Revelation 1:1-8–John’s Introduction…(if you skip over it, you’re missing A LOT!) (Part 2)

As I begin to go through Revelation, I think it would be smart to first address the pink elephant in the room: the book of Revelation is not a prediction of a future rapture, 7-year tribulation, the European Union as a revived Roman Empire, or a Third Temple in Jerusalem. Simply put, Tim LaHaye’s Left Behind series is complete fiction, and utterly awful all the way round.

Bye-Bye, Tim LaHaye, and your godfather, John Nelson Darby!
Now, if you’re like me, chances are you grew up just assuming all that stuff (it’s known as Dispensationalism, by the way) was true, and that Christians had always thought that. Well, no—you might be surprised to find that no one—and I mean no one—ever interpreted Revelation that way until the mid-19^th century, when a man name John Nelson Darby (1800-1882) of the Plymouth Brethren essentially made it up. During his lifetime, the only people who took to that teaching was his own group of “Exclusive Brethren” who split from the original group of Plymouth Brethren.

As fate would have it, though, another man named C.I. Scofield (1843-1921) came out with the Scofield Reference Bible in 1909, and he filled it with notes that promoted dispensationalist premillennialism—that particular Bible became the standard Bible of the Fundamentalist movement, and subsequently Evangelicalism as well. Therefore, if you grew up within Evangelicalism in the 20^th century, chances are you grew up with a whole lot of dispensationalist assumptions regarding the Bible in general, and Revelation/the End Times in particular.

It just so happens that nobody in Christian history ever read Revelation that way for the first 1850 years of Christianity. There is a host of things wrong with dispensationalism, but these posts are going to focus on the way Revelation would have been understood by the original audience. Once you know the original context of Revelation, the problems with Dispensationalism will be obvious enough. Heck, you don’t even need to know that–just take a look at your typical dispensationalist “end times” chart. Nothing that convoluted and confusing can be right!

Initial Comments About Revelation
The first chapter of Revelation really acts like a prologue to the entire book, or like the program you receive when you enter into a concert all to hear a symphony. It tells you what the entire book or symphony is going to be about.  An initial reading of the first chapter makes it pretty obvious that the main figure in this book, this “symphony of history” if you will, is going to be Jesus Christ.

Now, just as various paintings of Christ portray him in different ways (i.e. a shepherd, on the cross, with little children, etc.), the picture of Christ that we get in Revelation is that of a conquering king, that of a victorious warrior. Remember, Revelation was written to encourage persecuted believers of that time (and of any time, for that matter), and reassure them that their God was indeed the victorious king who would defeat the evil powers who were oppressing His people. Revelation tells the story of the revolution of Christ and His followers against the evil and oppressive reign of Satan himself, who rules the world through evil and oppressive governments and kingdoms.

This “revolution” of Christ, though, is not your typical revolution that is fought with weapons such as swords and guns, where one tries to win by overthrowing a government or leader. This “revolution” of Christ is won through suffering, through being persecuted, and through being a witness to the grace and love of God in the face of oppression. This “revolution” of Christ doesn’t make sense at all: salvation is won through death; victory comes through suffering and persecution; glory comes through humiliation.

This is the very revolution of Christ that lies at the very heart of the Gospel. And that is why the book of Revelation was illegal to read in the early centuries of the Church. If you were a Roman emperor who wanted to be worshipped as a god (or a Hitler who wanted to be hailed as the Arian Messiah), what could you do to Christians who refused to worship you? If you humiliated them, they’d call it the glory of Christ; if you persecuted them, they’d see it as an opportunity to be a living witness of Christ’s love, and they would see it as an opportunity to imitate Christ in his suffering; if you killed them, then their salvation was made complete, and they won.

The revolutionary message of Christ, and specifically of the book of Revelation, is that the followers of Christ simply cannot lose, because they are set free from the manipulations, machinations, power games and seductions of governments, kingdoms and empires. The bondage of sin and evil is broken: even though Christ’s followers will suffer, be persecuted, and be killed, they cannot be conquered. In fact, it is through those very things that Christians end up conquering the evil of this world.

