The Beautiful, Terrifying Implications of the Word 'Revelation'
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The Greek word apokalupsis or “apocalypse” means "to uncover" or "to reveal.” An apocalypse is a revelation, which is also the final, mystifying book of the Bible. In Discipleship on the Edge, Darrell Johson explains that apocalypse (our anglicized version of the Greek) has come to mean something negative or cataclysmic. But a study of the original Greek exposes both frightening and beautiful, inspiring implications of the word revelation.
Meaning and Context of Revelation
The Apostle John opens his writing with an introduction of who he is and what he is about to share:
“This is the revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show His servants what must soon come to pass. He made it known by sending His angel to His servant John, who testifies to everything he saw. This is the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ” (Revelation 1:1-2).
Apocalypse, or the synonym “revelation,” describes an “unveiling, disclosure”; “the disclosure of divine truths or the manifestation of God's will and purposes. We get the word “reveal” from this root. There is both general revelation (of God, through Scripture) and “the ultimate revelation of Jesus Christ at His second coming.”
“This is the revelation….”: Johnson frequently says that Jesus is “breaking through,” so one could say “this is the breaking through of Jesus Christ” from the spiritual realm into earthly reality. John, writing from the island of Patmos where he was exiled by the Emperor Domitian at the end of the first century, had a specific revelation in mind, one which started with “a loud voice like a trumpet” coming from behind him (Rev. 1:10). He turned to see who was speaking and saw a figure “dressed like the Son of Man” (v.13). Jesus was breaking through the veil to speak with his beloved disciple in a vision.
Strong’s Concordance tells us that first century Greco-Roman culture was familiar with “the concept of revelation [...], often associated with the disclosure of divine mysteries through oracles or visions.” On the other hand, "apokalupsis" is distinctly related to “God's initiative in making known His divine plan and purposes to humanity. This revelation is not merely informational but transformative, calling for a response of faith and obedience.”
God Revealed Himself
We put up walls between ourselves and others, and we try to hide from each other and God (Genesis 3:8). In our broken world, exposing our true selves to one another feels unsafe, and it often is, but our original design was for honesty, not barriers and dissembling.
The Revelation exposes the relational nature of the Trinity, the fact that God revealed himself in Christ so that we can know him. We are all designed for interpersonal breakthroughs, exposure in an emotional sense, as per the Triune example. John M. Frame explains how “God reveals himself to himself, each Trinitarian person to the other two, and his revelation extends beyond his own being.” Each member knows the other entirely, unlike human beings who are often mystified by their own actions and motives.
Revelation gives us a breathtaking picture of Jesus as the “lamb that was slain,” and is yet glorified by the angels who sing “holy, holy, holy” while he sits on the throne (Revelation 5:6, 4:8-9). Revelation or apokalupsis highlights the connections between Jesus as his disciples had seen him on the cross, and Jesus, Messiah, Savior, Lord. As we try to connect the dots between all of the events of Scripture into a cohesive whole, we frequently miss the full picture because we take scenes out of context; we read a little here, a little there. And because the crucified Christ and the risen lamb seem so incongruous with each other, people often disconnect them. But here, we see Christ’s broken body as glorious and victorious; he bears his wounds as symbols of majesty.
For anyone struggling to understand why Jesus had to die or how he could be both man and Lord, this image of the Lamb – the gory and bleeding King on his throne, surrounded by worshipers and splendor – is an astonishing revelation.
