21 Principles That Will Help Prepare You to Understand the Book of Revelation

How to Read Revelation

Before you open Revelation, a few truths must be in place. Many readers enter this book with fear or confusion, caused by teachings that miss its heart. Clear the fog of faulty presuppositions, and the whole vision shifts. Revelation becomes readable, anchored in history, and overflowing with hope.

Some of these truths may seriously challenge what you've been taught, but each is based in Scripture and will become clear as we go through the book. These twenty-one points form the foundation for understanding the message of Revelation. Think of them as a guide rope on a steep climb.

Hold onto them tightly, and you'll see that Revelation isn't a book of terror. It reveals Jesus, the calling of His people, and the future of healing and transformation that God has brought to the world through Jesus Christ.

1.   Revelation reveals the end of the age and the start of another.

Revelation is the story of an overlap of ages. Jesus comes at the end of one age and ushers in the beginning of another.

While the story behind Revelation begins in Genesis, the story of God’s relationship with His people does not really get going until He chooses one man to start a family that He names “Israel.” And even then, the first covenant age does not truly take shape until the time of Moses, at Mount Sinai, in the book of Exodus, where God formally enters into covenant with Israel as His people: “If you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession” (Exodus 19:5).

God called the nation of Israel to trust Him as the One who had delivered them from the hands of the Pharaoh, and that He would be their God, and they would be His people who would follow His commandments. The family agreed, and Moses, their leader, sealed the covenant with blood (Exodus 24:8). This covenant is commonly called the Mosaic Covenant, or simply the Old Covenant.

This covenant was an agreement between God and His people. It was not made with the world at large. That did not mean God did not love or care for the rest of the world. Scripture tells us that He does (John 3:16), but during this period, God dealt with the other nations differently. Scripture does not detail His actions with the nations, because that is not the story being told.

What the Scriptures do tell us is that God was forming and preserving one family to carry His covenant presence through history and ultimately to all nations. He taught Israel how to live with Him and with one another so that the promise would not be extinguished. Through sacrifice, exile, kingship, the temple, and prophetic warnings, He was shaping a people who would recognize the Messiah when He came and understand both their need for forgiveness and His offer of mercy.

When the Promised One appeared, He would be the once-for-all Blood Sacrifice, bringing healing and life not only to Israel but to the world. Israel was chosen as the vessel of that blessing, a healing promised to Abraham, that would reach back to Eden and stretch forward into all humanity (Genesis 12:3).

This joint covenant between God and His people shaped Israel’s worship and daily life, and it carried real consequences. Faithfulness brought blessings in this life, while rebellion brought hardship, loss, and ultimate self-destruction (Leviticus 26; Deuteronomy 28).

God gave Israel the temple, where He dwelt and received the sacrifices offered for their forgiveness when they failed to keep His commands. The sacrifices were a true means of His grace and mercy, but they were never meant to be a permanent solution. As Scripture explains, they could cleanse for a time but not forever (Hebrews 10:1–4). The elusive righteousness the commandments demanded and the temporary nature of the forgiveness the sacrifices brought taught them to seek the promised Messiah who would embody both ultimate righteousness and permanent forgiveness.

It was precisely this understanding that we are only righteous before God because of His righteousness and His mercy that God wanted His people to take away from the Old Covenant. Paul says, “God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all” (Romans 11:32). That mercy arrived in Jesus, not as a revision of the covenant, but as its fulfillment and its conclusion.

In Jesus, God brought the covenant of law to its intended end. He alone kept the covenant perfectly. And when the curses for breaking the covenant came, they fell upon the faithful Son who stood in Israel’s place. The Cross marks the moment when the Mosaic Covenant reached its goal and gave way. What the law given on Sinai could only expose, Jesus on Calvary healed. The forgiveness that the sacrifices anticipated, Christ completed.

When Christ died as the final sacrifice for sin, He did so not only for Israel but for the whole world. God had not ignored the nations while working through one family. Even Paul once struggled to understand this until it was revealed to him that Gentiles (people not of the nation of Israel) are fellow heirs in Christ (Ephesians 3:4–6).

God did not choose Israel because there was anything special about Israel (Deuteronomy 7:6–8). He declares that He chose them because He loved them, but that doesn’t mean that He loved them more than other nations. He chose them to carry His promise to the whole world for the sake of all humanity because He so loved the world.

In Christ’s death and resurrection, the Old Covenant was fulfilled, and a New Covenant was established in His Blood—a covenant that extends to the entire world. This was the purpose for which Israel was chosen: to bring the Savior of the World, so that healing and re-creation could come to all.

Revelation, in symbolic language, announces the shift from the Old Covenant to the New Covenant through Christ’s blood. After Christ, the temple and the Old Covenant sacrifices were no longer necessary. Since the temple was the center of that covenant, and the city was built around it, both represented a way of life that had come to an end. The prophets had predicted this (Jeremiah 31:31–34; Daniel 9:26–27).

Those who continued to cling to the Old Covenant as the means of union with God after its fulfillment in Christ shared the fate of the temple and the city. This was not because God desired anyone’s destruction. Scripture is clear that He takes no pleasure in the death of anyone (Ezekiel 18:32).

Yet the covenant that had served its purpose had to give way so that the healing promised from the beginning could flow freely to the nations. The fall of the temple did not signal God’s abandonment of Israel, but the birth of the promise to the whole world, including those who had once clung to the old way.

The Blood Sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross fulfilled the Old Covenant and brought it to its intended completion. In its place arose what we now call the New Covenant in Christ’s Blood.

This New Covenant entered history through His Death, Resurrection, and Ascension, when He was exalted to rule and reign over all things. Having atoned not only for the sins of ethnic Israel but for the sins of the whole world (1 John 2:2), Christ now reigns as the Risen and Ascended Lord.

From the time of John the Baptist and the ministry of Jesus, the land of Israel entered a final generation, roughly forty years, during which the call went out to turn from the Old Covenant to the promised and soon-to-be-fulfilled New Covenant.

Before that generation passed, the temple and the city would be destroyed to bring a clear conclusion to the Old Covenant and to reveal the truth of the New Covenant in Christ’s Blood. The prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Joel, and Hosea specifically prophesy about the New Covenant. Both the prophets and Jesus Himself predicted Jerusalem’s destruction and the covenant transformation that would follow (Jeremiah 7:12–15; 31:31–34; Ezekiel 5:5–12; 36:25–27; Daniel 9:26–27; Micah 3:12; 7:18–20; Zechariah 13:7–9; Hosea 3:4; 2:19–23).

The destruction of Jerusalem and the temple in 70 A.D. marked the visible end of the Old Covenant and the beginning of the New. It is this destruction of the temple and Jerusalem that forms a large part of the story told in Revelation. But Revelation doesn’t just tell of destruction; it also speaks of the re-creation and salvation of the world, which has come and continues to unfold through Christ.

2.   The Fall of Jerusalem revealed the Messianic Age that we live in now.

In the Hebrew tradition, the term Messiah comes from the Hebrew word meaning “anointed one.” It originally referred to someone set apart by God through the ritual pouring of oil, often a king, sometimes a priest, and occasionally a prophet. Over time, the term came to represent hope for the future: a coming king who would restore Israel, establish justice, and renew covenant faithfulness. By Jesus’ day, “Messiah” signified God’s chosen and authorized ruler who would bring peace to Israel and order to the nations.

In the first century, when Jesus the Messiah appeared, Israel was under Roman occupation and governed by imperial authority (Luke 2:1; John 19:15). The nation lived under foreign rule, and resentment simmered beneath the surface, occasionally erupting in revolutionary movements (John 6:15; Acts 5:36–37).

The prophet Daniel had given a precise date that pointed to the very period of Jesus’ life as the time when the Messiah would arrive (Daniel 9:24–27). Many Jews assumed that his arrival was imminent and that when he came, he would defeat Rome and restore Israel’s dominion in fulfillment of Psalm 2:8 and Daniel 7:13–14.

However, Jesus preached peace, patience, and faithfulness under foreign rule. He taught His followers to love their enemies(Matthew 5:44), to render to Caesar what belongs to Caesar (Mark 12:17), to go the extra mile when compelled by a Roman soldier (Matthew 5:41), to welcome sinners (Luke 15:1–2), and He declared that tax collectors and prostitutes were entering the kingdom ahead of the religious elite (Matthew 21:31–32).

 Needless to say, this was not, for many, their idea of the type of Kingdom or King they wanted.

Jesus foresaw the coming destruction just as the prophets had foretold, and though He knew the destruction was inevitable, He warned against rebellion against Rome and wept, saying, “Would that you had known the things that make for peace” (Luke 19:42).

Ultimately, their salvation from destruction hinged on their belief in Him. Trust Him as the promised Messiah and follow His instruction, and they would avoid destruction; ignore Him, and they would go the way of the temple and the city of Jerusalem.

Many refused to listen to Jesus. They chose the wider path to destruction (Matthew 7:13-14). They clung to their Old Covenant ways, rejected the One Scripture pointed to, and later, followed after false messiahs and rebelled against Rome. By rejecting the Kingdom of mercy, peace, and salvation that the true Messiah came to usher in, and choosing instead to follow false messiahs and revolt against Rome, Israel placed itself in the path of destruction.

