By Mark W. Christy, PhD
For many students of the Bible, the book of Revelation offers perhaps the greatest hermeneutical challenge for those seeking to properly discern its meaning. This book, however, is a revelation of truth and should not be seen as a deliberate attempt to obscure it. The writer, John the Apostle, expects that those who read this “Revelation of Jesus Christ” will “hear” and “heed” it (Rev 6:1-3; cf. 22:7, 9).[i] The word translated as Revelation, ἀποκάλυψις, means disclosure of something once hidden but has now been revealed. In the New Testament, this word commonly alludes to the revelation of God’s truth (Rom 16:25; Gal 1:12; Eph 1:17; 3:3), the final revealing of God’s children (Rom 8:19), and Christ’s revealing of Himself (Luke 2:32; 2 Thess. 1:7; 1 Pet. 1:7).
Given that John has classified his work as “Revelation,” one should expect a book containing clearly discernible truths which have been unveiled so that its audience could both understand and obey. Since John’s audience is the Church, he pushes for such understanding and assumes faith on the part of hearers who will, following Christ’s admonition in Luke 11:28, obey the Word: “blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it” (cf. Rev 1:4). Correspondingly, failure to properly receive John’s message brings forth a curse (22:18-19).
Between these two extremes of eternal blessing and eternal damnation, ardent students of Revelation can quickly become perplexed on how to rightly interpret John’s content which he himself even labels as “prophecy” (1:3; cf. 11:18; 12:12, 14; 22:10). This term, according to G. K. Beale, “is primarily a reference not to predictive revelation but to divine disclosure demanding an ethical response, in line with OT [Old Testament] ‘prophecy,’ which primarily addresses present situations and only secondarily foretells.”[ii] If Revelation is to be viewed in a similar manner to OT prophecy, then one should expect John to have written a book with a series of ethical teachings in the midst of more overt prophetic literature that speaks to either what Christ has done or will do in the future.
For His part, John certainly seems to consider his work to be a call to faithfulness in the present moment when he says, “the time is near” (1:3; 22:10). Time, or καιροσ, refers to an opportune moment to render a decision. Building upon this perceived immediacy and the accompanying call for a right response, Jesus Himself, speaking through an angel, announces, “Behold, I am coming quickly. Blessed is he who heeds the words of the prophecy of this book” (22:7).
Despite John’s call to commitment and obedience to what would by necessity need to be clearly discernible to a Spirit-led person, many assume Revelation to be a book of symbols which if true, one would think, would only obscure its intended meaning. Admittedly, John’s work indeed contains much symbolism, imagery, and apocalyptic language that render his book to be among the most challenging of the sixty-six books within the Bible. To attempt an interpretation of its contents, there are a total of four basic approaches that are commonly employed.
The first approach, preterism, understands the book of Revelation to be discussing events that had already taken place. Despite the claims of John himself that his work was prophetic in nature, this view sees him to be speaking of events that culminated in the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in A.D. 70. This, surprisingly, includes even the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. By forcing the contents of Revelation into the historical past, preterists appear to have overlooked John’s claim that his work was prophetic.
Among preterists, some take the full preterist position which adheres to the aforementioned material in the previous paragraph, but others adhere to a perspective known as partial preterism. According to this view, the destruction of the temple in A.D. 70 is to be directly associated with the destruction of Jerusalem, the Antichrist, the Great Tribulation, and the coming of the Lord to execute judgement on those living in the world. Unlike the full-preterists however, they still hold that the Second Coming of Christ to judge the unsaved dead and resurrect the righteous awaits future fulfillment.
The second approach to understanding Revelation, historicism, interprets the symbols to be references to historical people, nations, and events. To make such connections, advocates for this hermeneutical method inevitably turn to allegorizing to force the given historical reference of their choosing upon the text. Since the arbiter of truth becomes the interpreter as opposed to the text itself, the end result for those employing this hermeneutic is a plethora of inconsistent (and often diametrically opposed) interpretations. Those who employ this allegorical method fail to hold fast to John’s own claim that his work is prophetic in nature much like the preterists for, like them, they look to the historical path to see the described events as already fulfilled. Whereas preterists take the symbolism in Revelation and force it upon the events surrounding the 1st century destruction of the temple, historicists abolish any opportunity for early believers to understand John’s meaning because they interpret the symbols as references to events that would happen much later.
