- Understanding Christianity

There are many definitions of Christianity in our day. Most of them are woefully weak because they lack the authority of God’s revelation in His Word. Christianity is not just another religious persuasion as defined by groups of religious leaders in Rome or Geneva, in New York City or Toronto. Christianity is actually what the Holy Spirit claimed it to be in the Scriptures. It is what the prophets of God, the seers and sages and apostles said it was as they were moved by the Holy Spirit to speak and to write. This is the Christian life and Christian witness we accepted when we became Christians by sincere faith in God’s Word. Here is the beating heart of the holy faith that will take us home to heaven and to God. Here is our heart interest and here is our hope for the eternal future.
As John portrays the true meaning of the Christian faith in the churches, he relates everything to God, the Father, who was and who is and who is to come; to the sevenfold Spirit of God who proceeds from the Father; and to Jesus Christ, the eternal Son, our Savior and Lord. The entire declaration to the churches rings with the certainty of the ultimate triumph to come.

Although there is enough spiritual and doctrinal teaching in these first three chapters of the Revelation for a dozen books, I want at this time to emphasize just two things: (1) the divine authority given to our Lord Jesus Christ and (2) the power and the illumination the church needs to receive from the Holy Spirit. I will also briefly mention a doctrine that is not always recognized: the dominion of the saints—really, the authority given to the believing children of God. ‘

First, John mentions the two treasures, grace and peace, that God has willed to those who believe and obey (Revelation 1:4). He designates grace and peace as coming to us, men and women in fellowship with God. John makes a benediction of these two spiritual treasures. Then he fashions a wonderful doxology: to Jesus Christ belongs “glory and power for ever and ever” (Revelation 1:6).

Benediction literally means “the good word.” Doxology means “the word of praise.” Taken together, the two put things in their right places: grace and peace for us believing men and women; glory and power for the God who has loved us to the point of death. What a frightful, grotesque situation it would be both in heaven and on earth if those roles were reversed! We cannot imagine a time and situation in which our God would need grace and peace—or in which we humans should be accorded glory and power for ever and ever.
No, the roles and the positions are correctly stated. Why would we ever need more for our wretched sinfulness than the grace of God? What more do we need for our poor, uprooted, alienated, distraught souls than peace?