The Revelation of Jesus Christ

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The Revelation of Jesus Christ (Rev 1:1-3)  

This Book of the Bible is entitled, “The Revelation of Jesus Christ” (Rev 1:1a). It was given by God, Himself, to Jesus Christ (see capital “H” on “Him,”) to show or present to His bond servants (the saved of Jesus Christ) the things which must soon take place (Rev 1:1:1b,). In other words, these words come directly from God’s Word. The title of the Book is God-inspired, through John to us, the believers in Jesus Christ – the saints of God. The things which are in this Book are those things which God says will happen soon. How much closer this timing must be than when John first wrote it. The third phrase of verse 1 says that God “sent and communicated it by His angel (messenger) to His bond-servant, John” (vs, 1:1c). The “send” verse says more about why God gave this revelation to John. It says that God gave it to John because he testified or communicated “the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw” (vs. 2). 

So, we know that this Book is the Revelation of Jesus Christ, and it was brought by an angel to John because he would take it to everyone he saw. Many have called this Book by several names and many of those are equally true. For example, some have called this Book “The Apocalypse.” The Greek word used here for “Revelation” is, in fact, ἀποκάλυψι or apokálypsis, which is exactly the word from which we get our word “apocalypse.” Using that name also helps define the Book well. It means, “disclosure:—appearing, coming, lighten, manifestation, be revealed, revelation.” But it also reveals the type of literature we are about to study. Apocalyptic literature is a separate type of literature characterized as containing language as symbols and figures to better illustrate important views or themes. It will apply numerology to express ideas of secular or religious wholeness or partial wholeness, and secular or religious organizations or people. For example, The Trinity represents the Holy or unholy trinity of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost or Satan, the antichrist and the false, respectively. Seven is a perfect and holy number while six is incomplete and unholy.  For example, the number of the Beast is three times unholy or 666 (Rev 13:18). Twelve is organizational completeness, like the 12 gates, 12 apostles, 12 tribes, etc. 

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This first point closes with the promise from God that the one who reads this Book, hears the words of the prophecy and heeds (or applies) the things written in it is blessed because the time is near. So, we are to receive the blessings of this Book because we read it thoroughly, heard it with the mind’s intellectual ear – not just the physical ear, and heeded or understood and applied the things we read, heard and applied. Lastly, verse 3 tells us we will be blessed because the timing of its message is near. Therefore, if we know the time is near, we can use the warning signs to know the truth of this Book and its prophecies will begin when the signs are presented. For example, Chapter 13 describes an Antichrist who will erect a statue of himself on Jerusalem’s Temple Dome and demand that all people of all religions worship him through that statue, i.e., a one-world religion. We saw moves of this truth, to unite Christians, Jews and Muslims in the Middle East, as recently as last week (third week of December 2025). This is what it means to “read, hear and heed the words of this Book.” God promises blessings to us  as we do.

Message to the Seven Churches (Rev 1:4-8)  

 Hear John tells us to whom the Book was addressed first; they are the seven churches that are in Asia. He wishes God’s grace and peace to them from Him (the Christ) who is and who was and who is to come and from the seven Spirits who are before His throne (vs. 4). John continues the list of from whom this Book is sent by adding “and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth” (vs. 5a). Verse 5b adds the “To” list beginning with “Him who loves us and released us from our sins by His blood” (This is certainly referring to Jesus Christ). Adding to the description of Christ in a somewhat parenthetically, John says, “and He has made us to be a kingdom, priests to His God and Father – to Him be the glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. So, the brief section addressing this letter would be, “From: The Apostle John, To: The Seven Churches.”  

And the first line of the message to the seven churches would be, “Behold, Jesus Christ is coming to you in the clouds!” What a fantastic start of the multitude of Good News that comes from God through Jesus Christ, Our Lord. This great message is backed up scripturally through the words of the angels gathered at the Ascension of Jesus in Acts 1:9-11. The “two men dressed in white apparel” in those verses have been unanimously accepted as angels of God, and here they have a message that everyone wants to hear, that is, “Jesus is coming back, He’s coming back on a cloud, He’s coming back so that every eye can see Him, including those who crucified Him and all the tribes of the earth can mourn over  Him. So, it is to be, Amen” (vs. 7). Then, Jesus finishes the sighting by saying, “I am the Alpha and Omega who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty!”

