Notes on the Apocalypse #3

Revelation 1:5-10 really is the master key to unlock the structure of the book. While the throne of God, the trumpets, bowls, and seals all play a central role in this book, the book would be, as I noted in the previous post, meaningless without its Christological structure. Put simply, the book is about Jesus Christ–specifically with regard to His first and second coming. And is this a surprise to us? It shouldn’t be if we have come to see that the Bible is about the Lord Jesus Christ and the work He does in His first and second coming. Isn’t this what Jesus taught to His disciples on the road to Emmaus, concerning the doctrine of the Old Testament, when he said to them, “O foolish ones and slow in heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken. Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and entered into His glory ?” There, Jesus proceeded to open the Scriptures and “beginning with Moses and the prophets, He interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself .” Peter also explained this when he wrote, “10 Of this salvation the prophets have inquired and searched carefully, who prophesied of the grace that would come to you, searching what, or what manner of time, the Spirit of Christ who was in them was indicating when He testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow (1 Peter 1:10-11).”

So it is, as we approach the New Testament revelation that we find a shift in focus, not away from the Person and work of Christ, but on the fulfillment of that work, and the fruit that flows from His death and resurrection. This is naturally coupled with the prospect of the consummation of that work in His second coming. It is these two architectonic events that structure the New Testament, even as they were alluded to in the Old; and it is these two events that structure the book of Revelation. Everything that occurs within this book–all the people, places and events–find their meaning in regard to these advents. So, it is the theme of the book that John has in mind when he writes:

To Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and has made us kings and priests to His God and Father, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. Behold, He is coming with clouds, and every eye will see Him, even they who pierced Him. And all the tribes of the earth will mourn because of Him. Even so, Amen.

The saving work of Christ crucified is the ground for what John sees, concerning the people of God, in his vision. In Revelation 7:9-10 we read, “After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, saying, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”

It is the Lamb–the One who was slain and who redeemed a people to God with His blood–who is the focus of the entire heavenly vision. The title “the Lamb” binds together in unbreakable unity the Person of Christ and His saving work at Calvary. It is on account of His shed blood that sinful men and women, boys and girls, are made worthy to stand before the throne of the thrice Holy God. This theme reoccurs throughout the book and differentiates the righteous from the wicked. Even when the righteous are spoken of in regard to their spiritual purity–denoted by the most felicitous term “virgins” (as is the case in Rev. 14:4)–they are said to be “the ones who follow the Lamb wherever He goes,” and who “were redeemed from among men, being firstfruits to God and to the Lamb.” The death of Christ makes ALL the difference for all the people of God. The blood that He shed is efficacious blood, in that it secured eternal life and happiness for all for whom it was shed.

But, the saving work of Christ is incomplete, if I may say it reverently, without His return to bring about the full fruition of that atoning death. The Christ who died, is also the Christ who is risen. The Christ who is risen is the Christ who is ascended on High. And the Christ who ascended is the Christ who will one day come again in glory to bring about the full redemption accomplished by His death. This is the great hope of all the saints who are suffering tribulation in this present age.

We must always keep the Person and work of Christ before our minds. We must ever remember that it is His saving work, in all of its fulfness, accomplished in His first and second coming that structures redemptive history; and it is this that gives us the master key to unlock the mystery of the Apocalypse. Let him who has ears to hear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.