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Stop Decoding with the News | How To Read The Book Of Revelation · The Remnant Radio's Podcast

0:52
SPEAKER_00: Hey everybody, welcome back to the wonderful world of Rumnite Radio.
0:54
SPEAKER_00: In this program, we're talking about the Book of Revelation, how it should be read, and more.
0:58
SPEAKER_00: It's gonna be an interesting program.
1:00
SPEAKER_00: You guys stay tuned.
1:03
SPEAKER_00: Hey guys, the book of Revelation is a difficult book to understand at times.
1:07
SPEAKER_00: I think the book of Revelation for lots of people, I mean, they come at it from completely different angles, but we're all looking at the same book.
1:13
SPEAKER_00: We're all Christians.
1:14
SPEAKER_00: We all believe in Jesus, we believe in the death, burial, resurrection, we believe he's coming again.
1:18
SPEAKER_00: But when and how some people approach the book of Revelation with like wooden literalism, others are just drunken symbols.
1:25
SPEAKER_00: But today we're gonna be diving into how the book of Revelation can be read in a way that is consistent with the book itself.
1:32
SPEAKER_00: And with us today, we have the scholar, resident professor Michael Roundtree, who is co-host on the program.
1:39
SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm I'm joking a little bit tongue-in-cheek here.
1:42
SPEAKER_00: Michael has written a book that's coming out October 20th, The World Made Right.
1:47
SPEAKER_00: Michael, tell us a little bit what we have to expect in the program today and why people, man, read the book of Revelation in different ways.
1:54
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
1:56
SPEAKER_01: So, well, the reason I think people read Revelation in different ways, gosh, there's a lot of reasons.
2:02
SPEAKER_01: One of the things we're gonna focus a lot on today is genre and how big of a deal that is.
2:07
SPEAKER_01: And and so there's first of all, do you interpret symbolically or literally?
2:12
SPEAKER_01: And if symbolically, what do the symbols actually mean?
2:16
SPEAKER_01: And genre's gonna play into that a whole lot.
2:19
SPEAKER_01: Uh John's usage of the Old Testament is gonna be a big deal and how we explore it.
2:24
SPEAKER_01: And so you tend to have different people, some who they want to go first to a contemporary association and say, well, this means bug or these bugs mean helicopters, and these were helicopters in Vietnam.
2:35
SPEAKER_01: Oh, wait, that didn't work out.
2:36
SPEAKER_01: These these helicopters are from Desert Storm or whatever, you know, and so these or these armies that are invading from the East.
2:43
SPEAKER_01: These must be Chinese armies, they're the ones with the 200 million, they're the only ones that could possibly do that.
2:48
SPEAKER_01: And so there's a lot of contemporary association that's been going on for a long time.
2:54
SPEAKER_01: And it's not even just the like very recent history, all back throughout church history, there there's been a lot of debate over these symbols.
3:03
SPEAKER_01: And so uh and so really we just want to begin with how do we read Revelation?
3:07
SPEAKER_01: And I'll probably also say this.
3:09
SPEAKER_01: So, you know, I it took me six years to write this book, it's coming out uh actually in October.
3:15
SPEAKER_01: And and I preached through Revelation in starting in the first week of COVID.
3:23
SPEAKER_01: It was actually the Sunday before COVID started, at least before it hit in America, was the Sunday that I preached.
3:31
SPEAKER_01: And then so everybody in my church is like, oh no, it's the end of the world.
3:35
SPEAKER_01: And honestly, Josh, I was kind of nervous to even preach through Revelation because you know you joked about me being a scholar.
3:40
SPEAKER_01: I'm actually not a scholar, I read a lot of scholars, and and I love theology.
3:45
SPEAKER_01: We obviously do a theology podcast, but I I didn't really have my interpretations nailed down.
3:51
SPEAKER_01: I thought that was gonna be a weakness working through the book together as a church, but I think it was actually a strength.
3:57
SPEAKER_01: Like one of the things that I say in my book is I say curiosity, not overconfidence, sets the pace of discovery.
4:06
SPEAKER_01: And so in that context, I was settling some interpretations on the fly, even changed a few of uh some pretty big interpretive frameworks, and we can talk about that too if we want a little bit today.
4:17
SPEAKER_01: But I know we've got an eight-week series playing out, so anyway, but my my point being like coming into the book of Revelation, not having everything settled, I had a default framework that I thought was was pretty good, and it and it was a good and it was a good sound framework, but I hadn't studied every word in Revelation when I came up or when I decided on the first framework and kind of switched.
4:40
SPEAKER_01: So it it was just an interesting experience walking through all the craziness that was going on in the world, the NBA shutting down and all the things, and and preaching through the book of Revelation.
4:53
SPEAKER_01: My congregation was really leaned in.
4:56
SPEAKER_01: So anyway, so there's a little bit.
4:58
SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean, I want to give a little bit of pushback to the opening statement of I'm not a scholar.
5:02
SPEAKER_00: I spent a lot of time around PhDs.
5:03
SPEAKER_00: Michael knows the Bible just about as well as anybody I know.
5:06
SPEAKER_00: And uh, on top of that, man, your work in this book is fantastic.
5:09
SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna continue to giving him the Emeritus Award.
5:13
SPEAKER_00: I'm giving him an honorary PhD from Remnant Radio for all that is worth.
5:18
SPEAKER_00: And it's worth a lot right there.
5:20
SPEAKER_00: It is, it is higher education for sure.
5:23
SPEAKER_00: Let's talk through some of the stuff in Revelation because you mentioned a second ago, you know, some people take this more literal one-to-one correlation for things.
5:31
SPEAKER_00: And I go, man, I just does anyone really take the book of Revelation literally?
5:35
SPEAKER_00: We were at a pastor's call recently where we're talking to a bunch of pastors about the book of Revelation, and one of the things that I brought up in that call is like, okay, sword tongue laser eyes Jesus, like it's a cool action figure, but I don't think anyone looks at the opening lines of you know Revelation, you know, opening lines, but you know what I mean.
5:51
SPEAKER_00: The the introductory to Christ coming with a sword in his tongue, and he's got eyes of fire, his face glows like the sun, his feet are burnished bronze.
5:59
SPEAKER_00: Like there certainly God's glory is being put on display, and maybe there is an aspect to this that is you know radiant, right?
6:10
SPEAKER_00: So I I'm I'm not denying that there is a radiance to God's glory, but to think that he literally has a sword for a tongue seems wild.
6:19
SPEAKER_00: I don't know anyone who takes it that literally.
6:21
SPEAKER_00: So maybe weigh into some of that.
6:24
SPEAKER_00: Right.
6:24
SPEAKER_01: Oh, well, part of the fun of interpreting, of walking through and studying, and and now I've spent years studying the book of Revelation, was beginning to see the intertextual connections.
6:36
SPEAKER_01: And so, uh, for instance, Jesus has a sword coming out of his mouth and uh in in which points toward the word of God and the truth of the word of God, and then later in Revelation chapter 16, uh, you're gonna see coming out of the mouths of uh, you know, like the beast and the and the false prophet, etc.
6:56
SPEAKER_01: You're gonna see lying spirits like frogs coming out of their mouths.
7:00
SPEAKER_01: And so truth from Jesus lies from the enemies of God.
7:04
SPEAKER_01: And and that became a big part of, as I learned to interpret this book, beginning to see these intertextual connections to understand the symbolism.
7:12
SPEAKER_01: And yes, uh, you bring up symbolism, that's a that's a key feature.
7:15
SPEAKER_01: The truth is everybody believes there's symbolism in Revelation, everybody.
7:20
SPEAKER_01: There are just those who come from the perspective of everything's literal unless it's obviously a symbol.
7:27
SPEAKER_01: And there are others who say, well, everything's symbolic unless it's obviously literal.
7:32
SPEAKER_01: But everyone views it that way.
7:34
SPEAKER_01: In fact, some of the most literalist interpreters of the book of Revelation will still see symbols, and they'll criticize those who see maybe lean more heavily toward the symbolic, which I do, and yet they'll use their own symbols, such as, you know, the eagle that carries Israel to safety in Revelation chapter 12, how Lindsay says in the late great planet Earth, well, the eagle that's carrying Israel to safety, that's the United States of America because that's our national bird.
8:04
SPEAKER_01: So we're still using symbolism, it's just a different kind of symbolism.
8:07
SPEAKER_01: And what I would say is the way we interpret these symbols is we go back to the biblical soil from which it sprouted, the Old Testament.
