Original Meaning

The Revelation of Jesus Christ (1:1a)

THE TITLE AND subject of this book is “the revelation of Jesus Christ.” Ancient writers often included titles on the outside of their scrolls, but by the middle of the second century some scribes began transcribing earlier writings into codexes, which are essentially the kind of books we use today.1 Consequently, titles that often originally appeared on the outside of documents now appear in our works as the opening line of the document;2 this is presumably the case with the Revelation.

A more difficult question, however, is how the word “revelation” relates to the name “Jesus Christ”: Does the entire phrase mean “the revelation about Jesus Christ” (a Greek construction called an “objective genitive”) or “the revelation from Jesus Christ” (a “subjective genitive”), or both?3 If it means the former, Jesus will be the subject of the book of Revelation from start to finish; if the latter, then other issues may be central in the book. On the one hand, the former position is accurate theologically—Jesus is certainly the central figure in the book. The book’s judgments reflect his Lordship (e.g., 6:1, 16; 8:4–6); resemblances to the plagues in Egypt remind us that Jesus is greater than Moses and greater than the original Passover lamb. The book opens with a direct revelation of Jesus to John (1:13–20) and from the start promises that its climax will be the revelation of Jesus from heaven (1:7; 19:11–16).

On the other hand, the context and the structure of the book, as well as the customary function of both apocalypses and titles, appear to offer stronger support to the latter proposal. The revelation addresses “what must soon take place” (1:1) and is conveyed from the Father to Jesus to an angel to John to the churches; hence, it comes from Jesus. Likewise, the seals, trumpets, and bowls, which fill much of the book, detail impending judgments on the world. This is typical subject matter for apocalyptic writings, although John clearly emphasizes Jesus much more than other apocalypses emphasized any character who might be vaguely compared with him. A “revelation” could focus on the Lord himself (2 Cor. 12:1) or, as we think here, on his message (Rom. 16:25). Finally, book titles often listed the purported author, as in “the book of the words of Tobit” (lit. trans. of Tobit 1:1); or “the word of the LORD that came to Hosea” (Hos. 1:1). Jesus Christ is the author, not merely the subject; he revealed his message through his angel to John.

In the final analysis, however, the original, Greek-speaking audience of the book may not have worked as hard as we do to differentiate the two concepts (the grammar itself does not clarify any difference). The message is from Jesus Christ, but ultimately Jesus is the focus of everything in the New Testament, whether directly or indirectly. His purposes in history also reveal his character and invite us to worship him.

Bridging Contexts

HOW DOES ONE apply a statement of authorship like “his servant John, who testifies to everything he saw” (1:1–2)? Two ways are possible, though the second may yield more profit than the first.

Identification. One way some readers approach texts like 1:1 is to identify personally with John’s calling and to contemplate what God has called them to do. Other readers object to this approach. After all, they respond, God does not reveal himself today the way he revealed himself to John. This objection relies on a disputed premise; most Christians today believe that God continues to speak and guide his church by the Spirit, and many believe in dramatic, supernatural revelations.14 Nevertheless, the objection does have some force in a more general sense: The vast majority of Christians agree that the “canon” of Scripture—the measure by which we evaluate all other revelation—is closed. Most of us believe that God still speaks, but most doubt that this requires an additional revelation so forceful as the book of Revelation today!

There is a difference, however, between claiming that our situation is the same as John’s and drawing an analogy between his situation and our own. (If we could not apply biblical principles by drawing analogies, much of the Bible could no longer speak to our contemporary situation.) Identifying with John’s calling does not violate the spirit of the text; John receives exactly the same title as other believers—a “servant” of Jesus Christ, which is precisely what this passage calls all other Christians (1:1). John himself recognizes that he is a sharer in the experiences of the rest of Jesus’ followers (1:9), and that all believers must share the same prophetic Spirit in proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ (19:10). In other words, John’s receptivity to the Spirit, humility as God’s servant, and obedience in speaking a less-than-popular message do provide a model for us.

