My name's Noel Jew. This is study 14 of the 2011 New Creation Teaching Ministry, Ministry School. The study is found, if you're looking at the notes, on page 14.1 and it's titled, A Robe Dipped in Blood and the White Robed Armies. And when Ian sent that topic through to me, I thought, thanks a lot, Ian. I've got nothing to say about that. And then The scriptures just open up, don't they? The more you look. We're going to turn to a passage, firstly, from the book of Revelation, chapter 19. Verse 11. And I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse, and he who sat on it called Faithful and True. and in righteousness he judges and wages war. His eyes are a flame of fire and on his head are many diadems and he has a name written on him which no one knows except himself. He is clothed with a robe dipped in blood and his name is called the Word of God. And the armies which are in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, were following him on white horses From his mouth comes a sharp sword so that with it he may strike down the nations and rule them with a rod of iron and he treads the winepress of the fierce wrath of God the Almighty and on his robe and on his thigh he has the name written King of Kings and Lord of Lords. So he has a robe dipped in blood and there are white robed armies with him. That's where the title comes from. Parallels, a passage from Isaiah 63, which is in the notes, we'll come to later, but there's also another passage from Isaiah which is of immense significance, and Isaiah 59, which I refer to in the notes but don't quote. Isaiah 59, behold, the Lord's hand is not so short that it cannot save. nor is his ear so dull that it cannot hear. But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear, for your hands are defiled with blood, your fingers with iniquity, your lips have spoken falsehood, your tongue mutters wickedness, No one sues righteously. No one pleads honestly. They trust in confusion and speak lies. They conceive mischief and bring forth iniquity. They hatch adder's eggs and weave the spider's web. He who eats of their eggs dies. And from that which is crushed, a snake breaks forth." That's a complete reversal of the image of the seed. the seed of woman who is going to crush the serpent's head. That's the significance of that passage. Their webs will not become clothing nor will they cover themselves with their works. Their works are the works of iniquity and an act of violence is in their hands. Their feet run to evil and they hasten to shed innocent blood. Their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity, devastation and destruction are in their highway. They do not know the ways of peace. There is no justice in their tracks. They have made their paths crooked. Whoever treads on them does not know peace. This, beloved, is the Lord's Church. This is written about the Old Testament church Israel. It is not written about the world out there full of naughty people compared to the church which is full of nice people. In chapter 58 of Isaiah, this same Old Testament church has defined itself as righteous. It points the finger at those it defines as wicked. Isaiah 58 says you lift the yoke from the burden of the shoulders of your people and the yoke that the Lord says to be lifted is the pointing of the finger and the declaring wicked, sinner, sinner. unrighteous, unclean. When we do that, beloved, we are operating out of the flesh, even though we are God's covenant people. So 59 follows on from 58. A friend of mine said yesterday, people are either hungry for the law or they're hungry for the gospel, but they'll be hungry. Therefore justice is far from us. Righteousness does not overtake us. We hope for light but behold darkness. For brightness but we walk in gloom. We grope along the wall like blind men. We grope like those who have no eyes. We stumble at midday as in the twilight. Among those who are vigorous we are like dead men. We growl like bears and moan sadly like doves. We hope for justice, but there is none. Salvation, but it's far from us. For our transgressions are multiplied before you and our sins testify against us for our transgressions are with us and we know our iniquities. Transgression and denying the Lord, turning away from our God, speaking oppression and revolt, Conceiving and uttering from the heart lying words, justice is turned back, righteousness stands far away, truth has stumbled in the street, uprightness cannot enter, truth is lacking and he who turns aside from evil makes himself a prey. Now the Lord saw. One of the names of God is the God who sees. The Lord saw. and it was displeasing in his sight that there was no righteousness or justice. He saw there was no man and he was astonished that there was no one to intercede And so his own arm brought salvation to him, and his righteousness upheld him. He put on the righteousness like a breastplate, the helmet of salvation on his head. He put on garments of vengeance for clothing, and he wrapped himself with zeal as a mantle, and so according to his deeds he will repay. And then as the passage goes on, it refers, verse 20, to a redeemer. who will come from Zion, and those who turn from transgression in Jacob, declares