The Lamb That Was Slain

The Lamb That Was Slain

John the Baptist was the greatest prophet in the old covenant. He saw clearly and judged clearly. When he saw Jesus coming, he said, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” John also saw Jesus the next day, and he said, “Behold the Lamb of God!” He saw the greatness and significance of Jesus as a Lamb. He could have said many other things. The Jews were expecting the Messiah to come as a great king, but John saw His greatness in the fact that He was “the Lamb of God.”

If we are to follow the Lamb wherever He goes (like the hundred and forty-four thousand on Mount Zion (Rev. 14:1), we need enlightened eyes of the heart so we can see the greatness of following Jesus in His humiliation.

The eunuch under the queen of the Ethiopians sat in his chariot and read the prophet Isaiah. Philip asked him, “Do you understand what you are reading?” He replied, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” The eunuch was humble and understood that it required revelation from God to understand what he was reading. Most people would probably have answered something like this: “Of course I understand what I am reading!”

“The place in the Scripture which he read was this: ‘He was led as a sheep to the slaughter; and like a lamb silent before its shearer, so He opened not His mouth. In His humiliation His judgment was taken away . . . .’” Acts 8:26-33. “Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning at this Scripture, preached Jesus to him.” V. 35.

If we are to preach the gospel of Jesus, then we must also begin at this Scripture. It is the very essence of the gospel. However, we will understand it just as little as the eunuch did if it is not revealed to us by the Spirit of Christ.

God’s judgment is over everything that is exalted and great in peoples’ eyes, and our judgment is only taken away to the same degree that we humble ourselves.

How do we react when we are “shorn” and contradicted? Do we manifest the nature of the Lamb or the nature of a goat? Unfortunately, the latter is the norm, even among those who say they have walked with Jesus for many years. They praise Jesus as the great Atoner, yet they keep their strong and stubborn self-will as long as they live. They cannot tolerate a bad word said about them. Jesus bore the sins and wickedness of the entire world. He endured great contradiction from sinners. He loved us while we were still in our sins; He sacrificed, served, and gave Himself as an acceptable sacrifice to God.

Jesus had flesh and blood like we do, with the same propensity to live for Himself, to seek His own, to become impatient, to revile in return when He was reviled, and to do His own will instead of God’s will. Nevertheless, He voluntarily chose always to do His heavenly Father’s will. 1 Pet. 2:21-24. All the demands of the flesh were put to death; they were slaughtered! He bore this death in His body daily so that the Father’s life could be manifested. This death is called the dying of Jesus, and Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4:10-11, “Always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus’ sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.”

Jesus was perfectly victorious and became the Lamb without spot or blemish who purchased us with His precious blood from our aimless conduct received by tradition from our fathers. 1 Pet. 1:18. Jesus never led an aimless life, but all of us have. But now we no longer have any excuse for living an aimless life. This kind of behavior is a manifestation of the demands and inclinations of the flesh, but through Jesus Christ it is possible for all of us to overcome, just as He overcame; and as a reward we will sit together with Him on His throne. Rev. 3:21. Paul says in Galatians 5:16: “Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.” We will have fellowship with Jesus in His sufferings and death as sheep that are led to the slaughter. “As it is written: ‘For Your sake we are killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.’ Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.” Rom. 8:36-37.

In today’s religious world they compete in denying that Jesus overcame and was triumphant in His life over the flesh with its passions and desires. They think they are exalting Jesus by preaching that He had nothing to overcome as we do. Of course this means that we can neither be conformed to His death nor His life. But the work of salvation has occurred and is still occurring in us, by sin in the flesh being put to death. Rom. 8:3. This is the only way to the life of Christ and His glory. We do not become impure, and we certainly do not become false teachers, by putting sin in the flesh to death by the Spirit of Christ and by living according to the Spirit. There is no place in the Scriptures that says that false teachers have victory over sin. Not at all! Wherever in the Scriptures we read about false teachers and apostasy, it is in connection with seeking honor and gain, and this “seeking” is present in today’s religious world to an unprecedented degree. They are enemies of the cross of Christ—the cross that Jesus bore each day, and that His disciples bear each day, the cross over our self-life. “Then He said to them all, ‘If anyone desires to come after Me, let Him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me.’” This is the way in the steps of the Lamb. He invites us to go the same way He went and to come to the same place where He is. Then we will have our names written in the Book of Life of the Lamb that was slain. Rev. 13:8.

