Rightly Divided s01e06 Apocalyptic

This is a podcast about Bible study methods, focusing on apocalyptic literature. Apocalyptic literature is written during times of persecution and tribulation to show that there is an end and God is bringing it in a positive way. It is different from prophecy, as it focuses on the end times and what God is doing today. Apocalyptic literature is based on the Old Testament and contains visions, dreams, and symbolism. It often uses pseudonyms and has a formalized style. The book of Revelation is a combination of apocalyptic and prophetic literature, and also includes letters to seven churches. When interpreting the symbolism in apocalyptic literature, it is important to look at the bigger picture and not interpret symbols in isolation. This is Truth Rightly Divided, a podcast of PreachItTeachIt.org. I'm your host, Tom Terry, and in this podcast, we'll be exploring the various ways of doing Bible study so that you can get the most out of your time when studying God's Word. Our guest for this eight-week series on basic Bible study is Dr. Steve Posey, an instructor with International Leadership University. Dr. Posey teaches Bible study methods and conducts other training for crew staff all across Africa. He will be with us for the next three episodes of Rightly Divided to help us get a firm grasp on how to study the Bible according to its various types of genre. For this episode, we'll be talking about how to study and apply apocalyptic literature from the Bible. Hi, Steve. Just what is apocalyptic literature? Oh, that's a great question. Apocalyptic literature involves various elements, but basically, it's literature written during persecution and times of tribulation for the people of God, and it was written to show the people that there is an end and God is bringing it in a positive way. So apocalyptic talks about the end times. Is apocalyptic literature always written that way in response to the times they're living in? Yes. Under persecution? Because you mentioned that, and I had not heard that before. Yes. Interestingly, there are many apocalypses between the years 200 B.C. and 200 A.D. Only one of them is truly, one full book, is truly an apocalypse in the Bible now. For example, Daniel, the book of Daniel in the Old Testament, it contains some apocalyptic literature, but it's not total apocalyptic. It's prophetic. Isaiah contains some, but of course, Isaiah is mainly prophetic. But so the apocalypses were written during a time when the people, most of them being non-canonical, they were Jewish, the people of Israel were under persecution and the people of Israel were being controlled and other nations were ruling over them, and yet they thought they had been good. So their question was, what's going on here? Will this ever change? And the apocalypses were written to answer that question. John's was written to answer that question for Christians who were under persecution. Of course, that's New Testament, but Old Testament, would Zechariah be an example of Old Testament apocalyptic literature? Yes. It's not totally that. It's got some prophetic literature in it, but yes, it is another good example. Thank you. Okay. So since you brought it up then, what is the difference between apocalyptic literature and prophecy? Okay. Because apocalyptic contains prophecy, if I'm not mistaken. Generally it does, Tom. In fact, that's a great point. The difference between the two, though, is this. Apocalyptic is about the present time and what God says directly to that present situation. It's God speaking, whereas apocalyptic is written, and it's written about what God's doing in the end times, which answers the problem of today. So it points toward the end, whereas prophetic points toward right today. So in the book of Revelation, we have not only apocalyptic, but we have prophetic. Some of the things in the book of Revelation were going to happen to the people it was written to in that day, and John makes that clear. Apocalyptic literature, to me, and I've heard this taught elsewhere, it's basically about what they say, the end of the world, but is that really correct? It's about how God is—very good question—it's about how God is working in history to bring about his kingdom. Now John, of course, wrote from a different viewpoint than the Jewish apocalyptic writers. John wrote from the now and not yet viewpoint. John wrote, because the Spirit had come, that God's kingdom was now, it had already begun. But there was a not yet portion of it, when God's kingdom would control the entire earth, everything. And so in that sense, apocalyptic, yes, it is about the end times, but also it involves what God is doing today, and you can view the end times as he's bringing his kingdom into position. Okay. What are the major characteristics of apocalyptic literature? Well, the first major characteristic is that the taproot, I guess would be the thing to say, the source or the basis, the foundation, the taproot of apocalyptic is the Old Testament. John, for example, in the book of Revelation, he has over 250 times in those 22 chapters that he either references or makes an allusion toward the Old Testament situations. That's interesting, I didn't know that. And the people who had come out of an Old Testament world, they understood what he was talking