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AUTHOR
Four times the author identifies himself as John (1:1, 4, 9; 22:8) Four persons are mentioned in the New Testament who bore this name: John the Baptist, the Apostle John, John the Elder (who may have written the letters that bear his name in the New Testament), and John Mark who was a traveling companion of Paul, a nephew of Peter, and possibly the author of the Gospel of Mark. John the Baptist did not write anything so far as we know. And the author of Revelation does not clarify whether he might be John the Elder or John Mark. That leaves us with the Apostle John as a possibility.
From the mid-second century on, this book was widely, though not universally, ascribed to the Apostle John, the son of Zebedee by the Early Church. Justin Martyr, who lived in Ephesus a mere 40 years after the writing of Revelation believed that the Apostle John was the author. Apostolic authorship was accepted by Irenaeus of Gaul in 180, and Tertullian of North Africa in 200. But some leaders in the East questioned apostolic authorship. Dionysius, bishop of Alexandria, writing after 247, argued that because of differences in vocabulary and grammar between the Gospel of John and Revelation the two books could not have been written by the same person.
Even though the precise identity of John is still debated today, interpretation of this book does not depend upon our knowing who the author was. There are striking similarities as well as differences between the Gospel of John, the Letters of John and Revelation. Even if the same person did not write all five works, it is certain that all five come from the same geographical, cultural, and theological setting. (G. B. Caird) Thus, scholars refer to a Johannine Community behind the writing of all five books. I refer to the author of Revelation simply as John; I tend to favor apostolic authorship, though apostolic authorship is far from certain.
DATE
The book of Revelation was written sometime between AD 69 and 96. Some scholars believe the persecutions alluded to in the book originated from the Emperor Nero who reigned from AD 54 to 68. However, a majority of scholars believe that the book reflects the conditions prevailing during the latter years of the Emperor Domitian who reigned from AD 81 to 96.
Prior to Domitian, Rome had not discriminated against the Christian faith per se. Nero’s horrible and crazed acts against Christians, including Peter and Paul, were restricted to Rome. The first emperor who tried to force Christians to participate in Caesar worship was Domitian. Toward the end of his reign, he demanded that his subjects refer to him as “our lord and god”. Christians would not do this, nor would they offer incense to him in temples built in his honor. The Jewish people had earlier received exemption from having to worship the emperor. And early on, Christianity was not distinguished from Judaism. At first, the Romans regarded the Christians as merely a Jewish sect. But by the end of the first century, it was clear that church and synagogue were two separate entities. Thus, Jews were exempt from Caesar worship; Christians were not. This led to severe persecution of Christians under Domitian.
Another fact which favors a later date for Revelation is what we read about Smyrna in Revelation 2:8-11. We read that the church in Smyrna had been persevering under trials for a long time. But Polycarp, the bishop of Smyrna in the second century, tells us the church did not exist in Smyrna until after the time of Paul. And we know Paul died, most likely, in 64.
Furthermore, in Revelation 3:17, the church in Laodicea is described as rich. But Laodicea was devastated by an earthquake in AD 61. It would have taken quite some time for this city to have become wealthy again.
Finally, Jerome, writing in the fourth century, says that John was banished in the fourteenth year after Nero and liberated on the death of Domitian (Concerning Illustrious Men, 9). This would mean that John was banished to Patmos about AD 94 and liberated about AD 96. (Barclay)
Therefore, the best date for Revelation is sometime in the mid 90s. This date is supported by other early church fathers such as Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Eusebius.
THEMES
To understand the themes of Revelation we must first understand what kind of book it is. We are told in the very first word. It is a revelation. The Greek word is Ἀποκάλυψις, from which we get our word “apocalypse”. The word means “unveiling”. There were many apocalypses written during this time-period.
To understand this genre of literature we must remember something about the Jewish people. They were dominated throughout most of their history by far more powerful nations that surrounded them, and in the first century by Rome. Many of the Jews had long since given up hope of being rescued by some human means. Their only hope was the direct intervention of God. And so, the Jewish worldview of the first century divided all time between the present evil age and the age to come, the age of God. Between these two times there was to be a time of tremendous trial.
The Jewish people wrote many books which contained visions of this terrible in-between time and the new age to come. These books were called Apocalypses. And that is the category of literature into which the book of Revelation falls. Even though there is nothing else quite like it in the New Testament, it belongs to a common form of literature in the first century. And we have some examples of this type of literature in the Old Testament as well, in the book of Daniel, in Isaiah 24-27, in Ezekiel 38-39, and Zechariah 9-14. The author of Revelation was familiar with all these books, and more books that we do not have in our Bibles.
