Revelation 1 Explanatory Notes

Apocalypse Introduction
1.1a The revelation of Jesus Christ...
The word revelation is a translation of the Greek word apokalypsis, which of course is why the book of Revelation is sometimes called, "The Apocalypse." In English, the word apocalypse brings up images of nuclear mushroom clouds, zombies, and asteroids headed toward the earth. However, it was a genre of literature in John's day.

The book of Revelation actually partakes of three different genres or types of literature. One of them is that of an apocalypse. An apocalypse was a type of Jewish literature where a heavenly being--in this case Jesus--came to an important earthly figure and revealed both was was happening in the unseen heavens and in the near future.

In most cases in Jewish literature, there was no actual visit. It was a type of literary fiction. The word fiction here is not to say the revelation was false. We are only speaking of the type of literature. A parable in the form of a brief story is fictional in genre (e.g., the Parable of the Prodigal Son), but clearly true in its point. This is an important distinction to understand.

In most Jewish apocalypses, the earthly figure was not the real recipient of the revelation but was usually an important biblical figure from the distant past (e.g., Adam, Enoch, Abraham). The real, anonymous author used the voice of the figure from the past in order to talk about current events. This makes such apocalypses sometimes easy to date. When the author is talking about events from his (or less likely her) past, the predictions of Enoch or Abraham or Ezra are quite accurate. You can then tell when the apocalypse was written by the point in the prophecy where the predictions go wrong.

One way in which the book of Revelation seems to differ from the standard Jewish apocalypse is in the fact that John seems to be the real John, not a literary voice from the past.

While it is tempting to think of the revelation as revealing Jesus Christ, Jesus is much more the speaker and source of the revelation. Jesus is the one from whom the revelation comes. "Christ" of course means "anointed one" in Greek. It is the equivalent of the Hebrew word for Messiah.

1b. ...which God gave to him to show to his servants in relation to the things that must come about in haste and he made [them] known by sending through his messenger to his servant John...
The revelation has to do with immanent events. This is an important point. In John's mind, these predictions had nothing to do with some far off future. He did not believe the revelation was about five hundred years off in the future, let alone a thousand or two thousand. This is an important mindset for us to have when we read Revelation. John probably didn't think these events were even ten years off in the future.

The book does not specify which John is in view. The tradition is that the author--or at least source of the vision--was John the son of Zebedee. There is no strong reason to doubt this tradition, especially if we keep two things in mind.

First, John can be the source of the primary revelation without being the person who put the book in the final form in which we know it. Notice, for example, that this verse and the ones immediately following talk about John in the third person--they talk about John. It is possible for the original revelation to come from John and yet for its current form to be finished or edited by the heirs of his revelation. Nothing in the ancient world would have considered such editing unethical.

Second, the John of Revelation need not be the author of the Gospel of John or the Johannine letters. As we mentioned in the Introduction, most scholars look at the significant differences in style and perspective and conclude that the author of the Gospel and Apocalypse must surely be different people. This observation was made as early as the mid-200s by Dionysius of Alexandria.

So unless we wish to suggest that the Gospel represents an even more distant echo of the same John, put much more extensively into its current form by John's heirs, we should conclude that the Gospel and Apocalypse have different authors. Of the two, the book of Revelation seems more likely to come from John the son of Zebedee, one of the "sons of thunder" (Mark 3:17). See the Introduction for further discussion.

2. ... who witnessed the word of God and the witness of Jesus Christ as many things as he saw.
Despite the vast differences between the Gospel of John and Revelation, mention of the word, the logos of God is one of more than one theme that the Gospel and Apocalypse do have in common. Again, while it is possible that the Gospel is just further removed from the original voice of John than the Apocalypse, perhaps it is more likely that both authors ministered in Ephesus and that this common environment accounts for a few thematic similarities.

John the son of Zebedee was one of the original disciples of Jesus. He thus had first-hand personal knowledge of the witness of Jesus. It is a little sobering to realize that we may have our most direct contact with the Jesus of history through the author of Revelation. Neither Mark nor Luke were eyewitnesses, and both reflect the expansion of the original message to a non-Jewish context. The Gospel of John is highly symbolic and has extensively translated Jesus to address its late-first century context.

