The Time is Near: A Look at Revelation 1:1-3

The book of Revelation can be intimidating. It is chock full of mysterious symbols: beasts, lampstands, Spirits, numbers, stars, seals, etc.

Yet we have to remember the book is a revelation from Christ to His servants. It is also a letter to His church, specifically the seven churches in Asia. Christ used this letter to communicate something to them, and subsequently to us. We should expect, then, for Revelation to be understandable. And thus we should expect to learn something from it.

Paul explains how this process of revelation to understanding works in Ephesians 3. He is telling the Gentile believers in Ephesus how they, who were once far off from God had been brought near by the blood of Christ. He then pauses to explain that while it was known to Old Testament faithful that God would bless the Gentiles, how that would exactly happen remained a mystery.

Paul goes on the explain “how the mystery was made known to me by revelation” (v. 1) and “revealed to His holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit” (v. 5). So now Paul can explain this mystery to believers in his day.

Christ’s revelation to John worked the same way.

In this case, the mystery was the coming of Christ the King in judgment against apostate Israel/Jerusalem. This judgment was a continuous theme of multiple prophets throughout the Old Testament, and was partially fulfilled with the defeat of both Israel and Judah. But Christ made it clear in His first coming that there was more judgment on the way:

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again, until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

Jesus left the temple and was going away, when his disciples came to point out to him the buildings of the temple. But he answered them, “You see all these, do you not? Truly, I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down. – Matthew 23:37-24:2 (ESV)

In Revelation, John explains the mystery of how Christ was going to come in judgement against Jerusalem and make way for the New Testament church. Chapter 1 serves as an introduction to this mystery that is revealed throughout the entire book. And verses 1-3 provide us with several pointers that will help us better understand what John is teaching us as we read through Revelation.

One thing v. 1 teaches us is that since Revelation is a revelation from God to His Son who then gave it to His servants, we know that every word in it is true. But that doesn’t mean that we are to take every word literally. As we will shortly see, that is impossible. If we take some words literally, we will have to take other words figuratively. Or vice versa.

This approach is highlighted in v. 3’s reminder that Revelation is a prophesy. Which means we should read Revelation much like we read other books of prophesy. Such as Isaiah.

In Isaiah 34, the Lord tells of His judgment against the nations: “All the host of heaven shall rot away, and the skies roll up like a scroll” (v. 4). In particular, His judgment against Edom is described:

And the streams of Edom shall be turned into pitch, and her soil into sulfur; her land shall become burning pitch. Night and day it shall not be quenched; its smoke shall go up forever. From generation to generation it shall lie waste; none shall pass through it forever and ever (vv. 9-10 ESV)

Now, these things actually happened to Edom in the 6th century B.C. when it was destroyed by the Babylonians. But since Isaiah, like Revelation, is in part apocalyptic literature, we have to understand that the language in Isaiah was a figurative description of Edom’s literal destruction. It won’t do us much good to look in the historical record for a day that “the skies roll[ed] up like a scroll” or to travel to the Transjordan to look for “smoke go[ing] up forever.” God was using this language to inform Edomites of their impending destruction, that their nation, their “world,” was going to cease to exist.

This perspective will help us understand Revelation when we run across language such as “the sun became black as sackcloth, the full moon became like blood, and the stars of the sky fell to the earth” (6:12-13). We don’t have to assume this is a description of something in our future just because we look into the sky and see that the stars are still there.

Which is a good thing, since throughout the book John and Jesus tell us in multiple ways that “the things” described in the book “must soon take place” (1:1, 22:6). John tells us in 1:3 that “the time is near.” And Jesus tells us three times in chapter 22 (vv. 7, 12, and 20), ” I am coming soon,” punctuating the last of these with “Surely.” Either the stars falling from the sky or “I am coming soon” might be taken literally, but not both.

For if we take both literally, that would mean that Jesus was wrong. Either everything happened literally soon but not literally as He described it, or it is going to happen literally but did not happen literally soon as he said. This criticism of Christianity and Christ has been one often made by unbelievers, such as Bertram Russell. But Christ was right; He came in judgment upon Jerusalem, the city that rejected him (Matthew 21:33-46), in 70 A.D.

Next week we’ll look more closely at the coming judgment and Christ’s rule as King in 1:4-8. For now, it is enough to say that the most natural reading of Revelation is whatever it said was going to happen very soon actually happened very soon after the time it was written in the mid-60s. Which points directly to the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D.

Reading it this way provides us with the best foundation for receiving the blessing of v. 3:

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