8:15
SPEAKER_01: So Exodus chapter 19, Israel is carried away to safety on eagle's wings.
8:21
SPEAKER_01: And so uh and so in Exodus 19.
8:23
SPEAKER_01: So that it's basically like a new Exodus is happening in the book of Revelation, and God's protecting his people in the last days, just as he protected his people in the Exodus.
8:34
SPEAKER_01: And so and so I think one more thing, Josh, I'll say that before I'll give you a moment to ask or chat chat or comment or whatever.
8:43
SPEAKER_01: I think John in verse one makes a really key statement.
8:48
SPEAKER_01: So it depends on your your translation, but the I'll I'll read the New King James.
8:53
SPEAKER_01: He says he sent and signified it, his revelation by his angel to his servant John.
8:59
SPEAKER_01: And that that word, the Greek word there for signified technically means show by signs.
9:07
SPEAKER_01: It points toward a symbolic kind of framework, which makes sense for the book of Revelation.
9:14
SPEAKER_01: So, first of all, God has already marked it as primaries, primarily symbols and signs from the first book of it.
9:21
SPEAKER_01: That should already flag it.
9:23
SPEAKER_01: Then when you have the genre of literature, apocalyptic literature, even more so because apocalyptic literature was understood to be highly, highly symbolic.
9:32
SPEAKER_01: And so I think our default is to interpret these things as symbols.
9:36
SPEAKER_01: And then the literal aspects are if it's obvious.
9:41
SPEAKER_01: So for instance, you have seven churches.
9:43
SPEAKER_01: These were seven literal local churches.
9:45
SPEAKER_01: Pretty much everyone agrees on that.
9:47
SPEAKER_01: All the context and everything else points to these were real local assemblies.
9:51
SPEAKER_01: At the same time, there were seven of them.
9:54
SPEAKER_01: John could have chosen nine or thirteen or whatever, but he chose seven.
9:57
SPEAKER_01: And of course, it's by revelation the spirit reveals seven, seven, a number that appears, I think, 54 times in the book of Revelation, a number of completion.
10:05
SPEAKER_01: So while it does refer to those seven individual churches, it also refers to the complete church of Jesus Christ throughout the age.
10:11
SPEAKER_01: That would be my interpretation, which does speak into some other aspects of like, I don't think we should pin the book of Revelation entirely to the remote past or entirely to the remote future.
10:21
SPEAKER_01: I think Jesus is shepherding his church until the end of the age.
10:25
SPEAKER_01: And the first chapters of Revelation, I think, set that up.
10:30
SPEAKER_00: No, that that seems fair.
10:31
SPEAKER_00: And I I'm not a revelation scholar.
10:34
SPEAKER_00: I preached through the book of Zechariah, and there are some similar themes in these two books.
10:39
SPEAKER_00: In one, a lot of the prophetic language that's taking place earlier on in the book about the building of the temple, but then the post-build of the temple, I think it's after chapter 8 and 9, after the feast and fasting passages, then it goes into more apocalyptic language of what's going to happen for the coming of a new kingdom.
10:54
SPEAKER_00: And apocalyptic is in Zechariah.
11:12
SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes, yes.
11:13
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
11:13
SPEAKER_00: And the the apocalyptic is a really important language to use when speaking of the book of Revelation, because that's the genre.
11:22
SPEAKER_00: And maybe unpack that for us as genre is to be understood.
11:27
SPEAKER_00: Because, you know, if if I'm reading a letter from Paul that says, you know, hey, purge the sexually immoral from you.
11:35
SPEAKER_00: I'm not sitting there like I'm reading, you know, Ecclesiastes or the Proverbs, going, What does it mean?
11:40
SPEAKER_00: What is this poetic imagery supposed to symbolize?
11:43
SPEAKER_00: Like, no, he just means purge the immoral from among you, right?
11:46
SPEAKER_00: Like it's it's a very straightforward, kind of didactic sort of instruction.
11:51
SPEAKER_00: But but tell me about the the letter.
11:53
SPEAKER_00: It is a letter, it's apocalyptic, it's got prophetic imagery in it.
11:56
SPEAKER_00: So unpack the genre for us as we try to understand how to make sense of this book.
12:02
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, I mean, the first verse of Revelation 1, chapter 1, verse 1, it says the revelation of Jesus Christ, which of course is where we get the name of the book from the Greek word apocalypsis.
12:14
SPEAKER_01: And this basically means an unveiling.
12:16
SPEAKER_01: So revelation is the unveiling of Jesus Christ, which I would understand to be primarily the unveiling of Jesus himself, understanding, having a revelation of who he is in glory, but secondarily his revelation of a plan to make the world right.
12:32
SPEAKER_01: The reason I say this is primary is Jesus is always first.
12:35
SPEAKER_01: The plan is important, but the one who unravels the plan, more important, right?
12:40
SPEAKER_01: The one who makes the plan more important.
12:43
SPEAKER_01: So God the Father, the scene that plays out in Revelation 4, God the Father's holding a scroll, God's plan for bringing all this to pass.
12:51
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus, Revelation 5, is the one who redeems it.
12:54
SPEAKER_01: There we see him as a lamb, stand lamb who was slain, but he's also standing.
12:59
SPEAKER_01: He's standing in resurrection power.
13:01
SPEAKER_01: And so, and so in chapter 1, you have this revelation of Jesus in glory, Revelation 5, you have this revelation of Jesus who is the lion slash lamb.
13:10
SPEAKER_01: Lion speaks of military conqueror.
13:12
SPEAKER_01: That's how that was the image that would have popped up in a Jewish mind.
13:15
SPEAKER_01: Uh going back to Genesis chapter 49, and Judah was going to be like a lion's cub, and it his paw was going to be on the neck of his enemies, so to speak.
13:25
SPEAKER_01: And so this was always understood as sort of military language.
13:29
SPEAKER_01: And so Jesus comes in as this great messianic military conqueror, and then John turns and sees a lamb.
13:35
SPEAKER_01: And the point is, well, he is a great conqueror, but he conquered in a different way than you thought.
13:40
SPEAKER_01: He wasn't going to toss people around like beanbags.
13:43
SPEAKER_01: No, he came and he gave his life for his enemies.
13:46
SPEAKER_01: And so this the reason I think this is important, this revelation of Jesus, to frame it this way in this first verse of the book, is because it shows us that like we we make this into all about like just predicting the future and setting the right date.
14:03
SPEAKER_01: And you know, I remember Harold Camping saying, Well, I don't know the day or the hour, but I know the month and the year.
14:07
SPEAKER_01: Turns out you don't.
14:08
SPEAKER_01: You were wrong a few times.
14:10
SPEAKER_01: And uh we make it all about codes to decipher, but if God just wanted us to understand dates and timelines and events, he could have lit John's cave up with a bunch of dates, and instead, he gives these apocalyptic visions, apocalyptic visions full of imagery.
14:27
SPEAKER_01: And that is the point.
14:28
SPEAKER_01: Apocalyptic literature, though it extended beyond these points in time, especially thrived in the couple of centuries prior to Jesus and a couple of centuries after Jesus was where it was especially popular, and and especially in Jewish and then even Christian circles.
14:45
SPEAKER_01: But the uh but the purpose of it was to show through these nightmarish visions essentially the reality for the people of God.
14:53
SPEAKER_01: These were not people who could vote tyrants out of power.
14:56
SPEAKER_01: These these visions were meant to show the cosmic realities in the background and how God was ultimately going to win.
15:02
SPEAKER_01: And everyone who read it understood these are symbols.
15:06
SPEAKER_01: They understood these are symbols.
15:08
SPEAKER_01: In fact, verse three is really important for our understanding here of Revelation.
15:12
SPEAKER_01: It says, Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy.
15:15
SPEAKER_01: By the way, it's apocalyptic, but it's also prophecy.
15:17
SPEAKER_01: And blessed are those who hear and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near.
15:23
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so he pronounces a blessing on those who simply just read aloud the book.
15:28
SPEAKER_01: Like, we shouldn't think that these images are so utterly complex that it's completely impossible to understand them.
15:36
SPEAKER_01: That's not John's, that's not how John's writing.
15:39
SPEAKER_01: Well, maybe he'd expects, I'm sure he expects there's gonna be a little bit of debate over the uh the images, but but we should be able to understand enough to receive the blessing of verse three.
15:49
SPEAKER_01: The basic broad sense meaning of the images, I think, is pretty clear when you understand how to interpret them and understand apocalyptic is not meant to be literal.
15:59
SPEAKER_01: When we literalize a book of symbols, we come out with a bunch of dates and events and timelines we have to keep revising, and it gets kind of embarrassing.
