Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Revelation.  Tonight is study #9 of Revelation chapter 19 and we are going to be reading Revelation 19:8-9:

And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints. And he saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he saith unto me, These are the true sayings of God.

We have been looking at the “marriage supper of the Lamb.”  We saw that the Old Testament language is not one of a “supper,” but instead God speaks of a “sacrifice.”  Yet we when we look at the language of Ezekiel, chapter 39, where it speaks of the fowls dining upon “Gog and Magog,” it matches with Revelation 19.  We are quickly able to understand they are synonymous and they describe the day of God’s wrath, Judgment Day.

Also, we saw that in Zephaniah, chapter 1 the Lord describes the wrath of God being poured out in the Day of Judgment and it speaks of “bidding guests to a sacrifice,” and the “sacrifice” points to one being offered on Judgment Day.  There is also an inspection of the guests’ clothing, just as in the parable in Matthew 22, where the king comes in to inspect the guests that were bidden to the wedding.  There is no question that the “marriage supper of the Lamb” is also spoken of as a “sacrifice” in these Old Testament passages.  The word “sacrifice” is the typical word God uses to speak of “sacrifices” in the Old Testament and we wonder why God uses this word to refer to Judgment Day.  Let us read, once again, in Isaiah 34 where God focuses on the final judgment of mankind.  God says in Isaiah 34:4-6: 

And all the host of heaven shall be dissolved, and the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll: and all their host shall fall down, as the leaf falleth off from the vine, and as a falling fig from the fig tree. For my sword shall be bathed in heaven: behold, it shall come down upon Idumea, and upon the people of my curse, to judgment. The sword of JEHOVAH is filled with blood, it is made fat with fatness, and with the blood of lambs and goats, with the fat of the kidneys of rams: for JEHOVAH hath a sacrifice in Bozrah, and a great slaughter in the land of Idumea.

Here, God describes the sacrifice that takes place at the time of the final judgment of mankind.  Why is that?  Why is God picturing Judgment Day as a sacrifice?  The word “sacrifice” is the same word as “offering,” so it is as though it is an offering unto God.  The reason is because a sacrifice is an offering for sin that is given to appease an angry God.  The burning of the wicked in judgment (as God is destroying them) is a spiritual judgment upon the unsaved people of the earth at the present time, but soon it will be a literal fire that will completely burn them up and annihilate them.  The burning of the wicked appeases God’s wrath.  The unsaved have no one to bear their sins; they did not have and Intercessor; they did not have the Lord Jesus Christ to take their sins upon Him and be offered up as the sacrifice, the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world.  He was the Lamb of God slain from the foundation of the world and that means He was the sacrificial “lamb,” as lambs were put to death in the Old Testament in order to picture Christ paying for the sins of His people.  That is why God gave the Laws concerning sacrifice to Israel and they would slay animals; they must have slain innumerable animals.  We see in the Bible that in the case of certain historical events, like the dedication of the temple that Solomon built, thousands upon thousands of animals were slain on that one occasion.  Yet, all through Israel’s long history, they were sacrificing animals and killing them according to God’s Law concerning sacrifices.

Concerning sacrifices, God did say in Hebrews 10:1-7:

For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect. For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins. But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year. For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins. Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me: In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure. Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God. Above when he said, Sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and offering for sin thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein; which are offered by the law; Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second. By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

This one offering when Christ made payment for sin was at the point of the world’s foundation.  He was the sacrifice that was worthy because He died for the sins of His people and made payment to God, satisfying the Law of God perfectly and, thereby, He freed all those He died for and, never again, would there be a need for another sacrifice.  It was only a matter of history working itself out and the Gospel going forth that God, through the Gospel, would “apply” the shed blood of Christ like the hyssop had been dipped into a basin of blood and applied to the door posts as an Old Testament type and figure.  So, too, the Word of God was applied to the hearts of the elect, those predestinated to receive it, and in every generation God applied the blood of the Lamb to each soul He had determined to save.  He was the “acceptable sacrifice.”

For Israel that had offered up animal sacrifices, the blood of goats and lambs and other animals never took away sin – not even one sin.  No matter how many animals they offered and no matter how obedient they were to God’s commandments to offer sacrifice at certain feasts at certain times of the year, it did not matter at all; it was impossible for the blood of animals to take away sin.  But for the Israelites that thought they were becoming righteous before God through animal sacrifices, this never was the case.  There is only one way to have your sins washed away.  There is only one “acceptable sacrifice” and that is the sacrifice and offering of the body of Christ for those He died for as God poured out His wrath upon Jesus.  But now we come to the Day of Judgment and it is time for God to pour out His wrath on the wicked for their sin.  Sacrifice is always related to sin.  Why did Jesus offer up Himself for the sins of His people?  Why were the animals slain by the thousands, year after year, to bring remembrance of sin?  God was illustrating that mankind are sinners and they needed blood to be shed for them and each animal sacrifice was a vivid illustration of the Lord Jesus Christ’s atoning work that was performed for those He saved. 

