Difficulties in Revelation

  Some weeks ago I led two Bible studies, one on Daniel and one on Revelation, which are closely-related books. Many people find Revelation a difficult book to understand because of the symbolic language it uses. While I am by no means an expert, I have spent a lot of time studying Revelation, so I thought I'd use this post to give some tips for any who might be struggling with it.

1) Understand how symbolism and metaphor work. Many people get lost because they say that Revelation is 'just imagery' and stop there as if images don't mean anything. Metaphors consist of two parts: the image, and what the image represents. For example, the Beast from the Sea in Revelation 13 is not a literal beast, but it does represent a literal empire and its wicked ruler who will persecute God's saints on earth. The Beast is symbolic, but the empire, ruler, and persecution are literal. A good preparation for this sort of task is to read Jesus' parables in the Gospels. They work on a similar principle.

2) Use the interpretations that are given to you in the book itself. So many get scared off Revelation because they hear of crazy theories that don't come to pass and aren't founded on the book itself. If you read Revelation carefully, you will find it tells you what many of the images mean. For example, Revelation 12:9 tells the reader that the Red Dragon represents Satan. The Dragon is the image; Satan, a real angelic person, is the literal truth behind the image.

3) Understand that Revelation is both timeless and time-specific. This book speaks to all generations of Christians, who have, to various degrees, suffered persecution and seen the wickedness of fallen humanity and Satan manifested on this earth. There have been many Antichrist-like figures in history: Antiochus Epiphanes and Hitler are prime examples. At the same time there is one man who is THE Antichrist, a figure who will appear later in history not long before Jesus returns to the earth.

4) Use cross-references in a good study Bible to find the Old Testament passages that are being quoted or alluded to in the verse you're reading. Revelation is very closely connected to the Old Testament, and many of its passages become much clearer once one has read the relevant Old Testament verses. For example, the 1260 days, 42 months, 3.5 years mentioned in Revelation all refer to a single period of time found in Daniel 9:27 (where it is half of a 'Week'), and Daniel 12:11.

5) Keep the 'big picture' in mind and simplify where necessary so that you have a basic overview of the book. A basic timeline could go as follows:

Persecution > Jesus Returns > Restoration

Keeping this basic structure in mind will help you to locate where you are in the sequence when you're reading a particular passage and will also indicate the tone of the passage.

  Much more could be said, and I may return to this in a later post, but hopefully this is sufficient for an introductory approach to Revelation. May these tips be of service to you.

God bless.