My Take On Revelation 1.5

Rev 1.5  "And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood," 

1.   “And from Jesus Christ” 

The Lord Jesus Christ is also the source of grace and peace. John 14.27 records the words of the Lord just before His crucifixion: “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you. Not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” 

2.   If God, the Father, is the source of grace and peace, and if the Holy Spirit is the source of grace and peace, and if the Lord Jesus Christ is the source of grace and peace ... is not that evidence to support the tri-unity of God? Of course, it is. The source of grace and peace is God, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. 

 Description of Christ as prophet, king, and priest  

3.   “Who is the faithful witness” 

Jesus is the faithful witness Who always spoke those things that are true. He never compromised or slighted the truth in any way. Is not this the function of a prophet, to give forth truth from God to man? Did not our Lord Jesus do that? Who would step forward and truthfully accuse Him of compromising or slighting the truth in any way? No one. Since that is so, why do not people believe that He is Who He said He is? The problem, you see, lies not with the One Who speaks the truth, but with those who hear the truth and who refuse to believe it or act upon it. 

4.   “And the first begotten from the dead” 

This phrase tells us that there will be others who will follow the Lord Jesus in the resurrection, though being first He will always be preeminent. In addition, do you know what will happen when those who are Christ’s are resurrected? In part, we will get new bodies, suited for heaven and eternity. 

5.   “And the prince of the kings of the earth” 

Jesus Christ is the ruler over all the kings of the earth. This word “prince” translates the Greek word, ἄrcw, for “ruler.”[1] He has not yet come back to earth to exercise that rule, but it is His right to do so. In addition, someday He will come back to rule. Oh, what an interesting event that will be. 

6.   “Unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in His Own blood” 

a.  This book of the Revelation has much to say about God’s wrath falling on a wicked and gainsaying world. Because of that, the reader of the Revelation might lose track of a great and comforting truth ... “Him that loved us.” In English, it appears that the verb “loved” is past tense. In the Greek text, however, it is a present active participle, ἀgapῶnti, indicating He does continually and ever-presently love us.[2] 

b.  How does our Lord demonstrate His ever-present love? By washing our sins away in His precious blood, which was shed for the remission of our sins. Let me ask you a question. Who is it that offers sacrifices unto God for the remission of sins? Is it a priest? Jesus Christ is our Great High priest Who cleanses our sins away in His Own blood. Therefore, we see the glorified Christ here as our prophet, as our king, and as our great high priest. 

c.  This portion of verse 5 is very timely in light of the assertion made by John Mac Arthur that when the Lord Jesus Christ was on the cross His blood ran down into the dirt and decayed. Hebrews 9.12: “Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.” 

1)  In The MacArthur Study Bible we find this statement in the notes for Hebrews 9.12: “Nothing is said which would indicate that Christ carried His actual physical blood with Him into the heavenly sanctuary.”[3] 

2)  MacArthur’s note is consistent with his belief that while He was on the cross the blood of Jesus Christ ran down into the dirt and was corrupted. It is also consistent with MacArthur’s frequently stated position that the blood of Christ is a metonymy for the death of Christ. That is, what Christ wrought He wrought by His death rather than with His blood. 

3)  In his commentary on Hebrews we find this paragraph: “It is possible to become morbid about Christ’s sacrificial death and preoccupied with His suffering and shedding of blood. It is especially possible to become unbiblically preoccupied with the physical aspects of His death. It was not Jesus’s physical blood that saves us, but His dying on our behalf, which is symbolized by the shedding of His physical blood. If we could be saved by blood without death, the animals would have been bled, not killed, and it would have been the same with Jesus.”[4] 

4) I am a bit taken aback by this remark considering the writer to the Hebrews mentioned blood twenty-one times in chapters 9-13, and twelves times in chapter 9 alone. For this reason, morbid is not a term that am persuaded is appropriate for such an emphasis on blood, whether in Scripture or by a devout Christian. 

5)  Why do I bring these points out in our study of Revelation 1.5? Look at Revelation 1.5 again and you will see the Apostle John made a declaration about the blood of Jesus Christ approximately 60 years after the crucifixion. How are we to understand this verse if the blood of Jesus Christ ran into the ground as He hung between heaven and earth and then dried and rotted? 

