Revelation - One Man’s Visions
Many human beings love fantasy tales populated with bizarre apparitions.
Others love a good thriller. And still, others love an adventure tale full of
action and conflict scenes. If you fall into one of these camps, you’re in luck.
The book of Revelation is all these and more.
However, Revelation is a challenging book. Those strange beasts and
creatures are symbols for individuals, nations, governments, and so forth.
The storyline of the book twists and turns in on itself, not following a straight,
chronological narrative. And the whole package is a prophetic vision that’s
related to what’s actually supposed to happen when the world comes to an
end, at least from a biblical perspective.
This chapter doesn’t attempt to explore the symbolism behind the events
that are chronicled during Revelation. It also doesn’t pore over the details of
those events, personalities, and issues (that’s what part III is all about). In
this chapter, we get you started in the right direction. We begin by painting
broad strokes of the structure and content of the final book of the Bible. As
we do so, we point you to parts of this book where you can find more details
on each specific subject.
A major task in reading Revelation is sorting out and understanding the
overall themes and messages while images — seals, trumpets, bowls,
beasts, witnesses, and so on — are ever coming at you. But if you take a
step back and get a solid understanding of the big picture, you can start to
dive into the details and make sense of how they all fit together. Although
Revelation contains a lot of puzzling symbolism and has many
interpretations (see chapter 4 for a discussion of these interpretations), the
book actually divides up rather well. At the most basic level, you can split
Revelation into five major parts, as illustrated in figure 1-1. We discuss each
of these parts in this section, so read on.
The first chapter of Revelation serves as a prologue or introduction to the
whole book. Its purpose is to provide a context to help you make sense of
the rest of the chapters (also see chapter 6). In the first several verses, you
discover that:
This is an unveiling of the plans of Jesus (from God) (1:1).
The author is John (1:4).
The audience is the seven churches of Asia (1:4).
It was written on the island of Patmos, a Mediterranean island belonging to
modern-day Greece (1:9).
Its purpose is to give readers a sneak peek of what’ll take place (1:1).
As Revelation 1:1 underscores, this book is Jesus’s revealing of God’s plans
for the world. In this opening section, John gives explicit details about how
his words came to appear in print: God gave the revelation to Jesus, who
communicated the message to John through an angel, who was sent for this
specific purpose. John wrote these series of visions as an extended letter,
which he then sent to the seven churches in Asia (Rev. 2–3).
Today’s readers are a secondary audience for this book because the original
readers passed John’s letter both to other churches and to their descendants.
Figure 1-2 shows the chain of communication.
People have always had an insatiable curiosity to know their destiny and
what’s going to happen in the “last days.” That’s at least part of the reason
the Left Behind series was popular and why new Nostradamus
documentaries show up almost every year. For many, the allure in reading
and understanding Revelation is, quite frankly, not altogether different from
the desire to peek into a fortuneteller’s crystal ball. Understanding how it all
ends can give you a sense of what your purpose is now.
Revelation can be tough going due to its structure and symbolism and the
various ways in which scholars interpret the book. You can easily become
discouraged and wonder why you should read Revelation, anyway. Here are
several reasons many people consider Revelation to be important reading:
It helps explain the biblical view of God and his relationship with humans.
Many people turn to Revelation looking for definitive answers about what will
happen. But Revelation is far more about grasping the nature of God and the
close relationship that exists between God and those who believe in him.
It gives readers a glimpse of heaven. The Bible offers few specifics on what
heaven will be like. The Old Testament says little. Jesus and Paul provide
more in the New Testament. As if saving the best for last, the final chapters
of Revelation offer a rare glimpse into the new heaven and new earth (see
chapter 14).
It provides a message of hope. It’s easy to be a bit freaked out by the gloom
and doom warnings of the book. But despite all the battles and judgments
depicted, Revelation is ultimately all about hope. It portrays, in vivid detail,
the biblical view of good winning over evil and suffering.
One of the keys to understanding Revelation is in 1:19. In this passage, Jesus
instructs John, “Write, therefore, what you have seen, what is now, and what
will take place later.” Scholars offer various assessments on how to interpret
this verse. However, the interpretation that seems to best fit the original
grammar of the passage as well as the structure of the book itself is a
threefold timing of events: past tense, present tense, and future tense. In
other words, Jesus tells John to write about:
The vision he has already seen (Rev. 1)
The current state of the seven churches (Rev. 2–3)
The events that will take place in the future (Rev. 1–22)
Letters to the seven churches of Asia (Rev. 2–3)
Revelation 2–3 details the individual letters that Jesus dictates for the seven
churches in Asia (see chapter 8). Each of these churches is in a different
spiritual state. For the faithful churches in Smyrna and Philadelphia, Jesus
gives only encouragement for their steadfast faith. For the churches in
Sardis, Ephesus, Pergamum, and Thyatira, he commends them for some
aspects of their faith but also rebukes them for specific areas of failure.
Finally, for the church in Laodicea, he offers no encouragement at all and
simply requires their repentance from a lukewarm, middle-of-the-road faith.
Judgments and vignettes (Rev. 4–20)
The main plot of Revelation 4–20 is a series of progressively severe
judgments that are unveiled through seven seals, seven trumpets, and seven
bowls. These judgments climax with the return of Jesus, the ensuing battle of
Armageddon, the Millennium, and the final Judgment (see Chapters 9–14).
As you read Revelation 4–20, don’t expect a single, linear storyline. The
narrative consists of a sequence of vignettes that make up a secondary
plotline. These scenes help fill in the details of the main story, but they’re
not necessarily tied to the judgments that surround them. As such,
commentators sometimes refer to these vignettes as parentheses,
interludes, or insets.
The secondary storylines: Vignettes
Interrupting the primary narrative of Revelation is a series of vignettes that
help shape a secondary storyline. Some of these interludes may be related
to the events that immediately surround them, while others appear not to
have any chronological relationship at all to the main story. These vignettes
include the following:
Seals are placed on the foreheads of 144,000 believers from the 12 tribes of
Israel (Rev. 7:1–8).
A “great multitude” is delivered from the great Tribulation (Rev. 7:9–17).
John encounters an angel and eats a little scroll (Rev. 10).
Two witnesses prophesy for 3.5 years and are then martyred (Rev. 11:3–12).
A woman and a dragon (Satan) appear, and a war in heaven occurs (Rev.
12).
A beast out of the sea and a beast out of the earth arrive (Rev. 13).
Jesus appears with 144,000 believers on Mount Zion (Rev. 14:1–5).
Three angels proclaim messages of repentance and warning (Rev. 14:6–13).
The harvest of the earth separates the believers from nonbelievers (Rev.
14:11–20).
The saga of the great prostitute on the beast (Babylon) and her eventual fall
unfolds (Rev. 17:1–19:3).
New beginnings (Rev. 21–22:6)
The last you hear of Satan and nonbelievers is at the end of Revelation 20,
when they’re thrown into the lake of fire. Revelation 21, however, tells the
flip side: the future that reportedly awaits those who believe in Jesus. It tells
of the “new heaven and new earth” that God will create as the permanent
home for his children. But this new world is more than an improved version
of their current environment. It’s a perfect world where God will dwell
alongside humans (Rev. 21:3–5).
Epilogue (Rev. 22:7–21)
John closes out Revelation with an epilogue that marks the end of the
prophecy (see chapter 15). The central chorus in this final phase of the book
is Jesus’s reiterating three times, “Behold, I am coming quickly!” (Rev. 22:7,
22:12, 22:20). Each of these signals precedes a call:
Obedience: A call to “keep the words contained in this book” (22:7)
Action: A call to act because he will “reward to each according to what he
has done” (22:12)
Faith: A call to believe Jesus when he says he is coming and to be able to
testify to that claim to the rest of the world (22:20)
Tracking the book’s Timeline
One of the biggest issues most people have with the book of Revelation is
that they expect a traditional, linear model of storytelling. A linear story
begins at a specific point in time and then uses progressive scenes to move
the characters to some kind of destination. Other stories begin with the
characters looking back at something, tell what happened in the form of a
flashback, and return to the present. For the vast majority of movies out of
Hollywood, these two tried-and-true formulas are almost always used, often
because they’re a natural way to tell a story and are easy for audiences to
understand.
However, once in a while, a story comes along that — like the book of
Revelation — doesn’t fit into this storytelling model. Snow Falling on Cedars
and The English Patient are two prime examples. Both have multiple
storylines with flashback sequences involving different characters. If you
don’t want a mental exercise, stories like these can be quite frustrating. But
if you persevere and stick with them, you can find the expanded texture
rewarding, adding to the overall experience.
As you read through Revelation, prepare yourself: The book of Revelation
may start out linear for several chapters, but various vignettes or interludes
interrupt the main story. When you equip yourself for that reality, you’ll be in
a far better position to deal with the timing of events.
As you consider how the various pieces of the book fit together, keep in mind
the following themes: transition terms and parallel events.
And Then Some: Deciphering Transition Terms
Revelation is plagued by scores of transition phrases that indicate timing.
The primary examples include “then I saw,” “and I saw,” “after this,” and
“after these things.” Strictly speaking, these transitions may not always
translate to the order of prophetic events. For example, you may find 53
instances of the phrase then in the book. Although some of them imply a
connection between one event and the next, others reflect the author’s
method of relaying his story, interweaving the content of his visions with his
own experiences. In other words, the narrative has two layers:
John’s experience of having a vision while on Patmos
The content of the visions — horsemen ride, beasts arise, and angels fight,
and so on
With this kind of setup, a transition may apply to the outer layer (the order of
John’s visions) or to the order of prophetic events themselves. For example,
imagine I were to tell you, “I saw the season finale of 24. Then I saw reruns
of the rest of the episodes over the summer.” In this example, the then
relates entirely to the timing in which I saw the episodes. It says nothing
about the logical order of episodes for the series.
Although some transitions may be open to interpretation, you shouldn’t just
dismiss all transitions, either. Especially, the terms “after this” and “after
these things” are noteworthy. Combined, these terms appear just six times
and don’t always seem to relate to the order in which John received the
visions. For example, its usage in Revelation 4:1, 15:5, 18:1, and 19:1 seems
to simply imply a logical sequence of events. However, its usage in 7:1
(which introduces the 144,000 believers of Israel) appears more of a writing
device posed to answer the question raised at the end of chapter 6: Who can
withstand the wrath of God? (6:17). John uses the term again in 7:9; in this
context, the phrase seems to imply the order in which he received the
visions rather than a sequential flow of events.
Parallelism: Watching Things Go Down at the Same Time
Revelation has a flow of events, but how each section fits into the timeline
isn’t always apparent. Though commentators disagree on the details, most
agree that at least some of the pieces of the book parallel each other.
Perhaps the most obvious example is Revelation 12’s story of the woman in
the wilderness, which is told in two ways in different places within the
chapter (12:6 and 12:13–17). A second example, though more contested, is
the 3.5-year period mentioned several times throughout the book (11:3,
12:6, 12:14, and 13:5). Some hold that these references imply that the
associated sections parallel each other.
Many futurists (who believe Revelation describes actual events that are
going to happen) downplay parallelism. They think that, by and large, the
book progresses in a linear fashion from beginning to end, except for the
vignettes (see the earlier “Judgments and vignettes” section). Other futurists
view Revelation 1–11 and 12–19 as parallel accounts of the great Tribulation.
Offering a different take, those who embrace a symbolic interpretation of the
prophecy (again, see chapter 4) see as many as seven parallel sections in
the book.
The issue of parallelism is also a key factor in the interpretation of the
Millennium, which appears in Revelation 20:
Premillennialists maintain that all the events from Revelation 1–19 will occur
before the Millennium.
Amillennialists see the discussion of the Millennium as a parallel section that
describes the entire church age; this church age goes from before Revelation
1:1 even begins up until the Second Coming of Jesus in Revelation 19.
Putting the stage: The Apostle John and the sector in which He Lived
Books — possibly with the exceptions of dictionaries and academic manuals
for gas grills — regularly reflect the character of the writer. What’s inside a
book has a lot to do with who the writer is, the times in which he lives, the
region wherein he lives, and the reviews which have fashioned his life. So
generally, the greater you understand of the author’s story, the extra the
know-how and appreciation you have got for the book itself. The books of the
Bible are not any exception. Although Christians trust the Bible to be the
phrase of God, maximum nonetheless understand that each ebook of the
Bible retains the personality, writing fashion, and experiences of the man or
woman author. Take the Gospel of Luke for instance. You don’t must
understand something about the author to get something out of studying
Luke’s account of Jesus. However, when you find out Luke became a gentile
(non-Jew) and changed into knowledgeable as a medical doctor, you get a
brand new appreciation for his Greek-orientated attitude and his keen
attention to element. On this chapter, you get to recognise John, the loo
most scholars believe is the writer of Revelation, as well as explore the arena
wherein he lived. You benefit insight into the person himself, in addition to
recognize his motives for writing the ebook. You furthermore mght discover
his unique textured style of writing for this final ebook of the New Testament.
Identity-ing John Doe, writer of Revelation
Whilst you walk into your nearby book shop and test the bestsellers display,
you notice the writer’s name unfold out in large letters on every book. The
extra a success the writer is, the larger the font. In fact, for awesome-
promoting authors like John Grisham and Tom Clancy, their names seem so
huge which you often have to search for the name. however irrespective of
whether or not you’re dealing with a bestselling creator or a primary-time
author, you may generally pick up a e book and discover a biography telling
you at the least a snippet of the writer’s credentials. Even if the author is the
usage of a pseudonym (writing under an assumed call), a person someplace
knows the author’s real identity — in spite of everything, the publisher
wishes to know in which to send the royalty tests! Sadly, the books of the
Bible were written before there had been even printing presses, not to
mention huge publishing corporations. Frankly, we wish the biblical authors
would’ve been as outspoken about biographical details as they had been in
spreading their messages. It’d make our lives far less difficult through
putting off any debate approximately who precisely wrote a specific e book.
generally, on the time of the writing, everyone knew who the author of a e
book changed into, whether the author’s call turned into attached to it or
not. In truth, a lot of the books within the New testomony part of the Bible
have been written as letters; whilst you write a letter to a chum, do you
upload an in depth biographical note on the cease? Of path now not! The
recipient is aware of who the letter is from even if you merely log off along
with your initials. The authors of the books of the Bible had greater crucial
matters on their minds than identifying themselves — namely, correctly
speaking what was believed to be the phrase of God. Downplaying their
position out of genuine humility, the biblical authors occasionally blanketed
their names and once in a while did not. The writer of Revelation identifies
himself four instances (Rev. 1:1, 1:4, 1:9, and 22:8) via simply regarding
himself as John. No last name. No identify. No biographical information.
Because John become a popular call of the day, he could be any antique
John. The general consensus of the church due to the fact the second one
century has been that the writer is the Apostle John. Yes, this is the loo. He
and his brother James had been of the authentic 12 disciples of Jesus, and
John changed into considered as Jesus’s “quality buddy.” He’s the author of
the Gospel of John and the 3 letters bearing his call (known as the Johannine
epistles). In fact, the list of church fathers who credit the Apostle John as the
writer of Revelation reads as a virtual who’s who of the early church, such as
Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Hippolytus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, and
Origen.
Doubting the Apostle John’s authorship
No longer has anybody via the centuries agreed that the Apostle John is the
writer. Dionysius, who become the pope of the influential Alexandrian church
in the mid-third century, argued that the author become surely a difficult to
understand first century church chief named John the Presbyter. He primarily
based his argument on inner evidence, or proof located within the text itself,
that he believed pointed to a special creator. Dionysius claimed that the
vocabulary and fashion of the ebook have been so exceptional from the
Gospel of John and the Johannine epistles that it couldn’t had been written by
way of the identical author. In line with Dionysius, there are numerous
discrepancies, together with the subsequent:
The author of Revelation identifies himself with the aid of call. Although the
writer of Revelation names himself 4 times (Rev. 1:1, 1:4, 1:9, 22:8), the
Apostle John usually avoids doing so in his other writings. Inside the Gospel
of John, he identifies himself simplest because the “disciple whom Jesus
cherished” (John 13:23, 21:7, 21:20), and in two of his three epistles, he calls
himself the “elder” (2 John 1:1; 3 John 1:1).
Revelation is written in a sloppier fashion of Greek than the alternative works
of the Apostle John. Truly, the writer of Revelation is tremendously informed
in the vintage testament books, likely understanding both the original
Hebrew texts and the Greek-translated Septuagint (an historic Greek model
of the Hebrew Scriptures). However his writing competencies aren’t usually
as sharp as his rationalization of Scripture. Although John’s Gospel and
epistles are written in subtle, polished Greek, Revelation is scribed in a
Semitic Greek style that a few pupils argue is slipshod in contrast. In
different words, if you have been to say the Apostle John’s other writings
were composed like a John Grisham novel, then Revelation appears greater
in the fashion of a rapidly cobbled collectively time period paper.
The vocabulary and writing style (the writer’s voice) of the acknowledged
Johannine writings assessment with Revelation. Most authors fall into similar
writing styles. If you have favorite authors, you may frequently parent their
tone and voice, although the topics they’re writing about range. The
sentence structure, vocabulary, rhythm of the paragraphs, and so on have a
tendency to be comparable from article to article and ebook to book. The
Apostle John’s Gospel and epistles have this commonplace experience to
them. For instance, the Gospel of John starts with, “inside the beginning
become the word” (John 1:1), and 1 John starts with a comparable tone: “We
declare to you what changed into from the beginning” (1 John 1:1). This form
of similarity doesn’t carry over to Revelation.
Protecting the Apostle John as writer
As some modern scholars have rejected the Apostle John as creator of
Revelation (see the preceding section), different cutting-edge students have
vigorously defended the traditional view of apostolic authorship. As we
explain in this segment, proponents of Johannine authorship increase several
inner and outside problems (evidence out of doors of the e book itself) to
returned their declare.
The textual content: Addressing Dionysius’s challenges
Right here’s how students have answered to Dionysius’s claims that the
Johannine epistles and Gospel fluctuate too much from Revelation to have
the equal author:
John can also have had a cause in particularly naming himself in Revelation.
Though the Apostle John never identifies himself via name in his other books,
the fact that he does so in Revelation doesn’t always take away him as its
writer. In reality, there are affordable causes for his doing so. Specially,
understand that Revelation is a very special form of e-book from the other
New Testament books. Authority is especially vital for prophetic writing, so
he may additionally have felt obligated to call himself to dispose of any
query approximately the ebook’s credibility.
John doesn’t sense pressured to qualify himself. Whilst the writer does give
his name, he doesn’t attempt to supply himself a identify. He’s clearly John.
Given the Apostle John’s preeminent function within the early church, he
might’ve been capable of surely drop his name and offer no in addition
clarification.
John consistently stresses eyewitness testimony. In his Gospel and epistles,
the Apostle John stresses his eyewitness testimony. Revelation contains over
this theme, together with in Revelation 1:1–2 (“He made it recognized by
using sending his angel to his servant John, who testified to the phrase of
God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he noticed”) and in
Revelation 22:8 (“I, John, am the one who heard and noticed these things
[. . .]”). Evaluate this to a comparable emphasis within the Gospel of John
(John 19:35, 21:24).
Details are consistent with what scholars know of the Apostle John’s ministry.
The writer speaks of the church buildings in western Asia Minor in a way that
virtually demonstrates that he had a dating with them earlier than the
writing and become informed of its geography. Credible secondcentury
historic facts nation that the Apostle John lived in Ephesus from 70–a
hundred CE. Whilst there, he had a thriving ministry that unfold during the
area. Students normally believe that he wrote his three epistles whilst he
lived there, sometime between 80 and 100 CE.
The texts share a few common phrases and terms. In spite of some stylistic
variations among Revelation and the Gospel of John and John’s epistles,
many commonplace phrases and phrases are in reality scattered amongst all
these books. The Gospel of John refers to Jesus as trademarks (“phrase”) in
John 1:1. The simplest other reference to Jesus as emblems in all the Bible is
in Revelation 19:13. similarly, simplest John 1:29 and Revelation five:6 refer
to Jesus as a “Lamb.” furthermore, both the Gospel of John (19:37) and
Revelation (1:7) talk to the identical antique testament verse, Zechariah
12:10.
Teaching sections of Revelation are quite just like the Gospel of John and
Johannine epistles. Despite the fact that a great deal of Revelation is
manifestly targeted on the prophetic visions of John, the book contains a few
expository sections (text that offers records or causes) as well. These
sections of Revelation bear an uncanny resemblance to the Gospel of John
and Johannine epistles. As an instance, the exhortation to “overcome” seems
often in Revelation (Rev. 2:7, 2:11, 2:17, 2:26, 3:5, 3:12, 3:21), as it does in
the Johannine epistles (1 John 2:thirteen–14, 4:four, 5:four–5).
The traditionally universal authorship of Revelation
Even though the writer of Revelation doesn’t without a doubt become aware
of himself as John the Apostle, this is the call related to the ebook from an
early date in the history of the church. As early as the second one century,
the church fathers were unanimous in attributing the e book to John. As an
instance, Justin Martyr, who wrote around one hundred fifty CE, and
Irenaeus, who wrote around one hundred eighty CE, each held that the
Apostle John turned into the author. However, that is no longer to mention
that everyone ancient traditions have been unanimous in naming John
because the writer. Within the early years of the church, some of the early
leaders held to the concept of apostolic authority — that is, that everyone
books of the Bible have been written through both an apostle and a near
best friend of an apostle. However, there were numerous books within the
New Testament that didn’t have this kind of clean hyperlink to an apostle,
such as Hebrews and James. for this reason, a few of the early church fathers
attributed Revelation to John the Elder (also known as John the Presbyter), an
difficult to understand discern who could’ve been an elder within the church
at Ephesus, in which the Apostle John spent the later years of his lifestyles.
but, even Dionysius, who rejected the traditional view of apostolic
authorship, nevertheless stated that the book become common amongst the
orthodox church as written by using “John, one of the apostles.” furthermore,
all through the lengthy process of canonization (the method through which
the early church recognized which books belonged in the Bible), the e-book
turned into universally regular into the New testament at a notably early
date. by way of the cease of the fourth century, all branches of Christianity
agreed that Revelation belonged in the Bible. But, they disagreed about the
way to interpret it. Even as some study it actually, others allegorized it —
that is, they interpreted the numbers and imagery as symbols for deeper non
secular truths. The ebook of Revelation has been the supply of tons
confusion and controversy at some stage in the centuries, even among Bible-
believing Christians. However, as we will see in the following chapter, the
fundamental message of the e-book is straightforward to recognize. As long
as you hold in thoughts the ancient context of the writer and his original
readers, you’ll be properly equipped to understand Revelation’s message.
Many human beings love fantasy tales populated with bizarre apparitions.
Others love a good thriller. And still, others love an adventure tale full of
action and conflict scenes. If you fall into one of these camps, you’re in luck.
The book of Revelation is all these and more.
However, Revelation is a challenging book. Those strange beasts and
creatures are symbols for individuals, nations, governments, and so forth.
The storyline of the book twists and turns in on itself, not following a straight,
chronological narrative. And the whole package is a prophetic vision that’s
related to what’s actually supposed to happen when the world comes to an
end, at least from a biblical perspective.
This chapter doesn’t attempt to explore the symbolism behind the events
that are chronicled during Revelation. It also doesn’t pore over the details of
those events, personalities, and issues (that’s what part III is all about). In
this chapter, we get you started in the right direction. We begin by painting
broad strokes of the structure and content of the final book of the Bible. As
we do so, we point you to parts of this book where you can find more details
on each specific subject.
A major task in reading Revelation is sorting out and understanding the
overall themes and messages while images — seals, trumpets, bowls,
beasts, witnesses, and so on — are ever coming at you. But if you take a
step back and get a solid understanding of the big picture, you can start to
dive into the details and make sense of how they all fit together. Although
Revelation contains a lot of puzzling symbolism and has many
interpretations (see chapter 4 for a discussion of these interpretations), the
book actually divides up rather well. At the most basic level, you can split
Revelation into five major parts, as illustrated in figure 1-1. We discuss each
of these parts in this section, so read on.
The first chapter of Revelation serves as a prologue or introduction to the
whole book. Its purpose is to provide a context to help you make sense of
the rest of the chapters (also see chapter 6). In the first several verses, you
discover that:
This is an unveiling of the plans of Jesus (from God) (1:1).
The author is John (1:4).
The audience is the seven churches of Asia (1:4).
It was written on the island of Patmos, a Mediterranean island belonging to
modern-day Greece (1:9).
Its purpose is to give readers a sneak peek of what’ll take place (1:1).
As Revelation 1:1 underscores, this book is Jesus’s revealing of God’s plans
for the world. In this opening section, John gives explicit details about how
his words came to appear in print: God gave the revelation to Jesus, who
communicated the message to John through an angel, who was sent for this
specific purpose. John wrote these series of visions as an extended letter,
which he then sent to the seven churches in Asia (Rev. 2–3).
Today’s readers are a secondary audience for this book because the original
readers passed John’s letter both to other churches and to their descendants.
Figure 1-2 shows the chain of communication.
People have always had an insatiable curiosity to know their destiny and
what’s going to happen in the “last days.” That’s at least part of the reason
the Left Behind series was popular and why new Nostradamus
documentaries show up almost every year. For many, the allure in reading
and understanding Revelation is, quite frankly, not altogether different from
the desire to peek into a fortuneteller’s crystal ball. Understanding how it all
ends can give you a sense of what your purpose is now.
Revelation can be tough going due to its structure and symbolism and the
various ways in which scholars interpret the book. You can easily become
discouraged and wonder why you should read Revelation, anyway. Here are
several reasons many people consider Revelation to be important reading:
It helps explain the biblical view of God and his relationship with humans.
Many people turn to Revelation looking for definitive answers about what will
happen. But Revelation is far more about grasping the nature of God and the
close relationship that exists between God and those who believe in him.
It gives readers a glimpse of heaven. The Bible offers few specifics on what
heaven will be like. The Old Testament says little. Jesus and Paul provide
more in the New Testament. As if saving the best for last, the final chapters
of Revelation offer a rare glimpse into the new heaven and new earth (see
chapter 14).
It provides a message of hope. It’s easy to be a bit freaked out by the gloom
and doom warnings of the book. But despite all the battles and judgments
depicted, Revelation is ultimately all about hope. It portrays, in vivid detail,
the biblical view of good winning over evil and suffering.
One of the keys to understanding Revelation is in 1:19. In this passage, Jesus
instructs John, “Write, therefore, what you have seen, what is now, and what
will take place later.” Scholars offer various assessments on how to interpret
this verse. However, the interpretation that seems to best fit the original
grammar of the passage as well as the structure of the book itself is a
threefold timing of events: past tense, present tense, and future tense. In
other words, Jesus tells John to write about:
The vision he has already seen (Rev. 1)
The current state of the seven churches (Rev. 2–3)
The events that will take place in the future (Rev. 1–22)
Letters to the seven churches of Asia (Rev. 2–3)
Revelation 2–3 details the individual letters that Jesus dictates for the seven
churches in Asia (see chapter 8). Each of these churches is in a different
spiritual state. For the faithful churches in Smyrna and Philadelphia, Jesus
gives only encouragement for their steadfast faith. For the churches in
Sardis, Ephesus, Pergamum, and Thyatira, he commends them for some
aspects of their faith but also rebukes them for specific areas of failure.
Finally, for the church in Laodicea, he offers no encouragement at all and
simply requires their repentance from a lukewarm, middle-of-the-road faith.
Judgments and vignettes (Rev. 4–20)
The main plot of Revelation 4–20 is a series of progressively severe
judgments that are unveiled through seven seals, seven trumpets, and seven
bowls. These judgments climax with the return of Jesus, the ensuing battle of
Armageddon, the Millennium, and the final Judgment (see Chapters 9–14).
As you read Revelation 4–20, don’t expect a single, linear storyline. The
narrative consists of a sequence of vignettes that make up a secondary
plotline. These scenes help fill in the details of the main story, but they’re
not necessarily tied to the judgments that surround them. As such,
commentators sometimes refer to these vignettes as parentheses,
interludes, or insets.
The secondary storylines: Vignettes
Interrupting the primary narrative of Revelation is a series of vignettes that
help shape a secondary storyline. Some of these interludes may be related
to the events that immediately surround them, while others appear not to
have any chronological relationship at all to the main story. These vignettes
include the following:
Seals are placed on the foreheads of 144,000 believers from the 12 tribes of
Israel (Rev. 7:1–8).
A “great multitude” is delivered from the great Tribulation (Rev. 7:9–17).
John encounters an angel and eats a little scroll (Rev. 10).
Two witnesses prophesy for 3.5 years and are then martyred (Rev. 11:3–12).
A woman and a dragon (Satan) appear, and a war in heaven occurs (Rev.
12).
A beast out of the sea and a beast out of the earth arrive (Rev. 13).
Jesus appears with 144,000 believers on Mount Zion (Rev. 14:1–5).
Three angels proclaim messages of repentance and warning (Rev. 14:6–13).
The harvest of the earth separates the believers from nonbelievers (Rev.
14:11–20).
The saga of the great prostitute on the beast (Babylon) and her eventual fall
unfolds (Rev. 17:1–19:3).
New beginnings (Rev. 21–22:6)
The last you hear of Satan and nonbelievers is at the end of Revelation 20,
when they’re thrown into the lake of fire. Revelation 21, however, tells the
flip side: the future that reportedly awaits those who believe in Jesus. It tells
of the “new heaven and new earth” that God will create as the permanent
home for his children. But this new world is more than an improved version
of their current environment. It’s a perfect world where God will dwell
alongside humans (Rev. 21:3–5).
Epilogue (Rev. 22:7–21)
John closes out Revelation with an epilogue that marks the end of the
prophecy (see chapter 15). The central chorus in this final phase of the book
is Jesus’s reiterating three times, “Behold, I am coming quickly!” (Rev. 22:7,
22:12, 22:20). Each of these signals precedes a call:
Obedience: A call to “keep the words contained in this book” (22:7)
Action: A call to act because he will “reward to each according to what he
has done” (22:12)
Faith: A call to believe Jesus when he says he is coming and to be able to
testify to that claim to the rest of the world (22:20)
Tracking the book’s Timeline
One of the biggest issues most people have with the book of Revelation is
that they expect a traditional, linear model of storytelling. A linear story
begins at a specific point in time and then uses progressive scenes to move
the characters to some kind of destination. Other stories begin with the
characters looking back at something, tell what happened in the form of a
flashback, and return to the present. For the vast majority of movies out of
Hollywood, these two tried-and-true formulas are almost always used, often
because they’re a natural way to tell a story and are easy for audiences to
understand.
However, once in a while, a story comes along that — like the book of
Revelation — doesn’t fit into this storytelling model. Snow Falling on Cedars
and The English Patient are two prime examples. Both have multiple
storylines with flashback sequences involving different characters. If you
don’t want a mental exercise, stories like these can be quite frustrating. But
if you persevere and stick with them, you can find the expanded texture
rewarding, adding to the overall experience.
As you read through Revelation, prepare yourself: The book of Revelation
may start out linear for several chapters, but various vignettes or interludes
interrupt the main story. When you equip yourself for that reality, you’ll be in
a far better position to deal with the timing of events.
As you consider how the various pieces of the book fit together, keep in mind
the following themes: transition terms and parallel events.
And Then Some: Deciphering Transition Terms
Revelation is plagued by scores of transition phrases that indicate timing.
The primary examples include “then I saw,” “and I saw,” “after this,” and
“after these things.” Strictly speaking, these transitions may not always
translate to the order of prophetic events. For example, you may find 53
instances of the phrase then in the book. Although some of them imply a
connection between one event and the next, others reflect the author’s
method of relaying his story, interweaving the content of his visions with his
own experiences. In other words, the narrative has two layers:
John’s experience of having a vision while on Patmos
The content of the visions — horsemen ride, beasts arise, and angels fight,
and so on
With this kind of setup, a transition may apply to the outer layer (the order of
John’s visions) or to the order of prophetic events themselves. For example,
imagine I were to tell you, “I saw the season finale of 24. Then I saw reruns
of the rest of the episodes over the summer.” In this example, the then
relates entirely to the timing in which I saw the episodes. It says nothing
about the logical order of episodes for the series.
Although some transitions may be open to interpretation, you shouldn’t just
dismiss all transitions, either. Especially, the terms “after this” and “after
these things” are noteworthy. Combined, these terms appear just six times
and don’t always seem to relate to the order in which John received the
visions. For example, its usage in Revelation 4:1, 15:5, 18:1, and 19:1 seems
to simply imply a logical sequence of events. However, its usage in 7:1
(which introduces the 144,000 believers of Israel) appears more of a writing
device posed to answer the question raised at the end of chapter 6: Who can
withstand the wrath of God? (6:17). John uses the term again in 7:9; in this
context, the phrase seems to imply the order in which he received the
visions rather than a sequential flow of events.
Parallelism: Watching Things Go Down at the Same Time
Revelation has a flow of events, but how each section fits into the timeline
isn’t always apparent. Though commentators disagree on the details, most
agree that at least some of the pieces of the book parallel each other.
Perhaps the most obvious example is Revelation 12’s story of the woman in
the wilderness, which is told in two ways in different places within the
chapter (12:6 and 12:13–17). A second example, though more contested, is
the 3.5-year period mentioned several times throughout the book (11:3,
12:6, 12:14, and 13:5). Some hold that these references imply that the
associated sections parallel each other.
Many futurists (who believe Revelation describes actual events that are
going to happen) downplay parallelism. They think that, by and large, the
book progresses in a linear fashion from beginning to end, except for the
vignettes (see the earlier “Judgments and vignettes” section). Other futurists
view Revelation 1–11 and 12–19 as parallel accounts of the great Tribulation.
Offering a different take, those who embrace a symbolic interpretation of the
prophecy (again, see chapter 4) see as many as seven parallel sections in
the book.
The issue of parallelism is also a key factor in the interpretation of the
Millennium, which appears in Revelation 20:
Premillennialists maintain that all the events from Revelation 1–19 will occur
before the Millennium.
Amillennialists see the discussion of the Millennium as a parallel section that
describes the entire church age; this church age goes from before Revelation
1:1 even begins up until the Second Coming of Jesus in Revelation 19.
Putting the stage: The Apostle John and the sector in which He Lived
Books — possibly with the exceptions of dictionaries and academic manuals
for gas grills — regularly reflect the character of the writer. What’s inside a
book has a lot to do with who the writer is, the times in which he lives, the
region wherein he lives, and the reviews which have fashioned his life. So
generally, the greater you understand of the author’s story, the extra the
know-how and appreciation you have got for the book itself. The books of the
Bible are not any exception. Although Christians trust the Bible to be the
phrase of God, maximum nonetheless understand that each ebook of the
Bible retains the personality, writing fashion, and experiences of the man or
woman author. Take the Gospel of Luke for instance. You don’t must
understand something about the author to get something out of studying
Luke’s account of Jesus. However, when you find out Luke became a gentile
(non-Jew) and changed into knowledgeable as a medical doctor, you get a
brand new appreciation for his Greek-orientated attitude and his keen
attention to element. On this chapter, you get to recognise John, the loo
most scholars believe is the writer of Revelation, as well as explore the arena
wherein he lived. You benefit insight into the person himself, in addition to
recognize his motives for writing the ebook. You furthermore mght discover
his unique textured style of writing for this final ebook of the New Testament.
Identity-ing John Doe, writer of Revelation
Whilst you walk into your nearby book shop and test the bestsellers display,
you notice the writer’s name unfold out in large letters on every book. The
extra a success the writer is, the larger the font. In fact, for awesome-
promoting authors like John Grisham and Tom Clancy, their names seem so
huge which you often have to search for the name. however irrespective of
whether or not you’re dealing with a bestselling creator or a primary-time
author, you may generally pick up a e book and discover a biography telling
you at the least a snippet of the writer’s credentials. Even if the author is the
usage of a pseudonym (writing under an assumed call), a person someplace
knows the author’s real identity — in spite of everything, the publisher
wishes to know in which to send the royalty tests! Sadly, the books of the
Bible were written before there had been even printing presses, not to
mention huge publishing corporations. Frankly, we wish the biblical authors
would’ve been as outspoken about biographical details as they had been in
spreading their messages. It’d make our lives far less difficult through
putting off any debate approximately who precisely wrote a specific e book.
generally, on the time of the writing, everyone knew who the author of a e
book changed into, whether the author’s call turned into attached to it or
not. In truth, a lot of the books within the New testomony part of the Bible
have been written as letters; whilst you write a letter to a chum, do you
upload an in depth biographical note on the cease? Of path now not! The
recipient is aware of who the letter is from even if you merely log off along
with your initials. The authors of the books of the Bible had greater crucial
matters on their minds than identifying themselves — namely, correctly
speaking what was believed to be the phrase of God. Downplaying their
position out of genuine humility, the biblical authors occasionally blanketed
their names and once in a while did not. The writer of Revelation identifies
himself four instances (Rev. 1:1, 1:4, 1:9, and 22:8) via simply regarding
himself as John. No last name. No identify. No biographical information.
Because John become a popular call of the day, he could be any antique
John. The general consensus of the church due to the fact the second one
century has been that the writer is the Apostle John. Yes, this is the loo. He
and his brother James had been of the authentic 12 disciples of Jesus, and
John changed into considered as Jesus’s “quality buddy.” He’s the author of
the Gospel of John and the 3 letters bearing his call (known as the Johannine
epistles). In fact, the list of church fathers who credit the Apostle John as the
writer of Revelation reads as a virtual who’s who of the early church, such as
Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Hippolytus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, and
Origen.
Doubting the Apostle John’s authorship
No longer has anybody via the centuries agreed that the Apostle John is the
writer. Dionysius, who become the pope of the influential Alexandrian church
in the mid-third century, argued that the author become surely a difficult to
understand first century church chief named John the Presbyter. He primarily
based his argument on inner evidence, or proof located within the text itself,
that he believed pointed to a special creator. Dionysius claimed that the
vocabulary and fashion of the ebook have been so exceptional from the
Gospel of John and the Johannine epistles that it couldn’t had been written by
way of the identical author. In line with Dionysius, there are numerous
discrepancies, together with the subsequent:
The author of Revelation identifies himself with the aid of call. Although the
writer of Revelation names himself 4 times (Rev. 1:1, 1:4, 1:9, 22:8), the
Apostle John usually avoids doing so in his other writings. Inside the Gospel
of John, he identifies himself simplest because the “disciple whom Jesus
cherished” (John 13:23, 21:7, 21:20), and in two of his three epistles, he calls
himself the “elder” (2 John 1:1; 3 John 1:1).
Revelation is written in a sloppier fashion of Greek than the alternative works
of the Apostle John. Truly, the writer of Revelation is tremendously informed
in the vintage testament books, likely understanding both the original
Hebrew texts and the Greek-translated Septuagint (an historic Greek model
of the Hebrew Scriptures). However his writing competencies aren’t usually
as sharp as his rationalization of Scripture. Although John’s Gospel and
epistles are written in subtle, polished Greek, Revelation is scribed in a
Semitic Greek style that a few pupils argue is slipshod in contrast. In
different words, if you have been to say the Apostle John’s other writings
were composed like a John Grisham novel, then Revelation appears greater
in the fashion of a rapidly cobbled collectively time period paper.
