Revelation 5:1-14 – Git R Done

In Chapter 4 we saw John’s description of the ongoing situation in heaven. In this chapter he tells us about the most important event that took place in the most important place in the universe.

God is holding a scroll in his right hand as he sits on the throne. I take this scroll to be God’s plan for the world and for its salvation and redemption. But it’s sealed. Seals can only be broken by those who have the authority to open them. Or to put in another way, the one who opens the seal must be the one who has the ability to implement it. If you aren’t the one to do what the scroll describes, or if you’re not able to do it, you can’t open it. In this sense, the sealed scroll is a bit like a graduation diploma. You don’t get the diploma until you qualify for it. In the same way, you can’t open the scroll describing God’s plan for the world unless you’re able to do it.

But no one in all of creation (all three levels of the three-tier cosmos as John understood it) was able to open the scroll. Since the scroll couldn’t be opened, God’s will could not be consummated. In fact, no one could even know what the plan was! John weeps because of the goodness of God’s plan. Until the scroll is opened, the world will continue to suffer.

The good news is that Someone emerged with the ability and authority to be able to open that scroll. As John describes him, it’s pretty obvious that it’s Jesus, even though he doesn’t name him. But this is also where the Trinity can get tricky for us. Or maybe it’s Jesus’ divine nature that makes it confusing. (Of course, isn’t that the same thing, just from a different direction?) Why can’t the One sitting on the throne open the scroll, since He’s the one who wrote it? And when Jesus appears, John sees him standing in the center of the throne, which is where God is. The identification of Jesus as God is pretty hard to miss. And yet, there’s some sort of a distinction. The Father and Son are one God, but two Persons.

The elder who comforts John by telling him that someone worthy to open the scroll has appeared describes him with a double reference to the Son’s Old Testament identity: the lion of Judah and the root of David. To call Jesus the “root of David” is actually a reversal of the messianic hope of the Old Testament, which looked for the shoot to come from the stump of Jesse (Isaiah 11). Jesus as Messiah is not merely the culmination of messianic hope which began with the royal family of David. He is the source of that hope as well. Both the beginning and the end. Alpha and Omega. The elder tells John that he can open (that is, reveal and enact) God’s will because of his triumph. But he doesn’t tell John what he did to be triumphant. But it makes sense: he can make God’s will happen because he has already started to do it. The triumph he has won is the beginning of the fulfillment of God’s will that’s written on the scroll.

The elder also describes Jesus as the lion of Judah. He’s the powerful one of the people of God. The name reeks of images of power and strength. So, when John turns to look at him, you’d expect to see a powerful, impressive beast or figure who inspires you with awe and wonder. Instead, John sees the exact opposite. It’s a lamb, one of the weakest and most defenseless of creatures. And as if that wasn’t enough, it’s a lamb that has been slain. If this leaves you scratching your head, then you got the point of it. The symbolism that we find in Revelation is often, and accurately, described as metaphor. But when it comes right down to it, we exchange the depth of metaphor for the flatness of allegory. At the risk of turning this into a literature lesson, let me explain the difference. Metaphor and allegory are both figurative styles of speech and writing. But allegory is a type of substitution; you can replace what the text names with the “real” thing that it’s actually talking about. In this case, if Revelation is allegory, then Lion of Judah = Jesus, throne of heaven = God’s authority, and so one. Allegory is simply a fancy or pleasing way to make your point. (Sometimes people also use allegory to hide what they’re really talking about so that they don’t get in trouble.) But metaphor is different. In metaphor, you can’t simply say that A = X. Metaphor takes things that don’t belong together and calls them the same thing. When it does this, it makes you rethink the entire story. All of the previous ways that you thought about stuff has to change because of the challenge that the metaphor creates. Metaphor is substitutionary; it’s evocative. It prods you into new ways of thought that stand everything on its side.

This is a perfect example of a metaphor, in this way. A lion is a lamb. The one who was slain and defeated is alive and triumphant. The lamb and the One on the throne interact with each other, but they are the same person. (The lamb is at the center of the throne, so he’s apparently sitting on it. So how can he take the scroll from the right hand of the One seated on the throne, if he himself is the One seated on the throne?) This will drive you crazy if you insist on holding on to conventional straightforward thinking. Just like saying God is Three in One, and that Jesus is fully human and fully divine.

And that, in a way, is at the heart of our faith. Like metaphor, our faith reshapes and transforms everything. The most powerful force in the world is the force of love, which offers itself up for the other. Jesus won the greatest victory by being tortured, humiliated, and killed. The adventure of faith is to make sense out of what seems to make no sense at all (like a powerful lion being the same thing as a slaughtered lamb), but which changes our lives and our world at its very core.

When Jesus (the lion/lamb) takes the scroll, the living creatures and the elders fall down in worship. In other words, they do what they had been doing all along. But now, it’s different. As John put it, they began to sing a new song. John also gives us a bit more detail about what exactly they’re doing in their worship. He says that they have harps, and that they have bowls of incense. He tells us that the incense is the prayers of the saints (that is, the people of God). It’s an image that we find elsewhere in the Bible, by the way. And he doesn’t have to tell us what the harps represent: music. I had a choir director once who said that music is the one thing from this world that we’ll take with us to the next. I’m not sure why she thought so, but it sounds good to me. Music is praise. So the incense (prayers) and the harps (praise) are the two things that we have to give to God. (That answers the ultimate question of what you give to someone who has everything.)

The chapter concludes with three songs that are sung in praise of the lion/lamb. The first song (verse 9) comes from the living creatures and the elders around the throne, proclaiming that the lamb is worthy to open the scroll because of what he did: dying to give all people the status of being God’s people. What he did went beyond the traditional notion that God’s people could only come from the Jewish nation. And by becoming God’s people, they (or we) receive more than “just” redemption (although that’s pretty sweet!): we will also rule with God. I know it’s true, but it’s hard to believe. God includes us not just as citizens but as rulers!

The second song comes from the thousands upon thousands of angels in heaven, who also sing that the Lamb is worthy. But for them, he is worthy not just of being able to perform the task of consummating God’s will, but to receive a seven-fold blessing. If we had more time and space, I could reflect on what each of these seven concepts tell us about who Jesus is. But instead, I’d like to think about the fact that the angels offer it to him, instead of him taking them for himself. Hubris and egotism is grabbing for what you don’t deserve. Jesus does the exact opposite. He receives that which is due to him. And that’s what sets him apart from all the boasters of the world.

The third song includes all of creation (and that means us as well). This time, the song is not just for the Lamb, but also for the One who sits on the throne. It’s praise for Christ, and also for the Godhead which includes Christ. Once again, we encounter that metaphoric tension of being distinct but being the same all at once. Creation repeats four of the seven attributes which the angels sang about. But it also adds that this is an eternal blessing; forever and ever. That’s also what makes God different: everyone else who gets praise and glory only has it for a while. The Steelers will have to defend their title in the fall. History is full of powerful empires that crumbled away to memories. The greatest people die just like the rest of us.

The songs end with a return to the inner circle of the living creatures and elders around the throne, who offer their affirmation to all that has been sung, and who continue in their perpetual worship. (By the way, that’s what “Amen” means: a powerful affirmation of what had been said. Basically it means that you agree so much that you want those words to be your own. “Amen” isn’t just a polite way to end your conversation with God.)