Good evening, and welcome to EBible Fellowship's Bible study in the Book of Revelation. Tonight is study #6 of Revelation, chapter 5, and we are going to begin by looking at Revelation 5:6:
And I beheld, and, lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth.
We were looking at this verse in our last study and we progressed to the last part of the verse where it says: “having seven horns and seven eyes.” This is describing the Lamb who is Jesus Christ. It goes on to say, “which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth.” Now the phrase “seven Spirits of God” is found a few times in the Book of Revelation and we have already gone over it a few times. In Revelation 1:4 it says:
John to the seven churches which are in Asia: Grace be unto you, and peace, from him which is, and which was, and which is to come; and from the seven Spirits which are before his throne;
The Apostle John is writing to the seven churches and the one that is giving him the divine revelation and sending it to the churches through John is, of course, Eternal God who is described as the one “which is, and which was, and which is to come.” It is pointing out His everlasting nature.
But it also says, “and from the seven Spirits which are before his throne;” and that puts the seven Spirits of God on an equal plateau with Eternal God Himself and that lets us know that “the seven Spirits” is another name of God; it is another description of the Person of God, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God. In Revelation 3:1, it says:
And unto the angel of the church in Sardis write; These things saith he that hath the seven Spirits of God, and the seven stars…
The “seven stars” are the seven churches, we read back in Revelation 1. And this is Christ writing to the church in Sardis and, of course, writing to all seven of the churches. And He possesses the “seven Spirits of God,” because the Holy Spirit is Eternal God; Christ is Eternal God; the Father is Eternal God. They are one.
And it says in Revelation 4:5:
And out of the throne proceeded lightnings and thunderings and voices: and there were seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of God.
We went over this and we spent a little time with this verse when we were studying chapter 4. The “seven lamps” identify with the “seven candlesticks,” and remember back in Revelation, chapter 1, we read (concerning Christ) in verses 12-13:
… I saw seven golden candlesticks; And in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of man…
“In the midst of the seven candlesticks” or in the “midst of the seven lamps” is Christ. The way God speaks of Himself is just beyond us sometimes and beyond our ability to fully comprehend. He is just infinitely greater than our minds are equipped to handle. And in this case, He is referring to Himself – His Spirit, the Spirit of Christ – as “seven Spirits” because it represents the perfection of the Holy Spirit, the perfection of the Spirit of God.
In Revelation 5:6, these “seven horns and seven eyes,” (which the Lamb which had been slain has) “are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth.” This would mean that the seven eyes and horns are an expression or extension of the Holy Spirit as the Holy Spirit carried the Gospel message, the message of the atoning work of the Lamb of God into the world; and God, here, is highlighting that truth.
Let us move on and read Revelation 5:7-9:
And he came…
(And this was the Lamb that had been slain.)
And he came and took the book out of the right hand of him that sat upon the throne.
And who was seated upon the throne? It was Eternal God. And who is the Lamb taking the Book? It is Eternal God. Let me continue reading in Revelation 5:7-9:
And when he had taken the book, the four beasts and four and twenty elders fell down before the Lamb, having every one of them harps, and golden vials full of odours, which are the prayers of saints. And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation;
Now in these three verses, we are being given a view of something extremely wonderful, as God is picturing it. Of course, this is just language that God is using to describe spiritual truths and we are not to think there was a (literal) lamb with seven horns and seven eyes; or that this mysterious, unusual lamb took a book from God who was seated upon some grand throne in the kingdom of heaven; or that there is an actual book. All of these things teach us various truths concerning the salvation and judgment plan of God and concerning the work of Christ the Saviour, and so on.
Now one thing that God is emphasizing here that could get “lost” because of all the other glorious things that are going on is that the Lamb of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, took the Book, as it says in verse 7: He came and took the Book out of the right hand of Him. And then it says in verse 8 that He had taken the book and it was at that point when the four living creatures and the twenty four elders fell down before the Lamb. And then in verse 9, it says: “And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book.”
So there is actually a very strong emphasis on the fact that Christ, the Lamb of God, took the Book. As we saw before, this Book is the Bible, the word of God, and this Book was sealed with seven seals. This was the first step, the first action, the first movement toward removing the seals – that is, taking possession of the Book.
And that sort of surprises us because the one taking the Book is the Lamb, the Lord Jesus, the Word made flesh and the very embodiment and personification of the Bible. Why is God stressing in this way that Christ, the Lamb, is taking the Book and, therefore, is in possession of the Book the Bible? He has always been The Word. Remember John 1:1: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” And, yet, God is putting His finger on this particular action: the first step toward removing the seven seals.
And all we can say which could possibly help us to understand this is that the Bible is the word of God and identifies with Christ, but the name of Christ as the Lamb is greatly magnified in the Book of Revelation. The name Lamb appears twenty nine times in the Book of Revelation; this is more than in any other Book of the Bible. Even in the Old Testament when they would be offering the lamb as a sacrificial animal and the reference would be to the animal being offered in sacrifice, the most references to a lamb is found twenty eight times in the Book of Numbers (of course, the deeper spiritual meaning would point to the Lord), but in Revelation the Lamb is mentioned twenty nine times; and in each case it is referring to Christ who has done the saving work in performing the atonement and He has been victorious as we read here in Revelation 5.
This is the first time the Lamb is being mentioned, but it will not be the last. Now the Lamb will take center stage; God will repeatedly direct our attention back to this name of Christ because He is the victorious one; He has accomplished, performed and finished the sacrifice from the foundation of the world and now the Bible becomes His – it is a Book now that completely identifies with the Lamb of God. It is in His possession and the atoning work which Jesus performed had set in motion all of God’s program to save His elect and had set in motion God’s entire salvation plan and it is now under the full power and authority and control of the Lamb. He has taken the Book of the Bible and it is now belonging to the Lamb of God.
