CHAPTER 1

Revelation 1:1-3

 

By

Doug Krieger

 

 1. The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show His servants—things which must shortly take place. And He sent and signified it by His angel to His servant John, 2. who bore witness to the word of God, and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, to all things that he saw. 3. Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written in it; for the time is near. (Rev. 1:1-3)

(Note:  Unless otherwise stated, the New King James Version is used as the Biblical Text)

 

 

“A (lit.) Revelation of Jesus Christ” are the first words announced in the Revelation—for this is not simply communicated by Jesus Christ directly or indirectly through angelic beings—but what we have here is first and foremost the unveiling, the disclosure of the person and work of Jesus Christ.  Yes, this apokalypsis (Grk. for “Revelation”) came from God through Jesus Christ but herein lays the most critical introduction of the text.

 

Some Bibles have erroneously entitled the text:  “The Revelation of St. John the Divine.”  As Harry Ironside once said:  “It shows all too plainly how far some early editor had slipped away from basic principles . . . John was a saint as all believers are saints.  He was not a divine!”[1]

 

The great theme of this book is our Lord Jesus Christ!  This is NOT the “testimony of John” nor of saints or even “tribulation saints” – it is the TESTIMONY OF JESUS CHRIST (Rev. 1:2).  This testimony was given to Him by God Himself . . . for . . . although a myriad of titles of the Son of Man await His bondservants who read and are blessed in so doing, yet predominate throughout the text is the Son of Man who displays the centrality of the apokalypsis.

 

We shall see Him as Israel’s Messiah, as Lord over all things to the Church and as the Judge of the nations—if our vision be confined of Him from any one of these imperatives, this book will remain naught but a jumbled tale filled with Oriental symbolism incomprehensible for our time.  But, blessed is he who reads, hears the word of this prophecy and keeps those things which are written in it—for the time is near.

 

Within its pages profound truths confront us—the relationship of the Almighty in His choice of Israel and the display of His glory through the testimony of the Church.  Satan’s strategy against the saints is exposed in all its hideous workings through the man of lawlessness, the beast from the abyss, the infamous Antichrist, his apostate system, commercial consumption and political subterfuge.  The personification of evil, the ultimate narcissist, enthralled by his own image and his Great City Babylon in counter distinction to the Image of Christ, the Holy City, New Jerusalem—all are revealed in copious detail; however, let it be clearly understood:  “Overarching all those features, Revelation communicates the majesty and glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. . . It describes in detail the events associated with His second coming, revealing His glory that will blaze forth as unmistakably as lightning flashing in a dark sky” (Matthew 24:27)[2].

 

The source of this astounding testimony finds its commencement in Jehovah—with the subsequent implication that God the Father revealed something to the Lord Jesus Christ about Himself!

 

“This verse is the answer to one of the great problems of the gospels.  Jesus Christ was not only perfect deity, but He had a perfect humanity.  He ‘increased in wisdom and stature.’  He grew from day to day in His sinless humanity.  In His deity, He knew all things; in His humanity, He learned.  Speaking to His disciples of the day when He should come again, He said, ‘But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the son, but the father’ (Matthew 13:32).  He did not know these things when He spoke, for in His humanity He had limited Himself, but He knows them now.  This Man, obedient in all things, obedient unto death, has been raised from the dead, taken into heaven, seated on the throne of God, and given the full revelation of Himself.”[3]

 

And, what shall we say of Him, “who being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men.  And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross”? (Philippians 2:6-8).

 

And, further, it pleased the Father, for:

 

“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.  For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether throne or dominions or principalities or powers.  All things were created through Him and for Him.  And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.  And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence.  For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell” (Colossians 1:15-19).

