If you’re going to study the book of Revelation, let me give you a few pointers.
1) Study with someone who will guide you through, who has put significant time into studying the book as well as the entirety of Scripture. Two kinds of people are bad guides for studying Revelation: 1) People who have placed a disproportionate emphasis on studying Revelation and have a weak grasp of the rest of Scripture (this tends to be a Futurist/ Dispensationalist/ Fundamentalist problem). 2) People who understand the rest of the Bible pretty well, but who have not put significant time into a careful study of prophecy (this tends to be a non-Futurist/ Covenant Theology/ Liberal problem). Revelation is a book unlike any other in the New Testament, yet it is comprised, almost exclusively of material from the other 65 books of the Bible. I’m going to be teaching through Revelation beginning on April 7 for as we restart our Wednesday Evening Bible Study #shamelessplug #itwillbefun #thesehashtagsdontgoanywherebecauseidonttwitter.
2) Remember to avoid the classic extremes of overconfidence or overcaution. No, we don’t know what everything in Revelation means. But that doesn’t mean we know nothing. And within certain interpretive frameworks (also called hermeneutics) we can offer a lot of coherent, consistent, and cogent answers. That doesn’t mean we know everything – we don’t have comprehensive knowledge. And it doesn’t mean that it’s impossible to be wrong – we don’t have certainty. But not having certainty doesn’t mean we can’t have confidence – otherwise faith would be meaningless. And not having comprehensive knowledge doesn’t mean we can’t have sufficient knowledge. So, a little humility goes a long way, but we don’t have to pretend to know nothing, either.
3) Attempt to read through the whole book in single sittings. I advocate for this a lot, because I think it’s important. Read through Revelation as a single piece of work. Read out loud. Read with friends. Read standing up. Read it on your knees. But read the whole thing without distractions in single sittings as often as possible while making a serious study of the book – and this goes for any and all books of the Bible.
4) Read in Greek whenever possible. If you cannot read Greek, read as LITERAL a translation as possible. Revelation is chock-full of wordplay and theologically significant repetition. A lot of this you can get even in English…a lot you can’t. If your guide is willing and able –and he ought to be able – then he ought to give you a hyper-literal translation to study alongside a competently done modern translation (NIV, NET, NASB, ESV, NRSV, HCSB, NLT…any of those are a good basis to work from). Literal translations are key, not only because they help us see the repetitions, but they clue us in to LOOK FOR repetitions. I’ve noticed in my own reading that when I read Greek, I’m much more keyed in for repetition than when I read in English – even if the repetition occurs in English as well.
Here, I want to give us a good example of a theme we see in Revelation as a taster for why it’s important to read hyper-literal translations as part of your study of Revelation to key you into a habit of looking for repetition. In Revelation 8 we get introduced to a mini-theme that will begin in Heaven and see its culmination in chapter 19 when False Religion is destroyed. We’ll look at this theme and then talk about its theological significance.
OK, first of all, let’s look at the pertinent text:
8:1 Now when the Lamb opened the seventh seal there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. 8:2 Then I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and seven trumpets were given to them. 8:3 Another angel holding a golden censer came and was stationed at the altar. A large amount of incense was given to him to offer up, with the prayers of all the saints, on the golden altar that is before the throne. 8:4 The smoke coming from the incense, along with the prayers of the saints, ascended before God from the angel’s hand. 8:5 Then the angel took the censer, filled it with fire from the altar, and threw it on the earth, and there were crashes of thunder, roaring, flashes of lightning, and an earthquake. (NET)
Now, let’s go forwards just a few verses to chapter 9:
9:1 Then the fifth angel blew his trumpet, and I saw a star that had fallen from the sky to the earth, and he was given the key to the shaft of the abyss. 9:2 He opened the shaft of the abyss and smoke rose out of it like smoke from a giant furnace. The sun and the air were darkened with smoke from the shaft. 9:3 Then out of the smoke came locusts onto the earth, and they were given power like that of the scorpions of the earth. 9:4 They were told not to damage the grass of the earth, or any green plant or tree, but only those people who did not have the seal of God on their forehead. 9:5 The locusts were not given permission to kill them, but only to torture them for five months, and their torture was like that of a scorpion when it stings a person. 9:6 In those days people will seek death, but will not be able to find it; they will long to die, but death will flee from them. (NET)
Did you see the verbatim repetition of the Greek noun and verb? Of course, you didn’t. Not if you’re a normal human being without superpowers…Now, if you’re a careful reader, and since I clued you in to pay attention you might have seen the connection between these to passages. But there’s an expression in Greek that’s so similar it’s hard to miss:
8:4…καὶ ἀνέβη ὁ καπνὸς τῶν θυμιαμάτων ταῖς προσευχαῖς τῶν ἁγίων ἐκ χειρὸς τοῦ ἀγγέλου ἐνώπιον τοῦ θεοῦ. (NA28)
8:4…And arises the smoke of the incenses of the prayers of the saints in the hand of the angel before God. (My Translation)
9:2 καὶ ἀνέβη καπνὸς ἐκ τοῦ φρέατος ὡς καπνὸς καμίνου μεγάλης καὶ ἐσκοτώθη ὁ ἥλιος καὶ ὁ ἀὴρ ἐκ τοῦ καπνοῦ τοῦ φρέατος. (NA28)
9:2 And arises smoke from the shaft like smoke from a great furnace; and was darkened the sun and the air from the smoke of the shaft. (My Translation)
So, what may seem like a minor connection in English – a theme…maybe a motif – is a clear and unmistakable connection in Greek. Clearly the vision John received and which he recorded make a connection somehow between the smoke rising in heaven and the smoke rising on earth.
