ニューイングランドの母校からアドヴェントメッセージの便り　その24

2015 Gordon-Conwell Advent Devotional
Day 25

Revelation 5:6-14
John wept. He could not read the counsels of God he yearned to know. Those counsels, written on the scroll (5:1-2) can only be interpreted by Christ because they are realized only through him. “Look,” said one of the elders, there is the “Lion of the tribe of Judah” (5:5) who can know God’s counsels. And when John looked, there was a “Lamb” (5:6) that had been slaughtered.

The Lion and the Lamb. Christ, the Lion, sits on David’s throne and now reigns universally over sin, death and the devil. But to know him as Lion, we must first know him as Lamb, the one who bears our sin and judgment in our place. Here we see, then, in the one person of Christ, both the Lion and the Lamb, both courage and patience, power and meekness, might and innocence. We see victory and suffering, victory through suffering.

Do you also see that from him comes the Holy Spirit sent out in all of the fullness of God (5:6)? It is he who has opened our eyes to see the glory of Christ and who strengthens us in the midst of life’s conflicts. And when the shadows fall across our lives—pain and sickness, unsatisfied desires, hopes unfulfilled, love baffled-—he it is that points us to the Christ whose conquest of life’s disorder is complete that we might find comfort and assurance. Worthy is the Lamb!
Dr. David F. Wells
Distinguished Senior Research Professor