Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript – Revelation 1:1-6
Pastor Dennis Tuuri

First chapter, we’ll read the first six verses. Revelation 1, we’ll read verses 1-6. Although our sermon will be on verses 4-6. Our topic will be God’s servants persevere, knowing Christ’s future victories. Please stand for the reading of God’s word.

Revelation 1: The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him to show unto his servants, things which must shortly come to pass. And he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John, who bore record of the word of God, and of the testimony of Jesus Christ, and of all things that he saw.

Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein. For the time is at hand. John, to the seven churches, which are in Asia, grace be unto you in peace, from him which is, and which was, and which is to come, and from the seven spirits which are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth.

Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his father. To him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

We will sing our prayer for illumination today. We’ll have the tune played through once. It’s mostly familiar, but a little bit different, so we’ll have it played through once, and then we’ll sing our prayer that God would illumine the text for understanding.

This is the second message going through the first three chapters of the book of Revelation. And I have on your outlines today first a review of what we said last week. We have focused upon and will for the next few weeks the basic idea that we are called as servants of God. And so last week we spoke upon the summation of the first three verses of Revelation chapter 1 and that truth is that God’s exalted servants exalt Christ by means of his word.

We were given an object lesson of the fall of man and his depravity a little over a week ago on Saturday preceding our worship services with the tremendous press coverage of the boxer who bit off the other fellow’s ear. Picture of man in his fallen state. And in the providence of God yesterday, in the last couple of days, we’ve had a picture of man’s tremendously exalted state, being able to send a vehicle to the surface of Mars and to transmit pictures back to Earth, which were amazing to me.

I suppose that the younger you are, the less amazing these things are. But I could not help but think about Psalm 8 again and man’s exalted calling by God in terms of his ability to do the things that God has given him to do. It is a wonder mankind. So we’ve had these two pictures in the last two weeks of man’s tremendous fall into sin and depravity and yet man’s high calling as well in his abilities.

Man is called as an exalted servant. We’re servants because we’re created by God, but we’re particularly servants here in the church of God because we’ve been loved by him and saved and we are called to minister in the context of the church.

Now, last week we said that this book of Revelation is a revealing—it’s a revealing of the Lord Jesus Christ to his servants. It’s not supposed to be tough to understand. It’s only tough because we don’t know our Bibles well enough. We said that this book reveals what would take place contemporaneously to John and to his audience, dealing with a preterist or past view of the prophecies involved—that the great bulk of the book referred specifically to events that happened leading up to the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70. And with the transition from the old creation, as it were, to the new creation in Christ that is accomplished between Pentecost and that holocaust.

We said that this book was revealed by way of signification. The scriptures tell us in the first few verses there that the book is signified—symbolized to the church. It’s why it’s hard for us because we don’t know our scriptures well enough to look at the imagery involved and think in terms of God’s imagery. It’s not a code book. You know, it’d be as crude as to think of phonics as only pronouncing things phonetically and never getting the drift of sentences and paragraphs and ideas.

You see, the scriptures have a language of prophecy and it’s revealed over and over in the Old Testament. By the time we’re familiar with the Old Testament, we should know the language pretty well, but we don’t. And so we don’t know the language and it’s hard to teach ourselves the language. We make rough approximations as we must do. But it is a signification that is based on an understanding of all the scriptures.

And so one of the great points of application to us is that we might raise our children with more of a knowledge of the scriptures than we have been raised in the context of a church that has not particularly stressed, particularly the Old Testament. Without the Old Testament, you cannot understand this book. Next week we’ll deal with verse 7—coming in the clouds and every eye shall see him. And this has direct correlations to the book of Zechariah and Daniel as much as this book has. And for most of us, we’ve barely read through the book of Zechariah—very unfamiliar with it.

We said fourthly the book was sent via the Trinity—from the Father to the Son through an angel, and the angel is essentially the transmission of the Holy Spirit who worked by way of a created angel in the book of Revelation. But now with the transition to the governance of the world by angels to the governance of the world fully under man—man was kept under tutors. Galatians says the law was given by means of angels. An angel, a created spirit angel, guarded the garden as it were. But now in the fullness of humanity in the Lord Jesus Christ, man has given direct governance over the angels. We shall judge angels, the scriptures tell us. And so this book is now given by means of the Father to the Son to the Spirit to us directly. No longer through an angel, but in the first instance here with the completion coming in AD 70 and being on that side of it, it went through an angel to John and then to us.

