3 Questions to Understand Revelation

30 Aug 2026 · this lesson on the church site

Taught by Dr. Keith Palmer, Grace Bible Church, Granbury, Texas — from the church’s Sunday School series on Revelation. These are lightly edited transcripts of the audio, posted for personal study; the teaching and its content belong to Dr. Palmer and Grace Bible Church. Listen to the originals and find his notes on the church website. Transcribed from the audio by AI. Edited only where the audio was unclear (all edits marked with *). Errors are possible — the recording is the authority.

Introduction (00:00)

So, I'm going to try to do the impossible today. I'm going to try to simplify the book of Revelation by answering three questions. And by simplify, I'm not here trying to teach the whole book. What I'm trying to do is show you why there are so many different views. If you will track with me today, and you're going to have to stay with me, I'll try to make it easy. I did not give you one page of notes. You got two. Actually, you got four, because it's front and back. So I couldn't reduce it down to one page. But I believe these three questions help us understand the diversity of views that exist on the book of Revelation. That's really my goal today, to simplify why there are so many views. Once you understand these three questions, you will see it's actually pretty logical. Depending on how you answer each question, it determines what you believe about the book. And for people, brothers and sisters, who have different answers to some of those questions, it leads to different views on the book.

I'm trying to simplify it here, and hopefully you can tell me if this was helpful and wonderful, or if it was a homiletical nightmare. You're not going to offend me. We'll try to do this in a way that is helpful. If you want to turn in your Bible to the book of Revelation, all of you should have the stapled notes as well as the addendum that Elizabeth handed out. I will tell you when you need to pull that addendum in. I will obviously remedy the packet, and if you want a corrected version, I can get that to you.

If you're just joining us, we're in a thrill-a-minute, exciting, verse-by-verse study of the book of Revelation. As I mentioned, this is not the easiest book in Scripture. In fact, a lot of Christians take the approach of, "It's hard to understand and it doesn't really matter, because Jesus is going to come back and it's all going to be good." That's true, Jesus is going to come back and it's all going to be good. But God put this book in our Bibles for a reason.

Perspicuity of Scripture (02:06)

We affirm the perspicuity of Scripture. That means the clarity of Scripture. God doesn't give us revelation that's intended to be ununderstandable. It's meant to be given for our understanding and benefit. That doesn't mean there aren't difficult passages, and even difficult books like this one. But we believe in the clarity of Scripture, and so we come to the book of Revelation with a humble confidence that God can help us understand what the book means, even if there might be some diversity of opinion from here to here.

We've come to a place where we're actually in chapter 8, looking at the seventh seal, and into chapter 9. The seven seals on the scroll are being opened by the Lamb, successively, seal at a time. We've pulled the car over here a little bit, because there's enough of Revelation on the table, and you're asking questions like, "But how does this work? And how does that work?" And R.C. Sproul says this, and John MacArthur says that, so how do I understand all of this? So with the car on the side of the road, I'm going to turn around and have a conversation about where we are, where we're going, and try to simplify it in terms of these three questions. I have a lot of material, so I'm going to keep moving, but don't take my pace to mean you can't put your hand up and ask a question, because chances are that will only enhance the class. You guys are so kind to do that.

Three Questions (03:07)

Let me give you the questions, and then we'll work through them one at a time:

What rules should we use to interpret the book?
When do the events take place?
How are key events to be understood?

Question One: What Rules Should We Use to Interpret the Book? (04:08)

Question number one is first because it is the main question that leads to most of the diversity in the book. It wouldn't surprise you that if we disagree on how a book ought to be interpreted, if we have different toolboxes, so to speak, of tools to interpret the book, that's going to lead to different conclusions about what the book teaches. How we interpret the book, the rules we use, is what we sometimes call hermeneutics, the science and art of biblical interpretation. The rules we use to interpret the book are a vastly significant question in terms of how we land on what we believe about it.

