Truth Unites - Explaining Every Chapter of Revelation

Episode Date: February 2, 2026

Gavin Ortlund offers a partial-preterist reading of Revelation, interpreting its apocalyptic imagery as focused on first-century Rome while maintaining hope in Christ’s future return.Truth Unites (https://truthunites.org) exists to promote gospel assurance through theological depth. Gavin Ortlund (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) is President of Truth Unites, Visiting Professor of Historical Theology at Phoenix Seminary, and Theologian-in-Residence at Immanuel Nashville.SUPPORT:Tax Deductible Support: https://truthunites.org/donate/Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/truthunitesFOLLOW:Website: https://truthunites.org/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/truth.unites/X: https://x.com/gavinortlundFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/TruthUnitesPage/

This video is a chapter by chapter walkthrough of Revelation, the final book of the Bible, so that the next time you're at a dinner party and someone says, hey, who are the locusts in Revelation 9? Or who are the two witnesses in Revelation 11? Or who's the second beast in Revelation 13? Is that the same as the false prophet in chapter 16? You can pretend you have to go to the bathroom, pull up this video, look at the timestamps, and you are all set.

We're going to cover all such questions in this book, be as thorough as we can, in as compressed amount of time as we can. And I've studied really hard, hoping this video will serve you. This is my favorite book of the Bible. I can't not make this video because I love this book so much. I don't think there is anything

that will put hope in your heart quite so much, like the book of Revelation, but a lot of times people shy away from this book. And so I hope this video will serve more study of this amazing book, which is so gripping and dramatic and poignant and also so edifying. This is a daunting task,

and I run the risk of becoming one of the strange monsters that G. K. Chesterton warned about that are even weirder than the book itself. I love that quote from Chesterton. But I'm going to just take the risk that you'll have mercy on me if some of you think I'm completely wrong and take a completely different view. And hopefully we can still be friends. But I put this video out there hoping it would just serve study of the Bible, if nothing else. I have five introductory comments. Then I have a book recommendation. And then we'll go chapter by chapter. And you can see in the timestamps where we're going to be, if you want to skip around, if you have a particular question about a particular passage. Introductary comment number one, revelation is worth studying. I don't think we can assume

that. Many Christians I've discovered avoid this book. At least chapter 6 to 19, preachers will stop when we get to that section. Many biblical commentators have done the whole Bible and they stop and don't do revelation. And partly, I think that's because this book is so difficult and so intimidating, but I wonder if another reason is because we can react against the overfocus and hype that some Christians have given to Revelation. Some of us have seen Christians just obsessing about things like the Mark of the Beast, and so we just completely tune that out when a topic like that comes up. And this is unfortunate because Revelation itself pronounces a blessing on those who read it. Chapter 1, verse 3, Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy.

And I'd just like to emphasize right out at the gate here, God the Holy Holy Holy Spirit did not make a mistake in inspiring a book that has a red dragon with seven heads and a heavenly multitude with white robes and palm branches and a two-horned beast calling down fire from heaven and so on and so forth. We'll work through all these images. God gave this book to us in his wisdom. We shouldn't resent the imagistic nature of this book and wish that he'd given us a systematic theology book. The literary genre is not a problem to be overcome. On the contrary, these images can work on our hearts and on our spiritual imagination in ways that a systematic theology text wouldn't. This book will do things for you that no other book can

quite do. That's what it's done for me. This book helps me love Jesus more, helps me persevere more, helps me anticipate heavenly worship more, helps me understand the unfolding of history more, helps me think about angels more, just in unique ways. It's such a unique book. I remember a sermon on revelation and a child came up afterwards had drawn a picture during the sermon. And they said that was my favorite sermon. I didn't get bored once. And I remember thinking, you know, that's the wisdom of the Lord. Theologians should never be above this more evocative literature that God gave us in his wisdom because it speaks to different parts of our humanity. It speaks to children, for example. And so our task is to submit to what God is given, enter into the imagery, and allow it to

have its full effect upon us. And as we immerse ourselves in the thought world of the text, I suspect like me, you'll find this as gripping and dramatic and as edifying as you can imagine. Second introductory comment, revelation is not impossible to interpret. This is a point I like to make because sometimes I think because it's so difficult to interpret, we just give up and we despair of making any progress and we just stop studying it. And I would want to encourage us away from that. We should have humility, fear and trembling. Even if you don't understand every detail, by the way, you can still be tremendously edified by this book. But I think we can make some progress, difficult as it is, and I think the key that I'm going to propose here will be understanding the

literary genre of this book. Revelation is not just described as a prophecy as we just saw, and it's not just functioning as a circulatory letter, which it did for its initial readers. it is also properly classified as an apocalypse. And that literary genre conveys how it shapes, shapes how it conveys meaning. I'm recording this late at night. I'll probably misspeak a couple times here. Thanks for your patience on that.

So this is a genre of literature that many of us don't have any context for, and that's why we find the book so bewildering. And so this is really a key that can help us unlock so much about it. This literary genre was familiar to John's first century, readers. So they had an advantage that we don't have. Not only because there were other non-biblical books of this genre, but importantly because it has biblical precedent. The Night Visions of Zechariah, certain sections of Daniel and Ezekiel, books like this. By the way, if you just read the

Night Visions of Zechariah alone, Chapter 1, verse 7 of Zechariah to Chapter 6, verse 8, those will help you make so much progress in Revelation. There's a lot of intertextuality. And the other thing is this, Revelation is alluding to the Old Testament constantly. Some scholars estimate there are hundreds of illusions in the book of Revelation. It's just packed with illusions, not quotes always, some quotes, but a lot of illusions. And so all of the imagery we find, the scrolls and the bowls and the censors and the seals and so forth, all of that is drawn straight out of the Old Testament. That's going to be the key for us every step along the way is interpreting the book in light of its literary genre and the Old Testament.

background of thought. Third point, revelation is not literal. Based upon the literary genre, I take the view that revelation is describing real historical events. It's not, for example, just stating timeless principles in a vivid way, but it is not describing historical events in a literal way. Now, I've discovered as a pastor and someone doing theology, that many Christians are uncomfortable with non-literal ways of communicating. And we are just going to have to let that go in order to understand this book. It really is impossible to read revelation consistently if you take everything literally. That is just not how apocalyptic literature works.

And sometimes people resist the non-literal because they feel it is somehow less truthful or less historical or less worthy in some way. And I just want to point out that historicity and literality, are not the same thing. You can have true history conveyed in non-literal ways, and I think that's what Revelation is doing. It's interested in real historical events, but it's describing them with symbols and images and so forth. Now, if that's right, then there are two dangers we should steer away from. One is over-reading the book, a hyper-literal view that is trying to draw fanciful connections all over the place that are not plausible, would in no way be recognized by the original

readers, but the other danger that we can fall into is underreading it, where we just give up the task and we're not interested in this book at all. That leads to my fourth comment, what historical events is Revelation describing? This is where I might freak some people out. I hope I don't lose you. Hang with me. I hope you'd give my proposal here an open heart, even though it'll be challenging and surprising at points. So, for example, is Revelation talking about the past or the future? You know, when is it describing things? Now, godly Christians disagree about this question, how to interpret the book. There are broadly four dominant interpretative strategies for the book of Revelation.

Let's oversimplify them to describe it like this. You've got preterism says it's all in the past. Futurism, which says it's all in the future. Historicism, which says it's throughout church history. And idealism, which says it's timeless. And the approach that I'm going to be putting forward in this video is called partial preterism. Partial here simply means that some of the events described were in the past, others are in the future, and more specifically, the framework I'll be putting forward broadly locates chapters 6 through 19 as first century events, culminating in the destruction of the Jewish temple and Jerusalem in 70 AD, and chapters 20 to 22 as looking ahead through the church age into the distant future, including events to events that are still future for us as well. Now, I've said more about partial preterism in this video. You can check out on YouTube. It's a little bit older. It's titled, The Antichrist, the Great Tribulation, and the Millennium, End Times Triash. And I'll explain why I go into a fuller case there. I also get into it a little bit throughout this video, just to summarize a little bit of where I'm coming from, hoping not to alienate anybody right out of the gate. I respect the idealist instinct. And I see it as an honorable and understandable desire to,

to interpret the text well, the challenge that I see with that view is the specificity of revelation. The highly detailed sequences of drama in this book seem to concern particular events, not just principles or ongoing patterns, and I struggle to see that idealism is the best way to make sense of that. For futurism and historicism, I have one major difficulty that I personally have not been able to resolve, and that is, why would John write? an urgent book to persecuted first century churches about events that are more than 2,000 years away and then tell them it's happening soon. This is what you get right out of the gate in the book of Revelation, these timetable references. These are not images. These are just plain assertions right

out of the gate at the beginning of the book that says this is going to show you things that must soon take place. And then it says the time is near. And a partial preteris framework allows me to take the words soon and near as meaning soon and near, as I think the original hearers would have just naturally taken those words. It also allows you to be fully orthodox in your eschatology affirming a future second coming, future resurrection, final judgment, and final state. I also think this coordinates really well with the rest of the New Testament, especially the Olivet discourse. The words of our Lord, also. apocalyptic, by the way, Matthew 24, Mark 13, Luke 21, which also have this language of

imminence. There's this expectation churning throughout the New Testament that something is about to happen here. This generation will not pass away until these things take place. And I've argued elsewhere that before this generation passes away really does mean before this generation passes away, just like the people standing there hearing Jesus say that would have naturally taken that. Similarly, with the time frame of Matthew 16, some of you standing here will not taste death before you see the son of man coming in his kingdom, and the same with Matthew 1023. You'll not finish going through the cities of Israel before you come. Now, I want to honor how the original listeners to these passages would have taken these words and not do gymnastics to

trying to get around the sort of natural plain meaning that they would have had for them, even while we oppose full preterism and maintain a future final second coming of Christ. And so we're going to talk about the way certain historical judgments can participate in and anticipate, but not exhaust, the full consummation of that event. We'll get into that as we go. Just explaining now in my conscience, this is how, this is the best way to put it all together, The partial preterist view makes sense of the genre of the book, the Old Testament background. Also, the book's tone, this urgent, visceral, local, grief-soaked, confrontational book.

