The Days of Vengeance: An Exposition of the Book of Revelation

Rating:
Summary: An amazing, somewhat flawed, commentary on Revelation
Review: David Chilton's "Days of Vengence" is simply one of the most intricate and facinating commentaries on Revelation that I have ever read. Chilton does this by asking simple questions that many commentators who believe in fantastic future calamities involving new world orders and such seem unwilling to even acknowledge: who was the letter written to? what was the purpose of the letter? what did the author mean when he said that the things happening in the letter would happen soon? what do all the allusions to the Old Testament mean? Once someone asks these questions and looks seriously for the answers than the dispensational position concerning a "pre-tribulation" rapture seems less and less plausible.

The book itself sets a standard for in-depth analysis. Chilton convincingly shows that the symbols and Old Testament allusions are placed with great care by St. John and shows how all of the symbols place themselves within the flow of salvation history. I was personally stunned by the richness with which he describes God's covenant with Israel, the "covenant lawsuit" structure of Revelation and the inaguration of the new covenant.

The slight flaws of the book were the relatively few places in the book in which Chilton's Calvinist presuppositions drive his conclusions. For instance when speaking of the possibility of being erased from the Book of Life, Chilton launches into a brief and very misguided defense of the docrine of Perseverence of the Saints. The author also takes a needless detour bashing those who defend free-will by taking a tangent from one of the numerous verses that show God's soveriengty over human history in Revelation and then comparing it to some tract that he found in which the tract's author presents a position of borderline Pelagianism. This is, at best, bad straw man argumentation. I think it is excusable because the purpose of the book wasn't a defense of Calvinism, but in exposition of Revelation. These minor details stick out only because they break with the overall work's dedication to sound and detailed exposition of the letter and the Bible itself. In other words, they are not reflective of the work as a whole.

If you want to read the book for free, the Institute for Christian Economics has this book and numerous others at their website:
http://www.freebooks.com/sidefrm2.htm

Rating:
Summary: The Days of the Vengeance of Our God...
Review: Here is a scholar who knows the Bible well. David Chilton asks what do the mystifying, threatening, ominous archetypes of the notorious Book of Revelation actually mean? What are the correlation between them and the visions of the Old Testament sage Daniel and the prophecies of Jesus? _The Days of Vengeance: An Exposition of the Book of Revelation_ is an interesting, though not flawless, study and analysis of the New Testament's concluding text. Chilton is an author for an obscure, far-right branch of the Calvinist/Reformed theological school known as "Dominion" or "Christian-Reconstruction" theology. Interestingly enough, although they are hard-core biblical-literalalists and determinists, the Reconstructionists maintain a very positive outlook on the future of the Church in the world. This is the "post-millennial" position in Christian eschatology that teaches that the Church of Christ will more or less take over the world and impose the Law of the Old Testament as official state policy. This is in absolute opposition to the well-touted "Dispensationalist" view in which Jesus will return and literally reign on earth for a thousand years in the future after the defeat of the Antichrist. For Reconstruction theologians, the prophecies in the Apocalypse pose an obstacle. The world will be taken over by the spirit of the Antichrist and the Church will suffer persecution on earth, NOT delivered by Christ until after the tribulation. The millennium is taken as a figurative rather than a literal term. If the Church is going to actually convert the entire world, then the events in Revelation need to be historicized as something in the past. One flaw of Chilton's book, although excellent at explaining his arguments with great clarity, is that it is divorced from the Patristic Tradition of the Church. It is derived from the Biblical exegesis of one scholar in a radical sect of Protestant Christianity. That stated, however, _The Days of Vengeance_ contains some insights into its subject and presents a view on Revelation that describes America's religious and political scene today very well if read between the lines.

