Last week we had the privilege of seeing a wonderful portrait of Jesus that reveals to us what He is doing right now – walking among His churches for the purposes of reconciling, interceding, purifying, guiding, protecting and shining. And we determined that as His followers, we are to be about doing many of those same works as we serve Jesus.
But as we come to the last part of chapter 1, we’re going to see that there is an obvious and significant change in the perspective of the writing. Beginning with the second part of verse 17 and continuing through the end of chapter 3, we find a single, uninterrupted speech of the risen Jesus. No longer is John narrating what he sees in his vision; instead he is merely recording the words of Jesus.
We’re only going to cover four verses in our study this morning, but this short passage certainly isn’t lacking in the richness of its application to our lives.
17 When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand on me, saying, “Fear not, I am the first and the last, 18 and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades. 19 Write therefore the things that you have seen, those that are and those that are to take place after this. 20 As for the mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand, and the seven golden lampstands, the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches.
One of the most important purposes of any piece of art is to evoke a response from those who look upon it and the portrait of Jesus that is revealed to John is no exception. And John’s reaction to what he sees and Jesus’ instructions to John in light of what he sees are quite instructive to us as well. Since we have now also seen this portrait of Jesus, we have a responsibility to respond to it as well and this passage provides us with some practical guidance on how we should do that.
HOW AM I TO RESPOND TO THE REVELATION OF JESUS?
• WITH AWE
As soon as John saw this portrait of Jesus, he fell at His feet, as though he were dead. In a sense, this is kind of surprising considering that John had spent at least three years of His life in the presence of Jesus, and with one important exception, which we’ll look at in a moment, we never see John responding to Jesus like this.
But here’s the difference. When Jesus took on a body of flesh and walked here upon the earth, his flesh was like a veil that obscured the full glory of His deity. Paul refers to that in Philippians 2 when he reveals that Jesus “made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant” (Philippians 2:6). Had Jesus not done that, no human could have gazed upon His glory. That is evident all throughout the Bible. Every time that someone is privileged to see even a glimpse of the glory of God, their response is almost always similar to John’s:
• When God reveals a vision of Himself to Daniel in Daniel 10, Daniel lost all strength and fell with his face to the ground.
• At least 4 times, Ezekiel is exposed to the glory of God and each time he falls on his face (Ezekiel 1:28, 3:23, 43:3, 44:4)
• When Isaiah is transported in a vision into the presence of God, he responds in a similar manner and proclaims “Woe is me.” (Isaiah 6:5)
• When Paul meets Jesus on the road to Damascus, he also falls to the ground. (Acts 9:4)
There is one other time in the Scripture where John had been exposed to the glory of Jesus and had responded in a similar manner.
And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James, and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. 2 And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light. And behold, there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him. And Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good that we are here. If you wish, I will make three tents here, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah.” He was still speaking when, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.” When the disciples heard this, they fell on their faces and were terrified.
Matthew 17:1-6 (ESV)
In 2001, the group Mercy Me released their first album, which included the song “I Can Only Imagine”. Most of you are probably familiar with that song since it received a lot of airplay on both Christian and secular radio. It is the only Christian song to be digitally downloaded over 1 million times. The chorus to that song contains these words:
Surrounded by Your Glory, what will my heart feel?
Will I dance for you, Jesus? Or in awe of You, be still?
Will I stand in Your presence, or to my knees will I fall?
Will I sing 'Hallelujah!'? Will I be able to speak at all?
I can only imagine! I can only imagine!
Based on what we see in this passage and elsewhere in Scripture, I don’t think there is much doubt about how we are going to respond when we see Jesus in His full glory. We may eventually dance for Him or stand in His presence or sing hallelujah, but it’s clear that our first reaction will be absolute awe as we fall on our face before Him.
