Welcome to EBible Fellowship's Bible study in the book of Revelation. This will be study #17 of Revelation, chapter 1, and we are presently reading in verse 5 of Revelation 1, and I will read it again:

And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood,

We have been going through this verse, looking at each phrase, and we have come to the concluding statement of verse 5:

...Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood,

And let us start with the word 'loved,' 'agapao'(G25). God loved us: "Unto Him (Eternal God, the Lord Jesus Christ) that loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood."

Now this word 'loved' is in the past tense. It says, "Unto him that loved us," meaning the act or action of God's love in washing us from our sins. It is all one statement. The love of God is displayed, or demonstrated, as we were washed in the blood of Christ and our sins were cleansed; they were washed away.

Since God is moving John to write these things toward the end of the first century A.D. (that is when the Bible was completed and Revelation is the last Book of the Bible), we would have to say that both - the cross of 33 A.D. and the point before the foundation of the world - are in the past, so this verse, by itself, does not help us to understand when that past action took place. But other verses do, and we will look at that, as well as this wonderful teaching of the Bible.

Is this not the best teaching that anything could ever teach us? Is this not the most wonderful news that we could find anywhere? This verse, as well as the whole Bible, is declaring that, "Yes, you are a sinner," (because it says we were washed from our sins and that means that we had sins). "Yes, you are a sinner. You have transgressed the law of God. You are a rebel and deserving of death, because the wages of sins is death. These things are true: you are guilty and you are condemned by the law of God. The Law of God has pronounced a sentence of death against you; certainly you will die in your sins, unless there is someone, a Saviour (and of course that can only be God) who takes your sin upon Himself and pays the penalty in your place." That is the news of the Bible.

That is the incredible news that Almighty God, who certainly has all sorts of things to occupy Him (He could be quite busy running the whole realm of His Kingdom, which is incredibly vast and way beyond our ability to comprehend), and He need not concern Himself with such a little matter as a few beggarly sinners who have dared to transgress His wonderful and glorious Law of God, that have rebelled against Him - shaken their fists in His face. He does not have to concern Himself with us; He could simply give the command that we are all to die, and we would justly be killed, and that would be it. He could put out the rebellion, or He could have, at any point all through history, just ended this miserable world with these filthy and spiritually vile sinners - creatures gone astray that have rebelled against their Creator.

God could have done that, but He did not. Instead, (and this was in the counsel of His Person, before this world was created, as He knew all that would transpire), He determined that instead of just wiping out the rebellion and squashing it and destroying the sinner and this cursed creation, and then moving on to all the many creations that He has created that have never sinned against Him or disobeyed Him in any way, He determined, rather, to put forth a Gospel plan, a salvation plan, to redeem these wretches, to redeem them by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, Eternal God Himself; and God would use this occasion of man's rebellion, to illustrate, to show forth, to make manifest, all of the wonderful and beautiful attributes of Himself.

And one of these attributes that God would put on display for all to see - all principalities and powers, and all that He intended as witness - would be the attribute of His 'love,' His great 'love.'

God tells us about this 'love' in that well-known Bible verse in the Gospel of John, chapter 3, in verse 16:

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

Now, here, God is highlighting His 'love' and His whole plan of salvation does this: it just shows forth how He is, indeed, love Himself, that He is the essence of love. This is 'love,' for Eternal God to empty Himself of His glory, and to take upon Himself the sins of creatures, yes, made in His image, but still just creatures - just created beings - and creatures that have turned from the right way and have gone the wrong way, creatures worthy of death.

And, yet, God would highlight the justice of His word, the righteousness of His Law, as the Law demands the wages of sins be paid, and death be the penalty. And, of course, God would not deny the Law's demand, but He would make the payment by submitting Himself to that Law, and the Lord Jesus Christ would become the Lamb of God that would be sacrificed on behalf of these chosen individuals, these elect people, and He would die for them, and this death would take place before the world began.