about. So they would recognize that and that would speak to them. Yes. And in fact, Christians today don't have an Old Testament world, they don't have an Old Testament mentality, a large number of Christians know very little about it. So we read that and we don't understand it. So that's the first characteristic, it is based upon, not based upon, but the taproot, the allusions and many of the examples come out of the Old Testament. So you really need a basic understanding of the Old Testament in order to understand what Revelation is getting to. That's correct. Or, as we say, a commentary which understands the Old Testament, which tells you that. That's the first thing. Then the second thing is that apocalyptic, unlike prophetic, prophetic, we think, well, we read the book of Daniel or we read the book of Isaiah and we think, well, prophetic was written. But what we forget is it was written after the fact, after the prophecies were made. Then a scribe or someone wrote it down. The difference is apocalyptic is a literature. It is written. God speaks to people like John and they write what God is telling them, whereas the prophets, the prophets spoke what God said to them. So there's that different aspect. And as a result of that, the prophecy, I mean, the apocalyptic being literature, it has a formalized style and you read apocalyptic literature and you go, oh, that's apocalyptic. It has that style. The next thing is apocalyptic is full of visions and dreams and fantasy. All apocalyptic has that. And we say, well, you know, didn't people in the time of Jesus have dreams and things of that sort? Yes. And Jesus even used symbolism to speak about things. He talked about being the salt of the earth or things of that sort, but he always referred to things that we could relate to. But for example, in visions and dreams and the symbolism of apocalyptic, he has a vision of a woman clothed by the sun. Okay, woman I understand, sun I understand, but a woman clothed by the sun? Or he has a beast that has seven heads. And I'm going, not in the world I know. So we have that fantasy aspect, which is a part of visions and dreams and the symbolism. We have that and it's fantastic or it's fantasy. It doesn't deal that much with reality. And then another thing, very interesting thing, is pseudonymity. And what I mean by pseudonymity is most, well, all of the apocalyptic writers wrote as if they were somebody else. And they spoke about what was going on in their day as if it had been from a hundred years before or something like that. And so they'd claim names like Enoch or they'd claim names like Ezra or that type of thing. People who were already well known by the Jewish people. But the interesting thing about the book of Revelation is pseudonymity doesn't hold. John identifies himself as the writer in the very first passage, in the very first chapter. And so that's a bit different because he was full of the Spirit. On the day of the Lord I was full of the Spirit and God said to me, write what you see. So a prophet would never have been told to write what he saw. He would be told this, I say this, tell the people. So we need to understand that aspect of it. Those are the major aspects. Okay, so what is the literary personality of John's Revelation? That's a very good question because we think John's Revelation is all apocalypse or apocalyptic literature. And that is the predominant form there. But interestingly enough, because of what we talked about earlier, a part of his Revelation is prophetic. He's speaking prophecy to the people of his day who are suffering under persecution. And remember, and I think we talked about this before, prophetic doesn't necessarily mean future telling, it means forth telling. And so John, part of that personality, the literary personality, is he's prophetic. He's forth telling to those who are suffering persecution. By the way, he's on the Isle of Patmos, and he's there suffering persecution because he spoke up about Jesus. And many of them are suffering persecution because they spoke up about Jesus. But there's another aspect. Interestingly enough, he has three, if I can use this word, literary forms. And the third one is it's a letter. He tells us who he's writing to. And he does that seven times at the beginning of the book. That's right, the seven churches. And so that is not the norm with apocalyptic literature. But in this case, that's part of the literary personality of the book of Revelation. Okay. Well, the apocalyptic writings seem to be full of pictures and types and symbolism. How do you go about trying to discern and interpret those different types of things in the book? Very good question. We need to remember, first off, that those symbols and those types and those unusual things that we find in apocalyptic don't stand on their own. They're a part of an entire picture. They're a part of the entire book. So we don't interpret them by saying, oh, wow, you know, there's a beast with seven heads. We're going to see a beast with seven heads when the kingdom of God comes. Yeah, it's not literal. Yeah, it's not literal. And it's not all by itself. It's a part of the overall picture that John is presenting, that he's building. And that's where we get sidetracked by saying, well, you know, the seven-headed beast, as I just said. Or here comes