Difference between High Church and Anglo-Catholic and can Anglo-Catholics identify as Protestants?

That might be just because you didn't bother reading verses 1 and two before piling in with your size 14 boots through 3-12 without contextually understanding a single word of them.

A good commentary explaining the cryptic references in Revelation to Old Testament scripture is essential to understanding this book. It is quite deliberately as obscure and confusing as a letter to the French Underground Resistance, under German occupation, would have to have been, from British MI5, to fool and styme the Germans, but still be understandable by the Maquis, who had the code.

It was never addressed to you in the USA in the 21st century.
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Bad guess. I've read verses 1 and 2 plenty of times. I didn't include them because I didn't want you to get confused, but too late....

When reading the Bible, the default should be to take the most plain and evident meaning of things. Defaulting to obscure possibilities seems quite backward to me.

 

So you think Revelation should be plain sailing for a taxi driver from Brooklyn to understand without a commentary or a clue of who wrote it and why. Ok. Whatever.

Revelation is not a Gospel or even a Letter to the early church. It is a deliberately cryptic puzzle written in an almost indecipherable code to a Christian community with the means and understanding to successfully decode it, under presecution by an evil despotic state controlled Roman empire.

 

I suggest William Hendriksen’s commentary More Than Conquerors, or anything by G.K. Beale, for the Idealist interpretation. I was taught the Futurist interpretation growing up, but later found the Idealist school of thought to be a better alternative. If you don’t find any of those books’ arguments convincing, that’s ok. Since no essential doctrine hinges on the Book of Revelation, people can disagree about what it means without being heretics.

 

In reading a review of Hendricksen's book, I can tell already that I agree with his assessment of progressive parallelism, that the later chapters of Revelation dive deeper into the things which the earlier chapters basically summarize. I've ordered a copy.

But I think that Jesus Himself taught a futurist interpretation. If we look at his discourse in Matthew 24, we see difficulties in the world becoming more frequent and more intense until they culminate in His return. Utilizing Jesus' description as a pattern can help us understand Revelation, because within those parallel sections we can see a similar intensification being foretold, provided we don't just totally spiritualize those descriptions, don't you think?

 

It depends what we understand by the word 'spiritualise'. You seem to be using it in a disdainful sense of trying to explain away the real meaning, whereas I would use it to denote a sense of digging under the surface of the text to discover the deeper, more esoteric, hidden meanings the author is hinting at, knowing his readers will seek and find.

The fundamentalist approach to Revelation is similar to solving a crossword puzzle where the clues simply solve the mystery itself. This is because the fundamentalist starts with the preconceived mindset that all scripture is fundamentally understandable at face value and it always says exactly what it appears to be saying, truthfully and is easily understandable by all who will read it in any generation.

The approach to such apocalyptic literature of others who want to get at its meaning to the church of today, (lets call them non-fundamentalists because there probably isn't a complimentary name for them in the fundamentalist vocabulary), is similar to solving a cryptic crossword, where every clue is itself a mystery to be solved, before we can properly begin to solve the crossword itself. The crossword certainly HAS a solution but it is not to be obtained by simply taking the clues at face value, because the clues themselves often don't seem to make sense at face value, like the cryptic clues of a crossword puzzle.

Although I am pretty sure you are meaning Jesus used apocalyptic language to describe future events, (which of course he did and that is irrefutably true), I don't think you are suggesting that Jesus wrote or interpreted Revelation. Just as is the case with the rest of the scriptures, Jesus is the subject of Revelation, not it's writer.

(Let's not get into a diversionary debate about Jesus having written the entire bible because he is God, and we all should know, God wrote the bible).

The thing about Revelation which confuses most fundamentalists seems to be that it is not anywhere near as fundamentally predictive of actual future events as it appears to be, even though it claims itself to be so.

The fundamentalist mindset simply cannot accept this as anything but a lie, and according to their reasoning, the bible doesn't do that, because it's God's written word, and God can't lie, so everything in Revelation must be literally true, and so on, and so on. Until the future they envisage is filled with mystical beasts ridden by whores, and armour plated horses and locusts buzzing around all over the place and smoke rising from a bottomless pit, and rivers of human blood flowing up to the height of a horses bridle, and lakes full of unquenchable fire waiting for the wicked to be cast into them by the billion. Add to that the lurid art of medievil artists inspired by Dante's Inferno rather than the Bible and what you have is a mental picture of the future more akin to a Hollywood Horror movie, than a valid and edifying interpretation of Holy Scripture which originally was written to encourage the people of God, not simply to scare the living daylights out of them.
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No, not all scripture. No one says that. What they say is, when scriptures can be seen to have a plain meaning, that plain meaning should be accepted before we go off into the deep weeds and look for esoteric meanings. Isn't that sensible?

What's being overlooked here is the fact that too many 'non-fundamentalists' discard and disregard the plainly evident meaning of some sections of Revelation, as they seek to find the hidden and cryptic meanings. In the process one may end up finding a number of divergent, "deep and hidden meaning" interpretations, none of which agree with each other and all of which seem reasonably plausible... but they all have thrown the plain meaning out the window.

