§ 101. The Apocalypse.
On the Lit. and life of John, see §§ 40 and 41 (this vol.); on the authorship of the Apoc. and the time of composition, § 37 (this vol.); § 41 (this vol.); and § 84 (this vol.)
1. Modern Critical, works of German and French scholars on the Apocalypse: Lücke (Voltständige Einleitung, etc., 2d ed., 1852; 1,074 pages of introductory matter, critical and historical; compare with it the review of Bleek in the "Studien and Kritiken" for 1854 and 1855); DeWette Com., 1848, with a remarkable preface, 3d ed. by Möller, 1862); Bleek (Posthumous Lectures, ed. by Hossbach, 1862); Ewald (Die Johann. Schriften, vol. II, 1862; besides his older Latin Com., 1828); Düsterdieck (in Meyer's Com., 3d ed., 1877); Renan (L'Antechrist, 1873); Reuss (1878). A. Sabatier, in Lichtenberger's "Encyclopédie," I. 396-407. E. Vischer: Die Offenb. Joh. eine Jüd. Apok. in christl. Bearbeitung, Leipz., 1886. F. Spitta: Die Offenb. Joh. untersucht, Halle, 1889.
2. For Doctrinal and Practical exposition, the Commentaries of Hengstenberg (1849, spoiled by false prophecies and arbitrary fancies) Auberlen (on Daniel and Revelation, 2d ed., 1854); Gaussen (Daniel le prophète, 1850); Ebrard (in Olshausen's Com., 1853); Luthardt (1861); J. C. K. Hofmann (1844 and 1862); J. L. Füller (follows Hofmann, 1874); Lange (1871, Am. ed. enlarged by Craven, 1874); Gebhardt (Lehrbegriff der Apok., 1873); Kliefoth (1874). Comp. also Rougemont: La Révélation de St. Jean expliquant l'histoire (1866). Godet: Essay upon the Apoc., in his Studies on the N. T., translated from the French by W. H. Lyttleton, London, 1876, 294-398.
3. English Com.: E. H. Elliott (d. 1875, Horae Apoc., 5th ed., 1862, 4 vols.); Wordsworth (4th ed., 1866); Alford (3d ed., 1866); C. J. Vaughan (3d ed., 1870, practical); William Lee (Archdeacon in Dublin, in the "Speaker's" Com. N. T., vol. iv., 1881, pp. 405-844) E. Huntingford (Lond., 1882); Milligan (1883 and 1886 the best). Trench: The Epistles to the Seven Churches (2d ed., 1861), and Plumptre:Expos. of the Epp. to the Seven Ch. (Lond. and N. Y., 1877).
4. American Com. by Moses Stuart (1845, 2 vols., new ed., 1864, with an Excursus on the Number of the Beast, II. 452); Cowles (1871).
5. Of Older Commentaries, the most important and valuable are the following:
(a) Greek: Andreas of Caesarea in Cappadocia (5th cent.; the first continuous Com. on the Apoc., publ. 1596, also in the works of Chrysostom; see Lücke, p. 983); Arethas Of Caes. in Cappad. (not of the 6th cent., as stated by Lücke, p. 990, and others, but of the 10th, according to Otto, and Harnack, in Altchristl. Liter., 1882, pp, 36 sqq.; his sunopsis scholike, ed. by J. A. Cramner, in his Catenae Graec. Patr. in N. T., Oxon., 1840, vol. VIII.; and in the works of Oecumenius); 0ecumenius (10th cent., see Lücke, p. 991).
(b) Rom. Cath.: Lud. Ab Alcasar (a Jesuit, 1614); Cornelius A Lapide (1662); Bossuet (1690, and in Oeuvres, vol. III., 1819); Bisping (1876).
(c) Protestant: Jos. Mede (Clavis Apocalyptica, Cambr., 1632; Engl. transl. by More, 1643; a new transl. by R. B. Cooper, Lond., 1833); Hugo Grotius (first, 1644); Vitringa (1705, 1719, 1721); Bengel (1740); Bishop Thomas Newton (in Dissertations on the Prophecies, 8 vols., 1758).
This list is a small selection. The literature on the Apocalypse, especially in English, is immense, but mostly impository rather than expository, and hence worthless or even mischievous, because confounding and misleading. Darling's list of English works on the Apocalypse contains nearly fifty-four columns (I., 1732-1786).
General Character of the Apocalypse.
