| 101. The Apocalypse. | ||||
On the Lit. and life of John, see 40 and 41 (this vol.); on the authorship of the Apoc. and the time of composition, 37 (this vol.); 41 (this vol.); and 84 (this vol.) | ||||
1. Modern Critical, works of German and French scholars on the Apocalypse: Luecke (Voltstaendige Einleitung, etc., 2d ed., 1852; 1,074 pages of introductory matter, critical and historical; compare with it the review of Bleek in the Studien and Kritiken for 1854 and 1855); De Wette Com., 1848, with a remarkable preface, 3d ed. by Moeller, 1862); Bleek (Posthumous Lectures, ed. by Hossbach, 1862); Ewald (Die Johann. Schriften, vol. II, 1862; besides his older Latin Com., 1828); Duesterdieck (in Meyer's Com., 3d ed., 1877); Renan (L'Antechrist, 1873); Reuss (1878). A. Sabatier, in Lichtenberger's Encyclopedie, I. 396-407. E. Vischer: Die Offenb. Joh. eine Jued. Apok. in christl. Bearbeitung, Leipz., 1886. F. Spitta: Die Offenb. Joh. untersucht, Halle, 1889. | ||||
2. For Doctrinal and Practical exposition, the Commentaries of Hengstenberg (1849, spoiled by false prophecies and arbitrary fancies) Auberlen (on Daniel and Revelation, 2d ed., 1854); Gaussen (Daniel le prophEte, 1850); Ebrard (in Olshausen's Com., 1853); Luthardt (1861); J. C. K. Hofmann (1844 and 1862); J. L. Fueller (follows Hofmann, 1874); Lange (1871, Am. ed. enlarged by Craven, 1874); Gebhardt (Lehrbegriff der Apok., 1873); Kliefoth (1874). Comp. also Rougemont: La Revelation de St. Jean expliquant l'histoire (1866). Godet: Essay upon the Apoc., in his Studies on the N.T., translated from the French by W. H. Lyttleton, London, 1876, 294-398. | ||||
3. English Com.: E. H. Elliott (d. 1875, Horae Apoc., 5th ed., 1862, 4 vols.); Wordsworth (4th ed., 1866); Alford (3d ed., 1866); C. J. Vaughan (3d ed., 1870, practical); William Lee (Archdeacon in Dublin, in the Speaker's Com. N.T., vol. iv., 1881, pp. 405-844) E. Huntingford (Lond., 1882); Milligan (1883 and 1886 the best). Trench: The Epistles to the Seven Churches (2d ed., 1861), and Plumptre: Expos. of the Epp. to the Seven Ch. (Lond. and N. Y., 1877). | ||||
4. American Com. by Moses Stuart (1845, 2 vols., new ed., 1864, with an Excursus on the Number of the Beast, II. 452); Cowles (1871). | ||||
5. Of Older Commentaries, the most important and valuable are the following: | ||||
(a) Greek: Andreas of Caesarea in Cappadocia (5th cent.; the first continuous Com. on the Apoc., publ. 1596, also in the works of Chrysostom; see Luecke, p. 983); Arethas Of Caes. in Cappad. (not of the 6th cent., as stated by Luecke, p. 990, and others, but of the 10th, according to Otto, and Harnack, in Altchristl. Liter., 1882, pp, 36 sqq.; his suvvnoyi scolikhv, ed. by J. A. Cramner, in his Catenae Graec. Patr. in N.T., Oxon., 1840, vol. VIII.; and in the works of Oecumenius); 0ecumenius (10th cent., see Luecke, p. 991). | ||||
(b) Rom. Cath.: Lud. Ab Alcasar (a Jesuit, 1614); Cornelius A Lapide (1662); Bossuet (1690, and in Oeuvres, vol. III., 1819); Bisping (1876). | ||||
(c) Protestant: Jos. Mede (Clavis Apocalyptica, Cambr., 1632; Engl. transl. by More, 1643; a new transl. by R. B. Cooper, Lond., 1833); Hugo Grotius (first, 1644); Vitringa (1705, 1719, 1721); Bengel (1740); Bishop Thomas Newton (in Dissertations on the Prophecies, 8 vols., 1758). | ||||
This list is a small selection. The literature on the Apocalypse, especially in English, is immense, but mostly impository rather than expository, and hence worthless or even mischievous, because confounding and misleading. Darling's list of English works on the Apocalypse contains nearly fifty-four columns (I., 1732-1786). | ||||
General Character of the Apocalypse. | ||||
The Revelation of John, or rather of Jesus Christ through John,1 appropriately closes the New Testament. It is the one and only prophetic book, but based upon the discourses of our Lord on the destruction of Jerusalem and the end of the world, and his second advent (Matt. 24). It has one face turned back to the prophecies of old, the other gazing into the future. It combines the beginning and the end in Him who is the Alpha and the Omega. It reminds one of the mysterious sphinx keeping ceaseless watch, with staring eyes, at the base of the Great Pyramid. As many words as many mysteries, says Jerome; Nobody knows what is in it, adds Luther. No book has been more misunderstood and abused; none calls for greater modesty and reserve in interpretation. | ||||
