Commentary on Revelation

Revelation: A Reference Commentary. R A Taylor Email: rossuk12@hotmail.com
Website: http://www.apocalipsis.org/
Copyright(2010 R A Taylor 14 Mar 2010 Oh, there's ah clear indication in ah book called Revelations.
Oh, there's ah clear indication
in ah book called Revelations
St. John wrote ah long-long time ago
call it the words of life
call it a warning-in-light
ya know it talks about a man that wears ah robe
and there's a strong Revelation
that gives an indication
Its talk about a man who owns ah throne
call him the First and Last
You know he wears a golden sash
Holy-Holy-Holy is the Lamb
He was First born of the Dead
and He's comen back again
and of his kingdom Brother there's no-end
He said don't forget to feed my sheep
you know the homeless in the streets
'cause what you do for them you've done for me
seven angels he addressed
warning labels tell the rest
and why do they call that book a mystery
He's coming back just the way he left
every tribe He will address
When Michael blows that horn called victory.
Jim F. Bean II. [A soldier of Christ on the highways of the USA] Dedicated to our persecuted brethren throughout the world.
http://www.vom.org
and to
Malcolm Smith whose tapes taught me that the key to the symbolism of
Revelation lies in the rest of the Bible.
http://www.malcolmsmith.org This document can be freely distributed or printed among the body of
Christ.
Spanish and French translations and downloads are available at my web-site.
http://www.apocalipsis.org/ Revelation: A Reference Commentary. Note: The pages are formatted to European A4 size, you can reformat the
page size to USA letter format and then update the table of contents. If
you are using a Word 97 version of this commentary then you can update this
table of contents by selecting the table of contents and hitting F9. You
can also use it to navigate to any section by clicking on a page number. Table of Contents: 1. Introduction: 7
2. The message of Revelation: 9
2.1. A Portrait of the Risen and Glorified Christ in Revelation. 14
2.2 Hymns of Praise and worship in Revelation: 15
3. The interpretation of Revelation. 17
3.1. The five schools of interpretation: 18
3.2. The Millennium: 22
3.3. The Rapture. 22
3.4. Persecution: 23
3.5. Theology of Israel and of the Church. 24
John's theology of the church 25
4. Authorship and date: 26
5. OT and NT imagery. 30
5.1. OT imagery: 30
5.2. The Exodus theme: 30
5.3. Main OT passages used: 31
5.4. NT Imagery. 32
5.5. The Antichrist. 32
6. Structure. 33
6.1. Progressive Parallelism in Revelation. 35
7. The symbology and self interpretation of Revelation. 35
7.1. Symbols in the book. 37
7.1.1. Symbols of Christ. 37
7.1.2. Symbols of the Church. 38
7.1.3. The enemies of the church. 38
7.2. The use of numbers in Revelation: 38
7.3. Some literary devices used. 40
8. Historical setting: 42
9. References: 45
Commentary on Revelation. 51
10. Prologue (1:1) 51
11. Salutation (1:4) 53
12. One Like a Son of Man (1:9) 57
13. The letters to the seven churches (2:1) 61
13.1. Ephesus (2:1) 64
13.2. Smyrna (2:8) 67
13.3. Pergamum (2:12) 69
13.3. Pergamum (2:12) 69
13.4. Thyatira (2:18) 71
13.5. Sardis (3:1) 74
13.6. Philadelphia (3:7) 76
13.7. Laodicea (3:14) 78
14. The vision of heaven (4:1) 80
14.1. Twenty four elders and four living creatures (4:4) 82
14.2. The scroll and the Lamb (5:1) 85
14.2. The scroll and the Lamb (5:1) 85
15. The seven seals (6:1) 90
15.1. First seal (6:1) 90
15.2. Second seal (6:3) 93
15.3. Third seal (6:5) 93
15.4. Fourth seal (6:7) 94
15.5. Fifth seal (6:9) 95
15.6. Sixth seal (6:12) 96
16. The 144,000 sealed (7:1) 98
17. The great multitude in white robes (7:9) 102
17.1. Introduction to the Great multitude: 102
18. The seventh seal and the seven Trumpets (8:1) 107
18.1. Introduction: 107
18.1.1.The seven trumpets and the ten plagues on Egypt: 109
18.1.2. The OT Feasts and their relevance to Revelation. 111
18.2. The seventh seal and the prayers of the saints (8:1). 112
18.3. The First Trumpet (8:7) 114
18.4. The second trumpet (8:8) 115
18.5. The third trumpet (8:10) 115
18.6. The fourth trumpet (8:12) 116
18.7. The fifth trumpet, the first Woe! (8:13) 117
18.7. The fifth trumpet, the first Woe! (8:13) 117
18.8. The sixth trumpet, the second Woe! (9:13) 119
19. The Mighty Angel and the little scroll (10:1) 121
