Revelation: An Exegetical and Theological Exposition of Holy Scripture

Written by Paige Patterson Reviewed By Joe Tyrpak

Paige Patterson, President of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, stands among the most influential American evangelicals of the last century. Revelation is his fifth full-length commentary, his first to be published in almost thirty years.

Although Patterson distances himself from traditional dispensationalism—his “position is that the dispensations are notoriously difficult to identify” and that “they constitute an imposed grid that has no specific support from Scripture” (p. 41)—he nevertheless interprets Revelation from a futurist position (pp. 29–30) that is both premillennial and pretribulational (pp. 35–36). In the commentary’s introduction Patterson argues that John the apostle authored Revelation in AD 95 (pp. 18–23). He believes that Revelation fits the genre of “a prophetic circular letter which not infrequently makes use of apocalyptic imagery . . .” (p. 25), and he understands Rev 1:19 to be “the key” (pp. 32–34) that unlocks the book’s three-part outline: Rev 1 covers John’s vision on Patmos; Rev 2–3 covers the church age; and, Rev 4–22 covers the future “era following . . . the age of the church” (p. 34; cf. p. 71).

As he works through the first three chapters Patterson explains, “the angels of the churches” are probably human pastors (pp. 72, 79, 84); Jesus’ promise to keep the Philadelphian congregation from “the hour of trial” is “substantial evidence . . . that the church is removed prior to the [seven-year] tribulation” (p. 133); and when Jesus threatened the seven churches with loss of reward, Jesus was warning them of losing only some rewards in heaven, not of losing out on their heavenly reward (pp. 134, 145; cf. p. 255).

Most of Patterson’s interpretational decisions in Rev 4–22 are typical of a pretribulational futurist. He teaches that the scroll contains “the events of the period of the tribulation” (p. 167); the three sets of judgments are “sequential” yet somewhat “overlapping (pp. 176, 299); the first horseman is the Antichrist (p. 179); the 144,000 in Rev 7 “literally represent 144,000 Jewish people” (pp. 193–98); the trumpet judgments describe literal calamities that could include meteors, volcanoes, and/or nuclear missiles (p. 210); Rev 11 refers to the last half of the tribulation when there will be a literal rebuilt temple in Jerusalem and two literal prophets who come from the numerous post-rapture converts (pp. 238–45); the “radiant woman” of Rev 12 symbolizes “the 12 tribes of Israel” (p. 261); the two beasts in Rev 13 refer to two literal individuals—the Antichrist who is “primarily political” and possibly “of Gentile origin” as well as the false prophet who is “essentially religious” and possibly “of Jewish origin” (p. 273); and the 1,000 years prophesied in Rev 20 “should be taken literally” (p. 355). Throughout his commentary Patterson most often supports his perspective with three other pretribulationalists: W. A. Criswell, Robert Thomas, and John Walvoord.

Patterson’s Revelation has several strengths. First, his theological position is solidly conservative, and his tone is gracious. While pointing out that “how the Apocalypse is interpreted is a second-order issue” (p. 36), Patterson consistently affirms first-order issues (pp. 31–32). He presents Revelation’s “exalted Christology” (pp. 68, 94, 165), its numerous implicit and explicit references to the Trinity (pp. 156, 174, 200, 252), its emphasis on the substitutionary atonement (pp. 61, 203, 269), its affirmation of eternal punishment (pp. 294, 342, 358), and how it teaches the necessity of faith alone in the explicit name of Jesus (pp. 128, 360).

Second, though the references are often little more than informational, Patterson interacts with various ancient interpreters more than a hundred times. He most frequently shares the perspectives of Irenaues, Oecumenius, and Tertullian.

Third, prior to his exegesis of Jesus’ seven letters, Patterson gives about three pages of helpful background on each city. So, while the commentary on each chapter in Rev 4–22 averages thirteen pages, Patterson spends seventy pages explaining Rev 2–3. These seventy pages give this commentary its greatest value.

Finally, based on his experience of preaching three times through Revelation (p. 9), Patterson offers frequent advice to pastors on preaching—preaching Revelation (pp. 45–47), preaching with pathos (p. 234), and preaching both grace and judgment (pp. 236, 304). He also shares helpful thoughts on worship (pp. 160, 253), the sin of tolerance (p. 113), the practical dangers of Gnosticism (p. 159), and dealing with “signs and wonders” and demonic encounters (pp. 282, 347, 350).

This commentary, however, suffers from a few significant weaknesses. First, from the first sentence of the book (p. 17), it’s clear that Patterson’s writing style is verbose and a bit melodramatic. His interpretive discussions can run on. See, for example, his four-page explanation of “the teaching of Balaam” that ends inconclusively (pp. 103–6) or his five-page discussion of the textual variants in Rev 5:9–10 (pp. 169–73).

Second, Patterson regularly advances or dismisses interpretations for which he provides no footnote. He also seems unaware of key interpretive possibilities and key inconsistencies in his own positions. A few examples will suffice. He claims that Rev 14:8–13 has increasingly led interpreters away from an apocalyptic understanding of the book, yet he doesn’t offer a single example of an interpreter who has changed (p. 290). He dismisses postmillennialism because its proponents vary so widely in their understanding of Revelation’s details (p. 37), yet he never offers a single footnote to explain how the varieties within postmillennial interpretation are worse than the varieties of interpretation within other systems. Patterson never mentions the possible connection between the four horsemen and the Olivet Discourse (pp. 175–82), he never offers a fourth option that “the radiant woman” in Rev 12 could refer more generally to the people of God (p. 260; even though a footnote on the next page takes that very position), and he never acknowledges that someone can understand Rom 9–11 as teaching hope for ethnic Israel without leading to either a pretribulational or a premillennial position (pp. 38, 196, 240). As for inconsistencies, when he argues against posttribulationalism for its inability to explain millennial repopulation (p. 41), Patterson seems completely unaware of his own position’s difficulty to explain how “tribulation saints” will remain non-glorified after witnessing the glorious second coming. Because of this commentary’s relatively weak interaction at crucial points, it will likely “preach only to the choir” on second-order issues.

Finally, the systemic weakness of Patterson’s commentary is its mutually exclusive—yet inconsistently applied—understanding of literal-versus-figurative interpretation. Patterson’s hermeneutic is rooted in J. D. Pentecost’s oversimplified viewpoint that “when the Old Testament is used in the New it is used only in a literal sense” (p. 38). So, he refuses to symbolically interpret the virginity of the 144,000 as spiritual faithfulness (pp. 288–89), yet he understands the great prostitute as a symbol for the last days’ religio-political world empire and her unfaithfulness as “spiritual adultery” (p. 318). Just before he interprets the locust plague as symbolic of spiritual torment (pp. 217–21), Patterson openly admits, “Even if one follows essentially a literal interpretation, the language is highly poetic and figurative” (p. 213). Patterson should have opened the commentary with clear definitions of crucial hermeneutical terms such as literal, allegorical, symbolic, typological, figurative, and allusive.

Compared with other premillennial interpreters, Patterson’s Revelation lacks the thoroughness of Robert Thomas (WEC; Chicago: Moody, 1992–1995), the succinctness of Robert Mounce (NICNT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), and the practicality of James M. Hamilton (Preaching the Word; Wheaton: Crossway, 2012). Nevertheless, I’m glad to have it on my shelf, and I’ve already made profitable use of it, especially its thorough background descriptions of the seven cities in Rev 2–3.


Joe Tyrpak

Joe Tyrpak
Tri-County Bible Church
Madison, Ohio, USA

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