The opening and closing chapters are as clear and dazzling as sunlight, and furnish spiritual nourishment and encouragement to the plainest Christian; but the intervening visions are, to most readers, as dark as midnight, yet with many stars and the full moon illuminating the darkness. The Epistles to the Seven Churches, the description of the heavenly Jerusalem, and the anthems and doxologies1 which are interspersed through the mysterious visions, and glister like brilliant jewels on a canopy of richest black, are among the most beautiful, sublime, edifying, and inspiring portions of the Bible, and they ought to guard us against a hasty judgment of those chapters which we may be unable to understand. The Old Testament prophets were not clearly understood until the fulfilment cast its light upon them, and yet they served a most useful purpose as books of warning, comfort, and hope for the coming Messiah. The Revelation will be fully revealed when the new heavens and the new earth appear not before. | ||||
A prophet (says the sceptical De Wette in his Commentary on Revelation, which was his last work) is essentially an inspired man, an interpreter of God, who announces the Word of God to men in accordance with, and within the limits of, the divine truth already revealed through Moses in the Old Testament, through Christ in the New (the ajpokavluyi musthrivou, Rom. 16:25. Prophecy rests on faith in a continuous providence of God ruling over the whole world, and with peculiar efficacy over Israel and the congregation of Christ, according to the moral laws revealed through Moses and Christ especially the laws of retribution. According to the secular view, all changes in human affairs proceed partly from man's power and prudence, partly from accident and the hidden stubbornness of fate; but according to the prophetic view, every thing happens through the agency of God and in harmony with his counsels of eternal and unchangeable justice, and man is the maker of his own fortunes by obeying or resisting the will of God. | ||||
The prophecy of the Bible meets the natural desire to know the future, and this desire is most intense in great critical periods that are pregnant with fears and hopes. But it widely differs from the oracles of the heathen, and the conjectures of farseeing men. It rests on revelation, not on human sagacity and guesses; it gives certainty, not mere probability; it is general, not specific; it does not gratify curiosity, but is intended to edify and improve. The prophets are not merely revealers of secrets, but also preachers of repentance, revivalists, comforters, rebuking sin, strengthening faith, encouraging hope. | ||||
The Apocalypse is in the New Testament what the Book of Daniel is in the Old, and differs from it as the New Testament differs from the Old. Both are prophetic utterances of the will of God concerning the future of his kingdom on earth. Both are books of the church militant, and engage heaven and earth, divine, human, and satanic powers, in a conflict for life and death. They march on as a terrible army with banners. They reverberate with thunderings and reflect the lightning flashes from the throne. But while Daniel looks to the first advent of the Messiah as the heir of the preceding world-monarchies, John looks to the second advent of Christ and the new heavens and the new earth. He gathers up all the former prophecies and sends them enriched to the future. He assures us of the final fulfilment of the prophecy of the serpent-bruiser, which was given to our first parents immediately after the fall as a guiding star of hope in the dark night of sin. He blends the glories of creation and redemption in the finale of the new Jerusalem from heaven. | ||||
The Apocalypse, as to its style of composition, is written in prose, like Daniel, but belongs to prophetic poetry, which is peculiar to the Bible and takes there the place of the epic poetry of the Greeks; God himself being the hero, as it were, who rules over the destinies of man. It is an inspired work of art, and requires for its understanding a poetic imagination, which is seldom found among commentators and critics; but the imagination must be under the restraint of sober judgment, or it is apt to run into fantastic comments which themselves need a commentary. The apocalyptic vision is the last and most complete form of the prophetic poetry of the Bible. The strong resemblance between the Revelation and Daniel, Ezekiel and Zechariah is admitted, and without them it cannot be understood. | ||||
