*REVEAL/*REVELATION - also see TRUTH, EPIPHANY, TRIBULATION, HOPE, SEE, SCRIPTURE, WORD, ENLIGHTEN, CONSCIOUSNESS
In English, apocalypse is often rendered as revelation and the literal meaning of the Greek word is "unveiling". (Wikipedia)
Revelation is a gift from God. (http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/The-Fifth-Epochal-Revelation)
In modern times people often begin their search for an abstract ‘truth’ through books before coming to a revelation of the Personal God. (http://www.orthodoxeurope.org/page/10/1.aspx)
Revelation is also called the Apocalypse which means "to break through" or reveal. (Heaven, p70)
Revelation of Jesus Christ to John = Unveiling of Jesus [was? knew about God?]; Note that John is writing literally as he sees the vision and details the chronology of God's judgment on the world. (Wikipedia)
The Bible is a revelation of God to man. (Sermon on the Mount, p3)
Jesus was the last Word of God to the human race, rendering future revelation unnecessary. Consequently Christians were scandalized when Allah claimed to have received a direct revelation from their God. (History of God, p131)
Mysticism understands revelation (ultimate truth) to mean experience. Divine Reality expresses itself in us directly and much more intensely in the happening of the moment - then human beings find the real presence of God. When experienced from within, we learn what it really is. If we become aware who we really are - that is a holistic experience. Mystics experience a multi-dimensional world. (Meaning, p10-11)
It is only through a change in consciousness that the world can be saved. Political and social action are all incomplete and futile unless accompanied by a new and evevated mode of awareness. The ultimate action, then, is no action at all except to change consciousness. The true revolution is revelation. When that has occurred on a global scale, the old problems and prejudices and inhumanies will vanish, and revolution will become evolution. (TM, p150)
Why don't you appear before our eyes? God: "I am doing so right now. Everywhere you look." What is your form or shape? God: "I have no form or shape you understand. I am the Great Unseen. I am what I am not. It is from the am-notness that I come, and to it I always return. God is not revealed from or through outward observation, but through inward experience. And when inward experience has revealed God, outward observation is not necessary. And if outward observation is necessary, inward experience is not possible. (Conversations, p9-10)
The seven trumphets really covers the same ground as the seals and both serve as a background to two highly important interludes, that of chapter 7 (????) and that of chapters 10 (sealing of 144,000?) and 11 (2 witnesses) (ReadingNT2, p75)
The 144,000 in Ch 10 of Revelation is a proportion of martyrs will be taken from the 12 tribes of the "New Israel" - the Church. (ReadingNT2, p76)
"But who do you say that I am?" Simon Peter answered him, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God." And Jesus answered him, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not REVEALED this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. (Matt 16:17)
Why would God create the universe except out of love? [and via love] He didn't need it! It could only be out of love, a love that is patient and forebearing and forgiving. It is a love that is completely self-giving and self-sacrificing. What a dazzling and overpowering revelation that is! Even when we catch a glimpse of it, in a moment of spiritual insight, we are almost blown away by it. It seems too good to be true. "Mercy, within mercy, within mercy" as Thomas Merton says. (ThemesOT, p123)
The New Testament lies hidden in the Old and the Old Testament is unveiled in the New. (St. Augustine, Quaest. in Hept)
By acting in consonance with God's intentions - obeying God's WILL - Jesus provided the vehicle for God to REVEAL these TRUTHS to us. (Common Sense, p109)
I think the Book of Revelation is symbolic about repeated cycles in history and in the future and even cycles in our own lives of suffering and the reward for overcomers. (Randy)