Transcript

The following presentation was produced by St. Joseph Communications, a division of Lighthouse Catholic Media.

Before we embark on our study of Revelation, I can't resist the, the temptation to quote from one of my favorite early church fathers, St. Ephraim.

He was a Syriac father back in the 4th century, and a deacon.

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And he gives us, uh, some wisdom, I think, that is applicable for any Bible study, but probably more applicable for studying Revelation than anything else in scripture.

He says, Lord, who can grasp all the wealth of just one of your words?

What we understand is much less than we leave behind, like thirsty people who drink from a fountain.

For your word, Lord, has many shades of meaning, just as those who study it have many different points of view.

The Lord has colored His Word with many hues so that each person who studies it can see in it what he loves.

He has hidden many treasures in His Word so that each of us is enriched as we meditate on it.

The Word of God is a tree of life that from all its parts offers you fruit that is blessed.

It is like that rock opened in the desert that from all its parts gave forth a spiritual drink.

He who comes into contact with some share of its treasure should not think that the only thing contained in the Word is what he himself has found.

He should realize that he has only been able to find that one thing from among many others.

Nor, because only that one part has become his, should he say that the Word is void and empty and look down on it.

But because he could not exhaust it, he should give thanks for its riches.

Be glad that you are overcome, and do not be sad that it overcame you.

The thirsty man rejoices when he drinks, and he is not downcast because he cannot empty the fountain.

Rather, let the fountain quench your thirst than have your thirst clench the fountain.

Because if your thirst is quenched and the fountain is not exhausted, you can drink from it again whenever you're thirsty.

But if when your- your thirst is quenched, the fountain also is dried up, your victory will bode evil for you.

So be grateful for what you have received and don't grumble about the abundance left behind.

What you have received and what you have reached is your share.

What remains is your heritage.

What at one time you were u- unable to receive because of your weakness, you will be able to receive at other times if you persevere.

Do not have the presumption to try to take in one draft what cannot be taken in one draft.

And do not abandon out of laziness which you may only consume little by little.

These words give me the only consolation in approaching the book of Revelation.

If I hadn't found this particular utterance from St. Ephraim, I'm not sure I would've been foolish enough to embark upon a study of Revelation.

But, embark upon it we will now, with the confidence that we can drink and receive and appreciate whatever the Holy Spirit apportions for us.

And for each of us, that's gonna vary.

And so, let's just go ahead and take a look at this book.

Some basic questions that off- uh, that- that obviously have to be answered before we just jump into the ch- uh, the first chapter.

First of all, the question of authorship.

Who wrote the book of Revelation?

I have to confess that I was influenced for several years by various theories, uh, that saw John the Elder as the author instead of John the Evangelist, the beloved disciple.

And many scholars, both Catholic and Protestant, acknowledge the problems with attributing the whole book of Revelation to the beloved disciple, St. John.

But whatever problems you encounter attributing it to St. John, I think you encounter more problems denying the tradition of John the Evangelist.

In other words, I've come full circle, I sup- I suppose.

I'm p- I'm persuaded especially by the, uh, by the arguments of a- a French priest named Andre Fouillée, one of the greatest French Catholic, uh, scripture scholars of the century, who in his book, The Apocalypse, gives a very persuasive, uh, summary of the arguments for John the Evangelist, the beloved disciple, being the author of Revelation.

Internal evidence from the book itself, for instance, only in John's Gospel, in chapter seven, verses 37, 38, and 39 do we have this language of, Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.

And we're not even sure what scripture Jesus was quoting from or John had in mind.

But then when you look at Revelation, the only other place where we find that kind of imagery is in the Apocalypse, where living water comes forth from the center of the New Jerusalem, which is the bride of Christ, which is the mystical body, the new temple.

And so you can see how the same sort of mystical thought is there in John and also in Revelation.

And Fouillée comes up with several other examples like that from within Revelation.

In addition, the external evidence is weighty.

That is the evidence of the early church fathers in the second century, the third century, the fourth century.

One commentary I'm gonna recommend to you above all the others I might mention is this one, the Navarre Bible on Revelation.

It just came out a few months ago, and the introductory section in the Navarre Bible commentary on Revelation is very helpful, especially on the question of authorship.

What they do in this is just simply go through the testimony of the early fathers, so I want to refer this- refer it to you.

St. Justin, for instance, in the, uh, second century.

St. Justin refers to a man named John, one of the apostles of Christ, unquote.

And he refers this man as uh, he refers t- to him as the author of Revelation.

In addition, and by the way, that's- that's important because Justin Martyr was converted to Christianity in Ephesus around 135 AD, and Ephesus is the place where John served as bishop.

It's one of the churches that is addressed by Christ in the seven letters to the seven churches.

And so, Justin Martyr is really in touch with some of the most ancient traditions concerning who had this vision, who authored the book.

In addition, we also have a commentary on The Apocalypse, written by St. Melito, Bishop of Sardis.

Actually, we don't have the commentary, but we have in Eusebius and other early writers, references made to the commentary.

And Sardis is also one of the churches mentioned in Revelation two and three.And Melito attributes the Book of Revelation to St. John as well.

Other saint, uh, other 2nd century writers who support, uh, Johannine authorship of Revelation would include, uh, St. Irenaeus, uh, who was in touch with Polycarp, who actually was discipled by St. John.

So there we have almost like a spiritual grandparent connection.

Uh, Papias, and then moving onto the third century, Origin of Alexandria, uh, contended that the author of the Revelation was also the author of the fourth Gospel.

Tertullian attributes Revelation also to St. John.

In the fourth century, St. Athanasius does.

St. Basil, St. Gregory of Nyssa.

The only real contention arose in the School of Antioch.

So that, uh, in the School of Antioch, the authenticity and the apostolicity of Revelation were generally denied so that Theodoret and even St. John Chrysostom didn't really appeal to the book in the fourth century, in their preaching in and around Antioch because of what the heretics were doing and misinterpreting and abusing the text.

Uh, also St. Cyril of Jerusalem questioned it as well.

But by the time you get to the late part of the fourth century, uh, by the time you get to the Council of, uh, Hippo in 393 and 395, by the time you get to the Council of, of Carthage, there you have councils making authoritative decisions.

You know, all these bishops convening for the purpose of deciding what is the canon of the New Testament books?

What are the inspired books that have apostolic authority in the church?

And as soon as the decisions were reached at the Councils of Hippo and Carthage, they were then sent on to Rome for the approval from the successor to Peter.

So I think the testimony, especially the external evidence, but also the internal evidence within the book itself, just makes a strong case for Johannine authorship.

But I want to tell you that if you, if you're sitting there thinking, Yeah, w- why are we spending even five minutes on this?

It's because nine times out of ten, Steubenville graduates will leave and go to an average parish and participate in some Bible study program.

And the first session on the Book of Revelation will most likely involve arguments against Johannine authorship because that is presently in vogue.

That's the, the academic fad in a sense.

So just be aware of that.

And you can beware if you wish, but just, uh, i- if y- if you recall some of these sources, I think it'll really give you a lot of, uh, a lot of confidence that, uh, th- the church's tradition in this regard is reliable.

Now, in addition to the question of authorship, there's another really challenging question and that is dating.

Not who should I ask out next weekend, but I mean- dating in the sense of when did John have the vision?

All right.

And there are two basic positions.

The majority report and the minority report.

The majority report again is a position that I've taken for, uh, most of my, I would say in the last 15 years of studying Revelation, probably eight, seven or eight of those years, I took the majority report and that is, it was written by John near the end of his life, near the end of the first century around 96 AD during the reign of Emperor Domitian and during the persecution of Domitian.

That's the majority report.

The minority report is that it was written shortly before 70 AD during the Neronian persecutions.

In other words while Caesar Nero was ruling over the Roman Empire and launching the first and really the worst persecution against the Christians in the first century.

Now, the reason I've moved in my opinion from the majority view to the minority view, it's, it's, it's many reasons.

