Today’s reading is Revelation 4.
Sadly, a great deal of confusion exists around the notion of when to take Scripture literally or figuratively. This comes into play with Revelation a great deal. We especially face this as we talk about the meaning of this book with folks who look for Premillennialism in it. (For a refresher on that doctrine, click here.)
Our Premillennial friends assure us we are to take every passage of Scripture as literally as possible. Then they claim they are the only ones who do so. The late Tim Lahaye, co-author of the best-selling “Left Behind” series, makes the following claim in Revelation Unveiled, his commentary on Revelation: “Follow the golden rule of interpretation: When the plain sense of Scripture makes common sense, seek no other sense; therefore, take every word at its primary, ordinary, usual, literal meaning unless the facts of the immediate text, studied in the light of related passages and axiomatic and fundamental truths, clearly indicate otherwise.”*
Then, in his discussion of Revelation 4:1-2, he writes: “It was no coincidence that the first thing to happen after John has described the seven churches (which we have seen represent not only a message to each individual church but also to the seven periods of church history) is his being taken up into heaven. Inasmuch as John was the last remaining apostle and a member of the universal Church, his elevation to heaven is a picture of the Rapture of the Church just before the Tribulation begins.”**
Wait a minute! Did you catch what just happened there? Mr. LaHaye asserts he will take every passage literally unless it defies common sense to do so. However, in the second quote he makes two shocking non-literal assertions. First, he claims the letters we read over the last two weeks shouldn’t be taken literally as mere letters to seven churches, but also figuratively as representing seven ages of the church. Second, he claims the opening statements of this week’s chapter isn’t just John being called up to heaven, but represents the Rapturing of the Church prior to the Tribulation. But I ask you, how does the plain sense of the passages defy common sense? Wouldn’t common sense tell us letters to seven churches are just that? No one asserts the other epistles in the New Testament are anything more than just letters to those churches. Nobody reads Paul’s letter to the Romans as representing an age of church history. Why would they start asserting that here? And why would John being called into heaven be anything more than John being called into heaven? After all, Paul told us in 2 Corinthians 12:2-4 about a man (he’s actually talking about himself) who was, in visions and revelations, caught up to the third heaven and also into paradise. Are we to read a rapture of the church into that passage as well? Why would John’s experience here represent anything more than Paul’s experience did?
I share this with you to warn you. Folks who claim they are following some universal, one-size-fits-all, Scripture interpretation rule rarely are. They make assertions and claims. They then ridicule everyone who disagrees with them as not following the rule. Then they, almost without fail, turn around and interpret passages to mean whatever they want them to mean in order to teach their pet doctrine. We must take care not to fall into that same trap.
As we read through Revelation, don’t be duped by simplistic rules of interpretation. Interpretation is hard work in even the simplest of Scriptures, it will be hard work here. Whatever we determine about the meaning of a passage, it must 1) be compatible with the genre of the book, 2) make sense within the historical context and purpose of the book, 3) be consistent within the immediate literary context, and 4) correspond with remote Scriptural teaching. This expanded law of non-contradiction (Scripture won’t contradict itself) will be our most common guide on helping us interpret Revelation.
The rule for determining whether a passage should be read literally or figuratively is simply stated, but not simply followed. Take Scripture literally when it intends to be taken literally. Take it figuratively when it intends to be taken figuratively. Poetry, even when saying things that could make good common sense, is often figurative by its very nature. We know that, and we read it accordingly. The same is true with parables. Jesus wasn’t really telling us about a farmer in the Parable of the Sower. We know that not because the story defied common sense but because of the nature of parables. The same is true with apocalyptic literature like Revelation. We expect to find a great deal of figurative pictures and representations in this book. We expect numbers to be non-literal. We expect grand, exaggerated pictures of just about every aspect of the book. That being said, we’ve already learned we aren’t looking for a metaphorical one-for-one representation of every aspect of every picture. The door standing open in heaven doesn’t represent anything other than John seeing a door in the heavens and then being called up through it in order to see the rest of the heavenly vision. The purpose of this elevation is not to represent the church being taken out of the world at any time. It simply represents John being taken where he needs to go in order to see from the heavenly perspective.
John is about to reveal a heavenly perspective on the tribulation of those early Christians and what God was going to do about it. He had to be given a heavenly vantage point. That is precisely what happens in Revelation 4:1-2. When John tells us he is revealing heavenly things, we can trust him because he was taken into heavenly places.
Tomorrow’s reading is Revelation 4.
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PATHS:
Discuss Today’s Meditation with Your Family
How does Revelation 4 prompt or improve your praise of God?
*Tim LaHaye, Revelation Unveiled, Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, 1999, p 17.
**ibid., p. 99.
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