The book of Revelation begins with Christ walking in the midst of the churches and concludes with the New Jerusalem. The first three chapters, dealing with the churches in this age, consummates in the last two chapters, the New Jerusalem in eternity. What the churches are today for God, the New Jerusalem will be for Him in eternity. The churches are God’s expression. This is what the New Jerusalem will be in eternity: the full and eternal expression of God.
These crucial factors of the churches and of the New Jerusalem are actually the concluding factors not only of Revelation but of the whole Bible as well. The entire book concludes with God’s expression, which is firstly the church and eventually the New Jerusalem.
Between the first three chapters of Revelation and the last two there are seventeen chapters. From the opening verses of chapter four we can see the subject of these intervening chapters. John saw “a throne set in heaven, and One sitting upon the throne” (4:2). The scene John describes indicates that God is administrating His government throughout the universe. These seventeen chapters, then, are on God’s universal administration.
In this administration Christ plays the central role. From these seventeen chapters we have seen how Christ exercises His rulership to administer God’s government. He controls the whole earth and even the heavens.
He is managing all things in correspondence with His heavenly ministry. The purpose of His priesthood is to bring the churches into maturity. For this to be accomplished, He needs to exercise His rulership to arrange the situations on earth which will lead to this. He intercedes to the Father. Then He comes to bring about God’s answer to His intercession. Among the nations, among the kings of the earth, He arranges affairs so that God’s chosen and predestinated people may be brought into God’s salvation and even the more into the proper church life where they can enjoy His heavenly priesthood.
His rulership, then, matches His priesthood to bring the churches into maturity. This is the main point of these seventeen chapters. While He is administrating God’s government over the whole universe by arranging events on earth, He is also carrying out His heavenly ministry.
These chapters cover a long period of time, at least two thousand years, from His ascension to His second advent. All during this long period He is the Ruler of the kings of the earth, administrating God’s government for the carrying out of God’s purpose. At the same time, He is sustaining the overcoming of the saints. While He is ruling, He is supplying those who love Him, who seek after Him that they may overcome.
We are among those who were chosen and predestinated by God before the foundation of the world. Then in time we were all called, saved, regenerated, and indwelt by the Triune God. These are the blessed ones. Yet among these there are some who love Him more than others. These ones especially need the care of the ascended Christ to minister the heavenly supply to them while they are overcoming everything that would hold them back. They overcome sin, the world, Satan, the self, the flesh, their lusts, even everything of the old creation, especially including religion.
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