Prologues

I. This morning we begin our 2023 series on the book of Revelation. The book of Revelation is, of course, very different from the rest of the New Testament. Only two parts of it seem normal compared to the rest of the NT: the prologues we read today and the letters to the seven churches in chapters 2-3.
A. Rev.1:1-8 The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, 2 who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw. 3 Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near. 4 John to the seven churches that are in Asia: Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, 5 and from Jesus Christ the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth. To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood 6 and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. 7 Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. Even so. Amen. 8 “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”
B. These eight verses divide into five chunks, and this morning we will walk through these five chunks and include application as we go.
II. Rev.1:1-2 “The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, 2 who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw.” Here is the beginning of the prologue to the whole book. And it tells us four things:
A. It tells us what’s in this book: revelation = revealing what has been hidden (about future things).
B. It also tells us who it’s written for: “to show His servants the things which must soon take place.”
C. Then it tells us when these things are going to take place: “the things that must SOON take place.”
1. Here we are in the first verse and we are already facing controversy.
2. There are different opinions as to how the book of Revelation should be interpreted.
a. There are some who think the book of Revelation tells us about things which will happen just before Christ’s return. These we call futurists, because they think the book is about the future.
(1) Now, almost 2000 years after Revelation was written, verses about it happening soon seem to fly in the face of the idea that this book is written about the distant future. In response 2Peter 3:8 is cited, “With the Lord, a day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years is as a day.”
b. Others use these ‘happening soon’ verses to argue that Revelation was a prophecy of what was to happen in the immediate future, in the first century, and specifically in 70AD, when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem, massacring the Jews. This view is called preterism, which means ‘past.’ Preterists claim that the book was written in the 60s AD, and say these verses about it happening soon prove their point that the prophecies were fulfilled in 70AD. The problem is that most of the evidence points to the book of Revelation having been written in the 90s AD.
3. The classical view of Revelation, which takes the book as referring to the period of time between the last apostle and the second coming of Christ, leading up to and including His return, thinks the things in Revelation began to be fulfilled very soon (as John, the last apostle, was about to die).
III. The last part of the prologue is Rev.1:3, “Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near.”
A. This pronounces a blessing on those who read this book, and explains why we’re doing this series.
B. And it helps us set our expectations as we embark on this journey through this book.
1. We should expect to be blessed. That’s what God says here!
2. There is a lot of cynicism among some Christians about this book. Mostly, I think, it is a result of the way some have been preoccupied and/or misguided re: this book for the last century or two.
3. The result is that many Christians have no patience with studying the book of Revelation.
4. But this verse tells us that this book is important, and there’s blessing in it for us.
C. As I was thinking about this, one of my favorite songs, Worn by Tenth Avenue North, was playing:
1. “I’m tired, I’m worn. My heart is heavy From the work it takes To keep on breathing
2. I’ve made mistakes. I’ve let my hope fail. My soul feels crushed By the weight of this world
3. And I know that You can give me rest. So I cry out with all that I have left: ‘Let me see redemption win! Let me know the struggle ends! That You can mend a heart that’s frail and torn!
4. I wanna know a song can rise From the ashes of a broken life, And all that’s dead inside can be reborn. I’ve lost my will to fight, So Heaven come and flood my eyes.’ ”
D. And, I thought, that’s exactly what the book of Revelation is! It is heaven flooding our eyes with visions of redemption winning, with the struggle ending, with the rebirth of a dead world and a dead humanity!
E. And notice that v.3 says, “Blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written in it.”
1. Revelation is not a puzzle to figure out. Ultimately, it’s something to listen to, and to keep. That is, it is something to do, something to obey, something to live out.
2. It says the same thing at the end of the book. Jesus says, “I am coming soon. Blessed is the one who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book.” (22:7)
F. The prologue in 1-3 tells us the chain of transmission: from the Father to Christ to the angel to John to the readers. This sounds like a game of telephone, where a message gets passed down the line.
1. Most of the time in a game of telephone, the message gets distorted. What about God’s word?
2. Many presume that since humans are involved in the transmission, the result is necessarily tainted. The thinking goes like this: People are flawed, therefore, everything people do is flawed.
a. Well, one thing that’s flawed is this line of thinking. Does the fact that sinful humans are included in the line of passage really imply that God’s word is inevitably distorted and can’t be trusted?
