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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
The Mystery of the Seven Stars and the Seven Candlesticks.
The superscription:
v. 1. The revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave unto Him to show unto His servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified it by His angel unto His servant John;
v. 2. who bare record of the Word of God and of the testimony of Jesus Christ, and of all things that he saw.
v. 3. Blessed is he that readeth and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein; for the time is at hand.
From the beginning the author claims for his book divine authorship: The apocalypse of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him, to show His servants what is bound to happen soon; and He sent and signified it through His angel to His servant John. Ordinarily the future is hidden from the eyes of men; the knowledge of events that are yet to transpire is a matter of God's foreknowledge. But as He did in other cases, so He here made a revelation, a disclosure; He drew aside the veil which hides the mysteries of the future from the eyes of the believers. It was a revelation on the part of Jesus Christ, which had been communicated to the Son by the Father, the only-begotten Son of God thus again acting as a messenger and prophet in making known to men the truth of God. This message was directed to the servants of the Lord, to the Christians, and its contents consisted in the relation of certain events which were bound to happen soon according to the will and knowledge of God, happenings of great importance in the history of the Church. In thus uncovering the future, the Lord sent His message through an angel, one of the spirits whose work consists in serving Him, in carrying out His commands. He signified, or revealed, it to John in visions, not in express words and exact language, but in pictures, whose significance is, to some extent, explained.
In this manner the message was to be brought to men: Who bore witness of the Word of God, and of the testimony of Jesus Christ, what he saw. John was the instrument or means in spreading the message which he had received. The content of his testimony was the Word of God, the Word which came from God and spoke of God, and the witness of Jesus Christ the Savior. The entire apostolic doctrine is this message of God and of His Son Jesus Christ, in whom He revealed Himself. But in this book John embodied those special truths of the Gospel which he saw in the visions which were vouchsafed to him in such a miraculous manner.
Of the readers he says in a very general manner: Blessed he that reads and they that hear the word of the prophecy and hold firmly to that which is written in it; for the time is near. This is the first of the seven beatitudes in the Book of Revelation, and is purposely set at the head of the book as a whole. Not all the Christians of those days were able to read, since many of them were slaves. Therefore both he that read the words of this message to others and they that listened to, and heeded, its contents are called blessed. For it is not enough to read and hear the prophecy, the Word of the Lord, in a mere mechanical manner, for it is not mere prediction that we are concerned with in these pages, but religious truth and instruction in the way of salvation. It requires a careful and firm keeping, an observing of its injunctions, a relying upon its comforting promises in steadfast faith, Luk_11:28. This attitude is required all the more strongly since "the time" is near, we are living in God's last hour of the world. As Luther says, this is no time for being slothful and sleeping. Prayerful vigilance must characterize The Christians in these last days of sore distress.