Ask Pastor Mike Live

Guest (Female): Hi Pastor Mike. I have a question about the book of Revelation. Well, I have lots of questions about Revelation, but one specific one for today. I learned many years ago that there are some people who think that the author of Revelation is not John the Apostle, but a different John who was called John the Revelator.

Mostly that seems silly to me, but then in Revelation 19 and 22, we see John bowing down and worshipping the angel who is speaking to him. It seems to me that the disciple whom Jesus loved, who was part of Jesus' inner circle and who ended his first epistle by saying, "Keep yourselves from idols," it seems to me that this John would know better than to worship an angel. So I'm wondering if you have any thoughts on that.

Focal Point Ministries: Every time someone speaks of John the Revelator, let's just start with that, they are talking about the John of the book of Revelation who is receiving this revelation. Any theory about the identity of John can't be based on that title. You'd have to try to build it based on something in the text. You're pointing to him bowing down to an angelic being, which I'm going to say I would expect better from Peter, too, not to cut off Malchus's ear or not to deny Christ in Caiaphas's courtyard.

There is something much more forgivable, I would say, about having a revelatory experience with an angel giving you all of the glory that has been described, especially in Chapter 1 and Chapter 4 and 5, and then laying all this out in some multimedia presentation and giving obeisance of some kind through prostrating myself in front of that angel. I think that's a little different than the idols of John's day as he talks about the Antichrists in the culture in 1 John 4 and 5.

I'm not going to exclude him as being the John who was the beloved apostle because of that. I just think much like James, the half-brother of Christ, who was so important in the early church in the book of Acts, who says, "We all stumble in many ways," if you talk to John when you meet him one day, he's going to say, "Yeah, I shouldn't have done that, and I do stumble in many ways."

Sometimes we hold our leaders up or even the apostles in the scripture to a standard that I think all of them, when we sit down and talk with them, are going to say, "Yeah, we've all sinned and even with the knowledge we had, sometimes we sinned." The whole second chapter of Romans is about teachers of the law who don't do the very things they're teaching. John did say don't bow down to idols. That's how he ends his epistle there.

I do think that it is John the Apostle. That's been the earliest understanding of the church in receiving the book of Revelation. Being exiled there in the island of Patmos is certainly the extra-biblical tradition that grew up around what happened to that disciple. Everything seems to match, so I wouldn't question it based on him doing something he shouldn't have done, which he was quickly corrected on in bowing down to the angel in the book of Revelation.

I hold to the John who laid back on Jesus's chest when he ate at those tables that were just a few inches off the floor. I'm not going to hold that against him in a sense that he's disqualified from being the John that said don't worship idols. Bowing down to an angelic being that's truly an angelic being—just think about that scene in Isaiah Chapter 6. The amazing picture of an angelic being somehow being realized and manifested in our eyes would be a remarkable thing to see.

After all that he had heard, perhaps just in a weak moment, he did what he shouldn't do, and I'm so glad that he recorded the fact that he shouldn't do it. He was told that and he didn't. He worshipped Jesus, which of course is what the book is all about. I don't disqualify him from that and I do think the gospel writer wrote it.

If you have a question about the Bible or the Christian life, give me a call at 877-913-5357. Whatever you're thinking about regarding the Bible or the Christian life, let's hear what you have to say. I'd love to interact with it. No question is too small, no question is too dumb. Let's tackle as many as we can on the program today.