Introduction to the Book of Revelation

Revelation 1:1-3
Bob Bonner
August 7, 2005

Today, a popular fictitious comic strip figure, one for which there have been several cartoons and movies produced over the years is “Spider Man.” However, did you know that the title “Spider Man” or “The Spider” was held by another, as early as 1450? King Louis XI, of France had been nicknamed The Spider or Spider Man for at least two reasons: First, due to his physical ugliness; and second because of his spider-like skill at spinning invisible webs of political intrigue to capture and destroy his opponents. His reign was marked not only by its efficiency but by its cruelty, whereby he used bribery, treachery and repression as his primary tools to build and maintain his kingdom.

King Louis XI was also a devout believer in astrology, thanks to his court astrologer named Galeotti Martivalle, who vaguely predicted the death of a lady in the King’s court. Galeotti’s presence in the King’s court made the king nervous, for what if this astrologer had not just predicted this woman’s death, but had actually caused it by some sort of spell? To be safe, the King decided to dispose of Galeotti.

His plan was to invite Galeotti up to the King’s chamber in the high tower. When he arrived, and upon the King’s signal, the King’s trusted servants were to grab Galeottie and cast him out the window of the tower to his death. However, when Galeotti arrived at the King’s chambers, he sensed something to be seriously wrong. The King was fidgety and his servants were looking at him strangely.

The King began, “I am quite impressed that you were able to foretell the death of that woman. You seem to know much about the fate of others. Tell me, can you predict what your fate will be? Can you tell me how long you have to live?

Thinking rather quickly, Galeotti replied, “I only know this, sire: that I shall die just three days before Your Majesty.”

Considering his reply, the King quickly canceled his plans to murder the astrologer!

Predictions about the future can be frightening and disturbing. Anyone who has ever read the book of Revelation remembers that it is a book filled with predictions that can be described as terrifying, electrifying and awe-inspiring events. However, at the same time, for those who know Jesus Christ as their personal Savior and Lord, it is also one of the most comforting and exhilarating books in the Bible. It pictures a time when there will be a glorious new heaven and new earth, in which humans and God will dwell in peace and there will be an end to all sin, sickness, death and sorrow.

This marvelous book not only breeds hope for many, but it also challenges even the brightest minds to comprehend it. However, once you begin to get a grasp of the book, once you begin to get even a general understanding of the book, its purpose is hard to forget, and the role it plays in the believer’s life is hard to overlook.

This morning, we begin the task of trying to make sense of the book of Revelation. As we do, our goal for this morning is simply to give you a backdrop, to set the stage for our study in the weeks to come.

To begin with, one must recognize that the key figure of the book of Revelation, from beginning to end, is Jesus Christ. In 1:1, we are told that this is the “revelation of Jesus Christ.” He is the centerpiece of the entire book. For instance: In Revelation 1–3, Christ is seen as the exalted priest-king ministering to the churches. In Revelation 4–5, the scene shifts to the throne room of God, where Jesus is seen as the glorified lamb of God, reigning on the throne. In Revelation 6–18, Christ is portrayed as the judge of all the earth. By the way, notice that this third section represents half of the book. This tells us that Jesus is making the statement that He is not always going to appear as a wimpy lamb. He will be the judge. The amount of content given to this role emphasizes an often overlooked attribute of Jesus and His wrath. In Revelation 19, Jesus returns to earth as the conquering King of Kings. The book closes in Revelation 20-22 with the heavenly bridegroom ushering His bride, the Church, into the glorious heavenly city.

Hence, one cannot miss that Jesus is the key figure of this book, if not of all of history.

I see at least two major values to studying this book of Revelation. By studying this book, we are forced to keep in view the person of Jesus Christ, and second, the purposes of God. In other words, once understood, Revelation causes us to adore the person of Christ and to accept His purposes.

Second, I see the value of this book in my own life, in that it gives me a clearer and proper perspective of the world in which I live. Because I know what is coming, it has added incentive to my living a holy life, devoted to Him, to fulfilling my purpose for being here, that of reaching the lost until either Jesus Christ comes again, or He takes me home.

