Revelation 19:13 Commentary and Bible Study

Though these words might suggest the blood of the Lamb shed for sinners, the connection with Isaiah 63 makes this interpretation untenable. In both passages, the one in view is going forth against his enemies. According to this chapter, Christ is going out to make war with his enemies (verse 11), to strike the unbelieving nations (verse 15), to tread the winepress of the fierceness of the wrath of God (verse 15). But Isaiah also has him pursuing vengeance (63:4), bringing down the strength of the peoples to the earth (63:6) and treading in the winepress (63:3). Isaiah tells us that what is sprinkled on the garments of the Son of God is the blood of those trampled in anger, and John is surely using the same picture. This is not his own blood, but the blood of his enemies that is splattered on him as he engages with them and overcomes them. The blood of Christ shed for sinners, is never pictured as wasted by being sprinkled on his own clothing. This is the vengeance of God against his enemies, a continuation of the description of the fall of Babylon, but now with the additional insight that it is the time of Christ’s vengeance and that the saints share his victory. He has personally taken vengeance on the wicked and gone into the winepress to trample them with his own feet. His name is ‘The Word of God’. This name is used by John in his other New Testament writings and is unique to him as a name for Christ. It is used here for the first time in the book of Revelation. It is simple, yet deeply profound. We understand enough of it from our own constitution as human beings to begin to grasp what it means. We too have been made with inner thought processes which cannot be seen by those around us. We also know what it is to express the hidden depths of our hearts in words that bring out what is hidden within us. Our words are imperfect expressions of our thoughts. We struggle to do justice to the precision that logic requires and the subtleties of the shades of our emotions, but he is the perfect Word of God. Christ is ‘the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person’ (Hebrews 1:3). Where we fail to express ourselves adequately, he succeeds perfectly, ‘For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily’ (Colossians 2:9). He reveals the Father to us and he says, ‘He that hath seen me hath seen the Father’ (John 14:9). He reveals not only by what he says, but by what he does. Every act of Christ is informed by all the attributes of God, his perfect knowledge and wisdom. Every act is a door that leads to the knowledge of God. He is the key that makes accessible to us the infinite God on High.