Revelations: Church of God Revealed ...

Revelations of Jesus Christ began after his resurrection from the grave, not only in the book John would write on the topic.  To have Jesus Christ revealed to the world, and to His own church, was something both were in desperate need of, as are we today.  The book of prophecies and visions John would pen are often studied today with a focus on predicting latter day events, or for studying the history of political power in the world over time.  But these ideas, while present, are not supposed to be the key message revealed in this text.  Jesus Christ is.  The book we find most difficult to understand was first and foremost intended to be a book that revealed Jesus Christ more fully to the world.  This should be the first goal in its study, not a by-product of what is found within.  The Pharisees had already proven the point to John throughout his gospel to us, that interpretation of scripture without Christ, leads to an improper understanding that will allow those who claim to be the leaders of God’s church, to kill God Himself, in order to maintain their incorrect understandings, and their leadership over the people.  It is always Satan’s kingdom that craves power and subjugation, and God’s who wishes only the freedom to love others and find joy in the loving.

Jesus had a humble birth in this world, though He was honored as a King.  He grew up in the trade of a carpenter in a region not known for anything holy.  He ministered for three and a half years and revealed the will of God His Father on earth to show love to all He encountered.  He died and was raised from the dead.  After this, his physical appearances were limited.  The nature of Christ that was the Son of God was not something readily apparent in the life He lived upon earth.  But this nature was the more important one, and was the one which John would focus on now.  Christ was no longer in this world.  He had ascended back to the side of His Father.  He was home.  And the home He went to, was something none of us understood, or knew anything about.  The whole of the Old Testament pointed forward to His first appearing and hope of a Messiah.  There were some scattered prophesies about heaven and the ultimate restoration of God’s Kingdom past the end of time.  But the majority of the Desire of Ages was to see our hopes fulfilled in His first ministry to us, that of Messiah.  But now, Messiah had come and gone.  What was left to write in the New Testament was about the new hope and new focus of Jesus we would need to know.  It had come time, to reveal to the world, what was coming, and a new Revelation about the nature of Christ as God, not merely as the son of Man.

This effort would be even less appreciated by the remaining Jewish leadership.  It was bad enough to have to contend with the Man Jesus Christ.  But now to have to see His Divine side revealed was not an idea they relished.  In addition, John would be describing what God is like.  John would describing the Only God, the real God, this God which does exist, as opposed to all the prior deities that lived in pagan forms of worship, now revealed to be false.  In the book of Revelation, as is consistent with the entirety of scripture, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit would be discussed and revealed as working in concert for our salvation.  These three who were united and one in the mission of our redemption would be fully discussed.  There would be no mention of Diana, or Zeus, or Apollo, or Odin, or Thor, or Buddha, or Mohammed, or a Great Spirit, or Druid Nature worship, or any other form of past or present alternatives to the truth of Jesus Christ.  There were no other Gods, despite what Satan had propagated into the various forms of worship around the world.  And so in the revealing of Jesus Christ, would also come the unmasking of His enemy.  All of the false forms and false gods that have in common the worship of self; would also be revealed, in contrast to the revelation of the truth and life of Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ as our God would be revealed to us.  John would in the course of this new book reveal to the best of his ability what God looked like, in the form of God, rather than merely in the form of Man.  John would write about concepts that would be hard for man to understand.  For any finite being, would find it difficult to put into words something that knows no limits.  But the messages intended for John to reveal to us had an author.  As John opens His book of Revelations, he begins with attributing where the source of these writings would originate from.  Not from his imagination as many would like to believe, not from hallucinations induced by hunger or non-ideal conditions of the Roman prison colony at Patmos where he had been banished to, after the Romans failed to kill him boiling him in oil.  No, the source of these revelations had a home as he would begin to describe in chapter one, and verse one … “The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John:” - Notice first, that God the Father was the author of these revelations.  God the Father gave these messages to Jesus Christ, in order that Christ could reveal them to His servants (angels and men), about what was to shortly come to pass.  In this designation of time, there is an urgency, and an immediacy that argues that this message will have relevance in the timeline of the readership.  Christ then sends the message to John via an Angel tasked to take it to him.  The progression of the message begins with God the Father, is passed to God the Son, and is delivered to John via an Angel tasked with its delivery.

