Revelation Chapter One, Do Not Be Afraid

Revelation 1:17 And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead. But He laid His right hand on me, saying to me, “Do not be afraid; I am the First and the Last.”

Verses 13 through 16 describe the glorified Christ using language taken straight from Old Testament Scripture. John finds himself standing before El Shaddai, or Yahweh, King of Israel. His reaction? He fell at Christ’s feet as though dead.

Like Daniel fainted and was revived when he glimpsed divinity, and like Ezekiel fell on his face before the Lord God by the river Chebar, John suffers a similar reaction. In Ezekiel’s encounter, he records it thus: “So when I saw it, I fell on my face, and I heard a voice of One speaking. And He said to me, “Son of man, stand on your feet, and I will speak to you.” Then the Spirit entered me when he spoke to me, and set me on my feet; and I heard Him who spoke to me,” Ezekiel 1:28, 2:1, 2. We know from Paul that, “at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth,” Philippians 2:10. This is echoed in Romans 14:11, where we read, “As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to Me, and every tongue shall confess to God.” Believers will fall in adoration, as the elders in Heaven do before the throne of God, Revelation 5:14. Unbelievers will fall to their knees in judgment and acknowledge their error, only too late, Revelation 2:9.

The Lord lays His right hand on John. The right hand is always symbolic of strength in Scripture. Jacob names his youngest son Benjamin, which means Son of my Strength, or Son of my Right Hand. Christ holds the seven stars in His right hand, assuring us that these stars cannot be plucked out of His hand; neither can they remove themselves from His secure grasp. Likewise, He touches John and invigorates him, so that he may listen to and record the message our Lord has for the seven Asiatic churches.

The first thing our Lord tells John, before beginning His message is, “Do not be afraid.” This moment is reminiscent of what Jesus told John–and the other apostles–on the night of His arrest. They were in the upper chamber, and before He began to explain to them many difficult truths about Himself, about themselves, and about the church He would build, He prefaced this with, “Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me,” John 14:1. This urging to be comforted came on the heels of Jesus frankly informing Peter of his impending betrayal, John 13:38. Inspired by the Holy Spirit, it was John himself that wrote, “Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world,” 1 John 4:17. Yet the sight of the Lord overwhelmed him, and I honestly cannot blame him. The sight must have been simply too much to reasonably process. So Christ, infinite in patience with all of us, comforted and strengthened John before imparting His message.

Finally, the Lord confirms once more that He is the First and the Last. He does go on to inform John of His accomplishments and authority in the next verse, but for now we will focus on this portion. This is the third time in chapter one that Jesus our Lord informs John that He is the Beginning and the End, or the First and the Last. The first time was on the heels of John reminding his readership that every eye will see Him, even those that pierced Him. Then Jesus calls out to John on the Lord’s Day, beginning His oration with this phrase. He resumes with the same. Why? He wants us to understand that He is God, Judge of the living and the dead, Creator of Heaven and earth. Christ is the Firstborn over all creation, Colossians 1:15. Colossians 1:17 says that Christ is before all things, and existence is intrinsically linked to Him. Verse 16 states that all creation was created both through and for Him; also see Hebrews 1:2. The Firstborn does not mean that He was created first. The title of Firstborn hearkens to the Hebrew custom of giving the firstborn the inheritance. By using familiar, earthly terminology, we may safely deduce that Jesus is the Inheritor of all creation. By that thread of logic, the tacit implication is that Christ, being the Inheritor, is not a part of the creation he is receiving. He is before all things. He was with God in the beginning, John 1:2.

It is utterly imperative to grasp and accept that Christ is God manifest as a Man, born to be the world’s Savior. Every religion and cult has gone astray into error because their conception of God became muddled and eventually replaced by human counterfeits, Romans 1:21-23. Jesus is giving John this information not to boast, but to inform. Everyone wants to be discipled by someone with good credentials. We are wary of charlatans when it comes to learning from someone who claims to be competent and capable in whatever field they claim. It is time lost, money squandered, knowledge corrupted and trust injured if we are deceived. But here, with the Lord, it is of the utmost importance that we know this Man has the qualities and authority to do what we need Him to do. As He said to John first and foremost, He says to you and I: “Do not be afraid.”