Revelation Down To Earth

By Edwin Walhout

If you don’t receive pastoral help from reading the Bible book of Revelation you aren’t reading it correctly. Here is one of the best pastoral commentaries on the Apocalypse of John in the English language. This book, together with its companion volume, Revelation Faith Formers, will help you if you are serious about understanding the mysterious visions that John records.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Edwin Walhout
• Release date: Nov 8, 2010
• ISBN: 9781458146311

Edwin Walhout

I am a retired minister of the Christian Reformed Church, living in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Being retired from professional life, I am now free to explore theology without the constraints of ecclesiastical loyalties. You will be challenged by the ebooks I am supplying on Smashwords.

Book preview

REVELATION DOWN TO EARTH

Making Sense of the Apocalypse of John

A Pastoral Commentary

by Edwin Walhout

Published by Edwin Walhout

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2010 Edwin Walhout

Cover design by Amy Cole ([e-mail])

Cover photo © sandra zuerlein

See Smashwords.com for additional titles by this author,

including a companion volume entitled Revelation Faith Formers,

a set of 253 devotional meditations covering the entire Apocalypse of John.

Scripture quotations are from the New International Version of the Bible.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Reviews

"If this volume is to be recommended at all, it would be because it stands as a great example of what not to teach about the Apocalypse. It also illustrates how far afield the Reformed theologians go to destroy the premillennial teaching of the Word of God." (Mal Couch, President, Tyndale Seminary)

What is it that sets Walhout’s work apart from the other studies of Revelation? It is his robust insistence – a very liberating one – that, far from being a book predicting future events, a book beckoning readers to speculate about history in terms of its tantalizing symbols, it is a book designed to illuminate our lives in the present – the lives of whoever reads the book and whenever he reads it. (Steve VanderWeele, Calvin Theological Journal, vol 39)

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Overview

Chapter 2 The Prologue

FIRST SEPTET: The Seven Churches

Chapter 3 Jesus Resplendent

Chapter 4 Jesus Shepherding

SECOND SEPTET: The Seven Seals

Chapter 5 The Throne Room

Chapter 6 Opening The Seals

THIRD SEPTET: The Seven Trumpets

Chapter 7 The First Five Trumpets

Chapter 8 The Sixth Trumpet

Chapter 9 The Seventh Trumpet

FOURTH SEPTET: The Seven Bowls

Chapter 10 Seven Golden Bowls

Chapter 11 A Beast, a Prostitute, and a City

Chapter 12 Final Victory

Chapter 13 The City of God

Chapter 14 Epilogue

* * * * *

Chapter 1

OVERVIEW

1. Why Study This Book?

Anyone who reads the book of Revelation for the first time and then asks seriously what it is all about must find the answer most elusive. Why is it even in the Bible? What has it to do with the gospel of Jesus Christ? What are Christians supposed to get out of it? Is it even worth trying to understand? Especially since there are dozens of different explanations of it.

I realize full well that what I am attempting to do in this explanation of the Book of Revelation is at best a personal approach to seeing what it all means. I am neither a linguist nor a historian, but a pastor, and I am trying to explain this book from a pastoral point of view. There will be occasional analyses of Greek words and usage, but mainly I will be seeking to see what John saw, trying to understand what he meant. What do all those visions mean in connection with Jesus and the gospel and the church? John was writing to actual churches composed of actual people. What did John expect these people to gain by reading the book? That is what we will be trying to understand.

2. Where Does This Book Come From?

It is no secret that this book, named The Revelation of John, has been a very controversial book. Not only does it have wildly divergent interpretations still today, it has had detractors aplenty who either reject it entirely, thinking it has no place in the Bible at all, or simply ignore it.

For the first few centuries most Christian leaders accepted the book as having been written by the Apostle John, the same disciple whom Jesus loved and who wrote the Gospel of John. They would, of course, give it high standing and do their best to make sense of it.

Then a few people began to doubt that it was this John who wrote it, and hence not to be taken seriously. They thought someone known as John the Elder (the same who wrote the three epistles of John, but not the original disciple) wrote it. There is even one major scholar who thinks it was written by disciples of John the Baptist (J. M. Ford, in The Anchor Bible series).

