Revelation interpreted

Front matter

J BY

REV. Gf A.^KRATZER

Lecturer, Teacher and Practitioner of Christian Science,

Table Of Contents

PAGE

Introduction ■ i

Prologue 29

Preface

As Jacob wrestled with the angel through a long night of darkened understanding, but would not let him go until he had gained the victory and won his way into the morning light of spiritual illumination, so the author has wrestled, not with one angel, but with many — the Angels of the Apocalypse — through a night much longer than that of an arctic winter, during which he was unable to clearly understand their heavenly message. Wrestling until he prevailed, he has been blessed in seeing the ladder of mediatorial consciousness* which links the human to the divine, and by which the angels or divine ideas descend, only that they may ascend to lead humanity upward. He hopes that the perusal of the following interpretation of the Apocalypse may aid every reader in gaining a more clear and helpful understanding of the word of God as presented in St. John's vision.

G. A. K.

* "That life-link forming the connection through which the real reaches the unreal." — Science and Health, 350:18.

In the last chapter of the Gospel of St. John, it is related that Peter, looking upon John, "saith to Jesus, Lord, and what shall this man do? Jesus saith unto him, If I will that he tarry- till I come, what is that to thee? Follow thou me. Then went this saying abroad among the brethren, that that disciple should not die ; yet Jesus said not unto him, He shall not die; but, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?" Long after all of the other original twelve disciples had passed away, and even after the apostle Paul had suffered martyrdom, St. John was still living; and, in the last few verses of chapter i of the Apocalypse, its author tells us that Christ Jesus appeared to him, when "he was in the isle that is called Patmos", and he further adds : "He laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not ; I am the first and the last : I am he that liveth and was dead ; and, behold, I am alive forevermore, Amen; and have the keys [the solution of the problem] of hell and of death. Write the things which thou hast seen [observed], and the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter." It is not to be presumed that Christ Jesus appeared in the flesh to the author of the Apocalypse at this time, but, rather, in some such sense as he appeared to Paul on his famous journey to Damascus, though with a much fuller message than that given to Paul, — the message of the Apocalypse itself. So it would seem that St. John did "tarry" till the Christ came to him again after the ascension and gave him the message which is to be the subject of our study.

Arguments for Authorship by Evangelist John

The perfect fulfilment of the prophecy at the end of the Gospel of John through the giving of the Apocalypse by Christ to a man named John, as related above, would seem to the author, when taken in connection with the other considerations which are to follow, to establish beyond question that the Apocalypse was written by the same person who wrote the fourth Gospel, and not by some other man named John, as a few scholars still contend. <In the second verse of chapter i, the author of the Apocalypse declares that he was the servant of Jesus Christ "who bare record [in the Greek, emarturese, the historical past tense] of the word of God, and the testimony of Jesus Christ, and of all things that he saw". This is but a declaration that the author of the Apocalypse was the John who, in the fourth Gospel, written many years before, was already well known to have borne record "of the word of God, and of the testimony of Jesus Christ, and of all things that he saw." This declaration also sounds characteristically similar to the opening words of the First Epistle General of John : "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled of the word of life. . . . That which we have seen and heard, declare we unto you." Any seeming discrepancies in the literary style of the- fourth Gospel and of the Apocalypse can be explained by the fact that they were doubtless written many years apart and under widely varying circumstances ; in other words, in very different periods of John's experience and literary and spiritual development.

It is regarded as practically certain that John wrote his Gospel in Hebrew during his residence in Jerusalem and then later translated it into Greek — or possibly employed a scribe to translate it under his supervision. On the other hand, it seems clear that John wrote or dictated the Apocalypse directly in Greek, — in extreme age, and during his residence at Ephesus ; and there seem to be internal evidences that he wrote under great stress, if not under excitement, — haste to put into writing the great message that was crowding in upon him faster than he could inscribe it, — a very common experience with those who write by inspiration. To more than counterbalance apparent differences between the literary style of the Gospel, the Epistle of John, and the Apocalypse, there are striking resemblances, — notably the occurrence in all of these works of a characteristic technical use of many Greek words and phrases, such as would be developed in the diction of a writer who was expressing himself on some definite line of thought with scientific accuracy and discrimination in order that he might bring out fine shades of meaning. This fact was first observed perhaps by Bishop Westcott and is now freely commented on among scholarly critics and interpreters of the New Testament. The summation of the entire question may be found in the fact pointed out by a careful student of the whole situation, that, from all the records of the different Christians of the period, which have come down to us, it is impossible to decide upon any one, save John the son of Zebedee, who could have had anything like the spiritual experience and the other special qualifications which were necessary in order to have written this work.