6) Let us carefully look at the word “washed” and then proceed from there. The Greek word is loύw, which refers to using water to cleanse a body from a physical impurity.[5] Therefore, the word is obviously used in this verse to refer to the blood of Jesus Christ cleansing sinners from their sins. 

7) If the blood of Jesus Christ ran to the ground while He hung on the cross, and if it later dried up and disintegrated, and if no blood was left in His body, how are my sins cleansed some 2000+ years later? In addition, how are sins continually cleansed, as First John 1.7 declares, if there is no more blood of Jesus Christ? These questions cannot be satisfactorily answered if the blood of Christ ran into the ground and is no more. 

8) Additionally, would not Christ’s resurrection include one of the largest organs of His human body, His blood? Although the Lord Jesus Christ’s blood was shed, He did not die from exsanguination. [6] The blood and water from His side resulting from the Roman soldier’s spear thrust establishes that.[7] Rather than exsanguination, the Lord Jesus Christ gave up the ghost, John 19.30.[8] 

9)  If John MacArthur is mistaken about the blood of Christ, if the blood of Christ and the death of Christ are not precisely the same thing, and if the blood of Christ is in heaven as I speak, then there are no tough questions which cannot be answered. I am persuaded the blood of Jesus Christ was resurrected along with the rest of His physical body, and that both His glorified body and His precious blood are now in heaven. 

10) What is the basis for my asserting this? There are several bases: First, I assert that the death of Christ and the blood of Christ are not the same, that the blood of Christ is more than a symbolic representation of the death of Christ, based upon the fact that the communion of the Lord’s Supper is celebrated with two elements, not one. We serve both wine and bread, wine commemorating His shed blood, and bread commemorating His sacrificed body. If blood was supposed to represent Christ’s body, why are there two elements in the communion of the Lord’s Supper? Clearly, the blood and the body of Christ are not the same thing and should not be understood to be the same thing. 

11) Second, I believe the Lord Jesus Christ was raised from the dead without His body seeing corruption. This requirement is stated in Psalm 16.10 and was referred to by Simon Peter in his Pentecostal sermon in Acts 2.27: “Because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.” However, if Christ’s blood ran into the ground and rotted was this prediction fulfilled? In addition, would anyone assert that Christ’s blood was not a vital and integral part of His physical body? Therefore, if Christ’s blood was not raised incorruptible with the rest of His body then the prediction of Psalm 16.10 was not fully realized. 

12) For the blood of Jesus Christ to cleanse away sins, for the blood of Christ to wash us, there must be blood. The blood must continue to exist. Moreover, the only possible way the blood of Christ continues in its existence and continues in its efficacy is if it was raised up after three days and three nights with the rest of our Savior’s human body, glorified. 

In summation, this verse tells us, 

a)   With the word “and” at the beginning of the verse, John connects the Lord Jesus Christ with God the Father and the Holy Spirit as the source of grace and peace. That is evidence, which supports the Biblical doctrine of the tri-unity of God. 

b)   The verse goes on to illustrate the Lord Jesus Christ functioning in His prophetic office, His kingly office, and His priestly office. Being the One Who is at the same time prophet, priest, and king, this same Jesus must be, of necessity, the Messiah of Israel. 

c)   Oh, how glorious it is that the eternal Son of the living God has loved us and has washed us from our sins in His Own blood. What advantage does the believer in Jesus Christ have. What deliverance the believer in Jesus Christ has. What blessings the believer in the Lord Jesus Christ has.

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[1] Rogers, Jr., Cleon L. and Rogers III, Cleon L., The New Linguistic and Exegetical Key To The Greek New Testament, (Grand Rapids, MI: ZondervanPublishingHouse, 1998), page 611.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Footnote on Hebrews 9.12, John MacArthur, The MacArthur Study Bible, (Nashville: Word Publishing, 1997), page 1910.

[4] John F. MacArthur, Hebrews: An Expository Commentary, (The Moody Bible Institute Of Chicago, 1983), page 237.

[5] Bauer, Danker, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and other Early Christian Literature, (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 2000), page 603.

[6] https://www.epainassist.com/blood-diseases/exsanguination

[7] John 19.34

[8] https://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/exsanguination

This installment is titled “Casual Profanity. Why Do So Many People Drop F-Bombs?”

