Isn’t It Time To Discuss Revelation? – Part 4

Events and processes

One of the difficulties encountered by many of us has been the common failure to distinguish between events and processes. An event is a single happening. A process involves a series of related happenings. Change seldom comes overnight, although it often seems as if it does. Before 1948, for example, which saw the independence of India and Israel, it was hard to imagine (in spite of Hiroshima and Nagasaki) that the world had greatly changed. It took the Suez Crisis of 1956 to expose the weakness of Britain and France in the face of the new dominance of two powers from outside Europe, the USA and the USSR. And it was only in 1973, after the fourth Middle East war, that the world’s dependence upon oil was fully demonstrated. When in the next year the Shah of Iran was deposed, no-one could foresee that this was a foreshadowing of the revival of a militant Islam with world-wide implications.

Among the casualties of this process of change has been our own community, divided by the way its members interpreted world events in the light of their understanding of Bible prophecy. In the ensuing acrimony, several fundamentals came to be overlooked as common ground often is in time of conflict. On neither side of the great divide did anyone ever question the central lesson of Daniel the prophet: that the Most High rules in the kingdom of men. Nobody suggested that Israel, after it had been invaded by a hostile force, would be the epicenter of a world upheaval. No-one ever denied that Jesus Christ would then return to save his people, or that the resurrected saints would be able to rejoice at his victory. So the basic expectations of all Christadelphians remained the same as they had always been since the rediscovery of the gospel truth in the 19th century.

What was not clear was why such widely separated views had developed, which was perhaps because we were looking in the wrong direction for an answer.

As one reflects on the complexity of issues that our consideration of Revelation has uncovered, perhaps it is helpful to take a step back. When we endeavor to come to grips with the Apocalypse (or ‘uncovering’) of Jesus Christ, what is it precisely that we are trying to do? A little thought reveals that the central objective must be to seek to better understand the way Bible prophecy is fulfilled, and in particular, to understand the prophecies delivered by the Lord Jesus.

The first point to be noted is that prophecies are often fulfilled more than once. A simple illustration of this comes from the double warning of Moses to the children of Israel that, if they turned away from their God, some of them would be reduced by enemy action to eating their own offspring: “And ye shall eat the flesh of your sons, and the flesh of your daughters shall ye eat” (Lev 26:29: see also Deut 28:53). Scripture reveals that this happened in Samaria when the Assyrian army laid siege to the city: “And the king said unto her, What aileth thee? And she answered, This woman said unto me, Give thy son, that we may eat him to day, and we will eat my son to morrow. So we boiled my son, and did eat him: and I said unto her on the next day, Give thy son, that we may eat him: and she hath hid her son” (2Kgs 6:28-29). We can further infer from Jeremiah’s Lamentations that it happened again at Jerusalem during the Babylonian assault: “Behold, O LORD, and consider to whom thou hast done this. Shall the women eat their fruit, and children of a span long? shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord?” (Lam 2:20 see also 4:10). And the Jewish historian Josephus reports that it happened yet again in AD 70 when the Roman legions surrounded the city: “As soon as she had said this, she slew her son; and then roasted him; and eat the one half of him; and kept the other half by her concealed” (Josephus, Wars 6.3.208).

An example of a similar prophecy from Jesus himself is found in his predictions to the disciples on the Mount of Olives (Matthew 24). Although some have argued that the Olivet prophecy refers only to the events of AD 70, there seems to be general consensus in the brotherhood that the prediction refers to both the Roman invasion and to the time of the Second Coming. Some commentators are able to distinguish between those details which refer to the first of these events and those which tell of the second but again most agree that the words can often be applied to either. This is a valuable clue in our search for clarity about Revelation.

The work Of Elijah

Even more to the point are the comments of the Master on Malachi’s prophecy about Elijah: “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD” (Mal 4:5). Jesus was descending the Mount of Transfiguration with his closest disciples when these men, who had just seen Moses and Elijah speaking with Jesus, asked “Why do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?” (Matt 17:10). The response they received was puzzling. First Jesus told them: “Elijah will come.” In other words, he confirmed that the interpretation of the doctors of the law was correct. But then he went on, “But I tell you, Elijah has already come and they did to him what they willed” (v. 12). Then they understood that he was speaking to them of John the Baptist.