The vocabulary and writing style (the writer’s voice) of the acknowledged
Johannine writings assessment with Revelation. Most authors fall into similar
writing styles. If you have favorite authors, you may frequently parent their
tone and voice, although the topics they’re writing about range. The
sentence structure, vocabulary, rhythm of the paragraphs, and so on have a
tendency to be comparable from article to article and ebook to book. The
Apostle John’s Gospel and epistles have this commonplace experience to
them. For instance, the Gospel of John starts with, “inside the beginning
become the word” (John 1:1), and 1 John starts with a comparable tone: “We
declare to you what changed into from the beginning” (1 John 1:1). This form
of similarity doesn’t carry over to Revelation.
Protecting the Apostle John as writer
As some modern scholars have rejected the Apostle John as creator of
Revelation (see the preceding section), different cutting-edge students have
vigorously defended the traditional view of apostolic authorship. As we
explain in this segment, proponents of Johannine authorship increase several
inner and outside problems (evidence out of doors of the e book itself) to
returned their declare.
The textual content: Addressing Dionysius’s challenges
Right here’s how students have answered to Dionysius’s claims that the
Johannine epistles and Gospel fluctuate too much from Revelation to have
the equal author:
John can also have had a cause in particularly naming himself in Revelation.
Though the Apostle John never identifies himself via name in his other books,
the fact that he does so in Revelation doesn’t always take away him as its
writer. In reality, there are affordable causes for his doing so. Specially,
understand that Revelation is a very special form of e-book from the other
New Testament books. Authority is especially vital for prophetic writing, so
he may additionally have felt obligated to call himself to dispose of any
query approximately the ebook’s credibility.
John doesn’t sense pressured to qualify himself. Whilst the writer does give
his name, he doesn’t attempt to supply himself a identify. He’s clearly John.
Given the Apostle John’s preeminent function within the early church, he
might’ve been capable of surely drop his name and offer no in addition
clarification.
John consistently stresses eyewitness testimony. In his Gospel and epistles,
the Apostle John stresses his eyewitness testimony. Revelation contains over
this theme, together with in Revelation 1:1–2 (“He made it recognized by
using sending his angel to his servant John, who testified to the phrase of
God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he noticed”) and in
Revelation 22:8 (“I, John, am the one who heard and noticed these things
[. . .]”). Evaluate this to a comparable emphasis within the Gospel of John
(John 19:35, 21:24).
Details are consistent with what scholars know of the Apostle John’s ministry.
The writer speaks of the church buildings in western Asia Minor in a way that
virtually demonstrates that he had a dating with them earlier than the
writing and become informed of its geography. Credible secondcentury
historic facts nation that the Apostle John lived in Ephesus from 70–a
hundred CE. Whilst there, he had a thriving ministry that unfold during the
area. Students normally believe that he wrote his three epistles whilst he
lived there, sometime between 80 and 100 CE.
The texts share a few common phrases and terms. In spite of some stylistic
variations among Revelation and the Gospel of John and John’s epistles,
many commonplace phrases and phrases are in reality scattered amongst all
these books. The Gospel of John refers to Jesus as trademarks (“phrase”) in
John 1:1. The simplest other reference to Jesus as emblems in all the Bible is
in Revelation 19:13. similarly, simplest John 1:29 and Revelation five:6 refer
to Jesus as a “Lamb.” furthermore, both the Gospel of John (19:37) and
Revelation (1:7) talk to the identical antique testament verse, Zechariah
12:10.
Teaching sections of Revelation are quite just like the Gospel of John and
Johannine epistles. Despite the fact that a great deal of Revelation is
manifestly targeted on the prophetic visions of John, the book contains a few
expository sections (text that offers records or causes) as well. These
sections of Revelation bear an uncanny resemblance to the Gospel of John
and Johannine epistles. As an instance, the exhortation to “overcome” seems
often in Revelation (Rev. 2:7, 2:11, 2:17, 2:26, 3:5, 3:12, 3:21), as it does in
the Johannine epistles (1 John 2:thirteen–14, 4:four, 5:four–5).
The traditionally universal authorship of Revelation
Even though the writer of Revelation doesn’t without a doubt become aware
of himself as John the Apostle, this is the call related to the ebook from an
early date in the history of the church. As early as the second one century,
the church fathers were unanimous in attributing the e book to John. As an
instance, Justin Martyr, who wrote around one hundred fifty CE, and
Irenaeus, who wrote around one hundred eighty CE, each held that the
Apostle John turned into the author. However, that is no longer to mention
that everyone ancient traditions have been unanimous in naming John
because the writer. Within the early years of the church, some of the early
leaders held to the concept of apostolic authority — that is, that everyone
books of the Bible have been written through both an apostle and a near
best friend of an apostle. However, there were numerous books within the
New Testament that didn’t have this kind of clean hyperlink to an apostle,
such as Hebrews and James. for this reason, a few of the early church fathers
attributed Revelation to John the Elder (also known as John the Presbyter), an
difficult to understand discern who could’ve been an elder within the church
at Ephesus, in which the Apostle John spent the later years of his lifestyles.
but, even Dionysius, who rejected the traditional view of apostolic
authorship, nevertheless stated that the book become common amongst the
orthodox church as written by using “John, one of the apostles.” furthermore,
all through the lengthy process of canonization (the method through which
the early church recognized which books belonged in the Bible), the e-book
turned into universally regular into the New testament at a notably early
date. by way of the cease of the fourth century, all branches of Christianity
agreed that Revelation belonged in the Bible. But, they disagreed about the
way to interpret it. Even as some study it actually, others allegorized it —
that is, they interpreted the numbers and imagery as symbols for deeper non
secular truths. The ebook of Revelation has been the supply of tons
confusion and controversy at some stage in the centuries, even among Bible-
believing Christians. However, as we will see in the following chapter, the
fundamental message of the e-book is straightforward to recognize. As long
as you hold in thoughts the ancient context of the writer and his original
readers, you’ll be properly equipped to understand Revelation’s message.
Many human beings love fantasy tales populated with bizarre apparitions.
Others love a good thriller. And still, others love an adventure tale full of
action and conflict scenes. If you fall into one of these camps, you’re in luck.
The book of Revelation is all these and more.
However, Revelation is a challenging book. Those strange beasts and
creatures are symbols for individuals, nations, governments, and so forth.
The storyline of the book twists and turns in on itself, not following a straight,
chronological narrative. And the whole package is a prophetic vision that’s
related to what’s actually supposed to happen when the world comes to an
end, at least from a biblical perspective.
This chapter doesn’t attempt to explore the symbolism behind the events
that are chronicled during Revelation. It also doesn’t pore over the details of
those events, personalities, and issues (that’s what part III is all about). In
this chapter, we get you started in the right direction. We begin by painting
broad strokes of the structure and content of the final book of the Bible. As
we do so, we point you to parts of this book where you can find more details
on each specific subject.
A major task in reading Revelation is sorting out and understanding the
overall themes and messages while images — seals, trumpets, bowls,
beasts, witnesses, and so on — are ever coming at you. But if you take a
step back and get a solid understanding of the big picture, you can start to
dive into the details and make sense of how they all fit together. Although
Revelation contains a lot of puzzling symbolism and has many
interpretations (see chapter 4 for a discussion of these interpretations), the
book actually divides up rather well. At the most basic level, you can split
Revelation into five major parts, as illustrated in figure 1-1. We discuss each
of these parts in this section, so read on.
The first chapter of Revelation serves as a prologue or introduction to the
whole book. Its purpose is to provide a context to help you make sense of
the rest of the chapters (also see chapter 6). In the first several verses, you
discover that:
This is an unveiling of the plans of Jesus (from God) (1:1).
The author is John (1:4).
The audience is the seven churches of Asia (1:4).
It was written on the island of Patmos, a Mediterranean island belonging to
modern-day Greece (1:9).
Its purpose is to give readers a sneak peek of what’ll take place (1:1).
As Revelation 1:1 underscores, this book is Jesus’s revealing of God’s plans
for the world. In this opening section, John gives explicit details about how
his words came to appear in print: God gave the revelation to Jesus, who
communicated the message to John through an angel, who was sent for this
specific purpose. John wrote these series of visions as an extended letter,
which he then sent to the seven churches in Asia (Rev. 2–3).
Today’s readers are a secondary audience for this book because the original
readers passed John’s letter both to other churches and to their descendants.
Figure 1-2 shows the chain of communication.
People have always had an insatiable curiosity to know their destiny and
what’s going to happen in the “last days.” That’s at least part of the reason
the Left Behind series was popular and why new Nostradamus
documentaries show up almost every year. For many, the allure in reading
and understanding Revelation is, quite frankly, not altogether different from
the desire to peek into a fortuneteller’s crystal ball. Understanding how it all
ends can give you a sense of what your purpose is now.
Revelation can be tough going due to its structure and symbolism and the
various ways in which scholars interpret the book. You can easily become
discouraged and wonder why you should read Revelation, anyway. Here are
several reasons many people consider Revelation to be important reading:
It helps explain the biblical view of God and his relationship with humans.
Many people turn to Revelation looking for definitive answers about what will
happen. But Revelation is far more about grasping the nature of God and the
close relationship that exists between God and those who believe in him.
It gives readers a glimpse of heaven. The Bible offers few specifics on what
heaven will be like. The Old Testament says little. Jesus and Paul provide
more in the New Testament. As if saving the best for last, the final chapters
of Revelation offer a rare glimpse into the new heaven and new earth (see
chapter 14).
It provides a message of hope. It’s easy to be a bit freaked out by the gloom
and doom warnings of the book. But despite all the battles and judgments
depicted, Revelation is ultimately all about hope. It portrays, in vivid detail,
the biblical view of good winning over evil and suffering.
One of the keys to understanding Revelation is in 1:19. In this passage, Jesus
instructs John, “Write, therefore, what you have seen, what is now, and what
will take place later.” Scholars offer various assessments on how to interpret
this verse. However, the interpretation that seems to best fit the original
grammar of the passage as well as the structure of the book itself is a
threefold timing of events: past tense, present tense, and future tense. In
other words, Jesus tells John to write about:
The vision he has already seen (Rev. 1)
The current state of the seven churches (Rev. 2–3)
The events that will take place in the future (Rev. 1–22)
Letters to the seven churches of Asia (Rev. 2–3)
Revelation 2–3 details the individual letters that Jesus dictates for the seven
churches in Asia (see chapter 8). Each of these churches is in a different
spiritual state. For the faithful churches in Smyrna and Philadelphia, Jesus
gives only encouragement for their steadfast faith. For the churches in
Sardis, Ephesus, Pergamum, and Thyatira, he commends them for some
aspects of their faith but also rebukes them for specific areas of failure.
Finally, for the church in Laodicea, he offers no encouragement at all and
simply requires their repentance from a lukewarm, middle-of-the-road faith.
Judgments and vignettes (Rev. 4–20)
The main plot of Revelation 4–20 is a series of progressively severe
judgments that are unveiled through seven seals, seven trumpets, and seven
bowls. These judgments climax with the return of Jesus, the ensuing battle of
Armageddon, the Millennium, and the final Judgment (see Chapters 9–14).
As you read Revelation 4–20, don’t expect a single, linear storyline. The
narrative consists of a sequence of vignettes that make up a secondary
plotline. These scenes help fill in the details of the main story, but they’re
not necessarily tied to the judgments that surround them. As such,
commentators sometimes refer to these vignettes as parentheses,
interludes, or insets.
The secondary storylines: Vignettes
Interrupting the primary narrative of Revelation is a series of vignettes that
help shape a secondary storyline. Some of these interludes may be related
to the events that immediately surround them, while others appear not to
have any chronological relationship at all to the main story. These vignettes
include the following:
Seals are placed on the foreheads of 144,000 believers from the 12 tribes of
Israel (Rev. 7:1–8).
A “great multitude” is delivered from the great Tribulation (Rev. 7:9–17).
John encounters an angel and eats a little scroll (Rev. 10).
Two witnesses prophesy for 3.5 years and are then martyred (Rev. 11:3–12).
A woman and a dragon (Satan) appear, and a war in heaven occurs (Rev.
12).
A beast out of the sea and a beast out of the earth arrive (Rev. 13).
Jesus appears with 144,000 believers on Mount Zion (Rev. 14:1–5).
Three angels proclaim messages of repentance and warning (Rev. 14:6–13).
The harvest of the earth separates the believers from nonbelievers (Rev.
14:11–20).
The saga of the great prostitute on the beast (Babylon) and her eventual fall
unfolds (Rev. 17:1–19:3).
New beginnings (Rev. 21–22:6)
The last you hear of Satan and nonbelievers is at the end of Revelation 20,
when they’re thrown into the lake of fire. Revelation 21, however, tells the
flip side: the future that reportedly awaits those who believe in Jesus. It tells
of the “new heaven and new earth” that God will create as the permanent
home for his children. But this new world is more than an improved version
of their current environment. It’s a perfect world where God will dwell
alongside humans (Rev. 21:3–5).
Epilogue (Rev. 22:7–21)
John closes out Revelation with an epilogue that marks the end of the
prophecy (see chapter 15). The central chorus in this final phase of the book
is Jesus’s reiterating three times, “Behold, I am coming quickly!” (Rev. 22:7,
22:12, 22:20). Each of these signals precedes a call:
Obedience: A call to “keep the words contained in this book” (22:7)
Action: A call to act because he will “reward to each according to what he
has done” (22:12)
Faith: A call to believe Jesus when he says he is coming and to be able to
testify to that claim to the rest of the world (22:20)
Tracking the book’s Timeline
One of the biggest issues most people have with the book of Revelation is
that they expect a traditional, linear model of storytelling. A linear story
begins at a specific point in time and then uses progressive scenes to move
the characters to some kind of destination. Other stories begin with the
characters looking back at something, tell what happened in the form of a
flashback, and return to the present. For the vast majority of movies out of
Hollywood, these two tried-and-true formulas are almost always used, often
because they’re a natural way to tell a story and are easy for audiences to
understand.
However, once in a while, a story comes along that — like the book of
Revelation — doesn’t fit into this storytelling model. Snow Falling on Cedars
and The English Patient are two prime examples. Both have multiple
storylines with flashback sequences involving different characters. If you
don’t want a mental exercise, stories like these can be quite frustrating. But
if you persevere and stick with them, you can find the expanded texture
rewarding, adding to the overall experience.
As you read through Revelation, prepare yourself: The book of Revelation
may start out linear for several chapters, but various vignettes or interludes
interrupt the main story. When you equip yourself for that reality, you’ll be in
a far better position to deal with the timing of events.
As you consider how the various pieces of the book fit together, keep in mind
the following themes: transition terms and parallel events.
And Then Some: Deciphering Transition Terms
Revelation is plagued by scores of transition phrases that indicate timing.
The primary examples include “then I saw,” “and I saw,” “after this,” and
“after these things.” Strictly speaking, these transitions may not always
translate to the order of prophetic events. For example, you may find 53
instances of the phrase then in the book. Although some of them imply a
connection between one event and the next, others reflect the author’s
method of relaying his story, interweaving the content of his visions with his
own experiences. In other words, the narrative has two layers:
John’s experience of having a vision while on Patmos
The content of the visions — horsemen ride, beasts arise, and angels fight,
and so on
With this kind of setup, a transition may apply to the outer layer (the order of
John’s visions) or to the order of prophetic events themselves. For example,
imagine I were to tell you, “I saw the season finale of 24. Then I saw reruns
of the rest of the episodes over the summer.” In this example, the then
relates entirely to the timing in which I saw the episodes. It says nothing
about the logical order of episodes for the series.
Although some transitions may be open to interpretation, you shouldn’t just
dismiss all transitions, either. Especially, the terms “after this” and “after
these things” are noteworthy. Combined, these terms appear just six times
and don’t always seem to relate to the order in which John received the
visions. For example, its usage in Revelation 4:1, 15:5, 18:1, and 19:1 seems
to simply imply a logical sequence of events. However, its usage in 7:1
(which introduces the 144,000 believers of Israel) appears more of a writing
device posed to answer the question raised at the end of chapter 6: Who can
withstand the wrath of God? (6:17). John uses the term again in 7:9; in this
context, the phrase seems to imply the order in which he received the
visions rather than a sequential flow of events.
Parallelism: Watching Things Go Down at the Same Time
Revelation has a flow of events, but how each section fits into the timeline
isn’t always apparent. Though commentators disagree on the details, most
agree that at least some of the pieces of the book parallel each other.
Perhaps the most obvious example is Revelation 12’s story of the woman in
the wilderness, which is told in two ways in different places within the
chapter (12:6 and 12:13–17). A second example, though more contested, is
the 3.5-year period mentioned several times throughout the book (11:3,
12:6, 12:14, and 13:5). Some hold that these references imply that the
associated sections parallel each other.
Many futurists (who believe Revelation describes actual events that are
going to happen) downplay parallelism. They think that, by and large, the
book progresses in a linear fashion from beginning to end, except for the
vignettes (see the earlier “Judgments and vignettes” section). Other futurists
view Revelation 1–11 and 12–19 as parallel accounts of the great Tribulation.
Offering a different take, those who embrace a symbolic interpretation of the
prophecy (again, see chapter 4) see as many as seven parallel sections in
the book.
The issue of parallelism is also a key factor in the interpretation of the
Millennium, which appears in Revelation 20:
Premillennialists maintain that all the events from Revelation 1–19 will occur
before the Millennium.
Amillennialists see the discussion of the Millennium as a parallel section that
describes the entire church age; this church age goes from before Revelation
1:1 even begins up until the Second Coming of Jesus in Revelation 19.
Putting the stage: The Apostle John and the sector in which He Lived
Books — possibly with the exceptions of dictionaries and academic manuals
for gas grills — regularly reflect the character of the writer. What’s inside a
book has a lot to do with who the writer is, the times in which he lives, the
region wherein he lives, and the reviews which have fashioned his life. So
generally, the greater you understand of the author’s story, the extra the
know-how and appreciation you have got for the book itself. The books of the
Bible are not any exception. Although Christians trust the Bible to be the
phrase of God, maximum nonetheless understand that each ebook of the
Bible retains the personality, writing fashion, and experiences of the man or
woman author. Take the Gospel of Luke for instance. You don’t must
understand something about the author to get something out of studying
Luke’s account of Jesus. However, when you find out Luke became a gentile
(non-Jew) and changed into knowledgeable as a medical doctor, you get a
brand new appreciation for his Greek-orientated attitude and his keen
attention to element. On this chapter, you get to recognise John, the loo
most scholars believe is the writer of Revelation, as well as explore the arena
wherein he lived. You benefit insight into the person himself, in addition to
recognize his motives for writing the ebook. You furthermore mght discover
his unique textured style of writing for this final ebook of the New Testament.
Identity-ing John Doe, writer of Revelation
Whilst you walk into your nearby book shop and test the bestsellers display,
you notice the writer’s name unfold out in large letters on every book. The
extra a success the writer is, the larger the font. In fact, for awesome-
promoting authors like John Grisham and Tom Clancy, their names seem so
huge which you often have to search for the name. however irrespective of
whether or not you’re dealing with a bestselling creator or a primary-time
author, you may generally pick up a e book and discover a biography telling
you at the least a snippet of the writer’s credentials. Even if the author is the
usage of a pseudonym (writing under an assumed call), a person someplace
knows the author’s real identity — in spite of everything, the publisher
wishes to know in which to send the royalty tests! Sadly, the books of the
Bible were written before there had been even printing presses, not to
mention huge publishing corporations. Frankly, we wish the biblical authors
would’ve been as outspoken about biographical details as they had been in
spreading their messages. It’d make our lives far less difficult through
putting off any debate approximately who precisely wrote a specific e book.
generally, on the time of the writing, everyone knew who the author of a e
book changed into, whether the author’s call turned into attached to it or
not. In truth, a lot of the books within the New testomony part of the Bible
have been written as letters; whilst you write a letter to a chum, do you
upload an in depth biographical note on the cease? Of path now not! The
recipient is aware of who the letter is from even if you merely log off along
with your initials. The authors of the books of the Bible had greater crucial
matters on their minds than identifying themselves — namely, correctly
speaking what was believed to be the phrase of God. Downplaying their
position out of genuine humility, the biblical authors occasionally blanketed
their names and once in a while did not. The writer of Revelation identifies
himself four instances (Rev. 1:1, 1:4, 1:9, and 22:8) via simply regarding
himself as John. No last name. No identify. No biographical information.
Because John become a popular call of the day, he could be any antique
John. The general consensus of the church due to the fact the second one
century has been that the writer is the Apostle John. Yes, this is the loo. He
and his brother James had been of the authentic 12 disciples of Jesus, and
John changed into considered as Jesus’s “quality buddy.” He’s the author of
the Gospel of John and the 3 letters bearing his call (known as the Johannine
epistles). In fact, the list of church fathers who credit the Apostle John as the
writer of Revelation reads as a virtual who’s who of the early church, such as
Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Hippolytus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, and
Origen.
Doubting the Apostle John’s authorship
No longer has anybody via the centuries agreed that the Apostle John is the
writer. Dionysius, who become the pope of the influential Alexandrian church
in the mid-third century, argued that the author become surely a difficult to
understand first century church chief named John the Presbyter. He primarily
based his argument on inner evidence, or proof located within the text itself,
that he believed pointed to a special creator. Dionysius claimed that the
vocabulary and fashion of the ebook have been so exceptional from the
Gospel of John and the Johannine epistles that it couldn’t had been written by
way of the identical author. In line with Dionysius, there are numerous
discrepancies, together with the subsequent:
The author of Revelation identifies himself with the aid of call. Although the
writer of Revelation names himself 4 times (Rev. 1:1, 1:4, 1:9, 22:8), the
Apostle John usually avoids doing so in his other writings. Inside the Gospel
of John, he identifies himself simplest because the “disciple whom Jesus
cherished” (John 13:23, 21:7, 21:20), and in two of his three epistles, he calls
himself the “elder” (2 John 1:1; 3 John 1:1).
Revelation is written in a sloppier fashion of Greek than the alternative works
of the Apostle John. Truly, the writer of Revelation is tremendously informed
in the vintage testament books, likely understanding both the original
Hebrew texts and the Greek-translated Septuagint (an historic Greek model
of the Hebrew Scriptures). However his writing competencies aren’t usually
as sharp as his rationalization of Scripture. Although John’s Gospel and
epistles are written in subtle, polished Greek, Revelation is scribed in a
Semitic Greek style that a few pupils argue is slipshod in contrast. In
different words, if you have been to say the Apostle John’s other writings
were composed like a John Grisham novel, then Revelation appears greater
in the fashion of a rapidly cobbled collectively time period paper.
The vocabulary and writing style (the writer’s voice) of the acknowledged
Johannine writings assessment with Revelation. Most authors fall into similar
writing styles. If you have favorite authors, you may frequently parent their
tone and voice, although the topics they’re writing about range. The
sentence structure, vocabulary, rhythm of the paragraphs, and so on have a
tendency to be comparable from article to article and ebook to book. The
Apostle John’s Gospel and epistles have this commonplace experience to
them. For instance, the Gospel of John starts with, “inside the beginning
become the word” (John 1:1), and 1 John starts with a comparable tone: “We
declare to you what changed into from the beginning” (1 John 1:1). This form
of similarity doesn’t carry over to Revelation.
Protecting the Apostle John as writer
As some modern scholars have rejected the Apostle John as creator of
Revelation (see the preceding section), different cutting-edge students have
vigorously defended the traditional view of apostolic authorship. As we
explain in this segment, proponents of Johannine authorship increase several
inner and outside problems (evidence out of doors of the e book itself) to
returned their declare.
The textual content: Addressing Dionysius’s challenges
Right here’s how students have answered to Dionysius’s claims that the
Johannine epistles and Gospel fluctuate too much from Revelation to have
the equal author:
John can also have had a cause in particularly naming himself in Revelation.
Though the Apostle John never identifies himself via name in his other books,
the fact that he does so in Revelation doesn’t always take away him as its
writer. In reality, there are affordable causes for his doing so. Specially,
understand that Revelation is a very special form of e-book from the other
New Testament books. Authority is especially vital for prophetic writing, so
he may additionally have felt obligated to call himself to dispose of any
query approximately the ebook’s credibility.
John doesn’t sense pressured to qualify himself. Whilst the writer does give
his name, he doesn’t attempt to supply himself a identify. He’s clearly John.
Given the Apostle John’s preeminent function within the early church, he
might’ve been capable of surely drop his name and offer no in addition
clarification.
John consistently stresses eyewitness testimony. In his Gospel and epistles,
the Apostle John stresses his eyewitness testimony. Revelation contains over
this theme, together with in Revelation 1:1–2 (“He made it recognized by
using sending his angel to his servant John, who testified to the phrase of
God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he noticed”) and in
Revelation 22:8 (“I, John, am the one who heard and noticed these things
[. . .]”). Evaluate this to a comparable emphasis within the Gospel of John
(John 19:35, 21:24).
Details are consistent with what scholars know of the Apostle John’s ministry.
The writer speaks of the church buildings in western Asia Minor in a way that
virtually demonstrates that he had a dating with them earlier than the
writing and become informed of its geography. Credible secondcentury
historic facts nation that the Apostle John lived in Ephesus from 70–a
hundred CE. Whilst there, he had a thriving ministry that unfold during the
area. Students normally believe that he wrote his three epistles whilst he
lived there, sometime between 80 and 100 CE.
The texts share a few common phrases and terms. In spite of some stylistic
variations among Revelation and the Gospel of John and John’s epistles,
many commonplace phrases and phrases are in reality scattered amongst all
these books. The Gospel of John refers to Jesus as trademarks (“phrase”) in
John 1:1. The simplest other reference to Jesus as emblems in all the Bible is
in Revelation 19:13. similarly, simplest John 1:29 and Revelation five:6 refer
to Jesus as a “Lamb.” furthermore, both the Gospel of John (19:37) and
Revelation (1:7) talk to the identical antique testament verse, Zechariah
12:10.
Teaching sections of Revelation are quite just like the Gospel of John and
Johannine epistles. Despite the fact that a great deal of Revelation is
manifestly targeted on the prophetic visions of John, the book contains a few
expository sections (text that offers records or causes) as well. These
sections of Revelation bear an uncanny resemblance to the Gospel of John
and Johannine epistles. As an instance, the exhortation to “overcome” seems
often in Revelation (Rev. 2:7, 2:11, 2:17, 2:26, 3:5, 3:12, 3:21), as it does in
the Johannine epistles (1 John 2:thirteen–14, 4:four, 5:four–5).
The traditionally universal authorship of Revelation
Even though the writer of Revelation doesn’t without a doubt become aware
of himself as John the Apostle, this is the call related to the ebook from an
early date in the history of the church. As early as the second one century,
the church fathers were unanimous in attributing the e book to John. As an
instance, Justin Martyr, who wrote around one hundred fifty CE, and
Irenaeus, who wrote around one hundred eighty CE, each held that the
Apostle John turned into the author. However, that is no longer to mention
that everyone ancient traditions have been unanimous in naming John
because the writer. Within the early years of the church, some of the early
leaders held to the concept of apostolic authority — that is, that everyone
books of the Bible have been written through both an apostle and a near
best friend of an apostle. However, there were numerous books within the
New Testament that didn’t have this kind of clean hyperlink to an apostle,
such as Hebrews and James. for this reason, a few of the early church fathers
attributed Revelation to John the Elder (also known as John the Presbyter), an
difficult to understand discern who could’ve been an elder within the church
at Ephesus, in which the Apostle John spent the later years of his lifestyles.
but, even Dionysius, who rejected the traditional view of apostolic
authorship, nevertheless stated that the book become common amongst the
orthodox church as written by using “John, one of the apostles.” furthermore,
all through the lengthy process of canonization (the method through which
the early church recognized which books belonged in the Bible), the e-book
turned into universally regular into the New testament at a notably early
date. by way of the cease of the fourth century, all branches of Christianity
agreed that Revelation belonged in the Bible. But, they disagreed about the
way to interpret it. Even as some study it actually, others allegorized it —
that is, they interpreted the numbers and imagery as symbols for deeper non
secular truths. The ebook of Revelation has been the supply of tons
confusion and controversy at some stage in the centuries, even among Bible-
believing Christians. However, as we will see in the following chapter, the
fundamental message of the e-book is straightforward to recognize. As long
as you hold in thoughts the ancient context of the writer and his original
readers, you’ll be properly equipped to understand Revelation’s message.
Many human beings love fantasy tales populated with bizarre apparitions.
Others love a good thriller. And still, others love an adventure tale full of
action and conflict scenes. If you fall into one of these camps, you’re in luck.
The book of Revelation is all these and more.
However, Revelation is a challenging book. Those strange beasts and
creatures are symbols for individuals, nations, governments, and so forth.
The storyline of the book twists and turns in on itself, not following a straight,
chronological narrative. And the whole package is a prophetic vision that’s
related to what’s actually supposed to happen when the world comes to an
end, at least from a biblical perspective.
This chapter doesn’t attempt to explore the symbolism behind the events
that are chronicled during Revelation. It also doesn’t pore over the details of
those events, personalities, and issues (that’s what part III is all about). In
this chapter, we get you started in the right direction. We begin by painting
broad strokes of the structure and content of the final book of the Bible. As
we do so, we point you to parts of this book where you can find more details
on each specific subject.
A major task in reading Revelation is sorting out and understanding the
overall themes and messages while images — seals, trumpets, bowls,
beasts, witnesses, and so on — are ever coming at you. But if you take a
step back and get a solid understanding of the big picture, you can start to
dive into the details and make sense of how they all fit together. Although
Revelation contains a lot of puzzling symbolism and has many
interpretations (see chapter 4 for a discussion of these interpretations), the
book actually divides up rather well. At the most basic level, you can split
Revelation into five major parts, as illustrated in figure 1-1. We discuss each
of these parts in this section, so read on.
The first chapter of Revelation serves as a prologue or introduction to the
whole book. Its purpose is to provide a context to help you make sense of
the rest of the chapters (also see chapter 6). In the first several verses, you
discover that:
This is an unveiling of the plans of Jesus (from God) (1:1).
The author is John (1:4).
The audience is the seven churches of Asia (1:4).
It was written on the island of Patmos, a Mediterranean island belonging to
modern-day Greece (1:9).
Its purpose is to give readers a sneak peek of what’ll take place (1:1).
As Revelation 1:1 underscores, this book is Jesus’s revealing of God’s plans
for the world. In this opening section, John gives explicit details about how
his words came to appear in print: God gave the revelation to Jesus, who
communicated the message to John through an angel, who was sent for this
specific purpose. John wrote these series of visions as an extended letter,
which he then sent to the seven churches in Asia (Rev. 2–3).
Today’s readers are a secondary audience for this book because the original
readers passed John’s letter both to other churches and to their descendants.
Figure 1-2 shows the chain of communication.
People have always had an insatiable curiosity to know their destiny and
what’s going to happen in the “last days.” That’s at least part of the reason
the Left Behind series was popular and why new Nostradamus
documentaries show up almost every year. For many, the allure in reading
and understanding Revelation is, quite frankly, not altogether different from
the desire to peek into a fortuneteller’s crystal ball. Understanding how it all
ends can give you a sense of what your purpose is now.
Revelation can be tough going due to its structure and symbolism and the
various ways in which scholars interpret the book. You can easily become
discouraged and wonder why you should read Revelation, anyway. Here are
several reasons many people consider Revelation to be important reading:
It helps explain the biblical view of God and his relationship with humans.
Many people turn to Revelation looking for definitive answers about what will
happen. But Revelation is far more about grasping the nature of God and the
close relationship that exists between God and those who believe in him.
It gives readers a glimpse of heaven. The Bible offers few specifics on what
heaven will be like. The Old Testament says little. Jesus and Paul provide
more in the New Testament. As if saving the best for last, the final chapters
of Revelation offer a rare glimpse into the new heaven and new earth (see
chapter 14).
It provides a message of hope. It’s easy to be a bit freaked out by the gloom
and doom warnings of the book. But despite all the battles and judgments
depicted, Revelation is ultimately all about hope. It portrays, in vivid detail,
the biblical view of good winning over evil and suffering.
One of the keys to understanding Revelation is in 1:19. In this passage, Jesus
instructs John, “Write, therefore, what you have seen, what is now, and what
will take place later.” Scholars offer various assessments on how to interpret
this verse. However, the interpretation that seems to best fit the original
grammar of the passage as well as the structure of the book itself is a
threefold timing of events: past tense, present tense, and future tense. In
other words, Jesus tells John to write about:
The vision he has already seen (Rev. 1)
The current state of the seven churches (Rev. 2–3)
The events that will take place in the future (Rev. 1–22)
Letters to the seven churches of Asia (Rev. 2–3)
Revelation 2–3 details the individual letters that Jesus dictates for the seven
churches in Asia (see chapter 8). Each of these churches is in a different
spiritual state. For the faithful churches in Smyrna and Philadelphia, Jesus
gives only encouragement for their steadfast faith. For the churches in
Sardis, Ephesus, Pergamum, and Thyatira, he commends them for some
aspects of their faith but also rebukes them for specific areas of failure.
Finally, for the church in Laodicea, he offers no encouragement at all and
simply requires their repentance from a lukewarm, middle-of-the-road faith.
Judgments and vignettes (Rev. 4–20)
The main plot of Revelation 4–20 is a series of progressively severe
judgments that are unveiled through seven seals, seven trumpets, and seven
bowls. These judgments climax with the return of Jesus, the ensuing battle of
Armageddon, the Millennium, and the final Judgment (see Chapters 9–14).
As you read Revelation 4–20, don’t expect a single, linear storyline. The
narrative consists of a sequence of vignettes that make up a secondary
plotline. These scenes help fill in the details of the main story, but they’re
not necessarily tied to the judgments that surround them. As such,
commentators sometimes refer to these vignettes as parentheses,
interludes, or insets.
The secondary storylines: Vignettes
Interrupting the primary narrative of Revelation is a series of vignettes that
help shape a secondary storyline. Some of these interludes may be related
to the events that immediately surround them, while others appear not to
have any chronological relationship at all to the main story. These vignettes
include the following:
Seals are placed on the foreheads of 144,000 believers from the 12 tribes of
Israel (Rev. 7:1–8).
A “great multitude” is delivered from the great Tribulation (Rev. 7:9–17).
John encounters an angel and eats a little scroll (Rev. 10).
Two witnesses prophesy for 3.5 years and are then martyred (Rev. 11:3–12).
A woman and a dragon (Satan) appear, and a war in heaven occurs (Rev.
12).
A beast out of the sea and a beast out of the earth arrive (Rev. 13).
Jesus appears with 144,000 believers on Mount Zion (Rev. 14:1–5).
Three angels proclaim messages of repentance and warning (Rev. 14:6–13).
The harvest of the earth separates the believers from nonbelievers (Rev.
14:11–20).
The saga of the great prostitute on the beast (Babylon) and her eventual fall
unfolds (Rev. 17:1–19:3).
New beginnings (Rev. 21–22:6)
The last you hear of Satan and nonbelievers is at the end of Revelation 20,
when they’re thrown into the lake of fire. Revelation 21, however, tells the
flip side: the future that reportedly awaits those who believe in Jesus. It tells
of the “new heaven and new earth” that God will create as the permanent
home for his children. But this new world is more than an improved version
of their current environment. It’s a perfect world where God will dwell
alongside humans (Rev. 21:3–5).
Epilogue (Rev. 22:7–21)
John closes out Revelation with an epilogue that marks the end of the
prophecy (see chapter 15). The central chorus in this final phase of the book
is Jesus’s reiterating three times, “Behold, I am coming quickly!” (Rev. 22:7,
22:12, 22:20). Each of these signals precedes a call:
Obedience: A call to “keep the words contained in this book” (22:7)
Action: A call to act because he will “reward to each according to what he
has done” (22:12)
Faith: A call to believe Jesus when he says he is coming and to be able to
testify to that claim to the rest of the world (22:20)
Tracking the book’s Timeline
One of the biggest issues most people have with the book of Revelation is
that they expect a traditional, linear model of storytelling. A linear story
begins at a specific point in time and then uses progressive scenes to move
the characters to some kind of destination. Other stories begin with the
characters looking back at something, tell what happened in the form of a
flashback, and return to the present. For the vast majority of movies out of
Hollywood, these two tried-and-true formulas are almost always used, often
because they’re a natural way to tell a story and are easy for audiences to
understand.
However, once in a while, a story comes along that — like the book of
Revelation — doesn’t fit into this storytelling model. Snow Falling on Cedars
and The English Patient are two prime examples. Both have multiple
storylines with flashback sequences involving different characters. If you
don’t want a mental exercise, stories like these can be quite frustrating. But
if you persevere and stick with them, you can find the expanded texture
rewarding, adding to the overall experience.
As you read through Revelation, prepare yourself: The book of Revelation
may start out linear for several chapters, but various vignettes or interludes
interrupt the main story. When you equip yourself for that reality, you’ll be in
a far better position to deal with the timing of events.
As you consider how the various pieces of the book fit together, keep in mind
the following themes: transition terms and parallel events.
And Then Some: Deciphering Transition Terms
Revelation is plagued by scores of transition phrases that indicate timing.
The primary examples include “then I saw,” “and I saw,” “after this,” and
“after these things.” Strictly speaking, these transitions may not always
translate to the order of prophetic events. For example, you may find 53
instances of the phrase then in the book. Although some of them imply a
connection between one event and the next, others reflect the author’s
method of relaying his story, interweaving the content of his visions with his
own experiences. In other words, the narrative has two layers:
John’s experience of having a vision while on Patmos
The content of the visions — horsemen ride, beasts arise, and angels fight,
and so on
With this kind of setup, a transition may apply to the outer layer (the order of
John’s visions) or to the order of prophetic events themselves. For example,
imagine I were to tell you, “I saw the season finale of 24. Then I saw reruns
of the rest of the episodes over the summer.” In this example, the then
relates entirely to the timing in which I saw the episodes. It says nothing
about the logical order of episodes for the series.
Although some transitions may be open to interpretation, you shouldn’t just
dismiss all transitions, either. Especially, the terms “after this” and “after
these things” are noteworthy. Combined, these terms appear just six times
and don’t always seem to relate to the order in which John received the
visions. For example, its usage in Revelation 4:1, 15:5, 18:1, and 19:1 seems
to simply imply a logical sequence of events. However, its usage in 7:1
(which introduces the 144,000 believers of Israel) appears more of a writing
device posed to answer the question raised at the end of chapter 6: Who can
withstand the wrath of God? (6:17). John uses the term again in 7:9; in this
context, the phrase seems to imply the order in which he received the
visions rather than a sequential flow of events.
Parallelism: Watching Things Go Down at the Same Time
Revelation has a flow of events, but how each section fits into the timeline
isn’t always apparent. Though commentators disagree on the details, most
agree that at least some of the pieces of the book parallel each other.
Perhaps the most obvious example is Revelation 12’s story of the woman in
the wilderness, which is told in two ways in different places within the
chapter (12:6 and 12:13–17). A second example, though more contested, is
the 3.5-year period mentioned several times throughout the book (11:3,
12:6, 12:14, and 13:5). Some hold that these references imply that the
associated sections parallel each other.
Many futurists (who believe Revelation describes actual events that are
going to happen) downplay parallelism. They think that, by and large, the
book progresses in a linear fashion from beginning to end, except for the
vignettes (see the earlier “Judgments and vignettes” section). Other futurists
view Revelation 1–11 and 12–19 as parallel accounts of the great Tribulation.
Offering a different take, those who embrace a symbolic interpretation of the
prophecy (again, see chapter 4) see as many as seven parallel sections in
the book.
