Introduction

Naked Bible Podcast Episode 353: Revelation 1:4

Naked Bible Podcast Transcript

Episode 353

Revelation 1:4

December 7, 2020

Teacher: Dr. Michael S. Heiser (MH)

Host: Trey Stricklin (TS)

Episode Summary

Our series on the Old Testament in the book of Revelation opens with Rev 1:4a,

where we find the phrase “who is and who was and who is to come, the

Almighty.” The phrase is repeated in Rev 1:8 where parts of it are defined in an

important way. Scholars are in general agreement that John gets the phrase from

the Septuagint (LXX) Exodus 3:14, but that verse accounts for only one-third of

John’s wording. Where does the remainder come from? Why would John draw

on Exodus 3:14? What point was he trying to make?

Transcript

TS: Welcome to the Naked Bible Podcast, Episode 353: Revelation 1:4. I’m the

layman, Trey Stricklin, and he’s the scholar, Dr. Michael Heiser. Hey, Mike!

We’re finally here. The day has come!

MH: Yep, we’re actually into the book of Revelation. What do you know? [laughs]

TS: I’m excited. I know everybody around the world’s excited, Mike. I am excited

about this. [MH laughs] I’m fired up.

MH: Yeah? Well, let’s just jump in to our first stop in Revelation. We’re not doing

verse-by-verse commentary. We’re not doing End Times stuff. We’re going to go

through the book and we’re going to look at places (maybe not every place, but a

lot of places—most of the places, I think would be fair to say) where the book

(the author, John) references or does something with the Old Testament. And it

isn’t long (not far into the book) before we hit our first one. That is verse 4. So

Revelation 1:4 today. And I’m just going to read the first part of verse 4 because I

want to focus on one particular thing in this episode. And then we’re going to

have Revelation 1:4 (the remainder of it) and a few other things in the next

episode. I want to try to chop it up like that because I think it’s just easier to fixate

on one particular thing, especially in the case of this episode. There’s just a lot to

think about and talk about with respect to the phrase that we get in verse 4, and

that is:

Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come…

Naked Bible Podcast Episode 353: Revelation 1:4

So there’s our phrase for the day. That’s our focus for the day. Not the rest of the

verse; just that first part. And this is going to get repeated in verse 8. We’ll loop

verse 8 in toward the end of the episode. Verse 8 (of Revelation 1) says:

“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and

who is to come, the Almighty.”

So a little bit tacked onto that in the front and the back, but essentially that

phrase: “him who is and who was and who is to come.” So out of the gate, this

wording may or may not bring some Old Testament things to mind for listeners,

but scholars have certainly noticed it and spent a lot of time, actually, talking

about it. So the first thing I want to comment on is that the phrase is unusual in

certain respects. Aune has a three-volume commentary (I think it’s three

volumes) on the book of Revelation. So three separate volumes in the Word

Biblical Commentary series. In volume one, he writes this about the phrase. He

says:

In Revelation, John refers to God only as “my/his [Jesus’] Father” (1:6; 2:27; 3:5,

21; 14:1), but here [MH: in verse 4 of chapter 1], perhaps intentionally, he omits

the designation “Father” from the greeting. In fact, he transforms this part of the

traditional Christian salutation [MH: “grace to you and peace” is how verse 4

begins] by referring to God using this very elaborate set of three clauses, each of

which functions as a divine title. Though unattested elsewhere in early Christian

literature, this distinctive phrase occurs three times in Revelation (here; 1:8;

4:8)… A shorter, bipartite [MH: two-part] formula, perhaps a more traditional

form that John expanded, is ὁ ὣν καὶ ὁ ἦν (ho n kai ho n) “who is and who

was,” which occurs twice (11:17; 16:5).

So the first thing to notice here is that John is apparently doing something

deliberate. Because the way he opens this book… Granted, it’s not an epistle. It’s

not, like, a normal letter. Normally these would start: “Grace and peace to you

from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” Paul does this over and over

and over again. So John alters that formula for the book of Revelation and has

this threefold title: “Him who is and who was and who is to come.” So that’s the

first thing that commentators have noticed—that it’s a little bit different so there

must be a reason why. Choice sort of suggests intention.