The Gospel of Matthew is a Greek document that may have a source that comes from Matthew the disciple but is not likely to come directly from Matthew in its current form. In Revelation, we may get the most direct word from an eyewitness of Jesus. Here it is interesting to note that Matthew and Revelation share in common the most apocalyptic imagery in the New Testament, perhaps giving us the most direct "feel" of Jesus as an apocalyptic prophet.

3. Blessed is the one who reads and those who hear the words of the prophecy and keep the things that have been written in it, for the time is near.
The second genre of which Revelation partakes is that of a prophecy. It is an apocalypse, and it is a prophecy. John is writing about his present and about things that are about to happen in the near future. At the end of the book the audience will be warned not to add or take away from the words of this book of prophecy (22:18-19). Obedience to the instruction is essential if one hopes not to undergo the torments of judgment.

"The time is near" is a theme and an expectation that we find in other parts of the New Testament. According to Mark 1:14-15, the basic message of Jesus was that the kingdom of God had come near. In 1 Corinthians 16:22, the apostle Paul preserves an early Christian affirmation in Aramaic, marana tha, "Our Lord, come." Philippians 4:5 and James 5:8 also affirm that Jesus' return was near, and Paul in Romans 13:11 affirms the same.

The apparent delay of the second coming is a major question for theology and one that Christians have wrestled with for hundreds of years. 2 Peter 3:4 indicates that it was a question for the early church as well. 2 Peter 3:8 responds with a reminder that, in God's timing, "a thousand year is like a day" (echoing Psalm 90:4).

Nevertheless, we cannot fully understand the book of Revelation--or other New Testament passages like Mark 13, Matthew 24, or even 1 Corinthians 7--if we do not reckon with the time lapse. Revelation did not anticipate a 2000 year gap before the Lord's return. We may have to stretch our thinking to see the three and a half year period of Revelation 12:6 and other passages as a reference to this current 2000 year sojourn in the wilderness. This extension would no doubt be just as much a surprise to John as it is to us (in fact, no doubt more!)

The Letter to the Churches (1:4-3:22)
Letter Introduction
4. John, to the seven churches that are in Asia. Grace to you and peace from the one who is and the one who was and the one coming and from the seven spirits that [are] before his throne...
Revelation partakes of three genres. It is an apocalypse. It is a prophecy. It is a letter. Perhaps we might rather say that it has seven letters embedded in it.

These are letters to seven churches in "Asia." Asia here is not the region we often think of today around China but rather where modern day Turkey is. At the time, Islam did not of course exist, and this region was thoroughly Greek-speaking. The Greeks had colonies along the western coast of Asia Minor for centuries and in fact the first known Greek philosopher, Thales, was from Miletus on the coast.

God (the Father) is here the one who was and is and is to come, since the second part of the greeting will involve Jesus. Interestingly, later in Revelation the "is to come" part is no longer said because the time will have arrived. "Grace and peace" is a characteristic greeting of Paul as well, perhaps suggesting that it became a greeting of early Christians in general.

The fact that seven churches are specifically addressed does not mean that this message was only for them. We should assume that there were house churches of varying sizes scattered throughout this region. These seven were likely singled out because of their size and influence, not to mention to reach the symbolic number seven, which was a number of perfection associated with God. But the message was for any Christian who might hear the book.

The seven spirits thus are not just the spirits of these churches, but the angels that guard all the churches of God. We will see that these spiritual beings, while not seen, are protectors of God's church everywhere. They also have full access to God's throne room and the very presence of God.

5. ... and from Jesus Christ, the witness, the faithful [one], the firstborn of the dead and the ruler of the kings of the earth.
In addition to God (the Father), this apocalyptic, prophetic letter also comes from Jesus the Messiah himself. For the second time, Jesus is called a witness. He will be the heavenly being in this apocalypse, the one who descends to give the revelation. It is he who is bringing witness to those things which are about to take place.