The third approach, idealism, follows the two preceding views in its failure to view Revelation as prophetic literature but differs from them in their correlation of its contents with history. Ultimately, this method completely disassociates John’s word with any particular historical fulfillment (past, present, or future). Also called the allegorical and symbolic hermeneutical interpretive approach to Revelation, this method sees John’s symbols as non-literal. By committing to this subjective understanding, idealists end up obscuring John’s actual meaning by forcing their own independent, self-generated interpretations upon the text. This independence also allows them the freedom to adopt portions of the other views to create an “eclectic” idealism that allows for multiple fulfilments throughout the ages where interpretations from each era can “conquer the dragon and his allies through the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony.”[iii] By effectively allowing each generation to recreate its own interpretation, idealism of this sort ends up with a confused hermeneutic which separates John’s prophecy from actual historical events and leaves each generation hopelessly unable to discern the actual fulfillment of his message. In such a manner, John’s words ultimately become all but pointless prophetic utterances.
Unlike the non-literal approaches discussed so far, the fourth approach, futurism, follows the same literal, grammatical-historical method that should be used in all other non-prophetic portions of Scripture. While it is referred to as the literal method, some may wonder how such a method could meaningfully retain that label when it is used to interpret the symbolic language of John, language which at least on the surface should never be taken literally. In response to such inquiries, Robert L. Thomas writes:
“This is not so difficult to understand if one keeps in mind that the symbols and visions were the means of communicating the message to the prophet, but they have a literal meaning unless otherwise indicated in the text. They do not furnish grounds for interpreting the text in a nonliteral fashion. They are to be interpreted as one would interpret the rest of the Bible.”[iv]
To align with the literal method of interpretation, one must assume a literal meaning unless something within the text itself directs them to do otherwise. For example, nothing in Revelation 7:4 tells the reader to understand the 144,000 people as anything else but that; therefore, it should be literally understood to mean 144,000 people. On the other hand, the “city which mystically is called Sodom and Egypt” in Revelation 11:8 cannot be correctly interpreted to be either the city of Sodom or Egypt because of the word “mystically” attached to these places in John’s discourse.
Adhering to this hermeneutic, futurists can interpret both the non-prophetic and prophetic elements of Revelation in a consistent manner that allows Revelation to unveil its meaning without forcing meaning upon the text (as is done by interpreters using the aforementioned approaches). By using this method, futurists end up with an interpretation that associates many of the events and people in John’s prophecies with the future as opposed to the past (as the preterists claim) or the present (as the historicists and idealists claim).
Asserting their commitment to a literal hermeneutic, futurists are nonetheless forced to deal with John’s symbolic language, and this requires them to absolve themselves from a strictly wooden interpretation. As Bruce M. Metzger opines, “The book of Revelation is unique in appealing primarily to our imagination — not, however, a freewheeling imagination, but a disciplined imagination.”[v] To understand his meaning, one should consider Peter’s vision of a large sheet descending from heaven that had all kinds of animals upon it (Acts 10:11). In the midst of his dream, Peter heard a voice telling him to “kill and eat” for God wanted Peter to know that all animals could be consumed, and likewise Jews could now freely associate with Gentiles without concern over purification rites (10:13-16). Upon reading this account, it becomes glaringly obvious that no sheet truly existed and yet God’s meaning behind the symbolism in Peter’s vision arises directly and literally from the text.
Just as one can arrive at a literal interpretation of Peter’s vision by wholly relying upon the text, those seeking to rightly understand John’s symbolism can with proper interpretive procedures in place. At times, John makes this easy because he himself explains the meaning of the symbols (c.f. Rev1:20). Some symbols in John’s work have an easily discernible interpretation like the number seven which refers to perfection or completion. Other symbols in Revelation were taken from Hebrew Scriptures, especially the books of books of Ezekiel, Daniel, and Zechariah. Along with these, John also employs imagery found in the New Testament. For example, he mentions a slain Lamb which is an obvious reference to Christ (Rev 5:6, 12; 13:8; Acts 8:32). Knowledge of John’s sourcing of such symbolism provides an excellent guide to his meaning as interpreters become enabled to allow Scripture to interpret Scripture.
Unfortunately, some scholars reject the literal hermeneutical approach to Revelation. Some argue that John’s use of symbols automatically prevents a literal approach, and on the surface, such a stance would appear forthright. Allan Chapple, for instance, writes, “So the Lord Jesus is not a slain Lamb, and nor does he actually look like one.”[vi] Despite his statement, Chapple still recognizes Jesus to be the slain Lamb, an admission which could only have arisen from the larger context of Scripture and the employment of a literal hermeneutic.