And that is why Christianity is a truly a subversive faith—it is a threat to any power who wishes to set itself up as God. And in that respect, Christianity subverts political systems, because it doesn’t play their game.

Now, About Chapter 1 Specifically
Revelation is a book filled with images, therefore the best way to understand it is to visualize what John describes. I’ll do my best to provide pictures that help.

In 1:1-8, we get John’s greeting to the seven churches in Asia Minor. The first thing to note is how John describes God: “The One who was, who is, and who is coming.” This hearkens back to the way God revealed Himself to Moses at the burning bush: “I AM.” As for the “seven spirits” before His throne, the number 7 is a “God Number,” if you will. It is the number of completion, therefore “7” is often associated with God.

Greetings also come from Christ as well. Pay attention to how He is described: (A) the Faithful Witness, (B) the Firstborn from the dead, and (C) the Ruler of the kings of the earth. Those three things are key, for John is reminding the seven churches a number of things: (A) Jesus stayed faithful to His calling, bearing witness to the point of death—therefore, they should be prepared to imitate Christ and be faithful witnesses themselves, even if it means death; (B) that shouldn’t worry them, though, for Jesus also has risen from the death—therefore, if they stay faithful to Christ to the point of death, they can be assured that they will be resurrected from the dead, just like Christ was; and (C) because He conquered death, Christ now rules the kings of the earth—therefore, there is no need to be afraid of tyrannical rulers like Caesar…Christ is in charge, even though it might not feel like it at the moment.

John also describes Christ as the one who freed us from our sins, and the one who “made us a kingdom of priests” to God the Father. We often hear “kingdom of priests” and don’t think much of it, but it is hugely significant. It actually goes back to Genesis 1-2, where God, after He creates Adam, sets him up to rule over God’s creation (i.e. king), and then puts him into the garden to care for it—in Hebrew, the word translated “put” in this instance is actually “ordained,” as ordaining a priest. Therefore, Adam—what God intends for humanity—is to be a king who rules God’s creation by caring for creation and offering it back to God, much like a priest. John, therefore, is telling Christians that they, in Christ, are the redeemed humanity, the kingly-priests God had always intended for humanity—fallen in Adam, redeemed now in Christ.

John also describes Christ as the one “coming in the clouds.” This is an allusion to Daniel 7, in which Daniel has a vision of four beasts coming up out of the sea—each one corresponds to various empires. On the last beast, a “little horn” springs up and makes war with the saints—in the Old Testament that would have been the Jews, but here in John’s day, he is applying it to Christians. In any case, Daniel then sees one “like the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven”—but note, the “Son of Man” is ascending to God’s throne in heaven to rule over the earth. This is not a description of Jesus’ second coming, where he comes down from heaven. What John is telling the seven churches is this: Jesus has conquered and He reigns from heaven.

Finally, in 1:8, John once again calls God “the One who was, who is, and is to come,” and then he calls Him, “the Almighty.” The Greek word here is pantokrator—“panto” meaning essentially “all,” and “krator” implying powerful, and the image is having something in the palm of your hand…i.e. God is “the Almighty,” because He holds everything in the palm of His hand. This title, pantokrator, is used seven times in Revelation (1:8; 4:8; 11:17; 15:3; 16:7; 19:6; and 21:22)—it clearly is a concept that runs throughout the entire book: God is all-powerful and Christ reigns over all.

Read over 1:1-8 again. You should be able to see much more packed in those verses than you might have initially realized: allusions to the Old Testament, definitive statements about who Christ is, and probably most of all, “ruling” language all over the place. Given the situation of persecution the seven churches found themselves in, John makes it a point right from the start to emphasize to them that Christ is the true king and God is all-powerful…so stay faithful and be like Christ, even if it means your death, because your resurrection is sure.

And that’s just the introduction…the fireworks haven’t even begun yet.