Right here from the very first chapter, John is telling us how to read Revelation.
John is actually laying down the framework that is going to help us to work our way through all of the really strange and confusing visions that he describes to us. He is giving us the building blocks to be able to interpret Revelation actually very simply and straightforwardly right here in the first 20 verses of the book.
Revelation Teaches Primarily Through Symbols
The first thing we have to understand is this: John says, “I am going to teach you primarily through symbols.”
He says, “This book is going to teach primarily through symbolic imagery. The things you read in this book are primarily meant to be metaphorical.”
He says, “The Lord made these things known.” Your translation might say, “The Lord signified these things.” That would be the most literal way to translate this.
What are we talking about?
What’s happening is that he is using a word that was heavily associated with ancient Near Eastern apocalyptic literature. And it described the way that apocalyptic literature uses flowery images to describe things that are sometimes very small, very mundane, and sometimes very big, cosmic.
It’s talking about the way that ancient Near Eastern apocalyptic literature uses a very colorful palette to describe the things that it’s talking about. The way that apocalyptic literature uses these richly symbolic images and stories and visions to describe the way that the Lord is carrying out His work in the world.
These visions signify something about the way that God is at work to restore humanity and the world.
But just like all apocalyptic literature, the visions themselves are not meant to be taken literally. The visions themselves may or may not be pointing towards a literal historical event that corresponds with them.
So when it talks about this thing right here, it may or may not be saying something is literally going to happen like this. When it talks about this other thing right here, it may or may not be saying something is going to happen that corresponds to this.
Sometimes in apocalyptic literature, the visions were just kind of communicating a general concept, a general principle.
Other times, the visions were communicating a literal prediction about the future.
When you put Revelation all together, I think that the best way to put it, I think that the most modest way to put it, the most conservative way to put it, is that about 90% of Revelation deals with things that either, A, were happening in the first century to the seven churches, or B, deals with universal principles, universal concepts, universal truths that are true for all time, in all places, in all churches, in all nations, in all cultures, in every time and place.
Ten percent of Revelation deals with specific predictions about the future.
Ninety percent is stuff that was aimed directly at the specific situation the seven churches were going through in ways that illuminate the great spiritual battle that we’ve been drafted into for all of us, all Christians, all churches through all of time.
And so it’s really important right out the gate that we understand that the visions that John is going to recount for us, these visions signify important truths. Sometimes they signify events that will literally take place.
However, the visions themselves are not the actual thing. The visions themselves are poetic, flowery, kind of artistic expressions of the thing.
There isn’t a literal dragon.
There’s not a literal beast.
There’s not a literal mark that goes on your hand or your forehead.
There’s not a literal seven-year period of tribulation.
There’s not a literal 144,000 literal Jews who literally do this and that and this and that.
These are all visions that signify something about what God is doing in the world.
Why We Struggle With Revelation’s Symbolism
This sounds really strange to us because we think, okay, well, if Revelation says there’s a dragon, then it means there’s a dragon. If Revelation says there’s a mark on your hand and your forehead, that means there’s a mark on your hand and your forehead. If it says you can’t buy or sell without this thing, it means, oh, maybe you have to scan it or something like that.
That’s the way that we’ve been wired to think as modern Westerners.
That’s because we live in the most literalistic culture that has ever existed in all of human history. But the ancient Near Eastern culture out of which the Scriptures were born, the ancient Near Eastern culture in which all of God’s people from the time of Moses all the way through the time of the apostles, the ancient Near Eastern culture that God was directly addressing when He divinely and infallibly breathed out the Scriptures through the prophets and the apostles and the evangelists and the shepherds and the teachers and so forth, was not hyperliteralistic the way that our culture is.
And so there’s this thing where we tend to assume that the most literal possible interpretation of a Bible passage must be the most traditional one.
But that’s actually not true.
We assume the most literal possible interpretation of every Bible passage must be the one that is the closest to what God intended when He breathed it out.
But that’s actually not true.
In a lot of cases, Jesus does not literally want you to chop your hand off. God is not literally a rock.
We understand that these are not meant to be taken hyperliterally. These are images.
And yet, for some reason, we have a very hard time applying that same reality to Revelation, where it is actually even more relevant.
