“To Him who loves us and released us from our sins by His blood- and He has made us to be a kingdom, priests to His God and Father-to Him be the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen.”
(Revelation 1:5-6)
What Christ has done has (made) believers (a kingdom and priest) to serve (His God). Their identification with His kingship means that they too are considered to be resurrected and exercising rule with Him as a result of His exaltation. They have been constituted kings together with Christ and share His priestly office by virtue of their identification with His death and resurrection. The reference here is to Exodus 19:6: "You shall be a to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation." Notice how significant is the change of tense. What was prophesied as Israel's role as in Exodus, and never fulfilled by Israel, is now stated as accomplished by John, for the verb (has made) is in the past tense.
(Kingdom) here can mean "kingship" or "royal power." Believers do not merely live within a kingdom; they exercise it's kingly power (albeit under Christ). Believers have already entered into this role as priest and as kings even though the manner of their performance is still incomplete.
Christ exercised His role as priest through His sacrificial death ("released us from our sins by His blood") and "faithful witness"(v.5), and exercised His role as king by spiritually defeating sin and death on the cross and subsequently being raised from the dead ("firstborn" and "ruler,").
The church is identified also with Christ as a priest and now exercises its role as priests by maintaining a faithful witness to the world and willingness to suffer for Christ. It defeats the strategies of the enemy even while suffering apparent defeat, yet still ruling in a kingdom (as Christ did on the cross).
Like OT priests, the entire people of God now have free, unmediated access to God's presence, because Christ has removed the obstacle of sin by His substitutionary blood. It is the light of God's presence that they are to reflect to the world. That John sees Exodus 19:6 as fulfilled in the church indicates that the church now continues the true Israel as the inheritor of God's promises and as His covenant people, while unbelieving Jews are described not as true Jews but as a synagogue of Satan (Rev. 2:9). This accomplishment of God's redemptive plan will bring eternal (glory) and culminate in His eternal (dominion).
(G.K. Beale)
No comments:
Post a Comment