Concerning the Book called “The Revelation of Jesus Christ.”
Why I choose to call this last book listed in the Bible “The Book of Revelations” (plural) instead of “The Book of Revelation” (singular). This book commonly called Revelation and/or the Revelation of Jesus Christ contains more than one revelation; this book contains many revelations about many different things.
When the Apostle John first wrote this, it was not a book. He wrote this as a letter to the seven churches which were in Asia as he was instructed to do so by Jesus Christ who had appeared to him and spoke to him. The letter actually started as is written in chapter one, verse four. Sometime later on someone decided to include John’s letter as a book to be included with other sacred writings and decided to give it the name “ The Revelation of Saint John” which has been changed to “The Revelation of Jesus Christ.” It did not have these titles when John wrote it.
This name “The Revelation of Jesus Christ” was taken from the first five words of this writing. Some say that this book is the personal revelation of who Jesus Christ was, but I found this book to be that, and much more.
The first sentence of this writing clearly says that these revelations were given to Jesus Christ “which God gave to him” to show to the servants of Jesus Christ. Then Jesus sent an angel to John and revealed these revelations to him. The very first paragraph tells us that was what transpired.
I have always attempted to stress to the reader of the Bible that we cannot assume that what any man writes has been inspired by God, even the title of a book of the Bible. John wrote in his book titled First John 4:1: “We must test the spirits (and the words) whether they are of God: because many false prophets are in the world.
This should be understood as the introduction of this book named Revelation. God revealed the revelations which are written in this book to Jesus Christ. Jesus then sent an Angel to John to reveal these revelations to him. This is scripture written as clearly as it could be. Any other interpretation of what this book represents is false and a distortion of God’s Word.
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