For one thing, a whole host of scholars have shifted in this, in this regard.

You can see it in, in the literature.

In fact I just found, uh, last week an article that appeared in Biblica, one of the most prestigious international journals of Scripture s- studies published by Catholics.

An article, When Was Revelation Conceived?

By R.B.

Moberly.

And he argues in this thesis that it really is now untenable to hold, that it was written in 96 under Emperor Domitian because there's really no evidence that Domitian ever persecuted the church.

There are some references in passing made by Irenaeus and other people to it, but it really isn't clear testimony.

It isn't really persuasive.

Irenaeus is really the main reason why scholars still contend that it was done, uh, th- the, the Apocalypse was seen and written late in the first century around 96 because Irenaeus seems to be saying in one of his writings that John had this vision near the end of his life during the reign of Domitian.

Two things to be said about Irenaeus' testimony.

And I, I need to say this because St. Irenaeus is my favorite of the, you know, 2nd century sources.

He, he's, he's truly a marvel.

But, uh, his testimony on historical matters isn't always to be taken at face value because in his writings he argues that Jesus was 50 when he was crucified.

And there ain't nobody who follows Irenaeus on that.

But I mean, he's unequivocal and he's emphatic on the point.

And so Irenaeus gives us a lot of good biblical insight but not necessarily a lot of weighty historical testimony.

The second point that's worth mentioning about Irenaeus' point of view is that the grammar of the sentence where he a- attributes Revelation to 96 AD, the reign of Domitian, can be translated one of two ways.

It can be what most scholars say, and that is that John had this vision near the end of his life during the reign of Domitian.

Or it could also be rendered that John had this vision and lived on to the time of Domitian when he, when he died.

And in fact I have an article here written by a scholar- contending just that very thing.

It's entitled The Fallacy of the Domitian Hypothesis.

Uh, it appeared in New Testament Studies several years ago.

I don't expect many of you to be into this, but it's by Barclay Newman.

And, uh, he goes through the, the testimony of St. Irenaeus with great respect and reverence, but looking at it and seeing that we really shouldn't regard it as final or authoritative.

The, uh, the final straw for me was reading this book by Kenneth L.

Gentry, Before Jerusalem Fell: Dating the Book of Revelation.

It just came out, uh, two and a half years ago.

This is, uh, a popularized version of Professor Gentry's doctoral thesis.

He wrote his dissertation on the dating of Revelation.

And like many scholars, he began years ago from the position that it was 96 AD.

And then the more he looked at the internal evidence within the book and the testimony of others, the more he became convinced that the persecution against the believers that Jesus is concerned about, that John is writing to alleviate, was not primarily at the hands of the Romans in 96, but it was the persecution launched by the Jews against the church in the first generation.

Uh, leading up to the greatest persecution in Jerusalem and then in turn leading up to the Romans besieging the City of Jerusalem, destroying it in 70 AD, that symbolizing what?

What would the destruction of the temple and the demolition of Jerusalem signify for early Christians in the first century, seeing well, just think of the Book of Acts and think of the Gospels.

Who is it that launches the persecution against Jesus?

Who is it behind the persecution of the apostles?

Is Pilate really, uh, spearheading the persecution?

He's washing his hands.

He's almost, uh, giving in with remorse to the pressure of the Pharisees, the scribes, the chief priests.

And likewise, who testifies at the cross that truly this is the Son of God?

It was a Roman centurion.

The Gospels in no way depict Christianity as a, a political revolutionary force setting out to topple Rome.

There's no anti-Roman sentiment in the Gospels.

There's no real Roman persecution of Jesus in the Gospels.

When you go to the Book of Acts, what do you find?

In the first eight chapters, the persecution against the believers in the first few years of the church is exclusively coming from Jerusalem, from the priests, from men like Saul of Tarsus, and from those that the priest sends out from Jerusalem.

So you have Jews in Jerusalem swearing never to eat another, another meal until they've slain, uh, St. Paul.

And you have throughout the whole Book of Acts, which covers more than one decade, constant persecutions against the apostles in many different cities outside of Jerusalem.

But in every single case, without any significant exception, the persecutions are launched by Jews who resent the kerygma, the Gospel and its implications.

In effect, what the apostles are saying is that the majority of Jews have missed the Messiah and that their leaders murdered Him.

And that's no small indictment against the old covenant institutions there in Jerusalem.

And you can understand then why there would be this pathos, this animus, this hostility coming from the chief priests, the scribes and theologians, the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the Zealots, and practically every strata of Jewish society.

If you don't accept Jesus as Messiah and say your brother or your sister does, even if they do so gently and quietly, they have slapped you in the face.

Because what their acceptance of Christ implies is that you've missed the Messiah and your leaders have rejected Him.

And you're in darkness now, even while the Gospel was going out to Gentiles, the Goyim, the unclean and the defiled.

So I think psychologically and theologically, it makes a lot of sense that the Jews are the primary instigators of the initial persecutions against the church leading up to 70 AD.

And we're gonna see evidence from within the Book of Revelation for that.

Let's just take a quick look at a few passages along those lines.

Let's turn to Revelation chapter 2.

In Revelation chapter 2, we have verse 9.

Jesus is now addressing a letter to the church in Smyrna and He says, I know your tribulation and your poverty, but you are rich.

In other words, don't think of yourselves as poor if only, if your, if your poverty is only material.

But you are rich.

And I also know the slander of those who say that they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan.

Whoa.

Jesus does not pull his punches here.

He does not, you know, mask his intentions behind a lot of flowery rhetoric.

He's saying, I know who's persecuting you, and they say they're Jews, but they're not.

They're a synagogue of Satan.

Well then who are the Jews?

Well, I think we have an attitude reflected in these words that is similar to what we read in Paul's book to the Romans.

Listen to Romans chapter 2, beginning in verse 25 and following.

It says, Circumcision indeed, indeed is of value if you obey the law.

But if you break the law, your circumcision becomes uncircumcision.

Who's Paul talking to?

The Jews who are circumcised.

So if a man who is uncircumcised keeps the precepts of the law, that's the moral code, will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision?

By who?

By God.Then those who are physically uncircumcised but keep the law will condemn you who have the written code and circumcision, but break the law.

Here's the key verse, verse 28.

For he is not a real Jew who is one outwardly, nor is true circumcision something external and physical.

He is a Jew who is one inwardly, and real circumcision is a matter of the heart, spiritual and not literal.

His praise is not from men, but from God.

All right?

And likewise, we have at the end of the Book of Galatians an attitude of, uh, some An, an ut- an utterance of St. Paul that reflects the same conviction, I think, reflected in Revelation 2.

In Galatians 6, verse 13, we read, For even those who receive circumcision do not themselves keep the law.

And then dropping down to verse 15, For neither circumcision counts for anything nor uncircumcision, but a new creation.

What matters?

Becoming a new creation.

Just like Paul says in 2 Corinthians, If anybody is in Christ, behold, he's a new creation.

Verse 16 of Galatians 6 reads, Peace and mercy be upon all who walk by this rule.

What rule?

The rule of the new creation, not the rule of circumcision.

Peace and mercy be upon all who walk by this rule, upon the Israel of God.

So the true Jew is the one who keeps the law from a heart filled with faith.

He's a new creation in Christ.

And all of us who are newly created in Christ constitute what?

The Israel of God.

Well, what then is the implication of that for Jews in Jerusalem or Jews in the dispersion connected to the temple in Jerusalem who reject Jesus and his apostles and the Gospel they proclaim?

That they're not true Jews anymore.

They've been disinherited.

I mean, all they need to do is repent and they will be grafted back into the olive tree of Israel, but they're no longer the true Israel just by virtue of their own ethnic origin.

Now it's become very clear that what we're really talking about in the family of Abraham is a spiritual pedigree, a supernatural kinship, a bond with God that is established by faith.

So they're no longer the true Israel.

They're no longer true Jews, because believers, be they Jew or Gentile, they're the true Jews constituting the true Israel.

