Tag Archives: futurism

Interpreting Biblical Apocalyptic (11): From Exegesis to Application—Futurism

The futurist approach to apocalyptic prophecy, particularly to Revelation, sees the fulfillment of most of Revelation being restricted to a short period of time still future to our own day. In its dispensational form, this approach limits most of Revelation to the last seven years of earth’s history, following a secret rapture of Christians. Even within the Adventist context, increasing numbers of Bible students are seeking end-time understandings in every corner of Daniel and Revelation.
On the positive side, there are clearly many aspects of Daniel and Revelation that were intended to portray the far future from the perspective of the prophets’ time and place (Dan 2:44-45; 8:26; 11:40; 12:4,13; Rev 1:19; 6:15-17; 7:15-17; 19:11-21; 21:1-22:5). Most of what these passages portray has not occurred to this day. So an examination of Daniel and Revelation without an openness to understanding of future events would be an inappropriate limitation on the divine supervision of these books.
Approaches to Daniel and Revelation that limit the meaning of most of the text to end-time events, however, have consistently proven to claim more than they can deliver. Dispensationalism trumpets a literal approach to the Bible, yet imposes a system upon biblical interpretation that forces texts into molds which resist sound exegesis of those same texts. Adventist forms of futurism tend toward an allegorism of dual or multiple applications that quickly lose touch with the original setting and context of the prophecies. A futurism that ignores the cues in the text in the name of relevance, ends up abandoning the text for a contemporary system. An appropriate search for unfulfilled prophecy will always ground itself in the original meaning of the prophecy.

Four Ways to Approach Revelation (Rev 5)

There are four major ways that people have approached the book of Revelation. The approach you decide on determines to a large degree the results you find from studying Revelation. (1) The book of Revelation was written to seven churches located in the Roman province of Asia (Rev 1:4– Asia Minor). So one way to approach Revelation is like any other book in the New Testament, as a writing addressing real people in real places 2000 years ago (Rev 22:16). And this should be the foundation of any study of the Bible. The better we understand what it meant to the original readers, the better we can understand God’s purpose in inspiring the book. But when scholars limit the meaning of Revelation to the historical conditions of the Asian churches at the end of the First Century, when they see it as in no way predictive of the future, that approach is called Preterism. Preterism, in that sense, is too limited an approach to Revelation, it doesn’t take the book’s prophetic focus on the author’s future sufficiently into account.
(2) At the other extreme, Futurism rightly notes that Revelation addresses the Second Coming of Christ and similar events at the close of history (Rev 1:7). Futurists attempt to read nearly the entire book of Revelation (usually chapters 4-22) as speaking directly to the end of time and to no other time in history. But we have already seen how Revelation explicitly addresses the original situation of the churches of Asia. So an approach that limits Revelation to the events of the far future is no more adequate than Preterism is.
(3) A third way to read the book is suggested in Revelation 1:3, where a blessing is offered on all who hear and understand the words of the prophecy. Everyone who reads or hears this book is intended to benefit from it. The book is not just for the original situation or the end of the world. There is value for every person and every age. But some people have taken this idea a bit further and have come up with an idea called Idealism. In its extreme form Revelation is not really written to the first century or the end of time at all. It is simply a symbolic way of describing broad, general principles for Christians to live by. But such a reading in isolation is not an adequate response to the full realities of Revelation.
(4) Seventh-day Adventists believe that the approach that best fits the evidence of Revelation is the historicist approach. It embraces the positive insights of the first three approaches but is not limited to any of them. Historicism, rightly understood, allows each text to locate itself in time, it does not limit the meaning of the text in an arbitrary way, as other approaches do. It recognizes Revelation as an apocalyptic prophecy like Daniel (compare Rev 1:1 with Dan 2:28, 45), speaking to the entire course of history from the time of the prophet (95 A.D.) to the Second Coming of Christ and beyond. If the book of Revelation begins with John’s day (Rev 1:9-11) and ends with the End (Rev 19:11-21), it is reasonable to assume that it is also concerned with the historical developments in between. What has marginalized this text-based approach among scholars today is historicism’s long history of failed predictions and speculative exegesis. Seventh-day Adventists are instead called to approach Revelation’s history on the basis of a high and Christ-centered standard (TM 112-119).