You are already well equipped to productively read this wonderful book. You don’t have to understand it all to get something out of it. If you are able to immerse yourself in it and stand in awe of the Victorious Lamb, you are doing well.

There’s a saying I’m kinda fond of, though it’s not very sophisticated: “the beginning of things tells you stuff.” The idea is that writers tend to show their readers how to engage with and appropriate their work within the opening lines of their work. I’ve written about that elsewhere, and it’s true for most works, both ancient and modern, but it’s especially true of Revelation.
There is so much we learn about the book in the first few verses. Moreover, what we learn in that short space has a systemic impact on how we interpret the book. Revelation seems so difficult and confusing, but John has actually given us firm footholds in the opening of his letter. He’s guiding his readers in how Revelation is to be read.
Here’s an incomplete and “in brief” list of some of the essentials.

Jesus is the first recipient of Revelation, not John. Most English Bibles title the book “The Revelation to John,” but that’s only partially correct. This is actually the very first thing that John tells us. This book constitutes “the revelation” that “God gave to him” (1:1), and the “him” in that clause can’t be anyone other than “Jesus Christ.” The verse goes on to explain how this book got into John’s hands. The Father first gave it to Jesus (and you can read about that in Rev. 5), then Jesus passed it along to John via an Angel, and John in turn wrote it down and sent it to the churches (Rev. 1:2). There’s a lot to unpack here, but remember when Jesus told the disciples that “not even the Son of Man knows the day or the hour” (Mark 13:32)? Well, the obvious next question is: when will that information be disclosed? Revelation is that disclosure, and it was disclosed first to the only one accounted worthy (Rev. 5:9). Then, and marvel at this my friends, the one worthy chose to disclose all these things to us (Rev. 1:19).
The first form of this Revelation was seen, not imagined, written, read, or heard. We haven’t left the first two verses yet. Revelation is “shown” to Jesus, then to John, then to the church. The first and primary iteration by which the Father revealed these things is through visions.
By contrast, the church at large only receives Revelation in its written form (1:19 again), not its visual form. John “writes what he saw.” The writing down of that which was first seen involves a kind of “conversion” of media. We’re moving from the visual, to the verbal. This in itself has multiple implications. Here’s two:

First, we can note that communicating information visually and communicating information verbally require different skillsets. How do you “novelize” a movie? How do you describe the impact that a personal experience to friends without lamely concluding “you just had to be there?” It’s tough, and it requires a lot of artistic and literary and story-telling skill. John has those skills (he wrote a Gospel!), and he uses them to “show” the church what he saw.
Second, and equally importantly, there is a corresponding burden on the reader to now “recreate” the vision from the written word. John is supposed to write what he sees. The reader, in their turn, is supposed to “see” what is written. There’s a burden on both writer and reader here. Our burden is to visualize the word written. You have a ready tool for this, given to you by God. It’s called the “imagination.” Use it.

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 Is reality outside the church a common realm that is unrelated to the kingdom of Christ? No, the moral division in this life is not between the kingdom of Christ and a common realm considered as two static domains with diverse locations. The moral division in this life is between the kingdom of Christ and Satan’s kingdom considered as two dynamic domains that can penetrate any sphere of life. Both these kingdoms are defined by moral orientation and ultimate allegiance.