The "Revelation" of John, or rather "of Jesus Christ" through John, [1243] appropriately closes the New Testament. It is the one and only prophetic book, but based upon the discourses of our Lord on the destruction of Jerusalem and the end of the world, and his second advent (Matt. 24). It has one face turned back to the prophecies of old, the other gazing into the future. It combines the beginning and the end in Him who is "the Alpha and the Omega." It reminds one of the mysterious sphinx keeping ceaseless watch, with staring eyes, at the base of the Great Pyramid. "As many words as many mysteries," says Jerome; "Nobody knows what is in it," adds Luther. [1244] No book has been more misunderstood and abused; none calls for greater modesty and reserve in interpretation. [1245]
The opening and closing chapters are as clear and dazzling as sunlight, and furnish spiritual nourishment and encouragement to the plainest Christian; but the intervening visions are, to most readers, as dark as midnight, yet with many stars and the full moon illuminating the darkness. The Epistles to the Seven Churches, the description of the heavenly Jerusalem, and the anthems and doxologies [1246] which are interspersed through the mysterious visions, and glister like brilliant jewels on a canopy of richest black, are among the most beautiful, sublime, edifying, and inspiring portions of the Bible, and they ought to guard us against a hasty judgment of those chapters which we may be unable to understand. The Old Testament prophets were not clearly understood until the fulfilment cast its light upon them, and yet they served a most useful purpose as books of warning, comfort, and hope for the coming Messiah. The Revelation will be fully revealed when the new heavens and the new earth appear--not before. [1247]
"A prophet" (says the sceptical DeWette in his Commentary on Revelation, which was his last work) "is essentially an inspired man, an interpreter of God, who announces the Word of God to men in accordance with, and within the limits of, the divine truth already revealed through Moses in the Old Testament, through Christ in the New (the apokalupsis musteriou, Rom. 16:25. Prophecy rests on faith in a continuous providence of God ruling over the whole world, and with peculiar efficacy over Israel and the congregation of Christ, according to the moral laws revealed through Moses and Christ especially the laws of retribution. According to the secular view, all changes in human affairs proceed partly from man's power and prudence, partly from accident and the hidden stubbornness of fate; but according to the prophetic view, everything happens through the agency of God and in harmony with his counsels of eternal and unchangeable justice, and man is the maker of his own fortunes by obeying or resisting the will of God." [1248]
The prophecy of the Bible meets the natural desire to know the future, and this desire is most intense in great critical periods that are pregnant with fears and hopes. But it widely differs from the oracles of the heathen, and the conjectures of farseeing men. It rests on revelation, not on human sagacity and guesses; it gives certainty, not mere probability; it is general, not specific; it does not gratify curiosity, but is intended to edify and improve. The prophets are not merely revealers of secrets, but also preachers of repentance, revivalists, comforters, rebuking sin, strengthening faith, encouraging hope.
The Apocalypse is in the New Testament what the Book of Daniel is in the Old, and differs from it as the New Testament differs from the Old. Both are prophetic utterances of the will of God concerning the future of his kingdom on earth. Both are books of the church militant, and engage heaven and earth, divine, human, and satanic powers, in a conflict for life and death. They march on as "a terrible army with banners." They reverberate with thunderings and reflect the lightning flashes from the throne. But while Daniel looks to the first advent of the Messiah as the heir of the preceding world-monarchies, John looks to the second advent of Christ and the new heavens and the new earth. He gathers up all the former prophecies and sends them enriched to the future. He assures us of the final fulfilment of the prophecy of the serpent-bruiser, which was given to our first parents immediately after the fall as a guiding star of hope in the dark night of sin. He blends the glories of creation and redemption in the finale of the new Jerusalem from heaven.
The Apocalypse, as to its style of composition, is written in prose, like Daniel, but belongs to prophetic poetry, which is peculiar to the Bible and takes there the place of the epic poetry of the Greeks; God himself being the hero, as it were, who rules over the destinies of man. It is an inspired work of art, and requires for its understanding a poetic imagination, which is seldom found among commentators and critics; but the imagination must be under the restraint of sober judgment, or it is apt to run into fantastic comments which themselves need a commentary. The apocalyptic vision is the last and most complete form of the prophetic poetry of the Bible. The strong resemblance between the Revelation and Daniel, Ezekiel and Zechariah is admitted, and without them it cannot be understood.
But we may compare it also, as to its poetic form and arrangement, with the book of Job. Both present a conflict on earth, controlled by invisible powers in heaven. In Job it is the struggle of an individual servant of God with Satan, the arch-slanderer and persecutor of man, who, with the permission of God, uses temporal losses, bodily sufferings, mental anguish, harassing doubt, domestic affliction, false and unfeeling friends to secure his ruin. In the Apocalypse it is the conflict of Christ and his church with the anti-Christian world. In both the scene begins in heaven; in both the war ends in victory but in Job long life and temporal prosperity of the individual sufferer is the price, in the Apocalypse redeemed humanity in the new heavens and the new earth. Both are arranged in three parts: a prologue, the battle with successive encounters, and an epilogue. In both the invisible power presiding over the action is the divine counsel of wisdom and mercy, in the place of the dark impersonal fate of the Greek drama. [1249]
A comparison between the Apocalypse and the pseudo-apocalyptic Jewish and Christian literature--the Fourth Book of Esdras, the Book of Enoch, the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, the Apocalypse of Baruch, the Sibylline Oracles, etc.--opens a wide field on which we cannot enter without passing far beyond the limits of this work. We may only say that the relation is the same as that between the canonical Gospels and the apocryphal pseudo-Gospels, between real history and the dreamland of fable, between the truth of God and the fiction of man. [1250]
The theme of the Apocalypse is: "I come quickly," and the proper attitude of the church toward it is the holy longing of a bride for her spouse, as expressed in the response (Rev. 22:20): "Amen: come, Lord Jesus." It gives us the assurance that Christ is coming in every great event, and rules and overrules all things for the ultimate triumph of his kingdom; that the state of the church on earth is one of continual conflict with hostile powers, but that she is continually gaining victories and will at last completely and finally triumph over all her foes and enjoy unspeakable bliss in communion with her Lord. From the concluding chapters Christian poetry has drawn rich inspiration, and the choicest hymns on the heavenly home of the saints are echoes of John's description of the new Jerusalem. The whole atmosphere of the book is bracing, and makes one feel fearless and hopeful in the face of the devil and the beasts from the abyss. The Gospels lay the foundation in faith, the Acts and Epistles build upon it a holy life; the Apocalypse is the book of hope to the struggling Christian and the militant church, and insures final victory and rest. This has been its mission; this will be its mission till the Lord come in his own good time. [1251]
Analysis of Contents.
The Apocalypse consists of a Prologue, the Revelation proper, and an Epilogue. We may compare this arrangement to that of the Fourth Gospel, where John 1:1-18 forms the Prologue, John 21 the Epilogue, and the intervening chapters contain the evangelical history from the gathering of the disciples to the Resurrection.