Revelation

Overview – December 2019 – Grace & Truth Magazine

Revelation

“I, Jesus, have sent My angel to testify to you these things in the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, the Bright and Morning Star.” — Revelation 22:16 NKJV

Revelation, written by John the apostle, is a prophetic summing up of God’s ways with man. A history that began in Genesis in pure freshness and simplicity now ends in great involvements and complications occasioned by man’s accumulated guilt and willful disorder. But our great God in calm, majestic deliberation unravels the tangled mess and judges in perfect time and order according to His divine wisdom.

The three major divisions in the book, given in Revelation 1:19, will be of great help to the student. First is: “the things which you have seen” (Rev. 1); then “the things which are” (Rev. 2–3); and finally “the things which will take place after this” or “after these things” (Rev. 4–22). The first is past; the second present, applying to the church age; and the third is future. In chapters 2–3 the Lord Jesus is seen in divine, judicial discernment as to the state of seven assemblies in Asia Minor, which was a large portion of modern Turkey. The Lord’s evaluations of these churches were and are prophetic of the entire history of the Church, from its inception to His coming – the rapture. Judgment must begin at the house of God (1 Pet. 4:17; see 1 Tim. 3:15).

The victory of the Lord Jesus over all things, His millennial kingdom, His great white throne judgment, and the eternal glory of God in the new heavens and the new earth are some of the great issues of the book. What a glorious culmination of the magnificent counsels of God!

How fitting, too, that this last word from God should declare blessing for those who read, hear and keep its sacred truths.

By Leslie M. Grant

This column is taken from the book: “The Bible, Its 66 Books In Brief.”
It is available for purchase from Believers Bookshelf USA and Believers Bookshelf Canada.