1 How to Understand Revelation [Follow the Lamb Wherever He Goes] Dr. Dave Mathewson © 2013, Dr. Dave Mathewson and Ted Hildebrandt 2 Table of Contents 1. Introduction and Background 2. Literary Genres of Revelation: Apocalyptic, Prophetic, and Epistle 3. Hermeneutics or Principles for Interpreting Revelation 4. Revelation 1 5. Revelation 2: Intro., Ephesus, Smyrna 6. Revelation 2: Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis 7. The seven churches of Revelation: Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea 8. Revelation 4-5: An Introduction 9. Revelation 4-5 continued 10. Rev 5-6: The Lamb and the Seals on the Scroll 11. Rev 6: The Scroll Seals 12. Revelation 6 on the 6 seals 13. Revelation 7--the Multitude and Chapter 8--the Final Seal 14. Revelation 8 to 9: Seven Trumpets and Exodus Imagery 15. Trumpets and the Interlude (Rev 10-11) 16. Revelation 11: Temple and Two Witnesses 17. The Seventh Trumpet; The Woman, the Dragon, and the Son 18. Revelation 12-13: The Dragon and Two Beasts 19. Revelation 13: The Two Beasts 20. Revelation 14: Salvation of Saints/Judgment on Wicked 21. Revelation 14-16: Grain/Grapes and the Seven Bowl Judgments 22. Revelation 17-19:5: Introduction to Babylon 23. Revelation 17:7-18:8: Interpreting the Beast and Fall of Babylon 24. Lament and Joy over Babylon’s Fall (Rev 18) 25. Revelation 19:11-21: The Warrior and the Battle 26. Revelation 20: Binding of Satan and Millennium 27. Revelation 20: The Millennium and the Great White Throne Judgment 28. Revelation 21: New Creation, Bride New Jerusalem 29. Revelation 21: The Bride New Jerusalem Continued 30. Revelation 22: New Jerusalem and How to Read Revelation Session 1: Introduction and Background 3 Dr. Dave Mathewson, Revelation, Session 1 © 2013, Dr. Dave Mathewson and Ted Hildebrandt Introduction and Background What we’re going to do for the next several sessions is work through the very last book of the Bible, the book of Revelation. Probably no book in the history of Christianity has been so misunderstood, ignored and neglected as the very last book of the Bible. It’s interesting when you study the history of the book it even had a little bit of a problem getting into the New Testament canon because of some of the reasons that we’ll discuss. When we approach a book of Revelation it’s helpful to put it in its proper perspective and to realize that we stand in a long tradition of the church’s attempt to try to read and make sense of the book of Revelation. So it’s helpful to understand some of their mis-starts, their misunderstandings, and some of the mistakes to avoid, but also to understand how they read it and positively to understand how we can appropriate some of the church’s insights. Two Mistaken Approaches: Obsession and Neglect As you study the history of the church’s reception and understanding of the book of Revelation, most people realize that the church has basically been characterized by two approaches to Revelation. Number one is what I simply label “obsession;” that is, some Christians, some churches, some periods of church history up until the modern day have treated Revelation with what I think is a rather unhealthy obsession. That is, acting almost as if the book of Revelation were the only book in the entire Bible and everything else leading up to it can be ignored. As some of you may know and you can probably think of certain well-known persons whose entire ministries have been devoted to interpreting and unpacking the book of Revelation for the church. All you have to do is Google “Revelation” or “apocalypse” and it’s amazing all the websites that pop up that attempt to understand Revelation, usually by trying to help us make sense of how Revelation is actually predicting events in our own day and how those events are unfolding and already being fulfilled. Session 1: Introduction and Background 4 One of the assumptions behind this is we actually now have the key to reading Revelation. Presumably every other century except our own were in the dark and now when we look out at the world we can see all these things happening and all of a sudden we have the key to unlocking the mysteries and the secrets of the book of Revelation. One of the most recent examples or literary demonstrations of this was the well- known “Left Behind” series. Although the series is fictional, and meant to be fictional, at the same time it’s meant to portray in fictional format what the authors literally thought, or how the authors literally thought Revelation and other prophetic texts in the Old and New Testament would be fulfilled and how they would unfold. So what it does, it correlates the images and the visions of the book of Revelation with events that they think are reflected in our own modern day in the 21st century and demonstrate in fictional form how those events correlate and line-up with the book of Revelation. So the assumption is John was actually predicting events that would transpire in the 21st century, and so he writes this down. As one author said it’s as if John was a time traveler and he traveled into the 21st century and saw all these events and now he goes back to his first century writers, writes these down