Fifth, we said that John was the faithful servant who bare record of the word of God—the Old Testament—and the testimony of Jesus Christ—the New Testament.

Sixth, we said that the first of the seven beatitudes of the book is for those who hear, read, and keep the word. Remember, we said it’s here in the context of the corporate worship services. And it’s to read it aloud as we read it aloud in church every Lord’s day in the primary significance of it. It’s important to read your Bibles. But that’s not really what this is talking about. This is talking about the one who reads the Revelation in the context of the seven churches to which it would go and people that hear it in that context and then are committed to not simply hear it but to keep the words of it.

The book is then a corporate communication. It’s not to individual Christians primarily. It certainly has significance for us individually but it’s given to churches.

The application of that is that God’s exalted servants who are faithful—as John was faithful, imaging the Lord Jesus Christ’s faithfulness—we’re to be faithful servants. We’re to be attentive to the word of our Savior. We’re to be obedient to that word. We are to be convocative—we’re supposed to live in community with one another in the context of the church. And we are then in the context of those who are obedient and faithful and attentive, we are blessed. We are exalted servants, higher than the angels. And we are to exalt Christ in all that we do and say by means of his word.

That word is always a sure word—no errors. It is a relevant word to us. It has implications for our lives immediately. It is a commanding word. It’s a prophetic word that says what history will look like. And it is a comprehensive word speaking to all of our lives.

And so we’ve talked about that and we’ve talked about today the need that God’s servants are to persevere by an understanding of Christ’s victories—present or future victories. And we’ll see that as we go through this. But the image here is that we’re servants of Christ. We’re servants of Christ like the Apostle John who received this transmission was a servant of Christ. He leaned on the breast of the Savior at the last supper and we come together and we will have the Lord’s Supper here. And you can’t get closer to Jesus as it were than that—picture of us like John reposing at the table with the Lord Jesus and with his people as servants of his who are called to the table.

We’re not slaves in that sense. We are household servants. James B. Jordan in his tapes on this particular book of the Bible uses the imagery of the temple servants. And there’s a sense in which all men are called to be servants to God. There are household servants and there are field servants. The field servants are out there doing the work in the field but they’re not household. All the world, the unconverted, are working hard, but they’re not really submissive to the master. They’re not household servants. But the household servants are those people who get to come into the house of God and minister to God and to his people in the context of the house.

We’re not out there picking crops. We are in the house in the palace of the king trimming the king’s lamps. We’re setting out bread for the king to eat. Reverend Jordan wrote that we eat on the table of showbread. We are those who burn the popery, as it were, to make the palace smell good for the king on the altar of incense. We are those who prepare a meal for the king on the altar of sacrifice, washing the food first. We are those who go before the throne of the king bowing low. We are those servants like Abraham and John who have the ear of the king. We know things. He reveals secrets to us and we have relationship with him as Nehemiah had. So we can ask him things. We’ve got his ear.

All things rotate in the context of the glory and dominion of God. And he decides in that glory and dominion to bring household servants near to him as the servants in the temple were portrayed of those who did these various tasks related to the temple. So we’re those who are called to be household servants of Jesus Christ in the context of the church. It is a wonderful thing to be a servant in the household of God. That’s not supposed to be meant as a demeaning phrase. Better to be a servant or a doorkeeper in God’s house than things outside. It’s meant to make us realize the exalted state we have as Christians—to be household servants of the king, to be called as friends. No longer slaves, Jesus said, but friends of his, and brought to the table of him. Tremendous picture of blessing to us and of responsibility as well.

And we’ve said that we are supposed to congregate together. Our service to the Lord Jesus Christ is pictured as service to the body of Christ. And in First Samuel 25, we have a picture of Abigail coming to David and she arises and bows herself on the face of the earth. And she says, and I quote, “Now, behold, let thine handmaid be a servant to wash the feet of the servants of my lord.” And Abigail hasted and arose and rode upon an ass with five damsels of hers that went after her, and she went after the messengers of David, and she became his wife.