the Lord. As for me, this is my covenant with them, says the Lord. My spirit which is upon you, my words which I have put in your mouth, shall not depart from your mouth, nor from the mouth of your offspring, nor from the mouth of your offspring's offspring, said the Lord, from now and forever. This session focuses on two coordinate images found in the book of the Revelation. On the one hand, the armies or multitudes of heaven are clothed in white robes, pure and spotless. On the other hand, the Son of God wears a robe dipped in blood. Why is his bloodied and not ours? What difference does this make? As we will see, these images take us to the heart of the nature of Christ's relationship with his people. They also teach us about the nature of his mission in the world in which the armies of heaven participate. From the account of creation onwards, clothes make the man. You can read the footnote and have a chuckle. From the account of creation onwards, clothing serves as an important socio-theological function in the scriptures. Garments often have a symbolic quality. For example, we may think of the ineffectual fig leaf breeches, as the 1560 Geneva Bible famously called them, they made breeches for themselves, of Adam and Eve and the far more robust animal skin garments God replaced them with, and all that this implies about sacrifice and atonement. Or of the contrasting types of clothing associated with mourning, desolation, joy and festivity, or of the special attire of the priests and the Levites and its symbolism, the significance of clothing and changes of clothing and the story of Joseph. Interesting, if you read that story, every time there's an event where he changes clothes, given clothes, has clothes taken from him, there's a change in his status, fortune. And the whole thing really is a story about by whom is he clothed and how is that clothing maintained. Beautiful shirt. Thank you, Dean. My wife bought it for me especially to match yours. But you're wearing your conservative one this morning. Thank you. I have a piece of cardboard which could go with this one. It came out of the collar the other day when I was sitting there. We could put that in like that and that would make it a sort of complete outfit then, wouldn't it? What a load of rubbish. Over to the next page. The armies of heaven have spotless robes which remain spotless. They do not wear out, nor are they self-generated as if the army had to kit itself out. The garments declare who the armies of heaven are because of what their saviour has made them to be. That the garments are white is a statement of his work. To put the matter in another way, the garments do not conceal their wearers, but reveal them. I hope that's not true about this tablecloth shirt that I'm wearing here. The saints are not whitewashed tombs, only outwardly covered in a Pharisaic righteousness, but they are fully righteous in the sun. Footnote three. This, of course, is the importance of Luther's simul justus et peccator. Believers are 100% righteous and 100% sinners at the same time. But their righteousness is always Christ's and their sin is not imputed for his sake. This prevents us leaning on ourselves in any way, either on the right hand or on the left. We rely neither upon ourselves for our righteousness nor despair of ourselves for our unrighteousness. Either way, our own conduct, inner attitudes, thoughts and feelings are not to be the cause for depression on the one hand or pride on the other, for we are in Christ. It is this which will be fully and irrevocably revealed on the last day. The preaching of the Gospel is the means by which this revelation is brought to us now in the time of travail and anxious longing. Only in the hearing of the good news are our hearts free to overflow with the Spirit's harvest. In one sense, we never look to the white garments we wear, but only to the Lord who has given them. To be closed with Christ is the same as being baptised into Christ in an inseparable union. The garments thus not only identify them as Christ's people, but protect them from his enemies, since the great power of Satan lies in his role as the accuser of his brethren. The fact that clothing was of special importance in the Roman world in which Revelation was written is also likely significant. In Roman society, social status was paramount, unlike our society, and clothing marked status. Status could be gained by a variety of means, such as military success, wealth, political position, or patrician lineage. Clothing bore a direct relationship to status, acting as a visual display of position. Togas, for example, were public display garments indicating rank, office, or title. They were worn by Roman citizens only, and strict rules applied to who should wear them and when they should be worn. Given this context, it may be justifiable to see the clothing of believers in Revelation as a statement of reverse status. Though mostly poor, often slaves and frequently persecuted, the real status of believers was revealed in their heavenly garments, not their earthly ones. They were indeed citizens of heaven, pure and exalted members of Christ's own royal household, whose Lord was Lord of all. So there are some significant