I guess when I saw a copy of this book in Koorong I was intrigued to see how the Moore College boys understood the book of Revelation. There seems to be a lot of writing from a pre-millenialist point of view, but nothing all that much from post and amillenialist points of views. I will discuss a couple of those views a little later, but with regards to this book I will probably be drawing more on Goldsworthy's book rather than this book. The reason for this is that since both Dickson and Clarke obtained their theological degrees from Moore it is more likely than not that they were taught by Goldsworthy and thus hold the same views as him. Further, where Goldsworthy was writing more from an academic viewpoint, Dickson, as he does very well, tends to write in a style that makes these concepts more accessible to those of us who are not academics.
Goldsworthy only touched on the concept of the number of the beast in his book, though I believe Dickson pays a little more attention to it. This is probably one of the much more famous passages in the bible, where we are told that all those who reject God will be marked with a number either on their hand or forehead, and that they will not be able to buy or sell without that number, and that number is 666. This passage I have seen quoted from Heinelein books through to an Iron Maiden song (which is a pretty good song at that) but in many ways it is also a difficult passage to understand.
Many of the pre-millenialists seem to consider that this passage refers to a cashless society, and the more we discard paper money for credit, and even move to concepts like chips being implanted (normally in the hand, not the wrist) they claim that this prophecy is being fulfilled. However, what we must remember is that this passage seems to talk about economic control, and if we look around us we see that elements of this economic control have been around for a very long time.
Back in the days of Ancient Rome, economic control existed, but due to the lack of technology, was difficult at best. One of the problems that Rome faced was that it was easy to devalue their currency, and the more it became devalued, the worse things became. However, one could conduct trade or commerce without the need for proper coinage. As we move to the modern world we see the rise of paper currency. At first this currency was issued by the banks and took the form of credit and notes of exchange. The original bank notes represented an amount of gold (where the term pound comes from) as it was difficult at best to carry all of your gold with you. The idea was that if we had a bank note we could take it to the bank and exchange it for an amount of gold (or silver). Things began to change in the 20th century with the rise of fiat currencies. Namely, the value of the bank note ceased to be tied in with gold and began to have value all of its own. I will not go into the pros and cons of fiat currency, however I will say that the movement from paper currency to plastic cards is not actually a change in the way money works, but rather a further evolution of means of commerce. Where the bank note meant that one did not have to carry gold on them, the plastic card means that one does not have to carry paper currency.
Now, governments have always sought to control commerce, and even our liberal democracies today seek to control trade and commerce. The government, at least in Australia, alone has the constitutional right to coin money. However, we are still able to create ways of trade and transactions outside of that, though in many cases it does not work. There has been an attempt to create a barter card system, but that ended up failing. Banks also have a means of creating currency, through the use of credit, however it always ties back to the dollar that is coined by the government, so, as it happens, if we take the literalist view of Revelation, we have already arrived at that point, in that nobody can buy or sell without resorting to the use of the dollar currency (or whatever the monetary unit may be where we are). This is the case in developed countries, however if we go outside of these places, we find that there is always an option, we can trade in the local currency, or we can trade in US Dollars, or even Euros (this happened to us the the Czech Republic, where people would accept Euros despite the Euro not being the national currency).
So, thus I come to literalism, which is something that Goldsworthy wrote about. His point is that to take a literalist approach, while not necessarily wrong, can be dangerous. The reason being is that we are not meant to take the entire Bible literally, which is the case with lots of different forms of literature. The main theme of the Bible that exists throughout is the message of the gospel, and that is how we rebelled against God, and instead of destroying us, God showed mercy and took the punishment for us so that those of us who accept his lordship will be redeemed. What stood out for me with regards to Goldsworthy is that he points to how the Jews took a literal view of the Messiah. They were expecting a warrior king who would come and destroy all of their enemies and set up Israel as an independent state once again. Jesus' disciples took this view, and even after he died and rose again, they still asked, 'so, when are you going to set up Israel as an independent state?' Christ's reply was simply, 'have you still not understood anything that I have told you' and proceeded to ascend to heaven. It was not until the Holy Spirit revealed the truth to them at Pentacost that they understood.
The point is that the literal interpretation can be misleading and take us away from the true core of the gospel, and that is our redemption and salvation. Further, consider this, many of the literalists seem to pick and chose what they interpret literally. Take for instance the passage where Peter says 'to God a thousand years is a day and a day is a thousand years' yet they will turn around as say that unless you believe in a literal seven day creation, you are not a Christian. Yet, while they say that, they are more liberal with the week that is mentioned in the Book of Daniel, where they say that that week means seven years. So, why is it that we have to accept a literal seven day creation, but an allegorical tribulation? I am not going to condemn anybody who believes in a seven day creation, however I do ask you that if that is what you believe, please do not condemn anybody who does not. As long as we believe in the lordship of Jesus Christ, then in reality we should be accepting each other as Christians. ( )