“things which must shortly come to pass”

We start with a very down to earth, no nonsense quote: 

“The unveiling is given to the Son in order that He in turn may show it to His servants, so that they may be adequately prepared for the ‘things which must shortly come to pass’ (1:1). The ‘things’ are events which may be identifiable with historical occurrences, and which will be of tremendous importance to the welfare of these believers.

“There is always a temptation to seek the fulfillment of these ‘things’ in the events of the past or of one’s own day.  None of these ‘things’ should be interpreted by itself, but all must be viewed in the perspective of the book as a whole. Events that seem of great importance to one generation may shrink to relatively insignificant proportions when compared with the total progress of history. There can be no doubt that the symbols of Revelation are genuinely predictive, but one should not rashly identify them with past events unless they accord in totality as well as in individual resemblance.”    [from INTERPRETING REVELATION, by Merrill C. Tenney, 1957]

Tenney is making a really great point here. Many people today complain that every generation thinks that some of the events of Revelation are happening to them. I’m not sure that this is exactly true. If we look back on the commentaries I’ve already reported on in this blog, some of the commentators see their generation as deserving the events of Revelation, but only a few actually see something in their time period that seems to coincide with the ‘things’ of Revelation. The big exceptions are probably the commentators from the times of great upheavals like the fall of Rome. These generations seemed to read more into their current events, and who could blame them.

So why do people today complain about this? I think it’s because World War II, in the generation of our parents/grandparents/great-grandparents, certainly appeared to be the start of Tribulation to those living through it. And, while the world came through the war and righted itself back to a kind of normalcy, there were some deep and fundamental changes to many of the affected countries. I don’t claim any special knowledge here, but growing up in the post-WWII generation, it was pretty clear that the war caused some major shifts in multiple cultures. I suspect that these shifts, rather than being a part of the Great Tribulation, were actually harbingers and set-ups for what is to come…and this may be the case for all the great upheavals of our world history.

It seems that many people are taught today that World War II was just another war, with no real insight into the events of, or those leading up to it. So, being taught that, a person would tend to think that their ancestors down through time must have thought the world was ending, because they see nothing really different about the last 100 years or the last couple of generations. I think that Tenney is mostly responding to this same issue, though in 1957 he should have had a clearer idea of World War II than the writers today have. But even in 1957 America, the world seemed very far away from the horrors of the war.

“Let us note the content of the revelation which comes to John. It is the revelation of ‘the things which must quickly happen’ (1:1). There are two important words here. There is must. History is not haphazard; it has purpose. There is quickly. Here is the proof that it is quite wrong to use the Revelation as a kind of mysterious timetable of what is going to happen thousands of years from now. As John sees it, the things it deals with are working themselves out immediately. The Revelation must be interpreted against the background of its own time.”     [from THE REVELATION OF JOHN, VOL 1, by William Barclay, 1959]

First of all, Barclay throws the ‘must’ out there with no real explanation of his point of view. He says “history is not haphazard” and that “it has purpose,” but he doesn’t really say why he thinks that or what that purpose might be. One can guess that he thinks that history is driving us towards the Second Coming and the Millennium, but if one were to believe that, then Revelation having a “timetable of what is going to happen thousands of years from [then]” should not be a big problem. If history is truly taking us to the return of Christ, then why wouldn’t the last prophecy of the Bible deal with the days when that happens? The only way to truly believe that most or all of Revelation has already happened, is to say that the Second Coming already happened way back there in time (some Preterists believe this)…but then, what is history driving towards now? And why was Christ so silent in His Second Coming? And again, why wouldn’t the Bible say something about it?

Maybe we can understand why Barclay only dropped hints.

As for the word “quickly,” Barclay totally avoids looking at the origin of the word. He apparently doesn’t need to bother looking up the Greek because he can trust that the English translation will be fine and trustworthy. I don’t really see it that way.

“SHORTLY COME TO PASS. Time is relative. A one-minute pause between words in a lecture would be unbearably long, but a thousand years is a brief time in eternity. Revelation closes a history that began with creation. Although the events recorded may cover a period of two thousand years or more, still, as compared to the whole of time, they are things which must shortly come to pass.”    [from THE KEY TO UNDERSTANDING REVELATION, by Arthur E. Bloomfield, 1959]

I think that the argument is much more complicated than “as compared to the whole of time, they are things which must shortly come to pass.” We have seen, and will see more, explanations that are a good deal more satisfying. More than that, time is relative in our perception. Time on this planet and in this dimension is immutable and does not change (except for an act of God!).

