But, as David Chilton shows in this careful, detailed exposition, St. John's Apocalypse teaches instead that Christians will overcome all opposition through the work of Jesus Christ. Most of the confusion over the meaning of the prophecy has resulted from a failure to apply five crucial interpretive keys to the Book of Revelation. St. John quotes hundreds of passages from the Old Testament, often with subtle allusions to little-known rituals of the Ancient Near East. Revelation is a prophecy about imminent events - events that were about to break loose on the world of the first century. Revelation is not about nuclear warfare, space travel, or the end of the world.
Revelation has a system of symbolism .
Everyone recognized that St. John wrote his message in symbols. But the meaning of those symbols is not up for grabs. There is a systematic structure in Biblical symbolism. Revelation is a worship service . St. John did not write a textbook on prophecy.