First let's get something clear about erroneous notions of Paul and his founding a new religion, which he didn't. True, the halakhah of his Judaism switched from the Pharisaic oral law to the Ruach Hakodesh, but his religion was still one of the Judaisms of the time, not a new non-Judaism Gentile religion.

HISGALUS (THE REVELATION)

That the authorship of Revelation is attributed to the Shliach

Yochanan has attestation as early as C.E. 150 by Justin Martyr

and C.E. 200 by Irenaeus, who had lived at one time in Asia Minor

(Modern Turkey) and there sat under the ministry of Polycarp of

Smyrna. Polycarp was a disciple of the Shliach Yochanan himself.

Some scholars point to the polished Greek of the Besuras Hageulah

of Yochanan and the rough Hebraic Greek of the book of Revelation

and doubt that one man wrote both books. But the use of a

secretary for the Besuras Hageulah (unavailable on the rocky

island of Patmos in the Aegean Sea) would explain this

difference, as could also be the case in explaining the different

styles in I and II Shliach Kefa.

This book is not just an epistle (letter, 1:4). It is that, of

course, with ch. 1 giving us a picture of its divine author and

the heavenly nature of the communique. The letter, however,

claims to be an apokalupsis (apocalypse, 1:1). This is a word

that has to do with G-d's disclosure of what He is doing in the

last days, which otherwise would have remained hidden, but now,

via various visions, He is Himself unveiling (notice that

Moshiach Yehoshua the Word of G-d is the author, the chain of

transmission being G-d --- Moshiach Yehoshua the Word of G-d ---

angel --- Yochanan --- seven Brit Chadasha kehillot --- all

believers for all time, 1:1, 19:13).

The infinitive deiksai (1:1) expresses purpose, which is to show

the servants of Moshiach Yehoshua what must soon take place (see

22:6-7) including especially the Coming of the L-rd. The word

deiknumi ("show, point out") is a favorite word of both

Yochanan's Besuras Hageulah and Revelation, suggesting common

authorship.

But the book of Revelation is also called a profeteia (prophecy,

1:3 19; 4:1; 22:7). So we are cued in from the beginning of the

book that it is going to contain warnings and also exhortations

to be strong and to hold on to the Moshiach Adoneinu Yehoshua in faith even in

the misery and despair of persecution and even amidst

earth-shaking cataclysms. However, because the work is an

apocalypse and therefore comes to us wrapped in some of the

conventions of a particular genre of literature, we can expect

its prophetic truth served up to us in complex imagery and

strange symbols and visions about supernatural beings, and about

powers (angelic and demonic), as well as eschatological figures

and events whose imminent appearance are part of the divinely

predetermined, yet catastrophic, end of history. Blessed are

those who obey what is written in this book (1:3: 12:17).

It is the Revelation of Moshiach Yehoshua (1:1),whose

deity is suggested in many ways. Among other things, He is called

L-rd (22:20), "the first and last" (1:17; 2:8; 22:13), "the Holy

One"(3:7) and is worshipped (5:8). The Apocalypse of Yochanan is

also the revelation of G-d the creator (Rev. 4:11; 10:6), as well

as the revelation of Moshiach the Saviour and Redeemer (notice

Moshiach Yehoshua is referred to as the redemptive, sacrificial

"Lamb" throughout 5:7-10 etc), and the revelation of G-d the

Judge (note the various seals, trumpets and plagues are all the

various judgments coming upon the earth and the sea and the

Anti-Moshiach world as a preparation for the coming of the

Kingdom of G-d--see 8:7; 16:3; 18:8 etc).

Many people want to read Revelation looking for clues as to

whether the rapture will be 3 1/2 years before or after this or

that eschatological event. The warning is spelled out at the

beginning of the book, however: "I will come like a thief and you

will not know at what time I will come for you" (3:3). Apparently

G-d would perfer, perhaps for our own good, that we be held in

enough suspense not to presume on His patience. It would be easy

for us, if we had too much knowledge of the exact timetable of

G-d's end-time scenario, not to walk in the dependent fear of the

L-rd and in the daily vigil of faith.