We’re those who are the wife of the Lord Jesus Christ because we’ve been called to serve him by serving his people. And so we come together and partake of communion, the exalted feast. But we don’t do it as if it’s just us and Jesus. We’re called as servants to serve the household of God as well. We’re brought into that one loaf. And we are exalted servants as Abigail was—who are servants, but we have been married to the king that we serve.

Service is to be comprehensive. Service is to be performed in everything that we put our hand to do. John, we’re supposed to be like John. He was faithful because he was in communion and union with the Lord Jesus Christ. And because Christ is a faithful witness, John became increasingly a faithful witness. And so with our union and communion with Christ and with his people, we’re to be faithful witnesses.

The goal of this book is not curiosity, is not intellectual stimulation about what’s going to happen about prophetic events. The goal of the book, the result of the book, is to be that we might indeed by love serve God from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. We’re to become transformed into faithful witnesses as a result of this book.

All right. Now, let’s look at the text of verses 4-6 that we’ll be talking upon now. And I want us to look at them again. And I’ll read you a particular translation of them. You’ll notice that it’s changed a little bit, which we’ll get to as we go through this, but I want you to catch the rhythm of this particular passage.

It is a complete passage I believe. Okay, we’ll read the passage now, verses 4-6:

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. And from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To him who loves us and released us from our sins by his blood and has made us a kingdom of priests to his God and Father. To him be glory and dominion age after age.

There’s a rhythmical structure to this, a structure of threes, but in the context of these beginning and ending statements of grace and peace and then glory and dominion to God the Father. And at the center of it is the triune God of scripture moving to establish his people. And it is in the assurance of God’s movement in history that gives us the heart to persevere in the service of Christ.

Now, first of all then in the context of this particular passage, we would say that the first observation we make on verses 4-6—and this really kind of tails into what we said last week—and that is that this book is addressed specifically to churches.

By the way, if you look at the outline of the passage that I’ve provided for you, you’ll see a little bit hopefully of the sort of structure. I didn’t intend it this way, but if you let’s just overview the seven points first of all, then we’ll go back into a little bit more detail.

First, the book is addressed specifically to churches. Secondly, the book’s judgments on Jerusalem are an object lesson for the churches and for us. Third, the book shows a movement from grace to peace. Fourth, the book’s movement from grace to peace is premised on the source of the book, the triune God moving in history, sustaining the elect in the present based on their historic deliverance which will yield future manifestations of the reign of Christ through his saints.

Fifth, the book’s movement from grace to peace stems from the cross of Christ. Sixth, in these designations of Christ, the enemies that will be pictured in the book are alluded to. And then finally, the ultimate purpose of the epistle is not the glory and dominion of man, but of God.

And if you look at that seven-fold outline, it shows you a kind of chiastic structure. Again, I’ve used that big word. Don’t get scared off by it. It’s just that there’s a correlation between the first and the seventh item, the second and the sixth, the third and the fifth, and then the fourth at the center.

The book is addressed specifically to churches. However, that’s to the end that the end result of this might be the glory and dominion not of men but of God. So it’s addressed to churches that God might be glorified.

Secondly, the book shows an object lesson of judgment upon Jerusalem and that correlates to the enemies that are pictured for us in the sixth point of the outline and the designations of Christ. Christ is the prophet, priest, and king. And there’s a false prophet, a false priest, and a false king that’ll be demonstrated in the rest of the book of Revelation. And those are the ones who receive the object lesson of judgment. That’s an object lesson to the churches then and will be to us as well.

Additionally, the book moves from grace to peace, but it does it through the context of the grace that comes from the cross of Christ. So at the center of this outline is the movement of God in history, the triune God that establishes these things.

And that’s kind of the things you want to look for in the text itself. The text in these sections that lump out together show this centrality of a particular point, being having endmarks or bookends as it were. As we’ve looked here in verses 4 and 6 for instance—the bookends being grace and peace and glory and dominion and the center of that being the action of God in history.