Notice here in John 3:16, (it says) "For God so loved the world." Now we saw in Revelation 1:5 that it said, "Unto him that loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood," and both 'loved' and 'washed' were put in the past tense. Well, it could be said, since Revelation was being composed around the end of the first century, that it was written in the past tense because it was referring to 33 A.D., and that was some decades earlier.

But, no, that is not why God is saying, "Unto him that loved us and washed us." He is not reverting back to 33 A.D., but He is reverting back to the point from the foundation of the world, before the world was created, and John 3:16 proves that because Jesus was very much alive. He had not gone to the cross. He would not go for some time. He had not died. He had not risen from the dead.

And, yet, in John 3:16, what does God say? "For God so loved the world," past tense. He has already loved the world. And now He will explain in what manner He loved them, that "He gave his only begotten Son." Not that He 'gives' (in the present) but He 'gave,' as if the action had already been accomplished, and that is because it was.

God had already given His only begotten Son, and how was it that the Son came to be known as "the only begotten?" It is because He rose from the dead, the "first begotten from the dead," or the "firstborn Son of God." That is the point where the Father had the Son, in that sense, it was via the resurrection of the dead. He was "declared to be the Son through the resurrection of the dead." And John 3:16 is already stating this has happened already: "For God so loved the world," and this is pointing to eternity past, to that event which had already taken place.

Now, even if we go from the first century A.D., and we can go back to the Old Testament and we can find similar statements, in the book of Malachi, for instance, in Malachi, chapter 1, it says in verses 2 and 3:

I have loved you, saith JEHOVAH. Yet ye say, Wherein hast thou loved us? Was not Esau Jacob's brother? saith JEHOVAH: yet I loved Jacob, And I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness.

Once again, this is written in the Old Testament, a few hundred years before the coming of Christ, and God is already saying that He loved (past tense) Jacob. And, yes, it is true of the individual, Jacob, before they were born, God actually tells us (and Jacob and Esau were born in the year 2007 B.C.), and God tells us in Romans, before either one was born, "Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated." And you can read that in Romans, chapter 9. So, that means over 2,000 years before the birth of Christ, God is already making the statement that He loved Jacob, but the love of God is conditional upon the Saviour, upon the atoning work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

God cannot 'love' a sinner apart from Christ washing them in His blood and purging away their sin. There is no way that God can 'love' a sinner who has his sins upon him. Those sins must be paid for, or else the individual is certainly under the wrath of God; the fury and anger of God is upon him. It is not possible that God can 'love' someone who is in their sins, yet He says, "Jacob I have loved." I loved Jacob, past tense. Before he was born, God loved him. Now, you see, we are going back further and further in time.

Well, we do not need to stress this point too much longer. The Bible is clear when the Lord Jesus Christ paid for the sins of His people. Let us just read one more passage in Isaiah, chapter 53, where it says of the coming Messiah; yes, it does speak of the time when the Messiah, Christ, will 'make manifest' what He had already finished, as "the works were finished from the foundation of the world," Hebrews 4, verse 3, tells us. But notice in Isaiah 53 that many of the statements, and much of the language, is put in the past tense. It says in verses 3-5:

He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.

Verse 7:

He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.

Now I could go on, but notice this - let us just notice this: how God could have written this. For instance, in verse 3, where it says, "He is despised and rejected of men," God could have said, "He will be despised and rejected of men." Or in verse 5, "He was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities," He could have said, "He will be wounded, He will be bruised for our iniquities," and so on. That would be the future tense; we would expect that, and we would think that would be how God would write it, if the payment for sin had not been made - if it was all expectation and hope that one day the Messiah would come, and that He would be fulfilling these verses, and making payment for His people, it could be couched in future terms, but it is not. It is placed in past tense, in order to teach us: do not look to the cross in 33 A.D., but look into the past, before the foundation of the world; that is where you will find the Lamb slain, and that is where the payment was made, the one and only payment for sin.

And then Jesus came and 'made manifest' what He had done. It tells us in 1Peter, chapter 1, beginning in verse 18-20:

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: Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world...

