Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: We are talking about apocalyptic literature and specifically this word.
Apocalypse.
When you hear that word, what is the first thing that comes to your mind when you hear the word apocalypse?
End of the world. Right, Dan, go to the next slide.
Something like this, right?
You have mountains cradling. You have the blood moon rising in the background.
There's perhaps a city there. It looks like Seattle, that is about to be engulfed. And there's locusts and plagues and all kinds of scary and frightening imagery, right? This is what we think of when we think of the word apocalypse, right?
End of the world. The end is nigh. Okay, go to the next slide for me, Dan. The word apocalypse actually does not mean the end of the world.
It's a word that we translate from the Greek. That of theirs says apocalypsis. Apocalypsis.
And it actually means to uncover or to reveal something.
That's literally what the word means.
You're pulling back the layer of something to reveal something that was always there. Okay, so that's the word apocalypse for you, Dan. You can go to the next one.
An apocalypse is a revelation of the world from a divine perspective.
In the Bible, an apocalypse is when God pulls back the curtain to show someone what's really going on. So the end of the wizard of Oz, when you.
The great reveal of who the Wicked Witch of the west is, that is an apocalypse because you're getting to see who is really behind the curtain, right? What's really going on behind the curtain of things.
That's what we should think of when we think of an apocalypse. It's when you suddenly see the true nature of something you couldn't see before. You can go to the next slide, Dan.
So let's look at a McCorkle.
What do you think of the west that's revealed at the end? I thought it was the.
I haven't seen it in a while. Who's revealed wicked.
What's the difference?
Wizard, witch.
We already know who the wicked witch is. Okay, well, I haven't seen the movie. All right, The Wicked wizard of the west or whatever.
The wizard of Oz is the name. You know what, guy? I read the Bible. Okay, so. So I'm not into this apocalyptic literature.
This is an academic definition from John J. Collins, the Apocalyptic Imagination.
He quotes this actually from the Society of Biblical Literature that came up with this.
Bear with me on. Because it's pretty wordy here, but apocalyptic literature is a genre, revelatory literature within a narrative framework in which a revelation is mediated by an otherworldly being, such as an angel to a human recipient disclosing a transcendent reality, which is both temporal insofar as it envisages eschatological salvation, and spatial, insofar as it involves another supernatural one world.
Okay, everyone with me.
Sort of maybe not really boiled down, these are my words. A supernatural story of God pulling back the curtain to show a trusted seer what's going on in the unseen realm and how it impacts history. Okay, so the purpose of this is all to encourage the endurance of a people and facing trial and tribulation. It's important to note that all apocalyptic literature comes to a particular people and a particular time in a particular place. Just like with letters, what we talked about, like that there's always an intended audience, and apocalyptic literature is no different.
And we'll see kind of the nature of that as we progress along. You go to the next slide. Daniel.
Apocalyptic literature is a divine revelation of heavenly secrets. Okay. So it entails the revelatory communication of heavenly secrets by an otherworldly being in a narrative framework. Narrative framework just means that it's being revealed by way of a story or by way of an unfolding of events. Okay. The visions guide readers into a transcendent reality that takes precedence over the current situation and encourage readers to persevere in the midst of trials. You're going to keep seeing this come up over and over and over again.
So if we follow kind of the chart on the left side there, you begin with heavenly secrets. So this is divine cosmic revelation that is given to an angel to see, and an angel is a guide for the trusted seer, and the seer writes down the vision. Does that make sense?
So you usually. A very, very, very common component with all apocalyptic literature is that there is an angel who serves as, like, the tour guide for the trusted seer. Okay. And you can see this with a. With a few different texts. So Daniel, chapter 7, 7, 15, says, as for me, Daniel, my spirit within me was anxious, and the visions of my head alarmed me.
I approached one of those who stood there and. And asked him the truth concerning all this. So he told me and made known to me the interpretation of the things, that one who stood there is an angel. Then In Daniel, chapter 8, verse 15, Daniel says, When I, Daniel, had seen the vision, I sought to understand it. And behold, there stood before me one having the appearance of a man. And I heard a man's voice between the banks of Ulay, and it called Gabriel, make this man understand the vision. Okay, so there's a voice that calls out to the angel Gabriel, who says, make Daniel understand the vision.
Skipping ahead to Revelation 1, it says the revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to the servant John, who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw. So we can see again that we have the presence of an angel accompanying this divine revelation. And you can also see there at the bottom some other literary examples of, of apocalyptic literature.
First, Enoch is a major apocalyptic text.
Jubilees for Ezra. Second, Baruch. In the New Testament you have the Olivet discourse, which is some apocalyptic language being employed. Same thing in Second Thessalonians, Jude, and of course, Revelation, which is one entire apocalypse.