Hopefully I can provide a decent summary: In Deuteronomy, God warned Moses of the utter wrath that would befall Israel if they disobeyed and rebelled against God's commandments. This was sealed by a covenant. If the Israelites kept the commandments they would not be destroyed off their land. The ultimate act of rebellion on the part of the Israelites was the rejection of Jesus Christ as the Messiah and demanding the Roman governor of Judea to crucify Him. Jesus in the Olivet prophecies in the Matthew speaks of the abomination of desolation and the coming destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. Here is where the interpretation is radically different. Jesus speaks here about the destruction of Jerusalem by the Roman armies in AD 70. Nearly the entire Book of Revelation is thus interpreted as symbolically describing the state of the Church of Christ, the Roman Empire, the Pharisees, the Emperors, etc., before and including AD 70. Chilton dates the time of Revelation�s authorship during the time of Nero as opposed to the more commonly cited year AD 95. Revelation would have been a coded message from the Apostle John to the Churches in Asia minor that would predict things �that would soon come to pass.� The audience, according to Chilton, would have understood the symbols in Revelation as they correspond precisely with the symbols of the Old Testament. The Beast 666 is the Roman Emperor Nero who persecuted the Church. The dragon is the Roman Empire and the False Prophet is the apparatus that forces the Empire�s subjects to worship the emperor and pay him tribute. The Church refused to recognize the divinity of the Roman State and emperor and this led to persecution. Interestingly enough, the Whore of Babylon, the worldly city who oppresses God�s people, is the city of Jerusalem. The Jewish Pharisees encouraged the Roman State to persecute Christians under charges of disloyalty throughout the empire. The heresies (like Jezebel) that St. John warns the churches of are variations of Judaism and Gnosticism; the entire book takes a very hostile position towards Judaism. Eventually a group of Jewish nationalists, the Zealots, staged a revolt against Roman authority. The Romans crushed the revolt and massacred thousands upon thousands of Jews, torched the temple, and violated the Holy of Holies. Terrible as this sounds to modern ears, this was God�s punishment on the Jews for their rejection of Christ. The description of Jews spreading heresies while using the state to persecute Christians in the first century AD is an accurate portrayal of the West today. The cover of _The Days of Vengeance_ even features an illustration of the cup of God�s wrath being poured out on the Jewish temple. However, this book departs radically from the traditional interpretation of Revelation since it puts nearly the entire book as a historical event not as a prophecy of the end of time. One flaw is that the Temple was not entirely destroyed. The Jews still pray at the Wailing Wall near the Temple site in Palestine. The idea of the destruction of Jerusalem as a symbolic Second Coming of Christ to inaugurate the New Covenant, which fulfilled the covenant curses of the Old Testament, makes sense. What makes this book so radical is that it does not realize that history repeats itself. The Christian world is sliding rapidly towards apostasy since the �seal� that kept Satan bound, the authority of the Roman Empire, was broken in 1917 when the Bolsheviks took over Russia and deposed the Czar (�Caesar�) of Russia, the official Christian emperor. Gary North�s statement in the introduction that Chilton�s _Days of Vengeance_ will be a primary source document studied in the future by students who want to learn about the Christian takeover of the world�s governments borders on lunacy. Two other books in addition to this one that are well known in the Christian Reconstruction camp are _Postmillennialism_ by Matthison and _The Institutes of Biblical Law_ by Rushdoony.

Rating:
Summary: The Days of the Vengeance of Our God...
Review: Here is a scholar who knows the Bible well. David Chilton asks what do the mystifying, threatening, ominous archetypes of the notorious Book of Revelation actually mean? What are the correlation between them and the visions of the Old Testament sage Daniel and the prophecies of Jesus? _The Days of Vengeance: An Exposition of the Book of Revelation_ is an interesting, though not flawless, study and analysis of the New Testament's concluding text. Chilton is an author for an obscure, far-right branch of the Calvinist/Reformed theological school known as "Dominion" or "Christian-Reconstruction" theology. Interestingly enough, although they are hard-core biblical-literalalists and determinists, the Reconstructionists maintain a very positive outlook on the future of the Church in the world. This is the "post-millennial" position in Christian eschatology that teaches that the Church of Christ will more or less take over the world and impose the Law of the Old Testament as official state policy. This is in absolute opposition to the well-touted "Dispensationalist" view in which Jesus will return and literally reign on earth for a thousand years in the future after the defeat of the Antichrist. For Reconstruction theologians, the prophecies in the Apocalypse pose an obstacle. The world will be taken over by the spirit of the Antichrist and the Church will suffer persecution on earth, NOT delivered by Christ until after the tribulation. The millennium is taken as a figurative rather than a literal term. If the Church is going to actually convert the entire world, then the events in Revelation need to be historicized as something in the past. One flaw of Chilton's book, although excellent at explaining his arguments with great clarity, is that it is divorced from the Patristic Tradition of the Church. It is derived from the Biblical exegesis of one scholar in a radical sect of Protestant Christianity. That stated, however, _The Days of Vengeance_ contains some insights into its subject and presents a view on Revelation that describes America's religious and political scene today very well if read between the lines.

