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12/23 Reading Portions: 2 Chronicles 27-28; Revelation 14; Zechariah 10; John 13
John 13:1
Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.
LOVE
God is love. The Bible tells us so (1 Jn 4:8). Jesus, the second Person of the Triune God, deity in human flesh and the brightness of God’s glory and the express image of His character, loves His own with a love containing no fault, no filth, and no schism. The word “end” is the Greek word τέλος (TEL-os), which means “perfect,” “complete,” or “uttermost.” In other words, the Lord Jesus loved them to the very outskirts of love’s expression— to the end. He loves all His followers with this precious end-love. Jesus, the eternal Son, has revealed the Father to us so that…
…His Father’s name [is] written in [our] foreheads. Revelation 14:1 (keep in mind that the original Greek is translated 144,000s, plural, just as it is in Rev 7:4-8)
Because Christ Jesus, the Lamb of God, loves us, our lives are a new song before His throne (Rev 14:3). Because Jesus loves us to the end, we are undefiled as redeemed citizens of Mount Zion because His righteousness is imputed unto us (Rev 14:4). Because of Christ’s to-the-end-love, the gospel fruit of our lips is pure truth, while we are blameless in Him (Rev 14:5). Because of Christ’s far-reaching love, the everlasting gospel is not some fable conjured by the corruptions of mortal flesh, but divinely proclaimed by God’s grace from above (Rev 14:6-9); for ungodly and unrighteous men suppress the truth of God’s wrath by their unrighteousness (Rom 1:18). In Christ’s perfect, complete, and eternal love, He has made us to “be like mighty men in battle, trampling the foe” of our corrupt flesh “in the mud of the streets” (Zech 10:5); and like Jotham the king of Judah, in Christ’s love, we will become mighty because we have ordered our ways before YHVH our God (2 Chr 27:6). Hallelujah! What a loving Savior!
Christ loves us to the uttermost,
Who serves our gospel feet
With water from the Holy Ghost,
For th’ world’s a muddy street.
"original Greek is translated 144,000s, plural"
Meaning more than 144,000?