David Guzik
Study Guide for Revelation 1
Revelation 1 - Introduction; A Vision of Jesus
A. The introduction and prologue to the Book of Revelation.
1. (1-2) The writer of the Book of Revelation.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show His servants; things which must shortly take place. And He sent and signified it by His angel to His servant John, who bore witness to the word of God, and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, to all things that he saw.
a. The Revelation of Jesus Christ: The ancient Greek word translated Revelation is apokalupsis (apocalypse). The word simply means “a revealing, an unveiling.” What does the Book of Revelation reveal? It is the Revelation of Jesus Christ. This book is Jesus’ Revelation in the sense that it belongs to Him, He is the one doing the revealing. It is also Jesus’ Revelation in the sense that He is the object revealed; Jesus is the person revealed by the book.
i. From the outset, we are given the most important truth about the Book of Revelation. This book does show us the Antichrist, it does show us God’s judgment, it does show us calamity on the earth, it does show us Mystery Babylon in vivid detail. But most of all, it is the Revelation of Jesus Christ to us. If we catch everything else, but miss Jesus in the book, we have missed the Book of Revelation.
ii. How we need a Revelation of Jesus! “The great fault of many professors is that Christ is to them a character upon paper; certainly more than a myth, but yet a person of the dim past, an historical personage who lived many years ago, and did most admirable deeds, by the which we are saved, but who is far from being a living, present, bright reality.” (Spurgeon)
b. Which God gave Him to show His servants: This is an important reason why God gave this Revelation of Jesus Christ. He gave it to show His servants. God gave this revelation that it might be shown, not hidden. This is anapocalypse - a revelation, not apocrypha (something hidden).
c. Things which must shortly take place: This describes whenthe events of this book will take place - they will happenshortly, and they must happen shortly. This means that the Book of Revelation is a book of predictive prophecy. It speaks of things that will happen in the future - at least future from the time of its writing.
i. Not all prophecy is predictive. But this prophetic book clearly is predictive. It describes things that must shortly take place. The time is near (Revelation 1:3) for the fulfillment of these things, but the time was not present at the time of writing.
ii. Some would say that we should not be concerned with prophecy; that it is a frivolous exercise - but if God was concerned enough to talk about it, we should be concerned enough to listen. “Some tell us that what is yet future ought not to be examined into till after it has come to pass. I can hardly realize that this is seriously meant.” (Seiss)
d. Shortly take place: When John says these things must shortly take place, what does he mean? How short is short? How near is near? Short and near are relative terms, and this is God’s timetable, not man’s. Yet for 2000 years, history has been on the brink of the consummation of all things, running parallel to the edge, not running towards a distant brink.
i. Shortly is the ancient Greek phrase en tachei, which means “‘quickly or suddenly coming to pass,’ indicating rapidity of execution after the beginning takes place. The idea is not that the event may occur soon, but that when it does, it will be sudden.” (Walvoord)
e. He sent and signified it by His angel to His servant John:This describes how the message is delivered in the Book of Revelation. It is a book of signs: the angel sign-ified this message to John. It is a book that communicates in signs.
i. Why does God use so many signs in the Book of Revelation? After all, they have been the main cause of difficulty with the book. Is God playing a game of “guess this mystery?” in Revelation? Not at all. The signs are necessary because John expresses things of heaven, which Paul said he heard with inexpressible words (2 Corinthians 12:4). John describes things he has seen, so he can only use symbolic images to explain them. To us, this book is prophecy. But to John, he simply recorded history unfolding before him, as he saw it. “John had visions from heaven; but he described them in his own language and manner.” (Clarke)
ii. The signs are also necessary because there is tremendous power in symbolic language. It is one thing to call someone or something “evil” or “bad.” But it is far more vivid to describe the image of a woman drunk with the blood of the saints (Revelation 17:6).
iii. Though it is filled with signs, the Book of Revelation isaccessible to those who have an understanding of the first 65 books of the Bible, and especially an understanding of the first 39 books of the Bible, the Old Testament. The Book of Revelation is rooted in the Old Testament. It contains more than 500 allusions to the Old Testament, and 278 of the 404 verses in Revelation (that is almost 70%) make some reference to the Old Testament.
f. By His angel to His servant John: This tells us who wrote the Book of Revelation. It was His servant John, and the best evidence points to this being the Apostle John, the same writer of the Gospel of John and the books of 1, 2, and 3 John.
i. By His angel: Many of the signs and visions of the Book of Revelation came to John through the supervision of an angel (Revelation 5:2; 7:2; 10:8 to 11:1; 17:7 are some examples).
g. Who bore witness to the word of God: In this prologue, we see that John knew this book was Holy Scripture, the word of God. We often wonder if the apostles knew they were writing Holy Scripture. At least in this case, John knew.
i. He knew it was Holy Scripture because he calls it arevelation from God. He knew it came from the Father through Jesus, and not from any mere human.
ii. He knew it was the Holy Scripture because he calls it theword of God, as an Old Testament prophet would say. He also calls it the testimony of Jesus Christ.
