God loves order and design. He often uses structure and repetition in his creation. The palm tree in this image1 is an example of both.
As we apply inmillennialism to the book of Revelation, we see the structure God used. He instructed John to “write the things that thou hast seen, and the things that are, and the things that are about to come after these things” (Rev. 1:19; YLT).
John followed this outline. He wrote first about what he had seen (Rev. 1:1–18). He described things that are in the first vision’s messages to the seven churches of Asia (Rev. 1:20 – 3:22). His remaining six visions contain “the things that [were] about to come” (Rev. 4:1 – 22:7).
The Lords also used repetition. As we saw in our Mapping God’s Highway in Revelation post,2 visions 2 through 6 are repetitions (or recapitulations). By this we mean these visions cover the same time period and culminate in God’s judgment of Israel after the flesh (1 Cor. 10:18). They are parallel and repetitive visions that use different images to describe the same events and results.
Prophetic repetition occurs in earlier Scriptures, too. For example, Joseph told Pharaoh his “dream was doubled . . . because the thing is established by God, and God will shortly bring it to pass” (Gen. 41:32). The Revelation increases the number of repetitions to further emphasize the surety and nearness of the visions.
A reader has graciously questioned our previous assertion about this repetition in Revelation. In this post, we hope to support our earlier statement using the text of Revelation. We also want to show that these visions share several elements with Jesus’s Olivet Discourse (e.g., Matt. 24–25).
We will of necessity pass over many details and concentrate on the beginning and (especially) the ending points for each vision.
Let’s begin our brief survey.
The second vision (Rev. 4:1 – 8:1) describes Christ in heaven after his resurrection (Rev. 4:1 – 5:1). It introduces a book with seven seals. Jesus’s redemptive death makes him worthy to open these seals (Rev. 5:6–14).
The vision ends with a remnant of Israel coming out of “the great tribulation” (Rev. 7:14, NKJV). This is the same “great tribulation” Jesus described in the Olivet Discourse and placed in his generation.3 He also connected this judgment to the fall of the Temple (Matt. 24:1–3, 21, 34).
After the judgment is complete, John says “he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among” those who survive (Rev. 7:14–15; emphasis added). This matches a key feature of the Olivet Discourse where the parousia (presence) of Christ extends beyond the “great tribulation” into the Messianic Age (Matt. 24:3, 27, 37, 39). Christ “dwells among” his faithful people after the “great tribulation” in both the vision and the Olivet Discourse.
The second vision ends with God’s “great tribulation” judgment of unfaithful Israel and Jesus dwelling among his people.
The third vision (Rev. 8:2 – 11:19) begins with a brief introduction (Rev. 8:2–5) and proceeds to the sounding of seven trumpets of judgment (cp. Matt. 24:31; Hosea 8:1).
At the close of the vision, John sees God judging “the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified” (Rev. 11:8). This is earthly Jerusalem.
The Holy Spirit seems to suggest the Temple John measured earlier is no longer relevant. It is trodden “under foot forty and two months” by the Gentiles (Rev. 11:1–2). Afterwards, “the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament” (Rev. 11:19; emphasis added).
The third vision ends with God judging Jerusalem and Jesus reigning in his kingdom (Rev. 11:15). Inmillennialism asserts that this reign, the Messianic Age, the kingdom of God, and Jesus’s parousia are simultaneous.
The fourth vision (Rev. 12:1– 14:20) is of the Seven Mystic4 Figures.5 It begins with the birth of the man child (i.e., Christ; Rev. 12:5).
Toward the end of the vision, the remnant of Israel that first appeared in the second vision reappears. This time they are standing with the Lamb (Jesus) on Mount Zion (Rev. 14:1–5; cp. Heb. 12:22).
The hour in which God would judge the “great city” has arrived (Rev. 14:8). In the third vision, John described Jerusalem as “the great city” and compared her to Sodom and Egypt (Rev. 11:8). His comparison of Jerusalem to Babylon in this vision does not, therefore, surprise us. The Son of Man comes on a cloud to execute this judgment (Rev. 14:14–16; cp. Matt. 24:30).
John sees an angel take “the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great winepress of the wrath of God” (Rev. 14:18–19). Israel after the flesh was God’s vine (e.g., Psa. 80:8, 14; Isa. 5:1–7; cp. Deut. 32:32). John is describing her judgment during the “great tribulation.” Israelites outside of Christ were dead branches ready for judgment (Cp. John 15:1–8; Rom 11:16–25).
