Yesterday we had our quarterly meeting of the Potomac Presbyteria. One of the things that we always do at Presbyteria is part of our business is to examine men who are either coming as candidates to come under care of the Presbyteria in preparation for ministry or candidates for licensure in order to preach the gospel or men who have received a call to the pastoral ministry and are being ordained or transferring into the Presbyteria. Yesterday we had a number of candidates, excuse me, who were there for those different reasons. And one particular candidate was being interviewed and was being examined on English Bible. He seemed to be somewhat of a timid fellow and he was struggling a little bit in some of his answers. I don't doubt that he knew them but he just was sort of having a hard time in the examination. And finally one of the men sitting up front in the midst of some rather difficult questions about the Bible. This guy stood up and very simply said, well let me ask you a question, what if somebody came up to you and said what is the Bible about? What is the Old Testament? You know I know there's an Old Testament New Testament. What is the Bible about? Well through the perspiration and the nervous shaking you could almost see a little smile break out on the candidate's face. I finally a simple question, one that I know the answer to and he gave a very simple answer. The Bible is all about Jesus. From beginning to end it is about Jesus Christ. Well if my friend Tommy would have been there, he'd have said ding, ding, ding, ding, you would have cried. That's the right answer. The exact right answer. The Bible from beginning to end is about the Lord Jesus Christ. Some of you might say, wait a minute, I understand that in theory, but you know the Old Testament, it's really about the children of Israel and about God's people in the Old Testament and the New Testament is about Jesus. I would argue with you and say no indeed that from beginning to end the Bible speaks to us of the life of Christ. We see in Luke chapter 24 the Lord Jesus himself after his resurrection, when he appeared to the disciples on the road to Emmaus, what does the text tell us that he did? They were confused about what had happened and he said, how foolish are you and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken. Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter his glory and it says, and beginning with Moses. He's not talking about the story of Moses. He's talking about the books of Moses, the five books of Moses, Genesis, Exodus, starting at the very beginning, Jesus began to teach them what Moses and all of the prophets had to say and he explained to them what was said in all the scriptures concerning himself. Later on when Jesus broke bread, the disciples recognized them and they rushed back to the other disciples to tell them what had happened and while they were all gathered together, the text tells us in Luke 24 that Jesus came and appeared among them and then in Luke 24, 44 and 45, Jesus says to all the disciples. He said, and this is what I told you while I was still with you. Everything must be fulfilled that has written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets and the Psalms and then he opened their minds so they could understand the scripture. Jesus opened their minds so that from beginning to end, they could see how all of the word of God was a story of the one who would come, the Lord Jesus himself who would be our righteousness, who would make us right with God. So again, I have to stop and scratch my head. How did the good Dr. Martin Luther ever come to the ridiculous conclusion that the book of Revelation had nothing to do with the person of Jesus Christ? One of the great blessings of my life I share with you always is studying and preparation to preach to you and I have been so blessed this week as I have studied the first chapter of the book of Revelation to see from beginning of the chapter to the end of the chapter throughout the focus on our glorious Savior Jesus Christ. The very first verse, the title, the introduction to the book says the revelation of Jesus Christ. Now that little tiny preposition of those two letters together in the middle of that phrase, the revelation of Jesus Christ, the word of carries a double meaning and a powerful meaning there because see it's not only the revelation of Jesus just in the sense that it's about Christ but it's the revelation of Jesus Christ in that Jesus himself is the means that it comes to us by. Jesus himself is the revelation. He is both the content of the book and the agent of the revelation in the message. Jesus Christ is the way that God reveals Himself to us and Jesus Christ is also God himself being revealed to us. So my question to you this morning is how do you see Jesus? How do you see the Lord Jesus Christ? I would bet that if I ask you this morning how you see Jesus that many of you would see Him like this.
We have pictures in our mind. This is a common picture. A picture of the Lord Jesus Christ is a gentle humble Galilean, a man who spent time with children. There was another picture up there that I could have brought down that had Jesus kneeling in the garden of Gethsemane with drops of blood coming from his forehead. Another common image that we probably share when we think about who Jesus is and how we see Him. Perhaps you see Him another way, another common picture we have is Jesus as the gentle shepherd with a staff in his hand and a lamb in his arm. Perhaps this morning when you think about Jesus when you close your eyes and imagine Him, you imagine Him as a great teacher. Perhaps standing with Nicodemus late at night, it's founding to Him the truth of God's Word. There are many different ways that we see Jesus, but quite often times we come to our own picture of Jesus through certain presuppositions, through things that we've been taught or have been given to us. Quite often almost all of us I would say would, regardless of what scenario or setting we imagine Jesus in, we picture Him as sort of a fair skinned, mastachioed, bearded, long-haired, robe-wearing, ancient, near-eastern man that looks exactly like this. Recently in the scholarly world of biblical studies and the liberal world of thinking about who Jesus was, there have been many, many conferences, even they have Jesus seminar and they have reimagining conferences