It just reads like a book that's written right into the teeth of a crisis, not about one that's speculative and distant. And I'll try to document the particular events that I think from 67 to 70 AD have remarkable resonance with much of the texture. of Revelation 6 to 19. However, I'm trying to lay my cards on the table, not alienate you out of the gate. Let me say there are challenges for my position. There are challenges to a partial prederous reading. One of the biggest ones is you have to go for a pre-70-A.D. date to this book. That is possible, and Ken Gentry's book has made a pretty powerful case for that, but a lot of, the majority of scholars disagree with that. And so trying to be honest about that, that's the challenge we have to work through. I also just want to emphasize that many godly Christians

read Revelation differently, and I'm not really trying to coerce you like you have to read it my way. I guess I could put this video forward in the spirit of inviting you to see this as one plausible interpretative framework for the chapter-by-chapter flow of this book. And then just to invite you to prayerfully do your own study on this. If all I accomplish here is I get you to engage with this book of the Bible more, that will itself be a victory. And again, I want to emphasize that for the main points of revelation, which all Orthodox Christians share, like the second coming, final resurrection, final judgment, and the final state, you can see the video I put out one week from the release of this one called Are the End Times Here. That shouldn't be hard to find on YouTube. That's where I give my overall framework for end times. Now, I do want to say this, to defend myself a little bit, if somebody out there is thinking, why in the world, does Gavin have all these weird views, you know. He's saying things, and I thought I liked him. I could this all the time. People are like, well, I thought I liked this guy. And then he started saying this, and I realized

he believes this over here. And it's, you know, and I guess one sort of invitation I could say is that how we define something as weird depends upon the framework we're coming from and what we perceive to be normal. And I would simply lovingly protest that the views that I hold on this topic and others are informed by historic Christianity. And so sometimes they are perceived to be weird by modern-day evangelicals, especially American evangelicals, because the sort of bandwidth that we bring to the table is itself eccentric. And in my last video, I argued for this, that contemporary Christians just have different instincts about the end times. And so I guess I want to protest, my view is not weird when it's measured by global historical Christianity. It's

well within the grooves. For example, the early church historian Eusebius, known as the father of church history. When he's describing the Roman siege on Jerusalem in his history text, he's drawing a lot from Josephus, and he just sort of takes it for granted. It doesn't even argue for it, that this is a fulfillment of the Olivet discourse, which is the text we'll be drawing from a lot in this video because it parallels a lot of revelations so closely, arguably, I'll argue for that. And this is very common, okay? the recognition of first century fulfillment of many of these texts is a common view throughout church history, even if you didn't have the term and the system, partial preterism as such. So I'd just say that to invite consideration an open heart.

Fifth introductory comment, the important point we want to emphasize in this video is edification. This video is not a verse by verse commentary, and there be lots of things in a typical commentary we were not doing, think of this video rather as an overall sketch of how the book hangs together. So we'll go chapter by chapter rather than verse by verse, getting the overall bird's eye view of how the flow of thought works for the book of Revelation. So you have a sense of like, oh, okay, that's what Revelation 8 is doing. That's what Revelation 9 is doing and so forth. And the hope is that that'll encourage more study of this book. And with all of that, I'm going to draw out pastoral and devotional themes a lot because I would love for this video to serve pastors preaching through

revelation so that you could use this or a Bible study or whatever it might be for or even just personal devotional reading. And I emphasize this point because some people when they hear, you think Revelation 6 to 19 is talking about events that are in the past, well, then it's not pastorally relevant to us anymore. But that is not how the Bible works. Just think about the Old Testament and so many prophetical texts describing a historical event that is in the past, say the Babylonian exile, but we still preach on them and use them devotionally. Some of the themes that I hope will resonate in your heart in terms of pastoral emphasis are these perseverance and this beautiful word overcome. The book of Revelation should make us desire to overcome this world by persevering with faith in Christ amidst brutal powers against us. The heavenly worship of God.

Oh, if there's anything that resonates as you just read through the book, it's this sense of the echoing worship of heaven where the saints and angels are. It's beautiful. A third one is the triumph of God over evil. I once heard, I think it was D.A. Carson. Give a great sermon on a portion of Revelation, and the point of a sermon was simply God wins. I thought that is a great point of emphasis to have in the book of Revelation. Then the Book of Revelation will do that in your heart as well.

And lastly, the Book of Revelation has a high Christology or a high view of Jesus. If there is any book in the Bible that will steer you away from a boring heaven and a wimpy Jesus, that is the book of Revelation. And that will happen, even if you don't know what the word wormwood or Armageddon means or who the destroyer is of Revelation 9 and all these details we're going to work through. Years ago, in fact, I was studying Revelation and I compiled in my journal all the names or titles of Jesus in this book, which I'll now put on screen, which will just overwhelm your eyes. I won't read through them, but it's absolutely thrilling to get this sense of the Lord Jesus, even just in Chapter 1 when he appears to John. This book will help you love and worship

Jesus more. Before diving in, I want to do a book recommendation. I don't know how to pronounce Joel's last name. Joel, if you watch this, I am sorry. I think it's Joel Mudamal. But I might be completely butchering that, but I will hope to make it up by bragging about his book because it's really great. The unseen battle, spiritual warfare, the three rebellions, and Christ. victory over darkness. Have you heard about this book? It's new. Draws a lot from Michael Heiser. And I really love it because it goes against both the unhealthy obsession that we have with the supernatural, but it also pushes against the desupernaturalized worldview we tend to bring to the table. And so this is a helpful guide for thinking about divine counsel theory. If you've heard about

that, you've wondered, what does that mean? Or just you want to understand spiritual warfare and angels and demons and so forth in the Bible. Highly recommended. I'm going to put a link to that in the video description. I was honored to write a blurb for that. Thank you, Joel. Sorry if I got your name wrong. Right, let's dive in, chapter by chapter.

Here we go, chapter one. Now, the most important part of any book is the beginning, arguably, and that is true with Revelation. Chapter one functions as a kind of introduction or prologue to the book, and without going verse by verse, but simply looking at the overall function of chapter one in the larger flow of thought, we can just observe how this chapter tells us what kind of book we're dealing with. So first, the first verse describes it as a revelation or apocalypse. You can see that

Greek word on screen there. This is, hence the title of the book, this word conveys something being revealed or something being made known or something being disclosed or something being unveiled. Think of the clouds parting and then you see something you haven't seen before. Like when Daniel says to Nebuchadnezzar, there's a God in heaven who reveals mysteries. And specifically, Revelation introduces itself as a revealing or unveiling of future events. You can see the purpose clause on screen here in Bolden to show his servants of things that must soon take place. So what is Revelation? It's an unveiling of the future.

What's about to happen? What's soon going to take place? We also see in verse one that the book is visual in nature with the verb, show, and then all throughout John is going to say over and over again, I saw. And it's given to John, Jesus's servant John. That's traditionally interpreted as John the apostle that's disputed today. I'm not going to get into that in this video. I told you this is not a commentary. It's going to be long enough as is. We have a specific goal here, just going through the big picture flow of thought. And we also learn in verse four of chapter one that this book functions as a letter. It's addressed in the

typical epistolary format that you find in other New Testament letters, the author first, and then the subjects, and then a greeting. And it's here written to these seven churches throughout Asia Minor. The number seven is going to come up over and over throughout the book. I think it occurs 36 times in the book. The number seven, if I remember, there's a lot of symbolic significance to numbers in Revelation, which we'll touch on. The rest of chapter one gives you a little more information about the book. John is in exile on the island of Patmos when he receives this visual revelation from Jesus. I'll put up a picture of where Patmos is so you can see. It's just fun to think about, you know, this really happened, you know? Imagining it happened is amazing. And once again,

the visual nature of the book is clear here. John sees this revelation and then he writes down what he sees and then he sends it to these seven churches. Now, there's a lot more going on in chapter one. The seven lamp stands, for example. But the big picture here is pretty clear. John is on Patmos. He has visions. The visions are a revelation from God about future events. He's supposed to write those things down and send them to these seven churches. Okay. The last thing I just want to highlight is the doxology in verses five to seven, where you get an early expression of the key theme of this book, and that's the unveiling of Jesus himself, specifically for the purpose of judgment. And here he's depicted as coming with the clouds. Every eye shall see.

him, even those who pierced him, and all the tribes of the earth, or many times don't this book where you have the earth that can also be translated, the tribes of the land in verse seven there, shall see him. Now, all Christians, as I discussed in my last video, must believe in a future second coming at the end of history. But sometimes historical events employ and participate in similar language and imagery as they anticipate that unique event. You find this in other cases, too, like the Day of the Lord in Joel refers to this historical event with locusts, the locust invasion, but ultimately it awaits the final day of the Lord. And this is tricky because biblical prophecy has these complexities to it, like layered fulfillment, sometimes a typological unfolding. And so we just want to keep an open mind here.

We need to bear this in mind as we read Revelation. We don't want to take away from the sense of urgency and imminence that's reflected at points in the text, but we also want to honor the uniqueness of these events that will occur at the end of history, and the goal is to hold this together, the more local and immediate, with the more distant and cosmic, in a way that's theologically responsible and authentic to the text. That is what partial preterism is trying to do. And ultimately, I want to say revelation points us ahead, future for us as well, to the second coming of Christ, but much of what is in view throughout its body may be a more specific focus of a coming in judgment

on apostate Israel, those who rejected their Messiah, and that is an anticipation of the second coming, and we'll explore that as we go. Okay, I told you, we're going big picture, especially these first few chapters. When we get to chapter six of Revelation, chapter 8, chapter 11, chapter 13, I don't know, those are going to be. be long. So we're going to go quick because you'll see why those are long when we get there. We're aiming for flow of thought big picture here. Okay, chapters two and three. I'm not going to spend a lot of time on these. As tempting as it is, because these seven letters are my favorite corner of the entire Bible. I've preached through these. You could come maybe find my sermons back

at First Baptist Church of Ohio on the website. If you want to do to see my sermons on them, if you're interested in what I have to say about them, if you're interested in some good books on these. John Stott is a great older book on these seven sermons and then Sam Storm's book, to the One Who Conquers, a great book. Boy, I can't hold these up in the right placement. Check these out if you want to go a little deeper on this topic. But because we're just trying to get the flow of thought here, and we're going to camp out in other parts, it's sufficient just to say that at this point these letters serve as specific and personal unveilings of a message of Christ to these particular seven churches before the broader message that comes to the rest of the

church. Some interpreters have suggested that these seven churches in Revelation 2 and 3 symbolize successive eras of church history, but that view lacks any grounding in the text or the early church. One crucial thing to notice is that Revelation begins not with timelines or beasts or dragons, but with this more a personal address of Christ, and that flavors the whole book. And he talking, these letters are so poignant. He's talking about faithfulness and suffering and so forth. And that pastoral concern never goes away in the rest of the book. I love. My favorite part of these letters is the way Jesus starts off saying, I know. So inspiring just to think about this. Jesus looks into your life situation today with that same omniscience. He says, I know. He says the same

about your church. I know exactly what's happening. That's what Revelation does. The unveiling of realizing, ah, there's a spiritual realm going on all around us, right? Perhaps my favorite part of these is Jesus expressing his pride and pleasure in Antipus, his, by calling him as my faithful witness. In Revelation 2.13, oh, I could preach a whole sermon just on those three words. Just I love, I mean, amidst the horrific suffering going on in Pergamum, where Polycarp would later be killed. Brutal context.

