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16 - The Revelation to John |
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LESSON 16• The Revelation to John
“That You Might Believe and Have Life In His Name” (John 20:31)
Preparation for New Testament Survey, May 28, 2006
The Revelation to John
INTRODUCTION
Mysterious. Dramatic. Breathtaking. What words would you use? Overwhelming. Controversial. Incomprehensible.
The Book of Revelation can present many challenges as we seek to understand, but it should not be a book that is avoided or ignored. It is an integral part of God’s word, and as the final words of His message to man, the Revelation brings together the struggle of mankind, the omnipotence of God, the victory of Jesus, and the defeat of Satan in a uniquely beautiful and inspiring way.
The book opens with a statement of purpose. The revelation of Jesus was given “to show his servants what must soon take place.” The last chapter reaffirmed the purpose saying that the Lord “sent his angel to show his servants the things that must soon take place." The church was about to undergo a severe persecution, and the book is written primarily to provide strength and encouragement to those who would suffer that persecution.
The style of writing employed in Revelation may seem strange to us, but it was familiar to the church of the first century. In apocalyptic literature, symbolism is not used to enhance the message; rather, it is the primary medium for conveying the message. The use of symbolic language had a twofold purpose: 1) to reveal the message to the initiated who understood the meaning of the symbols, and 2) to conceal the message from the uninitiated.
Revelation does not have a strictly sequential story line such as you would experience if you were watching a typical movie. Just as some movies contain flashbacks and “dreams,” Revelation contains such things as nested sequences, vignettes placed in the middle of a series, and repetition. Many of these literary modes are designed to repeat the same message from different viewpoints or to provide additional nuances. The effect is the development of a broader view and greater understanding of the primary message: God is in control. Satan will be defeated. Remain faithful through persecution.
MONDAY
Before the drama unfolds, Jesus has a personal message for each of the seven churches to whom the letter is addressed. While the Revelation addresses tribulation caused by outsiders, the letters deal with threats from within. These seven churches were located in the western part of what is now the country of Turkey. They roughly formed a circle beginning with Ephesus on the coast proceeding north then inland and finally south ending with Laodecia, with each city ranging from 25 to 60 miles apart.
Jesus begins each letter the same way, greeting them with a description of himself and a statement that He knows their deeds. He had revealed himself to John “among the lampstands.” His presence is near, and his involvement is personal.
Read the imagery and characteristics Jesus uses to describe himself. Together they form an awe-inspiring picture of power and authority. Notice the salutation to Philadelphia. He identifies himself as “holding the key of David,” a reference to Isaiah22:22 where Eliakim was given authority over access to the king. The significance of the claim is that only Jesus can provide access to the throne room of God, as he said in John 14:6, “no one comes to the Father except through me.”
The bodies of the letters contain commendations for faithfulness and rebukes for shortcomings. Two churches received no compliments and two were not chastised. A recurring subject is the issue of false teaching or false doctrine. These false teachings led to immorality and involvement with local practices of idolatry, and Jesus condemned the teaching and behavior with clear and harsh language.
After a call to repentance for those who had sinned and words of praise for those whose deeds were pure, the letters end with at least fifteen promises of reward for all who remain faithful. With gifts such as hidden manna and new names, privileges such as the right to eat from the tree of life or sitting on His throne, and the friendship of acknowledgement before the Father and sharing of lingering meals, Jesus overwhelms his people with reward and blessing.
TUESDAY
As the drama unfolds, John finds himself in the throne room of God. How do you describe the scene? What words could even begin to portray the glory of God on His throne? We generally describe God by depicting His attributes: God is love; God is patient; God is just. The terms John uses illustrate the magnificence and glory of God, and emphasize the authority and power of God through the imagery of the throne.
Around the central throne are seven spirits and four living creatures ringed by twenty-four elders and surrounded by thousands and thousands of angels. The four creatures are described in great detail, and their characteristics are similar to Isaiah’s description of seraphim (Isa. 6) and even more so in Ezekiel’s description of cherubim (Eze. 1, Eze. 10). The creatures seem to have a special connection to God’s creation. There are four of them which is the number that symbolically will be used repeatedly in connection with the creation. They also have the appearance of animals and man, the product of creation.
