This Easter Sunday, I’d like to invite you please now to take your copies of God’s Word in hand once again and turn this time to the book of Revelation, chapter 5. If you’re using a church Bible, you can find that on page 1030. Our focus this morning, of course, falls on the meaning and the significance of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. And Revelation chapter 5 is one place where we get to see some of the meaning and the significance of those glorious events that first Easter Sunday in most helpful ways. We are going to consider the teaching here under three headings. First, I want you to notice the crisis we must address in verses 1 through 4. Then, I want to think with you about the comfort we must have, verses 5 through 10. And finally, the confession we must make in 10 through 15. The crisis we must address, the comfort we must have, the confession we must make. Before we unpack each of those, let’s bow our heads and pray and ask for the Lord to help us and then we’ll read the Scriptures. Let us all pray.
Lord Jesus, like the disciples in the upper room that first Easter, we pray You would come among us now and speak peace to our hearts and show us Your hands and Your feet and grant to us the comfort of knowing that You have given Yourself for us and now live and reign with the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, blessed forever. Do that we pray now from this portion of Your Word, for we ask it in Your name. Amen.
Revelation chapter 5 at the first verse. This is the Word of God:
“Then I saw in the right hand of him who was seated on the throne a scroll written within and on the back, sealed with seven seals. And I saw a mighty angel proclaiming with a loud voice, ‘Who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals?’ And no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or to look into it, and I began to weep loudly because no one was found worthy to open the scroll or to look into it. And one of the elders said to me, ‘Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.’
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. And he went and took the scroll from the right hand of him who was seated on the throne. 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 they sang a new song, saying,
‘Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth.’
Then I looked, and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice,
‘Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!’
And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, saying,
‘To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!’
And the four living creatures said, ‘Amen!’ and the elders fell down and worshiped.”
Amen.
Think with me about the crisis we must address. First of all, look at verses 1 through 4 please. The apostle John has a vision of the throne room of heaven. You’ll notice that in the hand of God is a scroll, sealed with seven seals. Do you see that? If we were to skip ahead a little to the next major section of the book of Revelation, you’d see that the opening of this scroll is symbolic of the execution of the divine plan for human history. As the seals are broken and the scroll unrolled, the contents of the scroll, the purposes of God, become a reality. This is the cosmic plan transcribed in full. Here’s how all the promises and prophecies of Scripture are to be fulfilled. And so it is, therefore, to be a matter of vital and urgent necessity that someone open the scroll. Otherwise, the plan will fail. The purposes of God will come to nothing. And so an angel asks, “Who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals?” But the urgency of the question notwithstanding, verse 3, “No one in heaven and on earth and under the earth was able to open the scroll or look into it.” No one is found qualified or competent to take the scroll of the divine decree, the purposes of God, and bring it to pass. And so verse 4, John says, “I began to weep loudly because no one was found worthy to open the scroll or to look into it.”
Do you get why John is so distressed? I wonder if you can relate to him in this moment? He’s overcome with existential horror at the prospect of the will of God failing. He’s undone by the deep, pervasive realization that unless someone opens the scroll, the suffering and the sorrow and the sin that plagues the world we inhabit will go entirely unanswered. He’s devastated by the sudden discovery of what I suspect many of us feel and know all too well. Unless the scroll is opened, unless the plan for salvation and judgment can be executed, there is no point. Evil will remain forever unaddressed. Cosmic justice must fail in the end. We are bereft and alone in the world.
John is gripped with something very much like the angst that commonly haunts our society to this day, isn’t he? What are all the protests on our streets, all the emergency meetings of Congress about? What is the renewed demand, so much a feature of Gen Z, for social justice? What is that? What are all the wars and all the efforts at international diplomacy? Aren’t they all so much evidence of an abiding sense in every human heart, however misunderstood it may sometimes be, that this world is not the way it’s supposed to be? That justice ought to be done, though it fails us so often. That we are made for and long for a better world.
