THE BOOK OF REVELATION
Lesson 2 - Chapter 1

The English word revelation is an attempt to translate the Greek word apokalypsus. The same
word is also often transliterated into English as apocalypse. The word carries two senses with
it: first, it speaks of a catastrophic or destructive ending. A second and different meaning is that
it speaks of the unveiling of a mystery. As it applies to John’s recorded visions, both meanings
come into play. Since the English term revelation means to unveil or reveal and not to destroy
or end, then the typical English Christian title that has been assigned to The Book of
Revelation only reflects half the story.
As was discussed in our introduction to Revelation last week, a firm connection between the
New Testament Book of Revelation and several Old Testament books is needed for proper
interpretation. One of the many proofs of this need is that the New Testament regularly has
statements that Yeshua of Nazareth is the fulfillment of a number of Old Testament
prophecies. I want to begin today’s lesson by drawing you towards a remarkable section of the
Book of 1Corinthians whereby Paul makes that indelible connection between the Old
Testament and the post-Christ times that the New Testament authors lived in. But also he
mentions about when it was that he thought that the current age would come to a close. Turn
your Bibles to 1Corinthians10 (page 1431 in the CJB).
CJB
1 Corinthians 10:1 For, brothers, I don't want you to miss the significance of what
happened to our fathers. All of them were guided by the pillar of cloud, and they all
passed through the sea,
2
and in connection with the cloud and with the sea they all
immersed themselves into Moshe,
3
also they all ate the same food from the Spirit,
4
and
they all drank the same drink from the Spirit- for they drank from a Spirit-sent Rock
which followed them, and that Rock was the Messiah.
5
Yet with the majority of them
God was not pleased, so their bodies were strewn across the desert.
6
Now these things took place as prefigurative historical events, warning us not to set
our hearts on evil things as they did.
7
Don't be idolaters, as some of them were- as the
Tanakh puts it, "The people sat down to eat and drink, then got up to indulge in revelry."
8
And let us not engage in sexual immorality, as some of them did, with the
consequence that 23,000 died in a single day.
9
And let us not put the Messiah to the
test, as some of them did, and were destroyed by snakes.
10
And don't grumble, as
some of them did, and were destroyed by the Destroying Angel.

11
These things happened to them as prefigurative historical events, and they were
written down as a warning to us who are living in the acharit-hayamim.
12
Therefore, let
anyone who thinks he is standing up be careful not to fall!
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Acharit-hayammim is translated into English in most Bibles as “the end of the age”. An
alternative term we use is the End Times. Paul says those things written about what happened
to “our fathers”, things recorded in the Hebrew Tanakh, the Old Testament, were recorded as
a warning “to us who are living in the end of the age”. Paul thought the time was upon him; he
was not waiting for the End Times to eventually come; he was certain that he was living in the
End Times. Yeshua would return momentarily, the world as Paul knew it would end, and a new
age would be ushered in with Christ as an earthly King during Paul’s lifetime. As we read the
words of Revelation today, and over the next many months, we shall see that John’s
perspective of the imminence of the End Times was the same as Paul’s, as apparently it was
for ALL the early Believers…. especially the Jewish Believers…..because they were all too
familiar with what their Prophets had to say on the subject.
I’ll repeat: Paul directly connected the Old Testament with the End Times teaching that the
End Times is the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies. Therefore the Book of Revelation,
which is mostly about the End Times, is also about the fulfillment of the purposes and
prophecies of the Old Testament. If it were not so, then we’d have the Apostles Paul and John
at an interolerable theological loggerhead with one another and we’d be left with trying to
figure out who was right and who was wrong.
Another point I mentioned in our introduction last week that bears repeating is that there are
many viewpoints of how to interpret Revelation. It is a book that is utter gibberish to many,
merely confusing to some, and others have a firm and inflexible view of what the book reports
that dismisses all other interpretations as but heresy. I believe the main cause for this
bewilderment and wide array of interpretations is the Bible academic blind eye turned towards
the very source Paul refers to in 1Corinthians 10: the Old Testament. At best, Revelation is
difficult. Without the help and context of the Old Testament and the presence of the Holy Spirit
in our midst, understanding it is hopeless.