This idea of Jesus returning for His saints is one of the most important in the Christian canon of Scripture. This issue separated the seventy-one members of the Jewish Sanhedrin in Jesus’ time because the Pharisees believed in resurrection and the Sadducees did not (that is why they were sad, you see!). So first, they could not accept that Jesus was resurrected from the dead, and furthermore, since He could not have been resurrected, He certainly could not be coming back for anyone. Concurrently, one of the issues that divides Christians is the sequence of events of the end times of which Jesus’ return is certainly a big part. As we will study later, there are actually two times that Jesus will return. The first is called “The Rapture of the Saints” and the second is called “The Second Coming of Christ” (Rev 4:1 & 19:11).  Paul covers the separation of these very well in 1 Corinthians 15:22-24. Paul says simply, “22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. 23 But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ's at his coming. 24 Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power.” So, we all agree that Christ was the first resurrected person who remains alive forever. He was, therefore, the first fruit of the Resurrection. Then Paul says in the same verse, “afterward they that are Christ's at his coming.” That is the Rapture of the Saints and it is addressed again later in 1 Corinthians 15:51-57, in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 and Revelation 4:1. Jesus comes back on a cloud with the souls of those who had already died but does not come to the earth, but rather, calls for His saints and the bodies of those who are dead are raised and join their souls on the cloud to be completed. Next, He calls for the living saints and they are raised to join Him on the cloud, but their bodies are changed (glorified) on the way to the cloud. With that, all the believers are taken to Heaven with Christ. Non-believers are left behind, and they must go through the Tribulation Period of seven years on earth (Rev 4-19. The Second Coming is in Revelation 19. That time Jesus does come to earth and defeats all evil including chaining Satan and sending the Antichrist and the False Prophet into the eternal Lake of fire (Rev 19:20). That’s the order of the two more times Jesus comes for His people. 

The Patmos Vision (Rev 1:9-13) 

 The Apostle John identifies himself as a person just like all others. He reminds the readers that he is their brother and fellow partaker in the tribulation, kingdom and perseverance which are in Jesus Christ. He adds that he is now on the prison island of Patmos in the Aegean Sea because he preached the word of God and provided frequent testimony regarding the life and works of Jesus Christ. Nero likely sent him to Patmos around 65 AD, and he was released when Domitian died around 95 AD. Patmos was a small island where Rome banished its political enemies to a life of hard labor. When John was released, he went to Ephesus where he published the notes he had from Patmos. He authored the fourth Gospel, 3 New Testament letters and the Revelation of Jesus Christ. Revelation 1:10 says that John was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day when he heard the voice of one sounding like the voice of a trumpet from behind him.  Now, “the voice that sounds like a trumpet” is one of the first figures we see. A voice that sounds like a trumpet is a loud voice that almost demands the hearer to listen. It is penetrating and authoritative. The trumpet is the instrument used to announce the great leaders. Allow these descriptions to generate a vision in your mind that will repeat whenever you read of another trumpet later in the Revelation.

In verse 11, John describes what the voice of the trumpet was saying to him. The voice told him, “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.” These were the seven churches in Asia that the voice of the trumpet told John to use in his book documenting what he received from the Lord. Looking at the names of the seven churches, there are at least two interesting truths. First, the order of the churches is clockwise beginning with Ephesus and finishing with Laodicea, no the order in which they were founded. Second, there are about twice as many cities in the area of these churches than those selected by God for John’s book. 

So, John turned around to see the source of the voice he was hearing. Verse 12 finishes saying that John saw seven golden lampstands. The example of lampstands to represent each of the churches is fitting in that the lampstands provide physical light for those all around, just as the churches provide spiritual light. In the middle of these seven, light-producing lampstands, John sees “one like the Son of Man.” The man was dressed in a white robe reaching all the way to his feet. The vision also had John seeing a golden sash across the man’s chest. The white robe signifies the holiness or sinlessness of the wearer. The Son of Man is the name used often by Jesus when He is describing Himself. The golden sash represented His value, purity and righteousness.

The Patmos Vision, Cont. (Rev 1:14-20)  

The hair on the head of the Son of Man was like white wool (vs. 14). The white showing the wisdom of the ages lived and the consistency of wool showing the thickness and completeness. Together they signify the wisdom of age with the virility remaining despite the years. Add to those the flame of full focus and force in His eyes. His feet were like burnished bronze, when it had been made to glow in the heat of the furnace. To see Jesus of Nazareth was to see a person with whom there was nothing strange or unusual (Isa 53:2). He looked like a person who was born and lived in the middle east; not the western European Jesus as depicted in earlier movies of Him. His voice was like the sound of many waters; attractive but powerful. He held seven stars in His right hand – the hand of honor and security for the pastors of each of His churches. From His mouth was a sword with two edges (vs. 16). His face looked like the sun shining in its full strength.

As soon as John saw Him, he fell down at His feet like a dead man. But the Son of Man in all His strength and power reached out with His right hand saying, “Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last, and the living One; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and Hades. Because of these representations He established, he said “Write the things which you have seen, and the things which are, and the things which will take place after these things.” This establishes John’s tasking by the Son of Man: he is to write down what the Lord will reveal about the things which were, the things which are and the things which are to come shortly. This is the whole message of the Book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ. 

But the Lord, the Son of Man, wants to reveal or solve a few mysteries before His time in this conversation ends. He says, “As for the mystery of the seven stars which you saw in My right hand, and the seven golden lampstands: the seven stars are the angels (or messengers – pastors) of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches.” So, what the Son of Man has revealed is that the seven lampstands are the seven churches of Asia and the seven stars are the seven pastors of those churches. The fact that the Son of Man is situated in the midst or the middle of the seven lampstands means that Jesus is standing prominently in the middle of His churches and associated Pastors. He lives and breaths whatever happens to the seven churches. He is with them always.  Jesus promised every believer “I am with you always, even until the end of the age” (Matt 28:20). The age the Son of Man is referring to is the Church Age, that is, the time between the giving of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost and His Rapture of the Saints.