20. The measuring of the temple and the two witnesses (11:1) 124
20.1 The measuring of the Temple (11:1) 125
20.2 The Two Witnesses (11:3) 128
21. The seventh trumpet, the third Woe! (11:15) 134
22. The woman and the dragon (12:1) 136
22.1. War in Heaven (12:7) 138
22.2. The dragon pursues the Woman (12:13) 141
23. The beast out of the sea (13:1) 143
24. The beast out of the earth (13:11) 150
24. The beast out of the earth (13:11) 150
25. The lamb and the 144,000 (14:1) 157
26. The three angels (14:6) 159
27. The harvest of the earth (14:14) 162
27.1. The harvest of the righteous: 162
27.2. The harvest of the wicked: 163
28. Seven angels with seven plagues (15:1) 164
28.1. First bowl (16:2) 168
28.2. Second bowl (16:3) 168
28.3. Third bowl (16:4) 168
28.4. Fourth bowl (16:8) 169
28.5. Fifth Bowl (16:10) 169
28.6. Sixth bowl (16:12) 170
28.7. Seventh bowl (16:17) 171
29. The woman on the beast (17:1). 173
29.1. Is Jerusalem Babylon? 175
29.2. The mystery of the woman and the beast explained (17:7).
180
29.2. The mystery of the woman and the beast explained (17:7).
180
30. The fall of Babylon (18:1). 183
30.1. Mourning for Babylon (18:9). 185
30.1.1. The kings of the earth mourn (18:9). 185
30.1.2. The merchants mourn (18:11). 185
30.1.3. The sea captains mourn (18:17). 186
30.2. Final destruction (18:21). 188
30.3. Hallelujah (19:1). 189
31. Blessed are those invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb! (19:9)
191
32. The rider on the white horse (19:11) 192
33. The end of the beast and the false prophet (19:19) 194
34. The thousand years (20:1) 196
34.1. Premillennial interpretation: 197
34.1.1 OT references in favour of Premillennialism: 198
34.1.2 Commentary (Premillennial): 201
34.2. Amillennial Interpretation: 203
34.2.1. NT theology about being raised with Christ now: 205
34.2.2. The argument of parallelism (Hendriksen). 207
34.2.3. Commentary (amillennial): 209
35. The dead are judged - the great white throne (20:11) 212
36. New heavens and new earth (21:1) 213
37. The new Jerusalem (21:9) 218
37. The new Jerusalem (21:9) 218
38. The river of life (22:1) 222
39. I am coming soon (22:7) 224
40. Warning (22:18): 226
41. Final benediction (22:20) 226
Foreword. Anyone who tries to write a commentary on Revelation owes a debt to those
who in the past have written commentaries on Revelation and who have had to
grapple with its many difficulties, these are acknowledged in the
references. Mounce has been my constant companion for most of the writing
of this book and also helpful have been Barclay, Caird, Hailey, Hendriksen,
Hughes, Johnson, Ladd, Lang, Milligan, Morris and Wilcock. Lately I have
found Osborne a very helpful commentary. Other commentaries and works
consulted are listed at the end of the introduction. At times we have all
stumbled through passages we didn't or barely understood. The problem is
illustrated by the many variant interpretations one can find, as well as
the different schools of interpretation. I owe a great debt to a series of
tapes by Malcolm Smith who first demonstrated to me that the key to much of
its interpretation lies in the bible itself. He made difficult passages
suddenly seem to be brilliantly clear, his interpretation belongs clearly
to the idealist school. Without hearing his tapes this commentary would not
have been written. I have to note that as I wrote this commentary my stance has changed from
idealist to more futuristic, these days I would call my interpretation
eclectic, in that it combines different interpretive schemes. Also I have
used the term Second Coming rather liberally. In my mind the Second Coming
is a single event covering a very short time. However, Revelation deals
with the events of the last days starting from Pentecost, and ending with
the judgement and the last state. The last day is covered by the sixth
seal, the seventh trumpet, the seventh bowl and the last battle. Osborne
uses the term eschaton, which better describes those events leading up to
the final Day of the Lord. Anyone who writes on Revelation should write for his own generation and
therefore I have eschewed a preterist interpretation and used more of a
futurist interpretation because we in the West are looking for the
appearance of the antichrist and need to be prepared for his com