She's excited for Revelation. Turn to Revelation now. We are totally breaking protocol, and I feel terrible about it because I gave Joey a really hard time when he wanted to put 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John together in one message, and now I'm breaking Revelation into two messages. I just don't know how to do it in one. I just am not that skilled. So we're going to really be going through the prologue of Revelation today. We're going to turn to the back of the book. And I want us to see some of the genre of the book. I want us to think about some of the problems of interpretation. And I want us to think about five interpretive lenses that we can use when interpreting the book of Revelation. And if we can go further than that, I want us to to look at seven principles of interpretation. And so in sum today, the goal that I want us to have is to try to highlight the issues that each of us have in interpreting this book, why it seems so daunting to us, and try to at least list out several of the possibilities of interpretation. And then I'm going to make everybody bad by giving what I think is the correct lens of interpretation. OK? So prepare yourselves for that. So first, when we think about the book of Revelation, me and Joey, we have tended in the 66 books to always go through some background information. And I hope that you've seen, because it's important, that often the background information to the book is really inconsequential. to the letter, the time it's written, the people it's written to. As long as it's faithful to the Word of God and the rest of Scripture, it really doesn't seem to matter that much and we should usually, we should always, not usually, always take God's Word for who wrote the book. We have no reason to doubt it. This book is written by John the Apostle, and I feel very confident in saying that. Some people would say this is written by John the Elder, a very well-respected theologian, Richard Baucom. He takes the view this is written by John the Elder. We do not know if John the Elder existed, even, or if that was just another name for the Apostle. This is written by John. Now, evidence for that? We see very clear language that is similar to the book of the epistle of John and 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John in this. And we see in verse 1 that he made it known by sending his angel to his servant, John. Now, time of writing. This usually doesn't matter at all, basically, to us. But in the book of Revelation, timing really makes a very significant difference in how you interpret the book. And if you're trying to remember these things, you can just invert the letters. The numbers, rather. There's no letters. The numbers of when this book was written. Some people think this book was written before 70 AD, and they would usually say 69 AD. And some say it was written in 96. Now, why would it matter for interpreting the book of Revelation when this book was written? Why would pre-70 or post-70 AD make such a significant difference of how we interpret this book? The temple being destroyed, right? Titus comes in 70 AD and he destroys the temple. Now, if we take this... as being written before 70 AD, much of what's being written in here could lend itself to a more preterist or partial preterist, and we'll define what that means, interpretation. Meaning much of the events of the book of Revelation have already taken place and we could even go so far as some of them do to say that only chapters 21 and 22 are in the future. The dating makes sense. And just really briefly, I'm going to ask Brother Jason, what would be an argument that this was written pre-70 AD? Pre-70? Yeah. Just the fact that there's no mention of the temple being destroyed. Like in Jeremiah, the prophets, they lament that the Babylonians are going to come destroy the city, and then lamentations over the destruction of the city and the temple. Yes. There's none of that in there, and so the supposition is that you would expect that to be in here if the temple was to be destroyed. But also, there's measurement of the temple, right? In Revelation, it says that he went out and measured the outer cord. And from a preterist point of view, they say, see, the temple's being measured, so it must still be standing. But the measurements don't equal the measurements that were given earlier in the Bible, and they don't equal the measurements of the second temple. And so I've really been swayed, and I could be swayed again, that this is probably written post-70 AD. And I can try to defend that a little more, if you need me to. That's somewhat important for our view. And that's where some of these ideas come from. Now, another background issue that we often consider but is really everything to interpreting the book of Revelation is the question of genre. Okay? What is genre? Writing style? Yes. Literary style, right? Now, I'm going to read through verses 1 through 4 of John and I want you to tell me what literary styles we can expect to read in this book. Notice Revelation chapter 1 verses 1 through 4. The revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave him. to show his servants the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw. Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near. John, to the seven churches that are in Asia, grace to you and peace from him who is, who, I'm having a hard time today, grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come and from the seven spirits who are before his throne. So as we read through those first four verses, what kind of genres do we expect to encounter in the book of Revelation? Okay. Joe, you've said it to me before and I'll say it to you. If I had a gold star, I'd give it to you. Okay. So those are the three genres that we really see in this. We see prophetic, Now, notice that. Where do we see that this is a prophetic book? In verse 3, blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, right? This is the foretelling of God, but it is also the foretelling of God, telling events that are soon to take place. And what Joey said was it's apocalyptic. This is a separate genre from prophecy, and it's under the guise of prophecy. So, not all apocalyptic... All apocalyptic writing is prophecy in some way, but not all prophetic writings is apocalyptic. Does that make sense? Now, the question that we have to ask ourselves is what characterizes an apocalyptic book? We kind of know what prophecy is, but what is an apocalyptic book? Yeah, yes, yeah. It's cataclysmic language, right? It's symbolic language. All sorts of language and it's always focused upon the end of the world. Right? Now this kind of writing was pretty popular in Second Temple Judaism. Right? So post... Malachi and into the time of Christ there are a lot of books written about the end of the world that have this visionary apocalyptic flair to it, right? And if it's true that this book is to be interpreted in the genre of apocalypse... ...that tells us that much of this is symbolic and not to be taken literally. The question that I have for you is how do we know from the first four verses that we read that this is an apocalypse? Yeah, that is what I'm going with. That is what I'm going with. So the word revelation that we have is the word apocalypsis, right? It means the unveiling and the revealing of something. And this is something, a word that the people in the first century reading this would be very familiar with, that John is writing an apocalyptic book, okay? We are going to expect this is gonna be full of symbols of cataclysmic judgment and of the end of the world. It's just what we're to expect in this book. And so from these first four verses, we see it's prophetic. It's going to tell of the future, but it's going to be in the style of apocalyptic literature. It's going to be symbolic. And therefore, we should not expect that everything to be interpreted in here is history as our eyes see it, right? It's not as if the book of Revelation is the New York Times put in a time machine 100 years from now and sent back to our time and we can read it. This is a totally different kind of writing. Now, Joey pointed out something very important that we overlook. We have prophetic genre, apocalyptic genre, but it's also epistolary. This is a letter. Now, Joey said, which I'll challenge a little bit here, which is fine, that the first three chapters, or chapters two and three are epistolary. But I would tell you that the whole book is a letter written to the seven churches. Now, the reason that I can tell you that is from the first four verses that we read, we have a very familiar epistolary structure of John giving a introduction, right? John to the seven churches that are in Asia, he says in verse four. And then if you turn to Revelation chapter 22, the end of the book, I'll just read 20 and 21, but verse 21 is a very generic ending to a letter. He who testifies these things to you in verse 20, surely I am coming soon, amen, come Lord Jesus, the grace of the Lord Jesus be with all. And I could read all the saints, amen. So this is very similar to the way Paul or Peter would end their letters here. And everything in the book of Revelation points to the fact that this is a letter written to the seven churches in Asia for their understanding. Now, if that's true, I'm just going to reveal my hand a little bit here. If this is a letter written to the seven churches there in Asia Minor, I'm going to quote from Brother Dennis Johnson, that we can conclude, if that is true, that interpretations of the visions that lie completely beyond the reader's frame of reference are suspect. I will repeat that. So if this is a book, a letter written to the seven churches in Asia Minor, and it's a letter, then we should immediately be suspicious of any interpretation of this book that the original readers would have no idea what they were talking about, right? And I'm not, at all saying that you should go out and listen to Doug Wilson. But one of the things that Doug Wilson said that always stuck with me was that when you read the book of Revelation and you come to the beast, 666, like it's not as if there's some really smart sophomore in college in the first century reading through this book and he says, who's Ronald Reagan? Right? It would have been totally outside the frame of reference from the people of this book to consider somebody so far future. So this is not a book that is just filled with a bunch of mysteries that we have to unlock. We don't have to have the New York Times in one hand and the Bible in the other to figure out what the book of Revelation says. The book of Revelation is meant for all Christians at all times. Another way to prove that to you is from the first four verses that we read in the book of Revelation. What does it say? Verse three, blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy and blessed are those who hear and keep what is written in it for the time is near. This letter was written to