him much the status of a proper name, and suggested itself as a designation of Jesus even when the mind of the writer was dwelling on other aspects of His work than that most closely symbolized by this title.' There could be no more striking indication of the high significance the writer attached to the sacrificial death of Christ, and to the dominance of the fifty-third chap- ter of Isaiah in the framing of his Messianic concep- tions; matters which are otherwise copiously illustrated by his language.* Other prevailingly soteriological des- ignations advert especially to our Lord's resurrection, — such as that by which He is spoken of as ' the First- born of the Dead' (i^) ; and others still to His trust- worthiness, such as when He is called ' the Faithful and True' (19"), or 'the Faithful Witness' (i^), and more elaborately ' the Amen, the Faithful and True Witness, the beginning of the creation of God * (3") ; or again, ' He that is holy, He that is true,
* So Hoekstra, De Christologie der Apocalypse, in the Theologisch Tijdschrift, in., 1869, p. 4; and even Gebhardt, Doctrine of the Apoca- lypse, 1873, pp. 113, 114: "The seer in the course of his representa- tion unquestionably often uses the expression ' the lamb ' without any special signification, but only as a standing designation of Christ (cf. 17")."
^ Cf. Holtzmann, op. cit., I., 472: "This 29-[27-] times occurring Lamb, the most individual christological conception of the author (see Vol. II., 478) refers back most probably to Is 53^." Perhaps we ought to say it refers back proximately to Jno i^^, and forms one of those subtle indications that this book is the composition of John — who was one of the two disciples (Jno i^^) to whom the Baptist pointed out Jesus as " the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world." It has been too little observed to what an extent John (both in Gospel and Epistles and in the Apocalypse) was influenced in his conceptions by the Baptist. The thesis might be defended that the Baptist was his first and most impressive teacher in theology. In any event it is important to observe such hints of an underlying unity between Gospel and Apocalypse.
292 The Designations of Our Lord
He that hath the keys of David, He that openeth and none shall shut and that shutteth and none shall open '
The transition from these soteriological designations
to those which are more purely honorific, or perhaps
, . we might better say, ontological, is very Accumulative , , . , , . .,1 1
Designations gradual, or mdeed msensible : and
nothing is more characteristic of the book than the sharp contrast into which designations of the two classes are brought by their immediate con- junction. Thus, for example, we read: "And I wept much, because no one was found to open the book, . . . and one of the elders saith unto me, Weep not, behold the Lion that is of the tribe of Judah . . . hath overcome to open the book. . . . And I saw in the midst of the throne, and of the four living creatures, and in the midst of the elders, a Lamb standing as though it had been slain, . . . and he came and taketh the book ..." (s^"^**-)- There is no question of mixed metaphors here: there is only question of bringing together in Jesus by the most varied of symbols all the aspects of the Mes- sianic prediction, and the exhibition of these all as finding their fulfillment in Him. All these designations are distinctly Messianic in their ground tone, and the Messianic ground tone is taken from all forms of the Messianic expectation, but perhaps prevail- ingly from that associated in the Gospels with the title of * Son of Man,' to which there is manifest allusion even in passages in which there is not only no adduction of that title, but no direct designa- tion of our Lord from that point of view (i^)- The great opening description of our Lord as * Jesus
The Witness of the Apocalypse 293