First of all, the Church receives Christ’s sevenfold comforting, encouraging and exhorting messages, which accompanies her on her journey through the centuries right up to His Coming.
The second great vision that John saw and heard is now to follow. This concerns the tremendous struggle between the power of the Kingdom of God and the powers of darkness, the kingdom of Satan. This immediately starts with the spiritual battle against a pagan and corrupt Roman civilisation and ends with the spiritual battle against the antichrist in the end times. The battle is against all the attempts to wipe the people of God, Israel, and the Church from the face of the earth. This is a struggle that will finally end in the destruction of the ‘powers of darkness’ and of Satan, indeed, even of death, after which God’s Kingdom breaks through once and for all.
However, before details of this struggle are revealed, John sees very clearly where the real throne is situated, and who is reigning from it. The throne is in Heaven, with God and the Lamb, and the seven Spirits who are before the throne. It is clear from the beginning that victory is sure. It is finished!1 Even though our times appear similar to those of Lot and Sodom and Gomorrah just before their judgment by fire, and also to those of Noah, just before the Flood,2 the end will be glorious. And even though the last days will be difficult and hard and the Church will have to keep everything that would seduce her at a distance,3 she will not miss the final victory. “No one will snatch them from My hand,” the Good Shepherd promised4—”not even the gates of hell.”5 John was ‘in the spirit’ on ‘the Lord’s day’, with all the judgments that were to accompany it.6
Christ knows that centuries of persecution and oppression and seduction would come for His Church. He knows about the judgments that would come over the world and about the fear of them that would grip the hearts of His children. He knows about the trials and tribulations and He says: the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.7 As the blood of the lamb on the doorposts of the children of Israel in Egypt kept them safe from the angel of death,8 so you will be safe through the blood of the Lamb! You will be just as safe ‘in Christ’ as Noah and his family were in the ark, when God’s judgments burst upon the scene around them. Victors! Overcomers! The angels took Lot and his family to safety before fire and brimstone rained down on Sodom and Gomorrah, Genesis 19:12-25.
This is why John is first shown where the centre of power is—not in New York, Washington, Moscow, Peking or Rome, but in Heaven. He sees with spiritual eyes, eyes to see, opened by the Spirit—just like Isaiah, Ezekiel and Daniel did. Christ leads him further into the mysteries of the world of God and the angels and the redeemed who have gone before us. “If only you could see for a moment”, says Elisha, and he prays and his servant’s eyes are opened, so that he saw that those who were with them were more numerous than those who were with the adversary: he saw the horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.9
• The expression ‘after this’ is the translation of the Greek ‘meta tauta’. This is a very common expression, which means: after these things, afterwards, after these. See also John 13:7—later, Acts 7:7— afterward, 1 Peter 1:11— that would follow. This means that we are passing on to John’s next experience. To the next thing John was given to see. He has heard and written down what Christ told Him to when He appeared to him—the seven missionary letters—and now he can see what follows.
• This is a transition in John’s personal experiences—not necessarily a transition to a following era in history—from the church age to the time of the great tribulations, for example. The times of the testing and sifting of the earth and mankind. It is what he will be shown next. The next thing he is permitted to see, the next slide of a slide-show, if you like, not necessarily the next step on a chronological timeline.
Bible References:
1. John 19:30 2. Matthew 24:37–42 3. Timothy 3:1–5 4. John 10:11–16 and 27–29 5. Matthew 16:18 6. Revelation 1:10 7. Matthew 24:13 8. Exodus 12:12–13 9. 2 Kings 6:15–18