So the next question scholars typically ask is, “What is John’s source text for

this? Is he getting it somewhere?” And there’s broad agreement here. Sean

McDonough, who I think I alluded to in the introductory episode, has a whole

book on this, YHWH at Patmos (which is where John is when he writes the book

of Revelation)… So YHWH at Patmos: Revelation 1:4 in its Hellenistic and Early

Jewish Setting. This is a paperback from Wipf and Stock. It used to be expensive

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Naked Bible Podcast Episode 353: Revelation 1:4

because it was his published dissertation. But it’s a very technical book because

it was his dissertation. He actually spends a lot of time on this whole thing.

Revelation 1:4 is the whole book. So there’s a lot to consider here. We’re not

going to get into the weeds that deeply. But he writes, toward the beginning of his

book:

It has long been recognized that this description of God [MH: that John opens

with] is indebted to Jewish reflection on the name YHWH [MH: the divine name,

the Tetragrammaton], and in particular to reflection on the enigmatic words of

Exod 3:14 ‘I am who I am’.

So if you look at Revelation 1:4, the Greek there is ὁ ὢν καὶ ὁ ἦν καὶ ὁ ἐρχόμενος

(ho n kai ho n kai ho erchomenos) — ho n is “him who is”; kai ho n is “and

who was”; and then kai ho erchomenos is “and who is coming” or “who is to

come.” In Exodus 3:14, you have Ἐγώ εἰμι ὁ ὤν (eg eimi ho n) — eg eimi is

“I am.” And you would think that the Septuagint translator would say, “I am,” and

then have a relative pronoun, “that,” and then “I am” again (eg eimi, and then a

relative pronoun, then eg eimi.) But that’s not what he does. The Septuagint

translator has eg eimi (“I am”) and then ho n (“I am the one who is”). So right

away, scholars who are into Greek (the New Testament is originally written in

Greek and then the Septuagint is Greek)… When they come across this wording

(this opening of Revelation), they’re thinking, “Ah, John is thinking about Exodus

3:14 here.” And I’m not going to differ with anybody here. That’s on track. And

really, it’s certainly on track. And Beale, I think, has a really good point of

evidence for this. So scholars have reached a broad consensus here. John is

drawing on the burning bush episode (“I am that I am”)—Exodus 3:14 in the

Septuagint. And that is secured by… If you remember our previous episode (our

introductory episode to the book of Revelation), I told you we would be hitting

one of these… We’re going to be hitting several of these. But there’s actually a

solecism in Revelation 1:4. Remember, a solecism is a mistake, and in John’s

case it’s an intentional mistake of Greek grammar. You actually have one of

these in Revelation 1:4 and it’s important. Beale, in his Revelation commentary

(he has this massive New International Greek Textual Commentary on

Revelation), writes this. The whole phrase… If you go back to Revelation 1:4 in

English,

Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come…

So “from” is where this is going to start. And that’s the word ἀπὸ (apo).

ἀπὸ ὁ ὢν καὶ ὁ ἦν καὶ ὁ ἐρχόμενος (apo ho n kai ho n kai ho erchomenos) is

one of the characteristic solecisms in the Apocalypse [MH: the book of

Revelation], since [MH: this is going to sound technical, but I’ll parse it in a

moment] a genitive construction should follow ἀπό [MH: the preposition; he

Naked Bible Podcast Episode 353: Revelation 1:4

actually says there are examples in manuscripts where] Scribes tried to correct

[John’s] apparent mistake by adding [MH: a genitive noun] θεου (“[from] God”…

So “from God,” “the one who is and…” So you actually get manuscripts where

the scribes see that “this isn’t good Greek.” And so they actually added words to

have it make better sense. [laughs] So it’s a solecism. This is a mistake in Greek

style—in Greek grammar. But again, as we said in our introductory episode,

people who have studied these in the book of Revelation have realized that

they’re intentional. And they are deliberately there to draw our attention to

something. So Beale continues and he says:

