Blessed [are] they that wash their robes, that they may have right to the tree of life, and that they should go in by the gates into the city.
Older English Bibles read this verse differently: "Blessed are they that do His commandments." That one difference decides whether the right to the tree of life is earned or given.
The two readings point in opposite directions. One rests the blessing on what a person does. The other rests it on what washes him.
The Authorised Version reads, "Blessed are they that do His commandments." But every critical scholar of note rejects the reading in our English Bibles. Obedience to commandments is not the ground on which eternal life is bestowed. It is God's gift to all who believe (John 5:24). The reading "that wash their robes" agrees with Revelation 7:14, which uses a similar expression. In both cases only the blood of the Lamb could wash the symbolic robes of the redeemed. In Revelation 7 that blood gave the saved crowd from the nations the right to stand before the throne (Revelation 7:15). Here it gives the title to the tree of life and entrance into the golden city.
Another writer explains how the mistake got in:
The words sounded alike in the original language, and that misled some of the copyists. But the best authorities for the text leave no doubt: it is "wash their robes."
The problem with the old reading is not only about wording. Keeping rules cannot wash away a stain that is already there.
Such washing in the blood of the Lamb is absolutely essential to give one a right to the tree of life — a right to communion with the Lord Jesus Himself. Just keeping His commandments can never give anyone that right. That in itself would be a form of law-keeping and could not wash away the contamination of sin. It is the blood of Christ that gives title to the enjoyment of His person (the tree of life) and to the inheritance (the city). After that washing, though, we are called to obey the Word of God gladly.
The tree of life first appears in the garden of Eden. Man was driven out, and cherubim — angelic guardians — with a flaming sword blocked the way back. This verse says the way is open again, and it says why.
Man's sin in Eden lost him the fruit of the tree of life. The cherubim and the flaming sword shut him out, set there "to guard the way to the tree of life." But now the great work of redemption is finished. The Saviour of sinners has borne the judgment that came in by the tree of the knowledge of good and evil — the tree man ate from, the tree that defiled his conscience. So in the Paradise of God nothing remains but the tree of life, and everyone washed in the blood of the Lamb may come to it. No flaming sword now blocks the way for the simplest believer in Jesus.
The verse names two things, not one, and they are not the same kind of blessing.
The blessed ones are those who wash their robes, and their portion is twofold. They have "the right to the tree of life" — this is their personal portion. And they "enter the city by the gates" — this is their collective portion.
Who exactly is in view? One writer ties the promise to the glorified — all who belong to Christ at His coming. The city and its tree stand on the heavenly side of the scene:
Access to the tree of life and entrance into the city seem to belong to the heavenly side of the kingdom, where the righteous will shine out... Those who have their part in the tree of life and in the heavenly city will be the glorified saints — that is, all who are Christ's at His coming.
The next verse lists who stays outside. Together the two verses show how righteousness and grace hold together.
So while righteousness has been declared the principle of Christ's judgment, grace is the foundation on which the blessing of the redeemed rests... For unless a man is washed in this way, he is defiled in himself and must stay outside. He is counted among the dogs, or unclean, the sorcerers, the sexually immoral, the idolaters, the murderers, and those who love and practise lying — people who have no place in the holy city.
One writer notes how final this "without" is: it is used here in its "final and irrevocable sense, no passage being possible from one side of the fixed gulf to the other."
- Washed, not worked. The true reading blesses those who wash their robes. Obedience to commandments is not the ground of eternal life. God gives it to all who believe.
- Washed in blood. Only the blood of the Lamb could wash those robes. Revelation 7:14 uses the same expression.
- Washed into life. That washing gives the right to the tree of life. The flaming sword once barred it in Eden. Now nothing blocks the way.
- Washed into the city. The tree of life is the personal portion. Entering the city by the gates is the collective portion. Both belong to the same washed people.
- Washed, or without. Grace is the foundation of the blessing. Anyone not washed is defiled in himself and stays outside.