Grasping the whole. But while it is valid for us as Christ’s servants to identify with John, another approach to the text also provides some necessary insight and balance. The first audience of Revelation, the seven churches of Asia Minor (1:4), would identify with the servants to whom God was sending his revelation of Jesus Christ more than they would identify with John himself. They would receive the mention of John first of all as a certification of the book’s authority, hence an invitation to pay careful attention to the rest of the book that would follow.

This means that in order to hear these opening verses the way the seven churches would have heard them, we must try to summarize the rest of this book the way they would have heard it. This approach works more easily when we study Revelation in our private quiet time than when we teach it publicly, because most congregations and Bible studies today, in contrast to the seven churches of Asia, will not let us read the whole book to them in one setting (1:3)! (The exception might be if we could design exceptional video graphics to accompany the book.) But we must do our best to convey the whole work the way its first hearers would have heard it. After all, how can someone “take to heart”—i.e., “keep” or “obey”—the book’s message (1:3) unless we have at least summarized what that message might be?

Thus we must beware of the danger of taking the introductory verses out of context. Many Christians take isolated verses out of context to defend particular views, but even if we preach entire paragraphs of Scripture, it is possible to take them out of context. These introductory verses introduce the entire book of Revelation and make their fullest sense only when attached to the rest of the book. But even if most congregations and Bible studies today will not let us read them the entire book, we can summarize its main themes in ways they can understand (see “Message of Revelation” in the Introduction). We can help those with whom we share the book’s message to identify with the churches of Asia, that we might learn from the book what they did.

Contemporary Significance

THE FATHER AUTHORIZES his Son, Jesus, to provide a revelation to his servants (1:1). This text reveals the submission of the Son to the Father and the gracious love of the Father for both the Son and humanity. Such verses provide us a model of our own submission to the Father, but also invite us to embrace afresh God’s love for us. The heart of the gospel is God’s gift of Jesus, and through Jesus God continues to provide us gifts we need. Among these gifts is wisdom for times of hardship experienced by his church and by individual believers (cf. James 1:2–5); the book of Revelation offers such wisdom.

The purpose of Revelation. The churches in Asia Minor were at a crossroads, impacted by persecution and wooed toward lives of compromise that might soften the persecution (2:10, 14). Although Christians in today’s world often face different specific temptations, the basic temptation to succumb to the world’s pressure remains the same. When we face such temptation, Christ’s revelation to us can put everything back into perspective. No matter how difficult our situation, Revelation announces that God is still in control and that he will conclude this stage of history the way he has promised. He often provides happy endings to our individual trials; but even when he does not, we have the assurance that a time is coming when everything will be as it should be. Precisely because he rules history, he can assure us of its outcome.

God’s revelation is both a promise and a demand. It is a promise because it gives us a new way of looking at the world. Soap operas, like ancient Greek tragedies, reflect a way of looking at the world that lacks hope for ultimate justice and healing. God’s perspective, by contrast, encourages us that his justice will always prevail—often in the short run, but always in the long run. Because the book of Revelation comes to us as a promise, verse 3 declares, “Blessed is the one who reads … and blessed are those who hear.”

But this revelation also approaches us as a demand. As God’s servants who receive his message, we, like John (1:2), must be “witnesses” of his message (6:9; 12:11; 17:6). Thus, for example, those who truly long for a kingdom of justice in the future must act justly in the present (Amos 5:18–24); those who look for the day when God will right all wrongs must avoid being wrongdoers. In many parts of the world Christians are actively sharing their faith and paying a heavy price for it; for example, Protestants in China multiplied from under two million believers to perhaps thirty times that number after four decades of intense persecution and the torture and martyrdom of many of their leaders.15 The twenty-five baptized Christians in Nepal in 1960 multiplied one-thousand times over in twenty-five years—at a time when Christians faced a six-year prison sentence for baptizing others.16

By contrast, many North American Christians have proved timid merely witnessing to their coworkers.17 Revelation challenges our complacency, whether by pointing us to the price true Christians must be prepared to pay for following Jesus, or by revealing the dangers of compromise with a world inescapably opposed to the one we acknowledge as Lord. This is why verse 3 is not only a blessing, but a blessing specifically directed toward those who hear. Revelation is not good news for everyone. It should terrify those satisfied with the way things are the same way it would have terrified many ancient hearers who learned of its message (see comment on 9:14).

