The words of one of the most outstanding prophets who ever lived on Earth are rightfully his. The greatest minds of mankind have been puzzling over its Revelation or Apocalypse for thousands of years, but so far they have not made any progress in solving it. He was a favorite disciple of Christ, and only to him the Savior revealed a great secret: he allowed us to look into the future… You, of course, guessed that this is John the Theologian.
Fate was favorable to him – almost all the apostles ended their life with a Martyr’s death, but for John, Christ prepared a different fate: “… I Want him to stay until I come.”
The way of the prophet John the theologian
John was born in Galilee, one of the districts of Palestine. Together with his father Alexey and brother James (also a future Apostle), he fished. Their family had a special spiritual atmosphere. The Jews, and especially Salome, the mother of John, were very religious people. According to one version, Salome was a sister of the most Holy virgin Mary, that is (if you believe this hypothesis) Jesus Christ and John were first cousins. Many researchers explain the special relationship of Christ to John by this fact.
After all, the latter was present at almost all the most important events in the life of the Savior: at his Transfiguration, at the prayer in Gethsemane. It was John who was asked by Jesus before his death to take care of his mother. In the last moments of his earthly life, the Son of God, looking at Mary and his beloved disciple standing at the cross, said softly: “Woman, behold your son! Behold your mother!» John fulfilled his master’s will exactly.
Those who deny the relationship of the prophet and Christ, say that the meeting of the son of Zebedee with Jesus took place in bethavar on the Jordan river, and John the Baptist introduced them. “Here is the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world,” said the Baptist. John was overwhelmed by Christ. He hung on his every word, and together with Andrew, a childhood friend and future Apostle, followed the Messiah. “Having come to Christ and listened to Him one evening, they did not return to John (at first it was the Baptist who was the teacher of the theologian. – E. S.), but they were so transferred to Christ that they took on the Ministry of John and began to preach about Christ themselves,” John Chrysostom testified.
Son of thunder
Christ liked the new disciple. In John, restraint and resistance to adversity were wonderfully combined with the fervor of the soul, serenity with impetuosity. It happened that the even and calm John committed rash acts, for which Jesus more than once admonished him. He even gave John and his brother the nickname Boanerges – “sons of thunder”.
John the Evangelist was not like the other apostles. Unlike, for example, Peter, he lived a more internal, contemplative life. John was by nature an observer rather than a practitioner. His soul was constantly hovering in the upper world, perhaps that is why the symbol of the eagle corresponded to John in the Church iconography since ancient times.
And it was such a boy-dreamer that the Savior allowed to look into the future.
Believe or disbelieve the prophet?
All that John saw there, he described later in his revelation, which is still often called The book of seven seals. As soon as this message was not interpreted. Some, for example, and to this day prove that the visions of the Apostle predict the position of the Christian Church and the fate of Christians in the 1st century, while others seek the fulfillment of prophecies in historical events of later time.
Many great events are predicted in revelation: the destruction of Jerusalem by Roman troops, the Second world war, and even the Chernobyl accident. A few years ago, the world started talking about the prophecies of John the Evangelist again. And this is due to the assignment of a personal code to everyone. In Russia, it is called an individual identification number (INN).
As well-versed analysts explain, universal digital identification of people is a key element of globalization. It opens the way to the creation of a system of total control, which will later eliminate cash payments and completely switch to electronic money (credit cards). At the next stage, you can try to combine documents related to all aspects of a person’s activity (plus their e-wallet), and create a single smart card with a magnetic carrier.
And as the crowning effort – to replace a convenient, but always lost card with a microchip that can perform the same functions. Most of all, the forehead and hands are similar to the implantation of the contraption – it will be easiest to remove it from there if necessary. Technologically, all this is possible now.
And this is what is written in revelation: “… all small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, will have a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads. And that no one can buy or sell, except he who has this mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of its name. Here is wisdom. Whoever has a mind, count the number of the beast, for it is a human number; its number is six hundred and sixty-six…»
The first to sound the alarm were the Greeks, led by the ecclesiastical authorities of the Hellenic Church, who won the right not to receive Schengen passports. The attention of the Athonite monks was attracted by the encoding used in these documents: after all, it was created in 1973 in the United States-a state that claims to establish a new world order. A thorough, comprehensive examination of this barcode was carried out. It turned out that EAN-13/UPC has one unique quality that distinguishes it from all other encodings… There are three sixes on several levels at once…
“Fear God and do not be afraid of the Antichrist, who cannot destroy your body and soul, and resist him with boldness, for judgment and retribution are near, and he has power only for a short time,” John the Theologian instructed.
