Mennonite Weekly Review

On my desk is Revelation: Making Sense of Its Message in the 21st Century by John M. Miller, published by Leola Publisher (2255 New Holland Pike, Lancaster, PA 17601, phone 717-798-3663, e-mail LeolaPublisher@comcast.net), 2009, $21.97.

Marlin Jeschke, of Goshen, Ind., is retired from teaching at Goshen College.

Miller, who taught at Oral Rob­erts University, has written a welcome addition to recent studies of Revelation by Mennonite authors Loren Johns, Nelson Kraybill and Ted Grimsrud and Brethren in Christ author John Yeatts. Grims­rud, professor of Bible and religion at Eastern Mennonite University, writes the foreword to this commentary. Miller expresses appreciation for study under the late Chester Lehman at EMU.

Grimsrud notes that early church authorities had questions about admitting the Book of Revelation to the biblical canon. In later church history Martin Luther had little appreciation for Revelation, and it was the one book of the Bible on which John Calvin wrote no commentary. It still mystifies many readers today.

Miller parts company with two popular interpretations of Revelation: 1) that it foretells successive ages of church history and 2) that it predicts events still to come. He claims the author of Revelation combines Jewish apocalyptic literary genre with the devices of Greek drama to give seven visions or scenes that describe the situation of the church in his own day, likely during the reign of the Roman emperor Domitian from 81 to 96 A.D.

The church’s experience in that era included some local persecution. But as the first vision of the seven churches shows, some congregations were tempted to compromise with imperial economic prosperity. In view of these conditions, the successive visions alternate between encouragement and warning.

Miller follows recent bib- lical scholarship in his decoding the symbols of beasts and trumpets, bowls and scrolls, seals and riders of horses, the 144,000 and the two witnesses, the woman and the Lamb, Babylon and the New Jerusa­lem.

He shows that the seven main visions depict worldly political, economic and even religious powers that oppose the reign of Jesus Christ, especially worship of the emperor Domitian as god, as expected in the state cult.

Readers should be invited to exercise some patience in following Miller through the middle chapters of his exposition. He is not overly technical, and he gets it done in about 200 pages, which is no mean feat.

Most important, Miller shows that because Revelation was written for the church of its time, it is pertinent for the church of every time, including our time, because we too are vulnerable to the pressures and temptations of worldly politics and economics.

Readers should not be put off by the heavy theme of wrath and judgment in Revelation. Such judgment, Miller explains, includes both God’s permission to let people reap the consequences of their choices and God’s determination to set things right. Miller sees that the meaning of judgment in biblical thought is ultimately to achieve God’s saving purposes.

In keeping with this truth, the final picture in Revelation is the New Jerusalem. It is not, however, “a picture of a heavenly abode of the saints after this life,” as popularly held, but “God’s dwell­ing on earth… . It is a shift from picturing God’s people dwelling in heaven with God to God dwelling on earth with God’s people.”

This book does not have an index or bibliography, something I missed in wanting to go back to earlier mentions of some terms or authors quoted. Indexes are easy to create in this day of computers.

Marlin Jeschke, of Goshen, Ind., is professor emeritus of philosophy and religion at Goshen College.