But we may compare it also, as to its poetic form and arrangement, with the book of Job. Both present a conflict on earth, controlled by invisible powers in heaven. In Job it is the struggle of an individual servant of God with Satan, the arch-slanderer and persecutor of man, who, with the permission of God, uses temporal losses, bodily sufferings, mental anguish, harassing doubt, domestic affliction, false and unfeeling friends to secure his ruin. In the Apocalypse it is the conflict of Christ and his church with the anti-Christian world. In both the scene begins in heaven; in both the war ends in victory but in Job long life and temporal prosperity of the individual sufferer is the price, in the Apocalypse redeemed humanity in the new heavens and the new earth. Both are arranged in three parts: a prologue, the battle with successive encounters, and an epilogue. In both the invisible power presiding over the action is the divine counsel of wisdom and mercy, in the place of the dark impersonal fate of the Greek drama. | ||||
A comparison between the Apocalypse and the pseudo-apocalyptic Jewish and Christian literature the Fourth Book of Esdras, the Book of Enoch, the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, the Apocalypse of Baruch, the Sibylline Oracles, etc. opens a wide field on which we cannot enter without passing far beyond the limits of this work. We may only say that the relation is the same as that between the canonical Gospels and the apocryphal pseudo-Gospels, between real history and the dreamland of fable, between the truth of God and the fiction of man. | ||||
The theme of the Apocalypse is: I come quickly, and the proper attitude of the church toward it is the holy longing of a bride for her spouse, as expressed in the response (Rev. 22:20): Amen: come, Lord Jesus. It gives us the assurance that Christ is coming in every great event, and rules and overrules all things for the ultimate triumph of his kingdom; that the state of the church on earth is one of continual conflict with hostile powers, but that she is continually gaining victories and will at last completely and finally triumph over all her foes and enjoy unspeakable bliss in communion with her Lord. From the concluding chapters Christian poetry has drawn rich inspiration, and the choicest hymns on the heavenly home of the saints are echoes of John's description of the new Jerusalem. The whole atmosphere of the book is bracing, and makes one feel fearless and hopeful in the face of the devil and the beasts from the abyss. The Gospels lay the foundation in faith, the Acts and Epistles build upon it a holy life; the Apocalypse is the book of hope to the struggling Christian and the militant church, and insures final victory and rest. This has been its mission; this will be its mission till the Lord come in his own good time. | ||||
Analysis of Contents. | ||||
The Apocalypse consists of a Prologue, the Revelation proper, and an Epilogue. We may compare this arrangement to that of the Fourth Gospel, where John 1:1-18 forms the Prologue, John 21 the Epilogue, and the intervening chapters contain the evangelical history from the gathering of the disciples to the Resurrection. | ||||
I. The Prologue and the Epistles to the Seven Churches, Rev. 1-3. The introductory notice; John's salutation and dedication to the Seven Churches in Asia; the vision of Christ in his glory, and the Seven Churches; the Seven Epistles addressed to them and through them to the whole church, in its various states. | ||||
II. The Revelation proper or the Prophetic Vision of the Church of the Future, 4:1-22:5. It consists chiefly of seven Visions, which are again subdivided according to a symmetrical plan in which the numbers seven, three, four, and twelve are used with symbolic significance. There are intervening scenes of rest and triumph. Sometimes the vision goes back to the beginning and takes a new departure. | ||||
(1) The Prelude in heaven, Rev. 4 and 5. (a) The appearance of the throne of God (Rev. 4). (b) The appearance of the Lamb who takes and opens the sealed book (Rev. 5). | ||||
