My love for the book of Revelation (“The Revelation of Jesus Christ”) started when I was a teenager gripped by the wonderful original Star Wars trilogy (IV: A New Hope, V: The Empire Strikes Back and VI: Return of the Jedi). I loved those science fantasy movies and still do. There is something to be said about a handful of good guys taking on an unbelievably strong force of evil and emerging victorious. My love for the fantasy genre has only increased over the years. I devour fantasy novels with an appetite that might well be pathological.

In 1999 Alice and I were members of Glendale Presbyterian Church in California. The pastor, Darrell Johnson, did a year long series of sermons on “The Revelation of Jesus Christ”. And since then my love for “The Revelation of Jesus Christ” has only increased. And it was with joy and trepidation that I agreed to do a study of the book at Christalaya.

Those of you who are unable to attend the studies regularly might probably wonder why we are progressing so slowly. Those who attend will know that there is a lot of background material and interpretations that are dealt with, as a result of which even this pace is actually breakneck!

In chapter 11 we began to see some characters which give the book a fantastical feel – magical good guys (the two witnesses) who are killed; a woman threatened with death for being the bearer of good news; unbelievably macabre evil personae (the dragon and the two beasts).

And as I research for these studies what I observe is troubling. Most (not all, thankfully) of those who have studied this book tend to read the book as though it were a fantasy novel. I don’t mean that they think these events will not happen. Quite the contrary, they split into two schools of interpretation.

The first school thinks that events in the book will take place in as literal a manner as they do in the fantasy novels. So there is one individual who will be the first beast of Revelation 13 and another who will be the second. The second school thinks that the book does use symbols, but interprets (strangely enough) the numbers literally. So the first beast will have literally 10 branches/divisions to account for the 10 horns and the second beast will have 2 branches/divisions.

But in my view both these approaches are misguided because they are looking for the big threat of the fantasy novel – the all seeing Sauron of “Lord of the Rings” or Emperor Palpatine of “Star Wars” or Voldemort of “Harry Potter”.

In fantasy novels, there is inevitably some humongous threat, which is readily identifiable. The world in such novels is divided into two clearly distinct groups. The first (and larger) group constitutes those who desire to be on the winning side at all costs. These people might be coerced and are most often driven by fear. Even their allegiance to the antagonist is tenuously held by the bonds of fear. But the main reason for which they side with the antagonist is that he has promised to destroy all who stand in his way and they believe he will emerge victorious.

Those who side with Voldemort never for one minute think he is good. But they think he will win. And they think he will kill everyone who does not join him. The same can be said about Sauron and Emperor Palpatine and their respective followers. Their followers care most about being on the winning side, not about being on the side that is right.

The second (and smaller) group is made of those who recognize that the antagonist is a tyrant who must be resisted despite the overwhelming odds against them. Their opposition of the antagonist stems not from an understanding that he does not have any rightful authority but from the fact that he would oppress them and ruin their way of life.

This is different in “The Revelation of Jesus Christ”. Here those who follow the beast do so because they believe he has rightful authority. They follow because they are duped into this belief. His deception is so convincing that he is able even to raise doubts in the minds of ‘the elect’. The majority here are convinced that he is the genuine article, while the minority realize that he is not.

One of the lessons one can take away from “The Revelation of Jesus Christ” is that evil is difficult to identify because the deception is very accurate. It is the kind of deception that will slip in under the door if we are not constantly vigilant. It is not something that will show up just before Jesus returns, but is present even now, very often in things we take as good and wholesome. That is why the book consistently encourages wisdom and patience and faithfulness. Without these we might begin to believe that something is good and wholesome when in fact it is not, when in fact it is but a very accurate imitation, but an imitation nonetheless.

Both major schools of interpretation, with their desire to identify the ‘bad guys’ once and for all fail to see how scary the evil described by the book really is. For, if at any date you are able to identify the source of evil, then you have nothing to fear, you take no risks.

But if evil masquerades as good in very convincing ways and if it happens all the time, then we are daily faced with frightening prospects. And if evil masquerades in the form of things we often take as good, then the terror is compounded. And this is the evil about which the last book of scripture warns us.