The Present Spiritual Reality Unveiled
“One like the Son of Man” is Jesus. Although this is “a Hebraic way of saying ‘human being,’” that is not how John uses the term. “He is using a technical term [...] from the Old Testament” derived from Daniel 7:13-14. Daniel had a vision in which he saw “a Son of Man, and he came up to the ancient of Days [...] And to him was given dominion, Glory and a kingdom, [...] which will not be destroyed.” Jesus revealed to John that he had always been there, right from the start, as the “pre-existent, heavenly being who comes to establish the kingdom that cannot be destroyed.” (p.42)
In The Book of Revelation, we see over and over that “things are not as they seem” says Johnson. John’s vision unveils what is going on in the spiritual realms, unseen to us and yet more real than our reality. “How the Lord of Life grieves over the cities of our world. Not simply because we disobey God’s good law, but because in disobeying we break with reality – even the reality of ourselves.” (Johnson, p. 84)
Christ and Satan are truly at war for our souls because Satan knows the power of that vision. The lamb who was slain is in his rightful place; the one who, though he was killed, is all-powerful, attracting curious, seeking hearts and minds towards a glorious and loving Savior. This battle is big, it is terrifying, and it is taking place constantly, all around us.
Imagery and the Big Picture
We cannot see the spiritual reality behind the veil, so Jesus reveals it and John interprets what he has seen using figurative language. His imagery provides a breakthrough. “Imagery has the power to go deeper than mere words” explains Darrell Johnson, because it goes “beyond intellect and through the emotions into the imagination, informing intellect and igniting emotion.” (p. 22)
Some of those images include:
“One like a son of man, [...] His eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters. In his right hand he held seven stars” (Rev. 1:12, 14-15).
“From his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength” (Rev. 1:16).
“A pale horse! And its rider’s name was Death, and Hades followed him” (Rev. 6:8).
“A Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, with seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth” (Rev. 5:6).
That double-edged sword emerges from the mouth of our Savior whose face is so bright, it is compared to the sun. He is recognizably a “Son of man,” and yet nothing like any man we have ever seen. The Apostle John reveals in pictures what our minds and hearts might not otherwise be able to connect, a Savior both terrifying and wonderfully loving.
Ephesians 6:12 insists that “we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” We cannot see them, and most people could not face them. John helps us to see what was invisible to us by appealing to our imagination, the part of our minds which can see past the curtain to reality.
Warning and Promise
God revealed to Jonn the fact that Christ and Satan are still battling, but for what? Johnson asserts that Satan cannot overcome the real object of his wrath – Jesus Christ – so he goes for Jesus’ people instead. It is desperately important for people to understand that they must not try to worship Jesus and someone or something else; he will not share worship.
For example, the church at Ephesus rejected Nicolaitan teaching which sought to undermine God’s commands. They did not care about eating meat sacrificed to idols, or about sexual sin. Jesus warned them to repent of their sins and come back to their love for him. “If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place” (Revelation 2:5). He will remove his presence.
And yet, if they do repent, “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God” (Revelation 2:6). Jesus revealed what he had against five of the seven churches (not Smyrna or Philadelphia) as a matter of grace. (Johnson, p.85) He warned them to fix the sin issues inside their doors; return to the gospel alone and do not follow the cults of their culture, including the worship of other gods. They also must repent from sexual immorality. He warns us now, too, because we are following the cult of our current culture when we behave as though we can worship Jesus and anything else.
In Revelation 9, Jesus described locusts with scorpion-like weapons, sent to torture “only those people who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads. They were allowed to torment them for five months, but not to kill them, and their torment was like the torment of a scorpion when it stings someone. And in those days people will seek death and will not find it. They will long to die, but death will flee from them” (Rev. 9:1-6). The terrifying scenes of Revelation are very real, and they reveal God’s grace, his desire for us to repent.
Beautiful and Terrifying
Jesus’ revelation is hard to handle at times, and difficult to understand. Figurative language brings some of the reality to life, but some of the imagery remains a mystery. John received a glimpse, but not the full picture; yet Revelation is beautiful too. What we see is enough, if we are not hard-hearted, to inspire awe, fear, obedience, and to remind us of our great love, our first love (Revelation 2:4). God is gracious; he had already defeated death at the cross, providing evidence that Jesus is the Lord, worthy of worship. This final, parting Word is more evidence of his lavish love.
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Sources
https://biblehub.com/greek/602.htm
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/essay/divine-revelation-god-making-known/
Johnson, Darrell W. (2004). Discipleship On the Edge: An Expository Journey Through the Book of Revelation, Regent College Publishing: Vancouver.
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