Revelation 1:9

PART FIRST.

THE CHRISTOPHANIC APOCALYPSE, Revelation 1:9 to Revelation 3:22.

The Christophany, and first prophetic commission, Revelation 1:9-20.

The Apocalypse proper now commences. St. John gives a narrative of the first Christophany, or appearance of Christ to him, 9-11, describes his person, 12-18; and recites his own commission, from the Saviour received, 19, 20. This is the first of John’s three commissions; the second is at chapters 4, 5; the third at chapter x; forming the threefold Apocalypse.

9. 1 John After the “I Daniel,” of Daniel 7:28; Daniel 9:2; Daniel 10:2. So the Apocalypse is a carrying out and completion of the prophecies of Ezekiel, Daniel, and Zechariah. And thus he equalizes himself to the prophets of the Old Testament, assuming that his book is to take a parallel canonical stand; an assumption impossible to be successful for any one but an apostle.

Your brother For he had no need, like Paul, to thunder forth his apostolic title after his name.

Tribulation… kingdom… patience Between the two sad words tribulation and patience the joyous word kingdom bravely sparkles forth. It is a kingdom in the midst of sorrow and struggle. It is a reminder of triumph and power in the very centre of trial. The tribulation, or persecution, is in these sad days the condition of the present kingdom, and the patience, the firm persistence, is the condition of its fuller final realization, to which John’s whole Apocalypse points and at last attains. Of True reading, in Jesus

Christ.

Was in the isle Literally, became in the isle. How he became, by whom sent, he forbears to mention. Clement and Origen call the sender “the tyrant:” and all the early Christian writers named no other than Domitian. But no resentful feeling prompts John to say more than that he became there.

Called Patmos Commentators agree that the word called indicates the entire obscurity of this island-rock before this Apocalypse covered it with a solemn glory. Well known islands, like Crete and Cyprus, have no such prefix.

For the word… testimony For means, on account of; and the words unquestionably signify that John became in Patmos in consequence of his maintaining God’s word and Christ’s testimony to the world. It is true the same words in Revelation 1:2 designate this Apocalypse, just because this Apocalypse is the continuance and reproduction, in written form and in new spirit, of that same word and testimony which he had heretofore maintained at the expense of exile.

At six leagues distance to the S.W. The Apocalyptic Monastery of St. John is seen surmounting the distant heights represented in the central part of the view.