Exegesis and Theology

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Idealist or Futurist: Which Is the Most Responsible Way to Read Revelation?

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Yesterday I posted some thoughts on Ben Gladd’s Carson center article on Reading Revelation Responsibly. In the article Gladd addresses two objections to his “symbolic approach to Revelation.” The first is that the symbols in his approach end up lacking a referent. He demurs that the symbols refer to spiritual realties. The second is that “symbolic interpretation lacks hermeneutical controls.” He counters that the Old Testament provides the control on what the symbols mean.

Old Testament Evidence Against Idealism

I would argue that allowing the Old Testament to control our understanding of Revelation’s symbols invalidates the idealist approach that Gladd is advocating and validates the futurist approach. On what grounds is the symbolism of Revelation to of spiritual realities that persist throughout the inter-advent period? This should be tested against the Old Testament. Peter Leithart notes that the idealist approach is inconsistent with how the Old Testament uses the very symbolism that Revelation is drawing on from the Old Testament (Revelation, ITC, 1:12).

  •  “Isaiah describes Jerusalem, not some generic city of man, as Sodom, and so does Ezekiel.”
  • “Daniel sees beasts coming from the sea, and the beasts are identifiable kingdoms.”
  • “Daniel sees a goat racing over the land without touching the ground. It crashes into a ram with two horns and shatters the ram’s horns (Dan. 8:5–8). That is not a generic portrait of “conquest.” It is Alexander’s conquest of the Persians.”

This doesn’t weigh as much with me, but it is worth noting that this same pattern of symbols referring to concrete historical referents holds with the intertestamental apocalypses too (see Charles, Studies in the Apocalypse, 6). In fact, as best I can tell idealism seems to have emerged as an interpretive option in the 20th century.

On the one hand, it is akin to historicism (the dominant approach to Revelation throughout much of church history) in that it understands Revelation to cover the entire inter-advent period. Unlike historicism, however, it has so abstracted the meaning of the symbolism that it can’t be falsified the way the older historicism was. On the other hand, all three of the other approaches share the same approach to symbolism that the Old Testaement does. The older historicism rightly understood Daniel to be describing the kingdoms that existed from his day until Christ’s first advent, and it concluded that Revelation was describing the period from John’s day until Christ’s second advent. It was wrong, but it was not unreasonable. Preterism shows up around the Reformation (initially as a Roman Catholic attempt to defuse claims that the pope was the antichrist). Futurism shows up very early in the fathers, and it too follows the lead of the Old Testament in interpreting the symbols with the added advantage of recognizing the presence of Day of the Lord typology coming to fulfillment in Revelation.

Hermeneutical Controls and Speculation

One of the major problems of historicism was that it was too speculative. And more importantly, it took interpreter’s eyes off of Christ. Historicists wasted time trying to figure out whether the locusts in Revelation 9 referred to the rise of the Germanic Arian tribes (Alexander Minorita), to papal teachings regarding purgatory, merits, and masses for the dead (Johann Gerhard), or to the period between the Goths and the Turks (Thomas Goodwin, Jonathan Edwards).  

Idealism sought to avoid this tangle by abstracting the symbols away from historical referents to spiritual realities. However, the idealist is still left having to figure out what the symbols means. Do the locusts symbolize temporal national judgments occurring throughout the inter-advent period (Beeke). Or do they symbolize judgments that will fall on persecutors of Christians (Fee). Or do they symbolize the “self-pity, anger, lust, jealousy and unhappiness” that God sends on some as a judgment (Schreiner). Beale is very detailed in his interpretation. The star = a fallen angel, identified as Apollyon, that is Satan, who in turn symbolizes sinful humanity under God’s judgment. The smoke signifies spiritual blindness, and the sting is “psychological suffering that will induce a desire for death, yet an unwillingness to commit suicide.”

The futurist, on the other hand, identify the locust judgment as an end-time day of the Lord judgment that is modeled on the Egyptian plagues and on the locust judgment of Joel 2 (Irenaeus, de Burgh, Ladd, Osborne, Fanning). The star is identified as an angel (Thomas, Osborne, Fanning). The smoke is either actual smoke (Thomas) or an allusion to Day of the Lord texts (Fanning). The sting refers to actual pain. Apollyon is a demon (Thomas, Fanning), and thus the locusts are in some sense demonic. There is some disagreement among futurists. Is the angel fallen or unfallen? Are the locusts demons in some kind of physical form or does that not need to be determined? But the range is narrower.

In sum, I think a futurist reading of Revelation has greater Old Testament warrant and greater historical warrant than idealism. In the end, it also ends up being less speculative and more grounded in the biblical text. I suspect that what most people are reacting to when they reject futurism in favor of idealism is not futurism at all but a kind of historicism present in pop dispensationalism.

