If you lived in Western New York in the early 1800s, you had a front-row seat to one of the most exciting times and places in US history. The Erie Canal opened in 1825, and with its opening came a flood of commerce and people. Towns popped up and with the people came temptation. Stephen Nichols describes the spiritual mood, “Revivalist preachers set up their tents and, with impassioned pleas, called for revival and repentance.” Those pleas were often tied to fervent appeals tied to the return of Jesus.
Because of the great response to these revivals, upper New York was dubbed the Burned-Over District. The Holy Spirit seemed to be setting the country on fire. For example, at one revival, 100,000 people in Rochester, New York, came to Christ under the preaching of Charles Finney.
The spiritual fervor spilled out into the creation of non-orthodox expressions of faith. In 1820, Joseph Smith claimed to receive new revelation from God and eventually founded the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. The Oneida community was also formed. Of note were the Millerites. Caught up in this eschatological fervor, William Miller predicted Jesus Christ would return in 1843 or 1844. When Jesus did not return, his false prophecy was appropriately dubbed “The Great Disappointment.”
Unfortunately, the church has been littered with those who were caught up in eschatological ecstasy and have followed Miller’s path in false prophecies about the return of Jesus. More recently, Harold Camping, after falsely predicting the return of Jesus in 1994, doubled down and claimed Jesus would return in 2011. Others have predicted his return in 2012 (Jack Van Impe), 2014 (John Hagee and Mark Blitz), 2020 (Chad and Lori Daybell), 2021 (Kenton Benshore), and 2025 (Joshua Mhlakela).
Many of these made a fundamental mistake: they read the book of Revelation as a coded message containing secret knowledge about Jesus' return.
How are we to understand the book of Revelation? Let’s start with what we all can agree to—John’s message is clear: Jesus will return. The dead will be raised. Jesus will judge all. And those who belong to Christ will live with him forever in the new heavens and the new earth.
Many of our questions regarding particular interpretations fall into the realm of tertiary or quaternary theological issues, in other words, not issues Christians should divide over.
Consider our interpretation of the millennium. Whether premillennial (those who believe that the millennium is literal and will come in the future), postmillennial (those who believe the millennium is non-literal and will come in the future), or amillennial (those who believe the millennium is non-literal and began at the resurrection of Christ), we should not be divided.
As you pick up the book of Revelation, I would encourage you to consider that, because the book is apocalyptic, it is soaked through with symbolic imagery. Just as we would interpret a political cartoon drawing differently than a Norman Rockwell drawing, so too ought we interpret the book of Revelation differently than the Gospel of Matthew.
Consider also that the book is written to seven real churches in Asia Minor in the first century. Through and through John’s apocalypse is a letter to the churches. If we lose sight of that, we’ve violated a primary interpretive rule: John’s apocalypse can’t mean to us what it didn’t mean to the recipients.
As you read the book, take note of the images John uses and try to see if you can find them in the Old Testament. You almost always can. John draws heavily from Exodus, Daniel, and Zechariah. Take note of his use of numbers. John uses the numbers three, seven, ten, and twelve frequently. Three often reflects a magnified experience (“holy, holy, holy” or 666). Seven (referring to time), ten (referring to numbers), and twelve (referring to people) often reflect completion. Consider the number of saints we meet in Revelation 7 and 14: 144,000. It’s likely John is telling us the message that this multitude is the fullness of all God’s people as 144,000 equals 12 x 12 x 1,000.
A fundamental question throughout the book of Revelation is whether John is laying out a consecutive history in chapters 6 and following, or whether he is giving us non-consecutive visions. Both interpretations are attested by godly and faithful exegetes. The former (non-consecutive) interpretation makes the most sense to me. As I read John’s apocalypse, it seems to me that John spends most of the book showing us what has been, is, and will occur spiritually behind the scenes. As Paul does in Colossians 2 and Ephsians 6, John exposes that this is the world we are actually living in. The book of Revelation repeatedly revisits the same ground from different perspectives, intensifying the picture each time. Here in Tucson, the Catalina Mountains are a V-shaped range that runs north to south and then east to west. A view of the Catalinas is very different from the northwest than from the southeast.
This impacts how one views everything from the millennium to the interpretation of Gog and Magog. As we come to Revelation 20:1-6, the only passage in the Bible that directly refers to the millennium, it is natural for the reader of scripture who is reading the book consecutively, to make sense of John’s vision of a thousand years as a literal period of time that precedes the new heavens and the new earth (Rev. 21-22). Meanwhile, readers like myself, who read the central chapters in Revelation as recapitulated visions, understand Revelation 20:1-6 to be telling the spiritual story of Christ’s triumph at the cross.
As one continues reading in Revelation 20, it’s natural, then, for those who read the book as consecutive history to interpret Gog and Magog (Rev. 20:8) as future nations set at enmity with God. Meanwhile, those who read the book non-consecutively, naturally read Gog and Magog as another Old Testament allusion (Ez. 38:2), referencing the ever-present nations deceived by Satan.
The interpretive questions go on and on. But in doing so we might lose the thread. My heart is not to try to plant the stake of my amillennial, partial preterist tribe. On the contrary, my hope is that, as we continue to seek out God’s truth in John’s Revelation, we hold that which is most important with a closed hand, and open our hands to the rest.
Here is how we make that differentiation at New Life Bible Fellowship in our Teaching Doctrinal Statement:
We believe that when Christians die they are instantly received into the glorious presence of Christ and experience a joy that is better by far than any experience on earth.279 However, even in His presence, there is a longing for the completion of Christ’s work when our resurrected spirits will be united with our resurrected bodies.280
We further believe that Christ will return in glory,281 with a loud trumpet call –personally, publicly, physically282 and suddenly,283 at the end of the age to gather His elect,284 raise the dead, judge the nations,285 and consummate His eternal Kingdom.286 In this, the righteous will be perfected in His glory and enter into the everlasting goodness of God.287 The unrighteous will face a conscious and eternal anguish and condemnation.288
As to the timing of Christ’s return as it relates to the Millennium (Rev. 20:1-6) or the Tribulation (Dan. 12:1; Mt. 24:21; Rev. 7:14), we specifically choose not to adhere to a single view as the only correct interpretation. Instead, being familiar with all of the millennial views, and the tribulation views associated with Pre-millennialism, we find strengths and weaknesses in every position. Therefore, while individuals may hold certain convictions, we do not as a church teach one single view as the truth.
Jesus is coming again. And he will judge all humankind. And we eagerly await eternity with him. Until then, we persist in faithfulness. This is the meaning of John’s Revelation.
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