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It’s been a couple of days since I said anything controversial. Forgive me.

Of course that all depends upon one’s perspective now doesn’t it? Anyway, while on the plane flying back home Friday, I was pondering how long it had been since I delved into the Book of Revelation. You see, I can get controversial there and no one would know it.

By the way, Revelation is singular, not plural. And because it was put at the end of the Bible doesn’t mean it was the last book written because it wasn’t (II Peter gets that distinction). And it wasn’t written by John the apostle. When I was in the final stages of my “Supernatural Theism” (see yesterday’s commentary) era, I remember how one year, while still at First Baptist Houston, that John Bisagno spent an entire year (46 messages) on the book of Revelation! That did me in, though John was a very good preacher.

And then there was Hal Lindsey. I am sure he’s a great man who loves God, but how god-awful was his book on The Late Great Planet Earth, when it comes to any semblence of reality? And to think it was the #1 non-fiction best seller- OF THE DECADE! If I remember right,. some forty million copies were sold! What I do remember is how gullible I was back then. I believed him! There would be 200 million Chinese come from the East with helicopters that looked like locusts, and the ten-horned beast would be the new Economic European Community giving rise to the antichrist who was now (1976) already alive and getting ready to take over. Of course that was back then 30+ years ago. Hopefully we know better now.

Today, the European Union consists of twenty five nations, not ten, and all the rest of Lindsey’s “de-coding” of Revelation is for me today- nonsense. Of course, many still believe that since Israel was made a nation in 1948 that all of that will come to pass- still! And all of this fuss is over a book that barely made it into the Christian canon. In the 4th century it was still one of the “disputed” books by Ulrich Zwingli denied it scriptural status altogether!

But, since it is there now, let’s deal with it!

First we need to date the book: when it was written for that context is important. My take is 95AD. As a literay genre, it’s an apocalyptic (unveiling) book, written in poetic style. It is highly symbolic and as the author opens up, he immediaely tells us that he was “in the spirit:”, using the “I saw” 55 times; and of course he must have used the number “7″ seventy times seven.

Context! He was speaking to SEVEN local churchs who would have no idea about attack helicopters, a European Union, or an antichrist. All of his langauage was about what was happening NOW (then- 95AD). Right off the bat (Rev. 1:1), he says these are things that must SOON take place. And, in Rev. 1:3 he says the time is NEAR! And he repeats this phraseology throughout the book. He was talking about Domitian, Nero thirty years before, and his lifetime, not 2,000 years down the road.

And oh what we’ve done and made of the 144,000! Can we not see this is rich in symbolism, and does not have a literal interpretation of only 144,000 to be saved. Or worse yet as many patristic pastors have alluded: it’s speaking of 144000 men who kept themselves from being defiled by women! My thinking is that maybe it’s the other way around? Such misogynistic attitudes still run rampant in the church today.

So, why so much imagery and symbolism? I believe Edgar Goodspeed had it right when he said, “The early Christians lived on a volcano. They practiced a religion not recognized by the Roman state. Domition had demanded emperor worship. While the grotesque imagery of the apocalyptic invited the minds of the Christian brotherhood, it concealed from Roman authority the meaning of the prophet’s message, which in one of the darkest hours in Christian history brought comfort and courage to the harassed little churches of Asia.”

God forgive us for being so vain and prideful in our egoic state wherein we make complex that which is so simple. God loves us and that passion He has for us demands a better response than we’re currently exercising!