New Testament · Apocalypse
Ἀποκάλυψις
The curtain pulled back, seals, trumpets, a Lamb standing slain, and every tear wiped away.
Written from exile to seven real churches under pressure, Revelation is worship literature in wartime: a door opens in heaven and history looks different from the throne. It belongs to a recognised ancient genre, apocalypse, which uses visions and symbols rather than plain speech, and it is drenched in Old Testament imagery, hundreds of allusions without a single direct quotation. Its numbers do work that our numbers do not, seven for completeness, twelve for the people of God. Christians differ sharply about its timetable, and the differences are real rather than trivial, but they cluster around the middle rather than the ending. The decisive figure is a Lamb standing as though slain, and the ending is not in dispute: a new heaven, a new earth, and God himself wiping away tears.
If you remember one thing
It is worship literature written in wartime. However Christians differ on the timetable, and they differ a great deal, the ending is not in dispute: God comes down to live with people and wipes away every tear.
“He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; neither will there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain any more.”
Revelation 21:4
Revelation 20:1-6
The thousand years. Premillennial, amillennial, and postmillennial readings have coexisted since the early church, and all three are set out side by side in Going Deeper.
Named here rather than skipped. Where Christians read a passage differently, we say so instead of choosing for you.
Everyone here has a write-up, drawn from the same records that explain the names while you read the text.
A fisherman called with his brother James, part of the inner three, and traditionally the author of the fourth Gospel, three letters, and Revelation. The Gospel calls him the disciple Jesus loved and places him at the cross, entrusted with Jesus' mother.
A diviner from the Euphrates hired to curse Israel, who could only say what God gave him to say, including one of the clearest messianic lines in the Torah. The Bible's later verdict on him is harsh: Numbers, Peter, Jude, and Revelation all treat him as the pattern of a religious professional who sells his gift.
The figure in Ezekiel 38 and 39 who leads a coalition from the remote north against a restored and unwalled Israel, and is destroyed there. Ezekiel calls him the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal, of the land of Magog.
The Hebrew word satan means adversary or accuser, and in its earliest uses it is a role rather than a name, complete with the definite article: the accuser, standing in the heavenly court to press a case, as in Job and Zechariah.
The only two angels Scripture names. Gabriel appears as a messenger, interpreting Daniel's visions and announcing the births of John and of Jesus. Michael is called a prince and an archangel, and is described contending for Israel.
A quiz for Revelation is on the workbench. In the meantime, the games for the judges, the kings, and the prophets are open.