the seven churches in a circular format, meaning that it would go to each church and be read from the pulpit. And John assumes that what is written in the book of Revelation is so clear that even people just hearing it read the first time are going to be able to derive the meaning from this book and to obey it. Right? We have to say that. And so I've revealed my hand way too much but I want to give us some interpretive lenses for looking at the book of Revelation. The first is when we read the book of Revelation, we can interpret it as a preterist, as a preterist. Does anybody know what preterist means? Fulfilled in the past. So the preterist would largely look at the book of Revelation as a book that has already been fulfilled, right? Something that we're somewhat unfamiliar with. Now, there is a heretical version of preterism, which says that the resurrection has happened already, Paul writes about heresy somewhat similar to that. And we are now living in the full heavens, in the new heavens and the new earth. If you're disappointed, I don't blame you. But there's also partial preterism, which sees that much of the book would be fulfilled in some way or another, mostly in the destruction of the temple in 70 A.D. when God comes in judgment against the nation of Israel. Now, partial preterists abound everywhere Although I waffle back and forth in partial preterism or not, there's many very respected theologians that are partial preterists. Can anybody name any? I know Brother Jason Kitt. R.C. Sproul. We have The Last Days According to Jesus. Is that what the book is called? Yeah, The Last Days According to Jesus. He has a partial preterism. You might think of others. Yep, Jeff Durbin, Gary DeMar, yes. Mostly in the Reconstructionist camp, so people that are theonomists, Reconstructionists would fall into a partial preterist leaning on things. And again, it matters because they're interpreting this book as most of it's been fulfilled and in their mind the presupposition it's written before 70 AD and therefore most of the things being talked about, the horror of Babylon, right? the Antichrist, all these things are fulfilled in the apostate nation of Israel. And they would point to the fact, as Brother Jason pointed me to the fact, that it's not only Rome that sits on seven mountains, but Jerusalem sits on seven mountains. Things like that, right? So that's one interpretive lens that all of this filled mostly in the past, okay? Or in part, and there's varying degrees and mixtures of that. There's a historicist lens What is a historicist lens? How would a historicist read the book of Revelation? Yes, gradual fulfillment throughout the ages. And so we would often hear this kind of perspective being portrayed as we would ask ourselves questions like, what chapter do you think we are in in the book of Revelation? Right? And again, this presumes that the book of Revelation is written in a history as we see it kind of way. It's written linear. It's written chronologically. And I could say, I don't know if we're in chapter 7 of the book of Revelation or if we're in chapter 19. And we're, brother, you got a question? Dispensationalism has a hint of that, but typically not. And all of these kind of blend together in a certain way. So I've neatly divided them, but there's very few people that would fit neatly into one of these categories, okay? But a historicist, which is how most of the reformers interpreted the book of Revelation, in fact, I have a book by William Perkins, who was in the 1500s, and he actually has, in the beginning of this book, dates listed of when all these things were fulfilled, like, you know, the Antichrist arises, and it's like the Pope does something, right? So, that was when this happened. Yes? Seventh-day Adventist? Yes. So, in the history of the church, historicist interpretation has been pretty popular. There is a futurist interpretation. ...which means that everything in the book of Revelation is future. This is more of a dispensational perspective. They would see the letters to the churches as being historical... ...but then most would look at Revelation chapter 4... ...and John says, after writing these letters... ...after this I looked and behold a door standing open in heaven... And the first voice I heard speaking to me like a trumpet said, come up here. Has anybody heard that preached before? It's the rapture, right? So they would take a futurist and historicist perspective kind of blended here. And the dispensationalist would say, chapter 4, verses 1 and 2 is describing the rapture. So everything, chapter 4 and onward, is future in the futurist perspective. There's the idealist. This is the fourth. The idealist is mostly the liberal view. I mean, liberal theological view. They would see everything in this book as not really having a reference to history at all, but merely being an allegory for a battle of good and evil. Okay? And there's There's mixtures of faithfulness and unfaithfulness, but unbelieving liberal scholarship would typically take this book as totally allegorical, and it's just supposed to encourage us, kind of like Pilgrim's Progress encourages us, right? We wouldn't tie it to any time in history, any real event. It's just a story meant to encourage us, much like the liberal scholars would read Genesis 1 through 3. So, we have that. What is I hope you see that this does flavor how we interpret the book of Revelation, especially how much usefulness it has to the church, because that's the issue