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Captured By His GloryRevelation 5:1-14INTRODUCTION Every human heart is captivated by the beauty and glory of someone or something. Each of our personal histories could be told by describing what have been those persons or goals or objects that our heart has been captured by from one moment to another. As a child I was captivated by the romantic ideals of war and soldiering. TV shows like “Combat” and movies like “The Longest Day” and the stories my father told of fighting in WWII worked their charm upon my naïve heart. I spent weeks during the summer playing army with the gang of kids who lived on my street and dreaming of the acts of heroism I would perform. Early in life my heart was captured by the thrill and adventure of hunting with my dad and our extended family. My daydreams were full of imaginary hunts and my days filled with anticipation for our actual hunting adventures. As I entered my teens, one pretty girl after another would captivate my heart, usually for less than honorable reasons. My heart rejoiced in the glory of good grades and the compliments of my teachers and coaches. Books, especially science fiction and fantasy literature, enthralled my heart. The dream of working as a forester, helping to manage and preserve our natural resources caught my heart during high school and motivated me to study forestry at UW-Stevens Point. During my junior year of college, the two most important people in my life for the past 30 years first ensnared my heart. The beautiful and delightful Jane Ann Van Dinter entered my life and my heart was captivated by her and has remained enthralled by her beauty and person for these almost 30 years. It was also during that year that Jesus Christ took hold of my heart. Contrary to every expectation I had of my life and by the power of the free grace of God, I discovered that Jesus Christ was more glorious than forestry and good grades and drugs and alcohol and sex and the approval of my drinking buddies and my parents. I placed my faith in Christ during that year and thus began the lifelong quest to find him to be better than everything else. The Scriptures describe conversion to Christ in this way. The apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 1 says that Christians are those sinners who have discovered that Christ, rather than being offensive or foolish, is “the power of God and the wisdom of God.” In 2 Corinthians 3 he compares the glory of God’s meeting Moses on Mt. Sinai where he gave the 10 Commandments with the glory of the new covenant sealed by the blood of Christ. He makes this comparison: “Now if the ministry that brought death, which was engraved in letters of stone, came with glory, so that the Israelites could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of its glory…will not the ministry of the Spirit be even more glorious? If the ministry that condemns men is glorious, how much more glorious is the ministry that brings righteousness!” Then a few verses later he says about every converted sinner, “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has made his light to shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.” We trust in Jesus Christ because we have discovered that our greatest problem, our sin and God’s wrath against our sin has been solved by Jesus Christ’s obedient life, humiliating death and glorious resurrection. Our hearts are captured by his glory as our Savior. What we discover in Revelation 5 is that what we have only begun to taste while living in this fallen world is the center of everything in heaven. Revelation 5 shows that all of heaven is captured by the glory of the lamb who was slain. It is Christ in all of his glory that makes heaven a holy and a happy place. God has recorded this vision of the joy that exists in heaven over the glory of Jesus Christ to help us in our quest to be increasingly captivated by his glory now. It is my simple goal this morning to seek to display the glory of Christ revealed here so that our hearts are more fascinated by his glory when we leave than it was when we arrived. MAIN POINT We are captivated by the glory of Christ because…I. There is no glory without Christ, but only despair (vv. 1-4) In 4:1 we are told that the Holy Spirit takes John into heaven. Something you have to know about John’s Revelation if you are going to make any sense out of it is that it is symbolic throughout. In other words, John is not describing what heaven and earth literally looks like but he is telling us about a vision that the Holy Spirit gave him to represent what is real in heaven and on earth. John, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit is describing images of glory that far exceed the capacity of human imagination and human language. It is the reason that the images of this book are so wild and extravagant. In chapters 4 and 5 what he sees is the throne of God in heaven. If you look at 4:8 and 11 you can see that the one who sits on the throne is the Lord Almighty. The Lord and God revealed in the pages of the OT is the one who sits on the throne. The image is one of overwhelming power and majesty and holiness. It is a strange place to us humans. It is a place that does not appear friendly to us or attractive. It is awesome the way that pictures of super novas from the Hubble space telescope are awesome but not the sort of place