In addition, it has been my observation that those who love and believe the truth found in this book quite naturally live more focused lives, lives ready to serve Christ, anticipating His return. They live with the understanding that this day could be their last, and hence, they are going to make it count for Christ. In contrast, I have noticed those Christians who do not give much time to the study of this book are more apt to live unbalanced, self-centered lives, focused solely on temporal goals and personal agendas.

The historical backdrop to the book of Revelation is spelled out throughout the book. According to Revelation 1:1, 4, 9, and 22:8, the Apostle John claims to have written and been an eye-witness to all of the events and descriptions of the events enclosed in the book of Revelation. However, he really isn’t the “author” of this book in the truest sense of the word. He was more of a recorder of the revelation of Jesus Christ. According to verse 1, this is not really the “revelation of John,” as it is the revelation of Christ as recorded by John.

The best estimate as to the time in which this book was written is about a.d. 95, during the reign of the Roman emperor Titus Flavius Domitian. The emperor had demanded that he be worshiped as “Lord and God,” and the refusal of the Christians during that time to obey his edict led to severe persecution. Tradition says that it was Domitian who sent John to the Isle of Patmos, a Roman penal colony off the coast of Asia Minor. Today, there are various Greek cruises that will take you to the Island of Patmos and you can see why it was used as a place of exile in ancient times. It is a desolate place, surrounded by water.

In 1:9, there is a small clue that helps us better understand the history surrounding the writing of this book. At the time of his writing this book, John says that he “was” on the Island of Patmos. Though the information of this book came to him while he was on the Island of Patmos, this remark “I was on the Island of Patmos” indicates that he was no longer there when he actually recorded or wrote down the revelation that took place there. According to tradition, the Apostle John was released from Patmos under the Emperor Nerva and returned to Ephesus. Tradition also tells us that John had been a pastor at the church in Ephesus, where he died and was subsequently buried.

The book of Revelation is an unusual book in that it is a book filled with highly involved symbolism and figures of speech, Revelation has been a book that is not easy for the faint hearted student of Scripture to interpret. Throughout the past two thousand years, there have been basically four interpretative approaches to the book.

During the third and fourth century, the Alexandrian school of theology set forth the allegorical or sometimes referred to as symbolic or non-literal interpretative approach to the book of Revelation. It considers the book of Revelation simply to be a symbolic presentation of God’s ultimate victory over creation. This approach does not see anything of literal historical value in it, but rather it is filled with spiritual illustrations and principles.

It should also be noted that even in its early years this Alexandrian school of theology and its interpretive approach to Revelation was considered heretical by the early Church and hence, has found little favor with modern interpreters of the Bible. There are, however, some modern interpreters who, when frustrated with not being able to make literal historical sense of a passage will fall back into spiritualizing the text.

A second and very popular interpretive approach to Revelation is the literal, historical approach. It views the book, primarily chapters 1-19, as a series of events that have already taken place, but these past events serve as an example to the believers in the future of how we are to live. Martin Luther and many postmillennial Bible scholars embrace this point of view. They believe (ch. 20-22) that we are presently living in the Millennium, that 1,000 year period of time spelled out in the Bible as one of peace and abundance brought about by the efforts of the Church.

A third more recent interpretive approach, and one that is gaining some ground is the preterist approach. It is a mixture of the symbolic and literal historical approach. It sees that everything written in the book of Revelation 1-19 as already having taken place before the close of the first century. It often views the earthly conflicts mentioned in these 19 chapters as more spiritual than literal. It sees these conflicts as past spiritual battles between Christianity and paganism. In reading some of the writings of those who hold to this approach, I find few who agree on that which should be taken literally and what should be taken spiritually.

All of the previous approaches have one thing in common. They each tend to deny the consistent, literal interpretation of the words written in Revelation. As a result, none of them hold to a literal future Millennium, or the 1,000 year earthly return and reign of Christ. But the fourth approach, known as the futuristic approach, does take a literal approach that holds to a future 1,000 year reign of Christ on the earth. It holds to a strict, literal, interpretive approach to all the words of Revelation, unless the passage itself reveals that it should be understood as symbolic. The futuristic approach sees most of the book of Revelation, that is, beginning with ch. 4 to the end, pointing to events yet in the future. In other words, these chapters primarily contain prophecies about our future that have yet to be fulfilled, but one day will be fulfilled.