The devastation Jesus and previous prophets had warned Israel about came at the hands of the Roman Empire within one generation of His proclamation, just as He foretold (Matthew 22:7; Matthew 23:36; Matthew 24:15-16; Matthew 24:34; Mark 13:30; Luke 21:31-32; Matthew 10:23; Matthew 16:27-28; Mark 9:1; Luke 9:27; Luke 21:20-22; Luke 19:41-44).

Those who believed He was the promised Messiah to bring in the Kingdom of God and the New Covenant trusted His warnings (Luke 21:20-22) and fled to the wilderness when the armies surrounded the city, thus saving themselves from destruction.

In contrast, those who remained loyal to the temple and its system of works and sacrifices, and continued to hate Rome, desiring its overthrow, perished along with the temple and the city in 70 A.D.

Israel’s rebellion against Roman occupation, which began decades before their destruction, intensified in the years following Jesus’ Ascension. By 66 A.D., it had become an outright rebellion. In 70 A.D., Rome and its allied forces surrounded Jerusalem and destroyed both the city and the temple.

Josephus, a Jewish historian from the first century and an eyewitness, described famine that wiped out families and streets filled with corpses (The Jewish War 6.3.3–4). Tacitus, a first-century Roman historian, confirmed the devastation, stating the city was “overflowing with corpses” and “burned to the ground” (Histories 5.13). It happened as Jesus said. Not one stone of the temple remained upon another.

The destruction was not driven by divine anger or revenge for the crucifixion, as many Christians throughout the ages have suggested. Jesus mourned over the city that refused to listen. It is never God’s wish for people to be destroyed (Ezekiel 18:23; 18:32; 22:11). Nor does He delight in causing pain or grief (Lamentations 3:33). Rather, the destruction resulted from their rebellion against Rome, which was in further violation of the Mosaic Covenant (Leviticus 26:17; Deuteronomy 28:48). A rebellion that would not have occurred should they have listened to the prophets and trusted their Messiah.

In the Old Testament, destruction resulted either from Israel’s breaking the covenant or from nations opposing God’s purposes, which aimed to bring about worldwide restoration. In each case, God was maintaining the course that would lead to the Messiah, through whom healing and renewal would come to the entire world. This restoration would reach back to Adam and extend forward to people still unborn today (Genesis 12:3; Isaiah 49:6; Acts 17:26–27; Colossians 1:20).

The rebellion occurred; still, mercy triumphed. God saved from self-destruction all who trusted in Jesus, who chose the narrow way because of their faith in Christ as Messiah, who had warned them to leave Jerusalem. When Jesus spoke of the narrow gate and the narrow door, He did so in the shadow of coming judgment upon Jerusalem.

In Matthew 7:13–14, He warned that the wide way leads to destruction, while the narrow way leads to life. In Luke 13:23–30, when asked whether those who are saved would be few, He again spoke of a narrow entrance and of a door that would one day be shut. Luke’s Gospel soon connects this warning to the desolation of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple (Luke 13:34–35; 21:20–22).

The salvation in view, therefore, includes deliverance from that coming catastrophe. Yet no one could discern the narrow way by natural willpower. Faith in Him, a gift from God, enabled His followers to trust His warning, refuse the popular path, and walk the road that led to life rather than destruction.

Those who trusted Christ were spared the coming destruction and, unless called to martyrdom, continued their earthly lives under His established rule and reign, inaugurated through His Death, Resurrection, and Ascension. At the same time, they entered into eternal life, which is to know God and His Son, not merely as a future hope but as a present reality (John 5:24; 17:3).

Scripture calls this time of destruction the “end of the age” (Matthew 13:39; Matthew 13:49; Matthew 24:3). These verses are often assumed to mean the “end of the world,” but that is not what Jesus meant. Jesus described this end as Old Covenant judgment, saying, “These are the days of vengeance, to fulfill all that is written” (Luke 21:22), and He said it would happen within “this generation” (Luke 21:32).

While the actual end of the Old Covenant came at Jesus’ fulfillment of the covenant on the cross, it was the fall of Jerusalem and the temple that marked the visible end of the Mosaic Age and the visible birth of the Messianic Age as the message of the New King spread rapidly throughout the world.

The Bible also speaks of “the age to come,” which in Jewish thinking was the Messianic Age. “The age to come” does not mean “heaven after death.” It means the age of the Messiah’s reign, which we are in now and will continue to be in until He has put every enemy under His feet and hands the Kingdom to the Father (1 Corinthians 15:24-28).

Eternal life is not simply about going to heaven after death. It is about knowing God now. Jesus Himself defined it this way: “This is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John 17:3). Eternal life begins in relationship. It is participation in the life of God through Christ our King, a present reality for those who trust Him, not merely a distant promise.

When Jesus appeared, He did so at what the New Testament calls “the end of the age.” We often hear that phrase and assume it means the end of the world, but in its biblical setting, it refers to the close of one covenant era and the beginning of another.

The Old Covenant age was passing away, and the long-promised Messianic Age was dawning. That new age began with Christ’s Death, Resurrection, and Ascension, and it was publicly confirmed when the temple and Jerusalem fell and the Church spread throughout the world. This is the age in which we now live, the age of the Messiah’s reign. When we trust Him and live under that reign, we have eternal life.

3.   The words “earth” and “world” reveal God’s covenant work.

The Hebrew word (אֶרֶץ) “erets” functions as both “land” in the sense of the “land of Israel” and “earth” in the sense of the whole world in the Old Testament. In the New Testament, the Greek word “gē” is used in the same way as both “land” and “earth.”  Context is the only key to how translators eventually translate the word.

In the New Testament, gē most often refers to the covenant land of Israel, the territory where God’s story had unfolded for centuries. However, translators often get it wrong by translating it as “earth,” which is often understood to mean the whole world, leading to misunderstandings.

In Luke 21:23, we have a clear example of this translation error. Jesus is warning the disciples about the coming covenantal destruction on Israel and says, according to the English Standard Version (ESV) translation of the Bible, “Alas for women who are pregnant and for those who are nursing infants in those days! For there will be great distress upon the earth and wrath against this people.” Here, Jesus is not warning destruction upon the whole earth, but upon Israel, and this people.

Revelation is filled with such mistranslations. The opening blessing of Revelation itself shows this issue. John says that the tribes of the earth will mourn when they see Him. The phrase “all tribes of the earth” (Revelation 1:7) obscures the fact that John is echoing Zechariah, where the tribes of the land of Israel mourn the One they have pierced. The English “earth” drags the reader away from the covenant horizon and the land of Israel that John is intentionally invoking.

In the Bible, the meanings of land and earth expand as God’s covenant purposes unfold. Here’s a simple rule to always help determine if the word should be “earth” or “land”: If the context concerns God’s Covenant with Israel, then “gē” should be understood as “land.” If it's looking beyond to the Messianic age, it should be translated as “earth.”

Scripture itself teaches us to read it this way. It is remarkable that God chose a word that works like this, because the ultimate point is that as the covenants change, the land of Israel indeed gives way to the whole earth. What God blesses Israel with becomes a blessing for the whole world.

In Revelation, “gē” names the covenant land of Israel while that covenant and the temple still stand, but once the story moves beyond Israel’s collapse and into Christ’s reign over all nations, the same word naturally widens to mean “earth,” because the covenant itself has widened from Old to New.

A similar poor choice in translation often appears in English renderings of the Greek word oikoumenē.  The classic example is from Luke 2:1, “In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered.” Everyone knows that Caesar did not tax the whole world, yet the phrase is still used.

The Greek word oikoumenē comes from the verb oikeō, “to dwell,” and literally means “the inhabited land,” or “the region where people live.” In New Testament times, it was typically understood to mean the Roman Empire. It is a word that belongs to the Old Covenant world.

In the New Covenant, the “world,” in the sense of the global earth including but far beyond the Roman Empire, is expressed by the Greek word “kosmos,” not “oikoumenē.” The word “kosmos,” or “cosmos” in English, stands for the whole global Earth.

In Matthew 24:14, Jesus says, “And this Gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world (oikoumenē) as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.” Jesus is not predicting that global evangelism would occur before the end of the world would come. He is predicting proclamation throughout the Roman Empire before the end of the present Old Covenant Age, and the destruction of Jerusalem.

What’s more, Paul explicitly states in Colossians 1:6 that the evangelism Jesus spoke of had already been accomplished. Here, Paul uses the same Greek word “oikoumenē,” meaning that the Gospel had reached the entire Roman Empire in his day, several years before the end of the age and the fall of Jerusalem.

“The end” of which Jesus speaks in Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21 is not the end of the world, but the end of the Old Covenant, the end of the temple, and the end of Jerusalem as they knew it.  The context screams this.

In Revelation 3:10, both words, oikoumenē and gē,are used, and both are mistranslated.  Here, Jesus says, “I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world to try those who dwell upon the earth.”  Because this speaks within the Old Covenant and about its coming end, a better reading would be: “I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole Roman Empire to try those who live in the Land of Israel.”