we would want to live. All the creatures of heaven are occupied with one thing, declaring the praise of the one who sits on the throne. This one is holy. He is the one who was and who is and who is to come. He is the creator of all things. Look at the triumphant way chapter 4 ends in vv. 9-11. The 4 living creatures are praising God incessantly and the 24 elders are on their faces worshipping the great creator God who sits upon his throne, ruling over all that he has made. Now look at 5:1, “Then I saw in the right hand of him who sat on the throne a scroll with writing on both sides and sealed with seven seals.” This picture is taken from the court of human kings. A king would write out his orders on a scroll, roll it up and then seal it with wax and put his ring in the wax as a mark that it was from him. It would be taken to one his governors or to a general in the field or an ambassador. Only a person who had been duly appointed by the king had the right to open the scroll. If anyone else opened it he would be killed. In the vision, what does this scroll represent? The scroll is God’s plan for establishing his kingdom in the universe. It is his decree as to how He is going to destroy all his enemies and save his people. It is “the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will” as Paul says in Eph. 1:11. This scroll is his plans and purposes for the universe he created. It is written on both sides to show that it is the full and complete statement of God’s plan for planet earth. It is sealed with 7 seals to show that it is impossible for anyone, except for God’s appointed agent, to open it and execute his orders. Now v. 3 reveals to us that there is a problem with fulfilling God’s will on the earth. The problem is that there is no one who is worthy to open it and execute it. There is no created being in the universe that is worthy to open the scroll. God’s kingdom cannot come to the earth until one who has earned the right to open the scroll and execute God’s plan is found. What is needed is a perfect man who has done what Adam failed to do and who also possesses divine power in order to accomplish what God has planned. A search is made throughout all of creation and no one is found who has the right and the power to open it. In other words, God’s will for the earth is not going to take place. God’s kingdom is not going to come. God will not be shown to be a great and merciful God in the salvation of his people and a just and holy God in the destruction of evil. Don’t miss this striking implication. Not even the Lord Almighty has the right to open the scroll. God the creator who has written out the scroll does not have the right to open it, that is, to execute his will on the earth. Now this stunning fact is more than John can take and he begins to weep and weep. Why does John weep? He weeps because he knows without someone to open and execute God’s plan evil will never be destroyed. The righteous will continue to suffer. Creation will never be what God intended it to be. God’s power and mercy and holiness will be forever mocked and maligned by Satan and sinful humanity and this is more than he can take and so he weeps. He longs for God and for God’s kingdom to be fully established. He longs for not only himself but for all God’s people to fully experience the presence of God. What John knows is that if no one is found who is worthy of opening the scroll then all is futility. John knows without someone who has established the legal authority to represent God on earth, there is no hope not only for himself but also for this miserable world. There is no point to suffering, there is no point to doing good, there is no point to love, there is no point to anything if someone is not found who can establish God’s kingdom of justice and peace and love and holiness on this earth. All is meaningless without one who is worthy to open the scroll. If there is no one who can bring God’s rule to this earth, then there is no hope but only despair. We are captivated by the glory of Christ because…
II. Christ is the promised Savior (vv. 5-6a) While John is overcome with despair one of the 24 elders says to John, “‘Do not weep! See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed. He is able to open the scroll and its seven seals.’ Then I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain…” Here we have three images taken from the pages of the OT to describe the Messiah, the Savior of the world. In Genesis 49 Jacob is prophesying about each of his twelve sons. In vv. 8-10 he says about his fourth son, “ Judah, your brothers will praise you; your hand will be on the neck of your enemies; your father’s sons will bow down to you. You are a lion’s cub, O Judah; you return from the prey, my son. Like a lion he crouches and lies down, like a lioness—who dares to rouse him? The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until he comes to whom it belongs and the obedience of the nations is his.” The Messiah will be a descendant of Judah and all God’s people will worship him. He is like a lion that is without equal in the animal kingdom. The lion hunts where he will and does not fear anyone or anything. We have in the picture of the lion the power of Christ to conquer all of his enemies. He cannot be resisted but will accomplish all that he intends. He is infinitely able to protect his people and to destroy his