The Apocalypse - Revelation 1:5-20 — Steve Gallagher

The following message is provided by Eternal Weight of Glory. For other sermons, teachings and articles, please visit eternalweight .com. Okay, good morning everyone. I have a question written on this piece of paper here, just a big question, why?

Why Study the Book of Revelation?

Why are we doing this study through the book of Revelation? Well, I suppose there's several different answers to that that are all true. It's an important book of the Bible. I mean, it's 22 chapters long and it describes, you know, phenomenal things, full of symbolism and all kinds of really interesting spiritual facts, so that's one good reason.

And also to get a better comprehension of the future and the way that God is going to unfold His eternal plan, and I'll get to that more later. And also to give us a fuller revelation of Jesus Christ, and as I shared a little bit last week, this is just kind of the concluding revelation of Jesus Christ.

There have been other revelations throughout Scripture, and this is the final one. But all of that is meant to accomplish a greater purpose. That greater purpose is to spiritually prepare you and me to go through what we are going to read about.

And that was true in the first century, and really maybe in a little lesser degree it's been true in all the ages since then because of the whole imminency factor. But the big thing here is that all of this is meant to prepare us spiritually, not just fill us with head knowledge, not just give us a map of what to expect in the future, but to do something inside of us that will help us to better be able to handle the things that we're going to encounter in the days ahead.

And that will really start to come out next week when we start getting into the different churches and what those believers face, which is a type of what we are going to face in the end times under the Antichrist.

You remember I mentioned in the introductory talk about the Preterist approach, which was to really focus on what was happening at the time during the first century. And the importance of that for us is that it really is a type of what we can expect in the last days.

So we're going to look at this passage of Scripture that really talks about Jesus Christ, and I'm going to do my best. I need the Lord's help, and I'm going to pray before we get started. I'm going to do my best to not get too hung up on details, and yet give us enough information about Him, you know, that will serve us well.

So let's take this to the Lord. Lord, you know that for my poor, tired brain, this is quite a challenge to find that proper balance between describing these powerful metaphors about who you are as a person and so on, and yet balancing that out with the greater message that lies behind those metaphors and is implied throughout this chapter, and really throughout the entire book.

I ask you to help me, Lord. Make my mind think clearly, and let your thoughts flow cleanly into my mind, Lord, and help me to articulate things properly, and I thank you for these passages. In the name of Jesus, amen.

Revelation 1:5–6: Jesus’ Titles and His Work for Believers

Okay, if you remember last week, we covered the first four verses and just touched on the first four words of verse five, just to kind of tie it in with the Trinity there mentioned. And then it goes into the salutation, which goes from verse four to verse eight, is what you would call a salutation.

But here in verses five and six, that's what I want to focus on first. There are two separate three-part statements regarding Jesus Christ. In the first part of verse five, there are three titles. In other words, what Jesus is.

And in the rest of verse five, in the beginning of verse six, there are three phrases that describe what He has done for us. And by the way, there may be quotes in your notes that I'm not going to get to, because I don't want to get overly hung up, so you may just get to read them later, and I may not get to them, just so you're aware of that.

So let's look at these verses, let me read these two verses. Verse five, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth, to Him who loves us and released us from our sins by His blood, and He has made us to be a kingdom, priest to His God and Father.

To Him be the glory and the dominion forever and ever, amen. So let's take a quick look at these three descriptions or titles about what Jesus is. Number one, the faithful witness. This is the Greek term martus, which is the root word from which we get the word martyr.

Now, you all understand what the word martyr has come to mean for us, but in the Greek it really meant to be a witness, and beyond that, to be a witness that whatever the person was testifying to, which is another English term out of this Greek term, whatever the person was testifying to, he felt was such deep conviction that he would lay his life down before he would renounce it or walk away from it.

That's what the term martyr means. So this term, martus, the faithful witness, doesn't that describe Jesus? That He had such strong convictions about spiritual things and righteousness and so on that He laid down His life rather than to give them up.

And this also refers back to verse 2, which we talked on, you know, mentioned last week, the testimony of Jesus Christ. That's the word marturia, a slightly different word, but testimony of Jesus is a phrase that's used eight times in the book of Revelation.