clothing references in the book of Revelation. The white robe church appears in Revelation 3, 4, 5, 18 and so forth. Those are all mentioned there. The robes of Christ are described in Revelation 1.13 as part of his attire as the high priest, now glorified. In 1913, his robe dipped in blood, clearly designated as the word of God. And 1916, where the robe bears the inscription, King of Kings and Lord of Lords. In Revelation 7.14, the numberless multitude is said to have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Here, the robes of the church are not blood-stained, even though they have come from the great tribulation on the earth. They are washed in the blood, but bear no bloody marks. The Word of God alone bears the blood of His sacrifice. Battle, verse 4, footnote 4, I use the phrase sacrifice battle to indicate the inseparable connection between the victory of Christ and the sacrifice of Christ. In the commentaries, opinion is divided as to whether his robe is stained with the blood of his own cross or the blood of the vengeance on his enemies. As we will see, the saving and judging work of God are two aspects of the one action. His atoning sacrifice is his victory. The church is always freed by the blood but not stained with her own blood. The filth and bloodshed of the church has been washed by God's own judgement wherein his own spirit of burning has opened up a fountain to utterly cleanse his people. There's a number of references there. The white robe multitudes are but one picture of the church and her garments or her apparel. In other places, her raiment is creational. She's shown to wear the sun, the moon and the stars or great gems. She simply said to have the glory of God. In all instances, her clothing is given rather than manufactured. Even when speaking of the righteous deeds of the saints, these are granted to her from God. On the other hand, the gaudy clothing of the harlot city, by which he tries to contrive her glory, contrasts starkly with the white robes and creation glory of the church. Elsewhere in the book, the colour white is associated with the glorified Jesus, his messengers and the throne of God. Throughout the scriptures, white and the dazzling light associated with it bespeak God's glory, purity and transcendent holiness. That the church shares in these characteristics is astounding, given what we've read about the nature of the church. In Revelation 11.3, the two witnesses are clad in sackcloth, although also clothed with authority from heaven. This assures them of great power even as they suffer and die because of their testimony to Jesus. Though their precise identity is much debated, they are at least part of the church and they preach the gospel in the midst of the city. Their garments bespeak humility and repentance. The Church has received the gift of repentance from God and so preaches the grace of repentance to the world. Don't have time to unpack. Footnote 6. Old Testament background to Revelation 19, 11-16. Isaiah 63, 1-6 corresponds most clearly with Revelation 19. Who is this who comes from Edom in crimson garments from Bozrah? He who is splendid in his apparel, marching in the greatness of his strength. In his eyes, speaking in righteousness, mighty to save. Why is your apparel red and your garments like his who treads the winepress? I have trodden the winepress alone, and from the peoples no one was with me. I trod them in my anger and trampled them in my wrath. Their lifeblood spattered my garments and stained all my apparel. For the day of vengeance was in my heart and my year of redemption had come. Sort of thing you could build a crusade on, isn't it? We did. I looked, but there was no one to help. I was appalled, but there was no one to uphold. So my own arm brought me salvation and my wrath upheld me. I trampled down the peoples in my anger and made them drunk in my wrath and I poured out their lifeblood on the earth. If you want a God like that, do you know what I mean by that? You can hunger for a God who is going to just wreck the place. are pagans, are infidels. And it's out of that sort of theology of glory which has given birth to the Crusades and so many other dreadful aspects of Christian history. There are a number of threads here in this passage from Isaiah 63. Firstly, we pick up the theme of Yahweh as Israel's warrior. Though extensive in the Old Testament, we deal with it only in cursory form. You see it in the example of David and Goliath. It was an example of champion battle where one represented one nation and the other represented another. And David's cry was that this assembly may know the Lord does not deliver by by sword or spear for the battle is the Lord's and he will give you into our hands. So when Goliath fell dead at his feet, David knew that God had defeated him. It was always so and ever will be. Even if God uses a human instrument, he does the work. Goliath strode out against David, cursing him in the name of his gods. David ran out to meet him in the name of Yahweh, with only his slingshot in his hand. After flooring him with a rock to the forehead, he seized Goliath's own sword to finish the job and took his head back to Jerusalem as a spoil of battle. Leaping ahead in