A PICTURE OF JESUS
Revelation 1:9-20
There’s an old saying that says, "A picture is worth a thousand words." I think that’s pretty accurate; Jesus seems to have thought so too. His favorite method of teaching was in parables - vivid, illustrative word pictures that helped his audience to understand. So over the next several weeks I want to take you on a tour of the book of Revelation… using pictures. Not visual pictures, but mental pictures..
First of all, I want you to think about the title - "Revelation." This is taken from the very first verse of the first chapter: "The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show to his servants..." (Rev. 1:1). Now, what do you do when something’s revealed to you? You LOOK at it, or examine it . And that’s what we’re going to do.
1. THE RECIPIENT AND THE REALITY OF THE REVELATION (v. 9).
There’s a lot of things that John could’ve said about himself. You ask some people to introduce themselves and they start spewing out their resume. Men especially tend to be like that (not that you ladies are above that sort of thing). John could’ve said:
"I’m one of the apostles, but I’m not just any ordinary apostle. I belonged to the inner circle; I was the one who Jesus really loved."
But that’s not what he said. Notice how John describes himself: “your brother and companion”. You see, John wasn’t out to elevate himself. His purpose is to show us that we are united in a common bond; that bond is Jesus.
This revelation given to John was a real event in history. It’s not just some made up fairy tale. John was on a real island located in the Mediterranean Sea and he was given a message to be delivered to real churches that existed during that time.
It’s a book that is rooted in history. So if I we want to understand it, then we’ve got to place it the context of the world in which it was written.
People run into all kinds of problems in trying to understand the book of Revelation because they take it out of context. They start to look for a bunch of stuff that’s simply not there and the book of Revelation is not about any of those things.
2. THE RESIDENCE OF THE REVELATION (Vv. 10-12).
John hears a voice like a trumpet, and apparently it came from behind him. I don’t know about you, but when something loud happens behind me, it tends to startle me. I imagine this voice startled John as well.
He turns and looks to see where this voice came from, but instead he sees seven golden lampstands. This is important because he mentions these lampstands again in the next verse, and again in verse 20.
So what’s so important about the lampstands? They were associated with the Temple. In the original Tabernacle, there was a lampstand shaped like a tree with one branch in the middle and three branches on each side. They were made of solid gold and held seven oil lamps. (Show picture)
When God gave instructions for the building of the Tabernacle and later for the Temple, there was a reason He included a lamp stand in the shape of a tree. It represented His promise of restored life…a tree that lit the way into the Holy place. And so it was a tree of light, and a tree of life. These two things go together. John, himself, tells us so in his previous book:
In Him was life, and the life was the light of men (Jn. 1:4).
Do you remember the first mention of a tree in the Bible? It was in the Garden of Eden. There were actually two trees in the garden: The tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and the tree of life. When Adam and Eve ate from the first tree, they were removed from the second. The first tree brought death; the second brought life.
Again, Revelation is rooted in history. It's written on the foundation of the OT; it’s full of Temple Language. The symbols that we see throughout this book aren’t nearly as strange to us if we’re familiar with the OT. Let me show you what I mean...Zechariah saw a similar vision of lampstands:
And he said to me, “What do you see?” So I said, “I am looking, and there is a lampstand of solid gold with a bowl on top of it, and on the stand seven lamps with seven pipes to the seven lamps (Zechariah 4:2).
FF to v. 20 and we’re told the meaning behind this symbol:
"...the seven lamp stands which you saw are the seven churches." (v. 20).
If we’re not letting our light shine in a way that can be seen, then we’re not fulling God's purpose for us as a church.
In Revelation 2, a warning was given to one of these churches: the church at Ephesus. This was a church of doctrinal strength; a church that had endured for the sake of Christ, and stood against wrong theology. They only had one problem...they lost their first love. And as a result, they were given a very strong warning:
Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place—unless you repent (Rev. 2:5).
4. THE RAIMENT OF THE REVELATION (v. 13).
Now John focuses on the One who is standing in the middle of the lampstands. This is none other than Jesus. He is in the midst of the church; He is described as being “One like the Son of Man”.
Now John could’ve just called him the Son of Man; Jesus referred to Himself that way often. But that’s not what John does. He describes the resurrected Savior as “One like the Son of Man”. This was a special title to the Jews, and much like the lamp stand, its origins are found in the OT:
“I was watching in the night visions, And behold, One like the Son of Man, Coming with the clouds of heaven! He came to the Ancient of Days, And they brought Him near before Him. Then to Him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, That all peoples, nations, and languages should serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion, Which shall not pass away, And His kingdom the one Which shall not be destroyed” (Daniel 7:13-14).
John saw the fulfillment of that OT prophecy; next he focuses upon the raiment (clothing) Jesus is wearing:
…clothed with a garment down to the feet and girded about the chest with a golden band (v. 13).
These garments are familiar in the OT as well. It’s what the high priest would've worn, and he was the only one allowed into the Holiest of Holies. Lots were cast each morning and evening to determine which priest would go into the Temple and offer incense on the altar while the others waited outside and prayed. On the right of the altar you had the shewbread; on the left would be the golden lamp stand.