The key question to ask yourself as you read Revelation is, “What covenant is being referred to here?” And remember, Revelation is not written in a straight linear timeline; it often circles back and moves between covenants. For instance, Chapter 14 is about the New Covenant, while Chapter 16 returns to describe the final judgment under the Old Covenant.

Once you hear these words properly translated in their covenantal context, the whole Bible opens up to you a little further. Especially when we get to the book of Revelation, it stops sounding like a prophecy of global destruction and begins to unveil what’s really happening.  The Old Covenant is being closed on the land of Israel, and the New Covenant is unfolding upon the whole world.

Revelation is not about the end of the world. The Bible never teaches the end of the world, but rather a uniting of Heaven and Earth. Revelation is about the end of the Old Covenant and the beginning of the New. The Old Covenant showed that we cannot become righteous by works and pointed us to the Savior. The New Covenant declares us righteous by grace, through faith, because of Jesus the Lamb of God, who shed His Blood for the forgiveness of all sins and now reigns.

4.   Christ reveals the Kingdom of God, entering into the world.

The “Kingdom of God” is a phrase that is often misunderstood. It does not mean “heaven,” that place where we go when we die. It refers to the rule and reign of God, and specifically, the rule of Christ over the earth. The opposite term is the “kingdom of this world,” and it refers to the political and social structures within our world that rule visibly.

Jesus’ message during His ministry two thousand years ago was that His reign was on the verge of entering the world. Revelation declares that through Christ, the Kingdom of this world has now become the Kingdom of our God and of His Anointed One, and that He shall reign forever (Revelation 11:15). This confirms that it is the God-Human, Jesus Christ, who reigns now.

Humanity had been given rule and reign over the earth to begin with (Genesis 1:28; Psalm 8:5–6), but that reign was lost beginning at the fall, and by the time of Jesus’ ministry, the devil had procured dominion (John 12:31).

Jesus came as both God and man to reclaim dominion over the earth for humanity. In order to do this, He had to throw down the devil and be handed that rule and authority by God. That’s precisely what the Cross accomplished.

Through faith in Him, His rule and reign become ours because we are united to Him. This union creates new people and a new world. This is the Kingdom. Isaiah foresaw it as new heavens and a new earth, a renewed covenant order marked by joy, peace, fruitfulness, and life (Isaiah 65:17–25). At the heart of this new creation in Isaiah is a New Jerusalem. Isaiah foresaw in his day what we know to be a present reality: The Church, in union with Christ, rules the here and now, yet an invisible Kingdom of God in the world.

Jesus proclaimed that the Kingdom was already at hand, quietly but powerfully growing from a small seed to an enormous tree. This is the Kingdom where God dwells not only with His followers but also through them, bringing life, love, mercy, and peace to the world. Wherever love, mercy, and peace are, there is Christ, and there is the true Church.

The world is still broken; Jesus tells us that it is a messy Kingdom until all enemies are put under His feet (Matthew 13:24–30; 36–43; Matthew 13:31–32; Matthew 13:33). But through the self-giving love of Jesus' faithful followers, God is putting all enemies under Christ’s feet.

We are in the Kingdom Age now! Jesus rules and reigns now, and all of His faithful followers rule and reign with Him. However, we rule not by power or force, but by humble service, love, mercy, and self-sacrifice.

When the visible Church becomes engulfed in power struggles or oppressive rule, it has abandoned its commission. It is called to preach Christ crucified for the salvation of the world, and that He now has authority over everything in heaven and on earth. We are called to baptize and make disciples and to teach and obey Jesus’ message of love and self-sacrifice. This is precisely how enemies are put under His feet. And because we know that from first to last, every enemy will be put under submission, we know that the Kingdom will come to its fullness and perfection in God’s perfect time.

5.   The Cross reveals an exodus from Jerusalem’s destruction and a greater exodus from sin, death, and the devil.

When Jesus was asked, “Lord, will those who are saved be few?”(Luke 13:23), the question was not about how many would go to heaven after they died. It was about how many would escape the coming judgment on Israel. The chapter's context demands that we see the question that way.

Jesus answered with urgency: “Strive to enter through the narrow door” (Luke 13:24). A door to Kingdom participation was open, but it would not stay open because destruction was coming upon Israel at the hands of the Roman army. Those who trusted and followed Jesus and did not hold on to the old ways would escape and take part in the growth of His Kingdom. Those who rejected the New Covenant in His Blood would be caught in the coming destruction, and their earthly lives would come to an end.

Those who believed in Jesus were saved on two levels. Most importantly, they actively partook of the salvation from sin, death, and the devil that Jesus provided the world through the Cross.

However, they were also physically saved from the covenant destruction coming upon the land of Israel as they trusted Jesus’ instructions: “When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies… flee to the mountains” (Luke 21:20–21).

According to Eusebius, an early Church Father and historian, those first Christians in Israel heeded Jesus’ warning and fled to the wilderness town of Pella before the siege began (Ecclesiastical History 3.5.3).

This physical exodus from Jerusalem functioned as a sign. Just as Israel was once saved through the blood of a lamb in the exodus from Egypt under Moses, the faithful were preserved in the Messiah’s Day through the Blood of the Lamb shed on the Cross.

Eternal salvation was unveiled at the Cross (John 12:31–32). Physical, covenantal salvation was unveiled in the events of 70 A.D. as people trusted in the Cross and the Resurrection and obeyed Jesus’ instructions (Luke 21:20-22).

The Cross brought the Mosaic Covenant to its invisible fulfillment. No one could see that the first covenant had been fulfilled, though it was. It was the destruction of Jerusalem that marked its visible fulfillment. No one could contest that the Mosaic Covenant had not come to a close with the temple destroyed. The stone temple fell so that the Living Temple, the Church, could rise.

Salvation was had on two fronts for the first Christians: physical salvation from destruction and eternal salvation from the guilt of sin through Jesus’ atoning Death and Resurrection.

6.   John’s letter reveals the same events in repeated cycles.

Revelation is not written as a straightforward timeline, meaning time does not progress in a straight line from the first chapter to the last. It advances through what is called recapitulation. It is characterized by spiral repetition and repeated vision. This type of writing was typical of Hebrew prophecy, and John employs this technique throughout the book.

John’s letter to the seven churches, which we refer to as the book of Revelation, was written to Christians to warn them of the coming covenantal transfer and the destruction that would accompany it. The letter presents this destruction from multiple perspectives, and so it retells it over and over from those different angles.

But the book goes beyond the story of Jerusalem’s destruction; it also explores the nature of the Kingdom of God under the New Covenant in Christ’s Blood, which was coming upon the entire world. Throughout the book, whether referring to the Old or the New Covenant, John frequently revisits history, sometimes even within the same chapter.

While this literary style is used throughout the book, it is particularly prominent in the story of Jerusalem’s destruction, which is told in three cycles. These cycles appear in Chapters 6 through 19 as symbolic visions of cosmic conflict through the opening of seven seals, the blowing of seven trumpets, and the pouring out of seven bowls of plagues on the land of Israel. These visions show Christ as the One ultimately responsible for the destruction, though it was largely carried out by Rome and its allied forces.

It is important to note that John uses seals, a symbol connected to the prophets; trumpets, linked to an incoming king; and bowls, which relate to priestly duties. Jesus was Prophet, King, and Priest, ending the Mosaic Covenant and ushering in the Age of the Messiah. The destruction was necessary to bring a visible, almost sacramental end to the old and to welcome the new.

The warning was for everyone clinging to the old; instead of embracing the new age, they would face destruction.

7.   The Kingdom was revealed, and the devil was bound.

With the destruction of the land of Israel, the era of the kingdom under the influence of evil gave way to the age of the Kingdom of grace and peace that would ultimately cover the entire world. This Kingdom would be governed by Christ in Heaven and those in Him on Earth. Prophets like Daniel saw the day through prophetic visions, revealing when the Kingdom of God would be fully established on earth. 

When Christ arrived on the scene, what Daniel and others foresaw began to unfold: “In the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed” (Daniel 2:44).

Jesus and the apostles preached this same reality. Peter declared that the risen Jesus now reigns at the right hand of God (Acts 2:32–36). Paul wrote that God “has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son” (Colossians 1:13). The Kingdom is not delayed. It has already begun; the Kingdom is now!

Many balk at this idea because they think the Kingdom should be a utopia and that Jesus should be visibly in power.  Even Jesus’ disciples thought this way before His Death and Resurrection. But His reign looks nothing like the kingdoms of the world. Instead, Christ rules from the Heavenly Realm through His Body on the earth. His Body is the Church, and it is characterized by mercy, not force. His victory is the Cross, and His power is love.

His followers reign with Him, not by domination and lording over others, but by service. The Kingdom grows as the Gospel spreads, until the words of Scripture reach their fulfillment: “He must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet” (1 Corinthians 15:25), and every knee bows and every tongue confesses that Jesus Christ is Lord (Philippians 2:10–11).

Revelation refers to this reign as a period of 1,000 years (Revelation 20:4–6). This is a symbolic number representing a long time and completeness. It is not to be viewed as a literal length of time; it’s already been 2,000 years since the devil was bound at the Cross (John 12:31). This binding in Revelation 20 is described as preventing the nations from being deceived. That is true today: the nations before Jesus did not know Him; today, Jesus is known by billions throughout the world!

