A Vision of Jesus for the Church: Revelation 1
- Tim Cain
- Oct 4, 2009
- Series: Revelations
I am so excited about the next eight weeks and the series we are starting on the seven churches in Revelation. One of the reasons I am so excited is because, like many of you, it has been a long time since I have studied anything in the book of Revelation. Many of us avoid it because we don’t really understand it. But I want you to look at Revelation 1, verse 3. There is a blessing promised for all who read through this book and do what it says. The blessing is promised because John knows just how important the things he was writing are. He knows that for the church in any age the truths that he is about to speak of are absolutely necessary for people to keep in mind if they ever hope to live lives of faithful witness to their Savior. We need to give our attention to the book of Revelation.
Now, we are not going to preach through the whole book and many of the controversial aspects of the book we are not going to really spend a lot of time on, instead we are simply going to preach through the first three chapters. The first three chapters are the words of Jesus that he told John to write to seven different churches scattered throughout Asia Minor. We will find is that Jesus’ words to the seven churches are words we need to hear today. One of the reasons that Jesus speaks to seven churches is because the number seven throughout the book is symbolic of completeness. The world was made in seven days. Seven throughout the Bible speaks of completeness. And at the end of every church, Jesus says, “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches…” The message to each church, while very specific to them, addresses issues of the heart that every church throughout all of history must deal with. And so, even today, there is a blessing for those who have ears and will listen to what Jesus says to the churches.
That is why I am so excited about doing this series as the first series of our new church plant. What better to do than to read through letters from Jesus to his church? We need to know what our savior loves about his churches, we need to know what our savior calls his bride to look like. Any man who is married knows that your wife will often say, “What should I wear tonight?” Sometimes she will try something on and say, “What do you think? Should I wear this one or that one?” Why does she ask? Why doesn’t she just wear whatever she wants? She asks because she cares what her husband thinks of her. She wants to look beautiful for him. We are the bride of Christ and we must care what our husband thinks. We must long to know what he likes so that we can wear it. Here we have letters from our savior to his bride. Over the next eight weeks we will be studying these letters and getting to know him better.
But first, before we will be able to really understand these letters, we must understand the historical context of the day. In other words, we have to know the situation of the churches that Jesus was writing to when he wrote to them. What were they going through? What was life like?
It is important to realize the seven churches are real churches in real cities going through real struggles. The better we understand these churches, the better we will be able to apply Jesus’ words to our situation. So, what we want to do is briefly talk about the situation in Rome during this time and then we will talk in more detail about the situation of each church when we preach on them.
At the time of writing this book, John is suffering persecution on the Island of Patmos for preaching the word of God. Some of the other churches have already begun to suffer similar persecutions. For some of the churches, the persecution is about to get worse and some will even be put to death. However, Revelation is not merely written to a group of Christians who are suffering persecution simply because they are Christians. It is written to a people wondering what it looks like to be a Christian in a pagan empire. One of the main issues of the book of Revelation is going to be to call Christians to dissociate themselves from the evil of the Roman system and be faithful witnesses to another King.
The great evil of Rome was the way she absolutized her power. Rome believed that she was the eternal city; her emperors believed that they were divine. After his death, the Emperor Titus had been declared by the senate to be divine. The three emperors who reigned before the book of Revelation was written had described themselves as divine on their coins, and the emperor who currently reigned requested that he be called “Lord and God.” The Roman Empire had drunk so deeply of its own power that it could not fathom the possibility that there was one greater than itself. And so, here we begin to see the struggle of the early church. Do you bear witness to the one true God who is absolute and over everything and thus expose Rome’s idolatrous self worship for what it is, or do you compromise and enjoy the lavish earthly rewards of participating in her idolatry?
During this time there were constant feasts, constant days off of work where you would go and feast to this Roman god or that Roman god. Most of the work of that day was done in trade guilds which were like unions. And you know the pressure that unions can put on you. You know that when the union goes on strike you are supposed to go and picket with them. If you don’t, they know you are not there. They recognize it. There can be some forms of persecution even today for not participating in the unions, paying your dues, etc. In that day, it was the same. Each trade guild or union would have their own patron deity. They would take off work to go worship, celebrate, and throw a party for this god. If you were not there you would be persecuted. If you did not participate in these types of meetings you would be questioned. You would be seen as disrespecting the patron deity and could easily lose your job since your presence at work could bring a curse from the patron god. You could also be turned in to the authorities where they would question your loyalty to the emperor by seeing if you would offer a sacrifice to him and declare that Caesar is Lord. If you failed to do this you could be persecuted or put to death. So, while there was not a widespread empire-wide persecution on all Christians, there was clearly local persecution, and what made this persecution so hard was the way it tempted the people to compromise.