Three Approaches to Interpretation (05:12)

This is a question of hermeneutics. If you haven't heard that word before, that's okay. It's a technical word, and I've defined it on the screen for you: the science and art of biblical interpretation. There are basically three approaches to how we interpret the book of Revelation. Those of you who have studied this will understand that I'm simplifying, and I know I'm simplifying it, so feel free to contribute. But without oversimplifying, I think this helps us get our arms around how the book is interpreted. We can call these three global approaches:

Allegorical hermeneutics
Apocalyptic hermeneutics
Prophetic (or literal) hermeneutics

Allegorical Hermeneutics (06:18)

The first is allegorical hermeneutics. An allegory is a literary device where abstract ideas or principles are represented through, quote, "characters, figures, events, dramatic or pictorial form." That's right out of the American Heritage Dictionary. How many of you know what an allegory is? What is the most famous allegory in history? Pilgrim's Progress, the second most published book next to the Bible. Did you know that? If you've read Pilgrim's Progress, you know what an allegory is. When the characters arrive at Doubting Castle, for example, how do we understand that? Because it's an allegory, it represents reality. Bunyan is not saying that sometime in life you're going to come upon a castle called Doubting Castle and decide whether to go in or not. It's representative of something you're going to encounter in life. Of course, one reason Bunyan's book is so popular is that it's so easy to understand and yet so profoundly helpful. When he says Doubting Castle, what is he conveying about the Christian life? Sometimes you're going to struggle with doubts. Doubting Castle is representative of the reality that Christians sometimes struggle with doubts. That's an allegory. The castle is representative of the experience.

According to allegorical hermeneutics, the book of Revelation should be approached primarily as an allegory, where the various numbers, images, figures, and events are representative of more general themes, such as good versus evil. In this view, Revelation should not be understood as describing real persons or historical events, for the most part, either current or future. It's an allegory that basically says there's a cosmic battle of good and evil, and Jesus wins in the end.

There's more we can say about that, but that's the allegorical approach. How many of you have heard of the Christian theologian Origen? Origen, amongst other things (we could talk about him all day, a very interesting character in church history), popularized an allegorical interpretation of Scripture in the early centuries of the church. That led future generations to interpret the book of Revelation, and other parts of the Bible, in this manner.

You will read people who say it's not about reading your newspaper and matching it to Revelation, and it's not even really about church history and events. It's not about Rome destroying Jerusalem in AD 70. It's an allegory, just a story that reminds us that good wins over evil, that there's a cosmic battle, and that Jesus is going to come back and fix it all, so don't worry about it. That's the allegorical approach.

However, I don't think allegorical hermeneutics is an option for faithful Christians. I do not think it is a faithful way to understand Scripture. It is simply incompatible with the manner in which Scripture interprets itself, and thus it has been widely rejected by faithful Christians, both past and present. Is that saying Jesus didn't speak in parables? No. We understand that there are parts of the Bible meant to be understood in a more symbolic way. But an overall allegorical approach to the Bible, or to Revelation in particular, is out of alignment with any faithful view of the book. It's out there, and you need to be aware that it's there, but I don't believe it is an option within our circles.

Apocalyptic Hermeneutics (10:32)

Here's option number two, and this is where you need to pull your addendum out, because for some reason the next section repeated "allegorical" in the notes. Pull out your addendum. This is the corrected, annotated, up-to-date, revised edition of apocalyptic hermeneutics.

Apocalypse is a word we know. Young men, zombie apocalypse, right? Older men, do you have purple ammo somewhere? You're in... okay, that's getting too personal. We'll talk about zombie apocalypse later on. But apocalypse is a real thing in terms of being a type of literature. Apocalyptic literature refers to a type of writing similar to prophecy, where hidden spiritual truths are revealed through visions, usually with angelic messengers. This type of writing was popular especially from about 200 BC to about AD 200. The word apocalypse comes from a Greek word meaning revealing or unveiling.

It is true that certain parts of the Bible, including Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Joel, Amos, Zechariah, Matthew 24, and the book of Revelation, employ apocalyptic features, meaning they utilize some of the dynamics we see in apocalyptic literature. When we talk about apocalyptic hermeneutics, we're saying this is a special set of rules designed specifically to understand apocalyptic literature.

The big debate is how we understand the book of Revelation. Do we understand it as purely apocalyptic literature, and therefore believe that pulling out this toolbox of apocalyptic rules for interpreting is appropriate? Or do we see it as having apocalyptic features without necessarily requiring a special set of rules to interpret it? In this view, the book of Revelation should be understood more strictly as apocalyptic literature, where it is appropriate to view items more symbolically, and thus more freedom is given regarding the interpretation of timeframe, chronology, and historic

significance. Okay, does that make sense? So is it an allegory? We're going to say no, and that's not faithful. Is it apocalyptic literature? Well, it certainly contains apocalyptic features. I think everybody agrees on that. The question is, do we need a different set of interpretive rules to understand it? Or if we're going to say maybe or sort of, or yes, okay, so that's the issue here. How much do we change our rules for interpretation in light of the nature of Revelation?

