HE Lives, Was Dead, and is Alive Forevermore
Glory Descended: A meditation on Revelation 1:17-18 for Easter 2026.
Rev. 1:17 And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead.
The glorious appearance of the Lord Jesus to the apostle John on Patmos had predictable results, if you know your Bible adn the way of the Lord with a human soul (Proverbs 30:18-19).
People who see God’s glory (in visions, signs, works) often are rendered incapacitated and full of dread. Their confidence in self melts, and they are left humbled and fearful. John’s gospel anticipates this trembling sight of Jesus radiant and terrible in majesty, and that sight helps complete John’s memoir and theology of what it means that the “… the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” John 1:14
John’s gospel presents what Paul later calls the great mystery of godliness: that Jesus as the eternal, divine Son (the Word, the light, the life) descended into the depths of humanity and its conditions, living for us, dying for us, and rising for us. In Christ’s signs, his “I am” statements, his human affections and sufferings (note, for one example, that only in John is “I thirst” and "Woman, behold your son!" and "Behold your mother!" recorded from the cross), and in his insistence that he himself is the bread and wine from heaven we must eat and drink to have eternal life—in many ways, the central theme of John is the descent of Glory into our world of flesh, suffering, and death and our rising in Jesus out of that death into a living glory. Salvation in John is seen as a birth of joy, identity, sight, reconciliation, home-coming, knowledge, hope, comfort, power, fellowship… in short, life. It is hidden from the proud, but is given by the Spirit, where he wills, through the knowledge of God in the face of Christ.
“…The life was manifested, and we have seen” (1 John chp.1) he says. The whole message of John’s writing then, including his visions on Patmos are, I believe, the answer to Agur’s inspired question (Proverbs 30:4), “Who has ascended into heaven, or descended?… What is His name, and what is His Son’s name, If you know?” “We know him” John says repeatedly in his epsitle. Glory has been revealed, so glorious that it humbles us into a kind of self-death. “I fell at His feet as dead” says this dear old apostle and friend of Christ. In that personal testimony, “I fell at His feet as dead”, John captures the descent of the soul into humilty before the unique, only begotten, descended glory of Christ.
Rev. 1:17-18 “But He laid His right hand on me, saying to me, “Do not be afraid; I am the First and the Last. 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.”
“Nothing ever changes”, says my own soul as it drags down into the shadows and death under which the saints of the Old Covenant labored forward. But, like John, by God’s mercy lays its hand on me, and I have not been left in that dust, but hear “the voice of Jesus say, ‘I am this dark world’s light. Look unto me, thy morn shall rise, and all thy days be bright.” Look, “behold,” Jesus says, “I am alive forevermore.”