In one way, this book is, perhaps, wild and unintelligible because it is trying to describe the indescribable. However, in another way, one might say that this book is written in a certain code. If one understands the symbols, then one understands the meaning of the book.
There are, of course, many different types of literature in the Bible. As I said at the beginning of our journey along “Route 66”, the Bible is really a library of books rather than just one book. The Bible has Psalms that appeal to the emotions. It has laws that appeal to the will, “Do this! Don’t do that!” There are the letters of Paul, like the one to the Church at Rome, that appeal to the intellect. And then there is literature, like Revelation, that appeals to the imagination.
I think mainly for that reason, Revelation was my favorite book of the Bible when I was a young teenager. All the images in the book appealed to my imagination. I was fascinated by it. And in the years since, through my work with youth, I have seen this book evoke the same interest.
To understand the themes of Revelation, one must also understand something about the first recipients of this book. Revelation was written to the seven churches in the province of Asia. By this John means what we today would call Asia Minor, modern-day Turkey. These were not the only churches in Asia, but these were apparently the ones over which John had charge or he had some sort of relationship with them.
The seven churches are named more than once in the book and always in this order: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea. The significance of the order is that the bearer of this correspondence, starting from the island of Patmos, would have crossed the water to Ephesus, then he would have proceeded clockwise, in a semi-circle, to each of the churches named. These seven churches were on a rather large circuit-ride, if you will, in western Asia Minor. The average distance between each location was between 25 and 50 miles.
To understand the themes of Revelation we must also understand something of the purpose behind the book. Why was it written? John makes clear in the very first sentence of this book why he is writing: “The revelation from Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place.”
He is writing to the seven churches because God has given him a revelation from or belonging to or of Jesus Christ. And it is this revelation which he knows he must communicate to God’s servants so that they will know what must soon take place.
Notice the hierarchy here. God gives the revelation to Jesus who gives it to an angel who gives it to John who gives it to the churches. Angels loom large in apocalyptic literature, and Revelation is no exception. The word “angel” or “angels” appears 77 times in the book.
In case we didn’t get the message the first time, John repeats it. He says, “the time is near.” So, John is writing about events in the first century and about things he expects will soon take place. He writes to encourage the seven churches with the assurance that, despite all the forces marshalled against them, victory is theirs if they remain loyal to Jesus Christ. (Metzger)
Understanding the location where John was writing this book also helps us to understand the themes. Unlike many of the authors of the New Testament, John makes it clear where he is writing from, or at the very least, where he was when he received these visions… “I, John, your brother and companion in the suffering and kingdom and patient endurance that are ours in Jesus, was on the island of Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus.”
Bruce Metzger tells us that:
Patmos is a rocky, mountainous island, about ten miles long and six miles wide, some thirty miles west of Asia Minor in the Aegean Sea. The Romans used it as a place of political banishment.
How long John had been on Patmos we do not know, but he tells us that on a certain Lord’s Day he fell into a trance and was caught up in the spirit. A trumpet-like voice behind him said, ‘Write in a book what you see and send it to the seven churches…’
I travelled to the island of Patmos on a Holy Land Tour in 1984. Patmos is a stunning jewel set amidst the sparkling blue Aegean. There is a monastery there today atop the central hill on the island. Nearby is the cave where they believe John received his visions and wrote Revelation.
STRUCTURE
Michael Wilcock offers this simple but elegant outline of the book of Revelation…
- The Prologue (1:1-8)
- Scene 1: The Church in the World (1:9-3:22)
- Scene 2: Suffering for the Church (4:1-8:1)
- Scene 3: Warning for the World (8:2-11:18)
- Scene 4: The Drama of History (11:19-15:4)
- Scene 5: Punishment for the World (15:5-16:21)
- Scene 6: Babylon the Whore (17:1-19:10)
- Scene 7: The Drama Behind History (19:11-21:8)
- Scene 8: Jerusalem the Bride (21:9-22:19)
- The Epilogue (22:20-21)
KEY CONCEPT: GOD
What is the main message of Revelation? The opening eleven verses of this book give us a foretaste of the message. Simply put, it is a message about God.
