Introduction
Revelation, the final book of the Bible, was written around 100A.D by john one of the disciples of Jesus. John was the youngest disciple being around 18 years old when he first started to follow Jesus. Now he was around 90 years of age.
When Jesus left he said he is coming again quickly, this lead the disciples to believe it would be within their lifetime, however as time went on the zeal and excitement started to wane. As people were losing focus the apostles penned what became the gospels to make sure the deeds of Jesus would not be forgotten.
Christianity was growing at a rapid rate and the new monotheistic religion attracted unwanted attention. The Romans expected all citizens to pay obeisance to their gods but this is forbidden in Christianity and therefore Christians were persecuted. One by one the disciples were either killed or died of natural causes first being James, next Paul and Peter after followed the others until the youngest, John, was left.
According to Tertullian, a Christian historian of the second century, John was plunged in boiling oil however came out unscathed and therefore was banished to a small island called Patmos. It was here that John was given an encouraging vision that would become the book of revelation.
Chapter 1
The title of the book is the revelation which means the “unveiling of” this means it is a prophetic book and the interpretation should be about the future. The first verse of the book also declares the book is to show the things “that will come to pass” as opposed to the things that were happening at the time. John pronounces a blessing on anybody who hears these words and keeps an eye on the prophecy.
The letter then addresses 7 churches in the providence of Asia minor what would be considered modern-day Turkey. The number 7 is used multiple times in revelation and is linked to completeness. This comes from the story of creation when God created the world in 6 days and rested on the 7th to make it complete. Therefore the 7 churches represent the church as a whole and as this book is a book on prophecy you’ll soon see it represents the history of the church till the coming of Christ.
The messages are from Jesus who is called the faithful witness due to the sinless life he lived, He is also referred to as the “first begotten of the dead” a hint towards the climax of this book and center of a Christian’s faith; the second resurrection. Jesus also calls himself, “the beginning and the end” in other words eternal.
The book then begins the vision which takes place on the Lord’s day, this is a reference to Isaiah 58:13 where God calls the sabbath His holy day. At this point in the church’s history, the church still worshipped on the sabbath, later that was changed as Christianity became the religion of the Roman empire.
John then sees 7 candlesticks most likely in the appearance of the candlestand made for use in the temple in Jerusalem before it was destroyed and we are told the sticks represent the 7 churches. A man walks among the sticks and his appearance is grand; his hair is pure white his eyes glow like fire, it resembles the description given in Daniel 7 for the ancient of days and we can assume these are the same this makes sense as Jesus is God. He holds 7 stars which we are told represent 7 angels. it is important to note that angel is a translation of the Greek word for messenger therefore these angels were most likely people who were given the responsibility of bringing the messages to each church.
That is a summary of the first chapter of the book Revelation.