Normative Hermeneutics (12:36)

Okay, so that's apocalyptic hermeneutics. And then the final option in terms of how we interpret the book is what we might just call normative hermeneutics. Okay, so you can put your addendum aside now, go back to your main menu, main notes, and flip to that back page there.

Normative hermeneutics is an approach to interpreting Scripture which seeks to honor the historical, grammatical, and literary dynamics of language as it would typically or normally be understood by the original audience. Normative hermeneutics takes into account the uniqueness of apocalyptic literature, symbolic language, and prophetic visions while still interpreting the book in a historical, grammatical, and normative way.

You say, what are we saying? It's an argument of how much symbolism we see and how much chronology we see. Is this number a number that might be symbolic, or do we default to it being symbolic? That's the difference between a more apocalyptic approach and a more normative approach.

Usually when we read the Bible and we come across a number or we hear about the chronology of a story, we take the number at face value. It means whatever the number is, right? And when we hear a chronology of a story, we take that story in chronological order. That's the normal way we would take literature. But when it's apocalyptic literature, it could be that the chronology is not sequential. It could be that those numbers are meant to be taken symbolically.

So that's the argument. If we're seeing it more apocalyptic, we might be more inclined to let the chronologies be looser in their nature. We might tend to view those numbers more symbolically rather than literally. So that's kind of the debate here: how much do we read into those things from an apocalyptic standpoint?

But normative hermeneutics says we want to take the text at face value. We want to honor the historical, grammatical, normal way it would have been taken. Normative hermeneutics takes into account the fact that the Bible has symbolic language, apocalyptic features, and prophetic visions. When it comes to a book like Psalms, it understands that the Psalms are poetry, and so there's a lot of imagery: metaphor, simile, parallelism. Normative hermeneutics is not to be understood as a literal, wooden, black-and-white approach, but it seeks to honor the intent of the grammar and the history.

In this view, the book of Revelation should be approached using the same system of interpretation that is used to understand the rest of the Bible. This view also tends, and this is a tendency, so it's not always true, but it tends to go with this, to lean more on Old Testament imagery to interpret the various symbols of the book of Revelation. Now, do the other systems do that too? They do. But normative hermeneutics tends to read the New Testament in light of the Old Testament. For a book like Revelation, that's a significant distinction of interpretation.

So let me just stop right there. We've said allegorical. We're going to put that over here because that's not an option for us. But we have a more normative hermeneutics and a more apocalyptic hermeneutics, and it's a question of how much we push the imagery in terms of symbolic significance or chronology. So, questions on that? Does that make sense?

Yes. Yeah.

Letting Scripture Interpret Scripture (17:50)

Well, let me do this. I'm going to get to that when we talk about, for example, the chronology. The section we're in right now is where Jesus is successively breaking the seals, and with each seal there's some sort of judgment that happens on the earth. John is clear: after these things, after these things, after these things. So taken in a normative hermeneutic, we say this is a sequence of unfolding judgments on the earth. Those who would hold to a more apocalyptic hermeneutic would say we don't want to take those references to time as normally literally as they sound. In fact, they would view the events of the unfolding judgments as cyclical throughout church history at times. That would be one example. Does that make sense?

Let me show you, because I think sometimes when we hear normative hermeneutics, we think we're taking everything literally. That's not necessarily true, because normative hermeneutics strives to lean on the Bible's own interpretation of itself to inform an approach to interpreting prophetic and apocalyptic literature. We can actually do this. We don't have to come to the book of Revelation and say, well, which one is it? Let's flip a coin. We can come to the book of Revelation and say, since there is apocalyptic literature in other places in the Bible, can we learn something from that? Can we learn from Daniel and Ezekiel and other places? We have the benefit, in those older apocalyptic books, of seeing some of the fulfillment of those prophecies in history.

I'll give you some examples. I wish we had a chance to turn back there, but I can't do this right now, so maybe we'll do this another time. Everybody agrees that Daniel is apocalyptic and prophetic literature. How much, or how little, everybody agrees on that, but let's think about some examples from Daniel.

