and He sent and communicated it by His angel to His bond-servant John, ²who testified to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, everything that he saw. (New American Standard Bible – NASB)

We start with the inimitable J. Vernon McGee:

“‘And he sent and signified it.’ That is, he used symbols. And keep in mind that the symbols are symbolic of reality. Peter gave us a great rule for the interpretation of prophecy in 2 Peter 1:20: ‘Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.’ You don’t interpret a single text by itself; you interpret it in the light of the entire Word of God. Ottman said, ‘The figurative language of Revelation is figurative of facts.’

²⁰But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture becomes a matter of someone’s own interpretation, ²¹for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.”      (2 Peter 1:20; NASB)

“‘To show…things’ assures that what John tells us is not ethereal and ephemeral dream stuff. There is a hard core of real facts in this book. What are ‘things’? One night Mrs. McGee and I took care of our little grandson. We let him play in the den where we keep a bunch of toys for him to play with when he stays with us. He went into the den and got out all of those things. In fact, he calls them his things. He spread them all over the floor of the den. We indulge the little fellow, and we didn’t make him pick up all of his toys after he was through playing. We didn’t pick them up either. So later that night, when I walked through the den, I stepped on some of his things. In fact, I stumbled over them and took a tumble. You can say that ‘things’ are symbols, but you don’t take a tumble over symbols. And in the Book of Revelation, the ‘things’ are made out of hard stuff. These ‘things’ are reality. Any time John uses a symbol, he will make it clear to us that he is using a symbol. And we can be sure that he is using a symbol because the reality is far greater than the symbol. In fact, the symbol is a poor representation of the reality…”

McGee explains it so uniquely. The “things” are real, and John explains the symbols he (or Jesus) uses. I still don’t agree that the word for “signify” has to mean “symbols.”

“John tells us that it is the revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave to Him…It originated with God, it was given to Jesus Christ. He gave it to the angel. His angel gave it to John, and from John it goes to His servants, that they might know what is coming to pass. And that is the way it has come to you and me today.

“By the way, this raises a question that I sometimes hear. Someone says, ‘Well, preacher, you painted yourself into a corner, because you said that angels are not connected with the church age.” Yes, and I still say that. The angel mentioned here is a heavenly messenger, but notice that John is writing primarily about future things; that is, what Jesus is going to do in the future and will take place after the church has left the earth. Therefore, we see angels coming back into prominence. This is true to the way the book moves.”

This is a new and unique point. I don’t think that I would go so far as to say that angels weren’t needed in the church age as heavenly messengers, or that they weren’t present. It’s a compelling argument, and I was starting to go for it, but I’m back from the edge. I was just reading a piece by Rod Dreher (a great blogger on Substack), and he talked about faith prisoner Alexander Ogorodnikov in Soviet Russia: that the Lord sent him angels to revive his flagging faith. There are many who have “entertained angels unawares” in our times. I might be able to go with the idea that their roles are different during the church age, but I still think that they are here and they are helping us.

“THE METHOD OF REVELATION — Who bare record of the word of God, and of the testimony of Jesus Christ, and of all things that he saw [Rev. 1:2].

“Who bore witness of the Word of God, and of the testimony [witness] of Jesus Christ, even as many things as he saw.

“‘Who bare record’ or, as I have translated it, ‘who bore witness’ is in the Greek an epistolary aorist. It means that John projects himself up to where his readers are, where you and I are in this day, and he looks back at what he is writing.”

Again, leave it to McGee to explain the tense issue in clear, plain English.

“‘Of the word of God.’ This ‘word of God’ refers, I believe, to both Christ and the contents of this book. He is the living Word, and when the written Word reveals Him to us, He is the living Word, you may be sure of that.”

I think I brought this up in the last post. I don’t remember anyone else making a point of this before…though I don’t have a perfect memory and could have forgotten someone saying it earlier. But, leave it to McGee to point out something that should be obvious.

“‘And of the testimony [witness] of Jesus Christ.’ I prefer the word witness rather than testimony. It occurs ninety times in the writings of John — fifty times in his Gospel record.