In historical terms, futurism can be found among the earliest Christian writers including Justin, Irenaeus, and Hippolytus. By the third century however, the pendulum swung toward more allegorical interpretations as evidenced in the writings of Origen, Augustine, and Ticonius. As a method of understanding Revelation, futurism remained largely dormant until Franciscus Ribeira, a Spanish Jesuit, appeared in the late 16th century with an interpretational method that faintly resembled that of historic futurism.[vii]
Among the four major interpretational approaches to Revelation, futurism is the only method that leads to premillennialism. Defending this view while recognizing that not all Christians of his time accepted it, Justin Martyr (A.D. 100-165) affirms the literal resurrection of the dead and millennial reign of Christ in Jerusalem.[viii] Affirming his belief in the millennial reign of Christ, Tertullian (A.D. 160-220) “confess[es] that a kingdom is promised to us upon the earth, although before heaven, only in another state of existence; inasmuch as it will after the resurrection for a thousand years in the divinely-built city of Jerusalem.”[ix] At the end of the one-thousand year period, Tertullian affirms the premillennial position that the resurrection will have completed at the end of Christ’s thousand year earthly rule having added whomever was saved during that time, then the world would be destroyed.[x] Following Justin Martyr and Tertullian, Commodianus (about A.D. 250) and Lactantius (240-320 A.D.) state that those believers who survive the reign of the Antichrist to enter into the millennial kingdom will be ruled over by the returning resurrected believers.[xi] To this, Lactantius adds a clear reference to the Second Coming of Christ preceding his millennial reign when “Christ shall descend with great power, and there shall go before Him a fiery brightness and countless host of angels, and all that multitude of the wicked shall be destroyed, and torrents of blood shall flow.”[xii] He further remarks on the binding of Satan during this period who “will go forth and assemble all the nations, which shall then be under the dominion of the righteous, that they may make war against the holy city” where God will destroy them.[xiii]
Given such ancient origins alongside its conservative hermeneutic, one would be tempted to think that the most conservative Christians hold the futuristic approach to Revelation and the resulting premillennial commitments that would thereby arise. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. For example, those who hold to reformed theology adhere to one of the other views despite the admitted conservatism on all other essential Christian doctrine.[xiv] As to why this is the case, the answer unsurprisingly lies in their hermeneutical commitments.
On a popular level, reformed theology is understood to be associated primarily with the five points of Calvinism (TULIP). Classically however, reformed theology has always been closely associated with covenant theology, so much that Michael Horton could boldly declare that “[r]eformed theology is synonymous with covenant theology.”[xv] Assuming a covenantal hermeneutic for Scripture, the church is the fulfillment of OT promises to Israel. One covenantal theologian, Horton, adds, “Israel was not first of all a nation, but a church, a community called out of darkness, sin, oppression, and evil to form the nucleus of God’s worldwide empire.”[xvi] Such conflation of the Church and Israel has led some to call this replacement theology or supersessionism. This theology, which is woven into the amillienialist view of Revelation, affords to Israel all of the OT curses and yet strangely withholds the promises. Those are then given to the Church, while the role of national Israel in God’s unfolding eschatological plans becomes non-existent. By adhering to this hermeneutical slight of hand, replacement theologians arrive at Revelation with a pre-loaded view that Israel’s role in redemptive history has to be left to a bygone era, and unsurprisingly, they become forced to abandon any hermeneutic approach, such as the literal method used by futurist, that afforms an end-time role for Israel.
Unlike those in the reformed camp whose admittance requires commitment to covenantal theology, Calvinists like John MacArthur remain able to readily affirm the doctrines of grace (TULIP) even while they shift their eschatological commitments to dispensationalism. This view refuses to read the New Testament back into the Old Testament, and instead prefers to read the Scriptures in a progressive manner whereby revelation is not allowed to upend forgone revelation. To put this another way, newer revelation cannot cancel unconditional promises to the nation of Israel. These promises remain intact until fulfilled, and the nation of Israel, as the receiver of these divine promises, remains exclusive heir to them and not the church as the covenantal theologians argue.
In conclusion, hermeneutical clarity in one’s interpretation of Revelation is often obscured by a rejection of the principles of literal interpretation in favor of an allegorical or spiritualizing hermeneutical method. Such approaches attempt to place Revelation’s account in the past and present rather than the future. But once the plain meaning of the text is denied, an interpreter is left to his own imagination, and the truths of this book are lost in a maze of human inventions void of authenticity. By holding to futurism, one will arrive at a premillennialist view in line with that of the earliest writers in Christian history. This view will allow for an end-time role for national Israel as well as the Church as it looks forward to the literal millennial reign of Christ together with His saints.
