When the announcement is made that there is going to be a study of the book of The Revelation of Jesus Christ, reactions can be quite varied. Some people become genuinely excited and eager to study. They want to look at the present political/historical context and identify the players named in the Book of the Revelation. They want to know what is going to happen and, if possible, when. Others frown and are quite negative toward the idea of studying this portion of Scripture. Their reasoning is: this book is about events sometime yet in the future or possibly about events that have already occurred in the past. Since it's over or since we cannot know when it will be, why worry about it. Others are negative because they believe one cannot be sure of any interpretation since, as they believe, this book is so symbolic. Between these two extremes are many other views as well. I am not sure what your reaction to this study or what your expectations for it might be. Therefore, we begin with a word of introduction about the profitability and prophetabity (Yes, I made this word up!) of this study and some presuppositions of the author.
Revelation, a Profitable Book to Study
The book of Revelation is a PROFITABLE book to study. It is part of Scripture, and it is therefore profitable. 2 Timothy 3:16-17 states:
All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.
Studying the Scriptures is like mining. Some portions of the Scripture are very easy to mine. The mother lode runs close to the surface and is easily accessible. You can casually walk along the surface and pick up gold nuggets and precious gems. Other portions of Scripture take much more work. The good stuff is there, but you have to dig deep for it. If you were to ask me where the Book of the Revelation fits in this analogy, I would say there is a tremendous amount of wealth lying about on the surface to be picked up and much more to be found by digging into it. But God's promise is that it is profitable.
The book itself tells us this. It starts and ends with a special promise. Revelation 1:3 and 22:7:
1:3 Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of the prophecy, and heed the things which are written in it; for the time is near.
22:7 And behold, I am coming quickly. Blessed is he who heeds the words of the prophecy of this book.
Now it is very, very important to take notice that this does not say that you will be blessed because you study or read the Book of Revelation. Read these verses again. Listen carefully to them. What does the text say? Blessed are those who READ and HEED the words of this prophecy. Studying or reading it is not enough. It is only step one, to be sure. You have to do more! You have to put into practice what it teaches. Then, and only then, are you blessed.
If you are looking forward to this study primarily because you want to know what is going to happen in the future, if you want to be able to identify (if that is at all possible!) the players, then this study will not be as profitable for you as it could be. I suggest you need to set your goals a bit higher. The question is not what the antichrist, or the false prophet, or Israel, or anyone else is going to do in the days to come, but what you are going to do right now in the days in which you are living! Knowledge of future events may be interesting, but obedience to the Word brings blessing! Even though most of his book is about prophecy, things yet to take place, there is application in it that is relevant right now, right where we are living! That is what the Lord wants you and me to see and understand and put into practice.
Revelation, a Prophetable Book to Study
It is a PROFITABLE book to study; it is also a PROPHETABLE book to study; that is, it is prophetic. Verse 3 of chapter 1 calls this book prophecy, as does verse 7 of the last chapter. There are some who will now reply, "Ah, but the word prophecy means the forth-telling of God's Word, not necessarily the foretelling of events to take place." That is certainly true! Yet, it is also true that the declaration of future events is a characteristic of prophetic literature. And this is prophetic literature. The first verse of the book of the Revelation itself declares it concerns things that must soon take place. These things, which were future in the day in which John penned this book, still are yet to take place.
Before you read this study, it is well that you understand the presuppositions of the author. These are some things that I accept as true and are a foundation for what is taught in this work.
Revelation, The presuppositions of the Author
There is a God - He is the Creator of our universe, world and life.
Is there a God, or isn't there? Atheists, claiming to be scientific, insist that the evidence proves there is no god. Believers, on the other hand, declare that the evidence demonstrates that there is one. Who is right? In a strict sense, neither camp. The existence or nonexistence of God is not something that can be strictly proven deductively. It is an assumption or postulate with which one starts.
Everyone starts with certain assumptions in their lives. This is true even in math or sciences. To prove a thing deductively, you must have a starting place, something that you know to be true or assume to be true. What one begins with are axioms and postulates. These are things one assumes without proof. Even inductive science rests heavily upon a foundation of assumed truth. The issue of whether or not there is a God, who is the creator of our universe, world and life, is one such assumption regardless of what is claimed by evolutionists and atheists.
