The Book of Revelation is divine truth. It is Christ’s, or God’s Apocalypse. Second, it is real; the events depicted are actual; they have happened or will happen or both. Third, the Book of Revelation does not and cannot stand alone. It is fully dependent on the Old Testament, especially on the Prophets Ezekiel, Daniel, and Isaiah (other prophets as well but a little less so). Fourth, the miracles spoken of and the divine power behind those miracles is real, alive, and active. If there is a fifth element of the book of Revelation worldview it would be that we shall take Revelation literally.
However, I must explain what I mean by that. Literally does NOT mean that we are obligated to take what are clearly Hebrew expressions, metaphors or symbols word for word. Literally means (for example) that when a miracle is encountered, it is an authentic miracle. When God gives a vision, it is an actual divine vision and not the dream machinations of an overwrought or unstable person, nor is it the person (in our case John) claiming a vision but in fact it is but his own thoughts and plans. When words and commands are ascribed as coming from God or his angelic servants, they are true and actual. But literal also demands that we understand what those words meant to John in that day, at that place, in his culture and his language. This is a difficult task.
There are many allusions (an expression designed to call something to mind without mentioning it explicitly) to the Old Testament Scriptures throughout the Book of Revelation. In fact, for those scholars who don’t discount the Old Testament completely in their assessments of Revelation, the consensus is that John has included about 500 allusions to the Old Testament that include allusions to the Torah, the Psalms, Samuel, Chronicles and other books; but primarily it is to the Prophets. These allusions are critical to understanding Revelation. John did not create Revelation in a vacuum. And the Lord did not give John visions that had no concrete context for John to be able to understand and connect with.
This should surprise no one as the interpretation of the New Testament books and letters in general depends on the reader knowing about what the Old Testament Prophets proclaim, what the Torah teaches, and the history of Israel that we find in the progress of the Old Testament beginning with Abraham.
Without the Old Testament, Revelation especially is very nearly only several chapters of frustrating gibberish that allows virtually open-ended interpretations by creative commentators.
Because Revelation relies heavily on the Old Testament Prophets, doing so by means of allusions rather than quotes, the task of understanding and interpreting becomes even larger. So that we’re all together, let me define the term allusion once more. An allusion is meant to call something to mind without expressing it directly.
Remember, the Jewish literary norm in the New Testament era was for a writer to quote an Old Testament passage and then comment about it. But what the writer actually intended was to use the brief Scripture quotation as merely a reference to the entire context of where that quotation appeared in the Bible. The quotation was meant to call to mind an entire section of Scripture; it was not intended that only those few quoted words were the point.
Why do it that way? Because there was no other method of leading a reader to a certain section of Scripture without it. There were no chapter and verse numbers in that era; such a thing wouldn’t happen for nearly 1500 years!
However, in Revelation, John does not use word-for-word Old Testament quotations likely because he was not a trained scholar; he was a fisherman. Although he clearly knew his Bible he would use rather easily recognizable allusions to point his readers towards certain Old Testament books and passages rather than memorized quotes.
This book is the only book in the Bible that promises a divine blessing to any Believer who reads it and studies it. But if when reading you can’t understand it, does that bring you the promised blessing? Of course not. A mechanical reading of words without comprehension is of no earthly or heavenly value. Neither does a reading in which allegory rules and the entire premise for interpretation is faulty, bring cause for God to issue that blessing to the reader. The intention is that you DO understand what is written correctly.
The commentator we will be using promises that is to be his goal for us. With the Lord’s guidance, we shall accomplish it.
If the reader is interested in possibly gaining a greater understanding of God’s Word through the eyes of a Christian Jewish Rabbi, please go to this link: https://www.torahclass.com/lessons
I’ve been thinking about what seems to be emerging in our day — a growing expression of Israeli Christianity shaped by Jewish believers and rabbis whose hearts appear to be opening to Jesus as Messiah. What stands out to me is the way they are welcoming Gentile believers into fellowship, not as outsiders, but as people who share in the same promises and hope.
In many ways, this resembles the pattern Paul describes in Romans 11.
It looks like a living picture of the vine Paul wrote about — the ancient root of God’s covenant faithfulness supporting both natural branches and grafted in ones. And it also reflects how the earliest churches were formed: Jewish believers sharing the Scriptures and the story of God’s redemption with Gentiles who had been brought near by grace.
Paul taught that Israel’s stumbling was never meant to be final. In God’s design, it opened the way for the Gentiles to come into fellowship with Him. What we may be seeing now is a small but meaningful sign that God is still at work in that same pattern — drawing Jewish and Gentile believers together in a way that echoes the earliest days of the church.