Past the altar of incense was a curtain separating the Temple from the Holiest of Holies. Again, no priest was ever allowed to go past this veil…except the High Priest. And he was only allowed access once a year…the Day of Atonement - Yom Kippur. It was beyond this veil that he would offer the blood of goats and calves as an atonement for the sins of the nation. This is a picture of what Jesus did for us as our High Priest…
Not once a year, but “once for all”. Not with the blood of goats/calves, but with His own blood. Not in a temple made by human hands, but on the cross at Calvary. Not for the sins of a nation, but for the sins of the world. When Jesus died on the cross, the veil that separated us from God was ripped in half.
5. THE RADIANCE OF THE REVELATION (Vv. 14-16).
This must’ve been a pretty strange sight, but I believe that it was somewhat familiar to John because he had read something similar before:
“I watched till thrones were put in place, And the Ancient of Days was seated; His garment was white as snow, And the hair of His head was like pure wool. His throne was a fiery flame, Its wheels a burning fire” (Daniel 7:9).
So the One that John sees now matches the OT description of the "Ancient of Days”, a title for God. Do you see the implications? It points to the deity of Christ. He’s the "Ancient of Days”; the One who’s lived since before the beginning of time; the great I AM.
Verse 16 says that in His right hand He held seven stars; in verse 20 we’ll see that these stars represent seven churches. But John hasn’t been told that yet. At this point, he’s probably thinking about the OT association of seven stars. On three different occasions, the OT talks about the Lord having power over a stellar constellation called the Pleiades. This tightly knit group of seven stars is also known as the Seven Sisters.
“Can you bind the cluster of the Pleiades, Or loose the belt of Orion? (Job 38:31)
You who turn justice to wormwood, And lay righteousness to rest in the earth!” He made the Pleiades and Orion; He turns the shadow of death into morning And makes the day dark as night; He calls for the waters of the sea And pours them out on the face of the earth; The Lord is His name (Amos 5:7-8).
The OT teaches that God created the Pleiades and bound them; now we see that Jesus holds these seven stars in His hand. Then verse 16 goes on to say that out of His mouth came a sharp two-edged sword. Now remember, this isn’t to be taken literally, it’s a symbol - a picture of spiritual truth. The sword represents the Word of God.
For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart (Heb. 4:12).
The sword is a picture of power and strength, it’s sharp and able to cut deeply. That’s what the Word of God does, and the preaching of the Word is able to change lives. The creation account in Genesis is filled with references about the power of God’s Word. Over and over we read, "And God said…”, and everything He spoke came to be.
The gospel has that same kind of power, and not just when it’s preached from the pulpit. You have that find of power when you share the gospel with a neighbor or co-worker. God promises that His word will not return void:
So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void, But it shall accomplish what I please, And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it (Is. 55:11).
Satan wants you to think that the Word has no power, but he’s a liar and a deceiver. That’d be like a criminal trying to tell a police officer that his gun doesn’t have bullets. That’s crazy, but what’s even crazier is if the police officer believed him. That’s what we do when we fail to use the Word of God in the way it was intended to be used.
6. THE REACTION TO THE REVELATION (Vv. 17-18).
John’s reaction is priceless: he falls to the ground as though he’d been shot with a 44 magnum. No remember, John had lived with Jesus; he ate with Him, traveled with Him, and talked with Him. But now John sees the unveiled majesty of Christ and it quite literally sweeps him off his feet. John sees a lot of things throughout the book of Revelation:
the throne of God;
the lampstands;
the twenty four elders;
the lake of fire;
angels, demons, vials of wrath and trumpets of God…
But nothing has the kind of impact on him as this vision of the glorified Christ. I think that too often, we lose sight of the glory, the holiness and the majesty of God. It’s evident in our prayers and in our worship…or lack thereof. I want you to notice how the Lord identifies Himself:
a. “I am the First and the Last” (v. 17).
The emphasis here is on the eternal character of Christ. Before anything existed, He was here. And when when everything’s gone, He’ll still be here.
b. “I am He who lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore” (v. 18).
Throughout the OT, one of the regular titles for the Lord was Elohim Hay’im - the Living God. All the other gods of the ancient world are dead. They were lifeless idols of wood and of stone. But God is the One “who lives”.
c. “I have the keys of Hades and of Death” (v. 18).
In the ancient world, keys were a symbol of authority. In Matthew 16, Jesus asked the disciples who they thought He really was. Peter answered that He was the Christ, the Son of the Living God (Matt. 16:16). Because of His insight, Jesus gave authority to Peter over His kingdom.
“And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven” (Matt. 16:19).
Jesus holds the keys of the kingdom. He has authority over death. He proved that when He rose from the dead., and He is able to unlock eternal life to all who will come to Him.
7. THE RAMIFICATIONS OF THE REVELATION (Vv. 19-20).
Now we get to the meaning behind the symbols. We don’t have to guess the identity of the stars or the lampstand, they’re explained to us in the context of the passage:
The Seven Stars = The angels of the Seven Churches;
The Seven Lampstands = The Seven Churches
The Seven Churches are mentioned by name in verse 11; the next two chapters contain messages written to them separately. But I want you to notice that each of these churches has an angel assigned to it. The word "angel" comes from a Greek word that simply means "messenger." Any time you see the word “angel” in Scripture, usually the context will tell you whether it’s a human messenger or a divine messenger. Throughout most of the book of Revelation when we see the word “angels”, it’s a divine messenger. And that might be the case here, or it might be referring to human messengers within the church - preachers and teachers.
The point here is that Jesus is in the midst of His churches. And those who minister within His churches are carried in the palm of His hand.