b. Is God’s power not strong enough to compensate for human weakness?
c. The all-powerful and infallible God is perfectly able to guarantee faithful transmission even when He’s dealing with imperfect human beings. This is what the Bible says here (also, 2Tim.3:16).
IV. Rev.1:4-6 John to the seven churches that are in Asia: Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, 5 and from Jesus Christ the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth. To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood 6 and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.
A. Here is ANOTHER prologue. This seems to me to be not a second prologue to the whole book, but a prologue to the first section of the book, namely the letters to the seven churches.
B. The mention of the seven churches and seven spirits represents the first use of this book’s favorite number.
1. Numbers bear very important symbolic meaning in the book of Revelation, as we will see.
2. Now there were more than seven churches in Asia. But this refers to seven churches for a reason. From the first chapter of the Bible on, the number seven represents fullness and completeness.
3. So, the seven churches of Asia seem to represent the church as a whole, ALL the churches.
C. The number three is also significant in the book of Revelation, representing the triune God:
1. 4 from him who is and who was and who is to come, and
2. from the seven spirits who are before his throne (which refers to the HS; see more in the Addendum below)
3. 5 & from Jesus Christ the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, & the ruler of kings on earth
D. V.4-6 contain two things which together form a beautiful summary of the gospel:
1. A benediction: “Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, 5 and from Jesus Christ the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth.”
a. “the faithful witness” – God sent Jesus to be His spokesman. You could even say that God spoke Jesus, for Jesus is called the word of God (Jn.1:1-3).
b. “the firstborn of the dead” – Mankind died in Adam’s sin, but will be reborn from the dead when Christ returns. When He was raised from the dead, He became the firstborn of the dead.
c. “the ruler of kings on earth” – One of the great prophetic themes in the OT was that the coming messiah would rule over the kings of earth. Remember Psalm 2:8-11 “I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.” The sovereignty of Jesus is one of the central themes.
2. Following the benediction is a doxology, “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 and dominion forever and ever. Amen.”
a. “To Him who loves us” – Some days I just need to hear that Jesus loves me. Well, here it is: “To Him who loves us.” Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so!
b. “and has freed us from our sins by his blood” – Ever since the earliest days of man, people have offered sacrifices in an attempt to escape from the guilt of their sin. The idea was that the animal was killed in the place of the sinner, so the animal’s blood was a symbol of forgiveness. On the cross Jesus fulfilled this practice. He is the lamb of God whose blood frees us from our sins.
c. 6 “and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father”
(1) We were nothing without Him, useless and purposeless.
(2) But Jesus made us kings and priests, like Himself.
(3) I know this isn’t what we think of when we hear that Jesus made us a kingdom, but there is very good reason here to think that He’s talking here about making us kings as well as priests.
d. “to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.”
(1) The good news of the grace of Christ sparks worship.
(2) “To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood 6 and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.”
V. And then in Rev.1:7, there is a shift from what Jesus HAS DONE to what Jesus WILL DO. “Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. Even so. Amen.”
A. Jesus is coming back. It will be a cosmic event. Every eye will see Him! Every person on earth will be shaken by His appearing.
B. But there’s another very interesting part of this: “even those who pierced him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him.”
C. The pierced One is clearly Christ: “He is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him.”
D. So, what is this wailing at Christ’s coming which emanates from all the tribes of the earth and those who pierced Him? When you make noises like this, it’s usually either terror or grief.
1. Could it be a wailing of terror in the face of His judgment? We find this in Rev.6:15-17, and also in Is.13:6-9: “Wail, for the day of the LORD is near; destruction from the Almighty will come! 7 All hands will be feeble, every human heart will melt. 8 They will be dismayed: pangs and agony will seize them; they will be in anguish like a woman in labor. They will look aghast at one another; their faces will be aflame. 9 Behold, the day of the LORD comes, cruel, with wrath and fierce anger, to make the land a desolation and to destroy its sinners from it.”
2. But this doesn’t seem to be what’s going on in Rev.1:7. The wailing here seems not to be a cry of terror but a cry of loving grief over the suffering they have brought upon this One they have pierced. The grieving is not over what is about to happen to ME, but about what I did to HIM.
3. Why do we think this? Because the language here seems to be derived from two passages of Scripture: Matt.24:29-30 & Zech.12:10.
a. In Matthew 24:29-30 Jesus says, “The sun will be darkened, the moon will not give its light, the stars will fall from heaven... 30 Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man, and all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.”