16:08
SPEAKER_01: So, so that's apocalyptic, Josh.
16:10
SPEAKER_01: I might read one more quote here.
16:12
SPEAKER_01: This is from Leon Morris, and if you want to read some more on the subject, he has a great book called Apocalyptic.
16:17
SPEAKER_01: This is one of the quotes.
16:18
SPEAKER_01: He says, This type of literature abounds in beasts and seals and rivers and mountains and stars and personages, celestial and infernal.
16:26
SPEAKER_01: The symbols may change in bewildering fashion.
16:29
SPEAKER_01: Thus, in first Enoch, we read of stars falling from heaven and becoming bulls.
16:34
SPEAKER_01: They cohabit with cows and sire elephants, camels, and asses.
16:38
SPEAKER_01: Later we learn of a white bull that becomes a man, and of bulls which sired creatures as diverse as lions, tigers, wolves, squirrels, vultures, and others, such wonders are found over and over.
16:49
SPEAKER_01: And Leon Morris's point as he's saying this is like, hey, this is how an ancient reader would have interpreted it.
16:57
SPEAKER_01: And if we come in with, hey, this is pointing to the Vietnam War helicopter, and it definitely means this, or this is America carrying Israel to safety, these contemporary associations, we're we're completely missing the point.
17:10
SPEAKER_01: And and these symbols are almost always point back to uh either parallel textual uh connections within Revelation itself or portions of the Old Testament.
17:21
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I think one of the things that we've already touched on when we talk about apocalyptic literature is that in apocalyptic literature, it often is connected to some kind of prophetic source.
17:32
SPEAKER_00: Help help me on this.
17:33
SPEAKER_00: Can you think of an apocalyptic literature that is not prophecy?
17:37
SPEAKER_00: I can't think of it because it's some kind of divine revelation that's coming.
17:41
SPEAKER_00: If if you've thought of it in the comment section, drop it down in the comment section below.
17:45
SPEAKER_00: But that that would be another aspect of apocalyptic literature, this genre of revelation is that it's also a prophecy.
17:52
SPEAKER_00: And that's probably important, certainly, because these images have these kind of like they mean something.
17:59
SPEAKER_00: There's something behind these signs, these symbols, they're pointing somewhere.
18:02
SPEAKER_00: They're not necessarily abstract, like you're saying.
18:05
SPEAKER_00: They're they're they're different, but once you kind of get the key, and that's what I learned about Zachariah, teaching through Zachariah, once you realize the rubric, once you go, oh, actually, he's already explained what this is, you can actually go back into the book.
18:17
SPEAKER_00: The book itself explains the the pictures and the images that are taking place in it.
18:21
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, some of that makes sense.
18:23
SPEAKER_00: But prophecy is not all about pictures, it's also instructional.
18:27
SPEAKER_00: So maybe unpack some of that for us as well, speaking about how this genre is not just apocalyptic, but is also prophetic.
18:34
SPEAKER_00: And it's the way that we read that.
18:36
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
18:37
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so so apocalypse, you apocalyptic literature is inherently prophetic, if by prophetic we mean predicts the future, because apocalyptic literature tends to predict some great cataclasm cataclysmic conclusion to this age with God and his people coming out on top.
18:57
SPEAKER_01: And so there is a predictive element of that, if we want to call that prophecy.
19:00
SPEAKER_01: But I like what you said, Josh, because you know, and we just read this book of prophecy.
19:05
SPEAKER_01: The word prophecy will occur a few times in the book of Revelation to refer to the contents of this book.
19:10
SPEAKER_01: And so prophecy does in include predictive elements, and you know, we read about the end of the age and what's going to happen, so there's a predictive element.
19:18
SPEAKER_01: But biblically speaking, prophecy is much bigger than that.
19:22
SPEAKER_01: Prophecy also includes, you know, you maybe you've heard that distinction of there's foretelling and there's forth telling.
19:28
SPEAKER_01: And I don't know what the percentage is, but it the most of the Old Testament seems to be forth telling, and it's prophets coming before kings and political leaders and calling them back to covenant faithfulness.
19:40
SPEAKER_01: And that's actually the picture you have in Revelation chapter 11, where there are two prophets, and they're basically calling people out and they're speaking truth, and that's their ministry of prophesying.
19:50
SPEAKER_01: And you get to Revelation chapter 19, and it says that the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.
19:57
SPEAKER_01: And I hear charismatics quote that all the time, and maybe not necessarily in the right way.
20:03
SPEAKER_01: If you look up just testimony of Jesus, that kind of language throughout the book of Revelation, it's people essentially evangelistically proclaiming the truths of the gospel, including truths of God's judgment and difficult things that are to come, but it's them preaching these difficult truths, often to powerful people.
20:25
SPEAKER_01: And so prophecy that like is so much bigger than just predicting the future.
20:31
SPEAKER_01: Prophecy includes that kind of ministry.
20:34
SPEAKER_01: You see it in Revelation 10, you see it in Revelate Revelation 11, you see it in Revelation 19.
20:39
SPEAKER_01: And a big function of the book of Revelation is God calling his own people to covenant faithfulness.
20:48
SPEAKER_01: And that's, you know, we start with seven letters to seven churches.
20:51
SPEAKER_01: We'll come back to that in a second, but also holding the entire world accountable to faith and faithfulness to Jesus Christ by bearing witness with their testimony to Jesus.
21:02
SPEAKER_01: All of that is a prophetic act.
21:04
SPEAKER_01: And so I think that's an important element, and I'm just going to touch on this because we're already here.
21:08
SPEAKER_01: So we've touched on two genres.
21:10
SPEAKER_01: Like it would be two, even though the main genre to which Revelation belongs is apocalyptic, it also belongs, it's also prophetic literature, and it's also a letter.
21:22
SPEAKER_01: And I think this part is just often misunderstood.
21:26
SPEAKER_01: But Revelation begins with a customary greeting, like the same kind of any ancient letter, verse four.
21:32
SPEAKER_01: And then within that, so it starts like a letter, it ends like a letter, and then it contains seven letters inside the big letter, and those seven letters to the seven churches in Revelation 2 and 3, which I've argued, while do they do represent historical churches, they also represent the church of Jesus Christ.
21:49
SPEAKER_01: You can probably find a representative of your own church in one of those seven, or perhaps a combination of it.
21:56
SPEAKER_01: But my point being, we read letters a certain way too, just like we read apocalyptic a certain way.
22:01
SPEAKER_01: Letters are inherently pastoral.
22:04
SPEAKER_01: So, you know, if Paul's talking to the Galatians, he's calling them out for their heresy and the falling away from grace.
22:10
SPEAKER_01: You started by faith, you're going to finish by works, you crazy people who's bewitched you.
22:15
SPEAKER_01: Or you go to Corinth.
22:16
SPEAKER_01: It's like, hey guys, stop getting drunk, stop approving of people who sleep with their mom, stop taking communion in an abusive way, and stop messing with the spiritual gifts and in a way that is unholy and divisive, and stop being so divided.
22:30
SPEAKER_01: Like all these corrections.
22:32
SPEAKER_01: Corinth, they got it, they got a pretty rough go with Paul.
22:35
SPEAKER_01: But that is actually the nature of letters.
22:37
SPEAKER_01: I'm sure you can have some encouraging aspects of letters too, but letters are pastoral.
22:43
SPEAKER_01: They're meant to guide.
22:44
SPEAKER_01: And and you see that especially in Revelation 2 and 3.
22:47
SPEAKER_01: But I think what especially bless me and especially bless my congregation when I preach through it, is the formational dimension of the book of Revelation.
22:55
SPEAKER_01: We've made it all about speculation, but far more than about speculation.
22:59
SPEAKER_01: It's about formation.
23:01
SPEAKER_01: It's for the Church of Jesus Christ throughout this age to form us into Christ likeness.
23:07
SPEAKER_01: And as we receive this revelation of Jesus in glory, whereas Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John primarily show us Jesus in his humiliation, revelation shows him in exaltation and in glory.
23:19
SPEAKER_01: And as we have this uh these visions portraying Jesus in such glory, that itself is formational.
23:28
SPEAKER_01: Like John will say elsewhere, uh, we'll see him as uh as when we see him, we'll become like him.
23:33
SPEAKER_01: Beholding is becoming.
23:35
SPEAKER_01: So there is a formational aspect to revelation I think is important too.
23:40
SPEAKER_00: Now we've already talked about some of this throughout the program, but like why does it matter?
