Introduction

Because love is the whole law and its fulfilment (Gal 5:4; Rom 13:10), James 2:10 may authoritatively announce that whoever “stumbles in one point” of God’s law automatically becomes violator of all points thereof. With this assertion James states the fundamental principle of which Jesus’ words in John 8:44 are first an accurate application, and, beyond that, a unique demonstration, one that is truly the incomparable demonstration of James’ rule. This paper explicates that truth.

The Principled Distinction

Whose Children?

First, here are Jesus’ words¹:

You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies (John 8:44).

In this statement of awful truths about the devil Jesus qualitatively unites His own first century enemies to the “murderer from the beginning” who is, simultaneously, “the father of lies.” They are the devil’s descendants, generationally his, and inheritors of his murderous and lying nature. His hearers have argued that they are Abraham’s descendants (v. 33), something Jesus acknowledges that nevertheless still allows for the possibility of their being children of murder. Instead of disputing their claimed status, Jesus shows Himself open to the idea’s multiple meanings. So that while they are Abrahamic: “I know that you are Abraham’s descendants” (v. 37), they are also manifestly not, but in fact are offspring of the original murderer:

If you are Abraham’s children, do the deeds of Abraham. But as it is, you are seeking to kill Me, a man who has told you the truth, which I heard from God; this Abraham did not do. You are doing the deeds of your father (vv. 39-41).

Their urge to kill shows that they “want to do the desires (e˙piqumiaß) of [their] father” the devil (v. 44). More, they not only want to, but already “do the things” they have got from [their] father (v. 38), and “are doing the deeds [“works”—e¶rga] of their father” (v. 41).² The “desires” referred to by the term e˙piqumia may be either entirely moral or profoundly degraded, depending exclusively, for these polar possibilities, on the character of the desirer: in Luke 22:15 Jesus’ desperate desire is “to eat this Passover with” His disciples before He suffers. His expression of that desire crowds the Greek text with Hebrew idiom, the union of an infinitive absolute and the indicative active that amounts to one of the most forceful forms of emphasis in Semitic idiom. The historical, prophetic, typological, spiritual and other import borne by that particular Passover experience meant that, for Jesus, its anticipation was among the most momentous He ever experienced for any action He would ever have shared with his disciples.

By contrast, e˙piqumia in Romans 1:24 is portrayed as cravings whose result is God giving humans up to their most lamentable physical and emotional urges. One intimation of Jesus’ rebuke to the Pharisees is that physical paternity as determined by nature may be entirely distinct from spiritual paternity as disclosed by behavior. Expanding on that hint, Jesus is implying that the possibilities of a vast range of interests and impulses may be simultaneously contemplated within the framework of spiritual and biological ancestry. Going further still, His words teach that ancestry’s diametrically opposite realities [i.e., “physical” vs “spiritual” paternity] may at once inhere in the same body. In the instance before us, that single body is the then dominant body of spiritual Jewry, the Pharisees, most recognized and dogged agents of Jesus’ harassment through the years of His earthly ministry.³ While the priestly families who controlled the temple belonged to the ranks of the Hellenized Sadducees, the Pharisees were held in higher spiritual regard than any other of the multiple factions of first century Jewry. Their hostility to Jesus, and His explicit denunciation of their approach to spiritual things together highlight the truth that spiritual discernment can be radically opposed to carnal discernment (1 Co 2:13, 14; Rom 15:27; 1 Co 9:11). Such being the case, it is not entirely surprising that human understandings and practices in the area of secular law sometimes constitute a major challenge to discussions of biblical or divine juridical value.

Honesty in Justice?

Consider, for example, the legitimacy of deceptive police practice in the process of extracting legally admissible evidence. The Supreme Court of the United States has ruled that confessions are admissible and implicating “notwithstanding the use of deceptive police tactics” in order to extract them.⁴ What does that say about divine judgment? Whether our own compromised values are satisfied or not with such modest and conscientious dishonesty, it hardly elevates God beyond our fallenness, or improves any image of divine probity, if He must practice deceit in acquiring evidence for His courts. For one thing, such rationalization would most likely expose Him as the ultimate violator of the rules He lays out to set us a standard; it would raise serious question about the value of all the precepts He has offered for our guidance. It would amount to the kind of response that effectively destroys any real contrast between the expedient compromises of carnal minded dishonesty and the principled stance of spiritual minded integrity that is heard in the very references already cited from James, and Jesus in John (James 2:10; John 8:44). Besides the tragic moral distortions of the divine character that such proposals would convey, the following question would arise and demand to be answered: would God mean for double-standard ethics to prevail among humans who reflect or represent Him in their interaction with other humans? Is it to be believed that subterfuge among human law enforcement agencies is simply a reflection of equivalent ethics dominating the heavenly courts!

Reasonable Genocide?

