My Easter Message - Jesus Christ is here NOW!

For much of my life, I lived in a prophecy-saturated religious culture. I lived in constant apprehension and fear of an impending doomsday. I believed that “the end” could come at any time; I was convinced that we always lived in a window of a “few short years” from the events surrounding the second coming. I did not treasure the message of the Book of Revelation, I feared it. The specific “end-times” interpretation I was taught exercised enormous power over me and many others. Decades later God’s grace completely changed my understanding of Revelation – from a book to be feared to a book to be treasured. God’s grace helped me to find the authentic message and unique Messenger of Revelation and in the process to discover what it has to say about the real agenda of God – and this agenda does not include performance-based religion.



I was not alone in my experiences. In his book The Jesus I Never Knew, Philip Yancey shares his childhood experiences growing up in a church that sponsored annual prophecy conferences. Yancey relates that these conferences “revealed” that a ten nation European Common Market would fulfill the prophecy of the biblical beast with ten horns. “What sticks with me, though, is not so much the particulars of prophecy as their emotional effect on me. I grew up at once terrified and desperately hopeful,” Yancey says.


Today millions continue to be enslaved by “just-around-the-corner” interpretations of Revelation. Some live in fear within cultic groups where apocalyptic anxieties allow leaders to combine irresponsible prophecy teaching with authoritarian control, while others experience the rigors of prediction addiction (prophetic teaching that turns into a religious addiction) within churches that generally teach sound doctrine but corrupt and cheapen the gospel with unwholesome speculation. In either case Revelation is used by religion as a club to control and intimidate.


For many years my relationship with God was in large part dictated by what I was taught about the Book of Revelation. I was forever looking to future events and predicted dates that were misinterpretations drawn from Revelation. I was focused on a Jesus who would return, rather than the one who had already come and conquered on the Cross: the risen Lord, the head of the Church, who is always with His people corporately, and IN His people individually.


The power of God’s grace eventually dismantled my former understanding of Revelation. I came to see that Revelation was not about an out-of-control-beast I had to fear; rather it was all about the beauty of God’s amazing grace and the sovereign power of the Lamb.


I now see that such prophetic teaching is much like a drug, providing an incredible rush while also being the source of the depression and disillusionment that inevitably results from unrealized and unfulfilled expectations. By God’s grace, I came to see that the views I had cherished and believed amounted to a sleazy religious carnival where prophecy pundits and pushers sell their prophetic potions.


Along with its equally seductive cousin of religious legalism, prediction addiction had been the language of my life, the drum beat of my religious soul. It is an obsession, a compulsion to continually seek exhilarating “fulfillments of Bible prophecy” in current events of the day. In my experience, the bondage of legalism combined with an addiction to prediction gave meaning and order to my world while at the same time being the perfect one-two punch religion needed to control me. Legalism told me what I HAD to do in order to earn God’s love and the kingdom of heaven. Prophetic teaching assured me that people who did not do what I was convinced the Bible taught would experience the plagues of Revelation. And, on the other hand, if my works were acceptable to God, I would be saved from those plagues.


The two evil cousins of religious legalism and prediction addiction work hand in hand; where one flourishes the other cousin is surely to be found in the same general vicinity. They feed off of each other. They both lead to religious captivity and eventually control those who buy into their premises and beliefs.


For much of my life to age fifty (I am now seventy-nine), I was in a never-ending race to be found faithful at the soon-coming second coming, and so my life on earth consisted of earning my own salvation by deeds. There was no doubt in my mind that if I didn’t “get right” I would “get left.” I accepted date-setting as a part of my life; failed predictions would all simply be re-issued by extending the goal line to some even more future and far off date.


Political and historical events and people, past and future, had the lead roles in the Revelation I once knew, with Jesus far from center stage. The Jesus of the Revelation of my past was a far-off, future Jesus, not one who had already conquered on His cross and who was already reigning in my life and in the lives of those who trusted in Him. Seeing Revelation through the eyes of grace, with a Christ-centered filter, revolutionized this amazing book for me.


Most of what we believe about Bible prophecy has come from trusted sources: parents, teachers, pastors, congregations, and denominations. Most of us have been given one perspective and one perspective alone, and we often find ourselves woefully unaware of the teaching in other Christian faith traditions. No book of the Bible offers a better illustration of how these preconceived religious presuppositions work than the Book of Revelation.


Over the centuries Christian scholars, authors, priests, and pastors have attempted to blaze new interpretive trails to discover the treasures contained in the Book of Revelation. Most of these ideas and methods can be summarized within four foundational methods. What you have been taught about Revelation is almost certainly some permutation or modification of one or more of these views. Each of these perspectives claims to be based in Scripture and is now believed, and has been believed by millions of Christians throughout history.


The primary flaw in all of these methodologies is that each one (with the possible exception of spiritism) places a premium on attempting to answer the when of Revelation. While the when is definitely an issue, it is not THE issue.


The primary characters in Revelation are Jesus and religion (religion being defined as a system of belief that human relationship with God and His salvation for us is directly tied to human performance and accomplishment). Jesus is the Message, the Subject, the Object, and the Goal of Revelation.


The first method of interpreting Revelation is PRETERISM. Preterists believe that most and possibly all of the prophecies in the Book of Revelation were fulfilled during the time of the Roman Empire. They believe that this fulfillment took place in the years prior to and with the fall of Jerusalem in 70AD. They point to passages such as Revelation 1:1 which say that the message must “soon take place.” They point to Jesus’ Olivet Prophecy in Matthew 24 as being fulfilled in 70AD.