It's just part of the overall picture, and it's part of what we're talking about preparing us to go through, doing something inside of us that makes us martus, martyrs, you know, in the sense that we will have such a strong conviction about the things of God that they will carry us through the end times as conquerors, not as weak, fearful cowards, I guess I could say.

And Jesus had a testimony that cost Him His life, but He was faithful. He was a faithful witness, and He is our example of how we are to live our lives no matter what comes our way. Number two, He's the firstborn of the dead, and you see there are two different possibilities as to what that means.

One is, you know, that He was the first one to rise from the dead in the resurrection, and the second one that He has the role of the firstborn Son, which is touched on in Psalm 89, 27, I also shall make Him my firstborn, and this is talking about Jesus, I also shall make Him my firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth.

So really it applies to both. And the third one is the ruler of the kings of the earth, which is who we just saw in Psalm 89. But this is probably also a veiled reference to the emperor worship, which we will hear more about next week, which was such a very strong pressure on the believers of that day.

In fact, Domitian demanded that everyone call him Lord and God, you know, anyone who approached him. So there was just a tremendous pressure on believers in that day. So these three things about Jesus Christ, Osborne brings up an interesting thought on these three things.

In His life, He was a faithful witness. Through His resurrection, He became the firstborn, and then in His parousia, the term parousia is referring to the second coming, okay, in His parousia, He will become the de facto ruler of all the kings of the earth.

So yeah, you know, I'm not sure that that was meant that way, but it is interesting and it's all true. So let's look at what He did. What He has done for us to Him who loves us. And when you think about Jesus Christ, how can you think of anything more real as to who He is as a person than this term agape love?

This overwhelming passion inside of Him to do good to people. This tremendous feeling of goodwill, especially towards those who have committed themselves to Him, those who would become His bride eventually.

And you know, Paul in that one prayer for the Ephesians, one of the things that he asked the Lord, that they would know the love of Christ, which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.

The breadth and length and height and depth of the love of Christ. I like what Osborne says here also. He says it's an all-embracing concept that probably summarizes Christ's past love leading to a sacrificial death, His present love that we're seeing expressed here, and His future love seen in His defeat of the forces of evil on our behalf.

All right, and He released us from our sins by His blood. And of course, His love was demonstrated in that atonement. I do want to read what the pulpit commentary said here. One of the commentators, before the apostle's mind, there seems to rise up the vision of what he and his fellow believers had once been.

So foul and unclean, not with mere outward defilement, but with that inward foulness of the heart, which to the holy and undefiled one could not but have been repulsed in the highest degree, and yet the Lord loved him.

We can understand His pitying men so miserable, even whilst He condemned their sin. And we can understand how on their repentance He might pardon them, but to take them into His favor, to make them the objects of His love, that is wonderful indeed.

And at what cost? Nothing less than His own blood. Man, the love of Jesus Christ. Praise the Lord. And number three, He has made us to be a kingdom and priests, and I'll just touch on this kingdom part first.

This is the first direct reference of the kingdom of God on earth. It is one of the unbelievable benefits of being a believer that we will participate in Jesus Christ's eternal government on earth one day.

And it really is an important theme in the book of Daniel and carries over through the book of Revelation, this whole idea of our place in God's kingdom on earth, now, but also in the future, in the eternal realm.

And again, I've got to read this because it just really nails it. This is the same pulpit commentator I just read. He said this in regards to this being part of the kingdom, surely none could look less like kings than the shivering crowd of persecuted people to whom St. John addressed his book.

In what sense then could it be that Christ had made them kings? Only for the present in the lordship He had given them over themselves and over all the power of their adversaries. They could compel by the force of the regal will with which their Lord had invested them, their trembling flesh, their wavering purpose, their crowd of earthly affections, to a steadfastness and courage which of themselves they had never known.

And when thus equipped, strengthened with all might, crowned as kings by God's spirit in the inner man, they could meet and defy, endure and vanquish all their persecutors' power. It gave way to them, not they to it.