But it would be a blunder of modern thinking to judge this as a mistake of one

who did not know his Greek very well. Here, as often elsewhere, commentators

generally acknowledge that the “incorrect” grammar is intentional. ὁ ὤν is

probably taken [MH: directly] from Exod. 3:14, where it occurs twice as an

explanation of the divine name Yahweh, and John keeps it in the nominative…

ὤν from ὁ ὤν is a nominative participle. John keeps it in the nominative case,

even though it follows a preposition that… In Greek grammar, prepositions

govern which case follows them, if it’s a noun. And ἀπὸ calls for a particular

grammatical case (the genitive). But John says, “No, I’m not going to do that. I’m

going to put Exodus 3:14 in Greek right in here. And I’m going to keep the form

that it occurs in in Exodus 3 in the Septuagint. And I know it’s bad Greek. And

people who know Greek well are going to be jarred by it. And that’s good,

because I want them to go back and see what form it was in in Exodus 3:14. And

they’ll know that I want them to look. I’m actually…” This is like a red flag planted

in the text. “There’s a boo-boo here. And where would we see this particular

form? I mean, John knows Greek everywhere else. Why is he doing this? Where

would this particular wording be found? Ah. Back in Exodus 3:14, the burning

bush.” So John marries two things grammatically that don’t go together. But it’s

his way of drawing attention back to the source, and the source is Exodus 3:14.

Aune, in his commentary, comments on this as well. He says:

ὁ ὤν (ho n), “the one who is” (a substantival participle from the verb εἰμί [eimi]

“to be”), was, among Greek-speaking Jews, a popular name for God ultimately

derived from the phrase ἐγώ εἰμι ὁ ὤν (eg eimi ho n) “I am the one who is,” in

the LXX translation of the Hebrew phrase היהא רא היהא, ʾehyeh ʾăsher ʾehyeh, “I

am who I am,” in Exod 3:14.

So Beale and Aune and a bunch of other commentators see what’s going on

here. And they see the fact that this is a “mistake,” but they also recognize that

it’s deliberate. John is telling you essentially where to look, where he got this.

The third point is that if you look at it, though… And when we compared them…

Let me just read it again here. In Revelation 1:4, you have this longer phrase,

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Naked Bible Podcast Episode 353: Revelation 1:4

“the one who is and who was and who is to come.” The first part of that (“the one

who is”) is this Greek ὁ ὤν (ho n). Exodus 3:14 only has ho n (eg eimi ho n).

It doesn’t have the rest of what John’s phrase is. It doesn’t have any reference to

“who was and who is to come.” That doesn’t come from Exodus 3:14, so it raises

the question, “Well, why does John supplement this? Why isn’t Exodus 3:14 as it

is good enough? Why does he add to it? Is it some kind of commentary on his

part? Does it have some significance?” And McDonough, in his book on

Revelation 1:4, his first and third chapters are really aimed at trying to answer

this question. And the first chapter frames the context for the whole question. So

what he does in this first chapter is he surveys Greek literature—just the whole of

Greek literature—from its beginnings all the way up to the Hellenistic period,

which is the Second Temple Jewish period. And he finds a few near parallels to

Revelation 1:4’s wording in Homer and Hesiod. And the latter is with respect to

the deeds of the gods. So here is Hesiod’s Theogony (with his cosmogony—his

cosmology—in there). In lines 29-34 he writes:

So said the ready-voiced daughters of great Zeus, and they plucked and gave [30]

me a rod, a shoot of sturdy laurel, a marvellous thing, and breathed into me a

divine voice to celebrate things that shall be and things that were aforetime

(τά τʼ ἐσσόμενα πρό τʼ ἐόντα – ta t’ essomena pro t’ eonta); and they bade me

sing of the race of the blessed gods that are eternally (μακάρων γένος αἰὲν

ἐόντων – makarn genos aiev eontn) [MH: eternally there], but ever to sing of

themselves both first and last.

Now in English you see a few phrases there. “Things that shall be. Things that

were, before.” Then there’s this reference to “the gods who are eternal, and they

sing of themselves first and last.” Some of this language you already know is in

Revelation. So McDonough notes this and says, “You know, these phrases refer

not only to the deeds of the gods, but really the gods themselves.” And that

seems coherent. But none of this is an exact parallel to the Septuagint of Exodus

3:14 or Revelation 1:4. But you get similar language about these other gods (the

Greek gods). There’s actually a closer parallel, though. The Greek writer

Pausanius, citing an oracle at Dodona, is the one that’s really close. And this text

is considered by scholars to be contemporaneous with the book of Revelation.

