The Revelation: A Vision of Jesus

By David W. Edwards

How many times is Armageddon mentioned in the Bible?

Where do we find mention of the antichrist?

What is the "mark of the beast"?

How many battle scenes are there in the Revelation?

How many battles are there in the Revelation?

Which is the most musical book in the New Testament?

Where can I find a calendar of end times events?

These and many more questions are answered in this hopeful and inspiring treatment of one of the most controversial books of the Bible. According to the author, the book of the Revelation should bring hope and confidence to the Christian life, not fear and despair. It is a book that looks forward with the joyful anticipation of faith to the return of Christ and the ultimate restoration of God's good creation.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jun 29, 2023
• ISBN: 9798888323090

David W. Edwards

Rev. Edwards has been a pastor for more than forty years and has a master’s degree in theology from Manchester University (UK). He is the author of One Book One Story and The Cry of the Raven. He and his wife have been married forty-five years, have three grown children and four grandchildren. They currently lead Safe Harbor Church of the Nazarene and reside in Vancouver, Washington.

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The Revelation

A Vision of Jesus

David W. Edwards

ISBN 979-8-88832-308-3 (paperback)

ISBN 979-8-88832-309-0 (digital)

Copyright © 2023 by David W. Edwards

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.TM

Used by Permission. All rights reserved worldwide

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Preface

It's All About Jesus (Rev. 1:1–8)

Key-holder (Rev. 1:9–18)

To Him Who Overcomes (Rev. 1:19–3:22)

Worthy of Honor (Rev. 4:1–11)

Worthy the Lamb (Rev. 5:1–14)

The Four Horsemen (Rev. 6:1–17)

Sealed and Redeemed (Rev. 7:1–17)

They Still Did Not Repent (Rev. 8–9)

The Little Scroll (Rev. 10:1–11)

The Kingdom of Our God (Rev. 11:1–19)

The Writhing of the Serpent (Rev. 12:1–17)

The Beast (Rev. 13:1–18)

Gematria

A Game of Numbers

The Lamb and the Harvest (Rev. 14:1–20)

I Saw the Temple Opened (Rev. 15:1–8)

The Seven Bowls of Wrath (Rev. 16:1–20)

Babylon the Great (Rev. 17)

Fallen Is Babylon the Great (Rev. 18:1–24)

The Wedding Supper of the Lamb (Rev. 19:1–10)

The Beast Defeated (Rev. 19:11–21)

The Thousand Years and Final Judgment (Rev. 20)

The New Jerusalem (Rev. 21:1–27)

The Grand Invitation (Rev. 22:1–21)

Bibliography

About the Author

The Revelation

A Vision of Jesus

To my parents, Ira and Margaret, who taught me a love of the Scripture.

To my grandchildren, Gavin, Elias, Eliam, and Ember.

May you grow to love God's Word as much as I do.

Preface

Ihad preached an occasional message from the book of the Revelation, often in the context of its end-times import. My understanding of the letter changed over the years, leading to a desire to preach all the way through the book from this new perspective. What follows is based upon the series of messages that fulfilled that desire. I have come to believe that the Revelation is largely misunderstood and thus misinterpreted. I'll explain as I go, but I have come to believe that the time is right for a new look at the Revelation.

Please notice that I have no intent of developing an end-times theology (eschatology) in the following pages. I will mention some of the various interpretations along the way, but I try carefully to refrain from trying to fit all the various prophecies of Daniel, Ezekiel, Zechariah, Matthew, Paul and Peter into a coherent eschatology. My intent is to stay as true to the Revelation as possible and to understand it within its unique cultural context. That is, my focus is on the Revelation itself and not on the second coming of Christ. There are many other authors who have tried to make all the puzzle pieces fit together, some going so far as to develop an end-times calendar. I am not one of them. I will frequently refer to other scriptures, but my intent is to show the continuity of John's vision with material already familiar to his readers. That requires me to focus on the political, social, and geographic landscape of John's intended audience and on their religious milieu. My goal is to understand how the seven churches would have received this vital and vibrant letter, and what they would have heard when it was read to them. Only when we understand how they heard it will we be equipped to interpret it for ourselves. It has been said that the scriptures were not written to us, but they are written for us. This may be especially true of the Revelation. Before we try to make it fit our own time, we need to understand how it fit the time in which it was written.