He is the faithful one, the one who died in faithfulness, just as the martyrs we are about to meet. Yet he is the firstborn from the dead. This image is also found in Paul's writings (e.g., Rom. 8:29; cf. 1 Cor. 15:20), and in the Colossian hymn (Col. 1:18).

As the Messiah, he will rule over all the kings of the earth. It is striking that Revelation 20 still speaks of other nations present during the rule of Christ (20:8). However, this is perhaps a reason not to take the millennium literally. For most of the book of Revelation--as well as the rest of the New Testament--Christ's rule over everything is definitive from the moment of his return.

The "prescript" or greeting of the letter finishes here. A letter greeting typically identified the sender of the letter, the recipient of the letter, and gave a brief hello. God and Jesus are the senders. The seven churches are the recipients. And "grace and peace" is the hello.

To the one who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood 6. and made us a kingdom, priests to God, and to our Father [be] glory and power forever. Amen.
A letter greeting was then usually followed by some sort of thanksgiving to God or benediction/doxology. This letter has a doxology of praise to Christ. John the Revelator gives glory and ascribes power to Jesus. Jesus is the one who loved us and by his blood freed us from our sins, a reference to the atonement provided through Christ.

Through that redemption, Jesus has made his people a kingdom of priests to God, an image used also in 1 Peter 2:5 and 9. We have evidence from Paul's writings that the early church thought of itself as an alternative temple (e.g., 1 Cor. 3:16), a picture that was no doubt extended after the temple was destroyed (cf. Hebrews).

The church was thus an alternative kingdom to that of the Roman empire, with a different king. And the church was a replacement priesthood for God in the absence of a temple. Through it, those outside the people of God could find their way to God, and through them God was given appropriate worship. 

The Letter Body
7. Behold he comes with the clouds, 
          and every eye will see him. 
   And those who pierced him 
          and all the tribes of the earth will mourn over him.

Yes. Amen.
The mention of Jesus arriving on the clouds is a clear allusion to Daniel 7:13 where one "like a son of humanity" comes to the earth on the clouds and all the nations of the world bow down to him. On the one hand, the expression "Son of Humanity" (often rendered, "Son of Man") is used in several different contexts in the Gospels. It is always on the lips of Jesus himself in reference to himself--no one else ever calls Jesus by this title. It can be used in reference to his coming suffering (e.g., Mark 8:31). He can use it of himself merely to point out his humanity (e.g., Matt. 8:20).

However, the most important use of the phrase is when Jesus connects himself with this heavenly Son of Humanity in Daniel 7 (e.g., Mark 15:62; Matt. 25:31). In those cases, Jesus anticipates his return after his resurrection to judge the world. Jesus' ministry announced the arrival of the kingdom of God. His death and resurrection established the basis for that kingdom and inaugurated it. When he returns, it will be fully established and consummated.

Every eye will see his return, meaning that his rule will be universal. We remember that, in the worldview of the biblical authors, the earth is flat. Every eye will see him assumes a flat earth where in theory you could see him from any point on the land. We thus have to translate the statement into what its point is, namely, that the whole world will be aware of his coming and his reign will be global.

The assumption is also that it will happen soon enough that those who put Jesus to death will still be alive--those who put him to death will mourn his unjust crucifixion along with the rest of the world. The fact that most of the guilty were likely dead by the time of Revelation's writing might suggest that this poetic verse pre-dated Revelation as a refrain.

Use of the word pierced is likely an allusion to Isaiah 53:5, which reflects an early understanding of atonement where Jesus died for the people of God as a suffering servant. "He was pierced for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities." Note that such a sense of "substitution" can be understood in multiple ways, in keeping with the flexibility of the word "for." I can go to the store "for" someone.

8. "I am the Alpha and the Omega," says the Lord God, the one who is and the one who was and the one coming, the Almighty.
God (the Father) is speaking. The expression "Lord God" is common in Genesis (e.g., 2:4) and reflects the Hebrew, "Yahweh Elohim." Verse 4 already described God the Father as the one who is and was and is to come. God spans all of time both in his existence and his faithfulness.

