He is the one who is and who was and who is to come. He is in full possession of the Spirit’s power, shining radiantly in the fullness of glory. Nothing is hidden from this enthroned Son of Man whose eyes are like flaming fire. He has ascended to the Right hand of the Father, pouring out his Spirit upon his people to live faithfully as overcomers. He reigns and rules over the kingdoms of men and sovereignly ordains all that comes to pass. There is nothing weak about this Jesus. 

Jesus Christ is not weak. But somehow this is how he has often been depicted in the modern church. His attributes of gentleness and kindness have been so emphasized in accordance with his love, that other portraits of him have faded into the background. The love of Christ for believers is a treasure that our hearts should behold every day. He has gentleness towards those of a repentant and contrite disposition. To those who come to him, he will never turn any away.

Christians should bask in these realities and allow themselves to be consumed by the love of Christ and the beauty of his heart toward sinners. However, this should always be held in tension with the images that we receive from the inspired Word of God that depict Christ as a Conquering Warrior and a Fearful Judge. The book of Revelation especially reminds us of this side of Jesus that has been minimized in our day with the ascent of a feminized church. To be sure, different portraits have been emphasized at different times for different reasons, but the masculine Jesus on display in John’s vision captures something that the modern evangelical church desperately needs to recover.

As John is given the vision of the Risen and Reigning Lord, here are seven things that leap off the page about Jesus:

Fearful Judge

John crumbles before the presence of Christ and has to be personally comforted by Jesus.

“When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand on me, saying, ‘Fear not…’”

— Revelation 1:17

The Christ in view here is not be trifled with. He is not a God who we casually stroll into the presence of flippantly. His face is shining in its full strength with the brightness of glory. His beauty hurts to see for it is both glorious and terrifying. Here, we see what it means to fear the Lord. His glory makes our knees buckle, but at the same time is able to pull us up to our feet and robe us in the safety of eternal refuge.

Very God of Very God

Not to be academic, but only one who is deity himself dwelling in bodily form could command such a response from mere mortals. He reveals himself as the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last. Only Yahweh, the true God of the Bible, self-existent, self-sustaining, the Creator of the ends of the earth is the First and the Last. When human beings bow down before Jesus, it is because the unanimous truth of Scripture expects us to know Him as God and worship as such.

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