📖 Revelation Intensive — Unit 1: How to Read Revelation

Text: Revelation 1:1-8

The Revelation of Jesus Christ

The last book of the Bible names itself in its opening line: "The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show His servants—things which must shortly take place. And He sent and signified it by His angel to His servant John, who bore witness to the word of God, and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, to all things that he saw" (Revelation 1:1-2). The word translated "Revelation" is the Greek apokalypsis, which means an unveiling or an uncovering—the drawing back of a curtain. This is worth pausing over, because many people think of Revelation as the most hidden and confusing book in Scripture. Yet its very title says the opposite: it is a book meant to reveal, not to conceal. And what it chiefly unveils is a Person. It is the Revelation of Jesus Christ, a phrase that means both the revelation that comes from Him and the revelation that is about Him. Verse 1 also traces the chain by which it came: from God, who gave it to Jesus Christ, who sent it by His angel to His servant John, who wrote down for the churches all that he saw. Whatever else this book is, it is a God-given unveiling of Christ, handed down to the servants of God.

A Book to Be Read Aloud and Kept

"Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written in it; for the time is near" (Revelation 1:3). This is the only book in the Bible that opens by pronouncing a blessing on the one who reads it and on those who hear it. The wording reflects how the book was first used. In the early church most believers did not own a private scroll; instead, one person would read the prophecy aloud and the gathered congregation would hear it together. So Revelation was written to be read in worship, in the assembly of God's people. And the blessing is not only for reading and hearing but for keeping—that is, obeying and holding fast to what is written. This tells us something important about the book's purpose. It is not a puzzle handed to scholars to decode in private; it is a pastoral word given to the whole church to comfort, warn, and strengthen it. And it comes with urgency, "for the time is near."

What Kind of Book Is Revelation?

To read any book well, we must know what kind of book it is. Revelation actually blends three kinds of writing, and reading it well means recognizing all three. First, it is apocalyptic: a literature of vivid symbols and visions, much like parts of Daniel, Ezekiel, and Zechariah, full of beasts, trumpets, bowls, lampstands, and numbers that carry meaning. Second, it is prophecy, for verse 3 calls it "this prophecy"; like the Old Testament prophets, it both forth-tells God's word to His people and fore-tells what God will do. Third, it is an epistle, a real letter, for verse 4 reads, "John, to the seven churches which are in Asia." So the faithful reader treats the symbols as symbols rather than as flat, literal photographs; he heeds the prophetic call to faithfulness; and he remembers that the book first addressed seven actual congregations in the first century. Even the numbers—seven churches, twelve tribes, a thousand years, one hundred forty-four thousand—belong to this symbolic language and should be weighed with care rather than counted like figures in a ledger.

Four Ways Christians Read Revelation

Across the long history of the church, sincere and godly believers have read Revelation along four main approaches. A student should understand each one, without being pressed to choose. The preterist approach (from a Latin word for "past") holds that most of the book was fulfilled in the first century, especially in the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 or in the persecutions under Rome; on this reading the beast is Rome or one of its emperors, and the book spoke directly to its first readers' crisis. The historicist approach reads the book as a map of church history unfolding from John's day to the second coming, with the seals, trumpets, and bowls answering to successive eras; this view was common among the Protestant Reformers. The futurist approach sees most of the book, from chapter four onward, as describing events still future—a final tribulation, a personal antichrist, and the visible return of Christ; this view is widely held among modern evangelicals. The idealist (or symbolic) approach takes the book as portraying the timeless struggle between Christ and evil in every age, assuring the church in every generation of God's final triumph. Godly interpreters have held each of these, and many thoughtful readers combine elements of more than one. These same approaches also differ over a frame they all accept. In Revelation 1:19 John is told to write the things which he had seen, the things which are, and the things which will take place after this; the disagreement is mainly about where those lines fall. A more historical reading places much of the book in the first century, when Christians faced heavy persecution, while a futurist reading places most of it still ahead.

It helps to see how these four approaches actually handle a single image, and the beast of chapter thirteen is a good test case. There John says that no one could buy or sell unless he bore the mark of the beast (Revelation 13:16-17). A preterist reading, well represented by the scholar William Barclay, sees this against the Roman world that John's first readers knew: the beast is the imperial power and its Caesar, and the mark is the visible token of emperor worship. In that world a person could be required to confess that Caesar is lord and to honor him with incense, receiving in return a certificate that he had done so; with that certificate he could buy, sell, and trade in the markets, and without it he was shut out. Sincere Christians would confess only that Jesus is Lord, so they could not obtain the mark, and they were locked out of ordinary commerce and often made to suffer for it. Barclay, like many preterist interpreters, also connects the number 666 to the letters of a Caesar's name. A futurist reading takes the same mark as a literal token still to come, imposed by a future world ruler so that no one may trade without it. A historicist reading sees the beast as a power working across the long centuries of church history. An idealist reading hears in it the timeless pattern of every regime that makes ultimate allegiance to itself the price of daily bread. One symbol, four honest readings; this course will point them out along the way and leave the weighing to the student. And whichever reading proves truest, the call that the image presses on every generation is the same—to confess Jesus alone as Lord, whatever it may cost.

