Reading Revelation with Humility

1. How Do We Read Revelation?

When you think about the book of Revelation, what comes to your mind?

Revelation is a powerful book that inspired countless sermons, theological books, and artistic works. It inspired hymns, songs, and music. Here are just a few examples — Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus, the hymn “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty,” Agnus Dei, Worthy is the Lamb, the Revelation Song, and the song we have learned, “Hallelujah To The Lamb.”

But among some there is an uneasiness when it comes to Revelation. They avoid or ignore the book, put off by the many speculations and fearful they will get it wrong. Revelation has also grasped the public imagination. There is apocalyptic anxiety and dread. Wikipedia lists over sixty “apocalyptic” films and TV shows from the period 2000–2009 and nearly as many for the period 2010-16. People talk about TEOTWAWKI—“the end of the world as we know it.”

Unfortunately and sadly, Revelation has also been abused, misused, and misunderstood by many through the ages. Reading Revelation is difficult enough. Reading Revelation responsibly in such a highly charged atmosphere brings special and unique challenges. The ongoing temptation is to assume that John is talking only about us and our times.

So, how do we approach and read Revelation? With humility and respect. We read it as the Word of God with awe and wonder. In this series, I hope to show you that Revelation is a beautiful book with a wonderful theology and message that is absolutely relevant to us today. Due to its complicated nature and difficulties, this sermon series will be different than other sermon series. On some Sundays the sermons will be more like a Sunday school class and on others more like a Bible study. Please bear with me. How long? As long as it takes to do justice to the book and its message. The first two sermons will lay the groundwork for the series. Today, we look at how we should read Revelation, and next Sunday we will look at the structure, unity, and message of the book.

2. Revelation Through The Ages

Throughout history there have been four basic approaches to reading Revelation — the Idealist, Historicist, Preterist, and Futurist.

Idealists see Revelation as a non-historical and non-prophetic drama about spiritual realities. It is a symbolic portrayal of the conflict between good and evil, between the forces of God and of Satan. It’s an allegory proclaiming timeless spiritual truths for all times, places, and peoples. They focus on the apocalyptic nature of the book and don’t look for links or fulfillments in actual historical events.

Historicists see Revelation as a prophecy about church history from the time of John to the end of the world. It is like a history textbook for the past, present, and future. The symbolic descriptions are unfolding successive events of history in chronological order. The prophecy is being continuously fulfilled. It is history in the making. They become preoccupied with the nitty gritty details of prophetic fulfillment and are in danger of seeing the book more like a puzzle or math problem rather than God’s Word.

Preterists see Revelation as a prophecy that was fulfilled primarily in the first century AD. It is like an ancient newspaper. Full Preterists claim that the prophecies of the entire book were already fulfilled in AD 70 with the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple. This includes the spiritual and symbolic return of Jesus. Partial preterists say that most of Revelation was fulfilled in the first century AD but the final chapters describe future events at the end of time.

Futurists see Revelation as prophecy primarily about the future end of the world. It is like a road map for the future. In this view, all or nearly all of Revelation is yet to occur. This approach is the most literal in its reading. They believe that symbolic prophecy always leads to literal fulfillment. The problem is that if everything happens in the future, then much of Revelation had little relevance for the original readers and the generations preceding the current reader.

To help you remember these approaches, here are in-a-nutshell but simplistic summaries of how each approach reads Revelation:

• Idealist — Nothing literal happens; everything is symbolic.

• Historicist — Some has happened, is happening, and is going to happen.

• Preterist — Everything already happened in the past.

• Futurist — Everything is going to happen in the future.

Not one approach is right. Each has its strengths and weaknesses. Like some biblical scholars, I follow an eclectic approach that uses the strengths of each approach and prayerfully takes care to avoid the problems, pitfalls, and dangers of each.

And pitfalls and dangers there are many as a history of the misuses, misreadings, and misunderstandings of Revelation shows. The predicted dates for the return of Christ and the end of the world form a long list. So is the list for the dates of the coming of the Antichrist. Through the ages, the Antichrist, the beast, the harlot, the sign of the beast, and the other symbols, numbers, and events of Revelation have been identified with so many different historical events and figures, human leaders, nations, groups, organizations, technological and military systems or products. They vary from the barbarian invasions of the Western Roman Empire, the Arabs attacking the Eastern Roman Empire, the Protestant Reformation, and the French Revolution to Nero, Hitler, Stalin, Sadam Hussein, Putin, and even the Roman Catholic Pope. From different nations, world organizations, and religious movements like the EU, the UN, Islam, Communism, the Internet, Al-Qaeda, and ISIS to the sign of the beast identified as computers, software, vaccines, microchips, and credit cards.

History is littered with such failed predictions and misinterpretations of the symbols and visions. Time and time again so-called experts and many prophets had to make adjustments, redraw their maps, and publish new editions of their books. Two misreadings of Revelation contribute to these speculations and misunderstandings.

