Revelation 1:4-8

September 22, 2019

Lord’s Day Worship

Sean Higgins

The sermon starts at 13:50 in the audio file.

Or, Every Head Up and Every Eye Open

Every church service I went to as a kid ended with an altar call. Right before the altar call, though, was a time between the sermon and the singing of “Just As I Am,” or whatever song it was that Sunday. That in between time was a time between you and the Lord, and the preacher. At our church, the preacher started his post-sermon prayer and, right before finishing, he said something like this: “With every head bowed and every eye closed, let me ask you, if you died today and were in the presence of Jesus, would you be ready to meet Him?” Then the preacher would ask if anyone wanted to be saved, and if so, you were supposed to raise your hand. He’d say, “I see that hand, … I see that hand,” and then finish his prayer.

We don’t end our sermons or our services in such a way, and my aim isn’t to comment on whether or not the mid-prayer, mostly-confidential call for action is good or not. But the feeling of that moment in the liturgy is burned into my senses. I can hear the quiet. I can feel the weight of the question. I can still remember the words.

There is coming another moment, more weighty, but not quiet, and not to be repeated. In that moment hearts will be revealed, and sealed. In that moment every head will be up and every eye will be open to see Jesus Christ coming on the clouds. In that moment it won’t be hands raised that only a few see, but cries of mourning raised across the earth.

Verses 4-8 in Revelation 1 bring us to the more typical letter greeting elements, though there are some different things about this greeting than in any of the NT epistles. Verses 1-3 introduced us to the nature of the apocalypse: it is an otherworldly, supernatural revelation, and that includes the promise of the apocalypse: blessing for all who hear and keep the words. With verse 4 we get the greeting from the human author, the identity of the original recipients, and then the theme of the book.

The Revealing Greeting (verses 4-5a)

The first couple phrases are the easiest to interpret, for what that’s worth. John to the seven churches that are in Asia: Grace to you and peace.

The human author who received the revelation from the angel sent by Jesus is “his servant John” (verse 1), and he identifies himself at the start of verse 4 as John. As usual with scholars talking about authorship of Bible books, there are people who aren’t sure it was John, or maybe it was another guy named John. From the earliest records in the second century, Christians understood this John to be the apostle John, the author of the Gospel of John and three epistles with his name.

The first significant skeptic to argue against apostolic authorship was Dionysius of Alexandria. Eusebius was a disciple of Dionysius, and gave an entire chapter in his Church History to the Dionysian arguments. Those arguments include that the Greek is different than the other Johannine books, and that it must be “another” John since John never identifies himself by name in John’s other books. But these arguments are not persuasive against authorship by the apostle.

There are also questions about the seven churches that are in Asia (the place we know as Turkey). Seven cities are named in verse 1:11, and chapters two and three are letters from Jesus to each church. But we know from the NT that there were other churches in this region (Colossae, Hierapolis; Colossians 1:2; 4:13). Why does John write to only seven?

Some would say that the most important part about this greeting is the number: seven. There are a lot of sevens in Revelation (though not quite 70 times 7). Since seven is used so often, and since seven is a number that tends to represent completeness, like a week is complete, the argument is that the s[...]