I want to thank those who have been so helpful in the development of this volume. I am indebted to the congregation of Safe Harbor Church for their support and curiosity as I prepared and presented the original sermon series. Gratitude goes to Kathy Latusick, who read and corrected my spelling and grammar in the first draft, and then to David Lindgaard and Marsha Edwards, who read the second and third drafts and offered helpful suggestions. I must include my Bible study leader, Don Lawer, who led us through Isaiah and helped me to see where that prophet's work overlapped with the Revelation, and my fellow students who helped me make those vital connections. And then, I must thank you, dear reader. Without you, this is just a vanity project. It is you who gives it real value, and I am humbled by your interest in what I have to say.

1

It's All About Jesus (Rev. 1:1–8)

Many Christians, including many pastors, find the Revelation challenging, and even frightening. My belief is that they focus on all the wrong things. What they generally see is tribulation, plagues, beasts, and war. What they think they see in the Revelation causes anxiety and fear. They worry about the end times. They begin to interpret traumatic events as signs of the times. A volcano, earthquake or other natural disaster is of epic or biblical proportion. War breaks out, and people begin reciting Jesus's words about wars and rumors of war, and when Russia is involved, we start to hear about Gog and Magog. Some people have theorized that the corona virus (COVID-19) pandemic of 2020–2022 was one of the plagues of the Revelation. There are problems with that idea, but it gained traction among Christians, nonetheless, and there was a lot of chatter that indicated a new surge in end-times thinking.

But that is to look at the Revelation from the wrong perspective. We'll discuss John's audience later, but it's important to note that John was not adding fear to an already persecuted church. Revelation is actually a book of comfort for those in the midst of tribulation. It is positive, uplifting, and encouraging. It is the hymnal of the New Testament, filled with praise and joy. I count at least fifteen songs, most of them focusing on Jesus Christ. Georg Friedrich Handel gleaned much of his beloved Messiah from the Revelation, and those who've sung Handel's oratorio instantly recognize those lyrics, hearing in their minds the majestic music that accompanies the libretto. The mighty strains of Worthy Is the Lamb spring instantly to mind, as does the majestic Hallelujah Chorus. I wonder how many realize, when they hear or sing the Hallelujah, that they are singing with the angels in the Revelation.

But first, let us understand that the Revelation is apocalyptic. It is a form of literature that is virtually unknown today. The Bible contains several apocalyptic books, among them Daniel, Ezekiel, Zechariah, and Revelation, and there are apocalyptic sections scattered throughout the Bible. The most familiar in the New Testament, next to the Revelation, is the End of the Age Discourse in Matthew 24–25. Apocalyptic is a genre peculiar to the era from about the fourth century BC to the first century AD. Outside the Bible, the best-known examples of apocalyptic literature are in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the thirteen papyrus codices¹ of the Nag Hammadi library.² They are mostly Gnostic texts, but many of them are in the form of apocalyptic.

Apocalypse comes from the Greek word ἀπoκάλuψis (apokalupsis), meaning to reveal, disclose, or uncover something previously hidden. A list of apocalyptic movies includes such titles as War of the Worlds and others that involve alien invasion, Moonfall, and movies that deal with objects falling from space, and Mad Max depicting life after the collapse of civilization.³ Recently, zombie movies have been added to the list of apocalyptic or post-apocalyptic productions. The movies and dictionary definitions all have to do with cataclysmic disaster or the end of the world, but that's not actually the meaning of the word, either in Greek or in literature. Perhaps a picture will help: you enter a dark room—lights are off and curtains are closed. You turn on the lights and pull back the curtains, allowing light to flood the room, revealing all that is there. You have a revelation, an apocalypse.