These persecutors are what?

The synagogue of Satan.

And the same language is used later on.

For instance, take a look at, uh, chapter 3, verse 9.

Now, Jesus is addressing a letter to the church in Philadelphia.

Behold, I will make those of the synagogue of Satan who say that they are Jews and are not, but lie, behold, I will make them come and bow down before your feet and learn that I have loved you.

Well, how can Jesus say this?

Because of what he said back in verse 7.

And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write, 'The words of the Holy One, the True One, who holds the key of David, who opens and no one shall shut, who shuts and no one opens.' This is a quotation from Isaiah 22.

Who holds the key of David?

The heir in David's house, the King of Israel, the ruler in the city of David, Jerusalem.

So Jesus holds the key of David.

He is the Son of David.

He's the true heir, and thus the real King of Israel.

So only those who are loyal subjects to Jesus are true Israel.

You see what a radical perspective is developed here in Revelation, just as we find elsewhere in the entire New Testament.

It's hard for us as Gentiles living in the West 20 centuries later to appreciate this, because our first tendency is to do, I think, a superficial treatment of Revelation that is to simply read what we find here and plug it immediately into our own experiences without rolling up our sleeves, getting down on our knees, and trying to understand what this meant back then.

But if we do that, if we roll up our sleeves, get down on our knees, and search out the meanings that are really here as they were communicated originally to the first readers, I think we're gonna appreciate the covenant context of this revelation.

And I, I use that word covenant very deliberately.

Uh, for instance, I Let's see if I can find this here.

There's a, there's a statement by a scholar here.

The Gospel is a covenant Gospel that reveals the fulfillment of a covenant promise.

But when Gospel eschatology What does the word eschatology mean?

Eschaton is the Greek word for the last things, so eschatology is the study of the last things.

He says, But when Gospel eschatology is abstracted from its covenant frame of reference, any eschatological interpretation of man's choosing can be extracted from it.

So a challenge for us is to try to go back and recreate within our own minds the basic categories that the apostles had.

They're all Jews steeped in the Old Testament.

And if there's one overarching idea that first-century Jews had at the center of their whole religious worldview, it's that God has made a covenant with us, and God has promised to fulfill that covenant by bringing it to perfection in a way that exceeds anything we've seen thus far.

So this new covenant then really should be the controlling principle for all of our interpretation, not just in Revelation 1, 2, and 3, but all the way to the end.

What is the climax of the Book of Revelation?

If we look at the last three chapters, the last four chap- Revelation 19, 20, 21, and 22, what happens in Revelation 19?Even if you only read the book once or twice through, you could recall that Revelation 19, a city described as a whore or a harlot, is burned up with fire.

Now, many scholars contend that's Rome, but the problem is, Rome was never called a harlot anywhere in scripture.

But Jerusalem is called a harlot by Ezekiel and by Jeremiah and by Isaiah and many others as well.

Second, Rome was not burned up in a fire.

I mean, a small fire in a region of Rome set by Nero, but it didn't consume the whole city the way it's described in Revelation 19.

There was a city, however, that was entirely burned down with fire, Jerusalem.

That's Revelation 19.

A city described as a harlot, persecuting God's people, being destroyed and burned utterly.

Then in Revelation 20 and 21, we have the unveiling of the wife of the Lamb, the bride of the Lamb.

The new Jerusalem descends as a virgin bride out of heaven after a harlot city has been burned with fire on Earth.

You can see the contrast.

Two cities.

One's a whore and one's a virginal bride.

Well, if the virginal bride coming from Heaven is the new Jerusalem, what is this metropolitan whore on Earth burned with fire?

Conversely, it would be the old Jerusalem.

So, the virginal bride of Christ, the new Jerusalem, the church of the new covenant, is not revealed in its fullness until the old Jerusalem, which was a prototype of the new covenant in its temple, is done away with.

Not just because it was mere a mere prototype, but because it had also become the source of all the persecutions in the first generation.

You can recall Jesus' words.

Turn with me to Matthew, chapter 23.

In Matthew's Gospel, right before describing how Jerusalem will be destroyed and the temple will be demolished, Jesus says in Matthew 23, To the leaders of Jerusalem.

In Matthew 23, he pronounces seven woes or seven curses upon them.

The last one appears in verse 29.

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!

For you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous and you say, 'If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.' Thus you bear witness against yourselves, that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets.

Why?

Because you're about to murder the Messiah that the prophets prophesied about.

So fill up then the measure of your fathers.

The measure of what?

The measure of guilt.

You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell?

Therefore I send you prophets, wise men, scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, some you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from town to town so that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed on Earth, from the blood of innocent Abel to the blood of Zechariah.

Verse 36.

Truly I say to you, all this will come upon this generation.

These words Jesus pronounced around 30, 33 A.D.

A generation, a genea in Greek, is a 40-year time span.

40 years later, you come to 70 A.D., you see the fulfillment of His words with unbelievable accuracy.

1.2 million Jews were locked up tight, like sardines in the city, and slaughtered.

That's how many perished, even though the city only held a few hundred thousand normally at most.

It was a festival time when the Roman legions descended.

It was the bloodiest thing of all.

And we have reason to believe that not a single Jewish Christian perished in that battle because the Jewish beli- the Jewish Christian believers saw Jesus' words and heard His warnings, along with perhaps the book of Revelation, and knew when it was time to skedaddle before the Roman legions got there.

But then listen to verse 37.

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, killing the prophets and stoning those who are sent to you!

How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, but you would not!

Who are the you?

The leaders of Jerusalem.

You wouldn't let me gather your children.

So behold, your house, that's the temple, is forsaken and desolate.

That, I believe, is the backdrop for the apocalypse.

Notice that Matthew, Mark, and Luke all describe what Jesus goes on to say in Matthew 24.

It's known as the Little Apocalypse.

Sometimes it's called the Olivet Discourse.

It's Jesus' last discourse before His trial and execution.

That's where He talks about wars, rumors of wars, famines, earthquake, pestilence, persecution, all of that.

And then He closes by saying again, All of this will occur within this generation.

And in fact, all of it did occur by 70 A.D.

Only one of the four Gospels doesn't record that last discourse of Jesus.

The Olivet Discourse is entirely omitted from John's Gospel.

Why would John skip the Little Apocalypse, Jesus' final discourse?

Except perhaps because he wanted to include it as a separan- separate book, the Big Apocalypse we call Revelation.

And that is what I think, uh, is the proper approach to this book.

From the beginning in Revelation chapters one, two, and three, we see the persecution coming from those who are Jews, who say they're Jews but are not.

They're a synagogue of Satan.

Revelation, uh, in the end, we see a, a, a whorish city being burned with fire, and then the new Jerusalem descends from heaven as a virgin bride prepared for the Lamb, the Messiah.

And then by the time we get to Revelation 22, we see that the new covenant is perfected in the new Jerusalem, the City of God.So, this represents the perspective I'm going to approach the Book of Revelation with.

Now, having said all this, I wanna say a couple other things too, just to be really fair to those that would disagree with my perspective.

There are basically four options we could choose from.

The first option is the one I've chosen.

It's called the preterist interpretation of Revelation.

Preterist comes from a word meaning past.

In other words, the fulfillment of the Book of Revelation is largely past.

That's what I would contend.

That the- the book had a meaning that was primarily designed for the church in the first century, all right?

That's the preterist view.

There are two varieties of this.

Some preterists would argue that what we're really finding in Revelation is the downfall of Jerusalem and the old covenant.

Other preterists would argue that the prophecy predicts the downfall of Rome.

But in either case, preterists agree that there is a first century fulfillment that represents the primary meaning of the Revelation.

The second option is called the historicist interpretation, or simply the historical interpretation.

That view is held by scholars who contend that the Book of Revelation really predicts all the various stages of church history, from the first generation to the end of time.

And so, you have an unfolding panorama of the various phases that the Church will pass through as it goes through New Testament salvation history.