here, right? So from a preterist perspective, thinking that almost everything has passed in the book of Revelation, how would that influence how I view the application of the book of Revelation in my life and in the life of my church? Does my question make sense? Yeah, you think you're living in glory, right? So, I mean, from a full preterist perspective at least, you would say, well, I thank God all that's done. I don't have to deal with it anymore, right? All these trials and temptations are past, all the commands that are given, they don't have a lot of relevance for me, right? It might be how we read some of the Old Testament prophets, where those prophecies have been fulfilled in some sense, right? We only think of it in historical perspective. How would it affect our application of this book to our life in a historicist perspective? Historicist, yeah, brother. Yes. Yeah, and I think the historicist view above all the other views lends itself to looking at the book of Revelation as a code to be cracked in some way, right? I need to figure out what all these symbols mean, how they fit into history so I can figure out where I am so that I can live faithfully in the chapter that I'm in. What about a futurist approach? It's all future, and much like the preterist, much of it doesn't have a lot of practical application to me, and again, there's this code unlocking that we often get from a futurist interpretation. Yeah. Right. Right. Yes. Yes. Right. Yes. And so a futurist perspective lends itself to those different things. And these first three views, again, I think the problem associated with them is they interpret the book of Revelation as history as we see it. Right. It's like John. had a camera, and he went into the future, and he filmed the things that took place. And when he saw the things that took place, he tried to, and you've heard this before, he tried to describe the things that he saw. He saw Apache helicopters, and he couldn't figure out what an Apache helicopter was, so he said it's a locus, right? I forget the exact description with teeth and all these kind of things, right? Yeah, long hair and armor, right. So he's looking, he's seeing exactly what takes place, literally, and he's trying to describe it, and he has to use figurative language because he lives in the first century, right? All of these perspectives, they kind of take that approach, except for maybe the preterist perspective has a little more symbolism mixed in. The idealist perspective, I'm gonna say we can throw out almost whole cloth unless we mix it with biblical faithfulness. And what I'm going to propose to you very quickly is the idea of an eclectic way of interpreting the book of Revelation. That is, taking some of what is best from all of these different lenses and putting them together to make a biblically faithful way of interpreting the book of Revelation. Now, this has been the common way that the church has seen the book of Revelation. This history as we see it way has only really come about in the last hundred years or so. And the question that we have, if we have an eclectic view of the book of Revelation, is how we're to read it. And this has a lot to do with the structure of the book. So we're not looking at this in a historicist perspective thinking that chapters 4 through 21 are linear and John is just pointing out different phases in, like he's watching history on super fast forward, right? And he's writing each of these chapters. Rather, the idea is we have what's called recapitulation or parallelism. in the book of Revelation, meaning, and I like this example, it was given by Michael Kruger, it's as if when you're watching a football game, such as the Browns and the Packers, yeah, thank you, that's how bad I am at football, I just heard about this and it didn't work. And let's say a play happens and it's really close, the wide receiver almost went out of bounds, and what would they do with our modern technology? They'd say, well, let's look at it from another angle, right? We can look at it from a wide angle, see every player on the field, see what everybody was doing at one time. We can zoom in on the wide receiver's foot and see exactly where his foot was. We can see from the quarterback's perspective, right? ...recapitulation or parallelism in interpreting the book of Revelation... ...is simply the idea that past the letters... ...when we have the seals being opened, the trumpets being sounded... ...the bowls being poured out and everything else... ...that John is showing us the whole inter-advental period... ...that is from Christ's death to his coming again... ...in different... views, different points, looking at it from different angles, right? But I'm going to give you one verse to show you this, OK? And I'm going to give you a lot more next week. But chapter 12 of Revelation. Next week I want to go through the whole structure of the book so you can see this recapitulation, this parallelism in how you would actually read the book. But I want us to see that this book can't be read from a historicist or a futurist perspective simply because of chapter 12. Now, notice in verse 1. And a great sign appeared in heaven. A woman clothed with the sun and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. She was pregnant and was crying in childbirth. In birth pains and agony about to give birth, another sign appeared in heaven. And behold, a great red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and his head seven