Prophecy or History?
Even a few sentences in, we can tell the Book of Revelation is unlike anything else in the Christian Testament. But the truth is, there is really nothing like it in the Hebrew Scriptures either, although there are many references to various prophetic imagery and events from the Hebrew scriptures.
APOCALYPSE
Typically, this sort of document would be called an Apocalypse, which literally means, “uncovering” or “revealing,” and references the complete and final destruction of the world, leading to a new world. The uncovering or revealing is the parting of the curtain to show the heavenly or divine perspective of what is happening now and what will come.
But the Book of Revelation is so much more, for it is a letter containing seven more letters. And at regular intervals throughout the whole of this epic document we are given to understand that is prophecy, and we must pay it heed.
But how? As spiritual allegory? As predictions of actual future events? As prophecy already fulfilled long ago, yet with truths still relevant for today?
Answering these questions is all part of the adventure as we read these ancient pages together.
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From the blog
Revelation 11: The Two Witness (Historical and Preterist Views)
The Two Witnesses are something of a conundrum for expositors looking to history for fulfillment. Were they actual people (some think so), or representative of groups of people? Maybe they’re allegories for truth? #TwoWitnesses #Revelation11
Keep readingRevelation 11: Measuring the Temple
John’s visions dovetail in several places with Ezekiel’s vision, and especially here, the correlations are strong. So what was measuring the temple to signify? As you probably have guessed, answers may vary (!) #Revelation11 #MeasuringtheTemple #Ezekiel
Keep readingRevelation 11-13: 1,260 Days
Revelation 11-13 speaks repeatedly of a timeframe that seems to last about 3.5 years (the length of Jesus’s ministry, interestingly enough). But there is not consensus about what it all means. #Revelation11 #TheBeast #TheGreatTribulation
Keep readingRevelation: Interlude Before the Seventh Trumpet
Just as John’s first oracle had an intermission, so now this second one hits pause as well. But this pause is a lot longer, leading some interpreters to suggest it is its own oracle.
Keep readingRevelation 10: Eat It Up
What is the little opened book John was told to eat? How could it taste so good, yet make him sick to his stomach? What John eats he must now prophecy, concerning the whole world, it seems.
Keep readingRevelation 10: The Mystery of God Come to Completion
the prophets of old. When the seventh trumpet is sounded, the whole thing will have been revealed. What a way to rivet our attention!
Keep readingRevelation 10: The Little Scroll
As soon as I read John was not to reveal what the seven thunders had spoken, that became the one thing I wanted to know most. What did they say? Why tantalize with this astonishing scene, but deny the pronouncement framed within it?
Keep readingRevelation 9: Conclusion with Four Views
There is a lot to think about in John’s last words of this chapter. He delivered a sad eulogy concerning the people who survived the six trumpets. As you are no doubt anticipating, commentators have very different ideas about how to understand John’s assessment.
Keep readingRevelation 9: Homicide, Drugs, Porn, and Robbery
In a sense, God converted the hidden decay and erosion to humankind’s souls by these things, into physical pain and horror. It is the last-recourse effort to shake awake an otherwise dying world.
Keep readingRevelation 9: Dread Cavalry
Horses with vipers for tails and mouths belching fire, brimstone, and smoke teem across the Euphrates in myriads. What are we to make of this terrifying picture?
Keep readingRevelation 9: The Sixth Trumpet
It is not clear whether the sixth angel sounded the trumpet before the five months of torment and testing had ended, or whether the swarm of supernatural scorpionesque locusts had completed its mission.
Keep readingRevelation 9: Strange Locusts
Are these actual monsters that will rise up out of some sepulchral chasm cleaving the mantle of earth? Or is their appearance allegory rich with symbolical meaning?
Keep readingRevelation 9: The Fifth Trumpet, an Historical View
The fifth trumpet seems either definitely metaphysical or highly allegorical, so how do expositors who take the historical or more specifically preterist views read these verses?
Keep readingRevelation 9: Purpose of the Inquisition
Perhaps for John’s audience, such a prospect generated a redoubled commitment to deal with temptation and sin right away. Better to respond to the first prick of conscience before it becomes complicated.
Keep readingRevelation 9: The Fifth Trumpet
Is this a metaphorical examination of some kind, that brings on spiritual torment (painful conviction of personal sin?), which displays for all to see who is at peace with God and who is still God’s opponent?
