A Controversial Book and a Controversial Topic
The End Times.
Not much else besides politics gets believers as worked up as the end times. Futurism, Preterism, Whatever. When some folks aren't culture-warring against liberals, immigrants and LGBTQ+ people, their focus shifts to those of a different eschatology. Literally. As a forum administrator I have watched friendships collapse over these questions. Probably not what Jesus wants. Thing of it is, many of the prevailing doctrines might be great fodder for awful movies and divisive rhetoric to scripture-bomb your neighbor with. But biblically? Not really there. Not without making stuff up. And because of the controversy surrounding it many just don't want to talk about it.
So lets talk about it.
We've domesticated the Book of Revelation. Some turned it into a prophecy chart with helicopters, microchips and nuclear bombs. I was on a nuclear bomb submarine, so that hook had me for awhile. Others dismiss it as primitive revenge fantasy, an embarrassing relative at the family gathering we'd rather not discuss. But our discomfort might come from the same place the original recipients felt it—because Revelation indicts us. It critiques both our churches and our societies.
John's apocalypse is a protest document with two targets: the compromised church and the violent, corrupt empire. It refuses to let us choose which corruption to confront. And that refusal is precisely what makes this interpretation of it so unsettling to comfortable American Christianity. So settle in and let's get unsettled together. Remember, if what you read disturbs you—It disturbed the scribe who needs the same grace first.
The Letters To The Churches: When Christianity Makes Peace with The World
The seven letters aren't gentle pastoral encouragement. They're direct confrontation.
To The Church at Ephesus
Ephesus maintained doctrinal correctness but lost its first love (Revelation 2:4)—the danger of orthodoxy without transformation, of guarding truth while the heart grows cold. Jesus warns them: "So remember the heights from which you have fallen, and repent [change your inner self—your old way of thinking, your sinful behavior—seek God's will] and do the works you did at first [when you first knew Me]; otherwise, I will visit you and remove your lampstand (the church, its impact) from its place—unless you repent" (Revelation 2:5, AMP).
| Church | John's Critique | Modern Parallel |
|---|---|---|
| Ephesus (Rev 2:1-7) | Lost first love while maintaining doctrinal purity; works without passionate devotion | Churches that excel at theological gatekeeping and doctrinal correctness but show little tangible love for neighbors, strangers, or enemies; passionate about being right, cold toward actual people |
To The Church at Sardis
Sardis had a reputation for being alive but was spiritually dead—the church as institutional maintenance, impressive from outside, hollow within: "I know your deeds; you have a name (reputation) that you are alive, but [in reality] you are dead" (Revelation 3:1, AMP).
| Church | John's Critique | Modern Parallel |
|---|---|---|
| Sardis (Rev 3:1-6) | Reputation for vitality but spiritually dead; impressive exterior masking internal emptiness | Congregations focused on institutional preservation, brand management, and cultural respectability; busy with programs and events but lacking transformative spiritual life; more concerned with attendance metrics than authentic discipleship |
To The Church at Pergamum
Pergamum tolerates "Balaamite" teaching (Revelation 2:14)—John's shorthand for those finding theological justifications to participate in imperial economic systems and civic cult worship. The reference to Balaam isn't random. In Numbers, Balaam couldn't curse Israel directly, so he taught Balak how to seduce them into compromise through economic incentives and religious accommodation (Numbers 25:1-3, 31:16).
