on a time release plan inside a process of earthwide spiritual digestion. The Word of Christ’s Revelation was actively “ingested” into the “bloodstream” of human events when John first received it. Since then, its unveilings have been timed to come to fulfillment at appointed places in the history of the generations. But those unveilings were not immediately or fully experienced or apprehendable from the beginning and still remain in process.
The “Little Book”
The idea of the progressive digestion of Christ’s Revelation within the body of mankind is given us in miniature in chapter 10, where John is given a “little book” (scroll) of prophecy to “eat”:
10:8 Then the voice which I heard from heaven, I heard again speaking with me, and saying, "Go, take the book which is open in the hand of the angel who stands on the sea and on the land." 9 So I went to the angel, telling him to give me the little book. And he said to me, "Take it and eat it; it will make your stomach bitter, but in your mouth it will be sweet as honey." 10 I took the little book out of the angel's hand and ate it, and in my mouth it was sweet as honey; and when I had eaten it, my stomach was made bitter. 11 And they said to me, "You must prophesy again concerning many peoples and nations and tongues and kings."
So watch this. We are talking about a little scroll which is being eaten. In the scroll we are seeing the prophetic Word of God as a process to be unrolled (as discussed last time). That the scroll is “little” shows us that this particular Word given to John is found within the larger scroll of revelation already being unrolled by the Lamb. It is a “sub-revelation” of the Lord within the larger revelation. (We will talk more about the sub-revealings of Christ in the next episode.)
Lastly, that the scroll is edible shows us that the revelation of Christ belongs to not just any process, but to a process of digestion. Digestion speaks of “permeation.” It begins in one place (the mouth), but goes out to affect the entirety of a body.
Now, are not digestion and permeation two major prophetic types already given us in scripture to explain the action of the Word of God? The Word is already spoken of as bread to be eaten. Jesus is the Bread of Life. His Word is “bread.” So is His “flesh”—all of it to be “eaten,” meaning to be “digested”—meaning to permeate throughout the body. The Word is like “leaven” that permeates the dough causing it to rise (Mt. 13:33). It is like the mustard seed producing a tree that fills the earth (Mt. 13:31-21).
See how much then is already given to us to understand the processal nature of the Revelation of Christ in relation to the idea of “soon.” When a pill is taken to deliver medicine to the body, it is taken at once (“quickly, soon”), but it still takes time once released to do its work.
A Process of Purging
The digestive process of Christ’s Revelation is further shown us to be one of purging, that is, as a purgative to the body of the church and thus of mankind itself. This is seen through its effect on John once he eats it.
When John first eats and swallows the little scroll, it tastes sweet. But in his stomach, it is bitter. Why is it bitter? It is bitter because medicine is bitter. The prophetic revelation is a Detoxifier that surfaces toxins out of the body. That which cures brings pain and discomfort as it confronts disease within the body. There is conflict between the medicine and the disease. I once wrote about this long ago as follows:
Haven’t you ever taken one of those pills for a cold that was coated with a sweet coating? I remember when I was a kid. My dad would give me this blue pill that tasted sweet. One time, I sucked on it before swallowing it because I wanted to see what it really tasted like underneath.
After a bit, I got to the real pill—and it was bitter! Quickly I downed it to get that taste out of my mouth! Never again would I do that. In any case, it was clear that, were it not for the sugar coating, there’s no way in the world anybody would take that pill.
If you understand this illustration, then you can understand how the message of the cross works underneath the coating of the word of God. You see, the true medicine behind every word of God is the message of the cross. It is a bitter message and accomplishes its life transforming work through a process of suffering within the soul.
But on the surface, that’s not how the Word of God comes to us. Not at all. In its approach to us, the Word of God comes to us on the level of our natural life—it appeals to us on the basis of what our natural life can appreciate and desire, like a sweet coating.
So there is conflict between the Revelation and the work of sin in the soul of the church, and in the body of mankind. There is conflict between the Detoxifier and the toxins it encounters within the inner man. The Revealing of Christ creates huge discomfort, even vomiting, on its journey through the intestinal corridor of the present age. But that is because it is a purgative to the earth. (Remember this when you later consider the leaves of the Tree of Life given for the healing of the peoples in Revelation 22.)
