Read with Me
Revelation 5:9-10 (NET)
They were singing a new song:
“You are worthy to take the scroll
and to open its seals,
because you were killed,
and at the cost of your own blood
you purchased for God
persons from every tribe, language, people and nation.
You have appointed them as a kingdom
and priests to serve our God, and
they will reign on the earth.”
Listen with Me
This is a song sung by the four living creatures and the 24 elders around God’s throne (Revelation 5:8). It is centered on the theme of the Lamb of God, Jesus, but it also treats significantly with his followers, and contains words of great hope and encouragement.
This song is identified as a “new song”. This means that it is not merely a recitation of a Psalm or a singing or chanting of a familiar song. This is spontaneous praise born of the events that have just happened: the realization that the Lamb was qualified to break the seals on the scroll holding God’s plan for His people and for those who were even then persecuting them.
The key to the Lamb’s eligibility to open the scroll and to reveal God’s plan is that He had laid down His life as an atoning sacrifice, and at the cost of His own blood He had enabled people all across the globe to come into God’s kingdom. He had not assigned others to do this hard work, but He had had poured out His blood on the altar Himself. He had taken the sins of the world on His own shoulders and had set people truly free in ways that no previous sacrificial system had ever been able to.
The next part of the song focuses on those who have been redeemed. They were not saved to merely mark time until they died or until Jesus is sent back to retrieve them. Instead, the were saved, and then they were given a vital role in fulfilling God’s divine plan. They were not to wait for the kingdom of God; they were to BE the kingdom of God.
At the same time, just as Jesus came as the Divine Eternal High Priest in the order of Melchizedek (Hebrews 7:14-28), so He saved those who turned to Him in faith in order to become a “royal priesthood” (1 Peter 2:9), to stand between God and the lost people of earth as not only intercessors, but as those who continually hold up the perfect sacrifice of Jesus in the sight of all people, so that they can look to Him and be saved (Numbers 21:5-9; John 3:14-15).
The last phrase of this song would have struck the readers of this letter with particular force. At the moment this vision was revealed to John and recorded by him, the Church in many parts of the empire was being ground under the heel of a ruthless persecution. But this song promised that that this was not the ultimate fate of God’s people. Instead, they would be lifted up and would reign as representatives of Jesus, not in heaven someday, but on the earth as a present reality. They were assured by this that the Lamb would conquer, and in His victory, they would win, too!
Pray with Me
Father, these were not just good words for the Church of John’s time to hear, but for us as well. Even though in America there is little active persecution of Your people a the moment, there is some. And many Christians feel like our society is slipping inexorably down into a black hole where increasing persecution is a real possibility. But we were not built to be underdogs. We are saved with a calling on our lives, one of victory and of purpose, not of defeat. Lord, help us as Your people to live out that victory as a here and now reality, not as something that is merely aspirational. And help us to live it out in Your strength, not ours. Amen.