If you’ve watched any amount of television in your lifetime, you’ve probably seen advertisements for laundry detergents that speak in glowing terms of their stain-removing powers. In the ads, the detergents seem to effortlessly remove stains leaving colors brighter and whites whiter. Now consider if that ad was not advertising a detergent per se, but promoting blood for the removal of stains and washing clothes. :grimacing: The idea seems absurd to us because blood is a stain that often seems impossible to remove from clothes. However, God promotes blood as a detergent to make the robes of believers perfectly white. Revelation 7:14 says that the ones that came out of the great tribulation washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb! Imagine trying to wash a robe to white using blood. The effort would be futile. Although we know instinctively that this isn’t a literal washing, we should be no less shocked by the language. Blood stains; it doesn’t clean unless it’s the blood of Jesus Christ and the stain is our sin. In the case of our filthy rags, as our own righteousness is described in Isaiah 64:6, the only “detergent” that can wash them to white is the blood of the Lamb. Jesus’s innocent sacrifice on our behalf makes it possible for even the filthiest of sinners to be clothed in a robe washed white in blood. His work makes it possible for us to be justified in the sight of God so that we can stand before God and serve Him day and night in His temple (Rev 7:15). This glorious metaphor comparing blood to laundry detergent is shocking in all the right ways, for it leads us to One who can rescue us from and forgive us for our sins. All glory to the Lamb and to the One seated on the throne! —Pastor Rory
Sunday at Liberty
9AM: Ministry Presentation
10AM: Pastor Nate Wagner–Servants & Martyrs, 2–Revelation 7:1-17 (sermon notes)
6PM: Missions Emphasis–Testimony and Q&A
Leave a Reply