Should Revelation be taken literally? And if a first century
audience was supposed to understand Revelation, shouldn’t we limit our
interpretations to events and literature of that day?
Day 11
B. Hodge, Biblical Authority Ministries, May 28, 2020
First,
no one takes the entire book of Revelation in an absolute/wooden literal sense
(e.g., “beasts” has previously been interpreted in Scripture as world empires
[e.g., Daniel 7:23], so the beast in Revelation is without doubt talking of an
empire). So the issue is not about Revelation being literal but how much should be seen as literal and
how much is imagery and metaphorical. We
have previously seen that Scripture should be taken plainly/straightforward so
this makes sense–taking Revelation in the sense it is written--which is prophetic writing.
Other
writings by John that are generally literal
historical narrative have metaphorical meanings sprinkled within (John 2:19-20;
3:3-10; 8:31-36; 18:33-37; adults called “little children” in 1 John, among
others). So we should expect metaphorical allusions by John in Revelation.
These need to be recognized by other passages of Scripture (Scripture
interprets Scripture).
Regarding
the second question, yes, this makes the most sense for the bulk of the events.
Of course, there are events that are to take place at the end and all agree on
those (e.g., the curse is removed in Revelation 22:3 [Genesis 3:17, Roman 8:20-22]; no more crying, Revelation 21:4, et cetera).
But
it would be unwise to turn on modern news sources and use that information to
interpret themes contained in the book of Revelation. If one does look to
references outside of Scripture, then it should be limited as much as possible to
1st century writings.
Re-read Revelation 1-4:1