If, as the Master appears to be showing, the prophecy of Malachi had two applications, widely separated in time and in circumstances that were not on each occasion identical, then is this not a valuable pointer to the way we can view the Apocalypse? If this is at least possible, then we do not need to keep asking: “Which interpretation of Revelation is the correct one?” The questions we should be putting instead are: “Who decided that there is only one correct way of understanding the Apocalypse?” and “On what authority was that decision made?” To state the matter even more plainly, should we not ask: “Why is Revelation not capable of more than one valid interpretation?”

I readily confess that this is at first a disturbing thought. It seems to shake the foundations of everything we have been taught since we first began to learn of these things. But I find it impossible to escape the logic of the argument that has emerged from the passages referred to in this article. Most heartening of all, however, is that it points to a way forward towards a positive resolution of what has proved thus far to be an intractable problem for our community.

That alone makes it worth giving our serious consideration.

In the previous article it was suggested that there is a way through the minefield of interpreting the Apocalypse. This proposition needs now to be developed and expanded.

Multiple interpretations equally valid

The book was given to the apostle John for transmission to the disciples of Jesus: “The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John” (Rev 1:1). Those servants contemporary with John, and immediately after his era, lived in a world dominated by pagan Rome. Rome’s leaders refused to tolerate a small community whose members would not worship the emperor, who had been officially proclaimed divine. However, these servants of Christ were later followed by others who lived under the heel of ecclesiastical Rome, which would not countenance any religious teaching other than its own.

These medieval disciples were followed in turn by believers who saw the universal church threatened, first by the intellectual challenges of the Renaissance, and then seriously weakened by the Protestant Reformation. Their children and grandchildren saw the emergence of nation states, leading to colonization, militarism and industrialization, with its shift of population from the farm to the city. Later generations experienced two world wars, the Holocaust and the atomic bomb, as well as witnessing the creation of the United Nations and the European Union. Peoples outside Europe, previously seen as primitive and servile, themselves emerged as modern nations, some enriched by the discovery of oil, and others resentful of the wealth of their northern neighbors.

All through these momentous changes, the servants of God faced the same spiritual challenges in widely differing circumstances. And, as a light in a dark place, God had provided the sure word of prophecy, as testimony to His promise: “Surely the Lord GOD will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets”(Amos 3:7). We have seen that prophecies may be fulfilled more than once, sometimes (as Jesus showed the disciples) in very different circumstances and eras. If we accept these principles, then we should have little difficulty in accepting that our 1st century brethren and sisters may well have understood the book of Revelation as reassuring them in the face of the threat of pagan Rome and reminding them that God was in control of events. This is the understanding of the Apocalypse that later came to be labelled the ‘preterist’ view.

But believers living in the centuries of Papal dominance needed a different picture to uphold their faith. It was not a correction of the earlier explanation. It was a wondrous provision by an all-knowing and all-powerful Father, who inspired the construction and writing of the book in a series of layers, each valuable and instructive to all believers, but particularly according to the age in which they would live. Believers in the middle period therefore received what we call the ‘continuous historical’ understanding. This helped them to understand the world in which they were required to remain faithful.

Disciples living in the world to which the Lord Jesus would return, however, require yet a further level of understanding to prepare them for what lies before them. This is because their world has gone through another series of bewildering changes. So the wonderful book of Revelation was designed with yet a third layer, which has particular relevance to the time of the end. We call this the ‘futurist’ view and it is clear that we do not yet understand it in all its complexity. But the real point to be made here is that Revelation is far vaster in scope and depth than anything we previously imagined. Our problems with it stem from our own inability to cope with its magnitude. Understanding this principle helps us to achieve a useful perspective on the difficulties which have plagued us for decades.

And our generation particularly has felt the disturbing shuddering of a formerly stable foundation, not so much because of waywardness and intransigence in the brotherhood, as because we stand, as it were, on a tectonic plate of human history, as the age of the Gentiles draws to a close and the era of the kingdom of God approaches. So we should not be surprised that the topic of Revelation creates controversy. But with a broader understanding than we previously had we can see the controversy for what it really is: another inevitable symptom of our changing world, with its promise of wonderful things to come.