Without [are] the dogs, and the sorcerers, and the fornicators, and the murderers, and the idolaters, and every one that loves and makes a lie.
The Bible's last chapter draws one line: some people are inside the city, and some are outside it. Verse 15 names who stays outside. It raises two hard questions: what do these labels mean, and who do they take in?
The verse works as one half of a pair. One writer sets the two groups side by side and follows the division forward:
Again we find the two classes in verses 14 and 15 — the holy and the filthy... Those washed are within. Those characterised by the evils of verse 15 are without. The Apostle Paul had issued the warning, "Look out for the dogs, look out for the evildoers" (Phil. 3:2), and here we find such excluded for ever. He had also shown that today in the assembly of God there is a "within" that God recognizes, and there is the world "without" (1 Cor. 5:12-13). So here we find the same separation kept up and carried on into eternity.
The names are not just insults. Each one marks a different ruin:
Outside the city are dogs — those unclean in nature. There are sorcerers, those deceived by evil spirits. There are the sexually immoral, those sunk in moral corruption. There are idolaters, those who give to the creature the place of the Creator. And there is everyone who loves and practices falsehood, those who have chosen the lie instead of the truth on purpose. These people are wholly outside the sphere of the grace of God, which they have refused with their eyes open.
Another writer groups the same names by who is wronged in each case:
Outside are the unclean and the violent. Outside too are those who love satanic falsehood and idolatry. Their sins are against purity, against their neighbour, and against God, and they follow Satan.
The first name on the list is the one most readers would shrug off. That is exactly the danger:
No doubt many a reader, even one who is not a believer, would protest at finding himself in any of these classes. But let such a person think again. The very first word used ("dogs") takes in everyone who is unclean. And Scripture teaches that everyone who is not under the value of the blood of Christ before God is unclean. A person may claim a fine moral character. Even so, he is still not fit to enter the city through its gates unless he has washed his robes.
The image behind the word is not a household pet:
Dogs in the East are very different creatures from the pets people value in the West. These stray dogs are wild and dangerous. They belong to no one, and they eat whatever scraps of garbage they can find in the dusty road. In Scripture they are only symbolic of evil.
Revelation has its own word for this sin:
Revelation uses another word for sorcery, φαρμακεία. It refers to drugs — "to stupefy with drugs" — and then to any system of sorcery by spells (Rev. 9:21; Rev. 18:23; compare Rev. 21:8; Rev. 22:15). Scripture ranks sorcery with the worst of sins, and it also applies the word to the professing church in symbolic Babylon.
The last phrase names an affection, not just an act. One writer sets it against the one thing that gives a title to glory:
Eternal life and eternal glory cannot be won by keeping commandments, by the works of the law. The blood of the Lamb alone is the title to glory... The one who rejects Christ, and by doing so denies his lost condition and his need of a Saviour, loves and practices falsehood. He lives according to the old nature, and the fruits of the flesh are there.
A detail in the wording narrows the list, and a comparison with the earlier chapter fills it out:
The definite article the stands before each class shut out of the city. These are not the ungodly in general, but specific, clearly marked classes of people. Substantially the list here is the same as in Revelation 21:8. Here the point is that they are shut out of the holy city. The previous chapter shows the same characters in the lake of fire: outside the city of gold in Revelation 22:15, in the lake of fire in Revelation 21:8.
- Two doors. The chapter ends with two positions only: inside the gates, or outside them. There is no third place.
- One disqualifier. "Dogs" heads the list because it covers everyone unclean. A good moral record buys no ticket in.
- Named sins. Sorcery, immorality, murder, idolatry and lying are sins against purity, against neighbour, and against God. Between them they cover the whole range of human ruin.
- A loved lie. The last class is marked by love: they love the lie they spread, and they chose it instead of the truth.
- One way in. The washed robe, not the kept commandment, gives the right to the tree of life. Grace decides which side of the gate you stand on.