There are many, many valuable and valid insights that we are going to draw from the second viewpoint.

Because I think that even if the preterist interpretive view is correct, we can also build at- on top of it a historical interpretation as well, so that Jesus' words may apply not only to the Church in the first generation or the first century, but also it will apply to the Church as it passes through history down through the ages.

The third view is called the futurist view.

In America today, it's by far the most common, especially among evangelical Protestants, fundamentalists, and even some Catholics who, uh, are influenced by what they hear on the radio or they- they- they see on television from the tele-evangelists.

The futurist view argues that the real meaning of the of this vision really didn't make sense.

It- it wasn't disclosed in the first century, believers.

It really wouldn't make sense until the end of time.

Only believers studying Revelation at the end of time, at the end of New Testament history, would truly understand the elements of the vision.

And so, you'll find people today, I- I- I've, you know, for instance, Hal Lindsey, whose book, The Late Great Planet Earth, is the second best-selling book of the last 30 years, next to the Bible.

Hal Lindsey's the one who just popularized this view that Russia was the beast, and that Gog and Magog apply to the Soviet Union.

They would come down upon Palestine, and Jesus would return and slaughter all these Soviets.

And then establish a 1,000-year kingdom in Jerusalem.

Now, that view has been condemned by the Church as a heresy known as Kirliasm.

In fact, the condemnation came again in this century from the Pontifical Biblical Commission.

But you'll find many Catholics who still uphold it.

That's the futurist view.

That is, the fulfillment of Revelation really awaits the end of time.

But I should also hasten to add that when you read futurists, you're also going to find many valuable and valid insights.

And I'm convinced that if we see the literal historical meaning of Revelation primarily fulfilled in the first century, that also allows for an even greater fulfillment later on at the end of time.

So, I'm not gonna hold to my view in an exclusive way that would rule out the insights of the other views.

In fact, I believe that the only way to safeguard the other views is by building them on the foundation of a first century fulfillment.

That's what I hope to really clarify and explain in the next seven or eight weeks.

The final view is a view that's probably held by more of the church fathers than any other.

It's called the idealist view.

The idealist view.

The idealist view contends that the Book of Revelation is basically a description of the ongoing spiritual struggle that every believer faces in his or her life, and the church faces in every generation.

It's a struggle that takes place on Earth, and it's a struggle that is also taking place, even as we speak, up in heaven.

It's a struggle involving the world, the flesh, and the devil, and it's a struggle that also engages the principalities and powers, the archangels, the thrones and dominions, and so on.

So basically, in the Book of Revelation, you find the church having to overcome in the midst of persecution on earth, even as that struggle is reflected by St. Michael the Archangel contending against Satan above.

And between those two poles, you have creatures at every single level of the universe struggling as the battle between good and evil draws near to the end of time, where Christ will bring it to a decisive conclusion.

So, the idealist view basically explains Revelation as, in terms of the moral struggle between good and evil, the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of Satan.

And once again, I hasten to emphasize that many, many valuable and valid insights will be gained from this fourth view.

In fact, this fourth view, I believe, is going to be the one that is that will prove to be the most spiritually edifying for us today as we read it.I think it'll be very informative, very exciting to discover many of the historical events of the first century that will show us how all of this was fulfilled.

But what we really want to do with the Book of Revelation- What the Holy Spirit really wants to do with the Book of Revelation, tonight and in the weeks to come, is to show us that Christ is lord of history.

He's the Lord of Lords, the King of Kings over all the earth.

So that no matter how intense the persecutions might become, no matter how, uh, how few believers seem to be overcoming the temptations and trials around us, nevertheless, Christ is enthroned.

And He sends His angels to assist those who will hold fast to their faith and overcome in the end- in the end.

So that really represents, I think, this, this fourth view represents something that we have to hold fast to, even as we consider the other three as well.

But getting back to that first view, why should we contend that the primary or the initial fulfillment of Revelation is in the first century?

I think it's because the book indicates it.

In other words, from within the Book of Revelation, we will find the basic pointers to this initial interpretive view.

Turn with me now to the Book of Revelation, chapter one, verse one.

You thought I'd never get there.

We're gonna come back and, and, and consider some of the Greek terms here, but let's just look at the time reference that we find from the outset.

The revelation of Jesus Christ, literally in the Greek it's the apokalupsis of Jesus Christ, the apocalypse of Jesus Christ which God gave Him to show to His servants what must soon take place.

And He made it known by sending His angel to His servant John, who bore witness.

The word there is marturia.

Testimony, witness.

Uh, the martyr is the one who really lives and dies his witness.

Who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw.

The word testimony is marturia.

Blessed is he who reads aloud the words of the prophecy, and blessed are those who hear and who keep what is written therein, for the time is near.

The time is near.

Let's take a look now at chapter two, verse five.

In chapter two, verse five, again we see Jesus speaking to the seven churches.

This time it's to the Church in Ephesus.

He says, Remember then from what you have fallen, your first love, repent and do the works that you did at first.

If not, I will come to you and remove your lamp stand from its place unless you repent.

So the coming of Jesus is imminent and somewhat conditional based on whether or not they're going to repent and return to their first love.

This is not going to be fulfilled, I don't think, in the future as it was in the past, because right now there is no church in Ephesus.

You realize that.

The Turkish authorities have outlawed the public mass from even being said in Ephesus.

When Pope Paul VI wanted to say mass, uh, in Ephesus to commemorate St. John, and what else did Ephesus boast?

I mean, not just St. John as bishop, but the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Paul was there for years.

Timothy- Uh, Apollos, uh, and on and on it goes.

Their, uh, it was sort of like a veritable hall of fame of early church greats.

And yet, there's no church there anymore.

Christ came and removed the lamp stand.

We also hear that language of coming in ch- uh, chapter two, verse 16.

Repent then.

If not, I will come to you soon and war against them with the sword of my mouth.

Look down at verse 25.

But to the rest of you in Thyatira who do not hold this, uh, who do not hold this teaching, who have not learned what some call the deep things of Satan, to you I say I do not lay upon you any other burden.

Only hold fast what you have until I come.

Let's also take a look at chapter three, verses three and verse 11.

Remember then what you've received and heard.

Keep that and repent.

If you will not awake, I will come like a thief and you will not know at what hour I will come upon you.

So this imagery of coming like a thief in the night that we find in Thessalonians is echoed here.

And also, look at verse 11.

I am coming soon.

Hold fast what you have so that no one may seize your crown.

He who conquers, I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God.

So, there's a temple down here on Earth in Jerusalem, but there's also going to be a temple up in heaven that we'll see later on in Revelation chapter 11.

Goes on, I will write on him the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the New Jerusalem, which comes down from my God out of heaven, and my own new name.

So again, I think we find some indications not only of a first century fulfillment, but a first century fulfillment against the backdrop of an old Jerusalem that has outworn its spiritual usefulness, and a new Jerusalem that is going to be revealed imminently.

Let's take a look now at the end of the Book of Revelation, chapter 22, verse 10, 11, and 12.

And again, why are we doing this?

We're seeing that within the book there are time indicators that suggest an imminent fulfillment for the li- within the lives of the first readers.

22, verse 10, 11, and 12, And he said to me, 'Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is near.' And by the way, that's in contrast to what you'd read in Daniel 8, verse 26.

When Daniel was given a vision of all of the things that must take place before the old is, is passes away and a new comes and everything is fulfilled, Daniel was commanded to seal up the vision and the prophecy, because it's not going to be fulfilled for a long time.

And that meant 400 years.But here, Jesus says, Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is near.

If 400 years made d- made it important for Daniel to seal it up until everything was fulfilled, now, in contrast, he is not to seal it up because the time is near.

I would suggest, as other scholars do, that this indicates imminent expectation.

Let the evil doer still do evil, and the filthy still be filthy, and the righteous still do right, and the holy still be holy.

Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense to repay everyone for what he has done.

I am coming soon.

