I’ve been reading several commentaries on the Book of Revelation. Many people think it’s a coded message describing world history in detail. But Sweet’s commentary says it’s a broad picture of the Creator God’s plan to save people from the penalty of their sins, destroy evil, and recreate His paradise in which He will dwell with mankind forever.

Revelation, Sweet says, describes the cyclical rise and fall of empires and the beastly nature of those emperors. He uses those emperors (e.g., presidents, prime ministers, etc.) to chasten those who will repent, and He lets them destroy those who will not repent. Those who follow the leaders (beasts and false prophets) don’t realize that they lead them to destruction. Those who reject the leaders’ domination obey God’s moral law to the end and show and tell others of His sacrificial love to those who follow the beast, if perchance, they repent, too.

At a time of His choosing, when all those who will be saved are saved, the Creator God will intervene and call a halt to these cycles of destruction. Then God will mete out rewards and punishments to everyone for deeds they’ve done. Those found in the Book of Life enter His presence forever in the new earth and those who are not found in that book are driven into the outer darkness away from His presence forever. God as the Creator has the right to re-create a new earth in which He will dwell with mankind.

This is a simpler, more straightforward, and even countercultural understanding of a misunderstood and maligned book. Sweet emphasizes that the one whose Christian witness and moral practice endures to the end will be saved. On the flipside, he wrestles with Calvinism, attributing it, at one point, to unwarranted smugness. He also caters to a liberal understanding of the Book of Daniel but that can be overlooked.

Sweet makes some very strong points that organize our understanding of Revelation. First, that the book says it’s meant to be read out loud. Therefore, hearers would be listening to the rhythms and cadences of the book while picking up on verbal markers linking the book together and with Old Testament sources. Just like Jesus’ exclamation, “I thirst,” calls to mind Psalm 69, John’s symbols refer to and sometimes reinterpret Old Testament stories and images. He argues that the book was made to be apprehended by those who hear it, though textual analysis provides further depth.

Numbers also take on significance in the book. As an example, concerning Rev. 7:4, he says, “Twelve is the number of tribes of Israel, a thousand intensifies it (and is itself a military formation), a squared number expresses perfection: twelve times twelve thousands, therefore, means that the sealed are the totality of God’s Israel, brigaded for His service.”

Another organizing principle Sweet advances is that what John says he sees is interpreted by what he hears. He says, “What is heard, the ‘voice’, represents the inner reality, the spirit; what is seen, the ‘appearance’, represents the outward, the flesh.” Sweet is careful to say this is neither a gnostic nor Platonic understanding, but rather, “To the Jew the outward world is the locus of God’s ‘speaking’, His self-revelation and action, so that there is a dialectical relationship between inward and outward, spirit and flesh, hearing and seeing.”

He cites several examples. Sweet says,

Thus the slain Lamb (which John sees) is interpreted by the Lion of Judah (of which he hears): its death is not weakness and defeat, as it seems to be, but power and victory (cf. 1 Cor 1:23 ff).” Also, he says, “In Rev. 7 John hears (Rev. 7:4) the number of the 144,000 who are ‘sealed’ (i.e., the spiritual truth of Israel’s ‘election’), which interprets what he sees (v. 9), a multitude drawn from all nations: i.e., ‘salvation is of the Jews’. But the outward reality of the church, in which there cannot be distinctions between Jews, Greek, and barbarian (Col. 3:11), reinterprets the traditional theological truth of Israel’s priority.

Sweet says that the letters (Rev. 2, 3), “show that the church’s chief dangers are internal: complacency, somnolence, and compromise with worldly values.” However, Sweet says, there is also danger from external attack: false jews who attack faith in the Messiah and false prophets and Nicolaitans (Niko-laos means Conquer–people) who adulterate it with heathen religion and morals. The false prophets and Nicolaitans are associated with Balaam (Bala‘–’am means Destroy–people,) Balak, and Jezebel. Balaam and Balak, Sweet points out, are one of several Old Testament representatives of the false prophet and beast king of Revelation.

Sweet points out that within his four septets structure (i.e., letters, seals, trumpets, and bowls) there is another feature crucial for understanding the book. He says,

The visions of destruction (Ch. 6–20) are bracketed by the overarching vision of God the Creator and Redeemer (Ch. 4–5,) who makes all things new (21:1 – 22:5): carnage and chaos are within the divine plan and lead through into the fulfilment of man’s destiny in final union with God.