Literal or Symbolic? Thought’s on Ben Gladd’s Article about Reading Revelation Responsibly

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Last week Ben Gladd authored an article for the Carson Center on reading revelation responsibly. As I read the article, it became clear that it involved a series of confusions. The title offered the opposition: “Literal or Symbolic?” However, an introductory paragraph offers the following opposition: “the futurist perspective and the recapitulation perspective.” And the final paragraph of the article targets a kind of historicist perspective; one that ties events in the present or near future to Revelation.

These oppositions involve Gladd in a set of confusions. The futurist interpretation does not involve arguing that the book of Revelation is to be interpreted “literally” rather than “symbolically.” Futurists recognize the prevalence of symbols in Revelation. The most recent Revelation commentary from a futurist perspective, Buist Fanning’s commentary in the Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament series, includes a lengthy discussion of genre and symbolism in its introduction.

Similarly, futurism and recapitulation are not inherently opposed to one another. Both are found in some of the early patristic commentaries. I’m not personally convinced by the arguments for recapitulation; I find Richard Bauckham’s structure more persuasive. But were I convinced of a recapitulatory approach, I would not find it necessary to abandon futurism.

Finally, reading Revelation in light of CNN or Fox News is contrary to a futurist approach to Revelation. This tendency is one of the bad fruits of historicism, which spent so much energy on trying to tie the symbolism of Revelation to past and then near future events. It is of a piece with the older interpretations which debated whether the first trumpet judgment related to the heresies of the Ebionites and others who arose shortly after the time of the apostles (Johann Gerhard), to the period following the death of Constantine (Alexander Minorita), or to the period from the rise of the Goths to the spread of the Turks (Thomas Goodwin). The only difference between the older historicism and this newer historicism is the time frame in view. A true futurism recognizes that Christ could return to begin the Day of the Lord judgments described by Revelation at any time and that there are no signs which precede that Day of the Lord coming. Thus, there is no utility or validity in trying to correlate current events and Revelation.

What of Gladd’s argument regarding sēmainō? A tighter argument for the same basic point can be found in Fanning’s futurist commentary (p. 76). That said, I think Beale’s insistence on interpreting everything in Revelation symbolically leads to the same kinds of absurdity’s that one finds from the interpreter who insists on interpreting everything Revelation literally. I’ve read Beale’s NIGTC commentary in its entirety, and I was surprised to find him interpreting even the Revelation’s own interpretations of the symbols as themselves symbolic of something else!

In the end, Gladd isn’t arguing just for recognizing and interpreting symbols in Revelation; he’s arguing for the idealist approach to Revelation. That is the opposition that should have run consistently through the article.

So the question remains, which is the more responsible way to read Revelation? The idealist way or the futurist way? I’ll address that question in the next post.

Who is Babylon the Great, the woman who rides the Beast in Revelation 17–18?

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Traditionally the answer to this question has been Rome or the Roman Catholic Church or Rome as a symbol of present or future realities. However, I wonder if the beast is the figure related to Rome (Dan 9:26; Rev 17:9) while the woman represents apostate Jerusalem.

