Introduction

One of the extraordinary things about the contemporary church in most Western nations is its passivity. Many congregations fail to engage the surrounding community in any transforming way, a majority of believers self-consciously lack authority in the Word and leave the task of witness to paid church staff, and the more intimate ministries of intercession and praise seem beyond men. Contrast this with traditional imagery which terms the earthly body of Christ “the church militant”, and the church in heaven “the church triumphant”. This military language has nothing to do with physical arms, but represents the ongoing struggle against sin, worldliness and the devil, all of which are to be hated by the people of God[1].

The Bible as a whole and Revelation in particular, has no place for a Christianity that is “nice” or harmless and which threatens no-one. If Jesus the prophets and apostles were like us, they would never have been persecuted. Tragically, many contemporary believers lack an awareness of being in a conflict more intense than any earthly warfare. This is because the dominant forms of Christianity in the affluent West have domesticated God; this is a serious form of idolatry. We have lost the vision of what biblical scholars call the “holy war” tradition of scripture. This war began when God expelled Adam and Eve from Eden and will climax with the intensity of the last judgment described in the final chapters of Revelation. The biblical tradition of divine warfare cannot be soft soaped or ignored as a primitive element of bygone spirituality.

Climaxing the scriptural story of the holy war is the central figure of Revelation, the Lamb; once his identity has been manifested it will become clear why the Lamb alone has moral authority to pursue God’s absolute opposition against his enemies to completion. The paradox of a conquering Lamb challenges all our natural images of God confronting our consciences in such a way that we can never be passive or apathetic again.

The Scene

Whilst our focus this evening is on Revelation five and six, the background to the heavenly ministry of the Lamb is described in the letters to the 7 churches contained in the second and third chapters. Jesus finds something to commend in six of the churches, but only two receive no rebuke. Of Ephesus, a church that has abandoned its first love[2], he warns, “repent, if not I will come to you and remove your lampstand” (2:5) i.e. the church will cease to exist in that city, to those in Pergamum he calls, “repent. If not, I will come to you soon and war against them with the sword of my mouth.” (2:16), even more strongly there is a message to the unfaithful Christians in Thyatira, “I will throw her (false prophetess Jezebel) onto a sickbed, and those who commit adultery with her I will throw into great tribulation, unless they repent of her works, 23 and I will strike her children dead.” (2:22-23). The church in Sardis is warned that Christ may visit unexpectedly in judgement, “If you will not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come against you.” (3:3). Finally, the outwardly influential and affluent Laodicean congregation, of the all the churches in Revelation the one most like our own, are threatened with rejection, “So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.” (3:16)

Immediately after hearing such stern warnings, John is transported to heaven and receives visions of the throne room of God (4:1). As a prophet, he is a party to the divine council[3] – the assembly of God and his holy angels where decrees are made concerning the divine rule upon the earth. The throne room of God is populated by angelic beings, but here is no mention of any human presence[4], the reason why people are absent becomes obvious from the description of God’s overwhelming presence, “From the throne came flashes of lightning, and rumblings and peals of thunder” (4:5). If the first created humans were cast out of Eden and barred from it by a lightning wielding holy angel because of a single sin (Gen 3:24), if elect Israel trembled at Sinai at the “thunders and lightnings and a thick cloud on the mountain and a very loud trumpet blast”, (Ex 19:16-25), if Isaiah thought he was a dead man because he saw “the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple” (Isa 6:1), if Paul was blinded by the light of the ascended Christ’s heavenly glory on the road to Damascus (Acts 9:1-9), what human being could live in the immediate presence of God, “the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, 16 who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see” (1 Tim 6:15-16).

The scene is so pervaded by the majesty and holiness of God that the “glorious ones” (Jude 8) ceaselessly speak forth, ““Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!”” (4:8). Heaven is filled with the constant worship of the Creator by beings whose self awareness has no stain of guilt, ““Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honour and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.”” (4:11). This awesome vision of God fills the compassionate heart of the apostle John with a sense of an unbridgeable chasm between the Most High God and the sin of humanity.

