A LAMB AS IT HAD BEEN SLAIN

The record moves forward as John becomes aware that the occu­pant of the throne has in His extended hand a scroll, written but sealed up. These are the title deeds of the earth and they await an acceptable claimant to take them and to unloose the seals, bringing in the consummation of all things. Adam had this in his hands but forfeited his right to it by sin. Since then, there have been many who would press their claim and have risen to take it by force of arms or other means and grasp the prize of world rule. None has succeeded, and still it sits on the hand of the Eter­nal, awaiting Him whose right it is to ‘take the book and open the seals thereof’.

John weeps as he senses the lack of an approved one able to take the book. Will earth’s sorrows ever be brought to an end and the final acts of world history, lying within this volume, be released and brought to their glorious consummation in the purposes of the God who brought all things into being?

‘No one’ is not in God’s vocabulary of phrases, though maybe often in ours. ‘Weep not’ is the glad shout that awakens the hope of the ages; there is One who has prevailed, ‘the Lion of the tribe of Judah hath prevailed’. At last, Jacob’s deathbed declarations have matured to fulfilment, Gen. 49. 9, 10, ‘the lion’s whelp is gone up … the sceptre and the Lawgiver’ is about to take the world stage.

Imagine the breath-taking surprise of the apostle as he turns to look at the One who is worthy to take the book and finds not ‘a Lion’ but ‘a Lamb’, and that it bears the indelible marks of having been slain! To John, who witnessed the sufferings of his Lord firsthand, this must have brought Calvary vividly back to his mind. John will now pen into this book the word ‘Lamb’, arnion, twenty-eight times with reference to Christ. In this book, He is uniquely, the Lamb that was slain!

This description surely singles out our blessed Lord Jesus as He who, having suffered under the wrath of God, is thus approved to release the divine judgements that will close down this era of sin for ever and bring in God’s eternal day, wherein dwelleth righteousness, 2 Pet. 3. 11-13.