Introduction
One of the tragic characteristics of our community over the past 160 years has been repeated divisions. Time and again, different groups of brethren have revealed a deplorable tendency to allow their zeal for the Word to degenerate into unbrotherly squabbling, which frequently produced damaging separation. Even if it is true, as is sometimes claimed, that the process resulted in a closer definition and refinement of our doctrine, it was nonetheless obtained at a high price and through a denial of a central theme of the preaching of Jesus Christ.
In my own time in the Truth, during much of the second half of the 20th century, the old problem reappeared in a slightly different form. Particularly from the 1970’s two distinct schools of thought emerged in the brotherhood as to how to understand the book of Revelation. This did not, as it might have done a century earlier, lead to an open split. The accompanying behaviour of individuals and groups within the ecclesial world was, however, the same as before. Old friends ceased speaking, families, ecclesias and groups of ecclesias became estranged. Ironically, the first appearance of this tragic phenomenon in our community, the break between Robert Roberts and his formerly close companion from Edinburgh days, George Dowie, had its origins in a disagreement over Revelation and the subject of a personal devil. (Wilson A.R. The History of the Christadelphians p. 321, citing Wm. Norrie’s Early History)
The real tragedy was that it was almost impossible to discuss the problem except with the like minded. The old injunction: “Come let us reason together,” (Isa 1:18) which had so often before helped brethren to resolve other differences, seemed to have been neutralised. Any attempt at discussion invariably produced more heat than light. The subject of Revelation became like a Victorian family secret, always referred to in veiled terms and never brought into the open in unfamiliar company.
Choose a side
What made matters even worse was the unspoken expectation that you should belong to one side or the other. Like characters in an old-time western movie, you were expected to show your allegiance by the color hat you wore. Or like English teenagers in the 1960’s, you were expected to be a fan of either Elvis Presley or Cliff Richard. Nobody, least of all myself at that time, saw the obvious resemblance to the childhood tale in Gulliver’s Travels, about the Big-enders and the Little-enders of Lilliput, in a community divided over which end of a boiled egg should be opened at breakfast.
On looking back, it was the classic situation facing all members of a society riven by internal conflict; the dilemma of all citizens in a civil war. But this is a perspective that came only with old age and a little experience. At the time it was confusing, frightening, disturbing for a young person anxious to do the right. Small wonder, then, that many of us avoided coming to terms with the book of Revelation, keeping it at a safe arm’s length to avoid unwanted consequences.
And all the while, I am now convinced, we were unable to find the right answer because we were repeatedly asking the wrong question: which way of understanding Revelation is the correct one? It was at the time, through a combination of custom and circumstance, the only question that suggested itself: it seemed to be the only choice we had. It took me decades to realise that we were looking in the wrong direction: that an answer lay not in narrowing our vision but in broadening it. We are dealing, after all, with a product not of fallible men but of the Maker of heaven and earth, whose thoughts are far above our thoughts (Isa 55.8). What is more, He gave it to His Son Jesus so that it could be passed on to his servants for their enlightenment (Rev 1.1). So we avoid it to our own detriment.
It was an insight that would lead me to a very different understanding of the book and its power.
The sad thing about not coming to grips with Revelation is that it is such a wonderful book. What a pity that the atmosphere of discord that has come to surround it is such a powerful deterrent to trying to understand it.
Even at a purely human level, Revelation is full of excitement. The ongoing struggle between good and evil and the climactic triumph of right could easily be turned into a stirring film of the kind made by Stephen Spielberg. The human tragedy of the fallen bride reminds one of a novel by John Steinbeck. I have often thought that Revelation could provide the basis for a motivational movie aimed at disciples. It gives ample warning of the hardships ahead, but these are always interspersed with encouraging glimpses of future joy and final victory.
But, of course, the book of Revelation is so much more than just an exciting story. We sometimes forget that it is the only book in the whole Bible from Jesus Christ himself and that it was written expressly for his servants. Sometimes, too, we overlook the exhortation in the first chapter: “Blessed is he that readeth.” (Rev 1:3) Jesus himself encourages us to apply our minds to his message, complicated though it may be, and promises a reward to those who respond.
Find your ecclesia!
