The Book of Revelation – Beatitude Number Seven
“Look, I am coming soon! My reward is with Me, and I will give to each person according to what they have done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End. “Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the City.” Revelation 22:12-14
There is reward according to works, Jesus had said. “Look, I am Coming soon! My reward is with Me, and I will give to each person according to what they have done”, Revelation 22:12. He searches ‘hearts and minds’, Revelation 2:23, and sees what works flow from them. ‘Hearts and minds’ is translated in some Dutch translations: ‘heart and kidneys’, Psalm 7:9; 16:7; 26:2; 73:21; 139:13; Jeremiah 11:20; 17:10; 20:12; Lamentations 3:13. Some say that the shaking of the body that Orthodox Jews do while praying refers to this: shaking the ‘kidneys’ so that God will be able to search the hearts, minds and kidneys, the most inner parts of human beings thoroughly, through and through. ‘Thoughts and movements’, 1 Chronicles 28:9. Alas, not a lot of good comes from the natural human heart.
Jesus says about that: “Out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.” These are the things that make a person unclean. The works that will be rewarded must flow from a pure source. The ‘tree of the knowledge of good and evil’ stood in Paradise. Does this mean that good works must come from that tree? Good fruit instead of evil fruit from that tree? No, man was not allowed to eat fruit from that tree at all. Because as doing so would have produced self-righteousness based on our own good works; ‘good’ produced from an evil source. As Jesus said: “If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in Heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!” No, that tree’s relative goodness is nevertheless fruit from a wrong tree from which we were not allowed to eat at all in Paradise.
The ‘good works’ of a natural human being are fruits of the wrong tree. There are people—humanists—who do an impressive amount of good things. Sometimes they are an example to all of us! The Pharisees’ lives looked ‘spotless and blameless’. Those Pharisees have indeed acquired a negative image in the New Testament, but their lives were impeccable. They devoted all their energy to keeping God’s Law, all the 613 commandments they had derived from the Thora. Jesus even says that unless our righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the ‘teachers of the Law’, we will certainly not enter the ‘Kingdom of Heaven’. For example: they did not just give tithes (ten percent of their income), but as much as thirty or forty percent.
Paul was also able to say of himself: “As for righteousness based on the Law, faultless.” The rich young ruler declared, “All these (Commandments) I have kept since I was a boy.” Who can say the same? The ‘elder son’ in the parable of the ‘prodigal son’ even claims, “I have never disobeyed Your orders.” However relatively good (indeed, perhaps even really good, because they are in accordance with God’s Commandments) all those works actually are coming from, they all stem from a wrong source, from the unbroken self-righteous heart that is not ‘born-again’. They are full of ‘I’, ‘me’, ‘self’ and ‘ego’.
“Note that Isaiah calls our good works and good deeds that they are nevertheless like filthy rags.”
Isaiah says: “All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away.” Note that Isaiah calls our good works and good deeds that they are nevertheless like filthy rags.
Jesus says, “Blessed are those who wash their robes.” He is speaking in Revelation chapter 22 from verse 12 onwards. “I am (1) the Alpha and the Omega, (2) the first and the last, (3) the beginning and the end.” He is ‘threefold’, and thus identical to God the Father. This what God said about Himself. “I am (1) the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “(2) who is and who was and (3) who is to come, the Almighty.”
“You are blessed if you have washed your robes in the blood of the Lamb”.
Revelation 7:14 is yet another tremendous beatitude. “You are blessed if you have washed your robes in the blood of the Lamb”. That gives a right to the tree of life. Then you are connected to the good tree: the ‘tree of life’ that also stood in Paradise, but to which access was blocked after man’s Fall. A ‘new heart’ comes when the new birth takes place, and from this come new works, new fruits. As works they perhaps look as ‘two drops of water’ like the ‘good works’ of the Pharisee or the ‘humanist’, but they come from a different interior motive. They come from the right tree. They come from a new heart, by the Holy Spirit. They are fruits of the true Vine —of Jesus Himself, the nine-fold fruit of the Holy Spirit —and that is why they are really good, for there is but One who is good, God Himself. Only that which emanates from Him can have the mark ‘good’ stamped on it.
“Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.”
Galatians 5:13-25 “For you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole Law is fulfilled in one word, in the statement, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” But if you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another. But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law. Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the Kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no Law. Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.”
Everyone who belongs to Him has the right to enter through the Gates of the New Jerusalem. Whoever accepts Him as Saviour, and serves Him as Lord, will enter in. This is absolutely sure, absolutely certain, for whoever is connected to the “Tree of Life”, he or she is a branch of the true Vine, because by the ‘works of the Law’ no one will be justified.
“Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. “
A lot is said in the United Nations about natural ‘human rights’. Yet this Biblical right in faith, this ‘right in Christ’ is really and truly a wonderful ‘right’! Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. They are no longer expecting or claiming their ‘rights’ on the basis their own righteous deeds. Paul says in Romans 7:18 “For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh.“ Yet Christian believers know that they have a right, because everyone who has died in Christ has been set free from the power of sin. They have the ‘right’ to be free! They now claim ‘rights’ only on the basis of the completed, finished work of Christ and, because of it, have the right to enter into the eternal City! Blessed, because washed by the blood of the Lamb.