It would be naïve to imagine that a new way of understanding the depth and scope of Revelation removes all the problems that may have plagued our earlier efforts. The fact is that we are still trying to understand the word of prophecy, which has never been easy.

Sometimes we miss the implications of the passage in which Moses provides the test for believing a prophet. The central question is: “How shall we know what the LORD has spoken?”

“And if thou say in thine heart, How shall we know the word which the LORD hath not spoken? When a prophet speaketh in the name of the LORD, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the LORD hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him” (Deut 18:21-22).

The confirmation of prophecy for man is always retrospective. It is only by looking back on what has happened that we receive confirmation of the earlier prediction. Our search for meaning, therefore, must be on-going and developmental. It can never be fixed and static. Furthermore, we are given no instruction ourselves to be prophets, except in the sense of being people who speak out for God. We have no license to make predictions, except for those essential and plainly expressed central teachings relating directly to the coming of God’s kingdom. We all, quite naturally, have our favorite personal expectations but not infrequently they prove to be unfounded and we have no license to claim that they are direct from God.

In addition to this, the prophecy of Revelation was given by Jesus the Messiah, whose words are often hard to understand. The Jewish leaders never understood what he was saying about the future: “I have many things to say and to judge of you: but he that sent me is true; and I speak to the world those things which I have heard of him. They understood not that he spake to them of the Father” (John 8:26-27).

• When he was only twelve, even Mary and Joseph were mystified by the explanation he gave of his disappearance in Jerusalem: “And he said unto them, How is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business? And they understood not the saying which he spake unto them” (Luke 2:50-51).
• His closest friends, we are repeatedly told, could not grasp what he meant “Then answered Peter and said unto him, Declare unto us this parable. And Jesus said, Are ye also yet without understanding?” (Matt 15:15-16).
• When he spoke of his approaching death: “Then he took unto him the twelve, and said unto them, Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of man shall be accomplished. For he shall be delivered unto the Gentiles, and shall be mocked, and spitefully entreated, and spitted on: And they shall scourge him, and put him to death: and the third day he shall rise again. And they understood none of these things: and this saying was hid from them, neither knew they the things which were spoken” (Luke 18:31-34).
• Mary wisely kept his sayings in her heart: “And all they that heard it wondered at those things which were told them by the shepherds. But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart” (Luke 2:18-19).
• The disciples, when they looked back on what he had told them, began to understand: “These things understood not his disciples at the first: but when Jesus was glorified, then remembered they that these things were written of him, and that they had done these things unto him” (John 12:16).

Is there any reason for us to have a better grasp than they had? And, particularly, can we really expect to have the full picture in advance, when those closest to him, who had spent three years in his company, had to rely on the benefit of hindsight, the acid test of prophecy given to Moses?

Mental horizon

The principal benefit of seeing the Apocalypse as a book with layers of valid meaning is that achieving this extends our mental horizon. It does not make our searching any simpler but it does help to remove some of the distracting irrelevancies that can cloud our vision, and particularly, perhaps, that instinctive and debilitating sense of wrong-doing which can so unnecessarily hamper our search for understanding when we move away from a long-held understanding. In this connection, a homely comparison that comes repeatedly to mind is that of a childhood sweet, available in my own youth but known also to my Victorian grandparents. Given a popular name that would today be offensive to many, it was made up of layers in different colors. Only sustained and persistent sucking could reveal what lay in its glorious interior. This can be a helpful image as we contemplate our efforts to understand the last book in the Bible.

Perhaps, in closing, we should remind ourselves of the words John used to introduce his account of the vision he was given: “Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand” (Rev 1:3). A blessing is promised to those disciples who apply their minds to understanding the book. A similar blessing is held out to those who hearken to its message and who not only hear it but also who seek to make its principles the motivation of their lives by keeping them faithfully. There is good reason therefore, for every disciple of Christ to come to grips individually with this wonderful book, especially as, like John, we live in an age when, we believe, “the time is at hand.”

If these promises mean anything at all, they mean that each one of us, by humble and prayerful application to these last words of our Master, can arrive at an understanding that will sustain and strengthen us as this age comes to a close. And we will be able to say, with the faithful apostle in exile on Patmos: “Even so, come, Lord Jesus!” (Rev 22:20).