I answered, “Sir, you know.” And he said, “These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” Revelations 7:14
Have you ever walked out onto a newly blanketed field of snow under a clear sky and bright sun? It is so perfectly white and sparkling, the glare blinding, but it’s radiant and beautiful. Whiter than white.
For every theologian there is a different interpretation and understanding of John’s vision of the things to come. It is indeed difficult to digest, but not to cling to when read for the promise it reveals. What will happen at the end of this age? Those who believe that Jesus died, not of a stroke, or a heart attack, or of the wearing down of the mortal body over time, but a brutal bloodbath of a murder, at the hands of those He would forgive if they asked. His life’s blood ran to wash away our black sin and make us as white as snow.
As a young person with my whole life ahead of me, I hated to hear or read of tribulations that I might someday suffer. On the other side of youth I have come to realize that struggles, sorrows, grief, disappointment, tragedy, and the list goes on……is universal. Every human that ever walks the earth will have to face down the gates of hell and find out who God really is. And when you know, you believe or you don’t.
Heaven is a place of life, because the blood that was spilled didn’t end in death.
Happy Thursday!
Gretchen