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Author of several books on the Book of Revelation etc. good Greek insight and Hebrew etc. published a handful of books very good
-the crown Jesus wears is stephanos, meaning wreath, that which symbolizes victory more so than political power (not to undermine the political power he will have which we read of in other prophecies).
-the 144000 may be that 3 is gods number, 4 is the number of earth, those multiplied is 12, then the show significance of something multiply it by itself, so 12 is the priesthood number and 12 by 12 is 144, then multiply by 1000 to emphasize, it’s 144000. They are High Priests. It’s the Patriarchal Priesthood, meaning husband and wife, it’s the senior couples missionaries you see in the Church serving. It’s the Priesthood gathering in all the people they can. (*But Joseph Smith says in Teachings pg. 75 that the 144,000 are of the office of Seventy)
-the people of the Lord have the Lord with them in the last days, and they are rejoicing despite the war around them, for they have already won a war, one with a 1/3 casualty, the pre mortal war.
-Christ is Alpha and Omega, meaning he is not only the beginning and the end, but everything between. This type of writing is frequent in scripture.
-the Greek Septuagint version of the Old Testament is what John uses when he records about Jesus being Alpha and Omega, it’s similar to the “I AM THAT I AM”. This suggests God is saying I am the one who causes Gods to be Gods, who causes things to be, I am the beginning, the end, and everything in the middle when it comes to salvation.
-Christ is the only one who can read the book which God holds, that which contains the history of the whole earth from begin to end, so Christ is the only one who knows it all who can do all of Gods will, hence he can save us. He is the person able to comprehend it and whom is made for it like a saddle for a horse. That is the meaning of the word worthy which the Greek suggests.
-White in antiquity symbolized victory; Jesus appears in white to suggest that.
-Christ has the keys of hell as we read, this means that when Satan has done enough, he takes those keys back. Satan can’t go beyond his bounds. It says one of the stars fell to earth and was given the key of the bottomless pit, it’s not Lucifer’s key, it is borrowed to Lucifer, and he can only use it as Jesus instructs, it has it’s limits that God won’t let it past
-the Lion of the Lord is later seen as the lamb. That lamb has a wound that doesn’t kill it, but it withstands it. It’s about how Jesus continues to exist, is resurrected, handles this mortal wound. What is the wound? The wound of love. That lamb has 7 horns, meaning fullness of power, that he has power like God being equal to God. Joseph Smith changes it to 12 horns, which also gives us a Priesthood view, that it’s by the Priesthood that Christ did the Atonement etc.
-there are 24 thrones around Gods throne on the same level of it, this shows that the Atonement is effective, that we can become Gods, not just small Gods, but full Gods. This is by the grace of Christ that we can also become Victors.
-God is not omnipotent because he has all compulsory power, but it’s like we read in D&C 121, that when our bowls are full of charity, we have everlasting dominion flowing to us without compulsory means. Further evidence of this is that in the end, all except a few of Gods children get to go to a kingdom of glory that they will enjoy, one of their choosing (there are different levels, 3 basically, and no one is force to the highest one).
-we become the begotten sons of God via Christ. We are already his spirit children, but by Christ, we are adopted into his eternal family.
-sword out of mouth of Christ: it means his word is powerful in the defensive and offensive; and it in Greek suggests it’s continually flowing from his mouth; another example of how CHRIST’S WORDS NEVER CEASE.
-apo is Greek which is to take the genitive case, but John uses the nominative case, this is to say that Jesus is the subject (nominative case denotes subject), He is the center, the cause, the purpose, the how of salvation, the center point of it, the only way by which it comes. There are examples of John violating grammar rules to make a point
(*Attic (ancient/biblical) Greek scholar Stephen Bay BYU professor doesn’t share this theory of intentional grammar errors, but rather that John’s Greek had many plain old grammatical errors, and that’s ok!)
