The Book of Revelation and the Fall of Jerusalem
The Book of Revelation opens as a letter to seven real churches in Roman Asia, and it tells them the time is near. This page reads it the way its first hearers did: with the Old Testament open and the Roman war on Jerusalem in view.
Seven cities.
Seven letters.
John wrote from the island of Patmos to seven congregations in the province of Asia (Revelation 1:9-11), listed in roughly the order a messenger would reach them on the road. Each letter opens with Christ saying “I know” and closes with “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” Pick a city.
To the church in Ephesus
- Christ is introduced as
- The one who holds the seven stars and walks among the seven golden lampstands.
- Praised for
- Hard work and endurance. They tested people who called themselves apostles and found them false, and they hate the works of the Nicolaitans.
- Called out for
- “You have abandoned the love you had at first.”
- Promise to the one who conquers
- To eat of the tree of life in the paradise of God.
To the church in Smyrna
- Christ is introduced as
- The first and the last, who died and came to life.
- Praised for
- Faithful under affliction and poverty, though Christ calls them rich. They are told some will be thrown into prison for ten days of affliction.
- Called out for
- None. Smyrna receives no rebuke, only a charge: “Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life.”
- Promise to the one who conquers
- Not to be hurt by the second death.
To the church in Pergamum
- Christ is introduced as
- The one who has the sharp two-edged sword.
- Praised for
- They held fast to his name, even when Antipas, his faithful witness, was killed among them.
- Called out for
- Some hold the teaching of Balaam and of the Nicolaitans.
- Promise to the one who conquers
- Hidden manna, and a white stone with a new name written on it.
To the church in Thyatira
- Christ is introduced as
- The Son of God, with eyes like a flame of fire and feet like burnished bronze.
- Praised for
- Love, faith, service and endurance, and their later works exceed the first.
- Called out for
- They tolerate the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess.
- Promise to the one who conquers
- Authority over the nations, and the morning star.
To the church in Sardis
- Christ is introduced as
- The one who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars.
- Praised for
- A few people in Sardis have not soiled their garments.
- Called out for
- “You have the reputation of being alive, but you are dead.” The charge: wake up.
- Promise to the one who conquers
- White garments, and a name never blotted out of the book of life.
To the church in Philadelphia
- Christ is introduced as
- The holy one, the true one, who has the key of David.
- Praised for
- They have little power, yet they kept his word and did not deny his name. Christ sets before them an open door no one can shut.
- Called out for
- None. Philadelphia receives no rebuke, only a word for its own day: “I am coming soon. Hold fast what you have.”
- Promise to the one who conquers
- To be made a pillar in the temple of God, written with the name of the new Jerusalem.
To the church in Laodicea
- Christ is introduced as
- The Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of God’s creation.
- Praised for
- None. Laodicea is the one church given no praise at all.
- Called out for
- Lukewarm, neither hot nor cold. They say “I am rich” while Christ calls them wretched, poor, blind and naked. Then: “I stand at the door and knock.”
- Promise to the one who conquers
- To sit with him on his throne.
Read it with
Daniel open.
Dr. Greg Beale wrote the 1,300-page NIGTC commentary on Revelation and teaches New Testament at Reformed Theological Seminary in Dallas. He argues that nearly every verse of the book is saturated with Old Testament allusions. Daniel, Exodus and Ezekiel carry the most weight, and in Beale’s reading Daniel bookends the whole book and sets up its central theme.
That background, in his view, decides what the debated symbols mean. Beale argues that Babylon points to something far larger than one ancient empire, that 666 is probably not what most readers have been told, and that the seals, trumpets and bowls retell the same span from different angles, an approach called recapitulation. He traces a temple storyline that starts in Eden, where Adam served as the first priest, and ends with a temple that fills all creation.
The Dig In reads Revelation as a first-century letter, so the timing words matter as much as the imagery. Revelation 1:1 echoes Daniel 2:28, but where Daniel looked to “the latter days,” John writes of things that “must soon take place.” Daniel was told to seal his book; John is told not to, “for the time is near.” The show takes those words as the seven churches would have heard them: about their own generation, fulfilled in their time.
Four echoes to check yourself
- Daniel 2:28“What will be in the latter days”Revelation 1:1“The things that must soon take place”
- Daniel 7:13“One like a son of man,” coming with the cloudsRevelation 1:13“One like a son of man” among the lampstands
- Daniel 7:3Four great beasts come up out of the seaRevelation 13:1A beast rising out of the sea
- Daniel 12:4“Shut up the words and seal the book”Revelation 22:10“Do not seal up the words… for the time is near”
Jerusalem,
AD 66 to 73.
