I met Paul years ago and he shares his thoughts via email, I wanted to preserve this and meditate on it, enjoy.
Our BSF Adventure in the Revelation of Jesus 10/19/2024
Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear, and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near. He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus! (Revelation 1:3; 22:20 ESV)
No Longer a Sinner but Righteous and Holy
I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see. 19 Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent. 20 Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me. 21 The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne. (Revelation 3:18-21 ESV)
the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready; 8 it was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure”— for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints. (Revelation 19:7-8 ESV)
as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, 16 since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” (1 Peter 1:15 ESV)
20 But that is not the way you learned Christ!— 21 assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, 22 to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, 23 and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, 24 and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. (Ephesians 4:20-24 ESV)
9 Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices 10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. (Colossians 3:9 ESV)
8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Since, therefore, we have now been justified (made righteous) by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. 10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. 11 More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. (Romans 5:8-11 ESV)
Throughout the New Testament the Holy Spirit uses the illustration of clothing to describe our internal spiritual nature. Jesus counselled the Laodicians to “to buy from me …white garments so that you may clothe yourself”. In Revelation 19:7-8 it is revealed that these “white garments” are the “righteous deeds of the saints” with which “his Bride has made herself ready” which Jesus has “granted her”. The word translated “saints” is the same adjective form of the word for holy used to describe God in Revelation 4:8. All of God’s people are saints or literally “holy ones”. Peter directly associates “holy” with “your conduct” as well as God’s. (1 Peter 1:15 ESV) Using similar clothing terminology, Paul indicates that these “righteous deeds” are the result of having “put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.” through having “put off your old self” and being “renewed in the spirit of your minds”. In referring to our new internal nature “created after the likeness of God”, Paul uses the singular feminine nouns for “righteousness and holiness” rather than the plural neuter noun and adjective forms used in Revelation 19:8. Because of their close association in scripture it is easy to get righteousness and holiness confused. In Romans 6:16-23 NIV Paul identifies the progression of “obedience, which leads to (eis: into) righteousness … righteousness leading to (eis) holiness”, “the benefit your reap (from righteousness) leads to (eis) holiness, and the result is eternal life.“ It is God’s own righteousness (nature) which He has made freely available to us through the Gospel, (Romans 1:16-17) which produces holiness in our conduct resulting in experiencing “eternal life” both in this world and the next. Through obedience to God’s voice, I receive His righteous nature which is manifested in holy conduct in this world as His saints. At its core meaning, righteousness is who you are and holiness emphasizes how you conduct yourself because you are righteous. Righteousness comes before holiness under grace. A works mentality seeks to become righteous by changing my conduct.
those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ. (Romans 5:17 ESV)
Righteousness is the “free gift” which enables me to “reign in life” as a king. But my first responsibility as a king under the “KING OF KINGS” is to “reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.” (Revelation 19:16; 1 Corinthians 15:25 ESV) Through the name, blood and authority of Jesus I am to “conquer him (Satan) by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony”. (Revelation 12:11 ESV) Since my success and therefore maturity in this process is a direct result of the words that come out of my mouth, (James 3:2 NIV) the Holy Spirit desires to energize and enable me to constantly monitor the words I speak to make sure that they are consistent with the “word” of God as recorded in the Bible. Otherwise, my words have no power to “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” (James 4:7 ESV) One of the most important ways to do this is to make sure I am using the same tenses for words as the Holy Spirit does in the Bible. One of the most common mistakes that Christians make is to refer to themselves as “sinners” in the present tense. As in Romans 5:8-11, Paul is always careful when speaking to Christians to use the past tense when instructing on this topic. Yes, all of us “were … sinners … were enemies” but we also “were reconciled to God”. But “we have now been justified (made righteous) by his blood… now that we are reconciled … we have now received reconciliation.” Paul goes on in chapter 5 to destroy the common error in our thinking that one becomes a sinner by personally committing sins. It was not my personal sin that made me a sinner, but Adam’s sin six thousand years ago that caused me to be born a sinner under the reign of sin (Satan) and the spirit whose name(nature) is Death. (Romans 5:14,21; Revelation 20:14) It is by believing and then confessing (testifying) with my own mouth that Jesus’s blood has freed me “from the power of Satan to God” that I experience “salvation” from Sin/Satan’s reign over me. (Acts 26:18; Romans 10:9-10 ESV) If (not when) I sin, I now confess/testify that I have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous” Who is “cleansing me from “all sin” and “from all unrighteousness” (1 John 2:1; 1:7,9 ESV) Instead of condemning myself, for “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”, I am to “confess [homologeo /hom·ol·og·eh·o/ say the same thing as God says about] our(my) sins” in His Word. John encourages us by stating, “I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin.” (1 John 2:1 ESV) With this statement he indicates that, while we have sinned in the past because we were born sinners, if we read, understand and tenaciously apply what he has written, the Holy Spirit will enable us to recognize Sin’s/Satan’s traps and temptations and conquer them one by one. According to 1 John 1:9 our responsibility in this process is to homologeo (agree with our mouth as to what He says about) each of our sins. Then He will do His part to “forgive (release us from bondage to sin)” and “cleanse us from all unrighteousness” because “all unrighteousness is sin”. (1 John 5:17). In his letters, Paul never refers to Christians as “sinners” but “saints” (holy ones). To call myself a sinner instead of a “holy one”, reconciled, justified (made righteous) by his blood, filled with and energized by the Holy Spirit is Satan’s subtle way of causing me to condemn myself and perpetuate his control of one or more areas in my life. Created in God’s image, every word that comes out of my mouth is a seed that produces fruit in my life at some point in the future. (Mark 11:22-24) My experience today is a result of whose words I have “confessed” in the past. Bad seeds produce weeds that need to be pulled and thrown away and replanted with good seeds instead of agreeing with Satan’s condemning words which sows more weed seeds that will grow to maturity in the future. Then I will experience what it means to “reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ”.
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