23:45
SPEAKER_00: You know, I mentioned a moment ago, you know, we don't want to read Paul's letters as poetry or as some kind of symbolic language when he's not using that language.
23:55
SPEAKER_00: Now, it's not to say that Paul doesn't use idioms or expressions or illustrations that we are to take as he intended them, but if I'm going to read John's letters as he intended them, why does all the genre matter?
24:09
SPEAKER_00: Because I I would argue if I've got a dispensational guy sitting across from me, we're gonna agree this is apocalyptic literature, we're gonna agree that this is prophecy, we're gonna agree that this is a letter, but we're we're going to arm wrestle over virtually everything after that.
24:25
SPEAKER_00: You know, like we're gonna be completely different on everything else.
24:28
SPEAKER_00: So, so what does genre inform us and and how to read the book?
24:34
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
24:34
SPEAKER_01: Well, I mean, first of all, that those who read my book, they'll see I try to take an irenic tone toward those who disagree with me.
24:44
SPEAKER_01: I'm not out to dunk anybody, and so even though I'm very much not a dispensationalist, and those those folks can be very faithful to God, love, love the Lord, they're in the same camp as me, and that we are all on Team Jesus.
24:58
SPEAKER_01: And and so I don't want to be divisive in the wrong ways over that kind of thing.
25:03
SPEAKER_01: And and I think that a dispensationalist could still get a lot out of my book because it's it is more aimed at holding up King Jesus in all of his glory and uh and showing how John reveals this, and it is about formation.
25:20
SPEAKER_01: And and yes, it there's you know interpretation of various verses, but I do want to say that I I really want to be careful as we enter into these conversations that we're not just dunking on other people.
25:30
SPEAKER_01: Uh, but I think the the genre where one way I think it's really important is it really raises the question of where do I go to to interpret each image?
25:42
SPEAKER_01: And I mentioned a few examples of how people go to like you know, this sort of it kind of pop eschatology that what's been around, especially since about this, especially, especially since the 70s, with how Lenzi releasing his book and then later the Left Behind series.
25:59
SPEAKER_01: And by the way, if you want a great dispensationalist author to read, read Michael Spiegel.
26:04
SPEAKER_01: He's been on our show before.
26:05
SPEAKER_01: He has a book called Fathers on the Future, it's very good, even though I disagree with it.
26:09
SPEAKER_01: But but where I was going with that is a lot of these sort of pop eschatology guys, the ones who get really popular, they're going straight to, oh, this means this and this means that, and they're and they're holding their Bible in one hand and they're holding a newspaper in the other, and it almost feels like pin the eschatological tail on the donkey.
26:29
SPEAKER_01: And we have to go to the Old Testament soil from which it sprouts.
26:34
SPEAKER_01: And so this apocalyptic literature, part of where it's different, like take the Gospels, for instance, Matthew's all about fulfillment, just as the book of Revelation is.
26:43
SPEAKER_01: And Matthew will repeatedly say, It is written, it is written, it is written, or as it was said by the prophet Isaiah, or as it was said in the prophet Hosea, or whatever.
26:53
SPEAKER_01: And he quotes, and and so he has it's almost like a spot check prophecy fulfillment.
27:00
SPEAKER_01: But John is doing something different through apocalyptic literature because apocalyptic literature is visionary and it plays out like a movie.
27:08
SPEAKER_01: And so you can almost think of it as less of a in fact, in the book of Revelation, never does it say as it is written, never does it directly say, hey, and this prophet said.
27:19
SPEAKER_01: There's nothing like that.
27:20
SPEAKER_01: There are about, I think, 404 verses, and the smallest number of allusions or echoes that I've read of the Old Testament is about low 500s.
27:30
SPEAKER_01: I've read there are many as 800 allusions or echoes of the Old Testament.
27:35
SPEAKER_01: So just think about that.
27:36
SPEAKER_01: 400 verses and 500 allusions to the Old Testament.
27:42
SPEAKER_01: Like that's more than one per verse.
27:44
SPEAKER_01: Like John is doing something with this, and it's part of the nature of this apocalyptic.
27:50
SPEAKER_01: Instead of this sort of spot check, he's creating a prophetic collage to try to show hey, this book of Revelation, and I love this because it so belongs at the end of the Bible, it is the climax of prophecy.
28:03
SPEAKER_01: It's where it's like everything is being and ultimately will be fulfilled in Jesus.
28:08
SPEAKER_01: And Revelation is showing us how.
28:10
SPEAKER_01: So it's like you're watching this movie, John's Visions, play out.
28:14
SPEAKER_01: And if you're schooled in the Old Testament, every scene is recalling, oh, that reminds me of Joshua, that reminds me of the Exodus, oh, that reminds me of Abraham, that reminds me of Adam, oh, that reminds me of the Garden.
28:26
SPEAKER_01: And it happens over and over so constantly, average more than one time per verse.
28:32
SPEAKER_01: And I love Richard Baccom is one of my favorite scholars on Revelation.
28:38
SPEAKER_01: He wrote a couple of books.
28:39
SPEAKER_01: One's called The Climax of Prophecy, and the other is, I think, called Theology of Revelation.
28:44
SPEAKER_01: The second one is easier to find, but I but anyway, Richard Baccom, he says this.
28:49
SPEAKER_01: He says the pattern of almost continuous allusion to the Old Testament throughout the book is not haphazard use of Old Testament language by a writer so soaked in the Old Testament that he naturally uses its language.
29:00
SPEAKER_01: In other words, John isn't just like, man, I just think about the Old Testament all the time, so it's just kind of coming out.
29:06
SPEAKER_01: He says, No, John was writing what he understood to be a work of prophetic scripture, the climax of prophetic revelation, which gathered up the meaning of the Old Testament scriptures and disclosed the way in which it was being and was to be fulfilled in the last days.
29:22
SPEAKER_01: And so throughout Revelation, that happens in different ways.
29:25
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes in the in the Old Testament, it'll point to a specific day, the day of the Lord that's coming, and you'll see that exact same kind of imagery that was predicted in the Old Testament fulfilled in the book of Revelation.
29:38
SPEAKER_01: So, in other words, it's like the Old Testament will point to it very explicitly in Revelation, will show how it's being fulfilled.
29:44
SPEAKER_01: But other times it'll be more like a typological rolling sort of fulfillment.
29:49
SPEAKER_01: Like you see, for instance, Daniel chapter 7, Daniel sees four beasts coming out from the sea, which I take the traditional interpretation on that.
29:58
SPEAKER_01: The four beasts are Babylon, Meadow, Persia, Greece, and Rome.
30:03
SPEAKER_01: And so he sees these four beasts coming out of the sea, ultimately judged, and then one like a son of man comes and receives a kingdom from the ancient of days, which I would interpret to be Jesus receiving the kingdom from God the Father.
30:16
SPEAKER_01: But point being, the fourth kingdom is the one where kind of this largely comes to pass in Daniel 7.
30:23
SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of debate over that.
30:25
SPEAKER_01: But what my point is is when you read Revelation 13, he sees images of all four of the beasts.
30:31
SPEAKER_01: The first three, he'll it'll be the exact same imagery.
30:35
SPEAKER_01: And then on the fourth beast, it has a little horn, which represents an anti-god ruler who would rise to power and be extremely terrible.
30:43
SPEAKER_01: Well, he's also on this beast.
30:44
SPEAKER_01: And so where Daniel sees four beasts, John sees one composite beast that has characteristics of all of them.
30:52
SPEAKER_01: And we'll talk more about that in our beast episode.
30:54
SPEAKER_01: But my but here's here's my point.
30:57
SPEAKER_01: Instead of going straight to the newspaper, let's go straight to the Bible.
31:01
SPEAKER_01: Let's interpret Revelation by comparing it with Revelation.
31:04
SPEAKER_01: Let's interpret Revelation by comparing it with the Old Testament.
31:07
SPEAKER_01: And and to be fair, there are those of dispensationalist scholars who do that really well, and I think Spiegel's one of them.
31:13
SPEAKER_01: But but I think that there are those who just get so fixated on wanting to know what is going to happen in 2028 or 29 or whatever, and they they start to make revelation say things it doesn't, because their first association is to go to newspapers instead of the scripture.
31:33
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, when I when I brought up the uh dispensational folks, I certainly didn't mean it as a jab.
31:37
SPEAKER_00: I only meant to say that we come to different conclusions and we're gonna be able to do that.
31:39
SPEAKER_01: I'm just trying to help you out, Josh.
31:41
SPEAKER_01: You could stop bashing our brothers in Christ.