Revelation is known as the Apocalypse of John. Okay, so all of this is meant to be read in a particular way. Okay, that's what we're getting at here.
Any questions so far?
Let's keep going. Dan, someone have some.
[00:08:49] Speaker B: Could you go back real quick?
[00:08:51] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:08:51] Speaker B: What is that word next?
[00:08:54] Speaker A: Pseudepigrapha.
So this is. That's intertestamental literature.
That is obviously we, we wouldn't consider it canon.
Catholic Church would disagree. But it's, it's literature that was written with. Between the Old and New Testaments.
[00:09:16] Speaker B: So is it another word for apocrypha? Because I'm from familiar with that. But that second one I've never seen before.
[00:09:21] Speaker A: Pseudepigrapha is often.
It's a little bit different that it's written under pseudonyms.
So like false names that are. That were meant to disclose particular events or happenings that was going on in between the two testaments. Yes, sir.
[00:09:44] Speaker C: Example the, the Gospel of Judas, the Gospel of Timothy and the old infancy gospels that talk about Jesus as a baby.
[00:09:54] Speaker A: Right.
[00:09:55] Speaker C: So the things were in the air at the time, but didn't exactly become canon in any church.
[00:10:00] Speaker A: Any church.
[00:10:00] Speaker C: And kind of fell out. Like with the Gnostics. They had their stuff and their things fell out. There were a lot of writings, right?
[00:10:07] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. So again, lots of these kinds of writings emerged during this time and a lot of it in sort of the brand of apocalyptic.
So let's go on to the hallmarks of the apocalyptic style. So we've already talked about the angelic mediator who appears.
You also have highly symbolic imagery here. So the use of bizarre imaginative images, think beasts or statues, horns that are not meant to be taken literally, but represent, often represent earthly kingdoms and spiritual realities.
Apocalyptic literature is cosmic in Scope. So you see that the narrative shifts often between the earthly political realm and the heavenly realm and the divine court. You have the. These two worlds interacting with one another.
You have cataclysmic judgment. Right? This is when worldly empires come to an end and God judges all people. Right. So think of like the Great White Throne judgment in Revelation and then finally, which is. This is the ultimate purpose of apocalyptic literature is to provide hope to the faithful, to endure suffering. Because oftentimes apocalyptic literature is written to a people in crisis.
So whether you're talking about, in the Book of Daniel, a people in exile or in Revelation, you're talking about people who are under heavy Roman persecution.
It's often written to encourage them in the present by showing them the things to come in the next age. Okay, so let's go to the next one. Dan.
The purpose of the Apocalypse, a manual for endurance. So you kind of have threefold. You have.
The first one is to explain the present.
So to give meaning to suffering by placing it within a divine cosmic plan, there's a motivation for perseverance. So this is again, these images of God ruling and reigning and getting final victory over the wicked was meant to encourage perseverance, to encourage boldness among the present Christians at the time. And it's to offer assurance too.
It promises that despite present appearances, God is in control of history and that the church will be triumphant and the faithful will be vindicated. Okay, so that's really the ultimate purpose for something like the book of Revelation and the apocalyptic writings in Daniel.
Let's go to the next one, the content and history. So apocalyptic writers often draw symbols not just from the experiential world, like horses and lamps, but from fantasy and mythology. So you think about dragons and three headed beasts, lions.
You look at what other, like Leviathan is another mythical beast. So again, these are, these are not meant to be taken literally, as if these things actually are existing and behind the divine curtain. These. This is symbolic imagery, often meant to resemble empire or to resemble earthly worldly kingdoms.
Another big thing theme in apocalyptic literature is God's sovereignty.
So a lot of these works are going to point to the reality that God is in control of human history and that none of these things that are happening are surprising to him. Okay, so he's the one that orchestrates the rise and falls of these empires and these different ages to come.
Let's go to the next one. The apocalyptic worldview. Remember in our prior definition, we said, in that academic definition, we said that it's disclosing a Transcendent reality, which is both temporal and spatial. Okay, so temporal is simply talking about the things that are to come. Think of temporal as time. So it's often looking back and looking ahead. Okay? Think of temporal like history.
The future day of the Lord will end the present form of human history. History is not rejected in the apocalyptic worldview, but it's transformed by God's sovereign intervention. That's the temporal axis. Okay? And then you also have the spatial axis, which is the seen and the unseen realm. Okay?
