Jesus

Jesus Christ is the Holy Center of the book of Revelation, like He is in history and will be in the coming of God’s kingdom, of which the book of Revelation bears testimony. The book is therefore to be called ‘The Revelation of Jesus Christ’ – the opening words of the book. One of Jesus’ angels and the apostle John were merely the vessels through which this Revelation has reached the world.

At the moment that John wrote the book, church history, contained in the opening parts of the book, was about to take its course. Therefore: ‘the time is at hand’ and the 'things which must shortly come to pass’.

The difficulty in understanding the book is only surpassed by its importance. It is the only book of the Bible that promises a blessing to those who read and keep it. This blessing is especially important now that the endtime has come so very close that we are on the verge of the special promise the Lord gave to the church of Philadelphia. This promise of being kept from ‘the hour of temptation’ because of keeping ‘the word of his patience’ concerns the rapture of the church, just before the darkest years in world history are about to start. The biblical teachings on the rapture are found in another chapter on this website.

The unfathomable godly nature is described in 'the God and Father' being on his eternal throne, 'the 7 Spirits' before the throne and 'God the Son', Jesus Christ, the faithful Witness, strangely called ‘the firstborn of the dead’ – birth and death being total opposites. For through his death and resurrection, He laid the foundation for the fulfillment of all of God’s plans from the foundation of the world. He indeed is the faithful Witness, 'the brightness of God's glory, and the express image of God's Person' (Heb.1:3), which He persisted to be, even in his life as Son of man amidst a fallen creation, under the most difficult and triggering of circumstances. He indeed is the Firstborn, the most important One of those who once died, with Whom nobody can ever be compared. It is in Jesus that the Father Himself will come to this world, as stated with the ‘Who is and was and is to come’. As Jesus once said to his disciples: ‘Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in Me?’ (Jn.14:10)

Jesus is also the 'ruler of the kings of the earth’, which does not mean that kings knowingly obey Him, seeing history is filled with the most evil of acts by those in positions of power. On the one hand Jesus could say: ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me’ (Mt 28:18). On the other hand Paul wrote: ‘Yet at present we do not see everything subject to them. But we do see Jesus, who was made lower than the angels for a little while, now crowned with glory and honor’ (Heb.2:8,9). The kingdom of God is yet to come in all of its fullness, filling each corner of human existence. It is this very book of Revelation which tells us how it will come. Once it has come, kings will indeed ‘kiss the Son’ in order not te be destroyed (Psalm 2:10-12). And all kings of the past will once stand before Him in order to be judged for each decision they made.

It is this Eternal God, having become Man in the person of Jesus, the Highest according to all standards known to mortal man, that has loved us. How our hearts must leap for joy. And He has shown his love in the giving of Himself in the most brutal death one can think of: the death on the cross, with all horrors that were attached to it, even the unimaginable horrors of becoming the offering for sinful men in order to redeem them from their sins by his blood. By doing so, He made those who chose to fully rely on Him kings and priests unto God and his Father’ – intermediaries between God and humanity in the bringing of blessing below and praises above. How He deserves all our admiration, praise and worship for all eternity.

The return of Jesus Christ will be the most astonishing event in all of history, as He Himself foretold: ‘...and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory’. And again, while standing before the Sanhedrin, in the darkest of circumstances, remaining the ever fearless, faithful Witness 'From now on you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven' (Mt.26:64). Many eyes will see Him on that very day, all those clinging to their devices because of the expectation of the start of another World War, with most of the world armies being gathered around Jerusalem. But the ‘every eye will see Him’ of Revelation 1 will go further than the day of his coming, for the text goes on with: ‘even those who pierced Him’. That part of this prophecy will have to wait for another 1000 years, when the remaining dead will rise to be condemned, and the Jews and Roman soldiers who were responsible for his death will face their final trial before the great white throne and will tremble from fear when they see the Crucified One upon it.

His coming with the clouds is also the moment that will set into motion the dawning of the ugly truth of the enormous mistake of the Jewish people, when they finally recognize the One they despised for about 2000 years. This realization will be brought about by both his glorious return and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon them and it will result in much wailing and weeping (Zechariah 12:10-13). This will be the moment that the veil that covered their hearts for so many centuries will be taken away (2 Cor.3:15,16), the moment that the godlessness will be turned away from Jacob (Rom.11:26). But not only the people of Israel will be shocked by its shortcoming toward the enormity of Jesus' splendor. All peoples of the world will be stricken by his might and beauty and thus by their own failure to acknowledge Him for Who He is.

