The Revelation “of John”

The Book of Revelation is also known as "the Revelation of John".

That's not what the book says.

v.1 The revelation of Jesus Christ (...) to his servant John

Is this important?  Maybe not...but we begin to think of it as "the Revelation of Christ, to John", we have a greater understanding of who the message is from.

It is for us...from Christ...through John.

I just got a study guide from Back to the Bible.

If Christ is the One who gave this revelation about Himself - how many ways does He describe Himself...in verses 4-8?

  • Him who is, who was, and who is to come
  • faithful witness
  • firstborn from the dead
  • ruler of the kings of the earth
  • Him who loves us
  • Him who freed us from our sins by His blood
  • Him who made us to be a kingdom and priests
  • the Alpha and Omega
  • the Almighty

And yet...if someone were to ask me today who Christ is to me...

  • Savior
  • lifter of my heart
  • the Son that the Father sacrificed so that He could adopt me

I think that the important lessons from the book of Revelation:

not...what can we learn about the future?

it IS...what can we learn about Christ?

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6 thoughts on “The Revelation “of John”

  1. Jack

    I also have a problem with title of "The Revelation of John" as obviously John is not the one doing the revealing, but this usage stems from the fact that "The Apocalypse of John" was the title found in a number of early manuscripts. On top of that the most common title found on later manuscripts is "The Apocalypse of the Theologian". Go figure.

    Another maybe/maybe not important question is this: Does "the revelation of Jesus Christ" mean is it 'from' Jesus Christ or is it 'about' Jesus Christ?

    A caution that I learned about "Study Bibles" is that there is a tendency to read the bottom of the page (the study notes) before our own personal study of the top of the page (the text itself). It's easy to get too influenced by the author of the notes rather than the author of the text.

  2. Post author

    Does “the revelation of Jesus Christ” mean is it ‘from’ Jesus Christ or is it ‘about’ Jesus Christ?

    I think...yes. both.

    All revelation comes from God, and this one is about Christ...so both.

  3. Jack

    Thanks for the welcome.

    The reason I brought up the 'from' or 'about' is that it says, "The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show His servants".

    I know it tweaks our difficult concept of the Trinity, but the text says that the Father gave the son the revelation of the son to be given to his servants through one of his servants, John. And he did that through an angel. So we have the father -> the son -> angel -> John.

    God gave him doesn't refer to god giving it to john as he isn't even mentioned, yet. God gave it to Jesus Christ.

    I agree that the importance of Revelation is about what we can know about Christ and the list those 5 verses tells a lot. But, maybe even more important, what he has done for us which we learn in the rest of the book.

  4. Post author

    I'm on vacation for most of this week...a couple of days in the Upper Peninsula will be spend doing - not much - while my son gets his orientation for NMU. Once I buy my bumper sticker, I'm planning on camping out at a coffee shop and doing more of the study.

  5. I tend to say "the revelation to john" but that still doesn't explicitly name "Jesus Christ," unless one understands Jesus as revelation.

    And I agree on the study bible notes, the tendency to read those before approaching the text. I was doing that last night in 1 Kings 18, using the Jewish Study Bible online (it's great; my recent discovery!). But, then, I also work from the premise that I'm so naturally obtuse, I'll miss things without guidance, without insightful "hooks" into the text. I like to think it's training me to find those insights on my own. 🙂

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