 

Revelation, like Romans, is one of those pinnacle books of the Bible that any theologian (practicing, aspiring, or presumptive) trembles before tackling in a systematic way. Revelation combines the literary forms of epistle, apocalypse, and prophecy. It is sui generis in many ways. Reading it exegetically is difficult for the modern reader because the context of the piece is so hard to understand for us. Who is John writing to? Is he writing occasionally (i.e., for an occasion) or for posterity? If he is prophesying, how is the prophetic vision properly contextualized? As the telos of the entire Bible, what message does Revelation give to the Christian believer? Is it a book of comfort to a suffering people or a warning to a disobedient people? Are we to read it topically or holistically?

There is a tendency among many -- a tendency I share, by the way -- to lose oneself in Biblical symbolism as one tries to find the "deeper meaning" of a given passage. Nowhere in the Bible is this danger as great as in Revelation. Much valuable and wise commentary has been written over the ages about this book, but there is a great vast ocean of utter nonsense written about it as well.* My advice to exegetes is this: read the book as simply as you can, and take away the final message: Christ will return in glory, he will judge the living and the dead, he will cast down Satan once and for all, and he will rule over the saved for all eternity thereafter.

*Dan Wallace once joked that, since we're really not sure of the "the number of the Beast is Six Hundred Threescore and Six" in the biblical manuscripts, that 666 may just be the neighbor of the Beast.

 

I did write "to Revelation", I did not refer to all of scripture. Much of scripture is indeed not apocalyptic and therefore relatively comprehensible.

The 'plain meaning' bits and the rather obviously 'cryptic' bits are fairly easily identified though by how bizarre they would be in reality, if taken literally, surely.

But plain meanings of bizarre imagery are rarely likely to be predictions of a present, even a future 'reality' are they. So there is most probably another explanation for them and in apocalyptic literature there usually is.
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It's too short to be the beast's mobile number though. If it's his address try knocking on 616 if you get no answer from 666. Both numbers appear in the various extant manuscripts of Revelation.
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Hendriksen's interpretation of Revelation, More than Conquerors, begins with a convincing argument for the proposition that Revelation can be divided into seven consecutive, parallel sections. He lays out many useful guidelines for interpreting the book. Chapters 1 through 4 were quite helpful. They show reasons why one can view the seven sections as a series that ascends in greater and greater detail as it moves toward a climax.

However, once Hendriksen has the reader agreeing with (and lulled into accepting) his propositions, the author begins to veer off-course in Chapter 5. Chapter 5 is entitled, "Symbolism in the Book." It begins well enough with an explanation as to why one should interpret a word picture in the context of its overall, central, predominating thought. That's another good rule of thumb. But from this point the author jumps to an unwarranted, weakly supported conclusion that no "symbols" (or hardly anything, really) within Revelation can pertain to "specific events, single happenings, dates or persons in history" (P. 49). The conclusory aspect of this idea is made immediately apparent on P. 50 when he applies this rule to make his interpretation of Revelation 8:8-9. And the second angel sounded, and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea: and the third part of the sea became blood; And the third part of the creatures which were in the sea, and had life, died; and the third part of the ships were destroyed. Hendriksen says that this simply "represents all maritime disasters throughout the dispensation." What?!? This interpretation rings hollow to me. Why reach for such an esoteric meaning when another, much more plain, possible meaning presents itself on the surface? That plain meaning is: a large object such as a meteor strikes the earth in one of its oceans and causes immense havoc. Anyone who rejects such a possibility need only visit Crater Lake in Oregon or study some of the physical evidences on earth's surface of previous strikes. (Aside: the meteor "Apophis," over 1000 feet (300 meters) in diameter, in 2029 is scheduled to pass earth, and some astronomers have said it may come closer to earth than our high-orbit satellites.) Passing verses 8 and 9 off as 'an aggregation of everything bad that happens on the water over the course of two millenia or more' strains credulity. I mean, if that's all it is, why even mention it? It's much easier to say, "a lot of ships will sink," than to say that 1/3 of the see becomes blood, 1/3 of the sea creatures die, and if you're going out on a boat you have only a 2/3 chance of not sinking (think about that).

Why exclude the possibility that some parts of the Apocalypse might foretell of specific events? Is there any reason why our great, mighty God could not devise a book with enough intricacy to include some actual, dated, future events along with and among the broader, non-date-specific symbolism? I think He is well capable of doing so. While the Apocalypse in the main may be seen as a comfort and reassurance to the church, foremost in the time when it was written and second in the centuries to come, why couldn't our Lord also include some specific warnings of future events that people would only comprehend as the time for those events drew near? Let's not forget for a moment that the book does teach us of a specific future event with a specific (unknown to us) time stamp: the Second Coming of Christ. Why not other events as well? Adopting an assumption that no such specific future events are foretold by the Apocalypse renders the book much less... er... apocalyptic! Besides, it ignores the pattern of all those O.T. prophecies given by God to His people, in which He foretold and warned of specific events to come, so many of which have come to pass! I trust that you can all think of many examples. Jesus foretold some specific events as well, events that tie in with Revelation, during His earthly ministry .

