The deduction he drew from this one verse was: “Therefore, the Father remained God to Jesus, even after His exaltation.” One quick come-back response could be, “Yes, and Jesus remained God the Son to the Father also.” But I doubt that it would carry much weight. So I was still intrigued by the unusual reference here to the Father being called “His” (that is, Jesus') God. The situation became a little clearer when I looked at what others had to say regarding this subject.
As a demonstration that this phrase in 1:6 by no means denigrates the position of Christ vis-a-vis God the Father, I could quote Dr. Robert Mounce, who in his entry to The New International Commentary on the New Testament, also translates the key phrase as “to be priests unto his God and Father.” However, he goes on to say: “The doxology concludes with the ascription to Christ of glory and dominion forever and ever. Lenski notes that 'the Greek takes its greatest term for time, the eon, pluralizes this, and then multiplies it by its own plural.' In this context, 'glory' is praise and honor, and 'dominion' connotes power and might. The two are likewise joined in the doxology to God and the Lamb found in 5:13. The statement is both a confident assertion about the exalted Christ and an exhortation to regard him correspondingly.”
Echoing these statement was J. M. Ford's comment that the author “knows of the Christian election in Christ (cf. I Peter 2:5,9) and can give Christ equal honor with the Father (vs. 6).”
Jacques Ellul: “The specific vision of Jesus Christ as Lord is inscribed first of all (chapter 1) in a great trinitarian affirmation from verses 4 to 7 (which allows us to affirm that if at this epoch there was still not yet a trinitarian dogmatic theology, nevertheless there was, indisputably, a trinitarian interpretation of the mystery of God in Jesus Christ.”
The next natural place I looked was at the original Greek wording of this verse. The crucial phrase reads literally, “made us kings and priests to the God and Father his.” So my first question was, “What does the pronoun “his” really modify: God, the Father, or both?” I noted that most English translations take “his” to refer to God (or possibly both God and Father), and my friend was obviously quoting from one of them. But that is not the only possibility.
For example, The Anchor Bible translation reads, “a priestly kingdom for God even [“that is”] his Father.” If this rendering is correct, then it merely proves that the exalted Christ still has a Sonship relationship with God the Father.
John Phillips similarly states: “The benediction speaks of grace that elevates. 'Unto Him that...hath made us kings and priests unto God and His Father' is the further response of the redeemed.”
This is also the translation that some commentators go by: “Notice that God is characterized with respect to His relationship to Christ (his Father), rather than to us (not 'our Father').” (Leon Morris) And whether or not the noted Bible scholar Morris is correct in his rendering, his point remains that we see in this verse a remarkable case of God being defined by who Christ is, not vice versa.
A final grammatical note is also in order. My friend assumed that Revelation 1:6 was describing Christ's present position in heaven. However, if you look at the whole context, it appears that assumption may be a poor one. The previous verse does describe Christ's situation in the present tense so that He is called “the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.” And that present tense continues in the doxology beginning at 1:6b: “To him who loves us.” But then, and into verse 6 it morphs into the past tense to describe what Jesus accomplished on the cross before his exaltation, namely, He “freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us to be a kingdom, etc.” So at that point when Christ in his emptied earthly state was separated from the Father, He could rightly cry out, “My God, why have you forsaken me?”
The second objection to Christ's deity out of this chapter came from my friend's contention that the fact God gave Christ this revelation (Revelation 1:1) is an indication that even the risen Christ did not possess omniscience as did God the Father. Therefore Christ cannot be considered to be God. At this point, my friend is confusing role with status. All that it demonstrates is that it was God the Father's role to entrust the Son with the task of communicating the revelation to Christ. And even if it did, it would only show that each Person of the Godhead has his own unique function to carry out. It does not state that the risen Christ did not already know the substance of that revelation. And look at the other possibilities for interpretation here:
“This scheme of communication probably explains why in some sayings later in the book it is difficult to discern whether the speaker is God, Christ, or an angel, since the message actually derives from all three.” (Beale)
“God is the source of all revelation...In Revelation this disclosure is mediated by Jesus Christ. (In the Fourth Gospel the role of taking the things of God and showing them to man is often assigned to Christ. Jn 1:18; 5:19-23; 12:49; 17:8; cf Mt 11:27.)” (Mounce)
Mounce also says, “Beckwith suggests that the writer is following his customary mode of making a general term (in this case, 'word of God') more specific by adding another phrase for clarification ('testimony of Jesus Christ')...the final clause is appositional and limits the scope of both...[and] consists of 'all things that he [i.e. John] saw.'”
There is even the unlikely possibility that J.M. Ford is correct in the contention that this passage refers to Jesus' first coming and that “John” is John the Baptist
Since my friend denies that Jesus Christ is actually God and relegates the Holy Spirit to a disembodied force emanating from God, he needs to somehow discredit all the many indications throughout Scripture indicating that Jesus is truly God Incarnate. For some more of those scriptural indications, just look at the rest of Revelation 1 to see what it says on the subject, starting with the literary arrangement of the chapter.
A. John, the Word, and the Testimony (Rev. 1:1-3)
B. To the Seven Churches (Rev. 1:4a)
C. From the omnipresent and triune God (Rev. 1:4b-5)
D. Glory to Jesus Christ for past actions (Rev. 1:5b-6)
D'. Glory to Jesus Christ in the future (Rev. 1:7)
C'. The omnipresent God, the Almighty (Rev. 1:8)
A'. John, The Word, and the Testimony (Rev. 1:9)
B'. To the Seven Churches (Rev. 1:10-20)
“The Word of God and the Testimony of Jesus Christ” in Sections A and A' each utilize those two phrases in parallel to one another; they are a way of equating the two as the same thing.
In C and C', we have the identical phrase “who is and who was and who is to come.” In C, It is listed alongside Jesus Christ and the “seven spirits,” the latter phrase probably indicating the perfection of the Holy Spirit – an obvious reference to the entire Trinity. And in C', the threefold time indication is used to define the Almighty. Both D and D' form the center emphasis of the chapter, praising Jesus Christ. And both conclude with an “Amen.”
And just in case one might claim that “who was, and is, and is to come” strictly applies to God the Father, we have Jesus' statement in Revelation 1:17 that He was dead, is alive, and will be forever and ever.
And if one happens to have missed all those points, just look at Jesus' other statement in v. 17: “I am the first and the last.” Compare that with the Almighty God's pronouncement in Revelation 1:8 – “I am the Alpha and the Omega.” And just to make sure everyone gets the point and doesn't try to claim that these are different descriptions, the combined phrase “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last” appears in Revelation 21:6 as the words of the Almighty God and in Revelation 22:13 on the lips of Jesus Christ.
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