Book of Revelation

“He who testifies to these things says, ‘Surely I am coming soon.’ Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!”

— Revelation 22:20 (ESV)

Overview

The Book of Revelation, also called the Apocalypse from its opening Greek word (apokalupsis, “unveiling”), closes the New Testament canon.¹ It belongs to the genre of Jewish and Christian apocalyptic literature, a mode of prophecy that discloses heavenly realities through symbolic vision to comfort a persecuted people with the certainty of God’s ultimate victory.² Herman Bavinck reads the book as an extended assurance that “in heaven… everything has already been settled and determined,” even while the church on earth still awaits the outcome of its own conflict.³

Author and Date

Ancient tradition ascribes Revelation to the apostle John, writing while banished to the island of Patmos “for the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ” (Rev. 1:9).² Irenaeus, writing in the late second century, dated the vision to “towards the end of Domitian’s reign,” the Roman emperor who ruled AD 81 to 96, a report the nineteenth-century biblical scholar Elijah Porter Barrows judged to carry “the greatest amount of external evidence” of any disputed New Testament book’s authorship.¹ Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, the Muratorian canon, Hippolytus, Origen, and Jerome all attribute the book to John the apostle, and Michael Kruger notes that its early external attestation, corroborated by second- and third-century manuscripts (P18, P47, P98, P115, 0308), is stronger than that of almost any other New Testament book.⁴

Some ancient writers, beginning with Dionysius of Alexandria in the third century, argued that a different John, “John the presbyter,” wrote the book, chiefly because they disliked its apparent teaching of a future millennial reign rather than because of any independent historical evidence.⁴ A minority of interpreters, mostly those favoring a postmillennial reading that finds much of the book’s prophecy fulfilled in the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70, have argued for a date before that destruction; Barrows judged this hypothesis “feebly supported by external testimony.”²

Historical and Literary Context

Revelation belongs to the apocalyptic genre also represented in Daniel, which unveils divine realities through vivid symbolic vision rather than direct discourse and orders its material by literary rather than strictly chronological pattern.⁵ Bavinck reads the book as addressed to churches under real pressure to compromise with Rome: John alternates between scenes on earth, where the church still suffers, and scenes in heaven, where “the battle has, as it were, already been fought and won” (Rev. 4-5), so that a reader is repeatedly shown the outcome before the church’s own trial has run its course.³ On Bavinck’s reading, the seven letters that open the book serve to “call an increasingly worldly Christianity back to its first love, to arouse it from apathy, and, with an eye toward the crown awaiting it, to equip it for battle and to prompt it to persevere, with unyielding loyalty, even unto death.”⁶

Structure

Revelation divides into several major movements:

Letters to the seven churches (1-3). The risen Christ dictates messages to seven congregations of Proconsular Asia, commending their strengths and naming their faults.²
The throne room and the scroll (4-5). John is caught up into heaven, where he sees God’s throne and the Lamb who alone is worthy to open the sealed scroll, a scene Bavinck reads as already declaring the battle’s outcome before the judgments that follow it begin.³
The seals, trumpets, and bowls (6-16). By opening seven seals, sounding seven trumpets, and pouring out seven bowls, God “displays his wrath, visits nature and humanity with his judgments, and makes preparations for the final judgment.”³
The fall of Babylon and Christ’s return (17-19). The great harlot “Babylon” falls, and Christ returns as conqueror.³
The millennium and final judgment (20). Satan is bound, the saints reign with Christ for a thousand years, and the dead are judged, a chapter Reformed Baptist confessional Christianity reads differently under premillennialism, postmillennialism, and amillennialism.⁷
The new heavens and new earth (21-22). John sees the New Jerusalem descend, and “the dwelling place of God is with man” (Rev. 21:3), in a scene Samuel Parkison calls the point at which “what all the Scriptures anticipate and long for is realized.”⁸

Major Themes

Christ’s sovereignty over history and the church. Bavinck’s reading of the book’s structure, alternating heavenly and earthly scenes, presents Christ’s victory as already accomplished in heaven even while it is still being worked out on earth, so that “the church on earth therefore does not need to be afraid of the judgments with which God in the end visits the world.”³