So it’s first century (when John is writing) or maybe a little bit before. And it

describes Zeus. And here’s the description. Zeus is described as “Zeus was,

Zeus is, Zeus shall be. O mighty Zeus.” Zeus, of course, was considered at the

time (in the pagan world) to be the Most High. Now the term hypsistos in Greek

(which means “Most High”) is used of Zeus a lot. So the pagan world is thinking

Zeus is the most high deity, and “he was and he is and he shall be.” So as soon

as you run into that, you’re thinking, “Okay. It seems like John is taking a shot at

the Greco-Roman most high god, Zeus.” I’m going to read a little something from

DDD (the Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible) about the term

hypsistos. It says:

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Naked Bible Podcast Episode 353: Revelation 1:4

Υψιστος (hypsistos) is a superlative form from the adverb ὕ ψι (hypsi) “most

high, highest”.

You have the article up front, so it serves as a noun. So hypsistos ho hypsistos

(the Most High). And it has the sense of…

… “the most high” or “the highest”. In the Greek translations of the Hebrew Bible

[MH: the Septuagint] ןוילע (→Elyon) is always translated by (ὁ) ὕ ψιστος (ho

hypsistos) [MH: the Most High]. In these instances, as in the Greek literature of

Judaism of the Second Temple Period and in the literature of primitive

Christianity, the expression ὁ ὕ ψιστος (ho hypsistos) refers to the God of

Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. In non-Jewish or non-Christian texts written in Greek,

the expression occurs as a divine name for Zeus…

So here’s a good question: Did the Septuagint translator… Did the Jews in the

Hellenistic period who did the work translating the Hebrew Bible into Greek… Did

the guy who got Exodus render the divine name in Exodus 3:14 the way he did in

order to challenge the status of Zeus? Because “he who is”… eg eimi. (“I, I

myself am the one who is.”) Is that a shot? Because what John does is John

takes that and then he adds it. I mean, John makes it completely transparent,

because he adds the other two elements, that he is… It’s pretty evident, if you

were a Greek person (if you were a Gentile especially) or knew Greek well, you

know… You’re familiar with this title. And John is not talking about Zeus here.

He’s talking about the God of Israel. He gives him this titling of Zeus, which ties

in back to Exodus 3:14—the burning bush. So it seems that this is what John’s

doing. He’s laying down the gauntlet. And McDonough picks up on this point and

he says here:

The stage has now been set for our investigation of the use and understanding of

the name YHWH in early Judaism [MH: this is part of his first chapter]. We have

seen that Greek thinking would have posed a considerable challenge to a

reflective Jew or Christian in the hellenistic era. The Greeks were in control of the

world [MH: this is the era of post-Alexander here], which might raise the question

as to whether their gods were likewise in control of the world. What is more, the

chief of their pantheon, Zeus, has undergone a transformation which rendered

him a considerable foe for any god claiming supremacy over the universe. No

longer simply the lustful tyrant of Homeric days [MH: you know, Homer’s epics],

Zeus now came as the embodiment of the Stoic designing fire, or as “the one

through whom all things have life.”

That’s another title of Zeus. That actually sounds like descriptions of Jesus

elsewhere in the New Testament. But this is how Zeus is described. McDonough

continues:

Naked Bible Podcast Episode 353: Revelation 1:4

As they sang at Dodona, “Zeus was, Zeus is, and Zeus will be.” The name YHWH,

we will see, was ready to enter the etymological fray as “the One who is.” But this

in turn led back to the questions posed by Greek philosophers about the nature of

Being, and its relationship to time and space. YHWH’s confrontation with the

“gods of the nations” was taking a new turn.

So McDonough and other commentators are thinking what John’s doing here is

in fact not just, “Hey, you readers who might have some acquaintance with

Judaism, I’m using this phrase now and I’m committing a grammatical error so

that you go look and find Exodus 3:14. And you’ll find, ‘Ah, the same God of

Exodus 3:14, the same God of the burning bush, is the God that John’s writing

about now.’” Well that’s all true. John wants people to see that. But he wants

more. So he supplements it. It’s not only the “he who is,” but “he who was and

who is to come.” And when he adds those two elements, it’s a swipe at Zeus. So

now he’s looping the pagans in, too, and anybody else in the Jewish community

who might be familiar with how pagans looked at Zeus and how Zeus was set as

a rival or better than Yahweh. So just this one little selection from Exodus 3:14

and then supplementing it a little bit (giving it a little more play) is actually

theological telegraphing. It’s significant.

