One is blessed merely to have the words of John as they are a record of his unique experience in Heaven, blessed to have an opportunity to read them aloud – sharing them with others, and blessed to have the Holy Spirit illuminate them as they are read and heard. “1:3 Blessed is the one who reads the words of this prophecy aloud,” John was not only present while Jesus walked the earth, he was relationally-close to Him, and he was then treated to an angelic tour of Heaven together with a time-breaching multimedia presentation. “1:2 who then testified to everything that he saw concerning the word of God and the testimony about Jesus Christ.” “it” refers to “what must happen very soon” and as the events recorded in Revelation unfolded almost immediately following John's revelation the angel was communicating the Lord God's plan (the elements of which were necessary for believers to know) to them (us). “He made it clear by sending his angel to his servant John,” In this case the reference is specifically to Jesus as the Lord God partially-incarnate (no created thing may, of course, contain the Lord God) during His ministry in-the-flesh on earth, and later through the ministry of the Holy Spirit as He guided the Biblical authors and He illuminates the Word to every believer. which God gave him to show his servants what must happen very soon.” Summary & Commentaryįor the purposes of humankind the entire Bible is a revelation about Jesus Christ, certainly insofar as He was the One Who “created” and “all of the law and prophet/prophesy” from Genesis 3 on were about Him and His work of redemption the Word is as well as a revelation given by Him of the necessary detail of the entirety of the history of the created cosmos and the Lord God’s interaction with it. May I be as surrendered to guidance of the Holy Spirit, as I read the Word of God, as was John to his angelic guide. Lord, You blessed the apostle John with an amazing and unique experience, and You sent an angel to serve as his Heavenly “tour guide”. 1:3 Blessed is the one who reads the words of this prophecy aloud, and blessed are those who hear and obey the things written in it, because the time is near! Prayer He made it clear by sending his angel to his servant John, 1:2 who then testified to everything that he saw concerning the word of God and the testimony about Jesus Christ. Sunday (Revelation 1:1-3)ġ:1 The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must happen very soon. Wallace, a fellow contributor to the online Bible study resources hosted at. We will follow the divisions found in Constable’s Notes and also used by Daniel B. This is the first of eight-weeks of daily studies through the book of Revelation. As with all of the Word of God it is only with the assistance of the indwelling Holy Spirit that we are able to rightly-discern what is His purpose for us to learn from the Book of Revelation.

This leaves the reader with the best-effort of the translator (or translation team) to make the text both faithful to the original (from ancient Greek to modern English) as well as readable.

Once the apostle John returned to his normal state how could he choose what to edit or not without the fear that he may alter something important? Thus John did not edit his notes. While he fasted and prayed and studied the Lord God opened his eyes to a truth which we all must recognize – John was in an ecstatic state, he was viewing things never before seen by human eyes, he was interpreting them for the purpose of description based on his limited life experience (and the limitations of human language), he was recording that which he was instructed (by the angel) to record, and he was refraining from recording what he was told not to record. He observed that the Greek is “sloppy”, something that challenged his self-identified preference for order and precision, which he had happily found in the rest of the Books.

Phillips, a highly respected Biblical scholar and translator, wrote in his introduction to his English language translation of Revelation that he nearly decided to not translate it at all.

Seven spirits of god in bible