The Scroll

The scene immediately breaks in an unexpected direction, “Then I saw in the right hand of him who was seated on the throne a scroll written within and on the back, sealed with seven seals.” (5:1). Most of the book of Revelation concerns the unfolding of this scroll, whose contents concern God’s plan of judgement and redemption. Whilst the scroll remains sealed the divine will cannot be enacted.

Surprisingly to our twisted minds, the criterion for opening the scroll are not power or knowledge, but worthiness, “And I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, “Who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals?”” (5:2). Which creature can offer God the worthiness he deserves or worship him fully, can any person approach the Most High God so closely to touch him on our behalf? Can a mediator and intercessor be found that can bridge the purity of heaven (Hab 1:13) and the pollution of earth. It appears not “And no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or to look into it,” (5:3)

The Distress

“… and I began to weep loudly because no one was found worthy to open the scroll or to look into it.” (5:4). This is not trickle of tears but a torrent, the apostle is grief stricken at the prospect that there will be no nurture for the church, no salvation for the world, no hope for the nations, no new heaven and earth. He feels all is lost. This is a most important experience.

It is very difficult to appreciate what it means to be an heir of salvation (a topic dear to this book), if we have never had a sense that all hope is lost unless God acts on our behalf. In my own coming to Christ, I could not find in myself any element of worthiness, any faith adequate to deserve grace, any disposition that could please the God of heaven. God’s wrath was very real, but heaven seemed entirely beyond reach. There is however an answer to John’s anguish.

The Lamb and His Worthiness

Next, the apostle receives a word of comfort, it is about a Lion “And one of the elders said to me, “Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.”” (5:5). John is familiar with the Old Testament prophecies of a messianic figure who will rule over the peoples in a military sense (Gen 49:9-10; Isa 11:1, 11); but if the Lion “has conquered” it certainly doesn’t look like it down here on earth

Whereas the elders speak of a Lion, John sees a Lamb, “And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, with seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth.” (5:6). In the midst of the throne, sharing and expressing the very essence of Godhood, is a Lion who has conquered by taking the form of a Lamb. Human beings have worshipped bulls, tigers, elephants, snakes and all sorts of creatures with desirable traits, but who would imagine that God would reveal himself through a Lamb, moreover, a slaughtered Lamb. Lambs may be cute, but in the real life struggle of history they are weak, defenceless, even pathetic and despised.

As soon as John saw the Lamb images would have flashed into his mind of the Passover Lamb and the great biblical themes of deliverance and atonement. This is the Lamb who in the book of Isaiah stands for the Servant of the LORD and whose death takes away the guilt of sin, “like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth.” (Isa 53:7). Echoing in John’s ears must have been the words he heard so long ago from John the Baptist, the great prophetic forerunner of Jesus, ““Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”” (John 1:29).

This Lamb however is not only slaughtered, he is standing, that is, his crucifixion is followed by resurrection. The conquering Lamb has overcome sin, Satan and death in his own experience! This theme brings us to the very heart of the book. In Revelation 20, for example, John sees thrones in heaven and “the souls of those who had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God”, these “came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years” (4-5). In Revelation, death in the cause of Christ brings resurrection life, mortality is swallowed up in immortality (cf. 1 Cor 15:54-56).

The Lamb has “seven horns and with seven eyes”, in this sort of literature “horns” symbolise power, “seven horns” mean fullness of power, “eyes” represent knowledge, the seven eyed Lamb has completed knowledge[5]. Such fullness of strength and understanding will be used by the Lamb to preserve his people against all their enemies. The blood of the original Passover lamb caused the LORD to preserve the people of Israel from the plague of death that visited the Egyptians (Ex 12); however great the suffering of the people of God upon the earth, the Lamb delivers those who follow him from the end time plagues of his wrath.