“Must shortly come to pass…It is a relative term to be judged in the light of 2 Peter 3:8 according to God’s clock, not ours. And yet undoubtedly the hopes of the early Christians looked for a speedy return of the Lord Jesus. This vivid panorama must be read in the light of that glorious hope and of the blazing fires of persecution from Rome.”      [THE REVELATION OF JOHN: WORD PICTURES #06, by A. T. Robertson, 1960]

 Robertson is walking a conservative path here. There is no doubt that the early Christians were looking for Christ’s return in their time. There is also no doubt that God has His own timetable that has nothing to do with ours.  These are two very bland and well-accepted ideas. I’m sure that he meant the “blazing fires of persecution from Rome” statement to be equally bland, while sounding exciting. Today, at least, it’s hard to see the prospect of banishment in Domitian’s time as being a “blazing fire” compared to the level of persecution being endured by Christians in many countries of this world today.

“Things which must shortly come to pass.  The Greek term en tachei, translated ‘shortly,’ is used five times in the New Testament: Luke 18:8; Acts 12;7; 22:18; 25:4; Romans 16:20. 

I tell you, he will vindicate them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of man comes, will he find faith on earth?    (Luke 18:8; RSV)

and behold, an angel of the Lord appeared, and a light shone in the cell; and he struck Peter on the side and woke him, saying, “Get up quickly.” And the chains fell off his hands.    (Acts 12:7; RSV)

and saw him saying to me, ‘Make haste and get quickly out of Jerusalem, because they will not accept your testimony about me.’    (Acts 22:18; RSV)

Festus replied that Paul was being kept at Caesarea, and that he himself intended to go there shortly.     (Acts 25:4; RSV)

then the God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.    (Romans 16:20; RSV)

“While the time may be distant, when the things come, there will be no delay. Events will come to pass in rapid succession.”     [from A REVELATION OF JESUS CHRIST, by J. B. Smith, 1961]

This is a better explanation. We were told flat out that no one knows the day or hour; but, we are told that it will happen rapidly.

This next quote is rather long, but it includes an interesting review of the different ways to interpret Revelation:

“In this introductory word to the vast Apocalypse there are two indications of time. The first verse mentions ‘the things which must shortly come to pass.’ The third verse says, ‘Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear (God blesses the lector that reads, and God blesses the people who listen and who treasure up these things which are written)…for the time is at hand.’ Now what do those words means, and what is the reference here as to the fulfillment of this great, extended prophecy of twenty-two chapters, ‘things which must shortly come to pass’ and ‘for the time is at hand’? In answering that question — when these things are to come to pass, and when this prophecy will be fulfilled — you can group almost every presentation, persuasion, idea, and theory under about four headings. No matter what, how or when one may write, when he seeks to interpret the Book of Revelation, he may be placed in one of four general groups, concerning the time when these things are to come to pass.

“…The First Group. There is and has been through the years a great group of interpreters who think that all of these things spoken of in the book of Revelation have been fulfilled centuries ago. They are called Preterists. The word ‘preterist’ is taken from a Latin word, ‘praeter,’ meaning ‘past.’ So the Preterists are those who look upon the Revelation as having already been fulfilled in the years and generations that are past.

“…The people who hold the Preterist view, that all of the Revelation was fulfilled in the days past, are mostly Roman Catholic interpreters. The reason that they do so is this: In the seventeenth chapter of the book of Revelation, there is a harlot called the great whore. She is described as a scarlet woman. She is interpreted by the author of the Revelation as being a false system of religion, the seat of which is on a city built on seven hills and whose spiritual, mystery name is Babylon. There is no doubt that the seventeenth chapter of the book of the Revelation, in describing the great whore, refers to a system of religion that is an affront to God and whose seat is on a city that is built on seven hills. Now the city that has been known in antiquity and through history as being built on seven hills is the city of Rome. In other words, the seventeenth chapter of the book of Revelation (as we shall see when we come to it) plainly describes Roman religion. In order to obviate that plain interpretation, Roman Catholic theologians invented the Preterist interpretation of the Revelation, saying that all of these prophecies were fulfilled in the days of Nero or in the days of Domitian, or within the first few centuries thereafter, and that it has nothing at all to do with things yet to come. What they do to the book of Revelation is this: They make it a literary curiosity and that is all. It has no meaning for us; it has no message for today. They make it a strange document, written in an apocalyptic language that was in conventional use in the days when the Jewish people wrote this kind of literature. According to the Preterist view of the Revelation, maybe it has a message for those who lived in the days of Nero or Domitian, but it has no message for us today. It is just like any other relic of antiquity: a thing to be looked at, to be classified, to be put in a museum somewhere, to be given a number and to be forgotten. Such is the first one of these interpretations…