Their view is that most and possibly all of the apocalyptic language of events described in Revelation were fulfilled in the horrific events leading up to and surrounding the fall of Jerusalem.


The second method of interpreting Revelation is HISTORICISM. Historicists believe that the prophecies of Revelation have been fulfilled throughout history and are still being fulfilled today and refer to the entire history of Christianity.


Historicism isn’t as popular today as it once was, but most of the great Bible commentators from a century or more ago were historicists. Many of the leaders of the Reformation were historicists: Wycliffe, Knox, Tyndale, Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli for example.


They say that Revelation is a kind of survey of church history with historical events symbolically portrayed. For example, most Protestant historicists of the past believed that the Antichrist of Revelation referred to the Pope and the Roman Catholic Church, the two witnesses were Luther and Calvin, with the triumph of Protestantism over Catholicism being the ultimate victory promised by Revelation.


Critics point out that historicism has not kept up with history much past the fourteenth century and that it is Eurocentric, not recognizing more recent and significant developments in the church in other parts of the world. Historicists can miss the big picture of God’s grace while they attempt to retrofit history into the text.


The third method of interpreting Revelation is FUTURISM. This is the view held by many contemporary North American evangelical pastors and teachers. Ironically, many of its current advocates would be shocked to find that modern futurism originated in 1585 with Francisco Ribeira, a Spanish Jesuit priest, for the purpose of refuting the anti-Catholic views of the Protestant reformers.


The most popular version of futurism today has only been around since the 1830s when J.N. Darby began teaching his ideas of a secret rapture of the church followed by the “great tribulation” and the millennium – the thousand year rule of Christ and the saints. They believe in a literal view of Revelation, and from the 1830s until the present, each new generation has projected chapters four through twenty-two of Revelation into a future time, often future dates on the calendar that occur within, or just after, their lifetime.


When futurists insist upon a literal interpretation of Revelation, they not only ignore the apocalyptic style of writing Jesus inspired John to use, but they can also unwittingly twist and distort the meaning given and inspired by the divine Author.


The fourth method of interpreting Revelation is SPIRITISM. Spiritists believe that most prophecies in Revelation portray an ongoing cosmic conflict of spiritual realities. They look for lessons or principles that are symbolically depicted in Revelation. They take into account the apocalyptic style of Revelation, and see the central theme as the triumph of good over evil, Christ over Satan. While other approaches may take certain passages as chronological, spiritists take these as recurring realities in history, as part of God’s sovereign plan for humankind.


So we have four ways that Christians have interpreted the Book of Revelation over the centuries. But incredibly, many Christians today are not aware of these four views. They are only aware of the futurist interpretation that their pastor or favorite televangelist or favorite prophecy writer teaches.


Although scholars and teachers may identify themselves with one of these distinct methods for interpreting Revelation, in practice they may use various combinations of the four.


Attempting to fit Revelation into one humanly devised time-bound interpretive mold is missing the boat.


And what is the “boat” being missed?


It is critically important to realize that the Book of Revelation is not written in a straight-forward style easily understood by the twenty-first century western mind. Revelation is written in a literary style called apocalyptic. This writing style uses poetic language, metaphorical messages, and figurative images and symbols to convey its message. Some images that are used are known – common animals for example. Other images described in the visions given to John that form the text of Revelation are nightmarish beasts, unknown to any biologist or zoologist. It is a book filled with cosmic symbols.


Characters and events are portrayed in images because no literal description could convey the profound meaning that the Lamb of God reveals. They are physical symbols of spiritual realities, and in the Book of Revelation the greatest reality is spiritual, with the physical and earthly reality being but a shadow of the greater and deeper heavenly reality.


The symbols, figures, numbers, and colors in apocalyptic writing were not intended to be taken literally. Because of their culture and familiarity with apocalyptic literature, the original readers of Revelation would have had a better sense of how to interpret these symbols than we do. Christ, the Messenger of Revelation, inspired the human author, John, to use the literary style of apocalyptic exactly because it was familiar to the original audience. And in addition it was a time of great persecution both by Rome and by the Jewish Zealots, and some veiling of opponents and events was necessary. Thus Revelation cannot be read and understood the way we read and understand popular twenty-first century literature (but that doesn’t stop literalists from giving it the old college try!). The practice of placing a premium on literal meanings can actually block the intended message.


The emphasis of the four methods I have briefly considered is when. I believe there is a fifth way, A CHRIST-CENTERED PERSPECTIVE of Revelation based solely on GOD’S GRACE. This perspective primarily concerns the who of Revelation.


God’s grace enables us to see Jesus standing at the center of Revelation, and Jesus’ Cross as the hinge center of the book.


While blame for Christian preoccupation with detailed predictions, speculations, and the when of Revelation must be laid at the door of all four popular methodologies that have been used to interpret this book, futurism is the primary culprit. This is not to say that there is not a when element in the book, whether that time is past, present Whether the coming of Jesus Christ to this earth and the establishment of His kingdom on this earth occurred in 70AD as preterism asserts, or a future event yet to happen as futurists predict, the fact is that the risen Christ, for us Christians, is with us and IN US NOW, even while we often find ourselves engulfed by speculative predictions that obsess about specific events and times. Such an emphasis can lead us away from Him who is in us.


The emphasis of our daily walk with the indwelling Jesus Christ must be that He is reigning as King in our life right now – today. He has things He wants to lead us to today in His kingdom. He has character to build in us today. He has a ministry to others He wants to extend through us today.


Whatever the spiritual meaning of the wild beasts and strange images of the Book of Revelation, TODAY IS THE DAY OF SALVATION. We must allow Jesus to do His work through us today. He is our reigning King and we are in the Kingdom of God as His children today.

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