As we cover the book of Revelation chapters 2 and 3, the question is whether he’s speaking to Christians or tribulation saints?
A) The reason why we think it’s Christians is that in chapters 2 and 3, he is speaking to the church.
B) Why we think it’s to tribulation saints is because John says that he’s writing as if he’s in the tribulation timeline. The book of Revelation is about revelations, which are tribulation end times.
The answer is: both are true.
Revelation 1:3 Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand.
The things that are written in the book of Revelation will relate to future prophecy. If this is referring to a prophetic future sense, it’s not going to make sense that Revelation 2 and 3 are only speaking to local churches.
Remember the 3-fold application in the book of Revelation:
- Historical
Historically John is writing to seven local churches during his time period. He is literally writing to those people in Revelation 1:11, it is a local region in his local area that God wanted John to write. - Spiritual
He mentions church here. We take spiritual applications and lessons from chapters 2 and 3, especially when we bash Laodicea. - Doctrinal
Why is it tribulation doctrine? We’ve seen Revelation 1:3 earlier but look at Revelation 1:1, ‘the revelation of Jesus Christ’, he told us what the book was, he didn’t say the church age, he said the revelation of Jesus Christ. The revelation of Jesus Christ means when Jesus reveals Himself in wrath and anger, and conquers the world, that’s tribulation. Also in Revelation 1:10, when John is writing, he says ‘I was in the spirit on the Lord’s day’. The Lord’s day is the day of the Lord, that’s tribulation.
As we cover chapters 2 and 3, we believe that it is accurate to put these 7 churches as representations of spiritual application, not doctrinal. As we go through chapters 2 and 3, there is no doubt there is tribulation doctrine in these verses and we can’t apply them to the church. So why can we put this as a spiritual application to the church?
The first clue is because of the word ‘church’. We know that this can refer to the church age but why put it as a future timeline of the whole church age instead of just the local churches? Look at Revelation 1:3, we read that it contains prophecy. If we say seven local churches, that’s not prophecy. It is more accurate to put all these 7 churches within the whole church age timeline and as we go through each of these churches, there is no doubt it matches with every prophetic timeline.
Another reason is that God is speaking to all Christians of every church of that era. Look at one example, in Revelation 2:7, ‘he that hath an ear’: that’s anyone. Anyone at that time, God wants all the churches to hear this. If we look at every church, he’s going to say the same. God is not thinking that only the 7 local churches need to hear this, the rest of the Christian world doesn’t need to know. No, He wants everyone to know. If we’re going to think about the entire Christian church within a prophetic timeline, this fits the bill.
The question now is how we can put double application here. When God is speaking about prophecy, He can be thinking about two different timelines while addressing one group. That’s why people don’t understand general epistles (Hebrews to Jude). The hyper dispensationalists think that it’s addressed towards the local assembly at the tribulation and the anti-dispensationalists say that this is to the Christian churches only. But if we read Hebrews through Jude, it undoubtedly contains prophetic statements, we can’t escape mentions of the antichrist, end times, in the latter days, false prophets arising. It contains prophecy as if it’s only addressing one person but it’s speaking about two different timelines.
Let’s look at Psalms 22 and 2 Samuel 7:14
Psalms 22:1 “(To the chief Musician upon Aijeleth Shahar, A Psalm of David.) My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring?”
That’s David speaking but this is the fulfillment of the prophecy of Jesus on the cross. Although it looks like one person, it’s speaking about two different people at two different timelines.
Look at the context here, let’s assume that verse 1 is only about Jesus, this is not about David, but did Jesus do this on the cross as per verse 2?
Psalms 22:2 O my God, I cry in the day time, but thou hearest not; and in the night season, and am not silent.
Psalm 22:18 They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture.
No, Jesus did not cry day and night to God, He did one cry here at verse 1. We can’t say that it’s only David either, look at verse 18, that’s a fulfillment of the prophecy of Jesus where they took His garments and divided them.
2 Samuel 7:14 “I will be his father, and he shall be my son. If he commit iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men, and with the stripes of the children of men:”
God is talking about Solomon, God said that I’m going to be a father to him and he’s going to be my son. But if we look at Hebrews 1, this is a prophecy about Jesus Christ. But we can’t say that this is all about Jesus Christ, read the second half of the verse, this is definitely referring to Solomon here and it’s true that Solomon did sin.
This is a prophetic statement of David’s son Solomon and a prophetic statement of Jesus Christ.
Daniel 11:5-6 “And the king of the south shall be strong, and one of his princes; and he shall be strong above him, and have dominion; his dominion shall be a great dominion. And in the end of years they shall join themselves together; for the king’s daughter of the south shall come to the king of the north to make an agreement: but she shall not retain the power of the arm; neither shall he stand, nor his arm: but she shall be given up, and they that brought her, and he that begat her, and he that strengthened her in these times.”
This is giving a future prophecy about the king of the south and the king of the north and this prophecy was fulfilled during the latter BC of Egypt and Syria.
Daniel 11:25 And he shall stir up his power and his courage against the king of the south with a great army; and the king of the south shall be stirred up to battle with a very great and mighty army; but he shall not stand: for they shall forecast devices against him.
Look at how it switches in verse 25, we may think that it’s still talking about the latter BC but this is tribulation.
Look at verse 21-23, if that’s not enough, look at verse 38.
Daniel 11:21-23, 38 And in his estate shall stand up a vile person, to whom they shall not give the honour of the kingdom: but he shall come in peaceably, and obtain the kingdom by flatteries. 22 And with the arms of a flood shall they be overflown from before him, and shall be broken; yea, also the prince of the covenant. 23 And after the league made with him he shall work deceitfully: for he shall come up, and shall become strong with a small people. 38 But in his estate shall he honour the God of forces: and a god whom his fathers knew not shall he honour with gold, and silver, and with precious stones, and pleasant things.
These verses are talking about the antichrist, we can compare them with Daniel 9, Matthew 24, and 1 Thessalonians 5.
Notice then the king of the north and king of the south, it just shifted all of a sudden from latter BC to tribulation. Notice 2 time periods as if he was talking about one group of people here but no, it’s two different groups.
In prophecy, there is a double application. The easiest evidence is to look at every Messianic prophecy at the Old Testament concerning the destruction of Israel and it’s going to jump from a Babylonian BC timeline to a tribulation timeline.
If Daniel does it (if you doubt this, read all the chapters on Daniel on prophecy, there is a jump in time) and you don’t think Revelation is doing to do that, especially since Revelation is probably the most important book on prophecy, then you’re going to teach plain heresy if you don’t have the mindset of double application.