The First Vision
Read Revelation 1:9-11
– Why was John on Patmos?
– What does John being “in the Spirit” and receiving what he does “on the Lord’s day” tell about the content of Revelation?
Read Revelation 1:12-16
When John turned around, he saw what Daniel and Ezekiel had seen in their visions. The Son of Man hails back to Daniel 7:13-14, where Daniel saw the Kingdom symbolized as a man, unlike the Gentile kingdoms, which were symbolized as animals. This reveals Jesus in power, exalted above the kingdoms of the earth. His hair was like the Ancient of Days (Daniel 7:9) and His voice was like the rumbling of God’s glory when it comes near (Ezekiel 43:2). His eyes were like torches and His feet gleamed like bronze (Daniel 10:6). The long robe revealed Jesus as priest (Exodus 28:3, Zechariah 3:4) and the golden sash represented His kingly role as judge (Revelation 15:6).
The seven lampstands represent the seven churches (vs. 20) and the seven stars represent (vs.20) the angels, that is, the messengers of the seven churches.
The Two-Edged Sword
Isaiah 49:2: He [God] made my [Isaiah’s] mouth like a sharp sword.
Wisdom 18:15-16: [On the night the Israelites were delivered from their slavery in Egypt,] your [God’s] all-powerful word leaped from heaven, from the royal throne, into the land of the doomed, a fierce warrior bearing the sharp sword of your authentic command, and stood and filled all things with death and touched heaven while standing on the earth.
Hebrews 4:12: For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
We are not to separate the word, the message, from the Word, Jesus. The word/Word is to come to us as a two-edged sword, killing and making alive, touching heaven while coming to us on earth. The word/Word of God kills and makes alive.
Jesus pointed to this reality when He spoke to His Apostles, telling them that they were to preach “repentance into the forgiveness of sins” (Luke 24:27). The word/Word kills us by bringing us to repent; it/He makes us alive by bringing us into His forgiveness. Those are the two functions of the word/Word—to kill and make alive.
– How does this shape our expectations of the preached word/Word we are to receive in the Divine Service?
Read Revelation 1:17-20
– What did John do when he saw Jesus?
– What did Jesus do after that?
– How does that show the reality of the two-edged Word, Jesus, killing and making alive, being lived out in John’s worship of Jesus?
– For Jesus to tell John, “Do not be afraid,” means what about John’s state of being when He saw Jesus?
– Why would John be afraid?
– What should this teach us about our relationship to God based of our sinfulness?
– What should this reach us about our relationship with God based on His forgiveness?
First and Last
Isaiah 44:6: This is what the Lord, the King of Israel and its Redeemer, the Lord of Hosts, says: “I am the first and I am the last. There is no God but me.”
Isaiah 48:12: “Listen to me,Jacob,Israel, whom I have called: I am he; I am the first, and I am the last.”
– Who is Jesus?
– How do we know this is Jesus speaking?
The Keys of Death and Hades
The Greek word “hades” is almost identical in meaning as the Hebrew word “sheol.” They often mean “place of the dead” or “death” or “the grave.” However, when either term is contrasted with “heaven,” it takes on the more specific meaning of “hell.” When translations use sheol or hades, they are expecting the reader the “get” the meaning from the context. That’s because, in English, we have no single word for “hades”: We have hell, the grave, death, and even such expressions as “the afterlife.” It is context, just like any other word, that let’s us know the meaning.
So, in Revelation 1:18, when Jesus says that He has the keys of death and hades, He does not mean hell. Jesus uses that phrase after He spoke about being dead but now alive and living even forevermore. The context is that Jesus was speaking about life versus death. Jesus is saying that He has power over death and the grave.
An Excursus on Heavenly Worship
When we worship together, gathered in the Divine Name, receiving the saving Gospel, interceding for others in our prayers, and partaking of the Lamb’s Feast, we are not present with some piece or some fraction of the Church. We are present in all her fullness. The words of the Preface in the Church’s liturgy point us this way: “Therefore with angels, and archangels, and with all the company of heaven.”
