Getting Revelation -Part 6- John Sees Christ

First of all, this interaction that the "seer" (John) has here with the "Son of man" is the same experience that his predecessor (over 500 years earlier) had. Daniel - chapter 10 - records Daniel lifting up his eyes and seeing one with eyes like fire, feet like fine brass, and a voice like the sound of many waters. Daniel also fell on his face as a dead man, and a hand touched him and set him up again, and told him not to be afraid. This experience which the seers, those highly beloved prophets who rested in the bosom of Christ shared, shows us (at very least) that Daniel's visions and John's visions are quite possibly the same (of course this becomes more than possible when one takes into account the similarities found within the visions). Daniel saw it afar off (Dan 12: 4, 9 - told to seal up the vision till the time of the end) and John sees it just before it is fulfilled (Rev 22:6, 10 - told to seal not the vision, for "the time is at hand"). Daniel was told about what would happen to his people (the nation of Israel) in the "latter days"(Dan 10:14). John sees his vision during the final hour of the "latter days" (Heb 1:2, Jms 5:3) when all was about to be fulfilled (Luk 21:22).

The voice John hears is like a trumpet. This is significant, for it was the "voice of a trumpet" which the children of Israel heard from beneath mount Sinai when the Lord invited them near to give them his law (Ex 19). The mountain was smoking and there were thunderings, lightnings and earthquakes. We will see this imagery repeated over and over again throughout Revelation - it seems to be reminding its first century audience (whose roots were Hebrew) of this momentous occasion in their history. Except this time the law was not being given, it was being retracted. A people were not being espoused, they were being divorced. Blessings were not being handed out, rather this time it was curses -- every curse of the law which Moses promised would come upon them if they did not keep the terms of the His covenant with them.

Another strong time indicator found in Rev 1 is in verse 19:
"Write the things which you have seen, and the things which are, and the things which will take place after this." For this indicator we must look to more literal translations or to the Greek text itself - the NKJV as I quoted above says the "things which will take place after these" but the Greek literally translates "the things which are about to take place after these."
Young's literal translation reads like this: "Write the things that thou hast seen, and the things that are, and the things that are about to come after these things." The original text emphasizes the nearness, or urgency of the event. Strong's lexicon states that the word mello (mellei in this tense) means "to be about to" or "to be on the point of doing or suffering something." Amazingly enough, most translations have completely ignored this Greek word and its time indications throughout the New Testament.

This same word is utilized in a few key verses in the messages to the churches as well:
---Rev 2:10 - "Be not afraid of the things that thou art about to suffer; lo, the devil is about to cast of you to prison, that ye may be tried..."
---Rev. 3:10 - "Because thou didst keep the word of my endurance, I also will keep thee from the hour of the trial that is about to come upon all the world (or land), to try those dwelling upon the earth."

For the sake of consistency, here are a few key times that this word is used elsewhere in the New Testament (as it pertains to the subject of this study):
---1 Pet. 5:1 - "The elders which are among you I exhort, who am their fellow-elder and witness of the sufferings of the Christ, who also am partaker of the glory about to be revealed:"
---2 Tim 4:1 - "I do fully testify, then, before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who is about to judge living and dead at his manifestation and his reign..."
---Acts 24:15 - "Having hope toward God, which they themselves also wait for, [that] there is about to be a rising again of the dead, both of righteous and unrighteous;"
---Luk 21:36 - "Watch therefore, praying at every season, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things which are about to come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man."

And one of the most telling and specific, from the mouth of Christ himself:
---Mat 16:27 - "For, the Son of Man is about to come in the glory of his Father, with his messengers, and then he will reward each, according to his work. Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom."
So let it be recognized that the message of imminence (shortly, at hand, quickly) found in the book of Revelation is not an isolated one, but is consistent with the whole of the New Testament. Christ promised they would see it with their own eyes, the Apostolic church believed they would see it with their own eyes, and John the revelator promised them that it was indeed about to take place before their eyes. Christ was about to come.

Next installement - We should be jumping in to chapter 4 and will begin unravelling the mysterious signs of the prophecy!