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Rev. 1
“To Him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by His blood, and has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve His God and Father – to Him be glory and power for ever and ever! Amen.” (Rev. 1:5b-6). Boy, does that ever sound like a very brief synopsis of the Jewish exodus from Egypt! God freed the Jews from their bondage by the blood of the Passover lamb and established them as a kingdom. Then, within that kingdom, God redeemed a subset to represent the firstborn who had been saved by the lamb’s blood. These He made priests, established to love and serve Him.
These images from the Old Testament story are images of those of us who believe in the name of Jesus Christ. Within the world, we are Israel, established as God’s Holy Kingdom. And within Israel, we are the priests, set apart to serve God. They are fractal images, for any who know what that means, which I find very interesting. I have to think that John’s use of this imagery here is intentional, though I don’t know at this point the significance of it. It seems to me, though, that John is setting this reference as a foundation to whatever follows. Whatever the case, I am always fascinated by the application of the Old Testament stories to the working out of God’s great redemptive plan in the New Testament.
2 Chron. 31-32
What were Hezekiah’s successes? Failures? What I see in Hezekiah’s story is that life is a test. Hezekiah started out strong. He was on fire for God, “doing what was good and right and faithful before the LORD his God.” (2 Chron. 31:20b). And for a while, he prospered. But then, “after all that Hezekiah had so faithfully done, Sennacherib king of Assyria came and invaded Judah.” (2 Chron. 32:1a).
This reminds me of Amaziah, from a few days ago. Amaziah obeyed God and almost instantly saw his hardship increased. Here, Hezekiah faced failure and destruction in spite of all his faithfulness. Rather than losing faith as Amaziah had done, though, Hezekiah held fast to his faith in God through this hardship. Hezekiah fought the lies and the fear with truth and prayer. “With him is only the arm of flesh, but with us is the LORD our God to help us and to fight our battles.” (2 Chron. 32:8a). God not only stepped in to save Hezekiah, but He increased his wealth and prestige after the incident as well.
After a miraculous healing from an illness that should have killed him, however, Hezekiah’s heart became proud. Like king Uzziah, who followed king Amaziah, Hezekiah forgot to fear God. Though he repented so that God delayed His coming wrath, Hezekiah allowed that pride to grow again as he gained even more wealth and honor. Thus, when Babylon sent envoys to him the Chronicler says, “God left him to test him and to know everything that was in his heart.” So I see that we are often tested by blessing as well as hardship.
The truth is, faithless fear and complacent pride threaten us throughout our lives. None of us are immune to them, and none of us can stand up to every test. We all fail at some point. King David failed. Hezekiah failed. Even the apostle Peter failed. Jesus is the only human who faithfully stood up to every test. The good news is that how we stand up to the test isn’t what really matters. Righteous Jesus paid the price for all of our failures. What matters, then, is how we respond to both our successes and our failures. Though we would all love to be proven faithful, what really matters is that we are proven humble in the end.