I was at a Presbytery meeting listening to the examination of a candidate for ordination. When asked, “What is the kingdom?” the candidate simply answered, “The church.” I was surprised by the brevity of the accepted answer. I wondered at the time if the candidate was implying that there are no senses in which the kingdom is a broader concept than the church. I was later told that the question and answer were based on Westminster Confession of Faith 25.2:
“The visible church … consists of all those throughout the world that profess the true religion; and of their children: and is the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ…”
The examination was thorough overall, and I am grateful for those who do this work. I am also grateful that this exchange motivated me to examine this subject more thoroughly.
As a general rule, the current members of the visible church and the citizens of the kingdom now alive are the same people. There is this degree of identity within this limited context. That doesn’t mean that the kingdom and the church are identical in every way and in every context. There are different nuances to being under Christ’s royal reign and being part of the gathered assembly of the saints. There are also contexts in which the kingdom is a broader concept than the church because Christ’s royal authority extends beyond the assembly of the saints.
In its commentary on the second petition of the Lord’s Prayer, “Thy kingdom come,” the Westminster Shorter Catechism refers to the kingdom of grace and the kingdom of glory. We are to pray “that the kingdom of grace may be advanced, ourselves and others brought into it, and kept in it” and “that the kingdom of glory may be hastened” (WSC 102). The kingdom of grace is here a reference to the visible church in this age, and the kingdom of glory, a reference to the invisible church in the full glory of a new creation after the second advent. The Westminster Confession of Faith mentions a related concept, the keys of the kingdom, which refer to the power to open and close access to gospel benefits and church privileges through administering the Word and through church discipline. This is a power wielded by church officers and not by civil magistrates (WCF 30.2; 23.5).
In their commentaries on the second petition of the Lord’s Prayer, “Thy kingdom come,” the Westminster catechisms mention a third kingdom: Satan’s kingdom, or the kingdom of sin and Satan (WSC 102; WLC 191). We are to pray for Satan’s kingdom to be destroyed. Jesus three times referred to Satan as the ruler of this world (John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11), and the Apostle John said that “the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one” (1 John 5:19). What are we praying to be destroyed, the world as a place or the sway of Satan over the world? I believe the latter, and this implies that the domain of Satan’s kingdom is not a static domain limited to any specific place but a dynamic domain defined by its moral orientation and ultimate allegiance. This understanding is further confirmed in that we are to pray the second petition “acknowledging ourselves and all mankind to be by nature under the dominion of sin and Satan…” (WLC 191). This is a reference not to humanity’s created nature but to humanity’s “corrupted nature, conveyed to all [our fallen first parents’] posterity descending from them by ordinary generation” (WCF 6.3). “This corruption of nature, during this life, doth remain in those that are regenerated; and although it be, through Christ, pardoned, and mortified…” (WCF 6.5).
The Westminster Larger Catechsim mentions one other kingdom in its commentary on the second petition, the kingdom of Christ’s power. We are to pray that Christ “would be pleased so to exercise the kingdom of his power in all the world, as may best conduce to these ends” (WLC 191). “These ends” include the destruction of Satan’s kingdom, the fulfillment of certain duties of the civil magistrate and the rule of Christ in Christian hearts. These are objectives that are not totally confined within the boundaries of the church. The effective range is “all the world.” The power in play here includes God’s providential control within history. The Triune God who created the world preserves and governs all His creatures and all their actions (WSC 11). The question is whether God the Son now exercises this providential power as part of the power that was entrusted to Him as the God-Man when He was seated at the right hand of God the Father.
Some answer yes to this question. This means that the kingdom of grace, the kingdom of glory and the kingdom of Christ’s power are all complementary aspects of a unified kingdom under the royal authority of the resurrected, glorified and ascended Christ seated at the right hand of God the Father. This understanding is found in Charles Hodge’s Systematic Theology:
“Christ has what theologians are accustomed to call his kingdom of power. As Theanthropos and as Mediator, all power in heaven and upon earth has been committed to his hands. … This universal authority is exercised in a providential control, and for the benefit of his Church. … Under the present dispensation, therefore, Christ is the God of providence. It is in and through and by Him that the universe is governed. This dominion or kingdom is to last until its object is accomplished, i.e., until all his enemies, all forms of evil, and even death itself is subdued. Then this kingdom, this mediatorial government of the universe, is to be given up. (1 Cor. xv.24.) (2.600-601; cf. 2.635-638)
The kingdom of Christ’s power is here defined as one of the temporary elements of Christ’s mediatorial kingdom. There are other temporary elements as well. “Christ executeth the office of a king in subduing us to Himself, in ruling and defending us, and in restraining and conquering all His and our enemies” (WSC 26). The only element in this list that is not temporary and thus lasts into the kingdom of glory is Christ’s ruling His people as their King.
The positive answer to our question does not limit the power given to Jesus as the exalted God-Man to His power and authority over the church. This is consistent with the statement of the Westminster Larger Catechism that “Christ is exalted in his sitting at the right hand of God, in that as God-man he is advanced to the highest favor with God the Father, with all fulness of joy, glory, and power over all things in heaven and earth” (WLC 54). In addition, Jesus’ execution of His office as a king includes His “restraining and overcoming all [His people’s] enemies, and powerfully ordering all things for his own glory, and their good; and also in taking vengeance on the rest, who know not God, and obey not the gospel” (WLC 45). The Scriptural evidence also points in this direction. Hebrews 2:8 says, “For in that He put all in subjection under him, He left nothing that is not put under him.” Ephesians 1:22 says, “And He put all things under His feet…” In Matthew 28:18, Jesus said, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.” 1 Corinthians 15:27 implies that all has been put under the rule of the exalted God-Man except God Himself:
27 For “He has put all things under His feet.” But when He says “all things are put under Him,” it is evident that He who put all things under Him is excepted.
This understanding is also consistent with the Bible’s teaching that Jesus is not only the Head of the church but also the ruler of the kings of the earth (Revelation 1:5; cf. 2:27).
This understanding does not require a Lutheran explanation of Jesus’ exaltation. Many are familiar with the Lutheran teaching that the physical body of the exalted Christ experiences some form of omnipresence. Such thinking is not necessary to explain how Jesus administers the kingdom of His power as the exalted God-Man. One can explain the ministries of the exalted God-Man “without conversion, composition, or confusion” of the two natures (WCF 8.2). No one questions that Jesus exercises His priestly ministry as the exalted God-Man. Yet His priestly ministry also has challenges that are beyond finite human capabilities. As our heavenly high priest, Jesus hears untold numbers of prayers every minute of every day. This does not mean that the human mind of the exalted God-Man now possesses some form of omniscience. Similarly the exalted God-Man exercises His kingly ministry without His human nature possessing some form of omnipotence. The Westminster Larger Catechism explains how this is possible without confusing the two natures:
Q.40. Why was it requisite that the Mediator should be God and man in one person ?
A. It was requisite that the Mediator, who was to reconcile God and man, should himself be both God and man, and this in one person, that the proper works of each nature might be accepted of God for us, and relied on by us, as the works of the whole person.
Returning to our question as to whether God the Son now exercises this providential power as part of the power that was entrusted to Him as the God-Man when He was seated at the right hand of God the Father, some answer in the negative. This means that the kingdom of Christ’s power is not related to Christ’s current heavenly session and thus is in a different category from the kingdom of grace and the kingdom of glory. With this understanding, God the Son exercises His providential power apart from His exalted humanity even as He did before His incarnation and exaltation.
In summary, Westminster kingdom theology includes two antithetical kingdoms, the kingdom of Christ and the kingdom of Satan. Within the kingdom of Christ are three divisions: the kingdom of grace, the kingdom of glory and the kingdom of Christ’s power. Some hold that all three of these are part of the mediatorial kingdom of the exalted God-Man. Others separate the kingdom of Christ’s power as a providential rule apart from the mediatorial kingdom. In any case, the exercise of the kingdom of Christ’s power “in all the world” implies that the concept of the kingdom is broader than the concept of the church, even though there are also senses in which the kingdom and the church can be identified.
This broader understanding of the kingdom is taught by others as well.
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When people who love the Bible and love Christ are shown how to see Christ from the beginning to the end of the Bible, their joy explodes. Seeing the beauty, sufficiency, and necessity of Jesus Christ from every part of the Bible — including from the Old Testament — has the power to truly, deeply, and eternally change our lives.