Dr. Guy MacLean Rogers calls the Jewish revolt “one of the best documented wars in all of the ancient world,” thanks to Flavius Josephus. In Rogers’ telling, the plates were shifting under the surface for sixty years before the earthquake. Here is the build to the fire.
- AD 6
Rome takes direct rule
When Judea comes under a Roman prefect, Judas the Galilean and a Pharisee named Zadok lead a revolt on one principle: there can be only one king. Rogers notes that Josephus links them to the later rebels, including the Sicarii, the “dagger men.”
Stop 1 of 7 - AD 26 to 36
Pilate’s standards
Pontius Pilate brings Roman military standards into Jerusalem, a violation of the commandment against images. Josephus says he nearly set off two separate revolts.
Stop 2 of 7 - About AD 40
A statue for the Temple
The emperor Gaius, known as Caligula, orders a statue of himself set up on the Temple Mount. Only his assassination in 41 stops the plan, and with it another near revolt.
Stop 3 of 7 - Early AD 60s
“Woe to Jerusalem”
A man named Jesus son of Ananias walks the city crying woe on Jerusalem. He is beaten and dismissed as mad. After the Temple fell, Josephus says, people decided he was not crazy after all.
Stop 4 of 7 - AD 66
The point of no return
Violence breaks out in Caesarea over access to a synagogue. The governor Gessius Florus takes silver from the Temple treasury, and his troops massacre the protesters. The priests stop the sacrifices offered for the emperor, which Rogers calls a declaration of independence from Rome.
Stop 5 of 7 - AD 70
The siege and the fire
Titus arrives at Passover. Jerusalem has three walls plus the walls of the Temple Mount, and the fighting lasts about four months in the summer heat. The Temple burns. Josephus says Titus wanted it spared, but Rome’s own monuments, from the Arch of Titus to an inscription restored from the Colosseum, boast of the destruction.
Stop 6 of 7 - AD 73 or 74
The last stronghold
Masada fell in 73 or 74, the last rebel fortress to hold out against Rome, and the war was over.
Stop 7 of 7
Two episodes
to start with.
One scholar reads Revelation through the Old Testament; the other reconstructs the war that brought down Jerusalem. Watch them back to back.
The Key to Revelation Has Been in Your Bible the Whole Time
with Dr. Greg BealePhD, Cambridge. Professor of New Testament, Reformed Theological Seminary, Dallas. Former president, Evangelical Theological Society.- How Daniel bookends Revelation and sets up its central theme
- The Exodus story behind God’s work through Christ and the church
- Eden as the first temple, and a temple that covers the earth
- His commentary picks for every reading of Revelation
The Fall of Jerusalem: Understanding the Jewish Revolt That Changed History Forever
with Dr. Guy MacLean RogersAuthor, The Great Revolt of the Jews against Rome, 66-74 CE (Yale University Press), named an Outstanding Academic Title by Choice.- Why the Jewish War is one of the best documented wars of the ancient world
- Three wars at once: against Rome, among Jews, and with their neighbors
- Who really burned the Temple
- How Judaism survived by turning to the book
Questions about
Revelation.
John addresses it to seven churches in the Roman province of Asia, in what is now western Turkey: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea (Revelation 1:4, 1:11). Chapters 2 and 3 carry a letter to each one, naming real problems in real congregations.
The book frames itself as “the things that must soon take place” (1:1) and says “the time is near” at its opening and its close (1:3, 22:10). Daniel was told to seal his book for a later time; John is told not to seal his.
The Dig In reads those words the way the seven churches would have heard them: about their own generation. In that reading, Revelation was fulfilled in the first century, with the fall of Jerusalem and its Temple in AD 70 as the covenant climax.
Dr. Greg Beale argues that nearly every verse of Revelation alludes to the Old Testament, with Daniel, Exodus and Ezekiel doing the most work. In his view Daniel bookends the whole book, and those connections, not modern headlines, are what explain its symbols.
After a revolt that broke out in AD 66, the Roman general Titus besieged Jerusalem at Passover in 70. After roughly four months of fighting, the city fell and the Temple burned. Dr. Guy MacLean Rogers notes that more than 100 of the 613 commandments counted by Maimonides concern sacrifice, so the loss reshaped Jewish life.
Mostly through Flavius Josephus, a Jewish general who later wrote for Roman patrons. His Jewish War, Jewish Antiquities, Life and Against Apion survive. Rogers adds archaeology, since Israel is among the most excavated places on earth, and Roman writers such as Cassius Dio.
Yes. In Matthew 24, Mark 13 and Luke 21 Jesus says not one stone of the Temple will be left on another, and ties it to “this generation.” Rogers describes a Jerusalem crowded with prophets, where people expected something dramatic to happen soon. The Temple fell about forty years later.
Read it as
they heard it.
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