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2. JESUS THE ANGELIC SON OF MAN SPEAKS TO THE ASSEMBLIES (1:9 – 3:22)
As happens frequently in Revelation, the next few verses do not mark the beginning of a new section so much as provide a bridge from one section to another. John resumes his epistolary style, which immediately moves into a recapitulation of his commission to write and then blends into an account of his vision of the exalted Jesus.
The vision itself draws heavily on imagery from Daniel’s description of an angelic figure in Daniel 10, but incorporates aspects of Daniel’s earlier vision of the Ancient of Days, so that John sees Jesus both as divine and as the messenger of the divine. Many aspects of this opening vision are revisited in the introduction to each of the royal pronouncement messages that Jesus speaks by the Spirit to John for him to pass on to all the assemblies in the region by means of this written record. The distribution of these titles among the seven messages is not straightforward, but they have some correspondence with the situation of each community to which John is writing. The visionary description of Jesus is not very obviously connected with later visionary language, particularly the depiction of Jesus as the lamb who appears to be slain from Revelation 5 onwards; the connections are to be found at the level of theology rather than at the level of words and language.
It is not often noted that, although John’s recorded experience is frequently described as a ‘vision’, most of what follows is in fact an ‘audition’ – something John hears rather than something he sees. This is true of large parts of the text, including the hymns of praise that punctuate the narrative at key moments, most of Revelation 17 – 18, and the beginning of 19 as well as Revelation 2 – 3. The interrelation between John’s seeing and hearing does important work – for example, in our reading of the two halves of Revelation 7. The messages themselves include some clear connections with the specific situation of John’s first audience, though these have sometimes been over-interpreted, and elements of the opening vision and their Old Testament antecedents remain important. The seven messages are often treated as quite detached from the main body of the book, but in fact the two parts need to be read in connection with each other. The real pressures and dilemmas faced by these early Christian communities, as John outlines them in these royal proclamations, are ultimately addressed by the imagery and narrative that follow from Revelation 4 onwards.
A. John’s commission (1:9–11)
Context
Following the acclamations of praise, John returns to an epistolary style to address his recipients and locate himself in relation to them. But there is quickly another change of style – to vision report. In response to the command to ‘write’, he begins to recount his visionary experience.
Comment
9. Despite having apostolic status by virtue of being the bearer of a testimony from Jesus, John here emphasizes his similarity with his recipients. Echoing Jesus’ language of disciples-as-family in Matthew 12:49, he is both brother and companion – one who is a partner, sharing in a common experience. This includes suffering or (in older translations) ‘tribulation’; the word thlipsis is used frequently by Paul to describe the common lot of those seeking to be disciples of Jesus in a hostile world (Acts 14:22; Rom. 5:3; 2 Cor. 4:17; 1 Thess. 1:6), and echoes the teaching of Jesus himself (Mark 4:17; John 16:33). But it also includes experience of the kingdom of God – God’s just and holy reign which is ours in Jesus – a better alternative to the kingdom (or empire; the word is the same) of Caesar. But to live with the future hope of God’s reign as well as the present reality of trouble, we need to develop patient endurance, another key term, coming seven times in Revelation and also in the teaching of Jesus (Luke 8:15; Rom. 5:3–5). All three of these – suffering, kingdom and endurance – are ours in Jesus.
John was on Patmos, a rocky island in the Aegean about 8 miles long and 5 miles wide (13 by 8 km), and about 40 miles (64 km) south-east of Ephesus. It is usually inferred from the comment that he was there because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus that John had been exiled as punishment for his faith, but we have no conclusive evidence that Patmos was used as a penal colony or even that it was populated at this time.
10. This is the first of four times John mentions being in the Spirit (4:2; 17:3; 21:10), and is reminiscent of the role of the Spirit in Ezekiel’s visions (Ezek. 2:2; 3:24; 11:24 and elsewhere). The Lord’s Day does not use a possessive noun but an adjective derived from ‘Lord’ which came to be used to designate Sunday as the day of Christian worship, celebrating the resurrection, as distinct from the Jewish Sabbath. (It also designated Christian buildings, and gives us our words ‘kirk’ and ‘church’.) In the Old Testament, the trumpet (a shofar, rather than the modern instrument) signalled a call to action, either to war or to worship. But on Sinai, it also describes the powerful voice of God as he reveals his commandments (Exod. 19:16, 19; 20:18). In John’s unexpected grammar, he describes the great voice as sounding like a trumpet speaking (AT).
11. John will not only see but also hear things, and will write (the first of twelve such commands) both on a scroll – the proper meaning of biblos in this context, before the widespread use of the ‘codex’ form with which we are familiar. The seven churches, already mentioned in 1:4, are now listed. ‘Church’ is not the best translation of the word ekklēsia, since it has institutional and organizational overtones that are not present for John and his readers. The term is used in the Greek Old Testament (the Septuagint) for the ‘congregation of Israel’, meaning God’s people gathered, as well as referring to the gathering of the citizens in Greek culture in order to make decisions about the running of the city – so ‘assembly’ is perhaps a better term. The seven cities listed were not the only ones in the province of Asia, nor the seven most important; but these cities were linked by road and, in this order, sit in a semicircular arc, moving north from Ephesus to Smyrna and Pergamum, then east to Thyatira, south-east to Sardis and Philadelphia, and ending in Laodicea, the most easterly. For detailed comments on these cities see Revelation 2 – 3.
