Then I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain, standing at the center of the throne, encircled by the four living creatures and the elders. The Lamb had seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth. – Revelation 5:6

Today’s Scripture Reading (April 24, 2018): Revelation 5

Brandon Sanderson in “The Way of Kings” remarks that “Expectations were like fine pottery. The harder you held them, the more likely they were to crack.” Verbally, our plan in life often seems to be that we will live without expectations. After all, expectations will often fail to be realized, leaving us disappointed. But the truth is that expectations are necessary for life. We live with them constantly. They are both our friends and our tormentors, as well as a key element of the plot twist in a good mystery.

John expects after the conversation that has gone on before to see a Lion. But it is not just any Lion that John expects, but rather the Lion of the tribe of Judah. John is told that the Lion of Judah has the power to open the scroll. But when he turns to look at Lion, his eyes reveal a Lamb instead. And it is not just any Lamb. The word that John uses to describe the Lamb is “arnion,” which indicates a diminutive or little lamb, bringing to mind, for contemporary readers, the lamb of Mary, as in “John had a little lamb, whose fleece was white as snow.”

Except that the second part isn’t right. The little Lamb is mortally injured. It seemed, in heaven, to bear the marks of its injury eternally, as if the assault had recently taken place. One can imagine from John’s description that instead of the fleece being “white as snow,” it was stained and dripping with blood. This little lamb had been slain. John was expecting a Lion, but what he saw was almost as far from the King of beasts as any animal could be; he saw a Lamb that had been beaten and was dying from its injury.

But just as John settles his expectations, changing them from a Lion to the Lamb that he now sees, his expectations fail him once more. Because this was not some ordinary lamb, this Lamb had seven horns and seven eyes. The significance of what John saw was that this Lamb, small, beaten and slain, possessed immeasurable power, signified by the seven horns, and unlimited knowledge, signified by the seven eyes. And this power and knowledge, this omnipotence and omniscience, was sent out by the seven spirits, to cover the entire earth. These seven spirits, or maybe a sevenfold spirit, is often referred to as the Holy Spirit, who is complete in that he is both the Spirit of God and Christ. The omnipresence of the Spirit joins the omniscience and omnipotence of the Lamb.  

Out of defeat, the Lamb would triumph. This might be the only place in literature where the Lamb becomes the Lion, and the expectations of both are melded into one. According to John, Jesus Christ is both the Lion and the Lamb. Jesus is both sacrifice and the power to save. And so he is also all that we need.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Revelation 6