The Book of Revelation, Pt. 3: To Show to His Servants
"...the things that must soon take place." - Rev. 1:1b
We’re going to start part 3 with the same passage we started with in part 2, and, hopefully, make it past the first five words this time.
“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, who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw. 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.” - Revelation 1:1-3
This revelation of Jesus Christ—this unveiling of the Son as God, the husband to his bride, and the God-Man as victorious—was given to him by God the Father to show to his servants the things that must soon take pace.
Most people in the world, and even many in the church, believe that history is contingent. That it lies in our hands whether, for instance, “the beast system will rise,” or whether the so-called apocalypse will happen or not. Lots of people speak about “our power” as human beings with a divine spark. If we all just band together and recognize the power within us endowed by our Creator or the universe (whatever their belief system, the sentiment is the same), then we can prevent the system of tyranny from converging on us.
But what Jesus reveals is that it is necessary that what he is about to show his servants (which would be his church, of course) take place. The word in Greek means it is inevitable, and, perhaps even a little unsettlingly, it can go so far as to mean what is about to happen is proper in the order of things.1
The Will of God
In Part 2, we talked about what it means that this book is titled “The Revelation (apokálypsis) of Jesus Christ,” and, essentially, came to the conclusion that it is Christ himself being revealed. He reveals himself to his bride in a more specific way, giving her a peek behind the veil of this physical reality and into the spiritual realm. But I’m not sure we were pointed enough in what that special revelation is, so we return to the Greek:
“Apokálypsis ("revelation, unveiling") is principally used of the revelation of Jesus Christ (the Word), especially a particular (spiritual) manifestation of Christ (His will) previously unknown to the extent (because "veiled, covered").”2
Up to the point of the writing of Revelation, Christians only had the letters and plain teaching of the apostles. We don’t know what else was given to the church orally, but when we look at the written record, we can see that the primary goals of the apostles was to interpret the Old Testament in light of Christ so that the church could see that he was the one who fulfilled its types, shadows and prophecies. And following almost every interpretation of who this Christ is, we have a “therefore” statement where the apostles explain how the church was to live in light of such knowledge. The will of God for his church is spoken of plenty of times. For example:
“For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people.” - 1 Peter 2:15
“For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God;” - 1 Thessalonians 4:3-5
“Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.“ - 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18
So, we already knew up to this point that it is God’s will that we suffer (for the right reasons), pray, give thanks, abstain from sexual immorality, etc. But, as we read above, the title given to the book of Revelation indicates that we are about to learn something previously unknown about the will of God. At least, not to the extent that He is about to show John. And it’s interesting that, even though Revelation feels like new information, it’s actually almost exclusively old information, but cast in a new light so that another layer is added to what has already been understood.
Servants & Friends
Returning to the point above, we said that Jesus comes to his bride in this book with a more intimate knowledge of himself. That is the feeling we get just dissecting the title of the book. The arch of Revelation, when we zoom out, communicates comfort and it feels a lot like John 14:
“Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled; do not be afraid. You heard Me say, ‘I am going away, and I am coming back to you.’ If you loved Me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father, because the Father is greater than I. And now I have told you before it happens, so that when it does happen, you will believe.”
- John 14:27-29
In John 15, Jesus indicates greater revelation to his disciples:
“No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not understand what his master is doing. But I have called you friends, because everything I have learned from My Father I have made known to you.” - John 15:15
When we zoom back in on the first paragraph of Revelation 1, we notice that those to whom it is addressed are called “servants,” not “friends.” Have the apostles not made known to the church everything they learned from Christ? Does the church not know what their master is doing?
Anyone who is a servant of God is his friend, and vice versa. I like to think the term “servants” is purposefully used here to illustrate the point we’ve been discussing. Christ is about to bring in his servants the same way Christ did in John 15. He reveals aspects of his will he would only reveal to those he calls his friends. He is letting them in on his plans. It’s something those who know him personally and intimately will comprehend, and his enemies will not. We are being carried from the status of servants, who do not know what their master is doing behind the scenes, to friends who are privy to the will of the Father.
Show & Tell
The rest of the introduction is fairly straightforward, but there are a couple of other concepts I want to draw out which I think are critical for interpreting the Revelation.
First: “The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show.” Notice it does not say he gave the revelation to tell his servants. That first word “show” is significant, and it’s followed by a few more variants that indicate to us how to read the book of Revelation. In a previous post on Isaiah 2, I briefly mentioned the importance of distinguishing between prophecies that are seen and those that are heard:
“Visions in scripture are rarely (if ever) to be understood literally, but symbolically. (Be careful to distinguish between prophecies that are seen and prophecies that are heard. I.e. Isaiah saw this prophecy in a vision, but Moses heard the word of the Lord without a vision when he received the ten commandments.)”
