Celebrate Divine Mercy Sunday

Celebrate with us Divine Mercy Sunday on April 27, 2025. The Feast of Divine Mercy was established by Pope John Paul II who canonized St. Faustina on April 30, 2000, and declared the Second Sunday of Easter (the Sunday after Easter Sunday) as “Divine Mercy Sunday”. “On that day are opened all the divine floodgates through which graces flow. Let no soul fear to draw near to Me, even though its sins be as scarlet. My mercy is so great that no mind, be it of man or of angel, will be able to fathom it throughout all eternity”. Jesus Divine Mercy https://www.thedivinemercy.org/celebrate/greatgrace/dms What is Divine Mercy Sunday? Find out the basics. In a series of revelations to St. Maria Faustina Kowalska in the 1930s, our Lord called for a special feast day to be celebrated on the Sunday after Easter. Today, we know that feast as Divine Mercy Sunday, named by Pope St. John Paul II at the canonization of St. Faustina on April 30, 2000. The Lord expressed His will with regard to this feast in His very first revelation to St. Faustina. The most comprehensive revelation can be found in her Diary entry 699: My daughter, tell the whole world about My inconceivable mercy. I desire that the Feast of Mercy be a refuge and a shelter for all souls, and especially for poor sinners. On that day the very depths of My tender mercy are open. I pour out a whole ocean of graces upon those souls who approach the fount of My mercy. The soul that will go to Confession and receive Holy Communion shall obtain complete forgiveness of sins and punishment. On that day are opened all the divine floodgates through which graces flow. Let no soul fear to draw near to Me, even though its sins be as scarlet. My mercy is so great that no mind, be it of man or of angel, will be able to fathom it throughout all eternity. Everything that exists has come from the very depths of My most tender mercy. Every soul in its relation to Me will contemplate My love and mercy throughout eternity. The Feast of Mercy emerged from My very depths of tenderness. It is My desire that it be solemnly celebrated on the first Sunday after Easter. Mankind will not have peace until it turns to the Fount of My mercy. In all, St. Faustina recorded 14 revelations from Jesus concerning His desire for this feast. Nevertheless, Divine Mercy Sunday is NOT a feast based solely on St. Faustina's revelations. Indeed, it is not primarily about St. Faustina — nor is it altogether a new feast. The Second Sunday of Easter was already a solemnity as the Octave Day of Easter[1]. The title "Divine Mercy Sunday" does, however, highlight the meaning of the day. …. Extraordinary Graces What graces are available and how do we receive them? In her Diary, St. Faustina records a special promise given to her by Jesus. He told her to communicate it to the whole world: My daughter, tell the whole world about My inconceivable mercy. I desire that the Feast of Mercy be a refuge and shelter for all souls, and especially for poor sinners. I pour out a whole ocean of graces upon those souls who approach the fount of My mercy (699). In three places in her Diary, St. Faustina records our Lord's promises of specific, extraordinary graces: I want to grant a complete pardon to the souls that will go to Confession and receive Holy Communion on the Feast of My mercy (1109). Whoever approaches the Fountain of Life on this day will be granted complete forgiveness of sins and punishment (300). The soul that will go to Confession and receive Holy Communion will obtain complete forgiveness of sins and punishment (699). To receive these graces, the only condition is to receive Holy Communion worthily on Divine Mercy Sunday (or the Vigil celebration) by making a good Confession beforehand and being in the state of grace and trusting in His Divine Mercy. By these conditions, our Lord is emphasizing the value of confession and Holy Communion as miracles of mercy. The Eucharist is Jesus, Himself, the Living God, longing to pour Himself as Mercy into our hearts. In addition, our Lord says through St. Faustina that we are to perform acts of mercy: "Yes, the first Sunday after Easter is the Feast of Mercy, but there must also be acts of mercy" (742). "The graces of My mercy are drawn by means of one vessel only, and that is trust. The more a soul trusts, the more it will receive" (1578). The worthy reception of the Eucharist on Divine Mercy Sunday is sufficient to obtain the extraordinary graces promised by Jesus. A plenary indulgence[1], obtained by fulfilling the usual conditions, also is available. For those who cannot go to church and the seriously ill. ________________________________________ [1]The extraordinary graces promised to the faithful by our Lord Himself through St. Faustina should not be confused with the plenary indulgence granted by Pope John Paul II for the devout observance of the Second Sunday of Easter (Divine Mercy Sunday). The Decree of the Holy See offers: "A plenary indulgence, granted under the usual conditions (sacramental confession, Eucharistic communion and prayer for the intentions of Supreme Pontiff) to the faithful who, on the Second Sunday of Easter or Divine Mercy Sunday, in any church or chapel, in a spirit that is completely detached from the affection for a sin, even a venial sin, take part in the prayers and devotions held in honour of Divine Mercy, or who, in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament exposed or reserved in the tabernacle, recite the Our Father and the Creed, adding a devout prayer to the merciful Lord Jesus (e.g. Merciful Jesus, I trust in You!)