Revelation seven spirits of god8/4/2023 ![]() ![]() It’s a picture of Jesus as the suffering servant. Jesus is the Passover lamb by which God’s people are spared from judgment. It’s a picture of Jesus’ death and resurrection. So though He was struck, though He was killed, yet here He is in glory, standing. He’s been slain, mortally wounded, but you see the conjunction here? Standing and slain. When he turns now, and you wonder what sort of surprise it might have been, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, but when the curtain is pulled back as it were, all he sees is a Lamb, a wounded Lamb at that, walking up from among the elders and the living creatures, approaching the throne. He’s called, indeed He is, the Lion of the tribe of Judah. Did you notice in verse 5 He’s never actually presented, John never sees Him as a lion. Yet here, put together, the Lion and the Lamb. It would be hard for Disney to make a best-selling movie and musical, “The Lamb King.” It’s a little less majestic. If you have a great party to go up and have the shearing of the sheep, that makes sense, but if you say, “Let’s all go up and shear the lions,” that’s the last time you do that. ![]() If you switch the two things around, they seem dangerous, if not comical. Because we don’t think of lions as lamb-like or lambs as lion-like. That theme is related to a Christological theme, and that Christological theme can be summed up in this passage we’re looking at this afternoon – the Lion is the Lamb.Īs we’ve already heard, these are, to use Edward’s phrase, an admirable bringing together of diverse excellencies. ![]() Some of you may think of the language, may be familiar with it, from the letters to the seven churches in Revelation 2 and 3, “To him who overcomes.” There’s the Greek word “nike.” This book is about how to be an overcomer instead of a succumber. The Greek word in the verb form, nikao, appears in Revelation more than in all the other New Testament books put together, 28 times it appears in the New Testament and 17 of those occurrences are in the book of Revelation, because the book of Revelation gives instruction for the believer on how to be an overcomer. It’s the Greek word nike, or looks to us like Nike. Some of you have it, in fact, on your feet right now. You can summarize Revelation in really one word, one Greek word that you may not have realized, is a Greek that almost all of you know. But in another sense, Revelation is really one of the simplest books to understand. There’s all of this apocalyptic imagery and it’s very easy to get lost in the forest among the trees. Revelation is, famously or infamously, one of the most confusing books in the Bible. And when He had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.” And He went and took the scroll from the right hand of Him who was seated on the throne. “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. Continuing with Revelation chapter 5, verses 6 through 8. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply.AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |