A Fundamental Wesleyan Commentary on Revelation: Volume 1

By Vic Reasoner

Throughout this commentary I attempt to interact with various interpretations. However, it is unwieldy to carry a running debate with multiple positions from verse to verse. Therefore, I establish in the introduction what I believe to be the proper approach to Revelation and why. Although my basic orientation toward Scripture is from a Wesleyan perspective, I cannot accept their historicist approach to this book. Therefore, I will try to give a thorough overview of Wesleyan thought, but at the same time suggest a preterist approach which I will attempt to argue is consistent with Wesleyan principles of interpretation. A contemporary Wesleyan-Arminian approach to the book of Revelation should include these seven major themes, which I attempt to emphasize: 1. The full authority of Scripture, 2. The deity and centrality of Jesus Christ, 3. The victory of the cross, 4. A realized eschatology of the kingdom of God, 5. The necessity of holy living, 6. An optimism concerning world evangelization, 7. The possibility of apostasy. —p. viii.