Blessed by Seeing the Glorified Jesus
Have you ever had a first impression of someone and then later you saw another side of him or her that caused you to realize that you had missed something—that there was far more to that person than you recognized at first—far more than meets the eye?
That’s what happened to me when I first saw David Guthrie around the halls of the office at Word, Incorporated, where I worked. When he moved from Portland, Oregon, to Waco, Texas, in August 1985, he had a head of dark hair and a full, dark beard. I remember noticing that he wore, well, comfortable shoes, and my impression of him from seeing him in the hallway at the office was that he was very serious.
But then he came to choir practice at my church. Our choir was going to be premiering a new Word musical at a workshop for ministers of music, and as Word’s marketing person, he came to talk to the choir about the event. He was so comfortable in front of a group of people. His voice. His wit. His confidence. And then as I was walking to my car in the parking lot after rehearsal, I saw him crawl into his car—a red Mazda RX7 two-seater sports car. And I thought to myself, “I think I may have seriously underestimated this guy.” He suddenly seemed far more interesting and, might I say, far more attractive than I’d given him credit for.
Sometimes our estimation of people stays stuck on our first impression or stuck on what they were like when we knew them as kids, or in college, or some other time in our past. In fact, that may be the case for some of us with Jesus. Perhaps somewhere along the way we came to an understanding of who Jesus is, why he came, what he’s all about. And it stuck. We have never taken the time to evaluate if the Jesus we see in our mind’s eye lines up with the real Jesus. Revelation shows us that there is far more to Jesus than meets the eye, perhaps far more than we have seen before.
Most of the pictures of Jesus we have in our mind that shape our understanding, our response, and maybe even our obedience to Jesus have been taken through the lens of the Gospels. And those pictures are good. They are true. They show us what he was like when Jesus took on flesh and lived on this earth for thirty-three years. They don’t necessarily show us what Jesus is like now in his glorified humanity, ruling and reigning in heaven. But in Revelation 1, John writes down what he saw when the curtain between heaven and earth was pulled back for him so that he could see Jesus as he truly is—today, right now.
Let’s look first at who this vision of Jesus was given to:
I, John, your brother and partner in the tribulation and the kingdom and the patient endurance that are in Jesus . . . (Rev. 1:9a)
It was given to John who identifies himself as a “brother and partner” of those he was writing to. What makes them brothers and partners is that they are all “in Christ.” He is writing to those who, like him, have become joined to Christ by faith.
Notice the three things John shares with those to whom he is writing—tribulation, the kingdom, and patient endurance. He shares with them the kind of tribulation that Jesus described when he said, “They will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake” (Matt. 24:9). John shares with his readers about being part of the kingdom. And what is required of all kingdom subjects living in this time in between Jesus’s ascension and his second coming? Patient endurance, patiently enduring the suffering that is inherent in identifying with Jesus.
We should probably circle those two words in our Bibles: patient endurance. We’re going to hear them again and again as we work our way through Revelation (2:2, 3, 19; 3:10; 13:10; 14:12). In fact, if someone were to ask you what the book of Revelation is about, a good answer would be, “Revelation is a call to patient endurance of tribulation as we await the coming of Christ’s kingdom in all of its fullness.” The idea that the Christian life is or should be defined by patient endurance shouldn’t actually sound new to us. Jesus promised that “the one who endures to the end will be saved” (Matt. 24:13). And Paul wrote that “if we endure, we will also reign with him” (2 Tim. 2:12).
John goes on to tell us the setting in which, in the midst of tribulation, he was given a vision of the King of this kingdom:
I, John . . . was on the island called Patmos on account of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. (Rev. 1:9b)
John had been banished by the Romans to a rocky island prison. This wasn’t unique in the first century. The Romans often exiled political prisoners to islands in the Aegean Sea. So why was John exiled to Patmos? John writes that he was there “on account of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus.” John’s testimony about Jesus and his kingdom was viewed as a political crime. He was living in a world ruled by Rome where the emperor Domitian demanded to be worshiped as a god. But all who were partners in the kingdom—the kingdom of Jesus—could not say, “Caesar is Lord.” Instead, they boldly declared that Jesus is Lord. And it cost them.
