The Cradle, the Cross, and the Crown (192 page)

Approaches to the Study of the Book of Revelation

How one reads the book of Revelation largely depends on one's approach to understanding the areas of history, symbolism, and eschatology. Interpreters differ in their view of the relationship between John's vision and history. Does the book of Revelation reflect past events, present events, purely future events, or events future to John but historical to modern readers? The way one answers these questions significantly influences how one interprets the book.

No one doubts that Revelation is saturated with symbolism, but not all agree on what those symbols mean. Do they have literal referents or literary ones? Literal interpretations produce remarkably divergent meanings from those who follow more literary approaches. Finally, one's eschatological perspectives become the theological lenses influencing how one answers the historical questions as well as how one interprets the book's symbols. The history of interpretation has produced four basic schools of thought for interpreting this complex book.

Preterist
The preterist position (from the Latin
praeteritus
meaning “gone by)” is also known as “contemporary historical,”
²⁰⁵
which approaches the relationship between history and the book of Revelation from the viewpoint that the events prophesied were fulfilled in the first century. One school of preterism interprets the book as a message of judgment against apostate Israel for rejecting Christ by prophesying the destruction of Jerusalem in the year 70.
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Other preterist interpreters see the Roman Empire and the situation of Christians as the focus of John's vision prophesying the fall of Rome.
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This view, in all its variations, represents the most common approach among contemporary scholars.
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Its primary appeal resides in that it takes seriously the historically conditioned reception of the original audience. Preterists recognize that Revelation would have had a meaning accessible to the first-century readers. Therefore, their interpretation of Revelation reflects the choices they made regarding the date of composition and the historical situation addressed. The view of the preterist is that Revelation is not so much a blueprint for the distant future as it is a commentary on events contemporary to the time of composition.
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Since Revelation was not written in a historical vacuum, preterists correctly locate the message in terms of its historical context as something relevant to the original recipients. John addressed real congregations of Christians living in the Roman province of Asia Minor. Thus one approaches the interpretation of Revelation in a manner similar to NT letters by attempting to understand the meaning in light of the historical circumstances of the individual churches. The symbols and images produce a “spatial interaction between the earthly and the heavenly so as to give new meaning to the present situation.”
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By not projecting the contents of the book into the far distant future, preterists helpfully emphasize that John's vision immediately addressed the situation and needs of the churches in Asia Minor. No other book in the NT is as frequently divorced from its historical setting as Revelation. To neglect the relationship of Revelation to its first-century audience is hermeneutically fallacious in that such an approach wrongly assumes that the original recipients were not the seven churches but Christians living today. Having said this, however, it is equally fallacious to restrict the message and meaning of Revelation exclusively to the first century.

Revelation conveys a perspective that extends beyond the confines of the first century. The book depicts the final consummation of the kingdom of God on earth with the physical return of Jesus, the resurrection of all humanity, and the final judgment. An approach that implies that these events have already occurred falls prey to overrealized eschatology.
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The universal scope of Revelation is apparent by the repeated references to the global character of the earth's inhabitants. The people of God are from every nation, tribe, and language (5:9; 7:9; 13:7; 15:4; 21:24), and the objects of God's wrath comprise all earth-dwellers instead of only those in Jerusalem or the Roman Empire.
²¹²

The allusions to OT prophecies in Revelation are either universalized to include all nations and not just Israel or they are specifically drawn from judgment oracles against the
nations. For this reason the notion that Revelation prophesies the destruction of Jerusalem in the year 70 seems highly unlikely, since the frequent allusions to Daniel 2 and 7 depict the nations, rather than Israel, as the object of judgment.
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What is more, to equate Jerusalem with Babylon seems implausible because Babylon, in Revelation, wields enormous political control over the inhabitants of the earth, which could not apply to historical Jerusalem.
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Historicist
The historicist approach
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was the most popular interpretive approach for the book of Revelation during the Middle Ages and throughout the Reformation.
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The historicists viewed the book as forecasting the course of history in Western Europe with particular emphasis on popes, kings, and wars.
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It began with the twelfth-century monastic leader Joachim of Fiore who wanted to find meaningful patterns in history.
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Franciscan interpreters adopted his approach and applied it to their contention with Pope Benedict XI since the Greek values of his name added up to
666.
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Martin Luther, John Calvin, and other Reformers followed suit by equating the Vatican with the harlot Babylon that corrupted and persecuted the true church.
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This approach has been largely abandoned, but one may detect modern variations of it when dispensational interpreters read Revelation as if it were being fulfilled through current events on the world's stage.
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Although a historicist approach offers an interesting window on the history of interpretation of the book of Revelation throughout church history, it fails as a legitimate interpretive model. Its failure stems from the fact that it reflects an inadequate hermeneutic because it narrowly focuses on Western history and insufficiently considers the book's relevance for the first-century churches to which it is addressed.
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Idealist
The idealist, timeless, or symbolic approach sets aside the historical question altogether by positing that Revelation is not about events in the space-time continuum but rather symbolically portrays the spiritual and timeless nature of the battle between good
and evil.
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The famous dictum of W. Milligan epitomizes this approach: “We are not to look in the Apocalypse for special events, but for an exhibition of the principles which govern the history both of the world and the Church.”
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Thus the vision and its symbolism are loosed from their historical moorings so that they represent a universal message to all believers about God's defeat of Satan and the spiritual victory of faith in Christ as the church contends with a world ruled by wicked potentates.