on reimagining the person of Jesus that was recently a big art show, I believe it was in New York City, with all sorts of paintings that re-imagine Jesus, one of the prominent ones that was often shown in magazines, showed sort of a misogynist, multi-racial individual that you couldn't determine whether it was a man or a woman or whether he was African-American Asian or what he was. And we have tried to imagine Jesus and put him into a certain mold in order to make him accessible to us, to make him easy to manage in order to bring him down to earth in a certain way. And the reality is that John's original audience, as this distracts the audience, move it out of the way. John's original audience would have had some of the very same problems. John was dealing with a church that had been taught by folks who had been with Jesus, who had walked with Jesus and had been taught by Jesus himself. They were sort of the second generation hearing from the mouths of those who had been with Jesus. And so they were profoundly impacted by this very earthly vision of Christ. And they needed again to be captured by the whole reality of who Jesus was. And so we come to John's revelation, the revelation of Jesus Christ, it's the last book of God's Word, the last book of the scriptures, and it's the last word on who Jesus is. It's the last word, sort of the exclamation point on all of scripture. And John, again, helps us by bringing a very pointed picture of Jesus back to the center of all things. And John helps his original audience, the churches in Asia, and he helps us this morning to re-see Jesus, to again look at him in a new way. The whole first chapter speaks to us of the person and the work of Christ. But I want to particularly focus this morning on John's first vision. Excuse me, John's vision of Christ as we find it in verses 12 through 16. And the very first thing John tells us in this vision is that he sees one who is like a son of man. Verse 12, I turned around to see the voice that was speaking to me. And when I turned, I saw seven golden lamp stands, and among the lamp stands was someone like a son of man. Now, we have a problem when we, through our 21st century ears, we hear it through ears that have read through the gospels and have heard Jesus over and over, refer to himself as the son of man. But when we go back, again, to the ancient ear east and to the original audience, that heard Jesus describe himself as the son of man, they would have had a very different reaction. You see, the title, the designation son of man, was a very powerful apocalyptic designation. Again, we have a hard time understanding the book of Revelation. We have a hard time relating to apocalyptic images. We talked about last week how the Revelation, the book of Revelation, is an apocalyptic form of literature. One of the most popular apocalyptic books at that particular time at the time of John was the apocalypse of Enoch. I was going to tell you that it's an apocryphal apocalypse, but it got to be so much that I didn't think it would mean anything to you. It's apocryphal book. It's not part of the canon of Scripture, but it was a book that most of John's audience would have been aware of, and it's full of images of this glorious spectacular son of man. Enoch talks over and over again about this glorious son of man who will come in power, in cosmic glory, and he will recreate and who will use light and energy and conquer all of his enemies and foes, and that was what those who first heard Jesus say he was the son of man thought of. And when they heard Jesus say that he was the man, it caused dissonance for them. It caused confusion for them because here was a man who was claiming to be the son of man, this glorious cosmic apocalyptic designation, and yet he was one who lived in a most humble way imaginable. This one who claimed to be the son of man eating dinner with prostitute and tax collectors, this one who claimed to be the son of man washing his disciples dirty feet, this one who claimed to be the son of man as we saw in the picture taking time with children and blessing them, this one who said that he was the son of man hanging, broken and bleeding, on a cross, didn't fit together. It was outside their framework of understanding it couldn't be. And yet Jesus in designating himself as the son of man is claiming that title for his own and living the life he did brought together everything that he was. He talked like a king and he acted like a slave. He talked like the deliverer and the Messiah and he lived a humble life as a man. He was very God and very man. He didn't fit into the categories of the ancient Near East but they managed somehow to tame him. They managed somehow to reduce him down and bring him into manageable terms and we have done the same thing. You see so much of our Christian pop culture today tries to reimagine Jesus as a great buddy, a great pal, a great friend that we walk arm and arm with hanging out together and yet John in the revelation of Jesus Christ gets the final word. Thomas Howard wrote a wonderful book called Christ the Tiger and in it he said of Jesus he is not a pale Galileean but a towering and furious figure who will not be managed. John begins his vision of Jesus Christ by re-emphasizing Jesus own designation of himself as one who was like a son of man and in doing so he is helping recapture that glorious apocalyptic figure who comes in might and power and glory with lighting flashing to deliver his own. The vision begins however with Jesus standing among lampstands. You know we're going to go into this book and there are going to be many different images which are hard to interpret. Some of them are quite easy though. This one is really simple as we read our text this morning right there at the end of the chapter in verse 20. John says the mystery of the seven golden lampstands is this. They're the seven churches. So he begins the vision of Jesus Christ one like a son of man standing where in the midst of lampstands in the midst of the church. This is important for us to see that Jesus Christ doesn't come to us in isolation. He doesn't come to us in such a way that he's not related to the church and as we get into the letters in chapters two and three to the seven churches we see that the churches aren't always glorious things. When we think about our own church here we all love. I love to come up