An Author Interview from Books At a Glance
Has there ever been a Christian who was not curious about the book of Revelation? For all its unusual traits, it’s a fascinating and wonderful book at the end of our Bibles, and Dr. Tom Schreiner has just published a commentary to help guide us through.
I’m Fred Zaspel, editor here at Books At a Glance, and Dr. Schreiner is with us today to talk about his new book.
Tom, welcome, and congratulations on another really good commentary.
Schreiner:
Thanks, Fred, it’s good to be with you again. It was a fun commentary to write.
Zaspel:
First, tell us about the ESV Expository Commentary series. Who is the intended audience? What are some of the aims and objectives the editors had in mind for these commentaries? What is their niche?
Schreiner:
I think the Commentary is for pastors or students, especially. The commentary is theologically oriented. I’d say it’s broadly Reformed; it’s very accessible and understandable. The languages are discussed but you don’t need to know the languages to understand it. I think it’s going to be twelve volumes, total. By the way, they are just beautifully presented volumes; the binding looks fantastic. It’s very nice to have commentaries that are brief and to the point, but substantive at the same time. Each of these commentaries, not every commentary series has it, but each one has a little section on the theology of the book. Not just the introduction and the commentary itself, but it reviews some central theological themes in the book, briefly. I think that’s a helpful feature.
Zaspel:
I think that’s enormously helpful.
This is not your first attempt at interpreting Revelation. You’ve preached through the book, I know – have you taught Revelation in the classroom also?
Schreiner:
Yes. I started when I was at Azusa Pacific. I needed classes to make, because I needed some extra money, to be honest. I offered my regular Intro course and it didn’t go, and I thought to myself, I was making like sixteen thousand a year, and I said, I really need a course to go, so I thought, I’m going to offer Revelation.
Zaspel:
I’m sure there was interest.
Schreiner:
Yes, I figured there was a little bit of a financial decision, but also, I was interested in studying it. And honestly, as I studied it, I was amazed at what I was learning. One of the first commentaries I read on it was by Leon Morris in the Tyndale series. I was just immensely helped by that commentary; I think I’m still shaped by that commentary to this day because I think it’s the first scholarly commentary I ever read on Revelation.
Zaspel:
How about that!
Before we talk about the book of Revelation itself, let’s talk about genre. What is “apocalyptic” literature? And what is an “apocalypse”?
Schreiner:
Well, actually, that’s very debated. But to use a popular definition, I’d say that the word “apocalypse” itself means unveiling. So, an apocalypse is a supernatural unveiling of what is about to take place. It’s a divine disclosure – that’s another word for unveiling – usually via angels or some prominent person to some prominent person on earth. We think of Revelation, it’s John. God promises to intervene in human history, to destroy evil, to bring in his kingdom and therefore the readers should continue to be faithful.
Then “apocalyptic” has a number of characteristics: historical dualism, not ontological dualism as if God and the devil are equally powerful, but historical dualism, in history; there’s visions, there’s symbolism – I think that’s a key element of apocalyptic literature; numerology – by that I think numbers are used symbolically; a lot of focus on angels and demons and predictions. By the way, you know, this is the Leon Morris hour, too. Leon Morris has a nice little book called, Apocalyptic, for your listeners. It’s very short and just a very helpful little book.
Zaspel:
I think it was George Beasley-Murray or George Eldon Ladd, one of the two, speaking one time about the symbolism of apocalyptic literature, who said it would be helpful to think of them in terms of “cerebral cartoons” or verbal images, like a political cartoon. We understand how to read them; well, these are verbal images and I think he called it “cerebral cartoons.” I thought that was very helpful. You might not understand all the details of it, but you get the picture. And at the end of it you get the point. And that is that Jesus wins.
Schreiner:
Yes, I think that’s exactly right and that’s incredibly encouraging. The first time I ever Revelation I was a new Christian, I was seventeen years old, and as I read it, I thought there’s a lot of things that I don’t understand in here, but I got the point you just made. I understood there’s a great battle between good and evil and finally Jesus will conquer, Jesus will win. Jesus is coming again.
Zaspel:
If you get that, you get the point.
Schreiner:
Exactly.
Zaspel:
Discussions about the date of writing are not always of great importance, but because of the challenge of preterism especially, the question of the date of Revelation does have some interpretive consequences. So tell us why you favor the later date – that John wrote in the last decade of the first century.
