Rule as a Shepherd https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MB76j9KuFk
Introduction[1]
If we were created to share in the whole life of Christ (Col 1:16) we must adjust to the reality that this includes conquering with him. This language of believers conquering personal evil runs like a thread through Revelation (2:7, 11, 17, 2; 3:5, 12, 21; 12:11; 15:2; 21:7)[2]. On the other hand, we read, “when they (the 2 witnesses) have finished their testimony, the beast that rises from the bottomless pit will make war on them and conquer them and kill them” (11:7)[3]. This paradoxical combination of conquering and being conquered hinges on the pinnacle of biblical testimony, ““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.” 6 And…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.” (Rev 5:5-6). Whilst this is the only place in Revelation that “Lion” appears as a title of Jesus[4], an examination of the ongoing use of “Lamb” brings challenging surprises.
In the Beginning
We should not assume we know the meaning of “lion” or “lamb” in scripture before a careful study. Whilst most Old Testament references to “lion” convey the properties of ferocity (Num 23:24; Deut 33:20; 2 Sam 1:23) and courage (2 Sam 17:10), the essential nature of leonine existence is not to be a predator. Lions were created to be impressive beasts, but Genesis 1:30 says, “And to every beast of the earth…I have given every green plant for food.” (Gen 1:30). Resembling Christ, lions were not always predators! The connection between the first pristine creation and the return to the order of Paradise is unmistakeable in the prophets; “The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a little child shall lead them…. The wolf and the lamb shall graze together; the lion shall eat straw like the ox, and dust shall be the serpent’s food. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain,” says the LORD.” (Isa 11:6; 65:25). In the End, only beauty and peace between God’s creatures will fill creation[5]. Given however that the final meaning of a lion and a lamb is found in the wisdom of God in Christ (Col 1:16)[6], and that Jesus is far greater than Adam (Rom 5:17, 21; 1 Cor 15:42-49) the “goodness” of the new creation will far exceed that of the first (Gen 1:31). The harmony of Eden and the final Paradise of God do testify that even amongst beasts there should be no dominance, but we can only grasp the fulness of all this through the lens of the crucified and risen Lion-Lamb. Let be begin with a panoramic view of lion-like creatures in a fallen world.
Fallen[7]
Wild beasts are regularly portrayed in the Old Testament as manifestations of the wrath of God (Lev 2:22; Isa 13:20-22; Jer 12:9; Ezek 5:17; 14:1; Hos 13:8). More potently, in great distress the psalmists describe their wicked oppressors as “wild beasts” (Ps 74:18-19), and in the messianic Psalm 22:12-13, they’re called “wild bulls and ravening lions”. In the New Testament Paul speaks of “fighting with beasts at Ephesus” (1 Cor 15:32)[8] and Revelation sees a release of fierce beasts and plague on the earth under the authority of the all-conquering Lamb (6:8). COVID 19 is one such terrifying[9] wild beast reminding us that creation is in turmoil[10].
When in old covenant times the Spirit wished to convey the power of evil end-times empires he represented them as lions, eagles, leopards and bears (Dan 7). Daniel’s climactic kingdom of wickedness (Dan 7:7)[11] is the background for John’s prophecy of “the beast” in Revelation (11:7; 13:5-10 etc.)[12]. Wise students of scripture however will discern that the decisive battle[13] has already occurred between the beasts of this age and Jesus as the Son of Man at his trial and crucifixion. The death of Jesus is how “the ruler of this world is cast out” (John 2:31) and the place where the deceiver of “the whole world” (Rev 12:9 cf. Col 2:15), is dethroned. In Christ, the ripping, tearing, butting and crushing characteristic of this world have been put to death. This is far from obvious; which is why we need visions of heaven.
The Final Form of God: the Lion and Lamb
“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.” 6 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.” (Rev 5:5-6) This imagery has puzzled many.
Is it the case that as the revealer of God Jesus is a Lion to some (lost), but a Lamb to others (believers). After all Proverbs teaches, “with the purified you show yourself pure; and with the crooked you make yourself seem tortuous.” (Ps 18:26 cf. Matt 25:24-25). The distorting power of judgement upon evil is such a powerful theme throughout scripture[14] that the only revelation which can turn the stubborn hearts of the depraved to the true and living God is the revelation of Jesus Christ (Rom 2:5). At one level, this is the gospel (Rom 1:25), at another level it is the testimony of Jesus which constitutes the book of Revelation (Rev 1:1; 19:10). The fulness of Christ is crystallised in the titles of the Lion and the Lamb in John’s heavenly vision.
John hears of a Lion, what he sees is a Lamb. He hears strength, he sees weakness. He hears of conqueror but sees the appearance of a Lamb slaughtered like a victim. John has a revelation of life issuing out of death for Jesus standing means slaughter issues in resurrection life[15]. the God’s deep and mysterious strategy[16] of conquest is unveiled as John hears some things and sees others. This climaxes with, “Come, I will show you the Bride, the wife of the Lamb…. and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, 11 having the glory of God” (21:9-11). There is an intensification of splendour[17] whereby everything anticipated prophetically under the old covenant turns out to be much greater.
