Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Revelation.  Tonight is study #13 of Revelation chapter 21 and we are still looking at Revelation 21:5:

And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful.

Last time we looked at how mankind is “faithless,” according to the Bible, but God is faithful.  He is the faithful God.  He is the faithful Creator, according to 1Peter 4, verse 19.  We will see that this language also applies to the Lord Jesus Christ.  Of course, we are not surprised by that because the Lord Jesus Christ is God.

It says in Revelation 19:11:

And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war.

It can be shown by the context here that this is Jesus – He is called “Faithful and True.”  It is just like it said in our verse in Revelation 21:5: “Write: for these words are true and faithful.”  What is true of the Word of God is also true of the Lord Jesus Christ and true of God.  He is both “true and faithful.”

In Proverbs God gives us an interesting statement in Proverbs 14:5:

A faithful witness will not lie: but a false witness will utter lies.

I think I mentioned previously how closely related “truth” and “faithfulness” are to one another.  You cannot be faithful if you do not have the truth and, likewise, you cannot be faithful if you are not true.  Here, God says “A faithful witness will not lie,” which means he will speak the truth and truthfulness is a characteristic of faithfulness.  There have been individuals that love the truth and we may all be familiar with the example of Mr. Camping.  Mr. Camping had a love for the truth and that is why on the Open Forum or in his Bible studies he would be very careful and diligent to make sure the things he said were true to the Bible.  This was quite different from the apparent lack of concern that pastors have in our modern day.  It seems the concern of the pastors is to be faithful to the particular confessions or creeds of their particular denominations.   This was not the concern of Mr. Camping and it is not the concern of any true believer. 

True believers are not trying to be faithful to what theologians wrote or what the Reformers wrote.  We are not attempting to be faithful to John Calvin and there are individuals like that, are there not?  They are “Calvinists” or they are “Lutherans” and they want to maintain faithfulness to the teaching of a certain theologian.  And that person may be a faithful theologian in many points, but men have “feet of clay,” so we do not seek to hold to the status of another man.  If we did, we are certain to fall short because every man is a liar, according to the Bible, so we do not trust men.  We do not trust theologians, commentaries, confessions or creeds, no matter how it may be lifted up by a church or denomination, historically.  We do not trust pastors or elders or deacons or popes or any man.  We trust the Bible only and the Bible is what we want to be faithful to and a child of God wants to speak the true Word of God.  We want to share the true Word of God with other people, so the true believer has a desire to be a faithful witness because that is the nature of the faithful witness, God Himself. 

We read of the Lord Jesus Christ in Revelation 1:5:

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,

Jesus Christ is the faithful witness.  Proverbs 14, verse 5 declared that a faithful witness will not lie.  What did Jesus say about Himself in John 14, verse 6?  He said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”  In order to be the faithful witness, He is the truth.  Truth and faithfulness go hand in hand.  You cannot separate them.  You cannot say, “He is a faithful man, but he does not tell the truth,” or you cannot say, “He is a truthful man, but he is not faithful.”  The two go together and the faithful witness is Christ and Christ is the very embodiment of the Word of God.  Christ was a “walking Bible,” basically, when He walked among men as He entered human history long ago.  It was as if the Bible had come to life.  Here was the Word, the Word that was with God in the beginning and the Word was God and the Word became flesh.  So there walked Genesis and Leviticus and Numbers and Deuteronomy, we could say.  There was the Word – the beautiful, glorious, perfect, pure and holy Word – walking amongst men.  He was the faithful witness and everything He spoke was true.  They could find no fault in Him, although they looked as closely as they could.  They were constantly trying to find fault and catch Him in His Words, but He was the faithful witness.  He spoke the truth with wisdom and they could not snare Him or trap them or He would go through the midst of them unseen.  This is the nature of Christ and it is the nature of the Bible.

We read in Psalm 119:86:

All thy commandments are faithful: they persecute me wrongfully; help thou me.

All of God’s commandments are faithful and we have this faithful Word right in our own homes.  If you want to know what faithfulness is or what you are to do to be faithful, read the Bible.  God will tell you and me what the dictates of faithfulness are and He will tell us on a daily basis:  “Do you want to be faithful today?  Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.  Take up your cross and follow me.”  He will guide us and direct us through His commandments and that will be a perfect standard.  If we are a child of God, He has already given us a new heart and new spirit and the desire to do that perfect will of God and to seek to attain to faithfulness.

It says in Psalm 119:138:

Thy testimonies that thou hast commanded are righteous and very faithful.

