Revelation Chapter 5

Chapter 4 was entirely description of the scene in heaven.  Chapter 5 has more descriptions, but also describes events that take place in that setting.  These events are witnessed by John first-hand, since he is up there in heaven, and the events are chronological.  John writes down the events in the order that they took place.  I believe we ought to see these things described in Chapter 5 as the very first events of the end times.  I believe those in heaven who see these events begin to unfold will understand that the end of the earth is near, that the 70th week is imminent, that God’s wrath on the earth is about to pour out.

The first thing John tells us about is a scroll, held in the right hand of the one on the throne - the hand of God Himself.  The scroll is sealed with seven seals.  A mighty angel shouts out a challenge asking who is worthy to open the seals.  Note that it is not God himself who asks this, and note that this is not a test of strength, or knowledge, or cunning as you might find in mythical writings.  The question is not “Who is strong enough…”, but “Who is worthy”.  A judgment is implied – the judgment of the one on the throne will determine whether anyone who steps up is actually worthy.  No one at all comes forward.  No one even tries in the face of this challenge.  John is devastated. 

Then one of the 24 elders speaks to him, and tells him the Lion of Judah can open the book.

2022 - Vs 5, Titles for the Son, used in heaven:  The Lion of the Tribe of Judah, Root of David.

2023 – Remember that these events take place in heaven, at the throne.  We know that the seals are about the power of the one who placed them.  To break a seal is to release, to disperse that power over the whole earth.  A seal containing such power can only be broken by one who has power equal to the one who put the seal in place.  That is why no angel, no elder, no seraphim or cherubim nor indeed any archangel comes forward to take the book.  It says no one UNDER the earth could open it either, so even the demons, even Satan was offered the scroll if he had the power to open it.  He does not.  Another Trinitarian argument I would say.

Then there, between the throne and the elders, stands a Lamb as if it had been slain.  The Lamb has 7 horns and 7 eyes.  Several things about this…Look back at the titles given by the Elder.  He says the LION of Judah, and the root of David, and yet the appearance of the Lion is like a Lamb.  So the titles are about position and power and purpose, they are not about appearance.

2021 - Here is the verse:

6 And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, with seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth. [Rev 5:6 ESV] 

First, we get some additional information about the scene.  “between the throne and the four creatures and at the same time among the elders.  So this picture indicates that the 24 elders are nearer the throne than the four creatures.  There is the throne, with the sea of glass in front of it.  Around all of that are the secondary thrones of the 24 elders.  Outside the elders, one on each of the four sides of the throne, are the four seraphim.  We still don’t know exactly where the 7 torches were located. 

Then we get a description of the Lamb.  First, it looks as if it has been slain.  That could mean it has injuries like the ones Christ had after Calvary…his back in tatters from the whips, a spear wound in the side, nail scars in the hooves…or that it had the appearance of a ritual sacrifice, as the lambs used for burnt offerings, and sin offerings.  My guess is that the latter is the more likely.  The Lamb looked as though it had been killed to offer as a sacrifice, which has not yet been placed on the fire of the altar.

Next we see seven horns.  I think it is necessary to spend what may seem like an inordinate amount of time discussing these horns because they show up so often.  We see them many times in both Daniel and again here in Revelation.  What do “horns” represent?  Let’s look at some specifics.

We will approach this by looking at the passages in Daniel and Revelation that contain “horns”:   

First, we have these verses in Daniel 7:

7 After this I saw in the night visions, and behold, a fourth beast, terrifying and dreadful and exceedingly strong. It had great iron teeth; it devoured and broke in pieces and stamped what was left with its feet. It was different from all the beasts that were before it, and it had ten horns. 8 I considered the horns, and behold, there came up among them another horn, a little one, before which three of the first horns were plucked up by the roots. And behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth speaking great things. [Dan 7:7-8 ESV]. 

These verses describe a “terrifying beast”, with 10 horns.  An eleventh horn “grows”, and three of the original horns are grotesquely removed.