The movement from a magnificent lion to a pathetic innocent lamb is the dynamic power generating a whole new cosmos. This regenerating movement[18] reverses the ordinary flow of history when it is the weak who are made strong, the poor become rich, and the blind who see etc (Luke 1:46-55). As the perfectly willing sacrifice (Isa 53:7-8; Mark 14:36; 1 Cor 5:7) Jesus the risen Lamb has achieved a greater exodus than the passively slain Passover lamb (Ex 12:21; Luke 9:31). The resurrection released the infinite Joy of the Father that constrains him to renew all things (Acts 3:21). By taking into himself the force of the wild beasts[19] without any desire for personal vengeance (1 Pet 2:23) the crucified Lamb released the full of the reign of God in its all-miraculous power to raise all created things to an eternalised level of being[20].
In the new creation all things will be conformed to the likeness of the Lamb. The cross was necessary (Luke 24:7, 26, 44) because the powers of evil had be destroyed within their own sphere (Heb 2:14-15; 1 John 3:8).
Witness Inverts the Power of Evil
As the Lamb had to die as a “witness”[21] amongst the beasts[22] Christ’s saints must suffer in order that by “being conformed to his death” (Phil 3:10) the power of the kingdom of God might triumph through suffering love. “As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”” (Rom 8:36).
Whilst the world cannot see the perishing saints afflictions-and-submission to Christ’s Lordship are the means by which every rival power is being placed “under his feet”[23]. Only the people of God can know that the Lamb continuously wages war from heaven. Only we can see that the end-time drama, ““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) is happening now[24] and also[25] forever[26].
The prophetic maturity of the Church in her vocation as “the Bride of the Lamb” (Rev 19:6-10) involves us embracing both the visible and invisible aspect of the reign of Christ. Most Western Christians do not like[27] the reality that the gentle shepherd-Lord of the Gospels who lays down his life for his friends is one with the Word of God who at the End culminates the wrath of God (Rev 19:11-16). As people “propitiated to God” and “freed from sin” Christ’s blood (Rev 1:5) the cross teaches us that only infinite love operating through forgiveness and wrath can destroy[28] evil forever. These diverse images are only understandable to the degree that we experience the full power of evil and its conquest in the death-and-resurrection of Jesus.
Only in this way can when we see things from eternity and from heaven. In seeing from above we see that wrath belongs to the Lord alone (Rom 1:18; 12:9; Heb 10:30) so there is no place for a crusade mentality in the Church[29]. Our vision is of a future priestly kingship (Rev 1:6; 5:10) where we will rule over angels and nations (Dan 7:22; Matt 19:28; 1 Cor 6:2; Rev 20:4) just as Jesus does. This comes out clearly in Jesus’ promise to the Church in Thyatira, “The one who is victorious and keeps My works to the end: I will give him authority over the nations—and he will shepherd them with an iron sceptre; he will shatter them like pottery—” (Rev 2:26-27 HCSB)[30]. Our eternal rule over the universe with Christ will exactly express his character.
Conclusion
Some years ago, the Lord spoke to me in an unusual way from Revelation 10, where John sees a “mighty angel”[31] who “called out with a loud voice, like a lion roaring…. “You must again prophesy about many peoples and nations and languages and kings.” (10:3, 11)[32]. This word is a seal to the Church to be a prophetic voice in every time and place as an essential part of its nature[33]. To live this out will require the people of God to embrace the truth that to conquer the Satan “by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death” (Rev 12:11) means to be attacked trampled and by the seemingly irresistible power of the beast (Rev 13:5-10) so that the true and eternal kingly power of the Lamb of God might be revealed in the world. We must understand that the ultimate work of evil is to serve the triumphant witness of the Lamb. To grasp this requires a wisdom from within the (paradoxical) reality of the Lion-Lamb transition. It would not be hard to find Chinese Christians who thank God for what he did for his kingdom through the expulsion of overseas missionaries in 1949; to find Persian believers who see the ways of God in the Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979 as opening a door to revival, and those today who hold faith that the catastrophes in India, Myanmar and so on will lead to the progress of the everlasting gospel. Let us ask God for grace to believe like them that the intensifying darkness over Australia will likewise manifest the triumph of the Lamb.
[1] The background to this sermon is that recently a number of people focussed on this part of a verse, “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.” (John 20:23). I was a little surprised about this, but perhaps I shouldn’t have been given the normal human intuition is that God is a God of judgement.
[2] Cf. “For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—sour faith” (1 John 5:4) Likewise, “who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions” (Heb 11:33). Though in Hebrews a different Greek word is used.
[3] Cf. “it (the beast) was allowed to make war on the saints and to conquer them” (13:7).
[4] Derived from the ancient prophecy about the future of the tribe of Judah, “Judah is a lion’s cub; from the prey, my son, you have gone up. He stooped down; he crouched as a lion and as a lioness; who dares rouse him?” (Gen 49:9)
[5] The theological axiom, “the end mirrors the beginning” is applicable.
[6] The huge diversity of creatures exist to show forth the endless variety of God’s creative wisdom cf. Pss 8; 104; Rom 1:20.
