The Lamb at the Center of the Throne
Hope in the Chaos, Week 3
Friends,
Thank you for another enjoyable week opening up the book of Revelation! I hope you are having as much fun with this as I am. Below you can find some links, a brief recap, a few reflections on art and the physical location of the Lamb, and a reminder about where we’ll be next week and how you can get ready.
Let’s get into it.
Links
Recap
Yesterday we looked at Revelation 4-5, where John gets swept up into a vision of the heavenly throne room. The passage is built around five worship songs which build progressively in both intensity and intrigue. What starts in chapter four with praising the One on the throne as the Creator of all moves into praising the Lamb for ransoming a people by his death - and ends with praising the One on the throne and the Lamb. If anyone ever tells you we’re not supposed to worship Jesus, encourage them to take a close look at Revelation 5!
The point of Revelation 4-5 is that God is in charge of history, and he’s bringing his plan to bear on the world through Jesus Christ and his death and resurrection. In the end, every creature - from the most glorious heavenly angel to the most humble bacterium - will bow down and worship the One on the throne and the Lamb who was slain. John’s vision of the heavenly throne room puts all your worries into perspective.
Revelation in Art - Vicit Agnus Noster (Latin: “our Lamb has conquered”)
There is lots of great art inspired by the book of Revelation. Here are just two examples of the victorious Lamb motif. The first is from a stained glass window in a Moravian Church in North Carolina. The Moravians were a Reformation movement that predated Martin Luther by several decades. A few hundred years later they had a profound influence on a young Anglican cleric named John Wesley. Wesley’s famed Aldersgate experience happened at a Moravian prayer meeting. This lamb insignia is basically the contemporary Moravian Church’s logo.
The second is from the crucifixion panel of the 16th century Isenheim Altarpiece by Matthias Grunewald. More famous for its grisly depiction of Christ in his final moments, the other figures surrounding Jesus have always struck me as well - particularly those to the viewer’s right of the cross. Right there, between the nail-pierced feet of Jesus and bare feet of John the Baptist is a victorious lamb, carrying a cross, with blood flowing from a chest wound into a cup. Of course a lamb wasn’t there at Jesus’ crucifixion (neither was John the Baptist!), but to me it speaks to the victory - and the timeless significance - of the cross in a profound way. A large print of the whole scene has a very prominent home on the wall of my office at the church.
Finally, how about some music? At our evening session two pieces were mentioned. First, an anthem that our choir has performed in the past (you can listen here, but I’d bet that recording is not as good as our choir was!). Second, “Worthy is the Lamb That Was Slain” from Handel’s Messiah (which I am rocking out to as I write this). Thanks to Janet and Galynn, respectively, for mentioning both of these two pieces!
The Lamb “standing at the center of the throne”
A great question about the exact location of the Lamb with respect to the throne came up at the 11:30 session. Bottom line: it’s ambiguous.
The Greek literally says something like “in the middle of the throne and the four living creatures and in the middle of the elders” (“en mesō tou thronou kai tōn tessarōn zōōn kai en mesō tōn presbyterōn”). If this was all we had we might imagine the throne, living creatures, and twenty four elders all in a circle with the Lamb in the center of it all, or maybe two concentric circles (elders on the outside, living creatures and throne on the inside, with the Lamb in the center). But we know this isn’t exactly what’s happening, since the twenty four elders and four living creatures are themselves positioned around the throne. One author (Sweet) suggests it means the Lamb is between the throne and the creatures (on one side) and the elders (on the other). Another author (Beale) just suggests it means something like “in the vicinity of the throne…”
Instead I’d say this is John the poet at work. Like so often in Revelation, don’t get hung up trying to understand what John says, focus on what he means by it. I think the point here is to dramatically suggest a major shift in attention: all eyes are on the Lamb! I think John is also creatively making a difficult point that holds together two things that could be seen as contradictory. First, even the One on the throne glorifies the Lamb. Second, at the same time, the Lamb and the One on the throne share center stage, just like they share the song of worship in 5:13. They are two, but they are also one. Throw in the Spirit (those seven lamps!) and you’ve got “God in three persons, blessed Trinity!”
For Next Week
Read Revelation 6-8 at least once and wrestle with the question: Has this already happened, is it going on now, or is it in the future?
“To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb
be praise and honor and glory and power,
for ever and ever!” (Rev. 5:13b, NIV)
Pastor Cabe