On this it is hardly necessary to dwell, for expositors are now well agreed that in its great doctrines of God, Christ, man, sin, redemption, the teaching of the Apocalypse does not vary essentially from the great types in the Epistles. The assonances with John's mode of thinking have already been alluded to. It is granted by all writers that the Christology is as high as anywhere in the New Testament. "It ought unhesitatingly to be acknowledged," says Reuss, "that Christ is placed in the Apocalypse on a paragraph with God" (op. cit., I, 397-98; compare Re 1:4,17; 2:8; 15:8; 22:13, etc.). Not less striking are the correspondences with the teaching of Paul and of Peter on redemption through the blood of Christ (Re 1:5; 5:9; 7:14; 14:4, etc.). The perverted conception of the school of Baur that we have in the book an anti-Pauline manifesto (thus also Pfieiderer; compare Hibbert Lectures, 178), is now practically dead (see the criticism of it by Reuss, op. cit., I, 308-12). The point in which its eschatology differs from that of the rest of the New Testament is in its introduction of the millennium before the final resurrection and judgment. This enlarges, but does not necessarily contradict, the earlier stage of thought.
LITERATURE.
Moses Stuart, Commentary on Apocalypse; Alford, Greek Testament, IV, "The Revelation"; S. Davidson, Introduction to the New Testament (3rd edition), 176 ff; G. Salmon, Introduction to the New Testament (2nd edition), lects xiii, xiv; Elliott, Horae Apocalypticae, with literature there mentioned; Farrar, Early Days of Christianity, chapter xxviii; Milligan, Discussions on the Apocalypse; H. Gunkel, Schopfung und Chaos; W. Bousset, Die Offenbarung Johannis, and article "Apocalypse" in EB, I; C. Anderson Scott, "Revelation" in Century Bible; J. Moffatt, Introduction to Literature of the New Testament (with notices of literature); also "Revelation" in Expositor's Bible; Trench, Epistles to the Seven Churches; W. M. Rarnsay, Letters to the Seven Churches; H. B. Swete, The Apocalypse of John.
James Orr