Revealing Revelation: Best Commentaries on Revelation
I have benefited greatly from those who have made it their life’s work to study and comment on Revelation so that we can proclaim it with clarity and power.
RC Sproul has said something to the effect of, “Every book of the Bible is equally inspired, but not every book of the Bible is equally clear.” Revelation is a difficult book to preach through, among other reasons, because its genre is unfamiliar to us, and thus it poses its challenges for interpretation. This is why I have benefited greatly from those who have made it their life’s work to study and comment on it so that we can proclaim it with clarity and power. While I haven’t found a commentary on Revelation that I agree with entirely, considering its various interpretive traditions (futurist, preterist, historicist, idealist, and partial-preterist, etc.), I have found a number of commentaries extremely helpful as I have been preparing to preach through this book. I trust the list of commentaries below will serve as a suggested library of resources for expositors.
Note: I have organized them categorically in terms of commentary type or style (Academic/Scholarly, Verse by Verse/Accessible, Homiletical/Popular Level).
Academic/Scholarly – Commentaries that have extensive historical analysis and research behind them as they also deal extensively with the text in the original language, and have clearly consulted the bulk of the available and relevant literature, both critical and evangelical.
Thomas R. Schreiner, Revelation – Baker Exegetical Commentary on the NT
I have found Schreiner’s commentary on Revelation fully worthy of its accolades. In 2024 it was awarded with the ECPA Medallion of Excellence 2024 Christian Book Award in the category of Bible Reference Works. The entire BECNT series demonstrates detailed work in the original Greek but does not stray from the task of providing preachers and Bible teachers with accessible insights for tangible help for sermon preparation. Schreiner is excellent on the text, committed to the gospel, and robust in his thoughtful and pastoral insight.
G.K. Beale, The Book of Revelation – The New International Greek Testament Commentary
Keith Mathison rightly says that Beale’s commentary “contains a wealth of information and should be consulted by any serious student of Scripture,” and that “Many Reformed and evangelical scholars argue that Beale has written the best available contemporary commentary on Revelation.” He does a masterful job providing insights on the many Old Testament allusions throughout the book of Revelation and deals extensively with the Greek Text. It is very technical, scholarly, and thorough.
Verse by Verse/Accessible – Commentaries that provide helpful and enlightening historical insights while commenting in fair depth on every verse in the book, without going too deep into text criticism or the original languages. These commentaries deal helpfully with the theology of the books at hand.
Ian Paul, Revelation: An Introduction and Commentary – Volume 20, Tyndale NT Commentaries
This is my top-rated Revelation commentary. Paul has masterfully provided textual, historical, theological, pastoral, practical, and Christological comments in a clear and concise way. His structural analysis, thematic observations, textual summaries, and handling of particular difficulties in interpretation aided my preparation each and every week. He focuses on Text, Context, Comment, and Theological significance. This is an essential volume for those preparing to preach through Revelation.
G.K. Beale with David Campbell, Revelation: A Shorter Commentary
A shorter abridgement of his longer Greek Commentary, this shorter commentary is more accessible for preachers and Bible teachers who are under pressure. Beale does not compromise on his scholarly approach, but manages to help readers and preachers utilizing this volume grasp the book of Revelation as he delves into the text, its use of the OT, its historical and theological context in rich but concise ways.
Homiletical/Popular Level – Commentaries that provide summarizing insights that read more like a sermon and deal more with application than interpretation. These can be particularly helpful to reference toward the end of the sermon preparation process.
Darrell Johnson, Discipleship On The Edge: An Expository Journey Through the Book of Revelation
This volume welcomes outsiders into Johnson’s pew as he proclaims Christ-centered sermons through the book of Revelation. This volume captures his very helpful and pastoral, prophetic and practical voice in written form. I found it consistently historically enlightening, illustrative, clear, accessible, and compelling.
Michael Wilcock, The Message of Revelation (John Stott, editor)
Any Bible believing preacher should prioritize having the Bible Speaks Today commentary series, both New Testament and Old Testament in their library. Wilcock is masterful to answer questions like, “What is Revelation?, What is it about? Is it mainly dealing with the past or the future? What are we to make of its strange and chilling symbolism and imagery?” While approaching the book passage by passage, it manages to be concise and Christ-centered, which is necessary in a book that claims to be “The Revelation of Jesus Christ” (Rev 1:1).
Tim Chester, Revelation for You: Seeing History from Heaven’s Perspective
This volume has served as my final stop in weekly sermon preparation. Chester provides fresh, clear, and compelling insights into the practical application and implications of the book of Revelation. This is a help to Revelation-rookies like me as we limp through the weekly preparation of unfamiliar material.
John Stott, What Christ Thinks of the Church: An Exposition of Revelation 1-3
While Stott does not comment on the whole of the book of Revelation, he deals with the letters in Revelation chapters 2-3 with his classically clear and evangelical style.
Other Helpful Revelation Resources
While Gorman doesn’t dive too deep into commenting on the individual preaching passages of Revelation, this is an incredibly accessible and informative introduction to the Book of Revelation. It can tend to be a little overly critical toward the dispensational tradition, but it is illuminating in its introduction to Revelation’s world, symbolism, text, theology, genre, and structure. A must-have for preachers of Revelation.
G.K. Beale and D.A. Carson (editors) - Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament
While Revelation rarely quotes the Old Testament explicitly, it echoes and alludes to it perhaps the most of any of the New Testament books. This is what makes Carson and Beale’s Commentary on the NT use of the OT indispensable for studying Revelation. They crack open significant help for interpreting the imagery in Revelation as they comment on Revelation’s Old Testament textual and historical background. This book claims to deal with nearly every citation, allusion, and echo of the Old Testament in the New Testament.