The impact of the revelation of the Lamb and his conquest upon the heavenly host is immediate and rapturous, “And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.” (5:8). Harps stand for joy, joy-filled worship saturates heaven. The prayers of the saints (a topic I will return to in a depth in later study) have reached the heights of heaven. The angelic creatures sing “a new song”, the song of redemption, ““Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, 10 and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth.”” (5:9-10)

The angel powers realise with perfect clarity what so many of us fail to grasp, that through redemption humanity has been restored in the likeness of the image of God possessed by the Lamb, the three fold image of prophet, priest and king. In this great vision the centre point is the blood of the Lamb, that is, the death of Christ. And the blood of the Lamb directs us as prophets, priests and kings to God as “our God”. The gifts of God are not oriented to our honour and blessing and glory, they do not exist to prosper our lifestyle, but the kingdom of God.

In this heavenly atmosphere of the victory of the cross John hears all holy creatures cry, “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honour and glory and blessing!” (5:12).[6]

The Lamb and His Enemies

Already in Revelation we have encountered references to the work of evil forces, the church in Smyrna is warned, “the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and for ten days you will have tribulation” (2:10); Pergamum is the place “where Satan dwells” (2:13), a reference to the numerous temples of that dominated the city and the importance of emperor worship; both Smyrna and Philadelphia host a “synagogue of Satan”(2:9, 3:9), for the Jews of these cities regularly reported the Christians to the Roman authorities for their failure to worship Caesar. In speaking to these churches Jesus mentions Antipas, who was put to death as a “faithful witness”, he was supposedly roasted alive in a hollow life-size bull, which had a bonfire under its belly.

As we move throughout the book many enemies of the Lamb appear, there is the “red dragon” (12:3), the “beast” (13:1), a “second beast” (13:11), foul “demonic spirits” (16:14) and the “ten kings” who follow the beast (17:12-13). All of these hate the Lamb (17:14; 19:19) and operate through the kings and peoples of the earth (20:7-9) to annihilate the saints. In this war Satan has only one strategy, to move the eyes of people away from the Lamb. The evil spirit who rules the world (John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11; 2 Cor 4:4; 1 John 5:19) knows that the slain Lamb is his downfall.

Why would Satan and his cohorts, both demonic and human, have such animosity against the Lamb? In scripture, purity infuriates impurity, and, at the most fundamental level, Satan hates Jesus because he knows that he himself is a failed son[7]. The evidence that Jesus is the one true faithful and obedient Son is his death-and-resurrection, his status as a Lamb standing as slain. It is gospel witness that enrages the evil powers and stirs up guilty men and women to destroy the church. Paul said, “all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2 Tim 3:12). Where the church is not persecuted, we can only conclude that its witness has been compromised.

Yet, in all this, the Lamb on the throne is not passive, Jesus said, ““I came to cast fire on the earth, and would that it were already kindled!”” (Luke 12:49). The fire has been kindled, this is the message of Revelation chapter six.

The Lamb is Roaring

Chapter six introduces the theme of the judgements of God upon the earth. The most astounding and revolutionary aspect of this picture is that a Lamb judges the world. Central to this chapter are the famous “four horseman of the Apocalypse” (an old name for Revelation.) The horsemen bring deception, warfare, famine, persecutions, and cosmic disasters upon the planet. It is absolutely indispensible to our spiritual maturity that we pay the closest attention to the relationship between the horsemen and the Lamb. It is the Lamb who opens the seals of the scroll and releases the horses (6:1). Christ is the one who in every case gives, permits and releases these destructive forces upon the earth (6:2, 4, 8). Repeatedly in Revelation the expression, “was given”[8] is used of the action of God and Jesus. For example, in chapter thirteen the beast “was allowed to make war on the saints and to conquer them. And authority was given it over every tribe and people and language and nation” (Rev 13:7 cf.11:7).

The first rider, on a white horse, “came out conquering, and to conquer.” (6:2). The white horse symbolises forces of evil imitating the righteousness of Christ (cf. 2 Cor 11:13-15), they deceive the nations and incite them to persecute the church under the guise of serving their gods (John 16:2), which may be, in our day, the gods of political correctness. The second horseman wields a sword that leads to a slaughter that takes peace from the earth (6:4). The verb for “slaughter” is the same one which describes Jesus as the slaughtered Lamb (5:6) and of the killing of believers later in the book (6:9; 13:10). This reminds us of Christ’s prophetic words, “34 “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.” (Matt 10:34). Christians are not immune from civil strife and persecution.