So just to go on here, McDonough mentions Philo. So Philo actually uses this

phrase (ho on—“the one who is”) as well. I want to get into this a little bit. One of

the possible… Not just the solecism (the grammatical mistake) points back to

Exodus 3:14 (this fundamental text in Judaism). But Philo (very famous first

century B.C. writer) takes that from Exodus 3:14 as well, and he writes within the

context of Second Temple Judaism (Hellenistic Judaism)… He uses this

description as Yahweh’s name.

Now you have to realize, this has significance. Because this is also the era when,

for Jews, they begin to be very hesitant to use the name of God. This notion is

very familiar to people who listen to this podcast, Bible students, evangelicals,

whatever—this notion about how you couldn’t pronounce the name of the Lord.

Well, I hope you realize, in the Old Testament period that wasn’t actually the

case. [laughs] Exodus 3 actually requires people to say the name of God. Let’s

just go back to Exodus 3. Just a quick rabbit trail here. Because we know all

about this notion that “Jews didn’t pronounce the name.” Well, that really is

something that comes from the Second Temple period and scholars speculate on

reasons for it. But in the biblical period, people were saying the divine name all

the time. I’m going back to the burning bush here. And here’s what Moses says

in verse 13:

Then Moses said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them,

‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his

name?’ what shall I say to them?”

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Naked Bible Podcast Episode 353: Revelation 1:4

And God tells him what to say. “Here’s what you say, Moses.”

God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” [MH: היהא רא היהא, ʾehyeh ʾăsher

ʾehyeh, “I am who I am”] And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I

AM has sent me to you.’”

God also said to Moses, “Say this to the people of

Israel: ‘The LORD [MH: and that’s Yahweh, that’s the third person

form], the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the

God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’

So God actually demands that Moses use his name if he gets asked this

question. And then you have the priestly blessing, like in the book of Numbers.

This is Numbers 6:22-27:

The LORD spoke to Moses, saying,

“Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying,

Thus you shall bless the people of Israel [MH: You, you, high priest, Aaron, you

guy, you]: you shall say to them,

And this isn't, like, a whisper, and he’s not writing it out and handing it around.

“Now don’t utter it; just read it.” No! He says, “You say to them, ‘Yahweh…’”

There’s the divine name.

The LORD bless you and keep you;

the LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you;

the LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.

“So shall they put my name upon the people of Israel, and I will bless them.”

Again, these are just two instances. My point is that yeah, it’s not a myth that

Jews didn’t want to say the name of God. That’s true. But that whole hesitance—

that reticence—really is something that you begin to see in the very period where

John is writing the book of Revelation and he’s using what then (according to the

literature we have)… He’s using the conventional way or the literary way to use

God’s name verbally to people. And that is ho on (the one who is) in Greek.

Because everybody speaks Greek. Philo (going back to McDonough’s book

here)… McDonough points this out about Philo, that he uses this as God’s

“proper name.” And Philo also says elsewhere that God has no real name, he

has no proper name, he just is. But he uses this as a way to speak of God and

utter his name in Greek. And everybody was… There was nothing unusual about

it. It’s okay. Philo was never labeled a blasphemer or anything like that. And of

course, neither is John. Aune comments on Philo. He says:

Philo often uses the phrase ὁ ὤν of God, sometimes in combination with θεός,

“God” (e.g., ὁ ὤν θεός, “the God who is”; ὁ ὄντως ὤν θεός, “the God who truly

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Naked Bible Podcast Episode 353: Revelation 1:4

is”) [MH: Philo will use these phrases]. The phrase ὁ ὤν is used at least eight times

as a divine name…

Then he lists the references and so on and so forth. And half of them very

certainly come directly from Exodus 3:14. So we’re not going to rabbit trail as to

why Jews became hesitant to use the name, but it was important that they did it

in this way at least. And John does it. John uses the name. But he does it in

Greek. He uses the Greek form of Exodus 3:14 (ho on—“the one who is”). And

there’s nothing wrong with that. He wasn’t blaspheming or anything. Because he

wants people to recognize that we’re talking about the God of Abraham, Isaac,

and Jacob, the God of Moses, the God of the burning bush, so on and so forth.

