Revelation Chapter 1

Revelation 1:1-20

Revelation is an act of revealing; a manifestation of truth; to uncover or unveil something that was one time covered. The title Revelation, was translated from the word Apocalypse. To many people, this word speaks to them of the end of time. That is not what this word implies. Apocalypse is a term applied to the disclosure to certain privileged persons of something hidden from the majority of humankind. That should speak something very important to you and I. There was a time when there were things were hidden from mankind. For instance, in Daniel 12:1-9, Daniel is given a vision, and then says, And I heard, but I understood not. God had a special relationship with Daniel, but he told him to seal these words. Certainly we can say that there were many things hidden in the Old Testament scriptures. The bible says in Galatians 4:21-22, that the Old Testament is an allegory to the New Covenant. An allegory is a work in which the characters or events are to be understood as representing other things and symbolically expressing a deeper, spiritual meaning. Since Christ fulfilled the Old Testament, we see a deeper, more spiritual meaning to the Old Testament. I have heard people say that if you say that the Old testament has been fulfilled, that you are taking out 2/3 of the bible. I say if it hasn’t been fulfilled, you take away 2/3 of the bible. In Revelation 22:10, John was told to not seal the book. Christ opened all things to our understanding.

It is very obvious in the church world today that Revelation is a book that we have tried to stay away from. I have been saved for 18 years and have said on many occasions that this book is too deep for me, yet I’ve tried to pick and pull things out of that I do understand. The first key that I see to understanding this book is to realize the purpose that it was written. It was not written to confuse or to make things harder for us to understand. It was written to make things become clearer to us.

As Christ walked the earth, he was an open book. He was daily revealing himself to the disciples and to those who followed. He had foretold to his church in many scriptures that he was going to lay down his life, but he would raise it up in three days. That was still not enough for some. The two men on the road to Emmaus for example. Luke 24:13-35. The bible says that they walked with Jesus for about seven miles. Jesus spoke and taught them on the way, yet they still didn’t know that this was Christ. The bible even says that Jesus opened the scriptures up to them and starting with Moses and the prophets “he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself”, yet they still didn’t realize who this was, even though their “hearts burned within them” when he spoke. Then, as Jesus was getting ready to depart, they constrained him to sit and to tarry with them. The bible says as they sat down at the table, Jesus took the bread, blessed it, broke it and then gave unto them to eat. The bible says that in this, they knew him. No doubt they remembered the things they had heard of Christ. Maybe how as the young lad handed him the bread and the fish, that he took, blessed, broke and gave the multitude the bread. Or how that when he sat down for the last meal with his disciples that he took the bread, blessed it, broke and gave to the disciples.

No doubt these two men had spent several hours walking with Christ, but didn’t see him for who he was. Then, when Jesus came to their house and dwelled with them, they knew him. If you’ll have it this way, Revelation is Jesus coming to our house and revealing himself to us. This was not John’s revelation, but God’s! God wants to reveal himself to us! Daniel 2:22; Ephesians 1:9; 1:17,18; 2:14; 3:1-5; Colossians 1:9,10.

In order for John to receive this revelation, there were a few things that had to happen first. If you look into verse 9, you see that John was exiled to the isle of Patmos. At first it would appear that John was all alone, but as we read on, we see that he was alone with God. Before you and I can expect to get a revelation from God, we are going to have to spend some one on one time with him. We will find that in our personal relationships, when we get alone with people, we will learn things about them that we didn’t know before. I feel safe in saying that every time that I get with God, that he reveals something new to me. Not only should we want to get to know him more, HE desires for us to get close to him! In John 4, it starts out by telling the great work and following that Christ had. Many were being converted, healed and his disciples were baptizing daily. But it says that Christ looked at his disciples and said, he must needs to go through Samaria. The reason he left the following he had, was to get alone with one women at Jacobs well. WOW!