The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, 2 who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw. 3 Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near.
As to the interpretation of the book as a whole, there are those who hold that almost
everything in the book refers to what will yet come to pass in the future, and that, apart from
the references in chs 2 and 3, none of it has yet happened. Others hold the opposite view,
and maintain that most of its reference is to the past, and that it is possible to see the unfolding of its visions in the course of history between the first coming of Christ and our own day.
Another and more intelligible and satisfactory view, however, is that the book presents a series of pictures, parallel to one another, seven pictures in all, each of them covering the whole
period between our Lord's first coming and His second, and adding to the intensity of the
preceding one, and building up to a grand climax in the end. Chapters 1-3 constitute the first
picture, the vision of Christ among the seven candlesticks, a picture relevant for every age; 4-
7 the second picture, also reaching from Christ's first coming to the second; 8-11 the third;
12-14 the fourth; 15,16 the fifth; 17-19 the sixth; and 20-22 the last. Within this analysis there
is another major division that can be made. Chapters 1-11 portray the struggle between the
Church on the one hand and the world on the other, while the second half of the book, chapters 12-22, takes us, so to speak, behind the scenes to the unseen conflict between Christ and
Satan, which lies behind the conflict between the church and the world. (This analysis and
interpretation is expounded fully in the commentary on Revelation by W. Hendriksen, 'More
than Conquerors', and is one of the ablest and most satisfying available in the bookshops today).