John’s boldness about King Jesus had been costing him since shortly after Pentecost when he and Peter were arrested by the temple authorities for healing a man in the name of Jesus who had been lame since birth, and then calling those who witnessed the miracle to faith in Christ. But after arresting them, the priests didn’t know what to do with them, so they simply warned them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus and released them. In response, Peter and John said, “We cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard” (Acts 4:20).
It was just a short time later that John and the other apostles were back at Solomon’s Portico at the temple. People were bringing the sick and those afflicted with unclean spirits, and they were all healed. This time the high priest arrested the apostles and put them in prison. But during the night an angel opened the prison doors and led them out. So the next day they went right back to the temple to continue declaring the good news of Christ. The religious leaders were infuriated and wanted to kill them but were afraid of how the people would respond. So the apostles were beaten and ordered, once again, not to speak in the name of Jesus, and then released. Acts 5:40–41 records that John and the other apostles “left the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name.”
King Jesus was so real and so precious to John that he would rather be exiled to a barren island prison than not talk about him. And as I think about this, it causes me to ask myself some questions. First, am I willing to be excluded, indicted, even imprisoned, because Jesus has become so precious to me and so compelling to me that I just can’t keep from talking about him openly to anyone who will listen? I don’t have to fear being exiled to a rocky island prison for speaking about Jesus as Lord. But if I did, would there be enough evidence to convict me? Do I love his word that much? Have I testified of Jesus that clearly?
As a prisoner on Patmos, John likely spent his days doing manual labor. History tells us that in the marble mines on the Isle of Patmos, “men worked chained to their slave barrows.”1 Probably no one else on Patmos even kept track of what day it was. But John did. It was the Lord’s day, the first day of the week. And on this particular Lord’s Day, the veil between heaven and earth was pulled back for him:
I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet saying, “Write what you see in a book and send it to the seven churches, to Ephesus and to Smyrna and to Pergamum and to Thyatira and to Sardis and to Philadelphia and to Laodicea.” (Rev. 1:10–11)
When John writes that he was “in the Spirit,” we are to understand that he was having the same kind of experience Old Testament prophets had. John “was taken up into a trancelike, visionary state”2 by the Spirit of God to receive revelation from God. And like Old Testament prophets such as Moses, Isaiah, and Jeremiah, John was commanded to write down what he saw in a book.
But there was a challenge for John in describing what he saw. He simply didn’t have the words to describe the heavenly things he saw and heard, so we hear him doing his best to make it understandable to the people in the seven churches, writing repeatedly, “It’s like . . . It’s like . . . It’s like . . . It’s like . . .” This is the language of metaphor and analogy. Because he didn’t have words to describe the heavenly things he saw, he drew upon the best things he could to describe it using imagery his readers and those who would hear it read to them would be familiar with. As John described what he saw in this vision and in the three additional visions he will write about in Revelation, rather than understanding him as describing things in literal terms, we need to understand him describing them analogically saying, “It’s like this.” When we say what he’s describing is not literal, we’re not saying that it wasn’t real. John is looking into the heart of ultimate reality. We’re simply saying that he is using metaphorical language to describe what is real. “This does not show us what Jesus looks like but rather what Jesus is like, symbolically depicting his person and work.”3
Turning toward the Vision of Jesus
The voice John heard was loud, like a trumpet. Unavoidable. Unignorable. Inescapable.
Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the midst of the lampstands one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around his chest. (Rev. 1:12–13)
“I saw,” he says, “one like a son of man.” In other words, he saw someone who looked human. John looked at his glorious Lord, and the first thing that struck him was the humanness of Jesus. It reminds us that Jesus didn’t just take on flesh for the years he walked on this earth. He’s still a human being as he sits on the throne of heaven. But he is not an ordinary human being. John recorded in his Gospel that Jesus prayed on the night before his crucifixion, “And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed” (John 17:5). In Revelation 1 we see that God answered that prayer. His glory is no longer veiled. He’s still flesh, but his earthly, perishable flesh has been transformed into imperishable, heavenly flesh. Right now, Jesus Christ is the first and only glorified human being. But he won’t be the last.
When John writes that he saw someone “like a son of man,” he’s expressing more, however, than simply that he’s seeing a glorified human being. He’s connecting the person he saw with the person Daniel saw and wrote about when the curtain between heaven and earth was pulled back for him seven hundred years before John. Daniel wrote:
and behold, with the clouds of heaven
there came one like a son of man,
and he came to the Ancient of Days
and was presented before him.
And to him was given dominion
and glory and a kingdom,
that all peoples, nations, and languages
should serve him;
his dominion is an everlasting dominion,
which shall not pass away,
and his kingdom one
that shall not be destroyed. (Dan. 7:13–14)
The “son of man” Daniel wrote about is a commanding, redeeming, glorious figure, and Daniel’s prophecy about him shaped the Jewish people’s expectations for what the Messiah would be like. It’s no wonder that the people in Jesus’s day had such a hard time believing Jesus when he referred to himself as the “Son of Man,” clearly connecting himself to the person Daniel saw. From their vantage point, Jesus was an ordinary person from the humble town of Nazareth. He had a rag-tag group of followers. How could this simple man be the “son of man,” given dominion and glory and kingdom, as Daniel had prophesied?
Even those closest to him, the disciples, struggled to accept that the Jesus they saw eating with prostitutes, sleeping on the boat, and walking the streets with dusty feet was really the “son of man” they had been waiting for. Surely even after Jesus ascended into heaven, it didn’t come naturally to them to imagine him as the glorified Son of Man seated at the right hand of God.
Jesus gave John this revelation and told him to write it down, because he wanted them and wants us to see him as he is. He doesn’t want us to have our mental picture of him stuck on how he looked for the thirty-three years he walked this earth. John’s vision shows us Jesus as he is and as he wants to be known. It also shows us where he prefers to be:
And in the midst of the lampstands one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around his chest. (Rev. 1:13)
John saw Jesus “in the midst of the lampstands.” There is a lot of imagery used in Revelation that is challenging to understand, but we don’t have to wonder what these lampstands represent. We are told later in this first chapter that the lampstands represent the churches (1:20). When John turned to see the voice that was speaking to him, the first thing that caught John’s attention was Jesus standing in the midst of his people.
Were these early Christians wondering if the church would be snuffed out as persecution increased? When they gathered to hear this letter read to them, it must have provided deep encouragement to see that Jesus was not standing off at a distance while his followers suffered for him. He was right there with them, walking in the midst of them, keeping their fire for the gospel burning, correcting them, watching over them, strengthening them.
Some people in this world today are so suspect of the church. They’ve seen too much of what they’ve labeled as hypocrisy, and even though they might be interested in Jesus, the last place they want to be found is in the church. But Jesus is not ashamed to be found in the midst of his imperfect church. It is his preferred place to be. He chooses to be in and among his imperfect people who follow and serve him in imperfect ways. What a relief.
As Jesus is standing in the midst of his suffering church, he is wearing “a long robe,” which is a description of the high priest of the Old Testament. If you’ve studied Hebrews, then you’ll remember that it emphasizes that Jesus is the perfect, ultimate high priest and that “we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin” (Heb. 4:15). So standing in the midst of his suffering church is our high priest—our mediator—representing us before the Father, interceding for us, protecting us from any accusation that might damn us through the once-and-for-all sacrifice of himself.
John writes that Jesus had “a golden sash around his chest,” which is the description not only of a high priest but of a king. The people of John’s day needed to see the authority of Jesus as king. They were suffering under a government that criminalized their faith in Jesus. This vision of Jesus as a king must have filled them with confidence to know that he—not the Roman government or any other power—is in charge of what is happening in this world.