And you see that if you ever read Fox's Book of Martyrs or Eusebius or any of those guys who describe the martyrs of those early days and really when you read the testimonies of persecuted saints in communist countries or even in more recent times Christians in Arab states and so on, you see a holy boldness that's beyond our comprehension.

Because in our day and age where we're not facing persecution, we can't comprehend that but this is something that comes from outside of ourselves. It's something that's invested and infused in us to help us go through.

And again, this goes back to what I'm talking about, the overall purpose of this teaching is that God wants to get it inside of us, this holy boldness, this fearlessness about the future, that we don't have to go forward trembling and shivering and so on.

Well, the second half to that last one is that He has made us priests to His God and Father. And what does that mean? It just means that we are mediators between a holy God and an unbelieving world. You know, we represent God to mankind and in regards to other believers, of course, it means that we teach them and exhort them and encourage them and so on, but to unbelievers we are God's representatives to them.

This is what Jesus Christ looks like, this is who I am, should be coming forth through our lives to the unbelievers around us. But we also represent man to God as a priest, as a mediator. In other words, it's really mostly describing the office of intercession that, you know, you have loved ones who you are taking before the throne of God repeatedly, day after day after day.

Sometimes it feels like, man, is He even listening? There's nothing happening in their lives, but those prayers are piling up and God is going to do something at the right time. And of course, people still have that capacity to make their own decisions and choices, but God is going to do all that He can do as we represent those people before His throne.

Praise, Doxology, and the Coming of Christ

So those are three things that Jesus Christ has accomplished for us. And you know, it just, when John started thinking on those things, what happens? Just praise wells up from within. And once again, I've returned to the same pulpit commentator, and this is what he said about this.

The writer of the Revelation had hardly set himself down to his work before he felt that he must lift up his heart in joyful doxology. The very mention of the name of the Lord Jesus by whose spirit he was writing starts him off in this heart song of praise.

He could not go on until he had given utterance to the irrepressible love for his Lord with which his soul was filled to overflowing. And this is his way. How many are the outbreaks of praise which we find in this book?

It is a land full of fountains and springs and wells out of which flow this river which makes glad the city of God. And blessed are they whose hearts are thus attuned, ever ready to give forth praise, sweet, clear, strong, full, whenever the spirit of Christ's love touches them.

Like as in those great concerts where royalty is expected to be present, the whole vast orchestra stand ready the moment the royal personages enter to begin the national anthem, so should praise wait for God in all our hearts.

If you begin praising God, you are bound to go on like a river which at its outset is but a tiny rill, yet increases more and more as it flows along. And you'll see that will continue to keep coming up throughout this book that is describing what so many people only see as the wrath of God.

Revelation 1:7 and the Coming Judgment

All right, and then verse 7, behold, he just stops, you know, after he does that and he's thinking now, what's the great ultimate aim of this book? It's the parousia. Verse 7, behold, and anytime he uses that word, it means stop what you're doing, sit up and take notice of what I'm about to say to you.

It's a word that he uses 26 times in this book. You know, it just keeps coming to those kinds of powerful revelations and so on. And so all of a sudden he says, 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.

So it is to be a man. You know, you just feel a welling up inside of him. Okay, this statement that he makes here really is a combining, a merging of two Old Testament passages, one in the book of Daniel chapter 7, which much of this comes from, and I'll get to that more here a little bit later.

But there Daniel said, I kept looking in the night visions and behold, with the clouds of heaven, one like a son of man was coming. And he came up to the ancient of days and was presented before him. And then in Zechariah 12, 10, he's describing how the Lord is going to pour out his spirit upon the house of David.

And he said, they will look on me whom they have pierced and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only son. And they will weep bitterly over him like the bitter weeping over a firstborn. But what John is doing here in this passage is he's applying the Zechariah wording, not to the Jews, that's going to happen, that is going to happen for the Jews, but for them it's going to mean tremendous repentance and revival in the land of Israel.

That's what that's describing, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit primarily on the Jewish people, also on us. But this is being applied not to the Jews, not to the believers, but actually to the earth dwellers.

