Bible reading
Let me ask you to turn your Bibles to the Book of Revelation 1. Revelation 1:1-20,
I’m reading from the English Standard Version.
“The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw. Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near.
John to the seven churches that are in Asia:
Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth.
To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. Even so. Amen.
“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”
I, John, your brother and partner in the tribulation and the kingdom and the patient endurance that are in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos on account of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet saying, “Write what you see in a book and send it to the seven churches, to Ephesus and to Smyrna and to Pergamum and to Thyatira and to Sardis and to Philadelphia and to Laodicea.”
Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the midst of the lampstands one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around his chest. The hairs of his head were white, like white wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength.
When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand on me, saying, “Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades. Write therefore the things that you have seen, those that are and those that are to take place after this. As for the mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand, and the seven golden lampstands, the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches.”
This is the word of the Lord.
In the conference so far, we have been seeking with all of our ability and hopefully dependence upon God, to set forth Christ. We are praying that all of these sermons help us to grow in our knowledge of him, but not just the kind of knowledge that we record in our notepads, but the kind of knowledge that is accompanied with faith; a faith that causes us to cherish him, treasure him, to love him, trust in him more and more.
I trust that we have seen that we could spend weeks upon weeks upon weeks upon weeks exploring the glories of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
Our glorious Christ
Today’s sermon is titled “Our glorious Christ.” What we are saying together, if you were to line us all up here, is that we would be saying that the God-man Jesus, who suffered and was crucified, was not only raised from the dead, he was exalted on high and he now appears as our glorious Christ. All of these elements that we have been hearing from this pulpit are true and are important, and yet I think what we’re seeing in the Book of Revelation is that if we do not see, if we do not understand, if we do not know the Jesus that we claim to know, that we’re believing in, if we don’t know him as how he has revealed himself – namely our glorious, exalted Christ – we don’t know him in the way he wants us to know him.
The picture painted of this Christ is diverse. It’s a full orb picture. And we are not meant to live our Christian lives with half the Bible, with a view of Christ or a vision of Christ that has been truncated, summarized, squeezed down, boiled down, to some few nuggets. The Bible is instead giving to us a Christ that is glorious. He is resplendent in many ways: from his humanity to his supremacy, from his preincarnate self. All of these are things that are important for us to grasp, and I pray that them being chopped up into different sermons creates in us an appetite to leave this place and go off to pursue more knowledge from his holy Word about who he is.
The portion in front of us, especially Revelations 1, is arguing that for us, or more directly for the readers of this particular book, which is the Church, if they are going to endure against their trials and temptations, they are in need of this vision of a glorious Christ. Positively put, we the Church are in need of a vision of Christ in all of his glory, if we are to faithfully endure against trials and temptations.
There’s something we ought to see in our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ that is staggering, that is immense, that is awe inspiring, because that’s how he’s revealed himself. And that is not just like bonus points for knowing Jesus; seeing Christ in his exalted, majestic state is essential for us to faithfully endure against temptations and trials.
God and the Church
That’s how Revelation 1 begins. Let’s see the opening of this particular chapter. Revelations 1:1-8 are a long opening. There’s kind of two different openings to the Book of Revelation and here’s a summary of what you’re looking at in this portion: God wants the church, in this first 8 verses, Revelations 1:1-8, to know that Jesus, who has been exalted as Sovereign Lord of all. He wants them to know that this Lord is coming. He’s coming.
If you are looking for two key things so you don’t get lost inside of these 8 verses, Revelations 1:1-8, focus especially on Jesus and the Church. God, Triune God, (is articulate in these verses we’re about to look at) this God wants the church (a lot to be said about the Church, right) to know Jesus as Sovereign Lord of all.
So, you’ll notice there, Revelations 1:4, John to the seven churches that are in Asia. He actually lists the churches for us. Who is the audience of this particular chapter or this particular book? It’s seven churches and he tells us which churches those are and where they are. The number seven is an interesting one. I know, I know, I know what you’re thinking, I know what you’re thinking already. It actually is a part that shows up in the Bible. It actually is. I know it’s been misused, right, but just because it’s been misused does not mean that we stop using it correctly.
You’ll notice that there are seven churches and they are actual churches that actually existed in an actual place. But as you continue reading the book of Revelation, you will notice that that cycle of sevens continues, and continues and continues, so that the way we are supposed to understand what we are reading is these words are related to actual people in actual churches; but that those churches are also representative of the whole. It is not as though this book was only meant for them, because actually you’ll notice after we are done with the seven churches, as you keep moving through the book of Revelation, they actually fade, and what is being referred to is the Church as a whole, not merely these seven churches. So, they are actual churches because God cares about those local churches, but they stand in this particular book as a representative of the universal church.
So that the way we ought to think about that cycle seven is complete and thorough and full. That’s who’s being addressed – the entire church is being addressed in this section.
Notice the second part of Revelation 1:4-5,
“Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth.” It’s God who’s speaking. It’s God who’s speaking and we are given that classic formula of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. The Son and the Holy Spirit are reversed, we are not quite clear on why, but there you have it. God, God in all of his transcendence, the ancient of days, is being described as him who was, him who is, and the one who is to come. He covers all of time. This is God. This is this Holy Spirit, so that when you read “the seven spirits”, look at where it is. You know is the Holy Spirit you’re talking about. It’s the Father, the Spirit, and the Son.
No, no, John does not in the middle of describing the Triune God go on a little diversion to speak about a different seven spirits and then come back again to complete the formula. The Spirit here is the Holy Spirit that we know: the third person of the Trinity. Why seven spirits? I believe because there’s an association in this entire portion of God and his church. The seven churches, the seven spirits, Christ in his Church. This this God in this particular section is not being described as apart from his church but in his Church.
Son of God
And then notice the Son, and this book is going to centre on the Son.
He describes the Son as the, Revelations 1:5, “faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler of the kings on the earth.”
What does God want us to know? He wants us to know something concerning his Son Christ and how that relates to the church. And so, when he gets to the Son,…