Revelation 5The Scroll and the Lamb

In the first century, a Roman legal document on a scroll would be sealed with six seals. They wound thread around the scroll, melted wax onto each grouping of thread, and the only way to read it was to break the wax seals to loosen the strings. This scroll has seven seals, which makes it perfect and unopenable by humans.

The scroll is also full, with “writing on both sides.” Scrolls were not written on both sides in the ancient world, so this implies there was so much to write, and this heavenly scroll was different. Humans didn’t do this, and therefore humans couldn’t open it.

It is otherworldly for another reason. In real life all the seals would have to be broken before any information could be revealed. But in chapter 6 we get information after the breaking of each seal: a progressive revealing. This is a heavenly, vision scroll. These seven seals drive the action for the next couple of chapters, and the seven trumpets that follow drive it up to chapter 11.

In the case of a will, a sealed scroll could not legally be opened until the death of the person it pertained to. So, foreshadowing: we’re about to see the slain Lamb! He’s coming.

“A mighty angel.” Not one of the wimpy angels! There are levels of strength, majesty and authority among angels, and this is a high-ranking angel.

“Or even look inside it” expresses the visual nature of this revelation from God.

John felt the weight of this moment deep in his soul and emotions, like Isaiah does in Isaiah 6:5. He is mourning here with the same language used for mourning a death. He knew that what was in this scroll would reveal what he and all believers, Jewish and non-Jewish alike, had been hoping for their entire lives. As dreadful as some of the contents might be, he also knew the glory on the other side was worth it. So John longed and cried for the opening of the scroll and the revealing of God’s plan. We need to cry out for the revealing of God’s plan as it unfolds as well.

John doesn’t know the content of the seals. He wants to know; he longs to know. I love this attitude: “God, I don’t know what you have for me next, but I’m desperate for it!” It turns out the scroll is at the center of the action for the next three chapters, and what’s in it is judgment for the earth. But John just wants to know. He wants God’s plan, he trusts God, and he wants whatever is next. That’s the attitude.

John is weeping not just because no one is able, but because no one is worthy. Ability is one thing: someone with the power could just break the seals. Worthiness is another. This scroll is so valuable that no one found in heaven or on earth is worth as much as what’s in it … except … the Lion, I mean the Lamb.

There’s a major contrast of emotions here. Chapter 4 is worship, worship, worship: the elders falling down and throwing their crowns, the creatures around the throne worshiping. And in the middle of constant praise, John is weeping. John wants you to see the contrast.

The Lion is Old Testament imagery; the Lamb is New Testament imagery (and, he added in the teaching, Old Testament imagery too). Up to verse 5, this opening vision of heaven could easily have fit in the Old Testament, but the introduction of the Lamb, the slain Lamb, changes all of that instantly! The elder says the Lion can do it, and then the Lamb shows up and does it. The Lion is the Lamb! They are the same.

The power of the imagery can be felt in the text. Jesus is “the Lion of the tribe of Judah,” the one who is powerful to rule all of creation. But He came as the sacrificial Lamb, whose sacrifice takes away the sins of the world.

Someone in the room added: until you’ve seen a slain lamb, totally limp because there’s nothing left to hold it together, you don’t understand this imagery. All the blood has been poured out. The only life there is because of His resurrection.

The Lamb drives so much of the action in Revelation from here out: through 5:6–14, and in 6:16–17, 12:11, 15:3, 17:14, 21:22, 22:1 and 22:3. “The Lamb” is used 28 times in Revelation for Jesus, all of them from His introduction here to the end of the book.

Seven horns: this is an otherworldly-looking Lamb. See horns like this in 1 Kings 22:11 and Daniel 7:24. Horns are authority in Scripture, as in Daniel 8. And “the seven spirits of God” is the sevenfold Spirit of God: one Spirit with seven aspects, like the list in Isaiah 11.

Seven eyes are seen in Zechariah 3:9 and 4:10: Yahweh’s eyes are now Jesus’ eyes. They are all-seeing, showing the omniscient (all-knowing) and omnipresent (everywhere at once) nature of God. And they show His ultimate perspective, as the author of Hebrews says: “Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight” (Hebrews 4:13).

In other words, heaven’s perspective is better than ours! It’s bigger, fuller and more glorious. I want to see from God’s perspective more and more. Seeing from heaven’s perspective is part of your inheritance as a believer. Do you know what’s in your inheritance?

