THE LAMB
Revelation 21:9 (from “come here”),13,14,23,27; 22:1
What our brother has said about piety has encouraged me to speak from these scriptures. There were persons affected by a view of Jesus as the Lamb. We have spoken a good deal lately about lowliness, which is a feature of piety. The Lamb sets it out in all its blessed perfection. At the fall, Satan sowed doubt in the woman; he said, ‘If you eat this, you will be as gods’ (Gen.3:5). The germ of what Satan did then has spread through every generation of fallen man; they wanted to be as gods. But God Himself came in as a Lamb, the Lamb of God. How it affected both John the baptist and John the apostle, that there was a Man of another order. John the baptist saw something that human eye had never witnessed before; “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world”. Jesus did not come into the world in His majesty and might. It was there, it could not be hidden at times, but He came in lowliness. In his gospel, Luke develops the way that Jesus came into the world. It troubled Herod; when he got the news, he felt undermined, and sought to destroy the Child. But what could Herod and all his power do? What was there was indestructible. John saw Him and said, “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world”. Think of God working like that. All that sin had brought in, God is going to remove through the Lamb of God. That was how the children of Israel got out of Egypt. There was a lamb in the house for four days, which was meant to affect them, and it is meant to affect us. The lamb was slain, and the blood was there. What a sight for heaven were the days of Jesus when He was here during those thirty-three and a half years. What a lesson book for man, that God came in lowliness to undo the works of the devil. Men are still going on in their pride and in their arrogance, empowered by Satan, but God has met the whole matter in the Lamb of God.
So John the baptist saw something of it; “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world”. That was the Spirit speaking; John could hardly have understood these words, but heaven saw to it that at the first view of Jesus publicly, these words were uttered, “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world”. It was beyond what man could ever do. Oh, that men would learn their lesson! May we learn it, dear brethren, that God has moved in lowliness in the Lamb of God. When John sees Him again, he just says, “Behold the Lamb of God”. He must have spoken those few words very beautifully, for the disciples turned and followed Jesus. He must have been so attractive as He walked. He walked differently from the rest of the race. What about our walk, dear brethren? The walk of a pious man would be different. He would not go to certain places, because they are defiling. He would not use certain language, or even wear certain clothes, because they are defiling, they are not in keeping with the Lamb. The Lamb was their guide. “Behold the Lamb of God”. It says, “Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter … heard this … and followed him”. May these passages I have read help us to follow the Lamb.
There is a wonderful company seen in Revelation, and one feature was that they followed the Lamb wheresoever He went (Rev.14:4). They would not go where He did not go; they followed the Lamb wherever He went. These two disciples were so attracted by John the baptist’s few words that they abode with Jesus that day. What a day it must have been. It affected John the apostle. It is thought that he might have been one of these two; that is why he speaks so much about the Lamb. He was affected by what he saw in his first view and impression of Christ. The first impressions are meant to change us completely. The Lamb came to where we were in the circumstances in which we were, and glorified God in them as the One who takes away the sin of the world.
John is the writer of the Revelation, and the book is full of references to the Lamb. It struck me as being very beautiful. In a day to come when God will come out in display, what He will bring in is the Lamb. What man would think to do that? What are men, with their medals, their ambitions, all the things that they have discovered? Where are they all? God brings into display the Lamb, and how beautifully He does it. The angel says to John, “I will shew thee the bride, the Lamb’s wife”. How beautiful that the Lamb has a wife. We would be included in that, dear brethren, persons who have been affected by the Lamb. They have taken on another character. That is what is in my mind tonight, that there might be a different character about us. “I will shew thee the bride, the Lamb’s wife”. How beautiful she is, not to the human eye, but she has been affected by the One who takes away the sin of the world. She is not a Vashti or a Jezebel; they were women out of their place. We see that today; things have got out of their orbit. What kind of wife would be suited to the Lamb? “The bride, the Lamb’s wife”. Oh, how beautiful she is!
