Revelation 1:10

I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and I heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet.

In the Spirit ... Not much is known of this state of being "in the Spirit"; but, evidently, all of the Scripture writers were in such a state when they received their divine revelation. Jesus said of David, "How then doth David in the Spirit call him Lord?" (Matthew 22:43). Many speculations about this have yielded little or no valuable information.

On the Lord's day ... This expression is found only here in the New Testament, "and beyond all reasonable doubt it means on Sunday."[33] "There is every reason to believe the church used the word in protest against Caesar-worship."[34] Some have thought this means the day of judgment, indicating that John was transported by the vision to the time of the final judgment; but the judgment is invariably "the day of the Lord" in the New Testament. Here, "Lord's day" is a similar construction to "Lord's supper" (1 Corinthians 11:20). "It means `belonging to the Lord', or `consecrated to the Lord'."[35] The Greek construction rules out the interpretation that would make this mean the judgment.[36] According to Deissmann, from A.D. 30 and continuing until 98-117, one day of every month was called "Augustus Day" ([@hemera] [@Sebaste]); and it certainly could have been that the Christians started referring to the first day of the week as "the Lord's day" in opposition to the current idolatry directed toward Roman emperors. It is preposterous to suppose that "the Lord's day" is a reference to the Jewish sabbath. Saturday was a day of the week upon which Jesus spent the entire twenty-four hours of it in the tomb! On the other hand, Sunday was the day Jesus rose from the dead, the very same day the apostles met him in the upper room, and a week later on another Sunday the Lord appeared to his assembled apostles again. Sunday was the day the Holy Spirit came on Pentecost; it was the day the disciples came together to break bread (Acts 20:7); it was the day the collection was taken up (1 Corinthians 16:2); and, added to all of this, the invariable Christian tradition of more than nineteen centuries makes Sunday the day of Christian assemblies, a custom still observed all over the world. "The Lord's day" is thus an exceedingly appropriate title for the day.

A great voice, as of a trumpet ... "This voice was presumably that of the Son of man."[37] Dake counted over sixty usages of the word "great" in the Book of Revelation.[38] Bruce, however, did not believe the great trumpet-like voice mentioned here was that of the Lord, basing his opinion on the fact that the Lord's voice is said to be like the sound of many waters (Revelation 1:15).[39] He viewed it as a herald-like prelude to the appearance of the Great Conqueror. This would appear to be the better interpretation.

[33] T. Randell, op. cit., p. 5.

[34] Finis Jennings Dake, Revelation Expounded (Lawrenceville, Georgia: Dake, 1950), p. 32.

[35] Ralph Earle, op. cit., p. 479.

[36] Ibid.

[37] G. R. Beasley-Murray, op. cit., p. 1282.

[38] Finis Jennings Dake, op. cit., p. 33.

[39] F. F. Bruce, A New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1969), p. 535.