Do you see how tempting it would be to compromise? Do you see how easy it would be to say, “I will just go to this stupid dinner and act like everyone else but inside I know that this patron god is nothing and I just wont say anything and that way I can keep my job and feed my family and not leave my wife a widow and my children starving on the street”? That sounds pretty reasonable to me. One of the hardest things about the persecution was that compromise was so easy. No one ever said you couldn’t worship Jesus. No one ever said you couldn’t go to church or pray to Jesus, or any of that stuff. No one bashed your God or the way you did worship, they just demanded that you do other things too. You see the difference, and how easy it might be to compromise? If they said, “You must reject Jesus in order to work for this company,” you would definitely say no. But if they said, “You must come to these feasts and offer prayers to this one patron deity three times a year in order to work here and feed your family,” you might find yourself tempted.
At the end of the day, the question the churches are tempted to ask is, “Can we have both?” Can we have Jesus and also enjoy the benefits of an empire that believes it is God? And the problem is that the empire said yes. Yes, you can have both. Can’t you hear them saying it? Can’t you hear them saying, yes you can have Jesus and work in the trade guild and worship the emperor? We are not going to force you into picking one or the other, we are tolerant, we are open-minded, we want you to have both. The book of revelation is so important for us because it comes and shouts out boldly that you cannot have both and what they offer is not worth the compromise. What they offer cannot satisfy you, what they offer will only lead to your destruction, and what Christ offers will ultimately lead to your satisfaction and joy.
Of course that is going to take some serious arguing because it sure seems that choosing Jesus and him alone as ultimate will lead to your persecution and possible death, not to your satisfaction and ultimate joy. So, if is true that remaining faithful to Jesus despite the cost is worth it, it can only be because there is more to the story then meets the eye. It can only be because things are not as they seem. And that is the message of Revelation. The book of Revelation offers the churches an alternative perspective.
We need this. We need this alternative perspective. Every fiber of our being needs it because we live in a world so similar to Rome. We live in a world that begs us to compromise. We live in a world that offers us both Christianity and earthly comfort, pleasure, and success. All you have to do is look around at Christians and then look around at people who live in the world and see how similar they are and it will become apparent that they must share a similar perspective on history. You see it was the great similarity between Christians and everyone else in the world that caused Kierkegaard to say, “The greatest deception the devil has ever used is to convince us that we are, just as we are Christians.” In other words, the deception of the devil is that we can be Christian and still share the same view of history and the same view of the world and the same value system as everyone else. But Revelation comes to change that. Revelation comes to give us a different perspective. It calls us to look into the heavens and realize that things are not as they seem. As we study the book of Revelation these next few weeks, we will see a different view of the world, and this view, if you believe it, will radically impact your life.
Let’s begin by looking at the first vision that John saw while he was on the Island of Patmos. We are actually going to begin with John’s vision and work our way backwards to his greeting, because it seems that John saw the vision before he wrote his greeting. John sees a vision and then he is told to write down what he has seen. He goes and he writes it down, so his greeting is influenced by the vision that he has seen. Let’s begin with Revelations 1:9.
John is writing a letter to the seven churches and he identifies himself as “a brother and partner in the tribulation and the kingdom and the patient endurance that are in Jesus.” He then goes on to tell us that he is on the island of Patmos which is a small rocky island used to exile political dissidents during this time period. Already we see a few things here that will become themes throughout the book. John is a brother and the proof of it is in his exile. He is a brother to all those who, like him, have chosen to be faithful witnesses and on account of the word of God and are suffering tribulation. His tribulation, far from discrediting his testimony, actually validates it since he is going to argue that the way this world works is that faithful witnesses suffer persecution. Where would John have gotten the idea that faithful witnesses suffer persecution? From his Savior. From the true faithful witness who came into the world and suffered death because he perfectly bore witness to God who was his Father. John knows the words of Jesus, he remembers when Jesus said in John 15:18, “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you; ‘a Servant is not greater than his master’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you, if they kept my word, they will also keep yours…”
John knows that his persecution on the Island of Patmos bears witness to his faithfulness and gives him credibility. He is not just speaking from some ivory tower, telling the people not to compromise but to be willing to suffer persecution as faithful witnesses to their savior. He is saying, “I am a partner in your tribulation. I too am suffering for being a faithful witness to the testimony of Jesus.”