..." Fatima and Divine Mercy “Mary’s Immaculate Heart begins to triumph today because you can expect real miracles where the Divine Mercy is venerated and when people trust in the Divine Mercy”. Fr. Kazimierz Pek, MIC Taken from: https://iheartworks.wordpress.com/resources/devotion-to-the-divine-mercy/pope-john-paul-ii-links-fatimadivine-mercy/ John Paul II: Fatima & Divine Mercy Pope John Paul II Links Fatima to the Divine Mercy From September 4th to the 10th, 1993, John Paul II took his apostolic mission to the three former Soviet Baltic republics, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. It was a miracle – a word not commonly heard in these countries – that the head of the Catholic Church stood among Lithuanians on that September day in Vilnius, and knelt together with them before the miraculous icon of Our Lady of Mercy of Ostra Brama. Only after his consecration of Russia in 1984, was the Pope able to go on pilgrimage to countries of the former atheist empire, pray the rosary for peace, undertake acts of entrustment, and preach the mercy of God. When John Paul II knelt in prayer at the feet of Our Lady, Mother of Mercy, at her Sanctuary of Ostra Brama, his presence there in a remarkable way, linked the Message of Fatima with the Divine Mercy. He also thereby fulfilled both aspects of the words of the Angel to the children of Fatima in the second apparition in 1916: “The most holy Hearts of Jesus and Mary have designs of mercy upon you.” Just five months before his visit to Vilnius, on Divine Mercy Sunday, April 18, 1993, the Pope had declared Blessed the Polish nun, Sister Faustina Kowalska, to whom Our Lord had revealed His Divine Mercy in the 1930s. When in September, 1993, the Holy Father knelt beneath the image of the Woman of the Apocalypse at Ostra Brama (and Our Lady’s intervention at Fatima is accepted by many authorities as a fulfillment of chapter 12 of the Apocalypse), he would certainly have recalled that the image of the Divine Mercy was painted in Vilnius, and was first exposed precisely in the shrine of the Mother of Mercy in Ostra Brama. Sister Faustina briefly describes this event on page 44 of her Diary. The proclamation of God’s Mercy at the present time coincides distinctly with the proclamation of the Message of Fatima, for the Mother of God of Fatima is also the Mother of Mercy, Stella Orientis, the Patroness of the East. This became apparent at the meeting of John Paul II with two Polish priests of the Marian Fathers of the Immaculate Conception. In February, 1994, Father Adam Boniecki, MIC, Superior General of the Marian Fathers, and Fr. John Nicholas Rokosz, MIC, Superior of the Polish Province, had a private audience with the Pope and presented him with two books, the Russian version of Blessed Faustina Kowalska’s Diary and the extended Polish version of Fatima, Russia and Pope John Paul II (from which we cite this material). The Pope was very pleased with this gift – holding them in his hands he said, “Good. Let the people read them. Let them know who brought them their freedom.” On Divine Mercy Sunday, April 10, 1994, the editor-in-chief of the Marian Fathers’ publishing house in Warsaw, Fr. Kazimierz Pek, MIC, distributed the first Russian copies of the Diary in Moscow to the people gathered in the Immaculate Conception of Mary church. Here is part of what he said in his homily: “The Divine Mercy begins to be proclaimed in Russia just from here, from the church dedicated to Our Holy Mother, immaculately conceived. It flows from the throne of a Woman, whose Heart was ever immaculate, filled with joy, because she experienced that “from age to age his mercy extends to those who live in his presence.” And she, who lives in his presence, is inviting all of us to do the same –by experiencing the Divine Mercy in our lives. Mary’s Immaculate Heart begins to triumph today because you can expect real miracles where the Divine Mercy is venerated and when people trust in the Divine Mercy (iHeartworks emphasis)…The statue of Our Lady of Fatima…is a sign. Our Lady seems to be saying: “Let them read. Let them know who brought them their freedom.” This is a way to fulfill all the promises and plans God has for Russia…” The connection between Fatima and the Divine Mercy was further emphasized by Fr. Rokosz in the homily he delivered in Stockbridge, Massachusetts on the same day of Divine Mercy, April 10, 1994. Referring to his meeting with the Pope in February, Fr. Rokosz said in his sermon: Brothers and Sisters! do