diadems. His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and cast them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth so that when she bore her child, he might devour it. She gave birth to a male child, one who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron. But her child was caught up to God and to his throne. and the woman fled into the wilderness where she has a place prepared by God in which she is to be nourished 1,260 days. What is that referring to? What is all that language referring to? The birth of Jesus Christ, right? So if we're going to read this book in a purely historicist manner, we have to, I mean, say that everything took place before the book of Christ. or birth of Christ, not book of Christ, in chapter 12. Or we have to adopt some other interpretive method just for this chapter. And again, when we're reading the book, we'll read through the seals being broken. And when the seventh seal is broken, we see cataclysmic things. We see stars coming out of the sky to heaven, right? We see the wrath of God being trodden upon the earth. And the question that we should ask in our mind is, how many times can this take place? How many times can God pour out His full wrath and judgment on the earth where this kind of cataclysmic language is used? Well, the answer is, He's talking about the same thing from different angles. He's not talking about seven different cataclysmic times where God is treading the winepress of His wrath. He's talking about the same thing. I want to prove that to you next week in a lot fuller detail. But when we look at these different views and angles at the end of the world, it's not as if he's telling the exact same story every time. Rather, these are different views, but they are climactic. They're still building towards something towards the end of the world. They show us a different view, but that doesn't necessarily mean that different epochs in church history don't experience the things listed in those different views more than others. Okay, so that's what I'm going to put forward as the eclectic view of interpreting the book of Revelation or the lens that we should use in interpreting this book. Does anybody have any questions? Thoughts? I find this very hard to believe. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I would say it's both. So this is written to seven literal churches. And Joey, very faithfully, a few months ago or a year ago or something, something. So. Reading the book of Revelation from this perspective, we should ask ourselves, how do these seven letters fit into the whole of Revelation? It seems kind of strange and disjointed, but really what's going on is he's writing to seven churches, and the problems that each of these seven churches faces, it kind of characterizes the whole of the difficulties, struggles, trials, and temptations that all churches face until the coming of Christ again, right? Like the church of Laodicea struggled with secularism and wealth Doesn't that characterize us today? But not every Christian in this era, this time period, has that struggle, right? Some churches in like South America or South Africa, they struggle with not so much, I'm just making this up, I don't have any reference in mind, they don't struggle with wealth and prosperity dragging them away from the gospel, they might struggle with actual persecution, right? With the state wanting worship, right? The seven letters characterize the struggles that come upon all churches at all times. And throughout the book of Revelation, we see that spelled out in apocalyptic language. So that's how those two things fit together. Does that make sense, brother? Did I answer your question? Okay. Okay. I know that for some of us, maybe, This might seem strange, but again, this is not an uncommon way of interpreting the book of Revelation in the history of the church. It's really, ever since dispensationalism came into the church 100 years ago, that we see this book as something that must be read historically, literally, but apocalyptic literature cannot be read that way, is my point. Just like we cannot read the book of Psalms, as a literal thing, right? When we see that God is a rock and all these kind of things. We don't read Psalms that way because we don't listen to songs that way, right? Songs we know are symbolic. Book of Revelation is a symbolic book teaching us real things about our struggle. And what I'm trying to get across to you today is I think that this is the best way to read the book of Revelation. It has the best application to the church of Jesus Christ today. I think taking this view And only with this view, out of the five that we gave, that I could read the book of Revelation from the pulpit and everybody would say, yes, Jesus Christ will conquer. He reigns. All of our struggles on this earth will be over at some time. He calls me to be faithful. It works evangelistically through this lens. That it warns all the wicked throughout all time that I must repent or I'm going to spend my eternity in the lake of fire that burns with sulfur. It doesn't see history as we see it. It gives apocalyptic imagery to grab our attention. Now, it's okay if I overlap with next week. Now, when we think of the parables of Jesus Christ, I think that there's a parallel with the parables here, right? Now, we often think of the parables as a Like, Jesus taught really well because he was able to grab all of these illustrations from the surrounding environment and use them in his