Is it only me that has to restrain himself from violence when someone refers to the Revelation as “Apocalyptic”? I guess using a long word derived from Greek is a handy way of disguising the fact that you have little idea of what’s actually going on in the book.

In Paradise Restored: A Biblical Theology of Dominion, David Chilton writes:

The Book of Revelation is often treated as an example of the “apocalyptic” genre of writings which flourished among the Jews between 200 B.C. and A.D. 100. There is no basis for this opinion whatsoever, and it is unfortunate that the word apocalyptic is used at all to describe this literature. (The writers of “apocalyptic” themselves never used the term in this sense; rather, scholars have stolen the term from John, who called his book “The Apocalypse [Revelation] of Jesus Christ.”) There are, in fact, many major differences between the “apocalyptic” writings and the Book of Revelation.

The “apocalyptists” expressed themselves in unexplained and unintelligible symbols, and generally had no intention of making themselves really understood. Their writings abound in pessimism: no real progress is possible, nor will there be any victory for God and His people in history. We cannot even see God acting in history. All we know is that the world is getting worse and worse. The best we can do is hope for the End – soon. But for now, the forces of evil are in control. (Sound familiar?) The practical result was that the apocalyptists rarely concerned themselves with ethical behavior. They weren’t much interested in how to live in the present (and actually taking dominion would be unthinkable); they just wanted to speculate about the coming cataclysms.

John’s approach in the Revelation is vastly different. His symbols are not obscure ravings hatched from a fevered imagination; they are rooted firmly in the Old Testament (and the reason for their seeming obscurity is that very fact: we have trouble understanding them only because we don’t know our Bibles). In contrast to the apocalyptists, who had given up on history, John presents history as the scene of redemption: God saves His people in their environment, not out of it; and He saves the environment.

Leon Morris, in his important study of Apocalyptic (Eerdmans, 1972), describes John’s worldview: “For him history is the sphere in which God has wrought out redemption. The really critical thing in the history of mankind has already taken place, and it took place here, on this earth, in the affairs of men. The Lamb ‘as it had been slain’ dominates the entire book. John sees Christ as victorious and as having won the victory through His death, an event in history. His people share in His triumph, but they have conquered Satan ‘by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony’ (Rev. 12:11). The pessimism which defers God’s saving activity until the End is absent. Though John depicts evil realistically, his book is fundamentally optimistic” (p. 79).

The apocalyptists said, The world is coming to an end: Give up! The Biblical prophets said, The world is coming to a beginning: Get to work!

Thus, the Book of Revelation is not an apocalyptic tract; it is, instead, as John himself reminds us repeatedly, a prophecy (1:3; 10:11; 22:7, 10, 18-19), completely in keeping with the writings of the other Biblical prophets. And — again in stark contrast to the apocalyptists — if there was one major concern among the Biblical prophets, it was ethical conduct. No Biblical writer ever revealed the future merely for the sake of satisfying curiosity: the goal was always to direct God’s people toward right action in the present. The overwhelming majority of Biblical prophecy had nothing to do with the common misconception of “prophecy” as foretelling the future. The prophets told of the future in order to stimulate godly living. The purpose of prophecy is ethical.

Blood on the doorpost of the al-Qiddissin Coptic Church in Alexandria, Egypt.

“This, like many things in the Torah, sounds pretty barbaric. But, like many of the weirdest things in the Torah, we see these laws, which are personal types, played out in corporate antitypes right to the end of the Bible.”

“But if the thing is true, and evidences of virginity are not found for the young woman, then they shall bring out the young woman to the door of her father’s house, and the men of her city shall stone her to death with stones, because she has done a disgraceful thing in Israel, to play the harlot in her father’s house. So you shall put away the evil from among you.” (Deuteronomy 22:20-21)

In a recent debate about Greg Bahsen’s woeful review of Chilton’s The Days of Vengeance, an online friend took interpretive maximalism to task.

