Revelation - Concordia Commentary

Revelation may be one of the most perplexing books of the Scriptures, but despite its challenges its witness is clear. Through a panoply of images, the apostle John shares a sacrificial theology of the Lamb of God that generates the central theme of God’s exultation in Revelation. Dr. Louis Brighton interprets the features of John’s vision in light of similar images elsewhere in Scripture and appeals to the views of other theologians from the early church down to the present. Brighton dissects Revelation as an esoteric, apocalyptic, and fundamentally prophetic text concerned with both the despair of sin and the exultation of the ascendant Christ and His work.

Brighton shows that Revelation is not about some distant future, but is about the present life of the church amid the turmoil of world history. It inspires Christians to be urgent and faithful in their proclamation of the Gospel, no matter how fierce the opposition, because of Christ’s comforting promise: “I am coming quickly!”

Features

• A Summary of the Christology of Revelation
• An Introduction to the missiology of Revelation
• Adheres to “recapitulation” or cyclic chronology for the narrative of Revelation

Essays

• On the Millenium
• On The Lamb of God in Revelation
• Angelic Mediators in Jewish Tradition and the Book of Revelation

About the Author

Dr. Louis A. Brighton is professor emeritus at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, Missouri. He studied at Concordia Seminary (B.A., M.Div., S.T.M.) and Saint Louis University (Ph.D.). He also taught at Westfield House of the University of Cambridge, England.

Endorsments

"Helpful exegetical insights abound in this commentary. Just a few will suffice in this review. The three and a halfyears do not represent the first half ofthe Great Tribulation (LaHaye and Jenkins), but "the well-known period of draught (sic) and famine during the prophetic ministry of Elijah established the type from which the expression of three and a half years might have been derived" (289). The Beast from the Sea (Rev. 13:1-10) "appears to be a composite of the four beasts Daniel saw in Dan. 7:2-7" (350). Those beasts symbolized kingdoms, so this beast must also symbolize a kingdom or a system rather than the Antichrist. The thirteen-page Index is thorough, including references to footnotes. If you can buy only one commentary on the Book of Revelation, buy this one! It's number one on my list of commentaries on Revelation."

–Joel D. Heck, Concordia University, Austin, Texas in Concordia Journal (2000 Summer)

About the series

The Concordia Commentary Series: A Theological Exposition of Sacred Scripture is written to enable pastors and teachers of the Word to proclaim the Gospel with greater insight, clarity, and faithfulness to the divine intent of the Biblical text.

The series will cover all the canonical books of the Old and New Testament, with an original translation and meticulous grammatical analysis of the Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek of each text. The foremost interpretive lens centers on the unified proclamation of the person and work of Christ across every Scriptural book.

The Commentary fully affirms the divine inspiration, inerrancy, and authority of Scripture; Each passage bears witness to the confession that God has reconciled the world to Himself through the incarnation, ministry, death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ His Son.

Authors expose the rich treasury of language, imagery, and thematic content of the Scripture, while supplementing their work with additional research in archaeology, history, and extrabiblical literature. Throughout, God’s Word emanates from authors careful attention and inculcates the ongoing life of the Church in Word, Sacrament, and daily confession.