First, God sends us grace and peace. As we have seen throughout our journey along “Route 66”, peace [shalom] is the great word of Hebrew Scripture. It means whole health—in body, mind and spirit. Grace is the great word of Christian Scripture. It means God’s undeserved favor which is ours through Christ: God’s riches at Christ’s expense.
Second, God is triune. He is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. To use the language of the later church: God is three persons in one being.
John tells us some interesting things about each person in the Godhead. First, he refers to the Spirit as the sevenfold spirit of God. John is fascinated with sevens. In Jewish numerology, seven represents completeness. This idea of the sevenfold Spirit of God is probably based upon Isaiah 11:2 where we read a prophecy about Jesus…
The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him—
the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and of might,
the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the Lord—
It is this same Spirit who has inspired John to write Revelation. John was “in the Spirit” on the Lord’s Day, that is, Sunday.
Then John tells us about Jesus that he is the faithful witness. We hear a lot about witnesses throughout the New Testament. We are all called to be witnesses of Jesus Christ. But maybe the best way to think about witness is the way that John puts it. Jesus is the faithful witness par excellence. It is Jesus who witnesses through us.
Jesus is also the firstborn from among the dead. This is a reference to Jesus’ resurrection. Jesus is not some dead leader from the past. He is alive and speaking to his church now.
And this same Jesus is the ruler of the kings of the earth. What a thought! When the king over all kings on earth, Domitian, is slaughtering Christians, is putting John in exile on Patmos, John is saying, “No Domitian, you are not the king of kings. Jesus is.”
Jesus is also the one who loves us and has freed us by his blood shed on the cross. I do not know how this works. I don’t know the mechanics or the economics of it. But I know that it works, because his blood has freed me, and I have experienced his love. And countless Christians can testify to the same reality.
The Jesus who loves us now and always, the Jesus who freed us by his death on the cross in the past, is also the one who has made us to be subjects in his kingdom and priests to serve his God and Father. The Latin word for priest is “pontifex” and literally means a bridge-builder. We are each called to build bridges that others can walk over from the kingdom of this world to the kingdom of our God. All glory and power belong to Jesus, the ultimate bridge builder.
And this Jesus is the one who not only was in the past, is with us in the present, but he is coming. The image of “coming with the clouds” is from Daniel 7:13, one of the books of Hebrew Scripture that John’s mind was soaked in. This image is picked up by Jesus in Matthew 24:30. John was writing to the seven churches about things he thought were going to happen soon. One of those things was the Second Coming of Christ. Obviously, it hasn’t happened yet. But the Church has confessed through the ages that it will happen one day. We confess in the Apostles’ Creed, “From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.” John says of this coming that every eye will see him. In other words, every person is going to see the truth in the end. Paul says that every knee will bow, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
John relates these beautiful words from God the Father: “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.” Alpha is the first letter of the Greek alphabet and Omega is the last. God is the beginning and end. But he is also the middle of the story. History is His story. He is. God is the only self-existent one. That is what his name Yahweh means: “I am who I am” or “I will be who I will be.”
John presents us with a vision of God omnipotent. But, as G. B. Caird has noted, John “has learned from Christ that the omnipotence of God is not the power of unlimited coercion but the power of invincible love.”
The God who is and who was and who is to come gives John comfort. “I, John, your brother and companion in the suffering and kingdom and patient endurance that are ours in Jesus…” John writes from suffering, to suffering people. But amidst suffering John knows patient endurance is his through Jesus. And that patient endurance can be ours as well.
Still, you might wonder, why does the book of Revelation matter? Why should we pay attention to it at all? I believe this book matters, in part, because it is the only book in the entire Bible that promises a blessing to whoever reads it. “Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it.” This is the first of seven blessings pronounced in the book of Revelation. (14:13; 16:15; 19:9; 20:6; 22:7; 22:14)
The fact that John talks about “reading aloud” signifies the fact that he expected this book to be read aloud in the churches. Of course, for hundreds of years very few people had copies of Revelation, or of any books of the Bible. So, the only place where Revelation could be read was in church. At any rate, John promises a blessing to the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy and a blessing to those who hear it and take it to heart. Today we all have the privilege of being able to read Revelation, and all the books of the Bible, in our own language. Furthermore, we can read Revelation, and the other books of the Bible, in printed Bibles that we have in church, in our homes, on tablets, and even on our mobile phones. We all, if we so choose, may hear, and/or read aloud, the words of this prophecy. And if we do so choose, I believe we will receive a blessing…
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