Although the reasons we have offered for the choice of these seven churches may be valid, it may be still more valid that John chose them because in them he had a special authority. They were in a special sense his churches – and by speaking to them he sent a message first to those who knew and loved him best, and then through them to every church in every generation.
THE BLESSING AND ITS SOURCE
Revelation 1:4–6 (contd)
JOHN begins by sending them the blessing of God.
He sends them grace, and this means all the undeserved gifts of the wondrous love of God. He sends them peace, which R. H. Charles describes in his commentary as ‘the harmony restored between God and man through Christ’. But there are two extraordinary things in this greeting.
(1) John sends blessings from him who is and who was and who is to come. That is in itself a common title for God. In Exodus 3:14, the word of God to Moses is: ‘I am who I am.’ The Jewish Rabbis explained that by saying that God meant: ‘I was; I still am; and in the future I will be.’ The Greeks spoke of ‘Zeus who was, Zeus who is, and Zeus who will be.’ The Orphic worshippers, who followed one of the mystery religions, said: ‘Zeus is the first and Zeus is the last; Zeus is the head and Zeus is the middle; and from Zeus all things come.’ This is what in Hebrews so beautifully became: ‘Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and for ever’ (Hebrews 13:8).
But, to get the full meaning of this, we must look at it in the Greek, for John breaks free of the rules of grammar to show his reverence for God. We translate the first phrase as from him who is; but that is not what the Greek says. A Greek noun is in the nominative case when it is the subject of a sentence, but when it is governed by a preposition it changes its case and its form. It is the same in English. He is the subject of a sentence; him is the object. When John says that the blessing comes from him who is, he should have put him who is in the genitive case after the preposition; but quite ungrammatically he leaves it in the nominative. It is as if we said in English from he who is, refusing to change he into him. John has such an immense reverence for God that he refuses to alter the form of his name even when the rules of grammar demand it.
John is not finished with his amazing use of language. The second phrase is from him who was. Literally, John says from the he was. The point is that who was would be in Greek a participle. The odd thing is that the verb eimi (to be) has no past participle. Instead, there is used the participle genomenos from the verb gignomai, which means not only to be but also to become. Becoming implies change, and John utterly refuses to apply any word to God that will imply any change; and so he uses a Greek phrase that is grammatically impossible and that had never been used before.
In the terrible days in which he was writing, John set his heart on the changelessness of God and used defiance of grammar to underline his faith.
THE SEVENFOLD SPIRIT
Revelation 1:4–6 (contd)
ANYONE who reads this passage must be astonished at the form of the Trinity which we meet here. We speak of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Here, we have God the Father and Jesus Christ the Son – but, instead of the Holy Spirit, we have the seven Spirits who are before his throne. These seven Spirits are mentioned more than once in Revelation (3:1, 4:5, 5:6). Three main explanations have been offered of them.
(1) The Jews talked of the seven angels of the presence, whom they beautifully called ‘the seven first white ones’ (1 Enoch 90:21). They were what we call the archangels who ‘stand ready and enter before the glory of the Lord’ (Tobit 12:15). Their names are not always the same, but they are often called Uriel, Raphael, Raguel, Michael, Gabriel, Saiquael and Jeremiel. They had the care of the elements of the world – fire, air and water – and were the guardian angels of the nations. They were the most illustrious and the most intimate servants of God. Some think that they are the seven Spirits mentioned here. But that cannot be; great as the angels were, they were still created beings.
(2) The second explanation connects them with the famous passage in Isaiah 11:2. As the Septuagint, the Greek edition of the Hebrew Scriptures that was most widely used in the synagogues in New Testament times, has it: ‘The spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and piety; by this spirit he shall be filled with the fear of God.’ This passage is the basis of the great concept of the sevenfold gifts of the Spirit. As the ninth-century hymn has it:
Come, Holy Ghost, our souls inspire
And lighten with celestial fire;
Thou the anointing Spirit art,
Who dost thy sevenfold gifts impart.
The Spirit, as the eighth-century Spanish Benedictine, Beatus, said, is one in name but sevenfold in virtues. If we think of the sevenfold gift of the Spirit, it is not difficult to think of the Spirit as seven Spirits, each giving great gifts to men and women. So it is suggested that the idea of the sevenfold gifts of the Spirit gave rise to the image of the seven Spirits before the throne of God.
(3) The third explanation connects the idea of the seven Spirits with the fact of the seven churches. In Hebrews 2:4, we read of God giving ‘gifts of the Holy Spirit’. The word translated as gifts is merismos, and it really means shares, as if the idea was that God gives a share of his Spirit to every individual. So, the idea here would be that the seven Spirits stand for the share of the Spirit which God gave to each of the seven churches. It would mean that no Christian fellowship is left without the presence and the power and the illumination of the Spirit.
THE TITLES OF JESUS
Revelation 1:4–6 (contd)
IN this passage, three great titles are given to Jesus Christ.
(1) He is the witness on whom we can rely. It is a favourite idea of the Fourth Gospel that Jesus is a witness of the truth of God. Jesus said to Nicodemus: ‘Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen’ (John 3:11). Jesus said to Pilate: ‘For this I came into the world, to testify to the truth’ (John 18:37). A witness is essentially a person who speaks from first-hand knowledge. That is why Jesus is God’s witness. He is uniquely the person with first-hand knowledge about God.
(2) He is the first-born of the dead. The word for first-born is prōtotokos. It can have two meanings. (a) It can mean literally first-born. If it is used in this sense, the reference must be to the resurrection. Through his resurrection, Jesus gained a victory over death, which all who believe in him may share. (b) Since the first-born was the son who inherited his father’s honour and power, prōtotokos comes to mean one with power and honour, one who occupies the first place. When Paul speaks of Jesus as the first-born of all creation (Colossians 1:15), he means that the first place of honour and glory belongs to him. If we take the word in this sense – and probably we should – it means that Jesus is Lord of the dead as he is Lord of the living. There is no part of the universe, in this world or in the world to come, and nothing in life or in death of which Jesus Christ is not Lord.
