Overcoming – Four Principles in Revelation 12 (Part 10)

  

“And they overcame him because the blood of the Lamb, and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even unto death.” Revelation 12:11.

 

What does it mean to overcome “because of the blood of the Lamb”? Let’s begin by noting the connection between “the blood of the Lamb” and “they did not love their life even unto death.” For the Lamb shed His blood in dying, and we are not to spare ourselves from dying; indeed, we are to follow the Lamb wherever He goes (Rev. 14:4).

 

In Revelation 1:5 we see Jesus Christ styled as “the firstborn of the dead.” In 1:18 Christ says, “…I was dead, and behold, I am alive forever more.” In 2:8 we read, “The first and the last, who was dead and has come to life.” Then in 5:5 – 6 we read that one of the elders tells John, “Stop weeping; behold, the Lion that is from the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has overcome so as to open the book and its seven seals.” When John looks for the Lion he records, “And I saw between the throne (with the four living creatures) and the elders a Lamb standing, as if slain…” Let us never lose sight of the fact of the Divine principle that the Lion overcomes as the Lamb, that God’s strength is made perfect in weakness (2 Cor. 12:9). There is no other path in overcoming for the saint in Jesus Christ – it is not by might, nor by power, but by the Spirit of God (Zechariah 4:6).

 

It is the “marriage supper of the Lamb” that we see in Revelation 19:7ff, and it is the Father and the Lamb that are the Temple and glory of the City (Revelation chapters 21 – 22). The letter of Revelation is particularly the unveiling of the Lamb, containing a call to His disciples to live as He lives, to overcome as He overcame, to die with Him and to live with Him.

 

Overcoming by the blood of the Lamb begins by recognizing that the Lamb lived and died sacrificially and that we are to live and die sacrificially; hence, “they did not love their life even unto death.” Any purported “Christian” teaching that seeks to spare us from the Cross deserves the response of Jesus Christ to Peter, “Get behind Me Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me; for you are not setting your mind on God’s interests, but man’s” (Matthew 17:21 – 23).

 

The letter of Revelation does not teach us how to escape tribulation, it teaches us to overcome tribulation by following the Lamb wherever He goes…including to the Cross.

 

How then, are we to understand overcoming “by the blood of the Lamb”? First and foremost, as we’ve seen above, we are to look to the Lamb as our source of life and our way of life.

 

Next, let’s consider that the Lamb has purchased us, redeemed us by His blood (as we’ll see, there are complementary facets to the blood of the Lamb). If the Lamb has purchased us by His blood then we no longer belong to ourselves, but we belong to the Lamb. We are the property of the Lamb.

 

Now I suppose I should point out that we have never belonged to ourselves; we have either been the slaves of sin and Satan and death, or we are the sons and daughters of the Living God through Jesus Christ. Martin Luther had a concept that he termed “the bondage of the will.” He meant that our wills, as much as we would like to think otherwise, are either living under the bondage of Satan and sin and death, or that we have been raised to life in Jesus Christ (Ephesians 2:1 – 10) and that we now live in the bondage of freedom to Jesus Christ. We are either going to serve God in Christ or we are going to serve Satan – what we are not going to do is to serve ourselves, though serving Satan usually looks like we are serving ourselves because Satan is all about exalting the “self.”

 

When Jesus says that we cannot have two masters (Matthew 6:24), that we will either serve God or the things of this world, He didn’t give us a third option to serve ourselves because that option has never been available to us. I understand that this is offensive to us, as it should be – for the Gospel teaches us that we must surrender our self-righteousness and egos and come to Jesus Christ in confession of sin and repentance and find our all-in-all in Him (ponder 1 Corinthians 1:17 – 2:5).

 

When we realize that we do not belong to ourselves, but that we have been purchased with a price, with the blood of the Lamb, then we can commit our souls to our Good Shepherd, knowing that nothing will come into our lives without first passing through His will, and that He will be with us in all circumstances; furthermore, we can live in the confidence that in all situations we are called to be His witnesses – no matter the outcome to us – for our lives are rooted in eternity and death is but a portal into everlasting glory in Jesus Christ.

 

We have an enigmatic glimpse of the purposes of God in the suffering of believers in Revelation 6:11, “And there was given to each of them a white robe; and they were told that they should rest for a little while longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brethren who were to be killed even as they had been, would be completed also.”

 

While, as we’ll see, the blood of the Lamb cleanses us from all sin (1 John 1:5 – 2:2); the idea of redemption, of our being purchased by the blood of Christ, just may be preeminent in the Bible. Consider:

 

“…the church of god which He purchased with His own blood” (Acts 20:28).

 

“…for you have been bought with a price…” (1 Cor. 6:20).

 

“In Him we have redemption through His blood…” (Eph. 1:7).

 

“in whom we have redemption…” (Col. 1:14 – note the connection between redemption and forgiveness in Col. 1:14 and Eph. 1:7).

 

“knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ” (1 Peter 1:18 – 19).

 

“…You were slain and purchased for God with Your blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation” (Rev. 5:9).

 

To teach the cleansing of the blood of Christ without teaching the redemption of the blood of Christ, and what that redemption means in our daily lives, is to give people a partial Gospel – if we call ourselves Christians then we do not belong to ourselves, how much clearer can Jesus be than in Mark 8:34 – 38? “He who seeks to save his soul will lose it.”

 

The man or woman who would overcome the beast in this world must surrender himself or herself to Jesus Christ – he or she must die with Christ and be raised with Christ as a way of life that leads from here to eternity.

 

He that desires to overcome must learn what it means to belong to Jesus Christ, to be the property of Another.

 

What bill of sale has my name on it?

 

What bill of sale has your name on it?