C. S. Cowles, Eugene H. Merrill, Daniel Gard and Tremper Longman III, in their book Show Them no Mercy: God and Canaanite Genocide,⁵ have undertaken to address Israel’s conquest of Canaan, and specifically the slaughter of the peoples of the land God promised to Abraham and his descendants, in relation to divine ideals on respect for life. Ongoing scholarly attention to the ethics of killing, and specifically, divinely ordered killing in the OT⁶ arises out of the tension between western civilization’s enlightened humaneness and the pervasiveness of death penalty sentences and orders in OT Scripture. Capital punishment as the thoroughly unremarkable norm in OT Scripture is evidenced in an overflowing tide of biblical orders to kill, and even to commit genocide. Moreover, traditional distinctions in this matter between OT and NT Scripture are not necessarily supported by the Bible: witness John 8:1-11 or, within the NT church after the cross, the instant elimination of Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:1-11), as well as Revelation’s climax of hell fire (Rev 16; 20:10, 14, 15; 21:8; 22:18). An openminded reading of Scripture will acknowledge an unswerving divine commitment, clear throughout Scripture, right down to the final book, Revelation, to taking the life of those found to deserve the death penalty, whether they be adult or child, human or animal (see Joshua 7:24-26). Is the biblical attitude to the taking of life a case of divine double-standard ethics?

More Questions?

Proper appreciation for the import of God 1) as warrior (Ex. 15:3; 17:16); 2) as giving direct or delegated orders, or implicitly granting permission to fight and kill (Num 31:1-8; Deut 20; 21:10—the Lord “delivers them into your hands”); 3) as stating His commitment thereto (17:16), 4) as gloating in victory over vanquished enemies as in the language of Psalm 2:9, amounts to a major obstacle to demonstrating any distinctive morality for the God of the Bible over that known extra-biblically. The narrator of the second psalm queries the mood and spirit, the intent and expectations of “the nations”. The nations are unaware that their enthusiastic rebellion and fancied liberation from divine tyranny is futile. They fume and foam (v. 1); they psyche themselves up by plots they conceive “together against the Lord and against His Anointed [the Messiah]” (v. 2). Their fantasy is breaking out of prison, as they propose to tear apart and hurl away the fetters that bind them (v. 3). This paper is not a treatise on Psalm 2. But the psalm does help us reflect on multiple questions about the possible unfair treatment of creatures by an insensitive, even contemptuous God “who sits in the heavens [and] laughs, . . . [and] scoffs at them” (v. 4). Our wonder about the character of that God now includes continued pondering of Joshua’s reporting on the fate of Achan’s family and their animals (Joshua 7:24-26); of multiple OT instructions to fight and kill Israel’s enemies during the Canaanite conquest and as a nation thereafter; of orders to administer the death penalty as proper and appropriate discipline for blasphemy (Lev 24:10-16), for gathering sticks on Sabbath (Num 15:32-36), or for unruly and rebellious children (Deut 21:18-21), as well as, of course, for individual people killing other people (Lev 24:17); along with pondering on all our other questions such as ‘breaking one means breaking all’; murder and lying originating from the same source, one that is culpable for all of cosmic trouble; and holy war as evidence for divine consistency rather than self-contradiction. Most urgently of all, we ponder how Christ’s crucifixion proves an appropriate answer, a satisfactory answer, the adequate answer to all of these questions at once.

God as Petty, Unjust, Vindictive, Bloodthirsty . . . .

You will no doubt recognize the present subtopic as borrowed from the words of—and drawing attention to the spirit of—one of atheism’s most vociferous apostles, British biologist Richard Dawkins. Hopefully, it allows us to proceed, and even demonstrates that we are committed to proceeding, in our search for answers, with an open mind. Here’s more of that language:

The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.⁷

Biblical Carnage

There is surely enough carnage in Scripture to match the passion of Dawkins’ words: “I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God” (Ex 20:5); “the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God” (34:14). This jealous God knows Himself to be lord of all: “Can a man hide himself in hiding places so I do not see him?” declares the LORD. “Do I not fill the heavens and the earth?” (Jer 23:24). Not only does He fill all, but He also rules all: “it is He who changes the times and the epochs; He removes kings and establishes kings” (Dan 2:21), including those we ourselves may not be inclined to set up: “the Most High is ruler over the realm of mankind, and bestows it on whom He wishes and sets over it the lowliest of men” (Dan 4:17).

Beyond this, the Bible’s God, jealous by His own admission, wreaks havoc whenever He deems appropriate, by His own prerogative, from which there is no recourse. Through Moses He promises devastation as the executive judgment that follows His own investigation: if you will not turn to Me, “but act with hostility against Me, then I will act with hostility against you; . . . I will strike you seven times for your sins. I will . . . bring upon you a sword which will execute vengeance . . . ; I will send pestilence among you, so that you shall be delivered into enemy hands” (Lev 26:23-25).

