“The apocalypse of Jesus Christ” . . . so begins the book of Revelation. I grew up in dipensational premillennial churches that focused heavily on Revelation. The view they took of Revelation is that it is a detailed description of future events, most of which concern a seven-year period of judgement after the Church is removed or “raptured” from the earth.
I never was terribly comfortable with this view, but only in the past year or so have I begun to study more deeply what Revelation is all about. My study began with The Meaning of the Millennium: Four Views, a good overview of the broad contours of eschatology. Now I’ve begun studying Revelation itself in detail, using Craig Keener’s NIV Application Commentary and Beale’s New International Greek Testament Commentary.
It’s refreshing and exciting to realize that Revelation doesn’t really fit so easily into the dispensational premillennial box. Beale’s background discussion is fascinating, and highlights that the various judgments are usually best understood as recapitulations of a broad theme rather than as successive events that will happen over a short time period. Beale summarizes the broad theme of Revelation as follows: “the sovereignty of God and Christ in redeeming and judging brings them glory, which is intended to motivate saints to worship God and reflect his glorious attributes through obedience to his word.” (Beale at .p 174.) Excellent.