When reporting a story, journalists attempt to answer six questions for their readers: Who? What? When? Where? Why? How? Those same questions are useful for introducing John’s Apocalypse to you: Who wrote Revelation? What kind of book is it? When was it written? Where was it written? Why was it written? And how should we interpret it?

 

Revelation 1:1–2 identifies its author with these words: “The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ.” Let us examine more closely the four persons associated with the writing of Revelation.

 

God. In a sense, God is the author of all Scripture (2 Tim. 3:16–17)—more specifically, of all prophecy: “…no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” (2 Pet. 1:20–21). Since Revelation repeatedly speaks of itself as a prophecy (1:3; 22:7, 10, 18, 19), we can conclude confidently that God is its author too. Because Revelation is God’s word, a divine blessing comes to those who obey its words (1:3). Conversely, a warning is given to those tempted to add or subtract to its message (22:18–20). As God’s word, Revelation should be read, but not trifled with.

 

Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ also is the author of Revelation. It is a revelation of him. In Greek, the word “of” plus a noun or a pronoun is called a genitive construction. Greek genitive constructions are enormously flexible in meaning. The words “the revelation of Jesus Christ” might mean, for example, the revelation by Jesus Christ (a subjective genitive) or about Jesus Christ (an objective genitive). If subjective, “of Jesus Christ” means that he is the revealer. If objective, it means that he is what is revealed. The context of 1:1 favors the subjective interpretation: Jesus Christ reveals the contents of the book. More specifically, he is identified as the author of the letters to the seven churches in chapters 2 and 3 (2:1, 8, 12, 18; 3:1, 7, 14; cf. 1:19). And yet, it is hard to escape the conclusion that Jesus is at the same time what the book of Revelation is all about.

 

His angel. An angel is a messenger; that is what the Greek word aggelos means. In Revelation, angels proclaim God’s message to the world (5:2) and speak to John (17:3, 7, 15; 19:9; 21:15; 22:6, 8, 16).

 

His servant John. Finally, we come to John, the human author of Revelation (1:1, 4, 9: 22:8). Early church tradition understood John to be the apostle, son of Zebedee (Matt. 10:2), and author of a Gospel and three canonical letters. Late in the third century, however, Dionysius of Alexandria argued that John was an Ephesian church elder. Revelation’s John nowhere identifies himself as an apostle, Dionysius argued, and the content and style of the book vary significantly from those of the Gospel and the letters. Apostle or elder? A good case can be made for either, and perhaps a decision one way or another is not very important. As G.R. Beasley-Murray writes, “The question of the authorship is settled not by the name of the person who received the Revelation and wrote it down but by the nature of the work….”[i]

 

Whoever its human author, God is the ultimate author of Revelation.

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