I have recently started reading the book of Revelation and every time I do, it seems the book opens to me in a new way. While I am not yet deep in the book, I thought it would be interesting to share what I have noticed so far in the first two chapters and how the truths we find in it are for our encouragement and our readiness for the Lord’s Day rather than for sowing fear as it is commonly seen. Indeed, as the opening of the Book of Revelation says, it is so that you can be blessed as you read it, hear it and obey it because the time is near (Revelation 1:3). While the book talks about judgement, it is not the judgement of the righteous but of the unrighteous that is at play, it is the time of God’s Son to come and set things straight with this world and the evil that has had all this time to grow; it is a time for the kingdom of Christ to be established. When we look at the book from this lens, we realize it is not so much about us but rather about Christ coming to get his Bride. It might burst our bubble but the reality is that Christ is the main talk and we are not. As a matter of fact, John begins the book by stating “the revelation of Jesus Christ” which tells you who the book is about really. In this post, I will be discussing three truths I was able to gather from the first two chapters: first, the right view of Christ is essential to our faith; second, Christ dwells in the midst of his Church; and third, Christ ensures his Church is ready.
The right view of Christ is essential to our faith. Indeed, without it, we have no faith at all. In the first chapter, actually, in the first few verses, John describes Jesus with the words: “the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler of kings of the earth” (Revelation 1:5). He continues to say “Jesus loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood, and has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve his God and Father” (verse 6). As we progress in the chapter we see that Jesus himself introduces himself as the “Alpha and Omega, who is and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty” (verse 8). This chunk of phrases gives us a good picture of who Jesus is. He is not your regular Joe, He is God. Not many can claim to be “the faithful witness” or “the firstborn from the dead” as Paul in writing to the Colossians about Christ concurred “he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything, he might have the supremacy” (Colossians 1:18). Later on in the chapter Jesus says: “I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold, I am alive for ever and ever!” (verse 18). What John wants to make clear in our minds is that Jesus is not just a man, He is God. This God demonstrated his love for us by shedding his blood for us to redeem us from the wrath of the Father and pave a way for us to be reconciled with the Father. Moreover, He made us a kingdom and priests to serve God. We were not just redeemed for the sake of being redeemed, we were redeemed so that we would become royalty, priests of God to serve Him. We were given influential status and a dignified identity, we were given purpose and direct access to God. The fact that Christ made us into priests to serve God caught my attention this week and it brought me to the duties of the priests from the Old Testament. One thing that was often stunning is that the priests belonged to God. One of the reason they did not have land allotted to them was because the Lord was their possession (Deuteronomy 18:1-2). In the same way, now that we are priests to God, He is our possession and the same allegiance priests gave Him in the past, we should do the same. That means our dedication has to be on point, we cannot be serving Him today and not be there tomorrow, we have to watch our lives and doctrine closely (1 Timothy 4:16) so that we remain fit for this priestly task as the incense we offer to God must be a pleasing aroma to Him. Without the right view of Christ, it is easy to miss the point of Revelation and it is easy to dismiss our new identity in Christ.
Second, Christ dwells in the midst of his Church. As John begins to describe what he saw, we see “someone ‘like a son of man’ among the seven lampstands”. The end of the first chapter tells us that the lampstands are churches and the “someone like a son of man” is none other than Jesus Christ in glory. What is fascinating in that image is that Jesus is standing in the midst of his Church represented by the seven churches. He is at the center of the churches which in itself should be the criteria by which we are able to decipher if a church is truly following Christ or not. There is no church without Jesus because Jesus is the point of church. I wonder, how much emphasis do we put on Jesus and when we do put him on display, do we elevate him like John elevates him in this first chapter? Or like Jesus himself testifies about himself? Do we see him as the supreme God that He is or do we just see Jesus as the Son of God, our friend and brother who died on our behalf? There is certainly a place to see Jesus as that but we must see him holistically not just in a way that pleases us or makes us comfortable. I must confess, seeing Jesus this glorious makes me realize that I cannot take him for granted, I cannot play around with him, that as much as I know he loves me, my response should be just like John’s: falling at his feet as though dead (John 1:17). It is not an easy picture of Jesus to have especially in our culture that has reduced Jesus either to a baby in a manger or to a friend who loves me above all and who will put up with my mess with no consequences. However the reality is different. Yes, Jesus loves you as stated above, yes, he died for you but no he will not put up with your mess if you do not relinquish your authority to him, he will not submit to you. Our relationship with Jesus is primarily that of Lord and Saviour but we often put the Lordship of Jesus on the side and stick to him as just a friend. We need Revelation to put things straight in our minds.
Third, because Jesus is among his Church, he ensures the Church is ready and standing firm for his return. To each of the seven churches, Jesus has a word and the word is to encourage the churches to stand on the right path. At times, the word was a rebuke and at other times an encouragement to keep doing the right thing. The goal was to gather back those who were falling away from the truth and following the way of the evil one so that they do not incur the upcoming judgement of God. From the first three churches Jesus spoke to, there are some striking truths that can also be drawn: 1) it is possible to suffer for Christ and have no love towards him. I suppose Paul had already seen this when he said to the Corinthians “…If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:3). This truth is quite scary, as I read the great things that the church of Ephesus had going for her: toil and patient endurance, not bearing with those who are evil, hating the works of the Nicolaitans (not much is known about them except that they seduced God’s people to participate in idolatry and sexual immorality), I am baffled to know that these they did without the love they had at first. I guess Christ was no longer in what they were doing or things became mechanical. 2) You must remain steadfast until the end. This is precisely the message of Christ to the church of Smyrna. Jesus encourages her to continue to be faithful, even to the point of death. In order words do not give up, stand your ground until you depart from this earth. This is irrespective of what you encounter as the church in Smyrna was quite afflicted and poor (yet she was rich as Jesus points out!). And finally 3) tolerating false teachers will put you in trouble even if you are not the one sinning. With the church in Pergamum, we see that although she was standing strong, she had false teachers who perpetuated the teaching of Balaam (enticing people to sin and commit sexual immorality just like the Nicolaitans). Because the church let those teachers off the hook, they were ultimately responsible and Jesus asked them to “Repent!” otherwise he would bring judgement on those false teachers.
In conclusion, Jesus wants to see a Church that is blameless upon his return, a church that has kept the faith, a church that is eagerly waiting for him. This requires us to always turn our eyes upon him, the author and perfecter of our faith. We must humbly remain at his feet and check ourselves against the word of God, keeping each other accountable, not neglecting to meet as brethren but continuing to encourage one another instead as we see the Day approaching (Hebrews 10:25). I pray the Lord helps us to stay the course and not grow weary of doing good and waiting upon Him. Amen!
A Word Aptly Spoken 