Examples from Daniel (18:52)

Daniel 2: Nebuchadnezzar has a dream, and none of the magicians and wise men could interpret it. Nebuchadnezzar gave orders to kill everybody, including Daniel and the three friends. God revealed the meaning of the dream to Daniel, he appealed to the king, and he was able to give the interpretation. You remember that this is the vision of the statue made of different materials: the head of gold, the chest of silver*, and the feet of iron and clay. What's interesting is that as the book unfolds, Daniel actually interprets the vision for us. Is it apocalyptic literature? Absolutely. Is it symbolic? Absolutely. But Daniel gives us God's interpretation of it, and those different materials represent actual historic rulers and nations. That helps us say, okay, when we're dealing with apocalyptic literature and prophetic visions, how do we understand that? It's somewhat straightforward in terms of how it's understood.
Daniel 8: A more significant example of apocalyptic literature. You've read it before: there are these weird animals that have horns, beasts, and the goat. Daniel interprets it. He says the animals represent actual historic nations, and the numbers were taken literally. The two* horns were two* kings or two* nations. The point is that even in apocalyptic literature, numbers can be literal and normal, or they might be symbolic. The presence of apocalyptic literature doesn't necessitate a symbolic understanding of things that would normally be understood in a literal way.
Daniel 9: Jeremiah prophesies in Jeremiah 25 about the seventy-year captivity that Israel experienced as part of God's discipline. Who's reading the scroll of Jeremiah in his devotional time? Daniel. Daniel has been the recipient of all sorts of prophecy, dreams, and apocalyptic visions, and yet he reads Jeremiah. How does he take those seventy years? He takes them as seventy years.

Our Approach to Revelation (20:58)

So way back when we began to study the book of Revelation, leaning on examples like this, my approach has been: we're going to take the book of Revelation in its normative way. We're going to take numbers in the normal way. We're going to take images in the normal way. It's amazing how much the Bible interprets itself. If there's some feature that we can't take in its normative way, then we'll look for a more symbolic representation of it. That's really consistent with what we see in the book of Daniel, as well as in Ezekiel and other places.

So when you hear normative hermeneutics, don't think there's no symbolism and no recognition of different literature. Honoring the grammar and history of the language means we recognize the presence of literary features. But if we lean on how the Bible itself interprets apocalyptic and prophetic literature, we get a lot of help that restrains our maybe desire to over-symbolize things that aren't intended to be symbolic. Okay? Let me just stop right there. Does that make sense?

Now, I'm not saying everything that Daniel sees is taken literally and not symbolically. What I'm saying is that we have a precedent here that helps us interpret books like Revelation. So hopefully this will help you. I put this in your notes there. If we call this a spectrum of interpretive systems, over here we have an allegorical extreme, over here we have more normative hermeneutics, and in the middle is apocalyptic, where we're changing our rules a little bit but still not going all the way to the realm of allegory.

The Spectrum of Interpretive Systems (22:59)

Allegorical: The book sees itself as more representative of reality. It's still talking about true things, but the images are designed to be representations. They're designed to be allegorical.
Normative: The book of Revelation is more descriptive of reality. What we're reading is true to reality, though there are symbolic features that are utilized.
Apocalyptic: Somewhere in the middle.

Does that make sense? So that's question number one: what sort of rules are we going to use to interpret the book? What's our interpretive approach? I'm simplifying this for the sake of understanding, but I can't overstate this. What you decide about that first question really determines everything else. That's not just true in Revelation; it's true in all the Bible. How we approach interpretation, the rules we use, largely determines the meaning. When brothers and sisters disagree about what the Bible means, not always, but very often it's because slightly different hermeneutics are being employed. That's a real important question.

Question Two: When Do the Events Take Place? (24:02)

The second question, to simplify the book of Revelation and how we understand it, is this: when do the events take place? I gave you a preview of this a few weeks back, so let me overview the three views.

Preterist: Most or all of the events take place in AD 70, with Rome's destruction of Jerusalem.
Historicist (hard to say): Most of the events take place throughout church history. This goes back to Katie's question, where the events of Revelation are often understood as cyclic, a cycle rather than a chronology. If you see the judgments as a cycle rather than a chronology that unfolds, that's where we get the idea that they take place throughout church history. Yet this view also believes the second coming and judgment are yet future.

Preterism Illustrated (25:03)

Let me give you an example of Preterism, because I know many of you have asked about it. R.C. Sproul, who I have great respect for, is with the Lord now. His teaching on a biblical understanding of salvation, his doctrine of God, and his book on holiness have been so helpful. Sproul could take brilliant, high-altitude, deep theological truth and make it clear to a kindergartner without watering it down. That's one of those gifts.

