From early times scarce any consent has been more general than to view the Revelation as a comprehensive prophecy which extends from the days of the apostle to the end of time. A few, chiefly since the Reformation, would confine most of it to the fall of Jerusalem; a few more began to apply it to the end of the age, as the early fathers did. It seems desirable however to examine the question afresh with all brevity. There can be no doubt that faith in the future application has spread much of late years. It is the more incumbent therefore to examine what is urged by such as plead for the more extensive range of the prophecy throughout the times of the Gentiles since the days of the apostle. The objections usually pressed against historicalism appear to me of little weight.
I. The variety and even discordance of the popular expositors, I have already allowed to be a feeble disproof. The truth might be in a few without being apprehended by most or even by all true Christians. Spirituality of mind is needed to discern truth, nor is it difficult to muster objections to that which is most certain. How many saints are cloudy in their views even of grace as well as righteousness! How many fail to see intelligently the return and the kingdom of our Lord Jesus! Besides, the variety is not small among the futurists themselves. To be distracted by such clashing of opinions on either side is really to give up certainty as to all truth.
II. The adherence to a literal interpretation is necessarily absurd where the language of the book is beyond doubt figurative or symbolic. Now of all books of scripture, certainly in the New Testament, none so abounds in symbols as the Revelation. To insist upon a rigid literalism here must end in continual straining, disappointment, and error.
III. The same exaggeration is apt to appear in looking for events of a character wholly transcending the past. That such wonders do appear in certain parts of the Revelation is clear. It is unfounded to expect them everywhere.
IV. The attempt, not to run merely a parallel, but to assume identity between the prophecy on the mount and the seals, &c, of the Revelation, is unfounded. An analogy may be allowed, but no more. Such reasoning altogether fails to fix the time when the Revelation will be fulfilled.
But there are weightier grounds of a wholly different nature which may be now advanced. The Lord Himself in opening the book to John distinguishes “the things which are” from “those which must be hereafter” (or “after these things"). “The things which are” comprise the messages to the seven churches. It is the church period. “The things which shall be after these” are the visions of God's dealings and judgments on man's ways in the world which follow that period till the end of all things. But “the things which are” maybe viewed in two ways. They are either the churches viewed exclusively in John's time, and hence now past—after which would begin to apply the prophetic visions of the rest of the book. In this point of view the historical school of interpretation ought not to be discarded as untrue or unprofitable. On the contrary I believe that God was pleased to use the book for the comfort of His saints both in their early trials from the hostility of heathen Rome and in mediaeval as well as later times from the persecutions of Babylon, the meretricious antichurch of the Apocalypse. But in this point of view the prophetic vision must be allowed to be vague; and no wonder should be felt that discord abounds among the interpreters.
But there is a second point from which we may view “the things that are,” or the messages to the seven churches. They have a prolonged and successive application whilst God owns anything of a church condition on earth. This He clearly does as yet; and according to this view chapters 2, 3, of the Revelation give the things that are still, and are not passed but rather fulfilling before our eyes. Till they are past, “the things which must be after these” cannot even begin to be accomplished. Then only will commence the accomplishment of the prophetic visions in their full sense and application to the crisis which closes this age and introduces the kingdom. Of these seven, the first indicates the declension from first love which characterized the day when John saw the visions of the book; the second, the outbreak of heathen persecution which followed not long after; the third, the exaltation of the church in the empire under Constantine and his successors. Thyatira is marked by more tokens than one which prove that this state, which was fully out in mediaeval times, is the first of those which thenceforward go on not merely successively but contemporaneously from their rise to the Lord's coming. As Popery, though far from Popery alone, was therein found, so Sardis presents Protestantism; as Philadelphia, the reviving not only of the brotherhood with its love but of separateness to Christ's name and word, while waiting for Him, so Laodicea concludes the seven with the self-complacent latitudinarianism of our day which takes shape and position more and more as time goes on.
But after these it is all-important to the understanding of the general scope and design of the Revelation to see that there is nothing of a church character recognized in the book. “The things that are” will be then terminated. An entirely new state of things follows, visions chiefly of judgments on earth, saints in suffering, with testimonies and warnings from God, but never in any instance assemblies or churches here below.
Indeed the case is far stronger than this. For “the things which must be after these things” (that is, after the church-state) open with a prefatory scene of the deepest interest in heaven, wherein is seen round the throne of God (which is neither that of grace as now, nor that of millennial glory, but of a judicial character suited to a transitional space between the two, the end of the age) the symbolic circle of the crowned elders in heaven, and this in their full complement, which is never added to till the heavenly hosts follow Christ from heaven when the day of Jehovah dawns on the earth and the reign for a thousand years is begun. That is, the elders thus seen above show us the heavenly saints translated and enthroned round the throne of God, evidently corroborating and following up the previous fact that the church-state was done with and a new condition entered on preparatorily to the kingdom of God in power and glory.
Entirely in keeping with this we hear henceforth of thousands sealed from the tribes of Israel, and, separately from these, of countless Gentiles brought out of the great tribulation (for so it is, not out of great tribulation as a general fact or principle, but out of that special time of trouble which we know from many scriptures will be at the close of the age). There is no gathering more from among Jews and Gentiles into the church where these distinctions vanish. The seven churches in their protracted application had given that condition up to their last seen on earth. God thenceforward works among Jews or Gentiles as distinct and with a view to putting the habitable earth under the rule of the glorified Son of man, the risen saints being on high, and from Israel and the nations spared ones to enjoy the blessings of that day on earth; as He executes judgments first preparatorily though with increasing intensity under the seals, trumpets, and vials, till Christ with the translated saints appears in glory and reigns of judging the quick first, then the dead, after which is the eternal scene. Such is the general outline of the Revelation. In anything like a clear and comprehensive view of the book the futurists seem to be scarcely better than the historicalists. Neither party know what to make of the vision in chapters 4, 5, which follows the seven churches and introduces the strictly prophetic unfoldings of coming dealings with the world. Hence their views are almost equally uncertain and foggy. The key to the intelligence of the book lies in a right apprehension of this vision.