Revelation spoke to real first-century churches and confronted the empire pressing on them, and some prophecy found early fulfillment. Yet the bodily return of Christ, the resurrection, and the renewal of creation are still ahead. Meaningful then, not finished yet.
The Grace Answer
This debate usually pits two camps against each other. Preterism says most or all of the prophecy was fulfilled in the first century. Futurism says it is still ahead. The most faithful reading takes a piece from each and overplays neither.
Start with what is easy to miss: Revelation was written to seven actual churches facing real pressure, and it had to mean something to them. Much of its imagery addressed the empire of their day, imperial worship, economic coercion, the temptation to compromise, and the cost of faithful witness under Rome. Read that way, the book is not a sealed code about the distant future. It is a pastoral revelation of the Lamb's victory over the powers that were crushing its first readers. Two first-century realities belong here, and they are not the same. Jesus warned that this generation would see Jerusalem fall, and in A.D. 70 it did. Revelation, for its part, confronts the idolatry and violence of Roman imperial power bearing down on the churches. Some prophecy found real fulfillment in those events without being exhausted by them.
What is still unmistakably ahead
But the story does not close in the first century, and here the argument should not lean on the disputed date of Revelation. It should lean on the plain expectation running through the whole New Testament. Death is still an enemy: the last enemy that will be destroyed is death. Our bodies are not yet raised: we eagerly wait for the Savior who will transform them. The final defeat of evil, the resurrection of the dead, the judgment, and the New Jerusalem have not happened. This is why full preterism fails; it quietly cancels the return and the resurrection that the apostles were still straining toward.
So the honest answer is: meaningful to its first readers, partly fulfilled, not finished. Some prophecy landed in the rubble of the first century and proved Jesus told the truth about judgment. The best is still coming when Christ appears, and the empty tomb is the guarantee He will tell the truth about that too.
Whatever the timeline, your standing does not wait on it. Christ wins, death loses, creation is made new, and you are His. Study the map, and study it carefully. Your security does not depend on drawing every line of it perfectly.