Revelation Interpretation

Revelation:

- To impose a literal interpretation on something that is meant to be symbolic is robbing the text of its purpose
- And vice versa
- Revelation

I. methods of interpretation

a. Preterist—Jay Adams, the time is @ hand – this view emphasizes that John was concerned to speak to the church of his day
Held by more liberal scholars. Says we should interpret Revelation the same way we interpret any other NT book.
i. Advantages—they are correct to say God would not write a book irrelevant to readers
ii. Problems—no other prophetic book or apocalyptic book in NT, therefore Revelation deserves special attention

b. Historical—Reformers, Wesley, Edwards, sees in the Revelation an inspired forecast of the whole human history. Especially church history is foreseen.
Inspired forecast of Human History, specially Church history. The pope is the beast.
Major problem: western Europe History, and the letter was written to churches in Asia!

c. Extreme Futurist View: Dispensationalism—Lindsey, LaHaye
i. Chapters 2-3 refer to the church
ii. Chapters 4-19 refer to Israel in the tribulation period
iii. Chapter 20 refers to the millennium
iv. Chapter 21 and 22 refer to the millennium and eternal kingdom.
Revelation 1:19 is a key verse: look this up
v. Problems: from 4-19 the book is a historical curiosity. It doesn’t help people in 1st century, and it wont help us now because when the rapture occurs we will be OUTTA HERE!
vi. This view has only been around for about 200 years

d. Moderate futurist view—G. Ladd, Critical Questions about the Kingdom of God, Refers to more to the church than to Israel

i. One of the key differences with the Dispensational view: in this view the church goes through the tribulation and it is the Church, not Israel.
ii. This is Pre-Millennium
iii. Post-Tribulation

e. Progressive parallelism view—W. Hendricksen, More than Conquerors
i. Notes that much of Revelation’s imagery is from Daniel
ii. Daniel 2 and 7 are parallel
iii. Understands Revelation to consist of the following:
1. Ch. 1-3 the church imperfect in the world. Ch 4:1-21:8 are 5 // sections
2. 4-7 seven seals
3. 8:2-11:19 seven trumpets