Daniel acknowledges Him as the court of final appeal: “All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, but He does according to His will in the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of earth; and no one can ward off His hand or say to Him, ‘What have You done?’” (Dan 4:35).

One-sided Violence

The Bible does not lack for statement of, and testimony to violence authorized and carried out by the Bible’s God.⁸ Moreover, much of the violence reported or even emphatically promised, is proudly partisan. Perhaps it is because their God is a warrior; but much of the story of His people seems to be a story of war. The biblical historian exposes the inner thought of Israel’s first king, shared with one of his greatest fighters: “only be a valiant man for me and fight the Lord’s battles” (1 Sam 18:17). Hundreds of years before that, tracing Israel’s peregrinations through the wilderness, Moses references, in passing, the otherwise unknown Book of the Wars of the Lord (Num 21:14) that includes a passage evoking the geography through which at that moment, Israel is traversing. Israel’s deliverance from the Egyptian Pharaoh and their journey through the wilderness to that point and beyond are depicted and understood as military campaigns. Thus we hear Moses wondering out loud, asking rhetorically, during his final address to his people on the Plains of Moab before he goes off to die alone:

has a god tried to go to take for himself a nation from within another nation by trials, by signs and wonders and by war and by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm and by great terrors, as the LORD your God did for you in Egypt before your eyes? (Deut 4:34).

Safeguarding Privileged Status

God does not free His people by cajoling or plea, but “with great power and with a mighty hand” (Ex 32:11), “by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm” (5:15). And Israel is to safeguard succeeding generations in respect for and obedience to “the testimonies and the statutes and the judgments” that the Lord has commanded based on a rationale of power, the power of their God as demonstrated against the Egyptians:

When your son asks you in time to come, saying, “What do the testimonies and the statutes and the judgments mean which the LORD our God commanded you?” then you shall say to your son, “We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt, and the LORD brought us from Egypt with a mighty hand” (6:20, 21).

For Moses, the Lord’s “mighty hand”, His “stretched out arm”, metaphors of superior physical and military power, are well worn phrases: “mighty hand” (yad chazaqa) or “mighty power” (koach gadol) occur 12 times in his farewell speech,⁹ with “stretched out arm” / “arm outstretched” (zeroa‘ netuyah) another half a dozen.¹⁰ Then at the end of Israel’s history as a distinct political entity, the commenting historian, lamenting its collapse, rues the fact that the nation made such a mockery of its origins and of

the commandments which the LORD commanded the sons of Jacob, whom He named Israel; with whom the LORD made a covenant and commanded them, saying, “You shall not fear other gods, nor bow down yourselves to them nor serve them nor sacrifice to them. But the LORD, who brought you up from the land of Egypt with great power and with an outstretched arm, Him you shall fear, and to Him you shall bow yourselves down, and to Him you shall sacrifice (2 Kings 17:36).

Good and wise King Solomon, the humble son of David who ruled after him, “loved the LORD, walking in the statutes of his father David, except he sacrificed and burned incense on the high places” (1 Kings 3:3). He was not perfect, but his attitude was still “pleasing in the sight of the Lord” (v. 10). Solomon’s conversation with the “Lord, the God of Israel”¹¹ at the dedication of the temple expresses his thinking on the outstanding basis for foreigners’ attraction to Israel. As he said, foreigners would come “for Your great name’s sake and Your mighty hand and Your outstretched arm” (2 Chron 6:32), phrases that belong unmistakably to the Exodus story, and are not used again in Scripture before Solomon’s prayer.

A thousand years after the history-establishing, God-defining event of the Exodus, the national memory still harbors the same characterization of the God of Judah: He is the omnipotent Creator who has wrought in the nation’s past in the same way He first created all; whose commandments demand obedience, and whose wrathful destruction descends on those who stray from His requirements. Tormented prophet Jeremiah, shut up “in the court of the guard” (Jer 32:2), struggles to make sense of his current existence in relation to a variegated multitude of issues: rebellious and cowardly king Zedekiah; the imminent collapse of his homeland and place of residence, the kingdom of Judah; the future of that kingdom and of property disposition now in relation to that future; and most significantly of all, his God. Jeremiah prays:

Ah Lord GOD! Behold, You have made the heavens and the earth by Your great power and by Your outstretched arm! Nothing is too difficult for You, . . . who has set signs and wonders in the land of Egypt, and even to this day both in Israel and among mankind; . . . You brought Your people Israel out of the land of Egypt with signs and with wonders, and with a strong hand and with an outstretched arm and with great terror; . . . but they did not obey Your voice or walk in Your law; . . . therefore You have made all this calamity come upon them (Jer 32:17, 20, 21, 23).

Yes “the Lord is a warrior” as Moses and Miriam and timbrels and women and dance celebrate (Ex 15:3, 1, 20). And yes, He is rightly known as “Lord of Hosts” (yhwh tseva’ot; more than 200 times in the OT). But how can He also be Prince of Peace? And where is the difference between all His killing and the murder He denounces and attributes to some other “from the beginning”? And where and how does lying come in, and as also linked to that other, the original murderer?