Chapters 2 and 3 of Revelation contain the letters sent by Jesus to the seven ecclesias of Asia Minor. In them we see a picture of the entire ecclesial world in every age. Read them carefully and you will be sure to recognize your own ecclesia, with its particular strengths and its own weaknesses. What is more, Jesus himself points the way to improvement and reform. It would be a wonderful idea for the Arranging Brethren of an ecclesia to make a check list from these letters and to review it in full each year at a general meeting of the members. Notice, however, that this evaluation does not include finding fault with the ecclesia down the road!
Even if your own elders don’t take kindly to this idea, there is nothing to stop you from making a list of your own, to test you own discipleship (and never anyone else’s). The seven letters are as much a primer for the individual Christian as they are a guide for ecclesias. Either way, they enable us to identify problems and set about solving them, which seems to me to be a good working definition of the business of discipleship. So the seven letters provide a helpful way of starting to unravel the message of the book.
The visions
These letters are followed by a vision given to John of a throne in heaven. If we accept that Revelation is a book of symbols, as we are clearly told in the opening verse, one teaching of this vision is quite clear and applies to every disciple of every age. It repeats the lesson of Daniel’s prophecy: God is in full control of our world (Dan 4:17) John’s vision, however, provides the additional information that God has delegated authority to Jesus, the Lamb slain yet now alive (Rev 5.12). And, to the Lamb, God has also given the power to open the scroll Daniel was told to seal (Dan 12:4). In this way Jesus can reveal to his servants the shape of future events.
If in the past we have avoided the book of Revelation, the time has surely come for us to tackle the problems that surround it. Perhaps, as we read it, a first step towards a solution lies in recognizing that a question which has not produced a useful answer in a generation needs to be abandoned. What we must learn to do, surely, is to begin asking the right questions about it
The interpretations
Over the centuries, four main ways of understanding the book of Revelation have been suggested. Much of the debate over the book has centred in three of these and over the problem of which of these explanations is correct. It may be helpful, therefore, briefly to review the different interpretations, without at this point endeavouring to assess their merits.
Preterist. Traditionally, the writing of Revelation is dated at the end of the first century, about 93 A.D, although some Bible scholars, like Isaac Newton, have suggested that perhaps the book was intended to prepare believers for the tragic events in Palestine in A.D. 70, when Roman armies destroyed Jerusalem. Either way, the political opponents of the early brethren came from Rome. The forces of evil portrayed in symbol, therefore, can be taken to represent the power of pagan Imperial Rome which, at the time the book was written, had placed the fledgling Christian community under great pressure. Part of this persecution was the exile of the apostle John to the island of Patmos in the Aegean Sea (Rev 1:9). No matter which starting date one prefers, this understanding of the book, because it places focus upon past events, is often labelled the preterist (from the Latin for ‘past’) interpretation.
Continuous Historical. Later, however, another view of the book emerged. Particularly from the time of the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century, when the monolithic power of the Roman Catholic Church was broken by dissenting Christian groups in Europe, a different understanding of Revelation became popular. This explained the book as a portrayal of historical events from the days of John to the time of the return of Christ and the establishment of the Kingdom of God. It was this understanding that, through the writings of John Thomas, became, for about a century, the standard Christadelphian explanation of Revelation. It is often referred to as the continuous historical interpretation, to distinguish it from the simpler historical explanation referred to in the previous paragraph.
Futurist. The third way of explaining Revelation argued that the book is to be understood as directing attention to the events immediately surrounding the Second Coming. It is therefore seen as a presentation of predicted events, not in the distant past, as the preterist explanation suggests, nor in the immediate past, as the continuous historical view claims, but still in the future. Because of this emphasis, the label often attached to this interpretation is futurist. Its first appearance in the literature of our community appears to have been as early as 1865, when, according to Bro. Christmas Evans, (writing about 1959) two members of the Galashiels congregation in Scotland were expelled because they argued that the Apocalypse referred not to past events but to those still future.
Spiritualist. The fourth interpretation perhaps has its roots in disagreements that arose in Christian circles over the relative merits of the three opinions outlined above. It argues that the book is not intended to be literally understood. It is, rather, a timeless and universal portrayal of the Christian’s perpetual struggle against adversity. It gives the ultimate assurance that, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, good will eventually prevail and virtue will at last be vindicated. This is often described as the idealist (or, by some the spiritualist) interpretation, but is almost unknown in Christadelphian circles.
