Overcoming Hyperopia

In preparing a recent sermon on Revelation 21 as a model for the church, I was struck by the parallels between Ezekiel and Revelation.

In fact, the whole book of Revelation is a new covenant Ezekiel; the two books are completely parallel in structure, thought, and language:

• both open with a throne vision of God, high and lifted up
• both show plagues poured out on the unfaithful
• in both the saints are sealed on their foreheads
• both have the prophet eating a book
• both have a harlot who is judged
• both have a lamentation over the fall of Jerusalem
• both have a battle with Gog and Magog
• and both close with visions of the new temple and the new city
  

I'm sure I have missed many others. The point is that John, like Ezekiel in chapters 40-48, is giving us the vision, the blueprint, the kingdom plan for God's people and calling them to repentance and to conformity to the vision. When we better see the parallels between what Ezekiel was doing for the old covenant people of God and what John is doing for the new covenant people, we better understand that John’s words are for us here and now, not just in the future.