Okay. So now back to the text and let’s look specifically at it in some detail. One of the reasons I say what I just said is that as you study the book of Revelation the tendency is to break it apart into little pieces. And that’s a good thing to do, but our culture tends to do that to extreme and we don’t look at the big picture of a particular text of scripture. There are these lumps of scripture that we want to put things in the context of, and that’s the way we’re going to understand the particular elements. If we just took grace and peace out from the text and don’t see the correlation to the rest of this particular portion of text, we’re not going to understand it correctly in the context of the book of Revelation.

It’s meant to be read in large chunks to ourselves and to the church and then to be understood on the basis of that.

All right. But now to dissect it down to some of the elements—we read that it says first of all in verse 4 that John to the seven churches which are in Asia. So the church—again this book is addressed not to individuals. It’s addressed to the churches. This book is not addressed to Jerusalem as a warning of judgments upon it. It’s addressed to the churches of Christ in the context of their lives. It’s not addressed to Rome. It’s addressed to churches.

Okay, very important, because it means that everything that follows must be understood first of all as having reference to the church.

Now, there are seven churches in Asia, Asia Minor, which is modern-day Turkey, that are pictured here. These are seven literal city churches. Another important point to note in passing—each of these cities did not have a whole bunch of different churches. They had one church. The church is seen by God as a unified body of believers in each city. It might have a lot of different assembly points, but a church in a particular city is seen as a unified body of believers by God. So God can write an epistle, have the application to the church at Portland, and he addresses us all as a unit. What does that mean? It means that’s the way we should think. We should not see ourselves in distinction from the rest of the church at Portland. We should want to strive toward and work toward institutional catholicity—oneness, at least of relationship with the rest of the churches in Portland—because that’s how God addresses us as a church in a particular city state.

Okay. Now the point is though that these are specific churches but there are seven indicating a completeness. So it can refer to all the churches of all time and of course it has implications for us.

Notice also that these churches are in Turkey, that is between the bookends of Jerusalem and Rome. Jerusalem’s here. Well, Jerusalem, if you’re looking at me, Jerusalem would be here geographically. Asia Minor here, Rome over here. And these churches are in between the two forces that the book of Revelation says will end up persecuting them badly. By the end of the book, both Jerusalem and Rome will be persecuting them.

So it’s written to churches. It’s written to churches in the context of persecution being—but being having the book end not of good bookends but of persecuting bookends against them. So the book is written to churches.

Let me quote from David Chilton’s commentary on this book. Let me just mention that the four—I’ve read a bunch of commentaries but the four I’m primarily drawing on are the written commentaries of James B. Jordan, David Chilton, and R.J. Rushdoony. James B. Jordan’s is a preliminary commentary and then the tapes by Greg Bahnsen on the book of Revelation as well. So I’ll quote from these various folks as we go through this series over the next three months.

David Chilton says this. He says that the entire vision of the Revelation was seen on the Lord’s day. We’ll see that in verse 10 in a couple of weeks. As in the Christian day of corporate official worship, and all the action in the book centers on the worship around the throne of God. St. John wants us to see that in the public official worship of the sovereign Lord that this is central to history—history both as a whole and in the constituent parts. In other words, your life and mine. The spirit communicates grace and peace to the churches in the special sense through public worship.

Okay. So in other words, the epistle is meant, is received by John on the Lord’s day. It’s also meant to be read to the churches on the Lord’s day. So the declaration of grace and peace to the seven churches happens in the context first and foremost of corporate worship.

Chilton says we can go so far as to say this. We cannot have continuing fellowship with God and receive blessings from him apart from the public worship of the church, the place of access to the throne. The spirit works in individuals, yes, but he does not work apart from the church. His corporate and individual workings may be distinguished, but they cannot be separated. The notion that we can have fellowship with God, yet separate ourselves from the church and from the corporate worship of the body of Christ is an altogether pagan idea, utterly foreign to holy scripture.

The church as the church receives grace and peace from the sevenfold spirit and he is continually before the throne, the special sphere of his ministry being the corporate worship of God’s people.

