Symbolism Essay: The Book Of Revelation

The Book of Revelation is one of the hardest books to understand. It carries strong symbolism, which can be very confusing and hard to interpret. It’s an apocalyptic book, which tells about things and people such as John. The book also contains symbolic visions, which confuse the reader also because it’s hard to grasp whether it’s a literal vision, or just a metaphor. One thing is definite though, it is fact that the visions are meant to not be taken literal, and the symbolism not to be pictured realistically. Most everything in this book is to be taken not literally, but symbolically. This book was also in fact, a revelation to John.

John was in fact the one who wrote the book also. Once again, it was a revelation to him, through apocalyptic form. The book was also a prophecy, a prophecy on the end of times, and comprises the final book of the New Testament. The book was written around the time of A.D. 96., and is supposedly related to the awaiting destruction of Jerusalem. I’ve said this already, but the Book of Revelation was written towards John.

The Books of Revelations was written to the 7 churches of Asia. Those churches are; Ephesus, Smyrna,
Pergamon, Thyatria, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea.

The book was written to show to symbolize what would happen to the world if you continue down a certain path.
The utter destruction isn’t literal, so it’s not like we would be getting hit by meteors, but it’s to show how humanity will dissolve. It was also to show that God was in control. At a time, there was a war against the good and evil. There had been persecutions from Romans, to Catholics, and the ”fight” started. The vision John had, was to encourage and comfort the Catholics during that time. He still wanted them to feel safe, and not worry at all. God had spoken through John, with the word of God, and that is how you know that he is the one in control. By speaking through John, he could get his message to the Catholics faster, and John would be responsible for
it.

The book was written to show the church that once again, God is in control. No matter how complex or how the world goes, God will always be in control. If there really is an apocalypse, even going to heaven shows that God is under control. It’s not just an actual apocalypse, but just a literary apocalypse. The fight between good and evil, or Catholics and people who resent God. Not particularly Atheists, but just people who think horrible about our religion, when they could be keeping quiet. This “war” is similar to the “apocalypse” John was talking about.

In the end, the Book of Revelation was a difficult, yet symbolic book that explained John, his vision, and the “apocalypse” that was showed in his visions. God wanted to know that he was in control, even if the Romans mentioned earlier, didn’t like it. By being in control, through John, He was able to comfort the people near Asia Minor and give them hope. The Book of Revelation was comforting, symbolic, and very spiritual to the people who read it.