i. The judgment of the world being the divine light of love ii. That love being symbolized in the little slain lamb iii. The wrath of the little lamb being the triumph of that love over world powers John 3:19-21 reveals Gods judgment as light. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God. - John 3:19-21 When physical light is present, what was previously hidden in the darkness is now exposed and seen for what it is. But what is this divine light that judges? It is not literal, physical light; although literal, physical light serves as a metaphor for this metaphysical reality of God-light. The God-light is His very nature of love. Go back to the gospel of John, and to whom is it referring to when it writes of the Light that has come into the world? It is referring to Jesus. Jesus is the exact representation of God’s nature of love, the God-light who exposes the hidden motives of our heart. But how does Jesus expose them? By His incarnate living out the nature of God in peace, mercy, humility, and finally non-violent, cosuffering, self-giving love. The cross is the radiant light of God’s nature that judges the world. But the paradox is that it judges the world by not judging the world, by revealing perfect, self-giving love. God does not judge the world by our normal understanding of judgment; not by lifting the hand and pointing the accusative finger, but rather by opening up the hand to be pierced. The judgment of God is not a direct action of God, but simply a by-product of Him revealing His nature. The judgment of God is light. This light simply shines, and all is exposed. This light is perfect love, peace, humility, mercy; and in the radiance of this light, our selfishness, violence, pride, condemnation is exposed for what it is. The cross is the radiant light of divine self-giving love that judges the selfishness of the world by revealing its antithesis. God radiates His cosuffering, self-giving, enemy-forgiving love, and all the selfish intents of the heart are exposed. Some run from this light, others welcome it, so that they may live in its truth. God need not judge, but simply shine his light, and all intents of the heart are exposed, whether good or evil. God need not condemn, but simply love, and in that light, evil stands self-condemned. God need not destroy, but simply allow people to reap the consequences of their own self-destruction. God need not actively judge, condemn, or destroy. “Then I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain, standing at the center of the throne… The Lamb had seven horns and seven eyes…” (Revelation 5:6) The actual Greek word that is used here is “arnion” which means a very young, innocent, little lamb. The seven horns and seven eyes is the symbol of the perfect omnipotence (horns = power) and perfect omniscience (eyes = knowledge) of God. This passage is radically re-envisioning the power and wisdom of God by the cross, and showing it to be in a little, slain lamb. As it turns out, the throne of God before which all are judged is occupied by a little, slain lamb. God does not judge the world, but lays down His life for the world, and by this the world is judged by Him. “The Father judges no one but has given all judgment to the Son.” – (Jesus) John 5:22 “I judge no one.” – (Jesus) John 8:15 “’Now is the judgment of this world; now the prince of this world will be cast out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth [on the cross], will draw all people to myself.’ This He spoke concerning what death He should die.” – John 12:31-32 The cross is not just some little awkward link in the chain of Gods otherwise Caesar-esque, muscle-flexing way of working his will in history. Well yes, God was crucified but next he is coming back as the violent, conquering real Messiah who will show his power and judge the world. No, that is still human wisdom and power, which is foolishness and weakness to God, whereas the cross “is the wisdom and power of God”, and is “foolishness and weakness to men” (1 Cor. 1). God defined His unchanging nature once and for all in the cross, which was Jesus putting into example His teachings. The cross is how God flexes His muscles, the cross is the power of God, the cross is how God conquers evil, the cross is how God judges the world. Jesus redefined everything in the cross, and the Father vindicated it with resurrection. This is God and this is how God wins. This is how the universe is made right. The second coming, the apocalypse, the eschaton, the judgment of the world, and the ultimate conquering of evil is merely the cross becoming universally realized. The divine light of love shining into all things, into all hearts, into all of history. The cross judges the world simply by shining the divine light of self-giving love and exposing the selfish thoughts and intents of the heart. The cross is the divine light of love under which the prince of this world now stands exposed as a fraud and is therefore self-condemned and cast down. The cross is the divine light of love that triumphs over evil by making reconciliation and shalom in all things (Col 1:20). The cross brings the world to justice through mercy. We need to look at the book of Revelation in light of Gods revelation of himself in the cross. I dont believe there is going to come a day when Jesus throws out the way He dealt with sin at the cross and become the exact antithesis of the gospels, sayings, Ive had enough of this mercy and turn the other cheek stuff. No more forgive your enemies! That ran its course, didnt work! Now its an eye for an eye. Now Im gonna get even with sinners! And then proceed to throw the temper tantrum of all of history, slaughtering billions. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. - Hebrews 13:8 The Jesus you see in the gospels has and will always exhibit the same character. Jesus didnt just show a side of God when He came in the flesh, but He was the fullness of God in bodily form. - Colossians 2:9 It is good to interpret prophecy (which many times is veiled in allegory and symbolism) in light of the unveiled fullness of who God was when He came in the flesh. In Revelation, when Jesus returns, many of the inhabitants of the earth are shown to be terrified and seeking to escape, saying even to the rocks, Fall on us and hide us from the face of Him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the little lamb! - Revelation 6:15-17 If the little, slain lamb is the apex of the revelation of God, then it is the very crux of what the drama of history and existence itself is about. Look back to the birth of the universe and there is the little lamb slain from the foundation of the world. Look forward to the consummation of the universe and there is the little lamb who was slain seated on the throne and all of creation seeing in this little lamb the worth of all human aspiration, that is power, wisdom, riches, strength, glory, honor, and praise and ascribing it to none other than this meek, self-giving love. For this passage to say the wrath of the little lamb is an oxymoron. And perhaps this is on purpose, to cause us to rethink the very wrath of God and rethink apocalyptic imagery in terms of what Christ revealed about God in the cross. The wrath of the little lamb is to say the wrath of humility, mercy, forgiveness, and self-giving love. This is in contrast with the “wild beast” and the wrath of the devil, which is all about coercion, dominance, force, self-exaltation, and pride. Those who reject Gods mercy, love, humility, forgiveness, people who have made themselves into the image of the beast instead of the image of God, will experience that purity of the divine light of love symbolized in the little lamb as unbearable wrath, as a fire that consumes them, for so skewed to reality has their nature become. This is the wrath of God. And this can be applied existentially to reality itself. The nature of God permeates reality, for reality was created to express Him. So if the little lamb who was slain, that is the manifestation of humility, mercy, forgiveness, and self-giving love, is the fullness of the revelation of God, then when we live in sin, in pride, violence, retribution, and selfishness, or live opposed to this nature of Love, we experience the very nature of reality as going against us, we are struggling against being itself, kicking against the goads, and in so doing reaping destruction and de-existence upon ourselves in disharmony and brokenness. The very essence of reality, the nature of God, that is humility, mercy, forgiveness, and self-giving love, we experience as wrath. Not literal anger, rather we are involved in an existential resistance and thereby reaping self-destruction. The Jesus that taught us that the criteria for being children of the Father was turning the other cheek and forgiving our enemies and who exemplified this to a T is not the Jesus that is going to come back with a machine gun mowing down his enemies and pumping their guts full of lead. The Jesus that laid down his life in self-giving love and wept the forgiveness of Abba over the world is not the Jesus that is going to come back and literally slaughter billions of human beings. The book of Revelation was written in light of the extreme oppression and persecution of Christians under Nero, a vicious and animalistic tyrant, who was considered the beast, who slaughtered the followers of the little lamb. Nero was so wicked that amongst other horrifying historical testimonies, one document says of him, “After defiling almost every part of his body, he at last devised a kind of game, in which, covered with the skin of some wild animal, he was let loose from a cage and attacked the private parts of men and women, who were bound to stakes” (Suetonius: NERO XXVII-XXIX). In this terrifying and oppressive time, the book of Revelation was written, showing that the way of the little lamb, of not loving your life even unto death, of following the lamb in forgiveness, humility, mercy, and self-sacrifice would triumph over the violent and pompous way of the beast, and triumph over the world. Not only in their particular day and age, but in history, unto the apocalypse, and unto the eschaton. The wrath of the little lamb is basically showing the way of the lamb, that is humility, mercy, forgiveness as being so powerful as to be like a triumphant warrior that completely destroys his enemies. It is the same kind of thing Paul is doing in Colossians 2:15, where He envisions the bloody, broken Christ upon the cross as a warrior defeating the cosmic powers of evil. And having disarmed the principalities and powers, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. The Message shows better what the writer is really getting at here: He stripped all the spiritual tyrants in the universe of their sham authority at the Cross and marched them naked through the streets. Having done research into this and reading commentaries on it, Paul is comparing the triumph of the cross over the powers of darkness to when a victor marches through the streets with his spoils of war in a public procession. So I paraphrase it like this: He stripped the dark, cosmic powers naked and dragged them in chains through the streets in a procession of public shaming as his spoils of war, triumphing over them in the cross. This is the effects of the cross, the complete and merciless destruction of evil through mercy. This is an oxymoron, that mercy mercilessly destroys evil, and such is the language of Revelation and the oxymoron of “the wrath of the little lamb.” Consider when Jesus is revealed coming to wage war in Revelation 19, the apocalyptic imagery here is not of Jesus wielding a real sword that kills people, but rather the sword is coming from his mouth, which implies that the sword is his truth, or the truth of who he is as the Word of God. As Hebrews 4:12 says, For the Word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. This aligns with the other imagery of the passage that he is called Faithful and True, and his name is the Word of God. Also, I have heard one point out that his robe is dipped in blood before the battle has even begun, and this could signify his own blood. This means Jesus fights and destroys evil by the truth of his nature, which is exemplified in the cross, which is why the whole book of Revelation is centered around glorifying the little lamb who was slain. The book of Revelation is exalting the power of the cross so high as to use typical violent apocalyptic imagery to show the crosses absolute victory over the powers of evil. In this way, it is what some theologians call violently anti-violent. It is counter-intuitive and subversive literature showing the way of the Lamb, the way of humility, self-sacrifice, forgiveness, and love as being the supreme power, such that it is equated to our typical understanding of power, which is violence and destruction, and showing this way of the little lamb as completely overcoming and destroying all evil. This is why it is called the wrath of the little lamb, the way of humility, forgiveness, love, completely destroying injustice and bringing history to rights. Whether in wrath or in judgment it is always the little slain lamb”, which speaks of the One who unleashes his wrath and destroys evil by its antithesis: humble, enemy-forgiving, cosuffering, self-giving love. This is how He is shown to judge the nations in the parable of the sheep and the goats in Matthew 25, by revealing His cosuffering love and full solidarity with human suffering. The New Testament says that Jesus destroyed sin, death, and the devil at the cross, that he cast down the cosmic powers of evil and made a public spectacle of them. This was the wrath of the little lamb. The return of Jesus is not like some Godzilla or King Kong thrashing cities to pieces, punching scryscrapers over, swatting helicopters out of the sky, with explosions and sirens, recklessly wreaking havoc, coming back as the final destroyer of worlds. We have the imagery in Revelation of people running and hiding, terrified. Terrified of what? A little slain lamb. We have the pompous and violent beast desperately rallying the armies of the nations to wage war. Against what? A little slain lamb. We have the nations and systems of the world being dashed to pieces in the wrath of Almighty God. By what? A little slain lamb. What about people standing before the throne of God to be judged? Who is seated on the throne? A little slain lamb. How do the followers of the little lamb triumph over the beast and the world? By the blood of the little slain lamb, by their testimony of this lamb, and by imitating this lamb and laying down their lives even unto death (Revelation 12:11). In this the world is triumphed over. The nations of the earth are treaded under foot and beaten by a little slain lamb. The little slain lamb threatens everything, the whole way the world runs on pride, violence, coercion, selfishness, greed, and exploitation. The violent imagery in Revelation is really showing us the power of the cross and how God completely overthrows evil and brings history to justice through the power of the little slain lamb. This is in complete alignment with Jesus message in the gospels. This I would suggest to you is the meaning of the language of “the wrath of the little lamb”; it is the oxymoron of Christ mercilessly beating his enemies with mercy, forgiveness, and love. This is the foolishness of the cross, but it is, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1, “the wisdom and power of God.” Jesus is not coming back to destroy all things, but to restore all things. Peace and mercy and love will tread down violence and retribution and selfishness like a warrior, restoring all things. The divine light of love, which is the little slain lamb, is the judgment of evil and restoration of all things. Jesus Christ, whom the heavens must receive until the times of the restoration of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began (Acts 3:21).
Posted on: Fri, 04 Apr 2014 02:13:03 +0000
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