I remember what Satan's throne is referring to in this passage, go check out my sermon on that. utterly brutal persecution, savage. And yet the people suffering there, Jesus looked down on them and says, ah, that's my faithful. He didn't have to describe Antipus that way. He says he's my faithful witness. And the pastoral conclusion just to think about is, don't we want to be faithful to Christ? Don't we want him to speak of us this way and find us faithful? All right, chapters four to five. Here we have a heavenly vision that precedes and grounds the historical judgments initiated in chapter six. And we're given a picture here of what is unfolding in heaven before the throne of God that results in the earthly events that will be described later. That's basically

what's happening. Now these events, what that tells you is these earthly judgments are authorized and redemptive. They come from the command center in heaven, from the control room of heaven. and it's also striking the worship that you find here. And this reverberates throughout the book. Revelation wants us to see that history moves forward not through power, but through the worthiness of the lamb. And I have heard it said that if you work through Revelation, the one thing that will keep echoing in your soul, even if you don't understand the details, is this vision of the grandeur of heavenly worship among the saints and angels. We need that right now in our world. That's why this book is so hope-inspiring. Think about this. When we worship God on earth on a Sunday morning or in your private worship, when you get in your prayer closet, get down on your knees and pray, you are participating

in what these mighty angels, the living creatures as they're described here, are doing right now. The worship of Jesus is ceaseless in heaven right now. But again, big picture here, this section is serving to introduce several important themes in the book. The most important thing in the larger flow of the book is the introduction of a scroll with writing on it and with seals, which you see chapter 5, verse 1. Now, like so many objects in the book of Revelation, this one has a rich significance in the Old Testament, where it's often used to express judgment, as in Ezekiel 2, for example, the prophet is shown a scroll and has words written on it of lamentation and judgment and woe. That sounds a lot like some of the language of

revelation. But in Revelation 5, the concern is, no one is worthy to open the scroll. role. And then it's announced that the lion of Judah, from the tribe of Judah, called the root of David as well, is able to open it. This is, of course, Jesus. And he's described as standing as though it had been slain. Now, the symbolic imagery here is this. We don't need to, of course, picture Jesus. I mean, it says he has seven horns and seven eyes. Now, that right there just cautions you, but trying to be too literal with the later images that are going to come after for this. Obviously, we don't need to picture Jesus as having seven horns. These are symbolic, even while they point to real truths. And so the point in the broader narrative flow, though,

is that the lamb has the worthiness to open the scrolls, and these are the scrolls that are going to start unfolding in Chapter 6 as calamities and judgments and woes upon the earth. And so what I want us to see in terms of the pastoral significance here is the scroll being opened in heaven, which we cannot see, is the ultimate determiner of what is happening on earth that we do see. And this is so helpful to be assured of this that the events of earth are not unfolding randomly. They are under the sovereign control of God in heaven whom we cannot see. He's actively working on his plan. This reminds me of the night visions of Zechariah as well. You know, you've got horses that are symbolizing angels and they return from patrolling the land, symbolizing the watchful activity

of angels throughout the world. It's thrilling. I mean, it chills up my spine in a good way, right? It's like, God is at work. We can't see everything he's doing. But the angels are patrolling right now today. Decisions made in heaven today affect what happens on earth. And every day is bringing us closer to the completion of God's purposes. Our lives in history matter because they're connected to the purposes of God unfolding in heaven. That's why being a Christian is so thrilling and fills history in our individual lives with meaning and coherence. So big picture, chapters 4 to 5, heavenly vision. Jesus can open the scroll that starts initiating judgments on earth. Now we're going to dive into chapter 6, and for several reasons we're going to slow down

at this point. We're really going to take our time. One of the reasons is the progression as I've said, this is where a lot of people stop. And so I want to try to help support further study here. Another reason, though, is that in terms of the structure of the book of Revelation, the progression from one chapter to the next is not strictly chronological. There's a kind of spiraling or recapitulation where earlier events are retold with kind of intensification as you go. So, for example, the seals of chapter six, and then the trumpets, of chapter 8, and arguably as well, the seven bowls of chapter 16. So what Revelation 6 introduces here, in terms of the historical events in view, I'm going to propose are still in view as you're

going forward all the way through chapter 19. So that's why Revelation 6 is so important. So we're going to do a lot of groundwork right now. Now, these judgments often come in groups of seven, and this may be because they draw from the covenantal language of curse, as you see in Leviticus 2618, for example, what is in view in these historical judgments is the result of God's chosen people breaking covenant by being unfaithful to him and ultimately rejecting the Jewish Messiah. Because we're going to develop this point so thoroughly, I want to be so crystal clear right up front that when Revelation speaks of the city of Jerusalem or the Jewish people or the people of Israel, as recipients of judgment, it is referencing a religious entity, not an ethnicity as such.

And I just want to emphasize this because sadly we see anti-Semitism increasing in the world right now. That is wrong, and there is nothing in Revelation or anywhere in the New Testament that supports that. Rather, what is being targeted here is the object of judgment is a religious. and covenantal identity. That is why so many of the righteous remnant who articulate this theology are themselves ethnically Jewish, like John himself, Jesus himself, of course, so many of the other early Christians. So what's being targeted here is the Jewish people as a religious entity represented by their leadership in Jerusalem, the Sanhedron, the priesthood, the sacrificial system, the temple worship, and so forth, this religious entity. And the book of Revelation can be

read as a kind of covenant lawsuit against that religious entity, basically serving to disestablish Jerusalem and this temple-centered set of covenant institutions. And that's why it's climatically resulting in the destruction of the temple, which results in the end of the sacrificial system, the end of the priesthood, and so forth. That does not mean that God's purposes for Israel failed. It does not mean the church and Israel are totally separate. But there is nonetheless a transition that takes place as certain old covenant institutions are ended. And so from a partial preterist perspective, this is essentially what the historical judgments being described in so many of these middle chapters are about.

When the Roman army marches to Jerusalem, lays siege of the city, and ultimately destroys it along with the temple in 70 AD. Now, we've lost touch with these historical events, even though they were absolutely world-shattering. and so we need to do a little reminding of what's going on here. Between 67 and 70 AD, Judea was engulfed in a catastrophic war with Rome. So Jewish resistance provoked the Roman Emperor Nero, about whom I'll have a lot to say, to dispatch General Vespasian, who eventually became emperor after Nero for about 10 years, to suppress the uprising.

and Vespasian, along with his son Titus, gradually reconquered the whole region, retaking Galilee in the surrounding territories, and then in AD 68, Nero commits suicide. And there's absolute chaos in Rome. I'll describe that a little later. And ultimately, Vespasian is declared the emperor, so he's back and he leaves Titus to complete the campaign. So there's a brief pause in these events. The spring of 70 AD, the Roman forces lay siege to Jerusalem under Titus as the leader now, By late August, the city is captured and the temple. Many other buildings are destroyed.

Basically, almost the whole city is destroyed. They leave a few things, as you can see on screen, a picture of the destruction. And it lingers a little bit into the fall. And I want to introduce the figure we're going to learn from about this, and that's Josephus, a Jewish historian who lived through all of this. He lived from about 37 to about 100 AD. He was a Jewish Pharisee and a historian and a military figure. you may have heard of him in connection to his references to Jesus. And you can see my interview with Tom Schmidt about that or his excellent new book that you may have heard of. Great book. But Josephus is also massively important for understanding late first century Christianity because he gives us a detailed eyewitness testimony just five years after the fact of these events. So, of course, some of what he says is disputed, but a lot of what he says can actually be confirmed by other historians like Soutonius and Tacitus. And amazing. Josephus was a general in the Jewish forces of resistance to this Roman attack.

Eventually he surrendered, and then he befriends Vespasian by giving him a favorable omen, who was at that time the Roman general later becomes the emperor. And then he works with Vespasian to try to persuade other Jews to surrender. Later, he's moved to Rome, and he writes a bunch of history books, and his book, The War of the Jews, is written in 75 AD, just five years after the destruction of the temple. So it's just amazing to have this firsthand detailed account written so soon after the events, even though we're not saying you have to accept everything he says. It's a tremendous resource.

So all of that is backdrop to have in mind. Now what I want to do is start reading Revelation 6, and I'm going to try to make the argument that this section of Revelation going through chapter 19 is talking about these events. Maybe I'll convince you, maybe I won't, but just consider it. Let's read through the first four seals. this references the famous four horsemen of the apocalypse. And we won't read through everything in these chapters, but this will give us a flavor as we start.

Revelation 6 verse 1. Now I watched when the lamb opened one of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures say, with a voice like thunder, come. And I looked and behold a white horse, and its rider had a bow. And a crown was given to him, and he came out conquering and to conquer.

When he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, come, and out came another horse bright red. Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that people should slay one another, and he was given a great sword. When he opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, come,

and I looked and behold a black horse, and its rider had a pair of scales in his hand, and I heard what seemed to be a voice in the midst of the four living creatures saying, a quart of wheat for a denarius and three quarts of barley for a denarius and do not harm the oil and wine. When he opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, come, and I looked and behold a pale horse, and its rider's name was death, and Hades followed him, and they were given authority over a fourth of the earth to kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence

and by wild beasts of the earth. So, big picture here. We have four. horses, different colors, and they each have a rider holding different objects. I'll put up one historical painting of these four horsemen. You've got a white horse whose rider has a bow, a red horse whose rider has a sword, a black horse whose rider has scales, and a pale horse, or sometimes it's pale green horse whose rider is death followed by Hades. Now each of these symbolizes something. The white horse symbolizes military power. The red horse symbolizes the district of peace. The black horse symbolizes famine, and the pale green horse symbolizes death. Why do we say famine for number three, by the way? This is pretty agreed upon the basic

symbology here. In the ancient world, food was distributed by rationed amounts when it became scarce through the use of scales. So when you have this voice accompanying horse number three, we can appreciate that a denarius was about a day's wages, and a quart of wheat is about a day's food supply, three quarts of barley could feed maybe a family for a day. Those are very rough figures. So this is way more expensive than was typical at that time. Beale's commentary, great commentary I'll say more about later, says maybe eight to 16 times the average. So the basic point here is to emphasize that people will not be able to afford enough food for their families. This is an image of scarcity. If you imagine going to the grocery store and you can't go in, there's a distribution line

up front. They're measuring things very carefully. And someone on a megaphone is saying $50 for a dozen eggs, $40 for a gallon of milk, and the sense of fear that would come into your heart of, can I provide for my family? That's the image here. Okay, so you have military threat, disruption of peace, famine, and death. Now, if you wanted to summarize the effect of the events of 67 to 70 AD for Jerusalem, and the surrounding people. These four terms do a pretty accurate job. A military threat advances

disrupting the Pax Romana that generated the general peace that existed during the height of the Roman Empire. And the result is massive famine and death. And famine here is perhaps a distinguishing characteristic of the siege of Jerusalem, especially so. Josephus has an absolutely brutal account of how the city began to turn on itself as the hunger wore on. Inside the city of Jerusalem, he uses the imagery of a beast that starts to eat itself alive for Jerusalem in those brutal middle months of 70 AD. During that five-month period of time, as the city is surrounded and supply lines are cut off, the price of grain soars. And people begin to turn each other as desperate hunger causes friends and family to, you know, steal from each other as things are getting increasingly

scarce. Drosifus mentions children with swollen bellies. Remember, women and children are still in the city. He recounts one particularly nightmare story of a mother eating her own child. That's famous. You'll probably hear about that. Terrible. During this time, the absolute worst of human nature, it does its work. I won't describe anything else about that. Many, many die from starvation. or illnesses related to lack of food. And meanwhile, the Romans are slowly advancing further and further all during this time, crucifying captives of war outside the city gates, engaging in psychological warfare of various kinds like the Romans would do.

In the early stages, Titus offers peace offerings, and Josephus, at this point loyal to the Romans, is urging those inresistance to stop and to give up. And he's positioning himself as like the prophet Jeremiah calling on upon the Lord and so forth, to read all of this, but the people refuse. And whether they're afraid of being tortured or what would they believe God is on their side, for whatever reason, they will not. Some people are leaving. Some people give up. People keep fighting. And when the city and temple are finally breached, the Romans unleash an indiscriminate massacre of those inside. Even people begging for mercy are slaughtered. Lots of those resisting are committing suicide as the end draws near, because that'll be

better than what the Romans will do. At one point, Josephus tells us about 6,000 people, including women and children, seek refuge in a colonnade in the outer court. The Romans set fire to it, burning them all to death. There is tremendous looting. Here's a famous painting of the destruction of the temple. Josephus recounts the burning of the temple was... Josephus says it wasn't ordered by Titus, but his soldiers did it anyway. But that's disputed in the scholarship, whether that's historically accurate.

