Relative to the Book of Revelation, there are various systems of interpretation. The vital issues at stake pertain to The Church, The Rapture, The Great Tribulation, Israel, The Second Coming, and the Millennial Kingdom. As stated, these issues are interpreted in the light of one's understanding and interpretation of the apocalyptical passages of the Bible. The various schools of interpretation are summarised in Kevin Conner's book "The Seventy Weeks Prophecy", which deals with Daniel's prophecy in Dan ch.9.
The thesis that follows does not really fall into any of the school of interpretations (though it definitely is not amillennial or preterist). What I intend to do is first to present a scenario of the end-time events in chronological order. Now this is an issue in itself, in that various people have assigned various events to various time-slots. The most perplexing of these is the order of events as found in Revelation. Some have taken the sequence of events as found literally, i.e. the endtime events start with chapter 1 and end with chapter 22, and follow in strict order. This view has some merit, in that it does describe the general order of events. However, with respect to particular chapters and passages, we have to apply the hermeneutical rule of the chronometrical principle, which is, that principle by which the interpretation of a verse or passage is determined upon consideration of its chronometrical setting. With respect to prophetic books, it must be recognized that the prophets were not always aware of the time element in their own prophecies (1 Pet 1:10-12). The prophets were caught up into God's timeless perspective in which past, present and future were laid out before them. Thus, in transcending time, some prophetic passages involve a weaving together of the past, present and future. To the reader, the time element seem confused. At times they utilized what is known as "the prophetic past tense" speaking of future events as though they had already happened. Therefore, we must approach with caution in assigning prophetic passages to specific time fulfilments. What I am saying is that though there is a general progression of events in the Book of Revelation, specific events and passages within do not necessarily follow one another. Some verses and passages describe detailed events which have been mentioned in brief some chapters past, and vice versa.
So, with all these confusion, how do we know the time setting and order of events as described in Revelation? The key to all this lies in Matthew 24, in which Jesus, in response to his disciples' questions, gives the description of the end of the age step by step. Furthermore, within this passage, Jesus also refers to one more key prophecy (v.15), that of Daniel's "seventy weeks prophecy" (Dan 9:24-27). Therefore, basing on Matt 24 and Dan 9, we shall proceed to present the order of events in the end times.
Important Passages ("Must Reading") in order to have a comprehensive view of end-time events:
Leviticus ch.23 (The Feasts of the Lord)
Matthew chs.24-25
Revelation
Daniel
Ezekiel chs.37-48
Zechariah chs.12-14
plus various passages from Thessalonians, Timothy, the Gospels, the Major Prophets, and the Minor Prophets.
(In fact, the entire Bible!)
A person who proposes to read or study Revelation on its own, without consideration of the contextual setting of events as described in the other prophetic books, will only benefit from a devotional aspect. He or she will not have a full or complete perspective of the order of events and may thus fall into the error of infringing the chronometrical principle, or simply put, mix up the order of events, and thus generate more "issues" and endless debates. Simple advice - do your homework first.
The manner by which we will study the progression of endtime events is "telescopic", that is, we will look at the macroscopic events and then "zoom-in" onto the finer detail. The charts that follow gives the overview and framework by which we will discuss the events.
We begin with God's overall plan for mankind's redemption by looking at Lev.23. In this chapter, we find seven feasts ordained by the Lord. The Feasts and their appointments originated with the Lord, not with the children of Israel. It was God's desire to meet with His people, on His terms, and on His rounds of approach. They were His Feasts. For this reason the Lord not only gave the intricate details of the Feasts themselves, but also the set times and the place, and the sacrifices which would be involved in the keeping of them. In modern times, we also find two additional feasts celebrated by the Jews, i.e. Purim and Hanukkah, which are not mentioned in Leviticus. However, these latter two feasts are not taken into consideration because they were not specifically ordained by God, but were set up by man. Purim is celebrated by the Jews as a custom to remember their deliverance from Haman's schemes in Babylon (Esther 9:18-32), while Hanukkah (Festival of Lights) is to commemorate the victory of the Maccabean revolt against the Seleucids. The seven feasts (Feasts of the Lord) in Lev.23 are grouped into three major events: Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles (see chart). Passover, which is celebrated in the first month, consists of the feast of Passover (14th day), the feast of Unleaven Bread (15th-22nd day), and Firstfruits (18th day). Pentecost (Shavuot) is celebrated on the third month, fifty days after waving sheath of firstfruits. Tabernacles, celebrated in the seventh month, consists of Trumpets (lst day), Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur, 10th day), and Tabernacles (15th-21st day).
