Revelation 1

We need the whole counsel of God, every word in the Bible. But not every word is equally clear. In each passage we should start with what may seem obvious before we go on to those things that are more confusing. We should use the most plain biblical passages to help us in our interpretation of those passages that are difficult to understand.

With that word of caution, it is simply not the case that everything in the last book of the Bible is impossible to interpret. The book is a revelation after all; something is being revealed. Though some of the sections may seem to conceal more than reveal, God, through Christ, through an angelic messenger, through the Apostle John, had many plain things to say to the people of seven actual churches known to the apostle in the first century.

We would be in error if we thought that all of the words of this book were about very distant events. God says that this revelation is about things that “must soon take place.” While the exact timing is not given, we should consider these words to be of importance to those who lived and died toward the end of the first century after the birth of Christ, and through them and their struggles and perseverance, to us.

Much of what God communicated to His people through this book was presented in the form of signs to the apostle using vivid imagery, where every image should not necessarily be forced into a specific meaning, but where general points of great importance to the churches are pressed upon the hearts of the people in a different way than the letters of Paul or the gospels might accomplish. There is something here clear enough for the church to hear and understand so that they will be blessed in their exposure to this Word. It is a testimony of the ascended Christ that is worthy of our careful consideration and obedience.

In every generation since the coming of Christ, the church has faced significant challenges. This book takes those challenges very seriously, but it also considers the grace and peace that comes to us from Christ in heaven to be more important than any threatening power on earth. Christ is so completely full of the Holy Spirit, that He who is, was, and is to come, is said to have the seven spirits around His throne, with the number seven used throughout this book to symbolize the fullness of whatever it describes.

The Spirit-filled, ascended Christ, who through His resurrection has become the firstborn of the dead in this new resurrection era, is the ruler over all the kings of the earth. We serve this glorious Christ who loves us. Has He freed us from our sins by His blood? Yes, He has. Has He made us into the kingdom of God that He proclaimed to Israel during His earthly ministry? Yes, He is doing this now. We are a priesthood of servants to God, presenting our worship to the Lord and serving Him with our lives. But we are looking to the day of His return, together with all who believe in His coming. Then every eye will see Him.

This Christ, the Alpha and Omega, the eternal Son of God, once knew John as the young disciple who leaned on his Lord's chest on the night when the Messiah instituted the Lord's Supper. Now he is an old man facing exile for his faithful labors as a servant of the Word. Suddenly the living Word is there in person before him, not as the lowly Jesus of Nazareth who went throughout the villages of Galilee preaching and teaching the Kingdom, but as the ascended Son of God, the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, Almighty God, the One who is, who was, and who is to come.

Is the Son of God still a Man in heaven? Yes, but a resurrected man, and presented to John with features that tell us about His greatness. He has come to His beloved disciple on the island of his exile in the strength of the Day of the Lord and in the glory of heaven. He has come to tell the churches to patiently endure through this era of tribulation. He has come to command that they stay with Him through it all, and to promise again that He will stay with them through the worst that this current age can hurl at them. The words that He will speak are important. They are to be written down for the churches.

He appears in the midst of the fullness of the church, the seven lampstands in heaven. Jesus is with His churches now. He is the Son of Man, but not as Isaiah spoke of Him when he wrote, “He had no form or majesty that we should look at Him, and no beauty that we should desire Him.” Now He is awesome in splendor. He is in charge, and He is Almighty. He is God. He is not young, but He is far from feeble. His eyes know all and are ready to perform perfect divine judgment. He will not be stopped. He is above all the tumult of a dangerous earth as the One who is accomplishing His great purposes, even in the midst of the suffering and struggling churches for which He gave His blood. He has eternity in His hands. He is the Word of God and He speaks from heaven to the churches. His brilliance and glory show Him to be the bright sun of heaven.

John falls at His feet as though dead. Of course he does. Yet Jesus still brings words of peace to His servant and through him to His church, even today. “Fear not.... I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades.” The Jesus who died for us is reigning over everything, and we need not fear what men, angels, death, or hell can do to us. Our Jesus is in charge. Take courage this day, and persevere in the pathway of righteousness for His Name's sake. The Lord of the resurrection rules over all.