(1) Here is the language of the Lord coming on the clouds of heaven, as well as the tribes of the earth mourning over His appearing, both of which are in Rev.1:7.
(2) That’s everything except the reference to the mourning over the One they have pierced.
b. That part seems to come from Zech.12:10, where God says, “They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son.”
(1) Here we have the language of the Lord whom they have pierced being mourned over – but the mourning is not terror but grieving love: “as one mourns for an only child...as one grieves for a firstborn son.”
E. So, what are we to make of this wailing over Jesus when He appears?
1. Well, the fact is, our sins killed Him. Our sins are the reason He was nailed to a cross.
2. Every wound, every tearing of His flesh, every mock, every spit in His face, every sneer, every blow, was payment and punishment for your sins and mine.
3. Those who actually killed Jesus were not just acting on their own behalf, they were acting on OUR behalf. If we had been in their place, we would have killed Him too.
4. Our lies, our lusts, our complaints, our ingratitude, our anger, our self-righteousness, our unbelief, our self-sufficiency. For these things Jesus suffered unspeakable agony.
5. Even now we grieve over this: “Behold the man upon the cross, my guilt upon His shoulders, ashamed, I hear my mocking voice call out among the scoffers. It was my sin that held him there until it was accomplished. His dying breath has brought me life; I know that it is finished.” (How Deep the Father's Love for Us) How can we not grieve over what we have done to Him?
6. Our mourning over Him is the same thing as our mourning over our sin: James 4:9 tells us to “Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom.”
7. If our sins sending Christ to the cross isn't an occasion for mourning, what else ever could be?
8. It is actually a beautiful thing to come to the point of recognizing what your sin did to Him – that point of saying, “What have I done?”
9. It’s very easy for us to not be very impressed by our sin. “O sure, I blow it every now and then, but I'm no worse than everyone else.”
a. What happened to Him shows us what each of our sins deserves.
b. “If you think of sin but lightly, nor suppose the evil great, here you see its nature rightly, here its guilt may estimate. Mark the sacrifice appointed, see who bears the awful load; 'tis the Word, the Lord's anointed, Son of Man and Son of God.” (Stricken, Smitten & Afflicted by Thomas Kelly)
10. And on the last day, when we are given complete knowledge and remembrance of all of our sins, when even what has been whispered in secret is proclaimed from the housetops, as Jesus said in Luke 12:3, only then will we grasp the depths of what Jesus paid for on the cross. And is it surprising that when we finally are given the ability to grasp what really happened on the cross, we will shriek in horror?
11. This is what the old spiritual is about: ‘My Lord, What a Mournin’! When the stars begin to fall.’ – even though many get it wrong and spell it MORN instead of MOURN.) See Matt.24:29-30.
12. “But I thought the return of Christ was going to be a happy day! Why does God expose the ugly depths of our sin? Doesn’t that ruin the party?”
13. Well, remember, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” (Matt.5:4)
14. Forgiveness comes to the one who grieves over his own sin.
a. Mercy comes to the one who cries out, "What a wretched person I am!"
15. The reason God exposes all our sin on the last day is to glorify the cross and the One who died there. The bigger our sin looks, the bigger the cross looks.
16. And in response to our grief will come a declaration of the forgiving grace of Christ accomplished on the cross. And it will more than calm our grief!
17. There are churches who try to make their services happy by avoiding any talk about sin/the cross.
18. But real joy comes from recognizing our sin AND recognizing His amazing grace which covers it.
19. Even now, in our weeping and mourning, there is also rejoicing. For though we grieve that He had to die, we rejoice that His love was so great that He was willing to die, and that in dying He has removed our sin as far as the east is from the west.
20. “There is a fountain filled with blood, drawn from Emmanuel's veins, and sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.” (William Cowper)
VI. Rev.1:8 “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”
A. Our passage concludes with the coming Lord inserting a personal pronouncement of Himself.
B. “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” He says, referring to the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet. In other words, I am the beginning, and I am also the end.”
C. This is fitting in the last book of the Bible. In the first book of the Bible the Lord says He’s the Alpha, the beginning of all things. And now in the last book He says He is the Alpha & the Omega. "I got this started, I know how to finish it." 
D. Then He goes on to say, “I am the Alpha & the Omega, who is and who was and who is to come,” reaffirming what John said in v.4, asserting that He is the One who always is: present, past, future. 
E. Ultimately, this book isn’t about the future or about the evil world or about the past. It’s about Him.
F. Many disturbing and horrific things are talked about in this dramatic book, we’re introduced to many monsters who perpetrate ghastly calamities on the earth and its people and God’s people.
G. But over it all stands the sovereign God, with all power in His hands, who knows the end from the beginning, who not only overcomes the powers of darkness, but even uses them as His tools to bring all things to a glorious conclusion where He is worshiped and honored and adored.