The issue of parallelism is also a key factor in the interpretation of the
Millennium, which appears in Revelation 20:
Premillennialists maintain that all the events from Revelation 1–19 will occur
before the Millennium.
Amillennialists see the discussion of the Millennium as a parallel section that
describes the entire church age; this church age goes from before Revelation
1:1 even begins up until the Second Coming of Jesus in Revelation 19.
Putting the stage: The Apostle John and the sector in which He Lived
Books — possibly with the exceptions of dictionaries and academic manuals
for gas grills — regularly reflect the character of the writer. What’s inside a
book has a lot to do with who the writer is, the times in which he lives, the
region wherein he lives, and the reviews which have fashioned his life. So
generally, the greater you understand of the author’s story, the extra the
know-how and appreciation you have got for the book itself. The books of the
Bible are not any exception. Although Christians trust the Bible to be the
phrase of God, maximum nonetheless understand that each ebook of the
Bible retains the personality, writing fashion, and experiences of the man or
woman author. Take the Gospel of Luke for instance. You don’t must
understand something about the author to get something out of studying
Luke’s account of Jesus. However, when you find out Luke became a gentile
(non-Jew) and changed into knowledgeable as a medical doctor, you get a
brand new appreciation for his Greek-orientated attitude and his keen
attention to element. On this chapter, you get to recognise John, the loo
most scholars believe is the writer of Revelation, as well as explore the arena
wherein he lived. You benefit insight into the person himself, in addition to
recognize his motives for writing the ebook. You furthermore mght discover
his unique textured style of writing for this final ebook of the New Testament.
Identity-ing John Doe, writer of Revelation
Whilst you walk into your nearby book shop and test the bestsellers display,
you notice the writer’s name unfold out in large letters on every book. The
extra a success the writer is, the larger the font. In fact, for awesome-
promoting authors like John Grisham and Tom Clancy, their names seem so
huge which you often have to search for the name. however irrespective of
whether or not you’re dealing with a bestselling creator or a primary-time
author, you may generally pick up a e book and discover a biography telling
you at the least a snippet of the writer’s credentials. Even if the author is the
usage of a pseudonym (writing under an assumed call), a person someplace
knows the author’s real identity — in spite of everything, the publisher
wishes to know in which to send the royalty tests! Sadly, the books of the
Bible were written before there had been even printing presses, not to
mention huge publishing corporations. Frankly, we wish the biblical authors
would’ve been as outspoken about biographical details as they had been in
spreading their messages. It’d make our lives far less difficult through
putting off any debate approximately who precisely wrote a specific e book.
generally, on the time of the writing, everyone knew who the author of a e
book changed into, whether the author’s call turned into attached to it or
not. In truth, a lot of the books within the New testomony part of the Bible
have been written as letters; whilst you write a letter to a chum, do you
upload an in depth biographical note on the cease? Of path now not! The
recipient is aware of who the letter is from even if you merely log off along
with your initials. The authors of the books of the Bible had greater crucial
matters on their minds than identifying themselves — namely, correctly
speaking what was believed to be the phrase of God. Downplaying their
position out of genuine humility, the biblical authors occasionally blanketed
their names and once in a while did not. The writer of Revelation identifies
himself four instances (Rev. 1:1, 1:4, 1:9, and 22:8) via simply regarding
himself as John. No last name. No identify. No biographical information.
Because John become a popular call of the day, he could be any antique
John. The general consensus of the church due to the fact the second one
century has been that the writer is the Apostle John. Yes, this is the loo. He
and his brother James had been of the authentic 12 disciples of Jesus, and
John changed into considered as Jesus’s “quality buddy.” He’s the author of
the Gospel of John and the 3 letters bearing his call (known as the Johannine
epistles). In fact, the list of church fathers who credit the Apostle John as the
writer of Revelation reads as a virtual who’s who of the early church, such as
Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Hippolytus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, and
Origen.
Doubting the Apostle John’s authorship
No longer has anybody via the centuries agreed that the Apostle John is the
writer. Dionysius, who become the pope of the influential Alexandrian church
in the mid-third century, argued that the author become surely a difficult to
understand first century church chief named John the Presbyter. He primarily
based his argument on inner evidence, or proof located within the text itself,
that he believed pointed to a special creator. Dionysius claimed that the
vocabulary and fashion of the ebook have been so exceptional from the
Gospel of John and the Johannine epistles that it couldn’t had been written by
way of the identical author. In line with Dionysius, there are numerous
discrepancies, together with the subsequent:
The author of Revelation identifies himself with the aid of call. Although the
writer of Revelation names himself 4 times (Rev. 1:1, 1:4, 1:9, 22:8), the
Apostle John usually avoids doing so in his other writings. Inside the Gospel
of John, he identifies himself simplest because the “disciple whom Jesus
cherished” (John 13:23, 21:7, 21:20), and in two of his three epistles, he calls
himself the “elder” (2 John 1:1; 3 John 1:1).
Revelation is written in a sloppier fashion of Greek than the alternative works
of the Apostle John. Truly, the writer of Revelation is tremendously informed
in the vintage testament books, likely understanding both the original
Hebrew texts and the Greek-translated Septuagint (an historic Greek model
of the Hebrew Scriptures). However his writing competencies aren’t usually
as sharp as his rationalization of Scripture. Although John’s Gospel and
epistles are written in subtle, polished Greek, Revelation is scribed in a
Semitic Greek style that a few pupils argue is slipshod in contrast. In
different words, if you have been to say the Apostle John’s other writings
were composed like a John Grisham novel, then Revelation appears greater
in the fashion of a rapidly cobbled collectively time period paper.
The vocabulary and writing style (the writer’s voice) of the acknowledged
Johannine writings assessment with Revelation. Most authors fall into similar
writing styles. If you have favorite authors, you may frequently parent their
tone and voice, although the topics they’re writing about range. The
sentence structure, vocabulary, rhythm of the paragraphs, and so on have a
tendency to be comparable from article to article and ebook to book. The
Apostle John’s Gospel and epistles have this commonplace experience to
them. For instance, the Gospel of John starts with, “inside the beginning
become the word” (John 1:1), and 1 John starts with a comparable tone: “We
declare to you what changed into from the beginning” (1 John 1:1). This form
of similarity doesn’t carry over to Revelation.
Protecting the Apostle John as writer
As some modern scholars have rejected the Apostle John as creator of
Revelation (see the preceding section), different cutting-edge students have
vigorously defended the traditional view of apostolic authorship. As we
explain in this segment, proponents of Johannine authorship increase several
inner and outside problems (evidence out of doors of the e book itself) to
returned their declare.
The textual content: Addressing Dionysius’s challenges
Right here’s how students have answered to Dionysius’s claims that the
Johannine epistles and Gospel fluctuate too much from Revelation to have
the equal author:
John can also have had a cause in particularly naming himself in Revelation.
Though the Apostle John never identifies himself via name in his other books,
the fact that he does so in Revelation doesn’t always take away him as its
writer. In reality, there are affordable causes for his doing so. Specially,
understand that Revelation is a very special form of e-book from the other
New Testament books. Authority is especially vital for prophetic writing, so
he may additionally have felt obligated to call himself to dispose of any
query approximately the ebook’s credibility.
John doesn’t sense pressured to qualify himself. Whilst the writer does give
his name, he doesn’t attempt to supply himself a identify. He’s clearly John.
Given the Apostle John’s preeminent function within the early church, he
might’ve been capable of surely drop his name and offer no in addition
clarification.
John consistently stresses eyewitness testimony. In his Gospel and epistles,
the Apostle John stresses his eyewitness testimony. Revelation contains over
this theme, together with in Revelation 1:1–2 (“He made it recognized by
using sending his angel to his servant John, who testified to the phrase of
God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he noticed”) and in
Revelation 22:8 (“I, John, am the one who heard and noticed these things
[. . .]”). Evaluate this to a comparable emphasis within the Gospel of John
(John 19:35, 21:24).
Details are consistent with what scholars know of the Apostle John’s ministry.
The writer speaks of the church buildings in western Asia Minor in a way that
virtually demonstrates that he had a dating with them earlier than the
writing and become informed of its geography. Credible secondcentury
historic facts nation that the Apostle John lived in Ephesus from 70–a
hundred CE. Whilst there, he had a thriving ministry that unfold during the
area. Students normally believe that he wrote his three epistles whilst he
lived there, sometime between 80 and 100 CE.
The texts share a few common phrases and terms. In spite of some stylistic
variations among Revelation and the Gospel of John and John’s epistles,
many commonplace phrases and phrases are in reality scattered amongst all
these books. The Gospel of John refers to Jesus as trademarks (“phrase”) in
John 1:1. The simplest other reference to Jesus as emblems in all the Bible is
in Revelation 19:13. similarly, simplest John 1:29 and Revelation five:6 refer
to Jesus as a “Lamb.” furthermore, both the Gospel of John (19:37) and
Revelation (1:7) talk to the identical antique testament verse, Zechariah
12:10.
Teaching sections of Revelation are quite just like the Gospel of John and
Johannine epistles. Despite the fact that a great deal of Revelation is
manifestly targeted on the prophetic visions of John, the book contains a few
expository sections (text that offers records or causes) as well. These
sections of Revelation bear an uncanny resemblance to the Gospel of John
and Johannine epistles. As an instance, the exhortation to “overcome” seems
often in Revelation (Rev. 2:7, 2:11, 2:17, 2:26, 3:5, 3:12, 3:21), as it does in
the Johannine epistles (1 John 2:thirteen–14, 4:four, 5:four–5).
The traditionally universal authorship of Revelation
Even though the writer of Revelation doesn’t without a doubt become aware
of himself as John the Apostle, this is the call related to the ebook from an
early date in the history of the church. As early as the second one century,
the church fathers were unanimous in attributing the e book to John. As an
instance, Justin Martyr, who wrote around one hundred fifty CE, and
Irenaeus, who wrote around one hundred eighty CE, each held that the
Apostle John turned into the author. However, that is no longer to mention
that everyone ancient traditions have been unanimous in naming John
because the writer. Within the early years of the church, some of the early
leaders held to the concept of apostolic authority — that is, that everyone
books of the Bible have been written through both an apostle and a near
best friend of an apostle. However, there were numerous books within the
New Testament that didn’t have this kind of clean hyperlink to an apostle,
such as Hebrews and James. for this reason, a few of the early church fathers
attributed Revelation to John the Elder (also known as John the Presbyter), an
difficult to understand discern who could’ve been an elder within the church
at Ephesus, in which the Apostle John spent the later years of his lifestyles.
but, even Dionysius, who rejected the traditional view of apostolic
authorship, nevertheless stated that the book become common amongst the
orthodox church as written by using “John, one of the apostles.” furthermore,
all through the lengthy process of canonization (the method through which
the early church recognized which books belonged in the Bible), the e-book
turned into universally regular into the New testament at a notably early
date. by way of the cease of the fourth century, all branches of Christianity
agreed that Revelation belonged in the Bible. But, they disagreed about the
way to interpret it. Even as some study it actually, others allegorized it —
that is, they interpreted the numbers and imagery as symbols for deeper non
secular truths. The ebook of Revelation has been the supply of tons
confusion and controversy at some stage in the centuries, even among Bible-
believing Christians. However, as we will see in the following chapter, the
fundamental message of the e-book is straightforward to recognize. As long
as you hold in thoughts the ancient context of the writer and his original
readers, you’ll be properly equipped to understand Revelation’s message.
Many human beings love fantasy tales populated with bizarre apparitions.
Others love a good thriller. And still, others love an adventure tale full of
action and conflict scenes. If you fall into one of these camps, you’re in luck.
The book of Revelation is all these and more.
However, Revelation is a challenging book. Those strange beasts and
creatures are symbols for individuals, nations, governments, and so forth.
The storyline of the book twists and turns in on itself, not following a straight,
chronological narrative. And the whole package is a prophetic vision that’s
related to what’s actually supposed to happen when the world comes to an
end, at least from a biblical perspective.
This chapter doesn’t attempt to explore the symbolism behind the events
that are chronicled during Revelation. It also doesn’t pore over the details of
those events, personalities, and issues (that’s what part III is all about). In
this chapter, we get you started in the right direction. We begin by painting
broad strokes of the structure and content of the final book of the Bible. As
we do so, we point you to parts of this book where you can find more details
on each specific subject.
A major task in reading Revelation is sorting out and understanding the
overall themes and messages while images — seals, trumpets, bowls,
beasts, witnesses, and so on — are ever coming at you. But if you take a
step back and get a solid understanding of the big picture, you can start to
dive into the details and make sense of how they all fit together. Although
Revelation contains a lot of puzzling symbolism and has many
interpretations (see chapter 4 for a discussion of these interpretations), the
book actually divides up rather well. At the most basic level, you can split
Revelation into five major parts, as illustrated in figure 1-1. We discuss each
of these parts in this section, so read on.
The first chapter of Revelation serves as a prologue or introduction to the
whole book. Its purpose is to provide a context to help you make sense of
the rest of the chapters (also see chapter 6). In the first several verses, you
discover that:
This is an unveiling of the plans of Jesus (from God) (1:1).
The author is John (1:4).
The audience is the seven churches of Asia (1:4).
It was written on the island of Patmos, a Mediterranean island belonging to
modern-day Greece (1:9).
Its purpose is to give readers a sneak peek of what’ll take place (1:1).
As Revelation 1:1 underscores, this book is Jesus’s revealing of God’s plans
for the world. In this opening section, John gives explicit details about how
his words came to appear in print: God gave the revelation to Jesus, who
communicated the message to John through an angel, who was sent for this
specific purpose. John wrote these series of visions as an extended letter,
which he then sent to the seven churches in Asia (Rev. 2–3).
Today’s readers are a secondary audience for this book because the original
readers passed John’s letter both to other churches and to their descendants.
Figure 1-2 shows the chain of communication.
People have always had an insatiable curiosity to know their destiny and
what’s going to happen in the “last days.” That’s at least part of the reason
the Left Behind series was popular and why new Nostradamus
documentaries show up almost every year. For many, the allure in reading
and understanding Revelation is, quite frankly, not altogether different from
the desire to peek into a fortuneteller’s crystal ball. Understanding how it all
ends can give you a sense of what your purpose is now.
Revelation can be tough going due to its structure and symbolism and the
various ways in which scholars interpret the book. You can easily become
discouraged and wonder why you should read Revelation, anyway. Here are
several reasons many people consider Revelation to be important reading:
It helps explain the biblical view of God and his relationship with humans.
Many people turn to Revelation looking for definitive answers about what will
happen. But Revelation is far more about grasping the nature of God and the
close relationship that exists between God and those who believe in him.
It gives readers a glimpse of heaven. The Bible offers few specifics on what
heaven will be like. The Old Testament says little. Jesus and Paul provide
more in the New Testament. As if saving the best for last, the final chapters
of Revelation offer a rare glimpse into the new heaven and new earth (see
chapter 14).
It provides a message of hope. It’s easy to be a bit freaked out by the gloom
and doom warnings of the book. But despite all the battles and judgments
depicted, Revelation is ultimately all about hope. It portrays, in vivid detail,
the biblical view of good winning over evil and suffering.
One of the keys to understanding Revelation is in 1:19. In this passage, Jesus
instructs John, “Write, therefore, what you have seen, what is now, and what
will take place later.” Scholars offer various assessments on how to interpret
this verse. However, the interpretation that seems to best fit the original
grammar of the passage as well as the structure of the book itself is a
threefold timing of events: past tense, present tense, and future tense. In
other words, Jesus tells John to write about:
The vision he has already seen (Rev. 1)
The current state of the seven churches (Rev. 2–3)
The events that will take place in the future (Rev. 1–22)
Letters to the seven churches of Asia (Rev. 2–3)
Revelation 2–3 details the individual letters that Jesus dictates for the seven
churches in Asia (see chapter 8). Each of these churches is in a different
spiritual state. For the faithful churches in Smyrna and Philadelphia, Jesus
gives only encouragement for their steadfast faith. For the churches in
Sardis, Ephesus, Pergamum, and Thyatira, he commends them for some
aspects of their faith but also rebukes them for specific areas of failure.
Finally, for the church in Laodicea, he offers no encouragement at all and
simply requires their repentance from a lukewarm, middle-of-the-road faith.
Judgments and vignettes (Rev. 4–20)
The main plot of Revelation 4–20 is a series of progressively severe
judgments that are unveiled through seven seals, seven trumpets, and seven
bowls. These judgments climax with the return of Jesus, the ensuing battle of
Armageddon, the Millennium, and the final Judgment (see Chapters 9–14).
As you read Revelation 4–20, don’t expect a single, linear storyline. The
narrative consists of a sequence of vignettes that make up a secondary
plotline. These scenes help fill in the details of the main story, but they’re
not necessarily tied to the judgments that surround them. As such,
commentators sometimes refer to these vignettes as parentheses,
interludes, or insets.
The secondary storylines: Vignettes
Interrupting the primary narrative of Revelation is a series of vignettes that
help shape a secondary storyline. Some of these interludes may be related
to the events that immediately surround them, while others appear not to
have any chronological relationship at all to the main story. These vignettes
include the following:
Seals are placed on the foreheads of 144,000 believers from the 12 tribes of
Israel (Rev. 7:1–8).
A “great multitude” is delivered from the great Tribulation (Rev. 7:9–17).
John encounters an angel and eats a little scroll (Rev. 10).
Two witnesses prophesy for 3.5 years and are then martyred (Rev. 11:3–12).
A woman and a dragon (Satan) appear, and a war in heaven occurs (Rev.
12).
A beast out of the sea and a beast out of the earth arrive (Rev. 13).
Jesus appears with 144,000 believers on Mount Zion (Rev. 14:1–5).
Three angels proclaim messages of repentance and warning (Rev. 14:6–13).
The harvest of the earth separates the believers from nonbelievers (Rev.
14:11–20).
The saga of the great prostitute on the beast (Babylon) and her eventual fall
unfolds (Rev. 17:1–19:3).
New beginnings (Rev. 21–22:6)
The last you hear of Satan and nonbelievers is at the end of Revelation 20,
when they’re thrown into the lake of fire. Revelation 21, however, tells the
flip side: the future that reportedly awaits those who believe in Jesus. It tells
of the “new heaven and new earth” that God will create as the permanent
home for his children. But this new world is more than an improved version
of their current environment. It’s a perfect world where God will dwell
alongside humans (Rev. 21:3–5).
Epilogue (Rev. 22:7–21)
John closes out Revelation with an epilogue that marks the end of the
prophecy (see chapter 15). The central chorus in this final phase of the book
is Jesus’s reiterating three times, “Behold, I am coming quickly!” (Rev. 22:7,
22:12, 22:20). Each of these signals precedes a call:
Obedience: A call to “keep the words contained in this book” (22:7)
Action: A call to act because he will “reward to each according to what he
has done” (22:12)
Faith: A call to believe Jesus when he says he is coming and to be able to
testify to that claim to the rest of the world (22:20)
Tracking the book’s Timeline
One of the biggest issues most people have with the book of Revelation is
that they expect a traditional, linear model of storytelling. A linear story
begins at a specific point in time and then uses progressive scenes to move
the characters to some kind of destination. Other stories begin with the
characters looking back at something, tell what happened in the form of a
flashback, and return to the present. For the vast majority of movies out of
Hollywood, these two tried-and-true formulas are almost always used, often
because they’re a natural way to tell a story and are easy for audiences to
understand.
However, once in a while, a story comes along that — like the book of
Revelation — doesn’t fit into this storytelling model. Snow Falling on Cedars
and The English Patient are two prime examples. Both have multiple
storylines with flashback sequences involving different characters. If you
don’t want a mental exercise, stories like these can be quite frustrating. But
if you persevere and stick with them, you can find the expanded texture
rewarding, adding to the overall experience.
As you read through Revelation, prepare yourself: The book of Revelation
may start out linear for several chapters, but various vignettes or interludes
interrupt the main story. When you equip yourself for that reality, you’ll be in
a far better position to deal with the timing of events.
As you consider how the various pieces of the book fit together, keep in mind
the following themes: transition terms and parallel events.
And Then Some: Deciphering Transition Terms
Revelation is plagued by scores of transition phrases that indicate timing.
The primary examples include “then I saw,” “and I saw,” “after this,” and
“after these things.” Strictly speaking, these transitions may not always
translate to the order of prophetic events. For example, you may find 53
instances of the phrase then in the book. Although some of them imply a
connection between one event and the next, others reflect the author’s
method of relaying his story, interweaving the content of his visions with his
own experiences. In other words, the narrative has two layers:
John’s experience of having a vision while on Patmos
The content of the visions — horsemen ride, beasts arise, and angels fight,
and so on
With this kind of setup, a transition may apply to the outer layer (the order of
John’s visions) or to the order of prophetic events themselves. For example,
imagine I were to tell you, “I saw the season finale of 24. Then I saw reruns
of the rest of the episodes over the summer.” In this example, the then
relates entirely to the timing in which I saw the episodes. It says nothing
about the logical order of episodes for the series.
Although some transitions may be open to interpretation, you shouldn’t just
dismiss all transitions, either. Especially, the terms “after this” and “after
these things” are noteworthy. Combined, these terms appear just six times
and don’t always seem to relate to the order in which John received the
visions. For example, its usage in Revelation 4:1, 15:5, 18:1, and 19:1 seems
to simply imply a logical sequence of events. However, its usage in 7:1
(which introduces the 144,000 believers of Israel) appears more of a writing
device posed to answer the question raised at the end of chapter 6: Who can
withstand the wrath of God? (6:17). John uses the term again in 7:9; in this
context, the phrase seems to imply the order in which he received the
visions rather than a sequential flow of events.
Parallelism: Watching Things Go Down at the Same Time
Revelation has a flow of events, but how each section fits into the timeline
isn’t always apparent. Though commentators disagree on the details, most
agree that at least some of the pieces of the book parallel each other.
Perhaps the most obvious example is Revelation 12’s story of the woman in
the wilderness, which is told in two ways in different places within the
chapter (12:6 and 12:13–17). A second example, though more contested, is
the 3.5-year period mentioned several times throughout the book (11:3,
12:6, 12:14, and 13:5). Some hold that these references imply that the
associated sections parallel each other.
Many futurists (who believe Revelation describes actual events that are
going to happen) downplay parallelism. They think that, by and large, the
book progresses in a linear fashion from beginning to end, except for the
vignettes (see the earlier “Judgments and vignettes” section). Other futurists
view Revelation 1–11 and 12–19 as parallel accounts of the great Tribulation.
Offering a different take, those who embrace a symbolic interpretation of the
prophecy (again, see chapter 4) see as many as seven parallel sections in
the book.
The issue of parallelism is also a key factor in the interpretation of the
Millennium, which appears in Revelation 20:
Premillennialists maintain that all the events from Revelation 1–19 will occur
before the Millennium.
Amillennialists see the discussion of the Millennium as a parallel section that
describes the entire church age; this church age goes from before Revelation
1:1 even begins up until the Second Coming of Jesus in Revelation 19.
Putting the stage: The Apostle John and the sector in which He Lived
Books — possibly with the exceptions of dictionaries and academic manuals
for gas grills — regularly reflect the character of the writer. What’s inside a
book has a lot to do with who the writer is, the times in which he lives, the
region wherein he lives, and the reviews which have fashioned his life. So
generally, the greater you understand of the author’s story, the extra the
know-how and appreciation you have got for the book itself. The books of the
Bible are not any exception. Although Christians trust the Bible to be the
phrase of God, maximum nonetheless understand that each ebook of the
Bible retains the personality, writing fashion, and experiences of the man or
woman author. Take the Gospel of Luke for instance. You don’t must
understand something about the author to get something out of studying
Luke’s account of Jesus. However, when you find out Luke became a gentile
(non-Jew) and changed into knowledgeable as a medical doctor, you get a
brand new appreciation for his Greek-orientated attitude and his keen
attention to element. On this chapter, you get to recognise John, the loo
most scholars believe is the writer of Revelation, as well as explore the arena
wherein he lived. You benefit insight into the person himself, in addition to
recognize his motives for writing the ebook. You furthermore mght discover
his unique textured style of writing for this final ebook of the New Testament.
Identity-ing John Doe, writer of Revelation
Whilst you walk into your nearby book shop and test the bestsellers display,
you notice the writer’s name unfold out in large letters on every book. The
extra a success the writer is, the larger the font. In fact, for awesome-
promoting authors like John Grisham and Tom Clancy, their names seem so
huge which you often have to search for the name. however irrespective of
whether or not you’re dealing with a bestselling creator or a primary-time
author, you may generally pick up a e book and discover a biography telling
you at the least a snippet of the writer’s credentials. Even if the author is the
usage of a pseudonym (writing under an assumed call), a person someplace
knows the author’s real identity — in spite of everything, the publisher
wishes to know in which to send the royalty tests! Sadly, the books of the
Bible were written before there had been even printing presses, not to
mention huge publishing corporations. Frankly, we wish the biblical authors
would’ve been as outspoken about biographical details as they had been in
spreading their messages. It’d make our lives far less difficult through
putting off any debate approximately who precisely wrote a specific e book.
generally, on the time of the writing, everyone knew who the author of a e
book changed into, whether the author’s call turned into attached to it or
not. In truth, a lot of the books within the New testomony part of the Bible
have been written as letters; whilst you write a letter to a chum, do you
upload an in depth biographical note on the cease? Of path now not! The
recipient is aware of who the letter is from even if you merely log off along
with your initials. The authors of the books of the Bible had greater crucial
matters on their minds than identifying themselves — namely, correctly
speaking what was believed to be the phrase of God. Downplaying their
position out of genuine humility, the biblical authors occasionally blanketed
their names and once in a while did not. The writer of Revelation identifies
himself four instances (Rev. 1:1, 1:4, 1:9, and 22:8) via simply regarding
himself as John. No last name. No identify. No biographical information.
Because John become a popular call of the day, he could be any antique
John. The general consensus of the church due to the fact the second one
century has been that the writer is the Apostle John. Yes, this is the loo. He
and his brother James had been of the authentic 12 disciples of Jesus, and
John changed into considered as Jesus’s “quality buddy.” He’s the author of
the Gospel of John and the 3 letters bearing his call (known as the Johannine
epistles). In fact, the list of church fathers who credit the Apostle John as the
writer of Revelation reads as a virtual who’s who of the early church, such as
Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Hippolytus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, and
Origen.
Doubting the Apostle John’s authorship
No longer has anybody via the centuries agreed that the Apostle John is the
writer. Dionysius, who become the pope of the influential Alexandrian church
in the mid-third century, argued that the author become surely a difficult to
understand first century church chief named John the Presbyter. He primarily
based his argument on inner evidence, or proof located within the text itself,
that he believed pointed to a special creator. Dionysius claimed that the
vocabulary and fashion of the ebook have been so exceptional from the
Gospel of John and the Johannine epistles that it couldn’t had been written by
way of the identical author. In line with Dionysius, there are numerous
discrepancies, together with the subsequent:
The author of Revelation identifies himself with the aid of call. Although the
writer of Revelation names himself 4 times (Rev. 1:1, 1:4, 1:9, 22:8), the
Apostle John usually avoids doing so in his other writings. Inside the Gospel
of John, he identifies himself simplest because the “disciple whom Jesus
cherished” (John 13:23, 21:7, 21:20), and in two of his three epistles, he calls
himself the “elder” (2 John 1:1; 3 John 1:1).
Revelation is written in a sloppier fashion of Greek than the alternative works
of the Apostle John. Truly, the writer of Revelation is tremendously informed
in the vintage testament books, likely understanding both the original
Hebrew texts and the Greek-translated Septuagint (an historic Greek model
of the Hebrew Scriptures). However his writing competencies aren’t usually
as sharp as his rationalization of Scripture. Although John’s Gospel and
epistles are written in subtle, polished Greek, Revelation is scribed in a
Semitic Greek style that a few pupils argue is slipshod in contrast. In
different words, if you have been to say the Apostle John’s other writings
were composed like a John Grisham novel, then Revelation appears greater
in the fashion of a rapidly cobbled collectively time period paper.
The vocabulary and writing style (the writer’s voice) of the acknowledged
Johannine writings assessment with Revelation. Most authors fall into similar
writing styles. If you have favorite authors, you may frequently parent their
tone and voice, although the topics they’re writing about range. The
sentence structure, vocabulary, rhythm of the paragraphs, and so on have a
tendency to be comparable from article to article and ebook to book. The
Apostle John’s Gospel and epistles have this commonplace experience to
them. For instance, the Gospel of John starts with, “inside the beginning
become the word” (John 1:1), and 1 John starts with a comparable tone: “We
declare to you what changed into from the beginning” (1 John 1:1). This form
of similarity doesn’t carry over to Revelation.
Protecting the Apostle John as writer
As some modern scholars have rejected the Apostle John as creator of
Revelation (see the preceding section), different cutting-edge students have
vigorously defended the traditional view of apostolic authorship. As we
explain in this segment, proponents of Johannine authorship increase several
inner and outside problems (evidence out of doors of the e book itself) to
returned their declare.
The textual content: Addressing Dionysius’s challenges
Right here’s how students have answered to Dionysius’s claims that the
Johannine epistles and Gospel fluctuate too much from Revelation to have
the equal author:
John can also have had a cause in particularly naming himself in Revelation.
Though the Apostle John never identifies himself via name in his other books,
the fact that he does so in Revelation doesn’t always take away him as its
writer. In reality, there are affordable causes for his doing so. Specially,
understand that Revelation is a very special form of e-book from the other
New Testament books. Authority is especially vital for prophetic writing, so
he may additionally have felt obligated to call himself to dispose of any
query approximately the ebook’s credibility.
John doesn’t sense pressured to qualify himself. Whilst the writer does give
his name, he doesn’t attempt to supply himself a identify. He’s clearly John.
Given the Apostle John’s preeminent function within the early church, he
might’ve been capable of surely drop his name and offer no in addition
clarification.
John consistently stresses eyewitness testimony. In his Gospel and epistles,
the Apostle John stresses his eyewitness testimony. Revelation contains over
this theme, together with in Revelation 1:1–2 (“He made it recognized by
using sending his angel to his servant John, who testified to the phrase of
God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he noticed”) and in
Revelation 22:8 (“I, John, am the one who heard and noticed these things
[. . .]”). Evaluate this to a comparable emphasis within the Gospel of John
(John 19:35, 21:24).
Details are consistent with what scholars know of the Apostle John’s ministry.
The writer speaks of the church buildings in western Asia Minor in a way that
virtually demonstrates that he had a dating with them earlier than the
writing and become informed of its geography. Credible secondcentury
historic facts nation that the Apostle John lived in Ephesus from 70–a
hundred CE. Whilst there, he had a thriving ministry that unfold during the
area. Students normally believe that he wrote his three epistles whilst he
lived there, sometime between 80 and 100 CE.
The texts share a few common phrases and terms. In spite of some stylistic
variations among Revelation and the Gospel of John and John’s epistles,
many commonplace phrases and phrases are in reality scattered amongst all
these books. The Gospel of John refers to Jesus as trademarks (“phrase”) in
John 1:1. The simplest other reference to Jesus as emblems in all the Bible is
in Revelation 19:13. similarly, simplest John 1:29 and Revelation five:6 refer
to Jesus as a “Lamb.” furthermore, both the Gospel of John (19:37) and
Revelation (1:7) talk to the identical antique testament verse, Zechariah
12:10.
Teaching sections of Revelation are quite just like the Gospel of John and
Johannine epistles. Despite the fact that a great deal of Revelation is
manifestly targeted on the prophetic visions of John, the book contains a few
expository sections (text that offers records or causes) as well. These
sections of Revelation bear an uncanny resemblance to the Gospel of John
and Johannine epistles. As an instance, the exhortation to “overcome” seems
often in Revelation (Rev. 2:7, 2:11, 2:17, 2:26, 3:5, 3:12, 3:21), as it does in
the Johannine epistles (1 John 2:thirteen–14, 4:four, 5:four–5).
The traditionally universal authorship of Revelation
Even though the writer of Revelation doesn’t without a doubt become aware
of himself as John the Apostle, this is the call related to the ebook from an
early date in the history of the church. As early as the second one century,
the church fathers were unanimous in attributing the e book to John. As an
instance, Justin Martyr, who wrote around one hundred fifty CE, and
Irenaeus, who wrote around one hundred eighty CE, each held that the
Apostle John turned into the author. However, that is no longer to mention
that everyone ancient traditions have been unanimous in naming John
because the writer. Within the early years of the church, some of the early
leaders held to the concept of apostolic authority — that is, that everyone
books of the Bible have been written through both an apostle and a near
best friend of an apostle. However, there were numerous books within the
New Testament that didn’t have this kind of clean hyperlink to an apostle,
such as Hebrews and James. for this reason, a few of the early church fathers
attributed Revelation to John the Elder (also known as John the Presbyter), an
difficult to understand discern who could’ve been an elder within the church
at Ephesus, in which the Apostle John spent the later years of his lifestyles.
but, even Dionysius, who rejected the traditional view of apostolic
authorship, nevertheless stated that the book become common amongst the
orthodox church as written by using “John, one of the apostles.” furthermore,
all through the lengthy process of canonization (the method through which
the early church recognized which books belonged in the Bible), the e-book
turned into universally regular into the New testament at a notably early
date. by way of the cease of the fourth century, all branches of Christianity
agreed that Revelation belonged in the Bible. But, they disagreed about the
way to interpret it. Even as some study it actually, others allegorized it —
that is, they interpreted the numbers and imagery as symbols for deeper non
secular truths. The ebook of Revelation has been the supply of tons
confusion and controversy at some stage in the centuries, even among Bible-
believing Christians. However, as we will see in the following chapter, the
fundamental message of the e-book is straightforward to recognize. As long
as you hold in thoughts the ancient context of the writer and his original
readers, you’ll be properly equipped to understand Revelation’s message.
Many human beings love fantasy tales populated with bizarre apparitions.
Others love a good thriller. And still, others love an adventure tale full of
action and conflict scenes. If you fall into one of these camps, you’re in luck.
The book of Revelation is all these and more.
However, Revelation is a challenging book. Those strange beasts and
creatures are symbols for individuals, nations, governments, and so forth.
The storyline of the book twists and turns in on itself, not following a straight,
chronological narrative. And the whole package is a prophetic vision that’s
related to what’s actually supposed to happen when the world comes to an
end, at least from a biblical perspective.
This chapter doesn’t attempt to explore the symbolism behind the events
that are chronicled during Revelation. It also doesn’t pore over the details of
those events, personalities, and issues (that’s what part III is all about). In
this chapter, we get you started in the right direction. We begin by painting
broad strokes of the structure and content of the final book of the Bible. As
we do so, we point you to parts of this book where you can find more details
on each specific subject.
A major task in reading Revelation is sorting out and understanding the
overall themes and messages while images — seals, trumpets, bowls,
beasts, witnesses, and so on — are ever coming at you. But if you take a
step back and get a solid understanding of the big picture, you can start to
dive into the details and make sense of how they all fit together. Although
Revelation contains a lot of puzzling symbolism and has many
interpretations (see chapter 4 for a discussion of these interpretations), the
book actually divides up rather well. At the most basic level, you can split
Revelation into five major parts, as illustrated in figure 1-1. We discuss each
of these parts in this section, so read on.
The first chapter of Revelation serves as a prologue or introduction to the
whole book. Its purpose is to provide a context to help you make sense of
the rest of the chapters (also see chapter 6). In the first several verses, you
discover that:
This is an unveiling of the plans of Jesus (from God) (1:1).
The author is John (1:4).
The audience is the seven churches of Asia (1:4).
It was written on the island of Patmos, a Mediterranean island belonging to
modern-day Greece (1:9).
Its purpose is to give readers a sneak peek of what’ll take place (1:1).
As Revelation 1:1 underscores, this book is Jesus’s revealing of God’s plans
for the world. In this opening section, John gives explicit details about how
his words came to appear in print: God gave the revelation to Jesus, who
communicated the message to John through an angel, who was sent for this
specific purpose. John wrote these series of visions as an extended letter,
which he then sent to the seven churches in Asia (Rev. 2–3).
Today’s readers are a secondary audience for this book because the original
readers passed John’s letter both to other churches and to their descendants.
Figure 1-2 shows the chain of communication.
People have always had an insatiable curiosity to know their destiny and
what’s going to happen in the “last days.” That’s at least part of the reason
the Left Behind series was popular and why new Nostradamus
documentaries show up almost every year. For many, the allure in reading
and understanding Revelation is, quite frankly, not altogether different from
the desire to peek into a fortuneteller’s crystal ball. Understanding how it all
ends can give you a sense of what your purpose is now.
Revelation can be tough going due to its structure and symbolism and the
various ways in which scholars interpret the book. You can easily become
discouraged and wonder why you should read Revelation, anyway. Here are
several reasons many people consider Revelation to be important reading:
It helps explain the biblical view of God and his relationship with humans.
Many people turn to Revelation looking for definitive answers about what will
happen. But Revelation is far more about grasping the nature of God and the
close relationship that exists between God and those who believe in him.
It gives readers a glimpse of heaven. The Bible offers few specifics on what
heaven will be like. The Old Testament says little. Jesus and Paul provide
more in the New Testament. As if saving the best for last, the final chapters
of Revelation offer a rare glimpse into the new heaven and new earth (see
chapter 14).
It provides a message of hope. It’s easy to be a bit freaked out by the gloom
and doom warnings of the book. But despite all the battles and judgments
depicted, Revelation is ultimately all about hope. It portrays, in vivid detail,
the biblical view of good winning over evil and suffering.
One of the keys to understanding Revelation is in 1:19. In this passage, Jesus
instructs John, “Write, therefore, what you have seen, what is now, and what
will take place later.” Scholars offer various assessments on how to interpret
this verse. However, the interpretation that seems to best fit the original
grammar of the passage as well as the structure of the book itself is a
threefold timing of events: past tense, present tense, and future tense. In
other words, Jesus tells John to write about:
The vision he has already seen (Rev. 1)
The current state of the seven churches (Rev. 2–3)
The events that will take place in the future (Rev. 1–22)
Letters to the seven churches of Asia (Rev. 2–3)
Revelation 2–3 details the individual letters that Jesus dictates for the seven
churches in Asia (see chapter 8). Each of these churches is in a different
spiritual state. For the faithful churches in Smyrna and Philadelphia, Jesus
gives only encouragement for their steadfast faith. For the churches in
Sardis, Ephesus, Pergamum, and Thyatira, he commends them for some
aspects of their faith but also rebukes them for specific areas of failure.
Finally, for the church in Laodicea, he offers no encouragement at all and
simply requires their repentance from a lukewarm, middle-of-the-road faith.
Judgments and vignettes (Rev. 4–20)
The main plot of Revelation 4–20 is a series of progressively severe
judgments that are unveiled through seven seals, seven trumpets, and seven
bowls. These judgments climax with the return of Jesus, the ensuing battle of
Armageddon, the Millennium, and the final Judgment (see Chapters 9–14).
As you read Revelation 4–20, don’t expect a single, linear storyline. The
narrative consists of a sequence of vignettes that make up a secondary
plotline. These scenes help fill in the details of the main story, but they’re
not necessarily tied to the judgments that surround them. As such,
commentators sometimes refer to these vignettes as parentheses,
interludes, or insets.