This is where all of these divine cosmic beings come together and they combine to culminate in a new spatial reality. You have the unseen and you have the unseen becoming seen and the seen going on either towards triumphant victory or ultimate perishing and destruction. Okay, that's going to be, that's what we're dealing with in the apocalyptic worldview. The next one is that there's also a tension between two ages. This age, which is an age of pessimism. Pessimism, excuse me again, like I said before, apocalypticism, this worldview develops in times of crisis where things are going really, really badly for the people who it's being written to at the time. Okay? So the writers of apocalypticism rejected false optimism about the progress of society and instead placed their trust solely in God. And because this age is characterized by total opposition between God and Satan, between good and evil, you have a lot of that going on in apocalyptic literature. You have a lot of good versus evil.
And that this age is very, very pessimistic.
But you also have the age to come, which is the other side of the coin.
This is the promise of salvation and restoration.
This is when God will bring everything to climax by pouring his wrath out on evil and by creating a new heavens and a new earth for those who are in Christ. Okay, so that's the age to come. That's, that's the, the promise of hope. So you, you, you constantly are battling tension between both of those things when you read apocalyptic literature. Pessimism and hope. Let's go to the next slide here.
God is. We already kind of covered this. God is sovereign over ages in reality.
You also see a strong sense of predestination in apocalyptic literature, that God has already charted the future course of this world.
But again, there's immense hope in this persecution that he's going to bring the wicked to destruction and that his people are going to ultimately reign and triumph. So again, this is all being preordained by God. God already knows the beginning from the end. That's a Big assumption in apocalyptic literature.
Go to the next one. Dan.
Difference between apocalypse and prophecy, though there is crossover between the two.
Prophecy deals with direct divine speech. As Brad said, thus saith the Lord. That's a big part of prophecy. The message in apocalypse is often mediated, like we talked about, through dreams, visions and angelic beings.
The audience for prophecy is primarily the wicked and the unfaithful, particularly in the kingdoms of Israel and Judea.
In apocalyptic, it's for the righteous, those who are undergoing suffering and persecution.
Then the purpose of prophecy and apocalyptic again is different. You have the purpose for prophecy being a call to repentance and a warning, often of coming historical judgment.
Purpose for apocalyptic again is a call to perseverance, a promise of ultimate vindication. Even the imagery is different.
So prophecy, you have rooted in real world, locusts, shepherds, bad shepherds, boiling pots imagery, and apocalyptic, symbolic and fantastical. Beast with seven heads, a woman clothed with the sun. Does that make sense? So those are. Those are kind of the differences between the different genres of prophecy and apocalyptic, though there is overlap. You're going to find prophecy in the Book of Revelation, you're going to find other things. You're going to find lots of things in the Book of Revelation, but that's why we do distinguish the genres there. Let's go to the next one. Dan.
The unifying message of apocalyptic literature is that God wins. Okay? So that whether in Daniel's Babylon or John's Rome, the world can feel chaotic and hostile to the people of God.
But the ultimate purpose of these books is not to satisfy our curiosity about the future, but to build up our endurance and faithfulness in the present. Because God is on his throne, he's in control of history, and the slain lamb who was slain is going to reign in victory. That is. That is a crash course on apocalyptic literature. Okay, so for the next 30 minutes, what I want to do is zoom in a little bit on these particular books in the Bible. So we're going to talk about Daniel, particularly the second half of Daniel. And then we're going to. I'm going to just give you a very brief overview of the Book of Revelation. But let's go on. Let's look at the Book of Daniel. A very brief look. There's like 10 slides for this.
You can go to the next one. Dan.
Tale of two halves in the Book of Daniel.
It is a pretty even divide between the shift that takes place in the Book of Daniel. So what do you have?
What are some things that happens in the first half of the Book of Daniel. Just shout it out.
What do you recall?
The fiery furnace. Right. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.
What else happens?
[00:22:10] Speaker D: The interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar's dream.
[00:22:12] Speaker A: The interpretation of the dream. That's Daniel 2, right?
Yeah. The lion's den. Okay, what else happens?
That covers most of it. Right.
Again, these are.
These are court narratives. These are stories of faithfulness in a foreign court. It's written largely in third person, and it's pretty straightforward. It's narrative. But then in chapter seven, you shift to these incredible visions that Daniel sees, and it focuses on the rise and fall of these empires.
Daniel goes from the third person to the first person. And you see some key images happen. You see beasts rising up from the primordial sea. You see the imagery of a son of man surfing the clouds, coming from heaven. All of these things are different.
But before we. Before we talk about that a little bit too much, go to the next one, Dan.
I want to talk about just kind of the background. So again, exile is the background to the Book of Daniel. The Jewish people have been displaced. Their temple is destroyed, and they're living in the shadow of Babylon. Okay. Babylon rules and reigns over God's people right now. So the purpose has designed as a tract for difficult times, written again to encourage hope, faithfulness and perseverance in the midst of a world dominated by pagan kingdoms.
