A Crucial Surprise - Reflections on Revelation 5:11-14, Easter 3, Year C
by John C. Holbert on Wednesday, March 19, 2025
Rev. 5 must be carefully considered if the entire book is to have any lasting theological purpose. In this chapter we find the repudiation of the violent view of the book, that view that has terrified and horrified readers down the centuries. All those chapters that appear to describe vast armies marauding through the world, great beasts assailing land and sea, a military Christ hip-deep in the blood of enemies, are placed in their proper perspective by the astonishing portrait that we find here. If we only visualize the visions offered by John and see them in some sort of literal way, we will have short-circuited what he has to give to us. His visionary language must be appropriated with our minds far more than with our eyes. The visions are provided for us to think rather than merely see or react emotionally.
These facts are made manifest in Rev. 5, where we find the central image of the book. Unfortunately, the lectionary excludes that crucial image that we must understand from its verse suggestions. Its verses of adulation and praise (11-14) cannot be fully appreciated without a closer look at the beginning of the chapter.
John is wafted up to heaven in his visionary state and finds himself looking squarely at God. “Then I saw in the right hand of the one seated on the throne a scroll with writing inside and on the back, sealed with seven seals” (Rev.5:1) Just as in Ezekiel 2:10 where we also see a scroll whose contents have leaked onto the other side of an apparently crowded papyrus, so here the scroll of God, variously described as the book of life (3:5; 13:18, among others); the revelation of coming events throughout the book; the Old Testament (see Is.29:11-12; 2 Cor.3:14-16). It may be assumed that here at least the scroll should be taken to be God’s preordained plan for the world, a plan that needs both an unveiling (i.e. “Revelation”) and its execution. However, the scroll is “sealed with seven seals,” like many official documents of the Roman Empire said to be likewise sealed, and a worthy candidate must be found to open it. Hence, “a mighty angel” shouts with a loud voice, “Who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals?” (Rev.5:2).
However, no one “in heaven or on earth or under the earth” can be found able to open the scroll. In all the three-story universe, there is no one worthy to open the scroll. As a result, John “weeps bitterly” that no one is available to open the scroll. John’s bitter weeping is not the result of personal frustration, as if he is being thwarted in an attempt to gaze into the future. If the scroll cannot be opened, it means that the revelation of the purposes of God will not be known, nor will they be accomplished. The scroll simply must be opened!
But one of the elders who surround the throne of God comes up to John, and says, “Do not weep! The lion from the tribe of Judah, the root of David, has won the right to open the scroll and its seven seals” (Rev.5:5). The elder suggests that a veritable Lion of Judah has been victorious and has thus secured the right to open the scroll. The imagery comes from Gen.49:9-10, where Judah is described as a lion, whose scepter “shall never depart.” (See also the famous image of Is.11:1-10 and Romans 15:12.) So, John, drying his tears, looks around, expecting to catch sight of a mighty lion, king of beasts, who as always is victorious in battle and thus worthy to open the scroll. But now comes the great surprise! “Then I saw between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders a lamb standing as though it had been slain; he had seven horns and seven eyes which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the world” (Rev.5:6). Eugene Boring, in his excellent commentary on Revelation, summarizes the scene well: “John looks at the appointed place in the vision where the Lion is supposed to appear, and what he sees is a slaughtered Lamb…This is perhaps the most mind-wrenching ‘rebirth of images’ in literature.” Not only that, it forms the crucial key to unlock the ultimate meaning of the book of Revelation.
When the slain lamb takes the scroll from the hand of God, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fall down to worship the lamb, and sing a “new song: You are worthy to take the scroll and break its seals, because you were slain and by your blood you bought for God those of every tribe, tongue, people, and nation” (Rev.5:9). And then in our text for today a great chorus swells into a song made famous by Handel’s Messiah; “Worthy is the lamb who was slain to receive power and wealth, wisdom and might, honor and glory, and blessing” (Rev.5:12) I am singing it as I type! And the great chorus now includes “the voices of many angels, the living creatures and elders, and myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands,” in short a chorus uncountable.
The scroll of the purposes of God is opened by the lamb who was slain, by Jesus, the sacrificed one, who gave his life for the whole world, for every tribe and tongue and people and nation. Revelation will offer to us nothing short of a universal salvation, all due to the gift of the slain lamb. It is grossly ironic that the book has been read as a blueprint for a separation of peoples, those on the inside and those left out, those who believe the right things and those who do not, those to be “raptured” to God and those to burn forever in the fires of Hell. But if Rev.5 is to be believed, all of those so-called separations, those “theological” divisions, are false claims to be discredited and discarded forever. The slain lamb, according to John, has brought the whole world to God, and none will be excluded. We simply must keep this claim in mind as we continue to move through this fabulous book.