The secondary storylines: Vignettes
Interrupting the primary narrative of Revelation is a series of vignettes that
help shape a secondary storyline. Some of these interludes may be related
to the events that immediately surround them, while others appear not to
have any chronological relationship at all to the main story. These vignettes
include the following:
Seals are placed on the foreheads of 144,000 believers from the 12 tribes of
Israel (Rev. 7:1–8).
A “great multitude” is delivered from the great Tribulation (Rev. 7:9–17).
John encounters an angel and eats a little scroll (Rev. 10).
Two witnesses prophesy for 3.5 years and are then martyred (Rev. 11:3–12).
A woman and a dragon (Satan) appear, and a war in heaven occurs (Rev.
12).
A beast out of the sea and a beast out of the earth arrive (Rev. 13).
Jesus appears with 144,000 believers on Mount Zion (Rev. 14:1–5).
Three angels proclaim messages of repentance and warning (Rev. 14:6–13).
The harvest of the earth separates the believers from nonbelievers (Rev.
14:11–20).
The saga of the great prostitute on the beast (Babylon) and her eventual fall
unfolds (Rev. 17:1–19:3).
New beginnings (Rev. 21–22:6)
The last you hear of Satan and nonbelievers is at the end of Revelation 20,
when they’re thrown into the lake of fire. Revelation 21, however, tells the
flip side: the future that reportedly awaits those who believe in Jesus. It tells
of the “new heaven and new earth” that God will create as the permanent
home for his children. But this new world is more than an improved version
of their current environment. It’s a perfect world where God will dwell
alongside humans (Rev. 21:3–5).
Epilogue (Rev. 22:7–21)
John closes out Revelation with an epilogue that marks the end of the
prophecy (see chapter 15). The central chorus in this final phase of the book
is Jesus’s reiterating three times, “Behold, I am coming quickly!” (Rev. 22:7,
22:12, 22:20). Each of these signals precedes a call:
Obedience: A call to “keep the words contained in this book” (22:7)
Action: A call to act because he will “reward to each according to what he
has done” (22:12)
Faith: A call to believe Jesus when he says he is coming and to be able to
testify to that claim to the rest of the world (22:20)
Tracking the book’s Timeline
One of the biggest issues most people have with the book of Revelation is
that they expect a traditional, linear model of storytelling. A linear story
begins at a specific point in time and then uses progressive scenes to move
the characters to some kind of destination. Other stories begin with the
characters looking back at something, tell what happened in the form of a
flashback, and return to the present. For the vast majority of movies out of
Hollywood, these two tried-and-true formulas are almost always used, often
because they’re a natural way to tell a story and are easy for audiences to
understand.
However, once in a while, a story comes along that — like the book of
Revelation — doesn’t fit into this storytelling model. Snow Falling on Cedars
and The English Patient are two prime examples. Both have multiple
storylines with flashback sequences involving different characters. If you
don’t want a mental exercise, stories like these can be quite frustrating. But
if you persevere and stick with them, you can find the expanded texture
rewarding, adding to the overall experience.
As you read through Revelation, prepare yourself: The book of Revelation
may start out linear for several chapters, but various vignettes or interludes
interrupt the main story. When you equip yourself for that reality, you’ll be in
a far better position to deal with the timing of events.
As you consider how the various pieces of the book fit together, keep in mind
the following themes: transition terms and parallel events.
And Then Some: Deciphering Transition Terms
Revelation is plagued by scores of transition phrases that indicate timing.
The primary examples include “then I saw,” “and I saw,” “after this,” and
“after these things.” Strictly speaking, these transitions may not always
translate to the order of prophetic events. For example, you may find 53
instances of the phrase then in the book. Although some of them imply a
connection between one event and the next, others reflect the author’s
method of relaying his story, interweaving the content of his visions with his
own experiences. In other words, the narrative has two layers:
John’s experience of having a vision while on Patmos
The content of the visions — horsemen ride, beasts arise, and angels fight,
and so on
With this kind of setup, a transition may apply to the outer layer (the order of
John’s visions) or to the order of prophetic events themselves. For example,
imagine I were to tell you, “I saw the season finale of 24. Then I saw reruns
of the rest of the episodes over the summer.” In this example, the then
relates entirely to the timing in which I saw the episodes. It says nothing
about the logical order of episodes for the series.
Although some transitions may be open to interpretation, you shouldn’t just
dismiss all transitions, either. Especially, the terms “after this” and “after
these things” are noteworthy. Combined, these terms appear just six times
and don’t always seem to relate to the order in which John received the
visions. For example, its usage in Revelation 4:1, 15:5, 18:1, and 19:1 seems
to simply imply a logical sequence of events. However, its usage in 7:1
(which introduces the 144,000 believers of Israel) appears more of a writing
device posed to answer the question raised at the end of chapter 6: Who can
withstand the wrath of God? (6:17). John uses the term again in 7:9; in this
context, the phrase seems to imply the order in which he received the
visions rather than a sequential flow of events.
Parallelism: Watching Things Go Down at the Same Time
Revelation has a flow of events, but how each section fits into the timeline
isn’t always apparent. Though commentators disagree on the details, most
agree that at least some of the pieces of the book parallel each other.
Perhaps the most obvious example is Revelation 12’s story of the woman in
the wilderness, which is told in two ways in different places within the
chapter (12:6 and 12:13–17). A second example, though more contested, is
the 3.5-year period mentioned several times throughout the book (11:3,
12:6, 12:14, and 13:5). Some hold that these references imply that the
associated sections parallel each other.
Many futurists (who believe Revelation describes actual events that are
going to happen) downplay parallelism. They think that, by and large, the
book progresses in a linear fashion from beginning to end, except for the
vignettes (see the earlier “Judgments and vignettes” section). Other futurists
view Revelation 1–11 and 12–19 as parallel accounts of the great Tribulation.
Offering a different take, those who embrace a symbolic interpretation of the
prophecy (again, see chapter 4) see as many as seven parallel sections in
the book.
The issue of parallelism is also a key factor in the interpretation of the
Millennium, which appears in Revelation 20:
Premillennialists maintain that all the events from Revelation 1–19 will occur
before the Millennium.
Amillennialists see the discussion of the Millennium as a parallel section that
describes the entire church age; this church age goes from before Revelation
1:1 even begins up until the Second Coming of Jesus in Revelation 19.
Putting the stage: The Apostle John and the sector in which He Lived
Books — possibly with the exceptions of dictionaries and academic manuals
for gas grills — regularly reflect the character of the writer. What’s inside a
book has a lot to do with who the writer is, the times in which he lives, the
region wherein he lives, and the reviews which have fashioned his life. So
generally, the greater you understand of the author’s story, the extra the
know-how and appreciation you have got for the book itself. The books of the
Bible are not any exception. Although Christians trust the Bible to be the
phrase of God, maximum nonetheless understand that each ebook of the
Bible retains the personality, writing fashion, and experiences of the man or
woman author. Take the Gospel of Luke for instance. You don’t must
understand something about the author to get something out of studying
Luke’s account of Jesus. However, when you find out Luke became a gentile
(non-Jew) and changed into knowledgeable as a medical doctor, you get a
brand new appreciation for his Greek-orientated attitude and his keen
attention to element. On this chapter, you get to recognise John, the loo
most scholars believe is the writer of Revelation, as well as explore the arena
wherein he lived. You benefit insight into the person himself, in addition to
recognize his motives for writing the ebook. You furthermore mght discover
his unique textured style of writing for this final ebook of the New Testament.
Identity-ing John Doe, writer of Revelation
Whilst you walk into your nearby book shop and test the bestsellers display,
you notice the writer’s name unfold out in large letters on every book. The
extra a success the writer is, the larger the font. In fact, for awesome-
promoting authors like John Grisham and Tom Clancy, their names seem so
huge which you often have to search for the name. however irrespective of
whether or not you’re dealing with a bestselling creator or a primary-time
author, you may generally pick up a e book and discover a biography telling
you at the least a snippet of the writer’s credentials. Even if the author is the
usage of a pseudonym (writing under an assumed call), a person someplace
knows the author’s real identity — in spite of everything, the publisher
wishes to know in which to send the royalty tests! Sadly, the books of the
Bible were written before there had been even printing presses, not to
mention huge publishing corporations. Frankly, we wish the biblical authors
would’ve been as outspoken about biographical details as they had been in
spreading their messages. It’d make our lives far less difficult through
putting off any debate approximately who precisely wrote a specific e book.
generally, on the time of the writing, everyone knew who the author of a e
book changed into, whether the author’s call turned into attached to it or
not. In truth, a lot of the books within the New testomony part of the Bible
have been written as letters; whilst you write a letter to a chum, do you
upload an in depth biographical note on the cease? Of path now not! The
recipient is aware of who the letter is from even if you merely log off along
with your initials. The authors of the books of the Bible had greater crucial
matters on their minds than identifying themselves — namely, correctly
speaking what was believed to be the phrase of God. Downplaying their
position out of genuine humility, the biblical authors occasionally blanketed
their names and once in a while did not. The writer of Revelation identifies
himself four instances (Rev. 1:1, 1:4, 1:9, and 22:8) via simply regarding
himself as John. No last name. No identify. No biographical information.
Because John become a popular call of the day, he could be any antique
John. The general consensus of the church due to the fact the second one
century has been that the writer is the Apostle John. Yes, this is the loo. He
and his brother James had been of the authentic 12 disciples of Jesus, and
John changed into considered as Jesus’s “quality buddy.” He’s the author of
the Gospel of John and the 3 letters bearing his call (known as the Johannine
epistles). In fact, the list of church fathers who credit the Apostle John as the
writer of Revelation reads as a virtual who’s who of the early church, such as
Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Hippolytus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, and
Origen.
Doubting the Apostle John’s authorship
No longer has anybody via the centuries agreed that the Apostle John is the
writer. Dionysius, who become the pope of the influential Alexandrian church
in the mid-third century, argued that the author become surely a difficult to
understand first century church chief named John the Presbyter. He primarily
based his argument on inner evidence, or proof located within the text itself,
that he believed pointed to a special creator. Dionysius claimed that the
vocabulary and fashion of the ebook have been so exceptional from the
Gospel of John and the Johannine epistles that it couldn’t had been written by
way of the identical author. In line with Dionysius, there are numerous
discrepancies, together with the subsequent:
The author of Revelation identifies himself with the aid of call. Although the
writer of Revelation names himself 4 times (Rev. 1:1, 1:4, 1:9, 22:8), the
Apostle John usually avoids doing so in his other writings. Inside the Gospel
of John, he identifies himself simplest because the “disciple whom Jesus
cherished” (John 13:23, 21:7, 21:20), and in two of his three epistles, he calls
himself the “elder” (2 John 1:1; 3 John 1:1).
Revelation is written in a sloppier fashion of Greek than the alternative works
of the Apostle John. Truly, the writer of Revelation is tremendously informed
in the vintage testament books, likely understanding both the original
Hebrew texts and the Greek-translated Septuagint (an historic Greek model
of the Hebrew Scriptures). However his writing competencies aren’t usually
as sharp as his rationalization of Scripture. Although John’s Gospel and
epistles are written in subtle, polished Greek, Revelation is scribed in a
Semitic Greek style that a few pupils argue is slipshod in contrast. In
different words, if you have been to say the Apostle John’s other writings
were composed like a John Grisham novel, then Revelation appears greater
in the fashion of a rapidly cobbled collectively time period paper.
The vocabulary and writing style (the writer’s voice) of the acknowledged
Johannine writings assessment with Revelation. Most authors fall into similar
writing styles. If you have favorite authors, you may frequently parent their
tone and voice, although the topics they’re writing about range. The
sentence structure, vocabulary, rhythm of the paragraphs, and so on have a
tendency to be comparable from article to article and ebook to book. The
Apostle John’s Gospel and epistles have this commonplace experience to
them. For instance, the Gospel of John starts with, “inside the beginning
become the word” (John 1:1), and 1 John starts with a comparable tone: “We
declare to you what changed into from the beginning” (1 John 1:1). This form
of similarity doesn’t carry over to Revelation.
Protecting the Apostle John as writer
As some modern scholars have rejected the Apostle John as creator of
Revelation (see the preceding section), different cutting-edge students have
vigorously defended the traditional view of apostolic authorship. As we
explain in this segment, proponents of Johannine authorship increase several
inner and outside problems (evidence out of doors of the e book itself) to
returned their declare.
The textual content: Addressing Dionysius’s challenges
Right here’s how students have answered to Dionysius’s claims that the
Johannine epistles and Gospel fluctuate too much from Revelation to have
the equal author:
John can also have had a cause in particularly naming himself in Revelation.
Though the Apostle John never identifies himself via name in his other books,
the fact that he does so in Revelation doesn’t always take away him as its
writer. In reality, there are affordable causes for his doing so. Specially,
understand that Revelation is a very special form of e-book from the other
New Testament books. Authority is especially vital for prophetic writing, so
he may additionally have felt obligated to call himself to dispose of any
query approximately the ebook’s credibility.
John doesn’t sense pressured to qualify himself. Whilst the writer does give
his name, he doesn’t attempt to supply himself a identify. He’s clearly John.
Given the Apostle John’s preeminent function within the early church, he
might’ve been capable of surely drop his name and offer no in addition
clarification.
John consistently stresses eyewitness testimony. In his Gospel and epistles,
the Apostle John stresses his eyewitness testimony. Revelation contains over
this theme, together with in Revelation 1:1–2 (“He made it recognized by
using sending his angel to his servant John, who testified to the phrase of
God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he noticed”) and in
Revelation 22:8 (“I, John, am the one who heard and noticed these things
[. . .]”). Evaluate this to a comparable emphasis within the Gospel of John
(John 19:35, 21:24).
Details are consistent with what scholars know of the Apostle John’s ministry.
The writer speaks of the church buildings in western Asia Minor in a way that
virtually demonstrates that he had a dating with them earlier than the
writing and become informed of its geography. Credible secondcentury
historic facts nation that the Apostle John lived in Ephesus from 70–a
hundred CE. Whilst there, he had a thriving ministry that unfold during the
area. Students normally believe that he wrote his three epistles whilst he
lived there, sometime between 80 and 100 CE.
The texts share a few common phrases and terms. In spite of some stylistic
variations among Revelation and the Gospel of John and John’s epistles,
many commonplace phrases and phrases are in reality scattered amongst all
these books. The Gospel of John refers to Jesus as trademarks (“phrase”) in
John 1:1. The simplest other reference to Jesus as emblems in all the Bible is
in Revelation 19:13. similarly, simplest John 1:29 and Revelation five:6 refer
to Jesus as a “Lamb.” furthermore, both the Gospel of John (19:37) and
Revelation (1:7) talk to the identical antique testament verse, Zechariah
12:10.
Teaching sections of Revelation are quite just like the Gospel of John and
Johannine epistles. Despite the fact that a great deal of Revelation is
manifestly targeted on the prophetic visions of John, the book contains a few
expository sections (text that offers records or causes) as well. These
sections of Revelation bear an uncanny resemblance to the Gospel of John
and Johannine epistles. As an instance, the exhortation to “overcome” seems
often in Revelation (Rev. 2:7, 2:11, 2:17, 2:26, 3:5, 3:12, 3:21), as it does in
the Johannine epistles (1 John 2:thirteen–14, 4:four, 5:four–5).
The traditionally universal authorship of Revelation
Even though the writer of Revelation doesn’t without a doubt become aware
of himself as John the Apostle, this is the call related to the ebook from an
early date in the history of the church. As early as the second one century,
the church fathers were unanimous in attributing the e book to John. As an
instance, Justin Martyr, who wrote around one hundred fifty CE, and
Irenaeus, who wrote around one hundred eighty CE, each held that the
Apostle John turned into the author. However, that is no longer to mention
that everyone ancient traditions have been unanimous in naming John
because the writer. Within the early years of the church, some of the early
leaders held to the concept of apostolic authority — that is, that everyone
books of the Bible have been written through both an apostle and a near
best friend of an apostle. However, there were numerous books within the
New Testament that didn’t have this kind of clean hyperlink to an apostle,
such as Hebrews and James. for this reason, a few of the early church fathers
attributed Revelation to John the Elder (also known as John the Presbyter), an
difficult to understand discern who could’ve been an elder within the church
at Ephesus, in which the Apostle John spent the later years of his lifestyles.
but, even Dionysius, who rejected the traditional view of apostolic
authorship, nevertheless stated that the book become common amongst the
orthodox church as written by using “John, one of the apostles.” furthermore,
all through the lengthy process of canonization (the method through which
the early church recognized which books belonged in the Bible), the e-book
turned into universally regular into the New testament at a notably early
date. by way of the cease of the fourth century, all branches of Christianity
agreed that Revelation belonged in the Bible. But, they disagreed about the
way to interpret it. Even as some study it actually, others allegorized it —
that is, they interpreted the numbers and imagery as symbols for deeper non
secular truths. The ebook of Revelation has been the supply of tons
confusion and controversy at some stage in the centuries, even among Bible-
believing Christians. However, as we will see in the following chapter, the
fundamental message of the e-book is straightforward to recognize. As long
as you hold in thoughts the ancient context of the writer and his original
readers, you’ll be properly equipped to understand Revelation’s message.
Many human beings love fantasy tales populated with bizarre apparitions.
Others love a good thriller. And still, others love an adventure tale full of
action and conflict scenes. If you fall into one of these camps, you’re in luck.
The book of Revelation is all these and more.
However, Revelation is a challenging book. Those strange beasts and
creatures are symbols for individuals, nations, governments, and so forth.
The storyline of the book twists and turns in on itself, not following a straight,
chronological narrative. And the whole package is a prophetic vision that’s
related to what’s actually supposed to happen when the world comes to an
end, at least from a biblical perspective.
This chapter doesn’t attempt to explore the symbolism behind the events
that are chronicled during Revelation. It also doesn’t pore over the details of
those events, personalities, and issues (that’s what part III is all about). In
this chapter, we get you started in the right direction. We begin by painting
broad strokes of the structure and content of the final book of the Bible. As
we do so, we point you to parts of this book where you can find more details
on each specific subject.
A major task in reading Revelation is sorting out and understanding the
overall themes and messages while images — seals, trumpets, bowls,
beasts, witnesses, and so on — are ever coming at you. But if you take a
step back and get a solid understanding of the big picture, you can start to
dive into the details and make sense of how they all fit together. Although
Revelation contains a lot of puzzling symbolism and has many
interpretations (see chapter 4 for a discussion of these interpretations), the
book actually divides up rather well. At the most basic level, you can split
Revelation into five major parts, as illustrated in figure 1-1. We discuss each
of these parts in this section, so read on.
The first chapter of Revelation serves as a prologue or introduction to the
whole book. Its purpose is to provide a context to help you make sense of
the rest of the chapters (also see chapter 6). In the first several verses, you
discover that:
This is an unveiling of the plans of Jesus (from God) (1:1).
The author is John (1:4).
The audience is the seven churches of Asia (1:4).
It was written on the island of Patmos, a Mediterranean island belonging to
modern-day Greece (1:9).
Its purpose is to give readers a sneak peek of what’ll take place (1:1).
As Revelation 1:1 underscores, this book is Jesus’s revealing of God’s plans
for the world. In this opening section, John gives explicit details about how
his words came to appear in print: God gave the revelation to Jesus, who
communicated the message to John through an angel, who was sent for this
specific purpose. John wrote these series of visions as an extended letter,
which he then sent to the seven churches in Asia (Rev. 2–3).
Today’s readers are a secondary audience for this book because the original
readers passed John’s letter both to other churches and to their descendants.
Figure 1-2 shows the chain of communication.
People have always had an insatiable curiosity to know their destiny and
what’s going to happen in the “last days.” That’s at least part of the reason
the Left Behind series was popular and why new Nostradamus
documentaries show up almost every year. For many, the allure in reading
and understanding Revelation is, quite frankly, not altogether different from
the desire to peek into a fortuneteller’s crystal ball. Understanding how it all
ends can give you a sense of what your purpose is now.
Revelation can be tough going due to its structure and symbolism and the
various ways in which scholars interpret the book. You can easily become
discouraged and wonder why you should read Revelation, anyway. Here are
several reasons many people consider Revelation to be important reading:
It helps explain the biblical view of God and his relationship with humans.
Many people turn to Revelation looking for definitive answers about what will
happen. But Revelation is far more about grasping the nature of God and the
close relationship that exists between God and those who believe in him.
It gives readers a glimpse of heaven. The Bible offers few specifics on what
heaven will be like. The Old Testament says little. Jesus and Paul provide
more in the New Testament. As if saving the best for last, the final chapters
of Revelation offer a rare glimpse into the new heaven and new earth (see
chapter 14).
It provides a message of hope. It’s easy to be a bit freaked out by the gloom
and doom warnings of the book. But despite all the battles and judgments
depicted, Revelation is ultimately all about hope. It portrays, in vivid detail,
the biblical view of good winning over evil and suffering.
One of the keys to understanding Revelation is in 1:19. In this passage, Jesus
instructs John, “Write, therefore, what you have seen, what is now, and what
will take place later.” Scholars offer various assessments on how to interpret
this verse. However, the interpretation that seems to best fit the original
grammar of the passage as well as the structure of the book itself is a
threefold timing of events: past tense, present tense, and future tense. In
other words, Jesus tells John to write about:
The vision he has already seen (Rev. 1)
The current state of the seven churches (Rev. 2–3)
The events that will take place in the future (Rev. 1–22)
Letters to the seven churches of Asia (Rev. 2–3)
Revelation 2–3 details the individual letters that Jesus dictates for the seven
churches in Asia (see chapter 8). Each of these churches is in a different
spiritual state. For the faithful churches in Smyrna and Philadelphia, Jesus
gives only encouragement for their steadfast faith. For the churches in
Sardis, Ephesus, Pergamum, and Thyatira, he commends them for some
aspects of their faith but also rebukes them for specific areas of failure.
Finally, for the church in Laodicea, he offers no encouragement at all and
simply requires their repentance from a lukewarm, middle-of-the-road faith.
Judgments and vignettes (Rev. 4–20)
The main plot of Revelation 4–20 is a series of progressively severe
judgments that are unveiled through seven seals, seven trumpets, and seven
bowls. These judgments climax with the return of Jesus, the ensuing battle of
Armageddon, the Millennium, and the final Judgment (see Chapters 9–14).
As you read Revelation 4–20, don’t expect a single, linear storyline. The
narrative consists of a sequence of vignettes that make up a secondary
plotline. These scenes help fill in the details of the main story, but they’re
not necessarily tied to the judgments that surround them. As such,
commentators sometimes refer to these vignettes as parentheses,
interludes, or insets.
The secondary storylines: Vignettes
Interrupting the primary narrative of Revelation is a series of vignettes that
help shape a secondary storyline. Some of these interludes may be related
to the events that immediately surround them, while others appear not to
have any chronological relationship at all to the main story. These vignettes
include the following:
Seals are placed on the foreheads of 144,000 believers from the 12 tribes of
Israel (Rev. 7:1–8).
A “great multitude” is delivered from the great Tribulation (Rev. 7:9–17).
John encounters an angel and eats a little scroll (Rev. 10).
Two witnesses prophesy for 3.5 years and are then martyred (Rev. 11:3–12).
A woman and a dragon (Satan) appear, and a war in heaven occurs (Rev.
12).
A beast out of the sea and a beast out of the earth arrive (Rev. 13).
Jesus appears with 144,000 believers on Mount Zion (Rev. 14:1–5).
Three angels proclaim messages of repentance and warning (Rev. 14:6–13).
The harvest of the earth separates the believers from nonbelievers (Rev.
14:11–20).
The saga of the great prostitute on the beast (Babylon) and her eventual fall
unfolds (Rev. 17:1–19:3).
New beginnings (Rev. 21–22:6)
The last you hear of Satan and nonbelievers is at the end of Revelation 20,
when they’re thrown into the lake of fire. Revelation 21, however, tells the
flip side: the future that reportedly awaits those who believe in Jesus. It tells
of the “new heaven and new earth” that God will create as the permanent
home for his children. But this new world is more than an improved version
of their current environment. It’s a perfect world where God will dwell
alongside humans (Rev. 21:3–5).
Epilogue (Rev. 22:7–21)
John closes out Revelation with an epilogue that marks the end of the
prophecy (see chapter 15). The central chorus in this final phase of the book
is Jesus’s reiterating three times, “Behold, I am coming quickly!” (Rev. 22:7,
22:12, 22:20). Each of these signals precedes a call:
Obedience: A call to “keep the words contained in this book” (22:7)
Action: A call to act because he will “reward to each according to what he
has done” (22:12)
Faith: A call to believe Jesus when he says he is coming and to be able to
testify to that claim to the rest of the world (22:20)
Tracking the book’s Timeline
One of the biggest issues most people have with the book of Revelation is
that they expect a traditional, linear model of storytelling. A linear story
begins at a specific point in time and then uses progressive scenes to move
the characters to some kind of destination. Other stories begin with the
characters looking back at something, tell what happened in the form of a
flashback, and return to the present. For the vast majority of movies out of
Hollywood, these two tried-and-true formulas are almost always used, often
because they’re a natural way to tell a story and are easy for audiences to
understand.
However, once in a while, a story comes along that — like the book of
Revelation — doesn’t fit into this storytelling model. Snow Falling on Cedars
and The English Patient are two prime examples. Both have multiple
storylines with flashback sequences involving different characters. If you
don’t want a mental exercise, stories like these can be quite frustrating. But
if you persevere and stick with them, you can find the expanded texture
rewarding, adding to the overall experience.
As you read through Revelation, prepare yourself: The book of Revelation
may start out linear for several chapters, but various vignettes or interludes
interrupt the main story. When you equip yourself for that reality, you’ll be in
a far better position to deal with the timing of events.
As you consider how the various pieces of the book fit together, keep in mind
the following themes: transition terms and parallel events.
And Then Some: Deciphering Transition Terms
Revelation is plagued by scores of transition phrases that indicate timing.
The primary examples include “then I saw,” “and I saw,” “after this,” and
“after these things.” Strictly speaking, these transitions may not always
translate to the order of prophetic events. For example, you may find 53
instances of the phrase then in the book. Although some of them imply a
connection between one event and the next, others reflect the author’s
method of relaying his story, interweaving the content of his visions with his
own experiences. In other words, the narrative has two layers:
John’s experience of having a vision while on Patmos
The content of the visions — horsemen ride, beasts arise, and angels fight,
and so on
With this kind of setup, a transition may apply to the outer layer (the order of
John’s visions) or to the order of prophetic events themselves. For example,
imagine I were to tell you, “I saw the season finale of 24. Then I saw reruns
of the rest of the episodes over the summer.” In this example, the then
relates entirely to the timing in which I saw the episodes. It says nothing
about the logical order of episodes for the series.
Although some transitions may be open to interpretation, you shouldn’t just
dismiss all transitions, either. Especially, the terms “after this” and “after
these things” are noteworthy. Combined, these terms appear just six times
and don’t always seem to relate to the order in which John received the
visions. For example, its usage in Revelation 4:1, 15:5, 18:1, and 19:1 seems
to simply imply a logical sequence of events. However, its usage in 7:1
(which introduces the 144,000 believers of Israel) appears more of a writing
device posed to answer the question raised at the end of chapter 6: Who can
withstand the wrath of God? (6:17). John uses the term again in 7:9; in this
context, the phrase seems to imply the order in which he received the
visions rather than a sequential flow of events.
Parallelism: Watching Things Go Down at the Same Time
Revelation has a flow of events, but how each section fits into the timeline
isn’t always apparent. Though commentators disagree on the details, most
agree that at least some of the pieces of the book parallel each other.
Perhaps the most obvious example is Revelation 12’s story of the woman in
the wilderness, which is told in two ways in different places within the
chapter (12:6 and 12:13–17). A second example, though more contested, is
the 3.5-year period mentioned several times throughout the book (11:3,
12:6, 12:14, and 13:5). Some hold that these references imply that the
associated sections parallel each other.
Many futurists (who believe Revelation describes actual events that are
going to happen) downplay parallelism. They think that, by and large, the
book progresses in a linear fashion from beginning to end, except for the
vignettes (see the earlier “Judgments and vignettes” section). Other futurists
view Revelation 1–11 and 12–19 as parallel accounts of the great Tribulation.
Offering a different take, those who embrace a symbolic interpretation of the
prophecy (again, see chapter 4) see as many as seven parallel sections in
the book.
The issue of parallelism is also a key factor in the interpretation of the
Millennium, which appears in Revelation 20:
Premillennialists maintain that all the events from Revelation 1–19 will occur
before the Millennium.
Amillennialists see the discussion of the Millennium as a parallel section that
describes the entire church age; this church age goes from before Revelation
1:1 even begins up until the Second Coming of Jesus in Revelation 19.
Putting the stage: The Apostle John and the sector in which He Lived
Books — possibly with the exceptions of dictionaries and academic manuals
for gas grills — regularly reflect the character of the writer. What’s inside a
book has a lot to do with who the writer is, the times in which he lives, the
region wherein he lives, and the reviews which have fashioned his life. So
generally, the greater you understand of the author’s story, the extra the
know-how and appreciation you have got for the book itself. The books of the
Bible are not any exception. Although Christians trust the Bible to be the
phrase of God, maximum nonetheless understand that each ebook of the
Bible retains the personality, writing fashion, and experiences of the man or
woman author. Take the Gospel of Luke for instance. You don’t must
understand something about the author to get something out of studying
Luke’s account of Jesus. However, when you find out Luke became a gentile
(non-Jew) and changed into knowledgeable as a medical doctor, you get a
brand new appreciation for his Greek-orientated attitude and his keen
attention to element. On this chapter, you get to recognise John, the loo
most scholars believe is the writer of Revelation, as well as explore the arena
wherein he lived. You benefit insight into the person himself, in addition to
recognize his motives for writing the ebook. You furthermore mght discover
his unique textured style of writing for this final ebook of the New Testament.
Identity-ing John Doe, writer of Revelation
Whilst you walk into your nearby book shop and test the bestsellers display,
you notice the writer’s name unfold out in large letters on every book. The
extra a success the writer is, the larger the font. In fact, for awesome-
promoting authors like John Grisham and Tom Clancy, their names seem so
huge which you often have to search for the name. however irrespective of
whether or not you’re dealing with a bestselling creator or a primary-time
author, you may generally pick up a e book and discover a biography telling
you at the least a snippet of the writer’s credentials. Even if the author is the
usage of a pseudonym (writing under an assumed call), a person someplace
knows the author’s real identity — in spite of everything, the publisher
wishes to know in which to send the royalty tests! Sadly, the books of the
Bible were written before there had been even printing presses, not to
mention huge publishing corporations. Frankly, we wish the biblical authors
would’ve been as outspoken about biographical details as they had been in
spreading their messages. It’d make our lives far less difficult through
putting off any debate approximately who precisely wrote a specific e book.
generally, on the time of the writing, everyone knew who the author of a e
book changed into, whether the author’s call turned into attached to it or
not. In truth, a lot of the books within the New testomony part of the Bible
have been written as letters; whilst you write a letter to a chum, do you
upload an in depth biographical note on the cease? Of path now not! The
recipient is aware of who the letter is from even if you merely log off along
with your initials. The authors of the books of the Bible had greater crucial
matters on their minds than identifying themselves — namely, correctly
speaking what was believed to be the phrase of God. Downplaying their
position out of genuine humility, the biblical authors occasionally blanketed
their names and once in a while did not. The writer of Revelation identifies
himself four instances (Rev. 1:1, 1:4, 1:9, and 22:8) via simply regarding
himself as John. No last name. No identify. No biographical information.
Because John become a popular call of the day, he could be any antique
John. The general consensus of the church due to the fact the second one
century has been that the writer is the Apostle John. Yes, this is the loo. He
and his brother James had been of the authentic 12 disciples of Jesus, and
John changed into considered as Jesus’s “quality buddy.” He’s the author of
the Gospel of John and the 3 letters bearing his call (known as the Johannine
epistles). In fact, the list of church fathers who credit the Apostle John as the
writer of Revelation reads as a virtual who’s who of the early church, such as
Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Hippolytus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, and
Origen.
Doubting the Apostle John’s authorship
No longer has anybody via the centuries agreed that the Apostle John is the
writer. Dionysius, who become the pope of the influential Alexandrian church
in the mid-third century, argued that the author become surely a difficult to
understand first century church chief named John the Presbyter. He primarily
based his argument on inner evidence, or proof located within the text itself,
that he believed pointed to a special creator. Dionysius claimed that the
vocabulary and fashion of the ebook have been so exceptional from the
Gospel of John and the Johannine epistles that it couldn’t had been written by
way of the identical author. In line with Dionysius, there are numerous
discrepancies, together with the subsequent:
The author of Revelation identifies himself with the aid of call. Although the
writer of Revelation names himself 4 times (Rev. 1:1, 1:4, 1:9, 22:8), the
Apostle John usually avoids doing so in his other writings. Inside the Gospel
of John, he identifies himself simplest because the “disciple whom Jesus
cherished” (John 13:23, 21:7, 21:20), and in two of his three epistles, he calls
himself the “elder” (2 John 1:1; 3 John 1:1).
Revelation is written in a sloppier fashion of Greek than the alternative works
of the Apostle John. Truly, the writer of Revelation is tremendously informed
in the vintage testament books, likely understanding both the original
Hebrew texts and the Greek-translated Septuagint (an historic Greek model
of the Hebrew Scriptures). However his writing competencies aren’t usually
as sharp as his rationalization of Scripture. Although John’s Gospel and
epistles are written in subtle, polished Greek, Revelation is scribed in a
Semitic Greek style that a few pupils argue is slipshod in contrast. In
different words, if you have been to say the Apostle John’s other writings
were composed like a John Grisham novel, then Revelation appears greater
in the fashion of a rapidly cobbled collectively time period paper.
The vocabulary and writing style (the writer’s voice) of the acknowledged
Johannine writings assessment with Revelation. Most authors fall into similar
writing styles. If you have favorite authors, you may frequently parent their
tone and voice, although the topics they’re writing about range. The
sentence structure, vocabulary, rhythm of the paragraphs, and so on have a
tendency to be comparable from article to article and ebook to book. The
Apostle John’s Gospel and epistles have this commonplace experience to
them. For instance, the Gospel of John starts with, “inside the beginning
become the word” (John 1:1), and 1 John starts with a comparable tone: “We
declare to you what changed into from the beginning” (1 John 1:1). This form
of similarity doesn’t carry over to Revelation.
Protecting the Apostle John as writer
As some modern scholars have rejected the Apostle John as creator of
Revelation (see the preceding section), different cutting-edge students have
vigorously defended the traditional view of apostolic authorship. As we
explain in this segment, proponents of Johannine authorship increase several
inner and outside problems (evidence out of doors of the e book itself) to
returned their declare.
The textual content: Addressing Dionysius’s challenges
Right here’s how students have answered to Dionysius’s claims that the
Johannine epistles and Gospel fluctuate too much from Revelation to have
the equal author:
John can also have had a cause in particularly naming himself in Revelation.
Though the Apostle John never identifies himself via name in his other books,
the fact that he does so in Revelation doesn’t always take away him as its
writer. In reality, there are affordable causes for his doing so. Specially,
understand that Revelation is a very special form of e-book from the other
New Testament books. Authority is especially vital for prophetic writing, so
he may additionally have felt obligated to call himself to dispose of any
query approximately the ebook’s credibility.
John doesn’t sense pressured to qualify himself. Whilst the writer does give
his name, he doesn’t attempt to supply himself a identify. He’s clearly John.
Given the Apostle John’s preeminent function within the early church, he
might’ve been capable of surely drop his name and offer no in addition
clarification.
John consistently stresses eyewitness testimony. In his Gospel and epistles,
the Apostle John stresses his eyewitness testimony. Revelation contains over
this theme, together with in Revelation 1:1–2 (“He made it recognized by
using sending his angel to his servant John, who testified to the phrase of
God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he noticed”) and in
Revelation 22:8 (“I, John, am the one who heard and noticed these things
[. . .]”). Evaluate this to a comparable emphasis within the Gospel of John
(John 19:35, 21:24).
Details are consistent with what scholars know of the Apostle John’s ministry.
The writer speaks of the church buildings in western Asia Minor in a way that
virtually demonstrates that he had a dating with them earlier than the
writing and become informed of its geography. Credible secondcentury
historic facts nation that the Apostle John lived in Ephesus from 70–a
hundred CE. Whilst there, he had a thriving ministry that unfold during the
area. Students normally believe that he wrote his three epistles whilst he
lived there, sometime between 80 and 100 CE.
The texts share a few common phrases and terms. In spite of some stylistic
variations among Revelation and the Gospel of John and John’s epistles,
many commonplace phrases and phrases are in reality scattered amongst all
these books. The Gospel of John refers to Jesus as trademarks (“phrase”) in
John 1:1. The simplest other reference to Jesus as emblems in all the Bible is
in Revelation 19:13. similarly, simplest John 1:29 and Revelation five:6 refer
to Jesus as a “Lamb.” furthermore, both the Gospel of John (19:37) and
Revelation (1:7) talk to the identical antique testament verse, Zechariah
12:10.
Teaching sections of Revelation are quite just like the Gospel of John and
Johannine epistles. Despite the fact that a great deal of Revelation is
manifestly targeted on the prophetic visions of John, the book contains a few
expository sections (text that offers records or causes) as well. These
sections of Revelation bear an uncanny resemblance to the Gospel of John
and Johannine epistles. As an instance, the exhortation to “overcome” seems
often in Revelation (Rev. 2:7, 2:11, 2:17, 2:26, 3:5, 3:12, 3:21), as it does in
the Johannine epistles (1 John 2:thirteen–14, 4:four, 5:four–5).
The traditionally universal authorship of Revelation
Even though the writer of Revelation doesn’t without a doubt become aware
of himself as John the Apostle, this is the call related to the ebook from an
early date in the history of the church. As early as the second one century,
the church fathers were unanimous in attributing the e book to John. As an
instance, Justin Martyr, who wrote around one hundred fifty CE, and
Irenaeus, who wrote around one hundred eighty CE, each held that the
Apostle John turned into the author. However, that is no longer to mention
that everyone ancient traditions have been unanimous in naming John
because the writer. Within the early years of the church, some of the early
leaders held to the concept of apostolic authority — that is, that everyone
books of the Bible have been written through both an apostle and a near
best friend of an apostle. However, there were numerous books within the
New Testament that didn’t have this kind of clean hyperlink to an apostle,
such as Hebrews and James. for this reason, a few of the early church fathers
attributed Revelation to John the Elder (also known as John the Presbyter), an
difficult to understand discern who could’ve been an elder within the church
at Ephesus, in which the Apostle John spent the later years of his lifestyles.
but, even Dionysius, who rejected the traditional view of apostolic
authorship, nevertheless stated that the book become common amongst the
orthodox church as written by using “John, one of the apostles.” furthermore,
all through the lengthy process of canonization (the method through which
the early church recognized which books belonged in the Bible), the e-book
turned into universally regular into the New testament at a notably early
date. by way of the cease of the fourth century, all branches of Christianity
agreed that Revelation belonged in the Bible. But, they disagreed about the
way to interpret it. Even as some study it actually, others allegorized it —
that is, they interpreted the numbers and imagery as symbols for deeper non
secular truths. The ebook of Revelation has been the supply of tons
confusion and controversy at some stage in the centuries, even among Bible-
believing Christians. However, as we will see in the following chapter, the
fundamental message of the e-book is straightforward to recognize. As long
as you hold in thoughts the ancient context of the writer and his original
readers, you’ll be properly equipped to understand Revelation’s message.
