The Revelation of the Scroll: My Father's World

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

Another Glimpse into Heaven

Someone once said that heaven is heaven because God's will is done there. We think of the prayer our Lord taught us to pray:

Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen (Matthew 6:9-13).

Every word and phrase, even every punctuation mark, of this prayer is pregnant with meaning and may be studied for hours with new discoveries each time. Before we look upon the scene in Heaven as the Lamb takes the scroll, we would do well to set the stage with flashbacks to earth in what it cost our Lord to overcome.

"Our Father Which Art in Heaven"

The very first thing we would notice is our Lord's relationship with His Father, which remained at all times in obedient communion--save one: when Christ's ultimate obedience on the Cross broke His communion with His Father as God's wrath was poured out upon His only Son. We could hear these words for a thousand years and never comprehend even one second of what our Lord did for us. Nor could we understand why He had to--why is the wrath of God so heavy, so demanding, so relentless?

"Hallowed Be Thy Name"

And then one glimpse into the awful holiness of God--the blinding brilliance flashing from His throne--the Shekinah glory that filled Solomon's Temple and Isaiah's vision--the glory that led Israel out of Egypt and straight into the heart of the Red Sea where all their foes were drowned. Mount Sinai shook and smoked with righteousness, and any beast that approached was instantly slain. The sinless Son of God teaches us to hallow His Father's Name.

"Thy Kingdom Come"

And here the meaning is rich indeed. We think of Jesus' temptation in the wilderness after His baptism and infilling with the Holy Spirit. And Satan tempts our Lord at His weakest, taunting Him to weaponize His own powers for selfish ends. From the microcosm of a stone in the wilderness to the macrocosm of the universe, Satan dares Christ to prove He is the Son of God--but each proof is not only absurd by carrying the seeds of its own contradiction; it is a slur against the Kingdom of God. With what credibility and authority did Jesus command His disciples, "But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you" (Matthew 6:33). How often people seek the Kingdom of God with its power and glory but not His righteousness! Jesus would not use His power because He knew all power belonged to God, and any suggestion of Satan would be anything but righteous.

And when we think of Satan's most insulting offer--to give Christ all the kingdoms of the world if He would only bow down and worship him--we remember that, even if Satan had governance of earth's kingdoms through Adam's fall, he never had ownership. Psalm 24:1 makes clear that "The earth is the LORD's, and the fullness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein." Children used to sing a sweetly plaintive song:

This is my Father's world, And to my listening ears,

All nature sings, and round me rings

The music of the spheres.

This is my Father's world: I rest me in the thought

Of rocks and trees, Of skies and seas;

His hand the wonders wrought.

This is my Father's world, The birds their carols raise,

The morning light, the lily white,

Declare their Maker's praise.

This is my Father's world: He shines in all that's fair;

In the rustling grass I hear him pass,

He speaks to me everywhere.

This is my Father's world, O let me ne'er forget

That though the wrong seems oft so strong,

God is the Ruler yet.

This is my Father's world: The battle is not done;

Jesus who died shall be satisfied,

And earth and heaven be one.

Maltbie Babcock crammed a lot of simple, rugged theology into that childlike song in 1901, and I can only imagine how dear these words grew during the First and Second World Wars. This was never Satan's world. He didn't create it; he doesn't own it; and he is trespassing on it right now. When Jesus taught us to pray, "Thy kingdom come," He taught us how.

"Thy Will Be Done in Earth, as It Is in Heaven"

If we want heaven on earth--as it surely one day will be--we must do the Father's will to the same degree it is done in heaven. When we see the scene surrounding the Throne in Revelation 4 and 5, we see what true obedience is; we see what true worship is; we see what true love is; we see what true humility is; and we see what true victory is. The scene that unfolds when Jesus takes the scroll is indeed the fulfillment of this prayer.

"Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread. And Forgive Us Our Debts, as We Forgive Our Debtors."

Give and forgive. Seeking first the Kingdom of God means He will indeed add "all these things" unto us. And forgiving means we are seeking His righteousness so that He can. When Jesus teaches us to pray this, we think of Calvary, where the Bread of Life was given unto us, our debts forgiven. And to think that in all His agony of untold suffering, our Lord could pray, "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do"--we know that heaven is heaven because Jesus is there, and His forgiveness has opened Paradise for you and me.

"And Lead Us Not into Temptation"

Who knows more about temptation than Jesus does? He who gave up the most to pay the greatest, and yet we fail at the tickle of a feather outside of His strength. The writer to the Hebrews gives us a grisly reminder: "For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds. Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin" (Hebrews 12:3-4). But Jesus did. He sweat great drops of blood in the Garden of Gethsemane to resist avoiding the Cross. He told His disciples, "Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak," and then He prayed the second time, "O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done" (Matthew 26:41-42). Jesus' temptation involved a paradox we can never understand: the temptation to avoid becoming sin for us--the temptation to push all that temptation away from Himself, that His fellowship with the Father might be unbroken.

"But Deliver Us from Evil: For Thine Is the Kingdom, and the Power, and the Glory"

Right here the punctuation alone blesses us. Notice the colon after "evil," which means "note what follows" or "this is the reason." The only reason our Heavenly Father can deliver us from evil is because His is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory. His kingdom is the very antithesis of evil, and the power of His kingdom will crush evil one day. The glory of His holiness will evict Satan from the farthest corner of the earth.

"For Ever. Amen"

When Paul writes to the Romans, he has his own pain in hand: "For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us" (Romans 8:18). And to the Corinthians, he writes, "For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal" (2 Corinthians 4:17-18). And can we think of the word "work" without thinking of Romans 8:28? "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose." Working "for good" means not only "for what is good" but also for "good"--permanently.

This is why in the present moment we can remember the great cloud of witnesses of Hebrews 11 and our own family circles who are standing around the Throne worshipping the Lamb. As must we, they looked unto Jesus, "the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God" (Hebrews 12:2).

And in Revelation 5, Jesus stands in the midst of the throne, "a Lamb as it had been slain." He stands to take the scroll of His Father's world--as the only One worthy to reclaim the governance of sin-sick Earth.