And it really is a direct reference for what will come later in chapter 18, when all the people of this earth are mourning. What are they mourning about? Because they're losing all their pleasures and entertainments and all the stuff that the world is giving their flesh.

They're losing it all. And not only that, they're going to have to face judgment for the way that they have lived their lives. That's what the mourning is describing here in this verse. All right, so now let's continue on.

John’s Vision of the Glorified Christ

I'm going to get into what I would call the second transfiguration. No one else called it that, you know, but I'm going to call it that. This great vision that John has of Jesus, let's skip over to verse 9, because he just basically starts by telling what happened.

You know, all this right here, these first eight verses is all introductory statements and so on, preparing the reader for the book. Now he starts to tell what happened, because he's about to express to everyone this first tremendous vision that he had.

So here's how it came about. Verse 9, I, John, your brother and fellow partaker in the tribulation and kingdom and perseverance which are in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos because of the word of God and, there's that word again, the testimony of Jesus.

I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day. I'll just mention that some people think that the Lord's day just simply refers to a Sunday, and some people believe that it's referring to, he was in the spirit of, you know, the second coming of Christ, the day of the Lord.

And you can choose for yourself what you believe, maybe it's both, I don't know, but I suppose either would be fine to accept. I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day and I heard behind me a loud voice, like the sound of a trumpet, saying, write in a book what you see and send it to the seven churches, to Ephesus and to Smyrna and to Pergamum and to Thyatira and to Sardis and to Philadelphia and to Laodicea.

Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking with me, now let me just stop there. That voice must have been familiar to him. You know, even though it's coming with such power, it's being described as a trumpet blast, and it'll be described here again as mighty waters, but even though it's coming with such reverberating power that must have shook him through the core of his being, yet there was something about that voice that was familiar to him.

You know, I talked to a friend I grew up with not long ago, and I got on the phone with him and instantly, I have not talked to this guy in I think 25 years, and yet instantly I recognized his voice, and he recognized my voice.

You know, and how much more so John, this beloved disciple of Jesus who rested his head on Jesus' chest, on his bosom in the Last Supper, and you know, just had such a great love for his Savior. How much more must that voice have just thrilled him when he heard it.

So he turns around to see the voice, you know, where that voice is coming from. And having turned, I saw seven golden lampstands. Now, it's interesting that he doesn't describe the voice first, but keep in mind, I think this is true, I believe that John had this whole revelation and then sat down and wrote it out later.

Why would I believe that? I mean, that's, how could he remember all the details, and you know, how would he? I'll tell you something about visions. This comes, at least a couple of people I know who have had them.

When you've had a vision from the Lord about something, it doesn't weaken with time. It actually grows stronger. The details get actually filled in more as time goes on. I can't explain that. It goes, it directly contradicts what our experience is, that the more time goes by, the more you lose the details, but with the vision that's been imprinted into your heart and mind, it's the opposite.

And so I tend to believe that he wrote all this stuff down later, that he experienced these visions. He went from one vision to the next, to the next, and maybe there was some time between them, I don't know, and maybe he wrote down at that point, I don't know.

But anyway, I think he wrote it down later, you know, and he's telling him to write it down, and that doesn't necessarily mean sit down, you know, and do it right this minute. How do you experience this and sit there with a pen in your hand and write, I don't know.

But anyway, so he's recounting what he saw, and the first thing he tells is, I saw these seven golden lampstands, and as we'll see, those represent the seven churches. So it's almost like, okay, here's what I saw, and he gets that out of the way, and then in the midst of those seven golden lampstands, in other words, he's talking to these seven churches out there, the first thing he sees is them, this lampstand representing each of those churches, and Jesus Christ there in the midst of them, you know, again, a word of comfort to these persecuted, struggling saints there.

So he gets that out of the way, whatever, but something much greater is there that immediately grabs his attention, and then from then on, that's all he can focus on, is this one who is greater than Jonah, greater than Solomon, greater than the temple, this great Savior Jesus Christ, and he starts focusing on these different metaphors or descriptions, whatever you want to call them, that portray different aspects of Christ.

