God’s unfolding of the end times is revealed directly to the apostle John, who is exiled on the island of Patmos, because of his preaching the Word. He is to then write what has been revealed to him, and to send the writing to several churches, addressing then-current spiritual issues. John also gets shown a glimpse of God’s final revelation to man, with an eye toward eternity.
The book of Revelation is one of the most fascinating books of the Bible to me personally, and yet I have been reluctant to apply devotional reading time to it as a whole for some time. When I do read Revelation, I tend to go to chapters 4 and 5, and then 19-22, because “that’s where the good stuff that applies to me” is, or so I thought. In the end, we win, Christ wins, we know the end of the story. So in that regard, it is very encouraging. But it’s worth digging deeper.
A main reason I have not studied through this recently is that there is so much symbolism in the book, John sees an amazing vision, and he tries to describe it as best he can for his reader. What exactly did he see? We just don’t know in most of the instances. And how do we know what symbol stands for what? Good question, and I have been hesitant to study this book along with others reading along, so as not to feel like I had to try to answer all these questions.
Yet I realized there is so much here to be a source of encouragement, to hear from Christ Himself His plan for the end of this age. And over the past month, three different events and conversations with family, friends, and official church business have led me to submit to the study of this book. I still plan on reading and commenting devotionally, yet there will certainly be times where we camp on some passages to discuss potential meanings.
Three major areas of comparison exist within the theological study of this book
1) Point of View - Does it apply to us today, was it only a historical book, are there current and future events in play?
2) Millennium – Just what is the 1000 years mentioned in chapter 20?
3) Rapture – Before, during, or after the tribulation?
So today, let’s deal with the first of these, the point of view. Sorry for the technical nature of this, I trust it will be interesting and of some value.
Preterist – a fancy word for a position that means that all the events in the book are applicable to John’s immediate time period. This would assume all bible prophecy would have basically taken place by the time of John’s writing, likely around A.D. 98. This view would hold to the teaching that we can still learn from that time, but that the writings do not directly relate to us now.
Historist – This view tries to make all the events of Revelation fit with specific historical events. Some have used this view to try to predict when the end will come, which is faulty and dangerous. There is, however value in recognizing the struggles of the church in times past, bringing us comfort when we face similar circumstances. This view places no part of the writing as prophecy yet to be fulfilled. Each symbol, therefore, according to this view, stands for something or someone specific in the past.
Idealist – This view looks at the book as filled with principles that are always valid to the Christian, regardless of the time period in which he or she lives.
Futurist – This view holds to the book largely being prophecies of events still to come.
The viewpoint I will maintain throughout the next month or so in reading Revelation will be that of a Preterist-Futurist one. I believe the letter to the churches in the first chapters were real letters to real churches, very relevant to John. I also believe that John then sees a vision of future events, apocalyptic in the genre, or style of writing. So the book seems to be a combination of epistles to churches, followed by prophecy yet unfulfilled.
SO WHAT…? Yeah, really, so what? Nothing like saying a bunch of stuff and going nowhere with it, huh?
So, let me start by reminding myself that God is in control, forever.
So, God inspired the writing of this, just like the rest of His Word. I know that God causes all things to work together for the good of those who love Him, and I look forward to hearing from Him as I read through His Revelation, and how good will come from what we tend to think of negatively as the apocalypse.
So, the key to this, and any other Scripture, is the gospel of Jesus Christ. I must never lose sight of that.
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