A Study Of The Book Of Revelation
Lesson No. 3:
Section 1: Principles of Interpretation for the Book of Revelation
Section 2: More Ground Work on the Book of Revelation
Section 3: Outline of the Book of Revelation

Date: April 2^nd, 2003, Wednesday Evening Adult Bible Class
Speaker: John Phillis
Note: Much of the information for this Study of Revelation was taken from the book “Revelation Through First Century Glasses” by W. B. West. Other sources: “The Living Word, Study of Revelation, Parts I & II” by Dr. Frank Pack; “Revelation” by Jim McGuiggan; “Commentary on Revelation” by Homer Hailey; “Commentary on Revelation” by Burton Coffman; “The Book of Revelation – Spiritual Sword Lectureship, October 18 – 22, 1998”; “Commentary on Revelation” by Howard Winters; “Revelation for Christians Today” by Lonnie Woodruff; “Unlocking Revelation” by J. Stafford North.

Over the past several sessions, we have been involved in “preparing the ground” for our study of the book of Revelation. We will continue to do that this evening. The pages that are being passed out contain “Principles of Interpretation for the Book of Revelation” (ten ideas or concepts for interpretation of the book of Revelation) AND an “Outline of the Book of Revelation.”

NOTE: “Principles of Interpretation for the Book of Revelation” appears in Section 1 below, after the next two paragraphs. “Outline of the Book of Revelation” appears in Section 3 near the end of this typed lesson.

One of the things that we have talked about already is the challenge we have in understanding the book of Revelation—which should not scare us away or keep us from reading it, studying it, and doing our best to understand it. It certainly is able to be understood! If God had given us something we could not understand, then He, indeed, would be a capricious God for going that. Our God is not capricious!

But part of our challenge is to understand the language that the book is written in, and how to understand, or interpret, that language. I ran across these ten items on “Principles of Interpretation for the Book of Revelation” and the “Outline of the Book of Revelation,” which I thought were excellent. The Outline, which is going to be essentially the Outline that we’ll follow in our study, is from a book that was written several years ago by Dr. Frank Pack, “The Message of the New Testament”. I thought they were good enough to share, and the ten “Principles of Interpretation” are certainly understandable. We won’t take the time to go through those [but you can read them below]. I would urge you to hold on to those, as well as hold on to the Outline [which you can read near the end of this typed lesson]. I think these things will be of assistance to you as we go through our study.

Section 1: Principles of Interpretation for the Book of Revelation
From: “The Message of the New Testament” by Dr. Frank Pack

The student will be helped greatly in understanding this book if certain basic principles of interpretation are kept in mind. These are:

1. The Bible is the best and basic interpreter of itself. All guidance that the Book of Revelation gives to its own meaning should be followed. Its interpretation of symbols should be carefully attended.
2. The larger context should always interpret the immediate context since the Bible possesses unity. Out of this larger context, the immediate context of any passage can be taken carefully into consideration. To attempt to understand one isolated unit apart from the whole is to misinterpret the book.
3. The historical background, purpose, style of writing, and other background matters should be taken into consideration.
4. The New Covenant should be allowed to interpret the Old Covenant. Revelation used Old Testament terminology with New Testament meanings.
5. The prophetic nature of Revelation should be noted. As a prophet, John was more concerned with spiritual principles than detailed prediction.
6. Because this is a book of visions and pictures, presented in a dramatic fashion, it should be understood to have a symbolic meaning. Full attention must be given to the pictorial and dramatic in this book.
7. One should get the total meaning of the vision, or series of visions, without pressing details.
8. Do not make the difficult passages in the book the key to the meaning of the entire book. Keep searching for the answers to the proper meaning of these passages.
9. While this book was primarily addressed to 1^st Christians, it contains a specific blessing to everyone who reads and to everyone who hears its message (Revelation 1:3). It addresses the entire Christian age and covers it, but not in continuous succession. The principle of recapitulation holds that the book looks at the same period and the same events under different aspects in its different parts. For instance, the final judgment seems to be referred to in 6:12-17; 11:15-18; 14:14-20; 16:17-21; 20:11-15.
10. The principles of prolepsis or anticipation, shows itself in this book. Prolepsis is defined by Milligan as “the tendency of the writer to anticipate in earlier sections, by mere allusion, what he is only to explain at a later point of his revelation” (Lectures on the Apocalypse, p. 114). For instance, the second death mentioned in 2:11 is not explained until 20:14. This is another way of saying that the book itself is one of the best interpreters to its ideas.

Section 2: More Ground Work on the Book of Revelation

What we want to do this evening, as I have said, is still prepare the ground a little bit here to get us ready to go into the study. I think this will be our last session of preparation. We’ve already looked at the author, the date of the writing, and some other things. In our last lesson, we spent time in sort of a “chapter-by-chapter” summary.

Tonight I’d like to share with you some things having to do with the nature of the book of Revelation, and some things having to do with the symbolism that we find in the book as well. This will be a little bit of a “potpourri,” I guess, of some things that I’d like to share with you as we prepare to go into our study.

Some of this information may be a little bit repetitious, but I don’t think too much is, particularly when we talk about the nature of the literature, or the “writing,” that is used here. The book of Revelation is actually three types of writing. It is, first of all, apocalyptic, and we have talked some about that already, chapter 1, verse 1 [“The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show His servants—things which must shortly take place. And He sent and signified it by His angel to His servant John,…”]. It is also a book of prophecy, chapter 1, verse 3 [“Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the Words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written in it; for the time is near.”]. And, it is also an epistle [a letter]. The Holy Spirit has put together these three types of literature, or writing, into this book, which is another thing that makes it somewhat unique in the Scriptures.