Calling All Theology Nerds
Fulfillment Theology In Revelation, Kings, Priests, And Keys
“To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father—to him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.” (Revelation 1:5b–6)
Let’s pause here because this isn’t just a sweet little doxology you cross-stitch onto a pillow and forget about—it’s a theological flame thrower, and I’m wearing the backpack.
This is a direct callback to Exodus 19:6: “You shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” But did you catch the literary difference? In Exodus, it’s “you shall be”—a forward-looking promise spoken to Israel at Sinai. But in Revelation, John drops the future tense altogether. It’s not “shall be.” It’s “you have made us.”
Past tense. Done deal. Signed, sealed, delivered.
And the “us” here isn’t ethnic Israel. It’s the Church—the ragtag collection of saints, sinners, tax collectors, ex-cons, and recovering Pharisees who comprise the Body of Christ. John is saying that what was promised to Israel in Exodus has been realized—fulfilled—in the Church.
That’s a seismic theological shift that most people want to skip over because it complicates their tidy dispensational timelines—Americans especially. But let’s not skip it. Let’s stare it in the face.
Here’s what this means: the Church now stands as the inheritor of God’s covenant promises. The Church—not Israel as an ethnic nation-state, but the new people of God composed of every tribe, tongue, and nation—is the Kingdom of Priests. The Church is not waiting to become this; it has been made this. Christ’s blood has already done the work.
And while we’re here, let’s address the uncomfortable footnote in Revelation’s text: in John’s apocalypse, unbelieving Jews are no longer described as “true Jews” (see Romans 2:28–29: “a Jew is one inwardly”) but as a “synagogue of Satan” (Revelation 2:9). That’s not anti-Semitism; it’s covenant realism. The true covenant people of God are those united to Christ, Jew or Gentile. Bloodline doesn’t save you. The blood of Christ does.
So what’s the upshot of all this? It means the Church isn’t a backup plan or a parenthesis in God’s story. It’s the fulfillment of the story. The Church is now the royal priesthood, mediating God’s presence to the nations and bringing the rule of Christ to all the earth.
But it gets better—and here’s how it gets better:
