"Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, "Who are these, clothed in white robes, and from where have they come?" I said to him, "Sir, you know." And he said to me, "These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb."
(Revelation 7:13-14)
What is this great tribulation? John seems to have in mind what Daniel 12:1 and Matthew 24:21 foretold. Both those passages warn of the danger of apostasy through the intense opposition to God. The same warning has already been passed along to several of the seven churches. Ephesus had left their first love. Smyrna was warned it would have tribulation. Pergamum stumbled over false teaching. Thyatira was marred by immorality. Both internally and externally, opposition threatened the churches then, just as it does now. The tribulation is “great” because of “the intensity of the seduction and oppression through which believers pass”. It “includes all Christians who have experienced oppression and persecution everywhere throughout history”.
The irony must not be lost: red blood turning robes white! It is “the blood of the Lamb,” that is, the sin-atoning, God-satisfying, wrath-propitiating, and justifying death of Christ that makes the robes white. The use of “blood” is not the chemical properties of Christ’s blood that cleanses from sin but His standing in our place to bear the judgment of God through death at the cross. This great multitude stood before the throne because of “the blood of the Lamb.” That’s the only way that any of us can stand blameless before God—because Christ bore our sin and reproach away through His death.
(Phil A. Newton)
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