For instance, because doorposts could be likened to legs, Jordan claims that the passover blood smeared on doorposts corresponds to the blood of circumcision—which in turn is equivalent to the tokens of virginity from the wedding night (I am not kidding; cf. The Law of the Covenant, pp. 82-83, 252-258). [PDF]

Yes, this sounds weird, but it isn’t at all. Bahnsen didn’t have an imagination fully informed by the Bible.

You must be logged in to see the rest of this post.

Join now for a year for $15!

Doug Wilson writes:

“The Levitical administration brought strong curses for disobedience (Heb. 2:2-3); the New Covenant administration brings much greater curses (Heb. 10:29; Heb. 12:25). Christians commonly assume that the really terrifying curses for disobedience were given in the Old Testament, and that under the New Testament all is grace. But this is precisely the opposite of the New Testament’s teaching on the subject” (To a Thousand Generations, pp. 28-29).

This is certainly a side of the New Covenant that Christians are never taught. The first time I ever heard of it was in David Chilton’s Revelation commentary The Days of Vengeance in 1989. But along with baptism (just had to throw that in), a rediscovery of the Old Covenant hammer makes everything in the New Covenant look like a nail. The Revelation is, after all, a book about the end of the Old Covenant.

It is very telling that all of these verses are in the book of Hebrews, written as a Deuteronomic warning to Jewish Christians throughout the empire who were being tempted to throw in the towel and head back to the Temple they had been chucked out of.

The curses here are, thus, Old Covenant curses, for Jews who had rejected their Messiah. Josephus called his book The Jewish War for a reason.

God certainly judges us under the New Covenant, but such a final judgment as this is still final, the one we get a glimpse of in Revelation 20.

And now that we have the Holy Spirit, Jesus has given us the ministry of judgment. Just as Israel was under the sword in Egypt, so Israel was handed the sword under Joshua, in order to take the Land. And I can tie this more mature ministry to baptism here as well. Israel “walked on water” as she passed through the Jordan.

So, I agree with a better understanding of the New Covenant containing curses. But, as with baptism, it is not the same. Our ministry is to put the entire world through the water (all men everywhere are called to repentance, which now includes them in the priesthood).

So the only final “cast off” judgments for now are those who judge Jesus to be a lie and remain in darkness. These are certainly personal, national and cultural judgments, but they are not AD70. God gives them up to their desires. It is water being trodden underfoot for the time being, not blood. There is still “a sacrifice for sin.” For now, God’s work moves on to those who will listen, as it did in Acts.

Revelation can’t be fully appreciated without attention to its literary structure. I’m no expert, but have a gander at this…

The most fundamental structure of the book is the 5-fold Covenant pattern:

Transcendence - Identification of the king: Vision of Christ (Adam – Garden)

…..Hierarchy - History of the Covenant: 7 churches recapitulate
…..Old Covenant history

……….Ethics – Terms and Conditions: true and false warriors under the Law

…..Sanctions - Blessings and Curses: True church commissioned
…..and false church decommissioned

Continuity - Renewal after death: The New Jerusalem (Greater Eve – City) [1]

As I have written elsewhere, I believe the 5-fold Covenant pattern (Word) in history expands into the sevenfold feasts to allow the ascension of the head and the ascension of the body. It is the Word making all things new, a new Creation.

Sabbath/Light – Vision of Christ
…..Passover/Firmament – Church lamps set apart as new rulers
……….Firstfruits/Altar&Table – Ascension of Christ as the “standing” sacrifice
……………Pentecost/Lampstand – 7 seals of the New Covenant opened
……………(Law given at Pentecost)
……….Trumpets/Incense – 7 trumpets of the Apostles warn the Judaisers
…..Atonement/Goats – 7 bowls and two brides, true and false
Tabernacles/Shekinah – Marriage supper of the Lamb. False bride eaten by vultures

James Jordan observes all of this and more in his lectures. He points out that the seven bowls are the final expression of the seven sprinklings of blood on the Day of Atonement. In this case, all the blood of innocent prophets would be avenged upon the Temple and its priesthood.