And then finally, in Revelation 22:20, He who testifies to these things says, 'Surely I am coming soon.' Amen.

Come, Lord Jesus.

The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all the saints.

Now, once we've seen the language of imminency within the Book of Revelation at the very beginning and at the very end and scattered throughout, we have to address the question then, what did Jesus mean when he said, I'm coming soon?

Because most of us associate the coming of the Lord, I mean, we might think of Glory, Glory, Hallelujah, but most of the time- we think of the coming of the Lord as being the, uh, the second coming, the final advent.

And so, when we read in the Gospels or we re- read, when we read in the Book of Revelation about Jesus coming, even as Catholics we're conditioned by our culture and by non-Catholic interpreters around us to, to render this, uh, t- to give this a, a materialistic interpretation, to interpret it primarily in terms of political, economic, and military events, rather than seeing this in spiritual terms, rather than interpreting it in light of how the Old Testament prophets used the exact same language.

What I propose to do, uh, next week and the following week is to consider several texts from Isaiah, from Jeremiah, from Ezekiel, from Joel chapter Two, which Peter saw being fulfilled in his own day at Pentecost, from the Book of Nahum as- All these books show us how the Old Testament prophets use the language of the day of the Lord, or the coming of the Lord, or the sun being darkened, and the stars falling from the sky, to signify what?

The downfall of Babylon, the downfall of a Assyria, the downfall of Sumeria, the downfall of Nineveh, the downfall of any city or state or kingdom that persecuted God's people.

So you would use this sort of prophetic imagery whenever you're intending to describe how God will vindicate His elect and God will bring vengeance upon those who are blasphemously persecuting His people.

All right?

Now, having said this, we, we want to really move now toward the first chapter and cover some ground here.

Let's look again at chapter one, beginning with the first verse.

The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show to His servants what must soon take place.

I mentioned a minute ago that the Greek word for revelation is apokalupsis.

That word is really significant.

The word itself, uh, you can draw two points.

One thing that scholars point out when they study this word apokalupsis, is that it's the, the, the root from which we get the English apocalyptic.

And so many scholars interpret the Revelation of John as it falls within the literary genre of apocalyptic.

What is apocalyptic?

It was a form of literature, it was a literary form that was very common back in the first century.

In fact, really back in the first century BC, you have the rise of Jewish apocalypses.

You can even trace it back to the Book of Zechariah and the Book of Daniel as well.

Apocalyptic is a form of literature that is somewhat prophetic.

That is, it does prophesy concerning the future, but it does so in a way that's very different than the standard prophecies you'd read in Isaiah or Jeremiah, because the prophecies found in apocalyptic literature are almost always filled with cataclysmic imagery.

It isn't just describing the conditions of God's people here below, it always looks at that struggle in terms of the heavenly strife involving angels and devils.

It is also catastrophic in the sense that it emphasizes how the end of history is drawing nigh.

So apocalyptic is either a different form of literature than prophecy, that's what many scholars hold, or I think it's a particular style of prophecy.

What is prophecy?

Well, prophecy is ultimately, let me just read to you a- a quote that I think is very helpful, uh, from Cardinal Daniel Lou in Shadows To Reality.

He talks about how Old Testament symbols are always used in the New Testament to show the real meaning of Christ, like for instance, the Passover Lamb.

When John the Baptist sees Jesus, he says, Behold the Lamb of God.

That's known as typology, studying these Old Testament images and how they prefigure Christ.

Daniel Lou says, The organic relationship between typology and prophecy is quite clear, for so far from being distinct categories, prophecy is the typological interpretation of history.

Prophecy then looks at history not the same way a journalist would for the New York Times.

Prophecy, prophets I should say, look at history to find the divine clues to the meaning of history.And apocalyptic is the style of prophecy that studies history in light of its cosmic significance.

All right, so you're gonna hear me refer to apocalyptic literature from time to time.

And if you do any study on your own of Revelation, you will find in practically every book that this is a, is a sampling of apocalyptic literature.

I think it is, but I think it's very different than almost every Jewish apocalypse that you'll find.

Because if you study the average Jewish apocalypses, like 4 Ezra and others that we have available, they almost always are primarily political tracts that are geared to getting to whipping up frenzy against Rome or against political enemies.

Whereas I think Revelation is this is, is intended to help us to see the spiritual meaning behind our own persecutions, so that we can see the significance to our own overcoming of these, these problems.

I want to push that aside and focus again on this Greek word, apocalypses.

I did a word study a couple years ago of the word apocalypses, and I discovered that the primary meaning of the word back in the first century didn't have any great prophetic significance.

If you look up a- apocalypses in an average dictionary, what you'll find is that normally it was the word used in common Jewish life.

And it was a word used in particular to refer to something that occurred in wedding ceremonies.

Back in the first century, the typical Jewish wedding would take a week if it involved virgins marrying for the first time.

And, you know, for the whole week, you have a lot of festivities as the two families were somewhat separate, but they were getting to know each other.

But the real consummation, the real high point of the, uh, the wedding, of course, would occur on the seventh day.

It would begin with real elaborate festivities, and they would dress up the bride and the groom as queen and king.

And the groomsmen would actually carry them aloft on their shoulders for a great distance in a kind of parade.

And at the end of this, the entourage would lower them before the hoopah, which was the bridal canopy, a very large tent that was designed as a kind of honeymoon suite.

And then the groom might carry the bride across the threshold, at which point I think the groom would hope the entourage would separate itself a great distance from the hoopah, the, the, the tent.

And at that point, the husband and wife, the bride and groom would enter into the inner room of the canopy, and that point would mark the apocalypses.

It's a compound term in Greek which literally means the unveiling, because that was the time when the bride would take off her veil.

And my hunch is that she took off more than her veil.

My, my hunch is that this word apocalypses signifies the moment when the bride and the groom enter into the most intimate and ecstatic and pleasurable and fulfilling relationship in the natural order.

This is where the two become one flesh and one spirit.

I think that it's significant and relevant that Jesus, the Holy Spirit and John all choose this word to initiate or to introduce the visions of John.

Because what we hear, what we find in Revelation is the unveiling, the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Now, normally when we use the word Revelation as theologians, what we mean is, uh, all of the- All of the truth that we would not know from reason alone, that God is a trinity.

Reason can tell us that God exists, but not that he's a trinity.

And so Revelation is normally explained and defined in terms of the mysteries of the faith, which are not knowable to human reason and experience.

We only know them because God has revealed them.

All right, that's a good academic definition, hold fast to it.

But I think something more is intended here, because ultimately revolution- Revelation is not primarily, uh, information.

It's not data.

It's not just a list of facts that we wouldn't know apart from God speaking.

Revelation is geared, it's designed to cause us to enter into a relationship with Christ.

And not just a buddy-buddy friendship, but the most intimate relationship imaginable.

And so he chooses the word here, apocalypses, to show us just how much he loves us and just how close he wants to get to us.

We can do a lot of academic and theological study of Revelation, but we're gonna be off the mark if we don't emphasize from the outset, and really at every point, that the fundamental purpose behind Jesus' self-revelation is to enter into a bridal union with our soul.

So that he becomes our groom and we become his bride, and we enter into a very intimate, ecstatic, and fruitful relationship.

Frequently you'll hear people talk about Christ, and you'll wonder if for that person Christ isn't just a concept or a term.

Christ wants to be much more than that.

Christ wants to be our best friend, and the friendship that he wants to establish is in fact comparable to the best friendship I have with Kimberly, a marital bond, a marital covenant.

I also think it's significant that Jesus uses this word because it points to the climax of the Revelation.

What in fact consummates the vision?

The Revelation of the bride of the Lamb, when the Lamb and the bride are united for eternity, and we're all invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb, where we'll feast forever.

That's apocalypses.And the only experience in the natural realm of human relations to even come close to that is the sexual bond of marital union.

And even that I bet will end up falling far short of the intimacy that we'll, we'll, we'll enjoy with Christ forever.

