I don’t view Revelation in the same way you do, as literal events happening in chronological order. I don’t actually have a concrete view of Revelation at all. What I do believe is that the book is not meant to be taken literally.
Here’s the title line of the book:
The Revelation(unveiling) of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show His servants––things which must shortly take place. And He sent and signified(given in signs) it by His angel to His servant John,
The book, and the entire Bible is to show the unveiling of Christ within each one of us. The daystar arises in your heart. The old man is done away with, the new man is resurrected/birthed within us.
I believe that the “highest” level of the book, but I also believe that some of what was written has already taken place historically, and some may be yet ahead. I don’t know for certain, but I do know that none of the book is literal. Like Allan pointed out, stars can’t actually fall from the sky, we won’t see a literal 7 headed beast coming up out of the water, there is not a literal whore riding on the back of some crazy beast.
Therefore, the LOF is not a literal lake of fire that literally burns people for all of eternity.
Revival you still haven’t responded to my rebuttal of your understanding of Zeph 3, which I believe is the same fiery wrath poured out on the nations as the LOF.
Who gave you the right to pick and choose through God’s word like a buffet line deciding on what is literal or not? That is like going through His word and saying “No, God really didn’t mean what He said” or “God didn’t really mean that.” Do you not see the arrogance in that? I’m not interested in a debate about how many different wrong ways people view scripture or the book of Revelation… I believe God wrote what He meant and meant what He said!
A pretty bold statement when you just told me** “I don’t actually have a concrete view of Revelation at all” **
Have you or Allan heard of symbolism? If this is how you view scripture we are at a standstill. God bless.
Yes symbolism, thus not literal. Literal would be an actual 7 headed beast coming out of the sea. And all the starts actually falling from the sky. You can chill with the arrogance bit. I’m sharing with you how I see things. If you want to act like that I’ll also bow out and you’ll be left with nobody to speak with here.
Again, I admit I have not meditated the book of Zephaniah to be able to rebut your interpretation. I just don’t look at a scripture and throw out what I think it means, sorry. God bless.
Who gave you the right to pick and choose through God’s word like a buffet line deciding on what is literal or not?
I think there are many occasions where scripture is most likely using symbols. A multi-headed beast is likely to be one of these occasions. Likewise, a Lake of Fire is likely to be a representation of something. As someone stated earlier, it could quite possibly be God Himself, who is commonly represented as a fire of some sort throughout scripture. Or it could be abandonment. Either way, the Book of Revelation is obviously Apocalyptic literature – beautifully poetic and written for its audience’s hope and encouragement in the triumph of self-sacrificial, peaceful love over all wickedness. This is the compelling reason not to take it literally. If you can only defend a position from this particular book, your position is on rather shaky ground in my opinion.
Why is BROTHER’s opinion wrong? The book of Revelation says itself that it is symbolic. To be honest no one really knows the full meaning of that book and no one should base their doctrines off of it. The Eastern Orthodox church, who read the scriptures in Greek, study the scriptures in Greek, and know pretty much everything about Greek (a reason why many are hopeful universalists), stay far away from the book of Revelation. They don’t read it during their ceremonies, and believe it is a mystery. Frankly I don’t know why its in the bible, but maybe God has a reason for it. There are a 100,000, 001 books out there that interpret Revelation differently, so I ask you, which interpretation is right? Yours?! The rest of the bible is much easier to understand in comparison to Revelation (and that’s saying a lot since the bible is no piece of cake). Let’s deal with what we can understand, namely the rest of Scripture.
2 Timothy 3:16 All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:
I suggest you follow the standard established by God in his word to understand the Bible and the book of Revelation. Maybe the reason why you don’t care for the book of Revelation because its the most damaging to your position of UR. If your theology doesn’t line up with scripture( Revelation included), then you need to change your theology.
Didn’t read my post then huh? I said I don’t know why God put it in the bible, but I also said he must have put it there for a reason. I am not saying that I do not like the book, its passages talking about ‘all things being made new’ and other important verses (mainly the first 4 chapters) make it very valuable. However it is also the most misunderstood book of all the bible, one that no one fully comprehends. It is an Apocalypse, a form of literature popular and well-known to the 1st century, and Apocalypse is never literal (sorry it just isn’t). Therefore it is open to a million different interpretations, and yet as we know only one can be right. Don’t be so naive to think that you understand what millions have gotten wrong. The very people who read the book in Greek don’t try and interpret it. That should say something.
We’ll understand Revelation when Jesus returns, in the mean time 1 Corinthians is pretty simple and straight-ford as are the gospels.