Second, in Daniel 8:

3 I raised my eyes and saw, and behold, a ram standing on the bank of the canal. It had two horns, and both horns were high, but one was higher than the other, and the higher one came up last. 4 I saw the ram charging westward and northward and southward. No beast could stand before him, and there was no one who could rescue from his power. He did as he pleased and became great. 5 As I was considering, behold, a male goat came from the west across the face of the whole earth, without touching the ground. And the goat had a conspicuous horn between his eyes. 6 He came to the ram with the two horns, which I had seen standing on the bank of the canal, and he ran at him in his powerful wrath. 7 I saw him come close to the ram, and he was enraged against him and struck the ram and broke his two horns. And the ram had no power to stand before him, but he cast him down to the ground and trampled on him. And there was no one who could rescue the ram from his power. 8 Then the goat became exceedingly great, but when he was strong, the great horn was broken, and instead of it there came up four conspicuous horns toward the four winds of heaven. [Dan 8:3-8 ESV]  (There is a lot more to this one, other horns and such, but this is, I think, sufficient for our purposes.)

Third, Revelation 5:

6 And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, with seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth. [Rev 5:6 ESV]

Fourth, in Revelation 12:

3 And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads seven diadems. 4 His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and cast them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she bore her child he might devour it. [Rev 12:3-4 ESV]

And finally, fifth, we have the beast of Revelation 13:

1 And I saw a beast rising out of the sea, with ten horns and seven heads, with ten diadems on its horns and blasphemous names on its heads. 2 And the beast that I saw was like a leopard; its feet were like a bear's, and its mouth was like a lion's mouth. And to it the dragon gave his power and his throne and great authority. 3 One of its heads seemed to have a mortal wound, but its mortal wound was healed, and the whole earth marveled as they followed the beast. [Rev 13:1-3 ESV]

I think the best place to start is with Daniel 8, because in the last part of that chapter, Gabriel himself explains to Daniel what it all means. Here is Gabriel’s explanation, which we will look at in some detail:

20 As for the ram that you saw with the two horns, these are the kings of Media and Persia.

I looked at several translations and they all read about the same.  I also looked at the BLB forward inline, and while this is about the only translation that “works”, I would say that it doesn’t work very well – at least in English.  The interpretation seems to have the singulars and plurals all mixed up.  As for THE ram – just the one ram – THESE (plural) are the kings of Media and Persia.  Seems to me it ought to say “the two horns on the ram are the kings”.  But no translation I found says it that way.  In ancient Hebrew, it may make sense this way, but I don’t count this verse very helpful to us.

21 And the goat is the king of Greece. And the great horn between his eyes is the first king. Now this is quite a bit better, though if you go and look at the BLB forward inline, this one is also very confusing.  This verse, in ESV English, is redundant.  How can the goat be the king, and then the horn be the king?  UNLESS, the goat represents all kings of Greece ever, and this horn only represents the very first king.  Here is a different translation that I like a lot better…though that doesn’t mean this one is more correct than ESV:

21 "The shaggy goat [represents] the kingdom of Greece, and the large horn that is between his eyes is the first king. [Dan 8:21 NASB95].  I like this because it tells us that the animal sporting the horns also represents something.  In this translation, the animal itself is about the “empire”, and the horn is about the first king…or more generally about the human being in charge of the empire.  If we go back to vs 20 with this interpretation, then the ram is the Medo-Persian Empire that conquered Babylon – which would have been still future to Daniel, and as it was organized in those days, there was a King of Media and a King of Persia.  Daniel 8 tells us that one of these kings was “higher”, that is more powerful, than the other king.  That brings us to this verse:

22 As for the horn that was broken, in place of which four others arose, four kingdoms shall arise from his nation, but not with his power. [Dan 8:20-22 ESV].  This ESV translation makes good sense in our modern English – the best sense we have seen in these verses.  Except that it tells us the first horn – which verse 21 told us was the first king of Greece, a unique person – is replaced by four other horns that represent not kings but kingdoms.

