The Daily has taken a step away from the book of Revelation. In the meantime, we will continue to look at Revelation’s subject – Jesus. While Revelation seems to show Jesus set apart from human experience, taking another look at the gospel of John and parallel verses in Genesis help put Revelation in a different perspective. Genesis and John tell us much more than a writer of the Daily Devotional could explore in 400 words, but we can, at least, begin to think more about Jesus’ majesty and his sovereignty over time. Take a moment to reflect on these verses:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. John 1:1-5
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day. Genesis 1:1-5
John begins his gospel at the beginning of time. The first five verses of his book mirror and elaborate on the first five verses of the Bible. The creation of the earth is so familiar to us that we may just breeze through it — after all, it is a staple in every child’s Sunday school curriculum. Because it depicts the creation of the world bounded by time that we live in (as opposed to Revelation’s glimpse into eternity apart from time), we may assume that we have understood all that there is to understand. Let’s take a moment to reflect on John’s gospel and scratch the surface of Jesus’ sovereignty over time and eternity.
We may be tempted to race through Scripture, but let’s slow down. Genesis and John’s gospel tell us about the most important characters in the greatest drama, God’s redemptive purpose in world history. No metaphor is adequate to describe what we are witnessing, but perhaps we can describe God and his equal and perfect likeness, Jesus, as creators of the stage for this drama. They existed outside of time, in eternity, and have created time, carving out a small setting for it on this earth, set in the incomprehensibly majestic setting of the universe.
Revelation may unsettle us with its stream of cross references and hard to grasp images, but when we take a moment, we realize that this moment of unveiling the dawn of time in John’s gospel and in Genesis are just as awe inspiring. Jesus is sovereign over time and all that was created when time began to exist — matter, order, light, life, reason, communication. We are introduced to the first two persons of the Trinity in Genesis. We’ve just begun to scratch the surface of the surface of what it means that Jesus is Lord of time.
Let’s take time to reflect on Jesus’s sovereignty over time as we learn more about the book of Revelation. Try flipping the script — Revelation can frighten us because, as it reveals more about Jesus, we see a dismantling of the most basic building blocks of this earth, including time. Think about this: Time and change, time and sin, time and life and happiness, time and death and sorrow, they’re all linked together. In eternity there will be no more death and sorrow, entropy and loss. So much that we find familiar will be dismantled in eternity, but the more and more we get to know Jesus and walk with Him, the more eternity will be welcoming, not frightening. Thank you Jesus, Lord of time, that in this life and in the next we can experience life in you.
Let’s meditate on Paul’s words this week:
I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know! Philippians 1:20-22
by Sherry Sommer
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