Tuesday, December 1 –
We
have officially entered the last month of our readings thru the New Testament
in a year. For the entire month we will
be reading the book of Revelation. It is
the season of Advent, and this book gives us a window in the Second Advent of
our Lord. Today we read Revelation 1:9 –
20. Please come back here when you‘ve
finished reading the passage and we’ll walk through it a second time.
In our first reading, I made note that the book of Revelation is “Apocalyptic”
in style. Written with imagery, symbols,
visions, it is a book from Jesus, through John – the writer – to the Churches
who are undergoing suffering (tribulations) that took place under the reign of
Domitian from 86 – 95 a.d. The cult of
the Emperor had developed over years of rule by various Caesars. Each Emperor claimed that he was a “god” and
demanded allegiance and worship from the people under his rule. Christians, predominantly, refused to acclaim
the Emperor as “Lord” and “Savior” because they believed that Christ Jesus alone,
was Savior and Lord. John, who led
churches in Asia from Ephesus, was banished by Roman rulers to Patmos, a prison
island in the Mediterranean Sea. It is
while John is on Patmos that the Lord gives him this Revelation.
“I,
John, your brother and partner in the tribulation and the kingdom and the
patient endurance that are in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos on account
of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus” (1:9).
John
writes to the churches as a brother (in Christ) and a “partner in the
tribulation”, not as an Apostle. In
the book of Revelation, John always refers to himself as “I” in relation to
whatever he sees or hears. He is a
prisoner on Patmos because of the faithful teaching of God’s word and the
Gospel – “testimony of Jesus”.
John’s charge to the brothers is to live by faith in “patient endurance”-
a phrase as an admonition that runs fourteen times throughout the book of
Revelation. The Romans had established
Patmos as a prison colony for those who they considered to be “dangerous to
the good order of the Empire”. According to the writings of Irenaeus (two generations later who wrote in the mid 100’s),
John was sentenced to Patmos in 95 a.d., and stayed on the island for eighteen
months. There John, in all likelihood,
joined other prisoners in working the salt mines. It was on a Sunday that everything changed –
“I
was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet
saying, “Write what you see in a book and send it to the seven churches, to
Ephesus and to Smyrna and to Pergamum and to Thyatira and to Sardis and to
Philadelphia and to Laodicea” (1:10-11).
Among
the earthly realities of a prison island John was “in the spirit on the
Lord’s day”. By this time in the
early church, Sunday had become the Christian's Sabbath day. Jewish believers were gradually
excommunicated from the Synagogues in the first thirty to forty years following
the birth of the Church on Pentecost.
The “Lord’s Day” reference has no other appearance in the New Testament,
and in fact, comes at the end of the New Testament, thus proving that
Christians saw Sunday as the day of Christ’s resurrection, and therefore “the
Lord’s Day”. He was “in the Spirit”,
which doesn’t imply some sort of ecstatic trance, but worshiping. The “loud voice behind him” sounded like a
trumpet…speaking! Here, John is
commissioned to write down in a book all he will be shown and send it to the
seven churches that followed.
“Then
I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me, and on turning I saw seven
golden lampstands, and in the midst of the lampstands one like a son of man,
clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around his chest” (1:12-13).
While
John hears a voice, like a trumpet, when he turns around to see who it is that
is speaking, he first sees “seven golden lampstands” – a Menorah –
symbols of the seven churches he is to write to. The Church is the recipients of what is to
follow because the church WILL survive the Roman empire and every empire that
follows. In the midst of the lampstands
is “one like a Son of Man”. The
person is entitled “Son of Man”, which comes from the vision Daniel had in Daniel
7:3. It is Jesus that John sees, but a
Jesus that John had never seen before.