But our awe of Jesus is not to be limited to just the future day when we come before Him in all His glory. Because we have been given this portrait of the glory of Jesus in His word, we need to live daily in awe of Him right now. When we combine what we see in this passage with the other places in Scripture where humans were exposed to the glory of God, we find that there are two actions that we need to take in order to live in awe of Jesus:
• Reflect on the greatness of Jesus
As we talked about last week, it is absolutely essential that we think of Jesus as He really is and not as we want Him to be. There are a lot of people who know about Jesus and maybe even believe in Him to some degree, but who don’t really live in awe of Him because they just pick and choose the parts of His character they are comfortable with. These are the people who might consider Jesus to be a good man or a fine moral teacher. They see Him as a kind and gentle person who loved others. They might even believe that He lived, died on a cross and rose from the dead. In general, they are willing to see Him in His humanity.
But they refuse to see Jesus as He’s pictured here in Revelation in all His glory. They don’t want to think of Jesus as the all-powerful God who possesses all the attributes of the Godhead and who will return one day to this earth to judge those who have not committed their lives to Him. They don’t want to accept the Jesus who causes people to fall to their face in fear when they see Him in His glory.
If we are to truly live in awe of Jesus, as He desires for us to do, then we must think about Him in all His greatness. We need to reflect on His love and grace and compassion – yes – but we must also recognize His holiness and righteousness and justice that require Him to punish sin. And when we think of Jesus as He really is – all of Him – it leads us to the second element of living in awe of Him:
• Remember my own unworthiness
Once we see the greatness of God, it inevitably leads us to recognize our own unworthiness before Him. I think one of the reasons that everyone who sees the glory of God falls on their face before Him is that once they see the holiness of God, their own lives are immediately put in perspective and they just can’t look at Him eye to eye.
When all the allegations about Tiger Woods began to come to light, once of the things that was very noticeable is that he had a really hard time looking anyone straight in the eye. We often see the same thing in a courtroom where a guilty person tends to avoid eye contact with anyone else in the room.
And when we come into the presence of Jesus in all His glory, even though we know that all of our sins have been forgiven through His shed blood, I think we’re still going to recognize our unworthiness compared to His glory and we won’t immediately be able to look Him in the eye.
I’m certainly not suggesting that we walk around with an overwhelming sense of guilt in our lives. That would certainly not be healthy. But I think it is a helpful thing for us to keep our lives in their proper perspective. That is what Paul seemed to have in mind as he wrote these words:
For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.
Romans 12:3 (ESV)
So we need to first respond to this portrait of Jesus with great awe. But we can also respond…
• WITH ASSURANCE
While it was certainly appropriate for John to fall on His face before Jesus, that is not where Jesus wanted Him to remain. So Jesus reached down and touched John with His right hand and said, “Fear not.” Perhaps at that moment, John was reminded of a similar touch of Jesus the last time he had seen Jesus in His full glory, some 60 years or so prior to this event. The account of the Transfiguration that we read earlier ends with these words:
But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Rise, and have no fear.”
Matthew 17:7 (ESV)
Jesus wanted to assure John that He did not need to fear, even though the vision of Jesus he had already seen and the rest of the visions he was about to see contained some very frightening things. And the reassurance that Jesus provides to John is…
• Based on the character of Jesus
Jesus can tell John not to fear, because he can rely upon the character of Jesus. There are three specific aspects of the character of Jesus than He tells John that he can rely upon.
He is eternal
Jesus begins by telling John that he does not need to fear because He is the first and the last. Jesus has already hinted at this earlier in the chapter when He identified Himself as the Alpha and Omega in verse 8. And when we get to the end of the book, Jesus draws all these pictures together one last time:
I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.
Revelation 22:13 (ESV)
We can be free from fear because if Jesus is the beginning and He is the end, then He obviously has the authority to control everything in between. Not only that, Jesus once again confirms His deity in verse 17 by using the words “I am.” This is the same phrase by which God identified Himself to Moses when He appeared in the burning bush.
He is life
In verse 18, Jesus confirms that He is life with these words:
…and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore…
If there was any doubt at all that this is Jesus speaking here, this removes all doubt. He is the only one who could make this claim. We could literally translate the middle part of this verse like this:
I became dead and behold I am living forevermore…
That describes perfectly what Jesus did on our behalf. In His humanity he became dead. But as God He continues to live for eternity. Jesus is confirming for John and for us the fact that John had previously described Jesus as life itself:
In him was life, and the life was the light of men.
