Revelation 1:1-2

Finally we are getting to the book of Revelation. We could have taken a lot more time in the O.T. prophets, but where we need to fill in more details, we will just go back as needed. Since this is an end times study and most people think this is the only book that covers that subject, I’m sure most will think it is time that I finally got around to going over this book. You will see that all that we have reviewed so far, though, makes the book of Revelation far more understandable now than it would have been had we not done all of these preparatory studies.

Revelation Chapter 1

Verses 1-2 “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: Who bare record of the word of God, and of the testimony of Jesus Christ, and of all things that he saw.”

This book is commonly known as the Revelation of Saint John the Divine, but that is only because he is the one who wrote it all down. The first verse tells us whose revelation this actually is. It is the Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave to him, to show us His servants what will shortly come to pass. The word “Revelation” or “apokalupsis” means “unveiling”. This book is considered by many people to be a book that cannot be understood by the average person. It is considered mysterious, cryptic, frightening, and in general just plain confusing. But that is not what Christ intended. This was supposed to be understood. He expected that the average reader/listener would understand it, because He presumed that we would all have studied the entire scope of the scriptures thus far, and that the symbols, signs, and terminology would all be familiar to us. Unfortunately many Christians never read or study their Bible so when it comes to understanding this book, they are totally lost. The book of Revelation is an unveiling or revealing of information and truths of what is to come. It has been given by God the Father to Jesus Christ to show to his servants, us, what is shortly to come to pass. This book is intended for Christians (not unbelieving Jews), as it was given to Christ to give to His servants and that is us. We are the ones for whom the information is vital.

The word shortly is translated in Luke 18:8 as speedily and in Acts 12:7 and 22:18 as quickly. So the phrase “shortly come to pass” can be taken several ways. First it can mean that the events will happen soon in the normal sense of soon, or second it can mean that it will happen soon from God’s perspective. It has been two thousand years, but in God’s eyes and in terms of eternity, that is a short time. One day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. A third way it can be interpreted is to mean that the events being outlined will happen quickly once they being to happen. So the question as to how to take this statement is,…… is John speaking of when things will happen or how things will happen? Since nobody but the Father knows the day or the hour, John couldn’t for certain say that the time was near in the usual sense. And it has been almost 2,000 years, so we can rule out the idea of the normal sense of soon. The two ideas left are: 1) soon in terms of God’s perspective, and that certainly works, and 2) soon in the sense of it will happen quickly. It will be seen that most of the events that will be outlined in Revelation refer to that time period of three and a half years after the abomination of desolation, so there is reason to say that this phrase can mean how things will happen, which is quickly.

This revelation was given by God to Christ who gives it to an angel who signifies it to John. It was signified to John. The word “signified” means to make known by signs. The book of Revelation is a book of signs. Signs that we are meant to study and then recognize as they come to pass. It is God’s way of letting us know what events we will have to look forward to (unpleasantly so in most cases), so that we won’t be deceived. Remembering the warnings by Christ from the gospels, it has all been given to us so that we might not be deceived. When you travel someplace you get directions from signs. Whether they are a map, written words, or objects for which you are told to look. By that way, you get to your destination without mishap or getting on the wrong road. So it is with this journey. We are to follow the signs so that we don’t get on the wrong road.

This revelation is sent to John. It is pretty much agreed upon that this is the beloved disciple John, who was pastor to the church in Ephesus before being exiled to Patmos. In the gospel of John, he related that when Peter asked about John’s future, Jesus asked Peter if John were to still be alive when He returned, what business was it of Peter’s. John 21:22. This wasn’t saying that John would still be alive then, it was saying that even if he were, it wasn’t Peter’s concern. However, in showing John the Day of the Lord and His return, John did in essence remain alive to see the Lord’s Second Coming. It was a sort of prophecy about what would happen to John at Patmos.

Further, John identifies himself as having been the eyewitness to the fact that this is the word of God that he is writing, and the testimony of Jesus, and that he actually saw what we are about to read. Remember he is writing from the perspective of having already had the entire vision when he writes this introduction. John also bore record of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ in his gospel. Here he is saying that he wrote only what he actually saw and heard. He makes a point of saying numerous times (I haven’t counted them although I have heard it said that they amount to a number that is a multiple of seven, and the number seven is important in Revelation) I heard, I saw, I beheld, I looked, etc.. He was writing exactly what he heard and saw, so we shouldn’t spiritualize things in this book simply because they may sound bizarre at first. We have to look for a literal interpretation first. The symbols that are spiritualized are either defined in Revelation itself, or are symbols that have occurred in other scriptures, so we can use those to define the symbol.