Evidences of Greek Influence

John was a Jew, thoroughly familiar with Jewish customs and habits of thought, and with the Hebrew Scriptures, although he wrote in Greek. It is also doubtless true, though not as evident to the average reader of the present day, that John was familiar with Greek literature, and especially with the writings of Plato, and that the form of the Book and some of its contents are due to Greek influence. The line of thought symbolized in the letters to the seven churches of Asia is strongly suggestive of the philosophy of Plato. When we remember that, from the time of Alexander the Great onward, the Greek language was the language of literature and of culture over a large part of Western Asia and Northwestern Africa, we can at once understand that the Greek dramas and Greek philosophy, and even the Greek mythology, would naturally have been read by any person of even moderate learning, living in that part of the world ; and that St. John, in his later years, came strongly under Greek influence, need not, therefore, seem surprising. We remember that, as related in the seventeenth chapter of Acts, St. Paul quoted from one of the Greek poets in a way which indicates his familiarity with the Greek literature.

References to Astronomy

In that time, there was not, of course, much well-defined knowledge in the realm covered by what we call natural science. There was some knowledge of the anatomy of the human body, and there was an elaborately developed system of astronomy, far more correct on its descriptive side than on its physical and mathematical sides, as measured by present standards. This system of astronomy, including its signs of the zodiac and subdivisions thereof, was currently used in reckoning time ; and we have to take this fact into account in order to understand some phrases in the Apocalypse.

Problem of Interpretation Not Unsolvable

At the beginning of the Apocalypse, John represents himself as being commanded to write a book embodying a message given to him ; and he has done so, expressing the thought in a series of images and symbols which have proven so intricate and confusing to all readers, that, until very recent years, hardly a beginning of a successful interpretation of the greater portion of the Book had been made, notwithstanding that scores of commentators, from the third century down to the present time, have tried to unravel the mystery, among whom there is the widest imaginable divergence of opinion as to the interpretation of many chapters.* As explained in the chapter on the Prologue, following, this figurative expression was probably the way in which the ideas came to John's aspiring thought, and the figures which he used were clear to him, but it would seem that only those can unravel their meaning who have attained a consciousness in some degree approximating John's spiritual level, and thus have sufficient understanding of the ways of God with men to know what must be approximately the right idea in a given situation, and hence approximately what St. John might be expected to teach. Having in this way a clear indication as to what general meaning to look for in connection with a given symbol, the investigator is, after more or less thought, able to see exactly what the meaning must certainly be. The meaning having thus been once seen, it will be found to fit upon the image or symbol perfectly, and usually the interpretation of the symbol brings out and enforces a lesson of great value.

The Author's Experience

Like all students of human development, personal and racial, the author has long been perplexed as to what attitude he should hold toward certain human problems. In studying the Apocalypse, he came, after a time, to see that in certain chapters St. John is dealing with just these problems, and

* Mr. F. L. Rawson, M.I.E.E., A.M.I.C.E., of London, author of "Life Understood," a book which students of metaphysics would do well to read, suggests that perhaps the principal reason why the message of the Apocalypse was not given in plain language is, that it was better that what was to transpire in the future should not be made known to mankind except as the Science of spiritual understanding was more fully attained, so that men would know how to mentally handle and destroy evil as its fuller workings became revealed. It might have had a disastrous effect if all the evil uncovered in the Apocalypse should have been made known to mankind when there were none who would understand how to scientifically utilize the power of God to meet this evil.

with this cue, after further meditation upon the symbolism used, he reached the conviction that St. John takes a definite attitude with regard to these problems. His teaching, thus interpreted, was found to be extremely helpful and convincing. It has clarified the mind of the author with regard to several vexed questions in relation to which he had not previously felt the conviction of certitude. He is therefore led to think that many other students of the Book may reach the same satisfying conclusions, and that, when St. John's teaching is clearly understood by them, it will bear witness for itself as being authoritative and final, — as being indeed the very dictum of the Christ, to be implicitly followed and obeyed.

