Here are a couple of Bible questions for you:<\/p>\n
1. What book of the New Testament has allusions or echoes to the Old Testament in nearly every verse? (Hint: it’s not a short book.)<\/p>\n
2. What book of the New Testament has no direct quotations from the Old Testament? \u00a0 (Hint: it’s not a short book.)<\/p>\n
The answer to both questions is: Revelation. \u00a0 (There might be other correct answers, but I didn’t check and that’s not my purpose here.) \u00a0 It is indeed very interesting that such a long book could be so full of the Old Testament, and, at the same time, never once directly quote it. \u00a0 Here’s how the book is introduced in the new Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament:<\/p>\n
No other book of the NT is as permeated by the OT as is Revelation. \u00a0 Although its author seldom quotes the OT directly, allusions and echoes are found in almost every verse of the book. \u00a0 Revelation’s message remains thoroughly “New Testament.” \u00a0 The church universal is called to maintain a faithful witness in the midst of persecution, following in the footsteps of the Lamb, who died to free them from their sins. \u00a0 Having conquered through faith, they are promised the blessing of eternal life in the presence of God in the new heaven and new earth, all with the purpose that they worship him and that he receive the glory forever. \u00a0 However, the imagery is drawn almost exclusively from the OT, thus reminding the reader that redemption in Christ is the fulfillment of God’s eternal plans (G. K. Beale and Sean M. McDonough).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I’d say some things differently, but the point I want to make is that Revelation rings with the Old Testament. \u00a0 The books with the most connections: Isaiah, Daniel, Ezekiel, and Psalms.<\/p>\n
Contrary to nearly everyone (I’ve read) who has written on Revelation, I would not <\/em>say that John uses<\/em> the Old Testament, that he is alluding to this or that passage, that he is developing previous themes. \u00a0 John wrote what he saw and heard.<\/strong> He certainly was well-versed in the Old Testament, but he did not fabricate the vision. \u00a0 The lack of direct quotations is evidence that he was not sitting down at a desk with OT scrolls open in front of him as he invented the future out of his own study of the Scriptures. \u00a0 The reason why his vision corresponded so closely with that of the previous prophets is that they were all spokesmen for one Author.<\/strong><\/p>\n
Revelation 1:1 (ESV) The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John,<\/p>\n
Revelation 1:10-11 (ESV) I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet 11 saying, “Write what you see in a book and send it to the seven churches, to Ephesus and to Smyrna and to Pergamum and to Thyatira and to Sardis and to Philadelphia and to Laodicea.”<\/p>\n
Revelation 4:1: After this I looked…<\/p>\n
Revelation 5:1: Then I saw…<\/p>\n
Revelation 5:11: Then I looked…<\/p>\n
Revelation 6:1: Now I watched…<\/p>\n
Revelation 7:1: After this I saw…<\/p>\n
Revelation 22:1: Then the angel showed me…<\/p>\n
Revelation 22:6 (ESV): And he said to me, “These words are trustworthy and true. And the Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, has sent his angel to show his servants what must soon take place.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Here are a couple of Bible questions for you: 1. What book of the New Testament has allusions or echoes to the Old Testament in nearly every verse? (Hint: it’s not a short book.) 2. What book of the New Testament has no direct quotations from the Old Testament? \u00a0 (Hint: it’s not a short\u2026 Read More »<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-850","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-studies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/850","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=850"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/850\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toddbolen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}