Now, that’s an odd quote to us in America in 1997 because the church has become totally minimalized as an institution in our culture. We are into individualism massively and church is kind of an option for most Christians. Yeah, you should go, but you know, it’s not all that important. But recognize that this very important epistle with its benediction and blessing placed upon it is to those who hear it in the context of corporate worship. This is where the sevenfold spirit and the worship of the church moves and it has implications out into the rest of our lives. But it begins as it were here.

Church, the book is addressed to churches. Not only is the book addressed to churches, but as we go through the book, we see that it is the prayers of the church ascending to God in the context of the rest of the book that God responds to by changing events in history. As the word is trumpeted forth in church, as the judgments of God are participated in communion, things happen in the context of the world. As the church prays and worships, God moves in history. That’s the basic idea of the book of Revelation. So it’s a very important point here that this book is addressed specifically to the church.

More specifically, it’s addressed to pastors to churches, which we’ll see in chapters 2 and 3. It is addressed to the angels or messengers of the church, which we shall explain when we get there. We think are pastors of the churches.

Okay. Secondly, this book’s judgments on Jerusalem are thus an object lesson for the churches and for us.

Now, we’re getting a little ahead of ourselves. But as we get to chapters 2 and 3, the message to the church is, “You’re doing this good. This is a problem. Shape up. I’m coming quickly.” He says that seven times to seven different churches. And then he says, “Now watch this. Watch what happens to a church that does not shape up, that has become totally apostate and actually now not only doesn’t defend the saints and protect them, but attacks the saints. Watch what happens to Jerusalem.”

“Oh, seven churches, this is what’s going to happen to you if you don’t heed the warnings of my visitation to you on the day of the Lord”—the Lord’s day. In the Greek, there is no difference. The day of the Lord is the same as the Lord’s day. We meet together in the day of the Lord. God comes to judge us, to evaluate us. And as we come together in the Lord’s day, we should maybe always have in the back of our mind the picture of what happened in AD 70 to Jerusalem—to the false church, to the harlot bride when it refused to come to repentance for its sins. Judgment is poured forth.

The book’s addressed to churches. And that means that all those horrific judgments that occur on Jerusalem and then on Rome are an object lesson to us. It’s like taking our kids down to the prison. “If you don’t start obeying mom and dad, this is where you’re going to end up.” And Jesus says, “Church corporately, members of the church individually, if you don’t take care of that sin that’s eaten you up or that’s beginning to dominate your life, whatever it is, this is the end result. Two paths, blessing, cursing. The blessings are pronounced, but the cursings are pictured for us as provisional should we fail to come to repentance.”

So secondly, this book contains a very strong and accentuated object lesson to all churches really of what will happen should we fail to come to repentance—by the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70.

The third—this book shows a movement from grace to peace.

Okay, so he says in the book, “John to the seven churches that are in Asia, grace be unto you and peace.” Okay, so it’s grace and peace. And we could say that there is in fact a movement from grace to peace in the context of the book.

Grace is the unmerited favor that we have with God through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Peace is the well-being and blessings of relationship with God. Peace is social order, personal order in the context of our homes, our churches, and our culture. That’s what peace is. It’s the full manifestation of God’s blessing with his people.

Now, that blessing isn’t seen to the churches that are being written to. They’re having trouble. They need grace, and they need to be told that grace is upon them in Christ. They might persevere. And they might move from the peace that we have, you know, positionally in Christ to a manifestation of the fullness of that peace and order as history moves forward.

By the end of the book, by the end of all those judgments and by AD 70, the church is pictured as a beautiful bride, beautiful stones, precious stones in her. She’s been glorified and matured into the image of the Savior through the judgments. She’ll be moved from having grace to persevere in the context of difficulties to having fullness of peace and the manifestation of God’s blessing as she encounters the rough seas and comes to the shore on the other side.

Now, that’s the way our lives move too, right? We have difficult things happen. Sometimes these things last for a minute. The trials that we’re under sometimes last for a week, sometimes they last for years, and sometimes they seem to last all of our lifetime. The basic message of this section is persevere here. The understanding you’re recipients of the grace of God and whatever it is you’re going through, there’ll be an end to it.