But John tells us right here in Revelation chapter 1, he says, “Hey, this is not meant to be taken hyperliterally. This is apocalyptic literature. These are images, symbols, metaphors that signify something about what God is doing in the world.”
And you need to read this accordingly.
That is a warning that we need very badly, but that his original readers wouldn’t have needed quite so much.
How the Seven Churches Would Have Read Revelation
He’s writing to these seven churches in the region of Asia Minor in the first century. And those seven churches would have been mixed between Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians.
Generally speaking, when Paul or John or Peter or others rolled into a town and started to make disciples and built a church out of the people there, they would go first to the synagogues and they would convert as many Jewish residents of that town as they possibly could.
And those Jewish converts typically would become the leaders of the newly planted church in that town.
Why?
It’s because as Jewish converts, they have a background in the Scriptures. They have a background in the Old Testament. And that means that they’re going to have a much stronger foundation than the Gentile converts.
And so the Jewish converts can then go train the Gentile converts. They can help guide the Gentile converts based on their background and familiarity with the Old Testament Scriptures.
And so all of the Jewish Christians in the seven churches, some would have had more than others, but all would have had at least some probably. But the Jewish Christians there in the seven churches would have been able to walk the Gentile Christians in the seven churches through how Jewish apocalyptic literature worked and how you interpret it.
And so the seven churches receiving their copy of the book of Revelation would immediately have understood and recognized: this is apocalyptic literature. God is communicating something vitally important to us, but He’s doing it through apocalyptic symbolism.
That’s the first thing John tells us just right out the gate as we dive into Revelation chapter 1.
Revelation Was Written to the Seven Churches
But the second thing he tells us is actually a whole lot like the first thing, and it’s something that we tend to miss as modern Western Christians who are far removed from apocalyptic literature like Revelation as well.
And that is he says the stuff I am writing here is almost entirely about things that are happening to you right now.
He says Revelation is 90% about things that were happening in the first century AD.
Not 100%. That’s part of the 10%, right?
But it’s 90% about things that were happening in the first century.
And we can actually know that this is pretty simple. We can know that from the very simple fact that this is a letter to the seven churches.
We’re going to keep harping on it all throughout the book because you flat out cannot understand Revelation if you don’t understand: Revelation is for you.
Absolutely.
But it was not written to you.
It was written to the church in Ephesus, the church in Smyrna, the church in Pergamum, the church in Thyatira, the church in Sardis, the church in Philadelphia, and the church in Laodicea.
He says to the seven churches.
This is literally a letter to the churches. This is an epistle to the churches. This is the fourth letter from John that we have.
You could call this Fourth John and you wouldn’t be wrong. There is no difference between First John and Revelation except that Revelation is written specifically in the format of Jewish apocalyptic literature.
This is written very specifically to the church in Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea.
The Imperial Cult and the Pressure Facing the Churches
They are in Asia Minor, which is a region within the Roman Empire.
Asia Minor was economically booming. Wealth was overflowing there in Asia Minor. Asia Minor was extremely politically aligned with the higher-up levels of the Roman government, and it was part of the kind of enforcement mechanism that Rome used to enforce the core Roman religion.
That was something called the imperial cult.
Asia Minor was kind of a hotbed of emperor worship in the first century in Rome.
You were expected—actually, not expected, you were required—to worship the emperor.
You worshiped Caesar.
The official title that Caesar was known by was lord and god. He was known as the savior. He was known as the bringer of peace.
And so if you were called upon, you were supposed to declare the glories of the God-King Caesar.
You would say something like, “Hail Caesar, Lord and God, our Savior, the bringer of peace.”
And if you wouldn’t pour out those worship titles on him, then you would be viciously persecuted.
And because that is true, Christians were viciously persecuted by the Roman government, especially in Asia Minor because it was one of the imperial cults of the Roman Empire.
And so each of these seven churches, they’re all facing different forms of pressure from the pagan government and the imperial cult.
But in every one of these different pressures they were facing, the constant thread was:
Worship Caesar or we will crush you.
Worship the gods of Rome or we will grind you down to a powder.
Worship the Roman Empire or we are going to make your life a living hell and then take your life from you.
And at exactly the same time as all of this is happening, as people are being killed in the churches for refusing to worship the emperor and the empire, false teachers rise up.
And they try to lure the seven churches into just compromising with Rome.
Just stop fighting it.