Keep readingRevelation 8: The Lone Eagle
as so often happens with misfortune, when things feel like they could not possibly get worse … they do
Keep readingRevelation 8: The Fourth Trumpet
It is a strange vision, when read all in one breath. I imagine John watching—peering, really, into the gloom—as something inflicted the sun with a power that could diminish it by a full third of its strength.
Keep readingRevelation 8: The Third Trumpet
Is this blazing star a political figure? A religious leader? Literally a poisonous star fallen from heaven? Each few sheds fascinating insight on John’s vision.
Keep readingRevelation 8: The Second Trumpet
How interpreters have imagined this scene is in large part influenced by their point of view. Taken simply as a scene, it is horrific. Is it metaphorical? Is it commentary on a situation? Is it prophecy to be literally fulfilled? Is it a warning that may not come to pass if heeded?
Keep readingRevelation 8: Hail, Fire, and Blood
Though each perspective sees the fulfillment of these trumpets occurring in very different timeframes, there are certain overarching themes on which all four views agree.
Keep readingRevelation 8: The Power of Prayer
The tremendous power in the prayers of the holy ones was also revealed to John. You and I think of that power as reaching up to God and the Lord responding in divine might. But this time, John watched as these sacred prayers were thrown forcefully back to earth in a startling reversal of how…
Keep readingRevelation 8: The Altar of Incense
There is something of a dream quality to John’s narration, as though he were himself enrapt in the incense.
Keep readingRevelation: The Second Set of Sevens
The four basic scholarly frames of reference will layer well with historical insight and scriptural overlay while leaving room for the possibility that John’s prophetic oracles have yet to be (completely) fulfilled.
Keep readingRevelation 8: The Seventh Seal
It is one of the more mysterious and intriguing verses in John’s account.
Keep readingRevelation 7: Meaning of the Multitude
After so many disturbing images from the breaking of the seals, John was now swept up in a rapturous time of praise and thanksgiving, as the mighty multitude, the elders, all the angels, and the four living creatures exalted God, singing,
Keep readingRevelation 7: The Mighty Multitude
It is the final act of the sixth scroll, just as the sixth day of Creation had a final, climactic act of bringing forth humankind and blessing all that lived across the face of the earth. Imagine the two scenes side-by-side:
Keep readingRevelation 7: The 144,000
The specificity of the number 144,000 intrigues our modern minds, and features fundamentally for at least one modern day group, the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Is this number literal or symbolic? Why go through each tribe? What is being revealed, exactly?
Keep readingRevelation 7: God’s Seal of Protection
The next round of misfortune was to be released only after God’s seal of protection was applied to all of God’s own.
Keep readingRevelation 6: Familiar Imagery, Fresh Meaning
Now, two thousand years later, scholars have much to say on the meaning of this sixth seal.
Keep readingRevelation 6: The Fifth Seal
The martyrs were invited to refresh themselves during this intermission between their deaths and the coming of the end of time, when all will be judged and justice will be brought forth.
Keep readingRevelation 6: The Fourth Seal
Before John’s surely horrified eyes, a ghastly figure appeared as the fourth living creature called forth the specter of Death. The horse was pallid with the sickly hue of plague, and the ominous dark shadows of Hades settled around Death’s form, resting above its steed.
Keep readingRevelation 6: The Third Seal
What John saw he beheld with dread. The world of antiquity was no stranger to famine. In fact, not long after the Gospel had broken through the barrier of race and religion, the subject of a severe famine comes up in the Book of Acts.
Keep readingRevelation 6: The Second Seal
Reading about the second seal gives more context to the first seal, the first horse, and the first rider. If they are part of a set, then how does the first rider fit in?
Keep readingRevelation 6: The First Seal
The Lamb was now moving the scroll into position and opening the first of its seven seals.
Keep readingRevelation 5: Heaven and Nature Sing
This is how the curtain might fall on the final act of a Wagnerian Opera, the stage vibrant with rich colors, a shimmering backdrop of gold and iridescence as the rainbow radiating from the magnificent throne of God.
Keep readingRevelation 5: Daniel’s Vision Fulfilled
Daniel was sixty-seven years old in 553 BCE, when Nabonidus appointed his son Belshazzar as his co-regent over the Babylonian empire.