So we have an angel who knows what everything means explaining to Daniel, a very smart man who was not able on his own to understand what all this means, what Daniel’s vision meant, and frankly not doing a great job of it.  We have to consider the possibility that this is SUPPOSED to be unclear.  Maybe we aren’t supposed to understand it all precisely until the time actually arrives, and then it will all make sense.  AND, from Gabriel’s “confusing” explanation of the animals and horns, sometimes representing one thing and other times another thing, we need to see that the symbolism is context sensitive.  After the fact, we know that the Medo-Persian empire had a sort of joint kingship, but that the king of Persia was much stronger.  BUT, neither king, at any time, was particularly notable historically.  By contrast, we understand that Alexander was so unique that he gets his own horn.  Alexander was the reason the goat was so powerful.  But none of the kings who “replaced” Alexander in the four kingdoms that succeeded him was anywhere near as “great” as he was, so those four horns don’t represent men, but kingdoms that grew out of the Greek empire.

It would be oh so much easier if we had a hard and fast way to look at all these creatures in Daniel and Revelation, but the inescapable fact is that we don’t have that.  What we do have is a number of possibilities – a limited number thank goodness – which we will need to apply according to context. 

So seven dominions, each overseen by an angel, and the seven angels report to Christ, the eighth.  We will see that same setup with Satan's forces.

There is one additional consideration to keep in mind going forward.   The beasts in Daniel are chronologically sequential.  They show the world’s dominant conquering nation in consecutive periods of history.  Therefore, we can look at the animal itself as the civilization “driving” history forward. 

Now let’s get back to the Lamb’s seven horns in Revelation 5.  In context, this Lamb is Jesus Christ – but Jesus is not an animal, so the lamb is also a representation.  If we think of the lamb as representing a kingdom, as did each animal back in Daniel, then the lamb must be the Kingdom of God.  So within the Kingdom of God, do the seven horns represent individual kings or is it more likely that they represent kingdoms?  We know that Christ is king over this kingdom; I would interpret these horns as representing the seven kingdoms – seven dominions – of the Kingdom of God.  These dominions are geographic areas of planet earth, though we have no description of how things are divided.  If the seven horns are dominions, then perhaps the seven eyes – the seven spirits of God – are the chief angels that watch over each dominion.  If we carry this idea of seven dominions a bit further, wouldn't it also make sense that the seven churches correspond also to these seven dominions, and that the descriptions of the problems in each church characterized those specific churches at the time John wrote, yet also describe the prevailing spiritual conditions in each of the seven dominions as the tribulation bears down on the world?  And if we go with this view, then we eliminate the idea that the seven churches are a representation of the church through history – that is, we eliminate the idea that the churches are chronological through history = with Laodicea being the church just before the end times. 

2024 Addendum - The Kingdom of God, prior to the second coming, is a spiritual kingdom.  No division of it would be expected to have a human king.  That suggests that these seven horns are indeed spiritual beings, angels, who are immortal and so "always" in charge of each of the spiritual dominions of the Kingdom of God.  The angels are the "eyes" of Christ, seeing and working in the Kingdom.

Looking more closely at the seven eyes, note that it says they ARE the seven spirits of God rather than that they represent the seven spirits of God.  We have seen them described this way before.  In Rev 4:5 we have “burning torches WHICH ARE the seven spirits”.  Now we have seven eyes in 5, WHICH ARE the seven spirits of God.  Look back at Rev 1:20 where Jesus is talking and he says the seven stars in his hand ARE the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands ARE the seven churches.  The point here is that we ought not to let our “English” get in the way of correct interpretation.  When Revelation says “ARE”, we very often ought to read “REPRESENT”.  These things ARE a REPRESENTATION of something else.  If the word ARE is used, it means the interpretation is sure.  We are told the seven stars ARE the angels of the seven churches.  We are never told who the 24 elders ARE…therefore they are not a representation but an actual presence in the scene. 

Next, note the contrast between the appearance of the Lamb here in Chapter 5 and the one like a son of man described in 1:12-16.  We know that both of these passages describe Jesus.  John saw that first representation of Christ FROM EARTH, while he was in the Spirit.  But this Lamb in Chapter 5 he sees after he “went up there” to heaven.  We get an idea here of how differently the same “icons” can be represented depending on the point of view.  From earth, Christ is all powerful and has the appearance of a man.  In heaven though, Christ is seen as the slain lamb, depicting his finished work on behalf of mankind.