 

Yet, what condescension – bringing us redemption!  This revelation originating in God Almighty, revealed in and through the Son of Man, is now shown to “His servants” – his bondslaves (Grk. doulos).  The ones to whom this revelation of the Son of Man is committed are those akin to the slaves in Israel who each Jubilee were liberated—unless the love for one’s master was so overwhelming that the slave would extend his ear upon the door of the tabernacle and a hole was bored straight through the lobe of the ear with an awl—from henceforth, the slave became the “yielded servant” of his master, never again to be released.

 

John will identity himself as “His bondservant” – one among many such yielded servants of Him Who came the first time to serve: 

 

“Hear, O Joshua, the high priest, you and your companions who sit before you, for they are a wondrous sign; for behold, I am bringing forth My Servant the BRANCH . . . for behold, the stone that I have laid before Joshua:  Upon the stone are seven eyes.  Behold, I will engrave its inscription,’ says the Lord of hosts, ‘And I will remove the iniquity of that land in one day” (Zechariah 3:8-9)

 

The unveiling of Jesus Christ is a culmination of the Son of Man who came as the servant, our High Priest, our Joshua, our Jesus, to remove our iniquity (Zechariah 3:1-5)—but it takes the consecration of His companions to see Him in this office—it takes, as we shall see the “seven lamps, the seven Spirits of God, the seven eyes” to see the Son of Man; and, if there is no awl through your ear, dear friend, this book will remain as sealed as its critics adjudge it to be . . . for when viewing Joshua, My Servant the BRANCH, we must have utterly abandoned our rights of legitimate freedom; instead, “I will not go out free . . . I will behold ‘My Servant the BRANCH’ by the eyes of the Spirit, nothing else will suffice!”

 

Servant – yes, the same servanthood given to Moses in Revelation 15:3.  The same servants who like the Suffering Servant before them, endure the tribulation of those days and overcome “by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony” (Revelation 12:11a; Revelation 2:20; 7:3; 10:7; 11:18; 19:2; 19:5; 22:3; 22:6).

 

THE ANGELIC MESSENGER

 

“By His angel” (Grk. angelos) is used interchangeable in classical usage for “messenger.”  The Greeks would exchange between captains a message conveyed by an “angel.”

 

It would do us “biblical injustice” by simply transliterating the word when encountered in the Revelation.  Why?  Because at times these messengers are true “angels” – however, at times men are the messengers.  Moreover, there are perhaps three times in the Revelation that the “angel” is Christ Himself Who conveys the message.

 

 

THE TIME IS NEAR – SHORTLY TAKE PLACE

 

In so far as “things which must shortly (i.e., “swiftly”) take place” – let us not confuse the notion that expediency or closeness in time is associated with this phrase—as the Preterists insist (giving 70 A.D. as the nearness of John’s aforesaid remark).  Allow the eloquence of Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse to illuminate us on this crucial issue of time:

 

“This Revelation concerns things which must shortly come to pass.  We may translate this as the Revelation of ‘what must speedily happen.’  The Greek is en taxei and refers not to soonness, but to rapidity of execution when once there is a beginning.  In other words, the events of this book are to take place within a brief space of time.  God says, ‘When I begin, I will also make an end’ (I Sam. 3;12).  There are those who sneer at these words and say that they do not mean much.  Have not nineteen hundred years passed?  From man’s point of view, nineteen hundred years is not soon; from God’s point of view, a thousand years  is a day.  We are taught here, however, that suddenly shall come the word which shall loose the lightning-like succession of events.  Today, the mills of God may grind slowly, but the day will come where the whole machinery of history will be slipped into high gear to run its fatal course to judgment.  This is the same word our Lord uses when He says that God shall avenge His own speedily (Luke 18:8).  God has borne long with men.  This is the day of His patience.  In our day we see the furniture of Bible prophecy being moved into place upon the stage of world history.  The curtain is ready to be drawn.  This shall come to pass in God’s moment.  Then all that is written in the book of Revelation will come to pass, exactly as written—and it shall come speedily.”[4]

 

SIGNIFY – SYMBOLIZE

 