the narrative, Saul's defeat by the Philistines at Mount Gilboa is reported with all the brutality of ancient warfare. After he had fallen on his own sword, his foes cut off his head and stripped his armour off and sent messengers throughout the land of the Philistines to carry the good news to the house of their idols and to the people. The writer of Chronicles reports this and says, they put his armour in the house of their gods and fastened his head in the house of Dagon. Is all this but bloody trophy hunting, the unfettered cruelty of ancient warfare before the vocabulary of war crimes and atrocities? Or is something more being indicated here? In the ancient world, people understood that a nation stood or fell by virtue of the gods ruling over it. Armies were not expressions of secular power, but the earthly combatants in a spiritual conflict, In battle, Dagon's forces were pitted against Yahweh's. Israel's defeat meant that Saul's head was a trophy to Dagon as Goliath's was to Yahweh. So when Dagon falls on his face, decapitated and rendered powerless, it's Yahweh alone who's responsible. There's another example there from Isaiah 36, which we won't read now because it's too long. But second paragraph on page 14.5. This speech from the Rabshaker, the man who was trying to demoralise Israel's trust in Yahweh, was crafted to dishearten the people by undermining trust in God. So it was then and always is. Satan always seeks to undermine trust in the Lord and to turn us towards our own ability for protection and deliverance, whether that's militarily, financially, politically or by turning you to your own righteousness to say, that's what I'll wear. I'll put on the shield of my own righteousness and take up the sword of my own righteous anger and I will wear the headpiece of my own religious purity. God had called Israel to trust him no matter what since he was Israel's warrior. But they had to be strengthened to do so since their hearts had failed them. We cannot lift ourselves up when we're down, discouraged and demoralised sheep don't know where to run. They need to hear someone call them by name to get them to turn from the enemy's countenance and to look at the shepherd's face. And that was Isaiah's great ministry. He was raised up as the Lord's prophets to stir the heart of the king and nation, not to renewed commitment, but to renewed faith. This is always the goal of the preaching of the word. The nation's inability was the occasion for the Lord's strength to be made perfect in their feebleness. God did not help them get their defences in order so that they could rout the Assyrians by their brilliance and bravery. He did it all himself. They woke up and they were all dead men. Interesting experience. This is one of the main contrasts between Israel and the other ancient Near Eastern societies. Whereas in other cultures, the gods assisted the kings to bring victory, Yahweh himself was Israel's warrior. And the very mode by which this occurred was also different. In other nations, the gods needed to be bribed to be favourably disposed to their devotees. In Israel, God rescued his people in remembrance of his own faithfulness. Likewise, in Isaiah 63, 1-6, God acts to defeat Israel's enemies just in this same manner. There was no one to stand, no one to come, so He did. As always, He fights for Israel on this occasion against Edom. Even when He fought against Israel, He was for her, as Hosea 11 makes clear. We don't understand that. How can I give you up, O Israel? I will but I won't. The exile isn't the exile finally. I'm against you but I'm for you in being against you. Secondly, we note the symbolic importance of Edom. Edom had entered into an opportunistic alliance with the Babylonians and rejoiced loudly over Jerusalem's destruction, encouraging the Babylonians to make a proper job of it. The Edomites had long been enemies of Israel. Though Esau, their progenitor, had come to terms with the fact that Jacob inherited the blessing, his descendants let the matter fester. They'd entered into other anti-Israelite alliances in Israel's earlier history. They'd been defeated by Saul and again by David, and that situation continued under Solomon, but under the Israel-Judas schism, they became a vassal of Judah, so they rejoiced when the Babylonian invasion came. They cheered on the plunderers with alacrity. This brought a long history of antagonism and animosity towards Israel to a head, what Mattia calls ancestral, age-long, festering hatred. Sounds like an interdenominational fight, doesn't it? Edom hated Israel because of Jacob, but also because Israel was thereby the bearer of the promised seed. So Edom's hostility was but one aspect of Genesis 3.15 about the seed coming from woman and the opposition between her seed and Satan's seed. It comes as no surprise to learn that Herod the Great was an Edomite. and his action against the infant Messiah bespoke his people's long hostility to Israel as much as his own insecurity. Ultimately, however, in attempting to murder the infant king, he was acting as the agent of the ancient serpent himself. At the time of Jerusalem's devastation, Jeremiah saw the Lord would not let Edom's haughtiness stand. Together with