Chapter 1

The Author

Years ago, for a season, I habitually checked the family mailbox - nonstop. My devotion was religious. I had applied to various colleges and awaited their replies, but I did not wait well at all. I was incessant. Multiple times each day I would venture out to the curb, hoping for the letter that would seal my destiny. The wait took longer than I expected. Day after day, catalogs and bills grated on my mind and mission. It seemed the letters I hoped for would never come.

The sender helps us determine the value of the communication. If the sender is a university we are waiting on, someone we admire, or a company we've placed an order with, the correspondence is deemed valuable. If the sender is an advertiser or a utility wanting a payment from us, the correspondence is deemed less desirable.

The same holds true for the seven letters from Christ in Revelation 2-3. There, Jesus spoke to seven different churches in Asia Minor. Each church existed near the end of John's life, which was also the end of the first century. Each letter ends with the phrase, “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” To have an ear to hear, they needed to appreciate the sender.  

This is true for us as well. The seven letters overflow with powerful exhortations from Christ - words of warning, comfort, and promise. But we will think little of them if we don't have a vision for the magnificence of the sender. A low view of Christ will create an apathetic glossing over of these seven letters. A high view of Christ will create an urgency and anticipation as we pore over these seven letters. If we see Jesus, if we know of His transcendent position, we will read these letters with rapt attention.

This is why it is important to begin a book on the seven letters with the vision John has of Christ in Revelation 1. To hear Jesus well, we must see Jesus well - and see him John does. John had, of course, seen Jesus throughout three years of friendship and work here on earth. How he sees Christ in Revelation 1 is altogether different. He had known Jesus in his humbled humanity, but this is a vision of Him in His glorified state - a mixture of humanity and divinity. John attempts, by the aid of the Holy Spirit, to write about it. This vision of Christ helps us prepare to read the letters from Christ.

The Apostle  

“ 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.” (Revelation 1: 9)   

John was an incredible man with an incredible life story. Peter or Paul he was not. God had a different plan for his life. Paul had traveled and written profusely. Peter had led and taught courageously. John had endured an exhorted lovingly. He is nearing the end of his race when he receives the final book of the Bible - the Revelation of Jesus Christ.

John receives this letter while on the island of Patmos, which was used as a Roman prison. He is there for preaching the Word of God and testifying about Jesus Christ. in short, he is imprisoned for proclaiming the gospel. The details aren't given by John, for this isn't the Revelation of John, but of Christ. Still, we marveled that a man so obedient to Christ would suffer as John did. Here he is, an old man near the close of the first century. Retirement and ease are not his, but a suffering for the cause of Christ is.

We ought to think of John when we're thirsty for great revelation from God. We might be tempted to crave God's opening of our hearts and minds, but only in places of comfort. For John, and for so many before and after him, revelation was attached to pain. In that state of suffering, God has often been allowed to perform his finest work. This isn't a requirement; we don't need to hunt for pain. But if and when it comes our way, it might allow Jesus Christ a chance for His deepest work in our lives.