(2) The vision of the seven seals, with two episodes between the sixth and seventh seals, 6:1-8:1. | ||||
(3) The vision of the seven trumpets of vengeance, 8:2-11:19. | ||||
(4) The vision of the woman (the church) and her three enemies, 12:1-13:18. The three enemies are the dragon (12:3-17), the beast from the sea (12:18-13:10), and the beast from the earth, or the false prophet (13:11-18). | ||||
(5) The group of visions in Rev 14: (a) the vision of the Lamb on Mount Zion (14:1-5); (b) of the three angels of judgment (14:6-11), followed by an episode (14:12, 13); (c) the vision of the harvest and the vintage of the earth (14:14-20). | ||||
(6) The vision of the seven vials of wrath, 15:1-16:21. | ||||
(7) The vision of the final triumph, 17:1-22:5: (a) the fall of Babylon (17:1-19:10); (b) the overthrow of Satan (19:11-20:10), with the millennial reign intervening (20:1-6); (c) the universal judgment (20:11-15); (d) the new heavens and the new earth, and the glories of the heavenly Jerusalem (21:1-22:5). | ||||
III. The Epilogue, 22:6-21. The divine attestation, threats, and promises. | ||||
Authorship and Canonicity. | ||||
The question of authorship has already been discussed in connection with John's Gospel. The Apocalypse professes to be the work of John, who assumes a commanding position over the churches of Asia. History knows only one such character, the Apostle and Evangelist, and to him it is ascribed by the earliest and most trustworthy witnesses, going back to the lifetime of many friends and pupils of the author. It is one of the best authenticated books of the New Testament. | ||||
And yet, owing to its enigmatical obscurity, it is the most disputed of the seven Antilegomena; and this internal difficulty has suggested the hypothesis of the authorship of Presbyter John, whose very existence is doubtful (being based on a somewhat obscure passage of Papias), and who at all events could not occupy a rival position of superintendency over the churches in Asia during the lifetime of the great John. The Apocalypse was a stumbling-block to the spiritualism of the Alexandrian fathers, and to the realism of the Reformers (at least Luther and Zwingli), and to not a few of eminent modern divines; and yet it has attracted again and again the most intense curiosity and engaged the most patient study of devout scholars; while humble Christians of every age are cheered by its heroic tone and magnificent close in their pilgrimage to the heavenly Jerusalem. Rejected by many as unapostolic and uncanonical, and assigned to a mythical Presbyter John, it is now recognized by the severest school of critics as an undoubted production of the historical Apostle John. | ||||
If so, it challenges for this reason alone our profound reverence. For who was better fitted to be the historian of the past and the seer of the future than the bosom friend of our Lord and Saviour? Able scholars, rationalistic as well as orthodox, have by thorough and patient investigation discovered or fully confirmed its poetic beauty and grandeur, the consummate art in its plan and execution. They have indeed not been able to clear up all the mysteries of this book, but have strengthened rather than weakened its claim to the position which it has ever occupied in the canon of the New Testament. | ||||
It is true, the sceptical critics who so confidently vindicate the apostolic origin of the Apocalypse, derive from this very fact their strongest weapon against the apostolic origin of the fourth Gospel. But the differences of language and spirit which have been urged are by no means irreconcilable, and are overruled by stronger resemblances in the theology and christology and even in the style of the two books. A proper estimate of John's character enables us to see that he was not only able, but eminently fitted to write both; especially if we take into consideration the intervening distance of twenty or thirty years, the difference of the subject (prospective prophecy in one, and retrospective history in the other), and the difference of the state of mind, now borne along in ecstacy (ejn preuvmati) from vision to vision and recording what the Spirit dictated, now calmly collecting his reminiscences in full, clear self-consciousness (ejn noi>v). | ||||
