Johann Quisumbing

By JQuisumbing

How many of you have ever assembled a jigsaw puzzle with about 3000 pieces? I’m sure there are a few of you that have done it. Bravo! I have tried but had given up quite early in the process. One time, I was trying to put together a 2000 piece puzzle of Michelangelo’s famous Sistine Ceiling. I wished I could have done it. I would have loved to see myself pick up each individual piece (a size a little bit wider than my fingertip), from among a high jumbled pile of jigsaws. I would minutely inspect it over, constantly referring to the puzzle box cover which usually would have the picture of the puzzle on it and determine where this particular piece belonged. Then I would try to find its mate. Oh, the satisfaction I would feel when a number of those pieces fit together and I can see an image emerge. In many ways, studying the Book of Revelation is like this, in my opinion, of course.

In my previous posting, I kinda picked out three jigsaw pieces which I haven’t fit together yet. So far, this is what we got.

1. Revelation was actually translated from the Greek word, apocalypse, which is a word that was wrongly defined in a very big way. 
2. The Holy Spirit reminded me to consider two things about our Savior. The one and only one speaking for God TODAY is Jesus Christ, His Son (Hebrews 1:1,2) and that He chose to deny His Deity as a servant (Philippians 2:6-8) and would only impart what is revealed by His Father. 
3. Then, the Holy Spirit led me to Jesus’ discourse about the ‘end-of-times’ with emphasis that only the Father knows when. (Mark 13:32)

We need to look at more pieces. In the previous article, I focused on this first part of verse 1. 

The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show to His bond-servants, the things which must soon take place. (Revelation 1:1a NLT)

Now, let us complete it.

He sent an angel to present this revelation to his servant John, (Rev 1:1b NLT)

Hold on! Have you wondered why I initially separated the first part of verse 1 from the second part? The obvious observation was that the first part finishes with an end-of-sentence punctuation, the period. Meanwhile, the rest of verse 1, oddly enough, ends with a comma, which indicates that the rest of the sentence is completed in verse 2. By the way, for clarification, I checked if this reference format was the same in other Bible translations. Yup! They were. This means that the Bible scholars who painstakingly labeled these sacred texts with reference numbers, organized it as so. So, I have no recourse but to investigate, why? Keeping in mind that the Holy Spirit inspired those men back when the early printing presses were publishing the early Bibles, then I must be mindful of His purpose. Fortunately, the Bible was always meant to be read or listened to by us who are not scholars.

Let us look at the complete sentence of verses 1b & 2.

^1b He sent an angel to present this revelation to his servant John, ² who faithfully reported everything he saw. This is his report of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ.  _{Rev 1}

It looks fairly straight forward from a superficial point of view. But I’m here to show you how to peel away the onion. 

[1] He sent an angel to present this revelation…

You know, as you go through Revelations, you will read about myriads of angels, like the seven angels who watched over the seven churches, the angel of the waters, the one standing in the sun, he that holds the key to the abyss and many more. I could tell you more if you want but for the purpose of this blog, let us focus on what is relevant to this part of verse one.

The underlined verse above indicates that Jesus Christ sent AN angel. By the sound of it, did it mean just ANY angel? Granted, all angels are messengers of God and I would be tempted by leaving it at that and moving on. But remember, I’m here to peel away at the onion. So, I have to compare this translation to the other English translations. Interestingly enough, the words in the other translations as well as the original Greek says that Jesus sent not just any angel, He sent HIS angel. So, how significant is this? Well, remember I’m still in the observation stage of this exercise. I still have a few more puzzle pieces to look over.

[2] …present this revelation to His servant John,

Who is this John? Most have suggested that he was John, son of Zebedee, brother of James and the beloved disciple of Jesus. If this was so, He was also the one who wrote the fourth Gospel and three important epistles of the New Testaments.  I believed this myself, however, for the sake of this blog, I have to present some observations. 

Based on the text of this verse, there is one clue that is provided to us. John was Jesus’ servant. In modern days, a servant is a paid employee. But the actual Greek word used in this verse is not the modern day servant we know of. It is ‘doulos’ (pronounced as doo’-los) and it is translated as ‘slave’. From ancient times even to this day, people have become slaves as captured trophies from wars, as payment from debt, as victims of exploitation, as punishment from lawbreaking and from just plain inhuman cruelty. The word slavery is a very hated word. There is one other type of slave that is incredibly different from what I described above, that is, a BOND SLAVE. This would be a person who chooses to offer himself as a slave to one master for life. The principle is that because Christ Jesus gave Himself as a ransom for all _{(1 Timothy 2:6)}, when we accepted Him as Lord by faith, we knowingly put ourselves under Him as His bond slaves. (The good news is that He considers us more as family.) 

But this still does not really help us identify him as the Apostle John. This could be a first century disciple also named John, who by the way could have had the same kind of love for the Lord like the Apostle and also be considered His servant. Some folks would say, ‘leave it at that’, but then I’m stubborn, hahaha.  It’s kinda funny about me. When I cut into an onion, it always made my eyes irritated like someone rubbing salt in them, but instead of stopping, I dig in some more. So, how do I convince you that the Apostle John wrote the Book of Revelation?

Well, if you look closely at the underlined part, ‘to His servant John’, you will take note that it ended with a comma. And oh, not only that, verse 1 also ended here while verse 2 starts right after the comma.

[3] who faithfully reported everything he saw. This is his report of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ. 

I don’t know about you but I am not aware of any other first century author also named John who faithfully reported about actually witnessing Jesus walk this Earth, listened to His sermons, watched Him die on the cross, then see Him resurrected and finally, was among those that saw Him ascend to Heaven. There is no doubt in my mind that the author of Revelation is the same John. Though the Bible offered no more clues, traditional history helps fill in some blanks. 

The Book of Revelation was written sometime around 96 CE in Asia Minor (modern day Turkey). To be specific, it was written on a small island just off the mainland not too far from the city of Ephesus where according to history, John migrated there with the mother of Jesus just before the Romans purged Jerusalem and Judea during the Jewish uprising. And by the way, John was the only one of Jesus’ twelve disciples who was still alive. Coincidence? In this case, not likely.

I was thinking of putting all the puzzle pieces and forming an interpretive statement, but I felt that I’m still lacking a crucial piece. We need to do a little more peeling, in this case, delving into verse 3 which will be covered in my next posting. Talk to you then.

Again, I look forward to your INPUT. Please communicate to me your questions. Pertinent questions can give us direction. Message me your insights especially when the Spirit of God leads. Let us discuss.

[Click HERE to CONTACT ME]

<PREVIOUS              NEXT>

[