Schreiner:
The two main options are that he wrote in the time of Nero in the 60s or he wrote under Domitian in the early 90s, or late 80s. It’s not an open and shut case; it’s not the clearest issue in the world. But I think, if we read Irenaeus, an early church writer, and he was quite close to the apostle John, the most reasonable way of interpreting what Irenaeus says is that John wrote under Domitian. We don’t have a lot of evidence but I think that’s at least more plausible than an early date. I know we’re going to talk about preterism in a moment, but I would just say, I do not want to be locked into an interpretation that requires an early date. And especially when most scholars think that it was written later. I think that’s a problem.
Zaspel:
Okay, let’s talk about the book of Revelation itself. Can you give us a brief fly-over? How is the book laid out?
Schreiner:
One way to think of it is: you have the Introduction in chapter 1, the book is introduced. Chapters 2 to 3 are the letters to the seven churches in Asia minor; they are the recipients of the letter. Then chapters 4 and 5 are the throne room vision. Chapter 4 – God is creator, is being worshiped. Chapter 5 – Christ is being worshiped as Redeemer. Chapters 6 and 7 focus on the seven seals with an interlude. Chapters 8 through 11, you could say the seven trumpets. There’s another interlude in those chapters, as well. Chapters 12 through 14 kind of pull the curtain back and look at things cosmically, so to speak. You have the woman and the serpent and the beast. So you could title that section “the woman and the serpent,” or “the woman and the serpent and the serpent’s allies.” Chapters 15 and 16 are the seven bowl judgments. We see something running through here, right? We have the seven seals, the seven trumpets, and the seven bowls. Then chapter 17:1 through chapter 19:10, the fall of Babylon. In the rest of the book, the middle of chapter 19 through the end, we had the coming of Jesus, the thousand years, the new heavens and the new earth. Another way to think of the end of the book is: you have the two women, the harlot, Babylon, and the Bride, the wife of the Lamb who will be rewarded.
I think it’s helpful to think of Revelation in those big pictures because we could kind of get lost in some of the details.
Zaspel:
There are distinct interpretive approaches to the book of Revelation. Some understand it simply as a symbolic depiction of spiritual conflict. Some treat the bulk of it as now past, referring to that first century. Some understand it to describe the church age. And of course many understand it as describing things future. First, explain to us why these various approaches are not altogether exclusive of one another. And, with that understood, do you think that one of these approaches is still to be preferred overall?
Schreiner:
Yes, I think there’s truth in virtually all of the approaches except for, maybe, the historicist approach, and it depends on what you do with that.
The preterist, or past, approach sees the book fulfilled entirely or mainly by A.D. 70, when Jerusalem was destroyed. The benefit of that view is that it interprets the book in its historical context. Even though I take a later date, still, preterists are saying Revelation meant something to the first readers. In popular circles there’s a lot of people out there who will say, today, we are the first people in the twentieth and twenty first centuries to understand Revelation. And they’ll even say the first readers didn’t understand it at all. Well, the preterist approach rightly reminds us, wait a minute, this book was written to them, not us. So that’s at least one benefit of the preterist approach. One liability of the preterist approach is I think they force some of their interpretations to sustain everything being fulfilled by A.D. 70.
The idealist approach is that the book is fundamentally symbolic. The advantage of that approach, I think, is that it recognizes that the book is symbolic, the book is apocalyptic. It avoids bizarre, strange, sometimes hilarious, interpretations that we’ve all heard. Maybe if there’s a liability in that approach, it’s that it is a little too general, sometimes. It doesn’t see things specifically enough.
We are most familiar with the futurist approach, at least most of us are, with Hal Lindsay and the Left Behind books. And then, more seriously, in dispensational circles coming out of Dallas seminary and other dispensational circles, the futurist approach clearly sees the book as mainly fulfilled in the future. The advantage of that approach is that there are many things in Revelation that haven’t taken place yet and clearly it is a future prophecy. The weakness of that approach I think is some of the interpretations are very arbitrary and it can fail to read the book in its original historical context. And I think this approach in popular circles falls prey to what I call newspaper eschatology. Newspaper eschatology is you just fit Revelation into the news. And, Fred, you are very familiar with this, right? The ten nations are the common market in Europe. Or the antichrist is the Soviet Union, it used to be. Then, in the ‘90s it became Saddam Hussein or whatever, right? It’s constantly changing as the news changes, and that can be quite arbitrary.
So, I think that a combination of those three is correct. Now, the historicist approach, which I haven’t mentioned, interprets Revelation as being fulfilled all through church history. Honestly, I think that tends to be the most eccentric approach. Because it reads specific events, often, in church history as being fulfilled in Revelation. I suppose if there’s an advantage of that approach it’s applying the book to contemporary circumstances. That’s good, but the weakness is such that I don’t know of anybody who even advocates a historicist approach today, because the weakness is that it becomes so arbitrary how you apply it to history.