What is also really cool is that John says that those who are presently suffering tribulation are also participating in the kingdom. This is a crazy, radical statement. Some feel like the way it works is that now, on earth we suffer so that one day we can rule with Christ. The book of Revelation sees things from this radically different perspective. It argues that we reign, we participate in the kingdom now through suffering. Now, where could John have gotten that idea? Where could John have gotten the idea that we presently reign through suffering? Well, again he gets it from his savior. Jesus came and ruled and reigned on earth while he was here, but while he was on earth he ruled through suffering. He ruled from the cross. The sufferings of Jesus were not prior to his rule, but rather it was the way Jesus ruled while on earth. In the book of John, the cross is seen as the place where Jesus is glorified. It is his throne. John 12:31-33 says, “Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself. Jesus said this to show by what kind of death he was going to die.” Isn’t this amazing! It shouts out and says, “Things are not the way they seem.” When Jesus was lifted up upon a Roman cross and everyone thought that Satan had scored a major victory, in fact Satan had destroyed himself. It was on the cross that Jesus conquered Satan. Satan was deceived, he thought that he was destroying the son of God but in reality he was destroying himself. Jesus, during his time on earth, established his rule through his suffering and death and his people now reflect his rule and participate in his reign through their imitation of him. As Revelation 14:4 says, “They follow the lamb wherever he goes.” While on earth that means following him in suffering for his name sake as they bear faithful witness to him. So, again, we will talk about this more, but John is trying to show that things are not really what they seem. What the Romans view as their victory as they persecute the church is actually their defeat as God’s people bear witness to Christ and his reign through suffering.
John has established his credibility and now he goes on to tell the churches what he saw. Listen to what John saw (Rev. 1:12-16). Listen to this picture of Jesus because I believe it is radically different than what most of us picture when we think of Jesus. Picture this: His hair is not just white like snow; it is glistening like fresh snow on a mountain with the bright sun beaming on it and the rays being shot out so that its whiteness almost hurts your eyes. His eyes are not soft and blue, they are not inviting you in to see his thoughts; they are shining like flames of fire. His feet are glowing like bronze taken out of the refining fire. His voice is like the sound of rushing waters. It’s like the sound of a waterfall, a raging river against the rocks. Out of his mouth comes a sword. Every description in Revelation is not meant to be taken literally in the sense that you are supposed to be able to sketch a drawing off of this and actually see what John saw, rather the point is that each description is a real description of who John saw. The sword isn’t just this literal picture of Jesus shaking his head and swinging this sword around, rather the idea is that judgment flowed from his mouth, and when he spoke his enemies were cut down as with a sword. Every description is meaningful and it’s okay to try and imagine what John saw that caused him to use such descriptive language. But drawing it all out and putting it all together is not the point of the description. Each description is taken from Old Testament pictures of God and now all put together in Jesus. His flaming eyes speak about how they penetrate everything. They bring to light every hidden corner of our hearts, they see it all, nothing is hidden from their sight. His face, glowing like the sun, speaks of John’s inability to even really look at him he was so bright, so full of glory, so overwhelming. You know what it is like to look at the sun, how you can only stare at it for a moment without your eyes watering, your head hurting, and blinding you as you try and look at anything else. That’s the glory with which our savior stood before John. You know what it’s like to stand by a river and hear its rushing waters and know just from the sound the amazing power that it wields. You know that if you stuck your foot in it, you would be drug away. You can’t even hear yourself think. Any of you who have been to a rushing river or waterfall know what I am talking about. As you stand in its presence, its roar makes you feel so small. That is how big Jesus’ voice was. That is how different it was. When he spoke, it was all you could hear. And this one was dressed like a priest and he walked amongst seven lampstands.
