3. The Futurist system: The events of the Apocalypse from Rev. 4 to the close lie beyond the second advent of Christ. This scheme usually adopts a literal interpretation of Israel, the Temple, and the numbers (the 31 times, 42 months, 1260 days, 3 1/2 years). So Ribera (a Jesuit, 1592), Lacunza (another Jesuit, who wrote under the name of Ben-Ezra "On the coming of Messiah in glory and majesty," and taught the premillennial advent, the literal restoration of the ancient Zion, and the future apostasy of the clergy of the Roman church to the camp of Antichrist), S. R. Maitland, De Burgh, Todd, Isaac Williams, W. Kelly.
Another important division of historical interpreters is into Post-Millennarians and Pre-Millennarians, according as the millennium predicted in Rev. 20 is regarded as part or future. Augustin committed the radical error of dating the millennium from the time of the Apocalypse or the beginning of the Christian era (although the seer mentioned it near the end of his book), and his view had great influence; hence the wide expectation of the end of the world at the close of the first millennium of the Christian church. Other post-millennarian interpreters date the millennium from the triumph of Christianity over paganism in Rome at the accession of Constantine the Great (311); still others (as Hengstenberg) from the conversion of the Germanic nations or the age of Charlemagne. All these calculations are refuted by events. The millennium of the Apocalypse must he in the future, and is still an article of hope.
The grammatical and historical interpretation of the Apocalypse, as well as of any other book, is the only safe foundation for all legitimate spiritual and practical application. Much has been done in this direction by the learned commentators of recent times. We must explain it from the standpoint of the author and in view of his surroundings. He wrote out of his time and for his time of things which must shortly come to pass (1:1, 3; 22:20), and he wished to be read and understood by his contemporaries (1:3). Otherwise he would have written in vain, and the solemn warning at the close (22:18, 19) would be unintelligible. In some respects they could understand him better than we; for they were fellow-sufferers of the fiery persecutions and witnesses of the fearful judgments described. Undoubtedly he had in view primarily the overthrow of Jerusalem and heathen Rome, the two great foes of Christianity at that time. He could not possibly ignore that great conflict.
But his vision was not confined to these momentous events. It extends even to the remotest future when death and Hades shall be no more, and a new heaven and a new earth shall appear. And although the fulfilment is predicted as being near at hand, he puts a millennium and a short intervening conflict before the final overthrow of Satan, the beast, and the false prophet. We have an analogy in the prophecy of the Old Testament and the eschatalogical discourses of our Lord, which furnish the key for the understanding of the Apocalypse. He describes the destruction of Jerusalem and the general judgment in close proximity, as if they were one continuous event. He sees the end from the beginning. The first catastrophe is painted with colors borrowed from the last, and the last appears as a repetition of the first on a grand and universal scale. It is the manner of prophetic vision to bring distant events into close proximity, as in a panorama. To God a thousand years are as one day. Every true prophecy, moreover, admits of an expanding fulfilment. History ever repeats itself, though never in the same way. There is nothing old under the sun, and, in another sense, there is nothing new under the sun.
In the historical interpretation of details we must guard against arbitrary and fanciful schemes, and mathematical calculations, which minister to idle curiosity, belittle the book, and create distrust in sober minds. The Apocalypse is not a prophetical manual of church history and chronology in the sense of a prediction of particular persons, dates, and events. This would have made it useless to the first readers, and would make it useless now to the great mass of Christians. It gives under symbolic figures and for popular edification an outline of the general principles of divine government and the leading forces in the conflict between Christ's kingdom and his foes, which is still going on under ever-varying forms. In this way it teaches, like all the prophetic utterances of the Gospels and Epistles, lessons of warning and encouragement to every age. We must distinguish between the spiritual coming of Christ and his personal arrival or parousia. The former is progressive, the latter instantaneous. The coming began with his ascension to heaven (comp. Matt. 26:64: "Henceforth ye shall see the Son of man sitting at the right hand of power, and coming on the clouds of heaven") and goes on in unbroken succession of judgments and blessings (for "the history of the world is a judgment of the world"); hence the alternation of action and repose, of scenes of terror and scenes of joy, of battles and victories. The arrival of the Bridegroom is still in the unknown future, and may be accelerated or delayed by the free action of the church, but it is as certain as the first advent of Christ. The hope of the church will not be disappointed, for it rests on the promise of Him who is called "the Amen, the faithful and true witness" (Rev. 3:14).
Notes.
The Number 666.
The historical understanding of the Apocalypse turns, according to its own statement, chiefly on the solution of the numerical riddle in the thirteenth chapter, which has tried the wits of commentators from the time of Irenaeus in the second century to the present day, and is still under dispute. The history of its solution is a history of the interpretation of the whole book. Hence I present here a summary of the most important views. First some preliminary remarks.
1. The text, Apoc. 13:18: "Here is wisdom: he that hath understanding, let him count the number of the beast; for it is the number of a man (arithmos gar anthropou estin), and the number is six hundred and sixty-six " chxs orhexakosioi hexekonta hex ).
