Free Web Counter
The Question:
"First of all allow me to say that I am really grateful for
your website! But now I have a question for you: Your approach to
Genesis is obviously literalistic. You accept the Creation record
as it is written there and you also accept all the patriarchs as
literal figures of history, just as I do. But in Revelation you
appear to reject the literalistic approach; but surely Genesis
and Revelation have a lot in common (the tree of life etc). Can
you clarify your position for me?"
My Reply:
Okay. We have to understand that different forms of writing
occur in the Holy Bible. There is proverb, poetry, parable,
letters, historical narratives, prophecy and apocalyptic writing
too. We must seek to understand what these different
forms of writing set out to accomplish if we are going to be
conscientious and honest biblical interpreters before God!
Now first of all to take the Book of Genesis. Most everything in
this book is written as a historical narrative. Right the way
through from such comments as 'the evening and the morning
were the first day' to a quite detailed account of certain
incidents in the lives of such people as Abraham, Isaac and Jacob
- the whole thing is not written as an allegory or as
something symbolic but as real life occurrences of real
people. Now, of course, I say 'occurrences' because not
every detail could conceivably be recorded in a book of only
fifty chapters which covers a period of over a thousand years.
But the 'highspots' are there - the things we really need to know
and would not otherwise be able to discover! By the way, the very
reason that genealogies (family lines) are recorded is because
the intention is to show us that these were literal people living
in literal time and space! Genealogies reappear in the Gospels,
again, because the intention is to leave us in no doubt that
Jesus was a real, literal figure who lived, breathed and walked
upon this earth!
Today people who like to think of themselves as "enlightened" or
"sophisticated" or "scientifically-minded" laugh at Genesis -
they prefer the claims of evolution about the origin if Mankind.
People who prefer the claims of Genesis over evolution and who
see Genesis as historical narrative are considered naive,
ignorant and, frankly, stupid. Oh well, according to that
measure, I am stupid! But the truth is that it is people who have
swallowed evolutionary teaching and its big myth that there is no
God and that everything around us is an accident which slowly
evolved over millions or billions of years who are naive - no, I
won't call them stupid, because they have been duped by some
pretty persuasive influences which have arrogantly claimed to
have "higher scientific knowledge." One day this world will
discover that they have been duped and had the 'wool pulled over
their eyes' on a massive scale. They will discover that it is
"higher scientific knowledge" which is the real myth and that
true science (unlike bragging 'scientism') understands
very little (the truly great scientists have always admitted
this), but while it struggles to learn more, it meanwhile
works through a framework of theories. Evolution is a
theory - there have been other scientific theories in the
past, most of them no longer accepted.
Evolution is a bit like a large rambling house. On the outside
it looks sophisticated and respectable - "posh" as we Brits say.
People respect it. But when you get really close and decide to
peep in through the windows you get a shock - the inside is
falling apart with the upper floor already collapsed. It is a
mess, really ramshackle! The truth is that what passes for a
grand and sophisticated house looking from the outside, is close
to being condemned and within a very few years will have to be
pulled down!! When you get real close to evolution you see that
the theory is close to collapse - many scientists now reject it -
but they usually do this privately because to publically reject
it could cost them their jobs and careers. Much of what Darwin
included within evolution is now a dead duck - it truly no longer
stands - I am not exaggerating here. 'Natural Selection' is not
and never has been evolution. Natural Selection is allowed for
within the Genesis record. Today's Neo-Darwinism clings
to mutations as its 'last stand' but mutations cannot save
evolution. Other scientific theories have died but evolution is
being kept artificially "alive" - it is truly on 'life support'!
- because if this theory dies millions will have to admit they
were wrong and millions of text books would have to be re-written
but - even worse - when the theory of evolution "house" finally
collapses (which will happen within a just a few more years in my
opinion), people will have to acknowledge a Creator God! Do you
now see why so many are working so frantically to keep evolution
on 'life support'? Other scientific theories have been jettisoned
in the past, but the problem with this one is that it set out to
replace belief in God and in divinity, so we begin to
see why it will be kept alive on 'life support' a while longer
yet.
Despite this crisis within evolution's 'house', the public
continue to blithely believe and accept evolution (especially in
Europe, not in north America), thinking that it is now more or
less proven - to be frank, they have been duped. They have no
conception of the mess which evolution is now in. Young college
students continue to be taught evolutionary dogma, their
lecturers themselves often not even aware of the arguments among
evolutionists, or of the work of Michael Behe on 'Irreducible
Complexity,' or of the presence of the increasing number of
books by scientists which challenge it. That part of the
outwardly respectable 'house of evolution' which still has people
at work inside has continual stormy arguments - intellectual
riffs and tiffs. There is little harmony there. But most of the
Darwinian house is long since abandoned! Yet despite this, books
continue to come off the printing press each year which teach
evolutionary dogma, mainly the work of young science graduates
who want to make a name for themselves, plus the books of older
atheists who use evolution because its the best they've
got.