Many human beings love fantasy tales populated with bizarre apparitions.
Others love a good thriller. And still, others love an adventure tale full of
action and conflict scenes. If you fall into one of these camps, you’re in luck.
The book of Revelation is all these and more.
However, Revelation is a challenging book. Those strange beasts and
creatures are symbols for individuals, nations, governments, and so forth.
The storyline of the book twists and turns in on itself, not following a straight,
chronological narrative. And the whole package is a prophetic vision that’s
related to what’s actually supposed to happen when the world comes to an
end, at least from a biblical perspective.
This chapter doesn’t attempt to explore the symbolism behind the events
that are chronicled during Revelation. It also doesn’t pore over the details of
those events, personalities, and issues (that’s what part III is all about). In
this chapter, we get you started in the right direction. We begin by painting
broad strokes of the structure and content of the final book of the Bible. As
we do so, we point you to parts of this book where you can find more details
on each specific subject.
A major task in reading Revelation is sorting out and understanding the
overall themes and messages while images — seals, trumpets, bowls,
beasts, witnesses, and so on — are ever coming at you. But if you take a
step back and get a solid understanding of the big picture, you can start to
dive into the details and make sense of how they all fit together. Although
Revelation contains a lot of puzzling symbolism and has many
interpretations (see chapter 4 for a discussion of these interpretations), the
book actually divides up rather well. At the most basic level, you can split
Revelation into five major parts, as illustrated in figure 1-1. We discuss each
of these parts in this section, so read on.
The first chapter of Revelation serves as a prologue or introduction to the
whole book. Its purpose is to provide a context to help you make sense of
the rest of the chapters (also see chapter 6). In the first several verses, you
discover that:
This is an unveiling of the plans of Jesus (from God) (1:1).
The author is John (1:4).
The audience is the seven churches of Asia (1:4).
It was written on the island of Patmos, a Mediterranean island belonging to
modern-day Greece (1:9).
Its purpose is to give readers a sneak peek of what’ll take place (1:1).
As Revelation 1:1 underscores, this book is Jesus’s revealing of God’s plans
for the world. In this opening section, John gives explicit details about how
his words came to appear in print: God gave the revelation to Jesus, who
communicated the message to John through an angel, who was sent for this
specific purpose. John wrote these series of visions as an extended letter,
which he then sent to the seven churches in Asia (Rev. 2–3).
Today’s readers are a secondary audience for this book because the original
readers passed John’s letter both to other churches and to their descendants.
Figure 1-2 shows the chain of communication.
People have always had an insatiable curiosity to know their destiny and
what’s going to happen in the “last days.” That’s at least part of the reason
the Left Behind series was popular and why new Nostradamus
documentaries show up almost every year. For many, the allure in reading
and understanding Revelation is, quite frankly, not altogether different from
the desire to peek into a fortuneteller’s crystal ball. Understanding how it all
ends can give you a sense of what your purpose is now.
Revelation can be tough going due to its structure and symbolism and the
various ways in which scholars interpret the book. You can easily become
discouraged and wonder why you should read Revelation, anyway. Here are
several reasons many people consider Revelation to be important reading:
It helps explain the biblical view of God and his relationship with humans.
Many people turn to Revelation looking for definitive answers about what will
happen. But Revelation is far more about grasping the nature of God and the
close relationship that exists between God and those who believe in him.
It gives readers a glimpse of heaven. The Bible offers few specifics on what
heaven will be like. The Old Testament says little. Jesus and Paul provide
more in the New Testament. As if saving the best for last, the final chapters
of Revelation offer a rare glimpse into the new heaven and new earth (see
chapter 14).
It provides a message of hope. It’s easy to be a bit freaked out by the gloom
and doom warnings of the book. But despite all the battles and judgments
depicted, Revelation is ultimately all about hope. It portrays, in vivid detail,
the biblical view of good winning over evil and suffering.
One of the keys to understanding Revelation is in 1:19. In this passage, Jesus
instructs John, “Write, therefore, what you have seen, what is now, and what
will take place later.” Scholars offer various assessments on how to interpret
this verse. However, the interpretation that seems to best fit the original
grammar of the passage as well as the structure of the book itself is a
threefold timing of events: past tense, present tense, and future tense. In
other words, Jesus tells John to write about:
The vision he has already seen (Rev. 1)
The current state of the seven churches (Rev. 2–3)
The events that will take place in the future (Rev. 1–22)
Letters to the seven churches of Asia (Rev. 2–3)
Revelation 2–3 details the individual letters that Jesus dictates for the seven
churches in Asia (see chapter 8). Each of these churches is in a different
spiritual state. For the faithful churches in Smyrna and Philadelphia, Jesus
gives only encouragement for their steadfast faith. For the churches in
Sardis, Ephesus, Pergamum, and Thyatira, he commends them for some
aspects of their faith but also rebukes them for specific areas of failure.
Finally, for the church in Laodicea, he offers no encouragement at all and
simply requires their repentance from a lukewarm, middle-of-the-road faith.
Judgments and vignettes (Rev. 4–20)
The main plot of Revelation 4–20 is a series of progressively severe
judgments that are unveiled through seven seals, seven trumpets, and seven
bowls. These judgments climax with the return of Jesus, the ensuing battle of
Armageddon, the Millennium, and the final Judgment (see Chapters 9–14).
As you read Revelation 4–20, don’t expect a single, linear storyline. The
narrative consists of a sequence of vignettes that make up a secondary
plotline. These scenes help fill in the details of the main story, but they’re
not necessarily tied to the judgments that surround them. As such,
commentators sometimes refer to these vignettes as parentheses,
interludes, or insets.
The secondary storylines: Vignettes
Interrupting the primary narrative of Revelation is a series of vignettes that
help shape a secondary storyline. Some of these interludes may be related
to the events that immediately surround them, while others appear not to
have any chronological relationship at all to the main story. These vignettes
include the following:
Seals are placed on the foreheads of 144,000 believers from the 12 tribes of
Israel (Rev. 7:1–8).
A “great multitude” is delivered from the great Tribulation (Rev. 7:9–17).
John encounters an angel and eats a little scroll (Rev. 10).
Two witnesses prophesy for 3.5 years and are then martyred (Rev. 11:3–12).
A woman and a dragon (Satan) appear, and a war in heaven occurs (Rev.
12).
A beast out of the sea and a beast out of the earth arrive (Rev. 13).
Jesus appears with 144,000 believers on Mount Zion (Rev. 14:1–5).
Three angels proclaim messages of repentance and warning (Rev. 14:6–13).
The harvest of the earth separates the believers from nonbelievers (Rev.
14:11–20).
The saga of the great prostitute on the beast (Babylon) and her eventual fall
unfolds (Rev. 17:1–19:3).
New beginnings (Rev. 21–22:6)
The last you hear of Satan and nonbelievers is at the end of Revelation 20,
when they’re thrown into the lake of fire. Revelation 21, however, tells the
flip side: the future that reportedly awaits those who believe in Jesus. It tells
of the “new heaven and new earth” that God will create as the permanent
home for his children. But this new world is more than an improved version
of their current environment. It’s a perfect world where God will dwell
alongside humans (Rev. 21:3–5).
Epilogue (Rev. 22:7–21)
John closes out Revelation with an epilogue that marks the end of the
prophecy (see chapter 15). The central chorus in this final phase of the book
is Jesus’s reiterating three times, “Behold, I am coming quickly!” (Rev. 22:7,
22:12, 22:20). Each of these signals precedes a call:
Obedience: A call to “keep the words contained in this book” (22:7)
Action: A call to act because he will “reward to each according to what he
has done” (22:12)
Faith: A call to believe Jesus when he says he is coming and to be able to
testify to that claim to the rest of the world (22:20)
Tracking the book’s Timeline
One of the biggest issues most people have with the book of Revelation is
that they expect a traditional, linear model of storytelling. A linear story
begins at a specific point in time and then uses progressive scenes to move
the characters to some kind of destination. Other stories begin with the
characters looking back at something, tell what happened in the form of a
flashback, and return to the present. For the vast majority of movies out of
Hollywood, these two tried-and-true formulas are almost always used, often
because they’re a natural way to tell a story and are easy for audiences to
understand.
However, once in a while, a story comes along that — like the book of
Revelation — doesn’t fit into this storytelling model. Snow Falling on Cedars
and The English Patient are two prime examples. Both have multiple
storylines with flashback sequences involving different characters. If you
don’t want a mental exercise, stories like these can be quite frustrating. But
if you persevere and stick with them, you can find the expanded texture
rewarding, adding to the overall experience.
As you read through Revelation, prepare yourself: The book of Revelation
may start out linear for several chapters, but various vignettes or interludes
interrupt the main story. When you equip yourself for that reality, you’ll be in
a far better position to deal with the timing of events.
As you consider how the various pieces of the book fit together, keep in mind
the following themes: transition terms and parallel events.
And Then Some: Deciphering Transition Terms
Revelation is plagued by scores of transition phrases that indicate timing.
The primary examples include “then I saw,” “and I saw,” “after this,” and
“after these things.” Strictly speaking, these transitions may not always
translate to the order of prophetic events. For example, you may find 53
instances of the phrase then in the book. Although some of them imply a
connection between one event and the next, others reflect the author’s
method of relaying his story, interweaving the content of his visions with his
own experiences. In other words, the narrative has two layers:
John’s experience of having a vision while on Patmos
The content of the visions — horsemen ride, beasts arise, and angels fight,
and so on
With this kind of setup, a transition may apply to the outer layer (the order of
John’s visions) or to the order of prophetic events themselves. For example,
imagine I were to tell you, “I saw the season finale of 24. Then I saw reruns
of the rest of the episodes over the summer.” In this example, the then
relates entirely to the timing in which I saw the episodes. It says nothing
about the logical order of episodes for the series.
Although some transitions may be open to interpretation, you shouldn’t just
dismiss all transitions, either. Especially, the terms “after this” and “after
these things” are noteworthy. Combined, these terms appear just six times
and don’t always seem to relate to the order in which John received the
visions. For example, its usage in Revelation 4:1, 15:5, 18:1, and 19:1 seems
to simply imply a logical sequence of events. However, its usage in 7:1
(which introduces the 144,000 believers of Israel) appears more of a writing
device posed to answer the question raised at the end of chapter 6: Who can
withstand the wrath of God? (6:17). John uses the term again in 7:9; in this
context, the phrase seems to imply the order in which he received the
visions rather than a sequential flow of events.
Parallelism: Watching Things Go Down at the Same Time
Revelation has a flow of events, but how each section fits into the timeline
isn’t always apparent. Though commentators disagree on the details, most
agree that at least some of the pieces of the book parallel each other.
Perhaps the most obvious example is Revelation 12’s story of the woman in
the wilderness, which is told in two ways in different places within the
chapter (12:6 and 12:13–17). A second example, though more contested, is
the 3.5-year period mentioned several times throughout the book (11:3,
12:6, 12:14, and 13:5). Some hold that these references imply that the
associated sections parallel each other.
Many futurists (who believe Revelation describes actual events that are
going to happen) downplay parallelism. They think that, by and large, the
book progresses in a linear fashion from beginning to end, except for the
vignettes (see the earlier “Judgments and vignettes” section). Other futurists
view Revelation 1–11 and 12–19 as parallel accounts of the great Tribulation.
Offering a different take, those who embrace a symbolic interpretation of the
prophecy (again, see chapter 4) see as many as seven parallel sections in
the book.
The issue of parallelism is also a key factor in the interpretation of the
Millennium, which appears in Revelation 20:
Premillennialists maintain that all the events from Revelation 1–19 will occur
before the Millennium.
Amillennialists see the discussion of the Millennium as a parallel section that
describes the entire church age; this church age goes from before Revelation
1:1 even begins up until the Second Coming of Jesus in Revelation 19.
Putting the stage: The Apostle John and the sector in which He Lived
Books — possibly with the exceptions of dictionaries and academic manuals
for gas grills — regularly reflect the character of the writer. What’s inside a
book has a lot to do with who the writer is, the times in which he lives, the
region wherein he lives, and the reviews which have fashioned his life. So
generally, the greater you understand of the author’s story, the extra the
know-how and appreciation you have got for the book itself. The books of the
Bible are not any exception. Although Christians trust the Bible to be the
phrase of God, maximum nonetheless understand that each ebook of the
Bible retains the personality, writing fashion, and experiences of the man or
woman author. Take the Gospel of Luke for instance. You don’t must
understand something about the author to get something out of studying
Luke’s account of Jesus. However, when you find out Luke became a gentile
(non-Jew) and changed into knowledgeable as a medical doctor, you get a
brand new appreciation for his Greek-orientated attitude and his keen
attention to element. On this chapter, you get to recognise John, the loo
most scholars believe is the writer of Revelation, as well as explore the arena
wherein he lived. You benefit insight into the person himself, in addition to
recognize his motives for writing the ebook. You furthermore mght discover
his unique textured style of writing for this final ebook of the New Testament.
Identity-ing John Doe, writer of Revelation
Whilst you walk into your nearby book shop and test the bestsellers display,
you notice the writer’s name unfold out in large letters on every book. The
extra a success the writer is, the larger the font. In fact, for awesome-
promoting authors like John Grisham and Tom Clancy, their names seem so
huge which you often have to search for the name. however irrespective of
whether or not you’re dealing with a bestselling creator or a primary-time
author, you may generally pick up a e book and discover a biography telling
you at the least a snippet of the writer’s credentials. Even if the author is the
usage of a pseudonym (writing under an assumed call), a person someplace
knows the author’s real identity — in spite of everything, the publisher
wishes to know in which to send the royalty tests! Sadly, the books of the
Bible were written before there had been even printing presses, not to
mention huge publishing corporations. Frankly, we wish the biblical authors
would’ve been as outspoken about biographical details as they had been in
spreading their messages. It’d make our lives far less difficult through
putting off any debate approximately who precisely wrote a specific e book.
generally, on the time of the writing, everyone knew who the author of a e
book changed into, whether the author’s call turned into attached to it or
not. In truth, a lot of the books within the New testomony part of the Bible
have been written as letters; whilst you write a letter to a chum, do you
upload an in depth biographical note on the cease? Of path now not! The
recipient is aware of who the letter is from even if you merely log off along
with your initials. The authors of the books of the Bible had greater crucial
matters on their minds than identifying themselves — namely, correctly
speaking what was believed to be the phrase of God. Downplaying their
position out of genuine humility, the biblical authors occasionally blanketed
their names and once in a while did not. The writer of Revelation identifies
himself four instances (Rev. 1:1, 1:4, 1:9, and 22:8) via simply regarding
himself as John. No last name. No identify. No biographical information.
Because John become a popular call of the day, he could be any antique
John. The general consensus of the church due to the fact the second one
century has been that the writer is the Apostle John. Yes, this is the loo. He
and his brother James had been of the authentic 12 disciples of Jesus, and
John changed into considered as Jesus’s “quality buddy.” He’s the author of
the Gospel of John and the 3 letters bearing his call (known as the Johannine
epistles). In fact, the list of church fathers who credit the Apostle John as the
writer of Revelation reads as a virtual who’s who of the early church, such as
Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Hippolytus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, and
Origen.
Doubting the Apostle John’s authorship
No longer has anybody via the centuries agreed that the Apostle John is the
writer. Dionysius, who become the pope of the influential Alexandrian church
in the mid-third century, argued that the author become surely a difficult to
understand first century church chief named John the Presbyter. He primarily
based his argument on inner evidence, or proof located within the text itself,
that he believed pointed to a special creator. Dionysius claimed that the
vocabulary and fashion of the ebook have been so exceptional from the
Gospel of John and the Johannine epistles that it couldn’t had been written by
way of the identical author. In line with Dionysius, there are numerous
discrepancies, together with the subsequent:
The author of Revelation identifies himself with the aid of call. Although the
writer of Revelation names himself 4 times (Rev. 1:1, 1:4, 1:9, 22:8), the
Apostle John usually avoids doing so in his other writings. Inside the Gospel
of John, he identifies himself simplest because the “disciple whom Jesus
cherished” (John 13:23, 21:7, 21:20), and in two of his three epistles, he calls
himself the “elder” (2 John 1:1; 3 John 1:1).
Revelation is written in a sloppier fashion of Greek than the alternative works
of the Apostle John. Truly, the writer of Revelation is tremendously informed
in the vintage testament books, likely understanding both the original
Hebrew texts and the Greek-translated Septuagint (an historic Greek model
of the Hebrew Scriptures). However his writing competencies aren’t usually
as sharp as his rationalization of Scripture. Although John’s Gospel and
epistles are written in subtle, polished Greek, Revelation is scribed in a
Semitic Greek style that a few pupils argue is slipshod in contrast. In
different words, if you have been to say the Apostle John’s other writings
were composed like a John Grisham novel, then Revelation appears greater
in the fashion of a rapidly cobbled collectively time period paper.
The vocabulary and writing style (the writer’s voice) of the acknowledged
Johannine writings assessment with Revelation. Most authors fall into similar
writing styles. If you have favorite authors, you may frequently parent their
tone and voice, although the topics they’re writing about range. The
sentence structure, vocabulary, rhythm of the paragraphs, and so on have a
tendency to be comparable from article to article and ebook to book. The
Apostle John’s Gospel and epistles have this commonplace experience to
them. For instance, the Gospel of John starts with, “inside the beginning
become the word” (John 1:1), and 1 John starts with a comparable tone: “We
declare to you what changed into from the beginning” (1 John 1:1). This form
of similarity doesn’t carry over to Revelation.
Protecting the Apostle John as writer
As some modern scholars have rejected the Apostle John as creator of
Revelation (see the preceding section), different cutting-edge students have
vigorously defended the traditional view of apostolic authorship. As we
explain in this segment, proponents of Johannine authorship increase several
inner and outside problems (evidence out of doors of the e book itself) to
returned their declare.
The textual content: Addressing Dionysius’s challenges
Right here’s how students have answered to Dionysius’s claims that the
Johannine epistles and Gospel fluctuate too much from Revelation to have
the equal author:
John can also have had a cause in particularly naming himself in Revelation.
Though the Apostle John never identifies himself via name in his other books,
the fact that he does so in Revelation doesn’t always take away him as its
writer. In reality, there are affordable causes for his doing so. Specially,
understand that Revelation is a very special form of e-book from the other
New Testament books. Authority is especially vital for prophetic writing, so
he may additionally have felt obligated to call himself to dispose of any
query approximately the ebook’s credibility.
John doesn’t sense pressured to qualify himself. Whilst the writer does give
his name, he doesn’t attempt to supply himself a identify. He’s clearly John.
Given the Apostle John’s preeminent function within the early church, he
might’ve been capable of surely drop his name and offer no in addition
clarification.
John consistently stresses eyewitness testimony. In his Gospel and epistles,
the Apostle John stresses his eyewitness testimony. Revelation contains over
this theme, together with in Revelation 1:1–2 (“He made it recognized by
using sending his angel to his servant John, who testified to the phrase of
God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he noticed”) and in
Revelation 22:8 (“I, John, am the one who heard and noticed these things
[. . .]”). Evaluate this to a comparable emphasis within the Gospel of John
(John 19:35, 21:24).
Details are consistent with what scholars know of the Apostle John’s ministry.
The writer speaks of the church buildings in western Asia Minor in a way that
virtually demonstrates that he had a dating with them earlier than the
writing and become informed of its geography. Credible secondcentury
historic facts nation that the Apostle John lived in Ephesus from 70–a
hundred CE. Whilst there, he had a thriving ministry that unfold during the
area. Students normally believe that he wrote his three epistles whilst he
lived there, sometime between 80 and 100 CE.
The texts share a few common phrases and terms. In spite of some stylistic
variations among Revelation and the Gospel of John and John’s epistles,
many commonplace phrases and phrases are in reality scattered amongst all
these books. The Gospel of John refers to Jesus as trademarks (“phrase”) in
John 1:1. The simplest other reference to Jesus as emblems in all the Bible is
in Revelation 19:13. similarly, simplest John 1:29 and Revelation five:6 refer
to Jesus as a “Lamb.” furthermore, both the Gospel of John (19:37) and
Revelation (1:7) talk to the identical antique testament verse, Zechariah
12:10.
Teaching sections of Revelation are quite just like the Gospel of John and
Johannine epistles. Despite the fact that a great deal of Revelation is
manifestly targeted on the prophetic visions of John, the book contains a few
expository sections (text that offers records or causes) as well. These
sections of Revelation bear an uncanny resemblance to the Gospel of John
and Johannine epistles. As an instance, the exhortation to “overcome” seems
often in Revelation (Rev. 2:7, 2:11, 2:17, 2:26, 3:5, 3:12, 3:21), as it does in
the Johannine epistles (1 John 2:thirteen–14, 4:four, 5:four–5).
The traditionally universal authorship of Revelation
Even though the writer of Revelation doesn’t without a doubt become aware
of himself as John the Apostle, this is the call related to the ebook from an
early date in the history of the church. As early as the second one century,
the church fathers were unanimous in attributing the e book to John. As an
instance, Justin Martyr, who wrote around one hundred fifty CE, and
Irenaeus, who wrote around one hundred eighty CE, each held that the
Apostle John turned into the author. However, that is no longer to mention
that everyone ancient traditions have been unanimous in naming John
because the writer. Within the early years of the church, some of the early
leaders held to the concept of apostolic authority — that is, that everyone
books of the Bible have been written through both an apostle and a near
best friend of an apostle. However, there were numerous books within the
New Testament that didn’t have this kind of clean hyperlink to an apostle,
such as Hebrews and James. for this reason, a few of the early church fathers
attributed Revelation to John the Elder (also known as John the Presbyter), an
difficult to understand discern who could’ve been an elder within the church
at Ephesus, in which the Apostle John spent the later years of his lifestyles.
but, even Dionysius, who rejected the traditional view of apostolic
authorship, nevertheless stated that the book become common amongst the
orthodox church as written by using “John, one of the apostles.” furthermore,
all through the lengthy process of canonization (the method through which
the early church recognized which books belonged in the Bible), the e-book
turned into universally regular into the New testament at a notably early
date. by way of the cease of the fourth century, all branches of Christianity
agreed that Revelation belonged in the Bible. But, they disagreed about the
way to interpret it. Even as some study it actually, others allegorized it —
that is, they interpreted the numbers and imagery as symbols for deeper non
secular truths. The ebook of Revelation has been the supply of tons
confusion and controversy at some stage in the centuries, even among Bible-
believing Christians. However, as we will see in the following chapter, the
fundamental message of the e-book is straightforward to recognize. As long
as you hold in thoughts the ancient context of the writer and his original
readers, you’ll be properly equipped to understand Revelation’s message.
Many human beings love fantasy tales populated with bizarre apparitions.
Others love a good thriller. And still, others love an adventure tale full of
action and conflict scenes. If you fall into one of these camps, you’re in luck.
The book of Revelation is all these and more.
However, Revelation is a challenging book. Those strange beasts and
creatures are symbols for individuals, nations, governments, and so forth.
The storyline of the book twists and turns in on itself, not following a straight,
chronological narrative. And the whole package is a prophetic vision that’s
related to what’s actually supposed to happen when the world comes to an
end, at least from a biblical perspective.
This chapter doesn’t attempt to explore the symbolism behind the events
that are chronicled during Revelation. It also doesn’t pore over the details of
those events, personalities, and issues (that’s what part III is all about). In
this chapter, we get you started in the right direction. We begin by painting
broad strokes of the structure and content of the final book of the Bible. As
we do so, we point you to parts of this book where you can find more details
on each specific subject.
A major task in reading Revelation is sorting out and understanding the
overall themes and messages while images — seals, trumpets, bowls,
beasts, witnesses, and so on — are ever coming at you. But if you take a
step back and get a solid understanding of the big picture, you can start to
dive into the details and make sense of how they all fit together. Although
Revelation contains a lot of puzzling symbolism and has many
interpretations (see chapter 4 for a discussion of these interpretations), the
book actually divides up rather well. At the most basic level, you can split
Revelation into five major parts, as illustrated in figure 1-1. We discuss each
of these parts in this section, so read on.
The first chapter of Revelation serves as a prologue or introduction to the
whole book. Its purpose is to provide a context to help you make sense of
the rest of the chapters (also see chapter 6). In the first several verses, you
discover that:
This is an unveiling of the plans of Jesus (from God) (1:1).
The author is John (1:4).
The audience is the seven churches of Asia (1:4).
It was written on the island of Patmos, a Mediterranean island belonging to
modern-day Greece (1:9).
Its purpose is to give readers a sneak peek of what’ll take place (1:1).
As Revelation 1:1 underscores, this book is Jesus’s revealing of God’s plans
for the world. In this opening section, John gives explicit details about how
his words came to appear in print: God gave the revelation to Jesus, who
communicated the message to John through an angel, who was sent for this
specific purpose. John wrote these series of visions as an extended letter,
which he then sent to the seven churches in Asia (Rev. 2–3).
Today’s readers are a secondary audience for this book because the original
readers passed John’s letter both to other churches and to their descendants.
Figure 1-2 shows the chain of communication.
People have always had an insatiable curiosity to know their destiny and
what’s going to happen in the “last days.” That’s at least part of the reason
the Left Behind series was popular and why new Nostradamus
documentaries show up almost every year. For many, the allure in reading
and understanding Revelation is, quite frankly, not altogether different from
the desire to peek into a fortuneteller’s crystal ball. Understanding how it all
ends can give you a sense of what your purpose is now.
Revelation can be tough going due to its structure and symbolism and the
various ways in which scholars interpret the book. You can easily become
discouraged and wonder why you should read Revelation, anyway. Here are
several reasons many people consider Revelation to be important reading:
It helps explain the biblical view of God and his relationship with humans.
Many people turn to Revelation looking for definitive answers about what will
happen. But Revelation is far more about grasping the nature of God and the
close relationship that exists between God and those who believe in him.
It gives readers a glimpse of heaven. The Bible offers few specifics on what
heaven will be like. The Old Testament says little. Jesus and Paul provide
more in the New Testament. As if saving the best for last, the final chapters
of Revelation offer a rare glimpse into the new heaven and new earth (see
chapter 14).
It provides a message of hope. It’s easy to be a bit freaked out by the gloom
and doom warnings of the book. But despite all the battles and judgments
depicted, Revelation is ultimately all about hope. It portrays, in vivid detail,
the biblical view of good winning over evil and suffering.
One of the keys to understanding Revelation is in 1:19. In this passage, Jesus
instructs John, “Write, therefore, what you have seen, what is now, and what
will take place later.” Scholars offer various assessments on how to interpret
this verse. However, the interpretation that seems to best fit the original
grammar of the passage as well as the structure of the book itself is a
threefold timing of events: past tense, present tense, and future tense. In
other words, Jesus tells John to write about:
The vision he has already seen (Rev. 1)
The current state of the seven churches (Rev. 2–3)
The events that will take place in the future (Rev. 1–22)
Letters to the seven churches of Asia (Rev. 2–3)
Revelation 2–3 details the individual letters that Jesus dictates for the seven
churches in Asia (see chapter 8). Each of these churches is in a different
spiritual state. For the faithful churches in Smyrna and Philadelphia, Jesus
gives only encouragement for their steadfast faith. For the churches in
Sardis, Ephesus, Pergamum, and Thyatira, he commends them for some
aspects of their faith but also rebukes them for specific areas of failure.
Finally, for the church in Laodicea, he offers no encouragement at all and
simply requires their repentance from a lukewarm, middle-of-the-road faith.
Judgments and vignettes (Rev. 4–20)
The main plot of Revelation 4–20 is a series of progressively severe
judgments that are unveiled through seven seals, seven trumpets, and seven
bowls. These judgments climax with the return of Jesus, the ensuing battle of
Armageddon, the Millennium, and the final Judgment (see Chapters 9–14).
As you read Revelation 4–20, don’t expect a single, linear storyline. The
narrative consists of a sequence of vignettes that make up a secondary
plotline. These scenes help fill in the details of the main story, but they’re
not necessarily tied to the judgments that surround them. As such,
commentators sometimes refer to these vignettes as parentheses,
interludes, or insets.
The secondary storylines: Vignettes
Interrupting the primary narrative of Revelation is a series of vignettes that
help shape a secondary storyline. Some of these interludes may be related
to the events that immediately surround them, while others appear not to
have any chronological relationship at all to the main story. These vignettes
include the following:
Seals are placed on the foreheads of 144,000 believers from the 12 tribes of
Israel (Rev. 7:1–8).
A “great multitude” is delivered from the great Tribulation (Rev. 7:9–17).
John encounters an angel and eats a little scroll (Rev. 10).
Two witnesses prophesy for 3.5 years and are then martyred (Rev. 11:3–12).
A woman and a dragon (Satan) appear, and a war in heaven occurs (Rev.
12).
A beast out of the sea and a beast out of the earth arrive (Rev. 13).
Jesus appears with 144,000 believers on Mount Zion (Rev. 14:1–5).
Three angels proclaim messages of repentance and warning (Rev. 14:6–13).
The harvest of the earth separates the believers from nonbelievers (Rev.
14:11–20).
The saga of the great prostitute on the beast (Babylon) and her eventual fall
unfolds (Rev. 17:1–19:3).
New beginnings (Rev. 21–22:6)
The last you hear of Satan and nonbelievers is at the end of Revelation 20,
when they’re thrown into the lake of fire. Revelation 21, however, tells the
flip side: the future that reportedly awaits those who believe in Jesus. It tells
of the “new heaven and new earth” that God will create as the permanent
home for his children. But this new world is more than an improved version
of their current environment. It’s a perfect world where God will dwell
alongside humans (Rev. 21:3–5).
Epilogue (Rev. 22:7–21)
John closes out Revelation with an epilogue that marks the end of the
prophecy (see chapter 15). The central chorus in this final phase of the book
is Jesus’s reiterating three times, “Behold, I am coming quickly!” (Rev. 22:7,
22:12, 22:20). Each of these signals precedes a call:
Obedience: A call to “keep the words contained in this book” (22:7)
Action: A call to act because he will “reward to each according to what he
has done” (22:12)
Faith: A call to believe Jesus when he says he is coming and to be able to
testify to that claim to the rest of the world (22:20)
Tracking the book’s Timeline
One of the biggest issues most people have with the book of Revelation is
that they expect a traditional, linear model of storytelling. A linear story
begins at a specific point in time and then uses progressive scenes to move
the characters to some kind of destination. Other stories begin with the
characters looking back at something, tell what happened in the form of a
flashback, and return to the present. For the vast majority of movies out of
Hollywood, these two tried-and-true formulas are almost always used, often
because they’re a natural way to tell a story and are easy for audiences to
understand.
However, once in a while, a story comes along that — like the book of
Revelation — doesn’t fit into this storytelling model. Snow Falling on Cedars
and The English Patient are two prime examples. Both have multiple
storylines with flashback sequences involving different characters. If you
don’t want a mental exercise, stories like these can be quite frustrating. But
if you persevere and stick with them, you can find the expanded texture
rewarding, adding to the overall experience.
As you read through Revelation, prepare yourself: The book of Revelation
may start out linear for several chapters, but various vignettes or interludes
interrupt the main story. When you equip yourself for that reality, you’ll be in
a far better position to deal with the timing of events.
As you consider how the various pieces of the book fit together, keep in mind
the following themes: transition terms and parallel events.
And Then Some: Deciphering Transition Terms
Revelation is plagued by scores of transition phrases that indicate timing.
The primary examples include “then I saw,” “and I saw,” “after this,” and
“after these things.” Strictly speaking, these transitions may not always
translate to the order of prophetic events. For example, you may find 53
instances of the phrase then in the book. Although some of them imply a
connection between one event and the next, others reflect the author’s
method of relaying his story, interweaving the content of his visions with his
own experiences. In other words, the narrative has two layers:
John’s experience of having a vision while on Patmos
The content of the visions — horsemen ride, beasts arise, and angels fight,
and so on
With this kind of setup, a transition may apply to the outer layer (the order of
John’s visions) or to the order of prophetic events themselves. For example,
imagine I were to tell you, “I saw the season finale of 24. Then I saw reruns
of the rest of the episodes over the summer.” In this example, the then
relates entirely to the timing in which I saw the episodes. It says nothing
about the logical order of episodes for the series.
Although some transitions may be open to interpretation, you shouldn’t just
dismiss all transitions, either. Especially, the terms “after this” and “after
these things” are noteworthy. Combined, these terms appear just six times
and don’t always seem to relate to the order in which John received the
visions. For example, its usage in Revelation 4:1, 15:5, 18:1, and 19:1 seems
to simply imply a logical sequence of events. However, its usage in 7:1
(which introduces the 144,000 believers of Israel) appears more of a writing
device posed to answer the question raised at the end of chapter 6: Who can
withstand the wrath of God? (6:17). John uses the term again in 7:9; in this
context, the phrase seems to imply the order in which he received the
visions rather than a sequential flow of events.
Parallelism: Watching Things Go Down at the Same Time
Revelation has a flow of events, but how each section fits into the timeline
isn’t always apparent. Though commentators disagree on the details, most
agree that at least some of the pieces of the book parallel each other.
Perhaps the most obvious example is Revelation 12’s story of the woman in
the wilderness, which is told in two ways in different places within the
chapter (12:6 and 12:13–17). A second example, though more contested, is
the 3.5-year period mentioned several times throughout the book (11:3,
12:6, 12:14, and 13:5). Some hold that these references imply that the
associated sections parallel each other.
Many futurists (who believe Revelation describes actual events that are
going to happen) downplay parallelism. They think that, by and large, the
book progresses in a linear fashion from beginning to end, except for the
vignettes (see the earlier “Judgments and vignettes” section). Other futurists
view Revelation 1–11 and 12–19 as parallel accounts of the great Tribulation.
Offering a different take, those who embrace a symbolic interpretation of the
prophecy (again, see chapter 4) see as many as seven parallel sections in
the book.
The issue of parallelism is also a key factor in the interpretation of the
Millennium, which appears in Revelation 20:
Premillennialists maintain that all the events from Revelation 1–19 will occur
before the Millennium.
Amillennialists see the discussion of the Millennium as a parallel section that
describes the entire church age; this church age goes from before Revelation
1:1 even begins up until the Second Coming of Jesus in Revelation 19.
Putting the stage: The Apostle John and the sector in which He Lived
Books — possibly with the exceptions of dictionaries and academic manuals
for gas grills — regularly reflect the character of the writer. What’s inside a
book has a lot to do with who the writer is, the times in which he lives, the
region wherein he lives, and the reviews which have fashioned his life. So
generally, the greater you understand of the author’s story, the extra the
know-how and appreciation you have got for the book itself. The books of the
Bible are not any exception. Although Christians trust the Bible to be the
phrase of God, maximum nonetheless understand that each ebook of the
Bible retains the personality, writing fashion, and experiences of the man or
woman author. Take the Gospel of Luke for instance. You don’t must
understand something about the author to get something out of studying
Luke’s account of Jesus. However, when you find out Luke became a gentile
(non-Jew) and changed into knowledgeable as a medical doctor, you get a
brand new appreciation for his Greek-orientated attitude and his keen
attention to element. On this chapter, you get to recognise John, the loo
most scholars believe is the writer of Revelation, as well as explore the arena
wherein he lived. You benefit insight into the person himself, in addition to
recognize his motives for writing the ebook. You furthermore mght discover
his unique textured style of writing for this final ebook of the New Testament.
Identity-ing John Doe, writer of Revelation
Whilst you walk into your nearby book shop and test the bestsellers display,
you notice the writer’s name unfold out in large letters on every book. The
extra a success the writer is, the larger the font. In fact, for awesome-
promoting authors like John Grisham and Tom Clancy, their names seem so
huge which you often have to search for the name. however irrespective of
whether or not you’re dealing with a bestselling creator or a primary-time
author, you may generally pick up a e book and discover a biography telling
you at the least a snippet of the writer’s credentials. Even if the author is the
usage of a pseudonym (writing under an assumed call), a person someplace
knows the author’s real identity — in spite of everything, the publisher
wishes to know in which to send the royalty tests! Sadly, the books of the
Bible were written before there had been even printing presses, not to
mention huge publishing corporations. Frankly, we wish the biblical authors
would’ve been as outspoken about biographical details as they had been in
spreading their messages. It’d make our lives far less difficult through
putting off any debate approximately who precisely wrote a specific e book.
generally, on the time of the writing, everyone knew who the author of a e
book changed into, whether the author’s call turned into attached to it or
not. In truth, a lot of the books within the New testomony part of the Bible
have been written as letters; whilst you write a letter to a chum, do you
upload an in depth biographical note on the cease? Of path now not! The
recipient is aware of who the letter is from even if you merely log off along
with your initials. The authors of the books of the Bible had greater crucial
matters on their minds than identifying themselves — namely, correctly
speaking what was believed to be the phrase of God. Downplaying their
position out of genuine humility, the biblical authors occasionally blanketed
their names and once in a while did not. The writer of Revelation identifies
himself four instances (Rev. 1:1, 1:4, 1:9, and 22:8) via simply regarding
himself as John. No last name. No identify. No biographical information.
Because John become a popular call of the day, he could be any antique
John. The general consensus of the church due to the fact the second one
century has been that the writer is the Apostle John. Yes, this is the loo. He
and his brother James had been of the authentic 12 disciples of Jesus, and
John changed into considered as Jesus’s “quality buddy.” He’s the author of
the Gospel of John and the 3 letters bearing his call (known as the Johannine
epistles). In fact, the list of church fathers who credit the Apostle John as the
writer of Revelation reads as a virtual who’s who of the early church, such as
Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Hippolytus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, and
Origen.
Doubting the Apostle John’s authorship
No longer has anybody via the centuries agreed that the Apostle John is the
writer. Dionysius, who become the pope of the influential Alexandrian church
in the mid-third century, argued that the author become surely a difficult to
understand first century church chief named John the Presbyter. He primarily
based his argument on inner evidence, or proof located within the text itself,
that he believed pointed to a special creator. Dionysius claimed that the
vocabulary and fashion of the ebook have been so exceptional from the
Gospel of John and the Johannine epistles that it couldn’t had been written by
way of the identical author. In line with Dionysius, there are numerous
discrepancies, together with the subsequent:
The author of Revelation identifies himself with the aid of call. Although the
writer of Revelation names himself 4 times (Rev. 1:1, 1:4, 1:9, 22:8), the
Apostle John usually avoids doing so in his other writings. Inside the Gospel
of John, he identifies himself simplest because the “disciple whom Jesus
cherished” (John 13:23, 21:7, 21:20), and in two of his three epistles, he calls
himself the “elder” (2 John 1:1; 3 John 1:1).
Revelation is written in a sloppier fashion of Greek than the alternative works
of the Apostle John. Truly, the writer of Revelation is tremendously informed
in the vintage testament books, likely understanding both the original
Hebrew texts and the Greek-translated Septuagint (an historic Greek model
of the Hebrew Scriptures). However his writing competencies aren’t usually
as sharp as his rationalization of Scripture. Although John’s Gospel and
epistles are written in subtle, polished Greek, Revelation is scribed in a
Semitic Greek style that a few pupils argue is slipshod in contrast. In
different words, if you have been to say the Apostle John’s other writings
were composed like a John Grisham novel, then Revelation appears greater
in the fashion of a rapidly cobbled collectively time period paper.