| Church | John's Critique | Modern Parallel |
|---|---|---|
| Pergamum (Rev 2:12-17) | Tolerates teaching that accommodates imperial cult participation for economic advantage; "Balaamite" compromise | Christians who develop theological justifications for nationalism, militarism, or economic systems built on exploitation; accommodating civic religion (pledges, anthems, patriotic rituals) as benign when they actually demand ultimate allegiance |
To The Church at Thyatira
Thyatira faces similar judgment for tolerating "Jezebel" (Revelation 2:20)—another loaded biblical name evoking the foreign queen who introduced Baal worship, blending faith with political expediency and economic advantage. As New Testament scholar Richard Bauckham observes, "The issue was not whether Christians could be wholly uninvolved in the economic life of society, but whether they could compromise with its idolatrous aspects."1
| Church | John's Critique | Modern Parallel |
|---|---|---|
| Thyatira (Rev 2:18-29) | Tolerates prophetic voices that blend worship with cultural accommodation; "Jezebel" compromise of blending foreign spiritual practices with faith | Communities that baptize whatever cultural values currently hold power—whether consumerism, therapeutic self-help spirituality, or political ideology—calling it "relevance" or "contextualization" when it's actually syncretism |
The pattern emerges: When following Jesus becomes socially inconvenient or economically costly, Christians find ways to make peace with systems of exploitation and violence. We develop theologies that baptize our comfort. We prioritize institutional survival over prophetic witness. We confuse cultural respectability with faithfulness.
To The Church at Laodicea
Laodicea embodies this perfectly. They're wealthy, comfortable, self-sufficient—and spiritually bankrupt. "Because you say, 'I am rich, and have prospered and grown wealthy, and have need of nothing,' and you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked [without hope and in great need]" (Revelation 3:17, AMP). Their material prosperity blinds them to their poverty. They've mistaken economic success for divine blessing, comfort for faithfulness.
| Church | John's Critique | Modern Parallel |
|---|---|---|
| Laodicea (Rev 3:14-22) | Materially prosperous but spiritually bankrupt; lukewarm; mistakes wealth for divine blessing | Prosperity Gospel churches that interpret their prosperity as evidence of God's favor; comfortable Christianity that requires no sacrifice, confronts no injustice, and equates middle-class security with the abundant life Jesus promised |
John's message to these churches isn't "get your theology right" or "be more spiritual." It's "you've compromised with empire, and judgment begins with the household of God" (1 Peter 4:17, AMP).
The Beast: Naming Empire's Violence
Then John pivots his prophetic rage toward the empire itself.
Rome called itself eternal, the bringer of peace (Pax Romana), worthy of worship. Its propaganda portrayed the emperor as divine, its dominance as destiny, its violence as civilization. The Roman system promised security, prosperity, and social stability—as long as you participated, didn't ask too many questions, and offered the required incense at the imperial altar.
John names it differently: beast (Revelation 13:1). Dragon (Revelation 12:9). Babylon the whore, drunk on the blood of the saints (Revelation 17:5-6).
The imagery deliberately inverts Roman propaganda. Where Rome claimed divine sanction, John sees satanic power: "And the dragon gave him his power and his throne and great authority" (Revelation 13:2, AMP). Where Rome promised eternal rule, John prophesies its fall: "Fallen, fallen [certainly to be destroyed] is Babylon the great!" (Revelation 18:2, AMP). Where Rome celebrated its peace, John exposes the blood underneath: "I saw that the woman was drunk with the blood of the saints (God's people), and with the blood of the witnesses of Jesus [who were martyred]" (Revelation 17:6, AMP).
Theologian Walter Wink identified this clearly: "John is helping Christians to discern the nature of the system in which they are enmeshed, and to resist its seductions and pretensions."2 The beast isn't merely a distant future Antichrist—it's the present reality of empire demanding ultimate allegiance.
Revelation 18's lament reveals the economic engine driving empire. Merchants mourn Babylon's fall not because they've lost a theological system but because "no one buys their cargo anymore" (Revelation 18:11, AMP)—cargo that includes gold, silver, precious stones, pearls, fine linen, silk, expensive wood, articles of ivory and bronze and iron and marble, and, tellingly, "slaves and human lives" (Revelation 18:12-13, AMP). The system is built on consumption, extraction, the trafficking of bodies. Its wealth comes from exploitation masked as commerce.
This isn't abstract theological error. It's concrete economic critique. The empire's prosperity requires victims. Its peace requires violence against those who won't comply. Its stability requires the church's silent accommodation or active blessing.
