Revelation 1:10

10. Was Became, again; the word designates his transition.

In the Spirit Spirit-wrapt. Compare Revelation 4:2; Revelation 21:10. If the man’s own spirit were meant, we might suppose the thought to be that the consciousness had ascended from the lower ground of sense, and so mounted into the spirit as to be in communication with the spirit world.

But the divine Spirit is doubtless meant; and the thought is, that the human spirit is in the divine Spirit as in a divine atmosphere, in which things of the spirit world are seen, known, and uttered. So, “How then does David in spirit call him Lord?” Matthew 22:43. “No man speaking by (Greek in) the Spirit of God, calleth Jesus accursed.” 1 Corinthians 12:3. In that supernatural state a mental production is put forth impossible to the same man’s natural powers alone. This Apocalypse is, indeed, the product of John’s mind, yet of his mind raised into a higher spiritual atmosphere. As in a divinely inspired waking dream, he thinks through a series of divine conceptions with an immediate spontaneity. The conceptions are divinely suggested to his mind, and so are, by him, thought and recorded. Under divine stimulation the language of his narrative, save where reciting the words of others, is his own.

The Lord’s day A phrase parallel to “the Lord’s supper,” 1 Corinthians 11:20, (where see note,) and similarly indicating that the institution was established by our Lord. See our notes on Mark 2:27; John 20:26; Acts 20:7; 1 Corinthians 16:2.

The early Christian writers applied the word sabbath to the Jewish Saturday-sabbath, and called the Christian sabbath “the Lord’s day,” yet without thereby admitting that the Lord’s day was not the decalogue sabbath. It was of the heretical sect of Ebionites that Theodoret said, “They keep the sabbath according to Jewish law, and sanctify the Lord’s day in like manner as we do.” Says Stuart: “A party in the Christian Church adhered to this usage so long and so tenaciously that finally the Council of Laodicea (about A.D. 350) made a decree that “Christians should no longer keep the seventh day by refraining from labour.” The Church historian, Eusebius, who had all the Christian literature on the subject at command, is quoted by Stuart as saying, in his commentary on Psalm xcii: “The Word,” (that is, Christ,) “by the new covenant, translated and transferred the feast of the sabbath to the morning light, and gave as the symbol of true rest namely, the Lord’s day the first day of the light in which the Saviour… obtained the victory over death, etc. On this day… we assemble, after an interval of six days, and celebrate the holy spiritual sabbath; even all nations redeemed by him throughout the world, and do those things according to the spiritual laws which were decreed for the priests to do on the sabbath.… All things whatever that it was their duty to do on the sabbath, these we have transferred to the Lord’s day, as more appropriate to it, because it has a precedence, and is first in rank; and more honourable than the Jewish sabbath. It is traditionally handed down to us, that we should meet together on this day; and it is ordered that we should do these things announced in the Psalm.”

And heard behind me This sublime Christophany must dawn upon St. John gradually, lest he be fatally overpowered, as in fact he was laid by it as dead. Revelation 1:17. He first only hears, and that a voice, loud, indeed, but behind him. He turns, and the candlesticks first are seen, and then the radiant person.

A great voice Not the voice of Christ, as appears by Revelation 4:1; where see note, and also Revelation 10:4.

[REFERENCES. 1. Port of La Scala; 2. Port of Sapsila; 3. Port of Gricon; 4. Port Merica; 5. Small Western Creek; 6. Port of Diacorta; 7. Town and Monastery of Patmos; 8. Cave of the Apocalypse. Below figure 8 is traced the paved road from the harbour to the town on the hill, leaving the Apocalyptic Grotto, or cave, on the left hand.]