31:43
SPEAKER_00: Appreciate it.
31:44
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, I I love what you said there.
31:46
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna quote your book here.
31:48
SPEAKER_00: Interpreting the symbols of revelation requires us to study the biblical soil from which they sprout.
31:53
SPEAKER_00: I like the the outline that you gave me just now.
31:56
SPEAKER_00: Revelation interprets itself.
31:58
SPEAKER_00: Like you're gonna see a picture, and then later on in the book, the book is going to say, This is what that picture means.
32:03
SPEAKER_00: So, like, revelation is interpreted by revelation.
32:07
SPEAKER_00: Like it a lot of it makes sense when you just keep reading.
32:10
SPEAKER_00: And then you've got the old testament.
32:13
SPEAKER_00: John is quoting this thing out the wazoo, or at least hyperlinking it, whether he's quoting it directly verbatim, or just giving allusions to it.
32:19
SPEAKER_00: We need to know the Old Testament well enough to see those kinds of hyperlinks and those sorts of references.
32:24
SPEAKER_00: You know, I've said it in my church before.
32:26
SPEAKER_00: If I walk into my son's room, telling him to clean the room, and uh, you know, he he said, Hey, everything's been found, uh, he's been he's cleaning everything up.
32:35
SPEAKER_00: He brings the watch to his mom.
32:37
SPEAKER_00: He goes, Hey, mom, I found your your watch in my room when you were tickling me last night, it must have fallen.
32:41
SPEAKER_00: And and my wife picks it up and she goes, Ah, you know, life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're gonna get.
32:46
SPEAKER_00: And then I come in, he's got everything cleaned up, and I'm like, ah, but you know what?
32:49
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of dusty here.
32:50
SPEAKER_00: You need to wax on, wax off.
32:52
SPEAKER_00: You know, people recognize what I'm I'm quoting.
32:55
SPEAKER_00: If I walk out of the room in an Austrian accent and I say, I'll be back, they'll they'll know because their their imagination has been saturated with pop culture that Forrest Gump is quoted, karate kid is quoted, the Terminator is quoted.
33:07
SPEAKER_00: I've never even seen the Terminator, but I know it's being quoted because I my my imagination has been saturated with those hyperlinks.
33:15
SPEAKER_00: And what you're saying is the Old Testament does that.
33:18
SPEAKER_00: So having Revelation interpret Revelation, having the Old Testament inform what's going on in the book of Revelation makes a whole lot of sense.
33:26
SPEAKER_00: But you also say there's a historical worldview to the seven churches.
33:29
SPEAKER_00: And and Matt Chandler has said this, I've heard you say things like this as well, which is hey, what it couldn't mean for them, it can't mean for us, right?
33:36
SPEAKER_00: So, like, if this letter was supposed to bless the seven churches, how is this image of locusts being Apache helicopters actually blessing the first century church?
33:47
SPEAKER_00: It's got to have some kind of meaning and worldview, their worldview, not our worldview that we're using to read the text.
33:55
SPEAKER_00: Because I don't I don't think it's just this kind of Rosetta Stone that when we get to you know 2076 that we're we're gonna finally understand what revelation is because all the historical context pieces are in play.
34:06
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, yeah, no, that that's good.
34:09
SPEAKER_01: I think one of the ways I say it is revelation is for us, but it's not about us.
34:16
SPEAKER_01: It's uh you know, and and a lot of people will read it that way, is though essentially the vast majority of its content really just applied to predicting what's going to happen thousands of years removed from John's time.
34:29
SPEAKER_01: I don't think that's the case.
34:30
SPEAKER_01: And you know, there's a big debate, so the the preterists, which see, I mean, there are even two categories there.
34:37
SPEAKER_01: A full preterist is actually a heretic.
34:40
SPEAKER_01: They don't believe in a future bodily return of Jesus, they believe that he returned spiritually in A.D.
34:44
SPEAKER_01: 70.
34:45
SPEAKER_01: That actually is heresy.
34:46
SPEAKER_01: Please don't ever fall for that.
34:48
SPEAKER_01: Partial partial preterists say, no, there is a future bodily return of Jesus, but the the majority of this was actually fulfilled in the first century.
34:57
SPEAKER_01: And so the partial preterists, and they're usually called preterists just as shorthand, but you usually it means partial preterists, not to be technical.
35:07
SPEAKER_01: But uh but they'll see it as mostly about the remote past.
35:11
SPEAKER_01: And what I like about this view is that they're they're really showing how revelation was written to real churches 2,000 years ago who needed inspiration and hope to suffer through the things that they were suffering through.
35:28
SPEAKER_01: And so I like that they that they focus on that.
35:31
SPEAKER_01: On the other hand, and that I would also say this there are those who've who put it entirely on the future.
35:38
SPEAKER_01: I don't think that's that's good, but what I do appreciate about them is that there is a lot in revelation that is about what is yet to come, about the future.
35:48
SPEAKER_01: And so what I just want to say is it wasn't written just for the remote past, just for the remote future, but it was actually written for all of us, and and that there are aspects of it that are that are being fulfilled, and there are aspects that will be fulfilled, and so on.
36:05
SPEAKER_01: And we can talk seals, trumpets, bowls.
36:08
SPEAKER_01: I mean, everybody seems to have a different view of that.
36:12
SPEAKER_01: You know, it's kind of funny.
36:13
SPEAKER_01: I I take like my interpretation more resembles George Ladd, who's a futurist, on seals, trumpets, bowls.
36:20
SPEAKER_01: However, I don't consider myself a futurist in the same way.
36:25
SPEAKER_01: So I mean I there are all there's there's a spectrum, and it's really hard to pin somebody on exactly this or exactly that.
36:33
SPEAKER_01: There are other aspects of revelation where I take more of an idealist view.
36:37
SPEAKER_01: Idealist doesn't mean like you're Pollyanna about the world and everything's just gonna be rosy.
36:43
SPEAKER_01: That's not what it means.
36:44
SPEAKER_01: Idealist means that you're they tend to have a very symbolic view of the book of Revelation.
36:51
SPEAKER_01: So they might view the seals, trumpets, and bowls as synchronous symbols that essentially all mean the same thing.
36:58
SPEAKER_01: God judges bad stuff when it happens.
37:00
SPEAKER_01: I think I I disagree with that, and we'll have future episodes where we talk about why.
37:05
SPEAKER_01: Uh, but there are aspects that do take this sort of trans historical, trans cultural idea.
37:11
SPEAKER_01: Like I do think the image of the beast isn't just for the first century, isn't just for an antichrist figure at the very end.
37:19
SPEAKER_01: I think it spans all of uh redemptive history, and so and so I I'm a little bit of a blend of some of these, and there's more.
37:27
SPEAKER_01: There's another one called Historicist and so on.
37:29
SPEAKER_01: But but yeah, Josh, back to back to your point, I think.
37:35
SPEAKER_01: Actually, I forgot what your point was.
37:37
SPEAKER_01: Remind me what your point was.
37:38
SPEAKER_00: I just oh man, the last the last thing I brought up was just uh the way that we read the book, using the context of Revelation, letting Revelation interpret itself, letting the Old Testament be informed, be saturated with Old Testament imagery to help understand the book of Revelation and understand the historical context of the first century.
37:59
SPEAKER_01: You know, you you mentioned just now that where I was going with it was because you were talking about Chandler and his wanting to be very careful to say, like, hey, it can't just be for the so-called terminal generation, the last generations of Christians, because it can't mean like it has to have meant something to that first century church, right?
38:21
SPEAKER_01: The ones to which it was directly written, it had to have meant something for them, besides, hey, most of this doesn't apply to you, but thousands of years down the road, it's gonna matter to somebody.
38:29
SPEAKER_01: Like it couldn't have meant that.
38:31
SPEAKER_01: And so I just think revelation is for all of us, all of it is for all of us, and I would just emphasize that, and probably these other guys, people in different camps would concede that point, but I think that practically a lot of times the book is just made to made into uh it's pretty much mostly fulfilled.
38:49
SPEAKER_01: We're just waiting for Jesus to come back on one side, or pretty much none of it has been fulfilled, it's all future.
38:55
SPEAKER_01: I would oppose both of those, I think those are too stark.
38:58
SPEAKER_01: I'm on the spectrum in between that.
39:00
SPEAKER_01: I'm on the spectrum, Josh.
39:01
SPEAKER_01: You're for sure on I knew you were gonna pick up on that.
39:04
SPEAKER_01: So there is one more.
39:06
SPEAKER_01: Should we talk about recapitulation a little bit?