And he thinks it’s important enough to start his book this way. And the book is

going to be read orally. So people are going to hear ho on. And if you’re Jewish,

“Oh, I can’t listen to that because that’s the name of God! Even though it’s Greek,

that’s the name of God, and we’re not allowed to hear it!” No, it’s not like that.

Now in terms of the Hebrew terminology, like in the Dead Sea Scrolls, you do get

the divine name written in a lot of scrolls. For some of the scrolls, the scribes

don’t write it. They put four dots in its place. Some of them write it and put dots

over and under it. They do all sorts of things. In Aramaic, they typically use the

word mr’, which means “Lord.” The Septuagint does that a lot, mostly. It’ll use

kurios instead of trying to transliterate the term in Greek. But some manuscripts

try to transliterate it. If you know the Greek alphabet, you will see capital letter I

and then a capital Pi (the I is one column and the Pi is two columns) and then

another capital letter I and then another one with two columns. It looks like six

columns in a row in capital letter Greek. But it spells (from left to right) Pipi.

That’s actually the divine name in some Greek manuscripts. Because the Greek

writer is trying to use Greek capital letters to create something that looks like the

YHWH in Hebrew. They do all sorts of things to either veil the divine name or in

some cases, they will use Exodus 3:14 so that they can say it. And in John’s

case, it’s important because he not only takes that out of Exodus 3:14 into

Revelation 1:4, but then he supplements it as apparently a swipe at Zeus, who

was considered most high in his time in the Greek-speaking world.

So what do we have to this point? I think what we have as it pertains to the Old

Testament is the use of Exodus 3:14 to link what John is going to write about. It’s

not just the God of John. It’s the God of Christians. Not only Israel, but the God of

Christians—the God of those who follow Jesus. It’s the same God. And this God

is Most High. But for John, he’s more. It’s not just that this is the God of Exodus 3

and the burning bush and so on and so forth, because this God became a man in

Jesus. The Most High became a man in Jesus and died and rose again. This is

the center of the Christian faith and it’s going to be the center of the book of

Revelation. It’s going to be the center of who he’s writing about. And this is why

verse 8 becomes important. So if it was just verse 4 (“the one who is and who

was and who is to come”)… “Yeah, okay, that’s the God of Israel back at the

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Naked Bible Podcast Episode 353: Revelation 1:4

burning bush, and yeah, John’s supplemented it because he wants to take a

swipe at Zeus…” I mean that’s good stuff, but now we get to verse 8, where God

(“the one who is and who was and who is to come”) says,

“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and

who is to come, the Almighty.”

So we have the same threefold description as in 1:4, but here it’s linked to “I am

the Alpha and the Omega,” which will later be explained (as if we couldn’t tell),

meaning “I’m the first and the last.” That’s Revelation 21:6, Revelation 22:13.

Now we may not realize it, but when John adds that (“I am the first and the last”)

in those references (and we’ll get to them down the road, but we’ll say something

here as well), John’s dipping into the Old Testament there, too. Isaiah 41:4. Let’s

just give you some examples here of how John with these other phrases is also

thinking about the Old Testament. He’s also repurposing it. And it’s going to

become significant. We’ll get to why in a moment. But in Isaiah 41:4, we read:

Who has performed and done this,

calling the generations from the beginning?

I, the LORD, the first,

and with the last; I am he.

Isaiah 43:10:

“You are my witnesses,” declares the LORD,

“and my servant whom I have chosen,

that you may know and believe me

and understand that I am he.

Before me no god was formed,

nor shall there be any after me.

Isaiah 44:6:

Thus says the LORD, the King of Israel

and his Redeemer, the LORD of hosts:

“I am the first and I am the last;

besides me there is no god.

Isaiah 48:12:

Naked Bible Podcast Episode 353: Revelation 1:4

“Listen to me, O Jacob,

and Israel, whom I called!

I am he; I am the first,

and I am the last.

Isaiah 43:10 is the big one. I reference these in Unseen Realm. Yes, there are

plural elohim and all that stuff, but before God, there was no other. He has to

create the other ones. And after him, no one else is going to be creating them.