enemies. He has the power to fulfill God’s plan for the universe. Then in Isaiah 11, which we had read for us earlier, we are told of the “Root or shoot of Jesse” who is anointed with the Holy Spirit and who will establish God’s kingdom on the earth. The image itself points to a tree that has been cut down or in some other fashion destroyed but from which a shoot or a root sprouts out and grows into a tree to which all the nations will come. When Jesus Christ was born of the Virgin Mary, while he is a descendant of the great kings of Israel beginning with David, yet, when he is born there is no descendant of David reigning as king. The line of the kings of Israel descended from David lies in ruin. The Romans oppress the nation Israel. The tree is apparently dead and yet out of this defiled and destroyed line comes Christ upon whom the Holy Spirit rests and who destroys God’s enemies with his mouth and establishes his kingdom of peace. It is a kingdom of peace where even bears and cows will feed together and children will not be harmed by vipers. It will be a kingdom that will encompass the whole world and all peoples. It will be a kingdom from which all the wicked will be destroyed. Finally, what John sees when he looks at the throne is not a lion or a king but a lamb with its throat slit. Thus John directs our attention to yet another image in the OT. It is the image of millions of lambs who have been sacrificed for the sins of the nation Israel through the millenniums, beginning with the thousands of Passover lambs slaughtered on that first Passover when God sent the angel of death into the land of Egypt to kill all the firstborn except those in homes sprinkled by the blood of the Passover lambs. John directs our attention to that great chapter in Isaiah 53 where the servant of the Lord is led to his death as a lamb to the slaughter. He dies for our transgressions. Thus in this short statement the various portraits and images of the glory of the Savior painted in the OT are brought together: The Savior who is lion and king and sacrificial lamb. The one who is able to break the seals and open the scroll is the one whom God promised to send throughout the OT. The elder commands John and us to not weep. While we live in a world that appears to be out of control: where mad men walk into church services and murder their friends in a senseless act of violence, where millions of babies are legally butchered in their mothers wombs each year, where pastors and priests sexually molest children entrusted to their care, where fanatics fly airplanes into office buildings, where millions of children are orphaned by a disease that could be stopped if men and women would be faithful to monogamous heterosexual marriage—yet God is faithfully fulfilling all his promises. He has worked across the millennium to fulfill his plan to bring the Lion of Judah, the Root of David, the Lamb who was slain, into the world to fulfill his purposes. The coming of Christ into the world shows that the world is not out of control. The plan of God is moving forward and there is no reason to despair. God’s kingdom will come and his will, will be done on earth as it is in heaven because what he promised he has done. So do not weep, the Lion of Judah, the root of David, the lamb that was slain has triumphed. He is able to open the scroll and its seven seals. No matter how bad your life here is going, no matter how much sin seems to be winning the day in your life or suffering seems to be conquering, God’s kingdom is coming because the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David has triumphed and he is worthy to open the scroll and break the seals. We are captivated by the glory of Christ because…
III. Christ is the second person of the Trinity (vv. 6b-8) What John sees next is nothing short of astonishing. However, because we have not examined chapter 4 in detail we will miss it. So we need to look back briefly at chapter four. Notice the center of heaven is a throne with “someone sitting on it.” Elders, angels and living creatures surround this being. There are seven lamps, which are the seven spirits of God in front of the throne. The beings that surround the throne are continually worshipping this one who sits upon it. We discover in their worship that this is none other than the Lord Almighty, the creator of the heavens and the earth who has written out the scroll and sealed it with seven seals. The Lord God Almighty occupies the throne. But now in 5:6, the one who is worthy to open the scroll, the Lamb who was slain but who is now alive, occupies this same throne. He is at the center of the throne, surrounded and worshipped by all the hosts of heaven, just like the Lord Almighty. This lamb is where only God can be and receives the worship due to God alone. He has seven horns. A horn is the symbol of strength throughout the OT. To have seven horns is to have perfect strength, to be completely full of power. Here we have in symbol the omnipotence of God. Jesus possesses all the power of divinity. He is equal in power to the Lord Almighty. The seven eyes are the seven spirits of God that are sent out into all the earth. This corresponds to the seven lamps in chapter four that are the seven spirits of God. These seven lamps and eyes represent the Holy Spirit who is sent out into the earth by the Father and the Son to accomplish all God’s work among