Isaiah, Ezekiel, Amos, Obadiah, he prophesied Edom's destruction. Curiously enough, the history of ancient Edom ends with a whimper more than a bang. We have no clear account of what happened to them as a national entity. No overwhelming military conquest marks their demise, for example, and there's no evidence of natural disaster overtaking them. We also need to reckon with the curious fact that Herod's line rose to great status internationally. Taken together, these suggest we should read the references to their obliteration as alluding to something other than mere national retribution. Rather, Edom stands... See, mere national retribution would be the Holocaust in reverse. You don't want a God who just runs the Holocaust in reverse. Rather, Edom stands for the archetypal foe, and the judgment of Edom becomes a symbol of God's eschatological destruction of his enemies. The significance is not in the nation per se, but what they represented. So in rabbinic theology of the Roman period, Edom represented Rome. The vocabulary of trampling down, which connotes the crushing of the serpent's head in Genesis 3.15, gives further weight to this conclusion. Such language is also echoed in Psalm 91 and Psalm 110, and other places, which signify the utter defeat and disarming of God's foes. God had promised that all his enemies will be under the feet of his Messiah as the uncontested Lord of all. Ultimately, the enemy is the serpent and crushing all the subsidiary allies is part and parcel of crushing his head. So thirdly, we note the juxtaposition of the concepts of judgement and salvation. The Day of Retribution and Vengeance and the Day of Redemption and Grace are but two sides of the one event. The Lord, whose garments are crimson with the blood of Edom, is or speaks righteousness, is mighty to save. The Day of Vengeance is also the Year of Redemption, which is why Isaiah 63.7, Song of Great Praise, follows God's action of recompense. Just as in the Exodus, which Andrew led us in in worship, the song of the victory of the sea, God's judgement saved his people and led to worship. This is a common thread in the Old Testament. But as for me, Micah 7, just hang in this passage for a minute, as for me, I will look to the Lord. I will wait for the God of my salvation. My God will hear me because I'm righteous, because I've kept the law, because I'm holier than the Edomites. Rejoice not over me, my enemy, When I fall, I shall rise because I believe in myself. No. When I fall, I shall rise. When I sit in darkness, the Lord will be a light to me. Why? I will bear the indignation of the Lord because I've sinned against him. My hope's not because I've not sinned against Him. I will bear the indication of the Lord because I've sinned against Him until He pleads my cause and executes judgment for me. For me, the sinner. He executes judgment for me, the sinner. He will bring me out to the light. I shall look upon his vindication. What view of God do you have? That your obedience has somehow rendered you in a different category from the Edomites who live next door to you and drop their rubbish over your fence. Then my enemy will see and shame will cover her who said to me, where is the Lord your God? My eyes will look now upon her and she will be trampled down like the mire in the streets. Now there's a national statement there. Israel's making a statement to the other nations. But there's a personal statement. What's written there is actually your experience of salvation. It's very significant, I think, that in the Augsburg Confession, Luther enshrined in the Augsburg Confession not just the doctrine of justification but the experience of it. And it says that the knowledge of justification is only known in a conflict. When you have sinned against the Lord, when your conscience is tearing you apart, when the law is crushing and destroying you, when every element of your shame and guilt is tearing at you, Satan will say to you, well go and be righteous, go and be obedient and construct an armour for yourself to defend yourself against the wrath of God. Faith in the darkness of that conscience-stricken place of your sin rises anonymously in the dark and causes you to run to God and causes you to say, God, you will save me from my own sin. That's the only place you know justification. You don't speculate it as a doctrine. And when you're in that place, you can no longer point the finger at someone else and declare wickedness. Because everything has come upon you to declare your wickedness. And God saves you. I think it's a beautiful thing that the Oxford Confession should enshrine, so to speak, the experience, not just a doctrine. So God's righteous judgments and his impeachable holiness are the grounds of his saving deeds. Righteousness and love, grace and justice are held together as differentiations within the same unity and even within the unity of a single thought or a word. Righteousness and love are essentially the same tissue and are only thought of as they involve one another. And because this love finds an answer of salvation rising out of the ground of defined righteousness itself, far from evading righteousness, it actually puts the sinner in the right with God and His righteousness. This is justifying love. Now that righteousness has no other demands, it can be trusted without fear. Wonderful statement. Then we have a section on God's intercession. with his people. Just pick up the passage. Significantly in Isaiah 53 we're shown that this intercessory action is also salvation. Here we conflate a number of passages. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way. The Lord has laid upon him interceded. That's the same word. For the iniquity of us all Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many and divide the spoil with the strong because he's poured out his soul to death, was numbered with the transgressors, he bore the sins of many and makes intercession. Same word. He saw there was no man and wondered there was no one to intercede. Same word. His own arm brought him salvation and his righteousness upheld him. Isaiah 59 is the hinge of grace on which Israel's history turns. Look later at footnote 14. The revelation of Israel's sin is truly scarifying. The glorious images of Zion are breathtaking. The grace of God which acts to bring such transformation is amazing, indeed scandalous. Why the New Testament connections? We won't have time to do all of that. We have only a couple of minutes left. I'm sorry, I've got it all wrong in the timing. Let's pick up the quote one third of the way down. Sin was the ground of Satan's dominion, the sphere of his power, the secret of his strength. No sooner was the guilt lying on us extinguished than his throne was undermined, as Jesus himself said. When the guilt of his sin was abolished, Satan's dominion over God's people was ended. For the ground of his authority was the law which had been violated and the guilt which had been incurred. All of the mistakes have arisen from not perceiving with sufficient clearness how the triumph could be celebrated through his cross. Through the same sacrifice, the warrior lamb secures us forever. In him we're protected by God to receive imperishable salvation. He is able to keep us from falling and present us blameless at the day of his coming. How? We, like Joshua in Zechariah 3, have received a change of garments, and so Satan has no purchase on us. He has been defeated by a day of recompense and vengeance on all our sin, for the branch of Jesse has removed the iniquity of the land in one day. Thus the saints overcome the evil one only with the word of their testimony to Jesus, their warrior saviour. With him the armies of heaven come in white robes, the gift of his own bloody sacrifice. Though accomplished once and for all on Calvary, the blood of Christ goes on cleansing us from all sin throughout all ages. This total cleansing is his gift to us. It's the gift of his own victory to us. It's the action of the Lion of Judah who fought for us on the cross as the lamb in our place. His priestly intercession in heaven is but the ongoing expression of his faithfulness on the one hand and his acceptable work on the other. The blood has cleansed and as a redeemed people we're led to the Father's presence in him who is the high priest of our confession. The armies of heaven in white robes are one with the redeemed of the earth. All of God's work has been completed in Christ, but we share in his mission to proclaim the gospel of his grace to the world. We wear his garments, they come from him, they are kept spotless by him. We are with him and he owns us as his own, fellow citizens of his father's heavenly kingdom. He's fought for us in our place by taking all our sin into himself on the cross. We were trampled down in him under the judgment of God, in which holy action created the very possibility of resurrection. The Lion of Judah is the Lamb of God. Our champion is our sacrifice. He overcomes by entering the Holocaust of Calvary. The Lion is the hola, the burnt offering. The Lamb is the conquering hero. Only in this way is the ancient serpent overcome, but overcome he is once and for all. The resurrection harried hell, released the captives, creating one new man. God stood up for us on Easter day when there was no one else who would stand or could, and we stand with him, never to die again. We stand looking out of the tomb at a new creation with death behind us, judgement past, and a whole new creation in our hands. While Satan and his cohorts assumed Christ to be stricken, smitten by God and afflicted, he was pierced through for our transgressions. The Lord caused the iniquity of us all to fall on him. He's forgiven us by judging our sins in Christ. He's removed Satan's siege works around Zion by cutting off his supply line at the root. And he now takes us with him to the nations to proclaim the victory of his grace. Many of his people are killed, but they remain his eternally. Many stumble and fall, but he makes them stand because all his works are sure. Many cry out, how long, O Lord, and he assures them of his presence. He is speedily avenging his elect and gathering the rest of our brothers. In every circumstance, the effective judgment intercession he's brought about in the cross secures the church for all time and eternity. We are the church, defeated by the warrior lamb, which defeat is also our salvation. And I'm over by three minutes, sorry.