Just give the Romans what they want.
Just worship the Roman Emperor.
Just worship the Roman Empire.
Just worship the gods of Rome.
Just do it.
Worship Jesus and the emperor. Just do what you need to do to get Rome to leave you alone.
And slowly what happens is that more and more and more of these churches in Asia Minor fall under the sway of these false teachers and they start to worship the emperor alongside Jesus.
They start to worship the gods of Rome alongside Jesus.
They start to practice the pagan rituals that Rome has been trying to force onto them alongside offering true worship to the true God, Jesus.
And so there’s a genuine crisis.
What Must Soon Take Place
And each of these visions that God has given to John to relay to the seven churches is ultimately pointed at that problem.
And we see that pretty clearly and pretty simply in the fact that John says these visions were given to me to relate what must soon take place.
He says the things that I’m describing are happening soon.
These things that I’m describing are not some far-off distant thing that is way, way down the line.
The things that these visions are signifying are ultimately about right here and right now.
He says in very much the same way that these visions are about what is now and what will take place later.
He says this is not an either-or thing.
He says, “These visions are describing things that are happening at this very moment. And these visions are describing where these things are ultimately headed.”
These visions are describing your present-day reality and they are describing the reality that will ultimately come to fruition as the Lord continues and then finishes the work that He is doing in the world.
And so some of what happens here in these visions is about stuff that happened today as you read this scroll that I have sent to your church.
And some of what these visions are describing are going to happen later down the line.
These visions are about what is now and what will take place later.
These visions are about what must soon take place.
It wouldn’t actually make any sense if Revelation was written to these seven churches about things that really had nothing to do with the seven churches.
What would be the point of even writing it?
What would be the point of even sending it?
It only actually makes any sense for the book of Revelation to exist if the book of Revelation was directly relevant to what these seven churches were going through right then and there at the end of the first century.
And it does.
The Church Is Living Through the Tribulation
John actually gives a name to what the seven churches were going through right then and there in the first century in Asia Minor under the thumb of the Roman Empire.
He calls it the tribulation.
John says you, the seven churches in Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea, are going through the great tribulation.
This might be a massive shift in the way that you have been taught to think about and read Revelation, the way that you’ve been taught to think about the end times and so on and so forth.
But John repeatedly says throughout every single one of his writings that we are in the end times.
We have been in the end times since John’s lifetime.
In the Gospel of John, he repeatedly quotes Jesus as saying, “Now we have entered the last days.”
He repeatedly says in First, Second, and Third John, “It is the last hour. These are the last days. It is the last age. We are in the end times.”
He paints the end times as something that began with the coming of Jesus.
It began with the cross that broke down our separation from God.
It began with the resurrection when Jesus claimed victory over the devil and the forces of darkness.
It began with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.
That’s why Peter literally quotes the prophet Joel, who says what Joel says:
“In the last days I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh,” or “all my people.”
He says that’s what just happened when I preached the gospel and these tongues of fire descended and we started speaking in tongues, preaching in languages that you know but that we don’t know and so on and so forth.
He says, “We have entered the last days.”
These are the last days.
And in the same way, John says, “You are in the tribulation right now.”
When he talks about the seven years of tribulation, he’s not talking about a literal seven-year period that’s going to happen way, way, way at the end.
Left Behind is a great book series.
It is wildly unbiblical.
Nobody in the seven churches that received the book of Revelation would ever have interpreted that to mean that there would literally be seven literal years of special tribulation.
They would already have understood because they’ve been sitting under John’s preaching and teaching here and there for years. They’ve grown up with the message of Jesus passed down by the apostles for years.
And part of that message is we are in the last days, last hours, last age.
We have been for 2,000 years.
And we are therefore in the tribulation.
First and Second Peter are about living through the tribulation.
Revelation is about living through the tribulation.
Not some far-distant end-times church that goes through some special seven-year period of tribulation, but the whole church throughout all of time because the age of the church is the age of tribulation.
It began with the coming of Jesus and it has continued all throughout the history of the church since then.
And we see that in the way that John literally introduces the book by saying:
“I, John, am your brother and companion in the tribulation.”
He says, “I am suffering through the tribulation alongside you.”
The tribulation has hit me in the form of exile. I am exiled on the island of Patmos. That is part of the tribulations that we are going through right now.