presumably in some format that they would have never guessed and never been able to understand. But now in the 20th century, in our 21st century, technological, political age and environment, now we all of a sudden have the key to understanding to how the book of Revelation actually is being fulfilled. So that’s one approach that characterizes numerous periods of church history, an obsession with the book, an infatuation with the book of Revelation, which usually is an attempt to explain how Revelation is actually predicting events that are unfolding in the 4th century or 15th century or 20th or now the 21st century. The kind of opposite approach of that is a complete neglect of the book. That is for most people, when they read the rather fantastic images in the book of Revelation and some of the strange imagery and symbolism, they’re not really sure what to make of it. So the simplest solution is to neglect it and to retreat to the safer grounds of Paul’s letters or the more familiar stories in the Gospels or something like that. So, for example, when you open your Bibles to Revelation chapter nine, you read this strange description of Session 1: Introduction and Background 5 these locusts that swarm and fly out and when you read it they are like no other locust that you’ve ever encountered and sound more like something out of a science-fiction horror movie or something like that. So starting at verse two of chapter nine, the author of Revelation says, “When he opened the Abyss, smoke came out of it as smoke from a gigantic furnace. The sun and the sky were darkened by the smoke from the Abyss. And out of the smoke came locusts down upon the earth and were given power like that of scorpions of the earth. They were told not to harm the grass of the earth or any plants or tree, but only those people who did not have the seal of God on their foreheads. They were not given power to kill them, but only to torture them for five months.” And I’ll skip down a couple of verses where the author begins to describe these locusts. “These locusts look like horses prepared for battle.” So now you have these locusts coming out of this abyss from smoke but now the author says they actually look like horses prepared for battles. Then he says, “On their heads they wore something like crowns of gold, and their faces resembled human faces. Their hair was like women’s hair, their teeth were like the teeth of the lions. They had breastplates like breastplates of iron, and the sound of their wings was like the thundering of many horses and chariots rushing into battle. They had tails that stung like scorpions and in their tails they had power to torment people for five months.” I’ll stop right there; we’ll look at that text later. But, notice the rather strange combination of animal-like features and insect-like features and then human-like features and animal features as well all combined into this almost grotesque image that is more suitable for a science-fiction horror movie or something like that. People read this and the response is usually to become so bewildered with the book that it’s safer to neglect it. Maybe some people become so put off by those that have been obsessed with the book of Revelation that again it’s much easier to simply bypass Revelation and again retreat to the more safer books of Paul’s letters or the Gospels. Revelation to many is still a book with seven seals, despite the fact that Revelation claims to be unsealed, for many the book of Revelation is still sealed. As some of you probably know, well-known John Calvin, as brilliant as a thinker as he was, and although he wrote a commentary on every book of the New Testament, Session 1: Introduction and Background 6 did not write one on the book of Revelation. Probably some writers in Revelation would have done better to follow his lead. So at best, we neglect the book and we would rather leave it in the hands of scholars or those who are better suited to try to make sense of this rather strange book. So it seems to me when you study church history, either we become obsessed with the book and trying to make sense of it and gearing entire ministries around the book, usually trying to read it in light of events going on in our own day, or we neglect it. It’s so odd and strange we’re not used to it, we haven’t seen anything like this that it’s easier to neglect it and leave it in the hands of the specialist to try to make sense of it. Even outside of the church, the book of Revelation has gotten a reaction. Usually it is one of suspicion, because of the some of the violent imagery, Revelation has often been seen by those outside of the church as something to be treated with suspicion and even outright rejection of it as having any value at all for anyone. For example, it was Friedrich Nietzsche, the German thinker who said, “Revelation is the most rabid outburst of vindictiveness in all of recorded history.” And George Bernard Shaw said that Revelation was a curious record of the visions of a drug addict; that’s how he explained the book of Revelation. So even outside of the church people still aren’t quite sure what to do with this book. It is treated with extreme