Some people think Josephus is trying to protect Titus's reputation or retaliation for burning the temple. But the point is, this is an absolute bloodbath. And you can see why our Lord says of this episode, alas, for women who are pregnant and for those who are nursing infants in those days, pray that your flight may not be in the winter or on a Sabbath. For then there will be a great tribulation, just has never been from the beginning of the world until now and no will never be. And I'll say more about why the specific focus at that section of Matthew 24 really does seem to be on Judea and these events and so forth and all the situationally specific language. you know, if you're in the hills, do this, when you see the Roman Army's getting near, do that, and so forth, it seems to be referencing this historical event. That's the whole question that occasions the Olivet discourse is, look at these beautiful buildings, and Jesus is saying,

not one stone will be left upon another. It's exactly what happened. Now, I'm not going to go into detail about the fifth seal, which is about martyr vindication, which is an important aspect of historical judgments, but that's such a beautiful section. If you're preaching, you've got to camp out on that. The sixth seal uses the language of decreation to describe this judgment. So the sun goes dark, the moon turns to blood, the stars are falling from the sky, and so forth. Now this is part of the judgment specifically unleashed by the wrath of the lamb coming to judge. And many object to this language being employed for a historical event. But I would like to just propose to you that this is done all the time throughout the Old Testament. I'll just put up one example from Isaiah 13. I'll just put up one example

from Isaiah 13, describing the judgment of Babylon using the same kind of decreational language. This is a poetic way of describing an earth-shattering event. You can understand if you're going through this, why it's going to feel like the stars are falling out of the sky, and the sun is turned to darkness, and the moon is turned to blood, and so forth. And that language is common in the Old Testament for historical events, Isaiah 34, Ezekiel 32, Jeremiah, for example. So again, we want to interpret revelation consistently. with the Old Testament and its imagery. It's which it is drawing from. So think of the destruction

of Jerusalem as so catastrophic that it feels like the sky itself is falling. That's how the imagery works. And the Old Testament prophets do this for wars and sieges and so forth. It's not just abstract. It reflects what people experienced. It was, even our word, earth shattering, is kind of getting at that same idea, right? I mean, for example, toward the end of Revelation 6, you have people hiding in rocks and caves, calling on the mountains to fall on them, to save them from the wrath of the lamb and so forth. Josephus recounts that exact kind of desperation in Jerusalem in that final horrific stretch as people are clamoring under the city, finding any pocket to hide in, starving to death still,

and the Roman armies are pressing relentlessly as they go. Ken Gentry, who's a partial preterist, cites a number of passages in Josephus, where exactly this kind of thing is happening in the siege, of Jerusalem, and he notes that even some non-preterists admit this is a compelling fit for the imagery of this cataclysmic historical event. So, if you think that Revelation 6 is describing this event, you would preach this passage, kind of like you'd preach in Isaiah 13 or in Isaiah 34, these historical judgments. A sermon on Revelation 6 could spend a lot of time on God's justice against evil and God's vindication of his servants, drawing from this beautiful prayer of the martyrs in verses 9 through

11. In a partial preterist view, a chapter like Revelation 6 is very similar to much of the rest of our Bible. So that's how a broad overview of this chapter. Now, at some point, people are going to say, that's a terrible reading. Of course not. No, it has to be future. The sixth seal, for example, sounds much more cosmic in scope than a historical judgment like this, even with the Old Testament precedent. Or someone could say, maybe possible, but why you don't have to read it that way. Or someone might say, wow, this is kind of interesting. The destruction of Jerusalem seems like a pretty big deal. The book does say these events are going to happen soon, and the events have some level of correspondence. So, you know, you could have any different reaction at this point.

That's fair. We don't really have enough information to go. What I want to do is keep going and show how this, as the recapitulations occur, the succeeding chapters bring the blurriness into focus more and more and make this historical connection more and more plausible, even with some pretty remarkable details in a few cases. Chapter 7. Revelation 7 is the first of three interludes that interrupt the narrative of judgment in the book. The next one starts in chapter 10, goes through the middle of chapter 11, where it delays the seventh trumpet, just as this interlude delays the seventh seal, the very dramatic pause. And then the third interlude is in the millennium of Revelation 20, 1 through 6. All three of these pause the terrible judgments to describe God's protective care

for his people, in bold contrast to the destruction of the wicked being conveyed. And so the point is, even as God is orchestrating this judgment, he's also providing for his people. throughout the book you have this juxtaposition of these two different peoples with their two different outcomes later it'll be the prostitute drunk with the blood of the martyrs versus the bride adorned for her wedding day here in chapter seven you have god's people portrayed with the idealized number of 144 thousand that's 12,000 times 12 the 12 tribes of Israel and they're marked with a seal on their forehead, as you can see on screen to protect them. This is an image that these individuals have been personally marked and designated by God. It's an expression of their belonging to God and God's

protective care over them. And the seal here contrasts with the mark of the beast in Chapter 13. You get all these parallelisms and juxtapositions that are going on. Now, whenever the text itself interpretses one of the images, we want to pay attention to the interpretation. Here, John is told by one of the elders, that these are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. So a plausible, big picture interpretation of Revelation 7 is that this is about God's protection of those who are his own people during this terrible tribulation. One way you can see this truth playing out historically is God allowing people to flee the city before it is attacked. And we get a fuller picture of this from the Olivet discourse. You remember, you know, again, from a part of

preterist perspective, the Olivet discourse is describing the same events. And so this will explain a lot of the resonance you get between them. I mean, later on, we're going to talk about Luke 21 and Revelation 11. It just looks like the same thing, the trampling of the Holy City, Jerusalem. We'll talk about that later. But, by the way, 42 months roughly corresponds from spring 67 to 70 AD. All of that is to come. I'm going to try to, I know some of you won't be convinced yet, but I'm going to try to build the case and a lot of the better arguments come as you progress throughout this book. But for now, I just want to draw attention to this language of Jesus in the Olivet discourse where he basically says, and I won't read through all of this, when you see Jerusalem

surrounded, get out of town while you still can. Get up to the mountains. If you're in Judea, get out of there. It's going to be bad. And that, you know, that is very geographically specific language. I mean, he's literally saying when Jerusalem is surrounded. And so in this light, it is very significant that the Roman siege halts when Nero commits suicide 68 AD. And there's about a year delay or so that would allow some people to leave. Some partial preterists interpret the winds being held back here in Revelation 7-1 as a restraining of judgment, a holding of the winds of judgment. This is the kind of direct connection. I always try to be honest, when there's certain interpretive judgments I'm less certain about. I'm not real sure about that, but I'm more confident of the general principle of

God's protection for his people envisioned here in this chapter. But I mention that for your consideration. And I will say this. Both Eusebius and Epiphanius report stories of ways God preserves his people during this historical judgment by means of an exodus of believers from Jerusalem prior to the outbreak of these events. Here's Eusebius. Quote, but the people of the church in Jerusalem had been commanded by our revelation, vouchsafed to approved men there before the war to leave the city and to dwell in a certain town of Peria called Pella.

And when those that believed in Christ had come there from Jerusalem, then as if the royal city of the Jews and the whole land of Judea were entirely destitute of holy men, the judgment of God at length over. overtook those who had committed such outrages against Christ and his apostles and totally destroyed that generation of impious men. So you see what Ezebius is trying to say there. He's trying to say, Jesus gave a revelation to the church in Jerusalem. They got out of there. Similarly, Epiphanius describes a particular sect of Jewish believers and the place that they live and then comments, for that was its place of origin since all the disciples had settled in Pella after their removal

from Jerusalem. Christ having told them to abandon Jerusalem and withdrawing, from it because of the siege it was about to undergo. Now, let me just be clear here. I'm trying not to overreach just yet. I am not saying you have to accept uncritically Eusebius's or Epiphanius' accounts, though they are apparently independent, which is interesting, and they both mention Pella as the destination and a divine warning from Christ. But there clearly is some kind of story of Christians escaping. And the point is that this is the kind of event that Revelation 7 might be describing. And that is this kind of watchful protection reflected in the ceiling and marking of God's people. What is reflected in the way this will preach for you if you're a preacher is what we need to

understand is what's conveyed with the ceiling is this powerful sense. God's not going to let one of his children slip through the cracks. He's watching over everybody. Now, as an illustration of this, of this watchful and yet often hidden protective care of God that Revelation 7, I think, is portraying, consider an image from C.S. Lewis's That Hidious Strength, where there's a historical judgment that falls on a city there called Edgstow. And then Lewis describes how people left the city before the judgment took place. Listen to how he describes this. We have plenty of stories as to how so many people came to leave it at the last moment. They filled the papers for weeks and lingered in private talks, months, and in the end became a joke. No, I don't want to hear how you got out of Edgstow came to be a catchphrase. But behind all the exaggerations, there remains the undoubted truth that quite an astonishing number of citizens left the town just in time. One had had a message from a dying father. Another had decided, quite suddenly, though he couldn't just say why, to go and take a little holiday. Another went because the pipes in his house had been burst by the frost, and he thought he

might as well go away till they were put right. Not a few had gone because of some trivial event which seem to them an omen, a dream, a broken-looking glass, tea leaves in a cup. And he goes on for a while. I won't quote on and on. Try not to have too much text on screen. But this is the kind of thing that revelation might conjure up to our minds. Horrific judgment, but right in the midst of it, God has sealed his people. He's marking them and he's protecting them. And based up on the words of Christ in the Olivet discourse, yeah, I think we can trust the providence of God to withdraw his people. that are not meant to undergo that judgment from the city at that time. And the point for us to make pastorally is, for you and me today,

God has the same meticulous care for us. Okay? This doesn't mean that we will never suffer, far from it, but it does mean he is watching over us carefully. The hairs on your head are all numbered. Your days are all written. Your tears are collected in his bottle. These are all biblical images.

And here we'll add this one. You have a seal on your forehead. Okay. one person was left in the city of Jerusalem that God didn't allow to be there. Nobody felt through the cracks, and we can entrust our lives to the Lord as well, knowing he's watching over us in the same way, even though we can't see it. Again, Revelation is the unveiling of that reality that we cannot see. Chapter 8, here the chronicling of judgment continues. So you have the seventh seal, and then seven trumpets, which recapitulate the seven seals, but with an escalation at points.

So in other words, they rehearse the same dramatic judgment from a different angle of vision. And then there are these various intensifications like the transition from one-fourth of the land to one-third of the land. And what I want to do here is work through several points of resonance between the text of scripture and what we know about these historical events from Josephus and submit it to you as an interpretive possibility that is reasonable, that the text of scripture is indeed foretelling these events. Some of these connections might seem more fanciful or forced, so I'm not saying you have to take

them all, but you could at least say this, that if you're looking for some kind of historical instantiation of these events, you could find it. So, for example, the seventh seal concludes by saying an angel throws down the sensor to earth, resulting in thunder, rumblings, lightning, and an earthquake seemingly to anticipate the judgment's about to arrive. And we We have from Josephus a report that during preparations among the Jewish forces prior to the arrival of General Titus and his troops, there broke out a prodigious storm in the night with the utmost violence and very strong winds, with the largest showers of rain, with continued lightnings, terrible thundrings, and amazing concussions and bellowings of the earth that was in an earthquake.

