I am indebted to William Hendriksen (“More than Conquerors”, Commentary on Revelation) for this little gem.
I have read Rev. 1:1 many times, speeding quickly through this preamble to get to the “good stuff” not noticing an unusual word in the very first verse. That word is actually a key that helps us unlock much of the book. It is like the key to our house we might hide under the doormat. Many modern translations – and paraphrases especially – either hide the key under the floorboard (as the NIV did) or throw it away altogether as did The Message and New Living Translation! (See Note below)
Examples from six Bible versions’ treatment of Rev. 1:1. The key phrase is in allcaps (In some versions I quoted the following verses also):
The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him TO SHOW his servants what must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, – New International Version
The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him TO SHOW to His bond-servants, the things which must soon take place; and He sent and communicated it by His angel to His bond-servant John, – New American Standard Bible
A revealing of Jesus, the Messiah. God gave it TO MAKE PLAIN to his servants what is about to happen. He published and delivered it by Angel to his servant John. – The Message
This is a revelation from Jesus Christ, which God gave him concerning the events that will happen soon. An angel was sent to God’s servant John so that John could share the revelation with God’s other
servants. – New Living Translation
The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him TO SHOW His servants–things which must shortly take place. And He sent and signified it by His angel to His servant John –New King James Version
The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him TO SHOW to his servants the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw. Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near. – English Standard Version
Because of these loose renderings of the original text a very valuable clue as to how to approach Revelation is hidden from most readers.
Here is the key: The book is filled with SIGNS. The Greek word ESEMASEN can indeed be translated “to show”, as many versions chose, but to do so misses the main thrust of the word, namely that John was writing about actual signs, and symbols. A more recent cognate of this word is “semaphore”, referring to a device using symbols and markings to communicate information to trains, ships, and airplanes. Airplanes are directed on the tarmac by workers holding flags in certain positions. Likewise, readers of this difficult book can be directed by the symbols God has given us.
Here is the Greek of the phrase in question:
καὶ ἐσήμανεν ἀποστείλας διὰ τοῦ ἀγγέλου αὐτοῦ, τῷ δούλῳ αὐτοῦ Ἰωάνῃ,
Hendriksen wrote this in “More than Conquerors” (p.38):
“The entire book consists of changing scenes like these, of moving pictures and active symbols.”…
“N.B. the first verse of the book ‘and he made it known by means of signs (or symbols)’.”
Understanding this first verse ought to save readers from trying to make literal details in this book that were never meant to be taken literally! What makes it worse for all Bible students of Revelation is David L. Cooper’s less than helpful mantra drilled into us:
“If the plain sense of Scripture makes sense seek no other sense … “.
Well, the plain sense has steered us wrong. And – more to the point – the plain sense goes against Revelation 1:1. “Plain sense” has often gotten in the way of spiritual understanding. The Jews understood “plainly” that Jesus said He would rebuild the temple in three days. The disciples misunderstood just as “plainly” about the “leaven of the Pharisees”. Very often, “plain sense” is
another way of saying “spiritual obtuseness”.
What are some other examples worth looking into?
“The four horsemen”. Even Premillennialists don’t read these as literal horsemen. Yet they want to stay close to their rule (lest they fall into our pit of Full Preterism!) so they are forced to think of these horsemen as portending a literal sequence of “chartable” events.
But even grouping them together is to miss the point, since the first “horseman” is worlds apart from the ones following Him. The first horseman on a white horse is Christ (see the exact same
descriptive phrase at Rev. 19:11). The second horseman follows after the first because when God moved in history the opposition counter-moved. (Reading the book of Acts shows this time and again:
Blessings, then adversarial conflict, then God’s counter-blessings). But Revelation uses colors as symbols: The color white in this book is always good, not evil. Certainly not Antichrist!
Note
This shows, by the way, the dangers of relying on paraphrases for serious Bible study. The whole concept of “signs” is absent from the two paraphrases above (“delivered” – Message, “share” – NLT) and diluted by others (“made it known by sending his angel” NIV). Do you want your understanding of God’s Word limited by the “smoothness” of a “translation” that is far from the actual meaning?
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