Introducing the Lamb

No event in the four gospels or elsewhere through the NT receives as much attention as the passion of Christ. Percentage-wise, proportions range from a low of Luke’s 25.6% of his Gospel, through Matthew’s 36.3% to Mark’s 37.3%, and John’s high of 37.65%.¹² Whether carnally or spiritually discerned, this passion that so dominates the four Gospels involves as much as anything else extended brutalization of a willing and vulnerable human victim who “was brought “like a lamb that is led to slaughter, and like a sheep that is silent before its shearers” (Isa 53:7). For 1500 years before Christ’s meek submission through the hours of His torture, ritual dramas prophesied of His substitutionary atonement through the sanctuary system and its slaughter of thousands of innocent animals to teach that “without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness” (Heb 9:22). And millenia before that, on the threshold of his new life as a guilty sinner, Adam, our first human parent, was constrained, though his soul recoiled against it, to enact the first of those sacrifices:

When Adam, according to God’s special directions, made an offering for sin, it was to him a most painful ceremony. His hand must be raised to take life, which God alone could give, and make an offering for sin. It was the first time he had witnessed death. As he looked upon the bleeding victim, writhing in the agonies of death, he was to look forward by faith to the Son of God, whom the victim prefigured.¹³

He had to learn, like all who came behind him, that One who was innocent would die for the guilty, “the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God” (1 Peter 3:18). No sacrificial animal more properly taught this lesson than the lamb, “an unblemished male a year old” (Ex 12:5). So clear was this teaching in the mind of some that John the Baptizer’s prompt and best identification when the Messiah arrived was the label of “the Lamb of God” (John 1:29, 36), “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (v. 29).

John’s relationship with the one called the Lamb begins with the recommendation of his own mentor, John the Baptizer on the heels of that declaration:

Again the next day John was standing with two of his disciples, and he looked at Jesus as He walked, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!” The two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus (John 1:35-37).

We know that John is one of the two because whereas, throughout this introductory narrative (vv. 35-51), he names all of the other disciples of Jesus who are involved (Andrew, Simon, Philip, Nathanael), but never names himself. Anonymity is a pattern of John’s that is followed throughout his book.¹⁴

John learns much from following the Lamb. He has to deal with the fact that some people wish to arrest and kill his Master (7:11-52). He sees Jesus handle the case of a conspiratorially arrested and publicly shamed adulteress (8:1-11); he hears Him engage the religious leadership and expose their murderous hypocrisy, itself an open contradiction of their ancestral claims: “you are Abraham’s descendants; yet you seek to kill Me” (8:37). He comes to see the irreconcilable difference between his nation’s religious leaders and the Master he has chosen to follow. He comes to a better understanding of the true basis for paternity claims. He learned from Jesus’ own statement of the contrast between Himself and His standards over against His critics and their standards: “He who is of God hears the words of God; for this reason you do not hear them, because you are not of God” (8:47). And John will remember Jesus’ summary on the nature of, and reasons for the hostility between them and Him:

You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies (8:44).

In contrast with their dogged pursuit of ways and means and an opportunity to discredit and harm Him physically (8:40, 58; 9:22, 24; 10:19, 31-33, 39), Jesus heals the man blind from birth (John 9), teaches that He is the Good Shepherd who dies for the sake of His sheep (John 10), and offers the blessings of life (10:22-38). Resurrecting a friend (11:1-45) makes that friend a target for assassination along with Himself (12:9-11). Killing and opposition to the truth as it is in, and from Jesus, and truth as it is Jesus, run together through their thinking, their plotted initiatives, and their reacting. By the time they crucify Jesus, John is much more His adoring little brother than fire-craving zealot. He thinks of himself as, and is glad to be known as the “disciple whom Jesus loved” (20:2). He has learned from Jesus to appreciate cosmic categories: in the events and discourse of John 8 he sees how Jesus juxtaposes His values over against His critics and their values:

As John 8:38 makes unmistakably clear, Jesus is the polar opposite of His critics (“I speak the things which I have seen with My Father; therefore you also do the things which you heard from your father”). And as verse 45 shows, their opposition to Jesus is not merely a state of being, but a determined, ongoing election (“because I speak the truth, you do not believe Me”). Time and again Jesus exposes the paradox of their true intent: for it is their determination to kill Him (vv. 28, 29, 37, 40, 59) that is the prospect of His greatest triumph over their opposition, and the evil of the one whose inspiration they serve. In John’s reporting of Jesus’ words, the death his enemies long and scheme for is a “lifting up” that will prove to all, including His fiercest enemies, that He is everything that He claims to be (John 8:28). It will be an act that brings glory both to the Son and to His Father (12:20-30); a magnet that will pull the whole world to Him (12:32). Finally, after that Thursday evening of His arrest in Gethsemane, and that Friday morning before Pilate, John could hardly have any doubt left about where Jesus stood on winning by force of arms, and who, by contrast, was the real perpetrator of violence, the practitioner of murder, and committed to winning by weaponry (John 18:11, 33-36). This paradox of death as elevation, glorification and victory is no more powerfully depicted anywhere than in the book of Revelation. And it is toward just this triumphant purpose that the Lamb John follows from the bank of the Jordan river, is introduced in Revelation 5.