This fourth vision ends with God judging Jerusalem “in the presence (Gk. enōpion) of the Lamb” (Rev. 14:10). This agrees with the Olivet Discourse where God judges Jerusalem in the parousia (presence) of the Son of Man (Matt. 24:1–3, 27, 37, 39).
The fifth vision is of seven vials (Rev. 15 – 16). It begins with the singing of the song of Moses (Rev. 15:3). God gave these verses 1,500 years earlier to testify against Israel during her “latter days” (Deut. 31:19, 21, 29; cp. Heb. 1:2). As John writes Revelation, the time to sing the song has arrived. God’s vengeance and judgment against his people have come (Deut. 32:35–36; cp. Luke 21:22). They are about to fall on those who “have shed the blood of saints and prophets” (Rev. 16:6). This refers to earthly Jerusalem, “for it cannot be that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem” (Luke 13:33).
Revelation’s fifth vision is the only passage outside Deuteronomy that mentions the song of Moses. He received it when Israel’s (Mosaic) kingdom age began; the overcoming saints sing it as that age ends (cp. Matt. 24:3, NKJV).
As the music plays, God takes the kingdom from Israel and gives it to a holy nation that will bring forth fruit pleasing to God (Matt. 21:43; see our post False Jews and Their Persecutions).
The fifth vision ends with God judging “the great city” (Rev. 16:19), a repeated reference to Jerusalem as it existed in the Mosaic Age (cp. Gal. 4:25–26, 30).
The sixth vision (Rev. 17:1 – 20:15) describes God’s judgment of “the great whore” (Rev. 17:1). This describes Israel after the flesh, for she had transgressed God’s marriage covenant. The prophets often used similar terms to describe unfaithful Israel (Isa. 1:21; 57:1–3; Jer. 2:20; 3:1; etc.).
Israel’s whoredoms and subsequent judgment fulfill the prophecy God gave just before he dictated the song mentioned in the last vision. Israel would “rise up, and go a whoring after the gods of the strangers of the land” (Deut. 31:16); then the music would begin (Deut. 32:1–43).
God then judges “the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus” (Rev. 17:6). Again, this description can only apply to Jerusalem and Israel after the flesh.
This vision contains an extension beyond John’s immediate future. It describes the thousand year reign of Christ (Rev. 20:1–15). We hope to give reasons for this extension in future posts. Our emphasis here is on the events that precede the kingdom age of Christ’s reign.
Just before the thousand years begin, God judges Israel. John says, “in her was found the blood of prophets, and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth” (Rev. 18:24). Jesus spoke of this judgment before and during the Olivet Discourse (Matt. 23:29–39; 24:1f; Luke 21:12f). In both this vision and the Olivet Discourse, scavengers have a feast (Rev. 19:17, 21; Matt. 24:28; cp. Luke 17:37).
This vision, less its kingdom-age extension, ends with God judging “the great whore.”
These five visions share a common terminal point—God’s judgment of Jerusalem and Israel. The visions are parallel.
The Olivet Discourse says this judgment would occur in Jesus’s generation. For John, they would happen shortly after he wrote Revelation (Rev. 1:1, etc. See our post, The Bookends of Revelation).
We invite our readers to compare the structure and repetition of these visions to inmillennialism and the other frameworks available for interpreting prophecy. As mentioned above, we provide a summary diagram of how inmillennialism applies to Revelation in our Mapping God’s Highway in Revelation post.
Footnotes
- This photograph, taken by cobalt123 (flickr), is here. The license for use is here. All text has been added to the image by the blog MikeRogersAD70.com.
- That post also contains a diagram of inmillennialism applied to the Revelation.
- A full discussion of why this is true is beyond the scope of this post. The Greek words are thlipsis megalē (Matt. 24:21) and thlipseōs tēs megalēs (Rev. 7:14). If the tribulation of Matt. 24:21 is the greatest of all time (by hyperbole), where does that leave the tribulation of Rev. 7:14 if they are not the same?
- Meaning “symbolic,” not “occult.”
- The sun-clad woman, the dragon, the man child, the sea beast, the land beast, the Lamb on Mount Zion, and the Son of Man on the cloud.
2 comments
Fascinating!
Thank you, that one-word comment is encouraging!