Articles by Daniel R. Hyde
Some of these articles first appeared in peer-reviewed academic journals and scholarly venues written for colleagues in the academic guild and the ministerium—Calvin Theological Journal, Puritan Reformed Journal, Mid-America Journal of Theology, and The Confessional Presbyterian. Some are more popular pieces written for church members that read carefully. For a full list, see my Curriculum Vitae.
They explore the history and practice of Reformed liturgy (including the neglected place of absolution), the theology of the Heidelberg Catechism and the broader Three Forms of Unity, the task of preaching, and disputed questions in Reformed history and catholicity.
The journal articles date from 2006 to 2017, written across two decades of pastoral ministry and doctoral work at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.
Each article is available in full text, as a PDF, or both.
He Never Left the Room
Where is Jesus now? The ascension seems to put him at a distance, but Revelation answers by showing where he walks: in the midst of the lampstands, among his churches.
Where is Jesus now? The ascension seems to put him at a distance, but Revelation answers by showing where he walks: in the midst of the lampstands, among his churches.
Jesus’s ascension creates a problem the New Testament doesn’t hide. A cloud took him out of his disciples’ sight (Acts 1:9). He “sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high” (Heb. 1:3). The ancient creeds say the same: he “ascended into heaven, and sits on the right hand of the Father” (Nicene Creed).
This raises an obvious question: if Jesus is there, where does that leave us here?
The New Testament answers mostly by assertion. Jesus said, “I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matt. 28:20). “I will not leave you as orphans” (John 14:18). True and comforting promises, but they can feel abstract to hurting souls.
The book of Revelation does something else. It doesn’t assert the presence of Christ. It shows you where he’s walking.
In the Midst
John turns toward the voice speaking to him and sees seven golden lampstands, “and in the midst of the lampstands one like a son of man” (1:12–13). Eighteen verses later the image is decoded: the seven lampstands are the seven churches (1:20).
So, the living Jesus is located in the middle of his congregations.
Watch what John does with the same phrase. In chapter 5 he’s looking into the throne room of God itself, and sees in the midst of the throne a Lamb standing as though slain (5:6). The identical construction, en mesō (ἐν μέσῳ). Christ is in the midst of the throne and in the midst of the lampstands. Revelation feels no tension between the two.
That’s the answer to the ascension question, given to us in a picture rather than a proposition. Jesus didn’t go away and leave just a faint memory behind.
The Presence That Knows Particulars
In chapters 2 and 3, Christ says seven times “I know.” What he knows isn’t generic. He knows particulars like Smyrna’s bank balance: “your tribulation and your poverty, but you are rich” (2:9). He knows Pergamum’s address: “where you dwell, where Satan’s throne is (2:13). He knows that Thyatira’s latter works exceed the first (2:19). He knows Sardis has a reputation for being alive but is really dead (3:1). He knows what Laodicea says about itself, and what’s actually true (3:17).
That isn’t surveillance like an orbiting satellite. These are words of someone who’s been in the room for years.
And to the smallest church on the list, he says touchingly, “I know that you have but little power” (3:8). Small isn’t invisible. A congregation can be beneath the notice of its own city while it’s not beneath Jesus’s.
He Can Be Among You and Not With You
These seven letters end where the opening vision doesn’t prepare you for.
To Ephesus, Jesus threatens, “I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place” (2:5). The presence isn’t a fixed piece of furniture. It can be withdrawn.
And to Laodicea, Jesus woos, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock” (3:20). Revelation opened with Christ in the midst of the lampstands, and his letters end with him outside one of them, locked out of his own church, so to speak. Yet, note his long-suffering, still knocking, still offering himself.
A congregation can have Jesus among them and not with them. It can be lampstand and lose its light.
What This Means During an Ordinary Week
The Heidelberg Catechism asks a question directly, then answers it with the whole truth:
But isn’t Christ with us until the end of the world as he promised us?
