《Pett’s Commentary on the Bible –Revelation》(PeterPett)
Commentator
Dr. Peter Pett BA BD (Hons-London) DD is a retired Baptist minister and college lecturer. He holds a BD (good honours) from King's College London and was trained at what is now the London School of Theology (formerly London Bible College).
In this modernly written verse-by-verse commentary of the Bible (see book exclusions below), Dr. Peter Pett leads the reader through the Scriptures with accuracy and insight. Students and scholars alike will delight at Pett's clear and direct style, concisely examining the original text, its writers, translations and above all, the God who inspired it. Study the bible online.
Commentary excludes 1 and 2 Chronicles, Esther, Job, and Psalms 67-150 because the material has not yet been written.
00 Introduction
Introduction(to be read before the book is considered and then after it has been studied).
There is no more exciting book than the book of Revelation. It follows to some extent the pattern utilised in what is termed ‘apocalyptic literature’, which itself is patterned on aspects of the book of Daniel. It uses visions of wild beasts and heavenly figures and fiendish monsters, with the aim of conveying ideas by vivid imagery, and by this imagery propounding mysteries hidden from the majority for the benefit of the few.
While those who were on the outside dismissed it as a fantastic conglomeration of other worldly creatures and mythical figures, those on the inside understood its deeper significance and rejoiced in its teaching.
The difference between this and other apocalyptic literature is that while the authors of most apocalyptic literature portrayed their work as produced by ancient figures of the past who had heavenly connections, (such for example as Enoch), with the author hiding his own identity, the Book of Revelation is written by John, an identifiable man on earth, to a specific group of people, as a revelation from God. It is intended to be a revelation not a mystery.
Furthermore he claims that what he writes about was what he saw in a series of mystical visions, and we have no reason to doubt his veracity. And these visions the early church saw as an inspired revelation from God. This why today we have The Book of Revelation in the Scriptures.
How far the book represents the rational views of the author and how far he owed it to mystical experience we can never know, but the visions came through the mind of John and even his mystical visions had to be written down, which required some degree of selection and interpretation by the author. In interpreting the book we therefore see it as the work of John under guidance from the Holy Spirit, with his ideas behind it, while also recognising that he saw things beyond full comprehension, heavenly realities revealed to him by God Himself, which John himself did not fully understand.
Combined with the vivid portrayals of his visions is the idea of numerals as containing specific significance, which may not always mean what we take them to mean. To the ancients numbers were adjectives which conveyed meanings, not just dull arithmetic. They were not necessarily to be taken literally. They conveyed ideas rather than quantity. (See the article, "The use of Number in the Ancient Near East and Genesis").
For example the number seven abounds in the book. This number conveyed among all ancient nations the ideas of divine perfection and completeness in a way beyond anything we moderns can begin to appreciate. Not only does it convey the idea of quantity, an idea which is secondary (it was not a mathematical world), but it also represents totality, the fullness of divine perfection. Thus the seven churches represent the whole world-wide church, the seven seals represent the whole of the future, and so on. This is the idea at its simplest. We must therefore approach the book cautiously, and, as far as possible, without dogmatism.
Some argue that because it is a difficult book the safest way is to treat it literally as far as possible, (although that is the last thing apocalyptic literature attempted to be) and to assume it to be chronological. They have then related the majority of the book to ‘the end times’, failing to recognise that ‘the end times’ began at the resurrection. But this ‘literal view’ denies itself, for when convenient, literalness is forgotten. Just to give one example. The promises to the church at Pergamum are treated as applying to the worldwide church. But that is not to treat them literally. And that there are many things which cannot be taken literally all would agree. In the end it must depend on judging each factor.
The fact that ‘the end times’ began at the resurrection is vital and is clearly stated in Scripture. ‘He was revealedat the end of the timesfor your sake’, says Peter (1 Peter 1:20), so that he can then warn his readers ‘the end of all thingsis at hand’ (1 Peter 4:7). So to Peter the first coming of Christ has begun the end times. Likewise Paul says to his contemporaries ‘for our admonition, on whomthe end of the ageshas come’ (1 Corinthians 10:11). What could be clearer? The first coming of Christ was the end of the ages, not the beginning of a new age. The writer to the Hebrews tells us ‘He hasin these last daysspoken to us by His Son’ (Hebrews 1:1-2), and adds ‘once inthe end of the ageshas He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself’ (Hebrews 9:26-28). So those early writers saw their days as ‘the last days’, for this age is the culmination of all that has gone before and leads up to the end.