you realize what the Pope said? It is the Divine Mercy that freed the Soviet nations from the chains of Communism! And the further fate of these nations and even of the entire world depends on it. The Pope points out that the message of Fatima and Divine Mercy meet again. The history of the world is entering a new phase. This epoch, at the dawn of which we are living, is the epoch of Divine Mercy. And, for further evidence of the connection between Fatima and Divine Mercy, we have Our Lady’s words of Divine Mercy given at Fatima. • As noted above, a year prior to Our Lady’s apparitions in 1917, the Angel appeared to the three seers . During the second apparitions, the Angel said to them, “Pray! Pray very much! The Hearts of Jesus and Mary have designs of mercy on you.” • In the third apparition, the Angel taught them the moving Trinitarian prayer of Eucharistic reparation (see below), which bears a noteworthy similarity to the prayer to the Eternal Father in the Divine Mercy chaplet (see Chaplet Prayers). • In July, 1917, Our Lady revealed God’s plan of mercy, to save the souls of poor sinners from going to hell by establishing in the world devotion to her Immaculate Heart. Participation in this merciful work of salvation is extended to all the faithful who comply with Our Lady’s requests for prayers, sacrifices and acts of reparation, and is one of the principle elements in the Fatima Message. • Finally, in the last apparition of Our Lady at Tuy on June 13, 1919, Sr. Lucia was granted a vision of the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity, in which “under the left arm of the cross, large letters, as if of crystal clear water ran down upon the altar, formed these words, “Grace and Mercy’. Our Lady then said to me: “The moment has come in which God asks the Holy Father, in union with all the Bishops of the world, to make the consecration of Russia to my Immaculate Heart, promising to save it by this means.” (Fatima in Lucia’s Own Words, 9th edition, page 235).

“And suddenly as no one planned, Behold the kingdom grow!” Professor James McAuley Australian poet, Professor James McAuley, was my (Damien Mackey’s) English teacher at the University of Tasmania, in 1970. I recalled this time in my article: Memories of Australian poet, professor James P. McAuley (1) Memories of Australian poet, professor James P. McAuley Greg Sheridan quoted Professor McAuley’s words concerning “the kingdom grow” in his Easter article for The Australian (April 19, 2025): https://www.theaustralian.com.au/inquirer/the-most-extraordinary-thing-about-this-easter-the-surge-towards-christianity/news-story/81f9acba04311a0755a32f8e1e970e14?giftid=yHc2bCOjw9 The most extraordinary thing about this Easter? The surge towards Christianity Resurrection, heaven, and even the most unpopular doctrine, hell, are essential to the elevated Christian vision of human dignity. Easter Sunday is the most revolutionary day the world has known. For an atheist it’s the day of the greatest hoax in human history. For a Christian, it’s the day Jesus triumphed over death, the day the meek inherited the earth, the last became the first, the promise of eternal life became physical reality. If that’s true, it’s true for everyone in the world, not just for Christians. No Christian believes the resurrection was a metaphor, a psychological or purely spiritual experience, an apparition without substance. As St Paul wrote: If Christ is not risen our faith is in vain, and we are the most to be pitied of all people. The resurrection imposes a startling, unavoidable binary on everyone who encounters it. Either you believe it’s a lie, and Christianity worthless, or you believe it happened, and Jesus is God. One reason novelist Graham Greene gave for his conversion to Christian belief was the detail, the physicality, the feel of truth, not to mention the raw emotional honesty of the gospels, especially John’s gospel, especially its account of the resurrection. Mary Magdalene is the first to discover Jesus’ tomb is empty: “Mary stood weeping outside the tomb.” As she weeps, she tells a stranger: “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” Then she meets Jesus; she’s the first of the Christians to meet the risen Jesus, yet doesn’t recognise him immediately. There is so much good news for the human race in this passage, so many clues about this life, about eternal life. But let’s pause for one other bit of good news. For the past decade I’ve been writing about the decline of Christianity in the West (not elsewhere, it’s on fire in Africa and Asia). This seemed overwhelming and it was hard to know where it would lead. A few months ago I noticed something strange going on and wrote about the conversion of the great historian Niall Ferguson and his wife, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, to Christian belief in the Anglican communion. I noticed the surge of numerous leading Western intellectuals, by no means all conservatives, coming to Christianity. Now, the weirdest thing is happening. The statistical decline