Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship's Bible study in the Book of Revelation.  Tonight is study #12 of Revelation, chapter 13, and we are going to be reading Revelation 13:8:

And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

We were discussing the first part of the verse in our last study.  “All that dwell upon the earth” shall worship Satan because their “names are not written in the book of life.”  This is the figurative book that God refers to, from time to time in the Bible, the “book of life.”  It is as though God wrote down the names of the certain people He intended to save and whose sins the Lord Jesus Christ paid for and He did this before the world began.  We know He predestinated the elect to salvation before the world was created and Christ died as the Lamb, as it says at the end of the verse, “from the foundation of the world.”  All the works were accomplished at that point and, of course, this teaching gives God all the glory – man contributed nothing to salvation or to being born again or to having their sins forgiven.

We are going to look at the last part of Revelation 13:8:

… whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

Of course, we know the Lamb is a reference to Jesus Christ.  John the Baptist identified Jesus as “the lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world.”  Christ is called a lamb because a lamb was a sacrificial animal.  God required the offering of animals as a vivid illustration of what Christ had already done before the world began.  Then the Lord Jesus entered into the human race, born of the virgin Mary, to make manifest and to reveal in a very dramatic way what He had done.  He became a “man” among men, while always maintaining that He was God (“God in the flesh”), so as Christ lived out His life, especially during his period of ministry which culminated in His going to the cross, it was “showing forth” what He had already done before the world began.  The Bible is clear about this, but we did not know this.  No one knew this until the time of the end, until relatively recently, when God opened up this information.  This information had been sealed, as God had said to Daniel to “seal the book” until “the time of the end” and then knowledge would increase.  A great deal of knowledge did begin to come forth during the Great Tribulation and into these days after that Tribulation, the time of the end.   Part of that information was the knowledge that God did not pay for sin at the cross, but His life and offering of Himself at the cross was a “tableau.”  It was making manifest, as historical instruction to us, the spiritual reality of the fact that He had died for sin from the foundation of the world.  Now we can see it clearly, without any doubt or question.  For instance, we have a parable in the Book of Matthew about the Son of man coming with the holy angels and He is dividing the sheep and the goats, and we read in Matthew 25:34:

Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:

The kingdom of God, eternal life and salvation for sinners was already prepared, once Christ bore their sins and paid for their sins as the Father poured out His wrath and Christ died.  Remember, Revelation 13:8 says the Lamb was slain and to be slain means to be killed, so Christ died from the foundation of the world and that was all the preparation that was necessary – all the works required for the salvation of these elect sinners God had determined to redeem and to make His people.  There is a matter-of-fact statement in Hebrews 4 and, although it is a single verse, it speaks volumes.  It says in Hebrews 4:3:

For we which have believed do enter into rest, as he said, As I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest: although the works were finished from the foundation of the world.

The works of salvation and the work of faith that the Lord Jesus performed was finished from the foundation of the world.  All the works involved in saving these people were completed and finished.  There is no more to do.  I do not think God could say it any more clearly.  He did the works that were necessary to obtain salvation for perhaps as many as 200 million that He would save out of the whole of mankind – He paid for their sins.  That is the work that is in view.  Remember what we read in James, chapter 2, concerning works.  It says in James 2:18:

Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works…

We have gone through this before, so I am not going to go into too much detail, but the “man” that may say this is Christ and He is speaking to those who profess to have faith, or professed Christians, and there are about two billion people in the churches that profess Christ.    So, here, Christ is speaking to the professed Christian that is not a Christian indeed.  Christ, as the “man,” is saying of Himself that He has works:

… shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.

And what works were these?  They were the works of taking the sins of an enormous number of people and dying for those sins as the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.  Hebrews 4:3 says, “the works were finished from the foundation of the world.”  So this “man” is saying that He has “works” and there are many examples in the Bible where Christ is identified as a “man,” especially in the Book of Jeremiah.  This “man” says that He has works and these works that Christ has were finished from the foundation of the world.  We will not continue in James, chapter 2, but this is the point of this whole passage: some people think they are saved, but they lack the “works.”  I am not referring to works of obedience to the Law; that does not justify anyone.  The emphasis in James 2 is that there are works that justify.  For instance, Abraham was justified by works and Rahab the harlot was justified by works.  Of course, the snare that God has laid there is that people think it is their own works, like Abraham’s works or Rahab’s works.  But they were justified exactly as all of God’s people are justified – by the works of Christ.  And those are the works that were finished from the foundation of the world.