Because Revelation cites its pedigree of origin (God, Jesus, his angel, and a founding apostle, 1:1), it claims great authority and invites us to obey its teachings (1:3). One wishing to apply this section should therefore at least summarize what some of those teachings are. Revelation emphasizes themes such as are mentioned in the Introduction (see “Message of Revelation”).

The time is near—or is it? The subject of the book is the events that “must soon take place” (1:1). But what “soon” means is a matter of great controversy since (happily for Christians today) Jesus did not come back in the late first century. Some understand all biblical references to an imminent (“soon”) coming as referring to a secret return of Jesus for his followers before the final Tribulation, but most of these references in context clearly refer to Jesus’ return to consummate history, not to a coming before the Tribulation (e.g., 2 Peter 3:10; Rev. 1:7; 16:15; cf. 1 Thess. 5:2–3 with 2 Thess. 2:2–4). “Soon” cannot simply mean “pretribulational.”

Some take the word “soon” here to mean that once the events begin, they will proceed rapidly (cf. 11:14);18 but it seems more natural to take them in their more frequent sense as implying that the events of the end will come swiftly. Many of the events promised in this book may actually have begun in or before John’s day (see the comment on 12:5–6), but surely Jesus’ return did not come “quickly,” as the book might lead us to expect (3:11; 22:7, 12, 20). Some suggest that most of Revelation’s descriptions of Jesus’ return refer to figurative events (at least sometimes the case, e.g., 2:16), and that John refers only to Jesus’ symbolic comings in the impending judgments the book portrays.19 Yet this seems not the most obvious sense of the term in most of the references, nor of the parallel phrase that the “time” was near (cf. 11:18).20 The exception might be if John meant that the “time” was near in the sense in which the kingdom was near in Mark: Although the consummation was future, the kingdom was also invading the present through the activity of Jesus Christ, placing its demands on our lives (Mark 1:15).21

Other approaches may address the nature of this prophecy. Because John wrote these words over 1,900 years ago, we may be tempted to doubt how “swiftly” his words have in fact come to pass;22 but the delay may simply indicate that God’s time is not our time (2 Peter 3:8), or that he is still waiting patiently for his children to fulfill their mission in the world (Matt. 24:14; 2 Peter 3:9, 12).23 Or perhaps the real key may simply be what “time” is near: Within Revelation, this term can refer either to the end (11:18) or to a period of tribulation before the end (12:12), which may have already begun even by John’s day (12:5–6).

Whatever else “the time is near” (1:3) might mean, it probably means that the events of the end will be unexpected and that we should be ready for them at any time (Mark 13:32–37; 1 Thess. 5:2), so that believers should live “every moment as though it were our last.”24 A summons to readiness is surely a major part of the phrase’s rhetorical function, which we can apply readily today. As in John’s day, Jesus’ coming remains imminent, intruding on our preoccupied world, standing as a promise to the broken but a threat to Laodicean Christianity too satisfied with the present state of affairs. Jesus’ return will bring the final scene of human rebellion to close—an announcement that is a happy ending to God’s people, but a tragic one for all who chose to reject his way. Because the specific time is unknown and near, no one dare postpone repentance. There is never a good time for Christians to be attached to worldly possessions or allegiances, because there is never a time when testings or the Lord’s literal return may not call us to account for all our choices.

By the same token, the unpredictability of the Lord’s return means that no one should impose deadlines for the Lord’s return. Columbus, for example, sailed to the New World partly because he believed God called him to be an instrument in bringing about the imminent new heaven and earth prophesied in Scripture.25

The Reformation period proved rife with apocalyptic expectation. Like many before him, Luther believed that he was in the end time and expected the world to end within about a century; early Puritans thought that the Millennium ended in 1300, so expected the world to end within a century after them.26 Anabaptist Melchior Hoffman courageously returned to Strassburg, accepting his arrest, because he expected it to become the new Jerusalem; he died there ten years later. An extremist then announced that Münster would become the new Jerusalem, crowned himself David, and reestablished polygamy, leading to the rapid slaughter of everyone in the city by Lutherans.27 Thomas Müntzer took part in the Peasants’ Revolt of 1524, expecting this to be the final judgment; but after six thousand peasants died he was captured and executed.28 In those days end-time miscalculations often died hard, unfortunately quite literally.

