JOHN ON PATMOS
REVELATION 1
Revelation
1:1-3
King
James Version (KJV)
1 The
Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants
things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified it by his
angel unto his servant John:
2 Who bare record of the word of
God, and of the testimony of Jesus Christ, and of all things that he saw.
3 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.
Revelation, or the
Book of Revelation of Jesus Christ, is the last book of the Christian Bible. The
word ‘Revelation’ means something
revealed or shown to us. Yet many people say it can’t be
understood, which is not true.
It is the only
apocalyptic book in the New Testament of the Bible. As is characteristic of
apocalyptic books, Revelation is filled with vivid, highly symbolic imagery.
The book reasons to reveal revelations given to John the apostle by Jesus
Christ. Modern scholars claim that
the book was written by John of Patmos,
a different John than the
author of The Gospel of John and the three Johannine letters. The book was
written at about 96 CE.
v
Understand that our Lord Jesus is the great trustee of divine revelation; it is to him that we owe the
knowledge we have of what we are to expect from God and what he expects from
us.
v This revelation Christ sent and
signified by his angel. God gave it to
Christ, and Christ employed an angel
to communicate it to the churches. The angels are God’s messengers; they
are ministering spirits to the heirs of salvation. They are Christ’s servants:
principalities and powers are subject to him; all the angels of God are obliged
to worship him. The angels signified it to the apostle John. By way of the angels
are the messengers of Christ, the ministers are the messengers of the churches;
what they receive from heaven, they are to communicate to the churches. John was the apostle chosen for this service.
(a.)
Some think he was the only one surviving, the rest having sealed their
testimony with their blood. This was
to be the last book of divine revelation;
and
therefore notified to the church by the last of the apostles. John was the beloved disciple. He was, under the New
Testament, as the prophet Daniel under the Old, a man greatly beloved. He was
the servant of Christ; he was an
apostle, an evangelist, and a prophet; he served Christ in all the
three extraordinary offices of the church. James was an apostle, but not a
prophet, nor an evangelist; Matthew was an apostle and evangelist, but not a
prophet; Luke was an evangelist, but neither a prophet nor an apostle; but John
was all three; and so Christ calls
him in an eminent sense his servant John. John was to deliver this revelation
to the church, to all his servants. For the revelation was not designed for the
use of Christ’s extraordinary servants the
ministers only, but for all his servants, the members of the church; they
have all a right to the oracles of God, and all have their concern in them.
v The evangelists give us an
account of the things that are past; prophecy gives us an account of things to
come. These future events are shown,
not in the clearest light in which
God could have set them, but in such a light as He saw most proper, and which
would best answer his wise and holy
purposes. Had they been as clearly foretold in all their circumstances
as God could have revealed them, the prediction might have prevented the accomplishment;
but they are foretold more darkly, to precipitate in us reverence for the
scripture, and to engage our attention and excite our enquiry. We have in this
revelation a general idea of the methods of divine providence and government in
and about the church, and many good lessons may be learned hereby. These events
(it is said) were such as should come
to pass not only surely, but shortly;
that is, they would begin to come to pass very shortly, and the whole would be
accomplished in a short time. For now
the last ages of the world had come.
v It is a privilege not only to
read the scriptures ourselves, but to hear them read by others, who are
qualified to give us the sense of what they read and to lead us into an
understanding of them. It is not sufficient to our blessedness that we read and
hear the scriptures, but we must keep
the things that are written; we must keep them in our memories, in our
minds, in our affections, and in practice, and we shall be blessed in the deed.
The nearer we come to the accomplishment of the scriptures, the greater regard
we shall give to them. The time is at
hand, and we should be so much the more attentive as we see the day
approaching.
Revelation 1: 3 -
The Beatitude
Blessed
is anyone who reads the words of this prophecy, and blessed those who hear
them, if they treasure the content, because the Time is near.
The first of Seven Beatitudes to be
found in the book (the other
six occurring in 14:13; 16:15; 19:9; 20:6; 22:7, 14). The
fact that there are precisely seven of these pronouncements is probably
coincidental, not
stemming from John's allure with the number seven. John's
use of the beatitude
form shows familiarity with the written or oral traditions behind the
Gospels, if not with the Gospels themselves (see, Mt 5:3-12; Lk 6:20-23). The
beatitude found here corresponds to one attributed to the risen Jesus in Revelation 22:7: "Blessed is he who keeps
the words
of the prophecy in this book." Both recall the saying of
Jesus found in Lk 11:28: "`Blessed
rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it.'"
The difference is that in Revelation the beatitude refers to a written
document. The blessing, therefore, is first on the one who reads the words of
this prophecy (that is,
aloud to a Christian congregation), and second on those who hear
it and take to heart what is written in it (that is, the congregation to whom the letter is
read).
v It is easy to forget that among the early Christians almost no one
owned any portion of what is now considered Scripture. Even whole congregations
were fortunate if they owned more than one of the Gospels. The only access that
ordinary Christians had to the Gospels and letters that now make up the New
Testament was public reading in worship services. The public reader therefore
performed a ministry to the congregation far beyond what is normally the case
today (compare 1 Thess 5:27; Col 4:16). The
beatitude here is the author's way of saying, "Make sure you have this prophecy read in your
worship assemblies! Make sure you listen and pay attention to your reader! And
above all, make sure you act on what you have heard!"
T
|
he urgency of the
implied command is emphasized by the critical statement that the time is near.
Almost at the end of the book, the same phrase points up the contrast between
this prophecy and the book of
Daniel: the words given to Daniel were "closed up and sealed until the time of the
end" (Dan 12:9), while the words given to John
are not to be sealed "because
the time is near" (Rev 22:10).
v For John and his readers the lateness of the hour demanded that his
letter not be a closed book but a disclosure, an actual revelation open for all
to read, understand and obey.
With the passage of nineteen hundred years, it is tempting to assume
that the time came and went long ago and nothing happened, or that the time is
far off and the book is sealed up again, like Daniel, until some distant "last day."
In either case, the book of
Revelation becomes irrelevant and, like most irrelevant things, is left to "experts,"
whether we define them as professional biblical scholars preoccupied with a
distant past or as confident television preachers preoccupied with an imminent,
yet somehow theoretical, future. It is time
to reclaim the book of Revelation for those who read it
and for those who hear it read in church, and above all for those prepared to
take its message to heart.
Only in the conviction that
somehow "the time"
is as near as ever can John's letter still be read as larger than life and
vivid in its sights and sounds....…. to be cont’d.
Janet Irene Thomas
Director, Playwright, Gospel Lyricist, Screenwriter
Founder/CEO
Bible Stories Theatre of Fine & Performing Arts
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