If you believe there is no God, then all there is, our world and universe, life itself, is a simple product of time and chance. You accept this not because the evidence points to this conclusion; you accept this as a beginning postulate. If you believe there is a God, you do so as an assumption and work from there.
One's postulates, however, may be weighed and evaluated in the light of the data we observe in life. While one cannot PROVE these postulates true or false, it is possible to determine if they are LIKELY or REASONABLE. For example, in math, we assume that one real number added to a second real number is equal in value to the second real number added to the first, the Commutative Property: a + b = b + a. We cannot prove that, but it seems reasonable, and all experience has confirmed that it is likely true.
A person has essentially two choices, possibly three. You can assume there is no God, or you can assume there is one. Therefore, you are an atheist, a person who believes there is no God, or a theist, a person who believes there is a God. Realize that you choose to believe one of these, not because the evidence indicates one or the other is true, but you choose it as a fundamental axiom or postulate in your life. A third possible choice might be to assume that there might be a God but that you do not know for certain. In this case, you would be an agnostic, a person who does not know if there is a God or not. However, most people who claim to be agnostics indicate by their lives that deep down, they either believe there is a God, or they believe that there is no God. Few people are true agnostics.
While atheists often take great pride in being more "scientific" than theists, they blindly fail to realize that their position is no more or less scientific than the theist or the agnostic. Both have simply made some basic unproven assumptions in life.
While it cannot be proven that the existence of God is true, it is a more reasonable view than the other views. The data found in our physical world is more consistent with the theistic view than any other view. I have a grapefruit-size piece of obsidian that my oldest son found in the Kansas River while we were out walking on a sandbar one day. I believe that Indians who used it for trade brought it down here to Kansas. I cannot prove that; I assume it to be true. But it is much more reasonable to assume that than to assume it just occurred naturally or was washed down the river from somewhere upstream. The fact that there are few igneous deposits in Kansas from which this may have washed down, the fact that Indians historically were known to have met and traded not far upstream from where it was found, and that obsidian was an object of barter make it more reasonable to assume that is how it ended up here than that it naturally just occurred.
When one looks at all the data to be found in our natural world, it is much more reasonable to assume that it was created and ordered by an intelligent being who exists apart from our universe than to assume that it all occurred by chance. When one looks at all the data from geology, it is more reasonable to assume that the formations and fossils were formed by a worldwide cataclysmic flood than through the slow process of evolution.
Assuming that there is a creator is more reasonable than assuming mankind is simply the product of time and chance. Apart from God, right and wrong, moral and immoral, do not exist. They are derived from Him. If evolution driven by the survival of the fittest and strongest is the mechanism by which we are here, then why not kill off the old, the weak and infirm, the diseased and genetically deficient and spur evolution onward? Who can say this is not the "right" thing to do? No one could reasonably argue that it was wrong or immoral if the assumption that there is no God is true.
Our Creator has communicated to us in a written record - the Bible.
If there is a God, it reasonably follows that He would communicate to us. It is reasonable to believe that if we were created and placed here on earth, the Creator would have communicated to us in some way. To believe that He created and then abandoned His creation to the vagaries of time and chance, never to communicate with us, would mean that the God whose existence we postulate has little interest or purpose for what He has brought about. It would make Him be a most terrible and heartless tyrant to thus place us here and then abandon us to our own selfish and heartless nature.
Yet if we examine the world he has created to be our home, it seems clear that not only is He a powerful God, but one who is characterized by beauty and grace. He has provided a wonderful and marvelous home for humankind. What we do with it is another issue entirely. Therefore, it seems reasonable that this God, powerful, good and gracious, would have communicated to us.
The most reliable way to communicate would be through a written/recorded message. While this creator could have communicated in any number of ways and no doubt did, it seems likely that He would communicate in a written form. This is reasonable since written communication is least likely to be corrupted over time. The transmission of a verbal message from one person to the next depends heavily upon the memories of those involved. Such a message is soon altered, as can be seen in the children's game gossip. We believe that the Bible is this written communication from God.
The way we should interpret the Bible is by a normal literal method.
