I am pleased to welcome all of you back to Deeper Waters. It’s exciting realizing we’re on the last book of the Bible and I want this to be a really informative and new look at this book. I’ll get into the details soon, but first, I want to ask for your continued prayers for my developing Christlikeness. I see it coming, but most of us know what it’s like to be in the refiner’s fire at times. I also pray for my financial situation. Finally, I ask for prayer for a certain area in my life which again, I shall leave unnamed. For now, let’s go to the text. We’re not going to cover the whole of this verse. I just want us to look at the first five words tonight. It’s from Revelation 1:1.
1The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John,
There are many debates we could have on the book of Revelation. Is John writing about a future apocalypse? Is he writing about the church throughout history? Is he writing about events that largely took place in the first century? Is he writing a book simply about the idea of the judgment of God overcoming evil? Now these are all important discussions, but readers of Deeper Waters know we don’t get into that here, not even my own viewpoint which I do have.
However, when we approach the book of Revelation, despite our disagreements, we should all heed these first five words. “The Revelation of Jesus Christ.” Revelation is a book primarily about Jesus Christ and revealing who he is.
As we go through the book in our Trinitarian Commentary then, we will not be examining eschatology. We will instead be studying what the book says about the Trinity and of course, a focus on who the person of Jesus Christ is. I have noticed in my reading of the book that we have missed over many gems of who Jesus is throughout this book as some of the most powerful imagery is used in Revelation to describe him. (And keep that in mind people, the book is called Revelation. It’s not RevelationS.)
The letters to the seven churches proclaim who Jesus is and when we get to the scene of the throne room in Heaven, we will see even more about who he is. I do hold that the author of this book is the same John who wrote the epistles ascribed to him and the gospel that bears his name. What did this intimate disciple of Jesus have to say about him?
We will get into all of that after Christmas. For now, I simply want it to be remembered when you read this book that regardless of your eschatological perspective, please keep in mind that this book is about Jesus. We need to come here to not only learn about eschatology, but to learn about Jesus. Eschatology is a fine topic, but Jesus is a much more important one and I would prefer you have the right Jesus and the wrong eschatology than the reverse.
All this will start after Christmas. Tomorrow, I plan on a Christmas blog and then I will be out of town and won’t be writing again until Monday. I look forward to us diving into this book and as we do, always keep in mind the first five words.
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