However, Sweet struggles to reinterpret all the destruction of chapter 6 through 20 as sacrificial love instead of vengeance, but ends up concluding rightly, with Farrer, “No other New Testament writing presents such embarrassing pictures…yet to a large extent Revelation merely colors in what was everywhere taken for granted…And as for divine vengeance, no New Testament Christian felt any qualms about it. God’s mercy was outpoured to save as many as would repent; but the triumph of His power over irreconcilable hostility was to have all the splendor of a victory.”

Finally, he analyzes the book and presents the following outline. Others, who agree with the symbolic interpretation, differ with the breakdown for textual reasons.

Revelation Verses	Description	Synoptic Gospel Verses – Matthew 24:
1:1–11	Opening address
1:12–end	Vision of the Son of man
2, 3	THE SEVEN LETTERS
Ephesus Sardis	State of churches: deception, lawlessness	4–5, 9–12
2:1–7	Ephesus: false apostles, Nicolaitans
2:8–11	Smyrna: false jews, tribulation
2:12-17	Pergamum: witness, idolatry
2:18–29	Thyatira: Jezebel, fornication
3:1–6	Sardis: sleep, soiled garments
3:7–13	Philadelphia: false and true jews
3:14–22	Laodicea: affluence, nakedness
4:1–8:1	THE SEVEN SEALS
Smyrna Philadelphia	Assurance and endurance	13
4	God the creator – rainbow and sea
5	God the Redeemer – Lamb’s conquest unseals book
6:1–8	Four horsemen = beginning of birth-pangs	6–8
6:1–2	First seal – conquest (the Gospel?)
6:3–4	Second seal – war
6:5–6	Third seal – famine
6:7–8	Fourth seal – death (pestilence)
6:9–11	Fifth seal – comfort for martyrs	13–14
6:12-17	Sixth seal – cosmic demolition (‘wrath of Lamb’)	29–30
7:1–8	Sealing of true Israel (144,000)
7:9–17	Final ingathering from all nations	31
8:1	Seventh seal – silence (birth of New Age)
8:2 – 14:20	THE SEVEN TRUMPETS (THREE WOES)
Pergamum Laodicea	Idolatry and witness	14–15
8:2–5	Heavenly altar of incense
8:6–12	First four trumpets: destruction of nature	29
8:13	Eagle – three woes
9:1–12	Fifth trumpet = first woe: locust–scorpions
9:13–21	Sixth trumpet = second woe: lion-cavalry Self–destruction of idolatry; impenitence
10	Little scroll (= the gospel)
11:1–13	Measuring of temple, two witnesses Church’s witness; penitence	14 Mark 13:9–13
11:14 – 13:18	Seventh Trumpet = third woe (12:12)
11:15–19	Heavenly worship
12:1–12	Defeat of dragon in heaven leads to
12:13–17	Flight of woman (= church)	16–20
13	Kingdom of beasts on earth	15
13:1–10	Sea beast: war on saints	21–22
13:11–18	Land beast: deception	23–26
14:1–5	144000 – first fruits
14:6–11	Eternal gospel; consequence of refusal
14:12–20	Coming of the Son of man Final ingathering: harvest and vintage	30–31
15:1 – 22:5	THE SEVEN BOWLS
Thyatira Laodicea	Fornication and purity: Bridegroom comes	30
15:1–4	Song of Moses and the Lamb
15:5–8	Heavenly Temple
16:1–9	First four bowls of wrath: cf. trumpets
16:10–11	Fifth bowl: beast’s kingdom darkened	29
16:12–16	Sixth bowl: Armageddon
16:17–22	Seventh bowl: beast’s city destroyed
17	Harlot destroyed by the beast
18	Doom of the harlot = Babylon = Rome	37–40
19:1–10	Marriage supper of the Lamb	25:1–13
19:11–16	Coming of the Son of man, as Word of God	30
19:17–21	Destruction of beasts
20:1–6	Binding of Satan, rule of saints – Thousand years (millennium)
20:7–10	Release and final destruction of Satan
20:11–15	Last judgment
21:1–8	New Creation, expounded as
21:9–21	Adornment of bride – holy city
21:22 – 22:5	Ingathering of nations Tree of life – paradise restored
22:6 – end	Final attestation