THE LAMB
In the Ancient Near East. Sheep are often mentioned in the records of the ancient Near East. They were valued for a great many things such as being a source of milk, meat, and wool for clothing. As well sheep were used to tread grain into the soil and as sacrificial animals. In some cases they served as symbols for certain gods such as Ea, the god of magic, in Mesopotamia and Amon, the patron god of Thebes.
As for lambs, they too were a source of wool and for sacrifices, but also were often utilized as gifts to someone. In addition, they were mentioned in connection with the Sumerian land of paradise—Dilmum. Of that promised land of peace and purity it was said, “The land of Dilmum is pure, the land of Dilmum is clean … the lion kills not, the wolf snatches not the lamb.” In the mythology of ancient Ugarit, the death god Mot boasted that he had taken the life of the god Baal: “I approached Baal the Conqueror; I put him in my mouth like a lamb, he was crushed like a kid in my jaws.”Accordingly, the goddess Anat sacrificed seventy sheep “as oblation for Baal the Conqueror,” and subsequently she seized and killed death itself and Baal revived.
In the Scriptures. As in the ancient Near East, so in the Bible the lamb was valued for its wool (Prov. 27:26) and as a sacrificial animal. Lambs were used in connection with the daily, weekly, monthly, and special times of sacrifice. Of particular note was the practice of sacrificing seven lambs on each of the days of Passover (Num. 28:16-25). The image of gentleness associated with lambs also appears in the Bible. Thus Jeremiah likens himself to a docile lamb ready to be led to the slaughter in the hands of his enemies (Jer. 11:19). That image is also present in Jesus’ sending out the seventy ahead of him, who would be “like lambs surrounded by wolves” (Lk. 10:3). God’s people could also be described as gentle, obedient and dependent lambs in the arms of Yahweh, their great deliverer and shepherd. Thus in a future day, “Like a shepherd he sends his flock; he gathers up the lambs with his arms; he carries them close to his heart; he leads the ewes along” (Isa. 40:11).
In a dramatic contrast, however, the lamb can at times appear in contexts associated with judgment. For example, Isaiah prophesies that after God will judge his people, renewed peace will come to the land; “Lambs will graze as if in their pastures; amid the ruins the rich sojourners will graze” (Isa. 5:17). It is not the Israelite's who will enjoy their land, however, but the foreign invaders, here pictured as tending their flocks in former Israelite fields or (if the parallelism is to be strictly observed) metaphorically as lambs. In Jeremiah’s prophecy against Babylon, however, it is the Babylonians who will be led “to be slaughtered like lambs, rams, and male goats” (Jer. 51:40).
The imagery of the lamb, however, is most significant with regard to the promised Messiah, David’s heir, Jesus Christ. Indeed, at the onset of Jesus’ ministry John the Baptist declared him to be “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29; cf. 1:36). Jeremias relates John the Baptist’s words to the prophecy concerning the suffering servant foretold by Isaiah: “He was treated harshly and afflicted, but he did not even open his mouth. Like a lamb led to the slaughtering block, like a sheep silent before her shearers, he did not even open his mouth” (Isa. 53:7). Westcott declares, “There can be no doubt that the image is directly derived from Isaiah liii 7 (comp. Acts viii 32).” It is of interest to note that the Ethiopian eunuch was reading this very passage when Philip came and explained the meaning of this passage in “the good news about Jesus” (Acts 8:35). Young relates John the Baptist’s words to other texts as well as Isaiah 53:7 and remarks, “One cannot read the prophecy without thinking of the fulfillment when before the judgment seat of Pilate the true Servant answered not a word.”
Yet there is more, for the imagery in Isaiah also builds upon elements in the Old Testament sacrificial system. Accordingly, Westcott points out that, “It is impossible to exclude the thought of the Paschal Lamb, with which the Lord was also afterwards identified.” If John the Baptist here is merely reflecting current Jewish opinion that the coming Messiah would suffer as a substitute for the peoples’ sin, yet without dying, “He speaks better than he knows.” For the New Testament writers would go on to demonstrate that Christ was the ultimate fulfillment of the meaning of the Passover. Thus Paul confidently states, “For Christ, our Passover Lamb, has been sacrificed” (1 Cor. 5:7). Peter points out that the believer was redeemed “not by perishable things like silver or gold, but by precious blood like that of an unblemished and spotless lamb, namely Christ” (1 Pet. 1:18-19).