However, the revelation Of John the theologian can be interpreted in different ways. After all, more than once, referring to individual chapters of the book, some “interpreters” predicted the end of the world for us. They even gave us the exact date. But you and I are still alive.
But it is also not worth ignoring the words of the theologian. Not for nothing did he receive the glory of a great prophet. According to the Bible, after the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, on the day of the feast of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit descended on the apostles and gave them the ability to heal people and preach the Word of God in many languages. And John – always a silent youth-suddenly discovered an extraordinary gift of eloquence. “Clearer than the sun’s rays” were his words. No, he did not “burn the hearts of people with a verb”, on the contrary, he spoke about seemingly quite ordinary things: about love for one’s neighbor, about tolerance and forgiveness, but his sermons attracted ordinary listeners far more than any incendiary speeches.
Soon, as a preacher and organizer of churches, John the Theologian became widely known far beyond the borders of Palestine. In addition, the beloved disciple of Christ revealed a wonderful gift of foresight. And it turned out to be so…
The miraculous salvation of the prophet John the theologian
After the Dormition of the most Holy Theotokos, the apostles cast lots for whom and where to go to preach. It fell to John to sail to Ephesus. He took with him a disciple of Prokhor. During the first days of the journey, John predicted to his companions that they would be in for a great storm, a shipwreck that would leave few survivors. And in case something happened to him, the Theologian ordered Prokhor to get to Ephesus alone.
Events unfolded as predicted by John the Theologian. A terrible storm broke out. In vain Prokhor searched for his teacher: in such a monstrous storm, only a miracle could save him. And it was done! Forty days later, a huge wave washed up John’s body on the beach. The Apostle himself explained his salvation by the fact that he had not yet managed to accomplish all that was intended by fate.
In the footsteps of the teacher Jesus Christ
And it was intended for him to convert more and more people to the faith of Christ. It happened that John admonished the most evil pagans with terrible punishments. Once on Ephesus at the prayer of the prophet came a terrible heat, because of which 800 of the most famous men died overnight. Never before had the city known such a calamity. But immediately John performed another miracle: in the name of Jesus, he raised the dead.
The Apostle converted thousands of people to Christianity. The priests in the temples and the priests in the synagogues were in a wild rage. The people were drawn to the teaching of Christ, and they lost their believers, their income, and their power in the cities. Numerous denunciations of the disciples of Jesus Christ, including John, poured into Rome. And soon the Apostle, chained in chains, appeared before the Emperor Domitian.
He wanted to kill a preacher who defied his authority. The Apostle humbly drank the Cup of poison given to him and, to the surprise of his enemies, remained alive. Then they threw him into a pot of boiling oil, but he came out unharmed. Scared, Domitian decided to remove John from sight, send him into exile on the island of Patmos.
On the way to exile, the theologian had a chance to escape punishment. The son of the legionaries ‘ chief stumbled over the side of the ship and drowned. John the Evangelist prayed, and the wave carried the young man’s body to the deck. Soon he came to his senses. The happy father offered the Apostle his freedom. But he refused: like his teacher, Jesus Christ, he did not seek ways of salvation without fulfilling his purpose.
The exiled Saint John the Theologian
A small piece of land in the Aegean sea played a huge role in John’s life. A rocky island that the sun beat down on mercilessly, scorching the already sparse vegetation, it seemed. It was created for testing and reflection. It was here that he wrote his Revelation. Thousands of believers came here to listen to the beloved disciple of Christ.
One Sunday, the Apostle felt that his earthly journey was over. John was more than a hundred years old, and he was so ill that they carried him to Church. He gathered his brothers, disciples, and friends in his house and bade them farewell. Then the Apostle asked his three disciples to take their shovels and follow him. John the Evangelist reached the cemetery without assistance, and there ordered the people who accompanied him to dig a grave, at the bottom of which he laid his clothes. He prayed for a long time, and then lay down in the grave and asked to cover himself with earth. The disciples dared not disobey John, but wept and did his will.
By the evening of the same day, the faithful missed the Holy elder. Outraged by the action of his disciples, they rushed to the cemetery, hoping to save the buried John alive. How surprised they were when they dug up the entire grave and found nothing and no one in it! Then people decided that the Apostle was taken to heaven alive. After the death of the prophet, a beautiful legend was born that his spirit wanders the earth, admonishes, instructs, and supports Christians. In his visible form, he appeared in many lands. We saw it in Russia. He helped the venerable Wonderworker Avraamiy Rostovsky to crush the stone idol of Veles, which was worshipped by pagans. At the river Ishni, on the spot where he met the great elder, Abraham built a temple in the name of John the theologian.
Author Elena Saveleva