“A common way to misunderstand prophecy, and especially the prophecy of the Revelation, is to suppose that it means prediction. But that is not the biblical use of the word. Prophets are not fortune tellers. The prophet is the person who declares, “Thus says the Lord.” He speaks what God is speaking. He brings God’s word into the immediate world of the present, insisting that it be heard here and now. The prophet says that God is speaking now, not yesterday; God is speaking now, not tomorrow. It is not a past word that can be analyzed and then walked away from. It is not a future word that can be fantasized into escapist diversion. It is personal address now: “for the time is near” (Rev. 1:3, 22:10). “Near” means “at hand.” Not far off in the future but immediately before us; only our unbelief, or ignorance, or timid hesitancy separates us from it. Jesus also announced the immediacy of the prophetic word when he preached “the kingdom of God is at hand” (Mark 1:15). St. John’s “near” and Jesus’ “at hand” are the same root word (eggus/eggizein). The prophetic word eliminates the distance between God’s speaking and hearing. If we make the prophetic word a predictive word we are procrastinating, putting distance between ourselves and the application of the word, putting off dealing with it until some future date. The revelation of “what must soon take place” (Rev. 1:1) means precisely, soon – as soon as hearts are responsive and ears receptive and eyes perceptive. It is all before us: God’s salvation is complete, ready to be received. “Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any one hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me” (Rev. 3:20). The one who stands at the door is he who gathers past and future into an eternal, immediate now, “he who is and who was and who is to come” (Rev. 1:4, 8).
There are, to be sure, references to the past and implications for the future, but the predominant emphasis of the prophetic word is on the now. There are predictive elements in some prophecy (and some in Revelation), but they are always in service to a present message. The Bible warns against a neurotic interest in the future and escapist fantasy into the future. It forbids trafficking with persons who make predictions (Deut. 18:14-15). All that is very clear and well-known, yet there are persons who persist in making an exception to the last book of the Bible and read it as if it were all prediction. The Revelation, though, is not an exception to the biblical rule but an emphasis of it: God speaks to us, now. In the Revelation we are immersed not in prediction, but eschatology: an awareness that the future is breaking in upon us. Eschatology involves the belief that the resurrection appearances of Christ are not complete. This belief permeating the Revelation makes life good, for when we are expecting a resurrection appearance we can accept our whole present and find joy not only in its joy but also in its sorrow, happiness not only in its happiness but also in its pain. We travel on through either happiness or pain because in the promises of God we see possibilities for the transient, the dying, and the dead. “By means of the eschatological dimension we look to the future not as mere repetition and confirmation of the present, but as the goal of the events that are now taking place. This gives meaning to the journey and its distresses; and today’s decision to trust in the call of God is a decision pregnant with future.” (Moltmann, Hope)”
- from Reversed Thunder, by Eugene Peterson
