Story 4: Prophecies of the Deep Past Made Alive in Revelation
Almost all of the Bible tell us about things that happened in the deep past. But there are some parts of Scripture that look forward to tell the end of the story. They explain what is going to happen in the future. They are called prophecies. God gave His plan to men like Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel, telling them what His plans are all the way to the end of time and beyond. These men were prophets, and even though they lived thousands of years ago, the Lord gave them images and visions that showed them things that haven’t happened yet.
Remember, the earth is a cursed place, and Satan, the enemy of God, wants to destroy God’s people and rule with all of his evil, menacing power. There are terrible dangers and times of suffering here right now, and there will be even more in the future. But the end of the story is full of God’s bright and perfect goodness. God is holy and full of love, and He is in control. No matter how difficult things are on earth, we can be sure there is a happy ending for those who put their faith in the One who made us.
God would give this message to different prophets in different ways and places across hundreds of years. Many times, their words were meant for the people of their own time as well as for the future. They provide glimpses of God’s plan all over the Old and New Testament.
God revealed the grandest, most complete picture of what would happen at the end of time in the book of Revelation. It tells about how God will bring a new time, a whole new era that will never end. God will reveal this story to John, the apostle of Jesus. He saw amazing visions and breathtaking images as he watched the story unfold. But he wasn’t the first one to see these things. The prophets that came before him had seen them, too.
John knew his Bible well. He revered the words of the prophets of the past. As he watched the visions of Revelation unfold, he knew he was seeing things that he had read about before. Imagine how amazing it must have been for John when he realized that he was watching the same powerful works of God that the ancient prophets had written about.
As John wrote the story of Revelation, he was very careful to write it in a way that pointed out when he was seeing something that was connected to a great prophecy of the past. He wanted to make sure that we could connect the full story that he was writing with all of the great prophecies God had already revealed. John would often quote the prophets as he described things, using their words to show that he was seeing the exact same thing. He would use the same symbols they used or the same images. It was as if he was declaring: “Look! This sounds exactly like Daniel, and it should, because this is when Daniel’s prophecies will finally come true!”
Daniel was the prophet who God had given the greatest visions to about the end times. John uses a lot of Daniel’s words and images to describe the amazing things that he saw. For example, if we read Dan. 7:13 and Revelation 1:13-17a, we can see how much John borrowed from Daniel to show that the vision he was describing was the same moment Daniel had described over six hundred years before him. Look at how the close the words are in the matching highlighted colors of each set of verses:
Daniel 10:4-6
On the twenty-fourth day of the first month, as I was standing on the bank of the great river, the Tigris, I looked up and there before me was a man dressed in linen, with a belt of the finest gold around his waist. His body was like chrysolite, his face like lightening, his eyes like flaming torches, his arms and legs like the gleam of burnished bronze, and his voice like the sound of a multitude.
Revelation 1:12-15
I turned around to see the voice that was speaking to me…someone like a 'son of man' was dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet and with a golden sash around his chest. His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire. His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters.
The words are not exactly the same are they? Each writer had different ways to describe the Man. They were writing in different languages and in different times. They focused on different things. Daniel noticed that part of the golden sash was around the Man’s waist, John noticed that it was also across His chest. Daniel compared His voice to a multitude, but to John thought He sounded like rushing waters. Both sounds are powerful, and it is easy to imagine how they might both provide a good description of the same voice. But taking both descriptions together, it certainly seems that Daniel and John saw the same awesome, majestic Person? They were both struck by His blazing eyes.
This is an image of what Jesus looks like as the resurrected, victorious Savior. John and Daniel’s descriptions were the same because they were seeing the same Person. John wanted to makes sure we knew that, so while he described Christ in his own words, he was also careful to put key words in his writing that would remind readers of Daniel 10.
As John watched the Revelation of Jesus unfold, he also realized that he was seeing visions and images that God had given the prophet Ezekiel. These visions are about the wonderful place God is preparing for his people at the end of this age. See if you can pick out how these verses in the book of Isaiah and in Revelation are the same:
Ezekiel 37:25-28
They shall dwell in the land that I gave to my servant Jacob, where your fathers lived. They and their children and their children’s children shall dwell there forever, and David my servant shall be their prince forever. I will make a covenant of peace with them. It shall be an everlasting covenant with them. And I will set them in their land and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in their midst forevermore. My dwelling place shall be with them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Then the nations will know that I am the Lord who sanctifies Israel, when my sanctuary is in their midst forevermore.
Revelation 21:2-5
And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away."
And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.”
Ezekiel wrote these words down over six hundred years before Jesus came and died and rose again. John wrote the book of Revelation over fifty years after Jesus ascended into Heaven. This has been God’s great and precious plan since the beginning. He was proclaiming it through His servants to the human race throughout our whole history! And just like Ezekiel and John, we are waiting for that wonderful day.
The prophesies of Scripture find their fulfillment throughout the book of Revelation. As we start to read through it, I will put verses from the Old Testament and the New Testament in green boxes all along the way. These boxes are there to show you how God had already revealed that part of the story long ago so that you understand how His prophecies from the past fit into John’s letter of Revelation and the future that lies ahead of us.