The Book of Revelation

The Revelation, or Apocalypse, of John is the only fully prophetic book of the New Testament: written from exile on the island of Patmos and unfolding through visions of the heavenly throne, the slain and risen Lamb, the seals, trumpets, and bowls of judgment, the cosmic conflict, and the descent of the New Jerusalem. It names its author simply “John,” “your brother and partner in the tribulation.” This file sets out the book’s structure, its overwhelming Christology, and its self-attribution.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Apostle and Evangelist)

The Vision from Patmos

The book opens by naming itself and its origin: “The revelation (apokalypsis) of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place” (Revelation 1:1). The author identifies himself four times simply as “John” (Rev. 1:1, 1:4, 1:9, 22:8) — “I, John, your brother and partner in the tribulation and the kingdom and the patient endurance that are in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos on account of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus” (Rev. 1:9). Patmos is a small island in the Aegean off the coast of Asia Minor, and the early tradition, beginning with Irenaeus, understands John’s presence there as exile under persecution, placing the vision “towards the end of Domitian’s reign” (Irenaeus, Against Heresies 5.30.3; trans. ANF 1), that is, around AD 95. There, “in the Spirit on the Lord’s day” (Rev. 1:10), John receives the vision he is commanded to write and send to the seven churches of Asia.

Structure

The Apocalypse is built on the symbolism of sevens. After the opening vision of the risen Christ “in the midst of the lampstands” (Rev. 1:12–20), there come the seven letters to the churches of Asia — Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea (Rev. 2–3) — each a word of praise, rebuke, and promise. Smyrna’s letter (Rev. 2:8–11) is the church of Polycarp (see Polycarp and the Asian Tradition). Then the seer is caught up to the heavenly throne-room (Rev. 4–5), where he beholds the worship of God and the Lamb. There follow three great series of sevens — the seven seals (Rev. 6–8), the seven trumpets (Rev. 8–11), and the seven bowls of wrath (Rev. 15–16) — interwoven with visions of the woman and the dragon (Rev. 12), the beasts (Rev. 13), and the harvest of the earth. The book moves to the fall of “Babylon the great” (Rev. 17–18), the marriage supper of the Lamb (Rev. 19), the millennial reign and the last judgment (Rev. 20), and finally the vision of “a new heaven and a new earth” and the descent of the New Jerusalem, where “God will wipe away every tear” and “death shall be no more” (Rev. 21:1–4; 21:9–22:5).

The Christology of the Lamb

For all its strangeness, the Apocalypse is centrally a book about Christ, and its Christology is among the highest in the New Testament. The risen Lord appears in the opening vision with the attributes of the Ancient of Days from Daniel — “his head and his hair were white, like white wool” (Rev. 1:14; cf. Daniel 7:9) — and declares, “I am the first and the last, and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades” (Rev. 1:17–18). He applies to Himself the divine titles “the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end” (Rev. 22:13; cf. 1:8; 21:6). At the book’s center stands the paradox that defines its whole vision: the seer weeps because no one is found worthy to open the scroll, and is told that “the Lion of the tribe of Judah” has conquered — but when he looks, he sees “a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain” (Rev. 5:5–6). The conqueror is the slaughtered Lamb; the victory is won through the Cross. And the Lamb receives the very worship offered to God: “to him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever” (Rev. 5:13). This shared worship of God and the Lamb is the book’s Trinitarian and Christological heart (cf. Christology).

Worship and the Liturgical Imagination

The Apocalypse is saturated with worship: the ceaseless “Holy, holy, holy” of the living creatures (Rev. 4:8), the elders casting down their crowns (Rev. 4:10), the incense that is “the prayers of the saints” (Rev. 5:8; 8:3–4), the white robes, the lampstands, the altar, the heavenly liturgy of the Lamb. The Orthodox tradition has long seen in this heavenly worship the pattern and source of the Church’s own Liturgy — the earthly assembly joining the unending praise of heaven. The thrice-holy hymn (the Sanctus / Trisagion tradition), the censing, the “Worthy is the Lamb,” and the imagery of the heavenly altar all have their scriptural depth here. Whatever the difficulties of its reception (see The Eastern Reception of the Apocalypse), the Apocalypse shaped the Church’s vision of worship as participation in the liturgy of heaven, and its imagery pervades Orthodox hymnography and iconography even where the text itself is not read aloud.

Reading the Apocalypse in the Tradition

The Orthodox tradition has generally read the Apocalypse neither as a coded timetable of future events nor as mere allegory, but as a prophetic and liturgical unveiling of the abiding reality of Christ’s victory and the Church’s struggle and hope. The standard patristic commentary in the Greek tradition is that of Andrew of Caesarea (early 7th century), whose Commentary on the Apocalypse did much to secure the book’s place in the East and which reads it largely spiritually and ecclesially. The recurring numbers — seven, twelve, the half-week of years, the 144,000 — are read as symbols of fullness and of the people of God rather than as literal counts. The “thousand years” of Revelation 20 the mainstream tradition, following Augustine in the West and the general patristic consensus in the East, has read as the present age of the Church rather than as a future earthly reign, rejecting the chiliasm (millenarianism) that some early writers, including Papias (in Eusebius, HE 3.39.12) and the earlier Irenaeus, had entertained. The book’s final word is hope: “Behold, I am coming soon” (Rev. 22:20), to which the Church answers, “Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.”

The Question of “Which John”

The book’s self-attribution to “John” (Rev. 1:1, 1:9; 22:8), without further specification, was enough for Irenaeus and the wider second-century Church to identify the seer with the Apostle and Evangelist (AH 4.20.11; 5.30.3). But the author calls himself “John” and “your brother” rather than “apostle,” and the book’s Greek, style, and theology differ markedly from the Gospel’s — differences that led Dionysius of Alexandria, in the third century, to argue that the seer was a different John (in Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 7.25), and that contributed to the book’s slow reception in the East. The Orthodox tradition maintains the identification of the seer with John the Theologian; the ancient and modern arguments are set out in the companion file and in Section 09 (see The Eastern Reception of the Apocalypse and The Authorship Debates).

References

The Revelation of John (cited throughout by chapter and verse); Daniel 7:9–14.
Irenaeus of Lyons. Against Heresies 4.20.11; 5.30.3. Trans. ANF Vol. 1.
Eusebius of Caesarea. Ecclesiastical History 3.39; 7.25. Trans. NPNF Series II, Vol. 1.
Andrew of Caesarea. Commentary on the Apocalypse. Trans. Eugenia Scarvelis Constantinou. Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 2011.
Charles, R. H. A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Revelation of St. John. 2 vols. ICC. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1920.