These things were a manifest indication that some destruction was coming upon men, when the system of the world was put into this disorder, and anyone would guess that these wonders foreshadowed some grand calamities that were coming. Then we read through the first four trumpets. I'm not going to read through all of these. Let me just sort of summarize a little bit of what we've got here. We've got, I'll put these on screen, and you can see we've got fire and hail with the first trumpet and burning up the land. You've got it the second trumpet, a great mountain being thrown into the sea causing mass death and destruction of ships. With the third trumpet, you've got a star falling from heaven, blazing like a torch.

You've got, and it's called Wormwood, and it turns the water bitter. And then with the fourth one, you've got this cosmic imagery of a third of the stars falling and being darkened and so forth. So with the first trumpet, we have fire burning up the land. this would be an evocative image for the Roman army intruding into Jerusalem and all these surrounding territories having what really was elements of a scorched earth policy that could well be described by these references of fire and burning. It wasn't just Jerusalem that they burned. Roman forces earlier under Raspasian on their march toward Jerusalem are just massacring everybody, burning cities, other surrounding territories as well. I'll put up one example of this from Josephus' account here with the city Gadara. But these are a diamond dozen.

You find all kinds of these things. The Romans had sophisticated siege technology, catapults, ballistae, fire-bearing projectiles, massive siege towers reinforced against flames. So when you think of scenes from Gladiator where you've got flying, you know, objects through the air, smashing into the opponent's army and that kind of thing, That has a historical basis in Roman warfare, and you can imagine how terrifying this would be, and they would burn cities to the ground. Now, with the second trumpet, you have the sea turning to blood, resulting in death and bloodshed in the sea. Josephus recounts how Jewish forces obtained control over the seas near Syria, Phoenicia, and Egypt, so that no one could sail there.

They were the Jewish sailors reacting like pirates, so no one can use that area. and he describes a violent wind called the Black North Wind coming and smashing all their ships into each other, smashing into the rocks, people are dying so much. Many are committing suicide with the sword so they won't drown. And the result is, in so much that the sea was bloody a long way and the maritime parts were full of dead bodies, where the Romans came upon those that were carried to the shore

and destroyed them. And the number of the bodies that were thus thrown out of the sea was 4,200. the Romans also took the city without opposition and utterly demolished it. You don't need to presume there's disputes, of course, about Josephus's numbers. You don't need to presume that's true to get the general sense here. Later, there's a similar thing in the Sea of Galilee. The Jewish forces have these smaller ships designed for piracy,

and so the Roman forces under Vespasian just demolish them. And Josephus recounts just the brutal scene of the Roman, the Jewish soldiers and pirates are throwing rocks at the Romans, don't do anything. They just bounce off their armor while they themselves are being stabbed with darts and arrows and spears and so forth. The Romans had superior technology. And so, you know, he's recounting how at times the Jewish sailors are jumping out of their ship, swimming to the Romans boats and asking for mercy, only to have either their head chopped off or their hands chopped off, leaving them to drown in the water. And it's just the, there's several of these scenes

of water warfare described by Josephus in the context of this entire war. And they're brutal. Here's a passage from this, the Sea of Galilee. One might then see the lake all bloody and full of dead bodies, for not one of them escaped. This was the upshot of the sea fight, the number of the slain, including those that were killed in the city before was 6,500. We find similar language for destruction in the Dead Sea, which is referenced here by a different name, but that's the Dead Sea he's talking about, this full of body, dead bodies that are carried down into it by a river. So you can see why some of us might find this a plausible possibility for the kind of thing envisioned with the second trumpet here. Remember that John softens the language of

something like a great mountain falling into the sea. This isn't inviting photographic literalism. This is apocalyptic imagery describing real historical devastation, but you using images. Okay, and what Josephus describes, the sea filled with blood, massive death in the water, boats destroyed, corpses choking the shoreline, air corrupted by decay. This is intriguingly close at the level of rhetorical effect of the text. Think about it like this. If you wanted to warn people about the sea warfare coming with an apocalyptic image, how else would you say it? It's pretty, You know, here's the thing with Revelation. For modern readers, a mountain getting chucked into the sea makes us think about asteroids

and things like this. But an Old Testament and Second Temple Jewish thought, this would not unnaturally conjure up war and military images. Mountains often symbolize kingdoms and being thrown down often symbolizes judgment. So a burning Roman war machine crashing into Galilee and Judea and setting everything on fire fits this symbolic imagery quite well. The same is true for the third trumpet, where you have this bitter water.

This seems to be envisioning the kind of thing that you can imagine. I'm not trying to draw direct certain correlations, but I'm trying to give a plausible example of the kind of thing that would be a result of the warfare in the Sea of Galilee, where Josephus recounts this horrific stench from the rotting corpses.

I won't read that. A lot of gross stuff coming in this video, by the way. ancient warfare is pretty gross. The fourth trumpet is more challenging for a partial prederous reading since the language sounds cosmic, but in the Old Testament, the darkening of the sun, moon, and stars often symbolizes the collapse of a nation's ruling powers and covenantal order rather than a literal astronomical destruction. And so on that reading, what you'd be envisioning here is the symbolic lights of Israel,

the temple-centered leadership, the priesthood. and sacred rhythms and so forth, being severely disrupted but not totally extinguished yet, right? The reference to one-third marks a profound but a limited or restrained judgment and prepares you for what then is going to follow. Okay, that leads to Revelation 9. And here you have this demonic unleashing with the fifth trumpet. A bottomless pit is opened. It releases these demonic-like hordes that are given power that is compared to the power of a scorpion over. its prey. Now scorpions use their pinchers and venomous stinger to render their prey completely helpless. And these locusts are given authority over those who are not sealed for protection by God.

And what I want to note is several interesting things. First, the time frame of five months. According to F.F. Bruce, Titus began the siege of Jerusalem in April 70 AD. The defenders held out desperately for five months, but by the end of August, the temple area was occupied in the Holy house burnt down. This five-month period was certainly the most gruesome part of the Roman-Jewish war, though you can cut off the time frame. There's a little bit of wiggle room exactly how you calculate that. But that's a plausible way to put things together. And the reference to torment here rather than death, you know, in the way a scorpion's prey lies paralyzed by its stinger, is perfectly suited to describe the barbaric and desperate scene in Jerusalem during those

middle months of 70 AD that we've already recounted a little bit of from Josephus. That's why we took so much time to go through that before. Second thing I want to highlight is in verse six, it says that people long for death, but don't find it. That's exactly what we find Josephus describing as the inhuman behavior within Jerusalem is escalating from the famine conditions. Quote, so those that were thus distressed by the famine were very desirous to die, and those already dead were esteemed happy because they had not lived long enough either to hear or to see such miseries. Could it be that these horrifying images of locusts with scorpion-like power are referencing an invading army? As strange as that can seem to modern readers, for ancient readers, many of these images, again, would very naturally evoke thoughts of warfare,

rather than literal celestial events or literal insects or something like that. particularly because Revelation 9 continues to describe these locusts in military terms. You see here on screen in verses 7 through 10, descriptions of them as horses prepared for battle, references to breastplates, the sound of chariots rushing into battle, you see there. And then again in verse 10, you find the five-month time frame again. So I would like to humbly propose that interpreting this language as referencing the organized, mechanized, violence of ancient warfare would be very natural for a first century mindset. Roman legions were sometimes described by contemporaries in almost mythic terms as, you know,

these faceless instruments of destruction and so forth. So the animal or insect imagery here would be, would fit. This would fit well with the kind of, you know, locusts and the stingers of the scorpions. There's the word. But I would at least say this. much, that insisting on a more literal reading might be dragging the text into our thought world rather than thinking about first century ways of communicating. And military imagery also fits with the sixth trumpet, where these four angels are released from the river Euphrates, and we have reference here to a third of mankind being killed, and the number of troops being involved twice 10,000 times 10,000. Now, Revelation loves to use symbolic numbers.

And if we insist that numbers cannot be symbolic, we might be pushing against the impulses of the text, because Revelation consistently uses numbers in patterned and theologically loaded ways. The sevens and the 12s and the tens, of course, the 144,000 is the 12,000 times 12. And what this signals is symbolism rather than a census-style precision. The numerology of Revelation is more theological than statistical. Now, one thing I want us to see in Revelation 9 is there is a lot of angelic and demonic activity going on here. Josephus doesn't mention an unleashing of demonic powers per se, but it's hard not to imagine, given the extremity of the evil. By the way, whenever you see horrific, nightmarish evil in the world, it is possible that there is demonic involvement.

if you're watching this and you're not a Christian, I understand my proposal here will probably not be very convincing to non-Christians because you might just say it was written after these events. And fine, you know, that would be a separate conversation there. I'm casting this video for a Christian audience. But just to say this much, if you're watching this and you're not a Christian, one benefit, actually, of believing in demons is you don't have to attribute all of the heart-stopping horrors of human history just to human agency.

you're able to say there are dark forces at work manipulating history around us. And that's actually a comfort given the brutality of some of the things that happen in the ancient world. So let me mention what Josephus does mention, though, and simply invite you to draw your own conclusions. Josephus reports that while the city is burning, a certain prodigious and incredible phenomenon appeared, I suppose the account of it would seem to be a fable, were it not related by those that saw it, and were not the events that followed it of so considerable a nature as to deserve such such. signals, for before sunsetting, chariots and troops of soldiers in their armor were seen running about among the clouds and surrounding of cities.

Now, many modern readers, of course, immediately dismiss this as a superstition or something like that, and that's fine. Ancient historians do often report portents and omens, especially when they're describing an event that they think is significant. Nonetheless, it's worth noting that Josephus is not alone. this apparently was enough of something that was talked about that the Roman historian Tacitus reports something similar, quote, embattled armies were seen to meet in the sky with flashing arms,

that's from his account of the siege of Jerusalem. And my point in citing those texts is not to insist you have to take those reports at face value, rather. It's to put something on the table. Multiple independent historians report that people at this time interpreted the fall of Jerusalem in sort of cosmic and supernatural terms. as those spiritual warfare in the heavens as accompanying the earthly warfare, and you can reject those accounts as legendary from Josephus and Tacitus,

but you can't say that interpreting the fall of Jerusalem in terms of spiritual warfare is unique to a preterist interpreter of Revelation. See, this belongs to the thought world and the conceptual world of the author and the original recipients. So we don't need to come to certain conclusions about all these details to see the overall plausibility of the fall of Jerusalem being in, view in some of these sections of Revelation. From a theological standpoint, it's plausible to see the involvement of demonic activity in this act of judgment. Because if you recall Jesus's words, remember Jesus speaks so much of this generation. Okay, we're going to talk later about Matthew 23.

All the blood of the martyrs will fall on this generation. That fits well with this focus on judgment of the Jewish leadership. We've already seen Matthew 24. All of this will happen before this generation passes away. And from Jesus' teaching ministry until the late 60s AD is about one generation, falling within that span of time. But here's another reference in Matthew 12. He's talking about how a demonic spirit that's cast out of a person can return to that person with even with seven more spirits. Seven. Does that number sound familiar? Okay, so you've got seven more spirits and Jesus says, amazing. I never noticed this before studying for this video. So all will it be, excuse me, so will it be with this evil generation? Okay. What does Jesus mean when he says that?

