New Daily Study Bible: The Revelation of John 1. William Barclay

of the Holy Spirit is not perceptible in it. Another Reformation scholar, Huldreich Zwingli, is equally hostile to Revelation. ‘With the Apocalypse,’ he writes, ‘we have no concern, for it is not a biblical book . . . The Apocalypse has no savour of the mouth or the mind of John. I can, if I so will, reject its testimonies.’ Most voices have stressed the unintelligibility of Revelation, and not a few have questioned its right to a place in the New Testament.

      On the other hand, there are those in every generation who have loved this book. In his commentary, T. S. Kepler quotes the verdict of the early Church historian and Archbishop of Quebec, Philip Carrington, and makes it his own: ‘In the case of Revelation, we are dealing with an artist greater than Stevenson or Coleridge or Bach. St John has a better sense of the right word than Stevenson; he has a greater command of unearthly supernatural loveliness than Coleridge; he has a richer sense of melody and rhythm and composition than Bach . . . It is the only masterpiece of pure art in the New Testament . . . Its fulness and richness and harmonic variety place it far above Greek tragedy.’

      We shall no doubt find this book difficult and bewildering; but doubtless, too, we shall find it infinitely worth while to wrestle with it until it gives us its blessing and opens its riches to us.

       Apocalyptic Literature

      In any study of Revelation, we must begin by remembering the basic fact that, although unique in the New Testament, it is nonetheless representative of a kind of literature which was the most common of all in the period between the Old and the New Testaments. Revelation is commonly called the Apocalypse – in Greek apokalupsis. Between the Old and the New Testaments, there grew up a great mass of what is called apocalyptic literature, the product of an indestructible Jewish hope.

      The Jews could not forget that they were the chosen people of God. To them, that involved the certainty that some day they would arrive at world supremacy. In their early history, they looked forward to the coming of a king of David’s line who would unite the nation and lead them to greatness. A shoot was to come forth from the stump of Jesse (Isaiah 11:1, 11:10). God would raise up a righteous branch for David (Jeremiah 23:5). Some day, the people would serve David, their king (Jeremiah 30:9). David would be their shepherd and their king (Ezekiel 34:23, 37:24). The booth of David would be repaired (Amos 9:11); out of Bethlehem there would come a ruler who would be great to the ends of the earth (Micah 5:2–4).

      But the whole history of Israel contradicted these hopes. After the death of Solomon, the kingdom – small enough to begin with – split into two under Rehoboam and Jeroboam, and so lost its unity. The northern kingdom, with its capital at Samaria, vanished in the last quarter of the eighth century BC before the assault of the Assyrians, never again reappeared in history and is now referred to as the lost ten tribes. The southern kingdom, with its capital at Jerusalem, was reduced to slavery and exile by the Babylonians in the early part of the sixth century BC. It later came under the rule of the Persians, the Greeks and finally the Romans. History for the Jews was a catalogue of disasters from which it became clear that no human deliverer could rescue them.

       The Two Ages

      Jewish thought stubbornly held to the conviction of the chosenness of the Jews but had to adjust itself to the facts of history. It did so by working out a scheme of history. The Jews divided all time into two ages. There was this present age, which is wholly bad and beyond redemption. For it, there can be nothing but total destruction. The Jews, therefore, waited for the end of things as they are. There was the age which is to come, which was to be wholly good, the golden age of God, in which would be peace, prosperity and righteousness, and the place of God’s chosen people would at last be upheld as theirs by right.

      How was this present age to become the age which is to come? The Jews believed that the change could never be brought about by human agency and, therefore, looked for the direct intervention of God. He would come striding on to the stage of history to blast this present world out of existence and bring in his golden time. The day of the coming of God was called the day of the Lord and was to be a terrible time of fear and destruction and judgment, which would be the signs of the coming new age.

      All apocalyptic literature deals with these events – the sin of the present age, the terrors of the time between, and the blessings of the time to come. It is entirely composed of dreams and visions of the end. That means that all apocalyptic literature is inevitably cryptic. It is continually attempting to describe the indescribable, to say the unsayable and to paint the unpaintable.

      This is further complicated by another fact. It was only natural that these apocalyptic visions should flame the more brightly in the minds of people living under tyranny and oppression. The more some alien power held them down, the more they dreamed of the destruction of that power and of their own recognition and restoration. But it would only have worsened the situation if the oppressing power could have understood these dreams. Such writings would have seemed the works of rebellious revolutionaries. These books, therefore, were frequently written in code, deliberately couched in language which was unintelligible to the outsider; and inevitably there are many cases in which they remain unintelligible because the key to the code no longer exists. But the more we know about the historical background of such books, the better we can interpret them.

       The Book of Revelation

      All this is the precise picture of our Revelation. There are any number of Jewish apocalypses – Enoch, the Sibylline Oracles, the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, the Ascension of Isaiah, the Assumption of Moses, the Apocalypse of Baruch, 4 Ezra. Our Revelation is a Christian apocalypse. It is the only one in the New Testament, although there were many other similar writings which did not gain admission. It is written exactly on the Jewish pattern and follows the basic idea of the two ages. The only difference is that, for the day of the Lord, it substitutes the coming in power of Jesus Christ. Not only the pattern but also the details are the same. The Jewish apocalypses had a standard sequence of events which were to happen at the last time; these events all have their place in Revelation.

      Before we go on to outline that pattern of events, another question arises. Both apocalyptic and prophecy deal with the events which are to come. What, then, is the difference between them?

       Apocalyptic and Prophecy

      The difference between the prophets and the writers of apocalyptic was very real. There were two main differences – one of message and one of method.

      (1) The prophets thought in terms of this present world. Their message was often a cry for social, economic and political justice, and was always a summons to obey and serve God within this present world. To the prophets, it was this world which was to be reformed and in which God’s kingdom would come. This has been expressed by saying that the prophets believed in history. They believed that, in the events of history, God’s purpose was being worked out. In one sense, the prophets were optimists – for, however sternly they condemned the present state of affairs, they nonetheless believed that things could be put right if men and women would accept the will of God. To the apocalyptists, the world was beyond help in the present. They believed not in the reformation but in the destruction of this present world. They looked forward to the creation of a new world when this one had been shattered by the avenging wrath of God. In one sense, therefore, the apocalyptists were pessimists, for they did not believe that things as they were could ever be cured. True, they were quite certain that the golden age would come – but only after this world had been destroyed.

      (2) The message of the prophets was spoken; the message of the apocalyptists was always written. Apocalyptic is a literary production. Had it been delivered by word of mouth, people would never have understood it. It is difficult, involved, often unintelligible; it has to be pored over before it can be understood. Further, the prophets always spoke under their own names; but all apocalyptic writings – except our New Testament one – are pseudonymous. They are put into the mouths of great ones of the past, like Noah, Enoch, Isaiah, Moses, the Twelve Patriarchs, Ezra and Baruch. There is something rather sad about this. Those who wrote the apocalyptic literature had the feeling that greatness had gone from the earth; they did not have the confidence in their own position and authority to put their names