From Our Books: Where Is Your Allegiance?
From Where Is Your Allegiance? by Paul Himes:
These first three chapters of Revelation, then, are primarily about Jesus Christ and his church. While Revelation does contain prophecy, too often we have focused on the eschatology of Revelation at the near exclusion of its Christology and ecclesiology. While eschatology (what will happen in the future) is certainly important, the main message of Revelation is not “let’s match up this book with current events” but rather “Jesus is Lord, and he is coming back, so act like it!” In fact, I would offer the following challenge to the reader (and to myself ): one cannot begin to grapple with the eschatology of Revelation until one has submitted to the Christology of Revelation. Granted, who Jesus Christ is remains inseparably linked to the fact that he is coming back—his Messianic role demands it! My point, however, is that we must come face to face with who Jesus is, and submit to him as such, before grappling with when he is coming back, the nature of the Millennium, or the myriad of interpretive issues in the remainder of this book. Furthermore, ultimately the test of one’s spirituality is not one’s views on how Revelation matches up with current (or past) events, but rather whether or not one has submitted to Jesus as Lord. (p. 5)
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