More on Animals: Mostly, the Lamb

Animals dominate the apocalyptic prophecies of the books of Daniel and the Revelation. Daniel’s wild beasts [Ar., heyvan]—lion, bear, leopard and final non-category fauna—reappear in the book of Revelation, the companion apocalypse that closes the canon. Also, both inside the book of Daniel and pervasively outside across the OT, multiple domesticated and sacrificial animals may be found (lamb / sheep, goat, ox, etc.). But the Bible’s final book, by its treatment of the Lamb, provides the most effective revelation yet known on that cosmic wonder: the Lamb of God. It is the most thorough characterization of His significance qua Lamb, in the sweep of salvation history.

Apart from one indefinite allusion among the four living beings to a calf-like creature (Rev 4:7), the only domesticated, OT sacrificial animal from the OT to appear in the book of Revelation is the lamb. And appear he does: the much-vaunted apocalyptic beasts, first and second, introduced in Revelation 13, are specifically mentioned (Gk., therion) between them 32 times.¹⁶ The lamb (arnion) is mentioned 28 times, almost as many times as the first and second beasts combined. The antitypical Lamb, vulnerable creature and unique Agent of salvation, appears first in the coronation scene of chapters 4 and 5.

The Invitation

The scene begins with “an open door” to glory (4:1) for John. Because the participle (hjnewˆgme÷nh) modifying door (qu/ra) is in the perfect tense, we know that this is neither a door being opened, nor merely one seen at some point at which it may be about to close: it is a door opened that will not close, an action performed whose effectiveness will not be undone by time. John has been in the Spirit since 1:10; but he is now invited upward from the scenes he has thus far contemplated. Instead of graphics on God’s salvation program that play out on earth, John’s attention is shifted to contemplation of eternal realities as they transpire in glory. The revelation he experiences is, of course, all spiritual. An awesome contrast nevertheless exists between Jesus walking among His churches in Asia—historically, or across the earth through time—prophetically, and a vision of the drama of power and glory and tension and triumph at the administrative center of the universe where God the omnipotent dwells, where mercy and truth cohabit in comfort, and where righteousness and peace lock in eternal embrace (Ps 85:10). There is a difference between the curtain rolled back to disclose God’s ruling in human affairs (Ps 75:7; Dan 2:21; 4:17),¹⁷ and a panorama on transcendence where glory thrives, where life’s most momentous questions are confronted, the uncompromising splendor of holy justice rules and conquering love is eternally ensconced.

The Throne

A soul thrilling voice, given that it was “like the sound of a trumpet”, summons John “up”, in an aorist punctiliar imperative. It is a command to be obeyed: “Come up” (4:1), from down. Whereupon, John repeats precisely his orienting line first given before the vision of the seven churches: “I was in the Spirit” (e˙geno/mhn e˙n pneu/mati). On this occasion, however, the audition of command (“Write”—1:11) is not followed by a turning “to see the voice that was speaking” (v. 12). Comparatively, such an image and action show the vision moving at a slower, less desperate pace. But in chapter five the action is abrupt and instantaneous, as if to deny any possibility of interposing human will, or other intervening delay; as if to communicate either the excitement or the urgency of the coming revelatory experience: “immediately” (4:2) John is translated, by the Spirit, through the open door into the prime wonder of the place that is the zenith of reality. His focus, throughout the chapter, will be on the throne of God at the center of all things.¹⁸ That throne (10 times), with the One who sits upon it (4 times) dominates the action; everything is to be seen in relation to it and to Him: items and actions are seen as either “from (e˙k) the throne”, or “around” (kuklo/qen), “upon” (e˙pi), or before (e˙nw¿pion) it.