39:09
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I we've got some of the symbolic stuff.
39:12
SPEAKER_00: I think you've camped out on some of the symbolic stuff when it comes to futurist and preterist and those sorts of things.
39:19
SPEAKER_00: But recapitulation is something that's a fun word to say.
39:22
SPEAKER_00: Recapitulation is an interesting picture of things kind of my understanding you're right to be being done almost in like cyclical sort of patterns.
39:31
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
39:32
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, cyclical patterns.
39:34
SPEAKER_01: So John doesn't just beeline to final judgment.
39:37
SPEAKER_01: You could think of it like a helicopter that's circling closer and closer until it gets closer to the carnage, and then it's like right in front of it.
39:44
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
39:45
SPEAKER_01: So, for instance, I mean, you even see this gradually increasing, escalating idea.
39:50
SPEAKER_01: So, Revelation chapter four, there are Sinai-like storm clouds around the throne.
39:56
SPEAKER_01: So it portends judgment.
39:59
SPEAKER_01: And so God is sovereign on his throne before the judgment falls.
40:03
SPEAKER_01: So we're reminded, hey, before it gets really bad, God's on his throne, he's in charge, Revelation 5.
40:09
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is already one.
40:10
SPEAKER_01: Let's keep these things in mind before we get to all the hard stuff.
40:14
SPEAKER_01: But the the point being, there's these Sinai clouds, dark, thunderous peals of thunder, and so on.
40:20
SPEAKER_01: And then there's more, I think, in chapter 6, and then chapter um chapter 11 has some more, chapter 16 has some more, and each time it grows and increases.
40:33
SPEAKER_01: So by the time you get to Revelation 16, it's not just the storm clouds and the peals of thunder, it's also an earthquake that shakes all the cities of the earth, and no earthquake was ever like it.
40:42
SPEAKER_01: And now we're throwing in giant hailstones, and and so it just gets more intensified.
40:48
SPEAKER_01: And I would view these as not different things, I would view this as it is at least all connected.
40:54
SPEAKER_01: And and so I I want to follow that thread from beginning to end of Revelation and not see everything as just this complete distinct randomness.
41:03
SPEAKER_01: And but like the the more obvious recapitulation, which pretty much everyone agrees on, would be like the return of Jesus, for instance.
41:10
SPEAKER_01: So Revelation chapter six, the sixth seal is opened, and Jesus is basically at the door, people are crying out for rocks to fall on their head and for the lamb, uh, you know, who can rescue us from the wrath of God and of the lamb and so on.
41:22
SPEAKER_01: So he's right at the door after the sixth trumpet, or sorry, sixth seal.
41:27
SPEAKER_01: And then and then he comes in the opening of the seventh seal, which delays a little bit in Revelation, which actually it's seventh seal, more like seventh trumpet, but you get seals and then you get like more trumpets, and then you get to the seventh trumpet and it's seven more bowls.
41:44
SPEAKER_01: So it's like this accordion that kind of opens, and it's like, oh, or to use another another metaphor, it's like a magnif or a magnifying glass with ever-increasing magnification on it.
41:53
SPEAKER_01: And so if Christ returns essentially in chapter six, I mean he's right at the door, definitely comes back in Revelation chapter 11.
42:02
SPEAKER_01: We see him riding the white horse and Armageddon coming back in victory, Revelation 19.
42:08
SPEAKER_01: So you got Christ coming back multiple times.
42:10
SPEAKER_01: That doesn't mean he comes back multiple times.
42:13
SPEAKER_01: That's that's not what that's talking about.
42:14
SPEAKER_01: So that's recapitulation, that's what scholars call it.
42:17
SPEAKER_01: I call it instant replay.
42:19
SPEAKER_01: Or if you want to use more of a movie analogy, you could call it flashback.
42:23
SPEAKER_01: And so when you're reading Revelation, you want to your mind.
42:27
SPEAKER_01: That's just if you've grown up in Western culture, you kind of think left to right, we go chronologically, we go in order.
42:34
SPEAKER_01: But even as you watch movies, they don't all do that.
42:36
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes there will be a flashback, and the movie will have some kind of way of designating that.
42:42
SPEAKER_01: Maybe the screen turns like hazy yellow or something.
42:44
SPEAKER_01: But they can there can be flashbacks and movies can jump back and forth.
42:47
SPEAKER_01: That's what apocalyptic literature does.
42:50
SPEAKER_01: Everyone agrees it happened some.
42:52
SPEAKER_01: The question is, how much?
42:54
SPEAKER_01: And so that'll affect, for instance, people's interpretation of the millennium, the thousand-year reign of Christ.
42:59
SPEAKER_01: Some would say it's instant replay.
43:01
SPEAKER_01: Oh, he's just showing what already happened, others from a different angle, and others will say, Well, no, this is chronologically progressing in time.
43:09
SPEAKER_01: This is post-Jesus' return, etc.
43:12
SPEAKER_01: And so when you're reading, you have to ask yourself the question is this sequentially, chronologically, after what came before, or is this an instant replay?
43:25
SPEAKER_01: Am I going back and watching something that came before?
43:29
SPEAKER_01: Is the magnification getting in so that I can see more clearly what's already happened?
43:35
SPEAKER_01: So we have to ask ourselves those questions, and there are intertextual clues.
43:40
SPEAKER_01: And so in my book, I try to help bring that to light.
43:42
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I write it with scholarship in mind, quote a lot, I quote and refer to a lot of scholars, but I write it for ordinary everyday people.
43:49
SPEAKER_01: And so I try to just help those things come to light because when you read all the commentaries, it can get pretty dense, pretty scholarly, pretty difficult, pretty quick.
44:00
SPEAKER_01: So, but recapitulation, Josh, is a huge part of revelation to unpack.
44:06
SPEAKER_00: You you mentioned a moment ago different views, uh, just broad views.
44:10
SPEAKER_00: It's not like historic pre-mill or post-mill or omil.
44:13
SPEAKER_00: Like you're not, you're not getting into all like the granulars of ways people you know parse the millennium or when the tribulation takes place, but you just say, hey, there are general interpretive lenses by which people read things.
44:25
SPEAKER_00: There's the full preterist, we go heretic, we've got the vast majority of people who are actual preterists or partial preterists, as you mentioned.
44:33
SPEAKER_00: Futurists, you talked about idealist, there are historicists.
44:38
SPEAKER_00: Those are all the kind of various views, at least, and maybe I've left one out that you want to add in.
44:43
SPEAKER_00: But but in that, can you maybe give us the four big ones?
44:46
SPEAKER_00: Those are the four big ones, yeah.
44:48
SPEAKER_00: Can can you give us the essential belief systems of those things, what they get right, what they get wrong?
44:53
SPEAKER_00: Because I think with anything, when you're looking at really, I mean, all of these to some degree are reputable theological positions and they have merit.
45:03
SPEAKER_00: And here on this show we're we're kind of theological muts.
45:05
SPEAKER_00: We're we're gonna Take and adopt what works and what seems biblical and right.
45:09
SPEAKER_00: So walk us through the views.
45:11
SPEAKER_00: Where are their strengths?
45:12
SPEAKER_00: Where are their weaknesses?
45:13
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
45:14
SPEAKER_01: Okay, well, preterist, and when I say preterist, I'm gonna speak of partial preterist because I am writing off full preterist, it is full heresy.
45:23
SPEAKER_01: But partial preterism or preterism, as I'm calling it.
45:28
SPEAKER_01: So, like I said, I like that they identify the danger of Rome.
45:33
SPEAKER_01: And a lot of what is playing out in the book of Revelation would be deeply relevant to churches in Asia Minor struggling where, financially speaking, for instance, if they don't comply, they're not gonna be able to get into certain trade guilds.
45:51
SPEAKER_01: And so they're gonna really struggle financially.
45:53
SPEAKER_01: They're gonna be left on the outside.
45:54
SPEAKER_01: So those those kinds of challenges, they they play out as say, like Revelation 13, where you have a beast, really two beasts, and there's persecution that involves economics.
46:08
SPEAKER_01: So I like that preterist identified that sort of thing.
46:12
SPEAKER_01: Like this was really important for churches inside of the Roman Empire to have hope and encouragement, and honestly, a little bit of prodding, a little bit of challenge to help them make it to the end of their race.
46:28
SPEAKER_01: They needed this as they struggled against the Roman Empire.
46:32
SPEAKER_01: I think the preterists nail that.
46:34
SPEAKER_01: I think they do a good job on that.
