Four Views on the Book of Revelation (Counterpoints: Bible and Theology) by Zondervan

Author:Zondervan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Zondervan
Published: 2010-06-30T22:00:00+00:00

The Apocalypse was almost certainly composed during a time of severe affliction. The book is addressed to those “who share…in Jesus the tribulation and the kingdom and the patient endurance” (1:9). “Tribulation” and “suffering” characterize the present experience of the readers (2:9-10, 13; cf. 2:3; 12:17; 13:7). References to witnesses who have died for the faith are numerous (6:9-11; 12:11; 17:6; 18:24; 20:4; cf. 13:7).

The supposition that the seer, like some Jews and Christians before him, understood his own tribulation to be the great, messianic tribulation is also well founded. Thlipsis characterizes the present, and in Revelation this word is a technical term for the final affliction (7:14; cf. 1:9; 2:9, 10, 22). Further, the multitude of Rev. 7:9-17, which has come out of the great tribulation (7:14), includes, without question, those Christians who have recently shed their blood as witnesses of Jesus. John may, admittedly, draw a distinction between the present tribulation and its intensification immediately before the end (3:10). But there is no cleavage between the two periods. The one stands as the climax of the other.10

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