REVELATION 1:2, PART 13
We shall find here ‘what the Spirit saith to the churches,’ and also the awful tribulation time itself, the Holy Spirit reminding us by His especial witness, that all is taking place according to God.
and He sent and communicated it by His angel to His bond-servant John, 2who testified to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, everything that he saw. (New American Standard Bible - NASB)
We’re moving towards the mid-20th century:
“What it was intended that Christ should do, he did: ‘and he signified (them) to his slave John.’ The Greek needs no object. Whether we supply a plural or a singular object makes no material difference, because ‘the things that must occur’ constitute the ‘revelation’ which God gave to Christ. Formally we prefer ‘them,’ because ‘the things which’ immediately precedes. Signified ‘it’ in our versions is a little ambiguous, since it might mean that showing these things to the slaves was indicated (by God or Christ) to John. The verbs ‘to show’ and ‘to signify’ match the form of the ‘revelation,’ namely the visions which John ‘saw’ (v. 2).
“The modifier: aposteilas dia tou angelou aftou, ‘having granted a commission through his angel,’ is to be construed with ‘he signified.’ While we construe: Christ ‘signified…to his slave John,’ the one whom he commissioned is also John (certainly not the angel). We note that in aposteilas lies the idea of apostolos; but by using the participle the sound ‘apostle’ is avoided. The noun would refer to John’s entire apostolic function (would include too much), the participle refers to this particular commission, the writing of this revelation for the slaves of Christ. We see how exact this wording is, and how this participle adds to the slave John this particular and certainly high apostolic commission. John was not to preach this revelation; his commission was to write it, so that it would be read and heard in the churches…”
Here we go again: “aposteilas” has nothing to do with our concept of “Apostle;” it’s the word for “sent.” I suppose you could think of it as “commissioned,” but there is nothing to suggest a “high apostolic commission” at all.
“Apostolos” is the noun, and this is closer to what we think of as an Apostle. It means “a delegate, an ambassador, a messenger, someone with a commission”. So, an Apostle as we understand it, is someone with a commission to teach the Gospel, or a messenger for the Gospel.
“The text says that Christ commissioned John ‘through his angel.’ Many authorities turn this angel into an angelus interpres, as if the text read that Christ commissioned his angel as an interpreter for John. No angel is commissioned; the commission was made by Christ dia tou angelou aftou. Here we have an example of modernistic exegesis. This genre of literature, we are told, loves the cumbrous [obstructing, clogging, cumbersome] category of an intermediate agent; rabbinic and apocalyptic tradition always functions with such an angel. It was not confined to Judaism; the Hellenic religions have their daemons as intermediaries. Milton’s Uriel is duly noted. Why not also the daemon who always told Socrates what to do? John is supposed to use the common apocalyptic machinery. Yet we are told that after all this angel interpreter has little interpreting to do in the visions, he’s evident in one 17,1 and in 21,9, and it is a question whether he was always the same angel, so that John must have written this caption after finishing the book with only these last angel interpretations in mind. This modernistic notion about the angel machinery thus abolishes itself.”
Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and spoke with me, saying, “Come here, I will show you the judgment of the great prostitute who sits on many waters (Revelation 17:1; NASB)
Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls, full of the seven last plagues, came and spoke with me, saying, “Come here, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.” (Revelation 21:9; NASB)
This last paragraph was a bit of rant. I would say that no angel was interpreting…it’s more that they are pointing out things of note. Sort of tour guides as it were.
“Our task is to look for John’s commission. We have not far to seek. Throughout Revelation angels are employed in dealing with John. We note especially 22,6: God ‘commissioned his angel to show to his slaves what things must occur shortly.’ When Christ commissions God commissions. ‘His angel’ does not necessarily mean only one and the same angel. Such singulars are at times generic. Any angel, now one, now another, would be ‘his (Christ’s and God’s) angel.’ Here the statement is made that the angel conferred the commission on John: in 26,2 God commissioned his angel to show to his (God’s) slaves what he desired to reveal. There is no angelus interpres, no shadow of apocalyptic mechanics or fiction.
“2) The relative clause states that John carried out this commission, wrote what he saw, sent the book, —the seven churches have it now: ‘who (here in this book) testified to the Word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, (namely) to all the things as many as he saw.’ In emartyrise we have an epistolary aorist. John places himself at the moment when his book is read in the churches, as the written record of him who ‘testified.’ We should use the perfect: ‘has testified’. John’s commission was ‘to testify’ in writing. This matches ‘what all he saw.’ One can testify to what one saw.
