Whenever I taught the book of Revelation to my high school students, one of the first things I did was this. I’d take any object, put it on the table in the front of the room, and then cover it with my coat (or anything that could act as a covering). I’d then say, “I’m going to illustrate for you what ‘apocalypse’ means, ready?” I’d then whip off the coat and say, “Voila!” And there was the object that was under the coat.
I’d then say, “Before I removed my coat, was the object not there?” They’d say, “No.” “So the object was there, but you just couldn’t see it until I removed my coat, right?” And of course, they’d say, “Yes.”
I start this series on the book of Revelation with that illustration to emphasize that, despite what you might think, “apocalypse” is not a prediction of future hell-fire and brimstone. It literally means “unveiling,” and what the book of Revelation “unveils,” is not specific details of the future, but rather what God’s purposes really are within the world today—and specifically at the time when John wrote it in 96 AD, what God was doing in the world, despite the fact that His people, the early Christians, were being persecuted. I’ll explain that more later.
For now, in this post, I want to lay out some basic introductory comments on what the book of Revelation actually is. Enjoy, leave comments and questions, and by all means, if you know anyone interested in understanding Revelation, direct them to my blog.
Revelation: It’s Time for the Unveiling!
When coming to the book of Revelation, most people feel like they are entering a strange world, wholly unlike anything else they might have read in the New Testament. Instead of the basic stories and teachings of Jesus, or the letters of Paul, we find a really odd book that is full of angels, trumpets, bowls, plagues, and earthquakes. There are strange beasts, dragons, a bottomless pit and a lake of fire.
Given all this strange stuff, it is no surprise that that majority of people take one of two extremes when it comes to the book of Revelation. Some people simply never read it. They neglect it because they’ve heard the modern day “end-time prophets” who use Revelation to speak of doom and gloom, and they think Revelation is just too weird. Some other people, though, take too much an interest in Revelation. They too have heard the modern day “end-time prophets,” and they get obsessed about Revelation. They believe Revelation is some sort of blueprint for all the future “end-time” events, and they are constantly looking for the “signs of the times,” whether it be Y2K, the Middle Eastern conflict, Ronald Reagan, the Pope, or Barack Obama.
Both extremes are a wrong approach. We shouldn’t ignore Revelation simply because it seems too hard to understand or because it frightens us. It is, after all, in the Bible, and therefore should be studied intelligently. But we shouldn’t obsess over it either, or try to find “hidden meanings” or “codes” in it, or try to read our modern times into the book, because despite what Hal Lindsey and Tim LaHaye might say, Revelation is not a timetable for the last seven years of the existence of the world.
The fact is that Revelation is actually one of the most fascinating books of the New Testament, and it is fascinating for reasons you never would have guessed. It is also the most misunderstood book in the New Testament. That is why the first thing we need to do is to make sure we understand exactly what Revelation is.
Consider this example: let’s say you had a friend who had never seen a television in his entire life. You decide you want to introduce him to television by showing him some programs. You first tell him that you are going to show him “sitcoms,” and you explain that they are supposed to be funny. But instead of turning on a sitcom, you turn on the nightly news. Quite understandably, your friend is going to be pretty confused. All that news about corruption and murder isn’t funny. And the weather report? How can that make anyone laugh? Sports? How is that comedy?
Your friend will thus walk away with one of two impressions. Either he will turn off the television and declare it to be worthless and weird because what it shows makes no sense, or else you’re going to find your friend has a very bizarre and twisted sense of humor: “Three people were shot today on a downtown bus! HA! HA! HA! Tomorrow will be partly cloudy with a chance of showers—WHAT? Water…falling from the sky? HA! No way! Hilarious!”
My point is simple: if you try to interpret the nightly news as a comedy, you’re going to completely miss the point of the nightly news. Just like if you thought “The Big Bang Theory” was a real life drama, or “Grey’s Anatomy” was a sporting event, you’re going to watch those shows with a completely wrong understanding, and will thus be very confused by them. Simply put, if you don’t understand what kind of show you’re watching, you’re going to misinterpret what the show is about.
The same principle holds true for the book of Revelation. If you come to it thinking, “This is John’s end-time prediction about a future seven year tribulation and the end of the world,” you’re going to misunderstand it. Revelation actually is a specific kind of literature, and if you’re going to understand it, you’re going to have to first understand what kind of literature it is.
So What is Revelation?: An Apocalypse
The first thing you need to realize is that the book of Revelation is an apocalypse—but wait! Before you start jumping to conclusions that “apocalypse” means sort of an “end of the world-fire-explosions-lots of death” kind of prediction of the future, let me just say up front, that’s wrong.
Apocalypses were a distinct genre of literature that was very popular among both Jews and Christians from between the years 200 BC to 200 AD. We in the 21st century simply don’t have this kind of literature today—that’s why Revelation sounds so weird to us: we have no reference point for it.
