As I left the second showing of the Cantata this morning, I pondered in my mind why God continues to call Jesus the Lamb even into the book of Revelations. He will be seen in the future as the Lamb upon His throne.
We are told that Jesus is also the Lion of Judah. Why does the Father not only portray Christ as the Lion after the resurrection and exaltation?
I would like to suggest an educated guess. Jesus still bears the wounds that He received as the slain lamb. John the Revelator refers to the exalted Christ three times as the slain Lamb. I believe that the Father chose to continue to call Jesus a Lamb because of these "forever wounds".
Jesus will forever bear the marks of our salvation in His blessed palms, feet, side, and head. The Father chose that His glorified body would retain these marks as testimonies that our sins are forever atoned for.
This is my best guess...and I think it is a good one. Praise be to the Lamb slain, resurrected, and glorified. To Him be honor, riches, glory, and might forever and ever. AMEN! He alone is Worthy. He is risen! He is risen indeed.
The early church read John's vision of Jesus as the "Lamb standing as though slain" in connection with the alter in heaven. The sole purpose of an alter is sacrifice, and so we see Jesus offering himself as the sacrificial lamb on the alter in the New Jerusalem. Yet, there is only one sacrifice, one true Passover. This fulfilled Passover begins in the upper room, where Jesus interrupts the meal, saying he will not drink again of the cup until he enters the kingdom of heaven. He then prays "remove this cup" in the Garden of Gethsemane. He then offers himself on the cross as the Lamb of God. (John, the only apostle present at the cross, points out to us the seamless loin cloth and the hyssop branch--two of many indicators that Jesus was fulfilling the original Passover.) But he then, as high priest, needs to offer himself, the sacrificial lamb, in the temple. And finally, those for whom the sacrifice was offered partake in the feast by mystically entering into the New Jerusalem, as John did on the Lord's Day in Revelation, to communion with the Lamb. Thus, Hebrews now equates Mt. Zion with the New Jerusalem as the location of our Christian worship.
ReplyDeleteYour question about whether Jesus will eternally retain the marks of his Passion is a good one. Here, I think we have a lot more room to speculate.
Dear Ready,
ReplyDeleteI appreciate your comments. I appreciate that you make clear that there is only ONE sacrifice. Christ's work as a sacrifice is done. That is clear from Hebrews 10:14 For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.
Christ is our constant and continual intercessor and propitiation - yet it is all based on One Finished Sacrifice - not an ongoing offering.
While it is true that Christ's once for all sacrifice on Calvary can be located in human history approximately 2,000 years ago, there is also the sense, which you describe in your discussion of John's vision, that the sacrifice is being offered in heaven to the Father. This aspect of the sacrificial offering has an eternal dimension to it, so it can be said, as the Bible does, that Christ was sacrificed from the beginning of the world. In this eternal sense, the sacrifice does seem to be ongoing - thus John's vision of the alter in heaven with the lamb standing as though slain. Since we as Christians now worship mystically in this New Jerusalem, this temple of our risen Savior, we can begin to understand how this once for all sacrifice on Calvary is extended throughout all eternity to bring salvation to all who call upon his Holy Name.
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