All right, let's go on.

He made it known by sending His angel to His servant John, who bore witness to the Word of God.

The word in Greek there is logos.

It isn't just verbal utterances, because we know that for John, what is the Word of God?

What is the logos?

Or rather we should ask, who is the Word of God?

You can go back to John's other book, the, the fourth Gospel, what's the opening verse there?

In the beginning was the Word, Logos, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

And then later on, The Word becomes flesh and dwells among us.

So, He bears witness to the Word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw.

Blessed is he who reads aloud the words of the prophecy, and blessed are those who hear and who keep what is written therein.

This is a real practical point I think that we, we ought to make.

A lot of Catholics are scared to death of Revelation, because of how fundamentalists twist it and misinterpret it.

Or not just fundamentalists, Evangelicals, liberals, practically everybody at some point makes some fundamental blunders when, when interpreting Revelation.

I assure you, I probably will too.

Now, I don't want to.

I don't plan on it.

But, you know, the fact is, I am far from infallible.

I just, I, I don't know where I'm going to be making mistakes.

But you pray and you, you know, you search out the meaning with the help of the Holy Spirit.

But the fact is, no matter how hard it is, no matter how little we sometimes feel we're getting out of it, fact is, Jesus pronounces a divine benediction on us.

Blessed is he who reads aloud the words of the prophecy.

So as we go through this Bible study, I'm going to get a special blessing because I'm going to be the one reading these words out loud.

Sorry to rob you, but, you know, I'm kind of greedy when it comes to spiritual things.

Now, pray for me, because it isn't enough to read these words aloud.

He goes on to say, Blessed are those who hear and who keep what is written therein.

So it's not enough just to read.

But read we must, but we also must listen and really hear with the heart, and then we must obey.

We must keep.

And the term there for keeping is literally guarding.

It's storing it up.

Then we go on.

John, to the seven churches that are in Asia.

Grace to you and peace from Him who is and who was and who is to come.

Those two words, grace and peace, are just filled with meaning that comes straight from the Old Testament.

Charis, grace, comes from the concept in the Hebrew language known as hesed.

It means divine favor, steadfast love, mercy.

Hesed was the heart of the covenant.

It's what people give each other when they share the same family bonds.

It's what a mother gives a child.

It's what spouses are to give each other.

Hesed is steadfast love.

It's mercy, faithfulness, and all of that.

Grace to you and peace, and that, too, is a Hebrew concept rooted in the term shalom.

It means more than just the cessation of hostility.

Peace means the tranquility and the harmony that belongs to people who share communion in a family.

It, too, is the, the substance of covenant.

Grace to you and peace from Him who wa- who is, who was, and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before His throne.

So grace and peace come to us from Jesus Christ and from the seven spirits.

Now, I want to alert you to this number seven.

I think we all know that Revelation's hard to translate or in- in- interpret because it's so filled with symbolism.

You got lambs, you got lions, you got beasts, you got all kinds of symbols, but you also have a lot of numerical symbolism.

You've got 10, you've got 144,000.

You've got four, you got six, you got 666.

You got a thousand.

But more than all of the others put together, you've got seven, you've got seven, you've got oodles of sevens.

Right?

I have a chart here, for instance, that shows some of the sevens.

You got seven letters to the seven churches, from the seven spirits to the seven lampstands.

Then after that you got seven seals.

And when they're opened, you got seven trumpets.

And when they're blown, you got seven bowls.

And then after that, this scholar also argues that we have seven persons: the woman, the dragon, the man-child, Michael the Archangel, the beast from the sea, the beast from the earth, and the lamb.

I'm not sure about that.

That might be far-fetched.

I'm not really sure.

But, uh, other scholars point out that there are seven blessings pronounced by our Lord throughout the Book of Revelation as well.

What is seven?

Like grace and peace, seven points to covenant.

A lot of people say, Well, seven's the number of perfection.

That's a kind of glib and superficial interpretation.

Seven is more than just the number of perfection.

Seven is the number of the covenant, because the way you make a covenant is by swearing an oath.

If you have a promise, you got a contract.

It's only when you add to the promise an oath, when you swear an oath and you take on God's name, then and only then do you have a covenant.

And the Hebrew word to swear an oath is shva or nishva, and it literally means to seven oneself.

The Hebrew verb to swear an oath comes from the Hebrew noun for seven.

And so, uh, Professor Le- uh, Lehman argues in this, in this article, Shva, or seven, is still illogically related to the Hebrew word to swear an oath through the fact the number seven was an essential feature of oath ceremonies.And then he lists all these examples where seven new lambs are slaughtered, or seven is involved in many other Seven unclean animals taken by Noah onto the ark in order to have this, uh, covenant after the flood made by God.

And he lists all these other things as well.

And then there are many passages in the Old Testament where to swear an oath or to make a covenant are two ways of saying the exact same thing.

You can see Luke using that, for instance, in his Gospel.

So when we hear the number seven, when we see its repetition, what we should Wh- wh- what should we be looking for?

I will argue that the sevens signify the covenant relationship between God and His people, but the seven trumpets pronounce curses, the seven seals bring curses.

The seven uh, practically all of these seven seals, the seven trumpets, the seven bowls, all bring curses, because when God made a covenant with Israel through Moses, He said, If you break my covenant, Leviticus 26, you have over and over again Moses saying, God is going to bring sevenfold vengeance upon you in the form of the covenant curse.

Because when you put yourself under oath, you put yourself under a curse.

When you're in a covenant, you're under oath.

When you're under oath, you're under a curse.

That's why in the courtroom, the judge will say, I remind you, you're still under oath.

What does he mean?

He means that if you lie, it's more than a sin.

It's a crime we call perjury, and you might go to jail.

Why?

Because when you're under oath, you're under divine judgment.

Why?

Because now you've attached God's own holy name to your testimony, so that if you lie, you profane that name.

The Jews believed that sacrifices of animals could cover every sin except one, violating a sacred oath.

There is no animal sacrifice for that sin.

So when you're in the covenant, you're under oath, you're under a curse.

And when you break that covenant, Moses said, Deuteronomy 28 and Leviticus 26, repeatedly, what happens to Israel will be the sevenfold curse.

And that, I think, is really the background from the Old Testament to why the curses that befall the people who violate the covenant are in fact seven woes, seven bowls, seven trumpets, seven seals, and so on and so forth.

So anyway, here we have the seven spirits.

Who are the seven spirits?

I would argue that it's the Holy Spirit, that it's the Holy Spirit who is witness to the covenant.

I don't know of really any other view held by a reputable scholar.

That does not mean that it doesn't also apply to the angels.

You're gonna see a very close connection between the Holy Spirit and the angelic spirits.

Remember, Jesus dictates these letters to the seven churches, but to the angel of the Church of Philadelphia, or to the angel of the Church of Laodicea.

And so you have the Holy Spirit, and then you have the sevenfold spirit as well.

It's the Holy Spirit, but it's also the angels that go forth from the throne of Christ.

And f- let's see.

From the seven spirits who are before His throne and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of kings on Earth.

There's so much Old Testament symbolism just s- s- squeezed into this.

The faithful witness, especially this language of the firstborn of the dead, and the rulers of kings on Earth.

In Psalm 89, verse 27.

The king in David's line, God calls, My firstborn son.

Back in patriarchal cultures, when a patriarch got old, he would pass on through succession all of his authority to his firstborn son, so that the firstborn son, or the eldest brother, would stand as a father figure to the rest of the family.

So here is God the Father raising up and enthroning His firstborn son, eternally begotten, not made.

And so Jesus Christ, as the firstborn, is heir to the throne of David, as we see in Psalm 89, verse 27.

Where God says, He shall be my firstborn.

And because he's the firstborn, he's going to rule over all of the other rulers.

He'll be king over all the other kings.

To Him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by His blood and made us a kingdom, priests to His God and Father.

You could also translate that, And has made us a kingdom of priests to his God and Father.

