Revelation Chapter One, Patmos

Revelation 1:9b I, John…was on the island of Patmos for the word of God and for the testimony of Jesus Christ.

Patmos is a small island in the Aegean Sea, located 37 miles southwest of Miletus. The island was a political prison, a place of exile that Roman emperors used to put away dissidents. John was apparently such a one for the testimony he preached regarding the unique and supreme nature of Jesus Christ.

Eusebius (260 AD-339 AD) wrote that it was Emperor Domitian that exiled John to Patmos in 95 AD, and that his exile lasted roughly 18 months. If Eusibius’ testimony is credible, that means that the Revelation was written between 95 to 97 AD, and that John survived until roughly the turn of the century.

John was imprisoned, according to his own testimony, for two things: the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ. He was not a political anarchist or plotting a military coup. Rather, John preached from the Bible that Christ was the promised Messiah and humanity’s Savior, the only way to God and Heaven. In a polytheistic environment this language was poisonous to the hearers, since it challenged ethnic and cultural beliefs that had since been entrenched in the public thought for centuries. We see this with vivid clarity in Acts chapter 19 when the blacksmith Demetrius incites a crowd and enacts a riot in an effort to harm Paul for preaching Christ. Demetrius wasn’t concerned about the veracity of Paul’s message; he could have rather cared less about whatever foreign God Paul preached. The rub came when Paul included the message that other gods, rival deities, were false fronts for demons, idols that were simply the work of men’s hands. His business was in jeopardy, and not wanting to lose the profitable racket that was religious zealotry, he determined to hinder Paul’s preaching.

I am again reminded of Roman Catholicism and its contempt for truth. There is great profit in keeping the people under the yoke of religion, because religion never tells you that you are free, that you are saved, that the work is finished. Then they would lose a paying customer. Demetrius didn’t want his shrines to fall into disrepute, not because of Diana’s honor, but because of his hungry pockets. The Reformation with all of its triumphs and failures, focused on Rome’s horrendous and greedy exploitation of indulgences and similar practices. Men were paying the church to be saved, when the message its bishops should have been preaching was that Christ already paid so those same men would never have to. John entered a milieu of similar character preaching Jesus Christ and encountered the rampant animosity of men whose religious livelihood was imperiled by truth. A banal religion that predicated salvation upon ambiguous and endless works was safe, comfortable, recognized, accepted and sanitized by the state. People could come and go from it to another of similar ilk, much the same way you and I move from one fast food restaurant to another. Don’t like the flavor? Go to the next one just down the block.

But John brought the light of God’s word. God’s word contained precious truth about His nature. There was one God, and one mediator between God and man, Christ Jesus. There was one way to Heaven, and that was through the sacrifice of Christ Jesus, believing in Him as our personal Savior, having died for our sin. All other claimants were frauds, and revealed as such their nature became obvious: they were bound and determined to defraud humanity of their freedom to be liberated from sin and death by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. John came preaching a liberty that set men free spiritually forever once it was believed, but it threatened to forever close the doors on formal religion and the immense profit the masters of said religion garnered from it. To keep the polytheistic masses from tumult, Domitian imprisoned John for a period of time.

The Bible makes it very clear what the testimony of Jesus Christ is. The gospel is the method God employs to save the lost, 1 Corinthians 1:17, 18. Salvation is not earned by man’s effort, but freely given as a gift of God’s unsolicited grace, Ephesians 2:8, 9. Any other message of salvation that is preached which opposes the gospel is accursed of God, Galatians 1:7-9. The gospel is all about who Christ is and what He did on our behalf, 1 Corinthians 15:3, 4. It is exclusive in the sense that only through the true Jesus Christ as He reveals Himself in Scripture may we be saved, John 14:6. Human effort and decisions cannot save or condemn another man; God saves and He made it His prerogative to save apart from lineage, self-will or religious declaration, John 1:13. It should go without saying that the Bible, and specifically the gospel, was a death knell for religion. God’s word tolerated no rivals, because His supposed rivals were masquerading con-men, robbing men of their opportunity to be saved so they could plunder their wallets. The gospel’s simplicity began a man’s spiritual life at the proper starting gate: reconciliation with an offended Creator and new life through rebirth.

The prison keeper’s pressing question told the story of religious tradition. He asked Paul and Silas, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” Acts 16:30. To do something implies an action performed for the sake of appropriate compensation. Religion is transactional, like secular business. Whether it is the gods of Egypt, Greece or Rome, or modern religions such as Roman Catholicism, Mormonism or Islam, it is, “do this to earn that.” Paul’s response, however, was a breath of fresh air, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household,” Acts 16:31. Paul removed the man’s thinking from himself (what must I do) to Christ (believe on the Lord Jesus Christ). The transactional part was done on our behalf; Christ suffered the death of the cross and took sin upon Himself to set us free. The prison keeper was himself a prisoner, and Paul’s message was a judicial pardon freely offered if he was willing to accept it. Domitian could not silence the gospel. Neither can religion stifle the truth. Salvation isn’t a payment plan set up with the local religious organization serving as a loan officer or bank. The church is to be an organism, a group of men and women who share all things in Christ because we are already free, and we want to proclaim and enforce that exciting truth to everyone.