Behold, The Lamb Of God!

Behold, the Lamb of God!

Excerpted from “Heavenly Worship”

Sermon #110

Delivered Sabbath morning, December 28, 1856, at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens

We have every reason to tremble when we think of facing a holy God. But Christ appears in Heaven as a Lamb—victorious and triumphant, yet also gentle. He is the Lamb of God who beckons us to his throne of grace.

I looked, and behold, on Mount Zion stood the Lamb, and with him 144,000 who had his name and his Father’s name written on their foreheads. And I heard a voice from heaven like the roar of many waters and like the sound of loud thunder. Revelation 14:1-2

Spurgeon • Why should Christ in Heaven choose to appear as the figure of a lamb and not in some other of his glorious characters? Because it was as a lamb that Jesus fought and conquered, and therefore it is as a lamb he appears in Heaven.

I have read of certain military commanders, when they were conquerors, that on the anniversary of their victory they would never wear anything but the garment in which they fought. On that memorable day they say, “No, take away the robes. I will wear no other outfit but that in which I fought and conquered.”

It seems as if the same feeling possessed the breast of Christ. “As a Lamb,” says he, “I died and defeated Hell. As a Lamb I have redeemed my people, and therefore as a Lamb I will appear in Paradise.”

But perhaps there is another reason: it is to encourage us to come to him in prayer. Ah, believer, we need not be afraid to come to Christ, for he is a Lamb. To a Lion-Christ we need fear to come, but the Lamb-Christ! Oh, children of the living God, should you ever fail to tell your griefs and sorrows into the breast of one who is a Lamb? Ah, let us come boldly to the throne of the heavenly grace, seeing that a Lamb sits upon it.

And you will further notice that this Lamb is said to stand. Standing is the posture of triumph. The Father said to Christ, “Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet” (Mark 12:36). It is done; they are his footstool. And here he is said to stand erect, like a victor over all his enemies.

Many a time the Savior knelt in prayer, and once he hung upon the cross. But when the great scene of our text shall be fully accomplished, he shall stand erect, as more than conqueror, through his own majestic might. “I looked, and behold, on Mount Zion, stood the Lamb” (Revelation 14:1). Oh, if we could split the veil—if now we were privileged to see within it—there is no sight that would so enthrall us as the simple sight of the Lamb on the throne. My dear brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus, would it not be all the sight you would ever wish to see if you could once behold him whom your soul loves? Would it not be a Heaven to you if it were carried out in your experience—“My eyes shall behold [him], and not another” (Job 19:27)? Would you want anything else to make you happy but continually to see him?

And if a single glimpse of him on Earth affords you profound delight, it must be, indeed, a very sea of bliss and an abyss of Paradise, without a bottom or a shore, to see him as he is—to be lost in his splendors, as the stars are lost in the sunlight, and to hold fellowship with him, as did John the beloved, when he leaned his head upon his bosom. And this shall be your lot: to see the Lamb in the midst of the throne.

Alcorn • Revelation 5:1-10 depicts a powerful scene in the present Heaven. God the Father, the ruler of Heaven, sits on the throne with a sealed scroll in his right hand. What’s sealed—with seven seals, to avoid any possibility of the document being tampered with—is the Father’s will, his plan for the distribution and management of his estate—the Earth, which includes its people. God intended for the world to be ruled by humans. But who will come forward to open the document and receive the inheritance?

John writes, “I wept and wept because no one was found who was worthy to open the scroll or look inside” (Revelation 5:4, NIV).

Because of human sin, mankind and the Earth have been corrupted. No one is worthy to take the role God intended for Adam and his descendants. Adam proved unworthy, as did Abraham, David, and all other persons in history. But just when it appears that God’s design for mankind and the Earth will forever be thwarted, the text continues in high drama: “Then one of the elders said to me, ‘Do not weep! See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed. He is able to open the scroll and its seven seals.’ Then I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain, standing at the center of the throne, encircled by the four living creatures and the elders. . . . He went and took the scroll from the right hand of him who sat on the throne. And when he had taken it, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. . . . And they sang a new song, saying: ‘You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased for God persons from every tribe and language and people and nation’” (Revelation 5:5-9, NIV).

Spurgeon tells a remarkable story about an experience early in his ministry:

In 1857, a day or two before preaching at the Crystal Palace, I went to decide where the platform should be fixed; and, in order to test the acoustic properties of the building, cried in a loud voice, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” In one of the galleries, a workman, who knew nothing of what was being done, heard the words, and they came like a message from heaven to his soul. He was smitten with conviction on account of sin, put down his tools, went home, and there, after a season of spiritual struggling, found peace and life by beholding the Lamb of God.

It was on his deathbed that this man told the story of his conversion, the result of God speaking to him through a single verse of Scripture uttered by Spurgeon. When Spurgeon preached in that building a day or two later, it was to a crowd of 23,654 people. But such is the power of Christ, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin not only of the world, not only of a potential 23,654 people, but of one lone man working in a building when a preacher came to test the acoustics. This man will be forever grateful that when Spurgeon stood up front to do a sound check, he did not simply count to ten!