With regard to the conveyance of this revelation to His servants—it is done via “signs and symbols” – “He sent and signified it….”  This insight is not overlooked by H.S. Ironside who astutely draws our attention to the wording:

 

“It is important to bear this is mind.  Revelation is a book of symbols.  But the careful student of the Word need not exercise his own ingenuity in order to think out the meanings of the symbols.  It is important to recognize the principle that every symbol used in Revelation is explained or alluded to somewhere else in the Bible.  Therefore, he who desires God’s mind as to this portion of His Word must study earnestly with prayerful attention to every other part of Holy Scripture.  Undoubtedly this is why so great a blessing is in store for those who read and hear the words of this prophecy and keep the things written therein (Revelation 1:3).[5]

 

Ladd elongates this signifying (i.e., symbolizing) further:

 

“The words ‘what must soon take place’ contain an echo of Daniel 2:28.  Although John seldom quoted the Old Testament in a formal way, his book is filled with obvious allusions to the prophetic writings.  Here is a fact whose significance many modern critics overlook.  John’s mind was saturated with he Old Testament, and he expected such passing allusions to be meaningful to his readers.  However, there is not a single similar proven allusion to any known Jewish apocalyptic writings.  This suggests that the Revelation is NOT, as many have said, simply a piece of Jewish apocalyptic which has been ‘baptized’ into the Christian church.  John’s background was far more the Old Testament prophets, even though he made use of apocalyptic symbolism.”[6] (My emphasis.)

 

Claiming to hold the high ground by the use of the Historical-Grammatical approach to the interpretation of the Revelation, Biblical literalists and their hyper-dispensational cohorts, are forced, over and over again, to convolute the hermeneutic—notwithstanding their desire to assure that where the clear Historical-Grammatical approach is obvious, then the literal interpretation will win out; however, these same scholars openly admit that this is a difficult task but still the safest method of interpretation.

 

It is mandatory that we see through the eyes of the Old Testament in order to apprehend the literal and spiritual meaning behind the metaphors and symbols used in the Revelation – to wit:

 

“Ninety five times does the Book of Revelation refer to Old Testament metaphors and symbols.  And these are repeated several times in the book of Revelation.  With the repetition of such symbols, one man discovered that about 250 times does Revelation use Old Testament symbols.  That is an average of ten per chapter of Revelation!  But yet people continue to neglect that, and look at the images in Revelation literally, in total ignorance of what metaphors the Old Testament used in the very same pictures.  One preacher even proposed that there is a literal seven-headed dragon in outer space somewhere after reading Revelation chapter 12!  But that is a metaphor!”[7]

 

Walvoord, although he glaringly omits the number “2” in reference to the symbolism or numerology of the Revelation, alerts us to this most critical area of understanding the symbolism and use of numbers in the Revelation, while at the same time allows us to take both a “literal” and a “symbolic” approach to our hermeneutic:

 

“Some of the symbols in the Book of Revelation are the widespread use of numbers which while taken literally also may have a symbolic meaning.  These numbers include 3 (Note:  Why he omitted “2” in his initial count will be discussed later.); 3 1/2; 4; 5; 6; 7 10; 12, 24; 42, 666, 1,000; 1,260; 12,000; 144,000; 100 million; and 200 million.  One of the most common numbers mentioned is the number 7 which has in it the concept of completion.  The Book of Revelation includes 7 churches, 7 lampstands, 7 stars, 7 spirits of God, 7 seals of the scroll, 7 angels with 7 trumpets, 7 bowls containing the 7 last plagues, 7 thunders, 7,000 killed in the earthquake (Rev. 12), the dragon with 7 heads (13:1), 7 mountains (Rev. 17), and 7 kings.  Many of the other numbers are frequently used throughout the Book of Revelation.  Evidence points to the fact that these numbers are always used in a literal sense even though they may also have a symbolic sense; that is, if it declares that there are 7 stars, there are 7 stars, not 6 or 8, and so with the other uses of the numbers.”[8]

 

And, since we “who see through a glass darkly” do not possess the “whole counsel of God” – we appreciate the insights of John F. MacArthur who expands upon the 7’s of Walvoord by giving us “The Seven Beatitudes of  the Revelation” –

 

(1)     Rev. 1:3a –“Blessed is he who reads . . . .”