The 1,000 years is the extended age in which the risen Christ rules in and with His people, placing all things under His feet through His true disciples’ self-sacrifice and love. The 1,000 years will come to fulfillment when all enemies are put under His feet, including the last enemy, which is death.

The final good word is this: The devil no longer rules, the Lamb now reigns, and the current age will last until God is all in all (1 Corinthians 15:28). The Scriptures are silent on what that age will be like, but we know it’s going to be glorious!

8.   Christ’s reign is revealed upside-down.

Jesus taught that greatness in His Kingdom looks nothing like greatness in the world. “The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, but not so with you. Rather, let the greatest among you become as the youngest, and the leader as one who serves” (Luke 22:25–26). To rule with Christ is to serve with Him and through Him, not to exercise power over others.

Revelation unveils this pattern. “They have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death” (Revelation 12:11). The saints overcome evil not through domination or political rule but through faithfulness. Their crowns are woven from endurance and mercy.

The world’s power takes life; the Lamb’s power gives life. This upside-down way of rule is reflected in Jesus’ description of the Kingdom life in His sermon on the Mount, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth” (Matthew 5:5).

The meek are not weak; they bear the strength of love that absorbs evil and turns it into life. This is the mystery of the winepress, which will be explained later: the Lamb flips the typical script and conquers by pouring Himself out, and His people share His victory by entering that same press of sacrificial love.

Every act of humility, forgiveness, and compassion is an act of rule in His Kingdom. The Lamb conquers by way of His people, who follow Him wherever He goes (Revelation 14:4). Their suffering is not defeat but participation in His loving victory.

To reign with Christ is to love as He loves, to serve as He serves, and to bear witness in the face of darkness. This is the upside-down rule of the saints, and it will never end.

9.   John’s letter reveals the renewal, not the destruction of the cosmos.

Throughout the Bible, the ultimate fate of the cosmos is renewal, not destruction.  Isaiah promised “new heavens and a new earth” (Isaiah 65:17), and Peter looked for “a new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells” (2 Peter 3:13). Paul wrote that creation “will be set free from its bondage to corruption” (Romans 8:21). Jesus said He came not to condemn the world, but to save it (John 3:17).

In John 3:16-17, the Greek word κόσμος (cosmos), translated “world,” refers to the entire ordered creation. Jesus approaches the world not as its destroyer but as its healer. In the end, when death is defeated, He will surrender the Kingdom to the Father (1 Corinthians 15:24–26). This tells us that the “kingdom” entails the whole creation and that the ultimate message is renewal. The world God loves will not be discarded, but made new.

The invisible beginning of New Creation was the resurrection of Jesus, the first-fruit of the age to come. But the visible sign that the old order had passed away was the temple’s fall. Once the Old Covenant world collapsed, the New Creation that had already begun in Christ’s resurrection was openly revealed.

New Creation began with the risen Christ and continues as He makes all things new. It will reach its fullness when Jesus has put all enemies under His feet, the last enemy being death (2 Corinthians 5:17; Revelation 21:5; 1 Corinthians 15:25–26).  The Bible never speaks of the end of creation, but rather of its liberation and restoration under the reign of the Risen Lamb.

John 3:16 is important to remember as we start reading and studying the book of Revelation: “for God so loved the world” (cosmos). Life and renewal are the future of the world, not destruction.

10. The New Jerusalem of Isaiah is revealed.

The New Jerusalem, first spoken of in Isaiah, is unveiled in Revelation as the living renewal of the old Jerusalem that fell in 70 A.D.  When the temple collapsed along with the entire city of Jerusalem, the Old Covenant world came to an end, and the New Jerusalem, the Church of God, was revealed as the true home of God’s people.

Revelation places the New Jerusalem near the end of the book to emphasize that its arrival is the climax. The New Jerusalem’s coming marks the beginning of the thousand years, not the end; understanding this is crucial. The New Jerusalem is depicted as the start of Christ’s Messianic reign, which began invisibly at the Cross and was revealed in 70 A.D. This is how the book of Revelation ends, with the newborn Church ready to face the future. It does not end with a picture of the future, but with a picture of what the world looks like since the Cross from the viewpoint of Heaven.

Isaiah saw the same moment in his visions. “Behold, I create new heavens and a new earth… behold, I create Jerusalem to be a joy” (Isaiah 65:17–18). It’s important to note that, in Isaiah’s vision, sin and death remain even though peace and mercy rule. This places Isaiah’s vision before the last day when Jesus raises all flesh from the dead.

Isaiah and John are describing the Messianic reign, not the time after the resurrection of all flesh. The New Jerusalem, which is the Church, began invisibly as Jesus gathered His followers during His ministry. However, it was revealed when the fallen old Jerusalem gave way to the New Jerusalem.

The New Jerusalem descends in John’s vision, though from our vantage point it rises from the rubble of the old. The New Jerusalem stands symbolically where the temple once stood on Mount Zion (Revelation 14:1) as the new place where Heaven and Earth meet. It is the New Eden. The New Jerusalem is the Church, and from it life and healing break forth into the world, and its doors are always open (Revelation 21:24).

11. The antichrist is revealed by John, but not in the book of Revelation.

John is the only biblical writer who uses the word antichrist, and he says plainly that many antichrists had already appeared in his day: “Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come” (1 John 2:18).

For John, the antichrist was not a future world ruler but any spirit, teacher, or movement that denies that Jesus is the Messiah (1 John 2:22; 4:3). It is a spirit that exists wherever the truth of Christ is resisted, and John suggests that it was being exposed in the last hours of the Old Covenant.

Many people today blend three distinct biblical images: the antichrist of John, the man of lawlessness in 2 Thessalonians 2, and the beast of Revelation 13. Scripture never treats them as the same figure. They serve different purposes in their own contexts.

The sea beast in Revelation is a reference to Rome and Nero Caesar, a first-century Roman emperor. The man of lawlessness is someone who would rise up to lead the Jewish rebellion against Rome that brought about Jerusalem’s destruction in 70 A.D. His identity is unclear, but the timing is not. Both images belong to the first century.

The Bible never merges these figures into a single monster at the end of world history. The only “spirit of antichrist” we are told to watch for is the one already active in John’s own day, the spirit that is always present in every age until it, as one of the enemies of God, is put under Christ’s feet. 

Let me say it again, nowhere in the book of Revelation, or anywhere else in the Bible, is the antichrist ever suggested to be a single human figure. So, there is no reason given to us in the Bible to fear a particular coming tyrant. Rather, we should be leery of any spirit that should reject or distort the identity of Christ, but still understand that it too will be put under Christ’s feet through the true Church.

Political and religious beasts will rise and fall, and they may indeed embody the spirit of antichrist.  We have seen and can name many of these figures throughout history, including political figures and powerful church leaders. But our mission is to stay faithful to Christ, whose truth eventually unmasks every spirit that denies or distorts Christ in every generation.

12. The prophets used cosmic language to reveal political upheaval.

When Isaiah announced Babylon’s fall, he used the language of the heavens unraveling: “The sun will be dark at its rising, and the moon will not shed its light” (Isaiah 13:10). Ezekiel said the same of Egypt: “I will cover the heavens and make their stars dark” (Ezekiel 32:7).

This was not describing literal astronomical destruction. It was prophecy in symbolic cosmic language. It was how Israel’s prophets described the collapse of kingdoms and the overthrow of rulers, whether earthly or spiritual. When the lights go out in the sky, they go out in the palace.

Jesus adopted the same prophetic language. He declared, “The sun will be darkened, the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven” (Matthew 24:29). He was echoing Isaiah, using the same imagery for the upcoming fall of Jerusalem, the end of the Mosaic Covenant, and Satan's fall from power over the earth.

Beyond just predicting Jerusalem’s fall, Jesus was forecasting the transfer of power from Satan to Himself and His Church.  He asserts that the powers of the heavens would be shaken, and He uses Daniel 7 language to describe His ascension into power and glory, “…and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory” (Matthew 24:29-30).

It is precisely because He uses Daniel 7 enthronement language here and elsewhere when He speaks of coming into His Kingdom that we know He is speaking “ascension” and “enthronement” talk, not “coming again” talk, which points to a first-century fulfillment, not an “end times” fulfillment. 

Likewise, when John writes in Revelation, “The sky vanished like a scroll” (Revelation 6:14), he is describing the downfall of powers that opposed God, not the destruction of the universe that would certainly occur if the sky were to vanish!

Cosmic language like this always signals a shift in authority, an upheaval in the powers that govern the world, both human and angelic. It was never intended by the Biblical writers to be taken as the destruction of stars and planets, which would certainly bring our solar system to a quick end.

In the Gospels and Revelation, this imagery points in two directions simultaneously. It describes the fall of Jerusalem and its leaders on earth, as well as the fall of Satan and his principalities in the unseen realm that were behind the godless leadership.

With Jesus in charge, we can rest assured that earthly thrones will eventually crumble when led by godless leaders. This is part of what it means that all enemies will be put under Jesus’ feet. Powers in the unseen realm that are behind these evil empires are cast down.

The Lamb has taken His throne, and He is placing all enemies under His feet through His Church. The Bible often describes this with language of cosmic destruction, especially in Revelation.