Keep readingRevelation 5: A New Song
even as John stared in wonder at the fantastic image before him, the Lamb moved to the throne and took the scroll from the One sitting there. When that happened, an eruption of Sensurround experiences poured forth.
Keep readingRevelation 5: The Lion is a Lamb
For prophets, visions tend to be highly symbolic, with imagery that arouses heightened passions as well as points to an absolute reality. In a sense, visions are both a veil, and a veil being removed.
Keep readingRevelation 5: The Seven-Sealed Scroll
As John watched, a paean of praise broke forth. It was only then John saw that the right hand of the One sitting upon the throne. #Revelation5 #Sevenseals #SevenSealedScroll
Keep readingRevelation 4: Seraphim
In this post I put the scene all together and search the scriptures of other accounts that describe God’s heavenly throne room.
Keep readingRevelation 4: Understanding the Elders
How do we understand what the apostle John saw in his vision? We know who the Seven Spirits of God is. But who are these twenty-four elders?
Keep readingRevelation 4: Resplendent
This is what John gazed upon in awe and wonder. The elders, consecrated before God, representative of the whole Church, robed in the white garments of righteousness, and crowned with the glory of eternal life, having been sealed by the Holy Spirit.
Keep readingRevelation 4: A Throne in Heaven
Once John was finished taking down the seven letters—after these things—the scene changes dramatically. John looks up as a portal opens in the sky, and the sound of a trumpet-like voice invites him to come up into heaven.
Keep readingRevelation 3: Laodicea, A Final Word
For those who will respond to Jesus’s chastening—who open the door to Jesus’s gentle knock—then Jesus would come in to dine together with them, certainly a reference both to God’s invitation in the Torah to feast with God, and to the love feasts of the early church, celebrating the Lord’s Supper.
Keep readingRevelation 3: Laodicea, Appearances Deceive
By all accounts, the Laodicean Christians really were rich in both temporal wealth and spiritual teaching. But Jesus said they were actually impoverished and they had no idea.
Keep readingRevelation 3: Laodicea, Tepid Tap Water
The word Jesus used, ἐμέω | emeō, actually means vomit. It brings to mind that feeling of having put something so repellant into one’s mouth that the gag reflex kicks in and out it spews before one hardly has the chance to stop.
Keep readingRevelation 3: Laodicea
Everything needed to understand what Jesus was saying to the assembly in Laodicea is embedded in this post, but it needs a sleuth to work it all out
Keep readingRevelation 3: Of Crowns and Thrones
Jesus’s promises to the assembly in Philadelphia included crowns and a throne, rewards that may seem anachronistic to those of us who never grew up with kings and queens in our governments. So, how do we understand what Jesus is saying to people like us, today?
Keep readingRevelation 3: Philadelphia, Protected
After affirming their salvation, Jesus promised the assembly in Philadelphia that others would know He loved them. Jesus also promised protection from what was about to come, but though that promise seems straightforward, commentators have puzzled over what it really means.
Keep readingRevelation 3: Beloved Philadelphians
After affirming their salvation, Jesus promised the assembly in Philadelphia others would know He loved them, and protection from what was about to come.
Keep readingRevelation 3: Philadelphia
Jesus would not permit God’s adversaries from preventing God’s beloved entering God’s holy house. Jesus had opened the portal, and no one could shut it.
Keep readingRevelation 3: Sardis
Spiritually, the assembly in Sardis was like a slumbering city even as invading armies (of sin, perhaps) were gathering outside the walls.
Keep readingRevelation 2: Thyatira, Jezebel
Jesus was not concerned that Jezebel was a woman overseer in the church. Jesus was concerned that Jezebel was a bad leader, one who falsely claimed God’s anointing, and led God’s own astray.
Keep readingRevelation 2: Thyatira, Two Influential Women in the Church
In the longest of His seven letters, Jesus’s words to Thyatira hold—at least to my ears—grief over Jezebel and her adherents, and concerned warning over those who were not repenting of what Jesus called porneia and debauchery.
Keep readingRevelation 2: Thyatira
The things Jesus wanted to say to the assemblies in Thyatira comprised a significantly longer message than was delivered to the first three churches. This is, in fact, the longest of Jesus’s seven letters.
Keep readingRevelation 2: Pergamos, Turn Back
Jesus warned the assembly in Pergamos, Therefore, repent: but if not, I am coming to you quickly, and I will do battle with them with the sword in My mouth.
