The Bookends of Revelation

My Webster’s Third World International Dictionary weighs a whopping 13 pounds. It requires strong bookends to keep it upright. Supports too weak would allow this large volume to fall, with the potential of knocking other books off the shelf, not to mention the possibility of doing bodily harm.

John’s book of Revelation also requires substantial bookends. God provided them as repeated time stamps in the prolog and epilog. These time indicators keep the book upright in God’s sacred library (i.e., the Bible). Without them, the visions of this prophecy can disturb the other biblical books and cause much damage to our understanding of prophecy.

The bookends place the visions of Revelation in John’s near future. As you read the following statements, ask yourself a question: If God had wanted to communicate to John and his readers that the visions were about events that would happen within, say, ten years, how could he have said it with greater clarity? “How else could John have expressed nearness in time if not by these terms?”¹ In our judgment, the following declarations convey “nearness in time” to an unmistakable degree. This perspective provides a key to understanding the entire book:

• “The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John” (Rev. 1:1).²
• “Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand” (Rev 1:3).
• “Write the things that thou hast seen, and the things that are, and the things that are about to come after these things” (Rev. 1:19, YLT).

The first of these time markers packs more power than appears in most English translations. The Amplified New Testament has, “[This is] the revelation of Jesus Christ—His unveiling of the divine mysteries. God gave it to Him to disclose and make known to His bond servants certain things which must shortly and speedily come to pass in their entirety.”³ Commentators⁴ on the Greek text often stress both the immediacy and completeness John put in this verse.⁵

The corresponding bookend occurs at the end of Revelation, where another group of time statements matches those at the beginning. These two groups create a striking symmetry we disturb at the risk of causing our weighty book (Revelation) to fall off the shelf.

• “And he said unto me, These sayings are faithful and true: and the Lord God of the holy prophets sent his angel to shew unto his servants the things which must shortly be done” (Rev. 22:6).
• “And behold, I am coming soon. Blessed is the one who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book” (Rev. 22:7, ESV).
• “And he saith unto me, Seal not the sayings of the prophecy of this book: for the time is at hand” (Rev. 22:10).
• “Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay each one for what he has done” (Rev. 22:12, ESV).
• “He who testifies to these things says, ‘Surely I am coming soon.’ Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!” (Rev. 22:20, ESV).

In light of these statements, who will dare say a majority of the events in Revelation pertains to John’s distant future? There is no need to do so. Even if other prophetic systems find the literal meaning of these statements problematic, they fit well in inmillennialism. We hope to show this in coming posts.

We will offer evidence that John wrote the Revelation just before Roman armies destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple in AD 70. Jesus had predicted—in AD 30—this judgment-event and associated it with both his coming (Gk. erchomai) and his presence (Gk. parousia) in the Messianic Age (Matt. 24:1–3, 27, 30, 37, 39, 42, 44). This would occur in his generation (Matt. 24:34).

If John saw his visions in an AD 65–67 time frame, his bookend statements conform to the timeline Jesus established. As he said, the things Jesus predicted “must shortly come to pass.” We hope to show how the individual visions within Revelation make perfect sense on this timeline.

This timeline also conforms to Paul’s perspective in the Hebrews letter. (See our post here.) The Messiah’s coming in the near future plays a prominent role there, too: “For yet a little while,⁶ and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry” (Heb. 10:37; emphasis added). John and Paul wrote from the same about-to-be perspective Jesus established.

We have a remarkable confluence of witnesses: the Olivet Discourse (Matt. 24–25), the Hebrew letter, and the Revelation. Each maps to the same timeline: the events of which they speak would occur within the same prophetic horizon.

Without its built-in bookends, Revelation becomes a book of enigmatic and difficult sayings. No one can explain them with certainty. Instead of an “uncovering”⁷ of Christ and his testimony to the churches, the messages themselves become mysterious shrouds. They hide more than they reveal. How could the first-century disciples (or we) “keep those things which are written therein” to get the promised blessing (Rev. 1:3)?

Inside its bookends, Revelation does its appointed job. The visions amplify the progress and show the climax of events Jesus described in the Olivet Discourse. They supply details about these developments not found elsewhere. The message meshes with that of other biblical books.

We dare not remove (or neglect) these bookends. Doing so causes Revelation to fall off its shelf, resulting in much damage. Let us explore the contents of this magnificent book remembering its proper place: between the bookends God prepared for it.

1. Kenneth L. Gentry, Jr., Before Jerusalem Fell: Dating the Book of Revelation, (Atlanta: American vision, 1998), lii.
2. Emphasis added to all verses listed as “bookends.”
3. The Amplified New Testament, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1958), 931. Last emphasis added. A footnote in this place cites Vincent. See Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament, Vol. 2, (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1976), 407-08.
4. For two examples, see Henry Alford, Alford’s Greek Testament: An Exegetical and Critical Commentary, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1980), 4:545 and Kenneth S. Wuest, Expanded Translation of the Greek New Testament, (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1961).
5. Vincent, Alford, and Wuest were futurists who believed parts of Revelation extend beyond John’s immediate time frame. Therefore, Vincent did not mean his words—“in their entirety”—in an absolute sense. His translation is correct if taken as he intended. Our position is that the overwhelming majority of Revelation pertains to the judgment in John’s near future, but not all. John chose his Greek construction to convey this fact.
6. A literal translation is, “a very, very little while” —William Gouge, Commentary on Hebrews, (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel, 1980), 366.
7. The literal meaning of the Greek word translated “revelation” in the AV. See Henry George Liddell et al., A Greek-English Lexicon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), 201.