teaching. But what does Jesus say about why he spoke the parables? They wouldn't listen. The symbolic use of language in teaching, it has the effect of hardening those hearts that won't hear, but those who do hear, it emphasizes the truth, right? When we read what we read in Revelation chapter 12 about a great dragon standing before Mary before she was about to give birth so that she could devour that child. That symbolism, it communicates to us a heavenly reality that we don't see merely from the earth. We might see a wicked king who wants to kill a baby, right? And we would say, that's terrible. But the book of Revelation tells us, really, the instrument behind that was Satan. And he's like a dragon wanting to devour Jesus Christ. So the symbolism has importance here. And I'm going to read through this. I got this from a wonderful book from P&R Publishing, if anybody's curious, called The Triumph of the Lamb by Dennis Johnson. It's a commentary on the book of Revelation. I've had this for years. I've read through it. One and a half times maybe, okay? And anybody's welcome to borrow it. And usually when I say you can borrow this, I have it in the back of my mind. I'm never going to see this book again. If you want to borrow this, I would like to see it again, okay? But from that book, he gives seven principles of interpretation in the book of Revelation. I'm going to run through these extremely quickly, but I hope it's useful to you, okay? Revelation is given to reveal, that's the first. Now that might seem obvious, but Martin Luther once wrote that you would think a book called Revelation would be more revealing. And I think that that's because he read it from a historicist perspective, trying to put all these pieces together and unlock a code in the book, but Revelation is given to reveal. Even the hearing as we've already pointed out, are able to discern the point of the book and obey its contents. That's what John says in the first few verses. Revelation is a book to be seen, okay? We see over and over that John wrote about all that he saw, and things aren't what they seem, is a constant thread throughout this, right? The whore of Babylon that sits on the beast, right? John is tempted to to almost worship and to be in awe of that. But from a heavenly perspective, again, she's filthy, right? From an earthly perspective, the bride of Christ is the filthy one, the persecuted one. But from a heavenly perspective, she's the bride coming down from heaven, the spotless bride of the Lamb. So, Revelation is a book to be seen. These symbols are meant to give us a a better picture in heavenly reality. A picture is worth a thousand words, we could say. Revelation, thirdly, only makes sense in light of the Old Testament. This is kind of the climax of Old Testament prophecy. And it's the filament of all Old Testament history. And so to understand Revelation appropriately, we have to understand the prophetic books of the Old Testament. Fourthly, numbers count. We'll see numbers, seven, numbers like 10, numbers like 12, repeated over and over in the book of Revelation. And these are always, I would say, almost always, I would say, symbolic to represent the fullness of something, the completeness of something, especially seven. And we see that even in what we read this morning. It's written by the seven spirits of God, right? Now, that doesn't mean we change our Trinitarian theology that there's nine persons in the instead of three, right? But it's the fullness of God's Spirit. It's what's trying to be communicated here, right? Okay. Revelation is for the church under attack. So it's for us today. When we hear it and we read it and we hear about the church struggling and being under attack, this is what this book is written for. In Revelation 2 and 3, it's always addressed to the one who overcomes. This book is written to us so that we would continue to fight and to overcome. And lastly, no, second to lastly, revelation concerns what must soon take place. So the preterists would say, well, that means it had to have happened in the year after it was written. But that's not how we should interpret the book. Rather, these are the things that characterize the whole church age. These things are soon taking place. And we'll get more into that next week. And seventhly. The victory belongs to God and to his Christ. That is the theme of the whole book. That's why this book is titled The Triumph of the Lamb, because that's what the book of Revelation is about. When you read this book and you're not coming away with the fact that God triumphs through Jesus Christ, you're reading it wrongly. You're reading it wrongly, okay? Do we have any questions? Okay, I'm gonna pray for us. Lord, we come before you. I know, Lord, that we have a variety of ways of reading the book of Revelation, and I do pray, God, that through this week and the next week, that you would stretch us and challenge us to read this book in a way that you intend it to be read, to benefit the church in the way that you want us to be benefited by it. I pray that we would consider these things, and if we disagree, that we would we would disagree faithfully and that we would disagree to the revelation of truth in the scripture. Lord, I certainly don't know everything about theology, certainly not everything about the book of Revelation. I could be wrong, but I do pray that you would bless us as we read through this wonderful work that was written for the blessing of your people. In Christ's name, amen.