The Revelation of the Scroll: My Savior's Kingdom, Part Two

The Lion of the Tribe of Judah has prevailed to open the scroll! Revelation 5

The Power of His Might

One thing I have heard most of my life from growing up in the parsonage is that if the devil is fighting, the Lord is working. While both Satan and the Lord work all the time and usually unseen, when the powers of light and darkness become visible to the human spirit, we see in real time the epic struggle Paul outlines in Ephesians 6. If human beings wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, and against spiritual wickedness in high places (Ephesians 6:12), can we even begin to fathom the intensity of the conflict when celestial beings wrestle against the powers of darkness? Tolkien's best cinematic scene from The Lord of the Rings can trigger the thrill of good's cataclysmic power over evil. But no human eye has ever seen what Daniel saw in the vision of Michael the Archangel fighting the prince of Persia; and no eye has witnessed what the Apostle John beheld in his vision of the Tribulation.

And yet, all suspense aside, the end is certain from the beginning, for the twenty-four elders and four beasts worship victoriously through all eternity around God's throne. Let the heathen rage; this has always been my Father's world. But then the scroll. A book written on both sides rests in the Father's hand. Seven seals conceal its contents. One transaction still awaits. A strong angel voices what every thought demands to know: "Who is worthy to open the book, and to loose the seals thereof?" (Revelation 5:2). We look around, along with myriad eyes searching, searching. "And no man in heaven, nor in earth, neither under the earth, was able to open the book, neither to look thereon" (Revelation 5:3). An astonished hush of pure dismay: the stillness is deafening. Was this not the victory for which the martyrs gave their lives? "And I wept much, because no man was found worthy to open and to read the book, neither to look thereon" (Revelation 5:4).

The Glory of the Lamb

"And one of the elders saith unto me, Weep not: behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, hath prevailed to open the book, and to loose the seven seals thereof" (Revelation 5:5). And John looks--"and, lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as it had been slain" (Revelation 5:6). The Lion-Lamb: ah, yes! John's first sight of the exalted Christ with head and hairs like wool as white as snow (Revelation 1:14). "And he came and took the book out of the right hand of him that sat upon the throne" (Revelation 5:7).

The Victory of the Scroll

We can almost hear the powers of darkness rumbling deep below the basement floor of heaven. Against this moment Satan has launched his demonic imagination from the morning he slithered into Eden. And now, sensing the chain against his power about to break, he flings the serpent's fangs deep into the belly of earth in the full power of the Dragon. But the four beasts and the twenty-four elders fall down before the Lamb playing harps and waving golden vials full of incense, which are the sweet and eternal prayers of the saints. And the New Song--unlike any we have heard on earth--sings with the battle's victory complete: "Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation; and hast made us unto our God kings and priests: and we shall reign on the earth" (Revelation 5:9-10).

The scroll is Redemption's prize. Eden's flaming gates have opened to the Tree of Life, for an open door in heaven (John 10:7; Revelation 4:1) has split the Temple veil in two--swinging wide to the dying thief Christ brought to Paradise. The Lamb has prevailed against hell itself to win the title deed from His Father's hand. "Thy Kingdom come; thy will be done, in earth, as it is in heaven." This is my Savior's Kingdom.

The Joy of the Song

And an innumerable host of millions upon millions of angels joins the beasts' and the elders' song, saying, "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing" (Revelation 5:12). And more voices join the song of the redeemed and the shout of heaven's angels: every creature in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth, and in the sea lifts its testimony as if from the dawn of unspoiled creation: "Blessing, and honor, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever" (Revelation 5:13). The redeemed, the angelic host, the teeming life of heaven above and earth below, know what this scroll is: Joy to the world, the Lord has come! He rules the world with truth and grace and makes the nations prove the glories of His righteousness and wonders of His love!

Oh, if we miss the scroll, we miss the crowning act of history for which every seal must be broken. The scroll is not a timeline; the seals are the timeline--not merely of the Tribulation but of Satan's eviction. The earth is the Lord's, and Christ holds the title deed. But that deed does not unroll until all seven seals are broken. Then will His Kingdom come. But to think He holds the scroll--though the fiercest demons roar--and that no Dragon can ever pluck it out of His hand points also to the fact that God controls the Tribulation. Satan will not win. And as Christ's governing elders rejoice at evil's prosecution, we cannot help wondering if the Apostles recall the Lord handing Judas the sop dipped in wine as he departed from the Upper Room to plunge himself into the blackness of betrayal.

"What thou doest, do quickly" (John 13:27). When Christ opens the first seal, He is actually giving the Beast the permission to hang himself. Thus does Christ's rightful possession of the scroll both defy all deception and anchor all anticipation. We know how the battle ends--but we also know it isn't over yet. In the interval, before the symphony explodes, we can hear the Apostle Paul lilting above the rest:

What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?

Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.

Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:31-39).