Clergy/Leaders’ Mail-list No. 3-059 (Expository Sermon)

FAMOUS LAST WORDS Revelation 1:1-3

by Rod Benson

[In his introduction, Rod recalled that, in his childhood, he passed the time during the sermon by counting the bricks on the wall, or (in Papua New Guinea) watching geckoes frolicking on the ceiling. Continuing, he says…]

I also recall eagerly reading the book of Revelation – much to my parents’ surprise.

I suppose the florid symbolism, the fantastic imagery and the scenes of warfare and carnage appealed to my young imagination. Revelation is still a joy to read, although now I read it for encouragement, for its perspective on Christology, and for the reminder that, in the end, Jesus wins.

A closed book?

But many contemporary readers regard Revelation as a closed book. It doesn’t seem to make sense. It seems irrelevant or confusing. Why?

Most people today are unfamiliar with the prophetic literature of the Old Testament, on which Revelation draws richly. Many don’t understand the style or purpose of Jewish apocalyptic literature.

Most of us are conditioned to appreciate a narrative structure that moves steadily forward in time, unlike Revelation that seems to jump back and forth and repeat details.

And some of us are confused by the various dogmatic stances taken to explain and expound the book – essentially due to disagreement as to its historical setting and theological significance.

It is easy to give up and erect a fence around Revelation with a sign saying, “Keep out!” Yet Revelation is holy Scripture, and God intended it for our edification. He expects us to read and study it. He encourages us to understand and obey it.

New, exciting and “different” things often captivate us. But a lot of this is chaff that blows away as soon as a wind arises. If you keep sacrificing the ultimate on the altar of the urgent, the important for the immediate, or the fundamental for the frivolous, you won’t get far in life.

The best you can get comes from God: the best wisdom, guidance, comfort, peace, security, confidence, joy, hope. There’s something else – truth. All truth comes from God, and you need to know and experience the truth to get the best out of life.

You will find truth all around you, but especially in the person of Jesus Christ and the pages of the Bible. Jesus is the truth personified, and the Bible is the word of God written.

History’s final act

Revelation is the final chapter in the great narrative of redemption, the final act in the vast drama of salvation. It comprises the “famous last words” of Jesus Christ and God to humanity. As such, it deserves our careful attention.

The book opens with these words: “The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place” (v 1a). It is not the revelation of John, or “revelations,” but “the revelation of Jesus Christ.” The book finds its source and origin in Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

In one sense, it is about Jesus; all Scripture is about Jesus (cf Lk 24:27; 2 Tim 3:15). But the issues and events in Revelation are distinct from the person of Jesus. The revelation (or unveiling) is not so much about Jesus as it is from him. God gave it to him. He is its source.

The purpose of this revelation is “to show his servants what must soon take place” (v 1b; cf 4:1; 22:6). The immediate recipients were the members of the seven churches addressed in chapters 2-3.

But if you are a follower of Jesus, you may call yourself his “servant,” and Revelation is a letter of Jesus to you and to your church.

The purpose of Revelation is to describe or explain future events. We ‘re often fascinated by the future. But what does “soon” mean?

From other New Testament writings we learn that the “last days” began with the birth of Jesus, and the next world event on God’s timetable is the return of Jesus from heaven to bring the “last days” to a close, and to end the world as we know it.

Stephen Hawking, the brilliant British physicist whose book A Brief History of Time sold over three million copies, recently confessed that the end of the world will be later than he first thought. He now calculates that the end won’t happen for at least ten billion years.

Hawking isn’t counting on divine intervention. Jesus says, “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority” (Ac 1:7). Paul says, “Then the end will come, when [Jesus] hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power” (1 Cor 15:24). John says, “The time is near” (Rev 1:3; 22:10).

How did John receive this revelation? Jesus received it from God and entrusted it to an angel, who imparted it to John, who wrote it down and sent it to seven of the churches in the Roman province of Asia. “He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John” (v 1b).

Here John is simply God’s “servant,” but in verse 9 we discover that he is suffering religious persecution. He is not free to visit those churches. He is in exile on the tiny island of Patmos (off Turkey’s west coast – where they lie).

He seems to know these churches well, which is probably why he had no need to identify himself more fully. But we can reasonably suggest that this John is the beloved disciple of John’s Gospel who became one of the twelve apostles.

Promise and prophecy

Like Jesus, John is a faithful witness “who testifies to everything he saw – that is, the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ” (v 2). Paradoxically, he saw a message – understandable for a book filled with imagery and visions.

The book of Revelation is John’s record of what God has spoken through Jesus about “what must soon take place.”

The “word of God” is equivalent to the “word of the Lord” spoken by the Old Testament prophets. It is divine, truthful and reliable, and John therefore considers himself as a prophet of God in the Old Testament tradition.

“The testimony of Jesus” is the content of John’s book, and for John this is personal: it is “because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus” that he was banished to the unfriendly isolation of the island of Patmos (Rev 1:9).

Then John pronounces a two-fold blessing or benediction on those who read the revelation.

First he says, “Blessed is the one who reads the words of this prophecy” (v 3a). John has in mind the fact that these words, like any other part of Scripture, are God’s words offering life and freedom to all who listen.

And he has in mind reading aloud to the Christian congregation assembled for worship in each of the seven churches. We forget that both the ability to read and the provision of books was far from universal in biblical times:

“[At the end of the first century] almost no one owned a portion of what is now considered Scripture. Even whole congregations were fortunate if they owned more than one of the Gospels. The only access ordinary Christians had to the Gospels and letters that now make up the New Testament was public reading in worship services. The public reader therefore performed a ministry to the congregation far beyond what is normally the case today” [J. Ramsay Michaels].

Thank God for technological, educational and economic advances that make his word so accessible today! Let us use the enormous opportunities we have to good effect.

By “prophecy” John probably meant both prediction and proclamation. He certainly provides a detailed disclosure of future events.

But I also see John standing on the shore of his lonely prison island, looking east, thinking of the Christians in those seven churches, and declaring, “Thus says the Lord.” He is predicting; he is also proclaiming.

Take it to heart

Finally, John adds, “blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it” (v 3b). Revelation is more than a book of predictions; it is a manual of moral instruction. It is a guide to Christian conduct as well as a repository of Christian doctrine.

So “take to heart” what you discover within its pages. Allow it to infiltrate your human defences. Let it convict and convert you. Listen and learn, and obey what Jesus teaches you from his “famous last words.”

Why does reading and responding attract a blessing from God? “Because the time is near” (v 3c). There is urgency about John’s writing. The journey is ending. The door is closing. The world is ending. The King is coming!

Jesus came the first time so you could experience the truth, and allow the truth to shape your experience. Jesus is coming back a second time to discover what you did with that wonderful gift. To demonstrate his grace and mercy, he left these “famous last words” for you to read, and understand, and take to heart.

So read the word. Understand the revelation. Take it to heart. Put it into action. Change your ways. Worship God. Revere the Revealer. Honour the King. And you will experience divine blessing – individually and as a Christian community.

The time is near; soon all of God’s faithful people will join the choirs of heaven and echo the loud heavenly voices proclaiming the central theme of the revelation of Jesus Christ:

“The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign for ever and ever” (Rev 11:15)!

In the end, Jesus wins.

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E118 Copyright (c) 2003 Rod Benson. Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible: New International Version (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1980).

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