If there's one theme besides the covenant that is at the center of Revelation, it's this.

That Jesus Christ is making us, through the covenant, into a kingdom of priests.

Not just kings.

That would be secular, earthly and physical.

Priest-kings, so that we will reign by virtue of spiritual authority.

Heavenly power is really the foundation to our kingly authority.

We are priest-kings.

We are a kingdom of priests, just as God promised way back in Exodus 19:6.

Exodus 19:6, where God says, If you hear My voice and obey it, and if you guard, if you keep My covenant, then you shall be a kingdom of priests.

But Old Testament Israel didn't.

And so those who don't are disinherited, they're cursed.

And those who are grafted onto Israel are blessed and made a kingdom of priests.

To Him be glory and dominion forever and ever.

Amen.

Behold, He is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see Him, every one who pierced Him.

All the tribes of the Earth will wail on account of Him.

Even so.

Amen.

This draws on two Old Testament images, one from Daniel 7, where Daniel saw the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven .

overcoming the beasts, the empires that persecuted Old Testament Israel.

And it's also drawn from Zechariah 12:10, where we have a firstborn who is pierced, and people will weep and wail on his on, on, on account of him.

You can look up those two passages, Zechariah 12 and Daniel 7 in the next week or so.

And that will shed a lot of light on the second half of Revelation 1.

What I propose to do now in, in, in, in bringing this to a close is to assign to you the section beginning in verse 8, I am the Alpha and the Omega, and going all the way through the end of chapter 1.

All right.

We're gonna look at this throne vision next time for about 20 or 30 minutes and see how Jesus is the Son of Man, and the Son of Man is the King of Kings and the High Priest of Heaven and Earth.

And he is the basis for who we are.

I also want to spend about a half-hour next week looking at the Catholic features of the Book of Revelation, just to kinda whet your appetite.

Because there's no other book in the entire New Testament more instrumental in my own conversion than the Book of Revelation.

So, I wanna urge you to study chapter 1, but I wanna suggest that you read the whole vision, the whole Book of Revelation, and look and find Catholic features.

And in fact, make a list.

I have a list right here of all the Catholic features.

I'm not gonna name even half, but I wanna just give you a couple samplings.

Obviously, the Virgin Mary in Revelation 12.

Her assumption, her coronation, the woman clothed with the sun, the moon under her feet.

She's crowned with 12 stars, and she's the mother of the Messiah.

We also have a lot about angels and saints and the Communion of Saints.

We have the theology of martyrdom.

We have the teaching on redemptive suffering.

We have the teaching on consecrated virginity in Revelation 14:4.

Mary as the new Eve, the Church as Christ's bride, the Church as the New Jerusalem.

We have purgatory implied, if not taught, in Revelation 20.

We have the mass laid out for us in Revelation 4 through Revelation 19 in the Passover liturgy there.

We have all kinds of liturgical elements, like incense, white robes, altars, thrones, candles, scrolls, the Sanctus, the Gloria, hallelujahs.

And all of this takes place on the Lord's Day, where Christ gives us the hidden manna.

I wonder what that is?

So look at this, and just ask the Holy Spirit to show you the distinctively Catholic features of the apocalyptic vision that John enjoys.

And, we have about 10 minutes or so for some observations and questions.

I wanna give an opportunity to the people who don't normally ask questions to ask questions first.

Thank you, Scott.

I want to support you, Scott.

Okay, Hold on.

Yes.

Um, if there's so much Catholic, uh, info in this Book of Revelation, why did the Protestants work so hard to deny it?

Why did I, for years, not only not see it, but use Revelation to argue the Catholic Church was the Whore of Babylon and the Pope was the Antichrist?

And that was a view held by Luther and by Calvin and by Knox and by all the reformers, all the, all the rebel, whatever you want to call those who founded Protestantism.

Uh, in a certain sense, you know, you see what you have.

But there's also a way in which the Holy Spirit can cause you to see even more.

I would say that we're losing at the interpretive game when it comes to Revelation because of forfeit.

We just haven't even shown up to the field.

Catholics are not studying the Bible enough to help our separated brothers and sisters see all the Catholic features of this book.

But when I, when I go out on the road, and when I share on the phone, or when I respond to people in correspondence, because we get a lot of Bible Christians, a lot of anti-Catholics, a lot of ex-Catholics who raise questions about Mary, about purgatory, about the saints, uh, about the mass.

I might go to other books in the New Testament, but I go to Revelation two, three, four times more than any other book in the New Testament.

And what I find is that people will say, Huh, either I don't normally study that book, I don't know it very well, or when I studied it, I studied it simply in terms of how it applies to the political military situation in the 20th century.

And so, we're losing by default.

We're just not waking up early enough to read this, to study it, and to share it with our friends, our brothers in Christ, our sisters in Christ.

You know, that's why I'm doing this study.

You know, I w- I w- I wanna get energ- I wanna get Catholics energized, because this book, the reason why it's so effective and useful in apologetics is not because John is arguing for all these Catholic conclusions.

It's rather because John takes all of these Catholic conclusions for granted.

And the only way to make sense out of many, many passages in the Apocalypse is to see that John assumes not only that these truths are valid, but all of his readers know they're valid.

That Jesus, our High Priest in Heaven, is not only our High Priest He, He wouldn't be a Priest if there wasn't a priestly ministry to carry on.

Priests have a ministry of sacrificial offering, but what is our Priest in Heaven going to be offering as a sacrifice?

Well, besides being a Priest, He's also our Lamb.

Priests offer lambs as a sacrifice.

He's Priest and victim, and this is a perpetual sacrifice in Himself.

That's what we mean by the mass.

And when you study the structure, as we will look at in the next few weeks, we're gonna see you got the liturgy of the word, the seven seals are broken so that the book can be opened and read.

And then as soon as the book is read, the liturgy of the word is over.

Then we have the marriage supper of the Lamb, which is the term used by all the early church fathers for the Eucharist .

the marriage feast of the Lamb.

'Cause we're the bride and Christ is the groom, and we become one flesh with Him in the Eucharist.

We're not even, we're not, we're not even playing the game.

We don't have the, the ball and the, you know, the balls, the bats, the, the mitts, you know?

It doesn't take that much.

You know, that's what makes it so exciting, I think.

Now, I want to call on Larry, but I want you to know that the reason I hesitated is because he and I see things so often the same way, and he's always sharing support.

And so I like to get people who, you know, disagree.

I, that's, that's how I grow.

But anyway, take it away, Larry.

Well, two, just two things, really quick-

Two things.

Okay

to confirm you.

Number one, I

To confirm me.

.

.

Right.

See, I take him out for ice cream every week because of this.

No.

Only clinchers, here.

Okay, number one.

I, uh, in, um Okay.

I did a word study on the second word in the Gospel of Matthew.

You know, geneas that comes from Genesis.

Uh, the word toledot is the way it's, it's translated in Hebrew-

Generations, right

which is from Genesis 5:1.

That can be, can One of the, uh, interpretations could be the, uh, this is the book of the begettings of Jesus Christ, okay?

Which goes with your interpretation of apocalypse, that He is, in a, in a sense, a Father as well as a brother.

Mm-hmm.

Uh, and also, another clincher is that, uh, when you read, um, Matthew in Hebrew, every time Jesus says, Son of man, He says, Ben-Adam, uh, Son of Adam.

Right.

Three times.

Oh, okay, so that fits together.

Uh, the second major clincher is accidentally, ac-, I wasn't even looking for it.

I was, I was playing around with longitudes and latitudes.

I, I believe you.

.

.

On the, on the globe-

.

I looked at Jerusalem, the longitude and latitude of Jerusalem, you add them together is 666.

Now, I thought, Yeah, that's, that's a funny coincidence, but what does that have to do with, uh, 2,000 years ago?

I mean, I'm sure, you know, it's possible John could've been looking forward in the future.

But when I went to Ptolemy, they didn't have, they didn't have our longitude, but they had our latitude.

