CHIASTIC STRUCTURE OF REVELATION
The Chiastic structure was not a literary challenge that John undertook to impress his readers—it was given by inspiration in order to help readers understand the meaning of Revelation. As you can see on the diagram, the Book of Revelation has an even number of sections (five in each half). This means that instead of building up to one climax of an overall theme, there are two climaxes, one for the first half of the book and another for the second half. This shows that there are actually two sub-themes within the context of the overall theme of the book.
The climax of the first half is Revelation 13:11-18, which presents the image of the beast, the mark of the beast, the mumber of the beast and the death decree against those who refuse to submit to the Beast. This is the climax of Satan’s long war against God’s people, so we would expect the theme of the first half of the book to be Satan’s efforts to defeat God’s people.
The climax of the second half is Revelation 14:1-5, which presents Jesus as the Lamb with His victorious people in heaven. This represents God's ultimate victory over sin and Satan, which is the theme of the second half of the book.
Thus it can be seen that the overall theme of the Book of Revelation is the great controversy between God and Satan (for a detailed explanation of this controversy see chapter 12). The first half of the book is concerned with Satan’s attacks on God and His Church, both in history and in the future. The second half of the chiasm reveals God’s victory over sin, Satan and his followers.
Continue to next section: CHRONOLOGICAL ORGANIZATION (TIMELINE)