As Willie James Jennings writes, "The seer John is showing us that the great economic powers of the world are not neutral. They carry with them a way of life, a vision of the good that is fundamentally at odds with the kingdom of God."3
The Both/And That Comfortable Christianity Can't Handle
Here's where Revelation becomes dangerous to tribal Christianity in any form.
Jesus, speaking through John's vision, indicts both the church's compromise with power and the empire's pretensions to ultimacy. You can't pick which corruption to confront and ignore the other.
Modern Christianity wants to choose. Some focus relentlessly on the church's internal purity—right belief, right behavior, right boundaries—while ignoring or even defending empire's violence when it serves their interests. They'll police sexuality and doctrine while sanctifying nationalism, economic exploitation, and militarism. Like Ephesus, they maintain orthodoxy while their love grows cold. Like Laodicea, they confuse material success with divine favor.
Others reduce Christianity to systemic critique—calling out empire's injustice while giving the church a pass on its own compromises, its own need for repentance, its own failure to embody alternative kingdom economics. They'll confront external power structures while tolerating internal theological accommodation that strips Christianity of its prophetic edge. Like Thyatira, they tolerate teaching that makes peace with the world's values as long as it sounds progressive.
Revelation refuses both moves.
The letters to the churches aren't optional throat-clearing before getting to the real enemy. John's vision insists that judgment begins with God's household (1 Peter 4:17, AMP). The church that accommodates empire, that grows comfortable with exploitation, that loses its first love while maintaining religious performance—this church faces divine confrontation. "Those whom I love, I rebuke and discipline; therefore be enthusiastic and repent [change your inner self—your old way of thinking, seek God's will]" (Revelation 3:19, AMP).
But neither does Revelation let empire off the hook by focusing only on the church's failures. The beast system—whatever form it takes, whatever nation embodies it—will fall. Its claims to ultimacy are false. Its violence will be answered. Its wealth built on blood will dissolve. "For in one single hour all the vast wealth has been laid waste" (Revelation 18:17, AMP).
Eugene Peterson captured this dual prophetic witness: "Revelation is not a book that encourages us to either accommodate culture or withdraw from it. It calls us to resist the seductions of culture and to witness to the lordship of Jesus Christ over against all other claimants."4
What This Means for the Spiritually Homeless
If you're exhausted by Christianity's tribal capture, if you love Jesus but feel worn down by how faith gets weaponized, Revelation offers a difficult gift: You're going to be uncomfortable everywhere.
Prophetic witness means you can't make peace with the church's accommodation to power. When Christianity blesses violence, sanctifies greed, wraps itself in nationalist flags, or mistakes cultural dominance for faithfulness—you speak. You don't get to be silent just because it's your tribe doing it. "He who has an ear, let him hear and heed what the Spirit says to the churches" (Revelation 2:7, AMP).
But prophetic witness also means you can't reduce Christianity to social critique while ignoring the church's need for transformation. The vision isn't "empire bad, church good if we just get politics right." It's "both need radical conversion—the church to its first love, empire to recognition that only the Lamb is worthy."
This is lonely territory. It means you're too Jesus-focused for those who've made Christianity into civil religion. And you're too insistent on the church's transformation for those who've reduced faith to political alignment with the right causes.
But it's the space where faithfulness lives.
As Marva Dawn writes, "The churches need to hear Revelation's call to resist the empires of our day and to live as alternative communities that demonstrate what happens when the Lamb is Lord."5
The Vision That Reframes Everything
Revelation doesn't end with escapist rapture—souls floating away from corrupt material reality. It ends with reconciliation and dwelling: "And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, 'See! The tabernacle of God is among men, and He will live among them, and they will be His people, and God Himself will be with them [as their God]'" (Revelation 21:3, AMP). This is the culmination John envisions—God dwelling with humanity, not humanity escaping to some disembodied heaven.
But the transformation John describes isn't primarily about renovating the physical cosmos. It's about the radical newness that comes through Christ: "Therefore if anyone is in Christ [that is, grafted in, joined to Him by faith in Him as Savior], he is a new creature [reborn and renewed by the Holy Spirit]; the old things [the previous moral and spiritual condition] have passed away. Behold, new things have come [because spiritual awakening brings a new life]" (2 Corinthians 5:17, AMP). The promise isn't escape but transformation—personal, communal, radical.
