Revelation 1 — The First and the Last

The revelation of Jesus Christ (1:1–3)

"The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants." The book opens by naming its whole nature — an unveiling — and pronouncing the first of its seven beatitudes: "Blessed is the one who reads aloud… and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written." Revelation is not for private code-breaking but for public reading in worship, and its aim is not information but obedience and hope.^* "For the time is near."

That title deserves a pause, because the church has not always known what to do with this book. Luther, in his 1522 preface, confessed bluntly: "My spirit cannot accommodate itself to this book… Christ is neither taught nor known in it."^* He thought better of it later and replaced that preface in 1530. But his complaint is answered by the book's own first five words. Whatever else these visions do, they unveil Jesus Christ; every strange image that follows is meant to show us him. Read Revelation as a puzzle about the future and it will bewilder us. Read it as an unveiling of Christ and it will steady us.

It helps to know how these images mean what they mean. Apocalyptic pictures are not a cipher to be cracked one symbol at a time, as though the book were a locked message with a key hidden elsewhere. They are pictures meant to be seen — to work on the imagination the way a hymn does, until the church that sings them sees the world differently. Rome looked invincible from the floor of an Asian workshop. Revelation drags the seer up to the throne room and lets him see who is actually on the throne, and then sends him back down to a church that must live on Rome's street. The images are not information about the future so much as vision for the present.

Grace from the throne (1:4–8)

John greets the churches with grace and peace "from him who is and who was and who is to come" — a name that stretches the "I AM" of Exodus across all time — and "from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth." Then, unable to keep to a greeting, John bursts into praise: "To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father — to him be glory forever." Notice the tenses: he loves us (present), he freed us (accomplished), he made us a kingdom (already). Before a single judgment falls, the church's status is settled by the blood of the Lamb.

And notice what the book does quietly and daringly. "I am the Alpha and the Omega," says the Lord God (1:8) — and by the last chapter the same title is on the lips of Jesus (22:13). Revelation never stops to argue for the deity of Christ. It does something bolder: it worships him, handing him the names, the throne, and the glory that belong to God alone.^* And the theme is struck: "Behold, he is coming with the clouds" — Daniel's Son of Man — "and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him."

A brother in exile (1:9–11)

"I, John, your brother and partner in the tribulation and the kingdom and the patient endurance that are in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos." Three words bound together — tribulation, kingdom, endurance — the whole Christian present in miniature: we reign, but by enduring; the crown comes by way of the cross. John does not write down to these churches from a height; he writes across to them as a fellow sufferer. On the Lord's day, "in the Spirit," he hears a voice like a trumpet and turns to look.

One like a son of man (1:12–16)

What he sees is the risen Christ, and John reaches for every image Daniel and Ezekiel gave him: "one like a son of man," robed and golden-sashed, his hair white as snow (the Ancient of Days' own glory now worn by Jesus^*), eyes like fire, feet like burnished bronze, voice like many waters, face like the sun in full strength. In his right hand are seven stars; from his mouth comes a sharp two-edged sword; and he is walking "among the lampstands" — among his churches. This is the gentle Galilean of the Gospels, and he is on fire. The One who let the children climb on his knee is the Lord before whom the seer collapses.

And each detail preaches. The eyes of fire mean nothing is hidden from him — he will shortly tell seven churches exactly what he sees. The sword is not in his hand but in his mouth: he conquers by his word, not by the empire's weapons, and the church's only sword is the same. The feet of burnished bronze are feet that can stand in judgment and not be consumed. The seven stars are held — not admired from a distance, but held, in his right hand. And he stands among the lampstands, which is to say: whatever else is true of these small, harassed congregations, Christ is not far off, watching from heaven. He is in the room.

Do not be afraid (1:17–20)

"When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead." And then the hand that made the stars reaches down: "But he laid his right hand on me, saying, 'Fear not.'" Here is the gospel in a gesture — the blazing Lord touching the terrified man and telling him not to be afraid. And why? "I am the first and the last, and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades."

Athanasius, writing of what the resurrection had done to death, reached for a picture out of a conquered city: "Death has become like a tyrant who has been completely conquered by the legitimate monarch; bound hand and foot the passers-by sneer at him, hitting him and abusing him, no longer afraid of his cruelty and rage, because of the king who has conquered him."^* That is exactly the Christ of Patmos. Death here is not negotiated with, or explained, or made peace with. It is dethroned — and its keys hang on the belt of the One who walked out of his own tomb. He walks among his lampstands, present and aware and in charge, and that is why a trembling church can stand.

Everything in Revelation flows from this opening vision. The book will show terrors enough — beasts, plagues, a great harlot city — but it opens by fixing the church's eyes on the One who holds the keys of death, so that nothing afterward can finally frighten us. The same Jesus who "loves us and freed us by his blood" is the blazing Lord of history, walking among his people. Luther feared Christ was not to be found here; in truth he is on every page, and the first word he speaks to a fallen and frightened saint is the word he still speaks to us: Fear not. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore.

That is why the church may read the rest of this book with its head up. Whatever beasts rise from the sea, the One who holds the keys of death is walking among the lampstands, and he has already been through the worst the beast can do.

:::pastor An illustration. We are tempted to keep the "gentle Jesus" of the Gospels and quietly retire the fierce Christ of Patmos, as if they were two different people. Revelation will not let us. The One with eyes like fire and a face like the sun is the very One who wept at a grave and washed his friends' feet. Meekness and majesty are the same person — and it is a great comfort, in a frightening world, that the friend who loves us is also the Lord who holds the keys of death.

From history. Patmos was a small, rocky island in the Aegean used by Rome as a place of banishment; John says he was there "on account of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus." From a penal island at the empire's edge, a prisoner saw the true throne of the universe — a reminder that Rome's power to exile a man could not reach the Kingdom he served. source

Worth quoting. "He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end." — The Nicene Creed :::