Book Of Revelation

Interpreting the Book of Revelation The future; a daunting subject that people over generations have fretted about and try to plan against by constructing predictions on what may happen based on what they think they know. Christians are no different. The Bible is, after all, a book has a prophetic vein running through it promising all of His people that one day He would return to save them from the evils of the earth and give them the gift of eternal life with Him. Throughout the text, therefore, there are nuggets of information dropped as to what to look for to determine when that will happen so people can prepare accordingly. And so, throughout Christianity, individuals have stepped up to the
Not tied to any specific history, the imagery of the book symbolically represents the ongoing struggle throughout the ages between God and Satan, or good and evil (Zukeran 6). The overarching themes are, however, ambiguous and can be attributed to any period of time; the beast is the corrupt Christianity, the harlot represents the fallen church (8), and so on. These generalities alleviate the interpreter to adhering to any specific timeframe and, therefore, they, luckily, avoid held accountable for the fulfillment of their predictions. Idealists will defend this by stating that even attempting to foretell exactly what was written generations ago is absurd and they are merely summoning Christians to be diligent in the face of persecution. The point of the matter for them is “however dire their circumstances, God will win in the end and their perseverance will be rewarded” (Boyd 5), and when that will take place is not an important issue. The fact remains that by not having to peg to history Idealism renders the relevancy of prophesy to be moot. Jesus Himself said that the signs of the beginning of the end would be evident to those who were paying attention, “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places” (Mathew 24:7). It is in the Apostolic gospels that it is seen what would
The fact remains that “Revelation is not the impartation of knowledge about God; it is God Himself confronting man.” (Ferguson 28). The meaning of the word is to reveal, which is what God is doing here. He is letting man know of the things to come, not for His good, but for man’s salvation. He is also letting people know what will happen to them if they are not saved. He is giving us this warning because our “Human limitations, finitude, and sinfulness, require God's gracious accommodation in revelation and redemption” (31). God wants us to understand what it portends for sinners if they don’t ultimately accept Christ as their Lord and Savior. No matter how the overall book is interpreted, whether a Historicist, Idealist, Preterist, or Futurist approach is used, the final picture that is painted for sinners is a horrifying one and doesn’t need clarification. Still the reason for why it is that people still refuse God’s Word defies logic. It probably won’t be until after some of the initial events come to pass that can be concretely related to Revelation, in most minds, that the last call to look up will finally be