Troublesome Topic: Revelation is Not an Allegory

Down through history some people, including some early church fathers such as Augustine, have taught that Revelation is just one big allegory. An allegory is a story in which none of the elements are real, but they point to other realities that are true. This is one of the “nonliteral” interpretation of Revelation.

Pilgrim’s Progress is an allegory. It has a cross in it, but the cross is made of stone, no one could be nailed to it.

The Chronicles of Narnia are allegories. There is a Jesus figure, but he is called Aslan instead of Jesus; he is a lion, not a human being.

Hinds Feet on High Places, and Lord of the Rings are also allegories.

Augustine saw Revelation as a symbolic picture of the conflict between Christianity and Evil. He was obviously in the nonliteral camp.

But Revelation is not an allegory. It is a vision which includes real people (or entities), such as God, Jesus, John, angels, Satan, the churches of Asia, and real places such as the seven cities of Asia Minor. It also includes names of real people and real places that are used entirely as symbolism: Jerusalem, Babylon, Armageddon, Jezebel. Revelation is a vision which includes lots of symbolism as well as real people and real places.

Did Jesus use Allegories?   I don’t think so.

Did Jesus use imagery? Absolutely.

The parables of Jesus included some elements that were real and some that were representative of other things.

I believe things were greatly changed when Constantine issued his edict making everyone in the Roman Empire automatically a “Christian.” At that time most of the persecution of Christians ceased. Once followers of Christ were no longer facing persecution or strong opposition, the vision of Revelation was no longer needed as encouragement, so some of them began to seek other ways to interpret the vision. I believe this explains why Augustine, who lived after Constantine, interpreted Revelation the way he did. Ever since then, in times of ease, people have sought to understand Revelation in ways that take us away from the most obvious meaning for the original audience. That is not only unfortunate and confusing, but also a violation of one of my key rules of biblical interpretation.

The people of John’s day, and shortly thereafter, would not have tried to interpret this vision as an allegory or as all literal. They would have recognized a symbol or word picture when it was used and appreciated its powerful impact, but they would not have forced Revelation into one box or the other.

Think of a window in your house, with you on the inside looking out. Depending on the amount of light outside the window and inside the house, you can sometimes see the great outdoors with very little reflection of what is inside, other times you can see only the reflection of what is inside the house, and at other times you can see the great outdoors as well as the reflection of what is inside. Symbolism is like that. Sometimes the symbol is all you should see; sometimes you can see the symbolism as well as a physical reality.

The next lesson is: Types of Symbols Used in Revelation