This is once again a picture of redemption: the Lord Jesus has purchased people from every tribe and tongue. Payment has been made with blood. “You are not your own; you were bought at a price”— with the precious blood of Jesus.1 The crucified Christ is a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles,2 but it is the power of God and the wisdom of God. He is worthy and able to take the scroll and to open it. He possesses the necessary power and wisdom. The four living creatures and the twenty-four elders sing a new song. This is the first time that singing is mentioned. Only the text of the worship that was offered was mentioned until now, saying: “HOLY, HOLY, HOLY is THE LORD GOD, THE ALMIGHTY, WHO WAS AND WHO IS AND WHO IS TO COME” and “Worthy are You, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honour and power; for You created all things, and because of Your will they existed, and were created.”3 But here the harp is present too and a new song is sung.
Why is it new? Because it is spontaneous and fresh?4
Undoubtedly, but the song referred to here is completely new, especially for this unique event.5 Until now the celestial beings had offered their praise to the holiness and the eternity of God, and to His creative might. But now redeemed people enter into their view—the redeemed from all the corners of the world, gathered before God from every race, every colour of skin, every social level of society, every tongue, dialect or accent, every land, every form of government, every ethnic and cultural type.
Everything becomes new in the Book of Revelation: a new song, a new name,6 New Jerusalem,7 a New Heaven and a New Earth.8 “I am making everything New.”9 What is ‘new’ here is the fact that, for the first time, the ‘song of praise’ refers to the Lamb and those He has redeemed. God’s plan of salvation becomes visible. God is going to make people, human beings to be kings and priests, to be priestly kings. People are to be made kings next to the King. Just as the living creatures represent Creation before the throne and the twenty-four elders reign as princes over the celestial beings, so people will reign upon the earth. People are not going to reign in Heaven, but on earth. We belong to the Creation of space, matter and time. This was no mistake on God’s part. It is not intended that earth will finally cease to exist and that only Heaven will remain, but that there will be Heaven on earth. Devoid of sin, sickness, the devil and death, earth will become a paradise once again—indeed, more than that. Creation and mankind belonging to it achieve their goal—from innocence to the fall, from atonement to glory.
• The Lamb was slaughtered. The word ‘slaughter’ used in connection with human beings is only used in the Book of Revelation and in Luke 19:27 (KJV) “But those Mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before Me.” But here it reminds us of Isaiah 53:7.10 “He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He did not open His mouth; Like a lamb that is led to slaughter, and like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, so He did not open His mouth.”
• Besides ‘redeeming’ in the sense of what a ‘goël’, a ‘redeemer’ (Exodus 13, Leviticus 25 and 27, Ruth 3:13, 4:4-6) this purchase also reminds us of the practice in ancient culture in the Middle East of the redemption of a slave, for which the price of redemption had to be laid down in the temple of a god so that a god bought the slave from his human owner as it were. That owner then received the money from that temple and the slave received his freedom, even though he formally remained the property of the temple, of the god.
• There must be no discrimination in the Church of Jesus Christ—neither on the basis of race, nor on the basis of colour of skin, gender, income, level of intellect, adult or child, etc.
• They, the chosen and redeemed from the nations of the earth, stand as priests before God, in relationship with Him and the Lamb, and reign as kings on earth.11 Virtually all Bible scholars agree that ‘our’ instead of ‘them’ (meaning human beings instead of angels) like in the Dutch ‘Statenvertaling’ and in the English King James Version is based on lesser, later Greek manuscripts.
Bible References:
1. 1 Corinthians 6:20 2.1 Corinthians 1:23 3.Revelation 4:8 and 11 4.Psalm 33:3, 98:1, 144:9, 149:1 5.Comp. Isaiah 42:9–10 6.Revelation 2:17, 3:12 7.Revelation 3:12, 21:2 8.Revelation 21:1 9.Revelation 21:5 10.Revelation 5:6, 9, 12 and 13:8, also 6:9 and 18:24 11.Comp. Matthew 5:5; 1 Corinthians 4:8; Revelation 20:6 and 22:5