Yes, Jesus, was human in form, but the “Son of Man” was not merely
human. In Daniel’s vision, and in John’s
vision, Jesus now stood as the exalted Savior and Lord – a King who had
dominion over all the earth – “I saw in the night visions, and behold, with
the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the
Ancient of Days and was presented before him. And to him was given
dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages
should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass
away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed” (7:13-14). This is Jesus, the Son of Man that now comes
into John’s vision. He is clothed with a
long robe, a gold sash around his chest – both signs of the royalty of both
King and Priest that are described in the Old Testament (Exodus 28:4,
29:5). Resplendent in John’s eyes, he
sees his Savior in a way that was even beyond what he had seen on the Mount of
Transfiguration (Matthew 17).
“The
hairs of his head were white, like white wool, like snow. His eyes were like a
flame of fire, his feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and
his voice was like the roar of many waters. In his right hand he held
seven stars, from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like
the sun shining in full strength” (1:14-16).
This
is Revelation, challenging us to see with the imagination of John’s words
dancing around in our head. His head and
hair are described very similarly to Daniel’s vision of “the Ancient of Days
who sat on His throne” in Daniel 7. His eyes like fire signify his purity,
his feet like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace signify the “endurance”
Jesus had faithfully walked through as he bore the judgment of our sins, and
his voice like a roar of a waterfall that consumes every other voice around it
– he is God Almighty who has authority over all of the earth (cf. Ezekiel 43:2,
Matthew 28:18).
“In
his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth came a sharp two-edged
sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength” (1:16).
As
Jesus stands “in the middle of the lampstands” (1:13), John recognizes
Jesus’ absolute authority, and identification with His Church. Coming from his mouth is a “sharp
two-edged sword”, a biblical description of the Word of God (“the word
of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword” (Hebrews 4:12),
and his face was reflecting the Glory of God, that John has seen in the
Transfiguration. John recognizes Jesus but has never seen him in this resplendent glory before. This is the exalted Lord, God Almighty, and the
veil of the incarnation is removed and John's response to Jesus is that He is
altogether different from us – our God who is to be worshiped and revered. It was C.S. Lewis who expressed the vision of
Jesus in his book “The Lion, the Witch and Wardrobe” – “Aslan is a lion- the
Lion, the great Lion." "Ooh" said Susan. "I'd thought he
was a man. Is he-quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a
lion"..."Safe?" said Mr. Beaver ..."Who said anything about
safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you.”[1] John sees the awesome, and overwhelming Lord
Jesus in heaven.
“When
I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand on me,
saying, “Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one. I died, and
behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades” (1:17-18).
Overwhelmed,
as any of us would be, Jesus reaches down to show his affection for his now old
friend, and speaks tender words “fear not”. As Derek Thomas wrote in his Commentary, “These
two things go together. We fall down before his exalted majesty, and we feel
the reassurance of his hand…don’t be afraid”. [2]
Now Jesus describes himself, “the
first and the last”. He is giving a description that comes from Isaiah 41:4; 44:6; 48:12. Further, Jesus says he is
“the living one”, whose existence came from eternity through incarnation
and death, back to eternity. Jesus is “the living one”, “the way, truth, life”
that is immortal, eternal. Finally, he
reminds John that though the rulers arrested him and sent him to a prison
island, they are not in control, for Jesus has “the keys of Death and
Hades”.
Then John receives his commission – “Write therefore the things that you have
seen, those that are and those that are to take place after this” (1:19). At the end of this vision of Christ among
the churches, Jesus gives John an outline of the book to follow – “write
what you have seen, the things that are, and what you will see after this”.
Finally,
the stars in Jesus’ hand are seven Angels, and the seven lampstands are the
seven churches. (1:16, 20). The word “Angel” appears over seventy times
in the book of Revelation. Yet the word Angel means “messenger”. Some have suggested it is the Pastors that
Jesus has in his hand and some that every church has Angels that are among
them. Whatever it may be, it is Christ
in the midst that holds it all together, and he’s about to speak more thunder
as he addresses the churches. He is the
Lord of History, because history is “His Story”, and he is Lord of the Church because he died for her.
Peace
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