I have been to museums that have a special room with various rocks arranged on shelves. Normal light shows them to be sort of nondescript, gray rocks, some with crystals or bands of mineral through them. But the curtains are drawn, and the ultraviolet light is turned on. Suddenly, those gray rocks glow with beautiful colors as the minerals respond to the light. That's an apocalypse, a revelation.

There are four Greek words which are translated variously as "world. Ge (as in geology) is earth, as in the ground we walk on. He oikoumene is translated as "the inhabited earth (see Matthew 24:14 and Luke 2:1). The third word is aion, which can be translated life when referring to the span of life. It is most often translated age and a form of this word is translated as eternity. It can refer to an epoch or period of history, just as we might refer to the Pleistocene or Miocene era, or to the Age of Enlightenment. The final word is kosmos, referring to the globe of the earth and extending to the universe.

For example, most apocalyptic literature dealt with the end of the age, that is, the end of an era (aion), the end of a nation or the end of a particular empire or civilization. The dark symbolism meant that the world as they knew it was coming to an end, perhaps a terrifying end. Christians have extrapolated much from the Revelation as having to do with the end of the world. It does, but not in the way most people think. When Jesus spoke in Matthew 24–25, most of the discourse concerns the end of the current aion, not the end of the kosmos. Many of these Matthean prophecies there were fulfilled in AD 70 with the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple.⁴ There is much more to that discourse than just the fall of Jerusalem, mostly having to do with the Day of the Lord and the return of Christ—when the Son of Man comes in his glory. Of all the gospels, that is about the extent of Jesus's apocalyptic teaching.

Adding to the confusion is the fact that "The New Testament writers themselves do not consistently use kosmos for the one conception and aion for the other."⁵ Lewis goes on to note that They worked far apart in place and time and there was no question of meeting together to hammer out an agreed terminology. And none was writing his native language.⁶ It is likely, though, that the New Testament writers were, in general, using scribes, who were more educated in the use of the language. The point to be made here, though, is that apocalyptic literature is about revealing, not necessarily about catastrophe or the end of the world.

Secondly, apocalyptic literature is characterized by symbolism. There are odd and grotesque creatures, such as multi-faced beasts and armored locusts. There are catastrophic events that are meant to be understood as symbols for something else. Place names are representative of other places. The writers used codes, sometimes because plain language could bring danger to the writer. Because of the time frame of apocalyptic literature and the cultural differences between then and now, many of those symbols and codes are obscure and difficult or impossible to interpret. Some were specific to their time and are lost to history. I believe that people who think they know what all the symbols mean are either deluded or lying. We can make somewhat educated guesses based on context or on comparable literature, but we cannot know with certainty in every case. There are a few symbols that are explained, and for those, we simply need to pay attention.

You may notice that I refer to this book as The Revelation rather than simply Revelation. The Revelation is a single piece; it is a single vision rather than a series of visions. John records this as a unit, using phrases like Then I saw… And then I was shown. So we are dealing with a single, unified work.

We need to note the title given. Some of your Bibles give the title of the book as The Revelation of St. John the Divine or The Revelation of John. It is not. The names of Bible books are often taken from the first word (Genesis, Chronicles) or the first line of the text. In this case, that first line, from which we get the title, is The Revelation of Jesus Christ. Gordon Fee and Mark Strauss write:

In other cases the translation of the genitive with of is a good choice since it approximates the ambiguity of the Greek text. For example, in Revelation 1:1 the translation the revelation of Jesus Christ could mean a revelation given by Jesus Christ (a subjective genitive), or a revelation about Jesus Christ (an objective genitive). The NLT chooses the former: "the revelation from Jesus Christ. Yet both subjective and objective genitives fit well the purpose and content of the book, and many scholars suggest that the author is being intentionally ambiguous. Thus, it seems best to render the phrase the revelation of Jesus Christ" (NIV, NET, HCSB, GW, ESV, etc.).⁷

We should note that the ambiguity does not detract from the point that the book is about Jesus. As we read the text, we discover that the Revelation is both from Jesus and about him. Jesus is the one who gives the Revelation to John; Jesus is the subject of the Revelation. That is vital to our understanding of the Revelation from start to finish.

