This article is part of a series on the book of Revelation. I now publish new essays on Substack. Subscribe here to receive them directly in your inbox.
After reading my Bible for 20 years, attending Bible college, and then seminary, I can still remember thinking that the man who wrote Revelation might have been a little crazy at the time. I admit that to my shame, but I admit it for the sake of everyone else who has been there and felt bad for that. If the author of Revelation is indeed the Apostle John, the same man who wrote the Gospel of John (to whom Revelation has traditionally been ascribed) then we see a pattern of being unusual. Out of all four Gospels, John’s gospel stands apart, sharing the least overlap with the others and recording some of the most difficult sayings of Jesus.
Then there is the fact that Revelation was likely written sometime shortly after 90 AD.[1] By that point, John would have been an old man. We also learn that he was imprisoned on an island (Revelation 1:9). I pictured him in a prison cell, writing, perhaps like Paul wrote some of his epistles. If in prison, was John eating well and getting enough nutrients? Perhaps not.
I used to picture John like the Italian priest Abbé Faria in The Count of Monte Cristo; a brilliant man imprisoned for years. At one point, the main character Edmond remarks that he has been in prison so long that he has counted all the stones in his cell, and Faria, who had been there much longer replies, “Yes, but have you named them yet?” As much respect as we have for Faria, we are made to wonder at that moment if Faria has lost his mind a little. Was it the same with John?
Many teachers and pastors and lifelong Bible students still come to John’s writings and wonder whether the way he recorded what he did, in the way he did, was really necessary. In my own weakness I would ask myself things like, when John says he was “in the Spirit,” could that have been something like dehydration leading to a trance? After all, the human mind is capable of powerful hallucinations. Entire religions have arisen from humans in extreme physical conditions.[2] I even remember, in my former days as a non-Christian, thinking something like, “Could John have been on drugs?” I hope all this is not too surprising of a confession, but I share it for a reason. I admit these things to put readers at ease as they approach the book of Revelation. If you find it confusing, you are far from alone. Even the seasoned Bible reader struggles. And God is not surprised by that confusion.
When it comes to studying the book of Revelation I have witnessed Christians fall in one of two ditches: either an unhealthy obsession with it (picture a frazzled looking professor with the news headlines in one and looking at a whiteboard full of impossible looking math equations he has claimed to have solved), or there is an unhealthy assumption of Revelation’s content and the neglect of studying it (those who throw up their hands and say, “God wins, that’s all we need to know”). As faithful students of God’s Word we want to avoid both of those ditches. We certainly don’t need to be obsessed with useless details, but also, we don’t want to be those who jokingly call ourselves “pan-millenialists” because we believe “it will all pan out in the end.” Speaking that way is humorous and may even sound humble, and there is true humility in being able to say “I don’t know what this means.” At the same time, what if God intends to reveal through Revelation a richness of wisdom yet to be discovered to even the most mature of Christians? God’s Word is like that. Revelation will always have much to teach us.
[1] G. K. Beale and David H. Campbell, Revelation: A Shorter Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2015), 4.
[2] For example see the story of Siddhartha Gautama: https://isha.sadhguru.org/en/wisdom/article/11-intriguing-buddha-stories-by-sadhguru
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