Different Christian denominations interpret the doctrine of
Armageddon in various ways:
Tradition Interpretation
General
Christianity Viewed
as a literal or symbolic battle representing God's final judgment against evil.
Jehovah's
Witnesses Emphasizes
a literal battle where God destroys the wicked, based on interpretations of
various scriptures.
Seventh-day
Adventists Connects
Armageddon with the Second Coming of Christ, viewing it as a time of judgment
and renewal.
Dispensationalists Often see it as a
physical conflict involving nations, particularly in the context of Israel.
('See,
I am coming like a thief! Blessed is the one who stays awake and is clothed,
not going about naked and exposed to shame.') And they assembled them at
the place that in Hebrew is called Harmagedon. Rev 16:15, 16
But
understand this: if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night
the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his
house be broken into. Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man
is coming at an unexpected hour. Mat 24:43, 44
If
you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what
hour I will come to you. Rev 3:3
For
you yourselves know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief
in the night. 1Th 5:2
…upon
you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous
Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the
sanctuary and the altar. Truly I tell you, all this will come upon this
generation. Mat 23:35, 36
The garment and nakedness imagery fits that same warning
structure of Matt 24. Watchfulness against being caught unprepared by a sudden,
catastrophic judgment, looking to Rome’s destruction of the temple not the end
of the world.
Armageddon (Har-Megiddo) is
interesting because in the Old Testament it was never the site of an
end-of-the-world battle, it's the plain where Deborah and Barak crushed Sisera,
where Gideon routed Midian, and where Josiah was killed by Pharaoh Necho. It
functions in Hebrew memory as a place of divine judgment on Israel and her
enemies, not a literal future battlefield.
Language distinctive to
Jesus' own idiom; "Son of Man" Revelation 1:13, draws on Daniel
7:13, but Daniel's phrase became Jesus' signature self-designation across all
four Gospels and was used some 80 times, almost always by him about himself.
The specific detail in Revelation 1:7, "he is coming with the clouds, and
every eye will see him," matches not just Daniel but Jesus' own courtroom
statement to the Sanhedrin: "you will see the Son of Man... coming with
the clouds of heaven" (Mark 14:62), and his Olivet Discourse prediction in
Mark 13:26. So this isn't John going to Daniel independently it’s John picking
up Jesus' own apocalyptic self-reference and opening the book with it. The
repeated first-person "I am coming" declarations through the letters
function the same way that Jesus speaks of his own return throughout the
Gospels.
Jesus’ teaching on endurance
and reward. "Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of
life" (2:10) similar to "the one who endures to the end will be
saved" (Matthew 24:13) and the losing-your-life-to-save-it sayings
(Matthew 10:39, 16:25). "Who has an ear, let him hear" is close to
verbatim Jesus' fixed refrain most
famously the tag line after the Parable of the Sower (Matthew 13:9, Mark 4:9,
Luke 8:8), repeated in Revelation after every one of the seven letters. That's
worth pausing on, because the Sower parable is precisely about differentiated
responses to the same message some hearers bear fruit, some don't which is
exactly the evaluative structure of the seven letters themselves (each assembly
judged individually on its response).
Language from the parables: "Hold fast to what
you have until I come" (2:25) the "Do business with these until I come back" in the
Parable of the Minas (Luke 19:13) and the Parable of the Talents (Matthew
25:14-30) both about servants entrusted with responsibility during a master's
absence, evaluated on his return.” "I will come like a thief, and you will
not know at what hour" (3:3) is the thief-saying we already traced to
Matthew 24:43, Luke 12:39, 40 “You
also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.
"I am standing at the door and knocking" 3:20, has a very precise
parallel in Luke 12:36, part of the Parable of the Waiting Servants: masters
who "wait for their lord... so that when he comes and knocks, they may
open to him at once." In Luke's Gospel that parable sits immediately
before the thief-parable the two images
are already paired in Jesus' own teaching, exactly as they resurface paired
across Revelation door knocking at Laodicea, thief at Sardis and again at
16:15).
The Parable of the Wicked Tenants (Matthew 21:33-46,
explicitly aimed at the chief priests and Pharisees per 21:45) ends with the
vineyard taken from them and given to others — structurally the same threat
Jesus makes to Ephesus: "I will remove your lampstand from its place"
(2:5) unless they repent. The Wicked Servant parable (Matthew 24:45-51), similar
the same accountable-leadership. In Revelation 2-3 John recasts the seven
churches really their "angels," their overseers into the role those
parables originally assigned to Israel's religious establishment: stewards
holding a trust, subject to sudden evaluation, capable of losing their position
for unfaithfulness. The vocabulary carries that judgment-on-leadership frame
with it.
A concrete anchor for language and concepts already in play
during Jesus' life is the leadership-conflict material specifically. The
parables we identified as aimed at religious leaders: the wicked tenants, the
wedding feast, the wicked servant weren't delivered as abstract future
warnings. Jesus told them in the Temple courts, in direct verbal combat with
the chief priests, elders, and Pharisees Matthew 21:23-46 explicitly frames the
tenants parable as aimed at "them," and 21:45 says "the chief
priests and Pharisees... perceived that he was speaking about them". The
Olivet Discourse's prediction of the Temple's fall follows immediately after,
in the same visit, prompted by his disciples pointing at the Temple buildings.
So, the sequence confrontation with unfaithful leadership, parabolic judgment,
prediction of the Temple's destruction, warning to watch is something that
happened once, concretely, in real time, in the days before the crucifixion. It
isn't background theory retrofitted later; it's the actual events of that week.
The Greek compound word apokalupsis is the noun
form of “I uncover, I unveil, I disclose” not "a creation" or
"an invention," but "an uncovering" of something that was
already there, concealed, and is now exposed to view. What Revelation does is
pull a cover off an existing reality rather than manufacture new content.
I do not look at Revelation as though it was a stand-alone
letter – it isn’t, I consider language similarities and context in Jesus’
teaching. Looking through the lens of Jesus teaching, one can assess what some events
in Revelation “are not” even if it is not clear what “they are”. What Revelation
uncovers is not in opposition to the teaching of Jesus; what the book reveals
will always be consistent with what Jesus taught.
I chose “Armageddon” because there are so many silly opinions
and stupid doctrines based on it. Har-Megiddo is not “God's final judgment,” it
is not “a literal battle where God destroys the wicked,” it is not “a future
Second Coming of Christ,” and it is not “conflict involving nations and Israel.”
None of these represent Jesus’ teaching. Jesus spoke of judging the twelve
tribes of Israel. He spoke of the desolation of Jerusalem the house of Israel.
Jesus said some of his audience would be living when he returned. Jesus told Pilate,
“My kingdom is not from this world.”
It really bothers me that every
time there is conflict or a war prophets of doom bellow threats of the coming Armageddon!
Others promote nonsense of the re-instatement of Israel as God’s kingdom.
The starting point of
understanding God's word and scripture is listening to and focusing on Jesus.
He was the living message the representation of God. “…the Word became flesh and lived among us, and
we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and
truth.” Peter thought it would be good to build three tents – not places to
spend the night but three tabernacles elevating Moses and Elijah to the same status
as Jesus. God’s response was immediate “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I
am well pleased; listen to him!” Not the law and not the prophets but
Jesus. The Hebrew letter begins – “Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many
and various ways by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to
us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created
the worlds.”
Our
relationship with God is not based on prophecy or law, but on Jesus the Son of
God. If your denomination scratches around in prophetic declarations or
religious legalities you need to back away from them and listen to Jesus.
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