But, when this occurs, the passage itself does something cool. The angels with their bowls are in the centre of that particular structure. The seven seals, via the martyr trumpets, have become the seven bowls.

Genesis/Ark: and out of the sanctuary 

Exodus/Veil: came the seven angels with the seven plagues, 

Leviticus/Altar: clothed in pure, bright linen, with golden sashes around their chests. 

Numbers/Lampstand: And one of the four living creatures gave to the seven angels seven golden bowls full of the wrath of God who lives forever and ever, 

Deuteronomy/Incense: and the sanctuary was filled with smoke from the glory of God and from his power,

Joshua/Laver (Atonement – Adam): and no one could enter the sanctuary

Judges/Shekinah (Tabernacles): until the seven plagues of the seven angels were finished.

These seven bowls finish off the mediatory priesthood of Aaron/Zadok forever. Once that is done, the “body” can follow the “head” into heaven (the first resurrection) completing the totus Christus in AD70.

But my point is that although this event is at Atonement/Laver in the larger structure, the position of the first mention of the bowls is at Pentecost/Lampstand. The Lampstand lights were seven separate “bowls” of oil with wicks. The Law was given at Pentecost. Day 4 here is the de-Creation of Judah’s governing lights. Her sun, moon and stars fell from heaven. Here, the curses of the Law are poured out in the mother of all Pentecosts. Those who would not be purified by the holy fire as a new Christian priesthood would be incinerated like the unfaithful sons of Aaron. [2]

As David Chilton points out in The Days of Vengeance [PDF], Revelation is a Temple worship service with Judah as the sacrifice. It is unintelligible to most Christians because we don’t know the patterns of the Old Testament. Those who do know them (Jews), don’t read the New Testament. Glad we’ve got Chilton, Jordan and others to join the dots for us.

For more of this sort of analysis, get Totus Christus for starters and Jordan’s lectures for the main meal.

__________________________________________
[1] See Lambs in Limbo. Revelation is NOT about Rome. It is about the compromise with Roman political power of the Covenant people. The book is laced with the Covenant pattern. The harlot is burned with fire as the unfaithful daughter of a priest.
[2] See The Three Shepherds – 1

“There is a very important connection between the Church’s worldview and the Church’s hymns. If your heart and mouth are filled with songs of victory, you will tend to have an eschatology of dominion; if, instead, your songs are fearful, expressing a longing for escape—or if they are weak, childish ditties—your worldview and expectations will be escapist and childish.

Historically, the basic hymnbook for the Church has been the Book of Psalms. The largest book of the Bible is the Book of Psalms, and God providentially placed it right in the middle of the Bible, so that we couldn’t miss it! Yet how many churches use the Psalms in musical worship? It is noteworthy that the Church’s abandonment of dominion eschatology coincided with the Church’s abandonment of the Psalms.”

—David Chilton, Paradise Restored.

“Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.”  Matthew 7:14

Oh dear. This verse proves postmillennialism wrong. It also proves the rest of the Bible wrong because that is postmillennial too. Fortunately, this problem seems almost as simple to deal with as Irenaeus’ ambiguous text that non-preterists use to “unfound” preterism.[1]

Jesus built the sermon on the mount upon the Bible Matrix pattern. [2] Why wouldn’t He? He is the living Word without Whom nothing was made that was made (heptamerous Creation). He is Yahweh Who led Israel from Egypt to the promised Land (heptamerous Dominion). He is the fulfilment of all the annual festivals of the nation (heptamerous Feasts).

At this point in the sermon, the Lord has reached Yom Kippur. It is also Day 6, Adam standing at the door as mediator; it is Joshua as Captain crossing through the Jordan (the Laver), choosing between blessing and cursing at Mounts Ebal and Gerizim (a veil split in two) and letting Canaanite blood sate the horns of the “four-cornered” Land.

