Revelation 1:1-8

SPECIAL DOCTRINO-ETHICAL AND HOMILETICAL NOTES (ADDENDUM)

Section First

Prologue (Revelation 1:1-8)

General.—Of God.—Of Revelation.—Of witness [Martyrium].—Of visions.—Of Divine service.—Of the Church.—Of the Trinity.—Of salvation.—Of the destination of Christians.—Of the Coming of Christ, in order to the complete revelation of God.

Special.—[Revelation 1:1.] Revelation as the Apocalypse, the end and crown of revelations.—-The end and crown of the Biblical Books.—The end and crown of the doctrines of the Christian faith.—The end and crown of paræneses.

[Revelation 1:2.] The Apostles as the great martyrs or witnesses of Christ:—Of His past, present, future [or coming].—John, in respect to his import in a doctrinal and a homiletical point of view.—John as the Seer of spirit in realities (the Gospel) and of realities in spirit (the Apocalypse).—The vision as a sign of the depth of the inner human life, and the height of the ripened Christian life.—[Revelation 1:3.] Blessedness of the Christian in anticipation of the Coming of Christ.—The always certain nearness of the last time in the rapid course and change of Christian times.—The Coming of Christ in every Christian age.—Christian worship in the simple ground-form of readers and hearers.—Common blessedness of the leading and the led in a true cultus.—[Revelation 1:4-5.] As the all-embracing idiocrasy of Christ is divided and reflected in the Apostles, so the idiocrasies of the Apostles are divided and reflected in those of the Church.—The Seven Churches in the deepest reality One Church.—The Trinity of God in the glory of its revelation: The Father, as the Primal Source of grace and peace—Who is, Who was, and Who cometh; The Holy Ghost in the manifestations of the Seven Spirits before the Throne of the Divine Rule; The Son of God, as the Faithful Witness, the First-born from the dead; as the Prince of the kings of the earth; as He Who hath loved us and washed us from our sins in His blood.—The grace which is upon Christians, and the peace which is in them, an eternally new benedictive greeting from the Triune God.—[Revelation 1:6.] The high calling of Christians, by which they are made a kingdom of priests; how this calling is realized for them, and how it becomes realized in them.—Kings and priests considered in respect of their connection: 1. Kings and priests, in the sense of their degeneracy, alternately war and conspire against each other; 2. Kings and priests, in the sense of the worldly order of things, mutually balance and limit each other; 3. Kings and priests, as servants of God, in the sense of the spiritual life, are one, and mutually condition each other.—A man becomes a king, in the service of God, only when he continually sacrifices or surrenders all things to Him in pure self-renunciation, as a priest.—A man becomes a priest of the Eternal Spirit only when he can administer kingly possessions in kingly freedom.—The first doxology: 1. Glory; 2. Dominion; 3. Both to continue into the æons.—Whereby can I perceive that God is glorified on earth? 1. When no earthly glory obscures, like a cloud, this heavenly Sun. 2. When His glory is duly seen and appreciated in the reflected lustre of all that is holy and glorious on earth.—In God’s Kingdom, His dominion is based upon His glory, as is His glory upon His dominion.—What is the meaning of eternities [æons? the G. V. has: von Ewigkeit zu Ewigkeit=from eternity to eternity]? Infinite revelation of the Divine Essence. Infinite unfolding of a blessed life. Infinite development and unveilment of the world.—The Biblical Amen: The perfected Personality of Christ; Perfected phase of the Kingdom; Perfected certitude of prayer.—[Revelation 1:7.] The Theme of the Book: He cometh.—Also the theme of worldly history; of religious presentiments; of science and of art.—With the clouds. As high and free as are the clouds as they emerge to view out of the depths of Heaven; as hidden and as manifest as the lightning in the cloud; as elevated above the earth, and as surely destined for the earth.—And every eye shall see Him. One day these eyes of ours shall show to each and all of us the Lord.—How this announcement finds its incipient fulfillment in every act of worship that we perform: We look up to Him. We perceive ourselves to be guilty in respect of the cross of Christ. We celebrate His Passion and His Death with sacred lamentations for the Dead.—This prophecy shall one day become a completed reality.—With Christ’s Coming Sunday comes; true and unceasing worship comes; the word of revelation comes upon the whole earth.—Even His enemies must see Him; must recognize their guilt in respect of Him in their guilt in respect of their inmost selves; must join, in one way or another, in the last lamentation over Him.—[Revelation 1:8.] In the Coming of Christ, God shall perfectly manifest Himself as Jehovah, the Covenant God:—faithful to Himself—faithful to His people—faithful to His justice toward all.—Alpha and Omega; or the most profound idea elementarily illustrated. As the whole expression embraces the entire spirit-world, so the Spirit of God comprehends the beginning, the middle, and the end of things.—Import of the fact that God will not perfectly manifest Himself until the end of the course of this world; that He is utterly distinct from (1) fate, (2) despotism, (3) arbitrariness, (4) chance.—On the Martyrs.—On Divine Service.—On the Feast of Trinity.—On Confirmation.

Comp. Exodus 19:0.; Isaiah 6:0.; Ezekiel 1:0.; Daniel 7:0.; Zechariah 12:0.; Matthew 24:30, et al.

Starke: All revelations of God come to us through Christ.—The most eminent function of an Apostle or Teacher is to testify of Christ.—Such a reading and hearing of Holy Scripture as is pleasing to God, confers blessedness.—The wish: [1] The utterer of the wish; [2] The objects of the wish; [3] The subject of the wish; [4] The One to Whom the wish is addressed.—Cramer: The condition of a Christian a noble condition.—Ναὶ, ἀμὴν est gemina confirmatio, una græca, altera hebraica.

Sander (“Versuch einer Erklärung,” 1829, see p. 73): If the Revelation of John be compared with the rest of the Sacred Writings, especially those of the Prophets, it will be found that John uses scarce any image that is not contained in these and that might not be explained through them. Compare Revelation 1:0. and Ezekiel 1:26; Isaiah 6:0., etc. (Moreover, the homogeneousness of the images presupposes the homogeneousness of the facts.) Only in John’s writings all those things which in the other Prophets are more scattered, are concentrated; he catches, as it were, in the focus of a burning-glass all the rays of individual Prophets, so that it is not to be wondered at that the brightness thence resultant dazzles many.

Waechtler (see p. 74): A knowledge of the Revelation of St. John is highly important for all Christians (Revelation 1:1-3)—Grace and peace from God, the inexhaustible Fountain of all comfort (Revelation 1:4-6).

Böhmer (see p. 73): In the Christian creed, the Holy Ghost is placed after the Father and the Son, as proceeding from Them both. John, however, is writing, not a system of divinity, but a sacred history, in which the general point of departure is the all-sovereign eternal God; next are revealed the powers which prepare the way for the fulfillment of His counsel of salvation, and last comes Christ Himself—first, as the true and highest Prophet, the “faithful Witness,” then as the “First-born of the dead,” and finally as the “Prince of the kings of the earth.”

[Barnes: Revelation 1:7. And every eye shall see Him. Every one has this in certain prospect, that he shall see the Son of Man coming as a Judge.]

On the literature (see above, p. 74). Lilienthal, Bibl. Archivarius, p. 808.—Danz, p. 57 and Supplement, p. 6.