Continued from part 2:

INTERPRETATIONS OF THE REVELATION 

Thus, this complex ‘end-times’ revelation can only be understood with God’s overall purpose for humanity in mind. So, it’s not surprising that scholars are divided over the Book’s meaning and predictions for the end of 1st Century and any later events it may forecast for the world and the Church.

There are four main ‘schools’ of exposition based upon interpretations of when these predictions would be fulfilled, as below:

• Preterist  – during the first centuries AD with the decline/fall of Roman Empire
• Historicist – all centuries between the First and Second Advent of Jesus Christ
• Futurist – end of final century AD (held by early Church and evangelicals today)
• Idealist – any century AD, none in particular (treats the Book as spiritual ‘myth’).

Moreover, in ‘Dealing With “Last Things” – The Rapture, Second Coming, Millennium’ my New Spirit-Filled Life Study Bible not only provides a useful summary with charts but also shows EIGHT differing scholarly viewpoints, citing The Last Days Handbook, 1990, by Robert P Lightener, viz:

1. Saint Augustine’s Amillenial View
2. A Second Amillennial View (BB Warfield)
3. Pre-Millennial Pre-Tribulational View
4. Pre-Millennial Post-Tribulational View
5. Pre-Millennial Mid-Tribulational View
6. Pre-Millennial Pre-Tribulational Partial Rapture View
7. Pre-Millennial Pre-Wrath Rapture View
8. Evangelical Post-Millenial View

We can now appreciate Hank Hanegraaff’s ‘preterist’ position that Revelation refers only to John’s days 1900 years ago and the persecutions that took place. But he fails to take the whole account into consideration because its closing chapters clearly refer to things that have not happened yet. For example, unprecedented global catastrophes, return of millions of deceased Christians alongside Jesus to overthrow Satan and rule upon earth, Satan’s final rebellion with many nations and demise in the lake of fire, the arrival of the ‘holy city’ and ‘wedding of the Lamb’!

So how are we to understand The Apocalypse? David Pawson suggests using the four main ‘schools’  in conjunction for each of the three main time periods, the present, the near future and the far future (not ignoring the switching between earth and heaven) – yet,

“..the fundamental question is not ‘when?’ but WHY?”

David answers his question:

“Not just to tell us what is going to happen but to get us ready for what is going to happen…Revelation is a ‘manual for martyrdom’…which is why this book becomes so meaningful to Christians under persecution. Maybe this is also why Western Christians in comfortable churches fail to find it relevant.”

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