REVELATIONS 1:4-8
THE ALPHA AND THE OMEGA
(Acts 1:1-11)
John begins his letter with an invocation in which He calls down the blessings of Heaven on the lives of the brethren. The closeness of John’s relationship with His Risen Lord had combined with the blessed days of their physical earthly pilgrimage, and gave him understanding that could only be gained through years of experience.
The love and thoughtfulness expressed by this matured saint revolve around the wondrous work of Jesus and His glorious return. The promise of Jesus’ return fills us with anticipation for it is He who has begun this good work in us and He who will bring it one day to wondrous completion.
I. The Triune Blessing, 4-5a.
II. Jesus the Redeemer, 5b-6.
III. Jesus’ Promised Return, 7.
IV. The Beginning and the Ending, 8.
John to the seven churches that are in Asia: Grace to you and peace, from Him who is and who was and who is to come; and from the seven Spirits who are before His throne.
Seven is the number of completeness or perfection. The seven churches are representative of all churches. The message is therefore for all churches, including our church. The customary greeting captures the richness of the Christian faith. Grace represents the believers standing in unmerited favor or kindness before God and peace represents wholeness and well-being that those in right relationship with God experience.
God, the source of all grace and peace is the God of the present, past, and the future and is called the One who is and who was and who is to come. This designation reminds us that God is the same yesterday, today and forever. The world will undergo drastic change but God never changes. This is why He can always be the source of grace and peace.
The second blesser and giver of grace and peace is the Holy Spirit. Here He is designated by the seven Spirits before the Throne. It indicates the sevenfold fullness or manifold works of the Spirit (Isa. 11:2-3; Rev. 3:1; 4:5; 5:6) [other places in the New Testament mention the multiple functions of the Holy Spirit: 1 Cor. 12:11; 14:32; Heb. 2:4; Rev. 22:6] [others believe these are 7 angels of high privilege].
The third blesser whom we find in verse 2 is Jesus Christ, for there is neither grace nor peace but by Him.
"And from Jesus Christ, the Faithful Witness, the First-Born of the Dead, and the Ruler of the kings of the earth" (5a).
The book of Revelation points to Jesus Christ and gives us a clear view of Him. He is introduced with three impressive titles. He is the one who has borne faithful and truth witness (a favorite word of John) to the world. It is His character and He cannot be other than the Faithful Witness. All that we need to know about faith and life He has revealed to us. He faithfully revealed God’s Word both during His earthly ministry and in this book.
Jesus is also titled the First Born of the Dead. He is the first to receive a resurrection body which is immortal. He was the first to rise from the dead and the title probably carries the idea of sovereignty. First of all in position or place and in chronology (first in time). Christ is the first and others follow Christ in His resurrection from the dead. (All the righteous dead are included in "the first resurrection, Rev. 20:5-6. The wicked dead are raised last after the millennium, 20:12f).
Most major religions of the world adore some great but dead leader or philosopher. Christianity alone declares its faith in a living, resurrected Savior.
A missionary was explaining this truth to some people. He said, "I am traveling and have reached a place where the road branches off in two directions. I look for a guide and find two men: One is dead and the other alive. Which of the two should I ask for directions, the dead or the living?" The people responded, "The living." "Then," said the missionary, "why do you follow a leader who is dead instead of Christ, who is alive?"
If we believe in the actual, physical resurrection of Jesus Christ, then we will have no difficulty in believing anything else in God’s Word. If we reject this central doctrine, we may as well throwaway the entire Bible. If Christ has not risen, He has broken His promises, failed in His prophecies, and we are still in our sins. But because Christ lives, we will live.
His witness and resurrection are past. His fulfillment of the role as the Ruler of the Kings of the Earth is future. He will one day direct the affairs and destiny of the nation on earth. He will be installed over all rule and authority after His victory over the beast and the false prophet (Rev. 19).
Jesus is coming again to put wrongs right and redress the uneven balance of this present world. Let Christians lift up their heads to the clouds! The day of their redemption is near.
II. JESUS’ REDEMPTION, 5b-6.
"To Him who loves us, and released us from our sins by His blood."