It's on latitude 66.

Jerus- Jerusalem is on the latitude 666.

Now, I thought, well, Ptolemy wrote this in 140 AD, how does that apply to John, let's say, in 68 AD?

Well, he based his, his longitude and latitude on Marinus of Tyre, and he lived at the time of John.

And he draw- in other words, the 666 is the latitude of Jerusalem.

You took the words right out of my mouth.

.

.

As, you know, tonight is the 25th anniversary of LAUGH-IN.

We're missing it, thankfully.

.

But as Artie Johnson would say, Very interesting.

.

.

Okay.

I saw a couple other hands.

Yes.

I was just wondering, is there some significance to the number seven?

That in covenant, uh, in covenant, um, um, it was used, like you, you said, seven lambs, seven Why seven for covenants?

Yeah.

It, I think it ultimately goes back to the purpose for creation.

You know, God could've made the world in a split second.

He could've done it in five seconds, eight seconds, you know.

It's described in seven days.

Do we mean by that, you know, seven, 24-hour days, literal days?

Not necessarily.

I mean, you're allowed to hold that view as Catholics, but we certainly don't have to.

Uh, but I believe that what you find there is God creating in six days, and man is created on the sixth day along with the beasts.

But unlike the beast, he is made for the seventh day, Sabbath worship.

He's made for the covenant.

God, in effect, sevens Himself when He creates in seven days.

This, in, in the book of First Enoch, which is not scriptural, but it is quoted in scripture by the Book of Jude, First Enoch describes how God swore a great oath, and the oath was the power of creation.

And the oath is what sustains creation.

Now, you're like, Where in the Bible did Enoch get off, you know-

.

seeing this oath forming creation?

Unless Enoch takes for granted that in our minds, to swear an oath, to make a covenant, and to sever oneself are all three ways of saying the same thing.

So that when God creates in seven days, or He creates in six days, blesses the seventh, He's sevening Himself, He's binding Himself in this sort of S- Sabbath oath to His world, so that the Creator is no longer just a creator, but by virtue of the covenant, He becomes a Father.

And the creation becomes a big temple, a home, a household.

And we, His creatures who bear His image, aren't just creatures any longer.

But because we're called into the fellowship of the Sabbath, we become children, sons and daughters of God.

So, I think that the reason why seven is so significant is because it points back to the original plan of God in the covenant of creation, whereby we who were made with the, the beast on the sixth day were made for worship and for love of God.

And so that's what the Sabbath symbolized for the ancient Jews.

It was the day of rest.

It was the day you stopped slaving and working like animals.

It was the day you would lay aside your own labor and express your faith in God's work, and worship Him and sacrifice to Him, and offer up your prayers to Him.

This is why when men lapse from the covenant, when men rebel against God in the covenant, you will find the number six taking on significance.

For instance, Goliath was st- you know, who, who opposed the covenant people, is said to s- stand six cubits high.

And then the, uh, the beast, the image of the beast in the Book of Daniel, is said to be 60 cubits by six cubits.

And then the number of the beast, as we know, is 666.

Whenever Satan succeeds in getting us to forget the covenant, to forget the fact that we were made for worship, we become like animals.

So, we're made on the sixth day with the beast, but we're made for the seventh day, we're made for the covenant, we're made to be children of God.

But when we leave the covenant, when we forsake worship, it's like we lapse back into a kind of bestial existence, where we work and we see our own work as the be all and end all, end all of our existence.

This is, by the way, just to draw a practical point, why the Lord's day is so important for people who work, and why the church has always stressed the, uh, the rejuvenation, the spiritual revitalization that, that comes to God's people when they do live out the covenant .

you know, of the seventh day, which is now the eighth day.

The early, uh, church fathers used to speak of the believers as being people of the eighth day, because it symbolized that, you know, the old creation took place in seven days, but because of sin, it's not enough.

A new creation becomes necessary and it's the day of resurrection.

It's the first day.

It's the eighth day.

And so, it's the day when we rest in the new covenant.

A lot of stuff we could say more about that, but yeah.

Um, I was just wondering, you know, we were talking about the different views right now.

It's in prior relation like on, for instance, um, Our Lady of Medjugorje and Our Lady said that we're living in the days of Revelation 12 and 13, and the people like Colin Z who speak about stuff like the European market economy.

Just stuff like that and how it's in Revelation.

How, how, how should we look at that?

You know, how should we just for our day

I would say that it's very plausible that we live in an age where we're gonna see a greater fulfillment of aspects of Revelation than you found in previous periods.

All right?

So there's a There's, there's, there's a, there's a way in which fulfillment is ever escalating.

So that, uh, one thing we're gonna look at next week is how the Jews viewed their temple in Jerusalem as a replica of the universe.

In fact, all ancient peoples built temples, and the temples were the center of the universe because the temple was meant to be a microcosm, um, a replica of the cosmos in miniature.

Now, when the temple's demolished as Christ predicted, what is being demolished is not just a building.

If that temple is a sign or an symbol and a replica of the whole universe, then when Jesus describes the end of the world, and then the new creation, the new heavens and the new Earth, that is something that occurs symbolically when the temple was, was destroyed.

But that's, that was the end of the world for the Jews.

But what happens when we reach the end of the world for the West?

We're going to see an escalation of fulfillment, and we're gonna see that fulfillment grow larger and larger as the church grows larger and larger, and as the church's sins grow larger and larger.

And then hopefully as the church's repentance grows, you know, until eventually the whole world.

And whenever you find Old Testament, prophets and po- describing the universe, they always depict it as a huge temple.

So that the temple was the world in miniature and the world is a macro temple.

So eventually at the end of time, the whole universe as a temple will undergo the fiery judgment that the Jerusalem temple underwent in 70 AD.

In between 70 AD and whenever that future date is, we can expect many provisional fulfillments of Revelation.

That's why I stress how I take a preterist view but that allows for a historical view, uh, a futurist fulfillment as well as an idealist interpretation.

Stephen.

Uh, about, um, the Is the A thousand years, is that a Hebrew expression for a long time?

Oh boy.

Yeah.

A thousand can be, uh, a kind of figure of speech.

Like God owns the cattle on a thousand hills.

Well, if you find that there are 1,500 hills and y- your cow's on them, He owns those as well, you know.

Uh, a thousand can signify completeness.

Uh, I'm going to have opportunity, I hope, to share my own view of what that thousand years signifies because while I think it does point to the completeness of time, at the end of which Satan will be loosed and Christ will return and defeat him ultimately, I also think that it's more than a coincidence that the old Jerusalem was conquered by David 1003 BC.

And exactly for 1,000 years, it served as a prototype of the new Jerusalem that is the Church of the New Covenant.

At the end of that thousand-year period, Jesus shows us in the Gospels that the earthly Jerusalem's time is up.

Once the building is erected, then the, the scale model is no longer needed.

Jerusalem on Earth was a scale model of the heavenly Jerusalem, which is the Church of the New Covenant.

Once it's introduced, earthly Jerusalemites resent that and persecute it.

So it'll be destroyed after a thousand years.

So you have, again, a literal historical fulfillment of the thousand years Revelation 20, I'm gonna suggest as a hypothesis that I've worked on.

But it also points to a future fulfillment when at the, in the completeness of historical time, Satan will be loosed for a short period and Christ will come and vanquish him at the end.

Mm-hmm.

But it's not literal a thousand years.

Well, if my hypothesis holds weight, then the old Jerusalem served as this prototype for literally and historically a thousand years.

That's why I, I will usually point to the spiritual meanings and emphasize the greater importance of the figurative meanings of how our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit, and how the church is a temple.

But Richard of Saint Victor has this principle, Historia fundamentum est, the historical meaning is fundamental.

We don't build spiritual meanings until we have carefully laid the historical foundation.

So interpreters who are quick to bypass the literal historical fulfillment in the first century, I think are going to erect interpretive er- erect interpretations that are gonna totter and perhaps even fall.