He is the lone creator. He is the lone self-existent. He is the lone pre-existent. He

is the lone eternal. Nothing else even in the spiritual world can claim these

attributes. These are really important, powerful phrases. But the point for our

purposes here is that you get the “first and last” language looped into this. And

Beale comments on this. He says:

The complete threefold clause [MH: “the one who is, who was, and who is to

come”] is a reflection of Exod. 3:14 together with twofold and threefold temporal

descriptions of God in Isaiah (cf. Isa. 41:4; 43:10; 44:6; 48:12)…

So even if we didn’t have the Old Testament with this additional stuff in verse 8,

back in verse 4 it’s very clear that John’s taking a swipe at Zeus. And if there was

any ambiguity as to which deity John prefers, the “who was and who is to come,”

“the first and the last”… He was the first one on the stage, and he’s going to be

the last one—that whole kind of thing. If you start looking for that language, you

run into it in verse 8. And you go back to the Old Testament there, you’re going

to run into the same God—the God of Moses, the God of the burning bush, the

God of Israel. So going back to Beale, he says we have these “threefold temporal

descriptions of God in Isaiah…”

… which themselves may be developed reflections on the divine name in Exod.

3:14. The name in Exod. 3:14 was also expanded in twofold and threefold

manners in later Jewish tradition: … “I am now what I always was and always will

be” (Midr. Rab. Exod. 3.6; Alphabet of Rabbi Akiba; likewise Midr. Ps. 72.1) [MH:

that’s some Midrash, it’s some rabbinic writings there from Rabbi Akiba]; “I am he

who is and who was, and I am he who will be” (Targ. Ps.-J. Deut. 32:39)…

That’s Deuteronomy 32:39 in a Targum, the Targum specifically Pseudo-

Jonathan, which is later. This is the Rabbinic period. But you can see how the

Jewish community is putting Exodus 3 together with some of these other verses.

Now there’s a practical point to John’s strategy. Beale explains elsewhere:

All these expansions are used in their respective contexts to describe God, not

merely as present at the beginning, middle, and end of history, but as the

incomparable, sovereign Lord over history, who is thus able to bring prophecy to

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Naked Bible Podcast Episode 353: Revelation 1:4

fulfillment [MH: John’s going to talk a lot about that in Revelation] and to deliver

his people despite overwhelming odds, whether from Egypt, Babylon, or the

nations [MH: which would, of course, in John’s day be the Greeks and the

Romans]. In Revelation the last part of the threefold clause, ὁ ἐρχόμενος (ho

erchomenos) [MH: “the one who is to come”] is to be understood eschatologically

and as referring to God’s sovereign consummation of history in the future.

So in other words, John wants readers to know that the God of Moses, the God

of Israel, who is, and was, and is coming (the first and the last), will deliver

believers under persecution. Because that’s who he’s writing to. These churches

are in a difficult spot. It’s toward the end of the first century or in the middle of the

first century. The Church is under persecution from the Jewish community

mostly, but later it’s going to ramp up with the Romans. John wants them to know

that he will deliver believers under persecution. God is capable of doing this, as

he delivered the remnant of Israel in the past. So again, there’s the connection

point. And more than that, for John, this God became a man in Jesus Christ. And

John will specifically link his description of God in Revelation 1:4a (the first part of

verse 4), and verse 8. He actually links these descriptions. Think about it. “The

one who is and who was and who is to come,” “the first and the last,” “the Alpha

and the Omega.” As you’re reading Revelation 1:4, “Oh, that’s God.” Verse 8,

“Oh, that’s God.” Verse 17, “That ain’t God.” [laughs] Revelation 1:17 says this.

Well, let’s go back up to verse 12.

Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me, and on turning I

saw seven golden lampstands,

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 hairs of his head were white, like white wool, like snow. His eyes

were like a flame of fire,

his feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a

furnace, and his voice was like the roar of many waters.

I mean, these are descriptions you can find in the Old Testament… We’re going

to hit more of this, but just generally now, you can find this imagery used of the

God of Israel in the Old Testament.

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.

When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand on

me, saying, “Fear not, I am the first and the last…”

Now if it stopped there in verse 17, you’d think, “Oh yeah, that’s the God back in

verse 4 and back in verse 8.” But it continues in verse 18.

