tom@dvnspc1.dev.unisys.com (Tom Albrecht) (10/07/90)
Recent comments on the events of the Middle East as an unfolding of biblical prophecy rekindled my thinking on the subject, especially the Book of Revelation. Since many churches and many teachers believe the Book of Revelation is a description of events yet to come, I thought I'd offer my thoughts on the subject. Let me warn you that I do not believe that direct reference to any of the events currently happening in the Middle East are found on the pages of prophetic Scripture. I'm not going to go through the book verse by verse, or even image by image. That would take forever. I will offer some highlights to substantiate my understanding of the place of Revelation in prophetic scripture. Maybe this will provoke some discussion. I should have entitled this article "Reading Revelation Victoriously," because that's what Revelation's all about. Just so we get the context of the book, here's vv. 1:1-3: THE REVELATION OF JESUS CHRIST, which God gave unto him, to show to his servants things which MUST SHORTLY COME TO PASS; and he sent and SIGNIFIED IT by his angel unto his servant John: Who bare record of the word of God, and of the testimony of Jesus Christ, and of all things that he saw. BLESSED IS HE THAT READETH, and THEY THAT HEAR the words of this prophecy, AND KEEP those things which are written therein: for THE TIME IS AT HAND. Unless we keep the phrases "shortly come to pass" and "the time is at hand" in mind as we read, it is very possible to go far afield in our understanding. There are basically four schools of thought as to how we should approach Revelation as far as interpretation of the symbols found there. 1) The Preterist - believes that the symbols of Revelation are a foretelling of things which occurred mostly during the 1st century of the Christian Church. 2) The Futurist - believes that Revelation is about events at the end of time, especially events after the "rapture" of the Church. 3) The Historicist - believes that Revelation is symbolic of the entire course of Church history from the 1st century to the end of time. 4) The Idealist - believes that Revelation is intended to describe purely spiritual, as opposed to physical events in the life of the Christian and the Church. I should point out that these are not hard divisions. Some historicists may also be idealists in their approach to certain passages of Revelation. Likewise many futurists see parts of the book as a historicist would, e.g., the seven letters are often described as symbolic of the various "stages" of church history. I happen to subscribe to the preterist view of Revelation. I believe that it describes events that, from the vantage point of St. John, would "shortly come to pass." (Rev. 1:1, cf. Rev. 1:3; 22:10,12) In particular, I believe it describes in symbolic fashion those events surrounding the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple in AD70. You might note that unlike the prophecy of Daniel, John is told NOT to seal up the prophecy of this book, for the time is at hand (Rev. 22:10; cf. Daniel 12:9). St. John builds on the prophetic and apocalyptic literature of the Old Testament as he presents his vision of coming events. In order to understand Revelation, one must have a handle on Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Daniel, Zechariah and the rest of the prophets. The way he does this is interesting. St. John is given access to the throne room of the Most High God and allowed to see "reality." He and the rest of Christ's church have been experiencing persecution at the hand of the Jews and the Romans. Revelation was intended to bring comfort to these particular Christians. They had seen and felt the effect first hand of Satan's attacks on the body of Christ. In the letter from Jesus to the church at Ephesus we read, "I know your works, and tribulation, and poverty ... and I know the blasphemy of those which call themselves Jews, but are not, but are of the synagogue of Satan. Fear none of those things which you will suffer, behold, the devil will cast some of you in prison, and you will be tried, and you will have tribulation for 10 days." (2:10) But Jesus calls them to be overcomers, "I will give you a crown of life," and to persevere. He promises them tremendous reward if they overcome (2:7,11,17,26; 3:5, etc.). As a result of gaining access to the throne room of God (4:6) St. John sees a wondrous sight; a worship service the likes of which he has never before experienced. Before the throne of the Most High are the four living creatures which represent all of God's creation, and the 24 elders, who represent the elect people of God. Twelve is the number in Revelation of the Church, and 24 can be broken into 2 groups of 12 each. One group of 12 stands for the old covenant saints and other group of 12 stands for the new covenant saints (4:10; cf. 21:12,14) The vision is intended to convince the Christians of their secure place before the Most High. (6:11) As a result of his participation in the heavenly worship service, St. John is given a series of vision of events that would shortly take place on the earth. But the blessing is that he is able to see these things from God's, as opposed to