Like the futurist school, this school is also highly prone to a “newspaper exegesis” that is arbitrary. The locusts from the bottomless pit can be seen to represent the Mohammedan invasions, the beast representing the papacy, and the breaking of the seals, the fall of the Roman Empire. The different symbols are seen to portray various historical events on which there is much disagreement. Tenney comments that “the Historicist view is more literal than the Idealist view, but it’s advocates have never achieved unanimity on what the individual symbols mean.” In fact it could be said there are as many interpretations as there are commentators. The great divergence within this school would, as a result, tend to discredit it. While the futurist interprets the book in view of a compressed period of time immediately prior to Christ’s return, the historicist interprets it as a forecast of the entire span of history, including his own time, up to the return of Christ and the last judgement. It sketches the history of Western Europe, including the popes, the Reformation, the French Revolution, and leaders, such as Charlemagne and Mussolini. This leads to a “newspaper exegesis” that is highly arbitrary, searching for fulfilment in present-day events in fact, to eisegesis, that is, reading into the text through the lens of current events-the opposite of exegesis which demands drawing out the meaning of the text from the text itself. Hence, Revelation is being fulfilled in their lifetime. The difficulty of this school of interpretation is found in the fact that virtually every generation has believed that the return of Christ is immanent and that they, therefore, are the terminal generation. Also held is the view that upon Christ’s return the Davidic kingdom of Israel will be established for a period of 1,000 years – the Millennium – through which He will govern the world, after which follows the final judgement and the eternal state.
However, the eschatological emphasis remains on the final consummation and is therefore futuristic. The seals are then representative of all history. 4:1 signifying, not the “Rapture” but rather a change in John’s perspective to a heavenly vantage point. This view is classically ‘Dispensational’, although not all futurists would ascribe to it, instead, seeing ch. From chapter 4 all is future, being fulfilled in the great “Tribulation” (some say a period of 3 1/2years, others 7) immediately prior to the Second Coming of Christ. It is conceded by this school that the messages to the seven churches had contemporary relevance to them but also represents successive ages of church history up to “the rapture” of the Church.
In considering principles of interpreting the Revelation of Jesus Christ (1:1), there are four major schools of thought: Futurist, Historicist, Idealist, and Preterist.
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