The Time of Composition. | ||||
The traditional date of composition at the end of Domitian's reign (95 or 96) rests on the clear and weighty testimony of Irenaeus, is confirmed by Eusebius and Jerome, and has still its learned defenders,1 but the internal evidence strongly favors an earlier date between the death of Nero (June 9, 68) and the destruction of Jerusalem (August 10, 70). This helps us at the same time more easily to explain the difference between the fiery energy of the Apocalypse and the calm repose of the fourth Gospel, which was composed in extreme old age. The Apocalypse forms the natural transition from the Synoptic Gospels to the fourth Gospel. The condition of the Seven Churches was indeed different from that which existed a few years before when Paul wrote to the Ephesians; but the movement in the apostolic age was very rapid. Six or seven years intervened to account for the changes. The Epistle to the Hebrews implies a similar spiritual decline among its readers in 63 or 64. Great revivals of religion are very apt to be quickly followed by a reaction of worldliness or indifference. | ||||
The arguments for the early date are the following: | ||||
1. Jerusalem was still standing, and the seer was directed to measure the Temple and the altar (Rev. 11:1), but the destruction is predicted as approaching. The Gentiles shall tread (pathvsousin) the holy city under foot forty and two months (11:2; Comp. Luke 21:24), and the dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified (Rev. 11:8). The existence of the twelve tribes seems also to be assumed in 7:4-8. The advocates of the traditional date understand these passages in a figurative sense. But the allusion to the crucifixion compels us to think of the historical Jerusalem. | ||||
2. The book was written not long after the death of the fifth Roman emperor, that is, Nero, when the empire had received a deadly wound (comp. 13:3, 12, 14). This is the natural interpretation of 17:10, where it is stated that the seven heads of the scarlet-colored beast, i.e., heathen Rome, are seven kings; the five are fallen, the one is, the other is not yet come, and when he comes, he must continue a little while. The first five emperors were Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and Nero, with whom the gens Julia ingloriously perished. Next came Galba, a mere usurper (seventy-three years old), who ruled but a short time, from June, 68, to January, 69, and was followed by two other usurpers, Otho and Vitellius, till Vespasian, in 70, restored the empire after an interregnum of two years, and left the completion of the conquest of the Jews and the destruction of Jerusalem to his son Titus. Vespasian may therefore be regarded as the sixth head, the three rebels not being counted; and thus the composition of the Apocalypse would fall in the spring (perhaps Easter) of the year 70. This is confirmed by 13:3, 12, 14, where the deadly wound of the beast is represented as being already healed. But if the usurpers are counted, Galba is the sixth head, and the Revelation was written in 68. In either case Julius Caesar must be excluded from the series of emperors (contrary to Josephus). | ||||
Several critics refer the seventh head to Nero, and ascribe to the seer the silly expectation of the return of Nero as Antichrist. In this way they understand the passage 17:11: The beast that was, and is not, is himself also an eighth and is of the seven. But John makes a clear distinction between the heads of the beast, of whom Nero was one, and the beast itself, which is the Roman empire. I consider it simply impossible that John could have shared in the heathen delusion of Nero redivivus, which would deprive him of all credit as an inspired prophet. He may have regarded Nero as a fit type and forerunner of Antichrist, but only in the figurative sense in which Babylon of old was the type of heathen Rome. | ||||
