All prophecies including Revelation have their basis in God’s intelligent design. The symbology and message of a prophecy is limited by the speech and general knowledge of the audience. Most of Christ’s Apostles including John were Jewish. The symbology is relevant to the environment and understanding of the Jewish people, living at the time of Christ and John. Even if one insists that all of John’s words in Revelation are God-given, God still communicated in the language and symbology that John could understand.
Revelation is given in ethnic and historical language. Old Testament prophets also spoke in the language of their peers and used visual imagery that could be understood by their community. Revelation reflects the same messages found in Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and even Psalm 23.
Context of Biblical Prophecy
Intellectual knowledge alone is not sufficient to fully understand the visions of prophets. A spiritual account conveyed in prophecy requires a spiritual perspective. Intellectual knowledge is wedded to materialism not to spirit. Two similarities exist between Old and New Testament prophecy.
First, Biblical prophecies are based on absolute laws of creation as revealed to Jews. In this sense, Biblical visions are Jewish statements that express the universal experiences of all humanity. Someone from a different religious background, who speaks a different language, and has another cultural heritage may express the same Truth according to their own language, life experiences and community references. God encourages a united understanding from a spiritual perspective not from material experiences.
Second, Biblical prophets share a base of common intellectual understanding provided by the five books of Moses, which are Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. In other words, the intellectual expression of a Biblical prophet’s visions are based on the language of shared texts.
John’s Revelation
Visions seen during prophecy are very personal, specific to the individual who receives the information. God has made each human in His image. Each person’s ability to express Truth is limited by their own experiences as well as by events shared by their community. John didn’t discard his Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic expressions to suddenly give Revelation in ancient Sumerian, for example.
John likely saw carvings and images of dragons in various pagan temples during his travels. So, when dragons appear in Revelation, his visual language includes the dragons he has seen during his travels. Christ may be using these images for a specific purpose, or John’s mind may be using the image simply like a placeholder to facilitate a larger message. If what John is seeing doesn’t have an established Jewish reference, his mind may use the visual language to encourage later contemplation or to retain an element of mystery for future students of the prophecy. When John’s mind is directed by Christ to reference dragons thirteen times, it may represent a complex idea that must be experienced to be understood. While a literal dragon may be possible, it is unlikely.
Another example of prophetic elements that come from common reference is more obvious in the mention of the Hebrew Abaddon or Greek Apollyon (a reference to Apollo) in Revelation 9:11. John’s mind under Christ’s influence is using symbols that John and most of his peers are familiar with from daily living in a pagan community.
To accurately interpret prophecy, consider the languages and cultural references of the prophet. Prophecy is based on God’s intelligent design and comes from Spirit. Prophetic Truth is filtered through limitations of the prophet. To fully understand any prophecy, one must be still and connect to the Spiritual wisdom that inspired it.
