Jesus' Revelation, and His Authority

Last night at Bible study we began looking at the book of Revelation.  Typically this immediately draws attention from many, because Revelation is interesting to so many people.  It's polarizing--many love the book because of it's imagery and mystery, while others hate it because it calls for repentance and reveals a God who--surprise surprise--actually IS sovereign and powerful. 

While we studied the first chapter last night, a few things jumped out:
1.  First, the first words of the book are "the revelation of Jesus Christ..."  So often we come to Scripture to hear what it has to say, without considering for more than a second who it is that's talking to us.  When opinions about what the Bible says are flying from left to right and vice-versa, it becomes painfully obvious that those speaking are considering the words being spoken (and rightly so), but aren't considering who it is speaking them.  If the Bible is true (and I know that this is the biggest "if" in all of creation), then Jesus is God and He has the ultimate authority in all things at all times in all matters (see Matt. 11:27, 28:18; John 3:35, 17:2; Eph. 1:22-23; Heb. 2:58; several others similar). What if the Jesus who rose from the dead, actually is God?  The writers of the Bible seem to be pretty clear that He is (see esp. John 1:1-3, Col. 1:15-18, Heb 1:2-3).  If He is, then we shouldn't just consider what's being said, but we should consider all that is said in light of His Person and work (Lordship, Messiahship, cross/resurrection, etc.), and humble ourselves in complete subjection to Him. 
We remember God's words in Isaiah 55:10-11, "my Word that goes out from my mouth does not return to me void, but accomplishes all that I plan for it to accomplish".  That means that Jesus' words are effective and true and powerful.  How would that change your Bible reading?  That's what He starts Revelation off with.
1:5 calls Jesus "the ruler of the kings of the earth".  That means that there's not a king, president, ruler, emperor, czar, dictator who has ever lived that wasn't under Jesus' Kingship.  Even the worst ones were--we could easily assume that because of their capability, they could have been even worse, but Jesus restrained them sovereignly.  He's the King of all kings and Lord of all lords.  And He's the one whom this Revelation is about and from.

2.  Second, vv 5-6 speak of Jesus as "him who...has freed us from our sins by his blood...to him be glory and dominion forever".  Not only is He the sovereign God of all who is glorified, lifted high, and speaks to us and isn't silent.  But He, against whom all sins are against, has justified us by His own blood!  What kind of a Gospel is this that Christians preach?  It's nothing like anything that's ever been heard before--that a sovereign God is perfectly holy (from this attribute of Him we derive our sense of right and wrong),  and those who receive the news in faith, though they be wretched and evil sinners in His eyes, are immediately justified by His grace as a gift (see Acts 20:28, Rom. 3:23-26).  No other message ever preached is as scandalous (and true) as this one.  If only more Christian church pulpits preached this with clear-headed and humble conviction.

3.  Thirdly, the rest of ch. 1 deals with Jesus' identity and His beginning this book with letters to seven churches in Asia minor (chs. 2-3 contain the letters).  Why would Jesus, who is God, and who is revealing "what will soon take place" (1:1) with all of the imagery and power in the rest of the book consider it important to begin the whole thing with letters to churches?  It's because Jesus loves His Church, and He builds His Church and cares for His Church.  It's because, more important to Him than what and how the end of the world will happen, is His Church knowing Him in His power, and His knowledge of their acts/practices.  If they know this, and that He's still sovereign God who knows all things, they'll listen to the rest of what He's about to say.  Jesus loves His Church, and always has the Church on His mind.

In Matt. 16:17, Peter had given "the good confession" calling Jesus "the Christ, the Son of the Living God", and Jesus said "on this rock I will build my Church, and hell won't be able to stop it".  What "the rock" is, is a point of disagreement among Catholics and Protestants (Catholics think the rock is Peter, Protestants think it's Peter's confession), but if "the rock" means Peter (the Catholic view), Peter himself would even say the point of all this is Jesus, "for there is no name under heaven by which man must be saved" (Peter in Acts 4:12).  Since all of Peter's sermons and epistles are about Jesus' authority and Lordship, it's clear what Jesus is talking about here in Matt. 16.
In Matt. 7:24-27, nine chapters before the previous passage, Jesus had closed his famous "Sermon on the Mount" by giving the well-known parable that "whoever listens to my words and puts them into practice will be like a man who built his house upon the rock", and when the storms came, the house stood.  Jesus then says that whoever DOESN'T believe His words will have their house built on sand, and the storms will come and wash it away.  It's no coincidence that this close to each other in Matthew's gospel account is Jesus talking about His authoritative words in terms of "a rock" that can be depended upon...so strong that neither storms OR hell are powerful enough to destroy!
The point is that the Church...the true Church...is built on Christ's words, because His words aren't just words:  they're God's Word.  His teaching is the Scripture.  The Church believes the Bible, builds on it, and stands firm.  And if John 1 teaches us anything, it's that the Word is Christ.
Ephesians has all sorts of teaching on Jesus' authority in growing His Church.  2:18-22 says we Christians are God's house being built together "into a dwelling place for the Lord by His Spirit...with Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone."  Christ and His Word is the cornerstone.  4:8-16 gives all the teaching of how Jesus gives gifts to the Church for the sake of growing it up into maturity in Him, and finally, 5:22-30, the famous section on marriage between a man and his wife, perhaps more importantly, shows how Christ saves His Church, sanctifies His Church, and cherishes and nourishes His Church.  He loves His Church enough to make it pure and holy with His powerful and more-often-than-not convicting Word.
Far more important than Christians knowing how and what will happen at the end of the world is them knowing the truths of Christ's Lordship, their sin, and their need for repentance.

That brings us finally to His teaching in John 16:  v8 has Jesus saying that He's going to send His Holy Spirit into the world to "convict the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment"; then 13-14 has Jesus saying the Spirit will only speak what Jesus tells Him to speak.  The convicting will come by the Spirit, but it will originate with Jesus.

This is why every letter in Rev. 2-3 (all 7 of them!) has Jesus starting each one off with some sort of variation of "the words of Him who..." and then something about Jesus' character, and closes with some variation of "he with ears to hear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches."  Staggering!  The Spirit speaks because Jesus speaks!  And when Jesus speaks, He speaks to His Church!  He reveals Himself in His authority, reveals the churches in their sin, and then powerfully calls them to repentance, where His Word is powerful enough to bring it about in them.  This is because Jesus loves His Church enough to convict it when it needs convicted, and in this He builds it into Himself.

What if this was our attitude every time we came to the Scriptures?--if we understood that this Word being spoken to us was the Word of Him who died and rose again and is Lord of all; Him who doesn't owe anything to anyone alive on earth, and yet has graciously loved us His Church enough to convict us about the delusion of sin and the truth of Himself.
Would that change how you read the Bible?  My prayer is that you will understand every word of Scripture in light of Christ's authority as the One who is God in all his holiness and fullness.  To Him be glory forever and ever amen!