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

The translation of the Latin word revelation to Greek is Apokalypsis.  This last book of the Bible is intended to be a revelation of things not yet revealed by God. The foundational theme of Scripture is that man is wholly dependent on God and the revelation of God to man in the Bible is solely Gods initiative.

The purpose of Revelation is to tell the reader who Jesus is – that Jesus is critical to everything.  If we believe right about Jesus we will think right about everything.  In the Old Testament,  Israel was Gods witness to the world – in this age the Church is Gods witness. but neither are faithful witnesses.  Because Jesus Christ is true God (and also true man) He is not a reflection of God but is God and He is the “faithful witness”.  Jesus is the first begotten – this is not chronological, but positional. He is the pattern for all His brethren who will arise from the dead. Jesus is ruler over all men today but many/most do not realize this. But they will when He comes again.

The grammar used here – that He is coming and every eye will see Him – is present tense and future tense.  It is immanent  – He is in the process of coming and will arrive.  We are told that the invisible God will become visible. in this case seeing is a literal visibility, not an understanding and “every eye will see Him” tells us of  global nature of the manifestation of Christ.  We are given the promise of the one who will come again. The first time He came He redeemed us and He is certain to come to this earth again in power and glory and every eye shall see Him and every knee will bow.  There will be judgment and this will also be the culmination of all things.