If you have been consistently reading the posts of F.B’s commentary on the Book of Revelation, then, by now, you should be walking in a new Christian paradigm. I studied the Book of Revelation for more than thirty years before finally reading F.B.’s book. Each commentary I read interpreted the symbols of Revelation in different ways. Each interpreted the past or predicted the future differently. All led me nowhere and over the course of my life I became more frustrated with the book.
Perhaps the most frustrating of all verses to me was the book’s very first verse which reads, “The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to show unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and revealed it by his angel unto his servant John.” I remember yelling out to myself (or the LORD, maybe both), “How can these things shortly come to pass? It’s been almost two thousand years since these words were written!” Now I understand my problem. I had been thinking in the wrong paradigm. I had always learned and thought that Revelation predicted the future when it was written.
I knew that there were various schools of thought concerning this book from the very beginning of my walk with Christ. In 1978, during my second year of knowing salvation, I studied the book in Bible school under the President of my Bible college, Glenn Bourne. Mr. Bourne primarily taught us using notes from his forthcoming book, Tower of Truth. In that book’s introduction he writes, “Some study this Book with the idea that it is a history book. They look to the history of John’s day for their understanding. Others believe this Book is an outline of history beginning at the time of Christ’s first coming and continuing until His return. Still others think this book is primarily prophetic and are looking to the future for the fulfillment of its message.” (Glenn H. Bourne, Tower of Truth, Litho Printers, 1982, p. ix)
Notice that each primary method for understanding the Book of Revelation deals with explaining it naturally, whether that explanation is past, present, or future. But, Jesus taught us that his words are spiritual. This is true for all of Scripture and no less for Revelation. In order to comprehend this book we must approach it spiritually. This is exactly what F.B. did when he sought God for its interpretation. Over and over and over again the Holy Spirit sent him to other books of the Bible and to various translations of the Bible in order to decipher a particular word or phrase in Revelation. As he obediently did that, the LORD revealed a consistent spiritual message to him.
The Book of Revelation is Christ’s love letter to his bride wherein he teaches her to come out of Babylon (false religion, the beast, the false prophet, the false church made with men’s hands) by practicing righteousness. She (we, hopefully) does this through the process of repenting of her sins, thus cleansing herself continually with his Word. Beloved, we have pursued the wrong paradigm in our study of this very prophetic book. Jesus did not write it to prophesy the future. He wrote it to prophesy (speak God’s truth concerning) the process of his bride overcoming the world so that she will be fit to rule the world with him when he comes again.
Click here to read the prophetic commentary of the Book of Revelation.