The visions of the Apocalypse (Greek for "unveiling" of what is

hidden or previously unknown) of the Shliach Yochanan are written

in the poetically pictorial, enigmatically obscure language of

"tracts for hard times." Like the parables Moshiach Yehoshua

publically uttered in the hearing of dangerous persecutors,

Revelation is prophecy put in code language designed to go "over

the heads" of the wrong readers, but be understood nonetheless

because of the indwelling Ruach Hakodesh by every ensuing

generation of believers in their vocation as Yoel (Joel) 2:28

prophets.

However, understanding the language of Revelation with its rich

density of Biblical allusions, symbolic pictures, and portentous

numbers and code language requires readers willing to ponder and

pray before they attempt to preach its message. That message is

spelled out first in a more prosaic and straightforward way in

the first three chapters in the form of letters to seven

representative Brit Chadasha kehillot. Then the message is

rendered in a more pictorial way in the visions that follow.

Therefore, we must make sure that when we finish reading chs.

4-22, we have not lost or blunted the message of chs. 1-3.

What is the message of chs. 1-3? In two words, it is "Get ready!"

Get ready to be raptured into the presence of the Judge of all

men, the Moshiach who is the Word of G-d (1:9-20; 19:11-16). Get

ready to test the spirits of false Shluchim and anti-moshiachs

(see Rev. 2:2 and I Yochanan 2:18-19)! Get ready in love to do

the things you did at first! Get ready to suffer, possibly even

to the point of death! Get ready to be martyred like Antipas! Get

ready to resist temptations to sexual immorality imported by the

heathen into the L-rd's Body! (See also 18:4.) It is those who

have not thrown away holiness who will be found written in the

book of life (3:4-5). Get ready to discipline those who say they

are believers but refuse to repent of wickedness! Get ready to

expel false teachers who mistake license for liberty! Get ready

to come alive in new power to conquer through the indwelling

Moshiach (3:20)! Get ready to go through open doors! Get ready to

hold on to what you have so that no one will take your crown! Get

ready for the L-rd's soon coming! Get ready to renounce

self-righteous and self-dependent lukewarmness and to receive the

L-rd afresh and to know the fellowship of His overcoming victory

amidst persecution and suffering.

With each exhortation there is a prophetic appraisal of the

situation of the believers, a command which sometimes entails a

warning, then a promise and a final appeal. Notice that

everything is imminent (about to happen), both agony and ecstasy,

rapture and tribulation, threat and deliverance. The worst and

the best that can happen are both at hand! Notice there is no

time allowance before the coming of the L-rd for a literal Beis

Hamikdash to be constructed in Jerusalem or a literal seat be

built on which the Anti-Moshiach can literally sit. Everything

can happen imminently! Be ready! Be strong if there is trouble!

Be prepared if there is judgment! And notice that through

everything there is the hope of heavenly, rapturous, deliverance

with Satanic trials mercifully cut short to manageable

proportions!

Chs. 5-6 make it clear that the Lamb of G-d (the Moshiach

Yehoshua) has all of history in his hands, including (as we will

see) all the plagues of judgment that will be divinely unleashed

on the anti-Moshiach world. Only Moshiach Yehoshua through his

angel can unveil the prophetic significance of what is destined

to occur in history and the Lamb who is the L-rd is the only one

who is worthy to open the scroll of destiny. He alone is

appointed to unseal the judgments of G-d and unleash covenant

reprisals on those who have wickedly refused redemption. These

wicked have persecuted the kadoshim, the saints who are themselves not

appointed to wrath (I Thes. 5:9) but "sealed" for safety from the

wrath of the Lamb (Rev. 7). All exousia authority and power are

in Moshiach's hands (see Matthew 28:18), but the authority to eat

of the tree of life and to enter the redeemed New Jerusalem is

given by him to the Moshiach's true disciples (Rev. 22:14).

What ensues after ch. 4 is an unfolding picture of suffering that

is humanly, but also demonically generated. G-d the Judge sends

plagues like He did on Pharaoh. As we read we see the world

heading inexorably toward Armageddon, the Millenium, the Final

Judgment, and the Creation of the New Heavens and the New Earth.