“John does not express it in so bare a way; he says that he testified to ‘the Word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ,’ and then in apposition: ‘to the things as many (osa) as he saw.’ He thus reverts to v. 1, to God who gave this revelation, to Christ who showed and signified it to his slave. What John has written in testimony is no less that ‘the Word of God,’ no less than ‘the testimony of Jesus Christ.” No need to say that in the visions he both saw and heard; the one verb is enough. Is it so hard then to understand 22, 18-19?
18I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues that are written in this book; 19and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his part from the tree of life and from the holy city, which are written in this book. (Revelation 22:18,19; NASB)
“Some interpreters think that John refers to his apostolic work, in which ‘he testified to the Word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ’; but the apposition: ‘what all he (John) saw’ prevents this idea. The point here is not the general Gospel testimony of John, as it is in v.9; but the testimony laid down in this book, embracing ‘what all John saw’ (our English ‘had seen’). In this caption John properly uses his name and the third person. That he is none other than the apostle John we have shown in the introduction. He alone saw this revelation, received this commission, and must thus name himself, and not omit his name as in his other writings. He is the one mouthpiece for two other witness, God and Christ (see on 22, 6-19). His name ‘John’ is sufficient for the seven churches, who knew no other ‘John’ with who this John could be confused. In v. 9 he speaks of this exile, but not in order to identify himself, but only to inform the churches why he was in Patmos and that there he saw.” [from THE INTERPRETATION OF ST JOHN’S REVELATION, by R.C.H. Lenski, 1935]
I, John, your brother and fellow participant in the tribulation and kingdom and perseverance in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. (Revelation 1:9; NASB)
And he said to me, “These words are faithful and true”; and the Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, sent His angel to sho His bond-servants the things which must soon take place. (Revelation 22:6; NASB)
I take Lenski’s point about “what all he saw” preventing the idea that this sentence was referring to John’s Gospel, but I disagree that Revelation 1:9 was about the “general Gospel testimony of John.”
“We have, first, God; then Jesus Christ; then, His angel; then, His servant John, and finally Christ’s servants,—to whom the Revelation comes. Furthermore, we note that John bears witness to two things:
“(1) ‘the word of God,’ and (2) ‘the testimony of Jesus Christ.’ ‘The word of God’ is evidently God’s word to Christ in which He communicated to Him this apocalypse, or revelation; and ‘the testimony of Jesus Christ’ is our Lord’s faithful communication of what God gave Him to tell us.”
Ummm…didn’t the Gospel of John call Jesus “the Word?” Isn’t the Word of God Christ rather than “God’s word to Christ?” I’m not saying that this author is really wrong in his interpretation here: this interpretation has been pretty much what we’ve been seeing right along. But, I am saying that the deeper meaning may relate to John’s naming of Jesus Christ as The Word of God.
“First, there can be no doubt, that Jesus Christ is the Second Person of the Trinity. The Father, in Hebrews 1:8, addresses Him as God, saying, ‘Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever.’ Our Lord claimed worship, and plainly says that ‘all should honor the Son even as they honor the Father’ (John 5:23). And in a comparison of Revelation 1:8 with 22:13, all doubt vanishes.”
1God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in may ways, 2in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom He also made the world…8But regarding the Son He says, “Your throne, God, is forever and ever, and the scepter of righteousness is the scepter of His kingdom. 9You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness; therefore God, Your God, has anointed you with the oil of joy about Your companions.” 10And, “You, Lord, in the beginning laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the works of your hands; 11they will perish, but You remain; and they all will wear out like a garment, and like a robe You will roll them up; like a garment they will also be changed. But You are the same, and Your years will not come to an end.” (Hebrews 1:1,2,8-11; NASB)
“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.” (Revelation 1:8; NASB)
I am the Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.” (Revelation 22:13; NASB)
I enlarged the Hebrews quote because it is just so powerful in this context.
“But, secondly, we must remember and believe Christ’s own words in Matthew 24:36: 'Of that day and hour knoweth no one, not even the angels of heaven, neither the Son, but the Father only.' Compare Mark 13:32, and also His parting words after the resurrection, in Acts 1:7, ‘It is not for you to know times or seasons, which the Father hath set within his own authority.’