(((Made good progress on what the horns and such represent.  Even so, the notes below are still pretty jumbled.  Tomorrow, I need to pick up with the passing of the scroll in vs. 7, and move on through the text.  Get off the “interpretation of the vision” and back to exposition of the narrative.)))

(((Go back and point out that Gabriel twice in Luke 1 says he was sent by God, and it was also Gabriel who was sent to Daniel.  Perhaps Gabriel is one of the seven spirits.  Perhaps the seven spirits are all archangels. 

ALSO, since the Lamb looked completely different depending on whether he was seen from heaven or seen from earth, maybe the four creatures also look very different when seen from earth?)))

Moving on with the narrative, we have this verse:

7 And he went and took the scroll from the right hand of him who was seated on the throne. [Rev 5:7 ESV].  This is the primary “action” of chapter 5.  We know the Lamb is Christ, and his taking of the scroll shows that he is indeed worthy in the eyes of God.  As we said before, those seals were put there by God, and breaking the seals unleashes God’s power on the earth. 

2022 - The passing of the scroll seems to be about a passing of authority.  To here, Christ's kingdom was "not of this world" but over the 7 spiritual dominions.  Perhaps he has waged war with Satan and his forces for 2000 years, maintaining the church, preserving it, and "keeping" all those the Father has given him.  But in this scene, the whole earth –the physical earth - becomes his kingdom in that he now has authority to unleash God’s power upon the earth.  I think we have to read this as the beginning of the end of Satan’s rule on earth. 

Remember these verses:  5 And the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, 6 and said to him, "To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will. [Luk 4:5-6 ESV].  Note that last line.  Satan claims “ownership” of all authority on earth.  In his response, Jesus does not call Satan a liar, but instead says that authority on earth does not override the first commandment.  So when Jesus takes the scroll, he will have authority to take action on earth that Satan cannot prevent. 

(((2022 addendum -  24 Elders.  Still a mystery…Maybe it is 3 x 8 instead of 12x2.  3 representing each dominion,  3 reporting directly to the Lamb.  Hmm.  This makes better sense to me than any other explanation I have seen.  

2023 - Yes.  I like the way this works.  3x7+3.  Still need to tie it to the table of nations. 70 nations...so it's easy to get 7x10.  That's not hard at all.  Add to it that the nations are all descended from Shem, Ham, and Japheth, so 3 divisions there.  3x7+3.  Have to keep in mind also that 70 people went down to Egypt when Jacob was second only to Pharoah.  Table of nations is Genesis 10.  Yes...there are a lot of possibilities as we look at this.  Thing is, this is only about the world centered in the Middle East.  The 70 nations run from south of Egypt, through Israel and the fertile crescent, into Turkey/Asia.  There is nothing about Germania or France, nothing about China or Russia or Mongolia.  We know from Daniel that it goes as far east as Persia, but it doesn't mention Asia or SE Asia.  And certainly no N and S America or Australia.  But moving on….)))

2024 Addendum...Not sure where I put this in, but it's in here someplace...the 24 elders are 24 hours.  The number tells us that they are always in the presence of God and they are always praising him.  It really isn't that hard. 

Once the Lamb steps forward and takes the scroll, the four creatures AND the elders fall down before the Lamb - not the throne this time, but the Lamb - and they sing a NEW song.  This time they praise the Lamb, who died to take away sin, and to ransom people for God, who will reign on the earth. 

Here is the song they sing:  9 And they sang a new song, saying, "Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, [Rev 5:9 ESV].

2023 – A few things to note in this song:  Vss 9, 10 are the praise directed toward the Lamb.  The ESV says he ransomed people...but no, that isn’t really what it says in Greek.  The Greek word for people would be some form of “Anthropos”, but that is not the word used.  The word is pas, which is translated "all" 748 of the 1243 times it is used in the KJV.  The farthest one ought to go in this combination of translation and interpretation is "you ransomed everyone for God".  By just saying people, the "all" concept of this word, which is pretty much always there in every other translation of the word in the KJV, is completely excluded.  Just saying "people" gives no sense of all.  Maybe ESV is just trying to avoid letting this look like some kind of universal salvation, but we know from the rest of the book that it cannot be about that!  Far too many are left on earth to die for ALL to be priests and a kingdom and to reign on the earth.  We know that MANY will be sent to the Lake of Fire.  This word pas is also sometimes translated "whosoever".  I like that word as closest to what John means, but “you ransomed whosoever” doesn’t read very well.  But just because it doesn't fit in English doesn't mean we ought not to understand it that way!  Jesus DID ransom “whosoever believeth in him”. 

