A Question on Suffering from the Oracles

A theological faq from the oracles of Revelation 2–3 (Pt. 2)

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In the previous post, I took up four questions from the oracles that seemed to beg for some explanation. There are more, and in this post I will seek to address another as we prepare to move into the main body of Revelation. Here are the remaining ones I will address:

• What is God’s wrath on sin? 

• How is the (seeming) triumphalistic language of the Kingdom an expression of God’s love?

• Why is Revelation so hard on the Jews?

• What about the fulfillment of prophecy?

• What did Jesus mean by “I will keep you from the hour of trial”?

In this post I will take up the last question: What did Jesus mean by “I will keep you from the hour of trial” (Revelation 3:10)?

Over the many years I have taught Revelation (going back to my youth director days in the late 80s!), I have often heard that Christians will be delivered from the “great tribulation” by “the rapture” (this line of interpretation is a key pillar of the dispensational eschatological edifice purporting that we are now at the end of history, the events of Revelation are at hand, the church will be taken out of the world before “the beast” arises with 3 ½ years of peace and 3 ½ years of “great tribulation” before Jesus returns to the earth to set up the thousand year reign, then the final judgment—the rapture was only a return to gather the saints). 

Whether a Baptist church or Christian & Missionary Alliance church I have participated in, some have had severe reactions when I even suggested that we were not exempt from the great tribulation, that—whatever it consisted of—we would also go through that tribulation and likely suffer.

Although I was raised with the pre-tribulation rapture view, when I read the Gospels or Paul or Revelation, I just could not see this interpretation in the Bible and simply led the youth, then many students since, through Revelation and asked them to observe what was there (probably to the chagrin of the parents in the small Baptist church I was part of in the late 80s).

What I could not see in Revelation (or in Jesus, or in Paul’s letters) was that believers (aka “saints”) would be delivered from suffering, and that would include any believers in the future. 

To the contrary, suffering is almost promised for believers. 

To say otherwise is to ignore the entire New Testament. 

To argue that the saints will be delivered from the great tribulation is to minimize the suffering and martyrdoms of Jesus followers for almost two thousand years.

(continued)

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Yet in the oracle to the church at Philadelphia, Jesus told them: “Because you have kept my word about patient endurance, I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world, to try those who dwell on the earth” (Revelation 3:10, ESV).

This text is seized upon by dispensationalists to argue for that pre-tribulation rapture—that believers would be taken from the world before the events of Revelation 4–20.

But earlier in the oracles, Jesus told the church at Smyrna: “Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Look, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison to be tested and you will have tribulation for ten days. Be faithful to death and I will give you the crown of life” (Revelation 2:10).

And in the very next oracle to Pergamum, Jesus named “Antipas, my faithful witness, who was put to death in your presence” (Revelation 2:13).

Not only was Antipas killed, but the church witnessed it.

That was suffering.

So to argue that Jesus’s words to the church of Philadelphia refer to a rapture that will rescue from suffering ignores the rest of the oracles (and for all those dispensationalists who argue that the church of Philadelphia represents a past time period, even more problems arise, because now we are supposedly in the time of the church of Laodicea. Has the rapture already happened?).

So what about the oracle to Philadelphia?

The crux of Jesus’s words to those at Philadelphia is the phrase “I will keep you out of (or from) the hour” (Greek: se tērēsō ek tēs ōras).

And the most important of these words is “to keep” (tērein), used twice in this verse (“because you kept … I will keep”).

This term is often rendered “keep,” (the rendering of 90% of the translations) but also has the idea of “guard,” “protect,” or “preserve,” depending on the context. Likewise, the term ek is a preposition with the notion of “out of” or “from.” 

Given the full context of the oracles together (and of Revelation as a whole as we will see), Jesus said: “Because you preserved the word of my endurance, I will preserve you from the hour of testing which is about to come upon the whole world to test the inhabitants on the earth.”

The believers at Philadelphia had faithfully preserved the gospel message of Jesus’s suffering and death (“the word of my endurance”), so now Jesus would preserve them in their hour of suffering.