The tribulation has hit you in the form of the onslaught by the pagan government of Rome and the onslaught by the false teachers in your churches.
He says, “At absolutely any moment I could be plucked up from my exile, taken to the capital of Rome and beheaded in front of everybody.”
That is often what was awaiting you when you were exiled to Patmos. It was essentially kind of like a waiting room for execution. The people who got sent to the island of Patmos were people that Rome wanted to unalive. They just hadn’t gotten around to it yet.
And so John is saying, I am writing this to you to help you work through the things that are happening to you right now as you live through the great tribulation that has currently caused me to be exiled and will very possibly claim my life, and will very possibly claim your life just like it is claiming the lives of so many of your fellow brothers and sisters in Christ.
He’s saying this is 90% about things that are happening right here in the first century to you seven churches.
The Tribulation Is Meant to Mobilize the Church
And with that in mind, he says, I am writing this so that rather than breaking you, the tribulation that you are experiencing will mobilize you.
I am writing this so that rather than chasing you away to go hide in a cave somewhere, this tribulation you are facing will catapult you into the mission that King Jesus has sent you on.
He says, “Revelation is about how to carry out your God-given mission in the world that is waging war and tribulation on you.”
We see that in the fact that he refers to the churches as lampstands.
This is one of those things that often we tend to miss again because we are so far removed from the culture of that time.
Lampstands was a common, well-known, immediately recognizable image from the Old Testament that pointed to God’s people.
He’s pulling from the prophet Zechariah.
The prophet Zechariah casts this vision of these lampstands and these olive trees, and they were images that he is using. They were metaphors. They were symbols for the Spirit-empowered people of God bearing witness to who God is, what He is like, what He wants for us and from us, to His redemptive plan and purpose.
The lampstands and the olive trees, they were an image that Zechariah was using to depict the way that God’s people, at that point in time it was Israel, were created and called to be a kind of priestly witness to Him in the world.
When Zechariah painted this picture of God’s people as lampstands and olive trees, he is painting a picture of God’s people who, at that point in time, they were captive in another pagan empire.
He’s saying you are God’s witnesses to the pagans in this pagan empire.
You are God’s light-bearing presence in the same way that a lampstand is a light-bearing presence.
You are shining God’s light into the darkness of the pagan empire that is holding you captive.
You are God’s lampstands.
And now John uses that same image, the lampstands from Zechariah, to describe the seven churches.
The point being what?
You seven churches, you are meant to be God’s light-bearing presence in the pagan world of Asia Minor, in the pagan empire, Rome.
And just to make sure they can’t possibly misunderstand, he kind of cites Exodus chapter 19.
He says:
“God has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve the God and Father.”
In Exodus 19, God says, “If you will listen to My voice, I will make you My kingdom of priests.”
He tells the Israelites, “You will be a priestly kingdom. You will be a kingdom that introduces the fallen world to the God it has separated itself from. You will be My priestly kingdom that introduces the pagans from the surrounding pagan nations to the God who wants to redeem and restore them.”
John is reminding the churches that we are God’s priestly people.
We are His kingdom of priests.
He’s saying you are called in exactly the same way to introduce the people of the pagan Empire Rome to the God who wants to redeem the pagans in this pagan empire, Rome.
Jesus Carries and Sustains His Churches
And he says, “As all of this is happening, you are being carried and sustained by Jesus Himself.”
He says to the stars, the seven stars of the seven churches or the seven angels of the seven churches, this is another one that is very strange to us, but they would have immediately recognized it because they were very familiar with this type of imagery at that point in time.
And we’re going to see this a lot throughout Revelation.
They used stars as an image of the kind of spiritual powers.
Sometimes it would refer to just kings or rulers or judges, powerful people in the community and stuff like that, but most of the time it referred to angelic forces, celestial beings, spiritual entities of some sort.
And so both angels and demons are often depicted as stars. Both celestial beings that are with the Lord and celestial beings that are warring against the Lord are often depicted as stars.
That’s going to be important for the rest of the book.
But he takes that really common image and he says there are in some sense stars associated with your churches.
Now that could mean he’s just saying to the leaders, like the rulers of each of the churches. So maybe the pastors, the elders, the overseers, whatever.
But it could also potentially refer to the angels of those churches.
This is not something Scripture really dives into, so there’s not a ton that we can say about this.