We will go to one more passage in Hebrews.  It says in Hebrews 9:23-26:

It was therefore necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified with these; but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us: Nor yet that he should offer himself often, as the high priest entereth into the holy place every year with blood of others;  For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world:

In these verses God has told us point-blank and He has made it crystal clear when the offering of Himself took place.  How many times did Jesus offer Himself for the sins of His people?  It was one time and this is part of what the Lord is saying here.  Christ did not need to do what the earthly high priests of Israel did when they offered sacrifice.  They had to do it year, after year, after year, ever time the Day of Atonement came around.  The high priest went into the Holy of holies and he offered animal sacrifices and, yet, it never truly appeased the wrath of God, so it had to be done the next year and the next year, on down through the centuries in which Israel was a nation and had this relationship with God.  God is saying, “Look at the high priest and look at how often he must perform that sacrifice.”  The priesthood of the Lord Jesus Christ was after the order of Melchisedec and the difference in the priesthoods was emphasized earlier in the Book of Hebrews and this priesthood (after the order of Melchisedec) was a greater priesthood.

Jesus, as the High Priest of His people, after the order of Melchisedec, had no need to repeat the offering.  His offering would be one time only and it would satisfy the Law’s demand and it would be a sacrifice acceptable unto God and, therefore, God could forgive the sin of all His elect in that one offering.  When did it take place?  God told us; let me read Hebrews 9:25-26:

Nor yet that he should offer himself often, as the high priest entereth into the holy place every year with blood of others;  For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world:

Let us pause again.  I know some people still struggle with this.  Let us slowly think about this.  God is giving us the “point in time” of this offering; it was at the foundation of the world, which agrees with Hebrews 4:3 and this agrees with our verse in Revelation 13:8, where it says He is the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.  So, here, in Hebrews 9:26, God is saying this is the point at which the initial offering of Christ took place.  If He were like the earthly high priests, then He “must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world.”  He would have to offer Himself at the beginning of the world and then maybe every year thereafter, or maybe every 100 years or in 33 AD.  He would have to keep doing it, like the animal sacrifices that did not satisfy the Law of God.  But that is not the case with Christ; He does not often have to sacrifice Himself from the foundation of the world because the offering of Himself at that time was acceptable; it was that which pleased God; it was that which did take away the sin of His people.  Do you see how clear it is?  Do you see how God just laid it out for us in that statement?  But then He goes on to say in the next part of Hebrews 9:26:

…but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.

This is what causes the confusion for some people and they think, “That was the one time that Christ appeared to put away sin.”  But this was not when He paid for sin, but this is telling us of another instance in which Christ did this only once.  Basically, this verse is telling us that sin was paid for from the foundation of the world and it was one offering sufficient for ever.  Christ entered into the world and He appeared and this word “appeared” means “to make manifest,” so one time he appeared to make manifest what He had done.  That is the problem for some, as they read about this “manifesting” of Christ as if it were the point at which He paid for sin, but that is not what this verse is saying.  It says in 1Peter 1:18-19:

Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot: Here He is, the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world.  He is the Lamb that was slain and when was He slain?  He was slain from the foundation of the world.

Now look at 1Peter 1:20:

Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you,

He was made “manifest” for you, for me and for all the children of God.  I would really recommend looking up this Greek word for “make manifest,” which is translated as “appeared” in Hebrews 9:26.  It is a very interesting Greek word.  I will just go to one other place where it is found, in John 7:4:

For there is no man that doeth any thing in secret, and he himself seeketh to be known openly. If thou do these things, shew thyself to the world.

The phrase “shew thyself” or “to show” is a translation of the same Greek word that means “to make manifest” or “to appear.”   You see, from the foundation of the world God did these things and it was “in secret.”  Who of us were alive then?  No man was alive.  There was no world.  It was hidden from us.  The works were accomplished from the foundation of the world as Christ gloriously paid for the sins of His people; He died and He arose again from the dead to be declared the Son of God with power.  But who of us knew?  It is only as we read the Bible that we gain insight and, yet, it was God’s plan to send His Son and to bring Jesus, Eternal God, the Everlasting Father and the Prince of Peace into the world in order that He could “show forth” what He had done.  He is revealing it and making it manifest – these hidden and secret things that man could not know – and He is doing it in an historical parable and “living it out.”  He is telling us, “This is what I did from the world’s foundation.  I died for my people.  I was crucified.  I hung on a tree and was a curse for you.  The Law was satisfied because I did this for you.” 

This is the wonderful truth of the Gospel.  That is the Gospel.  Yet, some people get hung up and they say, “Oh, no, I know what I am reading when I read the Gospel accounts.  It is there Jesus died.”  But they are reading of the time He was “made manifest” to reveal the things He had already done.  When He did them, there was “no man,” so His own arm brought salvation to us and He gets all the glory.  That is why the song says, “To God be the glory, great things He has done,” and He did all the great things – all the work – before the world began.