Part XII.2

IV. The Symbolism of the Book of Revelation To some, the Revelation is an obscure book, full of deep mysteries and dark sayings, and so loaded with prophetic symbolism that the possibility of a clear understanding of its meaning is most doubtful. To the contrary, the very title of the book reveals its true nature. “It is not an obscuration but a revelation; it reveals, not conceals. Its symbols are not to hide the meaning but to illuminate it. Symbols form part of its method of instruction, but they teach, not confuse.”[59] It is an unsealed book meant to be read and understood, for it carries a promise of blessing for those who keep the sayings of its prophecy (Revelation 22:7).

There have been a great many attempts made to allegorize the Revelation in order to make its events appear as fulfilled during some particular era of history. Those who have so labored are called Preterists, time alone serving to reveal the utter bankruptcy of their interpretive methods. In this connection, Walvoord remarks:

There are literally scores of interpretations of the book of Revelation by the amillennarians who have attempted to interpret this book by the historical setting which was contemporary to them. The history of interpretation is strewed with the wreckage of multiplied schemes of interpretation which are every one contradictory to all the others. This writer has personally examined some fifty historical interpretations of Revelation all of which would be rejected by any intelligent person today. The literal method which regards the bulk of Revelation as future is the only consistent approach possible. The spiritualizing method of interpretation is a blight upon the understanding of the Scriptures and constitutes an important hindrance to Bible study.[60]

Interpreters who believe the prophecies of Revelation (particularly from the fourth chapter) are to be fulfilled at some future date are designated simply as Futurists. Even among these there is considerable division of opinion over the extent to which the literal method may be applied. It is not our purpose here to attempt a solution of this phase of the problem but rather to demonstrate that the book of Revelation, although known for its symbols, is not without a heavy literal content, and that even in this book there is no need for departures from the basic method of literal interpretation.

Some expositors have given so much emphasis to apocalyptic symbolism that one wonders if they have not overlooked just how much of a literal nature the book of Revelation contains. The chief personages involved are all literal: God the Father, Christ, the Holy Spirit, Michael the archangel, Satan, Antichrist, angels, men, and so forth. So are the places literal: heaven, earth, the abyss, mountains, islands, seas, Jerusalem, Babylon, and the seven cities of Asia Minor, to name a few. Revelation 11:8 speaks of “the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt,” and in so doing employs a metaphor, but the city is none the less literal, clearly identified as that “where also our Lord was crucified.” The twenty-four thrones and twenty-four elders of chapter four are literal rather than symbolic, as many opponents of pretribulationalism insist, for John records that one of the elders conversed with him (Revelation 7:13). It is far more sensible to understand the elder to be a literal individual than it is to maintain that one-twenty-fourth part of a symbolic group held conversation with the apostle. Similarly, the two witnesses of Revelation 11:3-12 evidently are literal. They do not symbolize the Church, as the details of their ministry, death, and resurrection indicate (although Lenski ignores such details and makes them the principle of “competent legal testimony,”[61]whatever that may mean during torturous Tribulation days). Following the death of the witnesses there is to be a great earthquake. The tenth part of Jerusalem shall fall and seven thousand sinners will perish. Those who refused burial to God’s two prophets now lie buried beneath the rubble of their own buildings. Of this incident, Lang has written: “Attempts to ‘spiritualize’ such details are hopeless; their plain sense is simple.”[62] So also must the forty-two months be literal rather than symbolic, for they comprise half the seven year period of Daniel’s “seventieth week,” measured also in days and by the formula “a time, and times, and half a time” (Revelation 11:3; Revelation 12:14). A non-literal interpretation of such specific periods and events would introduce much confusion, if not bring the entire book to chaos.

