Book of Revelation, Revelations, Apocalypse

General Information

The Book of Revelation is the last book of the New Testament of the Bible. Its title comes from the first verse of the text, "the revelation of Jesus Christ . . . to his servant John." The book is also called The Apocalypse, and it is the only piece of New Testament writing cast almost entirely in the apocalyptic mode. Irenaeus states that Revelation was written during the reign of the Roman emperor Domitian, probably about AD 95. Tradition asserts that the apostle Saint John wrote Revelation during his exile on Patmos. Some scholars do not accept this attribution because of the stylistic differences between Revelation and the other works attributed to John - the Gospel and Epistles.

After a prologue, the book comprises two main parts. The first (chaps. 2 - 3) contains letters to the seven churches of Asia, warning them against false teachers and offering encouragement. The rest consists of a series of visions, replete with allegories, numbers and other symbols, and a strong eschatological message. These features are characteristic of the apocalyptic writing then in vogue.

Interpretation of the Book of Revelation has been a source of much controversy. Some have held that it had a message only for the 1st century world. Others maintain that the book is a prophecy to be fulfilled totally in the future (see Millenarianism). Undoubtedly, John spoke to the situation of his day. The letters to the seven churches indicate a situation of crisis, probably brought on by Roman persecutions of the Christians. From his understanding of the revelation of God for his day, he painted a vision of God's final triumph over evil that has sustained many Christians in later eras.

In the Book of Revelation, John is interpreting the significance of the cross and resurrection for the future, be it near or distant. He declares their meaning for time and history until the end. God is on his throne (chap. 4); Christ has won the victory (chap. 5); God is at work in the midst of apparent chaos (seals, trumpets, and bowls). The true victors are those called out in Christ from every tongue, nation, and people (chaps. 5, 20). Although God's work in history has been hidden except to eyes of faith, the final stanza will reveal that all history has truly been his story (chaps. 17, 20). The victory won in history by the cross will be displayed in history by the return, and God will ultimately be revealed as all in all (chaps. 21, 22).

Douglas Ezell

Bibliography
W J Abraham, Divine Revelation and the Limits of Historical Criticism (1982); J Baillie, The Idea of Revelation in Recent Thought (1956); J W Bowman, The First Christian Drama: The Book of Revelation (1968); E Brunner, Revelation and Reason (1984); A Dulles, Models of Revelation (1983); J Ellul, Apocalypse: The Book of Revelation (1977); W J Harrington, The Apocalypse of St. John: A Commentary (1969); W G Heidt, The Book of the Apocalypse (1962); G Moran, Theology of Revelation (1966); R Niebuhr, The Meaning of Revelation (1967).

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Book of Revelation

Brief Outline

1. Christ the critic of the Churches (1:1-3:22)
2. Series of seals, trumpets and bowls; God's Judgment upon a world controlled by evil (4:1-16:21)
3. Overthrow of evil society, religion and government in the destruction of Babylon and the defeat of the beast and his armies by Christ (17:1-21:8)
4. Establishment of the city of God, the Eternal Destiny of His people (21:9-22:5)
5. Epilogue: appeal and invitation (22:6-21)

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Revela'tion

Advanced Information

Revelation is an uncovering, a bringing to light of that which had been previously wholly hidden or only obscurely seen. God has been pleased in various ways and at different times (Heb. 1:1) to make a supernatural revelation of himself and his purposes and plans, which, under the guidance of his Spirit, has been committed to writing. (See WORD OF GOD.) The Scriptures are not merely the "record" of revelation; they are the revelation itself in a written form, in order to the accurate presevation and propagation of the truth. Revelation and inspiration differ. Revelation is the supernatural communication of truth to the mind; inspiration (q.v.) secures to the teacher or writer infallibility in communicating that truth to others. It renders its subject the spokesman or prophet of God in such a sense that everything he asserts to be true, whether fact or doctrine or moral principle, is true, infallibly true.

