Revelation Revealed
At first glance, the book of Revelation appears to be the ravings of a semi-delirious madman. At least that’s what we thought, so we decided to sit down and study it!
Relevation is a hard book to understand. We find it difficult primarily because of the nature of the language. The style of writing is called ‘apocalyptic’ – it’s not unique in the bible – portions of Daniel, Ezekiel, Zechariah and even the synoptic gospels contain apocalyptic language. But most of those portions are equally difficult.
So the book is full of symbolic numbers such as 3½, 7, 12, 666 and 144 000, it uses images such as trumpets, seals, dragons, lampstands and crazy creatures covered in eyes. Revelation is quite obviously not written to be understood literalistically. Jesus is described as a lion and as a lamb. Is Jesus really two separate four-legged mammals as well as being fully man and fully God? The metaphorical nature of the language cannot be pushed that far. When John sees a city coming down from heaven dressed as a bride, what sort of insane fashion designer would be willing to fulfill that order?
Some of the approaches to reading the book seem to be dangerous because Revelation is not understood in the context of the rest of the bible’s teachings. For example, we hear various teachings on the millennium, the Anti-Christ or the 144 000 people which are not found elsewhere in the Bible. We should always let the clearer, more doctrinal passages of Scripture guide our understanding of the harder, more symbolic parts.
If understanding Revelation is so difficult and so dangerous, why do we bother? Fundamentally, because it is part of God’s word. God determined that this piece of apocalyptic literature would be the means by which he speaks to us. And as difficult as it might be to understand, we need to hear him. He has something to say.
So, how then are we to understand Revelation?
Revelation starts with the apostle John being caught up into a series of heavenly visions. In chapter 1, he sees a vision of the risen and ascended Jesus Christ in his glory. In chapter 2 and 3, Jesus has him write a letter to the seven churches. Chapters 4 through 20 are a series of visions of the judgement of the world from God’s perspective. Part of this judgement is God’s continual action in the world here and now, and part of this is the coming final judgement. Chapters 21 and 22 are a vision of the new heavens and the new earth.
Part of the difficulty of Revelation is working out the timing of the events between chapters 4 and 20. Trying to read it chronologically is problematic, as the sun is destroyed or partially destroyed three different times. In 6:12, the sun becomes black as sackcloth, in 8:12 a third of the sun was struck to keep it from shining, and in 16:8 the sun is allowed to scorch people with fire.
A better approach is to see the series of visions as a series of different camera angles of the same events – God’s judgement in the world now and the final judgement to come.
As for the symbols and images used, sometimes we’re given a helping hand – some of the imagery is explained, such as in Revelation 1:20
“As for the mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand, and the seven golden lampstands, the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches.” (ESV)
But sometimes the imagery isn’t explained, such as in Revelation 4. There are twenty-four elders sitting on thrones and four living creatures covered in eyes. Our first task is not to sit down and make guesses about who these elders and creatures are or who they might represent, but rather, to read the chapter as it is written – to let the images inform our imagination and evoke in our minds the bigger picture. Work out how the images actually function within the vision before immediately trying to correlate them to a real-world event, person or nation.
So in Revelation 4, we have the living creatures and the elders all bowing down to worship God. Even though the elders are on thrones ruling, they still bow down before the one on THE throne. We have an image of God ruling over the entire created order, beasts and men, as he was in the beginning.
Throughout the book, symbols are not used uniformly. In 6:2 there is a rider on a white horse who is given permission by the Lamb (Jesus) to go out conquering, while in 19:11-13 the rider on the right horse is called Faithful and True. We learn that it is Jesus, the Word of God himself, another example of where the image is actually explained. So the two white riders are different, performing different function within each of the visions.
One invaluable tool for reading Revelation is the cross-references, which are down the centre or in the footnotes of a study bible. Many of the images and types of language being used are lifted from the Old Testament, particularly from prophets such as Ezekiel or Zechariah. John’s thought-world is grounded in the Old Testament Scriptures and much of what he describes is quotes, or more commonly allusions, from the Old Testament.
So what is God saying to us?
The big picture (excuse the pun) of Revelation is that of the sacrificial Lamb ruling the universe. Revelation 1:1 tells us that it is describing what must now take place: what is a result of Jesus being Lord because of his death and resurrection. The propositional statement ‘Jesus is Lord’ is 100% true, but from the imagery of Revelation we get a bigger sense and a better understanding of what that actually means. The idea is hit home, interacting not just with our intellect but with our emotions.
But Revelation is not written so that we can have detailed knowledge of the future, but to give us assurance and confidence and call us to endure. Both the beginning and the ending of the book make this clear, the letter to the churches has the same purpose, and it is explicitly stated in 13:10 and 14:12: “Here is a call for the endurance of the saints.”
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