The Chapel Light - February 2009

A few Sundays ago I noted two keys to interpreting the book of Revelation: the time frame of the book (the book says that it is about things that must “shortly” come to pass) and recognizing that imagery is imagery and NOT literal description.  I received a number of questions concerning Revelation, so I’d like to spell out some more interpretive keys in the book.     It’s crucial to remember that John is not just writing a book, but is recording his experience of the vision.  If you don’t understand why that might be important, imagine that I gave you an assignment to make a video presenting what John saw in the vision recorded in the book of Revelation.  Put yourself in his body and make a movie of what he experienced.  Thinking this way as you read John’s detailed presentation will revolutionize the way you think about and understand the book of Revelation.     What you will find is that sometimes he is telling you things that he is seeing.  He says “I saw” 33 times throughout the book.  But sometimes he tells you that he hears something rather than seeing it.  He never sees the 144,000 sealed servants of God; he just hears their number (7:4) – which would seem to indicate that the important thing about them is the number.  He hears the number of the “demonic horses” (9:10).  He doesn’t see the outcome of the battle between the angels; he hears a voice proclaim what the outcome will be (12:10).     When you come to Revelation 11, John is given a measuring rod and told to measure the temple; he is told what parts of it to measure and what not to measure – but he never actually measures it.  Why?  What does this mean?  And while John is sitting there with a measuring rod in his hand, God tells him about the careers of the two fire-breathing witnesses (Revelation 11:3-13).  John never sees those two witnesses nor does he experience anything about them in the actual vision.  Why?  What does this mean?     The same sort of thing takes place in Revelation 20.  John never “sees” the millennium (the thousand-year reign of Christ).  He sees beheaded souls sitting on thrones and tells us that they shall live and reign with Christ for a thousand years – but he doesn’t tell us how he knows that, or how he knows that the rest of the dead won’t live again till after the thousand years.  He simply declares that this is what will happen.  How does he know?  Where does he get this idea?  Likewise, John never claims to see the end of the millennium.  He declares that Satan will be loosed from his prison, that he will deceive the nations again, and that he will be finally defeated (20:7-11), but he never says that he sees it as part of the vision.  So how does he know these things?  And why did he feel compelled to tell us about them since he didn’t see or hear anything about them in the vision?     A second thing to keep an eye on is John’s location.  John is physically on the island of Patmos – and he never leaves that island.  His body is on Patmos the whole time, but at God’s calling he is “in the Spirit” (4:2) – which means that despite his earthly location, his inner man, (his soul) is perceiving something else.  He perceives that he is in the throne room of God;  this is what his Spirit takes in through his eyes and his ears and his other perceptory senses.  And while many people get caught up in the identification of the four horseman of Revelation 6 or the 144,000, I think it’s crucial to remember that John is seeing and hearing all of these things while he perceives himself to be in the glorious throne room of God.  Don’t lose sight of what he is actually seeing!  He describes the whole throne room in Revelation 4, and the significant action that is going on there is the Lamb’s opening of the seals on the scroll.  The Lamb doesn’t disappear from his sight, nor does the scroll.  He sees the Lamb opening the seals of the scroll in the throne room (6:1); the horseman ride out in (or from) the throne room.  It is like a movie being played out for him in the throne room.  So when the Lamb opens the fifth seal, John sees martyrs under the altar.  The altar is right there in the throne room – and has been the whole time.  John is seeing all of these things at once, but he can only tell you about them one thing at a time.  This is part of the difference between understanding Revelation as the vision that it originally was and the book form that it had to take in John’s hands.     So if you’re really interested in Revelation – try that.  Try reading it as though you were trying to turn it into a movie, and see what sorts of interesting insights you come up with…