20091220

Words with opposite meanings must necessarily clash.  But the opposing visual pictures of the Lion and the Lamb – usually natural enemies – are played out beautifully in Revelations 5.  The Lion is not the natural enemy of the Lamb here.  To borrow a geek term, the Lion is the symbolic “interface” for the Lamb.  The symbolic qualities of the King of the beast – courage, strength and majesty – are the very essence of the Lamb.

Courage: Christ is not like a hired hand who flees at the first sign of trouble.  Like the “lion, mighty among beasts, who retreats before nothing”(Prov. 30:30), He stood to the end.  All through His life, the sinless Lamb of God lived His life towards His death.  Luke 9:51 says, “As the time approached for Him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem.”

Strength: Christ is not a weakling as some supposed He was.  In the Messianic Psalm 22:13, the extent of His suffering was physical (“my bones are out of joint”) and emotional (“my heart…melted within me”) and mental (“my enemies gape at me like roaring lions”).  On the spiritual plane, satan, His spiritual enemy, was also baying for His blood.  But in the end, on the cross, He finished very strong with the cry: “It is finished”.  One for all, He overcame spiritual death for those who believe in Him, once and for all.

Majesty: Christ was not just a political pawn that the Pharisees and Jewish leaders thought they could get rid of by nailing Him to the cross.  Though tortured, the Son of God was “a lamb to the slaughter … He did not open His mouth” (Isa. 53:7).  His silence irritated Pilate leading the interrogator to boast that he had the power to release Jesus, if He would so much as ask him to.   Imagine that: the Creator of the universe subjecting Himself to the created.  But the Servant of man will be the King of Kings at the end of the age.

Christ is the worthy Lamb “standing in the centre of the throne”, encircled by the elders, who opened the scroll in Revelation 5.  The Good Shepherd came to seek and save lost sheep.  He is the sacrificial Lamb and the Lion at whose name every knee shall bow.  Worthy is the Lamb who was slain!  Amen!