This is the kind of backdrop for the Book of Daniel. Let's go to the next slide.
Something interesting takes place in Daniel, Chapter two.
And it's where you start to see this image of a kingdom, but it also shifts from Hebrew to Aramaic.
This is one of the few places in the Bible where a large chunk of scripture begins out in Aramaic. So you can see in kind of the ruler layout right here, the narrative in the Apocalypse is very, very kind of clean. After chapter six, it changes chapter seven. But the language muddies the waters a little bit. Right? Because while you have Hebrew going on from 11 to 2 4, Aramaic starts in 24 all the way to 728. And then it goes back to Hebrew in chapters eight through 12. So what's going on there? Why.
Why is that? It seems like a very unusual structure.
And scholars have honed in on the Aramaic and have said that it's actually that there's like a.
What's called a chiastic structure going on. Okay. A chiastic structure, which means that. That it's something where the beginning and the end are supposed to echo each other. The second thing and the second to last thing are parallel to each other. And then in the middle is where kind of the meat and potatoes is where the two meet. Does that make sense? So go to the next slide. I have a visual for this.
The structural heart of Daniel's message. Again, we're talking about the Aramaic portions of it. So you have a four kingdom vision in chapter two, and you also have a four kingdom vision in chapter seven. Okay. Then you have a narrative of deliverance in chapter three, that's the fiery furnace. And then a narrative deliverance in chapter six, that's the lion's den. All right. And the, the, the where the two meet in chapter four and five is you have two different humiliations of a Gentile king, Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar. And so the central point, this is the, this is coming from my seminary professor. He believes that the central point of the book is that Yahweh, the God of the exiles, is more powerful than any human emperor. That that's one of the main points that particularly this section. Section is trying to drive home through this chiastic structure of the Aramaic. Okay, does that make sense? And kind of following the, the different patterns that are going on here, four kingdom vision in chapter two matches with the four kingdom vision in chapter seven. Narrative of deliverance. And then the humiliation of a gentile king in the middle. Okay, let's go to the next one, Daniel.
So you have these kind of two twin galleries, these visions of a self destructing world. And in chapter two there is a dream by a pagan king. And Daniel interprets this dream. Okay. And it's very, it's very hard to interpret.
There's kind of four elements to this statue of this human made image. In this dream. The head is made of gold, the chest is made of silver, there's bronze, and then the bottom is iron and clay.
Now a common view of this, and this is a common view throughout church history that each of those different colored plates represents a nation.
So like the gold would represent Babylon and the silver would be Persia. And then you have Greece. And then this bottom here where there's this stone crushing the, the lower half of the, of the iron and clay that's supposed to be Rome.
That's a very, very common view of those symbols of the, that it's all talking about different empires throughout the, the intertestamental world here, the exile world.
But a deeper reading of that would say that it's not just those nations.
It's actually talking about the hubris of human power and authority. That opposes God.
So this rock, not cut by human hands is actually going.
This is what I believe that's actually the kingdom of God coming into the world that's going to crush these earthly kingdoms.
So it's not just the kingdom of God doesn't just interact with the Roman Empire.
It interacts and it overcomes all empires. Right. So I see it more as a timeless message than something that's just focusing on Babylon or Persia or Greece or Rome. I see it as this stone that's cut by human hands is God's way of toppling human empires. It just doesn't come in the way that we think it's going to come. Right.
Does that make sense? So I believe that this stone that's not cut by human hands that's going to crush the legs of this statue is the kingdom of. Is the foretelling of the kingdom of God that's going to come.
Chapter 7 Again, I don't know if I want to get into the four beasts right now.
Maybe.
Yeah. Okay.
This is, this is a vision of Daniel. These are four monstrous beasts emerging from the primordial sea. And remember, remember we talked about this before. The sea is meant to represent chaos. It's meant to represent the chaos of the world.
And so again, I see these beasts, as Stephen Dempster does, who's an Old Testament scholar, as a parody of creation. So instead of, it's like an inverse of, of God's image, it's these horrifying, violent powers that are eventually going to be destroyed. But it's the rise of these kingdoms like Rome, like Persia, like Babylon, that are going to emerge from the sea and bring oppression to God's people.
That's what I think is going on there. Let's go to the next one. I think we can say a little bit more about that.
The vision is four terrifying beasts. You have a lion with eagle's wings that's on the left, a bear, a four headed leopard with three heads and a dreadful beast with iron teeth and ten horns.
Again, this is a simple allegory for four kingdoms. It also evokes ancient Canaanite combat myths.
