Revelation 1:7 “Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen.”
“Behold, he cometh with clouds;”
So, Jesus Christ is going to come in clouds.
“and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him:”
They’re going to see Him when He’s coming on the clouds. The Jews who pierced Him will also see Him.
“and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen.”
They’re going to weep and mourn when they see Jesus Christ coming.
Notice that this coming is distinguished from 1 Corinthians 15:52.
1 Corinthians 15:52 “In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.”
1 Corinthians 15:51 Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,
Revelation 1:7 is a public coming of Jesus where every eye shall see but in 1 Corinthians 15:52, ‘in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye’, this is just a blink, it doesn’t say in public that every eye shall see. ‘for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.’: this is referring to the rapture. In verse 51, this is a mystery. We believe in a pre-tribulation rapture which is different from His second advent. A lot of people confuse the pre-tribulation rapture and they combine that with Revelation 1:7 thinking the rapture has to happen after the tribulation with everyone seeing Jesus coming down and rule over the world. No, there’s a huge difference here.
If you look at eschatology, as we’re in the church age right now and that’s different from the tribulation. Before the tribulation starts, 1 Corinthians 15: twinkling of an eye, mystery, the rapture happens. Then people go through the tribulation and then they see Jesus Christ coming down to rule over this world. Rapture means like raptor, snatching, caught away. That’s why it’s twinkling of an eye, there’s a difference between in a moment and coming down and ruling over the world.
Revelation 1:8 “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.”
“I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord,”
“which is,”
present tense.
“and which was,”
past tense.
“and which is to come, the Almighty.”
future tense.
“the Almighty.”
Revelation 1:8 should be marked down to be used against Jehovah’s Witnesses. They teach that Jesus Christ is the firstborn of God’s creation but this verse says that He has no beginning or end. He is omnipresent. Past, present, future cannot hold our Savior down. Some Jehovah’s Witnesses say that Jesus is only the mighty god but not the almighty. Revelation 1:8 says that He is the Almighty God.
Revelation 1:9 “I John, who also am your brother, and companion in tribulation, and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, was in the isle that is called Patmos, for the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ.”
“I John,”
John is speaking here.
“who also am your brother, and companion in tribulation,”
John is speaking as if he is our brother in Christ and a companion as well in the tribulation. This can be used for 2 things:
- For tribulation based on Romans 5:3
Here it can refer to anguish and suffering. Look at Romans 5:3, the line is referring to persecutions and sufferings. Christians go through the same thing too and he is our companion. - Post-tribulation people sometimes use this to prove Christians are in the tribulation. Let’s give them the benefit of doubt that this can refer to a tribulation timeline, and the next part of the verse says:
“and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ,”
If we read Revelation 12 and 14, the patience of the saints who are going through the tribulation, they’re going through the tribulation of the Antichrist, and they’re waiting for the kingdom to come. The simple answer is to notice in verse 10, John says that he was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day and remember Revelation 1:1 that this is the revelation of Jesus Christ to John. What’s going on here is that the Lord transports John into that timeline and he’s speaking as if he is in it right now even though that hasn’t happened yet. So, this could be referring to a tribulation epistle but this would support more on dispensational teaching that this book is applied to the tribulation timeline, not Christians in the church. Dispensationalism means to rightly divide things to the right time period and group of people. We don’t believe all books in our Bible apply to us, if we do that then we might as well stone everyone to death for breaking the Sabbath and taking God’s name in vain. We know that those verses apply to a different group of people, different timelines, just like Revelation is as well.
vs 9 “was in the isle that is called Patmos, for the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ.”
John was under persecution and exiled to an isle called Patmos for standing up for God and for having a good testimony of Jesus.
Revelation 1:10 “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet,”
“I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day,”
John is saying that he’s right now in the spirit on the Lord’s day.
The Lord’s day is wrongly used by some people as of Sunday but that’s not what it’s referring to. Lord’s day equates to ‘day of the Lord’. Look up ‘day of the Lord’ in the Bible and see if it refers to Sunday. The day of the Lord cometh where people will scream and gnash their teeth and blood is all over and he will kill everyone in the city: does that sound like a typical Sunday? This is utmost proof that we better be careful when we read John’s writings, it can refer to a tribulation timeline.
John is speaking in the present tense as if he is in the tribulation so if we read Revelation 2 and 3, it consists of so many verses where it seems like we can lose our salvation, our name blotted out of the book of life but he’s speaking in the present tense to those churches. The simple answer is this: even though he’s writing to these churches at the present tense, he’s writing in the tribulation timeline, he was in the spirit on the Lord’s day so he’s writing as if he’s writing towards the tribulation timeline.
And here’s something more interesting:
“and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet,”
John was right here in that timeline of the tribulation and behind him was the trumpet voice, which is the rapture. So he’s speaking within a tribulation timeline.