Observations in favor of the woman as apostate Jerusalem

  • Elsewhere Revelation identifies “the great city” (16:19; 17:18; 18:10) as Jerusalem (11:8). The judgment on the great city Jerusalem in 11:13 is the same judgment that came upon the great city Babylon in 16:19. Note that in 16:19 the great city is distinguished from the cities of the nations (Tanner, “Apostate Jerusalem,” 16–17; Burns, “Marriage,” 291; Provan, “Revelation 18,” 93, 94).
  • Note that in Revelation 11 the name Jerusalem is not used. Instead, the city is identified as “the great city that symbolically is called Sodom and Egypt, where their Lord was crucified” (11:8). So there is a similarity on obliquely naming Jerusalem (Tanner, “Apostate Jerusalem,” 16–17).
  • The harlot metaphor is a dominant metaphor for unfaithful Israel in the OT. While twice it is used of other nations (Tyre in Isa 23:15-18, and Nineveh of Assyria in Nah 3:4), elsewhere it is used of Israel (Isa 1:21; 57:8; Jer 2:2, 20; 3:1, 6; Ezek 16:15, 26, 28, 29; 16:35-41; 23:1-21, 30; Micah 1:7; and Hos 4:12) (Tanner, “Apostate Jerusalem,” 17; Burns, “Marriage,” 288; Provan, “Revelation 18,” 92).
  • The destruction of the woman by the Beast and the ten horns recalls the destruction of Jerusalem in Ezekiel 23:22–35 (cf. Eze 16:39) (Tanner, “Apostate Jerusalem,” 18; Burns, “Marriage,” 292).
  • The name written on the forehead “seems to parody the golden plate on the high priest’s turban” (Burns, “Marriage,” 288).
  • The judgment of burning with fire was the judgment on a priest’s daughter if she became a prostitute (Lev. 21:9) (Burns, “Marriage,” 289).
  • “it is Jerusalem which is recalled by 18.1, alluding to the divine glory leaving the temple and city in Ezekiel, and by 18.2, with its language of religious defilement. It is Jerusalem which fits best the covenant language of 18.5, where the city’s sins, rather than her love, have cleaved to God; 18.23-24 is based on Jer. 25.10, which is an oracle against Judah and Jerusalem; and so on” (Provan, “Revelation 18,” 93–94).
  • The items of the city’s trade are largely items used of the temple and temple service. Exceptions, such as chariots and horses, recall Solomon (the builder of the Temple with materials from Tyre), who acquired chariots and horses in violation of Dt 17 (Provan, “Revelation 18,” 95).
  • Revelation 18:24 (cf. 17:6) alludes to Matthew 23:35–37, which identifies Jerusalem as “the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it” (Provan, “Revelation 18,” 95).
  • “It is certainly intriguing that passages like 18.22-23, with their picture of a city devoid of people and religious festivals, call to mind no book quite so much as the book of Lamentations, set in the period after Jerusalem has fallen and her people are in exile (cf., e.g., Lam. 1.1-5; 2.6-10; 5.14-18)” (Provan, “Revelation 18,” 95). Provan also notes the following:  “Jerusalem is the fallen princess (Lam. 1.1; Rev. 18.2, 7), burned with fire like Sodom (Lam. 2.1-4; Rev. 18.8, 18; and esp. cf. Lam. 4.6 with Rev. 11.8), a haunt for wild animals (Lam. 5.18; Rev. 18.2). She has known the reversal of God’s favour, especially symbolized in the use of vine and vineyard imagery to express God’s wrath rather than God’s blessing (Lam. 1.15; 2.6; Rev. 18.6; cf. Court, Myth, pp. 143-44); and her wealthy people have suffered disaster and deprivation (Lam. 4.5-9; Rev. 18.14-17)” (Provan, “Revelation 18,” 95–96, n. 49).
  • I also find the relationship between the beast and the woman to make more sense if the beast is Rome (ruled by Antichrist) and the woman is Jerusalem. If the beast is Rome/Antichrist and the woman is the city of Rome, things get muddy. Revelation 17:16–17 especially get difficult. It is possible that the Roman Empire/Antichrist and the then horns turn on the city of Rome. But it makes much more sense for Rome/Antichrist and the ten kings to turn on Jerusalem and attack Jerusalem. There is also more biblical precedent for this latter view.
  • Revelation 17 and 18 would thus stand in starker contrast with Revelation 19 and 21. Adulterous Jerusalem would be contrasted with new Jerusalem (Burns, “Marriage,” 293).

Objections and Responses

  • Objection 1: Revelation 17:9 says that the women is seated on seven mountains. This clearly refers to Rome, which is known for being situation on seven hills.
    • Answer: The beast, which is correlated with Daniel’s fourth beast, does have a Rome connection. The seven mountains are related to the seven heads of the beast. The Antichrist is one of the heads of the beast. The woman is therefore distinct from, but related to, the Roman beast.
  • Objection 2: Revelation 17:18 identifies the woman as “the great city that has dominion over the kings of the earth.” In John’s day, this would have been Rome.
    • Answer: In the future, it seems that the Antichrist will make Jerusalem his capital. In Scripture, it is Jerusalem (as the seat of the Davidic Messiah) that will have dominion over the kings of the earth. Antichrist will parody this.
  • Objection 3: “The detailed picture in ch. 18 of a city at the center of the world’s commerce and (especially) maritime trade fails to fit even the most hyperbolic view that first-century Jerusalem could have had of itself” (Fanning, ZECNT, 449, n. 67).
    • Answer: This objection may be taking the maritime imagery too literally when there are textual indicators pointing in another direction. Some of this imagery is drawn from oracles against Tyre. Revelation 17:1 and 15 pictures the city as seated on many waters. The waters symbolize the peoples and nations (17:15), but they also evoke this Leviathan-beast who comes up from the waters. This imagery stands behind the maritime commerce imagery of chapter 18.
  • Objection 4: The city can hardly be Jerusalem since Revelation 18:21 says this city “will be found no more.” The subsequent verses say that musicians, craftsmen, bridegrooms, merchants, and even lights and tools will be found in the city no more. Revelation 19:3 says, “The smoke from her goes up forever and ever.”
    • Answer: Revelation 19:3 is poetic language to speak of the eternal destruction of the city; it perhaps even alludes to the eternal destruction of the inhabitants of this city in the lake of fire. Similarly, Revelation 18:21ff. indicates the complete destruction and removal of this city. Note, however, that the woman is not Jerusalem per se but apostate Jerusalem. Apostate Jerusalem will be entirely done away. A New Jerusalem will replace it.