The narrow gate was guarded by real cherubim, God’s bouncers, veiled from the eye of every priest but One, guarded again by cherubim sewn into the tent curtains, and again by the Aaronic priesthood, who incidentally carried swords to deal with any man or beast that dared to approach.

When Jesus said the way was narrow and difficult, this is what He meant. It was a tunnel in the Temple of Doom.

It’s not that this narrow gate is now obsolete. There are still guards on the door – the saints – but as the body of Christ grows to fill the earth, so does the door. It is still difficult, but no longer narrow. Or should be say that it is still narrow but increasingly ubiquitous? It is anywhere faithful, vocal saints find bread, wine and water.

“See, I have set before you an open door, and no one can shut it; for you have a little strength, have kept My word, and have not denied My name.” Revelation 3:8

The “harlot” is also an open door, a narrow door given wide appeal through compromise. She wears the robes (veils) of chaste religion to cover her  nocturnal “inclusiveness.” Her forehead says “all-embracing” to men but “SLUT” to God. If we are postmillennial, we believe that as history progresses, the “narrow” door will eclipse the wide way. The other woman always ends up alone and destitute. As Solomon said, it is she who is the true Temple of Doom. [3]

____________________________
[1] David Chilton’s brief mention of this in The Days of Vengeance [A4 PDF] led Kenneth Gentry to write a big book about it: Before Jerusalem Fell. Gentry makes an, I believe, irrefutable case for a pre-AD70 date of authorship of the Revelation.

[2] You can see the whole thing in my book, Totus Christus. Interestingly, the Lord’s prayer follows the pattern as a”seven-sealed scroll” within the larger pattern (the sermon), which is also the “Deuteronomy” of an even larger pattern that covers the first section of Matthew’s gospel.

[3] See Godly Intolerance.

“For as the new heavens and the new earth [Land] which I will make shall remain before Me,” says the LORD, “So shall your descendants and your name remain.”  Isaiah 66:22

If you’ve been around preterism for a little while, you will know that this phrase is Covenantal. It refers to a new firmament (blood covering) and new mediators (on the Land); a new crystal sea government (Laver) and a restored four-cornered Israel (Bronze Altar).

So, Isaiah’s and Peter’s references to a new heaven and a new earth refer to looming Covenantal events, events which were contemporary to the respective authors. Isaiah spoke of the Restoration of Israel from Babylon. Peter spoke of the full inauguration of the kingdom in AD70.[1]

But extreme preterists want to divorce the term from physical reality altogether. I do follow them up to a point, but I think the solution is that, yes, all Creation is Covenantal, but it began with the physical world and will end with a restored physical world:

Creation to Abraham: 
Physical heavens and earth (including flood) establishing the Covenant.
The world as Tabernacle

Abraham to Christ: 
Social heavens and earth (Israel as Covenant: world divided by circumcision/earth)
Tabernacle as microcosmos – governed from earth by Messianic bloodline

Christ: 
Human heavens and earth (Christ as Covenant)
A Man as Tabernacle

Christ to last judgment:
Social heavens and earth (Church as Covenant: world divided by baptism/heaven)
Church as microcosmos – governed from heaven by the ascended Christ

Eternity:
Physical heavens and earth restored, fulfilling the Covenant
The world as Tabernacle

This explains the use of the “physical” Covenant language within these other symbolic heaven-and-earth stages. [2]
It also helps us to understand the contemporary nature of the prophecies that use this language. [3]

________________________________________

[1] See How To Read the New Testament.

[2] See also Cosmic Language.

[3] See Looking for a New Heavens and a New Earth by David Chilton.

Part One here (PDF)
Part Two here (PDF)

“Now when He had spoken these things, while they watched, He was taken up, and a cloud received Him out of their sight.” –Acts 1:9

“Jesus went through everything He went through, His incarnation, His life, His death, His resurrection, in order to ascend as man to heaven in the cloud… The glory cloud is God’s mobile home, a chariot-throne in which He drives around and manifests His presence, glory, grace and judgment.