This is the approach that I will be taking in interpreting the book of Revelation. Why do I take this approach? For several reasons: first, the best approach to take in the study of any book of the Bible should be the same approach one would take with studying any historical book. Since Revelation is foremost an historical book, it seems to me that it ought to be interpreted literally. The literal approach to Scripture should be the consistent approach one takes with all the books of the Bible, because the Bible is primarily an historical book.

Furthermore, as with all historical books, you should apply the same principles of literal interpretation to the Bible. Such as: consideration of the immediate context of a passage, the language, grammar, genre (is it prose or poetry), the culture and surrounding history of the book being studied.

A second reason that I take this approach is that other prophetic books have outlined and prophesied the literal, historical events mentioned in Revelation. The two most obvious are found in Daniel 7-12 and Jesus’ own words preached in His Olivet Discourse, as stated in Matthew 24-25.

Concerning the relationship between the book of Daniel and the book of Revelation, the late, Dr. John F. Walvoord writes,“The second coming of Christ and the years immediately preceding it are revealed in Revelation more graphically than in any other book of the Bible. The Book of Daniel describes in detail the period from Daniel’s time to Christ’s first coming and speaks briefly of the Tribulation and Christ’s rule on earth. But the Book of Revelation amplifies the great end-time events with many additional details, culminating in the new heaven and the new earth.”

The late Ray Stedman, writes in his work on Matthew 24-25, “In fact, the Olivet prophecy of Jesus is the key that unlocks the true meaning of Daniel and Revelation—two prophecies that also describe many of these same ‘end of the age’ events.”

In a nutshell, taking the literal futuristic approach to Revelation allows one to more easily and fully incorporate the prophecies of the rest of Scripture with those of Revelation than do the other three approaches.

Having declared my approach to the study of Revelation, allow me to make this plea: When it comes to the study of Revelation, it is easy to become embroiled in debate about interpretation. Many get caught up in constructing theological systems, debating how a particular detail fits into their prophetic program, or arguing against another person’s approach. In the process, we tend to miss entirely the point or reason for which God included this book for our study.

Those who become embroiled in debate over this book remind me of a lesson the old veteran surgeon thought he would pass on to his young intern. As he stands ready to begin cutting the patient from stem to stern, surrounded by another assisting physician, an anesthesiologist, and two nurses, this veteran surgeon looks into this young budding surgeon’s eyes and asks, “Who’s the most important person in this room?” At which point, many things quickly flashed through the young intern’s mind. First, he thought, “Could this doctor be so arrogant that he is trying to impress me and the others in the room, that as far as a pecking order goes, he is number one? No,” he realized, “this man doesn’t seem that arrogant.” So, he tried to find another option.

Spying the nurses in his peripheral vision, and remembering something he heard back in medical school that you can only be as efficient a surgeon as your nurses are willing to help you, he quickly responded, “The nurses!”

“Wrong!” the surgeon replied. “It’s always the patient.”

Likewise, we Christians who study Revelation often, as a result of arrogance, develop a prophetic system with some confidence, and miss the whole point of this great book, which is spelled out for us in its first three verses!

Let’s begin our study of Revelation this morning by looking at the prologue to the book, found in verses 1-3. Here, we read, “The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show to His bond-servants, the things which must shortly take place; and He sent and communicated it by His angel to His bond-servant John, who testified to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw.”

First, note that this is the “revelation of Jesus Christ.” John’s prophecy is primarily about Jesus Christ, not the revelation of future events . You must not divorce the person from the prophecy, for without the person there could be no fulfillment of the prophecy.

Also, in verse 1, the word “revelation” means a “disclosure.” Up until the writing of this book, whatever revelation this book contains, had been hidden from view in days past. In this book the Holy Spirit pulls back the curtain of time and gives us a never-before-seen peek of the glorified Christ in heaven and the fulfillment of His sovereign purposes in the world.

