Pre-Trib Research Center: A Brief History of the Interpretation of the Book of Revelation

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Professor Emeritus of Preaching

Trinity Evangelical Divinity School,Deerfield, Illinois

JESUS IS GOING TO WIN! That is the blessed thrust of the Revelation.

Our great Sovereign God has the first word, the intermediate word and thelast word. This is the bottom line of the climactic and concluding book in theBiblical canon. How apt, how fitting, how appropriate. As Genesis commences withthe creation of the heavens and the earth, man and wife, rivers, the tree oflife, paradise lost with the entrance of sin, the rise of Babel, death andexclusion - and now the Revelation, God's book of outcomes, caps off Holy Scripture with the NewHeaven and the New Earth, the Last Adam and His Bride, "the river of the waterof life," paradise regained in the garden city of God, the doom of Babylon,life and reconciliation for the Lord's own - Eden more than restored - and wemarvel again at the perfection, the architectonic beauty and genius of HolyScripture! No wonder Satan and his minions hate the Revelation!¹

^.....its canonicity has been disputed. Almost universallyaccepted in the west

but challenged by Eusebius and the East because of their hatred ofchiliasm. Westcott and Laird lay out the evidence--solidly locked in place.²

.....its authorship has been debated. Despite some stylistic andother differences, Beasley-Murray affirms "the remarkable affinities betweenthe Gospel of John and the Revelation."³ John the Apostle is itsauthor.

¹D.H.Lawrence: "The work of a second-rate mind - appealing tosecond-rate minds." Typicalattack.

²B.F.Westcott, A General Survey of the History of the Canonof the New Testament (1889); R. Laird

Harris, Inspirationand Canonicity of the Bible (1957).The evidence is massive.

³G.R.Beasley-Murray, New Bible Commentary (1953)1168.

......it has been sadly ignored in many circles. The early Lutherwould have

none of it; the revered John Calvin refused to write a commentary on it andZwingli did not think it was a true book of the Bible, etc. etc. Grievous.

......its mid-nineties date has been assailed but Mark Hitchcock mostlately and others have made a decisive case for the traditional date. This iskey!

......and still it is true as R.H. Charles observed long ago:

"Fromthe earliest ages of the Church, it has been universally admitted that theApocalypse is the most difficult book of the entire Bible."⁴

We have always had to contend with the "know-nothings" like Gloagg whoargued that no one knows what Revelation means or Martin Kiddle who wrote onRevelation for the Moffatt Commentaries who maintained that

"Revelationis full of obscurities--the book is so strange as to becomemeaningless--scholars are lost in the maze. Visions are tinged withincoherencies so that much of the book appears incapable of reasonableexplanation--such fantasies and incoherent contradictions--intentionallycryptic. The first readers had the master-key which unlocked the mysteries--wehave lost the key..."⁵

^{So much for authorial intention. Then he writes 460 pages on the book!}

LAUNCHING THE ECCLESIAL INTERPRETATION OFREVELATION

The early church was virtually universal in holding to the imminent andpre-millennial return of Christ and was keen in her interest in and use of thebook of Revelation. She had not yet formulated or developed a system ofeschatological understanding and was not clear on the two-stage parousia (aswith Christological, Trinitarian and Soteriological doctrine) but this was tocome. Early interpreters perceived the inter-locking of the

⁴R.H. Charles, Lectures on the Apocalypse, inWilbur M. Smith, Wycliff Bible Commentary (1962) 1491

⁵Martin Kiddle, The Revelation of St. John - Moffatt(1940) xvii-xxi

book with the OT (with its 278 allusions, mainly from Daniel, Ezekiel andZechariah). This inter-locking inclined them strongly to futurism. They derivedimmense consolation from the depiction of the ultimate defeat of the final formof the Roman Empire as they daily faced the ferocity of an earlier form of theEmpire in their own life-time (correlated with Daniel 2,7).

While we have lost the commentary of Hippolytus on Revelation (d. 232), wehave his commentary on Daniel in which he emphasizes the detached seven yearsas the key to the wrap-up of space-time history. He sees their

echo in the 3 1/2 years, 42 months and 1260 days of Revelation, as well asthe meaning of "saints" based on Daniel 7 and the "virgins" of Revelation 14 ascompanions of the bride. That Chiliasm was orthodoxy in these early centuriesis conceded by virtually all, including the amillennial Ned B. Stonehouse ofWestminster whose doctoral dissertation was on The Apocalypse in the EarlyChurch.⁶Simcox is only typical in weighing in onthe issue:

"Fromthe time of Tertullian and Hippolytus--not to say Justin and Irenaeus--we havea consistent expectation of the course of events that will precede the lastjudgment...."⁷

Jerome begins to have doubts about Chiliasm and Augustine, once a confirmedpremillenarian was seduced by Tyconius, the Donatist lay-theologian who wastinctured by Origen's allegorizing proclivities. His disastrous domesticationof the Kingdom makes the Apocalypse incomprehensible and represents theabandonment of eschatology. The

⁶Ned B. Stonehouse, The Apocalypse in the Ancient Church (1929). Shows Victorinus (d.304) saw

clearly that theAnti-Christ's reign of terror was to climax in three and a half years of tyranny.