suspicion and often seen as the source of all kinds of evil, woes and ills of society, etc. But, the book of Revelation at the same time even outside of the church is often the source and inspiration for many of our movies and movie titles “The Apocalypse” or movies that have themes that come right out of the book of Revelation. So even outside the church, the book of Revelation has had an impact in our society. Apocalyptic Nature of Revelation So given the ambivalence with which the book of Revelation is treated in our church and outside of our church, it seems to me that it is necessary to take a look at the book again. If we believe that the book of Revelation is God’s word and belongs in the canon of Scripture as part of God’s word and his Revelation to his people then it seems that we need to stop again and perhaps reorient ourselves to the book and take another Session 1: Introduction and Background 7 look at it. That’s exactly what I want to do in this course. I want to hopefully begin to take out some of the fear and some of the suspicion in reading the book of Revelation and also avoid some of the obsession and irresponsible ways the book of Revelation has been treated as well. In fact ironically the book of Revelation, the very title Revelation comes from a Greek word “apocalypse” or “apocalypses” that means “an unveiling” or “an uncovering.” Revelation then is primarily meant not to conceal its message and hide it as something so mysterious and secretive that no one couldn’t possibly understand it, but actually at the very beginning Revelation as an unveiling or uncovering, it is actually meant to reveal God’s truth and reveal God’s word to his people and to his church. It is not meant to obscure and hide its meaning but to unveil it and to reveal it. The key to doing this though is asking ourselves what kind of book is Revelation and how does it uncover and reveal its meaning? As a British scholar Richard Bochum said part of the problem in the church’s history with understanding Revelation and many of the misinterpretations have begun by failing to conceive of what type of book Revelation actually is. So the first thing that I want to do then is ask how should we read the book of Revelation; what kind of book is this? And why was it written in the first place? Occasion and Nature of Revelation So I want to do two things sort of in the introductory sections, leading up to actually looking at the book itself in more detail, and that is, to examine two questions: Number one why was the book of Revelation written in the first place? What were the circumstances that surrounded the production of the book and the writing of the book of Revelation? Why did John have these visions in the first place? What was going on historically and what were the circumstances that surrounded the writing of this book? And then second, along with that to ask the question: what kind of book is this? What is a scholars say the literary genre the literary type that this book belongs to? Since that is what’s going to help us to begin to understand what is this book all about. What is it trying to do? What was God trying to say and reveal to his people by producing and inspiring this rather strange, at least to us, rather unique book. Session 1: Introduction and Background 8 Why was the book written? So what I want to do is start first of all by asking the question: Why was this book written? Or, that is, to read the book in light of its historical background and circumstances. It is interesting when we read the rest of the New Testament and the Old Testament as well, when we read those books we’re usually taught to read those books first of all in light of the historical circumstances to which those books were responses. So when you read the book of Galatians, for example in the New Testament, you are taught to read that in the light of the crisis, the problem, or situation that Paul was addressing. He was addressing a group that we often label Judaizers who were trying to get Gentile Christians to submit to the Law of Moses as a sign that they were truly God’s people. So we read Galatians in light of its historical background and historical circumstances that Paul was addressing before we try to make sense of it in our own lives. In the Old Testament if you go back to the prophet Isaiah and you begin to read the book, one of the things you must do is to understand what was going on that causes Isaiah to write the book in the first place. You need to understand the situation leading up to exile as the nation was about ready to be carted off into captivity and exile and some of circumstances leading up to that in order to better understand the book, and why the author wrote it in the first place. So we’ve learned that one of the most important hermeneutical principles in understanding biblical books is to understand them in light of their original historical context. Who the author was, what his situation, why was he writing this in the first place? Who were his readers and what was the problem or what were the issues that the author was trying to address? In other words, we realize that New Testament documents were not written in a vacuum