The main argument against thinking the Apostle John wrote it is that the style of writing is considerably different from that of the Gospel of John, such things as vocabulary and grammar. Since it seems impossible to ascertain who is the author, I will simply go with tradition here and assume it is the Apostle John. There are a few similarities in style, however, such as the use of the term Lamb to describe Jesus, and also of the term Logos (Word), which suggests that perhaps the style is not so divergent after all.

All things considered, this is how the book seems to have been written. John remained in Jerusalem (or the surrounding area) until the Jewish rebellion in AD 66. This rebellion, of course, is the one that the Jews expected Jesus to begin 35 years earlier. The Roman armies came and in due time subdued the rebels, destroying Jerusalem and the temple by the year 70.

Sometime prior to that year, it seems, John escaped and went to Ephesus, perhaps taking Jesus’ mother Mary with him. The church in this city, dating back to the time of Paul, had become one of the major centers of Christianity. John’s status as one of the original disciples of Jesus doubtless gained him immense respect and authority, so much so that he soon became the de facto bishop of the entire Roman province of Asia.

Persecution of Christians broke out in that area about the year 95, during the reign of Emperor Domitian, for what precise reason is uncertain. John, as the leader of the Christians, was exiled to a Roman prison colony located in the Aegean Sea about 30 miles southwest of Miletus. While on this island of Patmos John continued to think about his churches on the mainland, wondering how he could continue to help them.

Furthermore, he would have a long memory. John would be able to recall personally all the events of Jesus’ life on earth, the things he wrote about in his Gospel, which very likely he wrote not many years earlier. He would remember especially the great climactic events of the last week of Jesus’ life on earth -- the triumphant entrance into Jerusalem, the growing disillusionment of the disciples as Jesus refused to start a revolution, the trial, crucifixion, and burial of Jesus, and finally his resurrection and ascension into the sky. And then too the sending of the Paraclete.

Surely John would have thought long and hard about what all of those events mean. Why did all those things happen? What effect did Jesus want all of that to have on his disciples? Is Jesus still active somehow in our world and in our lives? Even though Jesus ascended into the clouds and disappeared from our view, is he somehow still with us and in his Spirit still powerful among us? How must we understand all these things?

What John now writes in the book of Revelation is John’s answer to such questions. It is his way of continuing to be of pastoral assistance to the churches. What I offer now is an hypothesis about how this Apocalypse is related to the Gospel of John.

I consider this book to be a continuation of John’s earlier Gospel. In that Gospel John wrote about Jesus as he lived and worked on earth. Now John writes about Jesus as he lives and works from heaven. The book of Revelation is a sequel to the Gospel of John. One deals with Jesus before the resurrection and ascension, the other deals with Jesus afterwards.

In this respect these two documents are comparable to the two documents that Luke wrote, the Gospel of Luke and the book of Acts. Acts, as you know, continues the story of Christianity from where the Gospel of Luke ends. Acts tells the story of the disciples and the early Church, until the time of Paul’s imprisonment in Rome about the year A.D. 63. The Gospels of Luke and John are somewhat parallel in that both tell about Jesus prior to death and resurrection. The books of Acts and Revelation are somewhat parallel in that they tell about Christianity afterwards.

But they are significantly different. One document, the Acts of the Apostles, describes the growth of Christianity in descriptive historical language. The other scroll, the Revelation of John, describes the progress of Christianity in symbolic visionary language.

But we should see that Acts and Revelation are really describing the same things. Acts describes events from the point of view of real historical people living in faith and obedience. Revelation describes the same events from the point of view of what Jesus himself is doing on earth from heaven. That accounts for the great difference between the two documents. How else could John describe what Jesus is doing in heaven after he ascended but by using the language of visions?

The point of all this is that the book of Revelation shows that whatever is happening on earth is really the work of Jesus from heaven. Jesus is in the process of bringing all nations under his control. The revelatory angel wants John to see, and then to write, how Jesus supervises and directs the course of events on earth.

