Charles Ellicott Commentary Revelation 1:18

"and the Living one; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive for evermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades." — Revelation 1:18 (ASV)

I am he that liveth, and was dead.—Better, and the living One (omit the words “I am”); and I became dead; and, behold, I am alive (or, I am living) forever and ever (or, for evermore). "Amen" is omitted in the best manuscripts.

This verse must be carefully kept in connection with the preceding, as the description should go on without pause. He is the living One—not merely one who once was alive, or is now alive—but the One who has “life in Himself, and the fountain and source of life to others, John 1:4; John 14:6; the One who hath immortality,” (1 Timothy 6:16, Trench).

Yet He became dead. There are two wonders here: the living One becomes dead, and the dead One is alive for evermore. It is another form of the glorious truth and paradox of which the Apostles were so fond (Philippians 2:8–9; Hebrews 2:9). Compare Christ’s words in Luke 9:24 and Luke 13:43, which contain promises that only He could make who could say, “I have the keys of death and of Hades.” The order of these words, “death and of Hades,” has been transposed in our English version.

The true order is the more appropriate order: “For Hades is the vast unseen realm into which men are ushered by death. Dark and mysterious as that realm was, and dreaded as was its monarch, our risen Lord has both under His power. The keys are the emblems of His right and authority” . It is not of the second death that He speaks; our Lord is here seen as the conqueror of that clouded region and that resistless foe which man dreaded (Hebrews 2:15).

Compare Henry Vaughan’s quaint poem “An Easter Hymn”:

“Death and darkness get you packing,
Nothing now to man is lacking;
All your triumphs now are ended,
And what Adam marred is mended;
Graves are beds now for the weary,
Death a nap to wake more merry.”

Christ had spoken before of the gates of hell (Matthew 16:18), and of the keys (compare also 1 Peter 3:19). The key of the grave was one of the four keys that the Eternal King committed to no ministering angel, but reserved for Himself (so Targum and Talmud).

The whole verse affirms the undying power and inalienable authority of our Master and is a fitting prelude to a book that is to show the inherent divine tenacity of Christianity.

The Church lives on because Christ its Head lives on (John 14:19). The resurrection power that the Lord showed is to be reflected in the history of His Church.

“The greatest honour is due to Christianity,” says Goethe, “for continually proving its pure and noble origin by coming forth again, after the great aberrations into which human perversity has led it, more speedily than was expected, with its primitive special charm as a mission . . . for the relief of human necessity.”