The main activity and focus in the throne room is the glory and praise offered to God. When Christ enters, glory and praise are directed at Him, affirming his place as God. His appearance is that of a baby lamb, slain and yet alive at the same time.
In God’s hand is the Revelation, pictured as a scroll sealed with seven seals. Only the Lamb is worthy to open the scroll. As the Lamb breaks the seals in chapter 6, dramatic visions emerge. The first four seals are comprised of what is commonly termed, “the four horsemen of the apocalypse.” These paint a picture of ambition, imperialism, war and the aftermath of hardship, famine and death.
Notice that Death and Hades are always linked together in Revelation. Death claims the body while Hades claims the soul.
The fifth seal is a vision of the souls of martyrs crying “How long, Sovereign LORD, . . .until you judge . . . and avenge our blood?” The question is not answered, but they were told to be patient – there were others destined for the same fate they had suffered.
The sixth seal brings imagery of judgment. Earthquakes, falling stars, receding skies represented cosmic and final destruction. Men flee and plead to be hidden from the irresistible wrath of God and the Lamb. And yet the story is not over. An interlude occurs between the sixth and seventh seal – the sealing of 144,000.
What’s in the numbers? Religious completeness is represented by 12, and 1,000 signifies intensified or amplified. The image is “all of every tribe,” intensified. It is all of the saved of every nation. The message is central to the purpose of the book: the saved would be brought through this tribulation.
WEDNESDAY
Three series of sevens are prominent in the book, seven seals, seven trumpets, and seven bowls. The content of the seventh seal is the seven trumpets, and the content of the seventh trumpet is seven bowls of God’s wrath. Seven is representative of sacred completeness or perfection.
The breaking of the seventh seal ushers in the sounding of the trumpets. Like the seals, the trumpets are comprised of two groups, four then three. The first four mete out partial destruction of the creation followed by three which affect mankind directly.
The key to the purpose of the trumpets is found in 9:20-21: “the rest of mankind . . . still did not repent.” God’s desire is for men to repent, because it is only through repentance that they can return to Him. The trumpets demonstrate the length to which God will go to get man’s attention. But the Lord’s patience will run out, and those who ignore his warnings will feel the full force of His wrath. Time is uncertain, but God’s judgment is not.
Between the sixth and seventh trumpets, an interlude occurs. First John is told to eat a little scroll. This story would remind readers of Ezekiel’s similar experience (Eze. 3). But the scroll turned sour in his stomach. When we “eat the book,” we digest its truths. The message is fully absorbed. But the message is not always pleasant, and the reaction of others to the message is often not positive.
The story of the two witnesses is a masterpiece of Old Testament imagery. The olive trees would bring to mind Zechariah’s prophecy regarding Zerubbabel (in the royal lineage) and Joshua, the priest, who led the restoration following the captivity (Zech. 4). The power and authority of the witnesses evoke the memory of Moses and Elijah, with the miracles and plagues that they employed. The fire coming from their mouths would be associated with God’s word pictured as fire coming from Jeremiah’s mouth (Jer. 5:14). The number two was required to validate testimony, as well as possibly referring symbolically to the Law and the Prophets or the old and new Covenants.
Peter identifies the church as a royal priesthood (1 Pet 2:9). God’s people are charged with taking God’s message to mankind, and when His people act, Satan attacks. In spite of Satan’s efforts, though, God triumphs and His people are destined to be with Him.
THURSDAY
In the middle of the drama we are handed the playbill, and the principal characters are introduced in greater detail. First there is a woman who is about to give birth who is confronted by a dragon that wants to devour the newborn child. The dragon is clearly identified later in 12:9 as Satan, and the child who will rule all nations and is snatched up to God’s throne is Christ. But who is the woman?
Christ came through the Jewish nation, but the woman was afterward protected by God from the efforts of the dragon to destroy her and her offspring. If the woman were to be identified exclusively with either the Jewish nation or the Church, problems with the story remain. A more consistent view would be the woman as representing spiritualIsrael – the Jewish nation before the birth, and the Church afterward.