The ultimate defeat of evil. The great persecuting powers, the beast and the harlot “Babylon,” are given real but limited scope: “this massive development of power is futile.”³ Bavinck locates Satan’s defeat already “in principle” within the narrative, even while he is permitted “but little time left on earth” before his final judgment.³

The church’s perseverance under persecution. The seven letters and the book as a whole are written to call a church tempted toward apathy or compromise back to loyalty, “with unyielding loyalty, even unto death.”⁶

The new creation as the culmination of redemptive history. The book’s closing vision answers its own opening scene of a fallen and threatened world: God’s dwelling with his people, and the end of mourning, crying, and pain (Rev. 21:3-4), which Parkison describes as the point at which “every vestige of sin,” and so every reason to fear God’s presence, is finally excluded.⁸

Canonicity

Revelation’s place in the canon was among the more disputed of the New Testament books in the early church, though its early external attestation was, by Kruger’s assessment, unusually strong.⁴ Eusebius classed it among the Antilegomena, the disputed books, but acknowledged it was doubtful whether it belonged there or among the acknowledged books, since “some, as I said, reject” it while “others reckon [it] among the acknowledged books.”¹ Papias, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Melito of Sardis, the Muratorian canon, Hippolytus, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen all received it as apostolic and canonical, and its manuscript attestation from the second and third centuries is unusually rich for a New Testament book.⁴

The doubts that did arise developed later and were concentrated in the East, prompted chiefly by Dionysius of Alexandria’s third-century argument that a different John, not the apostle, had written it.⁴ Kruger notes that “Dionysius’s criticism was driven primarily by his dislike of chiliastic teaching,” the book’s apparent millennial doctrine, “and was not based on any historical arguments from the tradition of the church.”⁴ Figures including Gregory Nazianzus, Cyril of Jerusalem, and the Synod of Laodicea shared some of that hesitation for a time, but the book continued to be affirmed elsewhere, including by the list of Codex Claromontanus, Athanasius’s Festal Letter, Epiphanius, the Council of Carthage, Jerome, and Augustine, and the Eastern doubts eventually dissipated, leaving the book “once again universally acknowledged.”⁴

Related Doctrines

References

Elijah Porter Barrows, Companion to the Bible (New York: American Tract Society, 1867), chap. 32, “The Apocalypse,” 503-504. ↩ ↩² ↩³
Barrows, 506. ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴
Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics: Abridged in One Volume, ed. John Bolt (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2011), chap. 24, “The Return of Christ,” 62: “In heaven, for there everything has already been settled and determined; there honor is already being brought to God and to the Lamb; there the battle has, as it were, already been fought and won (Rev. 4 and 5).” ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸
Michael J. Kruger, Canon Revisited: Establishing the Origins and Authority of the New Testament Books (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012), chap. 8, “Problem Books and Canonical Boundaries”: “This demonstrates that the doubts about Revelation primarily developed at a later point in the history of the canon, mainly in the East, possibly sparked by the criticisms of Dionysius. However, it is evident that Dionysius’s criticism was driven primarily by his dislike of chiliastic teaching and was not based on any historical arguments from the tradition of the church… With such broad support for Revelation, along with its very early attestation and reception, the confusion in the East eventually dissipated, and the book was once again universally acknowledged.” ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷
Barrows, 507-508. ↩
Bavinck, 61: “They serve to call an increasingly worldly Christianity back to its first love, to arouse it from apathy, and, with an eye toward the crown awaiting it, to equip it for battle and to prompt it to persevere, with unyielding loyalty, even unto death.” ↩ ↩²
Ronald E. Heine, Classical Christian Doctrine: Introducing the Essentials of the Ancient Faith (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2013), chap. 15, “And They Came to Life and Reigned with Christ a Thousand Years,” 168. ↩
Samuel G. Parkison, To Gaze upon God: The Beatific Vision in Doctrine, Tradition, and Practice (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2024), chap. 2, “Biblical Foundations for the Beatific Vision,” 49: “the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God… What all the Scriptures anticipate and long for is realized in this passage… every vestige of sin (and therefore, every vestige of reason for fearing the presence of holiness) is already excluded.” ↩ ↩²