God

God is the sovereign authority at the center of John Shorey’s reading of Revelation: the source of its prophetic message, the one enthroned above earthly powers, and the presence who ultimately dwells with his people in a renewed creation. The study sets divine judgment beside a promise of restoration, moving from a world confronted by wrath to one in which death, sorrow, and pain have passed away.

Revelation’s Source and Its Readers

The opening account presents Revelation as a message originating with God. God gives it to Jesus Christ to show his servants what must soon take place; Jesus Christ makes it known through an angel to John the Apostle, who bears witness to what he has seen. The chain of transmission places the vision under divine authority before the study turns to the difficulties of interpreting its sequence.

Shorey treats the book’s promised blessing to readers as a reason to approach it seriously, with prayer for help in understanding its message. He rejects the idea that Revelation is irrelevant or should simply be avoided because it is confusing. In his account, the challenge is not that the message has no present significance, but that its arrangement can obscure how its parts relate. He argues that sections are out of chronological order and that this has contributed to competing interpretations, including at least five different positions on the timing of the rapture. His proposed response is to reposition two angelic interruptions as explanatory material, rather than to treat every passage as part of a single uninterrupted sequence.

The study’s opening scene of John the Apostle’s vision also frames revelation as mediated rather than private speculation. John hears a voice and receives an instruction to write what he sees for the seven churches; the account identifies the message with the testimony of Jesus Christ and the word of God. The author’s emphasis on divine origin thus supports his appeal for careful reading, while his chronological arrangement remains his interpretive proposal.

The Throne and Divine Authority

In the heavenly scene, a door opens and John the Apostle is summoned to see what is to come. He is in the Spirit when he sees a throne with one seated upon it, described through the appearance of jasper and sardius and surrounded by a rainbow like an emerald. Twenty-Four Elders sit on surrounding seats, wearing white garments and golden crowns. Lightning, thunder, voices, and seven lamps of fire proceed from or stand before the throne. These details establish a courtly and cosmic setting in which earthly events are viewed in relation to divine rule.

The study returns to that authority when the sixth seal brings a great earthquake and changes in the sun, moon, stars, heavens, mountains, and islands. People across social ranks—from rulers and generals to the rich, the powerful, slaves, and free people—hide among caves and rocks. They understand the upheaval as the arrival of the day of wrath and appeal to the mountains to hide them from the one on the throne and from the wrath of Jesus Christ. The passage does not portray their fear as an abstract response to disorder: it connects the cosmic signs to recognition that divine judgment has arrived.

Judgment and the Study’s Interpretation

The trumpet and bowl sequences give judgment concrete consequences. At the first trumpet, hail and fire mixed with blood are cast upon the earth; a third of the trees and all green grass are burned. In the bowl sequence, a command comes from the temple for the angels to pour out the bowls of God’s wrath. The first bowl afflicts people who bear the mark of the beast and worship its image; the second turns the sea to blood, and the third turns rivers and springs to blood. At the seventh bowl, a voice from the heavenly temple and throne declares the work done, as an earthquake more powerful than any previously experienced divides the great city into three parts and brings the cities of the nations down. Babylon is remembered before God to receive the cup of wrath.

Shorey also applies the judgment passages to a disputed modern identification. He proposes that Mystery Babylon may refer to the United States, rather than to present-day Iraq, and points to descriptions of a powerful city, many peoples and languages, international trade, and rulers connected to the woman. He acknowledges that readers will not all agree. He also identifies a difficulty in his proposal: the passage’s association of the nation with the blood of prophets and saints leads him to consider whether America might turn against Christians in the last days. These are the author’s interpretations of the prophetic imagery, not an identification presented as settled fact by the evidence itself.

The Promise of Renewal

Revelation’s final vision shifts from judgment to the renewal of creation. John the Apostle sees a new heaven and a new earth after the first heaven and earth have passed away, and sees New Jerusalem descending from God, prepared like a bride. A voice from heaven announces that God will dwell with humanity and that the people will be his. God wipes away every tear; death, sorrow, crying, and pain are no more because the former things have passed away.

The promise is expressed as both transformation and relationship. The one seated on the throne declares that all things are made new and tells John the Apostle to write because the words are true and faithful. God identifies himself as the beginning and the end and offers the water of life freely to the thirsty. Those who overcome are promised an inheritance and a filial relationship with God. This ending gives the study’s account of divine authority its destination: the power that judges is also the power that renews, and the final order is not merely the end of calamity but God’s presence among his people.