His Perfect Wisdom
John’s gaze went from what Jesus was wearing to the hair on his head:
The hairs of his head were white, like white wool, like snow. (Rev. 1:14a)
We think of white hair as indicating advancing age. But this stunning white hair of Jesus reveals his eternal wisdom, which is demonstrated in his righteous judgments. Having already connected his vision to Daniel 7, John’s first hearers and readers would have connected this description of the risen Jesus to Daniel’s description of the Ancient of Days who sits on the throne, having “clothing . . . white as snow, and the hair of his head like pure wool” (Dan. 7:9). Our instinct might be to wonder if John is confusing the son of man with the Ancient of Days, but what he’s really doing is connecting the son of man to the Ancient of Days. “John attributes to the Son of Man white hair, even though in Daniel 7 the white hair belongs to the Ancient of Days. The white hair, of course, isn’t literal but indicates the wisdom and omniscience of the Son of Man; thus there is no doubt the Son of Man is divine.”4
This means that not only does Jesus know exactly what to do; what he does is absolutely pure and right. Jesus is absolutely pure in what he thinks and what he says and what he does. He never has mixed motives. He is wisdom incarnate. He is holy, holy, holy.
His Penetrating Gaze
His eyes were like a flame of fire. (Rev. 1:14b)
Imagine what it must have been like for John to look into eyes that were like a flame of fire. John must have felt this fiery gaze penetrate into his very soul, exposing any shallowness and sinfulness that was there.
Jesus doesn’t just look at us; he looks into us. And if we are willing to hold his gaze, he will burn away what is meaningless and frivolous and contaminating. We’re going to see in the next chapter that Jesus will speak to the church of Thyatira about her toleration of sexual immorality and idolatry as one who “has eyes like a flame of fire” (2:18). He’s seeking her purity and pointing out what is contaminating her.
Of course, when we picture someone whose eyes are like blazing fire, we imagine that person must be very, very angry. There are numerous places in the Old Testament where we read about God’s anger burning against his enemies. God is angry against sin. His righteous anger burns against evil and injustice and unrighteousness, and as much as we might like to point in someone else’s direction, this reality should make every one of us want to run and hide.
But when we see the fire in his eyes, rather than prompting us to run away from him, it should make us want to run to him, welcoming him to burn away what is displeasing to him. Jesus invites us to come to him so that we can be confident that when the day comes that we look into his fiery eyes, we will experience his full salvation, not his fiery judgment.
His Permanent Foundation
His feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace. (Rev. 1:15a)
Bronze is a combination of iron and copper. Iron is strong, but it rusts. Copper won’t rust, but it is pliable. When the two are combined into bronze, the best quality of each is preserved, the strength of the iron and the endurance of the copper. So to say that his feet were like burnished bronze that has been refined in a furnace is to say that the foundation of Jesus’s power has been tested by fire and will endure.
This is the firm foundation our lives are built on when they are built on Jesus Christ. Our lives become as secure, as enduring, as his. He is our source for patient endurance as his strength flows into us.
His Powerful Voice
Before we are told what the Son of Man says, we are told what his voice sounds like. Remember that John had heard the voice of Jesus before. But what John heard on this day was different:
His voice was like the roar of many waters. (Rev. 1:15b)
This voice John heard speaking to him thundered with the power of a waterfall drowning out all other sounds of voices. Think Niagara Falls or the loudest rainstorm you’ve ever heard. The voice of the glorified and enthroned Jesus is commanding, unavoidable, overwhelming. When he speaks, he cannot be ignored.
There are some voices in our lives for which we sometimes wish we had a volume-adjustment knob so we could turn down the level of intensity. But this is a voice we don’t want to adjust downward. To hear the powerful voice of Jesus is to hear the voice that imparts life and wisdom. We don’t need to deflect or defend ourselves from what he says to us. We don’t want to argue with him. We want to welcome whatever it is he has to say to us. What a blessing to hear the powerful, penetrating, and perfectly reliable voice of Jesus speaking into our lives.