But at the beginning of chapter five the focus shifts: the shift is intentional, effected by the Father Himself, the One sitting on the throne, and described in relation to Him. The shift is from “the throne” to “a book”, from specificity and uniqueness to generalization, from the articular to the non-specific. There may be many books (Gen 5:1; Ex 17:14; 24:7; Num 21:14; Joshua 10:13), even many cosmic books (Ex 32:32; Ps 40:7; 56:8; 69:28; Dan 12:1; Mal 3:6; Phil 4:3; Rev 3:5; 10:2; 13:8; 20:12). But pretenses of “gods many and lords many” notwithstanding (1 Cor 8:5), there is only one throne. Nevertheless, the new subject, “a book”, is identified in relation to “him that sat on the throne” (Rev 5:1). Beyond this, its position is reported as related to “the right hand of him that sat on the throne.” The right hand is, of course, the symbol of authority and power (Gen 48:8-19; Ex 15:6, 12; Lev 8:1-23, 24; Deut 33:2; Ps 16:8, 11; 17:7; Isa 41:10). The new subject, identified in relation to the One sitting on the throne, and in relation to His right hand, becomes “the book.” The book may not, in fact be “in His right hand” at this point as often rendered, but “on” or “at” (e˙pi) His right hand.¹⁹ Later it will definitely be in His hand (v. 7). Thus, the clearer intention in mentioning the right hand is to relate the book to Jesus whose enthronement is at the Father’s right hand.²⁰

The coronation moment (Rev 4, 5), which Ranko Stefanovic has labeled “the crucial point in the history of the universe,”²¹ must also constitute the ultimate paradox in the history of the universe: the message it communicates is proffered as the cosmic, divine response to the mighty, cosmic challenge, “Who is worthy to open the book and to break its seals?” (5:1-3). John’s vision conveys a burdensome sense that follows the challenge issued by “a strong angel,” and proclaimed “with a loud voice” (v. 2). It is clear that what follows the vision is, in human terms, a period of awkwardness, whether a pregnant silence or some form of nervous fidgeting.²² Tense and unsatisfactory moments follow the strong angel’s challenge as no one rises to fill the gloom, and cast light on the dark space that opens up on the consciousness of the four living beings (4:6-8), the 24 elders (4:10), and the myriads of holy angels attending and serving as directed. John’s personal grief intensifies as he wishes and waits for an answer to the angel. His desperate waiting dissolves into great weeping, for “no one in heaven or on the earth or under the earth was able to open the book or to look into it” (v. 3).

The Book

For an awesome moment in time, and by intent of the Father, the center of focus becomes the book at His right hand: the book is a document crammed to the overflowing with data: it is “written inside and on the back” (Rev 5:1); again, it is a document of significance whose contents are so crucial as to be comprehensively sealed, “sealed up with seven seals” (v. 1); and yet, whose import is so consequential that a sense of urgency distresses John’s spirit when no one steps forward to open it. Beyond these considerations is that of the book’s location, already mentioned, corresponding to the location of the resurrected Christ when He “ascended on high” and “led captive [His] captives” (Ps 68:18), to receive from His Father and, on cue, the adoring angel hosts, the full acknowledgement and glorious celebration of His perfect sacrifice on behalf of both humanity and the wider cosmos, and be seated at His Father’s right hand.

Initially speaking, the answer that follows the strong angel’s cry and the unsatisfying pause beyond it, present some confusion in relation to resolution of the dilemma posed in the question “Who is worthy?” (Rev 5:2). The book’s momentous character has defied the confidence of anyone “in heaven or on the earth or under the earth” to dare to tamper with or so much as lay a hand on it. Beginning with the second commandment of the Decalogue, references combining heaven, earth and under the earth consistently signify the comprehensive embrace of all things created.²³ Thus the opening verses of this chapter underline the inadequacy of any created being, inclusive of those exalted ones already shown as now before the throne of God, to act and alleviate the palpable tension; to respond to and resolve this crisis; to rise to, and master this occasion.²⁴

The Tension and Weeping

Especially because the book is never opened at any point throughout the scene the reader may appreciate the fact that it is not so much the book’s content as the unworthiness of the many to act that is in view in Revelation 5:1-3. The scene does not educate the reader as to the book’s information. John does not explain his weeping as related to the book’s contents. Rather, it is the fact that “no one was found worthy to open the book or to look into it” (v. 4), that breaks the apostle’s heart. That “no one was found worthy (a‡xioß)” teaches the truth that there are actions necessary of performance that no created being is able to perform; that there are needs that arise in the experience of existence that no created being is able to supply; that there are accomplishments to which no created being, regardless of the dimensions of their ambition, will be able to attain; that the needs of our creaturely existence are greater than all the merit we may ever muster to match them. John learns that in this crisis moment not even the most devoted and worshipful of all of creation—the four living beings, despite the genius of their wisdom (4:6) and the unceasing intensity of their worship (4:8); the 24 elders, despite the elevation of their thrones, the white of their garments and the gold of their crowns (4:4)—none of that holy company possesses a sufficient level or amount of merit, of worth, or value, to undertake the present task. Even the strong angel himself is unable to open the book.

