He is coming soon

The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place (Rev 1:1).

i) What does "soon" mean in this verse? Not so much what does the Greek word mean, but to what does it refer? 

Preterists think they have a straightforward answer: "soon" means soon in relation to the fall of Jerusalem, in 70 AD. They make fun of how futurists try to explain "soon." David Chilton quipped that you wouldn't send a futurist to buy hot sandwiches. 

The preterist interpretation isn't quite as straightforward is it appears at first blush. For one thing, "soon" depends on what you date the book. Soon would mean soon after the book was written. Of course, that itself makes "soon" a relative concept. A matter of degree. How many years must go by before it's too late? The word itself doesn't specify an exact cut-off. 

ii) More to the point, even if that's a straightforward interpretation of the adverb, the preterist buys that straightforward interpretation at the expense of a very convoluted interpretation of what Revelation says about eschatological judgment, the return of Christ, the new Eden, new Jerusalem, cessation of sin, suffering, death, disease, and grief. That's a high price to pay for a single word. Surely there's a less costly interpretation for the book as a whole. 

iii) However, that's not the main issue. Let's explore the fluidity of this adverb. Suppose a husband becomes a widower at the age of 70. Perhaps they were a childless couple. Or perhaps they had a son who died in battle. Or a daughter who died in a traffic accident. So she's all he had. After she dies, he loses the will to live. Although he's free to remarry, he feels that it's too late in the life to begin a new life. He made his life with her. He can't go back and he can't go forward. She was it for him. 

Suppose he prays that God will take him "soon." When he first begins to pray for that, "soon" means soon after she died. He prays that God will let him die shortly after his wife died. 

But suppose, to his consternation, he's still alive 5 years later. Every day, he prays the same prayer. But "soon" as shifted. Even though he continues to use the same adverb, it no longer has the same referent. At this point it's too late for him to die soon after she died. So "soon" now means soon after the last time he prayed. "Take me soon," meaning, take me soon after I ask you to end my life. "Soon" is relative to the timeframe. If the timeframe shifts, the adverb follows the timeframe. Later is still "soon" in relation to the shifting timeframe. 

iv) For the preterist, "soon" (in Rev 1:1) has reference to an event: the fall of Jerusalem. But what if soon has reference to the audience? Indeed, isn't that unavoidable? What is soon for them. For the reader. Isn't that the natural frame of reference? 

But that in turn raises another question. The identification of the audience. Which audience? 

Is it the original audience? The seven churches of Asia Minor? They are certainly included in the audience for the book as a whole. 

Preterists like to emphasize that Scripture must be meaningful or relevant to the original audience. And that's true enough. Indeed, that's a component of the grammatico-historical method. 

However, the audience for Scripture isn't monolithic. Scripture has more than one audience. God inspired the Bible for the benefit of Christians in every generation. So the audience for Revelation isn't a fixed frame of reference. In which case, "soon" lacks fixity as well. 

More so when we consider the audience for prophecy. Suppose you have an oracle that's fulfilled just a generation after the prophet delivered his oracle. Even in that brief turnaround time, there's been some turnover in the composition of the audience. Some members of the original audience have died by then, while others were born afterwards. 

"Soon" and "late" are indexical markers. Soon in relation to where you happen to be in history. Because we're born at different times and die at different times, what is soon for you may be late for me. What is soon for me may be late for you.

If Christ had returned in the late 1C, that would be too soon for subsequent generations. You and I wouldn't be here in that event.

I had a devout grandmother who, when I was a boy, used to tell me about how she was hoping that Jesus would return in her own lifetime. In her mind, the sky would part like a curtain and Jesus would descend.

But he didn't return in her lifetime. And unfortunately, she lived too long for her own good. Her final years were darkened by tragedy. Whenever Christ returns, it will be too late to spare her what she suffered in her final years. But in that respect, the return of Christ will always be too soon for some and too late for others.

v) In Rev 1:1, "soon" may mean soon for the final Christian generation. For Christian readers who happen to be alive when he comes back. "Soon" tracks the salient audience. "Soon" picks out the applicable audience. 

Every Biblical promise isn't equally applicable in time and place. Not everything that happens in Revelation happens to everyone. 

Christina Rossetti was a Victorian poet who wrote devotional commentary on Revelation. She no doubt found Rev 20-22 edifying. Promises like that give us the hope to persevere. But the situation it describes isn't directly applicable to the reader until it happens. That isn't directly applicable to the reader unless it happens to the reader. In which case it's directly applicable to the final Christian generation. 

It wasn't soon for her. But then, it wasn't meant to be. Not everything in Revelation is meant for you and me. Not directly. Revelation describes some kinds of events which happen to some Christians, and other kinds of events which happen to other Christians. Things like that happen. Every Christian isn't going to recapitulate the narrative in Revelation. That was never in the cards. You and I will find out by experience how much of that describes our own experience.