The Bible contains many references to the Last Days; the Book of Revelation is said to be devoted totally to the subject. As a search on the Internet will reveal, however, there are literally hundreds of different interpretations as to what the Book of Revelation is really about. There are many reasons for this, the most common being that people try to put a literal interpretation on what, by its own admission, was written in 'signature' (representative symbolism) and then wonder why it doesn't make any sense. To get it to add up, they take prophesies from all over the Bible, string them together and come up with a scenario which they preach as gospel.
This has resulted in a plethora of interpretations which are widely circulated and accepted but make very little sense. To cover themselves, those who come up with these scenarios always talk about things that are yet to happen, so they need never worry about being proved wrong, even though the Book of Revelation makes it very clear most of the things in it should have already come to pass by the time our generation reads about them. The more sensational it is, the more people believe it. As a result, we get scenarios drawn from the Book of Revelation which go into minute detail about the Antichirst, one world government, The Great Tribulation and the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem, America defending Israel with nuclear weapons, 144,000 Jewish male virgins fighting the Russian army, people with microchips in their hands and foreheads - all rather amazing feats considering that none of these events or terminologies are even mentioned in the book of Revelation!
I personally believed some of those theories for many years but always felt uncomfortable about them because they left too many unanswered questions and were always subject to a person's interpretation. I now don't believe the Book of Revelation, or The Bible as a whole for that matter, was ever meant to be open to interpretation. The Book of Revelation has one true meaning and purpose, which can be determined by simply asking four questions, the answers to which are found in the opening verses of the book of Revelation: "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 it signified by his angel unto his servant John". Keep those answers in mind as you read the book, line it up with a little Church history (a Church timeline is included on these pages to help you do that) and it makes total sense.
The book is not about Jesus's second coming - that subject is neither addressed or inferred. It is not about the Great Tribulation either; it is not about the Rapture; it is not about the Antichrist - in fact none these are even mentioned or named in the book. According to verses 1 and 2 of the opening chapter, it was given by Jesus to his servants in seven specific 1st century churches as a revelation to them as to things which would shortly come to pass.
In other words, the Book of Revelation tells about what we now refer to as the Church Age, and what the dangers and pitfalls it would face. It is not about world events - it is about church events. Though it refers to "nations", in "signature" that word is always a reference to groups of people with something in common. It is never used as a reference to empires, governments, political powers or "nations" as we use the word today; they are sybolised by the term "beast".
Because it is a prophetic book, it contains many things that are echoes, types or symbols that are found elsewhere in the other books of the Bible. It confirms them as truth; they confirm it as truth.
Verse one says it was given to John to make known to His bondservants (the true followers of Jesus Christ) things that would shortly come to pass. Jump forward a few chapters and you will see it is about things that would shortly come to pass in the lives of Christian believers and not the world at large. That at first seems to include every Christian from the first century when it was written to all those who would follow, however, before the Revelation is expounded, seven specific churches are named, and it addresses them directly. There is no evidence that any other churches of their day were given a similar revelation, so this revelation seems to be specifically for them and about them - and those of a like-minded faith who would follow.
A look at the events of the day that affected their lives, and their Christian belief in particular, indicates such a revelation would have been most timely. The Revelation surfaced within a few years of the Romans completely obliterating Judea as a nation. Many Jews had died in Jerusalem trying to protect their city from the marauding armies of Rome, others had died in the seige of Masada; only a few escaped to start a new life in or away from the devastated state of Judea. Jesus had not returned to defeat Rome and establish His kingdom on earth as many contemporary church leaders, most notedly the Apostle Paul, indicated he would. Unlike Paul's epistles, the Book of Revelation said nothing about his return being imminent; on the contrary it indicated that His church would be around for a long time to come, that there were plenty of things still to happen to it, and the idea of it all coming to an end wasn't raised or even even hinted at.
Verse one states that the things within the book would come to pass shortly and speedily. Verse three reinforces this by adding that the time is at hand - meaning 'right now' - for these things to happen. To get it all into perspective, those words were spoken in the year 90 AD or thereabouts - that's over 1,900 years ago. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to work out that, since the events prophesied were about to take place (speedily and shortly) back in 90 AD, most if not all of them should have already happened by the time you and I read it. There is therefore no point in Christians today believing that all the prophesies in the Book of Revelation are about to enfold before their eyes in their lifetime as some people are teaching. It is a few millennia too late for that.
What we need to do is get out our history books and compare what has already happened since 90 AD with what the book of Revelation says was going to happen, and verify that it did actually foretell what would happen to the Churches. Once this has been verified by comparing its prophesies with recorded church history (something this study does), we can determine where we sit along its prophetic timeline of the Church Age. That is one of the aims of these web pages.
In the original Greek, verse 1 says God sent the book "signified by his angel". The word "signified" in the context written here translates as being sent "in signified (symbolic) form". When the King James version was being translated, the word "sign" was an abbreviation of the word signature, which was a representative symbol. Jesus often taught "in signature" - the Gospel writers call these teachings parables; the words and phrases in them are symbols that hide the real meaning from those to whom God did not want to reveal His secrets. Most Old Testament prophecies are written in this manner, the symbols and terminologies found there are the same as those found here. So a more accurate translation of Verse 1 is "He (God) sent it by his angel to his servant John using symbolism".
The book effectively told Christians of the day that the majority of churches had got it wrong - Christ's kingdom was a heavenly (spiritual) kingdom and it had already arrived. As Jesus had said, His kingdom was not an earthly kingdom so there was no point in expecting Him to suddenly appear and overthrow the Romans. It told them the Church was going to be around for a while so they'd better get used to it. And whilst that was good news in one way, in another way it wasn't. The Roman Emperor at the time was Domitian, a cruel and paranoid tyrant who ranks among the most reviled rulers in Roman history, who is often compared to such emperors as Caligula and Nero. One of his favourite pastimes was throwing Christians to the lions. As you will see if you read the section on The Beast, the Roman Empire and later the Holy Roman Empire fits the description of the Beast of the Book of Revelation in every detail.
To the Christians of that time, who feared for their lives under the tyranny of Rome, there would have been no doubt who or what the Beast of the Book of Revelation was either. It was therefore necessary to write the book in code or symbolism so only those with a knowledge of the writings of the Old Testament prophets would understand its true meaning, since their writings were written in the same code. Any copies of the Book which found their way into the hands of the Roman authorities would be treated as gibberish, just as it is by people today who don't know how to interpret the code or even recognise that code is being used.
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