3. The early date is best suited for the nature and object of the Apocalypse, and facilitates its historical understanding. Christ pointed in his eschatological discourses to the destruction of Jerusalem and the preceding tribulation as the great crisis in the history of the theocracy and the type of the judgment of the world. And there never was a more alarming state of society. The horrors of the French Revolution were confined to one country, but the tribulation of the six years preceding the destruction of Jerusalem extended over the whole Roman empire and embraced wars and rebellions, frequent and unusual conflagrations, earthquakes and famines and plagues, and all sorts of public calamities and miseries untold. It seemed, indeed, that the world, shaken to its very centre, was coming to a close, and every Christian must have felt that the prophecies of Christ were being fulfilled before his eyes. | ||||
It was at this unique juncture in the history of mankind that St. John, with the consuming fire in Rome and the infernal spectacle of the Neronian persecution behind him, the terrors of the Jewish war and the Roman interregnum around him, and the catastrophe of Jerusalem and the Jewish theocracy before him, received those wonderful visions of the impending conflicts and final triumphs of the Christian church. His was truly a book of the times and for the times, and administered to the persecuted brethren the one but all-sufficient consolation: Maran atha! Maran atha! | ||||
Interpretation. | ||||
The different interpretations are reduced by English writers to three systems according as the fulfilment of the prophecy is found in the past, present, or future. | ||||
1. The Preterist system applies the Revelation to the destruction of Jerusalem and heathen Rome. So among Roman Catholics: Alcasar (1614), Bossuet (1690). Among Protestants: Hugo Grotius (1644), Hammond (1653), Clericus (1698), Wetstein (1752), Abauzit, Herder, Eichhorn, Ewald, Luecke, Bleek, De Wette, Reuss, Renan, F. D. Maurice, Samuel Davidson, Moses Stuart Cowles, Desprez, etc. Some1 refer it chiefly to the overthrow of the Jewish theocracy, others chiefly to the conflict with the Roman empire, still others to both. | ||||
But there is a radical difference between those Preterists who acknowledge a real prophecy and permanent truth in the book, and the rationalistic Preterists who regard it as a dream of a visionary which was falsified by events, inasmuch as Jerusalem, instead of becoming the habitation of saints, remained a heap of ruins, while Rome, after the overthrow of heathenism, became the metropolis of Latin Christendom. This view rests on a literal misunderstanding of Jerusalem. | ||||
2. The Continuous (or Historical) system: The Apocalypse is a prophetic compend of church history and covers all Christian centuries to the final consummation. It speaks of things past, present, and future; some of its prophecies are fulfilled, some are now being fulfilled, and others await fulfillment in the yet unknown future. Here belong the great majority of orthodox Protestant commentators and polemics who apply the beast and the mystic Babylon and the mother of harlots drunken with the blood of saints to the church of Rome, either exclusively or chiefly. But they differ widely among themselves in chronology and the application of details. Luther, Bullinger, Collado, Pareus, Brightman, Mede, Robert Fleming, Whiston, Vitringa, Bengel, Isaac Newton, Bishop Newton, Faber, Woodhouse, Elliott, Birks, Gaussen, Auberlen, Hengstenberg, Alford, Wordsworth, Lee. | ||||
3. The Futurist system: The events of the Apocalypse from Rev. 4 to the close lie beyond the second advent of Christ. This scheme usually adopts a literal interpretation of Israel, the Temple, and the numbers (the 31 times, 42 months, 1260 days, 3 1/2 years). So Ribera (a Jesuit, 1592), Lacunza (another Jesuit, who wrote under the name of Ben-Ezra On the coming of Messiah in glory and majesty, and taught the premillennial advent, the literal restoration of the ancient Zion, and the future apostasy of the clergy of the Roman church to the camp of Antichrist), S. R. Maitland, De Burgh, Todd, Isaac Williams, W. Kelly. | ||||
Another important division of historical interpreters is into Post-Millennarians and Pre-Millennarians, according as the millennium predicted in Rev. 20 is regarded as part or future. Augustine committed the radical error of dating the millennium from the time of the Apocalypse or the beginning of the Christian era (although the seer mentioned it near the end of his book), and his view had great influence; hence the wide expectation of the end of the world at the close of the first millennium of the Christian church. Other post-millennarian interpreters date the millennium from the triumph of Christianity over paganism in Rome at the accession of Constantine the Great (311); still others (as Hengstenberg) from the conversion of the Germanic nations or the age of Charlemagne. All these calculations are refuted by events. The millennium of the Apocalypse must he in the future, and is still an article of hope. | ||||