This cloud shows up a lot more often in Scripture than you would think. We all know that the cloud brought the people through the wilderness, but the cloud is all over the place in the Bible. Sometimes you only get a hint that it’s there by the sound that it makes, its voice, a sound like a rushing mighty wind.

The cloud was at the Creation, at the Red Sea crossing, at Mount Sinai, in the wilderness, in the Tabernacle and in the Temple. It is God’s throne room, His sanctuary. This is where Jesus Christ ascended. The ascension marks the climax of what the Word was made flesh for. God created man for the purpose of ascension and transfiguration.

When Paul talks about the natural body versus the spiritual body, he doesn’t mean physical versus non-physical. He is contrasting the physical body with which Adam was created with the ‘supra-physical’ body which Christ now has…

Christ divested Himself of the glory of His divinity, in order to receive the glory that He had before, but now to receive it as Man, and to share it with us.”

“The first man Adam became a living being. The last Adam became a life giving spirit” –1 Corinthians 15:45

– David Chilton, Ascension and Kingdom, Basilean Lectures 1990. Available from www.wordmp3.com

There are conflicting traditions concerning John. A widely held opinion is that he was banished to Patmos by the Emperor Domitian who reigned from AD 81 through 96. If so, this makes preterism a paper tiger.

In the discussion on the American Vision forum, Thomas writes:

The Syriac History of John, the Son of Zebedee makes reference to John’s banishment under Nero. Eusebius discovered this manuscript in Greek and translated it into Syriac. It states:

“After these things, when the Gospel was increasing by the hands of the Apostles, Nero, the unclean and impure and wicked king, heard all that had happened at Ephesus. And he sent and took all that the procurator had and imprisoned him; and laid hold of St. John and drove him into exile; and passed sentence on the city that it should be laid waste.”

Further, the oldest copies of the Book of Revelation in the Syriac language all have as part of their titles:

“The Apocalypse of St. John, written in Patmos, whither John was sent by Nero Caesar.”

The late daters’ evidences can all be traced back to an ambiguous statement by Irenaeus. In this case, it is not smoke = fire, but smoke and mirrors. (See Ken Gentry’s excellent Before Jerusalem Fell for a basically water-tight case on an early date. It is a must-have.1).

Anyhow, I find it amazing that the discussion often rests on prooftexts and extra-biblical information. These have their place, certainly, but our God is a God of order. What does the Bible say? The answer to both John’s exile and Revelation’s date of writing are found in Ezekiel.

No one disputes that the book of Ezekiel’s first sections are about the destruction of Jerusalem. Preterists understand that the last section is about its restoration. The centre of the book focusses on the corrupted nations in the “wilderness.” So Ezekiel follows the “slavery to sabbath” (Egypt to Canaan) pattern.

As David Chilton points out in Days of Vengeance, Revelation follows the structure of Ezekiel step by step. Revelation is also about the end of the old worship, the testing of God’s people in the wilderness for forty years, and their triumphal entry into a new land and a rebuilt Temple/city. Anyone who misses or minimises the destruction of Judaism as a big player in the New Testament is swallowing a camel. We misinterpret the apostles’ warnings of an imminent event because we don’t understand Bible symbols.

Regarding John’s being on Patmos in exile, the scriptural evidence is typological yet strong. He is on an island, and throughout Revelation, islands symbolise Gentile territories (in the Gentile “sea”.) These islands, and the Jewish mountains, fled away when the New Covenant kingdom arrived. There was no more Jew/Gentile division. Secondly, Ezekiel began with the prophet in exile. He was given visions to share with fellow exiles as warnings because they already contained seeds of the same destruction that would soon befall Jerusalem, hence the letters to the seven churches. The judgments upon the “exile” churches prefigure the judgments upon the harlot church that would soon be burned with fireunder the Law. Both Ezekiel and Revelation end with the exiles resurrected from the tomb of Babylon and occupying the mediatorial house cleaned and decorated by the Prince.