The vocabulary and writing style (the writer’s voice) of the acknowledged
Johannine writings assessment with Revelation. Most authors fall into similar
writing styles. If you have favorite authors, you may frequently parent their
tone and voice, although the topics they’re writing about range. The
sentence structure, vocabulary, rhythm of the paragraphs, and so on have a
tendency to be comparable from article to article and ebook to book. The
Apostle John’s Gospel and epistles have this commonplace experience to
them. For instance, the Gospel of John starts with, “inside the beginning
become the word” (John 1:1), and 1 John starts with a comparable tone: “We
declare to you what changed into from the beginning” (1 John 1:1). This form
of similarity doesn’t carry over to Revelation.
Protecting the Apostle John as writer
As some modern scholars have rejected the Apostle John as creator of
Revelation (see the preceding section), different cutting-edge students have
vigorously defended the traditional view of apostolic authorship. As we
explain in this segment, proponents of Johannine authorship increase several
inner and outside problems (evidence out of doors of the e book itself) to
returned their declare.
The textual content: Addressing Dionysius’s challenges
Right here’s how students have answered to Dionysius’s claims that the
Johannine epistles and Gospel fluctuate too much from Revelation to have
the equal author:
John can also have had a cause in particularly naming himself in Revelation.
Though the Apostle John never identifies himself via name in his other books,
the fact that he does so in Revelation doesn’t always take away him as its
writer. In reality, there are affordable causes for his doing so. Specially,
understand that Revelation is a very special form of e-book from the other
New Testament books. Authority is especially vital for prophetic writing, so
he may additionally have felt obligated to call himself to dispose of any
query approximately the ebook’s credibility.
John doesn’t sense pressured to qualify himself. Whilst the writer does give
his name, he doesn’t attempt to supply himself a identify. He’s clearly John.
Given the Apostle John’s preeminent function within the early church, he
might’ve been capable of surely drop his name and offer no in addition
clarification.
John consistently stresses eyewitness testimony. In his Gospel and epistles,
the Apostle John stresses his eyewitness testimony. Revelation contains over
this theme, together with in Revelation 1:1–2 (“He made it recognized by
using sending his angel to his servant John, who testified to the phrase of
God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he noticed”) and in
Revelation 22:8 (“I, John, am the one who heard and noticed these things
[. . .]”). Evaluate this to a comparable emphasis within the Gospel of John
(John 19:35, 21:24).
Details are consistent with what scholars know of the Apostle John’s ministry.
The writer speaks of the church buildings in western Asia Minor in a way that
virtually demonstrates that he had a dating with them earlier than the
writing and become informed of its geography. Credible secondcentury
historic facts nation that the Apostle John lived in Ephesus from 70–a
hundred CE. Whilst there, he had a thriving ministry that unfold during the
area. Students normally believe that he wrote his three epistles whilst he
lived there, sometime between 80 and 100 CE.
The texts share a few common phrases and terms. In spite of some stylistic
variations among Revelation and the Gospel of John and John’s epistles,
many commonplace phrases and phrases are in reality scattered amongst all
these books. The Gospel of John refers to Jesus as trademarks (“phrase”) in
John 1:1. The simplest other reference to Jesus as emblems in all the Bible is
in Revelation 19:13. similarly, simplest John 1:29 and Revelation five:6 refer
to Jesus as a “Lamb.” furthermore, both the Gospel of John (19:37) and
Revelation (1:7) talk to the identical antique testament verse, Zechariah
12:10.
Teaching sections of Revelation are quite just like the Gospel of John and
Johannine epistles. Despite the fact that a great deal of Revelation is
manifestly targeted on the prophetic visions of John, the book contains a few
expository sections (text that offers records or causes) as well. These
sections of Revelation bear an uncanny resemblance to the Gospel of John
and Johannine epistles. As an instance, the exhortation to “overcome” seems
often in Revelation (Rev. 2:7, 2:11, 2:17, 2:26, 3:5, 3:12, 3:21), as it does in
the Johannine epistles (1 John 2:thirteen–14, 4:four, 5:four–5).
The traditionally universal authorship of Revelation
Even though the writer of Revelation doesn’t without a doubt become aware
of himself as John the Apostle, this is the call related to the ebook from an
early date in the history of the church. As early as the second one century,
the church fathers were unanimous in attributing the e book to John. As an
instance, Justin Martyr, who wrote around one hundred fifty CE, and
Irenaeus, who wrote around one hundred eighty CE, each held that the
Apostle John turned into the author. However, that is no longer to mention
that everyone ancient traditions have been unanimous in naming John
because the writer. Within the early years of the church, some of the early
leaders held to the concept of apostolic authority — that is, that everyone
books of the Bible have been written through both an apostle and a near
best friend of an apostle. However, there were numerous books within the
New Testament that didn’t have this kind of clean hyperlink to an apostle,
such as Hebrews and James. for this reason, a few of the early church fathers
attributed Revelation to John the Elder (also known as John the Presbyter), an
difficult to understand discern who could’ve been an elder within the church
at Ephesus, in which the Apostle John spent the later years of his lifestyles.
but, even Dionysius, who rejected the traditional view of apostolic
authorship, nevertheless stated that the book become common amongst the
orthodox church as written by using “John, one of the apostles.” furthermore,
all through the lengthy process of canonization (the method through which
the early church recognized which books belonged in the Bible), the e-book
turned into universally regular into the New testament at a notably early
date. by way of the cease of the fourth century, all branches of Christianity
agreed that Revelation belonged in the Bible. But, they disagreed about the
way to interpret it. Even as some study it actually, others allegorized it —
that is, they interpreted the numbers and imagery as symbols for deeper non
secular truths. The ebook of Revelation has been the supply of tons
confusion and controversy at some stage in the centuries, even among Bible-
believing Christians. However, as we will see in the following chapter, the
fundamental message of the e-book is straightforward to recognize. As long
as you hold in thoughts the ancient context of the writer and his original
readers, you’ll be properly equipped to understand Revelation’s message.
Many human beings love fantasy tales populated with bizarre apparitions.
Others love a good thriller. And still, others love an adventure tale full of
action and conflict scenes. If you fall into one of these camps, you’re in luck.
The book of Revelation is all these and more.
However, Revelation is a challenging book. Those strange beasts and
creatures are symbols for individuals, nations, governments, and so forth.
The storyline of the book twists and turns in on itself, not following a straight,
chronological narrative. And the whole package is a prophetic vision that’s
related to what’s actually supposed to happen when the world comes to an
end, at least from a biblical perspective.
This chapter doesn’t attempt to explore the symbolism behind the events
that are chronicled during Revelation. It also doesn’t pore over the details of
those events, personalities, and issues (that’s what part III is all about). In
this chapter, we get you started in the right direction. We begin by painting
broad strokes of the structure and content of the final book of the Bible. As
we do so, we point you to parts of this book where you can find more details
on each specific subject.
A major task in reading Revelation is sorting out and understanding the
overall themes and messages while images — seals, trumpets, bowls,
beasts, witnesses, and so on — are ever coming at you. But if you take a
step back and get a solid understanding of the big picture, you can start to
dive into the details and make sense of how they all fit together. Although
Revelation contains a lot of puzzling symbolism and has many
interpretations (see chapter 4 for a discussion of these interpretations), the
book actually divides up rather well. At the most basic level, you can split
Revelation into five major parts, as illustrated in figure 1-1. We discuss each
of these parts in this section, so read on.
The first chapter of Revelation serves as a prologue or introduction to the
whole book. Its purpose is to provide a context to help you make sense of
the rest of the chapters (also see chapter 6). In the first several verses, you
discover that:
This is an unveiling of the plans of Jesus (from God) (1:1).
The author is John (1:4).
The audience is the seven churches of Asia (1:4).
It was written on the island of Patmos, a Mediterranean island belonging to
modern-day Greece (1:9).
Its purpose is to give readers a sneak peek of what’ll take place (1:1).
As Revelation 1:1 underscores, this book is Jesus’s revealing of God’s plans
for the world. In this opening section, John gives explicit details about how
his words came to appear in print: God gave the revelation to Jesus, who
communicated the message to John through an angel, who was sent for this
specific purpose. John wrote these series of visions as an extended letter,
which he then sent to the seven churches in Asia (Rev. 2–3).
Today’s readers are a secondary audience for this book because the original
readers passed John’s letter both to other churches and to their descendants.
Figure 1-2 shows the chain of communication.
People have always had an insatiable curiosity to know their destiny and
what’s going to happen in the “last days.” That’s at least part of the reason
the Left Behind series was popular and why new Nostradamus
documentaries show up almost every year. For many, the allure in reading
and understanding Revelation is, quite frankly, not altogether different from
the desire to peek into a fortuneteller’s crystal ball. Understanding how it all
ends can give you a sense of what your purpose is now.
Revelation can be tough going due to its structure and symbolism and the
various ways in which scholars interpret the book. You can easily become
discouraged and wonder why you should read Revelation, anyway. Here are
several reasons many people consider Revelation to be important reading:
It helps explain the biblical view of God and his relationship with humans.
Many people turn to Revelation looking for definitive answers about what will
happen. But Revelation is far more about grasping the nature of God and the
close relationship that exists between God and those who believe in him.
It gives readers a glimpse of heaven. The Bible offers few specifics on what
heaven will be like. The Old Testament says little. Jesus and Paul provide
more in the New Testament. As if saving the best for last, the final chapters
of Revelation offer a rare glimpse into the new heaven and new earth (see
chapter 14).
It provides a message of hope. It’s easy to be a bit freaked out by the gloom
and doom warnings of the book. But despite all the battles and judgments
depicted, Revelation is ultimately all about hope. It portrays, in vivid detail,
the biblical view of good winning over evil and suffering.
One of the keys to understanding Revelation is in 1:19. In this passage, Jesus
instructs John, “Write, therefore, what you have seen, what is now, and what
will take place later.” Scholars offer various assessments on how to interpret
this verse. However, the interpretation that seems to best fit the original
grammar of the passage as well as the structure of the book itself is a
threefold timing of events: past tense, present tense, and future tense. In
other words, Jesus tells John to write about:
The vision he has already seen (Rev. 1)
The current state of the seven churches (Rev. 2–3)
The events that will take place in the future (Rev. 1–22)
Letters to the seven churches of Asia (Rev. 2–3)
Revelation 2–3 details the individual letters that Jesus dictates for the seven
churches in Asia (see chapter 8). Each of these churches is in a different
spiritual state. For the faithful churches in Smyrna and Philadelphia, Jesus
gives only encouragement for their steadfast faith. For the churches in
Sardis, Ephesus, Pergamum, and Thyatira, he commends them for some
aspects of their faith but also rebukes them for specific areas of failure.
Finally, for the church in Laodicea, he offers no encouragement at all and
simply requires their repentance from a lukewarm, middle-of-the-road faith.
Judgments and vignettes (Rev. 4–20)
The main plot of Revelation 4–20 is a series of progressively severe
judgments that are unveiled through seven seals, seven trumpets, and seven
bowls. These judgments climax with the return of Jesus, the ensuing battle of
Armageddon, the Millennium, and the final Judgment (see Chapters 9–14).
As you read Revelation 4–20, don’t expect a single, linear storyline. The
narrative consists of a sequence of vignettes that make up a secondary
plotline. These scenes help fill in the details of the main story, but they’re
not necessarily tied to the judgments that surround them. As such,
commentators sometimes refer to these vignettes as parentheses,
interludes, or insets.
The secondary storylines: Vignettes
Interrupting the primary narrative of Revelation is a series of vignettes that
help shape a secondary storyline. Some of these interludes may be related
to the events that immediately surround them, while others appear not to
have any chronological relationship at all to the main story. These vignettes
include the following:
Seals are placed on the foreheads of 144,000 believers from the 12 tribes of
Israel (Rev. 7:1–8).
A “great multitude” is delivered from the great Tribulation (Rev. 7:9–17).
John encounters an angel and eats a little scroll (Rev. 10).
Two witnesses prophesy for 3.5 years and are then martyred (Rev. 11:3–12).
A woman and a dragon (Satan) appear, and a war in heaven occurs (Rev.
12).
A beast out of the sea and a beast out of the earth arrive (Rev. 13).
Jesus appears with 144,000 believers on Mount Zion (Rev. 14:1–5).
Three angels proclaim messages of repentance and warning (Rev. 14:6–13).
The harvest of the earth separates the believers from nonbelievers (Rev.
14:11–20).
The saga of the great prostitute on the beast (Babylon) and her eventual fall
unfolds (Rev. 17:1–19:3).
New beginnings (Rev. 21–22:6)
The last you hear of Satan and nonbelievers is at the end of Revelation 20,
when they’re thrown into the lake of fire. Revelation 21, however, tells the
flip side: the future that reportedly awaits those who believe in Jesus. It tells
of the “new heaven and new earth” that God will create as the permanent
home for his children. But this new world is more than an improved version
of their current environment. It’s a perfect world where God will dwell
alongside humans (Rev. 21:3–5).
Epilogue (Rev. 22:7–21)
John closes out Revelation with an epilogue that marks the end of the
prophecy (see chapter 15). The central chorus in this final phase of the book
is Jesus’s reiterating three times, “Behold, I am coming quickly!” (Rev. 22:7,
22:12, 22:20). Each of these signals precedes a call:
Obedience: A call to “keep the words contained in this book” (22:7)
Action: A call to act because he will “reward to each according to what he
has done” (22:12)
Faith: A call to believe Jesus when he says he is coming and to be able to
testify to that claim to the rest of the world (22:20)
Tracking the book’s Timeline
One of the biggest issues most people have with the book of Revelation is
that they expect a traditional, linear model of storytelling. A linear story
begins at a specific point in time and then uses progressive scenes to move
the characters to some kind of destination. Other stories begin with the
characters looking back at something, tell what happened in the form of a
flashback, and return to the present. For the vast majority of movies out of
Hollywood, these two tried-and-true formulas are almost always used, often
because they’re a natural way to tell a story and are easy for audiences to
understand.
However, once in a while, a story comes along that — like the book of
Revelation — doesn’t fit into this storytelling model. Snow Falling on Cedars
and The English Patient are two prime examples. Both have multiple
storylines with flashback sequences involving different characters. If you
don’t want a mental exercise, stories like these can be quite frustrating. But
if you persevere and stick with them, you can find the expanded texture
rewarding, adding to the overall experience.
As you read through Revelation, prepare yourself: The book of Revelation
may start out linear for several chapters, but various vignettes or interludes
interrupt the main story. When you equip yourself for that reality, you’ll be in
a far better position to deal with the timing of events.
As you consider how the various pieces of the book fit together, keep in mind
the following themes: transition terms and parallel events.
And Then Some: Deciphering Transition Terms
Revelation is plagued by scores of transition phrases that indicate timing.
The primary examples include “then I saw,” “and I saw,” “after this,” and
“after these things.” Strictly speaking, these transitions may not always
translate to the order of prophetic events. For example, you may find 53
instances of the phrase then in the book. Although some of them imply a
connection between one event and the next, others reflect the author’s
method of relaying his story, interweaving the content of his visions with his
own experiences. In other words, the narrative has two layers:
John’s experience of having a vision while on Patmos
The content of the visions — horsemen ride, beasts arise, and angels fight,
and so on
With this kind of setup, a transition may apply to the outer layer (the order of
John’s visions) or to the order of prophetic events themselves. For example,
imagine I were to tell you, “I saw the season finale of 24. Then I saw reruns
of the rest of the episodes over the summer.” In this example, the then
relates entirely to the timing in which I saw the episodes. It says nothing
about the logical order of episodes for the series.
Although some transitions may be open to interpretation, you shouldn’t just
dismiss all transitions, either. Especially, the terms “after this” and “after
these things” are noteworthy. Combined, these terms appear just six times
and don’t always seem to relate to the order in which John received the
visions. For example, its usage in Revelation 4:1, 15:5, 18:1, and 19:1 seems
to simply imply a logical sequence of events. However, its usage in 7:1
(which introduces the 144,000 believers of Israel) appears more of a writing
device posed to answer the question raised at the end of chapter 6: Who can
withstand the wrath of God? (6:17). John uses the term again in 7:9; in this
context, the phrase seems to imply the order in which he received the
visions rather than a sequential flow of events.
Parallelism: Watching Things Go Down at the Same Time
Revelation has a flow of events, but how each section fits into the timeline
isn’t always apparent. Though commentators disagree on the details, most
agree that at least some of the pieces of the book parallel each other.
Perhaps the most obvious example is Revelation 12’s story of the woman in
the wilderness, which is told in two ways in different places within the
chapter (12:6 and 12:13–17). A second example, though more contested, is
the 3.5-year period mentioned several times throughout the book (11:3,
12:6, 12:14, and 13:5). Some hold that these references imply that the
associated sections parallel each other.
Many futurists (who believe Revelation describes actual events that are
going to happen) downplay parallelism. They think that, by and large, the
book progresses in a linear fashion from beginning to end, except for the
vignettes (see the earlier “Judgments and vignettes” section). Other futurists
view Revelation 1–11 and 12–19 as parallel accounts of the great Tribulation.
Offering a different take, those who embrace a symbolic interpretation of the
prophecy (again, see chapter 4) see as many as seven parallel sections in
the book.
The issue of parallelism is also a key factor in the interpretation of the
Millennium, which appears in Revelation 20:
Premillennialists maintain that all the events from Revelation 1–19 will occur
before the Millennium.
Amillennialists see the discussion of the Millennium as a parallel section that
describes the entire church age; this church age goes from before Revelation
1:1 even begins up until the Second Coming of Jesus in Revelation 19.
Putting the stage: The Apostle John and the sector in which He Lived
Books — possibly with the exceptions of dictionaries and academic manuals
for gas grills — regularly reflect the character of the writer. What’s inside a
book has a lot to do with who the writer is, the times in which he lives, the
region wherein he lives, and the reviews which have fashioned his life. So
generally, the greater you understand of the author’s story, the extra the
know-how and appreciation you have got for the book itself. The books of the
Bible are not any exception. Although Christians trust the Bible to be the
phrase of God, maximum nonetheless understand that each ebook of the
Bible retains the personality, writing fashion, and experiences of the man or
woman author. Take the Gospel of Luke for instance. You don’t must
understand something about the author to get something out of studying
Luke’s account of Jesus. However, when you find out Luke became a gentile
(non-Jew) and changed into knowledgeable as a medical doctor, you get a
brand new appreciation for his Greek-orientated attitude and his keen
attention to element. On this chapter, you get to recognise John, the loo
most scholars believe is the writer of Revelation, as well as explore the arena
wherein he lived. You benefit insight into the person himself, in addition to
recognize his motives for writing the ebook. You furthermore mght discover
his unique textured style of writing for this final ebook of the New Testament.
Identity-ing John Doe, writer of Revelation
Whilst you walk into your nearby book shop and test the bestsellers display,
you notice the writer’s name unfold out in large letters on every book. The
extra a success the writer is, the larger the font. In fact, for awesome-
promoting authors like John Grisham and Tom Clancy, their names seem so
huge which you often have to search for the name. however irrespective of
whether or not you’re dealing with a bestselling creator or a primary-time
author, you may generally pick up a e book and discover a biography telling
you at the least a snippet of the writer’s credentials. Even if the author is the
usage of a pseudonym (writing under an assumed call), a person someplace
knows the author’s real identity — in spite of everything, the publisher
wishes to know in which to send the royalty tests! Sadly, the books of the
Bible were written before there had been even printing presses, not to
mention huge publishing corporations. Frankly, we wish the biblical authors
would’ve been as outspoken about biographical details as they had been in
spreading their messages. It’d make our lives far less difficult through
putting off any debate approximately who precisely wrote a specific e book.
generally, on the time of the writing, everyone knew who the author of a e
book changed into, whether the author’s call turned into attached to it or
not. In truth, a lot of the books within the New testomony part of the Bible
have been written as letters; whilst you write a letter to a chum, do you
upload an in depth biographical note on the cease? Of path now not! The
recipient is aware of who the letter is from even if you merely log off along
with your initials. The authors of the books of the Bible had greater crucial
matters on their minds than identifying themselves — namely, correctly
speaking what was believed to be the phrase of God. Downplaying their
position out of genuine humility, the biblical authors occasionally blanketed
their names and once in a while did not. The writer of Revelation identifies
himself four instances (Rev. 1:1, 1:4, 1:9, and 22:8) via simply regarding
himself as John. No last name. No identify. No biographical information.
Because John become a popular call of the day, he could be any antique
John. The general consensus of the church due to the fact the second one
century has been that the writer is the Apostle John. Yes, this is the loo. He
and his brother James had been of the authentic 12 disciples of Jesus, and
John changed into considered as Jesus’s “quality buddy.” He’s the author of
the Gospel of John and the 3 letters bearing his call (known as the Johannine
epistles). In fact, the list of church fathers who credit the Apostle John as the
writer of Revelation reads as a virtual who’s who of the early church, such as
Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Hippolytus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, and
Origen.
Doubting the Apostle John’s authorship
No longer has anybody via the centuries agreed that the Apostle John is the
writer. Dionysius, who become the pope of the influential Alexandrian church
in the mid-third century, argued that the author become surely a difficult to
understand first century church chief named John the Presbyter. He primarily
based his argument on inner evidence, or proof located within the text itself,
that he believed pointed to a special creator. Dionysius claimed that the
vocabulary and fashion of the ebook have been so exceptional from the
Gospel of John and the Johannine epistles that it couldn’t had been written by
way of the identical author. In line with Dionysius, there are numerous
discrepancies, together with the subsequent:
The author of Revelation identifies himself with the aid of call. Although the
writer of Revelation names himself 4 times (Rev. 1:1, 1:4, 1:9, 22:8), the
Apostle John usually avoids doing so in his other writings. Inside the Gospel
of John, he identifies himself simplest because the “disciple whom Jesus
cherished” (John 13:23, 21:7, 21:20), and in two of his three epistles, he calls
himself the “elder” (2 John 1:1; 3 John 1:1).
Revelation is written in a sloppier fashion of Greek than the alternative works
of the Apostle John. Truly, the writer of Revelation is tremendously informed
in the vintage testament books, likely understanding both the original
Hebrew texts and the Greek-translated Septuagint (an historic Greek model
of the Hebrew Scriptures). However his writing competencies aren’t usually
as sharp as his rationalization of Scripture. Although John’s Gospel and
epistles are written in subtle, polished Greek, Revelation is scribed in a
Semitic Greek style that a few pupils argue is slipshod in contrast. In
different words, if you have been to say the Apostle John’s other writings
were composed like a John Grisham novel, then Revelation appears greater
in the fashion of a rapidly cobbled collectively time period paper.
The vocabulary and writing style (the writer’s voice) of the acknowledged
Johannine writings assessment with Revelation. Most authors fall into similar
writing styles. If you have favorite authors, you may frequently parent their
tone and voice, although the topics they’re writing about range. The
sentence structure, vocabulary, rhythm of the paragraphs, and so on have a
tendency to be comparable from article to article and ebook to book. The
Apostle John’s Gospel and epistles have this commonplace experience to
them. For instance, the Gospel of John starts with, “inside the beginning
become the word” (John 1:1), and 1 John starts with a comparable tone: “We
declare to you what changed into from the beginning” (1 John 1:1). This form
of similarity doesn’t carry over to Revelation.
Protecting the Apostle John as writer
As some modern scholars have rejected the Apostle John as creator of
Revelation (see the preceding section), different cutting-edge students have
vigorously defended the traditional view of apostolic authorship. As we
explain in this segment, proponents of Johannine authorship increase several
inner and outside problems (evidence out of doors of the e book itself) to
returned their declare.
The textual content: Addressing Dionysius’s challenges
Right here’s how students have answered to Dionysius’s claims that the
Johannine epistles and Gospel fluctuate too much from Revelation to have
the equal author:
John can also have had a cause in particularly naming himself in Revelation.
Though the Apostle John never identifies himself via name in his other books,
the fact that he does so in Revelation doesn’t always take away him as its
writer. In reality, there are affordable causes for his doing so. Specially,
understand that Revelation is a very special form of e-book from the other
New Testament books. Authority is especially vital for prophetic writing, so
he may additionally have felt obligated to call himself to dispose of any
query approximately the ebook’s credibility.
John doesn’t sense pressured to qualify himself. Whilst the writer does give
his name, he doesn’t attempt to supply himself a identify. He’s clearly John.
Given the Apostle John’s preeminent function within the early church, he
might’ve been capable of surely drop his name and offer no in addition
clarification.
John consistently stresses eyewitness testimony. In his Gospel and epistles,
the Apostle John stresses his eyewitness testimony. Revelation contains over
this theme, together with in Revelation 1:1–2 (“He made it recognized by
using sending his angel to his servant John, who testified to the phrase of
God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he noticed”) and in
Revelation 22:8 (“I, John, am the one who heard and noticed these things
[. . .]”). Evaluate this to a comparable emphasis within the Gospel of John
(John 19:35, 21:24).
Details are consistent with what scholars know of the Apostle John’s ministry.
The writer speaks of the church buildings in western Asia Minor in a way that
virtually demonstrates that he had a dating with them earlier than the
writing and become informed of its geography. Credible secondcentury
historic facts nation that the Apostle John lived in Ephesus from 70–a
hundred CE. Whilst there, he had a thriving ministry that unfold during the
area. Students normally believe that he wrote his three epistles whilst he
lived there, sometime between 80 and 100 CE.
The texts share a few common phrases and terms. In spite of some stylistic
variations among Revelation and the Gospel of John and John’s epistles,
many commonplace phrases and phrases are in reality scattered amongst all
these books. The Gospel of John refers to Jesus as trademarks (“phrase”) in
John 1:1. The simplest other reference to Jesus as emblems in all the Bible is
in Revelation 19:13. similarly, simplest John 1:29 and Revelation five:6 refer
to Jesus as a “Lamb.” furthermore, both the Gospel of John (19:37) and
Revelation (1:7) talk to the identical antique testament verse, Zechariah
12:10.
Teaching sections of Revelation are quite just like the Gospel of John and
Johannine epistles. Despite the fact that a great deal of Revelation is
manifestly targeted on the prophetic visions of John, the book contains a few
expository sections (text that offers records or causes) as well. These
sections of Revelation bear an uncanny resemblance to the Gospel of John
and Johannine epistles. As an instance, the exhortation to “overcome” seems
often in Revelation (Rev. 2:7, 2:11, 2:17, 2:26, 3:5, 3:12, 3:21), as it does in
the Johannine epistles (1 John 2:thirteen–14, 4:four, 5:four–5).
The traditionally universal authorship of Revelation
Even though the writer of Revelation doesn’t without a doubt become aware
of himself as John the Apostle, this is the call related to the ebook from an
early date in the history of the church. As early as the second one century,
the church fathers were unanimous in attributing the e book to John. As an
instance, Justin Martyr, who wrote around one hundred fifty CE, and
Irenaeus, who wrote around one hundred eighty CE, each held that the
Apostle John turned into the author. However, that is no longer to mention
that everyone ancient traditions have been unanimous in naming John
because the writer. Within the early years of the church, some of the early
leaders held to the concept of apostolic authority — that is, that everyone
books of the Bible have been written through both an apostle and a near
best friend of an apostle. However, there were numerous books within the
New Testament that didn’t have this kind of clean hyperlink to an apostle,
such as Hebrews and James. for this reason, a few of the early church fathers
attributed Revelation to John the Elder (also known as John the Presbyter), an
difficult to understand discern who could’ve been an elder within the church
at Ephesus, in which the Apostle John spent the later years of his lifestyles.
but, even Dionysius, who rejected the traditional view of apostolic
authorship, nevertheless stated that the book become common amongst the
orthodox church as written by using “John, one of the apostles.” furthermore,
all through the lengthy process of canonization (the method through which
the early church recognized which books belonged in the Bible), the e-book
turned into universally regular into the New testament at a notably early
date. by way of the cease of the fourth century, all branches of Christianity
agreed that Revelation belonged in the Bible. But, they disagreed about the
way to interpret it. Even as some study it actually, others allegorized it —
that is, they interpreted the numbers and imagery as symbols for deeper non
secular truths. The ebook of Revelation has been the supply of tons
confusion and controversy at some stage in the centuries, even among Bible-
believing Christians. However, as we will see in the following chapter, the
fundamental message of the e-book is straightforward to recognize. As long
as you hold in thoughts the ancient context of the writer and his original
readers, you’ll be properly equipped to understand Revelation’s message.
Many human beings love fantasy tales populated with bizarre apparitions.
Others love a good thriller. And still, others love an adventure tale full of
action and conflict scenes. If you fall into one of these camps, you’re in luck.
The book of Revelation is all these and more.
However, Revelation is a challenging book. Those strange beasts and
creatures are symbols for individuals, nations, governments, and so forth.
The storyline of the book twists and turns in on itself, not following a straight,
chronological narrative. And the whole package is a prophetic vision that’s
related to what’s actually supposed to happen when the world comes to an
end, at least from a biblical perspective.
This chapter doesn’t attempt to explore the symbolism behind the events
that are chronicled during Revelation. It also doesn’t pore over the details of
those events, personalities, and issues (that’s what part III is all about). In
this chapter, we get you started in the right direction. We begin by painting
broad strokes of the structure and content of the final book of the Bible. As
we do so, we point you to parts of this book where you can find more details
on each specific subject.
A major task in reading Revelation is sorting out and understanding the
overall themes and messages while images — seals, trumpets, bowls,
beasts, witnesses, and so on — are ever coming at you. But if you take a
step back and get a solid understanding of the big picture, you can start to
dive into the details and make sense of how they all fit together. Although
Revelation contains a lot of puzzling symbolism and has many
interpretations (see chapter 4 for a discussion of these interpretations), the
book actually divides up rather well. At the most basic level, you can split
Revelation into five major parts, as illustrated in figure 1-1. We discuss each
of these parts in this section, so read on.
The first chapter of Revelation serves as a prologue or introduction to the
whole book. Its purpose is to provide a context to help you make sense of
the rest of the chapters (also see chapter 6). In the first several verses, you
discover that:
This is an unveiling of the plans of Jesus (from God) (1:1).
The author is John (1:4).
The audience is the seven churches of Asia (1:4).
It was written on the island of Patmos, a Mediterranean island belonging to
modern-day Greece (1:9).
Its purpose is to give readers a sneak peek of what’ll take place (1:1).
As Revelation 1:1 underscores, this book is Jesus’s revealing of God’s plans
for the world. In this opening section, John gives explicit details about how
his words came to appear in print: God gave the revelation to Jesus, who
communicated the message to John through an angel, who was sent for this
specific purpose. John wrote these series of visions as an extended letter,
which he then sent to the seven churches in Asia (Rev. 2–3).
Today’s readers are a secondary audience for this book because the original
readers passed John’s letter both to other churches and to their descendants.
Figure 1-2 shows the chain of communication.
People have always had an insatiable curiosity to know their destiny and
what’s going to happen in the “last days.” That’s at least part of the reason
the Left Behind series was popular and why new Nostradamus
documentaries show up almost every year. For many, the allure in reading
and understanding Revelation is, quite frankly, not altogether different from
the desire to peek into a fortuneteller’s crystal ball. Understanding how it all
ends can give you a sense of what your purpose is now.
Revelation can be tough going due to its structure and symbolism and the
various ways in which scholars interpret the book. You can easily become
discouraged and wonder why you should read Revelation, anyway. Here are
several reasons many people consider Revelation to be important reading:
It helps explain the biblical view of God and his relationship with humans.
Many people turn to Revelation looking for definitive answers about what will
happen. But Revelation is far more about grasping the nature of God and the
close relationship that exists between God and those who believe in him.
It gives readers a glimpse of heaven. The Bible offers few specifics on what
heaven will be like. The Old Testament says little. Jesus and Paul provide
more in the New Testament. As if saving the best for last, the final chapters
of Revelation offer a rare glimpse into the new heaven and new earth (see
chapter 14).
It provides a message of hope. It’s easy to be a bit freaked out by the gloom
and doom warnings of the book. But despite all the battles and judgments
depicted, Revelation is ultimately all about hope. It portrays, in vivid detail,
the biblical view of good winning over evil and suffering.
One of the keys to understanding Revelation is in 1:19. In this passage, Jesus
instructs John, “Write, therefore, what you have seen, what is now, and what
will take place later.” Scholars offer various assessments on how to interpret
this verse. However, the interpretation that seems to best fit the original
grammar of the passage as well as the structure of the book itself is a
threefold timing of events: past tense, present tense, and future tense. In
other words, Jesus tells John to write about:
The vision he has already seen (Rev. 1)
The current state of the seven churches (Rev. 2–3)
The events that will take place in the future (Rev. 1–22)
Letters to the seven churches of Asia (Rev. 2–3)
Revelation 2–3 details the individual letters that Jesus dictates for the seven
churches in Asia (see chapter 8). Each of these churches is in a different
spiritual state. For the faithful churches in Smyrna and Philadelphia, Jesus
gives only encouragement for their steadfast faith. For the churches in
Sardis, Ephesus, Pergamum, and Thyatira, he commends them for some
aspects of their faith but also rebukes them for specific areas of failure.
Finally, for the church in Laodicea, he offers no encouragement at all and
simply requires their repentance from a lukewarm, middle-of-the-road faith.
Judgments and vignettes (Rev. 4–20)
The main plot of Revelation 4–20 is a series of progressively severe
judgments that are unveiled through seven seals, seven trumpets, and seven
bowls. These judgments climax with the return of Jesus, the ensuing battle of
Armageddon, the Millennium, and the final Judgment (see Chapters 9–14).
As you read Revelation 4–20, don’t expect a single, linear storyline. The
narrative consists of a sequence of vignettes that make up a secondary
plotline. These scenes help fill in the details of the main story, but they’re
not necessarily tied to the judgments that surround them. As such,
commentators sometimes refer to these vignettes as parentheses,
interludes, or insets.
The secondary storylines: Vignettes
Interrupting the primary narrative of Revelation is a series of vignettes that
help shape a secondary storyline. Some of these interludes may be related
to the events that immediately surround them, while others appear not to
have any chronological relationship at all to the main story. These vignettes
include the following:
Seals are placed on the foreheads of 144,000 believers from the 12 tribes of
Israel (Rev. 7:1–8).
A “great multitude” is delivered from the great Tribulation (Rev. 7:9–17).
John encounters an angel and eats a little scroll (Rev. 10).
Two witnesses prophesy for 3.5 years and are then martyred (Rev. 11:3–12).
A woman and a dragon (Satan) appear, and a war in heaven occurs (Rev.
12).
A beast out of the sea and a beast out of the earth arrive (Rev. 13).
Jesus appears with 144,000 believers on Mount Zion (Rev. 14:1–5).
Three angels proclaim messages of repentance and warning (Rev. 14:6–13).
The harvest of the earth separates the believers from nonbelievers (Rev.
14:11–20).
The saga of the great prostitute on the beast (Babylon) and her eventual fall
unfolds (Rev. 17:1–19:3).
New beginnings (Rev. 21–22:6)
The last you hear of Satan and nonbelievers is at the end of Revelation 20,
when they’re thrown into the lake of fire. Revelation 21, however, tells the
flip side: the future that reportedly awaits those who believe in Jesus. It tells
of the “new heaven and new earth” that God will create as the permanent
home for his children. But this new world is more than an improved version
of their current environment. It’s a perfect world where God will dwell
alongside humans (Rev. 21:3–5).
Epilogue (Rev. 22:7–21)
John closes out Revelation with an epilogue that marks the end of the
prophecy (see chapter 15). The central chorus in this final phase of the book
is Jesus’s reiterating three times, “Behold, I am coming quickly!” (Rev. 22:7,
22:12, 22:20). Each of these signals precedes a call:
Obedience: A call to “keep the words contained in this book” (22:7)
Action: A call to act because he will “reward to each according to what he
has done” (22:12)
Faith: A call to believe Jesus when he says he is coming and to be able to
testify to that claim to the rest of the world (22:20)
Tracking the book’s Timeline
One of the biggest issues most people have with the book of Revelation is
that they expect a traditional, linear model of storytelling. A linear story
begins at a specific point in time and then uses progressive scenes to move
the characters to some kind of destination. Other stories begin with the
characters looking back at something, tell what happened in the form of a
flashback, and return to the present. For the vast majority of movies out of
Hollywood, these two tried-and-true formulas are almost always used, often
because they’re a natural way to tell a story and are easy for audiences to
understand.
However, once in a while, a story comes along that — like the book of
Revelation — doesn’t fit into this storytelling model. Snow Falling on Cedars
and The English Patient are two prime examples. Both have multiple
storylines with flashback sequences involving different characters. If you
don’t want a mental exercise, stories like these can be quite frustrating. But
if you persevere and stick with them, you can find the expanded texture
rewarding, adding to the overall experience.
As you read through Revelation, prepare yourself: The book of Revelation
may start out linear for several chapters, but various vignettes or interludes
interrupt the main story. When you equip yourself for that reality, you’ll be in
a far better position to deal with the timing of events.
As you consider how the various pieces of the book fit together, keep in mind
the following themes: transition terms and parallel events.
And Then Some: Deciphering Transition Terms
Revelation is plagued by scores of transition phrases that indicate timing.
The primary examples include “then I saw,” “and I saw,” “after this,” and
“after these things.” Strictly speaking, these transitions may not always
translate to the order of prophetic events. For example, you may find 53
instances of the phrase then in the book. Although some of them imply a
connection between one event and the next, others reflect the author’s
method of relaying his story, interweaving the content of his visions with his
own experiences. In other words, the narrative has two layers:
John’s experience of having a vision while on Patmos
The content of the visions — horsemen ride, beasts arise, and angels fight,
and so on
With this kind of setup, a transition may apply to the outer layer (the order of
John’s visions) or to the order of prophetic events themselves. For example,
imagine I were to tell you, “I saw the season finale of 24. Then I saw reruns
of the rest of the episodes over the summer.” In this example, the then
relates entirely to the timing in which I saw the episodes. It says nothing
about the logical order of episodes for the series.
Although some transitions may be open to interpretation, you shouldn’t just
dismiss all transitions, either. Especially, the terms “after this” and “after
these things” are noteworthy. Combined, these terms appear just six times
and don’t always seem to relate to the order in which John received the
visions. For example, its usage in Revelation 4:1, 15:5, 18:1, and 19:1 seems
to simply imply a logical sequence of events. However, its usage in 7:1
(which introduces the 144,000 believers of Israel) appears more of a writing
device posed to answer the question raised at the end of chapter 6: Who can
withstand the wrath of God? (6:17). John uses the term again in 7:9; in this
context, the phrase seems to imply the order in which he received the
visions rather than a sequential flow of events.
Parallelism: Watching Things Go Down at the Same Time
Revelation has a flow of events, but how each section fits into the timeline
isn’t always apparent. Though commentators disagree on the details, most
agree that at least some of the pieces of the book parallel each other.
Perhaps the most obvious example is Revelation 12’s story of the woman in
the wilderness, which is told in two ways in different places within the
chapter (12:6 and 12:13–17). A second example, though more contested, is
the 3.5-year period mentioned several times throughout the book (11:3,
12:6, 12:14, and 13:5). Some hold that these references imply that the
associated sections parallel each other.
Many futurists (who believe Revelation describes actual events that are
going to happen) downplay parallelism. They think that, by and large, the
book progresses in a linear fashion from beginning to end, except for the
vignettes (see the earlier “Judgments and vignettes” section). Other futurists
view Revelation 1–11 and 12–19 as parallel accounts of the great Tribulation.
Offering a different take, those who embrace a symbolic interpretation of the
prophecy (again, see chapter 4) see as many as seven parallel sections in
the book.
