Bully's Blog

There are many books on Revelation that draw out some excellent applications. But when it comes to interpreting the finer details, they fluff it.

They are reading Revelation through frosted glass. General shapes can be made out – the “universals” – but their audience ends up with a showbag full of ideology, a religion set adrift from the shore of reality, a Jesus whose feet never quite touch the ground. The Bible speaks in symbols, not ideology, and the symbols are anchored in reality. Joseph and Daniel are historical figures, but they are also symbols.

Joseph and Daniel interpreted the dreams of their kings. Then, as wise men, with the king’s seal of authority, they brought their prophecies about in history. Jesus opened the mystery of the New Covenant at His ascension (the seven-sealed scroll). Then, He measured out its consequences in history.

This is no mere ideology—no fluffy generic truth. It happened in the first century – the seals, the trumpets and the bowls.

No more reading Revelation through frosted glass. Interpretation first, then application.

In recaptulating Israel’s history, the seven letters in Revelation 2-3 confirm that the true Israel was transformed by the death and resurrection of Christ, progressing from Firstfruits through Pentecost to Trumpets. James Jordan writes:

“[Bible chronology] is a history of how the Divine Parent educated the core and centre of the human race, and then of how He called all nations to be grafted into that Olive Tree history so as to receive the benefit of it… The human race had matured to the point where it was fitting for Messiah to come, and come not only to save the race, but to bring the race to maturity… And then we can notice that the seven churches in Revelation 2-3 are each associated with a particular time in Old Covenant history. We can begin to apply the societal wisdom we have begun to learn from Israel’s history to address the particular problems and issues in our own churches. Is your church most like Pergamum? Well, that’s the wilderness church. Perhaps your church is made up of people who need to be addressed in a Law-oriented fashion. If your church is like Thyatira, maybe a strong dose of Psalms. If like Sardis, you need Jeremiah. And so forth.”

http://www.biblicalhorizons.com/biblical-horizons/no-195-how-to-do-reformed-theology-nowadays-part-4/

Jesus said to him, “No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.” (Luke 9:62)

In Hebrews 10, the writer (most likely Paul) tells the Jewish Christians that if they turn back from following Christ they will be destroyed. Instead of offering a lame explanation to prove this passage doesn’t contradict the New Testament teaching that believers can’t lose their salvation, we should understand where the original audience was in history. If we do that, we find no explanation is necessary.

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Revelation can become a mere distraction. Charles Spurgeon wrote about prophecy buffs:

“He is great upon the ten toes of the beast, the four faces of the cherubim, the mystical meaning of badgers’ skins, and the typical bearings of the staves of the ark, and the windows of Solomon’s temple: but the sins of business men, the temptations of the times, and the needs of the age, he scarcely ever touches upon. Such preaching reminds me of a lion engaged in mouse-hunting, or a man-of-war cruising after a lost water-butt.”*

That’s a fair comment if study of symbols becomes an end in itself, but they were intended to convey crucial information. Surely the symbolic passages have more authority than our own anecdotes when trying to communicate abstract truth? There is nothing in Revelation that isn’t also elsewhere in the New Testament. It was not intended to be an isolated book, and the better it is understood, the more powerfully it can be incorporated into our teaching and preaching.

*Charles Spurgeon, Lectures to My Students, p. 76.

“And he carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness, and I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was full of blasphemous names, and it had seven heads and ten horns.

The woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and jewels and pearls, holding in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the impurities of her sexual immorality. And on her forehead was written a name of mystery: “Babylon the great, mother of prostitutes and of the Land’s abominations.” (from Revelation 17)

The woman’s riches and robe are described after her “bestial relations.” She made her priestly office into a counterfeit kingdom. She thought she was rich, but was in fact poor, blind and naked.

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“…repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.” (Revelation 2:5)

The Lampstand was the seven eyes of God, the flaming tongues of the Law given at Pentecost. Either we are judges or we are judged. An eye for an eye. Adam failed to judge rightly and Satan became the accuser, thieving Adam’s throne at the right hand of God.