The beasts are manifestations of this chaos.
And the vision portrays gentile rule not merely as a political problem, but a monstrous eruption of cosmic evil. So that's what I think is going on there, that it's these, these four beasts are meant to represent these earthly gentile kingdoms and empires that are going to oppress God's people. Does that make sense?
Okay, let's keep going.
We're Almost done.
The pinnacle of, of this vision. And it comes in Daniel chapter 7 of A Son of Man.
So Daniel 7:13. I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven, there came like a Son of Man. And he came to the ancient of days and was presented before him. Again, this is supposed to be a contrast to these beasts that emerge from the sea. Instead of coming from the sea, he comes on the clouds. Right. So you're supposed to differentiate the two.
He doesn't seize power, but instead he receives dominion, he receives glory. And it says he receives an everlasting kingdom from God.
He is the ultimate representation of humanity as it was supposed to be. Okay, so again, that you're supposed to make this sharp, sharp contrast to. Between the four kingdoms arise the four beasts emerging from the sea and the Son of Man who's coming on the clouds. All right, that's what the difference you're supposed to make there. Go to the next one, Dan.
The identity of the human figure. The term Son of Man is rich with meaning. We see this described in the Psalms. We see it in Psalm 8 to describe, you know, who is man, that you are mindful, or the Son of Man that you come to him. So it's meant to signify mankind.
But then you also have some royal language applied to it in Psalm 2 of a Davidic son who. Who will restore lost glory. And then you also see the Son of Man used a lot in the book of Ezekiel, emphasizing human frailty.
So again, in Daniel, these threads all converge. The Son of Man is a distinct heavenly individual who is intimately identified with the saints. And he's also a royal Davidic figure whose vindication marks the victory of God's people.
So, pop quiz.
What is Jesus's favorite reference to himself? What does he like to call himself the most in the Gospels? The Son of Man. The Son of Man. Why do you think that is?
[00:35:31] Speaker B: Because that's the context that they know from the Israelite people.
[00:35:36] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. There should, there should be alarms buzzing off in the, in the, the Jews heads when they hear this. They're, they're thinking, wait, he's talking about the Son of Man. He's talking about like, like this, this divine figure who's supposed to come with an everlasting kingdom. What is that about?
And when is that about? Right.
So that, that's kind of this identity of the Son of Man here that's meant to be portrayed. Go to the next one, Dan.
So again, this is kind of putting everything together. You have the chiastic core in Daniel 2. 7, central message that God's sovereignty triumphs over all human empires. You have the court narratives that provide the models of faithfulness required to survive.
Do you have the apocalyptic visions with Pull back the curtain? Okay, you have the. The 70 weeks, which provides a theological framework for endurance. We didn't get to talk about that very much. And then at the top, you have the Son of Man, who embodies God's ideal for humanity and represents the coming kingdom that will supplement all beastly powers that make sense.
That's an overview of Daniel. There's a lot more to say, quite a bit more that we did not get to. But now we need to do revelation in 13 minutes.
So revelation can often feel like a foreign country. This is from Gordon Fee's book on how to read the Bible for all it's worth. When turning to the Book of Revelation from the rest of the New Testament, the ordinary modern reader may feel as though they're entering a foreign country.
Instead of narratives and letters containing plain statements of facts, one comes to a book full of angels, trumpets and earthquakes, of beasts, dragons and bottomless pits. Oh, my.
Let's go to the next phrase. So just a word about the Book of Revelation.
Is Revelation supposed to be a roadmap for the end times? What do you guys think? You think Revelation is all about the end times?
What do you think, Josh?
[00:38:02] Speaker D: No, not all about it.
[00:38:03] Speaker A: Not all about it. What? What. What makes you say that?
[00:38:08] Speaker D: Well, because you've explained in Apocalyptic. Apocalyptics, mostly about right now, in light of what's coming.
[00:38:17] Speaker A: Right.
[00:38:17] Speaker D: And often most of the imagery is in reference to things that have happened and that people are experiencing in the moment with reference to what they'll experience and what God will ultimately do.
But it's. For right now.
[00:38:31] Speaker A: Yeah.
Again, that's really good. It's meant to be a word for the audience that it was intended to. So many people assume that when they open Revelation is that its primary purpose is to provide a detailed timeline of events. Maybe you've seen these before, like. Like these big timelines of drawing out when, you know, connecting the 70 weeks and, you know that this is when the tanks are going to come and Israel is going to be invaded and all of these things.
That's not primarily what Revelation is about.
It's. It's.
I would even reject a timeline view.
Nor is it about choosing your favorite millennial view. Whether you're pre mill or post mill or a mill or pan mill, where you think it's all going to pan out in the End.
