There’s a haunting text in the Book of Revelation where poetic image, for all its beauty, can be dangerously misleading. The author writes: “So the angel swung his sickle over the earth and cut the earth’s vintage. He threw it into the great winepress of God’s fury.” A fierce angel cleansing the world! God in a boiling anger! What’s to be understood by that?
Like so many other things in Scripture, this is to be taken seriously, but not literally. Clearly the text, like other texts in Scripture which speak of God’s jealousy, anger and vengeance, has something important to teach us. But, as with those other texts which have God jealous and angry, it can be dangerously misunderstood.