Christian Science the Key

In verse 7 of chapter 10, John represents the Christ as declaring solemnly that "In the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished." As is well known, in Scripture the symbolical sense of "seven" is completeness or completion. Hence, the proclamation of the seventh angel must be considered as representing the completion of the revelation of Truth; and this is what those who understand Christian Science believe that Science to be. Accordingly, this verse of Scripture declares that after Christian Science begins to be proclaimed in the world, the time will have arrived when, according to the prophecy of the Apocalypse itself, the message "sealed up" (see verse 4 of this chapter) therein is to be unsealed and interpreted so that it can be understood. Thus will St. John "prophesy again", as foretold that he "must", in the eleventh verse of this same chapter. His words will become a clear, vital, and profoundly important message to this age, showing clearly in their order all the steps in progress which individuals and the race must take in order to reach the final goal of the demonstration of life wholly spiritual, harmonious and eternal.

Present Work Compared With Previous Commentaries

The first discerning interpretation of any portion of Revelation that the author of this Study has read was made by Mrs. Eddy in her chapter on "The Apocalypse", in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. In that chapter, however, she attempts an exposition of only a very limited portion of the Book, though she correctly illustrates the general method by which all of it is to be rightly interpreted.

The author has read the work of many of the best known commentators upon the Apocalypse, but has found among all these scarcely the proverbial "two grains of wheat in a bushel of chaff" in the way of what seems to him a correct exposition. He has also read several recent expositions, not widely known as yet, and has derived from these a number of valuable suggestions, acknowledgment for which will be made at the proper places in the body of the book. In preparing this work, the author has carefully consulted the Greek text, with the aid of the best lexicons, also the best known modern translations, and has considered variations in the original manuscripts from which the standard Greek texts are compiled.

The Spiritual Point of View

The author of this Study has had an advantage, enjoyed by no commentator whose work he has read, namely, the knowledge of Christian Science, by which he has gained a sense of the spiritual significance of the writings of John in the light of divine Principle. It is evident to him that John, as the disciple of Jesus, had the spiritual point of view which has been again brought to human thought in Christian Science ; and that no person who has not this spiritual point of view can interpret or understand much of John's symbolism. The interpretation given in this Study must therefore differ in many places from that given by all who are unacquainted with Christian Science.

Suggestions Requested

The author has made an honest endeavor to bring to the entire text of the Book the Christ-light which dawns anew in Christian Science, and which Mrs. Eddy has shown her students how to use in her interpretation of vital parts of the Book ; and these Notes are made available to other students of the Bible at the earnest request of many who have read portions of them in manuscript, and "with the single purpose and hope that they may be helpful to them as they have been to the author in his endeavor to profit by St. John's remarkable writing, and thus attain to more of that Mind "which was also in Christ Jesus." The Notes are not intended to be taken dogmatically, or to be considered the final word as to the best interpretation of any given text. No doubt the interpretation, or the form of expression, can be improved at many points, sad readers are free to exercise their thought to that end. The author would be especially glad of any suggestions which any one may have to offer. The Notes are given out with the hope that they may stimulate thought and inquiry with regard to a portion of the Scriptures, the meaning of which seems obscure to the great body of Bible readers, but which is very rich in practical spiritual teaching, the author's sense of which has been already stated. With respect to the importance of its subject matter, its marvelous insight into deep and hidden things, its practical value when understood, and withal its literary excellence and brilliancy, it is doubtful if another human document of equal length can compare with the Revelation of St. Tohn the Divine.

Literary Form of Apocalypse Described and Outlined

The literary form of the Book is undoubtedly that of a drama. John may very likely have gotten the suggestion for this literary form from the Greek poets, with whose plays he was doubtless familiar. The subject of the drama of the Apocalypse may be plainly stated as follows :

The Drama of the Struggle between Good and Evil upon the Field of Human Consciousness, and of the Final Triumph of Good.

While John's thought seems to have been much centered upon general and sometimes upon outwardly visible movements and effects produced by the struggles between good and evil in human consciousness, yet he does not treat less specifically of the individual problem, and the reader who would derive the greatest practical benefit and spiritual uplift from the study of Revelation will keep constantly in mind that there can never be outward effects except through the workings of mental causes, and that there can be no general mental movements in the human realm except as individual thought, on the part of large numbers, takes part in and becomes the basis for these movements. Most of the struggles which John depicts are now in process, and, accordingly, if we would profit by the instruction and the warnings w T hich he sets so vividly before us, and escape the terrible penalties for wrongdoing which he so forcefully emphasizes, — and there is no realizing of good nor escape from suffering unless one does profit by instruction and warning like that which he gives,— we shall take heed to ourselves personally with regard to every phase of the struggle between good and evil which he describes, and have a care that we are numbered every day and hour among the soldiers of the Christ rather than among the followers of Satan. Indeed, the development of every human consciousness epitomizes all of the most important struggles which are engaged in by mankind as a whole on its way up to God, and whatever conflicts John depicts as taking place on the fields of humanity as a whole, the reader may find going on in his own consciousness if he will but look thoughtfully within ; and so all the lessons of the Book are of most vital practical value to him who "hath ears to hear".