In the 19th century liberals scoffed at many of the people and
places mentioned in the biblical accounts, but no longer. For
about 70 years the books of the Old Testament have been slowly
but steadily gaining credibility as archaeology has repeatedly
corroborated places and events recorded in the Old Testament
books. So, you bet I accept Genesis! You bet I accept the
veracity of the entire Holy Bible, including Genesis.
Now, what about the Book of Revelation over in the New
Testament?
|
The major problem which
those who insist that Revelation should only be considered
literalistically have is that much of this book just
cannot be interpreted this way unless one suspends all
logic! The sect which I belonged to many years ago were typical
of this approach. They would take Revelation 11, for instance,
and insist that some parts were literal and other parts were not:
that is confusion. They would, for example, insist that
Revelation 11:1-2 was symbolic but that 11:3 (which mentions the
'two witnesses' and '1,260 days') was literal - except that the
1,260 days were 1,260 years! Then they insisted that 11:4 was,
again, symbolic! This patchy and inconsistent approach was
applied throughout both Daniel and Revelation. Then they had the
problem that a literalistic approach to the book of Revelation
requires about 7 Second Comings of Christ!! |
Now my correspondent was absolutely correct to point out that
many things from Genesis reappear in the Book of Revelation.
However, Revelation is a vastly different sort of book to the Old
Testament narrative accounts. It is written in the
Apocalyptic form. The book of Daniel appears to be the
starting point for apocalyptic writing; it is the first such book
we know of, but it launched a multitude of books written in
apocalyptic form. Of course, these were not all divinely-inspired
and most did not claim to be - it was just a style which became
the vogue. The book of Revelation is just about the last such
book in this style. Apocalyptic writing was not
historical narrative. It set out to paint great truths in
symbolic, poetic and, oftentimes, quite scary form. So this form
of writing was replete with symbolism. To take just one example,
a beast with seven heads and ten horns is a very quick example of
numerous things in Revelation which have great teaching value but
which are obviously not intended purely literally. There are too
many additional examples of this to even begin including them
here, but one might just consider the continual play on numbers,
especially on the numbers '7' and '12' - 7 is the perfect number,
and '12' is the number of perfect organisation. These numbers are
used in various forms in this book of poetic symbolism. '1,000'
too occurs as symbolic of a very long period of time by human
standards during which God can accomplish everything which is
essential (actually '1,000' is only ever used symbolically in the
Bible - the same thing happens in the Psalms). 144,000 (a
multiple of 12), is used as being symbolic of an
imagination-defying number from a human perspective but perfect
and ideal to God; it reveals that those finally saved will be an
imagination-defying number. We should note that no number is
placed on the lost! (this should not surprise us since, as I have
pointed out elsewhere, only the Predestination of the
Saints is biblical, 'double predestination' is unbiblical).
The numbers are, of course, symbolic and not literal. Of course,
it is all true and all divinely-inspired but care must be taken
to correctly understand this great book. The book contains
prophecies of certain future events (mainly the 'parousia' -
Christ's Second Coming), even while it is not actually a book of
prophecy - a fact which causes many would-be interpreters to
err.
So what is this great book's purpose?
Revelation reveals to God's true people that they are saved and
that their salvation is absolutely secure even while
they will undoubtedly suffer persecution and possibly other
hardships too in this present evil world. The book contains seven
parallel sections each culminating in the Second Coming of
Christ; these sections are right at the heart and centre of this
book. This is showing the Church the utter certainty of Christ's
triumph and of the Judgment which will follow. It is saying to
God's true people: Yes, you will suffer in this present evil
world but focus on the restoration of all things which will be
accomplished in Jesus Christ - your future is secure! Yet the
book would be closed to those rejecting God. The truth is that
Revelation was written as an apocalyptic book - I mean
it was written in an actual style which was intended to deliver
great truths to one group of people (Christians in this case),
while being left perplexing to most other people.
So the Book of Revelation was not written to be simple
historical narrative as Genesis is! And it is addressed to
Christian believers alone (Revelation 1:1), while being
closed to those who reject Christ even though the latter group
may come up with all kinds of fanciful theories about it.
So I hope that this explains the great differences between
Genesis, and the fact that that book makes itself plain as a
narrative of actual events, and Revelation, and the fact that
this book also makes itself plain - not as a narrative of events
in the Genesis manner - but as a document delivered to those in
Christ alone, and only capable of being fully understood by those
in Christ. In a time of great persecution, its structure
purposely confuses those who would persecute Christians even
while clearly showing God's true people that their future is
absolutely secure within His plans and that they should meanwhile
steadfastly endure and look forward to the Second Coming - yet
also reassuring them that, in the meantime, they have a continual
home in Heaven! This is what Revelation is all about.
Robin A. Brace, 2006.
See also:
The Symbolical Numbers of the Book of Revelation
(Including a full explanation of the 144,000).
You will find other articles on similar topics by using the
'Search' facility on our homepage:
UK APOLOGETICS
HOME