As a new Christian, I used to listen to him on the radio. I'm going to date myself here. I was in college when his show came on, and I couldn't skip class to listen. So I had a cassette tape player, and I went to Radio Shack and bought a timer. I put a blank cassette in, pushed record, and hooked the recorder to the timer so it would turn on at noon when his program came on. When I got home, I had a new R.C. Sproul recording, and then I could listen to it at work. Some of you are going, what is a cassette? Talk to your parents, or your grandparents.

In his book The Last Days According to Jesus, Sproul says this: "The coming of Christ in AD 70 was a coming in judgment on the Jewish nation indicating the end of the Jewish age and the fulfillment of a day of the Lord." Just stop right there. What is he saying? He believes Jesus came back in AD 70. You say, why does he believe that? Because he believes that's what Matthew 24 teaches. The preterist argument is that Matthew 24 teaches Jesus had to come back within the generation of the disciples, and if that's true, then it had to happen in AD 70.

So Sproul's view is that Jesus came back in AD 70 in judgment on the Jewish nation. Sproul would hold, as all of us do, that this was a coming, but not the second coming. It was not the final coming of Jesus. He holds the same view we do, that Jesus is coming again to judge and to bring the resurrection. That's just an understanding of how preterism works out. He says Jesus really did come in judgment at that time, fulfilling his prophecy in the Olivet Discourse, Matthew 24, but this was not the final or ultimate coming of Christ. That gives you an example of preterism. We looked at the other views last time in more detail.

When Do the Events Happen? (28:08)

That's the second question: when do we understand the events of Revelation taking place?

The preterist says most or all happened in AD 70.
The historicist says most happen throughout church history, usually in a cyclical fashion.
The futurist says most of these things have not happened yet and will happen in the future.

Do you see how hermeneutics plays into that? We've talked about stars falling from the sky, the moon turning to blood, a third of the earth dying. We've talked about these massive judgments. If we take those in their normal, plain sense, then we would have to agree nothing like that has ever happened on the earth, in AD 70 or in church history. But if we move to a more apocalyptic hermeneutic that sees those judgments as more symbolic, then we can say, what happened in AD 70? The sun, moon, and stars were not affected in that literal way, but maybe the sun was clouded over by all the fire and destruction of AD 70. If we take it more symbolically, more loosely, we can see how something like that might have happened in AD 70. It all depends on your hermeneutics. The same is true for church history. If we're going to say these events happened in church history, we have to take them in a more symbolic fashion rather than a normative one.

At this point, I'm not saying who's right, wrong, good, or bad. I'm saying hermeneutics determines a lot of these. Yes?

[Question from a student:] How did R.C. Sproul understand Jesus to come back in AD 70, since there were no signs or anything like that?

He would say Jesus came back in a spiritual sense, in judgment over the nation of Israel through the Romans. But he would still say the second coming is yet future. Okay, makes sense. Are you with me? Are you nerded out by this? Are you having fun? How are you doing? Yes, Dan?

[Comment from a student:] Well, that's where our full preterist friends are, the most consistent among the more symbolic viewpoints. But Sproul and I would say the responsible preterists all agree the second coming hasn't happened yet. You're right that it's a matter of how much I symbolize and how much I take in a normative sense. That's a judgment call on the interpreter, but you're correct.

Okay. Let's look at our last question. I went back to the chart I gave you, with the more allegorical and the more normative apocalyptic views in the middle, and I tried to chart where the three views fall on when the events happen. The preterist view is not allegorical, but it's probably the most symbolic of the views. The historicist view is somewhere in the middle, still more symbolic and apocalyptic, and it ranges across that spectrum. The futurist holds to a more normative hermeneutic. That makes sense: if you take the events we've been talking about in their ordinary sense, it leads to the view that these things haven't happened yet. So you can see how the hermeneutical view leads to the view on when the events happen. Does that make sense?

I'd rather you understand how these things are connected than be convinced, "Well, I think it's this or I think it's that." We'll get to what I believe and what our church believes is most faithful at some point, but right now I'm trying to help you understand the logic behind this. It's actually very logical. Godly men and women who hold different views don't hold them carelessly. They hold them after great study and great sincerity*. And you say, then why don't they agree? They disagree because there are different issues, especially hermeneutics, and those hermeneutical differences lead to very different understandings and therefore different conclusions.