The third horseman carries scales, and the monetary value of the wheat and barley he measures (6:6) suggests hugely inflated prices of basic foodstuffs that become rare in a time of famine. In time of scarcity the first people affected would be Christians, as social outcasts who refused the mark of the beast they were unable to trade (13:16-17). The fourth horseman kills with “with famine and with pestilence and by wild beasts of the earth” and is accompanied by “death and Hades” (6:8). Careful readers will recall that Jesus has already appeared to John as the one who has “the keys of Death and Hades” (1:18).

The passage climaxes with the shaking of the heavens and the earth so that all its inhabitants are terrified, ““calling to the mountains and rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, 17 for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?”” (6:16-17). Human life becomes intolerable, “And in those days people will seek death and will not find it. They will long to die, but death will flee from them.” (9:6). The wrath of God and the “wrath of the Lamb” (cf. 19:11-16) are one, and they are unbearable. Given such dramatic, forceful language, how can Jesus of Revelation be the same person as the Jesus of the Gospels?

The Mystery of the Wrath of the Lamb

To understand the relationship between Jesus and the judgement of God we must enter into the deep structure of scripture. Commentators have often noticed that Christ’s prophecies of the end times parallel the visions of the wrath of the Lamb in Revelation. In the Gospels Jesus spoke of wars, earthquakes and famines (Matt 24:6-7), the “sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken” (Matt 24:29), he predicted that in the church many people would fall away, betray and hate each other, and love would grow cold (Matt 24:10, 12). What has usually escaped our attention is how these events surrounded the cross. Betrayal and desertion occur amongst his disciples (Matt 25:56; 69ff; 26:14-16), as he gives up his life the sun is darkened (Matt 27:45) and the earth quakes (Matt 27:51).

If we put these observations together, we see that the wrath which the Lamb is pouring out on the earth today has already been taken by him on the cross. The world is under the judgement of the nail-pierced hand of Christ. Christ the victim who bore God’s wrath on our sin is now the one who judges the world in righteousness (Acts 17:31). “Christ, the truth, is judge of the world, by the very fact of having taken it upon himself.” (Zizioulas)

In going to the cross for us, Jesus said, “Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out.” (John 12:31). He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world by taking upon himself God’s anger at that sin. Wrath borne by the obedient Son on behalf of others is the means of universal grace. This is why we too must suffer as our Lord did (Rev 11:7-9).

His Enemies are Our Enemies

At the centre of this chapter John sees “under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne”, they are told “to rest a little longer…until the number of their fellow servants and their brothers should be complete, who were to be killed as they themselves had been”. (6:9-11). These souls appear “under the altar” because that is the place where blood is poured from Old Testament sacrifices[9]. In union with the Lamb the blood of the martyrs is sacrificial and atoning. Revelation corrects every false perception of how the kingdom of God comes, it can only come in the way that it came in Jesus, through suffering.

Let me pause to clarify two misperceptions here. First, our suffering, not matter how noble, has no power to change the spiritual state of others. When Paul says, “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church” (Col 1:24), he means that through his union with Christ the power of Jesus death is expressed and applied to the circumstances in which he is ministering. Secondly, we cannot restrict Jesus substitutionary actions to the cross. In emptying himself (Phil 2:7) and entering into the poverty of the fallen human state (2 Cor 8:9), Jesus embraced human suffering in all its forms. He was exposed to hunger, thirst, tiredness, loneliness, abandonment, grief and so on. This means that when a child of God is suffering in any way, and they offer up this pain to God for his glory (Eph 3:13), the rule of God will come upon the earth. The suffering of the Lamb dignifies all of our struggles that we commit to God by faith. In this way the rule of God enters into every sphere of human existence – marriage, family, work, church. We follow the Lamb in the totality of our lives.

Following the Lamb

The Lamb appears in Revelation in the context of the opening of the scroll, unfolding God’s eternal purposes for humanity. These purposes encompass our planet, our nation, state, city, community, church, family and personal lives. Much of what said today in the church about “vision” lacks the degree of depth and breadth which the final book of the Bible offers us, and we must ask why.

