17 And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. And he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; I am the first and the last:
18 I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.
In verse 17 John describes his reaction to this stunning further revelation of his glorified Lord. He tells us that he “fell at his feet as dead.” This is not at all surprising in view of what Jehovah had said to Moses in Exodus 33:20.
And he said, Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live.
Just reading these words, in an age in which the Lord Jesus Christ rarely receives appropriate reverent response from His own people in the churches, calls forth genuine conviction. A. W. Tozer, writing over sixty years ago, spoke of this downward slide in the views of God held by his own people in his day.
“The low view of God entertained almost universally among Christians is the cause of a hundred lesser evils everywhere among us… The decline of the knowledge of the holy has brought on our troubles. A rediscovery of the majesty of God will go a long way toward curing them.”[1]
Surely, one of the primary purposes of God in supplying His people in the churches with this entire Revelation of His Son is to elevate our view of God. Far better it will be for us if this is a result of our study, rather than developing some kind of greater certainty of our prophetic interpretations of this Revelation!
17 …And he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; I am the first and the last:
18 I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.
In the latter portion of verse 17 and through verse 18 the Glorified Lord encourages John not to fear. Consider how the Lord sets aside John’s fear. He grants John even further Revelation of Himself.
He reminds John that He is “the first and the last.” This part of the new Revelation of the Lord had already been identified in verses 8 and 11, when He spoke of Himself as the “Alpha and the Omega.” But now the Lord illuminates this Revelation by adding three new details. The Lord says [1] I am he that liveth, and was dead; [2] I am alive forever more; and [3] I have the keys of hell and death.
He speaks of His death and resurrection from the dead, the fact that death has no further dominion over Him,[2] and that he now holds the keys to hell and death. That He now holds these keys simply identifies that His authority and dominion reach significantly farther than that of any earthly ruler like Caesar.
At this point, John would certainly be enormously stunned by how very little he and the other disciples had comprehended Jesus of Nazareth. These things that John has just heard directly from his Glorified Lord strengthened John’s determination to align with Christ at all costs. What could possibly have any greater significance that what he had just been told? Furthermore, does not all of this help to elucidate what the early apostles meant when they said that they “preached Christ?” They were not in any sense preaching a “fire escape from Hell.”
[1] A.W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy (New York: Harper Collins, 1961), pp. vii-viii. [2] This calls to John’s memory the statement made by the Lord prior to His crucifixion: “17 Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. 18 No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father.” (John 10:17-18)