The Revelation of Jesus
“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, who bore witness to the word of God, and to the testimony of
Jesus Christ, to all things that he saw.
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
In this text we the very essence of the entire
Book: from chapters 1-22 it is a
revelation of Jesus Christ. The word
revelation in Greek is “apokalupsis” and means unveiling, uncovering or disclosure. So we could say the Book of Revelation is an
unveiling of Jesus Christ. It’s
beautiful. Charles Spurgeon said, “How
we need a revelation of Jesus!” It’s
true. We can go through the entire Book
of Revelation and miss the point: this is a book about the unveiling of
Jesus!
As we read further, we see that God gave the revelation
to His Son. As such, this uncovering
comes directly from the throne that God occupies.
The purpose of the revelation was to show His servants –
all believers – those things contained within the Book that would soon come to
pass. The purpose was to prepare
us. The word shortly or soon is
relative, as we know. The use of such a
term is to intentionally keep us ready for our Lord’s return. We do not know when it will happen. We do know we should be prepared for it to
happen today.
Finally, God’s revelation through and of His Son was
given to His beloved apostle John. This
important message was sent to a credible witness of Christ, having been with
Jesus during His earthly ministry. The
book was sent and signified to John by Jesus through an angel. The word signified is important to
understand. As John had received a
heavenly vision, the best way to describe it would be through signs.
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