READING REVELATION, MEANINGFULLY

What kind of book is Revelation? The fancy name for Revelation is the Apocalypse, a Greek derived word meaning ‘uncovering’ or ‘unveiling or literally ‘revelation’ in other words ‘not covering up’. “a famous book in which St. John concealed all that he knew. The revealing is done by commentators who know nothing.” (Ambrose Bierce) Revelation commentaries are often like a black hole (in astronomy) they are so dense that no light can escape from them.

The book of Revelation is literally that, a revelation of things hidden, an uncovering of the real state of the State in John’s day and an uncovering of the real state of the Churches in John’s day. The book of Revelation belongs to a body of Jewish literature that brings a comforting message from God to a people in crisis through weird symbols conveyed by an angel or angels to a human representative.

The central message is always “despite what appears, God is the ruler yet. The powers that be will not always be.” The author is an Apostle of Jesus called John (Rev. 1:1, 9). The addressees were the seven churches in Asia Minor [modern Turkey] and this was in the 1st century of this era.

The situation in life of the addressees - undergoing some kind of persecution   Patience is a Greek word that means to ‘hold up under pressure’, it is ‘endurance or active resistance’.   “ for the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ” means ‘on account of’ or ‘as a consequence of’ the word of God…

The word ‘testimony’ means a declaration of truth regardless of cost. The Greek word is marturia from which we get the English word martyr. So ‘the testimony of Jesus’ meant “the fearless declaration of truth from and about Jesus”. The compound theme of suffering and martyrdom is clear in Revelation (12:17; 13:7; 17:6; 20:4)

The book of Revelation is a record of auditions (things heard) and visions (things seen) designed to give sight to the blind and vision to the sighted. Book’s summary Current and future realities (v.19)   The book then is both prophecy and commentary

Sight vs. Vision ( v.20) sight is picking up visual stimuli. Vision is discerning what is beneath what appears and perceiving what ought to be as God would have it. In 5:8 Sight picks up a band of musicians with golden bowls filled with incense. Vision says, these are the prayers of the saints.

Rev. 17:3-12 The sight of this woman, gaudily attired, sitting on a scarlet beast with 7 heads and 10 horns and drunk with the blood of God’s people astonished John (v.6). The interpreting angel at once intervenes to provide vision or revelation on this strange sight before John’s eyes (vv. 7-12)

The woman is clarified in as Rome “that great city which rules over the kings of the earth.” V. 9 further points to Rome in the clarifying statement “The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sits.” Rome was traditionally seen as built on seven hills

Features of Revelation 1. Symbolism (one thing standing for or representing something else)   Revelation is highly symbolic (non- literal) in language and so you cannot approach the book with a literalistic mindset otherwise you will misread and misunderstand the whole book.

Things that appeared to John, as it were, encoded (veiled), are at times decoded (unveiled) by the formula “this [visual symbol] represents or is this [reality].” Almost nothing is really what it appears to be. 2. Hebraism   It is as if the writer is thinking in Hebrew though writing in Greek.

There is no direct quotation from the Old Testament but numerous allusions appear. Hebrew-derived words get special mention in 9.11 and In 12:9.), ‘devil’ is Greek-based whereas ‘Satan’ is Hebrew-based. The Hebraic nature of Revelation will assist greatly concerning the identity of the beast in Rev. 13.

3. Soonism (a coined word) Now soonism as a feature of Revelation clashes with the distant futurism approach that is so popular in end-times circles in churches today. The prophesied events, John says “must shortly take place” (1:1; 2:16; 3:11; 22:6), “the time is near” (1:3; 22.10). Let us pause to absorb these passages.

Writing prophetically in the 1st century about what would be, John used soonism, now we read the book through the eyes of distant futurism. As Kenneth Gentry points out, John uses soonism “in both his opening and closing comments…in his introduction and his conclusion [1:1; 22:6; 1:3; 22:10]…before and after the difficult visions. They are not in the symbolic sections, where one might wonder if they require special interpretive rules. Rather, they are in the clear straightforward, didactic portions of Revelation.” (The Book of Revelation Made Easy, 2008, p.18).

Kenneth Gentry,The Book of Revelation Made Easy, 2008 Need a copy? Google American Vision Press   If John intended to comfort his 1st century audience with his book then nothing in the book could have exclusive reference to the modern world unless the book clearly mentions a distant future cue like that found in Dan. 12:4

Any reading of Revelation that could not have made sense to the primary 1st century audience must be a misreading of the text.