FAITHFUL AND TRUE

The Man who never deviated in His faithfulness to God, and who was uncompromisingly true to His own character in the days of His flesh, has already been thus represented earlier in Revelation when this title was included in the letter to Laodicea, Rev. 3.14. It is a title that emphasises the practical outworking of holiness in the perfect humanity of the Lord Jesus. Its inclusion in the group of four titles ascribed to Him as He emerges from heaven on a white horse is entirely in keeping with that victorious scene. He is coming to the earth to rule the nations with a rod of iron and to tread the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God, 19.15. The title ‘Faithful and True’ demonstrates His absolute moral right to do so. It has been observed in a previous study that the Lord Jesus will reign not only because unrivalled power and strength are His, but also because He has the moral right to ascend the throne of universal dominion. The nations of men will finally be ruled by a man who, in all His ways, is ‘Faithful and True’.

The title will also bear significance for the restored nation of Israel. As a ‘merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God’, Heb. 2.17, He has made ‘propitiation for the sins of the people’, JND. His faithfulness to an unfaithful nation, His trueness to a people who falsely accused Him and denied all their God-given privilege by saying in their hatred of Him ‘we have no king but Caesar’, John 19. 15, will be acknowledged in that day when Israel receive their Messiah. The Day of Atonement will have been fulfilled in the perfect ministry of this faithful High Priest, and they will know it when he appears ‘the second time without sin unto salvation’, Heb. 9. 28.

The glorious appearing of our Lord Jesus upon the white horse will also show that He is faithful and true to those whose lives have been cruelly taken for confessing His Name in the tribulation period. The cry had gone up from the altar, ‘How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?’, Rev. 6. 10. Now the answer to that tormented cry has come, and the Faithful and True rides out to conquer, avenge and reign.