Zaspel:
I don’t know of any two historicist commentators who have taken Revelation and interpreted it the same way, have they?
Schreiner:
Exactly! It’s fascinating to read how they interpret it, but there doesn’t seem to be a hermeneutical control.
Zaspel:
Do you still view Revelation in overall perspective as future oriented?
Schreiner:
I would say that my interpretive approach is closest, probably, to Greg Beale’s approach. Which is, I think, idealist. I mean, I think it’s a little bit of a combination of all of them. Greg and I are very similar; we see the book in very similar terms. Not on every passage, but basically.
Zaspel:
Good to know.
Does Revelation describe the period of “the great tribulation”? And if so, is that tribulation period now or at the end of the age or both?
Schreiner:
I understand “the great tribulation,” the three and a half years, the one thousand two hundred sixty days, and the forty-two months, all to describe the same period. And I understand those numbers to be symbolic of the whole period from Christ’s resurrection to his Second Coming. I argue that we are in the great tribulation now, and we have been in that great tribulation since Jesus’ resurrection. Of course, many interpreters disagree with that; I respect them. But one thing I must say that I think is fascinating: if I’m right, it isn’t just a curious bit of information about a few years in history that haven’t happened yet, but Revelation is actually talking about the lives we lead today.
Zaspel:
Yeah, I like that.
Maybe I’ll squeeze in a few quick content or “How do you interpret this?” kind of questions: Who are the twenty-four elders?
Schreiner:
I understand the twenty-four elders to be angels. Although many have understood them to represent the Church, because of the twelve tribes of Israel and the twelve Apostles. But I understand them to be angels who represent the people of God before God. I think it’s very interesting in chapter 5 that when they speak of those who are redeemed, they don’t say us, but they say they. He redeemed them. A great many understand that to be the Church, but I think it’s referring to angels.
Zaspel:
Well, the strong argument, I think, for the Church interpretation is the twenty-four being the twelve and twelve, and the whole people of God, and whatnot, but if it’s as you say, the angels who represent the Church, then that could maintain that significance, right?
Schreiner:
Right, exactly.
Zaspel:
I think many will be disappointed if I don’t ask you about the “thousand years” in Revelation 20. What is your preferred millennial view, and can you give us just a brief taste of some reasons why?
Schreiner:
Well, I am a very unstable person when it comes to the millennium. I have toggled over the years between amillennialism and premillennialism. So, the way I wrote that section in my commentary is I wrote it and said I am tentatively and hesitantly amillennial, which I still am. But it’s such a difficult issue and there are such good arguments on both sides. And several people have told me they really like this about my commentary. I just say – here are the good reasons to be premillennial, and here are the good reasons to be amillennial. So I think I fairly give both sides and maybe it was easy for me to do that since I’m not locked in on that question.
What are the advantages of amillennialism? Obviously, this reflects how I understand other texts. I don’t think a millennium, on earth, for a thousand years is taught anywhere else clearly in Scripture. One of the most fascinating things to me is I was taught by wonderful teachers that I learned so much from at a dispensational premillennial school. But, as I began to teach Revelation, some of the classic so-called millennial passages, Isaiah 60, Ezekiel 40-48, the rebuilding of the Temple, what was fascinating to me is when you actually read Revelation, those texts, Isaiah 60, for example, and Isaiah 40-48, they are not alluded to in Revelation 20, but in Revelation 21 and 22. The so-called millennial passages in the Old Testament are put in Revelation in the New Creation, which leads me to think those passages aren’t talking about the millennium, but the New Creation. So that’s an important argument for me.
Zaspel:
So at least four days a week you’re amillennial?
Schreiner:
Yeah. I think the best argument… Now I’m kind of reflecting my commentary, toggling back and forth… I think the best argument for premillennialism is the language of resurrection, anastasis. And the first resurrection, I think, everywhere else in the New Testament that the word anastasis refers to a physical resurrection, so that’s a really good argument for premillennialism. I think you could argue in an apocalyptic book that he uses the language more symbolically, but clearly that’s a good argument for premillennialism.
Another top issue is the binding of Satan. And that binding is interpreted by premillennialists to be so complete that it cannot speak to this present age where Satan is doing all sorts of mischief. So that’s a very good argument for premillennialism. An amillennial response is, no, read the text carefully. The binding is such that he doesn’t deceive the nations; and in the Old Covenant all the nations except for Israel were deceived. And now in the New Covenant the Gospel is going to all nations. So, that binding of Satan is actually limited in the text. It’s a very difficult issue and I would just say to everybody listening, we need to be charitable on millennial issues. And, personally, I don’t think we should put our millennial stance in statements of faith of schools and churches, which has been quite common historically.