It is this Jesus in whom the metaphor and imagery of the lamb finds his grandest expression. This is brought out forcefully in John’s Apocalypse, the New Testament book of Revelation. Here he is described as a lamb, which was victorious over death and is setting on his throne (Rev. 5:6-14), hence the One (5:5) worthy to open the seals on the scroll (6:1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 12; 8:1). The lamb also is seen as The Ruler on his throne (7:9-17) who will shepherd those who “have come out of great tribulation” (7:14). Subsequently the Lamb stands on Mount Zion giving comfort and assurance to them concerning their final victory because of their fidelity to the Lamb (14:1-4).
In a striking contrast, the Lamb is also portrayed as a royal judge who inflicts judgment upon those who are hostile to the Lamb (14:10; 17:12-14). In one of the most poignant similes in the Scriptures the wicked of earth are pictured as crying out to the mountains and the rock, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of the one who is seated on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb” (Rev. 6:16), for it was the great day of their judgment. The normally gentle lamb is here presented in the most unlikely roles, that of a wrathful creature. This Christ can and will do, for as the great Victor over evil (19:11-21) and Ruler of the universe (5:1-3) as well as this world (11:15-18), all nations will one day “come and worship before you, for your righteous acts have been revealed” (15:4).
It is the redeemed who are singled out as particularly enjoying the final triumph of the Lord and the fulfillment of their union with Christ. Such is done under the metaphor of the “wedding celebration of the Lamb” (19:7-9). The significance of these metaphors is that “God’s people are finally entering into the intimate relationship with him that he has initiated.” It is
“a metaphorical way of alluding to the final redemptive fact when ‘the dwelling of God is with men. He will dwell with them and they shall be his people, and God himself will be with them’ (Rev. 21:3). This is why John can apply the same metaphor of the bride prepared for her husband to the new Jerusalem which comes down from heaven to dwell among men (Rev. 21:2), and why the angel can refer to the new Jerusalem as ‘the bride, the wife of the Lamb’ (Rev. 21:9).”
And around that grand new Jerusalem, “The wall of the city has twelve foundations, and on them are the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb” (Rev. 21:14). The Lamb’s earthly throne will be there (Rev. 22:1-3) and the earth’s intended paradise will at last be reached. It will be a city that has no need of a Temple because “the Lord God—the All-Powerful—and the Lamb are its Temple” (Rev. 21:22). As Walvoord observes, “Here the shadows are dispelled and, as the Scripture indicates the Lord God Himself and the Lamb are the temple of the new city. No longer is the structure necessary, for the saints are in the immediate presence of the Lord with no need for an earthly mediator or for shadows of things eternal.” Nor will the city need sun or moon to shine on it, “Because the glory of the Lord lights it up, and its lamp is the Lamb” (21:23). Moreover it is a city reserved for believers --for “only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life” (21:27).
CHRIST, THE LION AND THE LAMB
Common idioms are often formed from the lion or lamb. Thus one may “beard the lion in his den” or “take the lion share” of something, and people can be described as being “gentle as a lamb.” Seldom, however, would one find the two metaphors together. A notable exception is the familiar saying that the month of March “comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb.”
Lion and lamb are not often brought together in the Scriptures either. Yet in a few key texts both are found together in connection with some aspect of the Messiah. As we noted earlier, Isaiah speaks of conditions in the future era of safety and peace during Messiah’s reign as being just and having a stable serenity in which,
A wolf will reside with the lamb,
and a leopard will lie down with a young goat;
an ox and a young lion will graze together,
and a small child leads them along.
A cow and a bear will graze together,
their young will lie down together.
A lion, like an ox, will eat straw (Isa. 11:6-7
and a leopard will lie down with a young goat;
an ox and a young lion will graze together,
and a small child leads them along.
A cow and a bear will graze together,
their young will lie down together.
A lion, like an ox, will eat straw (Isa. 11:6-7
In this edenic scenario, “The herbivoral nature of all the creatures points to Eden restored (Gn. 1:29-30).” Indeed, “All enmity will disappear, not only from among men, but even among beasts, and even between men and beasts all will be in harmony.”
In another context Isaiah foresees a similar scene in connection with the Messianic era, “A wolf and a lamb will graze together; a lion, like an ox will eat straw” (Isa. 65:25). This era is commonly known as the millennium, a period between the second coming of Christ to put down the forces of evil and the final blessed state in the new Jerusalem. “There will be worldwide peace… . The universal harmony will not be restricted to humans. Nature, which has been ‘groaning in travail,’ awaiting its redemption, will be freed from the curse of the fall (Rom. 8:19-23). Even animals will live in harmony with one another (Isa. 11:6-7; 65:25), and the destructive forces of nature will be calmed.” While it is significant to note that the appearance of lion and lamb occur in connection with future blessed conditions relative to the Messiah and his just rule, there is yet another important linkage of lion and lamb to Christ.