What is the significance of the Feasts? The Feasts were occasions when Israel kept Divine appointments; times when they assembled before the Lord. All their worship centered around these religious festivals. So for the Christian. The Lord our Redeemer has made some set appointments and He expects His people to keep them. Any believer who loves and desires to serve the Lord his God will not fail to keep these appointments with the Lord. The saints are not to forsake the assembling of themselves together in keeping the Lord's Feasts (Heb 10:25; 1 Cor 1:2,9-10; 1 John 1-6). The Lord commanded Israel to keep these set appointments three times a year (Ex 23:14,17; 34:23; Deut 16:1617). Three times a year all were to appear before the Lord and keep his appointments. As all these things ordained in Israel happened to them for types and ensamples, we see "first the natural, then the spiritual" (1 Cor 15:46). Israel experienced the natural fulfilment under the Old Covenant whereas the believer will experience the spiritual fulfilment under the New Covenant. All find their fullest expression in Christ and His Church.
Each of the seven feasts has a memorial, a prophetic, and a doctrinal/experiential aspect. The memorial aspects are found in Lev.23 (understand the significance of each of them!) while the prophetic and doctrinal/experiential aspects are as outlined in this chart. It is important to note the order in which the seven feast are celebrated, i.e. Pentecost comes after Passover, and Tabernacles after Pentecost. The feasts are not celebrated in reverse, or arbitrarily. The Israelite has to celebrate the feasts in that order, beginning with Passover and ending with Tabernacles, and not choose to attend whichever and whenever he feels like it. This is important from the prophetic and doctrinal/experiential aspects. From the chart, it is seen that the prophetic aspect was partially fulfilled in the life of Christ, in Acts, and will be completed in the Church in the endtimes. As mentioned earlier, one event does not occur before the proceeding event had passed, eg. Christ had to die before he could be buried, and the Holy Spirit could only be outpoured after Christ had risen and ascended to heaven. From the fact that the feasts progress in temporal order, we see in the life of the Church that we have gone through some feasts and some are yet to come. We cannot pretend that the remaining feasts do not exist, or that they have occurred, or that we can somehow skip them, because God has ordained them. Because the feasts progress in sequential time, we will definitely go through the remaining yet unfulfilled feasts. The question here is, which feasts have we gone through, and which are to come? The Church has definitely experienced Pentecost, as seen in Acts. That leaves us with Tabernacles. The third of the Tabernacle feasts, i.e. the feast of Tabernacles, definitely has not occurred, because Jesus Christ has not returned yet. So that leaves us with Trumpets and Atonement. Where is the Church? I believe we are at the end of Trumpets and at the beginning of Atonement. If you look around the world, you will see that the Church in some nations have already gone into persecution (Atonement), while in other nations the Church is experiencing revival. At this time, we bring in the doctrinal/experiential aspect. As seen in the chart, this progresses from the life of the individual believer, to the life of the corporate church and the believer's role in it. From this aspect, every water-baptised Christian would have gone through Passover. It is from this point that the problem starts, because the issue here moves from the individual to the local church. The sad thing is, some churches prefer to remain in Passover, refusing to proceed to Pentecost; while others in Pentecost, without proceeding to Trumpets; and yet others in Trumpets who do not want to prepare for Atonement. Here, we must note that one cannot proceed to Tabernacles without having gone through Atonement. Everybody is happy and comfortable where they are, having a kind of spiritual complacency and self-satisfaction that we have "made it" because we are now charismatic, and the others are not, and so on and so forth (this will be dealt with later).
All this can be summarized by two observations. First, ceremonies and all that pertains to the letter and ritual of the Law are empty and vain apart from the reality of Christ. This means that if we have an empty, ritualistic form of Christianity (or Churchianity as some call it), it is useless. We cannot "play church" and leave out the experience of the reality of Christ. We should not be caught up with the form of the church And leave out the Lord. Christianity without Christ is dead. Secondly, the Lord desires all of His people to enter in and enjoy the spiritual realities of the Feasts. The three Feasts speak of the Fullness of the Godhead which all believers may enjoy. Passover is the Feast of the Son, Pentecost is the Feast of the Holy Spirit, and Tabernacles brings us to the Father and the Fullness of the Godhead (Eph 1:10-18; 3:17-21). The Church is living in the last of the last days when the Feasts will be entered into. None need stay at any one Feast but all may, if they will, experience all Feasts. Therefore, "Let us keep the Feasts!"
Now, we have seen the progression of events and God's plan for the redemption of man. We note that a man, after having come to the knowledge of salvation, cannot remain where he is, both spiritually and physically. Spiritually he must continue to walk in obedience to Christ as instructed by the Bible, and "physically" in that he cannot remain an island but must become part of the Church. As such, we see that the Christian and the Church is inseparable. The Church is the body of Christ, and the Christian is a member of that body. Therefore what will happen to the Church will also happen to the Christian. A Christian cannot distance himself from what is happening to the Church and say that he has no part in it. So, the events of Tabernacles pertain as much to the Church as to the Christian.