Others have seen in the book specific events of history. But the methods have been very selective of history, and there have been wide divergencies of interpretation. There are no real grounds for this method. Where it occurs in Daniel it is clearly stated. But there is nothing in Revelation to suggest it. However these are ‘modern’ approaches, taken without considering fully enough the nature of apocalyptic literature, and failing to acknowledge why John wrote as he did.
The fact is that John was writing to Christians in the midst of a Roman Empire that seemed all-powerful, that spasmodically bitterly persecuted Christians, and was hugely sensitive to any suggestions that it might be overthrown. He was shown by God that bitter persecution lay ahead at the hands of the Roman Empire. Under God’s hand he was therefore trying to give his fellow Christians encouragement in the face of adversity while at the same time seeking to avoid enflaming the authorities.
To have written what he did openly would have been to court persecution for both writer and reader alike, so instead he adopted the method of using apocalyptic imagery to get over his message to Christians who were undergoing, and would undergo, something of what he wrote. It was this aim that led on to his God-given visions. To fail to recognise this is to fail to understand the book.
This is not, however, to deny that what it describes also goes beyond those early days, and that particular aim, for it deals with events through history of all kinds with which God’s people would be faced time and again and its focal point is the second Coming of Christ and the establishing of a New Heaven and a New Earth. We can compare here the words of Jesus in Matthew 24; Mark 13; Luke 21 where He portrayed events which would take place through history, false Messiahs, wars, famines, earthquakes, pestilence, tribulation and persecution for His people, and the Gospel reaching out to the nations. The same thing is portrayed in Revelation in more vivid form.
As we have said the book contains a number of visions. Except where it is clear that one part must follow another, they are not necessarily chronological. Indeed, on the contrary, they are largely concurrent. Again and again in different sections we find ourselves brought up to the time of the Second Coming and the final judgment (Revelation 6:15-17; Revelation 7:15-17 with Revelation 21:3-5; Revelation 11:19; Revelation 14:17-20; Revelation 16:21; Revelation 19:19-21). What we must first do, if we want a chronology (and the ancients were not as bothered about chronology as we are, they were more concerned with impact), is to find points of contact so that we can fit the visions together as far as this is possible, while asking ourselves, what is the main message the writer is trying to get across?
Of course it is inevitably true that some things contained in it did happen in sequence. But this does not necessarily mean that that sequence should be everywhere applied. They are a series of visions received at different times, not just one vision, and the visions clearly overlap. The same ground is gone over again and again from a different perspective (something other views have to ignore). We move backwards and forwards in time. The Revelation comprises a series of overlapping visions, not one whole vision, interwoven with which are flashbacks to introduce the particular vision in question.
Ascertaining the main message is probably more simple than determining a chronology. We think that all will agree that the real purpose of the book is to make sense, from a Christian point of view, of what at first sight appears inexplicable, the most dreadful of happenings, the domination of the world by the most evil of forces, and to encourage Christians, in the face of the most terrible persecutions, with the thought that their affairs are watched over in Heaven. It seeks to reveal that however bad the situation might appear, God’s purposes are moving forward according to His time-scale and under His control. This has been its assurance to the church throughout the ages.
Those of us who live in countries where persecution has been, and in the near future is likely to be, relatively minor (with a few exceptions) find it natural to assume that the terrible things portrayed are mainly yet to come. It is not like the world as we know it. But we forget, or are unaware, that the world has seen and is seeing terrible things, and that in many parts of the world, especially the Bible world, persecution has been, and still is, more common. Christians there know what it is to go constantly in fear of their lives and to dread future events.
It is possibly not without significance that the main exponents of certain Second Coming teachings have lived in the countries where persecution of the most severe kind was not rife. (Not that we are suggesting that that has been the only issue to sway them, for many great Bible teachers have spent considerable time earnestly wrestling with the Scriptures in order to understand them and establish their views. But one may hopefully be forgiven for suggesting that had they lived through centuries of bitter, intensive continual persecution, enduring great tribulation as others have, they might have looked at things slightly differently and applied things more generally. Certainly they have not been able to reach a consensus of opinion on what they do teach, and this is partly because the genius of apocalyptic is that it is not too specific so that it can be applied to so many situations).
What is perhaps even more significant is the way in which, through the last two thousand years, different generations have been able to apply the visions directly to their own age, seeing fulfilment in what was happening around them, for this demonstrates clearly the usefulness of the method of portraying truth through vision. By this means they can be applied specifically to a thousand situations. This fact itself shows that on the whole the underlying events portrayed have happened again and again through history. The book is dealing with large ideas that are themselves the things which determine history.