Elsewhere, Hendriksen highlights the importance of letting Scripture interpret Scripture, but he doesn't always follow his own guideline. An example can be seen in Rev. 19, where he identifies the harlot woman as a representation of "the world as the center of anti-Christian seduction at any moment of history." This ignores the clear identification of this woman elsewhere in that same chapter: And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth (v.18); and the seven heads of the beast are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth (v. 9). The Revelation itself gives us the identity of the harlot as a city on seven "mountains" which, at the time of the writing, did reign over the known world, including Judea. The contrast between Hendriksen's interpretation of the harlot woman and the interpretation revealed by our Lord through John is even more perplexing when one considers that Hendriksen utilizes the Daniel 7 vision to perceive the identity of the apparently-wounded head (in Rev. 13:3) as then-present-day Rome. If we can reach back to the book of Daniel to interpret Rev. 13, wouldn't it be even more sure for us to use Rev. 17 in interpreting Rev. 17? If the shoe fits Rome, then Rome must wear it.

Hendriksen sometimes engages in cherry-picking to make his interpretations fit. This can be seen, for example, in his view of the 'mark of the beast,' which he admits is (for him at least) "...perhaps, the most difficult paragraph in the entire book of Revelation." He minimizes more literal interpretations by belittlement: "But what is meant by this 'mark of the beast'? Various amusing answers have been given." With little more than some feeble rationalization, he states his interpretation: "The 'mark of the beast' is the God-opposing, Christ-rejecting, Church-persecuting spirit of Antichrist, wherever and whenever it shows itself... The forehead symbolizes the mind, the thought life, the philosophy of a person. The right hand indicates his deed, action, trade, industry, etc." Let's look at what Hendriksen gives short shrift to in order to make his interpretation fit:
And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:
And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name (Rev 13:16-17). Some entity is causing virtually all the people to take this mark, likely by means of an incentive, namely: if you don't take the mark, you can't do commerce or buy necessities. The scripture does not fit Hendriksen's idea of 'wherever and whenever, all through the past twenty centuries.' These verses seem most plainly to describe an event that has not yet happened. Although, it could conceivably happen in the very near future! Already we are seeing signs of authoritarianism and the world's nations and banks are actively contemplating a move to a unified, digital currency tracking/dispensing system. In the days to come, instead of inserting a credit card to pay for a transaction, will mankind have their hands or foreheads scanned? If our lying adversary wished to keep people in the dark about the danger of accepting such a mark, wouldn't he like to obfuscate the truth by encouraging folks to accept mistaken methods of Scripture interpretation?

Another example of cherry-picking can be found in Hendriksen's analysis of Rev. 20. And they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years (v. 4). This chapter clearly shows us that these are the saints; that is, the resurrected, righteous dead (v. 5). We know that this resurrection occurs when Jesus returns to earth, 1 Thess. 4:13-17; Matt. 24:30-31. This is the first resurrection, Rev. 20:5. Chapter 19 of Revelation relates the Second Advent in verses 11-20. And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison (v. 7) And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city... (v. 9). Thus we see the saints, the believers, resurrected and living on earth with Jesus as He rules the world in person from "the beloved city," Jerusalem. But what does Hendriksen say? "The question is, where...is the place from which the exalted Mediator rules...Clearly, it is in heaven." Therefore, the author concludes that the saints are in heaven with Christ at this point in events, even though Rev. 20 says the saints have been resurrected and are on earth when the adversary makes his final gambit.

Hendriksen's seeming denial that some parts of the Apocalypse could point to specific future events (that happen on some specific dates) is undermined by his own admission that the book teaches us of the Second Coming of Christ; this is clearly an event scheduled by God to take place on a certain future day at a certain time. If the book can foretell of this future event, what other future events might it foretell by way of warning to certain generations of people who will live through those events? If God knows that such warnings are needful, then wouldn't this, the most apropos of end-times books, be the perfect place to transmit those warnings? Just because many parts of the Apocalypse might be best viewed as a broad, timeless reassurance doesn't mean we should exclude all possibility of finding warnings specific to certain times and events. Very much of the Bible contains layers upon layers of meaning, and the same is true of John's Apocalypse.

To sum up, I found a good deal of value and truth in More than Conquerors, but the author definitely uses the book to advance a partisan case for his particular interpretation of Revelation, and while engaging in advocacy he takes some liberties with the Bible in order to make his case appear stronger than it is. Perhaps the correct interpretation involves blending more than one interpretive method. To study this, I have obtained a copy of Revelation: Four Views, an objective, parallel commentary edited by Steve Gregg. It's a huge book, so this could take a while.....