John continues in verse 2 … “Who bare record of the word of God, and of the testimony of Jesus Christ, and of all things that he saw. [verse 3] Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand.”  John recorded the word of God, not his own inclinations, or his own ideas, or his own interpretations of what was revealed, but rather, just as it was delivered to him.  In this book to follow would be the testimony of Jesus Christ.  Everything that John saw, he would transcribe to print.  And so, John offers the reader the idea that just in the reading he will be blessed.  For again the time is at hand, the meanings contained in this book are both prophecy, and currently relevant.  They have meaning both here and now, and in the near future.  John tells us, that the same words may be interpreted in more than one way, but continued to remind us, that all meanings must be derived in the context of a revelation of Jesus Christ.

With this opening, John sets the stage of where the message comes from, and to whom it is being delivered.  He continues in verse 4 … “John to the seven churches which are in Asia: Grace be unto you, and peace, from him which is, and which was, and which is to come; and from the seven Spirits which are before his throne;” - John opens with a message for 7 key churches, that are located in Asia.  Notice first these churches do not include the countries of Rome (Italy), or Jerusalem (Israel).  They are in Asia, or plainly stated the rest of the world.  The message or revelation of Jesus Christ is no longer just to be offered to the traditional descendants of Abraham.  The revelations of Jesus Christ as God, are to be freely available to His followers around the world.  The number seven denotes perfection in the kingdom of God, it is a form of symbolism to signify to us, a state of perfection that exists in a universe we have little understanding of.  So when John opens his greetings, He is in effect, saying He is greeting the perfect church of the real God, Jesus Christ, those who follow the Truth and the Life.  He does not include in this greeting, other churches, other gods, or even traditional descendants of Abraham.  Followers of Christ alone, can be included in the church of God.  A failure to recognize Christ, by definition excludes one from membership in the church of God the Father.

Next John reveals in this first greeting an aspect about God which finite man has a hard time understanding; that God exists outside of what we understand about space and time itself.  John uses the words … “from him which is (present tense), which was (past tense), and which is to come (future tense)”.  Christ existed before His human origin, and before our creation, and before our understandings of the big bang, and before anything we call a start of time or space.  As God, Jesus Christ exists in the present, in our reality, in the space and time we call “now”.  And as God, Jesus Christ will exist in the future, past our own deaths, past the death of this world, past any boundaries we could imagine in time or in space.  This idea makes time irrelevant where it comes to describing God.  Jesus, for our purposes, has no beginning, nor does he have any end.  He exists past both of those conventional ideas we are bound by.

Next John offers us the location that this message came from the throne of God.  He further clarifies that there are 7 spirits who are before His throne.  Seven being a symbolism for perfection, this implies that the perfection of the Holy Spirit is before His throne.  John’s use of the words “and from” state that the greetings of Grace and peace are joined by the Holy Spirit as well to the church of God the Father.  John continues in verse 5 … “And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, [verse 6] And hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.”  John further states his greetings are joined by Jesus Christ as well.  He then begins to describe Jesus as being the faithful witness.  In this Christ was a faithful witness to the will of God, the love of God, and the law of God.  Christ was forever showing the love of God to us, and telling us that in each and every miracle, His Father’s will was fulfilled.  Jesus is further described as the “first begotten of the dead”.  In this Jesus’s resurrection offers us hope that because of His gift, we too can be raised from the dead.  Not just from our physical state but from the dead of a life of selfishness, chained to self-service, this is a state He can raise us from as well.  The leadership of Christ is to be above the kings of this world, even kings are to owe their service to Christ. 