But in the midst of the suffering there is also various divinely

provided protection on earth and ultimately rapturous deliverance

in heaven. The seven seals (6:1-17; 8:1), the seven trumpets

(8:2-9:21; 11:14-19), and the seven bowls (16:1-21) give us this

unfolding picture of ever increasing retribution and catastrophe

leading to climactic ruin as a prophetic picture of the birth

pangs (chevlei Moshiach, the pre-Messianic era birthpangs) leading

to the Messianic Kingdom realized on earth followed by the New

Creation. Rev. 15:1 says of the final seven plagues, "with them

the wrath of G-d is ended."

In the drama that continues we see two cities in conflict, the

latter day "Babylon," the "Rome" of the last days with its false

religion celebrating the false deity of an end-time "Nero" by the

"drinking the blood" (killing) of the economically and

politically persecuted saints, and the other city, the New

Jerusalem, whose citizens are the true heirs of the promises of

G-d. Nero, then, comes to symbolize all the Hitlers to come,

including the final one. The mark charagma (Rev. 13:16) was the

seal of the Emperor, bearing his image and showing loyal devotion

to him in commercial transactions, which were stamped with his

name. The Jews wore the tephillin on the forehead and the

forearm to show devotion to the true G-d rather than any latter

day Antiochus Ephiphanes. The final Hitler, will recover from a

mortal wound (remember Hitler's near assassination escape from

death?), will have a false prophet "Kohen Gadol," and he will

lead the world to marvel at his miraculous idol, causing those

who do not worship to be put to death, thus causing the great

apostasy (Rev. 13:12-18; II Thes. 2:3; 14:9-12).

Nero committed suicide with his own sword in June C.E. 68. Yet a

rumor persisted that he was still alive and would return to

ravage the world again. A similar phenomenon occurred for a time

after Adolf Hitler's death. Rumors circulated that he was alive

in South America and would be back to terrorize the earth again.

The Shliach Yochanan speaks of the Anti-Moshiach in this way in

ch. 17 and infers that this latter-day man of lawlessness will be

a new "Nero" or (Nero redivivus, pronounced "RED-uh-VEYE-vus" and

meaning "revived, living again") when he reappears in his final

historical manifestation, a new "Antiochus Epiphanes" with a

"prostitute" religion riding a world government "beast" city, a

new "Rome" that will extend in Satanic world empire so that the

ancient "Dragon" the devil can once again battle against the

"seed" of the Elect Woman (Gen. 3:15; Rev. 12), the Ideal Israel

of G-d. Rev. 17 and 18 show the judgment that is coming on this

"Babylon," this "Rome" of the last days, this cruel and

blasphemous world government (chs. 17-19). Its religious,

commercial, and materialistic pride will be brought low.

Those who study these passages to try to find datable or

chronological signs of when the Brit Chadasha kehillah will be

raptured will be frustrated by the fact that such is not the

message the author intended to convey. The numbers that are

continually reappearing have symbolic meaning, but those who

press them too literally will have the same trouble with

consistency if they try to see in 1:4 the Ruach Hakodesh as seven

spirits instead of a perfect Spirit (the number seven means

perfect, and is the number of G-d; 6 as in 666 means the number

of man; although it should be noted here that if you compare 1:4 and 8:2

then 1:4 could be referring to seven archangels).

The number 1000 is also a number symbolizing the completeness of

the Moshiach's earthly triumph as He reigns with His people in

the world a thousand years before the final judgment comes

(20:4-6), the wicked are raised to life and condemned, Satan is

finally hurled with the wicked into the lake of eternal fire, and

the New Heavens and the New Earth replace the existing cosmos.

The structure of the Book contains an overlapping spiralling

movement of recapitulation where similar themes are returned to

again and again and are viewed from a differenct angle each time.

