Through Much Tribulation
Through Much Tribulation
Going back to the benediction (Rev 1:3), we will now notice its final five words, "because the time is near".
In the first and last chapters of Revelation, we have other similar statements: "These things must shortly take place... Surely I am coming quickly..." How does this warning make the book of Revelation of immediate importance and revelance to you? Let's take some time to think about that.
One important time element in prophecy is the three-and-a-half symbol. This is expressed in several forms, including the expression "a time, times, and half a time" which appears twice in Daniel (Dan 7:25 Dan 12:7) and once more in Revelation (Rev 12:14).
Most interpreters take "a time, times, and half a time" to mean "one time, two times, and half a time". They take “times” to mean “two times”. This is a reasonable assumption, because it fits the three-and-a-half symbol as in the following examples.
The three-and-a-half symbol occurs in vision and prophecy as three-and-a-half days (Rev 11:9,11). In the famous seventy weeks of Daniel 9, the 70th week has events occurring "in the middle of the week" suggesting that this final symbolic week is divided into two parts of three-and-a-half days each (Dan 9:27).
In the numbers of days at the end of Daniel (Dan 12:7-23) we find the three-and-a-half symbol as three-and-a-half months combined with three-and-a-half years. Using the symbolic calendar, we proceed as follows: Take 1260 days (three-and-a-half years) from the 1290 days and there are 30 days left, or one month. Take 1260 days from the 1335 days, and there are 75 days left, or two-and-a-half months. The remainders of days, 30 and 75, add up to three-and-a-half months.
As we have just seen in passing, the three-and-a-half symbol is also found as three-and-a-half symbolic years. Another example, is the 1260 days of Revelation 12:6. Dividing the 1260 days by 360 yields three-and-a-half symbolic years. The same is true of 42 months (Rev 12:5). Dividing by 12, the 42 symbolic months become three-and-a-half symbolic years.
It's a simple primary school principle that you divide 1260 kangaroos by 360, you get three-and-a-half kangaroos, not three-and-a-half giraffes. Likewise, if you divide 1260 symbolic days by 360 you get three-and-a-half symbolic years not literal or actual years. The three-and-a-half years remain as symbolic as the days they are derived from.
When we discover the three-and-a-half element within symbolic times, we have done no more than to relate symbols one to another and to see "a time, times, and a half a time" within various symbolic numbers of days, months, and years. We have not turned a symbol into actual or literal time somewhere in history or the future.
A Time, Times, and Half a Time