Revelation

Four Views, Revised and Updated

Thomas Nelson, Steve Gregg, Steve Gregg

• Editorial: Thomas Nelson
• Año: 2020
• ISBN:
  9780310119531
• Categoría: Theology & Religion
• Categoría: Biblical Biography

How can we understand the book of Revelation and its many interpretations? Four Views of Revelation: A Parallel Commentary covers the traditional views in an even-handed fashion. Four parallel columns present the information you need on these key views, and inform you about outstanding commentators on the book of Revelation. No other book gives such extensive coverage of how the church has understood Revelation over the centuries. The four-column format makes this an easy read for lay people, pastors, and scholars alike. This is a wonderful addition to any Bible study resource library.

Features include:

• Convenient, one-volume format
• Four parallel columns for easy comparison
• Complete coverage of the major interpretations of Revelation
• Extensive coverage of the place of Revelation in church history

PART I

THE SEVEN LETTERS
REVELATION 1–3

WHAT IS THE SIGNIFICANCE OF CHRIST’S COMMISSION TO JOHN? WHAT DO THE SEVEN CHURCHES SIGNIFY?

HISTORICIST APPROACH:

• John is given a vision of Christ, who announces that he is to write of things that would soon begin to take place, and which would extend through the entire age of the church.

• Seven churches in Asia received these letters, but they represent seven periods of church history, each exhibiting the special features of the respective original church.

PRETERIST APPROACH:

• Christ appears to John on Patmos, commissioning him to write things that would soon afterward find fulfillment in the fall of Jerusalem.

• The letters reflect the conditions prevailing in seven churches in the Roman province of Asia prior to the Jewish war of AD 66–70.

FUTURIST APPROACH:

• While a prisoner on the isle of Patmos, John sees a vision of Christ, commanding him to write of events that would be fulfilled at the end of the present age, just prior to the Second Coming.

• Some futurists take the letters in the same manner as do the historicists, while others take them more as do the preterists or those taking the idealist approach.

IDEALIST APPROACH:

• The symbolic vision of Christ depicts His glorious character and sovereignty, conveying Christ’s sovereign involvement in the affairs of the world and of the church, including his intimate concern for His suffering servants.

• The churches resemble churches that might exist at any time throughout the church age, and the letters are applicable to any churches that may share their conditions. The number seven is symbolic, suggesting application to the whole Christian church of all ages.

INTRODUCTION
REVELATION 1:1–3

¹The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show His servants—things which must shortly take place. And He sent and signified it by His angel to His servant John, ²who bore witness to the word of God, and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, to all things that he saw. ³Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written in it; for the time is near.

These first three verses speak of John in the third person, suggesting that they were written by the custodians of the epistle, who may have added them at the time of publication as a brief prologue and endorsement of the work. Similar editorial endorsement appears at the end of John’s Gospel, where some anonymous hand penned the closing words: “This is the disciple who testifies of these things, and wrote these things; and we know that his testimony is true” (John 21:24). We are left to guess the identities of those to whom “we” refers. “We” may have been members of a “Johannine community” (a group of John’s disciples) or simply the church leaders (probably in Ephesus) who preserved and probably published John’s work posthumously. Not all commentators agree with such an assessment, though. Mounce, for instance, thinks this opening section “appears to have been added by the author himself after completing the book.”¹

The expression, Revelation of Jesus Christ (v. 1), presents a certain ambiguity. The Greek allows that Jesus Christ could be either the subject being revealed or the one doing the revealing. The former idea—that it is Christ himself who is being revealed, or unveiled—would agree well with the general contents of the book, especially of the present chapter, and of chapters 5, 14, and 19, in which John sees pictorial representations of Christ.

The latter alternative—that the book contains information revealed through Christ—seems to agree with the rest of the verse, which suggests that the material of the visions was revealed first to Christ by God (the Father), then by Christ to an angel, who passed it along to John. John then bore witness (beginning at verse 4) to the visions, putting them into this written form.

The phrase, the testimony of Jesus Christ (v. 2), possesses the same ambiguity as does the revelation of Jesus Christ in verse 1. It could refer to John’s testimony concerning Christ (i.e., the gospel), or else to the message which Christ himself testified to John. The first option seems to work best here and in verse 9, since, in both places, “the testimony of Jesus” is coupled with the word of God. While one could argue that, since “the word of God” is a word from God, “the testimony of Jesus” must therefore be a testimony from Jesus, yet both can be ways of describing the gospel message. Since John is the one bearing witness in verse 2, “the testimony of Jesus Christ” more likely refers to the testimony about Christ as borne by John.²

Blessed is he who reads (v. 3). This beatitude is the first of seven in the book.³ Initially, the blessing is pronounced upon the reader—probably the person who would read the book publicly in the assembly. Beyond that, the blessing is for those of the congregation who hear and obey. That this blessing extends also to those who hear and obey in later generations is no doubt intended as well.

In this beatitude the book is first identified as a prophecy (v. 3). The prophetic character of this revelation is reaffirmed in 22:7, 10, 18, and 19. In one place we are informed that the testimony of Jesus (discussed above) is “the spirit of prophecy” (19:10).

