Book of Revelation

“ The Revelation is the most difficult book to interpret of any in the New Testament canon. Its meaning is often involved in much obscurity, and the interpretation of eminent scholars has differed so widely in the past that we cannot always be sure, especially in the more difficult portions, that the particular view which appears to us the more satisfactory or convincing is certainly the correct one. ”

“ This portion of the book of Revelation is properly the epilogue, or conclusion. The main purposes of the vision are accomplished; the enemies of the church are quelled; the church is triumphant; the affairs of the world are wound up; the redeemed are received to their blissful, eternal abode; the wicked are cut off; the earth is purified, and the affairs of the universe are fixed on their permanent foundation. A few miscellaneous matters, therefore, close the book. ”

“ The extreme brevity with which are described and grouped together so many great events of the far future that so deeply affect the Christian hope, serves to indicate that the chief aim of the Revelation does not consist in fully manifesting these events which lie hidden in the hand of God, but in preparing the church for what precedes them, both of trial and of conflict. “Like a flash of lightning in the darkness the vision lights up the whole line of God's purposes to the end” ”

“ The matter of supreme importance for us is to apprehend aright the far-seeing and ulterior purpose in the mind of the Spirit in giving the Revelation. And in search for this we should not allow our zeal for the original interpretation to lead us to forget the significant lesson of the Old Testament, that the primary teaching of prophecy has often not voiced its deeper message, that God's thought has mostly proved wider than man's first apprehension ”

“ In Revelation, as in John's Gospel and First Epistle, the consciousness of a world-conflict, a world-process, and a world-triumph is manifest. The return of Jesus is contemplated in relation to the enlarged environment in which Christianity stood. Revelation testifies to the existence of the hope with which Christianity had begun; but also to the fact that into that hope had centered the fuller conception of Christ and His salvation which the apostles had taught, and the broadened vision of the purpose of God which history had made clear. ”

“ The present general consensus of opinion among modern scholars, therefore, seems to be, that having measurably exhausted inquiry concerning the Old Testament references, whatever progress we are to make in the immediate future in unfolding the thought of the Revelation must be through a further study of the thought-forms of the century that gave it birth, which so richly abound in the Apocalyptic writings, but which so long escaped the scholarly and attentive consideration of Christian thought. ”

“ The Theme of the Revelation, stated in its broadest terms, is Christ and the Church through Time to Eternity; the mystery of God in human life and history made manifest through the disclosure of the divine redemptive plan becoming effective and triumphant.47 The theme we assign to the Revelation will, of course, be determined largely by our view of its contents. Many interpret it to be Jerusalem, Rome, and the End, limiting its outlook to the horizon of the early church; others make it the Course of History, or the Future Path of the Church in the World ”

“ It makes God a fool, man a lunatic, religion a farce, and the Bible superlative nonsense. Revelation is defined to be "the act of making known." But what is made known by a book whose language is so contradictory and so ambiguous that no two persons in a million agree with respect to all it teaches? ”

“ The third revelation assumes to be no more than an interpretation of the prophetical book of the New Testament, and repudiates all supposition of aiming at any spirit of prophecy in itself; a portion, however, of this interpretation of a part of Scripture so obscure as the book of the Revelation, is so remarkable in its application to present events, as to wear the very air of prophecy that its interpreter repudiates. ”

“ We should also clearly see that the Revelation from its nature and purpose deals chiefly with the plan of God for the ages, and with the causes and events which lead on to the end of the world, and that therefore its essential message is not addressed to evangelistic effort or to missionary enterprise, but to faith in God when days are dark and storms fill the sky, and to preparation for meeting him in a fairer world when earthly days are done. ”

“ Christ's great Revelation was not given in a book, not in a history or a treatise, but in a Life and Death. He shewed the world a Man who knew not Self, and He also shewed it the Force that came from God. Men will realize this Revelation in different ways in different ages; part may come to light at one time, part at another. Sayings which have long lain hardly noticed are one day found to be keys to unlock a treasure, and give insight beyond what we dreamt of. But besides this Revelation, personal to individuals, broad Truths are conveyed which we should not otherwise possess. ”

“ And yet once again comes the peculiar certifying of the contents of this Revelation message, and a solemn warning against any interfering with its meaning. Jesus says,—I hereby certify unto every man that hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if any man add to them, making them mean something else than I intend, God shall add unto him the plagues that [Page 234] are written in this book: and if any man shall take away, or lessen the meaning, God shall take away his part from the tree of life and out of the holy city. It comes as a very solemn warning. ”

“ We must look to Revelation for a key. It is well known to all students of the prophetic word that all which comes after the third chapter in the last book of the Bible is future still. We are yet in the things which are present. When the Lord has taken the Church to Himself then the great visions, tribulations, wrath and judgment will be fulfilled. ”

“ We naturally are impelled to ask further back for the maker of this Law. The Revelation which is written in the Bible, and which has been held true from distant ages by good men, is a Revelation which appeals to a higher quality in man than even his intellect. It appeals to his faith. The Bible evidence of God's existence is consistent with reason, and grounded on faith.
We should be able to find many texts which state God's existence, His Unity, His Omnipotence, His Omniscience. ”

“ But before we turn to this book itself and its storm, we want to get our bearings a bit, so as to understand better what is here. Revelation is the knot in the end of a big bunch of threads. We shall understand the knot better by knowing more about the threads before they are tied into the knot.
The storm area proves to be very large. It takes in the whole earth. The Bible is a big book in its outlook and grasp. It deals with the whole earth, and the whole race. The thoughtful Bible student comes to have a broad outlook, as well as a close lookout about his own front and back doors. ”