But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone. (Mark 13:32; NASB)
But He said to them, “It is not for you to know periods of time or appointed times which the Father has set by His own authority (Acts 1:7; NASB)
“Again, in Hebrews 10:12, 13, ‘He ... sat down on the right hand of God, henceforth expecting till his enemies be made the footstool of his feet.’ The word here used means, ‘to await from the hand of another.' Taken in connection with the preceding verses, it indicates a state of constant expectancy: certain of the event, but leaving the time in the hands of the Father. When our Lord came to earth, we read (Philippians 2:7) He ‘emptied himself.’ He left His glory, His wisdom, and His power, absolutely in the hands of the Father. This did not subtract an iota from His Deity, but placed Him where He could say to the Father (Psalm 22:9, 10), ‘Thou didst make me trust when I was upon my mother’s breasts. I was cast upon thee from the womb.’ So He spoke on earth, ‘The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father doing.’ Now, of course, our Lord has entered into His glory, and all authority has been committed unto Him in heaven and on earth.
12but He, having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, sat down at the right hand of God, 13waiting from that time onward until His enemies are made a footstool for His feet. (Hebrews 10:12,13; NASB)
5Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, 6who, as He already existed in the form of God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, 7but emptied Himself by taking the form of a bond-servant and being born in the likeness of men. (Philippians 2:5-7; NASB)
“Nevertheless, these plain words are before us as we enter upon The Revelation: ‘The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him.’ This revelation must have been communicated to Him after His ascension to heaven, by the Father who has ‘set within his own authority’ times and seasons. We believe:
1. That the times and seasons are yet within the Father’s authority— of course by the glad consent of the Son.
2. That the book of The Revelation contains the details of the carrying out of the divine decree that all Christ’s enemies should be put under His feet—all things, save the Father, subjected unto Him (1 Corinthians 15:24-28).
24then comes the end, when He hands over the kingdom to our God and Father, when He has abolished all rule and all authority and power. 25For He must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet. 26The last enemy that will be abolished is death. 27For He has put all things in subjection under His feet. But when He says, “All things are put in subjection,” it is clear that this excludes the Father who put all things in subjection to Him. 28When all things are subjected to Him, then the Son Himself will also be subjected to the One who subjected all things to Him, so that God may be all in all. (1 Corinthians 15:24-28; NASB)
3. That the Father has not revealed ‘the day and the hour,’ so that we are waiting and watching and expecting, along with our Lord, the Father’s giving Him His Kingdom, which He ‘went into a far country, to receive ... and to return’ (Luke 19:12).”
After saying all that the author did about Jesus Christ being God (which was wonderful to read), he still goes back to the “revelation must have been communicated to Him after His ascension to heaven by the Father;” making it sound like Jesus was a normal man who came into this knowledge through the will of the Father after death, rather than Christ is part of the God-Head and the information returned to Him as He returned to His Glory.
“Our Lord said in Gethsemane, ‘Thinkest thou that I cannot beseech my Father, and he shall even now send me more than twelve legions of angels? How then should the scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be?’ (Matthew 26:53, 54). He left it to the Father to grant Him, as He pleased, weakness, shame and suffering, or resurrection, power, and glory. And this was perfect obedience!
“Christ will, of course, occupy the eternal throne, for He is God, yet it will be ‘the Throne of God and of the Lamb,’ an infinitely beautiful and gracious arrangement. For our Lord will not retire from us into the Godhead, although He is and will continue to be, ‘God blessed forever’: but He will be a man, and as such will reign on ‘the Throne of God and of the Lamb’ forever!”
We saw this concept of Christ not “retiring” into the Godhead before. It’s an interesting and provocative idea, though it seems to me to be a product of our limited minds. The truth is probably beyond our comprehension.
“He sent and signified (them) by his angel unto his servant John; who bare witness of the word of God, and of the testimony of Jesus Christ, even of all things that he saw. The manner of the communication of The Revelation to John by Jesus Christ is remarkable. He ‘sent and signified by his angel.’ This angelic agency of course does not refer to the title and introduction (1:1-8); nor to the great personal vision of Christ (1:9-20); nor to the messages to the seven churches (chapters 2, 3). Also the thrice repeated ‘I come quickly,’ and the ‘I Jesus have sent mine angel,’ are spoken directly by the Lord. Indeed chapter 22:6-10, and again 10-20 may well have been spoken by the Lord Himself; while the closing verse, like the opening of the book, is the Spirit-inspired utterance of the apostle. Like 1:4-7 it is more apostolic than seer-like in form, and so, more intimate to our hearts.
