Revelation: A Difficult Book

One does not have to be a televangelist in order to properly interpret the Book of Revelation. But it helps. Apparently. To read the overwhelming mass of paperback commentaries on Revelation written by dispensational populists, one would think Revelation is a breeze to interpret. “Just interpret it by using the plain, simple method of literalism” and all your problems are gone. These populists are encouraged by the more noteworthy, academic dispensational scholars, such as Charles Ryrie. In his commentary on Revelation, Ryrie speaks of the “furuist or plain interpretation”: “Perhaps saying ‘normal’ or ‘plain’ interpretation would be better than ‘literal’” (Charles C. Ryrie, Revelation (Chicago: Moody, 1968), 9.

Reading the first word in the book might lead one to adopt such a naive approach. In the Greek, Revelation’s first word is its title: apokalupsis, which means “unveiling, revelation.” Despite this title Revelation is undoubtedly the most difficult to interpret, most hotly debated, and most abused book in all of Scripture. The book is so perplexing that John himself could not understand portions of it (Rev. 7:13-14; 17:6-7). Indeed, its abuse seems directly attributable to its difficulty: The less theologically astute and exegetically trained the “commentator,” the more confident his assertions — and, sadly, the greater the sales of his books.

Walter F. Adeney noted that “imagination runs riot with the elaborate fancies of this marvelous book.”1 Anthropologist and commentator Vacher Burch in his thought-provoking Anthropology and the Apocalypse lamented: “The Book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ is the most difficult writing in the New Testament. No plainer proof of this is needed than the fact that most often it has been artificially sequestered so as to yield strange chronology and stranger sense, by the ignorant and the wise. The long history of its interpretation seems to demonstrate that the majority has desired it to be only a semi-magical writing.”2

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