Yet, many misunderstood the commandment of God about offering sacrifices, just as many in the churches today misunderstand the commandment of God that they must “believe.”  In their natural state and in their carnal mind, they do not understand that these laws are given to point us to Christ.  Instead of looking to Christ as the sacrifice that took away sin, the Jews looked to the sacrifice itself.  They looked at the “methodology” of it being the proper sacrifice at the proper time and they trusted in the high priest to make atonement for sin once a year, as though these things could somehow bring about their righteousness, but it never did.  They fell into the same snare as the people in the churches do when they see a commandment of God and they latch onto it and they say, “If I do this I will be saved,” but that never was the case, so they still had their sins upon them.  And in Judgment Day, everyone that still has sin upon them now must suffer the wrath of God for sin.   Christ suffered the wrath of God for sin and became the sacrifice for the sins of His people and, likewise, the unsaved inhabitants of the earth are dying for their sin and they are their “own sacrifice.”  They have sin upon them and God is furious with them because of their sins and the wrath of God must be satisfied and the Law’s demand must be met.  There must be an “offering” unto God for each unsaved individual’s sins.  Without a sin bearer, each individual becomes his or her own sin bearer.  Each person that is unsaved is now being “offered” as a sin offering.  It is the day of JEHOVAH’S sacrifice, as it says in Isaiah 34:5-6:

For my sword shall be bathed in heaven: behold, it shall come down upon Idumea, and upon the people of my curse, to judgment. The sword of JEHOVAH is filled with blood, it is made fat with fatness, and with the blood of lambs and goats, with the fat of the kidneys of rams: for JEHOVAH hath a sacrifice in Bozrah, and a great slaughter in the land of Idumea.

This is the language of sacrifice.  The entire earth is now under the wrath of God.  Of course, Judgment Day is taking place all over the world.  There is no part of the world where it is not Judgment Day – it is in every nation and in every city, town and village everywhere on the earth.  God’s sword is going forth and the sword points to the Word of God, the Bible, and He is slaying all who He sees that are bearing their own sins.  He is making a great sacrifice of the wicked that are being offered up for their sins. 

My, what a slaughterhouse it must have been at the dedication of Solomon’s temple when scores of thousands of animals were being slain.  God is now slaying billions of people that bear their own sins.  They are being slain by the Word of God.  No wonder He uses this language that His sword is bathed in heaven and is filled with blood, and so forth.  It is really a horrible picture the Bible draws for us concerning the sacrifice of the unsaved people of the earth at the “marriage supper of the Lamb,” which is currently taking place.

Let us go back to Revelation 19:8:

And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints.

This refers to the elect body, all God has saved.  We have looked at this language many times as we looked at Revelation 15, for example, and we saw the garments of the “angels” (the messengers) recognized it was priestly attire; priests were clothed with fine linen and God’s people are “prophets, priests, and kings.”

Here, God is especially emphasizing the purity and holiness of the “bride” of Christ.  She is “arrayed in fine linen, clean and white.”   In a traditional marriage ceremony the bride walks down the aisle in her beautiful white dress.  Of course, the world is trying to do away with a lot of these things.  Maybe that is not fair to say, but it is possible that this is the reason why many wedding dresses are not “pure, white linen” any longer.  In that marriage ceremony, the bride is all dressed in white and comes walking down the aisle and it is an illustration of purity and holiness, in a way.  It typifies the marriage of Christ and His “bride.”  I know when we look at ourselves, we do not see “holy” people, but we have to remember that all the sins of all the elect were paid for by the sacrifice of Christ.  He is the one that purged their sins and washed them away by going through the baptism of the fire of the wrath of God, thereby cleansing His bride from all iniquity.  Each person had an incredible amount of sin, as all of us could probably testify, but Christ’s sacrifice was sufficient to pay the penalty for that whole mountain of sin and it is all gone from us because He took it upon Himself and paid the penalty.  So we are in God’s sight “clean.”  We are wearing “fine linen, clean and white,” and there is total purity upon us.  There is not sin anywhere in the “bride,” which consists of possibly 200 million people that God saved.  Everyone whose name was written in the Lamb’s Book of Life is clean and pure: “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.”  They are washed by the work and faith of Christ and this has completely purified them.  What a glorious and beautiful bride she makes! 

What a perfect “couple” Christ and His bride make.   Here stands the Great Saviour and God, the King of kings, who has never sinned.  He is pure righteousness and pure holiness in His absolute perfection and now He has purchased His bride and made her like Himself, so there can be a good union between them, where there is no unequal yoking.  Both are in a condition of holiness, so it is the perfect wedding that is taking place as God has saved His bride and the bride has “made herself ready” and now it is the “marriage supper of the Lamb.”  Again, this is the time we presently live in.  It is the time of the sacrifice of all the unsaved people of the earth.  This is according to God’s wisdom.  This is how God has worked it out and this is what He calls the “marriage supper of the Lamb.”