Why is apocalyptic literature so strange?

Some have complained of our prophet's obscurity. But there is really no just ground, though the complaint be as old at least as Jerome, who designates the book "a labyrinth of the mysteries of God." The supposed darkness is owing to two things in particular. First, how could such a subject as depicting the divine government be simple? This, if done at all, must embrace immense height, depth, and breadth; and if symbol be used, it must require a compass entirely unexampled for the ordinary demands of the creature. Secondly, the mass of men in Christendom since Origen have adopted the vicious system of "spiritual alchemy," as Hooker terms it, which seeks to change the Jewish hopes into the predictions of proper Christian blessings. No wonder such men find a cloudy mistiness overhanging his pictures. Apply his visions aright, and they will in general be found remarkably explicit and full of force. It is absurd to suppose that details so minute and so circumstantial are mere literary drapery.

The figurative character is confessed, but it is only what is found wherever eternal things are pictured to us. There seems no other way of their being set before us indeed, than by figures taken from the things around; and we may be sure that He who speaks to us in them has taken not the most obscure and doubtful way to show them to us. "We see through a glass, darkly," says the apostle. The last phrase is literally "in an enigma" (l Cor. xiii. 12, marg.). Thus it is the Scripture way to use enigmas to describe what otherwise it may well be impossible for a man to utter (2 Cor. xii. 4). Yet though it was of old the complaint as to the prophets that they "spake parables" (Ezek. xx. 49), it is nevertheless expected of disciples at least, that they should understand them. "Know ye not this parable?" asked the Lord once of the twelve, "and how then will ye know all parables?" (Mark iv. 13). Surely our shame it is to be akin to those who seeing do not perceive, and hearing do not understand. The Lord does not trifle with us, does not invite us to see what He forbids us to understand.* And there we must pause for the present. The visions themselves will come before us at another time.

The Lord addressed His people of old in visions. The eye then, of course, realized the revelation; for it was a sensible form of one sort or another which conveyed the revelation.

Then we learn that these things were not made known by direct communication, as when the Lord was present with His disciples, but generally through a representative angel to the Apostle John. Moreover, they were not only communicated, but also "signified," a word that would include instruction by visions as well as communications by words.

So it is here. "He sent and signified it" — made it known by signs, and in things which John saw. Revelation is essentially, in this way, a vision; and a vision, moreover, of things in themselves meant to be enigmatical. This need not daunt us when we realize the question which the Lord puts to His disciples when as yet they do not understand the parable that He has spoken to them: "Do ye not know this parable?" He says, "and how, then, will ye know all parables?" — a wonderful word, indeed, which should make us begin to realize how many things there may be around us with deep, deep meaning, such as we should love to have unfolded to us, and which yet only remain hidden from us by our lack of simple earnestness of faith. The parabolic style is so much the style of Revelation that it is hard to understand how any expositor should so fail to realize this as to insist upon absolute literality anywhere. In heaven itself, and in the central Object there, we find "a Lamb as it had been slain." You say, we know at once who is meant by that. Yes, but nevertheless, what is the style of speech here? Is it literal? Need we expect to go out from where we have heard heaven itself speaking in this way, and find things that are going on upon earth revealed with absolute plainness and literality? There is no congruity in this; and, moreover, it is not according to the general style in which the future is set before us in the prophets. In our own city, "the new Jerusalem," what mean these foundations of precious stones, these rivers and this tree of life, these gates of pearl and this street of gold like transparent glass? We know, indeed, while it does not lessen our wonder, that there are those who take all these things according to the simple letter of what we read; but surely it is plain that here also, here in some sense in a special way, the apostle's words are true, that "we see yet through a glass darkly," or, as the word really means, "in a riddle," "an enigma." We see not yet "face to face." Only in this way have the things spoken their proper dignity, their spirituality and fulness of blessing for us. We may wish, perhaps, that they were somewhat plainer. God, on the other hand, would rather invite us by these apparent difficulties, and make us seek with only the more energy to possess ourselves of what, through grace, is written for us, and therefore given to us, yet left for us to be exercised about, and to learn in proportion as we are really subject to that blessed Spirit who in the saints "searches the deep things of God."

An angel instead of the Lord Himself is used to communicate (or signify) this to John (v. 1). This implies that there is some distance between the Lord and the people, for He is seen as judging every action, every principle according to pure truth. A judge while on the bench is not free to show his affections even to his family. The angel communicated or signified this by signs (as indicated by the Greek word). Revelation is largely a book of signs (illustrative picture language). This does not mean that we can interpret them as we please, for a sign means what God intends by it and the meaning of the signs is virtually always explained elsewhere in scripture, though not every time the sign is used.

The style of the book is largely symbolic, and in this it resembles the prophecies of Daniel. But while in Daniel the symbols are generally explained, in this book their interpretation is usually left to be gathered from other portions of Scripture.

The language of Revelation is largely symbolical. One can only explain these symbols in connection with the Holy Scriptures as a whole and especially in connection with prophecy as a whole. For we learn from Peter, in 2 Peter 1:20, “...that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.”

"And the seven angels that had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound. And the first sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood," etc. The general bearing of this is apparent. These things are not to be taken in their mere obvious or physical drift. Supposing one looks at such a thing literally as a mountain falling into the sea (verse 8), would it ever turn the water into blood? Nothing of the sort. The fact is that these were pictures that passed before the eyes of the prophet. What the figures meant we have to gather from the general tenor of the word, by the teaching of the Spirit. I presume that even the prophet himself had to learn their meaning from the scriptures. For here we have St. John, not in the place of one before whom all was naked and open and at once understood, but rather simply as a Seer. He is not necessarily able, as a matter of course, to enter fully into all that is passing before him, but has need to mark, learn, and inwardly digest. We come in the Apocalypse to the ground of prophecy, and this is a different region from that in which the Holy Ghost opens out to us the things of Christ in the way of communion. Indeed what is told us of the prophet John himself throughout the book shows that he did not always nor of necessity appreciate the meaning of that which he beheld in the Spirit. In other words he saw a sort of panorama, and recorded the visions just as they appeared to himself; and we have to use the word of God by the Spirit to know what the symbols imply. We are not to suppose that the event itself will be a mere formal repetition of what the prefiguration was, but a reality answering to the foreseen shadow.*

The Revelation, as it is the latest, so it is by far the most elaborate, of all prophetic books, consisting throughout of visions, in which symbolic objects fill a larger place than anywhere else in scripture. Still, it is to be observed that the prophet conveys literally what he saw in the plainest language. The objects and acts in the scenes which he in the Spirit saw, and the words announced to his ears, are given with precision. The symbols we have to study and comprehend in the light of general usage and of the particular context; for symbolic forms, though less pliant than the ordinary expressions of thought, are, like the rest, modified by their associations; and the Holy Spirit alone can guide rightly in this and in all else of scripture; as common sense does in the affairs and intercourse of natural life. Save in the symbolism which forms a comparatively small part of prophecy, its language differs only in degree from that of scripture generally, and must be interpreted on exactly the same principle. Indeed even the symbolic portion finds its counterpart in the types not only of the Pentateuch, but of scriptural history as a whole. The form may vary according to divine wisdom, but one mind and purpose will be found to pervade all. Every scripture is inspired of God; and as Christ is the image of the invisible God, and He alone declared the Father, so is He the object of all revelation, and others only appear as related to Him.