How do a majority of Christians view the Book of Revelations?

Question

Do most believe the events described will happen literally, just as they are written in the Bible? Is it OK within your faith to believe that Revelations is more of a dramatization of future events rather then hard facts?

Answer 1

The book of Revelation is a book that most mainstream Christian faiths don't study. Many say it's too difficult to understand or they get lost in the symbology. Interestingly enough the Book fully titled "The Revelation of Jesus Christ" was written by the Apostle John will in exile on the island of Patmos and was written around the same time as his book the Gospel According to John as well as his 3 Epistles (books) approximately 90 AD.

Firstly much of Revelation is taken from the book of Daniel and tells both of the past world empires (Babylon, Media-Persia, Greece and Rome) as well as the history and prophecies of the ages and times to come after the book was written.

As with any book of the Bible, you either believe in the Word of God entirely or not at all; you can't pick and choose what you want to believe and what not to believe.

Be sure you first study the Book of of Daniel, specifically chapters 7 and 9. Remember that the Bible interprets itself and that both Daniel and Revelation use the prophetic principle of a year for a day, Numbers 14:34 and Ezekiel 4:6.

As for your question about the veents as described in Revelation, God's prophecies will always unfold as he describes; this book is God's warning to us about God's righteous judgments upon the the faithful and the unfaithful. Please also read Matthew 24 and you'll see the parallels in Revelation.

God Bless

Answer 2

Like John the Divine ate some seriously bad mushrooms and was tripping.

I think many Christians are caught in the trap of trying to take EVERYTHING in the Bible literally, when many of the writers, themselves, urged a a figurative and symbolic interpretation.

Having been raised in a rather wack-o right wing Christian faith, they tried to take everything literally. I had a really hard time knowing what was going on in Revelations.

However, in college Biblical scholars explained that Revelations was written in code and deep symbols to protect a message known to the few followers of John the Divine (Christianity had many sects back then). Scholars believe that it was an effort to protect the message and its believers from persecution.

At any rate, as inscrutible as it is, Revelations is a compelling read.

Answer 3

Hi! Bear with me a little and let me show in brief that there are four interpretative views on the book of Revelation among Christians today:

(1) The Preterist View: Except for thevery end section of Revelation, this approach relates everything in the book to the events and conditionsof the Roman Empire at the time of John. Preterists understand that the main message of Revelation is that while the church is threatened by the Roman state and its demand for emperor worship, the church will triumph in the end. The most popular among scholars, preterism’s strength is that it interprets the book in its primary historical setting; although it cannot handle all the data of Revelation.

(2) The Idealist View: In this view, the contents of Revelation are not seen to relate to any historical events at all, but only to symbolize the ongoing struggle between good and evil during the church age until Christ returns. The primary benefit of this view is that it renders the book of Revelation understandable at the most basic level- that it is simply a book that was written to encourage suffering saints in the knowledge that God will someday make things right. Its weakness is that it quite loses sight of the fact that Revelation is of the apocalyptic genre, which generally describes both actual and future events in history.

(3) The Historicist View: Adherents of this view hold that Revelation is a symbolic account of the whole scope of human history (particularly church history), with the “beast” identified
with various historical figures from the Saracens, to Mohammed, to the Pope, to Adolph Hitler. The first to develop this view into a system of reading Revelation with current predictive value was Joachim of Fiore (AD 1132-1202). As gratifying as this system of interpretation is to some people who do not like certain historical personages in their own time, it nevertheless suffers from many weaknesses: (a) it is simply too subjective; (b) it almost always confines human history to European (Western) history; (c) it lends itself to a continual reworking the whole interpretation in order to fit historical conditions of the interpreter’s own time and generation.

(4) The Futurist View: This view sees most of the book (chapters 4 – 22) as prophecy yet to be fulfilled; i.e., they will happen in the period immediately preceding and following the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. The seven churches in chapters two and three however, relate solely
to the 1st century Church of John’s day. But a few Futurists, like Yonggi Cho, understand chapters 2 – 3 more along Historicist lines; i.e., as reflecting a panorama of the history of the Church. The Futurist model of interpretation is directly connected to the rise of pre-millennialism (the view that the 1,000 year reign of Christ will be a literal event that will occur only after Christ returns). Generally, the more literal an interpretation that one adopts, the more strongly one would be construed as a Futurist. Problems with the futurist model of interpretation include: (a) it fails to explain why John informs his original readers that events portrayed in the book are to be fulfilled in their near future;
(b) How could the original 1st century readers be encouraged in their sufferings if they knew that the events from chapters 3 onwards are in the very, very distant future?; (c) the overly literal interpretation of the “millennium” do not seem to be in harmony with clear statements from other books of the New Testament about the nature of the Kingdom of God; (d) the literal interpretations of many Futurists lead to some pretty bizarre scenarios that directly contradict passages found in other books of the Bible.

All Dispensationalists are necessarily Futurists and I might add that the Futurist model is currently the most popular view among American churches and their daughter churches overseas; although it is not the most favored view aming Biblical scholars.

Hope this helps

Answer 4

I can`t speak for a majority, only myself. Revelations is a very difficult book. People have different interpretations. I think it is important to remember that there are other apocalyptic books in the Bible like Daniel. Even Jesus himself uses some of the same imagery in the gospels. But quite how to understand statements like `anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire` (20:15) is not clear to me- it just seems pretty important to ensure our names are in the book!

Answer 5

I am a Christian and I take hardly any of the Bible literally. I even think the whole Christmas story isn't true, but a metaphor for the political times of the day. Religion is man's reflection of the divine. If it wasn't, then the religious books that we have would have been handed to us by God personally. However, I believe heavily in the example of Jesus Christ, and his way of life is what I aspire to.

Answer 6

Hard fact,
I once listened to a person who was a guest speaker at our Church, and he had a friend in the high rank of the military,

Speaking on the 666 mark of the beast.

In his hand was a photo of a building in the parliament, 3 city blocks big, and 7 stores tall,

In this building is being built, a computer, called the beast,
It is being fed, everyone’s information,

Then he passes around a army solders Identification card,
it was white, and on the back had a gold strip,
under the gold film was the name of the card "mark"

Now, you look at every stop light and see if you see a camera?
your car does it have a navigator, or star system?
do you have a cell phone?

Well when the stock market crashes, our Government already has a plan to set into motion this.

To go into every home and
look for
Guns
bibles
traces of tourist acts
people who are born agent an believe in Jesus.
calling them a occult.

They will offer the card to every home, you can not buy or sale with out it.
if you give any kind of resistance, they will shoot you, and ask questions later,
they will tell christens to deny there god and live.

Hard facts is, none of this is available, due to
Its all secret TOP SECREAT, AND IM DEAD FOR SHARING IT WITH YOU...
Oh well,
to God be the glory,
you wont believe me
just look at a military identification card.
check out the parliament big computer the beast,
you have a computer, do your home work.
then tell me revelations is wrong in chapter 9

Answer 7

Yes, we ought to take it literally. For as Jesus said, "Man shall not live on bread alone but by every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God."

It is also written in the first chapter of the Book of Revelation, "Blessed is the one who reads the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it, because the time is near."

Answer 8

Revelation is almost certainly a record of past events which have already occured, as well as a prophetic book of events still yet to be.

There's not much in Revelation that one can't find in various other books of the old and new testament.

Answer 9

some people need an interpreter in order to understand the book of Revelations



http://www.shepherdschapel.com

Answer 10

revelations is a confusing book. believers interprete its verses and many different ways...and which ever way you choose makes sense.i guess will you just have to find out what happens when Jesus comes for his people, because i know that is going to happen.