There it is again. God is telling us of the Lamb and the redemption that comes by His precious blood, and the statement is made, the declaration of God is made, "Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world," and then notice the last part of verse 20:

...but was manifest in these last times for you,

And that is what Jesus did when He entered into the world, He 'made manifest,' and the Bible tells us "whatsoever doth make manifest is light." Light shines in the darkness and reveals things, and that helps us understand what 'to be made manifest' means. It means something that is a mystery, or veiled, or hidden, or unknown - the light of the word shines upon it and makes it known.

And, so, Christ died for sin before the world began, and that was not known, so He entered into the human race and He shewed forth, or revealed, exactly what He had done before time. This is the life and ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ, as we read about it in the Gospel accounts, all making 'manifest' things that had long been done - long ago finished - before the world began.

Well, let us look at the last part of the statement here in Revelation 1, verse 5:

...Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood,

The blood of Christ - many have certainly spoken all sorts of things about the blood of Christ. Rightly so. The blood of Christ is that which really represents the life of Christ, as "the life is in the blood," and Jesus gave His life for His people. He died for them, and He shed His blood, as the blood spilled from Him. Yes, physically in 33 A.D., He shed some blood, but, more than that, it points to (again, and I am sorry we have to keep repeating it, but it must be stated) the time before the world - from the foundation of the world, the bible says - when He died for sin.

Now did He literally shed His blood at that point? No, we do not have to think that, but the blood represents the life of Christ, and so when He gave His life, it was as though He gave up His blood or shed His blood. We find in Romans, chapter 5, beginning in verse 6 and through verse 9. It says:

For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.

Christ's sacrifice has spiritually cleansed us from all sin. We are righteous, justified in God's sight forever more. Our salvation is through His blood, that is, the giving of His life, and now we are clean in the eyes of God.

Let us turn to one last place, in Hebrews, chapter 9, and I am going to read several verses here, 12-14 to begin with:

Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us. For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh: How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?

And, here, animal sacrifices are mentioned, but they never could wash away any sin. Actually, Hebrews 10, verse 4, tells us that:

For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins.

They could never cleanse anyone, no matter how many you sacrificed, a thouand, or one hundred thousand, or a million. You could shed the blood of all the animals in the earth and it would never wash away the sins of even one sinner, because we needed a man, and more than a man, we needed God, Eternal, Almighty, and able to bear the sins of another, and to make the payment in full that the Law demanded, which is death. Only Christ is able to do that, as it says here, "through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot." He had no sins, no blemish of any kind. He was a pure and perfect sacrificial Lamb of God.

Well, then it goes on to say in Hebrews chapter 9 verses 18-23:

Whereupon neither the first testament was dedicated without blood. For when Moses had spoken every precept to all the people according to the law, he took the blood of calves and of goats, with water, and scarlet wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book, and all the people, Saying, This is the blood of the testament which God hath enjoined unto you. Moreover he sprinkled with blood both the tabernacle, and all the vessels of the ministry. And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission. 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.

Animal sacrifice would not be sufficient. There needed to be a 'better sacrifice,' and that is Christ. Verses 24 and 25 of Hebrews 9:

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;

Jesus would be the sacrifice, but He would not need to offer Himself often; He would only do it one time, and it goes on to say in verse 26: "For then," that is, if He offered Himself, as the high priest every year, "must he often have suffered since," and that is the Greek word 'apo' (G575) and it is better translated as 'from,' "since (or from) the foundation of the world."

Why does God point us back there again? He is telling us Jesus, if He would be like the high priest, would have to have suffered often since the foundation of the world. Meaning what? It is very obvious, that at the foundation of the world was that one time that Christ offered up Himself, and if He were like an earthly high priest, He would have to continally offer up Himself, again and again, down through history, in time. But there is no need, because He did offer Himself, once, at the point of the foundation of the world. It goes on to say in verse 26:

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

Now, here, God is telling us, once again, that Christ 'made manifest' what He had done. The word 'appeared' is the identical Greek word translated as 'manifest' in 1Peter 1:20. "But now once in the end of the world hath he 'made manifest' to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself," that is, what He did in 33 A.D. was only a demonstration of the actual offering which took place from the foundation of the world.