Bible Commentaries

Three Views of Man's Destiny

1. Pessimism

Revelation 5:4

This is a mysterious passage in a mysterious book, but the fact that interpretation may easily become ridiculous should not debar us from the beauty and the power of one of the greatest and most picturesque of Scriptural poetic images. God is on His throne, but He is left undescribed, and we see only His hand holding a sealed book.

What concerns us especially is the group of three figures which represent three of the main attitudes of man to destiny. There is the weeping Revelation 5:5

The elder's view of the Messiah is "the Lion of the tribe of Judah," and his boast is that Christ, in that capacity, has been able to unseal and open the book of human destiny. At least one of the older commentators has recognised in this elder the figure of the patriarch Jacob, and has referred the text back to the splendid words of Genesis 49:9—"Judah is a lion's whelp; from the prey, my Revelation 5:5-6

I. The impotency of unaided humanity to enter into the secret of God. This fact is proclaimed in this dramatic scene with marked emphasis. "And no man in heaven, nor in earth, neither under the earth, was able to open the book, neither to look thereon." Translating the dramatic picture, it is the grave truth that the Scriptures so constantly emphasise, that lies at the very base of the Christian doctrine of salvation, that fallen man had no power in himself to regain the heights from which he had fallen. Fallen man cannot with his own hands open the roll of the eternal secret of life; he cannot even look at it.

II. The Lion-power that accomplishes the task for humanity. "Behold the Lion of the tribe of Juda, the Root of David, hath prevailed to open the book and to loose the seven seals thereof." The description here given is very suggestive. On the one hand there is a strong savour of human nature in the terms employed. The Deliverer partakes of the nature of Juda, and of David, and the types of national and individual human life. This mighty love is in some sense human, and yet He is immeasurably more than man. He is the "Lion" of the tribe of Juda, that Revelation 5:6

The lion of the elder is a true aspect of Christ, and yet there is a more excellent way. It is the way of the saint, the divine seer and evangelist, who comes to rest upon the vision of "the Lamb standing as it had been slain," as the innermost secret of life and the true key of human destiny. For there is a limit to the power of will and courage, and sooner or later even the boldest attack teaches us by its imperfect success that we mortals must "approach destiny respectfully".

So now we have the lamb substituted for the lion. And it is ἀρνιον—"the little lamb"—quoted from Isaiah 53:7, but purposely changed to the diminutive. This is the favourite thought of that tender and farseeing spirit who took up the beautiful imagery of the twenty-third Revelation 5:6

Once I was troubled to know whether the Lord Jesus was Man as well as God, and God as well as Man; and truly, in those days, let men say what they would, unless I had it with evidence from Heaven, all was nothing to me, I counted not myself set down in any truth of God. Well, I was much troubled about this point, and could not tell how to be resolved; at last, that in Revelation v. came into my mind, And I beheld, and lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb. In the midst of the Throne, thought I, there is His Godhead; in the midst of the Elders, there is His Manhood; but, oh! methought this did glisten! it was a goodly touch, and gave me sweet satisfaction.

—Bunyan, Grace Abounding, sec122.

References.—V:6.—Charles Brown, God and Revelation 5:9

The meaning of that scene is unmistakable and instantly clear. It sets forth this truth, that Jesus, the Lamb of God who was slain at Calvary, alone has the power to disclose and to interpret the mind and purpose and ways of God. It was when the Lamb had taken the book and was about to break the first seal that they sung the new Revelation 5:9-10

It is a delight to a soldier or traveller to look back on his escapes when they are over; and for a saint in heaven to look back on his sins and sorrows upon earth, his fears and tears, his enemies and dangers, his wants and calamities, must make his joy more joyful. Therefore the blessed, in praising the Lamb, mention His redeeming them out of every nation and kindred and tongue; and Revelation 5:12

In one of his letters, Dr. John Ker describes the effect produced on him by reading Carlyle's Reminiscences. "We may be thankful," he writes, "that we have a better standard in the Infinite Strength that stooped to weakness, to pity and to raise it. I should be far from saying that Carlyle had not the Christian in him, but he wanted one part of it, and it is proof of an entirely original and Divine being, that the Reminiscences of the fishermen of Galilee give us One who had the most perfect purity, with the most tender pity—an unbending strength that never despised weakness.

"One of the false things of the day is to exalt power (including intellect in a form of power) at the expense of the moral and spiritual. It belongs to materialism, and in a degree to pantheism, and it is the direct opposite of Christianity, which makes Christ lay power aside, in order to make the centre of the universe self-sacrifice and love; and that their power should gravitate to this centre, because it is the only safe one. "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power." When we begin to see this, we feel in our deepest nature that it is Divine—that this must be true if the universe has any meaning, and the soul a worthy end. It gets obscured sometimes, but it will come out again.

Reference.—VI:1-8.—Expositor (4th Series), vol. x. p292.