The Revelation From Jesus And God (Revelation 1:1-8) Series

Last week, I introduced our new series on the book of Revelation. Really, I didn't explain much about the book at all. My focus was more on how I think the book should be read. If you missed that, you're going to want a copy of my sermon. This week, I want to begin by simply reading the first two verses:

(1) The revelation from/of Jesus Christ, ["of" is a genitive of source="from"]

which God gave to him (him=Jesus) to show to his slaves what must take place soon [heightening of Daniel

2:28],

and he (=Jesus) communicated it through signs

(by) sending [it] through his angel to his slave John,

(2) who testified to the word from/of God

and the testimony from/of Jesus Christ-- all that he saw.

This book that we have open in front of us, begins by telling us that it contains a message from Jesus. There is a divine plan that's been set in motion, and God wants us to understand what He's doing. He wants to make it, so that you see the world, and world events, through his perspective. He wants you to see what He's doing, and what He's about to do. So God gives Jesus a message that serves as a "revelation" to us.

At a popular level, this book is often called "Revelations," plural, with the idea that Jesus has lots and lots of things that He reveals in this book. But the book is called "Revelation." This book, taken as a whole, is an unveiling of God's plan for the world.

Now, the first two verses tell us that this process by which we came to have this book in our hands, is a complicated one. This book has to come to us through a series of steps. First, God gave this revelation to Jesus. Then, Jesus gave this revelation to his own personal angel. Jesus has an angel who serves him, and we will actually get to see and hear this angel later in the book. Jesus then sent his personal angel to a man named John.

People spend a lot of time debating who John is, but that's not the kind of thing I enjoy studying, and I'm not sure I really see much point. All we can say for sure, I think, is two things: (1) This John is not a stranger to his readers. He's someone well-known to them. And (2), the book's authority doesn't rest on whether or not John is the Apostle John. John's message is authoritative not because of who he is, but because of who his message is from.

So revelation passed from God, to Jesus, to Jesus' angel, to John, to us. That seems like a lot of steps. It reminds us of the game of telephone, where kids try to pass a message from one person to another, but it usually ends up garbled and twisted. But everyone involved with this is utterly faithful, and truthful, and that makes all the difference. And even though there's four beings involved in this, two get special focus: God, and Jesus. This book is a revelation from Jesus, which Jesus received from God.

And how should is this "revelation" described? In just the first two verses, it's described three ways:

(1) as about "what must take place soon."

(2) as "God's word."

(3) as the "testimony of Jesus Christ."

(1) as about "what must take place soon."

As we get into the book of Revelation, we will see and hear pictures of things that span most of human history. Parts of it talk about things that happened thousands of years ago. Parts of it describe things happening now. And parts of it describe what will happen in the future, "soon."

There's a lot of debate among Christians (=scholars) about how much of the book is past, present, or future. They divide up differently, and I'm working really hard to hide that from you, to be honest. I think if we stick close enough to the book (and ignore the rest of the NT, using a narrative/literary approach), we will find many of the arguments have a simple answer.

But if we take Revelation 1:1 as our starting point, the focus of the book is on the near future. The events described in this book, which was written in the first century A.D./C.E., aren't happening now, for the first time. We shouldn't expect to see something happen in the news, that for the first time unlocks the meaning of Revelation.

John's first readers are being told that this book reveals what will happen in the near future. They will see connections between the book, and their newspaper.

(2) The second way Revelation is described, is as "the word from/of God."

When we read Revelation today, we do so, if we are old school, by opening up our paper Bibles, and turning to the very back of the book. This collection of books, that we together call the Bible, we also together call "God's word." There's not a lot of debate in the church anymore about which books should and shouldn't be considered "God's word."