We know that the Revelation is a vision seen by John and not merely a word spoken to John because of a plethora of phrases that follow in the rest of chapter 1 (and the rest of the book). For example:
“Write what you see in a book” (1:11)
“Then I turned to see the voice” (1:12)
“Write therefore the things that you have seen” (1:19)
You may say, sure, it was a vision, but how does that indicate that we are to interpret the vision symbolically?
The ESV says, “He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John” and that is a somewhat anemic translation that disguises the most important word in the sentence. It’s the greek word sémainó. It does mean “to make known” but, what’s more, it means “signify” or “give a sign.”
From Strong’s:
“The Greek verb "sémainó" is used to convey the act of indicating or making something known, often through signs or symbols. In the New Testament, it is frequently used in contexts where a deeper or hidden meaning is revealed, often through divine or prophetic communication. It implies a form of communication that goes beyond mere words, often involving symbolic or metaphorical language.”
“In the Greco-Roman world, signs and symbols were a common means of communication, especially in religious and philosophical contexts. Prophets, oracles, and seers often used symbolic language to convey messages from the divine. In the Jewish tradition, signs were also significant, as seen in the Old Testament where God used signs to communicate with His people. The use of "sémainó" in the New Testament reflects this cultural understanding of signs as a means of divine revelation.”3
When you want to “tell” something to someone, you simply say it. But when you want to show something to someone, images become involved. You may take them by the hand to see with their eyes what it is you want to show them, because it’s not something you can communicate through mere words.
Well, the vision was given only to John. So how could John show this revelation of Christ to the churches? He can’t take them by the hand and lead them to a place. Perhaps he could draw a picture of what he wanted to show? John didn’t have AI to generate images of his descriptions. He probably didn’t even have the art supplies at his disposal or enough paper to draw images that would adequately communicate what he had seen. It would have been a moot point anyways because he would have had to write a description with each picture to make it clear what he was illustrating. AND THAT’S WHAT HE DID. John didn’t need to draw pictures to show the church. His words are the pictures.
Each Bishop receives the letter and each battered little church gathers together as he opens and begins to read aloud: “The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place…” You’re standing there and you close your eyes and you listen as he reads. Images start to fill your mind. There are angels and fire and stars and earthquakes and a beast and a dragon. And all these pictures mean something. They are symbolizing an unseen reality—things that can’t be described by a simple linear telling, but must be shown in shocking and dramatic images because what is being described goes beyond words.
And it’s because our God is a God that goes beyond words that we are called blessed if we read aloud this book. If we hear it. If we keep it. But was this written only to its readers in the first century church? After all, it says, “the things which must soon take place.” And the opening paragraph ends with the clause “for the time is near.”
The time is near for those who hear
Second: It is a book meant to be interpreted through symbolic images, but for who? The first century church? Whoever has to face world war III in the future? Folks who realize they’ve been left behind after millions of people disappear? Or you and I?
This is a timeless prophecy. God’s word is living and active and works in all his people across time and space. You can’t experience it in the same way the Israelites did when Moses penned the book of Deuteronomy. You can’t experience it in the same way David did when he wrote the Psalms. Or even the same way the church did when Revelation was written. But that doesn’t mean even the strangest images and prophecies don’t speak to you.
Even though Revelation spoke uniquely to the early church as its direct recipients, and it held a unique significance for them, the arch and events of the book are not unique to first century Christians. Nor does it wait to be unique to a future and final generation. They were blessed who read and heard it read and kept it then. They are who read, hear, and keep it now. And so will those be who do these things in generations to come. The time was near for those early Christians, the time is near for us, and the time will be near for those still to come.
Was and is and is to come
Was and is and is to come
Or, the order Revelation puts it in:
Is and was and is to come
Is and was and is to come
Do you hear it? This cadence will become more familiar as we keep reading. The book does not apply to merely the past, present or future. It exists and operates in all three tenses and every generation experiences the spiritual reality described in Revelation. This is where our neat labels begin to lose their shape and we have to realize: the time is near for those who hear. Do you hear?
If you stood in the assembly listening 2,000 years ago, the time was near.
If you are hearing this today, the time is near.
It will be near for its hearers in generations to come.
Was and is and is to come
Was and is and is to come
https://biblehub.com/greek/1163.htm
https://biblehub.com/greek/602.htm
https://biblehub.com/greek/4591.htm