The grammatical and historical interpretation of the Apocalypse, as well as of any other book, is the only safe foundation for all legitimate spiritual and practical application. Much has been done in this direction by the learned commentators of recent times. We must explain it from the standpoint of the author and in view of his surroundings. He wrote out of his time and for his time of things which must shortly come to pass (1:1, 3; 22:20), and he wished to be read and understood by his contemporaries (1:3). Otherwise he would have written in vain, and the solemn warning at the close (22:18, 19) would be unintelligible. In some respects they could understand him better than we; for they were fellow-sufferers of the fiery persecutions and witnesses of the fearful judgments described. Undoubtedly he had in view primarily the overthrow of Jerusalem and heathen Rome, the two great foes of Christianity at that time. He could not possibly ignore that great conflict. | ||||
But his vision was not confined to these momentous events. It extends even to the remotest future when death and Hades shall be no more, and a new heaven and a new earth shall appear. And although the fulfilment is predicted as being near at hand, he puts a millennium and a short intervening conflict before the final overthrow of Satan, the beast, and the false prophet. We have an analogy in the prophecy of the Old Testament and the eschatological discourses of our Lord, which furnish the key for the understanding of the Apocalypse. He describes the destruction of Jerusalem and the general judgment in close proximity, as if they were one continuous event. He sees the end from the beginning. The first catastrophe is painted with colors borrowed from the last, and the last appears as a repetition of the first on a grand and universal scale. It is the manner of prophetic vision to bring distant events into close proximity, as in a panorama. To God a thousand years are as one day. Every true prophecy, moreover, admits of an expanding fulfilment. History ever repeats itself, though never in the same way. There is nothing old under the sun, and, in another sense, there is nothing new under the sun. | ||||
In the historical interpretation of details we must guard against arbitrary and fanciful schemes, and mathematical calculations, which minister to idle curiosity, belittle the book, and create distrust in sober minds. The Apocalypse is not a prophetical manual of church history and chronology in the sense of a prediction of particular persons, dates, and events. This would have made it useless to the first readers, and would make it useless now to the great mass of Christians. It gives under symbolic figures and for popular edification an outline of the general principles of divine government and the leading forces in the conflict between Christ's kingdom and his foes, which is still going on under ever-varying forms. In this way it teaches, like all the prophetic utterances of the Gospels and Epistles, lessons of warning and encouragement to every age. We must distinguish between the spiritual coming of Christ and his personal arrival or parousia. The former is progressive, the latter instantaneous. The coming began with his ascension to heaven (comp. Matt. 26:64: Henceforth ye shall see the Son of man sitting at the right hand of power, and coming on the clouds of heaven ) and goes on in unbroken succession of judgments and blessings (for the history of the world is a judgment of the world ); hence the alternation of action and repose, of scenes of terror and scenes of joy, of battles and victories. The arrival of the Bridegroom is still in the unknown future, and may be accelerated or delayed by the free action of the church, but it is as certain as the first advent of Christ. The hope of the church will not be disappointed, for it rests on the promise of Him who is called the Amen, the faithful and true witness (Rev. 3:14). | ||||