Which means faithfulness now involves both confronting empire's violence and cultivating communities that embody this new creation. Communities practicing alternative kingdom economics, reconciliation, justice, neighbor-love. You can't just critique the system while living comfortably within it. And you can't just focus on personal piety while ignoring systemic evil.
The new creature in Christ doesn't accommodate empire or withdraw from it—this transformed life confronts it prophetically while living into kingdom reality here and now. This is Paul's vision made concrete: "Therefore from now on we recognize no one [as privileged] according to the flesh [man's superficial standards—whether religion, wealth, or intellect]. Even though we once regarded Christ from a human viewpoint, yet now [we do so] no longer... Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ" (2 Corinthians 5:16, 20, AMP).
John's vision calls us to a dangerous space: loving the church enough to call it to repentance, confronting empire without becoming another version of it, staying faithful when faithfulness makes you homeless in both kingdoms. The exhortation echoes throughout the letters: "He who overcomes [the world through believing that Jesus is the Son of God]..." (Revelation 2:7, 11, 17, 26; 3:5, 12, 21, AMP)—not through violence or domination, but through faithful witness, even unto death.
This is the narrow way. Not the safe center between extremes, but the hard path that refuses false choices—the Jesus of Scripture rather than the tame Jesus empire prefers or the culturally captive Jesus the church keeps creating.
The question Revelation asks isn't whether we're on the right political team or have the correct theological positions. It's whether we're bowing to the beast—whether through the church's accommodation or through empire's seductions—or whether we're following the Lamb wherever he goes (Revelation 14:4, AMP), even when it costs us everything.
"Then I looked, and this is what I saw: the Lamb stood [firmly established] on Mount Zion, and with Him a hundred and forty-four thousand [who were redeemed], who had His name and His Father's name inscribed on their foreheads [signifying God's own possession]" (Revelation 14:1, AMP). This is the alternative community—marked not by empire's brand but by the Lamb's name, singing a new song that only those who've refused compromise can learn. They are the new creatures, transformed by Christ, living as a prophetic sign of what humanity can become when it rejects the beast and follows the Lamb.
The choice before us is the same one before John's original readers: Will we hear what the Spirit says to the churches? Will we resist the beast's seductions? Will we worship the one who sits on the throne and the Lamb (Revelation 5:13, AMP), refusing all counterfeit claims to our ultimate allegiance?
The vision is clear. The warning is urgent. "Yes, I am coming quickly [without delay]" (Revelation 22:12, AMP).
Footnotes
- Richard Bauckham, The Theology of the Book of Revelation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 35.
- Walter Wink, Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992), 88.
- Willie James Jennings, Acts: A Theological Commentary on the Bible (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2017), 14. While this quote is from Jennings' commentary on Acts, his consistent theological method applies to reading empire in Revelation.
- Eugene Peterson, Reversed Thunder: The Revelation of John and the Praying Imagination (San Francisco: HarperOne, 1988), 14.
- Marva J. Dawn, Joy in Our Weakness: A Gift of Hope from the Book of Revelation (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 178.
Book of Revelation FAQ
Revelation is about resistance. John wrote to churches living under Roman domination, facing pressure to accommodate empire's demands for ultimate allegiance. The book names that pressure, exposes the violence underneath Rome's "peace," and calls believers to worship only the Lamb—even when it costs everything.
It's not a coded newspaper about our future. It's a prophetic witness against empire's pretensions and the church's compromises—then and now. The symbols John uses (beasts, dragons, Babylon) weren't puzzles to decode. His original readers recognized them immediately as critiques of Rome and warnings about accommodation.
The question Revelation asks isn't "when will Jesus return?" but "who are you worshiping right now?" Are you bowing to the beast system, or following the Lamb?