Newspaper exegesis — reads Revelation in light of the headlines and current events. They are reading world events and leaders into Scripture. But as the newspaper headlines change, these readings and modern prophecies have to be readjusted and reapplied. They are rarely relevant for more than a decade. Current events do not unlock the meaning of the prophecies, symbols, numbers, and visions in Revelation. If today’s newspapers are a necessary key to interpreting the book, then no generation until our own could have understood and obeyed the book.

And this leads to the next problem — Generation Specific/Limited Reading — People in every generation have declared particular world events, leaders, or specific dates as definite fulfillments of a particular prophecy in Revelation, only to be proven wrong over and over. Today, some tend to read Revelation as if it begins, “John, to the Christians in North America, who live in the twenty-first century.” They assume that Revelation is primarily a book for those living at the end of time. Thus, only the current generation can read and understand Revelation. What about the previous generations? What about the people in John’s time? It is very possible that our Lord may come back in our lifetime, in this current generation. But it is equally likely that He may not come now and that He may return in the next generation or the generation after that. What happens then to all our predictions and interpretations?

All of this should cause us to approach Revelation with humility. Godly, biblical scholars, respected Christian leaders, and theologians are found in all four schools of thought. They have different views on major end-times issues. This should help us put our own views in perspective. We should be humble and not presume that we know it all and have it all right. It should cause us to consider with humility and honestly the possibility that our own views are more historically, culturally, and politically shaped than we care to admit. We should ask ourselves if it is not our Western mindset that wants to be in control that drives us to treat Revelation like a collection of secret codes that we must decipher in order to predict events and so have a semblance of control; instead of simply trusting God, trusting that He is in control, which is the key message of Revelation.

3. Reading Revelation as God’s Word

So, how do we read Revelation? We read it as God’s Word. Stating the obvious but this has important implications for reading Revelation. Rev. 1:1-3 — The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw. Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written in it, because the time is near.

Inspired by the Holy Spirit, John wrote Revelation as one, whole book towards the end of the first century to the seven, real churches in Asia. There, in those churches, they were to read it aloud, hear, and obey it. Thus, we should read Revelation contextually.

We must read it in the context and light of the whole Bible not according to today’s news headlines. Revelation is a book of the Bible, and therefore it operates within the world, the cultural and historical contexts of the Old and New Testaments. It is a book of the Old Testament. It may not quote the OT directly but we could say it is the New Testament’s Old Testamentest book. Revelation echoes nearly every book of the Old Testament. Of the 404 verses in the twenty-two chapters, 278 verses contain one or more allusions to an Old Testament passage. Revelation is a book of the New Testament. It shares the same concerns, teachings, themes, theology, a common language, and images. We must read the book as a whole and not cherry-pick verses to fit personal or cultural preferences. Next week we will look at the unity, integrity, and structure of the book.

God inspired John to write Revelation as an apocalyptic prophecy and narrative framed as a letter to the churches. We should read it accordingly. To read the Bible literally means to take each part of Scripture according to its literary sense and to take seriously the literary genre. We read historical narratives as history, poetry as poetry, and where the text itself presents figures of speech, metaphors, parables, or symbols then we read these as such.

And this brings us to an important principle in reading Revelation. Verse 1 makes an important statement about the nature of the book. John used two Greek words which indicate that this book contains symbolism. He used σημαίνω which means “to communicate by symbols,” not the usual word that means “to make known.” It can be translated as signify as some English versions do. John also used the word δείκνυμι (“to show”). It refers to a revelation through symbolic heavenly visions communicated through an angel. Thus, from the very beginning, the readers know that he is communicating God’s message and truth through symbolic language that made sense and had meaning for his first readers. Therefore, our purpose is not to find the identities of the symbols, not to identify the images, visions, and numbers with specific current events, world leaders, nations, organizations, or technology. Our aim is to determine the issue presented through the images and symbols, their meaning and message for the first readers, and what response Revelation teaches to those issues, and then to apply that to our context. We will talk more about how to read the symbolic language of Revelation.

4. Reading Revelation with Humility

All this to say that we must read Revelation with humility; also with respect, awe, wonder, and worship. With humility, we must do due diligence and study Revelation with rigorous and careful exegesis. With humility, we must focus on what Revelation is focusing on, namely, God, his glory, his plan, and his purpose for history, the world, and us. There are many different views even among us as a body. But with humility, we must realize that these are human theories, personal views, and preferences. All human theology and interpretation are flawed because we are flawed people. We may disagree on the details of the end times. We will not fight with one another and call each other heretics or other names. We will have good discussions and, in the end, may agree to disagree.

But on one essential teaching we will agree and be of one mind. Our Lord is coming back, and He is coming back soon. And while we wait, we will strive to remain faithful and be ready all the time for His return by living the kingdom life to His glory. As one body our constant prayer will be the closing prayer of Revelation, “Come, Lord Jesus.” This is also the title for our series. This will be our prayer and cry as we prepare to be always ready for our Lord’s return because He is coming soon.