Naked Bible Podcast Episode 353: Revelation 1:4

But he laid his right hand on me, saying, “Fear not, I am the first and the

last,

and the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have

the keys of Death and Hades.

See, now we’re not talking about God the Father here. This is Jesus. And the

language overlaps with verse 4 and verse 8, and it’ll overlap later, too.

So John wants to make certain claims. (And with this, we’ll wrap up today.) He’s

telling them, “Look, the same God who delivered the Israelites from Egypt, who

delivered them from Babylon… the same God at the burning bush—he’s still

God. He’s still our God. He’s not just the God of Israel. He’s the God of all

believers—all those who believe in his messiah, Jesus. And not only that, but this

God is also Jesus. He became a man, he died, and he rose again.” “I was dead. I

died. I’m the first and the last, just like the first and the last back in verse 8, who

is the Almighty, who is ‘the one and who was and who is to come.’” John is

mixing the language here and applying it to both the Father and the Son.

And by the way, for those of you who (God forbid) do internet theology, this is

another one of those things that… Nobody is going to say Revelation was written

way, way, way late. It’s at the end of the first century at the latest. Here’s your

Christology. It doesn’t have to wait till Nicaea, is the point. This is Christology

long before the Council of Nicaea. It is describing Jesus the way you would

describe God, and you do it to both in the same chapter in the span of ten

verses. So John wants people to know God is able to deliver them. It’s the same

God who became a man, he was Christ, and so on and so forth. And he is the

Most High.

So right out of the gate, John is making a theological statement. And he wants

his readers—his hearers—to know that this same God… Even though they’re

under persecution, this is the God who has the keys to life and death. Okay? To

death and Hades, so on and so forth—everlasting life or everlasting death. And

this one is on their side (the side of the believer).

So again, John does what he does through (I don't want to call it clever, but

maybe not completely transparent) ways that he marries Exodus 3:14 to some

passages in Isaiah and uses them to take a swipe at Greco-Roman religion. John

has a reason for doing with the Old Testament what he’s doing here, to

communicate all these theological thoughts and to encourage people he knows

that are going to be listening to the book or reading the book, in their situation.

And away we go. Because the rest of the book… He’s going to pick up speed

and start talking about the end of days, the final resolution of all things. And he

wants them to know who’s on their side.

TS: Alright, Mike. The first one is in the books.

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Naked Bible Podcast Episode 353: Revelation 1:4

MH: The first one in the books.

TS: Yeah. How do you feel about it? Feel good?

MH: Good, yeah. I mean, you know… I like… I’m going to have a predilection for

things that John’s going to do that aren’t surface level transparent from English.

Parts of this were and parts of it weren’t. So I kind of like that. You get a sense

that he’s doing something, but don’t quite know exactly what he’s doing. There

are other places that are going to be… Like when he hits the plagues and he

starts talking about the plagues, and it’s going to sound like Egypt, well that’s a

little more transparent than some of this. But you know, I think anybody’s who’s

reading the book of Revelation closely will have a sense (if they’ve read through

the Old Testament a few times) that he’s doing something there. But exactly

what, that’s why we’re doing this. That’s why we’re here. That’s why we’re doing

this series.

TS: Do you foresee yourself learning anything new, Mike, going through this?

MH: Oh, yeah. Yeah, I’ve never systematically gone through Revelation. Yeah.

TS: Is there something you’re looking forward to more than the others? Or is it

just all good?

MH: To me, it’s like… Some of the stuff we did leading up to this, like with the

Gospels… Like in my dissertation, you get references… Because I had to read

about Jewish binitarian Christology all the time, so I had hints of what was lurking

in the Gospels in that regard. But a lot of those episodes we did, yeah, there was

some of the Christology stuff, like pre-existence, for instance. But there were

other things that I had never taken a look at, like how Jesus handles the Old

Testament specifically to telegraph Gentile inclusion and things like that. So I

enjoy doing this kind of thing because I like connectivity, just in general. And so

in those cases it gets my head more into the Gospels, and in this case, it’ll be the

book of Revelation.

TS: I know I enjoy the connectivity as much as everybody else, so I’m excited

about it. And with that, I want to thank everybody for listening to the Naked Bible

Podcast! God Bless.