Apringius of Beja who lived in the mid 6
th
century said this: “Revelation makes known what
we cannot know. From this we learn that his book is called an Apocalypse, that is,
“revelation”, which manifests those secrets which are hidden and unknown to the
senses, and that unless Christ Himself reveals them, he who (would) perceive the
revelation will not have the strength to understand what he sees.”
So as we get ready to open this the final book of the Bible, the final recorded historical words
that will ever be given to the worldwide Body of Believers by means of divine oracle and
inspiration, let us not be terribly rigid in how we take them. Much of the book is about a future
filled with mystery; and as those many Jews just prior to the birth of Christ could attest if they
were still living, religious doctrines and manmade traditions and our own personal
interpretations of as yet unrealized prophesied events in the Bible must be held lightly or we’re
liable to miss out recognizing the actual events for what they are when they finally do happen.
Open your Bibles to the Book of Revelation chapter 1.
READ REVELATION CHAPTER 1 all
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The first few words of verse 1 are crucial as well as not just a bit controversial. The crucial part
is that the words of Revelation are characterized as more than divinely inspired; they are
divinely given. Let me explain what I mean. Since Christians tend to be primarily focused on
the New Testament, then the level to which divine authority can be attached to those 27 books
is important to determine. Thus Christian theologians say that, generally speaking, the New
Testament is of a class of authority called “divinely inspired”. What does that mean? Using the
accepted theological definition it means that while the words of the New Testament were
thoughts of, and written down by, humans, the human authors were led by the Holy Spirit or
otherwise divinely influenced in some unknowable way to think them and record them. The
exception usually mentioned is, of course, the words directly spoken by Messiah Yeshua;
those are direct divine words and instructions made without human mediation. Therefore
Christ’s words rise to a higher level of divine authority than those which are merely divinely
inspired. However the words of Revelation are essentially in the same category as the direct
words of Yeshua because we are told unequivocally that “this is the revelation that God gave
to Yeshua the Messiah” and were passed along to John. Such a circumstance is what also
sets the Old Testament Prophets apart from most other writings of the Old and New
Testaments. That is, the writers are given direct divine oracles; they are not passing along their
own thoughts inspired or otherwise. John belongs in the same category as the Old Testament
Prophets in this regard. That is, John is used as a human messenger of God’s directives.
This also tells us that to call this book the Apocalypse of John is a misnomer that waters down
its divine authority. Revelation stands unique in the New Testament as not being merely
“inspired of God”, by actually directly from God, partly given by oracle and partly by vision. But
here’s where it can get controversial, depending on the particular doctrine of the Trinity that
one holds. There is a very clear delineation that John makes between God and Yeshua the
Messiah. We are told about as plainly as it can be done that God gave this vision to Yeshua.
How are we to take this? If we go by the most prevalent Trinitarian view that the unity of God,
Son, and Holy Spirit is so complete with each “person” having co-equal authority over the
other, then why the distinct mention of God and Yeshua so separately from one another that
Yeshua is NOT the author of the Revelation vision at all, but God is? Or, in Christian Trinitarian
thought, could this mean that God created the visions and then passed them along to Himself?
What we read is that God is the author who gives the visions to Yeshua, who is but 2
nd
in a
long chain of 5 steps; the fifth step being the Believer who hears and/or reads the Book of
Revelation. The oracles and visions begin with God the Father, are passed along to Yeshua
the Son, then to angels, angels to John, and then finally to us in written form.
In both Testaments when the term God is used, it usually is meant in one of two ways: first, it
refers to God the Father whose name as given to Moses was Yehoveh, but was known in
earlier times as El or El Shaddai. Second it is at times used to refer to the Godhead that
consists of all that God is. Typically in Christian thought (but not Jewish) it is seen of as an
amalgam of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Over and over again in the
Gospels we find Yeshua as subservient to God the Father; praying to God the Father, asking
God the Father that the Father’s will be done, showing us in the Lord’s prayer NOT to pray to
Yeshua but rather to “Our Father”, and even depicting God the Father on the central throne in
Heaven but with Yeshua on a throne that sits to the right hand of the Father. This throne vision
is a common and understood imagery in the ancient world; God the Father is the senior king
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and God the Son is the junior king. Therefore while at its fundamental core I think it is
Scripturally correct to speak of a trio of Father, Son and Holy Spirit as divine and together
forming the basis of the Godhead, we must hold lightly how that all works. Ancient Hebrew
Sages, Christian authorities, and Rabbis have debated for centuries about the nature and
substance of God. I think in the end it is a fool’s errand because even if His nature in all its
glory and fullness was shown to us, humans are not equipped to perceive or process what we
might see.
