Welcome to EBible Fellowship's Bible study in the book of Revelation. This will be study #15 of Revelation, chapter 1, and we are reading in Revelation, chapter 1, in verse 4:

John to the seven churches which are in Asia: Grace be unto you, and peace, from him which is, and which was, and which is to come; and from the seven Spirits which are before his throne;

As we have been making our way through this verse, we have come to the last phrase: "from the seven Spirits which are before his throne." That is, what God is giving to the Apostle John - this revealed word, this communication to mankind - is coming from Him which "is," "was," and "is to come," that is, Eternal God Himself, and "from the seven Spirits which are before his throne."

That is making these 'seven spirits' equal with the Eternal God of the Bible, and, therefore, we realize, well, God does not share His glory with another. And, certainly, there is no other author or giver of the word of God, or Scripture, than JEHOVAH or Eternal God. And that leads us to draw the conclusion that "the seven Spirits which are before his throne" must be, really, a reference to God Himself. We would be correct in this. We find in chapter 5 of Revelation, in verse 6, that it says:

And I beheld, and, lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth.

The Lamb, of course, is Jesus Christ. The "seven horns and seven eyes" are said to be a part of the Lamb, that is, the vision was of "a Lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes." That is, this vision is describing a Lamb with seven horns and seven eyes, and, yet, we know the Lamb that was slain before the foundation of the world, Revelation 13: 8 tells us, and John the Baptist declares when he sees Jesus approaching him, "Behold, the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world," that this Lamb is only Christ. Of course, Jesus is not a lamb, and He is definitely not a lamb with seven horns and seven eyes, but it all is language in which God is teaching spiritual things.

And God goes on to say, concerning the seven horns and seven eyes, "which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth." So the horns and eyes are a part of the Lamb and, therefore, belong to Christ. It is describing Him, and the seven spirits are those seven horns and seven eyes, and they also would be a description of the Lord Jesus, the Lamb of God.

So we are very safe to understand that the seven spirits which are before His throne, the throne of God, are a picture of Christ Himself. Remember, we had looked (a study or two ago) when Hannah had given birth, and the Lord had moved her to say that "she that was barren hath borne seven." She only gave birth to one child - to Samuel - but the birth of Samuel through Hannah, who previously was barren, was a picture, a type and a figure, of the birth of Christ. And, so, the number 'seven' is used to indicate perfection, and that is exactly why God is speaking of 'seven' spirits before His throne, to indicate the perfection of the Lord Jesus Christ, or the perfection of God Himself.

There is an interesting historical figure of this that we have in the book of Esther. So why do we not turn to the book of Esther, chapter 1, and we will read a few verses here. Esther describes, or gives information concerning, the reign of King Ahasuerus, who reigned over 127 provinces, and those provinces are a picture of God who reigns over all - all His Elect. King Ahasuerus, in the book of Esther, is a figure of the Father, of Eternal God, and we see in verse 13 and 14 something interesting:

Then the king said to the wise men, which knew the times, (for so was the king's manner toward all that knew law and judgment: And the next unto him was Carshena, Shethar, Admatha, Tarshish, Meres, Marsena, and Memucan, the seven princes of Persia and Media, which saw the king's face, and which sat the first in the kingdom;)

Here God is just giving us an historical insight or view into the kingdom of King Ahasuerus, the King of Persia, and here we find that there are seven princes of Persia and Media "which saw the king's face, and which sat the first in the kingdom." Another way of saying that is that they were before the throne of the King, just as seven spirits are said to be before God's throne in Revelation 1, verse 4. These seven princes of Media and Persia are a picture or an illustration representing the Spirit of God, which God likens to seven spirits, and we find that these princes give counsel to the king, it says, beginning in verse 19-21 of Esther 1:

If it please the king, let there go a royal commandment from him, and let it be written among the laws of the Persians and the Medes, that it be not altered, That Vashti come no more before king Ahasuerus; and let the king give her royal estate unto another that is better than she. And when the king's decree which he shall make shall be published throughout all his empire, (for it is great,) all the wives shall give to their husbands honour, both to great and small. And the saying pleased the king and the princes; and the king did according to the word of Memucan:

The seven princes would give the king counsel, and as we see here, he would accept their counsel and act upon it, and this is pointing to the counsel within the Godhead, as God is one God, but likens Himself to three Persons, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. So the seven spirits are before God, and it is as though they are counseling Him, and that is because it is God Himself that is typified by these seven spirits.