Christ is true man and true God. In his human nature Christ is not now on earth; but in his divinity, majesty, grace, and Spirit he is never absent from us. (Q&A 47; URCNA Synod 2016 revision)
Revelation is that answer in picture form. Jesus isn’t here the way your neighbor is. He’s here the way the light is in the lampstand.
The Presence of Christ
“He is here the way the light is in the lampstand.”
So, next Lord’s Day, when the congregation is smaller than you’d like and the singing is so thin you wonder whether any of it registers anywhere, know that Jesus hears because he’s present in the midst.
And he’s still knocking on the doors of churches that have stopped noticing.
Revelation: Jesus Wins
© 2026 Daniel R. Hyde. Permission is granted to reprint this article in full, unaltered, for non-commercial use, provided the attribution below is included and links to the original. For excerpts, translations, or commercial use, see Permissions.
To attribute: Daniel R. Hyde, "He Never Left the Room," https://www.danielrhyde.com/articles/where-is-jesus-now-presence-of-christ-revelation. Used by permission.
Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. ESV Text Edition: 2025. The ESV text may not be quoted in any publication made available to the public by a Creative Commons license. The ESV may not be translated in whole or in part into any other language. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Revelation Is Not a Puzzle: 4 Keys to Interpretation
How should Christians read Revelation? Discover four biblical keys: Christ, its purpose, Old Testament imagery, and the call to hear and obey.
How should Christians read Revelation? Discover four biblical keys: Christ, its purpose, Old Testament imagery, and the call to hear and obey.
Most people open Revelation looking for a solution. Jerome said Revelation “has as many mysteries as it has words…for in every one of its words manifold meanings lie hidden”[1]. So we approach it asking: Which empire is the beast? What does the mark of the beast 666 mean? Where is Armageddon? When do the trumpets sound? We don’t know why the voluminous commentator, John Calvin, avoided it. What we do know is that when he came to 2–3 John and Revelation, he moved to the Old Testament instead.[2] For others, whole publishing careers have been built on answering those questions, charts included.
The book does ask to be understood. Yet not in the way so many think. The seals, trumpets, and bowls are not a collection of coded predictions that we can confidently match, one by one, to individual events in a modern timeline. If each symbol pointed to one datable event, how would we identify which event among thousands? Thus, we’d get endless interpretations and no certainty, and the book would stay closed.
That’s why I say Revelation was not given like a mass of puzzle pieces to be solved. God did not give Revelation to be interpreted by us but to interpret the world for us. That one sentence changes what you’re doing when you open it. You’re not the detective. You’re the one being shown something.
So how do you read Revelation? Here are four keys: Read it as a book about Christ, to reveal, written in Old Testament signs, and to be heard and obeyed.
Reading Revelation
“God did not give Revelation to be interpreted by us but to interpret the world for us.”
Who is Revelation About?
It’s “the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1:1). That means from him, about him.[3] Every year for Christmas we put out a puzzle on a table with all the pieces just dumped out. Anyone who walks by is free to dive in and start putting pieces together. Inevitably one of us will get lost in the thousand pieces. So, what do they do? Find the picture on the box top. Jesus is the picture on the box. He’s the One who brings the book’s many pieces into a focused image. Revelation is not a puzzle; it’s about a person.
What Does Revelation Do for Us?
The Greek word apokalypsis means revelation or unveiling. God pulls back the curtain, not so that we can satisfy our curiosity about the future, but so that we can see the world in the light of Jesus Christ.
Here’s the exciting thing: God did not give Revelation to be interpreted by us but to interpret the world for us.[4] As the very opening words say, “God gave” this “revelation of Jesus Christ” who “sent…his angel to his servant John” so that all “his servants”—that’s you—might see and know “the things that must soon take place” (1:1). When I became a Christian, I was given three books: the Bible and two of Hal Lindsey’s: The Late Great Planet Earth and The Rapture. I was told these were “the keys to understanding the Bible.” Over time, I’ve come to see that Revelation was not given to make us dependent on prophecy experts. It was given to reveal Jesus Christ and teach us how to understand the world in which we live.