JLVaughan added:

“The corporate Israel resurrected both times. The first to build the new temple in Jerusalem. The second to be the new temple in the New Jerusalem.”

_______

1 http://www.amazon.com/Before-Jerusalem-Fell-Dating-Revelation/dp/0915815435/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1236761391&sr=8-1

Moses spent 40 years in the wilderness, then Israel did. God’s prophet lives through the pattern, then God’s people follow him in a larger pattern. The head of the sacrifice, then the body. The Adam, then the Greater Eve. Jesus, then the church.

James Jordan observes that the Promised Land failed to support Abram both during the famine and also later concerning the flocks of Abram and Lot. Only after the Lord “purified” the Land with a sacrifice was it again a garden for the people of God. Like Adam, a deep sleep fell upon Abram, but it was animal substitutes that were divided.

The Lord passed over Abram, but in the darkness, a smoking firepot and blazing torch passed through the divided animals. God structured this event to follow Israel’s feasts, with Passover and Atonement at each end, and the Lord’s prediction of the Hebrews’ slavery in Egypt at the “wilderness” centre.

The blazing torch and smoking firepot are the Lord’s chariot throne. The blazing torch (the head) is His throne, the Ark. The smoking firepot is the Incense Altar, the cloud of angel elders in His train (the body), the Holy Place positioned ‘underneath’ the Most Holy (see Ezekiel 1).1

Revelation 8

After the ascension of Christ, Satan was expelled from his “ministry” before God as the Accuser of man. Like the evil twin of the blazing torch that measured Abram’s sacrifices, he was then used by God to bring an end to the Old Covenant upon the Land.

And the fifth angel blew his trumpet, and I saw a star fallen from heaven to earth, and he was given the key to the shaft of the [Abyss]. He opened the shaft of the [Abyss], and from the shaft rose smoke like the smoke of a great furnace, and the sun and the air were darkened with the smoke from the shaft.

The seven trumpets are a chiasm, with the third and fifth corresponding symmetrically. The “de-Ascension” of Satan mirrors his fall in the third trumpet. Like Christ, he was given a key. His throne-coming was also accompanied by clouds of smoke, but as false High Priest, instead of a sweet-smelling aroma it was the sulphur of Sodom. As Pentecost’s fire came from the Altar of Incense in heaven, its evil twin bore an army of unholy mighty men—the “smoking firepot” body of Satan’s blazing torch head. It was the children of Satan (John 8:44), an army of Judaisers, locusts who would devour the Land. As in Daniel 7, the winds of the Spirit raised up beasts.

“as with Tyre of old, the Abyss is being dredged up to cover the Land with its unclean spirits. Apostate Israel is to be cast out of God’s presence, excommunicated from the Temple, and filled with demons. One of the central messages of Revelation is that the Church tabernacles in heaven; the corollary of this is that the false church tabernacles in hell.”2

As the preaching of the seven-sealed Gospel to the Land began with a white horse, so at the destruction of Judaism, the preaching of the Gospel to the World began with the white horse passing through the divided pieces of the Land (Zechariah 14:4). However, this time, Christ did not ride alone but with His bride. He was a blazing torch, and She was now the smoking firepot—a permanent part of His Ark-chariot. A government of ascended men had replaced the government of angels. Together they passed through the midst of a divided Land to carry the seven seals to the World.

“Then passing through the midst of them, He went His way.” Luke 4:30

________

1 Note also that in Exodus 25-31, the Ark is the Light of Day 1, and the Incense Altar is the “swarms” of Day 5 – birds from above and fish from below. The Tabernacle was both a portable Sinai and an image of the chariot of God.
2 David Chilton, The Days of Vengeance, p. 244.