John to the seven churches that are in Asia: Grace to you and peace from Him who is, and who was, and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before His throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.
To Him who loves us and released us from our sins by His blood – and He made us into a kingdom, priests to His God and Father – to Him be the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen.
BEHOLD, HE IS COMING WITH THE CLOUDS, and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him; and all the tribes of the earth will mourn over Him.
So it is to be. Amen.
Now that the literary style has been stated, John moves into a standard first-century epistle greeting. In one of these greetings, we should expect to be introduced to the themes of the letter and how those themes apply to the audience that will be receiving the message. It’s a pretty standard aspect of most epistles and carries a great deal of interpretive weight for the rest of the message.
John doesn’t break from this model. In fact, he uses the usual “grace and peace” greeting. However, John then launches into what might seem to be a convoluted, run-on sentence but which is actually a deeply layered and expertly crafted example of the themes of the letter and how John will be using them.
As we’ll see, John manages to use intentionally bad grammar to reference deep Jewish theology while at the same time echoing modern roman worship practices. In doing so while referencing Jesus, John is integrating both Jewish and Gentile philosophy to illustrate the preeminence of Jesus.
I know! Right?! Brilliant stuff. So let’s dive in…
Him who is, who was, and who is to come
One of the things that we know about John is that he loves philosophy. The references that he’s going to make throughout this book demonstrate not only a deep, but also a wide range of philosophical influences. However, at the core, John is deeply Jewish, and an understanding of that deeply Jewish perspective reveals many of the layered references in Revelation.
One of the best references is here in verse 4 where John says, “… Him who is, and who was, and who is to come…” At least, that’s probably how it reads in your Bible, but there’s an intentional grammar mistake here. A better translation from the Greek would be something like, “… Him who AM, and who was…”
That’s clearly bad grammar, but why do I say that it’s intentional? Two reasons.
One, John doesn’t make this grammatical error in any other portion of his writings.
Two, it’s better to describe this as “lifted” grammar rather than “accidental” grammar. You see, the grammar here is the same as the grammar found in Exodus 3 in the Septuagint. In that text, Moses has just encountered the God of Israel in the Burning Bush and wants to know the name of this God…
And God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM”
and He said, “This is what you shall say to the sons of Israel: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”
~ Exodus 3:14
Did you catch that? With this little switch of “AM” for “is” John has just made a deeply profound call out as to the identity of Jesus and His relation to the “I AM” in the book of Exodus. Essentially, John has just identified Jesus as being the bodily presence of YHVH (Yahweh) and therefore also the God of the book of Exodus who rescues His people from the oppressive empire and pantheon of Egypt.
The identity of Yahweh as the God who rescues His people from bondage is as old as Torah. Similarly, the idea that Yahweh can have multiple “personifications” of Himself is an old idea as well. It’s evident – though not specifically stated – in several places in Torah. It was a contested aspect of theology – like most everything in Judaism – but it was a longstanding way of understanding the ways in which God interacts with His people and within “Godself”. It’s sometimes called the “Two Yahwehs” philosophy in Judaism.
What is shockingly new, however, is the idea that one of these “Yahwehs” could be a human and, even more shocking, that this human would live the life of a servant and then die at the hands of the Romans. Somehow even the resurrection can’t quite remove the scandal of such a notion.
Yet, here John is, making it a core element of interpreting the letter.
He’s not just talking to the Jews here though. Worship of Zeus was a big deal during the first century as it was one of the most widely practiced cults of worship in the Greco-Roman world, and this phrase addresses Zeus as well.
Zeus was, Zeus is, Zeus shall be; O mighty Zeus.
Earth sends up the harvest, therefore sing the praise of Earth as Mother.
~ Chant of the Dodonian Priestesses
Dodona (the namesake of the Dodonian priestesses in this quote) is the oldest Hellenic oracle in Greece. In terms of prestige in the Greek world, it is second only to the Oracle at Delphi. It was also important to the Romans as well. In 31BCE Emperor Augustus rebuilt the sanctuary at Dodona and it remained active until 391CE.
So, when we're looking at Revelation, it's important to realize that Zeus worship is one of the main players in the spiritual millieu. Some version of this chant would have been used in several of the cities to whom John is writing this letter. In fact, to engage in trade, many of those that John is writing to would have had to say some form of Zeus chant as a ritual to be welcomed into the market.
So, when John is using words that are almost exactly similar to this chant to describe Jesus, it's one of the first main political challenges that we see in the book of Revelation. In a very real way, John is removing Zeus from the place of worship and honor and putting Jesus in that place.
This theme will continue to develop throughout Revelation, but John is deliberately glorifying Jesus in the place of Zeus. As this unfolds, John reveals that the worship and honor of Jesus will be in direct opposition to the other gods, the roman empire, the culture of the marketplace... the list goes on.
With this simple phrase John makes the first cut that separates the "kingdoms of this world" from "the kingdom of our God".
There's a lot that's going to be cut...