The rapture as taught in dispensationalist theology—believers suddenly vanishing before tribulation—isn't in Revelation. Or anywhere in Scripture, actually.
The concept comes from a 19th-century theological innovation (John Nelson Darby, popularized through the Scofield Reference Bible and later the Left Behind series). It requires reading Paul's language about being "caught up" in 1 Thessalonians 4:17 through a very specific theological lens that wasn't part of Christian teaching for 1,800 years.
What is in Revelation? God dwelling with humanity (21:3). The new creature in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17). Transformation, not evacuation. The promise isn't escape from a corrupt world but God's presence with us as we witness faithfully in the midst of empire's violence and the church's compromise.
Correct. That interpretation—assigning each church to a historical era culminating in Laodicea as the "end times church"—is another dispensationalist innovation without biblical warrant.
The seven churches were actual congregations in Asia Minor. John wrote to their specific situations. They weren't prophetic symbols of future church history; they were real communities facing real pressures to accommodate Rome.
The power of these letters isn't that Ephesus = the apostolic age and Laodicea = our lukewarm present. It's that every church in every age faces these temptations: losing first love, tolerating compromise, mistaking wealth for blessing, maintaining reputation while spiritually dead.
Read them as diagnostic tools for the church now, not as a timeline.
That's the wrong question, because it makes this about identifying a specific nation rather than recognizing a pattern.
"Babylon" in Revelation isn't a proper name for one specific future nation. It's John's term for empire—any system built on violence, economic exploitation, and demands for ultimate allegiance. Rome was the beast in John's context. Other empires have embodied the pattern since.
Does America exhibit Babylon's characteristics? A fair question to wrestle with: military dominance presented as peace, economic system requiring exploitation, civil religion demanding allegiance, wealth built on others' suffering. But so has every empire in history.
The point isn't to decode which nation is Babylon. It's to recognize beastly patterns wherever they appear and refuse to bow, regardless of whether the empire speaks Latin, English, or Mandarin.
Only if your hope is in escaping the world rather than in Christ's victory over death and empire's false claims to ultimacy.
The blessed hope is still there—just not where dispensationalism placed it. The hope isn't a rapture escape hatch. It's:
- God dwelling with humanity (Revelation 21:3)
- Death defeated (Revelation 21:4)
- All things made new through Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17)
- The Lamb's victory over the beast (Revelation 5:5-6)
- A kingdom that outlasts every empire (Daniel 2:44)
That's more hope, not less. It means our faithful witness matters now. Our resistance to empire and call for the church's repentance aren't just killing time until evacuation—they're participating in the kingdom breaking in.
Read it as apocalyptic literature—a specific genre with its own rules that the original audience understood.
Apocalyptic writing uses vivid symbolic imagery to:
- Unmask the present reality behind official propaganda
- Comfort the persecuted by revealing empire's true nature and certain fall
- Call people to faithful resistance
- Reframe current suffering in light of God's ultimate victory
So read Revelation asking:
- What is this symbol revealing about power, violence, and worship?
- How does this confront both empire and compromised church?
- What does faithful witness look like in response?
- Where am I tempted to bow to the beast or accommodate his demands?
The book becomes more challenging this way—and more relevant. You can't just identify the Antichrist on cable news and feel satisfied. You have to examine your own compromises.
It means living in the tension of both/and rather than the comfort of either/or.
It means:
- Calling the church to repentance when it accommodates power, blesses violence, or mistakes cultural dominance for faithfulness
- Naming empire's violence when it claims divine sanction, demands ultimate allegiance, or masks exploitation as prosperity
- Refusing to choose between these critiques—you don't get to focus on one while ignoring the other
- Cultivating communities that practice alternative kingdom economics: generosity instead of accumulation, reconciliation instead of tribalism, justice instead of exploitation
- Maintaining allegiance to the Lamb alone, even when both church and empire demand your loyalty
It looks like:
- Being too focused on Jesus for those who've made Christianity into civil religion
- Being too insistent on the church's transformation for those who've reduced faith to political activism
- Occupying the lonely space where you're spiritually homeless in both kingdoms
Prophetic witness is embodied, local, and costly. It's not just critique—it's living an alternative.
