Revelation.book Page iii Tuesday, August 20, 2002 4:10 PM REVELATION GRANT R. OSBORNE Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament å Grant R. Osborne, Revelation Baker Academic, a division of Baker Publishing Group, © 2002. Used by permission. Revelation.book Page iv Tuesday, August 20, 2002 4:10 PM ©2002 by Grant R. Osborne Published by Baker Academic a division of Baker Book House Company P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516–6287 Printed in the United States of America All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording— without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Osborne, Grant R. Revelation / Grant R. Osborne. p. cm. — (Baker exegetical commentary on the New Testament) Includes bibliographical references and indexes. ISBN 0–8010-2299-1 (cloth) 1. Bible. N.T. Revelation—Commentaries. I. Title. II. Series. BS2825.53 .O73 2002 228p.07—dc21 2002023958 For information about Baker Academic, visit our web site: www.bakeracademic.com Grant R. Osborne, Revelation Baker Academic, a division of Baker Publishing Group, © 2002. Used by permission. Revelation.book Page v Tuesday, August 20, 2002 4:10 PM To my mentors: Wes Gerig Richard Longenecker Clark Pinnock I. Howard Marshall My deepest appreciation for taking the rough granite of my life and sculpting what I am today Grant R. Osborne, Revelation Baker Academic, a division of Baker Publishing Group, © 2002. Used by permission. Revelation.book Page vi Tuesday, August 20, 2002 4:10 PM Black Sea MOESIA PONTUS THRACIA BITHYNIA Byzantium Rome MACEDONIA ITALIA Thessalonica GALATIA Puteoli MYSIA Troas Pergamum CAPPADOCIA Thyatira ACHAIA LYCAONIA Smyrna Sardis Iconium CILICIA ASIAPhiladelphia Tarsus Athens Ephesus Laodicea Perga Antioch Corinth Patmos SICILIA Salamis SYRIA Syracuse CYPRUS Damascus Sidon CRETE Tyre Caesarea Mediterranean Sea Joppa Jerusalem Cyrene Alexandria ARABIA Memphis EGYPT Red Sea Grant R. Osborne, Revelation Baker Academic, a division of Baker Publishing Group, © 2002. Used by permission. Revelation.book Page vii Tuesday, August 20, 2002 4:10 PM Contents Map vi Series Preface ix Author’s Preface xi Abbreviations xiii Transliteration xix Introduction to Revelation 1 I. Prologue (1:1–8) 50 II. Churches Addressed (1:9–3:22) 77 A. Inaugural Vision (1:9–20) 78 B. Letters to the Seven Churches (2:1–3:22) 104 III. God in Majesty and Judgment (4:1–16:21) 218 A. God’s Sovereignty in Judgment (4:1–11:19) 219 B. Great Conflict between God and the Forces of Evil (12:1– 16:21) 451 IV. Final Judgment at the Arrival of the Eschaton (17:1–20:15) 603 A. Destruction of Babylon the Great (17:1–19:5) 605 B. Final Victory: The End of the Evil Empire at the Parousia (19:6–21) 669 C. The Thousand-Year Reign of Christ and Final Destruction of Satan (20:1–10) 696 D. Great White Throne Judgment (20:11–15) 719 V. New Heaven and New Earth (21:1–22:5) 726 A. Coming of New Heaven and New Earth (21:1–8) 728 B. New Jerusalem as the Holy of Holies (21:9–27) 745 C. New Jerusalem as the Final Eden (22:1–5) 768 VI. Epilogue (22:6–21) 777 Works Cited 801 Index of Subjects 825 Index of Authors 828 Index of Greek Words 834 Index of Scripture and Other Ancient Writings 835 vii Grant R. Osborne, Revelation Baker Academic, a division of Baker Publishing Group, © 2002. Used by permission. Revelation.book Page viii Tuesday, August 20, 2002 4:10 PM Grant R. Osborne, Revelation Baker Academic, a division of Baker Publishing Group, © 2002. Used by permission. Revelation.book Page ix Tuesday, August 20, 2002 4:10 PM Series Preface The chief concern of the Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Tes- tament (to be known as BECNT) is to provide, within the framework of informed evangelical thought, commentaries that blend scholarly depth with readability, exegetical detail with sensitivity to the whole, attention to critical problems with theological awareness. We hope thereby to at- tract the interest of a fairly wide audience, from the scholar who is look- ing for a thoughtful and independent examination of the text to the mo- tivated lay Christian who craves a solid but accessible exposition. Nevertheless, a major purpose is to address the needs of pastors and others involved in the preaching and exposition of the Scriptures as the uniquely inspired Word of God. This consideration affects directly the parameters of the series. For example, serious biblical expositors cannot afford to depend on a superficial treatment that avoids the dif- ficult questions, but neither are they interested in encyclopedic com- mentaries that seek to cover every conceivable issue that may arise. Our aim, therefore, is to focus on those problems that have a direct bearing on the meaning of the text (although selected technical details are treated in the additional notes). Similarly, a special effort is made to avoid treating exegetical ques- tions for their own sake, that is, in relative isolation from the thrust of the argument as a whole. This effort may involve (at the discretion of the individual contributors) abandoning the verse-by-verse approach in fa- vor of an exposition that focuses on the paragraph as the main unit of thought. In all cases, however, the commentaries will stress the devel- opment of the argument and explicitly relate each passage to what pre- cedes and follows it so as to identify its function in context as clearly as possible. We believe, moreover, that a responsible exegetical commentary must take fully into account the latest scholarly research, regardless of its source. The attempt to do this in the context of a conservative theo- logical tradition presents certain challenges, and in the past the results have not always been commendable. In some cases, evangelicals appear to make use of critical scholarship not for the purpose of genuine inter- action but only to dismiss it. In other cases, the interaction glides over into assimilation, theological distinctives are ignored or suppressed, and the end product cannot be differentiated from works that arise from a fundamentally different starting point. ix Grant R. Osborne, Revelation Baker Academic, a division of Baker Publishing Group, © 2002. Used by permission. Revelation.book Page x Tuesday, August 20, 2002 4:10 PM Series Preface The contributors to this series attempt to avoid these pitfalls. On the one hand, they do not consider traditional opinions to be sacrosanct, and they are certainly committed to do justice to the biblical text whether or not it supports such opinions. On the other hand, they will not quickly abandon a long-standing view, if there is persuasive evidence in its favor, for the sake of fashionable theories. What is more important, the contributors share a belief in the trustworthiness and essential unity of Scripture. They also consider that the historic formulations of Chris- tian doctrine, such as the ecumenical creeds and many of the docu- ments originating in the sixteenth-century Reformation, arose from a legitimate reading of Scripture, thus providing a proper framework for its further interpretation. No doubt, the use of such a starting point sometimes results in the imposition of a foreign construct on the text, but we deny that it must necessarily do so or that the writers who claim to approach the text without prejudices are invulnerable to the same danger. Accordingly, we do not consider theological assumptions—from which, in any case, no commentator is free—to be obstacles to bibli- cal interpretation. On the contrary, an exegete who hopes to under- stand the apostle Paul in a theological vacuum might just as easily try to interpret Aristotle without regard for the philosophical frame- work of his whole work or without having recourse to those subse- quent philosophical categories that make possible a meaningful con- textualization of his thought. It must be emphasized, however, that the contributors to the present series come from a variety of theolog- ical traditions and that they do not all have identical views with re- gard to the proper implementation of these general principles. In the end, all that really matters is whether the series succeeds in repre- senting the original text accurately, clearly, and meaningfully to the contemporary reader. Shading has been used to assist the reader in locating salient sections of the treatment of each passage: the introductory comments, the dis- cussion of structure, and the concluding summary. Textual variants in the Greek text are signaled in the author’s translation by means of half- brackets around the relevant word or phrase (e.g., {Gerasenes}), thereby alerting the reader to turn to the additional notes at the end of each ex- egetical unit for a discussion of the textual problem. The documentation uses the author-date method, in which the basic reference consists of author’s surname + year + page number(s): Fitzmyer 1981: 297. The only exceptions to this system are well-known reference works (e.g., BAGD, LSJ, TDNT). Full publication data and a complete set of indexes can be found at the end of the volume. Moisés Silva x Grant R. Osborne, Revelation Baker Academic, a division of Baker Publishing Group, © 2002. Used by permission. Revelation.book Page xi Tuesday, August 20, 2002 4:10 PM Author’s Preface The purpose of this commentary is not only to provide the reader with exegetical and background information on the text but to help the reader trace the theological threads that tie the book together.