Welcome to the Book of Revelation.
Revelation is a book filled with voices—but above them all is the voice of One who was dead and is alive for evermore.
If you are a Christian facing fear, emotional pain, uncertainty, suffering, or circumstances you cannot change, this book is for you. Revelation was written for believers who needed to know that, whatever their circumstances, Jesus Christ is alive, present, and sovereign.
Revelation begins by reminding believers who Jesus Christ has made them, shows them how they are to live as His people in a hostile world, and ends by revealing what they will one day become in His eternal kingdom.
John employs a rich variety of titles and descriptions for the followers of Jesus throughout Revelation. No single description says everything about you as a Christian. Taken together, they reveal:
who you are as a believer, to whom you belong
how you are expected to live
what you may suffer, and what ultimately awaits you
Billy Graham is reported as saying” I’ve read the last page of the Bible and it’s going to turn out alright!”
One of the dangers facing every interpreter of Scripture is that we may come to the text with a predetermined system and then make the text conform to it. I believe this danger is particularly evident in some interpretations of Revelation, where an established eschatological scheme can sometimes determine beforehand what the text is allowed to say.
The Key to Interpreting John's Gospel
John's Gospel provides an instructive example of allowing a biblical writer's own stated purpose to govern our interpretation. John tells us why he selected his material from the much larger body of things Jesus said and did:
“Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written:
(1) that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah,
(2) the Son of God, and
(3) that by believing you may have life in his name.” John 20:30–31
Every passage in John's Gospel should therefore be read in the light of this stated objective. We continually ask:How does this passage reveal Jesus as the Messiah and Son of God, and how does it call the reader to believe in Him and receive life in His name?
The author's own stated purpose becomes an interpretive guide.
A Three-Lens Approach to Revelation
I have attempted to approach Revelation in the same spirit. Rather than beginning with a predetermined eschatological system and then fitting each passage into it, I have sought to allow the opening statements of Revelation itself to establish the major questions brought to the text.
Revelation 1:1 and 1:19 provide three important orientations:
Christological focus — “The revelation of Jesus Christ” (1:1). What does this passage reveal about Jesus Christ?
Present and pastoral reality — “The things that are” or “what is happening now” (1:19). What realities characterize the present age, and what do they mean for God's people living now?
Eschatological hope — “The things that will take place after this” (1:1, 19). What future realities does God reveal, and what hope do they give His people?
These three questions form the three lenses through which I examine each Chapter:
1. What does this reveal about Jesus Christ?
2. What does this mean for believers now?
3. What future hope does this proclaim?
This approach provides a clear, pastoral, and theologically rich way of reading Revelation. More importantly, the three lenses are not intended to function as an inflexible template into which every detail must be forced. Some passages naturally emphasise one lens more strongly than another. Some overlap the lenses. Others move almost imperceptibly from present reality to future fulfilment. The purpose of the framework is therefore not to control the text, but to help us hear the major concerns that arise from the text itself.
Using these three lenses has a number of strengths:
· It keeps Christ at the centre of every section, consistent with Revelation 1:1.
· It gives proper attention to the Church's present calling, rather than treating Revelation only as a future timetable.
· It recognizes that Revelation genuinely contains future prophecy, while reading those prophecies in light of Christ's person and work.
· It provides a balanced approach that can be appreciated by readers from a variety of evangelical perspectives, because it begins with the book's own stated purpose rather than a particular prophetic system.
By the end of the book, a beautiful progression emerges:
· Chapter 1 reveals the glorified Christ.
· Chapters 2–3 reveal Christ among His churches.
· Chapters 4–5 reveal Christ enthroned in heaven and worthy to execute God's plan.
· Chapters 6–22 reveal Christ directing history toward its appointed conclusion and ultimately reigning forever in the new creation.
But throughout the study I will also be asking a fourth, pastoral question:
Why did Jesus want His followers to know these things?
This question draws the three lenses together and asks what the revelation is intended to accomplish in the lives of those who follow the Lamb. What believers know about Jesus, what they understand about their identity and calling as His people, and what they know about the future should shape how they follow Him faithfully in the present.
Faithful discipleship in Revelation necessarily involves resistance: resistance to idolatry, cultural accommodation, economic seduction, false worship and political claims that compete with the sovereignty of Christ.
If believers know that the Lamb reigns, for example, they need not fear the apparent power of evil. If they know that Babylon will fall, they need not be seduced by her present attractions. If they know that Jesus is coming, they have every reason to remain watchful and faithful.
At the conclusion of each major section, therefore, we will ask: Why did the followers of the Lamb need to know these things, and how should knowing them affect the way they live? Revelation does not reveal the future merely so that believers will know what is going to happen; it reveals the future so that knowing where history is going will transform the way they live in the present.
The reader should therefore not merely finish each section knowing more about Revelation; the reader should finish knowing more clearly how the revelation of Jesus Christ is meant to shape the way a follower of the Lamb thinks, feels, worships and lives.
Throughout this study I have sought to employ a grammatical-historical approach to interpretation, paying careful attention to context, language, literary structure, Old Testament background, symbolism, and the historical circumstances of the original readers, while allowing Revelation's own statements to establish the theological framework within which the book is read.
Many interpretations of Revelation are organized primarily around chronology, symbolism, or competing eschatological systems. These questions are important and cannot simply be avoided. The approach adopted here, however, begins somewhere else. It begins with Christ, the circumstances and responsibilities of His people, and the future purposes of God.
The three-lens approach is therefore not intended to become another predetermined template imposed upon Revelation. It is an attempt to do precisely the opposite: