Wednesday, May 25, 2016

 I once listened to a two and a half hour debate between 4 New Testament scholars called “An Evening of Eschatology”. (Sounds like a pretty exciting way to spend an evening right?) Each of the four scholars held a different view of what the events described in the book of Revelation mean and how they will eventually play out. 

Let’s take a moment to sketch out the four basic approaches to interpreting the complex imagery in the book of Revelation.

Preterist View - from the Latin praeter meaning "past" holds that through the use of symbols and allegory, the Revelation deals with events that were fulfilled in John's time and that it was written primarily to provide hope and comfort to the first century church persecuted by Rome. For example, this view interprets the Beast of Rev. 12-13 as the Roman emperor Nero in the first century A.D.

Historicist View - The historicist approach views the Revelation as a symbolic or allegorical prophetic survey of church history from the first century up to the Second Coming of Christ. This was the view espoused by most of the "reformers" and thus dominated Protestant eschatological teaching for centuries.

Idealist View - This approach argues that the symbols in the Revelation do not relate to historical events but rather to timeless spiritual truths. Idealists feel that Revelation relates primarily to the church between the first and second coming of Christ. They feel Revelation relates to the battle between God and evil and between the church and the world at all times in church history.

Futurist View - A strictly literal reading of prophecy will generally lead to a "futurist" interpretation. Thus futurists interpret Revelation as predictive of future end time historical events preceding, during and after the return of Jesus Christ.  This view is the one that leads often to the debates about when the rapture will occur and when the millennium will begin.

Now let’s take a look at a particular text from the book of Revelation and try to make sense of it from some of these different perspectives.

A great and wondrous sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head.  She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth.  Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on his heads.  His tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth. The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that he might devour her child the moment it was born.  She gave birth to a son, a male child, who will rule all the nations with an iron scepter. And her child was snatched up to God and to his throne.

–      Revelation 12:1-5

Now what in the world is all of this about?

There are three images in this passage; a woman, a Dragon, and a Child.  One of the things we have to ask ourselves in order to understand the meaning of this text is what do the images represent?

Just about all of the commentators agree that the Child represents Christ, and if you read far enough into Revelation you discover that the Dragon is Satan.  Well then, who or what is the Woman? Some scholars have understood the woman to represent the Church and the struggle between the woman and the Dragon represents the war between God’s Church and the forces of evil in the world.  But if the Child is Christ, then it does not make sense to think of Jesus Christ coming from the Church? No, the Church came from Christ, not the other way around. Other Bible scholars have understood the Woman to a figurative representation of Mary, the mother of God. This makes sense in terms of the birth of Jesus, but it does not fit with any of the rest of the imagery in Revelation 12. The best interpretation is that the Woman represents Israel. It was through Israel that God brought His Son Jesus into our world. And Satan tried to devour Jesus as a babe (through Herod murdering all of the male children 2 years and under), he tried to destroy Him at Calvary, and he (Satan has been warring against the Christ’s Church ever since!

The point is that is that even in this one simple text, we see a Revelation of Jesus Christ in past events, in present circumstances, and in future realities.  If we were to try and understand the book of Revelation only in terms of the past or only in terms of the future, we would be misled and we would miss the incredible depth of God’s Word! 


Jeff Frazier