Theology
In these verses, John repeatedly uses ‘in’ to locate himself in three important ways, all of which we need to consider in reading what follows.
First, he locates himself theologically and eschatologically. He is in the overlap of the ages (‘suffering and kingdom’, 1:9), between this age (which will pass away) and the age to come of the kingdom of God, which has broken into this world through Jesus’ ministry, his death, resurrection and ascension, and the gift of the Spirit at Pentecost. This sense of overlap, and the competing claims on the loyalty of John’s audience, forms the context for John’s challenge to keep faith in Jesus after the example of Jesus. If this age, along with its rulers, is passing away, why remain loyal to it, rather than to the one who will reign for ever in the age to come? This decision to be faithful to Jesus will result in difficult times ahead, ‘tribulation’, but it is lived out in the light of a sure and certain hope of what is to come.
Second, John locates himself in a particular time and place (‘on the island of Patmos’, 1:9). Whatever the implications for us (as those still living in the same theological time as John, between the ages), his message is first of all for the followers of Jesus living on the mainland that, on a fine day, he can see from his island home. Whether he is there because of God’s direction or as a result of persecution, he remains connected to his audience by close bonds of fellowship and mutual understanding. If we are to hear what he is saying to us through this text, we must first attend to what John believed God was saying to his first audience.
Third, John locates himself personally and spiritually. The revelation he has been given has been received ‘in the Spirit’ and in the context of worship ‘on the Lord’s Day’ (1:10), so perhaps we should not be surprised that the text is peppered with phrases of praise and worship all the way through. What John passes on is intended to evoke in us a response of worship – not just in acts of praise, but in lives lived in the faith of Jesus in our own particular contexts.
B. The vision of Jesus (1:12–20)
Context
We encounter here the first ‘other-worldly’ vision of the apocalypse, with the dense, rich and multilayered symbolism that characterizes the visions of the body of the book.
At first reading (or hearing), this is a breathless account in which the images tumble out on top of one another in a kaleidoscope of colour and sensation which threaten to overwhelm us just as they overwhelmed John (‘I fell . . . as though dead’, 1:17). The introduction to the vision in verses 12 and 13 is a single sentence, as is the central description in verses 14–16 – the characteristics are piled up one on top of another with hardly a pause. But like John, we should not be afraid as we approach this text. On second reading, we can see that it is very carefully built together, drawing on imagery from the Old Testament, particularly from Exodus and the visions of Daniel 7 and 10, as well as incorporating elements from pagan deities.
In one sense, John is describing a vision of that which cannot be seen; it is not possible to look on the ‘sun shining in full strength’ (AT), as it is more than human sight can bear. But he does share a vision which is refracted through the lens of Old Testament theology, particularly the uniqueness of the God of Israel which Jesus now shares, and pagan worship which should now be directed to Jesus alone.
Comment
12. John turns to see the voice, which is literally impossible; the phrase continues John’s interplay between the senses, and introduces a dynamic he returns to at key moments – the relationship between what he sees and what he hears. The seven golden lampstands are often depicted in art as separate from one another (probably to enable the figure of Christ to be in their midst [AT]), but, in the light of the language about the ‘seven spirits/sevenfold Spirit’ and the importance of Zechariah 4:2, it is possible that he is referring to a seven-branched menorah similar to the one in front of the tabernacle and temple (Exod. 25:31–40). This would connect John’s understanding with Pauline language of the Christian community as God’s temple (1 Cor. 3:16), explain further why John is writing to only seven congregations and suggest an essential interdependence between them. The symmetry of the menorah would both correspond to the literary symmetry of the messages to the seven congregations and connect with the seven lamps (spirits) before the throne (Rev. 4:5); the word ‘lampstand’ (lychnia) occurs seven times in the text. Gold is consistently the colour and material of spiritual power and majesty, and in particular the heavenly realms. But Revelation’s distinction between the heavenly and the earthly is less about different places, and more about different aspects of reality, allegiance and ways of living.
13. John’s description of the risen Jesus combines elements from the Old Testament depictions of Israel, God, angels and the high priest with imagery from pagan cults. John uses the term someone/something like twenty-one times in total, emphasizing the symbolic significance of his descriptions. Here and in 14:14, the one like a son of man draws on the imagery of Daniel 7:13. The term is originally an idiom for ‘human’, possibly emphasizing human fragility (as in Ezek. 2:1 and throughout the book), but in Daniel it comes to symbolize the nation of Israel personified, oppressed by the powers, awaiting God’s deliverance and vindication, and exalted to the presence of...