There’ll be a manifestation of peace and order as you persevere and don’t give up. Remember the book of Hebrews. Don’t drop out is the whole message. If you drop out, you’ll go back to perdition. If you persevere the way Christ persevered, there’ll be a reward for you on the other side. And I don’t mean just the other side of death. The church goes through struggles. You know, in your life, you’ve had trials and tribulations. And you know that as you persevere and are faithful to God by the grace of his spirit, you come to peace and order through all those things.

Those of us with children know that this is what raising children is all about. Times of great concern and anxiety about our children. And we pray to God and the spirit moves and we’re brought to a manifestation of order in their lives. There’s a transition from grace to peace.

Now, this transition isn’t just personal. It’s corporate. These churches are going to be moved. Christ promises the seven churches. If you persevere, there’s these rewards, and we’ll get to them when we get there. Different rewards that’ll be given to you. It also is true of cities and nations. These are churches that represent the cities they’re in as well. And nations can have peace.

This country was moved through trials and tribulations of religious persecution. And we celebrate independence and freedom. People coming to the United States not for freedom to worship in some abstract sense. They weren’t coming here so they could worship any way they wanted to. They came here so that they could be household servants of God and do what God had commanded them to do. They didn’t want freedom in some vague sense of the word that anybody can worship any way they want.

No, they wanted freedom from the persecution to worship the way God had instructed them to worship. They went through trials and tribulations, but they were given grace by God and then established here in America in a greater sense of peace and order. This transition from peace and order is personal, but it’s also institutional in terms of church and state.

Now, this grace and peace is from the Trinity.

Now, it says in the text that this is grace and peace from him which is and which was and which is to come—that’s the Father—and from the seven spirits which are before the throne. That’s the Spirit. And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, the first begotten of the dead and the prince of the kings of the earth. And then he’s also designated a second set of three. Him that loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood. Has made us unto our—made us kings and priests unto God and the king—to the God and to his Father.

So this grace and peace comes forth from the Trinity, Father, Spirit, and Son in the way it’s laid out here. Why is it laid out that way? We normally think of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, don’t we? But remember that this is a book that takes place in the context of the throne room of God. The seven spirits are designated as seven spirits. The way the lampstand was a sevenfold lampstand standing before the throne of God. It says that these seven spirits are before the throne of God. In the temple, the throne, the mercy seat where the law of God and the authority of God and the manna is found—in front of that was the sevenfold spirit pictured by the lampstand. And then beyond that was the altar picturing the work of the Lord Jesus Christ as both offerer and as one who offered the sacrifice himself being the sacrifice—priest and offerer.

And so this designation seems to be following the order of the liturgy of the temple, the picture emanating from the Father to the sevenfold Spirit and then the Son. And so we have this picture of the triune God demonstrated in these first few verses.

Now the first of these members—okay, so we’re on point four. Now this movement from grace to peace is a movement that is premised on the source of the book, the author of the book. The source is the triune God moving in history. This movement sustains the elect in the present by his grace. It’s based upon their historic deliverance in the past and will yield future manifestations of the reign of Christ through his saints.

Now, before we get to the specifics again, look at these verses. Look at the designation for the Father. The Father is him who is, was in the past and is to come in the future—present, past, future. Jesus Christ is in the present the faithful witness. He was the first begotten of the dead, referring to the past, his resurrection, and he is the prince of the kings of the earth. And that’s what’s going to be demonstrated by the coming of the Father to these churches.

Okay? So it’s a present faithfulness by the grace of God premised on a past action. He was the firstborn of the dead that gives us grace to persevere to the end—that God comes and Christ comes to make manifest the fact that he is the prince of the kings of the earth.

Unto him that loves us—that’s a better translation as opposed to loved. Loves us in the future. He has released us. The word washed there is similar to released. The word really should be released. We can’t get into that, but believe me, it should be. He loves us. He releases us from our sins. Has released us by his blood, referring back to the same thing that the first begotten of the dead refers to—the actions of the Savior on the cross—and he has made us kings and priests unto God and to his Father and that’ll be manifest to the church as history progresses.