So that tells us what to look for when we read these puzzling visions. We must try our best to see them as insights into how Jesus is bringing all peoples under his control, how Jesus is healing the nations, how Jesus is drawing all men unto himself, how Jesus is progressively sending the gospel to do its work within the civilizations of the world, how the kingdom of this world is becoming the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ. We must learn to see Jesus at work, not only in the ancient world described in the Bible, but also throughout history ever since, and precisely in our world still today. Jesus is Lord. He is Lord of all. He is King of kings and Lord of lords. The powers which he injected into life and history are the most powerful forces which have been shaping history ever since. The visions of Revelation are given to us to help us see how this works out.

3. How Is This Book Put Together?

There is no unanimity among scholars concerning the major divisions of the Apocalypse of John. For example, the New International Version (NIV) lists sixteen major divisions, Harry Boer finds thirteen, Hendriksen seven, Lenski suggests seven but confesses to bafflement. Mounce has eleven, including a prologue and an epilogue.

Another ingenious interpretation divides the book into three major divisions, written supposedly at three different times by unknown persons. The John mentioned in the book is affirmed to be John the Baptist, but the actual authors of the book are supposed to be John the Baptist’s disciples. Chapters 4 through 11 are said to have been written first, during the time before John knew about Jesus. Chapters 12 through 22, since the name of Jesus is mentioned in this section, are supposed to have been written by John’s disciples during or after the ministry of Jesus. What about chapters 1-3, the letters to the churches? These chapters are said to have been written last, by followers of John the Baptist who had been converted to become followers of Jesus. (J. Massyngberde Ford, Revelation, Anchor Bible 38, Doubleday, 1975)

So how is the book put together? What are its main parts? There is a sequence of four major divisions, as follows:

a. Seven Churches (1:9 – 3:21)

b. Seven Seals (4:1 – 7:17)

c. Seven Trumpets (8:1 – 14:20)

d. Seven Bowls (15:1 – 22:5)

In addition to these major parts, there is a Prologue and there is an Epilogue. This division of the book is clear enough, and more important, it is not superimposed. This outline comes right out of the book itself. So what do we do next? We have an outline, where do we go from here?

We ask if there is any connection between these four parts. Are they like four separate manuscripts merely juxtaposed to make one volume, or is there some continuity from one section to the next? How are we supposed to move from churches to seals to trumpets to bowls?

4. How Do The Divisions Of This Book Connect With Each Other?

Now let us look at the four major divisions of Revelation and try to trace the connection between them. I see them not only as sequential but also as cumulative. The four divisions -- Churches, Seals, Trumpets, and Bowls -- not only describe things that happen one after another, sequentially, but more importantly they describe things that build upon one another, cumulatively.

What happens in the second set of visions depends upon what has already happened in the first set, what happens in the third set depends upon what happens in the second, and what happens in the fourth set depends upon what happens in the third. They are cumulative.

In other words, the sequence of Churches, Seals, Trumpets, and Bowls describes four stages in a process, and this process is meant to show how Jesus works on earth from heaven by means of the gospel. How does the gospel work in the world? How can we trace its effects? Can we really justify the claim that the gospel is the most powerful force in the world today, the force that controls the direction history is taking? Is Jesus really Lord of the nations in our modern twenty-first century world? Well, the book of Revelation is given to us by God precisely to show us how Jesus is Lord and how he is exercising his control over the nations of the world.

There is, accordingly, embedded within this enigmatic book of Revelation a most profound and important philosophy of history. Or let us say theology of history, since it involves the control of God through Jesus over our human history.

a. What Is The Main Point Of The First Segment: Seven Letters?

Let us understand that this first set of visions represents the first stage in the process by which Jesus accomplishes his purpose. It is simple enough to understand. Jesus begins his conquest of the nations by establishing churches within the existing cultures of the human race. Churches are groups of people who have heard about Jesus, who recognize that in Jesus the purpose of God is definitively revealed, and who therefore follow Jesus as Lord and Master. They hear the gospel, which is simply the story of Jesus from birth to ascension. They believe the gospel. And they demonstrate their faith by finding the purpose of their lives in simple obedience to God. That is what a church is -- a group of such people who congregate around the Lord Jesus.

Churches are established through the agency of people who disseminate the gospel, who tell others about Jesus. They may be sent out formally, as were Barnabas and Paul, or they may be persons who tell neighbors and friends the story. It does not matter who tells the story, it matters only that the truth of Jesus is told, and that those who believe truly surrender themselves to Christ.

