Is COVID-19 Related to Revelation?

When the discussion about COVID-19 surfaced, more than one insisted that it was a sign of the end. Social media exploded with posts from evangelicals, dogmatically asserting that “the tribulation” was either here or about to be here and that the end of everything was just around the corner. Passages like Jesus' Olivet Discourse and the book of Revelation, naturally, were abused in order to support such radical conclusions. Can one truly insist that John's Revelation deals with this disease, and if so, how does it?

How One Should Approach the Text of Revelation

There are various methods regarding how to approach any biblical text; Terry, forcefully, argues in favor of an “grammatical-historical” method.¹ Simply, this means that one should be compelled to approach any biblical text in its context. This pushes one to consider the style of its literature – is it history? is it a vision? is it poetry? – and its historical situation – is it in the era of Egypt? Assyria? Babylon? Rome? Any view that casually dismisses these questions indeed has a shallow approach to the text under consideration.

Furthermore, however, one needs to consider if the text under consideration has any “lasting” implications or intent.² This is especially important about the biblical canon. While the biblical texts present “truths” within a certain grammatical and/or historical context, the “faces” through which those truths get expressed are “flexible” within the ultimate intent of the biblical canon.³ For instance, it is true that God speaks about covenantal faithfulness to the exiles that are camped in Babylon from 605 B.C. to 539 B.C. or to the Hebrews that are in Egypt during the plagues, but it seems clear that God intends for the scriptures/inspired words of those days to speak beyond the historical situations of those days. Can one not “see” the lessons that God drives through Abel, Noah, David and etc.? Can one not transpose these “situations” into a “later” context and see how the ultimate “truths” about God, His nature and His working with humanity “recur” over-and-over-again in history, though through different faces and events? The mechanics are different, but the revelational truths remain constant. There is more than a casual obedience/disobedience underlying the text. The biblical text's “theological” weight, movement, direction is towards major truths. God acts “in line” with His character/nature to vindicate those truths. The book of Revelation is no exception.

So, it seems clear that the book of Revelation is rooted within a Roman context where Domitian (A.D. 81-96) is the emperor and the saints are threatened. But, while that situates the grammatical-historical context of the book, there must be a sense in which the book speaks beyond that exclusive time-frame and crisis.

Why COVID-19 is Not Specifically in John's Revelation

Having understood that one needs to assess the grammatical-historical context first (before one drags any modern-day application or recurrence out of the text), one should see the unobjectionable pieces of data within the biblical text to see that the concern of John simply has nothing to do with COVID-19.

First, it is interesting that John opens and closes his entire text with an “inclusio” argument, insisting that the entire text is near, at hand, imminent, soon to come to pass (cf. Rev. 1:1,3; 22:6,10).⁴ If John is writing this in the first century, can one legitimately argue that the book of Revelation actually deals with events in the twenty-first century, nearly 2,000 years later? Furthermore, Daniel presents a vision that was fulfilled within approximately 400 years and such was said to be “for many days” (Dan. 8:26); God told him to “seal the vision up,” but in a notable contrast, John is told to keep his text unsealed because the vision was “at hand” (Rev. 22:10). Again, can one hold that John's vision was “at hand,” about events nearly 2,000 years later and to be left unsealed when Daniel's was distant, about events nearly 400 years later and to be sealed?

Second, John speaks of a “day of the Lord” in the Revelation text (cf. Rev. 6:12-17). Was this day “at hand” or not? And what about the “day of the Lord” in Isaiah 13:6,10 or in Obadiah 15? The phrase alone does not establish a context but speaks about God's judgment upon the wicked within such a context. Whatever one makes out of the aforementioned texts, Paul said that the “day of the Lord” (ie. the second coming) was not at hand (cf. 2 Thes. 2:2). The solution must be to conclude that different “days of the Lord” are in consideration in the various contexts; Isaiah speaks of judgment upon Babylon; Obadiah speaks about Edom; John speaks about Rome. To conclude that John spake of “end time” events would put him at odds with Paul; the solution is that they speak of different contextual judgments. (See Wallace make a similar argument.⁵)

Third, it is clear that a “literalistic” approach to the book of Revelation is impossible. Even those that claim to favor this interpretation insert several elements into the text that are “symbolized” within the book.