So the triune God here is pictured as present faithful witness loving us as a faithful witness in the present and giving us grace premised upon the fact that he was—he’s the first begotten of the dead—we have been released from our sins by Christ’s action. So we persevere in the present and recognize that God is coming, Father is coming, that Jesus’s reign over the kings of the earth will be made manifest in the future and our reign as well. That we are now kings and priests on the earth and we reign with him. We use the rod of iron, not just Christ our Savior. That is made manifest to the churches as well.

They pray, they worship, they testify to Jesus Christ in all that they do and say. And because of that, they’re ruling. God says the church is ruling and that rule will be manifested. Church, you pray. You pray about your enemies. God says, “And watch things will change. And by AD 70, your enemies will be all gone. Now, many of you will be dead. Many of you will have to be will be witnesses in the classic martyr sense of the term. But those that are left and those in heaven will see that the prayers of the church were effectual. The church reigns. Father will come to make manifest Christ and his people’s rule in the context of the earth.”

Okay. Now let’s go back and look at that a little bit more individualistically.

The first person is pictured here as he who is and was and is to come. This is Yahweh. This is Exodus 3 where God said to Moses that my name is “I Am that I Am.” This is the essential name of God. It’s kind of tough to explain this but names in our English language don’t change cases.

Example: John went downtown. I gave John the book. The book belongs to John. As opposed to pronouns, he went downtown. I gave the book to him—not to he anymore. It’s his book, not he or him. You see, pronouns change cases. As the case changes, they change their designation from he to him to his. Personal names don’t do that. “He John went downtown. I gave the book to John. The book belongs to John.” Okay.

Well, this Greek word here—he who is and was and is to come—it is that. It’s in that case. It doesn’t change. In other words, the Greek evidence tells us that this is a name. This is not a description or a pronoun. This is a name. This is the name of the Father. This is the same name that God gave to Moses: Yahweh, “I am that I am.”

However, it’s a little different, isn’t it? What does it stress? “I am. I was, and I’m coming.” Because the church under persecution and tribulation needs to know that God is coming to them that they might persevere in the present—that his judgments are on the way in the future. They will be established.

Now, it’s interesting that in many designations of pagan gods, you see somewhat the same formula. “This god is, this god was, and this god shall be”—becoming, in other words. But the God of scriptures is not a becoming god. God is eternally God. He doesn’t become, but he does come and make manifest who he is in history. See the difference?

So this designation of God tells us that unlike all other gods, he is the personal God who is not becoming but who does make manifest in history personhood. He shall come to the church and he shall deliver that church. God is eternal and unchangeable and in that eternal unchangeableness of God, he comes to make manifest in the context of history who he is.

Secondly, the second person of the Trinity is the Holy Spirit—the seven spirits which are before the throne of God. And as we said, this has reference to the lampstand, the sevenfold lampstand, which we’ll talk about more in a few weeks. We’ll see that the Holy Spirit is the light of God, the fire of God, the fuel in that lampstand. The churches are the lampstands, and the Spirit is the power of God in the context of the churches. And so he’s given a designation of the seven spirits of God present in the earth, present in his church, encouraging them in their witness.

Additionally, it’s a sevenfold spirit. We’ll see the spirit moving in the context of seven trumpet judgments, seven seals, seven bowls. The spirit’s activity in history is pictured by this designation of a sevenfold spirit from before the throne. The spirit works in a rhythm of seven. Remember creation—the spirit hovers over the created order, the creation of God, and brings forth a sevenfold picture of creation. The spirit works in a sevenfold manner just like you and I do. Indwelt by the spirit, we move in a seven-day week as well.

Additionally, there’s probably a reference here to Isaiah 11:2—text that we frequently read at Christmas time. Isaiah 11:2—we read that resting upon Jesus Christ is the spirit of God. And it’s designated in verse 2 of Isaiah 11 as the spirit of Yahweh, the spirit of wisdom, the spirit of understanding, the spirit of counsel, the spirit of might, the spirit of knowledge, and the spirit of the fear of Yahweh. So we have a sevenfold description of the Holy Spirit resting upon Christ given for us in Isaiah 11 verse 2.

So these seven spirits are before the throne of God. That’s important, too. The throne is mentioned some 40 or 50 times in the book of Revelation. No other book comes close to that in the New Testament in terms of the number of occurrences. Why? Because if we’re going to persevere in the grace of God in the present, we need to have a heavenly throne room perspective and recognize that in the throne room, God reigns. And that reign is manifested by his spirit’s work in history to bring us relief from our persecutors.