Revelation is truly an open book in which God reveals His plans and purposes to His church. In contrast, the book of Daniel is a closed book. When Daniel finished writing his prophecy, he was instructed to “shut up the words, and seal the book” (Daniel 12:4); but John was given the opposite instruction. He was told in Revelation 22:10, “Seal not the sayings of the prophecy of this book.” Why does God choose to now reveal these things? When the events recorded in this book begin to unfold, God does not want us, the church, His Bride, who are called in verse 1, “His bond servants” to be surprised by all of the wickedness and injustice that will be taking place all around us, here on earth.

Furthermore, God wants us to understand that there will be nothing we can do to stop these evil events. These events will not only happen, but they must happen. However, God wants us to understand from the outset that because these events will take place it does not mean that things are out from under His control. Just the opposite is the case. God is deliberately allowing the leaders of the human race to experience the consequences of ignoring Him and trying to run His creation without Him or in defiance of Him.

Then, at the perfect time, when things appear to be totally out of control and at their worst, God will bring the world as we know it to a close, with Jesus, the triumphant conqueror, coming to rescue and to reward His own.

There is another noteworthy word to be examined, in verse 1. It has been misunderstood and needs comment. It is the word, “shortly.” This word does not mean that the events mentioned in this book will take place soon or immediately. In other words, this word does not support the idea that John’s first readers of this book would understand that the prophecies recorded in this book were going to happen immediately or even during their lifetime. Rather, this term “shortly” describes a rapid and close succession of events.

When the prophecies recorded in this book do begin to take place, John is telling us and his first century readers that these events will take place suddenly and in rapid succession, but not necessarily immediately. Once the end times begin, it won’t be centuries til the world as we know it comes to and end, but less than seven years; or, if I understand this book correctly, most of the horrific events described in this book will take place in 3 ½ years. That’s pretty fast. It all happens in a pretty “short” period of time.

In verse 3, we read of an important and often overlooked promise. “Blessed is the one who reads the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it, because the time is near.” In other words, this is not a book to be ignored because it is difficult to understand; nor is this book to be argued about. Rather, it is a book that is to be taken seriously or obeyed such that as you do, God promises that you will be blessed. Let me quickly add, there is no other book in Scripture to which this promise is made: You read it and take it to heart and you will be blessed.

As we read verse 3, recognize that there are two groups of people mentioned. There is the reader and the audience. This book was meant to be read out loud and to an audience. Also, the three verbs “read”, “hear” and “heed” are all present-tense participles. Their meaning conveys the idea of continued reading, hearing and heeding the words of this book. This is not a book that should be studied just once, but rather it is to be read repeatedly and with a purpose. As this book is continually read and life is lived through the perspective of what this book has to say about the future, then God says that both the reader and the audience will be blessed.

Take note of the word “heed” in verse 3. This term means several things all at once. It means to pay attention to, to obey as well as to guard the information therein as though it were a treasure. This word demands that we keep a continuous eye on things around us in light of what this book has to say.

Here, is probably the most important message we can take away from these introductory verses of Revelation 1. Those who gauge the priorities of their daily lives based on the perspective gained from this book, those who obey the commands spelled out in this book will be blessed the most. Those who look at how to order their day today, based on what God clearly tells us is most important in light of the future are truly wise and will be not send this book of prophecy to the assemblies in order to satisfy their curiosity about the future. Besides recording these words out of obedience to Jesus Christ, John sent this book to Christians in order for it to change the way they were living in the present. God’s people were going through intense persecution and they needed encouragement. They needed to know that their God was truly blessed.

John did not send this book of prophecy to the assemblies in order to satisfy their curiosity about their future. Besides recording these words out of obedience to Jesus Christ, John sent this book to Christians in order for it to change the way they were living in the present. God’s people were going through intense persecution and they needed encouragement. They needed to know that their God was still in control. They needed to know that even if they died under an evil governmental regime, justice would take place in the end.

As they heard truths found in this book, its message gave them courage to continue serving the Lord and reaching the lost for Christ. The words of this book gave them hope to face the future. They were comforted to know that God was, indeed, in control. The words of this book became a continual reminder to examine their personal individual lives, their conduct, their agendas, as to whether or not they had lost sight of their calling before God.

Like unto the readers of the first century who viewed their present-day lives through the lens of prophecy, through that lens that made clear to the viewer what was of most significant importance, so are we to live our lives. When we do, we will be blessed.

back to top