Transcript
Ben Fallon: Welcome back to Ask Paul Tripp. Today's question comes from Beth, and just a reminder that you can submit your questions online either anonymously, at paultripp.com/ask, or you can send an email to Ask@paultripp.com. Beth writes:
I'm leading a lady's Bible study at my church on the book of Revelation. Which view of Revelation does Paul Tripp Ministry support? We're only in chapter 1 of Revelation, and my ladies are already asking why there are so many methods for interpreting this book.
Paul Tripp: So, I think it's wonderful that there is a Bible study on the book of Revelation. I think it's such a shame that it's a book in the Bible that massive amounts of Christians avoid. And I think the reasons that there are different views of Revelation; I think the reasons that it's intimidating and misunderstood is because of all the apocalyptic visions that are in Revelation. But I want to say this, “My view of Revelation is not important. The view of Paul Tripp Ministries of Revelation is not important; what's important is ‘What is this book about?’”
And I want to say something that may be a bit shocking to people, but Revelation is not primarily about the future; it's primarily about Jesus. In fact, what this book is about is revealed in the first five words of the book, “The revelation of (What comes next?) all the things in the future that you want answers for, the revelation of how this world will end in detail, the revelation that will validate your maps and charts.” No! It's “The revelation of Jesus Christ.” This book is a celebration of Jesus. And if you get so distracted by the various schools of thought of Revelation, and you lose sight of Jesus, you've done violence to this book. This is the story of Jesus!
You see, the book of Revelation gives us a very different perspective on our Savior. In the gospels, you see Jesus as the man of sorrows, his sacrificial living, his substitutionary death, his rise again for the sake of our salvation. In the gospels, he's the sacrificial lamb, the grace of God come in the flesh–Oh-oh, I love this! But in Revelation, he's the victorious redeemer, the conquering king, the perfect bridegroom, the one worthy of eternal celebration and worship. Let me say that again because it just excites me to say it. In Revelation, Jesus is presented as the victorious redeemer, the conquering king, the perfect bridegroom, the one worthy of eternal celebration and worship!
You see, we need this revelation of Jesus because we live right now in a place where it doesn't seem like there's much victory, where it would appear on a given day that evil is winning. Why was Revelation written? It was written to strengthen the faith of first century believers who were living under trial, who were suffering because of their faith. And so, in order for Revelation to give us the encouragement that we need, Revelation gives us a past, present, future look of the great and glorious work of a sovereign God through his Son, Jesus.
Revelation is about how God, in perfectly holy anger, will right every last wrong of sin and injustice; and in mercy, make things new again. Revelation assures us that all the enemies of God will not win but will face defeat and eternal destruction. Revelation encourages us to endure in our faith no matter what because we know that nothing can stop the ultimate victory of God and all that he has redeemed. Although the visions of Revelation seem hard to understand, it was written, not for apocalyptic theologians, but to encourage the average Christian with the surety of the plan of God in the victory of Jesus on behalf of his children. Revelation is one of the most encouraging books that you could ever study because it chronicles for you the ultimate victory of Jesus and the final defeat of all of his enemies!
BF: Thank you, Paul, and thank you for listening. But before I let you go, I want to remind you that Paul Tripp Ministries has a free five-minute Bible study series available called “The Gospel, One Book at a Time,” where Paul summarizes each book of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation in a five-minute gospel summary. So, to end this episode, we're going to play for you that five-minute clip on Revelation so you can hear more gospel encouragement from Paul about the book of Revelation. The full series of all these five-minute gospel summaries is available at paultripp.com/biblestudy.
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