2. (3) A blessing to the reader and “keeper” of this book.
Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written in it; for the time is near.
a. Blessed is he who reads . . . and keep those things which are written in it: The Book of Revelation offers a particular and unique blessing to those who read and keep the message of this book. This is the first of seven beatitudes of Revelation (Revelation 1:3; 14:13; 16:15; 19:9; 20:6; 22:7, and 22:14).
i. Because they neglect the book Revelation, many people miss this blessing. For example, the Anglican Church virtually omits Revelation in its regular schedule of readings for both public worship and private devotions. This is a typical attitude towards the Book of Revelation. Many people believe that only fanatics want to dig deep into this book. But really, it is a book for anyone who wants to be blessed.
ii. Fortunately, John didn’t say that we had to understandeverything in the Book of Revelation to be blessed. There are some difficult things in this book, that may only be understood as we look back at fulfilled prophecy. But we can be blessed by reading and hearing even when we don’t understand.
b. This promise gives more reasons to know John believed this book was Holy Scripture. First, the words he who reads and those who hear show that this book was intended to be read publicly, just as other accepted Scriptures. Second, the promise of blessing itself shows that John regard this book as Holy Scripture. In the Jewish world, such a blessing could never be pronounced on a merely human book.
i. All of these things together show that beyond doubt, the Book of Revelation claims to be Holy Scripture. A critic can agree or disagree with that claim, but it can’t be denied that Revelation makes the claim.
c. Keep those things which are written in it: The Book of Revelation gives us much more than information for prophetic speculation. It gives us things to keep. If we understand the Book of Revelation, it will change the way we live.
d. He who reads is in the singular. It speaks of one person who reads. Those who hear is in the plural. It speaks of many people hearing. The idea is probably from custom of the early church, where attention was given to the public reading of Scripture, which would often be explained. In our modern way of speaking, John might say “Blessed is the pastor who teaches Revelation, and blessed is the congregation who hears it.” But most of all, pastor or congregation, blessed are those who keep those things which are written in it.
i. “Neither must we only live up to the words of this prophecy, but die for it also, and be content to be burned with it, if called thereto; as that holy martyr, who when he saw the Revelation cast into the fire with him, cried out ‘O blessed Revelation, how happy am I to be burned in thy company!’” (Trapp)
3. Since so much controversy has risen over the interpretation of the Book of Revelation, it is helpful to understand the four basic approaches to understanding Revelation. Through the centuries, people have approached Revelation in basically one of these four ways:
a. The Preterist View: This approach believes that Revelation deals only with the church in John’s day. In the Preteristapproach, the Book of Revelation doesn’t predict anything. John simply describes events of his current day, but he puts them in symbolic “code” so those outside the Christian family couldn’t understand his criticism of the Roman government. In thePreterist view, the Book of Revelation was for then.
b. The Historicist View: This approach believes that Revelation is a sweeping, disordered panorama of all church history. In theHistoricist approach, Revelation predicts the future, but the future of the “church age” - not the future of end-time events. In the Historicist view, Revelation is full of symbols that describe now.
i. For example, many have wanted to call someone the beast of Revelation chapter 13, such as the Reformers called the Pope. But they didn’t necessarily want to believe that the end was very near. So they believed that Revelation spoke oftheir time, without necessarily speaking to the end times.
c. The Poetic View: This approach believes that Revelation is a book full of pictures and symbols intended to encourage and comfort persecuted Christians in John’s day. In the Poetic orallegorical view, the Book of Revelation isn’t literal or historic. Revelation is a book of personal meaning.
d. The Futurist View: This approach believes that beginning with chapter four, Revelation deals with the end times, the period directly preceding Jesus’ return. In the Futurist view, Revelation is a book that mainly describes the end times.
e. Which approach is correct? Each one is true in some regard. The Book of Revelation did speak to John’s day. It does say something to church history. And it does have meaning for our personal life. So while elements of the first three approaches have their place, we can’t deny the place of the futurist view. We can know the Book of Revelation speaks with clarity about the end times because of two central principles drawn fromRevelation 1:1-3.
i. First, we believe that the Book of Revelation must mean something. This is a book that Jesus gave to show His servants something. It isn’t a book of meaningless nonsense. It has a promise of blessing, not a promise of confusion.
ii. Secondly, we believe that the Book of Revelation definitely claims to contain predictive prophecy. John made it clear: things which must shortly take place . . . the time is near. John writes about events that were still future in his day.
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