Bible Study - Revelation Session Four

Revelation, Session Four Christ the Savior, Anderson SC Fr. Anthony Perkins

Sources:

• The translation of the Apocalypse is from the Orthodox Study Bible.
• Lawrence R. Farley, The Apocalypse of St. John: A Revelation of Love and Power, The Orthodox Bible Study Companion (Chesterton, IN: Ancient Faith Publishing, 2011),
• Bishop Averky, The Epistles and the Apocalypse (Commentary on the Holy Scriptures of the New Testament, Volume III. (Holy Trinity Seminary Press, 2018).
• Andrew of Caesarea, Commentary on the Apocalypse, ed. David G. Hunter, trans. Eugenia Scarvelis Constantinou, vol. 123, The Fathers of the Church (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2011).
• Jack Norman Sparks, The Orthodox Study Bible: Notes (Thomas Nelson, 2008), 1712.
• Venerable Bede, The Explanation of the Apocalypse, trans. Edward Marshall (Oxford: James Parker and Co., 1878).
• William C. Weinrich, ed., Revelation, Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2005).

Review

Introduction and Blessing

1:1. The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show His servants – things which must shortly take place. And He sent and signified it by His angel to His servant John.

2. Who bore witness to the Word of God, and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, to all things that he saw. [speaking of the Gospel of St. John]

3. Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written in it; for the time is near.

Greeting to the Seven Churches

4. John, to the seven churches which 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,

5. and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler over the kings of the earth. To Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood,

6. and has made us kings and priests to His God and Father, to Him be glory and dominion forever. Amen. (OSB)

7. Behold, He is coming with clouds, and every eye will see Him, even they who pierced Him. And all the tribes of the earth will mourn because of Him. Even so, Amen.

New Material

8. “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, says the Lord (God), who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”

• Andrew of Caesarea. Christ is shown here both as God and as the Ruler of all things, both beginningless and at the same time endless, existing now and existing before and having no end, since he is coeternal with the Father, and on account of this he will render to each one the wages of deeds done. Ps 62(61):12; Prv 24:12; Wis 16:14; Rom 2:6; 1 Cor 5:10
• St. Bede. Who is. He had said this same thing of the Father, for God the Father came, as He also is to come, in the Son.
• St. Augustine. The Lord himself said plainly in the Apocalypse, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first”—before whom is nobody—“the last”—after whom is nobody; he precedes all things and sets a term to all things. Do you want to gaze upon him as the first? “All things were made through him.”49 Do you seek him as the last? “For Christ is the end of the law, that every one who has faith may be justified.” In order for you to live at some time or other, you had him as your creator. In order for you to live always, you have him as your redeemer.

9. I, John, both your brother and companion in the tribulation and kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, was on the island that is called Patmos for the word of God and for the testimony of Jesus Christ.

• OSB. Patmos: A small rocky island 40 miles off the western coast of modern Turkey, fifty miles south of Ephesus, to which the Romans exiled criminals. John’s preaching must have been considered a seditious threat to the public interest if he was indeed a prisoner there.
• Logos. According to a tradition preserved by Irenaeus, Eusebius, Jerome and others, John, the author of Revelation, was exiled there in the 14th year of the reign of Domitian and subsequently released to Ephesus under Nerva (96 ad).
• St. Andrew of Caesarea. “Inasmuch as your brother,” he says, “being also a co-participant in the tribulations on account of Christ, I naturally have acquired trustworthiness among you. Being condemned to live on the island of Patmos on account of the witness of Jesus, I will announce to you the mysteries seen by me on it.”

10. I was in t...