The Prophecy of Revelation

Revelation as the Climax of Biblical Prophecy

Happy New Year, everyone. As we enter 2024, I want to express my deep gratitude for all of you who have subscribed and faithfully read this Substack since last February. 

I have enjoyed writing every post from the Sermon on the Mount, to the Israel trip (which couldn’t have happened today), to the start of the Revelation series. 

Every post has driven me deeper into the meaning and intent of the Bible as the expression of God’s purposes and work in the world through Jesus. 

My desire is for you to trust in the Word of God more deeply each day to you may fearlessly embrace life in the grace of God.

In the year ahead, Revelation is the plan (with an occasional detour). If you have friends who are interested in Revelation (and prophecy, and the end times, etc), I encourage you to point them this way.

Beginning with this post, I am adding an audio rendition of the post (a podcast!) which I will include in the paid extras section along with Observations on the Greek Text and occasionally other goodies (including a planned recitation of the entire book of Revelation in my own translation).

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Blessed is the one who reads and those who listen to the words of this prophecy and who keep the things written in it, for the moment is near. Revelation 1:3

Blessed is the one who keeps the prophecy of this book. Revelation 22:7

Do not seal of the words of this prophecy, for the time is near. Revelation 22:10

I testify to all who hear the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to it, God will add to him the plagues written in this book, and if anyone takes away from the words of this prophecy, God will take away his portion from the tree of life and from the holy city written in this book. Revelation 22:18-19

In Revelation 1:3 (and 22:7, 10, 18–19), John specifically called what he was writing a prophecy.

When most people hear the term prophecy they immediately think of predicting the future (and today’s end-times pundits seize on that expectation and say we in the twenty-first century are the focal point of the prophecy—I ask, what about the previous twenty centuries?). 

A future orientation is certainly present in Revelation, but is that the primary thrust of what John deemed as prophecy? 

John’s emphasis on “hearing” and “keeping” the words of the prophecy put the brakes on a purely futuristic reading. 

This prophecy was written to real flesh and blood hearers in the first century who were to act on the prophecy. 

John and the OT Prophets

The prophets of ancient Israel did the same—they spoke the word of the Lord to those around them to call them to repentance from wicked deeds, or to give them hope in the midst of dire circumstances. 

John did both in Revelation. 

While the whole of Revelation constituted the prophecy, the response called for was for the time when John wrote and by extension for us. 

Nowhere is this clearer than the proclamations (“letters”) to the seven churches of Asia. 

Jesus via John (hence the red letters in many Bibles) spoke words of affirmation, warning, hope and judgment to those churches in the same vein as the OT prophets. 

These letters were prophetic words to the churches.

Then throughout the visions of Rev 4-22, John intervened with admonitions to the saints, prophetic utterances to persevere and remain faithful in the midst of persecution, or the blessings of perseverance (13:9–10; 14:12; 15:15; 19:9-10; 20:6; 22:14).

Just as the prophetic words in the OT were spoken to their day, but continue to speak, the beauty of true prophecy in Revelation is that the word of the Lord spoken to those churches two thousand years ago, still speaks today: truth remains truth in every generation.

The Climax of Prophecy

One other key aspect of the prophecy of Revelation is its dependence upon and summing up of the prophetic voices of the OT. 

One scholar, Richard Bauckham, has deemed Revelation “the climax of prophecy” because John drew together the OT prophets and integrated them into the prophecy of Revelation. Revelation was the sum total of the prophetic words of the Bible and its climactic end.

John took the images and messages of the OT in light of Jesus and showed his readers the ultimate meaning and trajectory of the prophetic voices in the OT, especially Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and Zechariah.

Did you know that Revelation alludes to the Old Testament over 600 times with every OT book included except Ruth, Ecclesiastes, and Haggai?

Prophecy as Past, Present and Future

What about the future?

The elegance of the prophetic word is that its judgments, though contemporary to the prophet who spoke, became paradigms of any future event that cohered with the actions of the people and nations originally addressed. What happened to Babylon will happen to kingdoms like Babylon. What happened to the Jews will happen to any people who reject God. If God saved a remnant then, he will always save a remnant. God is still the judge of the righteous and the wicked. A new heavens and a new earth is still the expectation.  

One difference from the OT is evident in Revelation: the Messiah is not expected for the first time—he has already arrived in Jesus Messiah, and Jesus accomplished the work he came to do. 

Instead Jesus is expected to return as victorious King.

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Blessed is the one who reads and those who hear the words of the prophecy …

Let’s take a closer look at what John wrote. He called a blessing on two recipients: first “the one who reads,” and second, “those who hear.”

John assumed that this document would be treated like Scripture read in the synagogue. One person would read the book aloud, and the congregation would listen (see Luke 4: 16–21 and Acts 15:15 for examples in the NT). 

This explicit way of transmitting Revelation is vital to our ability to understand the book: it was meant to be listened to, not read silently. 

John wrote it as an audiobook.

Listening to Revelation read aloud is the key: only in listening can the imagery be allowed to have its visceral effects. John wanted his listeners to experience every sound and sight and smell in the book (that is why I always have my students read Revelation aloud from beginning to end as the first thing they do in my class). 

In so doing, John was taking the mantle of the OT prophets—and John the Baptist and Jesus—who spoke their prophetic words aloud.

… and who keep the words written in it.

John does not stop with reading and listening. Unless there is a faithful response to the words, then they have “gone in one ear and out the other”—they have no  effect, they mean nothing to the hearers except perhaps to tickle the ear.

To keep the words of the prophecy is to take them in, meditate on them, and change your life based on them.

At the least, this change is placing trust and dependence on Jesus.

But more, it is being faithful in the midst of all the challenges and persecution that is thrown at the follower of Jesus from Satan and those in Satan’s grasp.

To the seven churches there were clear directions for change—and we are charged to do the same.

For the moment is near.

John gives a reason to listen to the words and keep them. The time of Jesus’s return is near. It was near then, it is near now. For most, physical death brings that reality; for those of us alive at the moment the reality can be as Paul described in 1 Thessalonians four.

In any case, death is of no account in Revelation for the believer, only faithfulness.

Observations on the Greek Text of Revelation

and Audio Version of this post.

Revelation 1:3 Μακάριος ὁ ἀναγινώσκων καὶ οἱ ἀκούοντες τοὺς λόγους τῆς προφητείας καὶ τηροῦντες τὰ ἐν αὐτῇ γεγραμμένα, ὁ γὰρ καιρὸς ἐγγύς.