Revelation 1:4-6

The grace and peace of the triune God

Good evening. Tonight we'll be continuing our devotional series on the Doctrine of the Trinity. And as Ben just said, let's turn our Bibles to Revelation chapter one, verses four through six. If you need the page, it's 1028 in your pew Bibles. And as you're turning there, the book of Revelation was written by the Apostle John, who was exiled to the island of Patmos And it's known for its vivid imagery and symbols. We think of it often as a prophecy of things past, present, and future. But we often fail to consider that it's a letter. And in our passage today, John declares his hope for those who hear the letter. And so let us read Revelation 1, verses 4 through 6.

John, to the seven churches that are in Asia, grace to you and peace from him who is, and who was, and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth, to him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us a kingdom, priest to his God and father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

Let's pray. Father, help us to behold you, the triune God, one in three and three in one. Lord, protect my mouth from error as I deliver your word. Praise in Jesus' name. Amen. And so it begins immediately with the discussion of the audience, the people to whom John is writing. He says, John, to the seven churches that are in Asia, So there are seven specific churches mentioned in chapters two and three, to which Jesus, the incarnate, the risen Christ, is giving a specific message. But this message was also to be heard by all the churches. Seven in the book of Revelation is the number of completion. And so his desire is for you, believer, to hear this message. And as we continue, we go to the heart of the passage, and here our main point. Receive the grace and peace of the triune God, and yearn for the glory of Christ Jesus. Receive the grace and peace of the triune God, and yearn for the glory of Christ Jesus. So point one, receive the grace and peace of the triune God. John, in this passage, gives a triune blessing of grace, unmerited favor, and peace, harmony with God and fellow man. And so as we think about how we are to receive this grace and peace, we'll have three ways we'll think about this. And so the first is to consider God. We've been spending the past couple of weeks learning about the doctrine of the Trinity, and the question we might have is, why? Why do we have to consider this doctrine? Why do we consider it one of the most fundamental, one of the most foundational, one of the most important doctrines, if not the most important doctrine of the Christian faith? And the answer is this. There is one true triune God who has created us in the world. There's one true triune God who is deserving of worship. And there is one triune God who gives us grace and peace. And so we'll look to God's word to see what he's teaching us about himself. And so we see three persons, corresponding to the three persons of the Trinity in this passage. And we'll work from the least clear to the most clear. And so we'll start by working backwards from the first half of verse five. The first person that we'll talk about, the third person mentioned, is Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ, the firstborn of the dead, the faithful witness, and the ruler of kings on earth. These three titles, are actually a reference to Psalm 89, a messianic psalm, a psalm speaking of the God-man to come. The second person mentioned is the Holy Spirit. In this passage, it says the seven spirits. The seven spirits throughout the book of Revelation refer to the one Holy Spirit and his completeness and perfection, who is all-knowing, all-present, and all-powerful. And then the first person mentioned, he is just named as the one who is and who was and is to come. This is referring to the Father. So here we have a hermeneutical principle. That was a huge word, but basically a way that we read our Bibles faithfully. We see Jesus and the Spirit next to God. And so we should rightly interpret that this is God the Father. And so in this passage, we learn that God is eternal. He is and was and is to come. And also, this passage harkens back to Exodus 3, the I Am. He is Yahweh, the covenant Lord. So in this passage, we see three persons. They're all God. And the tempting thing to do is to just say, okay, this person has this attribute, this person has this attribute, and we're just dividing up God, and that's a no-no. We're not going to do that. We do not distinguish between the persons of the Trinity by a difference in divine attributes. This is to protect the oneness of God. From the Shema in Deuteronomy 6, we know that the Lord, our God, is one. There is one indivisible divine essence. And so each person has all the divine attributes, and none of them lacks any divine attribute. And as Christians who came before us clarified, with the strongest form of confessing truth, the affirmation and the denial, we take two examples from the Athanasian Creed.

The Father is eternal, the Son is eternal, the Holy Spirit is eternal, and yet there are not three eternal beings, there is but one eternal being. And the Father is Lord, the Son is Lord, the Holy Spirit is Lord. Yet there are not three Lords, there is but one Lord.

And so, how do we distinguish between the persons then? Well, one way that we can do this is what we call the eternal relations of origin. So basically, We determine the different persons partly by their relationships. We read in this passage that the Holy Spirit is before the Father's throne. And so the technical term that theologians use is procession. The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father. And in other passages, we also see that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son, but that's not mentioned in this passage. And we also see in this passage that Jesus Christ is the firstborn, not born in time, or of a new essence being created, but he, this is another eternal relation, he is eternally begotten. The word is eternal generation. And so these are some of the ways that we can understand the different persons of the Trinity. And then now as we go into our text, John seems to focus specifically on the person of Jesus. And so we'll look back to the messianic titles in verse five. So Jesus is the faithful witness. He's the incarnate word who brings the testimony of God. He's the revelation of his father. And also this word witness, where we get the word martyr. He is the obedient son unto death who died on the cross for those who believe in him. He's also the firstborn of the dead. Again, not born in time, but he is the risen Christ He is victorious over death, that in everything he might be preeminent. And then third, he is the ruler of kings on earth. He has all authority, and he has rightly received the authority he has possessed for eternity. And so, as we have considered our triune God, let us consider another way of how we are to receive the grace and peace of our triune God. And so second, let's remember that we have already received this grace and peace. If you are a Christian today, you have received the grace and peace of the triune God. In Luke 7, a woman approaches Jesus. She's described as a sinner. She prostrates herself before Jesus' feet. She washes his feet with her hair, and she anoints them with ointment. And Jesus declares that though her sins are many, they are forgiven. And then Jesus says, go in peace. And so in this way, all Christians come to Jesus. We are filthy, unworthy, but in divine love, we are given grace and peace. And the third way we can think about receiving God's grace and peace is to cherish the ordinary means of grace. By ordinary means of grace, I mean just the ways that God gives us grace. The word ordinary doesn't mean boring or ineffective. In fact, it is so much greater than that. When something is ordinary, it means that it happens all the time. It's the sure channel by which God's grace flows in endless streams to his beloved children. And so let's consider some of these means of grace. So the first we'll consider is God's word. From the quiet times in the morning when we meditate and delight in his word. From hearing the word preached on Sunday morning to seeing the word together with sweet sounds and family worship in the evening. God's grace flows in these times and so we should cherish God's word. And the second we'll consider here is prayer. We received a gift of sweet communion with a triune God. And so let us think, do you rejoice to run into the loving arms of your father and to pour out your heart to him? As we sing in the hymn,