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Revelation, Part 2: Schools of Interpretation and the Sequence of Events · The Bible in 3D

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: Greetings. Welcome to the Bible in three d. We are in a short series on Revelation. It's all in the symbols. And this is our second episode.
• 0:20
  We looked at the method of... Or medium of communication, which is symbols. And that is not easy because someone has to tell us what the symbols mean. How we look at symbols can be through what Jesus interpret them as at the beginning of Revelation or as the heavenly messengers do later in the narrative. We can also look at how the old testament interpreted symbols.
• 0:50
  And then I gave the cautionary note about secondary gain issues. We interpret symbols today based on our biases and prejudice. What are our secondary gain issues? If you haven't already heard, please go back and listen to episode one of Revelation. It's all in the symbols.
• 1:11
  We begin part three and it's called schools of interpretation. What you get out of Revelation depends on what school of interpretation you follow. Now generally there are four recognized schools of interpretation. The problem is once you buy into a particular school of interpretation that then colors everything that you read and how you interpret the symbols. Now invariably, if you're going to, you know, some kind of Protestant church, it's non denominational and you got a smart kid who's your senior pastor, he will tell you, I've got the fifth way.
• 1:50
  Well, doesn't have the fifth school of interpretation. His school of interpretation is agreed to by two people, he and his wife. So folks, there are four recognized schools of interpretation. Yeah, you can mix and match a little bit but you're either, you know, you really come down to one of the four. So four schools of interpretation.
• 2:12
  The first school is called the idealist or allegorical school of interpretation. It's often referred to as idealist or idealism. People will tell you that there is nothing in the book of Revelation that's going to happen. Revelation is simply an allegory. It's an allegorical story about persecution and about being steadfast to God's victory at the end of time.
• 2:39
  It's just an allegorical story like an Aesop's fairy table. Fairy tale. During classic Greek times, young men, young boys who were allowed to go to school to learn to read and write would write these morality fables. It was just a way to teach them to write. Today we call them Aesop's fairytables.
• 3:00
  Fairytales. They're just a short little story that has a moral point. And the moral point is almost always the same. So these boys are set down and told to write a story and the characters in the stories are typically animals like the fox and the crow. And the point of every story is not to be proud.
• 3:22
  The ancient Greeks called pride hubris. Your hubris will hurt you. So each of Aesop's fairy tales explains why you should not be proud. So in the same way those in the idealist or allegorical school of interpretation say Revelation is just an allegory. This is important.
• 3:46
  So let's take the example of chapter 20, the first six verses. Is this a description of a real thousand years, a long time, or just an allegory? Now it's not too long, it's kind of interesting. So I'm gonna read the six verses. So then, this is John, I saw an angel coming down from heaven holding in his hand the key to the bottomless pit in a great chain.
• 4:10
  He sees the dragon, the ancient serpent who is the devil in Satan, bound him for a thousand years and threw him into the pit and shut it and sealed over it. So that he might not deceive the nations any longer until the thousand years had ended. After that time, he must be released for a little while. Then I saw the thrones and seated on them were those to whom authority to judge was committed. I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God.
• 4:42
  And for those who had not worshipped the beast or its image. Who did not receive its mark on their foreheads. They came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years ended. This is the first resurrection.
• 5:00
  Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection. Over such, the second death has no power but they will be priests of God and of Christ and they will reign with him for a thousand years. Well, is that real or Memorex? Is that an allegory? You know, the rest of chapter 20, Satan is released, there's a final final war.
• 5:26
  You may have thought that Armageddon was the final war. No, it's not. The final final war is with Gog and Magog. Gog and Magog are not Armageddon. There is a final final war at the end of the thousand year years, what we call the millennium.
• 5:41
  Now, back to the allegorical school of thought. Okay, Again, churches have secondary gain issues. It's important for this to be an allegory and not to be actually true for them. Now whether the period is a thousand nine hundred and forty or a thousand and twenty seven years, it doesn't matter. It cannot be real.