In the long run that is why God provided the Bible for us, so that we can know Jesus as the fulfillment of the old covenant as well as the initiator of the new covenant. Word of mouth transmission of the gospel was sufficient in the early generations before the New Testament was written, but we all know what happens to stories that are passed on by word of mouth only. They become garbled and embellished, sometimes so drastically that one can hardly find an element of truth in them anymore. Many such legends about Jesus did as a matter of fact come into being in what we may call New Testament apocryphal literature. That is why we have the Bible as the definitive collection of scrolls about Jesus and the early churches. The Bible, including this book of visions, provides authentic accounts of the gospel.

So the purpose of the first three chapters of Revelation, the letters to the Churches, is to inform us that we must look at the churches which are established -- with all their weaknesses indeed! -- as the place where the healing of the nations begins. Not just individuals coming to believe, but individuals joined together in the bonds of the Spirit of Jesus. That is the beginning stage of Christ’s strategy, and there are three more stages.

b. What Is the Main Point of the Second Segment: Seven Seals?

The second stage is the opening of the divine scroll by means of the breaking of its Seals. God the Father is holding a sealed scroll in his right hand, and no one can be found to open it until at last a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain, does so. When he opens the seals, one by one, great tragedies occur on earth.

If the theory of cumulative visions is correct, then we must try to see how this second set of visions, the Seals, builds upon the first set concerning the Churches. First, Jesus sees to it that Churches are established; second, he opens the heavily sealed scroll. So, what does the scroll symbolize, and how does this connect with the establishment of the Churches?

What is the scroll? It symbolizes God’s purpose, especially God’s purpose with the human race. Why did God create a human race in the beginning? What does he expect the human race to accomplish? Complicating the whole question is the matter of sin. How can the human race ever fulfill God’s expectations if it constantly chooses to ignore and violate God’s wishes? Can God do anything about that, and if so, what? How would God go about reversing the decision of mankind as described in the story of Adam and Eve? How does one go about persuading a voluntarily wicked race of humans to change its mind and choose righteousness?

The sealed scroll in this second set of visions represents the plan of God to overcome and negate the Adamic decision of sin and to establish instead the true rule of God among the nations of the earth. The scroll, then, is God’s eternal purpose for us, sealed so as to be unknown until Jesus comes to open it up to our inspection.

But what has this to do with the Churches of vision number one? Answer: it shows us what happens in the world when churches are established.

What happens when the Lamb that had been slain opens the seals? All kinds of tragedies and troubles come out of the scroll. Four horses and their riders represent a sequence of disaster, Christians are persecuted, the rich and mighty of this world are overthrown. What this means is that the presence of churches in any given culture enables people to see two vastly different lifestyles at work, and precipitates a conflict between them.

When Christians live according to the law of God they expose the wickedness of those who do not. The presence of churches in any community exposes the ungodly lifestyle of wickedness. More than that, they expose the track of sin downward into greater and greater ruin.

And still more, what happens then is that these wicked people turn against the godly people and persecute them. Just as the Jews mistreated Jesus, for example, so too unbelieving people mistreat Christians. The gospel shows this, indeed precipitates it. But the gospel also assures that in the end the mighty and powerful forces of evil will cringe in fear, crying out for the mountains to fall on them so as to escape the paradoxical wrath of the Lamb.

So this second set of visions, concerning the Seals, is to be understood as showing the second stage in the process by which God achieves his goal of the healing of the nations. First, by introducing churches into the communities of the world; second, by exposing the difference between two incompatible lifestyles, and thus precipitating violent conflict between them, conflict which produces martyrs in the churches but which will eventuate in the vanquishing of wickedness.

c. What Is The Main Point Of The Third Segment: Seven Trumpets?

The third set of visions is the blowing of Trumpets by seven angels. Actually this set of visions is the content of the opening of the seventh Seal in the second set, so the continuity is obvious. In the ancient world trumpets were blown to announce major events, such as the arrival of some great personage, or a call to go to the temple, or in warfare to summon the soldiers to battle, a call to some kind of action.

