You Serve a Worthy Champion
Are you tempted to throw up your hands when you read the Book of Revelation? To many everyday Christians, Revelation feels overwhelming, confusing, and like a work of fiction.
Revelation 4-7
Today's Scripture Passage
A Few Thoughts to Consider
Are you tempted to throw up your hands when you read the Book of Revelation?
To many everyday Christians, Revelation feels overwhelming, confusing, and like a work of fiction. For example, in Revelation 4-7, the apostle John is given a vision of heavenly worship and divine judgment. In chapter 4, John sees God's throne surrounded by 24 elders and four living creatures, all worshiping and proclaiming God's holiness and power. Chapter 5 reveals a scroll sealed with seven seals, symbolizing God's plan for judgment and redemption, which only the Lamb (Jesus) is worthy to open.
In chapter 6, as the Lamb breaks the first six seals, a series of judgments unfolds, including the Four Horsemen, which represented conquest, war, famine, and death. The chapter concludes with a vision of cosmic upheaval and humanity's fear of divine wrath. Chapter 7 introduces a moment of divine mercy and hope as 144,000 are sealed as servants of God, and a multitude from every nation stands before the throne, praising God and the Lamb for salvation.
So what are we to make of this? While there is much debate about the exact interpretation of these chapters, the main point is clear: the lamb is worthy. John writes in Revelation 4:11-12, “Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels around the throne, and also of the living creatures and of the elders. Their number was countless thousands, plus thousands of thousands. 12 They said with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb who was slaughtered to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing!”
He continues in verse 13, stating, “I heard every creature in heaven, on earth, under the earth, on the sea, and everything in them say, Blessing and honor and glory and power be to the one seated on the throne, and to the Lamb, forever and ever!”
What is this Lamb worthy to do? N.T. Wright says, “He is worthy (that is) to be the agent to carry forward God’s plan to destroy the destroyers, to thwart the forces of evil, to confront the seemingly all-powerful and to establish his new order instead. And the way the lamb has done this is through his own death, his own blood.”[1]
