As many people try to understand the end of days, having an understanding of the book itself and how other's have understood it through the years is important. I wanted to share a paper I recently wrote on the topic, as researching the topic has helped me to understand further :
In the wake of blockbuster movies such as 2012 and the Book of Eli, much has been said about the “end of times”. With increasing natural disasters, civil wars and atrocities, many are turning their eyes to the sky and questioning the amount of time if this is all part of the worlds end. The Book of Revelation offers Christians an inside view on the end of the world. It challenges its readers to be faithful servants of God, demanding unswerving loyalty to the God “who is, who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.” John’s visions contain strong words of warning and judgment, reminding readers of the stringent demands placed upon those who would be followers of the Lamb (Reddish, Revelation: Introduction, 15). So what does it all mean? Does it map out a timeline of the destruction of the earth? Many have sought to answer those questions since the writing of the book in 95-96 AD. Four main schools of thought have been formed, the Preterist, Historicist, Futurist, and Idealist. They represent a wide spectrum of well thought of and thoroughly developed theories, all with the purpose to understand The Book of Revelation.
Those who view Revelations as past and complete are called Preterist. This interpretation comes from a Jesuit Friar named Alcazar in 1614. His views first appeared in England though a commentary by Henry Hammond in 1653 (Demy, The Return, 16) and became known as the Preterist. Preterism being derived from the Latin word praeteritus meaning “gone” or “past”. The view point takes seriously the historical interpretation of Revelation by relating it to its original author and audience (Pate, Reading Revelation: A Comparison of Four Interpretative Translations of the Apocalypse, 7). A full Preterist assigns all the events of Revelation to the first century while partial Preterism views most of the events occurring in the first century with the exception of the second coming, resurrection and judgment. It was taught that the book was split into two sections, chapters 1-12 and chapters 13-19, each one referring to the current controversy with Judaism and paganism. The original Preterist reformers had identified Babylon with the Roman Church and the empire as a gigantic machine, an opponent of the gospels in the social, political, and religious realms and bent on stamping out the Christian movement (Tenney, Interpreting Revelations, 136). In many ways, this view brought about a level of simplicity to its readers. During that time, much of the futuristic tone of the book would have had reader very puzzled, Tenney states, “one might as well give a text book on thermo-nuclear fission to a medieval monk,” because its readers would be unable to bridge the gap between the prophesies and themselves. However once it was read with interpretation that these events are current or have passed the writing became much more understandable. Of course the Preterist face a rather large dilemma. Under this view Revelation turns out to be a mistake: Jesus did not return quickly (Gundry, 508). With an error like that, it’s rather hard to give their other theories credibility.
The Historicist approach argues that Revelation supplies a prophetic overview of church history from the first century until the return of Christ (Pate, Reading Revelation, 9).It was founded by Martin Luther, who first denounced the authoritativeness of the Book of Revelation and then later published a second view after ongoing conflicts with Rome. In his new view he stated that the beast from the sea and land (Rev 13, 17) was the papal empire. Many Historicists also believe that the seven churches (Rev 1:4-3) are descriptions of seven phases of the church leading up to the end of days. The breaking of the seven seals represents the fall of the Roman Empire, locust from the bottomless pit stands for Islamic invaders, the beast represents the papacy, and so on. Prior to the 19th century, many held the view point that Christ would return after the “golden age” of millennial reign, but more recently Historicist have begun to move from a postmillennial view on Christ’s return to an amillennial view in which they deny that the “golden age” reign of Christ will occur. Instead the condition of the world will worsen and an actual Antichrist will rule. Regardless, the explanations of individual symbols vary so widely among interpreters of this school that doubt is cast on this interpretative method itself (Gundry, A Survey of the New Testament, 509).
