Revelation 1:3

The first word of the book in Greek is apokálypsis, the word behind our “apocalypse”. It comes from apokalyptō, “to uncover” or “to unveil”, and it means a disclosure. God is drawing back a covering so that his servants can see what he is doing and what he plans. The book carries that name because it was given to be understood, and everything in it comes from God’s purposeful act of making his plans known.

“The Revelation of Jesus Christ” can be read in two ways, and both are true. It is a revelation from Jesus Christ, since he receives it from the Father and passes it on to his servants. It is also a revelation about him, since he stands at the centre of the visions that follow. Before the book says a word about the end of the age, it names Jesus. A few verses later John sees him in his glory (Revelation 1:12–18), the one who “was dead” and is “alive for evermore” (Revelation 1:18). He is the faithful witness, the first begotten of the dead and the ruler of the kings of the earth (Revelation 1:5), the Lamb who was slain (Revelation 5:6), and the rider on the white horse who is King of kings and Lord of lords (Revelation 19:11–16). Every vision in the book points toward his kingdom and his return, when the Son of Man comes on the clouds of heaven (Matthew 24:30) and every knee bows at the name God has given him (Philippians 2:9–11).

“Which God gave unto him” names the source. The revelation begins with God the Father, who entrusts it to his Son, and so it carries God’s own authority and truth. It also shows the Father and the Son at work together, the Father giving and the Son making known. Christ is the “one mediator between God and men” (1 Timothy 2:5), and here the Father makes his final plans known through him.

Verse 1 traces the message step by step. God gave it to Jesus Christ. Christ “sent and signified it by his angel”. The angel brought it to John, and John wrote it down for God’s servants, beginning with the seven churches in Asia (Revelation 1:4). Each link in the chain is named, so that we know the book is authentic and that its authority runs all the way back to God.

“Sent” is apostéllō, to send someone out on an errand, and “angel” is ángelos, a messenger. “To shew”, deiknýō, means to make something visible or known. God has always made his plans known in this way. Daniel told the king, “But there is a God in heaven that revealeth secrets” (Daniel 2:28), and Amos wrote, “Surely the Lord GOD will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets” (Amos 3:7). Jesus told his disciples that he called them friends, because he had made known to them all that he had heard from his Father (John 15:15). Revelation stands in that line, with Christ himself now the one who speaks.

Verse 2 tells us John’s part in the chain. “Who” points back to “his servant John” in verse 1. John “bare record”, martyréō, which means to be a witness, to testify, to give evidence. The noun “testimony”, martyría, comes from the same source, the word for a witness, and it means witness, testimony or evidence. English gets the word “martyr” from this family of words, and in John’s day bearing witness to Christ could cost a believer suffering or even death.

John’s record covers three things: “the word of God”, “the testimony of Jesus Christ”, and “all things that he saw”. He is a messenger passing on faithfully what he received. Martyría is the ordinary word for testimony of any kind, and Mark uses it even of the false testimony sought against Jesus, so what makes this testimony sure is the one who gave it. God is its source, and the last chapter of the book says so: “These sayings are faithful and true” (Revelation 22:6).

“All things that he saw” marks John as an eyewitness. Much of what he records came to him as visions, things he truly saw by God’s gift. The apostles wrote in the same way about Jesus, of “that which we have seen with our eyes” (1 John 1:1).

Verse 3 opens with a blessing. “Blessed”, makários, means blessed or happy, and the New Testament uses it even of God himself, “the blessed God” (1 Timothy 1:11, 6:15). Jesus used the same word in the Beatitudes, “Blessed are the poor in spirit” (Matthew 5:3–12). This is the first of seven blessings in Revelation, placed at the very start so that God’s people come to the book expecting good from him.

“He that readeth” is one person and “they that hear” are many. In the churches of John’s day one reader would read Scripture aloud to the gathered congregation, as was common in the synagogues, and the blessing reaches the reader and the listeners alike. Revelation was sent to seven churches to be heard together.

“Prophecy”, prophēteía, is the word for a prediction or a message from God, and here it names Revelation itself. The book calls itself a prophecy, a message from God about his plans.

“Keep” is tēréō, to guard something from loss or harm, to take careful note of a prophecy, and to carry out a command. To keep these words is to hold on to them and live by them, heeding the commands, warnings and promises written in the book. The blessing comes fully to the one who obeys. Jesus said, “Yea rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it” (Luke 11:28), and James writes, “But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves” (James 1:22). Moses taught Israel the same: “The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law” (Deuteronomy 29:29), and he set God’s blessings before a people who would obey (Deuteronomy 28:1–14). Christ himself kept the Father’s will perfectly, “obedient unto death, even the death of the cross” (Philippians 2:8), so to keep the words of this book is to follow him.

Verse 1 says these things “must shortly come to pass”, and verse 3 says “the time is at hand”. People ask why, when some of the events still lie ahead of us. “Must” translates deî, “it is necessary”: God has decreed these things, and they will happen. “Shortly” is en táchei, from tákhos, speed or haste. The events will unfold swiftly and surely on God’s own timetable, with no delay on his side. The book ends on the same note, with an angel sent “to shew unto his servants the things which must shortly be done” (Revelation 22:6) and Jesus saying, “Behold, I come quickly: blessed is he that keepeth the sayings of the prophecy of this book” (Revelation 22:7), and again, “And, behold, I come quickly” (Revelation 22:12) and “Surely I come quickly” (Revelation 22:20).

“At hand” is engýs, near, in place or in time. “The time” is kairós, an appointed season, a word set apart from chronos, time as a running sequence. So the whole phrase, ho kairos engys, says that the season God has appointed is near. Christ began the last days at his first coming, for God “hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son” (Hebrews 1:1–2), and his return will bring all things to their end. The rest of the New Testament speaks the same way: “now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed” (Romans 13:11–12), and “the end of all things is at hand” (1 Peter 4:7). That nearness calls every generation of believers to be watchful and ready now.

John was on the island of Patmos (Revelation 1:9), a small rocky island in the Aegean Sea, probably during the reign of the emperor Domitian, around AD 95–96. Rome was claiming more and more divine honour for its emperors, and Christians who refused to take part in emperor worship and the pagan cults suffered for it. The seven churches John wrote to were facing false teaching, spiritual coldness and persecution from outside. To them these opening verses said that God rules over all of history, including what is yet to come, and that Christ will triumph over every power that opposes him. The book was a prophecy and a pastoral letter at once, bringing comfort, warning and hope.

These three verses tell you how to come to the whole book. It is the revelation of Jesus Christ, so you can open it looking for him and expecting to see his glory. It comes from God through a faithful witness, so you can trust it, even where its signs take patient study. And it carries a blessing, so you can read it with hope, listen to it with the church, and let it shape how you live.

God has chosen to show his servants what is coming, and he has done it so that we can be ready. The time is near, Christ’s victory is certain, and the call of these verses is to live as his faithful servants until he comes.