Revelation 19:10

Jewish eschatology at this point has much to say of the return of the ten tribes and the general restoration of Zion's children from foreign lands but these speculations were naturally of no interest to the religious mind of the Christian prophet. As hitherto the command to write has come from Christ, the seer perhaps thinks that this injunction also proceeds from a divine authority (Weiss), but his grateful and reverent attempt to pay divine homage to the angelus interpres (cf. Revelation 22:8) is severely rebuked. The author's intention is to check any tendency to the angel-worship which (whether a Jewish practice or not, cf. Clem. Alex. Strom. vi. 5, 41; Lightfoot on Colossians 2:18; and Lueken, 4 f.) had for some time fascinated the Asiatic churches here and there. If even a prophet need not bow to an angel, how much less an ordinary Christian? A contemporary note of this polemic is heard in Asc. Isa. vii. 21 (Christians): et cecidi in faciem meam, ut eum (the angelus interpres, who conducts Isaiah through the heavens) adorarem, nec siuit me angelus, qui me instruebat, sed dixit mihi ne adores nec angelum nec thronum. In Asc. Isaiah 2:11 the angelic cicerone even rebukes the seer for calling him Lord: οὐκ ἐγὼ κύριος, ἀλλὰ σύν δουλός σού εἰμι. The repetition of this scene (Revelation 22:8 f.), due to the Oriental love of emphasis by reduplication, is significant in a book where angels swarm (cf. Daniel 2:11). ἡ γὰρ κ. τ. λ., “for the testimony or witness of (i.e., borne by) Jesus is (i.e., constitutes) the spirit of prophecy”. This prose marginal comment (see above) specifically defines the brethren who hold the testimony of Jesus as possessors of prophetic inspiration. The testimony of Jesus is practically equivalent to Jesus testifying (Revelation 22:20). It is the self-revelation of Jesus (according to Revelation 1:1, due ultimately to God) which moves the Christian prophets. He forms at once the impulse and subject of their utterances (cf. lgnat. Rom. viii.; Eph. vi.). The motive and materials for genuine prophecy consist in a readiness to allow the spirit of Jesus to bring the truth of God before the mind and conscience (cf. Revelation 3:14; Revelation 3:22). The gloss even connects in a certain way with τῷ θεῷ προσκύνησον. Since angelic and human inspiration alike spring from the divine witness of Jesus, therefore God alone, as its ultimate source, deserves the reverence of those whom that inspiration impresses. The prestige of the prophets lies in the fact that any one of them is, as Philo called Abraham, σύνδουλος τῶν ἀγγέλων. An angel can do no more than bear witness to Jesus. Furthermore, there is an implicit definition of the spirit of prophecy (Revelation 11:7, etc.) in its final phase as a revelation of Jesus Christ. Even the O.T. prophetic books, with which the Apocalypse claims to rank, were inspired by the spirit of the pre-existent Christ (see on 1 Peter 1:11; Barn. Revelation 19:6). But now, by an anti-Jewish and even anti-pagan touch, no oracular or prophetic inspiration is allowed to be genuine unless it concerns Jesus who is the Christ. Such is the triumphant definition or rather manifesto of the new Christian prophecy.