(Easton Illustrated Dictionary)

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Book of Revela'tion = The Apocalypse

Advanced Information

The Book of Revelation is the closing book and the only prophetical book of the New Testament canon. The author of this book was undoubtedly John the apostle. His name occurs four times in the book itself (1:1, 4, 9; 22:8), and there is every reason to conclude that the "John" here mentioned was the apostle. In a manuscript of about the twelfth century he is called "John the divine," but no reason can be assigned for this appellation.

The date of the writing of this book has generally been fixed at A.D.96, in the reign of Domitian. There are some, however, who contend for an earlier date, A.D. 68 or 69, in the reign of Nero. Those who are in favour of the later date appeal to the testimony of the Christian father Irenaeus, who received information relative to this book from those who had seen John face to face.

He says that the Apocalypse "was seen no long time ago." As to the relation between this book and the Gospel of John, it has been well observed that "the leading ideas of both are the same. The one gives us in a magnificent vision, the other in a great historic drama, the supreme conflict between good and evil and its issue. In both Jesus Christ is the central figure, whose victory through defeat is the issue of the conflict. In both the Jewish dispensation is the preparation for the gospel, and the warfare and triumph of the Christ is described in language saturated with the Old Testament The difference of date will go a long way toward explaining the difference of style." Plummer's Gospel of St. John, Introd.

(Easton Illustrated Dictionary)

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General Revelation

Advanced Information

Revelation General is that divine disclosure to all persons at all times and places by which one comes to know that God is, and what he is like. While not imparting saving truths such as the Trinity, incarnation, or atonement, general revelation mediates the conviction that God exists and that he is self-sufficient, transcendent, immanent, eternal, powerful, wise, good, and righteous. General, or natural, revelation may be divided into two categories: (1) internal, the innate sense of deity and conscience, and (2) external, nature and providential history.

Summary of Positions

• (1) Some scholars flatly deny any reality to general revelation. Postulating an infinite qualitative distinction between God and man and destruction of the imago Dei by the fall, Karl Barth refused to acknowledge any revelation outside the Word of God. Revelation for Barth means the incarnation of the Word.
• (2) Others concede the givenness of general revelation, but deny that it registers as actual knowledge in the sin-darkened mind of the unregenerate. Thus the Dutch Reformed school of Kuyper, Berkouwer, Van Til, and others insists that nature and history point to God only in the experience of those whose hearts and minds have been illumined by the grace of regeneration.
• (3) On the other extreme many liberal authorities insist that the light afforded by general revelation is sufficient for salvation. One tradition within this category focuses attention on the illuminatory value of ecstatic religious experience. With but slight modifications Schleiermacher, Otto, Tillich, and Rahner all claim that through a noncognitive, mystical meeting the human soul savingly engages God, the world Soul. A second liberal tradition claims that the human mind, utilizing the scientific method, is capable of ferreting out all the truth man needs to order his life. Here Henry P. Van Dusen, Harold DeWolf, and others argue that since the world order is caused by God and reflects his will, a scientific analysis of man and his environment will lead to God.
• (4) Aquinas and the Thomistic tradition claim that the rational mind, aided by the analogy of being between God and man and the law of cause and effect, is capable of proving God's existence and the infinity of his perfectness. By inductive analysis of the space-time world Aquinas constructed a formidable body of natural theology. Although optimistic about natural man's ability to amass knowledge of God, he stressed that salvation is dependent upon higher truths mediated by special revelation.
• (5) Authorities such as Augustine, Luther, Calvin, Hodge, Warfield, and Henry argue for the objective reality of general revelation and its limited utility in mediating an elemental knowledge of God's existence and character. Augustine upheld a logos-enabled intuition of God that serves as the basis for the acquisition of further knowledge by rational inspection of the phenomenal world. Luther acknowledged that "all men have the general knowledge that God is, that he has created heaven and earth, that he is just, that he punishes the wicked, etc." Calvin similarly insisted that "even wicked men are forced, by the mere view of the earth and sky, to rise to the Creator." So also the Belgic Confession (II) and the Westminster Confession of Faith (I,1).

