11 april 2025

King James version (en)

I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet...

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Wesley's Notes

I was in the Spirit - That is, in a trance, a prophetic vision; so overwhelmed with the power, and filled with the light, of the Holy Spirit, as to be insensible of outward things, and wholly taken up with spiritual and divine. What follows is one single, connected vision, which St. John saw in one day; and therefore he that would understand it should carry his thought straight on through the whole, without interruption.The other prophetic books are collections of distinct prophecies, given upon various occasions: but here is one single treatise, whereof all the parts exactly depend on each other. 4:1 is connected with 1:19 and what is delivered in the fourth chapter goes on directly to the twenty - second. On the Lord's day - On this ourLord rose from the dead: on this the ancients believed he will come to judgment. It was, therefore, with the utmost propriety that St. John on this day both saw and described his coming.And I heard behind me - St. John had his face to the east: our Lord, likewise, in this appearance looked eastward toward Asia, whither the apostle was to write. A great voice, as of a trumpet - Which was peculiarly proper to proclaim the coming of the greatKing, and his victory over all his enemies.

Notes

John's visions exposed in the Book of Revelation, begin with the fact that, according to his own testimony, he "was in spirit on the Lord’s day”. We can understand differently in this context the expression "the Lord’s day". What comes firstly in mind: it is about the resurrection day, day that the first Christians celebrated practically in the same way as we celebrate it today, especially the solemn liturgy. But it is necessary to recognize that today it is almost impossible to say exactly, if Christians at the end of the 1st century B.C. (When the Book of Revelation was written) celebrated this day in the same way or not.

Another explanation, which seems at least plausible: it is about the festival, which was called before the captivity, in the era of the First Temple the "Yahweh’s day” (or “the Lord’s day”). Apparently, then it was celebrated around the same day as the Yom Kippur, and Rosh Hashanah ("the Jewish New Year"). Probably, initially the day of Yahweh was the day of the sanctification of the First Temple, which was possibly made exactly the first day of the year. It is true that from the periods after captivity there is no mention of this festival, but perhaps exactly in particular John's words witness of the fact that it did not disappear.

If that was the case, the revelation received by John is still significant and in the sense of the day, when it was given. It is not accidentally that the day of Yahweh was still celebrated solemnly in the time of the First Temple: this day was the day of the triumph of God and the Kingdom of God, the day of the solemn ascent of Yahweh on the throne, after what comes in fact the day of Judgment, and the world becomes the Kingdom of God. It is not fate if it is in particular with the divine services of this day that was connected the liturgical experience of the visions of the Throne of the glory, reflected in the yahvist hymnography, in particular, in the Book of Psalms.

John receives his revelation already when the Temple did not exist any more, and the old history had ended, leaving in a big embarrassment and in a spiritual confusion the Synagogue and the Church: everything ended not at all as expected the Jews, and the Christians. The Christians in particular couldn’t understand why after already more than ten years after the destruction of the Temple predicted by Jesus, He did not still return, as promised.

And the revelation received by the apostle gave exactly the answer to this question tormenting many, the sense of which led to the fact that the earthly history is really ended, but the history of the Kingdom entering the world is only beginning. And the fact that this new history is spiritually inseparable from the former, was underlined by this fact that it was given in the day of Yahweh, in the day of the old festival of the temple, of which the sense was exactly the expectation of the fast triumph of the Kingdom. So the old age was spiritually bound with the new.

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