Revelation (Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament)

Osborne, Grant R.

• Publisher: Baker Academic
• Year: 2002
• ISBN:
  9781441200969
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Commentary

The Book of Revelation contains some of the most difficult passages in Scripture. Grant Osborne's commentary on Revelation begins with a thorough introduction and the many difficulties involved in its interpretation. He also examines elements that complicate the interpretation of apocalyptic literature. As with all volumes published in the BECNT series, Revelation seeks to reach a broad audience with scholarly research from a decidedly evangelical perspective.

➤I. Prologue (1:1–8)

II. Churches Addressed (1:9–3:22)

III. God in Majesty and Judgment (4:1–16:21)

IV. Final Judgment at the Arrival of the Eschaton (17:1–20:15)

V. New Heaven and New Earth (21:1–22:5)

VI. Epilogue (22:6–21)

I. Prologue (1:1–8)

The Book of Revelation begins with an elaborate prologue that borrows from both prophetic and epistolary traditions. The foreword (1:1–3) is similar to several prophetic introductions (e.g., Hos. 1:1; Joel 1:1; Amos 1:1) and leads naturally to the author’s claim that this is Christian “prophecy” (1:3). There is also inclusio with the epilogue (22:6–21), which borrows several features (see that passage). Major themes that will define the book (e.g., the imminent eschaton, the authentication of the work as revelatory prophecy, 1 the necessity of perseverance, the identities of the Godhead) are introduced in 1:1–8 and concluded in the epilogue. The prescript (1:4–6) follows Hellenistic epistolary conventions and is similar to Pauline introductory formulas, especially in the combined Greek and Hebrew “grace and peace to you.” The section concludes with a confession or “motto” (1:7–8) that affirms the basic perspective of the book. From this the Apocalypse might be characterized as “a book of prophecy functioning as an apostolic open letter and address to the communities of Asia Minor” (Schüssler Fiorenza 1985: 170). With the epilogue reiterating the prologue, Revelation clearly addresses itself in prophetic style to the problems of the churches in Asia Minor, calling them to “hear and keep” (1:3; 22:7–8) the exhortations of the book.

1. Foreword (1:1–3)
   1. Title (1:1a)
   2. Process of revelation (1:1b)
   3. Results of the revelation (1:2)
   4. Blessing on the reader and the “heeder” (1:3)
2. Greeting and doxology (1:4–6))
   1. Greeting (1:4–5a)
   2. Doxology (1:5b–6)
3. Motto and summary (1:7–8)

Exegesis and Exposition

1This is the revelation from Jesus Christ that God gave him, so he could show his slaves those things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his slave John, 2who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, namely to all that he saw. 3God’s blessings are on the one who reads this and those who heed the words of this prophecy and keep what is written in it, for the time is near.

4I, John, am writing to the seven churches that are in Asia: May grace and peace come to you from the one who is and who was and who is to come, and also from the sevenfold Spirit who is before his throne, 5and also from Jesus Christ, who is the witness, the faithful one, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.

To the one who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood. 6He has indeed made us royalty, priests to his God and Father, so to him be glory and might forever. Amen.

7Behold, he comes with the clouds,

and every eye will see him,

even those who pierced him,

and because of him all the peoples of the earth will mourn.

May it be so! Amen!

8“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.”

A. Foreword (1:1–3)

The foreword follows ancient conventions in stating not only the author but the purpose and contents of the work. Yet it also goes further. Both in OT prophecy and in NT epistles the author’s name comes much earlier, and there are no instances of such a foreword in canonical writings, although some may be found in second-century works (e.g., Didache and Gospel of Thomas). 2 The expanded and highly theological nature of the preface is similar to 1 Pet. 1:1–2 with its trinitarian introduction in verse 2 and doxology in verse 3. It is interesting that some have called 1 Peter an apocalyptic epistle (e.g., Michaels 1988: xlvi–xlix), for as in Revelation the purpose is to establish at the outset the divine authority behind the work. John is clearly communicating that this is not merely his set of visions, but the visions come directly from God and Christ, mediated by angels. In the crisis being faced by the churches in Asia Minor, God does not remain silent but assures his people that he is still in control. Thus 1:1–3 are at the same time a title, an eschatological summary of the contents of the book, and a prophetic exhortation as to what God’s people are to do with it.