(2)     Rev. 14:13 –“Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on!”

(3)     Rev. 16:15 –“Behold, I am coming like a thief…Blessed is the one…”

(4)     Rev. 19:9 –“Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage….”

(5)     Rev. 20:6 –“Blessed and holy is the one who has part in the first….”

(6)     Rev. 22:7 –“Blessed is he who heeds the words of the prophecy….”

(7)     Rev. 22:14 –“Blessed are those who wash their robes….”[9]

 

THE TESTIMONY OF JESUS

 

The King James Version translates the Greek word marturĕō used in Revelation 1:2 as “bear record” – whereas the NKJV translates the word as “bore witness.”  In either case the connotation is implicitly clear—the Greek word stems from the root word in Greek:  martur – from whence we derive the term:  martyr.

 

It is far more than a court deposition that John has in view here—even so, it is far more than a testimonial or court testimony John observes when he is privy to the Testimony of Jesus.

 

Testimony is from the same Greek stem for martyr – marturia (μαρτυριον); hence, when John speaks of bearing witness or record to the Word of God, and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, it is in the same “relationship” that he uses “bondslave” with regards to the Son of Man, Who came as a Servant.  The “witness and testimony” bears a crucial relationship throughout the Revelation of Jesus Christ—for it is the very Testimony of Jesus Christ and His WITNESSES who embrace that testimony that makes the Revelation come to life!

 

Indeed, damaging testimony is about to be rendered against that Great City—this is the Testimony of Jesus given to His servants:  His, if you would, given to His testifiers.  We are not simply bystanders here writing down some revelation to tantalize the minds of generations.  Absolutely not!  John is wholly identified with the Testimony of Jesus Christ:  The incarnate Son of Man, Son of God, His life and ministry, His suffering and crucifixion, His burial and resurrection, His resurrection, ascension, enthronement, and ultimate Kingdom manifestation upon the earth!

 

This book is about TESTIMONY—TESTIMONY of the Coming King who will WITNESS through His bondslaves.

 

These introductory choice of words are altogether purposeful and full of profound meaning.  If we miss this—we shall miss the whole import of the Revelation and the essence of its message to and through the saints.

 

John was in exile – banished to Patmos; therefore, when he declares in Revelation 1:9: 

 

“I, John, both your brother and companion in the tribulation and kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, was on the island that is called Patmos for the word of God and for the TESTIMONY OF JESUS CHRIST.”

 

. . . he was literally living out the rejection of his Savior—rather the Savior was living out His rejection through John!  The word of God was exploding throughout his prophetic visions—he was utterly saturated with the Hebrew Scriptures—the Word of God; but likewise, he was wholly committed to the TESTIMONY OF JESUS CHRIST, lived out in his own life—that’s what this book is all about.

 

“When He opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for THE TESTIMONY which they held” (Revelation 6:9).

 

And – what was that TESTIMONY?  It was the very same TESTIMONY (and Word of God) mentioned at the commencement of the Revelation:  THE TESTIMONY OF JESUS CHRIST—His life, His suffering, His death and ultimate resurrection!

 

If we are going to bear record of the Testimony of Jesus Christ, then we’d better follow those who WITNESS to their faith and who have the Testimony of Jesus Christ.

 

That is precisely why the Two Witnesses (i.e., Two Martyrs) . . . “when they finish THEIR TESTIMONY, the beast that ascends out of the bottomless pit will make war against them, overcome them, and kill them . . . and their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified” (Revelation 11:7-8).