Now apply this one step deeper. John hears in the Spirit that the Lion is coming … then he sees in the Spirit the Lamb. Putting the two together gives him the full picture. What you see in the Spirit will help you interpret what you hear, and vice versa. Each communication from God gives texture and depth to other communications from God. They won’t contradict; they will deepen and broaden. John only understood that the Lion is the Lamb after hearing in the Spirit first and then sticking around to see in the Spirit too. Some of the richest insights in Scripture, and in your life, come when they’re multidimensional like this.

The Trinity is present in this chapter: the One who sits on the throne, the Father; the Lion/Lamb, the Son; the sevenfold Spirit, the Spirit. John is very Trinitarian in his perspective.

When He takes this scroll, He shows that it’s His scroll. Legally, a sealed scroll can’t be released to anyone but its owner: no one can take ownership of it except the one it’s addressed to. This is the Lamb’s scroll! He owns it.

They had a harp for singing, which they’re about to do in the next verses. And they hold “golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of God’s people.” Prayers as incense is like Psalm 141:2: “May my prayer be set before you like incense.”

“May the lifting up of my hands be like the evening sacrifice.” That’s why we’re a hand-lifting church: because the Bible is a hand-lifting book!

Your prayers are heard in heaven. No prayer is wasted. The bowls of incense also correlate to the altar of incense in the heavenly temple, a connection made in Revelation 8:3. You may have heard of “harp and bowl” conferences, or worship and prayer conferences. That understanding comes from these Scriptures.

The living creatures and elders “fell down”: that is prostrate, nose and toes and everything else on the floor before God. In that culture this was a sign of worship reserved for deity. People would get on their knees before kings, but only lie prostrate before gods.

Who these saints are, and how awesome, is described in the next two verses as part of the song.

God the Father is worthy because He created all things (4:11). Now the Lamb is worthy because He was slain: His death is sacrificial and atoning for the world.

“They sang a new song, saying.” So many times in Revelation and in other books we see the word “saying” before poetry, when it actually means singing. Right here the connection between singing and saying is made, and that is how we know the other “sayings” followed by poetry are actually songs. This is one of many songs in Revelation.

These new songs often refer to spontaneous songs, and in this case it definitely is one.

The heavenly chorus sings about God, but also about the saints. That shows that believers on earth join in worship with heaven, a much greater chorus than any earthly kingdom could produce. Joining in worship with the host of heaven is a magnificent privilege and wonder of the Christian life.

“Purchased for God” is like Psalm 74:2: “Remember the nation you purchased long ago.” Israel was purchased for God; now all believers are purchased for God by the blood of the Lamb.

The imagery of blood and sacrifice echoes the Old Testament sacrificial system, but now the choir in heaven is not only Jews. It includes people from every ethnic group on the planet: “every tribe and language and people and nation.” That universal language seems normal to us as 21st-century people, but it would have been revolutionary to the first-century world and church.

“A kingdom and priests,” or kings and priests. This is what it means to be a Christian. Your inheritance is to operate and walk as kings, ruling the earth before the Lord, and priests who minister to the Lord. We are already seated with Christ in heavenly places, positionally. So why do we feel like worms on the earth sometimes? We don’t have to. Part of sanctification, becoming holy like God, is the process of realizing who we are in heavenly places.

“They will reign on the earth” anticipates chapter 22, where it’s declared that “they will reign for ever and ever” (22:5).

“Ten thousand times ten thousand” is myriades myriadōn, myriads upon myriads. A myriad (ten thousand) is the largest number in the Greek language, so ten thousand times ten thousand is the way of saying beyond counting: innumerable, as many as you can imagine.

You could multiply it out and get a number. That’s not what he’s saying. He’s saying uncountable.

“They encircled the throne”: God and the Lamb are at the center of everything, surrounded by the creatures, then the elders, then the multitude of angels.

The worship of the Lamb in verses 8–12 leads to the worship of God and the Lamb together in verses 13–14. Jesus shares in the glory due to God. He’s not taking glory from God; because they’re the same, they’re worshiped together.

The praise of the Son parallels the praise of the Father and is even more expansive, with wealth, wisdom, strength and praise added.

After all the worship circles, it comes back to the center. The creatures and elders started the worship back in chapter 4, it cascaded out to every creature in the universe, and now it comes back to them: they say “Amen” to all the other worshipers and fall down to worship themselves.

Abraham’s covenant promise of universal blessing for all peoples is now declared fulfilled here in heaven.

At the end of chapter 5 the heavenly picture is complete. We’re ready for action now, and it’s going to get real wild real quick. This is heaven as it is now, until the culmination of all things that’s coming in chapters 19–22. Get this picture deep in your soul and your spirit; it will set you up for what’s coming.