What Must Come to Pass
From the beginning, Revelation states that its purpose is to show God’s servants “what things must soon come to pass” – Revelation 1:1-3.
The first paragraph of Revelation details its purpose, themes, and main characters, and
that purpose is to show God’s servants “what things must come to pass,”
and it establishes their timing as “soon.” And the
imminence of these events is emphasized by stating the “season is near” - [Photo by Nicklas Bajema on Unsplash].
God “gave” the “revelation”
to Jesus, who then “gave” it to his angel to show “his servants” what
would occur.
- (Revelation 1:1-3) – “Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave to him to show his servants the things which must come to pass soon, and he showed them by signs, sending through his angel to his servant John, who bore witness to the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ, whatsoever things he saw. Happy is he that reads, and they who hear, the words of the prophecy, and keep the things written in it, for the season is near.”
The recipients of the book are
the “servants” of Jesus (doulos), a term applied to
the followers of Jesus elsewhere in the book, and described variously as the “saints,”
those who have the “testimony of Jesus,” the “brethren,” and
those who “follow the Lamb wherever he goes” - (Revelation 2:20, 7:3,
12:17, 13:7).
Even more explicit is John’s
salutation to his audience – “to the seven churches in Asia.” At the
outset of his first vision, Jesus commanded him to write down all that he saw,
and then to send it to the churches at “Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum,
Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea,” seven first-century congregations
located in the key cities of the Roman proconsular province of Asia.
The things that must come to pass would
occur “soon,” and that meant from the perspective of the book’s
recipients, the “seven churches of Asia.” “Soon” is not a very
precise term, but these first-century congregations certainly did not
understand it to mean twenty centuries or more in the future.
The book presents the “things
that must come to pass soon,” and this summarizes its contents. The
phrase alludes to the book of Daniel when the prophet interpreted the
troubling dream of King Nebuchadnezzar. As Daniel proclaimed to the Babylonian
ruler:
- (Daniel 2:28) - “There is a God in heaven that reveals mysteries and made known to King Nebuchadnezzar what things must come to pass (ha dei genesthai) in later days.”
When alluding to Old Testament
passages, John used the Greek Septuagint translation of the Hebrew
Bible, and in it, the Greek clause from Daniel reads ‘ha dei
genesthai,’ which is the exact same clause found in the Greek text of
the first verse of Revelation:
- (Revelation 1:1) - “Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants what things must come to pass (ha dei genesthai) soon.”
The same phrase is reiterated at
key points in Revelation. For example, when John saw the glorified “son
of man” he heard
Jesus command him to write down all that he saw, the “things that are, and what things shall come to pass after
these things.” At the start of his second
vision, he was summoned to “come up here,” where he saw “what
things must come to pass after these things.” *(Revelation
1:19, 4:1, 17:1, 21:9).
But John was not simply quoting
Daniel word-for-word, for what was expected previously in “later days,”
in Revelation, was changed to “soon.” In other words, the expected
time of fulfillment was at hand. This understanding is confirmed in verse 3, which
states that the “season is near” - (Daniel 12:4, Revelation
1:3, 22:7-10).
What for Daniel was expected “in
later days” was now imminent for the “churches of Asia.” Similarly, Daniel
was told to “seal the book until the season of the end,” yet in Revelation,
Jesus declared a “blessing” on all who read and heeded the book because the
“season is at hand.” This understanding is confirmed by the book’s
epilogue:
- (Revelation 22:7) - “Seal not the words of the prophecy of this book, for the season is at hand” - (Compare - Daniel 12:4).
In the twelfth chapter of Daniel,
the prophet was instructed to “seal the book until the season of the end.”
In contrast, John was instructed NOT to seal the book because the
“season” was imminent. Thus, what was “sealed” in Daniel is
unsealed in Revelation.
Revelation
discloses “what things must come to pass soon,” and how they will affect
the “servants” of Jesus, which certainly includes the “churches of
Asia.” This does not mean its visions were only applicable to those seven
churches in the first century, or that their experiences exhausted its
predictions. But it most certainly does mean that these congregations were (and
are) included in its warnings and promises, and any interpretation that makes them
irrelevant to the visions and predictions of Revelation has gone awry.
Thus, in the visions of John, the
things that Daniel predicted for a remote future, and presented in a veiled
form, are disclosed and put into motion by Jesus on behalf of his saints. In
his death and resurrection, the season of fulfillment has dawned and is now
well underway.
Comments
Post a Comment
We encourage free discussions on the commenting system provided by the Google Blogger platform, with the stipulation that conversations remain civil. Comments voicing dissenting views are encouraged.