man's, viewpoint. He is able to look down on things and see the reality of God's omnipotent working in the unfolding of human history. History is not something that just happens, but it is divinely orchestrated to glorify God and advance His purpose in the world. We see this in the unsealing of the scroll in chapter 5. The scroll symbolize the divine purpose, for it is sealed with seven seals, seven being the number of God. When no one is found who is able to open the scroll, the Lamb comes forward. Jesus Christ, the Lamb, is the only one who can take hold of the scroll, open it and reveal the truth of God's eternal decrees. In chapter seven we see the first identification of the 144,000 (there is another in chapter 14). These are identified as the servants of God who receive the mark of God in their foreheads (v. 3). The "mark" has special significance in Revelation as well as the rest of Scripture. The mark is used to symbolize ownership. Those who receive the mark are God are owned by God (cf. Exo. 28:36-38). Those who receive the mark of the beast (chapter 13) are said to be under the dominion of the beast, and hence are marked for destruction (vv. 14:9,10). Again, the numbers of Revelation play an important part in understanding this vision. 12,000 are marked from each of the twelve tribes of Israel (Well, not exactly "each". Dan is left out and Manasseh is counted twice). 12,000 is 12 times 10 times 10, with 10 being the number of biblical perfection or completeness. St. John is seeing, in a idealized form, the perfect number of God's people, all His chosen ones. In Rev. 9:13-21 were see the vision of the sixth angel with a trumpet. This passage contains the references to and army of "200 million." The Greek in Rev. 9:16 says (literally) "two myriads of myriads," or something similar. The same word, "myriad," is used in Matt. 18:24 by Jesus to represent a large sum of money, and in Jude 14 to symbolize a host of His saints (cf. Heb 12:22; Ps. 68:17). Here in Revelation it symbolizes a vast army. "200 million" strikes me as unnecessarily literal. It's like translating Rev. 21:16 as "1500 miles" instead of "12,000 stadia," and Rev. 21:17 as "seventy-two yards" instead of "144 cubits." (The NASB makes both these mistakes.) The numbers are round and perfect and contain signified meaning unless you resort to distorting the symbol by forcing a literal interpretation. According to the preterist position, the "mark of the beast", 666 in Rev. 13:18, is a symbolic representation of Nero under whose reign the persecution of the Church by Rome reached full scale. According to the Hebrew reckoning, "Nero Caesar" adds up to the number 666. As far as the persecution are concerned, Church tradition tells us that both Sts. Peter and Paul were martyred during the reign of Nero. I'm sure you've heard the story of Christians being covered with tar, set afire, and used for torches by Nero in Rome. It is also believed that St. John was imprisoned on Patmos, and saw this vision, during the time of Nero. It should be noted by those who believe that Revelation was written later, during the reign of Domitian in AD95, that there is no historical record of any significant persecution of Christians under Domitian. The "great whore" of Revelation 17 is apostate Israel, figured as Jerusalem, who has been persecuting the Christians along with Rome for all these years (v. 17:6; cf. Acts 7:52; 8:1; 11:19; 13:50). Since St. John was very careful to characterize the "harlot" with various descriptive phrases, we must look at those phrases and compare them to the rest of Scripture to discover the meaning of the "harlot" vision. Simply saying they refer to some as-yet-future "Babylon" won't cut the mustard. St. John says that the "harlot" is "drunk with the blood of saints, and the blood of the martyrs of Jesus." (v. 17:6) One need only read the book of Acts to see how the unbelieving Jews persecuted and killed the new followers of Christ. We see it in the testimony of Stephen (Acts 7:52). We see it in the complicity of Paul (Acts 8:1). We also see it in the phrases used to describe the false Jews in the Church (Rev. 2:9; 3:9). The "harlot" will align herself with the beast and make war against the Lamb. You might recall the words of the Jews in St. John's gospel as they stood against the King of kings and declared, "We have no king but Caesar." (John 19:15) History tells us that right up until the very end, Rome and old Jerusalem were united against the new Jerusalem, the Church. Another item that I pointed out is that the "harlot" is called "the great city." (v. 17:18) Now every Jew in the 1st century would know that "the great city" referred to Jerusalem (cf. Jer. 22:8; Matt. 5:35). And those who were familiar with the prophecies of Ezekiel 16 & 23 would realize the iniquity of the city of God. (As an aside, Exekiel 16 is so explicit with its sexual imagery as a portrayal of Israel's iniquity that many 19th century preachers refused to preach from it. And one of John Calvin's translators wouldn't translate Calvin's comments on Ezekiel 16 because of the explicit nature of the subject.) She had committed fornication with the kings of the earth. In this case St. John picks up on the harlot imagery of Isaiah 