But there are two other places where we see this idea repeated, not in a verbatim fashion as in 8:2 and 9:4, but so similarly that it cannot be accidental.
In Chapter 14 we read:
14:9 A third angel followed the first two, declaring in a loud voice: “If anyone worships the beast and his image, and takes the mark on his forehead or his hand, 14:10 that person will also drink of the wine of God’s anger that has been mixed undiluted in the cup of his wrath, and he will be tortured with fire and sulfur in front of the holy angels and in front of the Lamb. 14:11 And the smoke from their torture will go up forever and ever, and those who worship the beast and his image will have no rest day or night, along with anyone who receives the mark of his name.” 14:12 This requires the steadfast endurance of the saints—those who obey God’s commandments and hold to their faith in Jesus. (NET)
And in Chapter 19:
19:1 After these things I heard what sounded like the loud voice of a vast throng in heaven, saying,
“Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God,
19:2 because his judgments are true and just.
For he has judged the great prostitute
who corrupted the earth with her sexual immorality,
and has avenged the blood of his servants poured out by her own hands!”
19:3 Then a second time the crowd shouted, “Hallelujah!” The smoke rises from her forever and ever. 19:4 The twenty-four elders and the four living creatures threw themselves to the ground and worshiped God, who was seated on the throne, saying: “Amen! Hallelujah!”
19:5 Then a voice came from the throne, saying:
“Praise our God
all you his servants,
and all you who fear Him,
both the small and the great!” (NET)
Again, we see smoke rising. And this connection is unmistakable and deliberate. But what does it mean? Well, this is a theme, or perhaps a mini-theme that clues us in to one of the greater themes in Revelation which is that the judgment of the wicked on earth is a comi-tragic inversion of the treatment of the saints in Heaven.
In Heaven, the saints’ prayers are smoke which arise as incense. We don’t know what these prayers are, but given the placement of this passage (chapter 8), the similar sounds of the words for incense and the word for altar, and the fact that we’ve already heard the prayers of the saints under the altar in Heaven, it makes sense that the prayers of the saints would, at least in part, be for the judgment of the wicked. God has already told the martyrs to wait a little while and then in chapter 19 we see the culmination of God’s judgment on a Christ rejecting world and false religion when Babylon is judged (whether we differentiate Commercial and Mystery/ Religious Babylon is another topic for another day).
On Earth, the smoke rises as evidence of God’s judgment and wrath. Those who dwell on the earth are receiving the inverse treatment from that of the saints. And this fits into the themes of Revelation where talionic (eye-for-an-eye) justice is given out, particularly to false religion: those who claim to be Jews and are not; those who worship the Beast; Mystery Babylon. We read how the saints and angels praise God for giving those who dwell on earth blood to drink because they have shed the blood of the saints.
Of course, this is part of a greater Biblical theme of role-reversals, one of the most beautiful is the Mordecai-Haman relationship. Indeed, Revelation is the complete fulfillment of Mordecai-Haman…or any of the other Biblical stories of suffering, vindication, and judgment: David-Saul and Abel-Cain would be other great examples.
Now, can you see these connections without reading Greek, or a hyperliteral translation – perhaps. I’m not trying to say it would be impossible to see this thematic connection. But I think it would be much harder, considering I’ve read Revelation probably close to 100 times and I didn’t see it until I recently read through it in Greek a few days ago. I think that we’re prone to miss these kinds of things when reading only modern English translations…by the way, we SHOULD be primarily reading modern English translations unless you’re quite skilled in the original languages…or you don’t speak English as a first language…but you get my point.
In conclusion, read the Bible and read a version you understand. But when doing serious book-length studies, particularly book length studies that will take months or years, invest time into reading bad translations that give good insight. Things like Young’s Literal translation help along with this. I’m going to give my congregation a painfully literal translation – not because it’s a good translation, but because it will facilitate people seeing things that are obvious in Greek and are obscured through the GOOD AND PROPER AND NECESSARY process of translation. Study with a guide. Study in community. Study by memorization and meditation. Study by immersion into the text. All this will help you understand Revelation as both a unique work in its own right and as the culmination of the rest of Scripture.