How Do We Understand its Imagery?
Revelation was written to real churches in real trouble (1:4). But they didn’t need a prophecy chart to crack its code of “signs.” Interestingly, the verb the ESV translates as “he made it known” (sēmainō) is related to the word John uses of Jesus’ “signs” in his Gospel. If there is a cheat code for the things “signified” in Revelation, it’s the Old Testament. These ancient churches were to go back “to the law and to the testimony” (Isa. 8:20; KJV, NASB) to understand this revelation of their Lord and Savior.
For example, when John sees the gloriously resurrected and ascended Lord, with white hair “like white wool, like snow” (1:14), that’s directly from Daniel 7:9 and the vision of the Ancient of Days. Here’s the remarkable truth revealed by this imagery: Jesus, the Son of Man, shares the divine glory of the Ancient of Days. We’ve made Revelation difficult; Jesus is the key to cracking what’s become a code. I worked through this whole vision in the opening sermon of our series through Revelation. After all, it was these Jewish Scriptures of “Moses and all the Prophets” that the resurrected Jesus himself “interpreted” to two disillusioned and downtrodden disciples “the things concerning himself” (Luke 24:27).
How Should We Respond to Revelation?
Blessed is the one who reads aloud (singular) the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear (plural), and who keep (plural) what is written in it (1:3). Revelation was intended as a circular letter from the exiled apostle to the churches, so that they would be enlivened and encouraged to action. That’s you, wherever you gather with God’s people to hear and wherever you go back into the world to keep.
This means it’s not a book to gather around at prophecy conferences to satisfy our intellectual curiosities; it’s meant to be practical. It shapes the worship, endurance, and obedience of Christ’s people.
Conclusion
None of these keys makes Revelation simple. It’s still a strange book, full of imagery that resists quick summary. What they do change is what you’re looking for when you open it.
You’re not hunting for a hidden timeline. You’re being shown a person.
So, read Revelation with your Bible open to the Old Testament, not to a chart. Read it aloud, and read it with other Christians. Read it expecting to be given courage rather than information.
And when you get lost in the pieces—and you will—look at Christ on the box top.
Daniel R. Hyde is preaching through Revelation at Oceanside United Reformed Church this fall. The series, Jesus Wins, runs through December 20; full manuscripts, audio, and video are posted as we go.
Revelation: Jesus Wins
Notes
[1] Jerome, Letter to Paulinus, AD 394.↩
[2] On the chronological history of Calvin's commentaries, see Wulfert de Greef, The Writings of John Calvin: An Introductory Guide, trans. Lyle D. Bierma (Baker Books, 1993), 93–109.↩
[3] William Hendriksen, More Than Conquerors: An Interpretation of the Book of Revelation (1940, 1967; Baker Book House, seventh printing, 1990), 43.↩
[4] Hendriksen reads this as the revelation Jesus gives. More Than Conquerors, 51. G. K. Beale sees both. The Book of Revelation, NIGTC (Eerdmans, 1999), 183.↩
[5] See David A. deSilva, Unholy Allegiances: Heeding Revelation's Warning (Hendrickson, 2013), 8.↩
© 2026 Daniel R. Hyde. Permission is granted to reprint this article in full, unaltered, for non-commercial use, provided the attribution below is included and links to the original. For excerpts, translations, or commercial use, see Permissions.
To attribute: Daniel R. Hyde, "Revelation Is Not a Puzzle: 4 Keys to Interpretation," https://www.danielrhyde.com/articles/revelation-is-not-a-puzzle-4-keys-to-interpretation. Used by permission.
Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. ESV Text Edition: 2025. The ESV text may not be quoted in any publication made available to the public by a Creative Commons license. The ESV may not be translated in whole or in part into any other language. Used by permission. All rights reserved.