But we do see throughout the New Testament, Paul mentions angels that are in some way associated with or assigned to the church in Corinth. And by implication, presumably there are in some sense angels associated with or assigned to all the other churches.
So he may be talking about that.
But in either case, whichever one it is, the point is very simple.
He holds the seven stars of the seven churches.
He holds the seven lampstands.
He walks among the seven stars and the seven lampstands of the churches.
Jesus is with the churches.
But even more than that, He holds the churches and He holds either the human leaders of the churches or the angels associated with or assigned to the churches.
The point is Christ personally sustains these churches.
Christ personally governs these churches.
Christ personally carries these churches.
He says, “You are being carried by Christ as you carry out your mission in the world.”
And that is vitally important because the churches are going to experience horrific things on their mission.
Revelation as a Martyrdom Manual
Specifically, the seven churches are going to experience something called martyrdom.
John says that the primary purpose of the next 21 chapters of Revelation after this are to form us into faithful martyrs.
He says:
“Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it.”
He says, “This is here to prepare you for something. This is here to equip you for something. This is here to train you for something.”
What am I talking about?
In the ancient Roman world, the normal way that you read was by hearing.
Most people were not literate.
And even among the people who were literate, the primary way that you would hear stories, the primary way that you would hear philosophy, the primary way that you would hear anything was by hearing it read aloud to you.
One person in the household would read something aloud to the rest of the household.
One person in the church would read one of the letters or something like that aloud to the rest of the church.
You would hear and then you would memorize.
So we actually have comparatively a very bad memory today. We are the most widely literate society in all of human history and we are also one of the most forgetful societies in all of human history.
Why is that?
It’s because we read, so we don’t have to remember most things, right? We can write stuff down and then just look back at it, so we don’t have to remember it.
Back in that day, most people were not literate. So they had to have extremely well-developed active recall, right?
As a result, you’ve maybe heard this before, but this is true. The average Jew had the entirety of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy basically committed to memory.
If they had any education at all, they would have had almost the entirety of the five books of Moses committed to memory. If you went on and had more education, then you would have significantly more of the Old Testament writings committed to memory.
It’s not a stretch to say that the average Christian in the first century would have had every single one of the letters that they had received up to that point from Paul, from Peter, from James, from Jude, from John and so forth committed to memory.
So actually the seven churches in Revelation, after they received the book of Revelation, over the coming years they would have likely committed the entire book of Revelation to memory, just like they would have with First John, Second John, Third John, and so on and so forth.
That was the normal way that you learned at that point in time.
And so you would hear a public reading of a text and you would use that to learn the text, internalize the text, and then teach the text yourself.
John is saying this exists for that same purpose.
He’s saying the stuff that I’m writing is ultimately about community formation.
This is about forming you.
This is ultimately about shaping you into people who have the courage that you need to endure this tribulation.
This is ultimately about forming you into people who have the spine of steel that is necessary to resist the onslaught of pressure from the pagan government of Rome to worship the emperor, worship the gods of Rome, worship Rome itself, and the constant onslaught of pressure from the false teachers to just compromise with Rome.
And so this is ultimately a discipleship manual.
This is ultimately a martyrdom manual.
This is a training manual for how to become a martyr, for how to faithfully follow Jesus in a world that is viciously opposed to the Lord and anyone who faithfully follows Him.
Revelation Is Primarily About Jesus
But above all else, John says, “The things I am writing in this letter are meant to paint a picture of King Jesus.”
He says, “This letter is not primarily about persecution. It’s not primarily about your tribulation. It’s not primarily about the wicked Roman government. It’s not primarily about the false teachers who’ve infiltrated your churches. It’s not primarily about the future return of Jesus.”
It is primarily about the past, present, and future Christ who is the King over all things.
He says, “I have written this letter to you to get you to see Jesus, to get you to fix your eyes on Jesus.”
He says, “The ultimate solution to your problem of persecution from the outside, false teachers from the inside, is not some three-step process.”
The solution to your problem is to fix your eyes on Jesus.
He weaves together a massive collection of Old Testament images, Old Testament passages, to paint this really beautiful picture of Jesus.
And in the process, he paints the clearest picture imaginable of who Jesus is, what Jesus is, what Jesus is about.