46:35
SPEAKER_01: I just wouldn't limit it to that.
46:38
SPEAKER_01: Like take John's Beast, for instance.
46:40
SPEAKER_01: It has all four of the beasts from Revelation chapter 13.
46:45
SPEAKER_01: I think they've over-identified it with Rome, because if it was all Rome, then it would have only been the fourth beast, but it has characteristics of all four.
46:52
SPEAKER_01: That's why I like to say I believe the beast spans all of church history and in a way pre-church history, since it really sprung from Daniel's vision of the beasts in chapter 7.
47:05
SPEAKER_01: So I think they over-identify with Rome, but they're good to identify with Rome.
47:10
SPEAKER_01: The other thing that you have to think about, if you're going to be a partial preterist, then you the interpret their interpretation of the book is of Revelation is going to require an earlier date for revelation, because in Revelation 11, for instance, there's a temple.
47:26
SPEAKER_01: There is a more literalist dynamic there where they they see the temple as being the literal Jewish temple.
47:33
SPEAKER_01: And we can talk about that if we want.
48:43
SPEAKER_01: So there are lots of historical days of the Lord, but they all pointed to the final, ultimate day of the Lord.
48:48
SPEAKER_01: And I believe that day plays out over time.
48:51
SPEAKER_01: And I think the trumpets and the bulls portray that.
48:55
SPEAKER_01: And so I think futurists are are good when they they highlight, yeah, there is a day of the Lord coming and they focus on these future events, but I I think they over-identify with they over-identify, it depends on which futurists you're talking about.
49:08
SPEAKER_01: Some of them over-identify with Rome in a different direction, where instead of like a past Roman Empire, they'll see a boomeranging back on the scene future Roman Empire.
49:18
SPEAKER_01: And and you know, I I think they they can make a decent case for it from Revelation or from Daniel chapter seven, but I would have a different interpretation, which we don't have time to go into, but we will in a future episode.
49:30
SPEAKER_01: But I think they over-identify with Rome.
49:32
SPEAKER_01: I think the beast is more composite.
49:34
SPEAKER_01: I don't think that it's just one uh empire.
49:38
SPEAKER_01: And if you're a dispensational futurist, I think I think at least those who look for a rapture in Revelation chapter four when John is caught up into heaven, I don't think that works.
49:49
SPEAKER_01: We'll talk about that on our rapture episode.
49:52
SPEAKER_01: There are other futurists like pre-Wrath Rapture.
49:55
SPEAKER_01: We'll probably have to say that for a future episode, but I don't think that the text agrees with those interpretations.
50:01
SPEAKER_01: Historicists is the other.
50:03
SPEAKER_01: So we've hit preterist and futurists historicist is basically what I like about historicism is it does show, like, hey, revelation applies to all of church history.
50:13
SPEAKER_01: I think that's good, but if you read the history of historicists, they basically have to keep correcting themselves because, you know, oh, well, this is the Ottoman Turks.
50:23
SPEAKER_01: Oh, well, dang, no, it's not the Ottoman Turks.
50:25
SPEAKER_01: Oh, this is these people, there that's those people, and they keep having to revise who it is.
50:32
SPEAKER_01: You kind of hear, even if they don't adopt the label historicist, it is technically historicists what they're saying.
50:36
SPEAKER_01: Maybe you've heard, for instance, somebody says, Oh, you know, we are the Laodicea, we live in a Laodicean age.
50:44
SPEAKER_01: And what they mean by that is of the seven churches, Laodicea was the seventh of those churches.
50:49
SPEAKER_01: Laodicea was wealthy, but Jesus calls them poor.
50:53
SPEAKER_01: He says, You're rich, but you're truly poor.
50:55
SPEAKER_01: And let me show you that you're poor, wretched, miserable, blind, and naked.
50:59
SPEAKER_01: So, because of all their wealth, they were blinded to their spiritual bankruptcy.
51:02
SPEAKER_01: And so Jesus, Jesus comes to them, he warns them, but he also gives them a promise.
51:07
SPEAKER_01: And and so historicists will look at that and they'll say, Oh, well, these seven churches, it's almost like a frog jumping on a lily pad through history.
51:15
SPEAKER_01: And you start with the church in Ephesus, okay, and that was the apostolic age, and then you go to the church in Smyrna, and that was the age of persecution, etc.
51:23
SPEAKER_01: And it's just it's actually not true to church history, even.
51:27
SPEAKER_01: Because, okay, Laodicean age, tell that to the church in North Korea.
51:31
SPEAKER_01: How are they the Laodicean age?
51:34
SPEAKER_01: It's, in my opinion, ethnocentric, written from or it's stated from a Western perspective.
51:40
SPEAKER_01: By the way, a lot of just interpretations you get of Revelation are essentially a Western perspective.
51:44
SPEAKER_01: You know, kings of the East, oh, that must be the Chinese.
51:47
SPEAKER_01: It's like, well, to the Chinese, what's east of them, right?
51:49
SPEAKER_01: So, and we'll talk probably talk about Kings of the East at some point, but I think it's an ethnocentric view.
51:57
SPEAKER_01: Historicism can be that I would want to be careful about because I but it also doesn't make sense to them.
52:03
SPEAKER_01: All seven of those churches, let me what last thing, all seven of those churches existed in the first century.
52:08
SPEAKER_01: So suggesting that it's like hopping through epics, it's like, well, actually, all seven existed then, all seven have existed all throughout church history.
52:15
SPEAKER_01: And you'll find some churches that are more wealthy and some that are more poor, and some that are more persecuted, and some that are flirting with heresy.
52:21
SPEAKER_01: The whole smorgasbord of what you find in two with chapters two and three, you find in the church throughout the whole age.
52:26
SPEAKER_01: So I don't think historicism works.
52:28
SPEAKER_01: There's idealism too, but you were trying to talk.
52:30
SPEAKER_00: No, I I was that was this very thing I was gonna say.
52:33
SPEAKER_00: I was I was just thinking, like, well, you know, uh when you and I both lived in Fort Worth, your church was 30 minutes from my church, and it was in a more middle class area, whereas in the church that I was pastoring at was in a very impoverished area.
52:48
SPEAKER_00: And you could potentially look to middle class folks in your community and be like, hey, you think you're rich, but you're actually miserable and poor, and like maybe that would apply to them, but it certainly is not going to apply to the people 30 minutes down the road.
53:01
SPEAKER_00: So, like it I was just gonna make the same point you did, which is in the first century that wasn't true.
53:06
SPEAKER_00: They weren't living in epics, this was literal churches.
53:08
SPEAKER_00: And can it be true?
53:10
SPEAKER_00: I think that the preaching point works, right?
53:13
SPEAKER_00: Like, we can take the application.
53:15
SPEAKER_00: You know, if I'm if I'm in a church that's really legalistic, I can go and teach through the book of Galatians and like have them not lean on their own works, but to to look to Christ for their righteousness, and that would be a good application.
53:28
SPEAKER_00: The book's not written about my church, but it's certainly written for my church.
53:32
SPEAKER_00: And I and if you have a rich church that you know is not caring for those around them, sure, you can preach the Laodicea to them, but it's not church of every true of every age necessarily, and I think that's uh I mean it's a fair point.
53:45
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
53:45
SPEAKER_01: So the way I I try to think of it, I mean, there are there are aspects that I I might sound more preterist, and others where I might sound more futurist, and somebody's cheering for this, and someone's cheering for that.
53:57
SPEAKER_01: I think there is a spectrum, and and I just uh I tend to think of it like this there's a first century fulfillment.
54:06
SPEAKER_01: I'm looking for what did it mean for those seven historical churches?
54:09
SPEAKER_01: There's a first century fulfillment for at least parts of these, and I think an argument can be made, and this is where I would agree with partial preterists.
54:16
SPEAKER_01: Uh, you if you compare the first five seals of Revelation chapter six with the Olivet Discourse and the beginning of birth pangs, there's a lot of similarities there.
54:25
SPEAKER_01: And I think an argument can be made that the first five seals were largely fulfilled in the first century.
54:32
SPEAKER_01: But I think the martyrdom seal, if you connect the martyrs crying out from under the altar in chapter five, yes, there were certainly martyrs in the first century, but if you connect those with the martyrs who are of every tongue, tribe, and nation and wearing white robes and waving palm branches in Revelation chapter 7, and these are those who come out of the Great Tribulation, it seems like something that goes beyond anything that happened in the first century.
54:59
SPEAKER_01: And oh man, we'd probably have to talk about Great Tribulation at some point, but not today.