⁷G.A. Simcox, The Revelation of St. John the Divine in Wilbur M. Smith, op. cit.1493

Church exists as the 1000 year reign between the two advents and Revelationmakes no predictions about specific events of other than the release of Satanfor a short flurry at the end of the thousand years.

LANGUISHING IN THE LETHARGY OF THE STATUSQUO

Although the futuristic understanding of Revelation was largely smotheredby Augustine's idealistic/poetical hybrid⁸, there were alwaysvigorous exceptions such as St. Patrick the Irish evangelist who saw upwards of12,000 come to Christ. In the year 1000 A.D. there was something of aneschatological stir (especially among those who latently subscribed to the 6000year theory of human history). Revelation with its disturbing visions of judgment was portrayed in theartistic representations found in church chancels throughout Christendom.Joachim of Fiore in the 12th century challenged the Augustinian miasma with hiselectrifying thesis: it is "in my time" that Revelation will be fulfilled. He wrote a commentary on Revelation 9which sent shock-waves throughout Europe for centuries.

The reverberations of this early historicism reached the later Luther wholargely abandoned his earlier Augustinianism and proclaimed: 'THE POPE IS THEANTI-CHRIST!" and hence the end of the age is at hand. He hastened to finishhis commentary on Ezekiel lest the Lord's return find it uncompleted. The otherReformers rather tamely followed him in this but without his bellowing gusto.Historicists have tended to see Revelation as

⁸The idealistic/spiritualistic/poetical interpretation reallyseals and closes up Revelation, cf Daniel 12:9,

Revelation 22:10.Milligan in The Expositor's Bible and TomTorrance's sermons are examples.

a history of humankind, the rise of Islam, the story of the Crusades, theinvention of printing and the Napoleonic Wars. John Napier, a Scot, in his APlaine Discovery of the Whole Revelation of St. John (1593),correlates the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 with "a precise timetableuncovered in Revelation, even down to the determination that the seventh andlast age of history had begun in 1541 and would last until 1786."⁹

H. Grattan Guiness (1835-1920) represents the climax of historicism. He wasa gifted preacher, educator and missionary statesman. Yet he sees the wholehistory of the papacy in Daniel 7. Revelation is about Romanism. His convolutedeschatology figures 1260 years from the Decree of Justinian in 533 A.D. to theFrench Revolution. So? In his last book in 1917 he is despertely trying to stretchhis terminal dates. Because the system had reached its max in continuousrevision, it is now kaput. The late and beloved David L. Cooper in seeing WorldWar I as the key sign of the end became an historicist/futurist. So have all ofus who see the return of the Jews from 105 countries to Israel in our time as asignificant fulfillment of prophecy. The blending of interpretive schemes whichis increasingly common in our time had its beginning in the Middle Ages.

There have long been preterists among us who have seen the Beast inRevelation 13 as Rome; the Kings of the East as Roman generals. It is mostinteresting that there is no record of preterism in the early church. We

⁹Jeffrey D. Arthurs, Preaching with Variety: How to Re-Openthe Dynamics of Biblical Genres (Kregel)2007. In the light of such nonsense, one can almost appreciate G.B. Shaw'snaughty opinion that "Revelation is a curious record of the visions of a drugaddict."

ourselves would subscribe to the idea that the fall of Jerusalem is in areal sense a proleptic anticipation of the fall of the final phase of thefourth great world empire of "the times of the Gentiles." Only those like J. Stuart Russell areconsistent preterists (or pantelists). Most contemporary preterists meld theirpreterism with post-millennialism and could therefore be denominated "duplex"preterist/futurists. Very few purists in this area.

