Rev. 5:6, “…I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain…”
I’m not even going to try to delve into the richness of John’s Lamb imagery in such a short post (I’ll get into that during the live Q&A tomorrow). Rather, I’m just going to take a few moments to explain why I presented the Lamb as I have in this picture.
First, see that the blood of the Lamb is pouring out over all the earth, “ransoming” people for God (Rev.5:9). By His death—blood—Christ has endured the fullness of, and so purchased His people from, the judgment of God’s wrath.
Second, Revelation tells us that the 7 eyes of the Lamb are the “seven Spirits of God sent out into all the earth.” Seven is a crucial number in the book of Revelation and it points to perfection or completeness. However—as Peter Leithart notes—the reason 7 implies completeness is because 7 is the number associated with the fulfillment of creation (6 days of creation and the Sabbath rest). Thus, 7 points not only to completeness, but “creational completeness,” or—eschatologically—New Creation. So, the sevenfold Spirit of God is the Spirit who brings about the New Creation (just as He did for the first, Gen.1:2). In this image, then, the Spirit flows from the eyes of Christ like life-giving water from a spring, and gathers all those for whom Christ died to Himself…The Spirit gives New Creational life by revealing Christ to His people and so drawing them to Him.
Finally, the 7 horns of the Lamb represent perfect power, but not generic power, rather, seven-fold power to bring about the New Creation. And this power—as well as the New Creation it brings about—is defined by the one who wields it: The Slaughtered and Living Lamb. True power is the power of God manifest on the cross; true power is the outpouring of self in witness to the beauty of God’s Name, such that enemies become children and ALL things are made New. The New Heavens and Earth are the flowering of Calvary’s Tree.