Notes on Specific Subjects

Note 1. No Dead Line. It is interesting and important to note that there is practically no "dead line" in the Book of Revelation. St. John recognises the saints "here" and the saints "there" or "beyond", as all of one company, following Christ. For the most part, he absolutely ignores the experience called death as much as he ignores the experience called sleep. The drama is carried on above the level of such low lines of demarcation. Cattle are separated from each other by fences, but birds pay no attention to them, flying back and forth and freely intermingling without regard to the fences. So the mental activities dramatized in the Apocalypse for the most part transcend the dividing line called death, except to speak of it in connection with the two resurrections in chapter 20. We, too, can practically ignore the low fence called death in our activities of thought and feeling, if we elevate our consciousness to a plane sufficiently high above the earth, — above materiality in thinking.

Note 2. Use of Numbers. Numbers are usually employed in the Apocalypse in a symbolical rather than in a literal sense. The writer has not made an exhaustive original study of the symbolical use of numbers in the Bible, but, on the authority of those who have, the following brief summary is presented.

"One," "two" and "three" seem to be Spirit-signs, mostly used, when used symbolically, with reference to a member of the Trinity, — Father, Son, or Holy Spirit. "One" and "three" seem never to symbolize evil, and "two" rarely so, though, occasionally, it presents a sense of division and opposition, thus suggesting satanic activity.

"Four" seems to be a world-sign, signifying "worldly" or "pertaining to the earth," or to humanity. It also signifies all of the class mentioned. For example, "Four winds of the earth" are all winds, — all destructive forces of evil. The "beasts" (better translated "living creatures") about the throne, described in the fourth chapter of Revelation, being numbered "four", indicates that that which they symbolize was formerly in the service of the world.

"Five" appears to be used as the symbol of government, usually God's government of man, though the number is sometimes used in association with evil, suggesting the government of evil.

"Six" seems to be, in the Apocalypse at least, a satan-sign. It falls short of "seven", which is a Sabbath-sign, the sign of completion. So "six" is the sign of short-coming, apostasy. Some writer whose name the author has been unable to learn has written : "Everything satanic is six. . . . Notice that the luke-warm church of Laodicea is reproved with six words of reproof — luke-warm, wretched, miserable, poor, blind and naked. The unrepentant people of the sixth trumpet have six idols, and the people who follow this 'false prophet' are also of six kinds, 'the small, the great, the rich, the poor, the free, and the bond.' The number of the beast is 666."

"Seven" , as already indicated, is the Sabbath-sign. It is particularly the sign of completeness and of work finished. When used symbolically it stands for all of the class mentioned.

"Eight" is the symbol of that which is "new" in contrast with the preceding.

"Nine" is the symbol of intuitive wisdom.

"Ten" , as used in the Apocalypse, would seem to be taken as the multiple of "five" , carrying with it the "opposition" sense of "two" (2x5), and is used in connection with the asserted authority or government of evil, as, for instance, the "ten horns" of the beast.

"Twelve" is the symbol of that which is close to God and manifests His government.

"A thousand" indicates a large but indefinite number, just as, on returning from a meeting, we might say, "There were a thousand people present", meaning, not exactly a thousand, but a large number. It is also regarded as a symbol of spiritual conquest. See comment on chapter 2, verse 7, in the pages following.

"144,000" probably takes its symbolic meaning from the numbers of which it is a multiple (12x12x1,000). It indicates a large but indefinite number under the manifest government of God.

Note 3. Chronology. The numbers used in connection with chronology in the Apocalypse are all symbolical, instead of literal.

"Ten days" , mentioned in chapter 2:1, may be explained as follows : One of the constellations in the zodiac (though not one of the twelve major "signs of the zodiac") is "Draco", the dragon. "The dragon" is one of the Apocalyptic symbol? for satan. In its yearly journey through the heavens (that is, as it appears), it takes the sun ten days to pass through the constellation "Draco". Hence, "ten days" is dragon-time, and stands for the period of the reign of satan.