Significance: By labeling apostate Jerusalem as Babylon, God would be indicating that his own chosen city has by the end become identified with the opposition to God that has been running through the biblical storyline from Genesis 11 onward.

When Does the Heavenly Conflict in Revelation 12:7–12 Take Place?

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The Options

Option 1: “The language of being “thrown to the earth” (v. 9) could suggest Satan’s primordial fall from heaven, as many Jewish and Christian interpreters understand to be portrayed at least typologically in Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28 (cf. LAE 12:1–16:3). However, the limits to Satan’s actions described in Revelation 12 (e.g., no access to heaven, intense anger because his time is short) have hardly characterized his career since that primeval event itself. Possibly this later expulsion repeats and intensifies key features of the pattern of that original fall” (Fanning, ZECNT, 356).

Option 2: “A second quite plausible option is the decisive defeat of Satan at the death, resurrection, and exaltation of Christ. Verse 5c in this vision focuses on the exaltation of the woman’s male child, and several references in John’s Gospel point to Jesus’s coming death as the decisive judgment of Satan (John 12:31; 16:11; Luke 10:17–18 is sometimes read this way). But it seems unlikely that Satan is understood to have no more access to accuse Christians before God (v. 10) for the entire period after the cross of Christ. It makes more sense to understand a decisive victory to have come at the cross, resurrection, and exaltation (Col 2:15), but that this victory awaits its full accomplishment in the end times (see comments on v. 5c; cf. 1 Cor 15:20–28; Heb 2:8–9, 14–15)” (Fanning, ZECNT, 356).

Option 3: “A third interpretation takes this expulsion as a yet-future event just prior to the arrival of “the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah” on the earth (Rev 11:15; cf. 12:10a), at the time of the seventh trumpet when God’s revealed plan for redemption is brought to completion without further delay (10:6–7). This coheres with the point that the devil’s brief remaining time to inflict his anger will bring great woes for the earth and sea (v. 12b), and that the woman will need protection from him for a period of three-and-a-half years in the future (vv. 6, 14; cf. 11:2–3; 13:5)” (Fanning, ZECNT, 356).

Further Arguments for Option 3: A Timing within the Final Day of the Lord

John 12:31–32 does not seem to be the most relevant text for understanding Revelation 12:7–12. First, Revelation 12 concerns the expulsion of Satan from heaven to earth. John 21:31–32 concerns an expulsion from earth. Alford’s interpretation of John 12:31–32 harmonizes well with the rest of the biblical data: “Observe it is ἐκβληθήσεται, not ἐκβάλλεται, because the casting out (ἔξω, ἐκτῆς ἀρχῆς, Euthym., Grot., or better perhaps, out of ὁ κόσμος οὗτος, his former place) shall be gradual, as the drawing in the next verse. But after the death of Christ the casting out began, and its first-fruits were, the coming in of the Gentiles into the Church” (Alford, 836). Raymond Brown posits much the same: “However, the ordinary reading of vs. 31 is not a reference to Satan’s expulsion from heaven but to his loss of authority over this world. This inference seems contrary to the statement of I John v 19: ‘The whole world is in the power of the Evil One.’ Perhaps we can say that the victorious hour of Jesus constitutes a victory over Satan in principle; yet the working out of this victory in time and place is the gradual work of believing Christians. Even in the Christian life there is a tension between a victory already won (I John ii 13) and a victory still to be won (I John v 4-5)” (Brown, AB, 1:477).

Luke 10:18–19 relates to the mission of the seventy-two in which even the demons were subject to them. What they experienced was a foreshadowing, an initial experience, of the ultimate downfall of Satan (cf. Ridderbos, The Coming of the Kingdom, 63–64). David Garland (Luke, ZECNT, 428–429) explains:

Gathercole argues that this is a vision of endtime events and the ultimate downfall of Satan.13 Nolland claims it is a vision of the future akin to those of the Old Testament prophets. The prophets did not have visions of what had happened or was happening in heaven but what would happen. Jesus “has seen the coming triumph of the kingdom of God over the rule of Satan and has identified this triumph as his own task. He sees this as what God intends to achieve through him.”

Jesus, therefore, can put his followers’ success in a heavenly perspective that is hidden from them. He projects the limited defeat of demons onto the broader screen of the cosmic conflict between God and the forces of evil. What is happening is not simply the expulsion of random demons that they might come across in their travels but the beginning of the complete overthrow of Satan’s rule.

