Who Does John Say Is The Speaker In Revelation 1 And What Is He Claiming
Revelation 1
1 The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to show unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John:
2 Who bare record of the word of God, and of the testimony of Jesus Christ, and of all things that he saw.
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.
4 John to the seven churches which are in
5 And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood,
6 And hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.
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.
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.
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
10 I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet,
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
12 And I turned to see the voice that spake with me. And being turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks;
13 And in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle.
14 His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire;
15 And his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters.
16 And he had in his right hand seven stars: and out of his mouth went a sharp two edged sword: and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength.
17 And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as
dead. And he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; I am the first and the last:
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.
19 Write the things which
thou hast seen, and the things which are, and the things which shall be
hereafter;
20 The mystery of the
seven stars which thou sawest in my right hand, and the seven golden
candlesticks. The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches: and the
seven candlesticks which thou sawest are the seven churches.
The Speaker Is Jesus And
He Is Among Other Things Claiming That He Is Jehovah
Equals can be substituted for equals – Almighty by definition means Jehovah
From the outset revelation 1 is defined as a revelation of Jesus Christ. Thus telling us that the subject of this chapter is Jesus at least until something is said to the contrary. Verse 2 John talks about this revelation is from he who was and is and is to come (Jesus), that he is reporting the word of God and a testimony of Jesus Christ. Verse 4 goes on to extend grace form Jesus and the seven spirits before his throne. John goes on praises to Jesus Christ up to verse eight. And says Amen.
Verse 9 begins a testimony which he alluded to in verse 2. The speaker who is in red indicating Jesus speaks of himself as being the Alpha, Omega and the Almighty.
Some claim that both Jesus and Jehovah are indicated by red writing. Though I don’t know of any scripture where Jehovah is clearly the speaker and the translator utililizes red writing.)
Some
claim that the
speaker falls short of claiming that he
is the Almighty God, but rather simply
claims that he is the Almighty. This
rebuttal is on the face of it without merit for several reasons.
Webster defines Almighty as:
often capitalized: having absolute power over all *Almighty God*
Hebrew/Greek dictionary defines Almighty As:
3841.
pantokratwr pantokrator , pan-tok-rat'-ore;
From
3956 and 2904 ; the all ruling , that is, God (as
absolute and universal sovereign ).
:--Almighty,
Omnipotent.
You simply can not have two Almighty beings running around the universe, even if we changed the definition of Almighty to mean the mightiest of all. You simply can not have two heavy weight champions of the world or universe
A legal called Occam's Razor states that the simplest explanation is the best explanation an general it is right.
·
The term Almighty is used 57 times in the bible.
There are only 5 occasions where the term “Almighty God” or “God Almighty is
used. All other times (52) the term “the
Almighty” is used. Over 95 percent of
the time (50 out of those 52) the term is clearly used to describe the
attributes of Jehovah.
· The implication is that the Lord giveth power and the Lord can take it away.
So we can see that the word Almighty, without an adjective to clarify it, means Almighty God Jehovah
Many Gods Vs One God
For though there be that are
called gods, whether in heaven or in earth, (as there be gods many, and lords
many,)
Verse 5 and verse 4 is often seen as introducing mutually exclusive concepts. That one is true and the other is false.
1. There is but one God.
2. There are lords many and gods many.
This represents an either or thinking.
A both/and approach eliminates this apparent contradiction. The purpose of parenthesis is to clarify what
has already been established without the parenthesis. Then what is in parenthesis reinforces what
has been established outside the parenthesis.
Let's examine what is said outside the parenthesis.
1 Corinthians 8:4-7
4. So then, about eating food
sacrificed to idols: We know that an idol is nothing at all in the world and
that there is no God but one.
5. For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on
earth (….), NIV
6. yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all
things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ,
through whom all things came and through whom we live.
7. But not everyone knows this. Some people are still so
accustomed to idols that when they eat such food they think of it as having
been sacrificed to an idol, and since their conscience is weak, it is defiled.
