A ramble on Revelation

This evening a friend shared with me the beginnings of a piece of music he’s working on which was inspired by his thoughts of a young woman whose life has been radically changed by a tragic accident. Her life is, in a strange way, now similar to that of the apostle John imprisoned on Patmos, where his eyes were opened. Like John, she now is beginning to see things as they really are in this world, not as the world has painted them. Suffering often has this effect, “I saw a door open in heaven, and heard the same voice speaking to me, the voice like a trumpet, saying, Come up here…” (Revelation 4:1)

When I received the first draft recording of this song, I had just finished reading the post of a fellow blogger, Jesus Transfigured and Lamp Stands, and I was about to leave a comment there.
It seemed an odd coincidence that this moment of chrónos had been transfigured into a moment of kairós with the book of Revelation as its subject. Well, I wrote my comment and left it there, but I think I'd like to share this ramble on Revelation with visitors to my blog, because to me the topic is of high importance. I hope some of you will find encouragement from these thoughts…

You write that Apokálypsis “might be the toughest part of the bible,” and then you give the reasons. All these reasons stem from the fact that people seem to think it is their duty or their right to understand and expound the prophecies in this book, but from an Orthodox bible-believing point of view, this is the wrong way to approach this book.

What is the right way to approach it?
Well, to be honest, the instructions are contained right in the text of the book itself. “Happy the man who reads this prophecy [aloud], and happy are those who listen to him, if they treasure [keep] all that it says, for the time is close.” (Revelation 1:3)
This instruction is right at the beginning. But there is another instruction, to be received with the same respect and care, at the ending of the book. “This is my solemn warning to all who hear the prophecies in this book: if anyone adds anything to them, God will add to him every plague mentioned in the book; if anyone cuts anything out of the prophecies in this book, God will cut off his share of the tree of life and of the holy city, which are described in this book.” (Revelation 22:18-19)

What do these instructions indicate to us about the book of Revelation?
That we should read the book aloud in the presence of others, so that both the reader and the listeners will be “happy” or “blessed” (Greek, makários, as opposed to evlogiménos, which also means “blessed” in a different sense). This is the same state of “blessed” as we find in what are called the Beatitudes (or in Greek, the Makarismoí), “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall have mercy shown them.”

We are not told, commanded, or even encouraged to understand or interpret (both intellectual functions) the prophecies in this book, but only to treasure or keep what is written in them (Greek, tiroúndes ta en aftí gegramména). It is the visions that Christ gave to His beloved disciple John the Revelator, and His very words, that we are to treasure and keep, experiencing the many strange things that John did, who knew no more than we know now about their significance. Even the words of Christ which he heard and wrote down, he understood no more than we do, but he treasured and kept them, as he was told to do, by Christ, and he has passed these instructions on to us.

So, do you see the difference between this, and what people have been so often prone to do?
It is not that Christ has forbidden us to understand the visions and the words written in the book of Revelation, but that He has told us what He wants us to do with them: He wants us to read aloud, to treasure and keep them. That is all.

Understanding, interpretation and the rest, He has in fact bestowed upon certain of His servants from the time of the Revelation until now, but to not one of them has He given leave to express these mysteries to others, because only Christ Himself may do this, again, to those whom He chooses. Hence, the instructions at the end of the book, “This is my solemn warning to all who hear the prophecies in this book: if anyone adds anything to them…”
To try to interpret for others, to try to tell others the meaning and significance of the prophecies in this book is sometimes to add to, sometimes to cut away from, them. In fact, the second set of instructions are just as emphatic in the negative as the first set are in the positive direction:

Read aloud, treasure and keep “what is written in them,”
and you are blessed.
“Add to or cut anything out of the prophecies in this book,”
and there are consequences.

What, then, becomes of anyone’s speculations on the content of the book of Revelation?
Reviewed in the light of the instructions contained in the book, they begin to look quite silly at best, and at worst take on the appearance of an unthinking disrespect.

On final thing I want to express is this.
All that I have written about how to approach the book of Revelation is not written to discourage anyone from reading it, as if it were too high and holy, and of no practical importance to oneself as an individual believer or as a member of the Church. God forbid!
We don’t have to understand something to derive benefit from it. Most people don’t know exactly how the stomach digests food, nor how the food nourishes them and gives them strength, yet they still eat. What we can know is sometimes very little, but even if the instructions are brief, as long as they are clear and can be carried out, we should follow them. The same is true of the instructions written on a bottle of cough medicine, as well as of the instructions I have pointed out written on the scroll of the Apokálypsis. Follow the instructions, and you will be blessed, makários.

“Happy the man who reads this prophecy [aloud], and happy are those who listen to him, if they treasure [keep] all that it says, for the time is close.” (Revelation 1:3)