Revelation - Introduction (2)

There are essentially four major views of Revelation:

Preterist

This views the book as applying purely to the immediate historical situation.

Historicist

This sees Revelation as predicting the course of human history, in particular the church,

Idealist

This sees Revelation as having no direct relation to actual history, but rather giving a general picture of the battle between good and evil.

Futurist

The sees Revelation as speaking of the very end times.

So which is right? Well it seems that any sensible approach will adopt all four of them (with some reservations about historicist). The book was written initially for the late first century church and clearly has relevance for that time, but if we seek to say everything was fulfilled in the first century we run into enormous problems. 

The historicist view is OK if it is restricted to a very general portrayal of history, ie more an idealist perspective. Otherwise we end up doing eisegesis rather than exegesis. Ie we try to read things in to the text that just aren't there. 

The idealist view gives part of the purpose of Revelation, in that it portrays many general features of the battle between good and evil. For instance, Nazi Germany clearly was not the anti-christ, but one can see many anti-Christ features in Nazi Germany (as can one in Stalin's Russia). 

Then it undoubtedly does speak of the very end of time. 

So we take something from all four views, and indeed they feed of each other.
In order to have a proper, and enriching, appreciation of Revelation it is absolutely vital to understand the situation the people were in and things they were going through, namely oppression and persecution by a seemingly overwhelming power. Revelation reveals what is really going on.