And, you know, I'm going to kind of focus on five pictures of Jesus that come forth through this, but what I want to just encourage you is don't get fixated on the actual imagery, because when you see Jesus Christ one day in heaven, he's not going to look like what's being described here.

These are word pictures meant to express different facets of this great God, Jesus Christ, and that's all it's meant to be, so don't, you know, be like some of these artists who have clumsily tried to draw or, you know, paint pictures of Christ with a sword coming out of his mouth and all that.

That's not what it's meant to be. His first description of himself as son of man, that's what John sees. It says here, one like a son of man. Now, what does that mean? To me, it's like, there again, like the same thing with the voice, you know, it's got that tremendous power, and yet there's a familiarity about it, and what did Jesus constantly call himself?

The son of man. That's how John would have known him. And so, you know, he sees him, and it's like Jesus, but so much greater, overwhelming majesty that he's seeing, so it's like the son of man, but also not like him, you know, much greater than he had experienced on earth.

This term son of man is, Jesus got it really from Ezekiel, where it's used throughout the book of Ezekiel, but also Daniel uses it to describe Jesus there in Daniel chapter 7. He calls him the son of man there and elsewhere.

So you know, this is a description where Jesus is, first of all, identifying with humanity, that side to him where he is a man, and yet also, as you see in Daniel 7, he is the son of man who is presented in all his purity and glory to the ancient of days, you know, and the terms are used back and forth to describe both.

In other words, him being described as the son of man is showing him as the God man. The son of man, the human side, but also the son of God, and we'll get to that here in a second as well. The second thing you see in this description through the robe and the golden sash is that he's being presented as the high priest.

He is our high priest that you read about in the book of Hebrews and so on. Different people, different commentators believe that the robe and the sash, you know, some people believe one thing, some another, but I just personally, I think it's the emblems of his priesthood.

And number three, the son of God, the head and the hair that are white like wool and snow. In other words, he's trying to use terminology in ancient days to describe a dazzling brightness and whiteness that he has no other ways to describe.

I mean, you and I would probably use some kind of technological term or something to try to express what he was seeing there on the head and coming forth from the head of Jesus Christ that day. But really what it is describing more than his purity and his holiness is his deity.

Because that is the same terminology used in Daniel 7 to describe the ancient of days. He is equating the son of man with God himself. And as the Pope at commentary said, the only morally spotless man the human race has ever known.

Yes, amen. And number four, the fourth representation you can see in this description is him coming forth as the judge of the earth. And you see that over and over throughout the New Testament. John 5, I think it is.

First Thessalonians 1, I believe Romans 2. You see it over and over again that Jesus Christ is coming back to judge the earth. He will be the great judge. And you see, especially the eyes of flame of fire.

Look at what some of these different commentators said about that. Pulpit commentator number five, I'm calling him, his eyes pierced into the deepest depths of human thought. Another pulpit commentator said, his eyes piercing men through and through burning up all hypocritical pretense.

Still another pulpit commentary, the eyes like fire flame of searching intelligence and a fierce wrath. The expositors Bible, those eyes penetrating like a flame of fire into the inmost recesses of the heart.

And finally, Osborne says, this picture's divine insight that penetrates to the core of the human situation. You know, in other words, he is coming as judge and there will be no escaping him. No escaping that gaze.

And the feet like burnished bronze really is more of a picture of that same thing. It's him coming in power with a purpose in mind. You know, the term walk throughout scripture is a metaphor to describe our journey in life and the way that we live it, the way we conduct ourselves, a lifestyle.

That's what the word walk refers to. So his feet are, you know, what's taking him on his mission, brought him forth to this earth on his first advent and will bring him back in his second advent with white hot judgment.

And you can see some of the quotes there as well about that. And along with that, his voice was like the sound of many waters. And I think that this is a reference to the seashore there at Patmos, you know, the waves of the Aegean Sea breaking there on the rocky cliffs of Patmos.

Surely John witnessed that often, I would assume. And we see the same terminology used in the book of Ezekiel to describe the voice of the Almighty. You know, so this is the voice of Almighty God himself coming forth through the Son of Man being pictured here.