Herman's Comments
What is in parenthesis must clarify what has already been
established. There is but one God. All
other so called gods are false gods with no power in them. There can be no god without power. Why doesn't everyone know this? Matthew Henry's commentary expresses this
idea in a lengthy and accurate manner.
So far the scripture has established that the speaker in verse 8 is Jesus because verse 2 prompts us for a testimony of Jesus Christ. So far we haven’t heard any other testimony other than verse 8. Furthermore, we know that the speaker is Jesus because the prelude verse 7 declares that everyone will look up and see Jesus whom they pierced coming on a cloud. Upon arrival he begins to speak in verse 8.
Some assert that verse 7 ends with Amen thus ending the thought
process, thus giving verse eight a reasonable probability of starting a new
thought process and a new speaker.
We must note that verse 6 ended with Amen which was followed by verse 7
with ended with Amen. In addition verse
18 places Amen in the middle of a sentence.
This makes it quite clear that Amen did not end the thought process and
prepared for a new speaker. Furthermore,
whoever the speaker is in verse 8 is the same speaker in verse 11 and verses 17
through 20. We know this because each of
those sections begins with the same I am the Alpha and the Omega. Given that there is only one speaker that speaker must be the
testimony of Jesus Christ.
Verses 10 through 12 establish that John heard a voice behind him. That voice began to speak again. The voices declaration was similar as before “I am the Alpha and the Omega”. John turned around to see who was speaking to him. John went on to describe the physical features of the speaker. Upon seeing him John fell down as if dead. This is a behavior typical of men who thought they saw God. The speaker began to identify himself. He defined himself as someone who was alive, died and came back to life. He also defined himself as having the keys to hell and death. These are all attributes of Jesus. Therefore, we know that the speaker was Jesus not Jehovah. Nevertheless, the speaker defined himself as the Alpha, Omega and the Almighty. Thus it would be wise to use a Hebrew or Greek dictionary or lexicon to view the definition of these terms from within the Hebrew or Greek culture which it was written. We should not limit our source of reference to American English customs or dictionary.
Some
say that Alpha means the beginning.
Therefore, Jesus must have had a beginning if he is referring to himself
as the Alpha.
This
thinking ignores the fact that Jesus also refers to himself as the Omega
therefore by the same logic Jesus would have to have an end. Furthermore, this analysis ignores the
setting. Alpha is not used in
isolation. Rather, it is used in
conjunction with Omega. The usage of the
two extremes of an idea is known in Greek literature as a merism and appears in both prose and
poetry. Merism occurs when a writer
mentions the extremes of some category in order to portray it as a totality,
e.g., the opposites and everything in between them. One common form of merism
is the use of from the least of them to the greatest (Jer 31:34b). "Good
and evil" is a merism meaning "everything" (Ge 2:17).
Finally, we know that the Alpha And Omega refers to Jesus because Jesus tells us in Revelation 22:13, 16 that he is,
Therefore, to say that Jesus is the Alpha and the Omega, and to say that Jehovah is the Alpha and the Omega is to say that neither one has a beginning or end because they are the beginning and the end and everything in-between. . To know weather someone else is in contradiction with Gods Word, you must do some research.
In conclusion Jesus who is the beginning and the ending and everything in-between is also the Almighty, which is none other than Jehovah. Jesus was given a name above all other names. Jesus was given the name Jehovah or yeh-ho-vaw'. Jehovah and yeh-ho-vaw' are Hebrew words. The same word translated to Greek by the septuage, is kurios. To add clarity to that thought when the bible (the old testament) was read in public in the temple during Jesus’ day, it was read to a Greek audience, although it was written in Hebrew. Consistent with the septuage, the translator would read a phrase like “the LORD God made the earth’. In Hebrew, it would for LORD was yeh-ho-vaw'. The word was translated to Greek word kurios. This name kurios is the same word for Lord in the new testament when referring to Jesus.