The Idealist View and Revelation 16

The Idealist View of Revelation is a view that in contrast to Futurism, Preterism or Historicism says Revelation isn't really about any specific sequence of events that were yet future when the book was written but grander Spiritual Truths of the Biblical Meta Narrative.

I am a Pre-Millenial Futurist, but the Idealist view is one I can view as also true. Like how our typological Christological interpretations of Old Testament events doesn't mean we don't believe they actually happened as described.  So the future events of Revelation can have typological significance looking back just as the Hebrew Bible has looking forward.  Peter Hiett's Revelation Sermons are primarily advocating an idealist view and his is probably the best version of it.

And personally I think the most interesting part of the Idealist view is Revelation 16 as a sort of 5th account of The Crucifixion.  The idea that Revelation is describing the Wrath the World deserves but that Jesus took upon himself.

I shall be going out of chronological sequence as I discus this view.

It starts with how the word for "Plagues" is a Greek word that also means wounds.  It's never directly indisputably used of the Wounds that Jesus received, but it is used of the same kinds of wounds in places like Luke 10:30 and Acts 16:23.

The big smoking gun of the argument is Revelation 16:17 where after the Seventh Vial is poured out a voice says "It Is Done" and then a Great Earthquake happens.  Now in the Greek this "It Is Done" does not seem to be exactly the same phrase as "It Is Finished" Jesus said on The Cross right before that Earthquake.  But Jesus wouldn't have been speaking in Greek, so this can easily be a different Greek translation.

So in the first Vial the sores received by those who take the mark could correlate to Jesus sores from when He was scourged.

The two vials turning water into blood could be about the Blood of Jesus that was shed.  Moses turned water into blood, Jesus turned Water into Wine and then at the Last Supper said a cup of Wine was His Blood.  And when the spear pierced His side Blood and Water came out.

The fourth Vial about the Sun getting really Hot could have to do with Jesus being on The Cross at High Noon.  The fifth Vial then caused Darkness which definitely happened while Jesus was on The Cross.

So the Sixth Vial is the difficult one to make work.  The Euphrates River being dried up when interpreted symbolically is clearly about contact between West and East, the Euphrates at this time was basically the border between Rome and Parthia, and Biblically it was the Eastern Border of what God gave to Abraham.

In Antiquities of The Jews Josephus sometimes winds up going out of sequence.  In Book 18 the account of the Crucifixion happens in chapter 3.  Chapter 4 begins the account of how Pilate's Governorship ended and then how Tiberius died before Pilate got back to Rome.  But when while talking about acts of Vitellius clearly jumps back to when Tiberius was still alive for some dealings he had with Parthia.  In section 5.

When Tiberius had heard of these things, he desired to have a league of friendship made between him and Artabanus; and when, upon this invitation, he received the proposal kindly, Artabanus and Vitellius went to Euphrates, and as a bridge was laid over the river, they each of them came with their guards about them, and met one another on the midst of the bridge. And when they had agreed upon the terms of peace Herod, the tetrarch erected a rich tent on the midst of the passage, and made them a feast there. 

That is interesting.  Also later after his time as governor of Syria was over Vitellius actually made himself a sort of High Priest of the Imperial Cult of Caligula, making him a possible Type of The False Prophet.

Meggidon is possibly linked to the Crucifixion by Zechariah 12.