Yes. Emphatically.
Dispensationalism is less than 200 years old. Christians baithfully followed Jesus for 1,800 years before John Nelson Darby systematized it, before the Scofield Bible popularized it, before Clarence Larkin charted it, before Hal Lindsey wrote The Late Great Planet Earth, before Tim LaHaye penned Left Behind.
The early church didn't have rapture theology. Neither did the Reformers. Neither did the church fathers. Neither did the vast majority of Christians throughout history and across the globe today.
What they did have: expectation of Christ's return, hope in resurrection, commitment to faithful witness regardless of cost, willingness to resist empire's demands.
Rejecting dispensationalism doesn't mean abandoning orthodoxy. It means returning to how the church read Scripture for most of its history—and how John's original audience understood his message.
No—and that accusation reveals the problem.
When you read Revelation as indicting both empire and compromised church, you become illegible to tribal categories. Those who've reduced Christianity to political conservatism hear the empire critique and call you progressive. Those who've reduced Christianity to political liberalism hear the church critique and call you fundamentalist.
This reading refuses both accommodations:
- Against one side: The church does face judgment for its compromises, its loss of first love, its tolerance of false teaching, its comfort with exploitation. You can't ignore that.
- Against the other side: Empire is beastly, its claims to ultimacy are false, its violence will be answered. You can't baptize that.
Progressive Christianity often softens the church critique in favor of systemic analysis. Conservative Christianity often softens the empire critique in favor of personal piety. Revelation refuses both moves.
This is about Scripture's actual witness, not partisan positioning.
Liberation theology rightly emphasizes God's concern for the oppressed and critiques systems of domination. Where this reading shares common ground: recognizing that Revelation confronts empire's violence and economic exploitation.
But there are key differences:
- Church accountability: This reading doesn't give the church a pass. Liberation theology sometimes focuses so heavily on systemic critique that it underemphasizes the church's own compromises. Revelation hits both—hard.
- Theological framework: Liberation theology emerged from Marxist analysis applied to Scripture. This reading stays within apocalyptic literature's own categories: beast, Babylon, Lamb, new creation.
- The "how" of transformation: Liberation theology can emphasize political action as primary means of kingdom realization. This reading emphasizes new creatures in Christ living as alternative communities—political witness flows from transformed lives, not the other way around.
The overlap exists because Revelation actually does critique empire. But the differences matter because Revelation critiques all kingdoms that aren't the Lamb's—including revolutionary movements that become their own empires.
Think of it this way: Liberation theology and conservative theology both get half the picture. One sees empire's evil but downplays church compromise. The other emphasizes church purity but accommodates empire. Revelation says both are beastly.
First, recognize you're not alone. Many believers are wrestling with the gap between what they read in Scripture and what they've been taught about end times.
Some options:
- Stay and engage thoughtfully: Can you raise questions without being divisive? Some churches have space for gracious disagreement on secondary issues. If your leadership is secure enough to allow questions, you might help others who are also wrestling.
- Focus on what matters more: End times theology is not primary. If your church embodies Jesus's love, practices justice, serves the marginalized, and maintains scriptural authority on essential doctrines, you might be able to live with disagreement on eschatology.
- Recognize when it's toxic: If dispensationalism in your context fuels: nationalism that baptizes violence, tribalism that dehumanizes others, or escapism that abandons witness in the world—that's not a secondary issue anymore. It's beastly theology enabling beastly behavior. Exactly what Revelation addresses.
- Find community elsewhere: Sometimes faithful witness means finding a church that doesn't require you to affirm theology that contradicts Scripture. That's not being divisive. That's being honest.
Whatever you do: maintain grace, speak truth, and remember the church is bigger than one congregation's eschatology. You're part of a global, historical body that's always included diverse views on secondary matters.
Still have questions? The comments are open. Let's wrestle with this together—because faithfulness often requires honest questions, not just confident answers.