One of the points of this vision is to depict Jesus’ role as priest, and as king, and as final judge. Some of the descriptions of him, like his hair, are taken from Daniel 7 where he is seen as a king, ruling over the nations. His presence among the seven lampstands and his long robe speak of his priestly duties. The sword coming out of his mouth is in Revelation 19:11-16 again, and it speaks of his coming again as the final judge.
This is the one John saw. In the face of an empire that claimed it was ultimate, in the face of emperors who claimed they were divine, in the face of soldiers who carried swords and spears and clubs and would threaten persecution and sometimes death, in the face of these claims, we see Jesus’ response. He says, “Look at me.” Look at me! Do you really think Roman emperors are divine? Look at me! Do you really think you can worship me on Sundays and then spend the rest of your week living just like the world? Look at me! Do you really think you can hide your secret sins from my fiery eyes? Look at me! This revelation of Jesus is meant to awaken a response. You can’t see this picture of Jesus without responding. So often the Jesus we picture, the one we think about when we pray, etc. seems so harmless, sweet and tender, so easy to appease, so needy, as if our prayers to him or our service of him made him happy, and as if we could do a few things for him and check them off a list and then move on to think of ourselves. The Jesus John saw cannot be appeased in such a way. This Jesus sees everything, he knows everything, when he speaks, listening is not an option, for his voice is like the mighty waters. Jesus reveals himself in this way so that neutrality is no longer an option. The Roman Empire might say you can have Jesus and us if you are only willing to compromise and say that Caesar is Lord. Often the Jesus we picture is a Jesus who should be happy that at least we are serving him more than a lot of other people, but not this Jesus. This Jesus will not share his glory with another. So, we need to look at this Jesus. This is the Jesus whom we worship. This is the way that he has chosen to identify himself to a persecuted church struggling to keep their faith and to a compromising church thinking they can have the best of both worlds.
Two different situations, one vision of Jesus. To those who are finding themselves persecuted because they have refused to compromise, this Jesus is meant to encourage them. You might ask how this Jesus could possibly be an encouragement. Watch what he says to John, one who has been persecuted for his faithful witness. He says, “Fear not.” The first words out of the mouth with the sword which roared like rushing waters toward John, as he lay as though dead before such a majestic vision of Jesus are “fear not”. It’s kind of crazy, but even amidst this amazing vision of Jesus, the emphasis of this entire section is on these two words, “Fear not.” What can be the basis for this command? It is everything that has come before it, and it is also what comes after it. Both the image and words of Jesus are meant to take away fear from his people who are suffering for his name. Do you see that? This image of Jesus, as frightening as it first seems, is meant not to frighten but to relieve his people.
First let’s listen to Jesus’ words and then we will look again at his image and see how its main purpose on earth could be to encourage and take away fear from his people. Jesus begins by declaring himself to be the first and the last. He is the originator of all history and he will bring it to a close. He is in total control. He is living presently and not only is he living like we are living, but he has conquered death. He died and now he lives forevermore. Through his death he now owns the keys to death and hell. Now, in and of itself, this doesn’t relieve any fear; it just transfers our fear, right? Our greatest fear is ultimately death. We fear earthquakes or guns or sickness not just because they are painful, but because they might lead to our death and we are scared of death. We are scared of death because it is the boss. No one escapes it; it seems like it rules over everything and everyone at sometime submits to it. But now that Jesus holds the keys to death and Hades, that means we must fear him even more than we fear death.