However, it is the twentieth chapter of the Revelation, when interpreted literally, which come in for the lion’s share of scorn and criticism. Charles R. Erdman, speaking of this chapter and of the Millennium, writes: This obscure and difficult passage of Scripture contains a highly figurative description of a limited time during which Satan is found, and the nations are at rest, and risen martyrs reign with Christ: but after this “Thousand Years” Satan is loosed and leads the nations of the earth against “the camp of the saints,” and “the beloved city”; but his hosts are destroyed by fire from heaven and he is “cast into the lake of fire and brimstone.” All this is full of mystery. These symbols cannot be interpreted with certainty or with confidence. No prediction of such a limited period of peace and blessedness is found elsewhere in the Bible.[63]
The Scriptures challenge all such trembling uncertainty. The Old Testament prophets are full of predictions of Israel’s golden age, and whole handfuls of Scripture can be cited to substantiate the kingdom reign of Christ of which Revelation 20:1-15 speaks. Note from a random selection the promise of the land and of an everlasting seed (Genesis 26:2-4; Genesis 28:13-15; Ezekiel 37:24-25); the final and permanent restoration to the land and the extent of its boundaries (Amos 9:15; Hosea 3:4-5; Genesis 15:18-21); the perpetuity of the nation in spite of disobedience (Jeremiah 31:35-37; 2 Samuel 7:14-15; Psalms 89:30-37); the time of Israel’s fullness and national conversion (Jeremiah 31:33-34; Romans 11:12; Romans 11:23); the everlasting throne and kingdom (Isaiah 9:7; 2 Samuel 7:12-13; Luke 1:31-33); the period of safety under the Davidic King (Jeremiah 33:14-17; Jeremiah 33:20-21; its peace and its blessedness (Jeremiah 23:5-6; Jeremiah 30:8-9) with the curse largely removed from nature (Isaiah 11:6-9). Other portions of the Revelation harmonize with its twentieth chapter, as in Revelation 5:10, which records that the saints shall reign on the earth, and as in Revelation 12:12, which intimates the binding of Satan by saying that he knows his time is short. This is the time of rest and peace upon earth of which Revelation 20:1-15 specifically speaks. In language which is neither obscure nor highly figurative, the length of the period is set of a six-fold reference to a duration of one thousand years. It is both interesting and pathetic to behold how allegorizers dismiss the plain force of these Scriptures in their effort to exchange what God has spoken for a meaning more in accord with their own ideas. Auberlen gives the following significant bit of “exegesis”:

Thousand symbolizes the world is perfectly pervaded by the divine: Since thousand is ten, the number of the world, raised to the third power, the number of God.[64]

Another would make the thousand years symbolize “potentiated ecumenicity”![65] In view of such trifling, it might be well to ask: Suppose God actually meant one thousand years, how else would He, or how else could He write it? This one chapter of the Revelation repeats the figure six different times in as many verses.” The binding of Satan, in this same chapter, has become another center of confusion at the hands of those seeking an allegorized interpretation of the event. Lenski says: “The binding of Satan means that he shall not prevent this heralding of the Gospel to all the nations.”[66] Warfield, however, provides a more outstanding example of how sane and sensible men can be led astray by parting company with the principle of literal interpretation.

Concerning the binding and the loosing of Satan, Warfield writes:

. . . The element of time and chronological succession belongs to the symbol, not to the thing symbolized. The “binding of Satan” is, therefore, in reality, not for a season, but with reference to a sphere; and his “loosing” again is not after a period but in another sphere; it is not subsequence but exteriority that is suggested. There is, indeed, no literal “binding of Satan” to be thought of at all: what happens, happens not to Satan but to the saints, and is only represented as happening to Satan for the purpose of the symbolical picture. What actually happens is that the saints described are removed from the sphere of Satan’s assaults. The saints described are free from all access of Satan - he is bound with respect to them: outside of their charmed circle his horrid work goes on.[67]

All of which serves to demonstrate that the plain meaning of Scripture can be reversed completely the by the application of an allegorizing principle. No wonder havoc is made of the faith when this vicious method is applied to more cardinal points of Christian doctrine. Peter has stated plainly: “Be sober, be vigilant because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8; cf. 1 Corinthians 7:5; 2 Corinthians 4:3-4; 2 Thessalonians 2:9; 1 Timothy 1:20; 1 John 3:8). Yet fundamentally, the modern amillennial view still embraces this unscriptural Augustinian concept that Satan was bound at the first advent of Christ. Judging by present day Satanic activity, he must be tethered on a long chain! The statement by Warfield is mot significant, for it illustrates the power of the spiritualizing method, even in the hands of an outstanding conservative theologian, to alter if not to reverse the plain teaching of the Word of God. Also, it shows how allegorizing may invade and enter other areas of theology (here, angelology) in addition to eschatology. As to the actual treatment of the symbols contained in the book of Revelation, the writer makes the following five suggestions:

(1) Revelation is a message to the Church directly from the throne of God. Since it is evidently meant to be understood, seek the interpretation of the book by careful study and prayerful meditation. The deep things of God are open only to those walking in full fellowship with God. Revelation is the great watershed of all Biblical doctrine; therefore, a grasp of the teaching of the entire Bible is essential, particularly the book of Daniel, the Olivet discourse, and other major prophetic passages. Prophecy must be studied with great dependence upon the teaching power of the Spirit of God, who has come not only to guide His own into all truth but also to show them “things to come” (John 16:13).