Alpha and omega are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, giving both the a sound and the long o sound. It is a poetic way of saying that God spans from the beginning to the end. There was nothing before him and if all else were to cease to exist, he would continue.

The Vision
9. I, John, your brother and partner in the tribulation and kingdom and endurance in Jesus, came to be on the island called Patmos because of the word of God and the witness of Jesus. 
The mention of "the tribulation" suggests an aspect of Revelation that we will reinforce later. John sees himself living in the tribulation. He of course had no idea that this period of tribulation would last 2000 years, but he saw the current period of salvation history as one of tribulation, when the forces of empire--in his case Rome--would be the enemy of the kingdom of God.

Yet the Roman Empire was not the only kingdom in play. He and his audiences were also partners in the kingdom of God, which had started but was not yet consummated. That full blooming of the kingdom of God would only happen after Jesus returned from heaven, the Son of Humanity coming on the clouds. The only alternative for the follower of Christ in this in-between time, between the inauguration and fullness of the kingdom, in this time of tribulation, was endurance.

John was on the island of Patmos as he received the revelation. Patmos was about 35 miles off the coast of Asia Minor. The usual assumption is that John was exiled there because of his witness in the city of Ephesus. The wording in itself would not demand that reading. For example, we could read the verse to say he was there spreading the good news. The islands off the coast were places to which we know people could be exiled, although Patmos was not by any means exclusively a penal island (cf. Tacitus, Annals 4.30). [1]

However, it is a strange place from which to write the churches of Asia Minor, and the tone of Revelation definitely suggests a context of persecution. The traditional hypothesis is thus reasonable, that John was kicked out and exiled from Ephesus, just as many think Paul himself may have been at the end of Acts 19. This verse echoes verse 2 when it mentions the word of God and the witness of Jesus. It is a reminder that John is an apostle--one who had witnessed the risen Jesus and was then commissioned to go as a witness to the resurrection.

10. I became in the Spirit on the Lord's Day and I heard behind me a great voice as of a trumpet...
The revelation is a vision. It takes place on the Lord's Day, Sunday. This of course is not the Sabbath, which for a Jewish person like John was from sundown on Friday to sundown on Saturday. The Lord's Day is the day of resurrection, the first day of the week, the day of the new creation, the eighth day.

The book of Revelation is clearly divine revelation. A serious question is the extent to which the form of the revelation draws from the genre of an apocalypse. This form can work more than one way. One way is if John, who was surely aware of other apocalypses, received the revelation in a form that was familiar to him. Thus Jesus comes to John in a manner that John expects given his background.

The other option is that John himself--and any final editor or editors--put the revelation into this form. As we read the books of the Bible, we generally conclude that the brains of the human authors played a role in the revelation, that they are not merely divine dictations through an empty-headed hand holding the stylus. So also the book of Revelation has a literary style and likely reflects the personality of John the author.

We might then conclude that the core event of revelation took place on a Lord's Day. However, it is also reasonable to conclude that the actual writing of the book took place over a longer period of time, with the sort of planning and editing typical of an ancient book. As we mentioned in the Introduction, there is also the possibility that Revelation reached its current form after John had himself been martyred. 

11. ... saying, "What you see, write in a book and send to the seven churches--to Ephesus and to Smyrna and to Pergamum and to Thyatira and to Sardis and to Philadelphia and to Laodicea.
These are the seven churches that are the direct recipients of letters from John in the book of Revelation. The listing of them, like the instruction to them, proceeds in a roughly clockwise direction. We should not think, though, that John intended this revelation only for these churches. He surely sees these seven churches as representative not only of all the house churches in the region but also all the churches of the world.

12. And I turned to see the voice that was speaking with me and having turned I saw seven gold lampstands 13. and in the middle of the lampstands, [one] like a Son of Humanity, wearing a long robe and a gold belt wrapped around to the chest...
The lampstands correspond to the churches, as we will find out in verse 20. We are hearing the voice of the "Son of Humanity," Jesus, the king of the whole world. We have already been told that his voice is like thunder, a sense of the magnitude and awesomeness of Jesus' voice.

