the time is near

This should be a short post and may also shed a little light on the last one.  At the end of the first 3 verses of revelation we are told that we should take to heart what is written because the time is near.  Without rehashing all that I have already said about how soon is soon I just want to take a quick look at how near this time may be.

As we have already seen, English is a poor language.  The problem with English is that we do not have enough words, so time and again we have to lump numerous meanings into one.  The word time is one of these words, we read it hear in revelation and again the image that it brings tends to be of a short period of time passing until the events mentioned will take place.

To try to find if this is what is being said we need to look at the two Greek words that are translated as time in our bibles, these are Chronos and Kairos.  Chronos which is were we get words like chronicle from and is used by watchmakers world wide to name their brands (Chronoswiss) is a word that depicts a measured piece of time.  In the NT it is used to describe a particular moment for something to happen (Acts 1:6, Lk 1:57). A long time (Matt 25:19) or a short time (Jn 12:35).

Chronos is about time which has passed or time that has not yet happened.  We can only guess how long something will take us in the future and the reality may be very different, and once it's done we cannot change how long it took.  Chronos then is out of our control and it passes by of its own accord, as the sun rises and sets and as the clock ticks away each second.

Kairos though is different, kairos is much more about quality then quantity, it is about what happens in the moment much more than the length of that moment.  Kairos is sometimes translated as age, era or season highlighting the emphasis not on the quantity of the time (days, months, years) but on what takes place within that period.  Paul tells us that Jesus died for us at the right time (Rom 5:6) and in 2 Corinthians 6:2 we are told of the moment of God's favour.

So to revelation.  The writer uses both of these words in the book so we have to take it that he purposefully used a particular word in a particular place for a reason.  In the case of revelation 1:3 the Greek word is kairos so the emphasis is much more about what happens in that moment than the length of time that has to pass.

Smalley probably sums up the emphasis of this verse best when he writes;

"So far as the Christian concept of time is concerned, the decisive 'moment' (kairos) dawned with the coming of Jesus... Because of this advent, an hour of fulfilment has arrived, the rule of God has broken in, and we are summoned to a reaction of repentance and faith.  In the present verse, John reminds his readers that all time is now therefore critical, and that the present as well as the future, and those that live in them, stand under the 'judgement' of God.  The 'moment' is 'approaching'; but it is always pressing in." Smalley, p31

Revelation is a book that reminds its reader that the moment is always approaching, we are always in a place where we need to respond to the good news of Jesus because the Kingdom of God is upon us.  If we new the time and date the danger is we would get lazy, we would play the game knowing when the deadline would arrive and doing that which was necessary just in time.  Revelation keeps us on our toes, telling us the moment is approaching and we should take to hear its words.