Three Views of the Millennium

A second great question runs alongside the four approaches, and it comes to a head at chapter twenty: the meaning of the "thousand years," often called the millennium. Christians who love the same Lord and honor the same Bible have understood it in three main ways—premillennial, postmillennial, and amillennial. Because the premillennial view appears in two forms, the dispensational form is best understood as a development within premillennialism rather than a fourth position; so there are three main views, with dispensationalism as a subset of the first. This course will lay them side by side when it reaches that chapter, but the student should meet them now, each stated plainly, with a fair word for it and a fair word against it.

The premillennial view holds that Christ returns before a literal thousand-year reign on the earth: the present age gives way to His coming, then the millennial kingdom, then a final rebellion, then the last judgment and the eternal state. This is the oldest form, held by several of the earliest church fathers, and in its historic (classical) form it keeps one people of God and expects the church to pass through tribulation before Christ comes. In its favor, it reads chapters nineteen and twenty in their plain order—Christ returns, Satan is bound, the saints reign—and it takes seriously the Old Testament promises of a coming earthly kingdom. Against it, critics answer that chapter twenty is the only passage that names a thousand-year reign, and it stands in the most symbolic book in the Bible, while the rest of the New Testament seems to set the return, the resurrection, and the judgment together rather than a thousand years apart.

The dispensational form, a development within premillennialism, adds three marks: a consistently literal reading of unfulfilled prophecy; a lasting distinction between Israel and the church as two peoples with two programs; and, in its classic form, a rapture of the church before a seven-year tribulation, so that Christ comes first for His church and later with her to reign. In its favor, it handles the Old Testament covenants with great consistency and takes God's faithfulness to Israel with full seriousness. Against it, critics say the sharp Israel-church division is hard to square with passages that make believers one people in Christ, and that the pretribulation rapture rests on no single clear text and was set out as a system only in modern times.

The postmillennial view holds that the gospel will so succeed in the world, through preaching and the work of the Spirit, that it brings in a long golden age of Christian influence—the "thousand years"—after which Christ returns to a world already won, followed by the resurrection and the judgment. In its favor, it takes the Great Commission and the kingdom-growth parables at full strength and fuels a confident hope for missions. Against it, critics point to the passages that warn of apostasy, tribulation, and growing evil in the last days, and they say the record of history sits uneasily with so bright an expectation.

The amillennial view holds that the "thousand years" is symbolic of the whole present age between Christ's first and second comings. On this reading Christ reigns now, from heaven and through His church, and Satan is bound in the sense that he cannot stop the gospel reaching the nations; at the end Christ returns once, the just and the unjust are raised together, and there follows one judgment and then the new heaven and new earth. In its favor, it fits the broad New Testament pattern of one return, one resurrection, and one judgment, and it reads the numbers of Revelation as the symbols the book everywhere uses. Against it, critics say it leans too hard on a symbolic reading of chapter twenty, where "they came to life and reigned" most naturally sounds like resurrection, and that a bound Satan sits awkwardly beside the prowling adversary the New Testament still warns against.

Each of these views has been held by able and faithful Christians who bow to the same Scripture. This course presents the major views fairly and leaves the judgment to the student and to his teachers, aiming at understanding rather than partisanship; the fuller comparison waits for the study of chapter twenty, where the thousand years is actually described.

The Greeting and the Doxology

With the introduction complete, John sends his greeting: "John, to the seven churches which are in Asia: Grace to you and peace from Him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven Spirits who are before His throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler over the kings of the earth" (Revelation 1:4-5). The grace and peace come from the Triune God: the eternal Father, "who is and who was and who is to come"; the seven Spirits before the throne, a picture of the fullness of the Holy Spirit; and Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler over earth's kings. Then John cannot contain himself, and he breaks into a doxology: "To Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and has made us kings and priests to His God and Father, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen" (Revelation 1:5-6). Before a single seal is broken or a single trumpet sounds, the book anchors the reader in the love and lordship of Christ—the One who loved us, freed us by His blood, and made us a kingdom of priests.

He Is Coming; He Is the Alpha and the Omega

The prologue ends by announcing the book's great theme. "Behold, He is coming with clouds, and every eye will see Him, even they who pierced Him. And all the tribes of the earth will mourn because of Him. Even so, Amen" (Revelation 1:7). Christ's coming will be public and unmistakable; every eye will see Him, including those who pierced Him. Then God Himself speaks the final word of the prologue: "'I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End,' says the Lord, 'who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty'" (Revelation 1:8). Alpha and Omega are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet; God is declaring Himself the beginning and end of all things, the Almighty who holds all history in His hand. From this point the book will move into John's visions, and a key phrase to watch is "in the Spirit," which marks the great visions to come; the scene will shift from earth to heaven, where the throne of God is the focal point of the entire book. But the central certainty is already set, and no interpretive approach changes it: the slain Lamb is the sovereign Lord, He is surely coming, and God will have the last word over all history.

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