of Christianity in the US, in parts of Europe, even perhaps in Australia, has puzzlingly stopped. The Economist reports that a surprising number of American Gen Z and millennials have “got religion”. The Pew polling organisation records the proportion of adults in the US identifying as Christian has remained stable over the past five years at about 62 per cent. Here’s an even more startling statistic from Britain. Based on YouGov surveys, in 2018 some 4 per cent of 18 to 24-year-olds went to church once a month. In 2024 that figure was 16 per cent. Christianity’s still a minority of that cohort, but that’s dramatic growth. In France, a bastion of anti-Christian secularism, the Catholic Church will baptise more than 10,000 new converts this Easter, nearly half as many again as in 2024, and the biggest number since statistics of this kind have been kept over the past 20 years. Nearly half these converts are aged 25 and under. Similar things are happening elsewhere in Europe. Melbourne’s Catholic Archbishop, Peter Comensoli, noted in his recent Patrick Oration that there will be 400 converts to Catholicism in Melbourne at Easter. In his diocese, Sunday mass attendance has gone from 84,000 in 2022 to 103,000 in 2024. … Every Christian leader I’ve consulted about this responds in the same way, with caution and humility. Let’s see if it’s sustained. Let’s not celebrate too soon. Let’s not be unseemly in rejoicing. Still, my own reaction would be: what a miracle! What a time it is to be alive. These startling trends recall the prophetic words of one of the greatest Australian poets, James McAuley, in Retreat, which, after describing the difficulties communicating the truth, unexpectedly concludes: “And suddenly as no one planned, Behold the kingdom grow!” Among Catholics the two movements with the most energy among young people are the rad trads, the highly traditionalist, and the charismatics, Catholic first cousins of the Pentecostals. Like the Pentecostals, these movements emphasise a personal encounter with God, with the transcendent. Christians should never shy away from how utterly weird, how completely gobsmackingly strange, their core beliefs are. Christians believe that God became man, born of a virgin, suffered humiliation and death, and rose from the dead. Christians believe that every week at church they eat the flesh of this God and drink his blood. Christians believe that every human being will live for all eternity in a transformed version of their body. Christians believe in the Four Last Things – death, judgment, heaven, hell. I’ve recently been reading a great deal about early Christians, after the apostles, mainly in their own words. Like the Christian movements experiencing success today, one striking feature of early Christians was that they leaned right into the essential weirdness of their beliefs. Nobody rejected Christianity in the first century Roman Empire because it was too bland. Both heaven and hell, in my view, are more than a bit neglected these days in much Christian discourse. Nobody spoke about heaven and hell more frequently than Jesus himself. We have the experience during his crucifixion, when he tells the good thief, dying beside him: “Today you will be with me in paradise.” These words rightly offer hope, but they also offer information, teaching. It’s possible to be with Jesus, in paradise, after death. The relationship with Jesus is everything. We don’t know in detail what heaven will be like. Christian scripture deals mainly in metaphor in describing the indescribable – the pearly gates and so on. John, in his first letter, sensibly comments: “What we will be has not yet been revealed.” But he continues: “What we do know is this, we will be like him (God) for we will see him as he is.” We know something of what even our risen bodies will be like from the encounter Mary Magdalene had with the risen Jesus. She doesn’t recognise him at first, then she does. His body is transformed. It’s no longer bound by the physical limitations of the pre-resurrection body. And yet it’s a physical body still. Thomas, the doubting apostle, places his hand in Jesus’ wounds to prove they are real. Jesus eats and drinks with the apostles, at one point cooking them breakfast. Vince Gair, a long-forgotten DLP politician, used to say: if you must be a dog, be an Alsatian. That’s a very inapt comparison, but let me make it anyway. The message is, be wholeheartedly the thing you’re going to be. There are some tough words about the lukewarm in the New Testament. I always think of any Christian movement – if you believe in the supernatural, talk about the supernatural, if not all the time, at least pretty frequently. Heaven is part of the Good News. It’s not just an image or outside possibility to provide modest consolation, a sporting chance so to speak, for mourners at funerals. It’s a solemn promise of the living God. It’s the promise of Jesus in crucifixion. But if Christians avoid heaven, these days they almost never mention hell. That too is a mistake. It’s surely the case that