men. In this one verse we see a figurative and exalted vision of the Trinity. There is only one God because there is only one throne. Yet on this one throne there is the Lord Almighty, the creator God, who has a sovereign plan for all the earth. Then there is the lamb who was slain and who is now alive and is able to fulfill God’s plan. Finally, there is the Holy Spirit who is sent out by the Father and the Son to fulfill what the Father planned and what the Son’s victory gained. The identity of the lamb as the divine Son of God is confirmed by the response of the hosts of heaven to him. They fall down before him and worship him. The harps they hold point back to the dozens of times in the psalms where God is praised with the harp. The new song they sing calls to mind the dozens of times God’s people are exhorted to sing a new song to God. The bowls of incense, which are the prayers of the saints, point to the prayers of God’s people offered to the great triune God. It would be blasphemy for the saints to offer prayer to anyone who is not God, for the angels to worship a fellow creature or to offer the prayers of the saints to a mere creature. But also see the eternal humility and submission of the Son to the Father. He comes to his father, after accomplishing his work and takes the scroll from his hand. So the father honors the son by making him the judge and savior of the world and so the Son honors the Father by fulfilling the requirements necessary to establish his kingdom on the earth. The Father delegates the authority for saving and judging into the Son’s hands. What a glorious picture of our great Triune God! We are captivated by the glory of Christ because…
IV. Christ earned the right to execute God’s plan by his death (vv. 2, 5, 7 & 9-14) Why is the Lamb worthy to take the scroll and open its seals? That is the central question of the chapter, right? That’s the question that is asked in heaven in v. 2, “Who is worthy to break the seals and open the scroll?” In v. 5 the elder says the one promised in the OT is worthy because he has triumphed. What does that mean? In vv. 9-10 we discover how it is that this Lion of Judah, this root of David, this lamb who was slain became worthy of this great privilege. What we discover in vv. 9-10 is that he has earned this right by being slain and thus purchasing men for God. Why does the lamb have the right to open the scroll and where does his power to execute what is written there come from? The power and authority of the lamb come from his death. It was in his weakest moment on earth that Christ accomplished his most powerful work. The cross of Christ is the #1 historical event of all time. This vision of heaven tells us that Jesus is the most important person in the history of the world and his death is the single most important event in the history of the universe. In fact, history makes no sense apart from Christ. The history of the world and the history of your life are meaningless apart from the person and work of Jesus. He is the center of everything. The other thing to notice here is the purpose of Jesus’ dying. Notice that the emphasis is not on the benefit that comes to people but on the benefit that comes to God by what Jesus does. He was slain and he purchased men for God. He made them a kingdom and priests for God. (The NIV inserts the verb “to serve”. It is not in the text. It simply says he made them a kingdom and priests for God.) Jesus came to earth and died on a cross in order to purchase men for God. He offers the church to God as a gift. His death satisfies God’s justice and enables him to justly reward criminals like us with heaven. Again notice that Jesus does all the work. He came to earth to save a particular group of people out of all the different kinds of people that are on the earth. He purchased them and then he made them into a kingdom and priests and he will cause them to reign on the earth. Christ does all the work so that God receives all the credit, all the glory. Notice, we do gain much. We are God’s kingdom, the people and place where he rules. We are priests to God. We live in his presence and gladly reflect back to him the radiance of his worth and we represent him here on earth. One day we will reign on this earth. But all these benefits are given to us, performed for us by Christ and he does it to bring honor to his Father. Christ by his obedient life and death earned the right to save his people out of all the peoples of the earth and to give us to God as his kingdom. All of creation will bow in submission to him. It is the sovereign lion that becomes the slaughtered lamb that is the center of attention in heaven. He has earned the right to possess the entire universe and to be praised by all that exists. When something or someone other than this great Christ captures our hearts we are living out of step with reality. When we are overwhelmed by grief or anger over the misery of this life we reveal that our hearts are not captured by his glory but by the glory of some portion of this creation. Look and see the Lion of Judah, the Root of David, the Lamb who was slain standing in the center of the throne receiving the honor of all of creation and believe and do not weep and join in the joy that fills heaven. We are captivated by the glory of Christ because…
© Copyright
2005 John Swanson.
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