John 1:4 (ESV)
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life…
John 14: 6 (ESV)
We do not need to fear, because Jesus is life. And for those who have chosen to commit their lives to Him, we have this promise from Scripture:
And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.
1 John 5:11, 12 (ESV)
He is sovereign
The third element of assurance is found in the last part of verse 18:
I have the keys of Death and Hades
Keys are a picture of authority and control. For instance, I control the access to my house and my car because I have the keys. In this instance, Jesus controls death – a reference to our physical death – and Hades – which is used here as a picture of what happens to our soul after death.
The message here is clear. Jesus is reassuring John that He is the one who controls both his life here on earth as well as his eternal destiny. That had to be a great encouragement to John and to the people in the churches who were facing great persecution and who lived constantly under the threat of the loss of their lives. In effect, Jesus is saying, “You don’t need to fear because I’ve already paid the penalty for your sin and I control your destiny.”
There is one other related issue in this passage that we need to address before we move on. In verse 20 Jesus explains a couple of the symbols that we saw last week as part of His portrait:
As for the mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand, and the seven golden lampstands, the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches.
As we’ve seen elsewhere in Scripture, especially in Ephesians, a “mystery” in the Bible is not like a CSI case where we have to put together all the clues to figure out the perpetrator of the crime. It is merely something that God has not previously revealed that He now chooses to reveal. Interestingly, we see this same concept in the book of Daniel:
but there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries…
Daniel 2:28 (ESV)
So Jesus now reveals the mystery of the seven lampstands and the seven stars that John had seen in his vision of Jesus. The seven lampstands are pretty straightforward. They represent the seven churches. And as we saw last week, the lampstand does not produce its own light; it merely reflects the light of the lamp, Jesus. But notice that there are seven separate lampstands here and not one seven-branched lampstand like the one that was in the tabernacle. That is significant because the lampstands represent the church as seen from an earthly perspective. From that viewpoint, the local church bodies appear to be separate and distinct from each other.
Who are the “angels” represented by the seven stars?
The seven stars, on the other hand are not quite as simple to understand. We know that the seven stars represent the angels of the seven churches, but the question is who are these angels? The Greek for “angel” here can also mean “messenger” and in a few cases in the New Testament it does refer to a human messenger. So some commentators have taken the position that these seven angels are either envoys who are going to take the message back to the seven churches or are the pastors of the churches.
However, it seems to me that conclusion fails to take into account the plain reading of the text in its context here in the book of Revelation. In every other instance in the book, beginning in verse 1 where the angel reveals the message of the book to John, angels are clearly heavenly beings. And when we get to chapter 12, we’ll find that the stars there are also used as a picture of heavenly angels.
We also need to keep in mind what the stars would have signified to John’s audience. In the ancient world, there were seven celestial objects visible to the human eye which the people called wandering stars because they were not fixed in relationship to the other objects in the sky. These seven objects, which were considered to be stars, are the basis for the names of the days of the week: the sun, the moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus and Saturn.
These “seven stars” were a symbol of power and sovereignty and the people believed that they were gods who influenced and controlled events on earth. The Romans even depicted these seven stars on their coins as a symbol of the power of the Roman government.
So Jesus is pictured as having the seven stars in His right hand, the hand of authority and power, as another picture of His sovereignty. The seven stars have no power to control events here on earth because they are firmly under the control of Jesus.
But that still doesn’t answer the question of who these angels are. Perhaps, similar to what we see in Daniel, where we see that there are angels assigned to specific geographical areas, each church has its own guardian angel assigned to it. Or maybe the angels merely represent the heavenly counterpart of the church in some way. Some have even suggested that the angels represent the spirit of the seven churches. Frankly, this is one of those areas where we just don’t have all the answers and it’s just not possible to be dogmatic. But what is clear that the angels represent the churches from the heavenly point of view, in contrast to the lampstands, which show the church from an earthly viewpoint. And from that heavenly perspective the churches are not only under the firm control of Jesus, they are also gathered together as one.