• 6:06
  Because as my friends in the Catholic church family say no no no no no. Christ is already ruling on the earth today. And I'm like really? I didn't see Jesus at the latest g seven summit conference? I'm being facetious I know but I apologize.
• 6:22
  Now to their credit they say well Christ is ruling on the earth today, he is ruling on the earth, get this, through his vicar the Pope and of course all those who support the Pope. This is not a literal Jesus coming down and ruling. This is an allegory of him ruling on the earth for an indeterminate amount of time, two thousand years so far, through the Pope. Now what I have found, and I've known a lot of good folks at Roman Catholics who have talked to me about this, they really don't see the book of Revelation as dealing with anything they have to worry about because it's just an allegory. For them end times and where they actually get excited is not from Revelation, it's from prophecies dealing with like the three days of darkness, third secret of Fatima and maybe some merry envisions or perhaps some of the prophetic words of Saint Malachi about all the popes.
• 7:19
  These are the kind of things they worry about in end times. So if you're in the idealism or idealist camp and there are many churches beside the Roman Catholic that are, you're probably not going to worry too much about Revelation. Let's now go to the second school of interpretation. This is called historism or the historist school of interpretation. This is a way of looking at Revelation, the narrative and saying the narrative in Revelation symbolizes the chronological order of successive historical events of the Christian church that span all the way from the return of Christ to the new heaven and the new earth.
• 8:02
  This is a symbolic history that predicts church history. In the last two millennia, different people have said, oh, here we are in the book of Revelation. Now I'm not begging on Martin Luther but he's an easy mark here. It appears he was a historist. I'm told that Martin Luther did not actually preach out of the book of Revelation.
• 8:25
  I think there are four books in the New Testament that he didn't think belong there. This was one of them. Even though he didn't think Revelation belonged there, he he was a historist and he believed he could tell you where in the book of Revelation that you could find him, the Reformation. In other words, where he was in the book of Revelation and where the Reformation was. That that is just one example.
• 8:50
  You know, and and okay, great man. But I respectfully disagree on the school of historism or at least so far. The problem is that people are always finding their era, their time and decide, oh oh, here we are in the book of Revelation. And they are always wrong. So I have an example for you.
• 9:11
  Back in the nineteen eighties we were new Christians. We got to know an older couple that had been missionaries in the nineteen thirties and up until just about 1940 in Germany. And they were older people now and they cautioned us. They said don't get excited about end times. In the nineteen thirties on the mission field in Germany, we could find the antichrist, We could find the mark of the beast.
• 9:36
  The mark of the beast was the swastika. The beast was Hitler. He was persecuting church, the church. He was persecuting Jews. And you know that wasn't a bad guess but it was wrong.
• 9:49
  And so that is always the problem with the histories or the historism school of interpretation. They never get it quite right and then their grandchildren come along and say well pops you missed it. Going now to the third school of interpretation and this is called the Preterist school of interpretation. The Preterist school or Preterism comes from the Latin word which means the thing is past. Preterists say everything described in Revelation is in the past.
• 10:20
  But I do have to note there are partial preterists who will say well most but not all of stuff we read in Revelation has already occurred. Maybe chapters 19 through 22 haven't happened yet but certainly four through 18 have all happened. Those things are in the past. And what I've discovered is a lot of smart kids with some, you know, degree in philosophy or some other nonproductive school of thought, you know, they're into this. Okay, I know I'm being bad.
• 10:52
  There are some good arguments as to why you might think Preterism is correct. We go back to verse one chapter one of Revelation. The Revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave to him to show his servants the things that must take place soon. Well, here we are two thousand years later and that's not soon. You know, according to the Preterist, Revelation chapter four through 22 which were future for John in ninety six AD, most of them were fulfilled within that generation.
• 11:26
  Interesting though, the Preterists say that the mark of the beast and the Antichrist occurred before John received the vision. They would tell us that Caesar Nero was the Antichrist. Nero had an accident. It looked like he was dead and then he wasn't dead. Sounds like a description of the beast of the sea later.
