Revelation 4-22: A New Beginning

What is it that makes us want to read the last chapter of a book first? For some reason, many people begin reading the Bible with the book of Revelation; but this is a serious mistake. This book plunges you into a confusing array of dragons and trumpets and vials and seals, with many amazing sights and sounds and visions. A person starting here might well throw the whole Bible away in frustration, unable to make neither head nor tail of it.

It is significant that the book of Revelation is the last book of the Bible. And if you have read the rest of the Bible before you come to Revelation, you will be much better equipped to understand the climax of the entire revelation of God to his people. Nevertheless, the reason many have difficulty understanding this book lies not only in interpreting the symbols, but also in failing to take note of the suggestions that are given in the first few verses. If you read these verses carefully and thoughtfully, you will have a tremendous key to this book. They are like certain introductory remarks often found on the title page of a book, and if you read them that way, you will be greatly helped. The title of the book is the first line: The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him (Revelation 1:1a). Notice that it is not the revelations, plural. The book is all about Jesus Christ, and it is his self-revelation: it was given to him by God the Father to reveal to his servants. The purpose of it is in the next line: …to show to his servants what must soon take place (Revelation 1:1b).

This book was written by the Apostle John when he was a captive on the island of Patmos in the Aegean Sea, and it dates from about 95 A.D., toward the close of the first century. John was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, he tells us, and he began to see revelations given to him by the Lord Jesus through an angel, of things which must shortly come to pass.

Then, in the next phrases, you have the method by which the book was given, and this is very important: …and he made it known by sending his angel to his servant John (Revelation 1:1c). The words he made it known are a translation of a Greek word which means, he signified it. He made it known by signs, by symbols. One of the reasons symbols are used in this book is that it is dealing with things in the future, things beyond the imaginations of men and women of the first century. References are made to events that are just now beginning to break in upon the world as awful realities — nuclear warfare, worldwide plagues, biological warfare. How could these be described to a generation who knew nothing about guns or machines?