(2) Not all of the word-pictures of the Revelation are symbols. Many are plain, everyday figures of speech, and should be identified and interpreted by the special rules for figurative language - just as one would go about interpreting a figure in the non-prophetical portions of the Word of God. For example, Revelation 1:12 introduces a metonymy: “the voice that spake with me.” The book simply abounds with simile: “his hairs were white like wool ... his eyes were as a flame of fire”; “the moon became as blood”; “the stars of heaven fell ... as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind”; “the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together”; “the nations of the earth ... the number of whom is as the sand of the sea” (Revelation 1:14; Revelation 6:12-13; Revelation 20:8). Revelation 20:9 uses the figure of personification: “fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.” Examples of figurative language in the book might be extended almost indefinitely, but since every legitimate figure is incorporated within the scope of the literal method of interpretation, there is certainly no need for superimposing the many figures of the Revelation over that which actually is symbolic.

(3) In the study of the apocalyptic visions of John, do not fail to distinguish between “things seen and heard” in a vision and the facts evidently given John directly by God or by His angel apart from the vision. For instance, John might see an angel or elder, a heavenly city or a shaft to the abyss, but even when transported to heaven he could not see“a thousand years.” It is evident that the duration of Satan’s binding and the length of the reign of the saints must have been given to John by direct revelation. As such, the thousand year figure cannot be treated to the hazards of “symbolic interpretation.”

(4) When a symbol or sign does appear in the Revelation, it is often plainly designated as such in the immediate context, together with what the symbol represents. Lange gives this rule:

Nothing could be symbolically interpreted which is not proved to be symbolical in the Apocalypse itself or by Old Testament visions. Nothing should be apprehended literally which is demonstrated to be a symbol.[68] In Revelation 12:3 “there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon ...” who is clearly identified in verse nine as “the great dragon ... called the Devil, and Satan.” Another example is Revelation 17:18, where the woman sitting upon a scarlet colored beast is identified: “And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth.” It is religious Babylon wherein are seven mountains (verse nine), the place of ecclesiastical scarlet and the blood of martyrs, evidently the city of Rome.

(5) It must be remembered that the book of Revelation is not independent of previous prophecy. There are in the book some three hundred allusions to some other part of the Bible, and the main roots of the book are in Daniel. Some themes are carried through the entire Scriptures, the book of the Revelation being the final terminal. It is to be expected, therefore, that much of the imagery of the Revelation is to be found, and to some extent explained in some of the earlier books of the Bible. Such is indeed the case. As Ironside explains: This book is a book of symbols. But the careful student of the Word need not exercise his own ingenuity in order to think out the meaning of the symbols. It may be laid down as a principle of first importance that every symbol used in Revelation is explained or alluded to somewhere else in the Bible.[69]

Thus, the sharp sword of Revelation 19:15 may well speak of judgment through the application of the Word of God, according to Hebrews 4:12. The star which fell from heaven unto the earth, in Revelation 9:1, is identified in its own context as a person (verse two, “he opened”), but may well be an angel or heavenly ruler, according to parallel passages such as Numbers 24:12, Isaiah 14:13, and Revelation 12:4. Light is shed on the nature of the four “living creatures” of Revelation 4:6-8 by a comparison with the four “living creatures of Ezekiel 1:5-14. Likewise must the “four and twenty elders” be interpreted in the light of those called “elders” elsewhere in the Bible.

