Portrait

Paul Mellow was born to missionary parents in China and completed high school there. After graduating from Prairie Bible Institute in Canada, he pastored independent Bible Churches in the Midwest and Southwest. For the past 35 years he has made it a habit to read Revelation 4 and 5 every Sunday morning to focus his mind on the grandeur of the Lord Jesus Christ. This led to a thorough study of Revelation, and to the writing of this book. He found a wide-spread belief in the church that Revelation is difficult or impossible to understand, in spite of the fact that God called it "The Revelation." He also found that people thought the book consisted of dark predictions about a terrible future, although God called it, "The Revelation of Jesus Christ." Worse still, he found that many Christians tend to ignore Revelation, even though it is the only book in the Bible with a specific promise of special blessing to readers (Rev. 1:3). Mellow sees the book as John's magnificent portrait of Jesus Christ in His various roles. First John identified Jesus as identical with Jehovah in the Old Testament (Rev. 1), then as the Lord of the Church (Rev. 2-3), The King of Heaven (Rev. 4-5), The Judge (Rev. 6-20), The Good Shepard (Rev.7), Creator of the New Heaven and New Earth (Rev. 21), and finally, the Bridegroom (Rev. 21-22). The terrible events on Plant Earth form the dark background against which the artist paints his brilliant portrait of the Lord Jesus Christ whom he loved so well.