Revelation 1:8 “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.”
Verses 5 through 7 have John focusing his readership on Jesus Christ. From being the faithful witness, to the tribes of earth mourning because of Him at His triumphant return. Skipping ahead briefly to verse 9, we also find John speaking about the kingdom of Christ and his subsequent exile because of his witness regarding Jesus.
Revelation 1:7 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.
Scripture speaks of a bodily, glorious return of the Lord Jesus Christ when the Second Coming occurs. Now the Second Coming should not be confused with the Rapture, which is an event that precedes it. The Rapture, which Paul refers to in 1 Thessalonians 4:14-17 and 2 Thessalonians 2:3, is the event in which the Lord summons the living saints and the bodies of the dead saints to Him in the air for a glorious meeting.
Revelation 1:6 and has made us kings and priests to His God and Father, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.
Jesus said, when He had just been resurrected, “Do not cling to Me, for I have not yet ascended to My Father; but go to My brethren and say to them, ‘I am ascending to My Father and your Father, and to My God and your God,” John 20:17. Paul, in his letter to the Ephesians, writes that the Father is, “the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory,” Ephesians 1:17.
Revelation 1:5c To Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood,
The conclusion of verse 5 is an excellent swan song for the train of thought John had built in this passage alone. Christ died for our sins according to the Scripture. When He died, mankind died with Him. Man will not be judged as to whether or not we have sinned; all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, Romans 3:23.
Revelation 1:5b the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler over the kings of the earth.
Christ was the first to be resurrected, to see death no more, Colossians 1:18, Romans 6:9. The firstborn, in Jewish tradition and Scripture, was the inheritor of the father’s estate. All that belonged to the father would be the son’s. Those who, through faith in the Lord, received the Second Birth belong to Christ as part of the Father’s estate, John 10:29.