13. The “great tribulation” was revealed in the first century.

Jesus warned of “great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be” (Matthew 24:21). That tribulation included the suffering His disciples would endure at the hands of the Jewish religious leaders, the destruction of Jerusalem at the hands of Rome and its allies, and, immediately afterward, the overthrow of the dark spiritual forces that hold the world under deception.

That He adds, “and never will be,” serves as proof that this marks the final and most significant end of the Old Covenant Age and God’s judgments on the world and its unseen evil powers, not that there will never be greater suffering in the future.

In warning His disciples about the coming tribulation, Jesus described the battle for the world's authority and reign. It would not happen without a fight from the other side, meaning Satan, his forces in the unseen realm, and his human agents. There would be tribulation and destruction, but it would never occur again at the same level.

Jesus described all of this destruction with the same cosmic imagery the prophets used: “Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken (Matthew 24:29). To make sure His disciples would not think this was something far in the future, Jesus fixed the timing: “This generation will not pass away until all these things take place” (Matthew 24:34).

This tribulation began with the persecution of the faithful under Jerusalem’s corrupt leadership and concluded with the city’s siege and destruction in A.D. 70. Jesus called these events “the days of vengeance, to fulfill all that is written” (Luke 21:22). Yet to His disciples He said, “Straighten up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near” (Luke 21:28), because what was destruction for Jerusalem’s leaders was vindication and freedom from religious and political oppression for His disciples.

The world still faces trials in every age, but not the covenantal tribulation Jesus foretold in the Gospels or the one John sees in Revelation. Yes, we still encounter tribulation even under the New Covenant in Christ’s Blood. As Jesus said, “In the world you will have tribulation” (John 16:33), but the “great tribulation” spoken of in the Bible is 2,000 years in our past, not in our future.

14. The Bible never reveals a “rapture.”

Scripture never teaches a removal of the Church before, during, or after a seven-year tribulation. Even those who teach a rapture of the Church will tell you that it is not spoken of in Revelation, but suggest that it occurs without actually being mentioned between Chapters 3 and 4 of John’s letter to the churches.

Proponents of the rapture theory cite Paul's letters to support it. Paul says, “For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord” (1 Thessalonians 4:17). Paul is speaking here about the resurrection of all flesh when the Lord returns to resurrect everyone, not about a rapture of the Church from the earth.

The Greek word for "meet" (apantēsis) described the Roman practice of greeting a ruler outside the city gates, with his greeters accompanying him in triumph back into the city. Paul suggests that those citizens of the Kingdom who are alive on the earth will greet Jesus and His descending saints when He comes in resurrection power, welcoming the King to the renewed earth. This event is indeed in our future.

A pattern throughout Scripture is that God calls many, chooses some, and sets them apart to bring life and healing to others (Matthew 22:14). All Israel was called, but not all were faithful to carry the Kingdom forward under the New Covenant. That task fell only to those who believed. Today, the Israel of God, those who are in Christ, are set apart as a royal priesthood, not for privilege, but to bring healing to the world.

Jesus does not intend His faithful to leave the world, but to bring Gospel healing to it through acts of love, mercy, and faithful witness. Jesus prayed that His followers would not be removed: “I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one” (John 17:15).

The Scriptures call us to endurance, witness, and final resurrection to inhabit a renewed creation where death and decay are no more. Our future does not include the Church’s removal from the world. The future is the renewal of the world under the reign of the risen Lamb through His faithful disciples.

15. The concept of “coming” in the Bible reveals God’s action in history.

This is probably the most significant barrier to understanding biblical prophecy, even to those who otherwise have a good grasp of the present Kingdom. When the New Testament speaks of Jesus's “coming,” it is often mistakenly interpreted as Jesus’s second physical coming on the last day,

Throughout the Scriptures, the word describing God’s coming typically speaks of His action through historical events rather than a physical descent from heaven.

Isaiah said, “Behold, the Lord is riding on a swift cloud and comes to Egypt” (Isaiah 19:1). No one saw God physically arrive on a cloud in judgment on Egypt. The language used simply signified that God was acting in judgment that would ultimately end in mercy.

That particular judgment upon Egypt was experienced through Assyrian aggression and civil war within Egypt, and the Hebrew hearers of Isaiah’s message understood that he meant it that way. Isaiah continues on with how God would eventually restore Egypt, pointing to the time of renewal under Christ.

Daniel used this same prophetic language to describe God’s action within history. He wrote of “one like a son of man coming with the clouds of heaven” (Daniel 7:13). In Daniel’s vision, this movement is not toward earth but toward God. The Son of Man ascends into God’s presence. It is a vision of ascension and enthronement, not descent. The Son of Man is given authority, glory, and a kingdom. This “coming” is not a picture of a return to Earth. It is the moment when the Kingdom was received, and dominion over heaven and earth was handed to the Son of Man.

Jesus intentionally uses this same prophetic language. When He says, “They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory” (Matthew 24:30), He is revealing Himself in His ascended, reigning state, not describing a future rapture or the end of the world. He is announcing that Daniel’s vision is fulfilled in Him.

When Jesus stood before Caiaphas, He declared, “From now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven” (Matthew 26:64). Caiaphas would never witness Jesus descending from the sky. He did, however, live to see Jesus’ resurrection, the pouring out of His Spirit on Pentecost, and the rapid growth of the Church within Israel and the surrounding territories.  Caiaphas certainly witnessed Jesus invisibly coming into His Kingdom; whether he received it, we do not know, and whether he lived to see the destruction of Jerusalem, we do not know.

In every Gospel instance, Jesus’ “coming” language refers to His royal vindication and covenantal judgment—not the last day, and certainly not a rapture of the Church.

Revelation begins with the same picture of Jesus in ascended glory: “Behold, he is coming with the clouds” (Revelation 1:7). John’s readers would have recognized this as the language of prophetic judgment by the Son of Man, who had ascended into glory and power and sat at the Right Hand of the Father. These words signaled that the Son of Man had taken His throne as Daniel had envisioned, that the Old Covenant world was about to fall, and that His earthly reign would be revealed.

The language of “coming with the clouds” is prophetic, covenantal, and historical. All of this said, there is still a coming of Jesus that lies ahead of us.  Jesus will return in resurrection power on thelast day of His present reign. Jesus consistently refers to the day of the resurrection of all flesh as the last day. How long that day lasts, and what else is entailed within it, we are not told.

Paul describes the final bodily return of Christ, promised in Acts 1:11, as the resurrection of all flesh and the decisive public unveiling of Christ’s reign (1 Thessalonians 4). This event belongs to what Scripture calls “the last day,” the day of bodily resurrection.

Revelation briefly mentions that this day occurs after the 1,000-year period ends. But this is not Revelation’s focus. John then immediately returns to the events of the first century and the budding Kingdom.

Jesus clearly indicates that aside from the resurrection of the flesh and the judgment that follows (John 5:25-29), everything He promised in the Gospels would happen during His disciples' lifetime.

John repeatedly emphasizes in Revelation that Jesus was coming soon. This means the time Jesus Himself had already specified, within the lifetime of His disciples, before some of them had died. Jesus was not mistaken, and Revelation is not mistaken. The Son of Man has received His Kingdom. Through the New Covenant, He has entered the world as its reigning Lord. He is truly Immanuel, God with us.

The ultimate point here is to understand that “coming” in the Scriptures does not necessarily mean a physical “coming,” and in fact, in the overwhelming majority of instances, it does not. Rather, we should understand “coming” passages as suggesting God is going to act in history in some mighty way. It’s up to the context to determine what that act is.

16. The Bible reveals days and ages, not “end times.”

 The term “end times” is not a biblical phrase. Scripture never uses it. Instead, the Bible speaks of “the last days,” “the end of the age,” “the end,” “the end of the ages,” and “the last day.” Each phrase has a specific meaning, and none of them refers to an era of chaos before a catastrophic end of the world that will never happen.

In the New Testament, “the last days” and “the end of the age” refer to the final period of the Mosaic Covenant, the closing chapter that led to Jerusalem’s fall in A.D. 70. Peter said the Spirit’s outpouring fulfilled Joel’s promise for “the last days” (Acts 2:16-17). The author of Hebrews said God had spoken “in these last days” through His Son (Hebrews 1:2). These expressions belonged to their generation, not ours.

Only one of these phrases we see in the Bible speaks about an event still ahead of us: “the last day.” Jesus says He will raise people “on the last day” (John 6:39–40). Martha, Lazarus’s sister, points to this promise concerning the resurrection (John 11:24).

Paul speaks of this day in 1 Thessalonians 4. This prophetic moment in the Bible still lies ahead of us, and it’s glorious and positive because it means that all who have died will be made physically alive!

Paul expands on this in 1 Corinthians 15:51-52, when he says, “Behold, I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed.” This means that, though some will not have died on that last day, all will be transformed into new bodies! This is not a day to fear, but a day to hope for with certainty and confidence, because the Bible is true.

To read Revelation faithfully, we must set aside the modern phrase of “end times” and return to Scripture’s own vocabulary. The New Testament uses the phrases “the last days,” “the end,” and “the end of the ages” all to refer to the end of the Mosaic Age in the first century. They do not refer to anything in our future!

