By COGwriter
1:10
I was in the Spirit on the Lord's Day,
This is not a reference to Sunday as many think--see Is Revelation 1:10 talking about Sunday or the Day of the Lord?
1:10b
10 ... and I heard behind me a loud voice, as of a trumpet, 11 saying, "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last," and, "What you see, write in a book and send it to the seven churches which are in Asia: to Ephesus, to Smyrna, to Pergamos, to Thyatira, to Sardis, to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea."
John was told to write what he saw.
1:12
12 Then I turned to see the voice that spoke with me. And having turned I saw seven golden lampstands,
The seven golden lampstands pertain to the seven eras of the church age.
1:13
John further saw:
13 and in the midst of the seven lampstands One like the Son of Man, clothed with a garment down to the feet and girded about the chest with a golden band. 14 His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and His eyes like a flame of fire; 15 His feet were like fine brass, as if refined in a furnace, and His voice as the sound of many waters; 16 He had in His right hand seven stars, out of His mouth went a sharp two-edged sword, and His countenance was like the sun shining in its strength.
Some have asked about this, in view of the following that John wrote:
2 Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. (1 John 3:2-3)
Yet when John wrote 1 John 3:2, that was before he saw what he did in Revelation.
1:17
17 And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead. But He laid His right hand on me, saying to me, "Do not be afraid; I am the First and the Last. 18 I am He who lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen. And I have the keys of Hades and of Death.
1:19
Jesus again tells John to write what he saw:
19 Write the things which you have seen, and the things which are, and the things which will take place after this.
Note that some of what John would see would be relatd to the present, yet other things were for the future. Revelation is mainly a prophetic book.
The late Herbert W. Armstrong wrote:
Seven Church Eras The book of Revelation records seven messages to seven churches that existed is Asia Minor toward the end of the first century A.D. These churches--Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea--were located along one of the mail routes of the old Roman Empire. Riders would follow the route--carrying messages from town to town. The messages to the seven churches have words of both encouragement and correction and they clearly show the dominant characteristics of each of the congregations at that time. But these messages were intended for a wider audience than the Christians in these small towns. They are a series of remarkable prophecies, by which the future of the true Church was foretold in outline form, from the day it began on Pentecost, A.D. 31, until the Second Coming of Christ. The history of the Church would fall into seven distinct eras--each with its own strengths and weaknesses and its own special trials and problems. Just as a message could pass along the mail route from Ephesus to Laodicea, so would the truth of God be passed from era to era. It was like a relay race--in which the baton is passed from runner to runner, each one doing his part, until the finish line is reached. Some time during the early decades of the second century, the baton was passed from the Ephesian era to the people that God had called to the Smyrna era of his Church. (Armstrong HW. Mystery of the Ages, 1985, pp. 282-283).
Let it be noted that various Protestant and Roman Catholic scholars also teach what can be called "church eras," though their dates and attributes mostly differ from those held by the Churches of God.
Although the original New Testament church began in Jerusalem on the Feast of Pentecost after Jesus' resurrection (thus beginning the Ephesian era), Christians spread to many lands, with many ending up in Asia Minor in the first two centuries A.D. (more details of the earliest times is included in the article The Ephesus Church Era), with the last of the original apostles (John) settling in Ephesus.
"Ephesus was the most important city in Asia minor when Revelation was written" (The Nelson Study Bible, 1997, p. 2166).
But Ephesus did not stay that way. Nor did the Ephesus Church remain predominant. The city of Ephesus was the first stop of a consecutive mail run that ran through Laodicea (in the order that Jesus listed the Churches). Each era is connected through the laying on of hands, which in the New Testament church began with the apostles (see Laying on of Hands; see also Beliefs of the Original Catholic Church: Could a remnant group have continuing apostolic succession?).
And The Catholic Encyclopedia notes who its leader for a time was,
... the Apostle and Evangelist John lived in Asia Minor in the last decades of the first century and from Ephesus had guided the Churches of that province.
It is logical that the first, predominant church would be listed first, in a listing of seven churches. John moved to Ephesus.
Thus, it is logical that John, the last of the original apostles, was the last known apostolic leader of the Ephesus church.
1:20
Now Jesus gives an explanation to John to assist him and us to understand some of what John saw:
20 The mystery of the seven stars which you saw in My right hand, and the seven golden lampstands: The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands which you saw are the seven churches.
The 7 churches have at least two roles to fulfill in Revelation. One role is that they are the things which are, in that they were in existence at the time of this vision and they were also the things which will take place after this--like their predominance in that being the 7 eras.
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