• 7/27/2025: Revelation 1:4-8; accompanying text: John 8:13-20 • 8/3/2025: Revelation 4:1-11; accompanying text: John 17:1-5 • 8/10/2025: Revelation 5:1-13; accompanying text: John 1:29-31 • 8/17/2025: Revelation 7:9-17; accompanying text: John 14:1-4 • 8/24/2025: Revelation 13:1-18; accompanying text John 12:30-32 • 8/31/2025: Revelation 21:1-6; 22:1–5; accompanying texts: John 4:1-14; 16:20-22
Week 3 (8/10/2025): The Seven Seals
Revelation 5:1–13
Accompanying text: John 1:29-31
Last Sunday’s reading from Revelation focused attention on God enthroned with his sevenfold Spirit, and the myriad residents of heaven offering their worship. Now we turn our attention to Jesus and his many names and visionary appearances.
It begins with John weeping that no one is worthy to open the scroll. An elder comforts him that “the Lion of the tribe of Judah” will be able to open it because he has conquered, as a son born to the royal line of David should.
But when the “Lion” appears, he is in fact a Lamb! More than that, “a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain.” The conquering Lion and the conquered Lamb are one and the same. By his blood, the Lion-Lamb has ransomed people “from every tribe and language and people and nation,” not for servitude, but to become priests of God.
The as-though slain Lamb has “seven horns and … seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth.” Although this sounds like a science experiment gone wrong, it is another symbolic rendering of the Trinity in the unique pictorial language of Revelation. The worship addressed to Jesus removes any doubt about his divine identity.
Who worships is also significant here. That worship comes from “every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea” calls to mind both the triumphant conclusion of the hymn in Philippians 2:10–11 and the Deuteronomistic warning against graven images (Deuteronomy 5:8). What Revelation portrays here is all of God’s many different creatures united in worship of their Creator, with no more idolatry or misplaced deference, only exulting joy in the one source of life and redemption.
• 7/27/2025: Revelation 1:4-8; accompanying text: John 8:13-20
• 8/3/2025: Revelation 4:1-11; accompanying text: John 17:1-5
• 8/10/2025: Revelation 5:1-13; accompanying text: John 1:29-31
• 8/17/2025: Revelation 7:9-17; accompanying text: John 14:1-4
• 8/24/2025: Revelation 13:1-18; accompanying text John 12:30-32
• 8/31/2025: Revelation 21:1-6; 22:1–5; accompanying texts: John 4:1-14; 16:20-22
Week 3 (8/10/2025): The Seven Seals
Revelation 5:1–13
Accompanying text: John 1:29-31
Last Sunday’s reading from Revelation focused attention on God enthroned with his sevenfold Spirit, and the myriad residents of heaven offering their worship. Now we turn our attention to Jesus and his many names and visionary appearances.
It begins with John weeping that no one is worthy to open the scroll. An elder comforts him that “the Lion of the tribe of Judah” will be able to open it because he has conquered, as a son born to the royal line of David should.
But when the “Lion” appears, he is in fact a Lamb! More than that, “a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain.” The conquering Lion and the conquered Lamb are one and the same. By his blood, the Lion-Lamb has ransomed people “from every tribe and language and people and nation,” not for servitude, but to become priests of God.
The as-though slain Lamb has “seven horns and … seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth.” Although this sounds like a science experiment gone wrong, it is another symbolic rendering of the Trinity in the unique pictorial language of Revelation. The worship addressed to Jesus removes any doubt about his divine identity.
Who worships is also significant here. That worship comes from “every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea” calls to mind both the triumphant conclusion of the hymn in Philippians 2:10–11 and the Deuteronomistic warning against graven images (Deuteronomy 5:8). What Revelation portrays here is all of God’s many different creatures united in worship of their Creator, with no more idolatry or misplaced deference, only exulting joy in the one source of life and redemption.