Notes on Revelation

Notes on

Revelation

2024 Edition Dr. Thomas L. Constable

WRITER

The opening verses of the book state that John wrote it (1:1, 4, 9; cf. 22:8). From the first century to the present day, almost all orthodox scholars have concluded that this John was the Apostle John.1 Two noteworthy exceptions were Luther and Zwingli. Today many scholars who accept the divine inspiration of the book believe that the Apostle John wrote it. Others believe that some other John wrote the book.2 This is due mainly to the fact that the style of Revelation is quite different from that of John's Gospel and his epistles. This differences, however, may be due in part to the different genres (types of literature) of these writings.

DATE

Some of the early church fathers (Clement of Alexandria, Eusebius, Irenaeus, and Victorinus) wrote that the Apostle John experienced exile on the island of Patmos during the Roman Emperor Domitian's reign (1:9).3 They wrote that the government allowed John to return to Ephesus after

1See Robert L. Thomas, Revelation 1--7: An Exegetical Commentary, pp. 2-19; John F. Walvoord, The Revelation of Jesus Christ, pp. 11-14; or Donald A. Carson and Douglas J. Moo, An Introduction to the New Testament, pp. 700-7, for further discussion of authorship. 2E.g., David E. Aune, Revelation 1--5, p. lvi; William Barclay, The Revelation of John, 1:15; James Moffatt, "The Revelation of St. John the Divine," in The Expositor's Greek Testament, 5:320-27; Buist M. Fanning, Revelation, p. 28. 3See the map near my comments on 1:10-11. For a summary of this tradition, see Isbon T. Beckwith The Apocalypse of John, pp. 366-93; George Eldon Ladd, A Commentary on the Revelation of John, p. 8; and Raymond E. Brown, The Gospel According to John, 1:lxxxviii-xcii.

Copyright ? 2024 by Thomas L. Constable

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Dr. Constable's Notes on Revelation

2024 Edition

Domitian's death in A.D. 96.1 Consequently many conservative interpreters date the writing of this book near A.D. 95 or 96.2 There is good evidence that this was the last of John's inspired writings.3 Kenneth Gentry argued that John wrote Revelation in the late 60s.4 Several writers have refuted this view.5

AUTHENTICITY

"Perhaps more than any other book in the NT, the Apocalypse enjoyed wide distribution and early recognition."6

Where did John get "the revelation" that he wrote down in this book?7 He said that he received it from God (1:1), though much of it came from God through angels. Most of the details of this revelation were undoubtedly new to John. However there are remarkable parallels between this revelation and Isaiah's "little apocalypse" (Isa. 24--27) and the Lord Jesus' teaching in the Olivet Discourse (Matt. 24--25; Mark 13; Luke 21). The Book of Revelation clearly builds on that foundation and expounds it.8 The apocalyptic (doomsday) sections of certain books of the Old Testament--

1See Eusebius, The Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius Pamphilus, 3:20:103. 2E.g., Carson and Moo, pp. 707-12; Barclay, 1:17; Moffatt, 5:327; A. T. Robertson, Word Pictures in the New Testament, 6:274, 343; Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset, and David Brown, Commentary Practical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, p. 1531; Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible, 4:2:192; Richard C. H. Lenski, The Interpretation of St. John's Revelation, p. 5; John F. Walvoord, "Revelation," in The Bible Knowledge Commentary: New Testament, p 925; Kenneth G. Hanna, From Gospels to Glory, p. 484. See also Aune, p. lxix. 3See Lenski, pp. 6-7. 4Kenneth L. Gentry Jr., Before Jerusalem Fell: Dating the Book of Revelation. 5E.g., Robert L. Thomas, Evangelical Hermeneutics, pp. 451-71; Mark L. Hitchcock, "A Defense of the Domitianic Date of the Book of Revelation" (Ph.D. dissertation, Dallas

Theological Seminary), 2005. 6Robert H. Mounce, The Book of Revelation, p. 36. 7Quotations from the English Bible in these notes are from the New American Standard Bible (NASB), 2020 edition, unless otherwise indicated. 8See Alan Johnson, "Revelation," in Hebrews-Revelation, vol. 12 of The Expositor's Bible Commentary, p. 402; Austin Farrer, The Revelation of St. John the Divine, pp. 31-32; Henry B. Swete, The Apocalypse of St. John, pp. cli-clii; Beckwith, pp. 139-40; Louis A. Vos, The Synoptic Traditions in the Apocalypse.

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particularly Daniel, Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Psalms--contain former revelation that God gave His prophets about the end times.

"An apocalypse was the word for a crisis, and for a crisis which bordered on the end."1

CHARACTERISTICS

John also alluded often to Exodus, Deuteronomy, Jeremiah, and Zechariah. One scholar claimed that 278 of the 404 verses in Revelation contain references to the Old Testament.2 William Barclay claimed that John quoted or alluded to the Old Testament 245 times, citing about 20 Old Testament books--his favorites being Isaiah, Daniel, Ezekiel, Psalms, Exodus, Jeremiah, and Zechariah.3 The United Bible Society's Greek New Testament lists over 500 Old Testament passages that John alluded to.4 Despite all these allusions, however, there are no formal quotations from the Old Testament.5 The revelation that Jesus gave in the Olivet Discourse and later to John on Patmos supplements the earlier Old Testament revelation.