[7] The distortion of the image of God is far more radical than we generally allow. “In the beginning God created man in His own image, and man has been trying to repay the favour ever since.” (Voltaire).
[8] As Paul was Roman citizen it is unlikely this is to be taken literally; it is about the ferocity of his opponents.
[9] To sinners that is.
[10] Talking to a recovering friend in Manila the other day reinforced this awareness for me.
[11] Which stamps everything under its feet.
[12] Who I take to be equivalent to the antichrist in John’s letter (1 John 2:18, 27; 4:3; 2 John 7) and the “man of lawlessness” in Paul (2 Thess 2:3).
[14] Psalm 81:12; Leviticus 26:23–24; Proverbs 3:34; Acts 7:42; Romans 1:28.
[15] Christ is eternally the Lamb e.g. Rev 22:1, 3.
[16] Remembering that in the New Testament a “mystery” is something once hidden now revealed. “in the days of the trumpet call to be sounded by the seventh angel, the mystery of God would be fulfilled, just as he announced to his servants the prophets….And I was told, “You must again prophesy about many peoples and nations and languages and kings.” (Rev 10:7, 11).
[17] In chapter 7, John “heard the number of the sealed, 144,000, sealed from every tribe of the sons of Israel” then “I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages” (vv.4, 9). John hears 144,000 but sees a limitless number.
[18] The exact vocabulary of “in the regeneration, when the Son of Man will sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” (Matt 19:28 ) is missed by most translations e.g. “new world” (ESV); “renewal of all thing” (CSB, NIV); “when the world is made new” (NLT). The failure to translate this text literally cuts the connection between our personal regeneration/born again (John 3:3; 1 Pet 1:3, 23) and the transformation of the universe.
[19] Something vaguely discernible in reading Psalm 22 as messianic, via verse 1 (see Mark 15:34 etc.), “Save me from the mouth of the lion! You have rescued me from the horns of the wild oxen!” (Ps 22:21).
[20] This is something more than divine ju jitsu, using the opponents strength against themselves. It is only comprehensible in the light of the resurrection!
[21] Not “victimhood” e.g. “For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. 18 No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father.”” (John 10:17-18)
[22] “this Jesus,3 delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men….Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, 28 to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place” (Acts 2:23; 4:27-28). Note this is views as the pathways for the fulfilment of Psalm 2.
[23] The trampling feet of all the beastly powers, political, religious, economic, social etc. are all a parody of the final Lordship of Christ when everything will be under Jesus’ feet (1 Cor 15:25-27; Eph 1:22; Heb 2:8).
[24] Writing this in the midst of the COVID19 crisis in India, when the funeral pyres are filling the atmosphere with smoke, it is easy to s see times are apocalyptic. But they are here too, even in peaceful Western Australia!
[25] At least in impact, if not in duration, depending on how one interprets Rev 15:1, “I saw another sign in heaven, great and amazing, seven angels with seven plagues, which are the last, for with them the wrath of God is finished.”
.[26] ““If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand, 10 he also will drink the wine of God’s wrath, poured full strength into the cup of his anger, and he will be tormented with fire and sulphur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb.” (14:9-10). “Although the figure of the Lion does not appear again in reference to Christ (after chapter 5), his character does not disappear; he becomes part of the Lamb: as the Lamb marches victoriously through the text of Revelation, he appears distinctly as leader and warrior who wreaks devastation, engages evil victoriously in war, and celebrates a warrior’s victory. In fact, 9 of the 28 uses of ‘Lamb’ are in combat scenes.” (Rebecca Skaggs)
[27] So, for example, the plea of the martyrs/witnesses in Revelation, “They cried out with a loud voice, “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?”” (6:10), is completely incomprehensible, or even sadistic. This does not mean delighting in wrath, which a holy God never can. The Bible never says that “God is wrath”, the Old Testament expresses this by saying that God does not “afflict or grieve anyone from his heart” (Lam3:33) and the work of judgement is a “strange” or “alien” work (Isa 28:21). Let alone the whole revelation of Jesus Christ.
[28] In the sense of “render powerless” the works of the devil forever (Heb 2:15; 1 John 3:8).
[29] Such as “dominion theology” or reconstructionism.
[30] A more common translation has, “The one who conquers and who keeps my works until the end, to him I will give authority over the nations, 27 and he will rule them with a rod of iron, as when earthen pots are broken in pieces, even as I myself have received authority from my Father.” (Rev 2:26-27) Footnotes in the text will often allude to “rule” as from the Greek for “shepherding”. For a useful discussion on these verses see https://biblehub.com/commentaries/jfb/revelation/2.htm
[31] Some commentators argue that the angel’s attributes show he is actually Jesus. “Angel” after all simply means “messenger”.
[32] This is a prophetic call based on Amos 3:7-8, “For the Lord God does nothing without revealing his secret to his servants the prophets. 8 The lion has roared; who will not fear? The Lord God has spoken; who can but prophesy?”.
[33] Something which seems to come to an end, compared to our priestly and kingly offices, when the kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of God and Christ (Rev 11:15). In particular in a world free from suffering for Jesus prophecy is needed no more (1 Cor 13:8).