Hopefully I can provide a decent summary: In Deuteronomy, God warned Moses of the utter wrath that would befall Israel if they disobeyed and rebelled against God's commandments. This was sealed by a covenant. If the Israelites kept the commandments they would not be destroyed off their land. The ultimate act of rebellion on the part of the Israelites was the rejection of Jesus Christ as the Messiah and demanding the Roman governor of Judea to crucify Him. Jesus in the Olivet prophecies in the Matthew speaks of the abomination of desolation and the coming destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. Here is where the interpretation is radically different. Jesus speaks here about the destruction of Jerusalem by the Roman armies in AD 70. Nearly the entire Book of Revelation is thus interpreted as symbolically describing the state of the Church of Christ, the Roman Empire, the Pharisees, the Emperors, etc., before and including AD 70. Chilton dates the time of Revelation's authorship during the time of Nero as opposed to the more commonly cited year AD 95. Revelation would have been a coded message from the Apostle John to the Churches in Asia minor that would predict things 'that would soon come to pass.' The audience, according to Chilton, would have understood the symbols in Revelation as they correspond precisely with the symbols of the Old Testament. The Beast 666 is the Roman Emperor Nero who persecuted the Church. The dragon is the Roman Empire and the False Prophet is the apparatus that forces the Empire's subjects to worship the emperor and pay him tribute. The Church refused to recognize the divinity of the Roman State and emperor and this led to persecution. Interestingly enough, the Whore of Babylon, the worldly city who oppresses God's people, is the city of Jerusalem. The Jewish Pharisees encouraged the Roman State to persecute Christians under charges of disloyalty throughout the empire. The heresies (like Jezebel) that St. John warns the churches of are variations of Judaism and Gnosticism; the entire book takes a very hostile position towards Judaism. Eventually a group of Jewish nationalists, the Zealots, staged a revolt against Roman authority. The Romans crushed the revolt and massacred thousands upon thousands of Jews, torched the temple, and violated the Holy of Holies. Terrible as this sounds to modern ears, this was God's punishment on the Jews for their rejection of Christ. The description of Jews spreading heresies while using the state to persecute Christians in the first century AD is an accurate portrayal of the West today. The cover of _The Days of Vengeance_ even features an illustration of the cup of God's wrath being poured out on the Jewish temple. However, this book departs radically from the traditional interpretation of Revelation since it puts nearly the entire book as a historical event not as a prophecy of the end of time. One flaw is that the Temple was not entirely destroyed. The Jews still pray at the Wailing Wall near the Temple site in Palestine. The idea of the destruction of Jerusalem as a symbolic Second Coming of Christ to inaugurate the New Covenant, which fulfilled the covenant curses of the Old Testament, makes sense. What makes this book so radical is that it does not realize that history repeats itself. The Christian world is sliding rapidly towards apostasy since the 'seal' that kept Satan bound, the authority of the Roman Empire, was broken in 1917 when the Bolsheviks took over Russia and deposed the Czar ('Caesar') of Russia, the official Christian emperor. Gary North's statement in the introduction that Chilton's _Days of Vengeance_ will be a primary source document studied in the future by students who want to learn about the Christian takeover of the world's governments borders on lunacy. Two other books in addition to this one that are well known in the Christian Reconstruction camp are _Postmillennialism_ by Matthison and _The Institutes of Biblical Law_ by Rushdoony.