The initiation of the Futurist view is credited to a Spanish Jesuit Francisco Ribera who developed it as a defense against the Historicist views of Martin Luther and other Reformers who strongly identified the papacy with the Antichrist (Glabach, Reclaiming the Book of Revelation, 12). The Futurist view tells of a seven year period of tribulation, with increasingly worse things happening, especially in the last three and one-half years which will be followed by the return of Christ and a crushing of the satanically inspired rebellion. The basis of this idea is interpreted from Daniel 9:24-27, part of which states, “The end will come like a flood: War will continue until the end, and desolations have been decreed”. This statement, prophesied hundreds of years before John, seems to be confirmed through John’s vision. However, not all Futurists believe the same thing when it comes to the time of tribulation. The Futurists are divided into two main subcategories, Dispensationalism and Premillennialism.
Dispensationalism was created by John Nelson Darby as a set timetable leading up to the worlds end. Darby’s thinking was popularized in through the Scofield Reference Bible first published in 1909. In this Bible Scofield added dispensationalist headings and notes in the margin, commenting one each prophetic passage in the light of Darby’s system (Glabach, Reclaiming the Book of Revelation, 12-13). This view is based upon 1 Thessalonians 4:17, “After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever”. Dispensationalist interprets the passage as literal “rapture” of the righteous before the world’s tribulations. The word rapture (in Greek harpazo, in Latin rapere) means to be caught up or taken away suddenly, so opponents of this view feel that it could refer to being “caught up” with the spirit, not literally being brought up to heaven. Premillennialism is part of this opposing view and differs from Dispensationalism on its views of the Church during tribulations (Rev 6-8). Unlike Dispensationalism, Premilennialism believes that the church has replaced the Old Testament Israel as the people of God thus they will remain through the earth’s tribulation period which will occur before the return of Christ.
The Idealist approach to Revelation has sometimes been called the “spiritual” in that it interprets the book spiritually, or symbolically. Accordingly, Revelation is seen from this perspective as representing the ongoing conflict of good and evil, with no immediate connection to any social or political events (Pate, Reading Revelation, 11). For instance, it’s viewed that the addresses to the seven churches are placed in an order, that when placed on a map would create a circular path that would allow for the Book to spread fastest and reach the most people. Then it is also thought that the number seven represents perfection and completeness so that the address to the seven churches can be viewed as happening at any time and in any place throughout the world and the church history. Gundry states, “This approach contains a kernel of truth but arises mainly from a predisposition against genuinely predictive prophecy and from embarrassment over the extravagance of apocalyptic language.”
In closing, throughout the ages Revelation has been interpreted in many ways. Some theories may have an apparently more solid argument then others, but all still have followers. In writing this paper, I’ve seen bits of what I interpret as truth in all of the theories discussed, as well as personal truths. While a Historicist would say that the seven churches are representations of seven phases of the Church, I can say that they have described personal stages in my own walk with Christ. So while I hoped that in writing this, all my inquisitions would be clarified, instead I gained a more solid understanding on the background and theories which left me with many more questions to be answered. What has become clear is that “the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night” (1 Thessalonians 5:2), and regardless of whether there is a rapture, no rapture, a millennial reign of Christ, or no millennial reign the outcome will catapult true believers into God’s Kingdom. “The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. 24The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it” (Rev 21:23-24). Jesus says He is coming and those that believe will enter the City, and that promise is enough for me.
References:
Demy, Timothy J. Ice, Thomas, The Return: Understanding Christ’s Second Coming and The End of Times. Kregel Publications. Grand Rapids 1999
Glabach, Wilfried E. Reclaiming the Book of Revelation: A Suggestion of New Readings in the Local Church. Peter Lang Publishing. New York 2007
Gundry, Robert H.. A Survey of the New Testament. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2003.
Pate, C. Marvin, Reading Revelation: A Comparison of Four Interpretative Translations of the Apocalypse. Kregel Publication. Grand Rapids 2009
Tenney, Merrill C. Interpreting Revelations. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. 1988
Reddish, Mitchell G. “Revelation: Introduction”, Introduction to Revelation (Smyth and Helwys Bible Commentary: Macon, GA: Smyth & Helwys, 2001), reproduced on the Smyth & Helwys website.
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