I was reading this in my Bible reading this morning:
To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. – Revelation 1:5b-6
Oftentimes this kind of language is found at the end of a letter. Paul ends his letters frequently with as a kind of benediction, a closing reminder and a commission to go out in the strength of these kinds of truths. The book of Hebrews has a similarly strong benediction. But here John opens his letter to the seven churches in this kind of way, which is something that Peter does as well at the start of his letters. He distills the entirety of Christian thought into these simple words, as if saying, ‘let us do all things that we do in the church in light of this very truth.’ And the simplicity of it is striking and beautiful:
Jesus freed us from our sins. Nowhere do we find a redirection from this very central truth. John doesn’t say, let us distill it down to this: that Jesus is a good man who gave us a great example of how to live – instead, it’s this – he freed us from our sins. That’s his central action, and it’s powerful. But also then he adds this: he did that by his blood. The cross is never disconnected from this saving action, but instead it was absolutely necessary to set us free: this is atonement. It’s God’s plan in how to set us free.
But then he goes on to say that there is fruit to this freedom: now we inherit a kingdom, a kingdom that starts now, as he is renewing the whole world that he made. That kingdom has a king, Jesus himself! And he will rule over all his creation. But we are part of that kingdom and invited into that glorious kingdom because we are set free from our sins. And now we are priests to God the Father, a priesthood of all believers (1 Peter 2:5), those who have direct access to God, and those who will offer spiritual sacrifices to him in the way we live our lives (Rom. 12:1). He will rule forever and ever – and this such a powerful assurance – so don’t lose sight of what is central to what we believe!