But what if you knew, what if you knew that that better world would never come? What if you knew that final justice is inevitably to fail? What if you knew that your every instinct for righteousness was just a fool’s errand, naive and pointless? What if you knew that no matter what you do, evil is going to win in the end? Doesn’t that make John’s tears here entirely rational? No wonder he weeps and weeps. He was living, you may know, during the reign of the emperor, Nero, and waves of persecution were beginning to sweep the church. He himself was in exile as he was writing these words on the island of Patmos. Of the seven letters written to the churches of Asia Minor with which the book of Revelation begins, five of them bear testimony to the chaos and the compromise that was plaguing these fledgling congregations. And so for John, you can understand, for John, the stakes right here are very high indeed. It looked to him like evil is on the rise. Christians are suffering terribly. And now here he is, he’s in the throne room itself, in the cosmic command and control center of all things, and it’s just been confirmed – “The plan is going to fail. There is no hope. Evil wins.”
Here is the crisis we must address. I wonder how you handle it. Some of us try to self medicate our way through with drink or food or entertainment. We try to drown it out with distraction. We become work-a-holics. We bounce from one cheap sexual encounter to the next. We eat and eat and eat. We drink and drink and drink. We do whatever we can not to be alone with our thoughts, to face ourselves, or ever have to come to terms with the mess we’ve made of ourselves and the world that we inhabit, lest we find ourselves undone like John here in verse 4 – broken, unable to function. But Revelation chapter 5 offers us a better way to respond to the reality of a world that is broken by sin and misery. It shows us actually how Easter Sunday answers all of that. Here, first of all, is the crisis we must address.
Now, look at verses 5 through 10 and the comfort we must have. This next scene, 5 through 10, is one of my favorites in the whole Bible. John is a soggy mess right now. Verse 4 says he is “weeping loudly.” He’s collapsed into a puddle, right. He’s ugly crying. So there’s snot everywhere. It’s not pretty. He just can’t get it together. He’s devastated. This is a crisis. He’s out of control. And then, verse 5, an elder steps forward. That’s what good elders should always do. And I imagine him putting his hand on John’s shoulder and with kindness, no doubt, though the words here, a little muted in our version, they come in the form of a command. The elder says to John, “Weep no more.” Actually, it may be better, “Stop crying.”
And then he tells him why. He tells him why tears, like this at least, are inappropriate and unwarranted. Look at what the elder says to John. “Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.” The title, “the Lion of Judah,” is language drawn from Genesis 49:9 used to describe Judah, one of the patriarchs of Israel and the tribe that descends from him. Similarly, the “root of David” comes from Isaiah 11:1 – “A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse,” that’s David’s father, “from his roots, a branch will bear fruit.” Both were images speaking of the Messiah who would come to conquer and reign as King over all. Judah was the royal tribe, the tribe of David, Israel’s greatest king. David was promised that one day his son would reign from his throne forever. Of David’s son, Isaiah says, “of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end.” So the Lion that John is told to behold is the Messianic King. He is worthy to open the scroll and its seven seals. “So John, no more tears. No more tears. The plan won’t fail. The promises won’t fail. Justice will prevail in the end. Righteousness will triumph. God’s purposes will be vindicated. Salvation to the ends of the earth will come.”
And so puffy-eyed, red-faced, John blows his nose and turns to see this mighty conquering Lion, majestic in His victory, with new hope springing up in his heart. He turns to see. What does he see? Verses 6 and 7, “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. And he went and took the scroll from the right hand of him who was seated on the throne.” Here is the exalted Christ endowed with the Holy Spirit without measure, the seven spirits of God. But He’s not a Lion, at least the Lion is the Lamb. The Messianic King is the sacrificial Lamb. John sees Jesus Christ, doesn’t he? He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
There are actually two words used in the New Testament for a lamb. The first actually refers to an adult sheep. This was the word that John the Baptist used that I just quoted when he saw Jesus coming to him at the beginning of his public ministry to be baptized in the Jordan River. You remember John said, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” And here is that Lamb. But that’s not the word that the apostle John uses to describe Him here. The word he uses here is for a little lamb, a juvenile lamb – the very embodiment of innocence and fragility. “Mary had a little lamb.” That’s what John is saying of Jesus. It’s a stunning picture, isn’t it, if you think about it. The Messianic Lion who conquers is a little Lamb.
