The Word and Testimony of Christ

REVELATION

The Word and Testimony of Christ

Revelation 1:1–3 (NASB 2020)

“The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show to His bond-servants, the things which must soon take place; and He sent and communicated it by His angel to His bond-servant John, who testified to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, everything that he saw. Blessed is the one who reads, and those who hear the words of the prophecy and keep the things which are written in it; for the time is near.

As we noted at the outset of our study, this book is the revelation of and from the Lord Jesus Christ. According to our text, the message of this book of revelation was given to the Lord Jesus by God.

This may seem a curious statement, since we know that Jesus Christ is God. There are a couple of important implications of this message having been given to Jesus by God, however.

First, we see the unity of the Trinity here. The Revelation is filled with this. Though the Lord Jesus is the primary focus of the text, the Holy Spirit and God the Father figure prominently and are clearly presented as being of one mind together about all that is to transpire in the history of humanity.

Second, we see that the Lord Jesus Christ is once again presented as the Message and the Messenger of God. We read here that John testified to the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ. These are one and the same in a similar manner to the oneness of the Trinity. The testimony of Jesus Christ is the word of God and the Word of God is Jesus Christ.

Further, we are told that God gave the Lord Jesus this revelation to show “His bondservants” the things that must soon take place. The Greek word translated bondservants here is doulos, which means servant or slave, especially one having willingly given oneself to another. In the Revelation, this word stands for all those who are in Christ, all who are His, all His children, those who comprise His bride.

In today’s culture we blanche at the idea of slavery, but to shy away from the definition of this word as “slave” is to do it grave disservice.

Romans 6:14–18 presents us with great insight into the meaning of the word doulos, bond-servant, or slave. It reads, “For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under the Law but under grace. What then? Are we to sin because we are not under the Law but under grace? Far from it! Do you not know that the one to whom you present yourselves as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of that same one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness? But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were entrusted, and after being freed from sin, you became slaves to righteousness. (NASB 2020)

Here we discover that we present ourselves as obedient servants either of sin or of obedience. We can serve the enemy, or we can serve God. Whichever way we choose to live, we are slaves to that choice. The beautiful truth for us as the holy ones of God is that we have been freed from bondage to sin and the death it yields and have become slaves of righteousness and partakers of the Life resulting from that condition.

We who have chosen to believe God have become His holy ones, obedient from the heart. This is the great gift the Lord Jesus has made possible, and the reason Paul could say in 1 Corinthians 6:19–20 that “you are not your own” and “you have been bought for a price.” That price was the Life of the Lord Jesus, which He gave freely to enable you to partake of the divine nature and share in His inheritance. This is what it means to serve God. We serve righteousness. As Paul puts it in 2 Corinthians 5:14 and 16 “the love of Christ controls (or compels) us, so we no longer view people according to the flesh.” That includes our view of ourselves. We can joyfully affirm that we are slaves, or bondservants, of our lovely Lord Jesus.