The phrase “last day” describes a period of time in our future.  And it comes at the end of the thousand years in Revelation 20, which is symbolic language for His long present reign through His Body on earth, the Church.

17. True Israel is revealed in the people of faith, not a bloodline.

Scripture teaches that belonging to Israel has always been about faith, not ancestry. Paul writes, “For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring… it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise” (Romans 9:6-8). The true family of Abraham has always been those who trust in the Messiah, whether in the Old or New Testament era.

John the Baptist shattered the false confidence of the Pharisees when he said, “Do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham” (Matthew 3:9).

Jesus made the same point when He declared, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers? … Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother” (Matthew 12:48–50). Faith, not genealogy, defines God’s family.

The Church is not a replacement for Israel. It is Israel, the family of the faithful, expanded to include every nation through the Messiah. Paul says, “If you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise” (Galatians 3:29). The promise to Abraham was always aimed at something far larger than one piece of land. Paul says that Abraham would “be heir of the world” (Romans 4:13).

The modern nation-state of Israel certainly has importance in the world and political significance, but ethnic Israel is not the Israel of God.  That distinction belongs to the whole line of the faithful throughout history, whether before Christ came 2,000 years ago or since.

Certainly, God loves Jewish people, just as He loves the people of every nation.  Ethnic Israel and the nations now stand within the same unfolding mercy of God. Even in unbelief, Israel remains beloved for the sake of the patriarchs, because the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable (Romans 11:28–29).

But in Scripture, those without faith in the Messiah remain among the nations, meaning those who are outside of Christ, those whom we, who are in Christ, are called to love and serve that they might receive us and therefore receive Him and the One who sent Him. 

I understand that this reality has a profound impact on how Christians in the United States view ethnic Israel. I’m not trying to make any political point here, but a biblical one. The “chosen,” called Israel, are people of faith in God and in His promise to reveal the Anointed One, His Son. The “chosen” are not defined by bloodline alone but by faith in the promise and are ultimately made up of people from every race and nation, including ethnic Israel. (Genesis 12:1–3; Deuteronomy 7:6–8; Galatians 3:7–9, 16; Romans 9:6–8).

Israel began with Abraham and a promise.  His grandson Jacob was renamed Israel by God, and the line continued through Ruth the Moabite, Rahab the Canaanite prostitute, Tamar, Uriah, and Bathsheba, all of whom were non-Israelites. 

The family of Israel continues to grow to this day, and the Israel of God is composed of people from every tribe and nation who have faith in Jesus, the Messiah. It has nothing to do with earthly ethnicity, but rather with spiritual rebirth in Christ.

18. In Revelation, “soon” is revealed as soon.

Revelation begins and ends with urgency. “To show his servants what must soon take place… for the time is near” (Revelation 1:1–3). Jesus repeats the same promise at the end of Revelation: “Behold, I am coming soon” (Revelation 22:12). These words were not meant to be vague or symbolic. They meant exactly what they said when John wrote them.

Revelation uses the Greek word erchomai for “coming,” and it regularly is paired with language that carries an imminent tone, near, soon, at hand. This means the “coming” language in Revelation is not about something that would take place more than 2,000 years in their future. It had to mean something that was to happen soon for those to whom the letter was written.

When John said the time was near, he meant it.  When Jesus said that He was coming soon, He meant it. The visions of Revelation are not predictions for distant generations. They are divine explanations of what was about to break into the world of the first century, in the generation of Jesus’ first disciples, just as He promised.

In Revelation, “soon” means soon. The book opens (1:1) and closes (22:20) by insisting that its events were near for its original hearers. Jesus came soon for them, not in the destruction of the planet, but in covenant judgment and vindication for His followers and in the establishment of His Kingdom and the birth of His Church. Because He has come, His reign is now established, and has been since His Ascension into Heaven. All who are in Him now share in that reign, not as conquerors by force, but as priests and servant kings who bear witness to the Lamb through forgiveness, mercy, and self-sacrificial love.

“To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever”(Revelation 1:5–6).

19. The Kingdom’s advance is revealed through sacrifice, not political power.

Revelation exposes the danger of mixing religion with political force. The union of faith and political empire was the very thing that led to Jerusalem’s fall in 70 A.D. That pattern repeats even today whenever people who claim to be God’s people trade the way of the Cross for power and coercion.

Jesus taught His followers to live peaceably and not to seek to seize control. “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (Matthew 22:21). He warned Israel to reconcile before judgment came (Luke 12:58-59). He blessed the meek, the merciful, and the peacemakers. His Kingdom grows through cruciform love, not coercion.

Paul echoed the same call. He urged believers to live under governing authorities (Romans 13:1) and to pray “for kings and all who are in high positions” (1 Timothy 2:1-2) so they might live quiet and godly lives. The Kingdom advances through mercy, hospitality, forgiveness, and endurance.

Revelation shows us what happens when religion joins with political power. It creates political beasts and religious harlots. These beasts are bent on persecuting the faithful and resisting the Lamb.

The way of Jesus is different. He conquers by His Blood, and His people conquer the same way—through faithfulness, witness, sacrifice, love, and dying to self (Revelation 12:11). The Kingdom does not advance by demanding power but by embodying the Slain Lamb.

Jesus reigns through those who take up their crosses daily and follow Him. Unfortunately, there has always been a force within the visible Church that does not understand this; this will not always be the case, because He is putting all enemies under His feet.  This element of the visible Church is under the mistaken idea that the world should be Christianized through legislation, coercion, and even violence.

History shows that at times the elements within the visible Church, especially after its alliance with imperial power in the fourth century under Constantine, sought to advance the faith through political authority rather than loving witness. While Constantine himself did not mandate violent conversion, this union of Church and empire laid the groundwork for later coercive practices.

As time went by, episodes such as the forced conversions under Charlemagne, the violence of the Crusades, and other abuses of power in the Middle Ages began to characterize the Church in many people’s eyes. Such efforts don’t reflect the way of Christ, but the distortion that occurs when the visible Church confuses the rule and reign of the Kingdom of God with worldly power.

Throughout history, there have been those within Christendom who have tried to rule by glory instead of the Cross, including modern nationalist movements today. Revelation teaches us that this is not the way of the Lamb and that they will always fail because God is putting all enemies under His feet. Mercy triumphs. The Lamb prevails. Love endures.

20. Our Sacramental God is revealed.

I need to explain the concept of the Sacraments to those unfamiliar with the biblical idea, since John repeatedly alludes to sacramental themes throughout Revelation. The Tree of Life, the saints washed in blood, the Marriage Supper of the Lamb, his references to manna and life-giving waters, and, especially, the grain and the grape harvests in Chapter 14 all suggest sacramental imagery.

Across the ancient, historical, Christian tradition, the definition of a sacrament is roughly this: “A visible sign of an invisible grace.” Throughout Scripture, God has always worked His grace through ordinary things. He set a Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden.  He placed His bow in the clouds as a sign of covenant mercy (Genesis 9:13). He delivered His people through the blood of a lamb painted on their doorposts (Exodus 12:7,13). God has always joined His promises to created means so that His mercy could be seen, heard, felt, tasted, and received.

In the Old Testament, animals were sacrificed, and those who participated had their sins covered by the blood. “For the life of the flesh is in the blood,” God said, “and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls” (Leviticus 17:11). Repeatedly it was written, “The priest shall make atonement for him, and he shall be forgiven” (Leviticus 4:26,31). These were not empty rituals of symbolism; God truly attached His promise of forgiveness to visible acts of faithful obedience.

The heart of Israel’s covenant life was the temple, where heaven and earth met. During the Old Covenant period, God’s presence literally rested in the temple, above the Ark of the Covenant (Exodus 25:21–22), hidden behind the great veil in the Holy of Holies, the temple’s most sacred room.

Yet sin threatened that presence. Sin brought death and defiled the sanctuary and the people, so the temple and the people had to be cleansed if God was to remain in their presence. Since sin brought death, they needed to be cleansed with life. God said that life is in blood, so the temple and the people had to be cleansed again and again with life-giving blood (Leviticus 16:15–16).

In the days of the Old Covenant, on the Day of Atonement, two goats were offered, each symbolizing a different aspect of the Gospel, which was still shrouded in mystery. One goat, chosen for Yahweh, the LORD, provided the blood that cleansed God’s dwelling. The other goat was chosen for the wilderness, where it carried the people’s guilt after the priest laid his hands on it, transferring their sin to it. One purified the house of God. The other took guilt away from God’s people and from the city itself.

In Christ, the meaning becomes clear. Jesus entered not an earthly sanctuary but the heavenly one, offering His own blood (Hebrews 9:11–12). His blood cleanses God’s true temple, His people (Hebrews 10:22; 1 Corinthians 3:16). Like the goat for the LORD, His blood purifies God’s dwelling place, His people.

The other goat, the goat sent into the wilderness, carried away the people's sins after the High Priest transferred them onto it. John the Baptist saw both realities when he said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29).