LIVING IN THE FRENZY OF PROPHETIC FEVER

In the wake of Joachim of Fiore's periodization of history and hisrelentlessly historicist and futuristic view of Revelation, seismic shockscontinued to be felt throughout Europe. Savonarola preached powerfully from theBook of Revelation in Florence, Italy in the fifteenth century. James Reston,Jr. shows us the apocalyptic atmosphere in fifteenth century Spain in whichJohn the Revelator was the patron saint. Revelation was about to be fulfilled -the Church as the "woman" of chapter twelve would trample the serpent under herfeet. Entwined in much of this was intense antipathy to the Jews. As the year1500 approached the precocious young Nuremberg artist, Albrecht Durer producedhis disturbing woocut portrayals of Revelation, the most famous of which showsthe four horsement galloping across the foreboding sky.¹⁰

^{This was one of those times when John's vision as outlined inRevelation}

^{"spread to exercise a formative sway over diverse social movements and}

¹⁰James Reston, Jr., Dogs of God: Columbus, the Inquisitionand the Defeat of the Moors (Doubleday)

2005.

and over broad sections of society."¹¹So persons as disperateas the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II and even Christopher Columbus on hisepochal voyages to "diffuse the Gospel in all the world" saw themselves asfitting into the Apocalyptic scenario of Revelation. Was there ever such a bookas this in all of history? Isaac Newton the great scientist wrote commentarieson Daniel and Revelation and Roger Bacon saw his work in science as supplementalto the prophecies of Revelation.

Queen Elizabeth I saw her time (as did many of her subjects such as JohnFoxe (of Book of Martyrs fame) as set in "these last andworst days of the world," as adumbrated in the Revelation. Not only in what isordinarily called "the Radical Reformation" (the Anabaptists and Zwickauprophets), but in staunch mainline Anglicans like Joseph Mede and ThomasBrightman at Cambridge (who saw the seven churches as prefiguring the historyof the Church) we see a fascinating absorption in Revelation. The VenerableBede (673-735) in his Latin commentary on Revelation may have followed Tyconiusand Augustine, but the majority followed the Antiochene historical-grammaticalexegesis of Hippolytus, such as Bishop Bale (who wrote the first Englishcommentary on Revelation) started out postmillennially but came to imminenceand premillennialism. Even that rapscalion James I of England wrote acommentary on Revelation. One of the engrossing themes of discussion was theidentity of the two witnesses in Revelation 11.¹² The Puritans lovedRevelation - it was the only book

¹¹Leonard I. Sweet, "The Revelatioin of St. John and History,"in Christianity Today, March 11, 1973, 9f

¹²Rodney L. Peterson, Preaching in the Last Days: The Themeof the Two Witnesses in the 16tth and

17th Centuries(Oxford) 1993.

on which Jonathan Edwards wrote a commentary. John Cotton of Boston

lectured his congregation for weeks on Revelation 13 and published hisruminations in 1655. Cotton was a postmill.¹³The Mathers premill.

The continental Pietists were not indolent in this effusion of apocalyptic- J.A. Bengel (1687-1752), the father of textual criticism, wrote twocommentaries on Revelation. He influenced John Wesley to become apremillennialist and was quite eclectic in his interpretation of Revelation.The likes of Vitringa, Cocceius and Philip Spener stood with Bengel in seeingthe 144,000 as Jews who would be converted and the 1000 years at the end of theworld. Ironically, Friedrich Engels (of Marx and Engels) estimated that theRevelation of St. John was "worth more than all the rest of the New Testamentput together," with which we would not agree but note with interest. Is itpossible to speak of "benign" neglect of this book?

LUXURIATING IN THE LARGESS OF BIBLICALESCHATOLOGY

With the virtual collapse of Puritan and Pietistic orthodoxy and theattendant and related onslaught of Enlightenment rationalism, the 18th centurywould have been a disastrous wash-out in this spiritual chronicle apart fromthe outpouring of the Great Awakening. Not unrelated to this revival, are thehalcyon days of renewed interest in Revelation in the 19th century and thelong-developing systematization of eschatology. The various schools of thought"dug in" but none more dramatically and impressively than dispensationalism andpre-tribulationism as a serious

¹³Documented in my The Company of Hope: A History of BibleProphecy in the Church (2004)

attempt toward a consistent literal hermeneutic in which the plain, simple,normal, historical and original meaning of the text is sought in this literarygenre as in all others. The Powerscourt Conference in Ireland and the AlburyConferences in England spawned the likes of John Nelson Darby and his spiritualkin who on the basis of the Daniel/Revelation axis built a system ofunderstanding prophetic truth with remarkable influence on schools, missionaryenterprise and a vast font of literary output. While not even aware of hisprecursors in seeing a two-stage parousia, Darby saw the exegetical and logicalneed for differentiating between the signless coming of Christ for His saintsand the sign-full coming of Christ with His saints to set up the Theocraticmillennial Kingdom and rule for 1000 years.

