In Christian history, this passage has almost universally been taken as an account of the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. The Lord is depicted as returning in his regal glory, no longer a lowly servant but the reigning King. The dragon and the beast are cast into the lake of fire, along with all those who followed them. The portrait is one of great sobriety. The event of Christ’s return inevitably determines one’s understanding of the meaning of history. It places us in the history of redemption and is the promise that the Lamb will triumph and complete his great saving work. Christ’s return is the event which guarantees that, for God’s people, history is not tragedy but triumph.

One well-known Hollywood screenwriter described his method of writing a screenplay in this way: “The trick is to start at the ending when you write a play. Get a good strong ending and then write backwards.” His point was not merely technical. Rather, he was acknowledging that without a fixed ending to the human drama, the search for significant meaning in life becomes hopeless.

It is a very important fact to notice that the accounts of the Second Coming that we are given in Holy Scripture are characteristically more solemn and less celebratory than we might have expected. After all, the Second Coming will be the day of triumph for believers, the day on which every form of sorrow will be obliterated and every form of happiness be experienced to an unprecedented degree. However, whether in Jesus’ own teaching about his return, or that of the Apostle Paul in 2 Thessalonians 1, or here in Revelation 19, the note of sober warning is accented more than the note of celebration. The effect is to appeal to the church, that we might be solemn and dedicated concerning our lives and witness in this present day.