This is the correct reading in the Greek text (supported by Codd. ', A, B (2), P (2), Origen, Primasius, and Versions), and is adopted by the best editors. Irenaeus (Adv. Haer. v. 30, quoted also in full by Tischendorf in his edition VIII. critica major) found it "in all the most approved and ancient copies" (en pasi tois spoudaiois kai archaiois antigraphois), and "attested by those who had themselves seen John face to face." There was, however, in his day, a very remarkable variation, sustained by Cod. C, and "some" copies, known to, but not approved by, Irenaeus, namely, 616. (chis, i.e., hexakosioi deka hex) In the Anglo-American revision this reading is noted in the margin.
2. "The number of a man" may mean either the number of an individual, or of a corporate person, or a human number (Menschenzahl), i.e., a number according to ordinary human reckoning (so Bleek, who compares metron anthropou, , "the measure of a man," Rev. 21:17, and Isa. 8:1). Just because the number may be counted in the customary way, the writer could expect the reader to find it out. He made the solution difficult indeed, but not impossible. Dr. Lee (p. 687) deems it not inconsistent with a proper view of inspiration that John himself did not know the meaning of the number. But how could he then ask his less knowing readers to count the number?
3. The mystic use of numbers (the rabbinical Ghematria, geometria) was familiar to the Jews in Babylon, and passed from them to the Greeks in Asia. It occurs in the Cabbala, in the Sibylline Books (I. 324-331), in the Epistle of Barnabas, and was very common also among the Gnostic sects (e g., the Abrasax or Abraxas, which signified the unbegotten Father, and the three hundred and sixty-five heavens, corresponding to the number of days in the year). [1264] It arose from the employment of the letters of the Hebrew and Greek alphabets for the designation of numbers. The Hebrew Aleph counts 1, Beth 2, etc., Yodh 10; but Kaph (the eleventh letter) counts 20, Resh (the twentieth letter) 200, etc. The Greek letters, with the addition of an acute accent (as a', b'), have the same numerical value in their order down to Sigma, which counts 200; except that s' (st) is used for 6, and Ph' (an antiquated letter Koppa between pand r) for 90. The Hebrew alphabet ends with Tau= 400, the Greek with Omega = 800. To express thousands an accent is put beneath the letter, as,a, = 1,000; ,b, = 2,000; ,i, = 10,000.
4. On this fact most interpretations of the Apocalyptic puzzle are based. It is urged by Bleek, DeWette, Wieseler, and others, that the number 666 must be deciphered from the Greek alphabet, since the book was written in Greek and for Greek readers, and uses the Greek letters Alpha and Omega repeatedly as a designation of Christ, the Beginning and the End (1:8; 21:6; 22:13). On the other hand, Ewald and Renan, and all who favor the Nero-hypothesis, appeal against this argument to the strongly Hebraistic spirit and coloring of the Apocalypse and the familiarity of its Jewish Christian readers with the Hebrew alphabet. The writer, moreover, may have preferred this for the purpose of partial concealment; just as he substituted Babylon for Rome (comp. 1 Pet. 5:13). But after all, the former view is much more natural. John wrote to churches of Asia Minor, chiefly gathered from Gentile converts who knew no Hebrew. Had he addressed Christians in Palestine, the case might be different.
5. The number 666 (three sixes) must, in itself, be a significant number, if we keep in view the symbolism of numbers which runs through the whole Apocalypse. It is remarkable that the numerical value of the name Jesus is 888 (three eights), and exceeds the trinity of the sacred number (777) as much as the number of the beast falls below it. [1265]
6. The "beast" coming out of the sea and having seven heads and ten horns (Rev. 13:1-10) is the anti-Christian world-power at war with the church of Christ. It is, as in Daniel, an apt image of the brutal nature of the pagan state. It is, when in conflict with the church, the secular or political Antichrist; while "the false prophet," who works signs and deceives the worshippers of the beast (16:13; 19:20; 20:10), is the intellectual and spiritual Antichrist, in close alliance with the former, his high-priest and minister of cultus, so to say, and represents the idolatrous religion which animates and supports the secular imperialism. In wider application, the false prophet may be taken as the personification of all false doctrine and heresy by which the world is led astray. For as there are "many Antichrists," so there are also many false prophets. The name "Antichrist," however, never occurs in the Apocalypse, but only in the Epistles of John (five times), and there in the plural, in the sense of "false prophets" or heretical teachers, who deny that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh (1 John 4:1-3). Paul designates the Antichrist as, "the man of sin," the son of perdition who opposeth and exalteth himself against all that is called God or that is worshipped; so that he sitteth in the temple of God, setting himself forth as God" (2 Thess. 2:3, 4). But he seems to look upon the Roman empire as a restraining power which, for a time at least, prevented the full outbreak of the "mystery of lawlessness," then already at work (2:6-8). He thus wrote a year or two before the accession of Nero, and sixteen years or more before the composition of the Apocalypse.