 

One simply cannot divorce THE TESTIMONY OF JESUS CHRIST from the Two Witnesses – it had become THEIR Testimony—the Testimony that the beast abhors, detests and ultimately they, just as their Savior, are killed during the 3 1/2 days of open persecution.  They are actually LIVING OUT the life of Jesus Christ – for it is the TESTIMONY OF JESUS CHRIST for which they suffer the loss of all things.  The use of this Greek word demands a full accounting of its context throughout the Revelation—it more than demands our concentration – for it is for this very purpose John bare record!

 

Oh, how we delight when once we recognize that it is for this TESTIMONY we offer up our bodies—as the Life of Christ is lived out through us—for it is His Testimony through us that overcomes!

 

“And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their TESTIMONY, and they did not love their lives to the death” (Revelation 12:11).  Yes, the same word is used, and YES, it is the TESTIMONY OF JESUS CHRIST prophetically announced and delivered through overcoming saints that packs the wallop that will devastate the enemy of our souls.

 

YES!  The dragon is all the more enraged—especially against the Woman’s offspring who “keep the commandments of God and have the TESTIMONY OF JESUS!” (Revelation 12:17).

 

Are you following them – those who have the Word of God and bear record of the Testimony of Jesus Christ?  They are immediately found confronting the powers of darkness who have and will descend upon the earth in the end of days—but these occlusions will be confronted with the TESTIMONY OF JESUS—PRAISE HIM!

 

And, if you are following them, the bondslaves of our Lord Jesus—then you have no other alternative but to TESTIFY, to PROPHESY, to speak forth the words of this TESTIMONY both now and to the world that John saw yet future!  Listen, you have fixated upon the Blessed Hope of His Appearing and consider your escape from this ultimate confrontation your HOPE—for you most certainly do not look forward to the Antichrist, do you?  No!  A thousand times NO!  But we do look forward to the TESTIMONY OF JESUS CHRIST—because that is exactly what John stood for and what the WITNESSES, the MARTYRS OF JESUS embraced.  Who do you wish to follow?  Those whose hope does not embrace the Cross of Christ—those who eschew the Testimony of Jesus Christ and think that His Life lived out through such consecrated vessels are not worthy to bear the full Testimony which He bore upon this earth?  Brethren, follow the TESTIMONY . . . follow the TESTIMONY!

 

You may be, like John overwhelmed with the abundance of the Revelation—but how straightforward can the message of this book be when you read:

 

“And I fell at his feet to worship him, But he said to me, ‘See that you do not do that!  I am your fellow servant, and of your brethren who have the TESTIMONY OF JESUS.  Worship God!  For THE TESTIMONY OF JESUS IS THE SPIRIT OF PROPHECY” (Revelation 19:10).

 

Babylon the Great—all of its apostate filth, its narcissistic commercialism and its political hegemony—will be crushed and then, and then only we hear these words:

 

“And I heard, as it were, the voice of a great multitude, as the sound of many waters and as the sound of mighty thunderings, saying, ‘Alleluia! For the Lord God Omnipotent reigns!  Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife has made herself ready.’  And to her it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.  Then he said to me, ‘Write: ‘Blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb!’’  And he said to me, ‘These are the true sayings of God.’” (Revelation 19:6-9).

 

Now it would be altogether convenient and blatantly invidious to truncate the verse immediately following Revelation 19:6-9!  Why?  Because those who have prepared themselves as the BRIDE of the Lamb, who are clothed in fine linen, clean and bright—for these are the righteous acts of the saints—are the same saints who in Revelation 19:10 HAVE THE TESTIMONY OF JESUS and who assuredly know that the Testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy!  And, just how ON EARTH did they secure such a testimony?  How did they prepare themselves to be His Bride? 