Now, apocalypses were essentially written during times of persecution. One clear example of apocalyptic literature can be found in the book of Daniel, particularly chapters 7-12. The book of Daniel was actually written sometime around the 2nd century BC, during a time when the Jews, even though they had come back from the exile to the Promised Land 300 years before, still were not an independent nation that they had hoped to become. They had expected that once they got out of exile and back to the Promised Land, that a glorious temple would be rebuilt, that God would raise up another Davidic king (i.e. a Messiah), that they would remain faithful to God, and that God would raise them up as a mighty nation to rule all other nations.
Well, that didn’t really happen. Yes, they rebuilt their temple, but it paled in comparison to Solomon’s temple. And they never got another Davidic king or kingdom—they remained under the boot of various foreign powers: the Medes, the Persians, the Greeks, and by the 2nd century BC, the Selucids. They had a particular ruler at one time, Antiochus Epiphanes IV, who was particularly cruel. The “little horn” in Daniel 7 is a reference to him.
But the point is that given their disappointment that God had not fully returned to them, and that they were still subservient to evil foreign powers, the Jews looked forward to a time when God would finally fulfill the promises He made to Abraham in the covenant. Apocalyptic writing spoke to those concerns: it spoke to the hardships the Jews (and later early Christians) were facing, and it looked forward to a time when God would fulfill his promises.
Apocalyptic literature, just like any genre of literature, had certain characteristics that helped define it as such. The first characteristic, like I just mentioned, is that it was concerned with the salvation of God’s people, and the judgment of God’s enemies. Secondly, as already said, they were almost always written during times of persecution. Thirdly, they no longer looked for God’s salvation and vindication to happen within history; indeed, they looked for God to bring a violent end to history.
Fourthly, apocalypses were literary works—they weren’t like the prophets who proclaimed their prophecies orally, only to have them written down later on. Fifthly, apocalypses contained highly symbolic language: dreams, visions, strange-looking beasts—these were all characteristic of the genre. Finally, within the works of almost all apocalypses was a command that they be “sealed up” until the end of time. Therefore, when they were written down and read, the implication to the reader obviously was, “Yes, the end is here—this has been unsealed, so read it!”
So What is Revelation?: A Prophecy
What makes the book of Revelation unique among apocalyptic literature is that it also claims to be, in fact, a prophecy as well. But here’s the thing to remember: “prophecy” does not simply mean “prediction of future events.” First and foremost, prophecy means that God is speaking directly to the present situation. In the case of the book of Revelation, the present situation was one of Christians being persecuted by Rome.
Since Revelation claims to be a prophecy, that entails another difference between it and other apocalypses. One of the typical features in apocalyptic literature was that they were written in a time of spiritual dryness, and they looked forward to a time when God would finally “pour out His Spirit” on His people. The book of Revelation, though, didn’t look forward to when God would pour out His Spirit again—John claimed that it was, in fact, the product of God’s pouring out of His Spirit.
We must remember that part of the early Christians’ message was that the long-awaited Messianic Age had begun, and that evidence of this was scene in both Christ’s resurrection and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost: the prophecy of Joel 2:28 that God would one day pour out His Spirit on all flesh had, in fact, happened. That is why Revelation claims to be a Spirit-inspired message to His people. It was a prophecy that revealed to them what was really going on “behind the scenes,” if you will. The early Christians were suffering persecution at the hands of the Roman Empire—why? Where was Christ in all of this? The book of Revelation is a Spirit-inspired prophecy that speaks to those very real events.
So What is Revelation?: A Letter
Finally (and this actually has been hinted at earlier), we cannot forget that the book of Revelation is actually a letter. The Apostle John wrote it while on the island of Patmos to seven actual church communities in Asia Minor (what is today modern day Turkey): Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea. Its message, even though it is an apocalypse, was not mean to be “sealed up until the end of time,” because for John and the early Christians, the “end times” had already begun with the resurrection of Jesus and the out-pouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.
And since Revelation is a letter, it was written to address very real concerns of the actual historical situations of these seven church communities. And since that’s the case, we must do our best to understand the historical context of that situation which John was writing about.
A Few Final Introductory Notes
The ultimate purpose of Revelation was to encourage these seven church communities would were being victimized by the first empire-wide persecution of Christians. The Emperor Nero had persecuted some Christians in the city of Rome in the mid-60s AD, but it was the Emperor Domitian who unleashed the first persecution of Christians that extended throughout the Roman Empire. That took place in the mid-90s AD. It is believed, therefore, that Revelation was written around 95 AD.
I find Revelation to be a fascinating book—and it has nothing to do with The Left Behind Series. I hope in the course of this summer, as I slowly go through Revelation, that you will find it equally fascinating as well.
