The Two Beasts (13:1–18)
The Beast out of the Sea (13:1–10)
The Beast out of the Land (13:11–18)
Two Interlude Visions (14:1–13)
The Lamb and the 144,000 (14:1–5)
The Messages of the Three Angels, plus a Warning and a Beatitude (14:6–13)
Prelude to the (Original) Tale of Two Cities (Revelation 14:14–20)
The Grain Harvest (14:14–16)
The Trampling of the Grapes (14:17–20)
The Seven Bowls of God’s Wrath (Revelation 15–16)
Prelude: The Seven Angels with the Last Seven Plagues (15:1–18)
The Seven Bowls Are Poured Out (16:1–21)
The First Four Bowls (16:1–9)
The Fifth and Sixth Bowls plus the Interlude (16:10–16)
The Seventh Bowl (16:17–21)
The (Original) Tale of Two Cities, Part 1:
The Demise of Rome (17:1—19:10)
Rome as a Seductive Harlot (17:1–18)
The Introduction as Invitation (17:1–2)
The Description of the Harlot (17:3–6)
The Interpretation of the Vision (17:7–18)
The Interpretation of the Beast (17:7–8)
The Interpretation of the Beast (17:9–11)
The Interpretation of the Ten Horns (17:12–14)
The Coming Uprising against the Prostitute (17:15–18)
The Fall of Babylon the Great (18:1—19:10)
A Lament over Fallen Babylon (18:1–3)
Warning to Escape Babylon’s Judgment (18:4–8)
Threefold Woe over Babylon’s Fall (18:9–20)
The First Woe: The Kings of the Earth (18:9–10)
The Second Woe: The Merchants of the Earth (18:11–17a)
The Third Woe: The Merchant Marine (18:17b–19)
The Johannine Response (18:20–24)
Threefold Hallelujah over Babylon’s Fall (19:1–8)
Beatitude and Admonition (19:9–10)
The Last Battle and the End of Evil (Revelation 19:11—20:15)
The Last Battle, Part 1: The Battle Itself (19:11–21)
The Last Battle: An Interlude—The Binding of Satan and the Reign
of the Martyrs (20:1–6)
The Last Battle, Part 2: The Judgment of Satan (20:7–10)
Conclusion of the Last Battle: The Raising of the Dead for Judgment (20:11–15)
The (Original) Tale of Two Cities, Part 2:
God Makes All Things New (Revelation 21:1—22:5)
Introduction: A New Heaven and a New Earth (21:1–8)
A New Jerusalem, the Bride of the Lamb (21:9–27)
The Physical Description of the City, Part 1a (21:9–14)
The Physical Description of the City, Part 1b (21:15–21)
The Character of the City (21:22–27)
A New Earth: Eden Restored (22:1–5)
The Wrap-Up (or Epilogue) (Revelation 22:6–21)
Epilogue Part 1: John and the Angel (22:6–11)
Epilogue Part 2: The Last Words of Christ (22:12–16)
Epilogue Part 3: Invitation and Warning (22:17–21)
Preface
Stepping into the Revelation from the rest of the New Testament is to enter into a strange, bizarre new world; and this is true even in the days of Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter. Instead of narratives, arguments, or plain statements of fact, the Revelation is full of angels, trumpets, and earthquakes; of strange beasts, dragons, and bottomless pits. Most believers, therefore, take one of two extremes: some simply avoid it in despair; others take an exaggerated interest in it, thinking to find here all the keys to the end of the world.
Both of these positions, I would argue, are simply wrong. On the one hand, in the providence of God it is Holy Scripture, a part of the twenty-seven-document canon of the New Testament. Indeed, it serves as the ultimate—and marvelous—conclusion to the whole of Scripture. On the other hand, a great deal of what has been written about it, especially at the popular level, tends to obscure its meaning rather than to help the reader understand it. In fact many years ago, when I was teaching a course on the Revelation at Wheaton College, one of the options for a term paper was to analyze the exegesis of Hal Lindsay’s The Late Great Planet Earth. Two students took me up on this alternative, both of whom independently came to the conclusion that the task was altogether impossible, since there is not a single exegetical moment in Lindsay’s entire book. John himself would surely have found Lindsay’s book as “apocalyptic” as most modern readers do John’s.
The purpose of the present book is therefore singular: to offer one New Testament scholar’s exegetical reading of the text, with very little concern for anything except to help people hear it for the word of God that it is. And therefore none of the so-called alternative ways of understanding the book will hereafter be mentioned in this book. At the same time, I would be deceiving the reader if I did not admit that I am equally concerned that the exegesis leads to theological understanding. That is, what does it mean for God and his Christ to be the one and only sovereign(s) in a universe in which others compete for sovereignty and worship; and what does it mean for contemporary people of God to be a countercultural alternative in such a world, just as John himself was, and was encouraging his readers to be? Furthermore, with theology there must be worship, because whatever else is true about this marvelous Revelation, John recognizes that truly Christian theology should lead to doxology. That is, descriptions of God that do not lead to the worship of God might be intellectually useful, but they are unrelated to biblical reality; and biblical reality is what John wants his readers to see and hear. In a form of divine sovereignty that often accompanies biblical prophecy, John wrote what turned out to be the final book in the Christian canon; and thus it serves fittingly as the climax to both the New Testament and to the entire biblical story—which begins in Eden and concludes with a restored Eden.
Finally, I should note that the biblical text used throughout is the (yet to be published) 2011 edition of the NIV, which has been used by permission of the Committee on Bible Translation who are responsible for the translation (to which I have access before publication as a member of the translation committee) and of the Zondervan Corporation who will publish it.
Gordon D. Fee
October 2009
Introduction
The purpose of this introduction is twofold: to introduce the reader both to the Book of Revelation and to this commentary on the book. We begin with the former. At issue is the fourfold question of what, why, who, and when.
The Revelation: What Is It?
Readers of the New Testament experience something of a shock when they come to the book of Revelation—at least once they get past the first five chapters, which are quite manageable. Even the two scenes in heaven in chapters 4 and 5—which may be a bit different, to be sure—are still manageable. At chapter 6, however, with its four colored horses, souls under the altar, and great earthquake, everything changes. At this point most contemporary readers