What is this Book really all about? Is it some dragon and the Antichrist? Is it all just about Israel of old? Almost all phases of Christianity have one thing or the other to say about this Book. There are some who say the Book is already fulfilled in AD 70 because Israel is the Babylon the great mentioned therein, therefore it’s already a fulfilled Book and so we have nothing to do with it. Yes! The word says “ the things that shortly come to pass” surely for the seven churches that he was writing to, he sure visited them, but does that exclude the fact that the Book is an ongoing continuous fulfilling Book,?
For the author himself is ever living and knowing that he was writing to his Body the Church? Is it not possible to have a repeat of these things that happened in those seven churches today, therefore having a repeat of what he promised them then? The promise of giving the tree of life to the overcomer, must it end with those Churches in Asia? Is the tree of life an old tree that has passed away or that is it Christ himself? Is it not true that all that the seven churches overcome could be our
Christian Journeying to maturity as we overcome them and so receiving the promise therein?
In fact verse 3 says “3 Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand.”
And we know that the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of Prophecy. So the prophecy here should be about Jesus.
So does it mean it was only the seven churches that should have been blessed by reading or understanding this prophecy or that it can extent to us today.
Rev. 1:18 I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death. (KJV). Is he living today a past event? Again, he describes himself as “Rev. 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”
Is this coming, just to only the seven Churches or just the destruction of Israel in AD 70?. Can’t we see that this is an ever continuous coming to all men that ever lived from Adam that they might be redeemed as well? “As in Adam all die even so in Christ shall all be made alive”?
Why am I bothered about this? Simply because the title of this Book revealed something beyond a fulfilled eschatology as men so want us to believe.
Rev.1: 1 “The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John”
Now, this is a revelation of a person and not just an event. Not just a historical account of one man that lived and died, but never rose again. This man lives forever therefore, his words lives forever to all ages past and even future. It’s about a person and not just a Jerusalem event or an Antichrist to be revealed in the future, neither is it about world events.
If we can’t see anything more revealed and useful to us today from this Book, then we should have nothing to do with the four Gospels of Mathew, Mark, Luke and John because they are and were the historical account of Jesus life, therefore they are all fulfilled Books.
To be continued….
© Dr. David O. Ogaga