Philip Schaff's Popular Commentary (4 vols)

Revelation 1:2

Revelation 1:2. The source of the revelation has been declared, and is now followed by a description of the spirit in which the revelation itself was received and communicated to the Church. Individually St. John is nothing: he is only a witness to the Divine, to the word of God, and to the testimony given by Jesus Christ ‘the Faithful Witness' (comp. Revelation 1:5; Revelation 3:14). For ‘and' in the last clause of the verse, as it is read in the Authorised Version, we must substitute ‘even;' the clause all things that he saw being only a description from another point of view of the things contained in ‘the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ.' The verse as a whole is thus to be understood of the revelation of this book. It has indeed been urged that the writer could not in the preamble speak of the contents of the book as past. But he does so in Revelation 1:3, in which the whole prophecy is supposed to have been already uttered. Here, in like manner, he places himself at the end of his visions, and speaks of them as things that he has already ‘seen.' Nor is the verse, when looked at in this light, only a repetition of Revelation 1:1, for the emphasis lies upon ‘bare witness,' upon the attitude of the Seer rather than upon the things seen. Add to all this that the verb ‘saw' is constantly used throughout the book in the technical sense of beholding visions.

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Philip Schaff's Popular Commentary (4 vols)

Revelation 1:2

Old Testament

New Testament