Christ promises a future inspection. As prime mover, He sets things in motion then returns to measure Adam’s work on the next Lord’s day. Then we receive plunder, or He plunders us “like a thief.” If, like Adam/Solomon, we steal from Jesus, He will steal from us like Satan/Nebuchadnezzar (Matthew 13:12).

The warnings to the seven churches prefigure the greater judgments that follow in Revelation – upon the eighth church, Judaism. Jesus did come and remove the Lampstand. He came as Titus.

…”and the light of a lamp will shine in you no more…”

Nebuchadnezzar fought hard against historical Tyre, but was not able to plunder it. Was Ezekiel wrong? Or does Ezekiel’s prediction of Tyre’s total destruction support the identification of the subject of this prophesy as Judah? It was Judah whose (bronze) pillars were brought down and her foundations made a bare rock. The Lord would instead pay his faithful Babylonian “servant” with the riches of Egypt (29:19-20).

The imagery of Pharaoh’s descent to Sheol in chapter 32 has the Exodus in mind. Egypt’s armies would be swallowed by Babylon in the way Pharaoh’s armies drowned in the Red Sea. All the uncircumcised nations would welcome him to hell, and Egypt is the last army to be drowned and made unable to cross over into the new world the Lord was creating.

Of the imagery reprised in Revelation, the foremost is that of a dragon of the Nile, most likely a crocodile. Pharaoh thought he was secure in the fertility of the river, but the Lord would put hooks in his jaws and throw him into the wilderness. The crocodile would be food for birds and beasts, a Covenant curse. Ezekiel is once again making a veiled insult against the king of Israel, using Pharaoh’s behaviour as an object lesson. Israel’s mission was to bring the river of life to the nations but she had instead brought them harm. Like the real Egypt, the nations had leaned on Israel as a crutch, and she had only brought them injury. For this, Egypt/Israel would be made desolate, then restored from captivity. But because she had usurped the Lord’s throne, she would forever be a vassal kingdom.

As Tyre, Solomon’s gold was stolen by foreigners. As Sidon, his oppressive taxation was cut off. And as Egypt, his many wives were taken captive and the horses he had imported from Egypt were finally drowned in the sea. The word of the Lord is sure.

“It is most remarkable that not only in Revelation do we find large patterns of evidences befitting the AD 60s era, but also even many smaller details. It it surely no accidental similarity that allows us to find not only particular personages (Nero), cultural structures (the Jewish Temple), and historical events (the Neronic persecution and the Jewish War) that harmonise well with the Neronic era, but even time-frames for these that fill out the picture of the era of which John wrote. It can be no other than in the mid- to late AD 60s.”

Kenneth Gentry, Before Jerusalem Fell, p. 255-256

Esther before Ahasuerus, 1628–35. Artemisia Gentileschi (Italian [Roman], 1593–1651/53).

The repeated structures in the Bible allow us to fill in some of the gaps. Although it can’t be proved from Genesis 1-3 that Adam and Eve would have been given robes if they had obeyed, the event is repeated many times throughout the Bible and there are robes of office for the obedient.1

Similarly, the event is repeated in the book of Esther. Without a Jewish king, the role of the restored Israel was that of a priesthood of all Jews within the “Tabernacle” of the empire. So Mordecai’s failure, in advising Esther to hide her identity, epitomises the failure of Israel even at this early stage in this era.

Enter the snake, Haman. Continue reading

Ezekiel shared his vision with the exiled rulers as a warning. As they saw the Lord’s destruction of the old Jerusalem, they would purify themselves in anticipation of the new Jerusalem promised to them by God (1 John 3:3).

The book of Revelation has the same purpose. Most of the seven churches already contained the seeds of their own destruction—abating love, beasts (false kings), false prophets and spiritual prostitutes. The small judgments Jesus brought in these letters prefigure the major judgments in the letter to the “eighth church,” old Jerusalem, who was in bondage with her children (Galatians 4:24-25).1 The new army of God (the seven churches) saw the bodies of the old mighty men (Judah) fall in the wilderness (Hebrews 3:12-18).

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1  Amos follows the same pattern, dealing with seven nations (including Judah) before he gets to the point and prophesies against Israel, the eighth, to demonstrate that God’s judgment is not biased.