Navigating the Book of Revelation: Special Studies on Important Issues
Digital Logos Edition
Overview
Navigating the Book of Revelation: Special Studies on Important Issues is the first book produced from research from Kenneth Gentry’s Revelation Commentary Project. This is not a commentary on Revelation. Rather, in it the student of Revelation will find fifteen special studies on key issues that are helpful for working his way through John’s mysterious book. Some of the studies are technical studies; some are more general. All offer important insights into the redemptive-historical preterist interpretation of Revelation. In this work the reader will see how John put on the mantle of the Old Testament prophet to confront Israel in her rebellion, and will understand John’s anger with Israel, paralleling John the Baptist, Jeremiah, Isaiah, and Ezekiel. The book also details how John denounces Israel for her persecuting Christians and how he “excommunicates” the temple as an idol for Israel. Israel’s involvement with Rome against young Christianity is also explored, among answers to perplexing questions, such as: “Why did John send such a Hebraic book to Asian Christians?” In addition, an important appendix is included that resoundingly answers the charge of anti-Semitism, which is often hurled at preterism.
Top Highlights
“I believe Revelation was written prior to the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70.” (Page 13)
“Speaking in terms of the redemptive-historical drama, the consequences of A.D. 70 are so significant that ‘the destruction of Jerusalem and of its temple marked not the end of the world, but the end of a world. It indicated the final separation of Judaism from Christianity, of the synagogue from the Church … which thereby opens up principally to the Gentiles.’17 When God removes the temple, the holy faith is universalized. It is no longer sequestered in a particular land, focused on a local shrine, and maintained by a singular people (Mt 21:43; Jn 4:20–23; Heb 8:13).” (Page 10)
“We learn further that the seven heads also represent a political situation in which five kings have fallen, the sixth is, and the seventh is yet to come and will remain but for a little while. Remarkably we must note that Nero is the sixth emperor of Rome. Flavius Josephus, the Jewish contemporary of John, points out that Julius Caesar was the first emperor of Rome and that he was followed in succession by Augustus, Tiberius, Caius (a.k.a. Caligula), Claudius, and Nero (Antiquities 18; 19).” (Page 21)
“Revelation 21–22 does not speak of the consummate new creation order. Rather, it provides an ideal conception of new covenant Christianity, presenting it as the spiritual new creation and the new Jerusalem. Though the ultimate, consummate, eternal new creation is implied in these verses (via the now/not yet schema of New Testament revelation), John’s actual focus is on the current, unfolding, redemptive new creation principle in Christ.” (Page 177)