And at the apex of this herculean project was an understanding of the Bookof Revelation which even with a host of idiosyncratic variations held the highground against the continuing assault of Augustinianism and a plethora of otherincredible schemas.¹⁴An enormous literature has developed whichreverently treats these themes as capped off and confirmed in the Revelation.The hymnody alone (down to Larry Norman's "I wish we'd all been ready") isstaggering. Drawing upon the divergent strands of historical interpretation, wewould see some preterist, idealist, historicist elements but predominatelyfuturist elements in Revelation. "There are many Anti-Christs" but there iscoming "the Anti-Christ."

¹⁴What book of Scripture has elicited such preposterousinterpretations as Emmanuel Swedenborg's huge six volume work, TheApocalypse Revealed, in whichhe argues the Last Judgment took place in 1757 and the parousia in 1758. Helived 1688-1772. Swedes can be dense. Or Adela Yarbro Collins' work (she is NTprofessor at McCormick), Crisis and Catharsis: The Power of theApocalypse (1984)in which

she says she agrees with E.D.Hirsch but then runs Revelation through thegrid of C.G.Jung the analyst.

LOOKING AT THE MAIN ISSUES FOR THEINTERPRETER

The Book of Revelation after all is not the "the old curiosity shop." Wedefy literary deconstructionism and its denial of the author's rights. A textis not a nose of putty to be shaped in any way its user desires. But in justskimming over two thousand years of interpretation, one must ask: why havethere been such differences and disparities in understanding the meaning ofthis "unveiling" of Jesus Christ? If Peter found some things "difficult tounderstand" in the writings of the Apostle Paul, what shall we say about theApostle John in his masterpiece from Patmos? Why has this book been sodifficult and so debated throughout its long history?

1)The Greek text of the book has its grammatical peculiarities but theseare deliberate. The author seems to be thinking in Hebrew but writing in Greek.

2)Apocalyptic visions abound in symbols and images. This is more the use ofindirect discourse as is also seen in narratives, parables, hymns and poetry.The use of symbolic language does not preclude literal persons, events andnumbers. Sometimes the symbol is explained in the text or can be understoodfrom the larger context (e.g. sea in Revelation 17:15). We do wrestle with themeaning of pillar, various colored horses, locusts, sun, moon and stars, the two olive trees, the drying up of theEuphrates, horns and crowns and heads.¹⁵Constant reference to otherapocalyptic is required--viz. the Olivet Discourse of our Lord, theThessalonian letters,etc.

3)John the Revelator's heavy reliance on the OT necessitates virtual masteryof Daniel and Zechariah and other corollary prophetic materials.

4)The striking unity and structure (the series of sevens, fours, twelves)are

¹⁵Most helpful here is the discussion in W. Graham Scroggie, TheGreat Unveiling (1979) 55ff

critical and recognizing that the book is roughly chronological but withsome significant pauses and parentheses (as in the thirty minutes of silence inheaven in 8:1ff as the seventh seal yields the seven trumpets. By unity I meanthat the sovereign God is always calling to repentance and salvation. This is agreat book of judgment but also of salvation. Heavenly worship scenes interposeat critical junctures. Hymnic andliturgical language abound as Christ is the focus of praise. "The Lamb in themidst of the throne" underscores His victory through His sacrificial death("the blood of the Lamb"). Here we see human depravity in its most blatantforms and the Great White Throne Judgment (there is no universalism here) butChrist conquering in combat.

5)Successive visions underscore John's mandate: "write what you see"(1:11). 140 times we have "see," "behold," or "perceive." Alternate scenes inheaven and earth and the use of both throne room and tabernacle/tem ple imagerysomewhat complicate but greatly enrich our read. The "sharp sword out of Hismouth" (1:16, 19:15) is abit hard to visualize making however an almostimpressionistic portrayal.

Revelation was given to us to be understood - so that we who hear it might"take it to heart!" (1:3). There are practical concomitants that must followupon our grasp of its meaning (22:7). In other words, Revelation is a guide toour conduct as well as a source of our doctrine. And we ever have the divineauthor of the book, the Holy Spirit, to guide and direct.

LISTENING TO THE PROPHECY OF THIS BOOKBECAUSE

THE TIME IS NEAR

The broad lines of interpretation are clear if we use a consistenthermeneutic. All that is in the previous 26 books of the NT bridges intoRevelation and its panoramic presentation of the consummation of the age. Whereis any semblance of the premillenial pessimism of which we hear so much? What aglorious finale as the Alpha and the Omega wraps it up - the earthly people andthe heavenly people in their proper places, the Holy City and the New Jerusalem!All praise be to our God! As C.S. Lewis says of Asalen in concluding TheLion, the Witch and the Wardrobe:

"Asalen is a great and powerful lion; and Asalen is a good lion."