The one hundred and forty-four thousand stood together with the Lamb on Mount Zion; they had the Lamb’s and the Father’s name written on their foreheads. Rev. 14:1-5. We will not receive these names on our foreheads if we do not manifest the Lamb’s and the Father’s life. In this new life we can also sing the new song of the Lamb. Rev. 15:3.

In Revelation 5, John saw a Lamb, as though it had been slain, with seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent out into all the earth. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 12, “For when I am weak, then I am strong.” To the same degree that we are weak in ourselves and that we manifest the Lamb’s nature, God’s power will also be revealed in us. Jesus’ awareness of His own weakness was so great that He could not do anything on His own authority. Therefore He had seven horns that represent perfect strength. The Lamb that was slain was worthy to open the scroll that was sealed with seven seals. It was written on the outside, which indicates the law on tablets of stone, and on the inside, which indicates the laws and commandments of the new covenant—the laws of the Spirit of life. Jesus, who bears the names the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, and the Lamb that was slain, was the only one who could open the scroll. Not a single law in this scroll could accuse Him; He had loved and kept them all. How exceedingly great and glorious Jesus becomes when we know that He had a flesh like we do, with all the possibilities of doing the opposite of what all these laws said. What faithfulness! Only those who follow Him on this way of faithfulness can glorify and exalt Him properly. There won’t be a single ordinary priest or preacher who with a loud voice can say on that Day: “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom, and strength and honor and glory and blessing!”

These priests and preachers have no understanding of Jesus’ life in His humiliation. They write and preach that Jesus was like us only outwardly so that He had to eat and sleep, among other things, but He did not have a flesh like we do, nor did He have a will to deny. Consequently, He did not have the victory as we do either. Concerning the Sermon on the Mount, they say that it is the law that is meant to lead us to an acknowledgment of our sin so that we can thank Jesus that He has kept it in our place—thereby saying (contrary to Jesus’ words) that we must all build on sand. Some time ago I read in a Christian periodical a reply to the question: Who will be in Jesus’ bride? The answer was: all those who have believed in the atonement, from the day of Pentecost until Jesus’ return. They disregard God’s Word about buying oil, about being conformed to the image of Christ, about being crucified with Him, about growing up to Him who is the head to full maturity in Christ, and about living an overcoming life, which was required of all the seven churches in Revelation. One of the largest Christian assemblies in this country publishes a periodical in which you could read the following: “Dear friends, let us dare to make a jump of faith by jumping from Romans, Chapter 6 to Chapter 8.”

In the midst of this spiritual darkness, they warn against those who love Christ so dearly that they want to follow Him on the way of the cross and self-denial, in faithfulness to the laws and commandments of the new covenant, which includes the Sermon on the Mount that makes us thoroughly happy. Since Jesus says that it can be kept, He will also give us abundant power to keep it.

Each day is a slaughter day. This is how it was in Jesus’ life, and it also holds true for all those who follow Him. Then the Father’s life and glory will be revealed in us each day, but not otherwise.

It is the light of the Lamb that will illuminate the city of the New Jerusalem. This is the light that must shine in the church of the living God in our days, and not the light of human reasoning that worships that which is great in this world.

Jesus’ bride bears the name “The Lamb’s wife.” She is one with the life of the Lamb. The apostles are the twelve apostles of the Lamb. The called, chosen, and faithful will fight together with the Lamb and gain the victory. Rev. 17:14.

The pure water that is as clear as crystal proceeds from the throne of God and the Lamb. Rev. 22:1. This pure, spiritual river also proceeds from those who possess the life of God and the Lamb in our days. It produces a pure and sound preaching that results in a river of the virtues of Christ that unites the elect and prepares our hearts for Christ’s imminent return.