Early in my pastoral career, I read a book by one of my seminary professors, Dr. Jay Adams. The book was titled, The Time is At Hand. The title was taken from verse three of Revelation chapter one. In this small, but powerful book, Dr. Adams goes against Premillennial Dispensationalism and biblically destroys that position. He also maintains the events of Revelation have already happened. This is called the "preterist position". When I first read this book, I was really surprised. I thought my former professor had "gone off the deep end" theologically speaking. I had not previously been exposed to the preterist view of Revelation.

At the time, I thought the view of Revelation presented by William Hendrickson in his commentary, More Than Conquerors was the most biblical view. He presents Revelation as seven cycles of church history. I had even used Dr. Hendrickson’s book as the basis for a Sunday School class at a small church I had served while in seminary.

Several years later, while I was pastoring a church in Bakersfield, CA, my congregation challenged me to teach through the book of The Revelation. In preparation for teaching that class, I read all of the Old Testament references (Revelation has more references from the Old Testament than any other book in the bible). As I read them in context, I found many of them dealt with God’s prophecy of the destruction of the Jewish temple at Jerusalem in 70 AD. Others dealt with the judgment of God upon the Jewish leadership for their disobedience to Him. As I continued to study, I became more and more convinced that Jay Adams had been right after all.

I then read a book by Kenneth Gentry, 666 The Beast of Revelation, which deals with the dating of the book of Revelation. This book presents very strong evidence that John’s letter was written before the destruction of temple. Although many authors have said Revelation was written after the destruction of the temple in 70 AD, Gentry’s arguments convinced me that Revelation was a letter of comfort written to Jewish Christians in the first century. These Christians were about to undergo terrible persecution by the Jewish leadership and the Roman government. I came to believe Revelation predicted, not the terrible destruction of the world of the future, but the destruction of the temple; the destruction of the Jewish system of false worship and the Roman government; the false church and the false state.

The purpose of these lessons is not necessarily to convince you that my position is correct. My purpose is to encourage you to read God's word and let His Spirit reveal the truth to you.

Before we begin, there are several definitions that you need to understand. Especially if you have not been exposed to them before.

First are the major "eschatological" positions. Eschatology has to do with the study of the end times; what is going to happen at the end of history.

The most popular position, at least in the 20th century, is the Premillennial. People who hold this view believe that Jesus will return prior to the millenium (the 1000 years mentioned in Revelation 20).

The second most popular is the Postmillennial position. Those who hold this view believe that Christ is coming back after (post) the 1000 years. They also "generally," though not always, believe the world will become more and more Christian and that Christ will return to a basically Christian world.

The Amillennial position reflects the fact that the Greek letter "a" placed before a word means "not." Therefore, technically, Amillennial means no millenium. Most Amillenialists however, believe there is a 1000 year period (it is in Scripture), but it is usually understood as a "Church age" of indefinite length (Christ will come back when he comes back).

"What is the Apocalypse?"

The popular understanding of the apocalypse is that it deals with the end times; what is going to happen at the end of the world.

However, the Greek word apocalypse actually means "revelation". In other words, the very title of the book means that something is being revealed. It is the "revelation of or about Jesus Christ."

In this study, we will actually go back and study Daniel, chapter 9, in order to understand the "abomination of desolation," referred to in Matthew 24. We will also see that Matthew 24 addresses the same issues as Revelation and the same period of time as Daniel 9. In Matthew 24, I hope to show that Jesus is not talking about the end of the future world, but the destruction of the Jewish temple; marking the end of Jewish system or "age". He is not teaching about "The Last Day" (of history), but the last days of the Jewish economy; the false religious system of the Jews and the beginning of the New Covenant era.

We will then study the rest of Revelation, chapter 1, who Christ is. Next, we will look at the seven churches. Then we will continue with an in depth look at the rest of the book.

Rev. 1:1 The revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave him to show to His bondservants , the things which must shortly take place; and he sent and communicated it by sending His angel to His bondservant John…

Notice the book begins with "The revelation of Jesus Christ..." The Greek word "of" is ambiguous. It could be about Jesus Christ or from Jesus Christ — as a source. Two things we know for certain is that it has to do with Jesus Christ and it ultimately comes from God. It is "Special Revelation." It is truth revealed by God to man.