“…The Second Group. There is a large number of interpreters of the Revelation who look upon these prophecies as being historically continuous. That is, they believe that the Revelation is a panorama of the history of the Church and the history of the world from the apostolic days until the consummation of the age. They see the history of the world pre-written in all of these symbols and signs and apocalyptic visions. They see the rise of the Papacy, the corruption of the Church, the invasion of the Saracens, the great Reformation, the struggle with the Papacy and all the stories of humanity and of the nations of the world until the Lord shall come again.

“The men who largely espoused this continuous historical interpretation of the book are the great Reformers — the Reformation men. They saw in the Revelation the rise of the Papacy, and they saw in the destruction of Babylon the destruction of the Papacy. In the first beast that arose out of the sea, in the thirteenth chapter of the book of the Revelation, they saw the political power by which the Roman Church was sustained; and in the second beast in Revelation 13 they saw that ecclesiastical tyranny itself. So in interpreting the book of the Revelation, the Reformers saw in it the story of humanity, and they identified different things in the book as being great historical incidents and events…But, in the fact that authorities of such reputation as Bengel, Wordsworth, Elliott and others are at hopeless variance, this system breaks down. Where one interpreter (Elliott) sees in the sixth seal a reference to Constantine, another (Faber) sees allusion to the first French revolution. Where one sees in the star fallen from heaven a good angel (Bengel), another (Elliott) discerns Mohammed. The scorpion-locusts that have power for five months mean to Mede one hundred and fifty years of the domination of the Saracens, but to Vitringa they mean the Goths, and to Scherzer the Jesuits…When you seek to make the book of the Revelation a panorama of prewritten history, and you seek to identify in the book all of the great historical events that have happened, you are going to fall into hopeless contradiction.  No man can solve this successfully, and I do not think the historical interpretation of the book can be defended…

“Now, the third great group of interpreters. There are many who are spiritualizers; they are sometimes called Idealists. They interpret the book of the Revelation as being not a representation of actual things and events that are past or that are going to come to pass, but as being a symbol and metaphor of the great struggle between good and evil. What they believe is that the book of the Revelation contains not a prophecy or a record of events or occurrences or happenings that go on in this world. Here are depicted, according to them, a struggle between the forces of good and the forces of evil and the ultimate triumph of that which is good.

“Of all the theories and interpretations of the book of the Revelation, I like this one the least. To begin with, I do not like spiritualizing the Bible. I think we ought to accept the Bible for what it says and for what it means, and deliver its message, whether we understand it or not, whether we are able to see it all or not. If God says it, I believe it and that settles it. To take the Word of God and spiritualize it means to empty it of all its content. It can be made to mean just what anyone in any particular time might want to make it mean…If God did not mean what He said, why did He not say what He meant? 

“Before discussing the fourth group, let us recapitulate. We have spoken of the Preterists…who…assume that the ancients had a key to the book, but that we have lost the key and do no have any idea what it means. Then we have spoken of the Historicists…who make of the Revelation a blueprint of history through the coming ages. Then we have spoken of…the spiritualizers, the Idealists…who look upon the book as having no meaning at all in time or in history…They view it just as an allegory.

“Now we come to the fourth group, and I belong to this fourth school. Here, to me, is the meaning of the Revelation. Members of this group are called Futurists; that is, they believe that, beginning at the fourth chapter of the book of the Revelation, an apocalypse of the consummation of the ages is described…In this interpretation, we follow in the Revelation the things that lead up to that great, final consummation, the establishment of the kingdom of our Lord in the earth…

“First, most of the things that are written in the book of the Revelation have never been fulfilled. They are still to be seen, they are still to come to pass…There has never been anything known to compare to the terrible judgments depicted in the Apocalypse. Even the destruction of Jerusalem, with all its blood and its horror, is nothing compared to the great worldwide judgments that are to fall upon the human family and the human race in this great Apocalypse written by John.