So, what gives Jesus the right to tell John, a sinner, a human being who has compromised throughout his life, who ran away from him when he was about to be crucified, who argued with the other disciples about who would be the greatest—what allows Jesus to tell him that he doesn’t have to be afraid? I believe we find our answer in John’s first description of Jesus in Revelation 1:5. After he sees this vision of Jesus, he writes to explain why he does not need to fear such a majestic one. He doesn’t fear him because he is loved by him, and he has been freed from his sins through Jesus’ precious blood. That’s why he is not afraid. He is not afraid because when Jesus says “I died” he didn’t die for the fun of it, and he didn’t die because he was a sinner and deserved to die; he died “FOR” his people. On the night that Jesus was betrayed John remembers Jesus saying, “This is my body which is broken ‘for you’ and this is my blood which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.” Jesus didn’t die for himself; he died to conquer death, not to conquer death for himself because death never had any authority over him, he died to conquer it for his people. He died to get the keys of death and Hades and he got those keys so that he could free his people from its dominion. John knows that when Jesus freed him from his sins, he freed him from death because the sting of death is sin and so through Jesus’ death he disarmed death, removing its sting. He did all of this so that he could come and dwell amongst his people and they would not have to be afraid. God has given all judgment into Jesus’ hands and Jesus is a righteous judge. The only way a sinner could ever stand before a righteous judge and not fear is if their sins had somehow been washed away. And so Jesus, the righteous judge, is also our priest and the sacrifice that he offered up to God on our behalf as our perfect high priest was his own body. He did it all so that he could stand before us in all his glory and as the righteous judge, with a face shining like the sun he could reach out his hand and touch us and say, “Fear not.”
Jesus is real, and his face shines like the sun. He sees everything and his voice is like the roar of rushing waters. If we fall before him and worship him, if we cling to his death on the cross for us as our only hope, if we by faith look to him and him alone as our salvation, our life, our joy, and our utter satisfaction, then we can know him not as an enemy to be feared, but as our God to be worshipped. We don’t have to fear him if we trust in his love for us and in his death for us.
I want to end with two thoughts. First: It is amazing that this Jesus, this one that we see here arrayed in all his glory took on flesh, covered his shining face, muffled his roaring voice, dulled his glistening hair, took off his royal robe, laid aside his golden sash, and came to earth where he lived a humble, perfect life of obedience to God. He bore the mocking of foolish people who could not recognize who stood before them. And then, on the cross he fell upon his own sword. The sword in his mouth meant to reap justice on sinners was used to pierce his own side as he bore the sins of his people. The Jesus we see in Revelation is the Jesus who is. It was this Jesus who humbled himself and came in the flesh. That is love. That is amazing. This one deserves our worship. This one deserves our praise. This one calls us not to buy into the pathetic offers of this world for cheap pleasures and fickle comforts. This one is our God, and at his right hand are pleasures forever more. Love him, seek him with all your heart. Consider everything else a loss compared to the all-surpassing joy of knowing him and gaining in him a righteousness that does not come from the law, but one that comes from his perfect life of humble submission to his father and obedience. Whatever suffering might come from treasuring him above all else, consider it joy, a privilege. Don’t be afraid of people; your God shines like the sun and he is for you. Who cares what other people think of you? Don’t be afraid of the threats of others. Your God rules over the kings of the earth. He is the first and the last. He has a sword coming out of his mouth, and he will one day reap justice on all who stand against his people. Don’t be afraid of death; your God has gone before and has conquered death and now holds the keys of death and hell and has freed you from their bondage with his blood.
But—and we will talk about this more in the coming weeks—he will not say to everyone, “Do not be afraid.” To the compromisers, to those who refuse to believe in Jesus, to those who desire to have Jesus and this world, to those who believe that Jesus is just a good man, to those who believe that God will accept them because they are good people, to all of them—be afraid. Be very much afraid for even now there is one staring at you with eyes of fire, and he sees you, he sees it all, but he is being patient. He has not come for you yet. Though you deserve to be punished eternally for your failure to worship the one true God, he is being patient. Please don’t wait any longer. Look at him and know that he is real. Look at him and know that if you will trust him, if you will stop looking for pleasure and satisfaction in other places, if you will acknowledge your sin and the depth of your need for him, if you will do this, he stands ready to forgive you. His blood is sufficient for your sins. He can free you from them if you will come to him. This is a scary book because it is an unveiling of what is real, and we so often have been content to pretend that this world is all there is, and its pleasures and comforts are the prizes we are to seek with all our might. That is a lie. The Jesus of Revelation is real, and he is waiting, patiently giving all his enemies an opportunity to repent. Please repent. Please don’t challenge him, for he will win. He is the ruler of the kings of the earth, the first and the last, and if you will but run to him, wash yourself in his precious blood, and worship him with all your life, you will find that in him there is nothing to fear. What an awesome God we have! He has borne his own sword for us so that he might touch us with a gentle hand and tell us that we have nothing to fear. Certainly when this Jesus is for us, who can be against us?
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