 

You claim they were raptured—for you say that John’s entrance into heaven through the door in Revelation 4:10 (“come up here”) is one of those metaphors which celebrate the removal of the Church during the entire Seventieth Week of Daniel.  Indeed, the Church, you say, is in heaven during the onslaughts of the Beast, spared from the hour of trial which is to try the whole earth; but, alas!  The Bride of the Lamb are those who have the Testimony of Jesus—for they are the same ones in Revelation 12:10 who are down here on the earth, just like John who ate the “little book” and was told that (speaking of types and metaphors of something much greater—John, a true type of the saints prophesying and overcoming throughout the Tribulation) “You must prophesy again about many peoples, nations, tongues, and kings” (Revelation 10:11) and they are most assuredly upon the earth for such a prophetic witness.

 

Ours is not a TESTIMONY in theory, but in ACTS, righteous acts—the fundamental essence of the TESTIMONY OF JESUS must be prophetically delivered through his bondservants—and only through them!

 

THE WORD OF GOD AND THE TESTIMONY OF JESUS

 

In Revelation 1:2 there are two items to which John bears witness:  (1) The Word of God; and (2) The Testimony of Jesus Christ.  Finally, and it can be taken as a third item to which he bears witness:  All things that he saw.

 

This combination is again repeated in Revelation 1:9:  “For the word of God and for the testimony of Jesus Christ.”  Again, in Revelation 6:9 when the fifth seal is opened and the “Cry of the Martyrs” is heard; it specifically states that the “souls of those who had been slain” under the altar were identified as those slain “for the word of God and for the testimony which they held.”

 

In Revelation 20:4, after “the dragon, that serpent of old, who is the Devil and Satan,” was laid hold of and cast into the bottomless pit, and shut up for a thousand years, judgment is committed to them who sat on thrones.  It is at this time that John “saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their witness to Jesus and for the word of God.”  These souls are most clearly identified, as well, as those “who had not worshiped the beast or his image, and had not received his mark on their foreheads or on their hands . . . and they lived and reigned with Christ for a thousand years” (Revelation 20:4b).

 

In all of these cases the pronouncement concerns both the Word of God and the Testimony of Jesus.  As we shall endeavor to explore this combination of witness and testimony throughout the Revelation, we are immediately confronted by the distinction which John bears upon the use of these phrases—both to rivet our attention to the dual significance of his proposal:  (1) The Word of God; and, (2) The Testimony of Jesus are summoned, as it were, as a mutual confirmation; a joint declaration is made—a witness is borne by BOTH.

 

At the time of John’s writing the only “Word of God” (the Logos or Message) given by divine revelation—the only Scriptures known to the early church and apostles—were the Scriptures of the Hebrews . . . what is in sum and substance we refer to today as the Old Testament.  There was no cannon of the New Testament per se.  The ubiquitous, yea copious, integration of Hebrew texts into the Revelation through metaphors, symbols, allusions, types, shadows, and even exact text phrases and words, as well as the defining essence of the Revelation itself as “the words of this prophecy,” (Revelation 1:3), squarely place the Revelation on a par with the prophetic declarations of the Old Testament—making the Revelation a wholly unique New Testament proposition in its literary essence.  The singular New Testament text designed in toto as a prophetic declaration, whose “prophetic expression” and style are more in keeping with Isaiah, Ezekiel, Zechariah, Daniel, Joel, etc.

 

Furthermore, after systematic study of the text—and, as we shall discover, abundant duality of metaphors, numerological significant renderings throughout and the use of abundant types and shadows of the realities as seen through both Old and New Testaments—it is the conviction of this expositor that the Word of God and the Testimony of Jesus commences the, if you would, “Judeo-Christian” stamp of eschatology upon the entire Revelation and without controversy immediately draws our attention to both the testimony of Israel (the Word of God), and the Testimony of the Church (the Testimony of Jesus).

 

John does not use these introductory phrases in a nonchalant manner.  A “witness” against a defendant in the Hebrew Scriptures—and for that matter even in the conviction of Jesus at His trial—demanded the testimony or witness of at least TWO.  