“…The prophetic utterances in the Revelation correspond to those in the rest of the Bible. The book of the Revelation says that before the consummating day of our Lord there are to be unprecedented trials and troubles and tribulations. All the other Scriptures avow the same thing. In fact, the Scriptures say that those very trials and troubles precipitate the intervention of God. For example, our Lord Himself says, ‘For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved.’ He also says: ‘Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken: And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.’ That is what Jesus said in Matthew 24. That is exactly what is written in the Revelation.”     [from EXPOSITORY SERMONS ON REVELATION, by Wallie A. Criswell, 1962]

Criswell identifies himself as a Futurist, so that’s probably why I like his explanation of the other modes of interpretation. I like his presentations and also his criticisms. I admit to being biased about this.

I agree with him totally that there is a lot (as in all) of Revelation that has not taken place yet. Those things that appear to have already happened are often interpreted that way through the use of metaphors and allegory.  If, indeed, these things are only symbolic and allegorical, then it’s interesting that they appear in other places in the Bible using the same language: i.e. the same ‘symbols’. I would guess that as you move from age to age, even within the same culture, that the symbolism would change somewhat, making the original message (if ‘symbolic’) totally impossible to parse out, which is exactly what some people believe is the case.

“‘The uncoveringby Jesus Christ, which God gave to show unto his servants.’ And the things shown were shortly to come to pass. The literal meaning is ‘to come to pass in quick succession.’”    [from THE WONDER BOOK OF THE BIBLE: A COMMENTARY ON THE BOOK OF REVELATION, by Lee G. Tomlinson, 1963]

Tomlinson wastes no words, and I agree with his brief assessment.

“These ‘things’ will come to pass ‘shortly’ (Gr. en tachei), an adjective denoting swiftness. Scientists have drawn from this word to give the name ‘tachometer’ to an instrument for measuring velocity. Elsewhere the same word is translated ‘speedily’ (Luke 18:8). 

I tell you, he will vindicate them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of man comes, will he find faith on earth?”    (Luke18:8; RSV)

“When the things in this book come to pass, they will ‘speedily happen.’ God has borne along with men patiently, and while some ridicule the prophecies of this book, they fail to see that God is long-suffering (2 Peter 3:9). 

The Lord is not slow about his promise as some count slowness, but is forbearing toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.     (2 Peter 3:9; RSV)  

“But the end will come, and when it does it will be marked by suddenness and swiftness. The events will come to pass speedily. Thus the purpose of the Revelation is to show beforehand those things that will speedily happen.”   [from THE BOOK OF REVELATION, by Lehman Strauss, 1964]

Strauss adds a bit more to the basic idea expressed by Tomlinson. I really like the reference to God being ‘long-suffering.’  Mistaking God’s forbearance for absence, or lack of caring, is probably the worst mistake anyone can make.

“‘Things which must shortly come to pass’–1:1. Reference to things indicated a definite form of events then shaping, and the word must is not a speculative or conjectural term; it was factual, and the word shortly denoted immediacy. These events applied to them, not to centuries after their time, and even yet to come. The object of the entire revelation was to inform and forewarn, to comfort and encourage the church in the time of this vision –the apostolic age, the period of the churches addressed.”          [from THE BOOK OF REVELATION: CONSISTING OF A COMMENTARY ON THE APOCALYPSE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT, by Foy E. Wallace, 1966]

Wallace is obviously of the preterist persuasion. It occurs to me that if the book of Revelation was indeed only for the apostolic age, then it does not follow that it would have been included in Scripture.  Actually, some of the early Preterists were quite perturbed that it had been included in the Bible. But, to believe that it doesn’t belong means that you must throw Bible inerrancy out the window.  

The doctrine of Bible inerrancy says “that when all the facts are known, the Bible, in the original autographs, when properly interpreted, will prove itself to be without error in all matters that it covers. These include areas of theology, history, science, and all other disciplines of knowledge — they will be in perfect accord with the truth. The Bible, therefore, is totally trustworthy in everything that it records or teaches…inerrancy extends to the writings of the different authors, not the writers themselves…” (from blueletterbible.org/Comm/stewart_don/faq/bible-difficulties/question1-what-is-the-doctrine-of-biblical-inerrancy.cfm ) It doesn’t mean that we get to second guess anything, including the inclusion of Revelation. As Don Stewart says on this website, not believing in Bible inerrancy is not a salvation issue: “[Salvation] is determined solely upon ones relationship with Jesus Christ. However, inerrancy is an essential, foundational concept and its importance should not be minimized.”  Stewart says a lot more about inerrancy on the website and it’s worth a visit. Specifically, Question 10: “What is Canon Criticism” could be helpful.  There is also a section called “Are the Right Books in the New Testament?” that is very informative, especially Question 16.

A quote from Paul would be good to end on:

All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.  (2 Titus 3:16;  KJV)