1. Jesus Is God
He says, first of all, number one, Jesus is God.
He refers to Jesus as Him who is, Him who was, Him who is to come.
Now this is really interesting because in the first century in the Roman Empire, the coinage of the Roman Empire had the emperor of Rome printed on the coin, the image of the emperor.
And the image of the emperor, the Caesar of Rome that was on the coinage that you had to use to buy and sell, described Caesar as Lord, Savior, bringer of peace, Son of God.
Literally, the money that you had to use in the Roman Empire declared that the king of Rome was the God of the universe.
And yet John says there is only One who was and is and is to come, and that is Jesus.
He says our money is lying to us.
And so he paints this picture of Jesus using actually the same exact language that God uses to describe Himself in Exodus 3, speaking through the burning bush.
Moses says, what should I tell the Israelites if they ask, you know, who is the God who sent you to us?
And He says, tell them I AM sent you.
Now there’s a million different ways that you can translate the term, the language that He’s using there. One of those ways is I AM. But another way that you can express that, literally it means the same thing, is I AM THAT I AM, or I WILL BE THAT I WILL BE, or I WAS THAT I WAS.
Essentially, the phrasing that God is using when He introduces Himself to Moses is, I am the One who is. I am the One who was. I am the One who is to come. I am the One who is because I am.
He says, I am because I am.
The point here is that it’s meant to be almost comical that it ties itself in knots. It’s pointing to the incomprehensibility of this God, that our finite human minds are not capable of fully wrapping themselves around God’s nature, God’s attributes.
He is an eternal God, an infinite God that cannot fit into our finite minds.
John is using that same language here.
He says Jesus is the God who is because He is, who was, who is, who is to come.
In the same way, he says Jesus is the first and the last.
He’s using an image from Isaiah here.
Rome claimed to be the eternal kingdom. The king of Rome, Caesar, claimed to be the eternal king.
But he says there is only one eternal King, and that is Jesus.
There is only one eternal kingdom.
That is the kingdom of Jesus.
Christ is the true eternal One.
He is the only eternal One.
In the same way, he says Jesus is the Son of Man who comes with the clouds or comes on the clouds.
He’s pulling from Daniel chapter 7 here.
When Daniel chapter 7 talks about the Son of Man, the One who comes on the clouds, that’s a kind of catch-all image that describes divine authority, the authority of God Himself.
The Son of Man is God Himself arriving into the world of humans.
The Son of Man is God Himself showing up in our midst, coming on the clouds.
It doesn’t actually have anything to do with clouds.
It’s about the fact that the God of the universe is breaking into the universe itself in some sense.
And just like Daniel chapter 7, John describes Jesus as having this white hair.
Just like in Daniel chapter 7, he depicts God as this white-haired One.
White hair was a common ancient Near Eastern image of wisdom. He’s talking about how Jesus is in some sense the divine wisdom of God.
In the same way, he describes Jesus having eyes of fire.
Once again, this is a very common ancient Near Eastern image. It’s not a puzzle to be solved. It’s something they immediately would have recognized.
It was an ancient Near Eastern image that described having, like, perfect perception, like perfect understanding, that you see things the way they truly are.
If you have eyes of fire, you’re not deceived by the confusion of this world.
If you have eyes of fire, you see clearly.
You burn through the falsehood and misunderstanding of our fallen and broken world.
In the same way, he describes Him as having bronze feet.
That was an ancient Near Eastern image of strength, like divine strength and stability.
He describes Jesus as having a voice like waters.
That’s an image from the prophet Ezekiel.
He described God’s own voice as being like the waters.
He has a voice like the waters.
He’s saying Jesus is God.
He is.
He was.
He is to come.
Jesus is God.
He is the first and the last.
Jesus is God.
He’s the Son of Man coming with the clouds.
Jesus is God with white hair.
Jesus is God with eyes of fire.
Jesus is God with bronze feet.
Jesus is God with a voice like the waters.
2. Jesus Is the True King
And at the same time, number two, he says Jesus is the true King.
He says Jesus is the true King over all creation.
He says, “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day.”
It’s actually a really important term.
In Asia Minor, they had something called Emperor’s Day. It was literally like a civic holiday and the equivalent of like Presidents’ Day or something, but way more spiritually charged.
It was a day of worship for the emperor.
It was a day of worship for Caesar.