The question often is raised, how can we know what the Bible means when there are so many different ways to take it? The simple and most logical answer is that we should simply take it at face value, that is, in a literal method of interpretation. This is the normal way we communicate in daily life. If someone shouted, "Duck!" We would not stop to consider all the symbolic and allegorical meanings involved in this short verb. We would take it at face value and duck! (Or possibly, if the word was a noun rather than a verb, look around for waterfowl!) In everyday conversation, we interpret what people say in a normal literal way. We can reasonably expect that if God communicated to us in a written form, He would usually intend us to understand what He said in a normal literal way.
It is the least subjective and most objective way to proceed. The more symbolically one interprets a passage, the more it is open to a person's own ideas and views. Take, for example, the statement, "I saw a black cat cross my path." If we take that statement in its usual literal sense, it means simply that the speaker visually perceived a small mammal of the feline family, black in coloration, move across the route the speaker was traveling. Almost anyone would understand that if they take the normal literal understanding. It can mean little else. If, however, we were not to take it at its face value but insist that the speaker was speaking figuratively, the number of possible meanings increases directly with the number of people who attempt to interpret it. Does it mean an evil presence has entered the speaker's awareness? Does the speaker foresee bad luck? Does it mean that a beautiful raven-haired girl is about to come into the speaker's life? Who knows when we begin to assign symbolic meanings what this might mean. A literal interpretation is usually the best and least open to subjectivity?
This method does not ignore the normal use of figurative language. Figures of speech are normal and common. They are recognized grammatical and literary forms. A normal literal approach recognizes these legitimate figures as they were ordinarily used by the people who wrote them and the people to whom they were written.
This approach also recognizes the historical context in which the statements were made. An important question anyone must ask when interpreting a passage of Scripture is, "What did this mean to those to whom it was written?" A figure of speech, a phrase used in that day, might have had a different meaning than the same phrase used today.
The final authority of what is right/wrong, true/false, real/unreal is God's Word.
If there is a God, He, not we, is the final authority. If God speaks directly to an issue, that is that. Ultimately our determination of what is right or wrong derives from Him. He is the source and definition of what is moral and what is not. Indeed, if there is no God, then, in the final analysis, there is no right or wrong. They are meaningless concepts in a universe governed by random chance.
Without a God to define good and bad, moral and immoral, they become cultural concepts subject to the whims and fickleness of culture. They depend only upon one's opinion, and who is to say that your opinion is better than mine, or the majority opinion is better than the minority.
If survival of the fittest and strongest has been the guiding principle of evolution in the development of life on our planet as they so claim who deny the existence of God, then it would only be natural and "right" for those who are strong to seize power and eliminate the weak and feeble. Who then could claim that would be wrong?
But there is a God. And because there is a God, we know that the qualities of love, kindness, mercy and such are good and right. He defines them. Our society does not define morality; God does. When He speaks, it is authoritative!
We must not, however, confuse our traditions and opinions with God's word. All too often, we have taken our own ideas, values and traditions and have elevated them, declaring them to be God's will. For example, today, most Christians in the Western World at least firmly believe that a democratic form of government is Christian, that it is God's will. The truth of the matter is that God has not declared one form of government to be Christian and another pagan. God has not spoken to this issue. While it may be the best form of government based on a specific set of human criteria, it has not been declared to be God's will by the Bible. Much, if not most, of what believers do today is determined not by God's Word but by our traditions. While these may be good and honorable traditions (or sometimes not so good and honorable), they are just traditions and not God's Word. God's Word alone is authoritative.
In many areas, God does not speak. In many areas, what He has declared may not be clear in every instance. He does not address every issue we face in life. There are many questions that we may ask to which God has not given us answers.
We, in this life, will never fully understand this Book. Although we are to interpret the Word of God in a normal literal way, this does not mean we will fully understand this divine book in our lifetime here on earth. There are passages that are enigmatic. There are those which raise more questions than they answer. Yet the more we study it, the more we will come to comprehend it, for our God gave it to us, intending that we come to know and understand.
The reader should also know from the outset that this writer approaches the Book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ with a futurist view believing that the preponderance of the prophecies is still in the future.The reader should also know from the outset that this writer approaches the Book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ with a futurist view believing that the preponderance of the prophecies is still in the future.