What is ‘Revelation’

Apokalypsis, the source of our English word ‘apocalypse’. This term has come to denote a major catastrophic event, and it is true that the book depicts great disasters that have given us concepts such as Armageddon and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. The derived word ‘apocalyptic’ denotes a genre of literature depicting end-of-the-world scenarios that are often filled with fantastical, colourful imagery of wild things of different kinds involved in various events, including great battles between good and evil.

 

Etymologically, the Greek word apokalypsis is formed from apo (= away from) and kalyptein (= to cover), and means an uncovering, unveiling, disclosure or revelation, usually of something hitherto obscure or hidden. Both the source and the subject of disclosure is Jesus Christ – a person……

 

Revelation promises to do two things: fill our hearts with praise to God, and simultaneously prepare us for God’s inevitable cataclysmic intervention in this world to judge evil righteously at the return of Christ. It will challenge us to think hard about what we are really living for. It will also give us a way of coping with the ongoing problems of evil, pain and death by revealing how God will finally deal with these issues, and so give us a credible hope of ultimate victory.

 

Paul was encouraging the Thessalonian believers to look at the present in the light of the future. That principle, sometimes called the ‘telescope principle’, is one of the keys to applying Revelation at any time in history.

 

--- John C. Lennox, God, AI and the End of History: 

Understanding the Book of Revelation in an Age of Intelligent Machines. 2025.

Imperial Persecution of Christians

After the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70, which Jesus had foretold in his Olivet discourse, the Romans introduced the fiscus Judaicus (Jewish tax), the payment of which lifted the obligation of Jews to sacrifice to Roman gods. The amount was 2 denarii, the same as observant Jews were used to paying for the upkeep of the Temple in Jerusalem. This revenue was devoted to the repair and upkeep of the temple of Capitoline Jupiter in Rome which had been badly damaged by fire. Therefore, the tax was both an insult and an embarrassment to Jews.

 

Suetonius reports that Domitian tightened up fiscal policy in AD 81 by expanding the tax to all Jewish converts and to people who concealed their Jewish origins. Since the Romans tended to regard Christianity as a Jewish sect, Christians also had to pay the tax.

 

In AD 96, Nerva, Domitian’s successor, reformed the administration of the tax and redefined Judaism as a religion. This meant that Judaism was seen as distinct from Christianity and only those practising the former were liable to the tax. This exposed Christians to Roman persecution, which began a few years later and continued until the Edict of Milan in AD 313 gave Christianity the protection of legal status.

 

--- John C. Lennox, God, AI and the End of History: 

Understanding the Book of Revelation in an Age of Intelligent Machines. 2025.