Revelation 1:4 - 20 As The Edenic Covenant

 Shema

I, John, your brother and partner in the tribulation and the kingdom and the patient endurance that are in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos on account of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. 10 I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet 11 saying, “Write what you see in a book and send it to the seven churches, to Ephesus and to Smyrna and to Pergamum and to Thyatira and to Sardis and to Philadelphia and to Laodicea.”

• Both Genesis 1 & Revelation 1 begin in medias res. 
• John was on Patmos on the Lord’s Day, in the Spirit & worshipping.  This is parallel to the Spirit of God, at thr dawn of time itself, hovering (and worshipping) over the face of the deep, having been sent out to superintend the beginning of the created order. 
• In both books, a loud voice speaks, & commands are issued to decree (in writing) over the created order.   The 7 churches are emblematic of the whole  covenantal system as well as the cosmos itself, God’s multiune temple set upon a mountain & bordered by rivers, containing living beings charged with exercising dominion & entrusted with God’s Law & Gospel for all eternity.  

Historical Prologue 

12 Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands, 

• The text of Genesis operates very like the text of Revelation (& vice versa), insofar as the hearer/reader is tacitly invited to stand the shoes of the author.     
• In Genesis, the images generated by & in the text place the hearer/reader on the Earth itself, hovering with the Spirit of God & witnessing the unfolding of each day’s events. 
• In Revelation, John is pictured as an exile, very likely a prisoner, on Patmos.  The text invites the hearer/reader to join John there on Patmos & Paraclete him as if we ourselves are in thr room with him. 
• John sees 7 golden lampstands.  Moses writes of 7 “golden” days, six of which are the days God created the environment & living creatures, & the 7th is a day of rest & worship.  

13 and in the midst of the lampstands one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around his chest. 

• The LORD is the prime root agent of creation.   He creates, in Genesis, all living things.   God’s image is everywhere & in everything — especially the animals & even more especially people who are charged with rulership & care of the created order.    
• Revelation is drawing on the image of the Son of Man in Job, Isaiah, Ezekiel, & the Gospels.    The Son of Man has several referents here: God Almighty, Christ, Adam (& Eve), the whole of humanity, the created order itself.   

14 The hairs of his head were white, like white wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire, 15 his feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters. 16 In his right hand he held seven stars, from his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face was like the sun shining in full strength.

• In New Testament terms, we understand this to be a description of the Lord Jesus Christ as the Redeemer-Mediator.   This is Him as Christus Victor, Caesar & Imperator of All Creation, the Redeemet-Mediator whose theandric Person & Work underwrites the whole of God’s covenantal system.   
• This is also a description of the LORD God Almighty in all of His resplendent holiness, authority, & power.
• This is also a description of God’s decretal & moral order, His decree(s) personified. 
• This text also informs us of the LORD’s moral intention for each & every created being/entity both individually & corporately.  

17 When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead.

• That’s precisely where we all are in the deepest recesses of our soul when God reveals Himself in this way. 

General & Specific Stipulations 

 But he laid his right hand on me, saying, “Fear not, I am the first and the last, 18 and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hades. 19 Write therefore the things that you have seen, those that are and those that are to take place after this. 

• John is told to write down what he has seen, those things that are, & those things that will take place.  The LORD is writing a spacey-wacey timey-wimey document that is deeply personal & goes on forever & ever.   
• John, like Adam, is being charged with cultivating, paracleting, & governing the whole of the created order.  

Document Clause, Witnesses, Covenant Establishment/Renewal 

20 As for the mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand, and the seven golden lampstands, the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches.  (Revelation 1:9–20, ESV)

• The referents here are all about God first & foremost both in essence & attributes.   The 7 stars, lampstands, & angels are his 3 hypostases in their majesty, authority, & powers.  The images are perfectly perichoretic. 
• These images also represents God’s covenants, including the inter-trinitarian covenant(s) and those He righteously & graciously imposes on us all. 
• The churches & the letters to them are God’s testimony to His own Person & Work, & they are charged & invited to be God’s document clause & witnesses and renew covenant with Him.

All of this was going on in Eden. 

May God bless us all, each & every one, & “Go & sin no more.”