Keep readingRevelation 2: Pergamos
if the Ephesian Christians had subtly replaced their love for God and each other with a love for righteousness and right doctrine, the Pergamenian Christians had subtly allowed the erosion of right doctrine in their own midst, while they still held to their faith and trust in Christ.
Keep readingRevelation 2: Smyrna, Going Deeper
Some have wondered if the ἄγγελος | angelos (which means messenger) of Smyrna might have been the Apostle John’s disciple Polycarp.
Keep readingRevelation 2: Smyrna
The only surviving city of the seven represented in these letters, Smyrna—now Izmir, Turkey—was the second largest city of the region. And reportedly, the most beautiful.
Keep readingRevelation 2: Ephesus
Before your hearts become more calloused, while you still have some sensitivity to the Holy Spirit, turn back towards love, Jesus was saying.
Keep readingRevelation: Blazing Eyes and Brilliant Feet
Before we leave this first chapter, there are two more aspects of John’s vision that deserve contemplation–Jesus’s eyes and feet.
Keep readingRevelation 1: The Keys of Death and Hades
The impact of John’s vision was powerful, even overwhelming. His senses could hardly take it all in, every aspect was at maximum capacity—flashes of fire and lightning, the thunderous roar of waterfalls, the blinding glow of white light, the heat and gleam of burnished bronze. But now, with Jesus’s gentle touch and quiet reassurance, this…
Keep readingRevelation 1: Vision of Christ Unveiled
Besides the emotional and spiritual impact of seeing the Lord during a quiet Sunday prayer, John’s vision held deep symbolic meaning
Keep readingRevelation 1: In the Spirit on the Lord’s Day
I was in [the] Spirit on the Lord’s Day, and I heard behind me a voice loud as a trumpet saying, “Write what you see into a book
Keep readingRevelation 1: Α and Ω
It was a huge question for the early church, one of the first questions the church councils sought to answer. Was Jesus a human being? Was Jesus divine?
Keep readingRevelation 1: He Comes in the Clouds
BEHOLD! He comes with the clouds, and every eye will see Him, even they who pierced Him, and they will beat their breasts with grief over Him, all the peoples of the earth. Yes! Amen!
Keep readingRevelation 1: The Branch and the Spirit
The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.
Keep readingRevelation 1: Significance of Seven
Seven represents all that is—the sum of the physical cosmos (the number four) and the spiritual realm (the number three). This was not unique to Judaism, but was also well-established in the Greco-Roman world.
Keep readingRevelation 1: Apocalypse of Jesus Christ
For this study, I’m going to be reading from the Greek text, so my translations will retain an “accent,” so to speak. But I am convinced the gems are easier to find in the original language, and my decision was immediately rewarded as I opened to the first page and read the first three words.
Keep readingRevelation: A Basic Outline
How do we outline a book that’s a letter, but also prophecy, but also apocalypse? It’s the Word of the Lord, highly symbolic, yet also (in parts) plain speaking and historical.
Keep readingRevelation: Over-Arching Story
Growing up, I did not realize good would triumph in the end. In my young life, it seemed clear evil was the stronger, and evil would prevail. Good would tragically die.
Keep readingRevelation: Historical Background
Revelation was written in the setting of Asia Minor, just off the coast of the Aegean Sea, towards the end of the first century, under the reign of Emperor Domitian.
Keep readingRevelation: Who Was The Author?
So who did write Revelation? Can we even answer that? Thankfully, yes, to a great degree, just from what is contained within the book itself.
Keep readingRevelation: Historical? Idealist? Futurist?
What approach do we take, perspective do we use, and hermeneutic do we employ when reading Revelation? It’s not a slam-dunk answer.
Keep readingRevelation of Jesus Christ to John
Even a few sentences in, we can tell the Book of Revelation is unlike anything else in the Christian Testament. But the truth is, there is really nothing like it in the Hebrew Scriptures either, although there are many references to various prophetic imagery and events from the Hebrew scriptures.
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About Me
My passion for the Bible began when I was eight or nine years old, somewhere in there, when on occasion my dad would take me to synagogue, where he sang. I remember watching the men in synagogue pray the words of scripture, murmuring and weeping, lovingly touching and kissing the Torah, and I wished I could read what they were reading.
Imagine, then, my wonder when I was given a Bible of my own! Read more
Let’s hang out
[Image above: Matthias Gerung, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons]