01 April 2009

The Book of Revelation (2): Revelation 1: 1-8, the Prologue

A 16th century Russian Orthodox icon of the Apocalypse, the Bookof Revelation

Patrick Comerford

Revelation 1: 1-8, the Prologue

1 Ἀποκάλυψις Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, ἣν ἔδωκεν αὐτῷ ὁ θεός, δεῖξαι τοῖς δούλοις αὐτοῦ ἃ δεῖ γενέσθαι ἐν τάχει, καὶ ἐσήμανεν ἀποστείλας διὰ τοῦ ἀγγέλου αὐτοῦ τῷ δούλῳ αὐτοῦ Ἰωάννῃ, 2 ὃς ἐμαρτύρησεν τὸν λόγον τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ τὴν μαρτυρίαν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, ὅσα εἶδεν.

3 μακάριος ὁ ἀναγινώσκων
καὶ οἱ ἀκούοντες τοὺς λόγους τῆς προφητείας
καὶ τηροῦντες τὰ ἐν αὐτῇ γεγραμμένα,
ὁ γὰρ καιρὸς ἐγγύς.

4 Ἰωάννης ταῖς ἑπτὰ ἐκκλησίαις ταῖς ἐν τῇ Ἀσίᾳ:

χάρις ὑμῖν καὶ εἰρήνη ἀπὸ ὁ ὢν καὶ ὁ ἦν καὶ ὁ ἐρχόμενος, καὶ ἀπὸ τῶν ἑπτὰ πνευμάτων ἃ ἐνώπιον τοῦ θρόνου αὐτοῦ, 5 καὶ ἀπὸ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, ὁ μάρτυς ὁ πιστός, ὁ πρωτότοκος τῶν νεκρῶν καὶ ὁ ἄρχων τῶν βασιλέων τῆς γῆς. Τῷ ἀγαπῶντι ἡμᾶς καὶ λύσαντι ἡμᾶς ἐκ τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν ἡμῶν ἐν τῷ αἵματι αὐτοῦ 6 καὶ ἐποίησεν ἡμᾶς βασιλείαν, ἱερεῖς τῷ θεῷ καὶ πατρὶ αὐτοῦ αὐτῷ ἡ δόξα καὶ τὸ κράτος εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας [τῶν αἰώνων]: ἀμήν.

7 Ἰδοὺ ἔρχεται μετὰ τῶν νεφελῶν,
καὶ ὄψεται αὐτὸν πᾶς ὀφθαλμὸς
καὶ οἵτινες αὐτὸν ἐξεκέντησαν,
καὶ κόψονται ἐπ' αὐτὸν πᾶσαι αἱ φυλαὶ τῆς γῆς.
ναί, ἀμήν.

8 Ἐγώ εἰμι τὸ Ἄλφα καὶ τὸ ’Ω, λέγει κύριος ὁ θεός, ὁ ὢν καὶ ὁ ἦν καὶ ὁ ἐρχόμενος, ὁ παντοκράτωρ.

1, The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place; he made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, 2 who testified to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw.

3 Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of the prophecy,
and blessed are those who hear
and who keep what is written in it;
for the time is near.

4 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, 5 and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.
To him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, 6 and made us to be a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.

7 Look! He is coming with the clouds;
every eye will see him,
even those who pierced him;
and on his account all the tribes of the earth will wail.
So it is to be. Amen.

8 ‘I am the Alpha and the Omega’, says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.

Introduction:

We saw in our introduction to the Book of Revelation (The Book of Revelation (1): an Introduction) how Dean Stephen Smalley divides this book into the following four main sections, the Prologue, two principal acts, and the Epilogue:

● Prologue: The Oracle is Disclosed (1: 1-8);

● Act 1: Creation, and Salvation through Judgment (1: 9 to 11: 19);

● Act 2: Salvation through Judgement, and New Creation (12: 1 to 22: 17);

● Epilogue: The Oracle is Complete (22: 18-21).

The first section of the Book of Revelation (1: 1-8), the Prologue, introduces this theological and literary composition with its strong, over-arching and dramatic structure.

The Prologue itself is easily divided into two smaller parts: the superscription (verses 1 to 3) and the address or salutation and doxology (verses 4 to 8).

The Oracle is Disclosed (1: 1-8)

Superscription: The Revelation to John (1: 1-3):

These three opening verses set out the origin of John’s Revelation, its content and the effect on those who proclaim and receive its teachings.

Verse 1:

The word apocalypse (ἀποκάλυψις) is used without a definite article – this is a revelation rather than the revelation, as the NRSV and other translations render it. This is a revelation that is part of God’s ongoing self-revelation or disclosure rather than the definitive revelation that is never repeated.

It is the revelation of Jesus Christ, mediated to John from the Son, as the Father gave it to him, declaring to his followers what the Father has made known to him.

The exalted title Jesus Christ is used here, and twice more in the Prologue – in verses 2 and 5. But in other places John also uses “Jesus” alone nine times, “Lord Jesus” twice and “(the) Lord” once.

Jesus himself is the subject of the disclosure or revelation which is to be made known. The disclosure or revelation is to be made known to “his servants,” the Christian prophets, of whom John is one. The word for “to make known” here has the same root as the word for a sign in the Fourth Gospel, which is a miracle that discloses the significance of Jesus. In other words, we are about to be told something that has deep significance and that involves deep truths.

Those who are to receive this message are to be told of what must (δεῖ) take place swiftly, although this indicates more that they will be accomplished as the completion of God’s plans, rather than having a hasty conclusion in our own temporal history.

John names himself as the writer, unlike the Fourth Gospel and the Johannine letters, where the writer is not named. But John identifies himself only as a servant or slave (δουλος) of the Lord, and gives us no other clues to his identity. Yet traditionally he is accepted as John the Disciple or John the Divine (John the Theologian), who also lived in Ephesus.

John receives this revelation from a messenger or angel (αγγελος). Angels play an important role in this book, where they are mentioned 67 times: they share in the worship of heaven around the throne of God, mediate revelation, interpret visions, are agents of God in implementing judgement, are the heavenly counterparts of the seven churches of Asia as the spirituality of the earthly congregations, and they act and speak on God’s behalf.

Verse 2:

John now moves to introducing and describing the content of that revelation, to which he bears witness – for which he is a martyr for Christ’s sake. The evidence of this witness will be presented before the Court of God, in the court of heaven, presided over by God, who is true and just.

John says he bore witness to “the word of God, and the testimony of Jesus Christ.” These two phrases occur again three times in the Book of Revelation (1: 9; 6: 9; 20: 4). In those three later cases, these phrases refer to the totality of Christian revelation. Here, however, it refers to “all that he (John) saw” (ὅσα εἶδεν), or, literally, “everything that he perceived”, or “whatsoever he saw.” And so this is what we are being introduced to.

Verse 3:

The superscription concludes with a poetic stanza of four lines, although this poetic style and presentation is lost in most translations and printings.

This blessing is a promise of blessings for those who read this book aloud. This presumes a liturgical, community reading of the Book, as opposed to a private meditation on it. And so it is surprising to learn that there are no provisions for the readings from this book in the original table of readings in the Book of Common Prayer, nor is this book read liturgically in the Eastern Orthodox Churches.

This is the first of seven blessings in the Book of Revelation – the other six can be found in 14: 13; 16: 15; 19: 9; 20: 6; 22: 7; and 22: 14. The first blessing here in 1: 3 forms an emphatic closure with the first blessing in the final chapter (22: 7): “happy is the one who adheres to the words of the prophecy of this book.”

In the original Greek, there is a closer link between those who listen or hear and those who keep what is written in it, those who adhere to its teachings. To listen is to follow, to believe is to live a life of discipleship. Hearing the Good News calls for an active response, blessings need to be acted on, faith must be expressed in how we live our lives, the Gospel demands response, participation and active out-working.

The time that is near is not chronological time but a καιρος (kairos) moment, the time when things are brought to crisis, the decisive epoch that has been waited for, the opportune or seasonable time, the critically and divinely ordained moment within history as a whole. The hour of fulfilment has arrived, the reign of God has broken in, and we are called to respond in repentance and with faith. The present, the past and the future stand under the judgment of God.

The Address, or the Salutation and Doxology (1: 4-8):

The Address (verses 4 to 8), or Salutation and Doxology, includes John’s greeting to the Seven Churches of Asia making up the Johannine community in Asia Minor (present day Western Turkey).

There is a careful symmetry of the benediction in verses 4 to 6.

Verse 4:

The first verse of the address is a familiar form found also in the New Testament epistles (see I Corinthians 1: 1-13; Ephesians 1: 1-2; or compare with II John 1-3). It includes the name of the author, the identity of the recipients, and a benediction followed by a doxology. In this, we could understand and read the whole of the Book of Revelation as an epistle in its literary form – but it is much more than that, for it is also apocalypse and visionary prophecy.

For the first time, John reveals his identity and addresses directly the seven member churches in Asian Minor that are part of the Johannine circle. Although he names these churches precisely later in verse 11, we should not miss the symbolism of the number seven. Seven is a sacred number in the Old Testament, in rabbinic literature, there are seven signs in the Fourth Gospel, there are seven scenes in Revelation and seven visions, each vision consisting of seven item and each vision corresponding to the seven days of Creation.

There are many numbers in Revelation, and each number is symbolic. There are seven letters to seven churches, seven seals, seven trumpets, seven visions of the dragons and kingdoms, seven visions of the worshipers of the Lamb, seven visions of the bowels of wrath, and seven visions of the fall of Babylon. Seven times seven is symbolic of the total, absolute, perfect completion of everything – the ultimate revelation. So, the Book of Revelation is the total revelation of everything concerning Christians living in the world since Jesus Christ. Because seven is symbolic of perfection, six must mean that there is something lacking, something that is not quite there, something inadequate ... Sometimes Revelation will say three and a half, meaning a short time.

At the same time, nevertheless, we should not forget that the seven churches are living communities, with their own problems and potentials. While John’s vision speaks to every age and generation, the Book of Revelation also contains specific messages for his generation and his own followers.

John wishes them grace and peace in a formula that is reminiscent of the greetings in the Pauline epistles, and that is found also in II John. It is a greeting that combines Hellenistic (grace) and Hebrew (peace) salutations, and so this greeting also serves to symbolise the unity that should exist between the two groups of believers in the Johannine community. More theologically, we could also say that grace is God’s love in action and peace should be the result of that love in action.

Grace and peace found their true source in the Triune God, the one “who is and who was and who is to come,” the one who says “I am who I am.” The eternal God breaks through all the barriers of time and space, past, present and future.

Secondly, this grace and peace come from the seven spirits who are in front of God’s throne. Who are these seven spirits? Some commentators have suggested that they are the seven archangels that are named in Jewish tradition as Uriel, Raphael, Raguel, Michael, Saraqa’el, Gabriel and Remiel. Others have identified them as the “seven spirits of God,” the leaders of the seven churches addressed in Revelation, the seven torches of fire burning before the throne of God, the seven eyes of the Lamb, the seven sent out on a mission to the whole world, or even the seven planets traditionally identified in Greek cosmology.

However, Smalley points out that seven is the number of perfection, and that this is more likely a reference to the Spirit of God manifested in his completeness. The traditional gifts of the Spirit were originally six: wisdom, understanding, counsel, strength, knowledge, and fear of the Lord (Isaiah 11: 2-3), and these found their completion or perfection with the seventh gift: godliness.

Smalley’s interpretation allows us to see this a Trinitarian blessing, from God as Father, Son (in verse 5) and Holy Spirit, but in an unusual order that that we find again in this book, for example in the vision in chapters 4 and 5, where God is seated on the throne (4: 2-3), before which are the seven spirits (4: 5), and to which the Lamb comes to take the scroll from the hand of God (5: 6-7).

Verse 5:

The blessing of grace and peace is completed with the invocation of Jesus Christ, who is described in a threefold way as “the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.” Some commentators suggest that this threefold description – witness, firstborn and ruler – refers to Christ’s work in the past, present and future, or that they correspond to a three-fold message in this book, which is at once a divine testimony, a revelation of the Risen Lord, and a foretaste of what is to happen.

As “the faithful witness” – a description used only here and in 3: 14 – Christ himself is the archetype for the martyrs, a role he exercises both in history and beyond it. In the Fourth Gospel, Christ testifies or bears witness to, is a martyr for the truth that he has received from the Father (for examples, see John 3: 32, 5: 31, 8: 18, 18: 37).

As “the firstborn of the dead,” he is not only the firstborn who plays a crucial role in the salvation and liberation at Passover and the Exodus, but he is fulfilment of the Messianic hope for “the firstborn, the highest of earthly kings” (Psalm 89: 27), who is “the ruler of the kings of the earth.”

Christ “loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood.” The concept of being released from our sins through the blood (αἷμα, haima) of Christ is a particularly Johannine image, found also in the Fourth Gospel and the Johannine Letters. We often think of being saved by the blood of Christ in terms of his passion and death. But the word αἷμα refers first and foremost not to blood shed in death but to blood as the source and seat of life.

The Blood Transfusion Service has a slogan: “Give the gift of life, give blood.” I remember my first failed effort to donate blood at the age of 20 in Wexford, failed because I immediately queasy when I saw other people’s blood dripping out of their out-stretched arms. Now, at 57, I’m glad my stomach is a little stronger as I go for regular blood tests and injections because of my Vitamin B12 deficiency. It is not comforting to hear stories about a near-neighbour with the same condition who needed life-saving transfusions. But that’s what blood means here: it is the source and the guarantee of the continuity of life. Although medicine has advanced, we still see blood as the source of life: a wedding ring is placed on the “leech finger,” which was believed to contain a vein that led directly to the heart, or we talk about “pure blood” and “blood relations,” in terms that recall those times when blood was though to be the substance through which heredity, the life-line, was transmitted from generation to generation.

Blood was thought to contain “the life of the flesh (Leviticus 17: 11). This is why it was reprehensible for Cain to pour his brother’s blood into the earth (Exodus 4: 10-12). That is why it was forbidden to eat the blood of a slaughtered animal (Leviticus 17: 10-16), and why Gentile converts to Christianity were to abstain from blood (see Acts 15: 20; 21: 25).

If we are saved by the blood of Christ then, as we say in the Litany, we are saved “by the mystery” of Christ’s full life, his “holy incarnation, … birth, childhood and obedience, … baptism, fasting and temptation, … ministry in word and work, … mighty acts of power, … preaching of the kingdom … agony and trial … cross and passion … precious death and burial … mighty resurrection … glorious ascension … and … sending of the Holy Spirit.” (Book of Common Prayer, p. 176.)

So the blood of Christ that frees us is his full life, from birth, through life, passion, death and resurrection, to the promise of his coming again.

A second use of the word αἷμα – not just at the time Revelation was being written, but even to this day in poetic Greek – is found in its colloquial and literary use to refer to those things that resemble blood, such as dark grape juice and dark wine. This image is drawn on further again in Revelation 14: 20. Is there therefore a second reference here to meeting the saving Christ in the Eucharist and as the Eucharistic community? This is possible when we bear in mind that John is writing to the Church, to the Eucharistic communities, of Asia Minor.

Verse 6:

This three-fold description of Jesus is followed by a three-fold doxology that continues through into verse 6: he is worthy of glory and dominion for ever and ever, for he “loves us,” he “freed us from our sins,” and (in verse 6), he “made us to be a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father.”

The love of Christ for us is linked intimately with his passion and death, but this one moment in history continues and his love is continuous.

Christ has made us, or he has appointed us, “a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father.”

In the Hebrew Scriptures, Israel is described as “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exodus 19: 5-6; see Isaiah 61: 6).

The doxology closes with the invocation of glory and might. Glory (δόξα, doxa), which belongs to God in the Bible, is used 18 times in the Fourth Gospel, 17 times in the Book of Revelation, but not once in the Johannine letters. For a community who are oppressed by the present mighty rulers, that fact that power or might (κράτος, kratos) belongs ultimately with God is a powerful and assuring message.

Verse 7:

And it is in that glory and might that we can expect Christ to come again. Our present ever-day concerns will pass with the coming reality.

Notice how Christ comes with the clouds, rather than on them or, as Mark and Luke put it, in the clouds. Throughout the Hebrew Bible, the presence of God is associated with clouds.

John here draws on the apocalyptic visions found in Zechariah (chapter 12) and Daniel (chapter 7), which are also alluded to in the Gospels (Matthew 24: 30, John 19: 37). The word used for “pierced” here by the author might be more directly translated as “stabbed.”

And when he comes, all the people of the earth will lament, not for themselves, but on his account … because of his suffering on their behalf. But will they repent? John does not say.

Finally there is an emphatic and solemn double affirmation, in Greek and in Hebrew, that this is to be: ναί, ἀμήν, Yes! Amen!

The use of both languages is significant here, for one of the problems the Johannine community was facing was the division between the Jews and the Greeks, Judaising Christians and the Hellenistic Christians.

Verse 8:

Christ the Pantokrator, enthroned and with the Bible open at the Alpha and Omega of Revelation ... an icon from Trinity Episcopal Cathedral, Portland, Oregon

This prologue concludes with God speaking directly: “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.

There are only two occasions in this book in which God speaks directly – here and in 21: 3-8. Here again we have a Johannine “I AM” saying: Ἐγώ εἰμι. Here God declares that he is the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end (see Isaiah 44: 6).

He is the ruler of all, the παντοκράτωρ (Pantocrator). And with this is there is a reminder that God is the universal and sovereign ruler and the power controlling the entire drama of salvation. God is the living and eternal source and goal of human history. God is in control of this world and all human activity within it. God is the eternal origin and goal of history. He is and was and is to come.

Conclusion:

In the prologue, we have moved between heaven and earth and back again. We have been introduced to the drama that is about to unfold and to be played out in the Book of Revelation. Past, present and future, the temporal and the eternal, have been drawn together. The Day of the Lord is at hand … indeed, it has already begun to dawn for us. Like John’s Disciples in the seven churches in Asia Minor, we can have confidence to face the future..

Next: Revelation 1: 9-20 (John’s vision of the Son of Man, and the Commission to Write).

Canon Patrick Comerford is Director of Spiritual Formation, the Church of Ireland Theological Institute. This essay is based on notes prepared for a Bible study in a tutorial group on 1 April 2009.

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