Martin Luther once taught us that this is to place all that opposes our God’s dominion into a pile and pray: “Curses, maledictions, and disgrace upon every other name and every other kingdom. May they be ruined and torn apart, and may all their schemes and wisdom and plans run aground” (Luther’s Works [1956], 21:101). “Thy kingdom come” is the positive way of praying, “Destroy every other kingdom that resists your will or stands in your way.”

As the Author reads the final sentences of this world’s story, as the final sheep steps into the fold, as the last martyr’s blood spills to the ground, we hear heaven suddenly swell — with silence.
The hallelujahs halt. As a “darkness to be felt” stretched over the land of Egypt (Exodus 10:21), now a silence to be felt stretches over heaven itself. The burning ones bite their tongues from screaming “Holy, holy, holy!” Saints momentarily quiet their songs about the crucified Lamb. The apostle John reports “silence in heaven for about half an hour” (Revelation 8:1). Heaven, that place of highest praise, sinks into the solemn stillness of an army on the eve of battle.
As all quiets onstage, trumpets are distributed to seven archangels, and the spotlight shines on a priestly angel (possibly the Lord Jesus himself), who wades through silence to stand at an altar with a golden censer and much incense. He is to burn the incense before the throne. He performs what the Old Testament priests once did in the temple, when the gathered people went silent, and the fragrant smell of burning incense rose into heaven. But what cloud of aromas now rises before the Lord? Incense from the golden bowls, the prayers of the saints (Revelation 5:8).
At the end of this world, heaven quiets itself to solemnize the prayers of God’s people, rising as worship before God. John writes, “And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, rose before God from the hand of the angel” (Revelation 8:4).
And for what do these prayers plead? In one word: justice.
Appeals of the Apocalypse
The hushed scene picks up from the intermission of chapter 6, where John sees the ascended Lamb break the seven seals one by one. The breaking of the first four seals unleashes different horsemen, who bring violence, famine, and sickness (Revelation 6:2–6). Hades gallops close behind (verses 7–8). Saints are slaughtered during this period of broken seals.
At the breaking of the fifth seal, John sees their host, “under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne” (Revelation 6:9). In silence, overhear the theme of their prayer:
They cried out with a loud voice, “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?” (Revelation 6:10)
“Then they were each given a white robe and told to rest a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brothers should be complete, who were to be killed as they themselves had been” (Revelation 6:11). That moment arrives in chapter 8. Silence to hear solemn appeals of murdered saints now crying out for God to avenge their blood.
Commentator Grant Osborne strikes the vital note: “The silence in heaven is an expectant hush awaiting the action of God, but that is not to be just an outpouring of wrath but God’s answer to the imprecatory prayers of the saints (6:9–11 recapitulated in 8:3–4). Thus there is worship (the golden censer with incense) behind the justice” (Revelation, 339). The scent of worship will soon rise from the wrath. God’s sentence against the impenitent persecutors is not just a response to sin’s penalty, but to his saint’s prayers.
Before this volcano, mouths do not open, eyes do not shut. How does God respond?
Then the angel took the censer and filled it with fire from the altar and threw it on the earth, and there were peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning, and an earthquake. (Revelation 8:5)
Fire falling, thunder crashing, rumblings, lightning lashing, earth quaking — “Be silent, all flesh, before the Lord, for he has roused himself from his holy dwelling” (Zechariah 2:13). And so begins the final judgment, for verse 5, writes G.K. Beale, “is to be interpreted as the final judgment, not as some trial preliminary to that judgment” (Revelation: A Shorter Commentary, 169).
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As fallible humans we all sometimes succumb to haste, emotion, and the influence of others, especially the media, whose sole occupation lies in seeking to get us to believe its narratives and to think and act along its preferred lines. Add in the rigors and tedium of pastoral and publishing work and mistakes are apt to happen sometimes, even large ones. In such cases a little public or private contradiction that seeks to set one right is justified, provided it is moved by charity and expressed courteously.

