What is Apocalypse, or Revelation? It is the last book of the Bible. Is the disclosure of the visions revealed by our Lord Jesus Christ to his servant, the last apostle John, who was one of the twelve originally chosen apostles of Jesus Christ. John, the author of the book, because of his Christian faith has been sent to exiled to the rocky island of Patmos, a Roman penal colony. This book written in apocalyptic language can be difficult to understand because it has a lot of symbolism or symbolistic language which is very unfamiliar to average reader but very popular in those days.
The use of numbers as four which signifies the world, six means imperfection, seven is totality or perfection. To understand this book we must first look at the time when John lived. It is a historical information of what was happening back then while his life was in a crisis of evil and godless persecution of the early church by Roman authorities. The evil emperor at that time was Domitian (A.D. 81-96), a fierce persecutor of the Christians.
Babylon symbolizes pagan Rome, the city on seven hills. If you check the topography of Rome you can understand it better. There is a major struggle between the forces of Christ and his followers against Satan forces and his followers. Christ will defeat the kingdom of Satan and bring about the divine plan of God into action.
John never claims to be John the apostle, but he was so identified by several of the early church Fathers, including Justin, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Cyprian, and Hippolytus. Included in this book are letters to the seven churches in Asia. Culminating with the end of the world or our world, what we civilized humans call today's society.
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Notes:
Ephesus was both the capital of the Roman province of Asia and one of the earliest centers of Christianity.
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