John goes over the details of what marked her. Then he refers to the twelve apostles of the Lamb; they had followed Jesus wherever He went. What men they were, taken from their fishing boats to turn Jerusalem upside down. What character they had. The Jewish leaders wondered about these unlettered and uninstructed men who had followed the Lamb. There were altogether different features seen in the twelve apostles of the Lamb. What authority, dear brethren, it gave to the apostles’ teaching, what authority it gave to their ministry. They were the apostles of the Lamb. May we cleave to their words in these days when we are tested, with all sorts of wrong teaching coming in. We might hear what one may say, or what another may say, but what do the apostles of the Lamb say? They give us great detail about how we are to live our lives, and their teaching is going on to the end. There is fruit from the teaching of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. Their names will be on the twelve foundations of the city. What a city it is. Where will Babylon be? It will be brought down in all its arrogance, but here is a city built on the foundation of the twelve apostles of the Lamb, on the apostles’ teaching, breaking of bread and prayers (Acts 2:42). That is the character of the apostles.
There is no temple in this city. It is permeated by the Lamb. Everywhere you looked, you would see the glories of Jesus. In a future day, there will be an appearing. It will be different; it will be Christ in His majesty in display. But here, there is no temple in the city. “The Lord God Almighty is its temple, and the Lamb”. These thoughts of the Lamb are going through in all their beauty, in all their attractiveness. There is no need of any other light; the Lamb is the light thereof. We look around in despair sometimes, but the “the lamp thereof is the Lamb”; it is the shining of Jesus in His grace. God will have infinite delight in it. Where will Satan be? He will be bound. God will bind him in order that this great display may come out of what God thinks of Jesus, the Lamb of God. May our hearts be drawn to Him!
It says also that persons’ names are written in the book of life of the Lamb. Would you like to realise that your name is there? If we did realise that our names are there, dear brethren, our character would be different. There are things that we would not do because they are not suited to the Lamb, the rejected, crucified Man, but the Man of God’s choice. So there is the book of life. It is good to realise that your name is written there. We are told to rejoice that our names are written in heaven (Luke 10:20). Why would we want a name here in this world? Why would we aspire to greatness here, in a system that is coming down? Our names are written in heaven. Who wrote them there? You could not write it yourself, but you can enjoy what has been written there. Another wrote my name for me, and we can rest in the fact that our names are written in the book of life. Not in a book of death, not the scrolls of men, but your names are written in the book of life of the Lamb.
And then we have the river, bright as crystal, going out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. It has impressed me that this chapter is permeated by the Lamb wherever you look. What a great display it will be. Mr. Darby’s poetry is full of it; he wrote beautiful hymns about the Lamb:-
‘God and the Lamb shall there
The light and temple be,
And radiant hosts forever share
The unveiled mystery!’ (Hymn 74)
Mr Darby addressed his soul in another hymn. It is very beautiful; he wrote:-
‘The Lamb is there, my soul’ (Hymn 79)
If you care to look at that hymn, you will see that he also wrote:-
‘There on the hidden bread
Of Christ, once humbled here.’
That is the manna. I thought that the hidden bread was perhaps just those years that were hidden, but no, it is the whole of Christ’s life, typified by the omer deposited before Jehovah (Ex.16:34). We will look on it and we will feed on it, as sharing God’s delight in the life of Jesus here on this earth. What a thing to rest on, dear brethren. The One whom men rejected, the One whom men crucified and set at nought, God has highly exalted and given a name above every name, and men will have to bow to it (Phil.2:10). But today we are brought to feed on the Lamb. It is interesting that it is John who writes about the Lamb so much. He was the apostle who knew Jesus best. Peter had to refer to John, the man who was in Jesus’ bosom and leaned on His breast. So John is the one who wrote about the Lamb. Peter had a different character, but when it came to a problem, he looked to John – the man who was feeding on the Lamb had the answers.
When we come to the Acts of the Apostles, it is Peter and John. Peter was there – he was used to speaking – but the lame man took hold of both Peter and John. Peter himself was affected by it. He wrote about Jesus leaving them a Model, and then “when suffering” (1 Pet.2:21-23). That was the Lamb; “when suffering, threatened not; but gave himself over”. May we learn from the Lamb, dear brethren. In the troubled times that we are in, may we hold on to Him. May our hearts be encouraged to rest in it and to rejoice in it, for Christ’s name’s sake.
Word in meeting for ministry, Kirkcaldy
14 September 2014
R. Taylor