1. Title (1:1a)

The opening words provide the origin and content of the book, which is described as Ἀποκάλυψις Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ (Apokalypsis Iēsou Christou, The revelation of Jesus Christ). Some (e.g., P. Hughes 1990: 15) have argued that Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ is an objective genitive and hence should be rendered, “the revelation about Jesus Christ,” on the grounds that Christ is the key figure in the book and that ἀποκάλυψις normally takes an objective genitive in the NT (but cf. Gal. 1:12, where it probably takes a subjective genitive; so Longenecker 1990: 24). The context certainly makes this a subjective genitive, however, and hence it should be rendered “the revelation from Jesus Christ” (so Swete 1911: 1; Aune 1997: 12), for it adds “God gave him [this revelation] to show his slaves” (on this see 11:18). As Giesen (1997: 56) says, “Jesus Christ is not the subject of the book but the author.” Moreover, Jesus is the revealer throughout the book. It is significant that the three times the full title “Jesus Christ” occurs in the book are found in the prologue (1:1, 2, 5). John wants the reader to understand at the outset that the same “Jesus Christ” who became incarnate, revealed himself in human flesh, died on the cross, and rose again is the one who mediates the visions in this book.

More difficult is the exact connotation of ἀποκάλυψις. In the NT the word group occurs 44 times (verb, 26; noun, 18), nearly always with the basic thrust “to uncover what has formerly been hidden” and, unlike secular Greek, with a strong religious and eschatological force. In the logia Jesu this hidden/revealed sense is especially seen in Matt. 10:26 (par.), where the time of “revelation” is almost certainly the coming of the final kingdom. In Luke 17:30 the “Son of Man” will be “revealed” at the parousia. Yet the present is also a time of revelation, for in Matt. 11:25–27 the Father “reveals” the “hidden things” to “little children” (v. 25) and the Son “reveals” the Father to whomever he “wishes” (v. 27). Paul utilizes the terms more than any other NT writer (thirteen uses each of the noun and the verb), 3 using it generally of his own “revelatory” experiences (cf. 2 Cor. 12:1, 7), of himself as the recipient of a “revelation” (Gal. 2:2), of his gospel as coming via a “revelation of Jesus Christ” (Gal. 1:12), of the “revelation” mediated by the Spirit to believers (1 Cor. 14:6, 30; Eph. 1:17), of the “revelation of the mystery” through the “prophetic writings” (Rom. 16:25–26; Eph. 3:3, 5), and of the “revelation” of the parousia (1 Cor. 1:7; 2 Thess. 1:7). Clearly, in Paul there is no fixed meaning for the term.

How much of this is connoted in Rev. 1:1? Surprisingly, this is the only instance of the word group in the book that bears its name. Yet the term also summarizes the content of the book, and the following “those things that must soon take place” lends it a certain “apocalyptic” air. At the end of the first century, however, there was as yet no true technical force in the term, and here it means generally “Jesus’ revelation of the imminent future,” that is, “what must soon take place.” The visions of this book are presented as an “uncovering of hidden truths,” namely the hidden reality of God’s sovereign control of the future, of how he is going to bring an end to the seeming success of the forces of evil in the present age.

2. Process of Revelation (1:1b)

There was a four-stage process by which this revelation came to the church. God gave it to Jesus; Jesus gave it to the angels; they mediated it to John; and John wrote it down for the churches. The first step is stated in the relative clause ἣν ἔδωκεν αὐτῷ ὁ θεός (hēn edōken autō ho theos, which God gave to him). Jesus is the obvious antecedent of αὐτῷ, and the idea of Jesus’ communicating God’s message parallels the Gospel of John (7:16–18; 8:26, 28, 38; 14:10; cf. 5:19, 30), where it is part of the chain of revelation from God to Jesus to the Holy Spirit to the disciples to the world. Here the chain is from God to Jesus to the angel to John to the churches. The sovereignty of God, central to the whole book, begins at this point. Also, a further theological point of the book begins here: God and Jesus function together throughout the book, and in 1:1 they together “show” these visions “to their slaves.”