1:21. She was the prostitute that was chasing after the pagan nation, Rome. She had turned her back on her Husband, the God of the covenant, and was about to be judged. Jerusalem was also called the "holy city" (Is. 52:1; Matt. 4:5), but with the coming of Christ and the inauguration of the new covenant, that title passed to the Church (Rev. 21:2). According to Hebrews, this spiritual city is what the patriarchs sought after (Heb. 11:10,16), and what we long for (Heb. 13:14). We also have another clue in Revelation as to the identity of "the great city." In Rev. 11:8 she is called "spiritually Sodom and Egypt, where Our Lord was crucified," an obvious reference to Jerusalem. The later chapters, may or may not, be intended to look forward to the end of history. Revelation 20, the Millennium chapter, I take to identify that time between Christ's fist and second comings. Jesus bound Satan by inaugurating His kingdom and by dying of the cross to secure the salvation of His people (Matt. 12:28). The saints are reigning with Jesus in heaven (Eph. 2:6). The gospel is going out into all the nations (Matt. 28:19,20) The consensus among Bible scholars is that chapters 21 & 22 are a picture of the eternal state. But this opinion is by no means universal. There are some who take those chapters to be further symbolic evidence of the conditions during the Millennium, but certainly from the heavenly vantage point. It's interesting that there are those who need to rebuild a Temple in Jerusalem and resurrect the old Roman empire at some future date in order to explain their view of Bible prophecy. They correctly understand Revelation as pointing to political events in and around the city of Jerusalem. Unfortunately, they fail to see the significance of AD70 in the story of Revelation. Jesus promised His followers of the 1st century that "all these things", the destruction of the Temple, Jerusalem surrounded by armies, judgement, would come to pass on "this generation." (Matt. 23:36; 24:34). All the construction work of the futurist becomes unnecessary if one adopts the preterist position. Contrary to popular opinion, there are no modern day Iraqis or Israelis to be found in the pages of Revelation. There is no United States or Soviet Union or European Economic Community. There are no laser-guided missiles or nuclear bombs or 200 million Chinese soldiers. All the earthly players in Revelation have long passed away ... except one. The Church of the Lord Jesus Christ, the new Jerusalem from heaven (Heb. 12:22; Rev.21:2,9,10). This is the note of victory found in Revelation; when all is said and done, the Lamb and His people will remain. Jesus has been given all power and authority on earth. We are called to carry on the work of bringing the gospel to all nations and teaching men and women everywhere to subject themselves to His authority. Yes, Satan is still around. But he is bound and defeated. His activity is severely limited. He goes around as a roaring lion, but he is a toothless lion. His bite was removed at the cross. We need to earnestly pray for the salvation of the players in the Middle East confrontation. We need to pray that God will conquer these nations by the Sword of the Spirit, the Word of God. Only by the power of the gospel will real peace be found ... only by the power of the Prince of Peace. -- Tom Albrecht
wagner@karazm.math.uh.edu (David Wagner) (10/19/90)
I pretty much agree with Tom Albrecht's brief article on revelation. For a good reference, see Siegbert Becker's commentary on Revelation. I believe it is available from Northwestern Publishing House. I want to add just a few comments. Rev. 20:11-14 is a picture of judgement day. As I mentioned in an earlier post, it is interesting to note that the resurrected dead, believers and unbelievers, are judged first according to their deeds recorded in the book of deeds, (and found guilty, as we infer from the rest of scripture, for 'all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God'). Then God will look in the book of life to see if we have faith in Christ. If our name is found there, then we are saved from the lake of fire and will live forever in the New Jerusalem (ch. 21). I find it difficult to identify the New Jerusalem of ch. 21 with the church militant in the present world, as Tom seems to do. To me this is the church triumphant, after the resurrection, and after Judgement. It is all well and good to refute Milleniallism, but we should be careful not to throw out the baby (Judgement day and eternal life in God's new creation) with the bathwater. "He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away." Rev. 21:4 David H. Wagner a confessional Lutheran. "Behold a host, arrayed in white, Like thousand snow-clad mountains bright, With palms they stand. Who is this band Before the throne of light? Lo, these are they of glorious fame Who from the great affliction came And in the flood of Jesus' blood Are cleansed from guilt and blame. Now gathered in the holy place, Their voices they in worship raise, Their anthems swell where God doth dwell, Mid angel's songs of praise." --"Den store hvide Flok vi se" by Hans A Brorson, c. 1760. My opinions and beliefs on this matter are disclaimed by The University of Houston.