Rating:
Summary: Greatest commentary on the Revelation of Jesus Christ
Review: I was asked? to read this book in my eschatology course in seminary. Everyone in our class was shocked by this book. It is simply the best explanation and commentary of Revelation you will ever read. WARNING: it may change your eschatology forever to the preterist viewpoint. I was particularly fascinated with the explanation of the mystery of the 144,000, the 12 tribes of Israel, the purpose of the ORDER of these tribes, why DAN may have been omitted, etc. But double warning: this isn't a book you can scan through in 2 hours. Any layperson advanced in biblical studies will appreciate this book. Or seminary students. Others might want to try Paradise Restored first, another book by David Chilton that precedes the writing of this book. Take the challenge all of you who are firmly entrenched in dispensational premillienism (the rapture, etc.)--this book will show you how unbiblical and weak this "new theology" really is.

Rating:
Summary: An Extreme, Mind-Changing Experience
Review: In the last year, as I continued to study the dispensational, pretribulational, premillenial viewpoint, a good thought came to my mind...actually several thoughts did. #1 What culture was Revelation written to? #2 Why should I think Jesus was referring to some future temple when one was still standing as He gave the Olivet Discourse? #3 Why should I believe that a tribulation is still future for me? #4 Why should I believe in a pre-tribulation rapture if (a) there is not a future tribulation (b) there is no specific text that lays out undisputably a pre-trib rapture (c) there is no real difference between God's work among His people, whether Jew or Greek, slave or free?

As I studied this commentary, these questions and many more were answered and I was rescued from the defeatology that I had been taught all of my life within the Baptist tradition. I now celebrate the victory on the cross as the greatest military victory of all time and live in His authority on this earth as His servant.

I was so thrilled to see such insightful use of the Bible to interpret this book, much of the Baptist teaching I had heard on the book seemed to try and interpret it without the use of the rest of the Bible outside of Daniel, Matthew 24, and Thessalonians.

I was also stunned by his knowledge of the culture of that day and how it applied to what John was writing about. It was far more in-depth than any of the Baptist teaching I had received that uses today as the frame of reference for the book to the exclusion of those to whom the book was written.

Be prepared to change your eschatological view when you read this book. If you read it with a closed mind...it is your loss...don't blame the author. Please don't allow the prejudice of what you have been taught in the past prevent you from enjoying this book. I had to take a piece of humble pie with this book as my eschatological world was rocked and I discovered that I had been tragically wrong about this book. It's not a mystery book, but as its title states, it is the Revelation of Jesus Christ. It WAS meant to be UNDERSTOOD.

Praise glory and honer to His name for all ages.

