Revelation

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Revelation

• This is the Revelation of Jesus Christ (11)

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Martin Luther (1522)
My spirit cannot accommodate itself to this
book. For me this is reason enough not to
think highly of it Christ is neither taught nor
known in it.
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• A hideous version of Christianitya repulsive
  work. D.H. Lawrence, Apocalypse
• Resentment and not love is the teachinga book
  without wisdom, goodness, kindness, or affection
  of any kind. Harold Bloom, The Revelation of
  St. John the Divine, 1988
• We are bound to judge that in its conception of
  the character of God and its attitude to man the
  book falls below the level, not only of the
  teaching of Jesus, but of the best parts of the
  Old Testament. C.H. Dodd, The Apostolic
  Preaching and Its Development, 1963

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• The Apocalypse of John is a work of immense
  learning, astonishingly meticulous literary
  artistry, remarkable creative imagination,
  radical political critique, and profound
  theology. - Richard Bauckham, The Climax of
  Prophecy Studies on the Book of Revelation

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• The message of Revelation is best represented as
  a message of healing and not as a message of
  destruction. - Sigve Tonstad

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What is the purpose of this book?

• We have been alerting you.that the next and
  last Pope will be a Devil Impersonating John Paul
  II. Through the study of Revelation chapter 17,
  God has led us to a most startling truth,
  confirming that we are nearer to the end of all
  things than ever imagined. We are prompted by our
  loving God to share this prophecy, that none
  need be ensnared by the global events soon to
  transpire which will engulf the world in the
  grandest deception yet contrived by Satan.
• We dare to declare this interpretation to the
  world because we adhere only to sound Biblical
  interpretation. This means we unlock Bible
  prophecy by using the Bible as its own
  interpreter. By doing so we are certain of the
  correctness of the revelation.

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Revelation and Time

• Preterism John saw past events/events in his own
  time
• Futurism John saw distant future events
• Dispensationalism an evangelical interpretation
  that understands God to have revealed himself in
  a series of dispensations or periods of
  history 
• Historicism John saw future events but is
  concerned with historical continuity

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• Cosmic Conflict Interpretation
• Revelation is concerned with past, present and
  future
• Then war broke out in heaven. (Revelation 127)
• Write, then, the things you see, both the things
  that are now and the things that will happen
  afterward. (Revelation 119)
• Revelation is concerned with human reality in
  all of history Sigve Tonstad

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• Prologue 11-6
• 7 Churches 17-321
• 7 Seals 41-81
• 7 Trumpets 82-1119
• The Cosmic Conflict 12-14
• 7 bowls of Gods wrath 151-225
• Epilogue 226-21

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The Cosmic Conflict (Rev. 12-14)

• The likelihood that Revelation has a chiastic
  structure that puts the war of the ages at the
  center of the chiasm sets this section apart as
  the one that gives perspective to the entire
  narrative.(1) This section of the book stands
  out as a fresh beginning(2) , an
  uncharacteristically abrupt fresh start (3),
  the pinnacle of the apocalyptic prophecy (4)
• 1.  Tonstad, Saving Gods Reputation, 56 2.
  Rologg, Revelation, 1393. Bauckham, Climax of
  Prophecy, 1
• 4. Bousset, Offenbarung, 335

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Cosmic Conflict theme (Rev. 12-14)
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• The seventh seal ends with a scene at the golden
  altar of incense (Revelation 83) and with
  rumblings and peals of thunder, flashes of
  lightning, and an earthquake. (Revelation 85)
• The seventh trumpet ends with a scene at the
  Covenant Box and with flashes of lightning,
  rumblings and peals of thunder, an earthquake,
  and heavy hail. (Revelation 1119)
• The seventh plague ends with A loud voice from
  the throne in the temple and with flashes of
  lightning, rumblings and peals of thunder, and a
  terrible earthquake.(Revelation 1617-18)

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• 1st four trumpets are poured out on the
• 1. earth 2. sea 3. rivers and springs 4.
  sun, moon and stars
• 1st four bowls are poured out on the 1. earth
  2. sea 3. rivers and springs 4. sun, moon
  and stars