And don’t miss where the Lamb is standing. In our version, verse 6 says He is between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders. That’s a perfectly legitimate translation of the Greek. In my judgment though, a better translation would actually be, “in the midst of the throne and the four living creatures, and in the midst of the elders, I saw a Lamb.” The living creatures are angelic embodiments, symbolic representatives really of the whole created order. The elders on the other hand are what all elders are. They are the representatives of the redeemed people of God. And John says the Lamb is right in the midst of them, right in the midst of creation, symbolically, right in the midst of His redeemed people. Not distant, not far off, but with us and among us.
But much more than that, the Lamb is standing in the center of the throne. At the beating heart of this cosmic scene where grandeur and majesty and power and dominion belong, there stands a Lamb. And look closely at this Lamb. John says the Lamb is “standing, as though it had been slain.” It’s not a dead lamb, sacrificed and then dumped lifeless and spent upon the throne. It is a living Lamb, standing there. But this Lamb has been slain. That word again in English is a little too weak. Really the word means “slaughtered,” to kill by violence. Here is Jesus Christ, the Messianic Lion of the tribe of Judah, the King of kings, one His throne, the throne of all things, reigning over all. And John can see this Lion, this Lion-Lamb, has been slaughtered, and yet now it lives.
We sang about this a few moments ago, didn’t we, in “Crown Him with Many Crowns.” “Crown Him the Lord of love! Behold, His hands and side. Rich wounds yet visible above in beauty glorified.” That’s what John is seeing – a Lamb bearing the evidence of its slaughter, yet living again and reigning from the throne. Here are the only wounds in heaven. Every other resident of heaven is perfect, complete, healed. The perfect, unfallen angels, they have no wounds. The redeemed people of God, the glorified saints, no longer have any wounds. All the marks of sorrow and suffering and sin are eradicated in heaven. It could not be heaven for us were it not so. All the marks of sorrow and suffering and sin are eradicated in heaven except for the wounds of the Lamb. They testify, they proclaim for all eternity what He has done and endured at Calvary. John sees in the midst of the throne, Jesus Christ, who was crucified, dead and buried, rose again on the third day in the same body in which He was crucified. This is an Easter scene. Do you see it? The Lamb was slain, but here is the Lamb who was slain, standing now, endowed with might and majesty, reigning from the throne. Weep no more. Weep no more! The throne of glory is occupied by the slain Lamb, the Lion of Judah, bearing forever the marks of His love for you.
We read earlier, Scott read to us, Luke 24. After Jesus’ resurrection, when He appeared in the upper room in the midst of His disciples, they were, Luke says, startled and frightened. They thought they saw a spirit. And he said to them, “Why are you troubled and why do doubts arise in your heart? Behold, My hands and feet.” It’s essentially what the elder does here with John in Revelation chapter 5 verse 4, isn’t it? “Behold the Lion who is a Lamb. Look there, see the only wounds in heaven, and weep no more.”
What wounds do you bear with you as you came here this Easter Sunday morning, I wonder. You have scars, I know. Some of them visible, some unseen. Please ,will you remember that the throne of heaven is occupied by one who bears forever the marks of His love for you, and there are no wounds that you may bear with which He cannot sympathize, and no scars of yours that His own glorified wounds cannot heal. No wonder the elder insists that John’s tears of grief have no rightful place in the throne room, not when the One who reigns from that throne is the Lamb who was slain. The suffering Church, heartbroken John, even your fear-filled heart, they all have their answer right here in the One who gave Himself for us. Behold, His hands and feet. See the Lion who is a Lamb, standing as though slain, and weep no more. He is worthy to open the scroll and its seven seals.
No wonder, as John takes all of this in, there is suddenly an eruption of praise and adoration. If there were any more tears after that, they were no longer tears of grief or horror but tears of joy, surely. There’s just a swelling anthem of praise that takes up the rest of this chapter. Look particularly with me for a moment if you would at the elders’ song as they take up the praise of the Lion who is a Lamb. In verses 9 and 10, I want you to see here how the elders’ song explains how it is that the Lion could be a Lamb, how it is that Jesus conquers by a cross and triumphs by death. How does all of this work? Notice four things in the elders’ song, four things that answer exactly to the deepest needs of our hearts.
