The Book of Revelation
The final decision at the Council of Hippo in 397 was to include the Book of Revelation in the canon of the Bible.
It was a mistake.
After that, it has been hard to get Christians to listen to the teachings of Jesus in the Gospels.
Our natural inclination is toward revenge, and the Book of Revelation is a book of vengeance. In it, both God and his Son are rough customers.
God pours out bowls of wrath on the earth and sends fire and earthquakes.
And Jesus rides in on a white horse with a sword in his mouth and cuts off the heads of his enemies.
And that’s it.
That’s the undoing of the image of God we have in the Gospels.
That wipes out the essential teaching of Jesus—that God loves us, even if we are the worst of sinners. For God loves God’s enemies.
Jesus says God is “kind to the ungrateful and to the wicked.”
So, Christians face a choice: They must choose bowls of wrath or grace.
They must choose a Jesus who cuts off heads or dies for us on the cross.
They can’t have both.
And many Christians, particularly evangelicals, choose the image of God from Revelation.
That tells us why a political figure who is all about vengeance has the support of so many people who claim to follow Jesus Christ.
That politician was once asked to name his favorite verse of scripture.
He said, “An eye for and eye and a tooth for a tooth.” Yes, the very verse Jesus quoted to say that it was wrong.
And so is that “book of vengeance” in the Bible.
It is wrong about God.