You would honor Caesar as your divine king.
You would honor Caesar as your God-King.
During the first century, Christians began to gather together on Sundays rather than on the Jewish Sabbath for their worship.
They did that for a couple of reasons. One of the reasons is because Jesus rose from the grave on Sunday.
So it’s like they were gathering on Sunday each week commemorating the resurrection, but they referred to it as the Lord’s Day.
They didn’t call it the Sabbath.
They called it the Lord’s Day.
Why did they call it the Lord’s Day?
It was kind of a parody of Emperor’s Day.
On Emperor’s Day, you were supposed to worship this false God-King, Caesar.
On the Lord’s Day, you gather to worship the true God-King, Jesus.
It’s a weekly act of rebellion against the imperial cult.
He says, “So I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day, on the day that we have set aside to worship the true King over all creation.”
At the same time, he paints this picture of Jesus.
He says that when He returns, all the people on earth will mourn because of Him.
That’s actually once again a really specific reference to the Old Testament.
He’s drawn from Zechariah chapter 12.
It paints this picture of the Lord returning to pour out His judgment on the wicked empires of the earth, the empires that oppose the Lord and oppose His people.
That when He comes to judge the wicked empires of the earth, people are going to mourn, but for different reasons.
Some people are going to mourn because of the judgment that’s poured out on them.
But others are going to mourn because of their own sin and rebellion.
They’re going to repent at the return of the Lord.
They’re going to let go of their allegiance to the false kings of this world and instead they’re going to embrace the true King, God Himself.
John is saying Jesus is what Zechariah is talking about.
He is that King who is going to appear to pour out His judgment on the wicked empires of the world, and all the peoples will mourn because of Him.
Some because of their condemnation, others because of their repentance.
3. Jesus Is the Savior We Have Been Waiting For
Number three, he says Jesus is the Savior that we have been waiting for since the fall.
He describes Jesus as having a voice like a trumpet.
Once again, that is a very specific reference to the Old Testament.
He’s referring to Exodus 19.
It describes God’s presence as being accompanied by these trumpet blasts.
It’s like God’s own voice is like trumpet blasts.
And as the Lord speaks with this trumpet-like voice, He is leading the Israelites away from their captivity to this wicked empire, Egypt, and into the freedom that He has waiting for them in the Promised Land, into redemption.
So John is reminding the seven churches: this is the God of the Exodus.
Jesus is the God of the Exodus.
Jesus is the God who rescues.
Jesus is the God who redeems.
Jesus is rescuing you seven churches from the new Egypt that we call Rome, from the new Pharaoh that we call Caesar.
He’s here to rescue you.
In the same way, he describes Jesus as having a sword coming from His mouth.
This is drawn from Isaiah.
He’s not saying that Jesus literally is going to have a sword coming out of His mouth.
It is an image.
It’s a symbol.
It’s a metaphor.
When Isaiah talked about the sword coming from the mouth of the Lord, he was talking about the Lord’s power to judge.
That the Lord doesn’t have to throw any punches.
The Lord doesn’t have to light anything on fire.
The Lord doesn’t have to shoot anything with a gun.
The Lord speaks.
And it is so.
The Lord says stop and His enemies stop.
The Lord says be destroyed and His enemies are destroyed.
The Lord says come and we come.
It’s the power of His word.
And he says that by the power of His word, by the power of the sword that comes from His mouth, He will destroy the devil and the forces of darkness once and for all.
He will undo the fall.
He will unbreak the world.
And He will redeem humanity for all of eternity.
So the sword that comes from His mouth is actually a good thing, not a bad thing.
It’s an image of His saving, redeeming, restoring power.
4. Jesus Defeated Death and Hell
Number four, John says Jesus defeated death and hell by rising from the dead.
He describes Jesus as the One who is alive forever.
He has risen from the grave and He will never die again.
Once again, he’s throwing shade at Rome.
At the same time, he’s painting a picture of Jesus.
Rome claimed that it had the power over life and death.
It said Rome decides if you live or you die.
Rome decided Jesus dies.
And then Jesus decided that He was back.
Jesus reversed the death sentence that Rome placed on Him.
He rose from the grave.
He defeated death and He defeated the power of Rome’s sword.
And he says Jesus rose holding the keys of Hades.
In other words, Jesus is sovereign over death.
