Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship's Bible study in the Book of Revelation.  Tonight is study #34 of Revelation, chapter 14, and we are going to be looking at Revelation14:13:

And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them.

We are continuing in our study of chapter 14.  We have seen that the previous verses brought up the topic of Judgment Day and the following verses will continue that topic of Judgment Day and, here, in verses 12 and 13, God is emphasizing the point that the elect are present; the elect are living on the earth.  Remember the previous verse said, “Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.”  And, now, we are going to read of “the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth,” and the word “henceforth” means “from now.”  It is a further emphasis that the people of God are in the world when God is pouring out His wrath upon the unsaved inhabitants of the earth. 

Let us take a closer look at this verse.  The first part of the verse says, in Revelation 14:13:

And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write…

This is fairly typical of the revelation that God has been giving to the Apostle John while he is on the island of Patmos.  He has been commanded a few times already, after seeing a vision, to “write.”  And this is a reminder to us that this is the Word of God.  All Scripture is given by inspiration of God.  God is the one that moved holy men to write the things God wanted them to write down and that is why we have the Bible.  It is no different here.  The things that John is being given, he is to write down and that is how it is possible for us to read of them; John was obedient to the command to write.

What was he told to write?  He was told to write, “Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth.”  We started to look at this in our last study.  We saw that it was a strange and unusual statement, because it says, “Blessed are the dead,” and if we were to take that literally, it would be talking about dead people that are blessed.  Then it adds, “which die in the Lord from henceforth.”  We had looked at the word “die” and it is a present active participle which should have been translated as “dying.”  It would say, “Blessed are the dead which are dying in the Lord from henceforth,” and that would be a more correct translation.  But the translators had a problem.  How could they translate it that way when it made no sense, because if you are dead, how are you dying?  Those living are the ones that die or are in the process of dying.  When someone gets cancer and the doctor says, “You have six months to live,” we know they are “dying.”  That is how they might explain it to their families: “The doctor says I am dying and I only have a short time to live.”  In Hebrews chapter 11, in referring to Jacob, we saw this same word in the same tense (present active participle) used, in Hebrews 11:21:

By faith Jacob, when he was a dying, blessed both the sons of Joseph; and worshipped, leaning upon the top of his staff.

He was dying, but not yet dead, when he blessed the sons of Joseph.  This is the same word “dying” and it is a present active participle and that is how the word needs to be understood in Revelation 14:13.  In other words, it is speaking of people that are alive.  Well, if that is true, then why does God say, “Blessed are the dead which are dying in the Lord”?  Why does He say they are dead?  First of all, we know that God is not talking about the “unsaved” dead.  He is not speaking of people that are “dead in sin” and unsaved because it says they are “blessed.”  It is making a double point: they are blessed and they are dying in the Lord, so they must be true believers.  They must be God’s elect, His saved people, and a verse in the Psalms helps us to understand what this reference to “blessed” means, in Psalm 133:3:

As the dew of Hermon, and as the dew that descended upon the mountains of Zion: for there JEHOVAH commanded the blessing, even life for evermore.

Ultimately, that is the blessing that Jacob received and Esau did not receive.  This is the blessing the elect receive and the rest of mankind does not receive.  All men are blessed, in general, with temporal blessings.  All receive sunshine and rain and fruitful seasons.  All are given the blessing of health, to some degree, and families, and so forth.  These are general blessings, but there is a blessing that God gives exclusively to those He has saved and it is eternal life in salvation.  This is the blessing JEHOVAH commanded, “even life for evermore.”  Only God’s people have this, so “Blessed are the dead,” because these “dead” are saved and that helps us to understand that it does not mean they are “dead in sin.”  The Bible speaks of those that are “dead in trespasses and sins,” but anyone that is dead in sin is not blessed – they are not saved.   But, in our verse, these “dead” are blessed, so it must be another kind of “death” God is referring to and it cannot be physical death.  Again, it cannot be saying, “Blessed are the physically dead – God has saved them but they are now physically dead – which are dying (present active participle) in some kind of an ongoing, continuous way.  No – that does not fit.  It has to be elect people that are “dead” in some kind of a way and, yet, they are physically alive, in order that they could be actively and continually dying in the Lord.  We find our answer regarding what God means by this, in Romans 6.  By the way, in Revelation 14, the word “dead” is #3498 in Strong’s Concordance and the word “die” is Strong’s #599.  Romans 6 will discuss death and it will use both of these Greek words, #3498 and #599, in Romans 6:1-11:

What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein? Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection: Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin. Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him: Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him. For in that he died, he died unto sin once: but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God. Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

In Romans 6:2 it says: “How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?”  The word “dead” is Strong’s #599.  In verse 11 it says: “Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin,” and that word “dead” is Strong’s #3498.  Yet, both are speaking of the same thing.  They are both describing what happens to the one that God has saved.  That person becomes “dead” to sin and, therefore, is freed from sin, as verse 7 declares: “For he that is dead is freed from sin.”  We become “dead” as we are baptized into Christ’s death and when God looks at us He reckons us to be “dead” and, yet, we are alive.  This is what is being said here, but let us look at several verses and I think we will get more of an idea when we do.  To set the context, it says in 2Corininthians 6:4:

But in all things approving ourselves as the ministers of God, in much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses,

Then it says in 2Corinthians 6:9:

As unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and, behold, we live…

We are “dying” to sin.  We are “dying” to self.  This is what the Apostle Paul was moved to say in 1Corinthians 15:30-31:

And why stand we in jeopardy every hour? I protest by your rejoicing which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily.