"Five months", mentioned in chapter 9:5, may be interpreted in the following manner. It is stated that men are to be tormented "five months" by "locusts" , which are symbols for evil emissaries of satan. Locusts live and are active only during the five summer months. Hence, "five months" well indicates the full period of their activity, and stands for locust-time; that is, for the entire period of the activity of satanic influences ; so the period "five months" is the same as that indicated by "ten days".

"Time, times, and half a time" , "forty and tzuo months" , "one thousand and two hundred and three-score days" ; that is, 3^2 years, 42 months, 1260 days, which are exactly equivalent, reckoning thirty days to the month, — these are the time expressions most frequently used in the Apocalypse. Their symbolic value is determined from the fact that y/ 2 years is just half of "seven" years ; that is, of all years, or of all time, as contra-distinct from eternity, which is the opposite of time, as "eternity" refers to the spiritual and changeless sense of things, while "time" refers to the material and destructible sense of things. This period of y/2 years is invariably mentioned in connection with the activity of satan or some of his manifestations. Hence, this period is also satan-time. It indicates that the Apocalypse teaches that, during about one-half of humanity's experience in the material or time-sense, satan will seem to be in the ascendency in the affairs of the world* ; but that,

*Note. — If it seems to any reader startling, and beside the mark, to regard the present time as within the period of apparent satanic ascendency, let him consider the following fact as a sample of present conditions :

The law of the City of Chicago requires that saloons and all restaurants in which liquor is sold shall close at one o'clock in the morning. In December, 1912, it got rumored abroad that these places were going to keep open on New Year's Eve until three o'clock, with the consent of the Mayor and the Police Department, in order that the drunken carousals might go on unchecked. The clergymen of the city got together, and, after due deliberation, three hundred of them went in a body to the City Hall to protest against any such infringement of the law. The Mayor absolutely refused to see this delegation, representing the Christian forces of the city. This Mayor is not regarded as being personally a bad or intemperate man ; but he evidently felt that, whenever it came to a test, the forces of evil in the city were stronger than the forces of righteousness, and, as a politician, he stood with what he regarded as the stronger force. The saloons and restaurants remained wide open on New Year's Eve, and it was found impossible to make a successful prosecution of the Mayor or anyone else for this open, premeditated and willful violation of the law. This is a fair sample of what might occur at the present in any of the great cities of the world, and in many of the smaller ones.

The following, written in 191 3 by Mr. Bernard Shaw, may be somewhat overdrawn, but it is largely to the point, nevertheless :

"When I travel about Europe," he says, "and see Germany studded with colossal images of the man of blood and iron, the latest being also the highest and most irresistibly suggestive of Dagon and Moloch; when I read the recent history of the triumphs of Mars in Tripoli, Morocco and the Balkan states; when I see compulsory military service rapidly becoming universal and Mars achieving miracles of submarines and aeroplanes in a few years, whilst Christ cannot in as many centuries get rid even of such a blazing abomination as the mixed general workhouse, I really cannot see how anyone can allege that Christianity has gained an inch since the crucifixion.

after that, Christ will reign in harmony during an equal period, before the sense of matter is finally destroyed ; in other words, that the period before the millennium commences will be about equal to that which follows the commencement of the millennium and ends with the destruction of the material sense of heaven and earth.

"Three days and a half" , mentioned in chapter 1 1 :g, is half of seven days, half of all days, half of all time, and symbolizes the period of satanic ascendency, the same as the time periods or symbols which we have been considering.

"Half an hour", mentioned in 8:1, refers to the latter half of the time period, and is synonymous in meaning with "a thousand years".

"A thousand years", the millennial period, mentioned in chapter 20, is doubtless a "round number", indicating a long period of time, after discord has been overcome, in which harmony will reign supreme among men still dwelling in material sense, in fulfilment of that portion of the Lord's prayer which reads : "Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, in earth (the human-sense realm) as it is in heaven (the spiritual realm)". Probably "a thousand years" stands for about the same length of time as "3^ years", "five months", and "ten days", though these three latter are satan-signs, while "a thousand years" is, in this connection, a Christ-sign, and symbolizes the period of spiritual conquest and victory which is to follow the period of apparent satanic ascendency.

Note 4. Adherence to Principle.

(a) The attempt is made in these Notes, so far as possible, to conform to the requirements of the absolute and eternal truth, that God is "of purer eyes than to behold evil and cannot look upon iniquity", and that "God is light, and in Him

"If one were to dramatize the world movement of the struggle between Christ and Mars, Christ is down and out, despised and rejected of men; spat upon, nailed up and laughed to scorn."