Through Jesus’ sacrifice, freely offering His own life-giving blood, God’s people are cleansed, as John later saw: “They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb” (Revelation 7:14). Jesus fulfills the roles of both the sacrificial goats (Leviticus 16:15–22; Hebrews 13:12). Understand this, and the whole Bible opens. Miss it, and the Bible, especially the book of Revelation, will never fully make sense.

In the New Covenant, there are two main Sacraments gifted to the Church: Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. In Baptism, we are washed into Christ’s death and raised into new life. “Repent and be baptized... for the forgiveness of your sins,” Peter proclaimed in Acts 2:38.

Paul wrote that we are “buried with Him through baptism into death... so that we too might walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4). The water is ordinary, but, joined to the promise of new life, it becomes a means of God’s grace. This is not symbolic, but the real, invisible action of God made visible when attached to earthly signs.

In the Lord’s Supper, we are fed with forgiveness and drawn into communion with Him and with one another. On the night He was betrayed, Jesus took bread and wine, gave thanks, and said, “This is My body... This is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Matthew 26:26-28).

Paul calls this cup “a participation in the blood of Christ” and this bread “a participation in the body of Christ” (1 Corinthians 10:16-17). When we come in repentance and faith, we truly receive what He gives: His presence, His forgiveness, and His fellowship attached to bread and wine.

In Holy Communion, we experience real, but invisible union with Him and with one another through His Word attached to the visible bread and wine.

Understanding that God works this way helps us recognize a key motif in Revelation and is crucial for interpreting the harvest and winepress imagery in Chapters 14 and 17.

21. The New Covenant flips are revealed.

Revelation is full of “flips” from the way we once viewed God under the Old Covenant to how He is revealed in Jesus Christ. God does not change, but He does cloak Himself in mystery until He chooses to reveal His nature and purposes more fully.

The whole Bible centers on Jesus, including the Old Testament. It begins with the story of humanity's creation, where they immediately fail to trust their creator. The narrative then depicts how those chosen by God to restore this broken relationship repeatedly fall short, with only a few isolated heroes trusting God for brief moments. And even when these few succeed, it's clearly God’s doing.

So, rather than merely serving as a book of moral instruction, the Old Testament serves as a mirror, showing that no one, by his or her own efforts, can even trust God. Along the way, a special Anointed One is hinted at and prophesied, who would trust God on man’s behalf and restore humanity’s relationship with God.

What unfolds in the Old Testament is not only a revelation of God, but a revelation of humanity and its sinful nature. God allows human assumptions about power, strength, judgment, and victory to surface and play out in history. What looks, at times, like God endorsing things like war, slavery, sexual exploitation, and domination is often God working within these human perversions of His will, patiently bearing with humanity’s immaturity.

The fact that certain practices, such as slavery or sexual exploitation, were regulated rather than explicitly abolished in the Old Testament does not mean they reflected God’s ultimate moral will. Jesus Himself showed that the Law often addressed external behaviors in their cultural context while aiming at a deeper righteousness of the heart. He taught that adultery includes lust and that murder includes anger, revealing that the divine standard was always higher than the minimum legal wording suggested. (Matthew 5:21–22, 27–28; cf. Matthew 19:8)

In other words, before God reveals who He truly is, He reveals who we are. Before the true King is unveiled, our warped understanding of kingship is exposed. Before God’s power is fully shown, human ideas of power are allowed to exhaust themselves in failure and futility.

This is why the Old Testament can sometimes seem to paint a diabolical image of God. It tells the full truth about humanity, but it can only hint at the full nature and character of God. The Old Testament story ends with longing, not fulfillment. The promise remains, but the One who will finally trust God on humanity’s behalf and reveal God’s true nature has not yet appeared. He would appear in Jesus.

When Jesus does appear, He redefines adultery, linking it to all exploitation and objectification. He states that harboring anger in your heart is equivalent to murder. Jesus rejects the hypocrisy within religion. Stops the stoning of a woman because of her sin and says, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her” (John 8:7).

Now consider how God might truly perceive sexism, racism, slavery, and violence once you have encountered the revealed Christ. There are a number of things revealed about God through what Christ does and says in the Gospels and in the book of Revelation.

Pay close attention to the reversals in Revelation, which, like many of Jesus’ teachings in the Gospels, urge us to re-examine the entire Bible from the vantage point of the Lamb. When we do, we see that Jesus’ coming and the birth of His Church clarify what true righteousness looks like and challenge any conclusions about divine judgment that contradict His revealed character.

When God entered into a covenant with Israel at Sinai, He met them where they were. Power is understood in human terms. Victory means overcoming enemies. Faithfulness looks like strength, dominance, and survival. Within this world of meaning, God is spoken of as a Lion, fierce, protective, and victorious. But this image is not the final word. It is a shadow, waiting for its fulfillment.

When the New Covenant is unveiled, the Lion does not vanish; He is revealed as the Lamb. What once appeared as Israel’s exclusivity is disclosed as election for the sake of the nations. What is called final judgment is revealed as a holy fire, burning away what cannot endure and refining what belongs to Him. And judgment itself is no longer imagined as distant and delayed, but as already at work through Christ’s presence in His Church.

In Revelation, God has not changed, but with the coming of Christ, everything turns. God once spoke in many ways through the prophets, truly revealing Himself, yet not in fullness, but now He speaks through His Son. These flips are not God changing direction, but His true nature being brought to light.

What was partial becomes complete. What was shadow gives way to substance. The law came through Moses, but grace and truth arrived in Jesus. In Him, the old way of seeing the world begins to pass away. Those who are in Christ already live in the new creation, breaking into history.

Power is revealed in the Lamb rather than the lion. Election expands from one nation to all who trust in Him. Judgment becomes the exposure of the heart to the light of Christ.

The Messianic Age and the Age of Resurrection belong to the same age, yet they are not revealed at the same time, as many in ancient Judaism expected. Rather, the age to come overlaps with the present age as the Church lives by the life of the risen Lord. The resurrection of all flesh at the end of the age gives way to an age of glory about which we are given only glimpses.

The New Covenant does not discard what came before, but fulfills and reorders it so that everything now finds its center in the Son. (Hebrews 1:1–2; John 1:17–18; 2 Corinthians 5:16–17).

I have noted several flips in Revelation that help us see how God now deals with His people under the New Covenant. Here are a few that we will encounter.

Flip I: Power Reversed — From Lion to Lamb

When Christ appears, the opposite and truer image of God is revealed: the Slain Lamb, nailed to a cross, who is the One who is victorious. Where the Old Covenant relied on the sword, the New Covenant advances through the Word of the Cross. Power is defined not through the eyes of sinful man, but through the eyes of perfect man. And the mystery of how God is transforming the world begins to take shape. Victory comes through suffering love, not force.

This fulfills Isaiah’s words as he looks forward to a new covenant: “He shall judge between the nations, and shall decide disputes for many peoples; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore” (Isaiah 2:4).

To summarize the flip:Under the Blood of Christ, God reveals that true power is not exercised through force but through suffering love. The Lion reigns as the Slain Lamb, and victory comes not by the sword but by the Cross.

Flip II: Election Expanded

In the New Covenant, Israel's identity is not erased or replaced, but fulfilled and expanded in Christ. The promise to Abraham was always intended to bless all nations (Genesis 12:3), and Paul makes clear that those who share Abraham’s faith are his true offspring (Galatians 3:7–9).

Paul goes on to distinguish between mere physical descent and the children of promise (Romans 9:6–8), and ultimately speaks of “the Israel of God” as those who belong to Christ (Galatians 6:15–16). Ethnic Israel remains part of this story, but in the Messiah, the covenant family now encompasses Jew and Gentile alike, united by faith in the promised Son.

In Revelation, John hears the census of Israel, 144,000 from the twelve tribes (Revelation 7:4), yet when he looks, he sees a countless multitude from every nation (Revelation 7:9). The hearing and the seeing belong together. Israel is not replaced but revealed; its election is fulfilled in the Lamb and extended to the world. The sealed tribes become the redeemed nations; one covenant people gathered around the throne and called to bring healing to the entire world.

To summarize this covenant flip: In the New Covenant, Israel is not replaced but fulfilled in Christ, as the covenant family expands to include all who share Abraham’s faith, both Jew and Gentile.

Flip III: Judgment Reconfigured as Exposure.

Under the age of Moses, judgment came from the outside, through prophets, armies, famine, and exile. God warned first, waited, then acted visibly in history. God warned people through the prophets before judgment ever came. These warnings were acts of mercy, giving people time to turn back to God and covenant obedience.

In the Old Testament, conviction of sin most often came through external revelation rather than through an explicitly described inner prompting of the Spirit. God typically confronted His people by sending prophets, angelic messengers, or direct divine speech, as when Nathan exposes David’s sin (2 Samuel 12:7), Elijah rebukes Ahab (1 Kings 21:20), or the angel of the Lord warns Israel concerning their failure to remove the Canaanite peoples and their idolatrous practices (Judges 2:1–4).

The Spirit certainly appears within the pages of the Old Testament, but His activity is usually described as empowering individual prophets, judges, or kings rather than indwelling and convicting the hearts of the whole people. The prophets themselves anticipated a change in the New Covenant, when God would write His law on the hearts of His people and place His Spirit within them (Jeremiah 31:33; Ezekiel 36:27).