In the Alpha and Omega, the Lord God, stating Himself as the One Who is, Who was and, moreover, Who will come, underlines the reality that the returning Son of man, Jesus, is also God Himself, the Almighty.

It often is in the most difficult circumstances of life, in isolation from society, that God gives his revelations, as we see John being in exile on the island Patmos, as a ‘companion in tribulation, and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ... for the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ.’ At the moment of receiving the vision or Revelation, John was 'in the Spirit on the day that belongs to the Lord', which instead of being a certain day of the week might be a reference to 'the day of the Lord', the day that the Lord will take total and worldwide control over earths government in the return of Jesus Christ. Together with the angel and Jesus, the Spirit of God is also active in the vision that is given to John. It is through the Spirit that 'holy man of God have spoken': 'For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.' (2 Pt 1:21).

The great voice, as of a trumpet John heard was that of the angel that the Lord had sent. Out of the mouth of the angel, John for the first time hears his commission: to write the testimony of his vision in a book and to send this to seven churches in Asia. But when turning he does not see this angel.

John first seems to stand in a revering awe before 'the Son of man', John's eyes following the garment to the feet and than going up, to the golden girdle around the waiste, up to the hair on the head barely able to escape the penetrating eyes that shone like flames of fire. Then John's eyes again turned to the feet, which looked like brass, burning in a furnace. Then they again go up, to the right hand, with seven twinkling stars, further up. where John sees a sharp twoedged sword proceed from the mouth in the midst of a face that is shining like the midday sun in the hight of summer.

John sees the One that he had been following on earth for three years on a mission that ended on a cross. He sees his Master, Who seemingly had reached a totally dead and disgraceful end, in unparalleled grandeur and in overwhelming power, such that John fell at his feet as though dead. The voice of Jesus seems to differ from the angel’s voice, not sounding like a trumpet but like the sound of rushing waters (1:15), reminding us of his life-giving power with which He will raise everyone who has died through all of history.

This is in fact the core of the message that Jesus brings here: ‘Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last. I am the Living One; I was dead, and now look, I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades.’ The bright appearance of Jesus in splendid glory was a clear testimony to the most joyful of truths: ‘look, I am alive for ever and ever’. Jesus holds the keys of death and hades. Hades is the Greek ‘realm of death’ of which we know next to nothing. Jesus once compared death with being asleep, being without any consciousness: ‘Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going there to wake him up...Jesus had been speaking of his death’ (John 11:11-13). On the other hand, speaking of the patriarchs, Jesus said: ‘He is not a God of the dead, but of the living: for all live unto Him (Luke 20:38). These two sides of death could be meant by ‘death and hades’ and Jesus has the keys of both. They are the exit keys, whereas the entrance has been open throughout all of history, everyone having entered death. But once Jesus will have raised all the dead, death and hades themselves will be destroyed. ‘The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death’ (1 Cor.15:26). ‘And death and hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.’ (Rev.20:14).

Who would, having come in the vicinity of such unimaginable power and glory, not, like John, fall on his knees in admiration and worship? That is the goal of Revelation, that we come to kneel in awe before the Son of man, totally opening our hearts to Him Who alone is worthy to shine his light in every dark corner of our lives. That is the only road to salvation: Jesus. Allowing Him to be the sole center of your existence.

Then Jesus gives John his commission: ‘to write’. John had to write three things; (1) What he had seen (2) What is now (3) What will take place later. What he had seen concerns his vision of Jesus in Chapter 1. What is now has predominantly to do with the development of the church, which existed already for some decades and which would continue on earth for almost 2000 years. This we find in chapters 2 and 3. What will take place later is what will happen after the church is gone from the earth, which is found in chapters 4-22, with the exclusion of chapters 12 and 17, which also contain some older elements.

The 7 candles at Jesus’ feet and the 7 stars in his right hand both spread light. The stars are ‘angels’ or ‘messengers’ of the churches. These special people in the church had to bring the light, the messages they received through the ministry of John- the book of Revelation -, so that the candles would burn in their full strength and spread their light in the dark world and attract as many as possible to the Son of man. Had the messengers fulfilled their tasks to the full and had the churches listened, church history would not have been so full of fallacies and misconceptions. We will dive into church history in the next page on this site.