• 11:49
  The predators have a big tent. Among themselves, they can't agree on what is past and what is not. If you're in any one of these three schools of interpretation that I've already mentioned, you you probably haven't even stayed with me this long because you don't care. For you end times that is described in Revelation is not gonna happen. It's all symbolic or or it's already done in the past.
• 12:12
  You're only with me at this point because you are a futurist or or you're a closet futurist. Well, clearly I'm a futurist and I believe that chapters four through 22 are all in the future. Chapter one is a prologue. Chapters two and three are things that are messages to seven churches which still have application today. All the exciting future action occurs in four through 21.
• 12:36
  Chapter 22 is the epilogue where all the saved people will live happily ever after. You know, chapters four through 21 of Revelation is the part where the printed and the audio material concentrates. So you got a preacher, a teacher, you read a book, this is where they're at. Now each author alleges that he or she has the secret sauce. Spoiler alert.
• 13:00
  None of them have the secret sauce. But you know it makes for entertaining reading or listening or watching. I'm now gonna go to part four of this presentation. The next challenge is called sequencing. Alright, so we had symbols, we've had secondary gain issues, we have had the four schools of interpretation and now we have sequencing.
• 13:28
  So taking the futurist approach, everything that is debated and everything that comes down to fisticuffs is the sequencing of the future events. There are... I'm gonna look at three key future events. The millennium, the tribulation and the rapture. I previously read from chapter 20 about the millennium.
• 13:54
  Is it a thousand years? I know whether exactly literal or whether it represents a long time. But either way, it's a real time in which Jesus rules on the earth after his second coming. Christ will not rule through the Roman Catholic Pope. Sorry.
• 14:11
  You guys got that wrong. Not because I say so because the Bible says so. Jesus Christ, fully God, fully man, one person with two natures will return in his glory... Will return to earth in his glorified form and will physically and bodily rule on the earth as the risen Christ. Well, where does the millennial fit in the second coming of Christ?
• 14:36
  As to the millennium there are those people who believe that Christ is coming before the millennium and they are called pre millennialists. This view is supported by a plain reading of Revelation chapter 20. Conservative evangelicals tend to be pre millennialists. Now there are people who think God is coming after the millennium. These are called post millennialists.
• 15:00
  The book will support for such a position as strain to say the least. Preterists tend to be postmillennials. Again, these are the smart kids. And then finally there are people like our Roman Catholic friends who see the millennium as an allegory. They are called ah as in no.
• 15:18
  Amillennialist. They don't believe in the future school of interpretation so they don't care. Now let us look at... So millennia was the first issue. Where is it?
• 15:30
  The before in the middle, excuse me, before or after or does it not happen at all with the coming of Christ. The next event or the next event that we'll look at and figure out where to put it is the tribulation. What is the tribulation? For the tribulation, we have to go back to the Old Testament book of Daniel and to his third vision chapter nine. At this point in the story of Daniel, Daniel is very very old man.
• 16:00
  He's read the prophet... The words of the prophet Jeremiah where God had told Jeremiah that the captivity and exile of the Jews in Babylon would only last seventy years. In chapter nine, the Babylonians have been defeated, the Medo Persians are now in power, and the seventy years is coming up like really soon. So Daniel begins to pray, Lord, what's next? Okay.
• 16:23
  You said seventy. Well, I think we're here. This is an incredible story. Daniel is praying for twenty one days and we are given a glimpse of the spiritual warfare. Just like John gives us a glimpse into the spiritual warfare when we read chapter 12 of Revelation.
• 16:40
  That same spiritual warfare is presented in chapter nine of Daniel. So twenty one days. Finally, Gabriel the messenger Abel is able with the help of Michael the Archangel to get past one of these fallen angel principalities. That's spiritual warfare. Gabriel comes to Daniel.