In Christ,

Mark

Rating:
Summary: The Greatest Example of Interpreting the Bible w/ the Bible
Review: One cannot interpret the Book of Revelation without using the rest of the Bible. Now all books on Revelation claim to use the Bible, but as a norm they prooftext the Bible rather than present a contextually consistent, fully Bible-interpreted presentation of the scripture all in line with one another. Chilton has done about as good a job as any human can do, short of just handing someone a Bible. This book is contextually consistent and historically consistent from beginning to end. This book also contains some interesting appendices which are challenging. The one on Zionism is extremely biblical, regardless that some would call it anti-semitic. If this particular appendix is anti-semitic, then so is Romans and Galatians and Hebrews, and so is Jesus and Paul. On the other hand, Chilton is a Tylerite and so holds to what would be termed a restoration of theocracy in the world (or just short of it), with which I disagree. This is found in another appendix but doesn't influence the commentary as a whole. The book is definitely Reformed in its theology, but Reformed des not equal postmillennial. Chilton is postmillennial and thus believes, in contrast to ALL other views of eschatology, that God wins, the Gospel succeeds, the promises to Abraham will be fulfilled, and the Church will be victorious. Chilton has produced the "long version" of Mathison's Postmillennialism: An Eschatology of Hope." To be honest, I believe one would be hard pressed to refute Chilton's book without resorting back to selective prooftexting (the flawed Bible interpretation method of choice among most today). The book is covenantally based, but then, so is the Bible. The entire history of redemption to the end of the world is based on the covenant of God, especially seen in the promise to Abraham. God promised that every nation, tribe, tongue, people, and family would eventually be blessed by having the same faith in the Gospel as Abraham, and that this would be on earth (obviously, saving faith doesn't exist after the world is destroyed). Chilton proves from contextual use of Scripture that postmillennialism is, in fact, the only eschatological view that has existed in the entire history of the world that fits Scripture. The Old Testament is clear on this (read the Psalms and Isaiah 40 - 66). The New Testament is just as obvious. Well, many won't like this book because it lacks the sensationalism of premillennial views (look at the popularity of the "Left Behind" series). But then again, if one thinks that the saving of souls is truly sensational, then they might be willing to give up newspaper and evening news theology with its far-out ideas and come to something far more Biblically sensational: The saving of sinners. Chilton has set the standard. I know that no premillennial theologian will ever come close to refuting this book, because premillennialism is based on prooftexting the Bible plus the addition of politics and other things that will support their view. Postmillennialism is just based on the Bible; it needs nothing but the Bible. Postmillennialism is the only eschatological view that is Sola Scriptura. Chilton gets 5 stars for a great book and 5 more for setting an unsurpassable standard.

Rating:
Summary: The Greatest Example of Interpreting the Bible w/ the Bible
Review: One cannot interpret the Book of Revelation without using the rest of the Bible. Now all books on Revelation claim to use the Bible, but as a norm they prooftext the Bible rather than present a contextually consistent, fully Bible-interpreted presentation of the scripture all in line with one another. Chilton has done about as good a job as any human can do, short of just handing someone a Bible. This book is contextually consistent and historically consistent from beginning to end. This book also contains some interesting appendices which are challenging. The one on Zionism is extremely biblical, regardless that some would call it anti-semitic. If this particular appendix is anti-semitic, then so is Romans and Galatians and Hebrews, and so is Jesus and Paul. On the other hand, Chilton is a Tylerite and so holds to what would be termed a restoration of theocracy in the world (or just short of it), with which I disagree. This is found in another appendix but doesn't influence the commentary as a whole. The book is definitely Reformed in its theology, but Reformed des not equal postmillennial. Chilton is postmillennial and thus believes, in contrast to ALL other views of eschatology, that God wins, the Gospel succeeds, the promises to Abraham will be fulfilled, and the Church will be victorious. Chilton has produced the "long version" of Mathison's Postmillennialism: An Eschatology of Hope." To be honest, I believe one would be hard pressed to refute Chilton's book without resorting back to selective prooftexting (the flawed Bible interpretation method of choice among most today). The book is covenantally based, but then, so is the Bible. The entire history of redemption to the end of the world is based on the covenant of God, especially seen in the promise to Abraham. God promised that every nation, tribe, tongue, people, and family would eventually be blessed by having the same faith in the Gospel as Abraham, and that this would be on earth (obviously, saving faith doesn't exist after the world is destroyed). Chilton proves from contextual use of Scripture that postmillennialism is, in fact, the only eschatological view that has existed in the entire history of the world that fits Scripture. The Old Testament is clear on this (read the Psalms and Isaiah 40 - 66). The New Testament is just as obvious. Well, many won't like this book because it lacks the sensationalism of premillennial views (look at the popularity of the "Left Behind" series). But then again, if one thinks that the saving of souls is truly sensational, then they might be willing to give up newspaper and evening news theology with its far-out ideas and come to something far more Biblically sensational: The saving of sinners. Chilton has set the standard. I know that no premillennial theologian will ever come close to refuting this book, because premillennialism is based on prooftexting the Bible plus the addition of politics and other things that will support their view. Postmillennialism is just based on the Bible; it needs nothing but the Bible. Postmillennialism is the only eschatological view that is Sola Scriptura. Chilton gets 5 stars for a great book and 5 more for setting an unsurpassable standard.