It has always been the practice of the uncouth, the peripheral, the uneducated, and the impoverished to swear and use profanity. Their rough language arose from their limited vocabulary and inability to express themselves except in simple ways.

I grew up on Indian reservations in North Dakota, South Dakota, Florida, and Oregon, with many of my friends speaking English as their 2^nd language and being unfamiliar with ways to describe bodily functions except by using the crudest terms. I remember my first day in first grade on the Fort Totten Indian Reservation in North Dakota.

My teacher, Miss Daggs, spent the day rehearsing with my classmates the importance of expressing their needs by saying, “I need to go number one,” or “I need to go number two.” How they had been raised to express themselves was incredible. However, English was their second language.

My own use of profanity was so extensive that I remember walking home from school one day when I was in 2^nd grade and erupting to a group of classmates with a stream of profanity that likely would have surprised a drill instructor. Moments later, the thought ran through my mind, “I am 7 years old, and I cuss like that. I am surely going to Hell.” How I came to understand how wrong I was to swear as I did, I did not know because my mother and father spoke like that all the time.

My vile profanity continued through grade school, into junior high school, and into high school, and was far more natural for me at University than I remember. I was even ordered to leave saloons because of objections to my profanity. That was not a time in my life that I look back on with fondness. This is the first time since my conversion in 1974 that I have mentioned it.

My shame for the way I so casually spoke was profound. It was wrong. It was vile. It was disgusting. It was offputting to so many people, which was likely my reason for talking that way. Then came the night when God the Father drew me to His beloved Son so graciously.

The first indication of my new life in Christ was my different manner of speaking. Gone was the profanity. Absent were the crudities and vulgarisms. The long list of nasty words never again passed over my tongue or between my lips. I am so grateful that God washed out my mouth for all the other difficulties and challenges I have faced in my Christian life (which have been many).

That said, in the years since my conversion, I have increasingly wondered how common the vilest of speech patterns has become. Yes, I was profane. Yet, since my conversion almost a half-century ago, I have observed far worse patterns of speech coming from women and children. I find it astonishing, but I never sought an explanation for the phenomenon.

Then I watched a YouTube video interview of a famous Grove City College professor, known to many Christians, conservatives, and libertarians as 2^nd only to Hillsdale College. This remarkable higher education center has never received government subsidies. His name is Carl R. Trueman, and he is English. 

He teaches biblical and religious studies and is a historian. While reading his book, The Rise And Triumph of the Modern Self, I noted his explanation of the rise in profanity and why so many people sprinkle F-bombs throughout their conversations. I think he is onto something.

Although I am not yet halfway through the book, more than 400 pages long, I am convinced it will be one of the best books I have ever read. This man is a student, and he is more than a student of the Bible. He is also a student of history and is familiar with the writings of notable historical figures, from Thomas Aquinas to Jean-Jacques Rousseau, from C. S. Lewis to Marlon Brando. His breadth of learning has given him a great perspective, and I think he is onto something concerning swearing, profanity, and vulgar talk.

Referring to the nasty culture that is overwhelming the Western culture, he writes, “crudity becomes the norm because the general interdict against such is seen as a tyrannical hangover from an outdated way of viewing the world. The casual use of expletives (profanity) by public figures such as politicians as a means of demonstrating their authenticity provides a good example.”[1]

The author does not suggest that profane talkers and F-bomb droppers are sophisticated thinkers. I am sure he would agree that those who talk that way are, in the main, people with a limited vocabulary who are incapable of expressing themselves better than they do. But people who speak that way are caught up in a tidal wave of cultural change that arrogantly seeks to overthrow what already exists, what was established centuries ago in the Protestant Reformation, and significant spiritual events that have occurred since then.

The profane may not be conscious of their opposition to the plan and purpose of God, however clear it may be to us. Sadly, people who talk that way (as I used to speak) are men, women, and children overwhelmed by the current that carries them along. The living fish in the stream always swim against the current. Only the dead fish are swept along by the current, tide, or swell.

They will arrive at their final destination without consciously going there. That is sad. That is why we must reach them with the Gospel.

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[1] Carl E. Trueman, The Rise And Triumph of the Modern Self, (Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 2020), page 89.