The Evidence For Fulfilled Prophecy In Revelation

I've occasionally been posting about evidence for the book of Revelation (here and here, for example). Another line of evidence for the book is fulfilled prophecy. I'm a futurist and premillennialist, so I think most of the prophecies in the book haven't been fulfilled yet. Somebody who holds a different view, like some form of preterism, could argue for the fulfillment of a larger portion of the book. But what I want to do here is discuss a line of evidence that Christians in general should agree about.

Some of the prophecies in Revelation are supposed to have been fulfilled near the time of the writing of the document even under the most futurist sort of perspective. I'm thinking of some predictions in chapters 2-3 about the churches to whom the book is addressed. And those churches would have been in a good position to know whether the predictions had been accurate. The stronger the evidence for the early acceptance of Revelation in those regions of the world, the more likely the accuracy of the predictions is.

See my post here that discusses the early reception of Revelation. Irenaeus refers to how "those men who saw John face to face" had commented on a textual issue in Revelation, which suggests that those eyewitnesses of John held the book in high regard and continued discussing it after its initial circulation (Against Heresies 5:30:1). The post linked above also discusses how some comments of Tertullian suggest that the seven churches addressed in Revelation 2-3 accepted the book. The evidence for Revelation's early acceptance, including among the seven churches addressed in the book, is early, comes from sources who were well positioned to judge the subject reliably, and is widespread.

That situation is best explained if the prophecies of Revelation 2-3 were accurate.

Papias' Acceptance Of The Synoptics And John

Another early example of what I discussed in my last post, though a less significant example, is Papias. It's well known that he thought highly of the Synoptics, as cited in Eusebius, Church History 3:39:15-16. Something that gets discussed much less is how various phrases and concepts found in the Johannine literature are found in Papias' writings as well, including in forms very unlikely to be merely coincidental. In all likelihood, Papias was familiar with the Johannine documents in the New Testament and thought highly of them. As I wrote in a post several years ago, "I've already noted Papias' use of 'the elder', a term that John applied to himself. In most lists of the apostles, Peter's name appears first. But in Papias' list, Andrew comes before Peter, followed by Philip. That order (Andrew, Peter, Philip) is identical to the order in which Jesus calls the disciples in John's gospel (John 1:40-41, 1:43). The same passage in Papias uses the phrase 'truth itself' (3 John 12), which is somewhat unusual." For a discussion of some other evidence for Papias' high view of both the gospel of Matthew and the gospel of John, see the sixth paragraph here. Just after discussing Papias' high view of the gospels of Mark and Matthew, Eusebius noted that Papias "uses testimonies from the first Epistle of John" (Church History 3:39:16). And he was a premillennialist and is reported to have corroborated the book of Revelation in some sense (see section E2 here). The sort of high regard for the writings of John suggested by all of these lines of evidence is furthered by Papias' reference to an elder named John who seems to have still been alive for some part of Papias' life and whose testimony Papias is interested in (Eusebius, Church History 3:39:3-4). For an argument that the John Papias refers to there was the son of Zebedee, see here. And see my recent post here for evidence that Irenaeus likely had the son of Zebedee in mind when he referred to Papias as an eyewitness of John (Against Heresies 5:33:4). Papias was a bishop in Asia Minor, the region where the seven churches of Revelation resided. He and the audience for whom he wrote provide further examples of what I referred to in my last post, people who seem to have held views that harmonized what's found in the Synoptics and the fourth gospel. Papias was closely associated with John in a variety of ways (as an eyewitness of John, as somebody who lived in an area of the world where John lived and had a lot of influence, as somebody who thought highly of the New Testament's Johannine documents, etc.), and he held a high view of the Synoptics.

How The Book Of Revelation Corroborates The Synoptic Gospels And John's Agreement With Them

Critics of the fourth gospel often fault it for its differences from the Synoptics. But there's a long history of Christians arguing that John wrote with a knowledge of and agreement with the Synoptics and an intention to supplement them.

Evidence For The Jesus Of The Book Of Revelation

I could easily be ignorant of some work that's been done on this subject, but, at least in my experience, the evidence for the Jesus of Revelation has been neglected. We hear a lot about the Jesus of the Synoptics, the Jesus of the fourth gospel, or the Jesus of Paul's letters, for example, but seemingly far less about the Jesus of Revelation. Given how much Revelation has been criticized over the years, even by professing Christians at times, and given the importance of what Jesus says and does in other contexts in the book, the evidence for the Jesus of Revelation ought to get more attention.

The four horsemen

In light of COVID, Paul had the good idea to repost this piece from Steve:

"The four horsemen of the Apocalypse" (Steve Hays)

A sacramental faith

Thanks to Steve for passing along this Ligonier update from a pastor in Milan, Italy.

It'd be good if Christians could pray for them.

At the same time, I wanted to note a contrast in a word-based faith vs. a sacrament-based faith:

Reformed Protestant and evangelical churches can hold worship services online. We can join in and listen to live streamed sermons preached over the internet. Sure, it's not as ideal as meeting in person and worshiping together, but it's not necessarily fatal to faith.

By contrast, Catholic worship is different. Of course, Catholics can do all these things too. However, these aren't as central to their worship or liturgy; at best, the sermon might be on par with the sacrament. Rather Catholic worship centers on the eucharist. The transubstantiated blood and the body of Christ. Catholicism is a sacramental faith.

However, if there's no priest to consecrate the holy sacrament, nor a physical place to receive the holy sacrament, then how can Catholics partake of the eucharist? Can priests go door to door consecrating and administering the body and blood of Christ for lay Catholics? If Catholics can't receive the eucharist, then wouldn't that affect their faith? No wonder so many Catholics were up in arms when they heard that mass was suspended across Italy!

A danger of panicking over the coronavirus

It's striking how much of our super advanced and highly technical society including economy is based on simple trust. I guess that's why economists talk about fiduciary relationships.

However, if that trust is eroded enough, or even dissipates, then I presume our economy and society could potentially come crashing down like a house of cards.

That's one reason why my posts about the coronavirus or COVID-19 have focused on quelling fears and stemming panic. At least as much as a nobody like me can do.

Otherwise, if people become driven by panic, they might take drastic actions. Such as pulling out all their money from their 401k and selling all their stocks. Or yelling at and fighting one another over toilet paper and hand sanitizer. Or looting and rioting. Or worse.

If enough people take these sorts of drastic actions, then it could collapse our economy, gov't, society as a whole.

In this respect, doomsday prophets who have been shouting from the rooftops that the end is near could end up predicting a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Addendum:

Of course, none of this is to say things won't become catastrophic. However, I think there are at least two possible catastrophic scenarios: a catastrophe from the virus itself and a catastrophe from how we react to the virus. As I've maintained, the former could be possible; it's the latter that I'd like to avoid. The simultaneous occurrence of both would be terrible. (And I think Steve has pointed out much the same or similar.)

Is climate change an existential threat?