"Jesus in His [Olivet] discourse was clearly anticipating what He was to show John in much greater detail more than six decades later here on the island of Patmos."6

1Moffatt, 5:295. See Hanna, pp. 485-88; and Elliott E. Johnson, "Apocalyptic Genre in Literal Interpretation," in Essays in Honor of J. Dwight Pentecost, pp. 197-210, for discussions of the apocalyptic character of Revelation. 2Swete, p. cxxxv. 3Barclay, 1:14. 4Second edition, pp. 897-920. See Gregory K. Beale, The Book of Revelation, for many allusions to the Old Testament, and Merrill C. Tenney, Interpreting Revelation, p. 104, for charts of the distribution of these in the Old Testament. 5Fanning's commentary is particularly helpful in identifying Old Testament and extrabiblical sources. 6Thomas, Revelation 1--7, pp. 53-54.

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INTERPRETATIONS

There have been four basic interpretations of Revelation throughout church history.1 Of course, there are additional variations within these four.

"The basic hermeneutical problem in Revelation is determining what is symbolic and what is literal."2

The idealist, or allegorical, interpretation sees the book as an allegory that teaches the ideal of the triumph of good over evil. Antichrist, in this view, is not a real person but the personification of evil. In an allegory there is no historical basis for the story; it is fiction (cf. Pilgrim's Progress). This view has appealed to few interpreters who have a high view of inspiration. Most of its advocates are quite liberal in their theology, and are mainly postmillennial or amillennial in their eschatology (study of future things).3

The preterist interpretation, after the Latin word preater, meaning past, views the book as dealing only with events in the early history of the church, specifically its conflicts with Judaism and paganism in John's day. Advocates often identify Antichrist as a past Roman emperor, but there is much difference of opinion about which one. The advocates of this view are mainly postmillennialists and amillennialists. The main problem with this view is the inability of its advocates to unite on the identifications of the various people and symbols that appear in the book. Also, 1:19 says that the book points ahead as well as back, and not just to the present (early church era).4

The historicist view understands Revelation to be dealing with events in the total history of the church, not just the church until John's day. Many advocates identify Antichrist with one of the medieval popes, but they do not agree on which one. Advocates are mainly postmillennialists and

1See Wilbur M. Smith, "Revelation," in The Wycliffe Bible Commentary, pp. 1497-1500, for an excellent, slightly longer explanation of these views; or Tenney, pp. 135-46; or Hanna, pp. 488-90. See Thomas Ice, "Back to the Future: Keeping the Future in the Future," in When the Trumpet Sounds, pp. 13-16, for the historical development of these four positions. 2Robert Vacendak, "The Revelation of Jesus Christ," in The Grace New Testament Commentary, 2:1250. 3See Tenney, pp. 147-67; or Hanna, pp. 490-92, for discussions of millennial views. 4For arguments favoring a preterist-idealist interpretation, see John Noe, "An Exegetical Basis for a Preterist-Idealist Understanding of the Book of Revelation," Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 49:4 (December 2006):767-96.

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amillennialists, though some premillennial commentators also held this view.1 The main weakness of this view is the interpreters' inability to identify everything predicted in the book with past events and people.

The futurist view sees the book describing events that are mainly in the eschatological (end times) future, specifically the things described in chapters 4--22. Antichrist, according to this view, is a person who will appear in the future from our present perspective in history. Advocates of this view are mainly premillennialists. The main problem with this view is its improbability, at least from the viewpoint of its critics. Another problem is that it requires more literal interpretation and belief in the supernatural than some interpreters are comfortable with. This view makes the most sense of the book to me. By the way, I am a premillennialist, not because I am a graduate of Dallas Theological Seminary, but because premillennial interpretations of various New Testament passages make the most sense to me. In other words, exegesis, rather than theology, is the basis for my premillennialism. J. Sidlow Baxter claimed to be a futurist interpreter for the same reason:

"I believe the Futurist interpretation to be true because it interprets the disclosures of John's revelation in parallel correspondence with the whole scheme of Biblical prediction."2

I have listed these views in order according to the literalness of the advocates' interpretation of the book, beginning with the least literal. When I was studying Hebrew with Dr. Merrill Unger in seminary, someone asked him in class what he would say to the Lord if, when he got to heaven, he discovered that amillennialism was true and premillennialism was false. Dr. Unger, who was a premillennialist, facetiously answered that he would say, "I'm sorry, Lord. I just took You at Your word." Many amillennialists admit that if you interpret the references to Israel in the New Testament as references to the physical descendants of Jacob (Israel), you will come out a premillennialist. That is the normal meaning of Israel. They reject this approach, however, because they believe that prophecy requires a special

1E.g., Jamieson, et. al., p. 1547. See John F. Walvoord, Prophecy, p. 12, for concise definitions of these three views. 2J. Sidlow Baxter, Explore the Book, 6:338. See Appendix 1 at the end of these notes for a chart of these views and a list of some expositors and commentators who held each one.

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