all of it. Get down to brass tax. We've all got things that we some of you throw you out of here. I'm not going to point you fingers in one. No the reality and we have things about each other that drive us crazy and the church is a dirty messy place and there's Jesus standing in the midst of her and in the midst of the lampstands his glory is seen even more brightly than the light of the lamp. Jesus in his glory but it helps us to understand that he comes to us in the midst of the church and now as John begins to describe what he sees when he sees this one who is like a son of man standing among the lampstands the very first thing that he tells us the first descriptor that he gives is not about the person himself but about what about his clothing. The first thing that John says verse 13 he's among the lampstands like a son of man dressed in a robe reaching down to the feet and with a golden sash around his chest and we might think that's strange why would he begin with the clothes. Well what happens when we see someone the clothes oftentimes define the person not even necessarily occupationally you can tell a lot about a person's character and who they are by their clothes you see somebody walking down the street with bright pink pants and purple stars and orange and green stripes you know that person's a little strange you know you see a guy in a business suit sharp dress looks like me red tie power tie you know it's very important very influential individual dressed very nicely but even more so when someone has a distinctive type of clothing if we saw a guy come walking in the church now with a big plastic heavy helmet and face mask on and big shoulder pads and purple ravens on his shirt oh we go are you a fireman no we say you're a football player we know who he is by the clothing that he wears it defines his role what child walking down the street seeing a man with a nice hat on a big badge blue uniform the gun on the side what does he say there goes the milk man no it's the policeman his clothing defines who he is it's the first thing oftentimes we can tell who he is a policeman before we can even see his face and know who he is we know what he is we know his role and that's what John does for us when he begins by describing the clothes because clothing defines the role and the description of the clothes that John gives for us show that Jesus is a priest and a priest is a bridge a priest presents God to us and a priest presents us to God a priest mediates a priest mediates between men women and children and God and a priest mediates a loving union between God the father and his children a priest mediates gracious forgiveness between God and his people and in the robe and in the golden sash we see Jesus even as we read this morning from the Heidelberg Catechism our great high priest after the clothing though the first thing that we usually notice about a person is what their head their face their eyes John continues in his vision after describing the clothes he says his head and hair were white like wool as white as snow and his eyes were like blazing fire the head and the eyes declare character they speak of the character of the individual being described and in John's vision again it's so important for us to not take these things literally would be like a young man writing a love poem to his girlfriend and saying her neck is as gracious and beautiful as a swan your eyes are like beautiful pools with lily pads you know and you draw the immediate pictures she's gonna go that doesn't look very nice I don't think I look like that we have to take John's imagery and see the meaning behind it it's not that he means what he says it's that he means what he means and the images that he gives here of Jesus having hair white like wool is not that Jesus is somehow gone to heaven and aged and turned into an old man the white hair designates for us and shows the purity of our great high priest the purity of his life and that he is able to stand as our mediator because he himself is pure it sends us back to images that we read in the scriptures I included a insert this morning which helps us see how many of the things that we encounter in the vision this morning send us back to old testament images I included over here I'd say a chapter one in verse 18 where Isaiah says though your sins are as scarlet they will be though you are covered with sin you will be white as snow and we see that purity in Christ we think of David's psalm of confession psalm 51 in verse 7 where he says purge me with this of and I will be clean wash me and I will be wider than snow the one who stands before us as our high priest as our mediator he himself is pure and he gives to us his purity and his righteousness you see Jesus is fulfilled promise and he is answered prayer he is holy and he is pure the next thing we see is that his eye when we think of fire again there are so many biblical images that come to mind biblical images that draw us back to God himself we think of the pillar of fire where God dwelt in leading the children of Israel through the wilderness we think of how he first met Moses in a burning flaming bush we think of the altar fires that consumed the sacrifices we think of the fiery furnace of shadows and the fiery chariot that took Elijah into heaven and the image of fire is powerful because fire penetrates and fire transforms you see the gaze of Christ with eyes blazing like fire show to us that the holiness of Christ penetrates our lives it gets inside us and when it gets inside us it changes us you see Christ in his gaze as he looks upon us his gaze penetrates and it purifies Jesus doesn't stand are looking at us he stands there looking into us and as he looks into us he changes us and he makes us like himself the next image in John's vision is that of burnished bronze feet verse 15 his feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace there are many things about this particular image in John's vision which speak to us I think one of the interesting things though is John relies heavily upon the book of Daniel and upon different visions and images from the book of Daniel and one of the very first images that we have is Nebuchadnezzar's own dream about his kingdom and the glorious statue in Nebuchadnezzar's dream and his vision and the different elements of the statue and the glorious nature of the head and the body but