The Revelation of Jesus Christ - The Herald

syllables, trying in vain to make some intelligible English word out of them; we would say
the word is so and so, but the meaning is so and so. In reading the symbolic portion of the
Apocalypse, we are bound to do the same; on no other principle can anything like a
consistent interpretation be attained."
The symbols employed are drawn from nearly every phase of life. We have the sun, moon,
and stars in the celestial world, and the earth, sea, rivers and their sources, earthquakes,
volcanic eruptions, and fearful electrical storms, in the terrestrial. We have a pure, chaste
woman representing the true Church, and an impure, harlot woman and her daughters
representing the nominal, false Church. We have victorious Roman warriors, rebel
conspirators, and unjust, oppressive civil rulers also employed as symbols; while strange
and unnatural beasts are among the most prominent.
Certain Divine laws must govern in the correct interpretation of these symbols. First, we
must study the symbols themselves. When the sun is employed as a symbol, we need to
study the relation the sun sustains to the material universe and man; if an earthquake, we
need to become familiar with its effects upon the earth and its inhabitants. Second, we
must remember that the fulfillment of the symbol, as a rule, must be looked for in another
phase of life from that in which it is drawn. It will, we believe, be found that all or nearly
all the symbols of Revelation are used and explained in other Scriptures, especially in
those of the Old Testament prophecies. It will also be found that the various things
employed as symbols are not always used to describe the same things; as waters
sometimes mean peoples, and at other times, Gospel truths and blessings.
The symbolic pictures of Revelation were not given for the world to understand, nor even
for those who are merely nominal Christians. They were given rather for the purpose of
showing unto God's servants things that are shortly to come to pass. "The Lord God of the
holy Prophets hath sent His angel to show unto His servants things which must shortly be
done." "I, Jesus, have sent mine angel, to testify unto you these things in the Churches."
(Rev. 22:6,16.) Every statement in the book itself that has any bearing on this point shows
that it is addressed to Christ's servants, the Church. The Epistles of Paul, Peter, John, James
and Jude are all addressed to the "saints and the faithful in Christ Jesus," or to the Church,
in such and such a place. We reason rightly from the Epistles that they are not for the
world, not for the Jews, but for consecrated believers in Christ alone. Confusion has been
and will always be the result if unbelievers, either Jew or Gentile, take these Divine
messages as addressed to them. Why does not this argument apply with equal force to the
Apocalypse? It certainly does.
"To show unto His servants." Who were Christ's servants at the time St. John saw the
vision? There can be but one answer--those who were serving Him at that time; those from
among the Jews and those from among the Gentiles, who had become Christ's followers,
His disciples. Some Futurists have endeavored to avoid this most natural interpretation of
these words, by saying that if the words were addressed to Christ's followers, the address
would read, "to show unto His sons"; in other words, because the Jews of the Jewish
dispensation were called servants and not sons, therefore Jews are meant.