In his right hand he held seven stars. (Rev. 1:16a)
In his right hand—the hand where a person holds what is precious to him, what he intends to use, what he wants to keep close—Jesus holds seven stars. And once again, we don’t have to try to guess what these seven stars in John’s vision represent. We’re told in verse 20 that “the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches.” According to G. K. Beale, this may suggest that while the lampstands represent the church on earth, the stars represent the church in heaven.5 And Jesus is holding them close.
His Penetrating Word
From his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword. (Rev. 1:16b)
This striking image of a sharp sword proceeding from his mouth is used three other times in Revelation (2:16; 19:15, 21). Each time, the sword is a metaphor for words of judgment spoken by Jesus. As John heard Jesus speak, he felt the penetrating power of his words. But notice this sword is double-edged. It has two sides. It cuts two ways. The words of Jesus proclaim salvation for the believer and destruction for the unbeliever. His word provides conviction and comfort, commands and promises, punishment and reward. He speaks grace to his people, and destruction for his enemies.
What Jesus has to say is not always a comforting word. Sometimes he comes to rebuke and chastise. And can we be honest and admit that we don’t always want to hear what he says to us? We resist what he has to say to us to our own peril. Tim Keller says, “If your God never disagrees with you, you might just be worshiping an idealized version of yourself.”6 A sharp sword cuts. The words of Jesus cut through our stubborn resistance. They expose the shallowness of our comfortable Christianity. They pierce through our carefully cultivated reputation for always being right. And we are better for it.
His Personal Radiance
The last aspect of Jesus that John describes is his face:
His face was like the sun shining in full strength. (Rev. 1:16c)
This is the same radiance that Moses was exposed to so that his own face began to shine so brightly that people couldn’t look at him. This is the radiance that was promised by Aaron when he was instructed to bless the people, saying, “The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you” (Num. 6:25). This, my friends, is the face we long to see, the radiance we long to bask in for all eternity.
Sometimes it feels so good to go outside in the sunshine and look up with our eyes closed and soak in the radiant goodness of the sun. I suppose that when we do that, we could think of it as a little taste of heaven. Except that we won’t be damaged by this exposure. We’ll be blessed by it. The Lord will make his face shine and shine and keep shining on us. We’re going to spend eternity basking in the rays of his grace toward us.
When John saw the face of Jesus shining like the sun, it wasn’t actually the first time he had seen it. Shortly before his crucifixion, Jesus took Peter, James, and John up on a mountain. What happened there is described in Matthew 17:
He was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light. . . . The disciples . . . fell on their faces and were terrified. But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Rise, and have no fear.” (Matt. 17:2–7)
Interestingly, exactly the same thing happened when John saw the glorified Jesus in his vision on Patmos:
When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. (Rev. 1:17a)
Isn’t this how those who have seen Christ in all of his heavenly glory have always responded? When Isaiah “saw the Lord sitting upon a throne,” he said, “Woe is me!” (Isa. 6:1–5). When Daniel saw and heard the son of man that John saw, he wrote, “I fell on my face in deep sleep with my face to the ground” (Dan. 10:9).
Why would this be the response of every prophet who sees the glory of God in the person of Jesus? Perhaps it is because most of the time we see ourselves in light of other humans around us and determine that, by comparison, we look pretty good. But, evidently, coming into the presence of the glorified Jesus makes the disparity between his perfection and holiness and our sinfulness unbearable so that all a person can do is fall down as though dead.
Falling at the Feet of Jesus
John fell down before Jesus in worship and wonder and submission and stillness—which is the only appropriate response to seeing Jesus as he truly is.