Jesus’s promise here is not to take the believers out of tribulation but to preserve or protect them from it. 

He would give them whatever they needed in the tumultuous circumstances of the day to endure with joy even to death just as he had done (see Hebrews 12:2— “looking to Jesus … who for the joy set before him, endured the cross, despising its shame”).

(cont.)

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There is at least one more glaring question from Jesus’s declaration.

Was the “hour of trial” limited to the time when Revelation was written or was a future prophetic statement? 

Once again, the futurist approach of dispensationalism would regard the words of Jesus as pointing (only) to “the end times.”

But Jesus was speaking to flesh and blood believers in Philadelphia (and overheard by all the churches of Revelation) of that time.

They themselves would see the trials and Jesus would preserve them.

The continuation of that very church into the next century as faithful servants of Jesus indicates this very thing happened.*

But there is also a prophetic sense because the promise that Jesus made to the Philadelphians was a promise that has continued throughout the history of the church up to now, and will remain until Jesus returns.

A quick glance at the rest of Revelation (and a preview of what is coming!) only affirms this view of Jesus preserving believers through suffering.

1. After the vision of the four horsemen in Revelation 6, John saw a fifth seal open: “I saw under the altar the souls of those slaughtered because of the Word of God and the testimony that they had. And they cried out with a loud voice, ‘Until when, holy and true Master, will you not judge and avenge our blood from the inhabitants upon the earth’” (Revelation 6:9–10).

Not only were the trials to come upon the inhabitants of the earth as in the oracle to Philadelphia, but those very inhabitants would cause the suffering and even death of believers in Jesus (nothing has changed in that regard!).

2. In Revelation 13 John described the vision of the beast and after his description wrote, “And all the inhabitants of the earth worshiped [the beast], everyone whose name was not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world: If anyone has an ear, let him hear. If any goes into captivity, into captivity he goes, if anyone is killed by the sword, by the sword let him be killed. Here lies the endurance and faithfulness of the saints” (Revelation 13:8–10).

This passage itself brings up many questions (I see the beast as a recurring figure of individuals and governments deceived by Satan to displace God), but John’s words spoke (and speak) to the willingness of believers to endure persecution and suffering even to imprisonment and death by the sword. 

Jesus preserves us for himself through whatever comes at us from the world.

3. Finally, John’s vision in Revelation 17 of the harlot prostituting with the kings of the earth and the inhabitants of the earth (17:2) includes this picture: “I saw the woman drunk from the blood of the saints and the blood of the witnesses of Jesus” (Revelation 17:6). 

Were these saints taken from suffering? No. 

Did and does Jesus preserve them for himself? Absolutely.

These few passages are a taste of so much to come in Revelation, but suffice to give context to Jesus’s words to the church at Philadelphia: Jesus preserves from trials, but does not remove us from them.

I will simply close with the words of Paul in Romans 8:17–18, which cohere so well with the message of Revelation regarding suffering with and for Jesus:

“And if children [of God], also heirs—heirs of God, further, co-heirs of Messiah: if indeed we suffer with him, so that we might be glorified with him. For I consider that the sufferings of the current time are not worth comparing to the coming glory revealed for us.”

No matter what today or tomorrow brings for us, we are in his preserving hand, just as all of the saints who have gone before us.

*In the early second century, probably around AD 110, Ignatius, the bishop of Antioch, wrote letters to the churches of Ephesus, Smyrna, and Philadelphia that indicate vibrant congregations continuing to follow Jesus. Ignatius himself was a Roman prisoner on the way to suffer martyrdom in Rome.

Observations on the Greek Text of Revelation

Even though I am not examining an entire passage, one phrase in the focal verse is highly interesting on several accounts.

The first phrase of Revelation 3:10 reads:

ὅτι |ἐτήρησας |τὸν λόγον |τῆς ὑπομονῆς |μου

because| you kept |the word |of the endurance|of me

The phrase is straightforward.

I translated it: “Because you preserved the word of my endurance.”