Bible Study Library

Dear Disciples:

Sunday we kicked off our study of the book of Revelation. We used our first meeting to discuss introductory matters for studying Revelation — namely authorship, date, and common methods of interpreting it.

I don’t want us to get bogged down in this sort of thing and distracted from the message God wants us to receive from His Word. Yet, it would be irresponsible for us to ignore it altogether. That’s why we tried to get most of it out of the way during our first meeting.

If what follows intrigues you, consult some good commentaries and websites for more depth.

If what follows bores you, let it go. The rest of the class will (hopefully) be more interesting.

Authorship

Revelation was written by someone named John (1:1).

This could have been the apostle John, or he could have been another John whom God chose to inspire. The text itself doesn’t answer this question, and there probably isn’t a conclusive answer.

What we do know from the text is that John was well known to the churches in Asia to whom he wrote. He described himself to them as “your brother and companion in the suffering and kingdom and patient endurance that are ours in Jesus” (1:9).

In the end, who the writer was doesn’t really matter. The very first verse says it is a revelation that God gave to Jesus to give to John through His angel.
The author was God Himself.

Date

Determining a date for when the book of Revelation was written is a complex maze, and is much affected by your entire approach to and presuppositions regarding the book itself (see below).

Some interpreters date it before A.D. 70, many date it somewhere between A.D. 85 and 95.

The latter is probably the most common view and is my own opinion on the issue.

Common Frameworks for Interpretation

There are four common ways of understanding the things mentioned in Revelation. These frameworks deeply affect how you interpret the text.

In a perfect world, we would determine our approach after studying the book - letting the text itself dictate what we believe about it.

But there has been so much controversy and so much publicity about Revelation in popular literature, movies, music, laymen’s commentaries, conversations, etc. that it’s hard for use to break away from our presuppositions.

Additionally, the way you understand Revelation is affected by your understanding of other theological issues [the nature of the church, God's relationship with Israel, Jesus as the Messiah, interpreting Old Testament prophecies, "Satanology," etc., etc.]

I summarized the four most common frameworks for interpretation and provided them in a handout.

Here they are again:

Four Common Frameworks for Interpreting Revelation
Preterism: This is the most common view among modern biblical scholars (but not necessarily the most common among Christians, churches, preachers, and other Christian writers at large). The word preterism itself simply means “in the past.” Preterists believe the book of Revelation was written for a situation in the past. It’s a misunderstanding to think that preterists believe everything in Revelation already happened, because it really doesn’t matter in their view whether it happened or not. Revelation was written to give hope to Christians who were facing persecution by Rome. If it accomplished this goal, it fulfilled its purpose. In other words, Revelation was a message for difficult times rather than a prophecy of end times. To preterists, Rome was the beast mentioned in chapter 13, and people who promoted the worship of Roman emperors were the false prophet. Revelation gave the Christians of its time the hope to endure by promising that Christ was about to come again, overthrow Rome, and set up His own kingdom among them. The fact that these things didn’t happen back then doesn’t matter because preterists don’t think of Revelation as a book of predictive prophecy.

Historical: Revelation is symbolic of the entire history of the church, from the beginning until Christ comes again. Its symbols represent the various historical movements in Christianity, such as the apostolic age, the growth of Catholicism, the great reformation, etc. The beast is the Roman papacy, the false prophet is the Roman Catholic church.

Idealist: Revelation is simply a symbolic myth - sort of a parable of the eternal spiritual battle between good and evil, God and Satan. The beast is Satanic evil whenever and wherever it occurs.

Futurist: Revelation is a prophecy of future (from the perspective of John when he wrote it) events. There are 2 forms of futurism:

- Dispensationalism: The seven letters to the seven churches are really symbols of seven ages of church history. The last letter - the one written to Laodicea - describes a period of church history filled with apostasy. This will be the state of the church when Jesus raptures His church. God’s people who remain on the earth at that time will be national Israel. They will be protected by God’s seal, but they will suffer the wrath of the antichrist. National Israel will also have its temple rebuilt during that time.

- Moderate Futurism: Moderate futurists do not draw a sharp distinction between the church and Israel - the church is Israel, whether its members are Jewish or Gentile. There is also no reason to a moderate futurist to see the seven letters as a forecast of seven periods in church history - these were real letters to real churches. Moderate futurists do, however, see Revelation as a predictive prophecy of things that would primarily happen far into the future, at the end of time.

I also revealed (no pun intended) that I have the most affinity with Moderate Futurists.

Is your head spinning? Mine is. Let’s delve into the actual text this week.

And let’s not forget the most important message of the entire book…God rules, we’re saved, and in the end we’re on the winning team!