Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship's Bible study in the Book of Revelation. Tonight is study #33 of Revelation, chapter 14, and we are going to be reading Revelation14:12-13:
Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus. And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them.
In our last study we were looking at verse 12 and the reference to “here are they which keep the commandments of God,” and we saw that this is a further emphasis by God to indicate that the elect are present and living on the earth in the Day of Judgment. Here is their “patience,” and here are “they that keep the commandments of God,” and only those that God has saved can keep His commandments. Ezekiel 36, verses 25 to 27 are very clear about that; God takes away the heart of stone and He gives a new heart and a new spirit and then He causes those that have received that new heart to walk in His statutes and to keep His commandments. Thereby, they show forth their love for God, only as a result of God first loving them in salvation.
I would like to look at one more place that also mentions keeping the commandments. It says in 1Corinthians 7:18-19:
Is any man called being circumcised? let him not become uncircumcised. Is any called in uncircumcision? let him not be circumcised. Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but the keeping of the commandments of God.
This is a curious verse that makes us wonder what God is trying to say. He is speaking of those that were “called being circumcised” and those that were called being uncircumcised, and we know He is referring to Jews and Gentiles. Then He says, “Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but the keeping of the commandments of God.” There was a time when God commanded every male to be physically circumcised, from eight days old and up. It was a command of God for Israel to circumcise their males; if a man was not circumcised, he was to be “cut off.” It was a command that God gave, but we are living in a time (and it has been this way throughout the church age) that God does not command people to be circumcised. There is no need for circumcision. We do this by “allowance,” as God has not commanded us to do it. It really reveals that God’s commands in the Bible often have their proper “season” for obedience. God commanded the Jews to sacrifice and a faithful Jew would have offered sacrifices, or they would have gone to Jerusalem in the set time to observe the Feast of Pentecost, the Feast of Passover or the Feast of Ingathering, and so forth. They were commandments that were to be obeyed by the Israelites in their proper “season.”
Do we do any of these things today? Do we sacrifice offerings? Do we have to go to Jerusalem to observe a feast? Do the males have to be circumcised? No – we do not do these things. Do we have to keep the seventh day Sabbath as the Israel was commanded to keep the seventh day holy? No, we do not, but we have (or had) our own set of commandments for the New Testament believers. The seventh day Sabbath was changed to Sunday and Sunday became the New Testament Sabbath Day. Yet, we have people today that say, “We must keep the seventh day Sabbath.” Why do they say that? It is because they see these commandments in the Bible and they understand them “out of season.” No, we do not have to observe the Saturday seventh day Sabbath any longer; God changed the Sabbath when the Lord Jesus rose early that Sunday morning from the dead and Sunday became the “first” of the New Testament Sabbath. We no longer have to be circumcised. We no longer offer sacrifices because Christ is our sacrifice, and so forth.
But there were other commandments that God gave for New Testament believers that have also lost their significance because the “season” has changed. For example, in the proper season, we were commanded to go to church on the Sunday Sabbath and to be in submission to elders that had God-given authority over us. But God has ended the church age and the commandments that applied to the church organization are no longer in force; we are not to be in submission to elders or deacons or pastors. We are not to go to the churches any longer. The “season” has turned.
There were many commandments that God gave for the “day of salvation.” The command was to go into all the world and preach the Gospel to all, that they might hear and become saved, if they were God’s elect. This, too, had its season.
It is probably one of the biggest reasons that people go astray outside of the will of God when they insist on obeying a commandment that is no longer in force. It is no longer to be observed and, yet, people do not understand. There is “a time for everything under the sun,” as Ecclesiastes, chapter 3, says. There is a time to be born and a time to die, a time to sow seed and a time to pluck up, and so forth. The time to sow was during the day of salvation and the time to pluck up (or reap) is during the Day of Judgment – everything in its “season.”
As Revelation 14:12, says, “Here are they that keep the commandments of God,” but in order to “keep the commandments of God,” you must keep them in proper “season.” It is disobedient to be circumcised today as a religious act or to do so to please God. The act of circumcision was something God commanded to point to the Lord Jesus Christ, who would come forth through Israel and through the seed of David, and enter into the world and demonstrate what He had done from the foundation of the world. Then circumcision was done away with and, likewise, sacrifice was done away with and the seventh day Sabbath was done away with, as Christ was the fulfillment of the Sabbath rest. We “rest” in Him and the seventh day Sabbath was fulfilled. Anyone that insists on doing any of those things (going to Jerusalem, offering sacrifices, circumcising their male children or keeping the seventh day Sabbath) are doing them “out of season,” and it is a rebellious act against God.
Likewise, anyone continuing to go to church at this time is doing a rebellious act. They are doing something “out of season” and it is no more an act of obedience to go to a church today than it would be to go to a synagogue as the Jewish people continue to do. God ended His relationship with Israel almost 2,000 years ago. He ended His relationship with the New Testament churches and congregations in 1988 at the end of the church age. He issued the commandment and He brought it forth from His Word to come out of the churches; the church age is over and they no longer have any authority to function as a representative of God’s kingdom. Therefore, anyone trying to go to a church to worship God (which would have been a right thing to do for the 1,955 years of the church age) is now doing a rebellious and sinful thing – something that goes against the commandments of God.
So we see that God’s commandments may change according to their proper “season” and, therefore, it is extremely important that we have an understanding of “times and seasons,” so we know the time for the church age, the time for the Great Tribulation and that “little season” of the Latter Rain in which God poured out His Word and saved a great multitude outside of the churches. These things are incredibly important and that is why God opened up the Scriptures to reveal these things to His people and had them proclaim it throughout the world, so people would know that time had come for the Great Tribulation or the time had come for the Day of Judgment, and so forth. The true believers are the ones that keep the commandments of God in their proper time and season.
