The final book in the New Testament is Revelation. One of the first things I always like to point out is that the title of this book is singular. Most of us love to refer to this book as “Revelations” which would imply that God revealed more than one plan to John of Patmos, but the fact is, as described by John, God revealed one plan to John for what was happening in the world. The main purpose of this letter was to offer encouragement and hope to the Christians of John’s days who were being persecuted.
Over the centuries, many have attempted to identify this John as the same author of the Gospel and of the three pastoral letters bearing John’s name; however, most scholars believe John of Patmos, was not the same as the author of the other writings. Most would also agree that the letter was most likely written between 95-100 CE which would have been around the time of the reign of Caesar Domitian and his great persecution of all Christians in his domain. During this time, in order to avoid death, Christians were being forced to pledge their allegiance to Caesar as their lord and god. It was during this time that many began to believe that the Christians were facing inevitable defeat and that Rome would succeed in killing everyone who placed their faith in Christ.
It was in this culture and time that John of Patmos received his revelation from God. Unfortunately, today, many have attempted to turn this letter into a prediction of what will happen in the future, when in reality it was written as a letter of hope to a people who were being persecuted. The letter promised that although many were suffering for Christ’s sake, God was still in control and that God, for the sake of His people, would destroy Babylon (code name for Rome) and would finally beat evil forever. In a time of great persecution, many were wondering if Rome was right in its teaching that the true god was Caesar, but John answers this by stating that the center of all life is Christ and in the end, Christ will defeat all powers, including the great and mighty Rome.
When read as a story of hope and promise of God’s presence in the present and the future, Revelation is a beautiful story filled with incredible imagery and beauty. In recent times this book has seen as a “history” book that was written to predict the future in advance. Such an interpretation of this book states that the book is filled with hidden clues that will tell us exactly what will happen at the end times. One of the main problems with such an interpretation is that Jesus himself said of the end times that only the Father knows this and not even the Son would be told (Mark 13:32).
Our challenge today is to read this final book of the Bible as a book of hope and promise. Enjoy!
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