A Devotion from Jonathan Edwards
“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 in the center of the throne.
-Revelation 5:5–6
Notice the two distinct names here given to Christ.
He is called a Lion, the Lion of the tribe of Judah in allusion [perhaps] to what Jacob said in his blessing on his deathbed, when he compared Judah to a lion. It is much on account of the valiant acts of David that the tribe of Judah, of which David was, is in Jacob’s prophetic blessing compared to a lion, but more especially with an eye to Jesus Christ, who also was of that tribe and was descended from David and is in our text called “the Root of David.”
He is called a Lamb. John was told of a Lion that had prevailed to open the book and probably expected to see a lion in his vision, but a lamb appears to open the book, a very different kind of creature from a lion! A lion is a devourer, accustomed to make terrible slaughter of others, and no creature more easily falls a prey to him than a lamb. And Christ is here represented not only as a lamb, but a lamb as if it had been slain, that is, with the marks of its deadly wounds.
There is a coming together of admirable virtues in Jesus Christ. The lion and the lamb, though very different, yet have their peculiar virtues. The lion excels in strength and in the majesty of its appearance and voice; the lamb excels in meekness and patience, besides [being] good for food and yielding [wool] for clothing and being suitable to be offered in sacrifice to God. But we see that Christ is in the text compared to both, because the different virtues of both wonderfully meet in him.
From this doctrine we may learn one reason why Christ is called by such a variety of names and held forth under such a variety of representations in Scripture. It is the better to signify and exhibit to us the variety of virtues that meet together in him. Many names are mentioned together in one verse: “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given.… And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace” (Isa. 9:6). It shows a wonderful conjunction of virtues, that the same person should be a son, born and given, and yet be the everlasting Father; that he should be a child and yet be he whose name is Counselor and Mighty God. And well may his name, in whom such things are brought together, be called Wonderful.