The issue of parallelism is also a key factor in the interpretation of the
Millennium, which appears in Revelation 20:
Premillennialists maintain that all the events from Revelation 1–19 will occur
before the Millennium.
Amillennialists see the discussion of the Millennium as a parallel section that
describes the entire church age; this church age goes from before Revelation
1:1 even begins up until the Second Coming of Jesus in Revelation 19.
Putting the stage: The Apostle John and the sector in which He Lived
Books — possibly with the exceptions of dictionaries and academic manuals
for gas grills — regularly reflect the character of the writer. What’s inside a
book has a lot to do with who the writer is, the times in which he lives, the
region wherein he lives, and the reviews which have fashioned his life. So
generally, the greater you understand of the author’s story, the extra the
know-how and appreciation you have got for the book itself. The books of the
Bible are not any exception. Although Christians trust the Bible to be the
phrase of God, maximum nonetheless understand that each ebook of the
Bible retains the personality, writing fashion, and experiences of the man or
woman author. Take the Gospel of Luke for instance. You don’t must
understand something about the author to get something out of studying
Luke’s account of Jesus. However, when you find out Luke became a gentile
(non-Jew) and changed into knowledgeable as a medical doctor, you get a
brand new appreciation for his Greek-orientated attitude and his keen
attention to element. On this chapter, you get to recognise John, the loo
most scholars believe is the writer of Revelation, as well as explore the arena
wherein he lived. You benefit insight into the person himself, in addition to
recognize his motives for writing the ebook. You furthermore mght discover
his unique textured style of writing for this final ebook of the New Testament.
Identity-ing John Doe, writer of Revelation
Whilst you walk into your nearby book shop and test the bestsellers display,
you notice the writer’s name unfold out in large letters on every book. The
extra a success the writer is, the larger the font. In fact, for awesome-
promoting authors like John Grisham and Tom Clancy, their names seem so
huge which you often have to search for the name. however irrespective of
whether or not you’re dealing with a bestselling creator or a primary-time
author, you may generally pick up a e book and discover a biography telling
you at the least a snippet of the writer’s credentials. Even if the author is the
usage of a pseudonym (writing under an assumed call), a person someplace
knows the author’s real identity — in spite of everything, the publisher
wishes to know in which to send the royalty tests! Sadly, the books of the
Bible were written before there had been even printing presses, not to
mention huge publishing corporations. Frankly, we wish the biblical authors
would’ve been as outspoken about biographical details as they had been in
spreading their messages. It’d make our lives far less difficult through
putting off any debate approximately who precisely wrote a specific e book.
generally, on the time of the writing, everyone knew who the author of a e
book changed into, whether the author’s call turned into attached to it or
not. In truth, a lot of the books within the New testomony part of the Bible
have been written as letters; whilst you write a letter to a chum, do you
upload an in depth biographical note on the cease? Of path now not! The
recipient is aware of who the letter is from even if you merely log off along
with your initials. The authors of the books of the Bible had greater crucial
matters on their minds than identifying themselves — namely, correctly
speaking what was believed to be the phrase of God. Downplaying their
position out of genuine humility, the biblical authors occasionally blanketed
their names and once in a while did not. The writer of Revelation identifies
himself four instances (Rev. 1:1, 1:4, 1:9, and 22:8) via simply regarding
himself as John. No last name. No identify. No biographical information.
Because John become a popular call of the day, he could be any antique
John. The general consensus of the church due to the fact the second one
century has been that the writer is the Apostle John. Yes, this is the loo. He
and his brother James had been of the authentic 12 disciples of Jesus, and
John changed into considered as Jesus’s “quality buddy.” He’s the author of
the Gospel of John and the 3 letters bearing his call (known as the Johannine
epistles). In fact, the list of church fathers who credit the Apostle John as the
writer of Revelation reads as a virtual who’s who of the early church, such as
Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Hippolytus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, and
Origen.
Doubting the Apostle John’s authorship
No longer has anybody via the centuries agreed that the Apostle John is the
writer. Dionysius, who become the pope of the influential Alexandrian church
in the mid-third century, argued that the author become surely a difficult to
understand first century church chief named John the Presbyter. He primarily
based his argument on inner evidence, or proof located within the text itself,
that he believed pointed to a special creator. Dionysius claimed that the
vocabulary and fashion of the ebook have been so exceptional from the
Gospel of John and the Johannine epistles that it couldn’t had been written by
way of the identical author. In line with Dionysius, there are numerous
discrepancies, together with the subsequent:
The author of Revelation identifies himself with the aid of call. Although the
writer of Revelation names himself 4 times (Rev. 1:1, 1:4, 1:9, 22:8), the
Apostle John usually avoids doing so in his other writings. Inside the Gospel
of John, he identifies himself simplest because the “disciple whom Jesus
cherished” (John 13:23, 21:7, 21:20), and in two of his three epistles, he calls
himself the “elder” (2 John 1:1; 3 John 1:1).
Revelation is written in a sloppier fashion of Greek than the alternative works
of the Apostle John. Truly, the writer of Revelation is tremendously informed
in the vintage testament books, likely understanding both the original
Hebrew texts and the Greek-translated Septuagint (an historic Greek model
of the Hebrew Scriptures). However his writing competencies aren’t usually
as sharp as his rationalization of Scripture. Although John’s Gospel and
epistles are written in subtle, polished Greek, Revelation is scribed in a
Semitic Greek style that a few pupils argue is slipshod in contrast. In
different words, if you have been to say the Apostle John’s other writings
were composed like a John Grisham novel, then Revelation appears greater
in the fashion of a rapidly cobbled collectively time period paper.
The vocabulary and writing style (the writer’s voice) of the acknowledged
Johannine writings assessment with Revelation. Most authors fall into similar
writing styles. If you have favorite authors, you may frequently parent their
tone and voice, although the topics they’re writing about range. The
sentence structure, vocabulary, rhythm of the paragraphs, and so on have a
tendency to be comparable from article to article and ebook to book. The
Apostle John’s Gospel and epistles have this commonplace experience to
them. For instance, the Gospel of John starts with, “inside the beginning
become the word” (John 1:1), and 1 John starts with a comparable tone: “We
declare to you what changed into from the beginning” (1 John 1:1). This form
of similarity doesn’t carry over to Revelation.
Protecting the Apostle John as writer
As some modern scholars have rejected the Apostle John as creator of
Revelation (see the preceding section), different cutting-edge students have
vigorously defended the traditional view of apostolic authorship. As we
explain in this segment, proponents of Johannine authorship increase several
inner and outside problems (evidence out of doors of the e book itself) to
returned their declare.
The textual content: Addressing Dionysius’s challenges
Right here’s how students have answered to Dionysius’s claims that the
Johannine epistles and Gospel fluctuate too much from Revelation to have
the equal author:
John can also have had a cause in particularly naming himself in Revelation.
Though the Apostle John never identifies himself via name in his other books,
the fact that he does so in Revelation doesn’t always take away him as its
writer. In reality, there are affordable causes for his doing so. Specially,
understand that Revelation is a very special form of e-book from the other
New Testament books. Authority is especially vital for prophetic writing, so
he may additionally have felt obligated to call himself to dispose of any
query approximately the ebook’s credibility.
John doesn’t sense pressured to qualify himself. Whilst the writer does give
his name, he doesn’t attempt to supply himself a identify. He’s clearly John.
Given the Apostle John’s preeminent function within the early church, he
might’ve been capable of surely drop his name and offer no in addition
clarification.
John consistently stresses eyewitness testimony. In his Gospel and epistles,
the Apostle John stresses his eyewitness testimony. Revelation contains over
this theme, together with in Revelation 1:1–2 (“He made it recognized by
using sending his angel to his servant John, who testified to the phrase of
God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he noticed”) and in
Revelation 22:8 (“I, John, am the one who heard and noticed these things
[. . .]”). Evaluate this to a comparable emphasis within the Gospel of John
(John 19:35, 21:24).
Details are consistent with what scholars know of the Apostle John’s ministry.
The writer speaks of the church buildings in western Asia Minor in a way that
virtually demonstrates that he had a dating with them earlier than the
writing and become informed of its geography. Credible secondcentury
historic facts nation that the Apostle John lived in Ephesus from 70–a
hundred CE. Whilst there, he had a thriving ministry that unfold during the
area. Students normally believe that he wrote his three epistles whilst he
lived there, sometime between 80 and 100 CE.
The texts share a few common phrases and terms. In spite of some stylistic
variations among Revelation and the Gospel of John and John’s epistles,
many commonplace phrases and phrases are in reality scattered amongst all
these books. The Gospel of John refers to Jesus as trademarks (“phrase”) in
John 1:1. The simplest other reference to Jesus as emblems in all the Bible is
in Revelation 19:13. similarly, simplest John 1:29 and Revelation five:6 refer
to Jesus as a “Lamb.” furthermore, both the Gospel of John (19:37) and
Revelation (1:7) talk to the identical antique testament verse, Zechariah
12:10.
Teaching sections of Revelation are quite just like the Gospel of John and
Johannine epistles. Despite the fact that a great deal of Revelation is
manifestly targeted on the prophetic visions of John, the book contains a few
expository sections (text that offers records or causes) as well. These
sections of Revelation bear an uncanny resemblance to the Gospel of John
and Johannine epistles. As an instance, the exhortation to “overcome” seems
often in Revelation (Rev. 2:7, 2:11, 2:17, 2:26, 3:5, 3:12, 3:21), as it does in
the Johannine epistles (1 John 2:thirteen–14, 4:four, 5:four–5).
The traditionally universal authorship of Revelation
Even though the writer of Revelation doesn’t without a doubt become aware
of himself as John the Apostle, this is the call related to the ebook from an
early date in the history of the church. As early as the second one century,
the church fathers were unanimous in attributing the e book to John. As an
instance, Justin Martyr, who wrote around one hundred fifty CE, and
Irenaeus, who wrote around one hundred eighty CE, each held that the
Apostle John turned into the author. However, that is no longer to mention
that everyone ancient traditions have been unanimous in naming John
because the writer. Within the early years of the church, some of the early
leaders held to the concept of apostolic authority — that is, that everyone
books of the Bible have been written through both an apostle and a near
best friend of an apostle. However, there were numerous books within the
New Testament that didn’t have this kind of clean hyperlink to an apostle,
such as Hebrews and James. for this reason, a few of the early church fathers
attributed Revelation to John the Elder (also known as John the Presbyter), an
difficult to understand discern who could’ve been an elder within the church
at Ephesus, in which the Apostle John spent the later years of his lifestyles.
but, even Dionysius, who rejected the traditional view of apostolic
authorship, nevertheless stated that the book become common amongst the
orthodox church as written by using “John, one of the apostles.” furthermore,
all through the lengthy process of canonization (the method through which
the early church recognized which books belonged in the Bible), the e-book
turned into universally regular into the New testament at a notably early
date. by way of the cease of the fourth century, all branches of Christianity
agreed that Revelation belonged in the Bible. But, they disagreed about the
way to interpret it. Even as some study it actually, others allegorized it —
that is, they interpreted the numbers and imagery as symbols for deeper non
secular truths. The ebook of Revelation has been the supply of tons
confusion and controversy at some stage in the centuries, even among Bible-
believing Christians. However, as we will see in the following chapter, the
fundamental message of the e-book is straightforward to recognize. As long
as you hold in thoughts the ancient context of the writer and his original
readers, you’ll be properly equipped to understand Revelation’s message.
Many human beings love fantasy tales populated with bizarre apparitions.
Others love a good thriller. And still, others love an adventure tale full of
action and conflict scenes. If you fall into one of these camps, you’re in luck.
The book of Revelation is all these and more.
However, Revelation is a challenging book. Those strange beasts and
creatures are symbols for individuals, nations, governments, and so forth.
The storyline of the book twists and turns in on itself, not following a straight,
chronological narrative. And the whole package is a prophetic vision that’s
related to what’s actually supposed to happen when the world comes to an
end, at least from a biblical perspective.
This chapter doesn’t attempt to explore the symbolism behind the events
that are chronicled during Revelation. It also doesn’t pore over the details of
those events, personalities, and issues (that’s what part III is all about). In
this chapter, we get you started in the right direction. We begin by painting
broad strokes of the structure and content of the final book of the Bible. As
we do so, we point you to parts of this book where you can find more details
on each specific subject.
A major task in reading Revelation is sorting out and understanding the
overall themes and messages while images — seals, trumpets, bowls,
beasts, witnesses, and so on — are ever coming at you. But if you take a
step back and get a solid understanding of the big picture, you can start to
dive into the details and make sense of how they all fit together. Although
Revelation contains a lot of puzzling symbolism and has many
interpretations (see chapter 4 for a discussion of these interpretations), the
book actually divides up rather well. At the most basic level, you can split
Revelation into five major parts, as illustrated in figure 1-1. We discuss each
of these parts in this section, so read on.
The first chapter of Revelation serves as a prologue or introduction to the
whole book. Its purpose is to provide a context to help you make sense of
the rest of the chapters (also see chapter 6). In the first several verses, you
discover that:
This is an unveiling of the plans of Jesus (from God) (1:1).
The author is John (1:4).
The audience is the seven churches of Asia (1:4).
It was written on the island of Patmos, a Mediterranean island belonging to
modern-day Greece (1:9).
Its purpose is to give readers a sneak peek of what’ll take place (1:1).
As Revelation 1:1 underscores, this book is Jesus’s revealing of God’s plans
for the world. In this opening section, John gives explicit details about how
his words came to appear in print: God gave the revelation to Jesus, who
communicated the message to John through an angel, who was sent for this
specific purpose. John wrote these series of visions as an extended letter,
which he then sent to the seven churches in Asia (Rev. 2–3).
Today’s readers are a secondary audience for this book because the original
readers passed John’s letter both to other churches and to their descendants.
Figure 1-2 shows the chain of communication.
People have always had an insatiable curiosity to know their destiny and
what’s going to happen in the “last days.” That’s at least part of the reason
the Left Behind series was popular and why new Nostradamus
documentaries show up almost every year. For many, the allure in reading
and understanding Revelation is, quite frankly, not altogether different from
the desire to peek into a fortuneteller’s crystal ball. Understanding how it all
ends can give you a sense of what your purpose is now.
Revelation can be tough going due to its structure and symbolism and the
various ways in which scholars interpret the book. You can easily become
discouraged and wonder why you should read Revelation, anyway. Here are
several reasons many people consider Revelation to be important reading:
It helps explain the biblical view of God and his relationship with humans.
Many people turn to Revelation looking for definitive answers about what will
happen. But Revelation is far more about grasping the nature of God and the
close relationship that exists between God and those who believe in him.
It gives readers a glimpse of heaven. The Bible offers few specifics on what
heaven will be like. The Old Testament says little. Jesus and Paul provide
more in the New Testament. As if saving the best for last, the final chapters
of Revelation offer a rare glimpse into the new heaven and new earth (see
chapter 14).
It provides a message of hope. It’s easy to be a bit freaked out by the gloom
and doom warnings of the book. But despite all the battles and judgments
depicted, Revelation is ultimately all about hope. It portrays, in vivid detail,
the biblical view of good winning over evil and suffering.
One of the keys to understanding Revelation is in 1:19. In this passage, Jesus
instructs John, “Write, therefore, what you have seen, what is now, and what
will take place later.” Scholars offer various assessments on how to interpret
this verse. However, the interpretation that seems to best fit the original
grammar of the passage as well as the structure of the book itself is a
threefold timing of events: past tense, present tense, and future tense. In
other words, Jesus tells John to write about:
The vision he has already seen (Rev. 1)
The current state of the seven churches (Rev. 2–3)
The events that will take place in the future (Rev. 1–22)
Letters to the seven churches of Asia (Rev. 2–3)
Revelation 2–3 details the individual letters that Jesus dictates for the seven
churches in Asia (see chapter 8). Each of these churches is in a different
spiritual state. For the faithful churches in Smyrna and Philadelphia, Jesus
gives only encouragement for their steadfast faith. For the churches in
Sardis, Ephesus, Pergamum, and Thyatira, he commends them for some
aspects of their faith but also rebukes them for specific areas of failure.
Finally, for the church in Laodicea, he offers no encouragement at all and
simply requires their repentance from a lukewarm, middle-of-the-road faith.
Judgments and vignettes (Rev. 4–20)
The main plot of Revelation 4–20 is a series of progressively severe
judgments that are unveiled through seven seals, seven trumpets, and seven
bowls. These judgments climax with the return of Jesus, the ensuing battle of
Armageddon, the Millennium, and the final Judgment (see Chapters 9–14).
As you read Revelation 4–20, don’t expect a single, linear storyline. The
narrative consists of a sequence of vignettes that make up a secondary
plotline. These scenes help fill in the details of the main story, but they’re
not necessarily tied to the judgments that surround them. As such,
commentators sometimes refer to these vignettes as parentheses,
interludes, or insets.
The secondary storylines: Vignettes
Interrupting the primary narrative of Revelation is a series of vignettes that
help shape a secondary storyline. Some of these interludes may be related
to the events that immediately surround them, while others appear not to
have any chronological relationship at all to the main story. These vignettes
include the following:
Seals are placed on the foreheads of 144,000 believers from the 12 tribes of
Israel (Rev. 7:1–8).
A “great multitude” is delivered from the great Tribulation (Rev. 7:9–17).
John encounters an angel and eats a little scroll (Rev. 10).
Two witnesses prophesy for 3.5 years and are then martyred (Rev. 11:3–12).
A woman and a dragon (Satan) appear, and a war in heaven occurs (Rev.
12).
A beast out of the sea and a beast out of the earth arrive (Rev. 13).
Jesus appears with 144,000 believers on Mount Zion (Rev. 14:1–5).
Three angels proclaim messages of repentance and warning (Rev. 14:6–13).
The harvest of the earth separates the believers from nonbelievers (Rev.
14:11–20).
The saga of the great prostitute on the beast (Babylon) and her eventual fall
unfolds (Rev. 17:1–19:3).
New beginnings (Rev. 21–22:6)
The last you hear of Satan and nonbelievers is at the end of Revelation 20,
when they’re thrown into the lake of fire. Revelation 21, however, tells the
flip side: the future that reportedly awaits those who believe in Jesus. It tells
of the “new heaven and new earth” that God will create as the permanent
home for his children. But this new world is more than an improved version
of their current environment. It’s a perfect world where God will dwell
alongside humans (Rev. 21:3–5).
Epilogue (Rev. 22:7–21)
John closes out Revelation with an epilogue that marks the end of the
prophecy (see chapter 15). The central chorus in this final phase of the book
is Jesus’s reiterating three times, “Behold, I am coming quickly!” (Rev. 22:7,
22:12, 22:20). Each of these signals precedes a call:
Obedience: A call to “keep the words contained in this book” (22:7)
Action: A call to act because he will “reward to each according to what he
has done” (22:12)
Faith: A call to believe Jesus when he says he is coming and to be able to
testify to that claim to the rest of the world (22:20)
Tracking the book’s Timeline
One of the biggest issues most people have with the book of Revelation is
that they expect a traditional, linear model of storytelling. A linear story
begins at a specific point in time and then uses progressive scenes to move
the characters to some kind of destination. Other stories begin with the
characters looking back at something, tell what happened in the form of a
flashback, and return to the present. For the vast majority of movies out of
Hollywood, these two tried-and-true formulas are almost always used, often
because they’re a natural way to tell a story and are easy for audiences to
understand.
However, once in a while, a story comes along that — like the book of
Revelation — doesn’t fit into this storytelling model. Snow Falling on Cedars
and The English Patient are two prime examples. Both have multiple
storylines with flashback sequences involving different characters. If you
don’t want a mental exercise, stories like these can be quite frustrating. But
if you persevere and stick with them, you can find the expanded texture
rewarding, adding to the overall experience.
As you read through Revelation, prepare yourself: The book of Revelation
may start out linear for several chapters, but various vignettes or interludes
interrupt the main story. When you equip yourself for that reality, you’ll be in
a far better position to deal with the timing of events.
As you consider how the various pieces of the book fit together, keep in mind
the following themes: transition terms and parallel events.
And Then Some: Deciphering Transition Terms
Revelation is plagued by scores of transition phrases that indicate timing.
The primary examples include “then I saw,” “and I saw,” “after this,” and
“after these things.” Strictly speaking, these transitions may not always
translate to the order of prophetic events. For example, you may find 53
instances of the phrase then in the book. Although some of them imply a
connection between one event and the next, others reflect the author’s
method of relaying his story, interweaving the content of his visions with his
own experiences. In other words, the narrative has two layers:
John’s experience of having a vision while on Patmos
The content of the visions — horsemen ride, beasts arise, and angels fight,
and so on
With this kind of setup, a transition may apply to the outer layer (the order of
John’s visions) or to the order of prophetic events themselves. For example,
imagine I were to tell you, “I saw the season finale of 24. Then I saw reruns
of the rest of the episodes over the summer.” In this example, the then
relates entirely to the timing in which I saw the episodes. It says nothing
about the logical order of episodes for the series.
Although some transitions may be open to interpretation, you shouldn’t just
dismiss all transitions, either. Especially, the terms “after this” and “after
these things” are noteworthy. Combined, these terms appear just six times
and don’t always seem to relate to the order in which John received the
visions. For example, its usage in Revelation 4:1, 15:5, 18:1, and 19:1 seems
to simply imply a logical sequence of events. However, its usage in 7:1
(which introduces the 144,000 believers of Israel) appears more of a writing
device posed to answer the question raised at the end of chapter 6: Who can
withstand the wrath of God? (6:17). John uses the term again in 7:9; in this
context, the phrase seems to imply the order in which he received the
visions rather than a sequential flow of events.
Parallelism: Watching Things Go Down at the Same Time
Revelation has a flow of events, but how each section fits into the timeline
isn’t always apparent. Though commentators disagree on the details, most
agree that at least some of the pieces of the book parallel each other.
Perhaps the most obvious example is Revelation 12’s story of the woman in
the wilderness, which is told in two ways in different places within the
chapter (12:6 and 12:13–17). A second example, though more contested, is
the 3.5-year period mentioned several times throughout the book (11:3,
12:6, 12:14, and 13:5). Some hold that these references imply that the
associated sections parallel each other.
Many futurists (who believe Revelation describes actual events that are
going to happen) downplay parallelism. They think that, by and large, the
book progresses in a linear fashion from beginning to end, except for the
vignettes (see the earlier “Judgments and vignettes” section). Other futurists
view Revelation 1–11 and 12–19 as parallel accounts of the great Tribulation.
Offering a different take, those who embrace a symbolic interpretation of the
prophecy (again, see chapter 4) see as many as seven parallel sections in
the book.
The issue of parallelism is also a key factor in the interpretation of the
Millennium, which appears in Revelation 20:
Premillennialists maintain that all the events from Revelation 1–19 will occur
before the Millennium.
Amillennialists see the discussion of the Millennium as a parallel section that
describes the entire church age; this church age goes from before Revelation
1:1 even begins up until the Second Coming of Jesus in Revelation 19.
Putting the stage: The Apostle John and the sector in which He Lived
Books — possibly with the exceptions of dictionaries and academic manuals
for gas grills — regularly reflect the character of the writer. What’s inside a
book has a lot to do with who the writer is, the times in which he lives, the
region wherein he lives, and the reviews which have fashioned his life. So
generally, the greater you understand of the author’s story, the extra the
know-how and appreciation you have got for the book itself. The books of the
Bible are not any exception. Although Christians trust the Bible to be the
phrase of God, maximum nonetheless understand that each ebook of the
Bible retains the personality, writing fashion, and experiences of the man or
woman author. Take the Gospel of Luke for instance. You don’t must
understand something about the author to get something out of studying
Luke’s account of Jesus. However, when you find out Luke became a gentile
(non-Jew) and changed into knowledgeable as a medical doctor, you get a
brand new appreciation for his Greek-orientated attitude and his keen
attention to element. On this chapter, you get to recognise John, the loo
most scholars believe is the writer of Revelation, as well as explore the arena
wherein he lived. You benefit insight into the person himself, in addition to
recognize his motives for writing the ebook. You furthermore mght discover
his unique textured style of writing for this final ebook of the New Testament.
Identity-ing John Doe, writer of Revelation
Whilst you walk into your nearby book shop and test the bestsellers display,
you notice the writer’s name unfold out in large letters on every book. The
extra a success the writer is, the larger the font. In fact, for awesome-
promoting authors like John Grisham and Tom Clancy, their names seem so
huge which you often have to search for the name. however irrespective of
whether or not you’re dealing with a bestselling creator or a primary-time
author, you may generally pick up a e book and discover a biography telling
you at the least a snippet of the writer’s credentials. Even if the author is the
usage of a pseudonym (writing under an assumed call), a person someplace
knows the author’s real identity — in spite of everything, the publisher
wishes to know in which to send the royalty tests! Sadly, the books of the
Bible were written before there had been even printing presses, not to
mention huge publishing corporations. Frankly, we wish the biblical authors
would’ve been as outspoken about biographical details as they had been in
spreading their messages. It’d make our lives far less difficult through
putting off any debate approximately who precisely wrote a specific e book.
generally, on the time of the writing, everyone knew who the author of a e
book changed into, whether the author’s call turned into attached to it or
not. In truth, a lot of the books within the New testomony part of the Bible
have been written as letters; whilst you write a letter to a chum, do you
upload an in depth biographical note on the cease? Of path now not! The
recipient is aware of who the letter is from even if you merely log off along
with your initials. The authors of the books of the Bible had greater crucial
matters on their minds than identifying themselves — namely, correctly
speaking what was believed to be the phrase of God. Downplaying their
position out of genuine humility, the biblical authors occasionally blanketed
their names and once in a while did not. The writer of Revelation identifies
himself four instances (Rev. 1:1, 1:4, 1:9, and 22:8) via simply regarding
himself as John. No last name. No identify. No biographical information.
Because John become a popular call of the day, he could be any antique
John. The general consensus of the church due to the fact the second one
century has been that the writer is the Apostle John. Yes, this is the loo. He
and his brother James had been of the authentic 12 disciples of Jesus, and
John changed into considered as Jesus’s “quality buddy.” He’s the author of
the Gospel of John and the 3 letters bearing his call (known as the Johannine
epistles). In fact, the list of church fathers who credit the Apostle John as the
writer of Revelation reads as a virtual who’s who of the early church, such as
Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Hippolytus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, and
Origen.
Doubting the Apostle John’s authorship
No longer has anybody via the centuries agreed that the Apostle John is the
writer. Dionysius, who become the pope of the influential Alexandrian church
in the mid-third century, argued that the author become surely a difficult to
understand first century church chief named John the Presbyter. He primarily
based his argument on inner evidence, or proof located within the text itself,
that he believed pointed to a special creator. Dionysius claimed that the
vocabulary and fashion of the ebook have been so exceptional from the
Gospel of John and the Johannine epistles that it couldn’t had been written by
way of the identical author. In line with Dionysius, there are numerous
discrepancies, together with the subsequent:
The author of Revelation identifies himself with the aid of call. Although the
writer of Revelation names himself 4 times (Rev. 1:1, 1:4, 1:9, 22:8), the
Apostle John usually avoids doing so in his other writings. Inside the Gospel
of John, he identifies himself simplest because the “disciple whom Jesus
cherished” (John 13:23, 21:7, 21:20), and in two of his three epistles, he calls
himself the “elder” (2 John 1:1; 3 John 1:1).
Revelation is written in a sloppier fashion of Greek than the alternative works
of the Apostle John. Truly, the writer of Revelation is tremendously informed
in the vintage testament books, likely understanding both the original
Hebrew texts and the Greek-translated Septuagint (an historic Greek model
of the Hebrew Scriptures). However his writing competencies aren’t usually
as sharp as his rationalization of Scripture. Although John’s Gospel and
epistles are written in subtle, polished Greek, Revelation is scribed in a
Semitic Greek style that a few pupils argue is slipshod in contrast. In
different words, if you have been to say the Apostle John’s other writings
were composed like a John Grisham novel, then Revelation appears greater
in the fashion of a rapidly cobbled collectively time period paper.
The vocabulary and writing style (the writer’s voice) of the acknowledged
Johannine writings assessment with Revelation. Most authors fall into similar
writing styles. If you have favorite authors, you may frequently parent their
tone and voice, although the topics they’re writing about range. The
sentence structure, vocabulary, rhythm of the paragraphs, and so on have a
tendency to be comparable from article to article and ebook to book. The
Apostle John’s Gospel and epistles have this commonplace experience to
them. For instance, the Gospel of John starts with, “inside the beginning
become the word” (John 1:1), and 1 John starts with a comparable tone: “We
declare to you what changed into from the beginning” (1 John 1:1). This form
of similarity doesn’t carry over to Revelation.
Protecting the Apostle John as writer
As some modern scholars have rejected the Apostle John as creator of
Revelation (see the preceding section), different cutting-edge students have
vigorously defended the traditional view of apostolic authorship. As we
explain in this segment, proponents of Johannine authorship increase several
inner and outside problems (evidence out of doors of the e book itself) to
returned their declare.
The textual content: Addressing Dionysius’s challenges
Right here’s how students have answered to Dionysius’s claims that the
Johannine epistles and Gospel fluctuate too much from Revelation to have
the equal author:
John can also have had a cause in particularly naming himself in Revelation.
Though the Apostle John never identifies himself via name in his other books,
the fact that he does so in Revelation doesn’t always take away him as its
writer. In reality, there are affordable causes for his doing so. Specially,
understand that Revelation is a very special form of e-book from the other
New Testament books. Authority is especially vital for prophetic writing, so
he may additionally have felt obligated to call himself to dispose of any
query approximately the ebook’s credibility.
John doesn’t sense pressured to qualify himself. Whilst the writer does give
his name, he doesn’t attempt to supply himself a identify. He’s clearly John.
Given the Apostle John’s preeminent function within the early church, he
might’ve been capable of surely drop his name and offer no in addition
clarification.
John consistently stresses eyewitness testimony. In his Gospel and epistles,
the Apostle John stresses his eyewitness testimony. Revelation contains over
this theme, together with in Revelation 1:1–2 (“He made it recognized by
using sending his angel to his servant John, who testified to the phrase of
God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he noticed”) and in
Revelation 22:8 (“I, John, am the one who heard and noticed these things
[. . .]”). Evaluate this to a comparable emphasis within the Gospel of John
(John 19:35, 21:24).
Details are consistent with what scholars know of the Apostle John’s ministry.
The writer speaks of the church buildings in western Asia Minor in a way that
virtually demonstrates that he had a dating with them earlier than the
writing and become informed of its geography. Credible secondcentury
historic facts nation that the Apostle John lived in Ephesus from 70–a
hundred CE. Whilst there, he had a thriving ministry that unfold during the
area. Students normally believe that he wrote his three epistles whilst he
lived there, sometime between 80 and 100 CE.
The texts share a few common phrases and terms. In spite of some stylistic
variations among Revelation and the Gospel of John and John’s epistles,
many commonplace phrases and phrases are in reality scattered amongst all
these books. The Gospel of John refers to Jesus as trademarks (“phrase”) in
John 1:1. The simplest other reference to Jesus as emblems in all the Bible is
in Revelation 19:13. similarly, simplest John 1:29 and Revelation five:6 refer
to Jesus as a “Lamb.” furthermore, both the Gospel of John (19:37) and
Revelation (1:7) talk to the identical antique testament verse, Zechariah
12:10.
Teaching sections of Revelation are quite just like the Gospel of John and
Johannine epistles. Despite the fact that a great deal of Revelation is
manifestly targeted on the prophetic visions of John, the book contains a few
expository sections (text that offers records or causes) as well. These
sections of Revelation bear an uncanny resemblance to the Gospel of John
and Johannine epistles. As an instance, the exhortation to “overcome” seems
often in Revelation (Rev. 2:7, 2:11, 2:17, 2:26, 3:5, 3:12, 3:21), as it does in
the Johannine epistles (1 John 2:thirteen–14, 4:four, 5:four–5).
The traditionally universal authorship of Revelation
Even though the writer of Revelation doesn’t without a doubt become aware
of himself as John the Apostle, this is the call related to the ebook from an
early date in the history of the church. As early as the second one century,
the church fathers were unanimous in attributing the e book to John. As an
instance, Justin Martyr, who wrote around one hundred fifty CE, and
Irenaeus, who wrote around one hundred eighty CE, each held that the
Apostle John turned into the author. However, that is no longer to mention
that everyone ancient traditions have been unanimous in naming John
because the writer. Within the early years of the church, some of the early
leaders held to the concept of apostolic authority — that is, that everyone
books of the Bible have been written through both an apostle and a near
best friend of an apostle. However, there were numerous books within the
New Testament that didn’t have this kind of clean hyperlink to an apostle,
such as Hebrews and James. for this reason, a few of the early church fathers
attributed Revelation to John the Elder (also known as John the Presbyter), an
difficult to understand discern who could’ve been an elder within the church
at Ephesus, in which the Apostle John spent the later years of his lifestyles.
but, even Dionysius, who rejected the traditional view of apostolic
authorship, nevertheless stated that the book become common amongst the
orthodox church as written by using “John, one of the apostles.” furthermore,
all through the lengthy process of canonization (the method through which
the early church recognized which books belonged in the Bible), the e-book
turned into universally regular into the New testament at a notably early
date. by way of the cease of the fourth century, all branches of Christianity
agreed that Revelation belonged in the Bible. But, they disagreed about the
way to interpret it. Even as some study it actually, others allegorized it —
that is, they interpreted the numbers and imagery as symbols for deeper non
secular truths. The ebook of Revelation has been the supply of tons
confusion and controversy at some stage in the centuries, even among Bible-
believing Christians. However, as we will see in the following chapter, the
fundamental message of the e-book is straightforward to recognize. As long
as you hold in thoughts the ancient context of the writer and his original
readers, you’ll be properly equipped to understand Revelation’s message.
Many human beings love fantasy tales populated with bizarre apparitions.
Others love a good thriller. And still, others love an adventure tale full of
action and conflict scenes. If you fall into one of these camps, you’re in luck.
The book of Revelation is all these and more.
However, Revelation is a challenging book. Those strange beasts and
creatures are symbols for individuals, nations, governments, and so forth.
The storyline of the book twists and turns in on itself, not following a straight,
chronological narrative. And the whole package is a prophetic vision that’s
related to what’s actually supposed to happen when the world comes to an
end, at least from a biblical perspective.
This chapter doesn’t attempt to explore the symbolism behind the events
that are chronicled during Revelation. It also doesn’t pore over the details of
those events, personalities, and issues (that’s what part III is all about). In
this chapter, we get you started in the right direction. We begin by painting
broad strokes of the structure and content of the final book of the Bible. As
we do so, we point you to parts of this book where you can find more details
on each specific subject.
A major task in reading Revelation is sorting out and understanding the
overall themes and messages while images — seals, trumpets, bowls,
beasts, witnesses, and so on — are ever coming at you. But if you take a
step back and get a solid understanding of the big picture, you can start to
dive into the details and make sense of how they all fit together. Although
Revelation contains a lot of puzzling symbolism and has many
interpretations (see chapter 4 for a discussion of these interpretations), the
book actually divides up rather well. At the most basic level, you can split
Revelation into five major parts, as illustrated in figure 1-1. We discuss each
of these parts in this section, so read on.
The first chapter of Revelation serves as a prologue or introduction to the
whole book. Its purpose is to provide a context to help you make sense of
the rest of the chapters (also see chapter 6). In the first several verses, you
discover that:
This is an unveiling of the plans of Jesus (from God) (1:1).
The author is John (1:4).
The audience is the seven churches of Asia (1:4).
It was written on the island of Patmos, a Mediterranean island belonging to
modern-day Greece (1:9).
Its purpose is to give readers a sneak peek of what’ll take place (1:1).
As Revelation 1:1 underscores, this book is Jesus’s revealing of God’s plans
for the world. In this opening section, John gives explicit details about how
his words came to appear in print: God gave the revelation to Jesus, who
communicated the message to John through an angel, who was sent for this
specific purpose. John wrote these series of visions as an extended letter,
which he then sent to the seven churches in Asia (Rev. 2–3).
Today’s readers are a secondary audience for this book because the original
readers passed John’s letter both to other churches and to their descendants.
Figure 1-2 shows the chain of communication.
People have always had an insatiable curiosity to know their destiny and
what’s going to happen in the “last days.” That’s at least part of the reason
the Left Behind series was popular and why new Nostradamus
documentaries show up almost every year. For many, the allure in reading
and understanding Revelation is, quite frankly, not altogether different from
the desire to peek into a fortuneteller’s crystal ball. Understanding how it all
ends can give you a sense of what your purpose is now.
Revelation can be tough going due to its structure and symbolism and the
various ways in which scholars interpret the book. You can easily become
discouraged and wonder why you should read Revelation, anyway. Here are
several reasons many people consider Revelation to be important reading:
It helps explain the biblical view of God and his relationship with humans.
Many people turn to Revelation looking for definitive answers about what will
happen. But Revelation is far more about grasping the nature of God and the
close relationship that exists between God and those who believe in him.
It gives readers a glimpse of heaven. The Bible offers few specifics on what
heaven will be like. The Old Testament says little. Jesus and Paul provide
more in the New Testament. As if saving the best for last, the final chapters
of Revelation offer a rare glimpse into the new heaven and new earth (see
chapter 14).
It provides a message of hope. It’s easy to be a bit freaked out by the gloom
and doom warnings of the book. But despite all the battles and judgments
depicted, Revelation is ultimately all about hope. It portrays, in vivid detail,
the biblical view of good winning over evil and suffering.
One of the keys to understanding Revelation is in 1:19. In this passage, Jesus
instructs John, “Write, therefore, what you have seen, what is now, and what
will take place later.” Scholars offer various assessments on how to interpret
this verse. However, the interpretation that seems to best fit the original
grammar of the passage as well as the structure of the book itself is a
threefold timing of events: past tense, present tense, and future tense. In
other words, Jesus tells John to write about:
The vision he has already seen (Rev. 1)
The current state of the seven churches (Rev. 2–3)
The events that will take place in the future (Rev. 1–22)
Letters to the seven churches of Asia (Rev. 2–3)
Revelation 2–3 details the individual letters that Jesus dictates for the seven
churches in Asia (see chapter 8). Each of these churches is in a different
spiritual state. For the faithful churches in Smyrna and Philadelphia, Jesus
gives only encouragement for their steadfast faith. For the churches in
Sardis, Ephesus, Pergamum, and Thyatira, he commends them for some
aspects of their faith but also rebukes them for specific areas of failure.
Finally, for the church in Laodicea, he offers no encouragement at all and
simply requires their repentance from a lukewarm, middle-of-the-road faith.
Judgments and vignettes (Rev. 4–20)
The main plot of Revelation 4–20 is a series of progressively severe
judgments that are unveiled through seven seals, seven trumpets, and seven
bowls. These judgments climax with the return of Jesus, the ensuing battle of
Armageddon, the Millennium, and the final Judgment (see Chapters 9–14).
As you read Revelation 4–20, don’t expect a single, linear storyline. The
narrative consists of a sequence of vignettes that make up a secondary
plotline. These scenes help fill in the details of the main story, but they’re
not necessarily tied to the judgments that surround them. As such,
commentators sometimes refer to these vignettes as parentheses,
interludes, or insets.