55:02
SPEAKER_01: But here's my point: I would say I look for a first century fulfillment, I look for a church age pattern.
55:09
SPEAKER_01: Whether that be certain kinds of judgments, I do see the seals as being most of them being fulfilled throughout this age in various ways, which is distinct from trumpets and bowls, which I see as culminating at the end, toward the end.
55:22
SPEAKER_01: Anyway, but first century fulfillment, church age pattern, and then a future culmination where it all comes together.
55:29
SPEAKER_01: And that's generally speaking, not perfectly, but generally speaking, how I would interpret the book of Revelation.
55:37
SPEAKER_01: And, you know, I said this to my church on Sunday because I'm preaching through Daniel.
55:42
SPEAKER_01: I think we have to approach this with some theological humility.
55:45
SPEAKER_01: And I think every single person is going to have their eschatology a little bit corrected after Jesus comes back.
55:52
SPEAKER_01: And so I think we have to have some theological humility, and so I think we have to treat each other with respect in that.
56:00
SPEAKER_01: But that's that's generally how I'd interpret it.
56:02
SPEAKER_00: Okay, Michael, we've got just a few minutes left in the program.
56:05
SPEAKER_00: So I want you to, if possible, walk me through the various tools that the listeners are gonna be using throughout this series to interpret the book of Revelation uh a little bit more, a little bit better, uh maybe recap some of the stuff that we've kind of discussed, the additional stuff we've left out.
56:21
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
56:23
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna go fast because I actually wrote down in my notes a list of tools.
56:27
SPEAKER_01: And so we've I think we pretty much hit on these, okay?
56:30
SPEAKER_01: So, but it'll be a good summary.
56:32
SPEAKER_01: Number one, tool number one, identify the genre before interpreting the details.
56:37
SPEAKER_01: Before you're jumping to Eagle Wings are America, identify the genre.
56:41
SPEAKER_01: Number two, begin with the old testament, not the news.
56:45
SPEAKER_01: There there are more allusions to the old testament than there are verses in Revelation.
56:50
SPEAKER_01: Tool number three, respect the first audience.
56:53
SPEAKER_01: Revelation is for us, but it's not about us.
56:57
SPEAKER_01: And so we it was originally written to these seven churches.
57:01
SPEAKER_01: The next tool, look for re-recapitulation instead of assuming chronology.
57:06
SPEAKER_01: So each time you're coming to a new section, a new vision, a new chapter, ask yourself: is this a flashback?
57:12
SPEAKER_01: Is this an instant replay of what came before?
57:15
SPEAKER_01: Is this fall it's chronological in the sequence of chapters in Revelation, but is it chronological in time as it's playing out in history?
57:21
SPEAKER_01: You have to ask yourself that, and there can be clues in the text.
57:25
SPEAKER_01: Next, let symbols be both historical and typological.
57:29
SPEAKER_01: So so for instance, this I can absolutely affirm this this symbol here represented what was happening in Rome.
57:38
SPEAKER_01: I just wouldn't say Rome exhausts the symbol.
57:41
SPEAKER_01: Uh next one, follow John's pastoral purpose.
57:44
SPEAKER_01: John is encouraging us toward repentance, toward endurance, toward worship, toward witness, toward resistance to beastly governmental powers that violate the word of God, etc.
57:56
SPEAKER_01: So follow his pastoral purpose.
57:59
SPEAKER_01: One of the things I say in my book is that a posture of humility, more than perfect eschatology, will help us endure till the end of the age.
58:08
SPEAKER_01: And so that posture of humility is the statement he repeats to all the churches, he who has ears, let him hear what the spirit says to the churches.
58:16
SPEAKER_01: Take those messages in, because the message to any one church is for all the churches.
58:20
SPEAKER_01: He says, Let them hear what the spirit says to the churches.
58:23
SPEAKER_01: So we're to hear all those messages as if they're for us.
58:26
SPEAKER_01: And so, yes, originally written to them, but it is for us and with us in mind.
58:32
SPEAKER_01: Okay, and man, keep Jesus at the center.
58:34
SPEAKER_01: It is the revelation of Jesus Christ.
58:36
SPEAKER_01: And what a shame that this book that is centrally about revealing Jesus in glory is a book that so many of us have been terrified of, afraid to really dive into, so confused, we've just stayed away from it, whatever.
58:52
SPEAKER_01: But man, it just shines the spotlight on the glory of Jesus.
58:57
SPEAKER_01: And so keep Jesus at the center.
59:00
SPEAKER_01: And that is central, not what's the timeline, what's the chart gonna say.
59:04
SPEAKER_01: I need to get my my flip chart just right, so I'll be ready for the end times.
59:08
SPEAKER_01: You can have the right chart and not be ready for Jesus.
59:12
SPEAKER_01: If you want to be ready for Jesus, open your ears to hear and repent.
59:15
SPEAKER_01: That's the that's the message of revelation.
59:17
SPEAKER_01: And then just we have to hold our conclusions with measured conviction, not being end times crusaders where everyone, everyone's wrong except me is just I mean, it's socially unacceptable, Josh, but it's it's unchristianly, I would say.
59:34
SPEAKER_01: So so hold your your convictions in a measured way.
59:38
SPEAKER_01: So that I think that's what I would say.
59:41
SPEAKER_00: I think dispensationalists are our brothers too.
59:43
SPEAKER_00: Settle down, geez.
59:44
SPEAKER_00: There it is.
59:44
SPEAKER_00: There it is.
59:45
SPEAKER_00: Brought it back up.
59:46
SPEAKER_00: I don't I feel like that last one was pointed at me.
59:49
SPEAKER_00: Listen, guys.
59:50
SPEAKER_01: Oh, go ahead.
59:52
SPEAKER_01: Oh, I do want to say, so I have a I have a dummy book behind me.
59:56
SPEAKER_01: It's not here if I can try to point at it.
59:58
SPEAKER_01: It's not my real book.
59:59
SPEAKER_01: It's a it's a dummy book because it's not quite out yet.
1:00:02
SPEAKER_01: It comes out October 20th.
1:00:03
SPEAKER_01: But if you guys want to pre-order the book, it's at any retailer you want to go to, Christian Book, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, whatever.
1:00:10
SPEAKER_01: And if you want to pre-order, helps us get the message out.
1:00:14
SPEAKER_01: And pre-order, actually, you get a few bonuses, three different bonuses, includes a commentary on the book of Daniel, chapter seven, and and a couple of other things.
1:00:23
SPEAKER_01: So hopefully you'll consider that.
1:00:25
SPEAKER_01: But either way, I'm just happy to talk about talk about Revelation because uh this is a truth for all of us.
1:00:31
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's great.
1:00:32
SPEAKER_00: Hey, what's the best place to pre-order?
1:00:35
SPEAKER_01: I mean, honestly, they're all good.
1:00:37
SPEAKER_01: Go to Christianbook.com, go to Amazon.com.
1:00:41
SPEAKER_01: It's not in a bookstore until October 20th, but so before then, just search for it online, you'll find it.
1:00:46
SPEAKER_00: Or you guys can come out to the Remnant Conference, right?
1:00:49
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna have to have a couple of books real early.
1:00:51
SPEAKER_00: If you really want to get it quick, because Zondervan was like, Yeah, we can do that.
1:00:58
SPEAKER_01: They're gonna have the books, the they're the premature prematurely delivered books, Josh.
1:01:05
SPEAKER_01: On the October 1st through 3rd is our conference.
1:01:08
SPEAKER_01: And so we're gonna have those, even though it comes out on October 20th.
1:01:12
SPEAKER_01: So yeah, come and get it and I'll I'll sign your book if you want to come to that.
1:01:15
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, excellent.
1:01:16
SPEAKER_00: Well, guys, thank you so much for tuning into this episode.
1:01:18
SPEAKER_00: We hope that this helps you understand the book of Revelation a little bit more.
1:01:22
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna be coming out with more content just like this one.
1:01:24
SPEAKER_00: This is a big overview, really interesting stuff, really engaging stuff, but man, our other content is gonna be more into the granular details than uh kind of big overarching study.
1:01:35
SPEAKER_00: So if you're wanting to really know a mark of the beast, if you really want to know who's the the false prophet, you know, who's who's you know, the abomination that makes desolate, those kinds of things we're gonna be discussing in this series.
1:01:49
SPEAKER_00: So make sure to subscribe, like the videos as we're coming out with content just like this every week.
1:01:53
SPEAKER_00: Guys, thank you so much for tuning in.
1:01:54
SPEAKER_00: We'll see you next time.