A key is offered us in the way in which John approached the throne of God. Scripture encourages us to approach the throne. As Hebrews says, “15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. 16 Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” (4:15-16). In the deep structure of scripture, John, as a man in union with Christ and filled with the Spirit (Rev 1:9-10), must approach God’s throne as Jesus himself did in the days of his flesh. Luke’s Gospel records, “And when he (Jesus) drew near and saw the city, he wept over it”, Jesus was filled with great grief, because Jerusalem, instead of welcoming the time of God’s visitation had rejected him, and would be completely destroyed (Luke 19:41-44). Jesus not only wept for Jerusalem, but in bitter anguish in Gethsemane wept before the Father for himself (Heb 5:7-8).

As John approached the throne in heaven he “wept loudly” (5:5) with the same spirit of compassionate weeping that embraced Jesus’ final days on this terror stricken planet, John’s broken heart is the reason why the plans of heaven for earth’s redemption were opened up to him. We lack this sort of vision is because we lack these sort of weepers. Weepers who are pleading that God’s redemptive purposes in the Lamb be revealed and released.

The Lord is saying that if we want to enter into the realities of Revelation we must approach the throne of God as lambs, as weak and helpless as Jesus was on the cross, in identification and unity with him. In this way, in this weakness, we must surely experience the Lord’s shepherding presence and power (cf. 7:15-17; Ps 23; John 10). Our proximity to the throne of grace today is dependent upon our likeness to the Lamb. This is how we will receive the same grace as the slaughtered Lamb, sharing in his resurrection power, not only for ourselves, but for a lost world.

Remember the cry of heaven, ““Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honour and glory and blessing!”” (5:12). The mystery of godliness is that as we seek from the Father power, wealth, wisdom, might, honour, glory and blessing for his Son, the Spirit imparts these realities into our lives.

Conclusion

The church’s perception of the truth of God is purified by the vision that the utterly holy sovereign Creator shares his throne with a slaughtered Lamb. This vision takes us beyond both technological optimism and postmodern pessimism into the deep realms of grace. The future of the world, of all things and all peoples, is in the hands of the Lamb, and his hands are crucified.

In the spiritual realm all true authority over evil flows from suffering identification with others. As saints on earth we have the highest of all possible callings, to bear witness through our call as prophets, priests and kings that Jesus is the one true Son of God. Within the framework of Revelation, the climactic book of sacred scripture, this means that we are called to image the Lamb of God, “standing as slain” (5:6), by the suffering and resurrection qualities of our lives. The first part of the image of the Lamb, suffering, is already abundant in many of our lives. This may be our own personal pain, or the anguish we feel over the lost and broken state of others. All of us have enough pain to make a difference to this world. The second part, resurrection, is something only God can do. Our sole responsibility is to place our spirits in his hands.

I am sure some of you have had a near death experience. Years ago off a beach on Kangaroo Island I felt sure I was about to perish through drowning. Not long a believer in Jesus, exhausted, swallowing water and having been under twice, I found myself mysteriously praying over and over in my mind these final words of Jesus from the cross, ““Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!”” (Luke 23:46). Against all expectation I was delivered from certain death. There comes a time in our lives, when the suffering is so acute- it may be our personal suffering or a sheer anguish about the state of the church and the world, when we know no pastor, priest, psychologist, psychiatrist, surgeon or social worker can help us, only Jesus can help us. Not help us from a distance, but help us because his crucified and risen power lives inside of us. It is to his indwelling life that we need to surrender our spirits tonight in a new way.

In one of my favourite passages of scripture, Paul speaks of a time when “we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself.” (2 Cor 1:8), but this is not how it ends, “For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.” (2 Cor 1:5), a comfort that pours out for others (2 Cor 1:4, 6). This paradoxical mixture of anguish and supernatural deliverance is the supreme privilege that constitutes our testimony for Jesus before a perishing world – this is what we need to be seeking tonight, this is what I am seeking.