The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, 2 who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw. 3 Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near.
There is a special promise of blessing given at the outset to those who read this book.
This is not only to encourage people who might otherwise be hesitant to tackle such a formidable task in seeking to interpret its message. It is called the revelation of Jesus Christ, and
this simply means that we can see Christ in reading it. That is the blessing that it promises. If
this be so, then the scope of the book is thereby defined for us: it is evangelistic, in that it will
enable men to 'behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world'; it is edifying
and upbuilding, in that it reveals Christ as the fountain of life and fullness for the believer; it is
comforting in all the pressures and crises of life, in that it assures us of an ever-present, allpowerful Saviour Who stands by us in all our need; it assures us of the reality of victory in
that it displays Him in the greatness of His Majesty and Glory as King of Kings and Lord of
Lords. Notice, however, the sequence of the verbs in 3 - 'readeth, hear, keep'. No blessing is
automatic or mechanical. When we read, we must hear with the inward ear, and in such a
way as to awake in us the moral response of obedience to all that we hear. Without this, all
reading of the book will be in vain, and the search for a true understanding of it will be fruitless.