John now bursts into praise for Jesus’ ministry to us. He proclaims Jesus is worthy because of three specific deeds: He loves us, He freed us, and He made us to be a kingdom and priests. Jesus Christ loves us and keeps on loving us (pres. tense). Jesus’ love for us is in as full force now as it was when He was delivered up for us to all the terrors of the cross. Oh the breadth, the length, the depth, the height of the love of Christ! Who shall measure it? Who can comprehend it? It encompasses us like a shoreless, bottomless sea. It is beyond our knowledge and thought. The love of Christ for the redeemed is a permanent abiding fact.
This love has released, freed, loosed us from our sins. How was this wonder of wonders accomplished? By His blood, by His death in our place for our sins on the cross, forgiveness and release was granted to those who will believe and appreciate it. The sacrifice of Christ brought us freedom from the chains of sin that bound us and seek to bind us. The shed blood of Jesus looses us from our sin to serve the Living Lord.
THE BROKEN TRAIL
In the 14th century, Robert Bruce, next in line to the Scottish crown, led the fight to gain independence from England. At one point in the conflict, the English were about to capture him. He escaped into the forest, so they put bloodhounds on his trail.
When Bruce heard the dogs baying loudly as they closed in on him, he headed for a stream that flowed through the forest, plunged in, and waded upstream a short distance. Coming out on the other bank, he was now in the depths of the forest.
Within minutes, the hounds, tracing Bruce’s steps, came to the bank, but they went no farther. The English soldiers urged them on, but the trail was broken. The stream had carried the scent away. A short time later, the crown of Scotland rested on the head of Robert Bruce.
The memory of our sins, prodded on by Satan, can be like those baying dogs. But a stream flows, red with the blood of God’s own Son. If we trust in Jesus Christ, we never need to fear being condemned for our sins. Our guilt is gone forever because of Christ’s shed blood.
By grace through faith we are safe. No sin-hound can touch us. The trail is broken by the precious blood of Christ.
DIRTY WASH WATER
The coal mining region was dotted with coal yards. One day a crowd gathered in one of these storage areas to watch a rather humorous spectacle. A duckling was taking a bath in a basin. He bobbed his head and body into the water over and over. As he did, he was getting dirtier and dirtier because the water was full of coal dust. Finally, he overturned the basin and scampered under a woodpile, black from all his efforts.
It may be funny when a duckling tries to wash with dirty water. But when a person tries to wash away his sins, the result is tragic. God has provided his own cleansing method for sin, but many try to substituted the water of their own works. Through religious activities, these people go through the motions of spiritual bathing, only to find that even their very best deeds cannot make them presentable to God. The stain of sin is not removed.
Where can sin-defiled men and women find cleansing? In the blood of Jesus Christ, who died on the cross for all sin. To try some other way - to depend on works or moral behavior - is like washing in the coal yard’s wash basin. By faith, accept the cleansing that God has provided through the death of His Son. The shed blood of Jesus is the only way to get really clean.
Verse 6 tells what happens to those changed by the shed blood of Jesus. "And He has made us to be a kingdom, priests to His God and Father, to Him be the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen."
The glory brightens as the blessings continue. That we should experience the love of our great Lord is wondrous. That we have forgiveness for all our sin at the cost of His own blood is almost too much to believe.
Added to this is that we are a Kingdom with the full prerogatives of royal priests. God’s people are a Kingdom not only because God is their Sovereign but because they participate in the reign of Christ. (Here is one of the few places the church is called a Kingdom). Believers are a kingdom because they will fill the role of Princes along with the messianic King Jesus. Jesus had promised His disciples that they would share in His rule (Mt. 5:2-5, 19:28, Lk. 22:30).
Believers are also priests to God. They have immediate access into the very presence of God where they perform the priestly functions of offering thanksgiving, praise and worship to God. Right now we perform the priestly ministry of speaking to God on behalf of men and to men on behalf of God. We seek to reconcile men to God that they too might become priest to God and a member of God’s forever kingdom.
III. JESUS’ PROMISED RETURN (v. 7)
"Behold, He is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him; and all the tribes of the earth will mourn over Him. Even so. Amen."
