THE CHRISTIAN CANONICAL PROPHECY

Revelation has a unique place in the Christian canon of Scripture. It is the only work of Christian prophecy that forms part of the canon. Moreover, it is a work of Christian prophecy which understands itself to be the culmination of the whole biblical prophetic tradition. Its continuity with Old Testament prophecy is deliberate and impressively comprehensive. The point may be highlighted by comparing it with the other major work of early Christian prophecy which has survived: the work known as The Shepherd, by the Roman Christian prophet Hermas, a work which was popular in the early church, though not finally admitted to the canon. Hermas, despite – or perhaps because of – his Christian prophetic consciousness, virtually ignores the Old Testament. John is steeped in it, not just as the medium in which he thinks, but as the Word of God which he is intepreting afresh for an age in which God's eschatological purpose has begun to be fulfilled. He gathers up all thoses trands of Old Testament expectation which he understood to point to the eschatological future and focusses them in a fresh vision of the way they are to be fulfilled.

He sees the unity of Old Testament prophecy in its hope for the coming of God's universal kingdom on earth. He reads it in the light of the beginning of the fulfilment of that hope in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, and in the consequent transformation of the people of God into a people drawn from all nations.