John heard a great voice like a trumpet in Revelation 1:10. This scene recalls an event during Moses’ day when the voice or sound of a trumpet was heard and the people trembled (Exodus 19:16). It was the voice of God that they heard. John mentions the sound of a voice, which is associated with a trumpet, only twice more in this book. The second occasion tells John to ascend (to heaven) and see the things after the things he saw (Revelation 4:1). The third and final time John hears this voice is the occasion of the seventh trumpet (Revelation 10:3-8; 11:15), when Christ begins to reign. This is the occasion of both his coming and the time the righteous dead are resurrected and are caught up to be with Jesus (Matthew 24:31; 1Thessalonians 4:16; 1Corinthians 15:52).
The Voice describes himself as “the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last” (Revelation 1:11), but this whole phrase is not found in the earliest manuscripts extant. This doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be there, but it does cast doubt upon it being in the autograph. Nevertheless, Jesus does refer to himself according to the second part of this phrase later in the chapter, and I’ll discuss this when we come to Revelation 1:17.
The Voice (later understood to refer to Jesus – Revelation 1:18) told John to write what he saw and send it to the seven churches in Asia. He was to send the whole of what he saw to each church, not simply that part that seems to pertain to the church he names.
John says that he turned around to see the Voice that spoke to him, and as he turned he saw seven golden lampstands (Revelation 1:12). As John began to describe the Being, whom he saw in their midst, we need to remember the appearance of this Jesus is not the Jesus John remembers who called him away from his father’s fishing business (Matthew 4:21-22). This is the resurrected and exalted Jesus. No one would fear the presence of the man who talked with John, while walking along the way (Luke 24:15-27), or taught him while they sat along the shore of a lake (Mark 2:13), or broke bread with him in fellowship (John 21:9-13). The presence of the Jesus John sees now was so intense, that John was no longer able to stand. His feet would no longer support him, and he required assistance even to stand (cp. Revelation 1:17).
Here in Revelation 1:13, John began to describe Jesus, and certain phrases taken from his description (Revelation 1:13-16) are used later by Jesus as small depictions of himself to five of the seven churches in Revelation 2 & 3. However, if we include titles ascribed to Jesus in Revelation 1:4-5, we can include six of the seven churches. Only the church of Philadelphia is addressed by Jesus without using any of these representations of himself. Here, in Revelation 1:13 John describes Jesus as being like a son of man. In other words, this heavenly Being is a person in the form of a human being. John doesn’t use the title Jesus often used of himself in the Gospel narratives. In the Gospels the title in the Greek is the Son of the Man, and pointed to Jesus’ Messianic office, which he used to inform the Jews that the long awaited Anointed One had come. The Greek title always had the article before Son and before Man (Matthew 8:20; 9:6; 10:23 etc.). Here, however, the ‘articles’ are absent, and John describes Jesus as one who looks human, or **a** son of man. Nevertheless, Jesus does not quite look like the Man John knew and loved some years ago before Jesus was crucified.
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