but were written as sort of pastoral responses to different crises and situations. Now, the reason why I’ve spent a little bit of amount of time talking about this is, its intriguing that we ignore this when it comes to interpreting the book of Revelation. But why do we ignore this principle when it comes to reading a book like the book of Revelation? So again we either ignore the book or the other approach is we jump right to modern day parallels which again, historically, seems to have happened right Session 1: Introduction and Background 9 from the second century AD literally after Revelation was written. But then we begin to read Revelation in analogy to modern day events and things going on in our own day and we draw immediate correspondences and connections between the two as if Revelation was actually predicting whatever is going on in our own twenty-first century political environment and technological and historical situation. Occasion of Its Writing I want to begin by suggesting that we need to treat Revelation like we do any other book in the New Testament and the Old Testament and that is, to read it in light of first of all in light of its own historical background. We need to read it as a response to specific historical situations. We need to read it as something written first of all to a group of readers in the first century, we’ll see a group of churches in the first century who were facing a series of issues, problems and crises. What I want to do is spend little bit of time trying to unpack a little bit what might have been going on in the first century that caused John to write this book. Again, in my opinion, John didn’t just sit down and have this vision in a vacuum out of thin air, but was actually responding to a specific series of issues and problems in a group of churches in the first century living in the culture and the environment and the empire that was yielding authority and control in that day. Seven Churches of Revelation Now the starting point for this I think is with the book of Revelation itself. Revelation tells us itself quite a bit about the situation it was actually addressing. It does so in chapters two and three and we’ll look at those chapters in more detail when we begin to actually work through the book. But in chapters two and three we find that the book of Revelation is actually written to seven historical churches that existed in Western Asia Minor or modern day Turkey. Those churches were actual known historical churches and were facing a series of issues and problems. A church existing in the city of Ephesus, a church in the city called Smyrna, one in a city called Pergamum, one in the city called Laodicea and a couple of others. But the starting point is to understand that Revelation is written to seven actual churches that existed historically and were facing a Session 1: Introduction and Background 10 series of issues given the environment and the context in which they found themselves. Roman Empire The main issue is these churches, all seven of these churches, and many more like them in the region, were situated right at the heart of the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire was the political, religious, economic, and military power house of the day. It actually followed a number of other important empires such as the rule of the Greek Empire from Alexander and the Persian Empire etc. all the way back to the Babylonian Empire. But the Roman Empire eclipses all of those and emerges as the political, religious, military and economic powerhouse of the day. And these seven churches found themselves living right in the heart of Roman rule. Now, the Roman Empire expanded its borders beyond any known empire or any known kingdom up until that time. The Roman Empire divided its rule as it spread out, as its hegemony grew over all the land, the way that it maintained its rule over this large and widespread kingdom was to divide it up into provinces, sort of a little bit like states. Over these provinces would be rulers and this was a way that Rome kept control over its vast and growing empire. These seven churches were all situated in one of those provinces right at the heart of Roman rule and the Roman Empire. Pax Romana Now, I’ll sketch very very quickly a little bit about Rome so that you kind of understand what these seven churches and many more like them were up against in the first century. Rome, at least in the world’s view and in Rome’s own view, had brought peace and prosperity to the entire empire. In other words, its growing hegemony, its spread over all the land was seen basically as a positive thing. Yes, Rome had its own critics and there were people that were not happy with Rome’s spread, its rule, and how it did things; but generally especially from inside Rome itself, it was seen as and Rome portrayed itself as a benefactor to the entire world. Rome had brought peace to the entire empire. It brought prosperity. Everyone who was under Rome’s rule experienced its blessings and therefore it actually owed a debt of gratitude to Rome because Rome was responsible for all the blessings that all its citizens enjoyed and all those under its rule. Its