The throne room is the judge’s chambers. Look at it that way. Where the judge sits in judgment and those judgments will come forward into the world from the throne room of God. We come into the judge’s chambers every Lord’s day. That’s one picture of what this is. High and exalted, walking up to the throne of God where the judge sits. That’s important to persevere as being a true witness because it means that God’s judgments are present. The judge isn’t out, you know, he’s not gone to lunch. He’s not shut down until Jesus comes back. The session of God most high is always operative. And the testimony of Christ is coming to him. The prayers of the church are coming. And he makes decisions from the throne room moving through the Holy Spirit to affect change in the context of our lives.

Throne room of God.

Then we read after the Father and the Spirit will be the designation of the Lord Jesus Christ: From Jesus Christ who is the faithful witness, the first begotten of the dead, the prince of the kings of the earth.

He’s first mentioned as the faithful witness. Now I’ve said and it’s true that the word witness is the same as our word. The Greek word is the Greek word that is the root for our word martyr. But this is before the throne of God we have Jesus Christ, the faithful witness in the courtroom of God.

Let me read a quote here from R.J. Rushdoony. “In the Bible, the witness is one who works to enforce the law and assist in its execution, even to the enforcement of the death penalty. ‘Martyr’ has now come to mean the exact reverse—one who is executed rather than an executioner, one who is persecuted rather than one who is central to prosecution.

The result is a serious misreading of scripture. The significance of Jesus Christ as the faithful and true witness is that he not only witnesses against those who are at war against God, but he also executes them. Jesus Christ therefore witnesses against every man and nation that establishes its life on any other premise than the sovereign and triune God and his infallible and absolute law word.”

Wow, that is significance. Jesus is the faithful witness throughout the scriptures. Jesus said, “I come to bear testimony, to come to bear witness of the Father.” And as he goes to the Father’s throne room, here is pictured in the book of Revelation. He bears witness to what’s going on earth. And he thus manifests and puts into action the prosecution of evildoers by God’s judgments in the context of history.

Now, I said John is supposed to be a faithful witness. We’re supposed to be faithful witnesses like John, like Jesus. And that’s why in the intercessory prayers of the church, we bring before God what we see in our culture and we ask him to bring his lawful judgments into the earth, make them manifest by the sevenfold spirit of God moving throughout the created order, moving in the context of the church, moving out from the church to bring judgments into our world.

Jesus Christ is said here to be not simply a faithful witness, but the firstborn of the dead. Firstborn means ruler, preeminent ruler. Colossians 1:18—that he might have preeminence in all things. He is the prince of the kings of the earth and that prince of the kings of the earth will be made manifest through the judgments to come in the book of Revelation.

He has washed us. And then the next three-fold designation: Him that loves us in the present by his faithful witness to God of those who persecute the church, seeking the spirit’s judgment against them in time and space. He loves us. He’s a faithful witness today. And he washed us or released us from our sins in his blood. We’ve been released from our sins that we might persevere in the present time of difficulty as these churches persevered in their present time of difficulty—to the end that it might be made manifest that we are indeed have been made kings and priests unto God the Father.

He is the faithful witness. He is the firstborn from the dead and he is the one who has manifested that he is king of all peoples and has made his church to be kings and priests in the context of the land.

So our observation is that the book’s movement from grace to peace is premised on the action of the triune God in history and that gives us perseverance in the present.

The book’s movement from grace to peace streams forth from the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. In this designation he is the firstborn of the dead—of many from the dead. The resurrection of Christ is pictured. He has released us from our sins by his blood. And so by the death of the Lord Jesus Christ, he has brought his people forth from bondage into a removal of fear and into an ability to persevere in the context of the present.

Our Savior accomplished a greater exodus from Egypt. Throughout the book of Revelation, just as we’ve noted the “I Am that I Am” being referred to here, the book of Exodus is repeatedly referred to. And here as well the Lord Jesus Christ by his exodus in the scriptures in the gospel accounts there is the…