<p>1:17 <i>And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as one dead- </i>As noted on :16, the Lord appears in the form of His latter day judgments, although that day is not yet in our kind of time. And so John goes through a symbolic death and resurrection, as Daniel did when beholding a similar vision in Daniel 10.</p><p><i>And he laid his right hand upon me, saying: Fear not. I am the first and the last</i>- This is quite some striking visual image: of the Lord with the stars in His hand (:16,20) placing His hand upon John individually. The idea is that the Lord can act for both the individual and the collective churches at one and the same time. Quite how it all looked to John perhaps cannot be imagined. But the great mystery would have been expressed, of the Lord's individual and collective relationship to us at the same time.</p><p>&quot;Fear not&quot; coming from the Lord is language to be associated with a calming of one who feels spiritually unworthy. John writes in absolute terms of our acceptance with the Lord and abiding in Him; but even he felt the tension of his humanity when faced with the Lord.</p><p>&quot;The first and the last&quot;, the alpha and omega, the beginning and end of the alphabet, is perhaps to get the idea over that time is not really as we see it. The Lord is portrayed in the garb of how He will be at the final judgment; but He is like that in essence right now.</p>