Obviously, a person cannot die physically on a daily basis.  We physically die one time and that is it – we are put in the ground.  But we “die” to self on a daily basis.  This is what the Bible tells us in Colossians 3:5:

Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry:

It says to “Mortify your members,” and the word “mortify” is a related word to the word “dead” in Romans 6 and Revelation 14.  It is Strong’s #3499 (nek-ro-o) and it is found three times in total in the Bible – once, here, as “mortify” and the other two times it is translated as “dead” in Romans 4:19, where Abraham “considered not his own body now dead,” and in Hebrews 11:12, where it says, “and him as good as dead.” 

So with this word “mortify,” God is saying to “put to death,” or “kill” your “members which are upon the earth.”  We are to “mortify” or “kill” our bodies, or our flesh – not literally.  But what does the “flesh” want?  What does our “flesh” live for?  What is it after?  It is after sin.  It wants to be fed with sin.  It wants to be satisfied with lust.  It wants the things that it craves and desires and these are all the things that are contrary to the Word of God.  The “flesh” wants those things to see and to hear and to think about and to do – the evils of this world.  The physical body, due to the corruption upon it and due to the fact that it has not become saved, is after the lusts of the world.  It wants to sin and God says we must put it to death and “Mortify, therefore, your members which are upon the earth.”  This is accomplished when we do not go after the things listed: fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry.  The Lord said in Matthew 10:38-39:

And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me. He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.

Now what does this mean when it says, “And he that taketh not his cross”?  The Bible does command the people of God to take up our cross, does it not?  It is put a little differently, in Luke 9:23:

And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.

The Lord is emphasizing that the cross is not taken up just one time.  People would love that.  “I am going to take up my cross today and then I will put it down and I never have to take it up again.”  No – we are to take up our cross daily and follow him.  It goes on to say, in Luke 9:24-26:

For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it. For what is a man advantaged, if he gain the whole world, and lose himself, or be cast away? For whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words, of him shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he shall come in his own glory, and in his Father's, and of the holy angels. But I tell you of a truth, there be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the kingdom of God.

Take up your cross on a daily basis and follow Christ.  What would that mean?  What happened when Christ took up His cross?  He was crucified and He died on the cross, so to take up our cross would mean to put ourselves to “death” in a similar way by killing our fleshly desires.  Let us look at Galatians, chapter 2, and this is a good Book to look at in regard to this subject.  It says in Galatians 2:19:

For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God.

Here is another way of looking at what the Bible is speaking of in Revelation 14:13: “Blessed are the dead,” and, here, it says, “I through the law,” as the law laid out the atoning work of the Lord Jesus Christ, “am dead to the law” through what the Lord did in dying for me as He satisfied the demands of the law.  The Bible says, “The wages of sin is death,” and He died on my behalf.  Mankind’s “husband” is the “law” and this law killed Christ instead of His elect and Christ’s death has made us “dead to the law,” and the law has no more with which it can condemn us.  We are free from the law and free from sin, because it is the law that tells us what sin is.  Then it goes on to say, in Galatians 2:20:

I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

Again, as it said in 2Corinthians 6:9, it is as if we are “dying, and, behold, we live.”  The Apostle Paul is, again, being moved to basically restate that very same thing: “I am crucified with Christ,” and to be crucified means to be dead, and, yet, “nevertheless I live.”  This means that the life we live after God has saved us is Christ living in us to will and to do of His good pleasure.  We live to serve Him.  We serve righteousness now.  We no longer serve sin and death.  We no longer submit ourselves to the lusts of the flesh and whatever our physical bodies want to do.  In times past, when we were “children of wrath, even as others,” we would do these things without too much conscience.  We would drink, we would take drugs, we would smoke, we would lie and even worse.  We were all in our sins and following the things of the flesh.  Yet, now we are “crucified with Christ” and we no longer want to do those things.  We want to do the will of God.

It says in Galatians 5:24:

And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.

Here, again, we are putting the flesh to death.  Let us look at one more verse in Galatians 6:14:

But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.

This is a very helpful verse and it really explains a lot concerning the change that has come upon the individual God has saved.  When God saved us and we became “dead in Christ” and “crucified with Him,” it also crucified the world to us, as it says: “by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.”  This is the problem we have now as we live in this world.  It is why the things of this life are growing dim; they do not hold the same attraction and excitement to the person that God has given a new heart and a new spirit.  Now our excitement is in the area of serving the Lord Jesus Christ.