Zaspel:
In the church where I pastor, I am very happily premillennial; the other two pastors are amillennial and we get along famously. One of your predecessors decades ago at Southern Seminary, A. T. Robertson, was asked his millennial view and I thought it was one of the best answers I’ve heard. He said, “I’m pro-millennial; whatever it is, I’m for it.” (Laughing)
Schreiner:
That’s right!
I heard Corrie ten Boom in person before she died. She was in her eighties and such a joyful Christian. And she made a little joke, she said, “I’m asked what my millennial view is, and I think that is a-pre-post-erous question.” (Laughing)
Zaspel:
Revelation 21 speaks of the presence of “the nations” in the eschaton, even of bringing “the glory and honor” of the eschaton into its gates. What’s that all about? Will national identities be preserved then?
Schreiner:
Possibly. I interpret Revelation quite symbolically. What will that look like? I don’t know. What I would say about things like that is this: I think what that text is saying is everything that’s beautiful and wonderful that we enjoy in this present world will be in the world to come in a greater and more transcendent way. Every gift. You know, people ask if their dogs will be in heaven. Well, I don’t know about their particular dog, but everything you enjoy will be there at a higher key. I think that’s what John is saying.
Zaspel:
I wondered if it might entail, and I’ve read this in a few commentaries, it might entail whatever are the cultural contributions of each nation will be there, as well, adding to the glory of the place.
Schreiner:
I think human creativity, inventiveness, and skill will be there. We’re not going to be just sitting around playing our harps, although he does speak of playing our harps, but, of course, that’s the symbol of the fact that we will be full of joy and praise.
Zaspel:
Yeah, I think so.
Okay, just a couple more questions. What do you think is the leading message or perhaps some leading messages of the book of Revelation?
Schreiner:
One of the things I like to say when I teach is that Revelation is a really strange book. It teaches us that God is the Creator and sovereign over all of the world, that Christ is the Redeemer and he died for our sins. Obviously, I’m being a bit sarcastic. What we have are very mainstream teachings. God is our Creator. What does he say to a suffering church? I’m in control; I’m sovereign. What’s the key to your salvation? The death of Christ. I mean the great picture in chapter 5 of the sealed book being opened by the lion, who is the Lamb. What a beautiful and wonderful picture – we wash our robes and make them white by the blood of the Lamb in chapter 7.
So, Revelation is mainstream Christian teaching. And then we have Revelation talking about the great battle between God and Satan, between Christ and the Beast, which I take to be the Roman government and government in general, opposed to God. There’s a great conflict and there’s persecution. Revelation talks about believers being put to death, Babylon drinking the blood of the saints. The saints are being put to death, so the temptation, and this is the bottom line, the temptation for believers is to compromise and apostatize and to say it’s not worth it, it’s too painful, it’s too hard to be a Christian in a world that despises us and discriminates against us and even sometimes kills us.
I think the message of Revelation is, “Hang on, hold on, there’s a great reward coming. Don’t forget that this world is not all there is.” And I think that’s the message of the seven churches. Don’t leave your first love. You can’t stay lukewarm. By God’s grace, because of Christ’s redeeming work in our lives, we’ve got to persevere until the end. Because at the end of the day, there’s a great judgment coming on the wicked. And, of course, that’s a major theme in Revelation: judgment is coming, and there is a great reward for the righteous. And God wins, as we said at the beginning, so hang on!
Zaspel:
Talk to us about Revelation in relation to the rest of the canon. How does it fit? What is its role?
Schreiner:
It’s just beautifully placed, isn’t it? I can’t think of another book that should be put anywhere else as the last book of the canon because it sums up, really, the whole story of the Bible. There’s a number of books written of how Revelation 21 and 22 repristinates and elevates Genesis 1 and 2. What a beautiful ending of the story of God’s covenants with his people, of God’s promises of salvation, the promise given to Adam and Eve in the garden that the offspring of the woman will conquer the serpent. I mean, that’s just beautifully described for us and portrayed for us in Revelation. And there I think in chapter 12, there’s the Cross again – Satan is thrown out of heaven because of the Cross.
Zaspel:
We’re talking to Dr. Tom Schreiner about his new commentary on the book of Revelation in the ESV Expository Commentary series from Crossway. It is a truly great read. In fact, Dr. Rob Plummer has said many times that it is the very best commentary on Revelation he has read. And as I’ve said before, Tom Schreiner’s commentaries are consistently in the “must have” category. If you want to study the book of Revelation, this is a great place to start – and, I should mention, a very accessible read for any serious student. Check it out.
Tom, great to have you with us always.
Schreiner:
Thanks, Fred, great to be with you.