John then states that what Christ has done for us, is to turn us from the slaves of self-service, into kings and priests unto God His Father.  We join with God in serving others, and in so doing we become kings of service, and priests of service, all for the benefit of others – just as Christ has done for us.  We are not to be glorified or worshipped, but instead our service and our love to others will be His glory.  John rightly attributed glory and dominion for ever to Christ alone.  Just in these first few verses, John inexorably ties Jesus Christ to God the Father, and God the Holy Spirit.  It is impossible to claim to worship God the Father, if one denies His Son, or His Spirit.  The 7 churches are not perfect because they commit no sin, or need no savior; instead they are perfect because they acknowledge their need of Jesus Christ as their only hope of being saved from the slavery of self.  Modern day Muslims, and Jews, still claim to serve the same Father God we Christians do – but they deny the divinity of His son – and in so doing keep themselves from being identified with the source of their salvation.  This choice of separation leaves them with no-one to break the chains of their selfishness, and offer them the life God so longs to see them live.  His door stands open, but their denial of His Son, leaves them no savior to save them from themselves.  It is not enough to worship only part of God, we must accept the whole of God if we are to see the Truth, and experience His Life.

John continues with the message of God the Father in verse 7 … “Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen.” – Perhaps ironic that in the seventh verse is the most important point of the entire book – Jesus Christ will be returning to this earth.  Further the manner of His return is described, He will be coming with clouds, and every eye shall see Him.  The return of Christ is to be from the sky, in like manner as He ascended.  And His return is not to be a secret, but one that will be witnessed by the entire world.  It will be seen also by those who pierced Him.  This could be both spiritual (those who deny His divinity, or deny their need of Him to save them from themselves), or it could be literal if those who were responsible for His death are raised to see His triumphant return, to finally and fully know the proof of what He had told them, and what they knew in their hearts to be true, but would not accept to be true.  All kindreds of the earth shall wail, implies that in every people of every land, there are many who do not wish to see Him return.  They are more happy with their lives as they are.  They do not wish a change.  They do not wish His freedom.  To see the Truth of His returning is to recognize their lives will not be allowed to continue indefinitely in the evil they have embraced.  But even so, Amen, even so, John wishes for Christ to return.

John continues to write the message He has heard, the revelation of Jesus Christ from the Father God Himself as he continues to describe Christ  in verse 8 … “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.”  First, as has been the case all along, Christ is the Alpha (or the genesis or beginning) of our salvation.  He is also the Omega (or ending, or finisher) of our salvation.  We are saved because He loved us before we knew Him.  We are drawn by this love to Him.  We are granted the freedom to decide whether to accept this love or not.  And having accepted, it is by the power of His love, that He changes us from who we were into who He intended us to be.  The Father again identifies Christ as the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending of our way of salvation.  He again states that our concepts of time do not apply or constrain God, He is beyond them.  And finally, He states the Truth that all power is in the hands of God and Christ.  He is the Almighty.  There is no limit to the power within Him.  He is able to save us, from what we are powerless to save ourselves from. 

This revelation of what God is like, what Christ is like, in the form of God was stunning.  Then and now, the idea the God is beyond our ideas of time, is hard for us to grasp.  But then and now, the idea that Christ is powerful enough to save us, and is the main point in the true religion of God is consistent throughout the entire Bible.  Here John affirms it once again.  What has changed between the Old and New Testaments of Christ, is that one pointed forward to His mission as Messiah.  And the other points forward to His mission as God and Redeemer.  The church of God has been identified as belonging to the rest of the world now.  It is not constrained by the history of Judaism.  Nor is it tied to the power of the Roman empire.  It is not bound to political power, or historical bias, it belongs to those who see the need to be saved from themselves by the power of Jesus Christ. 

False gods have been eliminated.  And self too has been denounced.  In these texts of revelation of Jesus Christ, is found no reference to how we save ourselves, either on our own, or in partnership with Jesus.  We have no role in that other than to accept His gift of our salvation.  Jesus is identified as Alpha and Omega, not man, not self, not us.  This revelation was hard for former Jews to accept, it is no less difficult for us today.  Too many wish to take the reins in their own salvation, too many wish to keep some measure of control in how they are saved, and in so doing keep self at the center of their purported “Christianity”.  They leave Christ to the side, and continue to rely on self, and on their own actions to validate their salvation.  Instead of finding the true change that full submission brings.  In this, they would find actions natural, instead of labored.  They would find rest, instead of burden.  But to find it, they must join the true church of Christ, and follow Him, not themselves.

And this was only the beginning of the revelations John was to reveal …