Well, let us go back to Revelation 1 and move to the next verse, verse 5, and that verse says:

And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood,

Now this verse is just full of tremendous truth of great spiritual information; every statement is just dripping with all sorts of doctrine that God is teaching us. Let us take it statement by statement, and begin it at the very beginning of the verse: "And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness..."

This word 'faithful' is found many places in the Bible, but there is one place in particular that will help us a good deal in understanding what God is saying here about the Lord Jesus Christ, and that is in Proverbs 14, in verse 5:

A faithful witness will not lie: but a false witness will utter lies.

That is very simple and very straight forward, where God defines exactly what a 'faithful witness' is: "a faithful witness will not lie." Of course, Christ is The Faithful Witness. He is the one who the Bible says is the Truth Himself. He has never spoken a lie. Everything that Christ says is absolutely true and faithful altogether, and that is wonderful news because Jesus is the Word made flesh, which means that everything the Bible says is absolutely true and faithful altogether, from beginning to end. All Scripture is true, and all Scripture really is the faithful witness of God, the testimony of God to the things that He has said. So we are very confident that Jesus meets the qualification of "a faithful witness will not lie."

This is true of Him, and God makes it true of His people. He causes His people to be faithful; as they search the Scriptures, they endeavor and attempt with everything within them, to be faithful, because that is the nature of the Saviour that they serve; that is the nature of God Himself; that is the nature of the Spirit that God has placed within them. They are not false witnesses, but they become true witnesses to the things that God has said in His word. And God teaches them, and then sends them forth to share the testimony of the Gospel with the world, with those around them, to share truth with all that they meet, and it all stems from The Faithful Witness, who is the Lord Jesus Christ.

We also read in Revelation, chapter 19, it says in verse 11:

And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war.

This is describing Christ as He is coming as the Judge of the Earth, and notice that He is called 'Faithful and True,' and it is also said of the word of God that "these things are faithful and true." What is said of one is said of the other. Both things are true of Christ, and true of the word of God.

But here we see that Jesus' name is 'Faithful.' He embodies faithfulness, just as He embodies truth, and since He is Truth, of course faithfulness goes hand-in-hand with that. So this is a wonderful thing about Christ and about the word of God, that it is "faithful and true," and the testimony that we read everywhere throughout the Scripture is the testimony of Jesus, and we can be sure, and we can trust it with all of our hearts, with all of our lives, and we can lean upon it completely.

Now of course the question is, and always has been down through time, for those that hear the teaching of the Bible, "Is what I am hearing true and faithful? That is, "Is this the voice of Christ, because He is faithful and true?" So the believer listens intently, carefully; we are listening when we hear teaching. We want to know, "Is this the word of God? Is this the Lord Jesus Christ?" That is one reason why the Gospel can be known as Christ, that is, a synonym that God uses to describe the Gospel is Christ Himself, because the Gospel, the teaching of the Bible, is "faithful and true" and He is "faithful and true."

As believers we have a responsibility - it is our duty and obligation - and God teaches us to do this, to check out what we are hearing, and to search the Scriptures, as we have the example of the Bereans in the book of Acts, to see if the things we are hearing are so.

And so we hear a teaching, and we turn to the Bible and we check it out. "Is God saying this in His word?" And, as we check it out, we realize, "Ok, this thing checks out, and this thing checks out, and the other," so we can begin to develop some confidence in the ministry or teacher that is teaching. But we never develop a confidence in the teacher or ministry to the point where we disregard checking things out. We must always continue that process in examining what we are hearing to see if it is, indeed, in line with the Bible - it matches and harmonizes with the Scripture and it is not out of place at all.

God tells us to do this, for instance, in 1John, chapter 4, verse 1:

Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.

And how do we try the spirits? Again, we listen to what was said. "Alright, this is the doctrine that this individual has said that God is teaching, that the Bible teaches." Then we take the verses the individual used to prove it, we go the Bible and we see if the idea, the verses, will stand up under the scrutiny of the Bible. Will they be in agreement with everything else the Bible says? Is there another verse somewhere that disproves the conclusion and, therefore, would mean that it is not a true teaching? These are the things the believer is busy with, one of the things we are occupied with, as we continue digging into the word of God as for 'hid treasure,' and we are delighting in the task that the Lord has given us to find the 'hidden mysteries' of the Gospel.