“‘And of all things that he saw.’ He was an eye witness of the visions. What John saw, he made pictures of, and the Book of Revelation is television, friend. It was the first television program ever presented, and it is one you would do well to watch. It came from heaven from God the Father, through His Son, Jesus Christ, and it was given to an angel who gave it to John, who wrote about what he saw. Not only did John hear, he also saw, and these are the two avenues through which we get most of our information. I sometimes wonder if John didn’t smell things just a little bit, too, because there are parts of this book where you catch the odor also.”        [from REVELATION: CHAPTERS 1-5, by J. Vernon McGee, 1975]

Calling Revelation a “television program” is an interesting metaphor; it implies that the “programming” came from somewhere else, outside the mind of John. It wasn’t a dream, or his imagination, that came up with the “program.” 

“John; who bare witness of the word of God — The writer is the apostle John. He bore his testimony concerning what he knew. He preached the word of God, testified of his faith concerning a risen Jesus and faithfully reported what he had seen in this book we are now studying.    [from THE BOOK OF REVELATION, by Jim McGuiggan, 1976]

Very basic, and really avoids taking a stand on many of the points we have been discussing in the last few posts. 

“The servants who are to receive the revelation are primarily the Christian prophets (in the sense of Amos 3:7, ‘Surely the Sovereign LORD does nothing without revealing his plan to his servants the prophets’; cf. Rev 10:7; 11:18), although the term as used elsewhere in the book includes all believers (Rev 7:3; 19:5; 22:3).

⁷Certainly the Lord GOD does nothing unless He reveals His secret plan to His servants the prophets. ⁸A lion has roared! Who will not fear? The Lord GOD has spoken! Who can do anything but prophesy?  (Amos 3:7,8; NASB)
 but in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he is about to sound, then the mystery of God is finished, as he announced to His servants the prophets.    
(Revelation 10:7; NASB)

And the nations were enraged, and Your wrath came, and the time came for the dead to be judged, and the time to reward Your bond-servants the prophets and the saints and those who fear Your name, the small and the great, and to destroy those who destroy the earth.”  (Revelation 11:18; NASB)
…”Do not harm the earth, or the sea, or the trees until we have sealed the bond-servants of our God on their foreheads.”    (Revelation 7:3; NASB)
And a voice came from the throne, saying, “Give praise to our God, all you His bond-servants, you who fear Him, the small and the great.”   
(Revelation 19:5; NASB)

There will no longer be any curse; and the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and His bond-servants will serve Him  
(Revelation 22:3; NASB)

⁷Certainly the Lord GOD does nothing unless He reveals His secret plan to His servants the prophets. ⁸A lion has roared! Who will not fear? The Lord GOD has spoken! Who can do anything but prophesy?  (Amos 3:7,8; NASB)
 but in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he is about to sound, then the mystery of God is finished, as he announced to His servants the prophets.    
(Revelation 10:7; NASB)

And the nations were enraged, and Your wrath came, and the time came for the dead to be judged, and the time to reward Your bond-servants the prophets and the saints and those who fear Your name, the small and the great, and to destroy those who destroy the earth.”  (Revelation 11:18; NASB)
…”Do not harm the earth, or the sea, or the trees until we have sealed the bond-servants of our God on their foreheads.”    (Revelation 7:3; NASB)
And a voice came from the throne, saying, “Give praise to our God, all you His bond-servants, you who fear Him, the small and the great.”   
(Revelation 19:5; NASB)

There will no longer be any curse; and the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and His bond-servants will serve Him  
(Revelation 22:3; NASB)

An interesting point: that in Revelation, the term “bond-servants” refers to all believers, rather than just the prophets.  To me, this suggests what I was saying earlier: that during the church age, all Christians are open to individual revelation through the Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ (and, as I’ve said before, such revelation must agree with Scripture). Outside of the church age (before and after), prophets are established who are in direct contact with God and/or angels.

“The revelation is said to be made known by an angel sent to John. If ‘He,’ the subject of the verb, is Christ, then there is an angel who acts as an intermediary between Christ and John. It would undoubtedly be the angel who appears again in chapter 22 to rebuke John for falling at his feet to worship. (In Rev 22:16 Jesus says, ‘I Jesus have sent my angel to give you this testimony for the churches’). 