Thus, Jesus in Luke 10:18–19 could be looking forward to the eschatological events of Revelation 12:7–12. There are exegetical and contextual reasons for an eschatological location of Revelation 12:7–12. First, 12:12 indicates that the throwing down of the devil from heaven to earth signal to him that his time is short. This results in intensified wrath on the part of the devil. In addition, Both Revelation 12:6 and 12:14 place these events in the context of Daniel’s seventieth seven. Jesus, in the Olivet Discourse, with his reference to the abomination of desolation, locates that seventieth seven is the eschatological day of the Lord.

The reference to Michael also points in an eschatological direction. The angel Michael is mentioned only in Daniel 10:13, 21; 12:1; Jude 9. The Daniel 10 verses and Jude 9 refer to past events. However, Daniel 12:1 occurs in the midst of a section (Dan 11:36–12:13) that deals with Antichrist (11:36) during the last half of Daniel’s 70th seven (12:1, 7). Daniel 10 had already indicated that in world affairs there are angelic battles behind the scenes. Revelation 12:7–12 would be an example of that in relation to Daniel’s seventieth seven. In fact, it would appear both from Daniel 12:1 and from Revelation 12:6, 14 that this battle in heaven results in the final expulsion of Satan from heaven just before the middle of the 70th seven.

The Place of Revelation 12 in the Structure of Revelation

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“Most attempts to discern the structure of Revelation have found it particularly difficult to see how chapters 12-14 fit into the overall structure. The beginning of chapter 12 seems an uncharacteristically abrupt fresh start, devoid of literary links with anything that precedes. The formula used in 12:1 and 12:3 (καὶ σημεῖον μέγα ὤφθη ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ…καὶ ὤφθη ἀλλο σημεῖον ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ…) is a quite fresh introductory formula, unlike any John has used before, and the two protagonists it introduces, the woman and the dragon, have not been mentioned in the book hitherto. Chapter 12 cannot be read as a continuation of the account of the seventh trumpet (11:15-19) because we know that the imagery of 11:19b describes the final judgment and concluded the account of the seventh seal in 8:1-5. There are not even the kinds of literary links backwards to preceding sections of the book which John provides elsewhere at major transitions which might otherwise seem like entirely fresh beginnings (4:1; 17:1; 21:9). It seems we must accept that the abrupt transition is intentional. John has made it abrupt precisely in order to create the impression of a fresh start. ¶The fresh start is required because the narrative of the woman and the dragon begins chronologically earlier than any previous part of his visionary narrative. It recalls the enmity between the woman and the serpent (Gen 3:15) and portrays the people of God (Israel) as mother of the Messiah. The story of the conflict between the dragon and the woman leads into an account of the contemporary conflict between the people of God (the church) and the enemies of God. This account ends with the vision of the conquerors of the beast triumphant in heaven (15:2-4), which is the upshot of the confrontation between the beast (chapter 13) and the followers of the Lamb (14:1-5). But if John has not integrated this section into the rest of his book at the beginning of the section, he has done so at its end. He links it to the account of the seven bowls which follows by the same technique of overlapping or interweaving as he had used to link the series of seal judgments to the series of trumpet judgments. He vision of the people of God triumphant over the beast in heaven (15:2-4) is sandwiched between the introduction of the seven angels with the seven last plagues (15:1) and the account of their preparation for pouring out the bowls on the earth (15:5-8). Moreover, the seven angels are introduced by a variation of the formula which has previously been used only to introduce the dragon and the woman at the beginning of chapter 12: καὶ εἰδον ἀλλο σημεῖον ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ μέγα καί θαυμαστόν (15:1). This clearly makes the series of seven bowls a continuation of the narrative begun at the beginning of chapter 12. We have already noticed how 15:5 echoes 11:19a and 16:17-20 expands 11:19b, making the seven bowls a fuller version of the seventh trumpet. This means that chapter 15 is the point where the narrative begun in chapter 12 with the dragon’s threat to the pregnant woman converges with the narrative begun in chapter 5 with the Lamb receiving the scroll in order ot open it. Both narratives reach a provisional conclusion in the sequence of seven bowls (pending a further conclusion in 19:11-21:8). The convergence of the two narratives is shown by the fact that the seven bowls, a sequence of judgments which continues and completes the two previous sequences of seven judgments, refers as the previous sequences had not, to the forces of opposition to God in the terms which have been introduced in chapters 12-14: those who had the mark of the beast and worshipped its image (16:2), the throne and the kingdom of the beast (16:10), the dragon, the beast and the false prophet (16:13), Babylon the great (16:19).

The main function of chapters 12-15 is to deal much more fully with the subject that was adumbrated in the two intercalations (7:1-17; 10:1-11:13): the people of God in their conflict with the forces opposed to God. The links with the two intercalations are thematic rather than structural, but it is worth noting the most important: the 144,000 (7:4) reappear in 14:1, the apocalyptic period of the church’s suffering and witness (11:2-3) appears in 12:6, 14; 13:5, the beast who appears very enigmatically in 11:7 is properly introduced in chapter 13, where he makes war on the saints and conquers them (13:7) as he had already in 11:7.”

