The faithful witness of a pneumatic church : the role of the spirit in the Apocalypse of John

In this thesis the role of
the Spirit in the Apocalypse of
John is explored. The
role
of the Spirit in
the Apocalypse is best defined as
the Spirit of Prophecy. Closely
related
to both God and Christ, the Spirit serves as the primary agent of revelation
for
John and
the church.
John is in the Spirit when he
receives
his
visionary experience and
the churches must
hear what
the Spirit is
saying
in order to conquer and receive their
reward. Furthermore, the church
is anointed by the Spirit to bear
a prophetic
faithful
witness of
Jesus to the world. The Apocalypse serves the church as a prophetic call
to
respond
to the revelation of
Jesus Christ which
John has
received.
Chapter one offers a survey of
literature which has been devoted to the
pneumatology of
the Apocalypse. No monographs
have been devoted entirely to the
role of the Spirit in the Apocalypse; therefore, the survey
focuses on periodicals, book
chapters,
theological dictionaries and excerpts
from commentaries.
On the basis of
the observation
that the Apocalypse is
replete with allusions
to the
Old Testament,
chapter
two
investigates intertextuality both in theory and
in practice as
it
relates
to previous Revelation studies. As a method
intertextuality has
several
benefits which commend
it as a helpful tool
for interpreting the Apocalypse. Unlike
other New Testament books which use clear references
to the Old Testament, John
avoids
the use of
introductory formulae and direct
citations. Thus, the use of the Old
Testament in Revelation is more subtle. This
chapter engages
in an
interdisciplinary
dialogue with
literary critics
followed by a critical assessment of
the previous
intertextual work
in Revelation studies.
Given that intertextuality places an emphasis on the role of the reader's context,
chapter three focuses on my religious context,
i. e., Pentecostalism. With an awareness
that not all Pentecostals
read alike,
I seek to describe a possible Pentecostal hermeneutic
which
is faithful to the ethos of
the movement. This chapter also contains an
assessment of the previous work by Pentecostals concerning
the role of the Spirit in the
Apocalypse. Chapter three ends with a turn toward the Apocalypse to see what
additional
insights the book might contain toward further development of the
hermeneutic.
In
chapter
four the thesis comes to a climax by integrating biblical
studies and
literary
studies within the context of a Pentecostal community by focusing on the
prophecy concerning the temple and the two witnesses
in Rev. 11: 1-13. The chapter
includes a discussion
on
the literary
contextualization of
this key
passage which sits at
the centre of the book literarily, and
I believe theologically as well,
forming the
intertextual centre of the role of the Spirit in the Apocalypse. Given the multiple
allusions
to the Old Testament which can
be found in this passage, coupled with the
cross references to other sections of the Apocalypse, this passage provides avenues of
investigation into every aspect of
the Spirit in Revelation. The thesis concludes with a
delineation of
its
contributions and their implications.