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by analyzing the visual representations of Christ, His titles, His association with the Father, and by comparing the Christology of the book with the other writings of the New Testament.
VISUAL REPRESENTATIONS OF CHRIST When reading the Apocalypse, one might get the impression that it presents a different Christology than the gospels and the epistles of the New Testament. This is because the visions of the Apocalypse form a different kind of communication from that used in the other books. John obviously uses apocalyptic language to describe the exalted Christ.
Vision of the Glorified Christ in Chapter One The apocalyptic language used by John has been subjected to various hermeneutical principles. Some scholars press the symbols to unreasonable extremes, and it is true, the heavy symbolic content of apocalyptic language makes interpretation difficult. Yet one should not assume that because some things are symbolic, everything is to be taken symbolically. Isbon Beckwith, instead, argues that one needs to see the relationship between John’s language and that of the Old Testament. He states, “Christ appears, portrayed in traits taken chiefly from descriptions of God and angelic beings given in the Old Testament which are meant to picture him in dazzling glory and majesty. . . . A symbolic meaning is not to be sought in the details, except so far as they form traits in a picture of resplendent glory, and contain current terms used in expressing divine activities.”2 The first chapter of the Apocalypse contains a heavy concentration of references from Daniel, mostly from the seventh and tenth chapters. Greg Beale suggests that Rev 1:7–20 may be a “midrash” on the two chapters in Daniel. Beale uses “midrash” in its most general sense to refer to an interpretative expansion of one text that draws on other texts to supplement its meaning. Thus, John records the vision by using portions of the seventh and tenth chapters of Daniel as a model and 3
by weaving other Old Testament texts into this framework as well.
2
Isbon T. Beckwith, The Apocalypse of John (New York: MacMillan, 1919), 258. G. K. Beale, “The Book of Revelation: A Commentary on the Greek Text,” in The New International Greek Testament Commentary, eds. I. H. Marshall and D. A. Hagner (Grand Rapids: Erdmann, 1999), 220. 3