The prophecy here is said to pertain to events whose time is near (v. 3). This is affirmed repeatedly. The things revealed, according to verse 1, must shortly take place, and a few verses later, we are told that John wrote of “things which are about to take place” (so reads the Greek of verse 19).⁴ On the surface, this gives us the impression that John expected the fulfillment of the prophecies to occur very shortly after he wrote them. However, see comparative note box below.

SPECIAL COMPARATIVE NOTE ON 1:1–3:

“must shortly take place . . . the time is near”

Of the four approaches we are considering in this commentary, the early-date preterist is the most comfortable with such statements about near fulfillment, taken at their face value. This approach views the book as written shortly before AD 70 and predicting the fall of Jerusalem, which occurred in that year. Later-date preterists would apply the fulfillment to the fall of Rome centuries after John’s time or, possibly, to the downfall of Domitian.

Historicists would see the fulfillment as beginning shortly after John’s time, but extending long beyond, through the entire age of the church.

To the idealist interpreters, the time is always near, since the visions transcend any particular time period and may, in principle, recur or continue unceasingly throughout all times.

Futurists suggest that the terms “shortly” or “near” have some meaning other than that which first comes to mind. There are essentially two alternatives:

(1) The word “shortly” means “quickly” or “suddenly”—thus meaning that there will be a rapidity of fulfillment whenever the proper time may come, but that may be thousands of years later than John’s time. This view is taken by Walvoord, Ryrie, and Lange, among others. Though this may deal adequately with the word “shortly,” it does not dispense with the problem of “the time is near.”

(2) The second alternative is to suggest that “shortly” means “soon” and that “the time is near” may be taken literally, but that John is speaking according to God’s way of reckoning time and nearness. Since a day to the Lord is as a thousand years and a thousand years is as a day (2 Pet. 3:8), even an event two thousand years removed might be regarded as “near” from God’s perspective. This is the view of Alford, Fausset, Vitringa, Henry Morris, and others. Perhaps the greatest question suggested by this proposal is whether the original human readers of Revelation would share God’s perspective and would view such distant events as being “near.”

GRACE AND PEACE FROM THE TRIUNE GOD
REVELATION 1:4–6

⁴John to the seven churches which are in Asia: Grace to you and peace from Him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven Spirits who are before His throne, ⁵and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler over the kings of the earth. To Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, ⁶and has made us kings and priests to His God and Father, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

These verses read like the opening of most of the biblical epistles. The author first identifies himself and his readers (v. 4), who belong to the seven churches (named in v. 11). The letter most likely was a circulating epistle, to be read (and perhaps copied) by one church and then passed along to the next. The epistle of Paul to the Galatian churches and the epistles of James and Peter were handled similarly, since each addresses several churches. Many scholars believe that Paul’s epistle to the Ephesians was such a circular epistle, probably sent to many of the same churches addressed in Revelation.⁵ These churches were in Asia, which was not, referring to the continent, but to a Roman province, identified with modern Turkey.

Like most New Testament letters, this epistle begins with a benediction of grace and peace upon the readers. In other letters, this grace and peace generally are spoken of as coming from God the Father and from Jesus. In Revelation, the source of the grace and peace is described in more elaborate terms, which most commentators decode as references to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

It is the Father who is and who was and who is to come (v. 4). Though it is possible to apply this language to Christ, He is mentioned separately in the following verse. He who is seems to echo the words to Moses at the burning bush: “I am who I am” (Exod. 3:14). The expression who is to come can simply mean “who shall be.”

The seven Spirits who are before His throne (v. 4) is one of the more perplexing expressions in the book of Revelation. Commentators usually take it to mean “the sevenfold Spirit of God”—a reference to the Holy Spirit as described in Isaiah 11:2. He is there called the Spirit of the Lord, of wisdom, of understanding, of counsel, of might, of knowledge, and of the fear of the Lord. This explanation probably has more in its favor than most alternatives. If this is the correct identification, then the greeting has moved from a focus upon the Father to a focus upon the Holy Spirit, to be followed in the next verses by a focus upon the Son. While most epistles wish the readers grace and peace from the Father and from the Son,⁶ this is the only one to include the Spirit as well.

The description of Jesus (v. 5) gives Him three titles, all of which carry comforting implications for Christian readers facing persecution.

As the faithful witness, Jesus has set the example for those called to bear witness in a hostile world. Paul reminded Timothy that, when on trial for His life before Pilate, Jesus “witnessed the good confession” (1 Tim. 6:13). Thus the church of Smyrna is urged by Jesus to “be faithful until death” (Rev. 2:10), and Antipas, who was killed in Pergamos, is crowned with the epithet “My faithful martyr” (Rev. 2:13)—which is the same expression as is here given to Christ.⁷

The second title for Christ is the firstborn from the dead, a term first found in Paul’s writings (Col. 1:18), arising from his understanding of Psalm 2:7: “You are My Son, Today I have begotten You.” Paul understood this “begetting” to be a reference to the resurrection of Christ (Acts 13:33). Thereafter, the title “firstborn from the dead” as well as the similar expression, “the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep” (1 Cor. 15:20), came to suggest the resurrection of Christ, seen as the guarantee of a later resurrection of believers (1 Cor. 15:23). Me...