the woman clothed by the sun. Oh, what she means is this. You don't pull those apart. Those are part of the entire context. You allow them to speak in the entire context of what he's writing. But don't those things have something literal that they point to? They have, yes, in that sense. But the whole picture has something literal that it's pointing to, not just that beast or not just that woman. Not just the little individual things, but as a group, as a whole. As a whole. And so that's the way you do it. He's painting a, for lack of a better term, he's painting a fantastic picture. And there's a literal meaning to that. And we want to step back and see what the picture means. It's like context in the other parts of the Scriptures. You don't take a verse out of context, as we say. I see. So you can't take those types out of context either. No. They are part of an overall picture. And the fantasy of the picture, very often we get betrayed by that because we say, oh wow, the fantasy, that picture, that little seven-headed beast, that means the seven nations of whatever. And we find this often with the Antichrist. The Antichrist is truly a person. And truly going to come. And yet some of the pictures of the Antichrist in the book are somewhat, and what he's doing are somewhat fantastic, but they have a literal meaning. And so we need to be careful to allow them to be in the context of what they're talking about. And there's another aspect to this. What did the original readers understand? Because John is writing to them. They are, if I can use the word, more in step with John than we are. They know how he thinks. It was written to them, but for us, but not to us. That's right. Because all of God's Word was written for us. So that's correct. So it was written to them for God's people. But they had a specific context in which they would read it and understand it. So we have to be very careful. We have to listen to what they might have understood, to what they would have experienced. For example, and we won't go into all this, but we do know that some of the images are about Rome and the leaders, the Roman leaders, and how they are persecuting God's people. And some of them are fantastic images, but they're about the Romans. And so that's the context. So we let the context bring that in. Does that mean that there won't be persecution today? No. In fact, John's telling us there's going to be persecution until Jesus comes back again and establishes kingdom. Interestingly enough, I remember as a younger Christian, I thought, well, God's kingdom is in heaven, and it is, but it's on earth. And John's very clear about that. There will be a new earth. And so we often get these things. So we have to take the entire context of what John's saying to his readers. I've heard Christians talk about the book of Revelation, since we're on that subject. I've heard a lot of Christians talk about that as telling us that it's the end of the world and that the Antichrist is coming. But when I look at Revelation, I see it a little bit differently. Yes, the Antichrist is coming, and yes, there are terrible things that happen that are revealed in the book of Revelation. But really, the book of Revelation, as apocalyptic literature, is not about the end or about the sin, those things that are going to be dealt with, but it's about the revealing of Jesus and who he is and how he relates to our present world as well as our future world. I think that's correct, Tom, in fact, very well stated. You know, we have the lion in the image, and then it says, John says, and the lion, he doesn't say it this way, but what he says is the lamb, Jesus Christ, who died for us. And so it is about Jesus, but it's about how Jesus is working today in our lives and how he's working to bring about the end times, too. So it's that full context. It's all of history, if I can say it that way. One of the characteristics of apocalyptic that has been identified is what they call a dualism, and that dualism is that there's the earth, which is not the kingdom of God, and then there's the kingdom of God. And in the book of Revelation, John says, not exactly. The kingdom of God's already here, but the fulfillment of that kingdom, the not yet, is on the way. And Jesus, the lamb, he's the one who's bringing it to pass. So excellent point. So what is John, in the end, really trying to say in his apocalyptic book? Well, what he wants to say is that, yes, you're suffering persecution. Persecution will continue. And yet, he says this, God will reward those who persecute you with wrath. What did he do to the Romans? Wrath. He took care of them. You, as Christians, will go through tribulation, but wrath is reserved for those who persecute you, who reject me. That's the first part of the message. They will experience wrath, God's wrath. Then the second part of the message is, yes, you're in the middle of tribulation, but I have a plan, if I can say it that way, and I'm working that plan out, and I will bring the end of this old earth and inaugurate the new earth, my kingdom, where everybody bows. And then he talks about how God's people, in their suffering, in the persecution, how he rewards them, and he gives them, if I can use the word, resources to go through. So it's much more about that. Yes, it's about the end times, but it's