Day 339: Revelation 1:1–3

The revelation of Jesus Christ that God gave Him to show His slaves what must quickly take place. He sent it and signified it through His angel to His slave John (v. 1).

For the remainder of our journey together, we will join John in exile on the island of Patmos in the Aegean. Don’t bother packing your swimsuit. This six-mile-wide, ten-mile-long island is not exactly paradise. In John’s day its rocky, barren terrain attracted the eye of the Romans as a perfect place to banish criminals. Under the rule of the Roman emperor Domitian (ad 81–96), Christianity was a criminal offense, and the apostle John had a fierce case of it.

I am curious why John, an undeniable Son of Thunder, was exiled rather than killed under the authority of Roman rule like the other apostles. Scholars agree we can assume he was harshly treated—even at his age—and forced into hard labor in the mines and quarries on the island. I still wonder why the Romans bothered since they publicly and inhumanely took the lives of so many other Christians. Ultimately, God wasn’t finished with John’s work on earth, and no one was taking him without his Father’s permission. I wonder if the traditional teaching of the early church fathers is accurate—that the Romans tried to kill him . . . and couldn’t.

In a work called On Prescription against Heretics, Tertullian—often called the “father of Latin theology”—made a stunning claim: “The apostle John was first plunged, unhurt, into boiling oil, and then remitted to his island exile!”73

Very few scholars question the reliability of the early traditions held about Peter’s death on a cross to which Tertullian referred. Likewise, I’ve never read a commentary that cited reason to question the traditional information that Paul was beheaded like John the Baptist. I certainly don’t know if the account regarding John’s plunge into boiling oil is reliable, but if you ask me if such an event is possible, I could only answer yes! In Acts 12, God wasn’t ready for Peter’s work on earth to end, so He loosed his chains and caused him to walk right out of the prison. I can’t even count the times the apostle Paul narrowly escaped death. I seem to recall a trio in the Old Testament who experienced fire without even the smell of smoke (see Dan. 3). Beloved, don’t let the modern church make you cynical. Ours is a God of wonders, and don’t you forget it!