Scripture Reflections

“Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns.
7 Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory,
for the marriage of the Lamb has come,
and his Bride has made herself ready;
8 it was granted her to clothe herself
with fine linen, bright and pure”—
for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints. (Rev. 19:6b-8)

This passage from Sunday has a verse that contains nearly an entire biblical doctrine in a nutshell. Like diamonds, verses like this aren’t common, but worth finding! In this instance, the doctrine is sanctification and the verse is number 8.

It was granted her—
Sanctification is given by God, not earned or possessed by us. Everything right that we do is a gift, and so our response to our own godliness should be humility and thanksgiving, not pride. Unless God moves first, we can’t move towards him. He deserves the credit for every place and time we have responded rightly to his commands.

To clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure—
One of the targets for our growth in godliness is beautiful purity. This part of the doctrine of sanctification is unpopular today, but the Bible does not hesitate to say that we are to pursue purity. John claims that everyone who hopes to see God “purifies himself as [God] is pure” (I Jn. 3:3). Paul prayed for hearts that were “blameless in holiness” for the Thessalonians (I Th. 3:13). Purity of every sort—our thoughts (Phil. 4:8-9), our conversations and jokes (Eph. 5:4), our sexual practices (I Cor. 6:18-20)—is not optional, but something the church is supposed to be striving towards at all times.

The righteous deeds—
Sanctification is less complicated than it sometimes appears. We are not called to change our whole being. We can’t change our hearts, try as we might! Instead, we are simply called to obey in specific actions, and trust that the Spirit will transform our hearts. Righteous deeds—small acts of obedience—are all that is asked of us. This means both more freedom and more rigor. It means more freedom because it is not our job to change our hearts or fix ourselves (or our spouses or children!). But we also need to be more rigorous, because little acts of obedience (like telling the truth when it hurts or refusing to grumble, slander, and gossip) are more important than we realize—they are how we grow in holiness before God.

There is more that can be said about sanctification, but the final word today comes from verse 7. God calls us to sanctification not because he values perfection for perfection’s sake or is a killjoy, but instead because we are preparing for a wedding. We will be joined to Jesus Christ in joy forever, and we are called to prepare for this like a bride preparing for her wedding day!

Steven+