In verse 2 John speaks of himself as one “who bore witness to the Word of God and to the
testimony of Yeshua the Messiah.” That is, as one of the original 12 disciples, John heard the
Gospel directly from the lips of Christ. The Word of God and Yeshua the Messiah are parallel
terms in this instance as John in other places in his various books calls Yeshua “the Word”.
Then we get this amazing promise that came to John from God that is to be passed along to
the readers and hearers of Revelation: we will be blessed! We either take this as something
that is serious; or it is just a happy sounding expression with not much substance that could be
removed from the book without any harm. It is true that the exact nature of that blessing is
open to debate; but to my mind any blessing from God is a great blessing. What is not open to
debate is that the promise of this blessing comes with a caveat; the blessing only comes IF we
are obedient to what has been written in Revelation. That is, this blessing is conditional and not
automatic. As I pointed out in our introduction to Revelation, how can we be respond properly
enough to what John has told us if we either don’t understand the words at all, or we don’t
understand them as God, through John, meant for us to understand them?
It should not be lost on us that the blessing spoken of here is the first of 7 blessings in
Revelation aimed at the reader or hearer (at all times assumed to be a Believer). The other
blessings are found in chapters 14, 16, 19, 20, and two blessings in chapter 22. It should also
not be lost that the word hearers (of this prophecy of Revelation) is directly connected to
obedience to those words. Where have we encountered this hear-obey dynamic before? No
doubt in John’s Jewish mind the hear-obey connection is expressed in the Hebrew
word shema, which means exactly hear and obey. Therefore, to passively read (or listen) and
comprehend the words of the Book of Revelation without obeying them is useless (at least
when it comes to hoping to receive the promised blessing). I’m sorry to say that while many
Christians would probably deny it, the concept of obedience to God’s Word is all but
extinguished within the Church. The thought is generally that obedience is obviously connected
to a rule, and a rule is connected to a deed or work (a do or a don’t), and works are bad and
fly in the face of grace. Further that while the Old Testament is all about rules, the New
Testament is all about free grace. Therefore obedience has little to no place in the life of a New
Testament Christian and in fact is seen as a negative. So fellow Believers I say this to you: if
you believe that obedience is a thing of the past and not a requirement for you, then whatever
blessing is available to you from reading or hearing Revelation will not be yours. To show
obedience to God is how we show love to God. Obedience is God’s love language; not our
intent, our emotions, or our knowledge gained from study. This is why in Jewish thought the
Hebrew word shema is one of the most important; it represents a concept larger than the word
itself.
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The final words of verse 3 are “for the time is near”. As with Paul, John believed he was living
in the End Times. The time being near did not mean within decades; let alone within hundreds
or thousands of years. It was at any moment in actual reality; it was not an indefinite
expression of time as we tend to use it today. So when we understand this we also understand
the extreme urgency in John’s mind (as with Paul’s). Wouldn’t you feel a heightened sense
of urgency if you suddenly began receiving divine visions and oracles concerning God’s
judgment of the world?
Verse 4 begins a section of Revelation that on the surface is not prophecy per se, but rather is
instructions for the Believers located at 7 different congregations in Asia. Seven is the Biblical
number of completion and perfection and Revelation is full of sevens. While the number is
used in so many instances in the Bible, although mostly in the Tanakh, the number seven also
carries with it a sense of finality. Thus the unusually prolific use of sevens in Revelation is more
than a coincidence as the Book of Revelation speaks of the finality of God’s coming judgment
upon all the earth’s inhabitants. It also speaks of the end of sacred time and space as we
know it, of history as we know it, even of the substance of humans and other creatures as we
know it. And as Christ tells us in Matthew 5:17-19, along with the many uses of sevens in
Revelation and what is unveiled for us, these will indeed signal the end of the Torah and of all
prophetic utterances because all will have achieved their purposes and been fulfilled; but not
until the final moments depicted in John’s vision.
Thus it is appropriate that John is writing to 7 Believing congregations in Asia to relay to them
their spiritual condition from Our Lord’s viewpoint since they are in the End Times. Depending
on your Bible version, instead of the recipients being 7 Messianic communities like we find in
the CJB, you’ll find the words “seven churches in Asia”. The English word church is not there
and was added to give us a decidedly skewed mental picture. Rather the word in Greek is
ekklesia and the full definition is: a gathering of citizens called out from their homes to some
public space; an assembly. The word has NO religious connotation of its own. However when
used in a religious context, it is appropriate to translate ekklesia to “congregation” but
certainly not to “church”. Editing in the word church anywhere in the New Testament is an
anachronism that muddies the waters.
There were many more than seven Believing congregations in Asia; but so far as we know
they all met either in someone’s home or, more often, in a synagogue. So there is a great
debate among Bible scholars about the nature of these 7 letters. Before we read them, let’s
address what the great debate is about.
Some say that the letters to the 7 congregations are merely symbolic of what goes on in all
congregations and so are not actual “letters” at all but rather are general examples. Others
say that the 7 letters represent 7 stages of church development over the centuries. That is, the
first letter to Ephesus represents the characteristics of the first stage of church development,
the letter to Smyrna the characteristics of the second stage of development, and the letter to
Laodicea the final stage of church development. Thus the idea behind all of these ways to
interpret John’s meaning is that none of these represent actual letters that confront actual
problems or conditions of these 7 named churches. I completely disagree with that. If it was so,
I would have expected John to use wording that clearly marked these congregations’ letters as
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symbolic. No such symbolic language is present. Rather, the various interpretations are quite
specific and unambiguous.
It is my contention that the 7 letters are meant to address the actual conditions present within
the 7 actual congregations John is writing them to. To John’s mind, the only thing that made
these 7 letters different from any regular letters he might have sent to them is that they are
directed by God and so carry the greatest divine authority. Even so, I also believe that these
letters are valuable for Believing congregations of all ages to use for learning and instruction
and admonishment even if that isn’t what John had in mind. Thus these letters fall within the
scope of us needing to be obedient to what they say, at least partly so we can receive the
blessing that John spoke of back in verse 3. While the 7 letters to the 7 specific congregations
are real and actual letters, addressing real and actual issues within each congregation, it is fair
to say that their message can be applied to a broader scope of congregations at all times in
history since John’s day to our time and beyond. However any attempt to make it that these 7
letters sum up all the possible conditions that could happen within all believing congregations
during any age, or that they are the 7 characteristics or 7 stages of church development, is
much too limiting if not fanciful. Church development in 7 stages is a pure manmade doctrine
nowhere to be found in Holy Scripture. Besides; there are far more conditions that we could all
think of that have found their way into the Body of Believers, and there are many more
characteristics of churches over the centuries than the few that are mentioned in these 7
letters.
The next several words of verse 4 continue adding to the degree of theological difficulty.
John’s greeting of grace and peace to the 7 congregations is without doubt merely expressing
Jewish John’s Hebrew thought of shalom, a standard greeting from a Jew. Like the word
shema, shalom is more than a word; it represents a concept of God-given well-being that
includes grace, health, peace, loving-kindness, and more. But next we see John offer greetings
on behalf of 3 different entities. First, from the One who is, who was, and who is coming.
Second, from the sevenfold Spirit before His throne. And third, from Yeshua the Messiah. So
once again John is drawing rather firm lines between the personages that Christianity labels
the Trinity: Father, Holy Spirit, and Son in that order.
To add to the difficulty, we hear of what is apparently the Father described as the One who is,
who was and is coming. In checking the Greek syntax, “is coming” is correct. And yet in
Christian thought and doctrine it is Christ, not the Father, who is coming; as in coming back. So
unless there is an error in the Greek manuscripts of the Book of Revelation, this throws us a bit
of a curveball. Let me throw you a little bigger one that actually backs up John’s description of
(presumably) the Father as One who is coming.
CJB
Zechariah 14:1 Look, a day is coming for ADONAI when your plunder,
[Yerushalayim], will be divided right there within you.
2
"For I will gather all the nations
against Yerushalayim for war. The city will be taken, the houses will be rifled, the
women will be raped, and half the city will go into exile; but the rest of the people will
not be cut off from the city."