Question Three: How Are Key Events Understood? (32:14)

So we've asked how we interpret the book, which is question one. Question two is when the events happen. Here is question three: how are key events understood? We're going to look at three key events that are relevant to Revelation.

The Tribulation

The tribulation as an event is mentioned by Jesus in Matthew 24:21 and by John in Revelation 7:14. Nobody disagrees that there is a tribulation. The question is what exactly it refers to, and when it takes place. That's where the disagreement is.

The preterist says it took place in AD 70. Those cataclysmic events, the seals, bowls, and trumpets, all taken in a more symbolic way, were fulfilled in the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70.
The historicist says the tribulation is taking place right now and has been throughout church history. This is a cyclical understanding, again more symbolic. We take those events more symbolically rather than normatively, and more cyclically rather than chronologically.
The futurist says the tribulation will take place during a specific future time in history.

If we apply our hermeneutics to the section we're in right now, chapters 6 through 19*, and ask when these tribulations and judgments happen, then depending on your view, you land in one of those three positions on when the tribulation takes place.

The Rapture (34:17)

The irony is that the rapture is not mentioned by that name in the book of Revelation. Our preterist friends say, see, it's not even mentioned in the book. I know, I know, we'll get to that. But everybody agrees you have to wrestle with what 1 Thessalonians 4 means. If you want to hold your place there and turn back to 1 Thessalonians, we need to get our eyes on this passage to understand what the rapture is, at least the way it's understood in some circles. I'll give you the alternative views as well, so I'm not beating the pulpit on this.

In 1 Thessalonians 4, Paul is writing to Thessalonian believers who are grieving because Christian family and friends have died. Paul wants to encourage them, and he does so by reminding them of a future event. We'll talk about when that event takes place, but he says this in verses 14 through 18:

For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words.

That's the passage people who believe in the rapture reference primarily. The word rapture refers to an event where believers who have died are resurrected, and those who are on the earth are caught up to meet Jesus in the air. The word comes from the Latin translation of "caught up," in case you're wondering where the term comes from.

So when does the rapture occur? Our preterist friends, and some historicist friends, would say there is no separate rapture. It's the same event as the return of Christ, the normal second coming. There are three other options:

Pretribulation: the rapture happens before the tribulation. This is called pretrib.
Midtribulation: the rapture happens in the middle of the tribulation. This is called mid-trib.
Posttribulation: the rapture happens at the end of the tribulation. This is called post-trib.

Theologians are not creative with their names. They're very functional: pre, mid, and post. The prefix tells you the timing of the rapture in relation to the tribulation. Pretribulation means the rapture happens before the tribulation, midtribulation means it happens in the middle, and posttribulation means it happens after. You need to get that, because you're going to hear pre-trib, post-trib, and what is that? It's a reference toward the timing of when the rapture occurs, unless you're a preterist or a historicist and you say there is no rapture, it's the same thing as the second coming.

The Rapture and the Tribulation (37:22)

So we're coming to that third question, right? How do we understand key events? What is the tribulation and when does it happen? What about the rapture? How do we understand it? What is it? Here's the third event that distinguishes the different views in Revelation. Oh, by the way, look at this. I've made a chart for you. Pre-mid-post, right? Rapture happens at the beginning, rapture happens in the middle, rapture happens at the end.

The Millennial Reign in Revelation 20:4 (38:22)

The third event is how we understand the one thousand year reign of Christ in Revelation 20:4. John says:

Then I saw thrones and they sat on them and judgment was given to them and I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony of Jesus and because of the word of God and those who had not worshipped the beast or his image and had not received the mark on their forehead and on their hand and they came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years.

There it is. Actually, I think the text uses the word one thousand six* different times in that chapter*. The question is how do we understand that? How do we understand that view?

Our amillennialist friends would say it's a symbolic reign, not a literal one thousand year reign of Christ. They would read this and say it talks about people coming alive and reigning with Christ, but that's not to be understood as some sort of literal reign on the earth. It's supposed to be understood as a symbolic, usually spiritual reign, and our amillennialist friends would say this is actually happening right now. Jesus is ruling and reigning over his church in a spiritual, symbolic way today. That's the amillennial view of this passage.