some Christians previously used the fear of hell in emotionally manipulative ways. It’s also true that concern for the supernatural is no excuse for neglecting the poor or those in need today. Again Jesus has some pretty tough words on such neglect. But heaven and hell together are part of the strikingly elevated conception of human dignity that Christianity, and indeed the whole Judeo-Christian tradition, uniquely teach. As John says about heaven, we will be like God. That should inspire awe. It also goes right back to the beginning of the Bible, to Genesis, and the most radical statement in celebrating human nature, and therefore human rights, ever made in the ancient world – that God created humanity in the image of God. Human nature is exceptional in every way. Atheists often demand Christians explain human evil. Christians could point out that atheists can’t explain human virtue, human heroism. When God became man, in Jesus, this further elevated humanity’s nature. In some ways, people share in the nature of God and share some God-like qualities. One is human creativity. Another is language. God spoke the world into being. God spoke something and it existed. Human beings think something and in a sense a version of it exists in their mind. This power of proactive creation is God-like. Yet of course human nature is also flawed, limited and fallen. One of the most extraordinary gifts God gave is free will. Our age in particular, though in love with freedom at the trivial levels, always shies away from the responsibility that goes with real freedom. When there is a mass murder the explanation is routinely medicalised. Psychologists, sociologists, many other “ologists” incline to erase human agency and responsibility. But the Jewish and Christian scriptures, and every aspect of our own lived experience, show us that human beings have agency, they make choices, including moral choices, their choices have consequences, they are responsible for their choices. The Christian story is also that God offers forgiveness to anyone who is genuinely sorry. Many Christians feel they couldn’t bear the weight of their own sins without the promise of God’s forgiveness. At the same time, God respects the free will of human beings. Viktor Frankl, a psychiatrist who survived Adolf Hitler’s death camps and wrote about them in the magnificent Man’s Search for Meaning, concluded that there was one final value no one, not even the Nazis, could take from any person. He wrote: “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” Frankl described the systematic Nazi effort to dehumanise the inmates of the concentration camps. Central to dehumanising them was to remove the faculty for moral choice. But Frankl observed that in the end nothing absolved a human being of moral choice. A human being can be coerced into actions but still there is the spirit of resistance, the decision on whether this action is willing or forced. Moral choice is inescapable. Throughout history there are endless efforts and conspiracies to deprive humanity of the reality of moral choice, of free will with consequences, as though we just can’t cope with it. Some Christians so emphasise God’s sovereignty, that he can save or not whoever he likes, that they understate the majesty of his gift of free will. No one earns heaven. It’s rather that they accept God’s gracious gift and also repent of their wrongdoing. A range of early Christian heresies held that salvation, entry to heaven, to ultimate friendship with God, was either so difficult that only a tiny number of the elect could attain it, or conceived it as effectively universal. Our psychobabulous and neurotically therapeutic age similarly hates individual responsibility, preferring often to vest responsibility in racial or gender categories, or in national histories or even the impersonal movements of history. Of course, in truth, human history is driven by individual human beings, who make individual choices. Sam Harris, one of the New Atheists (I must honestly confess to finding this group’s logic-chopping arguments tedious and unimpressive, but that’s a matter of taste), in Free Will argues that effectively there’s no such thing as free will. Whereas in reality everyone is influenced by their background, by their experiences, but if there is really no free will then we’ve never done anything wrong. Does that describe you? For all that, Christians have always grappled uneasily with the idea of hell. How could a good God allow an eternity of punishment for anyone he created? The New Testament talks of hell in metaphor and it may be that its awful suffering is simply the realisation of losing the chance of intimate friendship with God. CS Lewis famously argued that the door to hell is always locked from the inside; that is, it contains people who continue to reject God, who remain in rebellion. Some Christian theologians hope that hell is empty, which is a reasonable hope. Others believe hell cannot possibly be consistent with a loving God. That’s not the mainstream Christian position. For