“I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book. And if anyone takes words away from this book of prophecy, God will take away from him his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book” (Revelation 22:18-19).
Despite this warning, there have been a lot of people who have “added” to the prophecies of this book. They have added a sensational spin that seeks to link these ancient words to specific political events or circumstances.
For the most part I haven’t paid much attention to it. Hal Lindsay’s book, The Late Great Planet Earth, was for me a brief, teenaged fascination. I started the Left Behind series, but I got put off by what I considered distortions of biblical truth, not to mention the writing style. I couldn’t ever find the energy to continue through those books.
Yet the Revelation has continued to fascinate me, even when it baffles me or worse. What I find most interesting is how it serves as the end-cap of the Bible. It goes with Genesis like Alpha goes with Omega, like beginning goes with end.
The first chapters of the Bible deal with creation, the last with the new creation. We have a tree of life in the garden of Genesis, and so also in the New Jerusalem.
If for no other reason I would believe the Bible, it is for the coherency and unity shown throughout. Mind you, this is a book that came into being over centuries, by a vast number of authors from different cultures, occupations, languages, and time periods. Yet the whole of it is one story.
Of course I am aware of what detractors would call the contradictions in the Bible. But I have found that the bigger picture always puts these into perspective, makes them understandable in their own contexts while taking them as independant witnesses to a greater whole. On the whole, the contradictions seem bit nit-picky to me.
I almost seems to me like the author of the Revelation knew that there would be a collection of writings assembled to become the New Testament, and that this apocalyptic book would be the one to wrap it up.
It is amazing the number of allusions in the Revelation to other verses in the Old and New Testament. In fact, I consistently find that a study of Revelation becomes a study of the whole Bible.
So when I encounter this warning about the prophecies in this book, I tend to think not just of this book of the Bible, but of the Bible as a book. According to the Gospels Jesus gave many warnings against false prophets, against hypocrisy, pride, materialism, and so forth. The warnings of Revelation go hand in hand with those.
One of the common commands that Jesus gave his disciples, particularly towards the end, was to be ready, for you know not the day or the hour.
Personally, I am looking for a couple of signs to be fulfilled before he comes again. We haven’t yet seen the Gospel preached completely to every tribe, nation, people and language group, and we haven’t seen a wholesale apostasy of the institutional church nor a worldwide, intense persecution of orthodox believers in Jesus. But it seems like these things could be on the verge.
And you never know. Particularly you never know your own last day or hour, which is for all effects and purposes the final opportunity to repent before the judgment. Which is why every day is a day to repent like it’s the last one.