Three Millennial Views (39:23)

Others would say it's an actual, literal reign that will happen after Christ returns at his second coming. Talk about the prefixes again: the pre references the event in relation to the return of Christ. So if we say premillennial, what we mean is Christ returns pre, or prior to, the thousand years. Premillennialists believe the thousand years is a literal reign that will happen after Christ returns at his second coming. Amongst them there are two versions:

Historic premillennialism. Our friends here tend to be post-trib and believe that the church replaces Israel.
Dispensational premillennialism. They tend to be pre-trib and believe that Israel maintains a distinction from the church.

Finally, the reign is symbolic and happens as the church advances in the gospel, leading to a largely Christian utopic society culminating in the return of Christ. That represents our postmillennial friends. They see the gospel as growing, nations coming to Christ, and society becoming more Christianized until there is something of a Christian utopia, a golden age. When that is happening, then Christ will return. That's the postmillennial* view, and that's how they understand this passage.

So here are your three millennial viewpoints:

Premillennial. We're in the church age, the rapture happens sometime pre-, mid-, or post-trib, and then there's a literal millennial kingdom on the earth. Jesus reigns after he comes back.
Postmillennial. The church age, the gospel, gets better and better, leading to a utopic time and then Christ's return.
Amillennial. The millennium is to be taken symbolically, not literally. Christ is ruling right now in a spiritual sense, and then there's final judgment.

So you have premill, post-mill, and amill. And this is the Millennium Falcon, in case you're wondering about other millenniums. It has nothing to do with end times, but it's a cool ship, isn't it? We'll talk about light speed and travel later on.

Summary of the Views (41:26)

If we just summarize this:

Preterists believe Revelation was mostly or completely fulfilled in 70 AD. They're amillennial. They don't believe in a rapture. They believe in a general tribulation and a more symbolic approach to hermeneutics.
Historicists say Revelation is mostly fulfilled in church history. The movement actually started off amillennial, then historically moved to postmillennial, and now a lot of historicists are actually premillennial, but that's very different than futuristic premillennialism. All three views are represented today. Historicists hold various views on the tribulation. They have less normative hermeneutics but usually are not as symbolic as preterists.
Futurists say Revelation is mostly fulfilled in the future. They tend to be premillennial, with a future* tribulation, a belief in the rapture, and more normative hermeneutics.

Did that make sense? Are you still with me? Do you need counseling? We have a great counseling ministry if you're just overwhelmed with anxiety, eschatological anxiety. But hopefully that gives you a bit of an overview.

Questions (43:28)

We have just a couple minutes for questions. Roger, your question is if in chapter two or three the churches are on the earth, and if we take those as historic churches, and in chapter four the church is in heaven, how do we understand that without a rapture? That's a good argument for pre-trib, premill. Our historicist friends and our preterist friends would say you're taking Revelation too literally there. It's apocalyptic literature, and if you take it more symbolically, you have more wiggle room to understand it in a non-literal way.

Sherry, I appreciate you saying that. We've said this before, but it's worth reading again. The different views on Revelation are not a hill to die on, and not something you break fellowship over. It's what we call a secondary doctrinal issue, not a primary one. So be charitable. I've tried to model that as I was taught. I'm not trying to throw rocks or step on toes. I'm trying to respect other views while still teaching what I think is the most faithful view. It's a good reminder not to make this a hill to die on.

John, you're saying a lot of times people end up with a view because it's what they were raised with. I didn't realize it. I was amillennial for the first twenty years of my life and I didn't even know what amillennial was. But being a Lutheran boy, that's what we believed. Sometimes it's just what we know, what we grew up with. Like a lot of things, it's a great opportunity, as we grow in our faith, to study things on our own while being respectful of the other side.

Closing Prayer (44:28)

Let's end where we started. The Lord reigns. Jesus wins. He's coming back, and we have a mission. We'll talk in the future about what we do with this, where we land, and how we proceed. But let's conclude with what we can agree on.

Father, thank you for our time to try to get our arms around the book of Revelation. Thank you for the chance to press in and study these things, and to recognize that none of these positions are taken casually or loosely. They're the result of serious study. There are differences, and part of charity and part of being good students of Scripture is understanding those differences and those commonalities as well. But we thank you that Jesus is coming. We thank you that he reigns, and we thank you that he wins. In the meantime, we also agree that the gospel is our mission. So make us faithful in light of the fact that Jesus is coming back, to share the gospel, to live our faith, and, as Paul reminds us, to find hope in the realities of the truths of our faith. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

* = the audio was unclear here and the words were reconstructed from context. Scripture read aloud is in red.

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