Especially is the vision of Christ in the first chapter of the Revelation highly symbolic, but here also the key is in the Scriptures. Daniel 7:9 speaks of one called the Ancient of Days, with “the hair of his head like the pure wool.” Isaiah 11:5 notes that “righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins.” His voice “as the sound of many waters” is part of the imagery of the twenty-ninth Psalm. John fell at His feet as head, but so did Isaiah, Moses, Job, and others, when they beheld His glory. Because the pattern is plain, the conclusion is obvious. The interpreter must be one who searches the rest of the Sacred Text rather than his imagination for the interpretation of prophetic symbols. As it has so often been said, all of the Scriptures are self-explanatory, and although the Revelation is not the easiest book to understand, many of its basic problems yield to earnest, Spirit-led Bible study.

These conclusions and suggestions, although a bare introduction to the vast field of prophetic study, should be of value to the student of prophecy because they are all in harmony with the principle of literal interpretation. This method, when applied to the book of Revelation, alone yields consistent answers to its interpretive problems, unfolding a prophetic program in complete harmony with the rest of Scripture.

Literal interpretation, whether examined historically or in the laboratory of actual exegesis, is the foundation principle of conservative Protestant theology. It needs not to be bolstered, or confounded, or modified, by allegorizing or anything which resembles it. Literal interpretation, returning to the wise words of Bonar, is “the only maxim that will carry you right through the Word of God from Genesis to Revelation.”

________________________________ [1] Lewis Sperry Chafer, Systematic Theology, III, 183, 184.

[2] Norman B. Harrison, The End: Re-Thinking the Revelation, p. 27.

[3] Robert Cameron, Scriptural Truth About the Lord’s Return, p. 168.

[4] Alexander Reese, The Approaching Advent of Christ, p. 225.

[5] Translation of W. J. Conybeare and J. S. Howson, The Life and Epistles of St. Paul, I, 392.

[6] Cited by W. A. Criswell in the published sermon, “The Curse of Modernism,” Dallas: First Baptist Church, 1948.

[7] F. W. Farrar, History of Interpretation (London: Macmillan and Colossians, 1886), p. 196. Italics added.

[8] Charles Feinberg, Premillennialism or Amillennialism? (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1936), p. 51, citing Milner.

[9] J. P. Kirsch, “Millennium,” The Catholic Encyclopedia, X, 307-9.

[10] Albertus Pieters, “Darbyism vs. The Historic Christian Faith,” Calvin Forum, II (May, 1936), 225-28.

[11] These can be obtained from any good source book. Bernard Ramm, Protestant Biblical Interpretation, (Boston: W. A. Wilde Colossians, 1950), pp. 78-96, is recommended.

[12] Cited by F. J. Miles, Understandest Thou? (London: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1946), p. xi.

[13] Ibid., p. 25.

[14] Charles Ellicott and W. J. Harsha, Biblical Hermeneutics (New York: Anson D. F. Randolph & Colossians, 1881), p. 181.

[15] Arthur T. Pierson, cited by James H. Todd, Principles of Interpretation (Chicago: Bible Institute Colportage Association, 1923), p. 21.

[16] James Neil, Strange Figures: or the Figurative Language of the Bible (London: Simpkin, Marshall & Colossians, 1895), p. 56.

[17] Farrar, op. cit., p. 475.

[18] Ellicott and Harsha, op. cit., p. 78.

[19] Ibid., p. 73.

[20] Oswald T. Allis, Prophecy and the Church (Philadelphia: Presbyterian Reformed Publishing Colossians, 1945), p. 19.

[21] Clinton Lockhart, Principles of Interpretation (Fort Worth: S. B. Taylor, 1915), pp. 159, 160.

[22] Ibid., p. 49.

[23] Loc. cit.

[24] Pascal, cited by Wm. H. Rogers, Things That Differ (New York: Loizeaux Bros., 1940), p. 17.

[25] Loc. cit.

[26] David L. Cooper, The World’s Greatest Library Graphically Illustrated (Los Angeles: Biblical Research Society, 1942), p. 17.

[27] Rogers, op. cit., p. 3.

[28] Owen, cited by Lockhart, op. cit., p. 24.

[29] Cf. Homer Payne, Amillennial Theology as a System (unpublished doctor’s dissertation, Dallas Theological Seminary, 1948), pp. 102-25. Payne tests the usage of three specific terms: Zion, Kingdom, and Israel. It is claimed by representative amillennial theologians that these terms are spiritualized outright in the New Testament to mean the Church, making this age the fulfillment of the promised Israelitish kingdom. Payne offers convincing evidence that these terms cannot legitimately be said to be spiritualized in the New Testament, but are to be taken literally in keeping with the premillennial view.