Bauckham, Climax of Prophecy, 15-17.

The ἄγγελοι of the Seven Churches: Pastors or Angels?

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What is the identity of the ἄγγελοι of the seven churches?

Possible Interpretations

1. The ἄγγελοι are angels (Oecumenius, Caesarius of Arles [as an option]), Alford, Charles, Thomas, Michaels, Beale, Osborne, Hamilton, Koester, Fanning)

a. Elsewhere in Revelation ἄγγελος is only used of angels (Alford, 4:560; Charles, ICC, 34; Michaels, IVPNTC; Beale, NIGTC, 217; Hamilton, PtW, 51, Koester, 60–61).

b. Stars are a common symbol for angels (Osborne, BECNT, 99; Beale, NIGTC, 218).

c. In the NT there seem to be angels who “are allotted to persons, and are regarded as representing them” (Mt 18:10; Acts 12:15) (Alford, 4:560, Charles, ICC, 34).

d. In Daniel there are angels who represent nations, making it reasonable that there could be angels that represent churches (Alford, 4:560, Charles, ICC, 34; cf. Beale, NIGTC, 217).

e. Church leaders are not addressed in these letters; churches as a whole are addressed through the angel (Alford, 4:560).

f. Oecumenius, acknowledging the absurdity of a letter being written to an angel in the presence of God and of rebukes to a holy angel regarding sin, concludes that Christ “speaks periphrastically of the church” when he references its angel (Greek Commentaries, ACC, 10; cf. Caesarius of Arles, Latin Commentaries, ACC 66; Charles, ICC, 34).

g. Another option is that the angels are held culpable for the failures of the churches due to “corporate representation” (Beale, NIGTC, 217–18).

2. The ἄγγελοι are  church leaders (Caeasarius of Arles [as an option]; Perkins; Gerhard; Dabney, Bavinck, de Burgh, Elliott, Tenney, Leithart)

a. The term ἄγγελος can be used of human preachers (Mt. 11:10; 1 Cor 11:10) (Perkins, Works, 4:441; cf. Leithart, ITC, 122).

b. The letters are addressed to them (Bavinck, RD, 2:467). “If Jesus actually appeared to John, dictated the actual words we read in the text, and expected John actually to send the messages to the churches, then the notion that the recipients are angel-spirits makes little sense. … To put it provocatively, or snarkily: Where do angels receive their mail? And, how does John know the addresses?” (Leithart, ITC, 123).

c. The ἄγγελοι are held responsible for for the conduct of the churches (de Burgh, 23). Notably, “in Greek most of the exhortations of the messages are explicitly addressed to a single person—the angel. … Now, as difficult as it might be to imagine that Jesus holds the some human leader of a city church responsible for the condition of his flock, it is far more difficult to determine what these charges and exhortations mean when addressed to an angel-spirit” (Leithart, ITC, 123–24).

d. Since holy angels have no need to repent, church leaders are in view (Caesarius of Arles, Latin Commentaries, ACC 66).

e. “Jesus threatens to remove the lampstand (the church, 1:20) from Ephesus if the angel fails to repent. That leaves the future of the Ephesian church dependent not on the repentance of the community or its leader, but on the repentance of his spiritual guardian, over whom the community can exert no influence” (Leithart, ITC, 124).

3. A “symbol to represent the heavenly or supernatural character of the church” (Ladd, 35; cf. Oecumenius under 1.g.).

a. The pastor interpretation is ruled out since the term ἄγγελος is not used of pastors in the NT.

b. The pastor interpretation is ruled out since the letters rebuke the whole church rather than a church leader.

c. The angel interpretation is ruled out because apocalyptic literature never has angels representing men.

d. Ladd reaches his conclusion by process of elimination.

Rejected Interpretations

 1. The ἄγγελοι are angels

a. This is the strongest argument for this position. However, chapters 2-3 connect to the rest of the book in an interesting way. For instance, the coming of Christ in these chapters refers to a coming in judgment on individual churches during the present age whereas the coming later in the book refers to the coming in final judgment on the whole earth. Thus, for terms to be used somewhat differently in chapters 2-3 is not surprising.

b. The term star is used variously in Revelation of actual stars (6:13; 8:12; 9:1), of angels (8:10–11), of the patriarchs (12:1), of Israel (12:4), and of Christ (2:28; 22:16). It is not inconceivable then that it is here used of pastors.

