Prophecy in this view is looked upon as much broader in its scope than the _fore_telling of things that are future. This element should be regarded as subordinate to the general purpose of prophecy, which is the _forth_telling of the mind of God.(6) And we should avoid that “dwarfed sense of the word prophecy in modern speech” which leads most readers (and even interpreters) to fasten upon a revelation of the secrets of the future. For it is evident that “Old Testament history and prophecy make prominent another kind of revelation—the unveiling of the ideal, as when the pattern of things sacred was unfolded to Moses in the mount”.(7) In the true sense of prophecy it manifestly contains both these conceptions, viz. the Prophetico‐predictive, and the Prophetico‐ideal, which enter in varying proportion into the great messages of old. But it is believed by many of our best authorities, and it will be found in a careful study of the book of Revelation, that the prophetic element is not chiefly predictive in the strict sense, and can for the most part be best interpreted as the unveiling of the divine ideal which is being inwrought in the sphere of human life, or the manifestation of the divine purpose which is discovered as interpenetrating all the moral struggle and apparent contradictions of earthly experience, and which is leading up to the final victory; and only such glimpses of the future are given as serve to assure a better comprehension of this main idea.(8)
The two most obvious principles that pervade the book of Revelation and underlie its ever changing scenes, are, _first_, God’s method of government in the world by the trial of his people and the judgment of the wicked; and, _second_, God’s method of developing character in moral agents by moral conflict. Accepting these as in a measure interpretative of the ways of God with men, the Apocalypse approaches the standpoint of the divine perspective, and traces the great lines of the divine purpose as they traverse the entire field of human history. It makes Christ’s relation to his people both in time and in eternity the ground of an exhaustive inquiry into the mysteries of earthly life, which aims not only to discover God in the trend of history but also to interpret God through history wrought out to its end. It affords glimpses of God’s far reaching plan in the process of redemption, leading up to the final salvation of unnumbered multitudes; it finds the key to earth’s long‐drawn‐out story of sin and suffering, of conflict and of death, in wider victory at larger cost; and it teaches us to look calmly out beyond the ebb and flow of tides and noons to the shoreless, timeless life that ever abides in the presence of God. To the heart of faith it speaks of an unwavering trust when days are dark and storms fill the sky; like a clear voice out of the night it tells of the coming day; and with persuasive force its visions bring man face to face with God, his Creator, Redeemer, and Eternal Friend.