The Lion and the Lamb
Jesus Revealed at the Right hand of God
Audio Version!
A lot has happened in the past three weeks, but the Word of God has not changed, and Revelation is still there waiting to be read and understood. Today I will tackle Revelation 5, at least in part.
Storytelling
How an author tells a story is as important as any of the elements in the story.
The characters, the settings, the actions and interactions of the characters, not to mention the level of detail in the descriptions of each—all are up for grabs.
Take the musical—and now movie—Wicked, in comparison to The Wizard of Oz.
The characters (the witches, the wizard, etc), settings (Oz, yellow brick road, etc.), and even some actions, are similar or the same, yet the way the story is told gives a radically different viewpoint and result—the Wicked Witch of the West is actually the good protagonist rather than the evil antagonist! (At some point I am going to write a movie review in the Substack Notes section).
What does this observation have to do with Revelation?
In Revelation, John had a series of visions.
The visions he saw had characters, settings, and actions.
And Jesus told him to write down what he saw and heard.
But how to do that was John’s conundrum and opportunity.
John had to figure out how to write it down, how to organize the actions, how to introduce and describe characters, and what to say about each setting.
The result (as we confess) was inspired—we possess a book of the Bible that has fascinated all who’ve read it for almost two millennia.
Despite a lack of consensus on how to interpret Revelation, no one accuses it of being boring.
Revelation 4–5
I start with this notion because of how John structured Revelation 4–5.
Even though Jesus was right there with The One Sitting On The Throne—God— the entire time, and John could have compressed his vision into one scene with God and Jesus together from the beginning, instead, he described his vision in a way that forestalled the introduction of Jesus.
We might even detect a dramatic style like the story of King Arthur, who was the only one who could draw the sword from the stone after many had tried (who knows, Revelation 5 might have been the model for the story of Arthur).
After the worship scene of Revelation 4 which was focused on The One Sitting On The Throne alone, John continued in (what is now) chapter 5 with the notice of a scroll held in the right hand of The One Sitting On The Throne and the presentation of that scroll—in Greek biblion—to be opened.
Whether this was a scroll or a book only context can suggest (books were just becoming popular in the first century), but the presence of seven seals implies a scroll.
We don’t see seals on scrolls these days, but do have analogies:
—Sealed letters—sometimes even with wax
—Sealed diplomatic pouches in transporting embassy documents
—And in technology encrypted communication.
The seal ensured that the contents remained hidden until the authorized individual could open it.
(continued)
In Plain Sight is a subscriber supported publication. If you appreciate the content and insights of this Substack, please consider a paid subscription. Subscribers receive additional material at the end of most posts with more subscriber only material to come.
Dramatic Tension
After the introduction of the scroll, John continued his description with:
I saw a powerful angel proclaiming with a great voice: Who is worthy to open the scroll and to loose its seals?
“Worthy” in this context means not only able but authorized.
Then John recounted that no one was authorized among all whom he had described:
No one was able in the heaven or upon the earth or under the earth to open the book or to see it
This lack led to the first truly dramatic moment in the vision of heaven: John described himself as devastated to the point of weeping.
From his rendering, John created literary tension for the readers.
What was going to happen?
That tension set the stage for the astounding scene to follow.
First, the elder pinpointed who the worthy one was:
Don’t cry, the lion from the tribe of Judah, the root of Jesse, has conquered in order to open the scroll and its seven seals.
John (and his readers) would immediately have thought of King David and Jesus as the Davidic Messiah—in Genesis 49:9 Jacob called his son Judah a lion and predicted the scepter would not depart from Judah, and Isaiah 11:1–10 spoke about a deliverer from the stump of Jesse—the father of David.
But the figure of a conquering lion was nowhere to be seen.
Instead John saw something very different.
John narrated what he saw this way:
And I saw in the middle of the throne and the four living creatures and in the middle of the elders a lamb standing as slaughtered, having seven horns and seven eyes which are the spirits of God sent to all the earth.
In the same place as God, John now saw a lamb, in the same place but seemingly separate.
Not just any lamb.