The purpose of the communication to Jesus was δεῖξαι τοῖς δούλοις αὐτοῦ (deixai tois doulois autou, to show his slaves). The aorist tenses of “gave” and “show” bring out the global nature of the communication process. On this point both traditional and aspectual approaches to the verb agree—the several visions are seen as a whole, coming from God to the church via “Jesus Christ.” Δείκνυμι (deiknymi, I show) occurs eight times in the Apocalypse, more than in any other NT book, and the next most frequent book is the Gospel of John with seven. As Schlier and Schneider note, 4 in both books the term means “reveal, unveil,” and so parallels ἀποκάλυψις above. The Fourth Gospel contains a progression similar to the progression of this verse, for there too the Father “shows” the Son “all he does” (5:20), and the Son in turn “shows” these works to the Jews (10:32). In short, here in 1:1 Jesus “reveals” God’s “revelation” to the churches. Δούλοις could refer to Christian prophets (as in 10:7, where it designates OT prophets) but more likely describes the members of the Christian communities addressed in the seven letters as the recipients of the divine revelation. 5 The Christians are called “slaves” (the actual meaning of the term) eleven times in this book; and as Johnson says, their designation “as the special representatives of the Lord Christ himself . . . becomes a beautiful title of honor for God’s people” (Johnson 1981: 417).

The content of the revelation is ἃ δεῖ γενέσθαι ἐν τάχει (ha dei genesthai en tachei, what must soon take place). As Popkes ( EDNT 1:280) and Beale (1999: 181–82) point out, this corresponds to Dan. 2:28–29 and occurs only in the framing passages in Revelation (1:1; 4:1; 22:6; cf. 1:19). The prophecies of Daniel are seen throughout the book as coming to final fulfillment. It is obviously one of the critical framing ideas in the book, demonstrating the centrality of the perspective regarding the divine control of imminent future events. In the Johannine writings δεῖ connotes God’s will and way (cf. John 3:30; 4:20, 24). It is significant that Jesus also uses δεῖ γενέσθαι in the Olivet Discourse (Mark 13:7 par.) regarding the signs of the “end.” 6 The imminent end of history is a constant theme in the NT and is at the heart of the Book of Revelation.

The phrase ἐν τάχει can mean either “soon” or “suddenly.” Certainly the cognate ἔρχομαι ταχύ (erchomai tachy, I come quickly) in 2:16; 3:11; 11:14; 22:7, 12, 20 means “come quickly” in the sense of “without delay” rather than “swiftly,” and it is unlikely that the idea of swiftness or suddenness is intended in this context. 7 In the semantic field of this concept, Rev. 1 utilizes the parallel terms ἐγγύς (engys, near, 1:3) and μέλλει (mellei, it is about to, 1:19). This emphasis on imminence produces a problem in light of the nineteen hundred years since this was written. How can it be said to have been fulfilled? Caird (1966: 12) solves the problem by having this refer to the persecution of the church by the Romans rather than the final eschaton. However, the thrust of the book as a whole makes this difficult. It is better to see this as apocalyptic language similar to that throughout the NT on the “soon” return of Christ (cf. Luke 18:8; Rom. 16:20; 1 Pet. 4:7). Such language never means that there are to be no events yet to occur, for both Christ (Matt. 13:24–30; 25:1–13) and the Apocalypse itself (6:11) realize that there will be a period of time before its fulfillment. The language of imminence intends to draw the reader into a sense of expectation and responsibility, a sense meant to characterize every age of the church. Moreover, as Sweet (1979: 58) intimates, the fulfillment takes place in stages: “The expected signs have already been set in motion by the Lamb’s victory (ch. 6), and the climax in the ‘desolating sacrilege’ . . . and the coming of the Son of Man (19:11ff.) is at hand.” In salvation history the events indicated in the book have already begun to “come to pass” and await the final consummation.

The process of revelation is further described with ἐσήμανεν (esēmanen, made it known), the third term in 1:1 (with “revelation” and “show”) with the connotation of “revealing” God’s message. This term has a special purpose, for it is the verb cognate of the Johannine term σημεῖον (sēmeion, sign) and yields the idea of “making known” by means of symbols. This is particularly apropos in light of the predominant symbolism of the book. It is questionable whether Christ (in keeping with the centrality of ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Map
• Contents
• Series Preface
• Author’s Preface
• Abbreviations
• Transliteration
• Introduction to Revelation
• I. Prologue (1:1-8)
• II. Churches Addressed (1:9–3:22)
• III. God in Majesty and Judgment (4:1–16:21)
• IV. Final Judgment at the Arrival of the Eschaton (17:1–20:15)
• V. New Heaven and New Earth (21:1–22:5)
• VI. Epilogue (22:6-21)
• Works Cited
• Index of Subjects
• Index of Authors
• Index of Greek Words
• Index of Scripture and Other Ancient Writings
• Notes
• Back Cover