But what we must get is that, as with the “little scroll,” so with the “big scroll.” It is the same with the revelation of Christ no matter the size of the scroll. The nausea of John’s individual encounter with the little scroll has been reenacted thousands-fold with the world’s digestion of the grand revelation of Christ witnessed through the larger seven-sealed scroll of the Lamb and in turn the complete Book of Revelation as we hold it in our hands. See all the retching of history’s digestive system throughout this sacred Book. (And it is the same for the littlest scrolls of our individual lives with all their tribulations in Christ.)
This all evidences the graduated purging effect of Christ’s Revelation on the church and the world since the time the “pill” was first released. Most of it has been and continues to be a bitter experience.
Only at the end do we realize the vibrant healthy restored state of the universe in the Lamb’s arrival after He has completed His coming-through-purging upon the earth.
Time-Released Prescriptions
As we were saying, a medicine begins to act right away, but it does not act all at once and takes time to do its work. Moreover, much medicine is dispensed in the form of time release capsules wherein the medicine is set to be released in stages over time. So it is with the revelation of Christ since the time it was first released through John.
The book of Daniel gives us some insight into this mystery of time released prophecy relative to prayer. An angel testified to Daniel as follows:
Dan. 10:12 Then he said to me, "Do not be afraid, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart on understanding this and on humbling yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come in response to your words. 13 "But the prince of the kingdom of Persia was withstanding me for twenty-one days; then behold, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, for I had been left there with the kings of Persia. 14 "Now I have come to give you an understanding of what will happen to your people in the latter days, for the vision pertains to the days yet future."
See here how the prophetic angel was released the very day of Daniel’s prophetic prayer. Yet there was a time delay in the angel’s consummating arrival. The answer to the prayer was released the day the prayer was invoked. But as soon as it was released, the Answering Word encounters Conflict. It must overcome an Enemy on its way to fulfilment. In this case, the “medicine” took “twenty-one days” to defeat the “toxins.”
People, these are the prophetic ways of God, of His Word, and of His Revelation. Now throughout the Book of Revelation as well as the Book of Daniel, we read of various time periods and durations, all of which are “encapsulated” within the Lord’s meaning of soon.
- (pause)
Stop first. Just think for a minute of what the angels told John once John had eaten the little scroll:
"You must prophesy again concerning many peoples and nations and tongues and kings.”
So in the eating of the scroll, John is now empowered to a task of prophesying what he has just eaten to “many peoples and nations and tongues and kings.” But this task has been assigned within the borders of Jesus’ first promise: “I am coming soon.” How long does one suppose it would take for John to accomplish this task? Was Jesus contradicting Himself by declaring His soonness and then assigning John a task that would transcend his lifetime? Or are we the ones continuing to misplace the true meaning of soon?
Do we not see once again with John’s assignment the relation of soon to the outworkings of the entire prophecy? The point is that within the “soon” activation of the promise of the Lord’s coming were and remain chains of events ordained to occur en route to the Lord’s consummating arrival.
- (continue)
This brings us back to considering the various time periods mentioned in Revelation. The point of this study will not be to analyze the meaning and significance of every time period mentioned. What we want to see is the relationship of time periods themselves to the ways of the Revelation of Christ.
Time periods speak of process. They speak of outworking. Time periods are in accord with the concepts of unfolding and unrolling and time release—all within the Promise of His Coming. They speak of the durations required for the outplay of the Revelation. The times are soon and quick in the fact of their activation, but they must yet pass through the appointed durations unto consummation of their accomplishments in the appearing. This is how all the times and seasons are covered within the meaning of soon.
&&&&&&&&&&
And so to close this portion of our study, let’s consider that when we are reading of time periods in Revelation—or any of the prophets for that matter—we are reading of the “medical prescriptions” necessary on orders of the “Great Physician” for the purging of the human race in order for the fullness of Christ’s appearing to be visible—an appearing having already begun to be unrolled long ago.
Before He comes ultimately in His Appearing, the Lord first comes quickly and immediately as the purging medicinal Word having been “swallowed” by the present age when John and seven churches first “took the pill.” Ever since He has been working His way through the digestive tract of the body of mankind, forcing the tumultuous retchings and evacuations necessary upon an earth groaning on its deathbed under the weight of sin, awaiting the consummation of her healing when she at last can awake to true consciousness to behold His Appearing and hear His Word: Talitha Cumi (“Little Girl, I say to you, arise”)
(To be continued…..)
Chris Anderson
New Meadow Neck, Rhode Island
First Love Ministry
- a ministry of Anglemar Fellowship
http://www.firstloveministry.org4/16
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Page updated January 24, 2018
