Journal: Conservative Theological Journal
Volume: CTJ 01:1 (Apr 1997)
Article: Introductory Thoughts on Allegorical Interpretation and the Book of Revelation Part I
Author: Mal Couch

CTJ 1:1 (April 1997) p. 13

Introductory Thoughts on Allegorical Interpretation and the Book of Revelation
Part I

Mal Couch

President & Professor of Theology and Languages
Tyndale Theological Seminary, Ft. Worth, TX

Introduction: Controversy Over Revelation

The book of Revelation is again in the path of the prophetic storm. There are those who still want to relegate this incredible prophecy to the junk heap of jumbled mysticism, designate it as a strange symbolic allegory of church persecution, or make this letter a mysterious prophecy that was somehow fulfilled in the early church.

Even the world speaks of Armageddon, shuddering at the book’s descriptions of future terror to come, and even those most skeptical know of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Unfortunately, the church has made no clear stand in handling the book, leaving its members in confusion.

There is no question that Revelation requires effort to understand its meaning for even skilled Bible readers, but most theologians still refuse to believe that God can predict through prophets like John 2, 000 years into the future. Below, is a short history of the various views to illustrate how the interpretation of Revelation has fared through the centuries.

The Interpretative Confusion of the Book of Revelation

It was C. I. Scofield who observed that, as we near the time of the events of the book of Revelation, the things prophesied within will become more clear to our understanding. Most premillennialists would certainly agree. And most premillennialists would hold to a futurist position, whether they understood the details of the predictions or not. But premillennialism has not held the high ground in understanding Revelation. The amillennial view has dominated the history of the interpretation of the book, though Walvoord and others show that this was not the view of the early church. Lange and Walvoord give a short history of how the book has been interpreted through the centuries.

The Second and Third Centuries.

Walvoord notes:

The second century like the first bears a sustained testimony to the premillennial character of the early church. Even the amillenarians claim no adherents whatever by name to their position in the second century except in the

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allegorizing school of interpretation which arose at the very close of the second century.1

Walvoord further writes:

… Justin Martyr (100–168) is quite outspoken. He wrote: ‘But I and whatsoever Christians are orthodox in a...