Then it says in the last part of Revelation 14:12:
…and the faith of Jesus.
Christ is the essence and embodiment of faith. It is through His faith that we are saved, as we read in Galatians 2:16:
Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.
Here, the statement is made that we are “justified by the faith of Jesus Christ,” and the little preposition “of” is important because it is in the genitive case and it means “belonging to” Christ. Salvation is of the Lord, the Bible tells us. Faith that saves is “of” Jesus Christ and this is very different from what the churches teach today. They tell people they have to have faith “in” Jesus Christ to be saved. They change that little two-letter word from “of” to “in” and many people do not notice the change. They have even changed the wording in many newer translations and it says “faith in Jesus Christ.” It is a little “slight of hand,” and who will notice a little preposition? Yet, it has a huge difference in meaning: we are not saved by our faith in Jesus Christ. That is the idea that is conveyed when they make that change – you have to believe and you have to do it.
But the Bible tells us, in 1Thessalonians 1:3, that “faith is a work,” and Galatians 2:16 says that “man is not justified by the works of the law.” The whole Bible is the Law of God; all the commandments are the Law of God. People will even admit that when the Bible says, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,” it is a commandment. Is it not? We are commanded to believe and any attempted act of obedience to a command is a “work.” When God says to keep the Sunday Sabbath, if you do, that is a good work. God told Abraham to offer his son Isaac and when Abraham attempted to do so, that was a good work. God says, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,” and any attempt to do so is a work, but any attempt to perform a work in order to become saved places the person under the whole Law – now you do not have to keep just one commandment, but you have to keep all the commandments of the Bible; and you have to do so perfectly and keep the whole Law of God if you are going to be justified by the works of the Law. You cannot offend in even one point or you are guilty of all.
Anyone that believes in a “free will gospel” of accepting Christ by exercising their will to believe is placing themselves under the works of the Law and they have brought condemnation down upon their heads. When they share that with others, they are bringing condemnation down upon the heads of others. They are placing themselves in an impossible situation whereby they must keep the whole law perfectly. That is how terrible it is. That is how awful that false gospel of “works” is. The idea of accepting Christ and making a decision for Him is something that ruins people and destroys the sinner because it is a promise of liberty and, yet, the ones making the promise are servants of corruption; they, themselves, are not free with the freedom that Christ gives to His elect people in setting them free from sin and death because “salvation is OF the Lord.” Salvation is OF the faith of Christ. This is what Ephesians, chapter 2, plainly states in Ephesians 2:8:
For by grace are ye saved through faith…
We are saved by God’s grace through faith, but God has not yet told us whose faith, but He first says we are saved by faith – that is how important it is – and then He adds, in Ephesians 2:8:
…and that not of yourselves…
It is not your faith or my faith in Christ that saves us. It is says, in Ephesians 2:8:
… and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
It is God’s faith. It is the faith of that which belongs to God – the Lord Jesus Christ; it is through His faith that He demonstrated from the foundation of the world when He took the sins of His people and bore them in His own body on the tree; that is, He was accursed from the foundation of the world. He was the Lamb slain for the sins of His people and it was all done by His faith and we were not even around. No man was there. Through this act, God obligated Himself to save the whole company of elect for whom Jesus died and, throughout history, God sent forth the Gospel to redeem those that were chosen to receive that salvation because their sins were forgiven in Christ and God applied the Word to their hearts, saving them through the faith of Christ.
Let us go back to Revelation 14:12:
Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.
The idea is to keep the “faith of Jesus.” The “faith of Jesus” would also involve the Word of God, but it is the fact that salvation is of God and God’s people keep that testimony. We maintain that we are not saved by works in any way; we are saved by the action of Christ and God gets all the glory and all the honor and all the praise because He did it all – everything concerning salvation was a work that Christ did as He demonstrated His faith.
Let us go on to Revelation 14:13:
Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth…
Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth. Is that not unusual? Let us think about this. God is saying that there is a group of “dead” people (so, they are dead) and then it says, “which die in the Lord from henceforth.” If they are already dead, why do they have to die? Why does this not say, “Blessed are the dead which have died (past tense) in the Lord?” But the Greek is not in the past tense; it is the present active participle. It is literally, “Blessed are the dead which are dying in the Lord from henceforth.” We scratch our heads; this is very strange and the strangeness is compounded by the placement of this verse in Revelation 14, in the context of Judgment Day. Why would God speak of the dead and say, “Blessed are the dead which are dying in the Lord from henceforth”?
We only have a few options and we will not have time to go through all of it in this study, but I can go through the options:
Those are the options. We can quickly do away with option #1. It would not make sense to say, “Blessed are the physically dead which are dying the Lord from henceforth.” If you are physically dead, then you are not dying from that point on. You are already dead and “dying” is something the living do; it is a process. For instance, we find this same word in the same tense (present active participle) concerning Jacob, in Hebrews 11:21:
By faith Jacob, when he was a dying, blessed both the sons of Joseph; and worshipped, leaning upon the top of his staff.
Jacob was in the “process” of dying, physically, but he had not yet died. It could not have been said that he was “dead, but dying.” He had not yet died, so it cannot be said of him that he was “dead, but dying.” It is the living that are in the process of dying and that means that Revelation 14:13 cannot possibly be talking about the physically dead.