Historicism - the historicist view teaches that Revelation is a symbolic book about the course of history, starting with time of St. John and going all the way to the end of the age. So the historicist sees Revelation as depicting major events in Christian history, but is particular to western European history. This view was very popular during the Reformation when Martin Luther and others claimed the Pope and Roman Church were the beast of Revelation. Another example is how the trumpets of Revelation are interpreted. One idea from this frame of reference is that the first trumpet is the attack of the Goths against the Western Roman empire when Rome was sacked, and the third trumpet was the raid of the Huns under Attila. Other identifications are monks and friars as “locusts”, Elizabeth I as the first bowl, Martin Luther as the angel of Sardis, and on it goes. There are several problems with this view. For one, it tends to cluster events in history in a short period of time, and there is endless speculation on the events of history that have no biblical support whatsoever. So what happens is the interpreter molds the text around history. The critics agree that the weaknesses of the view are many, but can be boiled down to 3 main problems. One, interpretations are only concerned with western church history. Two, the wide and varied interpretations are nothing more than unsupported speculation. And lastly, the “facts” of the view must be reworked with each new period of history.
Futurism– Futurism is exactly what you would expect, it holds to a future fulfillment of most of Revelation. Typically, futurists believe chapter 1-3 are “in the present”, but starting with chapter 4 to the end of the book, it reveals a future fulfillment of events that have not taken place. There really are two forms of futurism, dispensationalism and classic premillennialism. Dispensationalism is very popular today and is the modern form of futurism – as we have seen in the books and movies, Left Behind. Dispensationalism teaches that God works though dispensations of time that focus on God’s covenant people, Israel. This view makes a clear distinction between the Jews and Christians in eschatological theology, and considers the church age as a “parenthesis” in God’s plan. Dispensational futurism demonstrates that there will be a 7-year tribulation in the future when the Antichrist will reveal himself and usher in the great tribulation. The Church will be raptured up to heaven at the beginning of this time, escaping the catastrophic events. After the tribulation is over Christ will return and set up a literal millennial reign (1000 years). The hallmark of this view is the literal interpretation of Scripture, including symbolic books like Revelation. In the classical approach, dispensations are not used, but Christ does return after the tribulation to set up the millennial kingdom, however the entire Church and the nation of Israel go through the tribulation period.
Preterism - Preter means “past” (from the Latin). The primary belief of this view is that the prophecy of Revelation was fulfilled in the first century. However, there are two different schools of thought within preterism. The two schools are partial preterism and full preterism. Partial preterism views most of the prophecies of Revelation as fulfilled with the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, but see chapters 20-22 as future events. They view the resurrection of believers, the final judgement, and the literal return of Christ to earth as future. The full preterist believes that all of Revelation was fulfilled in the first century and believes that Jesus returned at that time. Some view full preterism as heretical because of its view of the return of Jesus. Pretertist see Matthew 24 as being fulfilled because Jesus said “this generation will not pass away until all these things take place” (Mt. 24:34). Roughly 40 years later in 70 AD, what Christ said came true with the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple in a most devastating way by the Romans. Partial preterism has gained much ground in recent times with proponents such as R. C. Sproul. However, one of the chief problems with this view is that it requires the writing of Revelation to be before 70 AD. Will Durant, the author of the classic masterpiece of history, The Story of Civilization, in his volume Caesar and Christ, suggests Revelation was written in 69-70 AD. However, for Preterism to work, the date of the writing would need to be around the mid 60s or earlier.
Idealism– the idealist view is sometimes referred to as the spiritual view and describes an allegorical interpretation of Revelation. The basic idea is that the imagery set forth in the book of Revelation is about the timeless struggle of good against evil (God vs. Satan), and that none of the visions can be tied to specific historical events. The allegory shows us that while God’s people do suffer, in the end God is victorious. The wars in Revelation can be seen as spiritual warfare or Christian wars in a general sense. However, for the idealist the trials of the first century church are represented in Revelation in symbolism and directly relevant to that audience. However, the idealist does not believe that the beast, false prophet, etc. is just the Roman armies or false religious system of the first century (or in the fifth century when Rome fell). The advantage of this view is that it frees us from any specific historical events being applied to the text which make the revelation relevant to any time in church history. In this way it teaches timeless spiritual truths.
Progressive Parallelism – The visions of Revelation describe the course of history between the first and second coming of Christ. Each vision is giving a different perspective. In other words, the Apostle John used a linguistic/literary device called parallelism, where the visions recapitulate or repeat. However, with each vision there is more detail or in a way the text progresses – progressive parallelism. The literary device is also used in other parts of the Bible, such as Daniel. Typically those who believe Revelation uses parallelism are Idealists.
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