Revelation 21:8- Christ our Saviour from sins and the "lake which burneth with fire and brimstone"

Believers, remember Revelation 21:8 (KJV)- "8 But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death."

When we hear this verse quoted in many places of worship, it is usually in the context of “You’d better stop... (fill in the blank with any of the sins above) and come to Christ or else God will punish you and you will burn in hell.” Those who are already trying hard to overcome their sins and addictions get weighed down and depressed as they can see so hope of Salvation, even from the sins that hold them captive.

There is no mention of Christ as the Saviour who saves us from those sins so we don’t end up among the hell-bound bunch, as it is written in Matthew 1:21 - “She will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.

No mention of Christ saving from sins. Rather, the people are told to go and figure out their salvation from their sins using self-effort and sheer determination at getting into God’s good books. We are told to do our best to obey the law so that we will not find ourselves among this hell-bound bunch. But Romans 3:20 says “For no one can ever be made right with God by doing what the law commands. The law simply shows us how sinful we are.”

Absolute righteousness is a prerequisite for escaping judgment. James 2:10 says “For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all.”

Our very best efforts at doing good things and obeying the law cannot make any righteous before God. They cannot help anyone escape perishing in the second death that is hell, yet straight from some pulpits, the world that God so loved is being told that they can be godly (be like God) and escape hell by obeying the law; herein lies the problem. Romans 6:14 says: “For sin shall not have dominion over you for you are not under law but under grace.” Try to obey the law in order to get right with God and sin will strengthen its grip/have dominion over your life! This is the sure way to secure a ride to hell. But many have this verse backwards. Also see Galatians 5:4-

“For if you are trying to make yourselves right with God by keeping the law, you have been cut off from Christ! You have fallen away from God’s grace.”

Try to obey the law in order to get right with God and escape His fiery judgment, including the second death, and be cut off from Christ.

God saw how hopeless our case was and because He loved us so and does not desire for any to perish, He sent His own Son to save us from our sins. Christ came to save us from our sins that lead to death which culminates in the second death, including all the sins in Revelation 21:8 above, as it is written in Matthew 1:21-

"She will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.”

We see our salvation from hell in the word of Christ Himself in John 3:16- “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life."

At the cross, God’s righteous justice and His loving-kindness met. No sin will go unpunished and the wages of sin is death, including the second death in hell, so He punished ALL of our sins to the uttermost in the body of the Lamb that He Himself provided for our atonement, our Saviour Jesus Christ, so that we can walk away righteous and guilt-free.

At the cross there was a righteous exchange. God put our entire lifetime of sins on Christ who knew no sin so that we might become righteous as it is written in 2 Corinthians 5:21- “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”

This is the everlasting righteousness that a believer can never lose because we did nothing to earn it to begin with, just as we did nothing to become sinners. See Romans 5:19- “For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man’s obedience many will be made righteous.”

Adam’s sin made everyone descended from Adam sinners even before his descendants could commit acts of sin. It is this sinful nature that was inherited from Adam that makes one able to commit acts of sin. When activated by the law that many are struggling to keep thanks to wrong teachings, sin has dominion/proliferates as is shown in Romans 7:4-

“When we were controlled by our old nature, sinful desires were at work within us, and the law aroused these evil desires that produced a harvest of sinful deeds, resulting in death.” The law that many try to keep arouses evil desires that produce plentiful sin and make such hell-bound!

Adam’s disobedience is what makes a person a sinner and not acts of sin. Likewise, Christ’s obedience is what makes us righteous, even though we have done no act of righteousness. In fact, see how Isaiah 64:6 describes the good things we do to get right with God aka our righteousnesses:

“We are all like one who is unclean, all our so-called righteous acts are like a menstrual rag in your sight.”

All the good things we do and laws kept in order to be righteous before God and escape hell are like a menstruation cloth before God! Only the gift of righteousness that proceeds from Christ’s obedience will suffice. With Christ as our righteousness, we have been circumcised of the old sinful nature that we inherited from Adam which could only produce sin. See Colossians 2:13-

“You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ, for He forgave all our sins.”

And this is the result: “So, my dear brothers and sisters, this is the point: You died to the power of the law when you died with Christ. And now you are united with the One who was raised from the dead. As a result, we can produce a harvest of good deeds for God.” Romans 7:4

Remember “whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life." To believe in Jesus is to believe His word which says in Hebrews 10 “But our High Priest offered Himself to God as a single sacrifice for sins, good for all time. Then He sat down in the place of honor at God’s right hand. 13 There He waits until His enemies are humbled and made a footstool under His feet. 14 For by that one offering He forever made perfect those who are being made holy.”

By His one offering we are made forever perfect. Only believe. No more offering for sins (Hebrews 10:18.) He has done it all, including rescuing us from the fate of the hell-bound in Revelation 21:8.

Christ came to save us from our sins so that we will not perish in hell. Only believe. Many of those who think that it is their law-keeping that gives them right-standing with God think that sinners love to wallow in their sins but I submit to you that many are looking for the Way out. Jesus is the Way out.

Many, even some “Christians,” come against the message of the cross (Grace- undeserved, unmerited, unearned favour) and falsely accuse grace children of saying that it is okay to sin since we have grace! Not so. It is the very law that people are trying to keep in order to escape hell that causes sin to have dominion, “For sin shall not have dominion over you for you are not under law but under grace” Romans 6:14.

Grace - undeserved, unearned, unmerited favour- is the power of God to salvation. It is the key to living in triumph over sin and death (sickness, lack, fear are all part of death) which culminates the second death in hell. We see this in Romans 5:17-

“For the sin of this one man, Adam, caused death to rule over many. But even greater is God’s wonderful grace and His gift of righteousness, for all who receive it will live in triumph over sin and death through this one Man, Jesus Christ.”

Adam’s sin brought death. In Christ, not only do we get to get to stop living in sin, something we could never achieve with all of our efforts at law-keeping, we get to triumph over death too. We get to enjoy God’s gift of eternal life. Nothing to do with what we did. All to do with what Christ has done.

Don’t fret if you are still struggling to give up some sins. Remember Colossians 2:13- “You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ, for He forgave all our sins.”

With Christ as your Righteousness, the dead and even maggoty animal (sinful nature) in the vessel that is you has been cut away. The inside of you is now clean and filled with the Righteousness of Another, Jesus Christ! Only believe. There might still be some maggots and flies (acts of sin) on the outside of the vessel which the world sees and judges you by but they will all dry up and fall off.

Same thing happened with Abraham who the Lord declared righteous because He believed. After the Lord declared him righteous, he slept with Hagar to get Ishmael who was born according to the flesh and deceived a Pharaoh of Egypt and Abimelech of Gerar in the matter of Sarah being his wife to save his own neck...twice! Anyone looking at Him would condemn him because of the “maggots on the outside of the vessel.” But the Lord still saw him as righteous. And then Abraham did the ultimate work of faith by offering Isaac at the altar!

This is not to say sin is acceptable to God. Never. Sin is an abomination to God, even the tiniest sin. God hates sin because it destroys the sinner. Until today, the descendants of Ishmael persecute the Jews. But without receiving His gift of righteousness, the sin nature within (deadness in the vessel) will remain. Try as one might to scrub the outside of the vessel with law-keeping, the deadness within will continue to produce more maggots (acts of sin.)

With Christ as our righteousness, our inside is now clean, hence no maggots to replace those on the outside after our receiving the abundance of Grace and the gift of righteousness; only an overflowing of works of faith done not by you but Christ in you.

Many people that boast about their human effort at law-keeping and good works and tell you to do same to be right with God are just good at cleaning the outside of their vessels. Inside is usually filled with secret sins like porn addiction and lust that the world cannot see. This is how come the “righteous” Pharisees and teachers of religious law could not stone the woman caught in adultery when Jesus asked them that important question- “He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first.”

So whenever mouthpieces of the Accuser, even those on the pulpit, come to bully you with their perversion and twisting of Revelation 21:8 and their twisted interpretation of “faith without works is dead” in a bid to get you who have been made righteous by the obedience of Christ to go back to trying to keep the law to get re-righteous and re-saved by your own efforts at obeying the law, know who and Whose you are: Christ’s. He finished the work of our salvation when He cried "Finished" at the cross. Only believe.

Know that you are saved from hell not by right doing or because you obeyed the law and did good things but because you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. His obedience made us righteous (Romans 5:19.) Only this way do we get to do works of faith that are pleasing to the Lord.