Revelation, written by John the apostle, is a prophetic summing up of God’s ways with man. A history that began in Genesis in pure freshness and simplicity now ends in great involvements and complications occasioned by man’s accumulated guilt and willful disorder. But our great God, in calm, majestic deliberation, unravels the tangled mess and judges in perfect time and order according to His divine wisdom.

Three major divisions in the book given in chapter 1:19 will be of great help to the student:

• “the things which you have seen” (ch. 1);

• “the things which are” (chs. 2–3);

• “the things which will take place after this” (chs. 4–22).

The first is past; the second present, applying to the Church age; and the third is future. In chapters 2 and 3 the Lord Jesus is seen in sublime judicial discernment of the state of seven assemblies in Asia Minor, these being prophetic of the entire history of the Church from its inception to the coming of the Lord, the Rapture. Judgment must begin at the house of God.

The victory of the Lord Jesus over all things, His millennial kingdom, His Great White Throne judgment, the eternal glory of God in the new heavens and the new earth are some of the great issues of the book. Glorious culmination of the magnificent counsels of God! How fitting, too, that this last word from God should declare blessing for those who read, hear, and keep its sacred truths.