Such ideas continued unabated in the following centuries. Thomas Helwys, leader among the first generation of Baptists, believed he and his followers had entered the “days of great tribulation spoken of by Christ” through the persecutions of King James I (1603–1625).29 In 1694 forty German Pietists settled in a cave outside Philadelphia to meditate and prepare for Christ’s return, though they also cared for the sick and evangelized.30 In the 1700s some Quaker enthusiasts predicted imminent catastrophe and Christ’s return.31 Jonathan Edwards believed that God “might now be using the Awakening [of his day] as the last ingathering of the elect before the end time.”32

A generation later, many Americans felt that the Revolutionary War was the final war, and that King George III was the final Antichrist.33 (King George actually had evangelical sympathies, and Wesley opposed the Revolution.)34 During the Revolution, some in a sort of postmillennial vein thought the Millennium imminent; when Jefferson later became president, a more premillennial sort of apocalyptic fear of the new president’s Deism spread.35

Likewise, many northern ministers on the eve of the Civil War expected the war to usher in God’s kingdom; some southern ministers agreed, although expecting God to weigh in on the other side.36 Tens of thousands earlier expected Jesus’ return in the 1840s.37 In the late nineteenth century the great urban evangelist William Booth thought that his Salvation Army “had been chosen by God as the chief agency to finally and fully establish” God’s kingdom on earth.38 The fanfare over the turn of the Millennium in 1999 is not new; a century earlier, on Dec. 31, 1899, “people took out full-page ads in New York and Chicago newspapers, anticipating the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.”39 Even when Jesus supposedly appeared to someone and commissioned him to share end-time truth, as in the disastrous Children’s Crusade of the Middle Ages, one could be deceived.40 Early and modern voices predicting times and seasons have all shared one, major common flaw: All of them have proved mistaken.

The twentieth century added significantly to such predictions. Clarence Larkin, one of the most popular representatives of the older dispensational school, concluded from his Bible interpretation that Christ would probably return by the end of the twentieth century. Some other prophecy teachers, however, apparently considered such claims too vague. Some Christian bookstores in 1988 stocked large quantities of Edgar Whisenant’s bestselling book, 88 Reasons Why the Rapture Could Be in 1988 (over three million copies were distributed).41 (If one supposes that Jesus must return within one forty-year generation after Israel became a nation in 1948, this deadline makes sense. But this is neither the likely sense of the text on which it is based [Matt. 24:32–34], nor—we might note—did it happen.)42 In December 1988 a friend who worked in one bookstore told me that the manager told her to sell as many of the books as possible, since they would not be able to sell them in 1989. We should not think such failed predictions went unnoticed by the world; one university newspaper’s weather report mocked that we must all be “sinful, depraved people” to still be on earth, because “the rapture was scheduled for last night.”43

In 1989, the book’s author reportedly revised his calculations and issued a new edition, offering 89 reasons why Jesus would come in 1989. The revised edition did not sell as well as its predecessor; let it never be said that contemporary Christians are easily deceived! Some things Christians fail to learn from the Bible we learn from experience instead.44 Our focus on the “now” at the expense of the broad sweep of history renders us susceptible to such passing fashions. Thus a more nuanced prophecy book that seemed relevant to headlines about Saddam Hussein naturally proved popular during the Persian Gulf War, but some distributors who had overstocked later had to give away copies of the book free or sent them back to the publisher for refunds.45

Various prophecy teachers have suggested that the Lord will probably come around the year 2000.46 Still less responsibly, the tabloid media, reflecting popular views that would surprise many readers of this commentary, exploit hysteria concerning the turn of the millennium; one article in the Weekly World News has suggested the world’s end in the year 2000.47 Another has claimed that 91 percent of “experts” now “expect the Apocalypse, stunning new research shows.”48 Fortunately, the issue also provided practical guidance, such as how one could make it to safety on the ark currently being constructed by space aliens.49 An edition the year before claimed that “secret government tapes prove” that Jesus is already on earth, ready for the world’s end (despite the explicit warning to the contrary in Matt. 24:26–28; Mark 13:21–22); the paper alleged a cover-up.50 In preparation for Judgment Day, the paper invites readers to salvation—by summarizing Billy Graham’s moral teachings in such a way as to mislead the reader into thinking that Graham promotes salvation by works.51