if there is no hell, or rather no possibility of hell for it may well indeed be empty, there’s no real free will. Human beings exist then just like animals, faithful to their nature, doing as they will, not capable of a lasting moral choice. Instead, for free will to be real, there must be the possibility of rejecting God and God’s honouring that rejection. Rejecting God is not exactly the same as rejecting Christianity. God is not just good, God is goodness itself. The Catholic catechism, for example, teaches that someone who doesn’t know about God, or doesn’t know about Jesus, but honestly seeks out the good, in other words seeks out God, may also find salvation. Of course, notwithstanding how much there is about this in the New Testament, and in Christian tradition, the truth is many things remain a mystery. Many things are beyond our understanding, approached only in metaphor. Nonetheless, death and judgment, heaven and hell, are elements of the uniquely elevated, truly glorious conception of human nature that Christianity teaches. The triumph of Easter is full of hope. As one of the early Christians, Irenaeus, argued: “The glory of God is man fully alive.” And never more alive than Easter Sunday.

Kenneth L. Gentry’s new book on the Apocalypse

“A number of people have asked for my assessment of Dr. Ken Gentry's long-awaited, almost-2000-page commentary on the book of Revelation. I consider Dr. Gentry an ally, and enjoyed reading this commentary (yes, all almost-2000 pages). My overall assessment is that Gentry makes some major advancements to Revelation studies in his research on the book, and that this is the best commentary on Revelation written so far. But I also believe it misses the mark in several critical areas …”. Phillip G. Kayser Divorce of Israel, The The Divorce of Israel presents a “redemptive-historical” approach to Revelation. In it John presents a forensic drama wherein God is divorcing his old covenant wife Israel so that he can take a new wife, the new covenant “Israel of God” composed of Jew and Gentile alike. Thus, Revelation presents the vitally important redemptive-historical transition from the land-based, ethnically focused, temple-dominated old covenant economy to its worldwide, pan-ethnic, spiritual new covenant fulfillment. And it does so by highlighting God’s judgment upon first-century geo-political Israel. Hardcover Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr., Th.D. April 23, 2024 A Review of Dr. Kenneth L. Gentry ' s New Commentary, The Divorce of Israel: A Redemptive-Historical Interpretation of Revelation Phillip G. Kayser, PhD - August 15, 2024 info@biblicalblueprints.com Biblicalblueprints.com A number of people have asked for my assessment of Dr. Ken Gentry's long-awaited, almost-2000-page commentary on the book of Revelation. I consider Dr. Gentry an ally, and enjoyed reading this commentary (yes, all almost-2000 pages). My overall assessment is that Gentry makes some major advancements to Revelation studies in his research on the book, and that this is the best commentary on Revelation written so far. But I also believe it misses the mark in several critical areas, including: • The main message of the book • The structure of the book • The practical value and application of the book A lot is at stake when it comes to understanding Revelation rightly or wrongly — our doctrine of Scripture and prophecy; whether we walk in fear or confidence about the future; whether we make use of Revelation's amazing amount of practical guidance on civics, economics, personal holiness, spiritual warfare, and a host of other issues. I believe the right understanding of this book unlocks incredible hope, missionality, and confidence in responding to persecution and tyranny. Revelation, understood rightly, is a practical manual on occupying and overcoming in crazy times; truly a book for our times. I have been studying Revelation for most of my adult life; Dr. Gentry's commentary is the 114th full-length commentary I have studied. I have also read several hundred studies that bring light to the interpretation of Revelation, including extensive exegetical studies and very recent discoveries in archaeology, seismology, meteorology, meteoritics, ancient astrology, Jewish idolatry, ancient iconography and other studies that open up the book in a whole new way (many of which studies were apparently not available when Dr. Gentry wrote his commentary). The main message of the book The structure of the book The practical value and application of the book (For those of you wondering about my general theological training, I have an M.Div from Westminster Seminary California, and a PhD from Whitefield Theological Seminary, and am a mentor for Masters level and Doctoral level dissertations in theology.) …. Dr. Gentry and I have similar approaches to the book of Revelation, so I was reading Gentry with friendly eyes and with a receptive spirit to be corrected in my thinking at every point. Indeed, I was hoping that Dr. Gentry's commentary would be the last one