It is the faithful Word of God and that is why when we read the Bible and we read of God’s promise to Abraham long ago to inherit the land for an everlasting possession, we know it is a faithful promise.  They are faithful commandments.  God keeps telling us of this promise and He clarified it in Isaiah 65 when He spoke of creating a new heaven and a new earth and the “seed” will dwell therein and God’s elect will long enjoy the works of their hands.  The days of His elect will be as the days of a “tree,” which refers to the tree of life, the Lord Jesus Christ.  The elect will live for evermore and this is part of God’s promises.  Remember, God said in Hebrews 9:15:

And for this cause he is the mediator of the new testament, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance.

The faithful Word of God, the Bible, is what tells you and me about eternal life.  It was not our idea and we did not come up with this kind of plan.  We did not think (nor could we ever think up something like this) that undeserving, dirty rotten sinners that have rebelled and shaken their fists against the Almighty God could receive unmerited favor and eternal life from God.  We could not have imagined that God would cleanse them from all sin and take away their corrupt soul and body and equip them as new creatures with new spirits and new bodies and place them in a new heaven and new earth.  We certainly could not have thought of all these things.  They come out of the mind and mouth of God.  He has spoken it and declared it faithfully, according to the faithful commandment. 

Notice what we read concerning the faithfulness of God in 1Thessalonians 5:23-24:

And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it.

Faithful is He that called you, but more than that, He is faithful to do it.  If He did not do it, He would not be faithful.  That is what faithfulness is, as it was promised to Abraham, historically.  His seed would be a stranger in a strange land for 400 years.  Actually, it was the selfsame day 430 years later, but the first 30 years they were not afflicted.  The promise was that after they were afflicted 400 years, they would come out.  God watched over them and made preparation through Moses and at the precise time He delivered His people in faithfulness to His Word because God is concerned.  It is not that man is concerned.  It is not even as though man holds God accountable, as they often forget the promises of God and they fail to remember the things that God has spoken in His Word, but God never forgets.  He never fails.  He brings them to remembrance because He wants His people to know that He is the faithful God that will perform the doing of it.

That leads us to our next verse in Revelation, chapter 21.  Notice, again, that it said at the end of verse 5: “Write, for these words are true and faithful.”  Then it says in Revelation 21:6:

And he said unto me, It is done…

It is done.  It is just as it said in 1Thessalonians 5:24: “Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it.”  When you do something, it is done.  Of course, this is past.  It has been completed and it has been finished.  The performance of it has been done.  That would take us back to the earlier verses in this chapter which said, “And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.”  It is done and then God says He will be their God and the tabernacle of God is with men and He will dwell with them  Then the Lord says He will wipe away all tears and there will be no more crying or death or pain.  It is done.  God has performed His faithful Word.  It took a period of time, yes, but He watched after it and at the precise moment of time (according to His time table of times and seasons), He performed it and then He declares, “It is done.” 

We might wonder if this is just referring to the new heaven and new earth.  Actually, it refers to all the promises of God.  The Greek word translated as done, Strong’s #1096, is “ginomai” and is one of the more common Greek words found in the New Testament, so it is not the easiest word to look up since it is found hundreds of time, but in Matthew 26 we can get an idea of what the Lord means in our verse in Revelation 21, verse 6, when He says, “It is done.”  It says in Matthew 26:53-56:

Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then shall the scriptures be fulfilled, that thus it must be? In that same hour said Jesus to the multitudes, Are ye come out as against a thief with swords and staves for to take me? I sat daily with you teaching in the temple, and ye laid no hold on me. But all this was done, that the scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled. Then all the disciples forsook him, and fled.

Here is a similar statement and the same Greek word translated as “done,” (ginomai) as it says, “But all this was done, that the scriptures of the prophets might be fulfilled.” 

We also read in Mark 13:28-31:

Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When her branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is near: So ye in like manner, when ye shall see these things come to pass, know that it is nigh, even at the doors. Verily I say unto you, that this generation shall not pass, till all these things be done. Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away.

We have that reference to the heaven and earth passing away, but not the Words of Christ.  He also said that this generation (the generation of evil) “shall not pass, till all these things be done.”  This is the point we are reading about in Revelation 21, verse 6.  The heaven and earth has passed away and the commandments and promises of God are now fulfilled – they are “done.”  The heaven and earth is gone, but the Word of God, which is faithful, continues on into eternity future with the creation of the new heaven and new earth and the body of believers.  They continue on eternally for evermore and it is done.  Everything God spoke in the Bible concerning this world and concerning His Gospel program is done.  Every judgment God spoke is fulfilled and every Word of salvation He spoke in the deliverance of His people are fulfilled.  The rapture, the resurrection and the final destruction of the universe and the annihilation of the wicked is done.  They cease to exist for evermore.  All has been performed, once the heaven and earth pass away and God creates the new heaven and new earth.  It is done.  It is done.  The Bible has finally been fulfilled.  Every promise in the Bible has been completely fulfilled because God is a faithful God.  The Word of God has been true and faithful altogether and it is done.