1 The revelation from Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place.
Why Revelation Feels So Strange
Let’s be honest. Revelation is weird. It’s not the book people go to for comfort. It’s not where most pastors camp out for sermon series. And if you’ve ever tried to read through it without already knowing what to expect, it can feel like you accidentally picked up a fantasy novel shoved in the back of your Bible.
It’s full of monsters, plagues, angels, fire, thrones, scrolls, and numbers that feel more like algebra than inspiration. For many, Revelation is either something to avoid or something to obsess over. It gets treated like a secret code for the end of the world, with every beast mapped to a politician and every trumpet blast assigned to a news headline. (Have we done that ourselves?)
But here’s the thing: Revelation wasn’t written as a puzzle. It’s a kind of literature that was well known in its time. It’s called apocalyptic literature, and it had rules, structure, and purpose. It used symbols and visions to pull back the curtain on reality. It wasn’t trying to be confusing. It was trying to help people see what they couldn’t otherwise see... who is really in charge, and where history is going.
The problem isn’t Revelation. The problem is how we read it. We want literal clarity from a book that was never meant to be read like a newspaper. We want Revelation to explain the future in detail, when it was written to inspire faith in the present. If you’ve ever felt like you couldn’t make sense of it, you’re not alone. But maybe that’s not a failure. Maybe it’s an invitation to read differently.
Symbols That Speak
Revelation speaks in symbols. Not randomly, but deliberately. Its creatures, numbers, and settings are part of a rich symbolic world that draws heavily from the Old Testament. If you’ve read Daniel, Ezekiel, Isaiah, or Zechariah, you’ve already been introduced to this language. Revelation doesn’t make up its strange images out of thin air. It borrows from the Bible’s own symbolic grammar.
The dragon is not just a scary monster. It’s identified in Revelation 12:9 as “that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray.” The beast in chapter 13 resembles the four beasts of Daniel 7, which represented empires (Daniel 7:17). The lamb with seven horns and seven eyes is a symbol of Christ’s power and presence. These images are not literal descriptions. They are theological messages in visual form.
This kind of writing wasn’t meant to confuse. It was meant to communicate to people who were suffering and wondering if God had lost control. Rome looked unbeatable. The Church looked small and weak. Revelation says, 'look again'. The real battle is not what you see. The symbols give you eyes to see what’s happening behind the curtain.
If you try to force these symbols into literal boxes, they collapse. They don’t work that way. You can’t understand Revelation unless you allow it to speak in the language it chose. And that language is not charts or timelines. It’s symbols with layers. It’s images that hold truth the way a parable holds truth. Not surface-level, but deep and wide.
What’s Literal, What’s Not?
This is where many people stumble. They ask, “Is this literal or symbolic?” as if those are the only two choices. But Revelation doesn’t work like that. It’s not trying to be one or the other. It’s describing real things in symbolic language. Just like Jesus is not literally a lamb, but is called “the Lamb of God,” the images in Revelation point to reality through metaphor.
Take the seven seals, the seven trumpets, or the seven bowls. These are not literal weather events or future news headlines. They are visions of judgment, warning, and spiritual confrontation. They use repetition and variation to make a point: God sees the injustice in the world, and He will act.
The point of the imagery isn’t to map it to a specific date. It’s to communicate what kind of God is on the throne and what kind of story we are in. Revelation tells the truth, but it tells it in a way that forces us to feel it, not just analyze it. The symbols hit deeper than data.
If you try to turn it all into a literal checklist, you miss the point. But if you treat it like poetry or prophetic art, it starts to make more sense. It tells us that evil is real, judgment is coming, and hope is still alive, not because we understand every detail, but because He still stands.
The Point Isn’t Prediction
Probably one of the biggest misunderstandings about Revelation is the idea that its main purpose is to predict the future. But that’s not how the book introduces itself. It begins with, “The revelation of Jesus Christ.” Not “The schedule of end-times events.” Revelation is not first about what will happen. It is first about who Jesus is.
Yes, it includes visions of judgment and final victory. Yes, it talks about things to come. But all of that is anchored in the person of Christ. He is the one who walks among the churches. He is the one who opens the scroll. He is the Lamb who was slain and now lives. Every strange image is centered around Him.
The goal of Revelation is not to help you guess the Antichrist. It’s to help you remain faithful when everything around you feels like it’s falling apart. The early Christians were facing persecution, compromise, fear, and political pressure. Revelation was written for them, and for us, not so we could escape history, but so we could endure it.
Trying to turn Revelation into a timeline misses the point. It’s not about escape. It’s about perseverance. It doesn’t give us a map. It gives us a promise: Jesus wins. And if we follow Him, no matter what beast rises or what seal is broken, we belong to a Kingdom that cannot fall.
What the Imagery Still Speaks Today
We live in a world full of beasts. Some of them wear suits. Some carry flags. Some build platforms or algorithms. The beast isn’t just one person in the future. It’s any system that demands your allegiance in place of God. Revelation’s images still speak because the spiritual realities haven’t changed. Power still corrupts. Religion still gets hijacked. People still suffer under false gods.
The dragon still works to deceive. The beast still rises from the sea. The false prophet still leads people astray. These aren’t medieval fantasies. They’re spiritual patterns. Revelation gives them form so we can name them. And once we can name them, we don’t have to bow to them.
At the center of it all stands the Lamb. Not a warrior king. Not a celebrity preacher. Not the papacy... A lamb that was slain. That’s the real power in Revelation. Not the beast. Not the dragon. But the Lamb, who conquers by sacrifice. The one who wins by losing. The one who tells the truth in a world built on lies.
Revelation is not a fear-based book. It isn’t a puzzle to be solved. It’s a hope-based one. It says things will get worse before they get better. But they will get better. Not because of us, but because Jesus holds the scroll. And nothing - no empire, no ruler, no disaster - can take it from His hand.
So maybe we don’t need to decode Revelation. Maybe we just need to listen to it.
And maybe that’s exactly the kind of scripture a faith-in-progress needs.