The redeemed citizens of the Kingdom of G-d are symbolized

variously: 1) by the twenty-four elders seated on twenty-four

thrones (4:24); by the part of the Beis Hamikdash measured for

preservation in ch 11; by the two witnesses of ch. 11; by the

144,000 in chs. 7 and 14. The theme of the Rapture and the Second

Coming is likewise recapitulated several times (see 1:7; 2:25;

14:14-20; 22:12, 20). Likewise, notice the theme of the Beis

Hamikdash and communion with G-d (11:19; 15:5 see skene "dwell"

"tabernacle" in 21:3 and no Beis Hamikdash but the L-rd and his

Lamb in 21:22.)

Ch.6: It seems to show the universal Besuras Hageulah and various

scourges of war, scarcity or famine accompanied by inequities

between rich and poor, scourges of death and demonic mental

illness and torment worse than death and catacylismic plagues

(6:8 says one fourth of mankind will thus perish) all racing like

horses to the ends of the earth to show the fulfillment of divine

decrees of judgement. Next comes martyrdom and the Second Coming

(6:12-17), which is recapitulated again later in 11:12-18 and

19:11-21. The theme of the Great Tribulation is repeated in

7:13-17; 11:7-12 and 17:6.

Ch.7:3 shows the servants of the L-rd being sealed for safety to

make it clear that they do not share with the impenitent in the

divine wrath even while they do share in the Satanically incited

tribulation of Anti-Moshiach. See 3:10; 14:1; 21:12 on this

theme of safety for kadoshim (saints) who are freed from wrath.

Ch. 8 begins the "woe to the earth and the sea" theme of 13:12

and 16:3, with the incremental ruin being emphasized by

contrasting verses like 8:9 and 16:3, as Yochanan predicts

ecological and cataclymic destruction of the environment (earth,

trees, seas, rivers, streams). Ch.

11:4,7 shows that we battle not flesh and blood but demonic

spiritual powers (12:17) and the 3 1/2 year period of tribulation

(11:2-3: 12:6,14; 13:5-7) is also a period of G-d's keeping

protection (12:6,16).

We do not want to confuse the "elect" and the nation of Israel in

any way that would imply that G-d's covenant promises for

Israel's salvation are cancelled. However, that is Rav Sha'ul's

teaching in Rom. 9-11, and we need to let this book speak on its

own terms. Yochanan sees all the elect pouring into the New

Jerusalem that comes down to earth from heaven, and it is one city, not two. It is highly

unlikely, inspite of dispensational teaching to the contrary,

that chs. 7 and 14 refer to no one other than national Israel. Look at

21:12-13 where the twelve tribes of the nation and the twelve

Shluchim of the Brit Chadasha kehillah have their names

decorating the very same city. And it is one city! It is not two,

not earthly Jerusalem for the nation of Israel and the New

Jerusalem for the Brit Chadasha kehillah.

We are not teaching "replacement" theology here, just the New Jerusalem as one city.

By chapter 16 it is clear that men who oppose the preaching of

the Jewish Bible are going to be left with a sun that gives skin

cancer (16:8 on ozone depletion and ultraviolet light), polluted

seas full of death (16:3), and rivers like Chernobyl. Yochanan is

saying that there is a new Exodus in progress as G-d brings our

Jewish people to Himself. At the same time G-d smites the

anti-Semitic world with plagues of Pharaoh (not only ecological

disasters but war-mongering demons leading to the final world war

called Armageddon--16:16). Many, including many who claim to be

Jews and are not, will be like Pharaoah and refuse to repent

(16:10-11). Yochanan is saying that the Nazi civilization of this

world is going to drink the wrath of G-d (16:19-18:10), and her

"Nero" himself will burn her (17:16; 18:18). Morever, it will be

G-d's judgment (18:20) and his vengence on her for her vile

cruelty against the believers (18:20; 19:2), for she was drunk

with the blood of the saints and the martyrs (17:6). This harlot

Babylon, this Nazi world civilization, is contrasted with the

Bride, the New Jerusalem (19:1-7; 21:1-2, 9-10, 18).

REVELATION 20:6

Blessed and holy (is) the one having part in the resurrection,

the first; on these ones the second death does not have

authority, but they will be kohanim of G-d and of Moshiach and

they will reign with Him a thousand years.