c. I reject (along with most Reformed interpreters) the interpretation that sees these texts as teaching the existence of guardian angels. For instance, Turretin rejects Matt. 18:10 as a prooftext on the grounds that “it cannot be gathered from this that a certain particular and peculiar angel is granted to individual infants for a perpetual guard” (Institutes, 7.8.9-14 [1:558-59]; cf. Hodge, ST, 1:640; Bavinck, RD, 2:467; Erickson, CT, 2nd ed., 469; McCune, STBC, 1:371–72). Regarding Acts 12:15, Turretin notes, “Nothing prevents us from taking the word angelou here for ‘messenger (a frequent use of the word, Mt. 11:10; Lk. 7:24, 27; 9:52), for ‘it is a messenger sent by him’ to announce something concerning him (as they who are in chains are accustomed to use messengers to report their condition)” (Turretin, Institutes, 7.8.9-14 [1:558-59]; cf. Peterson, PNTC, 365–66).

d. The angels in Daniel 10 are not territorial spirits or representatives of particular nations but demonic spirits seeking to influence those nations. J. Paul Tanner notes with regard to Daniel 10:13, “Care should be taken here, however, not to label this a “territorial spirit,” as though a geographical assignment is the issue. More accurately, the stress is on sociopolitical structure, meaning that this demon was targeting the empire and the human authorities behind that empire” (Tanner, EEC, 635–36).

e. This seems factually inaccurate. The address in the letters is in the singular, not plural. In other words, the messengers are singularly addressed by Christ. To be sure, they are addressed as representatives of the churches, but they are also addressed in such a way that they bear responsibility for the churches. It seems unlikely that unfallen angels can be held responsible for the straying and sinning of churches (cf. Bavinck, RD, 2:467; de Burgh, 23; Leithart, ITC, 1:123).

f. Fanning notes the difficulty with this view:  “But such a sequence of images seems too convoluted to follow (star in his hand equals an angel over the church equals the ethos of the church addressed as a person). Moreover, it is hard to see how “angel” could represent such a meaning” (ZECNT, 107–8).

g. It seems difficult to see how unfallen angels could be held responsible for sin.

3. A “symbol to represent the heavenly or supernatural character of the church”

a. The stars are already a symbol of the angels. To make the angels a symbol of the church means to have a symbol symbolize a symbol. See also the quotation from Fanning under 1.g.

b. Ladd does not offer positive argumentation for this view.

Accepted Interpretations

2. The ἄγγελοι are church leaders

a. There is precedent for this term to be applied to human messengers (Mt 11:10).

b. If John were to obey, he would of necessity be writing to other humans because he could not send what he wrote  to a heavenly angel. As Leithart notes, “The more we try to imagine a set of letters sent to angel-spirits, the more implausible it becomes. And then we are left with the unhappy (perhaps unfair) suspicion that commentators do not think Jesus really intended John to write to the angels at all” (Leithart, ITC, 1:123).

c. The ἄγγελοι are held responsible for for the conduct of the churches.

d. A call to repent (2:5, 16) can only be addressed to a human. Even if this is understood as a call for the whole church to repent, as I think it should be, it would be hard to exclude the messenger from the call to repentance since it is addressed to him. It would seem inappropriate to command an unfallen angel to repent (cf. Caesarius of Arles in Latin Commentaries on Revelation, ACC, 66; Leithart, ITC, 1:123).

e. It would be difficult to imagine a church being judged for the failure of its representative angel.

W. Edward Glenny, “Will Jesus Come Before the Millennium? A New Testament Answer from Revelation 20,” in Dispensationalism Revisited

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Glenny contributed an excellent brief articulation of a premillennial reading of Revelation 20. I began this chapter wondering about the value of this chapter. It did not seem that Glenny would be contributing anything new to the debate. However, upon completing the chapter it would be fair to say that Glenny has contributed an excellent, clear articulation of the premillennial position coupled with brief but cogent critiques of Amillennial readings of this chapter. For someone who wanted an introduction to the premillennial position, this chapter would be an excellent place to start. Those who took the time to track down the sources mentioned in the footnotes would be led to some of the best resources from all sides of the debate as well as to several of the most significant Revelation commentaries.

I won’t try to summarize Glenny’s chapter since it is already a succinct summary of the premillennial approach to Revelation 20, but I do commend it to all.

Thoughts on an Interview with Tom Schreiner on the Millennium

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In this interview with Tom Schreiner on his forthcoming Revelation commentary in the Baker Exegetical series, he discusses his current view of the Millennium.

Schreiner has famously shifted between premillennial and amillennial views of Revelation 20. In his forthcoming commentary he argues that Revelation 20 is the first stage of the new creation. He agrees with premillennialists that Satan is entirely bound during this time and that the bodily resurrection of believers is the “first resurrection” mentioned in Revelation 20. He notes that if the “first resurrection” is not the bodily resurrection, Revelation would have no mention of the ultimate vindication of the saints.  However, because he sees this period as part of the new creation, he does not see any non-glorified saints in Revelation 20. All the wicked are judged and all the saints are glorified. He also understands all of the “famous so-called millennial passages” in the OT are fulfilled in the new creation; he observes that they are copiously quoted in Revelation 21-22.

