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The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show to His bondservants, the things which must shortly take place; and He sent and communicated it by His angel to His bond-servant John,
The REVELATION of Jesus Christ
To reveal something is to bring to our knowledge that which was hidden. We have been given the accounts of Jesus in His human form in the gospels. Now the apostle John is shown by visions the eternal form of Jesus Christ. It is a picture, in the broadest sense, of a Bride (the body of true believers) and Her Bridegroom (Jesus Christ). The first five chapters of Revelation are about the Bride. The middle section is about the Bridegroom preparing for the Marriage to the Bride. And they live happily ever after from Revelation 19 on.
Visions of spiritual nature are not new. One example in the Old Testament was of the dream given to Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and interpreted by Beltashazzar (Daniel) - Daniel 2:27-30 . The visions given to John are either left to us to interpret (from other symbols in the Bible) or are explained directly by an angel.
which God gave HimIn these four words, we are shown how God will be represented during these visions. Jesus is the Son of God. Jesus also contains all of God (Colossians 2:8-9-15). Yet here in the Revelation, Jesus is shown to be a separate person apart from God, the Father. The visions are passed from Father to Son.
to show to His BOND-SERVANTS,
Now Jesus doesn't keep the visions to Himself. He shares them with His servants. A bond servant was one, who after serving a master as slave to repay some indebtedness, could opt to remain as a servant to that master for the rest of his life. When that was agreed to by the master, a hole was pierced into the ear to indicate such a BOND- SERVANT status. This is described in Deuteronomy 15:12-18 . In the same manner, when we totally commit our lives to Christ, we become BOND-SERVANTS of His. Even more beautifully, Jesus Christ agrees to care for us for our ETERNAL life.
the things which must shortly take place;
Time is a relative entity. Anything in the future, since we can't see into the future, is "shortly" or imminent. Depending upon your interpretation of this phrase, "shortly" may have meant 'in John's day'; it may have meant 'from the writing of Revelation until now'; or it may mean 'from the writing and on forever'. Since much that is discussed in this book does not appear to have happened yet, most of the "shortly" remains to occur.
and He sent and communicated it by His angel to His BOND-SERVANT John,
Angels are right in the middle of this revelation process. They play an important role (over 60 times they are mentioned in Revelation alone), in explaining and carrying out the events to occur. To have a heavenly messenger to give the visions is known to occur before - Daniel 10:10-14, 20-21 .
So the Revelation of Jesus Christ comes to us like this:
GOD
|->Jesus
|->angel (see also Revelation 22:16)
|->John, a Bond Servant
|->all Bond Servants
(those who have accepted Christ)
References to the Revelation of Jesus Christ are in bold italics. All other references are in bold only.