 

Two of the five texts where we observe the combination of “the word of God and the testimony of Jesus” are directly related to the extremity of what it means to be a witness, a martyr, for the “word of God and the Testimony of Jesus.”  From the divine perspective we cannot differentiate the mutuality of suffering on behalf of those who in the Revelation stand for the Word of God and those who suffer for the Testimony of Jesus.  The “souls beneath the altar” in Revelation 6:9 are identified with “their fellow servants and their brethren” – and the “souls of those who had been beheaded” in Revelation 20:4 are clearly those who had joined with their fellow servants and their brethren in Revelation 6:9—TOGETHER, they “lived and reigned with Christ for a thousand years” (Revelation 20:4b).

 

It is certain—from Abraham through the Reign of the Beast, the suffering of God’s people knows no distinction.  That suffering did not climax during the Church’s martyrdoms at the hands of the ten emperors of Rome who so cruelly imposed their imperial quest for fidelity from those whose citizenship was from above, nor for that matter the suffering borne by those who remained faithful to His revealed truth from Abraham through the final week of Daniel’s vision. 

 

Through the entire Revelation—God is gathering together His testimony (as He has been in earnest about doing for the past four thousand years—2,000 years from Abraham to Jesus; and 2,000 years from Jesus to the fulfillment of the Revelation).  Now, at the climax of the ages, He is calling forth His testimony, His witnesses, even His martyrs, who will affirm the Word of God and bear witness to the very Testimony of Jesus.  These “testaments” – these Two Witnesses (Israel and the Church) in the Latter Days, after four-thousand years, are being called forth to bear testimony to the God of the Old Testament – and the Testimony of Jesus in the New Testament.

 

Theirs is a prophetic declaration on behalf of the Living God – The Lion of the Tribe of Judah and the Lamb upon the Throne – as well as a final deposition against that Great City Babylon.  Indeed, the Holy City, New Jerusalem (the Word of God and the Testimony of Jesus) vs. the Great City, Babylon.  We have entered into the cosmic courtroom to view and review the proceedings—the Judge of all the earth cannot render a judgment until the full extent of the witness and testimony is discharged.  The timing of the verdict and the carrying out of its sentence are illustrated, enclosed within the Revelation—as are the final depositions committed to the Two Witnesses who have been summoned to the bar of eternal justice in anticipation of those final judgments. 

 

May the Lord bless you in the reading of His Word and grant us all to “follow the Lamb whithersoever He leads” (Revelation 14:4).  To “have ears to hear what the Spirit says to the Churches” will demand a most devastating blow to our ear lobes—disfigurement for the rest of our lives—but now we can HEAR!  Now we are His bondslaves – let us consecrate ourselves in this manner without reservation, and without argument . . . are we the followers of the Lamb?  Are we those who bear record to the WORD OF GOD and have the TESTIMONY OF JESUS CHRIST? 

 

NOTES:

 

1.  H. A. Ironside, Revelation – Ironside Commentaries, Loizeaux, Neptune, New Jersey, 1996, p. 17.

2.  John MacArthur, Because the Time is Near, Moody Publishers, Chicago, IL, 2007, pp. 18-9.

3.  Donald Grey Barnhouse, Revelation – An Expositional Commentary, Ministry Resources Library, Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, MI, 1971, pp. 15-6.

4.  Barnhouse, Ibid., p. 18

5.  H. A. Ironside, Ibid., p. 23.

6.  George Eldon Ladd, A Commentary on the Revelation, Eerdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids, MI, 1972, p. 21.

7.  Michael F. Blume, Understanding Revelation

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underst.htm+Ninety+five+times+does+the+book+of+Revelation&
hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=4&gl=us&client=firefox-a

8.  John F. Walvoord, Every Prophecy of the Bible – also, The Prophecy Knowledge Handbook, Chariot Victor Publishing, Colorado Springs, CO, p. 521

9.  MacArthur, Ibid. p. 23