Have you ever been so captivated by Jesus that you’ve been willing to fall before him—yes, in your heart, but how about physically—in humility and repentance and surrender? There is something that impacts the heart in the physical act of lifting up our hands, getting on our knees, and prostrating ourselves before Jesus, isn’t there? So what keeps us from it? Perhaps we’re too proud, too in control, to fall at the feet of Jesus.
To fall at the feet of Jesus is to finally come to the place that our reputation doesn’t matter anymore, our pride doesn’t matter anymore. It is to come to the place that Jesus is all that matters.
John had seen the penetrating gaze of blazing fire in the eyes of this glorious heavenly King looking in his direction, exposing his hidden thoughts. He had seen his own filthiness in light of the pure white robes of Jesus and his own foolishness in contrast to the white-haired wisdom of Jesus. He’d been pierced to the core by the two-edged sword of Jesus. John was undone. Perhaps he thought he was going to die right then and there. And then something happened:
But he laid his right hand on me. (Rev. 1:17b)
Jesus reached out to John and touched him.
Responding to the Touch of Jesus
How beautiful is it that this magnificent, powerful figure John saw would also be so loving that he would reach out and touch John in his state of being utterly undone?
This is, in fact, what Jesus always does when a person comes to the place of seeing his or her own desperate sinfulness in light of his perfect holiness and bows before him in humility and need. Jesus touches us and gives us new life. Until he does, we are spiritually dead, unable to reach out to him. And then, in grace and mercy, he makes the first move toward us.
~ He reaches out to touch spiritually dead little boys and girls and awakens them to his kindness and love.
~ He reaches out and touches spiritually dead young men and women, instilling in them passion to live for him.
~ He touches spiritually dead older men and women, who may have spent a lifetime in church without ever really coming alive to him, making them flush with joy over Jesus.
When Jesus touches us, he heals us and cleanses us and remakes us. When Jesus reached out to touch John, he said:
Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades. (Rev. 1:17c–18)
So much of what is in Revelation can seem scary. So it helps us to know that Jesus doesn’t want us to be afraid. What he wants John to write down is not meant to scare us. It is meant to instill confidence and hope so we will not have to face the future gripped by fear.
When Jesus says to John and to you and me, “I am the first and the last,” he is saying that everything started with him and everything will end with him. He’s saying, “Your life begins when I reach out and touch you, and you come alive spiritually. And when your physical life comes to an end, I will be there to care for you for all eternity.” My friend, all of your anxiety about the future finds relief in Jesus himself.
What does it mean that Jesus holds the keys of death and Hades? The person who holds the keys controls access. The person with the keys opens and closes.
Imagine what this meant to John as he wasted away on Patmos, perhaps wondering if he would die there. Imagine what it meant to the believers in these early churches who would read John’s record of this encounter with Jesus. Some of them had seen their loved ones taken from them and thrown to the lions and perhaps then lived each day and night wondering if they would be next. Imagine the comfort and confidence it must have given them to hear Jesus say, “I’m in charge of death and the place you go when you die.” It meant that they didn’t have to be afraid that someone or something might prematurely take their lives or the lives of those they loved.
And neither do we.7
Because Jesus is in charge of life and death, Jesus says to you and me today, “I’ve got the keys in my hand to the place of the dead. No one goes there unless and until I open that door. I hold the keys because I died. I went into the place of the dead myself and emerged with the keys in my hand. I can open the gates of eternal death for those who don’t want me, and I can shut the gates of eternal death and open up the gates of heaven to those who want to live forever with me.”
Have you needed to hear Jesus say, “Don’t be afraid. I hold the keys to death”? I have.
In 1998 my husband and I had a daughter we named Hope. That name seemed to fly in the face of everything about her life because, from the world’s way of looking at things, Hope’s life was hopeless. Hope was born with a rare metabolic disorder called Zellweger Syndrome. It meant that she was missing a tiny subcellular particle that rids the cells of toxins. On her second day of life, a geneticist told us that there was no treatment, no cure, and that most children with the syndrome live less than six months.
So when we took Hope home from the hospital, we weren’t taking her home to live with us; we were taking her home to die.
