3 Such a phrase as i] xuptaxy] rjiiipa could not have been framed unless Jesus had been to His followers ' the Lord ' by way of eminence. Cf. I Cor ii-°, 'the Lord's Supper.'
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descriptive adjuncts which give it its very highest connotation. Our Lord's own ' Son of Man,' how- ever, has its echo in the description of Jesus In two visions as " one like unto a Son of Man " (i^^ 14^^) : and by the preservation in this designation of the " like unto " of the Danielle vision (7^^) — strengthened from the simple ">c to the emphatic ofxocov^ — the seer man- ages to assert with great strength the essential deity of our Lord. He was not a son of man but only " like unto a son of man."* He even enhances this im- plication by Interweaving Into the description traits drawn not only from Daniel's " Son of Man," but also from his " Ancient of Days."^ The Johannine desig- nation of ' the Word of God ' (19^'') also occurs as the name of the conquering Christ, apparently with the Implication that in Jesus is manifested the definitive revelation of God In which He addresses Himself to man with irresistible power.^ Probably the " man child" (or "son") of 12^ (cf. i2^\ "the man") :ultlmately refers to our Lord: and if so It also is doubtless Messianic, taking hold at once of Is 66'^ and Psalm 2^ possibly even of Gen 4^: In any event the allusion is to the conquest of evil by this Son of the woman.
* Cf. Gebhardt, Doctrine of the Apocalypse, pp. 78-9 : " De Wette and Hengstenberg find in the expression the superhuman glory of Christ; for, as De Wette remarks, to affirm of a man that he is like a man is to say nothing; or as Hengstenberg expresses it, if Christ only resem- bles a Son of Man, there must be another side of His nature which surpasses the human."
5 Cf. Holtzmann, op. cit., pp. 467-8 : " The Danielle Son of Man, i7,i3 14.14, and even the Danielle 'Ancient of Days,' i^*, shine through."
^ The vision is the vision of the spiritual conquest of the world, and in such a vision the designation of our Lord as ' the Word of God ' is peculiarly appropriate.
290 The Designations of Our Lord
The more elaborate descriptive titles which are ap- plied to our Lord embody the same circle of ideas as are more briefly suggested by the sim- escnp ive j^^. (designations; and only more viv- Designations T i • 1 1 1 •
idly and richly express their contents.
Some of these have for their burden the saving activi- ties of our Lord and may therefore fitly be called soteriological. A good example of these is provided by the direct description of Him as " Him that loved us and loosed us from our sins by His blood" (i^). But the most striking and at the same time the most frequently employed descriptive designation of this class is that which calls Him " the Lamb that hath been slain" (5^" 13^ cf. 5^'^ 7^^), or more commonly simply " the Lamb " without express but always with implied reference to the actual sacrifice [^^-'^^ 6^'^^
^9,10.14,17 J2II 141-4.4,10 J ^3 j^l4 j^7,9 ^^QM,22,21 22^,^)?
Indeed, we understate the matter when we say this is the most frequently employed descriptive designation of Christ of its class. It is in fact the most frequently employed designation of Jesus of any 'The Lamb' kind, and must be looked upon as em- bodying the seer's favorite mode of conceiving of Jesus and His work. He even uses it In such a manner as to suggest that it had acquired for
'^ The word is ap'^lw^ which is used 26 times of Christ in Revela- tion (in 13I1 it is otherwise used). It is found elsewhere in the N, T. only at Jno ai^^ (plural), where it represents Christ's followers. Jesus is called ' Lamb ' («,avo9) in Jno i2o,36^ ^(.ts 8^-, i P i^^, and nowhere else except in Rev. (^apvinv^. In the whole N. T. 'lamb' (whether ajivdi} or dpviovj occurs only of Christ except at Jno 21 ^"^ (dLpvia) [cf. Lk 10' (ap-qv)']. On the use of the diminutive dpvtov of Jesus see A. B. Grosart in the Expos. Times, Ii. p. 57, and cf. Geb- hardt, p. 112; Swete, p. 77.
The Witness of the Apocalypse 291