On the face of it, this brief overview may have made the problem appear worse. It may seem that one now faces an embarrassment of choice but that the pressure to choose has been intensified. It is as well then to observe that, if we are to understand the size and nature of the problem that faces us, we need to gather as much information as we can about it.
But, even considering the matter of choice, we have to wonder once more if we are asking the right question.
Continuous historical view1
As the continuous historical view has been the standard Christadelphian explanation for so long, it may be helpful to understand a little more about what is known of its origins. The Protestant Reformation generated in Western Europe a great interest in Bible study. The book of Revelation particularly came to be understood as revealing the decline of apostolic Christianity into a counterfeit system of religion which had entirely abandoned the principles of the original gospel. This understanding was fundamental to that Protestant opposition to Rome which had motivated the breakaway from papal control.
Joseph Mede, a Puritan scholar at Cambridge, after a careful study of Revelation, published Clavis Apocalyptica (‘The Key to the Apocalypse’) in 1627. In this work he laid the foundation of the understanding that would come to be known as the continuous historical interpretation. More than half a century later, Pierre Jurieu, a French Protestant, wrote a study called Accomplissement des Prophetes, in which he followed the same line of explanation as Mede but in addition saw particular significance unfolding in the French monarchy, whose fall he foresaw as a result of what he read in Revelation. By the 19th century, the continuous historical understanding of Revelation was generally accepted in the Protestant world.
In 1832 a young Englishman named John Thomas emigrated to the New World, where he began a search for religious understanding. He was soon brought into contact with the movement in North America now sometimes referred to as Restorationism. Its aim was a return to the basic values and principles of biblical Christianity. In the course of his investigation, Thomas spent some time in association with Alexander Campbell, founder of what later became the Church of Christ and the Disciples of Christ. Then Thomas broke away to develop his own understanding of Bible teaching. In the process he came to see the significance of the nation of Israel in God’s purpose. In 1849, after a lecture tour of Britain, he published his ideas in Elpis Israel.
John Thomas
As part of the process of refining what he had learned, Thomas became interested in the prophetic efforts of William Miller, who prophesised the return of Christ in 1844. As a result he began a detailed study of Daniel and Revelation and of books that had been written about it. As a result, he read the works of Joseph Mede and of Pierre Jurieu, as well as the most recent study in English, Edward Elliott’s Horae Apocalyptica, which had appeared a few years earlier in 1844, as well as the work of James Bicheno, who had written extensively on the restoration of the Jews. Part III of Elpis Israel was devoted to a preliminary exposition of Revelation in a way that harmonised with Thomas’s understanding of the Hope of Israel. This exposition was developed and expanded in the great work of his magnum opus, which he triumphantly entitled Eureka (“I have found it!”) published in three volumes between 1865 and 1868.
In the meantime, John Thomas’s teaching had attracted attention in the United States and in Britain. The result was the growth of a religious community that, during the American Civil War of the early 1860’s, adopted the name ‘Christadelphian’, at the time explained as “Brethren in (or of) Christ”, although the Greek ‘adelphoi’ signifies siblings of either gender. By the time Thomas died in 1871, there were Christadelphian ecclesias in several parts of the English-speaking world, all of them acknowledging the role of Elpis Israel and Eureka especially in helping them to understand Bible teaching.
The growth and development of this community was nurtured by Bro. Robert Roberts, first editor of The Christadelphian magazine and a devoted adherent of the expositions of Bro. Thomas. In 1869, Roberts wrote: “I got the Truth from reading Dr Thomas’s works 15 years ago. That event put me on the track of bible (sic) study which I have ever since followed. I discovered nothing for myself. There was nothing to discover.” Another revealing comment by the same writer appears in his account of Thomas’s life: “Dr Thomas’ political prognostications, based on prophecy, have been too signally realized to admit of the supposition that he was radically mistaken in his chronological scheme.” (Cited in the introduction to Elpis Israel, 1990 edition.)
For almost the next hundred years, Eureka became in Christadelphian circles the standard exposition of Revelation. During that time, almost all the books published on the subject by Christadelphians were attempts to simplify Eureka and to make its ideas more accessible to ordinary brothers and sisters. The time came, however, when thinking readers were compelled to acknowledge that Eureka no longer offered answers to questions raised by the events of the 20th century.
(To be continued, God Willing. We will next discuss the beginnings of the differing views of Revelation in the Brotherhood, beginning in the 1950’s.)
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One