Psalm 29 has some tremendous things to say about the voice of the Lord. I'm going to read through a few of these verses real quick. The voice of the Lord is upon the waters. The God of glory thunders.

The Lord is over many waters. The voice of the Lord is powerful. The voice of the Lord is majestic. The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars. Yes, the Lord breaks in pieces the cedars of Lebanon. The voice of the Lord hues out flames of fire.

The voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness. And in His temple, everything says glory. That's the voice of the Lord. And that voice will be heard on Judgment Day. All right. The next, there's a couple more things he mentions here.

Christ the Conquering King and Judge

That he has a sharp two-edged sword coming forth from his mouth. And that will describe partially, yes, judgment, but more than that, him coming forth as the conquering king, which we will see in Revelation 19 when we get there.

That that is what's going to come forth. Well, what does that mean? You know, sword of his mouth. In 2 Thessalonians 2, Paul said that Christ would destroy the Antichrist merely by the breath of his mouth.

Think of Antichrist with all his millions of soldiers and armies and planes and tanks and atomic warfare, all that the Antichrist has behind him. And the Lord is going to come. Jesus Christ is going to come on that dazzling white horse.

There you see it in Revelation 19. And he is simply going to speak a word and it is done. And we'll see that later. You know, the word of the Lord in all its power and might. All right. And there's other things expressed.

His face shining like the sun, you know, which really is a reference to what John experienced at the transfiguration that Matthew described, Matthew 17 too. And he was transfigured before them and his face shone like the sun and his garments became as white as light.

And some things that Paul expressed are there listed as well. How did John react to this? Look at verse 17, when I saw him, you know, you didn't get the sense that he just kind of sat there and contemplated this whole thing and thought, well, look at that.

Oh, yeah. Now that's interesting. Oh, look at his feet shining, you know. No, when he saw him, that's why I'm saying, I think he wrote it down later. But when he saw him, he dropped like a dead man instantly, I would imagine, just instantly fainted dead at his feet.

He was completely overwhelmed. And as Pope commentator said, the vision was more than he could bear. It was just absolutely overwhelming. So you know, Jesus is typical as him. He places his right hand on him, you know, to comfort him, to reassure him, just in sympathy.

But then he says something, do not be afraid. Now, I know that most people would say, most pastors especially would say, you know, those were really comforting words, you know, don't be afraid. But I have a different take on it, which is typical of me.

I think it was more like that same voice of mighty waters. And sometimes fearful people don't need a comforting pat on the head. Sometimes they need a sharp rebuke with authority. Do not be afraid. Why?

I am the first and the last and the living one. I was dead and behold, I am alive forevermore. And I have the keys of death and of Hades. You know, we need to hear that and we need it to shoot through our very being.

Do not be afraid. Don't go into the days ahead, into the future with all its uncertainties and the persecution and all that stuff. Don't go into that full of fear and anxiety and concern because I am over all of it.

I am sovereign over all of it. I am before time, I am after time and everything in between. Do not be afraid. Well, why did John respond that way though? You know, why did he respond that way? Was it just overwhelming?

I mean, like an angel would come in your presence. If an angel suddenly appeared here, a nine foot angel or something, would we all just drop to our faces out of just sheer terror? Was it that? Or was it the majesty of Christ?

You know, probably yes to both of those things. But I think there was something even greater. And it refers back to similar experiences in biblical times. Isaiah, when he got that vision of, I believe, Jesus Christ on his throne, also had a similar experience and he said, woe is me for I am undone.

And when Job had a sight of the Lord, he said, I abhor myself in dust and ashes. And Peter, way back 60 some years before this, just got a mental picture of who he was dealing with on the boat that day.

And he said, depart from me for I am a sinful man, oh Lord. In other words, when we get a sight of the sinless perfection of Jesus Christ, a moral sight of it, not just, you know, oh yeah, he's bright white.

That's not what I'm saying. I'm talking about his perfection, his complete, utter lack of one shred of selfishness or pride or sinfulness or ugliness or anything. The stuff that our beings are just filled with.