• 16:58
  Gabriel tells Daniel what has been ordained for his people is seventy seven years. Seventy of seven years. Well, 70 times seven is four hundred and ninety years. Think of a clock that has four hundred ninety years on it. Gabriel said that clock will start to run when a decree comes out of the Persian government to restore and to rebuild rebuild Jerusalem, which is probably around four fifty B.
• 17:29
  C. Or something. Gabriel delivers the prophecy in a series of sevens. Okay, 70... There are seven seventies.
• 17:39
  Alright. Of that, there are seven sevens, that's 49. There are 62 sevens, and then there's a third category, the final one seven. And they add all up to 70 or four hundred ninety years. So the four hundred ninety year clock for the Jews starts ticking.
• 18:00
  And as we read chapter nine, it will tick until the anointed one is cut off, which is at the end of the sixty ninth seven of the four hundred, you know, ninety years. So after four hundred and eighty three years, the anointed one will be cut off and that puts us at about thirty three A. D. And, you know, most scholars estimate that time of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus is right around thirty three AD. When the anointed one is cut off, the clock pauses.
• 18:40
  Now this is consistent with the remainder of the prophecy of Gabriel. The prophecy continues but it's outside of the four hundred and ninety year clock. All of a sudden we are told in Daniel that this ruler to come from the old Roman Empire will ink a seven year covenant contract treaty with the nation of Israel which allows them to rebuild a temple in Jerusalem. Okay. As soon as that treaty is signed, the clock starts.
• 19:13
  The seven years is running. The temple is built in three and a half years or three years and then the temple system of sacrifice starts up again. And so halfway through the seven year period, uh-oh, yep, three and a half years, the Antichrist will go into the temple, proclaimed himself to be God and to demand that people worship him. That's the beast of the sea, and of course the beast of the lamb will then force everyone to worship this image of the beast of the sea. Alright.
• 19:48
  That's in Daniel and that is consistent certainly with chapter 12 and following Revelation. You know, this this view is about the clock stopping. It's stopped for a thousand years. It's confirmed the New Testament book of Romans. Paul talks about the grief he feels for being an Israelite.
• 20:12
  He says he's an apostle to the Gentiles, fair enough, but he wishes he could bring all his fellow Israelites to salvation. You know, Paul wants to make sure his readers know that God is not done with the Israelites, the Jews. That God will work with the Gentiles until the full number of Gentiles come into salvation and then the clock restarts. And God will return to fulfill the promises he made to the Jews. Okay?
• 20:43
  And that is when the next or the last seven years begin. Obviously, you have secondary gain issues. I don't know what you do with Daniel. I honestly don't know what you do with Daniel. You have to say Daniel is not real.
• 21:01
  Alright. But this is where the seven years of tribulation comes from. I suggest to you that when we use the word tribulation, we're referring to the seven years, the last seven years. But perhaps the tribulation is only the last three and a half years of the seventieth seven. And churchmen have pointed this out and use the word tribulation for the last seven years but when referring to the last three and a half years they will say the great tribulation.
• 21:37
  If we look at Daniel, the covenant between the Antichrist and the Jews is signed for the seven years. Restarts a ninety year clock. But the bad stuff doesn't start until the midway point, the three and a half year point. Some people have posited and I tend to think this is correct that when we're reading Revelation chapter six through 19, it's only the last half of tribulation. It's only that last three and a half years spoken of in Daniel because the antichrist, the beast of the sea doesn't, you know, go off calendar there until that midway point.
• 22:19
  Now let's do the last of the sequencing issues, and that is the rapture. Strangely enough, you cannot find any reference to the rapture in the book of Revelation. You can go online and I can guarantee you can find at least a dozen smart kids out there who will say, here is the rapture and Revelation. And they will quote some verse to you allegedly interpreting the Greek and then claim that they are correct and everybody else is wrong. It's always funny, they always use the same language, they always have a different place they find.