“I, Jesus, have sent My angel to testify to you of these things for the churches. I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star.”   (Revelation 22:16; NASB)

I think we are going to find that a number of different angels interact with John throughout Revelation, not just one. But, the angel referred to in Revelation 22:16 could be a specific angel. We will have to spend some time looking at the translation of this phrase when we get there. For now, let’s look at the Hebrew Revelation from the Cambridge University Library (ms. Oo.1.16) that was found in the Jewish Synagogue in Cochin, India (as we discussed in an earlier post). This translation renders it like this:

I Yeshua sent my messengers [footnote: “Or ‘some’”] to show this to the assembly. Even I am the root of the families of David!
[from THE HEBREW REVELATION, JAMES AND JUDE, by Justin and Michael J. Van Rensburg, self-published, 2022]

An interesting difference!

“In this case there would be four stages in the transmission: God to Christ, Christ to his angel, the angel to John, and John to his servants. It is possible although less likely that ‘made known’ is parallel to ‘gave’ in the previous sentence, which would make God the subject of both clauses. In that case, the term ‘angel’ would have the general meaning of messenger (as in 1:20; 2:1,8; etc) and refer to Christ himself. As mediator of the revelation, Christ would be performing the function of an angel in the general sense of messenger.

As for the mystery of the seven stars which you saw in My right hand, and the seven golden lamp stands: the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lamp stands are the seven churches.  
(Revelation 1:20; NASB)

¹”To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: The one who holds the seven stars in His right hand, the One who walks among the seven golden lamp stands, says this…⁸And to the angel of the church of Smyrna write: The first and the last, who was dead, and has come to life, says this   
(Revelation 2:1,8; NASB)

I’m starting to get uncomfortable with this “four stages” of transmission idea. While the Trinity is 3 distinct Persons, They are, indeed, all One just the same. We seem to forget that too often. And let’s get even pickier: “angel” means “messenger.” It’s not a “general meaning,” it’s the meaning. There is no special, particular angel with some special, different task being talked about here. And, taking this even further, Jesus is the mediator between man and God…He is not “performing the function of an angel,” but He is performing the function of the mediator, which includes bringing messages to man.

“The revelation is said to be ‘signified’ (AV) to John. The Greek verb (semaino) carries the idea of figurative representation. Strictly speaking, it means to make known by some sort of sign. Thus it is admirably suited to the symbolic character of the book. This should warn the reader not to expect a literal presentation of future history, but a symbolic portrayal of that which must yet take place. It is important for an adequate understanding of Revelation to remember that God is communicating his message by means of visions that are symbolic rather than literal. What they portray exists in actuality, but the vision itself is simply the medium used by God to transmit that reality.”

“Figurative representation”? I’ve never seen that as a way to describe the meaning of semaino, though it certainly is another way to say “symbols.”  I have addressed this elsewhere in some depth, so we will just note, yet again, that the symbols in Revelation are explained in Revelation.

“2 John is further designated as one ‘who testifies to everything he saw — that is, the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ.’  The reference is to the revelation given by God and testified to by Christ. It is also possible that the writer is following his customary mode of making a general term (in this case, ‘word of God’) more specific by adding another phrase for clarification (i.e., the ‘testimony of Jesus Christ’). In either case, the final clause of the verse (‘everything he saw’ is brought forward in the NIV) is appositional and limits the scope of both.”

who testifies to everything he saw — that is, the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ.    (Revelation 1:2; NIV)

I don’t always appreciate the NIV translation. In this case, I do.

“The message of God attested by Jesus consists of everything that John saw in his vision. Although the Greek verb in the first clause is the aorist tense (ematyresen), the present tense translation in English (‘testifies’) is appropriate since the prologue was probably composed after John had written down the visionary experiences described in the book. It is unnecessary to conjecture some prior incident when John may have testified to the word of God with the result that he was banished to Patmos.”         [from THE BOOK OF REVELATION, Revised Edition, by Robert H. Mounce, 1977]

I can go along with this last paragraph, though I don’t think we can say for certain that John wrote the introduction last…I certainly can’t rule it out. Whether ematyresen should be translated as past or present tense is irrelevant; because English does not have an aorist tense, the translator must choose past or present, and there is no definitive clue in the verse to pin it down to one or the other.