I think that is probably why God is emphasizing this to the degree that He has; the emphasis is really on the name, the Lamb. The Lamb now possesses the Book, the Bible and because He is the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world and because He has overcome and has died for the sins of His people and was resurrected from the foundation of the world to be called the Son of God and to be given this name means that the beautiful work of the Bible in redeeming these elect ones, these blessed ones, in every generation will be carried out throughout the history of the world.
Let us go back to Revelation 5:8:
And when he had taken the book, the four beasts and four and twenty elders fell down before the Lamb…
Now I just want to make a point of this and I want us to take note that what is going to happen in the verses that follow (even in this very same verse) is happening with the “four living creatures” (that are a representation of the glory of God and of God Himself) and the twenty four elders, (which typify the elect) together; that is, what one is doing, the other is doing; so when we read that they fell down, they all fell down. Yes, God, who is represented by the four living creatures, is falling down before God, before the Lamb, Jesus Christ. And every one of them – the twenty four elders as well as the four living creatures – has harps and golden vials full of odours which are the prayers of the saints. And when verse 9 says, “And they sung a new song;” yes, the four living creatures are singing – Eternal God is singing, saying, “Thou art worthy to take the book.”
They are singing praise to the Savior, to the Lamb of God. “…and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation;” And, again, this is all continuing the same thought from verse 8: that the four living creatures and the twenty and four elders are doing this in unison. That means the four living creatures are also praising the Lamb for redeeming them to God. Now that is something that we have never previously considered – or at least I have not – that God is praising God for redeeming God. Well, that is something I do not want to quickly go over and we want to spend some time carefully looking at that, so we are going to save that for the next study or the study after that, depending on how we progress through this. But keep that in mind, as we are reading these things, that it is the four living creatures with the elect (typified by the twenty four elders) that are doing these things and proclaiming these things.
And they “fell down before the Lamb, having every one of them harps, and golden vials full of odours, which are the prayers of the saints.”
Let us look at the harps that every one of them has. We are going to look at a few verses because the harp is a very interesting instrument in the Bible. In 1st Samuel, chapter 16, we read of David before he was made king (he had already been annointed but Saul was still king of Israel and David had not yet ascended to the throne), and we read in 1st Samuel 16:23:
And it came to pass, when the evil spirit from God was upon Saul, that David took an harp, and played with his hand: so Saul was refreshed, and was well, and the evil spirit departed from him.
Is that not strange that David would chase away an evil spirit by playing the harp? I am sure that Saul greatly appreciated this. This was before David had slain Goliath and before Saul was so envious that he could not think straight concerning David. David’s playing the harp was “medicinal” for Saul and it helped his psyche and he was very pleased when David would play the harp.
Well, let us also look at 1st Chronicles, chapter 25, where we read something more about the harp in 1st Chronicles 25:1-3:
Moreover David and the captains of the host separated to the service of the sons of Asaph, and of Heman, and of Jeduthun, who should prophesy with harps, with psalteries, and with cymbals: and the number of the workmen according to their service was: Of the sons of Asaph; Zaccur, and Joseph, and Nethaniah, and Asarelah, the sons of Asaph under the hands of Asaph, which prophesied according to the order of the king. Of Jeduthun: the sons of Jeduthun; Gedaliah, and Zeri, and Jeshaiah, Hashabiah, and Mattithiah, six, under the hands of their father Jeduthun, who prophesied with a harp, to give thanks and to praise JEHOVAH.
Now that word prophesied is joined together with the word harp. David established these sons of Asaph and of Heman and we do read in the Psalms of the Psalms of Asaph and I think at least one Psalm of Heman. Their sons were to “prophesy with harps, with psalteries, and with cymbals.” Those are three different musical instruments and it was God’s purpose that they would play and the word of God considers their playing as prophesying. You know, that is what true believers do – we declare the word of God; we share the truths we have learned from the Bible and, spiritually, that is prophesying. Therefore, there is a link between playing a harp and prophesying and that maybe helps us understand why the evil spirits departed from Saul when David (who is a type of Christ) would play the harp: there was prophecy taking place and prophecy is the sharing of truth of the word of God.
In Psalm 49 we read something that helps us understand more about harps; in Psalm 49:4:
I will incline mine ear to a parable…
Of course, the Bible is likened to a parable. Jesus is the Word and Jesus said that “without a parable,” He did not speak, teaching us how to understand the Word of God, the Bible: we must look for the deeper spiritual meaning. So we are not surprised that Psalm 49 is making mention of this. “Let him who has ears to hear, hear.”
Then it goes on to say in verse 4:
I will incline mine ear to a parable: I will open my dark saying upon the harp.
Now this is what is known as Hebrew parallelism; that is, the first part of the verse is restated in the second part of the verse, but some of the words are changed: “I will incline mine ear to a parable: I will open my dark saying…” The dark saying would be synonymous with parable.
“I will open my dark saying upon the harp.” And is that not exactly what prophesying is? Prophesying is when we come to the Bible and, by God’s grace, He opens up our ears and eyes to understand His Word and then we share it. We are spiritually prophesying. This is why it says in Acts 2, “your sons and your daughters shall prophesy” (in the last days). They will share the things that God opens up from His Word.
Well, we actually have a few more verses to look at and I do not want to rush through these because we are going to see something significant and important for our present time, as we come to understand the spiritual meaning of the world harp and those that play upon the harp. And it will also help us, sorrowfully, to understand a little bit better what God is doing today in the Day of Judgment.