Fourth, one needs to keep in mind that John's context is about the Roman threat and the first-century oppression of the saints through Domitian (cf. Rev. 17,18).⁶ Can one really deny this conclusion? Can one truly suggest that an “end of time” concern is the focal point of John's Revelation? Has one truly assessed the way that the OT prophets speak in order to draw this conclusion? This leads to a final point.

Fifth, perhaps, the most important consideration is how to read the Revelation. It is a continuous strand of OT echoes and allusions. Nearly every event or element within the Revelation text is a “recycling” or “recurrence” of some OT primary source. In order to see how the text of Revelation speaks of Rome as the oppressor from which the saints seek deliverance, the reader needs to be familiar with the former usages of the elements/motifs from the OT texts (where instead of Rome it is Babylon, Egypt, Assyria or some other nation that “fills” the office of “oppressor” of God's people). John sees the similarity and insists that there is an “ontological” connection between the OT oppressors and the NT oppressor (Rome) in his own context. (See Childs recognize this kind of connection.⁷) After seeing the similarities that John recognizes, it should not be difficult to see 1) how the text immediately discusses the Roman threat and never reaches contextually beyond that crisis but also 2) how the text inherently functions on a multi-layered level, speaking implicitly to any crisis that threatens the saints at any time. There is a “timelessness” about Revelation (and the other “canonical” texts) that can be/is easily “reappropriated” to any threat, in any day, through any oppressor. While John concerns himself with the “face” (Domitian) of the day, the text inherently speaks on another level beyond that, framing the theological truths for generations beyond the first-century. This is the lasting effect of revealed, inspired scripture.

Conclusions About COVID-19 and Revelation

In conclusion, John (the human writer) simply is not concerned with events or people in the twenty-first century in the penning of the Revelation text. Catastrophe in the modern era is of no importance to him. He is addressing a real and immediate threat that has developed before the saints of the first-century; however, it is that threat (Rome) that is easily connected “ontologically” (through God's inspiration) to any other threat that places itself against the saints (though this “second layering” of the text would naturally evade John, unless he was fully aware of how the OT prophets contained an inherent “second layer” and therefore he also anticipated his text's speaking in such a way). Any/all of the villains of the world that have “oppressed” the saints of God have inserted themselves into a “tradition” or “ontological identity” in which Rome found herself in the first-century. Is it too much to say that the issue amounts to one of perspective, where John speaks about Rome, though God intended for that scripture to be embedded with a deeper layer that timelessly speaks not only about Rome but also of any other oppressor that “fills the shoes” that were left behind? If one is correct to read this text this way, then John speaks of Rome and her events exclusively, though God intends for that text to speak on a second level, where any crisis (drought, famine, COVID-19, tornadoes, hurricanes, wars, etc.) is addressed by a legitimate “reframing” or “transposition” of the Roman situation into a new situation, where God's scripture speaks timelessly and recurs through new events and/or faces to speak of God's redemption of the righteous and His judgment upon those threats that oppose His saints.

1Terry, Milton, Biblical Hermeneutics, pg. 58-70, Hunt and Eaton. New York. 1890. Print.

2Childs, Brevard, Interpreting the Prophets: the Canonical Shape of the Prophetic Literature, pg. 41-49, Fortress Press. Philadelphia, PA. 1987. Print. (Some of Childs' insights are radical; however, he offers a deeper “theological” approach than the standard critical view and demands attention on the function and shape of the biblical literature as “canon.”)

3ibid, pg. 48

4McGuiggan, Jim, One Hope, 37:55-38:03, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBBI-AkbBsg.> Mat-Su Valley, AK. 2011. Video.

5Wallace, Foy E., Jr., The Book of Revelation, pg. 466,467, Foy E. Wallace, Jr. Publications. Fort Worth, TX. 1966. Print.

6Leonard, Drew, Exposition of Revelation, pg. 43-47,241-261, Drew Leonard Books. Elizabethton, TN. 2019. Print.

7Childs, Brevard S., Isaiah, pg. 125,264, Westminster John Knox Press. Louisville, KY. 2001. Print.