On April 24th, byFaith, the official magazine of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), published an article titled “Prayer and Work in the Face of Violence,” in which it was claimed that “gun violence” is “the leading cause of death among children in this nation.” I published an article showing that was false on the basis of mortality statistics provided by the CDC (available here). Others also took umbrage to the April 24th article, and I dispatched a personal message to byFaith requesting a removal of the article and a full retraction. That has not occurred, and as of May 24th the article is still available at byFaith, unamended and unaccompanied by any editorial clarifications.
Mistaken claims are rather common in the world of the published word. The careful observer will note, for instance, that I misnamed David Cassidy’s church in the first sentence of my first Aquila Report article, accidentally referring to it as Spanish River Presbyterian rather than Spanish River Church due to an editing error. Are Dominic Aquila and I to then be regarded as wholly unreliable in our claims? Hardly. But the answer in all such cases is to correct the mistake when it is brought to one’s attention and to be more careful in future, hence why I have mentioned my fault here and why I have checked with a former professional proofreader to ensure my pronoun usage is correct in the phrase above about the proprietor of this site and me. (And in fairness, I reversed them the first time around.)
It is a rather more serious fault, however, to make a claim as large and consequential as that gun violence is the leading cause of death of children in this nation when it is easily verified that it is not. And it is significant as well that this claim seems to be that of a certain political faction in our nation, as evidenced by the fact that I passed by a waiting room the other day and found a pair of activists making the claim verbatim on a major news outlet. The PCA’s magazine should not be parroting the false claims of the political left. Nor should it be repeating the claims of any other political faction, unless they involve questions in which the church has a vital interest or unambiguous questions of public morality, such as matters of liberty of conscience, the free exercise of our faith, abortion, euthanasia, and the like; and even in those questions I think the church’s involvement should be as an independent witness of right and wrong, and that she should never allow herself to become a de facto organ of any political party.
But even granting that it is a more serious offense, we need not assume the worst as to its reasons. As fallible humans we all sometimes succumb to haste, emotion, and the influence of others, especially the media, whose sole occupation lies in seeking to get us to believe its narratives and to think and act along its preferred lines. Add in the rigors and tedium of pastoral and publishing work and mistakes are apt to happen sometimes, even large ones. In such cases a little public or private contradiction that seeks to set one right is justified, provided it is moved by charity and expressed courteously.
What I am suggesting, then, is that we provide a collective remonstrance against byFaith’s error of fact. If you are reading this and are a member of the PCA I ask you, dear reader, to take a moment to drop byFaith a line here or via email at [email protected], and to tell them that you are disappointed that the public news outlet of our church has done poorly by its departure from its proper mission, and that it needs to retract its errors by removing the source of offense in question and offering a public acknowledgment and correction of its published errors of fact. The reason I suggest this is simple: byFaith is an official agency of the PCA, paid for by her funds and subordinate to her government. Our magazine should not be publishing false claims which venture into the territory of the purely political and have no direct relation to the church or her duties of disciple making.
I believe, moreover, that any PCA member should be able to do this in good conscience, regardless of his or her beliefs about criminal justice policy. For while we may differ as to our beliefs about civil or political questions, yet the proper focus of the church is a matter which we should all respect, and upon which we should all insist. Christ’s “kingdom is not of this world” (Jn. 18:36), and when the people of Israel were about to make him king he withdrew from them (Jn. 6:15), lest their mistaken popular enthusiasm should distract from his true mission of redeeming his elect. The PCA (including her agencies like byFaith), being a manifestation of Christ’s body, the church, ought to take heed and beware lest in her concern with the things of this life she diverts people’s attention from things above (Col. 3:1-2; comp. Matt. 16:23).
Tom Hervey is a member of Woodruff Road Presbyterian Church, Five Forks (Simpsonville), SC. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not of necessity reflect those of his church or its leadership or other members. He welcomes comments at the email address provided with his name.
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Written by Samuel G. Parkison |
Wednesday, November 2, 2022
Christ came to you at your lowest and he positively transformed you from an enemy to a friend. The Father’s overflowing, gushing love for you he displayed when he sent his Son to win your reconciliation with his life, and purchase your reconciliation with his death—all while you were breathing out venom and hatred and rebellion towards him. That is news good enough to put undue shame to shame.

Shame is a popular word today. Sometimes preachers like to substitute the word “sin” for “shame,” as if the antithesis to a whole and fulfilled life is a life free of shame. In this respect, such pastors do not sharply contrast with the rest of our world. If our culture is anything, it is on a mission to rid ourselves of shame. Of course, if you think the antithesis to a whole and fulfilled life is shame, this will shape how you go about seeking wholeness and fulfillment (and not at all in a good way). If shame is the primary problem, shamelessness is the solution. This is why our world is intent on ridding ourselves of all absolute standards of morality. The sexual revolution is nothing if not a grand attempt to whistle in the dark and wish our consciousness away. If shame often comes from the transgression of sin, there is nothing to do but rule sit out as a category. There are no taboos anymore. If someone else’s sexual sin causes you to have a reaction of disgust, we are told, that says more about you than it does them. There is no accident to the fact that the phrase “you do you” is often coupled with the phrase “no shame.” We vehemently hate the shame that accompanies knowledge of moral transgression, so we erase the idea of moral transgression. There is no nature nor command behind sexuality—it is what I want it to be.
Christians should steer clear of this kind of wholesale antipathy for shame. Shame is not our sworn enemy. Sometimes shame is useful. Some sins should cause us to have reactions of disgust! The Scriptures often appeal to shame at various points. Much of the time, shame is an indication of a conscience that still functions properly. It is often the rightful corresponding emotion to shameful acts.

Bad Shame
Having said that, undue shame is a horrible thing. Shame that persists wrongly is not good. This would include, for example, shame for a sin that was committed against you. Victims often feel shame for sins that their oppressors should feel shame for. In such situations, shame is doubly perverted; where it should be absent in the psyche of the victim, it is overactive, and where it should be present with a vengeance in the psyche of the oppressor, it is altogether absent.
Another kind of undue shame is that kind that hangs onto sins that have been truly confessed, repented of, and forgiven by Christ. This kind of shame, while it may feel pious, is actually dishonoring to Christ. It cheapens his blood and essentially says that Christ’s atonement is not sufficient—it needs to be supplemented with wallowing shame. So, the opposite of shame is not shamelessness; the opposite of shame is a humble gratitude for forgiveness. Now, it’s easy for me to say that in the abstract—“let go of the shame for the sins that Christ has atoned for and cleansed you of”—but practically, this is easier said than done.
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