Lion or Lamb?

Lion or Lamb?

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          Was John just blind? Or confused?

          In Revelation 5, the Apostle John (and the other denizens of Heaven) are weeping because there is no one worthy to open the seals on the Scroll. And then, in verse five, “one of the elders said to me, ‘Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals’.”

            If you read that sentence alone, without reading on, you’d be looking for what?

            A lion.

            Of course. So, let’s read on. Here’s verse six:

           “And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain.”

            A what? A lamb? Didn’t the elder say for John to behold a lion?

           Yes. But He who is Worthy to open the Scroll is both a lion AND a lamb. The Lion of Judah and the Lamb of God.

           We normally think of the lion and the lamb as being essentially contradictory creatures: the lion, a fierce and ferocious killer; the lamb, a gentle and docile innocent. But both are embodied in the Person of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.

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            “GOD is LOVE!” We hear that all the time, especially from the novice Christian, or the “CINO” (Christian-In-Name-Only). And that’s absolutely true – God is infinitely loving, the very definition of love.

But that’s only one side of the coin. Love does not exist in a vacuum.

Think about the most loving human being on earth: not a specific person, mind you, but a title, an occupation if you will. Who is it that loves more than anyone else?

A parent.

If you are a parent, and for some reason especially a mother, you know what I’m talking about: it feels impossible to love anyone more than that child you created. Even when you’re completely upset at them, you still love them with all your heart.

[A quick aside. Did you know that back in the day of the Psalmists, they believed that emotions like love came not from the heart, but from the kidney? That’s right – I love you with all of my kidneys. Glad they changed it. It still doesn’t really make sense to say ‘heart’, but it sounds so much better…]

Back on point: That person, that child whom you love more than anyone in the world? Do you discipline them? Do you scold them when they’re wrong? Do they get some form of punishment when they’ve done something terrible that needs correction?

Of course.

So, a God of infinite love must also be a God of discipline. A God of justice. A God who seeks to correct the ones He loves when they go astray.

Throughout the Bible, we see both sides of God – the God of love and mercy, and the God of discipline and justice:

*  God led Moses to bring His people out of Egyptian slavery – but then left them to wander in the desert for forty years because of their disobedience and disbelief.

* God allowed the Israelites to go astray, worshipping wooden idols and other false totems adopted from the pagan cultures around them – but when they got in trouble from the attacks of those pagan nations, God raised up a champion (a “judge”, in the book of Judges) to lead His people to salvation and military victory.

* God gave both David and Solomon great power and riches and prestige and blessings because of their worship of Him as the leaders of Israel – but when they strayed from His teachings, their power was diminished or taken away, and their repentance brought it back.

*  God finally punished the centuries of Jewish rebellion against His rule in 600-800 BC by allowing His people to finally be over-run and taken away from the Promised Land. He gave them a promise, however, that they would return once they had learned their lesson, and sure enough, the Persian rulers strangely allowed them to resettle the land in and around Jerusalem (see the books of Ezra and Nehemiah).

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            The ultimate question of the Lion and the Lamb that most people, Christian and non-Christian alike, struggle with to the point of outright denial for the most part sounds something like this:

            If God really is a loving God, how can He allow people to go to Hell?

           If you’ve read this essay so far, you already know the answer – because He is a God of Justice as well. “The Saints go to heaven, the Sinners go to hell.” That’s essentially what our culture believes, and has believed for centuries, probably millennia.

 In fact, that’s just about the literal truth. God is perfect and cannot sin. Thus, He cannot tolerate having any sin around Him in heaven. That’s the reason that once Adam and Eve sinned by disobeying Him in the Garden, He does not show up on earth again as God. (There are sightings of not just Christ in the New Testament but also “pre-incarnate” Christ in the old. But God Himself never gets any closer than He does with Moses or Elijah – a cloud, a whisper, a storm.)

 So, if He cannot tolerate sin, and EVERY human being sins, how can ANYONE ever go to heaven? The answer? God is not just a God of Justice, He is indeed a God of love and mercy. Someone had to be punished for the sins of mankind, to wash them clean of sin and allow them to enter God’s presence. Human beings could not do it of their own accord. (We tried, though. Sacrifice after sacrifice? Oh man, did we try!) So God took our punishment FOR us, in the form of Jesus Christ: He had to lead a sinless life first, so the punishment wouldn’t be for Him, and then willingly accept the flaying of the 39 lashes and the beastly crucifixion as our punishment.

The Lion had to serve as a Lamb for our salvation to take place.

So, now, there are “sinless” saints to go to heaven – and anyone can be one, even if they DID commit sin (as we ALL do) in our life on earth. But we must “buy in” to the gargantuan “favor” that the Lord did for us in 30 AD – when he paid for the sins of anyone who was willing to accept that favor and acknowledge His Lordship.

God allows people to choose whether they want an eternal life WITH Him – or WITHOUT Him. If you choose to accept Christ as your Lord, then you can have an eternal life with Him in heaven. If you choose not to have Christ as your Lord, you don’t have to! You are free to choose the eternal life away from God, which colloquially we call “hell”.

Understand, He would prefer that everyone accept His free gift, the favor He granted us. But He gives us the freedom to choose our own path.

You cannot have the concept of “love and mercy” without “discipline and justice”.

You cannot have a “heaven” without having a “hell”, too.

And you cannot have the Lion without the Lamb.

                                                                                                            -gps

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