I John, your brother and fellow-partaker in the tribulation and kingdom and patience, in Jesus, was in the island called Patmos, for the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
I became in [the] Spirit on the Lord's day, and I heard behind me a great voice as of a trumpet,
John writes from exile on Patmos. Before he describes a single vision, he names the state he was in and the day it happened. Readers have argued over both phrases, and both shape how the rest of the book is read.
The verb matters. Commentators argue the sense is "I became in the Spirit" — a change of condition.
It should read, "I became in the Spirit on the Lord's day." John was not simply in the right and normal Christian state, as so many think. The power of the Spirit carried him out of himself. His senses were shut to other things. His spirit was awake to see the things shown to him, and to hear the voice that speaks to us also in him. The same expression appears again at the start of chapter 4, when the vision there opens.
Writers differ here. Others read it as the ordinary Christian state, not a special experience:
This expression, "in the Spirit," describes the normal Christian state, as Romans 8 shows. It means that the Holy Spirit of God, given to live in John as in all believers, was leading his heart into happy occupation with the things of God. And you should seek that it may be so with you.
Readers often confuse this with the prophetic "day of the Lord." In the original they are two different phrases, pointing in different directions.
"The Lord's day" is not "the day of the Lord." In the original the two differ in form as widely as they differ in meaning. The day of the Lord is the time of Christ's power and glory on earth. But the Lord's day was a day which John spent in Patmos.
A second argument comes from what John sees first.
The character of the first vision (vv. 12-20) applies to the present. Christ glorified among the churches could have no place or meaning in the coming time of judgment. Both Testaments call that time the "day of the Lord," and it depends on the Church first being set aside as a public witness for God on earth.
The name itself does the work. Only one other phrase in the New Testament is built the same way.
It is the day belonging to the Lord, the day characterised by the Lord. It appears in only one other place in the New Testament: "the Lord's Supper" (1 Cor. 11:20). The two belong together, the Lord's Day and the Lord's Supper (see Acts 20:7).
So this day is not the old Sabbath moved to a new date.
In creation God appointed a day of rest, and in His covenant with Israel He marked it out as His own. That covenant is gone, and the rest of the old creation is broken. So God does not call us to share His rest from the old creation. He calls us to share His joy in the new. The day on which this new creation began, by Christ's resurrection from the dead, is called "the Lord's day." It is not the Sabbath moved from the last day of the week to the first, for that would destroy the meaning of both. It is an entirely new thing, resting on an entirely new foundation.
Exile left John with no one to meet with that Lord's day.
There may have been no one else to share fellowship with. But is it not precious that a man suffering for the Lord, cut off from the fellowship of fellow believers, is not cut off from the Lord's fellowship? The Lord came to this old brother.
Where the voice comes from matters. Before John looks ahead, he must turn around.
It was surely significant that the voice was "behind" him. The main aim of all prophecy would have thrown him forward instead. But before the Spirit of God could rightly begin the visions of the future, there had to be a look back… He must turn to the voice behind him and learn what the Lord thought of what bore His name on the earth. But how new to John was "a loud voice like a trumpet" from the Lord Jesus! How different from the good Shepherd's voice that he and the other sheep heard and knew!
The trumpet sound itself signals the weight of what follows:
The "loud voice like a trumpet" would signal a matter of public importance — one that concerned the whole Church.
- State — "I became in the Spirit" marks a change. Commentators differ: some see John carried beyond himself by the Spirit's power, others see the normal Christian state.
- Day — "The Lord's day" is not "the day of the Lord." This day belongs to Him, as the Lord's Supper does.
- Ground — This day is not the Sabbath moved. It is the first day of the week, marking Christ's resurrection: not rest from the old creation, but joy in the new.
- Place — Exile did not cut John off. He had no believers to meet with, but he still had the Lord's own fellowship.
- Voice — The trumpet call comes from behind. John must first hear the Lord's verdict on what bears His name on earth, and only then see the future.
saying, What thou seest write in a book, and send to the seven assemblies to Ephesus, and to Smyrna, and to Pergamos, and to Thyatira, and to Sardis, and to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea.
A voice behind John gives him his commission. He must write what he sees in a book and send it to seven named churches in the province of Asia. Two questions sit inside the verse. Why these seven cities out of many? And why a book rather than a spoken message?
Some copies of the verse open with the words "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last." The ESV leaves them out. The titles still run through the book, and one writer reads them as three assurances about Christ.
Look further into the book of Revelation — a book written for the seven churches — and you find other titles used by our Lord and of Him. In Revelation 22:13 we read, "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end." Can we doubt why our Lord uses these titles? He wants a failing church to see that everything for the display and glory of God is found in Himself. As the "Alpha and Omega" He assures us that He is the expression of all that God has to say to us. As the "beginning and the end" He assures us that He is the embodiment of all that God is doing. As the "first and the last" He tells us that He is also the expression of all that God is in His nature, character and disposition.
One writer sets those opening words aside and turns to the sound of the voice.
The best authorities leave these opening words out. The trumpet stands for God speaking with power and majesty. A trumpet sounded when He gave the law on Mount Sinai. A trumpet will sound when Christ calls the believing dead to meet Him in the air.
John had to turn round before he could look forward. That small detail carries weight.
It meant something that the voice was "behind" him. Prophecy is mainly about what lies ahead, and it would have thrown him forward. But before the Spirit of God could open the visions of the future, there had to be a look back. God only shows the future when He is done with the thing He has been caring for... Before John saw what lay ahead, he had to turn to the voice behind him. He had to learn what the Lord judged about the thing that carried His name on the earth. But how new to John was "a great voice as of a trumpet" from the Lord Jesus! How different from the good Shepherd's voice that he and the other sheep heard and knew! A loud voice like a trumpet demanded attention. In a normal, healthy church such a voice would have been out of place.
The book went to seven churches, but its readership never stopped there.
John is told to write what he sees in a book and send it to the seven churches. The Apostle has already sent greetings to those seven churches. Now each one is named. Only seven churches are addressed. Still, the Spirit of God chose the written form rather than the spoken one, so that the whole Church, for all time, may benefit from these messages.
The seven were picked out of a wider field, and the choice was not made by human standards.
Revelation 1:4 and 1:11, and what follows, make it plain that seven real churches in the province of Asia were meant first of all. There were special reasons for writing to those particular churches. But I have no doubt at all that they were also chosen for a further and larger purpose: to give one picture after another of the church in general, from the days of the apostles to the end of its existence on earth. So there were seven golden lampstands, seven being the well-known symbol of spiritual completeness. There may have been other churches as well known or better known, and one of these seven had already had a formal letter from the apostle Paul. Many things that look most important to men, and even to Christians, are passed by, for the Lord does not see as man sees.
The names run in a set order, and that order carries a second meaning.
Other important churches in the same district are left out. Those seven, and only those, are named, and in the order a traveller would visit them. The seven chosen assemblies stand as a symbol of the whole Church through the successive periods of its history, and at any given moment too, until its final rejection as an unfaithful witness to Christ.
- Voice — The trumpet call comes from behind John. Before he sees the future, he must hear the Lord's verdict on what already carries His name on earth.
- Titles — Alpha and Omega, first and last. Everything for the display and glory of God rests in Christ Himself. A failing church needed that most.
- Book — The Spirit chose writing over speech, so the whole Church in every age could hold this message.
- Seven — Real churches, chosen out of many. Seven is the symbol of spiritual completeness, so the picture is full, not partial.
- Order — Ephesus to Laodicea follows a traveller's road. It also traces the Church at any moment and its course to the end.