Perhaps one more point must be added here. When John speaks of ‘the world’ and ‘the earth’ he means the limited world as he knew it (see Acts 11:28; Acts 17:6; Acts 19:27; Romans 1:8; Romans 16:19). What he ‘saw’ occurred in that world. It is the world of the Near and Middle East and that is where the events were seen as centred. Great Britain was peripheral to the events and America non-existent. Thus while both may be considerably affected it may not necessarily so. Only time will tell. The persecutions and tribulations described pertained to that world and indeed are apparent in that world today. It is by their experiences and not by ours that the book must be interpreted.
It is clear, of course, where the book begins and ends. It begins with the position of the seven churches, continues with the activity of the Heavenly influencing the earthly, and the rebellion of the earthly against the Heavenly, among all of which move the people of God, and ends with the triumph of God through Christ. But at that point the unanimity ends, and this has caused many to say, ‘well, very good, let us leave it there’, but as this usually means, ‘let’s not bother with the book at all’, it is certainly not satisfactory.
We do not have to read far before we discover that John was clearly a man saturated in the Scriptures. His mind thought along Scriptural pathways. His ideas sprang from His knowledge of them. Old Testament Scripture lies directly at the back of every chapter. That is why we have interpreted in the belief that what he says is to be illuminated mainly by those Scriptures and not by external ideas. He was quite happy for the Romans to see the woman clothed with the sun (chapter 12) as somehow involved with the signs of the zodiac. But he wanted Christians to interpret it by using the word of God, remembering that the twelve patriarchs were seen as twelve stars, whilst Jacob and his wife were seen as the sun and the moon.
The book is quite remarkable in this respect. Revelation mirrors and reverses the situation in Genesis. It parallels the history of Israel with the condition of the churches. It is saturated with indirect references to the Psalms and the Prophets. We will endeavour to illustrate this further.
The Old Testament and the Book of Revelation.
1). Genesis and Revelation.
The close connection of Genesis with Revelation cannot be doubted. What begins in Genesis is finalised in Revelation. Thus:
· In Genesis 1
· We have the first creation (Genesis 1:1), in Revelation 21:1 the first creation passes away and we have the new creation.
· We have the establishing of night (Genesis 1:5), and in Revelation 22:5 night is done away with.
· We have the establishing of the seas in Genesis 1:10. In Revelation 21:1 there is no more sea.
· We have the sun to govern the day and the moon to govern the night (Genesis 1:16), and in Revelation 21:23 the sun and moon are done away with.
· We have sun, moon and stars established to provide light, in Revelation 6:12 sun, moon and stars no longer provide light, and in Revelation 22:5 God becomes the source of all light..
In Genesis 2-3
· We have the earthly Paradise, in Revelation 22:1-5 with Genesis 2:7, the heavenly Paradise.
· We have the earthly life-giving rivers (Genesis 2:10-14), in Revelation 22:1-2 the heavenly river of water of life.
· We have the marriage of the first man, the first Adam (Genesis 2:18-23), in Revelation 19:7-9 we have the marriage of the second man, the last Adam (compare 1 Corinthians 15:45; 1 Corinthians 15:47).
· We have the entrance of sin (Genesis 3:6-7), and, in Revelation 21:27 and context, the end of sin.
· We have curses pronounced (Genesis 3:14-17), in Revelation 22:3 there is no more curse.
· We have the entrance of great sorrows and suffering (Genesis 3:17), in Revelation 21:4 sorrow and suffering is no more.
· We have the entrance of death (Genesis 3:22), in Revelation 21:4 there is no more death.
· We have the cherubim preventing man reaching the tree of life. In Revelation 5:8-10; Revelation 7:11 with Revelation 22:2 we have the cherubim rejoicing in men reaching the tree of life.
· We have the tree of life forbidden (Genesis 3:24), in Revelation 22:14 the right to the tree of life is given.
· We have man driven out from the earthly Paradise (Genesis 3:24), in Revelation 22 men enter the heavenly Paradise.
· In Genesis 4 we have the establishing of a ‘city’ and the growth of ‘civilisation’. In Revelation 16:19 and chs.17-18 we have the destruction of all cities and the Great City and the end of ‘civilisation’. These are replaced by the heavenly city.
· In Genesis 10:8-10; Genesis 11:1-9 we have the establishing of Babel (Babylon) as man’s rebellion against God and his environment grows, in Revelation 18 we have the final end of ‘Babylon’ as man’s rebellion is quashed.