The book is not about John. John is merely the vehicle for the Revelation. The book is also not about end times. It is not about weird creatures, plagues, and strange events. It's not about Armageddon. Many people, in fact, most writers on the second coming of Christ and the end of the world, use the dreadful images and events of the Revelation as if they were the main focus. We've heard endless discussions about the battle of Armageddon (which never happens! More on that in a later chapter.), about the mark of the beast (easily explained), about the antichrist (not even in the Revelation!⁸), about the ten horns, the 144,000, and on and on, nitpicking on the stuff of the vision. They all focus in the wrong direction.

If you begin with a false premise, you will always end up with a false result. When you begin with doom and gloom, with plagues and falling stars, you will end up with a wrong understanding of the Revelation. The Revelation is not about all that stuff. It is the revelation of Jesus Christ. Jesus is the main character in the story. In fact, Jesus is the whole story. Denominations have divided over the end-times calendar, when and in what order all these things happen. But the calendar is unimportant. It is something everyone who reads the story should treat with a shrug and move on. Who cares! The story is not the calendar; the story is Jesus.

Here is one way we get ourselves into Gordian knots⁹ of controversy: We take bits and pieces from Daniel, Ezekiel, and Zechariah; then from Malachi, Joel, and Matthew; and from 1 Corinthians, 1 Thessalonians, and the letters of John; and add in the Revelation, and then try to assemble them as if they were pieces of a puzzle. From this weird method of Bible interpretation, we try to discern our end-times calendar, and then fight over whose calendar is correct. I have described this as throwing all the pieces into a blender, pouring them out on the counter, and seeing how they fall out. I call it blender theology, and the Church has been doing it for centuries. We end up fighting over whose blender does a better job. The answer is—none of them. We've been focused on the wrong things. The Revelation is about Jesus Christ. It says so—first line! How hard can it be?

These first eight verses are the prologue and greetings. The author explains why he wrote, to whom he is writing, and then greets his readers and offers a blessing, a doxology, for them.

The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place. John's word is soon. Soon is such a vague word that can mean almost anything, a concept that is almost meaningless. We can't construe a time-line other than this: John anticipated that the events he sees will happen soon, perhaps in his lifetime. Every generation of Christians has lived with that same anticipation. Jesus could come back at any moment. He said so himself in the gospels. We should not discount it but should live ready and watchful. John adds that the time is near.

To his servant John, who testifies to everything he saw. The Revelation is the only one of John's writings to which he attached his name. The stamp of authenticity is that it is the beloved disciple himself who is the witness. Anonymous apocalyptics abounded. No one could really be sure of their authenticity or authorship. But John stamps his with his name, and as a respected elder and associate of Jesus Christ, he would have credibility. There are those who dispute John's authorship. We will discuss them briefly later.

Blessed is the one who reads aloud. The Revelation is in the form of a letter, sent to the churches in the region around Ephesus. It was intended to be read aloud. That is, it was intended to be heard, not merely read. Living words have power. Blessings and curses were always spoken aloud. Spoken blessings have the power to change life for the better, as people live into the spoken word. Spoken curses have the power to destroy life, as people live in fear of the reality of those spoken words. In ancient times, prayers were spoken aloud that they might be heard. The story of Hannah in 1 Samuel 1:12–14 illustrates the custom:

As she kept on praying to the LORD, Eli observed her mouth. Hannah was praying in her heart, and her lips were moving but her voice was not heard. Eli thought she was drunk and said to her, How long are you going to stay drunk? Put away your wine. (NIV)

Once Hannah explained and Eli understood, he sent her away with a blessing and assurance that her prayer had been heard. But Eli's befuddlement at Hannah's silent prayer illustrates the fact that silent prayer was a foreign idea to him. Prayer was traditionally aloud, perhaps in the belief that God heard such prayer, but certainly in the understanding that the spoken word is a powerful word. So as with the letters of Paul to the various churches, the Revelation was also meant to be read aloud.

"To the seven churches