He Who was, Who is and Who is to come, personally revealed to John ‘things to come’. He will also tell us things to come through the Holy Spirit, as John 16:13 (NKJV) says: ‘However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come.’
Following Christ’s general command in verse 11 to write everything in a book, this order to write was now repeated, but with more precision. The writing was to contain what John already had seen—that is, Christ in all His glory. He was allowed to see Him unveiled further. He was permitted to tell the churches that the glorified Christ is alive and ruling, and that He is the One who is coming! He was allowed to tell them about His awesome, frightening, but oh-so-loving appearance on Patmos. He was permitted to tell them that Christ has the keys—the power over death and Hades—so that dying is not the end. John had already seen that.2
He was also going to write about what was then—about the presence of the Priest-King and Judge in the midst of His Church, about the sevenfold message to the seven churches, which was also to be the message to His one Church of all the ages.3 And, finally, he was allowed to record what would take place afterwards. The line was then extended into the future.4
Paul writes: “The secret power of lawlessness is already at work.”5 The end-times have already begun, since the first coming of Christ. John writes in his first letter: “Even now many antichrists have appeared,”6 but another antichrist, the final antichrist, the antichrist, the lawless one,7 one-day will come – ‘whom the Lord Jesus will kill at His Coming’. John would call him ‘the Beast’, later in the Book of Revelation. Everything is heading towards a climax, but, at the same time, that frightening future was already present in the history of Christ’s Church on earth. The seven churches were already able to identify with the anticipated suffering. Hatred and persecution were already abundantly present—in particular in those seven churches. They were located in Asia and the places mentioned were all centres of authority and focal points of emperor worship. They were no longer situated in Israel, but in the world—the Roman world—in which Greek philosophy and Eastern magic and mysticism, combined with the totalitarian Roman exercise of power, had created a spiritual climate in which it was barely possible for the Church of Christ to breathe. By the 3rd and 4th Century AD, Rome had taken Jerusalem’s place as the centre of Christianity.
And in our day, now that Jerusalem is again the centre of an independent Jewish State, ‘Rome’ will not easily relinquish the position it conquered. The tug-of-war for Jerusalem is already in full swing. Jesus is coming and Jerusalem will be the centre of the world, despite all the efforts that ‘Rome’ is taking to replace Jerusalem. The final things have begun to develop. Is the Church prepared for them? That is why John was permitted to—and must— write so that the Church will be ready for Christ’s coming!
• The word therefore in ‘Write, therefore’ can also be translated as then. It connects this verse to the previous one. John must write because Christ is the Living One, who has light and life in Himself8 and is able to give life to whoever He likes.9
• Rome as a city is indeed mentioned in the Book of Acts and in letters of Paul, but the name is not mentioned in the Book of Revelation. There, the great contradistinction is between Babylon and Jerusalem. ‘Babylon’ stands for powers that had also taken shape in ‘Rome’, just as ‘Jerusalem’ also stands for a spiritual climate inspired by God. Babylon the city of ‘man’ over and against Jerusalem the city of God.
• The general significance of Jerusalem to Christians entered a period of decline during the Persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire, but resumed again with the pilgrimage of Helena (the mother of Constantine the Great) to the Holy Land 326–328 AD.
• The original seat of Roman imperial power soon became the centre of Church authority, grew in power decade by decade, and was recognized during the period of the Seven Ecumenical Councils. By 300 AD there were so many Christians Emperor Constantine mass converted all Romans to Christianity and so Christianity became the official faith of Rome and the seat of its power.
Bible References:
1.NIV 2.Revelation 1 3.Revelation 2 and 4.Revelation 4 and the succeeding chapters 5.2 Thessalonians 2:7 NIV 6.1 John 2:18–25 7.2 Thessalonians 2:8 8.John 1:4; 1 John 1:1–2