not just a book. It's not a book just about the end times. I think we make that mistake. It's about God walking through history in the presence of the Lamb. Yes. I almost look at certain parts of Revelation as not about the end, but as a new beginning, especially when you get to chapters 21 and 22, because all of history suddenly changes and we're on a new course with Christ forever, in his presence forever. Well, see, and that's why I mentioned dualism before. In the apocalyptic of the Jewish authors, apart from John, that dualism is, you know, you have the earth, and it ceases to exist, and then you've got God, and never the two shall meet. But what you're mentioning is true. We're entering into a new, but it's not totally other in the sense that it'll be a new earth, but I imagine, and this is my imagination, the earth will look a great deal like it does today, only without sin. In fact, in the book of Romans, what does Paul say? He says, even the creation suffers the results of sin, and it begs God to let it free from sin. God didn't create the earth simply for sin, and it existed before sin existed. So yes, I think it's a new beginning, but it's a new beginning starting from today. That's the now and not yet, by the way. Okay. Well, as a wrap-up, would you kind of recount a basic step-by-step way of approaching apocalyptic literature that we should keep in mind when we're trying to interpret it? Okay. Well, first thing is we need to find, if we can, the primary intent that the author had, in this case John, that John had in writing. What was he trying to say? And you and I have talked about that. And one of the keys is you're going to experience persecution. One of the other keys is the Lamb has paid the price. One of the other keys is God is active, even today, and He's bringing about His kingdom full tilt, if I can use that word. So that's the first thing. I think the second thing is we want to avoid overusing the concept or the principle analogy of Scripture. The analogy of Scripture means we interpret Scripture by Scripture. And so often people try to take something in the apocalypse and interpret it by a prophetic voice from the past, or something, a prophetic voice from the past, and use the apocalypse to interpret it. Because of the unique nature of apocalyptic literature, we need to be very careful about that. Because those beasts with seven heads, I don't know anything that matches in the Old Testament. And I don't know anything in the Old Testament that speaks about a beast with seven heads or a woman wrapped with the sun. So we need to be very careful about that. I think the third thing is, because it is apocalyptic and prophetic at the same time, and a letter, we need to remember that exegesis, or interpretation of it, is very complicated. And there's no simple key that gives us an answer to all of it. John didn't say, if you bow your head seven times and look up two, then you'll understand this. It's not so simplistic. So we need to remember that it's very complicated. And yet, we have those general directions that it's going. We know the context is important. We know what those people were going through. We know that, as you said earlier, and very good point, Jesus is central to understanding the Revelation. And we know that the Revelation desires to communicate what God is doing today about your situation and how He's going to work in history. So it's historical in that fact. And then finally, well, we need to remember there are several kinds of images. Some of them are like the political elephant and donkey in the United States. They stay the same. They always mean the same thing. But for example, they have a beast coming up out of the water. That image always means something like the Roman authorities, the Roman emperor. And that's always the same. But other images that John uses, they may change their meaning from one situation to the next. So we need to be careful as we look at those images. And in that sense, I think it's good to have a very good, conservative, if I can use the word, commentary by someone who's had a great deal. George Eldon Ladd, L-A-D-D, is a very good source in understanding the Revelation. And then finally, it's not trying to give a chronology. On this day in 2015, or I'm sorry, on this day in 2035, X will take place. And then after that, within three years, Y will take place. And then after that, in four years, it's the end of the world. No, no, no, no, be careful. It's not a chronology. But he's talking about events and a direction. And just because we see a vision doesn't mean it's simultaneous with a chronological date. So I think those are some of the things we have to be careful about. Alrighty, Steve, thank you very much. Well, thank you, Tom. You've been listening to Truth Rightly Divided, a podcast of PreachItTeachIt.org. Today we've been discussing how to interpret apocalyptic literature. This is the sixth in an eight-part series on how to study the Bible. Our next episode, we'll be exploring how to do character studies from the Bible. I'm your host, Tom Terry with PreachItTeachIt.org. Be sure to visit our website for tools and resources to help you craft your sermon or Bible study that you lead. Thanks for listening. We'll see you again next time on Truth Rightly Divided, a podcast of PreachItTeachIt.org.