when it came to the bottom of Nebuchadnezzar's own kingdom the feet were what we were made with clay and mixed with iron they were weak and the base was without foundation and a rock came and struck it and it crumbled and fell the feet are the foundation and without that solid foundation it is destined to fall it is destined to fail the kingdoms of this earth no matter how impressive and powerful they are Nebuchadnezzar's was one of the most glorious kingdoms of all time and yet it ended in destruction all of the kingdoms of the earth will end that way because they are set upon a base that is flawed but the kingdom of Christ is set upon a base that is as strong as strong as the rest of it is magnificent you see bronze is a combination of two other metals of iron and copper and iron is a very strong metal but it rusts copper on the other hand won't rust and it's very pliable and when you take the two metals and combine them together in the bronze they retain the great ranks of each of the separate elements and the best qualities of each are preserved and now we see the bronze feet of Christ representing to us a solid foundation of kingdom which will not fail the next thing that we encounter in John's vision after the bronze feet is that his voice was like the sound of rushing waters before John even begins to talk about or tell us what he said he talks to us about how he sounded you see words always come to us in the context of sound they have more meaning when they come to us in the context of sound if you encounter someone who says hello what do you think of that person but if someone walked up and says hello how do you do it the sound of their voice they can say the exact same word but the sound carries meaning and John hears the voice of Christ and it's like the sound of mighty rushing waters it commands attention it demands awe and it demands worship our response even before we comprehend the meaning of the words of Christ is awe and worship the next image we see in John's vision is that in his right hand he held seven stars now again we lose so much because we're not ancient near eastern we're not part of the original audience and we tend to jump right from here to verse 20 where John says the mystery of the seven stars is that the are the angels of the seven churches and that is indeed what they are but that also carried a very powerful meeting for the original audience because in the ancient near east astrology was a huge part of their lives astrologists were revered members of the community to be an astrologist was to be a person of influence and significance and everyone depended upon the zodiac and looked to the stars to know what would happen in their lives to see what the gods might do and in the ancient near east there were seven moving there were seven moving stars they were what the planets that they knew at that time and those seven stars were of tremendous significance to the astrologer and so when John says I saw him with seven stars in his right hand the right hand to power and being ready to work a soldier with his sword in his right hand is ready to fight the right hand connotates readiness for battle and when they heard those words that the seven stars were in his right hand it meant to them that the silly zodiac had no influence or power over their lives the stars that they looked to for answers were in the hand of the one who created them the son of man himself he alone ruled the heavens he controls the planets the planets do not control us in our lives I hope that none of you still read your horoscope and look to it for any advice or comfort if you do let it be known how ridiculous an absurd it is because the one who created the planet who controls the stars who holds them in his right hand controls your very right the pagans thought these stars were impersonal gods and goddesses they were controlling their lives and in reality as John tells us they were the ministering angels of God the next thing we encounter in John's vision verse 16 out of his mouth came a sharp double edged sword causes us to think of Hebrews chapter 4 in verse 12 where it says the word of God is living and active sharper than any double edged sword penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit joints and marrow it judges the hearts the thoughts and attitudes of the heart you see those who received the letter from John those who are the original audience they were under persecution they were full of fear they were thinking how can we conquer this enemy and the natural tendency the natural reaction is to pick up the sword to fight fire with fire to raise weapon against weapon and Jesus comes with the word of his mouth the word of his mouth brings judgment the word of his mouth brings healing the word of his mouth brings power to his people John throughout his writings throughout his gospel throughout his epistle and now in the revelation of Jesus Christ shows us once again that Jesus Christ himself is the word of God and the word of God is powerful to bring about healing to bring about life to work miracles John uses the metaphor of a sword to describe what happens when Jesus speaks John didn't Jesus didn't come with a physical sword that came with his word and his word finally in his vision John says his face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance when Moses returned from the mount of revelation having been with God his face shown so brightly that the people couldn't look at him in the eronic blessing of numbers chapter six praise the Lord bless you and keep you the Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you and you see in the person of Jesus Christ the blessing of God is made personal in the shining face of Jesus God is in Christ warmth and sunlight for these people what an amazing picture what a powerful picture of Jesus himself when we bring together these images in John's vision the simple Galilean with beard and the long hair carrying the sheep holding the staff begins to disappear in the brilliance and the glory and the majesty of the risen raining king of kings and Lord of lords Jesus John takes our narrow image of Jesus the narrow image that we have forced him into in which we see him wandering the Galilean countryside with a bunch of unscored fishermen and he places him in all of his glory he places him in the brilliance of heaven he gives Jesus the central place