The exorcism that gets reversed and so you're in a worst state now. You've got seven demons in you now or eight, whereas before you just had the one. And he says, that's what it's going to be like with this generation. What is he saying there? It seems to envision some kind of pushing back of the spiritual powers of darkness against the progress of the kingdom of God that has been going on since Jesus' ministry began as Jesus is casting out demons and so forth, because the people are not repentant, and they reject the Messiah, and they reject the kingdom of God, those very ones for whom it came. Jesus has so much to say about this generation, and once you see this, you can't unsee it in the Gospels. Matthew 11, to what shall I compare this generation? Matthew 12, the men of Nineveh and the

Queen of the South will rise up in judgment at this generation. And the references to Matthew in Matthew 23 and 24 are significant and climactic in Matthew's gospel, as we'll cover later. Chapter 10, here you have the second interlude. So now we've concluded these seven seals and trumpets describing this horrific judgment. And we get a second interlude now that extends into chapter 11, where the narrative is paused. And again, you get the emphasis upon God. protective care for his people. That's reflected in some passages in chapter 11, for example, about the two witnesses. And it seems to relate to the earlier teaching about God's seal for

protecting his servants from the coming judgments, as you can see on screen here. Now, you can see why we spent a lot of time in Revelation 6 and 7, because they established some categories there that allow us to just reference these things here. But in Revelation 10 in particular, we also have an emphasis upon the perfection of God's timing, and also on John's authority to prophesy. So sermons on this section can emphasize the trustworthiness of God's revelation and the trustworthiness of God's work in this world and its sequential unfolding. The imagery here in verse 6 of an angel raising his hand to heaven and swearing by God that there will be no more delay is quite poignant. And it should reinforce in our hearts when we are suffering evil

that God's patience and God's timing are perfect. You know, sometimes we wonder, why does God work more quickly? And that's an understandable question at times, but we should never be tempted to think that God is indifferent or that the turnings of history are just reckless and random.

God is not like a casual gardener who comes to check on the garden every Monday, but between Tuesday and Sunday, anything could happen and he wouldn't notice for a while. Now, God is attentive and deliberate. His plans unfold not one second too late. When we're waiting on God and it's difficult to wait, we should be assured that it's not because God is careless. God is meticulously watching. Every nanosecond of our lives is filled with his watchfulness. Think of that angel swearing. There will be no more delay. And we can trust, too, that the Lord's timing is perfect. Somebody once said to me, God is very slow, but never late. And I think about that a lot. Chapter 11, this is what some argue is the most difficult chapter of the book. And the interlude here continues on for a little bit before the arrival of the seventh trumpet. And the focus here in this chapter is really on the temple.

Now, the first interlude, with its idealized number of 144,000, helps us interpret the second interlude with this idealized portrait of the temple. The measuring of the temple here is not about its size per se. It's like the ceiling of God's people. It's an image of spiritual preservation. So one way to interpret this imagery is that even while a physical temple is being destroyed, that's being narrated, but now we've got the interlude and a pause to see the spiritual temple, the Church of God, will be preserved.

God is, even as he's destroying evil, he is watchfully protecting his people. and this coheres with the rest of the book. Now, let's note the timeframes mentioned here. We are told that the Holy City will be trampled by the nations for 42 months and that two witnesses will prophesy for 1,260 days. That's approximately the same amount of time. 42 months, 1, 260 days. Both probably derive from the book of Daniel, and the reference to a time. time, times, and half a time, which will also come up here in Revelation. And the broad

time span that that amounts to do is about three and a half years. So just to be totally clear about this, these three references are roughly the same amount of time, around three and a half years, okay? And there is arguably much symbolic significance to this time frame. This is half of seven. So this is often taken to suggest incompletion and an interruption prior to divine vindication. nonetheless, it's also worth pointing out that this time frame plausibly fits the destruction of Jerusalem. And from the start of the siege, so from Nero's dispatching Vespasian, early 67 AD, to suppress the Jewish revolt in this two-year campaign that he's conducting throughout Judea, lots of

warfare, lots of destruction, and then there's the pause, Nero commits suicide, there's a turmoil for about a year, four emperors in one year, and then Vespasian ultimately becomes emperor. he's emperor for like 10 years. And then this period concludes with Vespasius's, Vespasian's son Titus, destroying the city, late summer, early fall, 70 AD. That's three and a half years. That's the time frame we're talking about, three and a half years. Roughly 42 months, 1,260 days a time, times, and half a time. Now, I'll let viewers decide how much weight to give that. I find the chronology pretty striking, especially when we have the textual resonance with Luke 21. which is clearly envisioning Jerusalem being trampled by the Gentiles.

Seems kind of parallel to Revelation 11 too. Who are these two witnesses, though? Here's an interpretive suggestion I'll give from a partial preterist standpoint. This is a difficult book. It's vulnerable to put out all my thoughts here. Some of you will disagree. Here's my best effort. I'm like 65% on, chalk me down for 65% certain about this particular judgment.

But here I'll throw it on the table you can consider it. if the book of revelation is centered on Jerusalem and the temple, and it's basically a covenant lawsuit against apostate Israel, and it's drawing heavily from Old Testament symbolism, then could the two witnesses here in Chapter 11 refer to the law and the prophets? This would explain much of their activity in this chapter, and it would fit with the broader message of covenant lawsuit with them serving as legal witnesses in the lawsuit. So in the Old Testament law, you need at least two witnesses to establish a charge. So this would fit with so much of what you see here, the prophesying in sackcloth, the fire coming out of their mouths.

This is prophetic judgment language. The power to shut up the sky and to send plagues that happens in Revelation 11 from the two witnesses. You think of Elijah shutting up the sky in First King 17, for example. they are killed, symbolizing God or Israel's rejection of the Word of God, and then they are resurrected, highlighting the vindication of the Word of God. So I think the two witnesses as the law and the prophets sometimes symbolized more concretely as Moses and Elijah in the New Testament is a plausible reading. The reason I think some will find this implausible is some of the imagery is so concrete in Revelation 11,

like lying dead in the street, their bodies being viewed. But then again, Revelation does this with abstractions. This is how the symbology works. And so to me, this seems both specific enough and yet abstract enough to fit with how symbols work in Revelation. But again, I don't know for sure. That's one plausible interpretation. Not 100% on that one.

At any rate, what is clear in Revelation 11 is God's protection of his true people. This is why the seventh trumpet at the end of the chapter results in the manifestation of the temple and the Ark of the Covenant in heaven. So the imagery is very powerful. It's like, hey, I'm sending fire, scorpions, locusts, demons, plagues, et cetera, and I'm going to burn the temple to the ground. But I'm also going to give you this image. Here's the real temple in heaven.

And again, you see the twin parallel realities of judgment and salvation working out throughout the book. That brings us to chapter 12, which continues these themes. Here you have a dragon attempting. to devour a woman who gives birth to a child. But the woman flees into the wilderness to escape. And I think the imagery here is working like this. The dragon is Satan. The woman, that's explicit in verse 9. So we can be safe. We can be pretty confident about that one. The woman then represents God's faithful remnant, the faithful people of God, and the child is Christ. I think we can be

pretty confident the child is Christ as well. Okay, from verse 5, we see this is a clear reference to Psalm 2-9, the rod of iron there. This is a reference to Christ as Messiah, and then the reference to him being caught up to God and to his throne that fits with how Revelation describes Christ in his ascended state. So the child is Christ. I think we can be pretty confident about that. But the reason we take the woman here as the faithful remnant of God is because of Genesis 379, and this dream of Joseph that references the sun, moon, and 12 stars, which you can see on screen there. As always, every time over and over, the key that unlocks the book of Revelation is the Old Testament. You just know your Old Testament really well.

You know how apocalyptic literature functions, and it's like the lights turn on, and you finally know what is this book that you're reading, right? So we can also note that the Old Testament imagery regularly portrays Israel as a woman in labor. Okay. So this is best taken, not as Mary alone, but Mary within Israel. the faithful remnant of God, producing the Messiah. And then what happens here is the woman flees into the wilderness and is nourished for the same time frame, 1260 days, as you can see on screen in verse 6, and then the time times and half a time in verse 14.

And so many interpreters see this as the preservation out in the wilderness, specifically during this three-and-a-half-year calamity, this intensified crisis. You might recall the Pella tradition that we mentioned from Eusebius and Epiphanius, where the people of Jerusalem flee and are protected during that time, preserved from judgment. They're sealed. God's not going to let them fall. You know, God's not going to have judgment falling over here and then salvation falling over here and accidentally get a few people mixed up in the process. Again, God is meticulous and careful, and he watches over his people with a watchful eye. So what's crucial to see here is that the heavenly war depicted in this passage in the middle verses of Revelation 12

corresponds to these earthly events. The protection of the woman happens after Satan is thrown down from heaven. There's this heavenly warfare, verses 7 through 9. This may reference Satan rather being deposed and defanged by Christ through his death and resurrection. The New Testament speaks like this, like in John 1231. And so then Satan's pursuit of the woman happens after that time, as you can see there in verse 19. So this puts us within that time window after the ascension of Christ looking up in the pre-70 window of time.

This sort of overlap period between Old covenant and New Covenant from 30 to 70 AD, this kind of blurring of two different timeframes. And so we can summarize the big picture here, Revelation 12, as a cosmic retelling of how Christ's victory stripped Satan of his covenantal power, provoking his furious assault on the church and Jerusalem before that era of covenant history is decisively ended, and God's protecting his people during that time. Okay, now we get to chapter 13 with the famous discussion of the two beasts and the mark of the beast. Much else that I've heard, I'm sure you've heard about, as much as this video as anybody's still watching. Leave me a comment if you're still watching. I hope you can just watch this

in installments. I know this is a long detailed video, but that's why we're trying not to go verse by verse. Some of you might be frustrated. I'm not going into more detail, but I'm trying to give you the big picture. And unfortunately, or hopefully if you're enjoying it, maybe it's not unfortunate. We need to take a little bit of time on Revelation 13. And then it'll go pretty fast from there, starting in chapter 14. On a partial preterist reading, the beast refers to Roman imperial power, personified supremely in Nero. And the wounding of one of the heads of the beast in verse three, references refers to Nero's death by suicide in 68 AD.

And the ensuing chaos, you've got four emperors within a one year span of time before there's stability under Vespasian. This fits the imagery pretty well. Even I am surprised at how confident I've become of, I don't want to say confident, how much I've been persuaded of this view. And this is one of the more compelling, identifications, I think, in the book, and even many non-preterist interpreters see Nero here in Chapter 13. Richard Boccombe, for example, quote,

The wounded beast is the Emperor Nero who committed suicide with a sword. This wound to the head of the beast was also a mortal wound to the beast itself, the imperial power, and it is the beast which recovers. The allusion is to the events immediately before and after the death of Nero, in which it seemed likely that the empire itself might disintegrate. And quote, by the way, That's true. A lot of people thought the Roman Empire is done for, because it's chaos for a while after Nero dies. Now, why is this interpretation a powerful one? Well, the first thing we are told is that the beast is rising out of the sea with 10 horns and seven heads. Now, later in Revelation 17, these seven heads are explicitly identified with seven mountains or seven hills. You can see that on screen emboldened. Even many of the dispensationalists and the futurists recognize seven hills,

or seven mountains, that's an unmistakable reference to imperial Rome. Here's how the dispensationalist Charles Reary puts it. No reasonable doubt can be entertained as to the meaning of these words. The seven hills of Rome were a commonplace with the Latin poets. In other words, the center of the beast's power is Rome. Now, the heads here have blasphemous names because of the imperial cult, demanding emperor worship. We'll talk about the blasphemy in a bit with the second beast.