Behold, or sense and see, announces again the central theme of the book, the revelation, or the Second Coming of Jesus Christ which leads to the Consummation of all things in Him. He is coming is an emphatic form of declaration. As Christ was received by a cloud in His Ascension (Acts l:9). So He will come again in the clouds of Heaven (Mt. 24:30, 26:64; Mk. 13:26, 14:62, Lk. 21:27).
On days when the cumulus clouds fill the blue skies, I like to imagine Jesus is coming through them to appear and, all over the earth, persons will stare in amazement and shock to see Him descend to earth.
Christ has not gone to heaven to stay there but to prepare a place for us and so His Spirit could come and prepare us for this place. He left physically and He will return physically.
This incomprehensible truth of God acknowledged in the Church Creeds is essential to the very life and substance of Christianity. Let the unbelievers murmur about it, dispute it, mock it, despise it, hate it, and hide it. But it is as absolute as the gospel itself. This is true just as Christ Himself is true. He comes with clouds, that is with great majesty and glory, with pomp and splendor. He who makes the clouds His chariots will come upon the wings of the wind.
And every eye will see Him, the return of the Lord will be a public, visible event (Mt. 24:30; Mk. 13:26, Lk. 21:27). His return will be inescapably evident to the whole world. The good shall see Him. The wicked shall see Him. Some will see Him and shout praise and glory. Some will run to the rocks and mountains and want them to fall on them that they might be hidden from the Lamb for none will be able to stand before Him.
Even those who pierced Him will see Him. Though His manifestation is universal it has an awful impact on some. There are those who have mocked Christ and disbelieved His offered salvation. Some day each and every one must confront Him and meet His all-penetrating gaze. From the man who pierced His side to those who made wounding, insulting comments concerning the meek Lamb of God, they shall be compelled to look upon Him whom they have pierced.
And all the tribes of the earth will mourn over Him. This will be a sad, sad time for so many who will be brought to full realization of who Jesus is and how they have stood against Him and His cause. They will mourn their not reading, listening and heeding His word, for it is too late for them to change sides. Their gaieties and pleasures will turn to shrieks and despair.
Even so, Amen. Though this will be the ultimate catastrophe for billions of wicked, it must occur. For it is a precious long awaited day, a coveted and prayed for day by all the saints of all generations. Hence John says Amen or it is true, so be it.
IV. THE BEGINNING & THE ENDING. V. 8
"I am the Alpha and the Omega," says the Lord God, "who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty."
To all this Jesus adds a most wonderful declaration concerning Himself to further confirm the solemn truthfulness of the words just written and cause us to give greater stress to them.
Great and difficult things were on the mind of Christ which He was going to give to the Church to assist them in preparation for His coming or for their coming to Him, which ever should come first. Christ desires they understand who is giving the message so they could be absolutely certain of its accomplishment. So He invokes His title of Alpha and Omega.
Alpha and Omega are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet. It signifies the beginning and the end. He who brought everything into existence will bring it all to conclusion.
Who is, and who was, and who is to come. This title for the Father is also the title for His Co-equal Son. He is the great I AM whose being is the same through all existence. He alone is self-existing. He was before all time and brought all into existence. He is in control even now as the nations and their demons’ rage. He will bring existence to its conclusion for He is The Almighty. This name leaves nothing outside His power to control and effect. He can do all that is just and right according to His standard of justice and righteousness and nothing can stand in His way or hinder the accomplishment of His will and word.
CONCLUSION
Did you know that the largest type used by most newspapers for headlines or astounding events has been called "second coming" type? These heavy, black letters are reserved for only the most amazing front-page news stories. This dramatic type has been used to announce the beginning and end of wars, moon landings, presidential election winners, natural disasters, and other significant events.
One day mankind will witness the great event for which the "second coming" type was named, the return of Jesus Christ. And what a day that will be! The One who ascended to heaven long ago will return to this earth. When our Lord comes back, it will be such a phenomenal occurrence that it will command world wide attention.
Behold He is coming. In the morning, at noontime, in the evening or at night. Let us not trifle with His greatness or question His Power. Let us come now unto Him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by His precious spilled blood. Let us rejoice for we are a kingdom and priests unto the ultimate absolute sovereign. To Him be the glory for ever and ever! AMEN!