“ This significant phrase is characteristic of the Revelation,532 and we find in it a key to the general interpretation, a principle to be applied throughout, viz. that the mysteries of the Old Dispensation find their only proper solution and fulfilment in the clearer teaching of the New. “The testimony of Jesus” is the witness for the truth borne by Christ in the world, which gathers up into one and gives expression to the essential and animating thought of all prophecy. ”

“ Thus you see that when we testify that God has fulfilled that saying in the 14th chapter of Revelations, that he would send an angel having the everlasting Gospel to preach to all people, nations and tongues on the earth, we have something tangible, something contained in the form of a revelation ”

“ On reading carefully the Old and New Testaments we can discover that the majority of the revelations given to mankind anciently were in regard to their daily duties; we follow in the same path. The revelations contained in the Bible and the Book of Mormon are ensamples to us, and the Book of Doctrine and Covenants contains direct revelation to this Church; they are a guide to us, and we do not wish to do them away; we do not wish them to become obsolete and to set them aside. We wish to continue in the revelations of the Lord Jesus Christ day by day, and to have His Spirit with us continually. ”

“ The synthetic analysis which is here given, attempts to set forth the main thought of the Revelation as it has been interpreted by many eminent commentators, and it is presented in as concise a form as is consistent with clearness for the benefit of the general reader, for the chief purpose of the present work is to make plain the symbolic view as it has taken form in the mind of the writer. ”

“ From these possible and highly probable references we pass on to the clear testimony of Justin Martyr, who is the first to declare that Revelation is by “John, one of the Apostles of Christ” (Dial. lxxxi. 15) , and a book of canonical standing (i. 28) . In the latter half of this century it meets with very wide recognition. Thus a treatise of some description was written upon it by Melito of Sardis in Asia Minor (Eus. H.E. iv. 26) , and quoted by the anti-Montanist Apollonius (H.E. v. 18) and Theophilus of Antioch (H.E. iv. 24) . ”

“ The first chapter of Revelation is the Introduction or Prologue of the book, containing the ideas to be afterwards illustrated in the history of the Church. The struggle of the Church with the world does not yet begin, nor will it begin until we come to chap. vi. In the meantime we are to see in chaps. ii. and iii. that Body of Christ the struggle and victory of which are to engage our thoughts.
These chapters consist of seven epistles addressed to the churches of the seven cities of Asia named in chap. ”

“ The Bible is a book of faith, and a book of doctrine, and a book of morals, and a book of religion, of especial revelation from God; ”

“ Every sect is a certificate that God has not plainly revealed his will to man. To each reader the Bible conveys a different meaning. About the meaning of this book, called a revelation, there have been ages of war, and centuries of sword and flame. If written by an infinite God, he must have known that these results must follow; and thus knowing, he must be responsible for all. ”

“ Now we must, above all things, come to an understanding as to what is meant by revelation before we attribute revelation to the Bible. There are not many now who really believe that an angel in bodily form descended from heaven and whispered into the ear of the apostles, in rather bad Greek, every verse, every word, even every letter of our Gospels. ”

“ It is called the Revelation, because God therein discovers those things which could never have been sifted out by the reasonings of human understanding, those deep things of God which no man knows, but the Spirit of God, and those to whom he reveals them. ”

“ Well nigh a hundred years have elapsed since the Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh dawned upon the world—a Revelation, the nature of which, as affirmed by Himself, “none among the Manifestations of old, except to a prescribed degree, hath ever completely apprehended.” For a whole century God has respited mankind, that it might acknowledge the Founder of such a Revelation, espouse His Cause, proclaim His greatness, and establish His Order. ”

“ As it is necessary to affix right ideas to words, I will, before I proceed further into the subject, offer some observations on the word revelation. Revelation when applied to religion, means something communicated immediately from God to man. ”

“ A careful study of this scripture, taken in connection with others in the Revelation applying to the same object, will show that all God's people, both those here brought to view during the thousand years and those following that period, are spoken of as dead people resurrected and reigning. ”

“ The first 200 pages of the first volume are filled with arguments to prove that a Revelation, such as the one we profess to believe in, supernatural in its origin and nature and attested by miracles, is simply incredible, and so, on no account, no matter how evidenced, to be received. ”

“ The Bible contains, in fact, a series as well as a collection of Revelations—a series, of which the earliest terms are the least, and which very gradually, and not quite uniformly, rises to its height, and only after long centuries reaches its final terms in Him who was Himself the highest Revelation which man can be conceived capable of receiving in the flesh. ”

“ We may have the ministration of angels; we may be wrapt in the visions of heaven—these things as testimonies are very good, but when you receive the Holy Ghost, when you receive the testimony of the Father and the Son, it is a true principle to every man on earth, it deceives no man, and by that principle you can learn and understand the mind of God. Revelation has been looked upon by this Church, as well as by the world, as something very marvelous. What is revelation? ”

“ This Church has at its head a prophet, seer, and revelator, who gives to man God's holy will. Revelation is the means through which the will of God is declared directly and in fullness to man. These revelations are got through dreams of sleep or in waking visions of the mind, by voices without visional appearance, or by actual manifestations of the Holy Presence before the eye. We believe that God has come in person and spoken to our prophet and revelator. ”