Hebrews 12:22-24 bears this out when it describes what Christians come to when they gather to worship as Church:
You [the saints on earth in the New Covenant] have come toMountZion, to the city of the living God, the heavenlyJerusalem. You have come to innumerable angels in joyful assembly, to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God, the Judge of all, to the spirits of the righteous made complete, and to Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.
Where you find Jesus the Lord, the Head of the Body, there you will invariably find–not pieces–but the whole of the Body with Him. This, no one can see by sight, but only by faith. Yet, it is the faith of the Church that when we gather, we never gather with less than the whole family of God. This includes all believers alive now, yet to come, and those who have gone ahead, and all the angels and heavenly beings in the book of Revelation. They’re all there. And we’re there with them.
So John, when exiled onPatmos, and “being in the Spirit” on the Lord’s Day, on Sunday, suddenly finds himself no longer alone. There, He sees Jesus showing Himself to, not only to him, but to the saints acrossAsia Minor. From there, the vision opens up bigger and wider, so it includes all creatures in heaven and earth and under the earth. The martyrs are there, crying from under the altar, the 24 elders (patriarchs and apostles) are offering up the prayers of the saints, and glory is everywhere. This is the reality when we worship; we just can’t see it with our physical eyes. But that’s the reality in which the Church lives. That’s the reality of what takes place when we worship.
Since we worship as one Church, our worship is to reflect that. That’s why theNewTestamentChurch, from the beginning, took God’s mandated forms of Old Testament worship and reshaped them the show the fulfillment of that Old Covenant in Jesus Christ. Synagogue worship became the Service of the Word. Templeworship became the Service of the Sacrament.
From the beginning, the Church has always worshiped with these two, twin peaks, reflecting, not only her catholicity [oneness and unity across time and location] on earth, but even with the saints in heaven! And so what takes place in heaven is to shape how we worship on earth.
Of course, this won’t be a perfect match, because we are sinful and they are not. And so because of this, we have confession; they do not. Our hymns instruct us in the faith; theirs do not. But the other aspects of worship should reflect the true nature of who are in Christ, that He is not only with us here but even with the saints in eternity. Therefore, our worship should look heavenly and reflect the eternalness of what takes place in the Divine Service, not the passing fancies of people in a particular culture and time. We are to be brought into the Church’s culture.
Our culture is reflected only insofar as language and music is a reflection of culture. Yet, our culture is never to be the driver of worship but simply the vehicle God uses for His saints in our place and time.
And so what we do see of heavenly worship shapes how our worship takes place on earth. This is what the book of Revelation shows us.
- Takes place on the Lord’s day: 1:10
- Jesus comes to us as our High Priest: 1:13
- Has an altar: 8:3-4, 11:1, 14:18
- Has presbyters (“elders,” that is pastors): 4:4, 11:15, 14:3, 19:4
- Vestments are worn: 1:13, 4:4, 6:11, 7:9, 15:6, 19:13-14
- Lampstands: 1:12, 2:5
- The Church on earth is called to repent: Chapters 2-3
- Incense is used: 5:8, 8:3-5
- Readingsfrom Scripture: Chapters 2-3, 5, and 8:2-11
- Hymns of praise like the “Gloria” and “This is the Feast”: 15:3-5, 12-13; 19:5-9
- The Alleluia: 19:1, 3, 4, and 6
- “Lift up your hearts”: 11:12
- The Sanctus, “Holy, Holy, Holy”: 4:8
- The Amen: 19:4, 22:21
- The Lamb of God: 5:6 and the entire book of Revelation
- Recognizing that we worship with the saints and angels: 5:8, 6:9-10, 8:3-4
- Antiphonal chanting: 4:8-11. 5:9-14, 7:10-12, 18:1-8
- The Church is catholic, not simply a congregation: 7:9
- Celebrates the marriage Supper of the Lamb: 19:9, Chapter 17
Homework
Reflect on heavenly worship. Then, write down where our earthly worship forms succeed and fail in that regard.
To go to Lesson 5, click here.
