The Revelation

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Dec 14, 1916

If one book could be called more important than another in the whole canon of Scripture, surely it would be “the Revelation of Jesus Christ,” given to him by God himself, “to show unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass.” It is the Revelation; not the Hidden, the Secret, the Mystery. Its purpose is to show forth, not to obscure.

In the original Greek it is called the Apocalypse, which means “the removal of the veil; the unveiling.” In the face of all this, it is surprising to find this book often referred to as “sealed,” but the Lord himself, knowing that this very thing would be said, gave this instruction to his servant: “Seal not the sayings of the prophecy of this book: for the time is at hand.”

Of the book of Revelation, Elder Uriah Smith says: “Scenes of glory surpassing fable are unveiled before us in this book. Appeals of unwonted power bear down upon the impenitent from its sacred pages in threatenings of judgment that have no parallel in any other portion of the Book of God. Consolation which no language can describe is here given to the humble followers of Christ. . . . No other book takes us at once and so irresistibly into another sphere. Long vistas are here opened before us, which are bounded by no terrestrial objects, but carry us forward into other worlds. And if ever themes of thrilling and impressive interest, and grand and lofty imagery, and sublime and magnificent description, can invite the attention of mankind, then the Revelation invites us to a careful study of its pages, which urge upon our notice the realities of a momentous future and an unseen world.”

John, the beloved disciple, and the writer of the Gospel and epistles that bear his name, was “the penman employed by Christ to write out this Revelation for the benefit of his church.” It was written while John, who had miraculously escaped martyrdom, was banished by the emperor Domitian to the isle of Patmos, “a rugged and barren island in the Ægean Sea, twenty miles south of Samos, and twenty-four west of Asia Minor.” From this inhospitable, lonely spot, “where Domitian thought he had forever extinguished at least one torch of truth, there arose the most magnificent Revelation of all the sacred canon, to shed forth its divine luster over the whole Christian world till the end of time.”