That's all based on one chapter of Revelation, Revelation 20, about what you believe about the thousand years. Again, that's important, but it's not what Revelation is all about.
Its symbolic images must. This is another view is that it says symbolic images must correspond directly to contemporary or future world events. I call this newspaper Eschatology, where you're interpreting the events of today and trying to retcon them back into the book of Revelation. Again, not what Revelation is. Go to the next one, Dan.
So I want to outline this as well.
There's often some confusion between apocalyptic literature and eschatology. Okay. Eschatology is a theology term for the end. That's what it's about.
It's using theology to determine the end of all things.
Apocalyptic literature is.
[00:40:32] Speaker C: Is.
[00:40:36] Speaker A: The genre and the vehicle itself. All right, so go to the next one, Dan. Don't mistake the delivery truck for the package inside. Okay, so if the package inside is eschatology and the end times, don't go straight to that without acknowledging the vehicle that it's coming through, which is the apocalyptic genre, does that make sense? We have to read Revelation like apocalyptic literature first before we can start drawing conclusions about how the end will come about.
Or. Or eschatology. That makes sense.
Okay, Revelation. Let's go to the next one, Dan. It's a unique blend of all three of these genres. So you have apocalypse, which we've already talked about.
You have prophecy, which, again, it's not just a prophetic foretelling, but also a present word for the church today. John repeatedly calls Revelation this prophecy. It's presented as an urgent word to the churches that God intended to speak directly to their suffering and decay. So the first few chapters of Revelation are written in the style of an epistle, right to the church in Laodicea, to all these different churches. You have Jesus himself writing and addressing their specific historical circumstances and needs. That's a big part of the beginning of Revelation. But they all that. It's a blend of all of those genres. Apocalypse, prophecy, and Epistle. Does that make sense?
Go to the next one. The one rule, the one apocalyptic rule that Revelation breaks, and this is important to talk about, is that most apocalyptic literature, like you'll find in the intertestamental literature, talks about these words were to be, are to be sealed up and then opened for a later day. The vision is to be opened at a later time. But John, however, is told at the end of Revelation, do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this scroll, because the time is near which Again, goes back to the point of what we're saying, is that it's. This is not meant to be sealed up and opened and read at a future date when everything is collapsing and falling apart. No, it's meant to be read today. It's meant to be read today, and it was meant to be read in the first century. And it's why the angel says, if anybody adds anything to this prophecy or revelation, let him be accursed, because this is a very specific word that, that John is giving to the. To the first century church. Okay, so it's not meant to be sealed up because the time is near. Let's go to the next one.
Understanding the original setting of the Book of Revelation. John is an exile on the island of Patmos, and his readers are his companions in the suffering. The letter. The letters mention persecution.
And one person, Antipas, has already been martyred. Again, the main theme is abundantly clear. The church and the state are on a collision course.
John foresaw that the present suffering was only the beginning for those who would refuse to worship the beast. So what's the book's purpose? It's to warn that. That suffering and death lie ahead. It's guaranteed. The church is being persecuted now. It's going to continue to be persecuted for this entire age to come, which I would say this entire age is the age that we're living in right now.
300 women and children were just captured in Nigeria in a church that is promised guaranteed suffering and death. Okay, Exhortations.
It's. Do not capitulate in times of duress. Do not fall back on your testimony.
Stand firm in the testimony that has been delivered to you.
There's blood on this testimony. And this testimony that is the Gospel is how the suffering church is to overcome the world. Okay.
That's what that's talking about. And of course, again, it's to encourage God is in control of history and the church will triumph even through death.
That's the main threefold purpose of the Book of Revelation. Okay, let's keep going. Daniel.
So how to read the symbols? This is just a very quick overview of how to interpret some of the symbols of Revelation. Start with the Old Testament.
There is over 400 allusions, A L L U S I O N s Allusions, that is, references to the Old Testament and the Book of Revelation.
That's amazing. That means that John is assuming that you have an idea of what some of these images and symbolism are, because they've already been referenced in the Old Testament.
Okay.
Matthew McConaughey says sometimes you got to go back in order to move forward. All right? Sometimes you got to look back, baby.
So look back.
Secondly, recognize image types.
Some have a fixed meaning, like the beast from the sea as a standard image for world empire. We've already talked about that.
And some are more fluid. Some change meanings. So the lion of Judah is revealed to be a lamb. The woman in chapter 12 is good, but the woman in chapter 17 is evil. Okay, so it's not saying women bad or women good. It's a fluid symbol. Okay, make sense.
Women are good. Number three. Anchor yourself in John's own interpretations.
When John explains a symbol, it must be held firmly.