2024 - But here is another angle. The Greek looks like this:   ...ἐκ πάσης φυλῆς καὶ γλώσσης καὶ λαοῦ καὶ ἔθνους...  ek is a Greek preposition meaning "out of".  So ek pases would read "out of everyone", or "out of all".  Couldn't it read "With your blood,  you ransomed people out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation"?  That seems to convey the idea a little better.  Hmm...now that I look at it, that's kind of what ESV did with the verse.  Instead of it being every man, it is men from every, which gets all the words in, sort of.  I will say that the choice of the word "people" instead of "everyone", or "all people" has caught my attention two years in a row.  I think this wording reeks of interpretation within current culture rather than strict translation.  Here's how NKJV did it: 

"And have redeemed us to God by Your blood out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation,"  "Us" seems to work very very well.

Note also that there is a second "people" in this verse, and the Greek word used the second time is an entirely different Greek word, “laos”.  This word is used 143 times in the KJV, and every single time it is translated "people".  If "people", and not ALL, is what John meant the first time, why wouldn't he have used laos in both places?  He knew both words, after all  He obviously does it because he wants to contrast that first group – ALL – with the second group – “people.   We can easily see from context that the second “people” is there with tribes, languages, and nations to show that Jesus did not die for Jews alone, but for all the “whosoever’s"  on the planet that believe in him.   

After this new song, the angels (a LOT of angels!) join in and say (not sing, say) 12 …"Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!" [Rev 5:12 ESV].  The verb in this verse, translated “to receive”, is in the Greek aorist infinitive.  We don’t have an aorist tense in English, but what it means in Greek is that the action taking place is unspecified as to time.  That is, the Lamb is worthy to receive – not in the past, not in the present and not in the future, but “in all times”.  He was always worthy, is worthy, and will always be worthy.  In the ESV wording, it looks as if the “receiving” is still out in the future somewhere.  This is not what it means in Greek.

2024 Addendum - This is the conveyance of the physical creation into Jesus' own power.  We might say that Satan rules the physical right now, and that makes sense in light of Galatians 5 where the spiritual and the physical are opposed to each other.  Hmm...God let Satan "have" the physical creation at the fall of man.  At his first coming, Christ established the church - the spiritual kingdom on Earth in direct opposition to that physical kingdom.  When his scroll is passed to the Lamb, Satan is booted from authority, and Jesus is to bring about all the will of God, of Theos, regarding the consummation of the ages.

Note that if we make the elders "men", then those elders are the ONLY men, besides John, who are around this throne, this pre-rapture throne.  I call that a pretty good argument that the elders are elder angels, and so need have no correspondence at all to the 12 tribes. 

The vision ends with all creatures, wherever located, giving praise to God and to the Lamb, and then the creatures say Amen and the elders fall down and worship.

2021 - These verses:

13 And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, saying, "To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!" 14 And the four living creatures said, "Amen!" and the elders fell down and worshiped. [Rev 5:13-14 ESV]  Compare this verse with these verses:  9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. [Phl 2:9-11 ESV]  If these verses in Philippians are about this scene in Revelation 5, then the first fulfillment of this verse would be just before the Tribulation period begins. 

Except that…the lost will not praise him at this time, surely.  Many of them won't even at the end of Great Trib.  So this vision must look forward, past all the end times events, to the New Heaven and New Earth?  But...what about those in hell...at this time or any time?  Will they praise him also?  Will they finally realize - if only for an instant - that God is true and just and their fate is well earned?  If so, this would have to be when time is no more.  MSB does not address this question, just says that the places are not meant to divide the universe into three divisions, but is a Biblical expression meaning "the universe as a whole and all that is in it".  This is probably a better approach than trying to figure out when “every tongue will confess”.  Because really, they won’t.