Cogitations on Revelation

Those who want to say that the book of Revelation is to be taken, in the main, symbolically, seem to do so in a way that makes the reality pointed to by the symbolism to be not as terrible as the symbolism itself. By that reasoning the picture of the killing of a third of mankind in Rev. 9:15 is made to be something much less then the horror of the picture drawn in that verse. My contention is that the reality pictured in that verse is not less then the symbol, but is more terrible then what is conveyed in the symbol.

It is on this point that those who want to press for literalism in every detail of the book of Revelation also miss the boat. As my oldest daughter said when I was discussing this with her, if those who press the literal minutia of details understood the real horror of the actual reality being pictured, they would not be so quick to write about those things in the way they do.

So in reading Revelation, I find those given to symbolism on the one hand, and those given to apocalypticism on the other hand equally at fault. But I will still love them, God helping me.

~The Billy Goat~