And patience [of] IN Jesus [Christ].—When Saul persecuted the saints, he persecuted Jesus. When St. Paul suffered as a Christian, it was as part of the “dying of the Lord Jesus.” (Acts 9:5; 2 Cor. 4:10.) What St. John cheerfully endured was endured by Jesus.
Was in the isle that is called Patmos.—“At the time of this vision St. John was a prisoner, exiled to the Isle of Patmos, a penal colony of those days For the Word of God.—“St. John, with remarkable modesty, passes over his previous service for the Truth (Rev. 1:2), which had brought him his persecution, and lightly passes over the persecution itself, merely noting that he was in the island because of his fidelity to the Word of God.”—Z. '01-187. And for the testimony of Jesus.—As recorded in the Gospel according to St. John and the three Johannean epistles. 1:10. I was in the spirit.—“Visions are not realities, although symbolically representing them. (Dan. 7:1; Matt. 17:9.) The visions granted to St. John, recorded in the Revelation, are in no sense to be understood as realities.”—Z. '16-343; Acts 10:10. On the Lord's Day.—“According to our understanding of Bible chronology we today are living in the early dawn of this Day of Christ; and it is here, properly enough, that we begin to see the wonderful things of the Divine Character and Plan. But to see and to understand we must be ‘in the spirit.’ Only those who have become New Creatures in Christ can be expected to appreciate spiritual things; and this is the class which the Apostle John represented.”—Z. '16-343. And heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet.—“The fact that its location is mentioned implies that it has a symbolic meaning. It signifies that the beginning of [pg 017] this Message was not in St. John's day, nor in the future, but that the things revealed had already commenced and were already to some extent in the past. As some features of the Revelation show, the voice from behind went back to the time of our Lord's earthly ministry.” (Z. '16-344.) “As John heard a voice behind him and looked in that direction, so we who now are having the realities find that the Message is behind us, and turn and look toward the past to see the fulfilment of the various features of the Divine Plan and to hear and understand the Message given to His people by the risen Lord.”—Z. '05-168. 1:11. Saying, [I am Alpha and Omega, the First and the Last: and] What thou seest, write in a book and send it unto the seven churches which are in Asia.—“There are many reasons for concluding that while the messages were given to the seven churches specified and were applicable to them, they should properly have a still wider application to the whole Church of Christ, the number seven representing completeness, and the order representing different epochs in the history of the Church. To think otherwise would be to attach more importance to those comparatively small churches of Asia Minor than they would seem to have deserved, and would have implied an ignoring of other churches more numerous and more influential; as, for instance, the churches at Jerusalem, Antioch, Corinth, Colosse, Philippi, Thessalonica, etc. Furthermore, the details of the messages given to these seven churches apply to and fit historically the one Church of the living God, over every member and branch of which the Lord has a care. This thought, that the seven represented completeness, we find emphasized in the other symbolical representations—in the seven golden candlesticks, the seven stars, etc.” (Z. '05-168.) Colosse (Col. 1:2), Miletus (Acts 20:17) and Hierapolis (Col. 4:13) were churches in Asia, not here mentioned. The Asia mentioned is the westernmost province of Asia Minor. Unto Ephesus.—The Apostolic Age of the Church. And unto Smyrna.—The Church during the period of persecution by Pagan Rome.