“‘Signified it by his angel…’ The use of angel (singular) here is strange, especially in view of the fact that a number angels are seen in the course of the Revelation. Lenski’s explanation of this has the ring of truth:

“‘Such singulars are at times generic. “His angel” does not necessarily mean only one and the same angel. Any angel, now one, now another, would be Christ’s (and God’s) angel…that conferred the commission on John.’”

They are all Christ’s and God’s angels. And remember, in the Hebrew version, it’s angels.

“‘Unto his servant John…’ The only person who ever lived in the first century, speaking with the great authority evident in Revelation, who could possibly have identified himself in these words, was the holy apostle John, the son of Zebedee, and author of the fourth Gospel and the three Johanine epistles. As Hendrikson expressed it:

“‘We are thoroughly convinced that there was only one John who did not need to add the apostle, for the very reason that he was the apostle! Besides, he does not call himself the apostle because he (in this book) wrote in his capacity as a seer (or prophet).’

“…Verse 2, who bare witness of the word of God, and of the testimony of Jesus Christ, even of all the things that he saw. Some interpreters of this verse have found a reference to the gospel and John’s testimony there; but the final clause appears to define the testimony as that contained in this prophecy.

“‘Of the word of God…’ This is the great affirmation here. It declares the book of Revelation to be indeed and in truth the word of God, given by the Father to Christ, and by Christ to John, who in turn delivered it to the the churches. This is the very loftiest claim that possible could be made upon behalf of this sacred writing.

“‘Of all things that he saw…’ The one verb saw embraces also the things which John heard in the course of his seeing the visions.”       [from REVELATION, by James B. Coffman, 1979]

Nothing really new in this quote.

“‘He sent’ points to Jesus to whom the revelation was given and through whom it was made known. ‘Signified (semaino) it,’ means that the revelation was to be delivered as expressed by signs (semeian). To the apostle John all wonders or miracles were ‘signs’; he used the word repeatedly in his Gospel. The reader must interpret the signs and determine the divine message intended for the people to whom it was addressed, and the meaning for us today. The word ‘sign’ appears seven times in the book and is one of twenty-nine words that John uses seven times in Revelation.” 

If you recall, the word semaino was used in reference to “wonders and miracles.” I would think that the meaning for those of the first century would be pretty close to the meaning for us today. Though we might have a deeper understanding today of some things that would be incomprehensible to them, and they would understand better some allusions to things of their time, still, I would expect that the overall meanings would translate from generation to generation.

The “29 words” that the author refers to is a bit of an enigma. I’ve searched with several different search terms to try to find these “29 words,” but without luck. The closest I’ve come is at: core.ac.uk/download/pdf/232857904 and this only lists 9 or 10 words/phrases that appear 7 times in Revelation. It’s a review of someone else’s theory that has a larger context of other words that appear a different number of times: leading to an overall theory of how the book was configured. It’s interesting, but I don’t agree with the original author’s conclusion of how “John wrote” the book; and I don’t think the author of the paper agrees with him either, though he obviously finds in fascinating. 

“‘By his angel’ signifies the immediate heavenly messenger from Jesus to ‘his servant John.’ ‘His servant’ identifies John as a fellow-servant with the rest of God’s servants.

“v. 2. ‘Who bare witness of the word of God, and of the testimony of Jesus Christ, even of all things that he saw.’ John here affirms that he fulfilled his mission by bearing the witness which was entrusted to him. ‘The word of God’ in this instance refers not to his past witness to truth set forth in his Gospel and epistles, but ‘even of all things that he saw,’ thus pointing to that which God and Christ were now giving him, both in vision and in word. These things which he saw would be made known when they were read in the churches. In the past God’s Word had revealed and called for action (John 1:1-5); here also it reveals and calls for responsive action by the servants.”         [from REVELATION: AN INTRODUCTION AND COMMENTARY, by Homer Hailey, 1979]

⁴In Him was life, and the life was the Light of mankind. ⁵And the Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not grasp it.   
(John 1:4,5; NASB)

I’m not clear on how Revelation in particular is a “call to action.” I’m not sure I understand it about John either, though I can see how the Gospels could be said to include calls for action. But, maybe that will be made clear as we go forward.

That’s enough for now. We’re in the last part of the 20th century and will continue there next time.