No time like the present

John, to the seven churches in the province of Asia: Grace and Peace to you from Him who is, and who was and who is to come and from the seven spirits before his throne and from Jesus Christ, the first born from the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To Him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood, and has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve his God and Father to him be glory and power forever and ever. Amen.

Revelation 1:4-6.

 

This is John’s glorious salutation to the churches in Asia at the beginning of the book we call The Revelation.

 

John sends his salutation from several beings. First is “him who is, and who was, and who is to come”, second are the seven spirits before his throne, and John specifies Jesus Christ. This is interesting. I was writing a letter to an old friend the other, my wife asked who I was writing to and I told her. She said tell him I said “hello”; so I forwarded her regards. That is what John is doing here. He is greeting the churches in Asia with as a group conveying to them “Grace and Peace” from the fullness of the Godhead himself.

 

Three times in the book of Revelation we see this phrase, “Who is, and who was and who is to come”. Revelation 1:4,1:8, and 4:8. The first time it is used by John to describe the source of his greeting, the second time “the Lord God” refers to himself with this phrase and then in Revelation 4:8 the angels in heaven use this phrase in worship and based on the description there they are still doing it, “day and night they never stop saying, Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is, and is to come.”

 

Now think about this. Who actually can say they were, and are and are to come? Or who can you say that about? We all have a past, but we are not actually the past. We all have a future, but we are not the future incarnate. As humans we exist in one moment of time at a time. We simply are. We are beings. Now I know we fret over the past, and worry about the future, even though we know we shouldn’t. But none of us exists in the past right now. We are created in God’s image, that word also means shadow. We are a lot like God but we are much less. God is a completely transcendent being unbound by time or place. That is unimaginable.

 

No wonder it seems like He is slow to provide for us, or that he delays his return. He cannot be contained by a calendar. He cannot bow to our time table. He was, and is and is to come all at the same time, all in the right now. If God wanted to he could change the past, present and future because he is the past, present and future.

 

And this almighty being loves us. He freed us from our sins which separated us from him and turned us into a kingdom, he “has made us to be a kingdom”. Each of us is a kingdom.

 

This resurrection Sunday, don’t look back at the resurrection as a historical event. There is no such thing in God. Jesus Christ is reveled to be “the first born from the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.” We are the kingdoms, He is our King and He was and He is to come all at the same time. We have nothing to fear from human governments. The rulers of this world are playthings for God. We are the kingdoms under his rule, unaffected by the whims of a fallen world.

 

 

The resurrection should give us a transcendent focus, literally, in God there is no time like the present.