Jesus is the Son of Humanity from Daniel 7. Verse 7 alluded to this fact but now we know it explicitly. He is the one who will return from heaven on the clouds. The robe and gold belt are reminiscent of Daniel 10:5. Revelation draws a great deal of its imagery from the more apocalyptic parts of the Old Testament. It does not always cook the ingredients in the same way--it often has its own recipes. But it regularly draws on similar elements.

14. And his head and hairs [were] white like white wool like snow and his eyes like a flame of fire. 15. And his feet were like brass being refined as in a furnace and his voice as the sound of many waters.
The description of Christ here is also very reminiscent of the figure in Daniel 10:6, whose eyes are like flaming torches, legs like bronze, and voice like multitudes. We have no evidence that John thought this figure in Daniel was a Christophany, an appearance of Christ in the Old Testament. In fact, it is not clear that Revelation has anything to say about Christ's pre-existence. It seems more likely that Revelation is using Daniel's visitor as a prototype for the heavenly Jesus.

16. And having in his right hand seven stars and from his mouth [was] coming out a double-edged sharp sword and his face as the sun shines in its power.
The stars, as we will see, are the angels of the seven churches of Asia Minor. The sword is an indicator that the earliest disciples did not see either Jesus or God as pacifists. "Phase 1 Jesus" submitted to Roman authorities and to death. "Phase 2 Jesus" in Revelation is surrounded by blood. In his earthly mission, Jesus did not fight worldly powers. In his final mission, Jesus will destroy all powers that oppose him. 

17. And when I saw him, I fell to his feet as dead and he put his right hand on me saying, "Do not fear...
In Jewish apocalyptic literature, it was typical for the recipient of the revelation to fall on their faces before the heavenly being. However, the angel consistently refuses any worship. At this point in a typical apocalypse, the messenger tells the seer to rise because he is only a servant of God too. We see this "refusal formula" even in Revelation 19:10 when an angel comes to John.

The significance is that Jesus accepts John bowing before him. After all, he is not a servant but the King of kings. The worship of Jesus is appropriate.

The statement, "Do not fear" is also conventional when a heavenly being appears to a mortal human. Fear is natural in the face of such awesome greatness, as fantastic as it must also be. The fear of the Lord is this way. There is no need to fear the God who so thoroughly loves us, yet who would not fear in the face of such awesomeness?

I am the first and the last 18. and the one who lives. And I became dead and behold I am living forever and ever and I have the keys of death and of Hades.
Jesus confirms his divinity by using words of himself--the first and the last--that Isaiah 44:6 uses exclusively of Yahweh. This is similar to God (the Father) being the Alpha and Omega in 1:8. Jesus is the one who defeated death. His victory over death has given him the keys to unlock death and Hades.

Hades was the Greek word for the realm of the dead. It did not have the same connotation as Gehenna, which was a place of fiery torment for the wicked. Interestingly enough, the word Gehenna is not actually used in the book of Revelation.

19. Therefore, write what you have seen and things that are and the things that are about to be after these things.
Here is the commission for John to record the letters and the prophecies of the book. Jesus is going to unlock mysteries relating to things that were soon to happen. In John's mind, these occurrences would not have been two thousand years later but the near future.

20. The mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand and the seven gold lampstands. The seven stars are angels of the seven churches and the seven lampstands are the seven churches.
Although we decoded the symbolism above, this is the point where John makes it clear to his audience. The seven stars represent the angels of the seven churches and the seven lampstands represent the seven churches of Asia themselves. These seven churches in turn represent all the churches of the world.

Does every individual church have a guardian angel? Revelation certainly indicates it is possible. How many angels are there? Surely enough for there to be multiple angels per church. Who knows how the creation of angels works. We assume God made all the angels the universe needed at the very beginning.

[1] Cf. Craig R Koester, Revelation and the End of All Things (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001), 52.