But even as the apostle descends into paroxysms of grief one of the elders speaks to him: “Stop weeping; behold, the Lion that is from the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has overcome so as to open the book and its seven seals” (v. 5). The prophet can tell that the book needs to be opened. So can the elder. But the elder possesses an advantage over the prophet that allows him to speak a word of hope to his grief: his advantage is the privilege of time before the throne in the presence of God. His celestial perspective allows him, though a creature like John, to share insights to which John, still but a denizen of earth, is not yet privy. As a conscientious earthling, John, until Jesus disrupted his calculations, had been well enough trained in the means of, and the ways to attain to victory. Jesus, who loves giving names, had affixed on him and his brother the graphic nickname “Boanerges”—“sons of thunder” (Mark 3:17). In time, John and brother would prove themselves worthy of the label: Jesus’ messengers are unable to arrange for Him to pass through Samaria on His way to Jerusalem. Whereupon James and John volunteer to pray for the Samaritans: “Lord, do You want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” (Luke 9:54).

The Answer

The elder bolsters his command to “Stop weeping” with the assurance that “behold, the Lion that is from the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has overcome so as to open the book and its seven seals” (v. 5). John must then be utterly nonplussed to see, in fulfilment of the elder’s promise, a Lamb that looked like it had been killed. Because, in terms of physical appearance, the Lamb is thus introduced as a victim, its presentation constitutes the highest of situational ironies. For nothing in the scene that announces the Lamb’s arrival points to vulnerability as the answer to the strong angel’s challenge. In the first instance, the Lamb is the last animal to be thought of as resolving a dilemma of power. Beyond this, as already mentioned, the Lamb bears evidence of having been mortally wounded. Why it is then to be seen as alive is its own mystery, but a mystery the onlooking theater sufficiently understands in order to respond ecstatically when the Lamb appears, and that prior to any demonstration of powers on the part of the Lamb. The timing of the irruption of songs of praise among the vast multitude of spectators—four living creatures, 24 elders, and subsequently, a myriad of myriads and thousands of thousands of angels (vv. 8-11)— implies some awareness of the significance of the Lamb who here appears, as well as the significance of His appearance, “a Lamb standing, as if slain” (Rev 5:6).

Though the Lamb’s death wound [perhaps a slit throat] is the first feature cited, description does not tarry there: the Lamb possesses “seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent out into all the earth” (v. 6): this is an omnipotent, all wise, omnipresent Lamb. Then, in an act that filled the cosmic theater with wonder, He came and took the book out of the right hand of Him who sat on the throne” (v. 7).

The intelligent Creation has no doubt that He is worthy. The irruption of praise is theirs, not the Father’s or the Lamb’s or the Spirit’s. None of these are identified as participating in the shouts of praise. It is “the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders” (v. 8), and later “the voice of many angels around the throne and the living creatures and the elders; and the number of them was myriads of myriads, and thousands of thousands” (v. 11), and their voice is “loud” (v. 11). There is passion here, as they burst forth in a chorus extolling His worth. But it is not His wisdom (eyes) or power (horns) or omnipresence that is cited as the reason for their joy, and their acceptance that He is worthy. Instead, their song says: “Worthy are You to take the book and to break its seals; for You were slain, and purchased for God with Your blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation” (v. 9). To the extent that the book is salvation history, or more, earth history—as the broken seals will disclose (chap. 6), the Lamb acclaimed as worthy is the Master, the Authority, and the Victor of and over all history. The slaying of the Lamb is the path to His victory. He is triumphant because He was slain. Creation is bought back to God by His shed blood. Creatures will now reign as “a kingdom of priests to our God” because He was slain.²⁵ His death restores creation’s life. His death ensures an unbounded victory. God’s triumph and reign in “glory and dominion [will be] forever and ever” (v. 13). Yes, He can open the book. But it is His worth that allows Him to take the book. It is His worth that enables Him to break its seals (6:1-8). And it is His death that proves His worth—His worth to rule; to give us overcoming power (12:11); His worth to be worshiped (13:8); His worth to give us His name (14:1); His worth to make the final disposition, the ultimate and utter elimination of sin and rebellion across the reaches of the universe (14:10; 17:14); and His worth to include and feed us all as His guests, at the marriage supper of the Lamb (19:6-9). It is His worth that now authorizes His actions in all such capacities. It is His death that proves His worth, and it is because He has proved His worth that He is now in charge.

Summary and Conclusions

The book of Revelation provides the definitive biblical portrayal of the character of God. it does this by making plain the individuals and nature of a conflict that embraces the history and location of human civilization. But Seventh-day Adventist familiarity with, and interpretation of the book provides one of our best responses to a pool of questions raised earlier in this presentation, questions on God as warrior; as giving direct or delegated orders, or implicitly granting permission to fight and kill; as stating His commitment thereto; as gloating in victory over vanquished enemies as in the language of Psalm 2:9; as slaughtering Achan’s family and their animals (Joshua 7:24-26); as enforcing the death penalty as proper and appropriate discipline for blasphemy, Sabbath stick-gathering, unruly and rebellious children, etc.; as claiming that ‘breaking one means breaking all’; as teaching that murder and lying originating from the same source; as prescribing and implementing genocide as the proper way to win holy war.

