John,

To the seven churches in the province of Asia:

Grace and peace to you from him who is, and who was, and who is to come, and from the seven spirits before his throne,  and from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.

To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood, and has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve his God and Father—to him be glory and power for ever and ever! Amen.

“Look, he is coming with the clouds,”
and “every eye will see him,
even those who pierced him”;
and all peoples on earth “will mourn because of him.”
So shall it be! Amen.

“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.”

Revelation 1:4-8

John is beginning to get down to business in these four verses, at least in the sense of the letter writing of his day. He gives his name in 4a, the recipients in 4b, then his prescript in 4c-5a, and finally his proem in 5b-8. I am taking pains to point this out here in Revelation, because I want us to keep in mind what we are reading; we have NOT gotten to the visions yet!

That is not to say that there is nothing to learn here; far from it. Take a look at 4c-5a:

Grace and peace to you from him who is, and who was, and who is to come, and from the seven spirits before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.

Grace and peace for he who is, was and is to come is a reference to the God the Father. The “seven spirits” (or sevenfold spirit as the footnote says) is a reference to the Holy Spirit, and of course Jesus is the Son, thus his greeting is from the fullness of the Godhead. Look how Jesus is described: Faithful witness, firstborn and ruler of the kings of the world. We will see these things over and over through the book… and let’s be sure to take notice of who is in charge.

The proem is also quite wonderful in Revelation. In 5b-6, we have John as the speaker. Verse 7 is made up of 2 prophetic quotations, first in 7a John quotes Daniel 7:13, and in 7b he quotes Zechariah 12:10.Finally, in verse 8, Jesus introduces Himself. From all of this, we get a good sense of where the letter is heading.

In 4c-5a, we have “who” is now sending greetings. In 5b-7 we see what will ultimately come to pass, and in verse 8 we have Jesus as He is and will continue to be as He presides over what transpires from now on into the future.

We’re just getting warmed up; next comes the introduction to main body, and the beginning of the first vision. See you next time!