He notes that the big problem with his new creation view is the final battle in 20:7-10 . Who joins Satan in this final battle against the saints? His solution: these are those who were raised from the dead before the final judgment.

In many ways Schreiner’s view is similar to my own (and to that of Robert Duncan Culver in Daniel and the Latter Days). I too see the Revelation 20 as the first stage of the new creation. I too think that this helps make sense of OT millennial passages being referenced in Revelation 21-22. However, I would differ with Schreiner on a few points. (1) I don’t interpret the OT millennial passages symbolically the way that Schreiner does. I think those passages actually blend the millennial stage of the new creation with the consummate stage. That is why they can be alluded to in Revelation 21-22 while also containing material that cannot be true of the consummate new creation. (2) Because I hold to a pre-Day of the Lord rapture, my view doesn’t have a problem with non-glorified saints entering the Millennial period. Thus, I don’t have the difficulty with who joins with Satan in the final battle against the saints. (3) In the interview Schreiner does not elaborate on the purpose for a millennial first stage for the new creation. In my view this period is when Jesus Christ, the second Man, leads all mankind to fulfill the blessed mandate of subduing the earth.

In the interview Schreiner notes that his overall interpretation of Revelation is symbolic. If his ESV Expository Commentary is a guide, to the forthcoming BECNT volume, it will be consistent with Beale’s modified idealism. In the intreview Schriener notes his concern is with newspaper eschatology: Hal Lindsay, Tim LaHaye, or those who were finding Iraq in Revelation during the early 2000s. I too am concerned with such eisegesis. I don’t think those views can rightly be called futurist. They are a kind of presentism, a historicist approach focused on the present, just as preterism is a historicist approach focused on the first century. A true futurist approach would see Revelation 6 and following taking place during the final Day of the Lord, the timing of which is completely unknown to us.

Schreiner also made some helpful comments about dispensationalism at the end of the interview. He notes that the trend today is away from dispensationalism. However, he warns against having a “superior, supercilious spirit” toward dispensationalists. I think this is precisely right. I find that dispensational positions, or even positions thought to be dispensational (even if they have been held by a wide variety of interpreters throughout church history), are often dismissed, without actual engagement with the arguments or perhaps with a passing reference to a proof text here (as though the interpretation of that text is beyond debate). Schreiner does not have that spirit and rightly warns against it.

Typology, Escalation, and Revelation: A Problem with the Idealist Approach to Revelation

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I’ve recently been reading various commentaries on the trumpet judgments in Revelation 8-9. Everybody acknowledges that these judgments are modeled on the Egyptian plagues. Further, John’s description of the trumpet judgments are intensifications of the plagues.

The idealist interpreter must argue that the referent of these judgments are the normal kinds of events that characterize the entire inter-advent period. Further, it is not clear how the famines, diseases, etc. of the inter-advent period differ from those that preceded Christ.

The Egyptian plagues are the type, John’s description of antitype properly escalates the type, but the idealist interpreter must then deescalate the type to something less than the original type.

New Journal Article: The Futurist Interpretation of Revelation: Intertextual Evidence from the Prologue

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In the most recent issue of BJU Seminary’s Journal of Biblical Theology and Worldview, I have an article that argues that the allusions to the Old Testament in the prologue to Revelation (1:1-18), when taken together, point readers to interpreting Revelation according to a futurist approach, which understands Revelation as being primarily about the ultimate Day of the Lord. My conclusion:

The Apostle John begins the book of Revelation with a cluster of OT allusions which together focus on the coming of the Messiah in a Day of the Lord to judge the nations and to establish his kingdom on earth to be ruled by redeemed mankind. This focus within the prologue serves as a signpost to readers for how they should approach the remainder of the book. Though not every allusion, on its own, decisively points to a futurist reading, when they are considered together, the futurist orientation of the prologue is clear

I also contributed a book review of Ben C. Blackwell, John K. Goodrich, and Jason Maston, eds., Reading Revelation in Context: John’s Apocalypse and Second Temple Judaism. My conclusion:

Reading Revelation in Context provides an interesting introduction to a segment of Second Temple literature. However, it fails to demonstrate the importance of this literature for understanding Revelation. Presuming that the authors chose the best companion texts, the lack of a strong connection between many of the texts and Revelation was notable. The most convincing parallels were due to the texts drawing on the same Old Testament material as Revelation. This reinforces what is plain from the numerous allusions to the Old Testament in Revelation: the most important source for rightly reading Revelation is antecedent Scripture.