A lamb standing as slaughtered with seven horns and seven eyes (and not a lion but obviously referring to the same).
In one distinct paradoxical image, the very essence of Jesus Christ was portrayed as an extension of John the Baptist’s words, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world,” and of Paul, “Christ our Passover.”
The remainder of Revelation will unpack this figure—and I will have more to say below.
But now John continued the drama.
The Lamb took the scroll from the right hand of The One Sitting on the Throne.
When the transfer happened “all heaven broke loose.”
The creatures and the elders fell before the Lamb and sang a new song, joined by myriads of angels.
How John depicted that scene and what was said to Jesus is for the next post.
Of course the drama was just beginning.
In chapter six, the Lamb will open the seals one by one.
But before we jump into the interpretation of the horses and other seals, we need to assess the theology and symbolism of chapter 5.
Maybe not all of it, but enough to prepare for the rest of Revelation.
The Lion and the Lamb
In the first three chapters of Revelation, Jesus dominated—not only was the revelation about Jesus in almost every way, but Jesus was the primary one communicating with John.
In chapter 4, the attention goes to God—The One Sitting On the Throne—as a way to introduce not only God but the four creatures and the twenty four elders, as well as the pattern of praise.
Now in chapter five John turned the focus squarely back to Jesus, but in the guise of two animal images.
One was a voracious wild beast that devours prey—the Lion, the other a type of prey that has no natural defenses—the Lamb.
But they are the same!
The Lion is the Lamb, the Lamb is the Lion.
They both refer to Jesus Messiah.
What is more interesting is that the image of the Lion as Lion never shows up again in Revelation, only the Lamb.
Somehow, the Lion has been incorporated into the Lamb.
The key word is “conquered.”
The Lion conquered, but not violently. Instead the Lion conquered as a slaughtered Lamb.
That very idea will be important as we encounter war-like violent language and images in Revelation.
Just like the Lion is the Lamb, the language of war and violence points to something else—what John saw and heard were symbolic of another reality (hint: it is all about the Gospel of the Risen Jesus!)
Once again, John saw what he saw and heard what he heard, but the images and sounds have no meaning unless they are interpreted—and the interpretation flows out of the Old Testament, the gospel of Jesus, and the way John combined the images to create meaning.
In this case, the identity of these two images became a metaphor: the Lion and the Lamb are one and the same but with distinct aspects and must be interpreted as mutually clarifying the other and ultimately Jesus.
(cont.)
The Lamb Standing as Slaughtered
Finally, I’d like to address that striking phrase: a lamb standing as slaughtered.
The supreme image for Jesus from this point to the end of Revelation is the Lamb, but every time John wrote “the Lamb” (28 more times!) he invoked the first description of 5:6: “a Lamb Standing as Slaughtered (Greek: arnion hestēkos hōs esphagmenon).”
Most translations have “slain” for Greek esphagmenon but “slaughtered” accentuates the sacrificial importance of the Greek term: Jesus’s crucifixion was akin to the slaughtering of the Passover lamb.
Never again did John use the phrase “standing as slaughtered,” but “the Lamb” pointed back to that description.
And several places Revelation directly alluded to the image:
5:12 “Worthy is the Lamb who was slaughtered.”
7:14 “In the blood of the Lamb.”
12:11 “They have conquered him [Satan] by the blood of the Lamb.”
13:8 “Of the Lamb slaughtered from the foundation of the world.”
With the image of the slaughtered yet standing Lamb the entire gospel was summarized: Jesus is the crucified passover lamb raised from the dead and sitting at the right hand of God. Add in the lion image and that crucified risen lamb has conquered death and the devil and brought redemption for the world.
In other words, this image embodies the Gospel of the Risen Jesus
Once again I stress that Revelation is not about disaster, not about violence, and not even about judgment as we popularly think about it.
It’s about Jesus, as the first five chapters plainly show over and again.
To veer away from this central controlling message is to misunderstand Revelation.
Going forward, I will be following the logic of the text laser-focused on this very idea.
I am already surprising myself and I expect you will be too.
Observations on the Greek Text of Revelation
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to In Plain Sight to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.