I finished another book last week called Reading Revelation Responsibly by Michael Gorman. It just might be the best book I’ve read this year.
Gorman shows how and why the book of Revelation is relevant and important for the church today. Revelation is not a book that’s just about the future. Its purpose is not to excite us about a future secret rapture of the church (as depicted in the Left Behind series). Rather it calls the people of God to follow the Lamb today.
Gorman argues that the point of Revelation is that the people of God follow the Lamb through radical and nonviolent witness in the world.
In chapter six Gorman writes concerning Revelation 5:6 (“the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David”),
“Both John and we, as readers, await the unveiling and identification of this powerful, conquering messianic Lion; perhaps both John and we suspect that the elder is directing our attention to Jesus, Lion of Judah and Son of David – and he is. But the vision John receives and describes for us is not what anyone would expect. It is the vision of a slaughtered Lamb, not a ferocious Lion. God overcomes the world not through a show of force but through the suffering and death of Jesus, the faithful witness.”
“In Revelation the nature of power is being redefined. The power of the Lamb in Revelation takes two forms: the power of his death, the symbol of which is the slaughtered lamb, and the power of his spoken word, the symbol of which is the sword of his mouth (1:16).”
“The Lamb’s power, his conquering, has been manifested, not in the raw power associated with a lion, but in the power of faithfulness to death, a violent death that resulted in ransom in, or redeeming, a royal and priestly people for God.”
“Any reading of Revelation – and any practice of theology more generally – that forgets this central NT truth is theologically problematic, even dangerous, from its very inception. It is doomed, not to failure, but to success – and that is its inherent defect.”
This truth is worth contemplating today: the cross – meaning the faithful death of the slaughtered Lamb – is both the source and the shape of our salvation.
Jesus, the Lamb who did not retaliate but was willingly slaughtered, brings us salvation.
Jesus, the conquering messianic Lion, is the silent, vulnerable Lamb who calls us to follow Him and take up our cross and be willing to suffer and die as witnesses to the gospel.
Fighting to defend our rights may be an American idea, but it is not a Christian one. Jesus redefined power as weakness and death. The ferocious Lion is the slaughtered Lamb.
The way to defeat evil is not by brute force or retaliatory violence (Lion). Rather, evil is defeated by allowing it to have its day while remaining faithful witnesses to the gospel (Lamb).
Even as Jesus will return on a white horse with His robe dipped in blood and a sword coming from His mouth, we must remember that the blood is His own blood that was shed on the cross, and the sword is His spoken word (Rev. 19:13).
“Worthy is the Lamb who was slaughtered – to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing” (Rev. 5:12).