Biblical Data

In the OT Elihu's speech to Job (esp. Job. 36:24-37:24) draws attention to the rain that waters the earth, the thunder and lightning that strikes terror in the heart, the fury of a thunderstorm, and the brilliant shining of the sun following the storm's departure. The text suggests that these natural phenomena attest the power, majesty, goodness, and severity of the creator God and that the data are there for all to behold (Job 36:25). Moreover, God's address to Job (esp. Job 38:1-39:30) conveys the idea that natural phenomena (lightning, thunder, rain, snow), the daily rising of the sun, the majestic constellations in the heavens, and the complexity and harmonious interrelationships among the animal kingdom all attest the existence and glory of God.

According to Ps. 19 God reveals himself through the two-volume book of nature (vss. 1-6) and book of the law (vss. 7-13). In the first volume we read, "The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands" (vs. 1). That which the created order shows forth is the divine "glory" (kabod), namely, the external manifestation of God's inner being and attributes. The revelation of God's glory through the heavens is declared to be perpetual or uninterrupted (vs. 2), wordless or inaudible (vs. 3), and world-wide in scope (vs. 4). That Judaism held to a general revelation in nature is clear from Wisd. Sol. 13:5: "The greatness and beauty of created things give us a corresponding idea of their Creator."

In the prologue to his Gospel, John makes two assertions about the eternal Word. First, "in him was life, and that life was the light of men" (1:4). And second, the Word is "the true light that gives light to every man who comes into the world" (1:9). The Greeks identified the Logos as the divine power that energizes man's intellectual and moral life. Wisdom, the parallel Jewish concept, was viewed as the power of God operative in the world to create, enlighten, and renew (cf. Wisd. Sol. 7:22-9:18). Thus it seems likely that in John 1:4, 9 the apostle has in mind the universal work of the Logos whereby the human mind is divinely illumined so as to perceive God as a first principle, much the same as Calvin's "sense of divinity" or "seed of religion."

Preaching to Gentiles at Lystra, Paul and Barnabas appealed to knowledge they and their hearers held in common as a result of general revelation: namely, that God is the creator of all things (Acts 14:15) and the providential provider of the necessities of life (vs. 17). In his kindly dealings with humankind God "has not left himself without testimony" (amarturon, vs. 17). Similarly, in his address to pagan Athenians (Acts 17:24-31) Paul referred, as a point of contact, to truths his audience knew by virtue of God's universal self-disclosure in nature and history. These include (1) God is the creator and sovereign of the universe (Acts 17:24); (2) he is self-sufficient (vs. 25a); (3) he is the source of life and all good (vs. 25b); (4) he is an intelligent being who formulates plans (vs. 26); (5) he is immanent in the world (vs. 27); and (6) he is the source and ground of human existence (vs. 28).

In Rom. 2:14-15 Paul teaches that a further modality of general revelation is the implanted moral law attested to the heart by the faculty of conscience. All men are guilty of transgressing the law, Paul argues: the Jews because they have violated the law written on stone, and the Gentiles because they have failed to live by the moral law written on their hearts (cf. Rom. 1:32). Communicated to each rational person by the power of conscience is the existence of a supreme Lawgiver and his moral requirements.

The clearest teaching that all people possess a rudimentary knowledge of God as creator occurs in Rom. 1:18-21. Paul argues that through the universal revelation in nature God is "clearly seen" (vs. 20), "understood" (vs. 20), and "known" (vs. 19; cf. vs. 21). That which man gains knowledge of is defined as God's invisible qualities, his eternal power and divine nature (theiotes). The Greek noun theiotes, "divinity," signifies the totality of the perfections that comprise the Godhead. Moreover, the apostle claims that this elemental knowledge of God is acquired by rational reflection on the created order (vs. 20). The word ginosko ("to know") used in vss. 19, 21 connotes to perceive with the senses and to grasp with the mind.

Implications

Scriptures that the consistent response of the sinner when confronted with the truth-content of general revelation is to dismiss it from his consciousness (Rom. 1:21-32). Thus instead of worshiping and obeying God, the unregenerate person asserts his own autonomy and fashions lifeless idols which he proceeds to venerate. Whereupon God deliberately gives man over to the sordid impulses of his sinful nature (Rom. 1:24, 26, 28). Instead of proving salvific, general revelation serves only to condemn the sinner and to establish his guiltworthiness before God (Rom. 1:20).