needed and that I would not need to finish my layman's commentary and academic commentary on the book. We are still in the infancy of Revelation studies, and the more we can challenge each other as "iron sharpening iron" (Prov. 27:17), the more advancements we will see in our understanding of this book. I am writing this review in that spirit of wanting to keep advancing such studies. I always welcome exegetical challenges to my own conclusions. The text should always dictate the system, not vice versa. Dr. Gentry has promised to follow this commentary up with a layman's edition, and I am hoping he will benefit from the critique below and strengthen his conclusions in his next work. First, the strong points. What I Really Like About This Commentary It's extremely well researched and interacts extensively and fairly with other views Though even more could be said for the contributions and strengths of some eschatological positions than Gentry says, [1] I appreciate that he presents the strengths and weaknesses of all of the other eschatological approaches to Revelation very fairly. Gentry graciously interacts with many eschatological viewpoints (even very obscure ones) and does a good job of dealing with most of their credible arguments. He outlines the options, systematically eliminates the options he disagrees with by presenting detailed exegetical reasons why (in his opinion) they will not work, and then presents his own opinion with strong exegetical proofs. It is a solid enough commentary that academics of all eschatological persuasions will likely need to interact with Gentry's arguments, if for no other reason than to answer his critiques of their positions. It's based on a solid hermeneutical approach • Gentry does a masterful job of showing the Redemptive-historical nature of this book, the Hebraic nature of the book, and Revelation's extensive use of the Old Testament. With regard to John's use of the Old Testament, Gentry approvingly quotes McKelvey saying, "when reading the book of Revelation, one is plunged fully into the atmosphere of the Old Testament. No book of the New Testament is as saturated with the Old as in the Apocalypse" (p. 120). The extensive way that Gentry demonstrates John's uses of earlier books of the Bible makes this commentary well worth owning. Even those who strongly disagree with Gentry's particular brand of partial preterism[2] will benefit from those discussions. • I was pleased to see that Dr. Gentry avoided the interpretive maximalism that marred David Chilton's approach to Revelation. • I was also very pleased that (for the most part) Gentry avoids the kind of dependence on Jewish non-canonical apocalyptic literature that so many commentators have. For the most part, he simply interprets Scripture with Scripture. For example, he denies that Revelation is "steeped in Jewish apocalyptic literature" (p. 119) and correctly states that "When we detect apparent parallels between Revelation and apocalyptic literature, the parallel is due to the common ideological ancestor, the Old Testament" (p. 125). He later states that "the source of Revelation's bold imagery is not first-century Jewish apocalyptic, but Old Testament era canonical apocalyptic prophecy" (p. 184). Though Gentry for the most part stays consistent with this solid hermeneutical approach, I found him to occasionally deviate from this stance. [3] It is my contention that Revelation is not apocalyptic literature at all, but prophetic literature in the genre of Old Testament prophecies. When closely examined, the two genres are quite different. Because of the confusion that can result from the different definitions of "apocalyptic literature," I prefer to avoid the term "apocalyptic" altogether. But Gentry is certainly within mainstream thought when he uses the term. In contrast to Gnostic apocalyptic literature, the images found in Biblical prophecies are grounded in actual, literal, historically verifiable events — a fact that Gentry from time to time notes. It's solid on authorship His arguments for the Apostle John being the author are spot-on, and he deals well with all the objections. I highly recommend his argumentation on this subject. It's solid on dating and immanence clues Another strength of the book is that it insists that there must be an imminent fulfillment (or at least a partial fulfillment) of all the major sections of Revelation [4] since John insists that these speak about events that are "soon," "near," or "about to happen" (v. 1i; cf. 1:3,7,19; 2:5,10,16; 3:10,11; 6:11; 11:14; 22:6,7,10,12,20). …. Gentry dates the composition of the book of Revelation to somewhere between AD 65 and 66, a position that I also hold. This makes his constant refrain of "imminent fulfillment" much more credible than the distant historical "fulfillments" proposed by the bulk of historicist and futurist commentaries. While I believe he pushes the imminence of fulfillment way too far by overapplying almost the entire book to AD 66-70 (see my critique below), any other approach will have to deal with