But those who made such predictions, expecting his coming 2000 years after his first birthday, were running a little late: Jesus was probably born around 7 B.C., so his bimillennial celebration should have been around 1993.52 Setting deadlines—or predicting the signs that suggest such deadlines—misses the point. With or without such signs, we should always be ready.

Original Meaning

Those Who Read and Hear (1:3)

BEFORE PRINTING PRESSES were available, well-to-do people often “published” works especially in public readings, perhaps most often at banquets.11 But that the book of Revelation was read in churches alongside Old Testament Scripture suggests that the early Christians began treating it as Scripture then or soon afterward (cf. also 22:18–19).12 That one person would read the work (“blessed is the one who reads”) and the whole congregation would hear it (“blessed are those who hear it”) fits what we know of the time; even in urban areas, many people could not read much.

“Blessed are” is the familiar ancient literary form “beatitude,” which is especially prominent in the Hebrew Bible and Jewish texts (e.g., Ps. 1:1; Prov. 8:34).13 The “blessing” form itself is general, but the context specifies the blessings of the end (Rev. 21–22) for which only the listener will be prepared (“the time is near,” 1:3). In biblical idiom, “hearing” also often meant “heeding,” i.e., obedience (e.g., the Hebrew of Gen. 26:5; 27:8), but John allows no ambiguity, adding “take to heart” (lit., “keep”); one used this language for observing commandments. Though Revelation is not a collection of laws, its message provides us demands no less serious (Rev. 12:17; 14:12; 22:7).

Bridging Contexts

HOW DOES ONE apply a statement of authorship like “his servant John, who testifies to everything he saw” (1:1–2)? Two ways are possible, though the second may yield more profit than the first.

Identification. One way some readers approach texts like 1:1 is to identify personally with John’s calling and to contemplate what God has called them to do. Other readers object to this approach. After all, they respond, God does not reveal himself today the way he revealed himself to John. This objection relies on a disputed premise; most Christians today believe that God continues to speak and guide his church by the Spirit, and many believe in dramatic, supernatural revelations.14 Nevertheless, the objection does have some force in a more general sense: The vast majority of Christians agree that the “canon” of Scripture—the measure by which we evaluate all other revelation—is closed. Most of us believe that God still speaks, but most doubt that this requires an additional revelation so forceful as the book of Revelation today!

There is a difference, however, between claiming that our situation is the same as John’s and drawing an analogy between his situation and our own. (If we could not apply biblical principles by drawing analogies, much of the Bible could no longer speak to our contemporary situation.) Identifying with John’s calling does not violate the spirit of the text; John receives exactly the same title as other believers—a “servant” of Jesus Christ, which is precisely what this passage calls all other Christians (1:1). John himself recognizes that he is a sharer in the experiences of the rest of Jesus’ followers (1:9), and that all believers must share the same prophetic Spirit in proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ (19:10). In other words, John’s receptivity to the Spirit, humility as God’s servant, and obedience in speaking a less-than-popular message do provide a model for us.

Grasping the whole. But while it is valid for us as Christ’s servants to identify with John, another approach to the text also provides some necessary insight and balance. The first audience of Revelation, the seven churches of Asia Minor (1:4), would identify with the servants to whom God was sending his revelation of Jesus Christ more than they would identify with John himself. They would receive the mention of John first of all as a certification of the book’s authority, hence an invitation to pay careful attention to the rest of the book that would follow.

This means that in order to hear these opening verses the way the seven churches would have heard them, we must try to summarize the rest of this book the way they would have heard it. This approach works more easily when we study Revelation in our private quiet time than when we teach it publicly, because most congregations and Bible studies today, in contrast to the seven churches of Asia, will not let us read the whole book to them in one setting (1:3)! (The exception might be if we could design exceptional video graphics to accompany the book.) But we must do our best to convey the whole work the way its first hearers would have heard it. After all, how can someone “take to heart”—i.e., “keep” or “obey”—the book’s message (1:3) unless we have at least summarized what that message might be?