Diadems are simply crowns. These signify royal authority. And so the beast here is said to have authority and strength in verse two. The whole world follows the beast in verse three. No one can stand against the beast in verse four. It's utterly blasphemous in verse five. And it wages war against God's people in verse seven. So a power that governs the whole world, blasphemes God, and attacks God's people.

This sounds a lot like imperial Rome, as we'll document a little more with the second beast and the emperor worship demands. which would be blasphemy. But note this as well. The specific time frame is once again, 42 months that the beast is given authority. At a minimum, this encourages continuity of interpretation from chapters 11 and 12, where you have this time frame to chapter 13 here,

exact same time frame. And then we get to the famous number 666 in Revelation 1318. This is not three sixes in a row. This is 666. and even apart from the number, it's very significant that this verse invites us to calculate the, quote, number of a man. You see those words on screen there. This suggests that in some sense there is a particular man in view. And it's often pointed out that a first century spelling of Nero Caesar in Hebrew equals exactly that value using Jemetria, which was a common practice of assigning a numerical value to a name or a word or a phrase or something like that.

Now, some quibble with this, and they could say it's too forced, you know, they might say, well, why use a Hebrew spelling and so forth? At a minimum, I think we can say Nero is a possible explanation for 666. And I certainly don't know of a better explanation. And it seems to fit with the other details of the passage. And then on top of that, we find in Revelation 17, this reference to the five kings who've fallen and the one who's only going to reign for a little time. Now the first five emperors of Rome are Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero. Then, between summer 68 and 69, you get the famous year of the four emperors. Galba would be the next one who reigned only seven months, which was fit with this reference here, five, and then one who reigns for a short amount of time.

So I'm looking at this passage. I'm like, you know, I'm trying not to be dogmatic, but I'm just saying this looks plausible to me, because I'm trying to read this book. It looks like it's talking about Nero, and I'll make a distinction in just a moment between the Roman Empire at large and the way imperial power is used and described as a beast. But let's just describe Nero first. So because I don't want to assume anybody knows anything about Nero, but let's show how he fits the profile here real briefly. By the way, numerous ancient writers, even apart from the book of Revelation, call Nero a beast. Lactantius, the Christian writer, for example, says, He it was who first persecuted the servants of God.

He crucified Peter and slew Paul, nor did he escape with impunity, for God looked on the affliction of his people, and therefore the tyrant. Bereaved of all authority and precipitated from the height of his empire, suddenly disappeared, and even the burial place of that noxious, wild beast was nowhere to be seen. Numerous other Christians identified Nero as the beast of Revelation, by the way, in the early church. That idea goes back fairly early. There's also a myth of the reappearance of Nero that's floating around. You see that in the Siboline oracles, which go back pretty early.

And other non-Christian historians use beast-like imagery to describe this man. Why is this? Let's say a little bit about Nero. I'm not going to give you much. It's too gross. He was the first Roman emperor to persecute Christians. Very plausibly was responsible for the deaths of Peter and or Paul. and the first years of his reign were not that bad,

but after a terrible fire breaks out in 64 AD, he blames Christians for it and just unleashes hell on Christians, feeding them to wild animals, using them as torches at his parties. I think the best way to describe Nero is think of someone who has unmitigated cruelty and then combine that with a completely capricious insanity. And that's what you get here.

This kind of bone-chilling, grotesquential. bizarre evil. Suttonius talks about him gathering a bunch of wealthy, peaceful senators and forcing them to participate in degrading spectacles, including gladiatorial style combat with each other. Nero killed several members of his own family. He engaged in horrific sexual violence, which I won't describe. In here, you can read some of it in Gentry's descriptions if you have the stomach for it, but I'm not even going to put the worst of it on screen.

Just go hunt it down. It's so demonic. I can't even, I don't even want you to have to think about it. The point is simply this. Nero's cruelty and moral grotesqueness is so extreme that even pagan historians describe him with sort of monstrous and beast-like imagery. And that would fit, he seems to fit the profile

of the way this character is described in the book of Revelation. Now, what about the second beast? in the latter half of chapter 13, you have another beast who exercises the authority of the first beast and makes people worship the first beast. Okay? So you see this going on in the latter portions of Revelation 13. I'll put up a few verses there. This is plausibly interpreted as the religious authorities participating in the Roman rule

and legitimating its authority, especially the Jewish religious leadership in its coordination with Roman power to persecute the early church. The Jewish religious leadership, especially the apostate, priestly, and prophetic class, legitimated Roman power by publicly rejecting the Messiah, by condemning his followers and persecuting the early Christians, and by aligning themselves with Rome as the divinely permitted authority to preserve the temple order.

And this can be seen in the trials of Jesus and the Gospels, most starkly in the cry, we have no king but Caesar. The interplay between Roman and Jewish power in the persecution of the first century church explains why the second beast looks like a lamb but speaks like a dragon and why the second beast will be explicitly identified later in the book with the false prophet. So let me, since we're a long ways in the video, let me say that again and make that really clear. The false prophet and the second beast, same person, according to later in Revelation.

Now, the signs and deceptions here don't necessarily indicate that are described in Revelation 13 that the second beast does. They don't necessarily reference supernatural violations of nature, but more signs and deceptions to induce worship of the first beast. So in the context of the first century, this could refer to imperial cult propaganda, temples to Caesar, priestly ceremonies, oracles, staged signs, animated statues, yes, those really existed, ventriloquism and hidden mechanisms, ritual spectacle. It could also refer to forms of social coercion, especially in Asia Minor, where you have enforced loyalty oaths, organized festivals, controlled commerce. And so the mark of the beast then is not a literal physical mark, but a symbol of this political and economic allegiance, contrasted with the seal of God given to the saints. Greg Beale, I'm not, well, I don't want to associate him with all my views

because he might disagree with everything I'm saying right now for all I know. He's got one of the best commentaries on Revelation on the market. He's an idealist. Let me just read how he describes the mark of the beast. The mark is clearly figurative of the ways in which the state keeps check on whether people submit to compulsory idol worship. I think that's right. So you can see on screen here, the marking of the beast is on the right hand or the forehead. And this represents public, visible loyalty to the Roman imperial system, especially when it demands religious submission, as it did in the first century. So this is, this way of interpreting the mark of the beast draws from Old Testament covenantal imagery where bindings on the hands or between the eyes,

that would be on the forehead, is an act of covenant loyalty and remembrance. As you can see in passages on screen, there's a bunch more passages like that we could adduce for this point. And so on the ground, what this would mean is, in the late first century world, participation in Roman economic life and civic life often required acknowledging Caesar as Lord, and you have to participate in the imperial cult rituals. And refusing that meant economic exclusion. And so you would lose the ability to trade. You could lose your very life. This is why, by the way, people like Polycarp are getting martyred. They're refusing the emperor worship. They're saying, Jesus, not. the state. And so when Revelation 13-7 says, so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark,

that is the name of the beast, we don't need to posit like a science fiction chip being implanted in people's brains. This imagery works really well. Once again, drawing from the Old Testament for what's going on, the imperial cult and its economic pressure on Christians. And what really matters here, and what really makes the imagery work is the contrast with sealing, right? Because again, Revelation works in all these pairs. And so the Mark of the Beast, you can't understand that. Apart from the parallelism, I'll put up on screen, you can see a breakdown of this of how these two things work out. But basically what you have here is the Mark of the Beast is not about future gadgets and stuff like this. It's about what are you willing to give up your soul for in order to

belong. And I would submit that this reading of the text explains why the pressure in view is economic and social and spiritual. And it would have been intelligible the first century Christians in Asia Minor. And we don't have to read later technology back into the text that would have been foreign to that context. So big picture here, summing up, again, trying to give overview, we're doing an overview. We're doing a flyover here. Revelation 13 has two beasts. The first beast, the second beast is also the false prophet. The first beast is Rome, in its imperial pressure against Christians especially. And the second beast is apostate Jewish religious leadership in coordinated efforts with Rome. And those two forces together persecuted the early church

savagely. In chapter 14, we have in verses 1 through 5 a vision of the same 144,000 of Chapter 7, this idealized vision of the redeemed people of God, protected by God during this terrible persecution sealed with God's name. And again, the parallelism between the sealing of God and the mark of the beast should be maintained. So you can see the name of the father written on the foreheads of the people of God. It seems unhelpful to say the mark of the beast has to be a literal visible mark on the forehead, but the sealing of the father doesn't. Right? We want to be consistent in how we take the imagery of this book. And that is one of the difficulties you have in interpreting revelation literalistically is you can't be consistent as you go. So chapter 14 then

goes on and it talks about the same judgment that we've been chronicling. But first, we've got three angels pronouncing three woes. And then you have two angels with sickles for reaping a harvest. And these also are images of judgment, once again, as always drawn from the Old Testament, and this flows into then the seven plagues of Revelation 15 and the seven bowls of Revelation 16. And again, in a partial preterist view here, this is all just recapitulating the same horrific historical sequence of events that's a divine judgment against Jerusalem. So big picture is hard to miss here. God is sending these terrible judgments. But question of why, what is this judgment in view specifically, and apply?

way to take this is Revelation 14 to 16 is still describing the same thing that we had with the seals of chapter 6 and the trumpets of chapter 8th. So, for example, you get to chapter 14 verse 15 and the imagery of the sickle reaping the harvest. This is drawn from the Old Testament, like Joel 313, for example, where you see the same imagery. Well, this has a lot of resonance with Jesus' language for about this generation in Matthew 23 and 24. After the seven woes of Matthew 23, our Lord says, all the blood of all the martyrs will fall upon this generation that calls to mind the language of the harvest being ripe there in Revelation 14.

This is a kind of climactic definitive judgment coming on apostate Jerusalem for crucifying her own Messiah. And yeah, this would fit with the parable of the tenants in Matthew 21, where the vineyard owner keeps sending a servants and the tenants keep on persecuting them. Finally, he sends his son and they kill him also. And Jesus' interpretation of this parable is, therefore, I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits. And you can see how the Jewish leadership takes this. They understand what he is saying. In chapters 15 and 16, the plagues and the bowls further this connection. So the idea that we're

talking about the destruction of Jerusalem. It's often pointed out that these chapters echo the book of Exodus, and in particular, the various plagues given to the Egyptians. So, for example, when the bowls of judgment are poured out in Revelation 16, you have painful sores inflicted on the body, water turning to blood, frogs, darkness on the land, fire, and death. I'm not saying all these images work exactly the same, but those things are present. And this seems to recall the book of Exodus. You've also got the song of the redeemed being a new song of Moses in chapter 15, verse three, and the message seems to be Jerusalem has become the new Egypt. They are now the unjust oppressor, and the persecuted church is the new covenant people fleeing them off, going into

an exodus out into the wilderness. Now this would explain the earlier imagery of Revelation 11-8, where there's reference to the city that Jesus was crucified in. And of course, that's Jerusalem here, but John identifies the great city as Jerusalem symbolically with Sodom and Egypt. So this is a strong way to make a judgment, you know, is to say, you're now Egypt. Now, if Revelation 14 through 16 are recapitulating the same pronouncement of judgment against apostate Jerusalem, this also explains the focus on the temple in these chapters. In scripture, when judgment proceeds from God's sanctuary, it signals, covenantal judgment.

