The peculiarity of the Book of Revelation, as an Apocalypse, gives it the superficial appearance of standing apart from the other books of the New Testament in a class by itself. It requires little scrutiny of its contents, however, to assure us that this is true only of its form. In the matter of the designations it applies to our Lord, for example, the cursory reader is impressed by their novelty and astonished by the richness of their suggestion; but on analyzing their content he soon discovers that they embody in their splendid phraseology no other conceptions than those he has been made familiar with in the other books of the New Testament. Indeed, there is a sense in which it would not be untrue to say that the Book of Revelation, written as it was at the close of the first Christian century (c. A.D. 96), gathers up into an epitome and gives vivid, and we may say even emotional, expression to the whole century’s thought of Jesus. A certain comprehensiveness is thus imparted to its christological allusions which has puzzled the critical student and been made by him the reproach of the book and even the occasion of denial to it of unity of composition.1 It is in truth merely a witness to the unity of the conception of Jesus which characterized the whole Apostolic Church, finding, indeed, varied expression according to the idiosyncrasy of each writer, but remaining through all variety of expression essentially the same.
The long list of designations in which this conception of Jesus is at least in part embodied in the Book of Revelation may be perhaps somewhat Two Classes of oe: roughly divided into two classes. We say roughly divided because the separating line is an uncertain one and the two classes melt insensibly into one another. These two classes may perhaps equally roughly be discriminated as simple and descriptive designations: simple designations, that is to say, names merely designating our Lord, though, of course, no one of these names merely designates our Lord, but all have more or less of a descriptive element; and descriptive designations, that is to say, designations which are more or less elaborate descriptions of His nature and functions.
The simple designations are, in accordance with the general character of the book as a symbolical Apocalypse, both few and infrequently employed.² In the formal opening of the book we have—as in the formal opening of several others of the New Testament books (Me 1¹,¹⁸2 ME,¹ Ino 1¹⁷, Rom ty Cora¹, Galig¹, 1 P 1,¹ 2 Pi,¹ [Jno 13,2 2 Jno 3], Jude 1)—the full ceremonious name, Jesus Christ (1¹,¹,⁵). In the formal closing verses of the book the place of this solemn designation is taken by the somewhat more descriptive designation the Lord Jesus’ (22²⁰,²¹, cf. however, vr. Jesu Christ in verse 21). The simple Jesus occurs more frequently (1⁹,⁹ 12¹⁷ 14¹² 17⁶ 19¹⁰,¹⁰ ap⁴ 22¹⁶), and, if we may be allowed the expression, appears to be the more emotional, as distinguished from the more formal, simple designation of our Lord in this book. The simple Christ occurs only twice (20⁴), although in what we may call its more descriptive form—that is in its appellative use— the Lord’s Christ (Anointed),” God’s Christ (Anointed), —it agenrs twice more (at 11¹ 12¹⁰). The term Lord seems to be a designation of Christ at 14¹³: and His Lordship is of course copiously recognized elsewhere, not merely by implication as in the designation of a day as the Lord’s day” (1¹⁰),³ but in a series of elaborately descriptive designations the simplest of which is perhaps the King of Kings and Lord of Lords’ (19¹⁶), varied to the Lord of Lords and King of Kings’ (17¹⁴, cf. 1⁵ 2¹,¹² 3⁷ 5⁵). Of the more common Messianic designations, besides the fundamental the Christ’) (11¹⁵ 12¹⁰; and in compounds 1¹,²,⁵) “and ‘ Christ’(20⁴,⁶), only the Son of God occurs, and that but once (2¹⁸, cf. my Father,’ 2²⁷ 3⁵,²¹: His God and Father, 1⁶ my God,’ 3>¹²), and accompanied by descriptive adjuncts which give it its very highest connotation. Our Lord’s own Son of Man,” however, has its echo in the description of Jesus in two visions as ‘” one like unto a Son of Man” (1¹³ 14¹⁴): and by the preservation in this designation of the like unto of the Danielic vision (7¹³)—strengthened from the simple ὡς to the emphatic ὅμοιον,—the seer manages to assert with great strength the essential deity of our Lord. He was not a son of man but only “like unto a son of man.”⁴ He even enhances this implication by interweaving into the description traits drawn not only from Daniel’s “” Son of Man,” but also from his “Ancient of Days.”⁵ The Johannine designation of ‘ the Word of God (19¹³) also occurs as the name of the conquering Christ, apparently with the implication that in Jesus is manifested the definitive revelation of God in which He addresses Himself to man with irresistible power.⁶ Probably the man child (or son”) of va⁵ (cf: (12¹³, the man) ultimately refers to our Lord: and if so it also is doubtless Messianic, taking hold at once of Is 66⁷ and Psalm 2⁹, possibly even of Gen 4¹: in any event the allusion is to the conquest of evil by this Son of the