Thus we must beware of the danger of taking the introductory verses out of context. Many Christians take isolated verses out of context to defend particular views, but even if we preach entire paragraphs of Scripture, it is possible to take them out of context. These introductory verses introduce the entire book of Revelation and make their fullest sense only when attached to the rest of the book. But even if most congregations and Bible studies today will not let us read them the entire book, we can summarize its main themes in ways they can understand (see “Message of Revelation” in the Introduction). We can help those with whom we share the book’s message to identify with the churches of Asia, that we might learn from the book what they did.

Contemporary Significance

THE FATHER AUTHORIZES his Son, Jesus, to provide a revelation to his servants (1:1). This text reveals the submission of the Son to the Father and the gracious love of the Father for both the Son and humanity. Such verses provide us a model of our own submission to the Father, but also invite us to embrace afresh God’s love for us. The heart of the gospel is God’s gift of Jesus, and through Jesus God continues to provide us gifts we need. Among these gifts is wisdom for times of hardship experienced by his church and by individual believers (cf. James 1:2–5); the book of Revelation offers such wisdom.

The purpose of Revelation. The churches in Asia Minor were at a crossroads, impacted by persecution and wooed toward lives of compromise that might soften the persecution (2:10, 14). Although Christians in today’s world often face different specific temptations, the basic temptation to succumb to the world’s pressure remains the same. When we face such temptation, Christ’s revelation to us can put everything back into perspective. No matter how difficult our situation, Revelation announces that God is still in control and that he will conclude this stage of history the way he has promised. He often provides happy endings to our individual trials; but even when he does not, we have the assurance that a time is coming when everything will be as it should be. Precisely because he rules history, he can assure us of its outcome.

God’s revelation is both a promise and a demand. It is a promise because it gives us a new way of looking at the world. Soap operas, like ancient Greek tragedies, reflect a way of looking at the world that lacks hope for ultimate justice and healing. God’s perspective, by contrast, encourages us that his justice will always prevail—often in the short run, but always in the long run. Because the book of Revelation comes to us as a promise, verse 3 declares, “Blessed is the one who reads … and blessed are those who hear.”

But this revelation also approaches us as a demand. As God’s servants who receive his message, we, like John (1:2), must be “witnesses” of his message (6:9; 12:11; 17:6). Thus, for example, those who truly long for a kingdom of justice in the future must act justly in the present (Amos 5:18–24); those who look for the day when God will right all wrongs must avoid being wrongdoers. In many parts of the world Christians are actively sharing their faith and paying a heavy price for it; for example, Protestants in China multiplied from under two million believers to perhaps thirty times that number after four decades of intense persecution and the torture and martyrdom of many of their leaders.15 The twenty-five baptized Christians in Nepal in 1960 multiplied one-thousand times over in twenty-five years—at a time when Christians faced a six-year prison sentence for baptizing others.16

By contrast, many North American Christians have proved timid merely witnessing to their coworkers.17 Revelation challenges our complacency, whether by pointing us to the price true Christians must be prepared to pay for following Jesus, or by revealing the dangers of compromise with a world inescapably opposed to the one we acknowledge as Lord. This is why verse 3 is not only a blessing, but a blessing specifically directed toward those who hear. Revelation is not good news for everyone. It should terrify those satisfied with the way things are the same way it would have terrified many ancient hearers who learned of its message (see comment on 9:14).

Because Revelation cites its pedigree of origin (God, Jesus, his angel, and a founding apostle, 1:1), it claims great authority and invites us to obey its teachings (1:3). One wishing to apply this section should therefore at least summarize what some of those teachings are. Revelation emphasizes themes such as are mentioned in the Introduction (see “Message of Revelation”).