But general revelation serves several salutary ends. (1) The universally implanted moral law provides the only authentic basis by which good and evil can be distinguished. The fact that good is enjoined and evil proscribed provides society with the only viable framework for existence. (2) Since all people possess a rudimentary knowledge of God, the Christian witness is assured that when he speaks to a sinner the notion of God is not a meaningless cipher. And (3) general revelation provides the rational basis for God's saving revelation mediated by Christ and the Bible. In this sense natural theology serves as the vestibule of revealed theology.

B A Demarest
(Elwell Evangelical Dictionary)

Bibliography
B. C. Berkouwer, General Revelation; E. Brunner, Revelation and Reason; B. A. Demarest, General Revelation.

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Special Revelation

Advanced Information

The midtwentieth century's revival of interest in special divine revelation occurs at a significant time in modern history. Naturalism has become a virile cultural force in both East and West. In previous centuries the chief rivals of revealed religion were speculative idealism and philosophical theism; today the leading antagonists are materialistic communism, logical positivism, atheistic existentialism, and variant forms of Anglo-Saxon humanism. Since communist philosophy refers the whole movement of events to economic determinism, the recovery of the Judeo-Christian emphasis on special historical revelation gains pointed relevance.

The Meaning of Revelation

The term "revelaltion" means intrinsically the disclosure of what was previously unknown. In Judeo-Christian theology the term is used primarily of God's communication to man of divine truth, that is, his manifestation of himself or of his will. The essentials of the biblical view are that the Logos is the divine agent in all revelation, this revelation being further discriminated as general or universal (i.e., revelation in nature, history, and conscience) and special or particular (i.e., redemptive revelation conveyed by wondrous acts and words). The special revelation in sacred history is crowned by the incarnation of the living Word and the inscripturation of the spoken word. The gospel of redemption is therefore not merely a series of abstract theses unrelated to specific historical events; it is the dramatic news that God has acted in saving history, climaxed by the incarnate person and work of Christ (Heb. 1:2), for the salvation of lost humankind. Yet the redemptive events of biblical history do not stand uninterpreted. Their authentic meaning is given in the sacred writings, sometimes after, sometimes before the events. The series of sacred acts therefore includes the divine provision of an authoritative canon of writings, the sacred Scriptures, providing a trustworthy source of knowledge of God and of his plan.

Despite the distinction of general and special revelation, God's revelation is nonetheless a unity, and it must not be artificially sundered. Even prior to man's fall, Adam in Eden was instructed by specially revealed statutes (e.g., to be fruitful and multiply, to eat and not to eat of certain fruit). In view of man's corruption, after the fall any one-sided reliance simply on general revelation would be all the more arbitrary. Yet we are not on that account to minimize the fact and importance of general revelation, on which the Bible insists (Ps. 19; Rom. 1-2). But taken alone the so-called theistic proofs have led few men to the living God. The assumption of Thomas Aquinas that God can be known by natural reason apart from a revelation of Jesus Christ may be viewed, in fact, as an unwitting preparation for the revolt of early modern philosophy against special revelation and its contrary emphasis solely on general revelation. The many types of speculative theism and idealism arising in the wake of this emphasis were only temporarily able to hold a line against the decline to naturalism.

While the Bible indeed affirms God's general revelation, it invariably correlates general revelation with special redemptive revelation. It declares at one and the same time that the Logos is creator and redeemer (John 1). It does not present general revelation on the thesis that the true knowledge of God is possible to fallen man through the natural light of reason apart from a revelation of Christ, but rather introduces general revelation alongside special revelation in order to emphasize man's guilt. Thus the Scripture adduces God's unitary revelation, general and special, to display man's true predicament; he is a finite creature with an eternal destiny, made for spiritual fellowship with God, but now separated from his maker by sin.

Special revelation is redemptive revelation. It publishes the good tidings that the holy and merciful God promises salvation as a divine gift to man who cannot save himself (OT) and that he has now fulfilled that promise in the gift of his Son in whom all men are called to believe (NT). The gospel is news that the incarnate Logos has borne the sins of doomed men, has died in their stead, and has risen for their justification. This is the fixed center of special redemptive revelation.