The text in its various contexts (natural thought unit, chapter, the bookas a whole) is the reality we seek to mine. We must preach what the text saysnot our system (although we shall preach from within a system whether we likeit or not). The lines of the historic schools of interpretation have blurred tosome degree and we are all eclectic in a basic sense. We are after all seekingto listen to the Lord God "who is, and who was, and who is to come, theAlmighty" (1:8). To be substantively a preterist seems to me to walk into acul-de-sac. As Merrill Tenney put it so well: "The preterist has aninterpretation which has a firm pedestal, but which has no finished sculptureto put on it."¹⁶The idealist is corrrect in seeking applicableprinciples but has cut loose from serious exegesis and any intertextuality.

The historicist is dead in the water. Here is where history can help, notas a substitute for the hard work of exegesis or theology but as a vitalexhibit of the fall-out of the schools of interpretation and cautions for usall. The

¹⁶Merrill C. Tenney, Interpreting Revelation (1959) 144. A wise and judiciousstudy.

substantive futurist is convinced that the Scriptures (and particularly thebook of Revelation) have much to say about what Jesus Christ is yet going todo. He is not in absentia. He is not clueless and hanging on wondering aboutoutcomes as the "open theists" would have it.

The Lord has much yet that He intends to do and accomplish!

The history of prophetic interpretation should also engender some measureof hermeneutical humility. How many of our comrades have been lured intounsound and hyper-speculative bypaths? Over-reach and over-statement canundercut our credibility so quickly. Is every issue of uniform clarity? Webelieve in the perspicacity of Holy Scripture (its essential clarity) - but isevery interpretation at the same level of certainty as is the Virgin Birth ofour Blessed Lord? We savor in anticipation canvassing the blessed chapters ofthis unique and extraordinary book given to us---but there may be questions weshall not all see exactly alike:

Who will the two witnesses be?

Do the seven churches have an application beyond their first century

lessons to insome sense presage successive and in some cases

parallel ages inthe history of the Church? Somemajor shifting here.

Is the Babylon of 17-18 more European or more Middle-Eastern? The

originalreference committee of the Scofield Bible split down the middle

on this issue.Could it be both? Has Babylon become code for the

immense finalsyncretism like "Gog and Magog" as used in Revelation

20 illustratingthe prophetic telescoping of the Ezekiel 38-39 war?

Remember William R. Newell felt the first beast in Revelation 13 is the

Anti-Christ onthe end-time (as I am sure most of us do) but dear H.A.

Ironside saw thesecond beast out of the earth as the Anti-Christ.

Where and when will be "the marrige supper of the Lamb?"

I have always been sure that "the bride" in chapter 19 is the Church and

then I read mybeloved Graham Scroggie. I am still not convinced.

Who are the 24 elders? It seems so clear to me but not to others who may

not be older thanI but wiser and more perceptive?

Sometimes on these issues, simply to acknowledge that there is

a difference of opinion on the subject will suffice without unnecessarily

chewing up precious time with intricate and interminable argumentation.

Then just charge ahead and preach it!

What a felicitous choice of a subject for our deliberation in these days.Dear old Lange in 1870 put it this way:

"Doubtlessin the future, the importance and influence of this book (the Revelation) willconstantly increase with the growing confusion and gloom of the times, with theincreased danger which they offer to sound and sober faith."¹⁷

Or to conclude with the testimony of G. Campbell Morgan whose love for theWord has been such a large boon to so many of us:

"Thereis no book in the Bible which I have read so often, no book to which I havetried to give more patient and persistent attention.....there is no book in theBible to which I turn more eagerly in hours of struggle and battle than tothis, with all of its mystery and so many details I do not fullyunderstand...."¹⁸

^{'TO HIM WHO HAS LOVED US AND LOOSED US FROM OUR SINS IN HIS OWNBLOOD, AND HAS MADE US TO BE A KINGDOM OF PRIESTS TO SERVE HIS GOD ANDFATHER---TO HIM BE GLORY AND POWER FOREVER AND EVER! AMEN!" (1:5b-6)}

¹⁷in Wilbur M. Smith. op. cit. 1501. Interesting observation byDr. Paul Boyer of the University of Wisconsin in his When Time Shall Be NoMore (Harvard,1992): "The most dynamic energized sector in (American) religion has been theevangelical one and the eschatological vision is central."

¹⁸ibid. 1491