The time is near—or is it? The subject of the book is the events that “must soon take place” (1:1). But what “soon” means is a matter of great controversy since (happily for Christians today) Jesus did not come back in the late first century. Some understand all biblical references to an imminent (“soon”) coming as referring to a secret return of Jesus for his followers before the final Tribulation, but most of these references in context clearly refer to Jesus’ return to consummate history, not to a coming before the Tribulation (e.g., 2 Peter 3:10; Rev. 1:7; 16:15; cf. 1 Thess. 5:2–3 with 2 Thess. 2:2–4). “Soon” cannot simply mean “pretribulational.”

Some take the word “soon” here to mean that once the events begin, they will proceed rapidly (cf. 11:14);18 but it seems more natural to take them in their more frequent sense as implying that the events of the end will come swiftly. Many of the events promised in this book may actually have begun in or before John’s day (see the comment on 12:5–6), but surely Jesus’ return did not come “quickly,” as the book might lead us to expect (3:11; 22:7, 12, 20). Some suggest that most of Revelation’s descriptions of Jesus’ return refer to figurative events (at least sometimes the case, e.g., 2:16), and that John refers only to Jesus’ symbolic comings in the impending judgments the book portrays.19 Yet this seems not the most obvious sense of the term in most of the references, nor of the parallel phrase that the “time” was near (cf. 11:18).20 The exception might be if John meant that the “time” was near in the sense in which the kingdom was near in Mark: Although the consummation was future, the kingdom was also invading the present through the activity of Jesus Christ, placing its demands on our lives (Mark 1:15).21

Other approaches may address the nature of this prophecy. Because John wrote these words over 1,900 years ago, we may be tempted to doubt how “swiftly” his words have in fact come to pass;22 but the delay may simply indicate that God’s time is not our time (2 Peter 3:8), or that he is still waiting patiently for his children to fulfill their mission in the world (Matt. 24:14; 2 Peter 3:9, 12).23 Or perhaps the real key may simply be what “time” is near: Within Revelation, this term can refer either to the end (11:18) or to a period of tribulation before the end (12:12), which may have already begun even by John’s day (12:5–6).

Whatever else “the time is near” (1:3) might mean, it probably means that the events of the end will be unexpected and that we should be ready for them at any time (Mark 13:32–37; 1 Thess. 5:2), so that believers should live “every moment as though it were our last.”24 A summons to readiness is surely a major part of the phrase’s rhetorical function, which we can apply readily today. As in John’s day, Jesus’ coming remains imminent, intruding on our preoccupied world, standing as a promise to the broken but a threat to Laodicean Christianity too satisfied with the present state of affairs. Jesus’ return will bring the final scene of human rebellion to close—an announcement that is a happy ending to God’s people, but a tragic one for all who chose to reject his way. Because the specific time is unknown and near, no one dare postpone repentance. There is never a good time for Christians to be attached to worldly possessions or allegiances, because there is never a time when testings or the Lord’s literal return may not call us to account for all our choices.

By the same token, the unpredictability of the Lord’s return means that no one should impose deadlines for the Lord’s return. Columbus, for example, sailed to the New World partly because he believed God called him to be an instrument in bringing about the imminent new heaven and earth prophesied in Scripture.25

The Reformation period proved rife with apocalyptic expectation. Like many before him, Luther believed that he was in the end time and expected the world to end within about a century; early Puritans thought that the Millennium ended in 1300, so expected the world to end within a century after them.26 Anabaptist Melchior Hoffman courageously returned to Strassburg, accepting his arrest, because he expected it to become the new Jerusalem; he died there ten years later. An extremist then announced that Münster would become the new Jerusalem, crowned himself David, and reestablished polygamy, leading to the rapid slaughter of everyone in the city by Lutherans.27 Thomas Müntzer took part in the Peasants’ Revolt of 1524, expecting this to be the final judgment; but after six thousand peasants died he was captured and executed.28 In those days end-time miscalculations often died hard, unfortunately quite literally.