The roots of this view dig deeply into the soil of Christian interpretive history beginning in Alexandria. Origen taught that the spiritual and timeless meaning of the text was superior to the literal sense and applied this viewpoint to Revelation. He had no use for speculations about the time and location of the battle of Armageddon because he understood it to refer to the triumph of God over sin and wickedness.
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This deeper and symbolic interpretation of Revelation was adopted by Dionysius, Origen's pupil, and made a lasting impact through the influence of Augustine (354—430). The millennium, according to Augustine, was a way of referring to the spiritual reign of believers throughout time and not a literal thousand years on earth
(City of God
18.53; 20.7). However, some variations of this view do allow for the future fulfillment of end-time prophecies.

The strengths of this approach are that it accounts for the symbolic nature of John's visions, accurately reflects the universal relevance for all Christians throughout history, and offers a thoroughgoing theological reading of the text. But the disregard for any historical connections or future expectations exposes several flaws. John wrote to real churches facing specific circumstances, especially in the seven letters. The allusions to the imperial cult, the Nero
redux
myth, and other particular first-century historical events indicate that the meaning of his visions is tethered to the space-time continuum. What is more, this approach does not adequately explain the eschatological expectations for the consummation of God's plan in human history with the return of Christ to earth.

Futurist
The fourth basic approach for interpreting the book of Revelation contends that chaps. 4—22 refer to future events.
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Early Christian writers such as Justin Martyr (c. 100-165), Ireneaus (c. 130-200), Tertullian (c. 160-225), and Hippolytus (c. 170-236) held to a futuristic interpretation known as
chiliasm.
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This expression draws from the Greek term for 1,000
(chilia),
which they believed was the thousand-year reign of Christ on earth at the end of the age (Justin,
Dialogue with Trypho
80). The view comes from a literal interpretation of 20:2—7. But this literal interpretation was eclipsed by more allegorical and spiritual approaches emphasizing the timeless and successive fulfillment of these prophecies throughout church history (Augustine,
City of God
18.53; 20.7).

The futuristic approach virtually disappeared from the interpretation of Revelation until it was revived through the writing of a late sixteenth-century Spanish Jesuit named Ribeira who posited that John saw events both in his day and in the far future.
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While he was not a futurist in the strictest sense, he successfully brought futurism back to the table as a viable interpretive option.
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In modern times, the futurist position enjoys pride of place among most evangelical Christians. But not all futurists agree as to how Revelation portrays the unfolding of future events; thus there are two basic forms: (1) dispensational futurism; and (2) modified or moderate futurism.
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Dispensational futurism, associated with dispensational premillennialism, began with the teachings of J. N. Darby that were popularized in America by C. Larkin, D. L. Moody, C. I. Scofield, and L. S. Chafer. The twentieth century has witnessed the development of dispensationalism into two distinct expressions: (1)
classic
(Darby, Scofield, Chafer) and
revised
dispensationalism (J. Walvoord, C. Ryrie, D. Pentecost, T. LaHaye, and R. Thomas); and (2)
progressive
dispensationalism (D. Bock, C. Blaising, R. Saucy, and M. Pate).
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The distinguishing difference between these two forms of dispensationalism is hermeneutical. The hermeneutical hallmark of classic and revised dispensationalism is a consistent and insistent commitment to the literal interpretation of prophetic Scripture,
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a principle often expressed with the dictum, “When the plain sense of Scripture makes common sense, seek no other sense.”
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This hermeneutical approach has resulted in a particular theological system that makes a strict and consistent distinction between Israel and the church.
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The church is merely a parenthesis inserted between God's dealings with Israel, and thus the book of Revelation focuses on the future of ethnic and national Israel.

Since the term “church”
(ekklēsia)
does not occur after 3:22 until 22:15, dispensationalists conclude that the reason for this is that God raptures the church at the beginning of the tribulation so that he may return to dealing with Israel. Thus the tribulation and Christ's thousand-year reign in Jerusalem have nothing to do with the church. Dispensationalists typically interpret Revelation as chronologically depicting future events occurring over a seven-year period of time and centered on the nation of Israel. While dispensational
futurism affirms a high view of Scripture and the future reality it predicts, its excessive literalism tends to impose onto the text an eschatological system that is based on inadequate hermeneutical principles.

Progressive dispensationalism constitutes a significantly updated form of dispensationalism, bringing it hermeneutically closer to contemporary evangelical interpretation.
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The term
progressive
refers to the belief that the various dispensations progressively overlap in keeping with the “already/not yet” tension of inaugurated eschatology. Thus progressive dispensationalists maintain that Jesus has already commenced his reign as the Davidic king at the resurrection rather than placing this event at the beginning in the millennium.
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The millennial reign of Christ, then, is the complete fulfillment for Israel.

Progressive dispensationalists also differ from the earlier forms of dispensationalism in that they do not view the church as a separate segment of humanity or as a competing nation alongside Israel and Gentile nations but rather as redeemed humanity itself (both Jews and Gentiles) existing in this dispensation prior to the coming of Christ.
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C. M. Pate identified the essential difference between the classic and the progressive dispensational interpretations of the book of Revelation as the belief in the overlapping of “this age” and the “age to come”:

John is to write what he has seen (the visions of Revelation as a whole), which divide into two realities: the things that are—the present age; and the things that will be—the age to come. For John the church of his day lives in the present age (chaps. 1—3), but in heaven, by virtue of Jesus’ death and resurrection, the age to come has already dawned (chaps. 4—5). In the future the age to come will descend to earth, effecting the defeat of the Antichrist (chaps. 6—19), the establishment of the temporary messianic kingdom on earth (chap. 20), and subsequently the eternal state (chaps 21—22). Thus the overlapping of the two ages accounts for the continual shifting of scenes between earth (this age) and heaven (the age to come) in Revelation.
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