So Fee outlines six anchors. Son of man is Christ. The lampstands are the seven churches. The stars are the angels of the churches. The dragon is Satan. The seven heads are the seven hills of Rome. The prostitute is the city of Rome. We can say this confidently because I believe Revelation itself says this.
I think in the early chapters of Revelation, you get these images already explained for you.
Lastly, see the visions as wholes. Don't feel the need to allegorize every detail. The details often serve dramatic effect or help identify the subject, but the overall vision carries the main message. It's like what Brad was talking about in a sermon this morning.
We can get very caught up in the specifics and miss the overall overarching message of the book. So we don't want to do that. Okay, so we want to see the visions and light of the whole next slide. Dan, this is just. These are just some examples of how of some Old Testament echoes in the book of Revelation.
So, like, to him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood has made us a kingdom of priests.
That's an allusion to Exodus 19.
You have Zechariah 12, 10. They will look on me, the one whom they have pierced.
The seven trumpets are meant to echo the plagues of Egypt, the judgment on Rome. The fall of Babylon. The Great is meant to explicitly, Rome and Babylon. You're supposed to connect these two together. Okay.
Babylon is often a reference to Rome.
So fallen, fallen is Babylon. She has fallen. She will not rise. Rome itself is explicitly called Babylon in the Book of Revelation.
Okay, let's go to the next one.
This is just the structure of the book. Very, very rough structure. But chapters one through five are where you get a lot of the epistles and warnings and encouragements to the church.
Chapters four and five is a view from heaven. God reigns on the throne, and the slain lamb is victorious.
As the lion who alone is worthy to redeem. Chapter six through 17, where you get the meat and potatoes of the. The seven judgments. The seals, the trumpets, the bowls. All of these reveal the suffering of the church and God's temporal judgment on its enemies. And then you get the final act in Revelation 6:17 through 22.
You have a tale of two cities. You have Babylon, which is judged and falls before the Great White Throne. And you have the arrival of the new Jerusalem. Okay, that's kind of just the structure we're working with there.
Go to the next one, Dan.
Cycles of judgment reveal a pattern, not a timeline. What do we mean by that?
The seals and the trumpets and the bowls are not meant to be read, and neither is a lot of the book of Revelation are not meant to be read in a linear sequence. They're interwoven, and they're much like nesting dolls. You know what nesting dolls are, where, you know, one kind of goes on top of the other on top of the other.
So again, like these, these seals, the seven seals, the first four are the four Horsemen. You've heard of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, right? That's war, conquest, famine, and death.
You have a fifth seal that depicts murdered Christian martyrs.
A sixth seal is described as God's response to the martyr's cry.
There's an earthquake and cosmic upheavals. And the seventh seal is broken just before the seven warning trumpets emerge. So you can see how the seals merge into the trumpets and the trumpets merge into the bowls.
They're not meant to be meant to be read linearly.
One is supposed to emerge from the other. And each cycle depicts the same period of time. That is the time between Jesus resurrection and his final future return, but from different perspectives. Okay, the seals, the trumpets, the bowls, they all give us different perspectives of the same period of time.
Go to the next one, Dan.
You have the great adversaries. These are the ancient archetypes of evil. So you have the beast coming up from the sea, which again, is supposed to draw and remind us of the visions from Daniel. And then you have the dragon, who is the ultimate source of evil that lies behind humanity's rebellion against God and inspires hatred and persecution against God's people. Dragon is meant to represent Satan, but not just the Satan, but also his.
His cosmic kingdom that is going to rise up and rule for a temporal period of time. Okay, so you have the great adversaries. Go to the next one, Dan.
The mark of the beast is a very controversial thing.
I see the mark of the Beast. Beast as an inverse of the Shema.
So Deuteronomy, chapter 6, verse 4 is where we get the Shema. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children. You shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you. When you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise. Listen to this. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.
Very interesting. You shall bind them on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. What's between your eyes?
Forehead.
So again, the Shema, which is the two main commands of the Lord, it's the law fulfilled. Jesus says that the whole law is summed up in what? Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself. Okay, the mark of the beast is the inverse of this. Okay, listen to Revelation, chapter 13, verses 16 through 18.
Also it. The beast causes all small, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead, so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark, the name of the beast, or the number of its name. This calls for wisdom. Let the one who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of man, and his number is six. Six. Six, six. Okay, so the. So what do we learn from that?
The mark of the beast is the number of man, and his calculation is 666. Go to the next slide. Dan.
The beast power is ultimately human, not divine. Okay, so while the beast is an imposing figure, its number reveals its true nature. It's finite. It's human. So the encourage for the readers and for all who follow is embedded in the text itself. If the beast is merely human, it cannot ultimately win against the power of the lamb.