I remember when that reality began to really hit me after we’d been home a couple of weeks. We know everyone will die someday, but this was different. I realized that the day was quickly approaching when Hope would either die in my arms or I would go to her crib and find her dead. And fear began to settle in on me. I feared what her death would be like—for her and for me—and how difficult her life might become as we waited for that day to come.
Hope was with us 199 days. The day I dreaded came when David got up in the middle of the night to check on her, and she was cold to the touch.
Jesus, the one who holds the keys to death, opened the door for her.
You may have also faced a day like that, a death like that. Or maybe you have a deep-seated fear about the death of someone you love. Or maybe it’s your own death that fills you with fear. This is why we really need to gaze intently at the glorified, resurrected Jesus that John presents for us in the words of this book. Through the words of this book, Jesus reaches out to us, assuring us that we don’t have to be afraid, because he holds the keys to death.
Because Jesus emerged from death with the keys of death in his hand, and because he is alive forevermore, the day is coming when Jesus is going to give Hope, and you and me, a glorious resurrection body that looks like his! One day, Paul tells us in Philippians, Jesus is going to “transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself” (Phil. 3:21). One day, he who holds the keys to death is going to lock the door to death for good and throw away the keys. As we’ll read later in Revelation, “death shall be no more” (21:4).
Aren’t we blessed to have this kind of hope and assurance?
Hearing and Keeping Revelation 1:9–20
Hearing and keeping John’s message in this passage may mean that we must begin to see ourselves as partners in the tribulation that is in Jesus. We may need to readjust our expectations of the Christian life away from a life in which Jesus protects us from every earthly harm and the Father answers all of our prayers in the affirmative, on our timetable.
Hearing and keeping this part of Revelation is going to look like patiently persevering through being misunderstood, criticized, sidelined, disregarded, mistreated, and perhaps even worse, because of our affiliation with and affection for Jesus. Keeping this word is going to mean that instead of resenting the tribulation that is part of being a citizen of his kingdom, we expect it, even rejoice in it, because John has given us a glimpse of the King. We find that seeing the glorified and ascended Jesus in his eternal, authoritative, powerful, triumphant, compassionate reality is what we need to patiently endure the tribulation inherent in being in Jesus until his kingdom comes.
As we take in this vision of Jesus as he is now in all of his resurrected glory, it causes us to sense the penetrating gaze of his eyes like a flame of fire. It makes us want to build our lives on his solid foundation. We want his voice in our lives to be unavoidable and unignorable.
As we hear the powerful, penetrating voice of Jesus saying to us, “Don’t be afraid . . . I hold the keys to Death,” it begins to change everything about the way we think about life and death. We’re not so afraid anymore. We can surrender our need to always be in control, confident that Jesus not only holds the keys in his hands; he holds us in his hands as well.
We live in a world where everything is reduced so we can take it in quickly and easily. Blog posts usually have about eight hundred words, and tweets are limited to 280 characters. How different is Jesus as he is revealed in Revelation 1. Instead of reducing Jesus to simplified, understandable, manageable terms, the vision that John was given and wrote down for us expands our vision and engages our imagination. It causes us to open ourselves up to someone bigger and grander and more captivating and commanding than we’ve ever seen before. And we find ourselves blessed—blessed by seeing the glorified Jesus.
1 Herbert Lockyer, All the Apostles of the Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1972), 97.
2 Richard D. Phillips, Revelation, Reformed Expository Commentary (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2000), 61.
3 Phillips, Revelation, 64.
4 Thomas Schreiner, Hebrews–Revelation, ESV Expository Commentary (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2018), 564.
5 G. K. Beale with David H. Campbell, Revelation: A Shorter Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2015), 48.
6 Tim Keller (@timkellernyc), Twitter, September 12, 2014.
7 A form of the previous two paragraphs first appeared in my book, Hearing Jesus Speak into Your Sorrow (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale, 2009), 143–44.