Revelation 5:5-6 is an extremely important passage for the metaphors of the lion and the lamb as referring to Christ. Although elsewhere in the book of Revelation Christ is portrayed with the imagery of the lamb more than two dozen times, in Revelation 5:5 Christ, ”The Lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David,” is first acknowledged as the only one who is capable of opening the seven-sealed scroll. Then in the next verse he is identified as a “Lamb that appeared to have been killed’ (i.e., “he had been slain, yet he still lives””. The twin metaphors of a lion and a lamb with regard to Christ point to central themes in the Scriptures and find their climax in connection with events in the consummation of earth’s history.
Already in the Patriarchal Period in Jacob’s prophetic blessing of Judah he proclaimed:
You are a lion’s cub, Judah,
from the prey, my son, you have gone up.
He crouches and lies down like a lion;
like a lioness who will rouse him?
The scepter will not depart from Judah,
nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet,
until he comes to whom it belongs;
the nations will obey him (Gen. 49:9-10).
from the prey, my son, you have gone up.
He crouches and lies down like a lion;
like a lioness who will rouse him?
The scepter will not depart from Judah,
nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet,
until he comes to whom it belongs;
the nations will obey him (Gen. 49:9-10).
Thus Mathews rightly observes, “The intimation of an idealized permanent, universal reign must also look to the perfect eschatological figure, David’s Greater Son. The Christian interpreter who identifies the king of our passage explicitly as Jesus of Nazareth, therefore can agree with the historian that the Davidic monarchy must be initially in view and also can agree with ancient Jewish interpretation that our text requires a messianic fulfillment.”
The appellation of Christ as “the Root of David” is also significant. Thus Beale observes, “The two descriptions of Christ as ‘the lion from the tribe of Judah’ and as ‘the Root of David’ are from Gen. 49:9 and Isaiah 11:1, 10 (cf. also Jer. 11:19; 23:5; 33:15; Zech. 3:8) … both concern the prophecy of a messianic figure who will overcome his enemy through judgment. Jesus fulfills these two prophecies.”
It is important to note that as the Lion of the tribe of Judah (Gen. 49:10), to whom the rights of ruling rightly belong, the Messiah is also descended from Judah as David’s heir (2 Sam. 7:18-29; 1 Chron. 17:16-27; Ps. 89:19-37; Ezek. 34:24-31; cf. Isa. 11:1-9; Rev. 11:15). Indeed, these passages point to a vital, unifying theme, which is woven into the fabric of Scripture. For it is in this “Lion,” who is also the Root of David, David’s heir, that the Abrahamic, Davidic, and New Covenants find their fulfillment (cf. Jer. 23:5-6; 31:31-34; 33:14-18; Ezek. 37:24-28). In Christ the provisions in the progressively unfolding promised plan of God will ultimately be realized. “ Truly, in the risen Christ resides the culmination of the imagery relative to God’s lion-like qualities.
As noted above, Christ, the Lamb, is also conquering, victorious Lamb. Although he fulfills completely the purpose in the Passover as a subsitionary sacrifice for the sins of mankind, that sacrifice would be incomplete without his resurrection (cf. 1 Cor. 15:12-20, 56-57). As mankind’s Redeemer, who is victorious over sin, death, and all evil forces, the living Lamb now sits on his throne as the unrivaled, respected, ruler of all; as the Lion he occupies full authority reserved for the Lion of Judah, David’s heir. Ultimately all of earth’s history will find its consummation in this Lion and Lamb of whom it is said, “The kingdoms of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign forever and ever” (Rev. 11:15). The lion and lamb metaphors thus point to the fact that Christ is both the Ruler of all and man’s Redeemer.
These metaphors and the attendant imagery give hope and confidence to the believer. As taken into union with Christ (Col. 1:27) the believer may through the power of the Holy Spirit exhibit lion-like courage together with lamb-like following and dependence upon the Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, “When the Chief Shepherd appears” the faithful believer “will receive the crown of glory that never fades away” (1 Pet. 5:4). Until then, even as we exclaim, “Come, Lord Jesus!” may the benediction of the writer of Hebrews (13:20-21) rest upon us:
“May the God of peace who by the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead the great shepherd of the sheep, our Lord Jesus Christ, equip you with every good thing to do his will, working in us what is pleasing before him through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever. Amen.”
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