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• 6th trumpet Release the four angels who are
  bound at the great Euphrates River! (Revelation
  914)
• 6th bowl the angel pours out his bowl on the
  great Euphrates River. (Revelation 1612)

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Repetition and Progression

• Seals Rider on a pale-colored horse. They were
  given authority over one fourth of the earth, to
  kill by means of war, famine, disease, and wild
  animals. (Revelation 68)
• Trumpets one third of the earth, sea, rivers,
  sun, moon and stars...
• Bowls Every living creature in the sea died.
  (Revelation 163)

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• Seals holding back the four winds because the
  people are not yet sealed. (Revelation 71-3)
• Trumpets They have the mark of Gods seal on
  their foreheads (Revelation 94) and the winds
  are no longer held back release the four
  angels (Revelation 914)
• Bowls with them the wrath of God is ended
  (Revelation 151).

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• War in heaventhe ancient serpent of oldthrown
  down to the earth (Rev. 12)
• The third trumpet A large star, burning like a
  torch, which fell from heaven (Revelation
  810)
• The fifth trumpet, I saw a star which had fallen
  down to earth, and it was given the key to the
  abyss.
• His name in Hebrew is Abaddon in Greek the name
  is Apollyon meaning the Destroyer
  (Revelation 911).
• Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven,
  holding in his hand the key of the abyss and a
  heavy chain. He seized the dragon, that ancient
  serpent that is, the Devil, or Satan and
  chained him upthe angel threw in into the abyss,
  locked it and sealed it (Revelation 201-3, see
  also Isaiah 1415).

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• Johns vision creates a single symbolic universe
  in which its readers may live for the time it
  takes to read (or hear) the bookThe power, the
  profusion and the consistency of the symbols have
  a literary-theological purpose. They create a
  symbolic world which readers can enter so fully
  that it affects them and changes their perception
  of the world. Most readers were originally, of
  course, hearers. Revelation was designed for oral
  enactment in Christian worship services. Its
  effect would therefore be somewhat comparable to
  a dramatic performance, in which the audience
  enters the world of the drama for its duration
  and can have the perception of the world outside
  the drama powerfully shifted by their experience
  of the world of the drama. - Richard Bauckham

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Principles of Interpretation

• 1. Become a re-reader 
• The book of Revelation is not composed in a neat
  chronological manner. The seven seals, trumpets
  and bowls of wrath retell the same story but from
  different perspectives and with a different
  emphasis.

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Principles of Interpretation

•  2. Recognize Old Testament (OT) allusions. 
• The book of Revelation makes extensive use of the
  OT. These specific and brief allusions invite us
  to consider the full context of the OT passage.
• The wrath of the Lamb
• Silence in heaven

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Principles of Interpretation

• 3. There is more than one acting subject at
  work. Revelation not only tells the story of the
  Slaughtered Lamb, it also tells the Dragons
  story

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Symbols and metaphors

• Horses
• Olive trees
• Trumpets
• Hailstones
• Locusts
• 3 Frogs
• Sanctuary
• Dragons and other beasts
• Sharp sickle
• Bowls of Gods anger
• Prostitute
• Harps

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• Revelation has suffered from interpretation
  which takes its images too literally. Even the
  most sophisticated interpreters all too easily
  slip into treating the images as codes which need
  only to be decoded to yield literal predictions.
  But this fails to take the images seriously as
  images. John depicts the future in images in
  order to be able to do both more and less than a
  literal prediction could. Less, because
  Revelation does not offer a literal outline of
  the course of future events as though prophecy
  were merely history written in advance. But more,
  because what it does provide is insight into the
  nature of Gods purpose for the future, and does
  so in a way that shapes the readers attitudes to
  the future and invites their active participation
  in the divine purpose. Richard Bauckham

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Meticulous attention to detail

• Revelation has been composed with such
  meticulous attention to detail of language and
  structure that scarcely a word can have been
  chosen without deliberate reflection on its
  relationship to the work as an integrated,
  interconnected whole. - Richard Bauckham The
  Climax of Prophecy Studies on the Book of
  Revelation