What happens when the angels blow their trumpets? Natural disasters upon one third of the earth, the sea, the heavens; momentous conflicts between mythical creatures, a woman clothed with the sun taking refuge in the desert, great dragons arising out of the sea and out of the earth, the harvesting of the earth by God’s angels. How do we make sense of all this?

Think of what happens when churches in various parts of the world expose incompatible lifestyles. They precipitate opposition. What happens next? Open conflict between the forces of evil and the forces of goodness. Enormous powers of wickedness appear in the civilizations being challenged by the gospel. Great suffering ensues, but God somehow manages to safeguard his churches so long as they flee to him, and in the end righteousness will prevail. In this setting the trumpet call of God summons Christians (churches) to persevere, to fight the good fight of faith, to live faithfully in spite of egregious opposition.

We should understand that these visions do not merely describe one specific epoch of human history, but that they represent what happens always wherever the gospel goes. First, churches are established; second, churches expose two incompatible lifestyles and precipitate conflict. Third, Christians are summoned to fight, to follow the Lord Jesus into the great battle against Satan and his cohorts.

From heaven Jesus is always in the process of starting new churches throughout the world. The effect of this is always to expose the inadequacies and evils of the surrounding cultures that have been built on godlessness. And this exposure of the nature and consequences of sin always results in determined opposition -- spiritual and moral warfare within actual historical communities. Jesus calls us to persevere, to follow steadfastly, to wear the white linen garments that symbolize the righteous deeds of the saints. Those are the three stages we have examined so far: the Churches, the Seals, and the Trumpets.

Doubtless the author, the apostle John, expected his readers in the seven churches of Asia Minor to be able to understand the significance of these visions in terms of their own relationship to God, to Jesus, to their cities, to the Roman Empire. They would see themselves as the churches among which Jesus himself is walking, and by means of which Jesus is challenging the evils evident in the Greco-Roman way of life. They would understand that opposition and conflict is unavoidable at their stage of Christian witness, and they will be fortified to endure martyrdom in the assurance that the spirit of Christ will someday prevail in all peoples on the earth. They would hear the trumpets of God calling them to get involved in the great spiritual battle being waged throughout the earth.

d. What Is The Main Point Of The Fourth Segment: Seven Bowls?

The fourth and final series of visions is that of seven angels pouring out the contents of the Bowls they carry. The bowls contain plagues and are called the bowls of the wrath of God. We should understand, of course, that all the events in this entire book originate from heaven. The letters are dictated by Jesus from heaven, the seals are broken on the scroll of God in heaven, the trumpets are sounded by angels in heaven, and now more angels administer the wrath of God from heaven.

But the effect of all these is felt on earth. All kinds of disasters and catastrophes fall upon the wicked. All the powers of evil in the world gather for a mighty onslaught against the Lamb of God, and they are thoroughly and utterly defeated. The power of the devil and his hosts is annihilated, whereas the city of God is constructed in eternal shalom.

There is a very important principle involved here. The action of God is seen precisely in the affairs of earth. All of this, the entire sequence, is the activity of God in the actual progress of human history. We need to see, accordingly, the events of history, including the things that are happening today in the modern world, as fitting into this four-step pattern which the book of Revelation is showing us.

5. Where Must We Discern This Divine Pattern?

There are three distinct levels on which to see this fourfold process. The first level is the individual personal level. Any given individual must first become a member of the Christian church. This is done simply by believing the gospel and living by its truth. Doing this exposes the elements of sinful living in one’s life. Believers must fight the temptations that come regularly and insistently. And they must succeed in this actual Christian living. No one, of course, does this one hundred percent, except Jesus himself. But the victory must be real, nonetheless, in the sense that the devil is no longer one’s lord; Jesus is.

The second level is that of any given national culture, say that of the original Roman world, or that of the invading barbaric tribes of the Dark Ages, or that of modern Europe and America, or that of Nigeria or South Africa or Australia or India or China or Japan. If you trace the history of one distinct community or nation, and if the gospel has taken hold at all in that history, then you should be able to trace at least the beginning stage in that history. You should be able to see the conflict between good and evil, truth and error.

The third level on which to see this process at work is that of the human race as a whole, human history in its totality. Here we must remember the great universalistic passages of the New Testament: disciple the nations, every knee shall bow, he is