3
Then ADONAI will go out and fight against those nations,
fighting as on a day of battle.
4
On that day his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives,
which lies to the east of Yerushalayim; and the Mount of Olives will be split in half from
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east to west, to make a huge valley. Half of the mountain will move toward the north,
and half of it toward the south.

5
You will flee to the valley in the mountains, for the valley in the mountains will reach
to Atzel. You will flee, just as you fled before the earthquake in the days of 'Uziyah king
of Y'hudah. Then ADONAI my God will come to you with all the holy ones.
6
On that day,
there will be neither bright light nor thick darkness;
7
and one day, known to ADONAI,
will be neither day nor night, although by evening there will be light.
8
On that day, fresh
water will flow out from Yerushalayim, half toward the eastern sea and half toward the
western sea, both summer and winter.

9
Then ADONAI will be king over the whole world. On that day ADONAI will be the only
one, and his name will be the only name.
This passage is familiar especially to evangelical Christians, as it is said to depict Christ
returning and descending upon the Mt. of Olives. Everywhere we see the word Adonai in the
CJB, you’ll find the word Lord in other English Bible versions in these verses. Of course,
especially within Christianity, anywhere we find the word Lord it is usually assumed that this is
referring to Jesus. But, when we look at this passage in its original Hebrew we find something
a little startling. It seems that both the CJB using Adonai and the other standard English Bible
versions using Lord mislead us. Everywhere we find Adonai or Lord in these verses in actuality
in the original Hebrew we find Yud-Heh-Vav-Heh; Yehoveh, God’s formal name as given to
Moses on Mt. Sinai. Or better, Yehoveh, who is God the Father. Thus we have Yehoveh who is
coming, setting his foot on the Mt. of Olives whereupon it splits. It is Yehoveh who will go out to
Armageddon and fight the nations. It is Yehoveh who will be king over the whole world.
However in Christian Theology all of these attributes and activities are strictly assigned to
Yeshua, God’s Son. Quite the mystery.
We won’t be solving this mystery today. But remember: John was not a Western gentile
Christian. He was a Torah believing, Torah following Jew who saw Yeshua of Nazareth as the
prophesied Messiah of God. He did not know of Christian doctrines because none yet existed.
He did not have a New Testament because none yet existed. So in some undefined way,
according to what John wrote in Revelation, while Christ was indeed returning, in some other
way so the Father was also “coming” in the End Times. And we just found proof of that in
Zechariah 14. Do not ask me to explain it. I would have to speculate and I just don’t have
enough information to present any intellectually honest theory that couldn’t be knocked down
by any number of other theories. But in this short detour is a powerful lesson; manmade
doctrines can at times be misleading and they can also suppress certain plain Scriptural truths
by slightly modifying Scriptural words so as not to throw cold water on those doctrines. It would
sure be a lot easier for us if Zechariah had said Messiah or Son of God instead of Yehoveh
lighting upon the Mt. of Olives. But he didn’t; he said Yehoveh. This is another of the many
mysteries that we probably aren’t going to unveil until the event happens. Nonetheless we
learn that in the End Times the Father is coming as well as Yeshua, and it is something both
John and Zechariah verify. In what manner or form is Yehoveh, the Father, coming? I don’t
know; but I do know that we need to be aware of Zechariah’s prophesy of truth and expect it to
happen just has he says it will even if we can’t fully comprehend it or explain it just yet.
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Now as for the remark about the Sevenfold Spirit; the truth is that in the Greek this could be
legitimately translated as “the seven spirits”. Thus some think that this could be referring to 7
high ranking angels who serve before God’s heavenly throne (interestingly Judaism claims
that there are 7 Archangels). And the term “seven spirits” is indeed present in a few other
places in the Bible including Psalm 104 and Hebrews 1. However in the context of the absolute
divine beings along which the Spirit comment is placed, it is hard to imagine including angels of
any rank since they are by no means divine. In light of a constant barrage of sevens that
symbolizes the divine perfection, completion, and finality that the Book of Revelation tells us
about, then the characterization of the Sevenfold Spirit well fits the perfect fullness of the work
of the Holy Spirit especially at the End of Days. Therefore I am convinced that this is indeed
speaking of the Ruach HaKodesh, the Holy Spirit.