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Numerical Patterns with theological significance

• Seven beatitudes scattered throughout the book of
  Revelation.
• Happy is the one who reads this book... (Rev
  13)
• Since seven is the number of completeness in the
  Bible, this specific number of blessings is
  included to indicate the fullness of blessing to
  be bestowed on the reader or hearer who
  faithfully obeys the message of Revelation

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• Seven times the word prophecy is mentioned
• Seven times Christ reassures us that I am
  coming
• 144,000
• The New Jerusalem that has 12 gates and the
  dimensions of a perfect cube
• Time periods of 1,260 days, 42 months, 3 and ½
  days and times, time and half a time.

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• Seven times, The LORD God Almighty
• Seven times, The One who sits on the throne
• Seven times in total three phrases are used to
  describe God that are each considered to be
  equivalent
• the Alpha and the Omega
• the beginning and the end
• the first and the last

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A B B¹ A¹
18 117 216 2213
end of prologue beginning of vision end of vision beginning of epilogue
God Christ God Christ
Alpha and Omega   Alpha and Omega Alpha and Omega
  first and last   first and last
    beginning and end beginning and end
The structure of the chiasm has the climax in
2213, where only Christ contains all three
titles.
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• As a way of stating unambiguously that Jesus
  Christ belongs to the fullness of the eternal
  being of God, this surpasses anything in the New
  TestamentThis pattern underlines the
  identification of Christ with God which the use
  of the titles themselves expressesIt shows that
  the identification of Christ with God implied by
  the titles is not the result of an adoptionist
  Christology, in which the mere man Jesus is
  exalted at his resurrection to divine status.
  Important as the resurrection is for Christs
  participation in Gods lordship, these titles he
  shares with God indicate that he shared the
  eternal being of God from before creationIt does
  not designate him a second god, but includes him
  in the eternal being of the one God of IsraelThe
  importance of Johns extraordinarily high
  Christology for the message of Revelation is that
  it makes it absolutely clear that what Christ
  does, God doesRevelations Christology must be
  incorporated in our account of its understanding
  of GodGod is related to the world not only as
  the transcendent holy One, but also as the
  slaughtered Lamb Richard Bauckham

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• Seven times the word Christ (or Messiah)
• 28 times the word Lamb occurs 28 (7 x 4)
• Seven of these are coupled with the phrase God
  and the Lamb.

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• Four is, after seven, the symbolic number most
  commonly and consistently used in Revelation. As
  seven is the number of completeness, four is the
  number of the world (with its four corners (71
  208) or four divisions (513 147)). The first
  four judgments in each of the series of seven
  affect the world. The 7 x 4 occurrences of the
  Lamb therefore indicate the worldwide scope of
  his complete victory. This corresponds to the
  fact that the phrase by which John designates all
  the nations of the world is fourfold (peoples
  and tribes and languages and nations the phrase
  varies each time it occurs, but is always
  fourfold) and occurs seven times (59 79
  1011 119 137 146 1715). Its first
  occurrence establishes its connection with the
  Lambs victory (59). 

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• Four references to the seven Spirits. The
  seven Spirits are the fullness of Gods power
  sent out into all the earth (56). The four
  references to the sevenfold Spirit correspond to
  the seven occurrences of the fourfold phrase
  which designates all the peoples of the earth.
  They also correspond to the 28 (7 x 4) references
  to the Lamb whichindicate the worldwide scope of
  the Lambs complete victory. The seven Spirits
  are closely associated with the victorious Lamb
  the four references to them indicate that the
  Lambs victory is implemented throughout the
  world by the fullness of divine power Richard
  Bauckham

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• Seven times, the witness of Jesus
• Seven times, the witnesses of Jesus
• What matters most about the humanity of Jesus in
  Revelation is the witness which he bore and which
  his followers continueif God is not present in
  the world as the One who sits on the throne, he
  is present as the Lamb who conquers by suffering.
  Christs suffering witness and sacrificial death
  are, in factthe key event in Gods conquest of
  evil and establishment of his kingdom on earth.