Think of Ezekiel 9 through 11, for example. This is judgment rendered by God as covenant Lord, not merely as creator. It's against those who are in covenant relationship with the Lord. So when we see in Revelation 158 that God's sanctuary is filled with smoke so that no one can enter until the seven plagues are finished, we think of the Old Testament,

where an inaccessible sanctuary means a decisive act of judgment is underway, intercession is halted, the verdict is irrevocable, no turning back now, and this again suggests a covenant judgment is in view. Again, fits with all of a discourse, everything falling on this generation. Now before moving on, we'd be remiss not to just note the connection with the false prophet here. So a new character is introduced, Revelation 16, and that's the false prophet. The term, though, is new, but we know from chapter 19, verse 20, which I'll put on screen, that the false prophet is the same one as the second beast. So just wanted to make that explicit if you were wondering where we got that from earlier.

Chapter 17 and 18, we're looking at the big picture here. What we really want to camp out on is the identity of Babylon. We've already seen in chapter 14 verse 8, reference to Babylon the Great. You may recall this passage that I put on screen here. And we've already seen from Revelation 118 that Jerusalem is the, great city that can be symbolically represented by Sodom or Egypt. Here we can develop that more fully to say that the character in view here in chapter 17 to 18, the great prostitute or Babylon, can be well interpreted as a reference to apostate Jerusalem. So in verse one, we're told

of judgment against a great prostitute. And then in verse five, she has a name written on her forehead, Babylon the great, mother of prostitutes and of earth's abominations. Now calling Jerusalem, by the name of the ancient city Babylon involves the same kind of judgment rhetoric and reversal that we see with the identification of Egypt as Jerusalem. And we see elsewhere in the New Testament. So think of Acts 7, where Stephen gives his speech. And Israel is now identified with her historical enemies. So that's what he's saying that the whole speech, he's saying, you're the bad guys now.

And that's what's going on here is, once you were oppressed by Egypt, now you are Egypt. Once you were burned of the ground by Babylon, now you're Babylon. It's a devastating way to make the point of judgment. Now, by the way, if this imagery seems too harsh for apostate Jerusalem, again, we're talking about the religious entity, think of how Jesus speaks in Matthew 23, where he's absolutely devastating in his rhetoric against the Pharisees. He calls them brids of viper and sons of hell and so forth. And then you have his lament over the city of Jerusalem at the conclusion of the chapter,

your house is left to you desolate. The harsh judgment against Jerusalem and Revelation is consistent with the words of Christ, and it's consistent with the general message of the New Testament. Again, this is nothing to do with being Jewish in terms of your ethnicity or race. This is about this religious leadership in that generation, this ongoing religious infrastructure that's rejected its own Messiah. It's cut out its very heart, but it lives on with ongoing institutions like a priesthood and sacrifices and a temple. That's the object of judgment here.

That's what's being targeted with the rhetoric of a prostitute. That imagery has, of course, a lot of Old Testament precedent, the charge of prostitution against unfaithful Israel and the prophets. Jeremiah 3, for example, has a lot of resonance with Revelation 17. And if apostate Jerusalem is the prostitute here, this explains, her role in persecuting the faithful people of God, because the prostitute is repeatedly said to be drunk with the blood of the saints. Powerful image. You can see from chapter 18, verse four. This would again fit with Jesus' rebuke to the Jewish leadership in the parable of the tenants, for example, and elsewhere in the book of Acts. Again, think of Stephen's speech, where he says,

which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And then he says, it speaks of the righteous one whom you have murdered. Or you might think of the Apostle Paul and his terrible suffering from Jewish opponents in those final parts of the narrative in the book of Acts. So the interpretation I'm suggesting here for Revelation has some resonance with these other themes in the New Testament. Now in chapter 17 here, the prostitute rides on the beast. So this does not indicate identity with Rome, but dependence on Rome, an entanglement formed in opposition to Jesus and his followers. This has some resonance again with the first and the second beast in chapter 13, where they're sort of coordinated together. And again, this is not unique to Revelation or in the New Testament.

We've already seen a dynamic of this in the Gospels where Jesus, at his trial, first is tried by the Jewish Sanhedron, and he's interrogated by Caiaphas. And then subsequently, he appears before Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor. And Revelation is using apocalyptic imagery to portray this same tragic alignment. religious authority leveraging imperial power to silence the Messiah and attack the early church. I think that's what's going on here. And the New Jerusalem that is introduced then replaces the old with the imagery of a bride contrasting that of a prostitute. This is another one of the pairs and of opposites in Revelation.

So big picture going on in these chapters. Again, same thing recapitulated over and over and over judgment against apostate. Israel and her religious leadership. Chapter 19. All of this judgment has been interpreted for us in these various heavenly voices, but they've been more refrains of lament for the fall of Babylon in chapter 17 and 18. Here in chapter 19, we get a call to rejoice because of God's justice being done. And that, so we've got a decisive mood shift here with chapter 19 to praise.

The rejoicing is not because the judgment itself. is beautiful, but because God is now vindicated and his righteousness is manifest and he has delivered his people. And it is at that climactic moment that Christ himself appears, not yet in the full sense of the second coming, but in a decisive judgment coming that anticipates that great event, a historical judgment that anticipates the final judgment and coming of Christ. And here he's writing forth as a faithful and true king. He brings destruction of both the beast and the false prophet. By the way, let's explain that. The beast here is captured. You see chapter 19, verse 20. The defeat of these signals the collapse of this old order that stood against Christ

in his kingdom. So the temple and the sacrificial system are now totally over. Jesus died on the cross in 30 AD, but you still had sacrifices going on. Now you have the complete closure of that old era and its institutions. And a new era in redemptive history is fully turned the page. And what we want to distinguish, though, is between Rome as an empire, which continues on, and the beast, which is now destroyed. The beast is the specific, persecuting, blasphemous manifestation of that imperial power, concentrated especially in Nero, in his line. So when Revelation 19 speaks of the beast being destroyed, it's talking about Nero's the collapse of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, which ended with Nero, and the termination of Rome's

first empire-wide persecution of the church. Vespasian comes in, he doesn't persecute Christians. So Revelation 19 is bringing climactic, triumphant conclusion to that terrible episode, okay? And importantly, that is not the end of history, rather this anticipates the final coming of Christ by portraying a real historical victory of Christ within history in terms that are similar to his ultimate final coming. Revelation here is conducting a pattern we see a lot throughout scripture, where God acts in judgment and salvation in ways that foreshadow their ultimate consummation still to come. So chapter 19 then celebrates a genuine triumph of Christ, but one that points to, but does not

yet fully exhaust the hope of his final return. And then it is here in chapter 20 that we began to look into a long, extended future. We know that because of, instead of language of imminence here in chapter 20, now we find a reference to a thousand years. So my approach to Revelation is when it says soon, it means soon, but when it says a thousand years, it doesn't mean soon. And that is the critical error that I see in full preterism is it actually doesn't honor the time table references, because it tries to take a thousand years and squeeze that down into a tiny time frame. I've said more about that in my video against full preterism. But a couple of points I just want to make here

really quickly. We could talk about this all day long, but just to highlight a few things, because I've talked about the millennium elsewhere, just within the context of this video for our purposes here, I want to highlight that Satan's binding represents the crippling of his power for a specific purpose, namely the deception of the nations. Note what I put it as a purpose clause here, that he might deceive the nations any longer. So we can think of this binding, like Matthew 1229. where a strong man has to be bound so you can plunder the house. The imagery here is of limitation, not of a complete annihilation of Satan or a complete lack of activity.

Rather, he can't deceive the nations anymore. He's bound from doing that. And therefore, this is exactly what we see now as we move into the church age, that Satan is bound, and so the knowledge of God is spread from it's formerly being focused on the nation of Israel, and now it's spreading all over the world. The scene in verses 4 through 6 of this chapter seems to be heavenly. That would be why we have thrones here. In Revelation, thrones always depict a heavenly scene.

And I've said more about the millennium and other contexts. So for now, I'll suffice it to say that this passage is plausibly interpreted as referring to the church age during which deceased Christians reign with Christ in heaven. And their souls go to be with Him there. Now, it's true the word resurrection is usually used for bodily resurrection, but this could be exactly why we have the qualifier of first resurrection, as distinct from the second resurrection. So in this timeline, things are pretty simple. After the first century events you've got described in Revelation 6 through 19, which John says, these are coming soon, the time is near,

then John sees this vast expanse of time symbolically portrayed by a thousand years, during which Christ is ruling, the gospel is advancing throughout the world because Satan is bound, deceased believers are reigning with Christ in heaven, and then there will be a final release of Satan and his final destruction at the end of history when Christ returns. Revelation 20 doesn't tell you a lot. It actually just commits you to a bare minimum of things. There's a lot more that, you know, we can say fill in the picture with the rest of Scripture and so forth.

But the end of Revelation 20 then going on from these verses depict final resurrection and final judgment at the end of history after Satan is destroyed, and I've chronicled those events at great length in my previous video on the end times. Then in chapters 21 and 22, after the judgment scenes of chapter 20, John's vision is carried beyond all historical cycles to the absolute end of history, the final state. We're here, you don't have so much covenantal or localized language, but you have a vision of final cosmic ultimate renewal. John sees a new heaven and a new earth, signaling not the annihilation of creation, but it's complete transformation and restoration.

The old order marked by death and mourning and pain is over. God is now dwelling with his people. What was anticipated through the temple and tabernacle is now fully realized. And you have the new Jerusalem descending from heaven portrayed as both a city and a bride. This is not a literal architectural structure so much as a symbolic picture of the glorified people of God. Perfectly holy, secure, radiant, ordered. The city's not having a temple underscores the fact that God himself now dwells with his people. So you don't need mediation anymore. You have immediate communion with God. We see God. Chapter 2 has images from the Garden of Eden,

like the river of life and the tree of life. and the intent seems to be, among other things, showing that redemption is not merely returned to the beginning, but a surpassing and a fulfillment of it. And humanity's original vocation is restored and perfected so that we see God's face, we bear his name, and we reign with him forever. And then the book closes by grounding this future hope

in our present faithfulness. It's a summons to be faithful to Christ now. And so here at the end, I'll simply note John's prayer toward the very end of the book, come Lord Jesus. If everything else, and I know some of you will disagree with my way of understanding this book, that is totally fine. We need to unite around the essentials of the gospel. This is my best effort to serve the body of Christ by putting forward a proposal.

But what we can all agree on coming to the end is Jesus is coming back, and we should pray, come, Lord Jesus. So if there's a way to kind of sum all of this up, we can simply put it like this. In the end, Jesus will defeat all evil. So be faithful to him now. That is the cash value of the book of Revelation. Keep following Jesus, and you will be with him forever. I hope this video will serve you.

I hope it will encourage you, and I hope it will encourage more study on the book of Revelation. If you found value in this, I'd really value if you would share this video around because I don't anticipate such a deep dive is necessarily going to go as broad, but I put a lot of work into it, hoping that it would meet needs for people and create hope and hearts and also create

clarity for the text of scripture and also maybe open up some new categories of thought. Even just considering a different way of looking at it can be helpful. And if you appreciate what I do at Truth Unites and you want to support what I do, I do I do appreciate that. You can do that on the website, supporter page or through Patreon and those who are regular supporters, $5 a month or more. We do meetings regularly. I give you updates and we have Zoom meetings.

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