Addendum: Seven Spirits in Revelation 1:4

Revelation 1:4, 4:5 and 5:6 all mention “the seven spirits.” The phrase sounds strange to our ears, and the Bible doesn’t seem to make it completely clear. However, I think there are good reasons to believe that it is probably meant to refer to the Holy Spirit:

A. Revelation 1:4 and 4:5 both refer to the seven spirits as “before the throne” (of God).

B. In the New Testament, there are a number of places where the three persons of the Trinity are listed together (e.g. Matthew 28:19; 2Corinthians 13:14; & 1Peter 1:1-2). In Revelation 1:4-5, we may well have another, using this phrase “the seven spirits” as the reference to the Holy Spirit: “Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth.” The first one mentioned is the heavenly Father (“him who is and who was and who is to come”), the third one mentioned is God the Son (“Jesus Christ the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth”). That leaves the second one mentioned (“the seven spirits”) in the place of the Holy Spirit.

C. In Revelation 4:5 we read this: “From the throne came flashes of lightning, and rumblings and peals of thunder, and before the throne were burning seven torches of fire, which are the seven spirits of God.” Here “the seven spirits” is equated with “seven torches of fire burning before the throne” of God. The word here translated “torches” is the Greek word LAMPAS, from which we get the English word, ‘lamp.’ This may be a reference to the seven lampstands in chapter one, which symbolize the seven churches. Either way, the fire burning on the lamps seems to be a reference to the Holy Spirit, as it was at Pentecost, when the Spirit came in the form of fire (acts 2:3). The Spirit is what empowers the church to be a burning lamp of witness in the dark world.

D. Revelation 5:6 uses the expression again: “Between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, with seven horns — and with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth.” The seven spirits were “sent out into all the earth” just like the Holy Spirit. The seven spirits are also said to be the seven eyes of the Lamb. When we are told in 2Chronicles 16:9 that “the eyes if the Lord move to and from throughout the earth,” this means not only that He sees everything but that He is watching out to make sure everything happens according to His sovereign purpose. This seems consistent with the special role of the Holy Spirit, who is the person of the Trinity said to dwell with His people here on earth.

E. So, if “seven spirits” is a reference to the Holy Spirit, why is it used? Two possible reasons:
1. To emphasize the fact that we have the fullness of the Spirit (according to the meaning of the number seven).
2. To emphasize the fact that the Spirit is in all the churches. Each of the seven churches has the full portion of the Spirit.