Sunday school has marked me since my childhood — literally. I have a scar on the top of my right hand from being burned by the popcorn popper when I was about 3 years old. Sunday school has left much deeper impressions, however, in my heart and soul and in the way I have read and understood the Bible for most of my life — especially in terms of how I have read and understood the Old Testament.
For most of my life, I saw the Old Testament primarily as a series of disconnected stories about people showing how (or how not) to live the life of faith. I knew that the Old Testament spoke of Christ, but in my mind, that was limited to the prophecies about the coming of the Messiah.
I did not see that all of the Old Testament prepares us to understand who Jesus is and what he would do. I didn’t understand that from Genesis 3:15 onward, we’re meant to trace the woman’s line to the promised offspring — the descendent of Abraham, the son of David — who would deal with the curse and the serpent for good. I was in my forties when I began to understand that the Bible is one story of God’s redemption through Christ.
When I began to understand that the Old Testament can be understood only in light of Christ, a new world opened. I determined that I needed to go back to kindergarten in terms of understanding the Bible’s story. I bought several books on the topic, including one that revolutionized my Old Testament reading.
Knowing Jesus Through the Old Testament
I got no further than the introduction of Christopher Wright’s Knowing Jesus Through the Old Testament when I read a passage that blew my mind. Speaking about Jesus’s connection to the Old Testament, he writes,
These are the words he read, the stories he knew. These were the songs he sang. These were the depths of wisdom and revelation and prophecy that shaped his whole view of life, the universe and everything. This is where he found his insights into the mind of his Father God. Above all, this is where he found the shape of his own identity and the goal of his own mission. (11)
This paragraph caused me to think about the humanity of Jesus more deeply. It challenged me to read the Old Testament differently. And it sent me on a mission.
Humanity of Jesus
Though Jesus is fully human and fully God, the deity of Jesus has been easier for me to grasp than his humanity. This passage caused me to stop and give more thought to what it must mean that Jesus “increased in wisdom and stature” (Luke 2:52). Jesus grew in his own understanding of who he was, what his life was all about, and even what his death and resurrection would mean from meditating on the Old Testament Scriptures.
Jesus, typical of Jewish boys of his time, learned from hearing the Old Testament scrolls read in the synagogue.
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