Revelation 1:11 “Saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last: and, What thou seest, write in a book, and send it unto the seven churches which are in Asia; unto Ephesus, and unto Smyrna, and unto Pergamos, and unto Thyatira, and unto Sardis, and unto Philadelphia, and unto Laodicea.”
“Saying, I am Alpha and Omega,”
Alpha and omega is literally the letter A and Z in the Greek alphabet, so God is saying that I am the beginning and the last, the ending.
“the first and the last:”
Showing that He has no time, He never had a beginning nor an ending.
“and, What thou seest, write in a book,”
God’s telling John, whatever he sees, he’s got to write it in the book.
“and send it unto the seven churches which are in Asia;”
Whatever John sees in the book of Revelation, he’s going to write it down and send it to the 7 churches in Asia Minor.
“unto Ephesus, and unto Smyrna, and unto Pergamos, and unto Thyatira, and unto Sardis, and unto Philadelphia, and unto Laodicea.”
Meaning of the churches’ names
Ephesus: fully purposed
Smyrna: myrth
Pergamos: much marriage
Thyatira: odor of affliction
Sardis: red ones
Philadelphia: brotherly love
Laodicea: civil rights
As we read through the book of Revelation, we have to know 3 applications:
- Doctrinal
A specific truth that is aimed toward a specific point. Doctrine means teaching. If we see something in a verse, we’re going to take it as it is and we’re going to apply that truth.
In Revelation 2 and 3, we’re going to read about doing works for salvation as well as blotting out the name out of the book of life, so that is a specific truth that we take and believe in but we do know that it’s going to be at a tribulation timeline. - Historical
Understanding the history of that timeline.
At the history of that timeline, John is writing to these 7 churches, to these local churches, so this is a real-life situation. We notice how it differs from doctrine.
What people automatically do is combine the applications altogether rather than dividing them. If we don’t divide, we are going to come across problems and inconsistencies in the bible. - Spiritual
We take a verse and spiritualize it so that we can turn it into a valuable lesson.
For example, the passage about the children of Israel who are eating quails in the wilderness. Spiritually, the quails represented flesh, the lust of the flesh and the Jews spiritually were representing the church.
The majority of cults spiritualize verses in the Bible. William Lane Craig spiritualizes a passage about the wolf lying down with the lamb and the young lion with the calf into some strange conundrum about what happens during Isaiah’s timeline, that it was just a picture. Jehovah’s Witnesses look at Revelation 7 where it mentions 12 tribes of Israel, they can’t take it as it says so they spiritualize it and say that it’s referring to 144,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Spiritualizing passages is actually pretty dangerous because we leave verses.
But here’s another problem, there is another group out there called mid-acts or hyper dispensationalists who go by so much doctrine that they avoid spiritual truths. For example, we know that the book of Revelation is applied to tribulation doctrine but that doesn’t mean that we’re going to drop off the book and not get any spiritual lesson out of it.
Psalms 22:1 “(To the chief Musician upon Aijeleth Shahar, A Psalm of David.) My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring?”
What application can we see from here?
Historically, it’s referring to David’s timeline, this is what he’s saying.
Doctrinally, this is referring to Messiah Jesus Christ. What did He say on the cross? My god, my god, why hast thou forsaken me?
Spiritually, we may feel like the one who’s crying out in verse 1.
Book of Psalms is a prophetic book, Revelation already gave us a hint that it’s a book of prophecy. When we cover prophetic books, we better have all 3 applications ready.
When it comes to prophecies or the word of God, it’s very important to understand that it is not bound by time because God can see things now in the past and see things in the future in the past, etc. God is not bound by time, He is eternal.
In Isaiah 53, the verse says he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities. Isaiah 53 is talking about the crucifixion of Jesus but it’s in the past tense. It’s not a problem, it’s still referring to the future prophecy of Jesus because He is not bound by time. That’s why in Revelation 2 and 3, even though John is historically writing to the churches there and he wrote in the present tense, it is a doctrinal application to the tribulation.
In the general epistles from the book of Hebrews to Jude, even though they were writing to Christian churches at that time, it’s the same thing as Revelation, they’ll be talking about tribulation doctrine. Some people think that because John says he’s writing to the church in the books of 2 or 3 John, that this is a Christian epistle, it cannot apply to the tribulation so they take the book of James and 1 John and they tried to apply that to the Christian church.
We can’t do that, 1 John, James, and Hebrews refer a lot to the tribulation period even if we want to apply it to the church. It’s important to understand the biblical interpretation of hermeneutics. If we don’t know this, we’re going to come up with wrong doctrines because God already taught us that ever since the Old Testament about His coming Messiah Jesus Christ. If He used these 3 applications, He’s going to do the same thing at the New Testament.