Revelation – Opening Remarks

Let’s start off with some opening remarks about the book of Revelation:

• Revelation is the final book in the canon of Scripture; therefore it is inerrant and infallible.
• Revelation is meant to be understood; God does not communicate without intending for His people to understand His communication.
• Revelation can be interpreted in a redemptive-historical fashion using a grammatical-historical method of interpretation.

There is a plethora of proposed interpretations for the book of Revelation, perhaps more than the number of interpreters who have attempted to unpack this prophetic letter. However, I will attempt to demonstrate that it is possible to unpack what I believe to be the most plausible and consistent understanding of the book of Revelation through the application of a grammatical-historical method of interpretation. Readers might benefit from a basic knowledge of Koine Greek, though it is not absolutely necessary in order to understand Revelation. The major English translations have done a good job in providing the intended meaning of the Greek text, though some words and expressions are debated and will be discussed throughout this blog.

Exhortation to Understand Revelation

A good number of Christian friends that I know have abandoned the quest to attain a consistent, biblical interpretation of Revelation. Some have said that there are just too many interpretations out there, and it is a fruitless endeavor to even attempt to demonstrate that one view is perhaps better than all the rest. Others are comfortable not knowing with any level of confidence what the book of Revelation means. Whatever their pastor preaches is fine as long as it doesn’t sound heretical; besides, there’s no way to test what our pastor preaches about the text since that presupposes a particular understanding of the text in the first place. Why bother?

Well, I believe Christians ought to put in their best efforts to understand Revelation because it is the Word of God. That is reason enough to do our best to understand what it is that God wants His people to learn. God is quite intentional in how He gave the content of Revelation to His people: Rev. 1:1 states that “God gave him [Jesus] the revelation to show to his [God or Jesus] servants [the church] the things that must soon take place”. Furthermore, Rev. 1:3 states that “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”. This is a benediction to the one who reads (which means churches should be reading Revelation) and to those who hear and keep what is written in it. How can the people of God keep what is written in it if we cannot or do not understand what is written in it? God does not give revelation that cannot be understood. Therefore, let us put in our best effort to understand what God wants us to understand in the book of Revelation.

Preliminary Considerations

Before diving into the text of Revelation in the next post, it is important to note that I will be tackling the book of Revelation as a Christian who believes that Scripture is inerrant and infallible. I will also proceed on the basis that John (the author of Revelation) is the same John who wrote the Gospel of John and the epistles of John. I will not spend the space here to debate the authorship of Revelation.

However, I will spend a little bit of time to discuss the dating of the book of Revelation. As some readers would know, there is ongoing debate on the dating of Revelation, such that some argue that Revelation was written before AD 70 during the reign of Nero, perhaps around 64-68 AD, while others argue that Revelation was written in the AD 90s, during the time of Domitian. I will not spend the space here to go through all the internal and external evidence for either date, though I would refer readers to Kenneth Gentry’s detailed book on the issue, Before Jerusalem Fell. To be transparent with readers, I am convinced that Revelation was written in full before AD 70 due to the internal clues and indicators found within Revelation itself. Advocates of the late date have to depend on extra-biblical evidence, most of which ultimately depend on Irenaeus. However, the passage in Irenaeus is also debated as to whether or not it was “vision” or “John” himself that was seen during the reign of Domitian. We no longer have access to the original text of Irenaeus, and the earliest translation of the text is ambiguous. However, in light of the immediate context in the passage of Irenaeus, it seems to me that Irenaeus was indeed referring to John himself being seen during the time of Domitian, and not the vision. Since the extra-biblical evidence is debatable, and since the Word of God trumps contested extra-biblical evidence in the first place, I am persuaded that Revelation itself provides clues to readers that it was indeed written before AD 70, that is, before the destruction of the Jerusalem temple.

I will provide the original Greek when discussing various sections of Revelation if it pertains to the meaning of the text and also when I believe that the major English translations did not capture the intended meaning of the Greek. I will attempt to provide the Greek transliteration as well for those who do not have a basic knowledge of Koine Greek.

Persevere to the End

Revelation has 22 chapters, so it isn’t that short of a book. Furthermore, I will be walking through the entire text verse-by-verse and providing comments throughout. This means that I might not be able to capture an entire chapter in one post, though I might give it a shot. I will also provide the full text of Revelation throughout so that readers do not need to flip back and forth between their Bibles and the blog.

All in all, this is a big project that I am excited to dive into. Lord willing, it benefits readers and sheds light on what I believe to be the intended meaning of Revelation to John’s immediate audience and also to the modern church.

May God grant me wisdom, insight, and discernment as I attempt to put into words, with the intention to persuade readers, the meaning of Revelation, which I believe is not as complex and abstract as other interpreters have made it out to be.

To God be all the glory.

Soli Deo gloria!