As I ended the last installment of this article, I was sharing thoughts, drawn from biblical scholars, about how we should, in our present day, interpret the book of Revelation. Should we think about it as revealing things to come or should we take seriously what John was saying to Christians in his time? Many prefer to take it as “things to come.”

Was John trying to say to the Christians of his time that: accommodation to imperial ways is wrong; the struggle between the lordship of Christ and the lordship of Caesar is the great conflict; it is important to persevere even when it looks like the beast is winning; the beast, appearances to the contrary, does not have the final word and is not the final Word? In its first-century context, Revelation is a pervasively anti-imperial document. What might this mean for Christians today, especially American Christians in the time of the American Empire? Was the problem with the Roman Empire that it was Roman? Or was the problem that it was an empire?

Note that a historical and contextual approach to Revelation does not restrict its meaning to the past. It begins with its past meaning, but is not confined to that. It asks: If this is what Revelation meant then, what might it mean now?

Revelation is full of contrasts. It uses the dualistic contrast between the forces of good and the forces of evil,     an ancient archetypal image that continues to have power in the present. Think of the Star Wars movies with their battles between the evil empire of Darth Vader and the forces of light symbolized by Luke Skywalker and his light saber. Revelation indeed particularizes the dualistic contrast into a conflict between the lordship of Christ and the lordship of Caesar.

It is full of contrasts in another sense as well. It is very violent, and much of the violence is done by God. God sends suffering, earthquakes, plagues and death upon the world as the seals are opened, the trumpets blown and the bowls of God’s wrath are poured out. God destroys Babylon the Great and the armies of the beast. The victory song in chapter 18 is filled with gloating over divine violence. At the same time, Revelation includes some of the most magnificent language in the Bible, much of which has found its way into Christian worship and hymns.

If you read Revelation and then worship the Divine Liturgy, you will see what the author means. The Divine   Liturgies we use incorporate some of the beautiful words of the Book of Revelation. Can you find them?

A chronological approach to the book of Revelation sets its composition in the late first-century and asks what it meant (past tense) then. What did its language mean to its author and to the early Christian communities to which it was addressed? Within their shared field of meaning, what did the author communicate to them?

To illustrate this point, let us review a few illuminating and important examples:

The author expected the events he describes to happen in his near future. Seven times (note the number seven again), he writes, “The time is near, ““what must soon take place,” “I am coming soon.” “Soon” and “near” cannot plausibly be extended to two thousand years and counting. Like the authors of a number of New Testament documents, John of Patmos thought the second coming would happen soon.

The author identified the dragon, the ancient serpent, Babylon the Great, the great whore, the beast whose number is 666. It was Rome – not just the city, but the Roman Empire. The identification is unmistakable in a late first-century context. Because of the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70, Jews and Christians spoke of Rome as “Babylon,” because the Babylonian Empire was the previous destroyer of the holy city and its temple. The woman and the beast live in a city built on seven hills, a designation for Rome that goes back to antiquity. It is the city that rules the world; in a first-century context, that could only be Rome. The number 666 is a numerical code for Caesar Nero, the first Roman persecutor of Christians. The beast is the Roman Empire of the first century – not some future beast from our point in time.

The author chastised most of the communities to whom Revelation was addressed for their accommodation to the imperial way of life. They had abandoned their first love, forgotten what they received and heard, and become lukewarm.

The author’s message of the imminent destruction of Rome and the second coming of Jesus encouraged his followers to hold fast. The powers who ruled and oppressed that world and rejected the vision of a new world, the kingdom of God   proclaimed by Jesus and his followers, would soon be no more. “Be stead, take courage, do not be afraid,” they were told.

John expected the destruction of Rome and the second coming of Jesus to occur soon. Obviously, he was wrong. They didn’t happen.

This realization raises an interpretive question. What is truly a faithful interpretation of Revelation in our time? Is it one that affirms that what it says will still happen? That there will be a future beast who in a final battle at Armageddon will be vanquished by Jesus at the head of an army of heaven? That the plagues and wars and earthquakes and other signs of the end are still going to occur?

Many believe this is yet all to come!