False Views of Revelation

Christian theology has had to protect the biblical view of special revelation against many perversions. Platonic preoccupation with "eternal ideas" accessible to men by rational contemplation alone, plus the disregard of history as a meaningful arena of events, tended to militate against essential elements of the biblical view, viz., divine initiative and particularity, and redemptive history as a carrier of absolute revelation. The idealistic notion that God's revelation is given only generally, that it is a universally accessible idea, is destructive of biblical emphases such as the particularity of special revelation and a historical sequence of special saving events (climaxed by the incarnation, atonement, and resurrection of Christ as the unique center of redemptive revelation). Eighteenth century rationalism revived the notion of pre-Christian Greek idealism that historical facts are necessarily relative and never absolute, and that revelation consequently is to be divorced from historical actualities and identified with ideas alone. While still professing to speak of Christian revelation, this form of rationalism dissolved the essential connection of special revelation with historical disclosure.

Moreover, it freely abandoned crucial aspects of redemptive history without protest to the destructive critics. And it surrendered the defense of the uniqueness or once-for-allness of special revelation in deference to the notion that revelation is always and only general. Wherever Christianity has been confronted by idealistic speculations of this kind, it has had to contend against a determination to dissolve the central significance of the virgin birth, unique divinity, atoning death, and bodily resurrection of Christ. Since revelation was equated necessarily with a universal manifestation, every historical event was regarded simply as one of many reflections (in lower or higher degree) of this general principle, while an absolute revelation in some particular strand or at some particular point of history was arbitrarily excluded.

Modern evolutionary theory, on the other hand, has attached new importance to the historical process. But this concern for history also has generally been pursued on presuppositions hostile to the biblical view. The tendency to exalt evolution itself into an ultimate principle of explanation works against the recognition of a fixed center or climax of history in the past. While history may be approached with sentimental notions of hidden divinity, and major turning-points in the long sweep of events singled out as providential, the secred redemptive history of the past is leveled to the plateau of other elements in history, and history as a whole is no longer understood in revelation to the unique revelation of God in Christ as its center.

In fact the tendency to view reason itself only as a late emergent in the evolutionary process suppresses the biblical declaration that reality itself has its ultimate explanation in the Logos (John 1:3), and in effect contravenes the doctrine of rational divine revelation. That is why the question of the nature and significance of mind is one of the crucial problems of contemporary philosophy in its bearing upon both Christian and communist philosophy. The modern philosphical revolt against reason, anchored first in skeptical theories about the limitations of human knowledge of the spiritual world and then in skeptical theories about the limitations of human knowledge of the spiritual world and then in evolutionary dogmas, has an obvious bearing upon the Christian contention that God communicates truths about himself and his purposes.

While it is the case that Christianity in contending for special revelation is concerned for spiritual decision between Jesus Christ and false gods, and not merely for an acceptance of certain revealed truths, yet the Christian movement does not on that account demean the importance of divinely revealed doctrines. Christian experience involves both assensus (assent to revealed doctrines) and fiducia (personal trust in Christ). Moreover, saving trust is impossible without some authentic knowledge of God (Heb. 11:6; I Cor. 15:1-4; Rom. 10:9).

Since Schleiermacher's day Protestant theology has been influenced repeatedly by antiintellectualistic strands in modern philosophy, especially by such thinkers as Kant, James, and Dewey. Schleiermacher's formulas, that we know God only in relation to us and not as he is in himself, and that God communicates life and not doctrines, have been influential in encouraging an artificial disjunction in many Protestant expositions of special revelation. Although often striving to advance beyond these restrictions, more recent existential and dialectical expositions nonetheless do not consistently rise above the quicksands of a merely relational theology.