[30] Patrick Fairbairn, Hermeneutical Manual, (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1858), pp. 148, 149.

[31] Gerrit H. Hospers, The Principle of Spiritualization in Hermeneutics (East Williamson, New York: Author, 1935), p. 10.

[32] Ramm, op. cit., p. 65.

[33] Ibid., pp. 64, 65. Italics in the original.

[34] Milton S. Terry, Biblical Hermeneutics (New York: The Methodist Book Concern, 1883), p. 160.

[35] Neil, op. cit., p. 25.

[36] Terry, op. cit., has devoted several chapters to Biblical figures of speech, and has given them complete and generally satisfactory treatment. Some of the above definitions are drawn from this section.

[37] R. T. Chafer, The Science of Biblical Hermeneutics (Dallas: Bibliotheca Sacra, 1939), p. 80, comments: “The defenders of the postmillennial and amillennial systems openly espouse the allegorizing of plain Scriptures to meet the needs of their systems of interpretation, a fair example being Wyngarden’s rather recent work, The Future of the Kingdom and Fulfillment.”

[38] Lightfoot, cited by Hospers, op. cit., pp. 21, 22.

[39] Terry, op. cit., p. 189.

[40] Loc. cit.

[41] Joseph Samuel Frey, Frey’s Scripture Types (Philadelphia: American Baptist Publishing Society, 1841), p. 13.

[42] Sir Robert Anderson, cited by Ada R. Habershon, The Study of the Types (London: Pickering and Englis, n.d.), pp. 10, 11.

[43] Suggested by Louis Berkhof, Principles of Biblical Interpretation (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1950), p. 145.

[44] Suggested by George H. Schodde, Outlines of Biblical Hermeneutics (Columbus: Lutheran Book Concern, 1917), pp. 219, 220.

[45] Rules 1 to 5 suggested by Berkhof, op. cit., pp. 146-48.

[46] Terry, op. cit., p. 315.

[47] Floyd Hamilton, The Basis of Millennial Faith (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Colossians, 1942), p. 53.

[48] Ibid., p. 38.

[49] John F. Walvoord, “Amillennial Ecclesiology,” Bibliotheca Sacra, CVII (October, 1950), 428.

[50] Shirley Jackson Case, The Millennial Hope (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1918), p. 216.

[51] See footnote 5.

[52] Feinberg, op. cit., p. 39.

[53] Todd, op. cit., p. 44.

[54] Ramm, op. cit., pp. 157-62.

[55] Ibid., pp. 162-73.

[56] Walvoord, “The Theological Context of Premillennialism,” Bibliotheca Sacra, CVIII, 274.

[57] Davidson, Old Testament Prophecy (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1903), p. 171.

[58] Payne, op. cit., p. 90.

[59] G. H. Lang, The Revelation of Jesus Christ (London: Oliphant’s Ltd., 1944), p. 70.

[60] Walvoord, “Amillennialism as a System of Theology,” Bibliotheca Sacra, CVII, 156, 157.

[61] R. C. H. Lenski, The Interpretation of St. John’s Revelation (Columbus: Lutheran Book Concern, 1935), p. 332.

[62] Lang, op. cit., p. 186.

[63] Charles R. Erdman, “Parousia,” International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, IV, 2251-F.

[64] Cited by Jamieson, Fausset and Brown, Critical and Experimental Commentary, VI, 720.

[65] What can happen when men cut loose from literality may be seen in Gregory the Great’s exposition of the book of Job, where we learn that the patriarch’s three friends denote the heretics; his seven sons are the twelve apostles; his seven thousand sheep are God’s faithful people; and his three thousand hump-backed camels are the depraved Gentiles!” Alva J. McClain, “The Greatness of the Kingdom,” Bibliotheca Sacra, 446: 111, 112.

[66] Lenski, op. cit., p. 580.

[67] B. B. Warfield, Biblical Doctrines (New York: Oxford University Press, 1929), p. 651. Italics added.

[68] John Peter Lange, The Revelation of John (New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Colossians, 1874), p. 77.

[69] H. A. Ironside, Lectures on the Book of Revelation (New York: Loizeaux Bros., 1919), p. 13.