[i]All Scripture references are taken from NASB1995.
[ii]G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation, in The New International Greek Testament Commentary, eds. I. Howard Marshall and Donald A. Hagner (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), 184-85.
[iii]Brian J. Tabb, All Things New: Revelation as Canonical Capstone, in New Studies in Biblical Theology, ed. D. A. Carson (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2019), 26 (epub.).
[iv]Robert L. Thomas, Revelation 1-7: An Exegetical Commentary, ed. Kenneth Barker (Chicago: Moody, 1992), 35.
[v]Bruce M. Metzger, Breaking the Code: Understanding the Book of Revelation (Nashville: Abingdon, 1993), 15 (epub.).
[vi]Allan Chapple, A Gospel Pageant: A Reader’s Guide to the Book of Revelation (Eugene, OR: Resource, 2015), 10 (epub.).
[vii]Grant R. Osborne, Revelation, in Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament, ed. Moises Silva (Grand Rapids: Baker, 20002), ,53 (epub.).
[viii]Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, ch. 80, available at: https://d2y1pz2y630308.cloudfront.net/15471/
documents/2016/10/St.%20Justin%20Martyr-Dialogue%20with%20Trypho.pdf.
[ix]Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, eds., “Tertullian Against Marcion,” Latin Christianity: Its Founder, Tertullian I. Apologetic, II. Anti-Marcion; III. Ethical, in vol. 3 of The Writings of the Father Down to A.D. 325: Ante-Nicene Fathers (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1995), 342.
[x]Ibid., 343.
[xi]Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, eds., “The Instructions of Commodianus in Favour of Christian Discipline against the Gods of the Heathens (Expressed in Acrostics.),” Tertullian, Part Fourth; Minucius Felix; Commodian; Origen, Parts First and Second, in vol.4 of The Writings of the Father Down to A.D. 325: Ante-Nicene Fathers (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1995), 218; ibid., “The Divine Institutes, Book 7,” Lactantius, Venantius, Asterius, Victorinus, Dionysius, Apostolic Teaching and Constitutions, 2 Clement, Early Liturgies, in vol. 7 of The Writings of the Fathers Down to A. D. 325: Ante-Nicene Fathers (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1995), 219.
[xii]Ibid., “The Epitome of the Divine Institutes,” Lactantius, Venantius, Asterius, Victorinus, Dionysius, Apostolic Teaching and Constitutions, 2 Clement, Early Liturgies, in vol. 7 of The Writings of the Fathers Down to A. D. 325: Ante-Nicene Fathers (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1995), 254.
[xiii]Ibid., “The Divine Institutes, Book 7,” Lactantius, Venantius, Asterius, Victorinus, Dionysius, Apostolic Teaching and Constitutions, 2 Clement, Early Liturgies, in vol. 7 of The Writings of the Fathers Down to A. D. 325: Ante-Nicene Fathers (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1995), 219-21.
[xiv]Michael J. Vlach, Dispensationalism: Essential Beliefs and Common Myths (Los Angeles: Theological Studies, 2017), 51; John MacArthur, “First Message,” Shepherd’s Conference 2007; available at: http://philgons.com/docs/macarthur-on-amillennialism.pdf. Those who look into reformed theology will quickly find no small amount of disagreement over its requisite theological affirmations. Some, like Michael J. Vlach, argue that it “does not lead to any specific view of eschatology or the millennium.” Others, such as John MacArthur, think differently. He observes, “one of the strange ironies in the church and Reformed theology [is] that those who love the doctrine of sovereign election most supremely and sincerely, and who are most unwavering in their devotion to the glory of God, the honor of Christ, the work of the Spirit in regeneration and sanctification, the veracity and inerrancy of Scripture, and who are the most fastidious in hermeneutics, and who are the most careful and intentionally biblical regarding categories of doctrine, and who see themselves as guardians of biblical truth, and are not content to be wrong at all, and who agree most heartily on the essential matters of Christian truth so that they labor with all their powers to examine in a Berean fashion every relevant text to discern the true interpretation of all matters of divine revelation are in varying degrees of noninterest in applying those same passions and skills to the end of the story, and are rather content to be in a happy and even playful disagreement regarding the vast biblical data on eschatology, as if the end didn’t matter much.”
[xv]Michael Horton, Introducing Covenant Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2006), 11.
[xvi]Ibid., 28.