Revelation as Rational

Because of its implications for rational revelation the traditional identification of the Bible as the word of God written has been especially repugnant to contemporary neo-orthodox theology. It is contended that Jesus Christ alone should be identified as the Word of God, and that to speak of Scripture in this way demeans Christ. The evangelical Protestant, however, distinguishes carefully between the logos theou and the rhema theou, that is, between the ontological Word incarnate and the epistemological word inscripturate. The motives for the neo-orthodox complaint are, in fact, speculative rather than spiritual. For the witness of Scripture, to which neo-orthodox dogmaticians profess to appeal, is especially damaging to their case here. The OT prophets consistently speak of their words as the words of God, using the formula "Thus saith the Lord" with untiring regularity. The NT apostles, moreover, speak of divine revelation in the form of difinite ideas and words (cf. I Thess. 2:13, where the Thessalonians are said to have "received the word of God which you heard from us not as the word of men but as...the word of God"; cf. also Rom. 3:2, where Paul characterizes the OT as "the oracles of God"). The disciples also spoke of Scripture as divine revelation and, in fact, had the sacred example and authority of Jesus Christ for so doing. Jesus identified his own words with the word of the Father (John 14:34) and spoke of Scripture as the word of God (John 10:35). The Biblical nowhere protests against the identification of Scripture with revelation, but rather supports and approves this identification. The neo-orthodox tendency to look upon Scripture as simply witness to revelation, in fact, contravenes the historic Christian view that the Bible itself is a form of revelation specially provided for man in sin as an authentic disclosure of the nature and will of God.

From all this it is clear how significant is the Christian assertion that the laws of logic and morality belong to the imago Dei in man. Christian theology has always been under biblical compulsion to affirm the identity of the Logos with the Godhead, and to find a connection between God as rational and moral and the form and content of the divine image in man. That Jesus Christ is himself the truth; that man bears the divine image on the basis of creation and that this image while distorted by sin is not destroyed; that the Holy Bible is a rational revelation of the nature of God and his will for fallen man; that the Holy Spirit uses truth as a means of conviction and conversion, all these facts indicate in some measure the undeniable premium assigned to rationality by the Christian religion. Yet human reason is not viewed as a source of truth; rather, man is to think God's thoughts after him. Revelation is the source of truth, and reason, as illuminated by the Spirit, the instrument for comprehending it.

Contemporary theology is marked by its reaffirmation of the priority of revelation to reason. In this respect it is distinguished from the liberal Protestant dogmatics of the nineteenth century, which tended to view human reason as a selfsufficient and independent criterion. Some neo-Thomistic studies today restate the philosophy even of Thomas Aquinas so as to set the usual summary of his approach, "I understand in order to believe," in a context of faith. The Thomistic hostility to innate ideas, and the Thomistic support for knowledge of God by the way of negation and the way of analogy are, however, firmly reasserted. Protestant theology, heavily influenced by Karl Barth and Emil Brunner, now characteristically reasserts the priority of revelation over reason. Thus the epistemological formulas representative of Augustine ("I believe in order to understand") and of Tertullian ("I believe what is absurd," i.e., to the unregenerate man) are much in the climate of current theological dialogue. But the modern tendency to exaggerate the transcendence of God, by way of revolt against the classic liberal overstatement of divine immanence, subserves the Tertullian more than the Augustinian formula. The historic Christian confidence in a revealed world-and-life view takes its rise from a prior confidence in the reality of rational divine revelation. The modern tendency to veer toward a doctrine of revelation whose locus is to be found in an immediate existential response, rather than in an objectively conveyed Scripture, thwarts the theological interest in biblically revealed doctrines and principles from which an explanatory view of the whole of reality and life may be exposited. Thus it is apparent that a recovery of confidence in the intelligible integration of the whole of life's experiences depends significantly upon a virile sense of the actuality of rational divine revelation.

C H Henry
(Elwell Evangelical Dictionary)

Bibliography
J. Baillie, The Idea of Revelation in Recent Thought; J. Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, 1.6-9; C. F. H. Henry, "Divine Revelation and the Bible," in Inspiration and Interpretation, ed. J. F. Walvoord, and (ed.), Revelation and the Bible; P. K. Jewett, Emil Brunner's Concept of Revelation; H. Kraemer, Religion and the Christian Faith; B. B. Warfield, Revelation and Inspiration; H. D. McDonald, Theories of Revelation and Ideas of Revelation.

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