
REVELATION IS HISTORY
So much has been written about the book of Revelation.
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The wildest speculations abound, even in the Churches of God.
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Many of these ideas are far-fetched and yet they keep on being repeated and taught, which I suppose is not surprising seeing the final Church era is said to be blind (Rev 3:17).
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The true explanations of the prophecies of the book of Revelation are most often straightforward and logical, and usually staring us right in the eye. But instead of seeing the obvious, people run off and seek after the weird and fanciful.
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Revelation simply gives us an overview of the major historical events involving God's people, from the commencement of the Church at Christ's first coming, until the time of His second coming and Millennial reign.
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The world-changing Protestant Reformation began in 16th century Europe, largely as a result of the widespread availability of the Holy Scriptures, made possible by the invention of the printing press. The tumultuous changes of those years also had ongoing consequences for the Churches of God.
In the original introduction to the 1611 King James Bible, we see that the Protestant translators correctly and unashamedly identified "that man of sinne" (II Thes 2) as the office of the Papacy, i.e. the head of the Catholic Church. The Protestants commonly applied the Biblical "day for a year" principle (Num 14:34, Eze 4:6) to the prophecies of Rev 12 and 13, explaining them as the Catholic Church treading down dissenting Christians for 1260 years, from the 4th century until the 16th century. The "woman sitting on a scarlet beast" in Rev 17 was also thought to represent the Roman Church.
In response to beliefs such as these, the Catholics instigated the Counter Reformation in an effort to dispel the new teachings.
This of necessity involved alternative explanations of prophecies.
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The main thrust of the Catholic counter argument was that the time related prophecies were not talking about years, but rather about literal days. One such theory placed all of the prophesied events of the book of Revelation in the first century or two after Christ. This theory is now known as "Preterism". Another Catholic theory placed most of the events of the book of Revelation way off into the future. This school of thought is today referred to as "Futurism".
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It was a third school of prophetic interpretation, "Historicism", that was the most common among the Protestant Reformers and the Churches of God. This theory, very logically, sees prophecy as providing a historical overview of God's work. Church of God teachings at that time did not reflect the new Catholic teachings on prophecy, as those brethren knew full well where these fabrications had originated. They understood that the 2300 day prophecy of Daniel 8, for instance, meant 2300 years, and so it does. "Time, times, and half a time", as found in Dan 7:25, 12:7 and Rev 12:14, to them meant 1260 years, which is also correct.
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However, in the 20th century, as a result of the leadership of Herbert W Armstrong (HWA), among others, many of the Futurist interpretations of the book of Revelation made their way into the Churches of God.
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It is true that the prophecies involving the Church eras of Rev 2 and 3 were recognised by HWA as history. Other prophecies from Revelation, however, such as "the two witnesses", "the 200 million man army", "Armageddon", "the seven last plagues", "Babylon is fallen", the final "Beast" power of Rev 13 and 17, and many other Biblical prophecies such as "the great tribulation" and the "ten toes" of the Daniel 2 statue, were all assigned by him a place in the future. Unfortunately, we still carry most of this baggage with us today.
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To understand the framework of prophecy, it is essential to have a thorough understanding of Bible chronology. God is the Master Mathematician and He does things "properly and in order" (I Cor 14:40). He is the ruler of the pages of history and has foretold this history in very figurative language in the pages of Scripture, in particular the book of Revelation, with both numbers and events.
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As complicated as Revelation at first appears, it is in essence simply a description of the 2000 years of history between Christ's first coming and His second coming. Its focus is primarily on three things:
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1) the people who have entered into the New Covenant with God, i.e. His Church, described mainly in chapters 2, 3, 7, 12, 14 and 19-22.
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2) the people who still hold to the Old Covenant with God, i.e. the Jews, and their holy city, Jerusalem, described mainly in chapters 4-6 and 8-11.
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3) the Gentile powers that opposed both these groups and occupied Jerusalem for almost the entirety of the 2000 year period, as described mainly in chapters 13 and 15-18.
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If Revelation is not history written in advance, we would have no Biblical account of the last 2000 years.
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As it is, God has in His Word given us an overview of all of man's 6000 years, exactly as one would expect from a logical and meticulous Author.
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Hopefully the pages on this website regarding the book of Revelation will be enlightening.
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