What we find in these first two responses to the revelation of Jesus is that there is to be a balance in our lives between our awe and reverent fear of God on one hand and the assurance, based on the character of Jesus, that allows us to live without the fear of what others may do to us, on the other. And it is that balance that allows us to incorporate the third and final response:
• WITH ACTION
As a result of living in awe and experiencing the assurance from Jesus, John is commanded to act:
Write therefore the things that you have seen, those that are and those that are to take place after this.
Notice the key word “therefore”. The instructions that Jesus are about to give to John flow directly from the fact that John does not need to fear because he can rely upon the character of Jesus. This is a pattern that we see throughout the Bible. We see Jesus reassure His followers, then he gives them a call to action. Perhaps the best example of this model is seen with the Great Commission. Although we often ignore verse 18 and go right to Jesus’ command in verses 19 and 20, notice that Jesus prefaces His command with words of assurance:
And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
Matthew 28:18-20 (ESV)
Again you’ll notice the word “therefore”. The reason that we are able to go and make disciples is because we can rely upon the fact that all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Jesus.
It is interesting that the command to John here in Revelation and the command to the disciples in Matthew have a common element. In both cases, the action to which the audience is called is for the purpose of passing on that which has been revealed to others. The principle is clear: whenever God reveal Himself to us, it is not just for our own benefit. We have a responsibility to take that revelation and pass it on to others.
What is the significance of the phrase “the things that you have seen, those that are and those that are to take place after this”?
Before we close, let’s take a moment to examine in a bit more detail the specific command given to John. He is commanded to write “the things that you have seen, those that are and those that are to take place after this.” Many commentators have taken the position that this verse is an outline of the entire book of Revelation and generally you will see this verse used to support the following structure for the book:
1. the things that you have seen – Chapter 1
2. those that are – Chapter 2 and 3
3. those that are to take place after this – Chapters 4-22
Unfortunately that simplistic approach fails to take into account what we find in the text itself here in chapter 1, the Greek grammar or the evidence found in the rest of the Revelation. Let’s deal briefly with each of these elements:
• The surrounding text
The command here is verse 19 must not be divorced from a similar command that was given to John earlier in this chapter:
Write what you see in a book and send it to the seven churches…
Revelation 1:11 (ESV)
That command, given its context, appears to refer to the entire book of Revelation. It is clearly not just the first chapter that Jesus wants John to record and send to the seven churches – it is the entire book and all the visions contained therein. So verse 19 must also be consistent with that command and also deal with the entire book. So although I can’t be dogmatic in my conclusions, it seems that verse 19 is merely an overall description of what is contained in the entire book and not necessarily a chronological outline of the events recorded there.
• The Greek grammar
Although the ESV rendering of the underlying Greek in this verse is accurate, it is not the only way the verse could be translated. Verse 19 could also be translated something more like this:
Write, therefore what you have seen, both that which is and that which is going to happen after these things
That rendering would certainly be more consistent with verse 11 and it would indicate that the visions that John are going to record include both present events as well as those things that will occur in the future.
• The rest of the Revelation
There are a number of places within the rest of the text where past, present and future events are clearly all present in a single account. Even the letters to the churches in chapters 2 and 3 clearly contain both a description of what the churches are like in the present as well as promise of future rewards that will come to those who overcome.
In light of this evidence it seems best to use verse 19 as a general picture of what we’ll find in the rest of Revelation, but not as a strict chronological outline of the book.
Now that this great portrait of Jesus has been revealed to you, the question for you is this – how are you going to respond to that revelation of Jesus?
• Does this portrait of Jesus walking among His churches cause you to fall on your face in awe? Do you reflect on the greatness of Jesus and remember your own unworthiness in light of His holiness?
• Does the character of Jesus provide you with the assurance that He is sovereign so that you do not live in fear of what other men may do to you?
• Do you live in a balance between awe and assurance that allows you act in a way that proclaims Jesus and perpetuates his kingdom?
