John's Use of the Old Testament in Revelation

Trinity Journal, Spring 2000 by Juncker, Gunther H

In the symbolic world of the book the Parousia of Christ at the end of history finds all humanity dead and the dead neatly divided into two groups: those martyred for Christ and those killed by Christ. Both groups are treated en masse, all of the saints experiencing the first (physical) resurrection at the beginning of the millennium and all of the ungodly experiencing the second (physical) resurrection at the end. The nations not deceived during the millennium (20:3) are the conscious, wicked dead who will not repent no matter how long the reprieve (one thousand years!) or how undistortedly they see reality. The proof is that their first act on being resurrected is to resume where they left off (20:8-9). Clearly no view solves every problem; but we commend Beale's attempt even though we are obviously inclined toward the views of Mealy, After the Thousand Years (1992), that Beale rejects.

Those expecting a systematic treatment of OT allusions (or even a list of such allusions) and more than a paragraph of criteria for determining their presence and probability will be disappointed. Those doing a word study on oTLVUT*pLov or an exegesis of Rev 20:1-7 will not. Beale's overriding concern to demonstrate that Revelation uses the OT in a contextually sensitive manner is praiseworthy, though other concerns occasionally force the data into predetermined molds that are less desirable. Perhaps because of the amount of material that has been reworked and incorporated into this volume, this is one of the more poorly structured, enumerated, and indexed works that we have recently encountered. It also contains not a few other solecisms, the most egregious being found in the title of the chapter on solecisms in the book of Revelation. In a word, we are saving our money for the commentary.

Gunther H.Juncker

Trinity Evangelical Divinity School