(5) The admonitions of the visions. 1. “ Blessed is he that readeth and they that hear-1:3. This is, first, a reference to the person whose task it was to explain the visions, designated as he that readeth; and second, to the auditors assembled to receive it, as they that hear. As previously mentioned, there were specially endowed teachers, spiritually gifted men, in all of the churches (1 Corinthians 12:1-31), who could read and decode the revelation that was signified. The language of verse 3 indicates the need of the explanatory reading. 2. “ The words of this prophecy"--1:3. These words were prophetic in the sense of being visional. In this use of the word prophecy, it was apocalyptic only of things already beginning to occur. It was not the foretelling of far future events not connected with the experiences of his servants to whom and for whom the apocalypse was delivered. 3. “ And keep those things which are written therein” --1:3. The manifest meaning of this phrase is that his servants should remember the signified portents, and the monitory exhortations of the visions, for they would come within the experiences of their own time. 4. “ For the time is at hand"--1:3. There can be no reason to assign any other meaning to this phrase at hand than that which it had in the announcement of John the Baptist that the kingdom of heaven was at hand (Matthew 3:2), or of Jesus that the kingdom of God was at hand (Mark 1:14-15). The language and the context of it can mean only one thing--that these events were imminent. The sole reason for the admonition to read and hear and keep the things signified is stated in the clause of this verse: for the time is at hand. If the things written therein pertained to the remote future rather than to the immediate future, there was no application for such a warning.