A Word in Season: Christ’s Kings and Priests (Revelation 5:10)

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What is your perception of yourself if you are a Christian? How do you conceive of your identity and status?

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Who do you think you really are? To help answer that question we might well listen to the testimony of heaven as it is recorded in the book of the

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Revelation in chapter 5. There the four living creatures and the 24 elders are falling down before the

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Lamb who is enthroned and singing a new song saying, You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals for you were slain and have redeemed us to God by your blood out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation and have made us kings and priests to our

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God and we shall reign on the earth. We are Christ's kings and priests.

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The passage identifies something of the work of Christ. He has made us kings and priests.

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It's not our own efforts and he's done so by his promises. He's done so by his labors.

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He's done so particularly here by his sufferings. He has redeemed us being slain for us and by his blood we have been ransomed to God out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation and it is this that has constituted us

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God's people. His sufferings and death and his triumphs and his continued prayers for us have made us and kept us what we are.

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And what is that? We are kings and priests. We are a royal priesthood.

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We have privileges and dignities. We serve and we reign with our great

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God and Saviour Jesus Christ. There's a beautiful hymn or poem written by Charles Wesley for the

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Kingswood Colliers, these men and women who lived more like animals and human beings around Bristol while he was preaching.

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And he writes, For them who have now become believers through the preaching of the gospel and repentance and faith so wretched and obscure the men whom ye despise, speaking of themselves so foolish, impotent and poor, above your scorn we rise.

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We through the Holy Ghost can witness better things for he whose blood is all our boast has made us priests and kings, wretches, sinners, hell -deserving and yet raised from the ash heap and seated, made priests and kings and sat on thrones.

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And we are therefore serving our God. It is to him that we exercise these new privileges and dignities.

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And you see too that there's still more. And we shall reign on the earth.

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This is the prospect that we have before us in accordance with this status which is now ours.

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We shall reign on the earth, the new heavens and the new earth, the reign of God.

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Again, to quote a hymn, In Christ the tribes of Adam boast more blessings than their father lost.

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This is not then a status that can be taken away from us. These are not privileges and dignities which will somehow evaporate, but Christ will return and we shall reign with him and we shall be these priest kings.

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We shall be this royal priesthood. We shall be forever in the presence of God, loving him and serving him, worshipping him, doing what pleases him, bringing honour to him and serving him as his regents upon earth, reigning and governing with Christ himself.

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Now is that how we think of ourselves? Is that how we think of ourselves now?

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Because that's what we are, even though it has not yet been revealed what we shall be.

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We may not yet be reigning on the earth in the way that John records, and yet that is the sure destiny of every child of God.

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Why? Because Christ has already redeemed us by his blood and we have come into union with him and communion with the

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Godhead. He has now made you a king and a priest. He's brought you into his kingdom.

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He's established you as one of his people. He's made you one of his servants. You are able to approach

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God through Christ Jesus and you are now, if you will, in training for that glorious day when at the return of Christ, all being made new, you shall sit down with him and you shall serve him in the new heavens and the new earth.

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Let's not then lose sight of the blessings that have been purchased for us by the ransoming of the

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Son of God, the purchase of his blood and the glory that belongs to him.