Such ideas continued unabated in the following centuries. Thomas Helwys, leader among the first generation of Baptists, believed he and his followers had entered the “days of great tribulation spoken of by Christ” through the persecutions of King James I (1603–1625).29 In 1694 forty German Pietists settled in a cave outside Philadelphia to meditate and prepare for Christ’s return, though they also cared for the sick and evangelized.30 In the 1700s some Quaker enthusiasts predicted imminent catastrophe and Christ’s return.31 Jonathan Edwards believed that God “might now be using the Awakening [of his day] as the last ingathering of the elect before the end time.”32

A generation later, many Americans felt that the Revolutionary War was the final war, and that King George III was the final Antichrist.33 (King George actually had evangelical sympathies, and Wesley opposed the Revolution.)34 During the Revolution, some in a sort of postmillennial vein thought the Millennium imminent; when Jefferson later became president, a more premillennial sort of apocalyptic fear of the new president’s Deism spread.35

Likewise, many northern ministers on the eve of the Civil War expected the war to usher in God’s kingdom; some southern ministers agreed, although expecting God to weigh in on the other side.36 Tens of thousands earlier expected Jesus’ return in the 1840s.37 In the late nineteenth century the great urban evangelist William Booth thought that his Salvation Army “had been chosen by God as the chief agency to finally and fully establish” God’s kingdom on earth.38 The fanfare over the turn of the Millennium in 1999 is not new; a century earlier, on Dec. 31, 1899, “people took out full-page ads in New York and Chicago newspapers, anticipating the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.”39 Even when Jesus supposedly appeared to someone and commissioned him to share end-time truth, as in the disastrous Children’s Crusade of the Middle Ages, one could be deceived.40 Early and modern voices predicting times and seasons have all shared one, major common flaw: All of them have proved mistaken.

The twentieth century added significantly to such predictions. Clarence Larkin, one of the most popular representatives of the older dispensational school, concluded from his Bible interpretation that Christ would probably return by the end of the twentieth century. Some other prophecy teachers, however, apparently considered such claims too vague. Some Christian bookstores in 1988 stocked large quantities of Edgar Whisenant’s bestselling book, 88 Reasons Why the Rapture Could Be in 1988 (over three million copies were distributed).41 (If one supposes that Jesus must return within one forty-year generation after Israel became a nation in 1948, this deadline makes sense. But this is neither the likely sense of the text on which it is based [Matt. 24:32–34], nor—we might note—did it happen.)42 In December 1988 a friend who worked in one bookstore told me that the manager told her to sell as many of the books as possible, since they would not be able to sell them in 1989. We should not think such failed predictions went unnoticed by the world; one university newspaper’s weather report mocked that we must all be “sinful, depraved people” to still be on earth, because “the rapture was scheduled for last night.”43

In 1989, the book’s author reportedly revised his calculations and issued a new edition, offering 89 reasons why Jesus would come in 1989. The revised edition did not sell as well as its predecessor; let it never be said that contemporary Christians are easily deceived! Some things Christians fail to learn from the Bible we learn from experience instead.44 Our focus on the “now” at the expense of the broad sweep of history renders us susceptible to such passing fashions. Thus a more nuanced prophecy book that seemed relevant to headlines about Saddam Hussein naturally proved popular during the Persian Gulf War, but some distributors who had overstocked later had to give away copies of the book free or sent them back to the publisher for refunds.45

Various prophecy teachers have suggested that the Lord will probably come around the year 2000.46 Still less responsibly, the tabloid media, reflecting popular views that would surprise many readers of this commentary, exploit hysteria concerning the turn of the millennium; one article in the Weekly World News has suggested the world’s end in the year 2000.47 Another has claimed that 91 percent of “experts” now “expect the Apocalypse, stunning new research shows.”48 Fortunately, the issue also provided practical guidance, such as how one could make it to safety on the ark currently being constructed by space aliens.49 An edition the year before claimed that “secret government tapes prove” that Jesus is already on earth, ready for the world’s end (despite the explicit warning to the contrary in Matt. 24:26–28; Mark 13:21–22); the paper alleged a cover-up.50 In preparation for Judgment Day, the paper invites readers to salvation—by summarizing Billy Graham’s moral teachings in such a way as to mislead the reader into thinking that Graham promotes salvation by works.51

But those who made such predictions, expecting his coming 2000 years after his first birthday, were running a little late: Jesus was probably born around 7 B.C., so his bimillennial celebration should have been around 1993.52 Setting deadlines—or predicting the signs that suggest such deadlines—misses the point. With or without such signs, we should always be ready.