The secondary storylines: Vignettes
Interrupting the primary narrative of Revelation is a series of vignettes that
help shape a secondary storyline. Some of these interludes may be related
to the events that immediately surround them, while others appear not to
have any chronological relationship at all to the main story. These vignettes
include the following:
Seals are placed on the foreheads of 144,000 believers from the 12 tribes of
Israel (Rev. 7:1–8).
A “great multitude” is delivered from the great Tribulation (Rev. 7:9–17).
John encounters an angel and eats a little scroll (Rev. 10).
Two witnesses prophesy for 3.5 years and are then martyred (Rev. 11:3–12).
A woman and a dragon (Satan) appear, and a war in heaven occurs (Rev.
12).
A beast out of the sea and a beast out of the earth arrive (Rev. 13).
Jesus appears with 144,000 believers on Mount Zion (Rev. 14:1–5).
Three angels proclaim messages of repentance and warning (Rev. 14:6–13).
The harvest of the earth separates the believers from nonbelievers (Rev.
14:11–20).
The saga of the great prostitute on the beast (Babylon) and her eventual fall
unfolds (Rev. 17:1–19:3).
New beginnings (Rev. 21–22:6)
The last you hear of Satan and nonbelievers is at the end of Revelation 20,
when they’re thrown into the lake of fire. Revelation 21, however, tells the
flip side: the future that reportedly awaits those who believe in Jesus. It tells
of the “new heaven and new earth” that God will create as the permanent
home for his children. But this new world is more than an improved version
of their current environment. It’s a perfect world where God will dwell
alongside humans (Rev. 21:3–5).
Epilogue (Rev. 22:7–21)
John closes out Revelation with an epilogue that marks the end of the
prophecy (see chapter 15). The central chorus in this final phase of the book
is Jesus’s reiterating three times, “Behold, I am coming quickly!” (Rev. 22:7,
22:12, 22:20). Each of these signals precedes a call:
Obedience: A call to “keep the words contained in this book” (22:7)
Action: A call to act because he will “reward to each according to what he
has done” (22:12)
Faith: A call to believe Jesus when he says he is coming and to be able to
testify to that claim to the rest of the world (22:20)
Tracking the book’s Timeline
One of the biggest issues most people have with the book of Revelation is
that they expect a traditional, linear model of storytelling. A linear story
begins at a specific point in time and then uses progressive scenes to move
the characters to some kind of destination. Other stories begin with the
characters looking back at something, tell what happened in the form of a
flashback, and return to the present. For the vast majority of movies out of
Hollywood, these two tried-and-true formulas are almost always used, often
because they’re a natural way to tell a story and are easy for audiences to
understand.
However, once in a while, a story comes along that — like the book of
Revelation — doesn’t fit into this storytelling model. Snow Falling on Cedars
and The English Patient are two prime examples. Both have multiple
storylines with flashback sequences involving different characters. If you
don’t want a mental exercise, stories like these can be quite frustrating. But
if you persevere and stick with them, you can find the expanded texture
rewarding, adding to the overall experience.
As you read through Revelation, prepare yourself: The book of Revelation
may start out linear for several chapters, but various vignettes or interludes
interrupt the main story. When you equip yourself for that reality, you’ll be in
a far better position to deal with the timing of events.
As you consider how the various pieces of the book fit together, keep in mind
the following themes: transition terms and parallel events.
And Then Some: Deciphering Transition Terms
Revelation is plagued by scores of transition phrases that indicate timing.
The primary examples include “then I saw,” “and I saw,” “after this,” and
“after these things.” Strictly speaking, these transitions may not always
translate to the order of prophetic events. For example, you may find 53
instances of the phrase then in the book. Although some of them imply a
connection between one event and the next, others reflect the author’s
method of relaying his story, interweaving the content of his visions with his
own experiences. In other words, the narrative has two layers:
John’s experience of having a vision while on Patmos
The content of the visions — horsemen ride, beasts arise, and angels fight,
and so on
With this kind of setup, a transition may apply to the outer layer (the order of
John’s visions) or to the order of prophetic events themselves. For example,
imagine I were to tell you, “I saw the season finale of 24. Then I saw reruns
of the rest of the episodes over the summer.” In this example, the then
relates entirely to the timing in which I saw the episodes. It says nothing
about the logical order of episodes for the series.
Although some transitions may be open to interpretation, you shouldn’t just
dismiss all transitions, either. Especially, the terms “after this” and “after
these things” are noteworthy. Combined, these terms appear just six times
and don’t always seem to relate to the order in which John received the
visions. For example, its usage in Revelation 4:1, 15:5, 18:1, and 19:1 seems
to simply imply a logical sequence of events. However, its usage in 7:1
(which introduces the 144,000 believers of Israel) appears more of a writing
device posed to answer the question raised at the end of chapter 6: Who can
withstand the wrath of God? (6:17). John uses the term again in 7:9; in this
context, the phrase seems to imply the order in which he received the
visions rather than a sequential flow of events.
Parallelism: Watching Things Go Down at the Same Time
Revelation has a flow of events, but how each section fits into the timeline
isn’t always apparent. Though commentators disagree on the details, most
agree that at least some of the pieces of the book parallel each other.
Perhaps the most obvious example is Revelation 12’s story of the woman in
the wilderness, which is told in two ways in different places within the
chapter (12:6 and 12:13–17). A second example, though more contested, is
the 3.5-year period mentioned several times throughout the book (11:3,
12:6, 12:14, and 13:5). Some hold that these references imply that the
associated sections parallel each other.
Many futurists (who believe Revelation describes actual events that are
going to happen) downplay parallelism. They think that, by and large, the
book progresses in a linear fashion from beginning to end, except for the
vignettes (see the earlier “Judgments and vignettes” section). Other futurists
view Revelation 1–11 and 12–19 as parallel accounts of the great Tribulation.
Offering a different take, those who embrace a symbolic interpretation of the
prophecy (again, see chapter 4) see as many as seven parallel sections in
the book.
The issue of parallelism is also a key factor in the interpretation of the
Millennium, which appears in Revelation 20:
Premillennialists maintain that all the events from Revelation 1–19 will occur
before the Millennium.
Amillennialists see the discussion of the Millennium as a parallel section that
describes the entire church age; this church age goes from before Revelation
1:1 even begins up until the Second Coming of Jesus in Revelation 19.
Putting the stage: The Apostle John and the sector in which He Lived
Books — possibly with the exceptions of dictionaries and academic manuals
for gas grills — regularly reflect the character of the writer. What’s inside a
book has a lot to do with who the writer is, the times in which he lives, the
region wherein he lives, and the reviews which have fashioned his life. So
generally, the greater you understand of the author’s story, the extra the
know-how and appreciation you have got for the book itself. The books of the
Bible are not any exception. Although Christians trust the Bible to be the
phrase of God, maximum nonetheless understand that each ebook of the
Bible retains the personality, writing fashion, and experiences of the man or
woman author. Take the Gospel of Luke for instance. You don’t must
understand something about the author to get something out of studying
Luke’s account of Jesus. However, when you find out Luke became a gentile
(non-Jew) and changed into knowledgeable as a medical doctor, you get a
brand new appreciation for his Greek-orientated attitude and his keen
attention to element. On this chapter, you get to recognise John, the loo
most scholars believe is the writer of Revelation, as well as explore the arena
wherein he lived. You benefit insight into the person himself, in addition to
recognize his motives for writing the ebook. You furthermore mght discover
his unique textured style of writing for this final ebook of the New Testament.
Identity-ing John Doe, writer of Revelation
Whilst you walk into your nearby book shop and test the bestsellers display,
you notice the writer’s name unfold out in large letters on every book. The
extra a success the writer is, the larger the font. In fact, for awesome-
promoting authors like John Grisham and Tom Clancy, their names seem so
huge which you often have to search for the name. however irrespective of
whether or not you’re dealing with a bestselling creator or a primary-time
author, you may generally pick up a e book and discover a biography telling
you at the least a snippet of the writer’s credentials. Even if the author is the
usage of a pseudonym (writing under an assumed call), a person someplace
knows the author’s real identity — in spite of everything, the publisher
wishes to know in which to send the royalty tests! Sadly, the books of the
Bible were written before there had been even printing presses, not to
mention huge publishing corporations. Frankly, we wish the biblical authors
would’ve been as outspoken about biographical details as they had been in
spreading their messages. It’d make our lives far less difficult through
putting off any debate approximately who precisely wrote a specific e book.
generally, on the time of the writing, everyone knew who the author of a e
book changed into, whether the author’s call turned into attached to it or
not. In truth, a lot of the books within the New testomony part of the Bible
have been written as letters; whilst you write a letter to a chum, do you
upload an in depth biographical note on the cease? Of path now not! The
recipient is aware of who the letter is from even if you merely log off along
with your initials. The authors of the books of the Bible had greater crucial
matters on their minds than identifying themselves — namely, correctly
speaking what was believed to be the phrase of God. Downplaying their
position out of genuine humility, the biblical authors occasionally blanketed
their names and once in a while did not. The writer of Revelation identifies
himself four instances (Rev. 1:1, 1:4, 1:9, and 22:8) via simply regarding
himself as John. No last name. No identify. No biographical information.
Because John become a popular call of the day, he could be any antique
John. The general consensus of the church due to the fact the second one
century has been that the writer is the Apostle John. Yes, this is the loo. He
and his brother James had been of the authentic 12 disciples of Jesus, and
John changed into considered as Jesus’s “quality buddy.” He’s the author of
the Gospel of John and the 3 letters bearing his call (known as the Johannine
epistles). In fact, the list of church fathers who credit the Apostle John as the
writer of Revelation reads as a virtual who’s who of the early church, such as
Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Hippolytus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, and
Origen.
Doubting the Apostle John’s authorship
No longer has anybody via the centuries agreed that the Apostle John is the
writer. Dionysius, who become the pope of the influential Alexandrian church
in the mid-third century, argued that the author become surely a difficult to
understand first century church chief named John the Presbyter. He primarily
based his argument on inner evidence, or proof located within the text itself,
that he believed pointed to a special creator. Dionysius claimed that the
vocabulary and fashion of the ebook have been so exceptional from the
Gospel of John and the Johannine epistles that it couldn’t had been written by
way of the identical author. In line with Dionysius, there are numerous
discrepancies, together with the subsequent:
The author of Revelation identifies himself with the aid of call. Although the
writer of Revelation names himself 4 times (Rev. 1:1, 1:4, 1:9, 22:8), the
Apostle John usually avoids doing so in his other writings. Inside the Gospel
of John, he identifies himself simplest because the “disciple whom Jesus
cherished” (John 13:23, 21:7, 21:20), and in two of his three epistles, he calls
himself the “elder” (2 John 1:1; 3 John 1:1).
Revelation is written in a sloppier fashion of Greek than the alternative works
of the Apostle John. Truly, the writer of Revelation is tremendously informed
in the vintage testament books, likely understanding both the original
Hebrew texts and the Greek-translated Septuagint (an historic Greek model
of the Hebrew Scriptures). However his writing competencies aren’t usually
as sharp as his rationalization of Scripture. Although John’s Gospel and
epistles are written in subtle, polished Greek, Revelation is scribed in a
Semitic Greek style that a few pupils argue is slipshod in contrast. In
different words, if you have been to say the Apostle John’s other writings
were composed like a John Grisham novel, then Revelation appears greater
in the fashion of a rapidly cobbled collectively time period paper.
The vocabulary and writing style (the writer’s voice) of the acknowledged
Johannine writings assessment with Revelation. Most authors fall into similar
writing styles. If you have favorite authors, you may frequently parent their
tone and voice, although the topics they’re writing about range. The
sentence structure, vocabulary, rhythm of the paragraphs, and so on have a
tendency to be comparable from article to article and ebook to book. The
Apostle John’s Gospel and epistles have this commonplace experience to
them. For instance, the Gospel of John starts with, “inside the beginning
become the word” (John 1:1), and 1 John starts with a comparable tone: “We
declare to you what changed into from the beginning” (1 John 1:1). This form
of similarity doesn’t carry over to Revelation.
Protecting the Apostle John as writer
As some modern scholars have rejected the Apostle John as creator of
Revelation (see the preceding section), different cutting-edge students have
vigorously defended the traditional view of apostolic authorship. As we
explain in this segment, proponents of Johannine authorship increase several
inner and outside problems (evidence out of doors of the e book itself) to
returned their declare.
The textual content: Addressing Dionysius’s challenges
Right here’s how students have answered to Dionysius’s claims that the
Johannine epistles and Gospel fluctuate too much from Revelation to have
the equal author:
John can also have had a cause in particularly naming himself in Revelation.
Though the Apostle John never identifies himself via name in his other books,
the fact that he does so in Revelation doesn’t always take away him as its
writer. In reality, there are affordable causes for his doing so. Specially,
understand that Revelation is a very special form of e-book from the other
New Testament books. Authority is especially vital for prophetic writing, so
he may additionally have felt obligated to call himself to dispose of any
query approximately the ebook’s credibility.
John doesn’t sense pressured to qualify himself. Whilst the writer does give
his name, he doesn’t attempt to supply himself a identify. He’s clearly John.
Given the Apostle John’s preeminent function within the early church, he
might’ve been capable of surely drop his name and offer no in addition
clarification.
John consistently stresses eyewitness testimony. In his Gospel and epistles,
the Apostle John stresses his eyewitness testimony. Revelation contains over
this theme, together with in Revelation 1:1–2 (“He made it recognized by
using sending his angel to his servant John, who testified to the phrase of
God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he noticed”) and in
Revelation 22:8 (“I, John, am the one who heard and noticed these things
[. . .]”). Evaluate this to a comparable emphasis within the Gospel of John
(John 19:35, 21:24).
Details are consistent with what scholars know of the Apostle John’s ministry.
The writer speaks of the church buildings in western Asia Minor in a way that
virtually demonstrates that he had a dating with them earlier than the
writing and become informed of its geography. Credible secondcentury
historic facts nation that the Apostle John lived in Ephesus from 70–a
hundred CE. Whilst there, he had a thriving ministry that unfold during the
area. Students normally believe that he wrote his three epistles whilst he
lived there, sometime between 80 and 100 CE.
The texts share a few common phrases and terms. In spite of some stylistic
variations among Revelation and the Gospel of John and John’s epistles,
many commonplace phrases and phrases are in reality scattered amongst all
these books. The Gospel of John refers to Jesus as trademarks (“phrase”) in
John 1:1. The simplest other reference to Jesus as emblems in all the Bible is
in Revelation 19:13. similarly, simplest John 1:29 and Revelation five:6 refer
to Jesus as a “Lamb.” furthermore, both the Gospel of John (19:37) and
Revelation (1:7) talk to the identical antique testament verse, Zechariah
12:10.
Teaching sections of Revelation are quite just like the Gospel of John and
Johannine epistles. Despite the fact that a great deal of Revelation is
manifestly targeted on the prophetic visions of John, the book contains a few
expository sections (text that offers records or causes) as well. These
sections of Revelation bear an uncanny resemblance to the Gospel of John
and Johannine epistles. As an instance, the exhortation to “overcome” seems
often in Revelation (Rev. 2:7, 2:11, 2:17, 2:26, 3:5, 3:12, 3:21), as it does in
the Johannine epistles (1 John 2:thirteen–14, 4:four, 5:four–5).
The traditionally universal authorship of Revelation
Even though the writer of Revelation doesn’t without a doubt become aware
of himself as John the Apostle, this is the call related to the ebook from an
early date in the history of the church. As early as the second one century,
the church fathers were unanimous in attributing the e book to John. As an
instance, Justin Martyr, who wrote around one hundred fifty CE, and
Irenaeus, who wrote around one hundred eighty CE, each held that the
Apostle John turned into the author. However, that is no longer to mention
that everyone ancient traditions have been unanimous in naming John
because the writer. Within the early years of the church, some of the early
leaders held to the concept of apostolic authority — that is, that everyone
books of the Bible have been written through both an apostle and a near
best friend of an apostle. However, there were numerous books within the
New Testament that didn’t have this kind of clean hyperlink to an apostle,
such as Hebrews and James. for this reason, a few of the early church fathers
attributed Revelation to John the Elder (also known as John the Presbyter), an
difficult to understand discern who could’ve been an elder within the church
at Ephesus, in which the Apostle John spent the later years of his lifestyles.
but, even Dionysius, who rejected the traditional view of apostolic
authorship, nevertheless stated that the book become common amongst the
orthodox church as written by using “John, one of the apostles.” furthermore,
all through the lengthy process of canonization (the method through which
the early church recognized which books belonged in the Bible), the e-book
turned into universally regular into the New testament at a notably early
date. by way of the cease of the fourth century, all branches of Christianity
agreed that Revelation belonged in the Bible. But, they disagreed about the
way to interpret it. Even as some study it actually, others allegorized it —
that is, they interpreted the numbers and imagery as symbols for deeper non
secular truths. The ebook of Revelation has been the supply of tons
confusion and controversy at some stage in the centuries, even among Bible-
believing Christians. However, as we will see in the following chapter, the
fundamental message of the e-book is straightforward to recognize. As long
as you hold in thoughts the ancient context of the writer and his original
readers, you’ll be properly equipped to understand Revelation’s message.
Many human beings love fantasy tales populated with bizarre apparitions.
Others love a good thriller. And still, others love an adventure tale full of
action and conflict scenes. If you fall into one of these camps, you’re in luck.
The book of Revelation is all these and more.
However, Revelation is a challenging book. Those strange beasts and
creatures are symbols for individuals, nations, governments, and so forth.
The storyline of the book twists and turns in on itself, not following a straight,
chronological narrative. And the whole package is a prophetic vision that’s
related to what’s actually supposed to happen when the world comes to an
end, at least from a biblical perspective.
This chapter doesn’t attempt to explore the symbolism behind the events
that are chronicled during Revelation. It also doesn’t pore over the details of
those events, personalities, and issues (that’s what part III is all about). In
this chapter, we get you started in the right direction. We begin by painting
broad strokes of the structure and content of the final book of the Bible. As
we do so, we point you to parts of this book where you can find more details
on each specific subject.
A major task in reading Revelation is sorting out and understanding the
overall themes and messages while images — seals, trumpets, bowls,
beasts, witnesses, and so on — are ever coming at you. But if you take a
step back and get a solid understanding of the big picture, you can start to
dive into the details and make sense of how they all fit together. Although
Revelation contains a lot of puzzling symbolism and has many
interpretations (see chapter 4 for a discussion of these interpretations), the
book actually divides up rather well. At the most basic level, you can split
Revelation into five major parts, as illustrated in figure 1-1. We discuss each
of these parts in this section, so read on.
The first chapter of Revelation serves as a prologue or introduction to the
whole book. Its purpose is to provide a context to help you make sense of
the rest of the chapters (also see chapter 6). In the first several verses, you
discover that:
This is an unveiling of the plans of Jesus (from God) (1:1).
The author is John (1:4).
The audience is the seven churches of Asia (1:4).
It was written on the island of Patmos, a Mediterranean island belonging to
modern-day Greece (1:9).
Its purpose is to give readers a sneak peek of what’ll take place (1:1).
As Revelation 1:1 underscores, this book is Jesus’s revealing of God’s plans
for the world. In this opening section, John gives explicit details about how
his words came to appear in print: God gave the revelation to Jesus, who
communicated the message to John through an angel, who was sent for this
specific purpose. John wrote these series of visions as an extended letter,
which he then sent to the seven churches in Asia (Rev. 2–3).
Today’s readers are a secondary audience for this book because the original
readers passed John’s letter both to other churches and to their descendants.
Figure 1-2 shows the chain of communication.
People have always had an insatiable curiosity to know their destiny and
what’s going to happen in the “last days.” That’s at least part of the reason
the Left Behind series was popular and why new Nostradamus
documentaries show up almost every year. For many, the allure in reading
and understanding Revelation is, quite frankly, not altogether different from
the desire to peek into a fortuneteller’s crystal ball. Understanding how it all
ends can give you a sense of what your purpose is now.
Revelation can be tough going due to its structure and symbolism and the
various ways in which scholars interpret the book. You can easily become
discouraged and wonder why you should read Revelation, anyway. Here are
several reasons many people consider Revelation to be important reading:
It helps explain the biblical view of God and his relationship with humans.
Many people turn to Revelation looking for definitive answers about what will
happen. But Revelation is far more about grasping the nature of God and the
close relationship that exists between God and those who believe in him.
It gives readers a glimpse of heaven. The Bible offers few specifics on what
heaven will be like. The Old Testament says little. Jesus and Paul provide
more in the New Testament. As if saving the best for last, the final chapters
of Revelation offer a rare glimpse into the new heaven and new earth (see
chapter 14).
It provides a message of hope. It’s easy to be a bit freaked out by the gloom
and doom warnings of the book. But despite all the battles and judgments
depicted, Revelation is ultimately all about hope. It portrays, in vivid detail,
the biblical view of good winning over evil and suffering.
One of the keys to understanding Revelation is in 1:19. In this passage, Jesus
instructs John, “Write, therefore, what you have seen, what is now, and what
will take place later.” Scholars offer various assessments on how to interpret
this verse. However, the interpretation that seems to best fit the original
grammar of the passage as well as the structure of the book itself is a
threefold timing of events: past tense, present tense, and future tense. In
other words, Jesus tells John to write about:
The vision he has already seen (Rev. 1)
The current state of the seven churches (Rev. 2–3)
The events that will take place in the future (Rev. 1–22)
Letters to the seven churches of Asia (Rev. 2–3)
Revelation 2–3 details the individual letters that Jesus dictates for the seven
churches in Asia (see chapter 8). Each of these churches is in a different
spiritual state. For the faithful churches in Smyrna and Philadelphia, Jesus
gives only encouragement for their steadfast faith. For the churches in
Sardis, Ephesus, Pergamum, and Thyatira, he commends them for some
aspects of their faith but also rebukes them for specific areas of failure.
Finally, for the church in Laodicea, he offers no encouragement at all and
simply requires their repentance from a lukewarm, middle-of-the-road faith.
Judgments and vignettes (Rev. 4–20)
The main plot of Revelation 4–20 is a series of progressively severe
judgments that are unveiled through seven seals, seven trumpets, and seven
bowls. These judgments climax with the return of Jesus, the ensuing battle of
Armageddon, the Millennium, and the final Judgment (see Chapters 9–14).
As you read Revelation 4–20, don’t expect a single, linear storyline. The
narrative consists of a sequence of vignettes that make up a secondary
plotline. These scenes help fill in the details of the main story, but they’re
not necessarily tied to the judgments that surround them. As such,
commentators sometimes refer to these vignettes as parentheses,
interludes, or insets.
The secondary storylines: Vignettes
Interrupting the primary narrative of Revelation is a series of vignettes that
help shape a secondary storyline. Some of these interludes may be related
to the events that immediately surround them, while others appear not to
have any chronological relationship at all to the main story. These vignettes
include the following:
Seals are placed on the foreheads of 144,000 believers from the 12 tribes of
Israel (Rev. 7:1–8).
A “great multitude” is delivered from the great Tribulation (Rev. 7:9–17).
John encounters an angel and eats a little scroll (Rev. 10).
Two witnesses prophesy for 3.5 years and are then martyred (Rev. 11:3–12).
A woman and a dragon (Satan) appear, and a war in heaven occurs (Rev.
12).
A beast out of the sea and a beast out of the earth arrive (Rev. 13).
Jesus appears with 144,000 believers on Mount Zion (Rev. 14:1–5).
Three angels proclaim messages of repentance and warning (Rev. 14:6–13).
The harvest of the earth separates the believers from nonbelievers (Rev.
14:11–20).
The saga of the great prostitute on the beast (Babylon) and her eventual fall
unfolds (Rev. 17:1–19:3).
New beginnings (Rev. 21–22:6)
The last you hear of Satan and nonbelievers is at the end of Revelation 20,
when they’re thrown into the lake of fire. Revelation 21, however, tells the
flip side: the future that reportedly awaits those who believe in Jesus. It tells
of the “new heaven and new earth” that God will create as the permanent
home for his children. But this new world is more than an improved version
of their current environment. It’s a perfect world where God will dwell
alongside humans (Rev. 21:3–5).
Epilogue (Rev. 22:7–21)
John closes out Revelation with an epilogue that marks the end of the
prophecy (see chapter 15). The central chorus in this final phase of the book
is Jesus’s reiterating three times, “Behold, I am coming quickly!” (Rev. 22:7,
22:12, 22:20). Each of these signals precedes a call:
Obedience: A call to “keep the words contained in this book” (22:7)
Action: A call to act because he will “reward to each according to what he
has done” (22:12)
Faith: A call to believe Jesus when he says he is coming and to be able to
testify to that claim to the rest of the world (22:20)
Tracking the book’s Timeline
One of the biggest issues most people have with the book of Revelation is
that they expect a traditional, linear model of storytelling. A linear story
begins at a specific point in time and then uses progressive scenes to move
the characters to some kind of destination. Other stories begin with the
characters looking back at something, tell what happened in the form of a
flashback, and return to the present. For the vast majority of movies out of
Hollywood, these two tried-and-true formulas are almost always used, often
because they’re a natural way to tell a story and are easy for audiences to
understand.
However, once in a while, a story comes along that — like the book of
Revelation — doesn’t fit into this storytelling model. Snow Falling on Cedars
and The English Patient are two prime examples. Both have multiple
storylines with flashback sequences involving different characters. If you
don’t want a mental exercise, stories like these can be quite frustrating. But
if you persevere and stick with them, you can find the expanded texture
rewarding, adding to the overall experience.
As you read through Revelation, prepare yourself: The book of Revelation
may start out linear for several chapters, but various vignettes or interludes
interrupt the main story. When you equip yourself for that reality, you’ll be in
a far better position to deal with the timing of events.
As you consider how the various pieces of the book fit together, keep in mind
the following themes: transition terms and parallel events.
And Then Some: Deciphering Transition Terms
Revelation is plagued by scores of transition phrases that indicate timing.
The primary examples include “then I saw,” “and I saw,” “after this,” and
“after these things.” Strictly speaking, these transitions may not always
translate to the order of prophetic events. For example, you may find 53
instances of the phrase then in the book. Although some of them imply a
connection between one event and the next, others reflect the author’s
method of relaying his story, interweaving the content of his visions with his
own experiences. In other words, the narrative has two layers:
John’s experience of having a vision while on Patmos
The content of the visions — horsemen ride, beasts arise, and angels fight,
and so on
With this kind of setup, a transition may apply to the outer layer (the order of
John’s visions) or to the order of prophetic events themselves. For example,
imagine I were to tell you, “I saw the season finale of 24. Then I saw reruns
of the rest of the episodes over the summer.” In this example, the then
relates entirely to the timing in which I saw the episodes. It says nothing
about the logical order of episodes for the series.
Although some transitions may be open to interpretation, you shouldn’t just
dismiss all transitions, either. Especially, the terms “after this” and “after
these things” are noteworthy. Combined, these terms appear just six times
and don’t always seem to relate to the order in which John received the
visions. For example, its usage in Revelation 4:1, 15:5, 18:1, and 19:1 seems
to simply imply a logical sequence of events. However, its usage in 7:1
(which introduces the 144,000 believers of Israel) appears more of a writing
device posed to answer the question raised at the end of chapter 6: Who can
withstand the wrath of God? (6:17). John uses the term again in 7:9; in this
context, the phrase seems to imply the order in which he received the
visions rather than a sequential flow of events.
Parallelism: Watching Things Go Down at the Same Time
Revelation has a flow of events, but how each section fits into the timeline
isn’t always apparent. Though commentators disagree on the details, most
agree that at least some of the pieces of the book parallel each other.
Perhaps the most obvious example is Revelation 12’s story of the woman in
the wilderness, which is told in two ways in different places within the
chapter (12:6 and 12:13–17). A second example, though more contested, is
the 3.5-year period mentioned several times throughout the book (11:3,
12:6, 12:14, and 13:5). Some hold that these references imply that the
associated sections parallel each other.
Many futurists (who believe Revelation describes actual events that are
going to happen) downplay parallelism. They think that, by and large, the
book progresses in a linear fashion from beginning to end, except for the
vignettes (see the earlier “Judgments and vignettes” section). Other futurists
view Revelation 1–11 and 12–19 as parallel accounts of the great Tribulation.
Offering a different take, those who embrace a symbolic interpretation of the
prophecy (again, see chapter 4) see as many as seven parallel sections in
the book.
The issue of parallelism is also a key factor in the interpretation of the
Millennium, which appears in Revelation 20:
Premillennialists maintain that all the events from Revelation 1–19 will occur
before the Millennium.
Amillennialists see the discussion of the Millennium as a parallel section that
describes the entire church age; this church age goes from before Revelation
1:1 even begins up until the Second Coming of Jesus in Revelation 19.
Putting the stage: The Apostle John and the sector in which He Lived
Books — possibly with the exceptions of dictionaries and academic manuals
for gas grills — regularly reflect the character of the writer. What’s inside a
book has a lot to do with who the writer is, the times in which he lives, the
region wherein he lives, and the reviews which have fashioned his life. So
generally, the greater you understand of the author’s story, the extra the
know-how and appreciation you have got for the book itself. The books of the
Bible are not any exception. Although Christians trust the Bible to be the
phrase of God, maximum nonetheless understand that each ebook of the
Bible retains the personality, writing fashion, and experiences of the man or
woman author. Take the Gospel of Luke for instance. You don’t must
understand something about the author to get something out of studying
Luke’s account of Jesus. However, when you find out Luke became a gentile
(non-Jew) and changed into knowledgeable as a medical doctor, you get a
brand new appreciation for his Greek-orientated attitude and his keen
attention to element. On this chapter, you get to recognise John, the loo
most scholars believe is the writer of Revelation, as well as explore the arena
wherein he lived. You benefit insight into the person himself, in addition to
recognize his motives for writing the ebook. You furthermore mght discover
his unique textured style of writing for this final ebook of the New Testament.
Identity-ing John Doe, writer of Revelation
Whilst you walk into your nearby book shop and test the bestsellers display,
you notice the writer’s name unfold out in large letters on every book. The
extra a success the writer is, the larger the font. In fact, for awesome-
promoting authors like John Grisham and Tom Clancy, their names seem so
huge which you often have to search for the name. however irrespective of
whether or not you’re dealing with a bestselling creator or a primary-time
author, you may generally pick up a e book and discover a biography telling
you at the least a snippet of the writer’s credentials. Even if the author is the
usage of a pseudonym (writing under an assumed call), a person someplace
knows the author’s real identity — in spite of everything, the publisher
wishes to know in which to send the royalty tests! Sadly, the books of the
Bible were written before there had been even printing presses, not to
mention huge publishing corporations. Frankly, we wish the biblical authors
would’ve been as outspoken about biographical details as they had been in
spreading their messages. It’d make our lives far less difficult through
putting off any debate approximately who precisely wrote a specific e book.
generally, on the time of the writing, everyone knew who the author of a e
book changed into, whether the author’s call turned into attached to it or
not. In truth, a lot of the books within the New testomony part of the Bible
have been written as letters; whilst you write a letter to a chum, do you
upload an in depth biographical note on the cease? Of path now not! The
recipient is aware of who the letter is from even if you merely log off along
with your initials. The authors of the books of the Bible had greater crucial
matters on their minds than identifying themselves — namely, correctly
speaking what was believed to be the phrase of God. Downplaying their
position out of genuine humility, the biblical authors occasionally blanketed
their names and once in a while did not. The writer of Revelation identifies
himself four instances (Rev. 1:1, 1:4, 1:9, and 22:8) via simply regarding
himself as John. No last name. No identify. No biographical information.
Because John become a popular call of the day, he could be any antique
John. The general consensus of the church due to the fact the second one
century has been that the writer is the Apostle John. Yes, this is the loo. He
and his brother James had been of the authentic 12 disciples of Jesus, and
John changed into considered as Jesus’s “quality buddy.” He’s the author of
the Gospel of John and the 3 letters bearing his call (known as the Johannine
epistles). In fact, the list of church fathers who credit the Apostle John as the
writer of Revelation reads as a virtual who’s who of the early church, such as
Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Hippolytus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, and
Origen.
Doubting the Apostle John’s authorship
No longer has anybody via the centuries agreed that the Apostle John is the
writer. Dionysius, who become the pope of the influential Alexandrian church
in the mid-third century, argued that the author become surely a difficult to
understand first century church chief named John the Presbyter. He primarily
based his argument on inner evidence, or proof located within the text itself,
that he believed pointed to a special creator. Dionysius claimed that the
vocabulary and fashion of the ebook have been so exceptional from the
Gospel of John and the Johannine epistles that it couldn’t had been written by
way of the identical author. In line with Dionysius, there are numerous
discrepancies, together with the subsequent:
The author of Revelation identifies himself with the aid of call. Although the
writer of Revelation names himself 4 times (Rev. 1:1, 1:4, 1:9, 22:8), the
Apostle John usually avoids doing so in his other writings. Inside the Gospel
of John, he identifies himself simplest because the “disciple whom Jesus
cherished” (John 13:23, 21:7, 21:20), and in two of his three epistles, he calls
himself the “elder” (2 John 1:1; 3 John 1:1).
Revelation is written in a sloppier fashion of Greek than the alternative works
of the Apostle John. Truly, the writer of Revelation is tremendously informed
in the vintage testament books, likely understanding both the original
Hebrew texts and the Greek-translated Septuagint (an historic Greek model
of the Hebrew Scriptures). However his writing competencies aren’t usually
as sharp as his rationalization of Scripture. Although John’s Gospel and
epistles are written in subtle, polished Greek, Revelation is scribed in a
Semitic Greek style that a few pupils argue is slipshod in contrast. In
different words, if you have been to say the Apostle John’s other writings
were composed like a John Grisham novel, then Revelation appears greater
in the fashion of a rapidly cobbled collectively time period paper.
The vocabulary and writing style (the writer’s voice) of the acknowledged
Johannine writings assessment with Revelation. Most authors fall into similar
writing styles. If you have favorite authors, you may frequently parent their
tone and voice, although the topics they’re writing about range. The
sentence structure, vocabulary, rhythm of the paragraphs, and so on have a
tendency to be comparable from article to article and ebook to book. The
Apostle John’s Gospel and epistles have this commonplace experience to
them. For instance, the Gospel of John starts with, “inside the beginning
become the word” (John 1:1), and 1 John starts with a comparable tone: “We
declare to you what changed into from the beginning” (1 John 1:1). This form
of similarity doesn’t carry over to Revelation.
Protecting the Apostle John as writer
As some modern scholars have rejected the Apostle John as creator of
Revelation (see the preceding section), different cutting-edge students have
vigorously defended the traditional view of apostolic authorship. As we
explain in this segment, proponents of Johannine authorship increase several
inner and outside problems (evidence out of doors of the e book itself) to
returned their declare.
The textual content: Addressing Dionysius’s challenges
Right here’s how students have answered to Dionysius’s claims that the
Johannine epistles and Gospel fluctuate too much from Revelation to have
the equal author:
John can also have had a cause in particularly naming himself in Revelation.
Though the Apostle John never identifies himself via name in his other books,
the fact that he does so in Revelation doesn’t always take away him as its
writer. In reality, there are affordable causes for his doing so. Specially,
understand that Revelation is a very special form of e-book from the other
New Testament books. Authority is especially vital for prophetic writing, so
he may additionally have felt obligated to call himself to dispose of any
query approximately the ebook’s credibility.
John doesn’t sense pressured to qualify himself. Whilst the writer does give
his name, he doesn’t attempt to supply himself a identify. He’s clearly John.
Given the Apostle John’s preeminent function within the early church, he
might’ve been capable of surely drop his name and offer no in addition
clarification.
John consistently stresses eyewitness testimony. In his Gospel and epistles,
the Apostle John stresses his eyewitness testimony. Revelation contains over
this theme, together with in Revelation 1:1–2 (“He made it recognized by
using sending his angel to his servant John, who testified to the phrase of
God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he noticed”) and in
Revelation 22:8 (“I, John, am the one who heard and noticed these things
[. . .]”). Evaluate this to a comparable emphasis within the Gospel of John
(John 19:35, 21:24).
Details are consistent with what scholars know of the Apostle John’s ministry.
The writer speaks of the church buildings in western Asia Minor in a way that
virtually demonstrates that he had a dating with them earlier than the
writing and become informed of its geography. Credible secondcentury
historic facts nation that the Apostle John lived in Ephesus from 70–a
hundred CE. Whilst there, he had a thriving ministry that unfold during the
area. Students normally believe that he wrote his three epistles whilst he
lived there, sometime between 80 and 100 CE.
The texts share a few common phrases and terms. In spite of some stylistic
variations among Revelation and the Gospel of John and John’s epistles,
many commonplace phrases and phrases are in reality scattered amongst all
these books. The Gospel of John refers to Jesus as trademarks (“phrase”) in
John 1:1. The simplest other reference to Jesus as emblems in all the Bible is
in Revelation 19:13. similarly, simplest John 1:29 and Revelation five:6 refer
to Jesus as a “Lamb.” furthermore, both the Gospel of John (19:37) and
Revelation (1:7) talk to the identical antique testament verse, Zechariah
12:10.
Teaching sections of Revelation are quite just like the Gospel of John and
Johannine epistles. Despite the fact that a great deal of Revelation is
manifestly targeted on the prophetic visions of John, the book contains a few
expository sections (text that offers records or causes) as well. These
sections of Revelation bear an uncanny resemblance to the Gospel of John
and Johannine epistles. As an instance, the exhortation to “overcome” seems
often in Revelation (Rev. 2:7, 2:11, 2:17, 2:26, 3:5, 3:12, 3:21), as it does in
the Johannine epistles (1 John 2:thirteen–14, 4:four, 5:four–5).
The traditionally universal authorship of Revelation
Even though the writer of Revelation doesn’t without a doubt become aware
of himself as John the Apostle, this is the call related to the ebook from an
early date in the history of the church. As early as the second one century,
the church fathers were unanimous in attributing the e book to John. As an
instance, Justin Martyr, who wrote around one hundred fifty CE, and
Irenaeus, who wrote around one hundred eighty CE, each held that the
Apostle John turned into the author. However, that is no longer to mention
that everyone ancient traditions have been unanimous in naming John
because the writer. Within the early years of the church, some of the early
leaders held to the concept of apostolic authority — that is, that everyone
books of the Bible have been written through both an apostle and a near
best friend of an apostle. However, there were numerous books within the
New Testament that didn’t have this kind of clean hyperlink to an apostle,
such as Hebrews and James. for this reason, a few of the early church fathers
attributed Revelation to John the Elder (also known as John the Presbyter), an
difficult to understand discern who could’ve been an elder within the church
at Ephesus, in which the Apostle John spent the later years of his lifestyles.
but, even Dionysius, who rejected the traditional view of apostolic
authorship, nevertheless stated that the book become common amongst the
orthodox church as written by using “John, one of the apostles.” furthermore,
all through the lengthy process of canonization (the method through which
the early church recognized which books belonged in the Bible), the e-book
turned into universally regular into the New testament at a notably early
date. by way of the cease of the fourth century, all branches of Christianity
agreed that Revelation belonged in the Bible. But, they disagreed about the
way to interpret it. Even as some study it actually, others allegorized it —
that is, they interpreted the numbers and imagery as symbols for deeper non
secular truths. The ebook of Revelation has been the supply of tons
confusion and controversy at some stage in the centuries, even among Bible-
believing Christians. However, as we will see in the following chapter, the
fundamental message of the e-book is straightforward to recognize. As long
as you hold in thoughts the ancient context of the writer and his original
readers, you’ll be properly equipped to understand Revelation’s message.
