Did Jesus mean “soon” when he said “soon”?

Today I want to look at verse 3 in chapter one.

“Blessed [is] he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time [is] at hand.”

Specifically “for the time is at hand.” In my previous posts I put forth that John might actually be saying that when the things in this book came into being, they would be happening quickly rather than "is soon to come to pass" as it’s been translated.

In today’s phrase there is no doubt that he is saying that the things revealed in this book may happen quickly but that they are indeed drawing near.

So now we have a dilemma don’t we? Did Jesus mean “soon” when he said “soon”?

As I’ve been investigating this I’ve found that I’m not the only one discussing this.

This is the very reason I’ve avoided studying Revelations. So many people out there have ideas as to what they believe is right and most of the time there is an opposite camp out their saying what they believe is right. Their ideas never gel.

However, God has distincly impressed on me that excuse no longer matters to him. We are not take away any part of His word. So then it demands to be studied as well.

To me it is obvious God purposefully worded this book to bring about the need for us to seek out and learn what he is telling us. From the very first verse, His purpose was to “unveil” these mysteries so it is not an impossible mission. We can know without a shadow of a doubt what he is saying.

I believe he purposefully used these words of seemingly contradiction so that we draw near to him and search out these matter.

In fact the Proverbs say "[It is] the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honour of kings [is] to search out a matter." Pro 25:2

And so we shall.

For today though I want to deconstruct the phrase “time is at hand”. If we look at the word “time” in the Greek we find it is a derivative from the Greek word “Kairos”. It is actually where we get our English word “Crisis”.

The phrase “at hand” is comes from the Greek “eggus” meaning “of times imminent and soon to come pass”. When looking at the Greek, like much of our own English words, we find that very often they have a “base” word that they are derived from.

For “eggus” it is akin to the Greek word “agkale” which means:

1) The curve or inner angle of the arm, the bent arm
2) Anything closely enfolding, as the arms of the sea, etc.

So as we see John was saying a crisis time will be closely enfolding us. It will not be something that we can avoid because it will draw us in and envelope us.

But when?