Yeshua is described as the faithful witness and the firstborn from the dead. What did Yeshua
witness to? God’s saving grace offered to humanity as the mostly costly ransom ever paid; the
price of God’s Son. Christ’s faithfulness to His witness extended all the way to His own death.
Firstborn from the dead does NOT mean that Christ was the first to be resurrected from the
dead. We have earlier examples in both the Prophets and the New Testament of God
resurrecting people from the dead. Rather it is probably better to focus on the office of the
firstborn from a biblical and Hebrew perspective. That is, the firstborn (always a male) is given
special authority within a family. Firstborn is a status so it was not uncommon that the son
given the firstborn status was NOT the first son to have been born. Thus Christ was not the
first to rise from the dead; but He was chosen to have special authority (given the status of the
firstborn by God) over those of us who trust in Him and will be resurrected from the dead as He
was.
Next at the end of verse 5 there is a turn from John telling his readers that God in His manifest
forms brings greetings to the Believers of the 7 congregations. Now John pays a special
homage to Christ as the one in the Godhead who freed us from our sins and caused us to be a
kingdom of priests for God…God here meaning the Father….forever. So once again the Father is
given preeminence just as Yeshua regularly insisted upon during his ministry on earth. Let’s
talk for a minute about this remark of Believers becoming priests, or in Hebrew cohanim, for
the Father (another theological pothole, I’m afraid).
The concept of Believers as priests has, I think, been misconstrued and is at the root of some
of the more blatant Replacement Theology doctrines that we find among some Christian
denominations. That is, a widespread Christian doctrine is that the priesthood of gentile
Believers in Christ will replace the Levitical priesthood during the Millennial Kingdom period
because Israel has lost its place before God. Let me throw a little cold water on that thought.
First of all, even if it was true (which it’s not) that God has replaced Israel with the gentile
Church, Levites are exempt because they have not been part of Israel since early in the
Exodus. God removed them from among the tribes of Israel and set them apart as non-
partisan priests as explained in Numbers 1. All through Israel’s history beginning with the
Exodus and right on until today the Levites are a unique case and are not to be counted as
among the tribes of Israel.
But then there is also the issue of the Book of Ezekiel that spends several chapters having
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Ezekiel measure and diagram the Temple that will be built by God to reign in during the
Millennial period. In addition Ezekiel chapter 44 carefully explains all the duties of the Levite
Priesthood that is to be reconstituted, based solely on the descendants of Tzadok, a rightful
heir in the line of Aaron. Listen to how the Lord describes who will be the priests of the
Millennial Temple.
10
"'Rather, the L'vi'im, who went far away from me when Isra'el went astray, going
astray after their idols- they will bear the consequences of their guilt,
11
but they are to
serve in my sanctuary. They will have charge of the gates of the house and of serving in
the house; they will slaughter the burnt offering and the sacrifice for the people; and
they will attend and serve them.
12
Because they served them in the presence of their
idols and became an occasion of sin for the house of Isra'el, I am raising my hand
against them,' says Adonai ELOHIM, 'and they will bear the consequences of their guilt.

13
They will not approach me to serve me in the office of cohen or approach any of the
holy things or the especially holy things; but they will bear their shame for the
disgusting practices they committed.
14
Yet I will put them in charge of the house and all
its maintenance and everything to be done in it.

15
"'However, the cohanim, who are L'vi'im and descendants of Tzadok, who took care
of my sanctuary when the people of Isra'el went astray from me- they are the ones who
will approach me and serve me; it is they who will attend me and offer me the fat and the
blood,' says Adonai ELOHIM.

16
'They will enter my sanctuary, approach my table to minister to me and perform my
service.
A priest is a person set apart to serve God; and folks that is how all Believers are to look at
ourselves because that’s how God sees us and what He fully expects from us. However that is
entirely different than being a member of the official Priesthood that was created to serve God
by performing very specific duties at His sanctuary. The Book of Ezekiel makes it crystal clear
that it is not gentile Believers (the Church) that will form a new priesthood that replaces the
Levites; it will be actual Levites who descend from Tzadok who will serve God at the Temple
during the 1000 year reign of Christ.
We’ll continue with Revelation chapter 1 next time.
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