Two beasts emerge. The first beast is given power by the dragon to rule and was used as an agent to make war with the saints. Chapter 17 identifies the head of the beast as symbolic of two things: seven hills on which the prostitute sits and seven kings. The prostitute has been identified as Babylon, which would be a code word to the Jewish Christians for Rome. Rome was also built on seven hills, and a reference to the city on seven hills would be commonly understood as indicatingRome.
The job of the second beast was to make men worship the first beast. After their death, Roman emperors were usually deified by the Roman senate, but Domitian became the first emperor to lay claim to deity during his rule (81-96). During his reign, worship of the emperor as God became the state religion, and intense persecution of those who refused to participate followed.
It is this beast that is identified by the famous number 666. The number would be frequently subject to a numeric game Greeks played, gematria, in which each letter of the alphabet was assigned a numeric value. The object of the game was to guess the identity of a person from a number that was the sum of the values from the spelling of his or her name.
Irenaeus, a disciple of Polycarp (who was a disciple of John), around 185 A.D. mentioned three names or titles that added up to 666. But he commented that “. . . if it were necessary that his name should be distinctly revealed in this present time, it would have been announced by him who beheld the apocalyptic vision.”
If the beast was not intended to represent a person, just as the first beast represented more than one individual, then the symbolism of the number 6, imperfection, repeated three times would symbolize the diametric opposition to the perfection of the trinity. The prohibition against idolatry was the first commandment, and our God is a jealous God.
Finally the seventh trumpet is blown, and seven more angels are given seven bowls containing seven plagues to be poured out.
Unlike the previous catastrophes, which were limited, these bowls represent the full, undiluted wrath of God. In 15:8, no one could enter the temple until the plagues were completed. God’s mind could not be changed, and the time for punishment had come.
FRIDAY
After the plagues are delivered, Heaven celebrates with the shouting of Hallelujah – the only chapter (19) in the Bible which uses the word. Praise to God erupts “like the roar of a great multitude ... rushing water ... peals of thunder.” The celebration of God’s victory is not a subdued event.
Following the demise of Rome, Satan is seized and bound for a thousand years. This passage has been the focus of much controversy and disagreement over its meaning. A broadly held view, premillennialism, derives its name from the number, generally holding that Christ will return to earth to reign physically in Jerusalem for a thousand years. According to the view, we are in the period before His return – hence we live in the premillennial period.
To hold this view requires, among other things, that we take the thousand years as a literal period of time. If we are to interpret all numbers literally, then we need to, for example, take the blood flowing for 1600 stadia (about 184 miles) literally (14:20). That would require the blood of between 120 billion and 64,000 billion people, depending on whether the blood flowed from the press like a river or flowed in all directions.
Again, with apocalyptic writing style, we should first look for the symbolic meaning of the images. The number 10 symbolized completeness or power. A thousand was 10 x 10 x 10, or the full time intensified.
Christ defeated Satan at the cross (Col. 2:15) and established His kingdom and made us citizens (Col. 1:13). Through our resurrection with Christ (Rom. 6:4), we have spiritually come to life. Those who participate in this resurrection have no fear of the “second death,” identified in 20:14 as the lake of fire. “The rest of the dead,” those who were not part of the faithful, were not raised until the thousand years were ended, or until the fullness of time is completed. After the “thousand years,” Satan is defeated and thrown into the lake, and all mankind is raised to stand before God in judgment (20:12).
Chapter 21 follows with a vision of the people of God being presented with the new Jerusalem, heaven, and God wiping away all tears “... for the old order of things has passed away.” Those whose names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life are ushered into a life of unbelievable glory and beauty.
The book ends with an invitation and a promise. “Whoever is thirsty, let him come,” and “Yes, I am coming soon.” Amid a life of trial and oppression, the Christians of John’s day were given a tremendous source of encouragement and hope, Christ’s Revelation.
© 2006, Pleasant Valley Church of Christ
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