“The manner of angelic communication to John, like other phases of inspiration, is beyond our faculties. Much, indeed, like John, Daniel ‘heard a man’s voice between the banks of the Ulai, which called and said, Gabriel, make this man to understand the vision’ (Daniel 8:16).
“The Revelation concerning, as it does, governmental matters on earth, which are in angelic hands until the Millennium, is committed largely to direct angelic ministry.
“John speaks of ‘all things that he saw.’ Speculation upon inspiration is vain. God tells us it was ‘in divers manners’ (Hebrews 1:1). John, in The Revelation writes much as Daniel wrote. Both deal with God’s government of this world. We may know the whole is authoritative. We shall find here ‘what the Spirit saith to the churches,’ and also the awful tribulation time itself, the Holy Spirit reminding us by His especial witness, that all is taking place according to God (Revelation 14:13); and, at the end, Jesus Himself speaking, attesting all (22:16), although it had been testified by His angel: ‘I Jesus have sent mine angel.’ “ [from REVELATION: A COMPLETE COMMENTARY, by William R. Newell, 1935]
God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets (Hebrews 1:1; KJV)
God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways (Hebrews 1:1; NASB)
On the whole, a good and inspiring quote.
“and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John; —He (Christ) signified the things shortly to come to pass, sending them to John by his angel. The term ‘signify’ comes from the word ‘sign’ and indicates that the things to be revealed to John would be presented through signs and symbols. This word is used in the same sense by John in the following passages: John 12:33, 21:18,19.”
32And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to Myself.” 33Now He was saying this to indicate what kind of death He was going to die. (John 12:32,33; NASB)
18Truly, truly I tell you, when you were younger, you used to put on your belt and walk wherever you wanted; but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands and someone else will put your belt on you, and bring you where you do not want to go.” 19Now He said this, indicating by what kind of death he would glorify God. And when He had said this, He said to him, “Follow Me!” (John 21:18,19; NASB)
These passages are not showing us the use of “signs and symbols,” but rather metaphor-like descriptors. You could say that letters and words are “signs and symbols” but that would be taking it to ridiculous lengths. Besides, we have seen before that the word for “signify” (semaino) means “to give a sign, to signify, indicate, to make known.” It’s not just about “signs and symbols,” as indeed the word “signify” is also not.
“It is an appropriate word to express a revelation which was to be made largely through symbols. The symbolic nature of much of the book is evident from even a casual reading of it. The word ‘angel’ means messenger, and this shows that the visions were conveyed to John through the medium of some heavenly messenger. How this was done is a matter that must be left to the secret things known only to divine wisdom. (Deut. 29:29.) It is a matter of first importance in the study of God’s word to stop where Revelation ends. In no part of the sacred record is this more important than in the study of the Apocalypse.”
The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our sons forever, so that we may follow all the words of this Law. (Deuteronomy 29:29; NASB)
Again, not all of Revelation is symbolic. And, of course, we should stop where Revelation stops.
“2 who bare witness of the word of God, and of the testimony of Jesus Christ, even of all things that he saw. —This language shows that John regarded himself simply as a witness of God’s revelation. In general God’s word means any declaration or truth coming from him. But here he means that John was giving a true record of the things recorded in this book. This is evident from the explanatory clause ‘even of all things that he saw.’ Of course, John was a witness of the things he had seen in the personal ministry of Christ. (John 19:35, 21:24.) The ‘testimony of Jesus Christ,’ as indicated in verse 1, was the witness that he bore to the word of God; or, that this revelation came through Christ and was delivered by John.” [from A COMMENTARY ON THE BOOK OF REVELATION, by John T. Hinds, 1937]
And he who has seen has testified, and his testimony is true, and he knows that he is telling the truth, so that you also may believe. (John 19:35; NASB)
This is the disciple who is testifying about these things and wrote these things, and we know that his testimony is true. (John 21:24; NASB)
I like this point about John seeing himself as a witness, both to the life of Jesus and to the revelation he was given.
That’s it for today; more on the 20th century commentaries next time.
You're too kind. Thanks!
As usual, this is a wonderfully written article. As I have said before, I will say it again. Your articles should be in book form