In Revelation’s powerful chapters 5 and 6 we read of a sealed book no one can access. When it’s finally opened, chapter 6 seems to reveal it as the book of human suffering. John, Revelation’s author, has ‘wept and wept’, because (5:3-4) this book is unreadable, no one can `open` it to us….
Look, when it’s finally opened, what it contains. There is the suffering caused by the imperialistic urge (6:2); the suffering of massive slaughter in war (6:4); suffering in famine, and in plague (v8); suffering caused by gross economic injustice (vv5-6). (Protect the prices of the luxury goods, says a voice in v6, `Do not damage the oil and the wine` (NIV as usual) – as Wilcock says, like `caviare and champagne, which even in the hardest times continue inexplicably to furnish the tables of the rich`; and this no matter what happens to the prices for the basics, wheat and barley; those prices recorded here are `famine prices`, says Mounce, ten to twelve times what they should have been.)
And there’s more. In the fifth seal (v9) we find religious persecution, and the cry of the slaughtered believers for vindication. I’m reminded of the torment believers faced when Isis fighters took their children, even young children, as sex slaves; or when Christians in the USSR were taken to psychological hospitals to have their minds broken by powerful drugs, or when believing parents had to watch their children being taken away to be raised as atheists. The evil has become unbearable, and their agonized reaction, `How long?`, matches the angels’ cry later in 14:15,18 (a prayer, surely, not a command to the `Son of Man`) to bring a final end to all this horror.
The record of human suffering. There’s yet more. Perhaps hardest of all is what is recorded in the seventh seal (8:1): the silence of heaven. You can cope with a great deal if you know what God is saying or doing; but is there anything worse than that `dark night of the soul` when we are in utter agony and God seems totally silent? (Is an inevitable question here – as in 6:10 – Does prayer really work? It will be prayer that finally breaks the silence, 8:3.)
But then see how chapter 6 closes. The sixth seal shows us that in time the `wrath of the Lamb` must surely come. God has delayed the `day of judgment and destruction… not wanting anyone to perish`, says Peter (2 Peter 3:7-9), but, after all that the book has recorded, the `great day of wrath`, of God’s judgment, must come (v17). (And that `wrath of the Lamb` is a further reality, a revelation of Jesus (1:1), that we need to recognize and absorb.)
However, that revelation doesn’t come till the end of chapter 6, indeed (it would seem) at the end of history as we know it. Back in 5:4, we read that John ‘wept and wept’, because no one could `open` the book that contains all these utterly terrible things…
And then it turns out that there is someone who can: the Lamb who was slain! The issue (5:9-10) is who is worthy to open this book: and only He is, because only He has been to the deepest heart of the darkness, screaming out in agony `My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?`, and there redeemed us and made us a people for God. (Lord Jesus, I worship You…) `Do not weep`, says the elder to the weeping John, pointing him to Christ, `See` (5:5): somehow this section calls us to grasp how the vision of the crucified Christ becomes the ultimate and only counterpart to the enormity of human suffering.
Here is yet another ‘revelation of Jesus Christ’, and one hugely important for us individually to absorb. This is not an `intellectual answer` to the problem of suffering; when we ourselves are suffering greatly, an `intellectual answer` is most probably not what we need. It is all something only Christ can comprehend or respond to, because He alone has been to the utter heart of the darkness. And what we need to know is that this Christ is with us, alongside us, right now…
Only here, then, only in the crucified Christ who alone really sees and understands all our pain, can we find the ultimate counterpart to human suffering; and to our own…
PS What’s above is a way of feeding on this chapter that I find helpful; but there is an alternative approach. That is, that John is not weeping (5:4) because of the incomprehensible suffering and evil that the book contains; rather, he weeps because righteous judgment has not yet come (cf 6:10). So then chapter 6 is not opening to us the otherwise unreadable, inexplicable book of human suffering, but rather it shows the beginning of the release of judgments, specifically in the final crisis of human history. Why, we might wonder, are the `living creatures` involved in vv1,3,5,7? Is it because they are totally filled with the vision of God’s colossal holiness (4:8), and so are saying `Come` because what follows is the judgment, the response to sin, that they sense such holiness must justly necessitate, even if God Himself would delay it (6:11)? If so we learn that the judgments are in themselves holy (a point also being made in 16:5-7, 19:11), flowing eventually but inevitably from God’s holy response to sin; we are reminded, too, that at absolute root evil somehow needs God’s permission to operate (cf Job 1), and its release here is God’s final response to all the millennia of human wickedness. (Less probably, `Come!` could be addressed to John (cf 4:1); or just possibly the `living creatures` could be crying out to Christ to bring these evils to an end, cf v10 (or Matt 24:22).)
For me, however, what is suggested previously as the `big-picture` understanding is more plausible: because 6:9 isn’t unleashing a judgment; and it must be doubtful whether 8:1 is. We could possibly see the judgments released in the verses that follow 8:1 as being included within it; but, 8:1 is about silence, whereas in contrast 8:6 ff with their trumpets are very clearly not; they seem to be following separately on God’s silence of `half an hour` in 8:1. Further, it’s not clear to me why our Lord having been crucified as our substitute is what would make Him `worthy` (5:9) to unleash judgments (surely His holiness in itself would suffice for that), if that is what the opening of the book means. Rather, to me what this chapter does is show us Christ as the One who alone can “open” the book to us in our agony; because He alone has been to the utter heart of the darkness; and He is with us….
The scene with the sealed scroll is one of my favourite narrative pictures in the Bible. I love how Darrell Johnson has captured the scene in his book, Discipleship on the Edge:
“”Stop weeping,” says the elder. “Look! The Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David. The Lion has triumphed! And he is worthy to open the scroll.” Hallelujah!
“Then John turns his gaze away from the elder back to the throne. Ready? What happens next is the most critical element of the vision. What happens next changes the way we see everything on earth.
“John turns expecting to see a roaring lion. Revelation 5:6–“I turned and I saw a Lamb, as if slain.” What? “And the Lion has triumphed!” The Lion is able to open the scroll! “I turned and I saw a Lamb,” a slain lamb.
“New Testament scholar Eugene Boring is right: “This is perhaps the most mind-wrenching ‘rebirth of images’ in literature. The slot in the system reserved for the lion has been filled by the Lamb of God.” “The Lion has overcome!” And, “I saw a Lamb.”
…
“A little Lamb “with seven horns and seven eyes.” What does this imagery tell us? Eyes are the picture of wisdom. Seven eyes. Seven is the number of completeness and essence. The little Lamb is completely wise, immensely wise. Horns are pictures of strength. Seven horns. The little Lamb is the perfection of and essence of wisdom and power.”
Johnson goes on to tease out implications from these images, and I love and resonate with these reflections: “…with our Revelation 5 glasses on, we realize that at the centre of reality is One who suffers…. Through Revelation 5 glasses, we realize that we are never alone in suffering. The Lamb is there in the centre of the suffering…(Isa 53:3)… Second, …we realize that at the centre of reality is grace, costly grace. Why did the Lion become a Lamb? Why did the Lamb suffer? Why was he slain? For the sake of us sheep… (Isa 53:6) The Lamb goes to the cross because of us. The Lamb goes to the cross for us. The lamb goes to the cross instead of us…
“The imagery cries out: “Come! It is safe to come!” The heart of the Almighty, the heart of the Holy One, is the heart of the Lamb who freely gave his life to pardon us, who freely receives any and all who come in repentance. And who freely gives of the seven-fold Spirit of God. Grace, grace greater than all sin, is found at the throne.”
Amen!
Great, old friend! Thanks so much for sharing!