his numerous arguments that the repeated phrases, "soon" and "the time is at hand," are literally true. It's open to the symbols being literal historical events I appreciate the fact that Gentry repeatedly insists most of the symbols [5] in the book also likely took place in a literal way in history. On page 874 he rightly notes: Nevertheless, Barr (1998: 199) is surely wrong to assert that 'everything in this story is symbolic.' Not everything in it is symbolic, for if it were we would not be able to understand it at all. Symbolic images require a point of contact with literal realities for them to convey meaning, and John certainly intends to convey meaning to his audience (1:3). (p. 874) On page 708 he says, "A symbolic sum does not demand a symbolic people, whereas a symbolic sum can apply to a literal people." With regard to a prophesied famine, he says, "the symbolic nature of Revelation does not prohibit all literalism" (p. 756). Gentry sadly misses the documentation for many of the literal fulfillments because his chronology is messed up (by over-applying virtually everything to AD 66-70. More on this later.). In those situations he has to go to great lengths to explain why a literal fulfillment is unnecessary and impossible, even though there are many historical, seismological, meteoritic, and other proofs that the "impossible" actually did happen in history. In Gentry's defense, much of this evidence has been rediscovered in the years since he finished his commentary. (As I understand it, most of his writing was finished in September 2005, and about six years ago Dr. Gentry handed his work to Jay Culotta, to do final editing and layout. Sadly, Jay died with the password to his computer unknown to anyone else. This meant that everything Jay had done needed to be redone.) But even though he misses the literal fulfillment of numerous prophecies, he is at least usually correct on the symbolic import of the prophecies. Overall, I appreciate his openness to a literal fulfillment of many prophecies that might appear to be hyperbolic. And his exegetical uncovering of what was symbolized is usually correct and helpful. It's strong on the meaning of γῆς To understand where the action happens in the book of Revelation, you have to interpret γῆς well. γῆς is usually translated as "earth" in most translations, but Gentry recognizes that in Revelation it's usually better translated as "land," and refers specifically to Israel. He rightly sees "all tribes of the land" as being a reference to the tribes of Israel (in light of the quote from Zech. 12:10-14). The whole book makes more sense when you read the word γῆς/γῆ this way. However, as will be seen below, Gentry fails to see that many of Revelation's prophecies are spoken against Gentile nations (including Rome). [6] As a result, his interpretation does not adequately show how Revelation's judgments establish a pattern for Christ's redemptive judgments against Gentile nations throughout New Covenant history. It's beautifully laid out and printed and a pleasure to read This two volume set (consisting of 1764 pages of commentary, 98 pages of bibliography — one of the best bibliographies out there — and 106 pages of index: a total of 1968 pages!) is beautifully laid out. The two volumes have a Smyth Sewn binding, which will not only make the book last a lifetime, but will also make it a pleasure to read. Moreover, despite its length (and the depth of the academic research), this is a very readable commentary. Dr. Gentry writes in accessible language even when dealing with difficult concepts. He even occasionally throws in a bit of dry humor. I found it a pleasure to read. The Weak Points of this Commentary I will not take the time to list all of the areas of disagreement that I have with Dr. Gentry, but the following will show why I consider the commentary to be majorly marred. Complete fail on the structure of the book First, Gentry admits that he doesn't know the exact structure of the book. Of course, he insists that no one else has managed to come up with an adequate structure either (pp. 170-173). So he chose to avoid structural controversies altogether. He says: In light of all the apparently insoluble difficulties in discerning Revelation's structure, I will not attempt a formal, detailed outline. Basically, I will proceed through Revelation verse-byverse, noting significant structural questions as they arise. Thus, as I follow the order of Revelation's text, I will employ only the most basic framework structured around John's four "in Spirit" (en pneumati) experiences (1:10; 4:2; 17:3; 21:10), three of which are closely aligned with the visionary "come and see" commands (4:1; 17:1; 21:9). (pp. 173-174) Why does this matter? I believe the structure is critical to understanding Revelation since the structure of a Biblical book always influences the interpretation of that book, and Revelation's structure in particular provides interpretive clues to many of the trickiest parts of the book, and reveals the main message of the book. …. [Etc.]