• 22:49
  Doctor Bill Mounts senior, a long since deceased seminary professor said it best and I will paraphrase him. Doctor Mounts said you can't find the rapture in Revelation because it's not there. Not directly, not indirectly. John simply did not talk about it. Why is that?
• 23:09
  Many believe the rapture is not mentioned in Revelation because it already happened. Okay? And and the rapture really has nothing to do with the narrative that John is dealing with, the bulk of which being, you know, chapter six through 19, and that's the last three and a half years. So let's examine the rapture. The rapture is the taking up of living saints when Jesus returns.
• 23:34
  When Jesus returns, first the dead in Christ are raised, then living saints are raised to meet Christ in the air. The references are here in first Thessalonians four sixteen and seventeen. For the Lord himself would ascend from heaven with a cry of a command with the voice of an archangel with the sound of the trumpets of God and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive who are left will be caught up together with them in clouds to meet with the Lord in the air and so we will always be with the Lord. You can also read second Thessalonians chapter two and Matthew chapter twenty four forty two through 44.
• 24:17
  Paul planted a church in Thessalonica which is now present day Greece. The people in Thessalonica were taught all the things about Christ but for some reason after Paul and company left town, these Thessalonians got word that the rapture had occurred and to quote Jenkins and Lehi, they believed they got left behind and they were in a pickle. Clearly they had some teaching on the rapture and Paul writes to assure them no, the rapture has not happened yet. So so this is the context in which these things were written. Okay.
• 24:51
  The next problem then is when does the rapture occur? You know? Is it before the tribulation, the middle of the tribulation, after the tribulation? Alright, there's three arguments. Pre tribulation means that we think the rapture occurred before the tribulation, a seven year.
• 25:09
  There is a mid trip position which obviously is the three and a half year point and that the rapture occurs during the time before the great tribulation starts. And then lastly, there's a post tribulation rapture which means the rapture occurs after tribulation. You know, was certainly taught pre tribulation rapture. I took some heavy duty classes in seminary including Revelation of Daniel. One Saturday afternoon, not too many people in class.
• 25:40
  Somebody asked their professor whether he believes in a pre or mid trib rapture. He was a brilliant young guy. You know, the finest professors I ever had were my theology professors at Talbot. Now I do not give this compliment to some of the others who taught at Talbot, but I can certainly give that compliment to my theology professors. They were excellent.
• 26:01
  And this guy was. His voice got low and he says, well the teaching of the church here is certainly or the school here is certainly pre tribulation rapture. You know there's a lot of good evidence for that position. And then he waits a minute and he says, but but there is there is a case for mid trip rapture. And then he spoke.
• 26:26
  And I was totally impressed. He was so good. Well, what do I believe today? I think more likely than not, personally, it is a pre tribulational rapture. But if it was a mid trip rapture, I would not be surprised.
• 26:43
  Now as to post tribbers, I think they are masochists and psychopaths that want everybody including themselves to suffer. That's what I think on those guys. Sorry. There's a lot of famous people out there that are post tribbers. Based on some recent scholarship since the Dead Sea Scrolls have been opened up around the year 2000 after we got the control of the Dead Sea Scrolls away from the Vatican.
• 27:08
  There are some good arguments that the rapture will not only be pre trib but it will be a generation before the tribulation so that there is a generation where there all the Christians are gone and everybody degenerates further and further. I don't know. Interesting thoughts. Friends, concludes our second episode. Big discussion and sequencing.
• 27:36
  Let let us go to the Lord in prayer. Gracious heavenly father, help us be assured that you are coming again and not to get too tied up in the sequencing, but to put our faith and trust in you. In Jesus name I pray, amen.
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: Thank you for tuning in to this episode of the Bible in three d. We're so grateful for listeners like you. Your encouragement helps us create and share more transformative content that strengthens communities worldwide. If this episode inspired you, consider supporting our nonprofit mission with a donation at cogworksmedia.org. Also, be sure to check out our other podcast, biblical reflections, for more faith insights.
• 28:28
  God bless.