"God gave to him to show to his bondservants..." The word "show" in the Greek is actually "to make known."

The very first thing we learn is that Revelation is from God and that it is something for us to know. It is NOT a book that you cannot understand. God gave it to man to make something known "...to his bondservants" (to us).

I believe modern Christians don't understand Revelation because they don't understand the Old Testament symbolism and the historical situations of that time. Every Christian in John's time understood the symbols. We don't understand the symbols because we don't understand the Jewish religious system and the temple worship as set forth in the Old Testament. Therefore it is difficult for us to understand and "to know" what the prophecy was about.

"The revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave to him to show to his bondservants the things which must shortly take place."

Does "shortly" mean thousands of years or a few minutes/days/years? Verse 3 – "the time is near"...repeats at the end of the book in chapter 22:6 -- the things which must shortly take place and in verse 10, "for the time is near…", or, as Jay Adams titled his book, The Time Is At Hand. The book is obviously a prophecy about events that were to occur very shortly after they were prophesied. If indeed it was a prophecy of the destruction of the temple in 70 AD, which had not yet been destroyed, it was probably written sometime between 63 and 68 AD.

Most commentators believe the book was written about 96 AD, after the destruction of the temple. However, the book itself speaks of the temple as still in operation. Therefore, I believe it must have been written prior to 70 AD.

"…must shortly take place, and he sent and communicated it through his angel to his bondservant John,"

"Communicated it" is literally in Greek "signed it". The letter was written in terms of signs and symbols. As a blunt pastor friend used to say, "When we read Revelation, we shouldn't expect to see a literal red winged dragon flying around the sky with a slutty broad on his back. Rather the dragon and the whore of Babylon are symbols of something else.

Rev. 1:2 "...who bore witness to the word of god and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw."

John was a witness to everything he was told, everything he saw. He is witnessing to the word of God, which is the testimony of Jesus Christ.

Rev. 1:3 "Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of the prophecy, and heed the things which are written in it; for the time is near."

"Reads" is a special word in Greek. It means reading publicly in worship. John is talking about reading the prophecy of the Revelation in a public worship context. The one reading will be blessed by doing so and the ones hearing will also be blessed. It is tragic that in churches today, pastors and congregations alike do not read or hear the words of this marvelous letter from God to His Church. Therefore, they do not receive the promised blessing.

Blessed and happy and those who hear.... "…and take to heart what is written in it...and heed the things..."

This is important. If Revelation was written about something far in the distant future, how could the people heed the words of the prophecy? Heed means to do or to keep. How could they do or keep something if it didn't pertain to them? They must have been able to hear and to understand and to heed the prophecy.

So far, we have learned the book is something revealed, to bear witness to or from Jesus Christ. It is to be read in public worship and is to be heard and kept or heeded. Thus, it cannot be futuristic. It is a prophecy of things which were "shortly" to happen, and I believe that prophecy was fulfilled in the destruction of the temple in 70 AD.

Someone might ask, "Do we know what the historical interpretations of the book of Revelation are? What has been the view of the church in ages past?"

In church history, the book has been interpreted mostly in a Postmillennial or Amillennial sense. Many early commentators interpreted the book as mostly symbolic. They believed that Christ would come back when Christ is coming back. The historical view of Revelation had nothing to do with the Premillennial Dispensational ideas we see in the church today. Those views did not even exist in the church until the mid -1800s. They originated with a vision that a young girl had in 1830 in Scotland. That vision influenced John Nelson Darby, the founder of the Plymouth Brethren. His views subsequently influenced C. I. Scofield who worked these ideas into and published the "Scofield Reference Bible." As a result of this popular work, the Premillennial Dispensational view exploded in the Christian world in America.

B.B. Warfield writes that Revelation is understandable if we know our Bible. Today, we don't know our Bible adequately. Jesus Christ said to the Pharisees, "You search the Scriptures to learn of life, but they testify of Me." To learn more about Jesus Christ, we need to learn more about the Old Testament.

Warfield also wrote, "No one who knows his Bible need despair about knowing this book (Revelation), of reading this book with profit. Above all, he who can understand our Lord's great discourse concerning the last things (Matthew 24), cannot fail to understand the Apocalypse, which is founded on that discourse and scarcely advances beyond it."