It seems so easy to gloss over the weightiness of Scriptures because we’ve become so familiar in our Christian walk. I think one Scripture deserves much more attention from all of us.
“To Him Who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and has made us kings and priests to His God and Father, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.” Rev 1:5-6
With one and half verses and 37 words, John the Revelator postulates something so profound and earth-shaking (I don’t mean to exaggerate here, but I mean it earnestly).
Consider the magnitude of what Christ has done for us here:
He loved us.
He washed us from our sins.
He washed us with His own blood.
He elevated us to become kings and priests.
All this was not for Himself, but for His God and Father.
He loved us, while we were yet sinners, before we ever knew or acknowledged Him. The love of God is surely compelling in itself that He came searching us out before there was any self-awareness on our part. Who truly can fathom such love that searches not in the palaces nor places of grandeur but in the gutters of human depravity.
He washed us from our sins – this stain of pain, guilt, addiction, and selfishness – that we had no ability to be rid of. The trail of wretchedness that we’ve all left behind us appears most vividly before a righteous and holy God. Who could’ve possibly given us a clean slate? Who could possible redeem and transform us? Except that Christ came precisely to do what we couldn’t do for ourselves. The one thing that every human person desperately needs – whether we realise it or not – Jesus came and washed us.
He washed us with His own blood – the only commodity in the universe sufficient to pay the penalty required to satisfy the justice of a righteous God. The scarcity of the commodity is that it can only come from the One. The costliness of the commodity is recorded for us in the account of His crucifixion. The reminder of the sacrifice is that He forever carries the mark on His hands and feet. How can we handle the enormity of what He gave us on Calvary?
As though all that isn’t enough, He elevated us to become kings and priests. Of the three institutionalised positions in the Old Testament, He places us into two of them – kingship and priesthood, both fundamentally requiring the right genealogy, an impossibility unless we’re grafted into His lineage.
How else can we describe this, except to say that we’ve gone from the gutter-most to the uttermost! This is no pauper to riches account, neither is it some fairy tale. Instead it’s what God has genuinely done for us.
Yet all this Jesus did, not for Himself, but for the Father. Not for His own glory nor personal gain but totally for His Father. Therefore, to Christ rightly, lawfully, and justly belongs all glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.