Let us continue on in verse 5 of Revelation 1:

And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead...

Now this statement of God is not a little statement at all, where the Lord has just told us that Jesus Christ is the "first begotten of the dead." Now this particular Greek word 'prototokos' is a compound word: 'proto,' where we get our English word 'prototype' and it means "first" or "before," and 'tokos' would be the word that means "born," 'first born,' and it is found nine times in the New Testament. Two times 'prototokos' is found concerning the birth of Christ, where it says of Mary that she brought forth her first born son. It is speaking of Mary's first born, but not the first born of God, even though it is referring to Jesus - we cannot say that that is the instance where Christ is first born; that is not what this verse is telling us (when it says) that Jesus is the "first begotten" or the "first born" of the dead. That is saying something different.

Now let us look at several of these references by beginning in the book of Romans, chapter 8, and we will look at verse 29, where it says:

For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.

That is the same Greek word for "first born," here, and is a translation of the word 'prototokos,' and we find, again, in Hebrews, chapter 12, the same Greek word in verse 23:

To the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect,

Here, and in Romans 8 where it said "the firstborn among many brethren," God is referring to the Elect, the "the general assembly and church of the firstborn." Jesus is the "fist born," and all those that God has saved, all the Elect who it was His decision to save as He made selection before the world began, He predestinated certain ones to receive His salvation, and to be "the church of the first born."

This is referring to the eternal church, not the corporate church, the outward physical church that we see on street corners in this world, but to the invisible, eternal church comprised only of God's Elect. We are all, if we are truly a child of God, a member of "the church of the first born." That 'first born' individual is the Lord Jesus Christ. We could substitute His name there and say, we are the "church of Christ." Yet, when God says that He is 'first born,' He has something very particular mind, as we saw in our verse in Revelation 1:5: "the first begotten of the dead." That is how Jesus is considered to be the 'first born.'

It says in Colossians, and there is a passage here in the book of Colossians, chapter 1, that helps us to understand this phrase 'first born' or 'first begotten' of the dead, and beginning in verse 15, speaking of Christ:

Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature:

And that is the same word we are looking at, but it will be used again a little further down, Colossians chapter 1 verses 16-18:

For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: And he is before all things, and by him all things consist. And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence.

Here, once again, Jesus is said to be the "the firstborn from the dead," notice concerning the church, the body of Christ. And, again, this would be the invisible, eternal church of the Elect, that Jesus is the beginning, "the firstborn from the dead." That is very important, and so important that God goes on to say, "that in all things he might have the preeminence." That is, He is before all things, and that is a very significant and important point when we speak of the death of Christ and the resurrection from the dead. Jesus was preeminent. He had to be, in other words, the "firstborn from the dead."

Well, how does that affect things? "We know that Jesus rode from the dead in 33 A.D.," an individual might say, "so He was the first born from the dead in 33 A.D." Well, no, no, that is not possible, because if Christ rose from the dead in 33 A.D., we have all sorts of problems with the Scriptures; things will not harmonize, and even simple statements (such as Christ being called the Son of God) make no sense if Jesus rose from the dead in 33 A.D. and was declared to be the Son then, then how could He have created the world as the Son of God? How could He have entered into the human race before He went to the cross and before He rose, and God say of Him that He is His only begotten Son in whom He is well pleased?

The Lord says His only begotten, but the reference to begotten is referring to the fact that He is the first born, and where is Christ said to be 'first born' from? The dead - He is called "the first begotten of the dead," that is, God, as it were, recognizes Him as His Son once Jesus rode from the dead, and not before.

So, you can see, if Jesus rose from the dead in 33 A.D., after 11,000 years of history, well, we have all sorts of contradictions, not to mention that there were other individuals that had previously risen from the dead, and we read about them in the Bible. There was a young boy in the Old Testament that rose from the dead, and during the ministry of Christ, there were a few individuals that He caused to rise from the dead, and if Jesus rose in 33 A.D. after them, He would not have the preeminence. He must be the 'first born,' not the second or fifth or tenth. It had to be that He was first to rise from the dead.

When we get together in our next study, we will continue looking at this very interesting and important teaching of the word of God.