Jesus later describes this new dynamic by saying that the Spirit will “convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment” (John 16:8). The Old Testament does occasionally describe inner pangs of conscience, such as when David’s “heart struck him” after his actions (Samuel 24:10). Yet these moments are rare and not presented as the ordinary means of conviction. And we cannot forget that David is one of the few Old Testament figures in whom the Spirit’s presence is explicitly mentioned, which likely explains those moments when his conscience is struck.

The broader biblical pattern suggests that under the Old Covenant conviction usually arrived from outside the person, while the New Covenant emphasizes the Spirit’s internal work within the heart.

Under the Old Covenant, when people repented, God held back judgment. When every warning was ignored and God’s graceful way out of harm’s way was refused, judgment eventually came, and it came in real, visible events in history.

The apostle Paul said that God did this to teach us: “Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come” (1 Corinthians 10:11).

To summarize this flip: Under the Old Covenant, God confronted sin primarily through external warnings and historical judgments, whereas the New Covenant emphasizes the Spirit’s internal work of conviction in the human heart.

Flip IV. The Overlap of Ages

When Paul says that “the ends of the ages have come” (1 Corinthians 10:11), he is describing the overlap of two eras. In Christ, the old covenant age was coming to its conclusion, while the age of the Messiah had already begun. Like the ends of two ropes overlapping, the closing of one era and the beginning of another met in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

The Greek word translated “end” (telos) can mean not only termination but also fulfillment or goal. Paul’s point, therefore, is not merely that an age was ending but that the purposes of the earlier ages were reaching their fulfillment in Christ even as the new age of His Kingdom was beginning.

In the time of Jesus and His disciples, Israel was still under the Old Covenant pattern. Jesus, as a prophet, warned that the covenant was nearing its end and that the judgment outlined in it was on its way.

He called Israel to repentance and faith, to avoid the coming judgment.  And He called them to believe in Him because the Kingdom, the King, and a new way of life were at hand.

Judgment would be delayed one last time out of God’s mercy and His desire for His people to repent (2 Peter 3:9). He would delay the judgment and destruction for about forty years, or one generation (30 A.D. to 70 A.D.).

When repentance was refused, the Romans would mete out judgment. But this would be the last time God would work in that way. The days of Him sending prophets to warn of coming disaster for disobedience were over. He would speak to us entirely through Christ from that point forward (Hebrews 1:1–2).

In the Messianic Age, under the Blood of Christ, the Spirit now works within the human heart. The Spirit was first poured out at Pentecost, and as the Gospel spreads, that same Spirit continues to be poured out on all flesh, exposing sin and calling people to repentance.

This does not mean that the principle of reaping what we sow has disappeared. That still remains. Scripture also teaches that there will be a final judgment after the resurrection of all flesh. These remain clear New Covenant realities.

When we encounter judgment in the book of Revelation, we must distinguish between God’s Old Covenant judgment and judgment under the New Covenant. Because Revelation addresses the overlap between the two covenants, we see both forms of judgment.

First, there is God’s covenant judgment upon Israel under the Mosaic Covenant, culminating in the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple. We also encounter this form of judgment in Jesus’ prophetic address to the churches in Chapters 1-3, where judgment is promised for churches and those who hold to false teachings who do not repent.

Second, there is the form of judgment that characterizes the Messianic Age, brought about by the Holy Spirit through the presence of the Lamb and His Church. This New Covenant judgment is not primarily national or territorial, like the Old Covenant judgments, nor even corporate, as in Jesus’ remarks to the churches. But it is personal, individual, and spiritual, experienced as exposure, unrest, and the torment of a conscience confronted by the Light and Fire of the Spirit through the Church.

To summarize this flip: The Old Covenant age was ending while the Messianic age was beginning. In Christ, the purposes of the former were fulfilled, and a new way of God working through the Spirit and the Church began.

Flip V: Judgment Through the Church

We are prepared for this flip in the Gospels. Jesus does not merely announce that judgment will take place during the Messianic Age. He redefines where and how it is encountered. Again and again, He teaches the same unsettling truth. To receive His disciples is to receive Him. To reject His disciples is to reject Him (Matthew 10:16; 10:40).

The logic is relentless. Christ so binds Himself to His people through His Holy Spirit that people’s response to His disciples becomes response to Him. This teaching is the key to understanding how judgment works in the Kingdom we now live in, and it is critical to understanding the major flip that occurs in Revelation 14.

In Matthew 16:27–28, Jesus clearly uses Daniel 7 language to speak of the coming Kingdom and how He will judge. He says, “For the Son of Man is going to come with His angels in the glory of His Father, and then He will repay each person according to what he has done… Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom.”

This is not a judgment postponed to the final resurrection, though that day remains, as Jesus teaches elsewhere (John 5:25–29). Here, Jesus is speaking of Messianic judgment breaking into history. It is not a single judgment, but the way judgment takes place throughout the Messianic Age. He makes the timing unmistakable. Some standing before Him would live to see it ensue. This judgment was to coincide with His enthronement and the age of the Church as people encounter Christ in His followers (the word “angels” is best understood here as earthly messengers).

When we turn to the judgment of theSheep and the Goats in Matthew 25, we encounter the same language: “When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne” (Matthew 25:31).

The language again comes from Daniel 7 and deliberately mirrors Matthew 16:27–28. It is the same Son of Man, the same glory, the same messengers, and the same enthronement. And because of this, we can safely assume that it is the same judgment being spoken of.

Now, being the same judgment, we should understand that the judgment of the sheep and the goats is not confined to the distant last-day judgment. It has to be a judgment that people in Jesus’ day would have encountered because, in case you missed it, Jesus, speaking of this judgment in Matthew 16:27-28, adds that it would take place during the lifetime of some standing there.

The criterion of this judgment is unmistakable. It is not doctrinal precision, ritual performance, or a sinner’s prayer. It is the response to Christ encountered in His sent ones. “As you did it to one of the least of these My brothers, you did it to Me” (Matthew 25:40).

What is different under the New Covenant is how judgment now works within and through the Church. Firstly, Christ has given the Church the authority to discipline His own people (Matthew 18:15–18; Matthew 16:18–19; John 20:21–23). And secondly, the Church, through its union with Christ, carries His Spirit into the world (Matthew 28:18–20; Ephesians 3:10). The very presence of the Church in the world casts the Spirit's fire upon all flesh (Acts 2:16–18; John 16:7–11; Matthew 5:14–16; Revelation 14:1–20).

Paul is addressing this idea when he rebukes the Church in Corinth, “Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? … Do you not know that we are to judge angels?” (1 Corinthians 6:2–3). The Church’s authority begins at home and extends outward, affecting the world and even the angelic powers that oppose Christ (Ephesians 3:10).

The Church’s impact on the world is not through imposing its convictions; instead, the Church’s acts of love, selflessness, and mercy speak to the world and expose the darkness of a world without Christ (Matthew 5:14-16; Hebrews 12:29; Revelation 14:1-20).

Under the New Covenant made with the whole world, wrath is revealed as immediate and ongoing exposure to the fire of truth through the Holy Spirit. This fire does not wait for a distant moment. It confronts the heart in the present, opening the way to repentance. As long as resistance remains, the fire remains. When repentance comes, which occurs in the reception of His grace, unrest gives way to Sabbath rest and full life in Jesus.

Jesus refers to this new form of judgment directly in John 16:8: “When he [the Spirit] comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment.” That word “convict” does not mean sentencing someone in a courtroom. It means to expose, bring to light, and press the truth into the conscience. And it is immediate and ongoing until repentance is granted.

When faithful witnesses of Jesus encounter people, the Holy Spirit works through them to ignite the fire. Their acts of forgiveness expose vengeance and resentment and heap burning coals on the heads of those who remain under the power of darkness.

Generosity among faithful disciples exposes greed in others. The peace that faithful servants bring exposes violence and the violent. When disciples show forgiveness, it exposes anger and the unmerciful. When the Church lives as light, this exposure is experienced as fire, for “our God is a consuming fire” (Hebrews 12:29). Yet this fire aims ultimately to grant repentance, not to bring destruction.

This experience is universal; Joel, envisioning the New Covenant age, said, “And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh” (Joel 2:28). The apostle Peter made it clear that the prophecy was beginning to be fulfilled on Pentecost in the first century, “And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh…” (Acts 2:17). Also note that Peter understood that the last days meant the last days of the Old Covenant, not the end of the world.

To summarize this covenantal flip: Under the New Covenant, judgment no longer waits for repentance to be received or rejected. Through the Holy Spirit, truth now confronts hearts when in the presence of Christ through His earthly messengers. Judgment is experienced as exposure, and that exposure calls people to the fire of conviction that points them to their only hope for relief: grace that grants repentance, though they may resist. When they do resist, the fire and the unrest remain.

Because the eternal Gospel is proclaimed to the world through His faithful witnesses, people are continually convicted and drawn to rest and healing in Christ’s grace (John 3:14; 12:32).

Further Reading

• What Is the Millennium in Revelation 20?

• Was Babylon the Great Jerusalem or Rome?

• What Is the New Jerusalem?

• About Into the Winepress

• What is the Millennium of Revelation 20?