Revelation 1:12-20
As we read verses 12-16, John gives us a description of our wonderful Lord and Savior!
One aspect of what John was seeing was the fire of judgment that was represented in Jesus’ eyes and His feet like fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace. This was the main reason that Jesus was visiting John on the Isle of Patmos, to send letters to the Seven Churches of Asia, to let them know that He sees all and that He also is walking amongst them judging what He sees . Fire and Brass represent judgment through out scripture.
In John 5:22 Jesus said that judgment was given unto Him of the Father. What we must recognize as well, Jesus is functioning in this capacity even now as we go about our daily lives. Christians want to focus on His grace and rightly so, however there is a judgment side of that grace that many would rather ignore.
1Peter 4:17, states that judgment must begin at the house of God. This is not a bad thing, for another aspect of what John was seeing is that Jesus was standing before him in all His glory. One thing that must be understood concerning John is that through out the whole of this process , he is representative of the Church. Always remember that God uses types, shadows and parables to reveal His plans.
Jesus standing before John judging the Churches is significant to us today, for I personally believe that this is what has to happen before we see the glorious Church that many Bible scholars and teachers subscribe to that happens before the return of Jesus!
Where they come to this understanding is in Ephesians 5:27. What we must remember is that we are the bride of Christ and that He is looking for a cleaned up version of the Church out of the muck and degradation of this world. So we must be prepared to be cleaned up if we really want to see the fullness of His glory! When we understand what the fullness of that glory will do, there will be no resistance to the scrubbing we must undergo.
Jesus is in the midst of seven candlesticks, has seven stars in His right hand and out of His mouth is a two edged sword. The sword we can also find in Hebrews 4:12 which is the Word of God.
Verses 17&18 we see Jesus proclaiming who He is and indicating that He has recovered the keys of hell and death. So these are to be added to the ring of keys given us by Jesus in Matthew chapters 16&18.
Verse 19 is important to this study so that we can know what is covered in the book. Notice John is instructed to write what he has seen that is present and future. We will also find which is not indicated in this verse that he relates to the past for information purposes.
Then we conclude this chapter with verse 20 with an explanation of the mystery of the stars and candlesticks. The stars represent Angels of the Seven Churches before the Throne which controversy has erupted from; some Bible teachers state that these are the Pastors of the Churches and others go with what is stated that they are Angels.
So these Angels could be the spirits that are before the Throne as stated in verse four or the Greek word used for Angels also means messengers, of which Angels are, yet so are the ministry gifts to the Body of Christ. So this could possibly remain a mystery or we could resolve it with the fact that each letter is addressed to the Angel of each of the Seven Churches and in most of the letters there is an admonition to “repent!” This point alone causes us to lean toward these messengers being men of God, so we will leave it at that.