First, the Lamb who is worthy to open the scroll and bring history to its fulfillment and the plan of God to its completion, He is worthy because, the elders say, by His blood He has ransomed a people for God. Jesus’ death at the cross that first Good Friday paid the price for the ransom of sinners, like me and you. His blood secured our pardon, our liberation from the bondage of sin and the judgment of God. How can you weep no more this Easter? How can you mingle your voice with the worship of heaven this Easter? You must find yourself among the ransomed for whom the Lamb shed His blood at the cross. Are you in that number? Has Jesus washed your sin, your guilt away and delivered you from all the consequences of your rebellion against the rule of God? Have you been ransomed by God by His blood? This is the real ground of our deepest joy. The call to weep no more will only ever ring hollow in our ears without this, without this. You ought to weep because you can find nowhere else. Only the nail-pierced hands of Jesus Christ can hold the scroll of God’s saving purposes and bring it to pass. And only He can ransom you. So the elders’ song tells us that Jesus has secured our ransom.
Secondly, notice the elders’ song tells us Jesus has secured our unity. This is one of the great quests of our age, isn’t it? We want equality and we want unity. People march for it and demonstrate for it and argue about it and legislate for it. And yet it remains so elusive, like sand through our fingers. Our prejudices get the better of us, don’t they? All sorts of inequalities remain that tear us apart. But John says Jesus ransoms people for God “from every tribe and language and people and nation.” The blood of Jesus does what political action and social programs and the best efforts of human good will can only ever approximate but never fully achieve. We weep like John wept because the world is broken. How is it ever to be fixed?
John says Jesus takes diverse people, with different cultures and ethnicities and language, and He does what we constantly fail to achieve. He makes us one. And He does it, did you notice, without dissolving the beauty of our differences, the complexity of our variegated backgrounds, indeed instead our differences themselves are redeemed so that they enrich rather than undermine the unity of the people of God. Isn’t it a beautiful picture? And it means that the ransomed church of God for whom Jesus shed His blood is for everyone. It means it is for you. There is nothing about you – not your sin, not your backstory, not your culture, your education, your family, your ethnicity – there is nothing about you that disqualifies you. The only qualification you need is that you are a sinner and you trust Jesus to be your Savior. The slain Lamb ransoms all sorts and makes us one. And so I hope you can see there’s room, there’s room among the blood-bought, ransomed people of God for you too. Come and welcome. Come and welcome. Ransom. Unity.
Thirdly, the slain Lamb provides purpose. Another great reason that we weep, another great cause of our dysfunction, another reason the world doesn’t work is the pervasive sense many of us have that we are purposeless. What’s the point? If no one sits on the throne, if no one can open the scroll and break its seals, if the plan fails and all the promises are hollow and empty, there is no point. We have no purpose. Weeping with John is the only response that makes sense. But look what the slain Lamb accomplishes by His death. He was slain, and by His blood He “ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and made them a kingdom and priests to our God.” He might have ransomed us, delivered us from our sin and its consequences and the wrath and curse of God, and then left it there and He would have been so good, so good to have done so. But He makes us into a kingdom and priests to our God.
When He ransoms us, He calls us to live under His rule. We become His subjects. He is our King. And then He puts us into His service. We become priests to our God. Life has new purpose when Jesus ransoms us. We’ve been consecrated now. Every moment of every day with every fiber of our being to the honor and praise of God! One implication of that, by the way, if you are a priest to our God, is that you now have free access to Him. That’s the privilege of a priest. Everyone else had to stay outside in the outer courts of the temple, but the priests could go all the way in. So you can go where John is right now, through Jesus Christ, whenever you need Him, whenever you wish, all the way to the throne as a priest to our God to meet the Lamb who reigns, presiding over all things. The Lamb who was slain provides for our ransom, our unity, our purpose.
