“Wash their robes” (critical text reading): This points directly to priestly cleansing. In Revelation 7:14, the great multitude “washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” Priests in the Old Testament washed garments for service (e.g., Exodus 19:10, 29:4). In the Melchizedek order, the once-for-all sacrifice of Christ provides permanent cleansing, no endless animal blood or ritual. Access to the tree of life and the city is granted by this washing: grace-initiated righteousness. It is the entry into priestly privilege.
“Do his commandments” (Textus Receptus/KJV reading): This is the priestly obedience that flows from cleansing. Those in the Melchizedek order are not lawless. Melchizedek himself is called “king of righteousness.” Hebrews emphasizes that Jesus’ priesthood produces a people who obey from a transformed heart (Heb 8:10, quoting the New Covenant). Revelation repeatedly describes the saints as those who “keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus” (Rev 12:17; 14:12). Obedience is the lifestyle and testimony of the royal priesthood.
Washing robes = justification and priestly consecration by Christ’s blood. Doing His commandments = sanctified living as kings and priests who reflect His righteousness. They are not rivals; they are sequential and inseparable, like the bread and wine Melchizedek brought ~ provision (grace) and fellowship (obedience).
The Levitical system was external, repetitive, and shadowed future realities. The Melchizedek order is internal, eternal, and fulfilled in Christ: “You are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation” (1 Pet 2:9). Priests don’t earn their robes by works; they are clothed by the High Priest and then serve in them with joyful obedience. Revelation 22:14 stands at the close of the canon as the blessed outcome: those cleansed by the Lamb now reign and serve in the New Jerusalem as Melchizedek-style priest-kings. The textual variant does not create a theological contradiction here. Whether your Bible highlights the cleansing or the resulting obedience, both are true of everyone who belongs to Christ’s Eternal Priesthood. The debate over manuscripts matters for translation accuracy, but the living reality in the Order of Melchizedek holds both truths together perfectly.