Had time allowed, we might have chosen to juxtapose the Lamb’s principle over against each one of our questions, in search of a spiritually and theologically satisfying answer. And there is much more to be done—and for you to do—on questions such as those here posed. Nevertheless, we may concede that through its elaborations on the Lamb who triumphs by being slain, the book of Revelation draws in, and reaches beyond each of those challenges and all of human history, to teach that in the broadest perspective, on the grandest scale, from the point of view of eternity’s center where God dwells and rules, victory is not won, in the war in which heaven is engaged, by means of superior military power. God does not win His battles by force of arms. The slain Lamb of Revelation is the Lamb of John the Baptizer’s introduction, the Lamb of generations of Israel’s Passovers, the Lamb of Adam’s shock and grief and hope, and the Lamb who is the good Shepherd that gives His life for His sheep (John 10:11). There are those who, through the ages of biblical history, understood this truth: Joshua, addressing Israel at the end of his life, having led them into their Canaanite inheritance, and witnessed the fulfilment of all God’s promises to them (Joshua 21:45), could speak God’s words: “Then I sent the hornet before you and it drove out the two kings of the Amorites from before you, but not by sword or your bow” (Joshua 24:12). And there are other challenges to fairness and an ethical understanding of Scripture that I have tried to deal with in other places.²⁶

Greg Boyd has remarked that humans struggle to reconcile the imponderable reality called evil with the idea of a perfectly able and perfectly good God. This is because “we have tended to understand evil, and therefore Christ’s solution to evil, anthropocentrically and individualistically.”²⁷ And as Barna Magyarosi understands, “Divine intervention in holy war is the historical manifestation of the cosmic conflict.”²⁸ A multitude of questions on biblical holy war arise, in part, from Boyd’s mentioned anthropocentrism, which Bart Ehrman may have put on display many years ago when he chose to give up the faith of his youth in God and the Bible because he “could no longer reconcile the claims of faith with the facts of life.”²⁹ Thankfully, no one is required to conform the reality of God to the puniness of creaturehood. The wisdom of heaven preserves us from such a disaster, providing instead, revelations of the supernatural in the person of the Son of God and the testimony of the Holy Scriptures as well as the testimony of the physical universe, so wonderfully organized, and the constancy of providence, occasionally including miraculous interventions.

His most conspicuous and definitive revelation, however, is God incarnate, the Son of God, Messiah who provides by His lifetime on earth, and His victorious death, compelling answers to who is truth, and what is murder, and how the curse of lying and the viciousness of murder derive from the same source: the slaying of the Lamb, metaphor of meek vulnerability, is the text on unscrupulousness as a strategy for winning. It takes a genius to justify violence against a lamb: as John came to understand, Jesus’ enemies, in all their determination to kill Him, were people who had become incapable of receiving the truth (John 8:43). They were the progeny of the serpent of old who gained his foothold on earth by successfully lying to Eve from the branches of a tree in her God-planted garden (Gen 3:5). But the slaying of the Lamb is also the exposé on mean-spiritedness that cannot be denied, whose fixed mind and purpose depend on no one but the hater himself (Rev 12:4).

The shift in focus from the throne to the book during the two-chapter coronation scene of Revelation 4-5 amounts to a sharpened focus on the ultimate detail—the transcendent fact—of God’s salvation program that stands over against the unscrupulous hatred of one who plots to kill a lamb: the highest height of God’s design in His program of redemption is the sacrificial triumph of the Lamb. But the exultation of all creation that follows the Lamb’s taking hold of the book, gives specific address to individualistic, or earthbound approaches to God’s salvation, restoration program. For the exultation of intelligent hosts beyond the members of the human race is not simply an objective delight in a grand deed done. These creatures also benefit from the triumph of the Lamb. Jesus’ came and lived and died not only to redeem Adam’s lost race, but to disarm “rulers and authorities” (Col 2:15); “to destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8); to “render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil” (Heb 2:14); and to reduce to chaff “all the arrogant and every evildoer” leaving them neither root nor branch” (Mal 4:1).³⁰ Evil anywhere found in God’s universe, has been defeated by the triumph of the cross and will be eliminated “in the day that is coming” when God “will set them ablaze,” reducing them to chaff (verse 1), and ashes underfoot (v. 3). Humanity’s redemption is not all there is to the sacrifice of the cross. Jesus, as also the heir of all things (Heb 1:2), provides, through the perfection of His atonement, for the cosmic “restoration of all things” (Acts 3:21). And it is because of His total restoration that it will at last be said again, at the end of the conflict between God and evil, as it also was before the rebellion of presumptuous creatures, that “The entire universe is clean”, and “One pulse of harmony and gladness beats through the vast creation.”³¹ Glory to the Lamb of God: “Whatever you devise against the LORD, He will make a complete end of it. Distress will not rise up twice” (Nah 1:9).