Finally, He also bestows upon us, notice, new dignity. Just moments before, John was a puddle; he was a wreck. And here in the throne room, in the throne room of all places, he couldn’t keep it together because everything looked bleak and hopeless and empty. But now, now that he has seen the one standing in the midst of the throne, bearing the marks of his redeeming sufferings, he hears the most astonishing promise. Look at the last line of the elders’ song. “They shall reign on the earth.” One day, this John will himself sit on the throne. We will sit on the throne. Remember 2 Timothy 2:12 – “If we endure,” Paul says, “we will also reign with Him.” Revelation 5:10, “They shall reign on the earth.” The victory of the Lamb is a victory in which all who believe in Him will come to share. Isn’t that astonishing?
John was in jail in this moment, in exile on the island of Patmos. The church is in a terrible state. Persecution at the hands of pagan, civil power escalating, people suffering. The church was small, beleaguered, oppressed, a minority, fragile, impoverished, downtrodden, beset with false teaching. And heaven here assures John, “You’re all going to reign on the earth one day!” The cross and the empty tomb elevates human dignity to its highest conceivable heights, sweeping us up into a participation with the kingly victory of Jesus Christ. Sin debases and ruins us, but the ransom Jesus paid, the Lamb standing as though He has been slain, He dignifies us with the restoration and renewal of the image of God that sin destroys. Jesus will put everything right again one day soon. The resurrection is the guarantee. The resurrection is the guarantee. Death is already defeated. And that’s what John is seeing here.
The crisis we must address. The comfort we must have. Then finally, notice the confession we must make. Really all that remains is to ask this question – “How do I get ahold of this ransom that Jesus provided for sinners by His blood? How do I move from the company of those who have no grounds for anything other than weeping, like John, into the company of those who can’t help but sing for joy like the heavenly chorus in 9 through 14? How do you do it?” Well there’s a clue, I think, in the behavior of the elders. Did you notice twice in the passage, in verse 8 and again in verse 14, the elders fall down before the Lamb? Everyone is singing praise, but twice over the elders are said to fall down. These are the symbolic representatives of redeemed humanity, falling on their faces before the Lamb. It’s a posture of self-abasement and unworthiness and utter humility. It says, “I come to you now as I know myself to be – a wretched sinner whose proper place is in the dust. And I come begging, not demanding. I come nothing, but You are everything. Lord Jesus, I come guilty, but You can pardon me. Lord Jesus, I am naturally worthy only of condemnation, but You can ransom me. Lord Jesus, I am empty, You can fill me. I come to You. Have mercy.”
Heaven erupts in Easter celebration in Revelation 5 from the epicenter of the throne. First the elders in verses 9 and 10, then out to include myriads and myriads and thousands and thousands of angels in ranks in verses 11 and 12 until the shockwave sweeps out to its widest extent to encompass every creature in all creation, verses 13 and 14. And everyone and everything, everywhere, is reverberating with the same song of unequaled joy – “Worthy is the Lamb! Worthy is the Lamb!” It’s an Easter hymn of praise still ringing in heaven. But friends, the message of the Christian Gospel is that you can join that chorus and take your place in that great assembly. Your Easter hymns this morning can be more than the happy songs of a moment or two. They can express the abiding joy of everyone who knows what it is to be ransomed by Jesus’ blood.
Do you know anything about that? It can only happen if you will do what the elders do here and fall down and put yourself in the dust. You must humble yourself, and you must confess your sin and your desperate need for the ransom Jesus died to provide and now lives and reigns from the throne of all things to give to everyone who asks. And so you need to come and ask. His invitation goes out, did you notice, to every tribe and language and people and nation. It goes out to you this morning, here. Come and join the song. Come and be welcome. But only those who fall down before Him can take their place and on the exalted heights that John sees here. Friends, you can weep no more because the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David, has conquered. He is worthy to open the scroll and its seven seals. He is the Lamb, standing as though it had been slain, right in the midst of the throne. You go to Him today and cry for the pardon His ransom provides and you will swap your tears for songs of praise. Worthy is the Lamb! Worthy is the Lamb! Worthy is the Lamb!
Let’s pray together.
Lord Jesus, we adore You, O Lamb of God, slain for us. We pray now for one another that as we sing Your praises, our songs here might be just a glimpse and foretaste of a song that we will never cease to sing with the saints and angels because we all, everyone here, have become members of that great innumerable company of the ransomed Church of God. Make it so, for we ask it, Lord Jesus, in Your name. Amen.