So this mark of the beast is merely a mark of foolish man.
That's what it represents. And there's also. You can also draw some parallels of the mark of the beast in. In Hebrew, it's trans. Like. Like. It's translated like Nero Caesar. So it's like. It could be a reference to the emperor Nero, who persecuted. And there was a great fire in the early church days that. That engulfed a lot of Rome. And Nero blamed Christians for it. And so his kind of revenge, retaliation was to put Christians on stakes and light them on fire.
Mark of the beast. It's the number of man.
It's meant to draw a kind of an evil figure of how man persecutes Christians. Go to the next slide. Daniel, the victorious hero. This is the main key to Revelation. The victorious hero is a slain lamb. So what John hears is that the lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David, has conquered. This is classical language for a messianic king who will triumph through military conquest. That's what he hears. But what he sees is actually this is what's revealed to him, is a lamb looking as if it had been slain, standing in the center of the throne room. This is the book's most important symbol because it reveals that God's kingdom was inaugurated through the crucified. What?
Crucified lion of the crucified lamb.
Crucified lamb. Jesus conquers his enemies by dying for him. His death was not a defeat.
It was the beginning of his enthronement. So victory is redefined as sacrificial love and faithfulness unto death.
That's the ultimate vindication of the book of Revelation, is that it's a lamb who was slain, but is now living and breathing again. Does that make sense? A victorious lamb.
The lion lies down with the lamb. Go to the next one.
This is the last slide on the book of Revelation. The story ends with the marriage of heaven and earth.
You are familiar with this? The whole. I saw a new heavens and a new earth, a new garden city of Eden.
There's no temple in the center of this city, which is a surprising twist, because there's no need for a temple, because the presence of God and the Lamb permeates every square inch of the new world. God dwells with humanity forever. That is the covenant, the new covenant coming together.
There's not any need for a temple because there's no need for a mediator anymore.
We can dwell with God in his presence forever. Okay, that's the book of Revelation in a nutshell. It's 108.
I do want us to go, Dan, to our activity here.
I want us to read three different texts.
So if you have your Bibles, you can open to. And we can do this at our tables. Daniel, chapter 7, verses 1 through 14, and Daniel 10, 4, 12.
I have some discussion questions as well on these slides that we can cover. I know because of time constraints we're not going to be able to get to all of them, but this is a good starting place. Daniel 7:1, 14, and then Daniel 10, 4 through 12.
Dan if you'll go to the next slide, and then we'll hold it there.
The texts are at the top.
Really? I just want you to practice seeing some of the images and symbols and what stands out to you.
Talk about what the four beasts represent in the context of Daniel's world. And how does the shift to the heavenly courtroom and verses nine through 10, kind of reframe that chaos?
You're going to read the vision of the Son of Man.
How does it function within the larger vision of Daniel 7?
And what hope does it offer? And then I want you to note the way that the man is described in Daniel 10among your tables.
And how does Daniel react to the appearance of this divine, heavenly figure? And what does this reaction teach us about the nature and purpose of apocalyptic visions? Okay, so read Daniel 7, 1, 4, and then Daniel 10, 4, 12.
What was, like.
What did you notice?
Beasts. Beasts.
Lots of beasts.
Did. Did any of it, like. Like, did Revelation War reflect. Was it a lot of what you read in 7 and 10?
Were you able to, like, see some connections there?
See, that's. And that's, like, that's the whole idea when we're reading apocalyptic literature is we want to familiarize ourselves with some of the symbols and imagery. Like when we read about, like, four beasts, I was going to have us go to, like, Revelation 13 that talks about, I saw a beast rising out of the sea with 10 horns and seven heads, 10 diadems on its horn and blasphemous names on its head. And the beast that I saw was like a leopard. Its feet were like a bear's. Its mouth was like a lion's mouth. All of those reflect what Daniel seven, right? The beast. You're. It's. It's. It's. That's all purposeful.
Okay?
So that's really what I want you to see, is that a lot of apocalyptic literature doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes.
And again, the greatest thing that we can take from reading these texts is not to get worried about what the end of the world is going to be like, but that God is completely in control of history, that he wins, that the lamb who was slain is the one standing in the middle of the Garden City, and that there's going to be no need for a temple or mediation anymore, because that's an everlasting sacrifice. He is the everlasting sacrifice. He is the one we will get to dwell with and be with face to face forever. There's going to be no more need of prophecy or tongues or. Or healings. Or any of those things, because the perfect will have come. Amen.
Amen.
Daniel, you can go to my very last slide. This is just very fun.
Go to the next one.
That's it.
That's all.