Now, where does the Book of Revelation fit in? The events described in the Book of Revelation fall into that of the three Tabernacle feasts, i.e. Trumpets, Atonement and Tabernacles. Here we move one step closer in detail. From chart 2, the Trumpets period correspond roughly to the first 5 chapters of Revelation, Atonement chapters 6-19, and Tabernacles chapters 20-22. Chapter 6 falls in between Trumpet and Atonement (almost like a transition). How does this come about? We shall examine the Tabernacle Feasts in slightly greater detail.
Trumpets
The Feast of Tabernacles is introduced on the first day of the seventh month by the day of blowing trumpets. It was a festival of trumpets sounding throughout the land and calling the nation to prepare for the coming Day of Atonement, the Day of national cleansing. Right throughout the nation, regardless of which tribe a person belonged to, the call went to all Israelites to come to the sanctuary of the Lord for this Solemn Day of Atonement. This is what the Feast Day of Trumpets meant historically in and to the nation of Israel.
Atonement
This is the most solemn of all Feast Days, the Day of Atonement. The Day of Atonement was the Day of national and sanctuary cleansing. Daniel speaks of it as "the cleansing of the Sanctuary" (Dan 8:13-14). On this day special sacrifices were offered for atonement. Two goats, one for Jehovah and one for Azazel, were offered. One goat was slain, and the other led into the wilderness, bearing away the sins of the people. On this day only, the High Priest entered into the Holiest of All, within the veil, with the blood of the Lord's goat, the sin offering. Here he sprinkled the blood on the Mercy seat. The blood of the sin offering on the great Day of Atonement brought about the cleansing of all sin, all iniquity, and all transgression. The Priesthood, the Sanctuary and Israel as a nation experienced blood atonement, thus being reconciled to their God. Hebrews chs.8-10 interprets this Feast Day for us in the New Testament.
Now, there is a twofold fulfilment relative to the Day of Atonement: that which finds its fulfilment in the Person and Ministry of Christ historically, and that which finds its fulfilment in the believers individually and in the Church corporately both in the present and in the future experientially. It is important to understand this so that there is a proper interpretation of this Day of Atonement relative to Christ and His Church. There are some who see a historical fulfilment in Christ but fail to see a future or experiential fulfilment in the Church, and there are those who see a future fulfilment in the Church but fail to see what Christ has fulfilled historically. There is absolutely no doubt that full and complete Atonement has been made by Jesus Christ on Calvary's cross but there is also no doubt that the Church has never fully and completely appropriated and received all that the Atonement has provided. It is the experiential appropriation of the Atonement that constitutes the Day of Atonement in the Church.
Tabernacles
The final part of the Feasts is the Feast of Tabernacles proper. The whole Feast pointed back to the first Feast, Passover, because the Feast of Tabernacles was the consummation of that which began in the Feast of Passover. Tabernacles is spoken of as the Feast of Ingathering. The fruit harvest has been used to symbolize the vast variety and multitude of converts out of every kindred, tongue, tribe and nation in the four corners of the earth. This final harvest comes under the historical and spiritual fulfilment of the Feast of Tabernacles in the Church. The Feast of Ingathering took place at the end of the year (Ex 23:16). There is no mistaking the symbolism here. Jesus spoke of the harvest of the wheat and the tares, the good and the bad, as taking place in the end of the age (Matt 13:29-30, 36-43). John saw both of these harvests in Rev 14:13-16, 17-20. The end of the age will result in the greatest ingathering of souls ever seen. Thus the symbolic and prophetic significance of the Feast of Tabernacles relative to the harvest ingathering in the end of the year points to the harvest ingathering in the Church. Note that the Lord Jesus is concerned about the bringing in of the final harvest by the Church before He returns the second time (Matt 9:37-38, 13:30,39; Mark 4:29; Luke 10:2; John 4:35; Rev 14:15). The Feast of Tabernacles itself also symbolized that God Himself was tabernacled amongst His own people as they also with Him. It points to the final dwelling place of God with His redeemed as seen by John in the eternal city of God, the New Jerusalem (Rev chs.21-22).
From these historical and spiritual aspects of Tabernacles, we can now see the Book of Revelation in the perspective of God's overall purpose for the believer and the Church in the end times.
Having seen the importance and relevancy of the Book of Revelation, we will proceed with a practical exposition chapter by chapter, in the order of the general outline as seen charts 3-5. This outline is based using Matt 24 as the backbone and order of events.
The first part of the exposition deals with the Trumpets period
(roughly chs. 1-5). As mentioned earlier, this period deals with
the call to revival and preparation for the Coming of the Lord.
Therefore the chapters will be exposited with this in mind. Bear
in mind that this is not a commentary or a verse by verse exposition
and interpretation.
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© Nicholas Tay 1996