Rome is not.
Jesus conquered death.
So now He has the keys to open the door or close it.
This is an image of conquest, right?
Lay siege to a city, you conquer the city, and then you take claim over the keys of the city, which means that you rule that city.
Jesus has the keys to Hades because He conquered Hades.
He’s got the keys to death because He conquered death.
So He has the power now to finish what He started in His crucifixion and resurrection.
He has the power to finish, fulfill what He promised in Genesis 3:15.
5. Jesus Empowers Us to Overcome Through Faithfulness
And finally, John says Jesus is now empowering us and preparing us to overcome the enemy.
How?
By suffering.
He is empowering us to overcome the enemy through martyrdom.
He is empowering us to overcome the enemy by being persecuted for the faith in exactly the same way that He did.
John describes Jesus as the faithful witness.
That term witness, that is the same term you would use to describe a martyr, someone who is killed for the faith.
The point is Jesus was persecuted.
He was arrested.
He was tortured and ultimately murdered.
And yet rather than being some kind of terrible tragedy that derailed God’s redemptive plan and purpose, that was the method that God was using to fulfill His redemptive plan and purpose.
The horrific injustice of the murder of Jesus ultimately brought about our redemption and restoration.
And in the same way, what we’re going to see throughout the rest of Revelation is that is how we win too.
We overcome the enemy by being willing to be persecuted, willing to be killed out of our faithfulness to Jesus.
And as the world sees that bloody faithfulness, it ultimately brings the world to repentance.
John says, “What I am writing in these 22 chapters is a discipleship manual, a martyrdom manual that is training and preparing and equipping you to carry out your mission here in this world that is fallen and broken and in rebellion against the true King under the deceptive lead of the devil and the forces of darkness, waging spiritual warfare against the Lord and you, His people.”
But the way it’s doing it is by pointing you to King Jesus.
So you can behold the beauty of King Jesus and be driven by your overwhelming love for, affection for, delight in King Jesus to carry on in the mission that He’s given you.
Revelation Is the Divinely Inspired Word of God
But he says this is not just a human discipleship manual.
This is not just a human martyrdom manual.
This is a divinely inspired word breathed out by the Holy Spirit.
John says, “I was in the Spirit,” or “I was caught up in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day,” when these visions came to me.
He’s using a very common term that the Old Testament prophets would use when the Lord would give them prophetic visions, that the old apocalyptic authors would use when the Lord would give them apocalyptic visions like Daniel.
We see a prime example of this in Ezekiel chapters 3, 8, 11, 37, and so on and so forth.
Ezekiel is caught up in the Spirit.
The Spirit lifts Ezekiel up and transports him into a kind of visionary realm and shows him these visionary images.
John says that same thing happened to me.
I was caught up in the Spirit and the Lord showed me these visions that signify these vitally important truths about God’s work in the world.
The point is the stuff you’re about to read is not just my opinion.
It’s not just my advice.
It’s not just my guidance.
This is the risen Jesus declaring these things to you and telling me to write them down.
This is the Holy Spirit breathing these things out for you and telling me to write them down in my own words.
This is the Lord giving you His diagnostic read on the situation you are going through right now.
The Seven Spirits of God
In the process, he uses this very strange image to describe the Holy Spirit.
He describes the one Holy Spirit as the seven spirits of God.
Once again, this is very confusing to us as modern Westerners because we are ultra-literalistic, but this would not have been confusing at all to John’s original audience.
He is drawing from Zechariah 4 that describes the seven lamps of God’s Spirit.
It describes the singular Spirit of God, the one God, in plural terms.
Not because there are seven gods.
Not because there are seven Holy Spirits.
But as an image of the kind of comprehensive, complete, all-seeing, all-acting power of God at work through His Spirit.
Zechariah is describing the Spirit of God doing His complete work.
Seven lamps are the Spirit of God providing a complete illumination for His people.
The fires of those lamps, it’s the complete flame of God’s Spirit at work fueling God’s people, leading God’s people, guiding God’s people, empowering God’s people, equipping God’s people.
The Holy Spirit is doing His complete work in God’s people to fulfill His mission through God’s people.
John is saying these 22 chapters of Revelation have been breathed out by the complete Spirit of God so that He can do His complete work in the world through you.
So that He can equip you for His complete work.
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