Revelation, End Time Speculations, and Forehead Tattoos

Martin Luther didn’t think it should’ve been included in the Bible. John Calvin’s commentary set is curiously missing material on it. Maybe I’m looking in the wrong places but I can find barely any church fathers in the 2nd or 3rd centuries that bothered to comment exhaustively on the book of Revelation.
Today, however, everyone’s an expert. Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins have the market cornered on End Times scenarios and Kirk Cameron is their poster boy. Tell anyone you’re about to start studying or preaching on Revelation and the discussion about helicopters that look like locusts and microchip credit cards implanted under our skin are barely irrepressible.
But is this what the Apostle John wants from us when we sit down to study “The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants the things which must soon take place” (Rev. 1:1)? Do we miss the intended meaning of Revelation when we treat it like a crystal ball? Am I being too rhetorical? I think the answer to these questions is certainly a big, fat yes.
As I write this it has been only a few hours since I’ve finished leading our youth group through a seventh-month odyssey in the book of Revelation. After our last meeting I seriously considered fleeing to Sioux Falls and having “Never Again” tattooed on my forehead.
I say this because our staff at Central Valley Community Church in SD is preparing to preach through this book on Sunday mornings and I don’t think any of us really know what we’re in for. For instance, when most people think about the book of Revelation, topics and speculation about the future is a big part of what they picture. In reality, Revelation is one of, if not the one book in the whole New Testament that relies MOST on language, theology, and events from the Old Testament. In 1:19 Jesus tells John,

“Write therefore the things that you have seen, those that are and those that are to take place after this.”

Here we are briefly introduced to the fact that Revelation is going to symbolically and beautifully describe God’s redemptive plans, Christian tribulation, and the judgment of wickedness all throughout history as well as in the future. More than that, there are actually commands within the book. I’d never thought about that before I really started studying the book itself. Think about it. If there are commands in the book, it means that most of the book was immediately relevant to the original audience. The original audience was given a book not to speculate about how prophetic material was going to literally unfold but to obey the teaching within it.

“Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near” (Rev. 1:3).




In chapters two and three alone we read Christ exhort the churches in Asia with these commands:

Repent from your lack of love (2:5)
Be faithful unto death (2:10)
Repent of idolatry and sexual immorality (2:4-16)
Hold fast to good teaching (2:25)
Wake up from dead works (3:2)
Continue to endure (3:11)
Be zealous and repent (3:19)

In each, Christ promises a reward to those who obey and conquer (a continual theme in the book). These passages are obviously instructive because they are written to seven churches, but what about the rest of the book with all its metaphors, imagery and apocalyptic depth?
All of it serves to demonstrate the glory of Christ and therefore, the hope inherent in our perseverance. This is one thing that amazes me about Revelation. In the first three chapters each church is told to overcome or conquer. Each reward for conquering corresponds with an aspect of the New Jerusalem in 21:9-22:5. John is told in 21:9 he is about to see “the bride, the wife of the Lamb,” that is the church: all believers whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life. What does he see? He sees the New Jerusalem. This New Jerusalem has no temple for “the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple” (21:22). There no longer exists any need for mediation between God and men. Sin is gone. Death is gone. All that we live for is communion with God and with Christ the Almighty. This is our hope and our reason for perseverance and it is the purpose of “the revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants the things which must soon take place” (Rev. 1:1).
As a student of God’s word, privileged with the duty of proclaiming God’s word to the body of Christ, I can’t wait for Revelation to tear down our traditions and speculations and simply teach us and command us, that we may have the opportunity to bend our knees before the Holy and Risen Christ who is Supreme over all creation.